Impediment 4.7

We all broke into different groups as we left the hotel, Herb turning into a velociraptor and taking off, Brian flagging down the taxi I called for Taylor as Lisa hid her mask under a large pair of shades, refusing to unmask to me. After they left, I shifted my costume into full Vejovis gear, walking with the other two.

We took off down the fairly empty street, casually walking, Brutus unleashed but keeping pace with Bitch. After a couple minutes Regent spoke up. "So, walking with us, doesn't that mess up your image, associating with known villains and all that?"

I shrugged. "What villains, you're not in costume. You're just two teens that got caught in the edge of a blast, and I'm making sure you get home safe, since I'm not doing anything else and haven't been contacted by anyone to help."

He nodded his head, "So, between us, Taylor, and apparently Panacea if Tats was tellin' the truth, you sure are hangin' out with a lot of teenagers. Makes ya think."

I ignored his implications, playing the question straight. "Before this I was a teacher, which means I'm used to teens."

He perked up, "What'd ya teach?"

"Unofficially, Not Foreign languages."

"That's not what you teach, that's what you don't," he informed me, confused.

I shrugged. "Same thing. High school subjects aren't that hard unless you teach advance placement, and even then, not really. I've got a teaching cert, and was working on another, but for. . . reasons, it's no longer valid. Do you have your GED?"

He shook his head. "Pops wasn't big on, well, anything that wasn't him, and it wasn't like we ever got truant officers. Every day was Ferris's for us. Saw what was on it when Brian was working on his, didn't look that hard."

"Get it," I told him, "Then you're qualified to be a substitute teacher."

His stride paused a second, before he continued on, asking mildly, "That's it?"

"Yep."

He gave a snort, "No wonder high school sucks."

I matched his with one of my own. "Like you ever went."

"I've seen TV," he defended.

"That's usually exaggerated for effect." He gave me a look, "Though not always," I acceded, "see Lady Bug."

"You both talk too much." Bitch growled.

I rolled my eyes, stopping, the other two stopping with me. I turned to face her, looking her in the eye. She started to turn away, so I put my hand on her shoulders, tightly. "I treat you the way you understand, same for him. You're different. You treat all your dogs the same?"

She didn't say anything, just glared. "I asked you a question." I reiterated calmly.

"No," she spat.

"Exactly," I told her, letting go and continuing to walk as if nothing had happened.

Regent tried not to laugh as he kept pace, not quite managing it, which was probably on purpose. We'd made it into the docks when he spoke up again. "So about the, you know?"

I tried to think of all the things it could be, finally responding, "I really don't"

"You know," he said leadingly, adding when I didn't get it, "The S-word."

"Oh, shards, what about them?"

"What are they, you know, of?" he pried.

I shook my head. "Not gonna tell you."

"Oh come on, please?" he begged.

"No."

"I'll be your friend," he promised.

"I'm good."

"Pleeease?" I didn't respond. "Pleeeeeeeeease?"

"I threatened to cover Taylor's mouth with skin with my healing ability if she didn't stop pushing me. All it takes is skin to skin contact," I informed him, pulling my glove off, "Don't make me do it to you."

He feigned indignance, "You wouldn't!"

My hand flashed out, hitting him lightly in the back of the head. His eyes went wide as his hands went to his mouth, sighing in relief that it was still there. He glared at me as Bitch chuckled, and didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip.

Getting there, I had to give Coil props for base design at least. If I hadn't known this was their base, I never would have guessed that someone lived in this seemingly abandoned warehouse. Reaching out with my bug sense, I got a response from a large amount of spiders. Directing them, along with everything else in the area, I swept them through the place, getting a three-dimensional image of the location, peering through their eyes whenever I found something I couldn't ID from shape alone. Regent yelped, stepping back from the entrance as he saw the swarm flowing through his house, quickly retreating back to my side. It took a few minutes, but by the end I was sure Bakuda didn't leave a bomb, informing them as much.

Pulling out most of the bugs, leaving only a small population, completely harmless, and only there to keep worse things out. I pooled the most into a swarm a few yards down the street. "That's a whole lot of nope," Regent commented, staring at the gathering.

