WORM - SI OC Alt-power Crossover

by kaviyarasank124

WORM - SI / OC / Alt-power / Crossover from SB & QQ

4. Greatness not wasted SI OC CF

Table of Contents

Introduction

1: The End is Nigh

2: Mourning a Life

3: Moving Quickly

4: Like it or Not

5: A Tentative Future

6: Solemn Secrets

Greatness Not Wasted! (Worm, SI/OC, Celestial Forge)

By: Sarius

Hiya there!

As you may have guessed, this is a Celestial Forge story, based in Worm. Highly original, I know. However, I'll take a moment to introduce you to some of the things that are important to note about this story, first narratively, then important Celestial Forge changes I've made!

The main character of this story is an SI/OC. I believe, anyway, those tags are weird. He's the Earth Bet version of myself, with some other differences thrown in. I, myself, have struggled since my early teen years with chronic health issues, and I will try to accurately portray an extension of that here, but do keep in mind that the way main character feels is a version of myself that had things go wrong in ways they did not for me, and is vastly worse off for it, though not entirely out of the same ballpark. But he got superpowers, so he's the real winner.

Now, for the Celestial Forge integration. It's impossible to remain consistent over 1300 perks with 200,000 words, so instead I made the sweeping changes I felt comfortable with, removed some examples of what I didn't want, and will do the rest as we go. For example, I removed both the Assistants and Resources domains, as I don't like either in other stories. Something that may be a controversial change is the total removal of the Celestial Warehouse, including the facilities from the Celestial Forge. Instead schematics will be given to the character for him to build if he so pleases and the the Tools domain operates similarly. I'm intending to remove most instances of the Forge giving items, tech, etc to instead force him to build those things and make choices in how to progress, and also where .

I'll have an information post with bullet points of the general guidelines I'm trying to stay near or within to make it a little clearer, but it should be fairly straightforward in the end.

I hope you enjoy your time with my story!

Status: ongoing

Published: 2022-07-10

Updated: 2022-11-28

Words: 62124

Chapters: 6

Original source: https/forums./threads/1025814

Exported with the assistance of

Greatness Not Wasted! (Worm, SI/OC, Celestial Forge)

Introduction

1: The End is Nigh

2: Mourning a Life

3: Moving Quickly

4: Like it or Not

5: A Tentative Future

6: Solemn Secrets

1: The End is Nigh

Note: This chapter is written on the rules of 100CP per 1000 words, and I feel that made things messy. Will be changing to 100CP per 2000 words next chapter.

1: The End is Nigh

The harsh, buzzsaw-like sound of my alarm clock tore me from my dead sleep, the cheap plastic rattling against the fake wood backing of my bookshelves.

It was a horribly effective noise, one that served to wake me from my sleep fully almost no matter how little sleep I'd gotten, or how tired I was. It was a tactic I'd been using for years by this point, and one that gave me any semblance of a normal life, but it didn't change how frustrating it could feel sometimes.

I groaned involuntarily as I sat up in my bed, pushing against the thin mattress as I shimmied my way up into a sitting position, pressing my back against my pillows. It took a bit of effort to get there, like most mornings but worse today, but every second I took to steady myself was another that I had to listen to that sound.

Over and over, unrelentingly piercing, set to both maximum volume and the most annoying pre-set-both aggressive vibration and a high-pitched whine. The tinny sound even dipped off-key at the end of each burst of the soul-gnawing sound, at different rates each and every time.

I growled at the familiar feeling of frustration crawling up my spine and before I knew it, I was swinging my legs over the side of my bed, carefully pulling myself to my feet with the post of my bedhead. Moments later, my hand came down on the large 'STOP' button on the alarm clock's top with an unsatisfyingly mushy click.

Quickly, I reached out to grab the side of the bookshelf, steadying myself as I felt the heat rise in my face and my vision rapidly dissolved into bright static, then into darkness as the sensation flushed across my head and in my mind. A split second later I regained full consciousness, breathing heavily and closing my eyes tight to ignore the discomfort of my slowly returning vision.

I wobbled a little, the vertigo making me flinch back and press my chest against the shelves to reset my stance, before eventually setting off towards the pile of clothes that never seemed to make it out of the washing basket. Picking out the only pair of jeans that still fit me-even with new notches cut into my belt-and a hoodie and tee that wasn't totally destroyed by the washers at the laundromats near my place.

Sitting on the edge of my bed and pulling on my clothes, I felt my eyes drawing closed, the wooziness of poor sleep and the moment of excitement making my eyes feel like they were weighted with metal balls, dragging me back to the bed where I could sleep.

But I couldn't. Not today, anyway. Any other day of the week was fine, and I had no doubt I'd be unplugging that alarm for tomorrow's 'sleep in', even if it'd make me feel terrible in the long run. No, this was the one thing I could still do, and I'd do it regardless of how shit I felt.

I pushed myself up with half a sigh, and half a groan, and made my way over to my bare kitchen, milled around while my brain re-remembered what I was standing there for, grabbed the cereal box, poured myself a bowl-no milk left, hadn't bought any for weeks-and then sat on one of the many short plastic stools around the three-room apartment. One for the kitchen, two in the bathroom-one in the shower and the other in front of vanity, and a final stool in the lounge for emergencies and to use if I needed to do something that required more floorspace than what I filled elsewhere in the house by literally just standing.

Stools were good. Stools are your friend.

I mechanically swallowed down mouthful after mouthful of the dry, sticky, and punishingly bland cereal until I finally had as much of it down as I could stomach, the pain ripping through my gut making my teeth clench. I wrestled every morning with just putting some water in the cereal, maybe make it slightly more edible than sawdust, but I didn't trust the tap to give me clean water-it came out black, brown, or with bits in it on a semi-frequent basis, and I couldn't afford to throw a whole bowl of cereal out because of it.

Without letting myself slow down, I moved to the bathroom. Feeling bad enough about not showering, I tried my best to wash with just a cloth and a little hand soap, hoping it'd give my deodorant the edge over the few days of smell. I nabbed my toothbrush, a poor, worn thing that had its bristles flaring outward sharply-apparently a sign that I brushed too hard, if a half-remembered conversation was serving me right.

I sat on the stool in front of my bathroom's miniature vanity, trying not to notice the grime that surrounded it but, in doing so, noticed something worse.

Looking at myself in the mirror nowadays was unpleasant. I'd never been that way and had only ever been all that self-conscious a few times in my life-one of them being when my dentist had suggested entirely cosmetic, corrective surgery for my bottom jaw, as it protruded just enough that I could sneak the tip of my tongue through the gap it made in my bite. I'd been more offended by that than I think I've ever told anyone. My jaw was fine, and I knew it, I certainly didn't need to break it in multiple places, thank you.

Now, though? I looked at my sallow, sunken features, the skin of my face somehow both pulled taut and hanging loosely from what may as well have been only my skull, even with the aid of a light beard that I hadn't been able to shave in far too long. My once rich brown hair, cut haphazardly by my own hand, looked dirty and greasy in a way it never had even during the worst times, its length only a fraction of what it'd been before I'd had to cut it for necessity. My blue eyes now just looked like black pits under the harshness of my brow and the flickering, but still bright, bathroom light.

"I need some corrective anything on all of this," I snorted through the foam of the terrible tasting cheap toothpaste, before spitting and running the slightly-too-grey water that I didn't have the guts to put in my mouth.

I sighed as I took one last look at the creature in the mirror, wearing a hoodie and jeans that had once fitted me comfortably, but makes it look like a gaunt child dressing in discarded clothes. I pulled up the collar of the jumper slightly, covering the scarily defined collar bone and the hint of ribs pressing through skin, and moved away to leave the thing in the mirror where it belonged.

Alone in the dark.

I grabbed my keys, wallet, and my dinky little flip phone from the kitchen bench on my way past toward the door, reading to get my day going at last, which is when my foot slipped against something on the poorly maintained linoleum floor, making me frantically reach towards the door to steady myself. I only partially succeeded, only able to lamely hug the doorframe and use the friction of my hands and forehead to slow my descent to an embarrassing slide.

I quickly made it back into a crouch before I glared back at whatever had caused my fall and-

"Fuck." I whispered, my breath leaving me like a popped balloon.

I picked up the letter that'd been slipped under my front door, staring at the words scrawled in bright red.

'OVERDUE RENT: 3 MONTHS.'

I opened the letter carefully, as if I were defusing a bomb, and read the contents. It was essentially what I'd expected, really, and it only solidified the fact that there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

I resisted the urge to stuff the letter in the bin in sheer frustration, instead just slipping it back into the carefully opened envelope and placed it on the table. I'd have to worry about it later, today wasn't an option.

With forcefully deep breaths I tried to enforce calm, drawing on all the will I could muster to settle myself into something other than an adrenalin fuelled cardiovascular frenzy before the following state of unconscious. It only worked somewhat, but my eyes caught on the lone piece of furniture directly near the entryway, a hatstand upon which two hats hung next to each other. One was a dark brown, wide brimmed hat that was my father's-an apparently popular Australian brand he had purchased when visiting far extended family he'd contacted. The other was a gentle pink colour, a red fabric flower on the side, a thick ribbon of the same rich red wrapped around the base before giving way to a wide, circular brim-my mother's. Of course, the one time they go away on holiday for a weekend, they leave the hats they love behind. With a wry chuckle, I find myself surprisingly calm, so onwards I went.

The door opened with an extremely loud creaking noise, echoing mockingly in the concrete stairwell that every apartment in the building faced into-a horribly depressing design. I walked through the doorway quickly, the loud slam following only moments behind, as though the fucked-up door was an ambush predator, biding its time until the moment I walked a little too slow and ended up with a finger caught in it when it slammed like that.

I made solid time down the seemingly infinite square spiral of concrete stairs and freezing cold metal handrail, my mouth already sticking to itself with the dryness of exertion, but my breathing was still relatively even at least.

As I turned at the corner of the handrail, I came to see the final flight of steps, my rapidly beating heart sighing mercifully at the end, only smothered by the knowledge that I still lived at the top of the damn building, and I'd need to get back up there, even if it was just to get my things and leave for God knows where.

What halted my far more graceful descent slightly, however, was the opening of the door on the bottom floor, revealing a peek into a much nicer apartment than my own at the top of the concrete steps-supposedly they were all built exactly the same, not that I'm sure I believe it. Though it wasn't the homey apartment that slowed me, it was the distraught looking little old lady standing in the doorway.

"James, I-" She began, her wrinkled features drawn with anxious sorrow, but held up a hand in plea for a pause.

The small mercy granted, I took the last few steps down before sitting myself on those steps at roughly eye height with the small woman, legs pulled close to me and on the highest step I could get them on, rhythmically pumping what might pass for the muscles in my calves and thighs to attempt to keep the blood flowing.

"Joy," I said softly, giving her my best smile, "you don't need to apologise. You really stuck your neck out for me on this. You couldn't have done it forever, you know?"

Joyce-though she insisted vehemently on Joy because 'God knows we all need a little more of it!'-shuffled over in that slightly pained way she'd adopted ever since she'd had that hip surgery a year or two ago.

"Oh love, I'm sorry." She whispered, placing an old but gentle hand on my knee, "I'm not a fool; you weren't conning a little old lady into giving you an apartment for free, James. You are such a brilliant young man, and I couldn't just stand by as everyone let all that you could be go to waste."

A spike of emotion speared my heart, my muscles holding rictus tense for just a moment before I covered her hand with my own, fingers spindly and delicate looking against even an old woman's.

"I wish I could've lived up to those hopes, Joy." My smile was as fragile as the thinnest sheet of ice, cracking and malforming under its own weight in moments.

Joy's eyes hardened, "Don't you dare talk like that, James. My son-in-law might own my apartment and the whole rest of the building, but I'm not afraid to say that he's a right bastard with eyes that couldn't see past the lenses of those fancy-pants sunglasses of his if he damn well tried." She huffed, exasperated, sorrowful, and as furious as someone as close to a divine being could stand to be. "Don't give up hope just yet, Jamie-boy. I'll admit that I don't know how or when, but you'll make it wherever you need to go. Just, please… remember that you'll always live up to my hopes of you-just by fighting on as you have-because you're still here. Understood?"

I chuckled wryly, nodding gently as she pressed her hand to the side of my face, a worried smile flitting across her face before she sent me off into the streets of Brockton Bay, disappearing back into her homey apartment with the promise of stopping by for tea before I go back up later that day.

The streets of Brockton Bay, especially in January, were pretty fucking cold. Not as cold as somewhere that got massive snowfall, but Brockton had its moments, especially being right next to open ocean. Thankfully, I operated slightly better in the cold, not that it ever got all that hot here anyways.

Stuffing my hands in my pockets to get away from the temperatures that were toying with the idea of freezing some water, I moved as quickly as I could get away with, aiming for the bus stop only a ten-minute walk from the apartment building. It was a brutal walk, though, up a slight incline and over uneven pathing and just a little too close to where the shady parts of town start to be a real threat.

It wasn't exactly early in the morning, but it was still fairly dark and with the light mist seemingly hanging in the air, you could probably be convinced it was in the hours after midnight, but it'd be thirty minutes and the sun would warm the sky enough to become an invigoratingly pleasant tone of grey. How lovely.

Stifling my heavy breathing by bringing up the collar of my hoodie, I turned the corner to see the bus stop's metal seat already occupied by three people, leaving no room for me to sit. I just about groaned to myself, debating sitting on the concrete instead, but I wasn't sure I could come back from that if I stopped now, the exhaustion already beginning to suffuse my lungs and my chest-my stomach only having increased its protest at my eating literally any food whatsoever since I last checked in on it.

I awkwardly leaned up against the one part of the mostly metal structure that wasn't absolutely covered in graffiti in gang colours, all constantly being covered over in what was essentially the fastest moving game of king of the hill Brockton had to offer. Everyone took the bus, at some point or another, and one of those people were bound to be a Nazifucker, Yakuza-Triad wannabe, or literally any druggie, and all of them would probably take the moment to colour over another gang's colours in a space that was technically common ground. Out of sheer spite, if nothing else. I also didn't trust that all of those markings were just paint, either. Bus stops are gross, dude.

My attempt at distracting myself from my mounting pain and exhaustion seemed to work, as when the bus idled up eight minutes behind schedule, I was first in and netted myself a decent seat that I all but collapsed straight into. It was then that my body, kindly, reminded me of how many types of pain I was in, and how much worse I'd just voluntarily made it.

I choked down my discomfort, ignoring the burning in my legs and lungs, the frantic beat of my heart, and the kicked-in-the-balls level of constant pain sadistically residing in my gut. I had coped with this every time I'd gone out for this, it was nothing new, but that only made it a very special kind of torture.

The kind you underwent with a reluctant willingness.

Thankfully, no one insane showed up on the bus, a fairly common occurrence for the line that went straight through one of the areas the Merchants laid claim to and actually still held-astonishing, I know-but maybe I just didn't notice the crazy because I was relying on everyone else's reactive screaming to clearly insane individuals, and they might all just be insane themselves.

I was certainly going insane from this pain.

I think a tall blonde woman gave me a look of disgust when she passed by my seat, which is how I ended up with the realisation as to why no one had taken the perfectly open seat next to me when the only seats left were terrible ones.

They thought I was the insane one. Probably a druggie on a high, or coming off one, or something.

Wow, now ain't that a real fucking confidence booster.

Whatever, I just had to survive the trip. I still had to walk after this, too.

Eventually the bus came to my stop, and I stumbled out of the vehicle, desperately trying to neither drunk nor high and doing an exceptionally terrible job of it. Thus began the hardest part of the journey, which ironically commenced in the safest area I've travelled through today.

The steep uphill walk, then downhill walk that I essentially have no choice but to take. Why the most annoying hill in Brockton had to be on the only reasonable path to take was beyond me, but apparently there was a God who hated me, or a city planner. Or a lack of either, maybe.

I turned my mind off and began to walk, letting myself just suffer.

It was about halfway through the walk, still facing the uphill, that something caught my eye in the sky overtop the skyscrapers, moving in from further toward the nicer parts of town. A few seconds of observation would tell just about anyone that the weird bird they thought they saw was, surprisingly, not a bird at all and was instead an independently flying human being.

You'd never gotten used to it, and you grew up with Lady Photon making a mess of people's day, floating around like nobody's business. It wasn't any different with Glory Girl, defying known physics with a side of teenage recklessness. Honestly, people gave the girl so much shit for breaking stuff all the time, apparently having to call out her sister to heal up some thugs-at least in the rumours, but also pretend that Lady Photon, Brandish, Manpower, and Flashbang didn't royally screw so many pooches when they went for Marquis' throat, and tried to go on a one team rampage?

But seeing Glory Girl flying through the sky like a bumblebee on meth did mean something; something very- no, crucially important.

I was late.

I had made it, in the end. Not that it made the waves of nausea, piercing muscle pain, excruciating stomach pain, or the constantly teetering on the brink of passing out any better. But it did mean that I could sit down.

After I check in.

I walked through the set of two doors as they automatically opened, entering the large and mercifully warm waiting area, already fairly populated despite the early-ish hour. I beelined to the reception, as I had done so before every weekend for months. The receptionist wasn't one I recognised, which wasn't too uncommon, but I was really hoping one of the ones I already knew well enough could've made life easier right about now.

"How can I help you today sir?" She asked me, black hair bobbing slightly as she looked up at me with an expression that said she'd rather be anywhere but here.

"Hi, I'm just here to be put on the wait list for parahuman healing, please." I said politely while strangling the urge to lay down on the hospital's blue plasticky floor and curl up into a ball as best I can.

She raised an eyebrow, clearly not surprised by the request, but gave me a once over in a way that only someone who wanted you to know would, "The waitlist for parahuman healing is long, and there are many who are in critical condition that take precedence over anything non-life threatening. If you would like, I can have you admitted to emergency where they can take care of-"

I held a hand up to stop her, a polite gesture I didn't feel, only stopping her in case she sent that judgement down the wrong path. I really couldn't deal with that right now.

"Unfortunately, my condition isn't exactly curable, at least not by modern medicine. I'm aware that I'm unlikely to be seen by Panacea today-I've been coming for something like the last six months." I said, my smile pained for more than just the physical pain I was enduring.

The receptionist, that I'd internally vowed to never get the name of, gave the impression of a barely repressed sigh before pulling out a sheet of paper and began filling in fields.

"Full name?" She asked drolly.

"James William Parker." I returned, hoping she'd just get a move on.

"Date of Birth?"

"The eighth of January, nineteen-eighty-eight."

She stopped, double checked what she'd written down, then back up at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Happy birthday to me, I guess?" I shrugged and she just nodded in response.

"Condition or reason for requesting parahuman medical aid?" She continued.

"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, along with some type of hypotension disorder they don't know what to do with."

She didn't look up from the page, but I could feel the slight dubiousness in her. It was obvious when you got used to the experience, but the most telling sign was the mouthed words on her lips.

'Yuppie Flu.'

It was the punch to the gut that I didn't need right now. I finished out the questioning meekly, then slowly moving the furthest away from anyone else that I could and slumping into an available chair, all but curling in on myself.

No one had pulled that on me in years, not anyone in the medical profession or adjacent anyway. Not since my mother and I were laughed out the door of a family doctor at fourteen. We'd had to forge our own way through the system from then on, with not enough money, not enough time, and all too many doctors willing to tell us we were a pair of attention seeking hypochondriacs.

It'd taken years of fighting, of knowing beyond the pale that something was deeply wrong, and living a life spent asleep eighty percent of the time and in pain the rest. But finally I'd gotten that diagnosis, what some schmuck with an article had called the 'Yuppie Flu', following a couple of psychiatrists and a couple of psychologists who had decided that it was just a bunch of rich, affluent, slackers having what amounted to nervous breakdown.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That was what it was called, even if the diagnosis didn't give me a cure, it gave me something other than 'It's all in your head'.

Then that very same doctor who'd given me the diagnosis had told me to "just go home and live life."

I had been bedridden with pain for a week. What life?

I had dropped out of highschool at fourteen, unable to do any work, and with no diagnosis to say why I couldn't. What life?

I was too sick to work, but even with a diagnosis, I couldn't get disability support. What life?

I came to a hospital every Saturday for months and waited in the emergency room waiting area for as long as Panacea was in the building, just for the vague chance that I might just be lucky enough that some poor sucker died before she got to them and gave me the one open slot I needed.

Because I'd lost almost seventy pounds when I last looked healthy at two hundred.

Because I can't leave my apartment for four days after I go out once.

Because I can't stand in one spot without having to stop myself from fainting.

Because I need money and I can't do anything other than wake up and go to sleep.

Because before ten days are up and I'm asked to pay up, I need to find a way out of my apartment, some other place to live, hopefully before Joyce's son-in-law realises that it's not three months rent overdue, it's eighteen.

I forced myself to take deep breaths, seemingly the only thing between me and total insanity. It lurked just on the horizon of my thoughts, an insidious and dangerous cloud of inky black that blots everything else in the sky, leaving you with nothing but a twisted mind, broken in indescribable ways.

Dread had long since filled me, the cold sweat soaking through my shirt and into my jumper. I couldn't tell how long it'd been anymore, I don't know when the last time I checked even was. I knew I was in a hell of a lot of pain-though that was a pretty normal occurrence when I was here. I hated hospitals, and the anxiety of just being here at all sent everything into an absolute tizzy. I'd tried to get along with all the other 'Panacea-chasers' as people like us were so classified, usually a group of oldies that were seriously ill, just not seriously ill enough to die. I'd tried, but I was always in so much pain while here that even thinking of attempting conversation with a single person was excruciating, let alone oldies who honestly treated it more like an afternoon tea club.

Faintly I was aware of something on the very edge of my periphery, it was fairly incessant. A noise. I desperately clawed my way back to a semblance of cognizance and-

"Parker! James Parker." A woman dressed in plain blue scrubs yelled, looking at a clipboard she was holding before flipping up a sheet of paper with a perplexed expression.

'She's calling for me.' I realised, just as the woman turned to walk away.

"Uh, wait! I'm James Parker?" I asked, like an idiot, while I frantically disentangled my limbs from my awkward sitting position and got to my feet so fast, I was sure I was going to pass out, but held on with just a moment of unconscious.

The woman turned, looking at me for a second with a befuddled expression, as I just stood there unsure what I was even meant to be doing or saying.

"Well," she said slowly, "come along then." Then continued in the direction she had already been walking.

I just about shrivelled up in my own skin with my objective stupidity, but swallowed it and hustled after her, my body suddenly forgetting any pain with a rush of adrenalin so massive it began to worry me. Mostly because my heart was being so hard and fast that I could feel it in my entire body, almost as though my bones were being vibrated in my flesh along with the beat of my heart.

We passed through to where the emergency wards were, a place I'd ended up plenty of times and never found any worthwhile help in-but I couldn't find that with a specialist either. Quickly we passed by what seemed like an administrative area, probably for the doctors and nurses to desperately ask google for answers, and then into a very quiet area with a small waiting area for itself and a line of doors that seemed to be personal offices or consulting rooms.

When we made it to a door that read 'Dr. Stephanie Michaels - Lead Intensive Care Specialist' we stopped, and she turned to me with a professional smile.

"Okay, James. My name is Dr. Michaels, or just Stephanie, and I'm taking initiative on getting Panacea some time off after going through my ward and healing some of my patients who were, quite frankly, almost certain to pass in a few hours." The smile turned into a bit of a grimace, before gaining a more genuine pep in her voice, "I hope you don't mind me grabbing you to give her an easier job to do for a while?"

"No, no, not at all." I stammered out. Why the hell would I ever be not okay with that?

"That's great!" She said, a friendly grin spreading across her face, "Then I'll just have to give you a few quick rules before you go on in there, okay?" I only barely got a nod in before she continued. "Awesome, so when you go in there, it'd be great if you just sit down in the large chair in the back corner of the room and I'll have a quick word with Panacea before she can get to you herself. She will ask you for your permission in healing you, and you must verbally confirm your consent as well as a consent via your signature, which you've already given. Now, please do not ask for any 'modifications' to your body other than having what ails you corrected, and try not to disturb her while she is working on you, it should be harmless, but treat it like getting an x-ray or CAT scan, alright?"

I floundered for a moment, drowning in the barrage for words, before just nodding with as much confidence as possible. It was a very shaky nod.

She grinned and turned, opening the door and ushering me inside with a deft hand. I made a beeline for the chair she told me to take, sitting in the large, leathery monstrosity that was probably more expensive than was comfortable, and it was really damn comfortable.

I then swept my gaze across the books and paper filled office before my eyes snapped to the short form of a young woman in a white robe with multiple red crosses and imagery alluding to her healer status, as well as a large red scarf wrapped around her neck loosely, leaving her face entirely unguarded as she spoke with Stephanie.

That was Panacea. Like, actually Panacea. I'd only ever seen her this close before, when she had rushed out into the emergency area when someone had gone into cardiac arrest and passed out in the middle of the floor while talking to the receptionist. I'd been right there, it'd been so tempting to ask her to heal me in that moment, but I didn't.

And now I was here.

"Alright, so." Panacea-Amy Dallon as her real name was public information-said with a somewhat bland tone, "Can I assume you understand what I'm able to do?" She asked, looking to me with barely hidden impatience.

"You can scan people, heal almost anything. Except brains." I said quickly, hopefully not too quickly, but I could still feel my heartbeat in my bones, so I might very well be past the point of no return there.

Panacea grimaced minutely, "Yeah, no brains. So, I'm going to put my hand on your arm, I need to touch your skin, and then do a full scan of your body. Can I use my parahuman power to scan you?"

"Yes" I confirmed, voice warbling so severely that it was unable to be missed, but I couldn't possibly care less, already rolling up the sleeve of my jumper and placing it on the arm of the leather chair where she could easily reach, my hands shaking so badly my arm was actually quivering in place on the leather surface.

I looked her dead in the eyes, her own brown meeting my blue, and nodded, ready.

She placed a hand on my skin and closed her eyes.

One second passed. Two. Ten. Thirty.

After a minute, she opened her eyes and I recognised something in them.

An expression, a feeling that wasn't quite coming through, my brow scrunching until she looked away from my eyes and spoke.

"I'm sorry, it's in your brain." She said, her face contorted with… guilt.

I couldn't speak.

"Your chronic condition was initially caused by an onset illness, likely a case of glandular fever or a serious infection."

I couldn't breathe.

"This, along with the loss in muscle tone that you sustained while initially bedridden, created a sort of feedback loop with your brain."

I couldn't move.

"Essentially, you produce an excessive amount of adrenalin, approximately twice as much, and your brain is constantly in a state where it believes you are losing blood, or in imminent danger, leading to that already excessive production to be triggered multiple times in short succession to mundane actions, like standing still in one spot."

What is happening?

"This all happens in the brain, and I can't do brains. The only other option would be to completely rebuild your body from the ground up, but you are both tall and predisposed to this outcome in multiple ways. As it stands, you're underweight by a massive margin, and I'd need to add all that weight back on you to be healthy, as well as a great deal of it being muscular."

Wasn't this supposed to be a chance?

"And at that point, instead of healing you, I would be totally reworking your body into something completely different. You would be a tinker's project, and I'm not willing to do that to someone."

My mind offered me no answers.

"… I'm sorry, James." Panacea finished, her voice quiet and her expression contorted into a mask of guilt and conflict.

I smiled.

"It's okay." I said.

She looked at me, searching my face for something.

"You can't fix everything, and even if you could, sometimes it's just not worth it." I said softly, "You took the time from your day to see me. Even if it ended without a solution, I can't thank you enough."

I stood, Panacea flinched back minutely before standing herself, looking at me with worry, guilt, and fear.

Fear for what?

"But I didn't-" She began, I held up a hand to stop her.

"No, you didn't. I'm not healed. But that's not your fault. You aren't a God, and clearly don't want to try playing at one either." I said, smiling faintly, "You are a lot of people's last hopes, and that pressure must be unimaginable. Maybe your real superpower is resilience, and the healing just tagged along for the ride."

I stuck out my hand for a handshake.

After a moment's pause, Panacea snorted softly, "Stubbornness, my sister would say." She said, taking my hand tentatively before I wrapped it in my much larger hand and shook it firmly as I could.

"Well, it looks like we have two sisters that need to tone down their powers and not just one, hm?" I joked back.

When I released her hand, she looked faintly stricken, staring into elsewhere, but I moved to Stephanie, whose face was one of regret for a situation she couldn't possibly have changed anything about.

"Thank you for this chance, Stephanie." I reached out my hand.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do anything, James." She said, her lip almost but not quite quivering as she took my hand and shook it firmly herself.

"It's okay. You're a wonderful doctor, Stephanie, I'm glad your patients have you there for them." I said.

She smiled warmly and let go of my hand.

I turned to the door, opening it, and addressed the room a final time.

"Again, thank you for this, both of you." I said, smiling, "Maybe we'll meet again one day. So I'll see you then."

Without waiting for a reply, I left the room, the door closing behind me.

The smile left my face, leaving nothing but blankness.

I was cold. Too cold. It felt like all heat had been sucked from my body, leaving me as cold as the air that surrounded me.

I was outside.

When did I get outside?

I walked.

Why am I on the ground?

I passed out.

What's that sound?

It's my heartbeat. It's louder than I've ever heard it.

What do I do now?

No answer came.

Wasn't that my chance?

Nothing.

How do I live like this?

Nothing.

Why won't they give me the chance to show them that I'm smart enough, that I've got what it takes?

'Application for Deadline Extension - Denied: Due to a lack of supporting medical evidence… '

Why don't they realise; I can't work because I don't have food to get better, that I need the help?

'Sir, I told you the last time you called, your application for a disability pension has been denied. You need to wait a standard period of…'

How am I supposed to be able to live without anyone to help me? With no one who can help me?

'Is this James Parker? This is Officer Timothy Grant from the Boston PRT calling to inform you that there was a major conflict between local and out-of-state villainous parahumans. Your parents were caught in the attack of a villain named Damsel of Distress…'

I gasped for breath, trying vainly to calm myself.

Slowly,

I had no more money, it was all spent.

Softly,

There was no more food, only crumbs left.

This is how,

I had no home to go back to, only a place I have to leave.

All hope crumbles.

I'm going to die.

And then the sky shattered like a pane of glass, filling my mind with stars.

--

"James!"

I snapped awake with a startled gasp, breathing heavily, and immensely confused. To my right, with her hand on the same arm she had checked me with what felt like only minutes ago was Panacea, staring at me with an expression of shock and something else.

"What happened?" I murmured, the words coming together strangely in my mouth

"It seems you had a seizure, you were inconsistent in your responsiveness for a while there." Another familiar voice piped up as Stephanie moved to crouch beside Panacea with a serious and concerned expression written on her features.

"A seizure?" I said, confused. I'd never had a seizure before, I don't even know what makes a seizure happen.

"You're a lucky duck that you had one right out here. Even so, you're pretty lucky that you didn't hit your head on the way down." Stephanie continued while she seemed to signal to someone out of my view.

"I think I passed out before." I said, sounding like my tongue was numb in my mouth, "Before the seizure."

She frowned, Panacea doing the same, but not meeting the doctor's eyes when she looked to the healer for any clue. She let it drop, releasing the young woman from her scrutiny and just clicking her tongue.

"Damn, knew I should've kept him in my office, not matter how fine he looked. Jesus Steph." She grumbled under her breath, though just loud enough that I was likely the only person to hear it, owed to my strange position.

"Not your fault." I grumbled, trying to pull together something more eloquent and failing. Why did my eloquence work when I was having a truly life shatteringly bad panic attack, or about to have one, and now that I'm actually awake and thinking in more than single sentences I can't speak for shit?

"Oh shush, you." Steph said, in a tone that implied very heavily that this was her 'I'm at work' way of saying, 'Shut the fuck up, idiot.'

"Let's get him into a room for now, I'll patch up what's left to do there while he lays down on something that isn't concrete." Panacea said, cutting in with a sharply commanding voice. A bit of a surprise from someone that felt the way that Panacea did. She wasn't the soft type, definitely the sort to be snarky, but commanding didn't really seem like a fit for her.

Until I realised, you know, the girl six years younger than me has probably gotten an emergency call to help with the damage left after every parahuman conflict in Brockton, not to mention the time she's spent in the hospitals working emergency, since she ended up with the power to heal just about anything.

'Just not me.'

I shook away the dark thoughts, or at least I tried to with very little success. I still really didn't know how to feel about the whole thing. Of course, it made me feel beyond terrible-I had been holding out the slightest hope that Panacea might be able to get around to me just once, and it'd taken months of sitting there from the moment she arrived in the morning, till the middle of the night when she left. I had given myself the maximum possible chance of being seen by her, outside of stuff like somehow manipulating my way into getting an audience with one of the handful of what could be considered 'true healers' on the entire planet, even if many didn't seem to notice just how amazing that was, those in the communities I frequented sure knew.

Don't know how I'd have swung that one.

Either way, it didn't matter now; I'd been seen, and it'd done me no good. And that really had torn me to pieces. But it was the culmination of it all that sent me off the deep end, the still threatened me from the corners of my shaky awareness. It was the years and years of misfortune and a gradually declining likelihood of ever climbing back out of that hole.

