AN: Still haven't gotten this consistency thing down yet, I suppose. Admittedly, it has been quite an eventful few weeks. Not sure if that's a good excuse, though. Still, hope you all enjoy this. And, if not, that's fine too.

As a side note, a review caught my eye. I normally only reply through PMs, rather than publicly, but this is a matter I want to be abundantly clear about. I am an Orthodox Jew, and would greatly appreciate it if no one tried to claim otherwise in a review. It's an important part of my identity, and it hurts to see it dismissed. I understand that everyone has their own views on religion, and I don't begrudge anyone for steering clear of or disliking the story due to its presence. I knew from the second I decided to write the story like this that it'd turn a lot of people away. I'm still shocked that anyone is reading this at all, to be honest. If not because of the religion thing than because of my own poor writing skills.

But I digress. Just, please, don't act like I'm writing from a perspective I know nothing about. I may not fit neatly into the mold, but I am still proud of who and what I am. I know this was only a single review, but I really would like to not see a comment like that again.

Anyways, as I said, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I had a few hours before I'd need to leave for the… Well, I wasn't sure what to call it. Raid, attack, maybe assault? Whatever, the point was that I'd be "meeting" the Adepts late at night. That worked out well for me, because I'd need that time to make my vehicle usable.

It was almost funny. A few minutes ago I would barely know more than the bare minimum about cars, even if I did have a license in my home world, but now I could fully deconstruct and upgrade practically any vehicle I got my hands on. Not just cars, either, I could already see some ways to make improvements to various designs that Engineering Basics downloaded into my brain. Still not even close to what I'd need to make a space vessel, but I was getting there.

Fixing up the piece of shit automobile my brain was simply designating as The Car would be perfectly doable, though. I hoped so, anyways. No way to tell without giving it a look, right? To that end, I headed back down to my lovely boiler room lair. Speaking of which, I could probably make that boiler even better now. Boilers were also used in trains, right? That might mean I could improve one that wasn't involved in locomotion.

Something to think about when I had more free time, I suppose. Hopefully I'd actually have free time in my future, somehow I had my doubts about that. Well, I had a gear to make constant work A-Okay so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal. Besides, it was only a possibility for future-me to deal with.

Present-me had a car to modify. I might not have any parts, but with access to every tool I could possibly need there was plenty I could do. Not to mention that my chemistry knowledge was giving me some ideas on how to make some small improvements. Nothing major, just adjustments like better coolants and oil additives, but it was still neat to see some synergy between gears.

Well, that was enough thinking about it. Time to see what I was working with. My whole pocket dimension was becoming a bit of a mess with all the random additions, but I still knew instinctively where everything was… in a general sense.

Down some stairs, take the first right, then go left at the T-Intersection. There wasn't even anything down the right side, just a wall where a doorway might go to lead to a future addition. In a few months this place would probably give the House of Leaves a run for its money in terms of spatial shenanigans. Well, that was neither here nor there. I opened the door to my new garage.

Well, I suppose it was technically a garage, in the sense that it stored a car. There was literally nothing else there, though. Made sense, since I hadn't gained any mechanical supplies or anything like that. And the car itself… I didn't actually know enough to tell if it was an actually existing model or something brand new, but I was completely certain it was just as crappy as I had been led to believe.

Seriously, I'd feel like a failure of a human being if I took this on the road. Though I had once been the sort of person that didn't care at all about specifics in a car so long as it worked, my newfound knowledge was rapidly changing that. Even without that, the frame was covered with tons of obvious dents. And, to add insult to injury, the damn thing was the same shade of green as those New York taxis. My least favorite color for a car.

It was supposed to be one of the worst vehicles possible, so it probably took my own preferences as guidelines for subjective qualities like the aesthetics. That was the only explanation for the actual headache I got from looking at it.

Well, first things first, I'd need to deal with the tires. The air would be leaking out after only a few miles, assuming it wasn't leaking already. I'd need brand new tires to fix the problem, but as a stopgap measure it would be simple to fill them with nitrogen gas. Wouldn't stop them from going flat, but it would slow the process down somewhat.

My organic chemistry workshop actually had some large canisters of nitrogen already. Should be at least forty liters lying around, more than enough to fill four tires. It would be a living hell to bring them down, though. At least I could use Right Tools for the Job to create a dolly to ease the process.

