Twinkle 2.2

"Annatar, come in." Director Piggot's voice was firm and businesslike, devoid of any particular emotion.

I entered her office and sat down. "Armsmaster said you wanted to talk about Arcadia?" I asked.

Piggot nodded, folding her hands on the table. "I sent out some emails while you were in preliminary power testing," she said shortly. "The good news is we can definitely get you short-listed into Arcadia. There's some choices as to how we go about that."

"Wait," I said quickly, holding up a hand. "Is this conditional on my joining the Wards proper, or is this still part of the trial membership?"

"We'll facilitate your transfer to Arcadia regardless," Piggot said evenly. "Along with the identity-protection measures we offer. They won't protect you if you decide not to join the Wards, however."

"That makes sense," I said, "Although I'm surprised you're going this far out for a trial member."

Piggot's face twisted slightly. "Like I said," she replied, "it's a new system. I have a strong feeling it's going to turn out to be too expensive in its current iteration. You're lucky to be joining us when you are."

"Fair enough."

"Now, regarding your transfer to Arcadia," Piggot continued, all business again, "We have a couple of options."

"I'm listening," I told her, folding my hands in my lap.

"As part of the deal in place between the Wards program and the local schools, we have to tell the administration your identity so that they can let you off early if necessary for Wards activities." Piggot folded her hands on the desk and met my eyes behind the mithril helmet. "Part of the deal with Arcadia in particular means that they usually accept students of a similar body type at the same time as a Ward, and let those students off at similar odd times to keep the Ward's identity safe. You see the problem?"

I nodded. "I'm transferring in the middle of the semester, and they don't have any students of that body type transferring in at the same time who could cover for me. I guess they pull those students out too, whenever they pull out the Wards?"

Piggot nodded. "It's a misdirection we use to keep Wards' identities secure," she said. "The obvious solution is to just make a list of already-admitted students who have your basic body type and use them as your covers, but…"

"…But they didn't transfer in at the middle of the semester," I finished. "It'd be obvious and useless."

"Precisely," said Piggot. "Now, if you don't care about your privacy, we can still do that, and you'll be in Arcadia within a week. However, an alternative is to scan Arcadia's waitlist and admit a few students who would fit as long as they agree to be your covers. That'll take longer, more like two weeks at least, and it might take up to a month. Which would be time you're still attending Winslow."

I grimaced. "So either my secret identity gets put at risk, or I have to deal with Sophia and the others for another month?"

"Essentially, yes," said Piggot. "Of course, with Shadow Stalker's probation, if she so much as looks at you funny you're well within your rights to ask us to toss her out. So that should make things easier."

"And I'm honestly not scared of the other two anymore," I said dryly. "I'm not even scared of her. Fine, we'll take the extra time, and get this done right."

"You're sure?"

I nodded. "I'd rather not put Dad at risk," I said. "Having me as a daughter's trouble enough without supervillains coming after him."

"Fair enough. I'll get that organized. What did the preliminary power testing come up with?"

"They could only test my current module," I told her, "and it was preliminary, but for now they've got me as a tinker 7, with possible changes depending on what else I can do in future and with my other modules. The current module's trump 6, shaker 5, striker 2, and master 0. My armor also gives me a purely-defensive brute 3."

"When can we test your other modules?"

"Probably one tomorrow and one on Thursday."

"Do they change by themselves daily?" Piggot asked.

"No," I said, then hesitated. "I… manually activate them, and I usually do it once daily."

"Usually? Couldn't you do it more often for testing?"

"I left the others at home," I confessed. "I'd need to head home to get them, and I don't like carrying them around." Narya glimmered warmly on my finger. "They're tinkertech—sort of—but I can only use one at a time. Whichever one I'm using has a localized stranger power which makes it undetectable to people, but the others look like tangible objects—which could be stolen. And that would be very bad."

"Yes," Piggot agreed dryly, "I agree. It would be very bad. I think I'd rather you keep these objects on the Rig than in your house."

"More people pass through here every day than go through my house in the average year," I protested. "And I have ways of keeping them safe."

