Brockton's Celestial Forge

by Lord Roustabout

The Celestial Forge is the greatest combination of crafting powers in Jumpchain, meaning it is the greatest combination of crafting abilities in all of fiction. In Brockton Bay a forgotten side character's trigger event ends with him linked to the Celestial Forge rather than his intended shard. His expanding collection of tinker abilities drag him into the city's cape conflicts.

143. 98 Finite Resolutions

98 Finite Resolutions

I stared blankly at Sabah. Mostly I was stunned that it was actually Sabah. Intellectually I could see all the pieces, understand how this encounter had happened, but seeing it actually play out was a completely different experience.

She was part of my past. Something I had worked to address, come to terms with, and tried to move on from. There was never any serious consideration that I would see her again. Our lives were so completely diverged that I didn't even imagine we would cross paths. Actually seeking her out seemed beyond inappropriate after everything that had happened.

It was clear that Sabah was processing the situation on roughly the same level. At that moment I almost resented the expansion of my senses over the past weeks. I watched as her shocked expression slowly shifted into horror, but that was accompanied by all the additional information provided by my assortment of superhuman perception abilities. Everything from the Dragon's Pulse to divine thermal senses, expanded understanding from assorted blessings, and the novice level telepathy that I was doing my best to curtail at the moment. All making it clear exactly how badly she was taking this.

Those same senses also highlighted the beacon of awkwardness that was Aisha, standing directly adjacent to us. She seemed to have gone unnoticed by Sabah for the moment and appeared to be trying to figure out exactly what kind of looming disaster she was set to witness.

Sabah's eyes darted around, overlooking Aisha and locking onto the rest of Parian's team. The group continued through the crowd, seemingly oblivious to her absence. I could see the impact of that isolation as she looked back at me. Specifically, as she looked up at me.

Sabah was barely five feet tall. I was a hair over six foot five. As she looked up at me, I became very much aware of our height difference. Specifically, I became aware of how uncomfortable it made her.

Had that always been the case? Two years ago, when this mess was playing out the odds of me noticing something like that were fairly slim. Actually, considering how the entire situation had developed, the odds of me really noticing anything had been fairly slim.

And once again, expanded senses and understanding came to 'help'. I could tell that specific discomfort wasn't something new for her. My last growth spurt had hit late in high school and actually extended into my time in college. In a relatively short period I had gone from being fairly average for my grade to looming. Back then I wasn't used to being tall and definitely wasn't used to the impact my height would have on other people.

So that was yet another way that I'd been making her uncomfortable without realizing it. Piled on top of all the others. It was no wonder I'd basically driven her out of the engineering program. I swallowed and did my best to rein in my reactions to the situation. Getting overwhelmed wouldn't do anyone any good. I steeled myself and tried to say something.

"Sabah, I-"

"What are you doing here?" She demanded.

I blinked. Then I blinked again and looked down at my jacket. I was wearing it fairly casually, at least compared to some of the volunteers who looked ready for military inspection, but it wasn't the kind of thing you would miss. The jacket was practically a staff uniform and should have been self-evident.

Sabah's words had come in a rapid-fire barrage. I watched as she planted her feet and straightened her back. She was specifically positioning herself in a way that made herself look taller. Her expression has snapped from the initial shock to a kind of focused intensity. She glared up at me, but it lost some impact when I could literally feel the borderline panic bubbling beneath the surface.

Expanded senses had never felt as intrusive as they did in that moment. I did my best to filter out as much information as possible, but the most I could accomplish was let the various information streams kind of merge into a background thrum that created a constant texture for the encounter. I also doubled my restraint of the style and movement powers I was able to moderate. This was going to be hard enough without posing or innuendo complicating things.

It was clear that Sabah hadn't been speaking in generalities. I cleared my throat and did my best to reply.

"I'm part of the volunteer staff." I tried to indicate towards my jacket, but for some reason she seemed almost personally offended by the item of clothing.

"Garment brought you here." She said. It seemed like it should have been a question, but the tone was more of a statement tinged with anger and betrayal. She turned towards the stage where Garment was overseeing some final preparations while greeting early arrivals.

I'm guessing Parian had handpicked the people she wanted to help her with the event. It was probably a big deal, especially for students from the University. I didn't want to give the impression that I was on the same level as that. Garment's relationship with the volunteers was more about taking all comers rather than selecting an elite group.

"Um, no." I said. Sabah's head snapped back towards me. Her expression hadn't softened in the slightest and through that tapestry of background senses I could tell she was getting more unsettled as things progressed. "I just signed up to help." Just like dozens and dozens of other people.

"You just decided to come here?" She asked, with an emphasis on the last word. "Just you? Nobody else from the class?"

I swallowed. She didn't know that I had… That I had left the program. At least officially, as of the start of the month, with a return very much not in the cards for me. I could not express how much I did not want to get into that here, now, and in a discussion with Sabah.

"It wasn't…" I began, but unfortunately, at that moment Aisha made her decision regarding her involvement in the conversation. Namely that she didn't want any part of it, something I could thoroughly understand. She began slowly trying to back away, but unfortunately, we were in the middle of a busy show floor. She stepped back into the path of a couple of workers and ended up slightly jostled as they did their best to avoid running over her. No harm, except for the sudden movement drawing Sabah's attention and reminding her that Aisha had been playing spectator to everything so far.

"Uh, hi? I'm Aisha." She said quickly, attempting to preempt awkwardness with a little wave. Sabah quickly took in both her designer dress and lack of a volunteer jacket.

She collected herself and turned her attention from me towards Aisha. And my powers were happy to inform me how the lack of a towering height difference made it easier for Sabah to deal with her.

"Nice to meet you." She said politely. "How do you know Jozef?"

"He's one of my dad's students." She said with an encouraging smile.

Sabah's eyes darted over to me, then back to Aisha. Once again, thanks to my senses I could intrusively feel her trying to work things out. "You're father's a professor?"

Aisha gave her a strained look. "Um, no. Boxing coach." Sabah blinked and I could see her reevaluating the situation. "At Bay City Boxing?" Aisha continued. "The gym that-"

"Garment's gym." Sabah said with a slight nod. I shared a quick look with Aisha. I hadn't heard it referred to as such, but I guess it was the most common association for the place. Still, I'd bet most people there thought of Garment as the gym's cape rather than it being her gym.

"Yeah, sure." Aisha conceded. Sabah looked to the stage again, then back to Aisha, then over to me.

"You're volunteering here as well?" She asked. There was an edge of skepticism in her voice that I could understand. Aisha was tall for her age and could probably pass for being in her mid-teens, but that was still on the younger side of volunteers, particularly this close to the start of the event.

"I'm helping out." Aisha said. Despite her best efforts, things were still incredibly stilted. There was a defensive edge to every exchange that you'd have to be blind and deaf not to notice.

Aisha gave me an apologetic look and cleared her throat. "Um, right. So I'm just going to, you know…" The intensity of Sabah's expression caused her to sputter out and didn't leave much room for her to continue. "Whatever." She said, and shook her head sharply.

The effects of Aisha's power were subtle. It was one of the most frightening aspects of the ability. I'd gone though it multiple times both before and after I'd put my mental stopgap in place. Even when I wasn't completely forgetting about her, I could instantly lose all context for the situation and not even notice that anything had changed.

Now I got to see that from the outside. Mental Fortress shielded me as Aisha's power took hold. It didn't wash over the crowd. In fact, there was no visible effect or even a hint of a delay before it was fully deployed. All of a sudden everyone in the room was conspicuously ignoring Aisha's presence.

At least it was conspicuous from the outside. The thing was, it very much was not invisibility. People weren't bumping into Aisha or noticing signs of her presence. On some level they were aware of the girl slipping through their midst, but that awareness never reached a conscious level. They would step out of her way or lean to avoid her without ever registering why they had done so. And they wouldn't, even after her power was deactivated.

I knew exactly how insidious that effect could be. You didn't just forget about her, you forgot that you forgot her. Any gaps or unexplained events that her power might have caused were papered over expertly. Or it might be better to say that you couldn't remember that you forgot.

Aisha had just activated a global ranged stranger power to escape from an awkward conversation. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit envious of her. Still, this would probably be easier to get through without a direct audience.

That is, to the extent that I needed to get through it. A part of me wanted to follow Aisha's example and just bail. Say goodbye to Sabah, wish her well, and physically extract myself from the conversation. Unfortunately, she was clearly taking our chance encounter worse than I was, and considering how I had been managing that was a real concern.

