Ancient Legos

Chapter 02

Tests

Captain's Log, Earth Date: February 7th, 2011

Day two of being a superhero. It's much more boring than I thought it would be. I mean, you're always hearing on the news about the Protectorate heroes' latest adventures, or captures and whatnot, usually with support from at least one of the Wards.

Speaking as a Ward, that's apparently… not quite reality.

My meetings with Glenn Chambers, a PR specialist they flew in from New York, and the PRT PR department have painted the true picture.

A superhero doesn't spend most of their time battling the forces of evil in the form of a Villain or teams of minions.

No. We fight the everlasting war against the great demon Paperwork, who draws power from every crossed t, dotted i, and paper cut.

Seriously, I thought I was done after filling out the application for the Wards. But nooo, I had to learn how to fill out AARs, after action reports, in triplicate.

Those things are ten pages long. And that's just the first kind of form I needed to learn.

The less said about the absolute disaster that was the PR department's attempts at naming my superhero identity, thinking up a costume, and trying to shove public etiquette lessons down my throat, the better.

Round two is scheduled for Saturday, the 12th of February, 2011. I've gotta say, I'm rather looking forward to it.

Of course, this time I'll be a level 20 rated Tinker. I will be the decision maker, not Glenn frakking Chambers.

I mean, seriously? Tie-dye paint jobs and The Shipper as a name? I'm not a tween girl who reads crappy fanfiction about sparkly vampires.

You have no idea how relieved us PHO forum goers were when we found out that book series is hated on Aleph too.

Anyways, school was nice. Got to indulge my scientific and linguistic know-how that came with my powers in an academic setting for the first time ever. The work was so offensively and pathetically easy I had to actually answer a couple wrong so I didn't jump from Bs and Cs to perfection in a day.

That is one of the guidelines in the Newbie Cape's Handbook On How To Out Yourself In Three Easy Steps, after all.

Anyways, that's it for today. I'm on my way to the PRT building at the moment, so I'm signing off. Got hero stuff to focus on!

End Log.

I relaxed back into the pilot's seat of my shuttle. As the gel conformed to my body shape I sighed, smiling. A quick thought and the shuttle sent my new Log off to my home computer system for storage and transcription.

My life was going great. I'd become a superhero yesterday, finally let the reigns on my education-specific knowledge loose, leading to a massive boost to the grades I received, and was currently on my way to the PRT for my 'after-school elective' as Arcadia called it.

In my invisible, undetectable, gravity defying, space capable, nuclear-equivalent weapon equipped shuttlecraft, flying a decent distance above the skyline.

I glanced at the speedometer, or at least what passed for one, to double check the ship was following my instructions. Mentally directed and incredibly smart the shuttle systems may be, but they were no AI. It was prudent to make sure the craft was working correctly. It would do no good to go above the speed of sound; destroying the windows of Brockton Bay's skyscrapers would not be a smart beginning to my hero career.

A small part of my mind needled me about the fact that no Alteran would ever think about any of that, much less do so. With my human mentality back in full force I was becoming quite cynical about the race whose technology I'd essentially inherited. As much as I wished otherwise, that part of me was right.

The Alterans, intelligent and powerful as they were, simply did not have common sense. It would shock me if they had a term for that in their language.

…

Of course not. Common Sense, Maintenance, what other concepts would I learn the Alterans didn't comprehend?

…

-I cut my power's linguistics section off before it could answer that. I really didn't want to know.

Being on the other side of the nearly nonexistent PR wall of Parahumans was quite the experience. I'd always thought it strange that so many kids had after school electives. Much like my classmates, I'd also wondered why, when a new student transferred in, so did at least two others that looked just like them. A lot of people believed that it was to confuse theorists like I used to be, or Thinkers, from figuring out who the Wards were.

I now knew that rumor to be completely accurate. Thankfully I didn't need to worry about doppelgangers of me running around, as I had already been enrolled in Arcadia for two years.

School had been absolutely amazing now that I knew who was really a Ward.

I still hung out with my friends, of course, and we were all a bunch of cape geeks. The speculation didn't stop because I suddenly became a Ward. Nor should it have, as they didn't know that there was a new one, much less that they were me.

