Chapter 5 - I think the PRT are drooling over our powers, Stranger!

Alex

I pop out of my pocket dimension as Staraptor. It's 9:55 am, and I swoop down from my exit 200 meters above Brockton Bay, before dropping down to the address of Taylor's house I found online.

Just exiting the household is one Taylor Hebert, looking just as hot as she did last night.

I'm in my teenage body, sue me.

She glances up at smiles when she sees me.

"Dex!" she exclaims.

I slow down, and land right in front of her.

"Hey, Stranger! Ready?"

"uh- Yeah but…" Taylor looks nervous.

"Problem?"

"... can you teach me how to fly? I want to try with, uh, Astrodactyl?" she requests/questions.

"Yeah, you got the name right, and as for the teaching request, nope."

I grin again at her betrayed look, before laughing out loud and elaborating.

"The Omnitrix will give your brain basic info about a transformation. Casual flying should be a breeze for you."

Taylor nods again, this time more confident. Good. Someone needed to build that back up after that the 3 stooges spent 2 years tearing it down.

She pulls up the menu and finds the Pturbosaurian. She presses down the dial with her palm.

Taylor

After I hit the button, I feel myself start to change.

I feel wings popping out of my back, and my new body starts to slim down. I feel a weight on my back-

Jetpack.

Cool. That's what Alex was talking about.

My hands and feet grow claws, and both lose a finger or toe, leading to 4 of each for each appendage.

This happens all over a millisecond. God, my power was awesome. I really needed to thank Dex agai- wait did I thank him at all?

When I see Alex again, I quickly try to resolve my newly growing guilt.

"I don't think I've thanked you yet for my powers."

Pokedex freezes as he's about to take off, and remains frozen for a second or two. Then he looks at me and twists his face into his infectious smile.

"Hey, I'm not going to say it was nothing, 'cause that's an insult to you and your powers, but if you really want to pay me back, pay it forward. Help the next person you see. And the next one. Then the next one. Being a hero is enough thanks for me."

His smile then turns impish.

"Or you could kiss me."

Before I could respond he's already taken off, and I try to keep up with him, trying to not splutter and blush while I do.

Alex

GODAMNIT! The one time I need to stop talking, my mouth opens and dumps me into a hole deeper than the one Aang dug when talking to Katara during "The Cave of Two Lovers"!

Just pretend as if nothing happened, thank god Taylor is still too shy to say anything if I don't bring it up.

We arrive at the PRT building and enter.

The second guards see a giant bird and bipedal pterodactyl with a jetpack walk inside guns are trained on us. Honestly understandable; maybe some of the time I spent trolling Coil should've been spent calling in for an appointment.

I look behind me, and Taylor is glancing nervously at the door, ready to bolt.

I glance back at the guards and throw my hands up.

"We come in peace!... and possibly for a drop-in appointment."

The guards are now glancing at each other, probably trying to convey what to do with each other.

"Oh Taylor, you should probably turn back."

"Why, SQUAWK?" As Taylor finishes her question, she instantly turns red. Or, redder? She's orange, so it's tricky territory.

"What's wrong, squawk, with my voice!"

I shrug, trying to contain my laughter. "Dunno. Pturbosaurians just kinda… sound like that."

She makes one of the most indignant sounds I have ever heard, and the laughter defeats me.

I drop to the floor and start rolling like I'm on fire, wheezing like a Weezing. Yes, as a bird.

After about 5 minutes (and one slap from a base form Taylor) later, Miss Militia appears. She crinkles her eyes, which despite sounding weird, actually does give an aura of friendliness.

"Pokedex! Good to see you again. And… does your friend have a name yet?"

Creeper?

Aw, man. I turn to Taylor.

"Any ideas?"

After a moment of hesitation, she gave one.

"Protean."

Miss Militia

"A word that means ever-changing or adapting. Nice," remarks Pokedex.

"I have to ask; what exactly are you here for?" I inquired.

Pokedex shrugs, awkward to watch motion when it comes from a giant bird.

"Dunno, didn't Armsmaster say something about debriefing? I honestly came in to get registered, and maybe power testing a few of my forms, to make y'all feel better."

"Have you considered joining the Wards?" I ask.

The giant bird does his best to raise an eyebrow. "I'm not a-"

He gets elbowed by Protean mid-sentence.

This duo definitely reminds me of Assault and Battery, right down to the refusal to take anything seriously, the pranks, and the girl desperately trying to save face.

"Okay fine, I did consider it. Just me, though, it's Ta- I mean Protean's choice on whether she wants to join up."

… he didn't state his decision.

Something must've shown on my face, because he squawked in a way reminiscent of a snort, and elaborated.

"I understand y'all are doing your best at maintaining order in this god-forsaken city, but I like excitement too much to follow orders, and worse, de-escalate situations," while spitting out the word "de-escalate" like a curse word.