After everything I had done, I wasn't just going to throw her off to that degree and then leave her to deal with everything. At the very least it would be a bad experience, but it might even impact her work at the event. I didn't know if she was handling anything critical, but someone with only two years of experience helping out an established designer was probably a big deal. I didn't want to be responsible for messing that up for her.

Looking at her, it was clear that she was taking the fashion program seriously. Thanks to 'My Fashion Sense is Tingling' I had an innate knowledge of fashion down to the latest trends. With that, I could see the care she put into her outfit. Okay, those shoes weren't the best choice, and there were a few conflicting stylistic elements between her jacket and dress, but considering that back in the engineering program ambitious fashion generally consisted of pairing a funny t-shirt with your jeans you could see how far she'd come.

I noted various text message alerts were pinging across the center as anyone on the various update lists received warnings that Lethe's power had been activated. You could see the confusion and then concern from the various police, government officials, and capes or cape affiliates that were alerted to the active status of a stranger who they couldn't detect and didn't remember.

It was a scene playing out across the city and in every Protectorate office in the country. It was debatable how much good it would do, but I guess the PRT likes to at least pretend they had a handle on the massive unknown factor that Lethe represented.

Sabah adjusted to Aisha's complete absence, even in memory, and refocused on me. The relief at not having an audience quickly shifted to the discomfort at being the sole focus of Sabah's attention.

"Sabah, I…" I began again, but didn't know where to start. The lack of a third participant didn't mean it was suddenly a private conversation. We weren't being given much attention, but we were still extremely exposed. It wasn't the best place for any of this, but once again, just running off would probably leave her in a bad emotional state, something that might impact her ability to help Parian.

There was just so much to get into that I didn't know where to start. The fact that none of it seemed appropriate to discuss in public didn't help. With everything that could happen, what could I say that wouldn't make things worse?

"I'm sorry about your father." I said. The condolences had been given with complete sincerity, but the instant the words left my mouth it seemed like the stupidest decision imaginable.

Sabah took a sharp breath, looked up at me and narrowed her eyes. After a moment she responded. "How do you know about that?"

"Beth told me. After you left the program." I explained, glancing to the side.

"Beth." She said in a low voice. I kept myself from reacting, but her response surprised me. I knew Sabah wasn't particularly close with the other girls in the class, but the amount of animosity in her voice was unexpected. Which probably just meant she had been dealing with more than just the problems I had caused.

"So, you're part of Parian's team?" I tried, mostly out of desperation, to move the topic to something less inflammatory. Sabah glared up at me with suspicion.

"Yes." She said cautiously as she made a slight adjustment to her jacket.

"Congratulations." I said. She gave me a confused look. "Working with a cape is a big deal."

Sabah didn't exactly relax, but there was a clear point of pride there. I guess that was one common point between the engineering and fashion programs. The big draw for taking engineering at Brockton U was the fact that you got to work with tinker tech in your senior year. Saying it like that you'd imagine hanging out with superheroes and putting together super science devices.

The reality was more about the kind of evaluation and testing that got applied to tinker tech before the Protectorate approved it for use. You'd have three weeks of lectures, then a single lab where you walked through a set of well-established evaluation procedures on a piece of very stable technology. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but the PRT needed a lot of engineering support and I knew plenty of people who were shooting for those kinds of positions.

Of course, that was before I knew what a shit-show the local department had become. Everyone was doing their best to cast Brockton Bay as an extreme outlier, but even in departments that weren't run into the ground there would probably be enough complications to make it a less than appealing career path.

Compared to that, being able to work with Parian seemed like the better deal. I had no idea how she conducted things on a day-to-day basis, especially with her clear underestimation of the complexity of setting up an event this side, but the fact that she had pushed for it in the first place showed that her intentions were good. I just hoped that extended to her employees.

"It is." She said, "Parian provides a lot of opportunities." She had the closest thing to a smile I'd seen since we'd stumbled into each other.

I felt the slow rotation of the Forge bring the Capstone constellation towards me, but my reach wasn't sufficient to secure the mote my power tried to connect to. The stall period following the arrival of the Nano-Forge had ended, but the constellations were moving at their new, slower rate. Which was probably for the best as I did not need a life changing power being dumped in my lap during a conversation like this.

"It sounds like the new program is going well." I said as encouragingly as I could.

Sabah narrowed her eyes. "As a matter of fact, it is." She said. The background mess of information that I was doing my best not to intrude upon calmed and focused slightly.

"That's good." I said with the slightest attempt at a smile.

"Good?" She said in a flat voice as she looked up at me.

I slumped my shoulders slightly. That was what it came down to. Even if she was doing really well in her fashion program, I was part of the reason she was there. Maybe she was happier there. Maybe she could look back and say she would have chosen to transfer regardless of what had happened, but she didn't make that decision independently, and I had played a role in the circumstances that led to it.

If I had handled things better maybe she would have been just as happy in engineering. Of course, if I had handled things better maybe I would have been happy in engineering. But that's not what happened. I could endlessly obsess over the possibilities, everything I could have done differently, everything I should have noticed, or I could accept what happened and move on from there.

"I'm glad things are working out for you in the fashion department." I said. "And I'm sorry about how things went in engineering."

"Sorry?" Her voice cracked on the word. I could see her tense, but that was a fraction of what was happening behind the scenes. There was a lot of emotion roiling beneath the surface. "What exactly are you sorry about?" She asked. Her voice was harsh, but she was working to keep it at a conversational volume. "What would you have WANTED to happen?"

I took a breath. This was it, my chance at an apology. It was something I had circled around both in my own head and in therapy. What would I say? What was I trying to accomplish? What did it mean? Miles of groundwork focused on moving past the what, not actually preparing for a situation where I ran into her out of the blue.

This was different, because this wasn't about what it meant to me or how I was processing things. This was about the impact I'd had on someone else's life. That was undeniable, regardless of intention or extenuating circumstances. I steeled myself and pushed forward.

"Sabah, I'm sorry about how I acted that year." I said.

Sabah's eye twitched and her expression shifted from anger to shades of shock and disbelief. "What?" She asked.

"I should have realized… a lot of things." I said. "I didn't know how bad things were until… until after it could have made a difference."

"You didn't realize." She echoed. "You just had no idea that anything was wrong? That's your excuse?"

"No." I said, "It's not an excuse." And I did know something was wrong. Spending half a year wondering over the increasingly distant potential of a relationship doesn't exactly create the sense that things are going swimmingly. I just had no idea what was wrong or how to deal with it.

"Then what is it?" She asked, moving in slightly.

It was an explanation, but sometimes that didn't help. Stupidly, I hadn't expected things to be this raw for Sabah. This was hard enough for me, but somehow I assumed that she'd have a better handle on things than I did.

"It's an apology." That was what it really came down to. The only thing meaningful I could give at this point.

"And that's supposed to make it better? To change things?" She asked in an exasperated voice.

"I don't know if anything can make things better at this point." I said. "I wish I could have realized what was happening early enough to make a difference, rather than make things worse."

"So that's it." She said quietly. "You're blameless. Everything was just an accident with no fault at all. And what, I should move on?"

I took a moment before responding. "I'm not in a position to tell you how to do anything. I'm glad your new program is going well, but I'm sorry for any part I had in you leaving engineering."

She narrowed her eyes. "This was my decision, and I'm happy with my new life, away from all of that."

"I'm glad." My response only seemed to irritate her.

"And you want me to accept your apology, even though you don't think you did anything wrong?" She asked.

I shook my head. "I know I was making things worse. I should have picked up on the situation earlier. I'm… not good at that kind of thing."

"I'm supposed to believe that?" She asked quietly. There was an intensity in her gaze. Honestly, it surprised me. I never thought I would need to work to convince someone I wasn't socially coordinated. It seemed like a fairly obvious failing as far as I was concerned. In the absence of that…

Yeah, if she thought everything was intentional and coordinated this would have come across much, much worse. And I didn't have the ability to convince her that wasn't the case. If something personally impacted you there was a tendency to see it as a deliberate act. I'd needed to put a lot of work into reframing things for myself. I knew how difficult that kind of thing was.

I let out a breath. "I'm sorry. There was a lot that I was dealing with that year." Nothing on the level of losing a family member, but these kinds of things weren't competitions. "A lot of things I didn't really understand until afterwards."

She huffed as her eyes bore into me. It was an expression that projected a sense of challenge, but I didn't rise to meet it, and that seemed to unbalance her. Sabah was prepared for a fight. She'd probably been preparing for a long time and I wasn't giving her one. I wasn't here to defend my behavior or justify myself.

