MCU/Worm OC Insert: Chapter 3

"Don't you have school or something?" The girl behind me observes. 

"Nope! Bomb threat." I reply.

"..."

"Did you call in a bomb threat because you didn't want to go today?"

"No, I didn't Lexi."

"I will fucking STAB you." She growls, causing me to snicker. "Where did you even FIND that show?! It's obscure as hell!"

"The internet man has his ways." 

"Is that going to be your super hero name or something? Internet man?"

"Nah. You already know it, remember? Wrench."

"Why 'Wrench'?" She asks slowly.

I simply shrug and put on the mask, pushing a button on the side.

The darkness brightens up, a smile forming on my lips as I look over the girl.

"Led eyes? Huh... it looks pretty well put together."

My voice echoes out, sounding slightly static-y and glitchy. "After Coil slipped I grabbed the Cosmetic tinker power. I looked over this a few times and managed to fix any imperfections. After that I did PR tinker to help me code some expressions in the eyes. I've got a Hud and everything. Plus, it lets me do some fun stuff like..."

My eyes flick down to Lisa's phone. It begins to vibrate and ring, she glances down.

She slowly brings it to her ear.

"Is this Lottie Mckenzie? Of Lexi and Lottie, Trusty Twin Detectives?"

My predictive software lights up as I duck, effortlessly avoiding a hurled shoe.

I end the call.

"Pretty cool, huh? I've got so much stuff jammed in here ranging from a hud and voice changer to predictive software. I've also woven dozens of steel threads throughout the insides of the mask and visor. It won't stop a bullet, but it probably won't need to."

"At least after I make myself a brute, that is!"  I grin, my mask doing a '^.^' face as I glance to the reflection in the microwave door. 

"You're such bullshit! Do you have any other powers?"

"I did tell you I was a Grab-Bag. I've got bullshit to spare~"

"Now... what to do today..." I slip off my mask. "You owe me... riiiiiight?"

"I... suppose I do." The girl frowns. "I'm not going to sleep with you. Even with you somehow making coil slip and die, I'm not that easy. Closer than most... considerably closer than most. But not yet or possibly ever."

"I wasn't even thinking about that... how difficult do you think it would be to grab me these materials?"

I hand her a list which she skims over her face a deadpan as she slowly looks up from the paper. "You're trying to build a particle... accelerator..."

"To make a new energy source for my bullshit weapons and shields!"

A weary sigh leaves her lips. "I'll see what I can do. But don't expect a lot from me. Even with coil's contacts- actually..." 

She pauses. "Give me three weeks and I'll have you everything on this list and a place to put it."

[Split]

"The PRT wants YOU!"

There's a photo of a woman with a grey visor that covers the top half of her head. She wears primarily black with grey accents. There's a rook on her chest, her long black hair billowing down her back.

Alexandria.

Basically this world's version of superman... just without the eye beams.

Wait.

Wasn't there an eternal who was a flying brick... that ALSO had eye beams? No clue what the name is though. I remember the eternals had fucking WEIRD ass names like 'Pix' or like... 'klingo'

I open the brochure, letting out a low hum.

"Be a great hero like no-one ever was!"

"If you've got powers, get paid to come in and test them!"

I stare down at it, a frown on my lips. "Oi. Bum girl. Does this actually work?"

"Rarely." The girl tapping away at the computer behind me hums in response. "But they're willing to spend about a million dollars per year nationwide to print those useless things because one person every five years will look at them and go 'huh. Maybe I DO want to use the PRT's coffee machine'."

"As for the payment? They typically give out around fifty dollars."

"..."

"And yes, I know that because I lived on the streets for a while. I certainly didn't show everything I was capable of, but it kept me fed for about three days." She continues. "It was also how I got onto Coil's radar... seeing as how he was a PRT consultant. Not worth it."

"You go in there and reveal your bullshit trump power, you're not leaving that building without a PRT contract." The girl notes. 

"Awww, but Lisa. How else am I supposed to date Vista, then." I roll my eyes.