OK, I was burning daylight! Time to get going!

That was, perhaps, the most annoying thing I had ever done. If it weren't for my newfound abilities to work nonstop I'd have surely given up. But now the car was at least bearably shitty, instead of simply awful. Aside from filling the tires with nitrogen, I had given the thing a much needed oil change (since the oil it came with seemed to be several decades past its expiration) and patched up a lot of the worst dents. I also mixed up some antifreeze from a recipe Chemist provided. Any coolant suited for nuclear powered cars would be more than sufficient for this lump of metal!

If only I had access to a proper chop shop, I could give this thing the real Ship of Theseus treatment and remake it from the ground up. All the little tweaks I was making now… well, they'd hold it together for a few drives and that was it. I had, effectively, done the equivalent of sealing a breach in a nuclear reactor with duct tape: Technically there was no longer a hole but the problem didn't go away.

Afterwards, I made a few minor adjustments to the suspension, made sure the lights and turn signals worked, and put in some brake fluid because it didn't come with any for some reason.

I was really glad I checked that last part.

Once I finished doing everything I could do without actual parts, it was time to go back to the Body Shop. Nothing like finishing a job, even if it was a hack job. Mechanus seemed to agree, since it accumulated a bit more power as I strolled on into the hall of corpses.

Hello again, inexplicable giant crystal! Just passing through, don't mind me.

My current goal was to find some Cazador venom so I could create some Tremble. I wasn't confident in my ability to beat someone in a fight, but that changed if my opponent was suffering from a neurotoxin that practically shut off fine motor control. And it didn't even need to be injected, simply breaking skin or getting it in a mucous membrane would have it take effect. If I made an aerosol with it, which I definitely could, it'd be pretty effective.

Surprisingly, I found the overgrown Tarantula Hawks pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that meant I had no reason to not start digging around for their venom glands. Yep, this was totally fine! I was afraid of bees and wasps, but this abomination was dead so there was nothing to fear.

Just had to keep telling myself that.

Maybe it was because of my prior experience with the significantly thicker skinned radscorpions, but the work proceeded rather quickly. Once again, rather than risk having to come back for more, I made sure to gather enough glands for my handy dandy infinite bucket to handle the rest. Not that I anticipated needing much of this stuff, aside from Tremble there was only one other recipe that used it.

At the rate I was growing, I sure hoped that I wouldn't still be using neurotoxin in a few days' time.

Regardless, I had everything I needed aside from white horsenettle. But that was an actual plant, the silverleaf nightshade, so I could recreate the actual toxin I required, solanine, without much trouble. Hell, if I had more time I could just extract it from potatoes or something! The knowledge from Chemist was more than enough, though, to make the glycosidic steroid, especially since I had a glut of compounds far down the synthetic route to use. That was one of the wonderful things about organic chemistry, practically everything came from the same set of basic parts.

More time passed, and finally I had my Tremble. And now all I had to do was test it! On myself!

Aren't I blessed?

To be fair, it wasn't that dangerous. I also knew how to create an antivenom from the same ingredients I had gathered for my future Hydra production, and it'd definitely work on this. I wasn't looking forward to experiencing neurotoxin, but I really had to be sure it'd work since I'd only be using it if things got desperate. A last resort needed to be effective!

So I put my new poison into a handheld aerosolizer I had cobbled together while the earlier reactions proceeded and cooked up some venom and blood into an antidote. And then I gritted my teeth and sprayed myself in the face.

I had always laughed at morons doing things like eating ghost peppers or letting bullet ants sting them, but at this moment I really understood them. I was a moron, too. Unfortunately this conclusion was only reached after the point of no return.

My eyelids began to twitch, then the rest of my face. And then the pain started, not as bad as I had expected but still far from bearable. The best comparison I could make was to an incident in my childhood where I stuck a paperclip into a power outlet because I wanted to know how badly the shock would hurt. Coincidentally, essentially the same reasoning that led to this situation.

Maybe it was because an aerosol made for a poor delivery mechanism, or perhaps simply because I didn't inhale it, the symptoms were mainly showing up in my face for the time being. However, even though my arms were still under my control, the pain was enough on its own to make me drop the antidote onto the floor, where the powder scattered. No way I'd be using it now.

