Diversification 19.9

Mouse Protector peered at me suspiciously. "You're tellin' me that you figured out how to give people powers? But only if they've already got powers? Somethin' 'bout this stinks like Lindberger, Veji-mite!"

"Karen," I sighed, shaking my head. "We're getting deep into Sh-power weirdness. There's reasons why it works this way, but we're not going to go into how they work. But, yes, that's exactly what we're doing."

"Cheesus christ," she swore, shaking her head, her longer hair whipping back and forth. It was little things like that which occasionally reminded me of how long I'd been out. "If any other guy was tellin' me this, I'd say they were a few curds short of a deck, but. . . really?"

I nodded. "Do you see why I'm asking someone I trust, but is mature enough to handle things?" I prompted. "Because this, this can't get out."

The heroine frowned. "But, when I start throwin' out fireballs, won't it be kinda obvious? Like, if someone got some new powers, some are gonna put out that hypotho-swiss?"

That hypothesis I mentally translated, having long since learned that the more puns Mouse made, the more stressed she was. "When people hear hoofbeats, they think horses, not zebras, and certainly not some idiot clapping a coconut together," I argued back, getting a laugh out of her. "We've got a frankly ridiculous amount of Tinkers on staff, especially with our partnership with Toybox, so unless you start throwing them around nude, people with think it's Tinkertech, not that we've achieved the holy grail of powers."

"Or the Manhattan project," the other woman muttered with trepidation, but she nodded. "This. This is big, Vejy. You cheddar believe it."

"Either way, everything we know says this should work just fine, and now it's time to test it," I told her. "You in?"

The woman smiled, "And you thought of Brie? I'm so touched I might just melt!" She nodded at my mostly unamused look. "I'm in. What do I need to do?"

Including Mouse, Taylor, and Herb in my power, I Strode to the medical bay, where a grumpy looking Panacea was waiting, arms folded. "Lay down, face down, and when you wake up you'll have another ability," I directed.

"Lie back, and think of England?" the heroine joked, doing just that. "Hmmm, stilton."

Panacea rolled her eyes, touching the woman's neck, knocking her out. "And you?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Gimme a sec. Tap me if this takes more than ten minutes," I directed Taylor, ignoring Panacea's "Wait a-", stepping out, and quickly moving over to Ice Projectile Projection, a power I'd barely used. Rolling up my metaphorical sleeves, I got to work, carefully removing connections, closing down power distribution channels, and feeding the Shard as much power I could from the main hookup, using it to make a seed copy of itself. Sensory relays were closed down and removed, growth buffers charged up to get ready for the shift, and a dozen other things I'd slowly figured out over the last week were done. I got lost in the process, until I felt a hand on my own, and looked down, seeing nothing there, before remembering what I'd said.

Taking a half-step in, I told them, "Almost there, five more," getting a nod from Taylor, Herb waiting, while Panacea was reading something on her phone. Diving back into it, the Seed formed the way I wanted, and I redirected the main power channel from the formed Shard and into the Seed. This had been one of the main problems of what'd happened, as I'd had to route that pipeline of power into something, and when they'd been. . . damaged, they'd gone to nothing at all. Secondary power channels were redirected, and the tertiary and smaller I could leave capped for now instead of trying to feed them into the nascent Shard, decoupling the fully-formed Shard as much as I could.

Opening my eyes, Taylor had her hand up, and was watching the clock, tapping me as I smiled, blinking as she realized I was already back. "Alright, back end's taken care of." I sat on a disk of air, spinning me about as Panacea glanced up, putting my head at the same height as her chest. "Open me up, doc. I'll take care of the rest."

Tapping into the three camera-flies in the room, I watched Amelia frown, before reaching out, touching my head. It was an odd feeling, as I felt my bones shift, then my skull split open on organic hinges, but it was only odd. Guess my threshold for body horror's dropped, I couldn't help but think, chuckling with dark humor. Taking control of one of the flies, I moved it to see better, and. . . yeah, that looked weird.