It was when they loaded me onto a stretcher that I first was struck by something weird.

No, not just weird, bizarre in the truest sense of the word.

For just a moment I could feel my mind open to something, a connection which-however solid the means it uses to do so-could not be sustained indefinitely. And so, a compromise was made, where one could gain fragments of the greater whole.

But defining it as such would be so hilariously reductive that you'd either have to be a comedian or just a fool.

No, what my mind opened up to was shockingly familiar, a universe full of stars, practically an infinite amount, each representing their own part, their own fractional element of something they belonged to-a world, a power, a person, a thing, a concept, a skill, but that wasn't what was important here.

There was something much greater among these stars, and I felt whatever it was that I was connected with it agree in an intrinsic and wordless way, the infinite universe of stars disappearing to only contain a fraction of that infinity, but a specific one. One with purpose, one with power.

To Craft. To Make. To Create. To Learn. To Advance. To Know. To Understand. All of it bled through the connection like wildfire through my veins, a small taste of what the rapidly whittling constellations of stars represented.

Until, at last, we were left with ten major Constellations, some of those broken into smaller parts, with few clusters of stars that represented great power within them. I stared dumbly at what I was not-seeing-merely a clear understanding of what is passed through the connection. I heard yelling from around me again, but my mind was focused, and the galaxy came to life and began to spin, twist, and move in esoteric ways I'm not sure my mind can comprehend.

Yet. Comprehend yet.

I watched carefully for any pattern, any control I could leverage, but I felt the small amount of power I'd gained being thrust forth into mass of swirling stars and found its target.

I pulled, and pulled harder, leveraging everything I could as the connection struggled under the weight of what my meagre power had attached itself to, and as my bounty surfaced into me from my connection, I realised it for what it was.

It was one of the small few that could be called their own miniature constellation, a focal point for which other, related stars can easily gravitate towards, giving those few with the luck for their powers to find it a reward few of the singular star could supply.

This was a monster; one surrounded by five others, and I could feel the power bleed from my stores as the connection closed behind it. An indefinable amount of power-I couldn't know just how much I had, or how much I'd used, but it didn't change that I knew it was a lot, one with few equals.

"James? Can you hear me, James?" Stephanie's voice called, loud and clear in my ear, flashing a bright light in my eye, making me shut it tight and flinch back, "Woah, hey, you're still on the stretcher, we're just going to get you to the bed quickly, alright?"

Disoriented, I just nodded as I tried to come to grips with what I'd just experienced. I was moved from the hard plastic stretcher into a relatively soft bed that I knew I couldn't afford to stay in but wasn't sure if I could care right now either. I felt Panacea's hand clamp down on my arm once again, having left it while I was being transferred, and I could distinctly feel the hard flinch on my arm a moment after she'd made contact.

"Talk to me James, can you tell me what's going on?" Stephanie asked, cutting into my thoughts.

"Uh, yeah, sorry I just kinda got stuck in my own head for a bit?" I offered, and she didn't look at all pleased, nearing an almost frantic concern.

"It's not a recurrence of the seizure, I checked." Panacea cut in before Stephanie could start down the wrong path.

"Then what's going on?" Stephanie asked, somewhat exasperated, a handful of nurses standing nearby ready for something to happen and an order to be called on a moment's notice.

"I think that James has had a very big day, and that his body and mind will probably be kicking him for days to come. Right now, all he needs is some decent rest." Panacea said, a certain definitiveness in her voice that just about demanded that what she said be taken as truth.

Stephanie seemed reluctant before caving into the supernatural healer and shooing the nurses away and checking at her watch.

"Alright then, I'll trust you on this. If anything changes, bring me in on this. I know it's not my field, but like hell I'm not going to ditch a stupid meeting to come help, you hear?" She said, flicking her eyes between both myself and Panacea before turning on her heel and walked out at a brisk pace, still managing to close the door behind her quietly.

Silence reigned in the room for a moment, before Panacea's hand left my forearm and she addressed me head on, cutting through the sudden awkward air.

"Okay, so. I am obligated to inform you that you have gained a parahuman power, something I am able to detect due to the structures in your brain being different five minutes prior to you passing out and presumably triggering around then." She said, her voice even and calm. Practiced, even.

"Oh yeah," I squeaked pathetically, but just too stunned to care, "I think I figured that much out."

"I could see your Corona Pollentia light up like a fireworks display." She snorted-and while she might not be asking, there was an implied question I was free to answer.

"Well, I guess that's what happens when you learn how to do magic." I answered.

"Wha-"

My mind zoned out, cutting my attention from the conversation, feeling the connection reopen and push forth into the swirling array of stars and come back with something more fitting than I could've possibly orchestrated on me own. A snort forced itself from my nose as I started to laugh, already feeling Panacea's hand clenching around my disastrously thin forearm.

"What? What now?" She asked, enough concern mixed with frustration that I stifled my laughter to call for peace.

"No, no don't worry. I, uh, admit that I don't really know what the hell is going on right now, of if this is some kind of fucked up dream, but I'll at least try to explain." I said, finally getting rid of the last of my laughter, seriousness touching my features as I gave her as hard a look as I could manage, "That is, if you are going to be discreet about it. I feel I can trust that much in you, but I know that doesn't apply to everyone."

Panacea met my gaze and, with a faintly conflicted look, she nodded, "That's fine. I don't really report to anyone, and no one can force me to give information about another cape, especially when it's involving their civilian identity. I'll keep anything you tell me to myself, unless you otherwise ask me to, yeah?"

"Sounds good." I said, already smirking at the internal joke of an occurrence I was about to try and portray for Panacea. What a damn day.

"So, I guess I got powers after I walked outside. I don't remember walking there, or passing out and falling, but I remember the moment I got them and everything opened up to me." I began, my words filled with a gentle awe, "I feel them as little stars, nodes maybe, in a grander constellation. There are a lot of them, and I can't tell how they're organised, but I connected to my first star on the stretched-a huge group of them."

I paused for a moment, digging through my mind as I tried to find words to accurately portray the insanity I've had pushed into my mind, "Right, so each of the five stars gave me the knowledge necessary to build one item, I don't know why it did it that way, but I now know how to make a pocket watch that is nearly indestructible and also can slow down and speed up time for the user."

Panacea's eyes went as wide as saucers, not even trying to school her expression, "Do you mind if I use my power to confirm that you at least believe what you say to be true?"

"Go ahead." I granted easily, and she wasted no time gripping my arm once again.

"Can you confirm that you can build, or know how to build, a watch that can locally manipulate time, or manipulate time for its user?"

"It's a little more complicated than just local time manipulation, to be honest. Like, you could use it to get a meeting done really fast, but you operate just as well as you would at normal speed, but slowing time isn't the same, you have more time to think and act, but I don't think its infinite." I mused. Despite the knowledge of how to build it, and all the strange, esoteric 'spells' and truly baffling 'recipe' lists for 'contingent alchemical brews to further enhance the requisite spell matrixes', it still didn't make all that much sense without so much of the context I'd need.

Panacea gaped, her mouth open in complete astonishment, "You mean, just like that, you can build tinker tech that could speed up and slow down time?"

"Ah, well, no." I grimaced, trying to come up with an explanation that wouldn't just confuse her further, "I can't really build any of that because I, uh, don't have a wand."

"A what?" She asked, hand clenching tighter.

"A wand." I repeated, "And yes, an actual wand, as far as the schematics and notes I have in my head are concerned. I honestly couldn't tell if it was technological in nature or supposed to actually be magical. But then I got a second star, just a minute ago."

"Right." She prompted, drawing out the word with a little pained scepticism.

"It gave me actual, real knowledge and skill with magic. And I have no idea how to feel about it." I said, keeping my face totally, dead straight.

I could see her expression warp in disbelief, but her hand-seemingly ever tightening-stayed put on my forearm, brow furrowed in a desperate search for something in me that proved myself a liar, I assume.

"How can you believe that?" She asked carefully, "I know there are a few capes that believe their powers are magical-some because they think it's funny to piss the Tinkers off, or because they say that powers may as well be, but… really?"

"Yeah, really." I said, but quickly shaking my head as she came in for a retort, "Look, Panacea, we don't know each other very well, if at all. We only met, like, half an hour to an hour ago at most-I won't be able to definitively convince you of magic being real, not right now, but I can tell you something."

"What's that?" She asked, becoming a little guarded, maybe expecting an attack on her over some supposed difference of belief.

"Your power?" I began, "It's not magical. At all, if I'm right."

She did a double take, "I thought you-"

"No, I don't think powers are magic-or at least, I don't because I can see that what your power does doesn't even touch life energies at all, and if it had any ability to tap into it, there's essentially no way I wouldn't be able to tell with it doing something to me. I just know that to be the case, not sure why yet." I stressed, keeping my tone neutral as possible, "Whatever it's doing, it hasn't touched any magic I'm aware-"

The connection sparked, dragging my attention to it, a jarring experience to say the least. I prepared for something to grab upon the connection, like a fish to a hook, but nothing came, and eventually the power fizzled, returning to me for next time.

"Did it happen again?" Panacea asked insistently as I became aware of myself again.

"Hm?" I responded intelligently, before catching on, "Oh, no. Well, yes, the weird connection thing happened again, but it didn't connect with anything this time. Didn't know it could do that."

The curly haired brunette quirked an eyebrow with a grimace, "That seems… really random? Like, how can you rely on it to give you something useful to build in combat, or in an Endbringer battle if you don't have any control?"

"Build in combat…?" I asked back, a little thrown off course, "Am I missing something?"

She rolled her eyes, "Like, sure you have this weird magic stuff now, and the watch is super cool and just amazingly useful, but you said it yourself, you couldn't even understand what was going on with it until you got something else you could use to interpret some of it. But what do you do if those get replaced by something else, or you get a really powerful schematic that you can't find a star that has the skills to build it?"

"What do you mean?" I said, drawing my eyebrows together, "I don't lose anything. I keep everything, it's my knowledge now."

"But I thought-" Panacea started, then interrupted herself, then tried again "But I've never even heard of someone talking about a multi-power cape like that, aside from maybe the Butcher. But a Tinker? That's totally insane, that can't possibly be real, if that were a real power you'd be…"

She trailed off, and it was then that I caught on to her train of thought.

Whatever my power was, weak was a descriptor that couldn't exist in the relative dimensions near it. If what I'd seen of the stars so far was at all consistent with anything else on offer, like I instinctively knew they were?

"Holy shit." I breathed, eyes widening to match hers, staring at each other stupidly while she gripped my arm so tight that my hand was going numb, "Arm." I mumbled absently and she let up immediately, taking her hand away and stuffing it in her pocket.

"Uh, yeah," she mumbled, just as absently, "sorry."

I waved it off, still reeling, and becoming progressively more terrified of just what the implications of having a power like this could be. If Eidolon could be so powerful with three powers, what could twenty do? Fifty? One hundred?

In a matter of seconds, this had gone from being amused over my power which, frankly, I was taking way better than expected, all the way into the implications this power could have on maybe a national level.

Maybe even worldwide.

I stuffed those thoughts down, for now. They didn't help me. They didn't serve to better my thinking right now, right this second. I needed to think as clearly as possible about my next moves, because I was beginning to realise just how much immediate danger I was in if I didn't act fast.

But acting fast didn't inherently mean a better outcome. The wrong kneejerk response could land me in hot water. I was always pretty shitty at knowing cape related facts, I was a total nerd, just in a different way. Now I could only rue my former self for not having an obsessive interest over powers and dangerous capes. I knew nothing, and that put me in a desperately rough position.

What I did know, was that getting found by a gang at any point while I was starting up with building things was potentially a worst-case scenario. Only made worse if they have one of the master types, not the ones that make minions out of thin air, or control rabbits or something, but a real Heartbreaker type. If one of them were to enslave me now, would I ever get free if the only way for me to win is to build my own solution, when I may have been put under express orders to not do so or further entrench my own servitude with whatever I can come up with?

Then a gang might just end up with exclusive access to a an extremely powerful Tinker. Or, at worst, a really esoteric, mildly strong one. And that was more than bad enough.

And for what? What would be the upside?

Creative freedom?

Well, actual freedom, honestly. The moment someone with even a lick of sense, like Panacea, looked at my power down the barrel and considered the trend I was beginning to follow, someone would want me locked in a little box to be poked in special and different ways until they figured out how to make it happen on command-or just lock me in a workshop with some sort of leverage hanging over me.

I sighed powerfully, spindly fingers scratching at the back of my head roughly, my dirty hair itching like mad.

"Hey look," I said, breaking the long silence that had developed, both of us staring of into space thinking about something, but she quickly emerged from her mind and looked to me, "I know this probably is a question you get a lot but-"

"What should you do?" She finished for me, the sullen thoughtfulness gone, in its place an amused expression grew.

"Yeah, basically. I really don't want to make an ass of myself by not asking now and then having to try to be 'subtle' in every way that makes me look like a parahuman trying to be subtle." I said flatly, eliciting a shockingly girly snort from the healer, genuine amusement playing on her features in a way that made her seem so much younger than she usually felt.

"Oh shit-" I got out before my mind was sucked back into my thoughts, feeling my power extend once again and grabbing something from the same constellation I missed in last time.

I felt the star be pulled into my mind, and immediately I felt my chest shudder with a gasp; I felt a new power spring anew withing me.

This one wasn't like the last ones, where the first had 'merely' been glorified instructions and admittedly interesting knowledge to a handful of items that were all fairly impressive in their own ways. The second has been the skill to intertwine magic and tech together, which gave me some sort of knowledge with both, but not the sort that was immediately apparent. I'd never crafted something before in my life, and I felt like my inherited skills were seeking for something that wasn't quite there yet, stumping me in a way that probably only knowing something without truly knowing what you know

This, though, this changed all of that.

Life.

I've always known it was there-obviously. If something lives, it has its own power unto itself. It is more than something dead, or something inanimate. It possesses a certain vitality inherent to the living. It was something so clear that to state it was redundant. Only now I knew it in yet another form.

I'm now suffused with it entirely, my prior knowledge of its existence and potential or theoretical understanding of its use wasn't enough to make real, practical examples of the energies and magics intertwined with life. With something like the skills I'd gained, being able to determine that Panacea's powers weren't magical by no apparent use of life energy was fundamentally simple, like telling between someone painting with red apart from someone drawing with a red pencil-baffling that you'd need to even be asked. It couldn't be called a usage of life energies or magics in any significant way.

Simply, I couldn't use life magics quite yet, not the way that I wish I could-only in the most mundane of ways, by just its rich presence within me. But I would be able to work up to more, to utilise it the way someone like myself could only dream of. Once I puzzled out any real degree of manipulation of these sources of magics and energies, I could begin work with it.

It was in everything I was, after all, even inside every other magic and object I made. The very essence of life, it seems, had made itself a home within me.

I laughed-a wet sound, a sob caught somewhere in my throat-and for the first time in years…

I smiled a real smile.

"Hey Panacea," I asked, wiping at the traitorously forming tears, "how would you feel about having an apprentice?"

Perks Gained this Chapter =

Magical Items (Make A Wish) (1000CP)

Magical Items (Make A Wish) (1000CP)

You gain a detailed blueprint and design theory of that item, whether it be spell matrices of a spell, charms and engineering required for some magi-tech, or the ingredients and method required for a potion, post jump these blueprints and formulas change to the native settings resources

Reaper Sword (100CP)

A Scythe that can turn into a sword Used by Mr. Black, this sword is always sharp and has increased damage for what it should actually inflict, has an aura of despair and dread when unsheathed and it also glows a creepy green light at will, lastly it is powered by a particular dark magic, it leaches ambient life energy from the surroundings, scaring local wildlife and withering plant-life and the land when unsheathed.

Steel Ride (100CP)

A Bike used by Mr. Black, it can shrink to pocket-size, drop oil slicks, shoot spells, fly, change license plates, and even has a pooka - a ghost horse - bound to it so that it never needs fuel, can act by itself if needed, and occasionally project the image of the pooka itself.

Blend In Bracelet (200CP)

Used by Mr. Black, this bracelet creates a powerful SEP field around the user and it will help the user remain unnoticed unless they commit an aggressive or incredibly strange act. If used in the lowest setting, the bracelets allow the user to be perceived as a whole, but appearance or other discerning characteristics except gender are hidden.

Watch Of Time (200CP)

Created by Henchgirl and Professor and Used by Mr. Black, this watch is indestructible, weather-proof, fire-proof, water-proof and shock-proof, safe to say there is very little that can destroy this watch, it also has intimate relations with time, if you turn it's knob clockwise time will move forward, to better deal with paperwork and boring meetings, turn the knob anti-clockwise to slow down time, to better enjoy your fleeting vacation.

Fidelius Coat (400CP)

Used by Mr. Black, this coat transforms to best suit the outfit wore by the user, this coat is used as a improved version of invisibility cloak, It has a modified version of the fidelius charm that has a parasitic effect on one's magical reserves, when activated the user can disappear and cannot be detected by any known magical effects or abilities. User is not actually invisible, he just can't be seen or detected by any magical or technological effect. It has additional abilities due to being made of Dementors, Lethifold, Nundu and various other creatures. The abilities include being able to emit an aura similar to dementors and an aura of hopelessness, it is also spell resistant and has many yet to be discovered powers.

A/N: As an aside, this perk actually comes from a fanfic, one of a handful I've found in the CF doc. I'm personally not all that sure how I feel about those sorts of things. It's not as if there aren't horribly broken things in cannon, original works, but fanfics tend to break soft systems like Harry Potter's over their knee, the result of which you see here. Also the Watch of Time is really ambiguous for some reason, where in the fanfic itself it allowed going back in time, so it's inconsistent too. Also the fanfic is very 2005 and probably written by someone of the age you'd roughly expect a HP fan be at that point. It's basically a part of the internet's quirky history at this point.

Magitek Mastery (Final Fantasy VI) (600CP)

-Magitek Mastery (Final Fantasy VI) (600CP)

In essence, magitek is simply the use of magical energies as a power and fuel source for technology. Your understanding of that outstrips anyone else, and you can now apply this principle to any technology you own.

By altering your devices to use something magical in nature, such as a magicite stone, an enchanted item, or just raw magical energy, you can enhance it in every single way and give it unique properties. A suit of armor would become much harder, lighter, and more agile than before, perhaps even boosting the physical abilities of the wearer in line with the magical power source.

From there, the armor could make more esoteric uses of the magic, such as casting spells on its own based around the sort of magic infused into it automatically or at the wearer's prompting. This isn't some measly effect restricted to the mundane or basic, no, magic can be infused into any sort of technological device to enhance its functionality and give it a partially magical nature and powers.

Even life may be infused with magitek technology like this, not only as cybernetics but directly as well. In this situation, it behaves a bit differently. The magic integrates itself into their body, becoming a natural part of them, allowing them access to that magic system and enhancing them physically, but they must grow into it. They start at a much weaker level, where they have to practice and develop their connection to this magic to realize it fully.

There's no upper limit to them beyond what the magic's system is capable of, but it can take time, and you can instead choose to infuse living things with a larger amount of magic to grant them greater magical ability much more quickly. Unfortunately, this can have dangerous side effects, as giving them too much to handle at once can lead to mental instability or even insanity, the severity rapidly scaling upwards the more initial energy put in.

A/N: There are so many terribly formatted and written perks in the CF doc. I debate just rewriting every perk I do end up with just so they are readable. This one isn't too bad, I can't figure out how you're supposed to tab indent on the editor here. Shame.

Renewal (Age of Wonders ll) (400CP)

-Renewal (Age of Wonders ll) (400CP)

Wounds can be mended, cities can be rebuilt. Even the lands tainted by death magics or burnt by fire can be restored, seeded with crops and forests until life flourishes anew. Life magic embodies this ideal, holding the power to endure, to undo all harms and ease all woes. Your spells and abilities are infused with this power, and it is impossible to corrupt or twist them against their purpose. Furthermore, although your magics are now more difficult to suppress or destroy, if your enchantments are only partially broken they will slowly restore themselves to their full potential, their own magical natures healing as surely as more physical wounds.

The Forgotten First Roll

If you would believe it, the first perk was not actually the first perk! Not that the first, first perk was bad, but because it was too good! Kinda…

-Relic of the Future (I Saved Too Many Girls And Caused The Apocalypse) (600CP)

The lost technology that allowed Atlantis to maintain itself for as long as it did. These are the notes and blueprints revealing the secret of the 'space-time stitching' technology. Once everything is properly set, it can send back the user in time, much like the 'save' function in a game. It can't go before the machine itself was activated, nor it stops the user from getting older as they experience those futures.

This perk might not cost a lot, in comparison to the second, first perk I ended up rolling, and is arguably better in almost every way due to the sheer, insane utility of the thing. With it, you'd probably send Earth Bet as mad as a anthill on the warpath, with all the ways that it'd screw with thinker abilities and precognitives alone. It'd royally upturn their theoretical wargames, battled between theoretical minds, deciding the fate of the future in virtualised realities that aren't full, complete simulations…

But it would also be a very different story than I want to write. To have an ability like that and not use it as an integral method to your madness would just cheapen any conflict, loss, or suboptimal outcomes the character could experience. So I cut that one with a heavy heart. No matter!

Additionally, the perk is from a light novel/manga that hasn't been fully translated into English, and the characters have yet to encounter this 'Atlantis' beyond a mention or two on the English wiki for it. Can't find the original jump doc either, so welp!

A/N: That's a decent sized chapter, ey? Most of it was spent without the Forge, but ey, what can you do? You gatta get there somehow. Hopefully James' trigger felt somewhat poignant emotionally/conceptually and not just edgy or what have you, the vast majority of this chapter was written while I was pulling an all-nighter so I'm not sure I can gauge that at all anymore!

I'll post up an informational with other stuff about the guidelines I'm using for CF, but something I'll mention here is that I know that the specific perks have fairly extrapolatable language that could allow for James to use mana/energy of some type, but James is not hyper- or omni-competent, he does not get a handy perk summary and instead has a vauge understanding of what he now understands but must figure the rest out himself to a degree, and he also doesn't know what he doesn't know until he finds that he does. I.e. that he could tell Panacea wasn't messing with his life energy, thus either enacts the ability via another source or that its not a magic he knows of yet.

Skills wise, [Magitek Mastery] is pretty dope, great for padding lacking technological skill with raw magic, and with [Renewal, essentially an internal font of specifically life magics, the risk of using life energies as a fuel is reduces, though James may want that for other things!

Anyways, seeya next chapter!

Last edited: Jul 10, 2022

2: Mourning a Life

2: Mourning a Life

After that star had hit me, I'd found myself very emotional. Life magics were… special to me. They held a spot in my heart the same way that I held an admiration and respect for those who had powers to heal.

I'd tried to explain myself to Panacea, who looked increasingly confused with those explanations, and eventually we cast off the topic to return to the grander question. That being, 'What the hell do I do now?'

The way I saw it, there were a handful of options, and some of them were so obviously stupid that I'm not sure you'd be called a functioning human being to take it, in my situation.

Number one and number two on the stupid meter was: make a gang and join a gang. Sure, it worked for Lung, Kaiser, and… who was the last guy again? Anyway, the guy that runs the Merchants with his Tinker. They were shining examples, if you could call them that, of how being strong and building a strong power structure underneath you through ideology, being fucking terrifying and Asian, and drugs, respectfully. The problem was that they caused problems. They were horrific in all of their own uniquely flavourful ways. If I make a gang, I don't know what I'd even build it on that I was willing to do for one, but the second was that as soon as people realised how powerful a Tinker I could theoretically become, they'd want to evaporate my innards as soon as reasonably possible. Joining a gang sounded like a great way to end up in Lung's basement as the 'special exception' to the Asian's only rule.

So now that I've absolutely made it obvious to myself that gang = stupid, let us move to what could even be considered reasonable, shall we?

Independent teams, like New Wave, were a possibility. Not sure if I'd be game to go with New Wave, but if I'm honest I don't have a life to lose by doing it. I'd probably hate myself down the line though, and when I asked about what New Wave's stance on people joining up was, she looked uncomfortable in a way I can only describe as powerfully and shook her head lightly with absolutely no elaboration. Trouble in paradise, it seems. That left a few others but mostly out of Brockton, and if I wanted to build something for myself here in Brockton, which I think I wanted to do, then I'd have to put together a team myself or find someone already doing as much. I know no way of doing that, and I'm not sure I could join a team that hasn't done anything or has no reputation with members that were the same. It sounds rife for someone being off their rocker and killing someone, then the team falling apart in shame and or ending up being a front for a major criminal gang anyway.

Or just a corporate group, which it probably as bad as being a criminal front. Any attempts of corporate heroes were always so painful to me for some reason. I think I'd hate life like that, a face on a poster, or with my face looking as it did right now, probably hidden in the back with a full-face mask for 'mystique'. God just thinking about being a money maker for a corporation just destroyed what felt like the whole point of actually being a hero. They didn't want what was best, they wanted what made them money. There was no way that wouldn't affect the way the team operated and what they did do.

Now, I could go out on my own, but I don't think that's a good idea. I could swing it, but I'd have to be dead silent until I was strong enough to be a monolith, shrugging off anything and everything. I wasn't that, and I couldn't reasonably expect that of myself, even with life magics slowly but surely making me just that little bit healthier.

Then a rogue or mercenary, tinkers were a pretty popular choice for this. I checked on my shitty little phone screen with a shitty little web browser. I had debated not web searching at all, in case they were tracking web data, but then I realised how many people probably search for the publicly available information on this stuff and threw caution to the wind. Tinkers quite often became rogues because of the money it promised, even though the danger was quite a lot higher. The PRT had their usual cherrypicked statistics everywhere, but they weren't lying, Tinkers were usually in the most danger when it came to independents and rogues and were much safer and less dead with the PRT. Even those that joined rogue groups like Toybox, but they also had to sell to people that I was not interested in selling my discarded toenail clippings to, let alone tinker tech. I'm pretty sure I could make some things that would sell, fairly soon, if I gained another star or two, or maybe even with just a bit of life energy in something… but anyway, I think it fell to the same issue as going out on my own.

In the end, it all came down to one thing.

A support structure.

Honestly, I was a little bitter about it. More than a little.

I'm not going to be a total asshat about this, because I'm not a fool, I know how to logically separate the government from the people who work within it, or from one department and another, but emotions weren't logical.

I fucking hated the idea that I will only get the support I always needed as soon as I get fucking superpowers worth a damn. I hated it. I had been rejected for a disability support pension every single time I could apply since my parents were killed. I don't even know how many times that is anymore.

I all but screamed at the government to help me, and I got fucking shafted to where, if I hadn't got a power on this very day, I would've died, I'm sure of it. I was only one of thousands, millions, that went desperately without the support they needed, and their deaths, their suffering and torture was a crime on their hands that I don't know how much repentance it'd take from them for me to not be absolutely, murderously fucking furious.

But what happened if I got sick while I was an independent, or a rogue? If I needed to lay in bed and do absolutely fuck all for a week? Would teammates accept that, or would they leave me because they saw money or glory elsewhere? Would that time be when I was needed, and tanked my own reputation to where I'd burned my image?

Could I keep on living alone?

The final option was to join the Protectorate.

It was the option I didn't want to consider out of sheer fucking spite.

But I couldn't do that to myself. Not now. Not when I've been given the chance I'd been begging for with my everything to have. 'Just one chance.' I'd said that to myself so many times that it'd practically become a religion unto its own. I'd believed in it with everything I had in me, that if I someone gave me just one chance, I'd see it through no matter what.

It was a mentality absolutely ripe for abuse. I'd seen it. I've spent my fair share of time in the communities online for people with various shapes and sizes of disabilities. I know the stories of absolutely abhorrent abuses of trust, of love, of kindness and compassion done to those who had believed that if someone just gave them the chance to show they were worthy of being loved that they'd love them back. Anyone. Even the monsters.

I've never cared enough, and I'm glad for it in ways I can't possibly describe.

But I'd traded it for this… this burning distaste for those that were supposed to give aid but withheld it. That were useless in the face of what they were there to defend against.

I'd lived in Brockton my whole life, it was impossible to not hear every way that the PRT and Protectorate were doing things wrong and were a useless, waste of space, PR machine used to make you think you were safe when you walked down streets covered in gang colours.

I was also smart enough to know when someone was just angry and exhausted. At the moment, I was all of those things plus in pain. Apparently getting a power was a 'big deal' by my body's standards, so I currently found myself laying flat and unmoving on my hospital bed that no one had told me to get out of yet like someone had doubled gravity for me.

Which just so happened to be the perfect time for my mind to get sucked inwards, full attention on the stream of energy being sent forth into the mess of stars, seeking its target. I watched intently, but the energy fizzled, finding nothing and returning to me.

Seems I was running low on the stuff? That made some sort of sense, I guess, with how much I'd reeled in today. Bit of a bummer, I'll admit, but it still seemed to be happening at a fairly frequent pace, if nothing else. But I was distractingly myself from the conversation my brain didn't want me to have with myself.

I was angry, exhausted, in pain, and coming to the realisation that I didn't have an apartment to go back to, no obvious place I could go and live in the meantime other than a shelter, maybe. I had no support, no money, no food, no health to sacrifice, no qualifications to leverage, no nothing.

Except a power.

A power I could do things with. I'd not been kidding when I'd asked if Panacea had wanted an apprentice. Life magic was no joke, I could feel it thrumming inside of me, slowly giving me the health back that I'd lost just by being present at all. I didn't know how to do with it what she could, yet, but working with her could help and if not, when I found a way to use it to really heal someone, I'd work with her then anyway. To be able to heal at all was a monstrously desirable power, let alone on Panacea's level.

A power that kept having more and more added to it. Nonsensical? Sure! I knew some really specific things about how to make a sword that could also be a scythe that also did way too many other things, one of which was drain life from things in its surroundings when the blade was drawn. I didn't really like that, it made me viscerally uncomfortable, even if the effect was very minimal.

How it did it was interesting, though. The blade itself was actually fairly mundane, only a few methods in the forging process that were clearly influenced by magic, mostly for priming the blade to be receptive and more accommodating to later infusions of magic to create the enchantments that did the real heavy lifting. Alongside the fact that the blade was the battery for the magic, where life itself was the energy, it fed upon in its surroundings, enough to make grass wilt and spook animals, maybe kill some bugs, and pushed all that energy into the blade to keep it powered forever.

If I could get ways to build these sorts of things, figure out how to forge something worth a damn, put together something electrical, I could infuse it with magic easily, I knew I could do it, I just needed to have something to work on to really get it down.

If I could do that? I was on my way to owning some very impressive items, things that could keep me safe, keep others safe.

And it would keep getting stronger. Just like that.

It was a power that was so valuable it was potentially beyond words. If I wasn't careful, I'd be eaten alive, Protectorate or no. One day things would be fine, the next I was being transferred and then I was in a pretty looking cell being tested and interrogated to uncover my power's secrets.

But outside of the Protectorate was worse. Way, way worse.

It came down to a gamble. A gamble on one thing and one thing only.

How much someone wanted me.

It felt weird thinking about it like that, but it was true. Brockton Bay had a few pretty powerful capes on the side of the angels. You had Dauntless and Armsmaster, pretty distinguished figures, both of them powerful and one slowly rising to the top a day at a time. You had Miss Militia, who seemed competent and overall effective, and Assault and Battery, however goofy the names, were pretty effective also, as well as surprisingly powerful, just more quietly than the heavy hitters they had. Also the ward that became Protectorate, but I'm blanking on his name.

The brain fog was getting worse, and I was struggling to keep on track, pain and frustration at the situation that still wasn't solved, but at least seemed to have some way forwards. A chance that I'd promised myself that I'd take, even if I didn't exactly like it.

My bet was that the Protectorate wanted more people, because as things stood, they couldn't win, but they sure as hell could lose.

My bet is that they'll want to keep another Dauntless, a maybe over what they're getting, which is nothing. They don't have enough people and they know it, it's why they play it safe and tactical. I'm no genius when it comes to capes, and I'll be the first to admit that I've been wilfully ignorant of much of the issues the world has and the conflicts between capes, but it's obvious that Brockton is more rough and tumble than most of America.

They're hurting for power, against absolute fucking monsters like Lung, the asshole who gets angry and becomes a dragon on the off occasion that he feels like doing anything but prostitute out some women who are of questionable legality in many senses of the word. Against Kaiser the Very Good Supremacist, who ran his group of little Nazi dickheads with a genuineness that was so obviously false that I seriously didn't know how he ever convinced someone he actually believed in any of that horse shit, but it probably has something with the swords he can make from seemingly nowhere. Against Skidmark, because while his name is stupid, and he might be, he has just about anyone down on their luck in Brockton on drugs, and he's certainly making money on it.

They're dangerous, they control dangerous people, they control the ebbs and flows in this city down to the route people take to work, because there's no way a Protectorate cape is getting to you before the rest of the gang chase you down and make sure you're dead.

The protectorate, in a way, need me just as much as I need it. I'm not prime material yet, but if they gamble on me like I'll gamble on them?

I think we'll both see out bets pay off, even if it takes strangling the shit out of my pride to do it.

