Grrl Power #898 – Ball jail
I know, this seems kind of ultra hard core for Sydney – stuffing a pistol in someone’s mouth and doing her best to empty the magazine. In her defense, she immediately recognized Concretia when she turned around. She knew this wouldn’t kill or even really hurt her, but in a situation that needs a split second reaction, Sydney was probably hoping to maybe disorient Concretia. It probably wouldn’t be long enough for Sydney to find a piece of rebar or something to whack the concretopod, but doing something is probably better than doing nothing.
In reality, I think her gun might jam doing this. If Concretia bit down even a little, the slide on the gun wouldn’t fully reset and the new cartridge wouldn’t be seated correctly. I am far from a gun expert, but I imagine some guns might have enough play to fire another round if the slide is almost reset, but then I’d assume the outcome of that would be about 90% of fucking up the gun, and 10% fixing the jam.
There’s a lot of balls being taken hostage lately. It’s not indicative of anything going on in my life, I swear.
The vote incentive is updated, and of course, the nude version is over at Patreon. Honestly, what is Sydney doing walking into a room labeled “Yoga 401?”
I keep telling myself that I’ll do these solo pinup shots, but I keep getting ideas for some group theme picture. Honestly I think the best one I’ve done so far is the Dabbler solo pic, because I could spend all my time on a single character. But… this picture has a bunch of ladies, including three Harems being all bendy, so hopefully it’s an acceptable tradeoff.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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There’s one thing about this webcomic – there’s non-stupid villains.
I Sydney’s in trouble here.
It’s actually “good” for Sydney that concretia has a strong upper hand. Concretia might be a villain, but murdering or even maiming a cop is a lot more trouble than it’s worth most if the time. I don’t know how she plans to release Sydney though.
How is it good for her that she has the upper hand?
It means Concretia can subdue Sydney without killing her, or at least she thinks she can.
That’s still not “good” in my book. Especially not good for Sydney in the middle of a battle.
But I can see your point.
Not necessarily. Keep in mind that Maxima almost hurt herself trying to separate the orbs from Sydney. That pseudopod is now permanently attached… to Sydney.
Which unfortunately also means that Sydney is staying right where she is until that pseudopod is removed. Sydney doesn’t have the strength or means to move the ‘pod without access to the orbs. In terms of movement, it’s a stalemate.
Mentally move the orbs in different directions at the same time. Their force does is not equal to Sydney’s strength.
Fortunately, Concretia doesn’t really care. She can ‘leave’ her geo-body and form a new one at any time. In the meantime, the ‘jail’ she created with her old body continues to exist, and imprision the orbs.
Admittedly, there’s been some argument about how strong a jail of thin concrete actually is, the orbs might be strong enough to break through it given time. But for that time, the pseudopod jail should be quite effective.
I expect that Concretia’s geo-body is stronger than concrete in some particulars (like tensile strength) while she’s inhabiting it. That is, considering that the flyball can move Sydney and a troop-transport sized shield, filled with a few teammates, at speeds fast enough to make that move be a useful tactic, I doubt that the tensile strength of that little bit of concrete would be enough to present an obstacle.
If that’s the case, Concretia does care, because as soon as she leaves, Halo’s free, more or less. That said, she might not realize she cares.
Admittedly, it could be that it is only presenting a problem on this page because Sydney’s not really tried having the orbs exert enough force to seriously injure her if they suddenly broke free and hit her.
It’s possible that the orbs have a different acceleration when actively being employed in the user’s hand and when being mentally commanded. Without it we have no way of knowing how much force they can exert.
Luckily the villains and heroes can be a bit stupid also. It wouldn’t be much of a comedy if they weren’t.
Perhaps putting at least 1 bullet into the trap would have been sensible?
To be fair to Syd that was all a couple of seconds and it’s her first time using her gun in a real situation. given that I say she gets props for actually managing to draw the weapon point it correctly and empty an entire clip into what she intended to hit.
Three rounds make a mi-tay small clip, then again, Sydney is a mi-tay small woman
I count 12 shots
Nope, that was the same three shots as viewed from different angles
Nah, you get two panels of Concretia’s neck, one showing ot fine, then the fracture. Syd emptied a twelve round magazine.
No, that was same angle, time-delayed
What are you basing this on?
i guess we need dave to rule if it was three shots or 12
I’m trying to remember doesn’t Syd use a gun with a 15 round capacity? so either way she may have bullets left
ok found the info
Syd use’s a Five seveN according to dave
“This pistol is supplied with 20-round magazines as standard or 10-round magazines for jurisdictions with a high-capacity magazine ban. The Five-seven will also accept an aftermarket extended 30-round magazine,”
so shedefinatly has bullets left weather it was 3 or 12 shots fired
Technically Syd emptied just over half of a 20 round mag. the Five-seveN (as Sydney’s sidearm was identified in earlier issues) holds 20 in a standard mag.
It’s definitely 12 shots.
Thank you for correcting me
This not a ‘doubling down on being wrong’, this is ‘explaining why had the wrong thoughts’: looked to me like three panels were at the same time, with the fourth being at the same time as the third, because why would Sydney do four rounds of triple shooting (implying a pause between them) and not just continuous rapid firing until the pistol goes *CLICKCLICKCLICK* empty?
Peggy trained Syd in firearm use. you never do more than three rounds in a burst because if you do there is a barely non-zero chance of hitting your target with the 4th round. Of course, this doesn’t apply when the barrel is inside your target, but training holds up: bang-bang-bang, re-aim, bang-bang-bang, re-aim. Also with a lot of automatic pistols it reduces the likelihood of jamming.
Thank you
You can see the progression by looking at the back of Concretia’s neck as the bullets do more and more damage
I reject the notion that golding the gun Gangsta Style is “pointing it correctly”.
Not quite gangsta style. For gun combat, holding it at up to a 45 degree angle to the side is acceptable, especially if your strong arm and primary eye are opposite. I’m primarily right handed but have a dominant left eye, so I have at times tilted the gun to line up the proper sight picture.