Using Metal Projection I was able to re-arrange my internals without issue, creating two metal meshes that opened up my grey matter, revealing a long array of glowing crystals. It almost reminded me of something. . . but I couldn't remember what. "Found it," I said, extending three tendrils of metal, which spread out into rounded grasping hands, using them to reach in and take hold of the Ice Blue & Silver crystal, gently pulling on it. There was a little bit of resistance, which hurt, and pausing, taking a half-step out, I looked it over.

"Oh, whups," I said, having missed a minor sensory hookup. It took less than a second to detach it, feeding it into the hookup in the Seed. There was a reason that I was the doing this myself, instead of letting Panacea knock me out too.

"Whups?" Herb echoed, ashen.

"Missed something. It'd be like spraining an ankle or losing a fingernail if I'd missed it. No big," I reassured him, trying to pull on the physical manifestation of the power again, the crystal coming free with a wet, slurping sound that made Herb run to the garbage can and loose his lunch. "Seriously, it's not that bad," I told him, pulling the inch long crystal out fully, moving it over, and dropping it into my waiting hand.

Seeing it, I could tell it wasn't stable, though it'd be. . . I don't know, a week or so before it'd get iffy. This wasn't the Shard, not by a long shot, it was only the physical manifestation of it in this dimension. That said, just like fucking up the pins on a monitor cable, before HDMI became a thing, could mess up the image, wrecking this didn't really wreck the power entirely.

Except, where the analogy failed, was the fact that this was alive, and just how an inch long-slice on an arm wasn't that bad, do the same thing to your carotid artery and you'd die seconds. The damage done to me wasn't that bad, but it had been like nicking a vein could be bad, and nicking a dozen was. . . closer to what'd happened.

Letting the metal retract, I could see my grey matter resettle, and asked Panacea, "Patch me up, please."

"I should let you heal normally," the girl grumbled, but put a hand on my head, closing up my skull before reforming it. "Also, you've done something to yourself again."

"Well, obviously," I commented, standing up and moving over to Karen, who was still fast asleep.

The Biokinetic frowned. "No. Not that. You body power. When you were out it only healed you. It's made you less human, again. Despite what you look like. Your muscles and bones shouldn't work."

I smiled, as it appeared my Peak Condition power had been hard at work now that I had the energy to spare. I still hadn't found it, in my Flaming Sea, but I was starting to assume it was located in the core of Flames that was my USW power. And that my core wasn't just USW, but all of my core powers. "Taking notes? Even if you're not part of the PD, I'll give you a tune-up if you ask. As thanks for helping me out with this."

The Biokinetic didn't respond, parting Karen's hair, then opening up her skull. She grimaced at the glowing crystal in my hand. "Aren't you going to wash that?"

I shrugged, "No reason to. I've got no diseases, and we'll be healing her, so she'll be fine. Now, I'm sure you want to watch this."

Amelia didn't say anything, but her power increased in intensity as she focused it. "Here we go," I warned, Taylor also watching, Herb hesitantly getting up from the trash can. I carefully placed the bottom of the crystal against the main crease between the woman's two lobes and gently prodded it with my own power. The crystal brightened, and then sank down, as if the cerebral tissue was water, disappearing from sight.

From Panacea's quick indrawn breath, she was obviously seeing something, but I had Sight of my own, and activated it, watching the tightly packed embers of the removed power drop into the Mustard Yellow & Red of Marked Teleportation, seeming to be consumed inside before blazing to life.

"Oh, that's interesting," I mused, reaching out with my own power to help guide it, but it didn't need my help. The two types of Flame brushed up against each other, then interfered with each other, but in moments they settled, the two powers twisting in harmony. "Panacea, close her up," I directed, but the girl didn't move. "Amelia," I prompted, reaching out and flicking her power in the metaphorical nose, and she jerked back, looking at me. "Close her up."

