Vim & Vigor 5 (A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

Vim & Vigor 5

(A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

{-{ V & V }-}

Telekinesis ruled.

That’s right. I’m telekinetic now. How cool was that?

I couldn’t help but giggle like a stereotypical Japanese schoolgirl from some decent anime I watched online last night while I levitated a bunch of junk in a circle in front of me, thanks to the new stuff that Taylor gave me. Since she didn’t want me experimenting with the powers near her base, not after the incident when I had just gotten the Shocker power, I was out-of-sight in a small junkyard with my makeshift outfit and mask on.

“Greg, you need to tell me what’s happening to you,” Taylor said from her end of the ear piece. “You’re supposed to be helping me test the powers, not goofing off. That’s the deal we had, remember?”

“Right, sorry.” I cleared my throat and released my mental grasp on the junk, letting it fall down. “Got a bit excited… where do you want me to start?”

“Tell me what you felt when you drank it,” she said. “Did you hallucinate?”

“The hallucination made it seem like everything was breaking apart. It was like the ground and sky shattered beneath me, rising into space endlessly before I snapped back to reality.”

“Okay. That’s about what I expected. The hallucinations usually match the power in some way.” I could hear her typing that down. “What then?”

“When I grabbed hold of the newest ‘echo’ inside of me, everything in my vision was colored differently. Even now, it’s like I’m living in a world of gray, with the only color being different shades of blue. Though, when I switched powers to see if it was permanent, my vision went back to normal.”

“Do you have any idea what the different shades mean?”

“I think it’s how much energy it’ll take out of me to move something.” I looked down to a wristband that Taylor had given me. It was Tinker-tech of some kind, displaying a long, blue gauge. “I’ve only used a pinch or so, judging from the gauge.”

When she gave it to me before I left her lab, she explained that whenever my body was in an excited state because of the Energizer, it vibrated in a way that couldn’t be perceived by the human eye. The band basically measured the vibrations from my baseline state and compared the rate I was currently vibrating to the peak state—in other words, I knew exactly how long I could go around with powers before I was burned out.

“The deeper the color, the more it’ll take to move it,” I told her as I lifted some random junk and judged how much the gauge ticked down until a rat scurried from its hiding place beneath a box I lifted and went the opposite direction. “And that rat that just ran by didn’t have any color, so I couldn’t use my power on it.”

“Hmm, it might be that telekinesis only works on inorganic targets,” she said. “Just like Zero-G only works on organic targets, similar to a Manton limit in some powers. Keep going. Walk me through the process of how you go about using your power.”

“Well, I can pretty much tell what I can and can’t grab by looking at it.” I turned my head towards a pile that had a rusted car door on it. “For example, that car door. I usually picture that I want it to move by imagining that I’m reaching out with an invisible hand to grab it and move it.”

I extended my hand and visualized a phantasmal copy of it was flying forward and growing, grabbing the car door. The gauge on the band went down a tick when it connected and I knew for a fact that I could move it how I saw fit. I gestured for it to come to me by pulling my hand back and the door flew towards me until I held a hand out to stop it.

“Do you have to gesture with your hand to make it work?” she asked as I twisted my finger in a circle to make the door spin like a pinwheel just for the hell of it. Sue me, this was awesome.

I put my hand down and tried to visualize that it was still spinning. It was wobbling as it did so. “I don’t, but it’s harder. I think that my hand is a sort of focus for me to use the power correctly, but while I’m handling this I can’t really do much else. It’s taking too much concentration.”

“If that’s the case, you might be limited to what you can do while multi-tasking. Good to know.” She mumbled for a bit before clearing her throat. “What about range?”

“Give me a sec.” I set the car door down and then started climbing the nearest stack of junk so I could to get a better view of the junkyard. Then I strained my eyes to the street just past it, where I saw a sewer cover that shone blue among the gray of the street and buildings that were probably too heavy to register. I gestured with a finger for it to rise, imagining that I was grabbing it from here like I did the car door, and it did. “I think it works as far as I can see.”

Actually, if that was the case, what if I had a pair of binoculars? Did the range increase the expended energy? So many questions for later.

“What does it do when you try to charge it?” she asked. “Look down at your gauge so I can record how much energy you have before you do it.”

I looked down for her so that she could record it before I tried. Then I grabbed hold of that power and focused on gathering it up, compressing as much as I could to be used in a single burst like I did with my electricity powers to form the crystals that made up the trap. When I did, my vision shifted slightly.

Instead of a bunch of blue objects, there was a sort of luminous sphere that appeared. It moved with a thought as long as I was charging, casting a bluish shadow over everything around it. I repeated that to Taylor and she gave me the go-ahead to release the power.

When I did, everything within the shadow that wasn’t nailed down was pulled towards where the sphere was—even the rusted shell of what was once a car. It all balled together, with the metal screeching loudly, until it was like a katamari ball. It then slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the pile of junk I was standing on, and forcing me to jump off as it collapsed onto itself. I landed on my stomach, but no lasting harm.

“It seems that when you charge it, rather than allowing you to pick and choose what you can pull in, it creates a sort of telekinetic core that pulls in everything that it can around it in a set radius. I’ll be able to measure it from the video footage. Show me how much energy you have left.”

“It took out a fourth,” I said, looking down at it for her. That meant I couldn’t use it too often. I snapped my head up when I saw a light coming on across the street. “I think that may have made too much noise.”

“Get out of there then,” she told me. “We’ll call it a night there so we don’t get the PRT looking into it.”

“Can I go out patrolling?” I asked as I slipped out of the junkyard by climbing over the fence and triggering my invisibility. Now that I had more practice with it, I understood that it covered me in thin field that basically camouflaged me from view, as well as anyone or anything else I touched with my hand that was warped by my powers. With it, I didn’t have to worry about being spotted as I moved through the main streets and could sneak up on bad guys.

“I don’t think you’re ready for that,” she said. “There’s already a gang-war on the verge of breaking out. No one will hesitate to put a bullet in you if they can.”

