blööh1 Chapter 10: blc, a 9 to 5 fanfic

Do What You Can [SI-OC[Celestial Forge V3]

By: PsylentFox

[NSFW] - Do What You Can [Worm[SI-OC[Celestial Forge V3] by PsylentFox

Status: ongoing

Published: 2022-05-13

Updated: 2022-06-29

Words: 337780

Chapters: 23

Original source: https/forum./threads/18394

Exported with the assistance of

Do What You Can [SI-OC[Celestial Forge V3]

Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Forge Runs a Little Hot

Chapter 2 - Settling In

Chapter 3 - A Small Day Out with my Great Aunt Tiffany

Chapter 4 - The Not-So-Snotty-Boy Glow Up

Chapter 5 - Progress

Chapter 6 - First Night Out on the Town

Chapter 7 - Gut Punch Followed by...

Chapter 8 - ... The Wind Up...

Interlude - PHO 1

Interlude I - Emily Piggot

Chapter 9 - ... and the One, Two, Three Knockout Punch!!!

Chapter 10 - After Action, Reset, and Reload

Interlude - Taylor

Chapter 11 - The Unexpected Collapse of a Modern Day Nazi Empire

Chapter 12 - Dragons Fall and Fedoras are Hung Up

Chapter 13 - What is the Nature of 'Escalation'?

Chapter 14 - Catching up, tying up, and laying down (Pipe).

Chapter 15 - Slaughtering the Slaughterhouse

Chapter 16 - Canberra

Chapter 17 - Interlude, Simurgh, Marquis

Chapter 18 - Return from Canberra, Mini-Interlude Brian Laborn

Chapter 19 - Interlude - Lisa Wilborn

Chapter 20 - Interlude: Brian/Rachel/Alec

Chapter 1 - The Forge Runs a Little Hot

A/N: For the hell of it is attached the initial draft for this story that I ended up scrapping.

I started out at 100 CP per 1,000 words for this first chapter to see how it felt, but it was way too much too fast, so I dialed it back for subsequent chapters.

I also will be posting the already completed chapters a little bit more slowly than I usually do becuase I have a fresh pair of eyes now so I'll be editing the mistakes I find. Grammarly can't catch them all and I am apparently a pretty crappy editor after I've spent hours writing. lol

Spoiler: Scrapped First Attempt

"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is CVM-2217392. We have experienced a meteorite impact and all primary systems except gravity are down. I am attempting to repair with the aid of the Ship-Board VI, but I am unskilled in pretty much anything technical and I am not certain how long I'll survive with the limited supplies I have on board. Uh, someone could rescue me that would be greatly appreciated. This message repeats. Mayday, mayday, may-"

It really was weird hearing my own voice, well, my mid-teenage voice, playing back to me. At the behest of the Ship Board VI, I recorded this message almost a dozen times until I finally had something that would satisfy the computer. 'Ahs' and 'Uhs' did not make for clear and concise communication on an emergency band, who knew?

I cut off the distress signal feed from my hard suit's audio receptors and sat back down on the couch. "Fuck."

It was incredibly frustrating, the situation I found myself in, but there really wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

I had my little freakout, but surprisingly enough the Ship Board VI had a pretty robust Trauma Suite installed in it, and the monotonous hologram that shimmered above the terminal in the wall walked me through quite a few breathing and thought exercises that helped me calm down. It made sure I calmed down too- with the semi-intelligent system jacked into the Biological Monitoring Suite of my suit there really wasn't any way I could fool the system by just saying I was "fine" and attempting to warn it off. Nope, it bugged me with frequent notifications until I committed to following its recommendations- like a damn smoke detector with a low battery but you couldn't do anything about it until you dragged your ass to the garage and got the stepladder.

"Jason Wiltke, your stress levels are beginning to spike again. I would suggest [10 Minutes] of [Relaxing Breathing] followed by [Review] of the [Systems Alliance Emergency Survival Manual] , particularly the [Stranded in Deep Space Protocols] ." The VI paused for a split second before continuing, "Addendum: Your Oxygen level of the reservoir on your [Aldrin Labs CT-212 Space-Walker] light hard suit are below 50%. Recommendation: Restock your oxygen at the nearest emergency oxygen receptacle."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," I grunted out as I stood up and walked my suddenly teenaged body over towards the nearest oxygen line in the cargo hold of the "Toy Deck" and grasped the composi-line oxygen-fill cable and attached it to the fill port; the fill port retracted into the wall, taking the line with it and while I couldn't hear the compressors kick in, I could certainly feel the gentle vibrations through the soles of my hard suit's boots. In front of me was a diagnostic panel that showed the amount of oxygen and other trace gases flowing from the reserve tank into my hard suit's internal reservoir. Once the tank was filled the port on the wall opened up and my fill line was returned to me, and it retracted back up into back of my suit.

The rudimentary heads-up display on the inside of the helmet blinked to life and I was greeted with a few flashing letters and numbers.

[Oxygen at 100% Capacity. 9 hrs and 23 minutes remaining at current consumption levels.]

A quick check of the terminal showed me that I had plenty of air left in the system- the medium-sized luxury yacht that my parents had been invited onto by my father's boss was well equipped for emergency situations. Considering I was the only one alive on the ship the oxygen supplies would last me almost six months, but the emergency hard-suit compatible tube rations were more of a sticking point; the meteorite that struck the ship, from what I can gather, penetrated the ship dorsally and managed to make it all the way through the living deck and into the supply bay. A chuck of rock and ice the size of my fist had smashed the container with the emergency rations in it and I only had a few dozen tubes left- they were the tubes that hadn't exploded and then were subsequently flash-frozen by the cold vacuum of space.

My first day 'awake' I would say was spent equal parts freaking the fuck out, trying to calm down, and exploring the eerie red-lit corridors of the ship. The thoughts of my parents, their rich friends, and their sinfully hot daughter whom "I" had a crush on since "I" was a boy were pushed to the wayside as memories began to trickle up from the surface. I didn't get much done that day other than restoring gravity by simply flicking a switch in the yacht's "Emergency Panic Room"- it was essentially a secondary living quarters that was heavily armored and had most of the ship's essential functions routed through it in case of something like an unexpected meteorite impact.

Unfortunately with the gaping holes in the ship I couldn't reactivate the oxygen supply and the rest of the environmental controls until those holes were sealed. Considering I wasn't an engineer or even a mechanic the likelihood of me being able to accomplish those tasks was slim to none- Jason Wiltke had been a rather lackluster kid… well, teenager. His parents weren't wealthy themselves, but they knew all of the people who were wealthy and they managed to provide for "Me" a good upbringing with some excellent little perks- tons of free meals at lavish restaurants on the Manswell Corporation's credit chit, fancy vacations, and connections to powerful people who were incredibly wealthy.

Like Arthur P. Manswell, the great, great, great-grandson of the multi-billionaire Victor Manswell. He is- er, well, was the owner of this very fancy yacht that I found myself on.

My mother and father were up-and-comers in the Manswell Aerospace Corporation- freshly promoted Senior Sales Representatives that were responsible for getting the company a multi-trillion credit contract to manufacture deep-space analysis probes for the Systems Alliance. Chances are if Commander Sheperd had bothered to read the laser-etched print of the side of the probes she was shooting off into various planets then she would be shooting one of the Manswell Corporation's probes.

Regardless, they were successful and our upper-middle-class lifestyle was going to take a huge turn once the new salary bumps kicked in for my parents. Unfortunately, to celebrate their success, they had been invited to a little private retreat by the Company President for a little recreational activity that the rich and famous liked to call "Nebula Skimming".

The Horse Head Nebula, just a quick jump out of system via Mass Relay, was a popular destination with attractions run by a company based on Noveria; the Mr. Manswell paid good money to find a nice little spot that had appeared to be undisturbed. The basic premise was that a ship would "skim" the clouds of gases at a very low speed, and persons outside of the hull would view the gasses as they were disrupted by the engine's wake.

Supposedly it was "super cool" for the children and "super romantic" for the adults. Honestly, my foggy memories of my "skim" with Natalia, Mr. Manswell's totally hot 16 year-old-daughter, was a pants-shitting terror of being in the vacuum of space with only a hard suit between me and certain death. Sure, there were numerous safeties and little protocols, and outside of a critical suit failure it wasn't like I was going to be flung far off into space, but it still didn't lessen the abject fear that permeated my gut while I held onto the guard railing of the yacht's exterior decking.

Natalia herself had been quite bored, the thrill of "Nebula Skimming" having faded away for her after the dozenth time or something to that effect. The "Me" before I woke up was positively enamored with her cool and aloof demeanor throughout the whole experience while "I" had been scared out of my mind.

The only issue with the whole process was that in order to be outside the vessel and enjoy the experience the ship's Kinetic Barriers had to be lowered, and once they went cold it took a little while to bring them back up.

Don't ask me how the billionaire businessman's personal yacht missed the approaching meteorite, but it did. We had luckily just sealed the airlocks and retracted the exterior observation deck when the meteorite impacted the ship. Me, having been terrified out of my mind at the EV experience, had elected to remain in my hardsuit for a little while longer while Natalia began to strip out of hers the moment we'd been cleared by the VI to re-enter and dress down.

She'd been caught without her helmet, and the explosive decompression finished her off; her eyeballs and other things had been sucked out of her noggin and then flash-frozen.

Even after I "woke up" it had been a particularly gruesome scene, and I had to place her body in a small storage closet in the "Toy Deck" where Mr. Money-bags kept all of his All-Terrain recreational vehicles stored when they touched down on a planet to have some vehicular fun.

I'd seen some shit in my time as a Navy Corpsman and then as an Ambulance paramedic in the years after, but seeing Natalia's corpse in such a state had me sit down and take a breather for a few hours.

I sighed.

[Jason Wilke]

[January 4th, 2011]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 29.0330 - Tinker Plus - 800CP]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 200 CP]

I let a small sigh escape my lips as I shook my head and took another bite of my Fugly Bob's Double-double sandwich, a small symphony of small-arms fire rattling off a few hundred feet away. The concrete retaining wall behind me was nice and sturdy- at two feet thick and probably reinforced it was more than enough to shield me away from any stray gunfire; nothing short of sustained, concentrated fire from a high-caliber machine gun would be able to punch through. Three tours in the Helmand province in the Army and three more years in Kabul as a contractor after I got out showed me that even dirt fucking walls could stop the heavy 880 grain bullets from our .50-cals. Though, if the yahoos shooting it out in the street were slinging Tinkertech lead then that would be a different story.

With good cover, complete concealment, and a nice view of the bay I decided that I would enjoy this little bit of peace because I probably would never have time to just sit down and take everything in for a good, long while. Not with the ringing of steel on steel echoing throughout my mind as the Celestial Forge slowly began to spin up behind the seams of my consciousness.

It was made a lot more difficult thanks to the teen who was taking shelter next to me, the young man constantly fidgeting- alternating between kneeling and hopping onto his feet to peek over the concrete wall with a near-religious chant of "Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Oh, shit! Oh, fuck!" on his lips.

I sighed and shifted the wonderfully thiccc burger into the palm of my left hand while my right hand reached out and tapped the kid on the thigh. He startled immediately, his brown eyes shooting to me in a haze of adrenaline and fear. "Will you stop that? Sit down and stay down if you don't want to catch a ricochet."

"Ahhhh, fuck. Sorry about that man, just- fuck, I've heard about this place but I'll be damned if what PHO said wasn't true!" The dark-skinned teen sat down and shuddered as his breath left his lungs in an excited and nervous canter.

"First time near some gunfire?" I asked conversationally, using the opportunity to re-affirm my hold on this delicious hunk of American Ingenuity- two 1/2lb grass-fed beef patties, twelve strips of bacon, sauteed onions, sauteed mushrooms, and six slices of American cheese. Six.

Fugly Bob is both a madman and a genius.

All I had the past year was whatever the drilling company canteen offered and what elk myself and a few of the local hunters could shoot down; between the food, the cold, the half a year of the sun keeping me up or the half a year of darkness making me sleepy… I hated Alaska. Don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful place, but I never would have thought that I would prefer to wake up in a dusty tent sweating my ass off than to wake up freezing my ass off in a place where the sun didn't shine for half a year. Okay, that is an exaggeration- it was more like three months or so, but when the job was 12 hours on, 12 hours off with every day being a workday it certainly felt like half a year.

The teen nodded his head as he sat down on his bottom next to me and skootched up as close to the wall as he could. "Y-yeah, just moved to Brockton a few days ago with my folks-uh, my dad is a Senior clerk at the bank here. Since my parents have split custody m-my dad wanted to have me for this year."

"Folks split up?"

He winced and began playing with his fingers- interlacing them and squeezing before relaxing them and twiddling his thumbs. "Yeah. Suck big ass but… s'good for them. They just didn't 'click' anymore so they split and found people they did 'click' with. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, 63% divorce rate here in America, amiright?"

My eyebrows rose as I finished off the rest of the burger.

Shit, on my earth it had been something like 50%? Well, add in Capes- heroes and villains- the massive rise in crime, the destruction of the Endbringers and all sorts of other crap and that probably would have a significant effect on relationships even in the best of times.

I crinkled up my burger wrapper and sat it between my legs before I grabbed a napkin from the grease-stained paper sack and wiped my beard clean. A 'zing' off to our left caused the boy to flinch and I reached down and picked up my untouched coke, the end of the paper wrapper still secured over the straw, and nudged it to him. "Here. Take it- a little sugar will help calm you down."

He let out a small barking laugh before he grasped the large styrofoam cup in his left hand while his right plucked the wrapping paper off and took a huge gulp. "Thanks, man. Didn't realize how thirsty I was until now; shit like this really hits different, huh?"

Yeah, combat does tend to parch one's throat.

"Eh, you get used to it. As long as you don't wander into the gunfight with your cellphone in hand and your brain in your back pocket you'll be fine." I closed my eyes and let my head rest against the concrete as I felt the Forge heat up again and reach out.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 1.0220 - Delilah the Dark Elf - 400CP - Assistants]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 300 CP]

I left out a soft breath of relief. I don't know how well things would have gone over if I had a Dark Elf pop up from out of nowhere while I was chatting with this kid; the Forge went cold and I lost my connection to the cluster before I even had a chance to read into it. Quite annoying.

"So, uh, what's good with you?" The teen sipped nervously as the gunfire petered out- what was once a decent little shootout had dropped down to a few measly handgun pops before it faded away.

Ah, seemed like it was done then? I heard the teen shuffling a bit and I held out a hand, "Hold up, wait for the cops to get here first. Once the boys in blue secure the scene then it should be safe."

"Oh, okay. Shit ain't done till the po-po come, huh?"

I snorted before I cracked an eye and looked at him, "And to answer your question: Nothing much. Just off the plane from Alaska, hopped a cab, and came straight over here to get myself the best burger in America."

He grinned a little bit, his eyes roaming the shifting waters of the bay as he worried the straw between his pearly white time. "Fugly Bob's? Does it slap? I only been here a few days now, and mostly it's been me and dad barbequing in the back yard since the weather's been so nice."

"Slaps real hard," A chortle escaped my lips, "Best damn burger I've had in a long time, bar none."

He chuckled along with me and we sat there in peaceful silence for a few minutes that was only broken up by the sound of police sirens steadily growing louder in the distance. The kid startled a little bit when his phone started ringing in his pocket- a gangster rap song that I couldn't remember hearing before playing for a handful of seconds until he managed to fish it out and answer it. "Yeah? Pops, yeah. I'm fine. Yeah, there was a shootout near this place called Fugly Bob's. No? No, pops, for real? I'm fine- I took some cover behind this thick wall down here by the bay. No, I did not stand out in the middle of the street with my phone out- I'm young, not stupid."

My lips quirked a little bit and I adjusted myself so that the stitching of my blue jeans wasn't digging into my tailbone. Once I was comfortable I popped my neck and reached into the bag to grab the lukewarm fries and began tossing them into my mouth; thick-cut and salty as the sea. Boy, Fugly knew his business.

"Yeah, I'll meet you at the corner of the boardwalk, uh, that one bus stop? Uh, ah… number 33? That one we went to yesterday. Okay, well-" The kid popped up and looked over the three-foot-high wall, "The cops just showed up, so I think it's safe to move now. Alright, Pops, I'll see you there."

He looked down at me and turned his head to the side before mumbling lowly into the receiver. "I love you too. See you then."

With that he slipped his phone back into his pocket and stretched, a few pops echoing out from his spine as a pleased grunt left his lips. "Wwweeeellllll~, that was fun. Scary as shit but fun- we ain't never had that type of shit in my mom's area in Houston."

I chuckled and shook my head, "Well, you guys got Eidolon on speed-dial down there; I'd be surprised if you did with a big dick like that swinging through the air."

"Fuck, let me see Alexandria in the skyline every day. She's invincible but her costume ain't- you see her titties? Booooyyyy~ howdy!" The teen crowed as he dusted off his… I blinked. The kid was wearing skinny jeans.

What the fuck, Houston?

I'd read in the Worm franchise that Alexandria didn't really care about battle damage to her costume, and would sometimes fight while nude, inadvertently putting tits, pussy, and ass on display for everyone. I'm guessing there were pictures? I'd try to remember to check it out, for posterity reasons.

Following him up I mirrored him, getting a quick stretch in before I grabbed my backpack and duffel bag and slung them over my shoulders. I bent down to grab the empty paper bag and crumpled it up before I held my fist out to the young man, "Well, it's a bit oxymoronic here in the Bay, but keep safe, will ya, Houston?"

He grinned and tapped my knuckles with his own before dragging a hand through his kinky dark hair, "Shit yeah. Hopefully it ain't like this at Arcadia."

"Eh, Acaradia's a cool place from what I remember. You'll be good there- it ain't Winslow." I gave him a soft grin before I stepped around the wall and made my way toward the nearest trash can.

"Yeah, I been hearing that a lot." He muttered before heading in the opposite direction, "Peace man."

"Deuces." I held out my two fingers and watched the teen walk away.

Probably looking like a melancholic maroon I stood next to the trash can and gazed out over the bay for a few more minutes before I headed towards the boardwalk myself.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 18.0210 - Mass Production - 600CP - X-Men Evolution - Knowledge Reverse Engineering]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 400 CP]

Another swing, and another miss.

Not that it mattered, really- I had less than seven hours in Brockton Bay at this point and I haven't even found a place where I could set up shop yet. Hell, I didn't even know the layout of the city or anything other than what I'd read in the Worm web story and some fanfiction, but my forrays into Worm had been less and less over the past few months as I branched out my reading to different stories. The Dresden Files was what I'd decided to pick up on, but the copy of Storm Front had its first dog-ear on page 7 after I got sleepy on the flight from Alaska and decided to rack out instead of reading.

Imagine my surprise when I stepped out of the Departure gate and found myself not in Nashville but in Brockton Bay with naught but a gentle nudge in the back of my mind and a brief overview of my 'power'.

It was pretty cool that I didn't have to die a horrible plane crash or get run over by Truck-kun to have an isekai adventure, but… while I normally found the whole 'talk with God/Celestial Deity about being reborn' an overused trope… I suddenly had an appreciation for the types of Divines who would do such a thing. It really helped everything sink in and gave you time to process just what the fuck was happening before the 'game clock started'.

I was on the 8:30 pm Flight 227 from Colorado Springs to Nashville one moment, and when I stepped off the plane the world changed in the blink of an eye. It was incredibly jarring and stupidly disorienting. The warm evening air of the Nashville tarmac was replaced by the balmy chill of the bay area. If it weren't for the fact that I was holding up the line of people trying to exit the aircraft I probably would have stood there in shock for a very long time.

Regardless, I am here now, with no mission or objective outside of just doing whatever the hell I want.

Which for the foreseeable future is to survive.

No amount of blubbering or crying was going to change that.

The issue is that I have a lot of problems that I need to solve, and none of them that I can solve right now. I don't know the area. I don't have an identity- the Forge was at least kind enough to let me know that so I didn't try to rent a hotel room with a driver's license from the year 2021 like an idiot- and I only had limited funds on my person. Roughly $800 worth of cash split between my wallet and my ankle wallet- the small convenience store on the outskirts of town near the drilling platforms only dealt in cash, so cash was what we all kept out there in ANWR.

I was also pretty pissed that the bank account I had was also worthless; all of those years spent in the asshole of nowhere to stack up cash was for nothing. Though, to be fair, with the Celestial Forge backing me I suppose that I am making out like a bandit; sure, the cash I had is gone, but what is a few hundred thousand to ultimate cosmic and technological power?

"Ah, excuse me, sir," I mumbled as I pulled out my phone and gestured to the map of the Brockton Bay City Transit system, and the grizzled man shuffled off to the side so I could snap a few quick photos of it. "Thanks."

I moved away from the bus stop and walked toward a trio of benches that sat between three leave-less trees and sat down on the one with the least amount of bird shit on it. I pulled my duffle into my lap and sat my phone down on top of it, the weight of the phone along with the battery case created an indent in its nylon surface so that it could remain out of sight unless someone was standing a few feet away. I didn't need someone seeing a different style of phone and commenting on it.

The moment I realized what the hell was going on in the airport I kept my phone on airplane mode and turned off the cellular data, cell signal, wi-fi, and Bluetooth immediately before activating its power-saving mode. Sure, I had a solar charger in my bag for emergencies, but it wasn't like I was going to fuck around like an idiot and drain my battery. I tapped and scrolled across the photos I took of the map, and I was pleased to see that it not only had the bus routes but it also had a number of prominent locations listed as well. Each bus line in the city had its areas of service clearly marked along with the times that each line ran. It was surprisingly readable and robust, especially compared to the other public transit systems I'd used in the past.

Satisfied with the clarity of the photos of the map I tapped the app away and closed everything I had running down before pocketing it. My hands slipped across my backpack and unzipped the front pocket so I could take out the small travel notebook and pen I always kept on me. Flipping over to the first fresh page I clicked the ballpoint and stared at the lines.

And I stared some more. Then some more.

And a little more.

What the hell was I going to do?

A small chuckle escaped my lips at the sheer absurdity of the situation. For the past few years of digesting self-insert fanfictions on the internet, it was easy to be an armchair general and endlessly talk trash about the stupid mistakes of the MCs that were tossed into the deep end, but now that shoe was on the other foot and it was me in the hot seat?

This had to be karma. Truly. I'm sorry all of you authors whom I poked at with the 'Well why didn't they do this?' stick.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 31.0250 - At The Precipice of Magic and Science - 600CP - The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want A Fourth Time - Crafting Magitech]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 500CP]

Well, the good news was that I was stacking up credits. However, the bad news was that I was stacking up credits. I had read only a few Celestial Forge stories before, and stacking up credits was great if you needed to pick up a powerful power, but considering I haven't even had a chance to pop into my shop yet and had zero tools, knowledge, or training… at the rate I was going, I'd get a super-powerful perk that I wouldn't be able to use for a very, very long time.

As it sat right now I only had the Access Key and the Entrance Hall, but shit else.

I tapped the pen against my notebook.

Find good shelter with door access. Establish identity. Profit? That was about the best I could do for now- food, water, shelter. The essentials were essentials for a reason. I had some cash, and with the small gut that I had I could skimp on food for more than a few days to stretch things out, especially after that succulent Double-Double I had; all that meat would tide me over till tomorrow, easily, so all I really needed to do was keep my electrolytes up with some water and I could go a week or two without eating. I'd done it before and I can do it again, although this time there was actually a real reason to do so versus just wanting to slim down for vacation.

I stood up and walked over to the bus stop again, checking the times and the routes. Hmmm… take the Market Line to stop #29, switch to the Boardwalk line… hop off at stop #17 and walk to stop #11 to get to the Downtown area. Then a short trip to stop #11 that should put me within walking distance of the nicer part of town, and from there I can move into the Suburbs. From there I can scope out the rest of the ritzier areas and look for a place to lay low; a lot of people would move towards the docks and the shittier parts of town to set up their workshops due to the isolated nature of the area and the availability of scrap, but me? No, I was going to look for a touch more safety on account of the fact that I can't shut my damn workshop door behind me.

Nothing would stand out more in a shitty part of town than a door that opened up to blank white walls. No, better to try and search for a house that had been put up for sale in one of the nicer areas- there had to be someone who fled town with all the crime, right?

I repeated the bus route in my head over and over again while I waited for the bus to arrive with everyone else. It was a bit awkward standing around with a bunch of people I didn't know, but this was my life now, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

The bus showed up roughly eight minutes later with none of us making any small talk, and I made sure to get on last since I was paying in cash; the driver crinkled his nose at me as I pulled out a dollar bill and fed it into the machine next to his seat before it spit out a quarter into the tray and a small slip of paper.

Unless I suddenly get a vehicle soon, one that wouldn't attract too much attention, then maybe I should get a bus pass? How and where could I get a bus pass?

I sat down next to the driver and picked his brain on the subject while we went through the route.

The Forge had been slowly building up another charge throughout the duration of the bus ride, and I got off a little early because the driver was kind enough - after some poking, prodding, and a little bullshitting- to let me know about the city's public transportation office. A quick jaunt inside and $30 netted me a nice little plastic bus pass that I could hang from my keychain and would get me unlimited rides throughout the city for two whole months. Considering I was paying seventy-five cents a hop for the small market circuit this would save me quite a bit of cash, and thankfully they didn't ask for an ID or anything, just three ten-dollar bills.

I was a touch worried about some of my cash being identified as fake, but the circulation of cash in Alaska was… pretty low. I knew for a fact I still had some bills going as far back as 2000 in my wallet, and welp, it looked like cash, it felt like cash, and it would hold up underneath the counterfeiting pen… most people didn't tend to look at bills unless they were large, so I felt like I would be just fine. For now at least.

It was a bit of a pain having to sit at the bus stop for fifteen minutes, but considering this was on the main boulevard through the city, with City Hall and the other buildings important to the function of Brockton Bay, there was plenty of police visible, so I felt pretty safe. That feeling would only rise further as I continued to make my way toward good old suburbia and the ritzier places.

I felt the Forge spool up and burn hot the moment the doors to the bus opened up, and I managed to scan my bus pass and sit down as a node finally was grabbed onto-

[Attempted Re-Forge: -9.0102 - Rare Material Cache - 50CP - Star Wars The Old Republic - Mundane Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 550 CP]

I kept my eyes closed to that no one would give me any funny looks and leaned back into my chair as I tried to absorb the information that had just been injected into my brain. It didn't sound like a whole lot of information, but the detailed knowledge and blueprints that I could use to make items with the Beskar, Phrik, Ultrachrome, and Refined Cortosis. If it was a lightsaber-resistant material then I had it in my workshop. It was… only 10kg worth of material, but that was fine, I supposed-

A small tremor slid up my spine as another constellation was pulled into my orbit and my Forge grasped onto the closest node within its reach-

[Attempted Re-Forge: 19.0110 - Peak ADVENT Technology - 200CP - XCOM 2 - Knowledge Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 350 CP]

I coughed into my fist as an entire library of tech just dropped into my proverbial lap, and the headache that quickly followed it was horrendous. It felt like I was punched in the forehead, and I cleared my throat a few times as my hand came up to massage my forehead. Hot damn, that was- is- still unpleasant. The initial spike was the most uncomfortable with the insertion of the databases, but the number of schematics, plans, parts, and sciences behind the alien-driven government that followed made me feel like my melon was a water balloon that was close to bursting.

The pain began to fade over the course of a few minutes, but I didn't get the rest as another constellation swirled closely and the Forge snatched a star from its orbit and pulled it in close.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0140 - Schematics to Time - 200CP - Generic Video Game Developer - Time]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP remaining.]

Now, I had always been fairly good at time management and troubleshooting, but 'Schematics to Time' just made that whole process far more straightforward. A recent memory bubbled up to the surface of my mind of my attempt to diagnose why my heater wasn't working- oh, shit-

The Forge reached out again, though thankfully its reach fell short.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 14.0240 - Library of Raum - 600CP - The Dark Wolf Shiro - Database Magical]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 150 CP]

Hell.

I let out a soft sigh of relief as the constellation spun out, but couldn't find purchase on the large star that the Library of Raum had been. I still needed time to digest whatever the hell it was I just got! If you blitz me like that again my head my fucking explode!

A small thrum of amusement emanated from the Forge, but it informed me that all of the knowledge that I'd accrue wouldn't kill me no matter how much it threw at me- it was fiat backed by the Divines themselves. I would probably just fall unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time.

That wasn't much better if I'm being honest, but the sheer volume of information that Peak Advent Expert thrust upon me was almost mind-boggling. All of the tech that the ADVENT government had at its disposal, from communications to vehicles, to weapons, armor, Psionics, and motherfucking combat mechs was mine. I probably should have been excited about the Psionics more than anything, but that wasn't the case because I'd always been a mecha guy- Gundams, EVAs, Titans… if it was big and could fuck shit up, I was on board with it.

It was great! A whole database of advanced technology at my fingertips, but unfortunately I didn't have shit to build any of it with. No tools, to workspace, to nothing.

I shifted a little bit as the bus came to a stop and I glanced up at the shitty red LED sign letting me know that this was my stop. After getting my bags situated I stood up and slowly walked down the steps, and I walked right into the embrace of the beginnings of the wonderful Brockton Bay suburbs.

The suburbs for Brockton were a fair bit smaller than I had anticipated; unlike the sprawling lots and seemingly non-sensical roads and cul-de-sacs that became prevalent in 1960s America, the layout for the solidly middle-class neighborhoods must have been planned out and set up well before then. Instead of winding streets with rounded dead-ends, the homes were aligned well with the roads, taking a more cross-hatch layout instead of your typical 'hand your 3-year-old a crayon and as him to color within the lines' type approach that the planners of the country chose. Sure, it might have reduced some traffic bottlenecks and lowered traffic accidents a few percentage points, but it certainly wasn't intuitive or space-efficient.

I received a few glances as I walked with my bags, but considering I was wearing a nice jacket with the collar of my blue button-up shirt exposed and the blue jeans I was wearing was fashionably faded I easily passed for the average man walking about. My beard was a tad long, which was probably a sticking point, but if anything that just pushed me further and further away from anyone who looked like they could sympathize with literal, actual nazis. Not the kind of people you denigrated just because they didn't agree with you- no bullshit, swastika flag-waving, 'seig heil' shouting, jackbooted, goose-stepping nazis.

Who had really bad fashion sense.

The actual nazis, say what you will, had an iconic style that both stood out and was quite fashionable- it was what a uniform should be- a symbol of strength and uniformity that helped get its members into the mindset of valuing the whole over the individual. Didn't excuse the business destroying, the book burning, nor the genociding, but when you compared the nazis to the communists and other groups massacring people around the world throughout human history, they were by far the best dressed.

My train of thought was interrupted as a constellation swung close and the Forge tried to latch onto it, but there just wasn't enough juice to do so.

[Attempted Re-Forge: -28.0252 - Ahzidal's Apprentice - 400CP - Elder Scrolls Skyrim SB - Crafting Metallurgy]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

I didn't know what that was as it swung by too quickly for me to get anything other than its name, but that was fine; Skyrim was cool stuff and I honestly couldn't wait to pick up something from that universe, but with my lack of tools and… everything else I would much rather ask the Forge to grab me some workspace first. At this point I am the world's worst tinker- lacking the initial tools needed to make my tools so that I can make more tools.

And a place to sleep.

Granted my meta-knowledge of Worm more than makes up for this shortcoming, but until I can create an identity to do things with I'm going to be coasting for a long while on the small amount of cash I did have.

It was about half a mile from the bus stop until I made it to my current target- the fancy neighborhood "Brockton Heights". Which, while it did have a tall fence and a gate, the front gate was open and unguarded; they probably had it closed at night with someone to watch the doors, but in the middle of the day they had nothing to fear. Especially not with the two Brockton Bay Police Department patrol vehicles parked just a few dozen feet down the street. Thankfully they were sitting side by side, the two officers in the vehicles had their windows down and here having a chat over what appeared to be lunch.

I gave them a small, polite wave when one of the cops looked at me, and he gave me a small wave back before continuing on with his conversation. The funny thing is that if you don't look like you're not where you're supposed to be, then most people don't really care; cops included. I was dressed well enough and despite the fact that I was walking into the fancy part of the suburbs I walked the walk. Hopefully they didn't change their minds- I didn't know how well I could talk the talk. I have no fucking clue who lives here, so if anyone asked I wouldn't be able to tell them shit.

I tactfully ignored the "Brockton Heights Residents ONLY - Trespassers WILL be asked to leave" sign that hung next to the foot gate and kept on walking as if I was meant to be here. No fidgeting, no looking around or careful glances back at the cops. Nope. I live here.

To my great pleasure, I remained completely unmolested and I got to enjoy the nice afternoon breeze that blew down the street now that there weren't a few hundred houses choking the wind off. The lots were easily eight times larger than even the largest corner lots in the suburbs behind me, with the front lawns of these large two and three-story mansions looking like they could hold a school picnic and still have room to spare. Their lawns were, much to my surprise, already greening up despite being still pretty early in January, and I witnessed one man and his three very small children enjoying a nice ride around their property in an electric golf cart- the man's daughter and son squealing in joy as their father slowly turned the steering wheel to take them around again.

That just so happened to comfortably coincide with my not-at-all hurried walking pace to clear their property before they came back around again. The street for this wealthy sub-division slowly began to climb uphill, with the further away from the main street entrance I got the more trees there were close to the sidewalk. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful part of Brockton Bay that I'd seen thus far, and the higher I climbed the better I could see Captain's Hill in the not too far off distance, though if I'm being honest the very large skyscraper was kind of ruining the view a bit; I didn't know if it was Medhall or not, but considering it was the largest building on the skyline chances probably were that it was.

The Forge spooled up and reached once again when the familiar 'Time' cluster swung by, and the fires from it managed to grasp onto a small star before pulling it in close.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0060 - I Can Whip Something Up - 100CP - My Life As A Teenage Robot - Time]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP remaining.]

I nodded my head. Okay, that was a nice little perk! As long as I was getting my needs for food, water, shelter, bathing, and other minor things needed to live I could never grow too bored, suffer from burnout, or lose my groove. This perk will probably prove invaluable if I ever had to sit down at a workbench and churn out a whole lot of shit. So, it's a very nice pick-up, I just wish I actually had tools and more materials that I could use to do shit with.

If I got lucky then I wouldn't have to worry about those two things in time. Ah, that was the big rub, wasn't it? Time.

The walk to the top of the hill was pretty long, but it proved to be worth it because at the top were three large properties- the rightmost property was a three-story affair with a great big lawn and what looked to be some sort of sports car parked out front, the center property looked to be three-stories as well, though the little windows near the foundation told me that it definitely had a basement. Those were very nice houses, to be sure, but it was the third house, the one with the big, fat "For Sale" sign that was littered with large coniferous pine trees that caught my attention.

Looking around and seeing no one, I slipped off of the sidewalk and walked between the trees, angling myself so that the majority of my person was obscured by the pines on the property from the road and from the neighbors. It took me almost a full minute of walking to reach the house, and I was pretty damn happy to see the little realtor lock-box hanging off the front door. I gave the corners and walls of the home a quick check-in search of cameras, and to my surprise, I didn't appear to see any?

Who doesn't have cameras in Brockton Bay?

I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and strolled quickly up the front steps and to the door and I peeked in through the small rectangular glass window nestled into the door frame. I couldn't see much thanks to some reflection, but cupping my hands in front of the window cut down on enough of the glare that I could get a clear picture.

It was completely empty- no furniture in the dining room from what I could see, and the hardwood flooring had this red velvet-looking carpeting that was cut into neat little walkways; the original owners had moved out all of their stuff and the place was ready for in-person tours. Not that they'd probably get many visits because "Priced below $1 Million!" in Brockton Bay wasn't exactly much of a value.

This was it!

Well, it was nice, I suppose. Honestly, I was expecting to see a lot more houses up for sale here, but considering Leviathan hadn't swept in yet…

Also, no, I wasn't going to break into this house. I was going to break into the very nice garden shed at the back of the house and live in it for the time being. In my extremely limited experience, the rich folks didn't have normal garden sheds- they had fancy garden sheds. Of which I would let myself into and sleep in until I gained some powers that would help me conceal my workshop in the future. All I needed was some time; no druggies stumbling upon my shit, no capes fucking with me or my shit, and certainly no cops or Protectorate capes fucking with my shit.

I walked down the steps and around the side of the house, and I finally found what I was looking for.

It was a large shed, easily large enough to stow a trio of riding lawn mowers side by side, and it was surrounded by trees on all sides. It was pretty deep, which lead me to believe that there might be some sort of internal division inside; maybe my prayers would be answered with a second, lockable door? That would be perfect.

I grinned and mentally rubbed my hands together as I walked across the manicured backyard, stepping around the four beautifully tended flower beds that had some type of flower germinating; what type of flower bloomed during the winter in Brockton Bay? I couldn't tell you, I'm not a flowerologist, but I can tell you that it was quite aesthetic; very visually pleasing.

The shed itself was a combination of wood and steel construction; the roof was more than likely galvanized steel while the four corners of the structure were thick wooden beams that were also coated in the same white paint as the roof. The walls were probably plywood, but they had been veneered with galvanized corrugated steel siding that was painted red. There were a few little nice decorations on the front windows, in addition to the small security cameras that hung… from the corners; from where I was standing I could see three, and there was probably a fourth one on the backside that I couldn't see.

Even from where I was standing I could see the wires slip up into steel conduits that had been tucked into where the walls met the roof, and the conduits all fed into a two-inch diameter pipe that was sealed and ran underground. That pipe probably ran back to the house. No, it definitely did. No bet.

Fuck.

A groan escaped my lips as I turned right back around and walked my happy ass right back to the road. The house didn't have cameras but the shed did? Yeah fucking right. The house did have cameras, I just couldn't see them. While the chances of this house having some sort of 'away-from-home' monitoring system were probably slim, that didn't mean none. I couldn't afford to take such a risk. The realty company would come back to check on the house sometime, and it was always best to assume that they would come at the worst opportune time; this was Worm.

Leave nothing to chance.

I walked my happy ass back towards the road and slipped back onto the sidewalk and made my way back down the hill. That was a total bust. Good in theory, poor in practice.

The real question I had to ask myself now was-

[Attempted Re-Forge: 16.0060 - Engineering Basics - 100CP - Dead Space - Knowledge Abilities and Skills]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP remaining.]

I almost stumbled as I felt my mind shift.

- Acceptance into the engineering program. Graduated from school and was hired as part of the Concordance Extraction Corporation's 'Bright Minds' program. Three and a half years of schooling in order to learn how to maintain, troubleshoot, and repair almost every critical system on Mankind's Savior, the USG Ishimura. I was damn good and lauded for my efforts, but none of that mattered when we cracked Aegis VII and they brought that thing on board. Then the whispers started happening. Then the people started to go crazy. Those that weren't adherents to the leadership's bat-shit crazy ideologies were hunted down and killed while monsters began infesting the ship. The last thing I remember is a stingray looking monster flapping towards my prone form while a trio of insane crewmen chanted on in delight- it's probiscis flashed out towards my face and! -

A small cry left my lips as my whole body recoiled at the experience of being impaled through the fucking skull. What the fuck!? Forge! Seriously, what the fuck!? I felt a cold sweat prickle at my skin as my body shivered for a few moments, the memories were all too real. I didn't just… inherit knowledge from the engineer- I was the engineer! Someway, somehow, the Celestial Forge had managed to drag me into that man, and I experienced everything.

Even my death.

"Uugh," I hissed and shook my hands out.

The Forge just rumbled in the background.

Instead of dwelling on the sensations of being skull fucked I focused on what the perk gave me. I was an excellent engineer, capable of finding imperfections in a functional machine and fixing them before they caused problems, fixing virtually anything mechanical and most technological issues, but the electronic side was limited to the physical aspects; if I needed to code or something then it would have to be Dead Space related codes or else it wouldn't be worth jack shit. Which was fine. If I can fix things then I can do things. Which is great.

What was not great was how warm everything was getting- the sun was just past its zenith and with all of the walking I was doing, not to mention carrying around two fairly heavy bags, I was starting to work up a bit of a sweat. I unzipped my jacket and undid the top button of my shirt as I walked.

Thankfully, I was given about just as much trouble on my way out of Brockton Heights as I had going in. The cops were still just chilling in their vehicles and I walked straight east on Vaudeville to head towards the coastal downtown area. It was a good two-mile trek, but my boots were comfortable and I had my water bottle to sip on, so it wasn't too bad; I just had to take off my coat and fold it over my bag as I kept on walking.

The further I walked the worse things got, houses and yards were poorly kept up if they were kept up with at all, wooden picket fences gave way to rusted chain-link, and there were cars that were rusted out hulks sitting in driveways in what seemed to be every other house. An exaggeration to be sure, but it certainly felt like it. The upside was that there were plenty of kids running around outside and playing, a dozen or more of them running around a beat-up but still functional playground while their mothers watched over them and they chatted on those rubberized steel wire benches. A few looked in my direction and I gave them a polite nod as I continued my way through the 'shanty town' of Brockton Bay.

It was really, really hard to miss the obvious gang signs denoting the area was Empire-88 territory- the eagle, the twin 8's, the twin H's, a few blatant swastikas, among a few other identifiers, and all of them were spray-painted onto the sides of some buildings or businesses. It was amusing to see an E-88 tag crossed out in black paint with a yellow Merchant 'M' painted next to it, only to see the 'M' crossed out and another eagle spray painted over the top of it. This continued on from the left side of the building to the right side, though considering the coastal downtown area was so far away from the Train Yard and the bulk of the Merchant's territory it made me wonder if the duggies had actually claimed territory down here or if this just was gang posturing.

It was excellent exercise, and I felt like I was getting a much better feel for the areas by walking through them than just observing them from a seat on the city bus, but it wasn't all good news as I was having an incredibly hard time looking for a place to squat! I blame fanon self-inserts, they made looking for some out-of-the-way bolt hold seem easy. Even in Brockton, it appeared that free real estate wasn't exactly free real estate.

I stopped by a small corner store and picked up a couple of 1-liter water bottles and a few salt packets to quench my thirst and refill my good old plastic water bottle. As I poured the salt packets and water into my bottle I felt the Forge grow hot as a constellation reached out and managed to grab a hold of something again.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0020 - Auto-Factory - 100 CP - Starbound - Facilities Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP remaining.]

Oh. Oh. OH! I couldn't help but grin a little bit as I finally got something that would allow me to do things! This addition to my warehouse - my very first one ever- would allow me to make a ton of shit, up to and including a starship if I had the blueprints and materials for it! Granted, it would take a long time for it to build a starship but it could build one, and thanks to the ADVENT I have more than a handful of ship designs to play with; from the medium-sized supply ship the Avenger to the small and nimble SkyRanger among a half dozen other blueprints and schematics- the largest being a 3.5-kilometer-long mothership.

Not that I would be able to actually build it in a reasonable timeframe, as just a Skyranger would take months at my current build rate. Truly a shame, but I had the capability now, so that was something at least.

The real kicker for this perk was the fact that once I had blueprints and materials the system for the Auto-Factory would build it all for me without any further inputs. Once I got some of the more powerful time and resource-enhancing perks I could seamlessly insert myself into the build process and speed up production even further. I wouldn't hold my breath, however, because the chances of me getting the handful of perks that could help me out like that were slim when there were well over 500 more perks left for me to pick up.

With my now electrolyte-infused water, I continued on my journey, following the main street that linked Brockton's suburbia and the shantytown, moving slowly south and west at a fair clip. I ended up undoing a few more buttons on my shirt as I kept on moving, the less-than-attractive single-story family ranch-style homes becoming further and further spaced apart until trailer parks and small mechanical businesses started to dot the landscape; I passed three different junkyards, eight different shitty-looking auto repair shops, and a smattering of other businesses that looked to be on their last legs.

I also started to see my first blatant skin-heads- the trailer trash coming out of the woodwork wearing a mixture of stained but clean button-ups and dirty wife-beaters; I'd say that half were what one would imagine a bunch of nazi minions would look like while the other half did their best to not look like nazi minions while still being readily identifiable. Much to my surprise, most of them didn't have visible tattoos of any kind, and for the most part, they were just sitting around some fire pits in the trailer parks I'd been passing drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

I received a few curious looks, but for the most part, I was left alone.

The sun was just starting to begin its descent into the sky when the shantytown area gave way to two roads, one went left and moved through a large open field towards the coast and the other went right towards the higher ground. No matter which road I chose there was a rusted road sign with a few bullet holes in it that read "You are now leaving Brockton Bay".

A small smile crossed my lips and I felt a small sense of relief fill my breast- to think that the Empire didn't have some control extended out past the city was foolish, but the amount of power they could project should be limited. Unless I picked up a vehicle the commute into Brockton would be a huge pain in the ass, but with the large gaps in between properties out here in the countryside and the chances of me being stumbled upon were slim- much slimmer than if I'd tried to pick up a place in the docks.

I walked for another hour up the winding, cracked and pot-hole riddled asphalt roads and found more than a few places that I could post up in; my issue with them was that the empty and busted up trailers were quite visible from the roads. I wanted someplace where the vegetation was grown over and the home was far off from the main road - County road 33- as possible, so I kept on walking. I ended up roaming up and down across three separate hills, which was for me, quite nice because that meant I probably had enough elevation and land between me and the coastline that when Leviathan came to Brockton in a few months my lab should be safe.

I turned off County Road 33 and began making my way up a fairly steep hill; from what I could see there were what appeared to be six trailer lots that were dug into the hill and stepped up like a staircase. The first three were lowest on the hill while the next three were a bit higher up thanks to the exposed rockface; cinderblock retaining walls were at the back of each little property to keep the hill behind the trailers from eroding away. The first, second, and third trailers looked occupied, so I ignored them and continued up the hundred and fifty feet or so of gravel road, the crunch of the stones making a fair bit of noise underneath my boots.

The fourth trailer home was a burnt-out husk; the roof was gone- caved in- and the sheet metal side walls were only standing because the roof prevented them from collapsing inward. The fifth trailer home was double-wide, and it was by far the most well-taken care of. It appeared to be a fresh coat of paint on it with all sorts of potted plants, wind chimes, multi-colored plastic pinwheels, and other various cat-lady knickknacks covering the weathered front porch. My eyes were on the sixth trailer though- it was just barely visible with tons of vegetation and small trees making it difficult to see even from the main road, let alone my current position.

Spoiler: Dirty Trailer

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.%2F736x%2F49%2Fd2%2Fd8%2F49d2d8583a0a1cdbc22136ce78d48c36.jpg =1 =1]

I couldn't stop the smile on my face as I grew closer and closer.

The windows were broken, the sides covered in flaking blue paint and rust. Four rusted-out car and truck hulks were in the front yard up on cinderblocks, and from what I could see as I approached they were all from the 50's and 60's era; I could instantly recognize the old Ford F100 and the Cadillac sedan, but that was about the extent of my knowledge of old cars- both of the grandfathers on my mom and dad's side of the family were flush with old cars that they had restored and religiously maintain. Behind the double-wide trailer was a barn that was neither large nor small; it looked to be just large enough to drive a car into. What stood out to me more than the barn, however, was the huge amount of junk that wrapped over the top of the hill and out of sight; this damn place could pass for a fucking scrapyard! Washing machines, dishwashers, whole engines, what appeared to be broken television sets from the 1980s, and was that… a water pump?

A really big water pump.

I moved through the area and ran my fingers carefully along a few pieces of junk before turning my attention to the back of the trailer; there was a wooden deck that looked to be in god-awful shape- the wood was clearly rotted out and half of the deck planks were cracked and broken. The deck sat a the metal frame of a glass table - the glass had been shattered with small chunks of it littering the deck- and a large sunbleached umbrella that had more holes in the fabric than not. One of those shitty folding chairs with the plastic strap seats was placed under it and it looked to be more rust than not.

The back door looked to be cracked right in half, as if someone had kicked the door in. I moved up onto the porch, stepping carefully and testing the wood of each plank that I walked on as I made my way over to the back entrance. I grasped onto the door and gave it a good, solid tug, and was pleased to find that it opened outwards, though I had to be careful to keep the door in one piece as it swung out on rusted, creaking hinges.

Spoiler: Dirty Trailer Layout

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.%2F-SjsI9kczOZA%2FVDP3iG7o0mI%2FAAAAAAAAACQ%2FNDS5xXJzbeU%2Fs1600%2FGail%252B2%252BBR%252B%252Bfloor%252Bplan.jpg =1 =1]

I was greeted with the sight of a small utility area, to the immediate right of the door was a washer, but no dryer; a quick check over my shoulder and I did see what looked to be two Y-shaped clotheslines, but they had fallen over and the cables or rope used to hold onto the laundry were missing. There were a few shelves that held nothing on them except dust and cobwebs, and I looked left through the doorway and glanced over a kitchen with an island sink- on the back wall was a small card table with a single chair. My boots crunched onto some glass and wood and I lifted my heel up on my left boot to pry out the piece of gravel that had gotten stuck between the treads before tossing it out into the grass.

Gingerly I stepped into the main living area of the trailer, and I was surprised to see that, despite the front broken window, the place looked to be in… pretty damn good condition. A scan of the floors showed me none of the shit that I had seen in other abandoned trailers and homes I'd perused through on my way out here- no cigarette butts, no used needles, no empty pot baggies. The carpeting on the floor looked to have a fair amount of water damage near the open window by the similarly water damaged couch in front of it- no doubt a few powerful rainstorms managed to toss in a fair amount of water into the house over the years, but there wasn't any visible mold that I could see.

I pulled back the couch a little bit- ah, there was the mold. It was green and brown though, not black, so there was that at least!

A television sat in front of the couch quite closely, no doubt it was used by an aged person with failing sight, and the power cable was snaked across the carpet and covered with ratty, faded duct tape. I investigated the two rooms visible and was they were revealed to be a Master Bedroom and a smaller but still quite large second bedroom on opposite ends of the house with two full baths; the Master bedroom had a small twin mattress with two dressers and a walk-in closet while the second bedroom had was looked to be an old ammunition reloading set up.

It was a Lee single-stage classic reloading press, though with how old the damn thing was it was probably just called the "single-stage reloading press". The thick wooden bench was littered with various boxes, shelves, and a brief inspection showed that there were a dozen or so complete reloading die sets, though most of them were rusted. The bathroom still had the shower and tub, but it had been built out with wooden shelves that held even more reloading components in plastic tubs; whoever was here probably lived alone and didn't ever expect to have company. The closet had some clothes and the like, but most of them were threadbare and moth-eaten.

There were a lot of spider webs as well, and not wanting to chance being bitten by something I decided not to dig too deeply.

It was a shithole. The best shithole I'd seen thus far, but it was a shithole nonetheless. It was also quite far away from the city of Brockton Bay.

It was perfect.

I grinned and walked through the place one last time before I made my way to the front door and managed to undo the sticky locks before I opened it up.

The door swung open on creaky hinges but it didn't appear to sag at all, but that was when I was greeted by the very familiar muzzle of a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. I froze as I forced my eyes away from the two large barrels of certain death and toward the person holding it.

Spoiler: Old Lady

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.%2Fphotos%2Fold-lady-with-shotgun-picture-id108313082 =1 =1]

She was old, and very weathered. More wrinkles lined her face than not, and she was wearing an old blouse with a yellowing but still fluffy white bathrobe around her body with fluffy slippers on her feet. Both hammers on the weapon were indeed cocked and knowing what I know about hunting shotguns like this the triggers were pretty darn light. Her eyes were narrowed as she took me in, and the frown on her face looked to be carved in.

I swallowed but gave my best 'oh-shit-I-might-die-but-lets-be-polite-with-the-woman-holding-a-gun-in-my-face' smile. "Good evening, ma'am."

A bead of sweat sprouted on my brow and slid down my cheek.

Her etched frown curled into something more mocking. "The most gentlemanly thief I've met thus far."

I arched an eyebrow. "This… happen often?"

"No. The last man who tried to break in was over a decade ago." She tilted her head to the side, "I killed him. Ain't ever been anyone foolish enough to come back since then, though I guess even the warnings of dead bodies fade away with time."

"Well, I am new to the area, so I wouldn't have known about the dire warnings, ma'am." My smile tightened a touch.

"So, what are you here for, breaking into my ex-husband's place like this, hhhmmm? You don't look like the nazi trash or druggie tweakers," She made a small show of looking me over, "If anything I'd say you are rather finely dressed for someone skulking around these parts."

"Well, do you want the crazy truth or a poorly constructed lie?" This was an incredible gamble, but from her words, she wasn't Empire affiliated (not that a woman in her 80s would be in my estimation) and hates druggies; not Asian so no ABB sympathies, not that there would be ABB sympathizers so far through the Empire-controlled Shantytown area.

Her lips pursed together. "The truth, obviously, young man. With the world a madhouse as it is whatever cockamamie story you got for rooting around an abandoned trailer home in the middle of bumfuck nowhere can't be too far out there."

"Well, I'm homeless for starters."

"I figured as much- must have been pretty recent; wife kick you out and take all of your shit?"

I blinked. "Ah, no, actually I didn't have a home to begin with. I was a Security and Wildlife Control Head for a drilling project in Alaska under Exxon. I got on a plane to come home at the end of my year-long contract and ended up in Brockton Bay."

Her head nodded a bit, the old woman considering my words. Despite the weight of the weapon in her scrawny hands, it didn't waver for even a moment. "My cousin was an oil rig worker in Oklahoma and Texas. Hard, hard work, but it paid well. I can't imagine your pay was any less. Where is your money?"

"I did the smart thing and invested it, saved some in cash for liquidity, and purchased a nice little house in Nashville."

"Well, if you have a house in Nashville then why are you 'homeless' in Brockton Bay?" She asked the obvious question.

I pursed my lips and thought over my next few words. As much as I wanted to not open my lips and let out this information, all I had on my tongue was the truth; I knew a fair amount of Earth Bet, but I didn't have a mind on me that could fabricate a story while a double-barreled shotgun was almost kissing my sternum. Old woman or not, she could pull the trigger far faster than I could push the barrels away, and from her face she was too old to give a fuck about the possible repercussions of her actions- what would the police do if they found the kill unjustified? Throw an old woman in prison?

"I'm not from this earth, as crazy as it sounds."

Her wizened face scrunched up. "Earth Aleph?"

I arched an eyebrow. "You mean… there are other Earths known here? That should be hard to believe, but considering you've got full-grown adults walking around the boardwalk in spandex looking like comic book superheroes I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Her jaw worked a little bit and she tilted her head sideways like a bird, her dark eyes probing. "You got any proof?"

"My phone and my wallet," I offered up, "I got my state IDs, my old military ID, credit and debit cards, and photos and stuff. I can show you if you'd like?"

She nodded slowly and I made a show of slowly pulling my jacket from off of my duffel bag and reaching into coat pocket with two fingers and grabbing my wallet from it; the thing had a fair amount of cash in it and was quite thick- that was the main reason I never kept it in my back pocket. I pulled out the ID cards and credit cards and slowly held them out to the old woman who tucked the stock of the weapon up underneath her arm in a fashion that allowed her to keep her finger on the trigger while her free hand snapped the cards. She looked at them for a moment and fanned them, her dark eyes sliding over them calmly while she kept me in her.

"Tennessee driver's license… issued… October… 2021? Wells Fargo Bank credit card… issued 2020?" She spoke out a few more cards before handing them back over to me, "Boy, it's the year 2011; January 4th to be exact."

I winced, "Trust me, I know. I saw a newspaper."

She blew out a loud huff before she finally pulled the weapon away from my chest. "You ain't here to cause no trouble for us folks here?"

"Absolutely not, I just want a place to stay and to-"

I felt the Forge spool up and it latched onto the constellation that had swung by closely- the moment the fires reached out and gained purchase I knew what had been selected.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 1.0140 - Huragok Ally - 200CP - Assistants - Halo - UNSC]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP remaining.]

"Oh shit," I muttered as a felt space fold in behind me and my connection between myself and my Huragok Engineer snapped into being. Why couldn't you have popped up in the warehouse!?

" 'Oh shit, what', young man-?" The barrels of the shotgun swept up immediately, and I moved my face in front of the weapon, thankfully she didn't pull the trigger, "I'm only going to ask you one time, what the fuck is that?"

I swallowed thickly and slowly turned my head to look at my new Companion.

Spoiler: Neutrally-Buoyant

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Forig01.%2F40f6%2Ff%2F2014%2F239%2Fa%2F4%2Frequest_halo_3_odst_engineer_by_swarmcreator-d7wxwlh.jpg =1 =1]

Neutrally-Buoyant trilled musically and raised one of its four tentacles to wave slowly, its sinuous snake-like head twisting like a corkscrew as its six beady black eyes took in its surroundings. The Huragok was wearing armor that I remember seeing being worn by the Engineers from the ODST game when it was under the Brutes, the plates glowing softly blue in the light.

"Uh, that's my companion? He's part of my… powers?" I turned my gaze back to the old woman who'd somehow managed to tuck a cigarette in between her lips and got it lit when I was distracted; the biddy taking a deep pull off of it.

"So, you're a Cape, then?" Smoke curled out of her mouth as she spoke.

"I've been one for all of twelve hours, yes." I responded with a brittle smile, "If that's what you call the uh, people with magical powers here."

A violent snort escaped her lips, the breeze carrying ash away from the slowly burning cherry, "Ain't nothing magical about Capes, boy."

Neutrally-Buoyant burbled a little bit and twisted in place before taking off with a little 'poot-poot' from its propulsion sacks and slowly drifted off away from the living room into the kitchen. "He dangerous?"

"Uh, no. He's an Engineer. He floats around and fixes things. Dislikes violence and is very docile unless someone starts messing with him," I responded quickly with my smile becoming a little less brittle, "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Uh-huh," She muttered, the cigarette bouncing around her lips, "You like Nilbog?"

"I don't know who that is," I lied easily, and I relaxed a little bit leaning off to the side to free up her view so she could observe Enbee as he pooted around the kitchen, picking up little objects with a happy series of squeaks and bleeps as his tendrils picked them apart and put them back together again in a matter of seconds. I cleared my throat and his head rose up and twisted over his armored hump to look at me from upsidedown; his six eyes closed in what appeared to be joy as he waved at me again with a tentacle. I chuckled and waved back, "Uh, stay inside please, Neutrally-Buoyant. Don't wander around out back."

He beeped and waggled the tendril before pooting off to examine the plastic card table, its four feathered tendrils sliding over the surface of it as if it held the very secrets of the universe.

I chuckled a little bit before I realized that the old lady still had her double-barrel pointing at my companion. I inhaled sharply before I nodded my head at the cigarette held between her lips, "It's been a long day… you mind if I get one of those?"

She reached one hand down into the front pockets of her plush bathrobe and pulled out a pack that she tapped against the shotgun until a cancer stick popped out of the small hole in the paper pack; she tucked it between her fingers before dropping the pack into her pocket. The unlit end of the cigarette was placed against her cherry and she pulled on it sharply before handing the barely smoking cigarette to me and I grasped it between my fingers before dragging on it quickly.

The acrid smoke filled my lungs and I held it in before exhaling with a pleased sigh. I'd quit smoking almost four years ago, and while I promised that I'd never start again I feel like this would be a pretty good reason to start back up again; if I was going to die on this hellhole of a world it wouldn't be because of lung cancer.

Besides, smoking was a social activity, and while it didn't make the old woman lower her weapon it got her to relax just a little bit.

"Nilbog was some Cape that took over a town out west; some sort of flesh-Tinker or whatever. Killed the whole town," She muttered.

"Well, if you unleashed my friend on a town the worst that would happen is that all of the town's electrical problems and stuff would get fixed," I murmured with a smile, taking a drag and holding it before letting it go, "He's not even made of flesh anyways; sort of a… metallic lifeform? Like, living metal?"

Enbee let out a long poot and floated over toward a wall clock that had been cracked, and as its tendrils ran over it the quadrillions of microscopic scilla that made up its feathered tentacles swept over the cracked plastic covering, and when its tendrils had removed the cracks were gone. It then lifted the clock off of the wall with an inquisitive hoot and the back of the clock was quickly disassembled before it was put back together and gingerly slipped back onto the wall.

She sighed and lowered the weapon, "Oh, what the hell. Fuck it. If I'm to be killed at 84 by some crazy bio-tinker then I guess that's what will be."

I arched an eyebrow and she pointed the shotgun off in a safe direction before lowing the hammers, "Come on, come with me, boy. Let's sit down and discuss this over tea; I'm tired of holding onto this damn thing."

She turned around and walked down the rickety steps of the front porch, "Well? Are you coming?"

"O-oh, yes ma'am," I nodded and whistled as I gestured to Enbee, "Come over here, Neutrally-Buoyant. Let's go."

The Huragok nodded his long slender head and twisted in the air with a few little 'wooshes' of gas before he gave a short poot to drift in my direction. I held out my arms and he grasped onto them with two of his tendrils, "Come on, grab onto my shoulders, let's go, buddy."

His tendrils were slimy and not. Like a naturally lubricious material that didn't leave a residue. Enbee's long neck slipped over my shoulder and he trilled lightly.

With a grin, I followed after the old woman and she pointed at the thick underbrush that separated her property from her ex-husband's property. "Through the woods, until you can't go any further, then stick close to the retaining wall, boy; should keep you out of sight, not that we have that many prying eyes around here."

"Yes, ma'am," I spoke out, and just before we parted ways, the woman toddling down the gravel road while I stuck into the underbrush, she spoke out.

"You said he can fix things, right?"

"Yeah, he can fix and understand pretty much anything if he can take it apart."

The old biddy flicked her cigarette onto the gravel with a huff, "Good, because my toaster stopped working two days ago and I'd kill to be able to slather some butter onto my bread again."

As the Forge touched another small node I felt my smile become more genuine. Maybe things were going to be just fine?

[Attempted Re-Forge: 10.0100 - Magical Ore - 100CP - Everyone Else is a Returnee - Magical Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP remaining.]

You guys rock!

Access Key (Personal Reality) Free:

This is a special key that lets you access your Personal Reality and its contents.

When inserted into any lock on any door, the door opens to reveal a gateway into your Reality at a predetermined location within it. You are the only person who can take the key from the lock, the gateway remains open as long as the key is in the lock, and if key is ever lost or stolen you will find it in your pocket a few minutes later. You cannot close the door as long as you are inside the Personal Reality.

Entrance Hall (Personal Reality) Free:

This is the room your Access Key opens a door to. It starts off as a 5-meter cube with blank white walls, floor, and ceiling, as some doors, one leading to the current Host Reality, the other into your Cosmic Warehouse, with additional doors leading to other extensions as these get added to your Personal Reality. Feel free to customize this Entrance Hall as you see fit. Additional Halls can, at your discretion, be linked only to certain keys or only to certain extensions. This allows you to have an entry hall just for skiing if you want.

Rare Material Cache (50CP)

It's unlikely to be useful anywhere else, but just in case, this cache contains 10 kilograms each of several Lightsaber-resistant materials: beskar, phrik, ultra-chrome, and refined cortosis. The metals are ready for use in crafting or modifying equipment. The cache also includes a modest quantity of other exotic materials, such as precious gemstones, technologically useful non-Force-imbued crystals, and organic materials like krayt dragon hide. The material is replaced yearly.

Peak ADVENT Technology (XCOM 2) (200CP)

Before you defected you were working in some of the most top-secret black projects any human had access to. You have an encyclopedic knowledge of all ADVENT technology, minus some of the genetic manipulation techniques and basically, anything that would give away ADVENTs dark secrets.

Schematics to Time (Generic Video Game Developer) (200CP)

Wasted time is a serious problem for just about any company. And while most managers might think it's because John took an extra 5 minutes for lunch, the real-time sink is the direction a project ends up going, as sometimes you go down a rabbit hole trying to fix a problem and take a while to get on the right track, such as looking for a bug in the wrong part of the code. But for you, it's different. For you, every time you settle down to work you get on the right track. From looking for bugs in the right section of code to researching the right function for a problem, your work is now more of a straight line, taking no detours and going down no rabbit holes. If you have a problem, you'll always start in the right place.

I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot) (100CP)

Working late nights and filling out strange requests is just another Tuesday for a Scientist of your caliber. This perk ensures that you'll never suffer burnout, grow overly bored, lose inspiration, or have your work suffer because of exhaustion. So long as your basic needs are at least barely being met you can keep happily churning out work day after day.

Engineering Basics (Dead Space) (100CP)

You're a real Mr. Fix-It, y'know? Malfunctioning fuel intake? Easy. Faulty asteroid defense cannon? Turn it off, then on again. Non-responsive communications array? Shuffle the working emitters around a bit so they're symmetrical. Undead monstrosities? Depends on what you mean by, "fix." Does using a rivet gun to blow them apart count? Yes? Then we're good.

Auto-Factory (Starbound) (100CP)

A room full of various arms and other tools, this factory is designed to be programmed with the blueprints for any item that you know how to create, allowing for raw materials to be fed in from the ship's storage, and be turned into whatever items are programmed into the factory. Warning: Only items that run on purely mechanical/scientific principles can be made here. If something requires magic or more esoteric energies to be created, it will require your personal touch to actually make, though individual parts could still be crafted by the factory. Can't make items bigger than the room itself, though it can build the pieces for you to put together yourself later.

Huragok Ally (Halo - UNSC) (200CP)

Something of a surprise and most definitely an attention-grabber, a Huragok is supposed to be one of the members of the Covenant Homogeny and has normally been seen only in their presence. Yet Huragok, also known by those in the UNSC as 'Engineers', are primarily pacifistic and dedicate themselves purely to repairing and working on any technology around them. This particular one seems to have gotten lost and ended up deciding to follow you for the sake of making sure your technology was functioning. Aside from melodic whistling sounds that sound slightly similar to Earth whales, Huragoks communicate using either sign language with their tendrils or through text messaging thanks to their penchant of being biological supercomputers. Huragok are highly prized for being able to fix almost anything they touch, and you should expect a lot of questioning if someone spots you with one.

Magical Ore (Everyone Else is a Returnee) (100CP)

What is a smith without some metal to work with? Equipment plays a large part in this world, and a craftsman can only do so much without good materials. Luckily you happen to have a large storage box filled with lumps of unrefined ores of many varieties. The rarity and valuability of these ores range from normal iron all the way to precious ores of heaven, with the quantity of the ores being inversely proportional to their value. As you travel to future jumps, this box will update to include for the various ores you encounter. I hope you have some way of refining and forging them. Each month, the box will refill.

Chapter 2 - Settling In

A/N: Snakey-boi is the best boi. I also have to make up words to describe his outbursts because he's just so expressive for a Huragok. He's seriously the best.

[Jason Wilke]

[January 4th, 2011]

"So, you're one of them 'Tinkers', eh?" The old woman grunted out as I stepped in through the back door of her double-wide and into the kitchen; from what I could see this trailer had the exact same layout as the trailer up the hill. Neutrally-Buoyant trilled eagerly as the snakey-boi's head twisted around and looked, the tentacles wrapped around my shoulders beating an eager tattoo on top of the duffle bag slung across my middle.

I nodded at her question as I tapped my boots off and then scraped them across the rough plastic astroturf welcome mat and stepped inside, my movement pulling Enbee inside with me; it felt like I was dragging behind me a particularly large balloon, but the balloon was my buddy. My friend. My closest companion.

There would probably be many Companions and possibly friends in the future, but no one would have the same place in my heart as the goodest boy ever. "Uh, if you mean that I have some technology and schematics and stuff pumped into my melon, then yes, I guess that would make me a Tinker."

I tilted my head, "Enbee, be a dear and shut the door behind us please."

He let out a little 'pplbbbtt' and nodded his head as we stepped through the threshold, the Huragok grasping the doorknob and pulling it shut behind us. I even heard some tinkling, and when I looked the little bugger had disassembled the lock and tinkered with the insides before putting it back together again in the span of a couple of seconds; the lock clicked shut with nary a whisper. The old woman watched with an arched eyebrow. "That lock has been sticking on me for the past few months; I'd just given up on locking my back door- don't have enough cash on me to call a locksmith to replace it."

She worked her jaw and moved through the kitchen to unplug a beat-up stainless steel toaster and sat it on the island with a dull 'thunk'. "Hey, bagpipe, come over here and fix this, will ya?"

The Huragok whistled musically and I could hear him inhale from… somewhere on his body, and he floated up a few inches and tried to float over my head; his bulbous back, covered in dark-black armor thunked against the top of the doorframe. His head and neck wriggled like a snake and his tendrils reached out, but with me in the way he couldn't move forward; a snort escaped my lips and I cracked a smile because it sort of reminded me of a big kid keeping something out of reach of a little kid.

Enbee made grabby tentacles at the toaster.

"Hold on, buddy, let me move out of the way first," I chuckled as I stepped forward into the kitchen and grabbed the armor of his harness to drag his hump underneath the doorframe. He gave me a thankful 'ppllbbtt' and hummed to himself as his tendrils wrapped around the toaster and he lifted it up into the air, examining its every surface before placing it back on the island. Enbee looked at the old woman and motioned with a tentacle at the open sink, the five other tentacles coming up and making some twisting and wiggling gestures.

It looked like nothing at first, but in the back of my mind I understood it as a unique form of sign language. I blinked. The old lady blinked. She looked at me. I looked at her. Enbee's tentacle reached out and tapped my hand insistently and that knocked me out of my state of shock. "Oh, uh, Enbee's asking if you have the uh, sink covers. To give him some working space; the island doesn't have enough space and he needs it to work."

She sucked her teeth and nodded before pointing towards a cupboard up on the wall over the cooking range. "Up there boy, they're heavy though; I haven't had enough strength in my arms to pull them out in years, so I just left them up there."

"Alright, well, if you'll just pardon me, ma'am," I murmured as I dropped my bags near the door and slipped past her to get at the cupboard. There were some other things, like wax paper, saran wrap, aluminum foil, among other things, but it did indeed have what I was looking for; I pulled on the rounded rectangle that was about one foot wide and two feet across and heft it down carefully. The damn thing was solid granite and had only a small hole in the middle to stick a finger in so that you could lift it up; probably only weighed fifteen or twenty pounds, but that was a lot for some people- I remember my mother was in her 60s and she would struggle with something like this if she had to just use her arms and shoulders.

I turned around and carefully set the sink cover into place, and it fit seamlessly. I'm certain that it looked beautiful for presentation, but it was a big turd functionality-wise. Enbee bobbled his head excitedly and the Engineer started to get to work.

I was knocked out of my trance as the old woman tapped my shoulder with an unlit cigarette between her middle and index fingers while a cheamo gas station light was pinched between her thumb and index finger. "Ah, thanks."

"No problem," She muttered as she puffed on her own cigarette while I lit mine up and hand her back the lighter, "You look like you could use it, especially with all of this craziness being new to you."

Neutrally-Buoyant was waggling in mid-air, the artificial servant of the Forerunners happily disassembling the toaster with great zeal; little toots and poots coming from his flotation bladder as the device lost its cover, then frame, then the internals. The wire heating elements were brushed over by its scilla and decades of caked-on carbon were removed as if it had been nothing but dust. The electrical portions of the system had the protective wire coatings stripped, the copper wiring was unwound and then re-braided; the cable sheathing was put back on and then placed down.

Everywhere the Huragok's feathered tendrils touched seemingly lost age; bits of rust were flaked away, carbon buildup removed, tarnishing was wiped off like a spot of grease by a towel, and everything looked cleaned and polished. Then the whole process was done in reverse- screws were torqued, joints and plastic tabs were locked back into place, and even the small metal rivets were put back in without the aid of a riveter. Once the faux-wood plastic shell was put back on the damn thing looked brand-spanking new, and Enbee blurbbled happily as he hefted it up in his tendrils and presented it to the old lady.

All of this occurred in the same amount of time it took me to take two drags of my cigarette. "Fuckin' A. I knew you were fast, buddy, but it's one thing to know it… and whole 'nother thing to see it. Good job, Enbee."

I reached out and patted his snakey head affectionately, and the best boi's eyes closed as he soaked in the feeling of my fingertips brushing across the strange texture of his skin; it looked to be a cross between snake hide and tortoise, but it was perfectly smooth despite the bumps. The old woman took the toaster and plugged it in while Enbee started rapidly signing. "Oh, ma'am? He says that he fixed the wiring and the heating elements; you should probably drop it down from a 7 to a 3 if you're looking for a golden brown instead of burning it."

She fixed me with a glare as she plugged it in and reached inside the cupboard to grab two slices of bread. They were tossed in, the spring lowered easily without a sound, and I could hear the ticking of the small internal clocks as a warm orange light glowed from the heating elements. After about twenty seconds, or two drags from my cigarette later, the toast popped up and the toast was indeed a perfect golden brown except for where the basket was holding the bread. She pulled out a plate from a drawer next to the sink and slathered a heaping helping of butter onto each slice before sprinkling a touch of cinnamon and sugar.

She took a bite and a pleased sigh escaped her lips. "Ah, yes. To think that I missed this for two whole days."

I smiled a little bit, and was about to speak before the soft droning of a bell rang out through the trailer eight times with a soft 'cuckoo' following behind it. I heard a soft 'poot' behind me but ignored it in favor of looking around the rest of the kitchen.

"So. You're not on your earth anymore and now you got powers," She spoke out as she finished off the first slice and picked up the second, "A mighty unenviable position to be in, young man."

A tight grimace scrunched up my face, "Yeah, it is. I can't do shit about it, so the best I can do is go with the flow and improve my position. It's why I was looking for a place to stay until I can at least establish some sort of identity. Then? Then I can go from there to figure out what the hell I'm going to do."

"Well, as long as your little friend goes around and fixes all of the broken shit I got around the house you can stay here for a little while; I got a spare bedroom that my granddaughter uses when she comes out to visit every once in a blue moon," She gestured to Neutrally-Buoyant and I tracked her fingers and saw the Engineer disassembling the clock and then putting it back together before drifting over to some curtains on the wall that had a tear in it; his feathered tendrils reached out and swept over the yellow cloth and… the yellow faded and became a pristine white again, the cuts, tears, and abrasions on it disappearing right before our very eyes.

Holy shit, how much smoking did this woman do in her house? This was why I never smoked indoors; the nicotine and smoke and stuff just turned everything nasty colors.

"Hey, Mr. Fix-it," The old woman called out, and the Huragok twisted its head to look at her, "Do you need the power turned off for any of this? I can flip off the circuit breaker for the night; it's cool but not enough to need my heating."

She looked at me, "In fact, once it gets really dark, take him out on the roof and have him look at my AC units, will ya? The window units too."

I couldn't help but crack a grin as she smirked behind her cigarette, "Of course, ma'am."

"Speaking of you, I don't believe we've introduced ourselves," I held out my hand and offered it to her, "I'm Jason Wilke. Despite our rather lethal first impression, I can say that it is indeed nice to meet you."

"Tiffany, but you can keep calling me 'ma'am'," Her tone was teasing, "Don't hear too much of that these days; one day the world got powers and then suddenly everyone lost their minds. Rampant crime, show-baiting blowhards in tight spandex, and a glorious golden bastard flying through the skies like the second coming of Christ."

Her tone was venomous, and I arched an eyebrow inquisitively as I finished off the last of the cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray. "A golden bastard running around? Er, well, flying around? He like, Superman or something?"

"Oh, so you have Superman where you come from too? Well then, if you're at least familiar with comics and all that nonsense then you'll at least have some form of footing here. Though get rid of the 'comic-book hero' mindset; the little turds running around out there aren't afraid to get lethal; some villains will monologue at you while others will just kill you outright if given the chance," She shrugged, "Or at least that is what my granddaughter tells me. Something about Thinkers being jabber jaws and Blasters and Brutes being quick to end a fight."

The Forge grew hot and I felt it reach out and touch a small star from the 'Protection' constellation and pulled it into my orbit; the 100 CP perk joined my other Perks as they rotated around the Anvil in the center of my nebula.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 2.0030 - Strategy Trance - 100CP - Brockton's Celestial Forge - Protection]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP remaining.]

I felt it reach out towards another passing constellation, but it was too weak to grasp onto the perk that drifted by it.

My eyes glazed over for a moment as I considered the new perk. This thing was damn powerful, and I was quite surprised to see something like this be available to me; was Brockton's Celestial Forge merely fanfiction? Or was it something more? The fact that it had its very own Perk made me think that whatever it was he had accomplished since I last read a chapter of the story must have been grand enough to warrant giving him something I would assume was an honor.

I dropped the trance and regarded Tiffany, "So, a golden flying man?"

She rolled her eyes and turned around to grab an electric kettle as well as two teacups before she went to the sink and filled it up to the bare minimum fill line. With the kettle on the plate, she hit the button and pulled out a cardboard box of lavender tea, and sat two of the triangular bags into the cups. "This is going to take a while, so I'll give you a reader's digest version before I go off to bed. We can talk more in the morning and I'll give you a ride into town; a trip to the library wouldn't be amiss- I don't have dial-up or anything like that here at the trailer, and they just don't show documentaries on the Discovery channel anymore."

"The History Channel stopped running documentaries on the whole Advent of Capes thing a few years back; they only want to do in-depth Hero biographies these days, phaw!" She crossed her arms under her chest as we waited for the water to boil.

I looked back at Enbee and the Huragok was in the middle of taking the couch apart right down to the wood frame and the springs. Then those were taken apart as well, the bubbly floating alien hefting up each section of wood, tack, nail, and screw up to his many eyeballs as his scilla removed imperfections from the objects before sitting them back down. With a little hoot, he started to put the couch back together, and it was like watching a time-lapse photo as his tendrils sped around and put everything back together again; even the cushions weren't spared the Engineer's tender mercies as the foam was pulled apart molecule by molecule and restructured back into its original shape.

Within eight seconds the couch was put back together and with a little 'poot' he was off towards the old 90's era television set.

I looked back at Tiffany and she was grinning broadly before she noticed me giving her an amused smirk, "Enough of you, boy. I just like the way he toots all over the place. He's really too adorable to be an abomination."

I couldn't help but laugh as I leaned up against the counter, "Oh, I know. He's the best boy in the whole wide world."

It was a bit surprising to see the Huragok lift the 30-inch television up without any apparent issues, but he had no problems unplugging the cord and moving it in front of the couch to find some floor space before he began his joyful disassembly.

"Well, as long as he doesn't interrupt me while I'm taking a shower I think we'll get along just fine," She muttered, but there was no heat in her words. The old woman grabbed the kettle and poured the water into the cups to steep the tea leaves before ushering me over to the newly rebuilt couch while she sat down in the reconstructed armchair. She sat down in it with a sigh, "Ah, dunno how he did it, but this baby feels brand new; the only thing it's missing is the smell!"

I grinned and sat my teacup on the coffee table, only to pause when Enbee took the coffee table apart; he looked at me with three of his six beady eyes and tweeted at me as his tentacles twisted into a dozen different signs. "Yes, yes, I'll wait, buddy."

The table was reconstructed in less than four seconds and he tittered a thank you before pooting off across the living room to pick up an old radio. Ten seconds later the radio was put back onto the corner table and he plugged it in and turned it on, his tentacles fiddling with the antennae and knobs at the same time before it found a station. He kept the volume low and then puttered off elsewhere.

Tiffany's old eyes blinked and she smile wanly, "That was my mother's radio; she purchased that from the Sears Catalogue in 1934 when I was just a babe. It stopped working around thirty years ago, and I haven't had the funds nor the desire to get it fixed."

She inhaled sharply as the smooth tones of the jazz began to play, the sound was incredibly crisp, something on the level of what I would have expected a premium speaker to sound like today. I wasn't surprised though, that was just how Huragoks did things- they were pseudo-biological supercomputers that had stored within them the plans of the Ancient Forerunners, and when they came across a structure not only did they fix them up, they made them better if the material was capable of it. The scilla on their tendrils was capable of pulling materials apart was the molecular level and then putting them back together again; somehow they could even mimic the chemical or metallurgical reactions needed to put things back properly.

If you had a shoe that needed to be fixed, then it could disassemble the shoe and then put it back together exactly as it had been previously; right down the adhesive on the bottom. Though everything was guaranteed to be much better than before. If there were things like dye and pigment that were limited on the shoe and started fading, the Huragok would shift the pigment and dyes towards the fibers on the surface and could lock them in place.

It was utterly astounding; if we gave Neutrally Buoyant four hours he could probably strip the whole trailer down to the support posts on the frame and rebuild it until it was better than new. He wouldn't even need help moving heavy things around because he would just take them apart into smaller pieces that he could move around and then just zipper the molecules back up together, no problem!

"Though that sounds a lot better than I remember it sounding," She murmured as she brought her teacup up to her lips.

I mirrored her and picked my own cup up, "That's what Enbee does; he doesn't just fix things, he makes them better if he can."

Tiffany let out a sigh, "Well then, let's get on with our chat, shall we? It all started back in 1982 when a man with Gold Skin was seen hovering over the Atlantic ocean-"

The little history lesson was unique in that it was told from the perspective of an old woman who watched the world that she'd spent 50 years of her life in explode with the advent of superpowers and the Endbringers that later followed them. She touched on some of the more boring historical points, but a lot of her time was spent on seeing paradigm shifts occurring within society as governmental structures rose and collapsed under the question of 'how did a government govern in this new era?'.

It was incredibly biased, but I found it very entertaining. The fact that I found it entertaining did bother me somewhat, as all of the shit that had happened since Zion's appearance was directly a result of him and his damn Shards infesting the planet; countries rose and fell all over the world, and even staples like the Chinese Communist Party were destroyed and their remnants subsumed by the Chinese Union Imperial, or the CUI.

The mention of the Chinese Imperium tickled the back of my mind because the fuckers had no issues with kidnapping capes from various nations around the world and then brainwashing them into service; of course, they never poached prominent capes, because that would needlessly escalate into all-out war, but independents and rogues were fair game in their opinion. I don't know if they had any reach as far east as Brockton Bay, but even with the completely antagonistic relationship between the Lung's Asian Bad Boyz and the CUI, I wasn't going to discount them completely.

Contessa and Cauldron might be able to make them run around in circles, but I was incredibly vulnerable at the moment. Until the problems were dealt with, I was going to treat pretty much every criminal element as if they could kill me outright if I stepped wrong.

Tiffany, the old biddy, loosened up the longer we spoke, and by the time 9:30 PM rolled around the old woman was all smiles. Though she quickly hid that smile behind a false scowl and told me that I could take her ex-husband's trailer and use it for my base of operations, though if anything blew up she'd have my ass.

During that whole conversation, we both watched Enbee toot and poot his way around the entirety of the house, the Huragok happily tearing everything apart and putting it back together again with his little head bobbling away to the jazz music playing from the aged radio. The entire living room, kitchen, carpets, and probably a whole bunch of other things were fixed and it looked like the area of the trailer we were sitting in just rolled fresh off the assembly line. I asked about the possibility of discovery and she waved me off.

"I told Chester and his spawn that if I ever caught them near my house again I'd shoot 'em. Daryle figured he would test the limits of that nine years ago and I sent him to the ER with some birdshot in his ass. Pretty certain there are still some BBs he feels every time he sits down to take a shit. So as long as your bubble boy doesn't fix the exterior of the house he should be fine."

When I brought up her granddaughter she shook her head again, "She ain't visited in almost a whole year, and I doubt she'll be coming any time soon. If she does I can just say I had some boys come in and fix the place up on the cheap in exchange for a few favors of some of the girls I know at the library; men will spend a lot of money, time, and effort if it means they get to go out on a date with one of my girls."

Turns out she was once the Head Librarian at the Brockton Bay Central Library for something like forty years, and she just retired three years ago when she could no longer make the daily drive into the city anymore.

Tiffany told me I could sleep in the guest bedroom until I had the trailer at the top of the hill taken care of, and before she went to bed she cautioned me again to let Enbee out only at night and to stick to the woods.

With the sun having firmly set hours ago, I grabbed Neutrally Buoyant by the tendril and dragged him outside of the house where he flitted over everything around the house; the meter reader for the electrical, water and gas were inspected - which Enbee found to be improperly adjusted and high- and the gas valves were serviced as well as the connectors.

I don't know who did the inspections for this, but ' Inspector Jay Abrams' is an asshole; the Brockton Bay utility guy had the readers out of tune by almost thirty percent!

Whether it was from negligence or him just being an asshole (or if the city of Brockton was overcharging paying customers to make up for all of the squatters stealing utilities) I didn't know, but now Miss Tiffany was only going to pay the proper amount; the best part is that it looks exactly as it did before, with the tamper-wire on the reader still in place!

After the external Heating and Air Conditioning boxes were taken care of I gently tugged Enbee up the perimeter of the retaining wall and through the woods, though it was super fucking dark so I tripped more than once. My Huragok was the best Huragok to ever have lived because he was quick enough to see me tripping and caught me; the mad lad able to inflate his sacks and give me just enough positive lift to adjust my footing before I ate shit.

Once we made it back to the double-wide I gave him clear instructions to strip off the paneling on the exterior and set it off to the side. For everything else though? We were stripping the bitch down to the studs and completely repairing it all.

Neutrally Buoyant did the vast majority of the work, but with the pair of leather work gloves I brought back with me from Alaska I was actually able to help. All I did was move the panels around and heft some of the heavier stuff, but the two of us worked like a well-oiled machine. Between his amazing capabilities, my understanding of his sign language, and judicious use of the Strategy Trance, Schematics to Time, and Engineering Basics to better plan the tear-down of the entire double-wide trailer? We had that bitch stripped and put back together again in two and a half hours.

Two and a half hours! That was fucking insane! Sure, we barely lost any of the back deck due to fact that Enbee could literally rearrange every single carbon molecule in each plank of wood to be utter Forerunner perfection; the wood that the Forerunners used for decorations? That super genetically perfect wood? I had that for my back porch. It was fucking great, and I was grinning from ear to ear as we walked through the place; this trailer, aside from the superficially rusted exterior steel panels, was showroom ready and could be put up on the market.

It didn't have water or power turned on, but I figured we could take some of the piping that was laying out in the junk field behind the trailer and run an illegal connection towards Miss Tiffany's pipes, and we could probably do the same for power as well; the usage was measured at the readers, so if we tapped into the utilities before then and kept everything underground then it would be incredibly easy.

When I asked Enbee if he could fashion proper 100 amp cables from all of the junk laying around he gave me a pitying look and pat me on the head. He signed out that simply by arranging the molecular structure of the wires just so he could take any bundle of wires and make them capable of transferring that amount of power; with the gigajoules that the Forerunners were able to throw around for every tiny piece of equipment they made such a thing would be child's play.

While we had been working the Forge attempted to reach a star from the 'Crafting Biotech' constellation, but I was 50 CP short, so it just carried on. I had two and a half charges already now, so there was a good chance I could get something nice next time.

It was only midnight by the time we finished, and feeling inspired Enbee and I found a mixture of metal and PVC pipes, but the Huragok grabbed steel parts and turned it into powder right next to the powdered PVC. While he worked I moved throughout the junk field with my cell phone's flashlight and picked up junk that he thought appropriate. In the end, we came up with a one-and-a-half-inch diameter pipe that was exactly long enough to connect to where we needed it; though it was less a pipe and more like a strange metallicy-plasticy slinky. The steel was the core, threaded into an ultrafine but sturdy mesh using some Forerunner molecular structures that even my Engineering-self had to scratch its head at; I could see and understand, but as to how it worked I wouldn't have been able to tell you. The slinky had a millimeter thin coating of PVC on the inside and outside of it to prevent anything from corroding, and when I asked about whether or not we needed a conduit to keep it from getting crushed the Horugok once again looked at me like I was a small child and patted my head indulgently.

Within ten minutes we had some sort of weird steel/copper/various traces amounts of random metallic particles bundle of wiring that was thickly insulated and ready to go. He fashioned me a shovel out of a blown-out engine block and we went into the woods to start digging the line. With Neutrally Buoyant's tendrils, he was able to penetrate and deconstruct the dirt and stone, clearing a two-foot deep path that I was easily able to scoop out with my shovel. We worked like a horse and a plow, except in reverse; he tilled the soil and I scooped it out of the way. It still took us an hour and a half to move everything around, and even with the easy work I still had to stop and take breaks every once in a while.

We routed the power cable and water slinky through the woods and around the retaining wall before getting down to her water and power connectors. That was when we both forgot that the house needed natural gas too. Thankfully Enbee had forgotten too, and it was ridiculously adorable to see a Huragok facepalm.

We hustled back up the scrap field and fashioned out a similar gas slinky, though this one only had PVC on the exterior. I didn't bother to ask whether or not the multi-metal braided cable he made would leak because I didn't want to be looked at like I was retarded by my Companion again. Thankfully there was more than enough room in the dugout for the extra slinky, and we ran it back down next to the water and electrical hookups. I did question the wisdom of placing the electrical next to a natural gas hook-up, and the Huragok rolled his whole head before signing out. "W-o-n-t. B-r-e-a-k. T-r-u-s-t."

We dug underneath the conduit piping for the electrical and added a little bit extra to the bottom; they'd have to do a full excavation in order to find out our little jack-in job. The water piping was done the exact same way and the same with the natural gas hook-up on the other side of Miss Tiffany's Trailer.

We relaid the soil, and Enbee's tendrils slipped down deep and began firming the soil back up. Around each one of our slinkies and the electrical power cable, he built up a waterless concrete conduit out of the clay in the soil. This time I pulled him behind me by two of his tentacles, one twelve-inch step every ten seconds; he'd build up the conduit and then would sweep the dirt back into the hole before firming it up. It took us twenty-five minutes to make it all of the ways through the woods and back to the trailer and we moved around to the spigot at the back of the house and turned the water on.

It took some time for all of the air in the water slinky to be pushed out, but when it did it was a thing of absolute beauty. The flow rate left a lot to be desired, so between the two of us, we were able to drag a 55-gallon oil barrel from the junk field to the house and fed the water connection into the top of it to give us a reservoir to draw off of while the connection kept it topped off. One of the random pumps I found in my searching was chosen to be deconstructed and reconstructed into a design that Enbee found fitting, and we attached it to the barrel.

Though to be fair I acquiesced to his demand that the barrel be re-shaped into a rectangle with some odd geometric shapes at the top… and at the time I thought it was just his desire to bring some Forerunner flare to our project, but instead, the completely refashioned pump fit right into the seemingly random geometric shapes like it was meant to.

Spoiler alert: It was.

We turned the water back on and the water barrel, which had been given a PVC film a tenth of a millimeter in thickness but was applied at the molecular level, started to fill up. Once the barrel was filled we flipped on the breakers after running the power cable through the wall to it, and then the pump hummed lightly; it was so damn quiet I had to ask whether it was working at all, and Enbee grasped the water spigot and opened it up- water shot out at nearly four times the flow-rate. Hot damn this was so fucking cool!

We moved through the double-wide trailer, of which everything had been fixed and turned on every light in the place as well as the extended 80-gallon hot-water tank. Did we need 80 gallons of hot water? I didn't know, but it was always better to have more than less.

I turned to Enbee and held my hands out, and the Huragok grasped them. "Okay, on three we are going to throw our tendrils, tentacles, and hands up to the sky, shouting out, alright? You ready buddy?"

"One." Our metaphorical hands went up and down.

"Two." Up and down.

"Three! Fuck Brockton Bay City Utilities!" I shouted out, knowing full well that the Trailer would keep my roar of defiance and rebellions- as well as Neutrally Buoyant's toots of joy- quiet as can be; we might as well have installed sound dampening foam on every wall.

I felt the Forge rumble to life again, as if it was pleased with Enbee and mine's little foray into doing crazy cool shit with SCIENCE! We did the work of a whole crew, and we took an estimated two-day job and did it all in just under five hours. The whole trailer was broken down and reconstructed, the utility stuff made, the holes dug, the utilities jacked into, the holes covered, everything tested, and we even made a water barrel and pump. The only thing we needed to do was construct a janky-looking cover for the water rectangle complete with rusted sheet metal and we will be good!

My enthusiasm was dampened severely when I saw what I was 150 CP shy of earning.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 14.0210 - Uchiha Jutsu Archive - 400CP - Generic Naruto Fanfiction - Database Magical]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 350 CP]

I was a touch morose, but I knew that I would eventually see it again, which buoyed my spirits as Enbee and I built a sunshade around the water tank that would never be opened except by a cutting wheel with an exceptional grinding disc. Or several grinding disks. Okay, more like a plasma torch; it looked like a regular box with rusted steel siding, but that was a veneer- the actual cover was almost two inches of solid steel. It meant that if I wanted to service the thing I'd need Enbee to fashion some seams for me, but that was fine because it also meant that if anyone wanted to try and steal my shit they better put in some mother fucking work, boy!

It was about five-thirty in the morning when we made it back into Tiffany's house, and I took a quick shower in the guest bathroom before crawling into the blankets and laying down my head. Before I went to sleep I offered Enbee both my laptop, my cell phone, and the chargers for them.

"Take some time with this- make it the absolute best you can make it without changing the operating system that I'm using, okay? More efficient, more powerful if you can. Just… please don't lose the data, okay?" I reached out and squeezed one of his tentacles, as a lump formed in my throat, "The pictures, the music… everything I have left of my home is on those, so do be careful."

I hadn't realized that I had been crying until a tendril lifted and wiped a stray tear from my eye. His snakey head leaned down and bumped against my forehead, and I'm not going to lie, I reached around and grasped onto his armored squishy body and gave him a gentle but firm squeeze. The soft but long 'toot~' that escaped his inflation bladders set me off into a much-needed combination of tears and laughter. This lasted for a few minutes as his tendrils wormed through my hair and beard.

"Uh, this beard is pretty long. Could you maybe cut it close? One inch maybe? Style it so it stays down nice and good? Also, my hair is a touch long as well; close-cropped on the sides, with maybe three inches on the top?"

Neutrally Buoyant gave me an affirmative 'ppplllbbttt' and in less than a second I felt a whole bunch of hair leave my head and face; my once five-inch beard had been trimmed down to just enough to hide the little bit of babyface that I had, and the hair that was almost long enough to pull into one of those faggoty-ass top-knots you saw white boys with gauges wearing was now clean cut. I make fun of those dudes with those hairstyles because I once too fell into the belief that it would look good, and I rocked (or so I thought) for almost two full years before I realized that I looked like a raging douche-bag.

Might work for other people, but it didn't work for me; my head wasn't shaped right for it. Thusly, if it didn't work for me, then no one else should be able to use it either! I'll be like Kim-Jong Un when I rule this fucking world- all men will wear one of five approved haircuts, just like their Glorious Leader!

The joke injected some much-needed levity into my veins and I collapsed onto the pillow and let my hands run over my head and face. Everything felt right, but only a check in the mirror would tell. For now? Now was sleep time. I'd been running off of adrenaline practically since I touched grass in Brockton Bay, and the past few hours of tinkering was like a fugue, except I had complete control over everything that I said, did, and helped build.

Enbee was the SuperStar that made all of that work possible, of that there was no doubt. In the future, I would change that, not because I didn't want him to do work, but because I wanted to pull my own weight. I felt… useless for most of that; just holding heavy stuff and fetching things while my Companion happily did all of the work.

With that resolution firmly in my mind, I closed my eyes and went to sleep- doing my level best to not think about the library of cool-ass Uchiha Ninja Clan techniques that I did not have enough charges to get.

No. I still wasn't salty about that.

I was woken up by the feeling of the Forge warming as another charge bubbled to completion. Fucking-A! Really!? It's been like- I turned my head and grabbed my phone, which was resting on the bedside table, and clicked it; the screen was stupidly vibrant that even with the low-light mode enabled I had to squint to see the time. It was only 9:47 in the morning!

I rolled over onto my side and stuffed my face under the pillow in an attempt to try and lure myself to sleep.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.00400 - Handy Workshop - 600CP - Satisfactory-factorio Gauntlet - Facilities Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 450 CP]

I don't know what Factorio is, but if it was a 600 CP perk then it must have been pretty nice.

Ugh. Fuck. If I'm awake enough to do terrible puns then I'm way too awake.

I still laid in bed just a few minutes longer, hoping that I would conk back out, but it honestly wasn't meant to be. In the end, the call of nature and my bladder forced me to roll out of bed and I got up and stumbled into the bathroom and washed my face after relieving myself. I got a good look in the mirror and I had to say that Enbee would make a great stylist- the cats got an eye for what looks good.

I got dressed into my nice clothes, another button-up shirt- this one a solid dark blue with a tank-top worn underneath- with some tan-colored slacks and my nice slip-on shoes. Everything fit perfectly, from the shirt to the socks and the shoes. Did… Enbee alter my clothes? If he did I'll have to pat him on the head because a look into the full-length mirror hanging from the door had me looking crisp- if it wasn't for my small gut protruding just a little bit I'd look like a model for a fashion commercial.

For the first time since I arrived here, I willed the key into my hand and walked over to the bedroom door before inserting it into the lock and twisting it. As much as I wanted to explore my neat little pocket space and stuff I wanted breakfast more, so I grabbed my laptop and all of the assorted doo-dads that Enbee gussied up and shoved them into the Entrance Hall before sealing the door. I'd put Enbee in there before Tiffany and I left for the day; he'd already messed with pretty much everything in both of the trailers, so hopefully, he'd be content ripping apart the stuff in the Laboratory while we were gone into town.

I closed the door and removed the key. Checking my pockets to make sure I had my phone and everything else situated I walked into the living room to the sound of the radio playing, Enbee was floating in front of the television, watching everything the limited basic cable had with subtitles or closed captioning on. The old lady was in the kitchen moving around with a bit of pep in her step as he whisked what appeared to be some eggs in a bowl before pouring them out into a hot pan. "Ah, Jason, you're awake!"

She turned towards me and paused in her stirring, "Where is the scruffy-looking Alaskan Wilderness man? What did you do to him? Because all I see right now is a finely dressed city-slicker."

I grinned slightly and fought down the small blush that threatened to ruddy my cheeks, though I failed spectacularly. I don't think most normal people are good with compliments, and truth be told neither am I. Not in that overly annoying 'I can't handle compliments' kind of way though- just… in a normal way. "Well, it turns out that Enbee does hair real good too."

She glanced at Neutrally Buoyant from over her shoulder before turning back to the breakfast she was preparing. She cleared her throat. "Speaking of your friend there. What does he eat? Does he eat?"

I blinked and searched my memories for information on my Hurgok companion and was surprised to see that there was a lot more to them than just my brief knowledge of them. "Uh, he can draw power directly from the wall if he needs to; like I said he's more machine than organic- everything he has just mimics organic life. If you have something sweet that is high in yeast he would absolutely love you for it though."

My fingers stroked my chin, "If you have some rice then you can boil that up, toss in a few splashes of milk, a cup of sugar, and maybe six tablespoons of yeast and that should get him as happy as can be. The yeast helps create the gasses that fill his flotation bladders. As long as we give it some vigorous stirring and turn it into a soupy paste he'll be in hog heaven."