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own idiotic actions?

Thankfully this wasn't going to be a lethal mistake. Tremble was terrible at killing, in fact it was less lethal than the Cazador and Radscorpion venom that went into it. Its strength lay in making its victims unable to fight back. Even someone as evidently moronic as myself wouldn't test a deadly poison on their own body.

I got down on the ground so I wouldn't end up falling later, a safety measure I had taken worryingly often these past few days, and started to think through the pain as a distraction. A normal dose lasted around ten minutes, this was smaller than a normal dose, I'd be alright. Just had to keep calm.

At the very least, now I knew that the aerosol worked. Not as well as if I stabbed a Tremble coated weapon right into someone, but well enough. But it could be better, since it took some time to start affecting limbs when administered to the face.

So what if I mixed in a second concoction?

The gooery had been left unused since I got that gear, since I didn't have anything supernatural to suppress, but the goo it produced had hallucinogenic and euphoria inducing properties. Take some of that, mix it with the Tremble, and I'd have myself a wonderful combo of physical and mental hindrances to fuck with an unfortunate foe's fighting.

Yes, this could work!

By the time my dose of neurotoxin wore off, the design was already complete in my head. I grabbed a beaker from the lab and darted downstairs to retrieve some goo. Mix it with some water… a lot of water, actually, and I could dilute it into a much less viscous goo. I experimentally dipped my finger into the liquid, and was pleasantly surprised to feel my mood lift somewhat. So it was still effective when thinned out, to some extent. I loaded it up into my aerosolizer, after blending it together with the Tremble, and gave it a pump.

It sprayed out just fine. I had learnt my lesson, so I wasn't going to actually test if it worked better than before, though I couldn't see it working worse at the very least. If it seemed like I was inordinately proud of myself for just mixing two things together, that was just the joy of finally finding a use for the gooery talking.

Trap Layer (Bloons) (100CP)

And I could certainly find a use for this! The new gear that slotted into my mind was powerful, not so much because of its own value but due to its ability to synergize with everything else I could do. To put it simply, I was an expert on the creation and utilization of traps.

Trap Layer came with some blueprints, mainly focused on ensnaring airborne combatants, but also granted the skills to make my own designs. And, with Chemist and Engineering Basics, I had a lot of existing knowledge to build off of for that purpose. A veritable flood of possibilities entered my mind.

All of my offensive options made so far relied on injection, save for the Tremble spray. While there wasn't anything wrong with that per se, I couldn't be certain of my ability to pull off an injection in the heat of the moment. Those autoinjectors I cobbled together would help, of course, but it was still a relatively risky maneuver. However, what if I made a trap for that?

I gathered up some of the supplies that were set inside for more autoinjectors. If I took that concept of a spring-loaded syringe and applied it to a mine, I could have a pretty damn effective trap. Honestly, it was more like a drug-coated caltrop than a mine. I'd tentatively name it a Chemtrop, I suppose?

There were two major problems, though. The first one was that the victim would reflexively step away upon feeling a needle pierce their foot. Too quick a response and the payload wouldn't get injected. That issue could be easily solved by using my new glue recipe from Trap Layer, though. A sticky ring along the top would make the Chemtrop cling to the bottom of their shoe when they recoiled.

But therein lay the second issue, the shoe. Shoes were good at protecting feet from sharp objects, that was kind of the idea. Two possible solutions occurred to me. The first, which was less appealing to me, was to simply hope that my Master Craftsman gear would boost the physical limitations of the device enough for it to work.

The other option was to simply get around the issue of penetrating the shoe entirely. Much like introducer needles are used to guide more precise needles or wires, I'd just make my Chemtrops have two stages. First would come a… holepuncher, of sorts. It'd shoot up, carving a small gap into the sole, and then the actual hypodermic needle would come out only a few milliseconds later.

It actually seemed doable! Trap Layer was telling me exactly how to leverage my Engineering Basics to achieve the desired product. And I could probably save space and resources if I made it so that the weight from stepping on the trap helped squeeze out the payload! It should even be possible to just press them into someone's body directly, rather than laying it as a trap.