"Yeah, side effect of Bug Control, you forget they can be dangerous, since you control everything they do." I explained as I figured it out, understanding the disconnect as I toggled the power, letting go and reaffirming my control on the group. "Thing is, if she's not there, they go back to their instincts. It's why she didn't see a problem with having twenty-seven black widows in the empty area your loft didn't take up."

"That's. . . a lot," he commented mildly. "And she really doesn't get squicked? Huh. 'cause I saw a couple beetles in her hair, and yeah, I'm good."

"Precisely. Powers, especially Thinker powers or anything with sensory feedback, attenuate their user's brains to maximize use."

"What's that mean?" Bitch asked, surprising us both.

"Powers change how you think. Yours help you understand dogs, Lady Bug's make her comfortable with bugs."

"Wait," Regent asked, holding up a hand. "Do my powers screw with my head?"

I looked him in the eye, asking calmly, "Are you saying some part of you doesn't see everyone walking around as flesh puppets, just waiting for you to pull their strings?"

He blinked, before smiling weakly. "Noooo?"

I rolled my eyes, taking off, calling back to him "There's your answer!"

Taking a roundabout route back, the city, while not in chaos, was certainly in a state of emergency. Checking before we'd left the hotel, there had been no statement from the PRT other than a "stay in your homes" and "do not panic", which was so boilerplate it probably did more harm than help. I honestly didn't like them, but more info might save lives, so I bit the metaphorical bullet and gave them a call, only to get a "please hold on" and elevator music. After five minutes of this, I changed my route and flew towards the PRT building, half a dozen guards out front pointing their sprayers at me.

"Hello good sirs!" I called, amused. With my speed they'd never hit. "I have intel that your superiors would probably like to know, but I'm on hold on my phone. Could I just tell one of you, and go on with my day?"

One of them called something on his radio, the guards all lowering their weapons as the one on the radio, presumably their leader, waved me over. "What is it sir?" he asked, earning brownie points for politeness.

"One of my contacts heard Bakuda, the ABB's bomb tinker, bragging that she'd gone on a recruiting spree, by kidnapping people and surgically inserting special bombs into her head. Something happened, and now they're going off randomly."

He nodded. "Thank you, anything else?"

I stopped and thought for a second. "Before the bombs go off, they seem to cause pain to the subject, though with Tinkertech that might not be reliable. If the Protectorate are willing to risk it, you could cut down on problems by having the doctor that's removing them team up with Clockblocker, so if the bomb started to go off, he could freeze the victim and get the doctor to safety. You wouldn't be able to save the person, but it would let you remove the implanted bombs with minimal risk to your surgeons."

There was silence for a moment, the full face mask of the PRT troopers masking any response. "That. Would that work?" he asked.

I shrugged, "When he freezes someone, he freezes everything they're wearing, so that should also freeze the bomb. Easy way to check, have him freeze someone and try to move their clothing. If you can't, it's frozen too, and if something that loosely connected is frozen, something implanted should definitely be frozen as well. Power are tools, not just weapons. Your sprayers could probably put out fires, even if that's now what you use them for."

The PRT officer nodded slowly. "Thank you sir, I'll pass that on. Anything else?"

"That's all I've got officer, have a nice day." I gave him a friendly nod, which he returned, and I walked away before taking off, pleased at this positive interaction.

After moving out of eyesight, I headed back towards base, the area around it clear, but a couple of police cordons set up around bomb blast sites a few blocks over, though there wasn't anyone manning them. Landing lightly and walking inside, I found Herb in the computer room, reading news stories. "Hey," I called, and he nodded, closing what he was reading.

"Hey," he called back, turning to face me. "So, we need to train. I need to get better, and you've got the fighting shit down better than I do. Help me Obi-Lee Vejovis, you're my only hope!" he declared, grinning.

My first response would have been 'of course, let's go do this!', but I hesitated. I didn't understand exactly how Herb's cloning worked, other than they gained his memories at the time of their creation, but what happened when they died? Did they get a new dump of information when they reformed? Herb didn't get their memories, Shadow Clone style, when they died or he'd have known Curtis had tried to kill me, but if they got his, the better to 'help' him, any training I gave him, I'd be giving Curtis, who I had no guarantees wouldn't try to kill me next time. I didn't hold his clones attempts to take me out against him, though we needed to have a talk about that later, but it was too much of a risk. "No."

His face fell. "Dude. I know I messed up, but, I want to fix it!" he pleaded.