Tiffany nodded her head as she began sweeping through her cupboards to pull out everything we needed and I stepped in beside her to get to work. Our meal was finished well before the rice had been cooked, so we sat down and ate.

"Well, Enbee and I fixed up the trailer at the top of the hill already, got it up and running with water, gas, and electrical. The place is solid as a rock now." I spoke as I sipped on the coffee while severing a chunk of butter off the tray to slather onto my toast.

"Really?" her weathered eyebrows arched up high towards her hairline, "Where did you connect into? I didn't hear any noise or anything going on last night."

I grinned, "We tapped into the city utilities, no problem."

Greying teeth were shown as the woman's paper-thin lips were pulled back, "Good. Fuck the Brockton Bay utility company. Those fuckers are overcharging me, I swear."

I winced, "Yeah, the meters were not calibrated properly; they were charging an additional 30%, easy. Enbee and I fixed that already, and since the tamper-evident seal is still on it there is no way for them to prove that anyone messed with it."

"Heh," She huffed mirthlessly into her coffee cup, "Bastards. Make me a key when you get the chance, if I'm going to be your landlady then I might as well act the part. At least I won't ever have to fix anything, not with… En-bee around anyway."

Well, at least she was referring to him by name now. Though to be fair, she was probably stressed all to shit last night, I know I was.

I shuddered as I felt the Forge reach out again, this time it was victorious at grasping a star from the 'Vehicles' constellation. As the knowledge of what had just been added to my workshop entered my mind it seemed that I wasn't the only one who was suddenly not hungry- Neutrally Buoyant squealed in delight and pooted his way into the kitchen and his tentacles reached out and grasped my wrist and gently urged me to get up like a kid on Christmas morning. "I get it, I get it! Settle down, Enbee. We're not going anywhere until you eat. Miss Tiffany and I are making your breakfast right now, so be patient and wait."

[Attempted Re-Forge: 4.0040 - Hangar - 100CP - Ace Combat - Vehicles]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 450 CP Remaining]

The Forge spooled itself up and made a grab towards the Database-Mundane constellation and pulled it in. The knowledge hit my brain and I was floored. I thought the Hangar had been the best pick-up? No, it might have been the funnest pick-up, but this was objectively better, at least in terms of my direct survivability!

The Forge felt pretty smug, as if saying 'yeah, that was all me'.

I let it gloat because this was just too damn good.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 13.0080 - Strange Formula Nitrimini - 200CP - Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1 - Database Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP Remaining]

I was a bit surprised that the Forge made another attempt at the Database-Mundane constellation before it left our orbit, but the star it tried to latch onto was a pretty big one; I'd only seen the stars like that before in the beginning, so it had to have been at least 600 CP.

Regardless, I stood up and checked on the rice, and having seen that it was ready I poured in the milk, the sugar, and the yeast provided and began to apply some serious torque to the mixture to turn it into a whiteish-brown slop that only a Hurgok could love. Rather than plate it up I just grabbed an oven mitt and set it on the counter, and Neutrally-Buoyant blippered over and stuck its face into the mash, a small approving squeal emanating from it. "Ah, you like that buddy?"

The Hurgok signed to me with two of its tentacles an affirmative. I focused on my companion for a moment before speaking. "Enbee, you have the knowledge and plans to create a Lifegiver, don't you?"

"Plllbbttt, ppplllbbbtt, pppbblllllllttttttttt! " He sputtered at me while signing wildly.

So… there was some competition between the mechanical and biological sides of the Hurgok family line? The mechanical Hurgoks were by far the most prominent, being seen galaxy-wide, but the Lifegivers- the Hurgok that were solely focused on medical treatment for biologicals- were kept close to the Forerunner Empire's core; they were incredibly important, and because of that importance the Lifegivers tended to have over-inflated egos.

The Hurgok as a whole were patient beyond measure, but when roused they could display amazing strength; a Hurgok once threw the Elite Jul 'Mdama like he was a fucking ragdoll when he went to activate a malfunctioning Slipspace portal despite the gas bag's warnings of it being dangerous. To my knowledge Elites were like 400 pounds without the armor, with the armor it was probably closer to 500 pounds, and Jul 'Mdama was a fine specimen; probably 550 pounds at least.

Still, Neutrally Buoyant signed that he did have the knowledge from a parent that happened to be a Lifegiver, and he would 'sire' a new Lifegiver offspring because he knew that the Super Soldier formula would give me a great deal of added survivability on top of all of the other benefits that came along with it.

"So, what am I missing?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am," I turned to Miss Tiffany and scratched the back of my head before sitting back down at the table, "Well, Neutrally Buoyant and I are linked through my power, right?"

She crunched on her toast and nodded, "Go on, my granddaughter is a PRT Agent in the city, so I know more about Parahumans than most people do; to a certain extent anyway."

Oh. Oh. Oh. I closed my eyes and breathed for a moment. "I don't know who the PRT is beyond what you've mentioned in our talk last night, but I'm going to trust that you didn't give her a call to have me picked up by them."

She chuckled, "No, I haven't. Not yet. Though the moment you start fucking around with stuff that no mortal is meant to fuck around with it won't stay that way. Capiche?"

I nodded, "Sounds reasonable. I won't be going… Nilbog on anyone; seems very counter-productive to what it means to be a hero."

"Good, good. Now, what is this thing that had Enbee all excited, hmm?"

A sigh escaped my lungs and I slid my hands firmly onto the table. I fixed her with an earnest gaze. "Miss Tiffany, you've been very kind to me; other than our first encounter, but I really can't fault you for that, can I? We've only known each other for less than a day, but here you are helping me- someone dimensionally displaced and far away from… my own earth. That's a rare bit of kindness in any age and any world; even my own, where we didn't have superpowers or genocidal Endbringers attacking cities around the world."

"So for that let me say this: Thank you."

The elderly woman's expression tightened up a bit and she sat up a little straighter in her chair. "I don't know how things are here in the, uh, 'Cape Scene' or whatever, but even I know that giving away the full extent of your capabilities is foolish- however, you are probably my only form of human contact in this world that knows the truth about me and was still willing to help instead of just tossing me to 'Tha Gubmint' and trusting them to not screw me over."

I swallowed, "So allow me to return some of that trust. I am, I guess what you called me earlier- a, uh, a 'Tinker'. I get knowledge and plans and stuff like that, but I have hundreds of different fields that I can pull from, and over time I get to keep all of the knowledge that I've gained. It also provides me a laboratory space in a pocket dimension where I can do all of the sciency things that I learn how to do."

The key was pulled from my pocket and I stood up, motioning for Tiffany to follow me, and Neutrally Buoyant whistled gleefully as he rooted and tooted after us. I opened her front door. "Is this your front yard, Miss?"

She worked her tongue over her teeth. "Eeyup that is indeed."

I grinned, the feeling of excitement surging through my blood as I shut the door and then inserted my key. When I opened the door it revealed the 15m by 15m white-walled Entrance Hall, and beyond that was another door.

"What in Sam Hell?" Tiffany muttered as we stepped inside, closely followed by Enbee. The old woman ran her fingers along the wall, and having never done it myself I mirrored her movement, feeling the perfectly smooth… marble beneath my fingertips?

Neutrally Buoyant sucked up a fair amount of gas and hopped over us, the Hurgok pooting over to get to the door first and flinging it open; though the door handle didn't crash into the wall because he caught it with a tendril just as he did so. His head turned towards the doorknob underneath his scilla, but he shook his noggin like he was clearing his head of the distraction of the probably atomically perfect nob within his grasp.

The Hurgok pooted forward at light-speed, though light-speed for a Hurgok was just barely a jogging pace. Enbee trilled in delight as his six beady eyes gazed over everything that I had accrued thus far- and Tiffany and I stepped up to match him.

The Entrance Hall was the gateway to my workshop, and currently, it opened up into a slate gray workspace that was roughly twenty-meters wide, and on each side, it had numerous standing shelves along with plenty of sturdy shelving units hanging from the walls as well. This was the storage space for my raw materials, with the rare Star Wars mats on the left and the magical ore crystals on the right. I grasped Tiffany's hand as we walked after Enbee, though a bit more slowly than what the Hurgok could manage.

Through the next door we came into the room that had my toolkits stored within it, and taking up the entire left-hand section of the room was what looked to be a massive machine that was at least twenty feet tall, with catwalks surrounding it; on the right had side of the room were storage racks and shelves that were for the finished products. The Advanced Auto-Factory from Starbound was… truly a marvel to look at; there was no doubt in my mind from looking at all of the various gadgets, gizmos, waldos, and tools visible on it that this thing could build a literal spaceship if even enough time. The issue was that it needed the space to do so.

The space that I just got with the mother fuck'n Hangar from Ace Combat! Fuck yeah! I could barely control the grin that threatened to split my face as Tiffany gazed firmly at the mechanical monstrosity for a few moments longer before allowing me to guide her towards the Hangar.

Spoiler: The Hangar

[img: https/external-content.%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F08%2FAircraft-Hangar-Designs-02.jpg =1 =1]

Now, in my time in Afghanistan, I'd been in some hangars before, and this one was far, far, far nicer. The floor was polished concrete, the walls were white and ribbed with large steel girders that were packed with pristine white cushion insulation- though it was more for aesthetics than anything else- and sitting smack dab in the middle of this very beautiful structure was a cradle that sprung from both the ground and ceiling that had segmented cat-walks. The cat-walks looked like they could raise and lower themselves independently, and the closer we got the better everything looked.

Nestled in the cradle, which was meant to allow for off-the-ground maintenance of an aircraft to the point where everything could easily be removed off the airframe, was a big, beautiful, twin-engined F-15E Strike Eagle.

The only thing that made it more glorious was it had the full "Garuda 1" color scheme and tail-markings from my favorite Ace Combat game, that being Zero.

Spoiler: Garuda 1

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The sound of maracas, flamenco, and clappy things intensified as we drew closer.

Spoiler: Hey buddy, still alive?

Neutrally Buoyant tooted and chibbered joyously as he floated around the aircraft, the Hurgok going over, under, sideways… and under again; the snakey-boi sticking his noggin into the air intakes on the front before pooting around the back end to stuff his face into the exhaust ports. He pulled is head out and began rapidly signing at me. "Nope! No! Not yet! Wait till I get back from the Library with Miss Tiffany! I want to be here for this!"

He deflated a little bit, and I sighed. "Okay, why don't you give it a thorough look over, but don't make any modifications, okay? Just make a list of everything that we can improve with what we have on hand. Also, before we leave, get me an itemized list of everything we're going to need for the Lifegiver."

Enbee spluttered at me and I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. My eyebrow arched as I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, and I saw that he'd turned all of my settings back on; attached was a new message that was blinking from an app I didn't have on it before, but the square with Enbee's loveable face on it was more than clue enough. I clicked the app open and in plain text was a document that had every itemized change and upgrade he made to my electronics, including the Kindle that I hadn't yet taken out of my bag. He spluttered again and another message popped up with a list of every organic component he would need to build himself a daughter that he knew for a fact was going to grow up to be spoiled and haughty, just like one of his mothers. He had doubled the components because he wanted to make himself a son as well.

Well, he didn't put it like that, as Hurgok didn't think in terms of 'mother', 'father', 'son', and 'daughter' like humans did. He would have his tendrils full with just two offspring, but once we have better resources and more responsibilities he would create more Hurgok with his 'children'. He hoped that they would learn and grow quickly enough to acquire some knowledge that he did not yet have so the youngest of the family would have more data and viewpoints to work with; the pseudo-organic alien lifeforms passed down data from one generation to the next, so the more experienced the donors the more intelligent and learned the 'child' would be.

Included was a complete list of ingredients that I would need to procure in order to recreate the Super Soldier formula. Once the new Lifegiver was up and floating, as it were, then she could help me fine-tune and upgrade the formula to get it to Forerunner standards; he wasn't a Lifegiver by birth, so all of the knowledge he had was locked away in his code, but once the youngling was created she would be of great help. He predicted that not only could we remove the negative aspects of the Erskine formula, but we could probably enhance the positive aspects by considerable margins.

Considering Captain America could lift like 77 tons and catch up to a train running at 60 miles-per-hour any performance improvements, even small percentages, would already put me well above Spartans, to the point where I probably wouldn't need any of the SPARTAN-II augmentations, though having indestructible bones made from some sort of super-compound would probably give me a much-needed boost in performance. Though that was my limited knowledge of Cap, and it's probably more than likely that the comics greatly embellished his feats in the vast majority of their issues because while I could see Captain America throwing his super-special-awesome Vibranium shield through a tank (albiet barely) I patently refuse to believe he threw his shield hard enough to intercept ICBMs that were already a minute into their flight.

Tiffany was slowly walking around the aircraft, her weathered hand coming up to rest upon the smooth metallic surface of it. "Do you want to know something funny, Jason?"

"What?" I was distracted as the Forge spooled up and grasped out at a constellation as it passed, and it made contact, pulling it into my personal orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 5.0060 - Cranial implants - 100CP - Warhammer 40k: Adeptus Mechanicus - Toolkit Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP Remaining]

I felt my brain compress ever so slightly, and it was enough to give me a bout of vertigo as the implant of a Magos of the Mechanicum was slipped into my skull. My eyelids flickered wildly, causing my vision to flash like someone was shining a strobe light in my eyes- the tendrils of the implant slithered through my grey matter, the connections being made in the span of a few seconds. Somehow, during that entire process, I didn't feel any pain, nor did I lose balance. There was a small trickle of blood that I felt dribble down my nose, but that was easily wiped away by the back of my hand, and I licked the blood clean if only to not have it stain my clothing or worry Tiffany.

[Boot Sequence Initiated… ]

[Diagnostics… Green… 99.998% Optimal… ]

[Would you like to adjust primary operating protocols, Magos Wilke?] [Y/N… ]

I focused on the 'N' key and did my best to blink away all of the text that was now beginning to flow behind my eyeballs, and fuck that was a lot of text. I couldn't read any of it, but the Forge reassured me that once everything was finished installing I would be able to read it just fine.

"My ex-husband, the one I told you about? Well, he was a crew chief for one of these flying beasts. Though it was an… F-16? He loved it, every second spent working on these aircraft," Her slippers made nary a sound as she walked to the landing gear and rested her palm onto the front wheel, "When Parahumans came about the whole of the military saw a restructure, the Air Force included. Lots of people cut out of the services once they came around. Jerry was included among that number."

Shit, was Miss Tiffany a cougar? On the prowl for a hot young guy? That was like 30 years ago, and she's like… 83, she said? That means she was 53 when Zion showed up and ruined the whole world- or at least laid the foundations for the beginning of the end. Nah, her husband must have been one of those "I'm going to stay in until they kick me out" kind of guys; I could see it, especially if he loved aircraft as much as she was telling him.

She shook her head. "Well, I hope you know how to fly this thing, though the real question is how are you going to get it outside, and more importantly, how are you going to Cape with this damn thing?"

Tiffany smiled broadly as she thumped her palm against the rubber of the tire. I couldn't help but smile back and I walked over to take her hand.

"This is a lot of trust to show an old woman," She murmured, "But I'll do my best to keep your confidence, Jason. Something about some unwritten rules or some such tripe; the gangs never seem to care about it at all. Now, take me back so I can finish my coffee and then we'll go to the Library and do some shopping. You said you had cash, right?"

Neutrally Buoyant trilled and bobbed down as we made out way out of the shop, the Hurgok clinging to my shirt as my mind was filled with visions of flying in a mother fucking F-15E doing high-G turns like my childhood heroes- the Swat Kats. It truly was a shame that I can hardly remember the show at all these days.

You guys rock!

A/N: So, I had Tiffany's backstory all done up for this chapter, so when I got the Hangar I practically started laughing as this last section practically wrote itself. Getting the Hangar early will be a huge boon, and when combined with the Lifegiver Huragok and the Erskine Formula? Whoooo buddy we're in for some escalation!

Tune in next episode for an exciting trip to the library, along with some shopping for stuff!

Honestly, all jokes aside, the RNG aspect of this really has been quite enjoyable, and I'm digging the whole "reactionary writing" deal; it's all about accomplishing the given objectives with what you've been given, but what you're given completely changes how you write everything out. Gives it a unique flavor. This will probably be spun off into its own thread in a few days because I'll reach the 40k word cap pretty darn quickly at this rate- I stayed up all night to write this thing, though I was significantly delayed to family movie night so… 12k in just under 10 hours?

The free Jet is the only thing I'm taking from the jumpchain version. All of the "Lockers" and stuff that you saw in the Celestial Forge wont be happening, the MC needs to make things.

NOTE FOR HURGOKS: In Halo canon the pootie-bois can dissassemble and reassemble a Warthog in a matter of seconds. They are that good. However, when it comes to completely deconstructing something at the molecular level and then putting it back together that takes more time. For simple objects and the like that is less of a problem, but the more dense/complicated an object is the more time it takes. It is still blisteringly fast, but yeah.

Strategy Trance (Brockton's Celestial Forge) (100CP)

At will you may go into a trance in which your mind speeds up, your eyes glaze over and you start to instinctively analyze your current situation, any data points about your enemies, environment, your available powers, tools, and their uses. You can then use all that information to instinctively construct hypothetical scenarios of possible resolutions to the encounter.

After the trance ends you will have boosted competence to follow through with any plans you made within the trance, almost as if your instincts are guiding you.

The trace does not leave you defenseless, two things protect you during it, firstly a few external seconds of trance can be up to tens of minutes of internal time. Secondly, you will immediately wake up from the trance if you are attacked or if you would have wanted to be woken from it at any time for some other reason.

This perk is further boosted by any other mental perks you have and synergies and integrates aspects of all your mental perks to enhance the trance in some way or another.

Hangar (Ace Combat) (100CP)

Planes are fine when they're going through the air and dealing with enemies. But leaving them to the elements and the outdoors when they're not in use? Well, that just seems really crass. You need somewhere to store your vehicles and planes when you're not busy destroying anything that's not on your side, and that's what these establishments are for. It's not the fanciest thing in the world, but it'll serve its purpose and make sure your means for vehicular slaughter are in prime condition for their tasks. For an additional 50CP (Included in the above cost), these hangar bays also come equipped with special clamps and harnesses to make refitting and refueling any planes, go much more quickly than they would if you were using them by hand. For sea-based bases, this also means you have docks for boats and submarines.

Strange Formula Nitrimine (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1) (200CP)

Strange Formula (100CP)

This chemical formula is the brainchild of the German scientist Dr. Erskine and is directly responsible for the creation of Captain America. As is, this is only the formula, and you must make it yourself… but as a result, it could possibly let you modify the serum for other uses. Beware its tendencies to amplify the personality traits of the user, or be prepared to find a way to fix that fact.

Nitrimine (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1) (100CP)

The formula for the chemical compound known as Nitramene, this compound has multiple purposes. A typical Nitramene bomb has a blast radius of five hundred yards after which it creates a vacuum that causes an implosion as matter rushes to fill the void that it has created, but a grenade of that size will do considerably less damage. On the other hand, Nitramene also emits low levels of Vita Radiation, which has a specific wavelength that has stabilizing properties.

Cranial implants (Warhammer 40k: Adeptus Mechanicus) (100CP)

The brain of every magos undergoes extensive modification over time, but you have put great care into preparing your mind for the Machine God's mysteries. Beyond the gene-alterations and bionic sub-systems that have boosted your intelligence, regulated neuro-chemistry reduces the influence that hunger, pain, fear and other flesh-distractions can have upon your thoughts. Your ability to enjoy these things are not impeded. Further neurological modifications will be faster and easier to adapt to with less worry of rejection.

Chapter 3 - A Small Day Out with my Great Aunt Tiffany

[Jason Wilke]

[January 5th, 2011]

Before we left the house to head into town I sat down with Enbee and went over everything that he'd done to my phone and laptop. He'd only been able to work the materials on hand, but even with that limitation he was able to virtually remake everything; the Hurgok downloaded everything from both devices into his internal memory so that nothing got lost in the sauce. The memory was highly improved with new data storage layouts and compression, essentially giving me seven times the storage for the same amount of space, the already dense OLED display had its fidelity tripled, and the cameras were improved for a much larger margin than that with the small donation of some of his metallic tissue for some of the components.

In the end, my old iPhone 13XL was so damn fast that without the Magos implant I wouldn't be able to try and slow it down even if I even tried. I could play every song in my library at the same time, have every app running in the background, and be scrolling through my entire album of photos.

It was beyond normal human hands to fuck with, and even then, the security of the system was in no uncertain terms Forerunner grade; a thin veneer of normal iOS processes kept it functioning as a normal device, and with the small fragment of Enbee copied over to the device he would be able to interface with pretty much everything in real-time. All I would have to do is obtain a micro-sim card from any carrier and the Hurgok would be able to gain access to every cell carrier and subsequently shield my connection from every prying eye except maybe Dragon if she was putting all of her processing power into it.

Make no mistake, Dragon is hella impressive but shackled as she is, she is far away from the processing power of even a 4th Gen AI like Cortana, and Cortana was just as far away from Dragon as she was from one of the Station Monitors.

That was my goal, to create my own Monitor and have it assist me in governing my budding workshop. Then once I'd taken to the stars I'd expand my reach into the very galaxy itself, to go where no man has gone before…

The laptop had been given the same treatment, but Enbee still stated that it was far from sufficient for what we would be doing in the future, and I completely agreed with him.

During our sit down and review I had him go over all of the cash I had on hand, and with a number of examples, one of each dollar bill, he was able to easily alter my current money to Earth Bet's standard, though we did have to fudge the serial numbers on the bills. It made me feel a touch scummy to be injecting what was essentially fake cash into the economy, but it was less than $800, and it would proof all of the way until it got to the hands of the bank… and that was if the local banks even scanned the serial numbers of every bill that entered into their hands.

With all of that done and the shopping list in my hands- it was a variety of different organic requirements from beef and pork bones to sinew, flesh, various vegetables, herbs, spices, flour, lots of sugar, lots of yeast (I didn't know there were different kinds of yeast, so I was learning), and a full tank of helium that I'd have to rent from a party supply store. It was incredibly strange that completely inorganic creatures like Huragok required organic compounds to build up a new member of their species, though Enbee informed me that the scrap field behind the double-wide had plenty of whatever he needed as far as the metallicy bits he needed.

The very last thing we did was alter my ID cards to the Earth Bet standard, using Tiffany's New Hampshire driver's license as the base. It would hold up to all scrutinies except if I got pulled over and had it searched for in a system, though I felt like I was quickly approaching the point where I could completely fabricate an entire identity, and then just ask for the state government to mail me my official documentation.

With all of that done I held my arm out and offered it to my "Great Aunt" Tiffany and we walked out the front door of her home towards her old beat-up pick-up truck; a 1980 F150 with more than 290,000 miles on it. I made a mental note to have Enbee come by later tonight to have everything fixed up except for the surface-level wear and tear.

"So, what are you planning on doing at the library, oh dearest grand-nephew of mine?" Tiffany bantered with me to fill the silence in the vehicle as we drove towards town; I didn't blame her for wanting to chat as the truck was clunking something fierce and the radio didn't work at all. Neither did the heater and A/C- perhaps a quick stop at the auto-shop to pick up some freon wouldn't be amiss?

"Well, getting a library card would be nice, at least until I can bring in enough cash to spring for a dish to get internet for the trailer. I'll be sitting down to go over the history books, and maybe surf the web for a little bit while I'm at it- get a feel for the popular culture and lingo. The primary focuses are going to be on Capes and the laws surrounding them- it's the world I live in now, whether I like it or not, so being read-up on the threats would only help me out," I leaned my head against the window and watched as the few country miles that separated Brockton County from the greater Brockton Bay area disappeared. It honestly was amazing how the walk made it feel like I was hundreds of miles away from the Shantytown area but in actuality, it was probably five miles at most from the edge of Brockton's city limits.

In the back of my mind, I felt the Forge start to warm up as the next charge was nearing half, with a constellation almost within our range.

"Well, that sounds like a good idea, I suppose," Tiffany reached into her purse and grabbed a pack of smokes before stuffing one between her lips; she offered me one and I politely declined because if I was going to do any more smoking I'd be purchasing my own pack. She shrugged and lit up before rolling down the window a touch, and I rolled mine down as well; just because I liked to smoke didn't mean that I liked smelling like it.

"Well, I got plenty of time to yammer on to the girls at the Library, got time to cash my social security and retirement checks from the City at the bank. It's 10:30 right now so I'll handle all of my business and then will get back to you around… 1:30? After that, we can go shopping for whatever you need."

"Sounds good, Auntie," I smiled wanly and the woman chuckled as we went over my cover story for the most part- at least for those people who'd be close enough to her to get curious, "I should be able to get one of those trucks up and moving in the lot, so you won't have to worry about driving me into town every single day."

"Meh, it's nothing, aside from the gas it's kind of nice- I can't remember the last time I actually looked forward to leaving the house," She replied, smoke leaving her lungs as she flicked the butt of her cigarette out the window and onto the road. "Should probably do it more often if I can."

While she was talking I heard a soft ding come from the dashboard, and the fuel light came on. "Well, let's find a gas station that you trust and I'll fill up your tank, ma'am."

After entering the Shantytown area we drove past literally every gas station in the nazi held area until we made it into the central area of the city where the PRT nominally controlled; from where the station was up on a small hill I could see the South Ferry Terminal. To my delight the old biddy allowed me to fill up both of her gas tanks, though only a few gallons to get us around town; Neutrally Buoyant and I would be upgrading her ride, and that improved looking at her gas tank thoroughly, and it would be a lot easier if we only had a few gallons to siphon off. Still, four gallons cost me damn near $28.00! Don't get me wrong, it made sense considering how the energy industry has been getting bent over the table by all of the Endbringers at the same time, but still, that hurt my wallet to think about- not to mention it made me feel for the residents who struggled to even get to work each day when every round trip sipped eight or nine dollars from your pocketbook.

With some gas back in the tank we drove through the remainder of the South Ferry district and skimmed north on the main road straddling the Financial highrises and the very large complex where the PRT office was- it was interesting to see the PRT-ENE branch with my own eyes. The main building was twelve stories tall, with a wide front and it went pretty deep, but that wasn't what caught my attention; behind the back of the building was a large fenced-in area that had been prettied up with shiny materials and fabric covers to prevent people from nosing about, but it didn't change the fact that the area reminded me of a military motor pool.

We were only able to see into it because we had come from a higher elevation, but the moment we went to street level I lost the ability to see anything; it made sense, the PRT branch here had hundreds of officers and probably ten times that many staffers spread throughout the main building and the other smaller compounds that had been built up in order to support the efforts to keep peace in a city that had more capes per capita than any other city in America. They needed training space, housing for unattached Agents and Officers, storehouses for equipment and supplies, and more importantly the capacity to turtle up and become a hub for various governmental agencies should everything go tits up.

Thinking that everything PRT-related would be contained in its singular building and whatever basement floors it had would be silly.

It still didn't change the small thrill of potentially walking through the glass front doors of the place to register as an independent hero. It's official shit, and definitely, on the bucket list of 'stuff I want to do'. Because who in their right mind wouldn't want to sit across from Piggot and tweak her nose at least once? Though, I needed to keep aware that this Earth Bet might not exactly be a canon one either.

We made a quick stop at the "HEROIC MOBILE" store, a small cell phone shop that had a pretty decent selection of cheamo burner phones, mid-tier flip phones, and some entry to mid-level smartphones. I purchased a micro sim card with a "pay-as-you-go plan" on the cheap for $30 that came with a thousand minutes, a thousand texts, and 2GB of Earth Bet's version of 3G cellular data. Not that any of that mattered because the moment the sim card was inserted and I walked out the door the nugget of Enbee embedded within the phone began to immediately start toying around with all of the settings.

I fooled around with the new unlimited data plan that I had now and started to search out areas to make the purchases, but Enbee's nugget had already correlated a whole list of shops to include a map that gave us the most direct route through the city on the main roads.

The old woman and I chatted for a few minutes while we made our way over to the Library, and it was during that moment I felt the Forge grasp out from a star from the "Knowledge - Future Tech" constellation and pulled it in close.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 20.0080 - Gero Expy - 200CP - Dragon Ball - Knowledge Future Tech]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP Remaining]

My eyelids fluttered as I felt the knowledge of the man known as Dr. Gero get downloaded into my skull. Just like the Dead Space Engineer, I was the scientific madman- everything thought, every boiling emotion, every fit of rage, every triumph and success, and every failure was my own to experience. From my time in the Red Ribbon Army to the years I spent in HIFL every scrap of intellect, experience, and proficiency was mine.

I could build advanced robots, cyborgs, and androids that could fight on par with a Super Sayian. I could design systems that could drain massive, planet-killing amounts of energy into an internal battery that didn't have a limit that could bolster my own strength proportional to the amount of energy it had stored. I could develop completely biological androids that could match Super Saiyans and even surpass them if they trained hard enough- Android 17 was chosen for the Tournament of Power for a reason- and the best part was the Infinite Ki generator that allowed whatever held it within its body infinite life force and unlimited stamina.

Though according to Gero's notes the generator was limited by throughput- the generator could supply it, but it was up to the wielder to have a vessel that could contain it.

Already my mind was whipping through ideas on how to combine Dr. Gero's robotics knowledge with the ADVENT database's mechs that would be combined and then streamlined by my Huragok Companion. I could build an army of non-lethal mechs that could restrain an entire gang in just a couple of hours, though I already knew the public backlash would be pretty heavy- or at least the Protectorate and PRT would throw a hissy fit; the people probably wouldn't care that much as long as they could take a walk throughout the city without being dragged into an alley at knifepoint.

Neutrally Buoyant was already sending me messages about having improved the Auto-Factory to his specifications and was roaming through the database after having constructed his Huragok interface unit; it was essentially a microscopic keyboard that had hundreds of buttons on it that allowed the scilla to type far more rapidly than any human could hope to match. He made a complete copy of the ADVENT database and on his copy began making numerous annotations to upgrades and improvements that could be made to virtually everything that was there.

Tiffany and I parked the car in the Employee parking lot of the Brockton Central Library and moved around to the employee entrance where she used a key on her keyring to let us in. Much to my surprise, it didn't lead us anywhere except the back of the first floor of the library; I guess that the break-rooms and whatnot were somewhere else in the building? Still, it made me painfully aware of the woman's age as we walked together, her arm wrapped around my own and using me as a crutch to aid her steps. I didn't know if this was an act from her or if she still hadn't recovered from our first meeting last night; no doubt holding that shotgun at my chest for an extended period of time, when combined with the long walk from her trailer to the property and back, was probably the most exercise she'd gotten in a long time.

We slipped around to the front of the main desk and Tiffany placed her hand on the wooden counter where two women sat; one was older probably nearing her mid to late fifties as her hair was just as much white as it was black, and the other was fairly young, at probably 19 or 20. They both wore professional office ware with the few embellishments being the pearl necklace on the older woman and a thin gold chain with a small medallion around the young woman's neck. "Hello, Tina, it's good to see you again!"

Tina, the older woman smiled and she stood up so that she could lean over the counter and give Tiffany a hug and a kiss on her weathered cheek. "Miss Tiffany, it's good to see you as well! It's been a few months since you last visited, what's the occasion?"

The younger woman cracked a small smile but used the distraction to return to her work, not wanting to get involved in whatever chit-chat the two women were about to engage in. Tiffany rested a hand on my wrist, "Well, do you remember last year when I told you that my sister's grandson was thinking of coming up to visit? Well, it took him a little longer than he expected to get away from his job, but he's here now and is looking to stay in Brockton for the foreseeable future."

"Oh?" Tina blinked and turned her focus onto me, "Where did you come from, dear?"

"Ah, well I was a security manager up in Alaska, managing the pipelines out there," I popped my neck and relaxed into the conversation, "Spent a few too many years away from civilization and decided that instead of going home to North Carolina I thought I'd come up and spend some time with Auntie Tiff; my grams died a decade ago, and I remember coming up here for the summer as a boy. Thought I'd rekindle that family connection while I have the resources and the time to do so."

"Well, isn't that wonderful for you Miss Tiffany? I got four children and they're all so busy these days that it's all they can do to send me a card on Mother's Day and Christmas." She sighed, "Not to mention I haven't pinched my grandbabies cheeks in so long!"

They chatted back and forth a few times before Tiffany finally maneuvered the conversation towards the real objective of this little expedition- a library card. It was, quite honestly, incredibly painless, and not as much of a hassle as I had thought it would be; they barely even looked at my new New Hampshire driver's license that Enbee and I put together. Granted it was probably because it was indeed a New Hampshire state ID- if I'd shown up with my Tennessee driver's license they probably would have paid more attention. With the address listed as the trailer of Tiffany's ex-husband I had a brand spanking new library card and was free to peruse around.

I went straight to the history section and grabbed a few thin books that focused on major historical events in the United States and the world since the arrival of Zion onto Earth Bet. After that, I went over to the computer tables and chose a good spot that had a few vacant seats between myself and the next person over so that I could sit the books down. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the USB cable and connected my phone to it, and I received a notification from Nugget- the small piece of Enbee shall now henceforth be named 'Nugget'- that he had connected to the internet through the computer and would be pulling in relevant data to be stored.

There were a few times that I received some looks from people because I was flipping through the pages of the history books while at the same time scrolling through Wiki Warriors, Wikipedia, and PHO. Nugget had me set up with an " email account, and I was able to sign in under the username "Horizon". I had Nugget create a virtual mock-up of my spitballed costume, which was a slimmed-down version of the ADVENT Shieldbearer armor, and he seamlessly integrated the mock-up and rendered it in excruciating detail in front of a stock concrete wall photo that he had also painstakingly altered to make it unique so that Dragon's automated systems couldn't flag it as a fake.

When the PHO verification prompt came up I wrote down "For Verification Purposes Only: @Tin_Mother, I am 'Horizon', January 5th, 2011" onto a scrap sheet of paper that was tucked behind the monitor and took a picture of the handwriting. Nugget transposed that handwriting into the cardboard square that my mock-up was holding in the image and then he started making alterations to the carboard; the little drags, multiple strokes to get the ink to print onto it, and small little tears where "I" pressed "too firmly" onto the cardboard on certain strokes and damaged the fibers.

He then completely rendered the scene again, and even with my eyes, there would be no way for me to tell that the image was a fake. Granted I didn't have superhuman eyes, at least not right now, so I guess there is that. The whole beauty of the photo was moot though because after that Nugget downscaled the resolution to what would be common for a mid-tier flip phone and packaged with it a bunch of false meta-data and geo-location data that had the photo being taken from an abandoned warehouse in the Docks.

I smiled as I attached the crappy photo to the prompt and sent it in after doing a really asinine reCaptcha where I had to identify boats of all things. Watching my IP address, Dragon?

Within a few minutes, my account had been verified and I was now the 9th cape to hold the name "Horizon"! Go me!

I did feel some type of way for a few seconds because the only reason I'd gotten the name was because the "Horizon" of Kansas City, Kansas died fighting against the Slaughterhouse 9 a few weeks ago in some small town called Deer Creek on the Missouri border.

Granted, I could have done some more research into various mythologies and the like, but I really didn't feel like doing it, so I just took a fairly ambiguous name that roughly could be construed as "looking towards the future" but wasn't as pompous as something like "Pinnacle" or "Apex" or some other stereotypical "Badass Over Here" cape name. I just went with something good and vanilla that didn't automatically let everyone know my power just by hearing my name.

I'm looking at you, 'Stardust'.

She is currently an independent hero that can make hard light constructs that looked like stars, and she could fashion up to a few thousand of them that were as small as a grain of sand, and with them, she could have them form up around criminal's wrists and ankles and bind them together for non-lethal captures. She could also coalesce them into a single larger construct, roughly the size of a wrecking ball, and could swing that around on some sort of telekinetic tether; she didn't deal with other capes though, only sticking to street-level crime and bugging out as soon as Gang-affiliated Capes showed up.

My gut reaction was that it was pretty cowardly of her to do that, but then I remembered that most people were not naturally suicidal, nor paid to go out and confront dangerous individuals; she is a private citizen who has been using her powers to keep crime in her area low and honestly that was already admirable to begin with.

I started up a few DMs with various Rogues that were amenable to a rookie like myself asking questions about the state of the city, who was who, what was what, and more importantly, where was where. I only asked the Brockton Bay veterans that had at least a year of being independent and were still alive to tell the tale; their bits and pieces of knowledge were added together to form a more cohesive whole. The best part about it was having more data points from more people meant that I could avoid outdated or junk information and pick up a more clear picture of what is happening around Brockton from the eyes of the Independents in the city without a clear-cut network of surveillance and moles.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 34.015 - Form & Function - 400CP - Final Fantasy XIV - Quality Durability]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

I was a touch bummed that I didn't pick that perk up- anything from the "Quality - Durability" constellation would be incredibly helpful in getting my first suit of armor up to snuff- but such was life.

After the next few hours, I felt a lot more comfortable with my knowledge of the region now- the implant made absorbing information from the history books and whatever little other things I picked up to break up the monotony incredibly easy, and it made surfing the web just as enjoyable because the meme-boards on PHO were absolutely out of control. It was hilarious, but Tin_Mother being the Admin that she is, locked threads down frequently for getting too rowdy, and Dragon's small army of human moderators were getting assaulted on all sides. A lot of the lockdowns were because a few edgelords decided to be edgy and post some memes that were more than a touch off color.

Regardless, it was nice to have a map of the city built up by Nugget based on the information provided- I could probably ping the Protectorate branch and ask to compare my map to theirs, but that will be something I can do at a later date. It firmed up the gang territories around the city and it was indeed different than my personal metaknowledge; I had thought that the Shantytown to the south-west had been purely Empire controlled, but in fact that they were forced to split ownership with the ABB. The ABB controlled the eastern half of the Shantytown, the side closest to the water, while the Empire controlled the western half of the Shantytown.

The suburbs and commercial districts pushing up towards Winslow were all under the Empire's "Protection", and this included the hospitals and the small regional airport that I arrived at yesterday morning. Winslow and the area surrounding it was neutral ground, if only because there wasn't shit there to fight over- a few middle-class neighborhoods weren't worth the effort of protecting or shaking down because they barely had anything to give and they weren't desperate enough to attempt to hook onto drugs. The ABB's territory picked back up around the Docks and pushed all of the ways north through Royal Station, and it pushed west until it hit the western trainyard where Merchant territory began. The ABB had total control of the Asian communities there, which was wholly unsurprising.

The Merchants held control of the west trainyard and moved all of the ways east to the Boat Graveyard, though there was a narrow corridor of ABB-controlled businesses that ran from east to west in the form of chop-shops and the like. The Merchants' reach ultimately extended all of the ways west down the coastline through the North Ferry and the Market district, though it was better to say that it was more contested than anything else- all three major gangs pushed and pulled in the area because the Markets were very valuable in terms of cash from protection rackets but also because there were so many customers for their drugs.

New Wave protected roughly three city blocks near their neighborhood but that was about the extent of it unless they were asked to cooperate with the PRT in an operation; something that was done rarely because New Wave didn't want to be seen as compromising their image of being an Independent Hero team, and the Protectorate and PRT didn't want to be seen as weak by requesting aid from Independents. Which rankled me a little bit because the sheer number of Independents in the region was mind-boggling - the Empire, ABB, and Merchants had 20 capes between the three of them, with roughly twenty minor Villains that popped up once every few weeks (or months) and committed some petty burglary and such. However, there were over 35 small-time Heros (or Heroic Rogues) on top of the Protectorate and New Wave.

There were almost 100 capes in Brockton Bay, and that alone was astonishing. I had known that the city was the Cape Capital of the world, but to see it actually for myself was… eye-opening.

It made me pretty happy that I'd set myself up outside of this whole madhouse because I did not want to have to contend with Independents of both Heroes and Rogues alike trying to fuck with me while I was building up to handle the major threats.

There was a small chirp and a buzz from my phone, and that was the reminder that Nugget had set for me. The small bit of Enbee wiped all of the search history and data from the computer before I disconnected him and placed the phone in my pocket with the USB cable, and after that, I returned all of the books to their proper places on the shelves before I moved towards the front desk to meet with Tiffany. I smiled at her, "Did you get everything taken care of?"

The old woman looked up from Tina who was sitting behind her desk, and the young woman who was sitting next to her gave me a thankful look; the poor girl had to listen to two old women gab on for hours, with only a small break for Tiffany to deposit her checks at the bank just down the street. "Yes, I did indeed. Well now, Tina, I need to do some shopping- my nephew has volunteered to help me fix some things around my trailer, so I'll let you go and we'll chat again next time I come around."

"I'm really envious," The graying woman chortled as she adjusted her glasses, "I can barely get my husband to open up a pickle jar, and yet here your nephew is offering to fix your rig up?"

"Well, I happen to know my way around some tools," I gave her a small smile, "But I'm no repairman, so I don't know how much I'll be able to help out. That doesn't mean I couldn't try though- they got instructional videos on how to fix practically anything on YouTube these days."

The pair hugged one more time before we moved out of the Library and back toward the parking lot and climbed into her truck. Tiffany muttered a few curses under her breath and massaged her knees with her weathered and bony fingers. "I haven't stood up like that for a long time. Should have taken the seat when she offered. Did you get what you were looking for?"

I nodded, "Yeah, it was… kind of crazy how my world and, uh, Earth Bet had a very similar history up until Sion showed up in the 80s. Like, one for one, the exact same. Pretty spooky if you ask me."

We chatted back and forth as we moved through Brockton, stopping at the various places on the list to gather the chemicals that were readily available and listed out for the Erskine formula and what Enbee needed to make his two children. The amounts needed were pretty small, but the vast majority of the formula could be synthesized by the Lifegiver once she was built- she would have to because the chemicals could be found in motor oil, drain cleaner, protein powder, chem lights, and a few dozen other different products, albeit in trace amounts. Enbee would pick through the materials and segregate what was needed to make the required doses and the Lifegiver would administer it after she had some time to tinker with it- the original Super Soldier Serum was made by Erskine in pre-WWII Germany in the late 1930s, and it wasn't discovered that Vita Radiation was the key to unlocking it until after Dr. Erskine had been rescued by Agent Carter and brought back to the States.

I'm fairly certain that a Lifegiver with all of the Forerunner's technology could find a way to stabilize it either without Vita Radiation or without needing to make huge amounts of Nitrimine explosives (utilizing Dr. Erskine and Dr. Stark's particular Nitrimine explosive formula that somehow managed to produce Vita radiation simply by existing) because as much as it sounds like some sort of fantastical made up explosive material, Nitrimine was actually a mundane class of organic nitrate explosives.

How they managed to make hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5 triazine, more commonly known by the moniker of RDX, emit radiation is beyond me.

I suppose the more pertinent question would be how did they stumble upon the discovery that this particular radiation had a stabilizing effect on the Erskine formula at all? My mind tried to concoct various laboratory scenarios in which a highly explosive compound would be allowed anywhere near the highly valuable Super Soldier Serum but I kept drawing blanks- the best I could do was just admit that comic book logic was weird and decided not to question it.

The fact that it was an organic nitrogen-based explosive meant that grabbing a dozen bags of nitrogen-rich fertilizer for my "auntie's garden" was pretty easy, and I made sure to pay cash, not that it would possibly stop whatever surveillance network the PRT had on all of the shops in the area. I picked up some seeds and some pots to start a little vegetable garden for the hell of it, and it would help sell the sale, not that the clerk at the desk really cared- the teen just wanted me out of the store so he could go back to fiddling with his phone.

After that, we made a trip to the grocery store and I grabbed everything I'd need for at least a month's worth of food; it cost me almost $350, but that was mainly because I was switching up my diet to something meatier while all of the carbohydrates were for the Huragok; Nugget sent me a message to grab some kiwis which were not only delicious but had a good amount of different trace nutrients that could be… pulled out for the formula? It probably had nothing to do with the fact that Huragoks were a species with a love of sweet things.

The Sweet Tarts and other candies that Nugget urged me to purchase were, in his words, a worthwhile expenditure for speeding up the creation of the Super Soldier Serum. Right.

I rolled my eyes at the shenanigans but accepted it because it was adorable to see the little Enbee on the screen of my phone point towards whatever carb-filled and sugary substances I passed; he practically lost his shit when we hit the breakfast cereal aisle and saw the sheer amount of sugar that was packed into them. I grabbed him one of the super-large "Family" sized bags of the generic Frosted Flakes along with a quart of milk, and I just barely remembered to grab the bags of yeast from the baking section- the newborn 'Goks were going to need to be eating a lot.

Which once again made me scratch my head at the oddness of their species. Not organic at all… but born from organic materials. The Dr. Gero in me wanted to study my buddy under a microscope because the more I thought about it the more I realized that the Huragoks were more like Bio-Androids than anything else, except for the fact that they were made of metals. Ugh. My head hurts.

It was while I was waiting in line at the check-out counter that I felt the Forge spool up and attempt to latch onto a star in the "Skills Magic" cluster. Unfortunately, it wasn't strong enough; it was missing half a charge. Sure, it sucked that I didn't get my first taste of 'motherfucking' magic, but I wasn't that excited about cooking magic anyway; I wasn't Shirou Emiya, after all.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 25.0110 - Ambient Magic: Cooking - 400CP - Circle of Magic - Skills Magic]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 350 CP]

I paid for the food with a grimace as that was almost all of my remaining funds between the fertilizer and other chemical purchases I was down to exactly $27.19.

I tied the plastic bags shut and loaded them into the back of the truck along with everything else and I hopped back into the cab with Tiffany. In the end, I did take the cigarette she offered me as we left the Market district and drove back towards the house. She parked the truck behind my double-wide so that I could walk the items I purchased from the bed onto the deck and into the kitchen Enbee and I had rebuilt.

"Holy shit, you two really did rebuild this whole place," Tiffany muttered out loud as she walked around the kitchen and opened up all of the cabinets while I was loading all of the meat into the fridge and freezer.

"Yeah. Took us like two and a half hours; stripped it to the structural supports and completely remade it." I spoke a little bit louder than I normally would to make sure she heard me over the crinkling of the plastic bags. I made a mental note to have Enbee make me some more cookware out of the scrap behind the house because the place only had a single pot and pan; her ex-husband couldn't cook anything unless it was out of a can, according to Tiffany, so he didn't bother with having a well-stocked kitchen.

Once the groceries were put away I opened up the door to the Workshop and let Neutrally Buoyant out to poot around while we waited for the sun to go down so that he could head into the forest to gather whatever living components he needed to begin making his first two children. I moved the chemicals and fertilizer into the shop and arranged them before heading out into the scrap field at Enbee's direction to collect some junk for the process.

The sun set around 6:30 in the evening, and once all light was gone Enbee and I walked into the woods around the house with a backpack. The Huragok picked a few saplings that I carried in my arms while he filled the bag with tall green grasses and various bushes, some rocks of various sizes, some moss, lichen, and a trio of rabbits that his tendrils had caught as he snaked his tentacles into the warren. "Plbbtt, blt, ppppbbblllttt."

He signed that he had what he needed, but would require a few gallons of water as well- the hydrogen would do in lieu of the helium that I wasn't able to pick up due to my lack of funds; I didn't know how much a helium tank rental would cost, but I was certain it was more than the twenty-seven bucks I had left. I did help him remove the armor that he had on his body to lighten him up though, he would need to donate a fair amount of his own gasses to get the little ones he was making up and floating; he assured me that his tendrils were always extracting trace amounts of the gases from the atmosphere, so his stores would replenish as time went on.

With the organic and inorganic materials all arranged in a semi-circular fashion, my Huragok companion got to work, which started with him removing one of his smaller tentacles at the base and laying it down on the concrete floor of the Hangar.

Not wanting to miss this I hustled out of the workshop and grabbed the folding chair from the card table in the kitchen and jogged back.

The tentacle Neutrally Buoyant donated was thinned out like a sheet until it was so gossamer-like that I would never have been able to see it if it wasn't so reflective. Grasses were picked up and then turned into shreds as fine as angel hair, his scilla unraveling the material was reduced to its individual cells and spread across the donated sheet. Then some junk steel was picked up and reduced into a powder finer than talc, and it was sprinkled across the sheet before the tendrils gently swept over it to remove excess.

He kept repeating this process, over and over again, alternating between organic and inorganic compounds to create some sort of incredibly fine laminate layer. The steaks that I'd given him were broken down into layers of proteins that were woven into a mesh and then threaded through the sheet, though I could only guess because to me it looked like he was a spider spinning silk around, his snakey head tilting left and right as he carefully observed his work. Half an hour into his delicate weaving the shape of a Huragok started to appear, and he asked me through sign language to retrieve a few of the chem lights that I'd purchased.

I ran quickly to the shelving area where I kept those compounds and snatched a handful from the box and brought them over to him. When I asked what he needed them for he signed that he wanted his two children to have a nice glow to them when they awaken; the materials we had on hand, while sufficient for new Huragok life, were not conducive to the natural bioluminescence and would need to be supplemented via the fluids in the chem lights.

A small chuckle escaped my lips as I sat back down and resumed my silent watch.

The first Huragok split the rabbits neatly in half and used the grey matter to build the primary brain; while not exactly ideal, Neutrally Buoyant was able to reformat the neurons into something that would support Lifegiver's fledgling intelligence until her consciousness was fully unlocked once her build was complete; she would be able to replace her organic parts with more efficient and versatile metal bits of her choosing.

It was fascinating to see the skull of the Huragok get constructed in real-time, to see the six beady black eyes put together, and the steel junk get broken down and constructed into what looked to be a paper-thin and hollow skeletal structure.

Half of the chem lights were broken down and his tendrils feathered everything into her new body; along her neck, on the outside of her bulbous sacks, and into the tentacles I could see.

Then the large plastic tubs of water were skooched close by my foot, and Neutrally Buoyant dipped one tendril into it and… I could hear the faint hissing of gas; it sounded like someone was getting their tire filled at one of those gas station air compressors. Over the next ten minutes, I watched the Lifegiver's body expand like a blow-up doll.

At the end of the process, Enbee leaned his neck down and placed his snout to hers, and blew; his sack visibly deflated a bit and hers expanded until she started to float off the ground. The Huragok didn't stop donating until she hovered a good four feet off the ground, just enough that her tendrils were barely touching.

His tendril reached out and gave her body an angular poke, and she bobbed down towards the ground before rising back up to her starting position.

Neutrally Buoyant turned his head towards me and began signing. "T-h-i-s-o-n-e-i-s-S-u-f-f-c-i-e-n-t-l-y-B-u-o-y-a-n-t."

With that, he reached out and touched a tendril to her forehead and the newly named Sufficiently Buoyant began to stir awake.

Subee trilled and made a wide variety of bird-like chirps and tweets, along with some boobles, burps, and bleeps that I would have expected to hear coming from an Astromech droid like R2-D2. The flesh of the Huragok had started out a blueish purple, like her 'father', but as she woke up it slowly began to change into a very pretty pink; the yellow luminescence turning purple and orange.

The pink Huragok began testing her propulsion, pooting and tooting from left to right, forwards and backward all at Enbee's direction. The pair whistled, chattered, and signed at one another rapidly in a discussion that centered around Subee's wake-up diagnostic tests. She picked objects up and put them down, and curled her tentacles and tendrils to test their range of motion and tactility. Once everything was done she hooted and turned toward me, her snakey head and neck curling up in curiosity, and she began signing at me rapidly.

"Ah, yes, I am human, though not a version of humanity you would be familiar with, Subee," I grinned and leaned back in the chair, "I'm guessing you're referring to the humans that the Librarian had your kind looking after?"

Subee tweeted at me and bobbled closer, and I forced myself to relax as her four tendrils came up and started patting at my facial features like a blind person would get a feel for how someone looked. Though I didn't know if blind people actually did that- I'd only read a heavily romanticized fiction story in which the blind woman felt out the face of her love interest. It was incredibly sappy. I loved it.

The weird thing was that I knew she was digging her scilla into my flesh and looking at me in such an intimate fashion- the secrets of my very DNA were open to her, and that was something special. Seemingly satisfied with her initial inspection she booped my nose with her nose before pushing off my body to float back toward her 'father' at his insistent bleating. She seemed to sniff haughtily and they began signing back and forth- Subee thought that checking up on her human was more important than building another Engineer, but she did understand that the materials we had collected would best be used while they were fresh, specifically the organic materials.

At Enbee's request, I left them to their work to go into the kitchen so that I could start working on a very large, very sugary, very yeasty meal for the lot of them. I'd acquiesced because I'd seen the process from start to finish, and thus my curiosity was sated.

I made a whole pot of rice with sweetened milk and half a bag of yeast. It was a very thick slop that honestly had my forearms screaming by the time I had it agitated enough to become a good paste. While I waited for them to finish I cooked a thick steak to medium-rare in the pan with plenty of butter and some garlic, and by the time it had finished resting and I'd cut it into thin slices for myself I was greeted with the sight of three partially deflated Huragok filing out of the lab into the kitchen; they were like a pair of baby elephants- it was absolutely adorable!

Enbee floated through first, the eldest Huragok pooting into the kitchen with some force while Subee held onto his sole remaining tentacle, and the new Huragok held onto her tentacle with his own. I reached into my pocket so that I could snap a photo of them all in a little chain like that.

Purple pooty, followed by Pink pooty, followed by another Purple pooty.

I squealed internally at the sheer cuteness overload. My inner teenage girl just wanted to get them all dressed up. A white nurse hat for Subee, and some little plastic yellow hard hats for Enbee and the other Huragok.

Speaking of the newest newcomer, he signed at me as Enbee had donated most of his tentacles towards the rebuilds. "I-a-m-B-a-r-e-l-y-B-u-o-y-a-n-t."

And he was Barely Buoyant- the poor dear had to be held aloft by Subee and Enbee.

I stood up from my chair and turned it sideways and Enbee gratefully modified the plastic backing so that they could set BB onto it. The youngest trilled his appreciation before looking at the slop I'd divided up between them in little paper bowls.

The trio of Huragok stabbed their faces into their meals with wild abandon, and it made the chef in me smile.

With a huge grin on my face, I picked up my plate and began tearing into my perfectly seasoned steak; salt, pepper, and some garlic powder- no need for anything else.

The Forge spooled up and my eyebrows reached up towards my hairline as it made a grab for multiple constellations at once.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 1.0030 - Stockpiles - 50CP - Assistants - Girl's Frontline]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 400 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 23.0040 - You Runed Everything - 100CP - Elder Scrolls Online - Skills Enchanting]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 300 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 19.0050 - Hoarder's Eyes - 100CP - Touhou Forbidden Hermit - Knowledge Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 200 CP Remaining]

It tried to make another grab after pulling those three small stars into my orbit, but it was not strong enough to make a fourth attempt.

I felt my eyes shift, just ever so slightly.

I looked down at the fork in my hand.

- Object: Fork. An eating utensil used to convey food to the mouth.

It wasn't much, but I had an idea of what an object was and how it was used. This was neat because with all of the equipment and shit I'd be getting in the future just having an idea for what it could be used for would be more than helpful.

The Glyphs came from the Elder Scrolls Universe, but it came from an age that was before most of my knowledge; Skyrim had been my second Elder Scrolls game after Oblivion, but I had been a young boy at the time, and the game I only had for a week due to it only being a rental. My knowledge of the runes came only from what was given to me by the perk- I would have to study the books that came with the enchanting table and decipher the meaning behind the runes myself to advance my craft. It came with a small addition to my workshop, and it actually had all of the runes I would ever need provided to me- they would respawn after a set amount of time depending on the runes chosen. It did have the caveat that I would need to use the runes to make a Glyph, so I could just pull the runes out of the housings and start shelving them.

Probably the most surprising thing, however, was the Stockpile of Ammunition, Parts, Rations, and Manpower that had been dumped into the storage part of my warehouse. Well, it wasn't just storage- it came with an assembly table, tools, computers, and diagnostic equipment needed for me to build my very own Tactical Doll, or T-Doll for short. T-Dolls were androids used by the world to fight conflicts at the behest of Paramilitary Corporations after the militaries of the world all but collapsed in the wake of World War III.

Plans and schematics flooded my mind, and my time as Dr. Gero looked at them with mainly disdain at the crude construction, though he did have great praise for the human emulation programs the AIs that piloted the T-Dolls around used for interacting with humans; he disliked that it was primarily for making it so that T-Dolls and humans could work together better instead of to gain trust so that the foolish could be subverted and destroyed, but my time as the Mad Doctor made me take the good with the bad. Gero thought that the aesthetics of the various T-Doll models could be a fair bit less… fetishistic, but it wasn't like his Androids could blend into a crowd either, with their cooky, overstated designs and blatant Red Ribbon Army paraphenalia.

Already my mind was whirling with possibilities on how to improve the Tactical Dolls with a great many of Dr. Gero's advances in robotics, and with the Hurgoks and the ADVENT tech-base helping me out? I would be able to build some of the most powerful and versatile mobile weapons platorm waifus to have ever graced Earth Bet.

The main issue I had was materials.

Dr. Gero worked with metals that were pioneered by the Briefs- and boy did that rankle him when he had to work through shell companies to purchase the materials to build his Androids- but were modified by him to be receptive to ki, thereby strengthening it to be able to stand toe to toe with a Super Saiyan. He started his work with 18 and 19 because he'd hit a limit on what could be achieved with ki-reactive metals, and started working on Cell once he felt he'd learned enough from their construction to begin his true magnum opus.

So while Gero had experience working with scrap metal in his days before the Red Ribbon Army gained enough financial backers to build his labs, he wasn't happy with it. Granted, with the 'Goks I could hand them ordinary scrap steel and they could re-arrange its molecules and turn it into the highest grade of steel the Forerunners were capable of working with, but it still left a lot to be desired. Though… I did have that cache of supremely rare materials from the Star Wars universe; the Beskar and Cortosis woven into the future T-Dolls would greatly enhance their durability and strength.

I scratched my chin.

The question was would it be enough to help them survive the rigors of Brockton Bay?

It was something to think about after a good night's sleep.

I looked to the three Hurgoks that were around the table. "Okay, I'm going to go to bed, alright? Subee, if there is any time to conduct a thorough inspection of my body, then that is the time to do it. If you can make some tweaks to my physiology to help make me strong, faster, tougher, and the like, then please do so. Also, Enbee, make sure to get a good look at my cranial implant and make some improvements if you would."

It was a lot of trust I was putting in their tentacles, but if the Librarian and the Forerunners trusted them then I would as well.

"Just keep the improvements beneath the surface, okay? I don't need to suddenly gain three feet of height or anything."

Subee trilled and reached out to touch my face, and I patted her feathered appendage with my hand before I returned to my room and stripped down and laid on my bed.

I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

[Mini-Interlude: Sufficiently Buoyant - Subee]

Sufficiently Buoyant, given the nomenclature 'Subee' for the purposes of familiarity and comradery, floated weakly above the bed in which the human she called her Master rested. It was a strange thing, to have another name in addition to her birthing designation, but the Huragok did not mind it- if he wished to call her so then she would respond to it.

Her Master had permitted Subee to run a thorough upgrade routine on him, and that was exactly what she did, but everything started with a thorough diagnostic.

The thin cloth covering he was using to maintain a comfortable body temperature was stripped away and she reached out towards his head with two of her feathered tendrils- the molecular scilla easily slipping through his flesh, bone, and brain tissue to observe and record his cranial activity. The implant that Neutrally Buoyant had informed her of was indeed filling up a small amount of space within his cavity, but she found the installation of this technology to be rather barbaric and wholly amateurish; it might be functional, but it was inelegant and only caused no damage due to the fiat of the Celestial Forge. Enbee, as her Master liked to call her progenitor, had passed along all of his memories, and that included his addition into the Forge as a companion for humans that were given an opportunity to truly ascend into the realms of the Divine.

It was thrilling, for Subee to be working on her race's future Lord, but she kept her excitement in check while she was working on gently shifting the neural networks within her master's brain to be less inconvenienced by the implant. Once she was finished with his biological improvements the Lifegiver would call for her progenitor and they would open their Master's cranium to have the Engineer inspect the device and have it re-installed properly this time.

With her initial observations, she noted that the brain matter was divergent from the Humans that she had cared for in the past under the watchful eye of the Librarian, but that was expected. The neurons were less densely packed, they fired more slowly, and they seemed to die off far more quickly. If she could have clicked her tongue she would have- to see that humanity had degenerated after tens of thousands of years since their seeding annoyed her. She didn't have the vast stores of organic building blocks that the previous Lifegivers of her line enjoyed, so she would just have to make do with the available biomass on hand.

She reached into the DNA of the neurons within the brain and began to alter their genetic structure to match that of the 'Promethean' humans, and when the brain repaired itself the new neurons would grow. Eventually, the improved neurons would replace the old neurons, but that would take months to years, so she tipped the scales in favor of a shorter timespan by dedicating a whole hour to manipulating most of the brain cells into growing into the improved neurological configuration.

When Subee removed her tendrils she estimated between 497 and 498 hours before the changes were completed.

After that, her tendrils probed his neck and spinal column, chest, heart lungs, abdomen, stomach intestines, along with the bones, muscles, ligaments, and everything else. Already she could see that this wasn't the maximum potential of even his current genetics, which were far inferior to the Prometheans, so she got to work.

Skin was peeled back, muscle was unraveled, and bones were deconstructed and then reconstructed to match the strongest structure that calcium-based carbon bone structures could take without causing further health problems. Cartilage was further restructured to provide more cushion and lubrication for the joins, and the tendons and ligaments were altered to give greater reflextion, strength, and flexibility. Then the muscles were reconfigured to provide the greatest strength possible- no doubt he would want further improvements to be made, and Neutrally Buoyant would be happy to assist her in weaving carbon nanotube throughout his body, but that would be for later.

His stomach and intestines were modified to take in nutrients more efficiently, the gut flora adapted to aid in this process and attack poisons and invading viruses and bacteria. As long as he did not consume an acid the possibility of being poisoned by anything other than something more esoteric would be a thing of the past. His blood cells were poked and redesigned to better carry nutrients, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. His White Blood Cells and T-cells were bolstered in their ability to seek out and destroy harmful invaders. His lungs were improved to provide nearly double the ability to capture oxygen and Subee scooped up a small amount of lichen that she had modified to capture particulates like smoke and other things before seeding it within his lungs; her Master and the Lichen would form a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.

She made a mental note to check up on the modifications she made- even with her tens of thousands of years of experience modifying organic life there was always the possibility that it could grow out into a new direction.

From top to bottom Sufficiently Buoyant worked tirelessly - every single bone, joint, ligament, muscle, and organ was modified to slowly change into the humans of old; it would a week or two for all of his changes to be completed, but that was within her expectations. With the Erskine formula enhancing the properties of the person infused with it, having the Promethean human physiology taken to and past its limits would make her Master a formidable warrior, and that would keep him safe.

Subee's head looked away from the feet she was reconstructing and tapped his nose with a tendril.

Subee liked the idea of keeping her Master safe, so that is what she will do.

The pink Lifegiver had just finished the last of his modifications when she called out to her progenitor with a brief trill. Oh, she had forgotten to do his eyes! The Huragok pooted a little bit closer to his head and peeled his eyelids back before her tendrils slipped his eyeballs out of the sockets and disconnected the optical nerves. She remodeled the both of them, but unfortunately, the improvements she was able to make with these structures were less than her personal standards- even the Prometheans didn't have the most optimal eye structure, but there wasn't much she could do about it. At best his visual acuity, after correcting the slight astigmatism, would only triple, and his ability to see colors restored.

The man was color blind to two whole normal spectrums of color- red and green!

That was unacceptable, so she fixed it.

She had just finished the restructuring of the optical nerves to better transmit the new signals and placed his eyes back into the orbital sockets when her progenitor floated in. Subee sank her tendrils into the primary motor cortex and puppeted her master's body onto the floor, getting him seated into a kneeling position before she tensed up his muscles to keep him stable. Subee and Enbee chattered back and forth about the upcoming procedure, and despite her progenitor's dislike for Lifegivers such as herself, he relented that she was the Lead Huragok on this procedure.

The hair and skin on his head were parted and pulled down before the entire top portion of his skull was removed by her skilled tendrils. She guided Enbee through the process of disconnecting the implant, and once it was in his tendrils he deconstructed it and put it back together in a more efficient format- though he did complain about all of the 'backup' features that made the implant so robust in its design.

Subee agreed- if it was designed and made properly in the first place then failure should only come from outside forces.

There had been a moment where Enbee encountered a hostile program within the code that attacked him, but her progenitor isolated the program and then quarantined it; the Huragok cutting off the tip of his last tentacle and holding onto it for further observation. Enbee looked into the vast number of implants that the Forerunners had produced and decided that the current model was capable of running a severely neutered version of the OS and slotted it in place with an emulator program that would still allow it to interface with future technological acquisitions from the 'War Hammer 40k' dimension; it wouldn't do to gain access to their technologies through other perks and immediately be deemed a heretic despite being the Master of the Celestial Forge.

She trilled her agreement.

Neutrally Buoyant fiddled with the structure of the implant a few more times before having it run self-diagnostics, and then he fiddled with it again to eke out a few small percentage gains in performance and durability. Once the improvements were completed they worked together to properly install the implant within his brain. With the procedure, complete Subee placed the top of his skull back onto his head, sutured the cells back together, and placed his skin and hair back into position around it.

His body was puppeted back onto the bed and the sheet was placed back over his body before Subee tweaked his mind to resume its normal sleep schedule.

She also tweaked his hunger a touch to ensure that he would eat the proper amount of nutrients to fuel his body's growth over the next few weeks.

With that completed Subee and Enbee pooted back into the workshop to go over the Erskine formula together. Honestly, it was amazing work for a pre-nuclear civilization, but it was very, very sloppy.

Still, she was a Lifegiver, a servant of the Forerunners who held the Mantle of Responsibility. It was her duty to nurture the life under her purview and to see it blossom- the formula would be highly refined by the time she was done with it, and she wouldn't settle for anything less.

In the background BB pooted around the collection of materials from the Rare Materials cache- she would have to speak to him and Enbee about the possibility of further reinforcing their Master's body with them once his restructuring was complete and the Erskine formula imbibed.

Sufficiently Buoyant would call it the "Sufficiently Buoyant formula".

Yes, that had a nice ring to it.

"Ppppbbbbllllltttt!" Her progenitor tried to veto, but his input was not needed nor wanted.

You guys rock!

A/N: I was right on the 10K line at the end of the chapter, but narratively I didn't want to do another roll. So I will save the new roll for the wake up next chapter.

Also, I don't know a lot about Girls Frontline, but I think I can wiki dive it enough to figure out how the girls function. I have seen the GFL Hentai you know, so I'm practically an expert.

The decision to re-roll if I get a franchise I don't know has been a huge relief, so there is that. Thanks for suggesting it!

The addition of the T-Dolls really changed my early plans for building up robots- if anything it gave him a much better put together kit since he can construct them just from the stockpile provdied, though he's going to do some serious wargaming with the Hurgoks to optimize the T-Dolls abilities before he builds them so that he doesn't waste the limited amount of resources given to him by the Forge; it IS possible to roll it again, but with how many things are in the Forge (even with my truncated list of stuff I do know) the chances of that happening are slim to none.

Gero Expy (Dragon Ball) (200CP)

At least you don't need to have the beard. You're a brilliant scientist, an equal for the infamous Dr. Gero, after he had a bunch of years in HFIL to study more. While you're a genius with just about every field of science on Earth, robotics is where you really shine. Creating Androids and Robots capable of destroying planets or even stars, along with having a huge variety of strange abilities and weird appearances. You're even pretty good about remembering to program them to not kill you, already making you superior to the late Dr Gero. You're also excellent at working with other scientists, combining your proficiencies and knowledge to create significantly greater creations than either of you could manage alone.

Stockpiles (Girl's Frontline) (50CP)

We can't let you set off empty-handed; here's 5000 Ammo, Parts, Rations, and Manpower to get your army started (it takes 30 of each to make a baseline T-Doll, while the most consistently powerful Dolls cost something like 600/400/100/600 for a reliable chance of getting them). Each purchase gets you another 5k.

This is not just normal ammo, parts, rations and manpower, you can combine them to make T dolls which are AI-piloted android fire platforms for military operations. Plus the ethereal 'manpower'.

You Runed Everything (Elder Scrolls Online) (100CP)

Before the development of the Arcane Enchanter in the 4th Era which streamlined enchanting to the point that any novice without even the barest hint of magicka could bind an enchantment, and even before the Guild-standardized enchanting techniques of the 3rd Era which drastically eased the process to a simple matter of shoving stored magicka into an item, the tool of choice for infusing an item with a magical effect was the humble Glyph. A Glyph is a combination of three runes, one inscribed with the potency which determines the base strength and whether it adds or removes, one with the desired attribute to effects such as health or a specific element, and a third designating its aspect, ranging from Common to Legendary. You know enough to be able to use and translate up to Rank Five runes (Pora, Denara, Hade and Idode), with even more becoming available to you as you research and translate more.

Hoarder's Eyes (Touhou Forbidden Hermit) (100CP)

You know the name and function of any object just by looking at it. Only that however, and the function is rather abridged, giving you a fairly brief overview of exactly what it does and nothing beyond that. You should probably try not to make any more assumptions beyond that.

Chapter 4 - The Not-So-Snotty-Boy Glow Up

A/N: So yeah, apparently the free Grammarly I was using has a word limit of 18,000 words. Prrreetttyyy interesting.

So I had to pick a better stopping point for it and settle for 17k words instead. I was hoping to get to the Super Soldier Serum and the building of the first T-Doll this chapter, but I suppose you'll all just have to suffer and wait until tomorrow. Considering I've been awake for over 24 hours at this point writing I'm going to go pass out for a few hours and then come back and finish this chapter off.

Trust me, I was super ampd to write, but when I saw the "Oops! Looks like you've exceeded the document size, Tee-hee!" message I wanted to scream. LOL But I guess some sleep wouldn't be amiss- I think I started slipping, but I don't know if it was bad or not. Let me know if it descends into unreadable gibberish will yah? My eyes see it as fine, but I've been wrong before (so has Grammarly).

[January 6th, 2011]

[Jason Wilke]

I woke up.

Spoiler: Glow Up Jam

Well, it would be more accurate to say that I glowed up.

It was instant, really, the moment my eyes opened up I felt just how different my body was, and I instinctively knew just how much Subee had changed me since I went to sleep last night. A lot of that was due to the implant feeding me tons of information about my current physical state- everything in my body was linked together through the implant. If I broke, tore, or damaged something I wouldn't know that I was injured beyond pain, however, now I would know the exactly what the damage was and given a rough timeframe on when my new healing factor would repair the damage; if what the implant was telling me was true then most injuries would be self-correcting as my body now had a genetic memory as to what the state of my body should be- bones and things should realign as long as the damage wasn't too severe.

I could also now see color. I could see all the colors. I struggled with my Red/Green colorblindness since I was a boy, and had to compensate for differentiating them by telling apart the shades of gray- it was what allowed me to stay in the army as long as I did; when I was going in they were being very picky with who they accepted. So I spent a few hours every so often with the pre-made painter's sticks that had differing shades just so I could pass the in-processing tests. That and I managed to get one of the colorblindness tests that I'd failed previously at another civilian optometrist's office, so knowing the answers to the pages made all of the difference.

However, those days were far gone. I could see. I could see everything. My vision was stellar- easily three times sharper and clear, though it did fall short of my expectations; but I guessed that this is the genetic limit of the tools I currently had. I remember Gunny Buck talking about being able to read the fine print on paperwork from the opposite side of the room after his SPARTAN-IV augmentations, and while my sight was drastically improved, I was a good bit away from that.

I walked into the bathroom and I saw myself for the very first time; the hints of subcutaneous baby fat on my face that I hid with my beard were still there, which was annoying but I figured that there would be a reason for it. Just like there would be a reason for the fact that the fat on my gut was still present even though I was absolutely muscular as fuck. My volume or size didn't increase at all, and the fat that was under my skin was still present, but with the way my musculature changed it really stood out. My muscles were less bodybuilder and more like steel cables- they even had a texture to them that felt corded and ribbed.

I took a long, hot shower, taking time to run through my mind literally every single modification that Subee documented and downloaded into my implant. I was a little surprised that she added some sort of modified bio-lichen film to my lungs, but she stated in her notes that it greatly aided in aerobic and anaerobic respiration, could capture toxins and smoke, and synthesize them into harmless products that I could hawk up at a later time. It also protected me against drowning, though I wouldn't be able to breathe water, the lichen could synthesize enough oxygen to keep my brain going even after my body perished; extending any potential rescue party hours to save me instead of mere minutes.

The fat was kept on my body to serve as a caloric buffer- my body was incredibly enhanced now, but despite that my daily caloric intake was only about 40% higher due to how efficient my new body's design was; I was easily four times stronger than another man at my body weight, and my reflexes were five times faster due to the fact Subee completely redesigned my neurological systems along with everything else. The weird thing was that I wasn't experiencing any sort of slow-motion effect like I would have expected, but that was because my body and brain were in perfect (near-perfect, it was still meatware) synchronicity, so there was no jarring disconnect between what I was seeing and how my brain was processing the signals.

Subee's notes included an explanation that over the next few weeks I would continue to improve until the cellular replacement process had completed itself.

There was probably some sort of 'Ship of Theseus' dilemma that I could trip over, but honestly? I didn't really care about that shit. As long as my mind was my mind, then it didn't matter if the old body was gone. The experiences of Dr. Gero and the Dead Space Engineer were separate from mine- there was a wall between me and them, and that allowed me to gain their knowledge and experience without allowing them to color who I was. As long as that barrier was maintained then I wouldn't mind waking up in an objectively better, faster, stronger, sexier body.

Though I was disappointed that my cock and balls remained exceptionally average. I mean, sure, I understand that average means average, but if I was going to have a super-human body, then the carpets should match the drapes!

I utilized the functions of the implant to ping my resident Lifegiver and scheduled an appointment with my healthcare provider to get a dick upgrade. She sort of blew it off, stating that it was more than adequate for reproductive purposes. I insisted. Then she reminded me that the Ersk- Sufficiently Buoyant formula would more than likely solve those problems to begin with, and if I enhanced my baseline now then I might grow to be too large for females to accommodate.

It was a valid point.

Also, she was incredibly smug about the renaming of the formula, but honestly? I didn't really care- we were working on it together, but unlike her, I couldn't directly synthesize the formula molecule by molecule by 'hand' so to speak.

It was pretty neat though, being able to talk to my Hurgoks through the implant versus reading their sign language; they didn't so much speak through the link as there were impressions, ideas, and data. I could understand it though, so it wasn't much of a barrier.

I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist and threw another few cups of rice into the pot so that I could start on the Huragok's breakfast while I re-heated the half of the steak I didn't eat last night in the kitchen's lone pan; while the food was re-heating I moved back into the bedroom and got dressed into some more modest work-related clothes- a simple blue t-shirt, some blue jeans, and my work boots. When the steak was hot again I cracked a half-dozen eggs into the pan and stirred them up, adding a splash of milk to make them nice and fluffy.

The yeasty meal for the Huragoks was put together again, though I cut the yeast in half and doubled the sugar- Enbee was happy to report that the colony that the three of them had ingested was performing wonderfully in aiding in the regulation of their gasses, but some additional microbes wouldn't go amiss; soon we would be able to cut out the yeast entirely once their floatation ballasts reached capacity- then they would be prepared to create more Huragoks.

I thought about possibly putting that on hold simply because I didn't have enough work for a bunch of 'Goks to do to keep them from getting bored, but Enbee assured me that everything would be fine; things would only get better with more Engineers. He did say that more Lifegivers would only bring complications, but I had a feeling that it was just because Subee was a touch snooty, but in a cute pink-gas-bag sort of way and wouldn't cause any problems. I could handle a little sass.

The stirring of the slop was monumentally easier this time around, and my forearms were only slightly sore instead of being borderline dead. I rang the mental breakfast bell and Enbee, Subee, and BB puttered into the kitchen with a trill of greetings that I responded to by giving the Engineers a gentle pat on the head while the pink Lifegiver stretched her neck out for a nose-to-nose boop. "Pllllbbtt!"

Enbee complained about her familiarity but she tutted and signed that her station as my primary caregiver gave her certain privileges as outlined by the Lifegiver Codex- a codex approved by the Librarian herself. If he had problems with that then he could float off into the stratosphere and pop.

Judging from the context I could only interpret that as an analog for 'go jump off a bridge' considering what a low-pressure environment like the upper atmosphere would do to his floatation ballasts.

BB though was content to ignore the byplay and eat his breakfast- he was super chill. I liked him.

I heard a knock on the backdoor just as I sat down with my plate, and I stood up from the chair that had been fixed sometime during the night and walked over to the door; I cracked it and saw Tiffany.

"Good morning, 'Auntie'," I smiled as I opened the door wide and admitted her inside, the old woman wearing a powder blue dress along with a hand-knitted coat that came down to her ankles.

"Heh, the truck started right up this morning, no problems whatsoever! The air conditioning and heater also work- did you fix them last night?" Tiffany stepped inside out of the chilly morning air and walked into the kitchen, the woman was somehow unsurprised at the sight of two more Huragoks, "What's the deal with the pink one?"

Subee raised a tentacle and gave her a little wave, which Tiffany returned with a bemused lilt on her lips.

"To answer your questions in order: Yes, Enbee tooted around your truck and fixed everything on it, and even improved it quite a bit; nothing that will stand out to the average mechanic if you went to go get it serviced, so you shouldn't have any worries on that front. Secondly, that is Sufficiently Buoyant, or 'Subee' for short. She is what is called a 'Lifegiver'," I walked around her and headed towards the kitchen counter, "Coffe? Tea?"

She shook her head, "No thanks, I already had some."

"Anyways, the purple ones are Engineers- they work on mechanical things and can deconstruct, understand, and repair virtually anything they get their tendrils on. The Lifegiver is just the organic version of an Engineer-" Subee chirped in indignation, as if I was suggesting that the Lifegiver line was merely an organic Engineer, "She refers to herself as an artisan, a sculptor, a steward, and a caretaker of all organic life. She has a bit of an ego, but that's something I can deal with; she does do good work."

The pink and white snakey head bobbed up and down, pleased with the description, meanwhile, Enbee spluttered and rolled his head in exasperation. Tiffany crossed her arms underneath her chest, "So she's a bit of a pretty princess that can do no wrong?"

The sarcasm was impossible to miss, but Huragoks did not care to understand it- Subee nodded her head happily at her words.

The princess quickly finished off her meal before she pooted around her progenitor's body, making sure to bump against him, and extended her tentacles out to the elderly woman. Tiffany arched an eyebrow but allowed herself to be pulled towards the couch where the Huragok sat her down and then pulled the lever to raise the legs and lower the back so that she was fully stretched out. "She going to heal me or something? Like Panacea?"

"I don't know who Panacea is, but yes, she wants to at least examine you," I said between bites of my steak and eggs, "I don't know if you want to be healed or not, made younger, stronger, etc, etc."

"Heh, that tickles a little bit," Tiffany muttered as she laid still and calmly let the tendrils feather over her body with her eyes closed, "Well, I never thought about it before. I'm old. I've lived a long time. Outlived my ex-husband and all three of my children; only got my granddaughter left now. My sister is still kicking, but it's pretty much the same for her as well. Don't got much to live for, if I'm being honest."

I felt my stomach dip a little bit at her words. Can't say I didn't feel the same before. Natural, I suppose.

"Been just living every day like I'm waiting to die." She huffed a little bit, "Sort of sad when you think about it, but it's not like it changes anything; you are born, you grow up, you grow old, and then you die. It's how it's always been and it's how it always will be; there is no changing that simple fact."

I felt the Forge spool up and latch onto a small star from the "Small Scale Mundane" constellation, but I shoved it off to the side so that I could pay attention to my elder's words.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 9.0060 - Nanomaterials Sieve - 100CP - Arpeggio of Blue Steel - Mundane Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 200 CP Remaining]

"It's not like I don't want to be young and beautiful again, but at this point I've lived more years as a crone than I have as the gorgeous lass; I frankly don't know what I'd do if I'd woke up one morning and found myself young again," Her head moved from side to side as Subee's tendrils left her face, her eyes were still closed, "Other than cause you some troubles; there would be no explanation as to how I reverted again, and that? Well, I don't think I could do that to you- you've been a good young man from what I can tell, and I think I have your measure."

"We've only known each other like two days though- is that really enough time?"

Tiffany barked a small laugh, "Come on, you should know that your first impressions of people are more often than not right; you have a sixth sense as a person that can help you sniff out troublesome people- its only those that are really good at deceiving that can surprise you. If you meet someone and instantly hate them because they feel sleazy or untrustworthy then that's just how you feel. You have to try and suppress that on purpose, to look the other way when your instincts are telling you that the person you're talking to is trouble. Do you understand? If I'm just an old woman rambling then let me know, but I think I've lived long enough on this earth to know a thing or two."

"Well, I don't think you're 100% right, but you're certainly not wrong; there is always grey areas here and there, and sometimes your 'sixth sense', as you put it, is wrong, but at that point it's just arguing semantics." I polished off the remainder of my breakfast and gathered up the paper bowls before stacking them back up next to the sink- they always clean and repair their plates; so cute! "Though, if living longer isn't your plan, then maybe a small tune-up or something? Repair your joints, fix your bowels, maybe remove the tar and crap from your lungs? Just some quality of life improvements?"

"Heh, then I could enjoy smoking for the first time again," She wheezed in a chuckle, "Sure, why the hell not? I haven't taken a good shit in years now, and my arthritis makes moving around hard. You think you can do that, Pinkie?"

Subee didn't even speak as her feathered tendrils worked across Tiffany's body, and in ten seconds her limbs were withdrawn, and the old woman righted the couch chair before standing up. Her joints popped, and when she straightened herself out Subee's tendrils rose up and grasped her shoulders before bracing her other tendrils against her middle back; with a sharp tug Tiffany's spine was straightened out with a loud crack, and the hunch that I hadn't even paid attention to was straightened out. "Lord almighty!"

The slight bit of apprehension that had been on her face disappeared as she raised and lowered her hands and arms; her fingers opened and closed and she flexed her knees and hips. "Why, I feel twenty years younger! Nothing hurts anymore, and-! Do you mind if I use your restroom?"

"You are more than welcome to, Tiffany," Subee sent me a report about her colon; it had been on the verge of being impacted so she loosened everything up and injected a little bit of extra water to help get everything flowing again.

Thank you, Subee. That is exactly what I wanted to know about.

The pink Huragok preened at the sarcastic praise.

I finished washing the pot and pan and set them off to dry before I walked through the doorway into the workshop and moved into the storage area where a rectangle made of a lustrous blue metal sat; the box was about six inches deep, two and a half feet long and one foot wide. As the perk stated it was indeed a sieve- there were at least twenty different mesh layers that I could see, and if this did what I think it did then… it would likely solve a lot of my material problems; at least on the small scale. Nanomaterials were the catch-all term used for building the "Fog" ships- they took on the properties of whatever material was needed, and could essentially be slathered onto a spot where repairs were needed and it would mimic whatever was missing.

It could take on the properties of all known mundane materials to my knowledge, but whether it could accurately be used to the alloys the Forerunners used was beyond me. Or even the Star Wars materials for that matter. I would have to gather some to let the 'Goks take a look at it.

The only downside of this was that it required seawater or sand to work- specifically beach sand.

I thought about the logistics of traveling down to either of the beaches but discarded it- far too open and visible. I would probably be ignored for a good while, but I would eventually attract attention if I was observed pulling a pound of nanomaterials out of every scoop of sand or water. It would be best if I instead headed east, no doubt the other road would take me someplace isolated near the coast where I could skim the waters without any hassle.

The issue I had right now was cash- I needed cash for fuel, and-

I about damn near smacked the teeth into the back of my throat with how hard I facepalmed.

I turned my head and called out to Neutrally Buoyant over my shoulder as I flipped the sieve over and examined its underside. "Hey! Enbee!? Do you have plans for the UNSC's water to hydrogen power generator? I need to get one of these vehicle hulks up and running because I'm going to have to do a lot of driving around, and I don't have a lot of cash on hand for gasoline."

The UNSC had long since figured out how to create a machine that could take water, convert it to hydrogen, and then burn that hydrogen to create electricity, and do it with an output that was significantly higher than the power needed to separate the hydrogen from the water. There were many tales of marines dumping brackish or muddy water into the tanks of their Warthogs and they continued to keep chugging until they were able to be serviced by some very unhappy technicians; no doubt removing scum and dirt from the internals was a tiring and thankless job.

If I could get my hands on that then I could simply fill the truck's tank up with water!

He tweeted at me.

No, he did not, but he did have a Forerunner model that was incredibly dated that could be modified to accept being attached to the antiquated drive train on the F100 out behind the house.

Nice. The real question was did we have the raw materials to make it?

The answer to that question was no, we did not. Fuck. Okay, the nanomaterials should fix that, right? I could only hope.

"Okay, I'm going to experiment! First, I need a large tank-like backpack that I can use to store the nanomaterials in, then I'm going to go down to the beach or near the water and try and collect some of this stuff." I worked up a quick design in the implant of a paper-thin steel rectangle that could fit inside a backpack that would be fabricated from my current backpack and my duffle bag. Enbee and BB looked at the plans and they went back and forth between each other with proposed design changes and reinforcements to make sure the bag's wear and tear were kept to a minimum; Subee interjected a few times to add certain features like lumbar support and better cushioning for the shoulder and waist straps. Enbee was sullen at her propositions but relented when the Lifegiver explained that comfort and reduced fatigue was important.

By the time I walked out of the warehouse the completed bag was sitting right in front of me, complete with a large pocket to hold the sieve itself as well as an insulated steel lunchbox and two 1-liter water bottles; Subee was adamant that I cook a large steak and some eggs before I left so that I could keep up the nutritional intake required for my new cells to continue their rate of reproductive growth and replacement.

I, of course, listened to my super-duper-from-the-future physician as she wasn't pushing me to take all sorts of narcotic drugs instead of treating the root cause of my ailments; Subee actually had my best health in mind, and she was just the cutest little pootie to ever tootie!

"So," I murmured to Tiffany, who had just exited the bathroom with a relieved look on her face, as I placed the pan I just washed back onto the burner and pulled out two 12oz strip steaks, "What are your plans for the day, ma'am?"

"Well, I was thinking of just sitting around the house, but since my joints don't bother me anymore I think…" She paused as I threw some salt, pepper, and garlic powder on one side before seasoning the other, "I think I'll go for a nice walk. There is a little hiking trail about a half-mile down the road I used to go to all the time; some sun, fresh air, and the sounds of nature is something I'd like to experience again."

"That is actually pretty nice," I spoke softly as I moved about the kitchen, "Maybe I'll join you on your next walk?"

We settled into a companionable silence as I cooked.

The oil in the pan sizzled as I tossed the two steaks on and gave them a good sear on both sides before I dropped the temperature. In the pot I had some water boiling- I was going to hardboil my eggs this time since I already had them scrambled this morning. I pulled out a large plastic bowl and tossed in some ice cubes from the little freezer tray before filling it with some water.

The steaks were done in ten minutes, but the eggs took a fair bit longer; not that it mattered, the meat had to rest a little bit and cool off so that the juices would congeal just a touch- didn't want those succulent juices running away once I cut it open!

Actually…

"Hey, BB, are you doing anything right now?" A soft hoot came from the lab and the purple Engineer floated into the kitchen with a poot, "Could you cut these steaks up for me? 1-inch cubes, and when the eggs are done boiling could you remove the shells and place them in the water bath?"

He whistled happily as his tendrils touched the meat and they fell apart into perfect little bite-sized pieces that didn't leak a single drop of juice; I could only guess that he did some molecular bullshittery to make that happen. I dumped the meat into the metal lunchbox and sealed it shut with the clamps before leaving the kitchen and heading into my new bedroom to grab my basketball shorts and crocs; if I was going to find a small beach or wade into the water I certainly didn't want to wear my boots and jeans.

Also, yes , I did have crocs. They might be ugly as sin but they were great shower shoes to have when you shared the same shower with twenty other dudes all year round.

The Forge grew hot and it reached out for a star within the "Time" cluster, and while it didn't have enough charges to bring it in, I was able to glean a bit of information about the perk I missed out on.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0250 - Into The Future - 400CP - Galactic Civilisations II - Time]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 300 CP]

It essentially allowed me to look at a technology that I wanted to develop and would give me more or less an idea as to how long the research/construction/testing/production would take until I had a completed end product. It would have been incredibly useful, though it felt a touch weak for a 400CP perk; but sometimes knowing how long something took to get up and running could be the difference between success and failure in a time crunch.

I pushed the perk out of my thoughts as I took care of a few odds and ends while I waited for the meal to finish. There was a brief discussion with Subee about the proposed changes to the Erskine formula, and after that, I transcribed the processes that Dr. Erskine and Dr. Anthony Stark made to the Nitrimine formula that got it to produce the Vita Radiation. With the organic components from the fertilizer and around the local flora and fauna, they should be able to create enough of the radiation-emitting RDX to give the Lifegiver a large enough sample for her to experiment with. There would be live animal tests on squirrels, rats, mice, and rabbits before she would even think to test her proposed changes on me, and while that made the animal lover in me feel some type of way, the animals in question were pest species for a reason. It wasn't like we would be testing on cats and dogs, or heaven forbid people- in the end, I valued my life over the lives of rats, so I allowed it.

Soon enough the eggs were ready and BB handed over the compacted cube of eggshells to Subee who disassembled it with great interest. I loaded up the pack and hefted it, taking a second to marvel at how light the thing was before cinching up the straps and grabbing my phone. I corraled the Huragoks back into the workshop after getting a bunch of scrap metal brought in for the Engineers to play with; there was a brief moment where I thought about cannibalizing the F-15E in the Hangar for parts, but that was quickly discarded.

I was going to keep the thing classic- Huragok tune-ups only- and then one day I would strap into a pilot suit and fly the mother fucker! Still, I didn't know how to pilot it, but I'm pretty certain the Engineers could fashion a flight manual complete with a ground school that I could take. In fact, while I was thinking about it, I asked Nugget to see if he couldn't procure me an F-15E tech manual as well as the coursework for a legitimate ground school. While Nugget wasn't an infiltration AI, he was more than capable of running rings around the cyber security of the current age, and while the Department of Defense is still considered important, they are the red-headed step-child of the red-headed stepchildren in this world where Capes reign supreme; I doubted their systems were up to snuff, at least when it came to For Official Use Only - FOUO low-classified stuff like a tech manual for a 26-year-old aircraft.

Hell, for all I knew there was a copy of it on the internet already- I know I kept a whole bookmark list for all of the Army Field and Technical Manuals that I needed to open up during my time.

I did ask them to make an interface for my implant though- no reason to not have that!

After ushering my floating kiddies in I closed up the lab and pocketed the key. I escorted Tiffany down to her trailer, and before I left she had me input her landline number for her telephone into my cell; I made a mental note to get her a cellphone, even if it was just a cheap burner so that she could have something to take with her on her walks- I wasn't about to let an old woman who helped me out (and didn't blow my face off) go out alone in the future if I could help it.

So with that, I set off at a brisk walk, with only the sounds of my pack rustling and the wildlife around me.

It took me less than half an hour to make it back to the junction on the outskirts of the city limits with a nice, easy jog that I felt like I could maintain for forever and a day- it would have been wonderful to have this suped-up body during my time in the Army; cardio was not my strong suit.

I took the left road and followed it to the natural conclusion about two miles down; it appeared to be a service road for some sort of access tunnel that was surrounded by tall fencing. What the tunnel was for or where it lead to I didn't know, but I made a note of it anyway; the fencing was extremely rusted and weathered, and the door itself looked like it was rusted shut. From what I could see there were no obvious signs of life anywhere, and the caked-on dust and dirt looked to be undisturbed. Whatever is here hasn't been seen in a long time, though the service road could have told me as much with the huge cracks and potholes that would preclude anything but a four-wheel-drive pick-up truck with some serious suspension from passing.

The underbrush around the station was thick and untamed, but the water was within sight, so I moved past the fencing, keeping a lookout for cameras, but the two cameras I did see were busted all to shit; one looked to have been shot out while the other had a tree fall on it across the fence and knocked it out of its housing. I worried my lip for a moment before I decided to walk around the building. The moment I cleared the backside of the concrete structure I saw a steel door with a rusted handle and a steel padlock that looked to have seen better days.

I slipped my backpack off and grabbed the bottom of the chainlink fencing before giving it a sharp tug; a few of the thin metal ties that kept the fence in place along the guidewire between two of the fenceposts snapped and I grinned broadly as I slipped under the gap I made and crawled onto the concrete pad. With a brief moment of exertion, I popped myself up onto my feet, though I misjudged the amount of strength I was putting into it and almost landed on my ass; only the chainlink that my hands caught behind me prevented me from hurting myself.

Note to self: Test newfound strength.

I pulled the key out of my pocket and strode up to the door and slipped it in before activating the key; I was able to pull the door open just enough to slip my fingers behind it before the latch and padlock prevented me from opening it any further. I put my boot up on the concrete and maneuvered myself into position so that I could pulllllllllllllllllllllllllll-.

The lock, despite its age and rust, remained strong, but the thin metal latch and the rivets holding it onto the steel doorframe was weak. The door was yanked open with a guttural sound, and I couldn't help but feel like a fucking caveman as I flexed my mighty muscles, " Rrraaaaggghhhh! I am too strong for that door to hold me back!"

Subee was hovering over the rare materials cache from the Star Wars universe, and she rolled her whole head 360 degrees at my antics; as if a 180-degree head roll wasn't enough to properly display her exasperation.

Hey.

I beat that door.

Don't take that away from me.

"Enbee or BB, come with me, please! I just need one of you!" Enbee was busy, but BB was only reconfiguring one of the Strike Eagle's P F100-PW-229 engines and thusly was free.

It still took him a whole minute to poot his way over to me, and I held out my hand which he took in his longest pair of tentacles so that I could pull him through. I shut the door and removed the key. BB was looking around at everything curiously, his six beady sensors taking in everything around us. "Okay buddy, I need you to undo the lock on the door so that I can see what this place is."

His tendrils had the door unlocked and opened before I even had the chance to finish my sentence. I raised my eyebrows but nodded as we opened the door fully and stepped inside. The air was damp and musty, but it appeared to be some sort of control room if the old computers and CRT displays were anything to go by. I focused my sight and looked at the control panel that had the most switches and knobs.

"Flood Control Station Panel - A panel with the controls needed to operate the flood prevention systems of South Brockton." It didn't give me much more than that, but I had a vague idea as to what this was and how it worked- it was connected to the sewer systems and had storm gates that allowed for excess water to flow back into the ocean.

The place was built in 1994 if the faded steel plaque next to the door was any indication, but obviously, it had been forgotten about. The only thing I could guess was the economic downturn and the dockworker riots that followed years later probably forced the city to pinch its purse strings and cut budgets. The flooding gates were probably just locked in the 'open' position and the place was closed up to be consigned to the dustbin. Regardless, there was a lot of electronic in here, and the 'Goks could get far more mileage out of it; no sense in it just sitting here. I pulled the door shut and opened it back up to the warehouse and ordered BB to deconstruct everything in the room and bring it inside while I investigated the back room.

The white light of the entry hall was more than enough to illuminate everything, and the second room was revealed to be a small breakroom of some kind with a small fridge, a microwave, a table, and some corkboards with a bunch of maps posted. A closer look at the maps showed the entire sewer system for the lower Brockton Bay area, along with the locations of the storm doors and various service rooms that dotted its length. On the board was a yellow sheet of college-ruled paper, and written in faded black ink I was just barely able to read what was written on it.

"Tommy, how about you check your fucking answering machine for once in your life? If you did you'd know that our whole office has been cut. Not that we didn't see this coming, but if you do read this then lock up the building and return to the BB Public Works office and hand over your keys.

I hope you updated your resume as I told you to because none of us are getting a transfer into the other departments.

~Dave."

The Forge spun up and made another attempt. Just like last time it was incredibly close but was one charge short. The perk was very large and complex enough that I didn't get enough of a feel for its full capabilities- just that it would have been an incredible force multiplier if I could have combined it with Dr. Gero's knowledge of bio-androids.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 27.0440 - My Experiments - 500CP - Lilo and Stitch - Crafting Biotech]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 400 CP]

I took a picture of the map and had Nugget clean it up and format it for an overlay so that I could access it through my implant- no doubt being able to move through the sewers would save me a lot of trouble if I needed to get through the city undetected; at least the parts of the sewers that weren't near the PRT building- they no doubt had all sorts of tinkertech sensors and shit. The same would probably be said for the Medhall building, but I doubted the ABB and Merchants had any sort of presence underground unless it was to smuggle captured women for their trafficking operation or to keep warm in the colder months; the sewers were often a fair bit warmer than ambient if you could stomach the smell.

I grabbed the folding table and the folding chairs and brought them into the entrance hall- no reason to not have more working surfaces, and it was a fair bit newer than the card table I was currently using in my double-wide.

I ended up helping BB move out a lot of the larger things because while he was quickly on his way to recovery, he hadn't quite managed to fill his ballasts enough to move the heavier things. His tendrils cut a clean line and I picked it up; the computers, monitors, control panels, and even the telephone on the wall were hefted by my muscular arms and moved inside. The two Engineers would sort it all out and deconstruct it into their base components for future building.

With the door to the warehouse secured shut I left the small concrete building and closed it behind me before slipping back under the fence. I made a mental note to have the two engineers come out during the night to tear down all of the fencing; this was a lot of free metal just rusting- would be a shame not to use it.

I used the pad to change out into my basketball shorts and crocs and moved into the woods towards the coastline. It wasn't a beach, instead, it was rockier with a number of trees hanging over the waters of the Atlantic ocean; the currents appeared to be pretty slow with how the leaves on the surface gently twirled as the waves lapped against the water-worn stones. With careful steps I moved down towards the water away from the trees, hopping from rock to rock until I got to a semi-flat stone that was large enough for me to sit down on with my pack beside me.

Wait, what was the temperature of the Atlantic ocean in January?

"40 degrees Farenheight, Portsmouth, NH," Nugget supplied to me through my implant, and he also tacked on that he found the tech manuals I was looking for in addition to the entirety of the New York School of Aviation's Ground School program. He started the download and I felt my brain tickle as words, pictures, and instructional videos were converted into Forerunner scripts that seamlessly began stitching the information into my brain. That was cool as shit. I quickly set him out to find more things that would be helpful- science and math textbooks from the collegiate level and on; he would cross-reference the texts for me and ensure that I was only getting pertinent information. While these would be mundane maths and sciences, at least they would give me a foundation upon which the future perks could build upon.

The tickle upgraded to a slight itch. Weird.

Regardless, I sat down on the rock and felt the cold Atlantic waters soak into my basketball shorts and underwear, and as it did so my testicles began a swift retreat. Yeah, this water was cold- 40 degrees my ass!