“But it’s not like I can sleep if I haven’t burned the energy off and we still have a lot left,” I added. It felt like every cell in my body was jumping around so much that sleep was a foreign concept. “And I did take on the Merchants. I can handle a couple of guys with guns.”

“The Merchants were in a set location, caught off-guard, and you still nearly got beaten by Skidmark and Squealer. And, ability to heal or not, if you take a bullet to the head, it’s over.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “Come on, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to be a hero if you have the chance. That’s why you’re making these powers in the first place, right?”

She sighed after a moment of thought. “Fine…but stay away from the Merchant’s territory and try to avoid getting in the middle of the gang war if you come across it. You don’t need the attention from one of the bigger groups.”

“Cool.” I punched the air in celebration as I walked through a dark alley. “If we get lucky, maybe we’ll even find the Undersiders and take them out. They’ve gained a bigger reputation since they managed to rob that bank.”

“They did?”

“Yeah, it was on the News,” I told her. “My parents were watching the report. It said the Undersiders managed to get away from the Wards thanks to the two new members they got. One of them is Chain Man, a villain from the south-side of the city. The other is some guy who calls himself Hermes and has these rocket-boots—a Tinker with a presumed specialization in mobility.”

“Picking a fight with that many Capes at once is a bad idea,” she said. “Don’t try to find them.”

“Okay.” So who did that leave? No Undersiders, none of the bigger gangs—there was probably plenty of regular crime going on that I could deal with somewhere, help someone else out, but given the sheer size of the city there was actually very little chance of me just running into someone that unlucky.

I didn’t think I could arrest anyone, and I don’t have a burner phone yet. But I could scare them off or hit them with a blast of lightning… then again, given the sheer size of the city, chances are I wouldn’t find anyone either unless it was a really active spot for trouble. Where to go then that fit all of the above?

I’m betting that the Protectorate would be patrolling in the main parts of the city, and we’re too far north for me to waste time going to the south-side. The area around the Market then? There’s bound to be something I could do there.

I was a little more than a fourth away from the Market area when I heard something moving above my head and caught a silhouette jumping over the rooftop. The street lights briefly caught them with the glow, so I knew it wasn’t just my imagination. It was a woman judging by the body shape, and the white and black mask split down the middle was one I’d seen posted on the forums.

“Circus,” I whispered. The burglar cape that was the arch-nemesis of the Beauty and Beast of Brockton Bay—at least if the rumors were to be believed .What was she doing this far north?

No time to think on that. If I remembered from the PHO she had a number of minor powers and was unaffiliated. So was I. Perfect match. Seeing how she ran along the edges of the rooftops without any problems—enhanced spatial awareness and balance, right?

How was I going to get her down? Blast her? No. Even if I hit, the fall from that high up could kill her. Actually, is it right for me just to assume she committed a crime just for her being out in costume?

I looked down at my band to see I still had a good amount of energy left. It’d be best to follow her invisibly and then go from there. I grabbed the mystifying echo and let it wrap my body before I ran after her down the street….

{-{End}-}

End Notes: This is the start of Arc 2 – Circus Games.

March 26, 2016 | Categories: Fanfiction, Vim x Vigor | Tags: Bioshock, Fanfic, Greg Veder, Taylor Hebert, Worm, worm webserial | 1 Comment

Vim & Vigor 4 (A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

Vim & Vigor 4

(A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

{-{ V & V }-}

Winslow, April 11th

“Greg, check this.” Taylor said as she handed me a few stapled pages with typing on it. On the cover page was our names, along with Sparky’s, and our report title: Scion’s Death and Changes in the Endbringer Engagement. I gave it a quick glance through as we walked through the front doors of the school. Taylor did her research.

It starts with the Behemoth Engagement shortly after the death of Scion. With the golden man gone, people weren’t sure if there was anything that could be done to stop the rampaging Endbringer besides hitting it until it got tired of leveling the area. Then there was a sudden ringing noise from above, like a giant bell, and nearly half the capes present at the fight died.

Before anyone could figure out what happened, the Endbringer shrieked in pain and a giant white whale appeared above the battlefield. It was later named Bismark, and its very presence made the Endbringer bleed. The PRT had a theory about it being a projection from an unknown Master 12 cape that had something to do with wavelength synchronization, but the point was that when it appeared the Endbringers got nerfed. In the end, Eidolon managed to kill Behemoth and a new Endbringer showed up when its cycle came up again.

Since then Endbringer battles involved holding out long enough until a projection appeared and then hitting it harder. But there were problems with this. For some reason, capes dropped dead before it came out like they were sacrifices. And if there weren’t enough capes present for the battle, the projection wouldn’t show up at all. Nobody liked the idea that they were being sacrifices, sentenced to death because of some unseen force passing judgment on them.

So that meant they had to start dipping into the Birdcage, which was a whole other set of problems. Capes who went in could earn their freedom by participating in three Endbringer battles, with a least one being a solid kill before they could leave and a Kill Order if they went back to crime again afterwards. So far they hadn’t managed another kill yet, but with Leviathan predicted to come soon it was looking like that was a very real possibility.

“It’s good, but you look a bit tired,” I noted. “Did you spend all night working on it?”

She tilted her head lower and shook it a bit, covering her mouth as she yawned slightly. “No, I was working on a special project.”

“Oh, you mean—” She narrowed her eyes at me in warning. “—shutting up now.”

I struggled not to smile. That meant she had a new power in a bottle for me. I wonder which one it was. She mentioned that some of them were based off bursts of inspirations that came from watching cape battles on recordings, like with Stormtiger—at least before he, Hookwolf, and Cricket were killed anyway.

We went to class and took our seats. Sparky was already at the table we usually got stuck on, so we were all set. All that was left was to wait until the presentation….

That was until Mister Gladly had decided to try and stick one of Madison’s friends with us, a girl named Julia. She looked at us like something you would scrape off your shoe and said she wanted to sit with Madison’s group. We supported that and said we didn’t need the extra help.

