Grrl Power #471 – Ordnance disposal: Expert level
So Max is fast. Not Flash Silver Age light speed fast. That creates severe writing problems as far as I’m concerned, even if you ignore all the shockwaves, and explosive friction and X-ray blasts. Even still, Max’s speed is the first thing any opponent of hers needs to be able to counter. Thanks to Sydney’s heads up and her speed, Max gets a +17 to initiative. (Or a -9 or a +5 or +2d6 depending on whatever system you prefer)
I’m pretty pleased with this page, I wasn’t sure if blurring the backgrounds instead of Max would give the effect I wanted but I think it turned out good. The only real failing, art wise, is that Kat doesn’t seem to have any reaction to someone blowing up the door to the chamber. My thought when I started penciling was that she hadn’t had time to react yet, but I don’t think it reads that way. I guess I could go the other way and say her Lycanthrope reflexes allowed her to track what was happening and saw that Max was neutralizing the threat… but – while Lycans are definitely stronger than humans and a bit faster, but not “sit calmly while someone defuses a live grenade mid flight” fast. So, you know, live and learn. I’ll get it next time.
BTW the grenade contained silver buckshot, iron, and I’m not sure what the 3rd one is. Lots of fairy tail creatures have real specific weaknesses, so it could be anything. Wood pellets of assorted types, or salt? I think either of those would get vaporized by the shaped charge behind them. Though I guess they could be little hollow sabot rounds with all sorts of stuff in them, like wood, salt, I don’t know, seashells, baby teeth. Of course that may be over thinking it. A wood nymph might react just as badly to white phosphorous as a human would.
I have a surprise for you guys. Eee! I’m so excited! So Wearing the Cape is one of my favorite superhero novel series. I’ve mentioned it before, usually when a new volume comes out, and guess what?
<—— Hmm. One of those gals looks familiar.
A while ago, Marion G. Harmon, the author of WtC (and as it turns out, reader of Grrl Power) contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in co-writing a cross over story with him. Naturally I said yes, even though I’ve never really written much in the way of prose before. The basic premise of the book is, as the “Team-Ups & Crossovers” subtitle suggests, Astra (the WtC protagonist) goes tumbling across dimensions and bumps into various other realities including a few people you might recognize if you’re a voracious consumer of all things superhero. Now keep in mind, the chapter in the Grrl-verse is just one section of the book, but this is a canon story for Sydney and co. It takes place just a bit in the future of the comic. Sydney is a private, but there’s nothing that spoils anything between then and now. Here’s a like to the kindle version. The paperback will be available in the coming weeks.
I mostly wrote Sydney’s sections and Marion mostly wrote Astra’s, but there was a lot of back and forth and editing and I think it came out really good. (Though you can safely assume any dip in the quality of the prose is one of my sections. :)
The November vote incentive is updated. It’s sort of a teaser from the crossover. It doesn’t give anything away really, it’s like a comic book cover that has elements of the story inside but doesn’t actually spoil anything. “Ah, I see in this issue of X-men, Wolverine fights Sabertooth in a forest. Again. Apparently, the thing that Wolverine is best at is maintaining muti-decade grudges.”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. (As soon as I get up. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
considering the number of vampires, I was assuming blue was holy water.
I would suspect that all of the canisters had something different meaning the first one was for the door so that was conventional explosives I would suspect that all of the canisters had something different, meaning the first one was for the door so that was going to contain conventional explosives. The rest of the loads would have things targeting the entities I like the silver shot for the vampires, iron shot for the day, and not liquid holy water but maybe Deep Frozen holy water pellets. Liquid water would be vaporized in the blast and not provide good Target penetration. Hard frozen water brings back to the ice bullet scenario hard frozen water brings back to the ice bullet scenario for the vampires everyone else is going to have lots of holes and them. And I’m bet that’s what they’re susceptible to. However it would not be difficult to load tertiary cartridges with stuff that is more specific to the slower reacting Cadre of this meeting.
Am I missing something, but what happened to Syd’s glasses in the last panel?
Oh, uh, whoops!
And panel #3 :P
panel 3 is understandable she is still a good distance away and her frames are wire so they are small enough not to be seen. The glasses are transparent, also the lenses aren’t at the right angle to reflect any light at the viewer ( us ). If any thing there may be a pixel or two accost the nose we might see for that frame.