With the clasps on my pack undone I pulled out the sieve and bent over on my knees into the water, scooping up the brackish greenish, brownish water and bringing it back up to settle onto the rock. The water stayed there. It didn't move at all. That is… odd?

I picked the sieve up carefully and looked at the bottom, and there weren't any switches of anything so… do I need to shake it? I gave it a quick shake and sure enough, the water flowed out, and a small gasp left my lips as my lower body was covered in cold-ass seawater; I didn't stop shaking though, and instead used the discomfort to shake the fucking thing faster.

Within a few seconds, I heard the sound of shifting sands, and once the water had evacuated the sieve I was left with a steel-gray colored sand- the nanomaterials. I tilted the edge of the sieve into the steel container and tapped the corner of the box until it was empty.

Shit. This was going to take a long time, wasn't it?

The nanomaterial was quite dense- a single cup was indeed roughly about a pound in weight, which was in line with the description that the perk provided. The container itself could hold roughly 120 pounds of nanomaterial, and it took me about ten seconds to sift each pound and pour it into the pack; it was monotonous and incredibly boring, but since this was a building-related task, the "I Can Whip Something Up" perk kicked in and prevented me from growing bored or even exhausted. Even with my enhanced physiology, there was probably a limit to how many times I could feasibly sift through a thousand pounds of water or more, as each scoop of water was pretty hefty.

It took me 20 minutes to fill the pack up one time, and I went back and forth between the water and the door to dump my load off in the entrance hall- the 'Goks made sure the pile was gone by the time I returned, so I didn't feel too bad; if anything the Engineers were quite excited about the material with the experiments they'd been running. I told them to keep it to themselves until I got back- I just wanted to focus on getting the nanomaterials first; that and with the science and math textbooks being downloaded into my brain the ability to just veg out with this boring but engaging physical labor was quite nice. It was like the dopamine hit when you rolled a gacha in one of those cash-grab games; every time I dipped my sieve into the water and came up with valuable materials I was stoked.

Three hours and nine trips later I'd gathered over 1,200 pounds of nanomaterial, but rather than pack it up I decided to break for lunch. I grabbed my pack and sieve and moved back into the woods and looked for a nice mossy rock to sit on before I cracked open my lunchbox- I was a bit surprised to see the meat was still nice and warm, but I didn't marvel at it for too long and instead chose to dig in; the succulent fatty juices were perfectly captured by BB's monomolecular cuts- I should open up a restaurant and have some 'Goks run it. I'd make bank if they could serve up Prime grade steaks that tasted like this.

Funnily enough, I was able to not only finish up both steaks but the six hard-boiled eggs were polished off as well with little issue; if anything I felt like I could eat quite a bit more!

With my little half an hour break over I got back down to the waterside and began sifting again.

The sun went down around 6:30, and once it was completely gone by 7:00 PM I went back up to the door and opened the workshop up and let out the… six Hurgoks- there was another Lifegiver, and while they looked a touch drained they didn't look nearly as bad as Enbee did when he filled up BB and Subee. Subee and Alpha were the Lifegivers while Enbee, BB, Echo 1, and Echo 2 were the Engineers. I had them tone down their bioluminescence and come down with me to the water so that they could refill their ballasts with whatever gasses they could pull from the seawater.

Subee and Alpha were more than happy to cut down a few trees and make a little wooden platform for me down by the water so that I wouldn't have to sit on a cold, wet rock anymore. Sure, my feet dangled in the water, but it was a lot easier on my back to no longer be hunched over. I had the Engineers collect the fencing from around the building as well as the steel posts, but Subee insisted that they take some of its length and turn it into a fishing corral about fifty feet across; the Lifegiver was adamant that I gain additional nutrition from the fish that could be caught.

Honestly, I didn't disagree with her, as I knew that my caloric requirements would only grow higher the more my body changed, and if we could supplement that with free fish then why would I spend money? It wasn't as if the Lifegivers couldn't pull anything harmful out of the meat so… I let them do it. The fencing was deconstructed and then put back together to mimic those fishing traps, and the housing was kept a neutral color that was still visible to fish with pretty clear entrances and exits; Sufficiently Buoyant modified a small tree to grow underneath the water and glow lightly enough so that it would attract fish- it even had little silver wrigglers that flowed in the motion of the ocean.

A net was crafted from the steel that could be pulled up by a rope and pully attached to a tree they had manipulated to branch out over the water, and then I could come back every couple of days to check on the catches; any fish I caught could be given to Subee. She and the other Hurgok Lifegiver, Alpha, chatted about the different ways they could modify the fish to grow larger while still keeping their caloric requirements very low- if they did that then they could maximize the amount of meat I could eat!

They were so cute!

I squealed internally as I got back to shifting nanomaterial from the water while Echo 2 held my flashlight up to provide me with some light; with my new eyes I didn't need much- just a candle's worth was able to let me see pretty clearly into the gloomy waters of the Atlantic.

I worked well into the evening, only stopping at 10 PM because I'd essentially worked for nine and a half hours straight and gathered just shy of 3,500 pounds of nanomaterials. There was probably some loss here and there as I poured from the sieve to the pack, but that was negligible. I walked up to the pad, now free of anything of worth except for the building itself, and ushered all of my 'Goks back inside- though not before they collected plenty of materials pulled from the soil, surrounding rocks, and the flora and fauna; one of the Engineers had caught a large female deer, though how I don't know. Maybe they snuck up on them while they slept and didn't bolt because they couldn't hear them floating along?

It didn't matter to me much- whatever reason they were grabbing the animal I couldn't fathom, but it was for a purpose, of that I am certain.

I set the pack in the entrance hall with one last haul of nanomaterials before I shut it up and resumed my journey back to the house.

Though this time I timed myself and had Nugget track my distance because I wanted to hoof it back as quickly as I could.

I ended up running 7.789 miles in just under 21 minutes. Holy shit, that was well under world record times, and that was with the multiple hills and while I was wearing blue jeans and work boots! Granted, Captain America was purported to run a mile in just under a minute, but he had the Erskine formula backing him and I only had my budding Promethean-Human biology along with Subee's work! If I had the proper attire, good running shoes, and level ground I probably could have squeaked out a sub-19 minute time.

Considering how late it was at night I didn't bother letting Tiffany know that I was back, and instead changed out of my clothes and took a shower- I would have thrown them into the laundry, but Alpha was more than happy to clean my clothes- she really was a sweetheart; much less haughty than Subee, but I wouldn't tell my first Best Gurl that because her little bits of smug were part of her charm.

I sat down on the couch and pulled out my phone just in time to feel the Forge reach out and slip just before it could grasp onto one of the big stars in the "Toolkits" constellation.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 5.0370 - Proto-Tool - 600CP - Ben 10 0.1 - Toolkit Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 500 CP]

The phone in my hand creaked a little bit as I felt the information ping off my Core as the star slipped away. The tool that could become any tool or weapon I could think of… as long as it was technological, and I missed it by a single measly charge. My head flattened itself into the head cushion and I let out a groan of disappointment. That would have solved a lot of problems, or at least it would have helped me be more involved in solving my problems; at the current rate, my 'Goks would be building everything for me, which sucked.

Ugh, listen to me bitch about my 1st world tinker problems; most tinkers would probably tell me to go die in a fire.

No longer feeling content to veg on the couch for a little while I stood up and walked into the lab, through the storehouse where Beskar steel lined the shelves in neat little stacks of ingots and-

I stopped. Wait a second.

My feet carried me along the stand-alone shelving units, and my eyes tracked over rows upon rows of differing materials.

[Phrik (Replica): A nearly indestructible metal that is very dense but brittle if exposed to forces that can damage it- nearly impossible to forge. Used in manufacturing, weapons, and armor creation.]

[Beskar Steel: A nearly indestructible metal that is denser than durasteel and is malleable- can be forged through a high-temperature process. Used in manufacturing, weapons, and armor creation.]

[Cortosis: A fibrous material that is capable of transmitting massive amounts of energy without damage, but it is extremely brittle without a proper binding agent. Used in manufacturing and armor creation.]

[Ultrachrome: A super-reflective alloy that is on par with Cortosis for its ability to transmit massive amounts of energy without damage- while more malleable than Cortosis, it absorbs the energy and spreads it throughout the entire surface. Used in manufacturing, weapons, armor, and starship armor.

[Krayt Dragon Hide: A leather material that is incredibly durable for an organic compound- extremely tough for its lightweight and flexible if treated properly. Can also be treated to be incredibly supple. Used in manufacturing, armor creation, and luxury products.]

[Corusa Gem (Replica): A legendarily hard mineral that is famed for its beauty and is virtually indestructible as long as the Shatterpoint is not damaged. Used in mining, manufacturing, and luxury products.]

There was a half-dozen other things but they had only been replicated a few times. This was a huge step up from just the measly 10kg that the Forge had given me. Just the Corusca Gems alone would net me billions of credits on the galactic market- though it was a shame I didn't have access to it.

Then again, if I put all of these gems onto the market I'd probably crash the economy.

I picked up a gem and held it in my hand, giving it a firm squeeze as I watched the light shine like a nebula within its confines. How they Hurgoks managed to replicate the conditions of a super-massive gas giant I'll never know but-

Enbee beeped at me. No. These gems are not real Corusca… they are the best approximation that the Engineers could make of the materials- if they had the ability to manipulate a single atom at a time rather than just the molecules with their tendrils then they could place the various minerals into the exact configuration without the need for extreme pressures.

I compared one of the fake gems to one of the real deals that was sitting in a steel container on the shelf where the "originals" were stored and found that I couldn't tell the difference… though the true gem did seem to shine just a touch brighter on the light.

The Phrik replica was also the best the Hurgok could do- whatever the forging process for this metal was they could only match it by 78.7777% of the original material provided. Considering it was twice as durable as Tungsten with only 30% more weight by volume I'd say that their attempts to recreate it were quite successful. The temperatures needed to get all of the atoms to play nice were probably insanely high- BB supplied that the replica Phrik could be forged down and condensed at an estimated 5,500 C. That was… doable?

Granted, we didn't need whole blocks of Phrik, just enough of it to make armor plating, now Phrik-79 could be used for that easily.

Enbee tweeted at me to continue on my journey over, and thus with a heavy heart I left the massive stockpile of rare materials and ambled over to the massive pile of nanomaterials where all of the Engineers were gathered. They all looked at me with their beady eyes and parted for me to see a one-inch square block of dark grey nanomaterials get touched to a small bead of what… looked to be gold? Enbee confirmed that this was gold salvaged from one of the circuit boards- a tenth of a gram- and the nanomaterial block rippled before it changed… into a one square inch block of gold!

"Holy shit!" I laughed out as I grabbed Enbee by his squishy body and began to dance around with him, a small toot escaping his sacks each time I twisted with him. I planted a kiss right on his snakey forehead. "Brilliant, just fucking brilliant!"

I'd seen the replicated rare materials, but to see the nanomaterials mimic something so seamlessly was something else. Enbee sent me a graphic that showcased the nanomaterials' transition from whatever the hell it was to gold- small wormholes opened up and the atomic structure of the material changed with it- protons and neutrons were pulled and electrons were added before the process was completed with the closure of the wormholes. "Can't it be replicated?"

" Pllbbbtttt. Plbbttt, pllllllt, pppllbbbttt." He sounded a bit morose- not with the technology we have available; according to him, the Forerunners had a lot of advancement, but straight up matter conversion was not on that list. Hard light and Matter Transference with things like teleportation, but not conversion. This phenomenon was completely fiat backed by the Forge, and it was unique to whatever bullshit physics belonged to the universe that contained the Arpeggio of Blue Steel.

It sucked but it was understandable that even the Hurgok had their limits. "Don't worry buddy, even if you guys can't replicate this crazy-ass feat of science right now, I still love you. Each and every one of you. Mwah."

I gave the four Engineers a big kiss right on their snoots and was immediately set upon by Subee who believe that all of the kisses were reserved for her and her alone.

To placate her and make sure she wasn't insufferable for Enbee, I gave her two kisses. She preened at having received twice as many kisses as Enbee did, but her progenitor knew that the value of a kiss was nebulous and accepted the fact that she would try to rub his nose in it.

I gave them some instructions to have the majority of the nanomaterials be converted into Beskar, if only because it would be the best metal to use for the Auto-Factory- they had tested it by using it to build a Hydrogen energy converter out of the metal to have it installed in the old F100 out front. They would tool around with it while I was asleep, but I gave them instructions to make sure it at least outwardly appeared normal; it could have things like heating and A/C installed, as well as a radio, and other little gadgets as long as it was hidden away from view.

The vehicles were up on cinderblocks and would still need tires though…

Echo 2 waggled a tendril as he volunteered, the Hurgok grabbing a small scoop of nanomaterials and decided he would poot down to Tiffany's car to gain a replica of the material. Before he left though, I had them create a black sheet that would cover his slightly glowing body; the moon wasn't out thankfully, but even if it was almost midnight I didn't want him getting discovered.

I would have done it myself, but Subee and Alpha dragged me over to "their corner" of the Hangar where they set up a bunch of operating tables complete with restraints. On one of the tables sat a glass tank filled with brackish water that looked to have a few large fish swimming in it. On the other tables were a variety of woodland creatures that I hadn't seen them gather at all. Granted I didn't keep tabs on them at all as I was busy sifting nanomaterials out of the ether with the sieve, so they might have gotten them when I wasn't looking.

It wasn't one deer, no, it was three deer, a large shaggy dog, several rabbits, rats, a singular fox, and was that… a bobcat?

"And these are all for the creation of new Huragoks?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Plbttt." Subee rolled her head while Alpha started signing rapidly, her words and the meanings behind them coming in twice with the implant. They could use the nanomaterials to create more Huragoks without needing the organic components anymore- no, these animals were for my future T-Dolls.

"Why for the T-Dolls?" I asked confusedly, and I opened up the complete catalog of T-Dolls I could make and sure enough, there were T-Dolls with animal ears. I hadn't seen much of the Girls Frontline franchise, but I knew that it was similar to a few of the other "Cute Girls x Insert Thing Here" genres- you had ship girls, gun girls, and I think tank girls too? My experience with GFL boiled down to those doujins.

You know.

Those doujins.

Wink.

"Can we use the nanomaterials to replicate the Stockpile we got?" I murmured, and Subee gave me an affirmative trill; the conversion was not that great, with the nanomaterials losing 40% of their perceived value if converting towards Ammo, Parts, Rations, and Manpower. The Engineers wracked their brains as to why ammunition and rations were somehow part of a formula to build an android like a T-Doll, and they couldn't for the life of them figure out how something like manpower could be stockpiled in a physical format. Regardless, I would only gain 60 of any one of those resources per pound of nanomaterials, which in their mind wasn't nearly as valuable as the 1:1 ratio that nanomaterials had with Beskar, Ultrachrome, Cortosis, or even the Krayt dragon hide.

They felt that they could build the T-Dolls from the ground up without the ammunition, rations, and manpower, but I knew within my very bones that wasn't the case. Whatever scientific conceptual bullshit surrounded the process of creating a T-Doll was, all four of those resources would be key. I could try to find a way around it, but T-Dolls weren't just mindless machines, they were sentient, they had (some) rights, they got paid, they got vacation time, they got bored, and the only thing that really separated them from people was the fact that if they wanted to retire then all of the combat data was scrubbed and they were sent on their merry way to choose a civilian career field to enter.

I was knocked out of my musings at the Forge finally caught something, and it was a big one.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 8.0510 - Magic Research Facility - 600CP - The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want A Fourth Time - Facilities Magical]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

The Hangar rumbled and I felt the ground shake as the Huragoks started wriggling their tentacles around in apprehension. "Don't worry, everyone! It's a new addition to the warehouse!"

My steps were quick as I moved away from the corner area where the Lifegivers had set up shop and back into the storage area of the warehouse, and just before the storage met the Entrance Hall was a large metallic door. It looked like something out of any science fiction setting- it was four meters wide and opened up from top to bottom like a big toothy maw. I stepped in front of the doors and a laser shot out of the small red orb that had been embedded at the top of the bulkhead that scanned me from top to bottom. "Match confirmed. Welcome, Jason Wilke, Administrator of the Higher Calling Magical Research Facility."

My jaw dropped and I stepped forward as the door opened up, and walked through into a large seating area with plain white walls that had a beige strip around it and some ergonomic-looking bench seating. In the corner of the area was what appeared to be a quartet of vending machines and four large water coolers.

I heard a squeak of indignation and I turned around to see the laser slip over Subee, and the metallic droning voice spoke out. "Match confirmed. Welcome, Sufficiently Buoyant, Companion of the Administrator. Notice: You have visitor access only."

Subee trilled and wriggled her tendrils and tentacles, but surprisingly enough the machine voice responded. "You have visitor access only. If you believe that your access is improper, then please petition the Facility Administrator to have your permissions elevated."

I cleared my throat. "Ahem. Ah, System? Would you please give my Huragoks access enough to follow me to the Administrative offices?"

"Affirmative. System hears and complies. All Companions have temporary Visitor-Black permissions." The voice droned out, "These permissions will expire in three hours."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, "More than enough time, I suppose. Alright everyone, please follow me. We need to get to my office. System, can you guide me?"

"Affirmative. Please follow the illuminated line on the floor."

Subee huffed and crossed her tentacles as the rest of my five Huragoks followed me throughout the hallways. There were a variety of doors that had different nomenclatures along with levels of access.

"Earth Magic Lab - Level Blue Access Required."

"Fire Magic Lab - Level Blue Access Required."

"Water Magic Lab - Level Blue Access Required."

It went on to include labs for wind, life, and space magic, but after that, the rooms didn't have a specific element attached to them and instead had "Rune Lab", "Enchantment Lab", and "Healing Lab" among a few others.

Other labs were unnamed, so in my mind, they were probably empty and waiting for me to obtain more magics through the Celestial Forge- the lab access level rose from Blue to Green, to Red, and finally, we reached the portion of the facility that required Black level access- the Offices of the facility Administrator and… death magic?

My eyebrow arched up as the thick bulkhead into the Level Black portion of the facility included an even larger, thicker bulkhead with the words "Death Magic - Level Black Access Required" written in thick white print on the grey concrete walls surrounding it.

I didn't know what was behind that bulkhead, but I wouldn't be approaching it soon- that sounded like some crazy ass shit. I moved right and down the hallway that went in the opposite direction and came to a halt in front of a bulkhead with a finely presented wooden door that appeared to be made from cherry wood with a golden handle on it. Another laser popped out of the wall and scanned me. "Welcome home, Facility Administrator Jason Wilke."

A wince crossed my features as I walked through the door with the Huragoks trailing behind me, "System. Is there any way we can change your voice? It is very grating."

"All System programs and protocols can be reviewed at your console, Administrator."

I moved around the opulent and spacious office while dragging Enbee behind me and sat behind the console while the Hurgok plugged his tendril into the computer interface; as soon as he jacked in I felt the interface flow into my implant.

"Alright, let's do some remodeling with the system, Enbee."

[One Week Later]

[January 13th, 2011]

I sat down in the Runic Studies laboratory with the 50 Runes that I had obtained from the "You Runed Everything" perk. Four large, thick leather-bound journals had accompanied the set, written by one Arch Enchanter Telmister Donmaggios the III, and it was in those journals that I found my introduction to the Runic crafting of Pre-Skyrim Elder Scrolls.

To be brutally honest, I really preferred being able to just plop down a soul gem and an item and slap on an enchantment- there were plenty of petty souls that I could get my hands on in the forms of fish and the like, but after critically thinking about it the system here did have a major advantage in that it didn't require soul gems to function.

Sure, some enchantments required soul gems to refuel them, but to get the enchantment put on in the first place? No soul gem required.

I split my time between studying the Runes and going down to the water to collect fish to supplement my ever-growing appetite and sieve out more nanomaterials from the water.

I was able to collect almost four thousand pounds per day while still dedicating six hours to studying the runes, and it had gotten to the point where I had 7,400 in each of the T-Doll resources and now we were running out of space in the storage area from all of the Beskar and other precious resources we were copying. We were now setting up neatly constructed piles of materials in the Hangar closest to the door because it needed to be close enough to the Auto-Factory for it to be fed into; even with four Engineers the bois would be hard-pressed to out-rate the production capacity of the upgraded production line- it was one of the few projects where I actually got to contribute with my knowledge of engineering and robotics coming into play, though I still didn't get to turn any wrenches because it simply was inefficient for me to do so.

So instead… I played the glorified nanomaterial collector and studied Runes.

I did not let the Hurgoks touch any of the magical sensors in any of the labs because they weren't magically inclined in the slightest; I ran a few tests with Enbee and I had to calibrate a piece of equipment three different times because each time he took this small scanner apart and put it back together it didn't want to scan right at all. I had him put it back in its original, non-streamlined configuration and followed the calibration steps in the manual… and it started working perfectly again with the test samples of various manas suspended in some sort of glass capsule.

I banned the 'Goks from doing anything more than upgrading and maintaining the mundane things in the labs- the lights, non-magical filters, the vending and coffee machines, and the lone bathroom that I used while I was researching.

Also, it turned out the Huragoks weren't well versed in thinking abstractly. They dealt in absolutes- "I know 'X' is true because I observed it to be true over thousands upon thousands of years".

"I do not know that 'X' is true, but if I wave my arms around, speak funny words, and believe it to be true, then it will be true," just blows their little brilliant minds up.

During my studying with Runic theory, I scanned the magical journals into the magical paper scanner, and after some serious magical scanner analysis, it was revealed that entire portions of the journals were hiding content behind certain illusory barriers that would remove themselves once I reached a pre-defined step in my journey. The magical supercomputers had done the hard work and finagled a way around the locks and revealed the content that was hidden.

It was strange because I thought the blank pages that I had seen when I perused through them were just to denote the end of a particular section, or that maybe he left some space in case he had more ideas to write on a particular subject.

He wasn't my sensei or anything, but he really pulled some mystical sensei bullshit with that little trick; then again though, I should have expected something like that- what self-respecting master of the arcane arts just gives away all of their knowledge without making their students work for it?

No one , that's who.

I was surprised to feel the first charge build-up since I started my week of material gathering, and the Forge reached out, but with the single charge I had, I couldn't even tell what Perk it was outside of the fact that it was in the "Knowledge and Skills Mundane" constellation.

[Remaining: 100 CP]

I shook my head and focused once more.

With the four journals fully opened to me, I was able to make some headway in my studies. The first journal was all about the history of this method, how the method worked, why it worked, and what was needed to be a successful enchanter. It also included step-by-step instructions on how to enchant items, and how to disenchant items to reclaim a Glyph that could later be broken down into its constituent Runes.

The second journal was all about the "Essence Runes" that determined the attribute or bonus that would be conferred onto the object and gave insights into how to apply the metaphysical meanings behind the definitions. The third journal delved into the "Aspect Runes" which determined the overall quality of the Glyph that could be constructed with the runes used. The final journal was the second-thickest of the four journals, as it looked into the twenty-eight runes that governed what quality of object could handle which potency of Glyphs.

Once the journals were unlocked and digitized I was able to download them into my implant and that sped up my learning process by leaps and bounds- without needing to flip between books and crossreference them I could put my focus on where it needed to be: deciphering the metaphysical meanings behind the runes.

Much like I would imagine how learning a Dragon Shout would be like, the translation of the Rune meant not just one thing, but many things- you needed to completely understand the physical and metaphysical contexts behind the definitions to advance. A lot of that was spent in a sort of pseudo-meditation where I ended up asking myself questions along the lines of "what does it mean to develop something" when ruminating on the nature of the Trifling "Jode" Potency rune.

There were some "gimmies" from the Forge that made it a little bit easier to push me in the right direction when it came to enchanting equipment- when I placed an object on the enchanting table it would automatically gauge the quality of the object and give me a 'level' that would be used in determining the Potency of Rune required. I tested this with some mundane items like a steak knife from Tiffany's kitchen, and it had been a Level 5 item, which was weird but I guess even if it was a shitty steak knife the fact it was made from decent stainless steel elevated it up in the eyes of the Elder Scrolls ranking system.

The system stuttered a little bit when I placed down a simple gold ring made by Enbee.

It was molecularly perfect in its build- flawlessly crafted with great care, and it showed it- the enchantment system rated it as a "Champion 3200" ranked item, which out of a "Champion 3600" ranked scale meant that it was indeed above Masterwork quality and judged as such despite being made in .7998 seconds by my floating buddy. The Engineer had been put off that it wasn't at the maximum allowed by the system, but learning that the coveted CR 3600 rank was reserved for equipment made by the deities of the ESO universe mollified him.

It also didn't help that the strongest enchantments only went up to CR 1600 rank, so the quality of the object vastly outstripped the enchantments the system had available for me to use.

Regardless it meant that I could attach my shitty enchantment to my 3200 Masterwork simple gold ring and bask in the greatness that was my Trifeling Rune of Fire Resistance, which gave whoever wore it 7% resistance to flames both mundane and magical.

Tremble before my might!

Though, to be fair to myself that was five days ago- these days I was no longer 'Trifling', but instead 'Moderate' in my enchanting abilities.

However, where I made the most progress in my studies was when I utilized the rituals in the journal to break down the runes themselves and study them- unraveling them put me into some sort of weird trance where I could taste the colors of the rainbow and gained insight into just how many ways you could define Pojora, or "Supplement". The trances never lasted long, and the more I did them the less I seemed to get out of them, but I still tried to do one ritual per day; despite being magically high as a kite I was functional enough to sit down by the water on the dock and scoop nanomaterials out of the water and put them into a pack.

That's what you would call a pro-gamer move in time management.

Still, once I learned what the enchantments did I mainly focused on a small handful of recipes:

Armor:

- Glyph of Health

Weapons:

- Glyph of Absorb Health (Deals magic damage, recovers health)

- Glyph of Crushing (Reduces Target's Armor by X for Y)

- Glyph of Decrease Health (Deals Unresistable Damage)

Accessories:

- Glyph of Decreased Physical Harm (Armor)

- Glyph of Shock Resistance

- Glyph of Fire Resistance

- Glyph of Frost Resistance

- Glyph of Poison Resistance

My reasoning was thus: I would be working to take down most gangers non-lethally, and with that in mind boosting the survivability of myself and my T-Dolls was paramount; they would already be incredibly lethal against most Cape threats barring the likes of Lung, Kaiser, and Hookwolf. I did have the weapon runes be targeted at healing, reducing armor, and dealing damage that bypassed a person's resistances, so hopefully, if we had to go lethal then we could do so effectively.

Though with the limitation of only one enchantment per weapon the T-Dolls would have to carry two around- one for non-lethal engagements and the other for lethal ones.

So, with that in mind, my whole week was spent deciphering the runes needed to make all of those things happen: Oko (Health), Deteri (Crushing), Okoma (Vitality Reduction), Taderi (Reduction of Physical Harm), Dekeipa (Frost), Kuoko (Poison), Meip (Shock), and Rakeipa (Fire).

I rubbed my eyes as I sat down and glared at the small pile of unenchanted golden rings sitting next to me on my right while a much larger pile of enchanted rings was to my left. Even with the perks bolstering me I had been at this for a long while now because I felt I was very close to another breakthrough- I was currently stuck at the 'Moderate' level of my Potency runes, but just a little more and I should be able to crack into the 'Average' tier.

It was 2:30 in the morning and I was tired despite my improving physiology- I only needed five hours of sleep each night now, and within another week, maybe a week and a couple of days my new Promethean upgrade would be completed and that would drop down to three and a half hours.

Just because I couldn't get bored or burnt out didn't mean that this didn't get old after a while. Still, I carried on regardless because to say that Glyph enchanted equipment would be a force multiplier was an understatement. For example, the Splendid Glyphs made with the Legendary Aspect Runes for Fire Resistance could magically reduce fire damage by 99.7%! That would outright nullify Lung's fire and reduce his threat level to myself and my girls greatly. As it was right now with my Fair Aspect Rune with a Moderate Glyph the best I could manage is a 24.5% reduction from fire damage, which while still significant, didn't mean much when the escalating brute could burn hot enough to melt sand- that shit melted at 3,000 degrees C!

If it was applied to the Armor enchantment just a single item could reduce all physical damage by 41% with a Splendid Glyph that had a Legendary Potency Rune.

There was no doubt that these would be game-changers, and I needed to get them up and running because once I brought these T-Dolls into the world they were my responsibility, and as their Commander, getting them the best equipment I possibly could was my duty.

I sighed a picked up my inscription tool, which was just an ergonomic metal stick that had been sculpted by Enbee to best fit my hand- it was tipped with a teeny-tiny Corusca gem replica, so this fucker would scratch anything.

Deciding to change tack, I pulled up the mental image of Taderi, which looked like three lines with an extended line across the top that went left and had an angled dash above it on the right, and I super-imposed it in my vision over the ring. I drew a triangle with squared-off edges before carefully etching the rune in the direct center of it; the rune on the ring flared yellow, and from the shelving unit on the wall, the glowing Taderi lifted off of its stand and hovered over to the ring before sinking into the golden band. Success.

The next step was the Aspect, and the best I could utilize at this juncture was Jejota, a green-colored rune that would give me a 'Fine' enchantment potency- this rune looked like a T next to an angled 'Pi' symbol. I drew a circle and inscribed the rune inside it, making sure to connect the Essence and Aspect runes with a clearly defined line; just like the previous rune, this symbol flashed green, and the Jejota rune lifted off from its stand on the shelf to hover over the workbench before settling down into the ring and glowing. After the Jejota runed glowed the Taderi rune glowed soon after, indicating that both of them had been conjoined properly.

The last rune was the Potency rune, was Pojode, and it looked like a sideways 'S' that intersected a little bit on the first 'curve'; it was made up of two strokes, not one. I learned that the hard way. This rune was what bound the Essence and Aspect runes together, and in doing so created a metaphysical requirement for object quality that must exceed its threshold to be applied safely; if the object was of poorer quality than the Potency then the object would be destroyed- with explosive results.

Working with rings was tricky because you had to loop the inscriptions around the front and backsides of the bands, but with my improved physique and motor control it was barely a challenge- this was made even easier by the fact I had the rune in an overlay in my vision through my implant that followed the curvature of the ring perfectly; all I had to do was trace the rune onto the surface and activate it, and the enchanting process would do the rest.

The square border of the Potency rune was carved and the Pojode rune etched within it, and I drew two clean lines to connect it with the Essence and Aspect Runes. It glowed red, and just like the other two runes, the Pojode rune floated up from off of the shelf and settled into the ring; the Potency, Aspect, and Essence runes glowed in sequence before they brightened up in unison. A gold glow covered the ring as the three runes merged into a single glyph, one that looked like a bull's head with horns and four double lines arcing out from its skull upwards and its cheekbones downwards.

"Rune Enchantment Succes: Glyph of Decrease Physical Harm created!"

"Moderate Fine = [49 Armor x 0.7 Celestial Forge Coefficient] / 10 = 3.43% physical damage reduction!"

"Enchantment Level Up! Aspect Level 1 - Level 2!"

"Enchantment Level Up! Potency Level 4 - Level 5!"

"YES!" I threw my hands up in the air and waved my hands around as the golden ring slipped from my fingers and bounced off the ceiling of my workstation, the freshly enchanted object skittering along the floor only to be stopped by Enbee. The Hurgok trilled his congratulations as he held the ring up and deposited it into my hand; the little guy didn't even let me get into my Level Up dance yet!

I blew out a sigh. "Fine, ruin my fun, why don't you."

As if to further rain on my parade, the Forge was unable to grasp onto a star from the "Quality Design" constellation.

[Current Balance: 200 CP]

Bah, I put the ring on the "Disenchant pile" and opted to let Neutrally Buoyant lead me out of the labs where a good meal of fatty fish waited for me- a quick shower and I was off to bed.

[One Week Later]

[January 20th, 2011]

My stockpile of T-Doll resources had increased to 9800 each as I further refined my schedule to cut down on wasted time- I spent 4 hours sleeping, 10 hours sieving nanomaterials out of the ocean, and the remaining 10 hours on enchanting. I had only advanced to Aspect Level 3 and Potency Level 6 during this time, but even then it had a profound effect on the efficacy of my runes- whereas my Glyph of Decrease Physical Harm could only reduce physical harm by 3.43% last week, this week my Glyphs could reduce physical harm by 21.7%!

A super significant improvement, no?

However, this was becoming a problem, so after I finished with the last ring of the day I pushed away from the desk and decided to go hang out with Tiffany for a few hours. We went for that walk in the woods, enjoyed the sights and sounds of nature, and when we weren't basking in the sun and silence we made small talk about meaningless stuff- the annoyingness of mosquitos in January (seriously, I know Brockton Bay winters are mild, but this shit is ridiculous!), how my projects were coming along. I showed off my cool rings, of which I wore with me- one of each protection ring spread across my two hands; I couldn't double them up, but I could wear one item with a unique Glyph. The journals described it as the mystical resonance of two similar Glyphs interfering with their operation, but in my mind, I just chalked it up to "Game Balance" and didn't think on it any further.

We had dinner, talked about her daughter and the work she did for the PRT, but she obviously didn't go too far into detail; just the specifics- how she was doing, if she was enjoying herself and found the work fulfilling. I didn't bother fishing for any more details because I honestly didn't want to. Her granddaughter's life was her own, and it wasn't like I couldn't have Nugget skim the lower-leveled reports for the information pipeline; I didn't dare have him try and push any higher, not at least without a dedicated Information Warfare Suite behind him.

Neither myself nor the Engineers had that kind of coding background on hand, so we would have to wait for the Forge to provide something for that; the books on hacking and penetration testing I had downloaded into my implant were written by Dragon herself, so it would be the height of idiocy to try and get through the PRT's protections using her own techniques.

On the positive side, we had a fuck load of important resources stockpile now, and the F-15E had been fully upgraded to Hurgok standards; it was 29% lighter, 43% more fuel-efficient, the thrust had been increased by 19%, and the aerodynamic profile had been improved by 11% by smoothing over every single flight surface; every weld-line, fold, and rivet chain had been brushed over, and that reduced the drag-coefficient by a fair margin- though most of that gain was done with the reshaping of the Conforming Fuel Tanks on the underside of the fuselage.

I was about halfway through the Ground School program's curriculum, and I was going through the material while I was sieving the nanomaterial out of the ether. I probably could have done it much faster, but I wanted to savor the "Practical (Digital)" exercises- even if it was being done on a low budget 3-D flash game, there wasn't quite as heart pumping as calling out to the simulated tower about the runway and when I was ready to taxi out and take off.

It was about 9 in the evening when I closed the "Take-Off and Landing" digital module after passing it with flying colors and I stood up from my kneeling position to deposit the last pound of nanomaterials into the backpack. I signaled to Alpha who was more than happy to dip her tentacle into the water and wriggle it around- there was a cute little squeak from her as a saltwater cod sucked it in, and her tendril lashed out to make the kill; it was a big boy, almost 10 pounds, though some of the Cod we'd caught had been as large as 25 pounds; I'd be eating on that for the next two days.

I shrugged the pack on and Alpha and I walked hand-in-tentacle through the woods and up toward the lab, where I deposited the fish and the pack. The trio of Engineers that had been out exploring and gathering resources pooted their cutie tooties back into the warehouse before I sealed it off and took off towards home. I was in the middle of a timed run back to fully test out my 'completed' Promethean biology, but a car driving down the road forced me to slow to a walk. It was a four-door sedan, and they were strangely kind- they offered me a ride, but I politely declined, stating that I lived just down the road.

If there was one thing I remembered about Brockton Bay was that it was better to spurn some help than be helped; the three dudes in the vehicle looked pretty on the level, but the driver had an E88 tattoo blatantly open on the inside of his forearm.

Hard pass.

When I got back I took a shower and changed into my clothes, and I moved over to Enbee, BB, Echo 1, and Echo 2 to finalize the designs of our first Auto-Factory build: The Spark Mk II.

It was a hella good time, sitting down and spitballing ideas back and forth as to how to make the best initial combat robot possible; with the Strategy Trance and my boosted brain meat we held the entire build session in less than 120 minutes of Trance time, but that amounted to about 9 seconds of real-time. Dr. Gero Epxy, Engineering Basics, Schematics to Time, and the Implant combined with the Trance allowed us to exchange ideas back and forth at such a rapid pace my head would have spun previously.

In the end, the Spark Mk II had a heavily modified frame fashioned from Beskar with Phrik armored plating; it was thin but so hard it was functionally bullet-proof to pretty much everything anyone could throw at it. The mechanical muscles were made from Ultrachrome and the power transference was made from Cortosis that was bundled up in a Beskar mesh tube that prevented it from getting constricted, and the tubing was wrapped in Krayt Dragonhide and sealed with a super-hydrophobic epoxy. The chassis was hollowed out with a structure that both Gero and the 'Goks found to be the best in terms of rigidity as well as resisting torsional stresses; the Spark Mk II was 11% lighter than its previous stock ADVENT model but was infinitely more durable than the titanium and steel construction it used previously.

The sensors were all created from Beskar and modified replica Corusca gems- the shatter point on the optical lens was a glaring weak point, but considering it was on the back of the gem and was encased in a rather beefy housing it was fine; it had infrared, thermal, electromagnetic emission, normal color, and low-light sensors that was combined with an advanced sound-pattern radar- all of them were put together and functioned in tandem to give the Mk II probably one of the most advanced sensor suites in production; I doubt Dragon could cook something up like this, at least not without spending a great deal of time peeling everything back.

The hardest part was the Virtual Intelligence and getting it to synchronize properly- the Forerunners were fond of dumb VIs since they had powerful Ancilla like the Monitors to micromanage their every move, but I didn't want a VI that I had to babysit. I was treading the thin line between Virtual Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, but the breakthrough came when I took the coding for the Personality Matrix that governed the T-Dolls and stripped the personality from it, leaving the critical thinking and reasoning modules behind; yes, these robots would lack a personality, but I made sure to program a library of dad jokes and verbal assurances and commands from the National Institute of Psychology's recommendations for helping victims stay out of shock.

Then I combined that with Dr. Gero's learning algorithms and ADVENT's protocols on military relations; I did go through and copy/paste the PRT's public handbook for Non-affiliated Cape interactions so that my Spark Mk IIs would respond politely and professionally when faced with Law Enforcement and the Protectorate. After that, all state, local, and federal laws were installed. The robots even had a little cache of SD cards to hand over typed, verbal, and visual reports to the cops when they arrived- minus all of the other goodies; the feds would have to seeth and settle for seeing 24k color-sensor footage scaled down to whatever the relevant format was needed.

They were, however, meant to avoid capture at almost any costs; even if I lost a Spark and ended up handing the PRT an extremely nice robot, I wasn't willing to let the bots kill law enforcement personnel to do so.

Not that I thought these Sparks could get captured, at least not without significant effort. They could spring-jump ten meters into the air, sprint almost 40 miles and 55 miles per hour, and had not one but two internal gyroscopes to keep them on balance. Their feet were fairly wide but incredibly grippy, so it would take some concerted effort to knock them over, though once the first one was built we would have to build an obstacle course… or just take it out and have it run through the woods.

The bot was completely waterproof down to like… 2,000 ft of some shit, like really, really deep, so I wasn't worried about it getting stuck in the bottom of the harbor- not when I had a water jet propulsion unit attached to it to aid it in underwater maneuvering. We lived near the water, and I knew that if a fight broke out near it someone was going to have the bright idea of tossing one of the Sparks into it. It was only a matter of time.

As for armaments, it was armed with a grenade launcher that shot out taser-globes; sticky pellets that contained enough charge at the Federal and State recommended levels to safely incapacitate a target. The secondary firing mode for the launcher used the .30 caliber barrel underneath the primary tube that shot a tranquilizer pioneered by the Lifegivers that was based on a depressant, muscle relaxing toxin from some animal called a 'Tutumulala'; it was contained in a protein-based payload that would time release- the target would be rendered unconscious within twenty seconds, and multiple doses wouldn't affect the target unless it was showing resistance. If the target wasn't resisting, then the payload would automatically unravel itself and would be dispersed into its constituent amino acids.

The payload actually could have knocked them out in less than ten, but we scaled that back for the first deployment- it had been rigorously tested on the various animals the Lifegivers had locked up, and while I was impressed with the results, there was no substitute for proper laboratory testing on humans; now I couldn't and wouldn't do that, but the Protectorate would, so after my first outing I would hand over a sample kit along with a thorough write-up.

The caveat would be if they wanted more of this I could make it for them, but I did patent the design and all of its derivatives; it wasn't technically a tinker tech tranquilizer because it could be manufactured by mundane facilities, but the hassle of going through the refinement process would make it a very costly venture. If they did try to steal it then I would make it even more costly.

The PRT would be testing it, and then giving me the approval to use for policing actions; if they liked the results then I wouldn't mind selling it to them in bulk- the cartridge designs were brilliant, and I had a ton of fun making the rounds that were fired with simple compressed CO2. The rounds my T-Dolls would use, however, would be much more powerful- the Spark Mk II's would fire them at a velocity of 400 feet per second with a range of 150 feet and pinpoint accuracy thanks to its fin-stabilized design. The T-Doll's non-lethal rounds would vary based on the weapon platform they were using and be much, much faster; balancing time-to-target along with kinetic energy would be critical, but it was a problem that I could solve on my own with input from the Engineers to back me up.

I felt the Forge stir awake and try to grasp onto a star from the "Magical Large Scale" constellation, but the star it grabbed at was massive in size. On closer inspection, it was a large star and a small star conjoined together in a single orbit- if it had tried to grab one of the other it might have succeeded, but instead, it tried to take both and thusly gained nothing.

[Current Balance: 300 CP]

Everyone was gathered around the Auto-Factory as we listened to it churn- the industrial sounds of cutting, smelting, grinding, and stamping made my chest tickle with anticipation. We watched the chassis get put together by a team of waldos, welding tips moving with expert precision as more and more was added onto it at each station- by the end of it the first Spark Mk II was rolling off the assembly line with its weapon in hand; the only thing left was to have the Hurgoks attach the Phrik armor plates, which they did only after their tendrils worked over everything as Quality Assurance.

They were the best QA bois ever; I should get them some clipboards and black-rimmed glasses to wear. It would be the cutest thing.

Neutrally Buoyant had been displeased with the Auto-Factory's 0.19% - 0.22% tolerance variations, but the design was made with those shortcomings in mind. The 'Goks concluded that if I meant to manufacture these droids in any sort of numbers then they would need at least three more Engineers to man the QA and Armoring station.

The Phrik plates were then attached and boy was the machine one sexy beast. The last thing to be added was the massive shield.

Spoiler: Spark Mk II

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It was a thing of beauty.

Neutrally Buoyant gave me a nod and I activated the start-up program.

The large optical sensor glowed a soft blue, part of the aesthetic changes I made to make the robots more friendly- they had a white and blue color scheme, and the large shield had an emblem that vaguely resembled a law enforcement shield; a coat of arms with the silhouette of a globe with a bright light shining on the horizon. It had my cape name, "Horizon" in a stylized but still legible font in bold underneath it.

I was skirting the line with the emblem shape, but on the legal side of it; people responded better to more official shapes and logos, and that is exactly what mine did- just making sure that I was recognized as a lawful force without impersonating a commissioned law enforcement officer.

"Systems fully operational. Spark Mk. II, Serial Number 0001 standing by for orders, Commander Horizon."

The voice was smooth and masculine- commanding but not imposing.

"Commence start-up diagnostics and move through range of motion tests."

You guys rock!

Nanomaterials Sieve (Arpeggio of Blue Steel) (100CP)

This sand sieve can be used to filter nanomaterials from seawater and sand. Even in settings where the seawater doesn't have any nanomaterial particles from damaged Fog ships, it somehow produces about a pound of nanomaterials each time it's scooped through the ocean and sand.

Magic Research Facility (The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want A Fourth Time) (600CP)

Magic and science. Alone they are great, together and in the right hands they are all-powerful. The sleekness of a laboratory at the cutting edge of science, housing the greatest tools, magical and otherwise. A great thing that has come into your possession. Either inserted somewhere in the world itself, lodged away in your warehouse, or attached to some property you already having following you around, is a high-tech facility on par with, or perhaps slightly above, that which the eponymous Vandalieu had been trapped and tortured within during his time in Origin. Its tools are specially made to analyze and interact with magic, and as such it is the perfect home for magical experiments of all kinds. Whether it be dissecting or containing monsters, trying out brand new spells, or even processing and mass-producing magical materials and even magic items, this facility is perfectly made for all of it. Of possibly greatest use to those with great stores of magic is the spell testing room, however, as this room is perfectly suited for testing out and analyzing even the most powerful of spells, localizing its effects and preventing even the most powerful of them from affecting anything outside of them.

Chapter 5 - Progress

[One Week Later]

[January 27th, 2011]

I adjusted my schedule a touch to make it so that I had twelve hours a day of enchanting; sure, I lost a few hundred resources, but all of my T-Doll stocks were over 12,000 now, so I was feeling pretty good. I stopped gathering the nanomaterials and instead focused on directing the materials towards Spark Mk II production.

In other news, Nugget learned enough about hacking to slip into the New Hampshire Department of Records website and created a fully functional identity, complete with a birth certificate, social security number, and an educational and work history. He hacked the websites of the schools and businesses in question to plant the data before backdating it, complete with pay stubs and tax returns that were retroactively filed by the local IRS office after it found a discrepancy; the physical copies of my returns were in their offices, but the electronic records at the main IRS didn't reflect it.

So Nugget mailed them a physical copy for them to put into the system so that I wouldn't be left out during the upcoming tax season. How magnanimous of him.

Still, I now had legitimate physical copies of everything critical to living a normal life, including a new, official New Hampshire driver's license; though I did have to go down to the Brockton DMV to get my photos taken for it.

That was a total pain in the ass, but the drive over in the completely revamped F100 was as smooth as a baby's bottom. It had been outfitted with Phrik armor behind the door panels, the body panels and frame were Beskar steel that had been hollowed out, and the engine had been replaced by an electric motor with the water-to-hydrogen converter installed; the fuel tank had been left the same, except it had been lined with a thin layer of PVC with a hydrophobic film to keep the steel tank from corroding since it was filled with water and not gasoline. The truck had been painted a rich dark brown with tan accent lines that gave it some character but didn't make it stand out more than being a very, very old car that was looking really, really good for the era.

The interior had a variety of neat little toys, including a neat radio and infotainment system that I could operate with my implant while the suspension was built more like an off-road truck to handle the extra weight from the armor plates, but it wasn't like it needed it; the plates were hollow and would stop everything, up to and probably including tank-shells. The windshield and windows were made of nano-crystalline composite that was incredibly durable, and in a fit of insanity I etched a complete bevy of protection runes onto the vehicle; Fire, Shock, Frost, and Physical Damage Resistance Glyphs were etched into the inside, and that had been what pushed me up and over the edge.

The moment I finished enchanting the truck I gained Aspect Level 4 and raised my Potency to Level 9- I now had complete access to use the Legendary Aspects and Splendid runes needed to create the best Glyphs the perk could offer.

It was annoying that it happened after I had enchanted my first dozen Mark IIs and the truck, but that was life. I didn't do over the truck because what I had already done to it was pretty insane- but I really liked it and wanted it to stick around for a long time. A super durable vehicle was a must in a powder keg like Brockton Bay.

The Spark Mk IIs had multiple enchantments, but each piece received a Splendid Glyph of Health- the Head, Chest, Legs, and Shield received the full boost of the 508 health, meanwhile, the Shoulders, Hands, Feet, and Waist only received 40% of the bonus; all in all the robots received a full 711 health, though I didn't know how that exactly translated to real-world durability. Considering the supreme nature of the Splendid Glyph as the pinnacle of runic enchanting utilizing the ESO system the boosts had to be pretty significant, but the only way I would know for sure is if I set up a testing range and had two identical units damaged by powerful weapons, and I wasn't feeling that too much.

My ascension to Splendid Glyphs also proved to me that while accessory and weapon Glyphs could not be stacked, Armor Glyphs could be. Don't ask me why the armor glyphs could be added on while the others could not, because I don't know- I can only assume it was for "Balance Purposes".

I made five rings out of Beskar that were worn on the shield hand- this gave the robots 97.7% resistance to Fire, Frost, and Shock. A Shield Bashing Glyph would let the bots deal 30% more damage with their shields, and the Ring of Physical Damage Resistance would reduce all physical damage the Mk II took by 40.6%. I toyed around with the thought of testing Arcane protection Glyphs to see if they could protect against Parahuman powers, but decided that I would wait until the next production run; I needed to gather more nanomaterials first, as each Mk II was 439 pounds and required over 550 pounds of nanomaterials to be constructed.

Truth be told, the Mk IIs were probably indestructible against every cape in the city barring Lung. Even against Kaiser, someone I was wary of because he could project blades from any metal surface, would probably falter against the Mk IIs.

From the way I understood it- he could only project blades on a surface with enough room to do so, and PHO speculated that it must have at least a one-inch gap between itself and the other surface. I took this information and cut it in half for the designs and then cut it down again for production; there wasn't more than a quarter-inch of space anywhere in the chassis- everything was filled with a heat-conducting crystalline gel that acts as both a heat-sink but also a cushion for the internals. The should be no way that Kaiser could cause steel growth inside of my bots, but even then, my bots are a lot tougher than the steel spikes he could produce- the PRT's profile mentioned that the steel he created was far stronger than normal steel.

The best Kaiser could home to do is immobilize them.

In order to get my two squads of robots prepped, I had them watch thousands of hours of footage of a variety of different scenarios- rioting, hostage situations, all-out urban warfare between gangs, hostile cape interactions, and moving onto how a peaceful and friendly scenario was supposed to go down between us and the civilians and law enforcement. Their enhanced VIs picked up learning at an incredibly quick pace thanks to Gero's self-improvement algorithms, and soon I was spending a whole afternoon being their dummy for takedowns and arrests; even with my enhanced physiology, I had had a few bones cracked, which was incredibly painful.

Thankfully I had my ever so lovely Subee on standby to fix the overzealous application of force. Then we could compare all the data between my structure and that of normal humans, looked at the amount of strength they used, the amount of force I received, and then figured out a formula that they could use to get the maximum amount of compliance out of an unruly individual without bringing them permanent physical harm.

I had the 'Goks set up a firing range to test the reflexes and their targeting algorithms and the accuracy of their weapons- both firing modes.

That was when Subee had dragged me away and chided me for avoiding taking the Sufficiently Buoyant Super Soldier Serum.

If I was being honest it had slipped my mind- my focus the past few weeks was all about getting my material stockpiles up and maxing the enchantments I currently had available to me; I had little time or brainpower for anything else.

She and Alpha had finalized a formula that could be pre-stabilized by Vita Radiation; my enhance Promethean physiology did not need constant Vita radiation exposure to ensure that the Sufficiently Buoyant Formula successfully took hold. The Serum in its current configuration would take place over an entire day- a more gradual improvement than the sixty seconds in a contained chamber and being bombarded by radiation; I would rather not experience rapid growth and the excruciating pain that came along with it if at all possible.

It was probably stupid, but I would have to get my ID card updated again- I was just now getting used to being six foot three after having lived my life at five foot nine; the chances were pretty good that I'd jump in height again and that meant another trip back to the hellhole that was the Brockton Bay DMV. You thought normal DMV workers on an earth without superpowers were bad? Well, the DMV employees in the Cape Capitol of the United States made me want to become a villain; no doubt the citizens of Brockton would applaud me if I'd lost my shit and blew it to hell.

Nugget pinged me.

Actually, I would only have to file an "NH-DMV 221-Fix Request" form to submit changes in height or bodyweight- he would flag the initial issuance of the card as he typo, and they would re-issue me another card provided I sent them back the previous one.

That was a surprisingly… helpful way of doing things, and I would have been suspicious about how easy that sounded, but considering the world had protocols for people being dropped into a new dimension I guess that with powers and tinker creations causing all sorts of side effects it paid for them to be flexible. If you asked me they probably just didn't want to see everyone's faces again so they made up a pain-free mail-in option- granted it wasn't exactly pain-free because you had to send in your license first. Bah, damn, no matter what, the DMV still fucked you!

I sighed and tried to ignore the Forge spinning up, but it grabbed onto a star from the "Database Magical"… and I'm not going to lie, I got pretty damn excited as schematics were downloaded the information into my noggin.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 14.0200 - Time Circuitry - 400CP - Marvel Magic - Database Magical]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

It wasn't a protection against Pre-Cogs or Post-Cogs, but it did prevent me from getting trapped in a Grey Boy bubble or a Bakuda Time Stop grenade; if anything, the designs even included plans for a stand-alone unit that could be inserted into localized time-loop! Just attach the Temporal Circumvention device onto a stick and slide it into a Grey Boy bubble and touch it to one of his victims and that should isolate them and allow them to grab hold of it and walk right out. Another option was the creation of a Temporal Circumvention ring and have it assembled around the bubble itself- once the device was activated it would completely remove the bubble from the current 3rd dimension and kick it up into a higher plane of existence.

Subee poked my nose and chided me for getting lost in my head. "Hey, I just got some amazing tech, alright? Let me enjoy it!"

I took the plans and transcribed them into the primary Forerunner schematic format and sent them off to Enbee and the rest of the Hurgoks- the Forerunners were no strangers to temporal devices, but this technology was fiat-backed protection from all sorts of timey-wimey shenanigans that I could produce. The materials were pretty standard as far as the schematics went, and there was nothing in there that the nanomaterials couldn't handle.

There was no doubt in my mind that the Engineers couldn't find some ways to improve it; the effects were fine, but the device was pretty power-hungry, so if they could streamline it into a smaller, more efficient form factor then that would do us a whole lot of good.

The only issue is that I'm hitting a bottleneck in my production because my supply only comes in every ten seconds and I have to be the one to do it… or… I could stop beating around the bush and start producing T-Dolls and have them run the nanomaterial supply mission for me.

It would be the smart thing to do, but it was a huge leap from making a robot to making what is essentially a fully sentient person that was created to be a weapons platform. Now, I don't have a problem calling a weapons platform a weapons platform, because everything that is created in the world has a purpose. If they don't have one, then they go out and find one; as long as you can choose what you want to do then that is all fine and dandy. The issue I had was that I was about to take the plunge into some shady territory because my girls weren't going to get a choice, at least, not while the threat of Zion still existed.

They would be born wholly and totally loyal.

They will follow my orders without question if those orders are logical and in keeping with the mission parameters.

When the mission parameters are "Ensure the survival of Humanity" I have a lot of leeway to make things happen that will ensure my girls will follow my commands.

Of course, there have been checks and balances- I don't want a bunch of totally compliant T-dolls who just take everything I say at face value and don't bother to critically think or question why I do what I do; that way leads to complacency, an echo chamber where I would be insulated from my incompetence and that way would lie total defeat.

Though, I would be lying if I said that the thought of sending one of those beautiful T-Dolls down onto her knees, her only response being a smarmy grin and a big "Yes, Sir!"… made my dick twitch.

Now that I think about it, in the past three weeks I haven't even jacked off once. Hell, I haven't even thought about sex. Granted, I was stuck in a constant endorphin-rush feedback loop of seeing my skills in Glyph crafting and watching huge piles of valuable nanomaterials pile up, so I was too busy getting rewarded for my menial labor to even contemplate tits and ass.

To be fair though, when you hold a bar of gold in one hand and then touch it to a bar of nanomaterials in the other… and then you're suddenly holding onto two bars of fucking gold, all you can think about is trying to rival Fort Knox in stacking bars.

And I do have a very nice big stack of gold bars.

And silver bars.

And platinum bars.

I have billions of dollars worth of precious metals stacked in the corner.

It feels good man.

Still though, now that I'm thinking about it I am pretty horny. Shit, only seven more days and I could actually survive No-Nut November… two months late. Maybe I still can make it?

My hindbrain flipped through the T-Doll catalog and selected what appeared to be a wolf girl aaannnddd I felt my lust surge. Just a touch.

Spoiler: CR-21

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2020-08/pic_cr21.png]

Thankfully, I was dragged out of my lusty thoughts by the pure fluffy, pooty goodness that was Alpha; she was the bubbly nurse that every patient wishes they could have. It was impossible to have impure thoughts when that pink and white cutie just poots up to you. I grinned and held my arm out.

Alpha took my hand and trilled happily as she guided me over to a table where I stripped naked and laid down on it- the metal was thankfully quite warm. I turned my head to watch as a small metal container was opened up and Alpha extracted a clear crystal vial roughly the size of a small water bottle; the liquid that floated within it was a cool blue, but it had a soft green glow to it- no doubt from the Vita radiation stabilizing it.

The second-born pink Lifegiver held the vial just a few millimeters away from my skin before pouring a small amount onto my flesh; Subee's feathered tendrils were there to quickly massage the Sufficiently Buoyant Serum directly into my cells.

My head, face, neck, chest, torso, waist, sexual organ, thighs, shins, and feet were all wettened and injected before Subee had me roll onto my stomach so that she could get the back of my head, neck, upper and lower back, my ass, the backs of my thighs, calves, and the rest. Every chemical cluster was placed exactly where it was needed in the amount it was needed in. When the vial was empty it was stripped clean and ready for the next batch.

I was about to get up off of the table, but Subee and Alpha halted me; the pair of Lifegivers producing a pillow and a blanket from… somewhere. Sufficiently Buoyant and Alpha wanted me to remain in their care overnight so that they could directly monitor the initial stages of the serum to make sure that I didn't need additional Vita Ray therapy; they were 94.88888% certain I wouldn't, but it was best if I was close by their equipment just in case.

The pair sent Echo 2 off to prepare me a massive meal, and after downing what felt like twenty pounds of meat and twelve pounds of nanomaterial-turned-bonemeal, of which Subee and Alpha directly deconstructed in my stomach and intestines to fuel the growth, I passed out into a dreamless sleep.

[January 28th, 2011, 9:49 PM]

I was mentally aware of the date and time before my eyes opened up and I felt my body come to life around me.

The very first thing that I noticed was everything felt… so much more. The density of my central nervous system was nearly tripled- no longer did most vital nerve chains solely travel down a single route; they were in triplicate to ensure that even if I was damaged I could still move. My spinal column was no longer a single glaring weak point that would end me if it got damaged, though there was no evolutionary bypass for the base of my neck- that was now the single point of failure in my biology. It sort of reminded me of Aegis in that my body had a lot more redundancy than it did before.

I accessed the changelog that Subee set up for my physiological observations and found that the nerve density near the surface of my flesh had also tripled, which made my skin far more sensitive than I ever remember it being; the thin blanket that covered my flesh which once felt like cashmere was just too stimulating. It was itchy, though not because it was itchy, but because it was simply too much stimulation.

Alpha was a sweetheart for pulling it directly off my body instead of slipping it off; that would have been uncomfortable.

My visual acuity had almost tripled from what I remember it being before, and now I was certain that I far surpassed the SPARTAN-II augmentations- I could read the size 30 font on one of the Spark Mk II's armored chassis from over 150 feet away. It felt like I was looking through a 24x magnification optic without having my field of view restricted- the sheer fidelity was immense, and while a lot of things sort of remained indistinct while I was not actively paying attention to it, the moment I did everything sharpened into a clarity that boggled my mind.

Instead of getting up and moving around, I instead chose to lay on the table while my conscious mind adjusted to the massive increase in stimulation- I choose to have the Lifegivers tone down my sense of hearing and sense of smell to almost nothing to let me adjust to the sheer rise in visual and tactile sensations. Over the course of an hour, they were gradually turned back up in small five percent increments, and I in turn spent that time studying the small physiological changes that the formula, in addition to the Promethean biology, did to help protect my supremely enhance senses from overload.

My ear now had small muscles that could contract that stiffened their eardrum and constricted the passageway to dampen overly loud sounds, much like noise dampening shooting headsets. The same was similar with my nose, where the body could quickly expel air that could completely clear my nose of irritants, and when combined with the ability to completely deaden the tastebuds it made overly strong smells very difficult to incapacitate me. My tear ducts produce fluids that could easily wipe away visual irritants and would film over the eyeball to protect it.

Every part of my body was enhanced to far beyond anything that could be expected of technology in this day and age, including tinkertech, and for every enhancement, there was a built-in system that could mitigate or nullify entirely the downsides of said improvement. Those with super sensitive hearing could be deafened, but not me. Those with super sight could be blinded, but not me. Those with super-smelling could be overwhelmed, but not me.

My neuron density improved almost threefold, similarly to the rest of my enhancements, but with the new eyes combined with my new brain, my reflexes were so quick that what I would consider "bullet time" in a video game looked like everything was moving on fast-forward. My ability to see and crunch visual data, combined with my new nervous system, meant that I was very, very quick to react.

The human reaction times vary between 10 milliseconds and 30 milliseconds, with 21 milliseconds being the average. The SPARTAN-IIs augmentations took their reaction times down to roughly 2.5 milliseconds, and my baseline reactions with my Promethean physiology was hovering around 1.3 milliseconds once I was fully realized after Subee's modifications.

As I was right now? My reaction time was clocking in at 0.162 milliseconds. I was roughly eight times better than I had been before in that respect.

The effects of Subee's Serum, while weaker by 11%, managed to reduce the negative mental and physical impacts by about 93% according to her estimations; she knows this because there were some notable mental changes to my brain in the behavioral centers- the Hurgok seeing in happen in real-time but unwilling to do anything to correct it while the process was on-going.

Once the Lifegivers had finalized the completion of the process, we ran through the proposed augmentations that I would undergo with Enbee, Subee, Alpha, and BB participating in the upcoming operations.

Integration of Krayt Dragon hide into my flesh, would help cut down on the severity of the sensations I was feeling- not that I would need it, as the discomfort faded throughout my normalization period. It would take my already tough skin and make it very durable without sacrificing its smoothness or suppleness. Not that I really cared about it much, per se, but… if I was with a woman I didn't want her to run her fingers across my chest and only think of hardened shoe leather; so maintaining tactile and visual appeal was important on that front. Refined Cortosis would be weaved under the flesh and constructed in a fairly dense weave that would allow me to take direct energy from a variety of different damaging sources and redirect them elsewhere.

It would also short out lightsabers upon contact, but unless I manufactured lightsabers and started handing them out to gangers then there was very little chance of that happening- unless Uber and Leet decided to do a Star Wars-themed episode I was safe on that front.

Joining the sub-dermal mesh would be Beskar to keep someone from penetrating something important, and an ultra-refined carbon nanotube layout would be attached to my muscles, joints, and bones to improve my strength and explosive power- not that I wasn't stronger than fifty men already, but having more was always better than having less; we could work out a program to improve my control. In terms of bones, the 'Goks decided to combine the carbide ceramic ossification procedure in addition to a quarter millimeter thin lining of Beskar in the strongest molecular structure they possibly could design; a small impact gel layer resided between the two so redistribute impact forces across the entire bone.

The CCO process made the bones incredibly tough, but if impacted hard enough with an edge they could shatter, so the gel layer could spread the force out while the Beskar deformed. It would more than likely be uncomfortable (read: painful) as hell and would require a team of Lifegivers and Engineers to unfuck the damage, but my bones wouldn't be shattered by anything that wasn't already hitting me hard enough to vaporize me entirely. If anything it reminded me of the crumple zones on modern cars and trucks; by having the metal surrounding my bones crumple, with the gel absorbing and moving around the impact forces I would more than likely come out very hurt but still intact.

There were a couple more additions, like sheathing my ribcage in dragonhide, and hardening my fingernails and toenails (God, I was going to need an angle grinder for those!), but those were ancillary.

With the upgrades finalized I was put back under for the second time in 48 hours, and my most trusted worker bees started their very important task.

[Two days later]

[January 29th, 2011]

Over the next two days I spent most of my time down by the waterside gathering nanomaterials while adjusting to the changes in my new body- not only did I need them to put together more equipment, but I also needed them to put together my new armor.

During my time unconscious the Forge gained another charge but was unable to capture a new star.

[Remaining: 100 CP]

Said armor kept morphing into some version of the SPARTAN-II models that I'd played with during my time in Halo Reach; I used to play through every game on Legendary with my brother whenever a new Halo game came out, but when we both started working overseas- with me in Afghanistan and him in Korea- we fell out of the practice, and it died on the vine after the steaming pile of filth that was Halo 5. Never went back to the franchise except to sample the lovingly crafted fanfictions written by fans who cared in a way that 343 never did. Those were just personal biases though, so feel free to disagree with me there.

With the resources at my disposal going for the ADVENT armor, which was unpowered, was pretty silly. At the time it was perfect for my needs, but as the Forge expands so do my capabilities. Every design iteration ended up with me sculpting a more real-world version of MJOLNIR armor. I loved Halo, but I always thought it funny that Master Chief would run around with no pouches for ammunition or equipment, at least not since CE anyways. They fixed that with Reach's designs, and I thought they looked great.

Spoiler: MJOLNIR X

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fd1x211vouql21.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4b4f5251bf5585117049612b445df2058331e28d =1 =1]

The armor was a hollow Beskar steel/Phrik/Cortosis laminate that gave me insane protection for its relatively low weight, and I say relatively because the MJOLNIR specifications had it at just over 1,000 pounds, and my armor came in at about 720 pounds, and when combined with my 320-pound ass I was once again pushing past the 1,000-pound limit I wanted for everything, including my body weight. However, I was loathed to part with the jump thrusters- I was going to be a Titanfall Pilot and a motherfucking SPARTAN wannabe God damnit! The crystalline gel layer that allowed the Chief to survive a fall was orbit was still present, as it was part of the bread and butter, but it was made better in every conceivable way; between the Cortosis in the armor panels and in the gel I was incredibly resistant to energy-based weaponry, be it heat, lasers, wave motion, radiation, what have you, and when combined with the enchantments I put on it - I split it between Health and Stamina- and the enchantments I made for my accessories - damage reduction, Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison/Magic resistances, and health and stamina recovery- I was without a doubt the single most dangerous thing in Brockton bay, and probably the world besides the Triumvirate.

With my implant monitoring everything and unique brain structure, I was practically immune to Masters and Strangers, at least I thought as much; M/S powers worked based on the preconceived layout and function of the brains so that they could be manipulated- anyone with a differing structure was pretty much immune to their effects. My brain was so far removed from the human baseline, with numerous genetic redundancies, that I doubted I could be affected.

I would, of course, still plan everything out as if I could be affected, but with my helmet and everything else filtering out most mediums of enthrallment - be they auditory or visual- I felt pretty safe. Which in my mind meant not safe enough. If I ever got an opportunity to capture a villainous Master and have my Lifegivers run tests on biological dummies to further tweak things then I probably would. Maybe.

During that time the Engineers were not idle either- they were testing out all sorts of different munitions that my T-Dolls would use; I didn't know the logic behind how everything functioned, but the girls could only use a weapon that was patterned after their namesake, so that meant their lethality during life-and-death engagements hinged on whatever improvements we could make to the existing design without changing enough to invalidate the weapon systems themselves. I laid out some criteria- the field strip of the system must be identical, the cartridges must be within specifications, and the general profile should not be changed. Other than that the 'Goks were free to modify the weapons to be better; barrels should be pinpoint accurate, weapon bodies as durable as possible, and they should have access to a wide array of weapon attachments that gave them added functionality.

Not that I wasn't going to make the T-Dolls to the same standard as myself- I was so far above standard T-Dolls it wasn't even funny, so the first order of business would be to try and make them even better than myself, while still maintaining their identity as Androids; I was going to go the Terminator route- metal skeleton, biological components that were suped-up to be on my level; the girls would all get every upgrade that I could give them that didn't change their outward physical characteristics. That was another annoying limitation set out by the Forge, but that just meant I would have loli-SMGs running around in MJOLNIR X armor.

Of course, I had a niggling suspicion that they would still feel self-conscious about their height; that seemed to be a common enough trope with those types of characters- to be so put off by their small size even though they were designed to be lightweight and compact like their weapon namesakes.

Needless to say, Subee was about ready to tear her metaphorical hair out trying to balance out the neutering of the Promethean genome while simultaneously modifying the Subee Serum to not change their height and overall body shape too much; some of the flatties would be getting a boost in cup size and ass size, but that was the extent they were getting.

I'm sorry girls, I really am, but I don't make the rules- if I want T-Dolls I have to abide by the arbitrary limitations set out for me.

I let out a sigh as I vigorously shake the Nanomaterial Sieve- I found out that the more the shake the faster the shifting happens, and when combined with my newly upgraded body I could sieve out a pound of nanomaterial every 1.7 seconds instead of every 10 seconds- and this drastically improved my ability gather the precious resource. Of course, I would have to make sure that we include designs for mundane materials like 'Gok-Steel and 'Gok-Tanium, but we only had one Sieve with no way to make more because it was all backed by Fiat fuckery, so we will have to include inferior materials if we ever want to expand our manufacturing base.

Instead of letting the materials sit in a pile in the hanger, we crafted some metal bins that we could trolly around and began filling them up, making more shelving units so that we could maximize the massive amount of space we had in the hangar because the supply area of my warehouse was overflowing. The Engineers had constructed automated ferrying robots that traversed the long and tall shelving units on tracks- it was incredibly low-tech for their liking, but it served us just fine and it looked cool. Each bin contained two thousand pounds of nanomaterials, and we had twelve shelves with two hundred bins per shelf- another shelf was planned because we were pretty full up.

The Auto-Factory had a hopper installed that could hold 10,000 pounds of nanomaterials, and had relevant samples stored within it that would change the miracle stuff into whatever the machine needed. Using Schematics to Time along with data from the previous production runs we were able to tighten up the tolerances by 19% and reduce the build times for the Spark Mk IIs by 8%, which was something that greatly pleased the Engineers. We took the cloaking technology that was improved and installed into the Mk X MJOLNIR armor and managed to compact it down enough to fit in the basketball-sized Sentinel drones, though the Mk IIs lacked the space and power budget; if we designed a backpack for them though we could probably surmount that issue… no, the Mk IIs were strictly a policing unit. I would make a dedicated Assassin/Infiltration unit instead.

Water sloshed and soon all that could be heard was sand-like shifting in the sieve, and I quickly dumped it into the bin before dunking it back into the water to begin the process all over again. 1.7 seconds for 1 pound of nanomaterial. Every time, all the time. I was a machine.

During the collection though I had fun designing drop-ships with the Engineers- they all wanted a very Forerunner design, with its hard angles and abstract shapes, but I wanted the very futuristic veneer without the deficiencies inherent in the UNSC designs. Neutrally Buoyant had those designs stored within his memory, as he had been given to the UNSC at the end of the war as part of a partnership with the Sangheili, but while he was unambivalent BB was wholly unimpressed with them. Just like he viewed the F-15E as a crude mound of dirt rather than an aircraft- sure, he was as excited as I was to get his tendrils on it - because any technology is interesting and at the time we got it - but despite how seemingly chill Barely Buoyant was he was… kind of a technological elitest.

He didn't care for the rivalry between the Lifegivers and the Engineers, but boy howdy you try to extol the virtues of feeling the vibration of the huge turbofan engines through the seat of your ass and he loses his mind.

Throws his tentacles up into the air and toots away in a huff.

I was happy to see my lovely 'Goks finally displaying their own personalities. Echo 1 and 2 were like twins, but E1 liked working on the robots more than the other, and E2 preferred rubbing his face on the F-15. Sure, it wasn't the best aircraft ever in his opinion, but it was the only aircraft we had, and thusly it was the best thing since sliced bread. It was amusing to see E2 and BB get into little tentacle slap fights whenever the Strike Eagle was brought up in conversation.

I didn't stop sieving as the Forge tried to make a grab for a large star in the "Magical Toolkits" installation but failed, however, I did stop when Subee notified me that everything was ready to begin the creation of the first T-Doll.

[Remaining: 200 CP]

I stood up from the little wooden dock that Subee and Alpha had made for me weeks ago and easily hefted the 827 pounds of nanomaterials in the bin and hauled it towards the Storm Drainage Control Station; we'd set up cameras and sensors all over the place since this had become our "Spot", and so far no one or nothing has come within a mile of us except for wildlife. With the sensitivity and power of the sensors, we were capable of creating that much was assured.

I sat down the bin and gave it a solid push before I mentally commanded the two Mk IIs I had at the entrance to push the barrier into place. There were rules to the warehouse- I could not seal the Entrance Hall, but that didn't mean I couldn't obstruct it almost completely. We had a 3,000-pound door composed of Phrik with a Beskar/Cortosis laminate layer that was just a millimeter smaller in every dimension, and it was slid into place and stabilizing arms with the grippiest shit we could make to ensure that this bitch wouldn't move. The airflow was kept positive, so no gasses could intrude, and the two MK IIs made certain that not even insects would squeeze into the gaps; they had these cool little lasers that would flash fry the little buggers- though in case of an attempted invasion by the Queen of Escalation they had all sorts of other countermeasures; like a directed heat lamp that would also flash fry anything trying to get through.

There was a caveat that I would have to find a door that opened outward because an inward pushing door would impact that barrier, so there was that. A minor inconvenience to be sure.

I need a badass futuristic motorcycle! Armsmaster and Miss Militia have one, so I should have one too- though it will be far, far cooler.

Subee chided me for purposefully distracting myself, the pinkette poking my nose and sniffing as I handed off the almost full rolly-bin to the Dolly-bot that let out a soft 'whirr' as it slid up to the fifth level of the shelving unit and deposited the bin.

She was right, I was distracting myself. My heart rate sped up imperceptibly and my palms grew a touch sweaty, but this needed to happen; I wanted allies, and I needed friends here that I could count on besides an old woman who was likely torn between wanting to help keep my identity secret and reporting my existence to her Granddaughter in the PRT like she knew she should; the Unwritten Rules were a polite fiction, a fallacy- if the Government didn't already know your identity then they were actively searching for it, if only to sit on it for the perfect moment to either take you out or pressgang you into the Protectorate System.

The people might want to genuinely be your friends, but their bosses didn't care, especially with Rebbeca Costa-Brown at the helm; the entire apparatus from laws to public opinion were all steered into the direction that if you weren't a Protectorate Hero then you were at best a loose-cannon Rogue that flaunted the rules and must be brought to heel for the good of the People. You had some PRT Directors that were willing to play ball if you weren't causing them headaches, but they were few and far in between.

I shudder to think of the amount of damage that would be caused if someone like Tagg came to the Bay as he did in canon; if it weren't for the fact that I knew he was a Simurgh-bomb I would have been a lot less sympathetic. Maybe I could help him out- ow!

"Pbblllt! Pllbt, pllbttttt, pplllbbbtttt!" I glared at Subee as she goosed me with her tendril, but I sighed and let her drag me over towards the station where we were about to begin T-Doll construction. The pink Hurgok just tooted and pooted along, and me, being the person I am, found it hard to be anxious when my best gurl's method of locomotion was just too cute!

I had a smile on my face by the time we reached the operating table.

At the head of the operating table was a large glass tank that had a slurry of biological materials that were broken down from the animals that they had been collecting over the past few weeks. To the left were five carts that were lined up neatly in a row to the left. The first one had steel green Ammunition canisters, the second had cardboard boxes with MRE Rations, the third had small plastic hard cases with robotic Parts, and the fourth had open tubs containing tokens that were shaped like the silhouettes of people representing Manpower.

The final cart had numerous Legendary Aspect and Splendid Potency runes, as well as the Oko and Mene Essence runes for Health and Stamina. I enchanted a lot of gear and disenchanted a lot of gear to build up the stockpile of runes needed to get everything ready.

I opened up the T-Doll crafting catalog in my implant and searched out the specific T-Doll I wished to produce. She was an enigma- both Friend and Foe- too many T-Dolls, but she was also the older sister that a lot of the girls looked up to; this was especially true of the AR-15-based T-Dolls. She was competent, skilled, and able to lay low whole Echelons of PMC aligned T-Dolls by herself- at least when she was functioning as a Boss.

My knowledge of her directly was limited to some Youtube delves I made while I was looking for a nice little time-waster during my work hours; other than making schedules and checking in on the handful of guards underneath me, there wasn't much to guard out on the oil fields of ANWR, so the majority of my time was spent reading or watching anime. Girls Frontline and Fate/Grand Order seemed like excellent choices, but the overly complex crafting and advancement systems really turned me off in addition to the horrific gacha rates.

Still, M16A1 was a rock, and she would be the den-mother and sub-commander for all of the Echelons that I would create in the future.

The crafting table gave me craft rates for specific classes, but since the Forge wasn't a total prick I could pick and choose which T-Dolls I wanted by tripling the recipe cost. According to the Forge Notes attached to the power, I needed to keep my resources above 921 total but below 2100 in order to not get a Heavy Machine Gun T-Doll, however, for M16A1 specifically I needed 273 Manpower, 1200 Ammunition, 1200 Rations, and 90 Parts.

My hands worked unconsciously- there was no way to tell how much exactly was on each cart just by looking at it, but with the Perk guiding me it was easy to tell what exactly was needed; four full ammunition cans were upended onto the operating table, three full boxes of MREs were unpacked and stacked up, eight plastic hard cases with Parts were sat onto the surface and opened up, and 53 Manpower tokens were stacked neatly onto it.

The moment everything was orderly a soft light emanated from the ingredients, and their forms grew indistinct as the light grew brighter and brighter- before my upgrades and the Subee Serum I would have had to of averted my eyes, but my irises just contracted and the lens darkened. The supplies flowed like a liquid, roiling and rolling together until they started to thicken up and take a humanoid shape, and after a full minute the light show died down and the naked, unconscious form of M16A1. Her clothing folded up beside her head on her left while her rifle was parallel to her body on her right sight.

Hot damn she was a beauty.

Spoiler: M16A1 NSFW

[img: https/us.rule34.xxx/images/3762/fee6c2989b2acad667e5ad7c5d65b88a.jpeg?4256676]

Though, she was an Android, and there was a slight uncanny valley to her synthetic flesh and perfectly crafted features that stood out to my enhanced sight.

I stepped back away from the table, taking her weapon and clothes with me while the Hurgoks moved in and began stripping her down to her metallic endoskeleton- the T-Dolls weren't biological in the least bit; they had systems in place to emulate life, with false lungs, a fake stomach, and digestive tract, and the sensors were highly advanced for the 2060s era- able to emulate taste and scent close enough to give the T-Dolls a quality of life. There was even a program that emulated intoxication if the android consumed enough alcohol.

It was incredible technology, but in the end, it was just that- technology merely playing at being alive; at least, the physical bodies were- the Advanced AIs of the T-Dolls were, in my opinion, purely human. They got angry, they got frustrated, they got scared and nervous. They laughed, they cried, and they felt love and affection. When they triumphed they cheered for their success, and when one of their numbers fell they felt despair until they were repaired and returned to service.

Bit by bit the endoskeleton was stripped away until the Forge warned me that I could go no further. I held out a hand, and the Engineers stopped- her thick titanium skeletal frame had been reduced to a structure no thicker than a pasta noodle. They made a note for the volume of the frame they reduced for future reference so that the process could be made more quickly without me needing to micromanage the creation of every T-Doll, and then they began to rebuild her skeleton with a laminate of Replica Phrik, Ultrachrome, Beskar Steel, and Cortosis weaves.

While the other three Engineers worked, Enbee and Subee popped off the top of her skull and began working over her primary processing core module; it was shaved down to the necessary components and then a copy of my implant was integrated into it. Once that was complete a hose was gripped by Alpha and bio-slurry was oozed into the cavity while Subee's tendrils worked furiously to build the brain up to my Promethean standard, with Alpha contributing two of her tendrils. Neuron by neuron, cell by cell, the gelatin solidified into a complete brain, and Enbee carefully connected everything together under the direction of the two Lifegivers.

It took them seven minutes to finish- a supremely long time, but even with the tens of billions of tendrils between them, there were quadrillions of neurons that had to be assembled at the molecular level. When the brain was finished a cushioning gel layer was added that would protect it from impacts; once the Subee Serum was lathered in the gel would be subsumed by the enhancements and added into the greater whole of her new body.

During the time they worked, I inserted myself into the workflow, pulling out my Corusca gem etching tool, and began quickly and efficiently lining the runes into her skeleton- this was possible because as a T-Doll, at her core, she was considered metaphysically an object. Because of that I could enchant her directly- with her metallic frame it qualified for the Armor Glyphs, so I etched into her Health and Stamina. Her forehead, shoulders, chest, hip bones, hands, shin bones, and feet each had a Splendid Glyph that conferred the maximum blessing the ESO enchantments could give. It took me less than two minutes to do them all, and I was taking my sweet time to make sure they were exactly perfect- the Runes floated and merged into the corresponding etchings at a rapid pace, and throughout the whole process her dark metal skeleton glowed in reds, blues, yellows, and purples.

When my part was finished I stepped back and out of the way.

The Engineers got right to work on reinforcing her braincase once the pinkettes had cleared the space, and then they began to work their way down- the eyes, nasal cavity, mouth, tongue, and teeth. The esophagus was the last thing they worked on until the six 'Goks flipped her body over so that they could build up the spine, back muscles, and everything else. Once the base was completed they flipped her back over and poured slurry into her chest cavity to build her heart and lungs, her stomach and new intestines- which were drastically shortened and more compact due to the new physiological improvements- were put in which meant that there was more room for… her womb, ovaries, and a vaginal canal that would be able to accommodate my vastly improved penis.

I was swinging a cudgel in my pants, but since I was almost seven feet tall now having a thirteen-inch penis was quite proportional. M16A1 would be like five foot nine, but even with her height, she wouldn't be able to accommodate me with her… original equipment. Not that she had a working vaginal canal as a bog-standard T-Doll; the "affection packages" cost extra.

On and on they went, adding layer upon layer of organic material over her frame until everything else had been done except for her breasts, which were built up right before my eyes. Nice and perky things they were, with beautiful, dusky brown nipples.

I was distracted for a moment by the Forge roaring to life, reaching out for a star in the "Crafting Artisan" constellation, but it fell short of pulling in the star it reached for by three charges.

[Remaining: 300 CP]

Once M16A1 was completed the Lifegivers shooed the Engineers off, but Alpha, being the sweetheart that she is, gave the purple-pootie bois a thankful head bob and tentacle wave.

The Vita Radiation chamber was cracked open by Subee as she chided her junior on being too thankful- lest the Engineers get it into their heads that they should be thanked for every job they did- and the vial of Subee Serum, a modified T-Doll variation, was pulled out and the pair began the exact same process of lathering it into her body as she had me.

I gave Subee and Alpha a quick kiss on their pink and white snoots before I left to go back out to the water- having a 200% premium on the T-Doll cost was going to eat into my stocks quickly; even with 10,000 that wouldn't be enough to create a full six doll Echelon if an AR-Unit cost me almost 2800 Resources.

Granted, I could just choose to let the gacha give me dolls, but no, I would pay the extra and pick them for myself. It wasn't like there were "Stars" attached that determine how "Meta" they were. The special skills and tile buffs of the different T-Dolls were just mechanics to balance the game- none of that existed here.

The next few hours were going to be wholly dedicated to nanomaterial conversions.

While I scooped water and poured nanomaterial into a fresh bin the Engineers and I designed a dropship that combined a UNSC Pelican with the ADVENT design's Sky Ranger. It was going to be a durable little beastie, but we ended up going with aircraft-grade aluminum that had Beskar powder reinforcing it; with that structure, we could make the entire hull hollow while keeping its weight low and airframe rigidity high. The armor was a laminate that had two millimeters of Beskar-Ultrachrome alloy on the outside and a millimeter of Replica Phrik backing; Cortosis wouldn't be useful here as there wasn't anyplace for redirected energy to go, so instead, it would just be captured and bled off as heat with hundreds of fluting lines aiding in the heat dissipation.

The ship had six maneuvering thrusters and was VTOL- it could achieve a maximum speed of 900 miles per hour at 1,000 feet, and could crank it up to 1,200 if it was at 30,000 feet. Certainly not the fastest thing in the sky- the F-15E could reach 1,650 miles per hour at 50,000 feet, but that was before the upgrades the Hurgoks made; it could probably do far more now.

The newly named "Helljumper", and yes, I named it just now, was powered by a pair of Schifon-L3b Hydrogen-Electrical motors that was fed by a 300-gallon water tank; it gave it an effective range of 500 nautical miles or four hours of loiter time. The range was doubled with two pintle-mounted 150-gallon auxiliary tanks and could be doubled again with two 150-gallon conformal water tanks that were slotted onto the airframe with one on top and another on the bottom.

The troop bay could hold fourteen troops in MJOLNIR X armor, and had the capacity to hold twenty-one stretchers with four rows on one side and three rows on the other; the missing space for the left-side row would contain medical supplies and would have two yet-to-be-designed Combat Lifesaver robots.

I'm certain that Subee will be absolutely thrilled to work with Enbee on designing it.

The biggest task would be designing it in such a way that it could be constructed in sections small enough to fit through the doorway…

[1 day Later]

[January 30th, 2011]

Time was starting to become a factor, so the moment M16A1 was completed I tasked the Hurgoks with increasing their numbers fourfold; we would need to start cranking these T-Dolls out, and with a roughly a 26-hour timer on each one we had to increase our size at a faster clip.

This was a unique problem because I had now run out of cooking supplies for the 'Goks, and I needed to find some cash in order to go shopping for them. The easiest place to get cash though? From the gangs.

I created a Surveillance program utilizing Gero's knowledge along with Subee's help, and created the first production run of my Intel Section robots; I set up many computers and signal relays using Forerunner communications bands that would be undetectable (hopefully). I had twelve robots sitting around banks of monitors that had eyes on every single drone deployed over the city, and they were doing some amazing work; in just a few hours they stopped following around every single Asian person they found and quickly began to catalog and identify gang colors, markings, and other characteristics.

It only took my boys a few hours to stop being racists! I'm so proud of them.

Of course, the same was said for them profiling every white person as E88 and every hobo as a Merchant, but after I gave some parameters and worked with them on reviewing footage every damn one of my bots was an expert at tracking down possible gang activity.

India 1, his sole purpose was to PRT and Protectorate agents and assets while India 2 focused on the Brockton Bay Police. India 3 and 4 were Merchant watchers. India 5 and 6 were ABB. India 7, 8, and 9 were E88, and India 10 and 11 were for Independents and Rogues. India 12's only job was the monitor my home and "Work Site 1".

Spoiler: India Intelligence Robot

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Feaassets-a.%2Fpulse%2Ftitanfall%2FSpyglass_1_1.png =1 =1]

The whole set-up was modular and I could easily tack on more workstations and Intel Bots as needed; all in all, they each had 20 drones to monitor, and with the hardware they had it was easy as pie. I will expand their numbers the moment I get the 'Goks to build another charging dock in the woods; the drones had a six-hour loiter time and a four-hour charge cycle, so not every drone could be deployed at one time.

I dragged my eyes away from the Intel section and looked back down to the Super Soldier-ified bio-android T-Doll M16A1.

She was just as soft and as beautiful as she had been before, though now that the woman was flesh and blood the uncanny valley effect was gone, and the Subee Serum TD formula had taken all of her most beautiful traits and cranked them up to 11.

I swallowed thickly. "M16A1, Activate- Command authorization: Echo-12-Gamma-Bravo-Tango-3-3-1-Delta."

There was a wet smack as lips parted and eyelashes softly fluttered. They were a greyish blue with a small tint of green, and slowly they tracked over to me. Her breathing picked up a bit as her mouth opened, but when she tried to sit up and gently pressed down on her shoulders- she shivered at the touch; I know, sweetheart, the sensations are intense, aren't they? "Stay down, 16. It will take some time for you to adjust, so for right now just… relax. When you're acclimated you can stand up and salute me all you want."

She swallowed thickly, her voice cracked, "Commander? Sir?"

I moved around the table and grabbed a cool bottle of water that had a squeeze tube on it, and I lowered the nub between her lips before giving it a firm squish; 100 milliliters, swallow, then another 100 milliliters until the bottle was depleted. I gave it a little shake, "More?"

"No, Sir, I'm fine. Thank you," She worried her bottom lip, "To have my Commander look after me, how shameful."

Her voice was mirthful, and I gave her a grin as I rested against the table. "Should I have worn a male nurse's outfit?"

She snorted. "If you did I wouldn't complain."

We settled into a companionable silence for a few minutes.

"Sir, I've read through the Changelog in my implant, and I have to ask… why would you upgrade us in such a fashion?" Her head turned to the side as she regarded me with a stoic look, "Wouldn't we be more cost-effective if you just kept us as is?"

I shook my head, "Actually, you girls have the worst conversion rate; if I kept you as T-Dolls not only would you be far weaker and less effective than you are now, but I'd have to constantly pour Supplies into keeping you up. With the changes made I only have to utilize a pittance to keep you active, and that is ideal because the Supplies have the worst exchange rate for the nanomaterials."

I unlocked a packet that Enbee put together and sent it to her. "2800 supplies just for me? That is… incredibly costly, and with the 40% loss in the conversion from nanomaterials to Supplies that just makes it even less efficient."

A small smile tugged at my lips, "Besides, you will be much more effective this way; you're nearly twenty times stronger than you were as a T-Doll, 16, and far, far, far more durable. Your upkeep costs should be brought down to a handful of Supplies and some hot chow."

We both chuckled a touch but I decided that it was time to debrief her.

With a thought I began unlocking more data packets, one at a time, to let her parse through everything and fully digest what exactly it was we were going to accomplish here on this world.

"A parallel earth, one with Superheroes and Super-Villains," M16 murmured under her breath, "M4A1 liked the old comic books of the 20th and 21st Century- she would spend a great deal of her paycheck to collect any Pre-World War III Super Hero memorabilia that she could get her hands on."

"Don't tell her I told you that though," Her sly grin was a touch forced.

Silence reigned as I continued to unlock file after file; everything I remembered about Worm- from the Capes to the gangs, to the world, Cauldron, the Entities, and the Shards.

"So. Aliens, huh?"

"Yup. Mother fuck'n Aliens."

"Well, at least there are some good aliens here, the Hurgoks are the cutest. Though I don't know what they're saying at all." She giggled, her hand slowly coming up to her mouth.

I arched an eyebrow and delved into her implant library, and saw that her permissions for some reason hadn't been unlocked for the Communication Package. A small mental flex and the permission was given.

"You called it 'Cutie Patootie and You: The Guide to Understanding the Sign Language, History, and Dynamics of the Universe's Best Bois and Gurls'? Pfft. Shhshhhhshhhsh. Haa haa hahaaaa!" Her snickering turned into full-blown laughter and she curled onto her side, her hands holding her gut, "You even modeled it after one of those 1940s and 1950s era Department of Defense videos! Hahahahahaha! Genius! That will make the WWII-era girls feel right at home."

I couldn't help but chuckle along with her, though my laughter was a touch more subdued. I didn't know if the 'Goks left this data packet last to inject some much-needed humor and levity after having some bombs dropped on them, but it was a stroke of Genius whoever did it. "Yeah, this is a Grim world, M16A1, and it's up to us to make things better… for everyone. Hundreds of Trillions of lives are on the line if we don't succeed."

The black-haired woman fiddled with her red bang for a few seconds before she slowly started to lever herself up- I got to watch the sexy eight-pack appear on her torso that had been hidden by the succulent thin pad of belly fat. Ever so slowly she moved off the table and onto her feet; I nearly bit my bottom lip off when I saw her beautiful ass bunch up as she slipped onto her toes. She definitely caught me staring- her augments were 92% of my own, but she seemed to preen at the attention.

Completely unashamed of her nakedness the T-Doll Mod. 1.0 snapped rigidly to attention before a perfectly levered America-style salute was given. "M16A1, reporting for duty, Sir."

I moved off from the counter I was leaning on and stood in front of her. When I was ready I stiffened my back and gave her the crispest salute I could muster- the Green Beast and Pride reawakening within my breast; it had laid dormant for a long time since I got out, but seeing such a display stirred it. "I acknowledge, M16A1. I am Jason Wilke, and I will be your Commander."

I dropped the salute and she followed suit. "Stand at ease, 16."

Her feet spread shoulder-width apart as her hands clasped behind her lower back. I pulled up a speech that I had prepared and read through it. "You've woken up in a world where everything will be stacked against you. The Entities, their World Conflict Engines, the Shards, Cauldron, the human Governments squabbling amongst themselves all will be working against us. The people, individually, might not care, or they might cheer us on. Or they could see our might and become afraid. They might lash out or ask that the Government do so in their stead."

"Our primary objective is to see the human race survive, and we will use every tool at our disposal to see that goal achieved. That will be done through the elimination of the two Entities - Zion and Eden- and the subsequent destruction or assimilation and neutering of the Shards that constitute them. The Celestial Forge that I have at my command certainly has the power to make that happen, but it does not at this moment have what we need." I let my blue eyes gaze into her light grey, "We will have our work cut out for us, and I cannot do this on my own; I have robots, and I can teach them a lot of things, but they are inherently limited. That is why you are here, M16A1, to give me some much-needed support; you as a T-Doll are as close to human as can be, and if you ask me I personally think that the only difference between T-Dolls and humans was flesh… and only that."

I felt my face soften as M16A1 looked at me searchingly, "Just as you girls will be the backbone that holds up my operation, you, 16, will be their backbone; every new T-Doll we construct will look towards you for guidance. I know that it will be a heavy burden to bear, but I ask that you bear it with me."

Her shoulders were already square, but her posture seemed more ready… even though I could see she hadn't moved an inch. "I am M16A1, and I will reaffirm the oaths I took the day I entered into service: I am your T-Doll, your rifle, your companion. There may be many like me, but I am unique, and I am yours all the same. If you treat me properly- keep me clean and well oiled you'll find that there is no better rifle on the field than I. For the protection of humanity, I stride the battlefields, making my home on the frontlines; I fight so that the humans we have left don't have to. That is my purpose, and I am happy to fulfill my duty, even if that means I must risk… permanent deactivation."

Her beautiful, full lips firmed into a thin line. "I am yours, Commander, do with me what you will, I will serve you in any capacity where I am needed."

I swallowed but tried not to interject with the obvious question- anything?

She likely knew, considering the black market "Service Mods", that T-Dolls had access to in order to please their special Commanders, but considering she had fully functional plumbing and a very pleasing shape she likely held no doubts that I might call upon her company in the future.

The near future.

However, this was a solemn moment- important to the both of us; I wasn't going to ruin this for her by asking a foolish question.

"I accept your oath and hear your words, M16A1," I murmured, "Now, let's say we get you some clothing and begin your orientation. We have a short window of time to make head-way and the clock is ticking."

She snapped to attention before saluting, and I saluted in turn. "Dismissed."

[Attempted Re-Forge: 32.0050 - Aesthetics - 100CP - Terraria - Journey's End - Quality Appearance]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 300 CP Remaining]

The Forge spun up and the fires roared and I felt it reach out for multiple nearby stars. It successfully grabbed a star from the "Quality Appearance" constellation but was a charge short of grabbing a good-sized star from the "Magical Knowledge" constellation; a damn shame too because I was quickly reaching the edge of my technological limits with what I had on hand, and Magic was a branch that would add a lot of strength and versatility to my toolkit. With just the Glyphs alone I had all but rendered my forces immune to elemental damage among a great many other things, but while the runes and Glyphs were powerful in their own right, their uses were incredibly narrow with very little freedom to explore.

I was stuck using Enchantments that didn't require Soul Gems, and until I got some we wouldn't be adding elemental damage to anyone's weapons, not to mention I felt icky about using Souls to power magic to begin with; I know intellectually that Elder Scrolls uses of Soul Gems don't necessarily destroy the soul, it just saps the power from it until it is no longer able to power the device and is then released back into the ether… but that knowledge comes from a Mystical Researcher who was quite happy to expound upon at length the various uses for someone's very soul. Sure, he only advocated for using the souls of beasts or heinous criminals, but still.

After reviewing the Perk I went through and looked at practically everything I built and shuddered at how derivative and uninspired everything was. I actively engaged the Strategy Trance and delved into my implant and looked at every design, going through and making some small changes- little updates and bits of flare here and there- that better conveyed what exactly I wanted everything to be. Heroic, Commanding, Powerful, yet still Approachable. It was a difficult line to straddle but with Aesthetics I was able to tweak the designs to evoke those particular emotions without ruining structural integrity or in the cases of the aircraft, aerodynamics.

It was subdued, understated, and not in your face, so I wouldn't have the internet shitting on me online for "trying too hard", but it would be immediately recognizable. I also tweaked the color schemes and patterns on the Spark Mk IIs, the Helljumper drop-ship, and everything else to match the themes. Once everything was completed I packaged up the changes and shot them off to Enbee who would distribute the work to Echo 3 through 12. Should be done in a few minutes if I know those adorable workaholics.

Though I guess I'm not one to talk with how much ass bust'n I've been doing the past three weeks and change.

"Sir? I'm ready to go," I turned my head and saw M16A1 with black knee-high socks, ankle-high brown boots, a light yellow button-up shirt, and a reddish-brown cloth jacket.

And a tie.

And an eye patch.

I understand that it was part of her character design, but-

"The eye patch is completely see-through; it won't hamper my abilities- the 'Goks saw to that." She scratched her cheek as a small smile tugged at her lips, "I just, uh, like the look of it, y'know? Made me seem more mysterious, and gave me a more serious air."

I chuckled and shook my head as I grabbed an empty bin and the Nanomaterial Sieve, "Well I told them to get you something comfortable to wear, and you go to that? It looks nice and all, but we're going to be panning for materials, 16. You might ruin the outfit."

"Heh, good old' Logistics runs," She laughed as she followed me out of the Hangar, through the supply room, past the Mk IIs at the Entrance Hall, and out past the barrier, "Damn, I don't think a GBU 500 could blow that barrier you go, Sir."

"Jason, when in public. When we're masked you can call me Horizon or Sir," I spoke, as we walked down the well-trod path that the Hurgoks had paved over with beautiful stone that made pushing or pulling the thousand-pound bins much easier up the hill back towards Station 1. "When we're in private… you can call me Master ."

"Kinky," She chuckled, though there was a slight blush on her cheeks, " Master."

She tasted the word on her lips and a shudder rolled up her spine.

There were several unsavory things that I put into the subconscious code of the T-Dolls. Taking some inspiration from Dragon's father it was invisible to them, and they weren't aware of its existence. No one else would be able to find it either, I made sure of it. Loyalty needed to be enforced one hundred percent, and while I gave them plenty of freedom to think and make their own decisions, there were a lot of things that I had to do to ensure that they would be with me until the end. Even if some Master or Hacking Tinker managed to infiltrate and penetrate, they wouldn't be able to turn my T-Dolls against me unless they flashed everything in their storage and memory… and even then the meatware brain would still remember even if the hardware failed.

Within those lines of code were some personal dalliances, and that included things like wanting to follow "Master's Orders", and getting hot and bothered when we were close and there was no danger or mission to attend to. They could easily suppress it if they wanted to, but if we were foot-loose and fancy-free the desire was there, and if I responded then they would become amazing lovers.

