Day two.

I had set my alarm to wake me up bright and early today, lots of work to do. After some breakfast cereal and a goodbye to dad as he went to work, it was time to test out a few other little things on my list and research more online. I'll work on the endurance question from yesterday last, so I don't tire myself out.

First up was the Manton Effect. Now the Manton Effect was pretty famous, it meant that most capes, for whatever reason, were largely immune to their own powers, or at least the bad parts of it. So that meant that someone like Shadow Stalker, a local Ward who could walk through walls, didn't fall through the ground when using her powers.
The second part of the Manton Effect was that if a cape's powers were not personal things like super strength or flight, then most of the time they couldn't affect living things with their power directly. Or if they could affect living things only, then objects would be immune. Well, that's what the Internet told me at least.

The most famous example of breaking the Manton Effect was that of Narwhal. Most capes that could create force fields, could only make them around people and objects like a shield. But Narwhal was the major showcase of what happened when this restriction was broken. She was one of the few capes to ever find a way past it somehow. She was known for being able to create her force fields inside people and objects.

That meant that while a normal shield could stop a bad guy from moving around, she could kill someone with a single thought if she ever wanted to. Making a force field inside a heart, or cutting off heads? There would be no way to stop it without having some kind of defensive power yourself. Luckily for us all, she was a major hero from Canada who was the head of the Guild, a Canadian cape group that focuses on helping with international threats like the Endbringers. This means that her scary powers are on the side of good.

But this all meant that I probably had limitations on my power, and should figure out what they were. At least inanimate objects seemed fine to teleport around. I already knew I could teleport my clothing, and wasn't that a relief. I think any cape out there that couldn't teleport with clothes staying on, probably stayed home and pretended they had no powers. I know I would!

However, testing this proved a bit harder than I thought it would be. I was able to teleport with a potted plant, but then I realized that most capes could affect plants just fine, it was only animals and people that they could not. It was winter, so no trying to dig up a worm. I had no pet to experiment with, but I did remember that there are always a few bugs in the basement.

I know that like many folks, we try to keep the numbers down with lots of pesticides. The PRT provided them to all homeowners cheap since Kumo Yokai lives in this city. (Bug control powers, very nasty assassin type, loved his venomous critters and apparently loved Brockton Bay's mild climate. Thankfully in winter he lies low.)
But I'm sure that with the dramatic bully/locker related stuff going on, plus the money troubles, dad probably hadn't sprayed in a while. Maybe I could find a bug in some forgotten corner?

I almost start to walk down the stairs but then decide with a grin, I'm going to teleport instead. Gotta practice the powers, right? Maybe I just want an excuse to use them, but what's the point of having powers if you don't have fun with them once in a while?

I go bug hunting, rummaging behind boxes and moving furniture out of the way, and quickly realize that we have a lot of junk. We probably need to have a garage sale this summer to get rid of some of it. I use a few extra selves to enhance my perception and it helps immensely, soon I have one live spider trapped in a cup. Time for the moment of truth!

And with no noticeable fanfare, suddenly there are two selves holding two spiders in two sets of cups. I check to make sure that it's still alive, and yup, the bug is moving around energetically in both cups. Yes! Living things are a go.

Also, it is slightly disappointing that I don't have some kind of cool visual or audible effect to accompany my teleportation. But at least that means I can be stealthy if I need to. Plus the ash dissolve is neat. Too bad 'Phoenix', and 'The Phoenix' were long ago taken as cape names, something like that would have been so thematically perfect.

So test one is complete. This means that I can (probably) take people with me. I don't even have to fight criminals to save people, I can just pop them away from danger. Next up is mass. According to my quick research, most capes that can teleport long distances are limited by mass, touch, or other stuff. The few that are not, like the world famous Strider, are super useful.

I already am pretty sure that I'm a touch only type of teleporter, despite many attempts to prove otherwise, so now to see if I have a weight limit. Might be cool to be able to teleport a whole bus full of people around.

I did research on capes pretty much the entire morning, and late last night too. Especially focusing on the teleporters and clone makers. It seems that on average if a cape has a major strength in one area, they would be weaker in another, but not always. Some just get lucky and have super superpowers.

While I was looking for a spider, it turned out that dad had hidden an old weight lifting set in the basement. This is good news since I might start using it to build strength later, when I'm not still weak from the infections and hospital stay. It is way too heavy to lift easily, so I just take out each part individually. I won't need them for long, and then they can go back in the box until I need them again.

I go through all of them just fine, teleporting with each weight with no problems. I'm not expecting any, but it never hurts to be sure. As a last test I even combine them into a ruined backpack that had been used as a football by some guys Emma had charmed with her looks, for a total weight of 50 lbs.