Back when she transferred into engineering from math we had worked together. There were parts of the coursework that weren't easy if you were coming late into the program and had English as your second language. I was glad I could help her with that. I had wondered if things would go any further than that, but my complete lack of social skills had me limited to soft suggestions of social events, usually ones being arranged by the rest of the class. Months of deferrals and non-answers should have been a clue, but I wasn't the best at noticing that kind of thing. And all the while Sabah had been stressed and annoyed while clearly dealing with a lot of other problems.

Professor Hebert dying didn't help the situation. I went from having a pillar of support and advice to suddenly nothing with the added problem of dealing with a replacement advisor who clearly didn't want to be there and had no idea what he was doing. It was another problem and another distraction when I could barely keep track of the situation to begin with.

I didn't have a clue how bad things were until they blew up in public. That hit me hard, especially with everything else that was happening. I didn't talk to Sabah for more than a month after that. Even when we started working together again, things were awkward. It was probably just as bad for her.

I looked across at Sabah. When it became clear I wasn't challenging her, some of the aggression left her. She was still guarded, but the level of control over the situation seemed to have calmed her down slightly. She shifted her stance slightly, taking up a bit more of the space around her.

"So, it's just random chance that you're here?" She asked, still suspicious. Her eyes darted towards the stage, but even if I was the kind of schemer I might have come across as, I don't know how I would have set something like this up. Or why I would have wanted to actually arrange a meeting like this.

I nodded. "A friend told me they needed help with the event. I'm helping with some of the technical setup." I said, indicating towards the cables I had been checking.

Actually, I was more than helping with the setup. The entire setup had been down to me, including the planning and equipment that had been provided, but I was doing my best to downplay that.

"Is anyone else from the engineering program here?" She demanded.

"I'm not…" Not getting into that. "No." I said simply. She relaxed by a fraction as another concern seemed to have been abated.

"I'm sorry about running into you like this." That was true on a lot of levels. It wasn't something I wanted to inflict on her or something I was enjoying having to deal with.

"It doesn't bother me." She said while clearly bothered. Still, I'd take the front of control over another rehash of our past. "You're just handling setup?" She asked.

I nodded. "I'm taking care of the final checks, then handing things off." Sabah gave a slight nod at that. Somehow she seemed to be looking down, despite the height difference.

"And what about Aisha?" Sabah asked.

I blinked. Evidentially she had dropped her power after the burst needed to avoid the conversation. As expected, her departure didn't raise any concerns from Sabah now that she could be remembered again.

"I don't know." I said. "She works with Garment. Not something I have anything to do with."

Sabah narrowed her eyes slightly, but gave another nod. Things were cold between us, but that was better than the ramping anxiety that we started with. Frankly, anything that avoided another public incident between us was something I was willing to count as a victory.

Nothing was resolved. Apologies weren't accepted, but they weren't expected to be. Forgiveness wasn't given, but that wasn't the point of this. You don't work through baggage that had festered for years in the space of a single chance encounter. A lot of the time you didn't work through it at all. Everyone handled this kind of thing differently. I had needed to dig through every element of that time to unearth deeper issues. If Sabah preferred to move on and never think about it again, that was fine.

Towards the end of the show floor the rest of Parian's team emerged from what functioned as backstage for the event. The group stood out prominently from the rest of the volunteers in both clothing and demographic. I could spot similar fashion elements to the ones Sabah was favoring and from the looks of things they were all pulled from the college.

They were also scanning the crowd, and it was easy to guess the reason.

"I think your friends are looking for you." I said, inclining my head towards the group. "Do you want to-"

"Thank you, I'll be fine." She said directly. I don't know what she thought I was going to suggest, but I wasn't going to argue with something that presented an end to this conversation.

"Right." I said. Saying that it had been nice to see her would be a lie of monumental proportions. Still, I didn't want to leave things completely stilted. "Goodbye Sabah. I hope everything goes well for you."

There was a split-second pause before she gave me a slight, curt nod before turning to leave without saying a word. I watched her vanish into the crowd then closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my forehead. Letting out a long breath I released not just the tension I had been carrying but the iron grip on every power I'd been restraining on to avoid overwhelming the conversation.

I had made it through an encounter with Sabah. That was… that was a big one. One of the ghosts of my past. I'd been able to apologize, but also accept the reality of the situation. It hadn't been some inherent flaw or core character defect that caused things to play out the way they did. I had made mistakes and caused harm, but those factors stemmed from my situation.

A better reading of social cues or management of interactions could have resolved things, but those options weren't available to me. I couldn't be angry at myself for not using skills that I didn't have at the time. I could be angry about the environment that prevented me from developing those skills properly and the damage that had caused. I could endeavor to be better and do what I could to make up for my mistakes, but blaming myself for every aspect of a complicated situation wasn't a helpful approach.

I remembered the state I was in back when I first learned about everything. Overwhelmed with coursework I could barely manage, exams bearing down, every issue with my family looming in the background, and then learning about Sabah's transfer. Realizing my part in it, that it wasn't just a relationship that didn't happen. It was that without meaning to, without even realizing it I had been a burden, a nuisance, and an active source of harm. Every dark thought and horrible belief that had been pressed upon me while growing up was suddenly completely confirmed.

I had pretty much shut down after that. Unable to focus on lectures. Missed assignments piled up. I was dead to the world during study sessions when I could even manage attend them. I was simultaneously exhausted and unable to sleep. The drawn-out crash actually extended into the start of exams before a friend convinced me to get help.

And then the diagnosis. Explaining things to my parents, the rounds of treatments, trying to find something that worked. Medical withdrawal from school with repeated attempts to try to find some way to finish my courses from that year before it became clear that was a lost cause.

Attempts at treatment were basically an unfocused circus of wasted effort until I started seeing Dr. Campbell. Something stable and effective where I could actually start working through the mountain of shit I had to dislodge before even being able to see what the real issues were.

And then that coming crashing down at a horrible family dinner where I narrowly avoided a nightmare trigger. Instead, I had the Celestial Forge, and the absolute maelstrom that represented.

And that had helped. I had made progress with Dr. Campbell, but without the mental resilience and expanded perspectives I'd received from my power I doubt I would have been able to handle this encounter as well as I did. Expanded senses might be intrusive, but even when diminished they gave context to what was happening and what Sabah was dealing with.

Of course, without the Forge I never would have been managing technical support for a major charity event that hosted the fashion cape that Sabah worked for and wouldn't have run into her. I guess you could say that my power was broad enough to solve the problem that it had created. Actually, that was kind of true in a lot of cases when it came to my abilities.

Speaking of which, wasn't I supposed to be supernaturally lucky? I knew damn well that fortune energy could warp events like a pretzel to pull off favorable results, and yet I ended up randomly stumbling across Sabah in the middle of a crowded show floor?

I suppose it was better than running into her during the show or at a point when either of us were dealing with something important. Also, encountering each other in a less public setting might have been worse without the need to moderate things and avoid making a scene.

Maybe fortune energy thought the encounter itself was 'lucky'. Maybe it felt it was being generous in giving me a chance to resolve things with Sabah, except nothing really felt resolved. At best there was a weary sense of accomplishment for not making a total mess of things.

My passenger had been unusually quiet during the encounter. It was similar to how he avoided weighing in during my therapy sessions, but somehow even more so. It felt like he was specifically restraining his reactions for anything regarding Sabah or her work with Parian.

I was grateful for that. Things had been on edge and I don't know how I would have handled input from a third party. Things were public enough without introducing any specific spectators.

I paused as the senses I'd been restraining picked up something. There was the buzz of activity that had continued around us during the conversation, but with my senses open I could pick up a single specific point of directed attention. I opened my eyes and turned towards the source.

A young blond woman wearing a baseball hat with her hair in a ponytail looked at me with an awkward expression. She was holding two water bottles from a refreshment station that had been set up for the workers, both wet with condensation. From the look of things, I would guess she had been trying to make her way to the other side of the hall when I ran into Sabah.

The arrangement of nearby equipment, decorations, and groups of volunteers had hedged her in just enough that she couldn't get past without intruding, or at least interrupting. She was also just out of my sight line, leaving her a captive but unnoticed audience for the entire encounter.

She was also familiar. More than familiar, she was recognizable, though the hat and ponytail ensured that recognition wasn't immediate. Usually she had a much more dramatic appearance with the benefit of an iconic red and white costume. I found myself having to deal with the fact that my relationship drama had played out directly in front of Crystal Pellam, also known as Laserdream of New Wave.

"Hi." I said, then decided to get the obvious out of the way. "You're Crystal Pelham."

She flushed slightly. "Yeah. Um, sorry for… intruding."

I shook my head. "We were the ones talking out in the open. It kind of invites spectators." I said. "I'm sure you get enough of that."

