"So…" I started very uncomfortably.
The discomfort wasn't because I was now technically on patrol with Armsmaster, nor was it because I had set off the fire alarm while undergoing what was for all intents and purposes a childish tantrum. No, the reason for my discomfort was-
"Is the sidecar comfortable?" Armsmaster asked when I failed to produce more than that single awkward word.
"…yes." I offered begrudgingly. The little sidecar that was attached to Armsmasters vehicle by about a handspan of steel was many things. Demeaning. Tiny. Stupid looking.
But it was definitely comfortable, for all it was still all those other things.
As it turns out, Armsmaster patrols on a motorcycle. And not just any motorcycle, his fancy, custom, tinkertech, midlife crisis motorcycle.
I hated this for several reasons.
One, as I may have mentioned, it was demeaning. Sure it was comfortable, but only insofar as Armsmaster had clearly had my power armor in mind when designing it. The armor itself was as comfortable to sit in as to stand in - taking almost no effort from me to hold myself even so much as upright - and so the sidecar mainly consisted of two major components.
A bunch of structural reinforcements that allowed it to carry the bulk of my weight, and four strategically placed clamps that would lock on to my armor - preventing me from going flying at high speeds, or the unfortunately likely event of a crash.
So effectively I was sitting with my arms and legs curled around me like I was a fucking bakugan toy, and I was being largely held in that position by the machinery around me.
I shuddered to even think of how obnoxiously stupid I must look.
But it wasn't just the demeaning nature of the transport that got me. It was the lingering feeling of disappointment.
Look, I have read a lot of fanfiction of this world. A lot. So much that my recollection of actual canon events is murky at best. So I feel I can be forgiven for thinking that Wards were supposed to get a probationary license or something. I feel almost positive that was the case.
And yet, here I was. In the mid life crisis mobile, which was barely even tinkertech at all.
Fancy silent motor that the obsessive Cape Armsmaster had installed a fake engine noise into? Absent. Slick sci-fi tech filling the thing to the brink? Non-existent.
I guess at some point I had forgotten that Armsmaster was the type of tinker to hyperfixate on one thing and one thing only, because just about the only truly insane piece of tech he had was his halberd. The rest was repurposed or copied tech from other Capes. Sure, he tuned it, changed it, made it more efficient… but that's all he really did.
Armsmasters sole contribution to this vehicle - besides my side car - was enough reinforcing bullshit to allow it to carry a half ton of power armor, and a blue and silver paint job.
I was so god damn bummed by this information, and I couldn't even begin to explain why. Maybe I was just… expecting something cooler. Which is, I suppose, kind of unfair of me, but…
I mean come on! Armsmaster was literally a Batman expy! Why was his motorcycle so goddamn boring!?
"Your shoulder cannons should have full range of movement and complete stability with this configuration." He added after another few moments, when I didn't say much of anything else in response to his original question. We were talking over our armor's systems rather than trying to shout over the wind as we traversed a freeway that followed a looping arc halfway around the city before cutting back along its center.
"That would be very useful if I had any expectation that Piggot would allow you to bring me into combat." I drawled at him before shaking my head and sighing.
"Sorry I just- I'm sure you get this alot from the other-" Kids, "-Wards but it really does feel like we don't actually do anything." I explained.
"You're young. I know it feels like there's always more work to do - and that's because there is. But there was just as much to do when I was a Ward, and there will be just as much when you train the next generation of Wards. There's always work to do. What's important is that we prepare you to do it right." Armsmaster informed me curtly.
I turned my head to stare at him.
This was the glory seeking lunatic that had screwed Taylor over and broken the Endbringer truce just to have a shot at everlasting glory? He sounded like Captain America on a PBS special. That was the most wholesome thing anyone had ever said to me!
"I know- platitudes. But trust me, there will be enough to do in the future. How are you doing? I was informed of, and approved of your request for therapy." He continued, blithely signalling to change lanes to get around a slow moving SUV that had actually slowed down seemingly just to get closer to us on the road.
I watched the vehicle fall behind us with the faces of two children pressed firmly against its windows, staring at us as we went. I'd have waved at them but again - I couldn't use my arms.
"It… it's going. Only done one session so far." I admitted uncomfortably.