"You can do better. She's got this big ugly scar on her chest from when she ran into Hookwolf a few years back when she was like twelve or something and was on an 'unofficial patrol'. She didn't want to be seen as childish or to be yelled at, so she sewed it shut herself... with all the surgical skills of a stabbed twelve-year old."

"..."

"Alright. Another question." I continue.

"Ugh, I'm trying to work."

"No, no. This one's actually important." I wave off with a bright grin that falls instantly. "Why are you here? Don't you have like... an apartment of your OWN?"

She looks over, dark circles under her eyes. "I want to use your tinker tech computer."

"..."

"Pay rent." I demand.

"Done." The girl replies. "I'm also working on getting all that shit you want. The tech you want is super annoying to get your hands on. Someone without my advantages would probably NEVER get it. So... will you let me work in peace?"

"Sure..." I sigh as I get up from where I was sitting on the foot of my bed. "I'm going out for food. You want anything?"

"Anything but Pizza. I swear it's what the Undersiders always eat."

"Man... it's been ages since I've had sushi or Chinese takout... fucking ABB. If I try to get takeout I'm more likely to get beat in an alleyway than actually get my food."

"Mhm..." The girl hums. I'm pretty sure she's ignoring me now so I might as well just leave and stop pestering her.

[Split]

Heh. Sophy got called to the office and just never fucking returned. What a riot.

Anyways, I'm considering just dropping out of school. I can use my psychic impression to draw on knowledge from Tony motherfucking Stark. I don't need to associate with Nazi's, the pseudo Yakuza, and druggies.

I look to the freckled blonde sat at my kitchen table, sipping some coffee. "Oh. Good. You're here. Your stuff came in."

she rises to her feet. "You want to get your suit up and ready as soon as possible, right? Come on."

I blink twice then let out a low hum, simply opening the door for her and gesturing outside.

She lifts my mask. "Oh, you'll want this. The Undersiders will probably be around."

I walk forwards, taking it and stuffing it into my backpack. "Alright, whatever. You ready?"

"Mhmmm" the girl smirks. "So... what's a girl got to do to get you to make me some tinker toys?"

"I'm not building you a vibrator." I deadpan.

"I will smack you." She threatens.

"It's not nice to threaten your new friends." I point out.

"You keep sassing me and we won't be." The girl grumbles.

I give her a half-lidded stare that practically SCREAMS 'Hypocrite'.

"Shush you. Let's go."

[Split]

The large door slowly slides open as the blonde gestures inside. "Voila. Your new home away from home."

I gaze into the broken down warehouse a frown on my lips. "There's nothing here."

"Ah. That's where you're wrong! Come come." Lisa gestures for me to follow her.

The building is utterly barren barring a single shipping container and a small office up off the ground towards the back corner of the warehouse. The stairs leading up to it are rusted and bent.

The girl opens the shipping container revealing that it is once more empty.

She steps inside and crouches down, with a click, she seems to slide a pin out of one of the bends in the floor and pull it up, revealing a trap door beneath.

"Oh? What if someone puts something over that?"

"There's other exits. This one was just the closest." She replies as she begins to climb down the ladder.

I follow along a moment later, slowly closing the hatch.

I come to what can only be described as an apocalypse bunker. Flickering lights line the ceiling, leading forwards.

We eventually come to a much larger room, machine parts line the floor, large crates and boxes are all over the place.

four people are waiting for us.

The first, a tall teen with a black skull mask, he wears primarily leather, looking like a dark shadow in the shaky lighting of the bunker, the next a figure in a bulldog mask crouched next to two large dogs. Towards the back is a guy in rennisance-esque clothes, a white mask on his face that looks... vaguely like Dio's stone mask... just without the fangs. 

The fourth person is a girl with hair tied up into a pony tail, she has white bangs and a simple domino mask obscuring her features. She wears primarily green, with a hooded jacket and pants of the same shade, a white line along the front of her pants trailing down her legs.

"Hey Hey!" Tattletale calls out. "We're here! And I've got good new and bad news."

She saunters forwards. "Which do you guys want to hear first?"

"What did you do?" The skull-masked teen questions. If I remember correctly, he's Grue.