Right about wire-frame glasses being not easy to see. I stopped wearing them because without my glasses I couldn’t ever find them.
Maybe her glasses fell off?
Recoil in horror at the “Evil Creepy Mannequin” hitting her shield, making her glasses jump off her face? Yeah, sounds plausible. Mr DaveB, sound good to you? That would also mean just adding them in quietly next comic we see the bottom of her shield bubble…
No, I can see the frame. (I’m not a patron.)
Fairytales are quite different from fairy tails…
Yeah, I don’t see Lucy Heartfilia here.
And furry-tails, not to mention… duck tails :P
Sydney has already been exposed to a fairy’s ‘tail’.
And we have not seen enough of Trilla, for that matter!
I admit it. My first thought on seeing that handprint on the whatever-it-is’s face was that it had somehow breached Maxima’s all but invulnerable skin. Perhaps it had some kind of mystical, magical armor plating underneath all of that SWAT armor that even Max was vulnerable too?
Then I remembered that Maxima bleeds blue.
Does that make her royalty, her being a blue-blood and all?
A royal gold elf.
Or, as Ariana might describe her, a royal pain?
Not everyone is a princess.
I sure hope not, because I enjoy being a guy.
What’s yer point?
You mean one besides the one on the top of my head?
:-O Exposing yourself, in public!
*covers eyes with paws*
I expose myself to the public on an almost daily basis. Or at least those parts of me which it is socially acceptable to expose.
I figure the hand print is from the one that is animating the manikins. its the control part of the spell.
Blood magic or sympathetic control though?
Yup! That’s where my mind went as soon as I realized that my first assumption was wrong. I don’t know enough about how magic is supposed to work to make any kind of guess about how or why it should work, but it seemed a reasonable second assumption.
Interestingly, I never once imagined that the “Evil Creepy Mannequin” itself was injured and somehow bleeding from being walloped by Maxima. Well, it’s interesting to me, anyway . . .
It is interesting to me.
How can so many people be so wrong? :-D
*wags tail cheekily*
I will answer you by quoting you.
Such fine words of wisdom, require an eloquent retort.
And now… an even more elegant retort!
Also, +1
+1
And THAT is what happens if you do not get your Surprise round on Maxima.
@Katrina: Of course it is Silver. What else would shoot shoot first into a room full of Lycanthrophes?
Lead Mannequin[1]: Do over?
[1] Assuming they can talk.
And Vampires, I hear lots of holy relics are made from silver, might hurt them too. I think silver would hurt plenty of these folk, even if it’s mainly due to it’s velocity…
Some holy relics are made from holly. For tree-hugging Druids. Witch wood work well against some faction members, amongst other types of would. If they found a way to stop them burning up or otherwise being destroyed by the explosion.
And if there’s anything that could make those druids stars, holly would.
I doubt the 3rd pellet contains liquid or gas: considering the 3 pellets look like capsules with no intrinsic delivery mechanism, then the 2 unopen pellets are likely to be the same “type” as the open one: i.e. buckshot. The delivery mechanism is I assume in the grenade round (hence the logical need to
disarmdisassemble it. Lets just assume Maxima knows her ordinance.Iron buckshot is common (cheap). Silver, while expensive, would be reasonable to use since you’re coming up against weres (clearly from Katrina’s reaction).
So what does the 3rd pellet contain?? Has to be something dense: lightweight buckshot is NOT going to work with a standard delivery system. Copper buckshot?? Cheaper than silver, got to be poisonous to someone – and still gonna hurt. OR magic infused copper buckshot?? Really expensive because each copper pellet needs magic runes carved onto surface, but will injure/maim/kill almost anything. OR (for DND fans) how about earthbound wood buckshot?? Wood splinters kill vampires right??
what about a type of salt. in supernatural they use salt against demons. could be season salt. im not sure if it needed to be any type of salt just had to be salt. season salt is that color.
my idea was holy water soaked wood, its a two for one
The wood being pieces of the True Cross. The iron being from the Spear of Longinus. Both of which are soaked in the blood of Christ The silver is from Judas’s silver coins.
Somebody wanted to make sure that there were no evil survivors from this attack!
“Lets just assume Maxima knows her ordinance.”
This looks like a job for Pedantic Man!
An ‘ordinance’ is a type of law. An ‘ordnance’ is a type of munition.