"Good. Stay with it. You have to maintain yourself, as well as your tools." He assured me.
"Uh…huh…" I offered, still not entirely sure what to make of this conversation.
"I'm sorry. That was too personal. I haven't really… directly mentored another Tinker before." He admitted.
"But- but you're like only just barely one rung under the Triumvirate! You were one of the first Wards! How have you-" I began to question immediately. I'm sure Armsmaster took that as a sign of… I dunno, hero worship or something, but the part of my brain that I think was once dedicated to fanfiction simply couldn't compute the timeline on that one. Surely in the intervening time since he'd become an adult hero he'd taught at least one other tinker.
Right?
"I was busy. And I'm sure you've seen the statistics - if there's one thing this city chews up and spits out for breakfast, it's Tinkers." Armsmaster informed me with an almost pained tone to his voice.
I stopped to consider that for a second and… well he was definitely right. I had realized extremely early on how easy it would be for someone tracking unusual purchases to find me when I was first building up. I'd taken precautions against it, but how many other Parahumans - particularly young Parahumans would think of that?
Probably not many. And of the few that did, well…
Parahumans were sort of predisposed to villainy by default. Comes with the trauma based superpowers I guess.
"…huh. So… what? I'm supposed to be your sidekick now?" I asked suspiciously.
That earned me a snort of amusement from the man.
"No. No such system exists within the Protectorate. It would encourage favouritism among Wards." He told me, not unkindly.
"And yet I notice Shadow Stalker is almost always with Miss Militia…" I said leadingly.
"Militia has valuable skills that apply uniquely to Shadow Stalker purely as a result of your interference. Gun safety is important, especially if we are going to allow a child to wield one." He stated bluntly.
I blinked at that, opened my mouth to say something about it, closed my mouth to think some more, and then finally spoke.
"So then why haven't I ever benefited from this vaunted wisdom?" I asked suspiciously.
"You're a Tinker. Most of us have innate skill with our own equipment. We already know you can use a gun, and even if we didn't, I have thoroughly vetted the firearms you do use, and determined them to be no more dangerous to human life than your fists would be if you genuinely wished to harm someone." He replied.
"I hate how much sense that makes." I grumbled right back at him even though I privately suspected Miss Militia just… didn't like me.
"I know the Protectorate can seem slow and useless at times. I struggle with the bureaucracy of it all myself. But everything we do, we do for a reason. Never forget that." Armsmaster continued to lecture as we took the extremely wide turn that would loop us back around towards the base.
And wouldn't you fucking know it, I almost… almost fully kind of believed him.
"Explain it like I'm five." Emma pressed as I did the last of my prep work on the Encounter Suit - mostly just making sure the living armor didn't have any faults or weak areas. The unfortunate reality of biological equipment was that it had about as much variance as any other living creature from other members of their species.
This suit, for instance, had started out pretty close to the turquoise Amy had chosen for her encounter suit, but slowly darkened into a much darker teal by the end of its growth.
Amy had been annoyed when the colour had begun to shift, but it was still at least mostly the right colour. Truthfully I kind of suspected that the colour didn't matter much to her - it was just that she was so invested in being successful as a superhero that her nerves were getting to her, so she was looking for anything she could to nitpick.
I could respect that. I hadn't wanted my first night to be in Junk Armor either.
"Emma your fourteen, that's barely better than-" I began and then paused when I took note of the dangerous narrowing of the redheads eyes.
I restrained a sigh - more to avoid demonstrating my annoyance than because of the Merlin thing - and changed tacts. We were alone for a few moments while Amy and Vicky were upstairs in the office changing into their Second Skin armor, which as I had suspected, Vicky was just going to wear under her normal costume. Amy had assured me she wasn't going to be wearing just the skintight armour, pinching at the side of her stomach for emphasis.
She wasn't fat. She didn't even have much of any flab really. She just wasn't particularly fit either.
Teenagers.
"Look, how do you think people get powers?" I asked her instead.
"People sometimes get powers, usually when they need them. I read somewhere that it's genetic or something. And you can do…. Living stuff… right?" She insisted, jabbing a thumb into the Encounter Suit for emphasis.
"No, I don't do humans." I said instantly before registering how close to 'I don't do brains' that was, and tried not to think too hard about what that meant for me in the grand scheme of things.