"Yeah, public stuff can be intense." She said, "Still, I'm sure you'd rather not have a stranger sitting in on something like that." She saw my expression and gave me an intrigued look. "What?

"Okay, not to be weird, and I'm sure you get this a lot, but we've actually met before." I said.

"Ah." She said, "One of the New Wave events? Or a public appearance? Sorry, those kind of blur together."

"Actually, I accidently sat beside you in class one time." I said.

"What, really?" She asked. There was a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "How do you accidently sit next to someone?"

"It was about two years ago. I got to a Parahuman Studies lecture late and didn't realize the open seat was people giving you space. Took it and also didn't realize who I was sitting next to until after the lecture." I explained.

"Oh." She said. I watched as she processed things. "Oh yeah. Back when I was auditing lectures from high school." She looked up at me. "Wow. You've really… Um, I mean…" She trailed off as she looked me up and down, then quickly glanced to the side.

She coughed and turned towards where Sabah was making her way through the crowd and nodded. "It can't have been fun running into an old flame in a place like this."

"Hardly." I said shaking my head. She raised an eyebrow at me. "We were study partners." Which was about the most significant term I could apply to our relationship. "I thought things were developing further. Suggested stuff we could do outside of class. She was polite about it, but I didn't realize how she actually felt. Not until it had gone on way too long. Kind of ended in a public blow up."

"Ouch." She said sympathetically.

I shrugged. "It was years ago. I didn't expect to run into her here."

"That kind of stuff tends to take you by surprise." She said, shifting both water bottles to one arm and adjusting a strand of hair that had escaped her baseball hat.

I nodded. "We didn't part on the best terms, but I imagine there are worse situations where you could run into than a girl who wasn't interested in you."

Crystal Pelham nodded and looked over to where Sabah had met up with the rest of Parian's group on the event stage. I made sure not to look since I doubted any extra attention from me would be appreciated. That turned out to be a wise decision as Sabah turned towards us.

There was a look or realization from Crystal, but I wasn't sure what she'd noticed. I checked in with Survey who had been walking past the group at the time, but she didn't report anything out of the ordinary.

"Right. Not interested." Crystal Pelham said knowingly.

I couldn't help but cringe slightly. In addition to its effect on my physical appearance, Aphrodite's Blessing gave me an awareness of attraction. That was fairly disorienting at first, particularly with the effect it was having on my appearance, but eventually I adjusted to the varying levels I picked up from people. It created a kind of background noise to most encounters, but from Sabah there had been nothing. Maybe a sliver of acknowledgement that I was well put together, but nothing even resembling romantic interest.

"I was pretty bad at noticing that kind of stuff." I admitted. "Could have avoided a lot of problems if I picked up on it earlier."

"Probably." She said with a slight smile as she brushed back another strand of hair. "But you're better at it now?"

"I bit. It wasn't easy" I replied. I smiled as I thought about what it had taken to get past that particular hurdle. "My stepmom had to break things down for me."

Crystal Pelham suddenly gave me a serious look. I was struck by the context of what I had said coupled with the situation she had been dealing with. Another situation I had had a hand in, even if my responsibility for it was limited.

"You have a good relationship with your stepmother?" She asked.

How did I find myself in the position of giving advice for post-divorce parental relationships to an active superhero? How did I even end up talking to her in the first place? I was fully ready to blame my luck for this. I was going to have to give some serious consideration to what it regarded as 'fortunate events'.

Well, I couldn't really back out now. I mean, I could. Cutting and running was still an option, and more of one than it had been with Sabah, but once again, it didn't feel right to just bail. Not when I was a contributing factor to the problems she was dealing with.

"It's a workable relationship." I said. "We aren't really close, but I don't think anyone expects that kind of thing to be like how things are with your own parents."

Crystal nodded along, mapping my vague approximation of a divine blessing to actual parental relationships.

"So you were able to get along, even with…" She trailed off, leaving the obvious implication of events. Even with whatever lead to stepmother status. Death or divorce, neither pleasant prospects.

"She was the one to reach out, which meant a lot." I guess getting a blessing out of nowhere was roughly the same to a distant unrelated parental figure trying to make time for you. "The whole situation is also a recent thing, which helps. Didn't have to deal with it while growing up."

Crystal nodded again, but I could see the weight pressing down on her.

"Um, is this about…" I didn't want to elaborate.

"My parents?" She asked in a tired voice. She let out a breath before continuing. "Yeah. I guess it's kind of an open secret. I mean, more of one than it was before." She took a breath. "They're splitting up. It'll be public soon enough."

"I'm sorry." I said. She just shook her head.

"It's been happening in slow motion for years and it's hardly a unique situation. Only difference is how public it will be." She explained.

"Yeah. Public isn't fun." I glanced towards the end of the hall. Parian's team had vanished backstage, but I was probably lucky that the entire discussion hadn't happened in front of them.

"No it is not." She said with a slight smile. Out of the New Wave kids Glory Girl had always been the media darling. Laserdream didn't shy from the spotlight, but she didn't have the kind of public presence you saw from her mother or cousin.

I nodded. "It can't be easy, never getting to step back, being constantly recognized."

"I don't know, it has some perks." She said with a smile. "When people actually recognize you."

I smiled and shook my head. "Just so you know, my friends made fun of me for about a month over that."

"Well, it sounds like you deserved it." She shot back with a grin.

I shrugged, conceding the point. "Um, I'm not keeping you from something, am I?" I asked.

"Seems like I should be the one asking that." She said looking around at the volunteers putting the last items in order. "But no. I came early with a friend who wanted to skip the whole entrance thing. I was just grabbing something to drink." She held up the bottles in question.

I nodded. "Who did you come with?" I asked.

She shifted slightly before answering. "Gully." She said, nodding towards a corner of the show floor where the hulking ward was doing her best to stay out of sight. "She's a Ward, from California." She added, watching my reaction carefully.

"I know. I heard about her work with the recovery efforts. We've been really lucky to have her in the city." I said with a smile. Crystal relaxed slightly and nodded.

"You don't know the half of it." She said with a smile. "The guys from the fire service have practically adopted her."

I nodded. "I know the bridges she set up on Bayside have made a huge difference." Having the only avenue clear of an I-field actually be passable to vehicles was incredibly important, particularly as the proximity to the center of the Dust trails meant a half dozen of them needed to be bridged in order to make it across.

But I could understand why she had wanted to avoid the media circus outside. Gully was doing her best to avoid attention, but that wouldn't have been possible in front of the tourists and swarms of other media. We were lucky that everything had been consolidated here.

"You know, after I finish up with this, I was going to hand things off to the TV people. They've got a handle on the stream and broadcast, so if Gully has any requests regarding discretion from media coverage, I can make sure they're relayed." I offered.

"You can do that?" Crystal asked. "I thought you were…" She looked down at the junction I had been checking.

"I helped with the setup for the broadcast and stream. I'll be handing things off to the technician from WKMP-6 News." Crystal nodded. She had probably worked with the local media more than I could imagine. "I can make sure to send up any requests. I was here when they were hashing out the broadcast agreement and it's extensive." I looked over towards Survey and Crystal gave an understanding nod. "Anything regarding interviews or wide shot coverage, I'll make sure it gets across."

"Um, maybe? I'll check with her." She said. She considered something for a moment before continuing. "Actually, you know how Chicago sent a team down?" She asked.

"Vaguely." I said. Which wasn't true. I had exact knowledge of the team, including the heroes who were included, where they were boarding, their scheduled arrival, plans for how they would interact with other groups during the event, and their placement in WKMP-6's interview roster.

"One of Gully's friends is on the team. I know she'd feel better if she knew when they'd be getting here. And anything else you could get?" She asked.

"I'll see what I can do." I said, even as the printer in the back office spit out the personalized schedule of events for the Chicago Wards team. It wasn't confidential information, but the rushed nature of the event meant communication wasn't as wide as it would normally be.

I could also tell that there was more to this than just seeing an old friend, but Gully had done a lot of good for the city. Anything that made things a bit easier for her was worth the effort.

Which would probably come around to me addressing the obvious reason why she was in the city. Dealing with the Case 53s was on the list, but there were a lot of things on the list. It was something that would have to wait, at least in terms of broad application until after I had dealt with the Slaughterhouse Nine, no matter how much I might want to accelerate things.

"Thanks. I know that would mean a lot." She said, brushing back her hair again. "You know, I really didn't expect to run into someone from the college here. It's great, but with the short notice and things being canceled, pretty much everyone I know missed the chance to sign up."