Besides, at that range, a little excessive tilt won’t hurt…
it is when you are shoving it into someone’s mouth. an upright pistol is a vertical rectangle, a human mouth is a horizontal rectangle. if you are shoving the gun barrel into a mouth, you either need a lot of co-operation, or you gotta rotate it 90 degrees.
no, god no. more important Sydney had maybe 1 second to decide what to do and did IMO the right thing. firing the gun isn’t just inconvenient. last I checked guns are LOUD. 12 shots in rapid succession in a distinctly separate place from the battle? and its not a superman/zod running fight? someone’s going to come looking into what happened. now its likely to be security or hurt angry cops (they wanna see the big fight too) but still. the clock is ticking and neither one of the participants know exactly how much time they have before more people get involved. people with radios and cell phones. who hopefully call more people..
plus military/police training would drill her to shoot the person. not shot the weird unknown thing. (Syd hasn’t had time to really look at the thing holding her orbs yet) 99% of the time what Sydney just did results in a corpse and elimination of the threat.
When super powers are regularly involved I’d drop that to at best a 75%
I vaguely remember that the training range had some funny meme targets that train nonconventional problem solving with firearms with stuff like “shoot the stones out of the infinity gauntlet” so maybe a more experienced person would have been able to evaluate and make a snap decision on whether or not to shoot at the trap. Sydney isn’t at that level of badass normal yet so she just shot at the person who is shaped more like a normal range target.
Shooting at the trap would be a BAD idea.
She doesn’t know how thick it is, so a bullet might not breath through. And it is going to be really close to her, at a point where she is ‘just’ a normal human. Which means ricochets and/or high velocity concrete chips could be bouncing back at her unprotected self.
COnsidering it took 12 shots to break Concretia’s head, shooting at the pseudopod would have been a lost cause.
12 shots all focused in one spot.
I doubt she could manage that with 12 consecutive shots without having the recoil held in place by someones teeth. I’ve honestly never tried rapid fire with a handgun, but even light machineguns have kick to them that it’s hard to hold them in place with 2 hands and a bipod. (Some russian made drum fed thing I used at a range in cambodia.) Anyway, I’d put odds on her getting 2 or 3 fast shots into it before recoil had her pointing at the ceiling.
Rapid fire isn’t that hard with a lot of handguns. I’ve done it with calibers from .22, .32, .40, and the old reliable .45 acp. I’d suspect the gun would have jammed after the first shot though since it would have kicked up into concretia’s ‘teeth’ and messed with the slide’s action. Assuming it didn’t, then it would have been even easier to fire that quickly.
Adrenaline can also do wonders for speed shooting…
Sydney mentioned being allowed to try to saw a car in half with bullets, she failed. I imagine that really high level arc training includes novel uses of firearms, but Sydney isn’t there yet. I don’t think shooting the cage would be particularly high percent as a tactic though. Concretia is right there to reinforce it and can just grab Sydney at will.
Arc firearm training is pretty open ended, Sydney already got to move onto the shoot the infinity stones out of the gauntlet target. There permissive with experimenting with guns safely on the range because they more than any other branch have no idea what they will wind up needing.
And plus points for her choice, she got it into Connie’s mouth further reducing the chance of ricochet and probably sparing her ears a bit.
This is as near as we’ve seen to the orbs being separated (or inaccessible) from/by Sydney, and as such may create a kryptonite level weakness for the mighty halo (well aside from a super whos powers are to magically englove a targeted persons hands) :-)
Sciona grabbed Sydney’s hands back in that aborted timeline, and Sydney herself said that mittens are her Kryptonite.
Have you forgotten Tubey so soon?
tubey reminds me that max couldn’t pull the orbs fro syd. maybe they can break out of the concrete just with their flying? what happens if syd trys to run? is she anckerd to the orbs or will the orbs break out?
based on the previous examples of her being clotheslined when max stepped on tubey’s strap, I imagine it depends on the momentum of sydney vs the resistance of the orbs.
good point
Nope, that was someone parking their car on Tubey’s strap
Maxi picked Tubey up (after picking the car up), and trying to pull Sydney out from under the ecnalubmA
No, there’s a page where Max stepped on the strap.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-48-the-my-little-pony-ringtone-escape-gambit/
For any interested in going back, there’s BOTH
a time when Max stepped on Tubey’s strap, which seems to have caused SYDNEY to be clotheslined
AND
a subsequent time when Max thought she could pull Sydney by her connection with Tubey, but ended up pulling HERSELF to Tubey
Without a direct explanation, these seems inconsistent other than the idea that Sydney cannot be but so far from the orbs, and the power maintaining that distance is something that Maxima at least did not expect, and we aren’t quite sure if she can overcome.
The fact Max slipped on the curb leaves a little to the imagination, but my interpretation is that max was using her standard flight and standard reaction/speed, but tried to increase her strength to overcome a surprising mid-air stop from Tubey
This caused her to exert more force on Tubey than her flight was able to compensate for on that setting, pulling her closer to Tubey and then causing her to slip on the curb. Flight was not at a setting sufficient to fight those forces exerted between Max’s strength and Tubey’s unstoppable force, so MAX’s body moved instead.
Several holes in this theory, including that Tubey would have to be made of some unknown-to-human-kind super-strength cardboard or the orbs inside Tubey must have been PERFECTLY positioned to only exert compressive force on Tubey, with no sheering force, so that force could be translated to Max’s hand…
But regardless the apparent inconsistency is that in the first case, the mysterious force was applied to Sydney’s body, and prevented her movement (so seemingly she was not in control), and in the second, the force was being applied to Tubey, and Tubey’s movement (and thus MAx’s hand’s movement) was prevented, so Sydney must ??? have been in control
That’s the only explanation that begins to make sense to me, is that the force linking them is currently unimaginably high, but that it’s only if Sydney is consciously controlling it that it doesn’t affect her body. If that’s the case, then she should be able to break concrete with them – once she tries to. It SHOULD be much like when someone is feeling around for a handle they can’t quite see, and when they find it, they grab and pull with greater force. She only “told”/”willed”/”needed” the orb to move a little (through empty air) to her hand, so it just klonked a bit on the inside of the concrete. Is he wanted to put more force into it, she probably CAN
Hopefully we’ll see next week.
