A/N: In case you didn't see after I edited it in at he beginning of last chapter: The 'guess that reference' challenge is over, due to having a winner. Raise your hands for GBscientist, over on the Spacebattles forums. His adaptation for the PHO interlude was UrsineScientist.

The Days of a Hero

2.1

Two weeks into 'heroing' Jacob was tired of spending all his time in the lab. It was odd; nearly every other tinker he talked with seemed like they would be perfectly happy spending their entire life building things, but he needed to go out and use what he made. His inspiration was slowly drying up and he just knew that he needed to see some action before he could progress farther. Patrols were hardly a stopgap. Nothing had happened to him yet, and he needed to experience some action. It wasn't like nothing was going on. Other Protectorate members had run into action on their patrols, but he always wound up on the quietest routes. In the last few days he had become more and more certain: he was being intentionally kept from action.

And that was why he had gone to talk with Armsmaster, or Colin, as he was called out of armor. "I'm getting straight to the point sir. Why am I being kept away from action? And please don't deny it, there is no way that it's a coincidence that my patrols are always in the nicest parts of town. The Wards get more action, for pity's sake!" It was also why he was frustrated enough to so blunt with his superior.

Colin raised an eyebrow. "I felt that it was advisable to let you build up a decent repertoire of tinkertech before sending you on higher-risk patrols. Tinkers are at their most vulnerable towards the beginning of their careers, and you could be one of the better tinkers in the Protectorate from what I was told. I'm not sure that I've seen much evidence of that, though. You haven't even finished that flight implant that you were going on about."

Jacob's jaw clenched for a moment at this. Of course he hadn't finished the implant. Firstly, it had two components that had to be made and implanted separately and then linked, and one of them provided what was a decent Shaker power in its own right. With his inspiration flowing slower and slower as it was the schematics for them were just getting more muddled in his mind as time went by, and it had just gotten too difficult to work before he was finished with the second one. "Yes, and that is why I need to see some action. I can't seem to think about it clearly. I keep getting distracted by this… urge to use the implants that I already have. Just shooting at targets does nothing. I need something to fight; if I just had some sort of action on a regular basis I would be able to think about my projects clearly! It's like my powers won't let me go farther cooped up in a lab, I need to get out and do stuff."

That got him a frown from Colin and a slightly condescending tone. "Tinker powers don't work that way Seraphim. On a more important topic I have noticed that you don't spend as much time in your lab working as you should. Your projects are suffering from your negligence, and until you show more diligence in preparing yourself I cannot in good conscience sen-"

Jacob was furious. Words could barely describe what he was feeling right then. Armsmaster had just brushed his words off without even considering them, and now he was telling him that he wasn't doing enough to get ready?! His projects just plain didn't take that long! They never had; not until the inspiration had stopped coming as it should because he wasn't doing anything with what he made! He exploded, interrupting Armsmater mid-statement.

"Are you seriously just brushing this off?! Are you seriously going to tell me how my power works and just order me into my lab?! Every Tinker in the world is different! My power does not work the same as yours! I tell you that it needs regular conflict to work as it should, and you just tell me 'Tinker powers don't work that way,' as if you knew everything there is to know about the subject! No. Nuh-uh. No way am I going to sit around and just stagnate because you couldn't do your freaking job as my team leader. Your job is to make us the most effective heroes we can be, and you are actively doing the exact opposite right now!"

He stormed away, leaving Colin gaping after him like a fish. If Armsmaster wouldn't get him what he needed then he would go higher up the food chain. Alexandria, at least, would understand that when someone tells you they have figured out something important about how their power works you listen to them. After he had sent her an email, well, then it would be time for some… unscheduled patrols.

-Break-Unleash the Clichés-Break-

Jacob wasn't stupid when he picked the route for his little escapade. He made sure that it would take him through an area that was both at-risk for Merchant activity and that would be out of the way of anyone else who was on patrol. No sense in ticking off either of the more effective gangs right off, or in causing problems for his teammates.

Behind him his newest implant had created creamy white energy shields in the shape of a pair of feathery wings. They were incapable of moving relative to himself unless he made them. While this meant that they could be used to maneuver midair, it could also be a double edged sword if he wasn't careful. If someone could force the wings to move anyways, it would move him as well. Without the second implant the wings weren't very useful beyond helping him roof hop or as shields.

A noise caught his attention, for what must have been the twentieth time. So far they had all been false starts, but this sounded like... A cry of pained despair came again from several alleys over. Jacob jumped off the roof, shaping his wings into a more effective form for gliding to take him to one end of the alley, where they then wrapped around his torso like body armor. What he saw there sickened him.

A group of six gangbangers had a youngish looking Hispanic woman on the ground, slightly bloodied and mostly naked. One of them was just standing up and rebuttoning his pants. Jacob, no, Seraphim saw no particular gang colors, which in and of itself marked them as Merchants, from what he had been told. It was probably the most clichéd gang crime scene one could think of; Jacob knew that this sort of thing happened, and yet it still brought forth feelings of fury to see it.

"You," he said as he stepped into the alley, "You are going stop." One of the Merchants heard him and glanced in his direction. "$^#*! It's a $^#*ing cape!" The rest turned to Seraphim as he continued walking towards them. "I might've let you surrender peacefully if I hadn't come late, but now I'm gonna hurt you first." Three of green orbs of light formed in the air around him.

One Merchant decided to reassure the others. "It's the newbie *%#&sucker! They've been givin' 'im the easy treatment 'cause the $^#*er's too weak to handle anything real." He casually raised his gun and shot Seraphim in the chest three times. The shots ricocheted off his wings, and a beam of plasma melted the Merchant's gun in his hand. As he cursed and screamed in pain one wing unwrapped itself from Seraphim's body and flared outwards as far as the alley allowed it to, then each of its many 'feathers' individually angled itself towards the gangbangers.

The feather-shaped forcefields cut through the air.

-Break-

After the police arrived to take the captured gangbangers and their sobbing victim off his hands, Seraphim made his way slowly back to headquarters. He had gotten what he wanted, and he now knew that he had chosen the right job. The sheer level of hatred he had felt for what he had seen went far beyond what he had expected. If he could prevent that from happening again, it would make things worthwhile. He wasn't going to stop with just once though. He would do so again and again, and the people who dared to do such things would learn to fear his name. For the moment however, he knew exactly how he was going to finish that flight implant.

He entered his lab to find Armsmaster, armored up save for his helmet, glaring at him. "Well, Crap."

"Indeed."

-A/N-

And here we are introduced to one of Jacob's power's limitations, and get to see a good old clichéd entrance into hero work. Why is QA actively forcing him into conflict when it is a Usurper shard? Part of it is that unlike other tinkers his powers are designed to be ideal for using the produced technology, rather than simply making things for the sake of making them. As a result he is able to make things very quickly compared to other Tinkers and basically maintenance free or self-maintaining, but at the cost of what you see in this chapter. Other than that, who knows? Also, rest assured that his insubordination will not go entirely unpunished, though the punishment will be mostly referred to after the fact.

This arc will be composed of some of Jacob's experiences in the Protectorate prior to the time of Taylor's trigger.