"Oh, yeah…" I began, rubbing the back of my neck.

"What?" She asked in a concerned tone.

I shrugged. "I didn't want to get into this earlier, but I'm not enrolled anymore."

"Oh. Um, sorry?" She offered.

I shook my head. "It's fine. stuff got a bit hectic and I needed some time to get things together." Which was hopefully vague enough for Crystal not to pry further. Thankfully, she just nodded.

"Do you think you'll try again?" She asked.

"Maybe." I said with a good-natured shrug. "I've been helping out since things went off the rails, so I'm going to focus on that for now. I've been thinking about circling back later to try to finish up my degree."

She nodded. "Have you been back to the campus recently?"

"Passed through a few times, but most of my work's on this end of the city." It seemed like there was more to this. "Why?"

She gave me a smile. "My friends always pester me for details about events like this. I thought it might be nice to have someone to help field questions, particularly since you're on the inside."

I shifted the fit of my jacket slightly. "I'd say I'm more adjacent than inside when it comes to the event. I'm not sure what I'll be able to offer."

"Well, think about it." Crystal said with a nod. "We're meeting in the coffee place in the student center. You know the one?"

"Common Ground." Its name really was a horrible pun. "Yeah, it's pretty much the only thing that got me through physics labs in freshman year." Crystal gave me a confused look. "I was lucky enough to get the eight thirty lab slot two terms in a row."

"Ouch." She said sympathetically. "Take it you're not a morning person?"

"Definitely not." I said, "Having a coffee place across from the physics building helped, but still, not fun."

"Right." She shifted the bottles she was carrying again. "I should get back to Gully, but think about tomorrow, okay?"

"I will, and I'll do what I can to get that information for Gully." I said as the documents in question were being sorted and sent out of the office thanks to updated instructions to volunteers.

I waved Crystal off as she hurried across the show floor. Gully was effectively already in costume. For other capes portions of the 'backstage' area had been cordoned off with varying levels of security, which was where Crystal's costume was stored. I imagine she'd be changing before the event as well, but she was probably as eager to skip the circus outside as Gully was.

I looked around to make sure there were no other surprise arrivals waiting for me before quickly getting back to work. Or to the appearance of work, since the setup didn't really need to be fretted over. I had just run into Sabah and Crystal Pelham back-to-back. Well, I guess Crystal had been playing spectator to the first encounter, which could have come across far worse if things had gone south.

Was this a luck thing? And once again, why did Fortune Energy seem to believe that these kinds of encounters were a good thing? If anything, they were exhausting and not the kind of thing I needed to deal with on top of everything else that was on my plate.

The Magitech constellation slowly passed by as I wrapped up the last of my performative review of the setup. The constellation was pretty much full of major powers, but my reach was just short of being able to secure the mote it attempted to connect to. I let the constellation slowly drift away as I noted someone approaching me.

"So, I see you survived." Aisha said, as I finished my inspection. Thankfully we were less exposed than the previous conversation, but I still activated a privacy field and kept an eye out for anyone we might randomly run into.

Stupid fortune powers.

"Technically." I shot back.

She nodded. "I guess that's the girl from university that they talk about at the gym?"

I sighed. "Yes, though probably not in the way that they're making it seem. And seriously, they bother to talk about that kind of stuff?"

"Nowadays they do." Aisha said. "The place wasn't really big on gossip, but that was back when everyone was training or fighting. Now that they're running everything out of that place, they have to find something to talk about to pass the time."

"Great. I'm in the rumor mill." I said.

"Hey, everyone's in the rumor mill. Even Doug's in the rumor mill. It's a fact of life. You should have heard the stuff that got circulated about my family." She said. I guess she'd had ample opportunity to listen in during the early days of her power.

"So, the deal with Sabah?" Aisha asked. "I mean, just broad points and any potential problems?" She asked with a leading edge to her voice.

I shook my head. "We worked together. I thought it was going somewhere when it definitely wasn't. She didn't take that well. Had a public blow up when I was going to actually ask her directly, then things were awkward for the rest of the year until she transferred out of the program."

Aisha raised an eyebrow. "That was it?"

"That's enough." I said.

"Yeah, but I mean, you asked her out a few times?" She looked at my expression. "If that. What, you suggested the possibility of maybe asking her out?"

I shook my head. Aisha never got into the details, but she had her own experience with that kind of thing. I got the sense that Aisha would have laughed off someone making awkward suggestions of a possible relationship, at least compared to what else she had seen. But Sabah wasn't Aisha. Different people and different situations. You couldn't benchmark one against the other.

"That's enough to be a significant source of stress when we were supposed to be working together. Though courses are bad enough already without piling on more problems." I said. "And I'm pretty sure she was dealing with a lot more than just my bullshit."

"Oh, you have no idea." She said with a gleam in her eyes.

I gave her a cautious look. "What did you do?" I asked.

"Checked up on Team Parian after I made my little exit." She said with a smile. I let out a breath. It was… well, I would consider it an intrusion, but compared to Aisha's previous behavior… Well, it was still an intrusion.

"Something about Sabah? Or Parian?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah." She said, rubbing her hands together.

"Great. Keep it to yourself." I said.

Aisha blinked. "Seriously?"

"Unwritten rules." I said. "I don't even want to give a hint of knowing something personal about a cape."

Aisha shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, but…"

"Look, does Survey know?" I asked.

Aisha let out a huff. "It's Survey. She's probably known for days."

"Then she can keep an eye on it." I said. "If it's something I should know or if it becomes relevant you can brief me, otherwise I don't want to know."

Especially concerning this was Sabah. She seemed to be doing well in the fashion program, but everything connected with that year was raw and unsettled. She wasn't looking for closure, she was looking to leave everything behind. If she wanted to move on from that and basically ignore it, I was fine with that and I wasn't going to create any entanglements that would drag up old ghosts.

Now that I knew about her association with Parian it would be easy enough to avoid any interaction. It wasn't like there were any active collaborations, though I knew that Garment was interested in follow up work. That was something she could do without any hint of my presence.

Aisha gave me a serious look. "All right. Unless it becomes relevant."

I nodded. "That's pretty much the case with everything."

She snorted. "Yeah, she's definitely comprehensive. Makes you wonder how many identities she knows." She glanced at me out of the side of her eye. "Of course, identities aren't always secret."

I let out a breath. "My talk with Crystal Pelham." Aisha grinned widely.

"How did it go?" She asked.

"Awkwardly." I said. "Less awkward than seeing Sabah again, but she ended up seeing that entire exchange. I'm just lucky she didn't take it the wrong way."

"That's it? Just awkward?" She prodded.

I took a breath. "It was nice, talking to someone without all the baggage of being Apeiron." I admitted. "She's dealing with a lot, and a good portion of that tracks back to me which is another layer of awkwardness, but overall, it was nice."

"So when are you seeing her again?" She asked. I gave her a blank look. "Come on, don't tell me it ended there."

"She is having coffee with some friends tomorrow and asked me to drop by." Aisha's smile nearly split her face in half.

"You've got a coffee date with Laserdream." Aisha said in a sing-song voice.

"It's a group of people having coffee together, not a date." I said.

"Come on, I know you aren't that thick." Aisha shot back. "Doesn't the love goddess thing mean you always know this kind of stuff? She did like you, right?"

"There was a level of attraction." I admitted uncomfortably. "But it was mostly baseline."

"Baseline?" Aisha asked. "You have a baseline for attraction?"

"I mean the base level I typically see." I explained. "The normal level?"

"So, she only likes you as much as most of the women who've seen you after the Aphrodite makeover?" Aisha asked in a flat voice. "Please tell me I don't need to explain what that means."

"No, no, I get it." Apparently, the attraction scale was a bit difficult to calibrate if your baseline started high enough. Maybe my 'stepmom' liked me more than I'd thought.

"But still, it's not a date. It's a socially acceptable and safe introductory event that provides the possibility of future events that might count as dates." I conceded.

"Yeah, if you want to be a nerd about it." She joked.

I shrugged. The fact was, some of those offers to Sabah had basically consisted of mentioning that part of the class was meeting for coffee and asking if she wanted to come along.

And that triggered another realization. Sabah might have been avoiding social events with the rest of the class in order to avoid giving any hint of interest, which meant there were even more knock-on effects from my behavior. I mean, even at study sessions Sabah had been pretty closed off from the rest of the class, but if someone is already having problems connecting to people, making them feel like they need to further isolate themselves was the last thing they needed.

"You're going, right?" Aisha asked.

"What?" I asked. "No. With everything that's going on, I don't have time for something like that. The city is juggling a half dozen active crises."