I took in a deep breath, then released, somehow sinking further into my hospital bed, reluctantly admitting that it's more comfortable than my own-which was desperately sad in a way I hadn't expected to deal with.

"Ah shit." I whispered out loud, struggling to move my hand into my pocket and grab my phone, remembering something.

It was getting to the point where afternoon was going to become evening, and I still couldn't move myself from the bed, despite my reluctance to stay. They'd probably charge me for taking up a bed, and that'd sting, but if I'm going to the Protectorate anyways, it cannot be worse than the debt I was already in.

Having wrestled my phone from my pocket, I dug through my contacts list and hit call when I found who I wanted.

It rang three times before there was a click and an aged voice called from the other side.

"Hello, Joy speaking!" She said just a little too loudly, as she'd always been worried that she wouldn't be heard on the little microphones her home phone had.

"Hey Joy, it's James." I greeted back with a smile, inwardly relaxing a little with the older woman's presence somehow seeping through the phone in just a moment.

"James! You don't call me very often, did something happen?" She asked worryingly.

"Ah, yeah, a little bit but I'm okay now. I think I'm going to be staying here tonight, but they haven't sent anyone in to see me or anything so for the moment I'm almost too scared to ask."

"Hoping they won't charge you if they don't notice you?" She asked wryly, smile on her lips.

"Caught me red handed." I said with a grin, then felt it dim a little, "So I saw Panacea today."

"Saw as in you were treated by her, or as in you saw her walk past you?" She asked, and I could hear the faint hope in her voice.

"The first." I said, but quickly following with the result, "She, well… she couldn't do anything for me. The issue is in my brain, an overproduction of adrenalin and it constantly firing away."

Silence held over the call, then a painful sigh, a sadness so deep in her tone it caught me off guard.

"I'm so sorry James, I know you held on to that hope like it was everything to you." She said, almost whispering, and she was right. It was everything to me, and that it didn't pan out broke me inside in a way I'm not sure will ever mend back the way it was, but I gained another hope.

"It's okay, she helped me a little bit, enough that maybe…" I licked my lips, dryness settling in, "I don't know. Maybe things will get better, I don't know. But I'll try. It might just be a real chance."

"Treatment?" She asked, her tone even. She knew there was something up, and I wasn't going to lie to the woman even if it wasn't smart. She'd held off my rent by playing with the numbers in the books she did for the building for eighteen whole months. I would've been homeless and probably dead right now otherwise.

"In a sense, yeah. I think I'll get better, health wise." I admitted freely, "But there's something else, an opportunity she made me aware of. I'm going to try my best, it might not work out, or go the way I want, but it's safer than what my life looks like if I don't at least try."

I could just about hear the cogs turning in her head, and heard another sigh, one of exasperation.

"Alright, I trust you've got a good enough head on your shoulders that you won't do anything too silly?" She said, tone faintly chiding.

"I'm picking the best option I can." I said honesty and amusement playing off my grin.

"Alright then, so I take it you're missing tea with me tonight, hm?" She said archly, feigning offense.

"Unfortunately, dear Joy." I sighed exaggeratedly, eliciting a cackle from the woman.

"Good then I won't stay up, you get yourself some rest too, not much else you could be doing!" She commanded.

"I will. Thank you, Joy. For everything." I said softly.

"It was nothing, dear. Just doing what I could when I knew it was right." She stubbornly returned.

"Oh shush, you old bat," I laughed, "alright I'll leave you to your knitting."

"Jackass, actually. Those boys are insane, and I fear for their mother's hearts, but God is it hilarious." She cackled loudly, "Go sleep, kiddo, call me if you need me to send for a taxi to pick you up alright?"

"Yes, yes, thank you Joyce." I returned with false heat.

"It's Joy, dear." She said before the line immediately went dead before I had the chance to reply.

You really couldn't come out of a conversation with the woman on top. She'd always win somehow, and it was endlessly amusing to try to finally get one over on her. That'd be the day, hey?

I didn't put my phone away just yet, slowly navigating into the browser and waiting for the painfully slow internet to load, I decided to try and see whether the shitty waste of plastic could get me into a few of the communities I frequented, mostly on a forum which served as a gathering space for those with what ranged from minor health troubles to those who were looking down the barrel of terminal illness.

But I was stopped, pulled from whatever I'd been thinking to attend my accumulated power reaching out only to fizzle once again. I rolled my eyes, finding myself annoyed by the frequent and sudden distractions from whatever I was doing or thinking. It was worse that the instances of my power becoming active seemed to completely halt anything my brain was attending to, and I couldn't help but feel like that would very quickly become a noticeable thing others could exploit.

Regardless of the interruption, just rubbing my eyes wearily as I regained my thought process, I continued my expedition into the internet with the limited means I had, hoping that I'd at least be able to load a decently complex webpage.

After some struggling with the navigation, I had to actively muffle my surprise when the forum actually loaded on the tiny little screen. Sure, it was totally all over the place, with elements of the site clearly not designed to be considerate to the severe size limitation on the poor device, but I had to give the phone some credit for being able to load it and actually have enough functionality to navigate a website that was less than compatible.

Moments later I was signed into my personal account 'Tired', the name of which I was still surprised that I'd managed to nab even if I'd been among the first few waves of the site's userbase. Admittedly, I'd been so deep in a crash after a doctors visit that I'm pretty sure that the word 'tired' was the only coherent thought in my head at the time, I likely wouldn't have bothered trying it otherwise.

As I came online, I found myself with a new message, one sent only a few hours ago. It was from the person that I counted as the only real reason had stayed on the site at all, given my relative lack of interaction despite being known to the old guard of the site and what amounted to a good rep with essentially everyone that ran the site and the moderation staff.

I struggled with getting the browser's cursor to find the button for my inbox, then double clicking it before it tried to open the pop out that I had decided was likely to be a massive pain in the ass on the phone. I then hit, by far, the most active chat in my inbox, and probably one of the most extensive private message chains on the forum as a whole.

Sve1te: yo i kno ur at the hosp rn but i hope ur day goes good!

I snorted slightly at the wilful use of contractions and abbreviations, something she absolutely did to mess with me, at least with how extensively she did it. Svelte-I had asked to confirm that she had indeed meant that particular word but it was taken by a now long dead account-and I had been talking for years now, since It'd been recommended to me by a doctor, honestly probably the best of the ones I'd seen, to seek out communities that I could feel more comfortable discussing health issues in and seek support from in the form of advice or even just moral support.

I'd taken her advice, though only after I'd started feeling the loss and hopelessness begin to kill me. In the end, it hadn't been the community that had helped me, or even one of the group of founders that had also been diagnosed with CFS just the same, but instead it'd been Svelte.

I was always pretty terrible with including myself in communities. Sometimes I would entrench myself deeply into a community, but only in extreme rarity. The rest of the time, I'd be more like a vagrant ghost, my name only ever really noticeable in the list of active users that sometimes, rarely, people made a joke of it being good luck. It was a funny inside joke for those who were in on it, and very confusing for anyone newer to the forum than the maybe hundred or so consistent users it once was, instead of the thousands it serviced now.

But the only reason I ever browsed the forum at all was because that was where Svelte was, and she was a friend that I had no qualms using a forum I didn't particularly care for to contact.

In a way, I was like the popular kid's childhood friend. Back a few years ago, I'd been in so deep that I had just allowed myself to wholly commit my energy to the site, being hyper active and serving as what may as well have been a community manager, having a list of hundreds of direct messages to accounts that had been newly made to offer words of welcome and promises of assistance if it was ever needed.

Svelte had been just one of the many at the time. I'd spent hours on hours replying to various people, offering my best guidance or just pleasant company, but Svelte was the one that stuck around. She posted in just about any thread that was made, became at least acquaintances with just about everyone in the community, was the person that everyone wanted to banter with, but I was just the person to message her first. Grandfathered in, I suppose.

Tired: Still at the hospital but I managed to get on here on my flip phone. Didn't even know it was possible, but apparently even bargain bin flip phones can load forums now.

I sent the message through, resting my fingers from the typing method that mobile phones used, having never really gotten used to it since I didn't exactly have anyone to text. Thinking on it, I'm not sure I've ever texted someone. That's probably kinda sad, isn't it? Before I could continue to type out what I wanted to say, Svelte had already sent a reply, a response time that had always impressed me.

Sve1te: ooooh awsm! then we can talk wen ur at the hosp now?

I huffed, eyebrow raised. I'd usually give her a hard time about being shamelessly demanding, a very frequent topic of argument being what constituted 'demanding' or 'clingy' when both of you sometimes passed hundreds of messages between one another in a day. But, even with the classic opportunity to follow straight down the old, worn path, I decided against it and instead chose to rip off the band aid.

Tired: Well, after tonight I won't be hanging around hospitals on Saturdays anymore.

On pure instinct I sent the far too vague message, quickly followed by the instinct to slam my head into the nearest hard surface. I tried, but I knew there was no way for me to get out what else I wanted to say before Svelte managed to start freaking out.

Sve1te: omg wht hppnd? did u get shot or smth? r u dying?

I just sighed, rubbing a little too viciously at my face before getting out the most effective answer I could.

Tired: No.

Sve1te: thn wat?

I started to construct my answer, trying to alleviate the quick-to-worry girl on the other side of the conversation. It was easy to forget sometimes that she was young, though she was just as cautious with her age as she was with any of her information. But I'd been talking with her for years, and no matter how much she tried to imply a few extra years on her age, I wasn't convinced.

Tired: I got seen by Panacea. Thought my chance had come. It's an adrenalin overproduction issue with lots of other stuff. She said she wasn't comfortable with changing my body the way she'd need to, and she can't do brains. So it's a wash.

I sent the message, and I already regretted the tone of the message. I'd tried so sound more okay than that, but that message made me sound anything but. It was too cold for how I usually wrote, too guarded. Svelte would notice, like she always did, which she very often interpreted as due to a fault on her part. This time, though, I doubted she could blame it on herself, the cause clearly laying elsewhere.

There came no response.

I waited a minute, refreshed the page, checked that I was still getting signal, but even then, I almost couldn't believe it.

Svelte hadn't responded. She wasn't still in the private message, her name no longer showing at the bottom of the viewing users.

Never once had that happened. It had always, always fallen to me to break off the conversation in lieu of sleep or anything else. My internet would go out, and I'd return to ten messages asking what'd happened every single time. Whatever her internet connection was, it was better than anything I could get in Brockton, with consistency that had never once broken on her, nor had her computer ever crashed on her.

I pushed down the catastrophising part of myself, hiding away the worry under the blanket of whatever logic I could convince myself with.

It could absolutely be due to her internet or power shutting off, or computer dying, even if it had actually never happened before, there was always the chance. No system was perfect, and failures were inevitable. But my worry wasn't that she'd had some resource cut at an inconvenient moment, but instead that she was taking the news hard for me.

Svelte was nothing if not absolutely and painfully empathetic. I couldn't possibly count the amount of times I'd had to intervene on her behalf to stop a conversation she was having with someone else, actually trusting me to the extent that she'd let me log into her account to block someone that was acting disgracefully, or to help mediate on her behalf.

She had the tendency to get drawn into the other person's woes. She almost seemed to magnetize to the pain of others, gleefully taking on any and all of the pain the other person was feeling at the cost of her own mental state. I tried to keep my amateur psychology and philosophising to myself, outside of the conversations we had about that stuff on a fairly frequent basis, but my gut told me that she was punishing herself, thinking that she'd rather take on everything someone else was being tortured with because she deserved it more than them.

I don't know what she could've possibly done to feel like she deserved that kind of pain. But I still felt the gnawing guilt from when I'd first been talking to her, the first time I realised that Svelte was willing to take all my pain from me with a smile and abused it.

A few hours ago I'd have told anyone who asked that my darkest moment was almost four years ago, after the shock and horror of their deaths had boiled away, leaving nothing but the writhing anger burning in my veins and the cloying depression filling my lungs. No matter how well I'd hid it in my interactions with people online, playing the pleasant and affable acquaintance, Svelte had uncovered it like only she could, and started syphoning it from me with reckless abandon.

I still hate that, in retrospect, I could see that I knew what she was doing, but I just didn't care. Absorbed by my own infatuation with my emotions that I almost took pleasure in seeing someone else hurt with me. It disgusted me in a way that I could never apologize for, regardless of any attempt I had since made. That I could've been so callous to burden someone else with my own pain and watch on in some sadistic sort of enjoyment as she had begun to come apart at the seams.

I can't remember, really, what I'd done to make that stop. It'd been a wakeup call of truly monumental proportions when I realised that I was genuinely beginning to fear that she might send a message with 'goodbye' at its end, and she'd be lost in the most final of ways.

If that had been what she'd drawn from me in my darkest moment then, what would she draw from me in this strange, conflicting reality that I now exist in; On a day that is split with contradiction?

The same day that I sat at the deepest, darkest hole I'd ever found myself in, longing desperately for the distant sky, only to realise that the hole was the grave where I would forever remain. The same day that a hand was offered with the promise of seeing that sky once more, if only I used the tools it gave to climb.

As if in answer to my referencing it, my whisked me away once again as my power extended itself into the swirling array, this time easily connecting with a star and with it, a strange surety flooding into me a moment later.

I couldn't tell exactly, not really, but I was granted the confidence that whatever I made would hold responsibility to the word I'd given it. It was no tech, nor strange knowledge, just an inherited confidence from somewhere else, that there would be no mishaps in communication.

I snorted dryly. I could only wonder if my power, whatever it was, had granted me that just to insinuate that very thought. I guess it didn't really matter, in the end. I'd taken from it what I'd needed to hear anyway.

Svelte hadn't returned my message, and I had a feeling that one wasn't coming through for a while. Eventually I just flipped my phone closed and stuffed it back into my pocket alongside the stiff piece of card that Panacea had given me before she'd left to get back to work. I paused myself for a moment before pulling it from my pocket, looking down at the small rectangle the same way I had after she'd left the room.

The slightly dumbfounded disbelief wormed its way back onto my face before I caught and smothered it.

It was, well… Panacea's business card. I hadn't known she'd even had any. Didn't know why she had any, in fact. I would've asked, but it felt a little rude when she was giving me a card with what was apparently her actual phone number, not the New Wave answering machine that cycled through greetings and requests to leave a message from the various members. I felt extremely uncomfortable with now having a direct line to Panacea after all this time knowing her as an illusive and incomprehensibly rare person to encounter.

I'd punched the number into my phone just as well, but you couldn't make me use it unless I was dying from something particularly horrible. Or someone else was, I suppose.

What I suspect Panacea had really intended to be of value to me was the scrawled number on the back of the card, one with no name that she'd given to it, just that I shouldn't call it before tomorrow, definitely not in the hospital, and only if I'd chosen to go to with the Protectorate. She'd recommended that I be professional and introduce myself as someone that she'd told to call.

I was sceptical, since she'd acted so cagey about who was on the other end of that number, but she'd been adamant. I could only suspect someone that was higher ranking there, as I'd bet this number didn't match any of the publicly available lines the PRT and Protectorate had on their respective sites. I'd essentially ruled out my other options as far as going out on my own or joining some independent team of rogues or heroes-or villains, I guess, since I did entertain the idea of attempting to join Toybox for about a second.

Truth was, I was still scared of making that jump. The number, of which I had also copied meticulously into my phone, double checking twice for thoroughness, was burning a hole in the back of my brain. Panacea had given it to me to make my life easier and calling it would probably jump be forwards past the awkward part of being accepted as someone that actually was a parahuman, who was actually intending on being a Protectorate cape. I could only imagine the mess I'd be throwing myself into by showing up in jeans and a hoodie, standing around awkwardly until you can convince some front desk employee that you're the parahuman that called earlier to ask what the hell you need to do to not be shot on sight.

Maybe I was playing it up in my head a bit, they probably had a solid induction system. But I had no doubt that they would make you sweat in an empty meeting room for hours before someone in a suit alongside two PRT troopers would spend another few hours scaring the ever-loving shit out of you with legalese and a winning lawyer smile.

This call would probably be backed by Panacea's word, or something. They don't need to verify I am a legitimate parahuman if Panacea had directly confirmed that fact for herself, though they'd probably verify it anyways. Point is; they won't need to run scare tactics so they don't end up paying to verify some idiot who thought fucking with the PRT or Protectorate's time was even a remotely good idea.

The least amount of scare tactics I have to have involved in my life is the way to go for me.

So why did it feel like I was holding onto a number that, when rung, would remotely blow up something important?

I'm on edge, nervous more so than when I was just thinking it all through. Now that I've actually made the choice, it just seems harder for some arcane reason. Maybe it just comes down the walking the walk or putting my-thankfully proverbial-money where my mouth is.

How many parahumans reach this point, where their entire future hinges on a single phone call to the local Protectorate? Where the difference between hero and villain begins with whether you have confidence you'll even be allowed through the front doors of the place? That they won't greet you with a face-full of containment foam and the muzzle of a rifle on your back?

Brockton locals sometimes seem to think that the PRT and Protectorate are just pushovers, smiling faces giving speeches at events, Wards showing up at high schools to do talks on not doing drugs, even though they themselves were the target demographic. They didn't seem to get that the cultivated that image of approachability so you didn't kill yourself trying to run away from the guys trying to help you in a bad situation.

But that scared me more, somehow. I was playing dangerously close to believing my own bullshit and I knew it, as though I were uniquely capable of seeing beneath the act the Protectorate capes put on for public appearances, but maybe I knew just enough that I could recognise how much I didn't know. Regardless of my ego wanting me to deny it, I was still scared of the unknown.

The central piece of information that I felt I knew, and potentially what made me hesitant to go through with it all, was that parahumans were probably all a little broken inside.

Oh sure, the Protectorate has said for years that you're 'capable of gaining a parahuman power through transcending emotionally' or some such, trying to sell the idea that you can gain powers positively, and I used to believe that to a certain degree. Now, though, I'm not sure I can believe that line, not after today.

I hummed as I shifted myself down further in the bed and covering myself more fully with my blanket, and letting my thoughts cycle through my mind over and over, losing their precise definition and instead becoming a rapidly diminishing slurry of thought that ultimately ended in-

My eyes snapped open, hearing a rustling sound as the curtain right next to me opened, allowing dim light from the previously obscured hallway to bleed in and bring my room up a few shades lighter than pitch. I squinted, my poor eyesight only compounded by the darkness, but I managed to match the general figure to someone I knew.

"Dr. Michaels?" I grumbled, trying to sit myself up in my bed but finding the underside of a hangover desk with my knees, very nearly knocking the thing over in a jolt of surprise, only avoided by the doctor's quick reflexes in lunging forwards and steadying it.

"Damn, hoped I wouldn't wake you up." Stephanie muttered in the dark as she found a light and turned the knob, increasing the light in the room to just enough that I could see, but not so much that it gave me a headache or forced me to close my eyes.

"No, no. It's totally fine, I was actually wondering when someone would come by anyway." I said more clearly, trying to get rid of the slur of only just waking and shaking off the exhaustion.

Stephanie, an actually fairly tall woman now that I have time to really notice it, turned and gave me a questioning eyebrow raise.

"James, they did come by. Multiple times. Why do you think you have your dinner sitting on that table you nearly knocked over?" She asked, her tone light, but even in the dark I knew she was searching for something in my face or the way I responded to her question. Doctor things, I suppose.

"Oh shit, really?" I groaned out, putting a hand over my face.

"Yes really, I read the report myself. Mostly coherent with some drowsiness, seemed determined to get back to sleep. If I'm remembering it correctly." She said matter-of-factly.

"God damn, I hope I didn't say anything too horrifically stupid. I usually don't, but sometimes I tell people to fuck off." I bemoaned, eventually getting around to actually answering her question, "When I'm particularly tired or screwed up, I'll sometimes be woken up by someone and then immediately go back to sleep after-but I never remember doing it. Honestly think I just say anything that would make the person go away, even if I seem coherent."

"Huh," Stephanie responded, a curious expression upon her gentle but tired features, "almost like sleep walking, in a way. You regain some level of consciousness, but not all the way there, or just so tired that you can't tell the difference between a regular wake in a sleeping pattern and the interruption."

She gently rolled the table out of the way, pushing it to one side, letting me get a good look at the tray of various snacks and parts of a meal. I grimaced, stuck between the gnaw of hunger and the creeping fear of inconsistent meals mixed with the dread of the pain eating brought me and discontent of my extremely risk-averse palette eyeing the food on offer with distaste.

Stephanie sat in a chair positioned near the side of the bed, against the wall, continuing the starkly casual nature of the visit when contrasted with how she'd addressed me when meeting with Panacea or afterwards with the 'seizure'.

"So, what rates the visit, Doc?" I asked, hiding my tentativeness behind a poorly constructed casual mask. She grinned in that peppy way of hers that seemed like it wasn't just a manufactured part of her work persona, though significantly sharper with humour than the spotlessness of professionalism and bedside manners.

"Well, seeing as you had 'a big day' I just came down to check on you at the end of my shift. I thought they might have you hooked up to a couple machines down here, but they tend to leave Panacea's patients alone after she's done with them." She said, a little note of spitefulness working into her voice almost forcing an instinctual raise my brow. She rolled her deep brown eyes and sighed, working her fingers into her temples in circles.

"I don't understand it, they've just become complacent in Panacea fixing up every issue and leaving everyone a very tired but perfectly healthy person. They seem to forget that there's people she can't heal." The last of her words came out as more of a hiss than anything, anger mixed with a particular affront to what was maybe her pride as a doctor.

"I guess it makes sense." I worked out in a voice almost clear of drowsiness, "Communities I'm in think something similar, in a way. There are only a few people in the world who can heal anything like Panacea can, and they're borderline deified. We slowly come to think of Panacea and her peers as anything other than her namesake, and when the limitations stare you right in the face, it can be… confronting."

A grimace flashed across her expression, but she managed to hide it away before I could identify the expression-

This time I caught the feeling just before it pulled me inwards, actively working to resist the pull to stay in the moment, but despite the extra moment I bought myself, I ended up back inside my mind sighing as I watched the meagre power reach out again and I could see it reaching for somewhere that I instinctively knew was too far off for what I currently had to work with. Rolling my metaphorical eyes, I forcibly returned myself to the moment to catch Stephanie giving me an odd look, seemingly poised to pounce from her seat and check me over.

I held up a hand in surrender, "Just a dizzy spell, I swear." I answered her unspoken question, and while it didn't seem to mollify her, she decided to accept it for the time being.

"Well then," she continued, passing over the conversation that could've arisen, "as I'm already here, I can check you over, do some quick testing to confirm you're stable, and determine if you're fit for release. So I can do that for you now, or you can wait until morning and the nurses come by, and for whichever doctor signs off on you leaving to do that."

"Now please." I answered, a little too fast to be inconspicuous, getting a raised brow for my troubles.

"That eager to get away from me, huh?" She said with a tone filled with light banter, forcing a snort from me.

"Nah, just that this is actually the first time I've ever slept a solid amount of hours in a hospital, and it was only because I was so destroyed that I managed it." I answered honestly, giving a smile that was shakier than I would've liked it to be, "Now that I'm awake again I'm getting the idea that I'm not going to get anymore sleep."

A wince of sympathy, "I've never been able to sleep all that well in the hospital either, even in the beds we crash in if shifts go long. It's always torture, especially when I'm the patient."

She started running through a battery of quick tests, putting on a finger sensor and a pressure cuff before running the machine, puffing the cuff to an almost a painful tightness and lessening it at a consistent interval until I could feel my heartbeat in my arm. It always made me shiver inside, no matter how many times they'd run the simple test on me.

"Alright, do you think we could do that standing too?" She asked politely and I just nodded, struggling to get myself in position to swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up. After a moment of pause, I forcibly push myself from the confines of the hospital bed and try to stand as best I can, though still wobbling enough that Stephanie placed a hand on the side of my arm to stabilize me.

"Okay, time to run this again, just try to stand still for me if you can?" She requested rhetorically, and I just closed my eyes and prepared for the dual unpleasantness of both standing still and the pressure cuff at once.

The pressure cuff test really only lasts for ten seconds, maybe fifteen or so, but time seemed to dilate cruelly at moments like these. Each second stretched out to an eternity of discomfort, which was only disturbed as the pressure cuff released some of its tightness and the rapidly thumping heartbeat became all too noticeable.

"Holy shit," Stephanie hissed under her breath as she places her hands on my sides and looked away from the monitor displaying the results of the test, screen facing away from me, "let's sit you back down for a second, shall we?"

"What's up?" I said wearily as I gratefully did as she asked, wilfully ignoring her hands on my sides, it was neither the time nor place to get caught tripping over myself thinking like a teenager.

"What's up is your heartrate." She said, humour covering the concern as she eyed the readout with precise eyes, "What's not is your blood pressure."

"Ah yeah," I said, moving my muscles a bit in a rhythmic pattern that I'd found helped fight away the faintness looming at the edges of my consciousness, "the specialist I went to years ago just called it a minor blood pressure disorder, he wanted to follow up with tests but…" I shrugged helplessly, the only way I could communicate how out of my hands it'd been by that point.

"Minor?" She said with faint incredulity, "If a patient of mine's blood pressure crashed like that and their heartrate went through the roof, I'd think they were bleeding internally."

I could only offer a tired smile and a shrug, provoking a glare and an aggravated sigh from the seemingly very accomplished doctor. Sure, she was absolutely older that I was by at least a handful of years, but in no world did she look it-One of those people that could probably pass as a teenager until they hit their fifties, I suspect-but to have a head doctor have a little meltdown over my test results was gratifying in a way. To have what I'm dealing with be seriously compared with bleeding out was almost amusing, watching the highly trained medical practitioner sweat over something I've just pushed through each and every time I've stood up for years.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, mister." She growled in a tone that made me clamp up more effectively than any threat ever could've, only to be paired with a set of scathing brown eyes. "I don't know why people haven't seriously brought this into question before, because when you stand up your readings are telling me that your heart is pumping as harder than I've seen from professional athletes performing at world class level."

"I couldn't chase another diagnosis." I said in the end, a resigned expression meeting Stephanie's exasperation.

"Alright, alright," she sighed defeatedly, "so that's normal?"

"A little worse than usual, but I am usually fucked after taking the bus and walking to the hospital." I shrugged.

"Walking?" She hissed incredulously, "No car, or no one to drive you? Not even a wheelchair?"

I just shook my head, and the woman actually whimpered pressing the balls of her palms against her eyes a little too hard to be comfortable.

"That's just pure insanity." She moaned out, almost melodramatic at this point, but didn't leave time for me to respond, "There's no way I'm letting you go anywhere if you're going to actually try to walk home at two in the morning, James Parker." She accused, pointing a slender finger at me with steel in her eyes.

Shit. Spending the hours and hours it'd take for morning to come, then waiting for the damn doctor to sign a piece of paper before going home would be torture.

"Damn, alright then," I said with a dry laugh, "I'll stick here for now, I guess. I don't really have anyone I can call at two in the morning to give me a ride."

Stephanie nodded succinctly before beginning to pack away the things she'd pulled out of drawers in the walls and set the place back to the orderly state it was in prior to her arrival. I watched as she did it, honestly too exhausted and brain-dead to even think of how intently I was watching her work and just how far below polite I was being because of it. Instead I ended up following her with my eyes the entire time, stuck in some sort of trance of concentrated stupid as I watched her hands organise the equipment a specific way, gliding across her form as she crouched to pack a larger box away. That trance ended only as her eyes met my own with a peaked eyebrow.

With the abrupt realisation that I'd been intently staring at, well, her everything in total silence for God knows how long, I could only screw my eyes shut hoping that some deity could smite me for crimes against intelligence before I had to acknowledge my transgressions in full.

"So," Stephanie's voice rang out, cutting through my desperate plea for particularly violent divine intervention, "I was wondering if you'd rather be driven home than wait?"

Hesitantly I opened my eyes to realise that Stephanie was pointedly ignoring the awkwardness, so I grabbed that rope with both hands and desperately tried to push the practically radiant flush I could feel burning across my face.

"Well, I mean," I stumbled for a second, not missing the subtle flash of amusement in her face, "Uh, yeah, I would. Just the only person I could get to help me out would literally be an old lady who I'd just be mooching the price of a taxi from. I'm not waking her up for that."

Stephanie's expression softened a bit, laughing lightly and shaking her head, "James, I'm asking if you'd like a lift home."

My brain bluescreened and reset so quickly that I actually jolted, "That, uh, doesn't really sound like something doctors do?" I said cautiously and with no little amount of bewilderment.

"Well I can't say I've ever seen anyone else do it before, no." She agreed with wry amusement, "But what the hell, y'know? Besides, it's not like the board could be bothered to take issue with it. Where the hell else are they going to find another Head of ICU in Brockton? They'd have to import from Boston and paying someone to come to Brockton is nigh on impossible."

The mental image of the hospital desperately begging some doctor in Boston to come to Brockton for what was probably less money was ridiculous enough that I barely even noticed myself laughing before Stephanie began laughing herself while trying and failing to tell me to be quieter.

Between the attempts at stifling the noise and the feedback loop of contagious laughter, one of us breaking just as we both got under control, it was nearly five full minutes later when we managed to wrestle control of our diaphragms back without bursting back into laughter like sleep deprived idiots.

Nothing smart ever happens after two in the morning, truly.

"I mean, alright?" I said eventually, "If you're offering and it won't take you too far out of your way or anything."

"Good!" Stephanie said quickly, locking in my own answer without giving me more conversation time to walk it back on principle, "I'll go get your forms filled, then you'll be good to go."

She started to stride out of the room with a quick step, but I stopped her with a last question,

"Uh, what about payment and all that?" I grimaced. It made me feel like the kid in class that reminded the teacher about homework, but it was better to rip the band aid off.

"Panacea has a certain amount of personal patients she can allocate per month as her payment for work," Stephanie replied, slight distaste in her tone, "they aren't charged as an act of charity from the hospital on her behalf."

I swallowed, meeting Stephanie's gaze, "Oh, alright. I'll, uh, have to say thank you at some point."

She smirked, sadistic glee twinkling in her eyes, "Oh she'd hate that. Make sure I'm there, please and thank you?" She walked away with a slightly menacing giggle, leaving me alone in my room again, waiting patiently for her to collect me like a child in kindergarten.

I grimaced at the pulling feeling once again, just giving into it this time and waiting for it to do its thing, the power extending and-

I actually giggled as I caught a flash of the massive star it was trying to head towards, not even letting the process finish before I forced myself back to the dimly lit room, smirking at how ambitious my power seemed to be-going for the biggest stars it could with reckless abandon.

I tried to keep myself calm in the time I waited, but there was a pure discomfort in waiting for a doctor or nurse to return with your ticket out of the hospital. No matter how many times I'd been there, the discomfort only ever seemed to compile with each time I'd gone.

After almost twenty minutes, which had stretched into a lifetime somehow, the door opened to reveal Stephanie's form, behind her in the hallway was a nurse, walking away and only briefly glancing back with a befuddled expression.

"Time to bust you out, big guy." She said with a grin, pushing forwards what I only now noticed was a wheelchair in front of her.

I huffed, rolling my eyes with the cheesy joke, and forcing myself off the bed to flop into the stiff seat of the wheelchair as gently as I could manage. I wasn't exactly a heavy man, not anymore anyways. I knew-well, knew of-five-foot-tall women who easily weighed more than me, which tended to absolutely blow my mind.

Regardless of my drop in weight, my height, standing at exactly-and I mean exactly-six foot four inches meant that I looked a little ridiculous in the wheelchair, which'd been clearly sized for people that didn't stand nearing to two standard deviations above the average guy. Not that I was really all that tall in comparison to the monsters out there, but I very nearly made this thing look like a fisher-price car with how my knees were high enough that it actually helped my blood flow rather than hurt it. Small mercies.

Moments later we were in an elevator alone, just relaxing in silence on the journey, travelling down into the employee carpark below and then being pushed a conveniently short distance to her own labelled and named parking space-perks of being a head of department.

"Okay!" She chirped with an energy that managed to physically drain me just hearing it, "I'll have to put you in the car and then head back to put away this wheelchair. Should only take a minute."

My answer was lost when there was a jingle of keys and the car's lights flashed bright enough to recognise the outline of a very expensive car. She opened the door, a light warming to where I could see the lavish leather interior and had to stop myself gawking at it. Wordlessly, she helped me into the passenger side seat with a seriously impressive lift and gave me a grin.

"You want me to turn on the heat for you?" She asked, then consulted my dumbfounded and confused expression-a good part of which being that I was delving deep into the level of exhaustion and pain where I was no longer capable of making my own choices-and quickly concluding on what I needed for me.

She went around the other side of the car after closing my side's door, opened the driver's side and stuck the key into the ignition and let the car rumble to life, twisting a dial quickly and allowing a rapidly warming breeze rush through the vents.

"See you in a second!" She said, then closing the door behind herself and leaving me inside of a luxury car that must've been worth upwards of a hundred thousand dollars, on my own, with the keys in the ignition!

