A peek behind the curtain, as it were.

So, yeah. This week got really busy, so I don't have the time for a full-on chapter, but I can explain some of the stuff that's going on behind the obvious.

Danny's power: He triggered with QA. It's inspired by Chessmaster from Constellations: he can animate a small number of miniatures from pen and paper role playing games into their actual versions as described by their game statistics. He can animate up to six at a time, but the more powerful ones he can animate less of. If he animated, say, Lolth, he couldn't animate any more before deanimating her, and she'd be probably a bit weaker than the 4e stat block, without the discorporation. He's got a secondary Thinker power that allows him to understand their capabilities, and also helps with coordination between groups.

Taylor's power: A bud off of QA, it pinged off of Amber. She can make a copy of one cape she's touched at a time that emulates their power, if incompletely. For example, if she emulated Danny, she couldn't animate as many miniatures at a time. Right now, she only has Danny's power, so she's not super dangerous if she doesn't have any miniatures around (hint hint).

Alicia/Starlight's power: Zion's version of the Coruscant Knave/Legend's power. I wanted to figure out what a Shaker version of the Coruscant Knave would be, and I came up with what's essentially Angela DeSoto's power (from Super Powereds): she can turn ambient light into hardlight constructs. Because she was under attack from a power at the time, she got a Trump aspect too: Shard-based powers can't get past the constructs she makes. It's not perfect, since Shaker powers like Winter's can squeeze through the gaps and a sufficiently strong Brute could translate impact force through the armor like the Siberian did, but mostly her power protects her from that kind of thing. There's also a side of Thinker that lets her fight more effectively, but that wasn't enough to close the skill gap between her and Mannequin, who's learned to get around power armor in his Tinker-killing.

Mouse Protector: She second triggered at some point, giving her a couple new powers: she's got clairvoyance within about three feet of objects she's marked, plus she can teleport objects that she's got marked as well. She's Manton Limited, so she can't go all telefrag, but she can teleport, say, Backhand's costume onto her. The shard she's got would be called Recall by Cauldron, or the Bookkeeper by Glaistig Uaine, and is more or less used as a memory storage system by Zion.

Backhand: She also second triggered, which basically gave her Camille Belden's power (also Super Powereds): She functions as a healer by absorbing injuries from others, and can inflict her festering injuries with a touch now. Her shard would be called Injury by Cauldron, or Bloodied Echo by Glaistig Uaine, and Zion uses it to regenerate his avatar.

Shuhari (not in story yet): Bakuda had an alt-trigger. Instead of after messing up a test, she triggered after messing up a gymnastic routine. She's got perfect awareness of everything within a certain radius of her, she's in peak condition for a human, and she has a minor healing factor, enough to offset the wear and tear on her body that acrobatics brings. I gave her an alt-power because, in this world, Lung didn't form the ABB after getting to Brockton Bay, he formed the Pan-Asian Collective. It's a less morally bankrupt version of the ABB: no drug trade, no sex slavery, about the same amount of protection money, more Empire raids, more restrained, and basically devoted to fighting back the Empire and the Merchants. Lung's more restrained, so he wouldn't be willing to accept Bakuda in canon, plus the Empire is actually stronger than in canon, so… there's gonna be more PAC capes than just Oni Lee, Lung, and Shuhari, I just haven't decided on their powers. She's still kind of an egoist, but she understands her limits.

Allfather: He can create portals within his line of sight that he summons relatively simple metal constructs through. He's capable of using these portal as a pseudo-Mover rating, since he can open multiple portals at a time and move through them either before or after summoning his constructs. Semi-retired, now: he doesn't really fight after he lost his leg in a fight with Lung, but he still runs transport for the Empire and helps out with planning/intel/logistics. He's one of the big reasons the Empire is so much more powerful: he's the best Mover in Brockton Bay, at least for now.

Iron Rain: She can create metal constructs in midair and grant them velocity. They disintegrate unless she specifically makes them last, but she can still make armor a la Kaiser and fly around using the velocity granting. She can't make as much as Kaiser, but she's less range limited. Doesn't go out much, but synergizes well with Rune, who she works with a lot.

Amber: I'm not giving everything away right now, but she didn't actually use Conflux's power to steal the Siberian. She thinks that, but… well, the way it actually happened was that she shut down Manton's connection with his Shard while keeping him alive using a dimension-related power that's basically Firefight's from the Reckoners, and emulated his power, returning the Shard to Eden. As for why Limelight's power can no-sell the Siberian… Well, basically, his force fields are inviolate, with the exception of his own disintegration power. They can be bypassed, but they're not the kind of field you can just punch through. Citation: he's blocked in a thermal bloom strong enough to cook off New York City with no appreciable strain.

Capo: A replacement for Coil, since Calvert is actually loyal to the PRT thanks to Amber's actions in Ellisburg. His power is essentially save scumming: it's the same vial that Calvert got, but instead of being essentially Schrödinger's cat (which is actually Calvert's power in this world because I said so), he can create a save point, which he can reset to at any point. It doesn't work as well in close proximity to more powerful capes like Danny (because QA is a noble shard and he's got a strong expression of it), which makes the "load" time longer, he does get Thinker headaches from overusing it, and he doesn't have any better a memory than a normal person. The actual mechanics is something along the lines of copying off his consciousness and sending it sideways into another universe. He didn't bother scooping up Tattletale since the PRT's already got their eyes on her and he knows it from having some of the police officers he'd had scoping her out be dissuaded by Calvert's men, but he has the rest of the Undersiders, and more contacts on the police side than Coil, but fewer in the PRT.