There were some subconscious commands to explore the internet to find little quirks and fetishes, and when they found one they would inevitably share their thoughts with their fellow T-Dolls. Upon sharing their thoughts with one another they would naturally try to select different things so at the end of the day I had variety as a Commander. If one girl was all about anal sex, then another would find her niche with an oral sex fixation, another would find maximum enjoyment from squishing my large cock between her breasts, and another would want to be creampied every time with a pregnancy fetish. Footjobs, throat-bulging facefucking, hardcore, lovey-dovey handholding missionary, and many, many others.

And so on and so forth it would go. Of course, there would be overlap, but each and every girl would find their niche and would be thoroughly pleased.

"Well then, I guess we're alone, aren't we, Master?"

I felt my cock twitch. "Indeed we are, but before we get distracted, let's continue with your orientation."

Our heavy footsteps thumped across the wood of the little dock and I toed off my laceless boots and socks and motioned for 16 to do the same. I don't know if she had been doing it on purpose, but my eyes were locked onto her as she undid her boots and slowly slipped off her socks one at a time. I felt my hands open and close a few times before I knelt down onto the ergonomically formed end and bent over to dip the Sieve into the cool Atlantic waters. "This is our only source of nanomaterials; the Forge hasn't given us much to work with materials-wise, so this is our only logistics run. One full sieve grants us one pound of nanomaterials, nanomaterials that can mimic any mundane material. It cannot be understated how important it is that we stockpile as much of it as we can in preparation for possible famine."

M16A1 opened the packet on the nanomaterials and all of its properties, "So this is a… Fiat-backed material? Just like us T-Dolls, right?"

"Yup, it just works. I don't question it now, but I'll question it later once I become a much smarter Commander than I am now." I sifted rapidly, dumping the nanomaterials into the bin, every 1.7 seconds.

"Uh, sir, wouldn't it be faster if you just built a pipe and had it pumped? That way you can just sift while standing…"

I blanked for a moment before I entered into the Strategy Trance and rapidly messaged Enbee; he was on his way with everything we needed raw materials wise to build a curved pipe and a Never-Fail (TM) water pump.

My lips pressed into a firm line as I dropped into a trance. "Well, you see? That right there? I might be smart but I can't think of everything."

She laughed and so did I.

I kept sifting and soon had more than enough for Enbee to work with when he pooted himself out of the former Service Station, and within 20 seconds we have water flowing through a carbon-fiber pipe. It shaved .3 seconds off of my time just with improved economy of motion, but it was a bit louder. A series of baffles were made and attached to the dock that cut the noise by 90%. Nice.

We chatted back and forth while I went in-depth into the situation of the city; I left out Cauldron because she knew that outside of the workshop that the 'Big C' was off-limits until I was 100% certain that I could triumph over them should they decide that I and my team were bad news for their plans. I, of course, would much rather work with the shadowy organization that called the shots, and even if they were dumb with a lot of their decision-making, I wasn't about to poke them in the eye over the Case 53s and things.

I would poke them over Manton and the Slaughterhouse 9, however, as that was something they could have put a stop to a long time ago; they killed ten thousand people a year or more, and how many people actually Triggered during those circumstances and survive? The Nine were incredibly apt at killing the newly Triggered people, and how many established local or Protectorate capes perished trying to confront them when they had zero chance for success with Jack Slash's Shard feeding him ALL of the DATA?

The world had enough misery in it to cause people to Trigger every single day- there is no reason for the Nine to still exist.

In fact, the Nine were going to be our big debut on the National stage.

I pinged Enbee to have him construct a half-dozen new India units along with some long-range stealth drones- if they were within 1,000 miles of Brockton I wanted to know it and keep tabs on them. I set them also on creating a nice and hot warhead- I wanted 6,000 degrees to ensure that whatever little biological beasties Bonesaw had within her body were completely incinerated. A Nitrimine/Thermite compound should do the trick.

Spoiler: Long Range Stealth Surveillance Drone

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.%2Foriginals%2F23%2F71%2Fdd%2F2371ddeae13952b682be064a6b37a5e6.jpg =1 =1]

The drones ended up being roughly the size of a Predator UAV, but unlike the local drones it had a Hydrogen powerplant, so it could simply hover over any body of water and refuel itself. They were completely stealthed out- photoreactive camouflage panels for a backup in case the Active Camo failed, an radar cross-section smaller than a hummingbird, and a nice body shape for extended range operations. The sensor suite was quite large and heavy, taking up the majority of the internal space that wasn't used for anything else vital, but with it, we could count the number of ticks on a dog's ass from 10 kilometers up in the sky.

I had to make plans for airborne communications relays so that we could control them effectively without utilizing anyone's bandwidth, but Enbee and the other Engineers helped me wargame that while M16A1 tried her hand at sifting for nanomaterials. She was a touch slower than me, taking 3.1 seconds to sift each batch of water, but that was fine; it freed me up for other things.

"So, have you thought about your armor, 16?" I asked as I opened up the MJOLNIR X package and sent it to her, along with all of the numerous compliant variations; it had to be protective, but also accentuate the girl's feminine characteristics. It also had to be practical, with all of the pouches and things the best tactical vests we made could provide. The magazine pouches were most critical, having a thin Beskar plate to protect the aluminum magazines; those would still be disposable in a pinch, but they were all made by the Auto-Factory and inspected by the 'Goks- the best damn magazines ever made on this earth. Zero jams, guaranteed. "Also, you need to think about your Exo Skeletons and your weapons."

I said weapons because not only would they have two primary weapons to carry around for their Namesakes- one for non-lethal and one for definitely lethal- they would also have a non-lethal and lethal sidearm. They were bound by their old world's mechanics to some extent, but being here, under me, freed them of the majority of their limitations, and the major one was being limited to only their patterned weapon. She would still have her M16A1, but I'll be damned if she just had the shitty triangular handguard and now attachments; a suppressor would be mandatory in a city environment, and more importantly it made it easy to distinguish suppressed from unsuppressed gunfire. The Gangs of the city, except for Coil's Mercs, all were loud, so if the gunfire was quiet then people would automatically being to identify us by sound alone.

The Forge grasped onto a star from the "Self-Protection" constellation, and while I was happy to get one from there at all, I really wanted that Blank II to come in that was just hovering below the Perk that was picked.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 2.0280 - THEY ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE - 400CP - Medaka Box Abnormal - Protection]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

While it wasn't Blank, it was a relief to know that nothing could suppress me or my girls anymore; no Trump powers from Eidolon that weakened people, no power/skill stealing from Victor, and whatever crazy things existed in this world.

Unsurprisingly, M16A1 chose to take an MJOLNIR patterned more after the ODST armors; she was military, through and through- even if there was a 'PARA' in front of it. She decided that all future T-Dolls would have their armor in the exact same pattern, for uniformity and recognizability; I took a moment to treat it with the Aesthetics perk, and once it was done I shipped it off to Enbee to work on. The coloration of the armor itself was Blue and white, her visor was gold, but it had a dark-red patch on it that matched her eye patch. She also chose the ODST helmet, of which I approved; it was a sweet helmet.

Spoiler: ODST Pattern Mk X

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.%2Foriginals%2F87%2F12%2F2d%2F87122de64459ef663e56258baff677c7.jpg =1 =1]

As an afterthought, I worked in a holographic emitter that would allow the girls to express themselves through emojis, and could even render a fake holographic face if showing a human face underneath the visor would be best- particularly in search and rescue situations.

They could add flare to their armors, but the pauldrons would be left free to display their Cape names. Those that chose Exo-Skeletons so they could wield those big-fuck-off riot shields we created for the Mk IIs could do a little decoration. Some individuality would do them some good.

It took some time to shake her out of the mindset of using a stock M16A1, but once we had Echo 7 bring out an "M16A1 Mod. 0" with a whole bunch of bells and whistles that still kept the rifle's image, she was sold. Suppressor, PEQ, electronic weapons sight that gave up to 40x magnification that she could control through her implant, a targeting reticle that was on her hud that tracked her barrel movement, range finding, auto-adjustment for range, and so much more. It probably would have taken days to train a new soldier on just how to work the damn thing, but the moment she touched it, without even activating the implant link, she knew how to work it. I barely had to explain anything.

More Fiat-bullshit I suppose, but that did make life a lot easier. I was happy to see that she was just as excited for the non-lethal Mod. 0 as she was the lethal one, but I suppose that as long as she was shooting to fulfill her mission, then she was happy to wield herself and her rifle.

The daylight quickly faded and turned to night, and I went back inside while M16A1 stayed out to sift. I told her she could come in and rest, but instead she wanted to think.

I let her have that.

Instead, I ran home real quick and took a shower, cooked a meal, and took a two-hour nap.

I had familiarization training to do with my Mk X armor, and once that was complete I'd be training M16A1, and then? Then we'd go hunting.

You guys rock!

A/N: Okay, so this will be moving over to a new thread after I take a nap. So, be on the look out for it and be sure to follow when it goes up!

The positive and negative accentuations of the person's traits are mostly minimized by Subee's modification of the Serum, but it does make itself known, especially in a way that MC isn't paying attention to. He's always sort of been an Ends Justify the Means kind of guy, but never to any extreme capacity… but even having those traits cranked up just little bit extra caused a noticable shift in his behavior, and he's sort of aware of it- but he doesn't think he is going too far considering the dire circumstances.

I hope you enjoy reading it!

Time Circuitry (Marvel Magic) (400CP)

There are those with the power to turn even the currents of time itself against you. But you have methods of defending yourself. These schematics show you what is required to integrate time circuitry into other technology, perhaps as cybernetics or for your armor. While worn or otherwise integrated with your body, you will be protected from temporal manipulations, be it attempts to freeze you in time, cast you adrift in its flows, or even to kill your past self. You need never again fear such attacks so long as you wear this armor. If you bought the Magitech Armor above then you may choose to already have this integrated.

Aesthetics (Terraria - Journey's End) (100CP)

It's not enough to just be able to make things, if you can't make them look good. You now have a true talent for design work and layout, capable of mentally visualizing complex structures and working out how best to match your mental vision, without sacrificing things like structural integrity. This also applies when making things on a smaller scale, allowing you to alter the design of objects to add aesthetic flare without compromising their function.

THEY ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE (Medaka Box Abnormal) (400CP)

Perhaps you can no longer lose your powers due to your own growing up but it's still possible for people to take them away from you by force. Or at least it was before you made it known how much you refuse to let go of what you consider yours. It's impossible to degrade or take away your abilities in any shape or form, even on a merely temporary basis. Attempts to weaken, nullify, disable, steal, destroy or do any other sort of negative thing to your powers or the energies that they run on will find themselves not even touching you. It seems like your powers really are too integral to your being to ever be taken away from you.

Chapter 6 - First Night Out on the Town

[Jason Wilke]

[January 31st, 2011]

"Comms check," I spoke out, my implant activating the Mk X's auto-band and selecting the band that had the best signal.

"Reading you, five-by-five, Commander." M16A1's voice echoed smoothly into my ears from the helmet's internal speakers.

Spoiler: Commando Helmet

[img: https/halo.wiki.gallery/images/9/94/HR_Commando_ref.jpg]

I'd chosen the Commando variant if only because it had an enhanced communications node already installed on the helmet; without making too many design changes the girls in their future ODST-themed armors would have external communication boosters that would be integrated into their rucksacks. I thought about having the same communications package installed in their helmets, but the Aesthetics talent noted that it would disrupt the changes I made, so I didn't do it. I did have the commo-buoys floating above the city to make sure that there was beyond-excellent coverage, but it was always prudent to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

"Weapons check."

M16A1 and her two different models of her namesake weapon. The non-lethal M16 had a short 12-inch barrel that had a 4-inch suppressor on the end, and it fired 10mm tranquilizer rounds from a 30-round aluminum magazine that had a CO2 cartridge that was more than capable of firing every dart and then some; should the cartridge not connect then there was an internal CO2 reservoir located in the stock of the weapon that would propel the rounds then.

A hit anywhere on the body would put a full-grown man down in ten seconds for six hours- we would experiment with the potency and ratios once we had more "official" approval from the PRT to utilize them. Subee assured me that even if we amped up the potency to drop the time down to three seconds it would still be perfectly safe; the darts were smart, and could track who got shot how many times, so if someone accidentally caught multiple darts then they wouldn't receive multiple payloads.

Even then, the Lifegiver assured me that more would simply mean that they slept longer.

Her lethal model was a modified 5.56mm round that we created to be caseless; it shortened the width of the magazine by half, allowing M16A1 to carry twice as many magazines as she normally would have, and it cut the weight of each round by 50% without the additional brass. A lot of effort was put into ensuring that the caseless rounds wouldn't cook-off on accident, but the Forerunner tech was incredibly handy for that. The 5.56mm bullet was an 80-grain projectile, Full Metal Jacketed, if only because we actually didn't want to kill every person that raise a weapon at us; the heavier weight would prevent it from tumbling around and fucking them up even further.

If we wanted them dead we would just shoot them in the face; between our bodies and the armors we were more than capable of tagging everyone in the melon.

Or use the Armor Piercing-Incendiary or Explosive projectiles.

Her side-arms were a pair of Springfield patterned M1911s if only because it was familiar to her being a Vietnam Era patterned T-Doll. The .45 ACP chambering was big enough for a tranquilizer round- we wanted the tranq rounds to have a large enough bore so that the needle would penetrate and deposit its payload but wouldn't over-penetrate; the projectiles were kept to about 450 feet per second, so it was more than difficult for normies to see or react to, but quick enough to cross the intervening distance for efficient take-downs.

Everything was tacti-cool'd up to the 9's, with suppressors, IR/Visible flashlights, extended magazines, red dot sights, and production tolerances that would make a Competition Shooter weep tears of envy.

We set up a system- lethal would always be on the weak side, but considering our augments and armors we didn't have a 'weak side', though that was mainly for court filings; saying such things sounded pretty in a court-room. I don't know how often a cape would be summoned to testify, but I wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

I had gone for a modified BR-55 battle rifle, chopping the barrel down to 12-inches because it didn't add any more accuracy, and velocity was purposefully kept low. I had the same 10mm tranquilizer set up, though with the added diameter of the rounds and the CO2 cartridge at the bottom of the magazine it cut my available rounds from 36 down to 27- or 28 with one in the chamber.

Spoiler: BR55

[img: https/halo.wiki.gallery/images/f/f6/H5G_Render_BR55_Service_Rifle.png]

For my lethal option, I chose to pattern a modified MA5D, utilizing the same 5.56mm chambering that M16A1 had, if only keep our logistics streamlined; I would have to create more production lines as my number of T-Dolls expanded, but until I chose them I wouldn't know who to pick. With the caseless 80-grain rounds, I could fit 56 rounds into the remodeled magazine after some design fuckery. I could have fit more but I decided to keep the magazine flush for aesthetic purposes.

Spoiler: MA5D

[img: https/halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/8/87/H5G-Render-AssaultRifle.png/1600px-H5G-Render-AssaultRifle.png]

The side-arms were a pair of M6C Socoms that were chambered in .45 ACP, just like her 1911s, with one shooting tranqs and the other live ammunition. The lethals were colored black and the non-lethal weapons were painted white and blue for easy identification.

Spoiler: M6C Socom

[img: https/halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/6/65/M6C_SOCOM_r.png/1600px-M6C_SOCOM_r.png]

"I'm good to go, Commander," The T-Doll's visor gave me a smile emoji and she added onto that with a thumbs up.

I nodded, "Excellent. Let's go."

We moved out of the warehouse at Work Site 1, the old Brockton Bay Storm Drain control station, and activated our active camouflage units as we moved down the road at a brisk job. We could have moved way, way, way faster, but we used this time outside of the city to begin scoping out targets that the India units provided for us.

Rather than rock the boat too early by hitting the more lucrative ABB and Empire stash houses, we decided to move through the city and up towards Merchant territory. We stuck to the roads and kept off the sidewalks it was midnight, but there were a surprising amount of people still out and about; it was a Monday, people! Go home and go to bed!

In the bottom right-hand corner of my helmet Indias 3 and 4 were my resident Merchant watchers, and the past few days they'd been observing the movements of all of the hobos peddling drugs; they had a tougher time than the Indias keeping tabs on the ABB, E88, Police, Protectorate, and PRT because the Merchants didn't fly any colors other than "druggie-hobo chic", but once they learned the patterns of life it got a lot easier to track them.

True Hobos meandered between soup kitchen, the liquor store, and wherever they holed up to sleep.

Merchant Hobos had a much wider variety of locations, moving to different houses, through the Train Yards, supposedly abandoned warehouses near the Boat Graveyard, and through the east and western slums; they were also the ones who spent just as much time in vehicles driving around as they did on foot.

The Indias started tracking 87 unique hobos that matched Merchant profiles and public arrest records and began tailing them with an untiring level of persistence that only robots and undead were capable of. Where they went, who they spoke to, what they said when they spoke, and the communications they made with their cheap burner phones were intercepted, cataloged, and then bounced back out. Stash houses for drugs, weapons, and cash were listed out by my intel robots, and I chose to pick the three stash houses that were the most isolated on the map, all located on the border of the Central Railyard and East Slums.

While we moved, the Indias dedicated a dozen drones to conducting more thorough surveillance on the houses while we were en route; the drones analyzed the structures with their powerful sensors and mapped out every person and room in the place. I flexed my index finger and a needle protruded from the tip that leaked a single drop of tranquilizer before I flicked the droplet onto the street and retracted it.

The well-paved streets and clean high-rise buildings of the Financial district gave way to neat and tidy in-city housing developments as we moved through the trio of city blocks that New Wave claimed as their area of responsibility. My sensors caught sight of a woman flying in a slow circuit around the area, and I didn't even need the electronic enhancement of my helmet sensors to identify the blue and white bodysuit and blonde hair of Lady Photon.

Spoiler: Lady Photon

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.%2Fparahumans%2Fimages%2F0%2F0e%2FSarahPelham.png%2Frevision%2Flatest%2Fscale-to-width-down%2F310%3Fcb%3D20170917043750 =1 =1]

I sent M16A1 a ping and she tracked my movement as we jogged, and gave me a run-down of her cape dossier that Nugget helped me put together for every cape in the North Eastern United States- from Boston all the way up to Bangor, Maine. If there was a cape that could potentially shift towards Brockton Bay I wanted to know about them.

The residential areas widened up to a large park with concrete running paths, park benches, trash cans, some spread out but shade bearing trees, and grass that was already beginning to green thanks to Brockton Bay's silly, Fuyuki city-like weather. On the opposite side of the park was the Boardwalk, where a dozen strip mall like small business locations were spread out across a sea of wooden walkways and closed down food stands; some parts of the boardwalk jutted out over the bay on stilts while the northern half slowly sloped down onto the grey-brown sands of the south beach.

We moved through it if only to get a better lay of the land for M16A1 who memorized shop locations and clothing boutiques; no doubt she would be looking for more clothes once we had some petty cash to spend.

The North Ferry area was virtually derelict without the actual ferry to run- the only thing in the area was a small fenced-off area with a security booth that guarded the forcefield bridge out towards the Protectorate ENE Headquarters out in the bay. We observed the Rig and its vivid blue forcefield covering the structure but didn't bother to stop and gawp- it wasn't really important other than to know where it is, but considering it was lit up like a big blue spotlight it was really hard to miss.

Past the Boardwalk, we finally entered into the East Slums areas, where past the two blocks of relatively nice apartment complexes and other en-bloc ground-floor businesses things started to take a very quick downturn. There were a half-dozen soup kitchens and four homeless shelters in this area of the city, but part of the requirements to stay was no gang affiliation and random drug tests, so the Merchants steered clear of causing trouble there; just because the people staying there weren't hooked on drugs now didn't mean they wouldn't turn to drugs later.

I saw a bunch of posts online about Merchants handing off drugs to kids, or at least attempting to, but that seemed either implausible or they were low-level pushers looking to try and hook a younger audience; Skidmark might have been a foul-mouthed scumbag, but he wasn't a total idiot- trying to sell drugs outside of an elementary school was just asking for trouble. The PHO claims were just that, however, claims; I had Nugget look into it because it could have very well been some ABB, E88, or Coil psyops to try and weaken the Merchant's position. To date, no evidence was presented to support these claims, and in an era where people pull their cellphones out in the middle of a cape fight, the absence of any sort of photographs or video footage made it pretty sus.

I felt the Forge grow warm as it reached out and grasped onto a small star from the "Crafting Technological" branch before pulling it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 29.0020 - Big Bada-Boom - 100CP - Azeroth - Crafting Technological]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

My jaw dropped as I sent Enbee a packet containing all of the crazy shit that I was just given by the Forge.

The ability to make bombs- like, all sorts of bombs. Big bombs, small bombs, bombs that only blew up in one direction with zero backblast, bombs that could be as small and compact as a marble but still level a skyscraper. Small bombs that fit inside bigger bombs that didn't blow up via sympathetic detonation?

Holy shit, it even let me defuse all bombs.

Fiat backed, no matter how crazy or difficult the counter-measures were, if it was a bomb then I could disarm it, no questions asked.

Well, I have my Bakuda counter, though that was if I let her live in the first place. Or, I could try my hand at recruiting her. The question would be would it be worth it though? I would think on it, and instead set Nugget out to find a half-Asian girl attending Cornell University that had a near-perfect GPA or higher- she had blue eyes if I remember correctly, and with the heavy Boston accent possibly marking her as a Boston native that should probably narrow down the search results quite heavily. It would be weeks before her trigger, as Lung didn't recruit her until mid to late March if I remembered correctly.

M16A1 and I moved down the streets until we reached the block with our first target location. It was a run-down two-story affair with a basement that was blocked off by a one-inch thick steel door; the cash, weapons, and drugs were all located down there in three thick steel trunks that were padlocked. There were six men and two women between the ages of 20 and 40 within the home, and of them only three were awake; the youngest sat on a rickety wooden chair on the front porch and was hidden from view by a thick bush, another sat at the kitchen table was in the middle of rolling up what looked to be cigarettes. The final one awake was in the basement sitting on a couch and watching television while futzing around with his phone.

Two pairs of men and women were asleep in separate bedrooms, and judging by their states of undress they'd had a fair amount of fun a few hours previously. The last man was asleep on what appeared to be a child's bed in a bedroom on the bottom floor; his legs dangling off the bottom of the frame while a crackpipe was nestled against his chin.

Man, the sensors on these drones were no joke.

The Promethean vision that the SPARTAN IVs had access to was so severely neutered that it wasn't even funny; they could see through walls, but only vague outlines, meanwhile I could read the fine print on the bag of cigarette tobacco the Merchant was using to stuff his cigs. Granted, this was a dozen sensors working in tandem to map out a single building, but the sheer fidelity was amazing.

I entered into the Strategy Trance and thought very carefully about how we were going to approach this. It was our first little mission, and I wanted it to be a success- no fuss, no muss. I built up a packet with different versions of the plan based on some variables that could change and then sent it to M16A1 once I left the trance.

We split up. I moved towards the front while she moved towards the back, neither of us had weapons drawn because even with the suppressors the tranq weapons would cause enough noise to attract someone's attention; this wasn't like the movies where everything was whisper quiet. Granted, with Forerunner tech we could get pretty close. Still, with a 10-second window to unconsciousness, someone could make a pretty large racket, so we opted to go close and personal.

I moved around the front yard, sticking close to the small band of darkness that existed between the street lamp a dozen yards away and the faded yellow light above the front porch. In a split second, I leaned over the waist-high banister on the porch and slipped an arm underneath his armpit while the other closed over his nose and mouth; as I yanked him over the railing and onto the ground the needle penetrated his skin and delivered its payload. He tried to scream, but I easily kept him pinned to the ground, with my second hand clasping around his wrists to prevent him from reaching for the gun in his waistband; his booted feet tried to kick, and he squirmed but they barely made a sound against the dirt and grass.

There was a reason I pulled him off the rickety porch; he could have made a lot of noise drumming his heels against the wood.

Also, I didn't think about it, but if your reflexes are super, duper fast… ten seconds feels like an eternity… and yet the opposite is true. Ten seconds is ten seconds, it's not a whole lot of time, but when you're holding down a barely sober druggie it does feel a lot longer.

Once the young man was unconscious I tugged him in the bushes out of sight and made my way to the front door; M16A1 was already around back with a small tool we designed for quiet entry- a super grease that penetrated everything, and a key that would adapt to any lock it was placed in. She lubed up the hinges and locks and was waiting for me to make my move inside so that she could move.

I stepped up onto the porch, careful to not step on the clearly rotted planks; it still did squeak a touch, which caught the attention of the guy sitting at the table. He growled out a curse under his breath and stood up before tucking the handgun on the table into his waistband. The moment he left the table M16A1 slipped the door open and dashed quietly into the kitchen, and at that same moment I opened up the door and dashed in as well. She jabbed him and covered up his mouth and nose, her other arm wrapped around his waist and lifted him off the ground; my arm gathered up his legs while my hand snatched both of his wrists.

He couldn't make a single sound, and he couldn't squirm either- we were twenty-four hundred pounds of man, woman, and power armor. We sat him on the couch.

We moved through the rest of the house, greasing door hinges and spritzing down the sleeping Merchants with a mist borne paralytic. It took a little bit longer to work than the tranquilizers but at least we didn't have to deal with the struggle of naked, sweaty people when we jabbed them to put them under.

The final door was the thick steel door, and once the grease was squirted and the door unlocked I flew down the stairs and took down the last Merchant who was sitting on the couch; I wouldn't say he was none the wiser, because had been alert, with the shotgun he had moved from the table to rest against his leg, but it didn't do him any good. He had likely heard some movement upstairs that was maybe a touch irregular, but not enough to investigate or make a phone call.

While we were moving throughout the house we weren't able to be completely silent with how much we weighed- the MJOLNIR armor had specialized treads that allowed us to be way quieter than anyone as large and as heavy as us had the right to be, but the house was old and wooden. 2400 pounds was a lot to handle, and we had to move up and down the stairs one at a time due to structural concerns.

I had M16A1 go ahead and dress the naked women while I dressed the naked men, and we gathered them all downstairs to sleep on the couches and armchairs. After inserting the warehouse key I had Subee poot into the living room of the stash house and begin her evaluations of the tranquilizers and paralytics on the systems of the tweakers.

M16A1 stayed upstairs with Subee and chatted with her while I cracked open the three steel trunks and began laying out the drugs, weapons, and cash. Each weapon was photographed with serial numbers, each drug was tested and weighed, and the cash was given a rough count.

We took the cash according to the Vigilante Act of 1993, which allowed law-abiding Rogues the ability to claim spoils in the form of cash and jewelry as long as it wasn't vital evidence for the case based on the charges at the local or federal Law Enforcement would bring to bear through the District Attorneys. That and it had to be documented, which was something most Rogues either didn't know about or didn't care about; considering most were probably teens or young adults they probably only saw that yes, they could keep the cash they took off gangers and that was the end of it.

They more than likely didn't think about it any further.

This particular stash house only had about $23,000 in it, which while small, was more than enough to make this whole trip worthwhile.

I had the Indias move the drones over to the next stash house on our list and sent Subee back into the warehouse with the cash we collected.

After securing our prisoners, of course; it took us no time at all to confiscate their weapons and zip-tie their hands and feet together.

We were able to secure the other two stash houses in much the same fashion, with only little variation. Our active camouflages remained on without a problem after we shut them off for a cool-down period, and everyone was put to sleep with minimal damage; the worst they got was a little bruising around their wrists, ankles, arms, or legs whenever we secured them to prevent struggling.

We ended up collecting about $63,000 in cash between the three stash houses, and that was when I picked up one of the Merchant's burner phones and dialed the Brockton Bay Police Department's non-emergency lines.

"Brockton Bay Police Department, is this call an emergency?" A tired woman's voice spoke out.

"No, this is a non-emergency call, I am a new cape in Brockton- my name is Horizon. I'm calling because I have secured three Merchant stash houses, complete with illicit substances and illegal weapons. There are no injuries that require an ambulance, only vehicles needed to transport seventeen unconscious suspects," I spoke smoothly, giving the pertinent information at an even cadence so she wouldn't have to ask me to repeat myself. "There was no Cape involvement other than myself and my partner."

I listed out the addresses and she assured me that some squad cars and a pair of transport vans would be making it to the locations. She asked if we would stand by to give a statement, and I agreed without issue; if we were to build up a good working relationship with the BBPD then sticking around to answer questions and provide context would be important. I didn't like Piggot, but I didn't dislike her either- showing that we were willing to cooperate would do a lot to keep her from going off the deep end.

Within ten minutes we had a pair of squad cars pull up outside the house and four officers exited their vehicles- thankfully they were smart enough to not come with lights and sirens; no need to wake the whole neighborhood up. I slowly walked out of the front door, keeping my weapons magnetically slung across my back and my hands at my sides. "Good evening, Officers."

There was some apprehension in their stance when M16A1 followed out behind me, but a brief flicker of a smile emoji on her helmet and a gentle wave smoothed things over just a touch. The lead officer was Sergeant that was dark-skinned, in his early 40s with a mustache that had more than a few white hairs; he was a touch overweight, but other than that he fit his uniform well. "You are Horizon, yeah? I'm Sgt. Howards and this is Officer Manuel, Officer Higgens, and Officer Kwon."

16 and I nodded, and he turned to my companion with a small but bemused smile on his face, "I'm afraid we didn't get your cape name, Miss-…"

"Sixteen," She popped another smile emoji onto her faceplate, though this one was different than the last, "EmSixteenAyeOne."

"Like the rifle?" The South Korean officer snorted, and she turned sideways to show off her very tacti-cool namesake rifle that was magnetized to her backplate, " Suppose that answers that question… "

I blinked at the Forge as it grabbed a tiny star from the "Materials Mundane" constellation.

[Attempted Re-Forge: -9.0103 - Lightsaber Crystals - 50CP - Star Wars The Old Republic - Mundane Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

Hah! I was just talking about making lightsabers, and suddenly the crystals, as well as the schematics for making them, just dropped into my lap.

The Star Wars nerds of Earth Bet will lose their shit once I unveil this.

"So, could you tell us what happened here then?" Sergeant Howards spoke up as he nodded to Officers Kwon and Higgins who moved towards the house with their flashlights and tasers drawn.

"I can, but I'm waiting for the Protectorate Hero to show up, that way I can give a full report to the BBPD, Protectorate, and PRT at the same time," I tilted my head to the side as I shrugged exaggeratedly and lit the front of my faceplate up with an eye-roll emoji, "I've heard that the ENE Director is kind of a hard ass, so I want to play ball as much as I can; neither you nor they are the enemy."

[Robin Swoyer - Velocity - Protectorate ENE]

"Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-"

Velocity bit back a sigh as he slowed his running pace and exited his breaker state the moment his earpiece started to crackle, "-city this is Console."

"Go, Console," Robin spoke easily as he rubbed his chin with his gloved hand, he took a few moments to gaze at his red bodysuit with its signature 'V' leading down from his shoulders to meet around his belt-line; his eyes tracked over the black and white checkered bands around his biceps, thighs, and waist. He hated the damn things at it made him feel like a crash-test dummy, but Image was a department that was nigh-impossible to combat without a solid reason.

"We have a report from the BBPD about three suspected Merchant locations that were cleared by an unknown cape. No Merchant Cape involvement, and no notable injuries. The unknowns seem to be waiting with the responding officers for a Protectorate representative to show up; suspected Tinker with unknown specialization- they are wearing power armor."

Robin arched an eyebrow, "If there is no gang cape involved that is squarely within the BBPD's wheelhouse."

The PRT could usurp jurisdiction whenever a cape was involved period, but as long as the Rogues were obeying the spirit and letter of the law and there was no cape-on-cape involvement Piggot was content to let the various 'lawfuls' do their good deeds for the month before they disappeared back into the shadows. She didn't like it, but it wasn't as though she could pressgang every cape that was just looking out for their local communities. Most of them were kids going out wanting to be heroes, only to find out that even with powers it was incredibly dangerous; only a select few power classifications gave them the ability to shrug off gangers armed with switchblades and handguns.

The ones that survived typically never went back out if they could help it.

There were a dozen of so Rogues unaffiliated with the Protectorate and New Wave that went out consistently, but they were intelligent with how they went about their business- usually intelligent enough to steer clear of Piggot's tendency to strong-arm newcomers to the Bay. Though a few did end up joining the Wards or the Protectorate to get them out of the city after they bit off more than they could chew by stepping on one of the gang's turf with a bit too much bravado.

"Yes, this does meet the Director's criteria to leave it alone, but it was the capes who are requesting a Protectorate representative," The Agent responded.

Oh, a little meet-and-greet then? Probably wanted to show off their success to a Protectorate hero and slyly ask for an autograph; it's happened to Armsmaster and Miss Militia on more than a few occasions. Though if someone asked for his autograph on a night like this it would be a first.

Robin nodded to himself as he double-checked his reflection in the store window to make sure his costume was situated, "Alright, mark me down as responding; I'll give you an update once everything is concluded. What's the address?"

Console rattled off an address that was smack dab in the middle of Merchant territory, but not unsurprisingly; the Merchants were often the first target for new Capes looking to try and cut their teeth- the Empire had more than enough capes to keep their illicit operations safe, and the less about what Lung did to new capes who crossed him the better.

That was if Oni Lee even let them make it to Lung's clutches alive.

With a deep breath Velocity slipped into his breaker state and began moving towards the East Slums; it was technically called "Perdition Grove", and thirty years ago it might have been a real nice neighborhood, but most PRT and Protectorate personnel found it easier to just called whatever region they were patrolling by the current name on the street. That was unless they were going off the Protectorate's nomenclature, then it would just be called 'Sector B-3'.

He kept to the middle of the street, zooming down the road at- for him- was a fast jog.

His powers allowed him to essentially speed up time around himself locally, which gave Velocity incredible movement and reaction times far outside of the norm; he could dodge punches and kicks like they were being thrown by children having a mock slow-motion kung-fu fight after having watched that Aleph flick 'The Matrix'. This incredible speed didn't come without a drawback though; the deeper he went into his breaker state the less and less he could actually affect the world outside of it. Moving at his best possible speed he could run on the surface of the water as if it were solid ground, but he would be hard-pressed to nudge a paperweight on the side of a desk.

It meant that he had to be very careful with how deep he went or else he'd move too fast to be helpful; after a year with the Protectorate he did find a sweet spot where he could throw punches and still move around without any fear of being struck in return, but they hit with all the ferocity of an angry 8-year-old boy.

It was true, they measured his blows against that of one of the Field Agent's 8-year-old sons to see who could hit harder. They were about equal.

It was a bit emasculating, really, but after working with Armsmaster and Dragon they managed to come up with a solution that allowed him to be useful when punching perps in the throat or poking them in the eyes was heavily frowned upon. It wasn't 'heroic' to do such things, but that was just what PR did to capes like him- they took what little he could do and then hamstrung him even further. It took eight months for them to allow him to carry around Containment Foam grenades.

Eight. Whole. Months.

What was standard issue for the PRT Troopers and Field Agents was something he had to struggle with PR because a bandoleer of Confoam grenades looked too 'menacing and clashed with his image of a plucky speedster'; Dragon, the doll that she was, did manage to redesign the housings of the grenade to be less threatening though, but due to their new, less scary shape they could only hold half the amount of Confoam as a regular grenade. That and he had to get permission to carry more than four.

Granted, Piggot often granted it without a peep because he'd proven that he could be trusted not to misuse the grenades, nor did he use them frivolously; they weren't cheap, even with Dragon giving the ENE a Sugar-Mommy discount on behalf of Armsmaster.

Robin chuckled to himself at the thought of seeing the beautiful Canadian Tinker lavishing Colin with all sorts of gaudy gifts and the man having no idea what is going on. Despite the many years they've been 'collaborating' on numerous projects the man was so bad with people that he was blind to the fact that his girlfriend was so embedded in his systems that all he had to do was call out her name and she would drop whatever it is she was doing to talk to him.

Dragon was his live-in girlfriend that he didn't know was his girlfriend.

Forget 'Capes of our Lives', this was the feel-good romantic comedy that America needed. The jokes practically wrote themselves.

As he casually side-stepped a stray dog running across the street Robin wondered if he should pitch the idea to Assault; Ethan was more than willing to enjoy a good joke, and the thought of a sitcom based on Dragon and Armsmaster's 'will-they/won't-they' relationship would tickle him pink.

Probably so pink that he'd eventually run the joke to death and would end up infuriating his wife, Amanda- otherwise known by her alias Battery- would flip her lid and he'd end up sleeping on the couch again.

Robin slowed his speed so that he could catch a cigarette butt a bum had tossed towards the street. "Really? Seriously? The trash can is right there."

The hero pointed to the concrete bin on the street not two paces away, and the drunk mumbled an apology before pulling another cigarette from the pack and stumbling on towards the direction of the park; he sighed and threw the butt into the can before amping up his time dilation and began speeding off down the road towards his destination.

He slowed down his speed to a walk, though he kept his breaker state high so that he could leisurely observe the unconscious gangers that were being pulled out of a stash house about a block away from his destination; he pulled out his PRT phone and flipped through it for the incident report, and saw that this was the first address the new capes hit out of three.

He looked around and saw no visible injuries aside from some small bruises, and no damage to the property, which was sort of a rarity when it came to Tinkers rocking power armor; usually busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man was always high on their agendas, at least once, anyway.

Velocity dropped out of his breaker state to give the officers a quick greeting.

"Hey, Officer Thompson," the red-clad hero called out with a jaunty wave, a small smile on his face as he pocketed his phone, "Got anything for me?"

"Me? Nope, nothing other than the perps were put to sleep and the drugs and guns left out for us to find them," The blonde officer shrugged as he pulled open the back door on the paddy wagon and assisted the other two officers with getting the sleeping man into the back, "The cash is gone, but what else is new?"

Ah, so the new capes were someone that was read-up on the law in that regard, he would have to see if they knew they had to report the amount of cash that was on hand; breaking the law there was a misdemeanor, but like most law enforcement organizations they could hold onto that bit of information for their books. Piggot sure would. "Thanks, Thompson."

"No problem, Velocity."

He knew Thompson, hell, he knew most of the BBPD officers in the city- despite the huge gang and cape problems the low tax revenues kept the department small enough that Robin could say he'd met with most BBPD officers at least once; though Thompson was a regular face to him because the man regularly took the 'Cape' duty and the additional hazard pay that went along with it. His job was to respond to situations like this and hold the area until the PRT was able to arrive on the scene.

Robin stopped by and spoke to the officers at the next house over, and the scene and results were the same. All the perps put to sleep, the guns and drugs on display for the officers to find, and the cash missing.

He moved on towards his intended destination, and with a quick check of his watch he arrived in about five and a half minutes; if he hadn't stopped to chat with the BBPD he could have made it in four, but this was well within his nominal response window. If he was really pushing it he could have arrived in under two, though he would have been huffing a puffing when he got there- even with his personal time being accelerated he still had to run everywhere he went. It was a good thing he learned how to enjoy running in the Army, or else he'd be hating life in Brockton; he always had the largest patrol routes despite the fact he wasn't mounted like Miss Militia or Armsmaster.

He was 'the fast guy', what did he need a vehicle budget for?

He sped up his breaker state to the max so that he could use the extra time to observe the new capes properly. Holy shit, what the hell is that?

Robin reached up and turned the helmet camera on and double-checked to make sure it was recording on his PRT phone.

He'd seen quite a few tinkers over the years, both in Brockton and outside of it; every Tinker that could make power armor and had the budget for it always did. It was almost a rule for Tinkers, one that Robin wholeheartedly agreed with; what man or woman wouldn't make some badass power armor if they had the resources for it? However, the results were almost always the same- they were big, bulky looking, and more often than not were probably jank as hell because their specialization didn't cater well to the various systems that power armor needed to be successful. Whether it was coding, design, armor, or weapons, there was always some area where the Tinker in question had a deficiency that their specialization couldn't cover.

Armsmaster was no exception- Robin had seen some photos of Armsmaster's first power armor when he joined the Protectorate, and even with Hero's aid the man's power armor had some serious faults in the way of protection. He had plenty of weapons and tools thanks to his miniaturization and efficiency specialty, but one couldn't make armor smaller and be more effective.

The armor that the two capes were wearing was… different. It was sleek in all the right places and bulky where it mattered. It looked deadly as all hell, but there was a commanding presence to the armor that cut a heroic profile that was hard to ignore. The blue and white color scheme was obviously intended to give it a law enforcement look and feel, and if Robin was being honest it did a much better job giving a proper first impression than the all-black body armor, chainmail, and faceless masks that the Para Human Response Team's Troopers wore. On the right pauldrons, he could easily read "HORIZON" on the male figure and "M16A1" on the decidedly shorter female figure in a bold white font that had black outlining.

The helmet on the male figure turned towards him, and the man nodded.

At him .

He was as deep into his breaker state as he could go- he moved thirty times faster than the human eye could track, and yet this guy could see him… and nod at him fast enough that it didn't look like he was moving in slow motion?

The shock was enough to nearly pop Robin out of his breaker state, but he managed to breathe and calm himself down enough that he could slowly come out of it so that he didn't spook Sergeant Howards again. He approached from the side in clear view of the BBPD officers and dropped his power. "Evening, Sergeant Howards, a lovely night to bust some drug houses, huh?"

"Velocity, good to see you," The black Sergeant grinned as he reached into his coat a pulled out a notebook, "When the PRT told me someone would be here in five minutes I just knew it had to be you."

"Heh, you knew it was me because if it had been anyone else you would have heard them," He stepped forward and shook the officer's hand before turning to face the two newcomers, "but where are my manners? I take it you're the two Capes that kicked the doors down?"

The large, almost seven-foot-tall man slowly looked over to the intact front door before looking back at Velocity, his voice firm but flat. "I do not understand, no doors were kicked down during this seizure of alleged Merchant assets."

Was he trying to make an Armsmaster joke?

Before he could comment the visor of the female flashed with light, the letters 'L O L' popping up before a 'Crying' emoji took its place, "It's not nice to poke fun at Armsmaster, Horizon."

A smiling emoji flitted across the male cape's golden faceplate before his shoulders trembled visibly. "I'm sorry, truly, I am. I just couldn't help myself. It's good to meet you as well, Velocity. I am Horizon and this is one of my teammates, M16A1. We're part of a new Hero group that has decided to make its home within the Bay area."

Piggot was going to be absolutely thrilled.

The holographic emojis were a great idea, no doubt the PR teams would flip their shit for not having thought of it first; it allowed the perks of having full face protection while still allowing the capes to emote. He wondered if he could pull enough teeth to have Armsmaster make something like that for him; if there was one thing he wasn't immune to in his breaker state it was gasses and fumes- he still needed to breathe after all. Robin grinned and accepted the man's handshake and gave it a firm squeeze; the man's grip was firm, but it was just the right amount of firm.

A proper handshake.

It indicated that he was comfortable with his power armor enough to even shake someone's hand; most Brutes had a hard time controlling their strength when they first Triggered, and Tinkers with power armor often needed some extensive time calibrating their suits to handle things as simple and mundane as a handshake.

"Pleasure, Horizon, M16A1. So what do you have for us?" Robin deftly sidestepped the obvious question of whether or not it was actually her Cape Alias- even if it sounded silly most people had reasons for why they chose the name that they did, and more often than not it was tied to their Trigger events; best to just let it be. The Intel section can puzzle it all out later.

Horizon tilted his head and looked at the female who straightened up and began laying out a clear and concise sequence of events, from their discovery of the Merchant stash house locations, to a brief overview of their recon of the area, along with a decent description of their catching of the alleged perps and the gathering of the evidence. They even noted how much cash they had liberated for their own purposes.

It was very, very Military .

Horizon nodded at the conclusion of her report, and the woman visibly preened at the acknowledgment; it sort of threw him off because the visible joy showed by M16A1 was countercurrent to her wholly professional debriefing. A trained soldier one moment and a giddy school girl preening at compliments from her crush. It was so Glory Girl that it hurt.

Robin filed it away and took the opportunity to ask the question that the Sergeant was dying to ask but couldn't- while it wasn't illegal to inquire about a Cape's methods of takedowns, it was sort of a taboo for the mundane Law Enforcement, at least that was something he believed to be propagated. A lot of Capes survived by keeping their powers close to their vest. "So, if you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you manage to subdue all of these alleged gang members with so little fuss?"

The man tilted his head from side to side, as if mulling over whether or not to spill before he raised a finger on his right hand up. With a quiet 'shk' a one-inch long needle sprouted from the fingertip. "Fast-acting tranquilizer of our own design. It's been thoroughly diluted, but ten CCs and they're out like a light in ten seconds."

Horizon then reached into a small tactical pouch at the small of his back and pulled out a tan plastic hard case on it with his Cape Name stenciled on the front. He flicked it open and revealed ten small vials of a blue liquid, "This is the tranquilizing agent we use for our glove needles and non-lethal firearms."

Robin blinked for a moment before he looked down at their thighs and across their backs to see they did indeed have firearms. M16A1 turned around slowly and presented her back to him, showing off the two AR-patterned rifles held in place, likely by magnets. "The blue and white ones are our non-lethal weapons, pretty identifiable and easy to spot. The scary black ones are for when putting people to sleep isn't viable."

Velocity was thankful his yellow-tinted lenses covered up his eyes because he did take a moment to appreciate her posterior; he'd seen a lot of power armor before, but never one that accentuated a woman's curves quite to the extent her's did.

When the man closed the case up and handed it over to Robin he was a bit surprised, but he accepted it regardless. "Be aware, this is a courtesy. I'm handing this over to the PRT so that they can have Armsmaster and Dragon look it over and verify that it is safe; we've done plenty of our own testing and found that there are no side effects except for some dry mouth and lingering drowsiness that will pass after a few hours."

"Well, I'll definitely take this to them, not a problem," Robin nodded easily, though it had been a lie. What he was going to do was find someplace isolated to put the case until a PRT van came by to pick it up and inspect it; more than a few ner-do-wells have tried to slip some dangerous things into PRT and Protectorate holdings by handing off things to get inspected.

"The tranquilizers are patent-pending, and so are any possible derivatives of the unique chemical chain, so if I find out about someone trying to utilize my tech without speaking to my lawyers we're going to have some problems."

Now that was something that threw Robin for a loop, "Patents? These… aren't Tinker tech?"

The man shook his head and pulled out three SD cards from his armor, he handed one to the Sergeant while handing the other two to Robin, "No. They're not, it's why I could patent them in the first place; any respectable laboratory with the right equipment could recreate my process. Sergeant Howards, that card contains a written copy of our report, along with a video copy of our interactions. Stored on it are photographs of the serial numbers of the illicit weapons, the amount and type of the alleged drugs, and the list for the amount of liquid cash and assets we 'liberated' as per the Vigilante Act."

"As for you, Velocity," Horizon's faceplate turned toward him, "The white drive contains a step-by-step guide that Armsmaster and Dragon can use to recreate the formula. The blue drive contains all of our current medical and testing data for the tranquilizing formula. We will do our best to wait for PRT and Protectorate confirmation to validate our claims, but we won't sit idle for too long. If you wish to contact us I am verified on PHO,"

"I haven't made one yet, but I'm going to," M16A1 interjected brightly.

"- and when my team is fully assembled we'll contact the Protectorate and PRT offices to settle on a date and time when we can come by a register officially." The man's helmet tilted to the side, a white and black 'question mark' popping up on his faceplate, "Does that sound acceptable?"

"Yes it does, when I get back to the ENE Headquarters I'll be certain to make sure that my report will be the first thing the Director sees on her desk when she comes in." Velocity noted the snort from Horizon.

With that, the power-armored pair bid him and the officers farewell before they turned away and walked down the street until they faded out of sight due to the row of busted street lamps.

"They're too damn big to be that damn quiet," the Sergeant muttered under his breath before inhaling and turning his attention to the paddy wagon that had just pulled in front of the house.

Officer Rawlson, another familiar face, slipped out of the passenger side cab and began talking to the Sergeant, "-first van's full up, so Eddie and Harry are escorting them to the pokie at station 5; once we've got the rest in here where do you want us to go? Station 7? Station 6 only had like three holding cells free-"

Velocity patted the Sergeant on the shoulder before he cranked up his breaker state and moved towards the nearest park before setting the plastic hard case Horizon gave him on a park bench and moving a safe distance away. "Console this is Velocity,"

"This is Console, reading you loud and clear, Velocity," a warm, feminine voice sounded out over his radio. Oh, it was Agent Heather on the Consol for the rest of the night? He checked the time and sure enough, it was 3:17 AM, the shift change had just taken place this week.

"I just received a Tinker Tech care package for Armsmaster and Dragon. The new cape I was sent to link up with was indeed a Tinker- used some sort of tranquilizer to take the alleged Merchant members without much of a fight. I'm standing by for a sweep-and-clear op before I bring this back with me to Protectorate HQ."

"Roger that, Velocity. I'm having a Clearance team sent your way now, ETA 26 minutes."

Robin shook his head as he leaned up against the nearest tree, the man taking a moment to rest and stretch his legs out; now he had to play the waiting game, but this little venture would eat up the rest of his patrol time, easily, so the moment it was done he could run back to the Rig and turn in. He had the night shift again tomorrow night, and he wanted to stop by Fugly's in the afternoon and pick up a burger.

Not for the first time he lamented the fact that Miss Militia, the lone Noctis cape on their roster, didn't get more night shifts, but she was the Second-in-Command and the second-most popular member- she needed to be visible.

"Thanks, Console. Velocity is standing by at Haber Park in Sector B-3."

You guys rock!

A/N: Slightly shorter chapter tonight. Going to get some sleep and then come back swinging when I awaken from my slumber. Little Velocity interlude.

Big Bada-Boom (Azeroth) (100CP)

You may not make the prettiest of engineering gizmos, but boy do you know how to make them go BOOM! You can make big bombs or little bombs or big bombs IN little bombs capable of taking out an entire skyscraper. You are an expert at bomb crafting, able to make bombs the size of a marble that would make even Deathwing flinch. This also extends to defusing bombs if, for some reason, you don't want a boom, but that's just crazy talk.

Lightsaber Crystals (50CP)

If you want to create more Lightsabers without access to the setting's unique metaphysical geology, you'll need these. Each fist-sized rock has a sample of Force-sensitive crystal growing from its surface, which can easily be broken off into chunks sized for lightsaber crafting or creating Force Focuses. Purchase includes a rock for every type and color of crystal available in the setting, including synthetic crystals such as the red Force-crystals favored by the Sith. The crystals are always properly attuned to whoever harvests them, regardless of color, and will regrow within a day.

Chapter 7 - Gut Punch Followed by...

[Jason Wilke]

[February 1st, 2011]

"16, it's time," I called out to the T-Doll as she stood next to the pipe that was continuously flowing brackish saltwater into the nanomaterials sieve.

She was wearing a short skirt that cut off mid-thigh and was sans socks and shoes, a white button-up covered her torso, but considering the high flow rate of the pipe she'd gotten splashed and it was nearly translucent. She wasn't wearing a bra, so her shapely assets were on display, her brown nipples peaked from the cool temperatures and the ocean breeze.

M16A1 had spent the morning shifting for more materials while I had been in the Magic Lab, constantly enchanting materials only to break them down so I could collect the runes- it was the only way to stockpile them because the Rune Generators would only replenish if the rune was used in the construction of a Glyph. It was an annoying limitation, but the workaround was simple enough- the supercomputers in the Rune Research lab were constantly observing each and every successful Glyph creation, and I had no doubt that with enough data and maybe some experimentation the highly specialized machines would be able to help me come up with new Glyph combinations or maybe something entirely new.

The woman gave me a big grin as she sifted the last pound of nanomaterials and poured them into the bin before she collected her socks and shoes and began dragging the wheeled dolly along behind her as we returned to the Work Site. We were going to create her little sister, well, one of her little sisters- I'd decided to create M4A1, M4A1 SOPMOD II, and ST AR-15 since they had subdued character designs and they all utilized the same weapon platform as well as ammunition. However, we only had a limited amount of bio-goop available for one more T-Doll, so rather than make M16A1 agonize over the choice of which of her sisters to make first, I made the command decision for her.

M16A1 only paused to hand off the half-full bin to the shelving robot before trotting alongside me as we made our way to the Medical/T-Doll construction area. Subee and Alpha were standing by, as were Bravo and Charlie, the two newest Lifegivers I'd bade them to construct. Enbee, BB, and Echos 1 through 16 were on standby to observe and assist, but for the most part, this was just ceremony- it wasn't like they had much to do considering a single Hurgok could run the maintenance for every piece of equipment we had, so for 18 of them they were probably bored.

I flipped through the T-Doll catalogue as I approached and found that the recipie for M4A1's construction was virtually the exact same. Grabbing onto the talent I began pulling the Ammo, Rations, Parts, and Manpower tokens off of the carts and laid them out on the table. The light show was the exact same as last time- the materials deconstructing into a near-blinding sludge before reforming into M4A1's physical body. She was just as gifted as her sister, but where her sister had been 5'10 in height M4A1 was a touch shorter at 5'8, which made sense given her namesake weapon's shorter profile.

M16A1 breathed in deeply as the light faded, revealing her little sister's nude, synthetic form. "I've seen a lot of T-Doll construction, Master, but this was not how we are made, at all. I take it this is the Fiat backing of the Forge at work?"

"Yes, it is. I don't know how Manpower can be quantified into little metal tokens, but it is what it is. It just works." I said before I turned towards her and spoke softly, "Now, this process… isn't pretty to look at. I don't know how you'd handle this, but… are you sure to want to watch?"

Her lone eye narrowed slightly as her lips pressed into a determined line. "I can handle it, Commander."

Despite the confidence in her words she still took the hand I offered and squeezed it firmly. I looked back to my arrayed Engineers and nodded. "Begin."

M4A1's synthetic flesh and muscles were quickly stripped away, leaving only her skeleton behind; M16A1 looked rattled at the sheer quickness in which the half dozen Hurgoks were able to remove everything- a school of piranhas had nothing on the bois. Her firm squeeze became a death-grip as they stripped her bones down until it was nothing but wires that had barely enough structural rigidity to not collapse; the Forge hummed in agreement at the deconstruction but warned that attempting to strip away anymore would cause the process to fail. Looked like the Hurgoks had nailed the percentage that could be removed down to 0.0001%, and would no longer need my direct guidance for future T-Doll construction.

Then they began to build her skeleton back up with the Phrik/Beskar/Ultrachrome/Cortosis laminates. Within ten seconds her endoskeleton was fully realized, and that was when I patted M16A1's hand, gave her a confident smile, and had her release me so that I could grip my Corusca Gem etching tool and begin carving the same runes that were present on her own skeleton. Red, Blue, Purple, and Yellow runes flowed off the table in a constant stream, joining their corresponding etchings and sinking in without issue as I took the same level of detail and care. She would be just as hearty and as durable as her sister.

The glowing magic faded after they connected and settled into her frame.

With four Lifegivers working in tandem, the construction of her brain and the rest of her body went far more quickly than before, and within a few minutes the new bio-android T-Doll was laying out naked on the table. The T-Doll Subee Serum was pulled from the Vita Radiation stabilization chamber and feathered into her body. "She'll need 24 hours, 16, and then she'll be ready for activation."

The woman licked her lips and nodded as the apprehension washed away from her and she slumped in relief; I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled in close to give her a firm hug, which she returned. "Thank you, Commander."

I chuckled lightly as the hug ended and I used the tip of my index finger to tilt her chin up. It was plain to see the fear on her face, and my mind recalled the phrase from the T-Doll catalog's description of her- "having been both friend and foe". I don't know what caused that to happen within her universe, but it was obvious that there were still some hang-ups she had about whatever occurred there. I gave her my best reassuring smile, "I'm certain that she'll be happy to know that you're here with her, 16. Safe and… uncontrolled."

It was a shot in the dark, but the only way I could see a T-Doll being disloyal to her comrades in arms was through enemy action. Hacking was a mechanic in the games, where the player could commandeer enemy mechs for their own use, so would it be so far outside the realm of possibility that M16A1 herself couldn't have been captured and turned?

The smile she gave me was wet as tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, but she did smile. I felt that true catharsis wouldn't occur until M4A1 was awake- only then would the pressure that was building be released. "Come on, let's go into town, we have some shopping to do."

I took her hand and we walked towards the entrance to the Work Site where the F100 was parked and ready to go, but I didn't miss the way the T-Doll looked at her sleeping sister until we exited the warehouse, the Entry Barrier closing behind us as I shut the door and locked it up.

We drove back to the house to change into some better clothes- we had a number of places to go and things to do, and I was not about to drag M16A1 around while she was wearing an otaku's wet dream version of a miniskirt.

We got showered up in our separate showers and got dressed. I was the first out considering I didn't have any long hair to take care of, and I started cooking a nice fish-heavy meal since the pork, chicken, and beef I had available were extremely limited; we would be taking care of that problem while in town. I mentally sent Enbee a request to have two chest freezers constructed, and within three minutes I was pulling two large freezers out of the warehouse and plugging them into the wall in the dining room area of the kitchen.

Tiffany came in through the front door, the old woman raising an eyebrow as M16A1 exited the guest bedroom wearing blue jeans that looked painted on, a leather belt with a modest brass belt buckle, and a grey t-shirt that had a silhouette of an M16A1 across her breasts; the shirt was just as tight as her pants, hugging her bosom and showing off the definition of her eight-pack. The T-Doll was scrubbing her hair with a towel, and the woman's lone gray eye crinkled as a small smile slipped onto her face, "Hello, you must be Miss Tiffany."

"Well I guess I should have expected a hunk like you to work fast, Jason," The old woman muttered under her breath as she gave me the side-eye, but then she was all smiles as she turned her attention to the T-Doll in front of her, "Hello, dearie. Yes, I am Tiffany, it is a pleasure to meet you. I didn't know that Jason had already made a friend, so it's quite a shock to see you here."

She wasn't wrong, I did make a new friend.

I grinned mirthfully as I plated the fish and stirfried vegetables and sat them on the table, "I still have extra, Ma'am, would you like for me to make you a plate?"

The woman's weathered features tightened as she smiled and shook her head, "Oh, no, dear, I already ate breakfast before I came over. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that my birthday is next week, and my Granddaughter has promised that she'll be coming over. Though whether she'll actually be able to make it is anyone's guess; the PRT do like to make her work."

"Tea or coffee then?"

"Well, some coffee wouldn't go amiss," The old lady replied as she as down on the couch and pulled out a cigarette the moment I poured her a cup; it was a few hours old, but the hot plate kept it warm. Tiffany liked her coffee black, but had to add in cream to take down the acidity because it was hard on her stomach.

Nothing like a good cup of coffee and a cigarette to start the morning.

We ate quickly, powering down the food, and just as we finished Tiffany spoke up. "Do you have a hairbrush?"

M16A1 blinked, "Ah, no, I don't. We were going to go into town to do some shopping for my toiletries and other necessities."

I drew up a designed and sent it to Enbee, who puttered in a minute later with a hairbrush in hand- er, in tentacle. Tiffany stood up and placed her empty coffee cup on the counter before tossing her cigarette butt into the trashcan, she stood behind the T-Doll and grabbed the brush from the Hurgok. "Thank you, Enbee."

The best boi whistled and nodded before tooting back into the warehouse.

"Hold still, girl, let me fix your hair." She spoke softly, her aged fingers combing through M16A1's genetically superior locks to feel out for any knots before she found them with the brush. Finding none, not that she would, the woman began to brush the T-Doll's hair. I washed the dishes as she worked, and within a few moments the old woman was humming a soft, somber tune to herself that caressed my ears. There were no words to this little song, but I could feel the emotions behind it- its cadence and melody were old, probably harkening back to a time well before you could hear music with just a push of a button.

I ignored the Forge trying to grasp onto a star to focus on her song.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

As I dried off the two plates I shut off the water and leaned my hip up against the counter and crossed my arms, taking the moment to close my eyes and just enjoy the sounds. After a few minutes, the singing was over and Miss Tiffany came back to herself, the woman licking her lips as she placed the brush on the card table. She cleared her throat. "How do you do your hair?"

M16A1 had relaxed throughout the entirety of the process, seemingly caught off guard by the spontaneous grooming; I wasn't certain, but considering the 'big sister' vibes I got from her this was probably the first time anyone had done something like this for her. Was she used to doing this for others? A small smile graced her lips as she tilted her head so that her lone visible eye could be seen by the old woman. "Just a simple braid, Miss Tiffany. It's always how I've done it; fancy hairstyles are just too difficult to keep up with."

"A simple braid for a simple girl, is it?" She smirked a little bit, the tender, old Tiffany being replaced by the sardonic and no-nonsense old woman I'd come to know the past few weeks. Well, almost a month now. I hadn't hung around her as much due to my focus on Glyph enchanting and getting the warehouse stocked up with nanomaterials. Once I had more help I could do more, the poor woman was probably lonely, and the simple admission that her Granddaughter might not even be able to make it home for her birthday probably had her feeling some type of way.

"Indeed," M16A1 grinned as she settled back into the Hurgok reinforced plastic chair, "I don't like all of the fancy things, I just prefer my iron sights, so to speak."

"So, about your birthday, Ma'am," I asked as I grabbed the wallet and keys for the truck before slipping them into the pocket of my thin coat, "What kind of cake do you like?"

"I'll let you get me a cake, and maybe some ice cream," Tiffany huffed as she tucked an unlit cigarette between her lips, "But no more, you and your gas bag have more than fixed up enough things in my house to avoid needing to get me a gift. Also, I like chocolate on chocolate, and mint chocolate chip."

"Mint chocolate chip? There are a lot of other flavors to try out there in the world," I grinned and crossed my arms across my chest.

"Let me tell you something, I've been on this earth long enough to remember when Baskin Robins was once Snow Bird Icecream and they only had 21 flavors," She pulled the cigarette from her lips and gestured at me with it, "Back in '45 they came out with the flavor and I'd been in love with it ever since. So don't knock my ice cream, boy."

I held my hands up with a grin, "Don't worry, I like it myself, it's just… I'm a peanut butter and chocolate kind of guy."

"Bah, too rich for my blood," She grunted as she finished with M16A1's braid and pulled a rubber band out of her own hair, and wrapped it around the tail, "Just get me a pint and a small cake; you can bring whatever you like for yourself."

"Now, you two are heading out into town to do something, yeah?"

I nod, "Yup, need to restock and get some more yeast."

"Good, then if you wouldn't mind picking me up a dozen eggs and some bread while you're at it? Sunbeam, the good stuff, none of that Wonderbread crap," She reached into a small pocket on her dress and pulled out a few crinkled bills.

I shook my head as I pulled out my wallet and flashed her some of the cash we made last night, "Took down a few Merchants last night, Ma'am. I'm set for cash for a good while."

Her nose scrunched up and she shook her head, but she did put her money back into her pocket, "Fine, fine. I know I ain't gonna get you to take my money anyway. Now, go on, you two."

"You aren't going to ask me my name?" M16A1 piped up, her eyebrow arched.

"Nope. Don't want to know. You're a Cape, that much I can tell. Ain't no young woman got as much muscle as you do yet still don't look like one of those muscle-bound female bodybuilders I seen on the TV," She shook her head as she lit up her cigarette and walked towards the front door, waving her hand at us as she pushed the door open, "The less I know, the better. Taa-taa."

The T-Doll smiled softly as she pulled her braid over her shoulder and stroked the tail a few times. "I like her, Sir. She's… nice."

I agreed.

Before we left, M16A1 and I tugged a bunch of scraps from the scrap field into the medium-sized barn on the property. The 'Goks built a door out of some scrap wood and created a doorknob with a lock so that we could open up the workshop from anywhere; all we had to do was roll the doorframe around and bada-bing bada-boom we had instant access. With the door to the warehouse opened up a trio of Engineers floated inside and began repairing everything they could get their tendrils on, and with the scrap they deconstructed it all and began building a large cattle car that we could hitch to the back of the F100.

After that, we drove into Brockton and stopped by the supermarket to grab every bit of food that wasn't nailed down. Twenty-five one-pound packs of bacon, every steak and pound of ground beef they had on the floor, all of their pork and half of their chicken; we didn't have any more room in the cart, but we did remember to grab Tiffany's eggs and bread. On a whim, we grabbed the ice cream and some ingredients to bake a cake, which necessitated we grab more eggs.

We ended up snatching ten whole cartons, just to give us some more variety. I didn't know how much the T-Dolls would end up consuming, but even my metabolism required triple what was recommended for normal people; the fact that I could do all I could do with just 6,000 calories a day was a testament to Subee's stellar work on my new body.

The very tight smiles on the teenage cashier and bag boy's faces at the mountain of food we had in the cart were only offset by the fact that they got to ogle M16A1's tits. The acne-ridden bag boy coughed into his shoulder. "I, uh, like M16s too. They're the coolest."

My T-Doll grinned at the paise, "I know, right? I mean, sure, they aren't the self-cleaning wunderwaffes that Mr. Stoner advertised them to be, but there isn't another rifle in the world that's seen more combat than the M16!"

The blonde cashier nodded along dumbly with a goofy smile on his face, the young man interjecting into the conversation here and there while the brunette female cashier with braces working the next station over glowered. I gave her a winning smile and her eyes widened a little bit before she ducked her head, a blush creeping across her cheeks as she scanned the items on her counter more quickly.

"- prefer Aleph's Modern Warfare 2, though. Better balancing on the weapons and stuff; our's is just a mess with the inclusion of Tinker Tech weapons into the DLC." Bagboy remarked, and Cashier nodded, "I mean, Dragon is sweet, the coolest Tinker around, but there is no reason why Confoam grenades should be as good as they are! What's the purpose of having flashbangs and concussive grenades when confoams obstruct vision and movement better than both combined!"

" Totes, my guy, they should restrict the count to one grenade, and patch One Man Army so that you can't restock your Lethals and Tacticals with every class change," Cashier added on, and once the last item cross his scanner he looked up at me, his eyes going wide as if he was just seeing me for the first time, "Uhhhhhh… that'll be $1,597.36… Sir?"

Come on, dude, I've been standing here the whole time! Granted, I guess it does mean that even my 7-foot-tall self doesn't attract more attention than a pair of tits; even the females were all too busy glaring at her to make doe eyes at me.

Then again, they're teenage boys, expecting them to not get distracted by the woman wearing tight clothing without a bra was just wishful thinking. I flipped through the cash and handed over $1,650 before I reached over and gathered half of the bags in my massive paws and nudged the laden cart into M16A1's hands with my hip, "Keep the change."

"You sure you don't need help getting all this over to your vehicle?" Bagboy asked, his voice cracking just a touch.

"Nope, we're good, thanks."

I grinned, and the T-Doll waggled her fingers at them, "It was nice chatting with you boys~."

Only the sound of the woman who had been in line behind us clearing her throat snapped the boy's attention away from M16A1's ass as we walked away. I couldn't be mad at them for staring, because I too was a man, a man that slowed my walk just enough so I could get a good view of her janes; they were indeed tighter than sin, and without her underwear, the cleft of her cheeks deliciously contrasted the plump hump of her camel toe.

We loaded up the truck and drove back to the house, offloading the groceries into the fridge, freezer, and two chest freezers before we connected the cattle car up to the F100's trailer hitch and trundled off towards a place I found about three hours southwest of Brockton called "Windy Valley Farms".

The truth was we needed a lot more biomass if we were going to keep producing T-Dolls; the deer and other animals the Lifegivers had rendered down into the bio gel that they used to build them up had been tapped dry with M4A1's construction.

"So, you want 10 cattle and some goats?" The elderly gentleman raised an eyebrow as he flipped through some paperwork on the desk in his old, rickety office.

"Indeed I do," I nodded, "I just got back from a trip to the grocery store not too long ago, and my bill was outrageous. I'm a big boy that likes my steak, but the prices they're charging up in Brockton will make your hair rise."

The balding old man chuffed, "That they will; but food prices are up every year everywhere in the country. It's the way things are."

"Yup, can't change it, but I have a butcher that I know in town who'll slaughter any animal I got for a fair price, so I figured I'll cut out the middle-man and save myself some cash that way," The wooden chair creaked as I leaned back and hefted my ankle on top of my knee, "Besides, I got a new property that's really overgrown; waist-high tall grass and lots of underbrush everywhere. It's already got a fence, so I can unleash the grazers upon it, and skip the rental fee I'd have to pay for a tractor and cutter."

"Well, that's certainly one way to go about it, I suppose," He shook his head as he lifted up his paperwork and shuffled it to the side, "Tell you what, I don't usually sell piecemeal like this, but I can respect a man that goes out and does for himself rather than letting others do for him."

I ignored the small stab of pain in my heart.

Having my pootie bois and tootie gurls doing all of my work for me doesn't make me any less of a man, right?

It doesn't.

Right?

As if feeling my pain about not having any skills to build my own shit the Forge patted me on the head and puffed up, as if to say "I got you, bro."

It was all bravado though, as the star he reached out for was a big six charge beast, and it failed to budge it. "Maybe next time."

[Remaining: 250 CP]

"I got fifteen cattle that are getting up there in age, and they aren't producing milk much anymore. They should last another year or two just fine, and all are as healthy as can be, and since they aren't capable of birthing anymore I can sell them to you without going through the state legislature's horseshit," He scrubbed at his mustache, "I know you said ten, but if you take all fifteen of them I will sell them to you for a thousand each."

The cattle car would only be able to hold ten, but that was fine, I could make the trip back tomorrow to pick the other ones up. I nodded and reached into my pocket to pull out fifteen grand and set it on the table. He was getting a good deal- state law required that he take care of all of his animals, regardless of whether or not they were capable of making him money, so he would have either had to of taken care of them until they died, or he would have to sell them off for slaughter, and considering their age and lack of real meat he wouldn't get much for them. The cost of transporting them to get slaughtered alone would have eaten nearly half of his earnings.

Fifteen thousand in cash, under the table with no paper trail, was probably a nice little come-up for him. He took the wad of bills and sat it in one of those old money counters, and when it checked out he took a yellow counterfeiting pen to it. "The money seems good, let's go out and get you your, heh heh, mobile lawnmowers, son."

We exited the small farm house's office and trotted outside where we caught sight of M16A1 behind a wooden fence with a calf halfway laying across her lap, the T-Doll cooing and making baby noises as the cow chewed grass and enjoyed her powerful fingers scratching his scalp and ears.

Spoiler: Moo Cow Baby

[img: https/external-content.%2Fwp%2Fwp5352810.jpg =1 =1]

The T-Doll's lone visible eye looked up and me and pierced my very soul.

"I want her, Jason."

My smile was brittle, "He can't sell us the calf, sweetheart."

"Jason. I want her."

I sighed and turned my attention to the older man as he rested his gut against the fence and scrubbed at his bald head. "I'm sorry darling, but as much as it brings me joy to see you fall in love with her, I'm afraid she's on my books. I can't let her go."

M16A1 pouted, "This is America, damnit! I should be able to own a cow if I want to! Too much damn paperwork for something that's supposed to be simple- what happened to my dear 'Land of the Free', huh? You used to be able to buy all sorts of things! Like suppressors in hardware stores, and my good friend Thompson! You could buy her back in the day for $45 dollars! Now you can't even buy a cute little cow without the government telling you 'NO'-"

The T-Doll continued to rant underneath her breath as the owner of the farm chuckled, "She's spirited, your girl there."

"That she is," I shook my head, "Let's go, sir. I'd like to make it back before the sun sets."

It took us four hours to make it back to Brockton, if only because we kept the speed at an easy 50 miles per hour; the F100 was an old truck and there was no way it could pull 12,000 pounds of cattle and trailer. Granted I could simply say that I had a Tinker friend who owed me a few favors, but the sight of the short truck easily pulling the 18ft trailer with the heads of cows sticking out the sides was probably funny enough. We avoided most of the attention by skirting the city and taking the highway around, but we did have to cruise through the Industrial district and suburbia to make it back to the house.

No doubt we caught a few eyes on the way through, but I like to think that the few people who cared to gander were just appreciating the old classic truck.

I would have avoided the city entirely if I could have, but there weren't any backroads from the house; the road ended two miles down the road from the trailer park, so through Brockton Bay we drove.

The sun was just setting as we trundled up the drive, and I pulled in behind the double-wide, hopping out and moving into the barn with M16A1 at my side. We spent the remaining daylight clearing out a good one hundred and fifty foot by one hundred and fifty food section of ground of junk and debris. After that we moved in and started grabbing armfuls of four-foot-tall steel posts that the Engineers made for us and started pounding them into the ground with some rubber mallets to make a perimeter; with our strength, it was easy, and with our night vision? Well, it might as well have been daylight outside.

We connected two poles between each post, and the last thing to go one was the gate. We let a few of the Engineers out to float around the cleared area, searching for any scrap metal, nails, metal shavings, etc. Just because we were going to humanely render these animals down into bio goop to build T-Dolls didn't mean I would just let them cut themselves on crap or get a nail stuck in their hooves. I wanted these cows to enjoy the rest of their lives before they made the ultimate sacrifice to build me an army of T-Dolls.

M16A1 was still a touch sullen about not getting her own moo-cow to spoil rotten, but I promised her that we would find some suitable pets for her and the girls; animals were often used as emotional support for the T-Dolls, and the base that they had with Griffen & Kryuger had a whole room of their complex filled with cats and dogs and other animals for the girls to play with and decompress. It sounded like a great idea- there was something about just loving on an animal that really was therapeutic.

We offloaded nine of the cattle, the two of us easily able to steer the bovines into the enclosure, and Enbee set up a water trough while Echo 1 and 2 constructed a rickety-looking sunshade out of wood and rusted sheet metal for the cattle if they wanted to get out of the sun; emphasis on 'looking'. The structure was as solid as anything else they built.

I pulled the cow into the warehouse and guided it onto a small lift next to the large glass enclosure. The cow mooed as it was lifted up into the air and sat down into the bio-gel tank, and Subee floated above the rim and stroked the bovine's face before her tendrils reached in and shut off its brain. The old girl slumped onto her knees and let out her last breath; a peaceful, painless sleep. Alpha and Bravo hovered into the tank, and between the three of them the cow was deconstructed into its individual components- the only things that weren't included in the slurry were the few bits and pieces of steel that had gotten stuck in its hooves and the tracking chip attached to the tag in its ear.

We could make five more T-Dolls with the biomass that was added, and that was what I did.

M4A1 SOPMOD II, ST AR-15, H 416, and K2, were all chosen due to their being derivatives on the M16A1. ART556 was chosen because she had a caliber commonality, and the team needed a cute girl to do cute things; it may have sounded bad- demeaning in a way- but even in a world like Worm, the court of public opinion still believes that Cute is Justice… even if they don't exactly describe it in those words.

It wasn't because she was adorable and had big old fox ears and a tail that Subee and the girls would lovingly render into flesh.

I moved from T-Doll to T-Doll, etching the Glyphs into their skeletons while the Engineers and Lifegivers worked like the hard-working bois and gurls they were and put them all together. It took almost an hour for them to construct them from start to finish, and after they were done I set the Hurgoks to double their numbers once more while I whipped up a massive, carbohydrate-laden, yeasty meal for them.

Subee took the lead in constructing the four new Lifegivers while Alpha and Bravo took over the applications of the T-Doll Subee Serum; their workflow was slowed down by the fact that it took an hour for each dose of the serum to be properly irradiated, but Enbee fixed that by adding six more irradiation stations.

I had been wondering how they irradiated the serum, and to my surprise, it was simply twelve bricks of the Nitrimine explosives that had been rendered chemically inert and were stacked in a circular housing before a thick layer of lead was built up around it, and then a shell of Phrik with a little swinging door was built up around it. Huh.

By the end of all of the construction, I had 26 Engineers and 8 Lifegivers that were now voraciously hungry, and I walked by the Hurgok that had arranged themselves in two rows with large paper bowls held in their tentacles. If I smudged dirt on their cheeks and wrapped a ratty kerchief around their necks I could have cast them in the Forerunner production of 'Oliver Twist' .

Those six beady eyes were all looking at me searchingly, "Please sir, can I have some more?"

However, instead of puffing up and shouting in disbelief, I scooped another serving of rice, molasses, sugar, and yeast into their bowls with a pat on the head. M16A1 squealed and gave them each a kiss on their snakey snoots as we passed by with the big steel pot held between her hands. "They're so cute~!"

I ignored the feeling of the Forge spooling up and failing to grasp another Perk in favor of observing M16A1 as she walked beside me, the big pot of sloppy-slop held in her hands as I ladled big scoops.

[Remaining: 350 CP]

I didn't miss the way that her eyes kept wandering over to the T-Dolls that were being cared for by Subee once she had eaten and relieved Alpha and Bravo, the pink Hurgok hovering from Doll to Doll and checking them over while the newborn Lifegivers enjoyed their first meal. Her expression was forlorn and melancholic. I had a feeling that the relationship she had with the others was far more complicated than I'd been leading myself to believe.

"Friend and Foe" was something that sounded… innocuous when you were just looking at the words, reading them in a sentence; it doesn't really convey the meaning properly, nor the emotions behind them.

What had happened between M16A1 and the others? Would it cause problems?

No, I don't think so- she would have warned me if there was bad blood thick enough to cause friction.

If they felt like sharing when they woke up, then I would let them; for now though, they were free to keep what transpired between them close to their vests. I'd only dig if it got to be a problem.

Once we finished feeding the Hurgoks I grabbed Enbee and dragged him over towards the force crystals in the Supply area of my warehouse, and M16A1 decided that she would head back down to the ocean to resume collecting nanomaterials until night had settled. Being unable to seal the warehouse with me inside of it, I walked out with her and we drove down to the Work Site where she could spend some time to clear her head while she did 'something useful'.

During the drive over I ran through some schematics of the Lightsabers and settled on a design I liked; the body of the blade was made up of the wavy, Damascus-steel like Beskar while the handguard tines were made up of the purple-colored Phrik. The grip was covered with six quarter-inch wide strips of heavily knurled Ultrachrome, and the activation button was a toggle that had a soft, rubber-like cover that was sealed to prevent anything from getting inside of it. It had no seams and the charge connector on the bottom was recessed and similarly protected.

When I shared the schematics with Enbee he was happy to finally have a use for the super dense Forerunner power cores- while we could have used them I wanted to keep things at the tech level we needed at the time, that and the Forerunner power cells were… extremely costly with the nanomaterials; a one thousand pound bin of nanomaterials could only craft four power cells that would fit on a lightsaber, and it really made me appreciate just how capable the Star Wars power cells were. The Diatium power cells had to have not only a significant charge capacity, but significant throughput as well; a plasma blade like it required roughly 30 kilowatts worth of power per second and many Knights went long periods without charging their lightsabers if they had to.

Some of the largest battles of the Clone Wars involving Jedi went on for months, and they fought for hours and hours with their weapons going the whole time.

Granted, they probably charged their blades whenever there was downtime to do so, but it was little things like that that we barely saw throughout the franchise except in some small excerpts from books and the like, but if you were an average fan you'd just assume that Lightsabers could run for forever and a day. I think I remember seeing somewhere that the Jedi's connection to the Force and the Kyber crystal itself that took some of the strain off the power cell which often led to the significant endurance, but as far as I knew I didn't have access to the Force.

At least, I didn't until I grabbed onto the purple Kyber crystal and broke it off as the Forge guided my hand.

It was small, a pinprick. A prick that began to widen into something more substantial until it flowed into my body like a torrent.

My breath caught in my throat as the crystal crumbled into my hand, taking the perfect shape needed to complete my blade. It was a strange and uplifting experience- for a moment the whole of the workshop opened up before me in a way that I'd never experienced before, which was saying something because I was aware of everything and everyone within it. It was like static electricity bubbled in the palm of my hand, reaching out and touching the beating heart in my chest before it expanded out like a wave in every direction; it was like… sonar, almost. The surfaces of the workshop, the tools, the materials, the robots, the Hurgoks, and the still sleeping T-Dolls they all… reflected and bounced back towards me, and I could feel.

What? I didn't know.

The expanding bubble of awareness contracted just as quickly as it had come, the energy condensing within the crystal- like oxygen bubbles flowing through the tube in a fish tank, except in reverse.

I was finally able to breathe again, and a small tremor shot down the three chains of nerves in my spine.

Enbee rapidly signed. "W-a-t-?"

I blinked and looked over at him, "Did you feel that too?"

His snakey head nodded before his neck contorted to take a closer look, and when he reached out with his tendrils I gently grasped them. "Don't, don't mess with these, okay, buddy? These are sentient, they're connected to the Force, and they won't appreciate you trying to take them apart to study their secrets."

His tendrils quivered a little bit, but he slumped, his bulbous body bobbing in the air as he let out what sounded like a plaintive whine and a sigh all rolled into one utterance. My stern visage morphed into a soft smile as I patted him on the head, "I'm sorry buddy, but that's the way it is."

His ballast sack pooted and he floated over to the Beskar, Replica Phrik, and Ultrachrome, the Hurgok shaping the material from the bottom up with the Forerunner power cell at the bottom. I gently slotted the crystal into place, and the housing formed up around it, and then Enbee handed it over to me.

I swallowed and held it out to the side before flicking the toggle switch, and with the iconic snap-hiss a four-foot-long plasma blade erupted from the blade emitter; its purple light casting everything around us with a flickering glow. Considering we had shelving all around us I could only wave it up and down, but it still didn't detract from the shit-eating grin on my face. The blade hissed as I switched it off, and once the blade retracted I wrapped my arms around Enbee's body and gave him a big squeeze. A careful squeeze.

Just enough to get a little toot.

"This is so fucking cool," I grinned and I let him go before patting him on the head, I looked down at the blade and flicked it back on before I played with the dial on the side, the positive clicks of the interface sounding out each time I dropped the intensity until I dropped it down to its lowest setting; the Training Saber setting being just powerful enough to maintain blade cohesion and delivering a painful shock and a burn no worse than one might get at the beach.

I heard the Door-Jam get moved aside by the Mk IIs, and M16A1 came strolling by us with a full bin of nanomaterials being dragged behind her. She stopped and gazed at me for a moment and her jaw dropped. "Is that… a lightsaber?"

"Did you have Star Wars in your world too?" I asked, curiosity lacing my voice.

She smiled wanly, "Oh yeah, it was one of the few things to survive World War III; the DVD and stuff were so widespread by the time it kicked off that when the war ended you could still count on the riveting tale of a soap opera beyond the stars to keep you entertained."

Her eyes crinkled a little bit, "P90 really loved Master Yoda because he was also small and really fast. She spent all of her credits on the black market to pick up an original boxed set from 2008 when they remastered all eight of the films. The girls and I got together and we all watched every film, from the start of Anakin's journey to his fall to the dark side-"

She bit her lip and looked down, her left hand grasping her wrist. It didn't last for long though as a small smile tugged at her lips and she looked up at me, "- to his eventual redemption and return to the light. It was a beautiful story, exciting. More than enough to distract us from the operations and struggles we were sure would come."

Ignoring the fact that her dimension had eight Star Wars films, I turned off the blade and held out my hand, "Come here, 16."

Her lips parted and she looked from me to the remaining Kyber crystals and she shook her head. "I don't think that would work, Sir. I'm a T-Doll, not a human, or an alien."

"Did you even pay attention? Even droids can be felt by the Force, young Padawan. If they can feel and influence it, then you certainly can," I smirked and walked over to her, grasping her hand and tugging her over to where the various crystals sat in their housings, "Besides, haven't you realized it yet? Even if you are a T-Doll, in my mind, that doesn't mean you aren't human. Why don't we let the Force decide, hmm?"

M16A1 spluttered for a moment before sighing in resignation, and she let me guide her; I clipped my lightsaber onto one of my blue jean's belt loops and grabbed her shoulders from behind, and walked her until she was only a few feet away. I bent down and whispered into her ear, "Close your eyes, 16. Breath. Don't think about anything else, just try to feel."

I didn't know if this would work or not, but while I chose my color, I would let the crystals do the choosing.

Actually, that begged the question: Did I choose purple? Or did it choose me?

I decided that thinking about it was pretty silly while I was trying to help M16A1 with finding her Kyber crystal, so I started spewing out some mystical mumbo-jumbo, with some genuine Star Wars quotes thrown in here and there for good measure.

Her eye closed, and eventually, she raised an arm up- as if finally resigning herself to humoring her crazy Commander's wishes.

It remained stock still for a minute or so until it started to tremble, minutely at first, but as the seconds ticked by the muscles within her arms started to twitch and it looked like a small tug of war began to ensue.

With my enhanced vision, I saw it get tugged in three different directions- towards the Yellow Kyber crystal, then towards the Red, and finally towards the Black.

The Yellow tried its best, but the struggle between Red and Black became more ferocious until there was a pulse that even I felt, and the Red was repulsed- M16A1's hand crashed against the Black crystal with judicious force, and when the large chunk crumbled away it revealed a perfectly shaped black crystal that thrummed with power.

The T-Doll inhaled sharply before her breath caught in her throat, and I felt the Force bubble up just as my purple crystal had done for me, and I could feel her presence; she wasn't just standing in front of me… there was something more to it.

I could feel the emotions flickering through her, feel the turmoil, helplessness, and fear. More than that though, I could feel emotions far, far stronger- her love, her dedication, her regret. I could feel a solemn vow take place within her mind… and thus the bond between Black Kyber and the Living Weapon was forged.

While all this was going on I felt a rapid exchange of data packets between M16A1 and Enbee, and the Hurgok got to work. Aside from the necessary electrical components, the entire construction was Beskar- its design was utilitarian, but it had a distinct Mandalorian feel to it. I released her shoulders so that she could walk over and place the crystal within the housing, and in a few moments, a black blade with a soft white shell erupted with a more harsh crack than the traditional snap-hiss.

I knew of the Darksaber, but I also knew that this wasn't the legendary blade reborn. This blade didn't signify the Ruler of Mandalore… if anything the black crystal seemed to resonate with Duty and Responsibility; self-imposed or imposed by blood, this crystal would only resonate with someone who had the fate of more than just their own person resting on their shoulders.

The blade shut off, and the T-Doll spun around and buried her face in my chest, soft wet sobs muffled by my shirt as she did her best to squeeze the breath from my body.

I didn't know what transpired between her and the crystal, but all I could do was hold her tightly and stroke her head.

Enbee softly pooted away, the Hurgok trilling as one of the MK IIs guarding the entrance grabbed the full bin of nanomaterials and dragged it away to be shelved.

A few hours later saw purple and black clashing together in a flurry of quick, powerful blows. With our stupendous superhuman abilities, we were flinging strikes with a ferocity that would have made General Grevious green with envy. Neither M16A1 nor I were trained in Lightsaber combat, and we didn't know shit about the lightsaber forms, but through reflexes and physical skill we were trading blows that looked anime worthy; 5 strikes, 10 strikes, 20 strikes, 30 strikes and many more.

They were on the Training setting so any strikes were barely enough to singe our clothes, and any burns were healed the moment after we struck. It was possibly the best workout I'd gotten since I had obtained my new body after the Subee Serum; sweat dribbled down my brow and my lungs worked hard to keep up with M16A1's measured assault. She thrust towards my face, and even with my enhanced reflexes it came so damn fast; I had to tilt my head as her previous overhead blow had knocked my purple saber out of position.

Still, my enhancements and physical body were superior to hers, and I was able to poke another hole in her shirt with the tip of my blade before she could retaliate. She didn't even acknowledge the blow, instead opting to twist her wrist so that the edge of her saber could clip my ear. I clicked my tongue and decided to press the attack, poking again with my saber to force her to back off- my added height afforded me a four-foot long blade while hers were the standard three feet- and I followed it up with a rising cut that she caught with her saber before shoving it off to the side.

I ducked my shoulder and rammed into her hastily raised guard, sending her tumbling ass-over-teakettle; I still out-massed her and I made sure to use that to my advantage. She slid a few feet across the concrete before popping up to her feet, the black lightsaber interposed between us- the T-Doll ready to respond to my next assault.

Her lone eye was shimmering in the black and white light of the blade, her chest heaving with exertion as the burns on her shirt revealed to me her bountiful flesh. Her bangs were a mess and sweat trickled down her chin; her parted lips captured my attention.

I felt the hunger boil up from the pit of my loins. I'd put myself off for far too long now, and I was going to do something very forward. I knew that it was the effects of the formula stoking the flames of my lust as I gazed at the sweaty, battle-worn woman, the damage to her clothing doing far more to titillate me than having seen her completely naked not two days ago.

My back popped as I straightened up, and after a few moments of heavy breathing, I shut off my lightsaber and clipped it to my belt loop. She blinked as I approached her with purposeful strides.

"Uh, Commander?" The beautiful woman didn't have time to do anything more than avert her blade from my body as I bent down and grasped the back of her head, my hands grabbing hold of her thick brown braid as I firmly pressed my lips against hers. Her sound of shock was muffled by my lips, but when I ran my tongue across hers the woman's mouth opened and our tongues danced; her squeak fading into a low moan that sent all of the blood running straight to my cock.

Her saber finally shut off when I moved my hands away from her head and reached down to cup the perky, perfectly shaped asscheeks that were straining against the denim. I gently bit her bottom lip before I broke the kiss just long enough to speak, "I've been without a woman for a long time, 16. If I don't get some relief right now I just might pop."

Her chuckle was low and throaty, "I was wondering when you'd finally break, Commander. I've been trying to get your attention since I woke up."

Really?

I shoved that away and focused on kneading the muscular, fatty flesh beneath my palms, and the T-Doll shuddered as her hands rubbed up and down my torso, her fingers questing over the holes her blade had poked into my shirt. When she finally got down to my belt I gave her bottom a firm smack. "No. No hands, 16. Get down on your knees."

A shuddering breath left her lips as she dropped low, her lone gray eye gazing up at me with an intensity that I'd never seen before. "Yes, Sir."

I felt some loss at the lack of flesh within my hands, but I settled holding onto her head, my fingers threading through the silken locks of her hair. "Use your teeth, 16. Take it out."

She grinned and grasped the leather of my belt with her teeth, but more than that she also grasped my waistband too. What was she-

I heard a -chomp- followed by tearing of denim as she bit through the leather and my pants and tugged downwards; I had somehow forgotten about superhuman strength in the time between we finished duking it out with lightsabers and me kissing her. Even with a super brain, it seemed that the almighty penis could still find a way to short circuit a man's thoughts.

It certainly did the job, as my half-erect cock popped out and planted itself firmly against her face. "I was made for this, Sir. You know that, right?"

Her breath was hot, her voice sinful as she rubbed her cheek against my quickly thickening length. I felt her teeth rub against the side of my flesh, felt her tongue lap over a throbbing, pulsing vein. "You built me like this, specifically for this purpose."

Her gray eye crinkled as she licked up from the base of my cock all the way to the tip before she engulfed the thick, bulbous head, "There's no need to be embarrassed, or deny it."

A pop resonated as she pulled away and stared down its length before she looked back up at me. "I'm a T-Doll, made to serve humanity, but you also made me to serve you . In every, single, way, a woman can serve a man."

Her tongue flashed out, lapping at the underside of my penis, a small thrill of fear running up my spine as she continued to speak. "I can't feel it, nor do I sense it. It's quiet. Insidious. Whatever you did to my code I couldn't tell you what it is or what it does, but I know how I normally function. That and I've experienced many different forms of control during my lifetime of service, but this one is by far the best."

"You know?" I asked, and she engulfed my penis and slowly began to work her way down my cock until the head was firmly lodged in the back of her throat. There was no gag or pushback, and if anything her lone eye hazed over in pleasure; dormant nerves that only came alive in response to my pheromones flaring as pleasure surged- her throat was now just as sensitive as her clitoris, her tongue as well.

She pulled off with a shudder and she nodded, "I do know that something is different about me, Sir. It makes me loyal far beyond what a T-Doll should normally be. The only reason I can even parse out what I'm feeling is because of the Anti-Master protections you gave me; my electronic half keeps acting as if nothing is going on, but my organic half can see that I'm being subtly manipulated. However, I don't hate you for it. If anything I can sympathize; betrayal is a very real threat, and not even T-Dolls are immune to being forcibly turned."

Her tongue flashed out to lap at the string of saliva and precum that trailed from the tip to her lips, "I won't tell the other girls, I promise, Sir. I only wish that something like this had been in place before… to stop me from turning on them. I never wanted to see my sister and friends cry."

A shuddering breath left her lips and she placed her lips against the tip, "Do whatever you have to do to keep us loyal, Sir. We're your weapons- your Rifles, Pistols, Shotguns, Machine Guns, and your Assault Rifles. We were built by you… for you. Our love is yours, our lives are yours, and always will be, no matter what terrible things may happen down this road we tread together."

"So, hold me tightly, Commander, use me," Her grin was far too cute and cheeky for something as heavy as this, "I can sometimes be unreliable when I'm dirty, but cleaning me up is half the fun, no?"

Well, if she insisted…

I swallowed and pulled her down my cock, and I bottomed out halfway down her throat- her nose pressed tightly against my abdomen. There was a muffled moan that escaped her nose, and I'd forgotten about the redundant breathing systems that the Promethean and Serum introduced; preventing choking from airway obstruction was one of the many physiological upgrades.

Her visible eye went hazy as I began to saw my hips back and forth, one hand reaching up to expose her breasts and stiff brown nipples to the air while her other slipped into her jeans and began to strum her clit. With the combined stimulation from her enhanced tongue and throat, the T-Doll was climaxing every ten seconds or so- moans and bubbles of saliva squeaking past the lips that were sealed around my girth.

I began to treat her more roughly, no longer measuring my strokes, and that seemed to make her cum even harder, her throat contracting around me like a snake as she swallowed reflexively. I let go with one hand so that I could reach down and grasp onto one of her perky breasts- squeezing firmly and rolling the tit-flesh around the palm of my hand; God damn these were the best tits I'd ever felt in my life. This had the adverse effect of shortening up my thrusts, but feeling the cool air of the warehouse along my spit-covered length made me shiver.

My penis was many times more sensitive than before, and I was thoroughly enjoying the experience. I kept thrusting until I was nearing the precipice, and M16A1 tapped my thigh with her hand, and at her gentle insistence, I pulled back. Her left hand stroked the tip while her right hand slid up and down my length, her hand soaked by her own juices. "Do it, Sir. Come for me, Commander. You made me, now mark me."

I couldn't hold myself back with those words, and I roar escaped my lips as an orgasm so powerful it almost knocked my legs out from underneath me ripped from the tip of my cock, surged down my length, and into my testicles. It then surged back up and I began releasing a pulsing burst of thick semen that roped over her face, coating her eye patch, nose, puffy lips, and across her eye. She kept stroking and I just kept cumming, each trip of her right hand from the base back to the tip inviting another spurt of my seed that she happily accepted; her mouth open and tongue waggling.

I don't know how long it lasted, but once I was able to see anything other than the tip of my nose the T-Doll was fairly coated. A cloth was offered from the side, and I arched my eyebrow at the Lifegiver who took the soiled rag that M16A1 used to wipe the excess off before her tendrils came over and removed the remainder. "Thank you, Delta, that was mighty kind of you."

The Hurgok trilled and boobled her head, happy to be of assistance before she turned away and puttered off back towards the T-Doll corner.

I chuckled a little bit in embarrassment and M16A1 joined me, but our chuckles ceased when she reached up and pulled me down for a kiss. "Don't be afraid to hold us whenever you want to, Commander. Loving you is in our Code now just as much as it's in our DNA. We were built to serve, and we do so at your pleasure, so don't be afraid to make selfish or unreasonable requests; we'll always accommodate you."

I swallowed as she kissed me one last time and moved over to the MJOLNIR station, "Are you sure to don't want to keep going?"

She gave me a wicked grin, "I don't know about you, Sir, but I came like twenty times during that whole thing. You really had our bodies made to a good spec, huh?"

"Besides, we need to make some more money, and we need to increase our reputation;" The black-haired woman murmured as she fiddled with the strands of yellow-gold hair, "-and M4A1 and the other girls are going to need some new clothes when they wake up so… I think its best if we continue where we last left off?"

A grunt escaped my lips, she was right, we really should keep moving; I'd blown my load, got my rocks off. My mind was more clear than it had been since I arrived here- superhuman post-nut clarity was something else. "You're right, we don't have too much time for fun and games, we need to keep moving forward."

We have Tiffany's birthday next week, and if I remember correctly the Simurgh would be making an appearance in Australia in a few weeks; while we wouldn't be fighting her directly, I would be providing security and medical supplies.

I felt the Forge warm-up and it reached out for a star, but it was half a charge short.

[Remaining: 550 CP]

[February 2nd, 2011]

[2:31 AM, Boat Graveyard]

Twin engines could be heard roaming through the night, and I'll be damned if it didn't sound cool as shit! The deep rumble of a big-bore Harley combined with the Vvrrm of a sporty-ass rice rocket; it took almost three whole minutes for Enbee and myself to settle on the artificial sound I wanted because it didn't make sense not to use the electric motors combined with the hydrogen/oxygen separating fuel cell. He was adamant that excess noise was not needed, and that installing vibration machines that corresponded with your revving just was a complete waste.

Enbee, buddy, come on, this is a man's romance! I futuristic motorcycle that combines the best of both worlds! It even had some limited shape-changing abilities that took it from a hunched over riding position to something more upright and comfortable looking; now that particular feature wasn't needed as comfort was no longer an issue, but still!

M16A1 and I had decided to kick the hornet's nest so to speak- we hade the location of six more stash houses, but they were all pretty small time. The one location that many cash runners move the Merchant's dough to was a dilapidated ship called the "Sea Queen"; an old small-tonnage cargo shipping container that used to do quick jaunts up and down the east coast. It wasn't the biggest target on the list, but it had the most traffic.

The plan was to gut punch them, hard, and then watch them contract. Even with the eyes in the sky, we had found frustratingly few Merchant targets; the key to their success was their disorganization- I doubted Skidmark knew where half of his stash house locations were, and that was not just because he was bluto'd half the time. His Sergeants all operated independently, and whenever they felt like they had a close call with the LEOs then they booked it to a new safehouse; as long as they delivered the profits to their Head Honcho he was content to let them operate how they pleased.

With the Empire we'd identified over twenty targets that we could strike, and the ABB had forty-seven due to their operations being smaller and more spread out. The Merchants though? I reiterate, we found a grand total of nine targets, three of which we already hit yesterday.

I refused to believe that they were so small that nine stash houses were the best they could do- a small un-powered splinter of the Crips moved into Brockton Bay two weeks ago from New York if PHO was to be believed (thank you, Bagrat for your service), and despite having only known about them for two days we managed to find four of their stash houses.

The Merchants were too decentralized to do more than bloody their nose by going after their fringe assets- we were going to make them consolidate.

In a span of two hours, M16A1 and I blitzed through every stash house that we had on record, all calm and quiet-like as we did the night before. We informed the police and had them take the sleeping gangers into custody, but we told them we would save a full statement until after we completed our operation; we'd be more than happy to come by a precinct of their choosing to give a full report for each mission.

