The continuing interludes of Alexis Morgan(updated 3/31/10)

[Morganite]

A short Alexis interlude
Based on a random idea I had before going to work this afternoon.

---

When you lived in Paragon City, you got used to seeing lots of very strangely dressed people. The only ones who looked weirder than the heroes were the supervillains they fought. (Or was it the other way around?)
That being said, a naked redhead stalking towards the base portal still managed to turn a few heads. In most cases though, the audible snarling and unsheathed sword was sufficient to turn heads back the other way...
***
Alexis continued to mutter under her breath as she entered the base. If one listened closely, one could her her say complete gibberish.
"Arageteravaut'vah rafrazinmrgnbln nlvrdiplx..."
*Why? Why is it that every time I upgrade the wand, it ends up disappearing my clothes at least once. And it can't even do it when I'm working on it, no, it has to happen when I'm in combat! (At least the clockwork don't care what you have on...)*
She sighed as she sat down at the worktable, thankfully not in use at this hour. A mental command dropped her transformation, sending the sword in her hand to Someplace Else and replacing it with her henshin wand. Her hair resumed it's normal state of short and black, but she wouldn't be able to regain her normal clothes until she cleared the error state from the wand.
"I thought I'd fixed this months ago... and last month... and a couple weeks ago... and thursday..." she mumbled as she twisted the star on the top of the wand. With a series of incongruous ratcheting noises it expanded first into it's full baton form, and then into maintainence form, a bewildering tangle of wires and chips that took up most of the table. Dimensional compression made for lazy engineers, something that she as a lazy engineer appreciated. Besides, with this design she didn't have to solder anything. And there was nothing less fun than soldering naked.
She wished the original manufacturer had just put hardware protection on the costume RAM the way the energy converter was. (And that was certainly a blessing - having all her defenses go away at random would be even worse than just her clothes going away.) But they hadn't, and she didn't know quite enough about these systems to put it in herself. Just improving things enough to keep up with the local villains was taking everything she knew.
And this mod wouldn't even help with that. But it would help with her peace of mind. She kept feeling something -weird- when she was untransformed in the base, and she wanted to know what it was. And adding the new L-scanners to the wand would give her the precision her normal senses lacked to figure out, if not what it was, at least where it was.
As expected, the problem was another buffer overflow. The software should have shut down the new module before that happened, but that never seemed to work quite the way it should.
Alexis checked the wall clock as she returned the wand to operating mode. Good, still in time for her appointment. Justice did in fact wait for some, but it appreciated punctuality nonetheless.
"PRETTY MUTATION, MAGICAL RECALL!"
Ah, sweet sweet pseudofabric. Whatever would we do without you.

---

Yep, the invisible penguin is getting on her nerves.
If Alexis wasn't based on an RP avatar character, she'd probably be really mad at me for making the disappearing-clothes a recurring problem.
You are so lucky we're not into masochism.
*sweatdrop*
-Morgan, doesn't know what the posessive of "Alexis" is. Alexis's? Alexis'? @.@"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[Acyl]

---

With a series of incongruous ratcheting noises it expanded first into it's full baton form, and then into maintainence form, a bewildering tangle of wires and chips that took up most of the table.

---

This just cracked me up. Cracked me totally. The mental image of a technologically engineered magical girl, that's just brilliant. Random nekkidness due to bugs in the system...that's just icing.
Mmm. Random nekkidness.
h_h
*ahem*

---

-Morgan, doesn't know what the posessive of "Alexis" is. Alexis's? Alexis'? @.@

---

Actually both Alexis's and Alexis' are correct. There's no hard and fast rule deciding which to use. It's literally a matter of whatever sounds right.
And I do mean sounds right, as in, phonetically. To use an example from the BBC:
* My house is older than Mrs Evans'
If you read that out loud, it might sound like you're saying your house is older than the woman herself. But if you say:
* 'My house is older than Mrs Evans's
It's clear you're comparing your home to hers.
...but, yeah, that bit of grammar always bugs me. Silly English.

-- Acyl

[Foxboy]

The technomagic like that is also used in the anime Nanoha.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Acyl]

I...didn't know that, actually. I gotta see if I can find that one. Hm.
-- Acyl

[Valles]

Fansubs are available.
And you don't need to watch it because of the technomagic. You need to watch it because it's one of the best shows to come out in the last few years, and because Nanoha herself is the most entertainingly different mahou shoujo I've ever seen.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[Morganite]

---

This just cracked me up. Cracked me totally. The mental image of a technologically engineered magical girl, that's just brilliant. Random nekkidness due to bugs in the system...that's just icing.

