this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Or maybe you will adopt a posture of only being interested in cooperating insofar as I trust complete strangers with enormous body counts and I won't want you to have any such thing! That's also an option." Cam shrugs, breaks the cuff on her foot, and appears a treaty.

[whole_new_can]

Wanting it in writing is kind of extraneous to the whole inviolability thing, but it's not like Cam is the first to want the formality. She signs her no longer accurately descriptive name.

[from_scratch]

Cam's was already on it. He slags the Hatchet Face head. He turns to Rei. "Are you covered under her agreement?"

[wormcan]

"If that kind of deal's all you want, I can be."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. See if you can sign one of these with your hands like that and then I'll see if I can undo the thing."

[wormcan]

Signatures don't usually need to be legible. He scribbles some mark to indicate agreeing.

[from_scratch]

Cam attempts to disintegrate the bone linking his ankles with interpolated water.

[wormcan]

That hurts, at least to the extent this guy can be hurt, but nothing disintegrates.

[from_scratch]

"Well, if you happen to know any substances that can damage your bones you could tell me, but if that didn't work..." Cam makes another Hatchet Face.

[wormcan]

"Nothing. I'm indestructible as far as," the Hatchet Face appears less than a Hatchet Face radius away. "Usually."

[from_scratch]

And with the Hatchet Face in place presumably Cam can just work with an ordinary saw and painkillers and then patch the skin where the bone grew through.

[wormcan]

Ordinary to Cam, yes. Not quite ordinary as far as the twenty-first-century observers are concerned.

[from_scratch]

Well, at any rate, Rei can move around again. And he can have a tracking chip as long as bits of him are numb. So can Moord Nag. So can all the sleeping assistant warlords before Cam wakes them up and explains the deal.

[wormcan]

As soon as he's back to normal Rai walks outside the radius and kills the jar. No reason not to be indestructible as well as mobile.

[from_scratch]

Perfectly reasonable.

Any of these capes looking like a problem?

[wormcan]

Almost all of them take the deal, rising to all when Rei confirms that both he and Moord Nag herself did. (She, having flown away on a shadow wearing an easily rideable triceratops skull, is unavailable for comment.)

The capes Cam caught are almost by definition no problem to contain, but they don't come with guarantees of trustworthiness.

[from_scratch]

Well, they are all informed of the parameters of the situation and informed that if they make trouble they don't get a second strike. Cam has killed people, but if the people are smart he usually doesn't have to.

[wormcan]

Death threats! Death threats are good.

There's some glancing around to guess whether anyone is going to be made an example of, but when no examples are forthcoming they get the picture. Probably not very many are going to recidivate. Especially with the kind of enforcement Cam has available.

[from_scratch]

Lovely!

So he can get to annexing this city, then? And giving it stuff? He likes that part a lot better.

[wormcan]

Yup. No parahuman obstruction, and the non-parahumans wouldn't be trying to stop him even if the project weren't literally giving away free stuff.

[from_scratch]

Hooray!

...After he has adjusted to having absorbed all this extra territory, which takes a little while, he follows up on verifying that Dragon is friends with that one dude.

[wormcan]

True. At least inasmuch as either of them has friends, they're both workaholic types who are almost never not heroing. But they're some combination of known and speculated to be closer with each other than either is with anyone else.

Dragon is in fact on the posters of the Protectorate's most poster-friendly heroes, and it turns out so is Armsmaster. Which is probably why he picked that as a proof of character.

[from_scratch]

Also on these posters is that person who shot a thirteen year old girl who'd just saved her life under truce conditions. While the Simurgh was singing, admittedly, but still.

Ugh.

[wormcan]

Well, it's maybe not the best proof of character.

End result, Armsmaster and Dragon are certainly on the same side and if it was true about Dragon's code needing editing then it's at least plausible that Armsmaster would be the one doing it.

[from_scratch]

Right.

Where does Armsmaster want the complete works of Richter dropped.