The best explanation my less-than-physics-major mind can come up with is that the orbs and Sydney have a maximum distance that can be moved from each other, and are from there spatially “locked”, complete immovable object style, where no one, including Sydney, has the ability to increase the distance between them. Other can manipulate them within that space, and Sydney can move them mentally, but the most force we’ve seen that apply is to klonk Math over the head and stun Shadow Boxer and knock him out with a couple choice whacks. As for Tubey… plot armor. More important to keep the mystery of the orbs than to obey material physics.
Yes, except if we can assume Tubey is made of plotinite cardboard, that still means that they can “pull” hard enough for Maxima to exclaim in all caps “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW STRONG I AM?”
So more than just a good solid whack…
The strength of Tubey doesn’t come into play, Max extends the strength to whatever is being moved (like the Ambulance being picked up), this would have reinforced Tubey as Max was trying to move, not break (assuming that the choice of protect while move or break this enemy is subconscious, and not a conscious decision that must be made each time)
The best way to explain it is, if the orbs are locked into a specific spot, Sydney can’t move farther away from them. They apply force to Sydney.
On the other hand, if something physically tries to move the orbs out of range of Sydney, the Sydney ‘applies’ the force.
In other words, the stationary object acts as the anchor against the moving object. The anchor doesn’t feel the force applied to the moving object, whereas the moving object becomes an immovable object at a specific distance from the anchor.
Since they’re made by higher dimensional beings, I’m suspecting that, to move the orbs or Sydney beyond the maximum distance would require enough force to move spacetime itself
Makes sense: what ever is being moved gets stopped by whatever is remaining stationery
But… what if they are both being moved, in different directions?
then they both are stopped. The most likely cause here is a quantum axis, or a radius limit, while no force was exerted on the stationary subject, if both are in motion in opposite direction then a tension event will likely pull both back towards each other. The “in motion” aspect is most like the x variable on force being applied.
Forgot about that page, was thinking of this page, and the subsequent pages leading up to the Tubey meets Maxi’s face page
Remember when Sydney left them in her jeep?
good point
But remember, all those times, the orbs were dormant. What happens with active orbs?
We haven’t seen Tubey in quite a while.
I am hoping we will see if Sydney has improved her Orb-fu:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-132-clash-of-the-egos/
It had room for improvement ;)
I really, really expect designers of the balls had the imagination to picture this scenario – and build in a defense against it. Even if the design is for a seven-handed alien, they had to take in to account that bad guys –might– WOULD try to separate balls from ball holder.
Well that was silly. She should’ve shot the concrete divider and got her balls back.
her training would have drilled into her “shoot the person” I say she gets props for 100% accuracy the first time she used her gun in a real situation.
Likewise, came to comment “atta girl”. In this kind of situation, someone sneaks up on you and makes you less combat effective?
Turned, drew, confirmed target, and lit his ass up.
A-. Rock solid effort, needs to work on beating that instinct to close one eye.
an improvement over closing BOTH eyes when firing. baby steps.
Alternatively, there’s a suggestion on a later comments page that closing one eye was a good move, as it means that eye is less affected by muzzle flash afterimages. Not much of an issue in a well-lit range, potentially more so in a dimly-lit building site. Note that I have no idea whether that would be enough of a hindrance to be worth bothering about; for that I’d have to refer to one of the (many) people here with more practical firearms experience.
We know that Sydney can control the movement of the orbs without touching them. But can the orbs move through concrete?
Aalso, Concretia didn’t show that level of skill back during their previous battle.
tbf, Kevin was doing the rage whammy even before he did the full aura. Anything that would point blank end the fight was avoided, so instead concretia just slugged it out like everyone else was doing.
go back to the parking lot. sydney can move the balls at will. the balls will only tolerate being a set distance away from her. however we know that the balls cannot be used to physically move sydney. I suspect the she moves the balls relative to her. truly the smart thing here is knock sydney out, steal her stuff. lock the balls in concrete and walk away. trying to kidnap sydney is very likely to result in a ransom of red chief situation.
The balls can lock their place in space (in a reference frame on the surface of a planet rotating pretty fast , in orbit around a star… etc) against a good strong tug from Maxima, prompting Maxima to scream “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW STRONG I AM?”
It stands to reason, if they TRIED, they could break concrete, but MAYBE not?
To be fair, Concretia spent a not insignificant amount of time in that fight being demolished by Math and Peggy. Probably didn’t get a lot of opportunity to show off, like she does here.
Is she removing concrete from structural components of that building?
That can’t be good.
it isn’t. especially under construction. concrete is funny stuff though and engineers like safety factors of 3 or more so unless concretia is being very careful. the building will be ok. also since she’s working the outer layers there’s a good chance the change will be noticed and fixed. now if Sydney is kidnapped that odd hole might actually come to archon’s attention as the argument that hole will create will be significant.
considering her power and that this is a random building with construction work I’m betting concretia is one of the engineers working on site.
the question is, is concretia actually a decent person who was effected by Vehemence and this is a regular job. or is she evil and is helping build a new office for the ‘league of supervillains’
I doubt she would sneak up to a superhero and steal her balls if she wasn’t a supervillain.
What we’ve seen is pretty clearly sneaking, and enclosing the orbs inside concrete, then saying that what Sydney did was inconvenient. Not that it was a mistake. Nothing absolutely threatening to Sydney, just… an apparent attempt to disable her.
Not the wisest thing to do, I don’t suppose, to someone like Sydney, but if you were trying to approach someone, but protect yourself a little at the same time, you might try to disable their offensive capabilities – to… mitigate any knee-jerk surprised reactions
There is a small amount of room for this to be a slightly misguided attempt to get Sydney’s attention and engage her in a neutral-to-friendly way.
Or it could be an attack
we’ll see soon, I think
We’ve already seen HenchWench using Concretia’s (new) powers, so she’s part of the anti-Max team.
I don’t think Concretia’s powers are ‘new’ – she’s always been a geomancer. As to why we didn’t see her using her powers this way during the SuperBrawl, I think that’s Vehemence’s aggro aura at work – Concretia was focused on beating on things with her rock body (as much as Peggy let her).