"Yeah, but we're overkill for them, right?" She asked.

"We still need to stay on top of everything." I said.

"Oh, yeah. If only we had a supreme divinely empowered artificial intelligence constantly monitoring every scrap of data she can get her hands on, including crazy psychic stuff?" Aisha mused. "Besides, isn't spiritual recharge the big thing you're focused on?"

I slumped slightly. That was a point that I couldn't really refute. It was the reason I was here in person. As stressful as it had been to see Sabah, being able to get through that without collapsing into myself had helped, and yeah, it had been nice to speak to Crystal. It had done wonders for my reserves of spiritual energy, and that wasn't something I could dismiss.

Even without needing to worry about the Glove of the East, spiritual energy was the key to my highest-level magical abilities. It meant more top tier elven enchantments, more shikigami, more curses and talisman magic, and potentially even some of the elements of Belmont Alchemy I had never had never been able to afford exploring.

Spiritual energy recovery meant being able to expand the kind of monitoring and containment protocols that I had focused on the Slaughterhouse Nine to other groups. It was the step I would need to fully lock down the situation in the city and get on top of other major threats across the country.

And that apparently required me to get out of the Workshop, interact with people face to face, and deal with my shit. Who would have imagined that actually being a functional person instead of a basement dwelling crafting machine was good for the soul?

Of course, my 'basement' was bigger than any single continent on Earth, so that moderated things to a degree.

"Should we put it to a vote?" Aisha asked, keying up her watch. "See what everyone else thinks of the idea?"

"No." I said quickly.

"Yes!" Came a myriad of responses. I got to enjoy feedback from the entirety of the Celestial Forge, which for some reason even extended to the Titans, with everyone weighing in on why they thought this was such a good idea. Survey even briefly approached Garment with a tablet for a private consultation and received an enthusiastically affirmative gesture in response.

"My social life is not decided by democratic ballot." I protested.

'Hey, if you don't want to go, one of us can fill in.' One of my duplicates transmitted telepathically. 'Or you know, the versions of us that are around at the time.'

"No, I've got this." I shot back.

"Really?" Aisha asked.

"Yeah. Assuming we aren't in the middle of an active crisis at the time, I'll stop by tomorrow." It might actually be nice to see the campus again, now that I wasn't cringing at every memory that place could provoke.

And Aisha was looking far too smug about that.

"Shouldn't you be with Garment?" I asked.

"Eh." She waved dismissively. "Meet and greet with the early arrivals is done. Garment's going over the final details of the setup to get ready for the official-official start. I swear, this thing has like six stages of false starts before things properly kick off."

It was actually a carefully staggered program designed to ensure that everything was in place for when the broadcast would begin. The socializing and introduction portions weren't really what would help drive donations so things had been carefully arranged to ensure that guests had time to actually be guests before the entire thing turned into a production for the cameras.

I deliberately ignored Aisha's casual dismissal of divine level coordination efforts and she huffed slightly as her attempt to provoke a response fell flat.

"What about you?" She asked.

"Nothing really." I said. "Official handover and maybe helping with some final checks." Which wouldn't find anything out of place, but I understood the other parties wanting assurances. "Otherwise I'm just standing by."

And out of sight, since I did not want to run into Sabah again for both of our sakes. I could stay behind the scenes and be visible enough to assure people that there was tech support on hand in the impossible situation of something going wrong.

I could probably find some moments to duck back to the Workshop if needed. I was pretty sure that, other than that early hiccup, the show was going to go relatively smoothly. Which just left the active gang war that would be playing out in the streets.

Survey was monitoring the situation, though her surveillance wasn't as comprehensive as with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Various Empire bases were being watched through remote scrying, as well as the Teeth outposts that had been identified as targets. The second fighting broke out she'd be monitoring every aspect of the conflict. If things got out of hand or civilians were threatened someone would be ready to step in before anyone could be hurt.

Someone, but not me. I had pushed my luck with the libations this morning and while my 'luck' could certainly be pushed further than I imagined, I didn't want to find out what would happen if it was pushed to the breaking point. Other members of the team could deploy without causing a national response and any one of them could deal with the coming conflict. Even Aisha, especially with her Psi Operative enhancements.

But that was a problem for later. We could go on high alert when the powers started flying. Until then I trusted Survey to keep up apprised of the situation from her scrying chamber. The replica droid was seamlessly piloted through the event, effectively indistinguishable from Survey's own human form. I think the experience had helped her appreciate Fleet's work with drones over the course of his development.

While 'Delphine Mertens' alternated between offering polite greetings and terrorizing edicts the rest of the event was falling into place. From an external perspective it probably looked like things were down to the wire, but everything had been precisely planned out with buffer space for any potential problems. At least any problems beyond what Survey would be able to see coming, which was a fairly small list.

I wrapped up the last of my own work and put together a completely unnecessary checklist of results before going to see the television crew. The staff had expended substantially from the single technician that had been handling things the previous day. They had multiple techs and camera operators manning an 'improvised' command center that had been set up in one of the back rooms that definitely hadn't been purposefully arranged to be able to accommodate the expected staff and all necessary technical connections for their work while also allowing easy transport of their equipment.

Yeah, we had things taken care of. After my last offhand statement had summoned a ghost of the past, I wasn't about to tempt fate by openly stating my confidence in the operation, but it was nice seeing proactive measures we had put in place working properly.

The technician I had worked with before spotted me by the door and waved off a producer he had been talking to. I nodded as he approached and offered my completed checklist.

"Finished the final review. Just wanted to get this to you before things got started." I said, handing over the sheet.

"Thanks." He said, quickly glancing over the paper and nodding. "You did good work yesterday. Just like the last time. You've a pretty good hand at this kind of thing."

I shrugged. "I just followed the plan that was outlined. I'm as impressed as anyone how things came together."

"Yeah, it's really something." He said, running a hand over his recently overgrown beard. The stubble had grown past the point of counting as stubble, upgrading his beard from neatly groomed to moderately bushy. "Funny how things come together."

He looked over at one of the monitors where a test shot towards the stage was focused on Garment.

"What Garment?" I asked. "I know they were talking about her having some coordination power or something, but really?"

"Really." He said. "Trust me, I've seen events with twenty times as much planning and buildup turn to complete disasters over the kind of problems this thing has rolled over without noticing."

"I heard most of that is from her lawyer." I said.

He shook his head. "This is more than a good lawyer. Most people don't get how crazy this is." I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, if you know about something like weight lifting you can tell when someone is benching more than they should be able to, or when they're handling too much weight with too little effort."

"So, this is like Garment lifting more than she should be able to handle." I said with a nod.

He let out a short laugh. "No this is like Garment walking into the gym and juggling stacks of forty-five-pound plates."

"You think she's showing off?" I asked.

The man shrugged. "She's a cape. It's basically how they advertise." He rubbed his beard again. "And it's going to work."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You have no idea how badly something like this can go off the rails. Pulling it together in this amount of time and under budget? People are going to be falling over themselves to work with Garment. Shows, movies, awards ceremonies, whatever." He cocked his head towards the huddle of producers in the corner of the room. "They've been going on about it since they got here."

"And everyone's okay with this?" I asked. "Nobody's freaking out or calling the Protectorate?"

"What, report that a thinker is out here making sure charities get the funding they need?" He asked with humor in his voice. "Yeah, I'm sure the Protectorate will jump right on that. Priority one." He shook his head. "Trust me, if we know, they know. They're probably just glad she's running a fundraising show rather than playing at puppet master or something like that."

I nodded slowly and nudged Survey to keep a close look at the official assessments of Garment's abilities. They had been fairly sparse in official channels, but I doubted she was being completely ignored.

After the handoff I headed around to the back offices and picked up a pack of papers that had been waiting for me. Those were the divine administration abilities that had been attributed to Garment and had apparently been a lot less subtle than I thought. His metaphor was dead on. People who didn't understand what it took to pull off an event like this were willing to let it pass, but to anyone with inside knowledge Garment was basically bench pressing a building.

It was a situation that I really hoped wasn't going to blow up in my face. Obviously, I had overreached a little. Probably more than a little, to be honest, but it was a good cause and a project disconnected from the core team. Maybe people were overestimating Garment's capabilities, but it wasn't like 'she' wouldn't be able to pull off something like this again.

And fortunately, she didn't have the PRT freaking out about her every move and new display of power. It was almost as if premiering as a craftsperson inclined towards lifesaving garnered a different response from a mercenary arms dealer with an ominous and ill-defined thinker power.