---

Combinations of magic and technology have always been one of my favorite ideas.
The basic idea with Alexis is that she is in fact a magician in her own right, but the kind of magic she uses is useful for just about everything *except* combat. The transformation takes whatever magical energy she gives to it and converts it into different forms. In the original RP, she was able to transform into a variety of different forms, with different costumes and abilities, but that's not exactly possible in CoH.
(The multiple form thing is actually a positive side effect of the same bug that originally caused the random nakedness. An improperly shielded telepathic interface allowed the system to take images from her mind for forms in addition to the original hardcoded one - but it also made her clothes disappear whenever anyone said "naked girl" and she didn't actually see any other naked girls around. That particular bug was fixed, but the question of "Why are these people saying naked girl when no naked girls are around?" remains unanswered...)
-Morgan."I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[Morganite]

I think I've got an idea why my sisters never developed much skill at swordfighting. No matter what happens to them, they aren't really injured, and they don't feel pain.
I, on the other hand, do feel pain, even with the defense fields. And when you spend a lot of time around people who like to attack you with hatchets and sledgehammers, it gives you a lot of incentive to learn new tricks. Like hitting the sledgehammer just right so that the bozo holding it will swing it around and hit his own kneecap. I've got to remember that one.
[OOC: Alexis reached level 8, and learned Divine Avalanche/Parry.]

[Morganite]