All of a sudden, I was absolutely mortally terrified. I was in a car worth more than I could even begin to comprehend, the interior of which was absolutely coated in leather upholstery that looked ridiculously expensive. Before I knew it, I was siting painfully straight and shifted forwards so as to not touch the comfortable leather back of the chair, mortified that I might get the admittedly lovely and warm car even the slightest bit dirty.

I couldn't pay for a single panel of the leather that made up this chair, let alone anything else. Somewhere deep in my irrational mind, I knew that I was being ridiculous, that I couldn't fuck up a seat by sitting in it, but the fact she'd left the keys in the car with a total fucking stranger made me feel like there was an officer of some sort watching me with a pair of binoculars behind the tinted glass of one of the cars around us.

Abruptly the driver's side door opened, light filing the cab as Stephanie hauled herself into the car gracelessly and closed the door to leave us alone in the car together.

"God that was a long day." she groaned into her hands while scrubbing at her face. Notably, Stephanie was now out of her scrubs, assumably inside the backpack she carelessly threw into the backseat and scrubbing her fingers through her blonde hair, now out of its professional bun.

I was going to blame the way my stomach dropped as she all but moaned with the release of tension on her scalp along with the absolutely heavenly feeling of a scalp massage, a phenomenon I was more than familiar with since I'd once had hair almost twice as long as Stephanie's, which fell to the shoulders of her cute and very comfortable looking jumper-not to mention that my hair was very obviously thicker than her own, almost dense enough to give curls a run for their money.

After a while of forcing my eyes to stare with extreme intensity at a glovebox, I caught the flicker of an amused gaze out of the corner of my eye, then turning fully to see Stephanie looking like she was about to burst out laughing.

"Why-" she began, but broke with a bark of laughter before giving it another go, "Why the hell are you sitting like that?"

I swallowed heavily, vainly attempting to hold the flush of embarrassment and sheer discomfort off my face, "Uh, I… don't want to break anything?"

She stared at me dumbly, "It's a car."

"An expensive one." I returned.

Stephanie rolled her eyes and moved to click in her seatbelt before starting the car in truth, "You better sit back into your seat, put on your seatbelt, and lean it back at least a little or you're going to make yourself pass out, and if that happens, I'll put you back in the hospital." She threatened without heat.

I did as she asked, easing a little bit as though you'd been absolved of the consequences of any immediate damage you could cause by doing the specific mentioned actions. After leaning back the seat to where I was nearly laying down, I finally realised how much pain I was in like a hammer to the face.

I let out an audible groan while Stephanie began to ease the car out of the parking space, making her almost slam to a stop, pulling up the handbrake before looking at me with the piercing concern I'd seen in her expression when I'd woken from my 'seizure'.

"I'm fine, I swear." I said with gritted teeth that hurt from the sheer force of biting back the pain, "Relaxing after a tense situation really hurts my stomach."

She looked hesitant, but her expression softened as let down the handbrake and began reversing out again.

"Was being left alone in my car really that tense?" She asked, a mix of amusement and poorly hidden guilt making me snort, even through the pain.

"You left me in your luxury car with the keys still inside, Doc." I said gently, trying my best to not sound like I was chiding her, "This car is, like, worth life changing money even just selling it to be chopped up for whoever wants the nice bits. Not to mention whatever else is in here too." I saw her gaze flick towards the glovebox, realising that she probably had something valuable or dangerous in there before I tried to thoroughly repress the memory into the ground.

"Oh come on, Parker!" She said, calling me by my last name in a way I hadn't since elementary school when I'd ended up with three other boys named James in one class, "I'm wealthy, not stupid. You couldn't've gotten out with the car anyway since there is an employee key to tag in and out."

She gave me a silly look, something like smug pride mixed with a competitive streak. I rolled my eyes at her, working against the pain to do so, and only a few moments later we were pulled up next to an interface with a scanner just below it, encased in a black metal shroud. I watched as Stephanie reached for her shirt pocket, frowned, her pants pockets, back pockets, and then within a moment of silence I watched her reach up and flip out the also leather upholstered sun visor and have a plastic card attached to a lanyard fall into her lap.

I looked from it, then up to her face which remained stonily still as she grabbed the plastic card from her lap, wait for the window to automatically wind down, reach out of the car window, eliciting a shrill noise from the machine, and then watch the large metal grid gate flip up and out of the way.

Stephanie wound up her window and drove out of the carpark and onto the side road it led onto in complete silence while I stared directly at her with complete incredulity. Even in the darkness permeating the cab I could see the embarrassed flush cover her neck, across her cheeks and leaving her ears burning in a way that looked absolutely stunning, but also…

"Huh." I said flatly, staring right at her with zero inflection.

I broke first. Somehow, through the terrible pain in my gut, I managed to just about howl with laughter at the sheer absurdity of what I'd witnessed.

"Oh shut up!" Stephanie yelled with a sour look, "My dad used to do it with truck keys and-"

I was doubled over in both pain and total hysterics, my world going bleary with the tears in my eyes as I tightly clutched my stomach and involuntary laughter burst forth with total abandon to my physical state.

Through the bleariness I managed to see Stephanie's shoulders shaking before she pulled up at the side of the road and knocked her head against the steering wheel over and over while she began to laugh just as hard as I was.

I couldn't tell anyone how long we ended up spending there on the side of that street, but I remember seeing at least two cars passing from the hospital's carpark pass by in that time. We had quickly become a total mess of laughter, tears, desperately trying to breathe, and half-serious warnings about having to puke.

"Oh my fucking God." I said, laughter bubbling from my lips even as I said the words, "I am in so much fucking pain, I hate you so much."

We continued in another short burst of hysterics, and I finally managed to calm myself down enough to resist the contagious giggling still coming from Stephanie. I looked towards her, a risky move for the sake of my sanity, and found her even more red than before positively glowing with embarrassment.

"I was trying so hard to-" she interrupted herself with a giggle, wiping futilely at the tears still running down her cheeks, "Trying so hard to look cool!" And then burst into yet another round of laughter, which your body forced you to join despite sounding like a strangled cat.

"Oh please stop, no more." I pleaded with her, more than just a little desperate, only making her laugh harder and clinging to my own self-control when suddenly-

I was inside my mind, free of the psychological torture of Stephanie's giggling. Huh, well that's a handy side effect of my power. It came close to getting a star this time, but it was surprisingly more useful as a reprieve from the pain and the hysterics.

Thanks power, you're pretty neat.

Returning back to the real world, I could hear Stephanie's giggles finally coming to their end, still trying to catch her breath from the protracted laughing session.

"Damn, is this what working at a hospital does to you?" I asked, able to restrict myself to just a half-formed shit eating grin.

She let out a small peal of giggles, "Yup! Honestly sometimes I leave totally delirious and don't even know how I got home. Thought it'd get better when I ended up as a department lead but nope, it got worse!"

"Christ," I said, leaning back into the seat and taking in long, even breaths to mitigate the pain, "you might wanna start moving before all the rest of your co-workers pass by the car and see the two of us laughing like idiots. Don't want people thinking you're tight with Merchants."

She gave me an affronted look, even as she shifted into gear and started to move out.

"Oh don't give me that." I said with an eyeroll, "Just this morning people weren't sitting next to me on the bus because I look like a skeleton with skin and was in pain, so I looked high or that I was withdrawing, or something. Imagine your boss rolling by your window watching you giggle uncontrollably with what looks like a gaunt homeless guy on the side of a street at half past two in the morning, Doc."

"Wha- really?" She said flabbergasted, "People think you're a Merchant? You're gaunt, sure, but you don't have the skin sores, or even remotely act or look the same as someone addicted to heroin or cocaine."

I just gave her an amused eyebrow raise and a smirk, "I'm wealthy, not stupid!" I said in a goofy voice, immediately making her flush, but before the laughing could begin once more, I continued, "You're thinking about it too much. You've probably seen, what, hundreds of addicts dying from their poison of choice?"

"Thousands, more like." She said in rueful agreement.

"You could probably sniff an addict apart from just about anyone, at this point. Everyone else though, they just see what they see and label it the best they can. So, they see a skin and bones white guy, slouching in his seat, shitty jeans and hoodie, looking like death, and think of an addict." I shrug, leaving us in silence again as we pulled towards one of the main roads that criss-crossed Brockton.

"Alright, which way?" She said as she was confronted with the choice, and I pointed towards the hill I'd walked up and down the morning before. She moved onto it quickly as the lights changed, then gave me an incredulous look once we were just driving straight again, "Are you fucking with me right now? There's no bus that goes over this hill."

"I walk it, yeah." I said, grinning at her expression caught between stupefaction and intent to murder, "It's pretty rough."

"'Pretty rough', he says," she mocked in a similar goofy voice, before settling back into silence.

It gave me time enough to wonder just why she was doing this for me. Sure, I think we had a half decent interaction, but that was kinda like having a good thee exchanges with your waiter or barista. It was mostly professionalism, mixed with partly good humour and actual genuine conversation, but still cultivated professionalism above all.

But she'd just offered me a ride with seemingly no qualms, not even really considering that I'd try and steal her shit and run with it, even if she'd tried to justify it later. I couldn't tell if she was just a bleeding heart, too giving, too trustful for her own good, or if she had just genuinely done it on a flight of fancy, total spontaneity.

The car trip was done in silence, both of us tired with the events of our days, and also the insane bout of laughter. I directed her as best I could, sometimes having to sit up to orient myself, but as we continued to venture forth into the parts of town that she'd probably visited or been near, but clearly never lived in, I started to feel a discomfort deep in my chest that only grew as we got closer to where I lived.

Or where I was living for the next few days, anyway. After that I was gone.

Slowly we made it to the road the apartment building was on then, as we drew closer, I heard Stephanie click her tongue sharply.

"James, you better not tell me you live at the top of that apartment building." She said, prompting me to sit my seat up and look at the very grey concrete box of a building I called home, or at least the apartment at the top of it.

Apparently, I took too long in considering what I should even respond with, as Stephanie turned on me with glaring eyes, "James, what the fuck!"

"Hey, it's fine!" I defended, hands up like she was pointing a gun at me, "I can make it up there just fine, I've done it every Saturday for months, I think I'll be alright."

Her glower didn't lessen at all as she pulled up outside of the building, making me realise just how much her car stood out in comparison to the rest of the environment. This area wasn't any specific gang's territory, but the Merchants like to claim it as theirs every now and then until Lung growls a bit and sends them running with new brown underwear.

"What, do you get up there by crawling?" She probed, poking my sternum and making me rub at it in reaction.

"I mean… sometimes?"

Yeah, that was real convincing, James. Good one, James. You're a fucking moron, James.

"I'm helping you up there." She said adamantly, unbuckling herself in a moment.

"Wait, what?" I countered just as fast, "I can get up there fine, there's no issues."

"I've seen your heart rate when you stand up, I don't need a heartrate monitor to interpret what it'd be like going up that many flights of stairs, James." She said lightly, distracted by pulling her hair up into a ponytail before turning and giving me a sharp look and a grin, "Wealthy, not stupid, remember?"

I snorted and made to continue the argument, but I looked at her face and saw one of utter seriousness and sincerity, making my arguments sputter and subsequently die.

"Please, James. Just let me do this for you, okay? It's the least I could do, after… everything that's happened to you today." She finished out, puppy dog eyes not hiding the pause before she'd finished the sentence.

Regardless of anything I'd tell someone, I've always been an overthinker. Most of the time, it caused more emotional pain than it was worth. But sometimes, very rarely, it paid dividends.

Looking deeply into Stephanie's eyes, I tried to understand just why the hell an actual doctor, the Head of ICU no less, would go so far out of her way to help me. It was unmistakeable, you could see it clearly in her expression, genuine worry. But she had so many patients, she was an intensive care specialist, I'd seen the documentaries on what their average patient looked like, and their outcome.

So it was something else, then. It wasn't because I was sick, because as fucked as I was, a doctor wouldn't randomly become any more worried about me than any other patient they had. We had only talked for a few sentences prior to her showing up in my room at two in the morning, fussing over me, and then offering to drive me home with no prompting.

She was a good person, I was sure of that much, but that wasn't being a good person, who was going out of their way to the extreme to cater to one specific person. What would make her feel like she had to help me-

Guilt. The same guilt I'd seen in Panacea's eyes when I'd woken up on the ground.

It wasn't the guilt I'd seen before that, the guilt they felt at even offering me the chance when it'd failed to pan out. But they both had probably tried and failed with so many other patients as well, why would that make me uniquely stand out in their guilt?

And I came to the realisation that there was only one answer.

She knew.

I gave her a weak, tired, broken smile, "Okay. Just, please don't park on the street. Go around the side of the building, there's a carpark that's mine but I don't use. Merchant's will jack your car to take to their tinker around here."

She breathed a sigh of relief, apparently glad I'd agreed to be helped, and followed my directions around the back and into the unused carpark at the end of the row. Moments later we were out and walking towards the front door, Stephanie's hand placed on my arm in a way that I knew was for stabilisation but made me feel so uncomfortably conflicted.

Not necessarily because she was an attractive woman a few years my senior, incredibly qualified, smart, funny, obviously good hearted, and all of the other qualities you could list. No, instead it was for a drastically more embarrassing reason. It was because she's the only person remotely close to my own age in I've-forgotten-how-many years to make willing physical contact with me at all.

As we moved into the stairwell I noticed her slightly daunted look at them, but we took a breath in and began the climb all the same. I distracted myself from the pain and the exhaustion with my thoughts, which was only really opting in for subjectively different torture rather than any actual escapism.

Stephanie had well and truly lodged herself under my arm, essentially doing more than half the work by this point. It became abundantly obvious that she was even stronger than I'd thought she was. I stopped my exhausted mind from doing something as stupid as trying to check out her legs to see if I could see the muscle. Totally academic the interest may be, but there was no way it would be seen as anything other than trying to perv on the ass of the girl who is basically carrying me up the stairs.

"One sec." I breathed, stopping my movements as I felt the pull on my mind, bringing me back to that familiar array of stars. Again my power was too greedy and came back with nothing.

"You alright?" Stephanie wheezed, trying to regain her own breath as well.

"Yeah, dizzy spell." I said, and subtly moved to continue our trek upwards.

I couldn't even remember how far we'd ended up walking by this point, if I were being perfectly honest, and I kept forgetting to check the doors we passed for their number. I felt like I was eternally stuck ascending that set of stairs, finding a rhythm with which to best bear the pain. Eventually, however, we came to the end of a set of stairs and there was no new set to turn and walk up.

I almost made us trip when trying to turn around the non-existent corner, making Stephanie yelp with fright as she was pushed up against the cold metal handrail, the only thing between her and a drop all the way down to the ground floor.

"Sorry, sorry." I fumbled out, pulling her back as best I could, moving towards the door and rummaging in my pocket to grab my keys and unlock and move into my home.

As we moved a few steps in, I realised something terrible.

There was someone else in my apartment.

No, not some masked intruder, but Stephanie was in my apartment.

I could feel her stop beneath my arm, then her muscles stiffen slightly, and with that a hot poker went through my heart.

"Let's get you into your bed, shall we?" She whispered, forcefully breaking the silence to mask her own discovery of my uncomfortable reality.

I was only able to grunt in response, stumbling toward the door leading to my room, the only obvious choice since the door to the bathroom was open. She struggled to get me the last couple of steps, my body prematurely giving out on me as the exhaustion and pain hit me all at once and being even remotely upright became a form of terrible torture. In the end I made it only my bed by being hauled onto it one limb at a time, then rolled over onto my front.

I realised that the only thing keeping me from passing out from the sheer exertion of energy was the life magic that thrummed through my body, doing its best to piece back together what seemed more and more like a ship full of rotting wood.

My mouth was dry, my tongue and lips sticking to each other and becoming scaly, something that Stephanie somehow noticed.

"Do you want a cup of water?" She asked, her own breaths still coming heavy but already recovering somewhat from the struggle up the stairs.

"No." I rasped out, then trying to clear out my throat and somehow made it worse, "The water has stuff in it. It's brown sometimes."

Even in the dark of my room I could see the warped expression of revulsion at that, and I just felt shame.

"How do you get water up here then?" She asked, politely schooling her features as she turned on the bedside lamp, the bulb having slowly dimmed over time.

"Water bottles, usually. Been a while though." I said with a shrug. I sometimes got desperate enough to drink from the taps, but Joy usually gave me water bottles when I needed them, I'd just run out early this time.

She didn't make any particular expression at that, but I could see the muscle in her cheek clench as she shrugged off her backpack- Hold on, why did she bring her backpack? All questions were lost when she pulled out a large metal water bottle, clearly still full enough of water that it made my flimsy side table wobble strangely as the bottle settled on its surface.

She zipped up her bag and put it on the floor, then unscrewing the water bottle's top and helping me drink from it. I drank greedily, having not managed to have a go at the free water the emergency room always offered, a bit of a life saver in the rough patches. After a few large swallows, I'd had enough and did my best to motion for her to put it away, even if said motion was aborted halfway.

"Thanks." I said softly, and despite that it may as well have been a yell for how dead silent the room was.

"No, it's okay, James." She said, but I gave her I chiding look, asking her not to treat me like I was a child, and she could only look away, "Really."

It was exceptionally unconvincing.

The silence dragged on, Stephanie only moving to sit on the side of the cramped bed where my feet hung from the end if I stretched out. There was no darkness in the room anymore to hide her expressions of mild horror, guilt, and conflict. Shame only further welled in me. It was one thing to know your living status to be poor, or even horrible, but to see someone else witness it and come away looking like they'd seen a crime scene just felt awful.

But either way, I was the one to crack the silence.

"So how'd you figure it out?" I asked gently, but it made her flinch like I'd slapped her, nonetheless.

"What do you mean?" She asked futilely, but she'd always made eye contact in conversation before, and she wasn't now.

"You're not looking at me." I said, making her flick her eyes towards mine, and I could only wonder what she saw in them that made her form almost crumple like a paper bag. Like she'd just had her spine ripped out of her back.

"When she said you'd had a 'big day'." She whispered, her tone wet.

"A codeword?" I guessed, but Stephanie snorted then wiped at her nose with a piece of tissue from her pocket.

"No, not unless you count it as a codeword for 'fuck off, I'm dealing with it'. She almost never does that, and she told me about parahumans one day ages ago, just in conversation. I figured it out after a while."

"So she didn't tell you anything?" I said, not really expecting an answer in the positive, but prepared for it.

"Hah!" She laughed humourlessly, "God you'd have more chance of getting a confession from the damn bed you were sleeping on than her. You said it yourself, her real power is stubbornness, and she absolutely needs to learn to tone it down."

I let out a weak huff, a pale imitation of the roaring laughter we'd shared only so long ago.

"I'm sorry." She said, but the wetness in her tone and the tortured emotion made your spine tingle with the discomfort of being that close to such raw emotion, setting me on edge.

"Why?" I asked, neutrally, toneless even.

"We were your trigger, weren't we?" She sobbed, but she already knew that she was right. I didn't know exactly what a trigger was, but I didn't need to be Einstein to guess.

"I got my powers after I left, yes." I said softly, and even though she'd expected it, she sobbed with a sudden violence that made me feel like I'd just stabbed her.

"Then why are you so-!" She gestured at me with an emotion stuck between frantic anxiety and distraught anger, "okay with me, with her, with us?"

I tired to parse what the garbled sentence was supposed to mean, but looking into her wide brown eyes and seeing a sea of guilt and pain at doing something terrible to someone when you didn't mean to, didn't want to-I decided to answer as best as I could to the question I thought was being asked.

"Truthfully, I'm not." I said slowly, deliberately, and the visceral pain that marred her features for a moment only halted as I continued, "Did you know that Panacea gave me her personal number? On a card with the number to a mystery Protectorate contact I'm meant to talk to tomorrow after she's had a chance to talk to them first. I had no idea why she was offering me so much help when I was just another parahuman, but now I guess I know."

I could get it, I guess. If a normal trigger event was as terrible as mine was emotionally or, God forbid, worse? Then what would it be like to know you were the cause of it? I'm not sure, now that I've experienced it, that I'd ever forgive myself for doing that to someone.

"I have her number in my phone now, and the first thing I thought when I realised, I could actually call it, was how extremely uncomfortable it made me. I spent months and months waiting in that emergency room on a Saturday, hoping beyond hope that my name would be called. It was the only chance I didn't give up on, that I would've given myself just one more shot at if it meant I didn't make it home that night." I said softly, my eyes moving up to meet hers.

Her eyes were disturbingly wide, her mouth opened in the small display of pure, uncontrolled shock that was unmistakeably genuine.

"You were…" She trailed off unable to find the words, and I looked away from her eyes, shame bubbling up inside me at the admission, at the reasoning behind it all.

"There's no food. You can go check, there's nothing left in the cupboards or the pantry. Nothing except for a box of cereal that I ran out of this morning." I struggled to swallow down the sob that wanted to tear itself from me, shame building like burning bile in my throat.

"I don't have money, and I can't make more. Most of it went into a degree that I completed three quarters of and was then failed an entire semester worth of subjects. Money I couldn't lose. I've applied for a disability support pension since I my parents were killed, but I was rejected every time." I laughed cruelly to hide the desperate urge to vomit, the shame burning so hot that I began to rub at my chest to attempt at soothing it.

"My health got worse, one outing meant four in bed. There was no work I could do, I can't stand up. There were no treatments. There was no support. I couldn't pay rent. The old lady on the first floor does the books for the landlord and started faking that I'd paid. I thought I'd find a way to pay it in the next month, to find some reprieve, but it's been nineteen and I can't pay anything.

"So now this place is only my home for little more than a week. What happens when I have no home too?" I said finally, staring at her with dead eyes, the searing pain in my chest becoming so severe that I couldn't bear it, and let out a pained sob.

"It wasn't your fault," I struggled out between sobs, "I was already going to die."

I felt arms wrap around me, the pain in my chest becoming unbearable with the pressure, ruthlessly forcing it out of me in an explosion of raw emotion as I, for the first time in four years, mourned the death of the life I'd once had.

Perks Gained this Chapter =

Fantasian (Sorcerer's Apprentice) (300CP)

Unlike a certain mouse, you maintain impeccable control over any animated objects you create. While it's not like they're truly incapable of overdoing tasks you set, they'll definitely check in with you before doing anything drastic. Constructs with animal intelligence will also quickly and correctly interpret any hand signals you attempt to send, no matter how clumsy. This has some reverse application to non magical applications, like machinery.

A/N: Yup, that's actually it for almost 16k words haha. I'm cursed with rolling perks at 400CP, it's stupid. Anyway, sorry for yet another heavy chapter, I hope it felt fairly natural and the explanation felt somewhat reasonable! I actually intended to get in the first part of 'tomorrow' in there too, but this chapter was already running thousands of words over what I'd projected, so I cut it where it felt good. With this being a transitionary chapter, the next will get into some of the meatiness of James' struggles with the more parahuman shaped problems in his life. (Sorry if my word choices are a bit all over the place this chapter, I was so tired I started second guessing the tenses I was using and got myself very confused. I might have to go re-edit it later to check I've not gone totally bonkers.)

Hope we'll start rolling something less expensive soon, James needs to be able to craft something! Anything?… please?

Last edited: Jul 11, 2022

3: Moving Quickly

3: Moving Quickly

The horrible, chainsaw-like sound, alongside spine tinglingly bad beeps, tore me from my troubled sleep. Without a moment's pause I rolled out of my bed, clumsily stumbling over to slam my palm down onto the plastic button of the demonic thing, then yanked its cord from the wall maliciously, as though the clock had any preference to being on or off.

Didn't matter, I hated it right now. I could anthropomorphise a shitty alarm clock if it made me feel better about ending its pathetic, digital life.

"Oooh shit," I groaned as the world quickly dissolved into static, dropping to my hands and knees to stop myself from passing out, "stood up too damn fast."

Just as the split second of darkness took my vision entirely, I was pulled into my mind by my power on a moment's notice, distancing myself from the unpleasant recovery from the bout of faintness. Like hell I was going to complain about that.

My power reached out towards the constellations, a scene I'd witnessed enough times for it to have lost a little of its lustre, but this time the connection was almost instant. Instead of the far off, massive stars littering the swirling mess of constellations, it seems my power had reached for a smaller meal this time.

My excitement rose as the star poured its essence into my head and… hmm.

That's odd. There's something there, just not readily apparent.

I left the recesses of my mind and regathered myself from the floor. After my power connecting with something, I felt awake enough that going back to bed would be ill advised. Even though exhaustion practically poured off of me, I worked past it. I was already burnt from the… experience I'd had yesterday and pushing past the exhaustion would only send me further down, but I didn't have much of a choice for now. More immediate concerns.

I scoured my mind, trying to find an easy answer for what'd just been put in my head. My guess for the moment was that the star hadn't been as knowledge focused as some of the others I'd gotten my hands on so far. It was on the tip of my tongue, I knew it, but I just couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

Scrubbing at my face, wincing at pressing too hard against the cheekbones of my too-gaunt features, I stumbled out into my living room and kitchen to find a baffling sight.

The couch had a set of sheets and a pillow I hadn't used for years folded and placed neatly on one side of it, having been used as an impromptu bed, and the kitchen countertop had food on it.

Like, a few small grocery bags full of food. Nothing special, really-some bread, milk, cereal, a few different types of sandwich spread, coffee, a big-ass thing of water, some assorted treats I hadn't had the money to splurge on for years…

And a note:

Hey James,

You passed out there after a bit, thought I'd leave you to rest. I was a bit too tired to make the trek home, so I crashed on your couch for a few hours before heading out and grabbing you some essentials after I realised you barely had any soap left in the shower. I hope you don't mind me staying or using your bathroom, I made sure to pack everything up and wipe things down!

Other than that, I wanted to say thank you for your company last night, it made me realise how little I talk with people outside of work anymore. It was fun, in a way. Maybe we could do it again sometime, preferably when we're not both mad as hatters?

-Steph

What followed was a scrawled string of numbers, clearly a phone number, that I stared at for a moment before rubbing my brow with a sigh, trying to ignore the flush creeping up the back of my neck.

Holy shit this was so fucking embarrassing.

If I were to be perfectly honest, my recollection of events of the past day was academic at best. Most of my memories were shrouded in a haze of exhaustion, conflicted emotions; both elated and depressed, and sheer confusion. Exhaustion has a way of just making you feel terrible about anything and everything. Dark thoughts start to persistently come to you even as you forcibly push them away, regardless of how little an effect they usually might have on you.

I clicked my tongue, placing the note back on the bench for the moment, and returning to the food I'd been gifted, kicking my mind into gear to start preparing a meal.

I'd, frankly, made a mopey ass of myself yesterday. I had been walking a tightrope of emotions between bursting out laughing and breaking down into sobs the whole day. I didn't really like having those sorts of days, even if I had good reasons for it. I liked to keep my mind somewhat orderly-and liked to at least think I had a good handle on my own emotions.

But every now and then, it pays off to have a day like that. I still didn't feel great-felt awful really-but emotionally I'd come to find myself in a neutral space. Whether that was because I'd processed those emotions, or because I'd just released the pressure in the valves to non-critical levels, I couldn't tell. I felt better, more stable, so I'd take it as a win.

The sandwich came together quickly, not in good enough health to stand around cooking eggs-of which there was a half-carton. Eggs were really the only thing I could cook at all, what I'd once wanted to use as the starting line for learning more meals, but out of practicality I'd chosen conserving my health and energy over cooked meals.

Sitting on my kitchen stool, I dug around in the plastic bags, bringing each item out and placing them in a meticulously organised fashion, reading each for their ingredients and any other nutritional information I could glean from them. There were quite a few that were contained in vessels that could be useful for storage and preservation of varying elements-reuse of available materials and tools was a greatly efficient practice.

One item that Steph had bought me was coffee, as well as a handful of different sodas that I'd absolutely savour the treat of. Coffee wasn't really my thing. It smelled wonderful if I was in the right mood, but the taste had always been a mixed bag or just straight unpleasant, though I hadn't exactly thoroughly tested for the tastes of different coffees and preparations methods.

Now that I think about it, much of the bitterness of the coffee itself could be alleviated by adding sugar to counteract it, but I wasn't really a fan of adding too much sugar if I didn't need it. Lessening the amount of coffee grounds used is a possible solution, diluting it with more milk or adding other resources such as honeys or possibly even the juices of a citrus fruit. A coffee still didn't sound entirely pleasant, however, and I think I could probably put better use to the honey in a handy mixture that would likely alleviate some of the brain fog that I struggle with-I wouldn't even need the specialised tools, decanters, and other precision laboratory equipment. It's perfectly doable with just a stovetop and a metal saucepan, even if the effectiveness might take a bit of a hit.

Now where would I get my hands on some of the dried herbs I'd need…

I stopped myself dead still, arm stuck deep inside a cupboard I haven't pulled anything from in months, hand grasping the handle of a cheap saucepan I only used a few times maximum.

What the fuck?

I sighed, pulling the saucepan free and placing it on the stovetop, then returning to my seat, grumpily stuffing an edge of my chocolate spread sandwich into my mouth and started chewing.

Well, I guess I figured out what my new star contained. It was like pulling a thread in a blanket, watching as it all started to unravel from there. I was right, in some senses, when I'd thought the new star to not have as much knowledge as some of the others. I didn't have a textbook of recipes and theory stuffed into my noggin', but I did have an eye for things now.

Just looking at how I'd set my grocery items on the table, I could see the reasoning behind their placement. Some were placed near each other due to common overlap in the sort of potions, remedies, poisons, tinctures, and various other mixtures they were used in. There was an innate sense of it, along with a looser understanding, backed up by what could only be described as a knack for trial and error.

It felt like I was a backyard scientist, learning just enough to get at what I'm interested in doing, and expanding my understanding by either brute-forcing the issue, or developing unique solutions to overlooked problems. Like, for example, the lack of access to scientific-grade hardware for precision use in neoalchemical processes.

Thing is, though? I was a really good backyard scientist. Maybe not intelligent, but inventive instead. Much of what I can put my understanding to is littered with substitutions, not having access to the components that'd be ideal for any given bit of alchemy. For example, the use of a Blue-eyed Owl's gizzard would be appropriate for brewing a 'Sleepless potion' with almost no nasty side effects, but just a regular old owl gizzard would absolutely do if the quantity of herbs were increased to compensate.

You would probably end up with a terrible headache for a few hours afterwards, and if used long-term, you're likely to end up with blinding migraines and a craving addiction to the stuff that'll demand the use of more until your sleep is entirely eliminated and you eventually die from a heart attack.

Pleasant stuff.

Also, the star made me think in a British accent when thinking about neoalchemy. Weird.

Anyway, looks like I can make potions fairly easily, but with a more rational part of my brain I stopped myself from immediately trying to throw together various potions in the kitchen of that apartment that wouldn't be mine for much longer. Some of them would absolutely explode and release deadly toxic by-products if I did things correctly, and without good equipment, substituting would make things potentially dangerous to consume regardless.

A mental image of intermittent and multicoloured vomiting entered my mind, and I noted to myself that making a potion to ease starvation without extremely clean tools was a bad idea.

I chomped down on the last bit of my sandwich, swallowing it somewhat mechanically, but grateful that my stomach was playing nice with me today and not twisting itself into knots. I took a moment of pause, alongside drinking some still cold milk as a treat, ignoring the potential riskiness milk seemed to pose ever since I got sicker, and rested my mind before I set out on my plan for the day.

First on the menu was some minor testing with the life magic I got access to yesterday-mostly to burn some time since I wanted to make sure that Panacea had gotten her call out of the way first. Then… well, I'd bite the bullet of calling the contact she'd left me.

It was a nerve-wracking thought, making a move as big as that so soon after gaining my powers-something I'm pretty sure that most who got powers would sleep on for a while longer. But I didn't have the confidence in having time to sit on it and think through every possible scenario, especially when I was almost entirely certain that I'd end up making the same decision anyways.

For now, though, I'm just going to distract myself with what is my most practical power- well, that's not true anymore since I got the neoalchemy star, but it's the other immediately accessible ability I have. Also it happens to be the one I feel drawn to most, personally.

I moved over to the couch, taking a look at the clock on the wall that was always slow by a few hours, noting that I had a handful of hours before I'd endeavour to make the call, and closed my eyes to dig into the depths of the energy that had welled up in me.

Only to be interrupted by my power, of course.

I rolled my eyes in my head and moved the process along, waiting for any connection to happen; and apparently my power took offense to my indifference. It nabbed a large star, larger than the one I'd just gotten this morning, but not gigantic by any means, and poured it into my mind.

As soon as the connection completed, my eyes snapped open wide. Schematics for technology I couldn't even begin to fully comprehend started flying through my mind at lightning speed, each schematic only being a part of a greater machine. I could do nothing but ride it out, the hyper advanced tech intruding so heavily that it almost began to scare me.

Then, without a moment to breathe, the seemingly endless schematics stopped to instead be replaced with documentation and specifics of the software used to power it, including the systems used to digitally protect the equipment.

It felt like forever until the absolute flood of information stopped, leaving me with my heart racing at what I'd just been given by my power.

This wasn't like the collection of magical schematics I'd been granted, where they were all impressive but esoteric, offering very little in the way of revolutionary technology. Unlike those schematics also, it didn't come with exacting understanding of how to make everything, which meant I had to rely on my ability to interpret actual schematics and documentation.

