I mean, he did sort of warn her that was the case already. The head of an ethereal construct is not entirely ornamental, I mean, it does contain teeth in this case. But they are also less mandatory than they might be for more fleshy things. It probably does effect their ability to process complex actions due to the quirks of how magic works, but not to the point where their primary purpose of stabbing things would be unduly inhibited.
I think she’s more upset that it got the same arm as last time then she is that it stabbed her. That’s her favorite punching things arm. I mean, all things to considered though, she’s still in a remarkably good mood compared to when she got shot.
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Nathan seems woefully underinformed about Red Dragon Witch.
“Chef” Naomi: “Monster-thing pulp, coming right up.”
(Hmm, or should I just say she “left it there”….so long as she doesn’t hit me afterwards, I suppose I should have both on hand….)
Eat quickly. Artificial construct stew probably doesn’t last long.
You know, I never really have considered what they taste like. I mean, I guess it depends on how detailed the construct data is…
Is that Naomi’s thumb in the last panel? Her hand seems to be at an odd angle and I’m having trouble in my mind picturing how she got from grabbing it behind her to ripping the piece off and turning it so that her palm is toward herself as seems to be in that picture. Can anyone give me an idea of what type of motions she would be using?
From the position in panel panel 10, she has just swung her arm from backwards to straight out, her palm facing the camera, with her thumb in front of it. For a normal human, this would be a really low leverage maneuver, but Naomi only takes vague suggestions as to how that sort of thing works.
You can actually see how her shirt is more torn to that side, due to the angle she ripped it off being partially obstructed by herself. The angle of the ripped off blade/arm is weird, but I suspect that’s a quark of the art so you can see the pink lines on it better (which I think is a clue).
It’s an awkward bit of angles, I dunno. Was probably a bit too ambitious, considering. More or less @Ferrus is right, just extends the arm from back to forward.
Monster thing, here are 3 steps you should be taking now that you have angered the Naomi. First, bend over. Second, put head between rear legs. Third, kiss your butt goodbye. (Steps 2 and 3 require regrowing head on the way to oblivion.)
I mean, really…you have ANGERED the NAOMI. You DON’T walk away from something like that in one piece.
I see two options.
One. In the next panel she is smiling, planning to beat it to death with its own arm. This is certain death for the construct.
Two. In the next panel, she is not smiling. As we know, this is certain death for construct, and she will probably use its own arm to beat it death.
In conclusion, if you are that construct, it is probably too late to seek Life Insurance. I would call that construct insurable for the condition preexisting condition of “Doomed”.
holy fuck naomi in panel 9. if I was the construct, i’d fucking just jump off the roof myself. I know that Naomi is a human (technically) and all, but shit man. She looks way scarier there than anything Mium has ever done. Makes you wonder, especially since she gets so touchy when people say Mium isn’t not a person.
What I believe is Naomi’s teeth looking like a *fang* isn’t helping matters in that sense.
when the Magic starts appearing as veins, and they look like layered bricks.. ****’S hitting the fan, BIG TIME!!!
If we’ve seen anything about this comic, its that the more shit hits the fan, the more shit will hit the fan, in an escalating pattern of shit to fan. I expect that things will be going full fan fecal here.
Nathan now seems to be getting a crash course on the kinds of people that Peter can find and recruit. This really isn’t Nathan’s day.
Poor Nathan 🙁
Etherial Constructs have blood? Who knew? 🙂
I believe it’s her blood
Not the stuff spraying from the monster’s upper arm/tentacle. Her blood is on the piece she ripped loose, but that’s fresh blood flying on the air.
I’m thinking that’s just the cubes of a broken ethereal construct. Since the smallest pieces are just red dots it does look a lot like blood, but they just look like sparks to me.
It’s construct fragments and the word “RIP” in blood-red, rough/fuzzy lettering.
“RIP” not just being the action of limb removal, but soon likely the epitaph for this ethereal construct.
@Kytheros: Even under magnification it still looks like a blood splatter to me. Low-res Chromebook screen, I guess. ><
Thanks for clearing that up, though, I appreciate it. 🙂
If you are looking at the tip, that is blood. Naomi’s blood, in fact, from when it stabbed her. Not as much as one might expect from a mage killing machine that was earlier using its strength to climb up the outside of a building (presumably by clawing into the concrete itself at it climbed) but that only seems to underscore Naomi’s defenses rather than being an indication of its power.