If a disinterested observer saw the way Alexis was stumbling around, they might wonder if she was drunk or otherwise intoxicated.
But here in the base of The Legendary, there were only interested observers...
***
I'd never known how disorienting lifeforce scanners could be. Yeah, I'd used them before, but they were external units. External *precalibrated* units. But with the new scanner integrated into my transformation, when it's turned on it's output becomes part of what I see. And with what I was seeing, I'm lucky I managed to get my balance back without injuring myself.
The problem is that there's just plain a lot of life around. Bacteria and viruses are everywhere, and even if they don't have much energy, they make up for it in sheer numbers. The system can filter it out once you tell it to, but I, being an idiot, hadn't thought of doing that before turning it on.
Anyway, that minor technical difficulty solved, no injuries, no mess on the floor to clean up (stomach of steel!), and... the creepy stalker doesn't seem to be around. Whatever sense has been letting me feel it isn't as sharp when I'm transformed, but I think I'd know if it was here now that I'm on to it, and it isn't. Still, now would be a good opportunity to finish the calibrations. I don't expect to use this much in combat - it won't really tell me anything I don't already know, given the way things go around here - but there might be some other things to be learned nonetheless. For instance, I wonder if clockwork will show up on it? Most of the mechanical lifeforms the organization's run into in the past do, but they've also all been far more advanced. No one really understands exactly how L-scanners work yet; maybe this could get us a little closer to understanding them.
I was wandering around the base, whispering correction factors to the interface, when I noticed a glowing spot in one of the database terminals. Now, it could be we've got an AI living here and I just didn't get the memo, but if not then there's no good reason for the terminal to be glowing.
As I stared quizically at it, the spot started moving towards me. I had no idea how to interpret *this*, and before I had a chance to think about it, I found myself flat on my back and with my arms full of girl.
Only a moment passed before the girl lifted her head from my chest, and she looked up at me with bright blue eyes. "Onee-nichan!" she called sweetly before snuggling up again.
"Mirami??"
***
There are some weird aspects to my family. (Like the fact that the two women I call sisters are actually my dimensional counterparts.) But Mirami comes from an even more unusual branch.
It started some years ago. There was a ship whose very existance my sisters and I found objectionable. (Don't ask me to explain, it'd take too long and I don't really want to get into it right now.) Normally, we'd just have blown it up, but the sort of magic that was attached to it made that impractical. So instead, we sunk it to the deepest part of the ocean we could find.
Anyway, to get past some of the security that was in place, we used an experimental biocomputer that actually fused with the ships hull.
It wasn't until months later that we learned that the biocomputer had become sentient. Somehow, she'd also learned how to project holograms of herself, which is how she showed up at the lab looking for her mother. (And didn't the idea of Confusion - Zephyr Talia if you're in Paragon City - being a mother surprise us! Oh, I'm not saying it won't ever happen, but I think it'll probably take a few centuries still before she's ready to settle down.)
She called herself Aigami, or Ai for short. With long blonde hair and blue eyes, she looked absolutely nothing like any of the people she could consider her parents.
Of course, we had no idea who she was or what was going on to start with, but eventually we figured out what was going on. It may seem a bit surprising that she wasn't bitter about being stuck at the bottom of the ocean, but really, with her holographic projection abilities, it doesn't much matter where her physical core is.
Mirami could be considered sort of like Ai's younger sister; she awoke during an experiment in magic-enhanced supercomputing. I'm not sure whether to think we're doing something right or something wrong; we never replicated the design that created Aigami, so we don't know if it was the nature of the design or some other force. And no other intelligences like Mirami have shown up so far.
Oh, and just in case you didn't think the familial arrangements were complicated enough, Mirami considers herself to be the younger sister of myself, Confusion, and Discord. Which would make her Ai's aunt as well as her sister. Kind of makes your head hurt. (Though I think Mirami gets too many of her ideas on being a younger sister from H games...)
Anyway, Mirami's never been too interested in getting involved in operations. She hangs around when we aren't out on assignment, or doing experiments with large EM pulses or things like that. (EMP won't kill her, but it's apparently not a lot of fun.) And I knew she was capable of dimensional transition even if I have no idea how... but I never expected her to follow me to Paragon City.
***
"Mira-chan... It's not that I'm not happy to see you, but why were you hanging around in the database?" I asked.
"I was bored, and wanted to see what you were doing," she responded. It wasn't that surprising an answer. One thing both quasi-immortals like my sisters and AI projections like my other sisters have in common is that they often do things because they get bored and think it'd be a good idea.
That still left a few other questions though. "And why are you wearing a copy of the Operation Sanctuary school uniform?" It wasn't an exact copy, mind you. I'm not sure why, since as a projection she could make it look like whatever she wanted.
"Confusion-neechan said you'd like it."
"Actually," I said, thinking back to the conversation I'd had with Confusion before I left, "I think what I said was that I'd like to cosplay in this uniform sometime."
"Well, when you do, we'll match!" I could almost hear her smile.
I couldn't see it though, which lead into the next question. "Why do you still have your face pressed against me like that?"
"Onee-nichan has really soft breasts..."
I blushed. It can be hard to tell, since my face always looks a bit red, but right then I was definately blushing. "Up!"
Mirami pouted, but got up anyway. Freeing me to get up also, and start worrying about whether there might be any problems with her being considered an intruder. Discretion being the better part of not getting perforated, I waved to her to follow me and start heading for the exit. "So," I asked, "How long have you been watching me?"
She shrugged. "Long enough. It looks kind of fun."
I stared at her like she was crazy. If she were an ordinary human I'd think she really was crazy, but for a bored AI it's... actually not that surprising. "I suppose that means you'll want to register as a superhero and start fighting crime too." Nod nod. "And I suppose you've come up with something to actually do to the criminals."
"Uh huh!" Conveniently (for us), we then passed by a mugging in progress. (Some days it seems like you can't go ten feet without running into one.) Mirami held her hand out towards the mugger. A glowing green circle appeared beneath him, and a moment later... he just fell over.
I thought about what I had just seen. "Mira, you are going to give the field dynamics people back home fits when they see this."
She just smiled at me. Oh well, what can it hurt? (Well, other than the skulls, hellions, council, circle, ... but who cares about that?)

---

Notes:
I created Mirami a while back, around two basic ideas - "I can make a costume that looks a lot like the Operation Sanctuary school uniform, so I think I'll do it" and "I want to play a rad/rad defender". I hadn't come up with any background or personality for her, and certainly didn't have any plans for linking her to Alexis. But when I started thinking about her testing out her new scanners in the base, and seeing an odd spot in the computers... it just sort of happened. (Though Mirami-in-the-game has the wrong color hair to fit this scenario - I'm not sure what color it should be, but the color it is now just doesn't work.)
Aigami and her history is part of the background for some RP stuff that never quite got the right opportunity to actually happen.
And I think I did mix up my past and present tense usage somewhere in here again. As I've noted before, just because you know you're making a mistake isn't always enough to stop you from making it... ^_^;;;;
-Morgan, still spending more time on FFXI than CoH lately... *shrug*"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[Morganite]

