Chapter Text
I looked down at the mass of vermin at my feet. I kept my ray-gun pointed at the mass, knowing from my testing that moving it around too much wasn't a good idea.
All the goons of lung had gone away already, running from the fight the moment they saw me. It was a rush, when they saw me, the taste still lingering in my mouth. Once I actually attacked Lung, it didn't take long for him to be down. Turns out, using a weapon powered by body-mass on a regenerator was a bit of a bad idea. Oops!
I had already set it to a lower setting, currently the mass of maggots was simply maintaining its size instead of continuing to grow, and the rays to attract rats were active. The rats were eating the maggots, just as i planned, and lung was slowly being uncovered underneath, full of holes and little squiggly worms coming in and out of the surface level of his regenerating flesh.
It was so cute!
I could hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance, quickly approaching. Oh, someone was coming! I quickly turned the ray off, and turned around to whoever it was that was approaching. I hoped it was a hero, i really wanted to impress them! It didn't take long to see who was approaching, and i waved at him.
Armsmaster approached but kept a distance, eyeing me carefully. Oh shit, he was afraid! I needed to fix this somehow before he attacked me!
"Don't attack! I'm a hero! I just captured Lung!" I spat out as fast as possible, pointing to the body covered in maggots and rats, full of little holes.
He looked at the body. Then at me. Then at my costume. He did not seem to relax. In fact, I could only taste his Disgust get higher, the sweet taste the most prominent, and his fear of Death and Blood mixing and staying roughly the same, tasting like a shooting at a funeral. It was a novel sensation.
Oh right, my costume! It was a masterpiece, it was built to capitalize on getting the maximum amount of fear out of whichever evildoers that saw me. The base was made of clay layered into protective armor that pressed up tight against my body, and extended a few inches out. It felt nice and claustrophobic, and i loved it. Around that, my power helped me know how to build realistic fake body-parts, and how to layers them around my main-armor as proper decoration. The body parts looked desiccated and dried out, faux limbs meat and bone woven together to give the appearance of a tinkertech-armor made entirely of dead bodies. My favorite part were the faux-heads that sat at my shoulder, with eyes i replaced with LED lights.
Oh wait, he was afraid of Blood.. The body parts! Of course! I forgot that he wouldn't know they were fake!
"The uh, Body parts are fake! I'm a Tinker, I made them for intimidation purposes, they're vegetarian!" I said. I tried to make them vegan at first, but Milk was really useful to make the bones.
He kept looking at me, and i could taste the tension in the air (quite literally).
"You are a hero?" he said, and I smiled
"Yes! Yes! Please lets not fight!" I brough one of my hands into a thumbs up, and his fear spiked when i moved my hand. Oh yeah! "And as i said, thats lung right there, you should capture him, the maggots are already dying off." Nailed it.
"You beat lung.. with maggots?" He looked at lung's body, and the wriggling little guys carving holes in him. "Are they self-replicating?"
"No no, they arent, I have this" I moved my arm with the ray-gun, and again saw him tense, so i moved it back down "And it turns only the skin and surface layers of fat into maggots. They dont even have reproductive organs, and they die off in 5 minutes without the ray shinning at them. No need to worry, uh, sir!"
He kept his eyes on the ray gun now. Was he impressed? I hoped he was, he was The Tinker! Well, if you didnt count dragon, but she was Canadian and you know how they were.
"And you are not going to attack me if I come near Lung?" He asked, and i nodded vigorously.
"Of course not, sir! I would never attack another hero!"
His grip around his halberd lightened, and i could feel the taste of being butchered lessen, and the cold lifeless taste increase, with a subtle backing of twisting to it, the fear of being Crazy if i was not mistaken. I gave him way, moving away from lung because i expected he would feel more comfortable if i stayed away from the dragon. He examined the body, using his halberd to clear the way to his neck off maggots, and then pressed the tip of his weapon up to Lung's neck. He murmured something under his breath for a few seconds, and after this, he looked back at me.
"The PRT has been alerted of your presence. Would you like to stay to give a report?" his entire demeanor seemed to relax slowly, his fear of Blood lessening to a healthy degree until I barely could taste blood under the taste of rotting meat and the cold.
"I uh-" I straightened myself "I would like to first ask you something, sir"
He didn't say anything, just nodded for me to proceed
"I would want to know if I could join the wards" I blurted out "I wanted to first prove myself, but I really don't have many more electronics I could work with to make anything without dismantling my already built tools, and that would suck. Sir."
He stared at me. I started tasting the faint taste of spiraling and twisting increasing, and as it increased the more rapidly the taste seemed to change and twist into itself. Was he afraid I was lying to him? If so, the fear seemed too small for it to be a big concern, and the taste too isolated. Maybe he was schizophrenic and it was unrelated to me.
"You would need guardian approval, but we do not turn down young parahumans from joining." He said, and as he did i felt the taste of cold nothing increase again, while the fakeness decreased. "And, at the moment, it is too late to allow you to come with us to the PRT HQ to help you join, since the night staff mostly consists of troopers currently. It is also a school night."
He stopped for a second.
"And getting you into the PRT building while wearing… that, would be problematic." He looked down over my costume again. I couldn't see his eyes, but I assumed he was complaining about the faux-bodies, and not the mud, since I doubted normal people wouldn't be carrying dirt in the building too. "I would like to ask… Is the material of your costume biologically human, or does it just look like this?"
"Its actually mostly mold!" I said, excited to talk tech with the best american tinker. "I used a sort of 3D printer, that uses various kinds of altered mold to follow a biological target! It looks like human tissue, has the correct texture and feel, but these bodies were made of mold particles altered to hold onto certain chemicals. Mostly black mold, its the easiest to use for anything to feel right, but i also used a lot of green mold because it's easier to get, you just need to dumpster-dive for a bit around anywhere selling a lot of fruit instead of looking through old buildings. And even if its worse, it mostly only changes the taste and texture."
I only realized when i stopped talking that the taste of rotting fruit was increasing, and that there was a new taste I had only tasted a few times before, but never like this. It tasted like cuts of meat being grilled, fat melting from flesh, and it went quite well with the sweet rot. I'd have to try and inflict it again, when less was at stake.
"You.. ate the fake people?" he asked
I froze for a moment, embarrassed. God, was I bad at this.
"I mean, they weren't real people. I was curious." I blushed under my mask. "And I don't really eat much anymore, so it was only once?" She hoped that was better.
"Okay." Armsmaster said sighed. "You should really get going, a report can come tomorrow. It is late, and a school night. I will arrange a meeting with the PRT for you tomorrow. Make sure your guardian comes with you, preferably you both in concealing, non identity-revealing clothes. Give them the code… " He seemed to gaze off into nothingness for a few seconds. "…WA7 in the reception desk. That's Wilton Alpha Seven, or the first two letters of Ward." He paused. "And please, wear something else."