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Pre-Fab

Street near Museum – Apprehending Suspect


Whether he was complying or had just worn himself out, it seemed like the homeless man had stopped struggling for now. If he could just search the man in peace then this would be resolved in a few minutes at most; he’d either find something that looked like it came from the museum and arrest him or he would find nothing and let the guy go. Pre-Fab would even hand him a card before he left so he could make a complaint and earn some compensation; the guy would come out of this encounter a richer man.

If he was innocent.

Before any of that however, he still needed to deal with the crowd gathering around them. The last thing he needed was some conscientious citizen involving themselves thinking they were doing the right thing. Not that standing up to authority when they were overstepping their bounds was a bad thing, but when Parahumans were involved it was best to stay the hell away and let other Parahumans deal with it. Things could get messy otherwise.

Sure enough, someone had walked up behind him to ask why he was restraining a homeless man. A fair question, but not one he was willing to deal with at the moment. He turned to look at the speaker over his shoulder, ready to dismiss him and get back to work; if he wanted an answer he could read the papers tomorrow.w

“None of you bus-“ Blood. A lot of blood. Raising his pistol again, Pre-Fab stepped back from the blood-soaked stranger and pointed the non-lethal weapon at him. “Stay where you are!”

Hitting the side of his visor again, Pre-Fab sent out the alert to the PRT to say that he needed assistance. Urgently. Dealing with one unknown Parahuman was bad enough, but two? And judging by the clothes this man was wearing, the blood, the sword, he was definitely a Cape.

@Eviledd1984
I'll throw my hat into the ring, why not?


Pre-Fab

Street near Museum – Apprehending Suspect


Pre-Fab lowered his pistol as he saw that the man was no longer struggling, physically at least. Things already looked bad enough, restraining an apparently harmless vagrant with people pointing cameras at him, he didn’t need to add him aiming a weapon at him to the mix.

He ignored the protestations of the man and raised a hand to his helmet visor, tapping the side of his head to send a signal back to the PRT that he might need assistance soon. No one would be sent out just yet, but letting them know now meant any response he did ask for would arrive quicker.

“You’re suspected of being involved in criminal activity and are being placed under arrest. You can either allow yourself to be searched here or you can wait until some officers arrive to take you to a cell somewhere.”

Having to act like a severe, professional authority figure was probably the weirdest part of being a ‘hero’ to him. Despite looking the part, it really wasn’t who he was. He’d been a businessman a few short years ago, albeit a terrible one, not anything like the pseudo-law enforcement he was now.

“Play along and you’ll be released shortly, or keep shouting and this harder on yourself; it makes no difference to me.”

@Eviledd1984
Pre-Fab

Museum – Break-in in progress


Pre-Fab let out a sigh as he finally caught sight of the suspected thief, already able to hear the frantic yelling and see the concerned and confused civilians at the mouth of the alley. Despite the shouting and thrashing around the drone continued trying to subdue the ‘homeless man’, wrapping its long legs around his torso and trying to pin his arms in place and as Pre-Fab watched, the second drone dropped down from above to join in the attempt as well, tangling itself around the man’s legs. Neither machine seemed to care about his protests or cries for help, they were too dumb for that, programmed simply to follow directions.

Slowing to a walk now that he had the situation in sight, Pre-Fab raised his pistol and aimed it at the struggling homeless man. “Stop moving. Let them restrain you and you won’t be harmed.”

@Eviledd1984
Pre-Fab

Museum – Break-in in progress


The drones did their job in locating the source of the break-in and managed to confirm that it was a robbery at the same time. There was always a chance that this was a false alarm, a guard tripping the security by mistake or an electrical issue for example, but seeing as how there was a guy in a mask crawling around in the vents it was most likely a heist of same kind.

The thief reacted quickly to being spotted and managed to escape from the drone’s sight, but not before Pre-Fab got a look at where he was going. He began to make his way towards the rear of the building and the loading dock that was used to take exhibits in and out of the building, redirecting both of his drones in that direction at the same time.

It wasn’t easy to move quickly in all of his armour, even with the artificial muscles doing their work, and by the time he made it to the exit the thief had already made it outside. He sent his drones out again, one scurrying down the alleyway and the other scaling the outside of the museum towards the roof; he didn’t know what this suspect was capable of other than the fact that the vents were too narrow for a normal person to be able to crawl through them.