I'm a bit leery about this because there are small rips all over the backpack, but I hope that it holds long enough for me to get a good test out of it. I carefully stand up and quickly port away into two, three, then four selves. Seems good. It's not much weight so I still have more testing to do, but I still feel a ton of irrational joy from the benchmark I've just reached. I even have one self do a little dance as another self, the one I plan on keeping around, starts to take off the backpack, as it is really, really heavy.

Suddenly a weight starts to shift from the victory dance. It slips out, and I notice too late the sudden lack of weight.

"Ow!" The stupid thing landed on my foot! Oh god, I hope I didn't break my foot... I melt that self away hoping that the pain will go away with it. Much to my surprise, it does. Huh.

I felt it plain as day when I was, uh, me? Fuck, I'm gonna need to invent new words for this weirdness. But as my other selves melt away due to the time limit, I inspect my remaining two feet. Nothing. That's good, I had kinda wondered what would happen if one self was hurt in a fight. It's nice to know that hurting one me won't hurt all of the me's at the same time.

Oh, crap, what if I have only a certain number of selves, and if one is hurt it stays hurt?

"That would be incredibly lame." I gripe to myself.

I cascade out my full array of selves, two, three, four. Relief as none of them are hurt in the slightest. Ok, problem solved. No lingering injury.

I sigh out loud and can't help but shake my head and say to myselves, "Oh Taylor, it's been almost two years without friends, and now you are making puns to yourself. The depths you have sunk to..."

Back to mass testing. After I put away all the weights, I go upstairs to try with some heavier household objects. I first try to port with the kitchen table, but it fails to happen. I'm sure it's not much heavier than the backpack full of weights... This could be bad.

I cascade into four selves to think about it, and quickly realize that it was probably from the lack of clear space for the second table to go into. Otherwise I'd be able to port myself into solid objects, and wouldn't that be horrifying. Better test this to be sure.

Cringing, I try to port a new self into a tiny storage space, nope. That's a relief. At least that Manton Effect thing is good for something other than limiting me.

Ok, so compact but heavy things to test with then. Ooh, an appliance might work, and I can look up how much it weighs online. I head over to the fridge and give it a bear hug. Feeling incredibly awkward, I try to port to the empty part of the kitchen. Nope. This time I'm sure there was enough room where I was aiming for. It's a skinny fridge, but still no go.

Electrical interference? The plug is still in the wall?

I try with a flashlight, and it works fine, so it's not the electricity from being on. But try as I might, I can't get the fridge to port. Maybe it is too heavy? I can't even lift it, and looking it up online, it's 130 lbs. Add in more for the food inside, and it's probably 170 lbs total.

So unless I have to be able to lift something off the floor entirely to port, then my limit is starting to look kinda low. I won't even be able to port away with a particularly fat man if this is true.

If I have to lift it to port it, then I'm gonna need some tinker-tech power armor to be able to lift things. I groan out loud in frustration. "Ok, so one roadblock achieved unless the 'Quad-Core' selves can think of something." I mumble to myself.

The first thing I think of when fully cascaded is that perhaps the fridge plug is connecting it to the rest of the house. I proceed to test with a plugged in floor lamp, but sadly it works just fine. I end up with a floor lamp in my hand, the cord end dropping to the floor with a 'tak' as it falls from it's previous orientation.

Next up, floor or no floor? The answer is that the floor and other surfaces are acceptable for objects to rest upon, and still be ported by me. So I can put my hand on a paper that is on the kitchen table, port, and it will fall to the ground from my other self's hand as there is no more table holding it up.

At least these experiments make me realize that I barely need any contact at all to teleport something, no need to hug fridges anymore. I can see some possibilities in that, touch some guy's weapon, make a new self far away, he thinks he still has it until I keep that self and his current weapon dissolves to ash.

I might not be able to permanently create stuff like some of the guys who make minions and clones, but at least I can move it even if I'm barely in contact with it. It even works through winter gloves and shoes, so I guess I can affect things connected to stuff I'm touching.

Now, how do I determine my exact weight limit? Since I don't have to be able to lift it, and being plugged in doesn't count as connecting it, the fridge might actually be too heavy for me. I decide to take the easy way out and make another thinking quad. It only takes a few seconds to get the brilliant idea of using buckets of water, after flashing back to some junior high science experiments with density. Water has a precise weight per volume, one easily found online.