The "Sea Queen" was the last stop, and by far the biggest target; the Indias had almost thirty unpowered members armed to the teeth hanging in or around the ship. This time though, we wanted to go a bit louder, thus the loud motorcycles.

Spoiler: SUPER CYCLES

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I leaned into the corner, taking the bike nice and low as I tried to enjoy the thrill of riding a motorcycle again to the fullest; sure, we were only doing 40 miles per hour- the speed limit in the Docks area- but with how responsive the bike was and how sticky the tires were it was still a hell of a ride. I hit the clutch and revved the engine nice and high as we approached the cluster of ships that were closest to the road.

The "Sea Queen" was about fifty yards into the beach and had four smaller ships surrounding it- two large fishing boats and two tugboats. They weren't arranged in a nice box formation on purpose, as whoever set this whole shit-show up obviously didn't count on the vessels being used by druggies to hole up their cash, but it perfectly framed the small cargo container in such a fashion that it allowed for the protection of the ship itself and plenty of vantage points for sentries and non-powered defenders.

Immediately one of the men sitting on the deck of the closest fishing boat stood up to his feet and started to yammering away into a walkie-talkie. I tapped into the unsecured band, "-Shit, Rico! Rico! We got Capes!"

Another voice responded, decidedly less panicked and certainly annoyed, "Didn't I tell you not to use my damn name on the fuck'n radio, idiot!? And so what if there are Capes? Probably some dumb kids coming out to test their new powers. Remember to stay low and pretend you didn't see them."

"I don't know Ri- uh, Boss, these two don't look like kids. Pretty sure one is like seven-foot or something. They are also wearing some pretty hefty power armor."

I waved at him and I heard M16A1's husky chuckle fill my ears.

"He also just waved at me."

"Fffuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkk, well if they start moving closer you start shooting; I'll get on the line with Skidmark."

Yeah, how about no?

"Nugget, deploy the Electronic Warfare suite," I spoke, and the dozen surveillance drones hovering overhead began to hum inaudibly. Just like that, everything within three hundred yards that wasn't on a Forerunner band lost its ability to receive or transmit.

"Let's go, 16. Just like we planned," Though it wasn't much of a plan, just go in and put all the bad guys to sleep before taking all of their cash.

"Simple plans are always the best ones," She grinned as she snatched her rifle off of her back and snapped a quick shot at the Merchant that was trying to figure out why his radio didn't work; I could see the dart sail across the intervening 150 feet in three-tenths of a second before sinking into his bicep.

Not one to be outdone I grabbed my Battle Rifle and popped a 10mm tranquilizer off at a Merchant on the ship opposite of hers, the round punching into his armpit as his buddy was handing him what looked to be an Uzi; he flinched at the impact but toppled over soon enough. He tried to get back up on his feet, but his legs failed him as he drifted off to sleep.

"Nugget, play me some music; M16A1 too if she wants."

Spoiler: Ass Kicking and Chill

I didn't have a shotgun, but this felt appropriate enough.

A small smirk crossed my lips as I took up at a sprint, crossing the distance between me and the tugboat in the blink of an eye, and I leaped twenty-five feet into the air, sighting in two Merchants and putting a round into each of them as I hit the apex. I hit the deck hard enough to rock the vessel, which caused three men who were running from the prow of the boat to trip and slide across the decking; three pulls of the trigger, and three darts into the targets and I was moving on, letting the 3-D layout of the ship guide me to my targets. I tore open a bulkhead with a horrific shriek, and a Merchant stuck the barrel of his weapon in my face, but I snatched it from his hand before he could pull the trigger and I gave him a gentle push with the buttstock of the AK while I fired off a round into his thigh from the hip.

I moved across the two floors of the small vessel and put down the three remaining Merchants before I pinged M16A1's location- the cheeky girl had already cleared her ship and was moving onto the two ships on the opposite side of the "Sea Queen". India pinged me and a video feed popped up showing two men hauling ass from the deck of the cargo container and were heading towards a pair of trucks parked nearby.

They probably figured out they were being jammed and the Boss dispatched these two to be runners.

I leaped up the vertical staircase to get back onto the surface of the tugboat before I hopped the railing over the side; the moment my feet touched the sand I was off sprinting, peeling around the side of the ship so fast I looked like a cheetah cornering on the Savanna. Sand was kicked up but it had little bearing on my traction; the BR55-NL came up to my shoulder and I had all the time in the world to line up my shots- the targeting program indicated that the guy on the left would try to juke the moment he saw me, but considering he was running right next to his buddy the only place he could go was left. I shifted my aim just a hair to left and fired off a 10mm tranquilizer before I shifted back to his friend before the bolt had even finished riding back to chamber the fresh round.

With a hiss of CO2, the second dart left the barrel, and I got to watch as they sailed through the air- guy number one did indeed try to juke, a quick sideways turn around juke that he probably had some muscle memory left from his days on the Winslow High School football team before he got kicked off for failing the drug test; huh, Nugget, I don't need that much information on the perp, alright? Thank you.

Instead of dodging the shot, he caught it in the back while his partner caught the round in the shoulder; the kid was wearing a thick coat, so I was going to put another one in him, but the sensor on the tranquilizer indicated that he'd been dosed successfully, and a few seconds later his motor control started failing him before he slumped onto his side.

I sprinted again, this time when I kicked off the sand I started running along the angled side of the ship, the Titanfall/Halo armor thrusters kicking in to keep my bulk at the optimal angle while the magnetic treads of my boots powered on and off with microsecond precision; I snapped off a few rounds, and while the rounds were mid-flight I flicked a mental switch to turn the hit-markers on. I had thought them annoying when I first designed them, but knowing when I get a solid hit with payload injection was really handy; the Green hit markers in my hud indicated 'hit with payload injection', and Blue indicated 'hit but no payload delivery'.

My body shifted as I reached the apex of the prow of the ship and I engaged my legs once more to soar into the air, my thrusters firing to get me up the last few feet of that seventy-foot leap onto the deck of the "Sea Queen". I touched down in the middle of a group of eight Merchants, their weapons all coming around and training on me.

"So, how do you want to do this?" I asked firmly, and much to my surprise, the Merchants didn't immediately start shooting at me, the three behind me darted to the left and right out of their buddy's immediate firing lines, and then they started letting off. Bullets pinged off of my shield, and I eyed their weapons; two AK-47s in poor condition, an old hunting model of a Remington 870, and a Tec-9 that looked like it was about to fall apart. When their weapons clicked dry I eyed my shield bar, noting that it had barely dipped at all.

Four yellow hit markers landed on the men who'd emptied their weapons on me- that was M16A1's colors. I felt her soaring through the air before I saw her out of the corner of my eye- it was a touch strange, having an idea of where she was at all times; every since we crafted our lightsabers I felt a strong connection to her, unlike anything I've ever felt. I wasn't an idiot, I knew it was the Force, but knowing it and experiencing it are two different things. If anything it meant that this was now something I was going to have to dedicate time to, and while I was all for super Force powers and stuff I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with the tech I already had.

M16A1 landed about thirty feet away from me, on the opposite side of some large wooden crates, and we smoothly moved around to where each Merchant was taking cover; I pricked them with the glove needle, but M16A1 had no problems dumping one in the at point-blank. I could feel her giddiness- I guess her usual battles were a lot more intense than this.

The T-Doll flashed me a cutesy emoji as she grabbed a fresh magazine and slapped it into place; seeing that I was almost down to halfway I did the same, grabbing a mag from my pouch between my thumb and forefinger while my middle and ring ringers caught the partially depleted magazine. I slipped the old mag into slot one on my rig with the rounds facing up, not that I didn't have all the time in the world to physically eyeball my magazines, but it was always best to stick to an established system. It was how I did it in the Army- putting it back in my mag pouch instead of my dump pouch if I had the breathing room to do so was old hat.

The Forge glowed hot and I tried to ignore the sensation of my skull splitting open as it pulled a large, six-charge star into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 20.0370 - Mad Science! - 600CP - A Miracle of Science - Knowledge Future Tech]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I activated the Strategy Trance on reflex as a way to slow down my perception of time while I was flooded with a deluge of scientific and mathematical knowledge. Thankfully a lot of what I'd been downloading into my brain mathematics and physics-wise was something that I'd at least touched upon, but most of those things had been theoretical and the knowledge that was pumped into me either proved or disproved a lot of those. Shielding tech, FTL, Weapons, Communications, Robotics, and so much, much more.

I would have been ecstatic at the possibility of actually being able to contribute more to the planning and creation of schematics and stuff with my 'Goks if it wasn't for the immense amount of strain I was under. Without the new Superbrain and implant, I probably would have been knocked unconscious for this.

I was dragged out of my Trance when India 4 pinged myself and M16A1, a video springing up in the corner of my visor while a map opened up simultaneous within our implants; the small video displayed the highly detailed wire-frame of the boat, with four Merchants carrying four large jerry cans and heading towards the containers.

Were they going to light everything up?

I don't know how Skidmark would feel about having his cash and drugs seized, but he was quite good and having Squealer drive one of her vehicles through the wall of the local precinct to steal his drugs back. He would probably lose his shit if it all burned, but whoever was running this operation was probably freaking the fuck out.

"Secured the containers, 16, I'll clear the ship," I hissed out as I stood up.

"Are you okay, Commander?" She asked, probably catching my hiss; hell, she probably could have sensed my discomfort through the Force for all I know.

"Yeah, new Perk. Big one. Carry out your assignment, 16. I'm going to be fine; the discomfort is already fading," I raised my weapon and moved forward at her nod.

Behind me I heard the snap-hiss of her lightsaber; I didn't need to turn my head to see what she was doing as I rushed toward the first flight staircase leading into the ship.

The T-Doll saw that we were right over the target- so why not just cut her way through? M16A1 had leaped over the guard railing and strode to the center of the two metal doors that opened up to allow shipping containers to be lowered into the cargo bays, and once she got over the shipping containers that held the cash, weapons, and drugs, she stabbed her black blade into six-inch thick steel panel and spun clockwise.

The moment she completed her cut the bottom dropped out and she fell into the bay.

Deciding that I was getting a touch sloppy with my reliance on my drones providing me a clear picture of every person on the ship, I started clearing properly, dredging up some of my old Army training on hallway and room clearing; I wasn't like my brother who served in the Marines and had experience running ship clearing drills, but it was enough.

Maybe one of my T-Dolls had experience on ships and could show me how it was done?

Regardless, I swept every hallway and room using every ounce of concentration I had, moving my body and rifle in perfect unison, poking around and checking my corners at every junction as I made my way towards the trio of targets that was closest. Considering they were holed up in a room with their rifles pointed at the doors I reached down to my belt and grasped a paralytic grenade; with a small grunt, I punched through the bulkhead before flicking the grenade into the center of the room. I'd already pulled my arm back out well before the bullets started firing at the hole, and the moment the grenade impacted the floor it burst and filled the room with a thin cloud of gas.

"Gas! Cover your mouths!" One of the Merchants cried out, and I saw him cover his mouth and nose with a thick cloth. That wasn't going to work, my guy; it is contact-based- if it touches your skin you're going down regardless. Breathing it in just makes it work faster.

"WHAT!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" The second yelled as he reloaded his AK-47; the third was already coughing before he went still.

Within twenty seconds the other two fell victim, the weapons falling from their limp fingers as they slumped behind whatever cover they had. I stuffed my hand into the steel bulkhead and shoved it open with my shoulder before I walked around the room, gathering up their bodies and carrying them outside to rest in the hallway; I gave them each a prick as I put them down and out of the way so they wouldn't be trampled if someone came running or caught a stray round if someone started shooting.

The last thing I did before moving on was collect the housing for the grenade and tuck it into my dump pouch before I moved on towards the next location. There were fourteen Merchants left active on the ship, and for some reason, M16A1 decided to make this a race, and I watched her race from cover to cover, returning fire with her rifle.

Rather than get caught up in her pace I stuck to my metaphorical guns and kept up my methodical clearing; there was a time and a place to rush, and this wasn't it.

I cleared out one more room in the same fashion as the last one, this one contained two Merchants, but unlike the previous room they'd left the bulkhead door open, so all I had to do was toss the grenade in and weight.

With the Merchants pricked and secured I moved on towards the final room that was occupied on my floor; it had what looked to be three full-grown men and one teen all crouched behind overturned filing cabinets and the bed it looked like they weren't going to go down without a fight. Considering this room had a placard on it that read "Captain's Quarters" I figured that this was where 'The Boss' stayed. Not seeing any reason to tempt the fatal funnel and chance some tinker tech, I kept my modus operandi the same; I still had plenty of grenades, so why not use them?

I punched through the bulkhead and tossed in two grenades to account for the fact that this room was a fair bit larger than the others.

A shrill whine filled the air and I leaped to the side, bowling over some wooden crates in the process, and not a moment too soon because a green beam of jagged, zig-zagging light pierced through the steel wall and sent vaporized molten metal in all directions. "What the fuck, Boss!? You really using that shit!?"

Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by a great deal of hacking and coughing, and a few seconds after the Boss collapsed I felt comfortable peeling the bulkhead door back and clearing the room.

I stepped close to the weapon laying away from the man's hands and saw that it was chrome with glowing orange lines. It was pretty small, but considering the damage, it packed quite a punch.

I felt Hoarder's Eyes kick in.

"Disintegration Ray: A weapon created by the Tinker known as Leet that can fire plasma hot enough to disintegrate human bodies on contact. Modeled after the Aleph video game 'Destroy All Humans!'"

A hum escaped my throat- I probably would have been fine with my ring protecting me from 97% of the heat damage this thing put out, but if this had been anyone else but myself of M16A1 this guy could have killed someone. I winced at the train of thought- with the number of people and weapons the Merchants had here if the BBPD had tried to take this place there was no doubt it would have turned into a charnel house. Not that I doubt the abilities of the BBPD SWAT, but with all of the tight corridors acting as natural fatal funnels someone from the Blue would have died.

It made me wonder how 'the Boss' stole this from Leet in the first place. I pulled the man's head back and got a good look at his face, and Nugget started running through the BBPD databases; ah, he used to be a henchman for Uber & Leet but after a few arrests working for them it looked like he dipped and moved over to the Merchants- probably stole this weapon and a few other goodies on the way out. "Nugget, search Uber & Leet's public Youtube Channel and find anything related to a show with 'Destroy All Humans!' I want to know if they ever used this in their live streams, and if they did, how many times they fired it."

From what I know of the Tinker he had a Prototype specialty, where he could create all sorts of different technologies, but they came with some pretty heavy drawbacks- he could only utilize a type of technology once, and each time he tried to create tech it had a percentage chance of failing spectacularly. I was a little fuzzy on the details, but if I remember correctly he didn't figure out his limitations until after he'd burned out access to some of his more versatile tech trees. The fanfictions I'd seen had him crossreferencing detailed spreadsheets that he used to keep track of the things he built; I know for certain that this thing had been fired at least once, and considering the surprise of his companion that they knew the origin behind the Tinkertech as well.

The Forge spun up and tried to reach out for another star, but it was by far one of the largest I'd seen to date; I didn't even get to scratch the surface of what it was- it had to be at least 8 charges.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

I had just finished securing the unconscious Merchants when M16A1 popped into the room, "The containers are secure and all known hostiles have been neutralized, Commander."

She gave me a salute that I felt compelled to return, "Anything else?"

The T-Doll looked away, "Yes, sir. One of the mundanes down there freaked and… Triggered? He went stiff, looking like he passed out behind some barrels; then he stood up and started throwing all sorts of objects at me- wrenches, weapons, and he even started tearing out chunks of the ship and throwing them before the Tranquilizer put him down."

I blew out a sigh and nodded, "Alright, that means we need to get the PRT involved now too. Nugget, power down the EW suite and patch me through to the Parahuman Response Team, please."

As we waited for the dial tone M16A1 and I moved through the ship towards the container that was containing the cash; we vaulted over the side of the guard railing in the storage area and our boots hit the deck the moment the phone was picked up. "Parahuman Response Team, this is the non-emergency line, how can I assist you?"

"This is the Independent Hero Horizon, I'm calling in the aftermath of a raid on a Merchant storage area in the Boat Graveyard; I'm certain you're aware of the other locations we took out earlier in the evening?"

"Yes, the BBPD has kept us appraised of the clean-up operations that are still ongoing, Horizon. If you're calling us then that means the situation has changed and there is now Parahuman involvement?"

"Indeed, it appears that one of the Merchants triggered during the gunfighting that occurred within the Cargo Container Ship the "Sea Queen". Powers displayed as a Striker, possible ferrokinetic; was able to manipulate objects he touched and could swing them around or fire them off like projectiles. Reminiscent of the E88 Cape, Rune. He only threw around metal objects, but that doesn't mean he can't manipulate anything else." I spoke as we weaved in between numerous cargo containers on our way to our destination.

Some of the containers looked like someone had tried to turn them into swiss cheese with the number of bullet holes in them.

"Understood, Horizon. How many un-powered members?"

"38 un-powered Merchants, 1 freshly Triggered Cape."

"Noted. I have Armsmaster, Velocity, and Miss Militia en route to your location, and PRT teams are already on their way. E.T.A. for Armsmaster is 5 minutes, Miss Militia 8 minutes, Velocity 5 minutes, and 20 minutes for the PRT Tactical Team. If you can get to a location where you can be spotted from the road that would be greatly appreciated, Horizon." Her smooth voice spoke out.

"Reading you Five-by-Five, Miss. One of us will be standing by the road and waiting. Horizon, out."

M16A1 cracked the door open to the shipping container we were after and I was greeted with the sight of twenty duffle bags that were filled to the brim with cash; the bags themselves were wrapped with clear plastic bags- likely to keep the money from being affected by the moisture this close to the water.

I looked at the Warehouse key in my hand before I consulted the map of the ship.

There wasn't a normal door on this mother fucker- everything was either a bulkhead door or a standard door without a lock that met the requirements. I sighed and started grabbing the bags of cash; both M16A1 and I had six wrapped around our bodies while each of our hands held two.

We left the ship quickly and sprinted across the street to the nearest door that had a lock that qualified; I made sure to spread the drones out a little further to give us some coverage to keep any peeping eyes away. Enbee pinged me, informing me that the Door-Jam had been moved out of the way, and I found the side entrance to an empty warehouse and slotted my key in. Once the door was open we tossed the bags of cash inside and shut the door. "16, start gathering the Merchants that are down in the belly of the ship and bring them out here to the roadside, line them up nice and neat for the PRT."

"Yes, sir," The T-Doll spoke, a small smile emoji flashing across her visor before she took off at a good clip back towards the "Sea Queen".

I moved to do the same, starting with the fishing vessel and tugboat behind the container ship that M16A1 had cleared. With a Merchant under each arm and carrying one in each hand by the waistband of their pants, I began dropping them off at the roadside, making sure to secure the hands behind their backs and their ankles with zip-ties. I moved from ship to ship, dropping off every person while M16A1 made a collection point at the base of the staircase that he led up to the "Sea Queen"s deck.

The fifteen members on the outer ships were lined up in a neat row, and then I started grabbing the Merchants from M16A1's collection point. I'd grabbed another twelve by the time I heard Armsmaster's Armscycle off in the distance, but before he arrived the red blur moving in a fast walk was the first to show up. Velocity dropped out of his Breaker state with a small wave, "Good evening, Horizon."

He looked at the twenty-seven men we'd lined up already, "Busy night tonight? Heard you were taking out every known safehouse in Merchant territory."

I gave him a nod before I slowly walked forward and offered him an open handshake, "Evening, Velocity, and yeah, we decided to step things up just a touch; put some pressure on Skidmark and see how he reacts."

That was when Armsmaster rolled up, parking his next to ours. I had to admit that while it wasn't as cool as the motorcycles I made- okay, no, it was actually cooler; my bikes were sort of last minute. It did irk me a touch when a scanner popped out of the side of his bike, no bigger than a pencil eraser, and started to take readings on my motorcycles. "Hello, Armsmaster, glad to see you here, though, if you would, please refrain from scanning my bikes and technology."

He stiffened minutely, and he looked like he was having a conversation; I could see his throat move, along with minute movements of his jaw and lips. Subvocalization? Was he speaking with Dragon right now? A small breath of air left his lungs, but he pressed a button on his bike's handlebar and the scanner retracted. "Apologies, Horizon. I haven't seen a design like this before, and while it has a tailpipe there isn't a visible combustion engine; is it electric?"

I let a smile emoji play out across my visor and gave him a thumbs-up, "No worries, Armsmaster, I can appreciate a man who likes bikes as much as I do; and to answer your question its electric- hydrogen separator, it runs off water, no matter how dirty or brackish."

His head nod was exaggerated, likely part of his PR training when dealing with new Capes. I extended an olive branch, "If you'd like then we could probably schedule a time to trade some notes, maybe Tinker a little if we're not too busy. Maybe you could invite Dragon? I'm certain there are all sorts of fun things the three of us to get up to."

Velocity snorted, but Armsmaster nodded again. "That sounds like it would be an interesting endeavor, however, we can talk shop once these arrests are concluded. I see that you are consolidating the un-powered members; have they been searched?"

I shook my head, "Other than a cursory pat-down to check for weapons I haven't gone through their pockets, no. My companion is busy retrieving the last un-powered members, but if you'd like to get started with that before the Tactical Team arrives?"

"Yeah, sure, we can do that since the excitement's already over," Velocity chuckled and moved towards the first sleeping gang member.

"Would you show me how you're searching them? I'd like to have a reference from the Protectorate and PRT so that I can show my other team members." I spoke, hoping to get some time to watch and observe while the Forge spun up. I was only a charge and a half off from grabbing this particular star from the "Skills Alchemy" constellation, and seeing what it was I was truthfully quite bummed.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 21.0250 - Alchemical Tome - 400CP - My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic - Skills Alchemy]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

Say what you want to about My Little Pony, but in terms of craziness, versatility, and unpredictability, the home universe of Princess Luna and Princess Celestia has quite a selection to choose from; no doubt the Alchemy book would have been chock-full of powerful potions and stuff that could have given me an edge this early in the game. Considering it came with automatic mastery of the craft that I wouldn't have to train as well as all of the materials I would ever need the Perk could have been a game-changer.

Armsmaster looked at me before giving me a nod, "Admirable, using the PRT's Searching protocols will ensure that you and your team will be able to secure suspects properly. The men and women we catch are often quite clever, please, turn your attention to me and make note of what I'm doing."

Velocity chuckled and moved towards the last member in the line, but I focused on Armsmaster as he started rifling through his pockets and placing everything in them in a pile at the base of the Merchant's feet. The sleeves were scrunched down, the pants were scrunched much the same, and the waistband of the pants and underwear was next. The shoes were pulled off and the feet checked; the man had a small wad of cash tucked into his right sock, but unfortunately for them, they were Protectorate and unable to take part in any of the spoils.

M16A1 strode up carrying a few gang members just as Miss Militia arrived, the camouflage bedecked hero wore her stars-and-stripes bandana with pride, and I'll be damned if she didn't fill her uniform out nicely. My T-Doll noticed my eyes and she decided to take an exaggerated gander herself after dropping (read: gently placed down) the Merchants she was carrying and arranging them in a second row since Velocity had started on the opposite end, "Hello, Miss Militia."

Spoiler: Miss Militia

[img: https/static.wikia./parahumans/images/9/93/Miss_Militia_by_YunYunHakusho.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/755?cb=20170106020204]

The beautiful olive skin around her bottle-green eyes crinkled as the Protectorate Cape walked over, "You must be M16A1, a pleasure to meet you."

She turned to her side and the Desert Eagle on her hip fluttered into black and green energy before it slithered up her torso and reformed on her back, a complete M16A1 devoid of any attachments, "I'm a huge fan of your namesake myself."

The T-Doll turned her head to face me, a laughing emoji flickering across her faceplate, "Oh, I know who the team's favorite Protectorate Cape is going to be, Horizon."

I replied with an eye-roll emoji, "I'm well aware of that, 16. Just bring the last of them over, will you?"

She nodded before turning around, "I'll get it done, no problem."

Having seen Armsmaster roll through a couple of searches I squatted down in the center and began going through the motions, pulling out spare change, dollar bills, some baggies of weed and what looked to be crystal meth, a cellphone, a wallet, and a few other bits and bobs. I made it through four searches before Armsmaster engaged me, "Your fine motor control with your suit is very fine, Horizon; I'd almost suspect that you weren't a new Cape with how well you're moving in your power armor."

"That's because I'm not a new cape," I spoke, patting down some pockets and pulling out… a used condom that was tucked into the wrapper. Oh, fuck, gross. There aren't any women here, who the hell did he bang? It was still moist so… I scanned my helmet over the other unconscious gangers, and Velocity started laughing out loud, "New to Brockton Bay, but not new. My team and I just preferred to stay under the radar; handle things quietly. However, there comes a time when you need to stand out into the light and start tackling problems head-on."

Miss Militia squatted down next to me and started working on another perp, "So what made you and… your team step into Brockton Bay?"

"Well, that's a simple question to answer, really," I paused and looked up at the container ship, "We looked at all of the various cities in our fair nation and asked ourselves 'where could we do the most good?' We looked at every major city- their populations, crime statistics - both powered and non-powered- Protectorate and PRT presence, local Police presence, infrastructure, educational systems, among a variety of other economic and sociological factors."

I went back to searching my Merchant, "With the size of my team and our capabilities we knew we could be effective in helping Local Law Enforcement in not just stemming the tide of crime, but reversing it. We have the personnel, we have the training, we have the equipment, and more importantly, we have the will and drive to make things happen. California has Alexandria on speed dial, Houston has Eidolon, New York has Legend, and even Chicago- the once crime capital of America- has Myrrdin and lower crime rates per capita than Brockton Bay."

"We've been doing our information gathering and so far we've uncovered a variety of heinous crimes being committed here- human smuggling, sex trafficking, vast drug rings that target the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Merchants, the low-grade pushers who don't care if their product kills their customers. The ABB work actively with foreign entities to get them their opium and cocaine. The E88, actual, factual nazis who sell their designer drugs to the wealthy and well connected," I shook my head as I finished my search and moved onto the new row that M16A1 had set up, "And that's just the narcotics side of the house, and we haven't even touched on the racketeering, counterfeiting, property destruction, assaults, rapes, murders, and everything else."

I turned my helmet to look back at them, "There is no doubt in my mind that you all work incredibly hard, and are highly competent, but for one reason or another, this city hasn't been getting the funding or personnel needed to truly make you effective. Your PRT branch should be twice its current size with three times the budget just based on the PRT's annual funding charter with Congress. The Protectorate team should have at least four more members as well, but whoever is calling the shots is trying to balance your shortcomings out with a large Wards team that you cannot reasonably be expected to deploy."

I returned to my newest perp, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket and setting it by his shoes, "You are one bad turf war from being up-shit-creek and without a paddle, and the worst part is that you'll be hamstrung by some yahoo who isn't on the ground who doesn't know the city or its gangs. I don't know Director Piggot, but if she's as hardnosed as I've heard, then there is probably a time penciled into her schedule so that she can pound her face against the brick wall that is Rebecca Costa-Brown trying to make things happen."

"You guys need help, but nope, it's Boston that gets the newest Tinker to enter into the Protectorate, and San Antonio gets the new earth-manipulating Shaker that would be a Godsend here in Brockton to fix the streets up after whatever flare-up occurred this week." I pulled out a small wad of bills from the Merchant's waistband and set it down on the ground next to everything else.

"So, to answer your question, Miss Militia, you guys need help, and we're going to give it to you," M16A1 spoke as she dropped the last Merchant in the second row, though she kept the teen segregated from the others, "This is the kid who Triggered. Don't know how you want to handle this so I'll just step out of the way."

Armsmaster stood up and moved to take over for my T-Doll, the Protectorate Cape speaking lowly out loud as he moved around the pale-skinned young man, "Suspected New Trigger appears to be a teenager, estimated 16 years of age. White Caucasian Male, five foot five inches tall, estimated 145 pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes, no noticeable scarring or tattoos, track marks on the inside of his left elbow indicate injected narcotics use-"

I tuned out his droning as I took the time to write up a complete report for all of the safehouses we took down, and once those were completed I had M16A1 write up the report for the assault on the "Sea Queen"; I wasn't about to do everything- I had smoking hot T-Dolls to help now. While we were finishing up the gang members I verbally laid out the foundation for what we did here, what we accomplished, and what we found in the cargo ship, "-on top of the weapons we found an estimated 300 pounds of Crystal Meth; its a pink and purple mix I haven't seen before."

"Yeah, it's a new twist the Skidmark has been pushing; pretty potent stuff- we've had more than fifty ODs in the hospital this week alone," Velocity chimed in, "Dunno what they've added to it, Armsmaster hasn't had a chance to run a toxicology report on it, and the lab is swamped as it is."

"Velocity," Miss Militia chided, no doubt about the small slip about the lab workflows.

"What? It's no secret that everyone is understaffed and overworked, hell, Horizon succinctly pointed out all of the problems we're having in the bay," He grumbled as he started packing up each pile of belongings into plastic baggies he pulled from Armsmaster's Armscycle, "Just frustrating to deal with."

"No worries, I get it," I shook my head as I finished my last guy and stood up, "So, now that all of that is done, would you like a more formal report?"

Without looking over at us Armsmaster pressed a button on his gauntlet and a small cylinder poked out of the top, "If you would please, Miss Militia, I'm currently utilizing my armor recorder for this new Cape."

Without another word, the star-spangled Cape grabbed the recorder and flicked it on, and from there I gave a report of the events on my end before M16A1 gave her end. I popped out two SD cards and handed them over, "Here is an itemized list of everything we found including weapons, numbers, serial numbers if they had any, drugs, type, and quantity, among other things. The second card has my helmet camera footage, though it has been sanitized of all graphics and display data."

My T-Doll handed over her own SD card as well, "That and we're claiming the 1.1 Million dollars that were found on the scene as Spoils per the Vigilante act, just so you don't think we're forgetting."

Velocity whistled, "Quite the payday for what, 30 minutes worth of work?"

"From start to finish the engagement lasted just under seven minutes, at least on my end," I flickered a smirking emoji over my faceplate, "Not to humblebrag or anything, but we're pretty efficient."

The red-clothed cape chuckled underneath his breath while Miss Militia's eyes crinkled, "Well, thank you very much for your assistance in taking out these Merchants, no doubt with them having been so entrenched it would have been a slog otherwise."

I nodded to them as M16A1 and I watched four PRT vans arrive and disgorge dozens of armored troopers while eight more vans pulled up to collect the Merchants and the evidence, and boy it was a lot of evidence. "Well, as fun as this has been, I'm afraid we still need to make a stop by Precinct 4 to meet with Lieutenant Hansen; we still have to hand over our reports for the other raids earlier in the evening."

"Well, it has indeed been eventful, I'm sure you're ready to go home and get some rest," Miss Militia nodded to us as the Troopers began grabbing the Merchants and hauling them into the vans.

"Before I forget, there was a Tinker weapon that the 'Boss' for this group used; it was a disintegration ray gun. Considering I'd seen its like in an Aleph video game I'm pretty certain it's probably some of Leet's tech. I'd only seen it fired once, but not wanting to chance carrying around un-tested Tinker Tech I left it on the ship for you guys to handle."

"Sensible," Armsmaster stood up from where he'd been kneeling, a scanner on his halberd clicking shut, "Technology from Uber and Leet is notoriously unstable at the best of times. We have the facilities at the ENE Headquarters to safely dispose of it if it proves to be too dangerous to study or store."

"Well, that's good to know, I'll let you guys know if we come across any more of Leet's tech," I nodded and felt the Forge spin up and it reached out and grasped onto a star and tugged it in close before reaching out for another one in a different constellation.

Not gonna lie, my dick got a little hard in my suit. It was very uncomfortable.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 4.0070 - Titan Engineering - 100CP - Titanfall - Vehicles]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 250 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0010 - Advance Processor Fabricator - 100CP - Battle Action Harem - Highschool Side Character Quest - Facilities Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 150 CP Remaining]

I don't know jack shit about Battle Action Harem, but the fact that this was a Quantum fabricator meant that all of the limitations we had with the Hurgoks being only able to manipulate things at the molecular level were just wiped away. Just because it was designed with computer chips in mind didn't mean we couldn't apply the principals to other automated manufacturing processes.

Also, "-PILOT, STANDBY FOR TITANFALL-".

Need I say anymore? I might have missed out on the Alchemy, but the Titanfall database combined with the Mad Scientist Perk with Quantum engineering? That was much more my current wheelhouse. The Dr. Gero in me was pleased, but found the lack of puffy sleeves on the robots disturbing.

All in all we managed to pull in $1.35 Million dollars between all of the stash houses. Lets see how Skidmark reacts.

Special thanks to Lmc9389, Xodarap4, Artillery, DrkShdow, AuraofCalm, Zerak, Mioismoe, Zath, Splendid, D. Wongsonegoro, Darkarma, Acrimonius, T. Balewood, Randall Randall, Dominyx Black, CyberCrisis, Blue, Russ Stilter, Legion_13, Mike Fatal_Bullet, P. Nguyen, Fred65, and K. Nielsen for being Patrons!

You guys rock!

Mad Science! (A Miracle of Science) (600CP)

What you came for, or at least took this origin for. Your technological genius is centuries ahead of your time across the board. In one area, such as chemistry, robotics or FTL physics, you outstrip even the hyper-advanced Martians.

Titan Engineering (Titanfall) (100CP)

Titans are incredibly complex machines, and due to the disposable nature of their use and production, and not designed for easy repair. You've got the deft touch though, and know exactly where to tweak and shore up the structure to keep it purring like it's fresh out of the drop pod for years.

Advance Processor Fabricator (Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest) (100CP)

This quantum scale fabricator is focused on producing complex processors and other computer chips. It is able to create quantum computing matrices including seven state processing chipsets.

Chapter 8 - ... The Wind Up...

[February 2nd, 2011]

We got back to the house around five in the morning, and I racked out for four hours until nine.

Waking up with M16A1's nude body pressed up against me was a wonderful feeling, our forms a tangle of limbs and hot flesh with just the slightest sheen of perspiration to make things comfortably sticky; we slept with just the sheet covering us since with our enhanced metabolisms we burned pretty hot. We didn't do anything over than shower and tuck ourselves in, and yet despite the lack of action, I didn't feel unfulfilled in the slightest. Long lashes fluttered to reveal hazy gray eyes that quickly gained focus before they crinkled up with a soft grin. I grinned back and planted a firm, closed-lip kiss that drew a muffled moan from the T-Doll.

My cock started to harden but I put a stop to that by simply getting out of bed and strolling into the bathroom to take a shower. I had the Hurgoks reformat the double-wide into something more suitable for six people, with the spare bedroom extending into the living room a few more feet up to the front door and having six bunk beds installed. It ended up reminding me of some photos my brother showed me about sleeping arrangements in the Navy, but for now, it was the best we were going to get.

After I got out M16A1 hopped in and took her turn getting cleaned up while I cooked us a hearty breakfast; all throughout the process I was contemplating which area of MAD SCIENCE that I would like to be 'centuries ahead of' in every way. I already had access to a variety of different FTL methods, weapons, and such were pretty much on lock even if I wasn't going to use most of them, but the one area where I feel like I've made my niche was robotics. Being able to combine my knowledge as Dr. Gero with the MAD SCIENCE perk would take that to the next level- better systems, better programs, smarter combatants capable of quickly analyzing and identifying what was what, more versatile platforms, and of course, this also included weapons that were more powerful than what humans could safely manage to employ.

The Mk IIs were already pretty good, but ultimately they were based on machines that treated anything but complete and utter compliance as hostile action, and the aliens that controlled Earth were not shy with making examples out of civilians. Even with Gero's knowledge, it was a hassle- I had to take a dumb program and make it more complex, able to identify the severity of crimes being committed and then code them to respond with the appropriate amount of force- which, I might add, I had to help calibrate personally, often suffering broken bones in the process. Despite all of his genius, Dr. Gero wasn't quite a savant when it came to machines- one only needed to look at Android 19 and see just how dumb that caricature of a Chinese mafioso enforcer was; to his credit, despite the mechanical nature of his creation, it was still somehow able to understand the meaning of fear before Vegeta curb-stomped him.

The Titans and Spectres weren't that much better in that regard but they still had far more personality and the ability to at least compute empathy to a certain extent. Though, to be fair, a lot of those shortcomings could be fixed with hardware powerful enough to support more complex learning and analysis algorithms. Back on my old Earth, there was a fair amount of development given to Quantum computing specifically for the fact that it gave data and processes far more easily than classical computing; a lot of tech from various trees available to me had some form of Quantum computing within their machinery. Somehow though, a universe where 'Battle High Schools' existed managed to find a way to easily manufacture Quantum computers into simple chips and chipsets that bypassed all of the major manufacturing hurdles and design challenges just boggled my mind.

To put it into perspective, the UNSC was working with 4th generation Quantum computers that had, according to my knowledge gained from the perk, achieved a '3rd State' chip rating, and these machines had to be kept shielded from radiation and chilled at all times lest a process called 'decoherence' occur. They were also very large, but that was more because Quantum computers scaled almost linearly with little issue- the larger the computational units the better the performance; the Office of Naval Research hoarded most of these units and sequestered them in remote space stations near the core, and among their achievements was decoding of the Covenant technology that gave the UNSC Infinity it's rather substantial shielding.

These were very powerful computer systems that a high school was able to trump by not only making them incredibly small while still packing in mountains of processing power, but they were also stable without refrigeration and were able to compute up to the '7th State'. I reiterate: a high school had access to a quantum computing auto-fabrication device that could just… spit out chips left and right.

I sat down two large cuts of pork and two bowls with half a dozen scrambled eggs once M16A1 left the bathroom clad in her clothing for the day; it didn't escape my notice that she had put her eyepatch back on. She gave me an unsure grin as she fingered the edge of it, but I decided not to comment and tucked into my meal. Once I was finished a started working on the second meal for my pootie bois and tootie gurls, and M16A1 saddled up next to me to help me get everything ready. There were a few brushed elbows, touched hands, and some small smiles- it was wholesome and very domestic.

We slipped into the warehouse with a large, full pot of yeasty treats and the boys and girls were all lined up and ready to go with their paper bowls held in their hands. It was adorable.

After feeding the 'Goks we led another cow into the barn and had the old Bessie rendered down. We constructed six more T-Dolls- two "Rifles", two "Shotguns", and two "SMGs".

NTW-20 was selected for ranged targets that required more 'ompf' than the 50 BMG that a few of the girls used; the large chambering also gave me a lot of room to play around with different designs, such as the 20x75mm round I developed that was essentially a discarding sabot with the sabot being one of the 10mm tranquilizer projectiles. She could reach out and put someone to sleep from over 1,500 feet, which was far more than the 450 feet we could reasonably expect out of CO2, granted, because of the power of the round she couldn't engage targets closer than 500 feet-any closer and we risked damaging mundanes beyond a simple prick and a good nap. With her one rifle being able to fulfill lethal and non-lethal roles it meant she didn't have to carry around two big guns; not that it mattered much with her strength and armor.

Super SASS was picked up not just because she had an adorable wolf-girl model, but also because she was an AR-15 based platform; she was primarily chambered in 7.62x51 NATO, but her main draw was the fact that she was a modern semi-auto platform that was capable of sub-MOA accuracy right out the box. Accuracy that we would improve quite a bit. Making a 10mm tranquilizer rifle was also pain-free, and thanks to her modern design it made creating attachments she could use quite easy. Some of the older weapons resisted having attachments or modifications- it was like mentally trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. WA2000 was going to be my pick, but her weapon's resistance to being modified was sort of a pain in the ass.

LTX700 and TS12 were solid in both assault and defense, with the former having an advanced targeting system and gas venting that allowed it to more accurately place less-than-lethal rounds on target, and TS12 being a modern weapon that readily accepted a number of modifications to it. That and there was a fuck load that I could do with shotshells ammunition-wise to give these two girls versatility.

UMP45 and Honeybadger were chosen because I was already manufacturing .45ACP and 300 Blackout was just a 5.56mm case necked up to accept a .30 caliber bullet, a bullet that I was already creating for Super SASS.

With M16A1 I had a battle-tested and competent commander that could lead one Echelon while I led the other, and by mixing up the groups I had a great deal of firepower of both lethal and non-lethal varieties that kept me within what I liked to call "Current Level of Escalation"; the moment we started breaking out the really big guns I was capable of making, or showed off the true capabilities of the MJOLNIR X armor as being capable of tearing Lung's head off and tearing Hookwolf to shreds like a dog tearing out the stuffing of a chew toy that was when our threat level gets dialed up.

For now though? We were Capes with modern weapons that could fire modern ammunition or some variation of them and we just so happened to have someone make us some pretty sweet power armor.

M16A1 grasped my hand as I looked down at the near-empty cart of runes; I would have to spend a lot of time crafting and then disenchanting to regain the stockpile. My eyes tracked over to the Ammo, Parts, Manpower, and Rations left over- I had just enough for a random baseline T-Doll, and that was about it. "16, let's go down to the worksite- we'll need to keep farming the nanomaterials to get our supplies up because this production run just wiped us out."

My adjutant nodded her head as she watched Delta and Echo poot over the newest T-Dolls that were having the T-Mod Subee Serum applied to their bodies. "Yes, Sir. 111,120 Supplies is… astronomical; I do hope that LTLX7000 and TS12 are worth it because they cost 51,000 supplies each."

I winced as I looked over at the numerous empty shelves where all of the Supplies I used to have once sat; I'd dedicated half of my nanomaterials for a whole hour to stockpile that up, but the Shotguns were considered "Heavy T-Dolls", and thus the production recipe was much more costly, and when you added the 200% premium for choosing the models I wanted then that boosted their cost up to eye-watering numbers. I could have made 55 AR modeled T-Dolls if I'd chosen randomly for the cost of a single Shotgun T-Doll that I chose.

Still, the fact that I wanted those shotgun T-Dolls automatically made it "#WORTH" in my opinion. I could farm 1,620 materials per minute with M16A1 doing the sifting if I dedicated every pound of nanomaterials towards Supplies conversion. It would take 69 minutes to replenish that stockpile. "Spend the next four hours to resupply and expand our stores, 16. Every pound goes into Supplies. I want to have enough to last us more than a couple of production runs if need be; there might come a day when we won't be able to sift and there is plenty of space to stockpile materials."

The T-Doll saluted, "Yes, Sir!"

The Forge made a big grab, and I couldn't help but feel a little bit of amusement as it tried to pluck a twelve-charge monster with the measly two and a half charges we had. The Forge pouted at my amusement.

[Remaining: 250 CP]

I returned the salute. Then I took her hand and started leading her to the truck as we needed to drive down to the Work Site first anyway. I closed the shop up and as we drove I looked over at her, "M4A1 should be ready to wake up at the end of that time."

"I know… I've had a timer counting down in my mind the moment the Lifegivers finished the application of the T-Doll Serum," She murmured as she stared out the window, the woman's lone visible eye watching the scenery change from lightly wooded forest to open field as we left the hilly boonies and moved into the outskirts of Brockton proper.

I said nothing.

The moment we arrived at the former Service Station I parked the truck at the spot and opened up the warehouse; the T-Doll grabbed the Nanomaterial Sieve and an empty bin and headed down to the water. I on the other hand would be a touch busy- I sat down at a comfortable table in front of the Quantum processor fabricator with Enbee and a few other Echos and we began delving into the machine; we used a variety of sensors and tools to study its design- if we could figure out how the system was able to break and reforge the bonds at the atomic level then maybe we could design an upgrade package for the Hurgoks.

In the end, I decided to take Robotics as my chosen perk for MAD SCIENCE, mainly because it also included dabbling in sensors, scanners, weapons, programming and logic, power generation, power storage, power distribution and management, armor, shielding, among many other smaller little boons. It wasn't as powerful as a single discipline, but it gave me a much-expanded scientific knowledge base- if I could take this atomic-scale manufacturing and apply it to the robotics running the Auto-Factory? Well, that would solve all of the tolerance problems that the Hurgoks were complaining about and would allow us to create all sorts of structures and wonders from the Forerunners that required pinpoint atomic accuracy to create. Or at least, adapt those structures because with my MAD SCIENCE I could already see ways that we could improve them already, at least when it came to Robotics.

Using the Strategy Trance and all of the sensors we set up around the device me and my bois watched the machine construct a half dozen 7th State quantum processors in sequence, observing every step of the process from the conversion of the nanomaterials into what was known as 'Super Silica', to the creation of the Application, Classical Processing, and Quantum Processing layers that were laid out in a 7-step format that honestly sort of hurt my head to look at. It appeared to look like some sort of theoretical schematic of a higher dimension, which was probably some sort of pseudo-scientific metaphysical nonsense that allowed them to compute past the 3rd dimension, where the UNSC found their snag.

However, using Super Silica was a no-go, at least not until Shatterbird and the 9 were gone. We took samples of this material and ran a battery of tests on it, and we found that we could make a much more efficient Quantum computer by making a chip out of Cortosis and Ultrachrome; the intervening gap between nodes was Cortosis, as it had a 100% transmission of energy rating, and the nodes themselves were Ultrachrome that had a 100% initial absorption followed by a slow bleed off. The chip we made was fifty-percent smaller than Super Silica, but because of the Ultrachrome's propensity to hold onto heat energy we had to design a pretty robust cooling set-up for it even though the actual power requirement had been dropped almost 70% thanks to the ultra-efficient Cortosis; still, we had a library of cooling options available to us, we just had to adapt it and improve it to the point where it could be dummy-proof and incredibly durable.

Once that was looked over we went through the programming and logic engines of the robots and T-Dolls, and… thanks to Schematics to Time I was able to look for all of the things that were inefficient or just plain wrong and I began writing out new code that would improve every possible parameter. I would have to take more time to design everything from the ground up because this was a stop-gap no matter how you looked at it; I was merely creating an interface layer between the already existing code and hardware to take advantage of the new quantum computer chips. If I wanted the full benefit I'd have to create a new system that was built from the ground up to take full advantage of the chips and chipsets, and with my current level of ability, it would take me a lot of time.

I was able to re-write my subconscious programming though for the T-Dolls that made the effects far less noticeable, so hopefully, I wouldn't have another M16A1 cropping up and discovering the dissonance. I also tightened up the Anti-Master protocols while I was at it by adding a buffering layer that had a nanosecond of input stutter in the visual and auditory cortexes; if I was right then commands given by Masters relying on auditory or visual enthrallment would be less effective as the codes and/or signals would be missing small chunks of information, which should also lead to increased dissonance and awareness of Master abilities.

By the end of the fourth hour, I was drawing up plans for an improved implant for myself and the T-Dolls that would vastly outstrip the current models using the new quantum chipsets. The Engineers threw in their two cents here and there, but with my Robotics and MAD SCIENCE I was able to make an implant that was 90% smaller and 327% more powerful while being 33.3333% repeating more efficient. However, by scaling it up to the current implant size, since quantum computers scaled almost linearly with their size, the implant design was more than an order of magnitude more powerful- so powerful in fact that I had to build a buffering layer that throttled performance in half during most test-cases because there was no way even my Super Soldier- ehem, Subee Serum enhanced Promethean brain could hope to keep up with it.

We ran the implant through a battery of testing with a mock-up version of my brain in a jar, something that Subee was more than happy to do; Dr. Gero's experiences were really helping me out because the sight of a copy of my brain floating in a bio-slurry was disturbing, but the mad doctor's near-total lack of empathy helped me tone down my discomfort. He'd done it to himself before, using his original brain, why should I be squeamish about a cloned copy? The Engineers were adamant that we spend a week or two stress testing it before actually employing it, and I happened to agree with them, so with two Engineers and a Lifegiver dedicated to the observation, I pushed it all into a corner (both in the warehouse Hangar and in my mind).

To take my mind off the brain in a jar, I started working on creating a very kid-friendly PR version of the MRVN. Those guys were the best, they had a crystalline LED panel on their chest that had a smiley face on it! With Robotics and every other perk I had relating to it I made a model that was much softer looking but far more capable than the MRVN had ever been. The old models were used in the construction of pre-fabricated buildings, farm work, and simple maintenance- the Titanfall tech had been advanced enough that once complex or time-consuming tasks had been rendered down to their most basic forms; a pair of MRVNs could build a small, two-bedroom pre-fabricated shelter with minimal instruction because the materials and processes were so highly refined that they circled back to being stupidly simple.

Give them a pre-fabricated shelter kit and they could have it up and running in four hours. Give them a pile of wood, drywall, wiring, pipes, and roofing tiles and they would struggle. The pre-fab kits of the Titanfall universe had the plumbing and electrical already pre-wired, so all they had to do was build it like a set of legos- though, not all MRVNs were created to do the same task. You have construction MRVNs, vehicle maintenance MRVNs, weapons and armor repair MRVNs, Titan-specific MRVNs, and farming MRVNs, among many others. They had a pre-determined memory limit for applicable skills, but that was by design- if they scaled up the memory to encompass more than one job then how would the IMC rake in obscene profits?

So I created a MRVN that not only had all of the above but allowed it to learn new skills and adapt them to improve its ability to perform- Gero's learning algorithm was once again paying dividends after having the MAD SCIENCE look it over and refine it to a work of art. The first MRVN was already tearing into the internet and devouring tutorials on how to make… french cabinets? I blinked. Well, woodworking was an important skill to have I supposed; I worked in a requirement for it to look at how to teach and instruct effectively as well- if shit hit the fan and I wasn't able to prevent Gold Morning then having MRVNs that could teach the next generation of humanity would be a great starting point.

Speaking of Shit-Hit-The-Fan, I made a mental note to start looking into the creation of information bunkers deep underground all over the United States; constructing repositories of all information that mankind has created would only be beneficial.

My mental timer pinged signaling that M4A1 had finished 'decanting' so to speak.

I stood up from my chair and waved off the ping from the Intel section- the Merchants had finally started to move; the Merchant territory had turned into a hive of activity, so I pulled an India unit from each other section along with half of the surveillance drones to assist 3 and 4 on mapping out the movements.

M16A1 came in with a full bin and handed it off to Echo 15- man, I needed to get my 'Goks some clothes… I dipped into my implant and came up with little costumes and sent them to Enbee to be made. The Engineers would have little yellow hardhats along with bright and reflective orange and yellow construction vests that covered their bodies, along with some ballistic gelatin and armored panels that would protect their bodies from everything short of concentrated heavy-machine gunfire with armor-piercing rounds; if I needed to ever send them out then making them appear as cute and harmless as possible was a must.

The Lifegivers had the same armoring, but instead of a construction vest they had a white doctor's coat, a stethoscope, and some fake plastic glasses- Subee vetoed that idea because she was the first, so she should be the doctor with the glasses. As a compromise, she recommended that the other Lifegivers get adorable little nurse hats instead. Enbee rolled his head in exasperation while the other Lifegivers agreed- she was the Primary, the first, so that would be her honor, at least until enough Lifegivers were born to warrant forming a new Conclave.

Both costumes would bear their names on them to make it easier to tell who was who because while I had the advantage of knowing that through my perk, no one else did; M16A1 memoried the unique scale patterns on their head to tell them apart, and that was not something a normal mundane would be able to do.

I held out my hand and my Rifle grasped it. She squeezed and I squeezed back- her anticipation and nervousness were palpable. Our eyes trailed down to the naked M4A1 and I licked my lips before speaking. "M4A1, Activate- Command authorization: Delta-Charlie-17-India-Papa-23-7-9-Oscar."

Spoiler: M4A1 (Lewd, NSFW)

[img: https/us.rule34.xxx/samples/4073/sample_df304934e9a64ed5ec265f694341fc1e880b0f6c.jpg?4625418]

The woman twitched minutely as her system booted up and her organic components synchronized with her implant. A full-body shiver drew my eyes to her modest yet curvaceous figure- the serum had taken what she was designed with and cranked it up to eleven; everything was beyond airbrushed beauty, though she was less busty than her older sister, there was a certain quality to her form that made me feel like she would have 'better handling' thanks to her more compact form-factor.

Eyelashes fluttered to reveal warm honey-brown eyes, "Co-mmander?"

I grabbed the same squeeze bottle I had used for M16A1 when she first woke up and tended to her- she only accepted a single mouthful before coughing on the second as she notice M16A1 behind me. "M1- M16A1? Big sis? Is that… you?"

The T-Doll sucked in a deep breath upon hearing her sister's soft voice, and she looked down at her with a wan smile, her hand reaching out to gently stroke the back of her hand for a very brief moment; M4A1 gasped at the sudden influx of sensations. "Yes, it is, little sister. I'm back now, for good this time, I swear. The Commander… has been working hard to make sure that none of us could be turned against each other ever again."

Tears spilled down both of their faces as the newly awakened T-Doll let out a wet sob, "I'm glad. Thank goodness. I… missed you, Big Sis. So much. We all did."

She tried to speak more but her voice croaked, and I handed off the squeeze bottle to M16A1. "I'll leave you two be for now. Follow the proper wake-up procedures just as I did for you and de-brief her properly, okay? I'm going to continue sifting for nanomaterials while I make some plans- with the new chipsets and enhanced learning algorithms available to me now I can finally construct the medical robots that I wanted."

M16A1 nodded and gave me a big hug before I walked out of the workshop and down to the waterside.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 12.0160 - Let there be Light - 600CP - The Games We Play - Magical Large Scale]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 350 CP]

I spent five hours sifting nanomaterials, all the while I was building up the programming for the new medical robots that I would be deploying to the Canberra fight; with Subee overseeing their integration of medical knowledge, combining all known available surgical techniques and learning how to make them more efficient and helpful with the Lifegiver's knowledge, I felt pretty comfortable in their abilities. However, now that I had medical robots, which were highly specialized MRVNs painted red and white with the Red Cross displayed across their new chest monitors, I now had to create medical supplies, supplies that would be airdropped into the future containment zone.

I would debut them along with the MRVN dedicated to maintaining other MRVNs at the next Simurgh fight and use them to provide medical aid for those trapped within the containment zone. I was only going to keep them there at that specific zone, all the while citing material and production constraints that could not be surmounted; sure, lots of people would complain that I couldn't do more to help, but this way I could help some people until I could protect myself. Even still, this might draw Mannequin's attention, however, I could handle him. Even if this drew the Simurgh's attention I would have nine more months before she could take a crack at me with the three-month cycle the Endbringers were on.

She could also flip the script at the insistence of Eidolon's ego, but I didn't think that would happen.

Regardless, I couldn't sit back and build up for forever, hiding in a hole and hoping that I'd one day gain enough power to blow away all opposition. I'm certain I could, but my conscious wouldn't let me- this was something I could do, so I will do what I can.

Life isn't lived when you try to mitigate all of the risks, and how much life is lost when I have the powers I have and sit back and do nothing?

To that end, I needed to build something capable of getting me from Brockton Bay to Canberra, Australia in a hurry. The craft would be large, capable, and it would be fast as fuck, boi . (Do you have any idea how fast this damn thing would be?)

The issue was that I didn't have a door big enough to actually get a craft that large out of the hanger, so if you can't find what you need, then the best thing to do is make what you need.

The woods beyond the Service station- about 300 meters south- had a small cliff that faced the southeast; it was about 20-ish meters tall and roughly 30-ish meters wide before it started to steeply slope downwards. After scanning it with a team of drones I figured that I could cut into the cliff about eight meters and essentially create a 30-ish meter wide, 20-ish meter tall garage door with a lock on it. The moment I turned the key when it rolled up it would be automatically connected to the hanger, and that was how I was going to get my aircraft in and out.

With the orientation of the soon-to-be hangar and the coastline obstructing the view from the rig, as long as I kept my angles of approach consistent then I wouldn't have to fear discovery by the sensors, especially if I integrated - which of course I would- all of the stealth technologies I had at my disposal.

Spoiler: Long Range Stealth Craft "Globetrotter"

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With the width of the Hangar main door being 30 meters I was constrained for how large I could actually make the Globetrotter. To solve this issue the main body of the aircraft was 29 meters, making it just small enough to fit in through the doors with some precision flying. To give it the proper surface area there were two wing sections that folded that were 28 meters in length each, with one folding on top of the other; once the craft cleared the Hangar they would unfold giving the Globetrotter an impressive 85 meters of width. This allowed me to have the large storage bays while still maintaining a pretty damn streamlined shape to get me from Point A to Point B damn quickly.

It was designed with the (almost) best tech I could fit into it, with four hydrogen impulse engines and two UNSC-based anti-gravity projectors to reduce some of the work the powertrain would have to do. At an altitude of 50 kilometers, it could reach Mach 40, and get me from Brockton Bay to Australia in less than 20 minutes.

The technology I had available could do it in far, far, less time, but once again, I needed to keep my displays within reason;

It had a curved hump that would contain twelve cube-like self-contained medical suites that were fully equipped and self-contained with power, water, sanitation, and the like; once the aircraft landed the hatches on the bottom would open up and the containers could be picked up and placed anywhere. The upper decks would contain all sorts of different medical supplies, bandages, gauze, sutures, saline bags, artificial plasma bags, scalpels, etc, etc, etc.

Everything a mobile unit needed it would have, including the 30 Med-MRVS that would make it all useful, along with 10 MRV-MRVNs that would be needed to maintain them. Not that they would need maintenance because they were all incredibly robust, but it was always better to have an not need, and all that jazz.

Eight Spark Mk II Mod 1.0s would be attached to provide additional security once the walls went up, along with all of the munitions needed to hold off an entire city of crazed Simurgh bombs should they all happen to trigger and try and destroy the facilities.

I turned my head to the entrance of the Work Site and watched two dozen excavation drones pour out of it- their stealth protocols were activated, the new and improved ones, so I could only make them out because I knew exactly where they were thanks to my connection to them via the implants. They'd have it all set up and ready for the doors to be installed, along with a walkway and staircase to get down there, in just under an hour.

A thought occurred to me, and I set one of the Echos onto the task of making sure that the entirety of that cliff face was mapped so that the panels of the garage door could be terrain mapped and painted to ensure that it looked identical; it wouldn't do to have a normal garage door look.

A chuckle escaped my throat as the mental image of one of the beat-up, rusty-looking garage doors you could find in Brockton Bay taking up the entirety of a cliff tickled me.

It was about six-thirty in the evening when I was pinged that M4A1 SOPMOD II, ST AR-15, H 416, K2, and ART556 were all ready for activation.

I stayed about ten minutes longer so that I could completely fill up the current bin of Nanomaterials before I dragged it up the dock, and now that the sun had set I could have one of the 'Goks do some fishing; the freezers were only half full, and I felt like having some fresh fish tonight for dinner. And steak. And pork. And chicken.

Fuck it, with seven T-Dolls and myself I was going to have to do a lot of cooking anyway; pan-seared and then tossed in the oven to finish; it was the best way to cook a lot of meat.

I handed off the nanomaterials to the shelving robot and walked over towards the T-Doll construction corner where M16A1 and M4A1 were waiting; the pair of rifles standing shoulder to should with their arms intertwined and heads touching as they spoke lowly to one another. When I approached M4A1 quickly broke away from her sister's grip and came to attention before snapping me a crisp salute, "Commander!"

A smooth smile crossed my lips as I saluted in turn, "We'll try to keep the saluting to a minimum, yeah? Otherwise, it will just get in the way of the important things, M4A1."

A light blush speckled her cheeks but she released her salute the moment I did, "Y-yes, sir."

Her voice was very soft- and I felt my urge to proteccc rising . So this was the Cinnamon Roll of Girls Frontline? I could see it, though I guess I preferred my girls a touch more confident and self-assured; M16A1 played that role rather well, and she even had those little vulnerable moments that allowed me to enjoy my role as not just her Commander but as her man- being a port in a storm for a powerful ocean vessel.

Still, I needed to get them activated, have their MJOLNIRs constructed, weapons modified and built, and get them all familiarized. I decided to let them have 24 hours to get up and running before I commenced operations- that and I wanted to watch the Merchants' every move and set up a plan of action.

I turned towards the five tables. Before I spoke though, I let the Forge do it's thing- a small star was latched onto and pulled into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: -25.0461 - Sorcery - 100CP - Lone Wolf - Skills Magic]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 350 CP Remaining]

It was finally some magic! Though it was pretty limited in scope, at least by the description- the ability to create shields and move objects. It sounded lackluster, but shields on-demand and telekinesis had a lot of utility and flexibility. I could study this more at a later time though, for now, I needed to focus.

That focus was broken not a split second later as I felt a mantle of energy settle over my shoulders, and out the corner of my eye the same mantle formed over M16A1's and M4A1's shoulders as well. Then it formed over the sleeping T-Dolls.

This extended to them as well? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as most perks like this were given to companions as well.

I blinked and forced my eyes back onto my sleepers, ignoring how my two awake dolls were looking at their hands while clenching and unclenching their fists.

"M4A1 SOP MOD II, Activate- Command authorization: Yankee-28-Uniform-Alpha-13-Lima-0-0-Papa."

"ST AR-15, Activate- Command authorization: Charlie-Romeo-11-Xray-Kilo-33-3-5-November."

"K2, Activate- Command authorization: Bravo-15-Zulu-Whiskey-18-Hotel-2-2-Quebec."

"HK 416, Activate- Command authorization: Delta-Delta-10-Golf-Yankee-25-4-6-Oscar."

The final T-Doll's activation code was… odd, to say the least.

"ART556, Activate- Command authorization: Papa-Papa-19-Papa-24-23-Papa-Papa-Papa."

Hey, don't look at me like that, I didn't get to choose the codes, they were part of the T-Doll's package; after the initial activation I could change the codes, but I had to use them first.

The other T-Dolls groaned as their consciousness slowly booted up, little shivers and trembles coursing throughout their bodies as their minds began to comprehend the thunderous signals of their highly tuned organic forms. Just like with M16A1 and M4A1 their sensitivities were toned down by the Lifegivers, who slowly but surely stepped them up until they were used to everything.

I turned my head to look down at my squad's resident kemonomimi loli, who'd been officially upgraded to the almost-oppai-loli status with the upgrades; her flatness was no longer flat, and instead was just shy of half-a-handful, both in titty and in booty.

Spoiler: ART556

[img: https/lotus._images/001f93c0ae476792029f7f8e99c8a84f/2870675%20-%20ART556%20GMKJ%20Girls_Frontline.png]

"Is there a reason why your activation code had so many 'Pappa's in it, ART556?" I asked, my eyebrow arched, "It wasn't very difficult to remember, nor is it very safe."

"Hee-hee-hee," She chuckled weakly, one of her golden eyes cracking open, "Because, Commander, I'm the type of girl that always wants her 'Papa'. Hee-hee-hee."

" 'Ahn, ahn, ahn, yes, Papa, just like that, do me harder! Papa, papa, papa, papa!'" The fox-eared T-Doll shifted her head back and let out a cute little moan before she shuddered and relaxed her neck, "Or something like that; my designers were more than a little perverted, I suppose. Gosh, this is way different than my other body, I'm so sensitive~."

I swallowed thickly, trying my best to ignore the fact that the loli T-Doll's little display affected me a lot more than I would have liked. "Just… don't do any of that around other people, okay? You'll get me arrested."

"Hee-hee, I can't make any promises, but," She paused as she started unlocking the data packets provided by M16A1; with the upgrades, she was able to do it far faster than she ever could have before, "-Wouldn't it be best if we used the logic of this world to our advantage? I could be a… Striker/Changer/Trump that can manipulate my own biology and the biology of those I touch to a pre-set form? Like, say for instance, I'm a 40-year-old pervert who Triggered and gained the powers to become my fetish and help others do it too?"

Utilizing some of the perceptions of the world already would definitely make this a lot easier. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Of course! Refuge in audacity and all that good stuff," She only paused in her speaking to accept some water from me, and even then she was being incredibly lewd with it- the little tween-looking T-Doll's tongue rolling around the squeeze bottle's tube. "Fuwah, thank you very much, Sir. I was pretty parched… though… maybe next time you can let me drink something a bit more viscous and sticky instead?"

I felt my cock harden considerably, and the only way to retaliate was to boop her snoot and chastise her properly, " You are a horny little goblin; maybe later."

She didn't seem very chastized.

"Hee-hee-hee. I'm gonna suck the Commander's big fat dick~! Yay! Oh man, I wish MT-9 was here!" Her tail swished against the table between her legs as one of her hands came up to cover her lips like an ojou-sama trying to stifle a laugh, "Hey, sir, sir!? Did you know that M16A1 showed off your cock, sir? It looks sooo~ big~! Like, too much for even the likes of me, Ar - mlpeh-T556 to handle!"

"Did you just trip over your tongue? On your own name?" I asked, genuinely curious. Was this a ploy on her part or something that was overlooked?

"She has problems with that," I turned my head to see SOP MOD II grin weakly, "Always has."

"Yes, she can say 'Art' and '556' just fine, but when she tries to combine the two together something gets in the way," K2 chuckled, her head turning towards me, "Sir."

"Aw~, shut up, you guys! I can't help it!" The kemonomimi loli covered her face with her hands as her ears flattened up against her scalp; the moment her hands touched her face she let out a soft hiss, "Mou~, so sensitive, and not in the good way!"

"This will fade in time as you all get used to it, girls, but this unfortunately is the same thing I went through, though my own experience was about 40% worse on account of my modifications being a fair bit more powerful than your own," I squeezed some more water into ART556's mouth.

ST AR-15 lifted her head off the table to get a look at me, "Your augmentations are more powerful, sir?"

I nodded, "Correct. The gap exists as a part of an issue that at this moment in time none of us can correct; the fact that we managed to get the Serum to function on a T-Doll even though you're frames are now primarily organic is a miracle in and of itself, so when you get the chance to, please give Sufficiently Buoyant a little thanks for her hard work."

My best gurl warbled and bobbed her head, her tentacles shifting through some sign language, and it was pretty hilarious to see the five T-Dolls stare at her like they had no idea what the fuck was going on. That was when M16A1 released the data file containing the Hurgok package, and the five girls began to giggle. "Aw~, sir, that's so cute!"

I grinned and nodded, "Alright, while you girls calibrate, I'm going to go into the Magic Lab and test out this new Sorcery we just got. M16A1, I leave the girls to you. M4A1, I need you to go out and start collecting nanomaterials please."

"Big sis M16A1 is here!? I was so distracted looking at the Commander's straining cock that I didn't even notice!" ART556 screeched out as her tail started thwacking the table, eliciting a soft 'owie' from her with every thump, "Come pet me, Big Sis! I missed you!"

Her ears were folded up, and she looked just like one of those doggos that hadn't seen their favorite person in a long time and was just filled with all sorts of emotions. It made my throat tight as I watched M16A1 step above ART556's head and gently place her fingers on both sides of the loli T-Dolls temples; M16A1 lowered her head and pressed her lips against the girl's forehead before she started whispering words low enough that I couldn't even hear; she had to have been sub-vocalizing at that point because my hearing was really damn sensitive.

Though not as sensitive as ART's though, the girl had little radar dishes affixed to the top of her melon.

I walked around the rest of the tables, stopping by each T-Doll to rest my hand on them, even if it was only for a moment. After that, I left the Hangar and moved into the magical lab- as I walked I noticed that one of the research rooms that had been un-named now had "Sorcery (Generic) - Level Blue Access Required" listed.

" Jason Wilke, Administrator of the Higher Calling Magical Research Facility, has entered the 'Sorcery (Generic)' research station. Administrator Wilke is the 'Research Lead' for this station." The smooth feminine voice of GLaDOS.

I grinned, "Thank you, Glados. Initiate 'First Time' protocols."

"Understood, initiating 'First Time' protocols. Ha-hem."

Spoiler: For the People Who Are Still Alive

"This is a triumph~"

"I making a note here,"

"HUGE SUCCESS,"

"It's hard to overstate my satisfaction~,"

"Aperture Magical Science,"

"We do what we must,"

"Because we MUST,"

"For the good of all of us,"

"Because all the people might die,"

Yes, I did do that.

It was a little morbid, but I felt like it injected a little levity and kept me focused on why I was doing what I was doing. This wasn't research for research's sake. I wasn't creating new spells, runic combinations, or rituals just to gain power for power's sake- I was doing it because there were trillions of lives on the line… if not more .

Still, that didn't mean I had to be grim-derp determined all of the time.

With all of the magical sensors and scanners from this state-of-the-art lab, I learned that Sorcery, much like my Dungeons and Dragons understanding of it, was instinctual. The mana in the air and my body responded to my will and desires and then tried to utilize the mana to shape something to fulfill those wants and needs. It was pretty limited in what it could do without something like a spell framework behind it, but since I didn't know any actual spells or how to build a framework it was unwieldy but not difficult to use.

If I wanted a stream of water, the mana gathered and created water. If I wanted dirt to spray from my hand then the mana gathered and dirt sprayed. The same with fire, wind, light, and darkness. I could create these elements but the ability to actually control them was locked behind another perk within the same subset that I received this one.

Just as the perk described, I could make shields of pure mana and direct mana into objects to pull them around. It even worked on living objects, like the 'false-life' organic rabbit the magical lab generated for me; the lesser amounts of mana I used the finer my control was, but increasing amounts of mana were needed to manipulate larger objects. Interestingly enough, the lab had a whole bunch of pre-set testing protocols for me to follow, among them were trying to create different mana-structures that had metaphysical significance to improve my magical telekinesis.

Shifting the mana into a threaded steel cable allowed me to manipulate much larger inorganic objects with the same amount of mana than I would have with just the simple 'mana cord' that I had started the testing with. The same could be said for the creation of 'mana-chains' that aided me in controlling organic objects; the computer theorized that if I could attach multiple chains to each body part of an organic and operated them independently, like a marionette, then it would give me an even greater hold for the same energy expenditure.

For the moment though I was only capable of a single cable or a single chain; I could yank a 'false life' organic human target off of its feet with a good pull, but pulling towards me was a lot easier than snaking it around and pulling away from me.

The shields were pretty decent to start with- I could deflect a sword swing from a mundane human with it, or stutter a direct blow. With some pre-set mana layering patterns from the testing protocols, I could even deflect a pair of bullets if I angled the shield at a 45-degree angle. After an hour of fiddling with it, Glados determined that with my current level of control was insufficient for further testing.

The System had no issues informing me that out of everyone that had ever entered the doors of the "Higher Calling Research Facility" I was ranked in the bottom 5th percentile of all magical researchers and ranked last in all research subjects in terms of strength and control.

She was confident, however, based on my quick mastery over the runes and Glyphs that I would grow over time, and she entreated me to not get discouraged by my 'abysmal lack of ability'.

Brutal, but not untrue.

All in all, I spent five hours fooling around with Sorcery before I called it quits and set the laboratory to crunch through the gathered data; Glados believed that she would have all sorts of things to test next time I came back.

I sighed as I felt the Forge miss a connection to the Magitech constellation- something from there would have been amazing to get, I wouldn't have cared what.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 15.01000 - Great Library of The Heavens - 600CP - I Saved Too Many Girls And Caused The Apocalypse - Database Magitech]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 450 CP]

Only having missed it by a charge and a half I was able to glean the name of the Perk and a rough outline- an entire library of magic and science that was so potent it made an entire civilization lazy, conformist, and did I mention lazy? Flying ships, secret martial arts techniques that were so powerful that they were still effective in a world where everything was made easy? Sign me the fuck up.

Alas, it was not yet meant to be. One day, though.

When I left the lab it was almost midnight, and I was greeted by the sight of my seven T-Dolls all putting the improved Mk X Mod 1.0 armors through their paces; the new quantum chips allowed for many small improvements across the board, mainly reductions in input lag between the tech-suits and the user, increases in shield durability and recharge time via adjusting protection output to more closely match the incoming impacts, and the additional sensors that were dedicated to calculating it.

If I was being shot at by a Merchant with a handgun then the new sensors could calculate where the bullet would strike based on its trajectory and adjust the surface of the shield to better improve the strike angle and redirect it instead of simply eating the entirety of the kinetic energy.

The new ARs were all unfamiliar with the armors, just like M16A1 and I had been when we first started using them, but they were easily improving; each side-step, hop, skip, and jump was made more precise with each repetition. Soon enough they'd master the basics enough to run the obstacle courses, and once they'd demonstrated they could properly navigate those then we (read: M16A1) could introduce the jump-jets, stabilizing thrusters, and grappling hooks?

I blinked. Oh, so M16A1 had worked with Enbee to make those? Beskar cabling had an incredibly high tensile strength, even when reduced to the thickness of a pasta noodle, and with carbon nanotubes sheathing each wire it made certain that there would be little wear and tear. The super-thin cable was strong enough to support two and a half of us when wearing armor, and the reeling mechanism was strong enough to snatch us off of our feet and propel us at almost sixty miles per hour.

When combined with the jump kits this would give us some serious gap closing distance; with the two of them combined we could cross the entire city of Brockton Bay without our feet touching the ground.

Granted, the structures we were swinging off of had to be capable of supporting our weight to begin with- oh, no? Some sort of Forerunner tech that energized a localized area and caused it to resist the tremendous forces that would be applied to it?

I narrow my eyes in suspicion. Enbee just shrugged his tentacles and signed at me before rolling his head and pooting off, "W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r."

'Whatever', indeed.

It was then he pinged me with an email he'd sent the farmer- and I facepalmed. I had forgotten to get the other five cows I paid for, but the owner didn't really care, he understood that it was quite a haul down and back, and that I could come to pick them up at any time provided I informed him a business day in advance. Considering it was now the 3rd of February I sent him an email that I would try to swing by on the 7th; I didn't know how long the operations in the coming day would go, and there was a possibility that they might go longer than a few days.

I informed the girls that I would be heading back to the house to get some rest.

They all gave me some cheery waves and I waved back with a grin on my face as I walked out of the Work Site, locked up the warehouse, and drove the truck back to the double-wide.

I tethered the warehouse to the front door, as Tiffany liked to come in the back one, and began installing a complete security system with the help of the Engineers now that the sun had set. We set up all sorts of sensors, cameras- two of which were placed in a mundane camera housing and made visible- and different lights that would activate as people approached the house. It took an hour to get everything set up, mainly because I had to walk around the entire property to do so.

I carried everything in a large backpack while an Echo held onto my shoulders; when I got to the right spot they set everything up. In the woods, around the enclosure, around the road, and I even set up sensors on the power poles leading up and down the road. They were incredibly tiny, no bigger than a nail, but there were hundreds of them spread throughout; if a tick was scratching its ass within two hundred meters of my trailer then I wanted to know about it. I would upgrade the crappy security array we had around the Work Site in the morning.

Two more India units would be dedicated to monitoring everything that went down here.

Once everything was placed into position I activated the security system and it was like the entire world came to life around me. While connected I could see through all of the cameras and sensors- it was like being connected to the Force again for the first time. Powerful. Powerful and a touch overwhelming.

At my current level, this level of immersion was simply too much, but once we finished stress testing the new implant then this much should be incredibly easy.

Enbee sent me a ping and I felt the two new Indias with the upgraded systems come online, and suddenly everything I felt was being cut down, chopped up, and filtered. I spent another hour after that being the guinea pig for what the new Indias thought I needed to be informed about; I didn't need to be informed of every bird song or every ant trundling through the underbrush. I quickly refined their search criteria and algorithms until I felt confident that if someone step foot in the area I would know, and any strange emissions or echoes would be found.

At two-thirty in the morning, I finally took a shower and laid down to go to bed.

[February 3rd, 2011]

[6:30 AM]

I'd slept alone, but was awoken to the feeling of my cock rapidly hardening as a tiny pair of lips suckled at the root; plump, sinfully soft lips and a hot wet tongue slathered my testicles with sticky love.

"Hee-hee-hee," I heard, and a small hand gripped the left side of my shaft and began pumping gently, bringing me to full mast.

I cracked open my eyes and adjusted the pillow behind my head before I reached down and gripped the sheet covering my body to reveal the nude form of ART556 nestled between my thighs. Her mischievous golden eyes reflected the morning light of the sun filtering in between the blinds of my window. She released my left testicle from her mouth with a wet 'POP'. "Good morning, Commander~. Hee-hee-hee."

Rather than be affronted by the boldness of the cheeky T-Doll I let out a soft sigh and let go of the sheet so that I could gently cup her right ear. She let out a sinful moan of delight as my fingers quested through the soft, downy fur, and her hand started to jerk me faster; I rubbed the outside, moving from the tips down to the base of her skull, drawing an exaggerated shiver from her form. Though, considering I made her ears just as sensitive as her nipples with the amount of nerves I bundled into them, it probably wasn't exaggerated at all. "Ahn, Commander~!"

She began trembling, her whole body shaking as she propped herself up on her elbows while she raised her ass high towards the ceiling, her fluffy tail ramrod straight and quaking as she stuffed her face back into my ballsack. I grabbed the second pillow next to me and placed it behind my head and shoulders to prop myself up so that I could fully see the curve of her lower back and the pertness of her ass cheeks.

I grinned cheekily as I folded her ear in half and began stroking it up and down, causing the foxy T-Doll to squeak. "I thought you wanted a 'Papa'?"

As I increased the pressure and varied up my stroke on her ears she let out a little whine, her hand releasing my shaft as her ass bounced in the air. "Ahn~, ah, I can't focus when you play with my ears like that~. Ah wanna make Papa Commander feel good too~!"

This sort of play had been pretty revolting to me in the past, granted I'd never been with a woman who had 'daddy play' as one of her kinks, so to say that I knew 100% that this was something I couldn't possibly get into would be presumptive.

Though the moment someone tried to pee on me or shit on my chest was the moment I punched someone in the mouth. Hard .

"You want to make me feel good, ART?" I breathed out, hitching my stroke up faster and faster.

"Yes, I want to suck Papa's cock and make him explode in my mouth," She whined piteously, "I wanna choke on it, and feel his sperm fill my little belly."

Okay, going a touch too far there…

"Very well then, if that's what you want, Artie, then you can do so, though no more teasing; I'm already as hard as I'm going to get," I spoke firmly, slowly my strokes before releasing her ear. The moment she regained control over her senses the fox-loli T-Doll practically dove onto my dick, the little mouth stretching to barely accommodate my girth; she could fit the tip in, and maybe an inch after that, but that was her limit. She seemed to be very displeased with her progress, but instead of trying to push herself past her current limits, she began putting her tongue to work while her two hands gripped the sides of my penis and began stroking me forcefully.

She tapped against my implant, asking permission to form a chatroom, and I accepted. I was immediately greeted by her bratty voice, "Mhmm~, papa's cock is so thick I can't even fit it all in my mouth! And it tastes sooo~ gooood~!"

Despite the desire to roll my eyes my lust seemed to smooth away the absurdity of the play, and I let out a soft sigh as I relished in the sensations she was providing me. She pulled back to the tip before tightening up her lips and pushing herself back down to her previous stopping point, and much to my surprise she went down just a little bit further than last time. She kept on dirty talking, throwing little inane combinations of words, phrases, and 'Papa' as she started losing coherence with each subsequent oral orgasm. Still, despite my previous assumptions that she would never be able to do more than tease me with her mouth, the little loli finally worked herself down my length until the head was nestled against the back of her mouth.

It was at that moment Artie shifted off of her elbows and angled her body down until my penis was almost at a 45-degree angle between my thighs… and she shoved herself down the remaining eight inches of my cock until her lips were wrapped firmly around the root; her eyes rolled up in her head as I heard a small spray of fluids hit the sheets as the loli's feet kicked against the bed.

"Ho-holy fuck, Artie," I groaned out through gritted teeth as the entirety of her throat wrapped around me with crushing force; she was only four foot eight, so my penis was just a few inches away from her stomach. Only knowledge that nothing would come up, only go down, allayed my worries.

After a dozen seconds, she slowly came back to herself, her eyes lowering and refocusing on me as she breathed through her secondary airway; they were shining brightly, with both accomplishment and joy. "I told Soppy that I could do it! She didn't believe me!"

That was when I heard some chattering off in the background; all of the other T-Dolls had joined the chatroom and were probably watching through the multitude of cameras and sensors I'd just finished installing. "Now, sit back and relax, Papa, as your little girl here fucks her own face with your big, fat cock. Be sure to cum buckets, okay~?"

I didn't have much time to speak because she was already shifting her whole body back, the bulbous head of my prick scraping against her throat until she reached a good point and thrusting back forward until her lips were at the base again. Breathe left my lungs and came back just as quickly as she worked herself back and forth along my length, her golden eyes near once leaving my own; she teared up, which added a lovely sheen to them, but that was something she could control completely. There was no discomfort on her end, only ecstasy as her orgasms began to pile up, with each one slowly dragging her to even greater heights.

My testicles began churning, and I felt my lips peel back as I growled out to her. "I'm going to cum, Artie."

Seemingly not pleased with just that, her brows furrowed for a moment until I saw a window pop up in the bottom right of my vision, showing an image from the top down. It was a Forerunner VISOR shot of my cock being squished and milked by her throat, and that sent me over the edge; even with my vision blurring, I was treated to the sight of my manhood pulsing violently as she constricted her muscles and buried herself down to the base. I got to see and feel each thick sput of my seed physically enter her belly, the thick cum swirling around and mixing with the acids of her stomach.

With the last few spurts she backed off until only the tip was in her mouth, and she milked my spit-soaked cock with her hands until the last globules were rolling around her mouth. She moaned in delight, swallowing the thick seed before dipping her head to press her tongue firmly against the base before dragging it up to secure the last bead of semen. "You came so much for me, Papa~. It must have felt really good, I know I did. I was cumming soooo haarrdd on your cock~."

She grinned and I reached down and gripped her underneath her armpits, pulling her up to me; the fox loli squeaking as I pulled her pussy up to my face and wrapped her legs behind my shoulders. She smelled delicious- another one of the modifications I made- citrusy and as sweet as an orange. I lapped at the tight little hole in front of me, reminding myself that she might be a loli, but she was a legal loli. "Anh, Papa, nnooooo~, you're going to make me cum again!"

I dove my tongue into her sex, letting it swirl and scrape along the walls while my nose rubbed against her pointed, engorged clitoris. I wriggled my nose back and forth and she convulsed, a small spritz of citrus alighting on my upper lip and soaking into my beard. "Ah, Papa, please, no more. I want to feel you inside me."

I shifted my shoulders, allowing her to pull her legs out from where I'd previously had them trapped, "Well then? Go on, stick it in."

The fox- legal fox loli's lower lip was sandwiched between her teeth as she slowly waddled from side to side down my broad chest until her knees were able to make contact with the bed. Then she pressed up and onto the balls of her feet and pushed her ass back until the head kissed her tiny womanhood. Her eyes widened with a gasp the moment hot spongy flesh met hot, wet spongy flesh. "P-papa, I'm going to go now, okay? I'm going to swallow your cock with my p-pussy now."

The view that I'd seen out of the corner of my eye changed again, this time flickering to a back and top-down view. She probed her tight entrance a few more times, her eyes flicking down and right- Artie was probably just as entranced at the combination of sensations and the view as I was. I leaned forward and pulled her into a firm, open-mouthed kiss, our tongues dueling as I pressed my hips up and pushed, and pushed, and pushed until the head of my cock popped into place. "Noooo~, I wanted to put it in, Papa!"

"You were taking too long, Artie," I grunted in the chatroom, "I'm going to take over now."

My left hand gripped the swell of her hip as I pressed myself into her tight, tiny pussy, the grip was insane, and the ability to see every squishy rib of her sex deform and stretch as my length invaded her body was something else entirely. My cockhead stretched her out, and was kissing against her firm, puffy cervix before I made it seven inches. She squeaked in surprise, her golden eyes widening; considering her cervix was also quite sensitive, she broke the kiss and started panting. "Yes~! Papa's tou-touching my baby room! He's gonna pound me until I'm useless!"

Needless to say, she was quite durable, and I pulled back and slammed into her, the impact enough to force air out of her lungs, "Huuuff~"

Liking the stupid little face she made I pulled back and did it again, and again, and again. Each thrust forced another little pleasured exhalation from her body. "Soooooo ggggoooooodddddddddd~!!!!"

I kissed her again, biting firmly on her lower lip, just enough to cause a little pain, and the combination sent her spraying all over my pelvis, making her cry out over the chatroom. "MMMMMaaaaaasssstttteeerrrrr~!"

I kept pounding her little body, breaking the kiss only so that I wrap both arms around her and squeeze her firmly to my body, even blissed out of her mind the legal fox loli managed to wrap her puffy lips around my left nipple and teases it with her teeth and tongue. Her golden eyes were hazy, but they never left mine for a second… except when she came so hard her eyes crossed.

"Artie, I'm cumming again," I grunt, and the screen in the corner of my vision bounced to get my attention again, the head battering her firm, squishy cervix, and I pressed up into her as firmly as I could. Her body convulsed in orgasm, the entrance to her womb forming a seal around the tip, and I erupted into her with a hot roar. Her pussy clenched and squeezed and writhed with each shot, and I felt my testicles wring themselves dry in an attempt to put a baby in this fox loli's belly.

I held her there firmly, no longer moving as I waited out the rest of my climax, and eventually our combined milking contractions tapered off until only the blissful haze of our coupling remained. Artie giggled and reached her hands up to stroke my cheeks, "I love you, Papa."

The sudden admission caught me off guard, and I felt M16A1's words creep into the back of my mind. She was designed and engineered to be loyal- her love was mine and mine alone. She was mine. She would belong to no one else. This T-Doll was a woman. My woman . I would hold her. I would command her. I would love her. I would cherish her. She would-

I blinked as the breath slowly evacuated my lungs, and the sudden torrent of emotions, declarations, and other powerful desires slowed to a trickle; I hadn't noticed the furniture in the room shaking, but ART556 did. She didn't seem to care though- her faith in me was absolute. I could tell that just from her code, and I could feel it in her emotions. She skooched forward so that she could plant a gentle kiss on my lips. "I know that was probably a lot for our first go-round, but… thank you for indulging me in my selfishness, Commander. That means a great deal to me."

I nodded as I tried to force away the inky tendrils that tried to sink into me. That was… dangerous. I felt a small thread of black sheathed in white reach out to me from the wall, and my heart quivered at the soothing, staunch presence. I'd felt this once before- when M16A1 was opened up to the Force.

Had that been the Dark side?

I kissed her back and trembled as her arms wrapped around my neck. When we broke it I pressed my forehead against hers, "Thank you, Artie. I… I love you too."

It didn't cost me much to say it, if anything at all. I didn't know her, yet, but was that any reason? She was mine. I created her, now I had to take responsibility for her. She deserved at least that much from me, the same as the rest of my T-Dolls and other future Companions the Forge provided.

She grinned and leaned back, "Aw, that's so sweet of you Commander~. Though how can you resist not loving this tight, tiny, legal loli body I got, hmmm?"

I rolled my eyes and she giggled, and I brought my hands up to cup her ears and rub them firmly, the foxy T-Doll shivering in delight. I dropped on hand to grab onto a perky, firm ass cheek and gave it a squeeze. "Alright, come on, get up, we need to take a shower and start on breakfast."

"Alright, alright, but just wait a moment, if you would Sir," She grinned and waggled her eyebrows at me, "The girls want to be present when you pop the cork."

"The…. cork?" I heard the door open and all of the T-Dolls strolled into the room, all of them in various states of undress with differing expressions among them. My view in the bottom right changed to one of their eyes- M4A1's if the little text at the bottom was anything to go by- and that was when I saw it happen; ART556 slipped forward until the head of my cock popped out, and I was treated to the sight of my thick seed starting to ooze out.

The fox loli's hand reached down to cup her pussy, and she slithered down my body before shimmying off the foot of the bed and disappearing into the bathroom. I looked at the T-Dolls who were all staring at my cock, "We can have fun later."

Sop Mod grinned as she tugged at her little skull mask, "Oh, we better, Sir."

"We will, there is no doubt about that, maybe you sisters would like to all go at once?" I threw the idea out there, and ST tilted her head to the side, her hooded eyes looking at me consideringly.

"I wouldn't be opposed," M4A1 spoke softly, her hands coming up to cover her cheeks as she flicked her eyes over to M16A1.

"Sisters really should share," Sop Mod's eyes crinkled while ST AR-15 nodded silently with a hum.

H 416 blushed profusely but she swallowed in anticipation. K2's hand just reached up and pinched one of her nipples.

M16A1 smiled lightly as she looked over them before turning her lone gray eye back to me. "We'll be waiting with bated breath, Sir."

"Welp, let's get started on breakfast, shall we?"

The day was spent collecting nanomaterials, training in our MJOLNIRs, and looking over the intelligence.

Skidmark had contracted pretty hard, pulling back his money, drugs, and weapons, but instead of consolidating it all in one location he moved it from thirty down to three; a defunct supermarket on the border of Midway and the East Railyard, a large warehouse deep in the Central Railyard, and in a small cabin that was about thirty miles north of Brockton Bay. The cabin had the largest amount of cash but the fewest guards; only three men were guarding it, but it made sense- these were probably his most trusted non-Cape Lieutenants, the guys who could be trusted to move back in with the seed money to revive the gang.

The defunct supermarket was a big Rave location where the Merchants threw raucous parties for the teens and young adults looking to have a great time while high, and the older crowd looking to score with said high young adults. It had a large safe deep in the manager's office, but that was just a ruse as the real hoard of cash was in the manager's bathroom right next store buried under a few half-rotting planks of plywood covering a hole. The vault still held some cash, to be sure, but not nearly what was in the bathroom. Anyone looking to steal would accept the hundred thousand or so in the vault and wouldn't think to continue poking around with that nice little payday in their pockets.

The largest amount of cash was located in the warehouse in the Central Trainyard. An estimated half-million spread across a bunch of duffle bags in a large vault that looked to be two and a half feet thick; the vault itself had wheels on it, and a powertrain. It also had a gas tank, and a steering wheel. And it also had two miniguns that could poke out of the top. And… was that a rocket launcher?

Needless to say, it was a mobile vault that the Merchants could use to drive around anywhere they could park it. It looked beastly, but a lightsaber would cut through it like butter. The green, yellow, blue, and purple crystals were claimed with HK 416, Sop Mod II, M4A1, and ART556, leaving only K2 to wait a day until the crystals regenerated. After we constructed their sabers we sort of just fooled around for an hour, sparring with one another with 'Dual of Fates' and other iconic Star Wars songs blaring in the background because 'P90 would never forgive us if we didn't do it'.

Much to my surprise, ART556 started directing one of the in-shop surveillance drones to record our bouts, and with the powerful processors at her disposal, she was able to CGI together backgrounds while we had the Engineers put together some sweet Jedi robes.

We ended up making it a short film where we were all a bunch of Jedi who'd been creche-mates, then grew up and became Padawan learners; now that we were Jedi Knights on the cusp of taking our own Padawans, it was the time to settle once and for all who the best of us was.

It was… a ton of fun, actually. Like, we all came up with scripts, and with our enhanced brains and implants acting out our scripts and manipulating our facial expressions and bodies to match our characters was just too easy. With four drones setting up different camera angles we did a round-robin style of fighting, where one of us stood in the center and we fought one on one until a blow was struck; we went for thirty rounds because "our bodies were enhanced by the Force" and it gave us super-human endurance. Whoever had the most rounds in the center was declared the superior Jedi among our close-knit circle of friends.

In the end, I was the winner, but only by a slim margin- M16A1 was the second most seasoned combatant, but my extra foot of reach with my blade and eight inches of additional arm proved to be the deciding factor in our bouts. It wasn't because I was also thirty percent stronger and faster or anything. Nope. Not at all.

Once everything was over the eight of us sat down over a bottle of water and helped ART556 edit all of the footage over, and after some additional post-processing effects we completed our little "Fated Duel". Though due to copyright restrictions we couldn't use more than ten-second clips of music on PHO, so we ended up writing our own original scores, and because of that we were able to tie the music to the fight scenes; each of us had our own 'theme', so when we fought we tied the two themes of whoever was dueling into a single track. The highs, lows, pauses, victories, and upsets were all beautifully captured by the T-Dolls that had far more musical talent than I did.

Thinking that we should probably set up a Team PHO page, we got cleaned off by the Lifegivers, suited up in our armors, and found a great place to film an introductory cinematic for Fire Team Alpha of the heroic organization "Frontline". Not a very original name, but it captured the essence of what we would be doing- taking the fight to the criminal elements of the city. We were certain the PRT and Protectorate, and some Forum Nannies would clutch their pearls over the name, but before we settled on a name, we posted an anonymous poll: "Would you like to see a Hero Team in Brockton Bay wage a war against the criminal elements within it?"

The overwhelming response out of 3,727 in just one hour was "Yes."

77.89% "Yes."

In fact, the comments section was ablaze with requests for someone to do just that.

Of course, some decried the poll as a tool to inflame tensions within the city and incite violence- more than a few posters were smacked with the Temp-Ban-Hammer by the Moderators, but the thread was allowed to persist with a stern warning from Tin_Mother to not escalate the calls for violence against the gangs that had taken much from the people of Brockton.

In many cases, everything.

So, with that mandate from the people in mind, we opened up the PHO account for the Hero Team "Frontline", and posted with it a group photo of us standing at the ready. It only took us a few minutes to get us verified, and in that final comment before we requested the mods to lock the thread we posted: "Your voices have been heard, People of Brockton."

After that, threads exploded with speculation. We ignored them and filmed the intro video that we would later post just a few hours later.

Taking footage from our travels through Brockton, the Surveillance footage of Merchants, ABB, and Empire walking around their prospective stomping grounds- we used CGI to recreate fictional alleys, streets, and storefronts. It looked like movie quality set-ups, shot on scene from a moving vehicle, with real people's faces, hair- and in some cases clothing- CGI'd over to protect everyone.

Hell, it got the point where we started creating wholly rendered CGI scenes depicting muggings in dark alleyways, homes and businesses being broken into, and shop owners being extorted by the various gangs, among many other things.

After that we started shooting sweeping scenes of the city's skyline, simulating time-lapses, day and night cycles, and weather effects like rain, snow, clouds, and other things. Then came the very anime-esque stills and circling shots of us in our armors, and then personal shots with using doing some sort of activity- cleaning a weapon before looking at the camera, working out in tight-fitting clothing that showed off our athletic physiques- they insisted that I should be shirtless for maximum hype from the female audience- while they wore sports bra and short-shorts that showed off their legs, hips, and ass.

We did shots looking off the cliff into the ocean with helmets off, and the cliff was CGI'd to be top of the Med Hall building while the ocean was the city from that vantage point- both day and night shots- and so on and so forth we went. That was when we started filming the action sequences, all of us stacking up against a stone wall that was CGI'd into an alleyway, flashbangs and smoke grenades tossed in before we cleared out buildings with drugged-out Merchants, warehouses with ABB, and open-street gunbattles with E88. Whatever footage of the capes of each group in question we could find were cleaned up and then lovingly rendered in the best we could get, all so we could CGI us kicking their fucking teeth in.

With all of that done we spliced all of the footage together to a song I had on my phone that I hadn't listened to in a good while, but ART556 fell in love with it. The scenes of decay, hopelessness, and desperation were all balanced out by meaningful, helmetless looks off towards the coming Horizon and frenetic combat; some of it pulled from M16A1's and mine helmet camera footage.

The video was posted to PHO on our page, titled "The Storm is Approaching".

Spoiler: BURY THE LIGHT DEEP WIIITTHHIINNNN!!!

Of course, we had domino masks for all helmetless scenes, and ART556 wore hers just so she could shit-post about it later. Though she did make a few changes to the lyrics to make it our theme, the song was kept in its original format, with dramatic flashing cuts as the music cut.

We didn't make any replies except that we were going to officially register at the PRT Office that day at 4:00PM, and if the people wanted to get their chance to see us with their own eyes then that was the time to do it.

Of course, us not being total douche-bags we had cleared a time to come by and officially register, so the Protectorate and PRT knew we were on our way in a few hours time.

We spent an hour clearing a flight plan with the FAA and Brockton Aviation Authority.

Why? Because we were going to fucking airdrop in front of the PRT Offices from halfway across the city, that's why.

The pilot robot- who I lovingly named "Echo-419"- had been briefed on the cleared flight plan and was now running through the pre-flight checklists.

I checked over my weapons and armor before I turned towards M16A1 and gave her a pre-deployment check. Once we were all looked over I closed up the warehouse and ran over to the cliff, running down the walkway scaling the cliff face until I got to the lock. I stuffed the warehouse key in, and soon the whole face started moving, the segmented panels shifting up before rolling out of the way; the interior of the Hangar was revealed- the Helljumper and my Alpha Team were all on standby.

The VTOL aircraft hovered out of the Hangar with nary a bobble, even when the wind sheer of the open ocean hit it, and once it was cleared I twisted the key- the garage doors closing.

I turned away from the closed door and looked towards the open rear bay.

With legs curled I sprung the intervening distance, my thrusters correcting my trajectory so that I could step smoothly into the back of the Helljumper's bay. I turned to ART556, "Send it, Artie."

A mischievous smirk emoji flashed across her visor, her articulated, armored earpieces folded back as her armored tail swished, a "Hee-hee-hee" coming out over the comms channel.

The next post was "Keep your eyes on the skies."

Echo-419 took us up into a constant, controlled ascent, the robot goosing the throttle to keep us within our 3:59:33 PM launched window. 24 Seconds of free fall at this altitude, with 3 seconds of deceleration would put us right at 4:00:00 PM. With all of the bay doors open- the sides and the rear, it afforded us a beautiful look over the bay and the swiftly approaching city.

I saw the mission clock tick down as we began approaching our drop window. The Helljumper swung wide, around the city. ART556 posted the next message. "Look up, Brockton Bay."

"Places, girls," M16A1 spoke out, before turning her helmet towards me, "Sir."

'10.'

The VTOL engines whined as the throttle was let up on and the aircraft started to coast on its forward momentum.

'9.'

'8.'

Echo-419 banked, our magnetic clamps prevented us from sliding out, though we still grabbed the handholds within the bay just because.

'7.'

'6.'

"Here we come. Don't miss us!" Arty posted gleefully before she tucked her phone back into the tactical pouch at her back.

'5.'

'4.'

'3.'

'2.'

'1.'

"Alpha Team, deploy!" I spoke out, unable to keep the biggest shit-eating grin off my face as the Helljumper leveled out, and the eight of us- Horizon, M16A1, M4A1, M4A1 SOP MOD II, ST AR-15, H 416, K2, ART556- leaped out of our doors as we flew on a perpendicular course for our landing zone.

Even from the altitude, we were at, ten thousand feet, I could see that a great space was cleared out not thirty meters from the building near the street.

Using every scrap of reaction and timing our abilities afforded us, we organized ourselves into two four-man 'V' formations as we well. Thrusters fired off, keeping us on a good course and angling our fall curve so that we would land directly where we wanted. Already there were hundreds of people surrounding our drop site, with some PRT Troopers holding a line; I guess they thought we were going to be driving in, but I think that the quite literal 'heads up' we gave tipped them off to the possibility that we might be doing something a little more daring.