He didn’t listen and, naturally, Madison’s group moved so that she and Julia were next to one another and could talk. Somehow nothing exploded for a good while until Julia nicked the report from in front of Taylor while she was fishing around in her book bag and then handed it over to Madison behind her back, where she couldn’t reach it. I was too slow to stop it.

“Hey, this isn’t bad,” Madison said as she flipped through the pages. “Mind if I borrow this?”

A look of pure hatred flickered in Taylor’s eyes as she grabbed the bottom of her crutch leaning against the table. Without a word, Taylor sent it straight through the top of the report, tearing it down the middle while Madison shrieked. The only reason it didn’t hit the girl was because her head moved faster than her hand, but no one was using that copy.

Mister Gladly was drawn to her shriek. He looked down at the papers on the floor and Taylor’s hand on the crutch. “What’s going on here?”

“I was showing Madison the report Greg and I worked on over the weekend when my crutch slipped. I tried to catch it before it could hit her, but it still tore my report in two,” Taylor lied flawlessly, before any of the others could pin it as an attack. “Right, Greg?”

I nodded dumbly, and a little afraid. I think that the others were either the same or shocked a bit, because neither of them said anything either. “That’s why it has our names on the front page and headers. No other reason she’d have it.”

“Good thing it didn’t hurt her,” Taylor continued, a false look of concern on her face as she stared at Madison and then Julia. “I would have hated for someone to have gotten hurt by accident.”

The teacher crouched down and checked it. “Alright, but you still need a report for your grade. Do you need to print it out again?”

“Greg will do it for me,” she said, pulling a flash-drive and handing it to me.

I took it and went to the computer to do just that. When I got back to the table, I saw that Julia was looking a little pale and Taylor was writing something down in her notebook. I ignored the stares we were getting until it was our turn and the teacher called on me.

After the report went off flawlessly, thanks to me doing the speech, it was Madison’s group that went afterwards. Their report was on the New Wave scandal that happened not too long ago, when a leaked film caught Glory Girl putting some Empire 88 thug an inch within his life after he surrendered, with what was clearly excessive force, and then calling Panacea to heal him. There was some controversy over it, to say the least.

Now, in general, no one would argue against the fact that the gangbanger had it coming. Cricket and Stormtiger did kill two members of the New Wave bunch while they were unmasked, as well as a bunch of other innocent people, in retaliation for Brandish killing Hookwolf when he got a Kill Order placed on him. So it was clearly personal, and I think that it was a set-up given how that camera went unnoticed to record the entire thing.

But the damage had been done. The issue being raised was that, from what was being said between them, this happened multiple times before that particular incident and they were covering it up. New Wave was all about accountability, and they were spitting in the face of that.

Things got uncomfortable from then until we were told to go to our next class. They looked like they were going to start something until Mister Gladly asked Taylor and me to stay behind. The smug look on Emma’s face afterwards clued me in I wasn’t going to like what was going to happen.

“Julia has informed me that you both threatened her while you were sitting together,” he said. “She said she felt a legitimate threat to her life.”

Yep. I didn’t like it.

“Did anyone see us do that other than Madison’s table, who are her friends?” Taylor asked him point-blank. “Because that’s a lie.”

“I don’t think it’s true either,” he said. “You two are some of the tamest students in my class and, believe it or not, I do know what goes on in here. I know that some people are giving you a hard time.”

“Then you know for a fact that Julia always hangs out with Madison and the latter moved her table over just to talk to her. You don’t think for a second she wouldn’t lie to cover herself, and if you know that some people are giving me a hard time you can put two-and-two together that this is their way of trying to screw me over.” She pointed to the table. “Julia took our paper and gave it to Madison behind my back. When I tried to reach for it the crutch fell. Instead of letting it hit her, I grabbed it.”

“Then why didn’t you say something about them taking your paper?” he asked.

“I covered for them trying to take it because it wasn’t worth the hassle when at best they’d get a day’s suspension, but if they’re going around trying to get us in trouble then that’s a different story.”

“Take it easy, no one is getting in trouble,” he said. “I just want to make sure that it wasn’t an intentional lapse in judgment from a moment of anger.”

“It wasn’t, I promise you.” Taylor said with no hesitation. It was a lie, but I’d believe her with the way she said it. “This entire thing wouldn’t even have been an issue if you didn’t stick her with us in the first place.”

“I put her in your group because it needed to be balanced,” he claimed.

Now, that I called bull on. “Julia spent that entire time talking to Madison,” I pointed out. “And you always put us with Sparky, who sleeps the majority of the class or is out of it. Taylor and I did the rest of the work ahead of time because of that.”

Taylor continued on from there. “So in short, they’re lying. If you really think we went through with it and want to make it an issue with the principal, take us to her office and let’s get this out of the way.”

He didn’t. He just let us go. Emma, Madison, and six other girls were out there waiting for us. I could make out Sophia heading towards the exit with a gym-bag in her hands. It must’ve been another family emergency. She’d been having those a lot lately.

“That was stupid of you, Emma,” Taylor said, interrupting the rest of them as they pretended to talk to one another. “It’s one thing when it’s a petty insult, it’s another when you do something that would get the teacher’s involved.”

“But you did threaten her,” Emma pointed out smugly. “Something along the lines of ‘touch my work again and you’ll end up at the bottom of the bay,’ I believe. A threat to someone’s life is a criminal offense, if I remember what Dad told me. ”

“Prove it,” Taylor said. I noticed she didn’t actually deny it. “Because the moment we go to court is the moment you, Madison, and Sophia get slapped with so many charges that you won’t see the sun from whatever dank cell they put you in for a decade.”

“Did things get better for good old Danny to the point he could afford to make a case?” Emma asked, feigning happiness like really badly. “Because I remember him backing off when Dad mentioned how expensive it would be to go through court the last time. Not that it matters since my dad would take you for every last penny you have if you did.”