"We'll do it your way," Piggot acquiesced. "For now. We'll talk about it more later; Armsmaster would be happy to secure them in his lab, I'm sure, and his security is tinkertech. Can you bring both of the other modules tomorrow?"

"I'd much rather not," I confessed. "I still don't trust Shadow Stalker. If she were to steal the R—module I wasn't wearing, it could be catastrophic."

Piggot sighed. "I guess one day won't make that much difference," she grumbled. "Well, I think that's everything for now. We'll have to figure out how we're going to announce your presence. Armsmaster will want to talk to you about taking down Lung—he's been stewing over who'll get the credit. I'll also schedule you an appointment with the PRT's image department. One of them will want to talk to you about your cape identity and image."

"A PRT employee?" I asked. "Does that mean I have to unmask to him?"

"No," Piggot said. "Wards' identities aren't available to everyone in the PRT by any stretch, and the image department isn't on the need-to-know list."

"Good to know. Anything else?"

Piggot shook her head. "Not for now," she said. "Go see Armsmaster. By the end of the day we should have a PHO account for you under your cape name. Don't post with it until we have a plan of action for your reveal."

I nodded. "I can do that. Thank you, Director."

"Thank you, Annatar. Probably half of my Wards aren't this cooperative."

Armsmaster's workshop door was shut when I arrived. I palmed the button to its side. No noise emerged, but I wasn't sure whether that was because it was a silent doorbell or because the room was soundproofed.

When, about thirty seconds later, the door opened, the sudden wall of sound that hit me answered that question. Definitely soundproofed.

"Annatar," Armsmaster said, standing aside. "Come in. I was just tinkering."

I grinned. "I can understand that," I said, stepping inside. The sound was coming from several small machines, each of which held a piece of metal in various stages of the forging process, being carved with lasers or heated in nanoforges. Piece by piece, the room was building tinkertech around me.

It was efficient, effective, and horribly impersonal. "You never even touch your stuff until it's finished," I realized, and only after I'd spoken did I realize I'd said it aloud.

Armsmasater shrugged. "The nanoforges are faster at the actual building than I could be," he said. "I spend my time on design, mostly."

I shuddered slightly, an involuntary reaction.

"I can get a couple of nanoforges requisitioned for you," Armsmaster offered. "Dragon builds them now, at her base in Vancouver."

"No thank you," I said quickly. "I prefer to handle the metal myself, forge it properly. How can you even mesh your intent into the object if your hammer never touches it?"

Armsmaster stared at me for a moment, and then said dryly, "I think this is a powers thing."

I sighed. "Yeah, probably. I don't know. It feels wrong."

"I'm afraid it's the only way I know how to do it," Armsmaster said evenly. "And it's worked so far."

I nodded. "Fair enough," I said before wrenching my gaze away from the nanoforges and looked up at his visor. "You wanted to talk about Lung?"

He nodded. "PHO has, of course, already leaked the fact of Lung's defeat," he said. "But the Protectorate hasn't yet released a statement regarding what happened. We need to do so soon. I asked them to hold off for at least a couple days in case you decided to come forward."

I smiled at him. "Well, thank you for that," I said. "Shouldn't we just tell them the truth? I held him off for long enough that you could arrive and beat him?"

Armsmaster nodded. "That's probably wisest," he agreed. "Although, of course, it is complicated by the fact that your reveal hasn't actually happened yet. I'll consult with Director Piggot and Glenn Chambers, if he's available, or one of his people if he's not. Either we'll hold off on discussing Lung until you're public, or we'll say Lung was taken down with the help of an 'unidentified hero' and then reveal you as that hero later. It depends on how fast our thinkers, and Mr. Chambers, want the timeline to go."

"That makes sense," I said. Then I paused. "Why didn't you just do that anyway?"

"Well, I wanted to make sure you wanted the credit," Armsmaster said. "It could make you a target, after all. I could leave you out of the story entirely, if you prefer. I don't know that I'd advise that, but it's certainly an option."

"The ABB will already know I helped," I said, "and besides them, who else is going to want to avenge Lung? I think it should be fine."