Yeah, I was well aware of how much of the situation was my fault, but there were no shortage of contributing factors and I was dealing with a lot at the time. Kind of like a previous situation where I had messed things up and ended up needing to spend ages trying to make up for my mistakes and deal with the aftermath of things going wrong. History repeats, at least if you don't learn from it.

Putting that cheery thought aside, I made my way towards Gully and Crystal Pelham. Gully was still enjoying the relative quiet and privacy of a corner of the show floor, but this close to the start of the event things were being cleared out and finalized, leaving them a little more exposed than they had been. Crystal's eyes lit up as I approached and she gave me a small wave. Gully looked down at her, then over to me before smirking at the smaller girl.

"Hi Jozef." Crystal said. I gave her a half smile at that.

"Actually, I usually go by Joe." She gave me a small nod as Gully continued to smirk. "And I was able to get you that information you asked for."

"Oh, thank you. Joe, this is Gully." She said quickly.

"It's nice to meet you." I said, extending a hand. "I've heard about everything you've been doing out there. Thank you for your help."

She gave me a cautious look, then carefully shook my hand. The skin on her hands was exceptionally thick and she was careful to avoid pinching the flesh of my hand between her callouses as she shook it. It actually showed an exceptional amount of care and control.

"You're welcome." She said softly. It was a clear attempt to distract from the gravely nature of her voice. "Glad I could make a difference."

I nodded. "Oh, here." I handed over the stack of sheets. "This is the schedule and press data for the Chicago team." Gully took the stack of papers carefully.

"Thank you." She said even as she began shuffling through the sheets.

"Was it difficult to get that?" Crystal asked.

"No. It's just the schedule and press packet. It's all public stuff, but because of short notice it hadn't been sent around. I was able to get a copy from the back office." I explained. It did help that this was entirely above board, if a little preferential towards them.

"Thanks. This means a lot." Crystal said quietly.

I felt a spike of emotion that drew my eyes to Gully. She had turned to the profile of the leader of the Chicago Wards. Tecton. Power armor tinker with a specialization in architecture and geology. My expanded senses were giving me all kinds of data on her reaction, with Aphrodite's Blessing happy to fill me in in case I couldn't notice the obvious from the rest of the reactions on display.

That was a complicated mess of emotions that were basically firing every which way. Gully herself was still as a statue, but I could feel the storm underneath. Clearly this was a lot more complicated than just meeting an old friend.

And that wasn't even getting into the other complexities. Case 53s had notoriously complex biology. Weld was a prime example of that, and I had gotten a firsthand look. Gully might have just looked like she was just big, muscular, and slightly asymmetrical, but the actual biological processes happening under the surface were insane. There was only the vaguest connection to how a normal body would work with everything from her skeleton to her skin carrying both novel and vital properties.

Even at my current level, curing Case 53s was not going to be simple. It was possible, but it wasn't like I could just issue a vaccine or standardize a procedure. This was going to be a considerable project, one that would have to be tailored on a case-by-case basis.

I cleared my throat slightly, drawing Gully's attention. She peaked down at me from under her bangs. "I'm going to be heading by the broadcast center before things get started. Crystal mentioned you might have some requests for interviews and the like."

"Oh, yeah." Gully said. "I think I'll opt out. I know I'm on the guest list, but if you could tell them…"

"I'll take care of it. They shouldn't bother you." I assured her.

"Um, me too, if you don't mind?" Crystal asked. She shrugged. "I'm barely representing the team here, so I'd rather not deal with the press directly."

"I'll let them know." I said. "I think it's a pretty tight schedule, so I'm sure they'll appreciate some slack time."

They definitely would. Divine administration had helped with that, but we hadn't been managing the broadcast team on the same level as the rest of the event. It was one of the places where there was a bit of instability and this would actually help even things out.

"Great." Crystal said. "Which means I guess I better get into costume."

"And I should get back to the broadcast room." I said. "Good luck with the event, and I'll see you tomorrow." I said to Crystal.

There was a slight pause before a smile bloomed on her face. "Right." She beamed. "See you then."

Gully smirked at her reaction. In terms of what Aisha was saying, okay, maybe it was a bit further from the baseline than I had thought.

I made a quick stop to relay their request. Unsurprisingly, given the number of capes who were attending the event, the TV crew didn't have a problem with skipping over two of them. It probably helped that neither of them had a publicity department trying to manage their image and exposure level. Seeing three producers having conference calls on their cell phones with as many agencies I was very grateful to have handed off that element of the show.

The coverage would be incredible if they pulled it off, but this was a balancing act of egos, not logistics, and that wasn't Hera's strong suit. In fact, I'm pretty sure the last time ego conflicts came into play with Hera things escalated to that ten-year war with the wooden horse.

I checked back on the show floor to find it continuing to empty of volunteers. Setup of the event was a lot more complicated than the actual operation and most of the volunteers were heading out after a final check and a personal thank you from Garment. The hall was transforming from the chaotic mess it had been for the last two days to a venue worthy of being referred to as the Regency Center. Perhaps even the Regency Centre.

With everything locked in, the arrivals were going to start. Not exactly an official part of the event, but everyone acknowledged the value of making an entrance. Arrival times had been specifically planned out to keep the guests from overshadowing each other. Cape watchers, tourists, and outside media would get their eyeful and you'd even have some brief statements or softball interview questions.

After that you had a bit of a neutral period for things to settle before they started the portion that would be streamed in support of the donation drive and auction. Uppercrust was opening the event, then you had a display from Garment devoted to recent events and losses. After that there was a video summary of the work and funding already accomplished with current donations, and some of the causes that were still being funded. That led into the softer offerings from sponsors and other local groups.

Parian's presentation was late in the program, closer to the auction. It was around the time when the topics shifted from recovery to fashion elements. That was nearly two hours away at this point. Actually, most of the models hadn't arrived yet. That seemed risky, but Survey had confirmed that Parian was working with people from past jobs who already knew the role.

Apparently, she had been very comprehensive when Survey had visited her yesterday afternoon. It was good that she was so passionate about her part of the show, but I think the amount of time that had been spent reviewing things was a major driver for Survey's decision to switch to a remotely operated human replica droid.

There was a careful lead-in and transition set before Parian's presentation to make sure the tone of the event held. The décor of the hall was somber but hopeful, while Parian's presentation was considerably more… optimistic. Still, it was the kind of thing a lot of people needed and should fit in well enough.

I was deliberately not monitoring aspects of that setup. It helped that it was entirely external to our operation and didn't need any input from my coordination powers. I was happy to handle everything around it, but I very much wanted to stay hands off regarding Sabah's work. Survey could monitor things well enough, and from what I heard Parian would be more than happy with that arrangement.

I paused, slipping back from the main floor as I felt the Forge shift again. Its slow rotation had brought the Alchemy constellation towards me. My power latched onto one of the large motes and held fast. As the constellation slowly shifted away from me the mote broke loose and that burning star of power descended towards me

Change is an inexorable element of existence. By existing we change the world around us and are similarly changed by it. Transformation exists as a metaphor for life, for time, for the universe itself. Nothing is truly stagnant, just as nothing is truly isolated. The connections we have are what allow us to change and are in fact the vectors of our own transformation. And the transformation of others.

This was philosophy, but it was also science, and alchemy, and math, and magic. The power was called Trigram Knowledge and Manipulation and it shared the same origin universe with the Crucible of Eight Trigrams. The same crucible the Sun Wukong, the monkey king, had carved his initials in.

I had been granted the transformation arts of the immortals of one of the most important pieces of easter literature. Journey to the West was something I'd reviewed after we realized where the crucible had come from and I could say transformations were a big part of that story.

This wasn't Sun Wukong's style of transformation. It was more abstract than that. The eight trigrams were a set of symbols that were also known as the Bagua. They consisted of three stacked horizontal lines that were either broken or solid, allowing for eight combinations.

Those eight combinations had a profound amount of meaning behind them. They represented numbers, natural images, Wuxing phases, body parts, family relationships, cardinal directions, animals, personal attributes, and even more ephemeral characteristics. Using the trigrams it was possible to describe the exact nature of something on a fundamental level. And, having defined it, it was possible to cause it to change. To transform.

By using Trigram Knowledge and Manipulation I could write a short script describing an object, defining its traits, and then describing how those traits would transform. Through the use of this power I could transform anything into something of similar size. Anything, even living beings.

There were limits. I couldn't create life out of nothing, but it could transform it from one form to another. I had to write a 'short' script to describe the transformation. For small or simple transformations that was indeed a short script, but adding complexity or size could increase the size of the definition considerably.