Realistically, Taylor’s dad probably couldn’t afford a court case. But I don’t think she’d spent the money she’d gotten from the Merchants yet. Given how she was acting, and how mad she looked when Emma brought up her father, she could very well put it towards her own legal defense. And it’s probably a good thing she didn’t have access to her Nevermore power right now, otherwise things would have might have gotten… gory.

“She’s already too poor to buy any decent clothes, isn’t she?” one of the girls asked.

Before one of the others could answer, Taylor held a hand up to them. “Be quiet and stay pretty like the accessories you are, I’m talking to the one of you who has a brain.”

Then she turned back to Emma. “Your dad knows my family, they’d never let him handle the case in the first place if we take it to court. On top of that, I’d make it as loud as possible and drag as many people into it as I can just so that his practice hears about it. Then we’ll see whose dad is poor when his bosses fire him to save face.”

Emma’s expression changed for a moment, judging if she was telling the truth. Since it went back to a smirk, I didn’t think she bought it. Thankfully, whatever else was about to be said was cut when Mister Gladly stuck his head out of the door and saw everyone out there.

Taylor used that to push past Julia and kept moving. I followed after her, stepping around her as one of them made a sound like they were disgusted with me. When they were a good distance away, I breathed easier.

“What was that?” I asked. “I thought you said to stay low?”

“Gladly is useless and they’re bitches, Greg. I’ll put up with them because they aren’t worth the hassle for their grade-school crap. But no one—and I mean no one—steals the credit for my work.”

I looked back and saw Emma giving her a look like Sophia did after she threatened to castrate me. It looked bad. “She’ll come after you.”

“Us,” she corrected. “I told you that you made yourself a target before. This is where it led to. I’d suggest not bringing anything you value to school and not relying on your locker. You have your spare spy-camera, right?”

“Yeah…?” It was small enough to be hidden, but I wasn’t exactly sure where she was going with it. “Why?”

“If they escalate this to that point, I guarantee their going to have a bad time.” That said, she went off and left me behind.

It… must’ve been a Tinker thing. Yeah, that was it. I guess they would get pissed if someone took any of their work, Tinker-tech or not.

Still, I couldn’t help but think that this was going to end really badly…

{-{End}-}

End Notes: There are three things you don’t do with a Tinker: You don’t touch a Tinker’s stuff without permission, you don’t stifle their creativity, and you don’t ever try to take credit for their work. They pressed two of her buttons at once. Pressing all three will not end pretty for anyone.

January 25, 2016 | Categories: Fanfiction, Vim x Vigor | Tags: Bioshock, Fanfic, Greg Veder, Taylor Hebert, Worm, worm webserial | 1 Comment

Vim & Vigor 3 (A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

Vim & Vigor 3

(A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

{-{Start}-}

Greg Veder’s Home, April 10th

I couldn’t help but yawn by the time I was done with my half of the report. Scion’s death wasn’t officially confirmed by Protectorate or anyone in the know, but everyone basically assumed that he was long gone. After all, he hadn’t been seen since 2008.

There were a couple of theories flying around, so I would have to use those, along with references to official sources while keeping my personal opinion out of it. I could just copy and paste, knowing Mr. G wouldn’t really care if I could spin it right, but that was being lazy and I had to make sure it was good enough to meet Taylor’s standards. I didn’t want to do it by halves and run the risk of her getting a bad grade when she trusted me to help her out.

It wasn’t like we could rely on Sparky—not when every other grouping we had with him left the two of us doing the majority of the work. He had his own thing and wasn’t into the cape scene like we were, so he’d just leave it for us to deal with and coast by. Not fair, but it wasn’t worth picking a fight I couldn’t win over. Plus, I’m thinking he might be stoned a good portion of the time anyway.

If I was allowed to use my personal theory, I’d say that Scion was the source of all powers to begin with. I mean, the moment he went pop was about the same time that some people had their own powers turned against them upon triggering, being too powerful for them to contain. You never knew how the next trigger event was going to turn out—either you were going to get a cool power, a crappy power, or end up in a state of constantly melting and reforming into what looked like new age art sculptures while feeling every bit of pain until the PRT took you off and put you in stasis. But no, I couldn’t use that since it counted as a personal opinion, as there were no solid or proven facts to back that up.

I sighed as I gave it another read-through and then sent the report to Taylor as an email attachment, to get her opinion on it. If she needed me to revise it to match her tone then I could do that later. That left me a few hours of free time to myself….

I guess I’d go out to the Market then. There was no point in poking around on PHO since TinMother accused me of starting a flame-war. I swear she’s biased against me. Besides, I could find some things to improve my costume with my allowance there.

My vision briefly blurred until I rubbed my eyes—too long on the computer and the bright backdrop again. Closing the laptop perched in the main niche of the computer desk, while game boxes were lined and stacked next to one another on the sides, I got out the swiveling chair. My bones cracked as I stretched and turned to the opposite wall, the shelf of which housed my books, and walked out the door to the Living Room.

Dad was at the table, looking at a bunch of papers dealing with his job. He only stirred when my shadow blocked the light for a moment. “What is it, Greg?”

“Can I get my allowance?”

He didn’t look up as he pulled out his wallet with one hand and wrestled out a fifty with two fingers. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Thanks!”

“Not so fast.” Mom came out of the kitchen and plucked it out of his hand before I could get it. She had a look on her face that she got when she had something she wanted to say, which could be good or bad or downright awkward. Case in point being when she tried to ask me if Taylor and I were intimate a day after what happened to Taylor that night I caught her out during her cape thing.

Not the type of thing you wanted to talk to your mother about under any circumstance, but the cover story we had used involved saying we were going on a date to test the waters when one of the Merchants attacked Taylor while trying to get away from her cape alter-ego. It still sounded loads better than what may have been construed as me stalking her one day after class until I uncovered her secret. That’d come off as me being a creeper when I was just concerned about her.