Also, keep in mind Hench Wench was showing earth-bending abilities, which seem to be coming from one of the partners of her employer, that is Concretia. So, I think Concretia may have followed Sydney as she went around town looking for a good place to stash the stasis chamber. She can form her face into the side of building watch as Sydney turns down that street, then just to another building down that street to see where Sydney goes next.
The best thing for dealing with Concretia would be a dose of retardant. I estimate her body volume at 100 litres +/-15 so 5ml (a teaspoon) of dishwashing liquid would prevent her from hardening for about half an hour.
Concretia possesses/animates existing rock/concrete/asphalt. Her body is merely a golem made mobile and fluid with her power, so you can’t mix anything into her to disable her.
Even if you could, she’d just animate up a new body.
Supers are subject to whatever physics and chemistry suits the author.
Presumably she has normal biological functions that are included into each of her new bodies. Digestive funtions etc could be used against her.
Theoreticaly she could have a sleeping / meditating squishy meat bag somewhere and those really are avatar golems without those weaknesses though.
I’ve wondered this myself – Concretia may be manifesting her rock bodies at a distance, which is pretty powerful stuff. However, she doesn’t seem to be able to maintain control of her rock-body when the head is damaged, forcing her to leave and build another one, so she’s either dependent on the humanoid form of her rock-body somehow, or it’s psychological, I dunno.
I’m not sure about ‘unable to maintain control if the head is damaged’ – she seems to be doing a good job of neutralising that pistol for someone whose shell has just been given the reverse-Sciona treatment. Of course, no doubt it’s mentally and/or physically uncomfortable, quite aside from the problems of the missing parts being unusable – not to mention, in the case of the Restaurant Rumble, knowing that her position is open to a sniper who can cause further damage. It’s therefore not surprising that she’d rather bail out and respawn if (unlike on this page) there’s no overriding reason to keep using the damaged shell and/or an advantage to be gained from re-entering the fight elsewhere.
It may be that the eyes are required to see or hear properly. She has a pretty good idea of where that gun is after all.
So, Dave is getting into some cbt and is reflecting that in his creation.
CBT = Caged Ball… uh, Terror?
Well, Concretia can’t use, “Vehemence made me do it.” this time.
Cant tell her reason for being there in the first place and thats a problem.
If she is staying there then sydney could be argued as breaking and entering in her home.
She has stopped sydneys offence capacity (more or less) but hasnt really attacked her.
This could go in a variety of directions.
It’s gonna turn out that Concretia was following sydney to nick her balls.
Of course we know why she’s there: She’s a geomancer, Hench Wench has geomancer powers, ergo – she’s working with the gang that hired Hench Wench.
That tells us why she’s there in there in the first place, but not her personal stake or reasons. This is the first time she’s shown up without being in a vehemence-induced rage, so her character is pretty blank slate here. Heck, sealing the orbs may have been just a means to keep Sydney from going on the offensive before Concretia could speak – not that it helped that much.
Stopping Sydney from being offensive would require a Cone of Silence.
WHERE IS THE +1 BUTTON? I NEED A +1 BUTTON!!!
But concretia didnt have geomancy in the first fight, just the ability to form a stone/asphalt/etc body with super strength. She never show geokinesis.
I like the earlier explanation that in her rage, she did not think to try that. Also, the Restaurant Rumble, er Rubble, was a few months ago. She may have figured it out since then.
a weird inverse. It would seem for Concretia the initial expression of her power was a Petramorphic possession ability and with practice may have figured out how to extend her influence beyond her astral body form to other material nearby. *some quasi-scientific explanations for elemental powers is an elemental atunement/matching quality with one’s astral body so you can extend out your astral-aura through the astral plane to influence these materials/elements as if they were part of your own body.
When Concretia first appeared she also demonstrated a limitation of her possession that once the body she formed was badly damaged she couldn’t control it anymore and had to make a new one right away. Now she not only is retaining control despite the top half of the head coming off but has expanded to Geokinesis…I suspect there is an earth elemental in their group training her to realize her full potential.
But speaking of the group, Hench Wench is raising a complication. She has Geokinesis…but she isn’t displaying the Petramorphic possession power, although THAT seemed to be the pre-feat default to Concretia…of course we don’t know how long this LLC has been formed and Hench Wench practice with their powers; but it does stand out Hench Wench is using Geokinesis like any other Geokinetic would, while Concretia has this spirit form bonding element to the material.
Although there could be another explination for this discrpency.
Hench Wench isn’t actually a power copier, but a power imitator. She doesn’t get the exact power of others but produces an approximate duplicate, a mirrored (possibly distorted mirror) version.
-like if someone could fly with isolated gravity manipulation, and she tried to copy them and got flight but it was astral wave pulse flight *mana based levitation* instead. Not as noticeable with base physical powers like strength and durability unless you can examine the mechanics behind them very specifically; but gets more noticeable with elemental powers, tries to copy a pyrokinetic and instead ends up a microwave emitter.
the fact that they have the word “geomancer” implies there is more than one in existence. It is possible, however unlikely that there is a different geomancer in Evil Inc. Henchwench used a whole buttload of stone and earth, whereas Concretia-plus has only used the material that her current body is made of (so far, anyway)
Maxima said geokinesis.
that said, just as a side and its not universal, ya’know rule of your own story telling. But a geomancer is traditionally someone who draws power from leylines and specific elements of the earth to do their magic and perform acts such as distant viewing, not actually manipulating earth (usually, some later ones were like sensing the condition of the soil)
its kind of like with necromancer, traditionally this was devination through organs and bones, and contacting spirits to communicate, spy on people, and so on. Not raising the dead or controlling the power of death.
-why I am partial to the term “Necrokinetic” for characters like Danny Phantom using “ghost energy” and the like.
-kinesis *manipulation of*
-mancer (Mancy) literally means “divination”.
on the seen before part.
remember this world also has comic books and supers have been around for awhile, as well as elementals in the supernaturals side mentioned so various powers even if not seen in a human before are still known.