Or is it ‘ammunition’? Oh well, its not like anyone gets picky over little things like that.
Could be Cold Iron? (For taking out Fey), or perhaps salt or holey water?(Though the Silver might also be effective against vampires too…)
Oh God THIS IS THE LAST PAGE SO FAR?! NOOOOOOOOO–!
Don’t worry you get more every Monday and Thursday, without fail. Plus a continually active comments section.
And you will have missed an awful lot in the body of the comic, unless you realised how many references, interesting details and even major plot hints are subtly inserted on many pages. You can get a lot of mileage from a reread or by checking out the comments.
Hang on, I thought your avatar looked familiar. I remember you making comments before. Such as on June 1, 2016 at 12:46 pm.
Please proceed as if I had not given you an unneeded welcome speech. :-)
Welcome to the comic. We’re a friendly bunch.
We should be, considering how many of us are totally bananas.
Well nobody called ‘disassembling the grenade’, nicely played Dave! Congrats to all those suggesting silver payload (etc). :-)
“I’m pretty pleased with this page, I wasn’t sure if blurring the backgrounds instead of Max would give the effect I wanted but I think it turned out good.”
That’s how the Japanese do it. It conveys the sense that you’re “along for the ride”. I like it.
Yep, all good here too. Works well :)
For an example of an author who has tackled those issues head on, see Kissed by a Muse. One of the author’s main characters, Flicker, can achieve .8c, cannot fly but can jump to the moon, and has a trans-dimensional brain merged with her fleshy brain which allows her to think fast enough to react despite the enormous speeds she is capable of. She also destroyed an alien invasion by throwing rocks. Give it a read, it’s published online in chapter format, and it is free.
one of his main characters,
Don’t think about it too much. In Shadowrun all guns are assumed to fire caseless ammunition with electronic firing and yet you can still buy wood pulp, explosive, and even frangible rounds.
Bunnies are fast. So fast that they are used as a metaphor for speed. And were creatures are always better than the base animal, be it stronger, bigger or having sharper claws and teeth. A were-bun will be incredibly fast.
Yet Katrina was the one saying “Good Lord she’s fast!”, not even having had the time to get out of her seat, by the time Maxima had already taken out the first womanikin.
well yah earlier in the series it was said that she is the only one to carry a loaded gun because if it went off she could move the target and do their taxes before the bullet left the gun. I’m looking for the page, i think i have 2 meshed together because on is during recruit training and the other is close to halos interrogation before the press con.
Maxima is the only person allowed to do horseplay with the guns at the range. because if everything goes to pot, she can actually catch the bullet. they have a minigun on display there (its maxima’s) you can shoot it if you can actually pick it up.
the do your taxes bit is probably from the very beginning when the bank ‘robbery’ was being discussed.
Actually if Maxima did conduct potentially dangerous horseplay, with live guns, the rangemaster (Peggy) would likely have her up on a charge. Regardless of their respective ranks.
Although what Maxima did in the scene could be interpreted as a prank, it was far from it. It was vitally important training, designed to make Sydney realise that threatening somebody with a Christmas tree ornament in her hand, will not necessarily be taken as a credible threat!
Armed police have a legal obligation to ensure that anybody they encounter, in a hostile situation, knows that to be the case. So they will announce “Armed police, lay down your weapon”, for example. However if the police officer does not appear to be armed, this is not a credible threat. So may not be taken seriously. And the officer could be held partially to account for that, for failing to ensure that the weapon was visible.
Most importantly though, it could lead to loss of life. Be it Halo’s, a fellow officer, one or more innocent bystanders or the criminal themselves. Maxima would not want to see Sydney traumatized by having to burn somebody to death, to protect people. Training Sydney to properly intimidate a villain, into surrendering, is therefore life or death training.
It should be pointed out that the military routinely use guns in training exercises, the world over. Every time you have military exercises, soldiers are pointing guns at each other. And firing them, albeit with blank rounds.
In this case Maxima was conducting the training, which, as you say, she can do perfectly safely. But only after she received the rangemaster’s permission to conduct the training. To the casual observer it may appear to be banter, but these two have known each other for years. And will have done variants on this exercise before. As demonstrated by both Peggy and Maxima having their own ways of conducting it.
Maxima’s gun only takes one bullet, and Maxima only loads it just prior to firing, keeping it empty at all other times. Especially during the training in question. In the rare event that she needs to fire a gun at all. Plus she observed good protocol in keeping her finger out of the way of the trigger, next to the trigger guard.