"I did nothing." Tattletale grins. "Our mysterious benefactor on the other hand... well... he slipped and fell... and died..."

"..."

"So we're not getting paid?" The one in the white mask, Regent questions.

"We are! Cause I made sure to steal every bit of his resources."

"..." the group is silent for a bit.

"So we're rich?" Regent asks.

"Eh. Debatibly." Lisa waves before gesturing to me. "This is Wrench. He's joining the Undersiders as our support."

The dog-mask wearing girl lets out a low growl.

"Come now, bitch, don't be like that! He'll just be here. Think of him as sort of our... semi-boss... Oi. Don't you dare. If you attack him with your dogs because you don't like adding another person to our 'pack' I swear to god. DO NOT piss off the power granting trump or I will NEVER forgive you."

"Like Othala?" Grue questions.

"Kinda." Tattletale shrugs.

"The powers I give out are weaker, but they're pretty much permanent." I add in.

"Is our mysterious boss... really dead?" The up until this moment silent girl questions.

"Yep. I saw it happen. He slipped on some ice on his doorstep and cracked his head open."

"S-Seriously?!" Regent giggles. "So much for the mysterious angle."

"You don't need to worry though, I'll keep up the payments to the hospital in his stead." Lisa replies to the girl.

"Now. For introductions." Lisa grins. "Wrench, this is Grue, Regent, Bitch, and Rogue."

"Undersiders, this is Wrench. Tinker-Trump combo. An absolutely bullshit grab bag." She clasp her hands together. "Now... how long do you think it'll take you to get combat-ready?"

"Hm... Well, I need to create some energy shielding for this room so the feds don't track us down for the highly efficient reactor I'm going to be building to power everything."

"Reactor?" Grue mutters. "Like... Nuclear? Wouldn't that get the PRT to come down on us like a hammer?"

"Non-nuclear... I would say what it's powered by, but... frankly the element doesn't exist... yet." I admit as I slowly walk around. "You see, back in world war two, the Nazis got their hand on something strange. Some sort of cube-like artifact that Hydra managed to syphon power from... at the end of the war, said cube fell into the Us government's hands... at which point Howard Stark studied it and thought up a hypothetical element that rivaled the energy produced by the cube. The main issue was that he was limited by the technology of his time."

"Less history. More estimates of time." Lisa cuts in.

I cock my head to the side. "Well, I've got pretty much everything I needed... if you managed to get me enough copper wiring, gold wiring, and plates of lead at least. I could get the power source up in... a week. A power station in a further two. And maybe then I can start building some interesting tech."

"Good! Get to it hackerboy." Lisa smirks.

"..."

"Whatever." I scoff as I begin to sift through the materials I've been given. 

[Split]

"Hey! What's the progress boyo?" An annoying Blonde grins as she takes a seat on a large crate in front of me. 

"Done with the big part... want to see me create a new element?"

"Sure." She shrugs.

I remove the bubble level from the large pipe and nod once, slipping under it as I go towards a spot with a large pipe wrench.

"Well." I breathe. "Let's do this."

I flick a few switches causing a dim blue glow to slowly spiral throughout the pipe. The lights above flicker and dim as all the power within the bunker is suddenly being rerouted.

I look to a nearby display as the whizzing blue spark goes faster and faster.

A large circular wheel sits atop the pipe in front of me.

As the whirring begins to reach a crescendo and the ground shakes slightly I grit my teeth and twist the wheel with the large pipe wrench.

A beam shoots out, crossing the warehouse as it makes contact with a metal ring with a crystalline triangle within it.

The beam cuts cleanly through the metal and makes contact with the triangle, a brilliant glow beginning to radiate out as the shape continues to eat more and more of the energy.

At a certain point it begins to produce more energy than it's losing.

With another flick, the accelerator shuts off with a loud 'thoom'. The glow fades, leaving just the little triangle of power.

I duck under the pipes and slowly walk forwards, grabbing a pair of tweasers off a nearby table.

"Heh..." I huff as I slowly and carefully remove the charged triangle... and place it within a ready container that seals around it.

I check my phone as it begins to glow dimly. "Let's see... power is... raising steadily... and... stable. It's completely and totally stable." 