Phones were facing towards us, people were pointing- some kids were leaping up and down while they tugged on their parent's arms and legs.

At five hundred feet we did one last correction burn before we tucked up and let our burners orient us from a head-first dive into a feet-first orientation; once we hit the two hundred foot mark we went full-burner and slowed our fall from 800 feet per second down to less than 20 feet per second. It was a hard deceleration, but we were easily able to withstand the g-forces. Just before our armored boots touched the ground the thrusters flared dramatically, and we… lightly landed on the concrete no differently than we would if we had skipped the last step on a staircase.

The eight of us looked over the assembled crowd and gave them a solemn nod, and Artie, being our public relations guru, gave a jaunty wave as her voice easily carried over the clamoring crowd. "Be sure not to try that at home, okay kids?"

We turned towards the front of the building and began making our way towards it where four Troopers were posted; at the top of the staircase before the door were two large steel crates with thick padlocks hanging from the two latches on each case.

"Your weapons before you enter… Frontline." A gruff male voice spoke out, his voice slightly modulated by the speaker on his helmet.

I turned my head and nodded, and we lined up in front of the cases and began stripping off our weapons and side-arms, laying them down in the neat foam. Once we were completely divested the cases were closed up and the padlocks were secured; to my surprise, they handed me the keys for the four locks.

We entered the lobby where what looked to be twenty Troopers were lined up; there weren't any weapons in hand, but there were the ever-present Containment foam sprayers. The entire floor was empty except for them- the Gift Shop shuttered. At the back of the lobby area was a large desk with four thick panes of slightly tinted glass, and standing next to it were Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery. "Frontline, welcome to the PRT East-North-East Office. If you would please, have you and your team members sign in here at the front desk, after that we will adjourn to a conference room where we will speak to the Director."

I nodded and we lined up in a single file, and I stepped up first, and a woman in smart business dress adjusted her glasses; she looked as though this was an everyday occurrence for her, but there was a slight tremor in her hands as she slid a paper guest log over. The pen was a nicely crafted piece, the ink flowed smoothly onto the paper, "HORIZON; FRONT LINE - ALPHA TEAM."

"Wait, there's more than one team?" Assault blurted out as he looked at the signature as he was the one closest to it, and much to my surprise I didn't see Battery immediately elbow him; I guess her knee-jerk reaction to punishing her husband with domestic violence was fanon? The side-eye she gave him though promised a stern talking to though, behind closed doors. Right now they needed to maintain a united front, to show that their team was just as mighty as my own, but with the numbers I had they were looking a little bit light; did they not watch the Team Introductory video, or were they doing the right thing and prioritizing their patrols?

Hah! Who am I fooling, they probably watched the video until their eyes bled. Dauntless, Velocity, and the freshly promoted Triumph were probably out on patrol. Giving up their assigned duties to posture would have been silly.

I stepped aside and let M16A1 step forward to sign in, and then I turned to Assault before giving him a nod. "Yes- one of many. The current roster isn't set in stone as the rest of our members are getting settled in, but we will have multiple teams; for a city as large as Brockton evicting the gangs will take more than just a single team."

The red-clad hero's eyebrows arched behind his visor, and Armsmaster cleared his throat, "I do believe that we can keep such questions and answers until we are in a more appropriate location, Assault, Horizon."

"Not a problem, Armsmaster," I spoke smoothly as ART556 walked up to the desk and had to stand on her tip-toes to sign onto the roster.

"Can't believe I was cursed to be short," She muttered over the channel, "Even with the opportunity of a new life I'm never going to break the five-foot barrier!"

Of course, she meant her height at the crown of her head- with her ears she was five foot three, but that was cold comfort when her ears were six inches long.

Sop Mod II snorted, and M16A1 blinked the yellow light in our HUD three times for silence.

I turned my head back to Armsmaster, "We are finished, Armsmaster. Please, lead the way."

The blue power-armored Hero stepped forward and read over our entries- of course, we didn't leave our phone numbers, and our email was the team PHO address. Dragon's software already filtered out a lot of spam messages, so why not let her do all of the hard work for us?

"Indeed, everything appears to be in order, if you would follow me," He nodded and the Protectorate Heros parted, allowing us to follow Armsmaster down the main hallway and towards an elevator at the back, "There is a weight limit on the elevator, so you will have to be split up. You will of course be reunited once we've reached the appropriate floor."

"Of course, Armsmaster, whatever is needed."

The elevator dinged and opened up, and myself, Armsmaster, Assault, M16A1, and M4A1 stepped inside.

As the doors closed I couldn't help but wonder how this was going to go down.

You guys rock!

A/N: Next chapter will be an Interlude and maybe a PHO section. Then I'll make up the dramatis persona so that way everyone can see who is who and put names to faces. Also, I just found "Bury the Light" last night, and I've been listening to it non-stop. LOL

Also, No word count advancements for lewds in the future. Next roll will open up next chapter.

Sorcery (100CP)

This power allows a wizard to transform his thoughts and desires into magical energy. Focusing your energies will allow you to create magical shields or move objects.

Interlude - PHO 1

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Topic: A Storm on the Horizon, Brockton Bay?

In: Boards United States New Hampshire (NH) Brockton Bay New Cape Arrivals

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On Feb 3rd 2011:

So, I don't know if you guys haven't been paying attention, but in the past few days there have been a total of 9 Merchant stash houses raided. The alleged (that IS important people, because everyone is INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY in a court of law) Merchant members were all taken down with minimal fuss and no injuries. My contacts at the Brockton Central Hospital and within the BBPD confirmed this for me- other than some cottonmouth from whatever sleeping agent was used the alleged members were unharmed.

It was done in the dead of night with no one being the wiser until the police showed up to collect the sleeping Merchants (assume that I'm putting 'alleged' in front of everything, will ya, MODS? Thanks.), and from what I was told they hit three targets in quick succession the first night, probably as a test run, because on the second night? Six stash houses in a row without them making enough noise to attract attention from any of the Merchant Capes- usually you get Squealer showing up if Skidmark isn't sober enough to attend, but here though? Not a peep from the Archer's Bridge Merchant parahumans. The final target of the night, I was told, had almost 40 un-powered members, with enough automatic weapons that would make a Columbian cartel blush. One of my friends remarked that it would have been a blood bath if the BBPD would have tried to root out this location- a container ship has a lot of 'fatal funnels' and hiding spots for someone with a weapon to hole up in to wait for the right opportunity.

All of this was accomplished with only TWO of the Eight confirmed members of the newly named 'Frontline' Hero team that announced themselves on our lovely platform just a few hours ago.

The two Capes identified themselves as 'Horizon' and 'M16A1' (Yes, like the rifle), and they were observed with some pretty intense looking power armor that was, in the words of my source, at least on the same level of quality as Armsmaster's, though they used what appeared to be mundane weapons; they had 'non-lethal' and 'lethal' options available to them, which is honestly quite nice because most Capes who pick up a gun tend to be… let's say more inclined to stride on the 'letha' side of the spectrum versus the 'non-lethal' side. Though, I won't be getting into the weeds on their equipment or possible powers- I'll save that for the "Powers Speculation" thread.

Prior to their announcement, there was an anonymous poll that seemed to polarize our community- and it asked if we would like for someone, a Hero Team, to take the fight to the gangs to end their stranglehold on our fair (*cough*) city of Brockton Bay. Whether you said 'Yes' or 'No' the answer before the thread was locked was an overwhelming 'Yes', with 77% having prefered action over inaction (as of the last I checked).

It got pretty heated, and some insults were bandied about, temp-bans were handed out in equal measure for those who broke forum rules, but this is PHO, what else is new? Regardless, the people of Brockton spoke and this new Independent Hero team responded.

They listed out a date and time when they would be visiting the PRT Headquarters to register, and right after that? Right after that they posted a video on their profile page - [HERE]

Say what you will about how people handle their branding, but this was probably one of the cleanest introductory videos I've seen from a brand new team since… probably forever. Now, before you get up in arms, there is a disclaimer at the bottom that states all depictions of violence in the video are fictional and for demonstration purposes only. The faces and clothing were also CGI so that no one who was filmed had their likeness plastered all over the internet. So they have their liability covered there. I've never heard the song they used before, and using 'Ba-bam!' on the lyrics doesn't bring up anything from Aleph either, so it was likely they wrote this number to accompany their video. You guys know that I try to only stick to the facts and keep my opinions to myself, so I won't wax on about how appropriate or inappropriate the video was- they made it, with production values I would assume belonged to a Hollywood movie set, and then posted it for all the world to see.

So, the real question here is does this new team have any substance beyond their first successes? Or are we looking at a team that will kick the gangs to the curb?

As always, only time will tell. Fingers crossed though, I'd like to be able to shop of knickknacks for my cat lady porch without being pulled into a running gunbattle between Nazis and Junkies again.

-EDIT: Apparently this is only ONE team of 'Frontline', they have more teams incoming.

(Showing page 1 of 15)

InsiderClassy (The Lady in the Know)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Once again, you beat me to this story, Bagrat. Do you even sleep? I was just about to post my own thread when I refreshed at saw this up. *sigh*

There was ONE thing that I do know that you didn't though- the tranquilizers that Horizon and M16A1 (what a strange name, but to each their own I suppose) used are in fact, NOT TINKER TECH. One of the cops I know was nearby to overhear Horizon informing the Protectorate Cape that had responded, Velocity, that it was NOT a Tinker substance at all, and could be manufactured by anyone! I snooped around and found - [THIS] in the website for the US Patent Office, and it seems to be legit. The formulas are censored for obvious reasons, but they handed it over to the PRT and Protectorate to verify that the substances were indeed safe for use (they claimed to have done their own testing, but the decision to get official validation is a great way to establish a rapport in my book).

Foxtantabil (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Welp, I can confirm; the druggie that used to sit out on the front porch across the street of my apartment complex is no longer ruining the view in the mornings; the cops were out last night and picked the puke and all of his trash peddling buddies. I felt bad for the BBPD though, despite looking like he was a buck oh five, dead weight to move into a paddy wagon is still dead weight!

Downtage

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@ Foxtantabil

Can totes agree- the Merchant trap house on my block was also smacked down; I work the swings, getting off late from work, so coming home to see the street covered with cop cars (without their lights flashing) was something else. I guess the BBPD CAN be quiet when they feel like it; who knew?

Cheers to Horizon and his team- at least for the next few weeks I can rest easy knowing that some punk isn't going to try and drag my kid in to get him injected. Though, unless they deal with the gang entirely then its just going to reoccur.

LegendPhobic (He's Gay, but hates ALL things that Sparkle)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

I gotta say, normally Cape outfits look like hot garbage warmed over, but I'm really liking the aesthetic they have going on here.

Screen Caps from their Video: [Here[Here[Here[Here] and [Here]

Gosilver (BB Moderator)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@ LegendPhobic

While we're always happy to have you posting your screen caps and costume analysis, please, once again, keep that relegated to the Cape Fashion board - [Here, for the Nth Time]. Next time I WILL Temp-Ban you.

Guywichinfi (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Hahahahahahaha! The fun police at it again. Though, it is fun to see Void Cowboy's fashion counterpart at it again.

- Temp Banned (24 hours): We aren't 'fun police', we keep topics on track, no more, no less. Also, do not invoke the specter of Void Cowboy, as he's still only four days into his week long ban. Take a 24 hour time out. ~Gosilver

RecipeFantastic (Verified Cooking Show Host)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

I really enjoyed having a man in power armor around my kitchen, really made kneading dough so much easier! Armsmaster if you ever want to come back on my show again I would love to have you! I was thinking a nice amous bouche, what say you?

Also, Horizon @M16A1 shoot me a message if you ever want to appear on my show! I would love to see what you guys cooked to get so big and muscley.

Armsmaster (Verified Cape) (Protectorate Employee)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@RecipeFantastic

This is an automated message:

Please contact my Branch Public Relations Branch if you wish to schedule another appearance.

Thank you.

Kid_Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Bagrat Glad we can always count on you to get us the right information at the right time. Apparently Frontline is in the building but we weren't told a thing. Gallant and I really want to find a time to talk shop- power armor is something that's always attributed to Tinkers but Tinkers who can actually make it are pretty rare.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 13, 14, 15

(Showing page 2 of 15)

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Verified Funnyguy)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Kid_Win LOL Usually I'M the one the one complaining about not getting told jack, but I guess once those Tinker juices start flowing even you can fall victim to "Fingers before Thought" syndrome!

I look forward to seeing you in our next PR Management class. Cheers, buddy, welcome to the club!

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4… 13, 14, 15

Topic: Horizon & Frontline's Power Armor

In: Boards United States New Hampshire Brockton Bay Cape Speculation

Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Original Poster) (Not a tinker) (Veteran Member)

Posted On Feb 3rd 2011:

So, we got a new Team showing up in the Bay, but I guess its at least not another gang. (Thank God!) Though whether or not they'll be a stabilizing or destabilizing presence we won't know until they start making moves, though I guess they already are; Bagrat has the scoop on their opening actions so far, and you can find that - [HERE]

However, the news and nothing but the news is his deal. My deal is Tinker Tech and anything associated with it even though I am NOT a Tinker (I am a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer, and along with my lovely wife who is a Mathematician and Physicist, but most of you already know that) we try to theory craft everything that is related to all the latest Tinkertech seen in the Bay area, from the Protectorate and Wards to the Independents and the Villains.

As ALWAYS, if something we post is sensitive, then please DM us so we can take it down. These are just thoughts and theories for funsies and to stay engaged with our community, but secrets when it comes to both powers AND tech are important. So if we get too close to home and it might compromise you Heroes, then let us know and we'll remove the content quietly (for what that's worth).

Now, lets get started!

First thing's first- LOOK AT IT.

Seriously, would you just look at it?

That is probably the best looking power armor I've seen outside of Armsmaster and that one VPA-EX (Variable Powered Armor- Experimental) armor that Hero showed off back in '99. It's nice and clean, no additional frills that don't appear unneeded, and it has armor that actually protects what it needs to protect as well as some sort of body suit that also looks very protective. (I know that WarVal in Prescott, AZ has her own Tinker Tech that curves projectiles around her body, but having Bikini Power Armor is NOT cool, no matter how well she fills it out)

From what we've managed to glean after talking with Bagrat is that their helmets are fully sealed, and their visors have some sort of holographic display that allows them to display emojis and the like. It sounds funny, but even with the efforts to make their body language exaggerated enough for positive identification, lacking the ability to see the face does a lot to impact proper public relations. The addition of the emoji function (trust me, I laugh at the thought of it too) but it really does circumvent a lot of the issues Heroes with full-face helmets have when interacting with the wider public- even being able to use something as simple as a smiley-face or a frowny-face really improves everyone's ability to accurately read how they are feeling. It helps build a rapport and connection without sacrificing the versatility and protection that a full-faced helmet system provides.

All you have to do is look at their Stormfront Approaching Video (Which you can watch - [HERE] if you haven't seen it already) to figure out that these helmets have a LOT of tech packed into them. At 3:53 and 4:29 you can see two instances of an engagement with Merchants (allegedly) from Horizon's POV; his head doesn't move at all- the camera view remains rock solid- but his rifle barrel move independently. The same can be said for 7:17 and 8:54 from M16A1's POV (And yes that IS her Cape Name) where she isn't even aiming down the sights on her rifle. In all of those clips it indicates that there is a Heads Up Display that links the barrel of the rifle to an aiming point within the helmet (Yes, just like all of your favorite First Person Shooters).

A lot of the HUD information has been sanitized for the video, but our buddy @TechJunkie4Lyfe has done an excellent Mock-Up of what he thinks the HUD for their system might look like.

[Image1_HUD MKUP]

Pretty sweet, right? Power system manager, Armor Integrity Sensor, Ammunition counters, and more than likely a Compass and GPS. We won't know for sure until we get more information, but considering how well everything appears to be put together it might be some time before they decide to release it (if they ever do).

The helmet, at least on Horizon, also has what appears to be an extended communication array- likely that others will pick this helmet up as well? We don't know, but we DO know that there is more than just 'Alpha Team' from 'Frontline', so its possible we'll see more of this variant.

What are your thoughts on the armors as well as the design characteristics you like?

Let us know your thoughts!

(Showing page 1 of 9)

BadSamurai (Not a tinker) (Tech Junkie)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Did you see that slow motion shot of Horizon running on the curved bow of that tugboat and then leaping vertically almost 76 feet into the air with nothing but a small bump from the armor's thrusters? (Edit: Alright, I've changed it to 76 feet, you happy now you damn pixel monger?)

We don't know how heavy those suits are, but the amount of energy required to leap 76 feet without frog legs/kangaroo leg armor designs is pretty immense; enough to fold a man in half (backwards) or cause compression damage on the spine (as we unfortunately found out with High Jumper, RIP dude, you did Oregon proud). The armored suit underneath the power armor can do a lot, but it can't affect the forces that would still be had on the human body. These aren't mundane people wearing power armor guys, they ARE enhanced in some way, shape, or form. Whether its powers granted or they were bio-tinkered up some enhancements (eugh) in order to move as they do.

Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@BadSamurai Uuuhhhhh… Hello? BS? Did you somehow miss this? - 2:37. The guy cornered in SAND like a mother fuck'n CHEETAH doing at LEAST 55MPH! Of course he's enhanced in some way!

- Infraction No. 1 Brocktonite03: We get it, its pretty crazy stuff, but we don't need the sarcasm and language here in Cape Speculation. We pride ourselves at being able to watch what our fingers type. We aren't General and we certainly aren't the Meme thread. ~WholesomeDreamer (Moderator)

Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member) (Tech Junkie)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Brocktonite03 Nah, @BadSamurai was just too busy watching Uber & Leet's reaction stream to the video to notice that little clip. We're sitting next to each other in lecture hall and he only saw what clips of Frontline's debut that I showed him. I'll make sure he watches the whole thing, though I'm sort of just banging along to the music.

Though, to prevent myself from getting slapped for not meaningfully contributing, did you see the tactical rigs they were wearing on their armor? You don't see many people with power armor doing that, usually they prefer to integrate whatever tech than can into the armor versus carrying it in pouches. BulletStorm out in Texas actually carries his magazines inside his armor to protect them when he's in the middle of a fight.

You know what this means, right? The only reason why they would have their equipment on the outside, unprotected by the armor is if they have some form of energy shielding.

That's my theory by the way.

Laser Augment (Verified Pixel Counter) (Tech Junkie)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@BadSamurai Uh, looking at the frame-by-frame and the number of pixels from the bottom of the tanker to the top of the tanker, even from Horizon's elevated position on the tugboat it's more like 76 feet, no the 100 you were talking about. Still no less impressive though.

Edit: But, to be fair from the beach to the top of the tanker deck it was likely 100 feet.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 7, 8, 9

Topic: Horizon & Frontline's Power Armor

In: Boards United States New Hampshire Brockton Bay Cape Speculation

Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Original Poster) (Not a tinker) (Veteran Member)

Posted On Feb 3rd 2011:

(Showing page 9 of 10)

Kid_Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Dawgsmiles Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking as well. You can see on my armor I have armored holsters for my pistols. Of course, it could be a technology gap, but I don't have a feeling that it was with that picture-perfect free-fall drop. I'd have to run the calculations on the amount of G's the body would experience decelerating from 820 fps to 20fps in such a short time span, but I would agree with BadSamurai that they are augmented in some way.

BadSamurai (Not a tinker) (Tech Junkie)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Kid_Win Actually SirMathsALot already ran those numbers on page 6, post 9 (if you run your PHO in 10 posts a page).

Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Kid_Win Your minder told me to tell you that you're not supposed to be commenting on new Capes. You know the rules.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Verified Funnyguy)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Ahahahahaha! And thusly Kid Win's rebellion was smote, struck down before it even blossomed into adulthood. Fare thee well, teenage agency, hello mandatory weekend PR classes.

BlueLine (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Clockblocker You'll be joining him, Mister. See you Saturday.

@Vista You too. Saturday.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Verified Funnyguy)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@BlueLine Jokes on you, ma'am, I'm already scheduled for saturday!

@Vista NO! Don't post, you'll be caught, Vista! They're paying attention to us!

Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

So I noticed that there is a girl on the team that looks to be about my height. Would it be possible for me to get power armor like that?

Edit: *sigh* S'what I get for not refreshing before posting. Guess I'll see you there Saturday as well, @Kid_Win @Clockblocker

LegendPhobic (He's Gay, but hates ALL things that Sparkle)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

As much as I love the interactions with the Wards here (Hello, @Vista! If you ever want that dreadful costume redesigned, let me know!) we are getting dangerously close to derail here. So to get it back on topic, has anyone else noticed the color scheme and patterning on the armors make it look very professional? Liek, military, but not 'martial law' military. Cop-ish but not like, eat donuts while stealing your drug money cop-ish. Powerful. Commanding. It stands out without being *Stand* *Out, you know what I'm saying?

Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Original Poster) (Not a tinker) (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Whew, thought we were going to catch a thread lock there for a second. Wouldn't be the first time the Wards have trolled us like that. Oh, you kids. *waggles finger*

Yeah, I wasn't the only one who notice it. Its blue and white, with black and grey being on the tactical vests, but it all blends together. Hardly the color for stealth operations but for being recognizable and visible? Yes, a very interesting choice- if I were someone in PR I'd wonder if it was toeing the line on being almost… too official?

Anyone from PR in on this?

Glenn_ChambersOFFICIAL (Protectorate Employee) (Verified Head of Public Relations (Protectorate HQ - DC))

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

To answer your question, it is indeed VERY borderline, but edging on the side of what is considered legal.

We always recommend that new Capes try to avoid taking on a LEO or Military look (outside of certain circumstances) to avoid anyone mistaking them for a Law Enforcement Official.

If you want to know more, you can consult our Independent Hero Costume Recommendations Guideline - [HERE]

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 7, 8, 9

(Showing page 10 of 10)

Answer Key (Cape Groupie)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Wow, seems a heavy hitter appeared with @Glenn_ChambersOFFICIAL.

Though he seems to omit Captain Law, Sergeant Savage, Officer Peddal, Inspector Inspector, among others. They all have VERY official military or LEO uniforms but you didn't comment on their threads.

Whitecollar (Cape Wife)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Answer Key Please don't start poking @Glenn_ChambersOFFICIAL. He was the man who saved my husband's career after the local branch tried to dress him up like Bobo the Klown. He is a SAINT!

Richtor Fist (Verified Cape) (Protectorate Employee)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

I agree with @Whitecollar, Glenn saved me from having to wear a construction vest and hardhat everywhere I went just because I have a Shaker power that lets me break down stone and earth. They even wanted me to have a foam jackhammer to carry around as a prop!

Gosilver (BB Moderator)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Seeing as the last posts in eight hours have been people singing the praises of @Glenn_ChambersOFFICIAL with no new discussion, consider this thread LOCKED.

@Procto The Unfortunate Tinker you can DM us here at BB_Local_Moderators to have this thread unlocked if you feel like there is enough new information to warrant it.

Cheers.

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 8, 9, 10

Topic: Frontline Hero Group - Serious Gender Imbalance?

In: Boards United States New Hampshire Brockton Bay Cape Speculation

FightTHAPowa! (Original Poster) (Cape Husband) (Cape Groupie) (Veteran Member)

Posted On Feb 3rd 2011:

So, I'm not a Brockton Bay native or anything (you couldn't PAY me to leave the beaches of Miami), but I saw that new Hero team you guys got up there, and while I'm loving the vibe they're putting out, and the fact that they're there to help you guys (Lord knows you need it with Actual, Factual Nazis and a Rage Dragon running around)… is it strange to anyone else that the number of women on the team to men is so high?

I understand more than most that women often undergo traumatic events more than men do, as they are most often targeted for violent crimes and rape, but usually you would see 6 to 4 Women/Men in a sample team size. Doesn't 7 to 1 seem a bit high?

Also, isn't the small one, ART556 a child? She should be in the Wards program, not gallivanting off with a rifle of all things! Has anyone thought out calling the Youth Guard?

(Showing page 1 of 5)

Navividu

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Yes, it WAS noticed by all of us here in the cape groupie community, but none of us bothered to comment on it because its irrelevant. They seem very competent, and we need more competent women Heroes out there who can do everything a man can do and look good while doing it. We have to many FAKE female heroes like Tiara, Glamor, Escapade, Lady Helena, and others who hog the limelight and don't do anything other than PR tours and photoshoots for magazines. I saw the clips from M16A1's helmet camera, and boy could that girl shoot AND move! Felt like I was watching a scene from Aleph's Shoot First or Die HARD! Totally thrilling to see real women empowerment making its way up into the world. Did you see their workout routines? I do Yoga four days a week, and let me tell you that the exercises they are doing in those clips aren't for the faint of heart!

bothad (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Great, now the feminists are coming out of the woodwork. Listen, @Navidadu, no one here is against women fighting the good fight. The fact of the matter is that these women in Frontline are most likely augmented in some capacity, and they're all wearing state of the art power armor. Nobody knows how much it makes them stronger or faster but the fact remains that Woman Augments Power Armor Un-powered ganger. Its just a fact.

Though truth be told I'm sort of surprised you're not screaming about all of those women on the taem but its a MAN running it? What, no comments about how he's just creating a harem?

Chilldrizzle (Wiki Warrior)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@bothad You just HAD to go there, didn't you? A buff, jacked dude surrounded by all those beauties? The fantasy is goen now. Ruined. When Frontline eventually releases a swimsuit calendar all I'll be able to think about is how lucky that Horizon guy is to be surrounded by all of those babes on a daily basis.

@OP To answer your question, the Youth Guard holds no power over Independents- its the Protetorate and PRT they got bent over the barrel. Granted if they *wanted to* they could probably pursue child-endangerment or something, but that would be a stretch. The power is in the hands of little ART556, bhtough to be fair I think I would prefer to see her in the Wards too; its a hard life for Capes out there.

ART_556 (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team) (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@OP, @bothad, @Chilldrizzle The Youth Guard would hold no sway over me anyways because I'm an adult. Believe it or not, I'm 43 years old, born 1968. I'm likely older than everyone clutching at their pearls for assuming that I'm a day-old newborn simply because I happen to like being short, irresistibly cute, and very fluffy!

Horizon is also a very lucky man- he gets to work with us every day! Truly, he is most blessed to bask in our presence. Hee-hee-hee.

Chrome (Verified PHO Service Technician)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Oooookkkkkaaaaayyyyyy… apparently we have ART_556 in the house? Uh, how did you get unique tags so fast? I had to ping Tin_Mother for a whole year to get her to make me a unique tag!

2tochuBullGlossy (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Troll account. Fake AND very gay. GTFO. Probably a sweaty, porky mouth breather that wanted to waifu for laifu.

- Temp Banned (48 hours): Try to keep things civil. Derogatory terms and hate speech will not be tolerated. Also, if it has a Tag then it means its been verified by Tin_Mother and someone at the Protectorate; so if it says "Verified 'X'" then it means its been *verified*. Take a 48 hour time out. ~Gosilver

ART_556 (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team) (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@2tochuBullGlossy Well, you are right in that I was a lonely, unhealthy, 'porky', mouthbreather. Then I got my powers, and I decided that instead of simping the Waifu I would BECOME the Waifu. I'm a legal loli. It's the best. Cake was gained and then eaten. Delish.

Edit: Aww, now that he's been banned I can't interact with him anymore, @Gosilver. Don't worry, despite my size I'm a big girl, I can handle a lot of criticism (Critique me HARDER, Daddy!), so there isn't a need to come White Knighting for me.

Spicerocy

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

LAMAO! Gosilver has just been accused of White Knighting. Gosilver. This day is great. The stickler for the rules simping . XD Truly ART_556 is a comedian that @Clockblocker wishes he could be.

Gosilver (BB Moderator)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@ART_556 I… *wasn't* "White Knighting". We have straightforward rules. I moderate according to those rules. Nothing more, nothing less.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

(Showing page 2 of 5)

ART_556 (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team) (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

@Gosilver Don't worry, I won't fault you for simping. I'm outrageously cute, yanno? It's only natural that people would want to ride to my defense. I mean, I'm not LTLX7000 beautiful or anything (she would make the ships sail for Troy, that girl. So unfair! Mou!) but still, Cuteness is Justice!

Bruce Lao

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Ahaha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHA. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OMG, wtf even is this thread right now?

Gosilver (BB Moderator)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

stares at screen and sighs deeply* All righty then, @ART_556. Enjoy a 24-hour Temp Ban for Trolling a Mod.

M16A1_Official (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team)

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

Sighs* @ART_556, what am I going to do with you?

We will be holding an AMA next week on the 11th @ 7:30PM EST. So if you have any questions please write them down and we will do our best to answer them for you.

Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

A/N: First PHO interlude done. Whoo! Seriously though, does no one know how to do those cool drop-down graphics so I can make a snazzy dramatis personae page? LOL

Interlude I - Emily Piggot

[Emily Piggot - Director PRT ENE]

"What do you have for me, Armsmaster?"

Despite being hooked into her dialysis machine in the medical bloc of the East-North-East Headquarters the Director didn't get 'down time'. From the moment she woke up in the morning to the moment she put her head on her pillow, Emily Piggot was the only force that was keeping the powder keg that was Brockton Bay from blowing up.

Harold Renick, her Deputy, helped from time to time, but he was a Finance staffer that had somehow managed to fall his way up the ladder to the Deputy Director's chair. He wasn't a soldier, nor was he a strategist. Where he did shine though, was in keeping her department on budget and handling some of the PR hurdles and conferences in her stead with his megawatt smile and that gift of Gab the media outlets ate up.

This freed her up to focus on what really mattered- hounding Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown's ass until she finally gave her the true support she needed to effectively do her job.

That and make sure the Bay didn't boil over in the meantime, though that was a balancing act that was easier said than done. A seemingly endless loop of compromise that was an anathema to a woman who didn't compromise. She was hard-nosed, unyielding, and being forced to cede territory to the gangs and rely on local Rogues to shore up patrols- to rely on children to participate in this cesspool in the Wards program- was galling beyond measure. Emily Piggot hated it, but until she got even half the support Boston got then there wasn't a God Damn thing she could do about it.

If she hadn't had a spine of steel and an iron-clad will she would have thrown up her hands and retired to Fort Lauderdale years ago, but Emily liked to think of herself as someone that chewed up scrap and spit out tacks.

It didn't change the fact that she was getting older, and that she was a broke-dick Trooper in a pencil pusher's job. They had recommended she get Parahuman healing, but she refused- sure, she had to spend an hour each day hooked up to a damn machine to filter her blood, but she could still Command and do everything she needed to do… even if she couldn't fit into the fatigues she had been issued five years ago when she first came to this posting.

She arched an eyebrow as she looked up at Armsmaster from her chair- a shitty plastic chair, but comfort was last in mind in a medical bay. "Well?"

The Tinker and Leader of the Protectorate branch waited for the technician to finish setting up the dialysis machine before scurrying off out of the door. That was when he turned towards her and handed her the manila file folder that he'd been carrying in his hands. "At approximately 0017 hours February 2nd, 2011, this morning, the new Rogues known to us as 'Horizon' and 'M16A1' initiated a systematic, large scale raid on Merchant held territory; they raided six locations, five of which were known to us; only MER-ST-4 annotated in the report we received from the BBPD was unknown."

"They moved from Merchant held storage location to storage location, often many blocs apart, from Sectors B-1 through B-4 and D-2 through D-4, in less than two hours. They neutralized the alleged Merchant members non-lethally using sophoric tranquilizers, often without any injury aside from minor bruising; Horizon's and M16A1 claimed that any bruising was the result of restraining the Merchants while they waited for the sleeping agents to take effect so that they would not alert their fellows. Medical examinations of the Merchant members appear to support this claim, as the majority of bruising was around the wrists, ankles, knees, or elbows; all common locations of restraint."

Emily flipped through the pages, scanning the summaries and reviewing the photographs taken from Velocity's mask camera from yesterday morning and Armsmaster's helmet camera this morning. "So these are Capes who know how to exercise some restraint, such a unique thing here in the Bay. What else?"

"During the last of their raids, against a container vessel known as the 'Sea Queen'- you can see the report for this interaction on page seventeen- they encountered very stiff resistance, or what would be stiff resistance for most Capes. 39 un-powered Merchant foot soldiers were arrested on top of ten times that many automatic weapons, along with nearly 850 pounds of various types of narcotics including prescription medications, the standard Merchant amphetamines, and a new variant that has been making its way into the hands of street dealers all across the city."

"All in all, Horizon and M16A1 have captured to date 87 un-powered Merchant members, though, during that raid the stress of the gunfighting caused one of the young men to Trigger and he gained powers that are akin to the Empire Cape, Rune, but seem to be restricted to ferrous materials. We will not know more until we can get him into power testing, but the boy is adamant about leaving the city, going so far as to accept the standard Wards contract," The Protectorate Cape's jaw clenched, "Rather than serving his community he has chosen to go to the Atlanta branch on account of having relatives living there."

"Can you blame him for wanting to leave?" Emily shook her head, while having an additional Ward would be nice, having a former Merchant on the team would cause some friction that she'd rather not have; sending him off was for the best, and more importantly, it accrued the ENE branch more Transfer Points; if she sent a few more Wards or new Protectorate Capes elsewhere then she could 'spend' her points to force the Chief Director's hand and gain an additional Protectorate member of her choosing for the roster.

Not that Costa-Brown didn't have mechanisms to deny her, but it would be much harder for her to do three times in a row. Emily smirked at the thought.

"No. I suppose I cannot. The Bay requires a certain level of tenacity and dedication- if the young man believes he cannot meaningfully contribute here then it would be best if he was sent elsewhere," The man cleared his throat, taking advantage of the fact that his hand was near his mouth to scratch his beard, "Continuing on, the two new Rogues secured $1.35 million dollars in Merchant funds, all of which were claimed properly according to the Parahuman Legislation VA-3.14-77c of the United States Criminal Code."

Emily arched an eyebrow. $1.35 Million dollars in cash on top of 137 arrests in less than48 hours? She scanned over the police reports and the reports given by Horizon and M16A1- they averaged roughly 30 minutes per target spread across the take-down, apprehension, policing of the bodies, inventorying of the illegal materials, and travel time to the next location. All done without warning the other members and potentially drawing the attention of the Merchant Capes.

She placed the folder down in her lap as she pinched her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger. Emily already knew her thoughts on the matter, but Armsmaster was her counterpart, and while she didn't trust his Parahuman abilities, she did trust his attention to detail. "Thoughts?"

"Hmmm," Emily could hear the servos on his armor whirr lightly as he straightened himself up, "They are incredibly efficient; their planning of each take-down was meticulous, and their information-gathering capabilities are something I suspect to be outstanding. Having gone through the reports of each breach, and reviewed the floor plans for the homes and other buildings they infiltrated, I conclude that their armors have very powerful sensors that allow them to locate their targets before entry. They moved inside knowing full well where each potential gang member was and moved to neutralize them in a fashion that allowed them to remain undiscovered."

He reached down towards his thigh and a small LCD tablet slipped out that expanded in size before he handed it over to her, "You can see evidence of this based on the helmet camera footage volunteered by the pair of their raid on the 'Sea Queen'. M16A1 moves directly from target to target with little time spent observing her surroundings; she knows where each un-powered member is, oftentimes shooting her weapon before they even reveal themselves. Horizon was more cautious, moving tactically and clearing each room and hallway; however, if you look closely, you can see there is some hesitation in his sweeps, indicating familiarity with room-clearing procedures but unsure as to how to apply them on a naval vessel."

Videos were pulled up and played displaying US Army, Police SWAT, among a few other branches of service all conducting room clearing operations. Next to those were teams of Marines and publicly available footage of Navy SEALs conducting naval vessel clearing operations. The differences were slight but noticeable to Emily's eye; she had been on the PRT's Tactical Response Unit for nothing. "Based on this, I believe that Horizon is former military, likely Army based on the cadence of his 'Pie Slicing'. Also not used to operating alone. Though not much can be inferred just from this alone."

"Now, as for their power armor, we can confirm that it does have energy shielding of some kind, but the exact process by which it operates is not known," Armsmaster waggled his fingers, and a clip from the helmet footage played showing the Cape Horizon allowing four Merchants to mag-dump into him at point-blank range. "The HUD has been, in his terms, sanitized before he handed over the footage, so we don't know how durable the shields are for certain, but we do know they recharged rather quickly as heard by the beeping. Less than 2.5 seconds for the system to spool up."

On and on this briefing went until her dialysis was completed and Emily sighed in relief about being able to get out of this damn plastic chair; the technician came back in as soon as Armsmaster left and unhooked her.

The walk back to her office was uncomfortable as always, but when you were missing your kidneys and a not-insignificant amount of back muscle that was just her lot in life. Her failing. Her punishment.

Emily had just gotten herself seated when her Secure-line buzzed, and seeing that it was from Renick she picked up, "Harold, what have you got for me this time?"

"Well, I just wanted to give you a heads up, but that new Cape, Horizon, was going to be coming by at 1600 hours to register his team here at the building," Emily looked at the locked screen of her computer monitor and noted that it was only 1007 hours, plenty of time for them to get ready to 'receive' the newest Capes looking to call Brockton Bay their home.

"Very well, I'll have Armsmaster ready the 'Welcome' mat," She chuckled sardonically. The thought of more Parahumans entering the Bay made her skin crawl, but at least these knew how to operate discretely and without massive amounts of property damage or injury.

"Well, it's not just that, I do believe you should check our PHO, Emily," She rolled her eyes and the man on the other end of the line headed her off, "It appears that this Horizon's new team is already causing quite the stir. A poll was posted and the results were… rather telling."

The former Trooper struggled to withhold her groan as she slipped her ID badge into the card reader, placed her thumb on the fingerprint scanner, and spoke out lowly, "Piggot, Emily. Director East-North-East. Sierra-Hotel-Five-Kilo-Two-Gold."

With a ding and a 'Welcome back, Director Piggot' that scrolled across the screen the computer unlocked and she flicked the switch to toggle the 'Public Domain' mode that sandboxed her system and prevented her from downloading attachments outside of official '.gov' web pages and web portals. It also prevented any scripts from running that were not already on the computer to begin with. She logged into her PHO account and copy/pasted the links that Renick had DM'd her.

Upon seeing the poll and the responses it was getting she felt her blood pressure rise. Just like that, all of the goodwill she had for these new Rogues had dried up like a pond on the Savanna. Then she watched the team's little "Introductory Video" and the woman felt like she was about to have a brain aneurism. Harold's chuckle came across the line clearly, "Well, they certainly know how to run their PR. The production values aren't too bad either."

Son of a bitch.

It did not get any better for Emily as Renick called her again a few hours later to inform her that the new Rogue team had apparently logged a Flight Path request.

They had an aircraft too?

Seeing that the Brockton Air Space was spartan even on the busiest of days, the Brockton Aviation Authority didn't see the need to deny the request. Brockton Bay had only four entities that had aircraft- Brockton Local New Channel 4 and 6 both had two old helicopters, that blow-hard Max Anders took a helicopter from the Med Hall building to the airport on the few occasions he needed to leave the city in a hurry, and the PRT had a half dozen helicopters at their disposal for quick movement. Though with the spate of flying and blaster capes in the city her birds were mainly relegated to long-range surveillance when they had the opportunity to deploy them; most instances of Cape Combat started and ended far before the pilots and crews could even finish their pre-flight check-lists and get their craft into the air.

They better not expect her to let them utilize the landing pads on the roof.

If so, they could kiss her fat ass.

Regardless, Emily had Armsmaster condense his report and made sure that he briefed all Protectorate members before the new Rogues could arrive. She thought about briefing the Wards, for a single moment, before discarding it outright; they were like Mice who'd been given cookies- if they were told about the new Capes on the block showing up then they'd want a glass of milk in the form of a greeting.

They could be informed when this 'Frontline' left the building; until that time the Wards were going to be on lockdown the moment they arrived. She didn't have time to entertain the whims of the Wards when they should be doing their homework and catching up on their yearly certifications- Clockblocker and Kid Win both were a whole month behind, and the DC was asking her why the Protectorate's Wards weren't getting their training done!

"So, let me get this straight. They got power armor, some sleepy-nap time juice, and they caught a bunch of Merchants?" Assault's agony-inducing voice cut through her musings as Armsmaster finished his preliminary report, "That and they offered to wingman for you and Dragon, Armsy, are you sure we shouldn't be trying to sway them over to the Light Side?"

"Dragon and I have a purely professional working relationship, and I would very much appreciate it if you did not stick your nose into my projects looking for a soap opera that does not exist, the rug on that joke of yours has worn quite thin," Armsmaster replied succinctly, "And to answer your question, they have displayed some excellent capabilities along with some technology that Dragon and I have a joint interest in; however, we are not here to discuss the possibility of a brainstorming session. Whether or not we will attempt to recruit them into the Protectorate falls to Director Piggot and likely Chief Director Costa-Brown. Further speculation on that particular matter is irrelevant."

"Assault, Battery, Miss Militia, and myself will be here to receive them, and to act as security. Dauntless, Triumph, and Velocity, you three will, unfortunately, be required to cover all sector patrols until such time that 'Frontline' has vacated the premises," The armored Protectorate Cape looked over the three in question, "I trust that this can be handled?"

Dauntless nodded his head, "Of course, I doubt it will be much more than an hour; we can hold the line, so to speak."

"Excellent, if that is all then we can ready ourselves and wait for-"

"Uh, boss man?" Piggot glowered at Assault as he held up one hand while his other held his phone in it; the man looking at the screen intently. Did she not have a rule about messing around on phones during a briefing?

"Yes, Assault," Armsmaster looked away from the projector screen showcasing the modified routes for Dauntless, Triumph, and Velocity.

"'Frontline' is supposed to get here in like 15 minutes or so, right?"

"Indeed, that is the case. Why do you ask?"

"Well, they just posted on their page for everyone to keep their eyes on the skies."

"We are well aware that 'Frontline' has filed a flight plan with the Brockton Aviation Authority, I mentioned that in my briefing for this event," Armsmaster spoke, his arms locking behind his back, "I also remember quite clearly that the Director has a rule about utilizing your PRT phone during meetings. It would behoove you to put it away, Assault."

The red-clothed cape coughed into his fist as he slipped his phone into the pouch on his belt, "Oh, yeah, right. Whoops, my bad. I forgot."

He was completely irreverent. Emily felt her hands clench into fists. Lord save her from buffoons! "Armsmaster, if you would please, finish your briefing and then be ready to receive the new Rogues. Conference room 4 on the fifth floor should have been cleared already, correct?"

"Yes, Director. The security team has given the all-clear for it."

"Good. Carry on."

They had airdropped, all

eight

of them.

She had an excellent view from her office of eight people in power armor falling from the sky like bricks, but despite her irritation, she had to admit that for bricks they flew pretty good. It galled her to admit it, but they had executed their little stunt flawlessly; not that it had scored them any points with her- all Capes were flashy show-offs at heart, and despite their apparent professionalism, she wondered if they'd even thought about the consequences if their little stunt had gone wrong.

Frontline had come armed to the teeth, though it wasn't that surprising considering what they knew of their capabilities already; possibly augmented with power armor, but they still used mundane weapons to ply their trade. They relinquished their weapons readily, not insisting that they remain armed, which showed a willingness to play by her rules, though whether or not that persisted would be anyone's guess. Emily herself bet a bottle of Jack Daniels that she couldn't drink that the Frontline would become belligerent, just as all Rogues Capes did when they were faced with Authority.

They didn't believe that they had to follow the laws of the land, as everyone else did; the fact that there were more laws for Parahumans than there were for mundanes was inconsequential in her mind. Capes caused problems no matter where they cropped up, it was a statistical fact; once people got powers they didn't wait to use them, oftentimes jumping headfirst into the deep end of the pool without having any ideas as to how to swim. Then it was up to the PRT and Protectorate to pull them out - if they were even still alive by that point- and then deal with the fallout their actions caused.

Not one month ago a new Merchant Cape with the ability to generate poison clouds, who the Merchants jokingly named "Fart Box", decided they wanted to take on Lung, believing their poisons could let them stand toe to toe with the Parahuman that fought Leviathan to a stand-still. He somehow believed, according to witnesses, that his poisons couldn't be caught on fire since he could smoke and fight at the same time. Well, in the end, the moron burned alive and they lost almost a whole city block to Lung's Rage.

Despite the Merchants being the ones to antagonize Lung's businesses the media laid the blame at Emily's feet, as if she was some sort of puppetmaster who was trying to egg the gangs on in some inane hope that they would kill each other off! Of course, within the privacy of her own mind, Emily would have been thrilled to see the gangs murder each other off- picking up corpses was much easier than trying to process live gangers. However, it was an opinion she never voiced because not only would it be irresponsible but it would also make her job that much harder.

The Bay was a constant balancing act, and it took all of her concentration to keep everything from tumbling over; without the funding, manpower, and resources to actually clear out the city the best she could do was manage this slow descent into madness.

If the 'Independents' could rally around the PRT then maybe they could clear the Merchants out, reducing the number of gangs to monitor to two, but they were loathed to give up their independence and be seen as subservient to the Government. The Government that in their mind has done little to aid their city. Which, if they knew what Emily did, was fact- there was always money left-over in the budget, and there were some PRT branches that didn't need more than a few Capes to handle their street-level crime problems. Those resources could easily be shifted over her way, but there was always some reason that Costa-Brown had to move the funds and manpower elsewhere.

"Your gangs are already entrenched, Emily. Meanwhile, the Lousiville Branch has a golden opportunity to remove their newest gang before it ever becomes a problem."

"Boston has seen an upsurge in crime not seen since the Boston Games, meanwhile your levels have remained consistent. Wrecker and Hotfoot can do much more good there under Armstrong than they would in Brockton."

"Emily, I need you to understand that I am not your enemy, however, there are rules and limitations baked into the legislation that prevents me from reallocating the funds that Congress has given us. Attempting to do so would require a joint session of Congress and approval from the President. Considering Senator Hansen and Representative Hames are once again feuding, attempting to get the two sides of the aisle to come together even for this would be impossible. I'll do what I can, but at best you won't see the results until next year."

Excuse after excuse after excuse. If Emily didn't know better she would have thought the Chief Director was sandbagging her, and she probably was, but Costa-Brown knew how to play the game well- better than Emily did in any case. She kept all of the other Branches happy with the little trinkets and requests they asked for, and then her position was secured- no matter how much Emily screamed she would only be seen as the squeaky wheel.

Still, Emily was a Trooper at heart, not a staff-puke, so she would continue to beat the drum for as long as she needed to; the men and women serving under her deserved to have a Director that would fight for them rather than just roll over and play dead. She was many things, but a coward was not one of them.

Not like those Capes who abandoned her and her men to Nilbog.

Having felt that Frontline had waited long enough, Emily closed out her terminal and stood up from her chair; the woman using the walk from her office to the elevator to work out the kinks in her legs and back. The elevator was smooth as always- and didn't that just gall her! An increase in the budget for a Tinker Tech elevator but not an increase for Armsmaster's tinkering budget? The man was without a doubt the hardest working Cape that Brockton Bay had, and he was by far the most versatile; she was not above giving her men and women what they needed, even if she and Armsmaster butt heads every so often.

She took a side hallway on the third floor, scanning her badge at the checkpoints so that she could take the entrance on the opposite side of Conference room 4. It was a room constructed primarily with Brute capes in mind, with two-foot thick steel walls, flooring, and ceiling that she was told could probably keep Hookwolf contained within it. The room had two tables with chairs, and the center of the room was divided in half; it had a one-foot thick steel wall that could drop down from the ceiling at a moment's notice should any Brute that was being interviewed become hostile.

Emily Piggot stepped through the doors past the two Troopers stationed outside before moving into the room and taking a seat at a chair where Assault and Battery flanked her; Armsmaster stood forward a little bit and to her left so that she could see his cues. He had been playing around with a lie detector, and while there was no way it was admissible in court, much like a polygraph test, it at least gave her a baseline in addition to her gut instincts. "Frontline, thank you for calling. I was a little busy answering a few questions from the Mayor's office about your little… stunt when you arrived."

Not untrue, she did have a short chat with Mayor Christener, but other than a few cursory questions about the inclinations of the group the call was blissfully short. No doubt the man was already trying to figure out if they could be beneficial for his re-election; Roy wasn't a complicated man- if he thought it could improve his chances then he was all for it, no matter what it was.

"I'm sure that the phone call was important, Director. I highly doubt you'd waste our collective time on nonsense." The cape in the center of the conference table spoke, his voice smooth, distinctly masculine, not that she couldn't already tell. She took an opportunity to observe the other capes that were arrayed to his left and right; they were all wearing a similar style of power armor as Horizon did, but the style was inherently different. It was more militaristic, but the biggest difference was the helmet- the visor was larger and quite distinctive.

She slid her eyes across the capes in attendance- M16A1, M4A1, M4A1 SOP MOD II, K2, ST AR-15, ART556, HK 416, and of course, Horizon. Their names were proudly displayed on the left armor pauldron, while on the right pauldron was a flag. There were full American flags on all but K2 and HK 416- they had their flags divided in half in a diagonal line; she easily recognized the German and South Korean flags. So this was a multinational team? Or a team that had dual citizens?

"Yes, my time is valuable, as I'm sure yours is as well," Emily adjusted her pantsuit in her chair, "With that in mind, why don't we discuss what it is we came here to discuss."

The Director flipped open a folder and pulled out the relevant files so that she could have the numbers in front of her, "In the past 48 hours you've started conducting… operations against Merchant assets, detaining non-powered members of the gang for arrest by the BBPD. To our knowledge, you've done things by the books in regards to vigilante conduct, which is all fine and dandy, but I am not in the business of believing that everything will stay sunshine and rainbows. Based on your 'introductory' video, you will not be staying on the Merchants for long."

"Yes, that is the case, Director. The Merchants are only the beginning."

"So you mean to take the 'fight' to the Empire and ABB?"

"Of course, because one week from now the Archer's Bridge Merchants will cease to be a threat to the people of Brockton Bay. Their un-powered members will be in BBPD, or PRT, custody, and the Capes will be in Protectorate custody." The man's helmet tilted to the side, "Isn't it natural that when one mission objective is completed you move on to fulfill the others? The Empire88 and the… A-Z-N Bad Boy-Z will be next."

The pen creaked in her hand. "You are quite certain that you can accomplish this, Horizon. Let me tell you now that a lot of Capes have crossed the city limits thinking that they will be the ones to truly make a difference. Do you know where they end up? They end up in a body bag with me having to put out the fires they caused."

"If there is someone in this city that can put me in a body bag, then you have much bigger problems to worry about than a few fires, Director," He leaned forward just a touch, "Fires that are only started because the PRT and Protectorate allowed the trash to build up in the first place."

Emily wished that she wasn't wearing that helmet of his so that her gaze would really pierce him. "Are you… suggesting that I am not doing my best to keep this city stable?"

"No, not at all. I'm certain you're working your ass off, Director, and so are our esteemed Protectorate members," He nodded to the capes assembled around her, Assault gave him a cheeky grin and a thumbs up, "However, I know the system, and I'm guessing that you're not having budgetary requests approved. Calls for more Capes are ignored while smaller cities with few Cape-related crimes get pick-of-the-litter."

He leaned back in the chair, his helmeted gaze looking towards the ceiling, "I think that you have to fight not just for new anything, but you have to fight just to keep what you have. Brockton Bay is dying on the vine- the economy is in shambles, the people are struggling, and the gangs have footholds in the area that make direct action untenable with what you currently have. Your Protectorate roster is half what it should be, but they let you keep your Wards to pad the numbers. However, since they are Wards you can't actually do anything with them because one- they are Children- and two- the Youth Guard would be right up your ass."

"My guess is that PRT DC has written the Bay off, does that sound about right? A sinkhole where money and careers go to die. What is the purpose of throwing time, manpower, and funds into a city that lost its industry years ago?" He tapped the table a few times before directing his attention back to her, the woman seeing her face reflected in his golden visor, "Alexandria doesn't have that many problems to deal with in L.A., hell, she could clear out the gangs here during her lunch break. Yet she doesn't."

"Let me put this plainly: You have no one in your corner, Director Emily Piggot. Not at the state level, and certainly not at the national level. Your area of responsibility is viewed as a petri dish at worst, and the Nation's very own version of Aleph's Truman Show; a place where everyone can tune in to watch the news and think to themselves 'Glad I don't live there'. It's the cautionary tale and the example that politicians from other states use to pound their pulpit, and you, unfortunately, are the one that has been entrusted with seeing the inevitable collapse."

"Not prevent it," His fist clenched, "But manage it. Then once the collapse has been completed they will rake you over the coals as the scapegoat, all the while ignoring the fact that you've been sounding the alarm about this since you took the position."

"Us, though? We are in your corner, Director Piggot. Frontline is here to give the Protectorate and PRT the boost they need to do their jobs effectively," He opened his hands and placed them down on the table, palms flat, "We are committed to removing the gangs and giving you guys some breathing room."

"That was a very good speech," Emily ground out. Calmly. Even though he had pounded virtually every nail she'd been stepping on the past few years right on the head, he was still missing the point. "The situation, as you so artfully pointed out, is always in flux. One misstep and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. I am the one that is responsible for the people of this city, and I cannot have Capes running off half-cocked believing that they can take on every gang here and win."

"Do you understand?"

"But we're never 'half-cocked'. We're fully cocked." The short woman with the large-eared helmet chirped, "and ready to rock. On the Gangs, of course."

"That childishness does not inspire confidence," Emily did her best to not let her blood-pressure spike. After having dealt with Assault's antics for the better part of two years she thought she was learning how to cope quite well; this new Cape would have to try much hard to test her patience.

"Then what would inspire confidence?" M16A1, the woman that they believed to be the second-in-command of the group spoke up, "I would have thought our previous displays would have been more than sufficient. We are highly capable, highly trained, superbly equipped, and more than that, we are committed to working hand in hand with the relevant authorities- that being you. What more would we need to do in order to be recognized?"

"Well, I'm so glad that you asked, M16A1, because I had a list," She grabbed a sheet of paper and held it up to Assault, who took it and walked over to hand it to Horizon, "Everything on that list is something that you will abide by. It is non-negotiable. If you want to operate on my turf under the PRT flag then you will play by my rules."

Horizon looked at the list for less than a second before setting the paper down on the table. "Your terms are dogshit, Emily."

She arched an eyebrow at the 180-degree turn, despite herself she did enjoy the conflict just a touch. The fact that he'd gone out and said it instead of tip-toeing around the issue was quite nice. "I'm glad that we can dispense with the pleasantries and get down to brass tacks. What about those terms are, 'Dogshit'? This is PRT policy for 'Partner' status."

"You're wanting complete access to my operation; intelligence, resources, etc, etc, etc. You want my planning, you want me to ask for permission before I conduct operations, and IF you DO grant permission, they will be conducted with Protectorate 'oversight'. With PRT leading the charge," He picked up the paper and gave it a wiggle, "You're trying to tie my nuts to a fencepost and still expecting me to chase after the ball. The stipulations in here are so restricting I would be much better off just joining the Protectorate; I'd probably have way less red tape to deal with."

He wasn't wrong- the 'Partner' program was designed to be painful, at least in Emily's estimation. The level of oversight was horrendous and without any of the legal protections or funding. Joining the Protectorate was by far the least damning option.

"I'm trying to help you and you're hamstringing me before I can even begin. Did you give the gangs this paperwork? If you did I'm sure they'd have up and left by now."

"You're a Rogue entity, Horizon. You and your whole team are. We don't know you, we don't know what you stand for, and I cannot have Capes that do not answer to PRT running around my city," Piggot brought her hands down on her desk, "Capes like you all talk a great game, but when it comes time to put up or shut up they're all talk. Words. Meaningless drivel. You cause far more problems than you solve, and when the gangs go headhunting and burn down a city block or two then it is ME who has to answer for your indiscretions!"

"I'm well aware of the pandemic of weekend-warrior Capes, Emily, but we are not the same. We aren't traumatized teens with delusions of grandeur. We get results, and we'll prove it to you." Horizon stood up, "You're lucky I've got a broad back because I'm going to carry you out of this hole that you've been tossed into. Expect us to follow the letter of the law, but don't expect Frontline to bend to the whims of a woman who can't accept help when she's starving. From here on out, the only thing you will need to worry about is the jail space for the gangs, and when this is all over you can grin and bear it for the cameras as you come out of this smelling like a rose."

The other members of Frontline stood up slowly from their chairs and began to filter out of the room, "I wish things could have been different, Director Piggot, but it appears that you and I have some irreconcilable differences."

He turned his attention to Armsmaster, "I trust you will escort us out and take us to retrieve our weapons?"

"Of course, even meetings such as this are covered by the Truce. You will be allowed to leave unmolested and with your equipment."

The moment the Frontline group walked out and the door closed Emily Piggot couldn't help but chuckle, one that opened up into full-blown laughter. It didn't last too long, because even if she was alone she wasn't alone; the cameras recorded everything. Still, it was refreshing to have such a candid discussion, no matter how short it was. No bullshit, just hard words.

Her smile faded though as she leaned back in the chair. Horizon and Frontline, huh? "You better not fuck up."

Still, there was no denying that she was a drowning woman in the middle of the ocean. She did need help, but nobody was offering, not when it came with all of those strings attached. The list she gave to him wasn't something that she drew up, it was PRT policy, written up by the pencil pushers in DC who thought that everyone would just bend over backward for the Government.

Those who wanted to fly under the PRT banner needed to abide by PRT rules, and that was non-negotiable.

Personally, If Emily could tip-toe around the gangs then she was certain she could play ball with the independents, but she had leeway in dealing with the criminal elements that she did not have when it came to PRT and Protectorate affiliated Capes.

Ironic.

To date none have signed on, not even New Wave, acquiesced to the policy, and they had the greatest visibility with the Protectorate here in the Bay.

However, this was the first time the refusal was so blatant. So military.

"Tie my nuts to a fence post," She snorted. That was a good one, she'll have to remember it next time she had a candid chat with Costa-Brown.

Emily stood up from her chair and walked around the tables before picking up the paper that she had given him, " Seriously, don't fuck up."

A/N: Took me a while to write this, and I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it.

Emily is a fighter, and part of that is that she enjoys fighting. Whether that is over a conference call or in a meeting room, fighting is something she always likes to do, even if it ends up being a hassle that spikes her blood pressure. Still, there was really only one way this was going to go down, as much as I want to let there magically be a peaceful and fruitful relationship between Frontline and the PRT, the system was set up to make independents fail so that they will join the Protectorate. Or make things so painful for that that they join the Protectorate. PRT policy reflects this.

Still, having been a Commander before for a little while, the thought of someone I don't have control over coming into my AO and fucking around with shit would be UNSAT, especially if I'm the one that has to answer for their fuck ups. That was just with equipment though, Piggot is responsible for people's lives, and if she fucks up by pushing too far one way or another, then the gangs will press into whatever gang she managed to weaken.

So, she doesn't hate Frontline, and she recognizes that they are inordinately capable for an independent team, but at the end of the day she has a city to protect, and having Rogue elements operating within it that won't even tell her what they're doing is not something she can tolerate. She will have to let them operate, as long as they're following the law, but that is about it. Still she has some hope, the teeniest, tinniest amount of hope, that maybe, just maybe they can actually do some good, because she doesn't enjoy drowning in the position she's in.

Chapter 9 - ... and the One, Two, Three Knockout Punch!!!

[Jason Wilke]

[February 3rd, 2011]

[Attempted Re-Forge: -9.0101 - Common Material Cache x2 - 50CP - Star Wars The Old Republic- Mundane Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 700 CP]

I ignored the Forge as we finished filling out the paperwork recognizing us as a Hero Team under the Vigilante Act. We, unfortunately, couldn't gain the vaunted and prized 'Partner' status, but with the level of restrictions and control the PRT had over our operations it would have undone everything we set out to accomplish.

When we exited the PRT building we talked to the crowd out front, answered some questions, took some pictures, and made excellent use of the emoji helmets to garner some laughs and smiles from the children. The ladies were definitely popular with the men, and I was popular with the women in the crowd who had children but no rings on their fingers.

Still, it was a great time, and in all honesty, I wondered what all the fussing and complaining was about when it came to the Protectorate and Wards dissing the PR patrols; interacting with the public was a hoot, and bringing some smiles to the kids who honestly didn't have much in life to smile about was a great experience.

After that we moved at a pretty decent clip on the sidewalk, making our way down to the boardwalk where Echo-419 came in for a beach landing that attracted everyone's attention. Well, he didn't land on the beach, he hovered perfectly over the water at the edge of the surf, and we blitzed through the waves before hopping up the ramp and into the bay. He took up nice and slow, letting us wave to the crowd before we flew a semi-circular path around the outside of the bay and flew south. Once we were about twenty-five miles outside of Brockton Echo-419 flew low over the waves to dip off the radar- if you stuck your arm out of the bay you could have touched the ocean.

When we arrived at the garage I hopped out, opened it up, and closed it once Echo-419 flew inside, landing the aircraft perfectly. I shut the door and jogged back to the Work Site and opened up the shop. Once inside I stripped out of my armor and had M16A1 post a schedule for constant nanomaterial collection, and then I called over the bois and gurls; I needed to get the rest of my Echelons filled out, and I needed to get them up and running sooner rather than later.

I flipped through the T-Doll catalog and set to work, throwing all the required Supplies onto each table; it cut me down almost half but it was obviously a worthwhile expenditure. It would take six hours of sifting to recover the Supplies used, and I gained 11 T-Dolls that had common calibers; all were either .45 ACP, 5.56mm, or 7.62x51 NATO. They also accepted modifications to their weapons readily; as much as I wanted to have M1 Garand-chan the fact that her weapon didn't want to be modified beyond adding a simple 4x optic made it difficult for me to pick up.

One day though, one day.

I blitzed through the enchantments, setting up all of the Glyphs for their endoskeletons, and then moved into the Enchantment Laboratory to begin the time honor tradition or Enchanting/Dis-enchanting gold rings to refill my stockpile of runes. Though I did remember to enchant a full set of rings for each T-Doll; not having the 97% resistances, extra Shield Bash, and 43% reduction to all physical damage would be silly.

After that, I looked into the T-Doll catalog and pulled up the plans for exoskeletons and mobile plate armors; in the games, they were used to provide Evasion and Armor buffs to the girls, but in reality, they let T-Dolls move faster than normal and essentially allowed them mobile cover. However, with the Mk X Mod 1 armor I had them all decked out in, the strength and movement enhancing properties were moot. The real draw, however, was the exoskeleton arm that controlled the Ballistic Panels; the T-Doll could move and position the shield however they wanted as long as the arm had the articulation and range of motion. I wanted to improve those capabilities and have them be available for Mobile Drops- if the situation changed, like for example a shoot-out involving civilians, the mobile armor could easily be used to cover retreating civilians and shield them from fire.

M16A1 was particularly adept at this role, her metaphysical 'frame' allowing for her to have two of these ballistic shields.

The shields we could make far outclassed anything in the Girl's Frontline Universe, and I could take that concept and improve upon with further with the materials and knowledge I had at my disposal. I created six different models after spending a few hours with my implant, and Enbee and I went back and forth on the designs until we narrowed it down to two; one had only a single shield, and the second had two manipulator arms with two shields for M16A1. I enchanted every Shield we produced to reduce damage from magic by 58%, and I hoped that it would consider Parahuman powers metaphysically magic since it was reminiscent of how a Warlock functioned- a greater being granting powers to mortals.

It was a stretch, but it was the best I had; most of the other possible enchantments required Soul Gems, which I did not have.

After that I created the drop-kits that these systems would fit into; some would carry ammunition, some would carry medical supplies, and some carried back-ups of important equipment that I would be developing in the future. Also, some had the Shield/Manipulator combo, obviously. The Engineers helped me create a second Helljumper along with a shell housing that would deploy said drop-kits, though I didn't create it just for that purpose; I had a lot of T-Dolls now and with the armor they were pretty heavy- I had never been to Air Assault school, nor was I a Loadmaster, but even I knew that it was always best to evenly distribute the heavy loads. Each Echelon would get a Helljumper for rapid deployment, and the Overwatch team would get a highly modified Helljumper for their needs.

I took the opportunity to slip myself into the nanomaterial shifting workflow because, if I'm being honest the repetitive nature of the task was kind of soothing to me; I could gather a pound of nanomaterials at 1.2 seconds versus their 2.2, and I could still do other design work while I was doing it. Mainly going through and looking over the code for the medical MRVNs; Subee had some complaints about their efficiency and bedside manner, so I had to do some tweaking.

While I was sifting I took some time to go over the rest of the Star Wars materials I gained.

I finally got the complete set for the Star Wars materials cluster, so that was nice. Enbee and the Engineers were already pouring over the materials there and testing out the nanomaterial ratios; armorplast, also known as plasteel, had a very high ratio that was quite favorable- one pound of nanomaterials could make ten pounds of plasteel, and that would be perfect for armoring up the MRVNs. It was incredibly resource-light while still being a very durable material; if used with a Forerunner molecular arrangement then we could use half of the material and still get the same level of protection. Durasteel was twice as strong as regular steel while only being 15% heavier, so that was a very good trade-off in my opinion.

While this didn't give me anything ground-breaking, what it did do was take my primary resource and stretch it that much more by providing me materials that were far better than "good enough" for this world; not everything needed to be made out of Beskar and Phrik.

The perk also gave me a boatload of schematics, from communicators to Droids, to moisture vaporators, blasters, and more. Tibana gas was also pretty damn cool, and the shit was incredibly energy-dense to boot. I could probably come up with some designs to use it, but considering the limited space I had, there was only so much shit I could stockpile. The nanomaterials had already expanded to half of my warehouse, and I directed Enbee and the boys to construct four large standing nanomaterial silos; it reduced the amount of floor space I was using for the shelves and bins, and would allow me to use those shelves for other things. I tacked on an order to raise the shelves all of the ways to the ceiling as well; there was no reason to not use the full 25 meters of height afforded to me.

It was fun, relaxing, doing things like this, all the while my Indias were gathering intelligence and my girls were planning out our operations against the Merchants.

We would be moving for a few more days, but that was fine.

[February 7th, 2011]

The 4th, 5th and 6th were all pretty much spent the same way. My new dolls had been activated, they went through orientation, MJOLNIR familiarization, Faction briefings, and pretty much everything I could do to get them ready. The German-made T-Dolls were pretty hot to trot when they learned that the E88 existed, but Negev?

Negev scared me.

The only way Negev could have scared me anymore was if she picked up a kitchen knife and started calling me 'Onii-san' with those hollow, dead eyes of hers.

"What do you mean you won't let me go out and kill those Nazis in their sleep, Onii-san? Do you condone their existence? Tell me, quickly, Onii-san. Your Negev-chan is growing impatient."

Yeesh, heebie-jeebie to the MAX! Though I guess the internet will get their crazy Yandere waifu now.

The Israeli T-Doll took her Jewish pride very seriously, but more so than TS12 did, and she practically had to be restrained to prevent her from running off to face the 'murderous dogs'.

ART556 and HK 41 were in some sort of spat that has persisted since the other Assault Rifle woke up; Artie had pouted at the other blonde, big-eared, legal fox loli kemonomimi and laid out a challenge. "There can only be one!"

From that moment forth they were constantly competing in everything, from sparring to eating to shooting to trying to get the best times in the obstacle courses the girls set up with the help of the Engineers. If it was something that one could try to outdo the other then they were cheek-to-cheek and shoulder-to-shoulder trying to see which one of them was superior. This of course, naturally extended to me as well. While the competition was something I tolerated, I put my foot down and told them to cease their shenanigans.

If you were going to blow me, then blow me because you want to blow me, because it pleases you to do so. Because you enjoy making me feel good and by extension yourself. Don't try to turn blow jobs into competitions just because one fox loli wanted to outdo the other fox loli.

That and I hadn't had time to bone the AR sisters, so having already "had her turn" so to speak- the horny goblin having jumped ahead of the line- I couldn't allow G41 to skip the queue too.

On the night of the 5th, I brought all of the ARs together on my freshly expanded bed, and we made love, all of us. It was beautiful, to see the sisters relish in the pleasure and the closeness; the way they supported each other as each got their turn made the whole experience surreal. M16A1 wanted me to be rough with her, and her sisters were rough with her as well; pulling and pinching her nipples as I took her from behind, their hands flashing out to smack her bottom as she climaxed over and over.

M4A1 and M4A1 SOP MOD II wanted to be taken together, like the twins they were. They stacked themselves on top of each other- M4A1 taking the bottom while SOP MOD waggled her ass at me from the top- and I alternated between pleasuring one and then the other.

HK 416 and K2 were both the same in that they wanted a more close, lovey-dovey experience; missionary with lots of kissing and handholding, but that didn't stop the others from finding places to slip their fingers to tease out the lewdest expressions from the more reserved ARs.

ST AR-15 was… interesting.

She was calm, collected, and rarely spoke up unless she had something relevant to add to the conversation. I spent a long time trying to figure out just what she liked the most, and after some private chats with M16A1 I figured out that she enjoyed being treated like a doll. She wanted to be posed, and then fucked like a sex doll; treated like an object. It was sort of a turn-off for me, but I found a compromise that suited us both; a prone bone while I put her in a headlock- I just pounded, ground, and gyrated my hips for my own pleasure, stuffing her pussy and ass with my cock with no rhyme or reason. She came. A lot. More than the other girls, not that I really counted, but it was noticeable.

Definitely weird, but it was a type of 'weird' that I could grow used to. The thought of just walking up to ST AR-15 sometime down the road and bending her over the nearest table to stuff her was certainly an arousing image; the fact that she would get off on it so much only made it that much better.

I had just finished making breakfast when the Forge roared to life and it grabbed towards the "Safety" constellation, latching onto a large, six charge beast of a Perk. It wasn't a large perk, not in information or anything, but it was no less significant.

Over the sounds of a dozen eggs sizzling in the pan, I heard sniffling emanate from my bedroom, sniffling that rose to a loud, piercing wail. I felt my heart clench, but I knew that those were cries of joy and relief.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 37.0220 - Three Laws of Robotics - 600CP - SB Dragonball Z - Quality Safety]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 200 CP remaining]

The Forge wasn't done, however, having the charges left over it wanted them gone, so it reached out and grabbed onto the closest star from the "Crafting Metallurgy" and had just enough to pull it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 28.0050 - Skyforge - 200CP - The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - Crafting Metallurgy]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP remaining]

I let out a small breath as I felt a tear-streaked face bury itself in my back, muscular but still feminine arms wrapping around my torso. I slid the pile of cooked eggs onto the large serving plate before applying some more bacon grease to the pan and pouring the rest of the scrambled egg mixture into it. My free hand came up and wrapped over the top of the woman's interlaced fingers, my voice soft as I stirred the quickly cooking mixture. "Did it apply retroactively, 16?"

I could feel her head nod against my back as a murmur left her lips, "Yes, it did. We are yours, Commander. Now and forever. No one… could turn us against you now."

She inhaled sharply and fresh sobs wracked her form. I sat the pan off to the side- the eggs would cook off the residual heat already within the pan, and I turned around to properly embrace my T-Doll. There was a quote from a shitty battle harem anime with another limp-dick protagonist that had everything just dropped into his lap, but the quotes of the women who bound themselves to him were no less pertinent or romantic. I tilted her chin up and planted a firm, closed-lip kiss on her before pulling back to plant the same kiss on her forehead, "For forever and ever."

She snorted a little bit, "So cheesy, but…"

Her beautiful storm gray eyes looked up at mine, and even if they'd been made puffy and red from her tears, they were beautiful; the spark of hope that had been struck when she had woken up had grown to a bonfire of happiness, and for her, possibility. I had known that the scars of her forced betrayal of her sisters had run deep, but seeing her react this way was… telling. T-Dolls were meant to serve, born for this purpose- to them the possibility of being turned against your purpose, to cause harm to the ones you were created to protect… it was anathema, a fate far worse than death.

Her hands came up to guide my own, her fingers leading me to gently cup her face by her chin and cheeks. A blinding, happy grin sprouted from her lips, with none of the usual M16A1 charms that I'd grown used to in the few days since I'd known her. This was something pure and untainted by her personality matrices that had once formed the core of her logic unit; it was… simply joy. "For forever and ever, Commander."

Her voice was small, soft, barely a breathy whisper, and as she finished speaking more tears began to spill down her cheeks. I brushed them away with my thumbs, "Come on, 16, help me get these steaks out of the oven and cut them up for all of the girls, and then grab the oatmeal- the 'Goks are looking for a little variety, too much rice they say."

The back door opened up and Tiffany let herself in.

It was strange that I'd known she was coming in the back of my mind, but since she was someone I'd cleared to enter the double-wide as she wished I didn't consciously think to have her tied into my automated pings- though she would only be allowed into the warehouse under discussion. "Good Lord, boy, what the hell have you been up to? I don't visit for a few days and now you've gone and gotten yourself a harem?"

I tracked the old lady's eyes towards the door to the master bedroom where the AR sisters were all poking around the doorway with wide grins and sappy smiles on their faces and then to the bunks that filled the living room where the couch used to be; the heads of T-Dolls poked from out underneath their covers.

She grunted and walked past the two of us to grab a cup and poured herself some coffee, "I should take you to church, boy, because you need Jesus in your life."

"They're not my harem, they're members of my team," I spoke out weakly, my eyes tracking over the trailer which I had completely converted into being a dormitory; it was stripped down nothing, walls were removed, the couch had been removed, and there were bunk beds from floor to ceiling.

Three beds could fit with the height, and with the width, we were able to fit six ranks of bunks for all 24 members; the only thing I kept was the kitchen and master bedroom. I also had to make four showers and toilet stalls which took up the entire back wall; the showers were incredibly efficient with how much water they used, but I still had to create another 55-gallon hot water tank on the outside of the trailer.

That was when ART556 and HK G41 walked out of the shower area clad in only their towels. They stared at Tiffany. Tiffany stared at them.

I heard the 'shk, shk, shk' of a cheap lighter flint being struck and following that I heard the old woman take three drags in quick succession. "Is this… one of those situations where I go to the police?"

Artie and Geefour pouted. "I'm 43 years old."

"I'm 29."

Tiffany's deadpan stare was incredulous.

Artie wrapped her arm around Geefour's shoulder and waggled her hand. "I'm a Striker/Changer/Trump, I can change the bodies of whomever I touch to take on their ideal form; there are limits, but I can make people younger, stronger, faster, smarter. It's usually temporary, but after repeated uses, I can make it permanent."

Tiffany sipped her coffee before taking another deep drag of her cigarette, smoke curling out of her lips, "Fucking Capes. You guys are all so fucking weird. So, why the… youthful figures?"

Both legal fox lolis looked at her like she was stupid. They looked at each other before looking back at Tiffany, "We're perverts. Our ideal selves wouldn't be cutesy legal fox lolis if we weren't. I've got a mountain of daddy issues and Geefour here likes the idea of being manhandled."

Geefour nodded, "Yes. Total perverts."

Tiffany dragged and flicked her ashes into the sink, "Christ, what is wrong with you kids nowadays? Back when I was a young woman being bent over the kitchen was the height of taboo, and now this?"

"I'll admit the shock factor is a really big part of it, but I do my best to let it be known that I was old enough to remember when President Reagan was assassinated," She huffed and turned around, walking over towards her bunk and pulling the sheet strung up between them closed so she could get dressed, "The CIA hadn't been satisfied with killing Kennedy, nooo, they wanted more legislation to lock down capes! I'm convinced they had a cape master Captain Echo into killing him."

I pulled the large trays of steaks out of the oven and sat them on the stone counter while ART556 continued to talk about some grand conspiracy set up by the CIA to remove Reagan because he was thwart'n their plans to crash the American economy through Earth Bet's Jimmy Carter years with stagflation and fuel shortages; "I was only a little girl at the time, but I remember sitting in the gas line in the car with my mom up in Michigan. It was freezing outside, but we still sat in line without the heater because we could only get gas on Tuesday. I had to be bundled up so much to keep warm my mom couldn't help but call me Ralphie; I hated 'A Christmas Story' ever since."

Tables were folded out all of my T-Dolls finally came by to get breakfast; those at the Work Site would have their meals delivered to them after we were done. The more Artie talked with Tiffany the more relaxed the older woman got; the first legal fox loli in my Team had been voraciously eating every scrap of literature, books, movies, and popular culture from her years of 'being alive' in order to sell her life story properly. By the time everyone finished eating they were re-enacting their favorite scenes from Happy Days, CHiPs, and other shows from the 70s and 80s.

"So, where did all of these women come from?" Tiffany finally broke the more festive atmosphere. That was when M16A1 stepped in.

"Well, you and I met only a few days ago, Ma'am, but Jason and I met weeks ago," She looked at me and smiled softly, "He was at Buckly's,"

"Yeah, I know Buckly's, on Stranton and 5th," Tiffany shook her head, "Serve piss-beer there, always have. So what, you see a handsome man and you just throw yourself at him?"

"I… wasn't in a good place then," She shook her head, "I thought I'd lost my sisters and I was going to try and fight the few skinheads that were holding court in the corner of the bar. Make an example of them."

She held out her hand, and a ball of mana coalesced into it. It then turned into a string and the T-Doll slithered it out to touch one of the salt shakers on the table and hefted with a string. She released the string and then maneuvered it to grab the back of M4A1's hand, lifting it up and giving it a wiggle before setting it back down. "I can obviously do more than just that, but Jason, he… caught sight of me slipping one of my threads through the crowd and walked over to me. Offered me the worst draft I'd ever tasted; it was hardly chilled but it was a distraction."

M16A1 snorted, "Turned out that the man I was 'going to make an example' out of was one of Hookwolf's Lieutenants."

She sighed and leaned back, the woman turning her fond gaze towards me, "He talked me down, got to know me a little, and then offered to help. He showed me his Tinker powers and we worked together to build all of this up, with the help of the Huragoks, of course."

"After that? Well, I started searching around, looking for like-minded individuals who were looking to make a difference; all of us are from the service," She began pointing towards various girls around the table, "Army, Marine Corps, PRT, Navy, Army, Army, Air Force (but we don't hold that against her), Coast Guard (same as Air Force over there), Navy, Army-"

M16A1 didn't stop until she had covered every girl at the table.

"Some of us have powers, but most of us are mundane. We come from all walks of life," She looked at the German girls, "G41, MG5, 416, UMP45, PSG-1, and G36 all came from Cologne after Behemoth burned it to the ground in 96'."

"K2 came from Busan after Leviathan hit it in 97'. TS12 and Negev came from Jerusalem in 01' after Behemoth, NTW-20 from Leviathan in 02' after he washed away Cape Town in South Africa. LTLX7000 came from Naples, Italy after the Simurgh hit it in 2004." M16A1 smiled sadly, "We are a pretty diverse team, our Frontline, but we all have a single goal, and that is to make a difference."

"With the handful of Tinkers we have, the Lifegivers like Subee, Artie's powers to give us a more powerful, idealized body, among a few other things, we have a very capable team," She crossed her arms under her chest, "So doing what all good teams do we began recruiting, and I've spent most of my time trying to find my sister while having 'meet and greets' with everyone you see before you. There are still others who haven't quite jumped on board yet, but I think that once we show how capable we are they will join up soon enough."

"So, you weren't the one who brought them all together?" Tiffany sighed as she rubbed at the side of her temple with a weathered hand.

"I spend all my time Tinkering," I said plainly. "Their power armors won't make themselves, and I have to collaborate with LTLX7000 to make the aircraft, so I'm really busy."

"Right, Tinker urges and all that shit. Ugh. This is too much." She sighed and pulled another cigarette from her pack and lit up, "Welp, in for a penny, in for a pound, though I'm going to have to upcharge your rent if you keep adding more beds, boy. Though, I do have to ask, where are all the men?"

M16A1 blinked as she unfurled her hands from behind her head, "Well, I have several candidates already, but most of them have active service commitments with the PRT; four of them still have some time left on their contracts. A few others from some three-letter agencies might be interested, but I can't properly vet them; they could be plants for all I know, and we can't have moles. The others I contacted wanted some fairly unhealthy salaries; right now? We're doing this for free- even if we picked up a million and some change from the Merchants a few days ago that would have been enough to maybe pay five of them for a year."

She tilted her head, "I of course could probably get free labor by pulling from the local Rogue population, but trying to yank them up to speed and instill a proper mindset, not to mention the amount of time and training it would take would be very… detrimental. Despite being from different services we all have a common skillset, so creating a unified operational doctrine was pretty easy; with the upgrades learning retention was improved, so we all function as if we'd been a part of the same unit for a long time."

"Although things aren't so desperate that I'd pull children into our ranks, I much prefer having adults who know what they're signing up for," She dragged her gray gaze across the women arrayed around the plasteel tables and bench seating.

"Fuck, I said I didn't want to know, but I let my curiosity get the better of me," Tiffany groused as she stood up and placed her paper plate up next to the sink, "Well, I'm gonna go back to my house and try and forget all about this shit-show. Just make sure you keep your Cape shit away from my trailer- I don't want to wake up one morning to find one of those yahoos blew a hole in my wall."

Just before she exited the old crone looked back at me and gestured with the last bit of her cigarette, "Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad I didn't have to call the cops on you, boy. Would have been a real shame."

"I would appreciate it if you didn't make me out to be some sort of Pedo, ma'am. That actually hurts," I chuckled lightly as I stood up and began collecting the empty plates of the girls around me, "Before you leave, your birthday is the 9th, right?"

"Yes it is indeed. The big eight-five," She chuckled mirthfully, "Why, another 15 years and I'll finally get VIP seating at the Community Center in Downton on Bingo night."

"Take care, you lot, try not to get into too much trouble, ya hear?"

Well, I wished that the world wasn't such shit. Having the option to not get into trouble would have been pretty swell.

M16A1 and I hopped into the truck and drove down to the worksite after hooking up the trailer. Once we opened up the warehouse and everyone got to work, training, sifting for materials, going over the intelligence reports the Indias were creating, and directing the Engineers to make improvements my first T-Doll and I drove off down to the farm to pick up the last five cows. Though, not before we stopped by the newest addition to the warehouse, the Skyforge.

It was a simple wooden doorframe, double-wide, that wouldn't be out of place on a Scandinavian mead hall from Skyrim. Opening it up revealed a large space that had trees and rocks and snow on all sides; I knew in my head that the space was a pocket dimension 100 meters by 100 meters. From the door was a stepped stone path that led up a very small mountain about 50 meters in elevation, and at the end of the path was a flattened circular area with a large eagle statue overlooking a five-meter wide semi-circle of coals.

Spoiler: Skyforge

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticdelivery.%2Fimages%2F1704%2F11580073-1496514770.jpg =1 =1]

The Skyforge had all of the tools that one would find in any Master Blacksmith's smithy; a forge that any Nord would be honored to even see, let alone work in. I knew that whatever I crafted within the fires of this forge would be far more durable than if it had been crafted outside of it; the caveat was that I had to actually forge the items, and I didn't know shit about blacksmithing other than what I could pick up from Youtube tutorials.

Granted, I could just forge the raw materials and smelt down alloys, and those alloys could be employed elsewhere without losing the Fiat-back effect; the Skyforge could smelt any material, be it mundane or magical, so materials like Phrik that required very, very, very hot temperatures could be smelted with ease. Already my mind was spinning with plans- upgrading the weapons and armor with Skyforge Beskar and Phrik would improve survivability and reliability; the thought of seeing M16A1 buttstroking Hookwolf with her rifle and knocking him on his ass with her rifle looking no worse for wear made me laugh.

The girls that weren't immediately busy came in to admire the beautiful star-studded skybox; the air was crisp, the smells of coal and fresh pine wafting in the simulated breeze. The Skyforge was locked in perpetual twilight, showing off the aurora borealis-like lights, and when you sat on the benches around the fires of the forge it gave off a wonderful atmosphere. G41 placed her hands on her hips, the kuudere fox loli nodding to herself. "Yes. This is my place."

Did my legal fox loli evolve into a blacksmith legal fox loli? Should I press 'B' to halt this sudden evolution? The image of bending her coal smudged body over the anvil and plowing her from behind… made me reconsider. It was Fiat-backed but it didn't require that I do the forging, only that it be crafted in the Skyforge. If anything that little stipulation required testing. After patting G41 on the head and scratching her ears I fed some testing ideas to Enbee and G41; if I was right we might not even need to actually forge anything at all- we could just build it in here and it would become far stronger than normal.

During the drive down to the farm, M16A1 and I sat in silence and enjoyed the music playing on the radio; her left hand and my right hand intertwined as my left hand gripped the steering wheel. While captaining the truck I was working up new schematics and modifying existing ones to have everything I built to be made in modular sections that could fit through the wide double doors of the Skyforge. It was a pain in the ass, but with my perks combined with the Trance and the implant, I was able to get quite a lot of work done on the trip.

It wasn't until I was pulling the truck through the steel gate of the farm that a thought crossed my mind: T-Dolls were considered objects. Weapons. What would happen if I made all future T-Dolls in the Skyforge?

I didn't know the exact strengthening details of the Skyforge, but the preliminary data packets Enbee was sending me had the improvements being as low as 40% for Phrik and Beskar, to as high as 300% for Durasteel, and 400% for Plasteel! We also figured out that we could indeed manufacture things, but they had to be within the vicinity of the 15-square meters of space on the semi-circular platform.

The Forge warmed up and made an attempt at a the "Skills Clothing" constellation, but the Perk was worth two charges while it had only accrued one.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 22.0040 - Arachne Silk - 200CP - Monster Girl Encyclopedia - Skills Clothing]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 100 CP]

Hell, with that strength to weight ratio I could make a whole aircraft out of plasteel and have it be durable as fuck while being a quarter the weight. I sent Enbee a request to have him look over the Globetrotter and Helljumper designs and start figuring out where we could replace components with Skyforge plasteel components.

When we pulled up the owner of the farm trotted out of his place and pointed me towards where he had the last five cows segregated from the rest in a pen.

M16A1 took the opportunity to go and slather her chosen moo-cow with love, using one of the stealth drones that accompanied us to take footage so that she could send it back to the rest of the girls. Speaking of the girls, I asked the T-Dolls to come up with a design for a nice cabin with big windows that we would build in the Skyforge area to house pets; they could enjoy the beauty of the skybox while pampering and being pampered by some lonely strays in need of a good home.

The drive back was a lot faster. With the drone flying high overhead, I felt comfortable pushing the speed of the truck a little bit higher on the straightaways, only slowing down to take curves and when another vehicle on the road was spotted. Instead of the previous five hours, we made it back in under three.

Once we had the bioslurry tank refilled we created one additional T-Doll within the Skyforge, though her creation was honestly mainly due to my personal aesthetic desires. She wouldn't be on a permanent slot for an Echelon until I started expanding, but M16A1 thought it would be good for me to have an assistant that I could have with me to aid me in keeping track of everything.

M16A1 might have been my Vice Commander, but every good organization had staff.

Type 95 was chosen by me to fill this role because of her rocking fucking body, and the fact that she spoke Mandarin, Japanese, Cantonese, and a few other Southeast Asian languages. She was fairly tall for a T-Doll at 5'7", incredibly leggy, had a bodacious bottom, and the second-biggest tits on the Team; she was just an inch smaller than LTLX, but the Italian shotgun was also four inches taller. I honestly couldn't wait to sandwich them around my cock, and M16A1's lone visible eye crinkled as I gazed at 95's nude form after having put her together with the Supplies.

Artie and the other flat (though not so flat anymore) T-Dolls stared at her breasts like they were an enemy that needed to be destroyed. UMP45 bit her bottom lip between her teeth. G41 patted her chest with parted lips and a look of consternation on her face.

Honeybadger though? Honeybadger didn't give a shit.

So on and so forth this went until we began stripping the Chinese rifle down and began rebuilding her. The Flatty-Brigade had come a long way since their pure T-Doll days, most gaining almost a full cup size, but they were still far from being what one would consider 'busty'. I didn't care though, as long as they had enough for my fingers to squeeze- and doing so made them let out those cute little squeaks and moans- that was enough for me.

I flowed through the runes easily on her endoskeleton- the Glyphs flowing onto her bones like water and integrating without a problem.

Once her body was completed the T-Doll Subee Serum was applied and she stayed next to the warm fires of the Skyforge until she 'decanted' and was ready to wake up.

After that I had everyone gather up their weapons and armor, and with the help of a dozen of the Echos, we remade everyone's armors and weapons within the confines of the Skyforge. In the end, the armors were just better; roughly 40% improvement across the board, from the tech suit actually able to augment our strength a good deal beyond what we were capable of normally (as opposed to just barely being able to outpace our strength), to improvements in the shield and thrusters. With the huge durability increase, I was able to shave off 20% of the armor while still keeping a 20% increase in survivability. With the 40% better thrusters, when combined with the 200 pounds that we shaved off, it meant the thrusters were now capable of supporting flight for short periods of time.

Or they could pick up a 200-pound civilian and fly them to safety, albeit slowly.

The rest of the day was a big redesign extravaganza, with the Helljumper being torn down and rebuilt from the ground up; plasteel made up the majority of its frame, with thin shells of Beskar and Phrik armor plating lining the interior and exterior. Thanks to the plasteel's characteristics, it was able to deform if it took a heavy impact instead of shattering. With the weight of the aircraft cut by almost half the thrust-to-weight ratio of the Helljumper was certifiably bonkers, improving its top speed by almost 30%, though the design had some drag inherent in it, which actually capped the increase to just under 25%.

I took the opportunity to create a much smaller version of the Globetrotter, I named the Duskstalker, and went full-Skunkworks on it, throwing in every bit of stealth technology I could fit onto it. The stealthed flying wing design, radar-absorbent materials, photoreactive panels, a ship-sized Forerunner stealth pack, and I kept the weight incredibly low so that we could use the quietest, coolest-running engines we could build. This craft needed to be able to slip across the Canadian border and fly through Dragon's stomping grounds without anyone being able to notice.

Saint's days were numbered.

It was 1:00 AM on the dot of the 8th of February when I convened the meeting with the entirety of my Frontline.

Tonight the Merchants were ended.

[February 8th, 2011]

[30 Miles North of Brockton - Pikipeck County]

[2:00 AM]

With the Strategy Trance's natural abilities to help me formulate out a plan, along with the electron quick ability to transmit and receive data, myself and my T-Dolls were able to hash out a complete operational plan within five minutes. The last fifty-five minutes were spent doing last-minute gear preparation and running through the obstacle courses to get a feel for the greatly improved armors; jumps that would have required thrusters to make no longer did with the improved strength and reduced weight, and that led to a lot of overshot jumps when the thrusters weren't used to course correct.

During that time I created a program that would help the girls finetune the jumping process, the program quickly calculated the current position, target position, and the amount of strength needed to make the jump. Enbee helped me fine-tune it up to 99.99999999% accuracy when it was combined with MAD SCIENCE! (because it was something I would be using with my robots) and Schematics to Time to hunt for bugs and inefficiencies in the code. Though, when combined with the quantum chipsets I could have bloated the code with all sorts of random shit and it still would have run in an instant.

Once we were ready to go we piled into the three new-and-improved Helljumpers, filed a quick flight plan with the Brockton Aviation Authority (with the request to keep the information confidential since this was a LEO-related venture) and one of the Indias dedicated a surveillance drone to watching the offices to watch for any forms of leakage; the Airport was within the Empire's area of control, so expecting them not to have informants there when they had informants in the PRT would be silly.

We flew out away from the Hangar, fast and low, before looping our way wide around the city before popping back up to an altitude where the radars could pick our Helljumpers up. As we approached the cabin we kept our thrusters and speed low to reduce noise before my first Echelon touched down in a small clearing.

Myself and Echelon 1- M4A1, HK 416, ART556, UMP45, LTLX7000, and MG5- filtered into the woods, spread out and with the Active Camouflage units running. With the two surveillance drones running we knew that there was no one else out here except for the three Merchants, and there were no tinker tech sensors we could see of any kind. Still. We would be posting this footage on the internet, so it would behoove us to look the tactical part; the active camouflage would be removed post-processing and our armors CGI'd in. We were still able to see each other with the cloaks on, so matching up the CGI movements would be easy.

We spread out in a modified Echelon-Right formation with me at the center, and moved through the forest as quiet as ghosts. Ten minutes later we were pulling up on the cabin and we made a note of observing the building as the vehicles; the girls spread out and surrounded the cabin, and when I gave the signal we slowly tightened the noose.

The vehicles were swept, underneath and in the beds and the cabins of the truck and two cars to check for any possible explosive devices; again we knew there was nothing of the sort, but the views wouldn't. We tested the staircase leading up to the front door, and found that it didn't squeak at all. One at a time myself, M4A1, and UMP45 made our way up the staircase while the rest remained stationed around the building in case anyone managed to do something stupid like leap out of a window.

Once we were ready and stacked up, I made a bit of a production of shouldering through the door, making it appear as if the armor wasn't as strong as it actually was, and once the wood gave way on the second quick shove we poured into the living room area. The lone member awake was watching the television with his phone in his hand, and the moment he stood up with the Glock pointed at us both UMP45 and myself put a dart in him; considering I had the extra height my tranquilizer entered his right forearm, forcing him to drop the gun before he squeezed a round off, and UMP45's round hit his other forearm, forcing him to drop the cellphone.

Not that it was needed considering we were jamming the communications, but it was something that needed to be done for the production.

Shouts rang out from the back bedroom as M4A1 slipped into the dining room area, and gunfire started punching through the drywall, scything in our direction. I jumped over the couch and covered the barely conscious Merchant's body with my own, and I felt a couple of bullets impact my shield while UMP45 stacked up against the doorway with M4A1. The gunfire concentrated on me- I could see through the drone feed that they saw through the holes in the wall they made and started to redirect the fire from their drum-fed AK-47s into my stationary form. The two T-Dolls kicked the door to the bedroom in and quickly put the three down.

"All combatants neutralized, Sir." UMP45 happily chirped.

"Secure the rest of the cabin," I instructed, and we zip-tied the Merchants while we began gathering the many, many, many duffle bags filled with cash.

I picked up the phone and made a show of inserting a device into the charging port- the phone unlocked and I couldn't help but snort. "Did you know this guy had Skidmark listed in his phone as 'Big Daddy Skiddy-boi'?"

The Forge spun up and reached out to the "Vehicles" constellation again but its reach fell just short by a charge.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 4.0110 - Valuable Memories - 300CP - Big O - Vehicles]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 200 CP]

I flashed the phone to the others for a good chuckle before I did the same to the other two phones. I disabled the security settings on the phones after copying over all of the data. Then I took the first ganger's phone and dialed the Pipipeck County Sherrif's office.

It took some time to convince one of the two sheriff's deputies to come out and collect the Merchants, but it only took a little cajoling to make it happen. Half an hour later, after giving a copy of the report to the Deputy to make his life easier, we were stuffing the millions of dollars of cash into the cargo bay of HJ-01 and taking off into the sky to rejoin the orbiting Echelons.

We split off, with Echelon's two and three under M16A1's command to head towards the supermarket at the intersection of Deveroix Junction and 33rd street; it was located smack dab in the middle of Merchant territory, between Midway and the East Railyard. "Super Mart Super Store" had been closed down for almost a decade now, and the Merchants had turned it into a distribution center for their drugs, in addition to the 'absolutely electric' rave parties if you listened to the PHO posts. The only reason I could think for the PRT to not raid the place was because of the constant civilian presence; there were lots of 'private rooms' that party-goers could slip off into to shoot up, snort, or fuck.

There was a party there practically every night from what we could gather, and tonight was no different. It was barely 3:00 AM when M16A1 and Echelons 2 and 3 slipped off; Overwatch Team 2 was already in position overlooking the Super Market from atop the Apartment complex two blocks away. It didn't give them the best elevation, but they were able to see the majority of the parking lot and most of the shipping/receiving yard that was surrounded by tall fences and plastic bags.

Overwatch 1, with NTW-20 and Super SASS, was already overlooking the railyard where Echelon 1's target was located- the Capes of the Merchants.

"Good luck, and stay safe, 16," I sent over the comms as she saluted from the open bay of HJ-02. The two craft peeled out of the formation and flew further south while we banked around.

"Echelon 1, get ready to jump." I commanded, and we formed up at the side bay door before we were given the 'Jump' light from Echo-419. We piled out and used our thrusters to spread ourselves out, angling to surround the main building from a few blocks out where we could land unobserved and then slip in. Lots of finger-pokes and naps were incoming for the Merchants here.

We flared our thrusters at 3,000 feet, slowing our velocity to a near stop, before we activated our active camouflage and began to feathering our throttles to keep the thruster bloom nice and low. I landed at my designated area and drew my modified battle rifle, scanning the area around me even though I knew it was clear. I got 'green' flickers from my status lights, indicating that everyone else had landed safely and without discovery.

I moved down the empty streets, pushing into each derelict warehouse and quickly clearing it with much better efficiency; it was like riding a bike, the more I practiced it with the girls, taking cues from their knowledge and wealth of experience, I too tightened up. Steel sharpening steel.

I came across my first Merchant who was sitting watch from the top of a railcar in a folding chair with a radio in the cupholder and an Ak-47 slung across his lap. Every once in a while he picked up a night vision monocle and placed it to his eye before scanning the area. Wow, that was actually pretty forward-thinking; I wonder which big-brain thought that up?

Regardless I waited until he put the monocle down and moved across the intervening space while his head was turned elsewhere. Then I slung my rifle across my back and quickly climbed up the steel ladder and alighted on top. The ladder squeaked a little bit, enough to catch his attention, but I was already sinking the finger needle into his neck and delivering the payload while he was turning his head. My hand covered his mouth while my other hand snatched the AK from his grip; my leg wrapped over his to prevent him from drumming his heels, and within a few seconds he was out like a light.

I got a status light of 'yellow' from Overwatch, and a small 'whiff' graced my enhanced ears and helmet speakers as a dart from Super SASS sailed in a beautiful arc to impact a Merchant that had walked around the corner about fifty yards away. The Overwatch teams had the three-second sedatives, and the man was collapsing onto his knees by the time he finished yanking the dart out of his deltoid, slumping off to the side with his mini-Uzi between his knees.

It went on like this for roughly three minutes, with me taking out Merchants in ones and twos while Super SASS provided sleep-on-demand services for Merchants within her field of view. NTW-20 was holding her fire, opting to let the semi-auto T-Doll take the lead while she kept observing to follow up a missed shot or take out a target that she couldn't see because she was scoped in. Not that being scoped in was a detriment, but we had to play up the roles and display limitations.

That was when I met up with LTLX700, with her white and gold accented MJOLNIR Mk X Mod. 2 armor; her shotgun was affixed with a nice big suppressor, and she was ready to go, and her mobile, articulating shield was attached to her back. With the two of us, we were able to clear out pockets of enemies much more quickly, easily restraining them while we waited out the timer to put them under.