You are absolutely right though that the final point is that Max can move fast enough to grab a bullet. As demonstrated in the bank robbery.. However this would only be needed if somehow someone managed to teleport a bullet into her gun and also cause the gun to fire.
“Training Sydney to properly intimidate a villain, into surrendering, is therefore life or death training.”
*Looks at Sydney.*
*Looks back at the other Supers & creatures appearing so far*
*Looks back at Sydney*
Max has her work cut out for her on THAT side of things…
Yep, there’s nothing intimidating about Sydney at all.
In fairness, you’d never guess just from looking at her what Sydney is capable of. Once you’ve gotten to know her, however . . .
Remember that one of the first questions Joel asked after finding out that she got caught in the middle of a bank robbery was, “Is the bank robber okay?”
Lol, yea.
Maxima has before.
Well, I somehow managed to botch the text while getting a functional link??? that was supposed to say “Maxima has actually called Sydney intimidating before.”
Your code was as follows:
Maxima has <a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/453″ title=”actually called Sydney intimidating”> before.</a>
Whereas what you were after was:
Maxima has <a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/453″>actually called Sydney intimidating before</a>
And good point on your comment. Rather impressive when coming from the most powerful super human known on the planet!
No! Not the list!
here it is panel 4… Real life sucks pulling me away before I can answer these promptly.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/335
and here is the other…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1776
Superbly cited! And I had forgotten the ‘You could have disassembled his gun and done his taxes before he had it clear of the holster.”
We may have thought that was an exaggeration, but given that Maxima replied “I … guess I can’t argue with that.” it was actually a very early foreshadowing!
It’s also possible that in panel 4, Kat is still reacting to Max getting out of her chair. She may even have started to speak that line before the door blew. In panel 6, she’s caught up to the grenade events, while Max has moved on to mangling mannequins. Her perceptions could be lagging behind Max’s actions, but still following more quickly than the others.
+1
Congratulations on the Wearing the Cape cross-over! I don’t read it, but I probably should given the several other superhero deconstruction settings I have enjoyed.
My guess on the handprint is that it’s part of magic/ritual/thingy which is animating the mannequins. The controller is likely but not necessary the guy in the knight helmet. Since he has a helmet and walked behind his little mannequin minions, like a proper overlord. But he may be a minion too. The elite/boss one in that case.
The third capsule can be anything really. Blessed oil. Enchanted peanuts. Acid. Magical trinkets or even extra sharp small Lego.
Also I’m seeing enough creepy mannequins in Fallout 4 as it is. I don’t need them in my comics! :O
Sydney get a baseball bat, attach two saw blades on it and start swing until they are pieces! You can’t be sure and safe until then.
I somehow think you won’t be seeing the creepy mannequins in this comic long….
If you don’t want to see any more creepy mannequins, whatever you do, don’t look behind you!.
Extra Sharp Small Lego. I vote for that. After stepping onto a
cratebox of lego, I can attest that they hurt like hell.Used to be called “caltrops”, in another era before tanks were invented
And if you think Legos are bad, try the typical 4-sided dice.
Growing up in South Africa I ran around bare foot most of the time, as did most of my friends. No idea why, we just preferred it I guess. The one spot I would avoid like this though was the camel thorn tree in our garden. It was a very pretty tree mind. And had weaver birds nesting in it, which were beautiful coloured additions to our garden.
The thorns were ideal protection for the nests, keeping cats from climbing the tree. But it also shed thorns regularly. So you would often end up with several scattered around. If playing anywhere near there, I would make sure to put on my sturdy sandals. Even though they mostly lay flat, on the ground.
Despite that, I managed to find out that they can land like caltrops. And ended up with one that went all the way through the thick soles, up through my foot and even punching through the leather bindings on top!
Owww…..
Reminds me of the locust trees where I grew up. They have serious thorns, too. Up to 8 inches long, and I’ve seen them punch through tires as well as shoes (and feet). They’ve been used as fishhooks and spearheads.
Same thing happened to mum, she still has the scar
:-(
Her’s was an acacia tree, it would have been slightly better if it just went straight, but it made an ‘L-turn’ and had to be cut out
Showed her the thorns, and she thinks the really long ones may have been the same, those other weird shaped thorns maybe not
Around my house, it was decorative pyracantha bushes that my parents planted under bedroom windows and on the house’s blindside. But other than that, I grew up nearly always barefoot here in US as well.