That meant Parahuman.

An alert flashed up in his visor and he brought up the drone’s camera feed to take a look. He saw what appeared to be a homeless man, dressed in dirty shabby clothing and carrying an equally worn backpack with him. That was all he saw; the rest of the alley was clear as far as his drones could tell and the roof was clear as well judging by the lack of alerts from the other one. He didn’t exactly want to arrest a potentially innocent homeless man who could have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time, but given that he was dealing with a Parahuman with unknown abilities it was better to be safe than sorry.

If he was wrong, then he’d have to explain to his superiors why he had attacked a homeless man. If he didn’t and the thief got away then he’d have to explain why he had let the person go. It was a lose-lose.

He ordered the drone to attack, which in its case meant throwing itself at the target and attempting to wrap its arms around them, and redirected the other to the same location with the same orders. At the same time he began to run in that direction, drawing his shock pistol on the way.

@Eviledd1984
Pre-Fab

Protectorate headquarters – Tinker workshop


With the flick of a switch, the workshop began to wake up. Lights illuminated a once spacious room that was now jam packed with several large machines, computers and work tables and a few seconds later the quiet hum of machinery replaced the silence with white noise. Brian shuffled into the room with a cup of coffee in his hand, setting it down on a work station covered with scattered papers, intricate metal tools and half completed bits of tinkering before collapsing onto a stool.

He picked up a remote from amidst the mess and pointed it at one machine in particular before pushing a button, the large, squat device noisily coming to life. One after another, it began to churn out block after block of dull black metal, depositing each into a container on a shelf within the machine; this was the material that was used to create pretty much everything he made as a Tinker. A metal that, for some reason, had a kind of memory that could hold onto blueprints and a limited ability to move when exposed to a certain signal, while at the same time being durable enough for use as a building material and light enough not to be cumbersome; a truly miraculous material that, so far, only he had been able to produce.

The fabricator that created it was by far the most important thing he had been able to build so far, but it was noisy, slow, large and prone to breaking down; he wanted to improve on it, he had filled a notebook with ideas on how to do so, but to do so would mean taking it apart and rebuilding it from the ground up. Doing that would mean that he wouldn’t be able to rebuild his armour or weapons after he next dismantled them, as he wouldn’t have the material to do so, which in turn meant he wouldn’t be able to go on patrols until he was finished with the fabricator again.

The PRT wouldn’t allow that. They wanted him to stay useful, which meant dealing with what he had. Fixing it when it broke and improving what he could.

Once the container was filled up enough, he would carry it over to one of the other machines and place the metal inside, before setting the machine to create the various pieces of armour that made up his general combat suit. The constructor could only manage one thing at a time and could only hold so much material at once, meaning he had to make everything one at a time; it was also in need of an overhaul.

The PRT wouldn’t allow that. Same reasons.

All in all, the process took about six to eight hours just to make one full suit of armour, depending on how much of the material he was able to save from his previous suit. That suit would be used on his next patrol or the next time he responded to an incident, after which he would need to dismantle it, collect the pieces, and then begin the process all over again. More incidents meant more times he had to use his armour, more times he had to rebuild it, which added to his workload, so he usually kept a few spare suits around in case he didn’t have the time to finish his work. It was either that or go into battle without it; not that that didn’t still happen sometimes.

That was just for the simple stuff of course. The armour pieces were made entirely of his special material and didn’t require manual work to integrate it with electronic or mechanical pieces like some of his gear did. His helmet, for example, needed to be made by hand; slowly and carefully placing the blocks that would make up the helmet around the visor that formed its centrepiece so that it would be aligned correctly and build properly. Any mistake could mean damaging the visor or his own skull when the helmet formed itself around his head.

His weapons, turrets and drones were the same, albeit without the threat of crushing his skull. The more equipment he used in a fight the more work he had to put in preparing for the next one. In a way he was lucky that he was assigned to a smallish city like Manchester instead of a place like Boston or Chicago; there was less Cape activity here, meaning fewer fights and less work for him. A smaller city also meant a smaller Protectorate team and he was similarly lucky to be the only Tinker for the time being. It allowed him to dominate the workshop with his cumbersome, oversized and noisy machines without having to be a bother to anyone.

Finishing the last of his coffee Brian looked over at the clock and made a note of the time; seven hours until he was scheduled to start his patrol, which should give him enough time to finish his suit, visor and weapons for tonight. He might even be able to create a drone or two if he worked quickly enough; he was running low on those.