Hmm her body stopped moving when shot last time, like she left the old husk and had to remake it to move again.. Granted we assume this to be true, I always saw her husk as being her medium for interaction. Her spirit esc form needs it, with the head disconnected the husk stops and becomes innert stone again.
The first time her body stopped moving was because the entire thing was cracked up and falling apart. We didn’t actually see if she stopped moving after her head was blown off the second time. Either way, she would just need to animate a new body.
Possibly so, or possibly it was a deliberate choice to abandon the shot-up husk and claim a new one. I’m sure it’s psychologically uncomfortable to lose ‘your’ head, even if it isn’t also physically painful. And if you’ve just been damaged by a sniper, one thing you know is that they’re probably able to keep hitting you if you give them reason. Better to bail out, raise a new husk from a different location, and go play anti-sniper.
Here’s the thing, it’s dark and all she knows is someone has blocked her access to her orbs. She’s dealing with limited info, so her reaction is reasonable. Surprising, even.
For those of you like me who didn’t remember, Concretia’s from the super brawl, first appearing here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-208-arc-light-earns-their-keep/
And soon after, her powers are more established here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-216-50-caliber-headache/
Ah good. This is the first time Concretia got tagged, so I wonder from when Sydney recognized her.
Thanks because I had no idea who she was.
My question is, did Conretia deliberately position herself here to wait for Sydney, did she somehow appear here to ambush Sydney, or is this simply random chance and they’re both really surprised to be seeing each other?
I’m going with either ‘Protagonist Probability’ or ‘Weirdness Magnet’ disadvantage kicking in.
As the main character, highly improbable yet ‘exciting’ events are supposed to happen to you with distressing regularity.
I’m guessing that Conretia is just working construction here. she blocked off Syd’s orbs because she doesn’t want the overactive nerd to blow us the building. the next comic will have a lovely chat over a cup of tea
I see two possibilities.
She is part of the criminal LLC and the source of Hench Wench’s geokinesis.
Or.
Her civilian job is construction and she was woken up by Sydney arriving and is actually not a combatant.
Its the first most likely. The end of the page with Brut being “liberated.” He was hit with a concrete pillar but we didn’t see who it was, which makes me think that it was Concretia. Also, makes me think a nightmare scenario where Concretia took Sydney in her body to stop Maxima from punching her.
It was HenchWench. “I’ve liberated your balls, Brut” is her style of speaking… and there’s no reason to assume that Concretia could be there and instantly teleport to wherever Sydney was.
Im just assuming these events of this page occurred in the near past. We could see Sydney dupe her and get out of this situation, but I guess I am also worried that Sydney has become a character in the story that gets into trouble and has to be saved by others. If she gets out of this, it will be very badass of her
Why? She has rarely needed to be saved by others. She is a far cry from characters like 90s Robin, Jubilee, or Green Hornet, the dumb ass in distress trope.
There have not been that many fights in this comic, and most of the time Sydney ends up in trouble and has to be saved 3 times (not including this fight because we don’t know the ending to this.) Captured by sciona and almost gutted, saved by time warp hack. Left behind on dead alien world, saved by Cora and crew. Randomly runs into the demon hunter that kidnapped a child succubus and gets paralyzed by her, saved by the others looking for missing child. Mostly saved by Dabbler in that one, because the others get their butts kicked in by said Demon hunter.
Sydney definitely does not have a dumb ass in distress trope, but its always the situation where she is the one getting into trouble, cant do anything about it, and has to rely on others to save her. She could make a portal to escape hostile aliens, but is still stuck in space sense she does not know how to use it. She could fight back in the demon hunter fight but Im deducting points for not immediately shielding after seeing a 4 armed person drop in front of her, recognizing her as a threat, and letting her reach into her pocket to grab a paralyzing poison and injecting Sydney with it. Sydney is really smart, we know this, but we have not seen her use her brains to fight back in a while, sense the first fight in the parking lot. Im just hoping this is the fight we see her outsmart and maneuver her opponent.
Also, no hostility meant by this. Im just providing a counter argument. I hope I do not sound like an asshole
you don’t, those are good counter arguments.
Which I took to be less always needs rescued and that timeline wise she is still early in her superhero career and still learning. She is the rookie with no prior history of military service, vigilante, criminal, or survivalist on the run like we see in so many new super heroes. She made mistakes underestimating opponents; she held her own on the Alari planet against kaiju war mechs and escaped, but yes Cora got her back to Earth, although she may have eventually found her own way back, just taken a lot longer and her story turned into a long (lost in space) series. I think the demon hunter fight she dropped her guard because she had been fighting such higher level opponents she underestimated a lower level one; a humbling experience.
we have seen her getting better, and she has actual training under her belt now. All the fights before, it would probably have felt a little “goes too easy for her” if she was just instantly good at this and didn’t need help. Some of those we can blame Maxima and Archon for putting a rookie out on the active team right off the streets just because of their power versatility.
Thank you, also I do agree with you. She still did survive the death planet and the massive alien (bio weapons? Mechs? what ever the fuck) onslaught. She did survive the demon hunter fight while paralyzed as well, which is still impressive in its own right. It does all fall on Archon for not fully training their new recruit who missed 2 months due to time/portal shenanigans.
I hope that this fight, we see her learn from the gun and close combat training to survive this fight, and use her smarts to trick/free her orbs from Concretia. Otherwise, this would be a weird place for Sydney’s story to end, and even weirder if Cora and/or Dabbler to just happen to be following her to rescue her. Im worried about our favorite comic book character comic book nerd
Oooo…Good thinking! I didn’t think about her being the source of Hench Wench’s geokinesis. I wonder if Max was remembering Concretia when she asked about someone with that power being part of the LLC…and how annoyed she’ll be that they had to let Concretia go the first time on a technicality (i.e. not being able to determine if she was there of her own volition or under the influence of Vehemence).
Unlikely, Concretia didn’t display geokinesis in that fight only petramorphic possession. They also know another geokinetic who has a store house of gold so they know this super power is out there in people.
Wasn’t Concretia last seen during that restaurant brawl?