"Damn. Quite a lightshow." Lisa smirks. "Sooooo how much energy does the world's most expensive flashlight put out?"

"You know how a nuclear reactor can power a city twice of Brockton quite easily?" I ask.

"Yeah? You're telling me this little thing can match a building-sized nuclear reactor?"

"Nope. It's worth four."

"Buah-" the girl sputters.

"I could power ALL of Brockton... hell, give me four more of these and I could power ALL of New York!"

"How long will it function?"

"Egh... five or ten years give or take." I shrug. "Depends on how rough I am with it."

She gazes at the glowing reactor the size of my fist with nothing short of avarice, a grin on her lips.

"I take it you can see why I needed to shield the room from detection, right?" I ask slowly.

"Ah- yeah." The girl nods slowly. "T-That's... definitely impressive."

"And it's needed." I continue. "It can power a few million houses... OR it can power a body shield made of hard-light."

"Can... I have one? Please? I'm too pretty to get shot in the face!" The blonde continues.

"Fffffine." I relent. "I'm a little hesitant because I don't have a design that has charge instead of a constant power source. But I guess I should probably give them to you five. I just don't want someone grabbing one of these and reverse engineering my tech."

Even if I did create it from piecing knowledge of my-

Dad?

Holy shit I'm related to Tony Stark...

I have a psychic impression of my parents fucking.

Ew ew ew ew ew.

"Zach?" Lisa mutters. "You good."

"I... just realized that my thinker powers just gave me the memories of my ancestors..."

"O-kaaaay?" She mutters.

"ALL of the memories... I saw my own conception..."

"Ew." The girl winces.

"Fuuuuuuuh." I wheeze, rubbing my temples.

I take a deep breath, then exhale. "Whatever. I don't care. I'm over it. I fucking hate this."

My finger taps on the metal table as my eyebrow twitches slightly. 

"SO!" I begin, turning to Lisa. "My trump powers have gotten two power slots now. Want a second?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't I want me some more power? Do you have anything that suits me?"

"..."

"I kind of want to give you the 'what, you egg?' Power which... uh... is sort of superpowered insults. Thinker-master combo."

Her eyes glint. "Ohohohohoho."

"But then I realize you'd probably hurt my feelings... so I'm just gonna... not?"

"But you're immune to thinker and master powers." Lisa points out.

"I beg your pardon?" I blink. "I'm also Master immune?!"

"Yeah... apparently Regent was being a little bastard during your first meeting and tried to trip you a few times."

I'm silent for a long moment. "Huh."

"Sooooo, you could give me that power and not have to worry at all!" She beams.

I give her a half-lidded stare. "What about a power that conceptually allows you to finish any paperwork in thirty minutes or less as if you had dedicated your full focus and powers towards it?"

"Any paperwork?" She questions.

"All paperwork. Conceptually. You could have an entire room filled with paperwork and you'd finish it in thirty minutes every time."

"That kind of sounds like something I could have you swap in when I need it. But... swapping some of Coil's assets over to my name... yeah, I might need it soon. I've just been putting off digging into that mess." The girl sighs, scratching the side of her head.

"There's other options as well. I have an expansive list after a- SHIT!"

"What?! What is it? Is it going to blow-"

"Tony Stark just got kidnapped..." I reveal.

Lisa is silent for a long moment.

"Fuck. you want us to rescue him... don't you?"

"Think of it this way, we save him. Then we steal a quarter of a billion dollars from him." I shrug with a small grin.

She opens her mouth to reply, but after a moment her mouth closes. "Huh... do you even know where he was?"

"Afghanistan. There's a rogue teleporter, right? Strider? See if you can contact him on PHO and ask him about his rates. We'll need a teleport over to Afghanistan, then one back to Brockton... we can leave Tony outside on the boardwalk." 

"And you won't feel bad about taking a not so small portion of your father's net worth?"

"Think of it as... child support with late fees!" I beam as I turn back to my glowing arc reactor. 

"I'll see what I can do... we'll need to find him, first. I'll ask Strider about his rates and see if the rest of the gang is up for it." The girl notes. "It's a massive pay-day so they'll probably agree."

