Hornblower: Just think of it as a standard Matrix insertion. Try not to do anything that'll get you noticed straight out of the gate.
Morrigan: But even if I do, I can claim superhuman powers, right? I mean, that's a thing there.
Hornblower: True. But it might be an idea to keep that sort of thing on the down-low. Until we've got more information, of course.
Morrigan: But even if I do, I can claim superhuman powers, right? I mean, that's a thing there.
Hornblower: True. But it might be an idea to keep that sort of thing on the down-low. Until we've got more information, of course.
It has been twenty years since the humans who have escaped from the Matrix fought a war against the machines, and the work to free the rest of humanity is going slowly. Then they come across an isolated network that is operating far outside normal parameters, grafting anomalous code onto avatars all over the place. When Taylor Hebert is forced into her locker, before she has a chance to do anything more than start to scream, her mind is taken over by an operative being inserted to find out what's happening, and what it will take to rescue the people there before the Zion program completely loses the plot and kills them all.
Reality Intrudes is a crossover Fan Fic of Worm and The Matrix, by ack1308. It is published on FanFiction.Net (here
), SpaceBattles.com (here), and Sufficient Velocity.com (here).
These tropes have gone down the rabbit hole:
- Bluffing the Murderer: Director Piggot and Armsmaster question Sophia about her confrontation with Taylor, getting her (heavily edited to the point of gross dishonesty) side of the story — then reveal that they had already requisitioned Emma's phone and examined her message history, meaning that they already knew about the bullying campaign and were just letting Sophia dig herself deeper by lying about everything.
- Car Fu: By shooting at Fenja and Menja, Morrigan gives Lung the initial impression that she's on his side. He realizes that that's not the case when he's about to be hit in the face with her high-speed motorbike.
- Chunky Salsa Rule: Morrigan applies extreme amounts of headshot to kill Alabaster, reducing his head to modern art within 2.5 seconds, so his powers are ruined before he gets a chance to reset.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Upon breaking out of the locker, but still covered in filth, Morrigan recruits help — dragging Emma out of class into a bathroom, then ordering her to fill a basin, or else Morrigan will see exactly how far she can shove Emma's head down the toilet.
- Defeat by Modesty: Emma and Sophia can't easily pursue Morrigan after she switches her ruined clothes for their clean ones. Neither one of them is willing to walk through Winslow in underwear, and wearing the post-locker clothes is recently unappealing.
- Demonic Possession: Morrigan enters the Earth Bet simulation via a modified Agent program, meaning that she takes over Taylor's body (though without transforming it into herself). While she's plugged in, Taylor is basically switched off, with no sense of time; she goes from "trapped in locker and screaming" to "in bed, Morrigan just disconnected" with no awareness in between.
- Driving Up a Wall: By leaning hard on the local laws of physics, Morrigan is able to ride her (actually Armsmaster's) motorbike up onto a roof in pursuit of the Undersiders. The car she used as a launch ramp doesn't fare well, and she leaves some burned rubber marks on the ground, but even Regent is impressed.
- Dynamic Entry: Morrigan makes a dramatic entry to an Empire stash house with a truck at full tilt, scattering the guards and smashing down the door in all wheel drive.
- Explosive Overclocking: Morrigan's ability to bend the rules of the Matrix allows her to defy this trope and rapid-fire a shotgun at a rate that should ordinarily have ruined the mechanism. Which is how she kills Alabaster, by shredding his head too thoroughly for him to recover.
- Hassle-Free Hotwire: Morrigan has a stolen truck started in twenty seconds, and half of that was adjusting the driver's seat to the way she likes it.Hotwiring vehicles is a skill I've long since mastered.
- Note to Self: When Taylor wakes up from Morrigan's visit, she finds a note clutched in her hand to explain what has happened. (The fact that that included getting her out of the locker goes a long way toward helping her assume the best of her "visitor".)In the meantime, each time you have a blackout, just be aware that it's for a good cause.
Sorry for any inconvenience,
Morrigan - Out-of-Character Alert: Morrigan's behaviour is noticeable enough that Danny checks whether Taylor has been Mastered, by prompting her for the nickname her mother gave her. However, Morrigan can access her memories and so passes the test.
- Or Was It a Dream?: When Taylor goes from being trapped in her locker and screaming, to finding herself in her bed at night, naturally she wonders whether she just had a remarkably vivid nightmare — until she sees the note in her hand.
- Spit Take: Taylor's reply letter has Morrigan laughing so hard she has to lean against a wall. Meanwhile, the captain has to hand the Operator a cloth to wipe his coffee off the screen.
- Super-Scream: When Triumph shouts, "STOP!" it's not just a command, it has force behind it. Even in shadow state, Sophia is thrown into the doorframe and disabled long enough for Armsmaster's net to catch her.
- Upgrade Artifact: Morrigan's uploaded skills make her equivalent to a decently powerful Brute parahuman. When Victor drains them, her Operator is able to brute-force re-upload them — but that has the side effect that Taylor gets them too.
