The Boston Wards quarters that were my new home were in the Protectorate HQ rather than the PRT building like back in Brockton, which was pretty dope in a few ways. I'd get to see much more of the Heroes, since they were here all the time and would rarely go to the PRT offices; it was a problem I had at home, I really only ever saw Armsmaster and maybe Dauntless regularly.

I found that, now I was here, I didn't know what to say. I needed to make a good impression but my stomach butterflied in a way it never did when I talked to people.

"Hey," I raised a hand lackadaisically.

No! A milquetoast intro was even worse than a bad one. They had to pay attention to me. Bring the spice.

"Famiglias, what's good?"

I got a smattering of 'heys' back because none of the three present Boston Wards apparently understood the concept of Presentation.

I opened my mouth but Weld stepped forward, "guys, this is Dark Smoke Puncher. He's going to be here for a few months due to some trouble in Brockton Bay-"

"Some Germans tried to assassinate me," I interrupted him. "Just so we're clear."

"Yes," said Weld, now sounding a mite annoyed. "Because of that. So while he's here just treat him like another member of the team."

Wisps of smoke curled off my body as I casually hopped six feet in a single step, "nice to meetchas. Hopefully you guys have less Nazi's because I've had it right up to here with those guys," I held my right hand above my head. "Am I Reich?"

Polite chuckles. What, were my Nazi jokes not doing it for these guys?

"Uh, yeah," said Norman. "Nazi's, like, suck."

Beside him Freddie and Daisy nodded.

"Then I guess I'm Goering to like it here," I grinned, sparkle cosmetic sending my teeth a twinkle. "Eh?"

That one got a proper laugh out of Freddie.

"Did you really get into a fight with Nazi's?" he looked at me and then Weld as though he thought I might've been having him on.

I glanced back over my shoulder to see Weld nodding tightly, "yeah, I almost died. Armsmaster harpooned one through the leg, it was awesome…" I trailed off because their faces were sinking as though they didn't understand incongruence as a joke. Or maybe because murder was a serious subject and people normally didn't take it as well in their stride as I. "I guess you had to be there."

I felt Weld's hand on my shoulder again, this time giving me the 'please for the love of God stop talking' squeeze.

"Well enough about that," I changed tack. "What are you guys about?"

I asked like I didn't already know, even though I totally knew. Observe made their little intros pretty moot anne frankly their Observe Bios weren't even particularly interesting in the first place. Daisy could make my clothes stab proof, but that was it as far as remarkability went.

Quest 'Take it back and do it over!' complete!
You made a better impression than the first time! Conglaturation!
Success: 100xp, increased reputation with Boston Wards

Their main advantage was they all seemed pretty chill, like Dean. Dean was a chill bro, he might've been the only one there I was kind of friends with, and I might have said chillness was a Cauldron cape thing due to the evidence of Weld but Rory and Chloe existed to represent the Hundred percent Maximum No Chill Brigade.

I scratched at my Armsbeard. Normally I was a social butterfly and would love the chance to get to know some more people, but I think I was done here.

"Nito, well it was nice to meetchas but I've gotta go do an eight hour arm session in the gym for power reasons. Also, where is your gym?"


The gym session hadn't been quite eight hours, or entirely arms, as I still had schoolwork to do. University level work since I had already finished the entire Winslow curriculum just to prove that I could, or enough of it that I could have graduated already if I was allowed; but apparently no one would sign off on that for some reason. Which was a bit weird since I was going to be schooled on base while I was in Boston so I had no idea what that would entail considering I was far past that shit. But whatevs.

I typed complex thesis statements with my left hand and moulded lighting with my right-

-1

Sheisse! I shook my hand to get the tingling out from the electric backlash and hammered backspace to get rid of the twenty lines of gibberish I'd written. Power, gib multitasking skill plox.

One good thing had come of it though, my power wouldn't make a spell if I didn't want it to as shown by the tines of sharp electricity I could extend from all five fingertips without getting a Lightning Claws spell. The major discovery of this was a hidden malleability vs. strength mechanic, as unnamed spells seemed to be subject to my personal skill rather than the aided ones and their concrete effects.

Which meant they were fucking shit.

I fished a potato chip out of the bag on my new desk and crunched it down.

I didn't think I particularly liked having more CHA either. I kept thinking stuff like, 'nah I shouldn't do and or say X' and then getting vivid flashbacks of having blithely done and or said X. This never used to happen, I never used to doubt my own awesomeness. I sighed and checked my phone.