"Not that it matters. Powers aren't genetic." I followed up quickly.
"Then what are they?" Emma demanded irately.
She had been trying to convince me to give her powers, tinkertech, anytime Amy and Vicky had been out of earshot for the last day and a half and it was starting to get tiresome.
I grasped that partially she had latched on to the concept of having powers as a guarantee of personal safety, because even if she hadn't triggered she was still extremely traumatized - but I wouldn't give her superpowers even if I could.
I liked Emma well enough, but on some level, I still wasn't sure I really trusted her with any actual power. Still, I felt responsible for her somehow. Like, the act of replacing Shadow Stalker in saving her made her inherently my problem.
Not the healthiest way to look at a friendship I'm sure, and really, that wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts all that often, but at times like this… well I really felt it.
"Powers are… people get powers when they break. You probably think Parahumans are big and strong and can do whatever they want right?" I asked rhetorically.
She answered anyway.
"Yes! John you're making power armor in an abandoned building! You fought like a dozen people this week!" She exclaimed angrily at me.
"So? Let me tell you a secret - Parahumans? We are the weakest people you'll ever meet. You don't get powers by being strong. You get them by being pathetic. Weak. When a person snaps, or breaks, or… whatever you wanna call it, and then something else fills in the cracks. Every last one of us is fucked." I explained in the most diplomatic way I could - which, now I've said it wasn't that diplomatic at all.
I turned to find Emma staring at me like I'd grown a second head, so I sighed and continued.
"I woke up in the hospital after being in a coma for two days. Both my parents were dead. But hey, I had super powers." I explained through grit teeth.
The bright side of this conversation was that Emma mentioning my encounter with Mush earlier this week hadn't made me feel like I was underwater and drowning.
The downside was, that was only because I was remembering my actual trigger event.
I know I simplified it and all, but when I woke up in that hospital? Those were the worst days of my life. They hadn't even realized I had woken from my coma because I had spent a full day staring at the ceiling, taking in my new situation. And that whole time, I was somehow simultaneously aware of my now changed situation, and had no idea what was going on.
I spent a full three days after waking up, waiting for the hallucination to end, and when it didn't, and I fully accepted that I was now a thirteen year old boy and would probably never see my family again, that was when I triggered.
Ah, fourteen year old. My birthday had come and gone without comment from much of anyone - mostly because I hadn't told anyone about it, and the large government organization I worked for didn't really care all that much despite having the information on file.
There was an awkward silence between us as I continued my spot check on the Encounter Suit that only really ended when Vicky and Amy came back down the stairs in their costumes.
"These are more comfortable than I gave them credit for. Like tights that never bunch up." Vicky opined cheerfully as she hovered down to us, with Amy slowly following after her. Vicky looked… well not all that different. The only really notable difference was that her legs and arms weren't bare beneath her costume - a white dress with a skirt that ended just above her knees. The gold highlights along the hem of the skirt and sleeves provided just enough contrast that it wasn't blindingly white, and the golden tiara affixed to her head was so ostentatious I feel like most people probably wouldn't even notice the change.
Well. The losers who obsessed over seeing a teenage girl fly over them in a miniskirt might, but well - those people were gross anyway.
Amy's costume - which I was only just seeing for the first time - was… interesting.
"Yeah it's 'Second Skin' - it's supposed to feel like, you know, a second skin." I told her absently while squinting at Amy. Vicky followed my gaze towards her sister, and for a second her expression darkened before returning to normal.
"What's-" I began to ask but Amy cut me off by blurting something out.
"They gave me Knight or Cowboy okay!?" She yelled at me, flustered and doing her best to twist her body sideways so the majority of her was hidden from me.
Her seagull projection made a definitively un-seagull-like growling noise in the back of its throat.
I took a second to absorb that, still staring at the white leather chaps and partially buttoned up - again, white - coat she was wearing. The coat looked entirely decorative, and made of faux leather of some kind. I had to give whoever had come up with it, this - it had working pockets and was the appropriate length to be a riding jacket. The center of her chest, where her jacket was unbuttoned, held the New Wave symbol, where someone had evidently stenciled it onto the second skin.