----

Pre-Fab

Museum – Break-in in progress


The silent alarm had been tripped and Pre-Fab had luckily been close enough to be on the scene in a matter of minutes. As he stepped through the front door of the museum, meeting up with the security guards inside, the blaring sirens made it clear that the non-silent alarms had also been triggered.

“Can someone turn that thing off?”

As a guard hurried away to the security room to do just that, Pre-Fab began walking deeper into the museum. He had arrived quickly enough that the culprit might still be inside and the security seemed more than happy to defer to the hero on the scene and allow him to proceed ahead of them. Fine by him; it was one less thing to worry about.

The alarm finally cut out and the museum descended into a silence broken only by his heavy steps on the hardwood flooring. As he moved he reached down to his belt and pulled free two small spheres, maybe the size of a tennis ball each, and dropped them to the floor; upon touching the ground they each unfurled themselves, revealing long legs and a singular lens attached to a square body. They could be described as spider-like were it not for the fact they only had four legs.

He gestured with a hand and the two drones skittered away into the dark corners of the exhibit, crawling up walls or into vents as they began searching the area for any signs of heat or movement. If anyone was here then they would find them and alert him. If not, then he had just wasted an hour’s worth or work.

“This is Pre-Fab of the Manchester Protectorate!” If his clunky movements hadn’t already given him away, then his shout certainly had. “Make this easy on yourself and turn yourself in!” They never did, but now that they knew who they were dealing with they might be more inclined to reveal themselves, either to himself or to the drones currently searching for them.

@Eviledd1984
@LostButterfly92, at last, my crappy Tinker is complete.


The Shield spell, once in place, did not change colour or shape; though it was in contact with the stone and the faint mist of golden colours Earth Mana that came from it, it remained untainted and unchanged as he had hoped. This meant that it was possible to use a spell on an object that contained Mana without that spell being compromised, meaning it was possible to use a spell to buff or alter said object, like he was increasing the defence of the stone in his hand at the moment.

It made sense that it would work that way, of course, but he wanted to see it first hand before he went any further.

Now that he knew he could do that though, what could he do with it? The description of the rank I Shield spell said that it increased the natural defences of whatever it was cast on, while the higher levels seems to work more like barriers that surrounded the target and absorbed some of the damage for them until it broke. But did the Shield he had just applied actually make the stone harder, or was it just some nebulous ‘damage resistance’ effect that was applied to it?

The easiest option was just to put it to the test. Oberon flew over to the nearest tree, enhanced stone still in hand and raised it above his head before hitting the trunk of the tree as hard as he could. He repeated this two more times, waiting to see if the Shield had broken before striking again.

Was it simply a defensive buff, or could it be used to make a weapon more effective? Could he take a simple wooden stick and turn it into the equivalent of a quarterstaff or a steel pipe by magically increasing its hardness or durability? Could he maybe use the same principle to apply other effects to an object? It was in theory possible to cast a Shield spell using Fire aligned Mana to create a flaming weapon, but whether he could do so without burning the object or himself to a crisp was another thing. Or, if that didn’t work, what about Metal Mana? He knew it existed, though he had yet to use it himself. Could he create a Shield spell, or some equivalent, with a sharpened edge?

If he remembered correctly there was a dagger at the camp that had been taken from the Goblins earlier. If no one had claimed it then he could use it for some experiments, both to try and learn Metal Mana and also to try and use buff spells on a weapon that hopefully wouldn’t be rendered useless by them.

Speaking of the camp, he was now close enough to it that he could see and hear the others. Torrent was awake again, or at least he presumed it was Torrent, having finished her evolution and was now suggesting that they go hunting for food before dark. “Hunting sounds fine to me. Did we have a dagger around here somewhere? I want to try something.”



@Gardevoiran@Old Amsterdam@Zeroth@Rune_Alchemist
@LostButterfly92 I think you just sent the server link and not an invite. I can't see anything.
@LostButterfly92 I'm fine with using it for planning and discussion, since I do that for most RPs anyway.

I'd be against moving the roleplay their entirely though. I know for a fact I can't keep up with the pace of a discord roleplay, especially when I have other big projects going on, and I'd prefer to do longer and more detailed posts for something like Worm even if I could.
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