But I could read the synopsis of it just fine.

A nanotechnology-based fabricator, capable of creating anything that you wanted. It made any technology I'd ever come into contact with or ever heard of outside-of maybe tinker tech-look like children toying with playdoh. It was sophisticated in ways that belonged entirely to the trashy science fiction novels I'd took a liking to at one point, appearing as little more than a hand-wavy way to explain a post-scarcity society. But actually real.

The sheer implications of technology like this made my head swim, not to mention that I had exhaustive documentation of functioning software used to control manufacturing of objects with nanotechnology.

I couldn't understand the schematics worth a damn and, if I were being totally honest, there were entire paragraphs that used almost exclusively ten plus character words that meant nothing to me. But I could easily recognise that the schematic for the 'internal nanotech storage container' was individually immensely valuable, along with the various other parts of the system. All of them acting as answers to questions only asked in highly technical scientific papers, or between a few college students with too much interest and not enough understanding.

Hell, the internal processing unit this thing ran on was probably the most powerful conventionally made computer chip on the planet.

I swallowed thickly. There went any theories of my power giving access to technology that was only so advanced.

For now, there were no actionable steps towards constructing the thing, but it wouldn't stay that way forever. I could maybe make the software, though I expect I might have to write the software from bare metal, and I only barely understood how to put the internals of a PC together properly-so I'll call that no-go too.

I ended up forcefully purging the endless thinking loop my mind would gladly get stuck in given the chance, going back to my idea of sensing the life magics instead.

Time to focus on what was most immediately useful.

I slowed my breathing, deepening each breath to affect a sense of calm, and truly began to focus on the energy that I knew was there and could vaguely sense in my surroundings.

The life magic inside of me became more and more clear, not in the visual sense, but through an altogether new sense I couldn't really describe. I brought myself as close to the magic inside me as I could and did what you might liken to dipping your hand in the surface of a calm lake and watching as it enveloped your fingers seamlessly.

It responded with almost a curiousness, a faint warmness surrounding my hand and easing the slight weakness of my muscles that severely sedentary life had caused. The lake of power was absolutely massive, enough that I wasn't sure it could ever truly run out as long as life existed in any real form on Earth, but that meant nothing to the fact that I was struggling to keep the concentration to focus it on my hand.

I held to it as best as I could, concentration making the time blur while I tried to manipulate the magic more efficiently. Eventually I broke away from the power as a spike of pain in my head reached a crescendo. I expected the pain to persist, punishing me for overstepping, but it almost immediately receded.

"A warning, huh?" I mused to myself.

That was good. It wouldn't just let me go so far as killing myself. For now, I'd consider it safe enough to train on my own without further additions to my understanding. Ideally, a star I nab in the future will come with the ability to spell cast to some capacity, and hopefully give me an in with learning to wield the life energy inside of me.

I brought my right hand up to my face, the one I'd been directing life magic towards, and gently flexed my fingers, kneading into the thin meat between my thumb and forefinger. I could immediately feel the results of the magic's work. It wasn't at all obvious, with there being no physical changes to the overly bony hand, but my movements felt smoother and came with no pain, didn't cramp anywhere near as quickly when sustaining a flexed muscle, and even looked slightly healthier in the parlour of my skin.

It was astounding, the effects being nothing short of what I'd consider possible via some parahuman regeneration ability. I'd gotten a tiny bit of experience with the magic and already felt more confident in using it at its very basics, but it also left my focus and energy drained like exercising a mental muscle. And that was while the life magic worked with me too.

I looked up at the clock-quickly adding the few hours I knew it was behind by-and realised that the little training session had already lasted hours. Enough for it to have hit midday and the arbitrarily set deadline I'd decided to enforce on myself.

I pulled myself from the couch and went to grab my flip phone from the bedside table in my room, as well as the card Panacea had given me, before returning to the couch, sitting upright as I stared down at the phone and the card intensely.

"Okay," I said to myself, reorganising my thoughts, "Panacea said to be respectful and just to say that she'd told me to call. Shit, should I be using my mobile for this?"

Where was the nearest payphone? Did I even have the coins laying around to pay? I tried to think on what my best move here was, but in the end it felt futile. I was about to personally call someone in the PRT or Protectorate to ask to be interviewed in person. There was no way I was walking anywhere far today, so the best I'd be able to do was a payphone that I think was a street over, and it'd be the least private conversation in the world.

Welp, I'm not keeping my identity all that secret from the PRT, there's no way I can realistically compete. I read the number on the card, cross-checking with the one on my phone a numeral at a time, confirmed that it was correct, took in a few deep breaths, and hit the green call button.

My mouth went catastrophically dry as soon as I saw the calling animation pop up, though I ignored it and pressed the flip phone to my ear and willed my hand to stop shaking.

One ring. Two rings. Three-

"Hello, how may I help you?" A woman's voice appeared in my ear, almost making me jump despite expecting it.

"Ah, yes," I stammered, trying to get my brain back on track, "I was given this number and told to call today or later by Panacea, I'm interested in possible employment and was wondering what the next steps are from here, ma'am."

I thought I caught the edge of a sigh away from the phone's microphone, but the woman's voice returned a moment later.

"Yes, while discussion over the phone would be expedient, you will have to conduct an interview in person for security and safety reasons-both for yourself and my colleagues and I." She said, her voice exacting and straightforward, a strong American accent with a hint of something else that I couldn't quite place, "This will first be a basic interview conducted by myself, then further with the lead of our team and the head of our branch if things go accordingly. After this you may return back to your home, or you may choose to continue with other mandatory requirements of your interview process. Do you require further clarification or have any general questions?"

Her tone was genial, if not particularly warm, but had a certain cadence or flow to it that felt awfully familiar, I just couldn't place it.

"I understand. Though, I was concerned with how I might go about seeking legal aid to assist me in negotiating any contracts?" I asked definitively, though trying not to be brusque about it. I wasn't going to outright say that I didn't trust a government contract to not fuck me over, but I wasn't going to needlessly open myself up to it either way. Besides, I had a feeling that I'd need to be careful with these sorts of contracts, lest I sign over my rights to the technology I produce and cause myself more problems.

"A fair question," the nameless Protectorate or PRT lady replied, and I could feel a small smile in her voice, maybe amusement, "there is a list of verified and trusted lawyers that will be made available to you for the contractual process. With the sensitive nature of the contract and the individuals it relates, it is necessary that only those lawyers be used, and thus their services will be subsidised in part by us. All you will be required to sign is a standard non-disclosure agreement that holds no other power over you, regardless of whether you are accepted or not."

It wasn't perfect and sounded potentially rife for abuse-especially as they were subsidising the lawyers, and the 'trusted' lawyers likely got consistent work through the PRT. But beggars couldn't be choosers, and there was merit to not simply allowing any old lawyer access to the identity of a potential new member of the Protectorate. I'd cry foul if something smelled seriously wrong about it, though.

I was suddenly pulled into my mind, and in a small panic I hurried along the process so I could get back to the very important conversation currently happening. Thankfully, it quickly failed, and I pushed back out of my mind to say my part.

"Alright, that's fine by me. Is there a date and time I should be putting down?" I asked, happy to move along to the final part of the conversation that could be held over the phone.

"We are capable of accommodating almost any time during working hours, however I will ask first whether you are willing to be brought to us immediately? It will reduce the likelihood of mishaps or interference and allows for us to begin work in securing your identity and persons. We've found through experience that expedience is crucial at this point of the process." She said sternly, the poor quality of the flip phone's speakers doing nothing to lessen the gravitas in her voice.

I quickly tried to think it through but found myself just floundering in my thoughts before deciding to forge ahead, "That's also fine for me. Should I prepare anything?" I asked.

"No preparation required beyond making yourself as presentable as possible; this is a job interview, of course." She responded with a dry tone that I suspected hid her humour, "If you would be willing to supply an address or a location you are comfortable being picked up from, we could get a vehicle on the way."

I threw caution to the wind, not seeing much of a reason in making myself walk any extra distance when I'm supposed to endure interviewing with the PRT and Protectorate. I quickly and clearly listed the address for the apartment building I lived in-which thankfully was only home for a few more days if this were to go pear-shaped.

"Thank you," she said professionally after confirming the address, "a driver will be sent to that address and arrive in thirty minutes. The vehicle will be a close mimicry of a taxicab with dark tinted windows. You will be shown identification by the driver before being given your privacy in the back seat. I suggest you read and look through the provided materials you will find in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you. I will greet you after you arrive here, so until then."

I gave my own short farewell and ended the call, taking a slightly shuddery breath, then stilled.

Fuck, I needed to take a shower. No time to lose, I got up and started preparing for a quick and painful shower.

Let's try to not end up late to the interview, shall we?

The trip down the stairs had been rough, my body absolutely enraged that I would dare make it go out more than once in a week, but I kept pushing past its protests. I had a little while till transport got here, and I'd made the trip down the stairs for more than just being responsibly early.

As I walked down the last few steps, I saw the door to Joy's room open, revealing the face of one very suspicious old woman staring at me with a scrutinising gaze.

"Another trip out, I see?" She asked, eyeing me carefully.

"Yup," I answered with a bit of humour, "though I really wish I wasn't."

"Going to see after that opportunity you were talking about, ey?" She questioned with a raised brow.

I gave her a nod, not wanting to encourage more conversation about the topic, at least not out in public. The smart old cookie caught on quickly, just offering me an exasperated smile, worn at the edges with worry.

"Are you sure you're okay? I heard someone going in and out of your apartment this morning, a lady I believe?" She grinned teasingly, but not enough to diminish the concern.

"I'm fine, I swear." I said, finding a surprising amount of strength in my voice with the statement, "She's someone I met at the hospital last night. She was kind enough to help me get home."

"Mhm," she hummed, disbelief coating her tone, "drives a nice car too, she does."

"Joyce, are you spying on my friend?" I asked with exaggerate shock.

"Absolutely, love." She grinned back, "It's all I've got left to do in my days. Do you see me doing much else other than speculate on the young'uns love lives?"

I snorted out a laugh, already formulating a follow up quip, but distracted by a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. A car that looked very nearly like a taxi was smoothly pulling up outside of the building, clearly visible through the front doors.

"That your ride, James?" Joy asked casually.

"Sure is, Joy. I should get a move on, don't be worrying about me too much, I'm taking care of myself!" I assured as I quickly walked to the door, leaving behind sound of Joy's dubious grumbling.

In moments I was out on the street, moving up to the dark tinted side-window and giving it a small knock with a knuckle. Immediately it wound down to reveal a man dressed in a slightly more casual version of 'I'm absolutely a cop' attire.

"Here to be picked up for your interview in twenty minutes, sir?" He asked, quietly and exactly.

"That's me." I affirmed with a nod, and with a smooth motion, the man flipped out a wallet containing a more discrete version of a PRT badge and a licence with his face on it. He put it away after confirming I'd seen it and offered the back seat of the taxi so we could get on our way.

The back seat was physically barred from the front, a thick plexiglass like material making the back seat somewhat dim, the light mostly coming from the heavily tinted windows. As I'd been instructed, I pulled the contents of the pocket on the back of the chair in front of me out onto my lap and examined the pieces.

There was a PRT and Protectorate recruitment guide styled as somewhat of a magazine, accompanied by a list of things printed on red card that would not be tolerated by those in the interview process; including trying to run off to meet Protectorate members or Wards, and finally a plastic sheath that held a generic black domino mask that I was instructed to put on before exiting the vehicle.

The list of 'Do Nots' was mostly useless, seeing as I wasn't all that keen to get myself mobbed by PRT troopers or any member of the Protectorate. I read it anyways, just in case, but the rules made me wonder just who it was that incited the creation of the sometimes quite specific rules, and if they were even still around after having challenged a Protectorate member to a duel.

The recruitment guide was more useful, though it paid a lot of lip service to the benefits of joining, what they could offer in terms of opportunity, the safety they provided, and so on. Though it did mention a probationary phase where you must stay in the place of your recruitment for a year, outside of extenuating circumstances, and there was a large emphasis on the ability to transfer to other PRT branches or to fulfil leadership positions after said probationary period.

It all sounded nice, but it didn't go into any real logistics of the work done, different capacities team members could fulfil, or anything more complicated than extremely simple overviews. Operational security at work. I could only assume that I'd learn more when they got me to sign that NDA.

By the time I'd finished doing my best to scour the recruitment guide, I could see the PRT building just down the street from where the car currently was, and we turned onto a side road between two other office buildings, navigating through to another sideroad that passed behind the row, and ended in a ramp going downwards to a metal door that was currently in the process of easing open.

I quickly tore open the domino mask's package, feeling the small thing in my hands for a moment before following the instructions and pressing it gently to my face, lining it up with the slight bump for the bridge of the nose, and then released the pressure. It stayed on my face fairly securely, not in any immediate risk of falling off, at least. It made me feel stupid, though; such a token gesture of privacy that really offered no protection.

As we descended into what must've been a secondary carpark, the dimness inside the back of the car became almost pitch black, leaving me to feel the motions of the car as it slowly pulled into an open space and turned off. The driver left his seat, coming to my side and opened the door into the dimly lit carpark.

"Please leave the vehicle and follow me, I'll be taking you to an interview room nearby." The man said concisely, very little emotional inflection, and seemed more bored by the events than anything. I'd take that as a good sign for now, I guess.

I hopped out quickly, letting the PRT agent close the door behind me and began to follow him as he walked towards a nearby door at a thankfully reasonable pace. He was easy enough to keep up with, even if I'd have rather moved a fair deal slower, but I'd live.

We passed through the door with the PRT agent swiping a card in a reader and emerged into a long, bland hallway. I had a feeling that this was where most of the 'first meetings' happened between the PRT and unknowns that they aren't comfortable bringing into their building full of people. It was a good way down the hall that the agent turned into a shorter hall, only then coming to a stop in front of a door that read 'Interview Room 9'.

"Your interview will be held in here." He said with finality, giving me a courteous nod, then standing off to the side of the door in a comfortable but prepared position. I couldn't say I envied the guy's job, and I could only really wonder on who's shitlist he got himself on to be given newbie duty.

"Thanks mate." I said briefly, before pushing down on the wide door handle and moving into the room, quickly pulling the door closed behind myself.

Then I turned and got myself a face full of Miss Militia standing up from her chair across from a comfortably sized table, offering a hand.

Well, shit, now I know where I remembered the voice from. Fucking TV.

"Good afternoon, sorry to be so vague over the phone, it happens to be protocol for interacting with potential recruits that do not have a secure mobile device." She stated, her voice much warmer than it'd been on the call. Maybe she'd been sticking to a script?

"That's okay, it makes sense to me. Besides Panacea had told me to be discreet anyways." I followed up, grinning a little while a shook her hand. Yeah, I felt a little giddy meeting Miss Militia. Sue me.

"That's good to hear." She said with a smile that you could see in the corner of her eyes, even if you couldn't see her mouth under her American flag patterned bandana, "Now, while you have been vouched for by Panacea, in that you are a parahuman, I would just like to remind you that lying about having, or otherwise falsifying parahuman abilities from here on out will be an act that may incur potential criminal charges, is this understood?"

"Yup." I answered easily. I expected nothing less, after all.

Miss Militia nodded succinctly, opening up a folder and pulling out a small collection of papers and slid them across the table to me, "This is an NDA that covers the identity of any parahumans you may come to discover, PRT and Protectorate operations, and any other sensitive information including the recruitment process itself. Once you've read through the document, you may sign at the bottom of the final page."

Quickly took a critical eye to the thing, trying to look for any 'gotchas' of unreasonable things to keep quiet about when my power drew me into my head at that very moment. I swore internally while I waited impatiently for it to be over. A small star was grabbed, and suddenly I had a metaphorical dial in my head that I couldn't quite grasp the meaning of at the moment.

I snapped back, blinking slightly as my eyes refocused on the words in front of me, but caught Miss Militia searching my expression with dark, analytical eyes.

"Ah," I said, tone apologetic, "a power thing that happens randomly, sorry."

Her dark, styled eyebrows rose in comprehension, and nodded slightly before letting me return to the NDA.

About five minutes of reading passed, with me going over the exact list of things that would be restricted under the NDA and found that it was exactly what she'd said it was. It was even written in plain English enough that it was almost immediately comprehendible. It was a very blanket NDA, and I'm sure I'd be signing more as time went onwards. I quickly added my lacklustre signature to the end of the document and passed it back to her.

"Thank you," she said with a smile, probably happy to have gotten the NDA formalities out of the way, "now that's done, what would you like me to call you during your time here? You can take a generic cape name for anonymity if you'd like."

"Just call me James." I shrugged. It was about as common a name as you got, only John would make me any more anonymous.

"Fair enough, James." She said, a sparkle of amusement in her eye. "Much of this interview hinges on how willing you are to be open about the details of your parahuman abilities going forward, or any times you may have used them before now. Accidents with parahuman powers are very common when someone first triggers-the terminology we use to describe the event of a person gaining parahuman abilities. If any such situation occurred, we could potentially help you navigate the aftermath of it, depending on severity."

"No situation, thankfully." I said with a half-smile, "I, uh, triggered only yesterday, really. I'm trying to move quickly and secure myself before any 'situations' do end up happening."

"Good thinking. Many simply wait too long." She commented ruefully but didn't stop me from continuing. I gave it a moment's thought, wondering if they expected me to recount how I got my powers, but I decided I'd just give her what she asked for.

"I'll warn you that I'm not very well versed in the proper PRT classifications stuff, but as far as I understand, I'm a Tinker." I offered.

"I see," she said, jotting down something on what might either be a form or just a notepad, "in that case, have you created any pieces of tinker tech that may need containment?"

"Nothing, no."

"We ask because many tinkers begin building almost fanatically as soon as they trigger, especially as their need to do so rises and forces them into a state we call a Tinker fugue, which is most common amongst the newly triggered Tinkers." She explained easily.

"I can't say I've really been feeling like that, just some theorising about what I could do with certain materials, I guess." I shrugged.

"What kind of materials, if I may ask? And do you have any specific technology or clear theme that your power tends to follow?" She inquired tentatively, which gave me an idea that this is where she expects to face at least some pushback from a newly triggered parahuman, or a new recruit in general.

"Materials wise, at the moment it's all about natural products like herbs, specific chemicals, some animal products, things like that. It's very strange, but I'm pretty sure I can make a wakefulness medicine with an owl gizzard and some other stuff, and my brain isn't letting go of the idea." I said with a chuckle, affecting a quirk of Miss Militia's eyebrow, "As for a theme my power follows? I wouldn't have a clue, it's… extremely esoteric."

Miss Militia tapped her pen to the paper in front of her, obviously mulling over just how she should deal with this-definitely not missing my evasiveness around the 'theme' my power followed. I wouldn't lie about it, and she's likely going to drill down enough that I'd have to lie to get around her questions, but I wasn't intending on telling the entire truth either. If I could randomly gain the schematics for a nanomachine powered fabricator that was hundreds of years more advanced than where we currently stood, I didn't want to know if I could also gain weapons of mass destruction, and I wouldn't hand them over to the PRT or so much as use them myself if I had any choice in the matter-besides the case where they might be effective against an Endbringer.

"It is a very odd presenting Tinker power, but there have been other Tinkers whose materials mostly involved biological matter before, some would be considered 'wet' or biological Tinkers, but many use plant matter and such to create other, non-living items." She said, her tone careful, and I clued into what she was subtly asking.

"I don't create living beings, no." I said, "I think I might be able to with, well, too much effort to bother, I just get the idea that it's a very complicated path to follow. I am more capable of creating something that, when imbibed, can change or alter the drinker. I don't know if that counts."

"Not precisely, no." She admits, "But it can be a grey area. There are Tinkers who offer permanent or temporary body modifications on black markets, and with tinker tech's propensity to degrade and stop working over time…"

I can't help but cringe at that, remembering Panacea's explanation of why she didn't feel comfortable healing me, "I can see that, but what I can create shouldn't break down outside of naturally spoiling in the lifespan of the medicine itself. If I made it correctly, with the right materials, it would have the intended effect, and if the effect is a permanent one, it won't devolve. I'm certain of that." And I was, though I don't know why.

"I see, that will likely be tested at some point regardless of your current certainty-tinker tech remains incredibly unstable and notoriously unpredictable." She replied genially, "But I'd like to go back to how you described your power. You said it was 'esoteric'?"

Her eyes told me I wasn't getting away from it, so I just sighed, scratching at the back of my head while I tried to think of exactly how much I was going to say and what exactly.

"Alright, so stick with me for a second here," I warned lightly, but without much but seriousness, "the reason I say its esoteric is because my power doesn't really stay consistent."

"Consistent?" She echoed, eyes narrowing thoughtfully while scrutinizing me.

"In that the technology or items that appear in my head don't have any consistent rhyme or reason. They don't even necessarily seem to use a similar basis; from the way they are created, to the terminology that pops into my head. Many of these items I don't know how to access due to ingredients and materials that, despite knowing exactly how to make them, make no sense and do not exist to the best of my knowledge." I said, trying to keep my voice definite under the pressure of Miss Militia's gaze. A far harder task than I'd expected, even when I was actually telling the pure truth.

"This… is a little difficult to comprehend." She stated neutrally, "Tinkers seem to naturally be able to build and manufacture initial forms of equipment, such as tools, almost immediately, followed by primitive versions of more powerful equipment which only scales up to more advanced technologies as time allows. You say that you have no access to some of your technology?"

"Essentially." I agreed, "I don't understand why, or how, or what for. But my power seems to gain access to technologies and areas of expertise completely randomly. Both at random intervals, and of random subject matter. I've only had my power for a day, so there's time for a pattern to present itself, but so far the results have been, uh, wacky enough that I wouldn't bet on it."

"Randomly access?" Miss Militia specified, prompting me to delve deeper into it.

"Yeah, I gain it out of nowhere. Just suddenly I have new stuff floating in my head. It's very disorienting and leads to the minute space outs you saw an example of earlier." I added, leaving Miss Militia looking like she was ready to go back to the very opening of the conversation and ask whether I remembered that fibbing to the PRT was a great way to get yourself frowned at sternly by the woman who summons guns from nowhere behind a set of bars.

"We will have to confirm that you are telling the truth, especially with you not being capable of building these pieces of tinker tech." She said, her voice filled with gentle warning. At least she was being nice about it.

"I understand." I replied easily, totally earnest, "Panacea reacted the same when I discussed my power with her. She requested to check whether I was lying by holding onto my arm and using her biological sense, I assume, and when she determined I wasn't lying, she proposed the possibility that I may be insane instead of a liar." I tried to keep a straight face, but the stupid smirk forced past my defences through the sheer disbelieving look on her face.

"Please, by all means, check this with Panacea when you get the chance to. Though she said she would only release information about me if I gave her my permission to, so I might have to do that first." I chuckled helplessly, shaking my head.

"I see." Miss Militia said softly, slightly mollified by my confidence in Panacea backing up my story. I guess it made sense if Panacea had given me a direct line to Miss Militia, and Miss Militia had trusted Panacea's word enough to entertain me.

"Sorry, it's a bit much." I apologised.

"Don't worry, we've dealt with some very odd powers over the years, but I have to say that Trumps are almost always the oddest." She said with a weary smile.

"Trumps?" I questioned, trying to remember where I'd heard the term.

"A Trump is generally a parahuman power that either interacts with other powers, grants powers, or otherwise manipulates powers. This also extends to some powers that no-sells or avoids other powers. The most powerful Trump would be Eidolon." She elaborated.

"Ah, so I guess you think I'm a Trump instead?"

"Power classifications do not typically remain exclusive to one category. The PRT uses them to assess the danger of certain parahumans, and to better define the response and protocols required when they are a present threat. You are perfectly capable of being a Tinker Trump, and there are others classified as such, including Dragon, or even Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse 9." Miss Militia intoned seriously. Her invoking the name of the Slaughterhouse made something inside of me twinge at just being compared to one of them in the most tangential of ways.

"Though, I admit, I'm not sure there is a Tinker Trump that is quite as literal as your power seems to be. Can you give me an idea of the technology that your power has currently gained?" She requested politely, but again likely expecting some pushback or incomplete answers.

"Well," I said filling the air as I mulled over the question, "what I cannot access at the moment defines itself as 'magical', and I actually have no control of the terminology, it came with the magic thing baked in. Though I have learned to access and somewhat manipulate similar energies through my power randomly granting it and have gained ways to infuse or otherwise enhance items I craft with those energies. I don't understand nearly as much of that stuff as I'd need to really make anything from the magic items-"

My power extended and missed a large star by a country mile.

"James?" Miss Militia called out, concern touching her voice.

"Sorry, power pulled me away for a second. Didn't get anything new." I said dismissively, "Anyways, I can't make any of the magic items, even though I'd really like that watch that changes the flow of time. It's pretty fascinating piece of work. So far though, what I can interact with and create are the medicines I discussed earlier-which calls itself 'neoalchemy', by the way. Just that it requires precision tools, like expensive chemistry sets, or specific materials to create them. You can cope without one of the two, and compensate for it, but never both at once." I finished gravely.

"I-" Miss Militia began before cutting herself off with a slight wince, "Unfortunately this is all quite difficult to believe, even with Panacea's pending confirmation of at least part of what you describe. Even then, it does not account for you wholeheartedly believing something regardless of reality."

"True." I said easily, crossing my arms, "I could potentially demonstrate at least the alchemy and the basic manipulation of the energy I was talking about earlier. Though I'm not sure if any scanners would pick it up, so you might need to scan for the physical effects of the manipulation. I don't know if that'd be worth much as confirmation, but it's what I can currently do."

"Well, we will consider this more if we reach the power testing phase, though I'll advise you to subject yourself to power testing regardless-it is extremely valuable to newly triggered parahumans." She sated with a finality that closed out the topic of my power, and it was only through a small glimpse of her ear that I realised she was likely listening to communications from someone else in the building, which might explain the wince from earlier, "For now, I'd like to discuss why you've come to the Protectorate, what it is that you feel there is to gain from joining?"

"Ah, that's the big one." I admitted, grimacing in discomfort, "The truth is that I'm heavily disabled. I suffer with extreme exhaustion, abdominal pain, brain fog, headaches and migraines, and tend to have inconsistent health which means that sometimes I end up stuck in bed for upwards of a month at worst. I'm practically skeletal, because of a lack of nutrition-you can connect the dots there."

The Protectorate hero didn't quite seem surprised, but she did seem gently sympathetic, "So you've come to the PRT for financial stability and to gain a support structure to assist or help you in compensating for your poor health?"

"Got it in one." I said with a smile, pleased that the woman was so quick to the draw on what I wanted, "What can you guys do on that end? I can't commit to consistent physical activity, I can barely walk today, but I'm doing this knowing that I'm going to suffer the consequences for it. I'd be lying if I said that I could manage anything semi-regular at this point."

"There are many Protectorate members who suffer with long term illnesses and inconsistencies in their health or have important family members who do. We would have far fewer heroes in our organisation if we did not have good stances on that front." She said, seeming genuinely pleased by being able to say so. "In your case, after a physical exam is taken to determine your current capabilities, you will likely be placed such that you do not perform patrols as consistently as your peers, and only once you reach a minimum bar of fitness for potential combat. Until that point, you will likely be expected to use that time in tinkering, attending other duties around the PRT or Protectorate Headquarters, or simply continue building the physical wellness required of you as best as you can."

I considered that, and if that was how it was worded in the contract itself, then it was something I could likely achieve. I genuinely couldn't say either way if it I could consistently meet expectations, but I was already seeing some effect from the presence of life magic in me, as moving around today hasn't been as impactful as it should be, based on past experiences.

"Yeah, that sounds reasonable." I said with an easy smile, keeping other potential doubts from my face, "By the way, you guys don't happen to have your own living spaces 'on base' or anything? Otherwise I'll be having to look for a new apartment."

"Protectorate members do, yes," she answered, "though most prefer to have a home outside of the PRT buildings, mostly for the sake of work-life balance."

"Alright, I just needed to know how urgently I should be looking for an apartment." I shrugged, grinning.

"Awfully confident there." She chided, though her brow was raised in amusement.

"Call it a hunch." I said slyly. I considered me garnering enough attention for the person in her ear causing her to wince a good sign, at least in the sense that I'd caught someone's attention. Also that she was acting genial or, more surprisingly, nice, gave me the idea that she wasn't waiting for a gaggle of PRT troopers to burst in and cover me in that horrible containment foam stuff.

Or she was just that scary good at acting, but I'd like to not think of that. I'd never sleep if I started down that road.

I watched on as Miss Militia paused for a moment, seemingly listening to whatever was coming through her earpiece, before she returned her attention back to me, "It seems that we will be modifying the normal schedule from here. Your powers are the subject of enough scrutiny that it's become necessary to verify them to the best of our abilities before proceeding with interviews and induction. This will not be full power-testing and the results beyond a positive or negative will not be made note of, with only those involved in the verification process knowing more. This will be contractually verified by an NDA to protect your identity and your power's capabilities from being documented or discussed by the verifiers."

I quirked an eyebrow at that, "I have to ask, how robust is that NDA supposed to be. Suppose I was classified a Villain at some point, for God knows what reason, would that NDA be void?"

"In some cases, yes." Miss Militia admitted openly, "If you stand to cause a great deal of harm, there is legal precedence for lifting restrictions on classified information such as a parahuman's powers. However, if you are merely classified a villain, then that information will remain protected until the point where you stand to do enough harm or position yourself directly against PRT or Protectorate forces. It is robust, however, and the same NDA routinely protects the information of Rouge parahumans due to their lack of sufficient threat."

I regarded that information carefully. It made enough sense that you'd be able to make that information available if a previously tested parahuman went totally off the rails-at that point, an NDA is worth less than the lives of those in the firing line-but the phrase 'sufficient threat' gave me pause.

'Sufficient threat' could mean almost anything. It was implied that the threat had to be to the lives of citizens or members of the PRT or Protectorate, and an active one at that. It brought to mind the members of the Slaughterhouse, or maybe the Empire Eighty-Eight, where lots of their capes could really do some damage if they cut loose in the middle of a crowd-Hookwolf being likely the best example from the Nazi's in our backyard.

But that was only what was implied. 'Harm' could be interpreted in numerous ways, and 'sufficient threat' could be fulfilled by simply existing as a powerful enough entity, like if Eidolon went Rogue, I'd bet the PRT would consider him just being unchained from them to be enough of a threat.

"Well, as long as I can read the contract, and I can understand it enough that I don't have to bring this all to a halt to call a lawyer to explain it to me, then we're good." I offered tentatively, trying to get across that it was the contract that I was most concerned about.

"Absolutely, we'll get right on that." She replied with a soothing smile, rising from her seat, "Wait here while I prepare this with administration, and we'll get you to the test facilities in this building if you sign."

I did end up signing. I think I underestimated how little the PRT wanted to give as valid reasons for parahumans to not come to them. So far, they'd made as much of the process as easy as they could, and that was saying something for what had to be a bureaucratic mess on the backend. The contract was pretty no nonsense, and even if it were a contract that relevant government officials could make void essentially on a whim, it wasn't likely that such a deal would be honoured at all by a great many parahuman organisations, villain or not.

As soon as I'd finished up signing my signature, we'd started the trek through the building immediately. I did my best to not let the effect the moment was having on me show, but I knew I wasn't fooling either the agent that had driven me or Miss Militia herself. They didn't say anything, though with how Miss Militia was glancing to me frequently I got the feeling she was about ready to grab me if I fainted, which was nice but also pretty embarrassing.

Aparrently I was trusted enough to not be a complete psychopath, as I ended up walking through a part of the building that actually had a few employees wandering around, seemingly technician types or a maintenance crew of some description. Soon enough, we arrived at a large set of double-doors that led directly into a room absolutely packed to the gills with assorted equipment and protective infrastructure, clearly meant to be an emergency lab. Why the PRT would have a lab underneath their office building was beyond me, but with instincts that I didn't quite understand, I could tell it hadn't been used for practical reasons in a long time but had been maintained religiously despite that.

Miss Militia turned to me with that slight crinkle of a smile at the corners of her eyes, "This is where your verification testing will be taking place, your examiner is finishing up with collecting his tools and other preparations at the moment. As soon as he arrives, we will leave the room, all cameras turned will be turned off, and only an emergency alarm button left active in case of an unlikely accident. He will have a copy of the paperwork with his signature alongside yours to verify that he is your examiner."

"Sounds good." I mumbled, only half paying attention as my mind just about salivated over the precision chemistry equipment that was stored in the room, along with a searing curiosity at what was in the attached room that was simply labelled 'Storage'.

I felt the pull of my power just early enough to attempt to resist against being yanked into my mind, this time trying to resist for longer than the last time I'd felt the pull slightly early. The same as last time, I wasn't as successful as I'd have liked but there had been some progress at least, allowing me to stay outside my mind for a few seconds of the process.

By the time I entered my mind I could already see the failure to grab a star, allowing me to exit immediately only to hear the double doors I'd entered through opening noisily.

"Good afternoon," a stoic voice greeted, not exactly upbeat, but amiable at least, "I've arrived to administer the tests for James' powers?"