Friend of mine managed to puncture his lung a teeny bit on a thorn from a tree (can’t recall which type, at the moment – I’m sure it will come to me hours from now).
You will likely be dreaming of the encounter, from his perspective, and will get the point.
And that sounds awful, for your friend. My mum had been gardening (again when we were in S.Africa) and had a thorn scratch her eye. Seeing that it had been covered in dirt, she immediately went to hospital. Where they immediately gave her emergency treatment.
The specialist who dealt with it said she had been within half an hour of loosing the eye, despite that! It turns out that he had dealt with twelve such accidents, in his time. Ten of whom had been too slow to take it seriously, and had gone blind in the eye (or worse)!
His comment was that African soil has particularly virulent microbes within it. Although I imagine that it is not too different elsewhere in the world. I would guess that hotter climates would have more growing in a given volume though. So, from that point of view, it makes sense.
Whether or not humans evolving in Africa would also make human-infecting microbes in soil more virulent though is something I would be interested to find out,
This is so obviously a test of defensive measures available to the Council that it hurts…
That was my first thought until I read your comment then another possibility hit me… Katrina’s lack of reaction or lack of immediate reaction made me think that yes this was a test… but it was a test of the Arc-Swat crew, not by the Arc-Swat crew.
My thinking is, what if the dissenter earlier a few strips ago did this? It could go a couple of ways… my specific thinking was that he set this up to take out most of the other council to blame it on Arc-Swat so he could point to everyone else not at the meeting and tell them how they can’t trust anyone else not them. He seemed pretty bigoted that way… Katrina’s apparent lack of reaction could mean she was initially expecting something like this, but not the silver buckshot in the grenade. THAT was a real surprise to her. Initially I really didn’t think her lack of reaction was much of an issue… I attributed it to the lack of elapsed time. Her mind hadn’t had the time to really react until the disassembled ordnance lay before her exposing the real threat.
Question is, Who were the attackers here for? Clearly they were prepared for the Weres… but did they attack because they followed Arc Swat in (reeeeealy stupid idea if this is true), or were they not expecting Arc swat to be there (reeeeeeeealy poor intel)?
They’d need really good intel to know Arc Swat would be leading them to Weres, and without that intel they’d have no reason to have brought the silver buckshot. It is more likely they either didn’t know about Arc Swat, or were counting on the element of surprise.
So silver (element Ag), iron (element Fe) and surprise (element Ah!).
I like this analysis, it’s consistent with what we see. The council prepares a surprise test of Arc-Swat abilities, but someone sneaks live ammo in the attack…
Well. White Phosphorous would work on any corporeal supernatural, with the possible execption of animated armor types, and possibly some types of demon. Vampires are known to be vulnerable to fire.
So this explains a great deal. Four automatons with high-yield weapons designed to threaten the participants of the council. Even if the attack fails, it sends a very clear message. 1.) We know where you are. 2.) We know WHAT you are. 3.) We can hurt you. 4.) We can strike at any time. 5.) You don’t know who we are, so we will get you eventually.
That dummy ( :P ) launched a live round at the table of representatives, I don’t think this was a threat, I’m thinking it was pretty much a full blown assassination/massacre attempt, which Sydney’s warning may have completely undone…
third round – perhaps olive wood flechettes soaked in holy water
(Johnny Five voice) Disassemble? No disassemble!
You have an army, we have a Maxima.
The mannequins wouldn’t like Maxima when she’s angry.
So much for one grenade launcher.
The Man(nequin) or the weapon? LOL
Definitely the latter, quite possibly the former as well.
Me thinks this has something to do with the evil priest looking guy from the villain reaction page. I mean, how many times has something religious popped up in legends or modern media about religious things affecting supernatural beings? also, you hear the Christians talk badly about things like demons all the time so, it just makes sense.
Ah, but don’t forget we also have the 2 characters in the middle here at the meeting, I wonder what THEY’RE doing right now…
*2 minutes earlier*
“Hey, back soon Master, I need to go get our paperwork from the car….”