She was dressed like a cowboy. A pearlescent, white, cowboy.
"Purely out of curiosity… What was the knight outfit?" I asked, turning to regard Vicky again. My assumption was that if Vicky had a princess theme going on, that the knight thing was meant to match that theme. Something told me Cowboy was just one of a handful of options a cheap marketing firm pulled up that sold well - New Wave had to have some kind of merchandising team or they'd be basically destitute. As far as I was aware, only one of them was even working currently.
"Horrible. They wanted her to wear a bunch of fake armor made from some kind of foam." Vicky complained, drifting over to pat her sister on the back. Repeating her look of mild anger. "Don't worry Ames, you look fine."
"You look like a horse girl." Emma opined.
"A… what?" Amy asked hesitantly, obviously unsure if she had just been insulted.
Vicky brightened at that but shot Emma a suspicious look which… was fair.
The two hadn't said one nice thing to each other since meeting, after all.
"You remember that movie we watched about the girl whose farm was going to get shut down and-" Vicky began but Amy finished it for her.
"But if she could win that race her family would have enough money to keep it?" She asked quizzically, looking down at herself in a new light, twisting left and right to see both sides of herself.
"Yeah! It's that kind of look." Vicky said brightly.
"Hmm." Amy hummed to herself, although her shoulders relaxed slightly and her projection hopped off her shoulder to begin the excruciatingly slow process of - presumably - becoming a horse. Or… knowing Amy, 'horse adjacent'.
We had found with some testing that the thing could drop mass almost instantly, and it could shift mass nearly as fast - but adding mass to itself seemed to take a lot longer.
"Taylor - my friend - goes to a camp thing every summer. She takes pictures." Emma explained to me when I turned a questioning look on her. She had a look on her face that said I shouldn't ask about why she would bother to be helpful here.
But god damn was I curious.
Unfortunately for me, it was at precisely that moment that Soph turned up, ghosting through one of the walls and dropping my backpack on the ground in front of me with a casual toss and a huff of disdain.
"Hey! That stuff is delicate!" I complained as I scrambled down to my knees to start digging around in the bag. The stuff inside wasn't actually all that delicate, but I would be pretty annoyed if any of it was damaged. I'd been working on these trinkets at home during my 'free' time, but had come straight here after my patrol with Armsmaster so I hadn't been able to grab them, since I had more 'tinker bullshit' to do.
Sophia's words - not mine.
Sophia was supposed to have been at home anyway so it shouldn't have been an issue, but I could tell she was annoyed with me over it so I guess she hadn't been.
"Whatever. Nice costume. Too bright." She said, first to me then to Amy.
"Not all of us go in for the whole terror in the night shtick Soph." Amy responded defensively.
"Have fun getting shot at then." Was Sophia's simple answer.
"That's more my job. Ames here is the cavalry." Vicky said, puffing up her chest and taking on an over exaggerated pose with her hands on her hips - like Alexandria if she had a sense of humour.
Or Alexandria if she had a moral compass.
Ah. Superman. I'm thinking of Superman. She posed like Superman. And it annoyed me endlessly to realize that when I thought of a flying brick, Superman wasn't the first thing that came to mind anymore.
This stupid death world was corrupting me.
"Least you're good at it. Anything in that bag for me or can I get changed?" Sophia responded, lazily offering Amy and Vicky each a fist bump as she passed them and then pausing on the first step of the stairs to look over her shoulder at me.
She was - for whatever reason - wearing lipstick, which I found incredibly odd, but at the time just chalked up to Vicky's influence.
Vicky herself wasn't overly prone to make up, but she did use the stuff, which was more than I could honestly attribute to my cousin.
"One or two things. Go get changed though - it can go over your costume, and I have to get suited up myself anyway." I said, shrugging.
"You want first or-" Soph asked, moving as though to get off the steps.
"Nah I'm good." I responded as I shifted focus towards calling my Armor - which doubled as my spell core - towards me.
"Inbound." Merlin informed me when he finished the calculations required to call my armor.
Teleportation in Starfinder worked on some fairly universal principles. Rather than go the Prestige route of effectively cloning a person or object at your target destination, or the more conventional way of turning your target into an energy medium and then turning them back on arrival, my armor briefly had to pass through another plane of existence.