I turned, eyes already wide from immediately recognising the voice of my apparent examiner, and was greeted with the sleek and refined blue power armour that was at least half of Armsmaster's entire image as a hero-the other half being his halberd.

I caught sight of Miss Militia's amusement out of the corner of my eye, but I had come to realise that it didn't matter if you cared all that much about the whole cape media thing, there were still individuals that held a level of fame that was simply undeniable. Armsmaster was among the handful of exceptionally recognisable Protectorate heroes, and just so happened to be the Protectorate Leader in Brockton.

I swallowed as Armsmaster, taller than me by a good margin in his armour, offered me a hand to shake while placing a copy of the signed contract on the bench nearest to us.

"A pleasure to meet you, James. I am Armsmaster and I'll be verifying, as best as possible, the statements regarding the nature of your powers are as you understand them." He said cleanly and with a placid shadow of a smile on the exposed lower half of his face.

I grabbed the man's hand, grasping the metal covered fingers with a slight bewilderment, "Hope to work well with you." I said, trying my best to not sound like a dumbass in front of one of America's most famous heroes.

"Absolutely." He stated with a definitive tone, as if he would accept nothing less than things going 'well', "Now, as soon as the others leave, we will begin with testing your 'neoalchemy' first."

Perks Gained this Chapter =

Neoalchemist (The Glass Scientists) (200CP)

-Neoalchemist (The Glass Scientists) (200CP)

Invisibility serums, subtle poisons, superspeed formulae, if the Victorians ever imagined it could be done with chemistry, you can do it.

Cracked Desktop CM Schematics (Eclipse Phase) (400CP)

-Cracked Desktop CM Schematics (Eclipse Phase) (400CP)

Complete schematics and documentation for a desktop cornucopia machine, about the size of a large photocopier, with all safety and copyright limiters removed by default. It can make almost anything you have the blueprints and correct feedstock for. It can't make antimatter or anything that requires nanotech more advanced than this setting has, which extends to femotech and picotech. If you are trying to make something bigger than the CM itself, you may need it to print smaller parts you then assemble.

Toggle (Young Justice) (100CP)

-Toggle (Young Justice) (100CP)

Toggle allows its user to forgo learning to control their powers by simply allowing them to turn their powers off when they aren't needed. This can be done per power, so there isn't a need to go without the ability to teleport because you don't want to use your super strength. Also works on out of Jump powers. You can think of this like a dial. It can be on, or full power, as well as off, or no power, and anywhere in between those two states.

A/N: Well, that's certainly a better turn out than last chapter, ey? Some of this stuff is pretty absurd, especially the Eclipse Phase CM, but neoalchemy is surprisingly also pretty bonkers. I went and read the webcomic the perk is ripped from and the description really undersells what neoalchemy is capable of. For example, the main character is a reimagining of Jekyll and Hyde, which in that story is done through splitting apart the good and bad of a person via manipulation of the soul. Neoalchemy can bring beings to life, create the undead, and even Frankenstein's monster is a result of neoalchemy. At the moment its limited by access to native materials, but with the addition of a few magic abilities, or the ability to engineer biology, that could quickly change.

Other than that, I've still got a good deal of CP banked for some more stuff later. And hey! I got the first 100CP perk of the story, which feels kinda stupid since I've gotten a perk from almost every other denomination.

Hope you all enjoyed!

Last edited: Jul 14, 2022

4: Like it or Not

A/N: Well hey there, been a minute or two, huh? There's time for talk later, so let's just get on with things for now, shall we?

Also, this is post 1 of 2!

4: Like it or Not

Wiping my palms against my jeans, the nervousness slowly eating away at my ability to stay composed, I swiftly grabbed myself a seat on one of the many chairs that were tucked neatly beneath the benches.

Armsmaster, the tinker, as far as America was concerned-only possibly chipped out by Dragon and the legacy that Hero had left behind-stood amid the organised tables, his calm totally unimpeded.

Why would it be? He's Armsmaster, and I'm not exactly of enough note to make someone like him nervous for any real reason.

"Now, it is unlikely that this lab will have all of the components you need to create any exotic medicines, but it stocks a great deal of materials that may open some options for you." Armsmaster said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah." I said, buying myself some time to think, "I'll be honest, I won't know until I look at what's there, and then I'll probably be able to figure something out. I've been getting the idea that I'm not exactly a… typical tinker."

The armoured man chuckled wryly, a genuine amusement leaking into his tone, "Trust me, there is no such thing as a 'typical tinker'. We make impossible things that we cannot fully explain and cannot be reasonably replicated. But yes, your power, as you have stated it to be, is exceptionally non-standard, which is why I've stepped in personally."

"Well, that's good enough for me," I said as I wrested myself from my seated position, having warded away the dizziness enough to keep moving, "let's see about these materials and hope some lightbulbs go off."

With a wordless nod, Armsmaster confidently strode toward the storage area, opening the door with use of a small card reader I hadn't noticed before, and ushered me in when I caught up behind him. Entering into the storage area was an experience, one that would've been lost on me only a little under two days ago.

Walls and floorspace was absolutely covered in shelving, filled boxes of individual materials, chemicals, and just about anything else that could be relevant, labelled and packaged for long term storage. Armsmaster's sleek blue armour moved almost soundlessly through the rows of metal shelving units with a precise ease that was likely half the armour's motors and half the trained gait of the man wearing it.

"This laboratory is a standard emergency facility required to be in each main PRT building in the United States. The reason for the supplies being so eclectic is to give a tinker the best chances of mitigating, for example, an engineered virus, pathogen, or some other tinker-made threat. I don't believe there has ever been an official emergency use of any of these facilities, though." Armsmaster noted casually, and I couldn't help but find a little comfort in that fact. Well, unless the reason the facilities weren't used was because it was already too late, which I forced myself to ignore for now.

"I think that might just turn out to be handy," I said as I turned my attentions to the labelling, trying to determine what I knew I could use, "my neoalchemy seems to like natural materials more than raw chemicals, even if the purpose of the materials is just to derive that chemical from them anyway. I can bypass it in some places but in some other recipes, multiple processes are done at once and removing an element from that would be unpredictable."

"Something to be explored in future." Armsmaster agreed, "For now, consider this a proof of concept. Being able to mix specific chemicals together without the natural mediums your power reaches for is undoubtedly more streamlined, but tinker powers have their quirks."

"And also that I wouldn't know how I'd ever determine what property twice-blessed holy water imparts." I said with a snort, the component flitting across my mind as I started to list a few of the boxes that my neoalchemy know-how gravitated towards.

"Twice-blessed-" Armsmaster sputtered, genuinely perturbed despite his stoic mien, "that sounds… a little absurd."

"Yup." I answered helplessly as I pulled out a few boxes from the bottom rung of the shelves, all the while fighting to stay standing straight and to not pass out. I reached out for a box on the shelves at about eye height for me, but was stopped abruptly by Armsmaster's heavy hand.

"James, maybe it would be best if I grabbed these boxes for you. Your heartrate puts you in danger of passing out." He said authoritatively, barely giving me time to return a stunned nod before he started taking boxes from the shelves at your direction. It didn't take much thinking for you to intuit that he must have a sensor of some sort that could pick up the heart rate of those around him.

"Oh don't worry, I only really pass out in severe cases. I have mini-blackouts, but I've actually only fainted a handful of times." I assured absentmindedly.

"Even so." He said dismissively, easily collecting the boxes that I'd been reaching for, stacking them atop each other, then carrying them out to the tables.

I spent another few minutes checking to see if there was anything else that I could fully make with the materials present, but there was always something missing. Scratching my head with a mild frustration, I wandered back out to the main area and joined Armsmaster at the table he'd chosen-one close to both the material storage and the equipment cabinets.

Armsmaster stood with his arms crossed, taking up his role as my assessor, simply observing me as I sorted through the materials he'd carried out to the table. I seemed to have a list in my mind that I could automatically check materials against, making the process of ordering and organising a painless, almost zen activity.

It took only a few minutes for the materials to be unpacked and sorted from their respective boxes, revealing the great quantity of herbs and other natural materials. One of the first materials I'd taken was a box of lavender, in various levels of processing-from the flower to its essential oils.

It might seem antithetical, with lavender usually being linked to calming and even sleep, but it was also a powerful basis to start from. The way neoalchemy seemed to work relied upon both conceptual and scientific understandings, with there being at least some wiggle room in the middle. Lavender was good for calming, and when you were trying to make a medicine that attempts to clear brain fog and increase mental clarity, a whole hell of a lot of ingredients would both have properties and conceptual ties to energy, alertness, focus, and so on.

With my course of action determined, I walked over to the equipment cabinets, searching through the windows and picking out a handful that I'd need; test tubes, Bunsen burners, beakers, mixing bowls, even a simple mortar and pestle. Taking them back to the table and connecting the Bunsen burner into the gas, I began prepping the materials and process order as best as I knew how.

This only further confirmed to me that there was a qualitative difference between the information on the Cornucopia Machine, the magical items I'd received, and this neoalchemy. If this were just the information required to do neoalchemy, I wouldn't feel this confident in my actions, nor would I be able to come up with multiple different ways to account for any random failure organically, and most of all, I would probably be bored by this prep.

As it was, I felt like I'd slipped into the zone, like I'd performed this prep process a thousand times with even worse materials and equipment. It was an ease of expertise that slowly oiled the cogs, freeing some of the knowledge I hadn't immediately gleaned and further instituting it into my actions.

"Fair warning," I said as I flicked the Bunsen burner on and precisely sterilising some of the equipment with a practiced hand that I shouldn't have, "this'll likely take… ten to fifteen minutes?"

"That is acceptable." Armsmaster ameliorated with an iron calm, "For the record, what is it you intend to make, if you know yet?"

"A medicine for mental acuity." I quickly answered, filling one of the test tubes with water to about a third full, "I'm intending to rectify the general brain fog and executive function issues I struggle with. It should prove effective on just about anyone, though."

Armsmaster simply nodded, leaving me to my silent focus, allowing me to pull as much of my mental energy as I could to the fore and force myself to perform at my best for long enough to finish the thing.

First came the lavender. Ground into almost a paste, added to the test tube, shaken and let sit for some time after adding a drop of lemon juice. With the imbalance of lavender and lemon juice, it should form a base of calm, sans the drowsiness thanks to the lemon juice-sugars and sourness offsetting the sleepiness.

Quickly I began preparing three batches of dry herbs, ground finely into an almost dusty texture while the base settled. There were a monstrous amount of ingredients included, and I could guess that it was because I wasn't operating with precision recipes in mind, but instead general rules of thumb. I was probably just blasting the spectrum of the concepts I was going for without overloading the lavender base-If I wanted a really clean and effective medicine with minimal impurities, I'd have to test everything extensively, requiring likely over a hundred test batches at minimum.

In the background, a beaker had been set to boil water and after the inclusion of a small amount of agar powder-which would naturally set into a jelly-I picked up the now settled mixture of lavender, water, and lemon juice and shook it roughly before pouring it into the boiling agar and water mixture.

A great deal of stirring later, and the slow inclusion of the thoroughly ground herbs, I was left to slowly ease the temperature down as some more agar powder was added alongside a small amount of heavily diluted lavender oil to complete the process.

Pulling the beaker from the flame, I poured the far more syrupy, gelatinous mixture onto a small tray, evened it out with a shake, and then let it sit to rest before chilling.

I dropped into my chair, warding away the dizziness with closed eyes, phantom colours and lights sparkling across my vision in concert with an unpleasant airiness in my head. But, just as I was beginning to recover, I was pulled into my mind with a sharp tug that I couldn't hope to resist in my state of weakness.

In a moment I saw a small star pull close and in the next moment the designs for a quill appeared in my mind. Not just any quill, of course, but one made with a Griffon's feather. It was clearly magical, and even came with some basic understandings of what I suspected were runes, not all that dissimilar than those in the designs of the magical items I'd been granted initially.

Suddenly, a metal grasp closed around my shoulder-carefully measured right between firm and strong, but not painful, "Are you alright? You seem dazed." Armsmaster inquired stoically.

"I'm fine, just my power doing its thing." I said dismissively, righting my posture a little as he removed his armoured grip, "I just got, uh, 'given' a quill that can write runes and has innate properties of protection, I think. It's made from materials I don't know how to access; namely a Griffon's feather, which I doubt I could…" I trailed off as my mind burst into bubbles of thought, a bizarre experience of different fields of thought haphazardly coalescing to attack a problem.

"James?" Armsmaster prodded and, though I might be wrong, I thought I heard just a slight curiosity in his voice, "Has something come to you?"

"Uh, I mean, I think?" I said unsurely, trying to pull a coherent explanation from my mind while it was still bubbling away like an unstable chemical reaction, "I don't know, I'll have to think on it more, but while I do, can you chuck this in that fridge? No need to mess with the temperature, a commercial fridge would work just fine."

Armsmaster gave me a last look before taking the tray of slowly thickening mixture to the fridge on the other side of the room, leaving me a moment to think.

A Griffon's feather wasn't something I'd be able to naturally acquire, and with it being an item that came from a specific source that didn't exist, that'd mean I was left without other avenues of attack… usually. But now I had access to multiple schools of thought, most of which focused on magic or the application of it in some way, and the challenge of creating such an item artificially was just plausible enough that I could actually use it as a thought experiment.

What I knew of a Griffon basically only extended to the properties of the feather itself. They had a strong alignment with concepts of protection, and also were from a creature that bordered on being bestial, though still humanoid in some aspects. This meant that, other than the conceptual protection of treasure and guardianship, it was life magic that further gave the item it's power-as likely most items derived from living creatures would be, barring specific elemental qualities.

With the basic understandings of at least imbuing magic into machinery, I knew it'd be possible to imbue it into an organic item, likely with much more ease. If the Griffon's feather had instead been innately wind aspected, like a bird could be if they use natural magics to enhance their flight, then I'd likely be shit out of luck. But as it was, I had somewhat of a reasonable chance of making an actual Griffon's feather.

That was… kinda dope, now that I thought about it. If it was possible to artificially create a Griffon feather, then what about all the magical ingredients I have randomly pop into my head when thinking over neoalchemy recipes? How many of them could I make if I went so far as to fabricate the magical items they asked for?

It was a door opener, and if I could get that Griffon feather, then it would only open that door further. Especially with runes suddenly being accessible to me, allowing me to more finely imbue magic into technology and other items.

I chuckled to myself, a light giddiness washing through me. Things were starting to click, and I could feel the sensation get its hooks into me like some terribly addictive drug. I cut off the stream of thought, exacting some self-control to let myself rest properly for at least a while after the intensive process.

"How long does it require to cool?" Armsmaster inquired from across the room.

"It doesn't need to set completely, it can still be syrupy, it just needs to get rid of the heat mostly. That shouldn't take long, I don't think." I called back, receiving a thoughtful hum in response.

"Is the process sensitive to temperatures in the opposite direction?" Came another question.

"Nope," I said almost automatically, "as long as you don't freeze it solid, the temperature shouldn't really matter."

"I see." Armsmaster rumbled, before a few clicks of a dial sounded and a noisy fan spun up into a high-pitched whine that lasted for almost half a minute, then spun down soon after.

Moments later, Armsmaster placed the tray in front of me, the gooey mess having settled a little and clearly much colder, and gave me a tight smile from beneath his ever-passive visor, "does this seem good to you?"

"I guess so." I said, placing a finger in the mix and verifying that the cold had permeated the mixture, "Well, we can test it now; I don't see any reason it shouldn't function just fine. Will probably taste awful, mind."

"If you would give me a moment to scan it to check that it doesn't class as poisonous or have any other glaring faults?" He asked promptly, "This information will not be stored past the internal storage of the scanner module itself, and will be immediately deleted afterwards."

I shrugged, proffering a small amount of the mix that I instinctively knew would be leftovers once evenly divided into safe doses. Armsmaster detached a small sample stick from a part of his wrist armour then, after taking only a tiny portion of the mix, did he insert it back into his wrist and stand in silence.

"Amazingly," he said after a moment with a slightly incredulous tone, "it seems that the mixture is perfectly edible. With the amounts of different ingredients and concentrated extract used, this would usually result in being classed as inedible-or at least cautioned against. Apparently, your abilities sidestep this."

I knew how-abstractly, at least. The neutralisation of extraneous or conflicting effects also doubled as the reduction of harms and ill effects. It certainly wasn't something that operated by the currently understood science and would likely continue to flaunt them until a basis for the 'magical' came to be documented.

"Well, that's handy." I said with a grin, "I'll take a dose first, if you don't mind. You're welcome to take one yourself, of course. Unless you have non-standard physiology, then I'd recommend you don't."

"I have been given permission to do so, within reason." He said wryly, and from his tone of voice, it sounded like he'd had to fight to be allowed to do so.

I shrugged, washing off a small scoop while asking Armsmaster to grab two small glasses from a cabinet that I'd seen, and then placed as an exact a dose as I could in each glass. It was a substantial amount, meaning to be consumed in the form of a bar of thick jelly, and even that would probably take a few bites. I'd probably be able to get it down to a pill after a while, but again; time wasn't my friend here.

I picked up one of the glasses sending a glance towards Armsmaster who, even with his helmet on and his eyes covered, I could tell was watching me closely. With a grimace, I turned back to the syrupy, cloudy mixture and grit my teeth in preparation.

"This is going to be fucking gross." I hissed, and before Armsmaster could make to respond, I tapped the side of other glass in a mock cheers and started to down the liquid.

Of course, since it was syrupy and gelatinous, it didn't go down smoothly. Instead, it went down like extra thick cough syrup, and required me to forcibly swallow the mixture to make it move down my throat at all. If I wasn't prepared for it, I probably would've gagged.

The taste, though, was easily the worst part of it. It was absolutely horrendous. A mixture of the pungent smell of way too many ingredients and the exponentially more powerful taste left my tastebuds reeling from the sheer overload. What was worse was that the syrupy form meant that it coated absolutely everything it touched; teeth, mouth, throat, everything.

As soon as I'd got it all down, I finally let myself cough, my eyes watering both from the effort of downing the mix and the fumes that permeated my nose and mouth, making me feel like I'd just snorted pure essential oils.

"Christ Almighty, that's vile." I choked out.

"The effects?" Armsmaster inquired calmly, his voice totally neutral. Enough that I wondered if it was hiding his amusement.

"They should kick in soo-"

And then they kicked in. A weight lifted off of the top of my head, like a too-heavy blanket had been resting on top of me, smothering me for years.

"Holy shit." I whispered, unable to contain the reverence in my voice as I stared blankly at the cup in my hand. I felt clear. I felt awake…

I felt alive.

"I take it the effects kicked in?" Armsmaster intoned wryly.

"Boy did they." I said flatly, feeling the thought zap through my mind at what was almost lightning pace in comparison the laborious crawl it'd been going at before.

"Can you describe them to me?" Armsmaster said.

"Clarity." I said without a moment's pause, "Like someone oiled the cogs in my brain and turned me back on. Not hyperactive, or over attentive, just clear."

"Interesting." He murmured, "And it acted so quickly too."

Before I could say another word, he gently took the other glass, gave me a short nod, then began to down the mixture with a slightly disturbing amount of grace. The man's lips didn't even twitch as he imbibed the foul mixture, and only a moment later, he placed the glass back down on the table just as gently as he'd taken it.

I couldn't hide my expression of disgust, staring at the man like he'd grown a second head, and I saw Armsmaster's mouth turn up at the corners in a genuine smirk.

"I once went to college, you know." He said, a chuckle hidden somewhere in his chest, and then with a jarring suddenness, his mouth went slack, opening in slight shock.

"Oh." He said after a moment.

"Oh." I agreed, undisguised mirth playing on my features.

Armsmaster was usually described as an effective and pivotal Protectorate Hero by his peers, however grudgingly they might admit to it.

The man himself had long since accepted that as fact. He was a hard man to like, and even harder to get along with when there was an argument over strategy or methodology-which, in the Protectorate, was nigh on every single day. Armsmaster didn't particularly pride himself in being a hardliner, not quite, but did pride himself in making sure his thoughts and opinions on anything of importance was made absolutely clear.

He was fully aware that this made him hard to work with. He was exacting in his specifics, a trait that had developed over the years of tinker work he'd immersed himself in. He was an unrepentant hardass, but he was also the leader of the local Protectorate.

He'd found that people conveniently forgot just how sought for his time was, where Director Piggot didn't face quite the same scrutiny. Perhaps it was because the woman looked as though she were a sugar cube away from a heart attack at all times, constantly haggard where Armsmaster was perceived as almost indominable.

This was patently false, proven only by the fact that being put into temporary M/S confinement following the consumption of tinker-made medicine-one that alters your mental state, no less-was the first proper break he'd had in weeks.

Piggot had been decidedly unimpressed by his recommendation that he, the Protectorate leader, be the one to consume the medicine rather than some trooper being paid a generous stipend. The only reason it'd been allowed at all was due to Armsmaster's incredibly meticulous storage and analysis of biometric data.

It was one of his fortes, as far as tinker tech goes. His suit was one of the most technology dense pieces of equipment he knew of, and he'd spared no expense on sensors aiming both inward and outward. He'd always been of the opinion that true power laid in the vibrant world of information and interpretation, and his collection systems were obscenely extensive.

Essentially, all of the sensors in his equipment were automatically sending highly specific and accurate biometric data to a server, one that Armsmaster himself was incapable of personally interfering with. It was there that the analysis programs he and Dragon had designed were housed, processing data on custom silicon that Dragon had graciously cooked up for the task.

While Armsmaster hadn't always had the analysis systems in place, he'd been storing his own biodata from the moment he built his first sensors, and having run the historic data through those systems essentially provided him with an advanced and specific baseline for his own neurological activity.

If Armsmaster had been compromised by a master or stranger effect, then it would need to show no significant change to the way his brain works, or any of the other telemetry data he collects. If that were the case, then-in the words of Assault-"everyone is fucked anyway".

"Colin," a pleasant voice sounded inside his helm, alongside a notification that he'd been reconnected to his wireless systems, "I've built a comprehensive report after you took the new tinker's medicine. The changes neurologically were quite significant, but not outside of expectations in comparison to other medicines that act on the brain in similar ways-notably without the common detrimental neurological affectations and side effects."

Armsmaster hummed thoughtfully at the words of his most trusted companion. He'd been loath to pull her from her work, or call her in to help in his own duties, but there were few who could claim to process data into information like Dragon could.

"If you could, note that the drug has significantly eased my mental state, much like we've seen in the sedatives I've used in the past." He orated whilst a PRT trooper came to the door of the M/S holding cell and ushered Armsmaster from the room.

"The sedatives that you historically react poorly to?" Dragon inquired, a touch of professional concern in her voice.

"That I react poorly to when they significantly dull my mental acuity." He amended, "Whereas this tinker-made drug seems to roughly balance the mental clarity you gain with the calming or subduing effects of a sedative, resulting in a drug that meets the best of both worlds."

"That's…" Dragon trailed off, leaving them in silence as Armsmaster walked towards the Director's office to report, "That's quite significant, Colin. We've been looking for similar solutions for some time, but medicine has never been my expertise."

He nodded gently, the actuation of the assistive motors likely being picked up and interpreted as such by Dragon, "I admit, I hadn't quite realised the degree of impact that the stimulants have had upon my mental state."

Dragon made to speak more, but Armsmaster had already come to the door of the Director's office, only pausing long enough to allow Dragon a few final words.

"We'll talk about this later, Colin." She said, to which he gave another nod before he noted the line going dead.

With an efficient stride, Armsmaster opened the door without knocking-a practice that Emily Piggot and himself shared a mutual distaste for-and saw both the Director sitting behind her desk, and Miss Militia standing to one side. Likely for safety as much as necessity.

"Armsmaster." Miss Militia greeted, her eyes solidly meeting his despite the visor, allowing him to note the slight crease of distaste or disappointment-Armsmaster wasn't sure nor was he particularly excellent at reading facial expressions.

"Colin." Piggot stated, less a greeting and more a commanding of attention.

Armsmaster closed the door behind him, coming to rest a stride away from the desk, letting his armour's leg joints lock to let him relax, "Director."

"Dragon cleared you, which I assume she's already told you," she began, her voice flat and devoid of humour, "she made clear that this tinker's medicine was something that acted quite predictably when accounting for its intended effects."

"It was created for the purpose of assisting with mental clarity, something that the tinker himself seems to struggle with alongside his other physical issues noted in his interview with Miss Militia. The tinker 'tech' itself follows the established knowledge of tinker abilities being obtuse in their creation, but it seemed as though the tinker can fairly clearly describe his process and improvise on the fly, which is less common."

"And the effects?" She pressed, her pudgy features drawing into a stern frown.

"Precisely as he intended for them to be, or at least described. I couldn't find any glaring weakness in his conceptualisation of the medicine to the effects in reality, but the drug has yet to wear off. I will notify and document the effects of the medicine as it does so, as well as any withdrawal effects if they occur." Armsmaster stated, his voice even and relaxed in a way that he noticed almost seemed to unnerve his colleagues.

"And the likelihood of the side effects?"

"Fairly unlikely." Armsmaster answered, "If he was willing to take the medicine, I assume that significant downsides were not something he would be prepared to endure, what with the heavily conservative stance he takes towards his health."

Director Piggot levelled the Protectorate leader with an exacting gaze, steel-grey eyes piercing through his visor as though it were cheap plastic, before averting her gaze and rubbing at her forehead with a pained sigh, "Fine. As to his claims about the energy manipulation, or his other described abilities or knowledge?"

"I examined him whilst he attempted to make the manipulation of energy clear to me-however there was no way for me to capture this on any sensor equipment I have on hand. I suspect I would have to custom build a testing rig for the express purpose of examining him while-" Armsmaster explained, but was cut off with a disbelieving glare from the Director and a curious one from Miss Militia.

"You believe the kid?" She demanded, voice like a scalpel.

However, despite the pressure she was putting on him, Armsmaster simply affected a concise nod, "I cannot reasonably determine if what he says is factually true, or even that he is not someone duping me, but from both the instance where it seemed he gained knowledge that made him reference a 'Griffon's feather' and when he was attempting to reveal his energy manipulation to me, both my intuition and equipment read him as genuinely doing so. Not to mention that I could feel that he was doing something while he acted with his secondary ability."

"Explain." Piggot prompted.

"I could simply feel it, maybe best described as a collection of common phenomena all occurring simultaneously. The hair on my arms raised, goosebumps appeared, a tingle down my spine, a sudden wave of sensitivity in my skin, and so on. This was a clear enough indication to me that something was occurring, just invisibly to both my sensors and my conscious awareness." Armsmaster finished, before halting for a short moment and adding, "I may be incorrect, of course. But the man's apparent truthfulness and frankness so far has bought the benefit of the doubt."

Director Piggot, Miss Militia, and Armsmaster then all stood in a tense silence, ponderous but finely constrained. Armsmaster, under the standard contract he'd signed, could say very little for the actual abilities the man put on display, other than that which he'd made readily apparent prior to the testing and verification that had been done.

Despite public opinion being of the opposite, the PRT and Protectorate tended to stick quite staunchly to the rules when it came to potential recruits, vigilantes or independent heroes-even rogues and villains in many scenarios. It was common practice for the PRT and Protectorate to bend over backwards to both protect and incentivise new additions to their roster, either with first pick on trading protectorate members or bolstering your own local forces with new blood-not to mention the sizeable budget awarded to a branch to accommodate and provide for the new recruit.

Breaking that trust was done only in the direst of situations, at least in theory. In reality it was more common than any would like to admit and was generally a scorched earth policy that benefitted next to no one.

Emily Piggot, scowling with what Armsmaster had long since identified as distaste, shook her head lightly before picking up her phone and raising it to her ear, shooting both of the parahumans in her office a look.

"Alright, move along. I've got to get onto the phone with this lawyer for the recruit, damn tinkers and their paranoia." She muttered, though it seemed more like loosely directed grumbling.

"We prefer the term 'prepared and cautious'." Armsmaster chuckled, once again receiving bizarre looks from his colleagues, but he ignored them and merely turned with a wordless farewell.

He didn't quite catch the look the two women behind him shared, nor the subtle command given before Miss Militia strode out of the room to follow her direct superior's armour-clad form, a look of concern poorly hidden by her bandana.

I learned very quickly that I despised contract law.

Honestly, it's something I should've known about myself, but it wasn't until I was faced with a hefty document describing in exacting 'detail' the job I was signing up for, that I realised how much I hated this shit.

Seriously, it doesn't matter how 'plain english' a legal document is worded, you encounter one jargon word, and you're going down a long and dark rabbit hole.

I submerged myself into the very depths, of course. If there was ever a time to be paranoid, it was when you were signing government contracts that may very well steal your soul if you're not the fine-print reading sort. The lawyer, Joshua Maxwell, seemed an alright guy and more than fine with explaining every sentence three times and rewording it at least as many times again. Probably because he was billed hourly, and the Protectorate's pockets are deep.

Either way, I figured out a great deal from that session. Most of it was, frankly, common sense on paper; the kind of stuff you'd almost call a waste of good dead tree, until you realise that there was absolutely a reason they put it there in the first place.

There was the probation period of a year, which the lawyer had said was essentially unarguable-no one had been able to haggle that period down. Not that I really cared to do so, I wasn't chomping at the bit to rise in the ranks like some other heroic hopeful. I got paid fairly decently during that period, eventually leading into better pay befitting a full Protectorate member, which was semi-negotiable.

My likeness remained mine, but my cape persona was essentially entirely owned by the Protectorate. Probably so that there was legal distinction if you went rouge and used the persona the Protectorate made for you. They could and would kneecap the monetisation or usage of that on any official platform, and that's likely pretty handy when a past Protectorate member goes, say, Slaughterhouse 9.

Either way, I'm not sure I could possibly care less for owning my 'cape persona'. I received a small percent sum of merch sold of my likeness or persona which, according to Mr. Lawyer, was usually the biggest point of discussion. It was very frequently renegotiated, especially for those with marketable personas like Armsmaster, the Big Three, and so on.

I really doubted that I was going to be part of that group.

What did pique my interest was clauses relating to contractual work for the PRT, Protectorate, and 'Affiliated Partners'. Essentially, if you had a power that was at all useful or desirable, you could sometimes get offered contracted work through the Protectorate, internally or even externally. The biggest beneficiary of this?

Tinkers. Tinkers galore.

The wording did seem to imply that internal work would be less a fully paying contract and more of a small bonus for your work-you were actually employed by them, so technically this was them being generous-but the external work was fully paid, regardless of the cut that the Protectorate took.

It was a decent deal, as far as I could see. Worked for everyone, even if you weren't going to rake in the obscene cash you could as a highly desirable rouge tinker.

Speaking of tinkers, I was relieved to find, in print, that there was essentially nothing about the Protectorate 'owning' anything I create.

The reality was that tinker tech was thought to be essentially unreproducible. In incredibly specific scenarios, that's been shown to be false to a certain degree, but there is no amount of detailed schematics and step by step instructions that'll allow someone to make most tinker tech.

I would feel bad about not telling the whole truth-especially as I had reason to believe that what I create can, theoretically, be reproduced-but I also wasn't keen on anyone catching onto the fact that they could mass produce, say, a Cornucopia Machine, and just totally torpedo our current technological level as we undergo what is tantamount to a secondary industrial revolution.

No thanks. I'm not letting that weigh on my conscious forever. Maybe someday, but absolutely not without understanding what the hell I'd be unleashing.

But outside all of this, the only other real complications were the burdens of responsibility when it came to being law enforcement; patrols, safety, internal review, so on and so forth.

On paper, it almost seemed like a cushy job.

Yeah, until you pulled up the videos online of Protectorate members staring down the friendly blender dog next door, or the fuck-off terrifying dragon man. Real cushy.

It was just a no-brainer, from where I currently stood. They wanted me-wanted any parahuman really-in the Protectorate, if not to bolster their own forces, then to deprive everyone else of more firepower, especially in Brockton Bay. And damn were they willing to pay the privilege to at least take you off the board.

It honestly made me wonder why more didn't take this deal.

How many even got so far as to read the contract at all?

I'm no stooge for the government, and I'm definitely no fanboy for the Protectorate, but even with as critical an eye as I can give, and the help of a lawyer whose job it is to be hyper-anal about all of this, I still can't see why so many would give up a genuinely good deal like this.

Scrawling down my signature on the dotted line, I committed myself to the fact that I'd be finding out, whether I liked it or not.

Perks Gained this Chapter =

Griffon Quill Pen Schematics (Monster Girl Encyclopedia) (100CP)

-Griffon Quill Pen Schematics (Monster Girl Encyclopedia) (100CP)

A special pen made from the feather of the valiant Griffon, it embodies the beast's prideful guardianship of treasures. You can use it to write runes on things and people you closely cherish, and enforce your assertion of ownership to protect your precious treasures from harm. The runes will cause the item to warn you whenever they sense desire or hostility towards it, while also making the affected item resist whoever is trying to take your treasure away.

A/N: 2 perk rolls have been banked for the next post (which is coming as soon as I can set it up), just felt it'd be weird to have it break the flow and didn't care to rework it all after I wrote it. Onto post 2/2.