Once the design was finalized, the actual crafting flew by in a flash. There was something immensely satisfying about creating a novel product, rather than just following blueprints in my head, that really excited me. Before I knew it, I had a contraption that, now that I thought about it, looked sort of like a Lego. The Chemtrop was a square plastic tile that fit in the palm of my hand, was around one and a half centimeters thick, and had a raised stud in the middle where the needles would come through. A small switch on the side served as the safety, allowing me to arm it only when ready for use.

Aesthetics and Flair, my weapon designing gear, finally got a real use in making sure this thing wouldn't be easily noticeable. The mottled gray coating would be easily overlooked in poor lighting, and even with high visibility it would be as easy to miss as a stray Lego. And, as anyone who had ever stepped on one could attest to, those little caltrops could be nearly invisible if you didn't know to look for them.

The finishing touches were a little port on the underside where I could load the syringe and a ring of glue on the top that would cling to an unfortunate foot. All that was left, at this point, was to test the penetrating power. Having learnt my lesson on self-experimentation, I grabbed a discarded book from the boiler room. As a hardcover, it should be an adequate substitute for the protection of a shoe.

I armed the Chemtrop, set it down, and gently pushed the book down. No instantaneous reaction, which was good since I didn't want them on a hair trigger. Next I slapped the book onto the mine, an action rewarded with a sound similar to a ballpoint pen clicking and an unsettling tearing noise.

Surveying the damage showed I had succeeded. There was indeed a hole the size of a dime in the book, extending a bit into the pages, which the needle had then entered through. If a person activated it… well, the hole puncher would likely cut into their foot a bit. Definitely painful, but I couldn't bring myself to care about someone I'd be hypothetically OK with drugging via Chemtrop in the first place. Wasn't like they'd die from it, right?

Now that I could be confident in its effectiveness, all that was left was making a few more and loading them up. Mindcloud should make for a good payload, with a tiny bit of Tremble mixed in to trip my enemies up.

Maybe I should also make a glue grenade? Yeah, that sounded like a decent idea.

As a reward, or at least it felt like one, for my project, Mechanus spun its gears around again… And put in a new gear!

Well Researched (Lords of the Night - Liches) (100CP)

Pretty snazzy! Like most of my "single accumulation" gears, this one had a relatively low level but broadly useful set of buffs. The star of the show this time was my memory, which could now store everything I learnt flawlessly. On top of that, my ability to sort through those memories for relevant information was boosted to a high degree. As some added gravy, there was also a few lifetimes worth of random information thrown in there to start with. Nothing that couldn't be discovered with some research, but it was in such a large quantity that I couldn't help but feel grateful. You really do spoil me, Mechanus.

The sense I got was that this ability was meant to help me skip research and experimentation by reminding me of preexisting data and solutions. That sounded good to me, I never was a proponent of "if you want something done right, do it yourself," you know? None of my powers were even my own doing, there was just a big clock in my brain handling everything for me. I was an inheritor in every way!

Anyways, to sum it all up, I could make use of everything I knew. Likely would prove to be a real godsend as time goes on.

The rest of the time until my departure was less eventful, mainly focused on producing more of what I already had. Three Chemtrops, with some modifications to the design so that I could recover and reuse them, a single stimpak, one glue bomb, and a smorgasbord of chems in autoinjectors. The work was repetitive, some might even say mind-numbing, but that sort of thing no longer bothered me.

And the time had come to prepare for departure. To start with, I'd need to get my awful car outside the warehouse. A large door would be needed, likely a garage door, to create an opening I could drive it through. Shouldn't be too difficult, I'd just borrow some house on a dead end street for a minute. Before leaving to find such a home, though, I loaded up the car's trunk with my supplies and the "costume" I'd be using.

Though it was really just a bunch of PPE from the chemistry lab. A white coat, some large safety goggles, and a surgical mask would be fine for this. The idea was just to make it hard to figure out my appearance. Big pockets did make the lab coat somewhat functional, though. A proper outfit could be put together once I had some gears related to tailoring or fashion.

After packing, I left my den (the boiler room) and started searching the neighborhood's side streets for a relatively quiet garage to drive my car out of. I quickly found a nice place in the "upper middle class" part of town with a hidden driveway. Hard to get more subtle than that on short notice, right?