Zack Tilly: last seen attempting to get back at Peggy for putting a .50 cal round through her block head, and sensibly ghosting the lot of them when she got claymore’d
do you have an issue for that? I went back and re-read the whole vehemence fight scene and the last I saw of Concretia was when Peggy popped her noggin with the .50, and didn’t see her again after.
Try and find when Peggy put a .50 cal into Kevin’s eye, believe we saw the remains of Cree’s attempt on Peggy in the background
the first time or the second time?
Peggy only shot Kevin once, right between Maxi’s fingers
Peggy absolutely shot Kevin a second time.
There’s a shattered Concretia body in the background of panel 6 of #259 – Dirty pool. It’s… missing a torso. We haven’t seen Concretia herself since Peggy took her out in #216 – .50 caliber headache.
Dirty Pool (also showing Cree’s last appearance, sort of, until now) was the page was talking about for the shot between the fingers, forgot about the second shot
If Gothamer isn’t careful, two somethings are about to fall out…
One question: why are the letters on the door backwards? They would only look like that from the inside of the room, meaning, if Sydney had just walked through the door, we should be able to read that normally
Concrete is an odd thing. Even more odd is that the newer forms of concrete seem to be FAR less durable than ones known in ancient times. There are instances of Roman construction that seem to be getting harder and stronger as time goes by. Stone wears away faster than their concrete does.
This will either be a very short fight or a very educational one for Sydney.
And as for guns? They are machines. As strong and durable as they are, they are complex pieces of engineering and when a part breaks or just stops moving? No bang. Coolest thing I have ever seen in person was someone disassembling a 9mm Baretta when it was aimed at them. It wasn’t loaded and even the martial artist who did it said it was a bad idea to try, but OMG it was cool to watch.
AND the look on the would-be mugger’s face was utterly priceless.
Ancient Roman hydraulic concrete is durable by accident. The volcanic ash used just happens to react with the salt in seawater to strengthen it as opposed to eroding it.
The chemistry of Roman concrete is well understood from analysis of its composition. It contains aluminium tobermorite crystals. There are several methods of inducing this and the only reason it isn’t more widespread is the American government awarded a patent to an American company, presumably on the basis that nobody could prove the Romans used the same process.
All of this is covered in detail in Lea’s Chemistry of Concrete.
The crap quality of modern concrete mostly has to do with lowest bid builders using too little cement in the mix and isn’t helped by widespread use of retardants, which slightly lower the set strength in return for greatly extended workability allowing the use of larger batches.
Modern concrete keeps increasing strength with age as well. Wait 2000 years and you will find modern concrete showing similar strength gains.
Normally I would say to blast a kneecap off and run away, but since Concretia trapped the balls, Syd’s not going anywhere. Smart move…
Neither is, Concretia! Until she lets go of the orbs, she is going nowhere!
COULD be (and I’d say it probably IS) that Concretia used material from and probably still attached to the floor they’re standing on to enclose the orbs – I don’t think Concretia is attached to the enclosure directly.
What if Sydney decides to just walk away? The orbs are linked to her position and even Maxima wasn’t able to move the tube those were kept in at the moment.
Just walking could break the concrete in an “unstoppable force meets reasonably sturdy object”.
Or go blender with the orb movement and grind it out from the inside.
But that depends on Sydney doing both confusion fu and straight thinking at the same time, without any powers beyond normal.
She is also bound by the orbs. She is physically unable to walk away from them.
In early strips when the orbs were anchored Sydney could not leave them.
in the beginning of the comic couldn’t walk away when she locked the tube in her car I do not think this has changed
Back when Sydney made her bank run and she forgot the tube with the orbs inside of her car it was Sydney who was yanked backwards and the tube and her car remained fine. A similar thing I imagine would happen here, if she tried to run away she would not be able to go far.
While the most likely scenario has been covered(being that the orbs won’t move due to previous scenario: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-27-the-calorie-denial-force-field/) there is a variable in play here that may not have been then: Orbs are currently active. We don’t know when they went inactive while they were in the tube, all we know is that by the time Sydney revealed the orbs, they had gone inactive by that point.
That said, I seriously doubt it’s actually going to be part of the solution, it’s worth mentioning.
It has been demonstrated in the comic that she is unable to walk away from the orbs and the orbs are unable to be moved away from Halo. This has now got Halo cornered, with the only recourse to call for support as she has no other means to get out of this situation.
Well, unless something is invented for this situation that we haven’t seen before that will get Halo out of this.
Like perhaps what the final orb does?
my money is on “obs going super ball inside the enclosure and smashing free”
12 round clip in her gun, now gun is gone, was it enough of a distraction to get the balls free?
How very observant. That would make it a Sig P365, HK VP9SK, Glock 43 or S&W 6906. The picture most resembles the P365, although there ought to be grip fluting on the slide. Come on, Dave – details!
Canonically, it’s a Five Seven, which has 20 round standard magazines.
Use the gun to try and break the concrete holding the orbs.
Were you able to make that decision in less than a second while under possible attack?
Or in an hour in the relative safety of wherever you are viewing this webic?
gun inside Concretia’s mouth means guaranteed hit, and last time we saw her blasting her head off made her take time to reform. Shooting at vaguely round ball cage means unpredictable ricochets less than arm’s length from her face. she still has 8 rounds left, pressing the muzzle against the surface and shooting the cage might be next.
A question about the new vote incentive, is it me or is the writing on the door facing the wrong way?
Assuming Sydney just walked in then she is still in the doorway with the door being opened, but the letters are mirrored, which makes them easy to read from inside the room with the door closed but hard to read from outside where you’d want to be able to read it.
Not just you, asked the same question half an hour ago
yup the writing is going the wrong way
I look at it as the door is on the left and is swinging closed now that Syd is inside, and NOT that the door is presently held open(inward) by Syd.
The Adventures of Sydney as Distress Damsel! Always getting captured or incapacitated! How will she be captured next?!
Massive strips of fly paper
A stall without toilet paper!
And where is Claire?
Oh, look. Turns out Concretia has true geokinesis after all. That changes the conversations about where Hench Wench got that power from.