I had been worried about her since she had been acting strangely for a while after the Locker Incident. It was hard to put into words, but she carried herself differently. Before it happened, Taylor would try to avoid the Mean Trio and always had this hurt look on her face after they messed with her.

After the locker, she honestly didn’t look like she gave a damn anymore. She just put up with it before hopping on the computer. Not that anyone else noticed. They were usually either laughing or trying to look away so they didn’t end up the next target. I… was no better.

I never laughed at her, that stuff wasn’t funny. But I was coward for not sticking up for her before, powerless. Maybe that was why she didn’t talk to me too often, despite us having a lot of the same interests. Who’d want to be friends with a coward?

Anyway, I went online and managed to piece together the sort of things that some parahumans went through to trigger, information that was a lot scarcer than you’d think for the record. Between the constant bullying and being shoved into a locker full of that filthy stuff, how could she not trigger? It was common sense.

After that, my first thought was to go tell her I figured it out and to be careful in hiding her secret identity. I didn’t plan on blackmailing her or anything with the information, which would have been stupid. I just wanted to be someone she could vent all her cape secrets to and be there for her when she needed to talk to someone in the know about both her identities.

So I followed her with a pair of binoculars and found her secret base. She went out in costume, I followed. Bad things happened, Taylor’s leg was broken because I distracted her before she could get away completely, and I was fairly sure a Merchant got his eyes pecked out by a bunch of crows.

Even with the cover story, Mister Hebert was not pleased when he picked Taylor up from the hospital. He probably blamed me his daughter got hurt. To be honest, I blamed me too.

Still, I think Taylor’s forgiven me as long as I help her out and we’re getting along now. I’m okay with being her replacement until she gets back on her feet. After that we could be a hero-duo.

I could see it now—Vim and Vigor, heroes of Brockton Bay.

“Greg!” Mom snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Did you hear me?”

“Sorry, got distracted.” I winced when she frowned. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind, Mom. Say it again.”

She put her hand on her hips in that ‘Mom’ way, eyes narrowed. “Did you call your grandmother?”

“I’ll do it later.” Honestly, I was relieved it was a safe question that I had tuned out by accident. “It’s like two in the afternoon so she’s probably sleeping. I don’t want to wake her.”

“Hmm, is that right?” She crossed her arms. “And when are you going to actually introduce us to this girl you were seeing? It’s been some time and you won’t even give us more than her first name.”

And there’s the not safe question. I sighed. “We’re not like together-together. The hospital trip and leg thing kind of put a damper on that. Plus her dad scares me.”

“That’s what fathers do,” Dad decided to chime in. “Your mother’s actually threatened me with a baseball bat and a warning if I didn’t have her one minute after nine he’d ‘aim for a homerun’. Joke was on him, we left the movies an hour early and—”

“—we’re just friends for now.” I finished, cutting off wherever that was going. Could have been innocent, probably not. I was not prepared to listen to it either way.

“I’m sure both of them will come around eventually. You’re a sweet boy, just like your father was at that age in some aspects.” She eyed Dad for a bit and nodded to herself. “And when she does, you will….”

“Introduce you, got it.” I’d better end this conversation before she gets to the point of wanting grandkids next or keep making those lovey-dovey eyes at Dad. I’d rather deal with the Merchants than sit through either of those. “Can I get my allowance now? The bus will be at the stop in a couple of minutes and I want to go to the Market.”

She leaned down to give me a kiss on the forehead and then gave me the money. “Be back by dinner time.”

“M’Kay.”

{-{V&V}-}

The Market

The Market was busy like always on the weekend. It made getting through it a pain, but it was worth it just for the hot dogs sold at one particular cart here, between the pretzel guy and the ice cream lady. The guy running it, who struck me as a Bob, knew just the right way to mix chili, coleslaw, ketchup, and honey-mustard into a work of art I couldn’t copy at home.

I’d love to just sit and enjoy a few of them all day, but I came out here for a reason. People often rented the stalls here to sell their stuff, like some classic action figures, neat handmade jewelry, and things like that. It was basically a super thrift-garage sale, cash exchanged and no receipts.

That meant I could find the next piece of what I was looking for to make my costume without someone tracing me through online purchases.

I dressed down in jogging pants and an old jacket with a few tears, keeping my hood up and my head down. I normally did it because I didn’t want to look like someone who you’d get anything out of if you mugged them. But as long as no one got a real good look at my face I could pass as just another blond-haired, blue-eyed white male in a city where the E88 have a pretty solid footing. No one would be able to easily identify me from wearing a dyed version of something I bought from them.

I still had no real solid plan with how the costume would look. I was putting it together piece-by-piece, based on what I needed and what I could afford, rather that the appearance. After all, I could spread an Invisibility field over myself and whatever was in my empowered hand when I activated the power now. If they see me then either I’m blasting them with lightning or I’ve done something very wrong.

All the same, I did need something to block bullets and knives in the event that someone got the drop on me and I couldn’t get the protective field that blocks metal up in time. Or they actually use something not-metal, like a baseball bat. It’d be embarrassing to get taken out by some mook with a baseball bat. But going to someone like that Rogue who did costumes was expensive and so was tinker-tech.

Tinker-tech would be best, but I saw the price on getting an undersuit made of the stuff and nearly spat out my drink. A bullet-proof vest was reasonable and more economical, but I wasn’t likely to find one of those here. That being said, I did see one guy who had a chainmail shirt for sale that could probably stop a knife the last time I came by.

Actually, I should probably get that now, to be safe. I finished off the last bite of my hot dog, wiped my mouth with the napkin, and tossed it into the trash bin that was overflowing with disposed papers and wrappings. Then I went over to where I last saw the chainmail guy.

He knocked five bucks off of it from the last time, so it was only half of my allowance. That left another twenty for me to burn, which I considered using on a pair of brass-knuckles next but ultimately decided against it. Going mano-a-mano was liable to get me beaten up without years of martial arts training to back it. Plus, it was kind of redundant when I could fling lightning at bad guys.