I was laughing internally every time they formed theories on who they, we, might be. That morning in the shower I'd had the terrifying thought that I might have to run interference to prevent my friends from hitting the truth like a miner who struck gold.

I needn't have worried.

Amazingly, nobody even came close. And that's saying something, because Dean and Victoria 'Vicky' Dallon didn't tone down their PDA at all.

Seriously, it was freaking public knowledge Glory Girl and Gallant were dating. How Dean wasn't unmasked for the world still escaped me.

When I arrived in the PRT parking garage I had a greeting party waiting for me.

The moment the shuttle touched down and decloaked, Armsmaster banged on the hull.

I lowered the rear ramp, exited, closed the ramp, and before Armsmaster could walk around the shuttle, hit the red X.

A moment later and with a crack of thunder, the Lego model was in my hand.

"Sup, Armsmaster?" I greeted him cheerily. I was in a really good mood.

"Will," Armsmaster growled.

I stopped walking towards him. Was something up? "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that you took an untested piece of nuclear armed Tinkertech for a joyride above the city last night!" he yelled. "And then, you used it to get to Arcadia, left it lying around all day ready for absolutely anyone to find and steal, then flew it directly here after leaving the school for an 'after school elective', something which some people think is a cover story for the Wards! Which it is!"

I opened my mouth to respond, found nothing, closed it again, then went with the less obvious question. "I wasn't supposed to take it to school?"

I could see him visibly taking a chill pill. "No," he seethed. "It was going to be moved to a lab where we were to study it."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh," I said intelligently.

"We are going to that lab. You are going to deploy this 'shuttle'. And then the Director, Aegis, and I will be going over the rule books with you," he declared.

I sighed, preparing for a boring day. "Lead on, party pooper."

The sound of him grinding his teeth was music to my ears. I could even vaguely hear laughter coming from his helmet.

He must've been in a call with someone. Rude.

Halfway to the PRT testing lab I was intercepted by a tiny, female, green costumed missile which decided I was the perfect target for lamprey behavior.

"Oof!" I grunted, bracing myself against the hallway wall.

"Thank you," a young girl's voice squeaked from inside my jacket.

I glanced down to see a head of blonde hair emerge from the confines of my upper body coverings. "Hi, Missy," I greeted her with a smile. "Not that I'm complaining about getting hugs from a cute girl or anything, but why are you hugging me?"

She squeaked and bounced away from me, cheeks flushing red. "H-hey," she stammered, "it's not like that!"

I crossed my arms and smirked. "Oh so you just spontaneously hug everybody then?" I countered teasingly.

Missy stamped her foot and tried to frown, but she was still too young to look anything but cute no matter what she did. "No!" she shot back indignantly, "I get to use my powers to help test yours today!" Her grin tried to turn feral, a manic look in her eyes at the clear belief she was getting back at me.

I brought one hand to my chin and started rubbing, leaving the elbow cupped by my other hand. "Hmmm…," I mused.

Her face fell. "What?"

I abruptly snapped my fingers with an 'oh snap' gesture. "Nope, even your menacing is cute."

Missy's eyes flared. "I'm not cute!" she refuted, smacking the back of my head through time and space.

Me being built like a brick shithouse, this of course did absolutely nothing.

"You totally are," I shot back, grinning mercilessly.

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

"Not!"

"Are!"

"NOT!"

"ARE!"

"CHILDREN!" Armsmaster bellowed, apparently having arrived at the argument after his inattention lost track of whether I was still following him or not.

I turned a disbelieving eyebrow on him. Missy scowled.

I heard the woman who was apparently still connected to his helmet say something.

Armsmaster growled. He obviously attempted to reign in his temper and apologize. It was hilarious. Equally obvious was how much he hated it. "Sorry, Wards. Will you please stop your petty squab-" another burst of female speech, "-disagreement, that is, so we can get to testing?"

I grinned at his discomfort and merely nodded.

Missy snapped to something resembling attention. "Yes Sir!"

"Thank you," Armsmaster bit out through mashed teeth.

I winced externally, but internally I was laughing my head off. This day was going to be a nightmare for Grumpy McStickInTheMud. Serves him right for making me read a rulebook of all things at some nebulous point in the future.

Yeah, it's petty. Shut up.