I wanted to lie and tell him some BS about him needing to train on his own, and figure out some things on his own so he wouldn't just do what I thought he could, but he was my friend, still, and deserved my honesty. "Herb, when Curtis reforms, will he get the training I give you?"

"I don't know," he replied unhelpfully. "But, you're like the GI Joe crew of superheroes. Aren't you a teacher? I'd be a great student. I'd be that urban child you could reach out to and teach me! Get all Michelle Phifer on me!"

I looked at him, not knowing what the hell he meant, but considered the problem before me. Curtis seemed like an ambush fighter, so what I was considering should be advice he couldn't use. "Okay, here's something to consider. You get stronger the longer you fight. Once you reach a certain level of strength, you can use it to move quickly as well. Look into a style that's heavy in movement and strong blows. You'll need to be able to dodge blows at the start of the fight, and that speed will, once you get stronger, let you hit in a way that most super strong capes don't seem to, since they prefer to just slug things out, moving slowly even when they don't have to. If you can, get Boojack to help, so you learn how to dodge a brawler. I'll heal your bruises when you're done. Sound good?"

He smiled. "Thanks man, again, sorry about everything."

I waved off his apology. "For whatever reason, your clones aren't really you. I don't hold them against you." Herb left to go harass his replicant and I checked my e-mail, finding a request to meet with my lawyers as they'd found a few clients for me to use my Fleshsculpting on, even with the state of emergency. Arranging to meet them that afternoon, I killed time working on air claws.

Making just one came pretty quickly, but anything more than that, or creating them in any direction other than from my hand was impossible. Sighing, I tried to pull apart the mechanics of the creation, feeling out with the power to understand how the constructs functioned. Creating one and holding in place was difficult, like holding back a hiccup, interrupting what almost felt like a natural process. Once I got that in place, picking it apart was a finicky process. As far as I could tell it created a wedge of vastly heightened air pressure, using the power to keep it from dispersing. From there the hardened air pressure was pushed forward, moving air around it and creating the blowing effect.

Finding the mental command that moved hardened air pressure, I immediately tried to reform my flying platform idea, but even focusing entirely on it, pushing it as fast as I could, it moved at a walking pace, creating great gusts of wind as it did so. Sighing, I dispersed it. The cutting edge of the claws were tiny, and while I could make them long, creating a blade with a bit of effort, it was still so tiny that imperial measurements were insufficient, it's width and depth maybe measured in micrometers, even if it was a meter long. Visions of calling it "Invisible Air" just screw with people amused me as my phone's alarm went off, telling me it was time for my meeting with Quinn Calle. I shook my head, dismissing the invisible sword. I could never pull off an armored dress anyways.

Making sure to fly low on my way out, I left the base, heading towards the office of Eldington, Raul, & Calle, waving hello to the secretary, whose name I should probably learn at some point. He led me to a meeting room, where I only sat for a minute before my lawyer walked in. "Good afternoon Mr. Calle," I greeted, standing to shake his hand. "What do you have for me today?"

He shook it firmly. "Good afternoon Vejovis. Given your, demonstration, we have some clients who have facial scarring. Standard plastic surgery can reduce the scarring, but rarely removes it entirely. From what we've determined, your method does, and leaves no trace. This has interested quite a few people but given the current state of the city, many are leery of coming here." His tone dropped to just above a whisper. "Also, thank you. My wife and children are on vacation, and one of the busses she regularly takes is one where they found a. . . device."

I smiled, dropping a sound bubble between us. "You're welcome. This'll continue for about a week before the villains get sick of this and work together to take down the ABB, and I'm going to see if I can help them. After that things are supposed to calm down, but a 'storm' is coming in the middle of May. Whatever it is, it sounds bad, worse than the bombings."

He, to his credit, controlled his reactions, paling slightly. "Should I be here for-"

I shook my head. "No. Not if you can help it. People who should know will be informed when I get better intel, but right not it's vague warnings."

Quinn took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh. "Again, thank you. After this maybe my wife will listen to me more often," he joked, mouth quirking in a smile.

"One can only hope," I agreed. "So, patients to see, money to make, right?"