I assumed, anyway. I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to stick my head into the Astral Plane just to confirm it existed. If it worked, it worked, and that was good enough for me.
Plus, if I did have a shard and not just some arbitrary fiat power, then what was actually happening was the shard was probably eating my armor and spitting it back out again wherever I asked it to.
Regardless, the Astral Plane was generally considered the realm of the spirit. The laws of physics were closer to politely worded requests there at best, but everything that was there mapped roughly to normal space in such a way that you could jump into the Astral Plane, move three hundred yards in two seconds, then jump back out again in real space where that was literally impossible.
If you have ever seen a character have an out of body or trippy dream experience, that's what the Astral Plane was like. One, massive, acid trip.
This was the manner in which… most… if not all, teleportation worked in Starfinder. There was still the ever so miniscule risk that something dangerous on the other side would eat you in transit, but mostly, it was pretty safe.
My white and orange suit appeared in a mostly silent burst of air as it displaced everything in the otherwise empty space it landed in, and I quickly unbuttoned and shucked my pants off to reveal the standard issue PRT body suit I was wearing underneath.
I hadn't bothered to take it off after my run with Armsmaster since, well.
I knew I would be coming here.
My shirt quickly followed my pants, and then, with a mental command from Merlin and the ease of familiarity, I stepped up to, and then in, to the armor.
When I turned around Sophia was gone, and everyone else was staring at me.
"What?" I asked hesitantly, leaning over to pick my backpack up without turning away from everyone else.
"You uh, sort of just stripped in front of us with no warning." Amy said with a tone of mild annoyance in her voice.
Vicky was squinting at me like she might stare at a bug - which honestly I was so okay with even if it kind of hurt my feelings.
"No I didn't, I had clothes underneath. You've never like, worn a swimsuit under your clothes so when you go to the beach you don't have to go to the changing room?" I asked curiously.
"I mean- yeah, but-" Amy spluttered.
"Not that I'm complaining but- yeah some warning would be nice next time." Emma put forth. I rolled my eyes, - which noone could really see through my helmet - reminded myself these were stupid teenagers, with stupid hang ups, and then summarily moved on.
"Alright. Goodies." I said quickly changing the topic and withdrawing a handful of knickknacks and jewelry from the backpack.
Magic was always interesting to 'tinker' with because it was more like having a Shaker power than a Tinker power. I'm sure there's a note to that effect somewhere in my official file, even. Regardless, a lot of the more stringent requirements technology had were absent in the case of magic.
A point I handily demonstrated by immediately handing a fake gold broach to each person present, and - when she came stomping down the stairs - throwing one to Sophia who caught it adroitly.
Probably anyway. Her outfit was basically one contiguous hunk of vanta black, so telling where her hands were when they were near her body was… problematic.
"A… broach?" Vicky asked curiously, turning the thing over in her hands. They were all different looking because I had to work with pre-existing jewelry.
Sophia, tellingly, didn't even ask what it did before pinning hers to a part of her belt that was typically hidden by her cloak.
"Looks like." Emma said grouchily while also trying to lean over to look at the one Amy was holding.
I hadn't made one for her because I did have a limited time for tinkering, and she didn't really need one.
"It's a tiny shield. Absorbs raw kinetic energy." I explained, and then, when I could see that they had taken precisely the wrong thing away from my statement, I hurried to clarify.
"It does not stop bullets." I rushed out. The confused looks in the room made me feel… weird. On the one hand, when I was originally fourteen I'm not sure I'd even know what kinetic energy was. I assumed they knew cus they lived in a superpowered world, which was also why they were making bad assumptions.
"It stops pure force. Absorbs it really. Like… Gallants blasts. I'm hoping if we encounter Skidmark it will resist his fields, at least for a bit. They can only suck up so much power before they break. Don't take risks. In fact, it's better if you just pretend it isn't there." I explained before pulling four necklaces out next.
"Any questions before I move on?" I asked attentively.
"So, you made something that's useless against most capes?" Vicky asked me with one eyebrow lifted. The subtext there was pretty obvious to me, but I was afraid to explain my true reason for making them to her on the off chance it made her do something stupid.