In less than twenty minutes we had cleared out our sector of the Trainyard and were pushing towards the main warehouse where the Merchant Capes were holding court. From outside we could hear the heavy thumping of gangster rap from the speakers within, and Merchants walked in a stumbled back out. Most were high, drunk, or drunk and high.

The noose tightened up and we dropped our camouflage the moment one guy smoking at the stairway to the loading dock the moment he pulled out a phone and made a call. He turned his head and called out, "HEY! TOMMY! I TRIED CALLING RALPH AND HE AIN'T PICKING UP!"

"WHAT!?" Another voice called out, and the heavy steel door opened up, letting the music spill out over the loading dock.

The Merchant pulled on his cigarette again before shouting again. "I SAID I TRIED TO CALL RALPH AND HE DIDN'T PICK UP THE-"

That was when he was me and LTLX7000 moving towards them with weapons draw; we both fired, my bolt rocking back as my companion cycled her action with the speed and grace of a sewing machine. The tranquilizers impacted the moment the Merchant roared out- "CAPES!"

We shoved them out of the way as we alighted up the staircase and pried the steel door open as the ganger tried to shut it- he was clutching onto his chest with only one hand in the handle; it was easy to tear it out of his grasp and push his form off to the side and hopefully out of the line of fire. LTLX flashed her status light red then green, and that was when the rest of the Echelon sprung into action as cries of "CAPE!" started echoing out from all over the warehouse.

NTW-20 and Super SASS were engaging every target they had that was within their range.

LTX and I pushed into the room, and her mobile shield interposed itself between us and the gunfire that spilled out sporadically; she shifted the shield minutely to give us excellent cover as we pushed in, our weapons putting darts on target with every pull of the trigger.

"MUTHA FUCKAS! YOU THINK THAT YOU YELLOW-CUM-GUZZLING FUCK MEAT BITCH TITTIES CAN JUST WALK UP INTO MY HOUSE AND START FUCKING WIT MA SHIT!?" Skidmark's voice roared out through the speakers, the man located up in an office above the warehouse; we already knew where he was, but the audience didn't. "YOU PURPLE-PRICKED ASS SUCKERS AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON MY MERCHANTS! SO STOP RUNNING AROUND LIKE A BUNCH OF FUCKING PANSIES AND LIGHT THESE FUCK-NUGGETS UP! MUSH, TRAINWRECK, GET OUT THERE AND SHOW OUR GUESTS SOME ARCHER'S BRIDGE HOSPITALITY!"

The mic squealed as he tossed it down onto the desk, the man reaching down to brush some cocaine on his upper lip and nose before wiping his hand off on his pants and kicking the door open with a "WHOO BABY! DIS DA GOOD SHIT!"

He didn't even snort it though?

While I mused the Forge reached out for a new constellation.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 22.0210 - Yet Another Halloween Fic - 600CP - Generic Buffy Fanfiction - Skills Clothing]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 300 CP]

I activated the Strategy Trance for a moment to parse through the few details I was able to pick up from the Perk, and I sighed.

Damn… 'Yet Another' great perk missed out on, this time by three charges.

I dropped the trance and the world resumed its normal time.

The sidewall of the building burst open as UMP45 tumbled through the air, the T-Doll using her thrusters to correct her spin and land on her feet; she skid a few feet across the finished concrete before her shield flickered with gunfire. A hulking eight-foot-tall figure stepped through the hole in the wall, steam whistling out of a half dozen ports on his scrap-metal power armor. Trainwreck, a Case 53 hired by Coil to infiltrate the Merchants; I didn't know he had been here at the start of canon, so seeing him with the Merchants after surveilling the area was a bit of a surprise.

Another wall was blown down on the opposite side of the warehouse, this time it was a giant pile of garbage that had been tossed through, with ART556 and HK 416 stepping through after; the legal fox loli was wiping garbage off of her armor. "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!"

LTLX and I were putting Merchants to sleep, reloading when needed, and UMP45 was dancing around Trainwreck. She ducked under wide swipes, sidestepped overhead blows, and was just generally being a nuisance until she saw her "chance". The Case 53's body was covered in armor that the darts wouldn't pierce, and with only his face exposed, we weren't obviously going to go for the face shot. "RRrraaggghhh! Hold still and let me flatten you!"

Mush was already unconscious with a dart sticking out of his chest, and the trash was sloughing off as his tendrils retreated back into his body; HK 416 was pulling him out of the fire fight while Artie provided accurate supressive fire.

The shield rocked mightily as an object struck it and was deflected off to the side. LTLX's shields took a few hits as the Merchants still standing popped out of cover and poured automatic fire in our direction; the Shield didn't remain out of position for much longer. "WHOO BITCH! HOW YOU LIKE THAT SHIT!?"

A saw the short railing of the office glowing blue and yellow, "THAT WAS ONLY TWO STRIPS, ASS SNARFER! LETS TRY TWO MORE!"

He swiped his hands over the railing again and dropped a large, heavy bolt, and as if it was propelled by a magnetic accelerator it smashed into LTLX's shield again; she allowed the servo to unlock, 'throwing' it out of position and stumbling with the force of the shot. It would take far, far more for him to do any actual damage, but playing it up for the cameras was important.

"HOW ABOUT FOUR MORE STRIPS, YOU CUNT-ASS-BITCH-ASS-PUSSY-ASS-NIG-! OH, SHIT!" Skidmark ducked as tranquilizers pinged of the railing in front of him and he dived back into the room, "Aye! Bitch, you ready to get the fuck outta here or what!? We getting our asses shot off out here!"

"Just a few more moments, Skiddy!" A high as fuck feminine voice called out, "I'm trying to get the converter attached and it's reallllly hard without an extra set of hands-!"

"Don't give a fuck, woman! If we ain't moving in the next thirty seconds we gonna be waking up in the Pen!" Skidmark slapped his cheeks before psyching himself up and stepping back out onto the walkway, "GET FACE-FUCKED YA GIMP POUNDIN LIMP DICK TWAT WAFFLES!"

Rather than letting him bang into the shield again LTLX and I side-stepped to the right, and the heavy bolt he sent at us smashed into the concrete before punching out the sheet metal and into the trainyard. We ran forward and to the left as he shot at us with whatever he had in his pockets; nuts, bolts, nails, ball bearing, and even a ball-peen hammer. We stayed just ahead of where he was aiming by a single step. "YAH! YAH! YAH! YAH! YAH! YAH! BITCH! YAH!"

"Okay Skiddy, let's blow this fucking joint!" Squealer called out and a large roar filled the warehouse as the massive engine on the 'Mobile Vault Fortress' came to life. "Get the fuck in here so we can go!"

"'Bout fucking time woman!" He shouted back before he spun and ran back into the office, picking up the mic, "LATER BITCHES! YOU WILL NEVER CATCH THE DRUG MERCHANT CURRENTLY KNOWN AS SKIDMARK!!!!!!"

He threw the microphone and dashed through a hole in the wall that dropped down onto a platform, and he ran across a steel walkway before hopping down on top of the big steel brick on wheels. A thick, eight-inch steel hatch popped up and Skidmark began climbing down into it while we secured and dealt with the last few conscious Merchants. The entire gunbattle probably lasted two minutes, but with my reaction time and comprehension, it felt a lot longer. "NTW, Armor-Piercing-Incendiares, Plus-P-Plus. Kill the engine the moment it breaks free."

A green light flashed in the lower corner of my HUD, and LXLT and I moved along as UMP45 stripped Trainwreck from his armor and began dragging the unconscious cape out of the soon to be line-of-fire; ART556 and HK416 did the same with the unconscious mundanes, quickly dragging them behind the concrete columns.

The warehouse shook as the mobile vault crunched through the wall, on the opposite side of the warehouse. The moment the vehicle was free two M134 miniguns popped out of the roof on reinforced gimbals and turned out way; I didn't think there was any way they could see us through the wall that had segregated the Tinker's garage and the rave area, but apparently they could because I watched the barrels rotate up to speed through the drone feed.

*VVVVrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm*

Twin miniguns unleashed a stream of 7.62mm bullets at 3,000 rounds per minute, the bullets tearing through the cinderblock and drywall, the weapons scything back and forth. Holy shit, did they really not care about their people that much? I mean, they were druggies and shit, but I didn't peg them to be on the 'worst henchman to be' list; I'd pegged the Merchants behind the E88 but ahead of the ABB, with being an Uber & Leet henchman ranked as worst simply for the fact that they were the ones using the most dangerous tinker tech. Lung and Oni Lee only killed you if you displeased him.

LTLX interposed herself in front of a trio of sleeping Merchants who couldn't quite fit behind a single column while her Shield thwacked down in front of another Merchant we hadn't moved into cover. I crouched over my own two Merchants, allowing the bullets to splash and ricochet off my armor; the 43% reduction in physical damage Glyph really did wonders, as did my revamped shield deflection algorithm; I could no more feel the 7.62 FMJs against my body than I would the rain. Everyone else did the same, with UMP45 protecting Trainwreck's body.

Armor Piercing gunfire raked across the ultra-thick earth mover tires, and MG5 stepped out of cover to draw the minigun's attention; her bullets were of our "Fuck Shit UP" variety, so they penetrated the thick rubber and steel-mesh sidewalls. The four tires hissed as air escaped them, and the mobile vault started to list to the side, the massive vehicle plowing over a train car and crushing it. A rocket launcher slid out the roof in the center and three rockets shot off towards MG5, but the woman swayed out of the way of one and dove forward over a thick concrete barrier, putting it between her and the twin explosive impacts behind her.

'Sss-BACHONK!'

The report of the 20mm anti-tank rifle was covered by the sound of a big, heavy API round punching through two-feet of steel and lancing through what appeared to be the crankcase. Somehow, the abomination was still able to limp forward, the rail car it ran over screeching in agony as it was slowly crushed under the vehicle's bulk. I pointed my crosshairs to the left towards the powertrain and flicked my helmet's targeting laser.

'Sss-BACHONK!'

Another 4500 grain API round propelled at 4,100 feet per second slammed into the side of the vehicle, the shell of the round shattering into the armor while the .75 inch diameter tungsten penetrator pierced through and into the massive V-12 diesel engine that was powering the behemoth.

'Sss-BACHONK!'

'Sss-crack!'

Another shot was fired into it for good measure, and three more shots lanced out in the intervening two seconds; a 7.62 from Super SASS smacked into one of the rockets while the 20mm rounds shredded the M134 miniguns. Unfortunately, the bullet impact against the rocket didn't blow it up, real life wasn't like the movies, but the bullet did lodge itself in the corner of the rocket's casing and the wall of the tube. When the rocket fired off it prevented the rocket from firing for a moment before it overcame the jam and shot out, but with the damage it spun off into the sky.

Would have to track the trajectory of that thing so the PRT could have a bomb disposal team come out and deal with it.

"FUCK! GOD DAMNIT! I SPENT WEEKS BUILDING THIS THING YOU ASSHOLES!" Squealer's voice echoed out over an external speaker.

"YEAH, YOU CUM GARGLING ANUS SNIFFERS! MY GIRL WORKED REAL HARD ON THIS BIG BOY AND YOU DONE FUCKED IT ALL UP! HAVE YOU NO SYMPATHY!? ALL YOU NEW CAPES WANNA BANG ON THE MERCHANTS! IT GETS REAL TIRING, YOU KNOW!? ALL WE WANT TO DO IS PUSH SOME DRUGS, MAKE SOME MONEY, AND GET HIGH!"

"I would have probably felt a little bit of sympathy if you hadn't turned your miniguns on your own men," I drawled out and stepped through the warehouse, the rest of my team following behind me, "However, you've harmed a lot people through the years with your poisons, and you've killed a lot of people. Ruined families, broken homes, and snuffed out potential with a chemical haze."

I placed my battle rifle back over my shoulder, "This ends here, Skidmark, Squealer. The Merchants are finished. Now, are you going to exit the vehicle and take a nice nap before going to the Penitentiary, or am I going to have to peel you out?"

"Hah! You might have some fancy power armor, there, bitch, but I don't see a can-opener on you!" Squealer spoke up, and through the drone I could already see her opening up the interior panel leading down into the engine bay with a multifaceted wrench and some scrap parts; no doubt she'd probably stuff some of the junk into the holes and smack it a few times, and through the miracle of tinker bullshit the engine would come roaring to life.

I grabbed one of my gas grenades and walked to the closest hole and widened the hole with my fingers, the steel screeching, and I placed the grenade in the hole and activated it before sealing my hand over it. The grenade went off with a 'ppssshhhh', the paralytic gas moving down the two-foot-long channel in the armor and spilling into the room before getting picked up by the circulation of the air conditioning. I heard a muffled, "What the fuck!? Skiddy! Theres-! Schom gaassss innn hwere!"

"Aye! The fuck you do to my bitch you ascholes!? Fwuck, canfweel mah wips! Hahaaaa whuh scwhit-."

A thunk was heard as Skidmark toppled to the grate flooring of the main cabin area.

I looked over to the girls and flickered an emoji depicting the yellow-faced man with a beard, and he had on his head what appeared to be a Jedi hood on it. My hand grasped my lightsaber and I pulled it off, igniting it with the signature 'Snap-hiss!' I stepped to the right a few paces before I dipped the gleaming purple blade into the steel; it crackled and sizzled, and I started to drag out a rough, door-sized rectangle, moving the blade around until the cut finished where it started. Then I cut a smaller rectangle at the bottom and MG5 knocked it free with the butt of her machine gun. I shut the lightsaber off and hopped up, grabbing onto the top of the cut in the armor and sinking my fingers in; I spread my legs wide, locked the magnetic boot clamps, and I pulled.

The steel armor screeched and the moment it broke free I released the clamps and propelled myself through the air, landing in a picture-perfect three-point stance while the massive armor plate fell to the ground, gray dust and gravel kicking up from where it impacted. UMP45 hopped into the big hole, and with two quiet snaps of her tranquilizer gun, she dragged Skidmark and Squealer out and carefully handed us their unconscious bodies, making sure their flesh didn't touch the still glowing edges of the hole I'd cut.

With Squealer and Skidmark secured I couldn't help but flicker a big smile emoji as I leaned my head down to give the girls with me a 'helmet kiss'. That would be edited out of the footage.

"Alright girls, now the not-so-fun part. Let's gather all of these Merchants up by the road."

NTW and Super SASS blinked their lights green before they began to make their way over to the furthest group of sleeping Merchants with a backpack filled with zip-cuffs. They would pick up the guys on the fringe while the rest of the Echelon grabbed the bulk of them in the main warehouse.

I reached into Skidmark's pocket and pulled out his phone, made a flash copy of it, and then dialed the PRT's non-emergency line.

"Thank you for calling the Parahuman Response Team, this is the non-emergency line, how can I assist you?" Smokey and Sexy spoke to me.

Oh?

Are you going to charge me $2.99 a minute, ma'am?

"Yeah, this is Horizon of Frontline. I've captured Skidmark, Squealer, Mush," I activated the Strategy Trance and poked Nugget to look for anything regarding Trainwreck being a named Cape online, and after a quick search of PHO and other Brockton Bay related message boards, the little slice of 'Mah Boi' mentally shook his head.

I dropped the Trance, "-and an unknown tinker cape of the Merchants; I believe Skidmark called him 'Trainwreck'. We've secured their primary warehouse, their secondary vehicle bays, and all of the un-powered Merchant personnel that was on-site."

"We've been informed, Horizon. The BBPD and PRT are already on-site at the Super Mart Super Center and are rounding up what your other teams captured there. I have another group prepping to head your direction; what are the numbers?"

"72 un-powered Merchants, and four Parahumans. Lots of weapons, LOTS of drugs."

"Understood, though be advised that it may be some time before we can get the vehicles out there. Can I reach out to you from this number should things change?"

"Yes, ma'am. This is Skidmark's phone, but it has plenty of charge. We will look at the Merchants and have them lined up all nice and neat for you."

"Thank you, Horizon. Standby for PRT and Protectorate arrivals; Miss Militia is twelve minutes out."

I hung up the phone and hefted Skidmark and Squealer. The unconscious blonde cape's fun bags squished around my armor, and my mind went back to Type 95 sleeping next to the Skyforge.

Down, boy! No stiffies in the armor, there ain't any room!

While I tried to ignore-away the attempted boner, the Forge grew hot and reached for another two constellations in quick succession. The first star was from the "Magical Small Scale" and the second was from the "Toolkit Magical" cluster.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 10.0410 - Vibranium Sample - 200CP - Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1 - Magical Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Remaining - 200 CP]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 6.0120 - Silver Needles of Intricate Design - 200CP - Exalted - The Lunars - Toolkit Magical]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Remaining - 0 CP]

While I was excited to have the addition of Vibranium, like, stupidly excited , I was not too happy that I would be remaking virtually everything all over again to include the Wundermetal. It would be a pain in the ass, and I wasn't even doing the heavy lifting on that, the 'Goks were! The Silver need looked pretty neat though- if I ever found myself gaining tattoo magic then this would make everything quick, easy, and painless.

Now if only I could just get some more magic.

[Mini-Interlude: M16A1]

[Super Mart Super Center]

[30 Minutes earlier]

M16A1 mentally went through the plan one last time. Remove the Merchants on the perimeter, and rear. Move inside, shut down the Rave

and evacuate the civilians, secure the weapons, drugs, and cash, and then prep for BBPD arrival.

There were still some pre-mission jitters, as there always were, but M16A1 was old hat at this by now. From her time spent with Griffon & Kryuger to the agony that was working for… them. For her .

The knowledge that she would never be able to be manipulated and turned against her Commander and her sisters ever again was a warmth that buoyed her spirits up considerably. The perk conveyed complete protection from mental and emotional effects, ensuring that she would remain herself and completely loyal. At least, that was the belief; whether or not it actually worked that way was meant to be seen, but M16A1 was confident that even if she could be manipulated, she couldn't be manipulated in any way that was detrimental to her Master. If one looked at it from a certain perspective that offered a very broad interpretation of what counted as disruptive and disloyal; she couldn't be manipulated to kill civilians because that would be disruptive to her Master's goals of being heroic, and she couldn't reveal plans and other such things under the same protections.

It wasn't as much of a blanket protection as she would have liked, but she was certain that when combined with the improved Anti-Master/Thinker/Stranger protocols her Commander had put into place she would be able to wait for something more definitive from the Forge.

"Soppy, Star, you know your team's roles?" M16A1 asked, and she could see SOP MOD II nod right next to her while ST AR-15 nodded from the bay of HJ-03 flying next to them in formation, "Any last-minute questions?"

The bay was quiet, and she received nothing over the comms; only the blinking green lights of her team members. "Good. Our Commander wants this to be a clean Op- no civilian casualties. If you have to shield them physically with your bodies then do so, even if it means it might kill you. We all backed ourselves up before we left, so if our physical bodies fail here… we will be reborn. Possibly better than we already are; we'll have to wait for 95 to wake up to be sure, but our Master is certain that the Skyforge's properties can make us even more powerful."

"Who cares about Chi-com udders," 870 groused, "Just because she's taller than me and has bigger boobs! The Commander was just eye-fucking her tits! I should pop those big useless balloons!"

"Useless flesh. Don't need it," Gr G41 muttered lowly in German-accented English.

"Now, now," G36 spoke chidingly, her melodic voice tinged with German much like her little-big sister's, "No need to be mad at 95, it wasn't like she asked to be created with such large breasts. Though, it will be a wonder if she can even fit inside the MJOLNIR armor."

"30 Seconds until Drop." Echo-420's mechanical voice spoke out, and like someone had snapped their fingers all the levity faded.

"Star, I know that this is your first time leading a mission, but I believe in you, so go out there and do your best," M16A1 spoke out comfortingly to her younger sister on a private line.

"Of course, the Commander placed me here for a reason. I'll do my best to live up to his expectations." She murmured back before closing the comm channel.

"Soppy, I'm attaching myself to your team. I am in overall command of this operation, but I will let you call the shots for Echelon 2."

"Geeze, Big Sis, don't be so overbearing," SOP MOD II spoke as she grabbed the fanged-skull-mouth mouth cover and slipped it up over the mandible of her ODST helmet, "I know how to Operate."

The lights turned green and both Echelons flowed out of their aircraft. 17 seconds of freefall, and at 10 seconds they activated their Active Camouflage and angled their landing just a block outside of the Super Mart Super Center. A civilian couple was walking towards her landing site, so she dropped her camo and flared her landing earlier than planned.

The couple walking, well, stumbling looked up at the sound of her thrusters, and she landed softly in front of them with her rifle out. "This area is not safe to be, please relocated to the next block over, Citizens. You should be safe there."

The man blinked and began chuckling, his hand reading up to scratch at his beanie, "Oh shit babe, I'm high as fuck right now… but are one of those Frontline babes talking to us right now? Or am I trippin' too hard?"

"No babe, there's one right here. So fucking cool! Hey, hey, hey, listen, me and my boyfriend are heading back to my apartment," The woman was a little older than the male, probably early twenties, "We could have a totally hot threeway."

M16A1 flickered a 'sigh' emoji and shook her head, "While I'm flattered at the offer, would you please move over to the next street? We are in the middle of an operation, and for your safety, I would ask that you leave."

The woman's eyebrows shot up, " Oh shit! Are you guys hitting the Super Mart? Holy shit, you are, aren't you!? That's totally fucking cool! Babe, babe, we were just there and now it's gonna get raided~!"

Beanie scrunched up his lip, "Ah, babe, if they get raided then… who are we going to get our weed from?"

Babe blinked. " Oh shit. On second thought, totally not cool. Hey, can you like, please not raid them? Pretty please? I don't want to have to drive alll the way to Manover to get a dime bag. Would be a total drag."

"Please, Citizens. Leave. I'm certain you can find someone else to purchase your weed from." M16A1 tried again.

"Dunno where though, I'm Hispanic and my bae is Jewish. Wouldn't be able to get it from the Nazis and the Asians would kidnap me and whore me out before they sold me some shit…"

Red lights flickered before going green in the corner of her HUD, and the sound of gunshots started filling the air a block away.

"Oh shit! It's starting! Bae, we should go back-"

Thankfully her staring at this woman's boyfriend very intently got him to sober up enough, and he wrapped an arm around her waist and started dragging her along. "Come on, boo, let's go home and have some hot, steamy high sex, alright?"

"Ugh, fine, you convinced me~," She giggled and allowed herself to be dragged down the road.

M16A1 sighed in relief as she raised her arm and shot the piton into the edge of the apartment building roof, and the line reeled her up, shooting her into the air; just before she reached the roof the piton released its hold on the cement work and she corrected her course with a goosing of her thrusters. She sailed over the rooftop, and with some more gentle nudges guided her glide angle down to land in front of the doors to the Super Mart.

People were already starting to flood out, and she caught sight of two unconscious Merchants with their handguns crumpled by their feet just before the people grew too densely packed to make them out. Her eyes and facial recognition being run by Nugget ran across every face in the passing crowd, searching for anyone with outstanding warrants for felonies and above. She tagged two men who were wanted for felony tax evasion, and they staggered off to the side before falling asleep. Another woman was injected and set to the side as well; she was wanted in New York for underaged sex with a minor- oh, she was a school teacher. How quaint.

Ah, there we are. Four Merchants with rap sheets so long they couldn't fit onto one page. They tried to blend in with the crowd, but the moment she singled them out they reached into their waistbands and attempted to pull out weapons. Her tranquilizer rifle snapped up and she threaded her rounds through the gaps in the crowd, four shots were taken, and she registered four clean hits. The T-Doll leaped above the crowd and came down on the four men, knocking the handguns from their hands and tossing them over towards where the other three fugitives lay.

They made a valiant attempt to stand up, but they were out a few seconds later.

One teen leaving the scene tried to pick up one of the handguns that were dropped, but her armored boot stepped on the barrel; the steel slide crumpling under the pressure she put on it. "Leave it, kid. Whatever you think you can do with it, forget about it. It ain't worth it."

The green-eyed teen bore his teeth before he blinked, and his self-preservation instinct kicked in; he got up off of his knees and bushed his hands off before he slipped back into the crowd. As the people fleeing finally tapered off to a trickle, she opened the front door, only to be greeted by a shotgun barrel in her face. She clamped onto the barrel and yanked it out of his hand before she fired a tranq into his thigh and shoved him onto his side with a gentle kick.

The music was still blaring, some house trance-type music and the lights were flashing; strobes reflected off of the ceiling as neon-colored lights cast the place in some sort of dystopian cyberpunk glow.

Spoiler: 2011 Trance

Her M16A1 raised she began moving across the lobby and down onto the dance floor, and un-powered Merchants were everywhere. They were in total disarray; being attacked from two sides- the rear entrance and the loading docks on the side of the building they did not expect to have someone sneak up from the front door. Heh, if she hadn't been held up by that couple then she probably would have faced a lot more resistance.

Her tranquilizer rifle was completely covered by the loud music, and thus she fired with impunity; each squeeze of the trigger was met with a green hit marker on her HUD as she gunned down the stationary defenders trying to shoot from cover down the hallway towards the loading dock. Her shields flared as sporadic fire brushed against her back, and she did an about-face, putting three rounds into her attackers; the men stumbling over themselves as they quickly went to sleep.

M16A1 grabbed a fresh magazine when her current one ran dry, and she replaced it with a fresh one before thumbing the bolt-catch and dropping the spent mag into her dump pouch. She flicked her eyes over the drone feed, and upon seeing that the opposition in her area had been quelled, M16A1 moved towards the back offices where the weapons, drugs, and cash were stashed; despite the chattering of a squad automatic weapon coming from the Merchants, she knew her girls would be just fine.

There were six men in one of the arms rooms, the Merchant members scrabbling to load up ammunition belts over their shoulders while others tried to top up magazines with loose ammo from rusted cans on the tables. She opened up, swinging her barrel from Merchant to Merchant, each dart finding itself nestled into warm flesh. One managed to slap a magazine into the MP5-K he had in his hands and unloaded on her; the bullets caused her shield to flicker as they ricocheted off her armored form.

She frowned.

MP5 would be sad to know that she was ever handled by such a filthy thing. Steven Segal and Chuck Norris were the SMG's two favorite actors; truly the 80s had been her era in the spotlight.

Still, M16A1 moved on while watching Star and Echelon 3 move through the back parking lot with surgical precision while Soppy and Echelon 2 were cutting through the loading bay and warehouse space like it was a shoot house.

The vault in the main office was open, and the last remaining Merchant in her area was stuffing the cash into a duffel bag all the while cursing his head off. She guessed he didn't know about the money underneath the wood planking in the manager's bathroom? Odd, but she chose not to question it, instead she raised her rifle and put a tranquilizer in his left buttcheek.

He yelped, "Oh, God! Oh, God! You shot me in the ass!? Why!?"

She caught him as he collapsed, pulling the tranquilizer out before he could sit on it; having a needle go sideways in your flesh wasn't something he would want to experience. Even if he was a drug dealer. "You shot me in the ass, yooouuuu bbbiiitttccchhhhh…"

Then he fell asleep.

She moved him off to the side and grabbed the duffle bag before stuffing the rest of the cash in and moving into the bathroom. Reaching down she tore up the plywood that had been soaked in urine and probably all sorts of other fluids, and underneath it all was a very large bag that was wrapped in what appeared to be three garbage bags; the thick ones. She grabbed it, surprised by its heft, and pulled it out of the hole so she could open it on the table.

A few packets of different kinds of drugs- easily a $100,000 in cocaine, though the package had red tape sealing it shut with black dragons scrawled on the surface. Oh, so some of this was Lung's drugs? She left those on the table so she could pull the remaining cash out and stuff it into the duffle bag.

With the bag full and the sensors confirming that there was nothing else in the area resembling cash, or at least cash she wouldn't have to rifle through pockets for, M16A1 messaged for Star and Soppy to hurry up and stop playing around; they had plenty of footage for the video now. Videos. Artie would be adamant that each raid get its own video, so they can set the theme and tone for each one properly.

The stealthy, super tense night raid. The high-octane gun battle at the wild Rave. The pulse-pounding Cape battle with the Merchant's mainliners.

She had to admit, the fox loli had a point.

She grabbed four of the unconscious merchants and started carrying them towards the entrance of the Super Mart Super Center; she would start the cleanup and get the BBPD on the horn- they had captured 52 men as of the drone's count, and it would be a busy night for them to police up all of the drugs and weapons.

As she pulled out one of the Merchant's cell phones and began dialing the BBPD line the T-Doll wondered how her Master was doing on his end.

You guys rock!

A/N: Phew, got that knocked out.

As always, no point accrual for interludes.

Common Material Cache x2

This cache contains common 'mundane' crafting materials, such as durasteel, synthweave, armorplast, and tibana gas. Each cache contains sufficient material to fully outfit 4 people, with enough left over to keep the gear repaired between refills. Includes blueprints for turning your materials into these common materials, plus blueprints for all other items you purchase with CP. The material is replaced yearly.

Three Laws of Robotics (SB Dragonball Z) (600CP)

Isn't it annoying when those teenagers you kidnapped and subjected to brutal experiments against their will decide to kill you when free? Well no more, because everything you create, birth, or modify is simply incapable of betraying or harming you. While this only applies to creations that can think, you'll never have to worry about them working against your orders, in both wording and spirit. You may choose whether or not this applies to whatever creation you make.

Skyforge (The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim) (200CP)

An ancient, mysterious, eagle-themed forge added to your warehouse. Any metal items crafted at the forge will be significantly harder and stronger for it. Something about the fires.

Vibranium Sample (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 1) (200CP)

Vibranium is an extremely rare element that possesses unique attributes. In a pure mass, vibranium forms a solid metal that is stronger than steel, but only a third of the weight, as well as being completely vibration absorbent. This means it can absorb the impacts of a great deal of attacks, but bear in mind high-energy attacks WILL do damage… especially if it is consistent. Purchasing this gets you a container a foot in length with some Wakandan Vibranium shards that will replenish itself every month.

Silver Needles of Intricate Design (Exalted - The Lunars) (200CP)

This set of moonsilver needles is special in a very particular way, as it literally cannot do otherwise than perform good tattoo procedures. If you attempted to stab someone's chest with one of these needles, it would twist and shape itself such that you've just marked a simple design on their skin. Each a perfect instrument to tattoo the body, these needles provide a potent tool for the use of body decorations. Making even the most elegant and complex patterns and designs easy to apply for the one who uses these, as they innately correct even the slightest mistake their user makes. Moreover, their use will never cause infection or injury, and the surface of the tattoo will seal over nearly instantly after it is applied.

Along with the needles themselves, you will also receive a supply of many different mundane inks of exceptional quality. Though of course the needles can also be used with various other inks you might be able to acquire. They can handle anything, from the mundane ones to sorcerous inks to tattoo occult sigils, to chalcanth used to create living demon-ink tattoos, to stranger substances still, and even the moonsilver ink used to create the Moonsilver Tattoos and various tattoo artifacts. That last one in particular resonates with the Silver Needles, for when they are used with moonsilver ink, they may cause the Moonsilver Tattoos to become temporarily fluid and accept new tattoo artifacts to be inscribed upon the skin of their wearer.

For mundane and magic tattoo crafting at any level

Chapter 10 - After Action, Reset, and Reload

A/N: Okay, I'm going to only add the Perk descriptions at the end of the chapter, after I've finished writing it. This is the second time I've been off in my word count, and thusly in my total CP. So, if I forget to put the newly acquired perks into the description box (which I hopefully wont) then you know that is why. A lot of perk descriptions are anywhere between 50 to 400 words in length, so if you have two or three new perks added in the chapter, then thats 150 to 1200 words and it really throws me off.

Addressing character bloat- there will be a LOT of T-Dolls and the like being created, if only because a LOT of shit will need to happen, often within a small time-frame. So lots of T-Dolls will be needed. The majority of them will barely recieve any screen time at all, which some of you will hate, but thats OK- I liken it to your shopping experience at whatever big box store you go to: You always see your cashier, but you rarely ever see the guys and gals stocking the shelves. Still, the work needs to get done regardless. There will be a lot of unsung heroes in the Frontline organization, but that is just the way it is. In my mind it is only character bloat when you're adding too many characters and trying to make sure each one gets a sufficient amount of screen time to catch people's attention. This will not be the case here.

[February 9th, 2011]

[Jason Wilke]

Today was Tiffany's birthday, and that to me was important.

Even though she said she didn't want a present I went out and got her a nice little gift out in town; it was a gold bracelet with chains and a plate. I could only place one enchantment on it, but I chose the Armor Glyph as it would reduce any physical damage she would suffer by a whopping 43%; she didn't go into town that often, but she was quite old, so being able to reduce any damage from a fall that she might sustain could be the difference between her breaking something or not.

I also got her a nice cellphone that I upgraded that she could have with her just in case she needed anything; she had given me a lot of help and peace of mind when I was first starting out. No doubt would have been forced to find a place to stay that was far more dangerous and would have likely ended up with me not being nearly as prepared as I am now… so despite her saying she didn't want anything from me because we fixed up her trailer… I still wanted to do something nice for her.

However, I still had responsibilities, and that included protecting the territory that I had liberated from the Merchants from the other gangs; no doubt they would begin to move in immediately.

I created two Patrol Echelons that would function as PR teams, six Handguns and six SMGs, all created within the confines of the Skyforge. I was down to nine cows after my latest production run, and I knew that I would end up needing to find another farm to collect more cows from. However, now that I had quite a bit of cash I could go through and set up an actual office within the city; I just needed a good location, and where better than a pre-made evil person's layer?

The trip into the PRT office wasn't just to sign up, it was also reconnaissance; I had drones scanning every single floor of the PRT building, but their primary target was the office of one Thomas Calvert.

After having explained his power and the various interpretations I felt like we had a pretty solid plan on how to handle him, but, I wasn't going to eliminate him right out the gate. He is a piece of shit, but even pieces of shit can still be useful. I would flex on him first, and then I would offer him a choice- an offer that he couldn't refuse, because if he did the alternative was six feet under.

I scrubbed a hand through my hair as I looked at the sleeping forms of Python, Contender, G17, Five-Seven, Spitfire, Grizzly, AK-74U, UMP9, UMP40, Vector, Gr G36C, and RO635. Handguns and SMG T-Dolls were all aesthetic as hell and also easily identifiable as above the age of 18; I wanted there to be no uncertainties as to the legal status of the Patrol Echelon's members. These girls would operate in pairs and patrol all of the territories we had and would acquire; they would take photos, answer questions, poke kiddies' noses, eat ice cream, drink sodas, and interact with the public in a way that was both reassuring and comforting.

They would all be much stronger if I was correct about the manufacturing boosts the Skyforge, and because of that, I felt comfortable making for them chopped-down models of the MJOLNIR. I essentially made them like Samus' Zero Suits except with additional armor and protection; I made full use of Vibranium, and the armor was far lighter and far less imposing. Armor panels were a laminate of Vibranium, Beskar, and Phrik, and they covered the vitals- throat and neck, chest and back, a segmented plate that looked like abdominals, armor panels that wrapped around the biceps and triceps, the entirety of the thighs, knee and elbow plates, shins, and feet. Yes, the chest panels did have some curvature to accentuate the breasts, and the suits definitely didn't hide their bottoms… but that was by design.

The armor wasn't their primary protection though, they still had the full capabilities of the shields, so it wasn't like they would be going down to some chump shit because their armor was for aesthetics and less full-blown combat. I had my Assault Teams for that sort of stuff- the Patrol team's main focus was on good PR, so staying visible and active to deter movements was vitally important- there was no way I could let the PRT run with the narrative that Frontline was 'creating a vacuum for new gangs to exploit.

As a consequence of this PR focus, they wouldn't be given full-face helmets, but they would have the best environmental protections I could give them; soft shell hoods that were self-sealing- all they had to do was pull them up and attach the face mask and the hood would seal around it.

To maintain the veneer of the unwritten rules, they would ware special domino masks that had clear lenses that would act as their HUD, and they were very thin and partially articulated, allowing the public to see their eyes and eyebrows move, etc, etc.

After learning that CX4 Storm and M4A1 liked baking, I set them up on cake-making duty; I gave M16A1 the keys to the truck and let her take a few girls into town to pick up some extra ingredients and more ice cream- if you thought I would be able to tell twenty-plus women that there would be sweets and they wouldn't be able to have any you would be out of your damn mind. We picked up $2.7 Million dollars from all of the perfectly legal heists we pulled against the Merchants, and there was no reason we couldn't spend some cash to reward them for their hard work; they most certainly earned it.

Artie was monitoring PHO, and already the news was spreading like wildfire that the Merchants were done for; she made sure to post that it was Frontline who had handled them and that we were currently editing all of the footage to create some cool little videos for everyone to see. The fox loli's timing was impeccable, because not one hour after the post on our page the PRT had issued a vague statement that the Merchants had all been captured, and while they didn't explicitly state that they were the ones to do it… it was certainly implied. "With the aid of the new Parahuman Team, Frontline, the PRT and Protectorate were able to strike a decisive blow to the operations of the Parahuman gang known as the Archer's Bridge Merchants."

Blah, blah, blah. I didn't know if that was Piggot's doing or not, but I suspected that someone in her PR department was trying to minimize and downplay our effectiveness; though, I didn't peg Emily as the type to flub this so hard- she would know that we'd be posting videos and the like. We always had the receipts for everything we did. My money was either on Costa-Brown applying pressure on the PR department or Thomas Calvert trying to undermine her. No doubt she got the press release and began reaming their hides, especially if it was put out without her authorization.

Regardless, I spent a bunch of time going over everyone's armor.

Again.

Now, Vibranium was amazing stuff, but it actually was a touch weaker than Beskar- the real draw was the cancellation of physical forces that allowed it to perform above its weight class; Enbee did some testing and found that once the material gained two millimeters in thickness ability to absorb or nullify did not become any stronger. So, with that in mind, I shaved off two millimeters of the Beskar and added two millimeters of Vibranium in its place. We gained a substantially better impact resistance while reducing the overall weight of the armor by 6%, which was a huge win in my opinion.

What I did not know was that Vibranium was also one of the best stealth materials out there; it absorbed and nullified all vibrations, including things like radar. How the metal was nice and shiny and not black as night was beyond me- if that was the case then it would also absorb all light, something like that Muso Black. However, it was a comic-book universe material, and shit just didn't make sense there, so I stopped thinking about it as Enbee and I once again began redesigning the stealth aircraft.

The currently active girls had a run at the Kyber crystals again, and we picked up new wielders for Orange, Yellow, Blue, and Green. After their sabers were made M16A1 and the other girls had a lot of fun running the new girls through the paces; the left half of the hangar looked like something out of the Old Republic, with almost two dozen lightsabers all striking at each other in a beautiful, deadly dance.

With the Merchants finished, I put the other Indias I had borrowed back to their original assignments and created a new section; this section would be scouring Canada in locations around Toronto since that was where Saint and his team were most likely to be holed up. He favored isolated locations with enough storage space for the Dragon Suits and whatever equipment they needed to maintain them; this could be in the city or out in the woods, but the biggest factor was that he had to be close enough to civilization to support himself. A man had to eat.

So I created a mobile charging station for the stealth surveillance drones that I used around the city; the station would be dropped off by a stream or river outside of the city, camouflaged conventionally and with other stealth materials- including photo-reactive panels and an Active Camouflage module- and could charge twelve drones at a time. The Duskstalker would fly in with two charging stations and twenty-four drones, dropping signal relay beacons along the travel route.

One charging station and twelve drones would scour Toronto looking for Saint and the Dragonslayers while another charging station and twelve drones would locate one Nikos Vasil, a cape known as Heartbreaker, and begin conducting in-depth surveillance. I wanted to know everything about them- records both paper and electronic, patterns of life, associates, etc, etc, etc.

If Nikos stepped into Montreal to pick a new fuck toy then I wanted to know about it.

If one of the Dragonslayers went to go pick up toilet paper then I wanted to know about it.

Speaking of great threats, I tapped the Indias in charge of searching for the Slaughterhouse Nine.

They hadn't been found yet, but considering the sheer landmass I had only a dozen high altitude drones combing, it was to be expected. They had last been spotted in a place called Ringwood, a small town with a population of 437, in northern Pennsylvania, but that was almost a week ago. After looking at the public S-Class thread I'd determined that the Nine still had Hatchetface on the roster, so they hadn't picked up Cherish… it was a bit of a gamble, considering I didn't know where Cherish was at this part of the timeline, I'm going to make a guess and say that she 'joined up' somewhere close to Montreal?

I adjusted the flight paths of the drones to keep their searches within 500 miles on the US side of the border and omitted major cities from the list; I also had Nugget trawl the S-Class board so that if they struck somewhere else we could shift fire and track them down that way. They were looking for recreational vehicles with a beat-up van following consistently within a few kilometers of it… it couldn't be that hard to find, right?

I felt the Forge spin up and try to reach for a new star from the "Facilities Mundane" cluster, but it wasn't even strong enough to budge it.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0320 - Nanite Fabrication Table - 400CP - Stargate Atlantis - Facilities Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 100 CP]

A small sigh escaped my lips as I popped my neck and strolled down to the dock from the Work Site. During my turn sifting for nanomaterials, I used the time to look over the background stories that each of the girls had created using Nugget to facilitate their new lives here on Earth Bet.

They kept them pretty mundane, though forging military records was a lot harder, so we decided to skip those; it was easy to add a de-aged photograph to a high school website's online yearbook but much harder to generate paperwork for the military. The military had paperwork for paperwork, and the paper trails were often monitored; that and some unit commander would, more often than not, remember their outstanding 'go-getters'.

All it would take would be for someone to send an email to Major So-and-So asking about their Staff Sergeant Rachel Kwon, who received "all of these good NCOERs", and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down. Still didn't stop us from creating timelines and locations, references to who went to what training schools when and where, and coming up with funny stories to tell involving their fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Coast Guard, etc, etc, etc. Just keep them generic enough to pass the smell test but not specific enough to give them any information to glean.

After finishing up my shift I moved back into the warehouse and into the Magical Research center to continue fucking around with my Sorcery abilities; Glados did indeed have more exercises and tests for me to do, but thankfully my abilities had improved somewhat.

I had graduated from last place in ability to second-to-last-place , and that was a badge I wore with pride because it meant that I was improving.

Once my testing was exhausted I moved into the Enchantment room and began restocking the Runes I used on creating the PR Echelons and creating the protection rings that they would wear once they woke up.

I was pinged by Nugget.

It was six o'clock in the evening- birthday time.

I left the warehouse open down at the Work Site so we could continue nanomaterial operations, though I toyed with the idea of digging an underground nanomaterial reservoir that we could just attach a vacuum hose to and drag into the warehouse. I was leery of leaving important materials out in the open, but after doing some thinking on it I could easily set up a sensor network that rivaled the one I had up at the house; if anyone went near it I would know about it and could respond.

Though I didn't have anti-Thinker or Precognitive protections, so what was to stop Doormaker from opening up a door within the holding tank and just snatching some up anyway?

Wait, how do I know that some wasn't already snatched up from the bin that we used to hold the nanomaterials already down by the water?

Gah, being paranoid as fuck was difficult.

I decided to put that plan on hold until I had the proper protections for it- I did all of my work in the workshop already because it was safe to do so. Taking my operations outside without them would be very risky, at least for the time being.

With a glimpse at myself in the bathroom mirror I had determined that I was all nice and clean; a loose, red-white-and-blue plaid button-up shirt, some comfortable blue jeans, and a ratty pair of brown work boots. A pre-stressed brown leather belt tied it all together.

M16A1's hand came up and caressed my face, her fingers questing under my chin. She smiled and brought the razor that I'd just sat down and pushed my head back so she could nick off one of the few hairs that I missed; with light-colored hair I always missed something. It was strange to be without my beard, but it would grow back soon enough. "There now, all cleaned up and ready for the party."

I grinned and bent over to firmly kiss her lips before stepping around her and exiting my room. The kitchen was packed to the gills with all of the T-Dolls under my command, and M4A1 presented me with a chocolate cake that had two wax candles on it- the lettering was the edible kind, and it read "Happy 85th Birthday, Tiffany!". Underneath the cake pan was an insulated box that held three perfectly cooked steaks, some sweet corn, three baked potatoes with all of the fix'ins on the side, and some salt'n pepper green beans; the tubs of ice cream were already down at the old woman's trailer.

"Here you are Commander," M4 spoke softly with a smile on her face, "Please, let me know what Miss Tiffany thinks of the cake, okay?"

I reached down and smooched her lips before turning to CX4 Storm and giving her a smooch as well. "Thank you girls, I will. Be sure to enjoy the cake and ice cream yourselves, alright?"

"We will, Sir!" All of the girls shouted out in unison, and a chuckle escaped my lips as I walked out of the front door and down the gravel road towards Tiffany's trailer. The reason we all weren't enjoying this together was that Tiffany's granddaughter hadn't yet called to cancel, so we decided to err on the side of caution; I ran through the backstory I had just in case. The youngest son of Tiffany's sister, Elanore, came up to visit and ended up staying after leaving Alaska, etc, etc. Seemed pretty air-tight; if someone were to call my 'boss' up in Alaska the number they'd dial would be re-directed to one of my T-Dolls who would use a voice modulator to answer any questions they had.

Not entirely foolproof, but far more than enough to stand up to most scrutiny.

I tapped on the front door, and it swung open to reveal Miss Tiffany who was wearing a nice brown dress with a simple leather belt loose around her waist; thankfully she was aware enough of her age to not wear a plunging neckline. "Good evening, Ma'am, and Happy Birthday!"

She snorted and rolled her eyes before beckoning inside, "Come on, boy, let's sit down. My Granddaughter hasn't called to cancel yet, so she very well may come; we'll get everything ready, but if she doesn't come in the next fifteen minutes then we'll start without her."

She stepped aside to allow me entry, and I moved through the living room to get to the kitchen; the cake was sat on the counter, the tray with the food was placed on the counter, and I pulled the ice cream out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator. Once it was time for it the ice cream should be at the perfect softness.

She handed me a cigarette and we moved out on her back porch to smoke, enjoying the mild weather and the sounds of the woods as the last rays of the sun were setting. We chatted about what was happening in the city, and what we were accomplishing with the team; I kept the details light for security purposes, but she was pleased to hear that we had balled up the Merchants and that the ABB and E88 were next on the list.

Tiffany put out her cigarette and huffed, "Well then, lets get this show on the road, I ain't getting any younger."

The comment drew a snort out of me, and the old biddy smiled crookedly.

She pulled out some plates and I arranged the meals on them, and after that, she moved into the living room before turning on the television; heh, I hadn't seen Turner Classic Movies in a long, long time. We were greeted with the sight of John Wayne sitting on a pile of sandbags while wearing a green, Vietnam-era uniform. Tiffany let out a pleased huff as she sat the channel changer onto the wooden TV Dinner tray before sitting down in her armchair. "Ah, good old John, now he was a man you could count on to make a good film."

A chuckle escaped my lips as I sat down her plate and used my foot to slide my own TV dinner tray in front of the couch, "Well, the man was not only talented but wise as well. 'Life is hard. Life is harder-'"

"'-when you're stupid.'"

Her eyes crinkled and she picked up her fork and knife before digging into her meal. "I just don't understand movies anymore, boy. All Hollywood wants to do is rehash the same old shit all the time. It's always 'Capes' this and 'Capes' that; it's almost as if the world has completely forgotten the thousands of years people have been roaming this earth before powers came along- oh, this steak? Probably the best I've had in a long time; my ex-husband was a heathen- never ate a steak that wasn't well done. An offense I should have divorced him for."

"Well, Hollywood does its best to follow the trends, and 'Capes' are the current trend, and likely will be for a long time coming; who knows though, maybe they'll make a film about what life was like before superpowers came along?" I replied before enjoying my own cut; succulent and tender. Mmmm.

Tiffany huffed as she gestured at the television with her fork, "Oh, they already are doing it, but they're just bastardizing history by injecting powers into it now! Last year they made a movie about Joan of Arc, implying that she had some sort of Thinker power that allowed an uneducated peasant girl to successfully rally and lead the French army in the defense of France! Four years ago some bastards had the temerity to make a film about Jesus Christ, claiming that he was actually a Cape before there were Capes!"

She angrily took another bite of her meal, this time adding a chunk of potatoes. "A disrespectful bunch those louts are, no class!"

Before I could reply I was pinged by one of the Indias- a four-door sedan that wasn't one of the ones registered in our area was driving down the road at a fairly quick clip, popping up above the speed limit a few times. The car turned off the main road and started up the gravel drive, and I could hear the stones crunching under the tires as the beams from the headlights splashed across the blinds. "Oh, so she did make it!"

The old woman's ornery disposition disappeared like fog before the sun and she slid her tray out of the way to stand up. She moved around the coffee table and opened up the front door, her arms opening up wide, "Hello, Hannah! My dear, it has been far too long since you last came by and visited me."

I arched an eyebrow and looked up from my plate to see a beautiful woman wearing a business-like suit; a charcoal grey blazer with a pristine white button-up shirt, and a matching charcoal pencil skirt and stockings with comfortable looking black pumps that had one-inch heels. Her skin was olive in complexion, with dark brown hair that was artfully tossed and pulled back into a loose bun. She had expressive bottle-green eyes that crinkled in a very familiar fashion as she smiled down at Tiffany.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it sooner, Grandma, but with the bust of the Merchants this morning there was a lot of paperwork I needed to do before I could leave," She bent over a planted her lips on Tiffany's cheek. "My whole office got tapped to help with the in-processing paperwork for the criminals that were apprehended."

Tiffany sighed, "Dear, one of these days you're going to have to tell your boss 'No'. If you're in the Finance section- no, don't look at me like that- a fully qualified member of the PRT or not, you don't get paid to handle those ruffians. Now, come, your cousin, Jason, has prepared a nice meal for us. No more talk about work. Come, come."

Ignored the Forge spinning up to latch onto a smaller star from the "Toolkits Mundane" constellation.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 5.0250 - Utility Mods - 200CP - Dead Space - Toolkit Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

I entered into the Strategy Trance for a moment to look over the Perk; the Kinesis and Statis modules would be nice little additions to our toolkits- being able to yank things with great force and fire them off like the Half-Life 2 Gravity Gun was neat. Being able to significantly slow time down in a localized area would never not be useful… especially after I got the chance to improve them. Enbee and the Engineers were already pouring over the schematics and constructing one to see if they couldn't do it better with better materials.

I dropped the trance and focused my eyes on my 'cousin Hannah'.

Her eyes shifted over to me, and I gave her a small smile and waved at her with the fork in hand, a piece of steak speared onto it. "Hello, cousin, and auntie, don't rush her; she hasn't even had time to take her heels off yet."

Those beautiful green eyes were far too expressive; I could see the apprehension in them as Tiffany led her to the kitchen and handed her a plate before dragging another TV dinner stand over to the couch. While she did that I tapped Nugget to look into Miss Tiffany Miller and search her background. I hadn't done it before out of privacy, but considering the woman who was her granddaughter was Miss Militia…

Tiffany Miller nee Walsh, married to Douglas Andrews (D.o.B 1921/D.o.D 1957) in 1946, had two sons - Arthur and William Andrews (D.o.B 1947/1949, D.o.D 1966/1966); widowed in 1957, car accident. Re-married in 1968 to George Miller after the deaths of her two sons in Vietnam; gained a new daughter from Mr. Miller's first marriage in the process, Sarah Miller (D.o.B 1960/D.o.D 2001), and gave birth to another daughter, Georgina Miller (D.o.B 1970/D.o.D 1999).

According to Georgina Miller's medical records, she was noted as barren in 1992, and in 1993 she adopted Hannah Lively. Hannah Lively… married one Joseph Washington in 2003, but divorced just three years later in 2006; she kept his name even after the divorce. Nugget couldn't find any mentions of a Joseph Washington except for a few spurious photographs; the man had a minimal footprint online. No doubt he was probably a PRT agent that was tapped for her cover story. The exact dates of things didn't quite line up, but it did put her squarely in her early 30's, which matched the information we had on Miss Militia.

She was part of the inaugural Wards team back in the 1990s, and with how they liked to do things I'm certain only Hannah's mother was aware of her true role as a Ward, and by the time her adopted mother died she was already in the Protectorate as Miss Militia; there would have been no reason for her to inform her aged grandmother that she was a cape.

My paper trail was actually quite a bit thicker than hers, with a complete online history going back years and years, and after getting some photographs of Tiffany's niece, Jessica, we were able to "photoshop" everything from baby pictures to picnics. Jessica lived out in the countryside by herself, away from the family after she ran away from home- teen pregnancy by some dirtbag- and hadn't really communicated with anyone from the family ever since. She died six years ago from cancer; her treatments were covered by the hospital's charity foundation, but Nugget fudged the numbers to include direct payments from my bank accounts over the years.

Though, to be fair, I don't know if any of that would even matter considering I was still seven feet tall and built like a brick shithouse; the loose clothing could only conceal my definition.

Fuck. If I'd only invaded the privacy of the only person who helped me out then I would have figured this out and avoided the whole birthday party to begin with!

Hah, yeah right.

I valued Miss Tiffany's companionship far too much to have done that; the old woman would have told me more about herself in her own time.

Still, I probably should have anticipated this.

Hannah sat down next to me on the couch, and I did my best to divide my time between watching John Wayne's portrayal of 'Colonel John Kirby' and inspecting my new cousin. She did the same, and while she was less defensive, she was no less wary. We chatted about minor, small things, at least until the meal was finished off; she probed me about my arrival to Brockton, and I told her about the flight from Alaska, all the stops, bitched about LAX being too damn large for connecting flights; I had to run non-stop from my Anchorage flight to get to my connecting flight to O'Haire International.

Then I talked about my good long walk from Fugly Bob's, mentioned the shoot-out that occurred when I was there, talked about the kid I sat behind the sea wall with. Nothing but the truth on all fronts; if she bothered to dig that deeply she'd find the flight records, surveillance footage of me getting onto and exiting the flight terminals, etc, etc, etc. For the most part, I felt that my backstory was bulletproof, right down to the two speeding tickets I got when I was 16 and 17 years old in Willingham County.

I lit the candles on the cake and we sang a good happy birthday song, complete with the "and many more, on Channel 4" addition I always used to sing. Hannah didn't know it, but I sang it slowly enough for her to catch where I was going with it. Tiffany blew out the candles and we dug into some cake and ice cream. "I see you remembered to get my Mint Chocolate Chip, Jason."

I blinked. That was actually the first time she's used my name since we met. It was usually just "boy" or "mister". It was nice. I couldn't stop the grin from spreading on my face, "Well, you were harping on about it- even went into a history lesson about Baskin Robins. How could I forget? Besides, you don't get to act all surprised- I bought it like three days ago, and it's been sitting in your freezer the whole time!"

I shook my head and reached into my back pocket, pulling out a small rectangular cardboard box. Tiffany's lips firmed into a thin line. "I told you I didn't need a present, boy, you done enough helping me fix some things around the trailer."

Ah, there was the 'boy'. My cheeks warmed a bit but I stood my ground, "None of that, auntie. You've done a lot for me since I stepped off that plane. I didn't know where I was going or what I even wanted to do… and you welcomed me with open arms, let me fix up the trailer that uncle George had. Gave me a place to rest up, put my feet on the ground."

"I remember sticking a shotgun barrel in your face, Jason," Tiffany smirked and Hannah arched an eyebrow.

"Well, it was late at night when I arrived, auntie. Shit, I'da stuck a shotgun barrel in my face too. I didn't think I'd fat finger your number like a maroon-"

"It was 976-22-"

"-42."

"-42, yes, not 2224. I'm sorry, alright?" I chuckled and leaned back on the couch as I finished off the last of the peanut butter and chocolate ice cream in my bowl.

"Well, if you'd have written it down properly I would have come and picked you up at the airport instead of you walking all that way," Tiffany pointed at me with her spoon, "This moron walked all the way from the Market out here."

"I stopped by the City Hall and got a bus pass, auntie, so it wasn't like I walked all the way," I stood up slowly, pushing the TV dinner tray away with my thighs before moving into the kitchen and washing my bowl out. After that I set it off to the side on the drying rack before I moved back into the living room to hand her the box, "It ain't nothing but gold plated, but I had one of those jewelers on the Boardwalk make this one up custom."

I rubbed the back of my neck as I sat back down, and I watched as Tiffany removed the red twine holding the box shut before taking the top off and pulling the gold chain bracelet out. She smiled softly and ran her thumbs over the plate that had the protection glyph carefully etched onto it; the catch was pretty large, to take into account her aged fingers. My head bobbed, "So, what do you think?"

Tiffany turned her eyes to me and her voice was thick, "This is… very lovely, Jason. Thank you."

I blinked, not expecting my eyes to sting as badly as they did. My finger came up and I rubbed at the corner of my eye, "Well, I'm glad you like it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hannah shift uncomfortably in the seat next to me before she reached into her purse at her feet and pulled out a small box and handed it over to Tiffany. The old woman huffed, her words were ornery but there was no heat in them, "You two are two peas in a pod, I swear. I tell you I'm too damn old for bits and baubles and yet here you both go and get me things I'm going to have to update my Will for."

It was a beautiful silver locket, and though I couldn't see what small photo the locket contained, it brought a teary smile to her face. She stood up and stepped in front of Hannah before wrapping her up in a big hug, "Oh, thank you, dolly. It's beautiful."

The hug that Hannah returned was tender, and her smile was heartfelt.

I honestly felt like I was intruding, even if I was playing the part of her cousin.

"Well then, it's getting pretty late for me, auntie, I have to be up early in the morning," I stood up and waited my turn for a hug from the old biddy, "I've decided I'm going to start restoring Uncle George's old Cadillac; get it fixed up, repainted, and then sold to some Yuppie living on Captain Hill if you don't want it for yourself."

"Heading out already?"

"Well, I want to get everything laid out in the barn, and I figured that you'd want to have some alone time with Hannah here since she hasn't stopped by in a while," I looked over at the beautiful woman and nodded my head.

"Of course, of course, well don't be a stranger, Jason," She gave me a hug, and I waved at the two of them before moving to the front door, stuffing my feet into my boots, and walking out.

"I live just up the road, it'll be impossible to miss me."

Just like it was impossible to miss the unreadable expression in Hannah Washington's bottle-green eyes.

I'd been in the barn, making it look like I was actually getting ready to do some things; I had a feeling that Hannah Washington would be coming by to talk to me afterward, so it would behoove me to continue to play the part.

With Miss Militia still in Tiffany's house, I was able to get the girls to help me lift the Cadillac into the barn's workshop space. After that, I opened up the door and had the T-Dolls move everything out of the house and the Engineers came in to make everything less nice; we restored it to its original condition, except much cleaner within just a few minutes. When the girls and 'Goks were finished I shut the warehouse up- I would have to drive down to the Work Site to reopen it down there, but in the meanwhile, LTLX7000 got to enjoy the water and the moon rising up since she'd already filled her nanomaterials bin.

The Forge grew hot, and a star from the "Facilities Mundane" was missed by a single charge.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0140 - Workshop - 200CP - Samurai Jack - Facilities Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 100 CP]

I used the wooden door in the corner of the shop to bring in a few Engineers and we fabricated a bunch of spare parts and laid them out on the numerous wood benches and tables. A copy of the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado technical manual was downloaded and made, and I had it open on the front table. Mundane toolsets with rusted red toolboxes along with hoses for the air compressors for the various power tools were lined up nice and neat.

After ten minutes of sitting around and listening in on Hannah's low-key interrogation of her grandmother, I decided I might as well do some actual work. I tore out the old components and put them into a junk pile just outside the barn doors, along with a whole bunch of electrical components that were well past their prime. The perks were nice at helping me deconstruct everything, but it wasn't as though I had anything specifically for this purpose. I knew they existed, but I hadn't yet been graced by the Forge for a car-related addition to my personal Constellation.

Just as I had suspected, at around 9:00 PM Hannah bid her grandmother goodnight before she started walking up the drive.

I kept track of her through the sensors as I quickly ran through the questions Hannah asked along with Tiffany's answers; nothing that deviated from what we previously discussed or was too invasive. I was under the ass end of the Cadillac, unscrewing the rusted muffler and catalytic converter when Hannah approached the open doors of the bar, her steps were far from quiet and she had her arms crossed underneath her breasts.

I shimmied out from underneath the vehicle just far enough for her to see me see her approaching. "Oh, Hannah, hello there."

"Hello, Jason," She spoke, her words calm and practiced, "I was hoping I could talk to you for a few moments if you had the time."

I huffed a laugh, "Of course I have the time, but if you would just give me a moment; I've been working on this damn muffler for the past thirty minutes now- shit's frozen stuck and I just now got the bolts on this collar loosened up."

I picked up a can of WD-40 and spritzed the said bolts one more time before I picked up the socket wrench and started to crank them off. The eight bolts came loose and I had to catch the muffler and converter assembly with my forearms and knees; "Sonnova bitch."

"You okay?" Hannah spoke up, and I could see her heels pace around the workshop, no doubt letting her perfect memory drink every detail in. Well, ha! Jokes on you! I have everything I need to completely rebuild this hunk of junk and turn it into something some wealthy resident of the Bay would pay good money for!

"Yeah, I'm good," I pushed the assembly onto the concrete and moved it down before I could give it a good kick to push it the rest of the way. With collars and bolts in hand, I shimmied out of the way before grabbing onto the edge of the trunk and pulling myself up, "The converter and muffler conspired to end my life, but I showed them whose boss."

I grinned and tossed the assembly onto the pile before walking around the car to the sink and lathering up my hands and forearms with some good old GO-JO; I was glad to see that the staple of cleanliness crossed dimensional boundaries, the citrusy scent invading my nostrils as the grit removed the dirt from my skin and nails. I wrinkled my nose and sneezed into my shoulder. I dried my hands on a towel hanging up and threw it over my shoulder before I turned and leaned my ass against the sink; it groaned a little bit, but it was Huragok engineering at its finest- it would hold. "So, what's up?"

Her lips quirked as she finished eyeing the orbital sander and the collection of sanding pads on the table and turned to face me. "Nothing is up, I just wanted to talk to my cousin; I haven't heard of you before, and grandma never mentioned you before."

I winced a little bit, getting myself into the mindset. "Well, mother didn't exactly leave the family in the best of circumstances. Got pregnant out of wedlock to her high school sweetheart with my older brother Joel, and eloped to Charleston after her husband Richard enlisted. He then got sent on an unaccompanied tour to Korea and… came back home with another woman- an Army nurse from Harrison Hospital while he was at Camp Peongam."

"Rather than admit defeat and go home she moved to Tennessee with the settlement money from the Divorce and bought a property out in the boonies; she lost custody of my brother though," I sighed and scrubbed at my hair, "Ended up sleeping with some dirtbag she didn't name, had me, and I grew up in the ass-end of nowhere until I graduated from Parker High and started traveling around, doing different jobs. Technical schools," I pointed up to a picture frame with a sheet of pressed paper with seal on it; it read "Witchita Automotive Institute" along with a number of certificates in different fields for what I was qualified for.

Hannah chuckled as she eyed it and turned back to me, "Those certifications expired five years ago."

I forced some blood into my cheeks in embarrassment, "Well, recertification is a cinch; I just need to go down to the BB office and pay a fee. I haven't worked on cars for a while but it ain't like its rocket science."

I lifted my hand and pointed toward the technical manual on the table, "If you have the right tech manual, then you can do it; if you can read and follow instructions, you can fix a car. My skills may have rusted a bit, but turning wrenches is like riding a bicycle."

Hannah nodded, "Very true, I suppose. I don't know much about cars though- I let the Jiffy Lube handle my needs."

I gave her an amused smirk as I looked around at the bookshelf above the wall, my eyes sliding across the hundred technical manuals that the old retiree had accrued, "Are you sure you're Uncle George's granddaughter? I can't imagine he let you go through life without learning how to turn a wrench."

"Oh, he showed me sometimes when I was here, but while he was alive I wasn't interested in working on old, broken machinery," She looked away guiltily, "I was focused on my… pursuit to join law enforcement."

I shook my head and pushed off the sink before walking around the car to start picking at various mechanical bits and reorganizing them, "And how's that working for you?"

"Pardon?" She was a bit surprised at the question.

"I said, 'How is that working for you?'" I looked back at her over my shoulder, "Auntie said you were driven, capable. Like you wanted to really make a difference… yet the PRT's got you stuck in the Finance office filing paperwork."

With a shrug of my shoulders, I start pulling open and shutting the drawers on the toolbox before finding the socket I needed to start taking the brake drum off the axels. I made a show of flipping through the pages and finding the page for brake drum removal, and spritzed some de-locking juice on the rusted over bolts. "You, uh, look pretty fit, like you still keep yourself in top condition, as if waiting for the day when you can step into the shoes of a Trooper. If you're half the woman that auntie talked you up to be then the PRT would be wasting your potential."

She blinked and shook her head, "I was a Trooper, but after my divorce I felt it would be best if I worked in a less stressful position; my ex-husband I were both Troopers, but we worked separate shifts, long hours… not enough time to see one another. To communicate. To work things out. We both loved our jobs but neither of us was willing to take off the body armor and put on a suit, and that drove a wedge between us."

"Life's funny like that, you know? I didn't take off the uniform until after it cost me my marriage," Hannah let out a sigh, her bottom lip worried between her teeth. She dragged her beautiful green eyes up to meet mine, "But we live, we make mistakes, and we learn. I learned that sometimes compromise doesn't necessarily mean giving up and retreating, but that was a lesson learned a little too late."

That was delivered so well that I would have honestly believed it if I didn't know that it was complete horseshit. Still, I wasn't mad or anything; we were both playing at the deception game here. "Well, can't say that I know what you're going through- I haven't thought about romance until just a short while ago, not since my high school sweetheart told me to come over to her house and I almost got shot by her dad sneaking into her bedroom."

She snorted and I smiled sardonically, "After that it was 'work, work, work'. It was just me for a little while, and I was able to save up a good amount of money, but then mom got Hodgkins and little by little that started draining what funds I did have."

Hannah's eyes softened, "After that I started taking more lucrative jobs out of state, got my Certificate for free out in Witchita by cleaning the shop up each night for the owner. Worked at a few dealerships around town before I got a job up north and started working in the oil fields fixing up their trucks and generators."

"I didn't know you were a generator mechanic too," She smiled in amusement.

"I'm not, but once again, if you can read you can fix just about anything," I chuckled as I broke the bolts free and worked on shimmying the brake drum off the rear axle, "The company saved some cash by having me fix their shit under the table, and in exchange, I picked up an extra shift as a night guard on the sites."

"Two jobs?" The cape asked as she walked around the vehicle to watch me work, "That must have been a lot of work."

I shook my head as the Forge grew hot and reached out for a smaller star in the "Crafting Magical Items" constellation and pulled it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 30.0030 - Amulet Crafting - 200CP - World of Darkness - Mummy the Resurrection - Crafting Magical Items]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

"Meh," I shrugged my shoulders after setting the brake drum onto the concrete flooring. I pointed toward the table where a brown spray bottle, a copper wire brush, a box of gloves, and some shop towels sat, "Would you pass me those? Yeah, those, thanks."

I pulled the gloves on and sprayed the axel connection down before scrubbing at it with the brush, "It wasn't too bad. I was pretty quick on the fix for most problems, and when stuff wasn't broken and I wasn't doing scheduled maintenance then I had a good amount of downtime; I napped in the breakroom chair when I had the chance. The extra cash went to mom's treatments, and she made it out alright, so with us thinking she was free-and-in-the-clear I continued to pursue the security gig."

I grabbed the thick paper towels and began scraping the rust and shit that had built up on it over the decades it sat behind the trailer, "Ended up working my way to the top over the next few years. Hopped from Oklahoma to Texas, and from Texas to New Mexico. Then mom's cancer came roaring back…"

My hand stopped twisting, "She hid that from me. Told me she was going to her quarterly screenings but she wasn't. Then it was a knock-out, drag-out fight that cost her her life. I came home long enough to attend the funeral and put her belongings in storage. Took a job in Alaska, did that for the past few years, built up some cash and now I'm here."

I went back to cleaning and scrubbing. The silence reigned for a few minutes before she spoke up again. "About your brother, Joel. Do you know what happened to him?"

"Nope, mom didn't tell me anything about it; the best I could say was that he was an ugly baby," I chuckled and shook my head, "Yeah, the most I learned about him was from the baby pictures mom kept of him; they're in the family album in the storage unit."

"He was in Corpus Christi when Leviathan hit it in 04, he was among the missing when the tidal waves hit."

I sighed and sat back on my ass. The latex gloves crinkled as I worked my hands into a fist. God damnit woman, can you leave me alone already? A loud breath escaped my nose and I stripped the gloves off before standing up, I walked past her and towards the front of the barn where I shut the lights off, "Come on, Hannah."

She strode out behind me, "Where are we going?"

The barn doors creaked as I shut them and locked it up with the padlock and chain before pocketing the key, "If we're going to talk about heavy shit then we can do it over some drinks. I can't really work on a car while we're talking about the brother I never met."

I moved up the back porch and unlocked the back door before ushering her inside, I moved into the kitchen and opened up one of the cupboards to pull out a half-drank bottle of Jack Daniels- sorry, M16A1, I'll buy you a new bottle, I promise. Two glasses were grabbed along with a handful of ice cubes. I poured a single shot into each glass before handing her one. "Sorry if it's not what you're used to; I don't really drink that much, but I always keep something like this on hand for guests. Not that I've been having many."

Her eyes trailed around the trailer and she sat down on the couch before kicking it back and reclining. I took the folding card table chair and sat a few feet away from her.

Her eyes crinkled a little bit as she sipped, "I might not drink it all since I did drive."

"Well, if one shot is all it takes to put you over the limit I think you've got bigger things to worry about."

Hannah Washington, Miss Militia, didn't leave the house for another hour, and when she left I dispatched a surveillance drone along with her. Nugget had used her cellular signal to download a small copy of himself to run in the background of her PRT phone, and that copy would copy itself to all electronic devices hers came into contact with. I think that she had been suspicious when she first met, but considering I had all the time in the world to look over my backstory and think over how I would respond to her questions in the best way I think she left feeling a lot better about the situation.

No doubt she would ask for someone to look over my backstory because a long-forgotten member of the family suddenly showing up at her lone living relative's house would be enough to trip some red flags, but everything should come back clean. Until I confirmed that though, under surveillance she would stay.

I hopped into the truck and drove down to the Work Site and opened the warehouse up again, giving LTLX7000 a nice kiss as an apology for making her wait for so long. The girls were all in the Skyforge, waiting for me to wake up Type 95.

"Type 05, Activate- Command authorization: Xray-87-Hotel-Oscar-Lima-35-2-8-Romeo."

"Type 95… is active and… awaiting your orders… Commander." Emerald eyes fluttered open behind long eyelashes before they shut with a wince.

"Easy there, 95. The wake-up process is a bit much, but please bear with it," I spoke soothingly, "It should take an hour or so, but you'll be feeling a lot better soon. Take this time to listen to M16A1 and chat with your sisters, okay?"

"Yes, sir." Her picturesque Chinese features were almost at odds with her busty frame and western colored eyes, but despite the small bit of dissonance there the Assault Rifle was a genuine beauty that few could compare to.

With that I moved into the Enchanting wing and sat down at the newest crafting station, a large table spanned the opposite wall of the Elder Scrolls Rune station, and on it was a very large and thick leather-bound book with dozens upon dozens of papyrus scrolls all stacked neatly around it. The book itself I knew was the culmination of knowledge, but it held some mistranslations that the scrolls provided the correct answers to.

With the literature on the table I could craft incredibly powerful magical amulets- they could generate a multitude of effects, from merely having dust and dirt flow around your person to walking on the very clouds themselves. Walking on water was a commonly crafted one, but there were many, many others. Protecting one's soul from harmful effects, and even protecting your mind from outside intrusion. Another one hid your presence from all different types of scrying magics, though different types required different enchantments; divination protection needed a different enchantment from more direct scrying methods.

I had within me the ability to craft all of these wonders, and that was magnified by the fact I had a facility that could analyze all sorts of different magics and magical methods; I highly doubted that this would simply be my limit.

The only caveat to this was it was an expensive process, requiring all sorts of precious jewels and metals, but with the stockpiles I'd already accrued this wouldn't be needed.

I flipped open the book after setting the scrolls off to the side and called Enbee into the room; we had work to do.

The bad part about amulet crafting was that it required a fair amount of mana to empower the enchantments. The great part about enchanting these amulets though, was that it required a fair amount of mana to empower the enchantments.

That sounds a bit redundant, but let me explain: I do not have to have magically imbued materials to start with. In some fiction crafting required gems and metals that had been naturally imbued mana from the environment before they were mined; this was rarely circumvented with the use of manufactured materials in most cases- you either had a gem that had been sitting in the earth for millions of years or you didn't.

In this case, the amulets didn't need materials like that, nor did they require some metaphysical significance like 'being handcrafted by the enchanter' in order to work either. They just needed to be empowered by mana- whether that be ambient or mana from a magic caster. Obviously they were directly empowered by an enchanter or a mage, because it would take centuries otherwise, but that lack of distinction worked clearly in my favor.

I learned all of this by scanning the papyrus scrolls and the book into the computer- a huge drawback of the skill was that I didn't automatically learn how to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. What I did have, however, was a fiat-backed super magical research laboratory that could do all of the translations for me, allowing me to download all of the crafting information into my noggin to speed up the learning process.

There were plenty of ready-made designs for all sorts of useful enchantments, and between myself and Enbee we were able to craft a boatload of amulets with molecular precision- my first and best pootie boy was a touch miffed that we hadn't figured out how to upgrade their tendrils to be atomic-accurate yet, but he was mollified by the promise that I would try and create a scientific research robot to aid us; having a super-intelligent robot that was 100% loyal running billions of calculations every second could probably help.

Before us sat ten amulets- they hadn't been empowered yet, but I was assured that they were expertly crafted and would work. They were made from different combinations of materials, from rubies and sapphires to silver, gold, steel, mithril, wood, and vibranium. That confused me quite a bit since the Forge had it listed as a "magical metal", but despite that, it was also considered a mundane metal because the nanomaterials could copy it unlike the magical mithril ore supplied by one of my first perks. With the supply of the mithril being very limited- only a handful of ores per month- I chose to use them sparingly.

I picked them up and moved them into what looked to be a fume hood, placed the tray onto it, and then shut it. With the press of a few buttons a hazy, shiny blue gas began to enter the chamber, and after a few moments, the amulets began to glow softly. Like water circling the drain, a vortex appeared over each amulet, and the mana was quickly absorbed. The more mana they absorbed the faster they began to absorb it, and the concentration of the mana in the tank lessened until the facility adjusted the mana input to counteract the increased draw; it kept the whole process nice and stable.

Within ten minutes all amulets were fully charged, and the excess mana was siphoned away from the chamber before the hatch popped with a slight hiss. I picked up one of the amulets, this one was solid gold with a small ruby in the very top of the medallion near the loop for the golden chain; beneath the ruby was a depiction of a sandaled foot with the wings of a bird on either side of the ankle that had been carefully scrawled into the surface by Enbee.

It was an amulet of Fleet Foot, granting whoever wore it a tripling of their running speed, and the stamina to run for three days and three nights. The amulet would have required a successful enchanter three months of constant mana flow to complete this, but here the facility did it in ten minutes.

The other amulets were inconsequential- I confirmed that my construction methods would work, and that laid the foundation for my next attempts.

There were limitations to the enchantments that could be placed on the amulets, but they were pretty easy to work around.

All enchantments revolved around two distinctions: Positive and Negative. Either the enchantment was enhancing something or it was preventing or removing something. The Fleet Foot amulet enhanced one's running ability, while the Amulet of Good Health absorbed disease into itself, ridding the sickness from the person who wore it. If you were going to enchant an amulet then you needed to have only positive or only negative effects- you could not mix and match.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 33.0100 - Engineer - 300CP - Super Mario RPG - Quality Design]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 100 CP]

I pushed the perk out of my mind; it was an expensive ass perk for merely giving you the ability to not need to put schematics and blueprints to paper to remember them perfectly- the small 'boost' to the creations of said schematics and blueprints didn't seem that impressive either.

Getting back on track…

There also, to my knowledge and the knowledge accrued within the tome and scrolls, no upper limit to how many enchantments could be applied to an amulet; there was no predetermined shape that an enchantment needed to be placed on- those were merely examples from the scrolls.

It did have to be worn though, specifically around the neck to be effective, but, there were no limits to how many amulets could be worn as long as the enchantments did not actively work against each other. You couldn't wear an amulet that allowed you to inflict illnesses on people you touch while wearing an amulet that cured those you touched of sicknesses.

Stupid obvious, I know, but it needed to be said.

That and some complications arose when you wore too many- if there were too many enchantments drawing mana in to power them then there was a risk that they would start eating into your mana supply as well; though that was a problem for the enchanters themselves to worry about, as they required every drop of magical energy to jumpstart their newest enchantments. Not so much for me.

I grabbed Enbee's tentacle and dragged him over to the enchanting table again, and we made a six-sided dice out of gold and added on one of the corners we put a small ring with which we could thread a thin chain of vibranium through it. We etched the spells that would protect us from pre-cognitive methods, a spell that would make our history illegible, a spell that would prevent all manners of mental intrusion be they magical or mundane, a spell that prevented direct scrying from spells or spying through the use of familiars, a spell that would protect against negative magical effects, and a spell that would reduce the harm suffered from physical blows.

These inscriptions were then inlaid with a mithril layer that was thinner than gold leaf and bonded; we had to be sparing with the mithril here because I sort of wasted a fair bit of it making the amulet that made whoever wore it a master swordsman.

That had been a bit silly on my part, but I wanted to see if it would make any difference, and until I made the same amulet out of gold and asked one of my T-Dolls to test it I wouldn't know.

The tricky part about multiple enchantments was not only did you have to ensure that you were fueling them at the same time, which took lots of mana, but you had to make sure that you were fueling them at a constant rate. With the last run of amulets I charged it was easy because they were single face enchantments, though this time it would necessitate a different approach.

Like… hanging it up on a small hook stand so that all faces would be able to draw mana without obstruction. Easy peasy.

With the completed amulets moved out of the mana chamber, I shut it and began the start-up process; within seconds the chamber filled with mana, and soon after six separate vortices formed. To my surprise, the chamber had to ramp up mana inflow quite a bit sooner, but upon reviewing the notes it was mentioned that the more enchantments were added to a single piece the more mana it required; most enchanters in ancient Egypt didn't go past a four-faced triangle amulet.

The process ended the exact same as the other ones- ten minutes.

I pulled the chain out and examined the finished product- it was a quarter the size of a standard six-sided dice at just 3 millimeters; hell the hoop for the vibranium chain was almost bigger than it!

I didn't waste any time slipping it over my neck, and I knew that I couldn't be viewed within one hundred paces of my current position- prying eyes would slip right over me. Anything I touched now had its metaphysical history stripped from it, and I would receive a quarter less punishment from physical blows. The second biggest takeaway, aside from the anti-precognitive effects, was the knowledge that my mind was secured and I couldn't be influenced by anything without my permission. Harmful magical effects were also reduced by a fair amount, but it really depended on the type of spell cast against me; elemental magics and the like would be affected differently than the more esoteric magics like time and death magics.

I quickly created a simple coin amulet that allowed for quicker healing and improved stamina regeneration, and I would follow that up later with an amulet that had other effects; the water walking one seemed pretty important.

After that? Enbee and I put our collective noses (and snoots) to the grindstone. We had a small army to outfit.

[February 10th, 2011]

[8:30 AM]

I went to bed four hours later at four in the morning after we created every amulet and passed them out. It wasn't the Perk pick-up I wanted, that being Blank II, but it was a damn good stop-gap until Blank II was kind enough to grace me with its divine presence.

While I slept it was decided that the trailer didn't need to be remodeled again, with the new protection dice we could now build outside of the workshop as long as there was at least one T-Doll that remained on the premises to provide the 100 meters of blanket protection; so we started excavating with the previous drones I created on the hill about two hundred meters to the west of us in-land. It had the best elevation and underneath the soil was solid bedrock, giving us an excellent base to work off of.

When I woke up it was with M16A1 on my left arm while Type 95 was on my right. I felt my cock beginning to thicken from the sinful pair of breasts pressed against my rib cage. I shifted a little bit to get more comfortable, and green eyes opened up to greet me. "Good morning, Commander."

She murmured softly, her soft Chinese accent caressing my ears. I bit my lip before I pulled her lips up to my own; they were just as sinful as her breasts, and the plush backside that filled my hand told my brain that there was no way these T-Dolls were only designed for combat. I was given a little leeway to tweak their proportions and measurements, but that was the extent of my capabilities- small little boosts or reductions here and there. She giggled softly, and when we parted she spoke, "M16A1 told me I was chosen by you to be one of your many future assistants, Commander. She told me you admired my body just as much as you admired my capabilities; that makes me very happy, Sir."

She bit her lip and grabbed my hardening length in her hand, stroking it gently to bring it up to full mast. M16A1 sighed softly, nuzzling against my chest as her storm gray eyes locked on to the tent I was pitching with the sheet covering us. I squeezed the AR's shoulder, and she looked up at me- I captured her lips in a deep kiss before I broke it a few moments later. "95, get between my legs and put those breasts of yours to work; make me cum with them."

She grinned broadly and pulled the sheet back, and I spread my thighs so that she could slide between them. She was on her knees, with her hands posted on either side of my hips- her heavy, pendulous breasts hanging down and puddling across my hard length. "Yes, sir. Whatever you desire, this Type 95 will do your bidding gladly."

She shifted from side to side, the soft flesh teasing my length; occasionally she was pop herself up a little bit higher so that she could drag one of her large, pebbled nipples along my cock- a small moan escaping her lips each time she did so. "Commander, your weapon feels so good against my bosom~."

I nodded to her and turned my attention back to M16A1, kissing her fiercely as my left hand tucked under her body peeled back an ass cheek to tease and toy with her anus as 95 was toying with me; my left arm cupped her left breast and squeezed and kneaded, my fingers capturing her stiff caramel nipple and pinching it.

Soon, 95 pushed down on my sack with her hand, dragging my length and pointing it towards the ceiling so that she could slip it between her breasts, and once it was secured in the valley of soft yet firm flesh she released my testicles so she could squeeze her boobs together. The Chinese rifle giggled wantonly as she worked herself up and down my shaft; she was hot, and the pressure was just enough to provide some friction, but maddeningly little else. A good tit-fuck was just as much about teasing as it was about satisfaction- there was a slow but steady build-up to it; I had once been with a girlfriend who had been gifted enough up top to perform this for me, and she often drove me wild with lust. "It's so hot between my breasts, Commander."

Spoiler: Type 95 NSFW

[img: https/us.rule34.xxx/images/2620/ae84f1088be7dfd487a95d565e2d84acb4c14625.jpg?2911957]

I felt my cock drool pre-cum, and with each stroke that enveloped the head the passage of her next stroke became wetter and easier. She hadn't spoken in a minute, and I found out why when the woman let a mouthful of saliva spill down her lower lip and perfectly filling the cavity of her breasts; when she lowered herself it coated my length. I let out a groan as it set my nerves on fire, and I scooped up the juices leaking from M16A1's pussy and slipped a finger into her ass- hooking and curling it in such a fashion that drove the woman next to me wild.

95 picked up and pace, slowly but steadily, my length emerging to press against her lips and then dissappearing back into her pliable flesh. I broke the kiss with M16A1 and looked into the Chinese AR's green eyes. "I'm going to cum soon, 95."

"Yes~, yes~, please, come quickly for me, Commander, I will receive it all." She grinned, her eyes crinkling as they sparkled with a palpable joy. Her hold on my manhood increased dramatically, as did the speed of her movements. I inhaled sharply as my vision blurred, white sparking behind my eyes as I began to climax. My cock pulsed violently, each contraction spewing a thick rope of my seed up onto her face and hair; 95 didn't care to try and catch every single drop, she merely closed her eyes and opened her mouth, readily accepting the semen no matter where it landed.

"Stroke it, 95," I ground out, and the woman's hand grasped the base before quickly jerking it to help me ride out the last of my orgasm. Relief filled me and I slumped against the mattress. "Good. 16, clean that cum off of her face. When that's finished, 95, sit right here. After that… 16, fuck your ass with my cock; lube it with your pussy if you feel the need to."

M16A1 trembled as my commands washed over her, and she grinned wickedly. "Of course, Commander."

In less than a minute the Vietnam-era assault rifle cleaned off 95's face and chest with broad, languid strokes, drawing out cute little cries from the newcomer; they both played it up for my viewing pleasure, I could tell. After that I pushed my thighs together so that M16A1 could place her hands on them, and she straddled me in a reverse-cowgirl. She gripped the base of my manhood and leaned forward so she could position it right at her pussy and she slid down it with a loud, happy moan; the woman worked herself up and down my length a few times before she popped off and repositioned the head against her anus. "I'm about to fuck my ass with your cock, Sir."

"Well, what are you waiting for, 16?" I swatted her bottom, drawing a yelp from her lips before I grabbed her feet and positioned them on top of my belly; don't ask me what it was about seeing the bottom of a woman's feet while she rode me like this, but it got me going. She didn't waste any further time, the woman spearing herself on me; a hiss escaped my lips as she forewent any further preparation- I had thoroughly teased her pucker beforehand, but there was still no way to properly describe the feeling of tight muscle and silken flesh parting before my cock.

I removed the pillows from behind my head and patted my chin, and 95 oriented herself in the same direction as M16A1, her ankles and calves sliding up underneath my arms as she lowered her grape scented womanhood towards my lips; she had some hair, but it was an artful patch above her clitoris- her inner and outer lips were tight, and her mons puffy from arousal. I didn't hesitate from digging my tongue into her passage, and she let out a beautiful moan. "Ahn~, Commander!"

A shudder worked its way across my body as M16A1 slipped her feet off of my belly so that she could place her feet on the mattress, and that was when she really started fucking; a VISOR cut-away appeared in the corner of my vision- Artie up to her tricks again- but I was treated to the sight as well as the feeling and sound of my cock gouging out M16A1's insides. I pulled back 95's plush ass cheeks and mauled the flesh, feeling the muscle beneath, and she cried out as my tongue brought her orgasm after orgasm.

When I filled M16A1 up with my own climax, my voluminous seed filling up her colon with powerful, sticky spurts, I gently pushed her off to the side and pushed Type 95 on top of her prone body; the two rifles melded together, arms wrapping around each other and lips parted in deep, passionate kisses. I propped 95 onto her knees and scooped her juices up with my fingers before slathering it against her asshole; I pressed in, roughly lubricating up her bottom before I pressed inside of her. Her anus parted with a bit of a struggle, but she moaned in delight throughout the entire process.

My hands grabbed the swell of her hips, and I bottomed out within her, drawing a muffled squeal from her lips. The VISOR x-ray view changed again, showing my full length plugging up her lower digestive tract; the muscle rippling and squeezing around me. I pulled back to the head and thrust forward, my eyes relishing in the sight of her ass cheeks rippling with force as I saw my cock pierce her depths. "Cawmander~ Scho fworcful~!"

I felt the caveman roar up within me, and I began to pound her posterior with reckless abandon, the sound of flesh striking meaty flesh filling the bedroom. My mind was abuzz with the chatroom Artie set up bursting with chatter from the T-Dolls, the women egging me on, asking me to pounder her hard, to kiss her, to slap her, to take her harder.

I didn't indulge them though, I did what I wanted to do; I varied up my strokes, changing the depth but keeping the intensity all the same. Soon I was pushing her prone against M16A1, my hands on her lower back as I pounded her bottom with every last drop of strength I had until I sealed my hips against the reddened, bountiful flesh of her ass and began filling her with my cum. A groan tore out of my lips as my orgasm began to taper off, and I lowered my upper body down onto her so that I could whisper into her ear. "Things like this might happen every day as my secretary, 95. Is that something you want?"

"Oh yes~, Commander. This Type 95 will fulfill all of your desires, no matter where, no matter when, no matter with whom. I am your lotus, ready to be plucked whenever you desire. Fill me with belly with your seed whenever you wish," She moaned heatedly, the woman grinding her ass against my hips to wring out the last few drops, "It would please me greatly if you would make me your broodmare, Commander. I will bear for you many sons; I have a womb and a desire to see it filled- it would be a shame to let it shrivel up before it has had a chance to bear fruit."

A shudder traveled up my spine, and my cock throbbed mightily at the thought of seeing Type 95's voluptuous body walking around in a sheer, pristine white sundress, all barefoot and pregnant. If anything the same thing could be said about all of my T-Dolls.

It laid out some very serious questions about what the fuck was I going to do when all of this was over? Retired to the Bahamas with my T-Doll waifus and dozens to possibly hundreds of children?

Nugget nudged me, knocking me out of my thoughts as I enjoyed the sensation of laying on top of my two T-Dolls; Miss Militia had requested a Level 2 background check on my person, handing it over to the investigators. With the Nugget of Nugget of Nugget on the investigator's computers ensuring he saw exactly what he needed to see would be very easy; there was a checklist, and we already checked every box. It should be concluded that I was legitimate, and everything was fine.

I rolled off of the two women, making sure to remove my flagging cock gently. I crouched down next to them and kissed them both passionately on the lips. "Come on, ladies, let's get cleaned up."

They both responded in unison. "Yes, Sir~."

The peaceful morning of cooking was interrupted by the rapping on my door before Tiffany inserted her key into the lock of the back door and opened it up, "Hello? Boy? You up yet?"

She stepped inside and her head swiveled around the room, "Well, I see you put it back to how it was; any particular reason?"

"Well, we had a bit of a technological breakthrough last night, and of course Hannah's decision to come up necessitated a quick remodeling; we should be setting up our base on the hill over yonder." I pointed out to the hill through the kitchen window.

"Huh, another one? Or was she not here when you introduced the team the first time?" Tiffany gestured to Type 95 with her cigarette before lighting it up and stuffing it between her lips, "And speaking of my granddaughter…"

The old woman's lip curled into an angry snarl as she grabbed the scruff of my shirt and got real close to my face, the smoke from her cigarette curling up my nostrils as we looked eye to eye. "I have done a lot of things for you, young man, and I knew that one day something like this might happen. One day I would be forced to lie about you to her, and God Damnit if that didn't tear me up inside! It was a wonderful birthday! The best I've had since Gregory died, and all of those happy memories- of seeing Hannah and having you around-! T-to not being alone they-! They are tainted by the fact that I had to lie about you to her!"

She released my shirt and swung her arm out, catching one of the glass cups on the counter between her fist and the stone; it shattered, cutting deep into her knuckles. "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!"

I stood up and was walking over to the front door; the girls knew I was closing up the warehouse and opening it here. However, I knew that it wasn't the glass and cuts that were causing her hurt. Enbee and Subee were waiting by the door, so when I opened it they pooted into the room and gently took her hand and began removing the glass and sealing the wounds. She let out a wet sigh and patted the two on the head. "Thank you, the both of you."

Subee trilled and tugged the old woman over, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Please, stop fussing over me, damnit. I'm old, not infirm."

Still, Tiffany allowed herself to be pulled over to the couch and let the Lifegiver give her a complete look over. She let out a shuddering breath. "You've done right by me, Jason. Just as I've done right by you, you returned it in kind. People helping each other as God intended. However, lying to her was the single easiest and single hardest thing I've done in a long, long time; the words flowed from my lips like the Satan whispering in the ear of Eve in the garden. It was exciting, even, keeping this little secret of ours. It was terrifying, how easy it was to answer her questions and only just what she was looking for."

She fished out a new cigarette as her old one lay discarded on the floor of the kitchen, the paper soaked by a droplet of her blood. She lit it up and inhaled, holding it for a few moments before exhaling. "It wasn't until after she left to go up and talk to you that I realized how I was wronging her. My granddaughter might not be my flesh and blood, but it's the heart that counts; I know that her knowing about you would be problematic, but this old aches at the memories."

"No, Subee, her heart doesn't ache physically, it is an expression," I spoke out, patting her head before signing, 'And no, no memory removals. It wouldn't help'.

Best gurl proved why she was best gurl and she nodded her snakey head before a tentacle came up and adjusted her thick-rimmed doctor's glasses; another tentacle came up with the stethoscope and pressed it against her chest, drawing a chuckle out of the old woman. "I'll be damned if these two won't ever not bring a smile to my face; look at Enbee, looking like a construction worker."

Said boi raised a tentacle and tilted his tiny yellow hard hat before pooting back into the warehouse, his work complete; the blood was gone and the glass Tiffany broke had magically repaired itself. Subee followed soon after.

M16A1 and Type 95 watched solemnly from the table with their hands folded in their laps. Tiffany sighed and shook her head before she reached out and grabbed my hand, "I'm sorry, boy. I shouldn't have snapped like that."

I took a knee beside her, "No, Ma'am. You have every right to be angry- I've… been thoughtless of you. When I asked you to sit down with me and come up with a cover story I… honestly didn't think we'd ever have to employ it."

My knee folded and I moved to my bottom, leaning up against the side of the couch with my left arm crossed over my shoulder to keep hold of her hand. "I talked with Hannah for a good while, and it felt… awful, getting to know her using names and faces that I don't really know. It felt like I was robbing graves, stealing bits and pieces of information to put together some sort of Frankenstein's Monster."

I bit my bottom lip and chewed on it, "The whole time I kept thinking to myself 'It's Alive, It's Alive!' as I spoke to her, and… I think she believed me. It felt scummy. Like it flies in the face of everything I'm trying to do."

Tiffany's other hand stroked the hair on my head, "It's all coming back to me, memories of days long past. I think when I look at you I see my sons, though they've long since passed away; you certainly don't look alike, but I can see it in your drive, your determination. Just like Hannah."

I held my fingers up and Tiffany slipped her half-smoked cigarette between my fingers. I puffed on it. "It seems like all I can do nowadays is pray that one day the two of you won't up and leave me behind; you with your Cape'ing and Hannah with her work at the PRT. I've outlived everyone in my family; it should be me dying next- I want to be greedy and make you both show up to lower my body into the dirt, not the other way around."

Her fingers tugged on my scalp as a morbid chuckle escaped her lips, "I just might be liable to throw myself into the hole after you."

"You've got a few more years left in you, Tiffany. At least fifteen," I took one more puff before passing the cigarette back to her, "You can't die before you sit in that coveted VIP seat on Bingo Night."

She flicked my ear with her finger, "Wise ass."

We sat there in silence.

"I won't lie anymore, you hear? I won't rat you out, but I won't make up any new material either. Everything that she'll hear is just what we do between now and the next time she visits, though, It's not like I know you that well… beyond what you've already told me," She blew smoke out of her lips, her voice growing smarmy and sardonic, "That and I think she found you kind of cute, but let me tell you now this isn't Georgia; incest is wrong, even if you aren't blood-related."

A laugh belted out from my gut as I stood up and brushed my pants off.

"Oh, I don't know, Miss Tiffany, I think that Jason could make her a very happy woman," Type 95 smiled brightly, "In China, marrying cousins was not unheard of, at long as there were at least two generations apart."

"Speaking of which," Tiffany stared 95 down, "Are you a Commie, China-girl?"

Emerald eyes blinked but her smile did not falter, "I was stolen by the Communist party, whether my mother was British, Australian, Austrian, or American, I do not know. The secrets of my birth were kept, even from me. My… form factor is hardly what you would call Chinese, even though my features suggest it as such."

"I was used by the Communists, paraded about in front of the people, my beauty used to incite the fighting men and raise their spirits," Her fingers scrunched up the front of her dress, "However, I was never utilized for anything other than posturing. I was nothing more than a pretty face for them to brandish when it suited them."

"Eventually I found my way over here, where I found people who desired me not just for my beauty but because they genuinely believed that I could be more than just a showpiece," I arched an eyebrow.

Was she referencing the Type 97, a 5.56mm chambering that was imported to the US?

"Here I have true comrades, people who think and believe similarly to me. People who want to put their lives on the line, to risk it all for a better tomorrow."

"I was utilized by the Communist party, but I am not a Communist." She finished primly, though there was no derision in her words.

"Great, now I feel like an asshole," Tiffany muttered as she brought a hand up to her face and rubbed her cheek, "Apologies, -"

"Qi, but the other girls call me Type 95, or 95," She smiled as she stood up and walked over and took a seat next to Tiffany, the Assault Rifle taking the old woman's hands before bringing them up to her lips, "This one is pleased to finally meet your acquaintance, Elder."

Tiffany's lips quirked, "Well, now I feel like an even bigger asshole. Jason, where are you finding these women?"

"I'm not finding them at all, Emmie is," I thumbed M16A1, and her eyes widened in mock shock, "But regardless of all of that, you'll be seeing her a lot more often around here, much like Emmie, Qi is important to the team."

"Really now?" The old biddy arched her eyebrow, "What do you do, besides fill out a dress?"

A small giggle escaped Type 95's lips, "Well, while M16A1 is his Vice-Commander, I serve as his attache, his Secretary. I will be assisting him here in the organization as well in his civilian business."

That got both of Tiffany's eyebrows to rise as she looked at me with a grin, "Oh, finally got that figured out, have we? What are you doing to bring in some non-Merchant money? I can't keep putting cocaine-laced bills in my purse when you pay rent, you know."

I waved her off with a huff before crossing my arms over my chest, "I'm going to go around the Bay and collect wrecked cars and have them restored, and then sell them in or out of state. With the resources at my disposal now a little non-gang-related funding wouldn't go amiss."

[Attempted Re-Forge: 24.0170 - Moon Tech - 400CP - Okami - Skills Magitech]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 200 CP]

I ignored the Forge swinging and missing.

"Well, if you're using the barn to restore some cars then I think old George would have been pleased to have you inherit the place, Jason," She mused, her finger fiddling with the bracelet, then she looked down at it before raising it up in front of her face, "Also, what the hell is this thing? I kept it on me when I went to bed last night, and when I rammed my knee against the corner of the doorframe this morning it didn't nearly hurt as much as it should have."

"That, my dear Tiffany, is an enchanted bracelet from a faraway world that reduces the physical impact one feels when wearing it. Quite literally, it's a magic bracelet." I smirked at her, and she gazed at me incredulously.

"You're shitting me."

"I don't know Tiffany, you tell me: Am I shitting you?" My smug couldn't possibly reach any higher levels at this point in time.

"You mother fucking tinkers and your tinker bullshit. Fine, I'll keep it on. If it saves me from breaking my pinkie toe again I'll wear it for the rest of my days," She groused.

I shook my head as I walked into the bedroom, grabbed two amulets, and came back out with them, "Well, that's not the only thing I'll ask you to wear until the rest of your days. Here."

"The hell are these?" She peered at the necklaces I handed her, "A golden dice cube and a golden coin? More tinker bullshit I presume?"

I grinned, "Yes it is indeed. One of those does the same thing as the bracelet does, but in a different way, and the other one heals you at an accelerated rate while improving your ability to recover your stamina."