He nodded, motioning for me to sit, leading in an older woman with a healed knife wound, the line faint, but still there, breaking the curve of her cheek with the indentation. It took all of ten seconds to heal, and I added a couple seconds of the "Get Better" treatment, just as an extra. The bags under her eyes healed up a bit and she sat straighter, taking out a mirror and smiling experimentally, hand feeling the unblemished skin. From its placement, I realized, smiling probably pulled at it. She thanked me and walked out, a bit of a spring in her step. More followed, each one fairly minor, each one happy with the treatment. After only half an hour, Quinn came back in without anyone. "That went a lot faster than I thought. There's one more, and do what you can, but," he paused. "Are you familiar with the villain Acidbath?"

"Not really?" I remembered him as being Birdcaged, and hurting Scion a little, but being a general asshole. "I assume with a name like that, he burned people with acid?"

"Indiscriminately," I was informed. "I have a contact who was part of the group who originally tried to arrest him. Just, do as much as you can. Thank you." He turned and left, coming back with a man with a covered face, who sat down and hesitantly removed the bandana covering his face. I controlled my reaction as I looked upon a visage from a horror movie. Face almost completely melted, part of his chin having dropped down and bonded with his shoulder, one eye covered by distended, runny looking skin.

Barely any of face skin was unmarred, and I winced, having to ask. "I'm sorry, but do you have a picture before you were attacked? I need an image to work with." Both men, who had looked disappointed but accepting at my apology, brightened a bit at my question. The man pulled out a phone, gloved fingers bringing up a photo of a man smiling with a decently attractive brunette. Looking at him I could see, barely, the resemblance between the photo and the man before me. Taking a breath and concentrating, I laid a hand on his cheek, choosing to start on his shoulder. Focusing on the seam where chin and clavicle seemed to connect I carefully had the skin separate, pulling it back and unfusing it. Even moving slowly, I occasionally pulled wrong, opening up the flesh to muscle, which I healed, continuing the process.

Once I'd separated it, the flesh hanging loosely, I focused on pulling it back, glad that while acid ruined skin, it had apparently left the bones and musculature intact. "This is honestly a job for Panacea, and if you can, get her to double check this. She's got a full diagnostic suite, while I'm working blind."

The man who I'd been working on, who had been staring at himself in a mirror Quinn had set up, bit out an unhappy laugh. "I don't have that kind of money, or that kind of pull. Even this is. . . It's worth it, even if you stopped here though." I paused. "Please don't," he begged, panicked.

"Calm down man, I'm going to keep going, but Mr. Calle, don't charge me for this one." I told the lawyer. "I don't normally do charity, too much 'you did it for him, why not me' bull, so let's call this a teaching experience for my powers. Okay?"

He looked at me, surprised, nodding. "We've had requests for you to heal people, especially with the bombings. Does that mean you won't?"

I considered the problem. "Demand I get paid like a top tier surgeon, and I won't do it without Panacea to check my work. Hell, I'd honestly be assisting her, so if you can get them to agree, take 2/3rds of what I get paid and put it in an account for her once she reaches adulthood. She might think working for free all the time is noble, but all it does is make people devalue you."

"She doesn't get paid?" the man I was working on asked. "But, it costs tens of thousands of dollars to be seen by her!"

I continued pulling back the skin, bringing it around his face in an amorphous blob, glancing between the photo and the man as I pressed my powers in general terms to conform to the picture, slowly, making sure I didn't mess anything up. "Which would be news to her. I worked a shift with her, and the hospital refused to even pay for our lunch, there's a video of the confrontation online."

I'd uncovered his left eye, milky with damage, as he said, "That's bullshit! She-what?" he cut himself off as I copied his right eye onto his left. My power emplacing the design without me understanding it in the slightest. I copied all the fiddly bit as well, tear ducts, eyelid, eyebrows, the works, just mirroring it to try for symmetry. "I can see." He breathed, his mouth still slack, lips malformed, but I'd get to those next.

"Well, that's the point of having an eye. Kinda useless otherwise." I quipped, leaning back, glancing over at the clock. I'd been at it for longer than I'd helped everyone else combined, but I was learning a great deal. "Could I have a glass of water or something?"

Quinn, jumped up, returning back a moment later with a bottle. I accepted it gladly, taking a deep drink before continuing. Working on his mouth, it was a bit finnicky, a lot of soft tissues, and I muddled my way through it, happy with my work after 15 minutes of molding. The rest of the face was much easier, tightening, smoothing, shaping, and sculpting it with increasing ease. He had very little hair left, but it was enough to try to reseed, the black box that was my power letting me just go 'more of this' all across his scalp. After two hours of work, start to finish, I looked between the picture and the man before me, and they were pretty much the same, though the luster of his eyes were all off. It took me a second to realize the man was holding back tears.