“I go get you a cup of warm blood Master…”
Either that, or what’s in the grenade might be able to hurt them, but is unlikely to kill them outright. This would increase their effectiveness in expressing outrage at the attack and subsequent demands that ArcSWAT be excluded from the Council (if that’s what they’re after) for failing to protect them. Furthermore, both of them suddenly absenting themselves from the room just before the attack might seem a bit too convenient to survivors.
Plus they could take precautions, like wearing fragmentation resistant body armour. And/or a steel plate over their hearts. Any facial injuries would give them the necessary war wounds, to show off and demand justice. Yet without posing much of a risk to themselves, being vampires.
Or, on a similar note, they just happened to have the necessary protective spells that would save them from fatal injuries guarding them that (every?) day.
Party crashers? Show them NO MERCY!
There were 4 of these guys right? Does Sydney coming up behind this one mean she’s already taken out the other three?
Mercury, the last one contain mercury.
I don’t thnk it would fit. Teeny grenade, big planet.
I know, right? Too small for a Roman God either…
while i’m not up to date on all the paranormal entities that it currently affects, so i could be off in my reasoning…but, as far as i know, mercury poisoning is too SLOW of a toxin to be an effective choice for this type of attack. you want something easily acquired and made into a weapon, and one that won’t be destroyed or rendered useless by the act of deploying said weapon, quick-acting, and as deadly as possible to as many different species/races at once, with as few as possible materials involved so you get the best bang-for-your-buck (pun not really intended)
Although Mercury “quick silver” is known as a powerful alchemical agent. Maybe combined with a magic incantation or a special glyph, it could be designed to have some quick, devastating effect.
I like the idea that Katrina has just been so inundated with over the top shit from her new transformation that her relativity has yet to reform. Oh, vampires exist. Oh, all of THOSE exist and are doing crazy magics. Oh, Maxima is action. Ok… Jesus, silver buckshot!!!
Or she might just be a person that reacts calmly to sudden action.
Individual quirks make characters interesting!!
“Oh, some jackoff bit me and now I’m part rabbit” At the forefront of that thought process.
That’s pretty logic destroying, and makes a hard line to top on the surprising scale as a regular person. Particularly in the short term.
I’d assume white phosphorous or some other suitably agressive incendiary material. Fire is usually considered one of the near-universal anti-supernatural countermeasures. Obviously, it cannot be expected to work very well on fire-based supernats, like fire elementals or dragons, but if you aren’t a fiery supernatural, getting set on fire is almost certain to ruin your day.
Fire is associated with purification.
Maybe it’s supposed to be a miniature fuel-air bomb.
First of all, let me say that I am not a gun person. (And since I am not a were-antelope, I am not even a gnu person).
The use of a shaped charge in the grenade seems to me like a bad choice for a potential fragmentation device. It should be built like a firework with the charge in the middle of the projectiles. A shaped charge emits a high speed jet of molten metal in a narrow stream. It would burn/vaporize the cylinders and shoot out a molten mess of the remains at a relatively small section of the council chamber. Whoever was in the path of the detonation would have a very bad day, but relatively few others would be affected.
I think the term they were looking for was “bursting charge”. A Shaped charge causes the extremely directional focusing of the explosive effect, often coupled with a metallic liner that is deformed and propelled in a specific direction by the exploding charge. A Bursting Charge would cause Omni-directional propelling of the ordnance’s inner projectiles. Think of it as the difference between a hand grenade or an artillery General Purpose Demolition round and a HEAT round from a tank.
You’re forgetting that even though much of the blast is focussed in the direction the metal liner is pointing, it’s still a pretty good bursting charge for fragmentation.
https://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/grenade/40mm_ammo.html#M433
Note that under “effect” it has a a wire wrap that turns into fragments which can kill out to 5metres.
So. What’s with Sydney’s derpy face on the last panel? Its looking kinda like that Naruto/Kyubi vs Gaara in Naruto Anime … haha
Somewhere out there, there’s a villain cackling, “If it weren’t for that darned ArcSWAT, I would have gotten away with it!:.
(Note: the above was supposed to be a stand-alone comment).
Congrats on getting into print DaveB! And thanks to Marion, for setting it all up.
I hope Grrl Power, Book 1 is not too far behind it?
Is… that its face? It’s the same shape as the mask, so between that and the shading from the forcefield I didn’t even realize the mask had come off the first time I looked at that panel. The features are still really indistinct. And why is there a bloody handprint there?
Final panel is confusing!