He turned around on the spot and resumed his walk towards the elevators, not bothering to ensure we were following him. I spun around, gave Missy a sarcastic flaunt of a salute, and jogged to keep up with his long strides.

Missy just scowled, warped space to be next to me, and smacked me on the head.

I shoved her shoulder.

She kicked my shin.

I whacked her thigh.

This silent match of Rock'Em Sock'Em Wards continued until Armsmaster turned around to make sure we went into the elevator. We barely had enough time to bring our hands back to our sides and plaster innocent, angelic smiles on our faces.

I rated Missy's an A+. Mine barely mustered a passing grade.

I could feel Armsmaster's narrow eyed glare on my back the whole ride down. It was accompanied by an orchestra of synchronized giggles coming from his helmet, muffled, and the little girl next to me in stereo.

Stupid cheating little girls with overwhelming cuteness and adorable features. Damn you, Missy, damn your cute face to hellllll!

"Weldon!" was the exuberant, expectant cry I was greeted with when the lab door opened.

My eyes shot wide open and I began engaging in a tactical withdrawal. Coming at me was a nerd with glasses, a white lab coat, and an actual pocket protector.

"I'm too young to become a scientist!" I cried out loud, trying not to trip as I walked backwards.

Missy giggled, which was always good in my books. Operation: Get Missy to Embrace her Cute Side was on schedule.

No I didn't just make that up.

…

You have no proof, extrauniversal entity in my head!

"Weldon," Armsmaster stated flatly, his voice booming.

I gulped and turned around. I'd instinctively stopped my backward walk just in time to avoid ramming my head on the guy's armor.

"Yeees, Armsy?" I asked lightly.

Missy and the entire testing team snickered. I felt the heat of Armsmaster's glare as if it was a physical thing.

If looks could kill, my seat in the Underworld would have been assured.

Knowing me though, that seat would probably be the throne.

"We are here to test your abilities," he flatly declared. "Deploy your shuttle in the marked area and assist the testing team with anything they might need." He leaned in close, the semi transparent part of his helmet almost touching my nose. "Do you understand?"

I gulped and nodded. "Yes sir."

"Good," he seethed. He straightened back up and addressed the scientist I'd mentally labeled Nerd Alert. "You are clear to test anything with him that does not violate treaties the United States is required to uphold. Director Piggot has also banned anything that might pose a threat to any portion of the planet's crust above 0.00015%. Is that clear?"

Various kinds of disgruntled agreement arose from the team.

"I have other matters to attend to. After he is done, please send him to the Wards' Common Room." With that and without so much as another glance at me, he strode out of the lab.

If I didn't know better I'd say the doors slammed closed behind him, but they had an automatic pressure system straight out of Star Trek. I highly doubted that could be changed on the fly just because Armsmaster wanted to be a drama queen.

Not because any Tinker who made them wasn't that petty, but because Director Piggot wouldn't allow it.

I spun back around and clapped my hands, abruptly rubbing them with anticipation. I hammed up the manic smile on my face to the maximum level I could sustain without throwing up.

There is only so much cliché I can take, you know.

Then I laughed. "Mua ha ha ha! Much fun will be had todaaay!"

Missy scoffed and whacked me on the head again.

"Hey!"

"No manic laughter in the testing chamber," she scolded me.

"Oh come on!"

"It's a rule," a scientist spoke up.

That brought me up short. "Seriously?"

She nodded. "Yeah. These two idiots," she thumbed over her shoulder to indicate Nerd Alert and the third scientist, someone I could only nickname Captain Neckbeard, "kept doing it when testing the powers of prospective Protectorate or Ward capes. It scared them."

"Hey! It's not our fault!" the two refuted.

"Yes it is," Missy agreed with the only other girl in the room.

"It is entirely your faults," a third woman's voice said.

Okay, not the only other gal in the room. I spun around looking for the third one. "Either I'm hearing things or something screwy is going on," I announced.

A screen on a robotic arm extended from the wall to face me. The static on the monitor cleared and I was looking at the image of a woman.

The image was clearly digitally generated, and kind of average all around, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Then it, she, spoke again.

"Hello Weldon," she said with a slight grin, "I'm Dragon."