Since the keys were left in the ignition and the trunk was packed up it only took me a little under a minute to pull out of the portal I had opened in the garage and then close the doorway. Minimizing the time where anyone might look out a window or something and see what I just did, I quickly drove away.

Now, I wasn't the best driver in the world. Far from it, in fact. But right now I was handling this piece of shit car as if I had been behind its wheel for months. Maybe it was a consequence of my incredible vehicular knowledge? Knowing exactly how it worked, including its painfully omnipresent limitations, might have helped a bit.

I wasn't complaining, regardless. The last thing I needed was getting pulled over because of horrible driving, seeing as I wasn't a licensed driver in this world. Thank god the car came with plates, or it wouldn't have been an option at all.

Well, I could turn my brain off for a bit while I drove Giggs. Yes, I was calling the car Giggs. Who would dare call me out for making an obscure reference like that in another dimension?

Not that I'd ever let anyone know I named my car, that would be embarrassing as hell!

Driving into the city was as miserable as ever, especially since I did my best to choose routes that would avoid tolls. And, once I was in Brooklyn, the commute only got worse. If I had directly destructive powers I probably would have lashed out at some of the double-parked cars and lemming-like pedestrians that seemed determined to get themselves killed. Thankfully for all involved, I could not yet kill with a glare.

Finally, though, after nearly two hours of driving, I reached my destination. It looked like a perfectly normal home with a van in the driveway. Of course, being Brooklyn, there was no parking nearby. So, by the time I found a spot and walked over, the two hour mark had been passed. Thankfully I had left early enough that I wasn't actually late. Checking my watch revealed that there were still a few minutes left.

I paused, trying to look for signs that this really was the right place. Double checking the address on my phone confirmed it, but what if there was a typo in the address? I'd really be uncomfortable walking up to the front door and finding out I had the wrong house. As I stood there, loitering suspiciously on the sidewalk, I heard a knocking sound from the van.

There was Ari Shuster, or I suppose I should be calling him Gabbai since he was here on business, trying to get my attention. Guess that meant my worries about the location were unfounded. I approached the car and opened the door to climb in, a bit more energy pouring into Mechanus as I went.

"Glad you could make it, yingele!" the old man greeted me as I got in next to him. He was dressed like the average Jewish man would when attending a synagogue, with a white shirt, black suit, simple tie, and a black Borsalino hat. The only part of the getup that looked out of place was the black domino mask he was currently attaching. All but one of the other people in the van were garbed in similar attire. "You didn't come from the direction of the nearest subway station or bus stop, so you must have hitched a ride, right?"

Very observant of him. "Yeah," I replied, not eager to explain how a car materialized out of thin air for me since last we spoke. "Did you, uh, think I would back out?"

"No, but I wouldn't have blamed you or been surprised. From the very start you weren't integral to the operation," he reminded me. "Of course, if you were to go back on your word without any prior notice that would be different. Since you're keeping your word, though, that's a moot point."

"...Alright."

Gabbai paused, staring off into space for a moment, before continuing. "Anyways, we have business to discuss. What's in the bag?" he inquired, gesturing towards the cloth shopping bag I had conjured with Right Tools for the Job to carry my supplies and "costume" from the car.

"Tools and something to wear," I replied, pulling out the lab coat and surgical mask. "Nothing fancy but it should be fine for this, right?"

He nodded back after another pause. "And the tools?"

"Some things I put together. Sedatives and the like, nothing lethal."

His head tilted quizzically. "Sounds like a bunch of single-use measures. Did you not bring a weapon?"

Well… That was a very good question. Something I probably should have thought about myself! Drugs were all well and good, but once I ran out there was nothing left for me to use. Not that I expected to run out tonight, but it was such an obvious problem that I really should have noticed it sooner.

Probably interpreting my silence as an answer, Gabbai sighed. "Should have told you. This is why we schlep around spares. Grab a baton from the trunk later, better to have and not need than need but not have." After I nodded in understanding, he continued. "The Adepts only have a handful of properties, but they aren't close together. Too far apart for reinforcements to arrive before we leave. Epoch, their leader, shouldn't be where we're hitting. Best estimate would be four to five parahumans present."