While I am sure the takeaway from the vote incentive is supposed to be ‘so flexible, hawt’, most of me is cringing and going ‘oh, thats GOTTA hurt’
Most selfloaders have a disconnect where if the slide is moved out of battery the trigger won’t actuate the sear, a Browning Hi-power for example has a simple system where the pivot in the slide is pushed back past the trigger extension that’s very effective.
In some actions, however, the barrel frame is solid with a smaller slide at the rear as in the Desert Eagle, Automag or a S&W 422, pressing the barrel against anything wouldn’t stop it from firing, the same with almost all revolvers which is why I prefer them.
There’s no hard guarantee that this is in fact a ‘five-seven’ identical to the ones in this world, the action may be radically different even with a similar outer appearance and ‘pinning’ the front part of the weapon may have no effect.
With the muzzle enclosed, the apparent sound would be reduced, in effect she made a concrete suppressor, but that muzzle blastshould have tickled her opponent’s tonsils, concrete or not ;)
Sydney’s best move at this point might be to jump off the building and let the orb’s range limit work for her….
I thought of that too. Just DieHard off of the building, slam her squishy body into the glass of the finished floor below and hang at the end of the invisible fire hose? Problem is, there’s not much to stop Concretia from leaving the orbs trapped, walking to the edge and dropping rocks on her until Sydney is a mushy pulp. Even if the lower floors weren’t already glassed over, she’d be dangling helpless at the end of her tether a floor or two down (I’m not sure how long the orb tether is, but not more than a couple rows in the parking lot
If she wanted to kill Sydney, sure. But Concretia would probably make the same error Max did the first time, and try to drag Sydney along by the orbs – which doesn’t work! That would give Sydney time to radio for help.
Holding her pistol “gangsta style” was a smart move, as the FN Five-seveN’s slide, like those of most semiauto pistols, is taller than it is wide, and she was shoving it into a horizontal orifice. Whether she did this deliberately or not is up to The Artist. I’m going with deliberate, as she has had some actual training by now.
How will Concretia escape the trap she caught Sydney in?
Okay…so that’s Concretia, which means Sydney getting kidnapped by aliens is less likely to be a concern. I was thinking that the capture of her orbs just tied her and Concretia to this location (Sydney can’t get too far away from the orbs, but people holding the orbs also can’t pull them away from her and make her move…though we don’t know how much strength Max was using in her initial attempt to drag Sydney out from under that ambulance, so that might not be a safe assumption). However, it occurs to me that Sydney had just brought the stasis pod thingy here. All Concretia needs to do is overpower/knock out Syd and throw her in the stasis pod, then she and/or whoever else she might call there could carry both Syd and the orbs away…while also gaining access to and control over that nifty alien tech.
This could be bad.
Also, it doesn’t feel like she’s been back with ARCSWAT long enough after her jaunt in space, yet she might get taken away from them again. At this rate, she’ll be a newbie in their ranks (from a training perspective) forever. lol
The pod has no power. It’s useless in the short-term.
Unable to keep Sydney in stasis. Might be durable enough to keep Sydney inside and the Orbs outside. Alternatively*, even without the power source, reverse-engineering may still be able to figure out a lot about what the stasis field does with the power and how.
* I do not bet on the pod still being in a usefully informative condition after it’s been trapped between an angry Sydney and her Orbs.
Concretia doesn’t know that.
Concretia clearly caught the press conference, and correctly deduced that denying access to her orbs reduces her to a mere mortal. She probably doesn’t YET know that Sydney and the orbs can’t be separated. What would happen if Concretia tossed Sydney out the window? Would she fall a few feet and hover in midair?
Yes, she would fall a few feet (well, meters) and hover in midair.
I think she would fall to the max distance of the orb’s tether, then swing like a pendulum and DieHard into the glass a couple floors below. if she’s not knocked silly by the impact, she might sprint along the wall along the radius of her tether making up a parody of the spiderman theme song in the process. “Spider Syd, spider Syd, does whatever a spider…. did.”
You’re partially correct Dave. It depends on exactly which model of gun Sydney’s carrying, but some pistols (Glocks mostly I think, it’s been a couple decades since I’ve really been around guns so I’m not 100% sure) won’t fire at all if you can manage to push the slide back like half a millimeter or so. Which biting down on it with a concrete mouth would probably do.
Is Concretia actually a villain? I thought she was just one of the people that got caught up in Vehemence’s pro-violence field.
The thing that’s really pointing to Concretia being a villain here is that she has some form of geo-kinesis and Hench Wench is also demonstrating some level of geo-kinesis, thus implying that Concretia is the one supplying the powers through being a member of the LLC.
In this comic, she’s sneaking up on Halo and enclosing the orbs in concrete, but none of this is inherently threatening – even her remarks about her head being blown off MIGHT be neutral — it could be merely an attempt at defensive prevention of knee-jerk reaction from Sydney, however unlikely that is
The geo-kinesis could happen in two supers, Concretia COULD be a party to the LLC without fully understanding how her powers are / would be being used by Hench Wench, Concretia could have had a change of heart, even knowing what the original purpose of the LLC was, etc.
All of these are fairly unlikely in my mind, but… possible
We know of at least two geokenisis users, Concreta and nameless dude with a warehouse full of gold. It’s unclear if Marble Maiden is one as well, as she’s basically not come up since her introduction to demonstrate her powers beyond ‘turning to stone’ and various gags based on that.
Despite that, the brawl was televised, possibly outing several of them without prior criminal records. And with out laws in place to prevent employers from discriminating against them for having powers she has been unable to get a job /was fired from whatever regular job she has. But this criminal group seeing the same broadcast found her and made her too good an offer.
What I don’t get, if the orbs are strong enough to stop Maxima dead in her tracks outside the bank in her first meeting with Sydney, how is it they cannot go through concrete?
There’s a difference between the strength of the orbs themselves and the strength of the “Orbs can never be pulled further than a certain distance from the owner” field. Note that the orbs didn’t break the tube they were in either, and the concrete is a LOT tougher than a cheap plastic poster tube.
presumably, given enough time, the orbs could wear down the inside of the concrete and dig their way out, assuming Concretia didn’t reinforce it. It is in Halo’s best interest to NOT clue Concretia in on the orb retention limitation just yet. Unless she has inside information, Concretia probably thinks it’s possible to steal the orbs.