I immediately connected her with the voice that had been in Armsmaster's helmet. And, of course, with the most famous Tinker in the world besides the late Hero.

Dragon was talking to me.

Dragon wIas going to test me.

Dragon was projecting herself into the same room as me.

I may have squeed a bit.

"Dragon!" I squeaked, trying and failing to pave over my voice cracking. "Uh, hi! Why are you here?"

I immediately facepalmed. Meet the most famous living Tinker in the world and what do I do? I ask her why she was present in the power tests of another overpowered Tinker.

I was batting well below my average today.

She must have seen my realization and taken pity on me. The other four people in the lab sure didn't, they just snickered endlessly. "I'm providing remote assistance and advice for your power tests, Weldon," she explained, smiling at me. "And laughing at your impressively effective efforts to irritate Armsmaster, but that's just a side benefit."

Missy's jaw dropped. "Wait, you were doing all that on purpose?!"

I grinned.

"God damn," Captain Neckbeard said. "You and Clockblocker must get along swell."

Missy groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "You have no idea," she complained.

"I believe the most accurate phrase to describe their collaboration would be 'like a house on fire'," Dragon commented.

I crossed my arms and scowled. "Screw both of you! You're just jealous you can't pull spaceships out of your pockets!"

More snickering rang through the room. My face fell. "Whaaat?"

Nerd Alert grinned at me. "Is that a battlecruiser in your pocket or are you just happy to see Leslie?" he asked, sniggering.

I sighed. "I knew the joke I told Assault in front of Piggot and Armsmaster was gonna come back to me at some point," I complained, "I just didn't expect it to be this soon. By the way, who's Leslie?"

The female scientist raised her hand. "Leslie Davis, Power Testing Director," she introduced herself.

I grinned at her. "Well, nice to meet you. And yes, I do have a battlecruiser in my pocket. It's just a battlecruiser."

Leslie rolled her eyes and sighed. "Boys," she muttered. "Anyways, shall we begin testing? Or do you need further preparation?"

I rubbed my hands together and opened my mouth to start cackling.

My head was whacked from behind. "No manic laughter!"

"Stop whacking me!"

"Alright, first things first, let's get your… shuttle deployed," Leslie announced.

I pulled the model out of my pocket and rolled it around in my fingers. "Where do you want it?"

"If you could please place it in the blue lines?" Dragon asked.

I looked around for the destination. Sure enough there was a section of the pretty much unbroken concrete floor pattern outlined with softly glowing blue highlights. It was surrounded by all kinds of equipment, some on carts, some big enough to have its own wheels, and even a couple mounted to robotic arms that extended from the ceiling.

I walked over and eyed the space critically. "Is all this equipment wind resistant?" I asked.

"Why?" Captain Neckbeard asked.

"Because when I summon things, they seem to displace the air of their volume near instantly," I explained.

The testing team quietly conferred among themselves for a few moments. Dragon's robotic arm monitor joined their little huddle shortly after it began.

Almost as one they turned back to look at me with an answer. It was creepy how synchronized they were.

I was under no illusion that the creepy factor wasn't intentional.

"All the equipment should be fine," Dragon informed me.

"It's rated for much more abuse than a windstorm," Leslie elaborated.

I shrugged. "Aight. Don't blame me if you're wrong," I acquiesced. I walked to the middle of the short side of the rectangle on the floor nearest me. I had to make sure I was positioned juuuust right or it wouldn't be in the blue lines.

With a last look of contemplation, I tossed the shuttle model over my shoulder.

FWOOMPH

Everyone but Dragon flinched, their hair being blown back. Missy, Neckbeard, and Leslie's hair, all of them wearing it down and long, didn't survive the blast wave without remodeling. Even I flinched, still not quite used to the sound my manifestation power created as it treated the atmosphere like a punching bag.

Missy scowled. "I forgot it would mess up my hair," she grumbled.

Leslie blinked several times, patted down her hair, and stared at the shuttle. Well, from my perspective she was staring behind me, but I knew the shuttle was what she was looking at.

Captain Neckbeard… just kinda shrugged, pushed his hair behind his ears, and returned to what I swear was watching the testing screens in awe.

"Sweet, huh?" I grinned.

"Cool guys don't look at explosions…" Captain Neckbeard started humming, still not tearing his gaze away.