The biokinetic absently nodded, sealing up the woman's skull, and watching as I placed a hand on the nape of the Host's neck, tapping my own Biokinesis to help her Get Better. With my greater understanding, I could sense my power looking inwards, interfacing with something to tweak her to match a schematic I couldn't see. Interestingly, Mouse's enhanced physicality wasn't a power in the slightest, but a sort of Case-53-esque effect, resting in the underlying framework of the Shard, which is also why it didn't increase with use, like a normal power would.

Mouse stirred underneath my hand, and Panacea hissed, "Stop that! You're waking her up!"

I paused in my power, asking, "Is she healed?"

"She was healed a minute ago," Amelia informed me, like I'd done something wrong.

Rolling my eyes, I kept upgrading the heroine. "Then let her wake up."

A moment later, Karen did just that, and I took my hand away as she sat up. The woman worked her arms back and forth, cocking her head. "So, when are ya gonna get started?"

I gestured for her to stand, looking to Panacea. "You want to come with?"

"I've got other projects. Things I was working on when someone summoned me," she commented, shooting an annoyed look Herb's way. The man nodded, vanishing in a blast of static, Panacea seeming to fold up into nothing a moment later as she was teleported, likely back to her workshop, the man reappearing in another burst of static a moment later.

"Wait, you're done?" Karen asked, and I nodded, grabbing all four of us and Striding to a free practice room.

Reaching into a pocket, I grew a metal disk, instructing her, "Shoot this," and tossing it to the side. Seeing her power, I nudged the new Flame, and a small sphere of opaque blue ice formed in the air between Mouse Protector's eyes, shooting forward and barely hitting the two-inch wide target.

"Holy Shepsog!" she swore. "That's so cool!"

I quickly walked her through the power's capabilities, how to mentally form the projectiles, and so on, Karen grinning and nodding along, making all sorts of shapes, as well as every ice pun she could think of.

While I was doing so, I fed the secondary Shard attached to the woman as much power as I could, helping it settle in, and giving it free rein to tweak itself to its new Host. "If I didn't know better," Mouse finally said, "I'd say you had this power!"

Shit. I tapped the side of my head, on level with my uncovered, prismatic eyes. "Being able to See powers helps. A lot. But you got a handle on this?"

"Yeah, this thing's so easy to use, I can handle snow problem!" she grinned, freezing for a second. "Actually, let me try somethin'!"

She waved me back, and I moved to stand by Taylor. Karen held a hand out, focusing, and a single, baseball sized orb appeared above her hand, both of her powers activating for some reason.

With a flick of her wrist, the ice-ball shot forward, and Mouse disappeared, only to re-appear right in front of it, catching it. I frowned, trying to figure out what just happened, but beside me Taylor gasped. "You marked the ice!" the girl commented, excitedly, and Mouse grinned.

"Yep! Watch out evil-doers!" Mouse cackled. "Because all hail is gonna break loose!" With a wave of her arms, a half dozen spheres formed, firing off in all directions, and she started teleport spamming, flitting between spheres, firing off more at random. I caught one, and felt it as she appeared right behind me, laughing as she slapped my ass, before disappearing once again.

Watching the two powers act in tandem was certainly an education, and a combination that I hadn't thought of. I'd done a similar thing with metal I'd created, but it'd always been a two-step process, where I'd make the knife and then applied the Mark. Mouse, somehow, was doing so at the same time, the 'physical contact' requirement somehow met by her power being in contact with it at the time of creation.

Frowning, I tried to create a bit of metal and copy it, but I couldn't replicate the effect. Then again, there was no range component with Kaiser's power, while Ice Projectile Projection was severely limited to being created within a dozen feet of the Host, so the underlying mechanism of creation was obviously different.

However, when I regained the power, I was going to abuse the fuck out of this, and whatever else Mouse came up with.

"So, I'd say this is a pretty successful test, huh?" I grinned to Taylor, and to Herb.

Oddly, neither of them seemed happy.

AB

We'd left Mouse to her experimentation, and I'd gone back to planning and paperwork, and while Taylor stuck with me, Herb peeled off to handle the PD as it's second-in-command. Sitting back down, coming off the high of the experiment, I realized that I felt tired, the experience enervating, but it was something that I was already starting to recover from. Either way, I'd checked my schedule, looking at the buildings on the docket for tomorrow. We'd already built over a hundred shells this week, but we still had a lot of cleared space left to go, and with my work neutralizing Anomalies, that space was ever-growing.

