Danny: They started it. I'm finishing it.
Collateral Damage is a Worm fanfiction by ack1308, and inspired by another of his stories, Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Worm) — but taken to the extreme. Instead of merely being a highly trained Professional Killer, Danny is a Tinker specialising in Disproportionate Retribution and calling himself Ragnarok. Now his daughter has been hurt, and the world will regret it.
It is available on SpaceBattles.com (here
), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), FanFiction.Net (here), and Questionable Questing (here).
These tropes are in the blast zone:
- Disproportionate Retribution: This is practically Danny's motto, and
Word of God confirms that it's the unofficial name of his shard. His standard approach is to return any attack tenfold, and that's the effect of the amulet that he gives Taylor. The story opens with him in the process of annihilating the entirety of China because the CUI got his wife killed — and that was technically unintentional, they meant to kidnap her instead. - The Dreaded: Ragnarok is everyone's undisputed "scariest cape in the world". Even someone as sarcastic and emotionally dead as Regent knows there's no question about it.
- Flashy Teleportation: Danny's teleporter leaves mushroom clouds. He can adjust it to shift the effect toward either the source or destination, but even when he chooses to leave most of the explosion at the source, he still wrecks three cars at his destination and damages several more.
- Godzilla Threshold: Prior to the story, Danny killed Behemoth — and the Triumvirate still isn't sure whether it was worthwhile, since he turned the whole city into a radioactive crater, with more casualties than Behemoth's previous three attacks combined.
- Horrifying the Horror: After Danny kills Behemoth, even the Simurgh stays over the horizon from him at all times. She and Leviathan only attack Perth, Australia.
- I Have Your Wife: The CUI tried to kidnap Annette to get leverage over Danny. Unfortunately for everyone, they messed up and killed her instead, upon which Danny set out to wipe China off the map.
- Immune to Mind Control: Ragnarok's tech retaliates against mental influences just like physical ones. Glory Girl suffers a stroke when her aura touches Taylor. Heartbreaker tries to enslave Danny, and is found later with his brain half-melted and eyeballs exploded.
- Literal Disarming: Ragnarok once blew off Eidolon's arm when Eidolon hassled him about the fate of Houston. Eidolon was able to grow it back, but they both know it was just a warning shot.It said something about Ragnarok that the loss of a limb counted as 'restraint'.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Brandish attempts to blast Taylor, and ends up coating everything nearby.There were no large pieces, no intact bones, no recognisable organs. It was almost as though she'd been spread like butter, or perhaps run through a woodchipper and sprayed evenly over the area.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Faced with the prospect of Ragnarok on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, even though the Undersiders aren't the target, even the normally unflappable and apathetic Regent is legitimately terrified.Regent: Is it too late to find another universe to live in?
- Pummeling the Corpse: Legend points out to Ragnarok that since he's already destroyed China's leadership and its parahumans, everyone who could be at fault for his loss, and their neighbours will soon tear what's left to shreds, all he's doing now is kicking the corpse of a country. Danny isn't impressed, but he ultimately lets himself be talked down.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: Heartbreaker demands a night with Alexandria as part of his price for pacifying Ragnarok. Eidolon and Legend want to refuse, but Alexandria is willing to do what it takes to end Ragnarok's threat. It becomes moot when Heartbreaker tries to control Danny and gets his brain melted for his troubles.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Danny's defensive technology causes massive destruction, returning attacks to their sender with tenfold interest. His actual offensive weaponry simply obliterates the target, and everything nearby, and everything behind it, as far as the eye can see.He was constitutionally incapable of building anything that could perform a pinpoint strike.