"Thank you!" I exclaimed. "Someone finally referenced that!"

Dragon was staring at me, not the shuttle. She was visibly dumbfounded. Such a look was pretty interesting on a 3D character, let me tell you.

"T-That's not possible," she stammered.

I raised an eyebrow her way. "What's not possible?"

Dragon's 3D avatar gulped. That surprised me. Why would you code such a thing into a remote interaction program? Something smelled fishy about that, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, exactly.

"Weldon, all the equipment around you is sensor and reconnaissance equipment. From what they're telling me, that shuttle didn't show up instantly," she started explaining. "Somehow your power drew atoms from nothing, enough to synthesize the shuttle from scratch, in a shorter timespan than the human eye can see."

I raised both eyebrows. That wasn't possible, but not for the reasons Dragon thought. "I'm sorry, what? You're telling me this craft," I banged my hand against the rear hatch to both to provide emphasis and prove to myself that it was real, "was assembled out of nothing?"

Dragon shivered. "Yes."

"But that's impossible!" I refuted.

Leslie managed to get a grip on herself at that moment. "You're telling me. Making matter out of nothing isn't possible. Even Changers draw it from somewhere else-"

I held up a hand, interrupting her. "Oh no, that's not the impossible thing. The beaming arrays on my ships can do that with enough energy. It's the fact that this shuttle is made out of a high amount of Naquadah that's bullshit. You flat out cannot convert energy to Naquadah. It just can't be done."

"What," Dragon stated.

"Naquadah is essentially impossible to synthesize," I continued explaining. "It's too dense for any kind of matter assembly system to create."

Leslie, Nerd Alert, Missy, and Dragon all kept staring at me, dumbfounded.

I sighed. "I know that look. What did I say now?"

"You… you have access to technology capable of assembling matter from nothing but energy," Dragon carefully asked.

I tilted my head back and forth, waving my hands in a 'so-so' manner. "Yes and no. The shuttles don't have beaming arrays. I'd need to create a battlecruiser at the least to get the arrays. But they are capable of synthesizing any element or combination thereof up to the 131st element of the Periodic Organization." Realizing what I said, I corrected myself. "Sorry, I mean Periodic Table."

More stares.

"There are only 118 elements in the Periodic Table, Weldon," Dragon said.

I blinked. "Uh, what? Naquadah is number 145," I refuted.

Leslie and Dragon leaned in, suddenly looking very interested. Well, the latter woman moved her monitor forward a bit, but it accomplished the same effect.

Namely making my hair stand on end.

"You know more than 118 elements?" Leslie excitedly asked me.

I sighed. "Yes. Off the top of my head, Trinium is 128, Neutronium is 140, Naquadah as I've already said is 145 and its much more volatile cousin, Naquadriah, sits one up the table at 146. There's a total of 160 elements known. The Alterans theorized that it could go up to 210, but that was never proven. Beyond that is degenerate matter which doesn't belong on the table due to a lack of protons or neutrons."

The looks of glee everyone except Missy in that room were wearing told me I wouldn't be getting out of there anytime soon.

"Kid Win is right," Missy said. "Your powers are bullshit."

Dragon recovered from our impromptu 'make-Will-say-ALL-the-elements' session the quickest. "As fascinating as learning of over fourty new elements is, and as much as I hate to rush through our tests, I recommend immediately building one of these 'battlecruisers' as you call them. That way you can synthesize some samples of the new elements. Or at least the ones your beaming technology is capable of creating."

I blinked at her. "You do know this ship is massive, right?" I asked, gesturing to my pocket. "Like, way, way, way bigger than a shuttle?"

Dragon nodded at me. "That's actually why I requested Vista's presence. Creating the ship, that is, I certainly wasn't expecting to do actual, non-Tinker science today. She can extend this room far enough for the ship to materialize. We have plenty of Lego pieces by the wall in bins over by the entry door-"

I cut her off by removing a model from the same pocket I'd indicated that was half the length of my arm. "I actually already have the model finished, not just with me. It's apparently fully operational. I figured it would be a good idea to have a battlecruiser I could deploy at any moment. You know, just in case some villain tried to kidnap me," I sheepishly admitted.