Brix was still here, working to keep the tree-harvesting operation going, which took some pressure off of me. He hadn't commented on what was obviously his power being used, and apparently thought using it purely for constructive, economic ends was funny as shit, so when Quinn had approached him he'd been fine staying on, making a lot of money in the process. He'd also tracked down Herb, and told the nervous man that the Mainer was happy to see that he'd kept Hedera safe, not dragging her into danger. Herb had apparently just told him that of course he wouldn't do that, which the old Host had approved of.

I'd checked my Sea of Flame, and while my Ice Projectile Projection power was down to just the Seed, that was already starting to grow, and if I was right it'd be back in a few months, about the same time that some of my more. . . poorly removed powers would be finished regrowing.

Refocusing on the here and now, I turned my attention back to the mountain of paperwork waiting for me, glad I didn't need to sleep, taking up Taylor's offer of getting me some coffee when I yawned, still a little lethargic. She knew it didn't do anything for me, but the psychosomatic effects were still present, and I did like the way she made it.

Soon enough, the girl was asleep on the pull-out bed, which I'd replaced one of the couches with after the fourth time she'd nodded off in my office. I honestly didn't think she even used the bed in her room, but didn't mind her presence myself.

It was around three in the morning when something felt. . . off.

I stiffened, looking around, but it wasn't anything here. No, it was something in the Insect Network. Tapping it, my consciousness spread across the arthropodic system, until I found an absolutely monstrous insect stealthily making its way across the city.

The damn thing was by no means natural, with slate-gray chitin that blended in with the concrete of the ruined section of the city it was currently in, the material itself almost supernaturally tough. Similarly, its musculature was denser than anything not made by Panacea, and it had two mantis-like arms, but with jagged monomolecular blades instead of spikes.

Reaching out to it, I could feel that it wasn't mindless, but sentient, like some of the monsters from the Red and Yellow Zones, despite being deep in the Green, but not making a bee-line for the exit, but coming, instead, for the populated sections in the north, even though people in the south part of the city were closer.

Focusing on it, I took control of its body, and sent it a message.

Can I help you?

Something in the insect twitched, and I lost control of it as the body shifted, coming apart and reforming into a familiar looking dark-skinned man.

Mick looked around with a grin, and his insectile Stand appeared beside him, which I could feel through the IN, but left alone. "Mike wasn't lyin'. You are back," he commented into the air, and I glanced to Taylor, who was sleeping soundly.

Standing, I Strode to the same rooftop that the Replicant was on, defenses up and at the ready. However, Seeing him, the Replicant was exactly who he appeared to be, not a crack or blemish in the Flames of his Aura. Interestingly, the Flames had grown in intensity, just as Herb's had, though they didn't carry the same unignorable COMMANDS that my ex-friend now had in his.

"I am," I commented blandly. "Again, can I help you?"

If anything the insectile man's grin widened. "Brought ya a gift. Come on." Without another word he turned back into the same nightmare-mantis and scuttled away, the Stand vanishing.

Hyper-aware, I did so, noting that Arthropod Control couldn't identify what he'd become. It'd given me all the relevant stats, but normally the power named the things it could control, though I had to chuckle as the power referenced me, assigning the creature the name 'Nightmare-Mantis' from my own thoughts.

Soon enough, we were on the outskirts of the city, in a warehouse, far aware from any rebuilt structures. Mick dropped in size to fly through a hole in a window as a fly, and I just Strode in after him, following him to a window-less room where a large black bag writhed, hints of a Familiar White & Orange Flame burning from what was contained within.

Mick reformed, along with his Stand, one arm of each man turning to a mantis blade and slicing open the bag, spilling out its contents.

I looked down at the blonde woman, who stared up at me hatefully, and felt myself smile.

"Hello Brandish."