It is good that all the injuries seem to hit Mium, Naomi, and Rovak. Otherwise someone might get hurt. You would think that Naomi would have learned from last time. Hit thing, then continue to hit thing. Don’t hit thing, then make wisecrack/snide commentary on it.
Naomi tends to put herself in danger more than someone like Peter. When Peter saw one of these things, he just did the smart thing and exited stage left (with a grenade for style). When Naomi saw one, she really wanted to punch it, got thrown off a roof, and went to great effort to go back and punch it anyway.
As for Rovak, he takes it to a whole new level of complete ambivalence to danger.
To be fair, the more vulnerable people tend to compensate by having defenses up (Kally, Tyler), and/or taking cover and avoiding combat like the plague (Peter). That is, they actively try to avoid getting hit.
Mium, Naomi, and Rovak all tend to be somewhat indifferent about avoiding incoming attacks, since they can usually shrug them off.
I mean, Mium isn’t actually Mium, just an avatar, so damage to the F8 avatar frame doesn’t actually directly affect the AI Mium in an existential way.
Rovak, I mean, he’s nearly unkillable and he knows it – attacking him just tells him who/what he should blow up next; plus he’s crazy.
Naomi is her own brand of crazy, and, to be fair, is quite resilient, knows it, and also likes punching things, which means getting up close and personal, which also tends to make her a priority target.
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Is Naomi going to beat this construct to death/nonexistence with its own arm/limb? Awesome.
I think that Naomi does intend to murder the construct with its own blade arm. If you look carefully at the freshly-detached limb, you can see that the Naomi-magic pattern is starting to expand onto it. Previously detached pieces just sort of vanish into the red dots, but presumably that is because they strop drawing mana from the construct.
Mana is something that Naomi has in spades, so keeping it supplied with Mana is not a problem. Additionally, Nathan did say that most effective thing against constructs is other constructs… and particularly ones on the same color level as them. Naomi probably cannot create something like that, but she does actually tend to pay attention. So she probably did 2 + Naomi Logic = Beat It To Death With Its On Arm.
The nature of Naomi magic is something that I just put another speculation up on, but I think this is another clue that she is not just a normal booster.
We have been told that Naomi can’t do complex calculations involved in a lot of magic, but have also been told that she is really smart and that she is often doing other type of calculations automatically in her boosting (such as precise contlol of her power strength and adding things like weight to herself for leverage). Last page she also created a movement gate and, though it was not functional, the fact that it appeared at all shows that she could most likely be capable of it with enough practice. We also saw her track another invisible character by watching for the magic (Nathan’s lacky), and withstand/ignore magic knock-out gass within moments of encountering it. Add to that what we have seen other boosters do and compare that to what we have seen Naomi do, and her abilities go far beyond what one might expect from “just a booster”.
My theory is that she may be an innate booster, but that she has used that stepping stone to actually become a proficient and diverse caster in that area. Her main problem with casting other things is one of impatience, not capability, but with her current skill she rarely has to go beyond her normal abilities and worry about expanding her skill set in order to win. So why would she put in the time to more completely study and learn a lot of other types of magic? Her current skills let her be super defensive, super strong, move super fast, react super fast, heal super fast, recover from what would otherwise be debilitating injuries, and even a few other tricks; and these tricks let her be a superhero and spend her free time playing video games (and beating MIUM in those games, which he almost seems to indicate is more than just “him letting her win”), so is it any wonder that she doesn’t see much of a need to do a lot of tedious studying to acquire other skills?
@Amaranth put a similar theory on the “forum”. The main problem with concluding if she’s a “booster” or “more than a booster” is that we have not really seen what another innate booster can do. She can certainly do more than the boost engines and bracelets that people (like Jayce) wear can do.
The fact that her power seems to extend to things that she is holding at very least implies that either being a “booster” is more than just a standard superhero power, or that Naomi is “just” a booster.
I expect Naomi to take that arm she ripped off and use it against all the monsters on that roof, not just the one she took it from.