There are a lot of different kinds of heroes in this city, and they have a lot of different ways of improving their powers.
Most of them, I just don't get.
Okay, so learning improved techniques makes enough sense. Upgrading your equipment is certainly familiar enough. But the rest...
The mutant types seem to improve themselves by taking in higher quality genetic material. Which my experience in genetic tampering tells me should accomplish *absolutely nothing*.
Then there's those people I see going into that one set of labs over there. You know, the ones that glow interesting colors in the dark? I'm not sure what they do in there, but I try to keep a few blocks between me and that place.
Then you've got the magic users, and I go from uncertain to bewildered.
I once saw a guy leaving a shop with a few dozen gauntlets, a pile of visors, enough amulets to drown several small enemies, and who knows how many earrings, rings, and other small trinkets. What is he going to do with all of them? Maybe AD&D was unusually restrictive on the number of items one could wear, but this is ridiculous.
Admittedly, I was leaving with a full bag of my own at the time. But I'm sure not planning on wearing any of this junk. I just take it home, put my wand into maintainence mode, and wire it all up to collecters inside. All the power I need, and I get to stay looking like me instead of like some kind of jewelry golem.
(Not to mention that I'm pretty sure some of this stuff is malevolently enchanted. But to the energy converter, a curse is just another source of power...)
Mirami? She puts her stuff in a big pile under my bed. It seems to serve about the same purpose for her.
Sometimes I wonder where all this stuff comes from. Serious magical items are pretty rare back home. Probably because they aren't usually worth the effort. They either burn out after one use, like DBI crystals, or they only work for the maker. Easier to just do it yourself most of the time. If I had a datajack there wouldn't even be any advantage for me in using enchanted computer parts...
But here? Shopping bags.
Not that this stuff is incredible quality workmanship or anything. Doesn't take more than a few weeks before most of it'll run out of power. And it seems to be like that even for people who use the stuff normally. But it's no problem, because there's plenty of replacement stock available. What happened to enchantment being hard work?
It looks like we should have everyone keep an eye out for any active enchanters. However they manage to produce so much stuff, if the technique could be applied to DBI crystal production it would be a significant asset. And after all, a dark blade imprint only really needs to work once...

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, cool! More good stuff to read to Peggy!
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Bob Schroeck]

---

I once saw a guy leaving a shop with a few dozen gauntlets, a pile of visors, enough amulets to drown several small enemies, and who knows how many earrings, rings, and other small trinkets. What is he going to do with all of them? Maybe AD&D was unusually restrictive on the number of items one could wear, but this is ridiculous.

---

That reminds me... I remember the first time I saw DO enhancements in the game -- I had no idea what they were, or why Julius the Troll would be selling them. I was playing a magic toon at the time, so it was stuff just like the list above. I bought one (I forget what now) thinking it was a new kind of equipment, and spent way too much time trying to figure out how to move it into my power tray...
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Morganite]

I was sitting at an unused worktable in the base, sorting through a pile of junk I'd gotten off the idiots. And would most likely sell to idiots. Really,
if one needs some clockwork parts, why don't they just go out and disassemble a few themselves? It's not like they're hard to find.

Still, money was money. No point in passing up resources that might be useful if we need to expand operations here.

I'd just about finished when I heard a whooshing noise from behind. I didn't bother turning around. I already knew what it was.

A moment later, something soft hit my back. "Onee-nichan!" Mirami called as she wrapped her arms around me. "I have something nice for
you!"

"Oh?" She let go of me, and I turned around in time to see her pull an envelope out of nowhere in particular. I opened it up and found a thin book
inside.

On the cover was.... me. In a very naughty pose.

"... You made doujinshi of me." I turned the book over. On the back was a picture of someone I didn't recognize, though I kind of felt like I
should. The caption said 'Nogitsune', but that didn't ring any bells. "Okay, not of just me."

"Aren't you going to read it?"

I shrugged, turned it back over, and started reading. It didn't take long before I felt like I was blushing enough to match my hair. "Well, at least
I'm in character..."

[Guest]

(Snicker)

On a related note, I just realized - Mirami should have a new friend in the form of the new base computer AI. (Evil Grin)

[Morganite]

I'm not sure they'd really have much to talk about. '.' As noted somewhere or other, she doesn't really think much like the typical depiction of
AIs. (In particular, her thought/perception speed for most purposes is in human range.)

In other news, I figured out what pose Alexis is in on the cover. And I'm seriously tempted to try to get someone to draw it. Because if you can't
commission ecchi artwork of yourself, who can you commission ecchi artwork of?

-Morgan.

[Morganite]

*** MORGAN & ANTARES INTERNAL MAIL SYSTEM ***
TO: "Karin Yamazaki" (Operations director) - karin.c.operations
TO: "Artificial Intelligence Honey" (Operations coordinator) - honey.a.operations
FROM: "Morgan" (Agent-in-charge, Paragon City) - morgan.f.operations
LOCATION: (435974...; 668782...; 580964...) [7.33, .043]
SUBJECT: Prepare for Operation Beartrap.
ATTACHMENT: council_base_107.gimage
***BEGIN MESSAGE***

Remember Archon Mitner?