"In that case... I'll begin on my actual combat gear... plus make some more reactors. I'm going to be busy, but hey, Noctis Cape. Sleep is for the weak."

"On the topic of Noctis Capes. does your 'weak' power granting have anything similar? I know I'd certainly like to cast aside the need for sleep. It really cramps my productivity~" the blonde hums.

I let out a quiet 'tsk' and ponder for a moment. "Not... yet... there's an interesting power combination that basically gives it to you, but the issue is that you'd need three power slots... which is possible, I suppose. Who knows how many I'll eventually be able to give out."

"And the pieces? What's the best you can do right now?"

"Hybernation. Four times as good as normal sleep and you can trigger it at will."

"Gimmie." The girl grins.

I look over her for a moment. Closing my eyes briefly.

Should I make this a 'permanent' power.

Should I let her know I CAN do that?

"..."

Not yet.

"Here."

I place my hand on her shoulder. I can feel the zap of power transferring over to her and taking hold.

I bring a hand to my chest.

Black bones has been mastered!

It took a month but...

"Hey, Lisa... I want to test something."

"Yeah?"

"I'm about to make myself a superhuman. I want to see how good this power combo makes me. Can you run some calculations for me afterwards?"

"Well, you're a blind spot so that'll be a little hard... but I should be able to get around that by focusing on whatever it is you are hitting instead."

"Neat!"

I follow after her, we make our way to a little in-house gym.

Turns out Coil or whoever made this backup base had it packed with everything someone staying here full time might need. So a fully fleshed out kitchen, a gym, a bedroom, and a lot of spare space.

It's more of a complex than a bunker.

Worthy of the title of 'supervillain base'. It's got style.

I'm considering moving in, but ah... people are probably watching my house. PRT mainly.

But walking all the way here every day is dangerous. Especially going through ABB and Merchant territory.

Eventually someone will try to mug me. In this city it's not a matter of 'if' only when.

Meh, I can change my residence quite easily. I need to also get that youtube channel up and running... and my game itself.

My overall plan for the game is... frankly a little brilliant.

You see, if I wanted to launder money with a NORMAL game, I'd need to make millions of accounts and repeatedly buy the game with said accounts.

However... if there was in-game currency... I could get away with far more with less!

Basically I plan to make a Hearthstone-like.

Each 'expansion' I do will allow me to launder upwards of two hundred dollars per account.

Super useful if I can automate it.

I pause in front of a punching bag and raise my fists.

I slam several punches into it.

"Ehhh pretty normal? I guess?" The blonde watching calls out.

"That was a baseline." I announce. "Here's a power called 'lung'.

Suddenly... it's as if the world opens up, I inhale... and keep inhaling, and keep inhaling...

Then I exhale... and exhale... and exhale.

I take another deep breath and punch forwards as hard as I can again.

"Huh... thirty percent increase. Not bad."

I swap out the power and briefly cough and sputter.

For a moment it feels as if I'm being strangled. As if I'm not getting enough air, but it passes quickly. "W-Well- that wasn't pleasant. Now for the combo power."

My hand shoots forwards like a bullet, as I grin, the punching bag ripples, being shoved back so hard it nearly does a full flip.

Many more of those and it's probably tear.

"HOLY SHIT!" I can hear the girl curse.

I land a few more crushing blows on the punching bag before I allow my hands to fall.

"How was that?" I ask slowly.

"Around a three hundred percent increase... I'd estimate brute two. And to think, you can just give out that sort of power."

"Yep." I clench and un-clench my fist. "Lung also stacks with it. Not to a great extent like the combination of the others, but it should still improve the overall strength by a small bit."

"You'd be horrifying as a gang leader, you know that right?"

"I've been considering it." I admit. "Taking over the underworld to control what happens in the underworld. If I became the area's kingpin I could probably change this city for the better."

"Meh. I prefer to be a low priority on everyone's lists. Being an annoying villain-adjacent rogue more than supervillain suits me fine." The girl shrugs. 

"You're probably right." I admit. "Just wishful thinking."