"It's not about avenging Lung," Armsmaster replied. "It's about power. If people know you're a cape who can even think about standing up to him, you become a valuable commodity. There are certainly people who aren't above kidnapping and extortion to get someone like that to do what they want."

I grimaced. "That's fair," I allowed. "Do you think I should deny involvement?"

"No," said Armsmaster firmly. "I think, as a Ward, building a good name for yourself is more important than that little bit of safety. It lends the Wards, and heroes in general, that little bit more credibility. And we should be able to protect you from the backlash. I think taking credit would be the best choice, in this scenario. But it's your choice."

"Then I'll take the credit," I said. Narya grew pleasantly warm on my finger. "It'll be a good way to spread hope. With both you and I, two heroes who stood up to Lung, on the heroes' side… that'll look good."

"I agree," Armsmaster said. "Likely better than if I took the credit alone; people already know I'm a powerful cape, and I'm already reinforcing it with this, but starting your career this way will be more useful to you than to me. I'll talk to the Director about it."

"Thank you," I said. "I'd better get back to the Wards, make sure they're not giving Sophia too hard a time."

"A moment, Annatar," Armsmaster said, putting a hand on my shoulder as I turned to leave. The power armor clanked on the mithril pauldron. "I wanted to talk to you a bit more about that."

"About Lung?"

"About Shadow Stalker. Why did you want her to stay in the Wards?"

I tried to meet his gaze, but I couldn't see his eyes under the visor. "Several reasons," I said. "I told you this in Piggot's office, though. Better to have the viper where you can see her, and if I can actually make a hero out of her, that's better than another villain on the streets."

"I'm not expressing myself well," Armsmaster said quietly. "Look, Annatar, I'm a parahuman too. I triggered, same as you. I'm asking… how? How can you stand being in the same room as her, regardless of any notion of the greater good?"

I smiled slightly. "I'm stronger than her," I said evenly. "I know that. Now, she does too. She's annoying, yeah, but every second I spend in her presence annoys her way more than it does me. That talk she and I had? I got to know her better in those ten minutes than I did in the last eighteen months. Trust me, Armsmaster: having to deal with me, knowing I have this kind of power over her, and knowing that she can't even fight me for it because she'll lose? That's worse than anything juvie could do to her. It doesn't mesh with her philosophy, it causes dissonance."

"That sounds like it could make her unstable," Armsmaster countered. "Which makes her dangerous."

"I want her unstable," I replied. "If she's unstable, I can topple her. She sees the world as made up of predators and prey, and right now, her position is prey after seeing herself as a predator for years. She has no choice but to either change her world-view or break. I think I can help her do the former."

"And make her into a hero that way." Armsmaster didn't sound happy.

"Yes," I said. "Manipulative, I guess, but she wants to be a hero. She really, really does. She just doesn't know what that even means."

"You know this from your conversation with her?"

I nodded. "Annatar," I said, enunciating clearly. " 'Lord of Gifts' in Quenya. It's… instinctive for me, to figure out what people want, and what to give them…" …to make them mine. "I think it might be a minor thinker power. It only surfaced after I got tested, so I'll bring it up when I test my next module tomorrow."

"Hm." The grunt sounded almost noncommittal. Wary, even. "You got Shadow Stalker to open up to you? You, a person she despises?"

I sighed. "I guess it might be a minor master power," I acknowledged. "I don't think so, though. I definitely didn't Dominate her like I did that ganger on Sunday night. It probably wouldn't have worked even if I'd tried—she's too willful. I don't even have that module active today. No, I just… maneuvered the conversation in such a way that answering my questions caused less dissonance than clamming up."

"By way of her philosophy?"

I nodded. "She likes confrontation," I said. "So I made keeping quiet non-confrontational, and talking a battle, so that she'd leap into it and give me what I wanted."

"This sounds a great deal like a thinker power," Armsmaster said slowly. "Make sure you get it tested tomorrow."

"Will do."

"Thank you," he said. "Now, I should get back to my work. You go rejoin the Wards. I'm sure they have more to tell you about how we do things."

"Probably," I agreed, smiling. "I'm looking forward to working with you, Armsmaster."

He exhaled and a faint smile curled the edges of his bearded mouth. "Same to you, Annatar."