A.N: The opportunity was too good to pass up.

An Outside Perspective

A Free Clockblocker Social

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

The Heap, Brockton Bay

After hours…

Clockblocker took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's take this from the top."

He was standing in the middle of a large room with plain gray walls, an ethereal glow emanating from lines carved into both the walls and the ceiling, while large pipes jutted out from high above. The floor was a flat surface, hard and cold, but began to glow a light blue as Clock tapped his foot on it. Around him, several faceless automatons in the form of humans appeared. They were more akin to hard light projections conjured by the room than true machines, and were relatively fragile all things considered. But they still hit with the same amount of strength as a fully grown adult, which suited the cape's purposes.

He double-checked his equipment one last time, then got into a combat stance.

"Begin."

At his command, a few of the projections began to advance on Dennis, running at him with intent to harm. He shot at two of them with his cables, binding their legs and causing them to fall flat on their faces. Detaching the lengths from his gauntlets, he turned towards a third projection bearing down on him. The teenager ducked an overhead punch, retaliating with a solid punch of his own to the gut of the the projection, causing it to double over. He then followed up with a front kick, sending his target backwards into a fourth projection. Both of them shattered into a shower of shards once they hit the floor.

"Hyup!" Another projection attempted to grapple him from behind in a bear hug, driving the air from his lungs. Keyword being 'attempted', as Clockblocker hooked his left leg behind his opponent's, grabbed it by the thigh and tossed it off balance. He then quickly retreated away from two more projections approaching him from opposite ends of the arena, tagging them with his power in the process. More projections were being continuously spawned into the room, and for every one that the hero downed, two more would be produced - with seemingly no end in sight.

Clock unleashed his cables again, this time firing out a lasso that snagged one of them, before yanking the projection in the direction of another opponent and sending them sprawling. He backed up from another punch, instead sweeping out with his leg at the offender while jabbing at a separate target with a heel palm.

And then he hissed in pain as something grazed his cheek.

Turning towards the source of the pain, he found three projections in the distance sporting pistols. They shot out fairly non-lethal lasers, but it'd still hurt like hell to get hit by them. And between the gunmen and Clock was a whole gang of other projections ready to beat him down.

So Dennis chose not to engage with the lot of them, and instead shot a cable at one of the pipes on the ceiling. He grappled out before the horde could descend on him, soaring past scattered shots. He detached the cable once he reached a good altitude and landed in a roll a few feet away from the gunmen. The hero grabbed the nearest pistol before it could shoot, freezing it and the wielder with his power. One of the projections tried to kick at the teen, but darted to the side and rose with an uppercut. Then he used the momentum to grab it mid-stumble and toss it at its buddy.

"Right… now for the rest of them." Clockblocker muttered wearily to himself.

As he continued to fight against the training dummies, he idly recalled how he got into this kind of thing in the first place. The day after they had dealt with the Fallen, Aspirant had cornered the Ward and pestered him into taking some hand-to-hand combat lessons, citing logical reasons such as 'being a well-rounded fighter', 'not relying on your power all the time' and 'Dauntless will not always be with you to give you flexibility'.

Of course, Dennis also heard a faint mutter of 'stopping time lets me set up so many cool grapples' - but he chose to ignore it in favor of more practical concerns.

There had been the issue of finding a good place to train himself in the Heap, since the women at the dojo kinda scared him. But then Dennis had found himself walking into a room that could spawn as many mook-level training dummies as he wanted. Sometimes he felt like the Heap had a mind of his own, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse… castle… in the mouth!

"Haah…. Hah… holy shit…" The teen panted, bruised and sweaty as he stood alone in the room. Whatever mechanism controlled the space had started giving the dummies brass knuckles, conjured up more of those laser pistol-toting projections, and finished off with a big guy wielding a freaking sledgehammer of all things that was somehow immune to his powers. But in the end… he overcame all of them.

"YES! LET'S FUCKING GO!!" Dennis cheered, raising a fist in the air. Only to be broken out of his reverie by the sound of clapping. He quickly turned to see Taylor standing by the entrance, looking at him with a tired but amused expression.

"Interesting place you've got here. I'll have to borrow it sometime; see if it can't make anything a bit stronger." The overpowered heroine said, glancing around the room.

"T-Taylor! Haha, what a surprise! Weren't you going out on a trip or… something?" Dennis stuttered out with an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his head. "Uh, how long were you watching?"

"I just got back, and long enough." She answered, crossing her arms. "So, martial arts huh? Did you ask Aspirant for help?"

"Technically, he's the one who pushed me into it." Dennis fired back.

"Getting help from my teammates and not even asking me first?"

"Aspirant already freely gives out lessons to anyone willing, and you're not the type to argue semantics over it. Plus I think he wants to use my power to make cool poses or something."

Nexus laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like him alright."

A moment of silence passed, with Taylor seemingly fidgeting in place. It kinda seemed like she wanted to ask him something, but didn't quite know how to phrase it properly.