Leslie sighed. "Of course you do. I think I'm starting to understand why your team leader refused to be here. I'm already getting a headache."

"We're not!" Nerd Alert and Captain Neckbeard piped up. They were over by a few tables with tons of scientific-looking machines, and at least five different computers. Nerd Alert seemed to be going over the results of my shuttle summoning in detail, while Captain Neckbeard was furiously writing notes on a tablet.

Missy shook her head. "Will, I don't know of any villain that's insane enough to try and kidnap someone who can pull spaceships out of their pockets."

I smirked at her conspiratorially, wiggling my eyebrows. "Just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist. Who knows, there might be a huge shadow organization running the world from the shadows," I narrated with a spooky voice.

...

Huh.

For a second there I could have sworn I heard someone inhale quickly. Oh well.

Missy crossed her arms. "A shadow organization from the shadows?" she scoffed. "Really?"

I shrugged. "Hey, I calls em like I sees em."

Dragon coughed lightly to get our attention. I immediately turned to look at her robotic monitor and grinned. "Yes, Dragon?"

She sighed. "As interesting as that idea is, we have a spaceship to spawn," she gently reminded me.

My eyes brightened and I actually smiled. "Right! Vista, could I please get a…" I trailed off as I tried to find the dimensions of the Aurora Class Battlecruiser in my head. Instead the answer seemed to come to me from the Lego model in my hands. "Uh, three by half a kilometer space?"

Missy scowled. "That'll tax my powers a lot, Will," she declared.

I shrugged. "I'm sorry, I can't help it. The battlecruiser is just that big, according to my powers. And that space is leaving less than an inch on each side as room for error."

She sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll try."

She turned to face one of the walls of the testing lab, holding both hands spread in the air as if bracing against a wall. She breathed in, breathed out, and suddenly I could sense something absolutely immense pushing on the fabric of reality.

I didn't get a chance to contemplate how it was possible for me to sense such a thing, given how I was staring dumbstruck as the wall flew away from us. It expanded on each side too, but not nearly as much.

In less than five seconds, a cavern of spacetime dickery existed where a simple concrete wall was before.

"Daaamn," I whistled. "Color me impressed."

Missy stumbled, but caught herself before I could finish racing over. She leaned over slightly, hands on her knees, and breathed hard.

"Are you okay, M- I mean, Vista?" I asked, only barely catching myself and using her hero name in the presence of non-Wards.

She glared at me for my near slip, but nodded. "I've just gotta catch my breath," she explained.

I shrugged. "If you're sure," I warily said, hesitating to leave her.

She just waved me off and focused on her breathing.

"Whenever you're ready, Weldon," Dragon said.

I casually strolled over to the midpoint of where the wall used to be, cradling my battlecruiser model in my arms. Lego gets surprisingly heavy when the models reach a certain size. "I'm in position," I announced. Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and I figured it was better to ask than get in trouble later.

"Dragon? Leslie?" I called out.

"Yes, Weldon?" Dragon respectfully asked.

"We have permission from Piggot to do this, right?"

Leslie, Dragon, Nerd Alert and Captain Neckbeard all looked at each other.

Each of them, one by one, shook their heads in a 'don't look at me' sort of way.

Once all of them had shown they hadn't mentioned it to the Director, Dragon sighed. "I'll call her," she lamented.

The sound of a phone ringing took over her speaker output for a couple of seconds. Someone picked up, and I heard a groan as the person on the other end learned who was calling.

"Yes, Dragon?" Piggot began, her tone touchy as hell. "What has he done now? It's only been two hours."

Missy giggled in between her deep breaths, the science team joining her with snickering. The two guys only started chuckling when I flipped them off.

Dragon sent me a tight smile and answered the Director. "So far we've discovered his beaming technology can apparently synthesize matter from energy, that it can do that up to the 131st element of the Periodic Table, that there are actually 160 elements in said table, and that the one just above Naquadah is a form of it several hundred times more reactive and powerful than its predecessor he calls Naquadriah."

Piggot sucked in a breath. "Did you say 160 elements?"

"That is correct, Director."

"131 of which he can materialize out of thin air?"

"His beaming technology supposedly is capable of doing so, yes."

Piggot inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "Great. Another thing I'll have to brief the Chief Director and the President on."