Which would have been a problem if I was approaching this on my own. Once again, the vast array of powers available to me resolved the issue. There was no problem when it came to writing time, complexity, or the size of the work. I still had to work out the transformation, which wasn't quite as instantaneous as writing the formula, but at my level of alchemical proficiency it wasn't much of a problem.

Unlike my transmutations, this alchemy was not crafting. Changing something from one form to another didn't destroy and remake it. The item or being continued, just in a new form. There was a continuity of existence, a continuity of self that extended through transformations.

That was something that was evident in how these transformations functioned. Specifically, how they couldn't be 'undone', not because it was impossible to return something to a previous form, but because the idea of going back fundamentally conflicted with the process. If you changed something and then you changed it again into the form that it had before you weren't changing it back, you were changing it forward. It was the same object, just expressed through multiple stages of the transformation inherent to existence.

That continuity of existence introduced some difficulties from a metaphysical perspective. I could change an object's physical form, but mystical characteristics existed independently from that. Sometimes they relied on or synergized with physical aspects, but by their nature they weren't inherently physical characteristics. I couldn't add magic elements to an item through transformations and I couldn't remove them. At best I could suppress them or create a form where they couldn't be expressed.

That was also a problem when it came to parahumans. In most cases, losing access to the Corona Pollentia would cut a parahuman off from their powers, but certain parahumans had modes of existence that functioned independently from their biological forms. Breakers in particular would maintain elements of their abilities, and it would be possible for passengers to force or adapt a connection no matter what I transformed a parahuman into.

Then you had the major problems. Endbringers and other S-Class threats. Just defining them through a formula would be a challenge. I could do it, but probably only because of the weight of my other abilities. Even then, it would be of limited use. Transforming Ash Beast, Sleeper, or one of the Endbringers wasn't going to effectively curtail their more exotic abilities. Turning Leviathan into a giant rubber duck would just create a very dangerous giant rubber duck.

So it was a good thing I wasn't relying on Eastern immortal transformation formulas to beat the Endbringers. No, I had guns for that. Really, trying to figure out how to best weaponize this ability was missing the point. This wasn't a sledgehammer, it was a paint brush, and it opened up a world of possibilities.

A restriction on similar size. An inability to create life from nothing. An incompatibility with metaphysical elements. Those were the only limits on this ability. Beyond that, I could do anything. Reform landscapes or change the world to my will. One script at a time, I could set forth incredible and fantastic transformations.

But not too fantastic. These transformations were not crafting. I could perform them without drawing out every one of my aesthetics, quality, and empowerment abilities. I could actually create sane and simple items without needing to entirely farm out the process.

I briefly contacted the Matrix and updated them on the situation. They were okay with it. Very okay. In fact, they were very clear about the fact that they did not mind no longer being responsible for the production of substandard works. They were perfectly happy with their own projects monitoring the growing Mantic cores, collaborating with Uppercrust, supporting the Kerbals, and facilitating various acts of mega construction across the workshop.

Using my transformations, I could actually see what some of my technology was supposed to look like when it wasn't buried under the divine mandate of three mythological systems and enough quality powers to drive a performance tester insane. And those were items I might actually be willing to release into the world.

I had hit the point where my casual efforts were producing the kind of items of myth and legend that could usurp entire pantheons. Not the kind of thing you hand out lightly. On the other hand, a slightly advanced piece of defense or utility equipment was something I was a lot more comfortable about.

I could have asked the Matrix to produce those kinds of things, but even they worked to a level of divine craftsmanship. Lowballing them always seemed slightly insulting and I tried to avoid it more than I had to. Breaking fully away from that was probably for the best.

Also, I could turn people into animals. I mean, I could already do that through a few different applications. Various spells, some curses, and a fairly invasive protein restructuring program. Valuable Memories chimeras had some messed-up applications, but the ability to literally turn someone into a cat was out there even for that powerset.

But all of those were through mechanisms that had a physical or magical vector. Things that could be fought against by a passenger. Things that could result in dangerous conflicts. I couldn't just cast a transformation spell on a Case 53, but I could write a transformation script.

It wouldn't work in every case. You could have levels of power bleed over or breaker effects that couldn't be addressed, but for issues purely based on form it was at least a potential solution.

I mean, within the bounds of similar size. I could transform Gully with a single script, but she would still be an eight-foot-tall woman. Probably taller, considering redistribution of her muscle mass. That… Well, that wasn't necessarily a deal breaker, but I'd prefer to be able to present it as an option, rather than the only possible solution.

I had an incredibly versatile tool at my fingertips, one that would be of immense help when working to help Case 53s. Beyond that its usefulness could range as widely as I was willing to stretch the ability.

Oddly, I didn't feel the need to do that. This power was a beautiful thing from a beautiful source. It could be used offensively, but I had other powers that could be used for destruction. Other ways to create and remake the world. This power was useful, but it wasn't a cornerstone. I didn't need to extract every ounce of usefulness from it in order to avoid feeling bad about myself. Somehow, that felt like progress.

I took a breath in the cool air of a backroom of the Regency Center. I had survived an encounter with Sabah and faced up to what I could, given the circumstance. I had made a point of social contact. Something that probably wouldn't go anywhere, but was still nice to have experienced. The start of the event had unfolded without any problems beyond a significant thinker power being attributed to Garment. And I had received a major power that didn't come bundled with a lifetime of trauma, didn't turn my world upside down, and didn't require the immediate revision of all of my plans.

It was enough that I was willing to feel cautiously optimistic. Not enough to actually vocalize it, but enough to hope. Even though we had a pending gang war that could potentially involve the intervention of a still-compromised Dragon and the Dragonslayers. Even though the Slaughterhouse Nine were…

Well, they were trying to secure a vehicle that would allow them to make their way to the city so I could crush them. At least they were supposed to be trying. Provided Cherish and Shatterbird stopped wasting time with that replica droid and just stole the damn truck. Any day now people!

And also Coil was still actively scheming in the background with a pet S-Class threat connected to an unstable team.

Okay, I was tempering my optimism. Hopefully that should be enough to avoid any cheap drama that might or might not be helped along by my reserves of reality warping fortune energy. At the very least, with tempered optimism I wouldn't be taken off guard by any sudden turns.

I shook my head. I was probably overthinking things. Even if I was literally brimming with a form of energy that could arbitrarily alter reality it didn't mean I needed to obsess over every potential-

An alert came through to my watch. To the network, but specifically to my watch because that was what it was designed for. That was where medical alerts from the Undersiders were delivered.

Taylor. Multiple lacerations to hands, upper arms, and face. Well below the threshold of what the shield should have countered. Watch instruction log, shield not active when in school. Response limited to critical damage. Well below that threshold.

Laceration pattern and depth match fingernails. Arrangement suggests defensive wounds. Slight bruising suggests was knocked to the ground. School fight. Activate privacy protocols. Block automatic notification to the watches of the rest of the Undersiders. Injuries non-critical. No further injuries inflicted following the opening strikes. Assailant removed.

I slipped out of my state of focus, no longer needing to process information as quickly as her watch could deliver it. Something had happened at Taylor's school. Something that needed to be dealt with. She had been attacked, but throwing a forcefield over her while she was surrounded by classmates wasn't the way to resolve this.

I opened a line to Taylor. I didn't know if she was in any position to talk, but I wanted to give her the opportunity. At the same time I pulled up the watches data. A special protocol and one of the few that risked violating the privacy I had made an absolute priority for the watches. Data access in the event of injury to effectively offer aid. With it I could figure out how to best help Taylor before the situation could get any worse and figure out who was behind this.

I pulled up the information on the brief and apparently one-sided fight as well as the aftermath that was currently playing out in real time. As the data unfolded before me the identity of Taylor's assailant surprised me, though given both my passenger's and Taylor's reaction the last time I came across the name, it probably shouldn't have.

I looked through the link at the twisted expression of blind rage on an otherwise immaculately put together teenage girl. Two other students were pulling the redhead away from Taylor as she shouted incoherently while a teacher rushed into the middle of the confusion.

"Emma Barnes." I said coldly. Taylor's response the previous night flashed through my mind. Regardless of fortune energy, cheap drama, or divine acts of fate, in light of a reaction like that it seemed like I should have seen something like this coming.

Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

Trigram Knowledge and Manipulation (Journey to the West) 600:

Alchemy and matter manipulation with the understanding of the 8 trigrams to represent the fundamental forces of reality and how to represent and enforce change using these. Let me break this one down for you. It's like FMA alchemy but with less focus on direct creation and more turning one thing into another of a similar size, including living things. However it cannot create life where there once was none and it requires you to write out a short formula describing the change to make it happen. Feel free to turn sand into water, sheep into boulders and anything else you can think of.