It’s a magically animated mannequin. I assume the bloody handprint is part of the animation magic.
my tuppence on the subject of munitions – One is silver buckshot, the redish one I have my money down on Ferrous Oxide (Iron… keep in mind that one of the main groups represented here is Fey it seems like a plan) and maybe a jellied holy water? plain holy water? (it has multiple uses as both demons and vampires should be affected by it)
Obviously, DaveB has never seen the 1980’s horror classics, “Mannequin” or “Mannequin 2”, starring Kim Cattrell, otherwise he would truly understand the evil of mannequins. I had to watch “A Clockwork Orange” three times just to warm my soul enough to go to sleep without nightmares. *shudder*
Wait, since when was “Mannequin” a horror movie? o_O
All a matter of perspective.
So, the banner behind the bun’s head? Nobody has identified it as a reference yet (unlike the one to our right). So space station dwellers faction? STI? Or the society of megalomaniacs with death rays?
It is a corporate sponsorship logo to help with the maintenance of the Council headquarters. The (now charred) plaque by the entrance to the room states it is the Dish TV Council Chamber.
Lol, with the second question next to the capital “I”, I originally read that as “STP” and was wondering what motor oil had to do with it.
Interstellar paranormal bounty hunters? it kind of has a Boba Fett’s spaceship sort of vibe going on there…
Good point. Or perhaps “Interstellar paranormal booty hunters“? They might come in all sizes and species.
I was thinking if Max is fast enough to safely disarm a grenade in mid flight (as opposed to just catch it and throw it back into the other room, trusting in Syd’s shield to protect her and not shedding a tear for any bad guys killed by their own attack) the were-bun should still be reacting to the door exploding and people storming the room and not even register that Max is laying down the smack.
And Max laying down the smack is a beautiful thing to behold.
I’d think the third thing would be something to incapacitate vampires, perhaps something that burns in broad spectrum light that would include plenty of UV (phosphorous might just be adequate). Although in Blade their vampires were vulnerable to silver, so I guess it depends upon what these are subject to.
Flying chunks of metal would take out most people, so I assume the first attack would be meant to cause general damage (said flying metal) and take out the people most likely to react first (weres,
‘demons’, and vamps). Follow up grenades (if the grenade launcher hadn’t been smashed to pieces by an angry high speed gold woman) would be to spread the damage and attack the vulnerabilities of the other specials in the room, probably in descending order of threat.
Your first paragraph tells us that were-bunnies can sense things happening far faster than normal humans can. Much like Ren.
After this maneuver I think Sydney needs to apply one of her gold stars to Maxima.
(not that anyone could see it).
Plus another for herself. She made the right call. (Dint, dint, dint
https://youtu.be/OXA338ro1mo
I was thinking a bit closer to this.
I had to give that a dew claw up, despite not being into American football. Being interestingly enough presented, and narrated, to so keep my attention, despite that handicap, meant they earnt it.
Even though it may encourage YouTube to give me boring sports footage, for a while, until I can re-train it. :-/
I like it. In my campaign I use HAPI rounds – Holistic Anti-Paranormal (Incendiary). Hollowpoint filled with silver, cold iron, a shaving of a blessed wooden crucifix saturated with holy water, and a white phosphorus chip with a delayed-impact trigger. You know, in case your target doesn’t happen to have any supernatural vulnerabilities you go with Plan B – set it on fire.
I concur. “Kill it with fire” is always a valid strategic option.
Yeeessss, when all else fails, KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!
There’s an issue with the kindle book btw. When viewing it in black with white writing, whole chunks of Sydney’s perspective remain black, thus invisible… :D
But it’s a real AWESOME story Dave. Kudos, and brilliance. Any chance of a drawing of Oryxarch in deviantart?
I would fill a thin nickel vessel with Chlorine Trifluoride. Nasty stuff. It’ll burn through stone, concrete, glass, asbestos, and Teflon. It reacts violently with nearly all fire suppression substances. The primary method of suppression is to prevent secondary fires and wait till it burns itself out.
You’re right, it will burn almost anything… glass, sand, asbestos, rust, concrete, people, pyrex, cloth, test engineers, ash, spent charcoal, and the dreams of children.