Before I could ask Protean, she grabbed one of his wings.

"I'm on his side," she states. "Whatever he does, I'm doing."

Pokedex looks surprised and touched, and Protean smiles at him, with a slight blush.

They hold that stance until I cough into my fist 10 seconds later.

Protean's blush turns atomic and drops her hand from Pokedex's wing. Pokedex himself looks away from Protean, and at the ground.

Romantic tension? Ruined. My inner romantic is peeved at my hero identity, but I push those feelings aside for the job.

Next up; getting the duo to meet the director.

Alex

As we head to the elevator, I realize that I can't fit in the damn thing. I try three times and give up when the women I'm with look like they're doing their best of holding back laughter.

"Gimme a sec."

I shrink while gaining blood, and fur. The fur is separated into two halves; the bottom part is pale yellow, while the above part is dark green. On my back, red circles of fur are scattered about. At the end of the day, I look like a hedgehog with an oversized head, and without the quills.

"Cyndaquil!" I cry out, before hopping onto Taylor's shoulder. The two ladies just stare at me, as the elevator doors closed.

Okay, usually I like being the center of attention but the staring was getting unnerving.

"Um, are we going to get going?" I squeaked.

Taylor

Cute. Cute. Cutecutecutecuteutue-

Miss Militia steps forward to the button to press it, and after doing so resumes her stare at Dex.

"Mine!"

Then Dex morphs into another form. As the mortification of those thoughts finally catches up to me, I notice Dex's new body; a sphere with a large eye on it, with a few screws sticking out and two magnets attached to it.

"Can y'all stop staring at me?" Dex asks with a metallic hum.

Suddenly, Miss Militia looks very nervous.

"... does your previous form have Master abilities?" Oh. Those are the brainwashers right, like Heartbreaker- oh no.

Dex looks confused. "No, Cyndaquil is a Blaster. Mostly pyrokinetic."

I really hope he's being honest.

(Because otherwise, I don't know what to do with the feeling in my heart.)

Militia relaxes… then her eyes widen, and she turns noticeably red before looking away, muttering "I see… does your new form have a name as well?"

Dex pulls off the same eye smile that he did with Porygon-2. "Magnemite!"

At that moment, there is a "ding" and the doors open.

Alex

Now that the world's most awkward elevator ride is over and oh shit.

"How do you pronounce the director's name?"

"Pig-oh," Militia responds.

"Got it." I step into the office of one Emily Piggot.

She is quite chunky, but that doesn't stop that stone-cold bitch face from making me nervous… before said nervousness is immediately quashed by Invictus.

"Morning, Director," I hum.

"Good morning, Pokedex. Would you mind turning back to your base form, and taking a seat?"

I shake my head no. "Don't actually have a costume yet. Would rather not let y'all see my face."

"If it makes you feel better, I can turn into something more humanoid?"

"Go ahead," Piggot permitted.

I morph into an ape slightly larger than my base form. With a flaming head, and gold and white motifs, it was very reminiscent of Sun Wukong.

"Infernape," I say, before plopping down on the chair, my tail unaffected.

"Don't worry about the fire, it's under control."

"Truth." I check behind me, and Armsmaster is walking into the room, with Triumph in tow. That makes me, Piggot, Protean, Miss Militia, Armsmaster, and Triumph.

"Alright!" I say, throwing my hands up. "What are we talking about first?"

Piggot looks at me unamused.

"Well, first off, have you considered joining the Wards?"

"Yup!" I say.

Nobody says anything, and then Piggot sighs.

"I suppose that's a no then."

"Yup!" I say.

Huh, deja vu.

As Piggot goes on and on about the benefits that Taylor and I could have. I do my best to look attentive, but in reality, am just not paying attention to whatever she says.

Eventually, she finishes and is looking at me expectantly.

I glance back lazily. "Are you expecting me to change my decision?"

She sighs and looks at Taylor inquisitively. Protean looks down and then stares confidently back at the Director.

"I also have to decline."

"We are willing to go through power-testing, and get registered as independents though," I offer as a platitude.

Piggot still looks like she wants to choke me out, but instead nods in assent.

"Well, we can get that started up in a few minutes. Triumph, please show them to-"

OH SHIT.

Everybody's looking at me. Whoops, said that out loud.

"Um.. have you heard from Panacea lately?"

Piggot blinks, then has her eyes widened in realization.

"I don't suppose this is related to the healing ring that flew onto her hand and refused to come off."

"Uh… I may have sent the ring to her. Surprise?" I say sheepishly.

I hear Taylor smacking her visor in a facepalm. Director Piggot, in a very good attempt to stay monotone, requests that I stay until after school hours to help out the planet's most famous healer. I hastily agreed. Noctis cape really doesn't work that well sometimes.