It takes time, but I use a measuring cup and start to fill buckets with water, keeping track of how much is in each one on a piece of paper. Eventuality I have a few heavy duty buckets and one mop pail full of various weights of water. It is hard to work with the heavy containers and I have to move slowly to not spill, but I am able to fill one up, stabilize it on the sink ledge, then teleport it to where it needs to go.

I set two on the table in reach of my hands, two others on the floor by my feet. Time to test this out. By touching them with my hands and feet, I can port them all at once. It adds a touch of complexity to the wave of balance, to the duality, but it is easily managed. I want the buckets, and the water, and my clothes, nothing else...

It works! A huge sploosh and mess is created as the hand buckets fall and drench everything nearby. Oops. I quickly dismiss that self in shock, and laugh as everything goes back to normal, but with ash slowly fading everywhere the water went. The one knickknack I toppled remains knocked over from the water, but it didn't break so it's fine.

The amount of water I just ported is 100 lbs total. Each bucket is a pain to move but I carefully swap out one bucket for another larger one waiting on the counter.

110 lbs, good.

120 lbs, still good.

Darn, 130 lbs is too much apparently. I guess the fridge was too heavy after all. Damn it! Daydreams of teleporting cars and buildings go poof. So much for that.

Time to start scooping water out and keeping track of when I can port again. Eventually, at approximately 122 lbs, I can port again. That number makes be blink in surprise. That is eerily close to how much I weigh... Interesting? And since I'm sure my current clothes, plus the plastic buckets themselves weigh at least a couple of pounds, I come to the unfortunate conclusion that I can port only as much mass as myself. That would be useful for a big dude, but I'm kinda useless as a skinny rail aren't I?

"Note to self, gain weight." I sigh sadly. I guess I can't just run only, I need to build muscle, somehow. With my genetics, getting super fat would never work, never mind how unhealthy that would be. Of course, it could be a fluke number randomly generated by the universe. I'll have to test this again later when my weight has changed enough for it to be noticeable.

One last test. I cascade out to all four selves, each with their own duplicated buckets splooshing to the floor and creating a huge soggy mess. It's actually kinda fun to create a big mess like this, one that I don't have to clean up. And the good news is that cascading out to four selves is not affected by the mass I'm porting, nor vice versa. That would have sucked even more.

Aquatic experiments done, I busy my selves with pouring the water back down the drain and cleaning up the few spills that stuck from prior moving things around, then putting the buckets back where they came from so my dad will be none the wiser.

Lunch break time! All this heavy lifting has been a bit much for me, I'm still weak from the hospital. Tasty sandwiches and some leftover lasagna are just what I want right now. Normally I'd eat less but I suppose it's time to start overindulging. It's not like I couldn't gain at least another 10 lbs and still look skinny, I might even look normal for once.

Then it's time for the endurance test, more thinking, and more note taking.

This time with three selves constantly rotating every couple of seconds, I manage to last almost a whole hour before getting mentally exhausted. This is good though, if this holds up, I can expect either one and a half hours with only two selves, or two hours. It depends on if each self halves the time, or only takes away a half hour of it.

Still, so far it's not looking good overall for power strength. There are definitely many capes with more useful teleportation powers. I suppose that it's a good thing I also have that duplication aspect with my selves lingering for a bit, or else it would be awful in comparison to most other teleporters. I'll just have to optimize that five second advantage to make up for it.

I review my notes. The more equipment I carry, the safer I'll be, especially armor, but I'll also reduce my ability to save people. Right now I can only save little children and animals. But any equipment I do carry will basically multiply in effectiveness with every self, so it probably trumps being able to port people at this stage. Not when I can only port a small subset of the population. So for now, I'll focus on getting stronger and designing a costume with lots of options and useful things I can take advantage of duplicating.

I'll have to tell others that I can't port people. At least until I can actually port a useful person or two around. Hmm, perhaps other capes that are also young and small? I know that the local Wards have a tiny looking gal named Vista, I bet she'd be light enough for me to move with.

Of course, that would mean joining the Wards, but it's not the worst option in the world. The possibility of Tinker-tech gear, teammates that are hopefully light enough to move around... I could actually be useful if I had the right team. Of course, government oversight, red tape, and teen drama in a more enclosed social space would be major downsides, but it is definitely on the table for now.

Reviewing the last of the notes, I also seem to have figured out a good strategy for talking to dad about not going back to school ever again. A bit of research is still needed, I gotta be able to back it up with hard data, but I'm feeling confident. Even if I never manage to become a big hero, at least I'll have saved myself from the terror trio. (Again.)

So off to the computer I go, ignoring homework in favour of research and possibly a nap. I still have to try jogging later today, and after the bucket antics I'm beat.