Yes, yes, I know you do Honey, but us humans (and certain sisters of mine) sometimes have to at least check our notes.

Most of these Council guys are real bastards, but they aren't stupid enough to go borrowing trouble. Sure, they'll kill me if they can, but they aren't stupid enough to try and draw attention to themselves from me or anyone else. If they can get their business done without me (or anyone else for that matter) interfering, they'll take the chance.

Well, except this moron, who seems to have decided to make it personal. So I say, let's use it against him.

I know at least one of you is going to argue that we should save this for someone more important, because it probably won't work more than once. And you're probably right about that last part. But I don't think we're likely to find anyone more important who is also -stupid- enough to fall for this. And we can't keep the resources being held for this operation tied up forever.

Besides, it's not about doing damage (although Mitner is a thorn I will be glad to be rid of). It's about sending a message.

Barring any unforseen issues (or really convincing arguments for putting this off), I want us to be ready to go by the end of next week. Karin, you know the people we'll need. Let me know immediately once you've confirmed Mr. Kagura's availability, he's the one person we can't go on without. Honey, the attached file is for you. It's a gamma-level image file for the communications system in a Council base we carefully avoided yesterday. That should be enough to make a patch that will give them the information we want them to have. I'll leave it to your discretion who to assign that to, just make sure it's good. If they think the information could be spurious, the whole thing falls apart.

Contact me immediately if there are any problems. We may be safe to abort this plan at any stage, but I'm sure none of us will be happy about wasting the time and resources that have already gone into it.
***END MESSAGE***

---

This started as a random idea, that I got inspired to turn into an actual story while at work tonight. Will probably continue it sometime when I'm not working evenings. '.'

-Morgan.

[Morganite]

(Reserved for Operation Beartrap, Part 2)

[Morganite]

(Reserved for Operation Beartrap, Part 3)

[Morganite]

*** MORGAN & ANTARES INTERNAL MAIL SYSTEM ***
TO: "Morgan" (Agent-in-charge, Paragon City) - morgan.f.operations
FROM: "Artificial Intelligence Shamal" (Research & Development coordinator) - shamal.a.rd
LOCATION: (217444...; 113875...; 492138...) [2.14, .811]
Subject: Old developments.
***BEGIN MESSAGE***

Do you remember those "artiforgs" that Quinn's team confiscated back during the Foundation?

No one else did either. Most of them got passed on to the new company, but it turns out a few samples had been left in storage under "Medical Devices, misc." I can't imagine why they weren't noticed earlier, but the discovery seems to have come in good time. The team working on boomer technology applications was running into some snags, and the artiforg design provided them some ideas to handle the problem. In fact, I can now announce that the Morgan & Antares Emergency Replacement Body project was a rousing success!

Where by "rousing" I mean "The prototype was immediately posessed by our resident ghost."

She was ready and eager to take the fight to the enemy, too. I think it nearly broke her heart when operations reported that Lady Discord had finished wiping out the species responsible for her situation decades ago. Once she got over the disappointment, she said she still wanted to officially join Morgan & Antares.

Given the circumstances, the best plan seems to be to send her to join you in Paragon. The prototype isn't entirely biomimetic yet, and the team doesn't feel they can complete that without further test data. Very few places we have operations are feasible for persons with obvious cybernetics, and almost none would be safe for someone unexperienced. Basically, it's either this or Miss Ayano gets to climb the walls at HQ for weeks, which isn't likely to make anyone happy.

I think I can safely guess what your response will be, but you know about minimum protocol. Please reply soon, I think she's already going a bit stir-crazy. Seems being a ghost really does things to one's time perception.
***END MESSAGE***

---

Things that suddenly come to me at work. I think this combines at least six random ideas I'd had floating around into one origin story. Let's see...

-Girl who was sacrificed to demonic entities, who agents then genocided.
-Adapting boomer technology to make replacement bodies for critically injured agents.
-Poking the movie "Repo Men" with a long sharp stick.
-Boomer being posessed by... something. (I seem to remember having the idea as a Crossover That Should Not Be, but I can't remember what *kind* of entity it was. Something more specific than just ghost, I'm sure. Can't remember if I actually posted about it either.)

... It felt like there were more things than that. '.';;;

-Morgan.