GStringGirl was still marked as online, and had presumably read my last message but wasn't deigning to answer which was bizarre since I thought she'd have loved to know where Case 53's came from; but maybe she just got sidetracked in searching for some obscure meme to reference in her answer.

My eyes widened as a bright blaze of panic flash-boiled my heart and fizzled through my veins like fire. C53's were a Cauldron conspiracy. If I fucked up the Spoon quest they'd kill me. I shouldn't have told her. What if they were monitoring the internet? What if she was a forty year old Cauldron spy (male)? I snatched my phone back up and hammered out another message.

XxVoid_CowboyxX: please don't tell anyone any of this very urgent caudron will murder me thank you please also is imperative I actually know who u are pics when?

Fuck! What if this was an Infohazard? Fuck!

XxVoid_CowboyxX: infohazard
XxVoid_CowboyxX: fuck, don't mention the c-word, p-bott;es or a-e's

There had to be some thinker power out there that pinged on certain keywords or phrases, or an AI tinker like Richter who made something to trawl the whole internet… fuck. What if Richter was still alive? It would have only taken one half decent teleporter to get him out of Newfoundland, and Cauldron had dimensional access because yeah sure Haywire was totally dead and not living in a bunker somewhere doing R&D for the interdimensional power mafia.

I breathed in until it hurt and held it, cheeks bulging with air and deadly secrets. Ok, I was sixty percent sure I hadn't tripped their defence protocols yet so maybe their filter wasn't as fine as I feared, but I had to be careful from now on. The data on my Observe skill was accessible to the Protectorate at large and their agents infested the organisation, it wouldn't take a genius to put one and one together that I had met and Observed Weld.

My one lifeline was that I had only mentioned I knew his name.

Not his backstory.

What backstory? C53's didn't give me anything like that for some reason, very strange, so sorry Mr Men in Black I can't help you there.

+1 WIS

A keening groan escaped my lips as I slowly exhaled the held breath. Fuck me, I was so dumb. An idiot sandwich. I'd potentially fucked myself the day I joined The Wards. I'd had the Spoon quest for months, the threat of death had been clear so why for the love of god hadn't I practiced basic OpSec?!

I Reee'd internally for a moment.

Well, can't mourn all the ruddy day, just gotta do better. Ain't dead yet nigga, no horse heads in my bed. Fuckin' sleeping with one eye open though.


"Do you want it fast or slow?"

Weld's face creased, the dusky lines of boron alloy tracing down his cheekbones scrunching up. "Demonstrate control."

"Fine," I Kaneki cracked my knuckles. "I'll have total control in about two seconds."

Weld looked dubious because he clearly still hadn't read my profile, "Ok, ready? Three, two, one, go."

I took a step and jumped. Smoke billowed from my hands as I sailed over Weld's head and landed behind him with nary a whisper. I couldn't see in my smoke, but I could feel things in it. Not terribly precisely but enough that I could reach out and grab both his elbows.

The Spell 'Mana Shackle' has been created!

I cast, then dropped low and Shackled his legs. I Vanished the smoke and gave him a shove, sending him toppling onto the rubber matting. He lay there for a moment, struggling against the heavy, ghostly iron blue restraints.

Then he flexed.

The Shackles evaporated into blue dust as he overcame their durability score, which made sense given his STR rating.

"In my defence," I said as he stood up. "I created that power literally now."

Quest 'You are who you chose to be!' complete!
Success: 1200xp, increased reputation with Weld

"Ok," he said. "I thought you'd have less power given you haven't been at this very long, but I guess being a permanent Stacking type Trump is nothing to scoff at."

"So you had read my profile!" I j'accused with a finger. "Then why did you underestimate me, didn't they tell you I'm going to be Triumverate?"

"You are?"

I scoffed, then lit up in a brilliant flash. Every inch of my clothes and skin glowed a piercing white gold, crimson twinkles blinking off my visor as I Transformed it into Kamina sunglasses.

This was it!

"Who the hell do you think I am?!"

Weld reflected my brilliance in shock, "what does that power do?"

There was a war within me between Sensibility and the Hype Beast, and in the end the Hype Beast won out.

"A Breaker power that turns me into pure photons, rendering me invulnerable."

Double down, Greg, feel no shame no shame. Put your grasses on, nothing will be wrong; it's up to you.