Even in nickel, it wouldn’t be safe to carry as a weapon. It will even corrode platinum, osmium, iridium, titanium and tungsten (all of which are famously unreactive with anything else). It can be stored in a container made of nickel, steel, etc., if you treat the container with fluorine gas first, because of the formation of a thin layer of metal fluoride with which ChF3 won’t react. But if this layer is disturbed in any way, sometimes even a good hard shake, or if the metal is not completely dry, you could end up with a violent explosion.
Speaking of which, if the stuff comes in contact with water (and remember, humans are 70% water), it reacts explosively and as a nice little “fuck you” on top, creates large amounts of dangerous gasses such as hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid. Hydrofluoric acid in particular is incredibly dangerous and along with being able to melt things like glass and concrete, can permanently damage your lungs and eyes. As if that wasn’t worrying enough, if you’re ever unlucky enough to get hydroflouric acid on your skin, it doesn’t actually hurt until a few hours later. After it has absorbed a bit, it starts destroying your nerves and bones and can ultimately cause cardiac arrest when it gets into your blood stream.
So if the chlorine trifluoride itself doesn’t kill you, the byproducts of a reaction will… and it will react with almost everything, except for the previously mentioned metal fluorides, nitrogen, the noble gases, and polychlorotrifluoroethylene. (It also won’t react with the air, unless there’s a larger than normal amount of water vapor, in which case it will explode.) Not a weapon you want to use (especially if your goal isn’t to kill everybody), because it’s just as dangerous to the user as to the target. Fill a shell with chlorine trifluoride and give it a good hard shake, and whoomp, you have a metal-fluorine fire, the best defense against which is a good pair of running shoes.
Something that may be of interest to both DaveB and the readership in general. It turns out that vampires were initially recorded in serious medical journals. According to this research, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was actually inspired by cutting edge medical research from the time.
Presumably prompting the Council to quickly add vampires to the races protected by the Veil. Despite the potential for the unethical ones to use this to conceal feeding on humans.
Either that, or they could put them on the Endangered Species list. =OP
*lays his bets on ‘attack is another ”brilliant” PR stunt by Arianna, who has a great track record of endangering anyone in the area for her own horribly un-thought out ideas’; lays side bet on ‘all a dream because Halo passed out more than an hour ago due to exhaustion* ;)
I will cover your first bet with as many Yorpie Snax™ as you choose to wager.
The latter I will let others take up, if they want. As I have already hypothesised that everything from the Muppet Maxima onwards could be a drug and sleep deprivation hallucination or dream. Albeit with tongue firmly in cheek. :-D
“PR stunt” doesn’t fit at all. The reason? Arianna likes being alive. She’d be literally crucified if they found out she nearly caused an intragalactic diplomatic incident. The closest I’d get to powerless humans being responsible is a false flag attack. Regular humans would be oh-so out of their league.
How did that “mannequin” end up with a bloody handprint on it…?
Opinion is divided. One camp (the majority) think it is through the magic ritual used to animate the manikin. And have fairly good supporting points for that.
The other (the ones who are not fussed about minor continuity mismatches) indicate that as Maxima hit him hard enough to knock him through an explosion and out of the room, it is the blow which did that. If it is magically enchanted, to behave like a person, it is not unreasonable that it might bleed (or have an analogous effect that looks similar).
Personally, because it is a comedy panel, I take the latter view. Supported by the simple explanation of ‘because it looks funny’.
It’s not Maxima’s. She struck with the back of her left hand, fingers together. The print is from the palm of a right hand, fingers spread.
The manikin has already moved from the point where Maxima hit it, and she is moving with bullet speed, so could have easily closed her fingers together, in that time.
With a deformable face (be it a soft skinned manikin, or a harder one, that deformed due to the blow) there is no topological difference, between the the imprint from the back of the left hand or the front of the right.
“There is no topological difference, between the the imprint from the back of the left hand or the front of the right.”
There is, actually. The way the thumb curves being one obvious giveaway. It’s kinda moot though. The helmet visor would have distributed Maxima’s blow too evenly for it to have left a distinct hand print.
At least we can all agree that this page is unironically rad to the Max.
(That motion blur / fire effect is just lovely)
I’m surprised no one mentioned the obvious: someone tried to high-five the mannequin as it was trying to leave for the assignment and, as anyone who knows anything about mannequins knows, they don’t do high-fives.
I thought of Urak Hai “war paint” marking them as servants of the White Hand. Wrong Universe, I know, but that’s what it called to mind.