An odd man, or at least they looked like a man, one seat ahead added "Birds haven't been acting odd recently, sir. Swoop probably isn't at this location." A murmur of joy spread throughout the van, something about how this Swoop was really annoying to deal with when Canadian Geese were migrating over the city.

"So where's my role in this, exactly?"

"You watch our backs. I can't fight, but the whole point of this is to let me make contact with as many of their members as possible. Just one touch on each, and then we leave," the elderly man explained, cracking his knuckles to punctuate it. "Everyone other than you will stand by me and take them down as we move through the building. You, however, are going to stay in a chokepoint, like a stairwell or hallway. If anyone starts coming from behind us, you'll stop them. If you take them out, I'll give them a tap on the way out. If they incapacitate you, we'll take you with us as we leave."

Made sense. This was a trial run more than anything, so I was getting a trivial role where success would be helpful but failure would be inconsequential. Hell, if no one ended up coming up from behind I'd be doing nothing! And of course only trusted individuals would be directly guarding Gabbai. I'd just get in the way and introduce risk. "I'm, er, fine with that, but I don't plan on losing."

He chortled breathily, and the van's other occupants echoed it with sharp laughter. "You've got chutzpah, I'll give you that. It's good to be confident, but it's even more important to accept defeat. If they have you beat out there, but you think you could turn it around at the risk of killing them, don't. I repeat, do not escalate to deadly extremes, boy. Most capes can kill if they put their mind to it, but they don't because that would encourage others to respond in kind. Don't be the one to push them that far." His feeble hand rapped a finger against his temple as he concluded "Understand, yingele?"

Yeah, that was pretty clear. Most people would hold back unless things were do or die, so try not to make them feel completely trapped unless I could handle it. "Y-Yes, got it!"

"Then everything is fine," Gabbai stated, laying a hand on my shoulder as a reassuring gesture. "Just relax, this isn't a job interview." It almost certainly was, even if recruitment wasn't on the table. I had heard literally the exact same line at every single Medical School interview I had participated in, that I should just relax. How I performed here would reflect on me. Another bit of energy accumulated within Mechanus.

I'd be lying if I said I thrived under pressure, but that hardly mattered now. Just had to do it, to challenge myself. Feeling a slight headache coming on, I fished out a mentat and downed it in one smooth motion. "Nootropic," I explained simply when I noticed some odd looks.

After a moment of staring into space, Gabbai clarified "Drugs that improve intelligence." That got some understanding nods. Now that I thought about it… Yeah, not the most well known class of pharmaceuticals. I awkwardly excused myself to grab the offered baton from the back, purposefully taking my time so that I could regain some of my composure before getting back in.

We spent a few more minutes hashing things out. I couldn't help but feel that it was mainly for my benefit, but I wasn't going to point it out. Finally, though, it was time to depart. "Fifteen minutes drive from here, everyone get ready. The operation begins the moment we're parked," the old man declared as the van began to move.

No backing out now.

Perks this Chapter

Trap Layer (Bloons) (100CP)

You can not only build a wide variety of traps, and trapping supplies, but you also have an excellent mind for putting them in play. You can identify potential choke points or ambush areas, and set them up accordingly. Glue, Nets, Pits, Spikes, and more are all among the types of traps that you can build.

Well Researched (Lords of the Night - Liches) (100CP)

The truth of the matter is that, no matter what you're doing, someone else was doing it before you. People say, don't reinvent the wheel, but the wheel has been reinvented countless times. You are good at avoiding having to reinvent things already made or discovered, though.

Your mind is like a steel trap. Not only do you never forget anything, you're good at instantly putting everything you come across into context. This won't make you instantly cross-reference it with something from a completely different context, but when you think on things and try to figure something out, find a solution, or need something out of left field you can quickly scan across your entire body of knowledge for something that could help.

This comes with you already being well studied on a huge range of topics, in this jump and all future ones you go to. Think of it as roughly ten doctorates' worth of study on a wide range of subjects, with a new set each new jump.

You can leave minds that might actually be greater than yours in the dust, as they try to achieve something from first principles that was figured out by an obscure sage thirteen centuries ago, who only ever put his findings down in a single journal that has been gathering dust in some corner of a minor family library ever since.

Banked CP: 400