"So! Power-testing?" I ask in an attempt to get people to ignore my XQC against Moistcritikal level blunder.

…

Director Piggot

I think I'm going to have an aneurysm, a heart attack, or something medical-related that will end in an early grave.

The two capes were showing bright red warning signs of EVERYTHING I despise in capes.

Desire to join the Protectorate? Nonexistent.

Recklessness levels? Off the damn charts.

Ego? Larger than Lung at full size.

Admittedly, the girl, Protean, seemed to be more level-headed than her counterpart Changer, but also seemed more submissive, willing to defer to the hot-headed child that was Pokedex. Not good.

Given his name, our strategy group was able to deduce that he could transform into video game characters known as "Pokemon", which were from an old game made by the Japanese company Nintendo, before they, like the majority of Japan, were swamped by the fall of Kyushu.

I've seen many powers; none were as strange and

The strange duck-like creature, which Protean had called a Porygon-2, was an AI. The hell that could cause our info-sec…

Even worse, Pokedex showed off 4 new transformations. The pyrokinetic hedgehog and floating magnet had matches available, but the giant bird and flaming ape did not. The amount of crackpot theories from the Think Tank has increased dramatically after this discovery; I'm more concerned that he is an unknown, and has a completely unpredictable power set to us.

A minuscule part of me hopes is that he really is on the side of angels, and his talk of out-escalating the gangs in the city with minimal casualties is coming from experience, not hubris.

I've learned to ignore that part of me after Ellisburg.

Miss Militia

"Before we start, can I have control of the speakers?"

Music starts blaring over the speakers. We usually don't use this PA system for music, but nobody is really objecting.

As the song starts, I glance at the name. Rocket Fuel by DJ Shadows.

Nananannananna - Ladies and gentlemen?

The PRT had set up an obstacle course for grab bags to go through to test my ratings. It was resettable, though not used often because of the rarity of capes, versatile and strong enough to run through it.

As Pokedex approached the first challenge - a brick wall, short enough to climb over - he morphed. He grew a few feet, his skin turning gray and growing four arms in the process.

"Machamp!" he roared, and then, the wall, which was capable of taking hits from Brute 7's, was flattened, and its pieces were scattered across the floor as Pokedex ran through the wall.

"OH YEAH!" Pokedex yelled.

"Holy shit."

I look to my left, and see Assault, with his jaw on the floor. Armsmaster, Battery, and Triumph were to his left and also seemed nervous realizing how powerful Pokedex actually was.

Ladies. And. Gentlemen!

The next challenge was an obstacle course, that was essentially a giant laser security system if the lasers had been replaced with thin metal rods.

This be the green light go, tires burn the pavement!

He changed into a yellow mouse that was about as tall as my knees ("Pikachu!" I heard an older scientist), and dashed through the course at a blazing fast speed, not even grazing a bar, and finishing the 10-meter-long course in a little under 2 seconds.

Then came the pendulum section; a row of swinging pendulums, that were made of fabric, so there would be no harm if there was any contact.

Pokedex shifted forms again, this time to a shorter, dark purple blob with short arms and legs, and menacing red eyes.

He waddled just into the path of the pendulum just as the ball was about to hit him… and the ball passed through him.

Pokedex started to cackle. "Gengar!"

He started to float, and flew to the end of the hallway.

"Oh, that's just bullshit."

Looks like the Wards showed up.

"How many powers does this guy have?" Clockblocker asks.

Armsmaster grunted. "We've counted more than 10 different transformations."

Silence. Well, except for:

People wanna know where Mase, Pos and Dave went!

Pokedex floats up the climbing wall and pulls up to a firing range with targets that have an assigned numerical value to them.

He's muttering about… something.

"What the heck is a 'Pro Bowl'?" Vista asks?

"A skills competition and all-star game for the defunct National Football League."

I check behind me. The screen shows a generated face.

"Dragon," Armsmaster greets warmly.

"It's a pleasure to be here Armsmaster."

The Pokedex morphs again. A cloak of feathers wraps around him, while a green hood covers his now owl-like face.

"Decidueye!" he cried, as he pulled out a bow hidden in his cloak, or more accurately, his wings.

Arrows fill the targets in a record time; better than my record. No, I am not jealous, envious, or angry over my record being beaten.

Still here, still in the ear with a style, so hot, you'll see where the sun rays went!

The following challenge was another Brute one; a giant block that becomes harder to push as you push farther. It uses magnetic fields to increase the friction of the block and make it harder to push.

Pokedex glanced at the rails powering the field and his eyes widened. He then morphed into a large rounded piece of metal that had magnets and screws sticking out of certain ends.