Bag of chainmail in hand, I went to the bus stop to wait for the next one to get back home. I was in the middle of checking the time over the phone when a slim and dark hand held my wallet over my shoulder. I looked up to see that it belonged to a girl who looked a few years older than me.

She had dark olive-skin with similarly dark hair, which had two streaks of red going down the front. She also smelled a bit like a distillery, but I tried to ignore that. “You dropped this.” She lowered it into my lap. “Be more careful, your ID and everything is in there.”

“Thank—” She walked away before I could finish, pulling up a hood over her head and crossing the street. She came to a stop at the mouth of an alley and just sat there, back against the wall.

I opened my wallet to check and see that everything was still in there. She didn’t take anything. When I looked up I saw that she had turned her head away from me in a hurry. Crap, I hope I didn’t insult her by doing that in front of her.

She looked my way a final time and then disappeared further into alley. So that would probably be a ‘Yes’ on the insulting bit. As if I didn’t have enough to feel guilty about.

I sighed. She seemed a little older than me, yet she was on the streets and smelled like booze. My brain couldn’t help but go to the logical conclusion that she was either homeless or a runaway. That was a shame, especially given how nice she was to return my wallet to me, but there was nothing I could really do about that.

Just having powers isn’t enough to fix everything.

I pushed the depressing thoughts back and focused on what I would do my next night out. By then Taylor would have a new power waiting for me. I couldn’t wait.

{-{End}-}

End Notes: Shorter than I like, but that’s all I got for the moment.

December 20, 2015 | Categories: Fanfiction, Vim x Vigor | Tags: Bioshock, Fanfic, Greg Veder, Taylor Hebert, Worm, worm webserial | 1 Comment

Vim & Vigor 2 (A Worm/Bioshock Fanfic)

Vim & Vigor 2

World-Building Note #1: Why is Taylor a Tinker?

Due to the Locker Incident, Taylor gained the Tinker specialization of the ‘Bioshock-verse’ shard because she viewed everyone else and everything as useless in dealing with a long-term problem and thought of ways to resolve it on her own if she had powers—along with some other things. Ironically, she’s initially less dangerous with the Tinker specialization because she’s bottle-necked by needing resources and an external fuel source for powers.

Had she’d known Sophia was Shadow Stalker, she would have likely triggered as a Trump who got to choose from a pool of offensive, defensive, and mobility powers depending on the parahuman she faced, with the shard’s reserves fueling them. For example, against Shadow Stalker she would have had Shock Jockey, Peeping Tom, and Stable Teleportation.

Winslow High School, April 8th

I stepped off the bus and fought off a yawn that had been building up in my throat. The morning air was cool for Spring, but not enough that my breath came out in puff. Mild then. I adjusted the backpack slung over my shoulder and then made my way towards the school entrance.

I had slept well last night, even if I was a little sore by the time that I got back home. Dad was already asleep by then, while Mom was just happy that she thought I was getting out more and having fun. I told her I went to this cafe-bakery place to hang out with a gaming club once a week. It wasn’t exactly a lie since I did enjoy myself.

I got to have powers and be a Cape without any of the bad-stuff needed to be one. I mean it sucked considering that Taylor’s trigger event was… yeah, I’m surprised that the school even reused that locker. I don’t even know where they got so many of those disgusting things from, but it gives me shivers remembering when Taylor had to be taken to the hospital.

That was messed up. Especially since no one tried to get the locker open. I hadn’t been there when she was shoved in and, by the time I managed to hear about it, the janitor had already gotten it open. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even if I didn’t like Taylor. That wasn’t to say I didn’t like her—I mean I do like her, a lot.

She’s nice to me, even if she’s a little distant—a bit of a Tsundere without the hitting and physical abuse. But we had a lot of the same interests, like books and computers. She didn’t play as many games as I did, but she was a Tinker and I heard those types of parahumans couldn’t help but keep at it until they forgot to eat sometimes.

Maybe that’s why she looked a little thinner around her sides, now that I thought about it. It’d be easier to tell if she didn’t dress down so much. And I was sure I’d get slapped if I did. I’d seen enough oblivious anime protagonists get a hand-imprint on their faces to know women didn’t like it when you did that.

I decided to wait for her bus to get here. It’s not like Homeroom would start until around eight, and First Period wouldn’t until forty-five after. Plenty of time to go to breakfast and talk.

It was another five minutes before she showed up. Her bus came to a stop and others filed out before she did last. The cast on her right leg stuck out immediately and probably would keep doing so until it came off. She opted to use a set of crutches instead of her wheelchair, citing it was too much of a hassle for getting around inside of the building or using the bathroom.

“Hey Taylor,” I said as she approached. “Wanna get breakfast together in the cafeteria?”

“I ate at home.” She reached for a door. The crutches made it a little hard, so I opened it for her. She sighed. “Don’t hang over me during school or you’ll draw suspicion, Greg. Everything outside of these walls stays outside until the day’s done. ”

Taylor probably didn’t want to draw any attention like she had before. After all, that was how I found her out and got her hurt. “I’ll try.”

She made her way inside and I followed after her until we split to our different Homerooms.

Second Period – World Issues

Mister Gladly was kind of a cool teacher. But sometimes I questioned whether or not he was qualified for his job. I mean, at least with the old teachers you got the sense that they were jaded, but they tended to know what they were doing and kept the class in line. Not so much with him, who reminded me of one of the jocks that was popular with the girls.

It didn’t help that he somehow overlooked Taylor’s usual seat by the door having some kind of glaze to it. Probably invisible glue since that sounds like something they’d pull. Taylor didn’t want me to bother her and draw suspicion, but that was no reason to let her get pranked when I could run interference.

I grabbed the desk and swapped it with the empty one behind hers while one of Madison’s friends watched me. Julia had crinkled red hair that was done up in a way that was cute without going into childish, making it kinda hot. Of course, that was ruined when she gave me a look that basically confirmed my suspicions.