On the one hand, it seemed obvious that the only Cape this really countered was Gallant - Vicky's boyfriend. At least, he was the only guaranteed counter. I had high hopes that they would give me and everyone else some resistance to guys like Krieg, Stormtiger, and - as previously mentioned - Skidmark.
On the other, I had, at one point, asked myself a question.
When damage hit Vicky's shield, it clearly didn't care what kind of damage it was. So if I was lucky - so, so, so, lucky - what Vicky's broach in particular would do, was interact with her power in such a way that it would let her shield stay up for as long as the broach had power.
But I doubted it, and I definitely didn't want Vicky to think she was harder to kill than she actually was, so my reply to her was thus;
"Yup. I'm a tinker. I make stupid bullshit. You know I know how to make a toaster out of crystals? It's not like, better than an actual toaster, but-" I began to rattle off.
"Look, now you got him fucking going he won't shut the hell up." Sophia said with a sigh, stepping back to lean against the wall behind her as though to wait.
I pointed firmly at her with my armor.
"Right. I'll remember that next time you want a fancy new toy. But you are right. So! These!" I said, holding the necklaces up.
"Everyone come get one - yes, you too Emma." I said, not wanting to throw the things. Again, no two necklaces looked the same because I had been working with whatever random bullshit Vicky had been able to donate to me. I was kind of hoping her family might, you know, pay me to make more when they saw how good my stuff was - but that was a later days problem.
The girls shuffled forward to grab necklaces from my open hand, and I made sure Emma got the one I had bought separately - purely because I know Vicky would kill me if I gave Emma her jewelry.
"Tuck em in if you can, secure them if you can't. This one is called a Recovery Aegis. It makes you maybe five percent more resistant to getting sick, poisoned, or diseased, and-" I quickly said loudly when when it became obvious they were losing interest, "it will stop you from dying. Once." I finished.
"Come again?" Amy blurted out.
"If you're ever effectively dying, for any reason whatsoever, you'll instead break even and stop dying. You won't get better, and it wont heal you, but you definitely won't die unless an outside force acts on you. Mostly, I mean. Don't get decapitated or anything, but as long as you've got all your limbs and your head, I can definitely save you." I informed them.
This had them looking at the necklaces in a new light. I'm sure none of them planned on dying, but the cruel reality of being a cape was - it was drastically more likely for us than it wasn't. And everyone here knew it.
"Promise?" Emma asked eventually.
"Sorry?" I replied, already in the middle of digging the last few things out of the bag. I also had some potions and things to hand out, but people pretty much expected that from me at this point so I didn't even bother to mention it.
"That you'll save me?" Emma asked innocently as can be. Vicky immediately chose that moment to glare at her.
"Yeah uh, we totally will." I offered carefully, exhaling in relief when Vicky's expression eased slightly at 'we'.
Emma was a lot less subtle in her glare, but since it was directed at me, I decided that was the best I was going to get.
"Uh… anyway. Stalker, these are yours." I said, flinging an oversized pair of aviator goggles at her that I had painted the same black as her outfit. This meant that the goggles themselves were impossible to see anything through under normal circumstances.
These goggles were enchanted however.
"Lets you see in pitch black conditions as clear as day, in full colour. No night vision green. Hopefully it-" I started.
"These'll let me get that bastard!" She exclaimed excitedly, hurriedly slipping them over her head, where they blended in seamlessly with the rest of her and effectively vanished.
Yeah. Pretty much. Sorry Grue - family first and all that. At least she isn't using the crossbow anymore.
"Yup." I said, making a popping noise on the 'p' sound.
"What the darkness guy? Weren't you going to get him to make you like… a flashbang or something?" Amy asked curiously, stepping over to my cousin to poke at her new goggles. In an uncharacteristic show of friendship, she actually took them off and proferred them to her, although she lifted a hand in negation of the offer.
Sophia shrugged and turned to me - clearly sensing the number of questions I now had.
"You said he can see fine in his cloud right? And hear? So if I blew a flashbang three feet in front of my face inside his cloud, I'd be fine and he'd be fucked." She explained.
I marveled at how absolutely savage that was, but only because it probably wouldn't actually work - which I then explained.
"The cloud absorbs light and sound. He can see, but that's probably a power mechanism more than actual darkvision of any kind. I think. Probably?" I offered, pausing midway through my statement to consider.