Endbringers: Khonsu showed up instead of Ziz. He still destroyed Lausanne and London, but he did it by driving people insane via Gray Boy-style torture loops. He also aged Alan Gramme's family to death right in front of him, creating Mannequin, and he also attacked Madison, bringing the Travelers over. They're not Ziz bombs, but Noelle and Oliver still made the mistake of splitting a Vial. End result: Switzerland is still more or less destroyed, but the Ziz bombs aren't a thing, and he goes more for short term destruction than long term intricate plots.

Siberian: The injuries that the Siberian inflicted resist parahuman healing because she leaves residue behind. Eidolon managed to salvage most of Rebecca's face, but her eye and Hero's leg were a write-off because the residue is actively resisting healing, to the point where Hero's prosthetic isn't actually a prosthetic, strictly speaking: it's a hard-light emitter that just happens to mostly emit in a leg shape, and that he just happens to have on his leg most of the time, by coincidence, otherwise the Siberian's residue would prevent it from working. Now that the Siberian is, strictly speaking, not a factor anymore, a sufficiently strong healer could heal Hero's leg. Alexandria would require an even stronger healer because she's time-locked, but it is theoretically possible to give her her eye back. Backhand isn't a strong enough healer, but there are healers strong enough for this. Panacea could probably heal Hero, if she had the biomass, and Eidolon, after Eden recharged him, might have a power that would heal Alexandria now that the Siberian isn't interfering, or Amber could lend Alexandria Limelight's regeneration, although I'm not sure how that'd mesh with her being timelocked.

PRT: After the "discovery" of Alexandria's Thinker powers as Director Costa-Brown, they reorganized to allow parahumans with less combat-oriented powers to be members of the PRT, but not in a Directorship role. As such, Tom Calvert (still a Cauldron Cape with the timeline power) and Captain Stranger (a natural trigger with a Thinker power that allows him better analysis of materials, which lets him make better body armor and maintain simple Tinkertech) are PRT officials who work with Piggot, who's not anti-cape rabid thanks to, once again, Amber's actions at Ellisburg. She got her canon injuries in a Shatterbird attack, and she's very much anti-villain, but she's more willing to trust capes as a whole. She doesn't like Assault because of his time as Madcap, but she's willing to work with him, and she trusted the Wards to Armsmaster, which was probably a mistake since he was more focused on Tinkering than watching them. She also doesn't trust the Cauldron capes she's interacted with because they're too well-adjusted, with the exception of Calvert (Calvert came out of Ellisburg, which was worth a Trigger event, and in fact is where Stranger had his- the trip wire was his first Thinker thing) and Gallant (what she knows about his home life fits a trigger for a Thinker/Master power like what he has).

"And it's go, boys, go, they'll time your every breath!" Alicia, strolling in the dusk by the light of her armor, looked up and saw Amber sitting on top of a building, feet dangling from the edge of the roof.

"And every day you're in this place, you're two days nearer death! But you go…" Amber's voice faded to nothing as Alicia climbed a series of hardlight platforms.

"Hey, Starlight. How goes it?" The more experienced cape sounded tired in a way that belied her actions earlier in the day.

"It's… going, I guess." Alicia rubbed at the scar around her eye, freshly regrown by the more experienced cape's regeneration after Mannequin's shot had managed to get through the gaps in her helmet.

Amber nodded. "Yeah, I get that. Want to talk about it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice." A gleam of adamant will shone in Amber's eyes. "But, in this case, I would suggest talking to someone."

Alicia sighed, then sat down. ""I… I don't even know where to start."

"Well… me neither." Amber stared out into the distance for a moment. "I'm gonna tell you something I told a friend of mine years ago: adulting is about 95% improv and 5% stuff you already get. That definitely applies to being a hero."

"Yeah, but…" Alicia gestured out at the glass-covered streets. "Everything's gone to shit. I'm going to have to leave everything behind!"

"Me too." When Alicia blinked, Amber explained. "I… well, it's complicated, but I ended up leaving everything behind when I Triggered, and kinda also after…" Amber closed her eyes and ground out "Ellisburg."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I-"

"Nah, don't worry about it," said Amber, eyes opening. "Nilbog's not gonna ruin my pinché life. Don't let the Nine ruin yours."

"N-no, I won't."

Amber nodded, then patted the shorter hero on the head. "Keep on going, kiddo."

"I-I'm not a kid, I'm nineteen!"

"Whatever you say, kiddo," said the twenty-year-old hero, grinning. "Don't stay out here too long." They jumped off the roof, landing neatly in the green-hued arms of the duplicate that was once called the Siberian, then dropped to her feet and walked off, leaving Alicia with her thoughts.

I felt bad not actually having story content, so I wrote in one more snip at the end. Next week, I think, will be another interlude to see the aftershocks of the deaths of the Nine.

That's it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!