I ignored her and took a seat next to where Taylor would sit as she entered the room on her crutches. She stopped at the desk I had swapped out, no doubt noticing the sheen to it, and then took a seat next to me. I could have sworn I heard a small ‘thanks’ as she sighed, but she didn’t look at me so I wasn’t sure.

Class continued to be boring, so I doodled a bit with some of the printing paper I snuck out of the printer from Homeroom when Miss Crewing wasn’t looking. I needed a better costume once I was fully equipped with as many powers as I could get and working alongside Taylor. Maybe something that would match the one I saw she had that night?

There were a few minutes until the Lunch Bell was getting ready to ring when the teacher announced we’d have homework. He wanted us to list how Capes have impacted the world around us. Since all of us were born after they were a thing, unless someone was older than they looked and had been held back for several years, it wasn’t a hard topic.

“So, what are we doing for the report?” I asked. Mister Gladly always paired me up with her during World Issues, since every other group was basically locked down and he didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad-side. “We’re going to be grouped together, so if I know what the topic is we can split it over the weekend.”

Taylor looked pensive for a moment before she spoke. “I’m thinking the change in Endbringer Engagement and how it affects society since the events of 2008.”

Huh. That sounded interesting enough. “Okay, I’ll cover Scion’s disappearance. You cover the death of Behemoth?”

“Sure.”

I went ahead and made an outline of points to cover from my end. Taylor made decent reports and would get her part done easy enough when she started. But mine was a bit trickier since it wasn’t clear if Scion had just gone missing or had died. He was last spotted flying over India when he suddenly started convulsing and then went ‘pop’ like a golden balloon.

Some people speculated he was killed, but that was clearly a lie. No one was dumb enough to attack the golden man who drove off Endbringers. It was more likely he simply reached the end of his lifespan and died instead, if he was dead to begin with and not hibernating or taking a vacation.

There was also the topic of whether or not his ‘death’ was the source of the trigger events that resulted in the death of the parahumans-to-be or turning them into Case 53s. Even if it wasn’t outright stated, his appearance was just before the first superheroes popped up. There had to be some connection there.

It was good that I took this part. There was a lot of speculation rather than facts, and it would take time to sort through them all. Taylor had her hands full enough tinkering, and I could spare a few hours over the weekend to get it out of the way.

When it was time to go to Lunch, I lingered behind to get my thoughts in order for a bit. By the time I left the room, I found Taylor being accosted in the hall by Sophia, Madison, and Emma. You’d think they’d quit while they were ahead with the Locker Incident, but apparently they were finding it just as amusing to bully her when she was crippled.

I never understood the whole appeal of bullying someone. I was gamer and enjoyed beating out others when I played, so I got the thrill there was behind lording over someone because you had higher stats. But I never talked smack or told them how much they sucked, instead offering them some tips on how to do better. It was how I met GstringGirl online and she seemed nice.

But these girls took pleasure in hurting someone emotionally and physically. That was just mean by itself, but doing it when they couldn’t fight back was just… well, cruel. I couldn’t just sit there while she was being picked on because of something I had done. Not anymore.

That was the old Greg Veder. The new Greg Veder went toe-to-toe with two parahumans and came out on top. What were a few High School girls?

“Come on, leave her alone,” I said, standing between them and her. I don’t think any of them were expecting me to speak up because they all looked at me funny. Taylor included. “It’s not funny messing with someone like this.”

The good news was that they quit surrounding Taylor. The bad news was that Emma started circling me and Madison followed, while Sophia just watched with a scowl forming on her face. Okay, no big deal. What was the worse they could do to me?

“Look what we have here. Taylor has a knight-shining armor,” Emma said. “How cute.”

“Not so much a knight as a plump jester,” Madison chimed in. “Maybe she likes them kind of pudgy?”

“It’s an improvement over not having anyone interested in her,” Emma added, giving me a once over and then looking away in disgust. “Barely. Then again, it’s the best she could do. We can’t all be model-material.”

“She’s better than you,” I said. At least I intended to. The words came out so soft that they may have been mumbled when Sophia gave me a look. I was focusing my senses on gathering my power in my left hand and tensed it to fire before I remembered I couldn’t use my powers without Taylor’s energy drink.

That said something about how Sophia unnerved me when I had just tangled with the Merchants last night. Emma was… well, a little intimidating, I guess. The queen bee who could destroy you with a word, but I didn’t have much of a reputation to start with. Good luck making it worse.

Madison didn’t really do much besides add to Emma’s air of authority when it came to others. She was basically her shadow and nothing else, using her cuteness while it lasted. Neither of them was as intimidating as Sophia, who looked like she could beat me up on her own while I had powers—she’d probably like that even more.

“Oh for fuc—Mrs. Knott!” Taylor called. We all turned to see that the Computer-Lit teacher was indeed coming close. “Can I ask you a question?”

I wouldn’t lie. At first I thought the teacher was a man, an honest mistake that led to me calling her ‘Sir’ once. She’d been a little frosty to me ever since then. But she seemed nice enough to Taylor. “How can I help you?”

“Actually, my leg has been in pain for the last few minutes and I was deciding whether or not to head to the Nurse’s Office,” Taylor lied, I hoped. “Would you happen to know if they have over-the-counter pain medication? I don’t want to make the trip and suffer for no reason.”

“I would not,” she said. “However, I would suggest that you send one of your friends to go check.”

Taylor turned to me instantly. “Greg, could you go and check? I’ll be in the computer lab with the teacher, if that’s okay. I want to do some last minute checking on our homework and sit down.”

Mrs. Knott nodded. “No eating in the lab, but fine.”

Smart. For everything that they pulled, none of those girls had the Computer-Lit class that we did, let alone being in the advanced part of it. They couldn’t go after her there without having a very good reason, and Taylor usually sat in a seat that was directly in Mrs. Knott’s line-of-sight. They pulled a lot of crap off, but even they didn’t do anything straightforward with a teacher there to witness it.