I didn't actually know with certainty that was how it worked. So… maybe it would work?
"'Probably'?" She asked me skeptically.
"Oh, fuck off, you know I don't actually know everything." I grumbled back at her.
"But you do know a lot. The PRT webpage says you have a low Thinker rating." Emma pointed out.
"Specifically about powers. You know way to much about powers." Amy added in thoughtfully.
I could see Vicky was about to jump in with the others - probably just to tease me - and the conversation was coming dangerously close to touching on my complete lack of a real Thinker power, so I chose that moment to whip out the last thing in my bag.
"This one's Vicky's - it's a-" I began hurriedly.
"Tinkertech crown?!" She exclaimed, bolting towards me and almost ripping the thing out of my hands before she remembered her own strength, and instead gingerly picked it up.
I was actually pretty proud of this one. It wasn't ground breaking or anything, but it was the first time I had successfully managed to combine two magic items.
"You made her a princess tiara?" Emma asked in disgust.
"Well… I mean… her costume already had one so I figured…" I trailed off then shrugged.
Vicky seemed excited for a few more seconds then visibly willed herself to calm down, holding the thing up in front of me.
"I bet it probably just does something useful but boring, doesn't it?" She asked dejectedly.
"Honestly? Yes, but also, no." I explained pointing at the thing.
It was coloured to match Vicky's normal white and gold look, and technically, it was supposed to be a circlet. However, while working on it I had added extra bits of metal to it with some spot welding and other similarly simple techniques to create a raised setting for the second magic item I'd managed to cook up, and it was this part that I pointed to first.
"This here is a Moon Crystal. Yes I know it sounds like new age bullshit - but this crystal should emit a field around you that acts as sort of a space suit. It will regulate your temperature, keep the air clean, stop the void of space from killing you, let you survive underwater, etcetera, etcetera. It's got enough juice for about four days of continuous running. Mostly I figure it'll keep you warm when you're flying around in the stratosphere or whatever, but you never know when someone might try to drown you or something." I explained, pointedly…not… mentioning Leviathan.
"Keep me warm huh?" She asked me with a smug smirk.
I slid back my helmet just so she could see me roll my eyes at her, then continued.
"Yes. Let's ignore all that other stuff. Totally." I drawled at her.
"Still sounds kind of boring though." She pointed out to me. "Not that I hate it or anything!" She quickly followed up.
"Uhuh. Put it on and I'll show you the fun part." I grumbled at her.
"Oh I have to put it on for the fun part? Usually-" Vicky continued with a chortle, pulling her original tiara off.
"Don't you have a boyfriend or something?" Emma interjected irately.
"We're friends! It's called a joke!" She spit at the redhead acerbically, blushing slightly.
"Just… just dodge this for me real quick will you?" I said with a sigh, very slowly lifting my hand to thrust it towards her.
I don't think she did it consciously, but when I told her to dodge she ducked under my slow moving fist and came up inside my guard with almost blinding speed.
And then the Diadem of Desna she had just put on flashed with light, and a swarm of warm golden butterflies flitted around us both, obscuring my vision of her for a handful of seconds before dissipating, and leaving Vicky staring at me with a confused expression.
"Did you see it?" I asked.
"What, that little snippet of me punching you in the head until your helmet broke? Yeah. What was it?" She asked curiously.
Desna was, in Starfinder lore, the Goddess of Freedom and Luck. Her holy symbol was a butterfly, and the circlet named after her… well.
It showed its wearer the future. But, only a couple of seconds of it. And only once every ten minutes or so, immediately following an attempt to dodge an attack.
Don't ask me why it was so specific - it just was.
Regardless, using it basically showed the wearer how to win against whoever they were fighting. Hypothetically anyway. The future wasn't set in stone or anything. But knowing what you had to do was definitely a helpful step in the right direction.
I'd have made one for myself, but the mindlink circlet was currently my preferred headgear, and - if I can be vain for just a second - the butterflies weren't an optional part of the setup.
"That," I said with a smile on my face that reminded me of the good old days shooting bits of paper in the fish packaging plant, "Was Victory." I finished.
Then, to Merlin I added;
'Note to self. New helmet.'