To the surprise of everyone in the testing facility, the Brute Block, which clocked in at almost 100 tons, started to lift off the ground. That's the weight of a Boeing 757-200, and Pokedex launched it across the room, hitting the back wall with a thud. There was no visible strain on the floating chunk of metal.

I inhale very, very, slowly. Whatthefuck.

Alex

Legs, arms, and head all being moved in a frenzy!

After that, the music cuts. Aw, we didn't even get to the good part! I change back to the humanoid Infernape; I find it's easier for other humans to not be scared when I'm bipedal and have warm blood in my veins.

The majority of the Protectorate walks in, with the rest of the Wards following - damn, talking takes a while, eh? It's already after school? - and presses a button near the entrance of the testing room. It shifts into what seems to be its base form.

I wave at the new arrivals. Clockblocker motions to high-five. I put my hand up… and spin out of his way at the last second, causing him to stumble. He grins and shrugs his shoulders.

"Clockblocker! Nice to meetcha, I'd shake my hand, but sorry; I don't trust you enough."

The white, gear-clad, timestopper's smile widens.

"I will accept your apology on the condition that you do the thing where you sent the Brute Block flying!"

"Brute Block?" I glanced back at the giant hunk of metal that had been completely displaced by Magnezone's magnetism.

"Couldn't think of a better name-"

Then Taylor walks in… with Lady Photon, Brandish, Glory Girl, and Panacea.

I blink.

Panacea walks up to me… and forms a giant blue hand that slaps me into the wall. And I mean into, I had to pull myself out of the impact crater.

"Amy," Brandish says, disappointed. Not outraged… just annoyed. That should be good for their family dyna-whoa.

The giant blue hand yanks me out of the hole. Then I drop to the ground as it disappears. I glare.

"Okay, the first one I get, but the dropping me was just ru-"

Wait, why is Amy's clothing not blue anymore?

"It's not my fault you gave me this damn thing without an operating manual! I had to figure out most of the power by myself, and it won't shut up about how low the battery is!" the brunette healer screamed at me.

Yeah, Amy was pissed. I responded to that comment by snorting, making her even angrier, before noting:

"Like the ring was that unintuitive. It ain't T-er-Protean's power, but it still gives you instructions if you ask."

There was a silence, as the entirety of New Wave looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

Amy

"Ask?" I hear myself say. My mind is on autopilot, as I try to process his previous statement. Ask? Ask who? The ring?

"The ring?"

… this is absolute fucking bullshit.

"You're telling me the ring comes with an instruction manual, and YOU JUST LET ME FLAIL around, randomly healing mental disorders and cancer because you were too lazy to give me heads up!?"

"No!" he says back, indignant. He then points at the new cape, Protean.

"I was helping her. You have enough support from your family of superheroes, who know how to fly, shoot lasers and make shields. We-" he says as he gestures at himself and the new girl, "-have similar power sets, so I thought I should help her first. I was going to get to you at… some point."

He glares at me.

"It's not like your powers were never seen before. Lasers, shields, flight- your family has all of those."

Damn. My greatest enemy; logic.

You know what? Fuck it. I don't give a shit anymore

"Look, do you at least know how to charge this thing? I've been operating on empty since I cleansed the Merchants of their drug addiction last night."

I never truly understood what an "evil smile" was until I saw the look on his face.

"Oh, it's quite simple. First off, you should have access to a Blue Lantern power battery."

The second he finishes his sentence, I've already pulled it out. I'd accidentally summoned the thing from nowhere before; The PRT had theorized about a pocket space specifically for what I thought was a lantern, but hearing the words "power battery" and associating them with the large blue structure sounded right.

He disappears temporarily, reappears, and then checks behind me. Okay, please stop dicking around, I missed flying, Shaker healing, and lasers alr-

"Now stick your hand with the ring into the battery, and let the words flow," he said smugly.

I glare at him again for being so vague, before obliging by sticking my right hand into the battery.

"In fearful day, in raging night, with strong hearts full, our souls ignite. When all seems lost, in the war of light, look to the stars for hope shines bright!"

I regain my blue aura and costume, and then immediately cover my mouth with my hands. The power battery disappears back to who knows where. I notice that asshole, Pokedex, desperately trying to not laugh. But I hear actual laughter. I turn around.

Most of the adult capes in the room have small grins on their faces, while kids were openly laughing. Vicky and Clockblocker, the traitors, were recording me on their phones.

I turn back to the laughing chimp. I think Pokedex was his name?

I raise my fist. A laser cannon materializes, and I point it at the smug-ass ape.

Pokedex gulps, transforms into giant, clay… totem? Doll?- and disappears.

I am then drenched with water, as a blue, oversized, snickering, ninja frog lands behind me.

I dry myself off with the ring, and that's when shit hit the fan.

Because sirens started sounding. Endbringer sirens.