Unmovable and unstoppable are two separate powers.
Guns can be extremely sensitive about not having their slide fully forward, and normally won’t jam or damage it but just won’t fire. I think it is due to the firing pin not being ready, possibly on purpose. Depending on the handgun, it’s possible to shove it into someones gut and due to their flesh slightly pushing the slide back it won’t fire at all. Depending on the model, you won’t need to reset the slide after pulling the trigger in this case and can just pull the gun back and fire it normally. I think all of this mainly applies to handguns with an internal hammer like the one Sydney is using, not sure how it applies to models with an external hammer.
Yep, it’s called out of battery safety. Most semi-automatic handguns designed in the last 100 years have an interrupt designed into the mechanism so they wont fire unless the bolt is seated against the barrel. Two issues here are whether or not Concretia’s mouth provides enough of an impediment to prevent the gun from cycling properly, and whether or not bits of Concretia would jam up the slide. I would weigh in that issue number two is the biggest impediment. It doesn’t take much to hang up the slide enough to prevent the gun from going into battery.
GM: …So, yeah, you empty the gun without effect. Concretia cracks wise at you over it.
Sydney: Huh. Okay. Do I have any actions left?
GM: Sure.
S: I dive off of the building.
GM: …What?
S: I dive off of the building.
GM: Without your powers?
S: Yup.
GM: I’m warning you. You do that, you might as well roll up a new character.
S: :shrugging: You’re the GM. :Grabs a spare character sheet:
:a half minute of tenseness around the table:
GM: I’m not going to be bullied, here.
S: Absolutely not!
GM: This is a thought-out world.
S: Sure. I was thinking a detective-type for the next character. Is that OK, or do you want me to play a blaster?
GM: Look, the rules are the rules?
S: :brightening: Oh, so we’re going to follow the RULES, then?
Random player: Here we go.
S: …So, remember when I started to run away from Max, at the beginning of the campaign?
GM: Yes.
S: How far away was I allowed to get from the orbs?
GM: Uhh, 25 feet.
S: How far down is the ground? More than 25 feet, right?
GM: …Yes.
S: So, I’m suspended in midair, right?
GM: …For the moment.
S: Great! So I hit the emergency button on my wristcom, first thing. Second thing: we’ve established people can’t actually really grab the orbs, right? Concretia’s got them wrapped, or something.
GM: OK.
S: So, it’s not my strength against hers: it’s my weight against the weight of whatever point of the hollow sphere of concrete you’ve got my orbs in. How much weight can it take before it cracks?
GM: Nice try, but once a hole opens up Concretia will just close it again.
S: But what about the orb busting open the hole? It’ll get through, right?
GM: …Yes. Sure. You can have *one* orb. You want to roll for it?
S: Nah. Surprise me.
GM: What?
S: Surprise me.
GM: You sure about that?
S: It’s your world, I’m just the player. What you say, goes.
GM: Kind of a risk for you.
S: Not really.
GM: Fine. It’s the…
[PPO] S: I immediately blast the sphere at full power.
[Teleport] S: “So, Mr. Wizard: what happens when we try to teleport this way? I dunno, Timmy: LET’S FIND OUT.”
[Mr Bubble]: S: Other hand puts on the rebreather, I dial in a full report, wait for Concretia to get tired.
[Light hook]: S: I wrap it around the sphere, start SQUEEZING.
[Flight] S: “WARP ONE, MR. SULU! STRAIGHT UP!”
[Life Support]: S: I cast Acid Spray on the sphere..
GM: Acid is a liquid. You’ve only been able to make gasses so far.
S: Fair enough. You know what else is a gas? Chlorine trifluoride. You said this building is under construction, right?
[Mystery ball]: S: That’s the best one of all! Guess we’re finding out what it does!
GM: Why?
S: I’m HANGING above the STREET while holding on to NOTHING, dude. Sydney is TERRIFIED and her reptile brain is ready to try ANYTHING. If there’s ever a time for it to activate, it’s now.
(There are, of course, ways to get around any of those options.)
If you even get one orb loose, you can use that one to bash things, even if it’s otherwise useless.
Good plan, although Sydney has vertigo
You forgot to use the word ‘Vermillion’ in your very good script.
So, are Concretia’s concrete eyes just for show or are they specialized and functional? It looks like she could still see just fine as her astral form as evidenced by her reaching out and grabbing Sydney by the gun. Also I wonder if people can see her astral form like us readers or if you would have to use the true sight orb.
Tactically I think Sydney should have stepped out of arms reach of the hostile super. Something something reset your ooda loop reactionary gap.
Overall, she did exactly the sequence you want trained into her. OhCrapDanger->GetOrbs-> Can’t Get Orbs-> GetGun. Someone like Math could’ve saved a few milliseconds on that sequence with super duper reflexes by recognizing that the orbs were trapped first so skipped trying to get the orbs and gone immediately for the gun.
Concretia knows where the gun is as well as anyone can. She doesn’t need to see it.
Sydney’s reaction is quick and correct. The gunfire is legal (disarming a cop is viewed as an attack), you always shoot the attacker, never the gear (you can disarm, disable, or disassemble the device when you’ve dealt with the owner), and if nothing else, 12 rounds rapid fire will certainly alert the neighbors! She has eight shots left, and would be expected to have two spare magazines at least. Recognizing Concretia, she would know that blowing her head off doesn’t really hurt her. Given Concretia’s nature, the muzzle in the mouth is a clever way to avoid inconvenient chips, spalling, and riccochets at arm’s length from her face. Pity it failed.
Now comes negotiation and busting the patented Amazeballs out, preferably at the same time, and with her com mic open. She’s smart enough to do just that. She’s incapable of sitting back and awaiting rescue, even if that was her best move, which it’s not.
l
No time to read all comments but
VERY nice reflex Sidney!
*Wondering if we’re going find out the orbs can do a thing in this kind of situation.*
Honestly, I’m impressed that Sydney had the presence of mind to draw and fire her gun like that
Okay, someone has to say it. “She got her balls.”
You mean ‘she’s got her by the balls.’ right?