"...Sooooo, is there anything else you needed, Taylor?"

"Wha–oh, yeah! Uh, I need your advice on something, if that's alright." She squeaked out, prompting Dennis to rub his chin in thought.

"The great Nexus, asking me for advice. Must be my lucky day!" He teased, before nodding and walking closer to Taylor. "Alright, I'll bite. What do you need?"

Nexus took a deep breath. "Alright… Hypothetically, what would you do if you hypothetically went to another dimension, and hypothetically, a bunch of people there thought you were a god?"

"...Hypothetically, huh." Because the PRT would freak out if this wasn't at all hypothetical.

"Yeah, and also hypothetically, the leader of those people believed that you weren't a god, but would still lie to the rest of them that you were so they wouldn't lose their newfound purpose after being resurrected?"

Clockblocker gave Nexus a flat stare, to which she shrugged in response.

"...Wow, okay. So uhh… I would be the first to admit that if I were called a god, I probably would have abused that fact. Second, why me? Why not any of the other Oathbound, or even your Dad?"

Nexus glanced away slightly. "Because I need an outside perspective, and you're my only friend who hasn't adapted to my weirdness yet."

Well, when she put it like that…

"I think… that this is something that can't be resolved in just a day." Clockblocker decided, placing his hands behind his head. "I'm going to make the assumption that you hypothetically did something for these people that they chose to see as divine intervention. Correct?"

"...Yes?"

"Then that makes them your responsibility for now." He nodded, as if confirming something for himself.

"If you just leave them to their own business, then they're probably not going to stop believing that anytime soon. It sounds like they take pride in having someone to believe in. And if you forced the issue, you would have a bunch of people… a newfound society perhaps… without any lifeline to hold onto. Faith can be a… pretty powerful unifying concept. What's their living situation looking like?

Taylor frowned. "Poorly. They're on a continent without any easily available food or basic necessities, and their living conditions are pretty much tribal villages. Hypothetically."

Clock winced at that."Yikes. That bad, huh? Well… okay, first, you're gonna need to support them until they're able to stand on their own. Nothing overt like… I dunno, creating a river out of nothing. But you might want to make sure they're actually able to get basic necessities for themselves. You don't always need to be actively helping every day, but as long as you could do something for them, then why not go for it?"

She considered that statement. "Okay… what else?"

Dennis clapped his hands together. "My second piece of advice… is to consider how the public looks at you here."

"Huh?"

"People are both awestruck and scared of you." The teen said bluntly. "They think you're up there with the Triumvirate, and that's a pretty accurate comparison, all things considered. Heck, you're probably even more powerful than them. It wouldn't be wrong to say that some see you as a pretty godlike figure, especially amongst the PRT. Making castles pop out of thin air, bringing back people to life, killing the Simurgh–"

Taylor carefully did not flinch at that.

"--You're a bonafide titan of power. That's not even counting all those weirdos on PHO who actually worship you as a goddess or something."

Nexus sighed, only for Clock to cut off any rebuttal. "But the people here know better. That you're just a teenage girl trying to do her best for her city, and tries to put in some normalcy into her otherwise weird-as-fuck life. You love messing with people, you like to use 'magic' as an excuse for your bullshit, but you would do anything to protect the ones you care about. And that's why we can treat you like… well, a friend."

He smiled softly at her. "What I'm trying to say is that perception takes some time to change. Just… maybe you can try being more personable to these hypothetical people? It won't change their thoughts overnight, but it's a start in the right direction. Treat you less as a god, and more like someone to relate to."

"That's…" Taylor mulled it over in her head for a moment, before smiling back. "You've given me quite a bit to think about. Thanks Dennis. I needed that."

"Hey, I'm just happy to help. Wouldn't be a good friend otherwise if I can provide counsel to my buddy's totally hypothetical godhood." Dennis winked, making her snicker slightly.

"Yeah… it's really nice to have someone with an outside perspective. I'd ask Amy, but I dunno if she's solved her fainting problems yet." Taylor mused out loud.

"Haha… yeah… I wonder why. Maybe she's just been tired with her work at the hospital?" Or maybe it's because she still can't control herself when staying too long in Taylor's presence, Dennis thought. It was rather funny, and a little bit sad to be honest.

"Right, I'm gonna go order out dinner now for everyone. Hopefully pizza night won't be ruined by someone trying to stab themselves this time." Taylor said, moving to head out… before stopping and looking back at Dennis.

"Do you want to join us? You could order anything you want; it's not like I'm strapped for cash or anything."

It wasn't a one-on-one date with Taylor, but hanging out with her and the rest of the Oathbound together? Of course he was going to agree! These were cool people. Fellow heroes. Plus, free food was always a plus in his book. Baby steps, simple pleasures. Don't worry about wooing Taylor, just focus on giving her happy memories and being her friend.

"Hell yes."

Dennis had a solid day training his new skills, and got to spend more time with his friend and her friends.

Life couldn't get much better than this.