[M&M 3e] Defying the Future IC

[Quellian-dyrae]

When Ntombi described the effects of Manchineel's scent on her creations...two sides of Lily went to war inside her head.

Floral, the badass warrior-scientist, the genus biochemist who used the shining light of the sun as a resource and all the plants of the world as weapons, who could manipulate vegetable matter on the cellular level and conduct on-the-fly genetic engineering in the heat of combat, got the mental equivalent of a slasher smile and mad scientist glasses gleam. Manchineel controlled her minions through scent, but more than that, it was a specific scent. Something she could potentially analyze and emulate, and wield against them. Among Floral's many biochemical weapons were pheromone scents that could influence and control the minds of others. If Manchineel's creatures were already designed to obey a specific olfactory signature, duplicating it should give her powers a tremendous advantage against them!

Already, plans were shooting through that part of her brain. She would need to smell it herself, of course; Ntombi's description would no more suffice than the description of "a dark haired woman with an interesting smile" would convey the artistry of the Mona Lisa. Getting a physical sample would be even better; even Lily's knowledge of biochemistry wouldn't allow her to reverse-engineer the exact cellular structure to emulate that exact olfactory signature simply by smelling it, although it wasn't impossible that with enough time she could match it with trial and error. Still, limits of human memory would be prohibitive there. But if...

Meanwhile, the Flower Girl was curled up in the fetal position in some dark corner of her mind, wailing in terror and despair.

Manchineel's creations were beholden to her olfactory signature. Lily was, herself, a creation of Manchineel's. One that had once been human, just as Ntombi described. There was no reason to assume that Manchineel wouldn't have bound her to her scent just as she did all her other creations. That she was able to think and act for herself was not evidence; as Ntombi had said, the formerly-human members of the Menagerie could do that when not in range of her.

That part of her mind wanted to weep. She had worked so hard to turn her dinky little flower powers into a practical powerset...and now it turned out that the one piece she had thought was an actual, stand-on-its-own useful ability, the augmented sense of smell, might in fact be her greatest weakness. No power at all, but a backdoor Manchineel had installed to control her. She was defeated before the fight had even begun, all her efforts to become stronger only serving to make her that much more powerful a weapon in Manchineel's hands once she laid claim to the slave she had created. And the worst part was that she had known it from the start. Manchineel was a force of nature.

You don't talk down a volcano. You don't make friends with a hurricane. You don't overcome them in personal combat, either.

Lily kinda swayed on her feet for a moment, as if dazed, half of her brain occupied with plans for inevitable and glorious victory, the other half overcome with visions of unavoidable and hopeless defeat. A single piece of evidence shouldn't cause you to update literally equally strongly in two completely opposite directions.

She took a breath, tried to fuse the two sides of her wildly running thoughts back into a coherent whole.

Call it even odds, then. Work to develop methods to exploit Manchineel's scent, ideally while avoiding personal exposure. Among them, a way to protect yourself from it, the way you modulate your pheromones to be blocked by the natural scents of your allies. ...And work with the others to prepare contingencies to ensure they can neutralize you if you are compromised, Floral advised her with calm, strategic pragmatism.

You'll have to tell them what you are, the Flower Girl warned her in a broken mental voice.

"Thank you," she finally said, and she meant it, the words coming from the bottom of her heart. The immediate tactical information - Raphael likes water, and all - was useful. But knowing about Manchineel's scent...that was critical. Whether it was a path to victory or defeat or both was uncertain, but either way, knowing about it made all the difference.

But then the greenish light came spilling through the trees, and Lily turned towards it. "If you can get clear, now's the time. Nope might be able to help with that. Otherwise...stay behind us."

To the others she said, quietly, a seemingly-uncharacteristic trepidation in her voice, "When this is over...we need to talk."