I wisely kept my mouth shut. As fun as antagonising Piggot was, it must be really serious if those two were demanding briefings from her.

"At least he can't create Naquadah or this Naquadriah, Director," Leslie spoke up.

"Yes, what a small mercy that is. Is there anything else, Dragon, or did you just call to report?" the Director finally asked.

I didn't have the heart to correct their assumptions. Dragon frankly should have realized the implications of my Tinker power's database crossed with the second power, the one that caused things to become real. Hell, for all I knew she did and was covering for me to keep me from being sent to the Birdcage.

After all, I needed exactly three standard Lego bricks to apparently materialize a Naquadriah bomb capable of wiping out five sixths of the solar system.

My Alteran self was keeping up a constant cry of 'Bullshit!' in the back of my head. My materialization power was world breaking.

Literally.

And that's saying something, because the Alterans had some pretty insane shit. For it to seem off to my memories from one of them? Yeah… big, bad, explosive.

On another note, eat your heart out, String Theory. Your moon destroyer has nothing on me.

Frak, now that I thought of it, Galactic Matter Manipulation Wave Generators could wipe out the entire galaxy.

I shuddered. I hoped I'd never need to build anything like that, for any reason. But much like Einstein before me, I knew I'd eventually have to put my foot down with a massive explosion of some kind. There were too many monsters in the world to believe otherwise, and that was just on Earth.

"We were going to go ahead and have Weldon spawn his battlecruiser for us. Originally I just wanted to compare the two, but with the revelation of the beaming technology's matter assembly abilities I would like to have him create samples of every new element he can. Vista has already provided an expanded space big enough for the ship."

Piggot mused on that for a few moments. "Very well. You have a go. But do not bring any weapons online. I'm not dumb enough to think something with the word battle in the name is weaponless. If it's a proper analogue to the Navy's battlecruiser, the ship will have a lot of them."

"Very well Director, we will leave all offensive systems we can offline," Dragon agreed. "Right, Weldon?"

"Right!" I happily agreed, tossing her a thumbs up. I had no idea how to actually do that, but hey it's not like they could tell whether the guns were online without them firing and I had absolutely no plans to do that anytime soon.

"Good luck, you'll need it," she shot back. Then she hung up.

Dragon focused on me again and smiled grimly. "You can go ahead and spawn it, Weldon, but please try and follow the Director's requests," she pleaded.

Dang it, she asked. Nicely, too. I couldn't shut them off prematurely, but the Throne probably could do it. So, I shrugged. "We're underground. It'll be deploying in an incredibly tight space. Even if the weapons do come online, the shields won't, and we can get to the bridge fairly quickly to turn them off."

"Very well," Dragon acquiesced. "We have a go from my end."

"Sounds good," Leslie agreed.

"Sensors are monitoring," Nerd Alert announced.

"Hit it!" Captain Neckbeard said.

I nodded. "Spawning now," I reported. I lifted the ship model up with one of my hands, aimed, and heaved it over my shoulder as hard as I could.

I spun around just in time to see it fall into the black abyss that was the unlit cavern Missy had created.

Seconds passed.

Nothing further happened.

"Uh," Captain Neckbeard asked, "so... where is it?"

Suddenly an almighty boom rocked through the building.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

The earth shook, the PRT building along with it. Missy fell to the ground with a scream. Dragon's monitor cracked. The science team only stayed standing due to clinging to their desks, and I held onto the rattling wall of the lab for dear life so I wouldn't fall into the cavern.

Five seconds passed, the quake and the boom still continued.

-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

Ten seconds, the shaking began to taper off.

-OOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM-

Fifteen... and the boom finally stopped.

-MMMMMPPPPPH

Silence, stillness, for the first time in what felt like forever. My head was ringing something fierce. From the groans and complaints of the others, they weren't doing so hot either.

"What the hell was that?" Leslie demanded.

"I don't know," came Dragon's voice, distorted. The speakers of her monitor assembly must have been damaged.

"Uh, guys? Where's the ship?" Nerd Alert asked, staring along with me at the decidedly still empty cavern.

I opened my mouth to respond.

And that's when the lighting turned red, an alarm began to chime, and the wail of the Endbringer Sirens erupted across the city.