Last edited: Nov 25, 2022

5: A Tentative Future

A/N: Post 2/2, so go read the last chapter if you haven't already!

5: A Tentative Future

I frowned at yet another failed connection to a large star, a frustratingly common occurrence at this point.

It had triggered mere moments after I'd been left alone in a comfortable break room, having requested some time to recover after both the testing and the subsequent meeting with the lawyer and signing.

At least I had some time to relax and process the insanity of my day. I'd gained a handful of things today, all of them at least interesting, if not immediately useful. However, easily the best part of the day was that medication I'd made with neoalchemy.

Man…

I couldn't even begin to describe it, the feeling of my mind simply working. I'd fought through years and years of frustration and pain, pushed myself into a horrendous migraine more times than I could count, hit that unforgiving mental wall and had no choice but to give up lest I bring myself more pain… just to do something as simple as read.

It was confining, constricting and soul destroying in all the worst ways. Wading through thick, putrid water, hoping beyond hope that the water would soon run clear, for it to only get worse.

And so, here I lay, tired and exhausted from the day's ordeals, despite the other activities I had ahead of me. Normally my mind would feel thick, as though filled with mud, but instead I could simply lay still and dream.

Like birds through a clear sky, my thoughts streaked across my mind unimpeded, effortlessly and without hesitation. Internally I chided myself, knowing that while I'd managed to remove the cloying fog from my mind, it did not make using it any less energy intensive.

However, I simply apologised to my future self. I could think. I'd gladly face the consequences later, and I had no doubts that it'd still be worth it.

I felt a tug from my power, pulling me into my mind with much less ferocity than it had previously. Instead of a grown man, it felt more like a child pulling with all their might. Still strong, but potentially more ignorable than before-an interesting side-benefit, I supposed.

My power extended itself out into the sea of stars, quickly connecting to one of the smaller specimens and dragged it back and into my mind.

'Psions?' I thought dumbly as the information flowed into me in an overwhelming but more manageable stream than prior cases.

It was a 'hardtech' sensor, specifically for the use case of detecting Psions within a five-metre radius. 'Psion' seemed to both refer a person capable of wielding supernatural powers of some sort, as well as the sub-quantum particles they were named from.

Simply put, it was a bizarre piece of technology. And that is what it was, an entirely technological piece of equipment, without reliance on any bio technological or nigh-magical elements that would've made the thing all but conventional tinker tech in its reproducibility. It was also bogglingly advanced.

I'm not sure it beat out the Cornucopia Machine in sheer complexity, but this 'Psi-Detector' was capable of sensing fluctuations in the concentration of a sub-quantum particle within a five-metre radius and within the formfactor of a generously sized book.

Immediately my mind went to Armsmaster who seemed to have a thing for high-power, high-resolution sensors. He'd tried his best to get his sensors to pick up my Life Energy, and had failed to do every time, despite feeling a physical effect when I'd all but forcefully pushed the energy into his body.

Wait, does anyone's powers even make use of psions at all? All I knew was that theoretically it'd be an explanation for some power expressions, but the only way to definitively answer that question would be to build the thing, which… yeah, not happening for a bit. It was just too complicated and ultra-precise to be able to cobble together without significant infrastructure.

It did rely on sensing sub-quantum particles, after all.

In the end, I let my mind wander to other things, noting the sensor system down as something that'd be interesting to explore at a later date in lieu of more immediately practical things.

That was interesting. I actually had time now, maybe even a future, if you squinted a little. I still couldn't quite ease that roiling scepticism in my stomach, despite the fervent assurances of my supplied lawyer. No matter how cut and dry it all seemed, how clearly beneficial the deal I'd made was, the instinctive distrust made everything shine in the most unflattering ways it could.

But I had to take what I could at face value, or at least as it was stated in the contract, and so I had signed my name upon the dotted line. As soon as that paperwork was processed, I was officially a part of the Protectorate-an unassigned member for the moment.

That was part of the reason I'd been fine with signing the thing without first meeting the East-North-East branch's team. There was a distinction between being a Protectorate member and being a part of any particular branch. I imagine the paperwork would be a little cumbersome if you wanted to transition to another branch and, essentially, lost and then regained Protectorate member status for no real reason each time.

I mean, I was obligated to stay in the branch that managed my induction for a year, but if anything went catastrophically wrong, I could move just about anywhere I wanted, and I'd probably be given the okay with a reasonable case for it-as long as the local branch would take me or otherwise trade for me and the higher-ups have the go-ahead. The lawyer had actually explained how that all worked, and it'd seemed odd to me, almost like they were trading around players in a professional league sport or something.

Wasn't like it mattered to me, either way. I was staying in Brockton. Call it stubbornness, foolishness, or whatever you wanted, it was my home. A shitty, dangerous hellhole, but my shitty, dangerous hellhole.

A knock on the door of the break room broke me from my thoughts, and with a quick check of the clock on the wall, I realised it'd been almost an hour and a half since I finished up with the lawyers. Seems my rest time had come to an end.

"Come on in." I called, propping my upper back up on the armrest of the couch I'd been laying on, ignoring my weakly complaining muscles.

The doorknob turned, and in walked a man in a slightly darker than hot-rod red costume with racing stripes following the contours of his body along the skin-tight material, taking a detour to meet in a 'V' shape in the centre of his chest. He was wearing a helmet in the same colour too, reminiscent of a cycling helmet you might see in an Olympic cycling event, his eyes hidden beneath a visor much like Armsmaster's own helm.

"Hey there! James, is it?" He asked, a warm smile on visible part of his face, impeded a little by the slight discomfort in his tone.

After a moment's thought, I realised it was that I'd given a name, not a codename. Something I hadn't thought too much of, but apparently was weird enough that the hero in front of me was uncertain about using it.

"That's me," I said, scouring my mind for the hero's name, "Velocity, right?"

"Got it in one," he confirmed, lips twisting in amusement at the difficulty I had remembering him, but passing over it without comment, "I just heard that your lawyer submitted your papers. Glad to have you in the Protectorate."

"So sure it's gonna go through?" I asked jokingly, sitting up further and getting ready to leave the comforts of the couch behind for yet more walking.

"Almost certain." He replied as he moved into the room further, standing before me and extending a hand which I took, "Only cases I've ever seen get turned down were parahumans with rough histories and, even then, they usually end up in a rehabilitation programme instead. So I'd say it's a safe bet."

I chuckled lightly as I used the man's grip to pully myself to my feet, ending it with a firm handshake and a smile beneath my pathetic domino mask, "Well then, glad to be here. What do we have on the menu?"

"Well, since you signed right away instead of taking the tour first, we'll go straight for the interview with the head of the PRT and Protectorate leader, which is mostly a formality at the best of times. After that, we can do a tour of the PRT Headquarters if you feel up for it, or we could just head straight to the Protectorate Headquarters out in the bay." He said, shrugging his leanly muscled shoulders.

"I-"

My power pulled me in without warning at that very moment, extending toward and connecting with a small star, and as it flowed into me… I was filled with a strange sense of certainty.

Confidence, maybe.

"James?" Velocity called, his warm tone pulling me back solidly into the present, "Was that your power?"

"Ah, yeah…" I murmured, unable to break my firmly furrowed brow at the odd sensation that now filled me, "I got something new."

"Just like that?" Velocity asked, being pulled into my confusion, "What was it, some new tech?"

"No, I…" I frowned deeply as I tried to parse this new capability, "I think I can figure out what people want me to make them, regardless of what they say they want?"

Velocity stopped dead still, almost unnaturally so, "How?" He asked, and it wasn't incredulousness that coloured his tone, but instead seriousness.

"I have no idea." I responded, a little dazed, "I can't read minds, but I just… know. Supposedly experience?" I gave the hero a wan smile, frail in my confusion.

Eventually, after a protracted silence, Velocity broke it with a heavy sigh, rubbing his gloved fingers against his clean-shaven jaw, "Y'know I'm not sure I quite understood what having a Tinker Trump around was going to be like. We were spoiled with Dauntless, I swear."

"You don't have to tell me." I concurred, trying to understand what the hell I was going to even use that… sense on. It'll probably come in handy, but for now it just felt weird.

"Anyway, let's get a move on, the Director and Protectorate Leader are waiting on us, and neither tend to be the waiting type." He urged with a wry chuckle, and I nodded before following the man out the door to begin the journey, idly wondering if he too had an earpiece that his higher-ups could hear our conversation through.

I was giving myself a conniption with the incredibly random new abilities, which was only mildly soothed in knowing that the effect seemed to be universal at this point. I could only hope that the Protectorate didn't start to rethink their position on virtue of the unpredictability of my powers, or at least until I was already a proper member. At that point I'm not a problem, I'm their problem, and there was something to be said for the difference between those distinctions, minute as they were.

On another note, I was extremely glad I'd had the chance to make the mental clarity medicine earlier, because I had no doubt that right now, I'd be lying limp-bodied in the middle of the corridor. Letting myself get lost in my thoughts to ignore the whole-body exhaustion I was contending with was all I could do for the moment, but I internally groaned when I realised I'd need to ask them for a wheelchair to get me back out of the place.

What a pain in the ass.

It was only minutes later that we reached the door of the Director's office, having braved elevators and a short flight of stairs or two to get there. I felt absolutely trash, and I was very quickly reaching the point where I wouldn't be able to pep myself back up anymore, and the waxen guise of functionality would melt like Icarus' wings.

Velocity, bless the man's heart, gave me all the time I needed to collect myself, not even giving an odd look when I crouched to sit on my haunches and recover my breath and ease the dizziness threatening my balance. After a few more moments, I pushed myself to my feet with more effort than I'd have liked, then took the doorhandle in hand and turned.

Walking into the prim and proper room, I immediately took note of the familiar Protectorate Leader, quickly offering the man a nod and receiving one back, and then the short and uncomfortably overweight woman that I'd seen on TV in passing-Emily Piggot, her door and desk had read.

"James, thank you for coming, I am Director Emily Piggot." She greeted with a dry smile that held no good humour or just about any friendliness at all, just purely professional courtesy it seemed.

"Thank you for having me." I replied, as if following a script.

"It's great to hear that you've already signed the Protectorate contract," she continued peering at me with steel-grey eyes, piercing in a way that was fairly uncomfortable, "Many need to be convinced quite thoroughly before they sign, or give as much as their first names."

"The prospective wards especially," Velocity interjected gently, closing the door behind me as I sat in a thankfully comfortable chair across the desk from the harsh woman, "they typically insist on meeting the other wards and figuring out the social dynamics. We just made it standard practice at some point."

"Prospective full members usually wait until this very meeting before making their own choices." Armsmaster supplied before returning the floor to Director Piggot once again.

"This leaves me a little curious," she paused, giving me enough time to note her distinct lack of curiosity, "why are you so eager to join? We're used to a quite a lot of resistance, so it's a rarity that someone might make our jobs easier."

An answer flashed into my mind, bee-lining straight for my mouth, but I held back and practiced a little caution. This might not be a straight test, but the woman clearly wasn't kind, and was absolutely intimidating, as bizarre as that sounded with her description. She seemed no-nonsense, but I'm pretty sure that got bundled with having zero capacity for humour or gentleness. She was just about as severe as they get, and I pitied the poor fool that pissed her off.

"Safety, security, stability." I responded finally. "As I am now, I'm not able to defend myself in the slightest, the apartment I live in could be broken into with a good kick at the front door, and my health doesn't allow me to earn money to pay rent."

"Admirable." Director Piggot remarked, though her tone gave nothing away, reminding me of an interrogation more than a job interview, "However, if those were your goals, then why not the Empire, the Merchants, perhaps Faultline's Crew? They all offer a version of what you have come here for, especially a tinker."

I raised an eyebrow. She was playing devil's advocate for the gangs? I mean, she wasn't wrong, not entirely…

"No they don't. They offer indentured servitude at best, slavery at worst. Barring maybe Faultline, I don't honestly know all that much about them other than they're mercenaries, I think. They'll give me the safety I desire at the cost of my agency and my morals. I've had my power for a day, and I can already tell how bad an idea it'd be for me to go to a gang-for me and everyone else." I said with a wry chuckle, finding myself just as humourless as the woman across from me.

"Your magic items?" Director Piggot asked, a clear prompt.

"Those, and others." I stated, leaving the handful of other truly worrying things in a nebulous limbo, acknowledging their existence but withholding exacting specifics, "Imagine the Empire with but with a pocket watch capable of slowing time to a near standstill while still being able to act-albeit with limited interaction, but plenty of time for Hookwolf to go from man to living blender."

"You said you were incapable of making your magical items?" The Director questioned, looking not in the least bit disturbed, but her eyes flicking subtly to the man standing behind me for some reason.

"Currently, yes. But I seriously doubt it'll stay that way, I can see some paths forwards already beginning to appear. As soon as the gang with my leash realises the way my power works, I'm being confined to a basement and I don't think there's any amount of morality that'll stop me from breaking under torture, or just a master controlling me somehow. I'm pretty sure I'd rather die." I stated finally, locking eyes with the woman across from me who was coming close enough to accusing me of blatant stupidity that it was starting to actually ruffle my feathers.

Piggot held my gaze for quite some time, shifting ever so slightly to assess my disgruntled expression, then finally relaxing back into her chair which creaked quietly under her weight, her expression easing into something less impassive and more merely professional and weary.

"Good, you have a decent head on your shoulders, at least." She grumbled, followed by a sigh, "It isn't all that rare for a potentially valuable tinker to have… 'shopped around' before meeting with the Protectorate, and end up running from them. They also tend to need to have this information coaxed from them."

"No, I haven't met with any groups or gangs other than yourselves." I stated, my tone a little peeved at the insinuation, before pausing, "Unless you count Panacea as meeting New Wave."

Director Piggot merely snorted, but merely moved on with a wave of her meaty hand, "Your 'magic items', are they as powerful as you're implying, or are there more checks and balances than you've let on?"

"Honestly?" I began, hesitating and glancing between the Director and Armsmaster before answering, "I have my suspicions they might be more powerful than I properly understand. I have schematics for them all in my head, the exhaustive list of materials, specifications, and other crucial information, but it's pretty difficult to infer how each of them operate practically. Especially the time watch-I have no idea just how limited physical interaction is with time slowed down, and that is the make or break for how dangerous it is."

She gave a single, placid blink, and nodded, "Regardless, the time watch will be an interest point Protectorate wide, as there are vanishingly few parahuman powers that interact with time, or even go so far as to pretend at doing so. As such, I will pre-empt my colleagues and ask you whether you believe that the watch could be used to disarm a Gray Boy field."

I sighed, rubbing at my eyes and trying to pull up what I knew about Gray Boy. Ex-Slaughterhouse, hopefully very dead, and with that horrible time loop power that had people stuck in the same place for… God knows how many damn years at this point. Far as I could recall, no-one can enter the fields, but is that an effect of the time distortion, or an actual physical barrier of some sort?

"I could potentially slow time enough to halt the loop, and if I can bring another person with me into dilated time, they might be able to not die in the loop or alter their actions-if they have control of them-and leave the loop on their own. I don't know what stops someone from entering the loop in the first place. As of now, I'd only give a tentative maybe, but I imagine it'd take engineering a solution." I gave the woman an apologetic shrug.

Now that she'd made me aware of the loops, I could feel the topic making itself at home in the back of my mind, all but solidifying itself as a project I'd have to put effort towards in future. There was just something so beyond fucked about groups of people stuck in an unavoidable, unending maelstrom of senseless torture that compelled a small part of me to hope that the next thing my power grants me with be a perfect solution.

"I see, if anything on that front changes, let me know immediately. The Protectorate is very interested in putting a stop to those abominations, and not many expenses will be spared for a reasonable shot at doing so." She insisted, tone laden with heavy emotion that I couldn't help but find intriguing.

"Of cour-"

And I was thrust into my mind, watching as a connection was made with a sizeable star, and felt as real true proficiency filled me.

I'd never particularly cared for cars especially since I'd been a little preoccupied with my inability to sit up straight for greater than thirty minutes at a time and all-but now I understood. There was something positively electric about taking that old scrapheap that'd been sitting under a tarp in the garage and figuring out just how you were going to turn it into a supercar for a lark. The juxtaposition of a decades old car that'd been obsolete on arrival winning out against some supped up beast of a modern machine was just too funny to pass up.

I wasn't sure if that was even conventionally possible, but I sure as hell could do it now.

I broke myself from my thoughts only to realise that I was laughing, covering my face with a hand, as if to hide myself from the absurdity.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I apologised with a tired sigh, "That was my power kicking in again."

"We figured." Piggot responded, her voice as dry as a damn desert, "Mind sharing with the class?"

I snorted involuntarily, waving my hand emphatically in front of my face, trying to ward away the hilarity and failing miserably.

"I can put together and tear down cars extremely well now. Like, impossibly well. Tinker tech well." I stated, fighting to keep my face straight before just giving up and let the laughter begin anew, "But I don't even know how to drive!"

Director Emily Piggot found herself unsure of what to make of her newest recruit.

He'd signed the document needed for him to be specifically enlisted with the Protectorate ENE with essentially no fuss, particularly because it mainly just referenced the general Protectorate contract anyway. He'd spent some time following the interview waiting in her office while Velocity went to grab a wheelchair for the man, leaving them some time to talk in a less strictly professional context.

She didn't often get the chance to do so, her life mostly absorbed by her work and managing the general idiocy of her employees and colleagues. Besides, she was hardly a pleasant person to be around-she'd never quite gave a shit if people thought she was nice, and instead took advantage of her reputation to the contrary.

James-as he had actually given his real name on first contact-was a gaunt stick of a thing. She had found herself vaguely amused by the pair they made, both incredibly unhealthy in their own ways. She could see echoes of her own persistent exhaustion in the man's eyes, and it almost made something loosen in her chest.

The issue she'd found herself facing when she'd ended up as the PRT ENE's Director was that she had to work with parahumans, day in, day out. She wasn't shy about her dislike for the average parahuman, call her a bigot all you liked, but she got all the stats, she personally managed all the disasters-PR and otherwise. Parahumans were, as a rule, incredibly volatile, unpredictable, and had enormous potential for destruction.

For every hundred parahumans, there was one with a power that made them all but a living, breathing nuke. She worked with some of them, and many of them were barely even children.

James wasn't quite the same. He wasn't a picture of stability, just the same as Emily herself wasn't, and he absolutely carried an air of despondency around with him, all things that counted as marks against his theoretical stability in any psych personality profile that might be written up. But she couldn't help but notice an underlying confidence that she hadn't expected.

With parahumans, especially younger ones, they tended to be either arrogant or entirely void of confidence whatsoever. With the whispers she'd been hearing from what may or may not have happened at the hospital the day before, she'd expected to see a man broken, in his most especially vulnerable state.

So she did what she did best. Push buttons.

Parahumans react spectacularly to this sort of inquisition. Even the more stable examples she works with clam up or go on an indignant offensive as soon as you start prodding at their tender points. She'd even thought it was working on the new tinker, seeing his face twist into a half scowl, but when he fired back with what would've essentially been her own argument instead of some inflammatory response, she even found herself minutely surprised.

It was a small thing, really, but she could all but hear his underlying question; 'Do you really think I'm that stupid?'

For once, her answer had been a hesitant, 'No.'

But, with the man came the power. It didn't matter that she thought he might have a few extra brain cells to rub together when his power was so bizarre and concerning that it might as well nullify the benefit.

She wasn't fucking blind, after all. Armsmaster, true to the contract he'd signed, gave no particulars as to his power demonstrations, but she had enough confidence in his judgement that she'd tentatively extended it to the rest of what James claimed.

A watch that can stop time?

Medicines with recipes that'd make doctors of past centuries blush?

Control of 'Magic energy'?

It made no sense, and yet more still came, if the man was to be believed. She'd found herself stunned by the sudden burst of laughter, genuine and disbelieving, sparing a glance to her colleagues in the room with her, finding them sharing in her surprise.

Then he added cars to the list of things he could work with. Armsmaster had begun a line of questioning, trying to delineate particular limitations of this new aspect to James' power, but instead what was just cars soon expanded to basically any vehicle, even non-motorised ones. Which was about the end of what she could understand quickly devolved into a conversation that could only occur between tinkers

That was when Emily Pigott felt as though someone had increased gravity on her alone, the sheer weight of her realisation pressing on her in a way she didn't appreciate, not even a little. All that were privy to the man's interview with Miss Militia had made the same initial observation, a spectacularly easy one to make, if a little surface level.

'So a tinker Eidolon, huh?' She remembers Velocity saying when she'd read him in on the situation, including a general read on the danger he posed-which was effectively none as of right now, though they tended towards caution.

Emily couldn't tell when 'tinker Eidolon' stopped being a vague comparison, and became a very real descriptor, but she found herself increasingly uncomfortable with just how true they might find it to be.

I'd been taken to the 'PHQ' out in the bay in an armoured car, this time noticeably Protectorate branded, rather than the mock taxi that'd brought me to the PRT Headquarters. I was already hating that they had two separate buildings, even if it made enough sense, but I decided I'd put up with it when I got to experience the light show firsthand.

Brockton was a bit of a tourist spot, which is absolutely the duct tape that keeps the city from a complete death spiral, and one of the main attractions is the Protectorate Headquarters. It was a bit of a spectacle on its own, but when they put up the bridge, a shining example of the implementation of tinker tech, it really looked the part.

Being driven over it was awesome, if not a little freaky. The semi-transparent energy field that served as the road the car drove on gave a clear view of the waves below and looking down too long started to give me the heebie-jeebies.

Instead I opted to occupy my mind with the car I was in. It was a pretty cool machine, really. Clearly built to withstand even something as damaging as an RPG, and maybe still be able to keep driving after. Just from the mere vibrations of the car's engine, ideas started to pop into my head on how I might improve it. Most of them had to do with reshaping the body of the car to get better placement of the heavy armouring for both the protection it affords and the performance of the car itself.

Or I could just juice the thing with a whole Nitrous-Oxide System. The fabled NOS.

It was funny, really. My newfound knowledge and expertise with cars told me pretty definitively that NOS wasn't all that great an idea, outside of short races or trying to trick the shit out of some engine to get really big horsepower numbers. Injecting nitrous-oxide into an engine had a tendency to make it explode if you're too gung-ho about it, and on most engines that aren't made to handle much more than what they're already pulling, it's all just a fancy way to burn money.

Then my new knowledge and expertise says, "Fuck that!" and proceeds to break the laws of physics as I was told them by the very same source. Outfitting a regular car with a full NOS kit, cranking it to full tilt and then more, all while using an absolute fraction of the expensive liquid and resulting in practically no damage to the engine.

Armsmaster labelled it as the true tinker tech portion of the new power, alongside 'tweaks' that would drastically change how a vehicle performed, which I could only usually explain with a shrug and a mumbled, "I just feel like it'd work."

It all just felt like genuine expertise, like I'd spent untold thousands of hours messing around with the make of every conceivable vehicle and just knew what worked and what didn't, regardless of my theoretical mechanical knowledge.

And it really did extend to just about every type of vehicle, too. The further it strayed from cars specifically the spottier things became, with planes and anything other than maybe a speedboat being the vehicles I found most difficult to actively conceptualise. But if it had wheels and travelled on the ground, I was an expert, apparently.

Made me start thinking of some really dope skateboards and bikes. Yes, the non-motorised ones. Yes, I can put NOS on them for some reason, I'm not even all that sure how that works.

Thankfully the car pulled up and halted my constant thinking on cars, which was managing to bore the part of me that had been entirely uninterested in cars barely more than an hour ago. We'd stopped in what seemed like a security gate, beneath a big metal arch that I could only assume was packed full of sensors. A PRT trooper in a security box, behind thick bulletproof glass, spoke into a microphone and the faint murmuring told me it was being relayed through the radio in the driver's separated cabin.

A few moments later, a final mumble was sent through before the trooper in the security box turned away and the car began to ease forwards.

Soon enough, the car was parked in a fairly normal parking space, filled with other non-descript cars, almost all of which were armoured in some way. Not that it was obvious, mind, but this new car power was very comprehensive-enough that I could tell that many of the cars had switch-out panelling, so they could change from non-descript to a faux taxi at a moment's notice, which was probably how they got people to and from places around the city without arousing too much suspicion.

I waited for the PRT trooper to leave the car before I started to get ready to get out myself. I felt him open the sizeable boot of the car, pulling out the wheelchair he'd stowed away, before opening my door with the collapsible wheelchair waiting and ready.

"Thanks mate." I said, and though I garnered no response, I could tell the guy appreciated it well enough. I hauled myself out of the car, standing a little shakily before plonking down in the rigid seat and awkwardly flipping out the little footrests as the trooper closed up the boot and my door, wheeling me away to my destination.

It felt positively bizarre, and was subsequently interrupted as I felt myself being pulled into my mind for the umpteenth time that day. This time I managed to fight against the pull quite well, even staying vaguely aware of my surroundings as I felt my power reaching out for a large star weakly, seemingly bankrupt of all it's energy from the day's acquisitions.

'Me too, little guy. Me too.' I thought, chuckling as it gave up and went dormant once more.

As the trooper continued to push me towards what looked like the main building of the base, giving no indication of if he noticed me zoning out or not, I gave myself a bit of a pat on the back for making some progress in resisting the incredibly obnoxious interruption that my power had been enforcing for the last thirty or so hours. I was both getting better at it, and it was clearly to do with how much processing power my brain had to go around, which just went to show how much of a deficit I was really working under before.

With the self-congratulation out of the way, I turned an eye to my surroundings, and finding myself more intruigued by the architecture of the PHQ than I would've thought…

'Ah,' I mused, coming to a realisation, 'that power to tell what people want came with architectural knowledge. A hell of a lot of it, in fact.'

Frankly, from up close, the Protectorate Headquarters was a marvel of architectural design, done in what likely be best described as a contemporary style-as nebulous as the term might be. An array of buildings, all built to both be accessible and be pleasing to the eye were placed around an outdoor area that had barely enough space to house a small patch of grass between the footpaths surrounding the strip of road that broke into a multitude of offshoots to assumably different carparks. The carpark that the trooper had parked in seemed to be either a general one, for storage of the non-descript cars and potentially visitors or transients, or perhaps the other roads led to loading bays and private parking for Armsmaster's motorbike, for example.

The buildings themselves were clearly built with specific function in mind, the centremost building clearly serving as the main offices, whereas the others weren't so clear from the outside alone, though I suspected that the building on the far right was the living quarters.

The ground itself was also styled, the pavement and road using hex tiles, maintained immaculately, and with cut edges that flowed more organically than the rigid shape would otherwise allow-contrasted by the hard square shape of the 'plate' the entire headquarters rested on.

Large arches wrapped around the buildings, as though they were drawing the mostly independent buildings together and sheltering them, the keystone-or perhaps pinnacle-of the arches came close to touching the fascinating force field that had become integral to the identity of Brockton Bay nationally, as though the fine arches were propping up the field. It made me wonder if they had what maintained the force field hidden in those arches, but they absolutely did have massive spotlights, slightly tinted with a warm yellow.

It was like a miniature city inside a snow globe from the outside looking in, but when you were actually inside of it, you couldn't quite help but marvel at the sheer scale of it all. It was a pretty exceptional structure, and I was certain that I'd never personally seen anything that could remotely compare.

I vaguely remember being told that it was Uppercrust that'd worked on the PHQ, using a defunct oil rig that'd been just another eyesore, a painful memory of the days when Brockton had a hopeful economic future before the advent of Leviathan and whatever fuck-knuckle sank that container ship in the early nineties.

Didn't quite agree with Uppercrust's whole deal-the Elite were just the rebranded mafia, let's be real-but I had to respect his work. He knew how to build stuff, and I couldn't find anything glaringly wrong with the defensibility of the place, were the field to go down and an intruder to get in. Of course, if that intruder happened to be the Siberian, you were fucked no matter what, defences be damned.

The surprisingly pleasant stroll through the carpark, across the footpath and between two of the buildings, travelling right beneath a corridor between the two buildings supported by a high arch, finally came to a close as we reached the back entrance and into a room with a private elevator that opened immediately as we approached.

Turning me backwards so I'd face the door once inside, the trooper stepped out from behind me and left the elevator.

"Someone will be waiting for you above, sir." He stated gruffly, and I felt something inside of me die a painful, screeching death at his manner of address. As though I held literally any authority whatsoever.

"Just James, or whatever name I end up with, I hardly rate a 'sir'," I groaned with a pained expression, "I'm a glorified intern, sir."

The trooper remained entirely impassive, but relented with a sharp nod, "Noted."

I sighed, rubbing at my face as the doors finally closed with hardly a sound and began to ascend up the multi-storey building without hesitation. Do the PRT troopers have to address the Protectorate capes like that or something? I sure hope not, because if so, that's just fucking embarrassing.

Discarding the thought, I prepared myself as the elevator came to a gentle stop, the doors opening to reveal a spacious corridor filled with sizeable lockers and various drawers and storage area, two doors right next to which that were marked with a male and female pictogram, a changing room I'd guess.

But what actually caught my attention was the gaggle of Protectorate Heroes standing just past the open door into something that looked like a comfortable living area, one of which turned to me as I hesitantly wheeled myself out of the elevator.

"Oh hey, the new kid finally made it!" The Hero in red said as he approached, a darker shade than the more racing-inspired colour of Velocity's costume, and was all around fairly plain in design, broken up by the cheeky grin he wore, "Most of the team's waiting on you, man!"

I squinted my eyes at the man-Assault, easily one of the more recognisable members of the local Protectorate, what with how he kills it in most every interview he does-and flicked my gaze down to the wheelchair I was currently sitting in, "What, not fast enough for you, Red Ranger?"

I watched him freeze up in an impressive rendition of a living statue, and I could almost hear him rethinking his life choices from here. Sprouting a sudden grin, I pushed against the rims of the wheelchair and bumped my knuckles against his flank, meeting with the sturdy body armour underneath.

"Don't tempt me to stick an engine on this thing, mate." I called back as I heard the man dramatically doubling over in 'pain' behind me. Ignoring his antics and just rolling into the room of amused Protectorate heroes, of which Battery in particular looked almost wolfish at the other hero's brief moment of mortification.

"James," the warm, slightly accented voice of Miss Militia spoke up, stepping forward from the small crowd of Heroes, her eyes crinkling at their edges in a smile, "sorry about him, Assault has a terminal case of Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome."

"Oh I'm sure," I reply with a toothy grin, "it's the greatest weakness of those with quick wit-it takes most of their brain to find something to say that they leave nothing behind to check if they should say it at all."

That prompted a loud, guffaw from a muscled man dressed in a pretty impressive lion themed costume-somehow managing to stay just short of tacky-he moved past me and into the corridor to give Assault a teasing slap on the back.

"I see you've got him figured out already." Miss Militia said pleasantly, though I could detect a hidden bit of good-natured snarkiness in her voice beneath her professional amiability, "Onto more important matters, we've just got back word from Armsmaster and the Director that your paperwork has been given the all-clear."

I moved to respond but was interrupted by Miss Militia reaching back behind her head and, with a small click, pulling loose her bandana to reveal a, frankly, quite beautiful and kindly-looking woman wearing an infectious smile.

"I'm Hannah, it's nice to properly meet you, James." She said, extending her hand which I took and shook with the strength I had left in me, "Welcome, officially, to the Protectorate ENE's Hero Team."

Perks Gained this Chapter =

HardTech Psi-Detector (Trinity) (200CP)

-HardTech Psi-Detector (Trinity) (200CP)

You have acquired a Nippon-made device, one of the very few non-biotech devices capable of reliably detecting nearby Psions and psionic powers in use. Most are massive, power-hungry, and have a range of only about five meters. This one has the same range, but is far more efficient and only the size of a large book. Though pretty much useless to a Psion in the field, the device can be connected to mundane security and sensor systems, and you have the blueprints to make more.

Heart's Desire (Warhammer Fantasy - Tomb Kings) (100CP)

-Heart's Desire (Warhammer Fantasy - Tomb Kings) (100CP)

All Necrotects are skilled architects and designers. They wouldn't have the job if they weren't and you're no different. You're gifted with any sort of architecture, trap making or monument designing. What makes you special is that you have a sense for what your customers really want. You can picture in your mind the exact ideal of the thing they're hiring you to build and create it. Closer than any instructions could communicate to you, you understand their wish and you know what it should look like, though the construction of such a thing may yet be beyond your means. Still, if you can carry it out, they'll love you for it, even if it differs from the instructions you were given.

Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench (Fast and Furious) (400CP)

-Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench (Fast and Furious) (400CP)

You are a master mechanic. Repair and upkeep is nice, but you can go beyond the impossible and improve any vehicle. Take a van and make it beat a supercar? Put NOS injectors on a bicycle (and make it work)? And anything you can build up you can tear down, too. You're a one-man chop shop and wiring a car to explode takes but a few moments and some chicken wire.

A/N: 50 odd days since I last posted; time flies. Lets get to the commentary on the chapter first, shall we?