I nodded my head and ran off towards the Nurse’s Office, just in case she really did need the pills. They didn’t have any. I hoped she wasn’t serious about her leg being in pain then, I already felt bad enough about it since the cast wasn’t due to come off for over a month. I made my way back to the Computer-Lit—

“Oof!” The next thing I knew, I was hitting the floor as I stepped off the stairs leading to the first floor and the wind was knocked out of me. My chin hit the ground and I felt my teeth bite into the tip of my tongue deep enough to draw blood from the coppery taste.

“I don’t know or care if your balls suddenly decided to drop, but you stay in your place,” a girl’s voice. Sophia when I looked up. “Or the next time you get in my way you’ll find them missing.”

Bitch, I thought as she turned and skulked away. It was only when I heard the slur that I realized I had said it aloud. Maybe it was a good thing I had bit my tongue. She would’ve probably made good on her threat if that came out clear enough for anyone to hear. In a school where there were likely members of different gangs among the students, it was telling she was the scariest one here.

I rose up to my feet to see other people in the hallway, some snickering and others trying to pretend they didn’t notice. God, I didn’t see how Taylor went through with this sort of thing all the time without burning this place to the ground. I kept my head down as I went to the computer lab and took a seat next to Taylor.

She glanced at me, back to the computer, and then back at me again with a focus on my chin. Was it reddened or bruised by the fall? Mom wasn’t going to like that. I’d just say I tripped on the stairs on my own.

“Sophia,” I told Taylor, figuring that was what she wanted to ask but wouldn’t. At least I tried to, but there was still a minor slur. I think she got it anyway.

Taylor rolled her eyes over the frame of her glasses and sighed. “That’s why I told you not to draw attention to yourself or to defend me. You’ll only give them ammunition, Greg. Sophia’s just looking for a reason to lash out.”

“I just wanted to help,” I said. This time it was clear.

“And it made you a target.” Her fingers flew over the keys as she entered something into a calculator program she wrote and refined not too long ago. It didn’t look like anything Mister Quinlan was making us do. “There’s a reason I didn’t fight back—because it’s pointless. Emma, Sophia, and Madison have the teachers wrapped around their little fingers, and picking a fight is only going to get me hurt when they decide to try and gang-up on me before getting off scot-free.”

It made sense. That had to be the only way they could have gotten away with that locker thing. No wonder she didn’t normally try to get a teacher involved, but why not the police? Oh, didn’t I hear once that one of their daddies was a lawyer?

That would probably drag things out, and fighting a legal battle would be expensive… then again, would someone close to the case even be allowed to act if it was brought to court? Maybe not, but a lawyer would know how to squeeze out of a tight scenario. No wonder there were so many evil lawyer jokes.

“That sucks,” was all I could really say after thinking about it. Then things got quiet. I couldn’t stand it and finally asked, “Why not just… you know? Zap them?”

Taylor whipped her head around sharply and gave me an incredulous stare. I knew she said not to mention anything about powers in class, but that was before Sophia threatened to emasculate me for just getting in her way. After a deep breath, she pressed her lips thin, looked over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Knott wasn’t listening in, and then leaned in close. “If I did it… what do you think would happen?”

The first words that came to mind was ‘zap them until they stopped bothering you,’ but somehow I got the feeling that wouldn’t be the right answer. I thought about it some more, rubbing my left fingers together. It was a bit of a habit I formed from how my hand always felt weird from the different powers. The answer came to me eventually. “The PRT would get involved.”

“Exactly,” she said. “A parahuman attacking a regular person is jail-worthy, and you can bet Emma’s father would try to sue my dad. The PRT would force me into the Wards to put me on a leash and make me a rank-and-file Tinker. They would look over everything I do, criticize it, and force me to bend to their rules. They would decide who got which Vigor and when. I’d be giving up the last bits of my freedom for them when I can do more as an Independent.”

She turned back to the computer and started typing again, still talking. “That’s why I don’t fight back. I’m not going to lose my freedom for petty revenge when I know I’m better than them. What happens here for maybe one or two hours of the time I spend here disappears the moment I get on the bus and get home or to my lab.”

Taylor really thought that out. I couldn’t think of anything to really say except, “Oh.”

I didn’t want to bother her again after that, so I went online to the PHO website to see if what happened last night made any waves. Someone had to have called the police, so someone had to have seen us. Since the Merchants had their own thread it would likely be there.

There actually was something, a shaky camera-phone video taken after I had crashed the van. The discussion led me to the speculation thread on Capes in Brockton Bay in general, where there was currently a mild discussion going on about me. Everyone presumed I was new to it because I had basically gone out in a black-hoodie and pants, with a mask on to cover my face and utility belt around my waist, when common sense dictated having a costume at least—preferably bullet-resistant. I couldn’t fault them there.

What I could fault was the discussion on whether or not I was a hero or a villain—with it leaning heavily in the latter direction. The basis for the argument had been that I stole from the truck and the police retrieved money from it shortly after I left and the Merchant pair got away. Was someone who robbed criminals a criminal himself?

Better not bring it up to Taylor, she looked busy enough now. I didn’t want to break her rhythm. Or get her mad at me again. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t want to go and be a hero.

We needed the money to make new powers and the Merchants were bad people. Not to mention costumes weren’t cheap either. Taking from them and putting it to good use wasn’t a crime. I refused to let Taylor’s work and myself be seen as villainy.

I cracked my fingers and got to typing.

End Notes: I now have a semi-decent outline and plan, so welcome to A/U Ladies and Gentlemen—where Greg is a protagonist, the Golden Idiot is missing as far as the populace knows, and Endbringers can be killed.

October 4, 2015 | Categories: Fanfiction, Vim x Vigor | Tags: Bioshock, Fanfic, Greg Veder, Taylor Hebert, Worm, worm webserial | 1 Comment