Glancing, I saw his neck was scarred, and by this point that only took a few seconds. "So, do you have more or was it just your face? Because I've got time, and we might as well make a clean sweep of this." He looked at me in disbelief before haltingly taking off his jacket. Arms and hands scarred, several of his fingers stuck together at points. His chest had less burns, lessening down to just above his beltline, which was untouched.

Taking another drink, I started on his hands, unsticking and smoothing them out as I went, working up one arm, then another, working ever faster. His chest was easier still, taking care of more skin in a few minutes then I'd worked on in hours. Giving him his chest hair back, I blasted a few seconds of my general health setting and leaned back, stretching, spine cracking. "So," I smiled, "Better?" He sniffed, staring at himself, wiping at his face. "Ah, allergies, heard they get bad this time of ye-"

I was cut off as he lunged forward, grabbing me in a hug, saying "Thank you," over and over again. I patted the somewhat sweaty man on the back awkwardly, waiting for him to be done. After a bit he let go, apologizing.

I waved him off. "Don't worry, I understand. Not personally, but metacognitively." Sitting back, sipping my water, I waited for him to show the man, who I realized I'd never gotten the name of, out, promising to meet him for dinner. He returned, sitting down, letting out a breath that visibly surprised him.

"That," he observed. "was impressive. You'd said you could," he defended to my raised eyebrow, "but seeing it. Thank you."

I shrugged. "It was the right thing to do, just tell him not to mention that I waved my fee. Even doing so once is enough to get people begging for you to do it for them, and then getting angry at you when you don't. Doesn't matter if it's special circumstances, everyone believes they're special, and it's enough to bait the social reality types."

He looked like he wanted to ask what I meant, but changed the topic. "With what you've done, are you comfortable doing vanity cosmetic surgery?"

"Yes?" I asked, confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Some people, when they've really helped someone, wouldn't want to do so for what they would deem lesser reasons," he elucidated carefully.

I snorted. "I'm doing this to make money. I might help someone occasionally, but I'm planning on using this to keep the lights on and free up time to go do general heroics. How much did I make today?"

He checked his tablet. "Just over fifteen thousand, though you'll make more per person now that you're a proven commodity."

I nodded, "Exactly, that kind of money will fund myself and my team, and I can do a lot more than just scar removal, though that last job was a learning experience."

He passed me a paper, with a list of plastic surgeries. "Which of these would you be comfortable with?" he asked.

Looking over it I commented. "So, I probably won't be able to actually do a face lift as I think it's normally done, but I can do pretty much the same thing. Same for the other lifts. Arm lift? That's a thing? Oh well. Okay, Rhinoplasty, that can't be what it sounds like," I told him.

"It's more commonly known as a nosejob," he commented, amused.

I shrugged. "Then why don't they call it that? I can do that though. Otoplasty?"

"Ear."

"Easy," I retorted. "Only thing I'm not sure about is Lipo. I don't create mass, just move it around, so I have no idea how I'd make that work. Also, Labiaplasty? No. Just no. Also, not doing the male version, which yes, I might be able to do, but I'm not gonna."

I looked at him meaningfully, and the interest that had glimmered in his eyes disappeared as he shrugged. "Whatever you're comfortable with. That alone will be more than enough. I have to ask though, you healed Acer's eye, could you do others?"

"Could I? Probably, but anything internal I'm working blind on. He didn't expect it back, and if all I'd been able to do was just appear normal without actually restoring sight, he still would've been happy," I revealed. "I could do more, but unless I study a hell of a lot more, I can't make any guarantees that it'll work, and maybe even not then. Have him gloss over that too, the eye couldn't see only because it was covered or something."

Quinn nodded, standing up as I did as well, shaking my hand. "Thank you for what you've done. I'll contact you when you have more clients ready, would you be available on the 20th?"

I thought about my plans, and nothing I knew of happened that day. "Barring an emergency, I'll see you then."

I walked out with a spring in my step, waving happily at Acer on my way out, glad that I'd done something unequivocally positive.