This chapter was pretty significant for the progression of James' power, namely with aquiring [Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench, which is essentially the first practical thing he's gotten his hands on that also doesn't have things locked behind finding a way to get his hands on specific magical base materials. It also allows him to delve into using his [Magitech Mastery, which will be real interesting when fused, where he is essentially an extreme expert in both vehicles and the implementation of magic into machinery. Easy to explain to the PRT too!

Heart's Desire and HardTech Psi-Detector aren't as useful quite yet, the latter being more or less dead for at least a while. Heart's Desire is actually a really powerful perk, with James having inherited the general architectural, design, and project management skills of a Necrotect which, with just a glance at the Warhammer Fantasy wiki, is pretty damn impressive. It'll absolutely get use as time goes on, but for the moment it's kinda just the 'weird funny power that lets me tell what people want and know things about architecture'. Does give him a nice reason to look closely at the architecture of places, which has always been a weakpoint in my writing, so there we go.

Anyways, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed yourself. These chapters are quite a bit smaller than the prior behemoths, and that's just because I think this is slightly more reasonable for me to write up with any consistency. Coming up next: Why I've Been Gone, the musical!

The TLDR of why I didn't continue posting comes down to poor health. Surprise suprise. The extended version is more complicated and I'll spoiler it for brevity.

It's a lot more complicated

The first few chapters of this story were written in, like, a week or so. I was fighting my new found symptoms, namely headaches, and I began to find it harder and harder to write. Before long, I couldn't even write a few hundred words. That's been the case for the majority of my time away, and I'm only barely managing better. As I write this my brain is numb after writing half of this chapter today (the other I finished over multiple seperate sessions yonks ago) and I'd class that as a spectacular outcome.

So with that, and attempting some physical therapy stuff, I didn't have much to go around, really.

Another factor was the criticism. This isn't specific to any particular platform I'm posting this story on, really, but as it was already exceptionally hard for me to write anything at all, it wasn't hard to feel like it just wasn't worth the hassle to create this thing, only to recieve the same criticism that has already been levied my way. Whether it be about the variant CF rules or some other thing, I was in enough pain and I didn't need more to pile on.

You might think that's silly, and you're pretty much right. It should really be something that's more frustrating or annoying than painful, seems a bit melodramatic, really. Unfortunately, I don't have control of what my body does, so those small emotions trigger adrenalin, which compounds, which triggers more adrenalin, which compounds futher, and so on and so forth.

It's stupid, I hate it, I can't control it.

So, this is just a request that, before posting a critique, take a peek at the posts others have left, and if there has already been a post mentioning your issue with the story, I'd appreciate it if you left well enough alone. This absolutely counts for the variant CF rules; in which case, if you do not like the rules, or feel that it 'ruins' CF or the story, then I can't help you, there are other stories out there.

This story is, frankly, a recovery tool for me. I want to write again, I want to build my ability to write and managing my headaches in concert. If that means this story feels meandering or aimless, that's fine by me, because I'm writing something. But that also means that as soon as it starts hurting more than it's helping, I must choose to stop regardless.

In the end, I can't even pretend to promise that I'll stick around, because if random two cent critiques start making me lose sleep, it just doesn't makes sense.

I hope that gives some insight into the real life struggles I'm facing, and how frustrating it can be when your body decides an internet comment is enough reason to lose sleep over and end up in actual physical pain. I appreciate it if you took the time, it's a bit of a read, and I hope that I might see you all again soon.

We'll have to see.

Have a good one, and until next time!

6: Solemn Secrets

6: Solemn Secrets

The pounding headache woke me up, which was impressive given just how utterly exhausted I felt from yesterday's events. It was probably the most I'd done in a single day in… years? Honestly, my sense of time was so shot at this point and distinguishing between months, a year, and multiple years was almost futile.

I cracked an eye open, and was relieved that there wasn't any light in the room to make the process of forcibly rousing my brain any more difficult. Ice-picks through the eye socket tended to be the effect light had on me when I was sporting a migraine like this one.

For a while, as my brain worked sluggishly to catch back up, I was confused by my surroundings. A bare room, clean and fresh smelling, spacious enough for a person or two. It definitely wasn't my home, and it took a good few seconds for me to recall the day before.

I was in my assigned room at the PHQ, technically my living quarters. My mind was foggy on the details, but after the small impromptu meet and greet with the majority of the local Protectorate team-or just the team, since I was actually on it now-I'd taken the chance to ask where I could rest and recuperate. Seems that'd turned into me crashing and burning wholesale.

'Knew lying down was a bad idea.' I mused as I did my best to prop myself up against the thin pillows that'd come as standard. Trust them to build this masterwork of architectural design and cheap out on the damn pillows. Honestly.

I spent maybe thirty minutes sitting there, trying to get to the point where my eyes would stay open against even the near complete darkness of my room, and actually found that messing around with Life energy helped with the process.

Once I could keep my eyes open, I decided that I might as well continue with pushing my manipulation of Life energy, like I'd done the morning before, and found myself feeling just a little more refreshed by the time I was hit by the sharp, warning pain I'd run into last time.

Opening my eyes fully, this time taking in the room properly, I noticed the few items on my side table.

A phone, my dinky flip phone, and a ziplock bag.

"Oh thank god." I murmured as I grabbed the ziplock bag and reached inside for a firmly set jelly square of the medicine I'd cooked up the day before. Placing it into my mouth and chewing, then swallowing a second later. I was right, it was way easier to take once it'd set.

It didn't take long for the medication to kick in, and while it did nothing for the migraine, the effects were just as significant as the day before. Some of the weight of exhaustion eased back from behind my eyes, and gave me just enough wiggle room to notice the tugging on my mind to grow stronger.

It was a force of effort to not let my power pull me fully into my mind like I had the day before, but I managed to achieve the same semi-present state I had done before and held it until a connection with a much too large star failed and my power receded.

I sighed after the moment of exertion, but I found myself pleased with the results. With this progress, I was hoping that I'd be able to register whatever my power was doing without interruptions to whatever I was supposed to be doing. No matter what anyone said, it was a glaring weakness, and it would absolutely be exploited if push came to shove.

Which was weird to think about; push coming to shove, I mean. I was a decently violence-averse person, and a childhood in Brockton Bay had done nothing to endear me to it, so now that I was a member of the Protectorate, it was a little hard to come to grips with the fact that conflict was inevitable.

As much as I wanted to remain the guy working behind the team, supplying and maintaining gear and systems, offering support here and there when I could-the kind of guy that got credited every now and then as the 'one that makes everything you see happen'-I knew that wasn't going to happen.

When shit went down, you were where the PRT and Protectorate thought they needed you. I might get a pass for now, but if things keep going the way they have been, I'll not remain incapable of being put into play for too long.

Clicking my tongue at myself, I diverted myself back towards the other two items on my side table. This time I flicked on the lamp as well, grabbing the two phones and inspecting the new one.

A touchscreen device, huh? Well I guess this is where the pillow budget went. It was a rugged thing, the case being fairly non-descript but vaguely military in its design, which I could only guess was a godsend for the capes that were getting into melees a couple times a week.

Pressing the button on the side, the phone's large screen lit up with a flashbang of white, forcing me to squint to read the small black text.

"Welcome to the PRT/Protectorate, this is your officially issued mobile device, built to be used in your duties for the maximum protection and security of yourself and the organisation as a whole." I read, then tapping the 'get started' button at the bottom of the page.

After ten minutes of setup, I had myself a brand-new phone, even it if was only for use in work-related matters, to access the secure internal network, or to contact family and loved ones in emergency situations.

So it wasn't a completely 'do as you wish' device, but it was a neat piece of kit. Far as I could tell, the operating system was custom, and it came pre-packaged with a lot of general information about the organisation and different resources you could access-one of which being a wiki. The websites were a bit of a mess, but that's government web design for you.

In the end, I confirmed that I could actually use my own devices while at the PHQ, I just needed to make sure I was connected in through their own Wi-Fi and cellular, which I checked and had already happened automatically. Neat.

Using my own phone, already missing the much superior phone's interface, I started checking through my usual haunts for new notifications or missed messages. There were a few, but only one really important one.

Sve1te: heeeeyy srry i poofed yesterday. my comp broke on me!

Svelte replied to my message around twelve hours after I'd sent mine, but she didn't end there. An hour later she'd sent another message.

Sve1te: im rlly srry that they cant help u… r u ok?

I grimaced, scrolling down further and seeing a final message, sent three hours after the last.

Sve1te: I'm so, so sorry.

Something about the trio of messages made ice go down my spine. The first one was too cheery, almost fake, which was something Svelte almost never was. The second was more what I might've expected, and sounded more like her, but still felt constrained. The last… I hated the last one.

Gone was the goofy contractions and wilful disregard for grammar or punctuation, instead it just felt cold and painful instead.

Svelte had always been one to take blame on herself, and maybe it was because she'd known how much I was riding on that chance at health with Panacea's powers that the result on her was so significant.

It didn't help that when she said that her computer had broken… I didn't believe her. Her computer, her internet, her power, none had ever gone down, not once. Maybe it was silly to think that someone was immune to a common occurrence like their machine shitting itself, but it just didn't fit in my head.

I rubbed viciously at my face, wishing I'd just taken a minute to check up on her yesterday, if only to stop her from spiralling like she had, but put it aside to finally get back to her.

Tired: Hey, that's alright, it happens. No need to beat yourself up over it alright? I was lucky and ended up getting a helping hand from one of the doctors there. Never heard of a doctor driving a patient home from the hospital after work, but I guess I can claim to be the first, huh?

I sent the message, giving myself a break to think of what else I wanted to say, and getting back to it before she could show up and cut in between.

Tired: Honestly, she was a bit of a godsend, her and Panacea both. Panacea gave me a phone number, said it was an opportunity that might help me out, so I gave it a call yesterday and that's why I was busy. Looks like I got it, so I'm actually doing okay. Real tired, but okay.

I sent the message, looking over it and hoping that I got everything in there to calm the girl on the other end a little bit. I tried not to make it all seem so suspicious, or sound like I was hiding things, but I knew it was a bust on that front as soon as I re-read it.

A name appeared in the active users bar.

Sve1te: oh! thts good to hear doctors can be good sometimes.

Sve1te: wht did panpan give u? was it like a job or like one of those jesus camps?

I snorted at the mental image of Panacea handing out numbers to a Christian camp after failing to treat someone. Grimly amusing as it might be, it was still amusing. As was the idea of equating the Protectorate to a Christian camp.

Tired: Haha, no not quite. She doesn't really seem the type, and I'd bet if someone tried to make her do it, all hell would break loose. She's a bit of a force of nature, that girl.

I hit send, and through I could see her still viewing the private messages, she didn't respond like she normally might. I sighed; no getting around it, then.

Tired: It's more a job. I really can't say anything else, just know it's all above board. I think it's only of my only ways forward, so I'm going to take it, even if I'm not really a fan.

Sve1te: cant or wont?

I paused, mulling over the question.

Tired: Wont. Technically I can tell friends and family members at my discretion, but I don't think that means over the internet. Not exactly the most secure places to talk it.

I watched the little 'Sve1te is typing…' indicator pop up, persisting for some time until it stopped cold. I felt an eyebrow quirk as a waited for it to reappear, and only after about thirty seconds did a message appear.

Sve1te: oh

I stared at the two letters on the cramped screen of my flip phone, wondering just what the hell that was supposed to mean. Ambiguity abound, I decided to get up and try and get my body into motion, checking back on the flip phone for any updates while I did.

Sve1te: soooo

Sve1te: r u a spy or smthn now?

Svel1te: pls say u r

Now that managed to get a laugh out of me.

She hadn't known what to say.

Did she tell him?

Was it even what she thought, or was she overthinking it?

Her mouth and throat were painfully dry, like it'd been stuffed full of sand. She had to be careful, now. She couldn't afford to break another computer, they'd take away the privilege "for her own safety and wellbeing."

She took deep breaths, warding away the quiet fear.

He… surely he… did he? After that, and then the job? It had to have been, right?

Should she tell him?

She felt them beginning to roil, twitch and reach out to grasp at her surroundings and, with a force of will, she shut the thought down with all her might.

No, not yet. She couldn't yet. She wasn't sure.

With great care she typed her response, a small smile coming to her lips at her own joke.

She had to be sure.

She didn't want him to think she was a monster, right?

Eventually I'd left my room in search of food. The little unit had a joining bathroom that I used, complete with a shower too, so even though I had to sit on the floor I was glad to feel somewhat clean. Thankfully the issued phone had a map on it that was easy enough to follow, so I managed to get to a cafeteria area to find it still open and functioning-though there wasn't much of a crowd with it being mid-morning.

Passing through with a plate I was able to grab a decent, if slightly unhealthy meal and a hot chocolate to boot. It wasn't all that hot, but I'd take it over nothing.

Looking around, the vast majority of the personnel were PRT troopers or just administration folk. I'm not exactly certain what the distinction would be between working at the PHQ and the PRTHQ in the city proper, but I wasn't left enough time to ponder the answer as I saw Miss Militia-Hannah, as she'd introduced herself the day before-walking over to me at a brisk pace.

"James, good to see you up." She greeted, helping herself to a seat across from me. You would think that I'd be concerned about this making me stand out too much, but the earlier look around the cafeteria told me that, between the troopers in something akin to army fatigues and the admin types in suit and tie, I stuck out like a sore thumb regardless.

"Better wake up than I'd expected, so I'll take it." I offered tiredly as I munched on some slightly cold toast with peanut butter on it.

"Good to hear." She said, pleasantly professional about it all, "However, you realise you are not wearing your mask, yes?"

I stopped, realised she was right, then shrugged.

"Have now." I answered with a dramatic bite into my toast and a long drink of the hot chocolate, only choosing to expand at her unimpressed stare, "I'm using my own name and, seriously, does anyone actually think domino masks do a good job of hiding their identities?"

"No, it's why most of the whole team cover significant portions of their face, usually with a visor." She answered amusedly, "It's mostly politeness if I'm being honest, since most worry they weren't supposed to see your face. It isn't often that one of the others will walk around outside of costume, let alone without a mask."

"That sounds-" I paused for a moment, feeling the pull of my power kicking into gear and I held out against it until it failed to connect with anything, then attempting to return to the conversation like nothing had happened, "like a bit of a hassle? To get into costume every single time you leave your room, I mean."

She gave me a raised brow at the significant pause, but she seemed to take the hint, "The upstairs living area is all Protectorate members, so it isn't as necessary. The floor down from us is the Wards quarters, by the way, so be aware of that. They cannot wander around our quarters on a whim, however." She explained, and I found myself nodding along.

"And there's that shared kitchen up there too, right?" I remembered belatedly, "Well, I wouldn't've cooked myself anything anyway. Too much of a pain." Literally.

"That's fair enough." She said, bringing that to a close, "As a warning, James, the coming days tend to be a little hectic for new recruits. Things will be a little different for you, in accommodating for your physical limitations, but there are a few things you'll likely have to attend to and accommodate for going foward."

"Hit me." I said from behind my cup, figuring I'd just let her get right down to it.

"There are a few classes you'll need to start taking, something that will be persistent through your year of probation. These are essential to earning the certifications necessary to act as law enforcement with use of a parahuman power. They aren't negotiable and were included in your contract." She began, her tone barely shifting as she spoke, sounding much like she had on the phone the day before.

"Secondly, you'll need to attend team meetings whenever you are able. It really is important that you learn what position the Protectorate is in strategically, and how that differs from the public's perception of things. Meetings are generally three or so times a week, though meetings with different parts of the team run nearly every day, so just keep an eye on your work phone." She said seriously, laying down the law on expectations.

"Thirdly, you will need to meet with the public relations department about your cape persona and future debut." I opened my mouth to voice my hesitance, but she simply raised a hand to shush me, "I understand that you will not be making an appearance on patrols or, likely, at very many Protectorate functions, but you are a tinker and Director Piggot and Armsmaster think this to be a reasonable explanation for your absence from the field."

She took one look at my disbelieving expression and sighed, "Another thing to consider is that this will actually let you fly under the radar far better than leaving you as an unannounced member of the Protectorate, in the public eye at least. Think; if the team starts going on patrol with new gear that's significantly different than Armsmaster or Kid Win's general style, then the public will immediately start hyping up the potential new Tinker. Especially if the tech is at all impressive."

I chewed on that for a few seconds. "Point." I acquiesced with a grunt.

"Thank you." She graciously accepted alongside a laugh, "Finally, for now, you'll need to undergo at least some further power testing. Things tend to be looser around Trumps that generate minor powers, but we still need to get a good idea of what your capabilities are. If not so we can strategize around them, then at least to map how they evolve and change along the way. I'll note that Armsmaster is quite keen to work with you personally, and Director Piggot may be inclined to waive some of the standard testing if you do so. That's your choice, however."

She had clearly finished up her mandatory spiel, looking to me with a gentle query in her eyes, but I was just stuck dumbly chewing on the last piece of toast, leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed.

That was a hell of a lot to process, but after a few minutes of being locked up I managed to boil it all down to the important bits.

"Alright, so; being a cop 101, dealing with the gangs 101, picking out my leotard, and making cool stuff with the boss man himself?" I crudely summarised, receiving a huff of laughter for my troubles.

"Close enough, Assault the Second." She jabbed back.

I took the counterblow with the utmost grace, slurping noisily from my cup, emptying it, before placing it back down on the table and rising slowly to my feet.

"So where to first?"

I leant my head back against the cool surface of the wall behind my chair, my legs propped up on another one nearby. I'd taken the primer 'lesson' for the law enforcement class first at Miss Militia's direction, and I was glad to have gotten it out of the way. Really, the primer lesson was a collection of short videos that were more introductory than anything, subsequent practical lessons would be taken in the various training facilities the PHQ and PRTHQ housed, and theory classes were mostly video classes.

At least it'd been quick and to the point, not slowing down or going on any real tangents like a regular class might. There were instructors on site that you could go to with any questions, so tangents would be relegated to those meetings, I'd assume.

I let my mind wander away from the pseudo-orientation, instead finding myself thinking about the evening prior. Had it been evening? It'd felt like it, but it might've been more in the afternoon than anything.

The small meeting had been surprisingly heartening. Most of the Protectorate heroes had turned out for it, sans Armsmaster and Dauntless as both had been busy or taking their day off. None had gone so far as to follow Miss Militia's example by revealing their complete identity to me, but I wasn't all that concerned about it. After all, I could feel the difference in the demeanours of the capes, juxtaposed with the way they acted in the media and in press meetings.

Besides Miss Militia, who I tentatively placed as my favourite of the group, Assault had been the most enthusiastically friendly towards me. He seemed to revel in the fact that I was willing to trade quips and barbs with him, and most of the team just seemed relieved the man had someone to focus on for the time being. He was also the only one to give me his real name, even if he hadn't taken off his visor. It was 'Ethan', which struck me as oddly fitting, for whatever reason.

Triumph, the newest member aside from me and past Wards team leader, also seemed like a genuinely good guy and easy enough to get along with. A bit more uptight, which made me think he might've had a bit of a strict upbringing or something.

Battery, the only other woman of the team, seemed nice enough, though she kept it very professional in comparison to the rest of the team. I had almost pinned her as a Director Piggot or Armsmaster type, but then I noticed that Assault hung around her like an overexcited dog and her playing the stoically unimpressed cat. There were rumours that they were related, I think, but with the looks they were giving each other outside of the eye of the cameras?

I'd eat my fucking hat if they were siblings. Unless they were straight out of Alabama, that is.

Velocity had also turned up, and we'd talked about his love for languages for a while. He was pretty passionate about the subject, even recommended learning some of an Asian language, with the ABB being so prevalent, since the gang members and the civilians were much more confident talking to you if you had at least a few words learned. Fair enough.

It'd been a pleasant greeting, even it'd been brief, with Triumph and Assault and Battery leaving after twenty some minutes, then Miss Militia and Velocity ten minutes later, showing me my room and leaving me to rest.

Maybe it'd just been happenstance that had allowed so much of the team to be there, but that they at least seemed professional about my inclusion on the team or in its periphery was a relief, along with not getting the sense that any of them were assholes. A good first encounter was never a bad thing.

A knock against the door of the little office space I'd been put in interrupted my rest, but through the largely frosted windows I could see the distinct blue figure as clear as day. Leaning over, I pulled the door open and looked up at the armoured man with an amused smile.

"Good afternoon, James. I'd come to ask if you had the leeway to spend some time with me in the workshop?" He asked, his tone flat and straight to the point, only barely offering a greeting.

I stopped myself from immediately saying yes-truthfully, I was bursting at the seams for the chance to mess around with some of the new stuff I'd acquired, but I couldn't throw care completely out the window. I was already cutting it straight to the razor's edge, and I was pretty astonished I wasn't a smoking wreck at this point.

"And how far away is the workshop?" I asked, tentatively.

"Quite far." Armsmaster admitted freely, but continued before I could respond in the negative, "However, anticipating this, I brought a collapsible wheelchair. It is, however, not necessary that you come along, this is just your first day-"

I cut the deadpan man off with a wave of my hand, "Okay, okay, I'll come along. Thank you for grabbing the wheelchair though, it's a pain in the ass to haul around when I can walk fine, but sucks when I need it and don't have it around."

"Understandable," he noted as he opened up the wheelchair that he'd leaned against the wall besides the door and I made to sit in it, "I may be able to work on making the wheelchair more compact in its collapsed form, or reduce its weight, but I'd be concerned it may harm its integrity or useability."

I turned to look at the man through his dark tinted visor as he pushed me through the corridors at a swift pace, "You're thinking about making a tinker tech wheelchair?"

He adjusted his shoulder posture in a way that could have been a very muted shrug, "I think of a great many projects that I could build with my power's assistance, especially if one of its requirements is to be collapsible to some degree. A fascination of mine, and part of my specialisation."

"Huh." I murmured, taking the man's word for it. I'd started to feel myself thinking more and more of possibilities when observing the technology around me-primarily with vehicles, but I could feel the knowledge of magitech slowly come to the fore, wanting to test how modern machinery might interact with my current reserves of Life magics.

Again, without any obvious prompting, the internal pulling began, resulting in a struggle for me to keep my mind in the present while my power reached out into the field of stars.

It seems that it was time a connection was due, and as the sizeable star was hauled in by my power, I was filled with a sense of ease. All around me I began to see little things that, if there was no longer use for them, I could take apart and put to good work as part of a motor, or maybe the interior.

Even eyeing the dusty computers in some of the rooms we passed by gave me thoughts of putting together a proper powerful ECU for a car or two, even having decent computers built into the thing for the sake of A.I. assisted driving and remote control.

Wait, do I know how to do that? Remote control would be easy enough, honestly, especially if I just build it into the thing when putting it all together in the first place, but the A.I. might be outside my purview. Hmmm, I wonder-

"Hey Armsmaster?" I asked, consideration heavy in my tone.

"Yes James?" He responded blandly as he pushed me into an elevator, waving a hand over a scanner and entering a key code into the number pad.

"What's your experience like with A.I.?" I said as the elevator began to descend smoothly.

"Fairly extensive, though they are intentionally specific and limited. I am also usually assisted with the aid of a tinker who has much greater expertise with software than myself. Is this question brought on due to your power's most recent activity?"

"Still that obvious?" I sighed, "Partly, yes. The new addition was a good eye for reusing broken, old, or discarded things in my process. Really it extends to anything, but I'd probably be able to go down to a junkyard and give that Merchant tinker a run for her money in the ugly car competition."

"Useful, but not entirely relevant to the subject of A.I." Armsmaster commented, and I confirmed with a nod.

"Instead that comes more from my new vehicle-based power. I can build the technology to allow a car to automatically operate itself, but that knowledge doesn't extend to the actual creation of the A.I., training it, or anything along those lines. It'd be a boon if I could, though." I said as the elevator came to a stop, and opened into a wide open area filled to the brim with tools, benches, materials, and more. It was a little awe inspiring, and it seemed that Armsmaster used the room to work on his motorcycle, though I didn't see any evidence of work on his suit, so he may have a private workshop.

"I should be able to help you there. My own vehicle has an internal A.I. system that should be general enough that it could adapt to another vehicle, though it will be open to the creator of its source software for the sake of tinker tech maintenance." He explained as he wheeled me further into the room and placing me near to a large car lift, currently empty but surrounded entirely by various parts, standard tools and equipment, and basically the toolbox featured in every mechanic's wet dreams.

"Well." I forced out, "This is impressive."

"I should hope so." Armsmaster said, clear amusement in his voice, "I happen to be the Protectorate's leading tinker, so our workshop was guaranteed a sizeable budget. I generally use this for larger projects, which is currently relegated to my motorcycle for the moment."

"You don't really go for big tech, so that makes sense." I said, earning a unsatisfied grunt from the man.

"I would invest in larger projects, but I tend to densely pack technology into even the smallest of my devices, and the idea of building anything larger than my bike seems exceptionally time consuming." He clarified.

I eyed all the varied parts surrounding the car lift, quickly realising that there wasn't a whole vehicle lying in pieces, I moved my attention to the premiere tinker's motorcycle with a critical eye.

It was a very sporty looking machine, sleek and clearly optimised for airflow and drag resistance. It looked like it'd probably be on the heavier side, especially with the tech density that Armsmaster had just been talking about, but it was outwardly reasonable, if somewhat uninspired and by the books.

"You mind if I take a look?" I said, pointing towards the bike.

The Protectorate Leader looked momentarily conflicted before nodding in the affirmative, pushing me to the side of the bay where it was currently sitting slightly elevated, and standing aside, arms crossed as though he were a bouncer.

Man must really love his motorcycle.

I hopped out of the chair, albeit carefully, and starter to check out the bike as best I could without touching it or taking apart the engine case. The more I looked at the thing, however, the more and more bizarre it got.

It was streamlined, but not too streamlined. It was built for speed, but not too much speed. It had lots of traction, but not too much traction. Every individual part seemed as though it'd been pulled directly from some simulation between every modern part of the same type was averaged and only 'positives' aspects were included.

It was like a math equation built the 'perfect' motorcycle, with almost no concessions to its intended use case-merely some abstracted art piece made for showroom floors or for a concept car fluff piece.

'I mean… it'd work?' I thought to myself, puzzling over the thing's design, 'But why?'

If the man wanted a bike that was serviceable in every conceivable situation-and this bike can only barely be considered that-then I could probably go buy a bike and tinker with it for an hour and he'd be good. This was a technically 'better' solution, but it just seemed like-

I flinched back as Armsmaster appeared right next to me like a ninja, looking even more like a bouncer than before.

"God damn, you scared the shit out of me!" I groaned, placing a hand over my violently thumping heart.

"Apologies." He said, taking a step back, "You looked as though you were entering a tinker fugue and I was concerned you may begin attempting to use my motorcycle as parts."

Oh, that would explain it. He isn't just crazy about his bike, he was worried I was going to scrap his work to tinker with it.

"No, no. I'm just finding your bike to be sort of bizarre." I quickly reassured, "I'm assuming that all the parts were built through tinker tech means, or is tinker tech in some way itself?"

"You would be correct." He answered succinctly, "The precision required would be very difficult for a human to match, and most precision equipment might only just cut it."

"Right," I murmured, confirming part of my theory, "do you mind if I take a peek at the engine properly? Won't touch it, tinker's honour!"

Armsmaster actually snorted at that, "Lies, we have no honour when it comes to our tech."

Despite his words, he lifted a small latch that pulled up the seat and allowed the rest of the fairing to open up as well-the most obviously tinker tech portion of the vehicle with its lack of significant holes for exhaust and thermal transfer with the air.

Inside I found the most monstrous motorcycle engine I had ever witnessed. Granted, I hadn't ever looked at a motorcycle engine in my life, but still.

It was the same as the rest of the bike but somehow worse.

Everything was seemingly balanced on a knife's edge for no reason! It wasn't as if it wasn't a clearly powerful engine, as non-standard as the design might be, but it was absolutely packed with conflicting optimisations, each of which added more and more complexity and precision to the machine until it was more like an equation cosplaying as a Rube Goldberg machine.

This wasn't helped by me noticing the faint seams on the fairing of the bike and figuring out each was a different technology of some sort, and god knows what the hell they were meant to do.

"Boss man, quick question." I said as I took a step back from the machine to consider it in its totality, glancing at the man searchingly, "How long does this thing take you to maintain?"

This gave him pause, pursing his lips as he looked to his machine and considered my question carefully.

"Five hours per week, likely another three every month depending on usage." He answered finally, leaving me with my eyebrows reaching up towards my hairline, "Minimum."

"Jesus." I sighed out, "And I bet that's not considering if anything actually breaks, right?"

"Correct." He confirmed, lips set into an uncertain grimace.

"That's just not worth it, man. This whole bike is fighting itself. There's no design coherency, it's absolutely filled with 'optimisations' that are stopping it from being good at anything at all. It'll absolutely chew through road, but it's just not built to be good at anything, only barely mediocre, as far as super-powered bikes go." I ranted emphatically, only stopping myself as I registered the look on his face.

"You can recognise how it functions?" He asked, a slight hint of astonishment colouring his tone, "That engine is nearly entirely tinker tech."

I blinked, turning back to the engine with consternation, before pointing out a part of the engine that everything else surrounded but that I couldn't identify, "I'm assuming that's the heart of it all, right? The main piece of tinker tech?"

"It is, in essence, meant to function as a perpetual energy machine-though it is not actually that efficient and has a limited scale-this being its limit. With this engine design, I was able to use the lost energy of each process to feed the energy conservation unit so as to maintain it's steady output. This should allow the motorcycle to function on very little fuel for far, far longer than it otherwise should." He stated as a manner of fact, but I could sense the pride in the piece of tinker tech.

I looked more closely at the almost donut shaped enclosed metal container, trying to see if there were vents or anything that I could peer through to get a better idea of how it functioned, but I gave up trying to understand it and rather just decided to take it as a given.

"Alright, so you have an engine that can subsist on extremely low amounts of fuel. At current, how long could you last on a conventional full tank on, say, a freeway?" I asked, curious how significant it really was.

"Approximately thirty-seven hours."

"Thirty-seven?" I almost yelled, incredulous, "When the hell do you ever drive that much? Why bother make such a massive trade-off for the efficiency of the bike if you weren't going to reallocate it somewhere else?"

"How do you mean? My bike is built to be as functional as possible and remain efficient in fuel usage to mitigate potential downtime." He inquired, slightly guarded.

"Your bike can do everything the same way that a store-bought bike can do everything-it can't." I asserted, trying to keep it as non-inflammatory as possible all the while, "All-rounders are great, but not for specialised use cases like the ones you have. You're using your bike for patrols and chases inside of a cramped city with poorly maintained infrastructure. How many times have you needed to slow down and weave through potholes so you don't absolutely trash your bike?"

Armsmaster looked back to his bike, the muscles in his jaw working, though I couldn't quite get a read on what it meant, "Quite often."

"Right!" I exclaimed, then pointed to the racing formfactor, at odds with the more conventional but still racing leaning tires, "This isn't servicing your actual needs here. It looks sexy as hell, absolutely, but it's a severely compromised racing bike at best here. It doesn't need to be a dirt bike or anything, though, it just needs to be able to take the punishment the roads around here will deal out, and so-"

My jaw clamped up as I instinctively fought against the pulling sensation, managing to keep myself more cognizant than I ever have before, able to even hold up a hand to request a moment while a connection was being attempted. It then passed with nothing to show for it.

"Fucking power." I grumbled under my breath, though I saw a slight sympathetic look on Armsmaster's face, "Anyway, my point is…"

My frown quickly turned into a grin, mind already whirring with the promise of a real challenge.

"Maybe it's time for a redesign, hey?"

Perks Gained this Chapter =

Scrapyard Skills (Swat Kats) (300CP)

-Scrapyard Skills (Swat Kats) (300CP)

Where others see junk, you see treasure just waiting to be utilized. You can make far more use out of scrap metal and tossed out electronics, repurposing them for many different tasks. That washing machine might have the parts needed to help spin an engine turbine, or that piston tube might be JUST the right size to refashion into a grappling hook launcher… it's all in how you use it and how you repurpose things.

A/N: Lots of bits and pieces in this chapter, partially for the sake of establishing a direction, and also to keep some other plot threads relevant. I 'skipped over' the welcome James got mostly because it wouldn't have been all that important in contrast to future interactions with the Protectorate Heroes he'll have that'll expand their characters, but also that it would've taken way too many words for me to orchestrate it all haha.

Been wiffing on a lot of perks lately, just always rolling toward the middle or top of a catagory and essentially never picking anything up. The new perk, Scrapyard Skills, is generic but definitely useful. Especially since it'll apply to more advanced forms of technology, which allow him to mix and match between tech from different settings better; though it still relies on his skills with technology for it to be applicable in the first place, so we'll have to wait for that.

Next chapter will likely start with a small POV segment from Armsmaster's perspective once again. This chapter may have made the man and his motorbike look stupid-that he couldn't have seen the obvious flaws in his own tech-but I believe I have a fairly compelling reason why Armsmaster was blind to it. You've all likely put two and two together, it's pretty obvious, but it'll be good to actualise it in the story either way!

Finally, this chapter broke through the 50K mark, which is kinda funny.

Hope you enjoyed.

Last edited: Nov 27, 2022