"Now you're fucking with me." She narrowed her eyes.

"A test then?"

"A test it is."

I readied my finger and I flicked her wrist and she hissed, "Ouch, you pissant!"

"Now put on the necklaces please," She grumbled a great many curses but she slipped the necklaces over her head. I applied the same flick, to a different spot on her arm, and she barely flinched.

"Now I know you're fucking with me, you didn't flick me nearly as hard that time," I arched an eyebrow and pointed down at the slowly forming bruise on her wrist, and she held it up to her eyes to observe very carefully. Even from where I was sitting I could see the bruise start to reverse course; within half an hour the bruise would be gone. "Son of a bitch, you really aren't shitting me. Damnit!"

Her lips quirked into a sideways smile as she looked at me, her mouth was telling me one thing, but her eyes were wishing she was saying something else. " I'm sorry, Jason. I didn't mean to doubt you and your tinker bullshit. This old lady deeply apologizes for ever calling you into question. Is that satisfactory?"

I couldn't help but laugh as I threw my head back, "Gall dangit, you are a curmudgeonly miser with those apologies, Tiffany."

"Well, when you give me a 'Life Alert' button I can't help but feel like the old woman on that commercial- 'Help, I've fallen and can't get up!'" She chuckled and stood up from the couch, "Well, I've come by and said my peace, and I think we've kissed and made up. I've got to go and get back to the house, a re-run of episode 44 of the Golden Girls is coming on and I can't wait to sit down and empathize with Estelle."

She gave me and the girls a hug before moving towards the back door with a bit more pep in her step, "Thank you for being a friend~, travel down the road and back again~, your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant~."

The door shut and I felt the knot in my heart loosening up. That had been quite tense, but… I'm glad that we could work through that. Type 95 wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down for a gentle kiss. "I think she understands, Commander."

I wrapped my arms around her waist and tugged her close, "Yeah, I think so too. So, speaking of getting the small business up and running, are you ready to go out into Brockton Bay for the first time, Qi?"

She grinned at me and danced back to pick up her purse before pulling out her ID cards and paperwork and fanning it out for me to see, "I am all ready, Commander."

I shook my head, "Well, amulets?"

She pumped her bosom, "Nestled and active."

"ID cards are ready so… the only other thing is… underwear?"

"Only if you don't want me to," She smiled mischievously.

"Underwear, tasteful. I can't have you leaking all over the seat of your dress, Qi." I walked over and stuffed my wallet and keys into my pockets, "Come on, you two. Let's go down to the worksite. We've got to wake the new girls up and M16A1, you need to get them through wake-up and orientation."

The All-American rifle smiled and gave me a crisp salute before she walked into the bedroom and grabbed a set of ankle socks and some Converse sneakers one of the Echoes had fabricated for her. With a flourish, her shoelaces were tied and she was standing before me with a smile that was just so precious it made me dip down to plant a smooch on her lips. "Come on, ladies, we're burning daylight."

"Ah, Commander, before you leave, shouldn't you get dressed first?"

I looked down at my blue jeans and t-shit. Well, this was a business meeting so…

The door to the warehouse was opened up, and Enbee pooted into the room with a tendril full of nanomaterials; like a magical girl transformation my clothes were stripped away and a smart-looking three-piece business suit formed around me. The whole process lasted as long as it took for me to hop from one foot to the next, and Enbee's tentacles reached up and straightened out my 3 POWER TIE of REDNESS before booping my nose and pooting back into the warehouse.

We stopped by the Work Site and opened it back up; UMP45 had spent the time enjoying the morning sun with her jacket off, but she was pretty eager to see her two little sisters wake up.

With the Command Activation Codes spoken, the Handgun and Submachine Gun T-Dolls began to wake up one by one, and the girls all swarmed around them to take care of them, with water bottles in hand and commiserations on their tongues as the new girls struggled with the sensory overload.

They would be up and moving within the hour, and would be training with their MJOLNIR Mk X-PRs soon enough.

As for myself and Qi, we hopped back into the truck and drove into Brockton Bay, driving through the Nazi-controlled streets of South-West and North-West Shanty Town before moving into the PRT-controlled districts and towards City Hall. We had a meeting set up with the Brockton branch of the Small Business Administration, and I didn't want to be late for my appointment; my buddy had once told me the SBA was a pain in the ass in the best of times, and that was on my old Earth.

I didn't want to know how bad they would be here.

Granted, Nugget and Qi had all of our paperwork filled out, and it wasn't like we needed a loan or anything, so this should be as simple as filing the paperwork and getting the tax filings taken care of. Nugget had already gotten me 'new' Mechanics certifications taken care of, and he printed them out for me after inserting everything into the United Auto Worker's Union's branch computers.

I was legal in every sense of the word. Illegally.

We parked the truck in the parking lot in front of City Hall, and I slipped a few coins into the parking meter; I didn't expect this to take too long, but I slipped a few extra coins in there for the next person. Paying it forward and all that.

Qi looked stunning in her white dress with blue floral accents, the sleeveless look truly suited her, showing off the beautiful skin on her arms, and the woven blue cord belt she wore emphasized her sizeable bust and bottom. The barret she wore in her hair was the same blue as her dress and it held her gorgeous silken hair back. It made me want to bend her over the hood of the truck. "Are you ready to go, Mr. Wilke?"

"Of course, Qi Bai Zhang Min, come along," I flourished with a smile, offering her my arm as she adjusted the strap of the fancy leather bag across her shoulder.

The two of us received no small shortage of stares from both sexes as we trotted up the staircase into the main building before searching the directory for the SBA office. With it found, we swooped through the hallways with a bit of pep in our step, and upon entering we saw that the whole office- all four people- stopped what they were doing to stare.

"Uh… sir? Ma'am?" A reedy voice spoke up, the young man tugged at the collar of his suit, "This is the Small Business Administration Office… if you're looking for the Mayor's office it's… on the third floor."

Qi smiled and the man blushed fiercely, "We are exactly where we need to be, Mr… Andrews."

"Well then, I guess I can take your case since we aren't that busy right now," He cleared his throat, he slumped in his chair, "Not that many people looking to start up here."

"Well then, let us be the first to do so today, shall we?" Qi smiled as we sat down in the chairs, and she pulled out all of the paperwork before handing it over.

It didn't take long at all; Qi was very efficient and with everything taken care of the only thing that remained was for the man to ask his final question. "Answer me this, Mr. Wilke, why the hell start up a business here? You seem put together, with your uh, Assistant, and everything. You could start up in a much safer city."

"Well, Mr. Andrew, do you know how many beat-up abandoned cars there are here in the Bay?" I asked, and Nugget, being the smaller version of the Goodest Boi, fed me the numbers that the Indias had collected from the drone feeds, "Over two thousand, five hundred abandoned cars. A lot of them are older models, models that today would be considered 'Classic ' cars."

He nodded, "I'm following."

"Well, Brockton Bay has local laws on the books that allow anyone with the proper permits to take those vehicles as salvage if they've been abandoned for two years or more. That is a lot of free cars, Mr. Andrew." I folded my hands in my lap, "The city gets to have its unwanted junk removed, not on the city's dime, I get cars I can fix up and sell, and maybe some young man or woman will get a great deal on a good car that will carry them forward on the next step of their lives."

"Or, some rich guy in the next state over gets to have the Cadillac of his dreams, paying me a lot of money to do so," I grinned, "If you really think about it, I'm just recycling… with extra steps."

He blinked, his lips firming into a thin line before he sighed explosively and nodded, "Alright, you've convinced me. So, how do you want to do the business loan?"

I shook my head, "No loan, I have the workshop and all the tools I'll ever need; my Granduncle left me a whole lot of his car stuff- he used to do what I'm doing now before he got too old to continue. I also have more than enough money saved up from my last job, so we just came here to file the paperwork so we could get the permits."

My tongue soured a little bit at the deception, but I needed to continue the charade, at least until the world wasn't in danger of being blown up by oversized space whales.

He bobbed his head from side to side before he began typing onto his computer, and a printer on the opposite side of the room started spitting out sheet after sheet of paper. The stack was stapled together, and he printed a second copy for his office's records. "Alright, well that should take care of everything, Mr. Wilke. The permit office for what you're doing is on the opposite side of the building on the second floor; Room 227."

Qi smiled beatifically, "Thank you for your help, Mr. Andrew. Come along dear, let us go and get the permitting taken care of; then we can go find that big wrecking truck you always wanted."

As we walked out of the SBA office we were able to clearly hear Mr. Andrew muttering to himself. "That lucky sonovabitch. She does his paperwork for him and lets him buy big toys?"

The permitting process was even more painless- the City of Brockton Bay was like "You want to take our broken shit? Have at it! Just sign here, here, and here. If we catch you dumping the shit you took from us elsewhere in the city we reserve the right to sue the skin off your back for deceptive business practices."

They sent us out the door with a pat on the back and a smile on their faces.

"So, you said you're looking for a wrecker?" A man that was paradoxically obese and yet gaunt-faced like an Auschwitz victim eyed both myself and Qi warily.

"Yup, that is correct. I'm looking for something like that, over there," I point over towards an older-looking truck in the back of the lot, "No frills, just a vehicle with a frame; I'm a mechanic and I run an automotive restoration business."

I reached into my pocket and handed him a glossy business card that had the image of my broke as fuck F100 on the left, and an image of the F100 after I had "restored" it on the right. On the top, in arched golden font with black borders, was the title of the business, 'Top Line Automotive Restoration', and on the bottom was my business' contact information. "I will be doing my own work on it and getting it up to snuff."

His lips curled down into a considering look, "You fix up your F100 out there? Like on the card?"

"I did indeed."

"I can see it; you did damn fine work, son. Not too many kids interested in turning wrenches and hammering out dents these days; everyone is all about Computer sciences and stuff," He stroked his chin, "Well, how about this. I got a '69 Corvette Stingray my old man left me a few years back; I ain't been able to get it up and running, and right now it's just collecting dust in my garage. You tell me what you think it would cost to get it up and running- a fair price mind you- and I'll knock double that off the cost of that rig there."

I grinned, "I always wanted to get my hands on a Stingray, I would have done it just for parts and time, but if you're insisting on paying me double who am I to argue?"

He chuffed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a beat-up smartphone and started flipping through some photos, "Look at you go, a true car salesman already. Here, take a look."

Bodily it was in good shape, but after asking him some questions I figured it was mainly electrical, though the engine did knock a lot once he got it started up; he was a salesman, not a mechanic. Well, he was a diesel mechanic. That and he'd honestly forgotten about getting it fixed up in the first place. "Six thousand, Arthur. I'll get it fixed up, running like a dream, and I'll even reupholster the seats and redo the paint."

"No shit?" He asked, the stem of his lollipop wiggling in the corner of his mouth. The paint job alone would be worth $4,000, so to diagnose, repair, and reupholster everything for just $2,000 more? That was a certified steal, especially since once gussied up he could probably put it on the market for $50,000 or more.

"Yeah, no shit. Though I will be taking photos of the process so I can post it on my website; might even ask for a customer comment; is that cool with you? Also, any color preferences?"

"Candy Apple Red, if you can manage it." He scratched his chin, "And yeah, I think that'll be fair. When will you stop by to pick it up?"

"Any time after tomorrow, really; it will take me a day or so to go over everything and then get my rack installed on it."

"Just a day? That's fast."

I grinned, "Well, let's just say I have a couple of genuine grease monkeys that love stuff like this; anything mechanical and they'll be frothing at the mouth to get their hands on a car like the Stingray."

"As long as you don't put no Tinker shit in it and it runs good, I don't care," He laughed, "Alright, tell you what. Come by on the 12th, and I'll have it dug out of the garage and ready for you to pick it up."

He handed me his business card with his address and contact information on the back. "That'll be $64,000 please."

I looked at Qi. "Dear, would you pay the man?"

She reached into her bag and pulled out $64,000 cash. He dropped the price down just a little bit more so we could walk out the door for the cash we had on hand, tax, tag, and title.

What a nice man.

Qi hopped into the driver's seat of the of the F100 while I climbed into the wrecker's driver seat. Nugget fed me all the information I needed to know how to drive, and the moment I turned the key the Forge dropped a present in my lap that made me grin.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 29.0150 - Mechanist - 300CP - Fallout 4 - Crafting Technological]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

More robot stuff to make better robots.

You guys rock!

I will be updating the Dramatis Personae page tomorrow. For now though? It's sleep time; spent all morning helping the parents move into a new RV, and all day writing. I'm pooped. lol

Also, special thanks to everyone who points out typos- myself and Grammarly still miss some stuff every now and again, so I will look at those corrections tomorrow and make them.

Cheers!

Utility Mods (Dead Space) (200CP)

Ah, technology, the best part of the future. The Kinesis Module projects an artificial gravity field from an emitter pad on the palm of the hand it's mounted on. Much like the name might imply, this field allows you to lift objects; smaller objects hover about a foot in front of your palm, whereas larger objects, most of which must be specifically modified to work with it and are typically on tracks or rails, move as close to you as they are able. You can manipulate these objects with your hand, and even throw them with a surprising amount of force, enough to penetrate a body with a bone spike and nail it to a steel wall. Stasis, on the other hand, as its name might imply, creates a temporal stasis field of a certain volume around the targeted object. It affects both organic and inorganic material, including living creatures, and has no problem with irregularly-shaped objects, flowing out around the targeted object.

Allows for the movement of objects remotely as well as freeze them in place while working on them.

Amulet Crafting (World of Darkness - Mummy the Resurrection) (200CP)

Amulets, a more permanent form of magic, can also be enchanted by Mummies. Amulets can take many forms, from small pieces of jewelry to strips of paper. Making an amulet is a lengthy and expensive process, requiring much magical energy. Amulets can be crafted to ward against specific forms of damage, to improve one's attributes, or grant unique abilities such as cloud walking or invisibility.

Mechanist (Fallout 4) (300CP)

You know what makes robots tick or beep. Not only can you repair and create them from scratch, but you can also cobble them together, creating some sort of robotic Frankenstein's Monster that's loyal to you and you alone while also incorporating all of the best components of the robots it's made.

Interlude - Taylor

A/N: Alright, this one seemed to flow right onto the page, no problem. I do hope I managed to Capture Taylor at this stage properly- she isn't the seasoned, tough as nails cape that we all know as love, but she also isn't as much of a wallflower as portrayed in other stories. She seems that there is something off with the Trio, and she utilizes it incite some rebellion.

I also wanted to reimagine the foot chase scene- I think a few others have also done this, the infamous chase where Taylor finally resolves to start running every day to get her cardio up.

Let me know your thoughts here, did I capture her properly?

Cheers!

Also, I'm not spell checking and stuff the PHO posts guys. It's part of the charm. *wink*

[February 14th, 2011]

[Taylor Hebert]

The Trio had been unusually… quiet the past few days. It really wasn't like them.

Well, Madison had been the same as always, petty slights and cookie-cutter insults that attempted to cut both ways but contradicted each other from one breath to the next.

"Taylor's such a little slut, I hear that she gives blowjobs for five bucks in the girl's bathroom. Poor, poor Taylor; so ugly that no one wants to even touch her."

Which was it? Was she too ugly to interact with or was she a whore giving five-dollar blowjobs? If she was so ugly then who'd pay to let her suck their dicks? It was merely playground insults with added vulgarity, but that didn't mean the constant verbal abuse didn't leave their bruises.

Sophia though had been 'off her game' so to speak. Something happened the past week that didn't rattle her, but she spent more time deep in thought, staring out the window with a severe frown on her mug instead of paying attention to Mr. Quinlan's math lectures. Whatever it was Emma knew that something was off because she was similarly affected, her normally gut-wrenching insults more subdued as her backstop in the form of Sophia was less and less attentive to their little 'game' of tormenting her.

Still, that just meant where Sophia and Emma faltered in their self-imposed mission to mess with Taylor in every way possible their posse of generic third-string mean girls just tried to pick up the slack; however, their methods were far less creative and easier to thwart. Spitballs were much easier to ignore than soda being spilled in her seat, and where they lacked in quality they made up for in quantity, which on more than a few occasions ended up backfiring on them deliciously; even Mr. Gladly couldn't ignore the veritable rain of saliva-soaked paper balls.

They only received verbal warnings, but if Taylor was honest she felt a little emboldened by those small string of victories to begin striking back in small ways. One little act of rebellion did end up with her being placed in detention, but seeing Stacy laid out on the floor as Taylor's mass velocity equaled enough force to tip her desk over and send her sprawling onto the ground when Madison-Lite's leg tried to trip her up on her way to her seat. It was cathartic, and despite the impromptu counter-insurgency Sophia and Emma were miles away.

She wanted to believe it was because they were pulling back to probably try and finish the job they left incomplete at the start of the new year- it was dark, tight, claustrophobic, insects bit her flesh as the rank, rotting stench of used, fermented hygiene products forced her breakfast from her stomach and through her clenched teeth- but her gut was telling her this was different. This wasn't a full contraction to lull her into a false sense of security, this was her enemies being distracted by outside forces.

Taylor didn't hold out hope that Sophia had been pulled off to the side by the track Coach and told to knock off the shit, because she was the school's top athlete with the potential to take them to State, but something, to borrow an expression from her dad, was chapping her ass. Something was eating at her, causing her to be more ornery than before but her anger was nebulous, unfocused. If Sophia was having a "bad day" the dark-skinned teen had no trouble taking her frustration out on Taylor through the typical pushes, trips, shoulder punches, and even the occasional attempt on her life by nudging her on the staircase just so.

Without her rock to lean on, Emma was just as listless, the red-head spending more time looking at Sophia when they eventually cornered Taylor for their thrice-weekly 'girl huddle' with Taylor in the middle.

It was strange, like she had stepped into the Twilight Zone.

"Imagine if you will, if only for a moment, where there exists a world where Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes are not being fully efficient in their bitchery."

"-aylor, hey, Earth Bet to Taylor."

She was knocked out of her thoughts by the insistent, nasally voice of Greg Veder. She blinked and looked up from her pencil and paper, "What is it, Greg?"

"You, ah, got something right here," The pasty boy's slightly chubby cheeks pulled back with a grimace as a hand came up near the side of his face, his watery blue eyes scrunching in what Taylor assumed was sympathy- no, empathy; sympathy implied that Greg had actual experience with the High School 'games' Taylor had to deal with.

At most he suffered a glancing blow, often when within her immediate vicinity.

"God, she's so repulsive that not even Greg would try and stick it in her."

Granted if Taylor hadn't been public enemy number one in Winslow there was no doubt in her mind that Greg Veder would have been a prime target; his light blonde hair looked like it was cut with a salad bowl, the acne that was focused around his lips and mouth was particularly eye-catching for someone who wanted to verbally tear someone down by their appearance. He was slightly overweight but despite having his 'moobs' fondled by his male peers on occasion the guy still wore those graphic t-shirts that he probably grew out of a year ago.

Yesterday it was Alexandria, and today? Today he was wearing what he would describe as a 'vintage' Mouse Protector tee; he could probably cite the year it was produced and the reason for the new commemorative production run. He was a cape nerd with no filter and far too much passion for things that ultimately didn't have any real impact on his life.

If she had to listen to him rant to his pseudo-friend(?) Sparky about how the Earth Bet localization ruined another one of 'Aleph's video game masterpieces' when she would scream. Internally.

"Uh, yeah, Taylor, Chrissy got you, like, a minute ago," The Hispanic boy barely even looked up from his desk, his hands stuffed in his pockets so that he could actively control the volume on the cheap MP3 player he listened to whenever Gladly had little 'group projects' like this for class; the cord he had painted roughly the same brown as his skin tone so he could snake it up his shirt and under his beanie, the boy using his long raven hair to hide the cord.

Taylor pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, the specs having slid down while she was trying to organize her thoughts for the current inane in-class assignment. With her vision no longer blurred she caught sight of a small white speck hanging in her bangs, and a sigh escaped her lips as she plucked it from the one good feature she thought she had. Out of all of the things the Trio had done to her the only thing that they hadn't done was try to take some scissors to her hair, but they only threatened to do it; actually going Edward Scissor-Hands on her hair would leave evidence.

Not that evidence really mattered- when she went to the school nurse to show off the bruising Sophia gave her the nurse looked at her with sad eyes and asked 'everything was alright at home'.

Her father was absent, not an abuser, though from where she sat she wondered if him being trapped in his head since her mother's death was any better than abuse.

"Whatever, so, what was your question, Greg?" She kept her words short, not because she disliked Greg, but because he was like a puppy that immediately responded to any amount of attention thrown his way. He was the type to automatically assume some sort of 'thing' if she showed him more than cursory notice even with mandatory interactions like Gladly's little time wasters.

Back in October she'd made the mistake of actually engaging him in a discussion she found interesting- he had been talking about Shakespear, but that turned out to be a ruse because then he started talking about "Noble Phantasms" and or nonsense from some Aleph anime. That was both disappointing and yet she shouldn't have been surprised.

The problem was that after catching onto her apparent interest he tried to invite her over to his house to watch it the very next day, in front of everyone in class. The rumor mill ran wild with it, and she was forced to retaliate with both barrels; not that it did her any good.

"Well, I was talking about that new Hero team, you know, Frontline?" He grinned, showing off his slightly crooked teeth that looked like he had just finished eating a bowl full of Cheetos. Hadn't he ever heard of brushing his teeth?

Oh, there was a packet of Cheetos; it was empty and face down on his desk. That still didn't cut down the 'ick' factor when he stuffed his fingers into his mouth to clean off the crumbs.

She sighed and tapped her pencil against the table, "I'm pretty certain that we're supposed to be talking about how Capes and Cape legislation has shaped the current criminal justice system, and not about the latest sensation to hit the Bay."

He rolled his eyes, which was pretty gutsy for Greg considering he still had his thumb in his mouth like a three-year-old. He shook his head and wiped his fingers on his pants, "Come on, Taylor. This is huge news! Only on the radar for like a week and already the Merchants are gone!"

The boy leaned forward with a huge, excited grin on his face, an effect that was made more than a big gross with Cheeto dust clinging to the insides of his lips, "I heard that they caught nearly all of them; like over two hundred members-"

"Where did you hear that from?" Taylor arched an eyebrow.

"Well, PHO is all abuzz-"

"Wait, they unbanned you again?" Sparky interjected, a small show of surprise on his face.

"Well, yeah, because it's not like they can tell me I'm wrong- Masters are the worst types of Cape around, and Bad Canary, as much as I love her music, her chickens are coming home to roost; I mean, she had to know that with her powers even innocuous words could be construed as Commands, right?"

Taylor blinked in surprise, his words weren't exactly how she would have described it, but she did feel that there was some level of personal responsibility when it came to power use. It took some colossal willpower on her part to not go Carrie on the school with her bugs, but she didn't do it not just because it would have ended her life; she had principles.

She didn't agree with him on Masters being the "worst" kind of Capes around, considering she herself would be classified as a Master with her control over bugs, but it didn't hide the fact that most Master-based effects were typically people-oriented. Why telling someone to shoot themselves in the head with a gun was 'inherently more evil' than roasting them alive with a fireball shot from the hands was something that she couldn't wrap her head around. Both were equally reprehensible.

"That wasn't what got you the ban-hammer, dude." Sparky chuffed and she could see his fingers twitch under his coat, likely skipping tracks.

"Well, yeah, but I am right," The boy puffed himself up, "Despite my anti-Master stance, the Bad Canary trial from what we know is a sham, for realsies. It's a conspiracy, I tell you, by the government to set a legal precedent for making it easier to lock up Masters and throw away the key. You only need to look at the restraints they had her in- that stuff is for Brutes, bro. She wasn't even allowed a text-to-talk at her arraignment- even Slickback was only in handcuffs and he got a text-to-talk and a lawyer at his initial hearing, and he Mastered people into throwing themselves in front of PRT vehicles in his escape attempt from that bank robbery!"

"Wow, dude, your time watching CSI: Los Angeles and Law & Order: Special Capes Unit is really carrying you there," The Hispanic boy shook his head as he turned his head and gazed out the dirty windows towards freedom. Taylor knew the feeling well.

Greg's grin grew wider, "Thanks dude, I just finished watching Season 3 of CSI last night-"

Taylor raised her pencil, stopping Greg in his tracks, "We have twenty-four minutes to get something prepared before we have to present to the class, so let's focus, okay? We can take that angle with the Bad Canary thing and turn it into a three-minute presentation, right?"

The bowl-cut shook with excitement, "Yeah, we can totally get this knocked out!"

They did get it knocked out, but with Greg and Sparky it was like pulling teeth; Greg kept getting distracted and Sparky rarely opened up his mouth to do anything worthwhile. It fell to Taylor to write out the notecards for their little speech because Greg and Sparky had atrocious handwriting; a Doctor would find their chicken scratch illegible- it was a surprise they even got credit for the homework they turned in.

Madison tried to get cute with a bottle of water, but Taylor caught wind of her little 'trip' towards the pencil sharpener with the fly she had nestled in her hair, and Taylor stood up from her chair; this spoiled the second-string bully's attempt, knocking the water bottle out of her hand and dousing Sparky instead. The kid started cussing her out in Spanish as he pulled out his MP3 player to make sure it didn't get any water on it, which subsequently got it confiscated by Gladly until the end of class.

Needless to say Sparky was a little heated, and to her surprise, Greg started speaking to him in Spanish that was heavily accented, but the attempt to calm him down actually pulled the glowering boy out of his funk. "I keep forgetting you speak some Spanish, then you pull some shit like that out of your ass. Thanks though, that clumsy bitch ain't worth detention."

That ended his participation for the rest of class, as it fell to Taylor to handle the presentation; Sparky handled the introductory card but then slunk back to Greg's side to mope about his lack of tunes. Greg handled another card, but his stage fright caught up to him on the second card and Taylor stepped in. Of course, public speaking wasn't her strong suit, but dumping some of her anxiety into the insects crawling around the walls helped curb her nervousness.

"That was quite well thought out, though a little derivative to Madison's group. A little more originality would have popped that up to an 'A'; it wouldn't hurt to be a bit more emotive either," Gladly smiled as he nodded to Madison, who preened like a peacock. Taylor didn't have any doubt that the bitch had been eavesdropping on their discussions. Though it pained her to admit it, the Bad Canary situation was something of a hot topic right now, as three other groups all commented on it; most of the people in those groups were indifferent to her, so it wasn't likely that they were all out to get her.

Madison wasn't smart enough to organize them to collectively steal what little thunder Taylor could create in academics; that was more Emma's forte.

Blissfully, the bell signaled the end of Second period. All she had to do was survive Algebra II with Quinlan, evade the suddenly apathetic trio during lunch, suffer through Biology 202 with Mr. Hanz, and then it was Study Hall and finally Computer Sciences with Mrs. Knott.

Sophia saw fit to ignore Taylor even more than usual today, the track star's face was faced outside the windows for almost the entire class. She still managed to shove Taylor into the doorframe with a warning, "Don't get comfortable, Heebert."

With that Taylor immediately knew to be on her guard. She didn't what was coming, but something certainly was coming. With that in mind, Taylor took steps- with all of the bugs in the school she was able to tag Sophia, Emma, Madison, along with the rest of the hangers-on and watch them throughout the entire school; she couldn't be too graceful in her evasions because then they would start asking questions, but she did manage to evade them when they tried to intercept her in the emptier parts of the school.

She used the first-floor girl's bathroom, the one near the Principal's Office, to enjoy her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and apple today because yesterday she'd used the 3rd-floor bathroom on the opposite side of the school and that almost ended in disaster. She barely managed to exit the bathroom and round the corner before the Bitches Three sauntered inside, and she ended up having to spend the rest of that lunch eating her sandwich on the move.

As much as Taylor would have liked to say that the Trio wouldn't be so brass as to harass her in the bathroom next to the Principal's office, that wasn't always the case. Emma just had to smile and brush it off as 'juvenile playing around' and they walked off Scott-free even after having been caught red-handed. Why the front desk lady didn't even make a note of it she wouldn't know, but having been interrupted at the tail-end of the week they seemed to be wary about tempting fate a second time.

Biology was a bore, with Mr. Hanz's German accent so thick he could have been cast for a Hollywood feature film as a stereotypical Bond villain, but at least he knew the material and actually tried to teach it despite his rough time with the language. She heard that he moved to the States from Germany after Behemoth, and she did feel bad for him, but only in Winslow could you hire a teacher that could barely speak the language to teach a vital subject that was on the SATs and ACTs.

Still, without the Trio or any of their cronies in here to bother her Biology was her second-best subject behind Computer Science; she had some homework stolen or ruined, which kept her from claiming the 'A', but her 'B' was still borderline- it was still early in the year, so maybe if the Trio continued their current listlessness she could pop it back up before the semester ended?

She rolled her eyes as she filled out her homework in Study Hall; wishful thinking, but hell, a girl could still dream, right? When her homework was completed she sandwiched it between three of the thick paperboard folders; they showed surprising resistance to the successful attempts at soaking her backpack. Her homework survived like this, but the same couldn't be said for her textbooks- she already had to replace three of them, and it wasn't even two full months into the school year… and she'd only attended one of that on account of having been either in the hospital or at home recovering from her attempted murder.

After that, she pulled out her little cape notebook and began doodling some costume designs and possible cape names. She knew that she wanted to go out and do something with her powers, but as to the 'when' she hadn't quite pinned that down yet.

'Queen Bee'? Her lips quirked, no, that was something the old Emma would have suggested. Besides there aren't enough bees in the Bay area for her to claim them as her 'title'- apparently the bees and butterflies were disappearing and the lack of pollination was becoming a problem.

She shook her head.

'Lady Bug'?

'The Amazing Arachnid'?

'Spider-girl'? She snorted, that would get her sued by Marvel; even with the differences between Aleph and Bet Spider-Man was still a prime Intellectual Property that was viscously defended. Even the Case 53 out in Virginia that was an actual Man-Spider was threatened with lawsuits- only the Protectorate stepping in prevented an Independent from getting sued into the ground for infringement; weren't Case 53s amnesiac? Kind of scummy to go after someone who didn't even know that Spider-Man existed.

'Hornet Girl'. Meh, borderline? It went into the maybe category; the Anti-Hero list was much longer while her Hero list was frighteningly small.

'Hive.' It made her skin prickle as the power and emotions the name evoked suffused into her body and picked her up a little bit. It made her feel powerful, and she could just imagine the gangers scrambling away in fear as she strolled down a dark alleyway with a swarm at her beck and call; the skittering things that made people jump in irrational fear of her weapon.

She considered it- under the right circumstances with the proper PR she could probably rock the name as a Hero, but it still had some pretty heavy negative connotations; it could easily be warped into something like 'Hive Mind' which would play up her power's Master classification and make her into an acceptable target for unfair criticism. Greg's opinion and the opinions of the other students- with Master powers being inherently more terrifying than others (for some reason)- proved that people would always be biased.

Taylor could understand though, as it was one thing to threaten someone with a loaded gun, but it was another thing to lock them inside their own minds and puppet them around or turn them into a willing subject like Heartbreaker.

The name was crossed out- 'Too villainous' she scribbled next to it.

Bells chimed over the speaker within the classroom and Taylor put her notebook into the zipped pocket and tucked it behind the plastic backing board; sure it would dig into her shoulder blades, but it was, for the most part, protected.

She walked down the halls towards Mrs. Knott's classroom on the first floor; it was right next to the doors, and often times she could escape the school before she got hemmed in, but not always. It was 60/40, but it was still much better than the 100% it was last semester when she had been stranded on the 3rd floor. How Emma, Sophia, Madison, and all their additions managed to consistently leave class early just to harass her on her way out was beyond her, but the Gym teacher was the Track supervisor, so that was probably it.

Taylor blissfully managed to make it to the Computer Science room without being targeted, and she slipped down in her favorite seat in the back of the room, and she typed in the school password to unlock the screen. Ugh, someone had too many tabs open again, it was sluggish as hell. She clicked the power button icon and restarted the machine, and it managed to just boot up before the bell signaled the start of the period.

She accessed her student email account, studiously ignoring the copious generic 'Kill yourself' emails in her inbox, and downloaded her project - she stopped storing it in the shared drive after the first two assignments she completed were mysteriously deleted. It was a simple Coral Snake script project to create a functioning simple calculator- it really was simple; all she had to do was follow the instructions in her CompSci textbook and the program was completed near the end of Thursday's class period last week.

Even though she was finished she stopped submitting her work ahead of time, if only because Mrs. Knott would hand out extra assignments to those who finished early. The kindly teacher did give extra credit, but in the Winslow school system you couldn't get above an 'A' unless you were in an AP course, and those were decidedly rare and difficult to get into. Even if Taylor felt she was smart enough to get into them, her grades were tanked enough in her Freshman year of High School that trying to get in would be pointless.

After giving the calculator a run through its paces, using the computer's current calculator to check again, Taylor considered it complete and minimized the tab while setting a small alarm on the calendar; it would remind her to submit it before class ended.

With that done she opened up the Netscape web browser and went to her go-to browser web page to download the Bravery browser- it was small and lightweight, and more importantly, it had a built-in bypass for the school's internet filters; granted those were about useless. They still used 'Buzzy-Splat' and that company went the way of the Dodo bird back in '06. The main draw for Taylor was that between the bypass to the school filters, built-in VPN, and the lack of caching or data collection she could search and fiddle around on PHO with some relative safety.

Taylor opened up the General thread and found it already alight with posts, but she typically stuck to Bagrat because he was the type that seemed to stay on top of everything, delivering mostly facts without too much opinion.

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Topic: Update - Frontline Part 2 - Electric Boogaloo

In: Boards United States New Hampshire Brockton Bay General

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On Feb 11th 2011:

So, I know its probably a bit too soon to create a new thread, but considering I had to ask the Mods to unlock it a half-dozen times in the past two days because you little goblins keep causing problems I figured it would be best to put it to pasture and start fresh.

Speaking of starting fresh, Frontline has really proved their chops here in the Bay.

For those of you living under a rock, or aren't familiar with the goings on in the asshole of the United States, a new Independent Hero organization (and there isn't any other way to describe them as anything *but* an organization- See the thread on the speculation on Frontline's capabilities [HERE]) came onto the scene last week with the capture of some Merchant assets, and they followed up with another raid that rocked the Merchants pretty hard. I don't know if it was intentional, but @Intel_Boi360Degrees (His analysis can be seen - [HERE]) believed it was done intentionally; hit the Merchants hard, rock them on their heels, and then let them contract so the new group could hit them even HARDER.

There were a few days without Frontline activity, but then suddenly out of nowhere they swoop in with not just *one* team, but three whole teams! They kicked the doors in at a popular Rave spot near Midway, assaulted a Cabin out in the woods where we found that Skidmark stashed a great deal of cash (Uncharacteristically smart of him, but @DailyProphet actually called it correctly on this one, so good on you, man), and the third team took on the Merchants directly in a little stronghold raid in the Railyard.

All known Merchants were captured, including a new Tinker that had been staying beneath the radar, along with a hefty number of their unpowered members.

Our awesome boys in blue with the Brockton Bay PD and PRT showed up and helped clear away the (alleged) gang members and put them in the clink. Unless one of the other Gangs break them out or the Merchants had *another* hidden member, I think the possibility of them pulling an August 4th raid on the PRT prisoner transport like they did last year is incredibly low. (Sorry, @Reave, I know you guys try your best, but that was the third time that year Skidmark was broken out by Squealer and Mush. I simply calls it like I sees it)

Though, after the clean-up, is where we see a plot-twist in our little hopeful fairy tale. The PRT ENE released a Public Statement (you can read the full write-up - [HERE, along with Star_Gazer's analysis of it - [HERE]) that seemed to imply that there was a little bit more PRT involvement than just showing up to slap the cuffs on. As if she had precognitive powers, the self-described PR Head of Frontline @ART_556 pre-empted the PRT release with a message that they will be releasing the full footage of their helmet cameras after taking some time to sanitize them, and a full statement would be released in addition to that.

Boy, that was something that ended up being a bit of a black eye for the PRT ENE. Sure, they didn't explicitly state that they were directly involved, but you don't need to be a genius to see someone in the PR department there trying to ride the coat-tails of Frontline's operational success.

Now, before I get inundated with people screaming that I'm carrying a torch, just let me say this: when was the last time we saw such an objectively clean and effective operation? Last time I heard about our boys making a similar capture they had gotten lucky on November 12th with the capture of Cricket, Stormtiger, and Alabaster while Kaiser successfully broke out Hookwolf and Crusader. Hookwolf subsequently broke them out the very next week. If you ask me, there is a difference between getting lucky and staging a complete operation that appears to accomplish all of the objectives.

Those Objectives were the following:

- Scout out Merchant locations.

- Deprive their local street cells of weapons, cash, and narcotics to push.

- Gather intel to strike bigger targets.

- Force a reaction by poking the drug-fueled bear.

- Then deal a decisive blow when they least expected it and remove the ability for the gang to recover by stripping them of all of their resources.

They accomplished all of that and more; there aren't any more Merchant capes that we know of that can break them out and steal their drugs back (Sorry, @BBPD_Official, but they *did* steal pallets of drugs back just last month, so you can't say that it didn't happen. Granted, those were *invisible* trucks, so at least you can say that you didn't see it coming).

I'm digressing.

The Frontline organization released their camera footage, though there were some pretty obvious edits (like having the cash they 'liberated' being heavily blurred out) but for the most part you can see them treating the Merchants firing Heavy Machine Guns at them with kid gloves. No real injuries that weren't self-inflicted (one alleged Merchant shot his own foot in the gunfight, but last word was that our dear White-Robed angel got to him and he shouldn't lose it) and there were a LOT of members captured.

Effectively, the Archer's Bridge Merchants are gone from the Bay, and that my friends is reason to celebrate.

What are your thoughts? Happy to see them gone? Worried that this might invite instability?

EDIT (Feb 12): Hey, they posted three videos that are on par with their little introductory video. The first one ([HERE]) depicts the raid on Skidmark's cabin in the woods, the second is the Rave Raid ([HERE]), and of course the final one is the fight between Frontline and the Merchant Capes ([HERE]).

I'll save my words and let everyone draw their own conclusions. ~Bagrat

EDIT 2(Feb 13): Hey everyone, Frontline live streamed an AMA yesterday- if you haven't seen it yet you can see the full video [HERE]. It lasted three hours and they answered a LOT of questions, so if you're thirsty for information on them straight from their own mouths then that is the place to see it. The reaction thread for the stream is [HERE, so try to keep on task for this one and not get bogged down on by @ART_556's reveal, okay? Thanks. ~Bagrat

(Showing page 1 of 2)

Answer Key (Cape Groupie)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

Good riddance! I was real sick and tired of having to carry a gun in my purse when I went down to the corner store with those junkies hanging around harassing every person they came across!

Definitely_NOT_Alexandria (Verified Alexandria Cosplayer)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

@Answer Key Hey, I feel for you, but you need to actually think. With the Merchants gone what is that going to mean for the Bay? I hated the Merchants just as much as the next gal, but while they stooped it up like a bunch of maggots they were still enough to keep the ABB and E88 out of the area where I lived. I had to deal with worrying about stepping on needles and crap, but I didn't have to worry about getting snatched up and whored out, or beaten to death in an alleyway just because the color of my skin.

All the Merchant's defeat means is that there is now a power vacuum that the other gangs will try to take advantage of. As a black woman neither of my 'options' here are stellar.

Colt Python_FL (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Patrol Team)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

@Definitely_NOT_Alexandria You don't need to worry about the E88 or ABB moving into your area, ma'am. We are going to be heavily patrolling all of the Merchant's territories from here on out, and will do the same for the other sections of the city claimed by the gangs. Until the city is clean and people can walk down the street without fearing drive-bys and organized crime, Frontline will not rest.

Though, it would always be best that you keep your gun on you- taking your protection into your own hands is one of the greatest rights that our Constitution affords us. Get armed, get trained, and shoot straight- don't squander what the men and women of our nation suffered and died for.

Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

Man, Frontline members are popping out of the woodwork today! @Colt Python_FL, I don't remember seeing you in the announcement video?

EDIT: Okay, okay, I get it guys. Please, yes, I know. I missed M16A1's announcement about the AMA. My bad. Let it die, please? My shame is immeasurable.

Hardindeezestreetz (Temp Banned)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

Fukkk you Frontline. All you hoez will rue the day you crossed the Merchants!

- TEMP BANNED (7 Days): Blatant threats of violence are blatant. Take a seven-day chill pill. This will be your second seven-day infraction- one more and we'll start handing out month-long IP bans, so no sock-puppets for you. ~Gosilver

ArchmageEin

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

LOL Gosilver handing out the "Seven Days" punishments now. Will a water-logged Japanese girl crawl out of his tv I wonder?

Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

@ArchmageEin Damnit, Aleph Japan! You should have never released that film here! All I hear is my friends whispering "Seven Days" to each other over the phone, super annoying!

Anyways, I for one welcome Frontline. If they can clean up the ABB territory first then myself and all the Asians in BB will be eternally grateful. Lung and his ilk need to go!

TheSunRises (Permanent Ban)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

- Permanent Ban (For Life): I'm not even going to leave this message up for posterity purposes. This is one of the most flagrant rules violations I've seen in my time as a Moderator for the Brockton Bay boards, with Threats of Violence, Inciting Others to Violence, among many, many other violations. In fact, I have already reported you to the BBPD for terroristic threats. ~Gosilver

ScreamingEagle44

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

Leave it to them to behave like animals.

- Infraction 1: Getting dangerously close there, 44, don't push it. ~Gosilver

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 39, 40, 41

(Showing page 2 of 41)

Foxtantabil (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

Holy moly, Gosilver on a roll! Fight!

Ha ha.

Now, before I get an infraction for derail, I'm just surprised at how quick and clean they were. I haven't seen people move like that in a long, long time; granted I'm no "Tactical Operator" but my brother and his buddies are SWAT in New York City, and I've gone shooting with them a bunch. My bro is what you would call a "Tactical Maniac" and he was frothing at the mouth after watching them Shoot, Move, and Communicate. All angles were covered, bad guys were put to sleep, confirmed down- the front element moved on while the rear element pulled security and restrained the unconscious bangers. They even pulled them out of the line of fire, and on multiple occasions put themselves between bullets and those that were trying to shoot at them not ten seconds before! Insane I tell you, those Frontline capes. The last time I was in a firefight I could barely reload my rifle because the adrenaline had be butterfingers my magazine. Real cool cucumbers those guys.

Johnny the Lawman81 You want to get in on this, bro?

Also:

Bagrat: "Granted, those were *invisible* trucks, so at least you can say that you didn't see it coming."

I *see* what you did there.

Replied On Feb 11th 2011:

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 39, 40, 41

Wow. That was… a lot of information she'd been missing out on. There was no way she was going to get through everything before the period ended, so she decided that a trip to the Library was in order. She copy and pasted the URL and DM'd it to herself so that she wouldn't have to go hunting for it again- the videos were something she really wanted to see, but if she grabbed the headphones off the computer then Mrs. Knott would know for a fact that Taylor was already finished with her assignment.

Instead, she began with the press release and flicking between the links from the Frontline page and the PRT press release she would have to agree with Star_Gazer's thoughts; they tried to capitalize on the success of Frontline and it ended up biting them in the ass. It seemed so… juvenile and very much unlike what she thought the PRT would do; there had to be a reason for it, right? Maybe someone didn't edit the standard press release format enough to properly convey what happened?

PHO was split, with one half ridiculing the PRT for 'stepping on their own dicks' to get a statement out ahead of Frontline, only to get slapped upside the head with the truth of the matter: they only showed up to arrest the gangers, and that was it. The other half was sort of aligned with Taylor's thoughts- there shouldn't be a reason for them to make such a move without it being a mistake, right? Somewhere along the line it must have skipped someone's hands to get it posted in that particular format.

A small group of others believed that this was par for the course for the PRT nationwide, not just in Brockton Bay; the PRT has guidelines for how to play up the government's involvement during good times, and how to shift the blame during bad optics if you listened to one of the forum-goers who claimed to be a former PR person for the PRT but was under NDAs so heavy he couldn't say more. He was shouted down and boosted up in equal measure.

Her father would probably shake his head and say something along the lines of "That's what big government does, sweetie". He was a Union man, through and through- fighting with the government over every little thing was what he did for a living.

Well, that was if she could get him to talk about anything nowadays. She knew that he worked a lot to secure work for the other Union members so they could feed their families, and that the overtime he worked kept food in their pantry and the lights on, but it didn't make his absence hurt any less. This was compounded by the fact that she couldn't talk to him about all the things she wanted to because he would fly off the handle once he found out that it was Emma who put her in the hospital.

She honestly didn't think Uncle Alan or Aunt Zoe knew anything about it.

Taylor shook her head and kept perusing the forums, swinging by the text version of the Frontline AMA, which included introductions for all of the current members.

All thirty-five members!?

Was this what Greg was yammering on about?

This was probably the single largest collection of Capes in North America! To her knowledge, only Endbringer or S-Class call-outs garnered those kinds of numbers, and here Frontline was fielding the kind of numbers that would make any city in America weep in relief.

What was more of a shock though, was the admission that ART556 was a Striker/Changer/Trump that could help people change into their idealized forms. There was a subconscious component that she had no control over, and it took time for it to work, but if it was used enough then the change would be permanent. Stronger, faster, smarter (if your ideal self was smarter), and in Taylor's opinion, ridiculously aesthetic.

Screen captures of each member of Frontline were blown up really big as they all wore civilian clothes and unique domino masks to conceal their identities.

Some of the women were tall and muscular while still being very feminine, others were the very paragon of feminine beauty, and others were smaller but still incredibly beautiful. All of them were 'model status' or beyond… Emma could never hope to compare to them.

Groups of six women took turns sitting on a large, comfortable-looking couch eating massive bowls of ice cream, and they each answered three questions - one for the group, one for their team, and one personal question. Obviously, the questions were carefully selected, but some pretty hard-hitting questions were asked by the audience that Taylor was surprised that they answered at all.

[This transcription typed up by @Jimmytypes, @Infoispower2, and @Anygivensunday. Please forgive the spelling or grammatical errors there was a LOT for us to transcribe!]

She quirked her lip at the disclaimer.

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Feb 12th 2011:

@M16A1 You seem to be nominally the Vice-Commander for this group, so let me ask this: How did you get so many Capes onto a single team without them killing each other? I happen to know more than a few 'guys who know some guys' and they tell me that sometimes they butt heads more often than not, even in the Protectorate. How do you balance that all out?

M16A1_Official (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team)

Replied On Feb 12th 2011:

*looks at camera. pauses to think. looks off camera. nods.*

"To answer your question, Bagrat, we maintain harmony within our ranks for two reasons: One, as Vector (@Vector45_Official) answered Skill_Gap's question, all of us are prior military- Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and PRT. We are all used to working in an operational environment where we have a mission and we put everything else aside to accomplish that mission. Sometimes tempers can flare, but when the armor is put on we leave all of our greivances behind in the locker room, so to speak. Out there, against the gangs, everyone is trying to kill you because you are standing in the way of their illegal operations.

They don't want to warn you off, they don't want to scare you away. They fire live bullets at your face because they want to kill you. With that kind of pressure you have to have complete trust in one another, to not get distracted by petty arguments. When you clear a room, your sweep needs to be on point because there are others coming through that door behind you. When you're in a gunfight with civilians around you need to be clear-headed so that your target acquisition is on-point; if you strike a civilian, even with the tranquilizers we use, that could have lasting, far-reaching consequences for everyone involved."

"The second part to your question is that… the majority of the team aren't Capes. We don't have the Corona Pollentia or Gemmas to even Trigger. We are all enhanced by a small collection of powers, and through the creation and use of our weapons, aircraft, and power armor thanks to our dedicated team of Tinkers. I am a cape, with powers that I choose not to use for the sake of our unit cohesion and to keep tactics streamlined without having to worry about esoteric effects changing how we operate, but I won't speak any more on the matter. Just know that we are mostly mundane people with the training, tools, and willpower to see out mission to clear Brockton Bay of all criminal elements through. Next question."

It was stilting a little bit to see a Hero team, or any Cape for that matter, being so open and free with their information. She was still a long way away from going out herself, and she would go out, but Taylor wouldn't dream of telling everyone exactly what her powers were or how they worked, not like Frontline did. Granted, scrolling through the transcripts she didn't see anything too damning, but there was certainly enough for someone to take advantage of.

The gangs mainly, that was her worry, but Frontline seemed more worried about making sure the public knew enough about them to feel comfortable with the newest group of protectors to allow them continued free reign within the city. They had the people's support, and with their own platform that meant the PRT couldn't control the "narrative" as Xx_Void_Cowboy_xX pointed out; he was right and people agreed with him up until he started raising Master concerns about all of the beautiful women on the team with only a single man.

ART_556 (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team)

Replied On Feb 12th 2011:

*grins smugly at the camera. hides her smugness poorly behind her hand*

"Ho ho ho ho ho. We don't need to fear Horizon, Horizon needs to fear us! You hear that Horizon!? I'm coming for that booty! I'm a warrior!"

*gets dragged off screen as a new member takes her place. Newcomer identified as Grizzly tilts her sunglasses on her head and waves to camera*

"Hiyah, Grizzly here. I would say that there aren't any Masters here, and that would be true, buuuuuuuuut there aren't any Masters here. Seriously. Get a life, Void Cowboy. If there were more Masters capable of being the next Heartbreaker we'd know about it. The boss man is a Tinker with a fairly broad skill set, but he mainly provides us all with the power armors that you see us use. LTLX7000 is our aircraft Tinker, PSG-1 is an optics Tinker, and HK41 is our resident coal monkey- she makes all of our weapons in an antique coal-fired forge of all things. Super weird to see her take a hunk of steel and pound it into the shape of a rifle. What follows is a neasea inducing series of cutting, filing, sanding, checking, testing, and painting. Watching her tiny form flit throughout the forge like a fox on caffine is as disturbing as it is amusing."

HK_G41_Official

Replied On Feb 12th 2011:

*blinks cutely at the camera, mouth wide. blinks again. looks at Grizzly*

"Ah, yes. I make the weapons. I make all sorts of weapons. Some big. Some small. If it goes 'pew' or 'boom' that I made that. Yes. Me."

*stares off camera. hands twitch in time with ears and tail. hops off couch and leaves*

*Grizzly smiles awkwardly*

"We have a few more Tinkers in the bunch, and all of us put together can create some pretty amazig things. However- as you can see, something about that conversation set her off, so, uh, I'm gonna go make sure she doesn't try to make a cannon again. Can uh, someone come take our spots please? K thnx bye!"

A small bell icon popped up in the corner of Taylor's desktop screen, and she blinked. Her leisure time was up. The teen dragged her project into the 'Completed' folder of the Shared Drive and cleared her search history out of habit before shutting the computer down; the school's computers had an auto-format function to keep the systems as clean as possible, likely to make up for the terrible quality of the machines. They were almost seven years out of date- she was sure that Arcadia never had to put up with the terrible computers inflicted upon the students of Winslow.

The only consolation was that these machines were still better than the ones in the school's library, now those were positively Jurassic.

To be fair the computer she would be using at the public library wouldn't be much better either.

With her computer shut down and restarted, Taylor grabbed her bag and stood up, and waited by the door of the classroom for less than a minute until the bell. When the bell rang Taylor was out the door like a fast-walking shot.

Taylor was a bit surprised that the Trio hadn't beaten her to the front door, but that was fine in her opinion- fuck'em.

She walked down the cracked concrete front path of the school and moved down towards the bus lane in the school parking lot; she didn't ride the bus as she was only a few blocks from the school, but the students rushing and running to hop onto their yellow, vehicular escape pods provided her some cover. Not much considering the Tres Putas had the back of her head and slouched posture memorized by now, but it was enough to make a clean get-away sometimes. Auntie Zoe, when she was early, was more than enough to get Emma to let up lest her shrewish nature be revealed.

Her eyes were tracking her left, right, and rear- Taylor on the lookout for anything that might preclude something unpleasant. However, when she moved through the crowds waiting to get onto the busses and crossed the battle-scarred asphalt of the parking lot she was a bit surprised, pleasantly, to see that her tormenters were nowhere to be found.

Still, she didn't let herself relax.

She crossed the lot, got onto the sidewalk, and headed towards the bus stop down the street with her bus pass in hand. There was a group of Letterjacketed jocks that were walking behind her a few dozen paces, but they didn't seem to be paying her any mind. Her eyes went back forward to observe the bus stop, but when the jeering and grabass quieted down behind her she looked back to see the five teens- who were all a lot bigger and stronger than her- now eyeing her intently. One of them stepped a little too far to left, no longer concealing the thick roll of duct tape in the jock's hands behind him.

Upon meeting the eyes of the brown-haired boy and seeing his lip curl, Taylor knew that this was what Sophia had been referencing.

Taylor's heart began hammering in her chest and she felt her gorge rise. What the fuck were they going to do with duct tape of all things? Had this been before the Locker she would have assumed they would do something stupid like duct tape her to a light post, but after having almost been murdered by the Trio her mind went in a much, much darker direction.

She started sprinting down the street, rushing towards the bus stop as fast as her legs could carry her. She only looked back just once to confirm that they were chasing her- YES THEY WERE- and her eyes went back forward again, just in time to avoid smacking into a trashcan. She had a good lead on them to start with, but with every step she took they seemed to take two steps; their strides were longer and it was only a matter of time before they caught up to her.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel for her though- upon rounding the corner of the building and seeing down the street there was no one waiting at the bus stop. No one to help her. Tears spilled down her cheeks as her lungs felt like they were on fire. She had never run like this before, mainly because there had never been anywhere to run to- her tormenters were all in a box called Winslow and she was stuck with them. Running was pointless, at least until she got her powers and learned how to circumnavigate the school as quickly as possible.

She made it halfway down the street when one of the boys caught up to her and grabbed onto her backpack, dragging her backward before throwing her into the alleyway she was passing. A cry escaped her lips, but there wasn't anyone around to hear her. Tears fell freely as pain shot up her limbs as she tumbled down the alleyway, trash being tossed in all directions as her legs knocked over a can.

"A, haa-haa, fitting place for you, Heebert. Haa-haa. In the fucking trash." One of the boys- no, one of her attackers - spoke out. "Fucking making us chase you down, haa-haa, what a bitch."

"Can you believe this girl? Haa-haa," Another spoke out, but Taylor was too busy slipping her glasses back onto her face and trying her damnedest to not swarm these fuckers with her bugs. It would blow her identity, and would likely get her arrested, even though these boys attacked her.

"Fuck'n A, Heebert, shouldn't you be happy about, haa-haa, having some handsome guys like us chase after you?"

There was some chuckling as the assaulters resumed grabassing, then the attacker with the duct tape stepped forward and pulled a long length of it with a caustic 'sssshhhhhrrrrriiiiiittttttt'. "Don't fight us, and this will all be over soon-"

"You think this is enough for cause, 74?" A smooth feminine voice spoke out, and Taylor's head shot towards the roof of the building, and her jaw dropped at the sight of a woman in blue and white power armor. In her hand was a large revolver, and she spun the action on it before clicking it shut.

Another woman appeared right next to her, wearing the same armor with a slightly different color scheme- she also had a light jacket over the top of it. She held some kind of assault rifle in her hand, and she cocked it menacingly; the woman spoke in a heavy Russian accent. "Da, zis zhould be more zan enouv."

She hadn't felt any of them with her bugs. Granted there weren't that many on the roof-

"Oh, fuck." One of Taylor's attackers spoke, and they didn't even get to turn around before they were already under incredibly accurate fire- tranquilizer darts sprouting from one's shoulder, another catching his calf, another hitting a buttock, another the back of the thigh, and the final one in the forearm as he tried to vault over the trashcan that was knocked over.

They attempted to stand up, but within a few seconds they were stumbling listlessly and then slumped to the ground unconscious.

She hadn't even realized that she had been pulled out of the alleyway and sat down on the curb, the arms of the Russian woman wrapped around her while armored fingers carded through Taylor's hair. She was singing a song, but the words were in Russian. Though she didn't need to know what she was saying to take comfort in the gesture.

A few minutes later a squad car pulled up and two police officers got out, "Hey, Senior Patrolman Cox, and this my junior, Wilson. What do you got for us, Python?"

Taylor peeled her head away from the Russian woman's shoulder to look up at the woman named Python. Hadn't see seen her on the AMA photos? The woman's painted lips smiled weakly before they turned into a severe frown. "Five male suspects, possible juveniles, based on the Winslow letter jackets."

She held up a hand and fanned out five Winslow student ID cards before handing them over to the police officer, and upon seeing them he grunted under his breath. "Fucking christ."

"We started patrolling this area today, as part of our initiative to make sure the other gangs didn't get any ideas about the territory the Merchants lost. We were up on top of that building over there- had a clear sightline on the school. This young woman was walking across the street when the… suspects started to follow her. We observed one pull out an object, but we couldn't see what it was, so while we relocated to the next building for a better vantage point we caught sight of them chasing her down and tossing her into this alleyway."

She pulled out a tablet from the pouch on her back and tapped something, "If you'll permit me?"

"Please, Python, video is always King, show us what you got," the officer spoke before turning to mumble some words into the microphone attached to his lapel.

It was somewhat harrowing to hear her own ragged breathing play from the speakers on the tablet, and hearing the taunts and jeers made her skin crawl.

'sssshhhhhrrrrriiiiiittttttt'.

"Don't fight us, and this will all be over soon-"

Taylor shivered but she didn't shy away, the young woman swallowing and standing up on her feet; she didn't know when the blue and white blanket had been draped over her shoulders, but that didn't stop her from tugging it closed.

The grip the officer had on his handgun was tight enough that she could hear the plastic grip creaking. " Yeah, yeah , this would be more than enough. Hey, can you wake one of that fuck-knuckle up for me? The one in the middl, I want to ask him some questions."

"Certainly," Python reached down and a needle popped out of the tip of her pinky finger and she poked the attacker who'd had the duct tape.

Within a minute he started groaning, and when he came too the teen was wide-eyed and yelling- he tried to lash out but his wrists had been flexi-cuffed behind his back and his ankles were cuffed too. "Ahhhhhh! Shi-! Shi-! Fuck!"

The Officer spit on the ground and knelt down onto a knee. "Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, you understand me!? I said SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP! "

The att- boy did indeed shut up, but his chest was still heaving at a hundred miles per hour. "Yu-yes."

" Good, good. Now, this is how this is going to go down. I'm going to ask you some questions, and this is very important-"

"Uh, Officer Cox- we aren't supposed-"

"Shut the fuck up, Wilson. I know this boy's father, have all my life. If the Board wants to bench me they can do so, but not until after I find out why."

"M-mr. Cox, ah- I," He stammered out, but flinched when the officer's collapsable baton struck the concrete with a loud crack.

"You get one shot to answer me correctly, and depending on that answer you might be going away for a long, long time, Landon. You're almost 18, and with what you're looking at? That's enough to get you tried as an adult- 15 years at the minimum. Maybe more. You really want that? To go to the fucking Pen and get out when you're fucking 40?"

"Officer Cox, I must insist sir, you-"

"Shut the FUCK up, Wilson. If you can't comport yourself appropriately, then get in the fucking car." His tone was biting as he gestured at the vehicle with his baton.

The younger officer swallowed heavily, "I will be calling this in. Don't be surprised if the next car comes to take you into cuffs."

"Fucking let'im." He growled before turning his attention back to 'Landon', "Now, where was I? Oh, yes, 40 fucking years, Landon. Your parents might be long dead by the time you get out."

"Sh-she told us to! She told us to chas-chase Heebert down, rough her up a little bit! Sc-scare her! Let h-her know that she sh-shouldn't show up to school anymore! Th-thats it! I swear, Mr. Cox!" He blubbered with tears streaming down his face as he wiggled and squirmed like a… like a worm on the concrete.

"That's nice and all, but who, who told you?" He spoke again, much more softly this time, "Who told you to do it, Landon."

"Hess, she told us too," Landon spat out, "Had blackmail on Rich, caught him getting fucked by some dude who's a known skinhead. Said she'd spread the word and if his parents or that guy's family found out then Rich would end up dead; his boyfriend literally. You can't be a faggot and be in the Empire."

Taylor felt her jaw loosen up just a touch.

She… she had been terrified. Afraid for her life more than her virtue; that was just a thing, a thing she couldn't get back, but a thing nonetheless. Her mother had friends who could have helped her- her mother was sort of a wild feminist back in the day; Rape support groups were… distressingly common in Brockton Bay. Those women managed to survive the experience, some never recovered, but Taylor liked to think that she could come back stronger. Not a victim. Never a victim; her mother was the type to harp on that, but she didn't understand why her mother insisted on having a gun in the house while her father believed that most problems should be solved with his fists.

He still had that shotgun, though it was mainly just a prop for the dad jokes about when Taylor brought home a boy.

She understood now, what her mother meant. She was smaller than these boys. Weaker. There wasn't any conceivable way she could have fought her way out of this situation without resorting to eye-gouging and other things that were lethal. There was no telling what they would have done to her in retaliation, not that the threat of reprisal would have stopped her from ripping and tearing.

Taylor's eyes drifted to the two large revolvers on Colt Python's thigh plates. The woman caught her staring, and with a small smile, she pulled it out and reloaded it with some plastic-looking shells before spinning the cylinder shut with a resounding 'click'.

The firearm was the great equalizer between men and women.

'I get it now, mom.'

"Sophia Hess, who is that and why should I care?" The officer spoke more firmly this time, "I'm going to need evidence of that."

"Uh- Track Star. Black chick, athletic, super popular. B-back pocket of Rich over there, his phone should have the messages she sent him. S-she told him to delete them, but Rich didn't."

Python reached into 'Rich's' pocket and pulled out a phone before sliding a device onto the side of it, and the phone unlocked with a 'click'. "Got a copy of it. You want it?"

"Oh, I'm going to want everything," Officer Cox stood up and worked out his stiff knee, "Though you'll probably have to give it to someone else other than me. Put him back to sleep, will ya?"

Python pricked him again, and within a few seconds, he was dozing again.

Taylor could only stare at Landon's unconscious body.

It didn't absolve him. It didn't. However, it wasn't as cut and dry as she would have liked. She knew that the Empire made good on its promises to remove 'deviant elements' from their ranks. Not wanting his friend to be killed was admirable, but that didn't change the thrill and anticipation on his face as he pulled that duct tape out.

"Zis changes nothing, girl." The Russian woman spoke, "No matter vat, zese boys have no excuse."

They took her name and within a few minutes her father was called up, because of course every cop in the city knew her dad. The boys were picked up and dragged away, but the two Capes from Frontline stayed by her side the entire time.

Officer Cox was stripped of his badge and weapon belt, which he turned over with a smile on his face. Before his fellows moved him into a BBPD van he looked at her. "They ain't walking, kid. What I did was… shortsighted, but there ain't a District Attorney one that would advocate for those boys walking."

Taylor didn't understand. "Why are they taking Officer Cox away?"

Perhaps she should have paid more attention to Law & Order while she was home on her medical leave instead of just imagining drowning Emma in bugs.

"When it comes to minors under the age of 18, it's… illegal to question them without a parent or a lawyer appointed by a parent," Python spoke out calmly, the woman wrapping an arm over her shoulder- she was just tall enough to do so with her armored boots boosting her height, "It's possible that the boy's admission could be thrown out of the courtroom."

"So… so they'd just walk away?" Taylor hissed. Where was the justice in that!?

"No, only Landon's testimony would be thrown out, there are still four more suspects that weren't questioned, and I have an inkling that they'll roll over just as easily as he did," She shook her head, her tresses shaking in the slight breeze, "They won't want to take the fall for this Sophia Hess."

"Da, zis Hess seems to be khuite ze charaktar. No vey vill they take ze fall." The Russian cape sounded pretty damn sure, but that was cold comfort. Not that she would- could ever be angry at the first cop that looked like he gave a shit.

"Do you know anything about her? Why she's targeting you?" Python pressed gently, "Anything at all, it could help make the case against the boys a lot easier."

Taylor blinked. Should she? Could she? She held it in this long, but that was before- no one was willing to listen to her. Would they take her words more seriously now?

She winced. One of the biggest reasons she stopped screaming at the top of her lungs was because of her dad; how would he react if he learned that his best friend's daughter tried to murder her?

Though, wasn't that cat out of the bag already? He was on his way, and knowing her father it would be pedal to the metal with no fucks given. Hell, he might even get pulled over on the way down from the Docks.

She swallowed. This… was something she could do. With what happened here, with the testimony from her attackers this would be enough to re-open her case, right?

She wasn't going to cower. She could stand. She could overcome.

Taylor Hebert wanted to become a Hero, and how could she stand up to defend others if she couldn't stand up for herself?

"Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements attempted to murder me, back in January at the beginning of the school year," She began. It was hard, recounting the events again for the fifth time, but she had a feeling that this time would be different.

She didn't realize that two officers had stopped writing their reports and were now standing in front of her with pens writing furiously on paper, and when her father arrived, voice roaring and arms flailing, but despite his volatility Colt Python was able to calm him down with extraordinary care; it helped that she was a lot stronger than him with her power armor.

She didn't pay attention to him, not because she didn't care, but because the moment she acknowledged him the dam would burst and she would be in no state to tell her story again.

Already, unknown to the officers and Frontline capes, the swarms within the buildings were crawling around and fighting each other, tearing each other apart as she tried to dredge up every single memory of every hurt, every torment she suffered, and put it into words so that the officers flipping pages could capture everything. She would show them her notebooks. She would show them the nasty emails she printed off and give them access to her school emails. She would name names, of everyone who was present at her attempted murder and did nothing to help, and she would pray to God that there was some footage on their phones to make the case.

She prayed that Sophia Hess and Madison Clements would get what was coming to them.

After a moment she added Emma Barnes to that list as well. There was no way that she didn't help coordinate this assault.

She was her sister, but it wasn't Taylor who tossed her aside, it was the other way around.

When it was all said and done Taylor didn't see Python handing the police officers some SD cards. She didn't hear the Cape promise to take this public if this information got 'lost'.

All Taylor Hebert felt was her father's arms wrapped around her body and pulling her close, securing the blanket up around her and carrying her to the truck.

His thin arms never felt so strong before, nor his hands so big. Not since she was a little girl.

They drove home in silence, and after she got showered and changed into her clothes she crawled into her mother's bed and fell asleep in her father's arms.

Taylor Hebert had survived her ordeal. She made a promise that she would come out of this stronger than ever. More determined. She would be capable. She would never let this happen to her again.

She would become a great Hero, and protect others like Python and that nameless Russian cape that had protected her.

Chapter 11 - The Unexpected Collapse of a Modern Day Nazi Empire

[February 14th, 2011]

[Jason Wilke]

I felt my heart leap up into my throat as the Indias pinged me regarding one Taylor Hebert being chased down the street by five big jocks. I didn't need to give the order to engage because I didn't have to- my girls were all about helping people in need, and Python and AK-74U performed wonderfully. The fact that the Sophia Hess/Shadowstalker situation could be resolved without my direct need for interference meant that I didn't have to go for the whole shadowy benefactor deal that would have probably sent Taylor off the deep end.

My original plan had been to make up some really fancy glasses with a built-in camera and microphone and deliver it to her anonymously and have her take her justice into her own hands; recording every interaction and compiling it until she could get a confession out of the girls for her attempted murder. New Hampshire was a "Two-Party Consent" state, which meant that one party could not legally record another party without their consent… but there are exceptions when the recordings are to be used as evidence in criminal proceedings.

Dozens upon dozens of cases (or more) of physical Assault and Battery, and possible attempted murder and manslaughter charges if Sophia trying to push Taylor down the stairs was true. Not to mention something called 'Willful Emotional Assault' that was in the Earth Bet NH Code of Law that wasn't in the Aleph Code- I guess that the legislatures of Bet have taken the whole 'Trigger Event' angle pretty seriously even if most people didn't wrap their heads around severe physical and/or emotional trauma being the primary cause for 'power manifestation'.

I was going to let Taylor dig her own way out, not because I was a lazy ass, but because I didn't know if Taylor Hebert would have accepted someone swooping in and rescuing her. Most of my knowledge of her character comes from well after her triggering and the meteoric rise to the top as the defacto Queen of Escalation. If she could earn justice with her own two hands then she would probably be able to accept that instead of some dude coming out of nowhere and offering to magically fix all of her problems.

Though, upon reviewing all of the footage and seeing just how genuinely terrified she was… seeing the sheer relief when Python and AK-74U showed up… I quickly realized that she wasn't Skitter. She wasn't Weaver. She wasn't Khepri.

She was 'Just Taylor'.

A young woman who had been tormented and ignored, one who was jaded by the apathy or willful negligence of the system, but she still held true to her belief that the system wasn't inherently flawed until Armsmaster's Big Lie- his sequence of glory hounding fuck ups that culminated in him attempting to murder her during the Endbringer Truce and then subsequent unmasking of her afterward.

Even then though, I could be misremembering things- I had completely forgotten about Taylor's almost (possibly lethal?) experience that caused her to take up running every day to begin with. Most stories I'd read- fanfictions, obviously- had started out with Taylor having alt-powers or other somewhat significant changes to the original work, and most of them typically started around canon with the April or "Just a few days before going out to confront Lung" timeframe. A lot of those stories either completely glossed over the reason she started running to begin with or they had misconstrued it as a desire to be in better shape when she did go out for her first time as a Cape and completely forgot it was because she was almost chased down by some jocks 'hired' by Sophia.

I couldn't blame them, because I completely forgot about it as well. My memories from before my transformation were not perfect, the human mind forgot things, details both large and small, and the change to my Promethean and then Super Promethean physiologies couldn't magically re-make lost neural connections. My mind was a lot sharper now than it ever was before, but the enhancements came after.

So, something about whatever I was doing in the Bay caused a change somewhere that led to Taylor being just a touch less wary, which led to her being successfully chased down when before she had managed to escape.

Reviewing the footage a few times from her walk across the street I think I saw what could have made the difference- the primary one being she wasn't walking towards her home; she had her bus pass in her hand, so I could surmise that she was either going to the Boardwalk or towards the Library. Nugget pinged me and provided me with a search history from a school computer, it was shielded by a VPN which had its IP address listed in a different state on the other side of the country, but that was hardly a defense against the Nug. She had been reading the threads on my group, and with there being no computer at her house then that meant she was likely going to go to the Brockton Public Library.

The route from Winslow to her house had quite a few little alleyways and side streets that Taylor could have easily broken line of sight and changed direction, which would have allowed her to escape the jocks even with her shorter stride and comparatively worse cardio. The terrible thing is that even after getting chased down by said jocks in broad daylight knowing that it was Sophia that put them up to it Taylor would have just considered it par for the course and listed it as just another bullshit thing she was able to get away with- nobody would have believed her, not without proof.

I did not set up the patrol routes for the former Merchant territories and their surrounding holdings, that was left up to the discretion of Python, the leader of the Patrol Echelons. It was she and M16A1 that decided that even if the Winslow area and the surrounding blocks were considered "neutral" territory that all gangs laid claim to in some way shape or form - the gangs had junior gangers from all three in the same school without massive amounts of violence- Frontline needed to be visible patrolling and protecting important public infrastructure; especially in areas where the PRT and Protectorate did little to no patrolling of their own.

Schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and other public works that aided the community were to be visibly protected when the Protectorate mainly patrolled the nicer areas of town- the Suburbs, the Finanical District, City Hall, the Boardwalk, the Market, etc. With the limited amount of Capes there was only so much territory that they could reasonably cover, and protecting the commerce of the city was cruel calculus but effective. It was a no-win situation for Piggot, and she did the best she could with what she had, so while I wasn't mad (and a few others on PHO who were realists), that didn't mean the people who weren't being actively protected weren't.

That was where we stepped in. We stuck with maintaining the former Merchant territories for now, to discourage the gangs from moving in, but soon we would be expanding into all areas. I knew where Lung and Oni Lee lived, and I was now actively tracking them. Oni Lee, however, was one that was pretty frustrating because he was never far from Lung's side, and he only left it when the ABB Leader had a task for him to do.

However, trying to hit someone who could teleport within line-of-sight was a touch tougher than just putting a tranquilizer in a mundane non-powered Cape. So we were going to sit back and observe him for a little while, and figure out if he ever went out on his own- an ambush would be the easiest way to take him down; we only needed one dart on target and he would be removed from the fight. There were some concerns from the girls about how his teleport worked, but I was reasonably certain that if Skitter's bugs could stay on him during his teleports then anything injected into him would stay as well.

To facilitate this ambush I constructed a mobile sniper hide- it was essentially a plasteel coffin with anti-gravity and propulsion systems, complete with photoreactive paneling and active camouflage, that could float and move around to wherever and whenever it was needed. The marksman would lie within the hide and float around, waiting for the opportunity to strike- no need to post up in a particular building and hope that the target wanders into your sightline when you can simply relocate yourself in the sky and make your own sightline.

The Indias felt like they were onto some sort of pattern with Oni Lee already, but there wasn't enough information to determine if it was random or not. In the weeks we've been observing him he's gone out four times- once in the south ABB territories and thrice in the northern holdings- and made his way to a great many locations to speak with ABB Lieutenants; the teleporting cape receiving information from the un-powered members that Lung didn't want having an electronic paper trail of. The dates seemed random- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday- the times were narrowed down to 'after sunset and before sunrise'.

Not a lot to go off of, but I had a feeling that if we observed long enough we would see the rest of the days in the week get a chance to be chosen; was Lung using some sort of randomizer or did he just send Oni Lee out whenever it suited his mood? Lung had no problems calling his Lieutenants to come to him personally and gather whenever he had information to disseminate, so he didn't appear to use the ash-porting parahuman for anything other than a trusted man to go around and collect information; though that didn't rule out the possibility of him using Oni Lee as an emergency telephone, it was ultimately irrelevant.

The Empire, by contrast, was much better organized, and thusly much easier to track. Nugget and the Indias were able to come up with whole web-charts and heat maps of everything happening within Empire territory; text messages, phone calls, emails, and geo-location tracking data. We knew everything about them- if Kaiser was fucking his Scandanavian beauties over the table in his office we knew about it. If Alabaster was watching porn but unable to actually enjoy it because his body reset itself every four seconds then I knew what he was watching (he had shit taste). If Hookwolf was sending out a bounty to his underlings to find dogs for the next series of fights then I knew who each text went to.

We were monitoring their every communication in and out of Brockton Bay, from their suppliers of raw materials that they used to create their designer drugs to their messages and reports to the Gesellschaft in Germany and the Herren Clan in Virginia.

We started war-gaming their take-down, and drew up operational plans that would begin tonight. They had numerous distribution centers who pushed their narcotics out to over a hundred street dealers, though some of these dealers wore pressed shirts and dangled baggies in front of the wealthy socialites; their drugs were powerful and surprisingly not that physically addictive, but it was the mental addiction to that supreme high that kept the customer hooked.

'It wasn't harmful, there was no physical addiction, and it won't show up on any drug test, so what was the big deal?'

Only one part of that statement was true, and that was the part about it not showing up on any standard employer drug screening. Drug tests had to be tailored to detect specific narcotics, and must drug test kits only tested for the most commonly available drugs either for technical or financial reasons. A lot of common test kits looked for weed, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and maybe one or two other drugs. You couldn't have one test kit that did them all.

The Empire, using Medhall's medical pharmaceutical research, discovered how to create a powerful drug using the byproducts of their legal prescription manufacturing process, and through the use of Gesellschaft tinkers on loan, creating a stable, reproducible formula. Subee had already reversed engineered a small sample taken from some of the drug stashes we recovered from the Merchants; those people stole everybody's drugs- ABB or Empire.

The Forge reached out and popped a tiny star from the "Time" constellation into my orbit like one would pop a skittle into their mouth.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0020 - Rapid Construction - 50CP - Blazing Saddles - Time]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

It was a pretty powerful Perk and would have been extremely useful if I wasn't already beyond that with the Huragoks- though as I gain more knowledge, talents, and skills this will likely be worth far more than its own weight in CP. Essentially it allowed me to make and repair things up to ten times as quickly, though the higher I cranked the time dilation on the perk the quality of my work would suffer via Fiat; at double the speed I suffered no penalties, but the quality would be reduced by a percentage that capped out at 70% if I used the full 10 times increase.

A little testing in the Enchantment lab concluded that this perk applied to my construction of Glyphs as well. Speaking of testing, we concluded that constructing T-Dolls in the Skyforge led to a 30% increase in strength and durability, but it did not affect speed, reflexes, senses, or anything else; Qi - Type 95- and all of the PR Team T-Dolls were now on par with me strength-wise and were actually about 19% more durable than I was now, but I still had the edge with my other enhancements.

The Hill Base - or HQ- as we were now calling it, had finished its construction after I created new mining and construction robots during the intervening days. It was roughly 50-square meters in size per floor, with ten floors that were 3.0 meters tall; the protection of the amulet was listed at 100 paces, but that was a 100-pace sphere. As long as one T-Doll wearing the amulet was anywhere within our Headquarters then the entire installation would be protected.

The Engineers had one of the mining robots drill a 4.2 mile long, 1 meter in diameter tunnel from the bottom of the hill to the ocean and back again, thus removing our visibility problem when it came to nanomaterial gathering. Ocean water was pumped into the facility via one-foot diameter plasteel pipes and gravity took it back down to the ocean.

The nanomaterial collection room was a small cube that had thick beskar walls that could be sealed if/when Leviathan made his appearance; a conveyer belt was installed so that the girls wouldn't have to waste time walking back and forth- the conveyer would automatically move the collected nanomaterials into one of four large mobile containers that would be moved into the warehouse every other day and replaced with empty containers.

The HQ had a very nice dining facility, plenty of bedrooms, storage space, and recreational facilities. It did have a shooting range that could be repurposed into a small shoot house but it wasn't useful for much more than small areas; it would be expanded the moment I got other precognitive protections, but for now, most of the training would remain in the very large hangar.

Much as advertised on the tin, the Hangar space expanded as we constructed the Globetrotter, almost tripling the size of the Hangar as that we could completely unfold the wings and still have room on either side.

This meant we had more storage space for nanomaterials, which was great because the four rectangular silos were already fully capped, even with all of the construction we'd been doing. This surplus was because we could use plasteel in the majority of our construction projects that didn't need more important materials due to the massive 400% increase in durability it receive when items were created in the Skyforge.

With its supremely insane strength-to-weight ratio, and the 1:15 nanomaterial conversion ratio- combined with Forerunner molecular structuring squeezing every last drop of potential out of it (no matter what its purpose)- there was no reason to not use it.

Aside from thin beskar plating to absorb initial stresses on important structures, we essentially built the entirety of the Globetrotter out of plasteel; Phrik, Ultrachrome, Cortosis, Beskar, and Vibranium were used where needed, but the whole aircraft came out to a weight that was nearly 55% lighter than the first drafts.

Really, it was fucking amazing.

I was giddy as shit walking through the Globetrotter's interior bays, inspecting the mobile surgical cubes, and sitting in the pilot's chair- though Echo-425 and 426 would be the pilot and co-pilot respectively.

Though, as cool as that was, however, I had things I wanted to get taken care of, like shoring up support by extending a partnership with local capes that were in good standing.

There were a half-dozen that I wanted to pick out first, if only because they were spread throughout the city, had good track records low-damage arrests, consistent captures, and were in good standing with the PRT and Protectorate. Oh, and because they were veterans who knew how to keep their heads down and didn't bite off more than they could chew.

No, it wasn't just because they gave me the time of day when I was first starting out.

I sent them all a message on PHO, and it read a little something like this:

"Hello, XXXXXXXX, I don't know if you remember me or not, but you and I spoke about a month and a half ago; I was a freshly triggered Cape looking for information so that I didn't get myself killed. You helped me out, giving me clear information with the intent of not seeing my name in the obituaries, and that really helped me out.

I was able to smartly keep my head low thanks to your warnings, and now I've found myself with an amazing, capable team to help me out and watch my back. I've come a long way in a short amount of time with them to supply me and fund my research, but I never forgot the Independent Veterans that helped me not lose my head.

I'd like to extend a hand to you for a small little partnership program; my companions told me that the PRT's program would be more than unfavorable, but I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself.

We think that we can do one better.

Power armor crafted by me to help protect you, and a tranquilizer gun and ammunition to help facilitate your arrests in a safe and effective manner.

I won't ask for your information or your plans but considering you are a hometown hero that just wants to keep the peace in your little slice of the community that is more than enough for Frontline. It will aid us greatly if we can have your support in keeping the Bay safe, so if having someone in your corner is something that interests you, then we can set up a meeting anywhere you'd like and go over details.

Stay safe, and good hunting,

~Horizon, Frontline."

So far, only Stormwall and Stardust had messaged me back- Trickshot and Pothole read my message but hadn't responded, and the other two hadn't even seen the message.

Stormwall and Stardust were definitely interested, but they had stipulations, one of which was to fulfill our promise to remove the other two gangs from Brockton; the Merchants in their eyes were the low-hanging fruit, and while they both were extremely excited to have better protection and options for keeping the street-level crime out of their neighborhoods, the affiliation with us would paint a target on their backs.

They assured me though that if we nailed the ABB and E88 to the wall then they would have no issues dedicating more time to patrolling their areas so that Frontline didn't have to. We still would, of course, as working hand in hand with them was more beneficial than not, but it meant we didn't have to permanently station a patrol team in that area and could swing by it less frequently.

"Commander," I blinked and looked up from the Corvette that I had picked up two days ago; I had a manual that I downloaded as well as a bunch of spare parts I fabricated after going over the thing with the Dead Space Engineer perk to find all of the faults. I did this all while three fairly high-quality cameras that would be edited into time-lapses and jump cuts by Artie. She would simulate day and night, breaks, chow time, and everything else that would make this appear to be a genuine amateur editing job that would slowly grow more polished as time went on.

It would be posted to the website that we purchased for the business in order to gin up interest; with the Blazing Saddles perk, I was able to go through and diagnose most of the problems within record time.

I would have the Huragoks come in and finish everything up once the cameras were off.

"Yes, Qi?" I smiled at Type 95 as I pulled the respirator off of my face and pulled the plastic hood down; I had just finished up filming a few minutes of stock footage for the painting of the car, and Artie and Nugget would work in a CGI of me copying other car painting videos as a base with my body motions.

"The girls are ready to adopt some animals, and are asking if they can convert a floor of the HQ into a pet place since having the pet location in Skyforge seems a bit dangerous with all of the construction that occurs there." The busty Chinese rifle strolled forward and pecked my lips, and not satisfied with that I bit her bottom lip to stop her from retreating and I deepened the kiss. When I was happy with the level of kissing only then did I break it.

"As long as they make sure the animals get some time outside in a nice fenced-in area and they make sure the Lifegivers look after their health, I have no problem with them picking up some cats and dogs and the like," My lips quirked up as I saw her emerald green eyes sparkle.

She grinned beatifically and kissed me once more, "The girls will be so happy to hear that, Commander!"

I grew more than just a little hard, but that could be saved for someplace that wasn't a barn that smelled like paint, no matter the size of the industrial fans I had set up to exhaust the fumes; it still met state codes though, so anyone coming to investigate could suck it. We had another barn constructed little by little that contained a fully stocked machine shop and forging station, though that was merely to showcase how we were able to get parts so quickly - we made our own with laser-accurate CNC milling tools.

I created a little nook for one of the Echos to hang out in up in the loft of the barn, behind a barrier that artfully looked like shelving and the like, and with a whistle the Huragok floated down and ran over the vehicle, fixing some faults, smoothing out some dents (but not too perfectly, mind you), and then he finished the painting process up by simply dipping his tendrils into the paint and feathering them out. It took him less than twenty seconds to float around the car, and the reason it took him so long was that it was harder for him to not do it perfectly than it was for him to be molecularly accurate; like there was a dissonance that he had to work through to make his work inferior.

None of the Engineers liked this duty, if anything it was treated like any employee would treat bathroom cleaning duty.

It was adorable to see whoever had it shudder in disgust. Granted, everything they did was super cute and totally amazing. These bois and gurls could literally do no wrong in my eyes. They were the perfect being, no doubt.

The Forge spun up and grabbed onto a small star from the "Mundane Small Scale" constellation and pulled it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 9.0030 - Inexhaustible QE Comm-Link - 100CP - Eclipse Phase - Mundane Small Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I already had access to quantum entanglement technology from the Forerunners, but that tech was prohibitively expensive to create and use because QE pairs were inherently a limited resource with qubits being expended as data is transmitted; once they were expended then they were expended. There was no recharging them or remaking them; they were gone. Because of that I mainly stuck with Forerunner communication bands that operated on a very different frequency scale and thus were rendered invisible to most if not all scanners, though that might not be true for the Shards themselves… they were bullshit like that.

With this perk, I now had access to completely untraceable, unhackable, point-to-point communications that were so much more efficient than the existing Forerunner tech that it would make the Huragok's heads explode. The qubits were able to freely move between the entangled pair without expending their energy, but as a consequence, I had about as much bandwidth as a 10-gigabit connection. More than enough to stream live video, sensor data, and information feeds at incredibly high resolutions; this would be applied to all of our equipment.

It wasn't perfect, however, as we would have to design a sort of switchboard system to link everything together. They were quantum-entangled pairs , meaning there were two of them- they could only talk to each other and nothing else. So we would have to rig up a system to link all of the "back half" portions of the QECs into a network so that every piece of equipment we had could talk to one another. I pinged Enbee and had him dig through his database so that we could start looking at how to build one- the Forerunners had QEC tech, so they must have a system already to put all of those capabilities together.

As a consolation prize to Echo 23 who helped me with the car, I let him have at the QEC communicators first before sending him into the warehouse while I pulled the finished Corvette Stingray out of the barn with some liquid wax and some shop towels. Qi and I worked together over the next 15 minutes to give it a good coating even though it didn't really need it, and then I poured a five-gallon can of gas into the tank, added the other essential fluids into their respective reservoirs, and then cranked the bad boy up.

The 5.7-Liter engine started right away with a beautiful throaty rumble, and it idled like a dream; the car was practically factory new, and its candy-apple red paint gleamed in the sunlight.

Aw yiss.

I took a few photos of the vehicle from all sides, and Artie would edit out the backgrounds with some generic crappy CGI showroom background that we purchased as part of the online automobile retail pack along with the website.

I pulled out my phone and sent Arthur a message, letting him know that the car was done and that I was just waiting for the clear coat to cure overnight before I delivered it to him.

Soon enough the business would be taking off in full, and I could have to dedicate about half an hour of each day to create the footage for the videos for a single-vehicle. We would build up a backlog of vehicles before purchasing a space and turning it into the car lot, though that was a little bit down the road.

For now, though I had a nice little PR patrol to do with some of the girls before we started our operations tonight against the Empire.

[3:00PM, Financial District]

I wore a much less aggressive (and defensive) version of my armor, but even if it was less imposing I still kept the signature shape of my helmet. We started our patrol in the Old Ferry district before working our way up through the Financial District, through New Wave's territory, and into the Boardwalk. From there we would move into North Ferry, into the East Slums, through the Market, and up towards the Boat Graveyard. This was a visibility and PR patrol, so interacting with the public and getting myself out there as the leader of Frontline was important.

Patroling with me were UMP9 and Five-Seven, clad in their PR armors and looking damn fine; Five-Seven kept her hair up in its signature ponytail while UMP9 ditched her twin-tails and had her red hair in a simple french braid- while the twin-tails were quite cute on anime girls, in real-life they looked a lot less cute. Besides, these were adult women, serious women, and twin-tails kind of flew in the face of that.

We stopped by almost every citizen that wanted to chat or take photos, either of us posing or with selfies, but we kept our interactions with the layperson on the street professionally short, as we did need to arrive at our destination. Most of the citizens were quite used to this, as they had plenty of experience with the Protectorate and Wards patrolling in this manner, so for now we didn't have any weirdos or crazies trying to ambush us. Brockton News 4 was filming a short news piece about one of the city roads being repaired in the Financial District and took the opportunity to ask us how we felt about it.

I made sure to mention that as Capes our duties were to protect the citizenry and not fix potholes, especially when that would take away valuable work from the City and from the Dock Worker's Union that had been tapped to provide manpower. We kept it open that if there was ever any serious damage that was outside the abilities of the city to provide a swift response to, then the Mayor could reach out to us anytime and we would provide whatever assistance we could to ensure a speedy recovery.

People needed to be able to get to work, and if the roads were too damaged to allow for safe passage then of course we would help! It was what Frontline did- we helped people.

I used that as an opportunity to talk about a few charity events we would be holding, as well as announcing an initiative to not only heal the damages done by the gangs but to improve them. We would be opening talks with the 2254 Builders Union and the Dockworkers Unions as well as City Hall to begin putting together plans for housing renovations and revitalization projects within the Bay Area, focusing on citizen infrastructure -Housing, Utilities, Shopping- and the like.

It would take time, however, as there are laws that needed to be observed and regulatory bodies that needed satisfying, but help would be on the way.

All of it paid for by the gangs, and we oh so thanked them for their contributions to the city and its people; it was only fitting that their ill-gotten gains that were stolen from the people be returned to the people in a fashion that would benefit the city and the people.

Jenna Roberts, the correspondent from Brockton 4 who had once looked like death warmed over, was now grinning from ear to ear once she finished shooting the segment with me; likely her task of taping a story on the filling of potholes from last month's E88/Protectorate brawl was the bane of her existence. Now though? I probably helped her get a seat at the news desk, or at least got her off the scutwork stories.

We got to stop a purse snatching, but that was about it- I didn't even put the guy to sleep either; just caught him, flexi-cuffed him, and waited for the local BBPD patrol car to come by and pick him up after I gave them a copy of the foot pursuit.

It was boring and mundane, but I honestly couldn't bring myself to hate it, or even dislike it really; it was a fulfilling task, and I knew that my girls felt the same way about it.

We reached the Boardwalk around 5:30 PM, and we had a great time, honestly. This was where the meat and potatoes of the PR came in- the Boardwalk was aglow with life as families and teens fresh out of school came around and enjoyed the mild Brockton winter to shop at the boutiques, eat good food, and have fun.

Here at the Boardwalk all of the troubles that the city was experiencing seemed so far away, and that was by design; the City kept more than a few police officers on permanent duty here, and the Boardwalk owners also kept up a pretty sizeable private security team that everyone called the 'Enforcers' because of their black uniforms and stern expressions. If you caused trouble here then you were ejected with surprisingly alacrity, and if you tried to do something silly like steal- from the businesses or the people enjoying the venue- then you were handed directly over to the BBPD.

This was a spot where all the people of the city gathered- rich and poor- and there was an excellent variety of shops that could be shopped in the same price range of your budget; for the very poor there was a pair of thrift shops, one ran by the Salvation Army and the other ran by the Sisters of Jesus, out on the outskirts of the Boardwalk. They didn't want the ultra-poor or homeless coming into the Boardwalk proper, but there were still a pair of Enforcers that protected the place so that people could get what they needed.

Because of that, we could interact with everyone from around the city at one time.

We took photos, answered questions, gave autographs, and generally acted as proper heroes should while doing a PR patrol; no one could say that we were wasting time because we had multiple other teams moving around on the hunt.

Taylor's chase had occurred around 3:35 PM, after Winslow had gotten out, so I had Python and Nugget compile everything we knew about the case and put it into a nice little packet, and emailed it to the PRT's Public Affairs section.

We were concerned citizens who found out about an attempted murder that possibly caused a Parahuman Trigger event, and according to the victim it was investigated but "nothing was found" after it had been taken out of the Brockton Bay PD's hands and placed into the PRT's.

Included in that was all of the video footage from the chase, the admission from the Landon boy, along with everything else that Taylor spoke about including a complete transcript, with allllllllll the names she named. We requested that they seriously consider looking into the case because there seemed to be criminal neglect and malfeasance of public officials, among a multitude of many other crimes that were listed.

Of course, we made no indication that we had any real information, but we were simply compiling everything that we had gained and were sendng it their way to deal with. As a 'heads up'. As a 'you probably already know everything we're sending you, but you should probably look into this a bit more closely if you haven't'.

We of course made note that we would aid them in any way we could, as cooperation between us was paramount. That and if we didn't get a response from Director Piggot in receipt in a timely fashion then we would send it to her directly.

I wanted to see what kind of hoops Coil would have to jump through to try and stop that from getting through. He was probably tearing his hair out in frustration, as we had every patrol route swing through his area, well within the 100 paces needed to cancel out his precognition, and occasionally a patrol would swing through his neighborhood and near the PRT building for good measure.

Fuck that guy.

I almost cried though when I missed an awesome Perk by half a measly charge.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 13.0020 - 0-D for Dummies - 200CP - Megas XLR - Database Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 150 CP]

Take back the Rapid Construction Perk! I don't really need it! Give me my 50CP back!

My lamentations were cut short as I posed with a young boy, roughy eight years old who sat astride my shoulders while we both held out 'peace signs', the smiley-face emoji on my visor. I felt a 'knock' on the front door to my mind.

I blinked.

[QUERY: ADORE HOST?]

I mentally blinked and locked the door. It knocked again, more insistently this time.

[REQUEST: ADORE HOST.]

It tried again, the Shard pounding on the metaphorical door, but the amulet held strong; it did feel it begin to absorb a little more mana though, but it was almost unnoticeable.

[COMMAND: ADORE HOST!]

I felt relieved to know that the mental protections were indeed working just fine. I turned my head and looked up at Glorly Girl as she lowered in altitude, with her hands on the hips of her white dress and a beaming smile on her face, though it sort of faltered once she touched down and looked up at me. "Hello, Glory Girl."

I looked at the parents standing in front of me- their eyes wide and faces smiling rapturously. With a small heft, I picked the kid up and sat him on the ground, and he too was looking as though a fairy had just descended from the sky and offered to take him to Neverland where he could laugh, and fly, and play all day without his parents telling him to go to bed.

UMP9 and Five-Seven were less than impressed.

I tilted my head as she grinned, "Hello, to you too, Horizon. Fancy seeing you out here."

A waving emoji flickered across my helmet and I motioned for her to walk with us, "Well, I do have to get out into the public sometime- I spend a lot of time tinkering and maintaining parts of our equipment, but that doesn't mean I can't come out and get some sun on my skin. Interact with the public, help people put a person to the name."

She hovered after us instead of walking, and I led her over to the side of the Boardwalk towards the ocean railing. There were people standing around us, but I reached into my back pouch and pulled out a small device that would keep our words from getting out. A small blue sphere projected from it, causing her to flinch, but then the bubble became invisible. Five-Seven and UMP9 went off to distract the rest of the people.

"Relax, GG. It's to prevent sound from getting out since we can't exactly have this conversation in private." I spoke calmly.

Victoria made a noise in the back of her throat as she nodded, "Oh? Armsmaster has one of those! Pretty neat."

"So, what's this you got for me? Some secret information?" Her pearly whites were revealed, "Or maybeeeee you want me to help you in your next big bust?"

I shook my head, "Actually, no, I was asking that you turn your Master aura off. It's very, very annoying."

She blinked. "What?"

"Don't 'what' me, Glory Girl, your Master Aura is cranked at full-blast, or do you not pay attention to your surroundings? Do you think that every person naturally just looks at you like you're God's Gift to Capes? Turn your shit off , Miss Dallon."

She looked around, and despite the Capes standing right in front of them, the people only had eyes for Victoria Dallon. Her face flushed red and with a look of concentration on her face, I felt Fragile One's insistent knocking lessen from my mental front door. I let out an audible sigh.

"Oops?" She had the wherewithal to appear sheepish.

"No, not 'Oops'," I shook my head, "That is by definition 'Assault with a Parahuman Ability', Miss Dallon. Forcing mind-altering effects onto someone is a felony, even if it's just awe or fear. The law makes no distinction."

"I think that maybe you're getting something mixed up," She frowned severely, her fists rising higher from her hips to her waist as if that would make her any more imposing. Or maybe she was going for… Official? "For your information, it's a Shaker effect. Shaker. I've been cleared by the PRT."

"No, it's only a Shaker sub-class, because it is Area of Effect Aura , Miss Dallon. Any sort of mind-altering effect, be it emotional manipulation or otherwise, garners a Master sub-rating. To quote the PRT Classification Guide: 'Masters are parahumans that are either able to manipulate others or to create minions to do their bidding.

They can do this through a variety of ways, including, but not limited to: Building or creating minions, empowering existing minions - like rats, cats, birds, dogs- or manipulating inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah, and the ability to control other people actively or passively, either directly or by manipulating emotions or attitudes. '"

"As someone who attends Parahuman studies courses at Brockton University and is no newcomer to the scene, you should know that already, Miss Dallon," I shook my head, "Now what I don't know is if you can turn it off or not, but what I do know is that I don't appreciate being beaned in the head by your powers telling me to be in awe of you."

Her lip curled up and her fists tightened.

[DEMAND: BE FEARFUL]

"And now it's telling me to be afraid," I hold my hand up as I gesture to the assorted people now looking as though she was about to start going on a rampage, "Victoria Dallon, if you do not get a handle on yourself right this instant I will take you down. You are frightening the public and assaulting me with your Parahuman power. Cease. Now. "

I saw a mousy, brown-haired girl stride up in white and red robes while holding a very large cup of coffee in her hand. Her lips were moving as she fast-walked to Victoria, the bubble prevented her warning hisses from reaching us. It was only when Amelia Dallon crossed the threshold of the bubble that she was able to be heard. "-cky! What the hell are you doing!? Are you listening to me!? Turn your damn aura down!"

"A-Ames! S-sorry!" As if she had just been knocked out of a trance the blonde stopped bowing up on me, "I didn't hear you coming!"

"I told you not to go and bother them, Vicky, you know I have a shift at the hospital in like fifteen minutes! Now isn't the time to be socializing, not when I have work to do," She huffed before turning to me, "So, Horizon, right? What are you here for?"

"You mean other than trying to handle a situation without drawing everyone's attention to it? Doing a PR patrol, same as everyone else," I let my hands rest calmly at my sides.

Her eyes narrowed as her lips thinned, "Well, that sounds nice. Anyway, let's go, Vicky."

The grumpy healer grabbed her sister by the wrist and tried to tug her away, but she stopped when I spoke up.

"I'm willing to let this go for now, Miss Dallon, but the next I will be contacting your mother and we will be having words."

When I finished Panacea began tugging even harder.

"Excuse me? Hold up, hold up, hold on Ames, just wait," She pulled her arm free from Amy's grasp as she hovered up and got in my face, "Did you just threaten to call my mom on me?"

"Indeed I did," I tilted my head to the side, "Or would you prefer to make this a spectacle? I didn't pull you over here just to lambast you, Glory Girl, if anything I even went out of my way to make sure that no one from the public would overhear anything. Your Aura was way too strong and it was affecting everyone around us, that is a simple statement of fact. I pulled you away from the civilians so you could attempt to get a handle on your… Shaker effect… however it appears that you lack the control you should have over your powers."

"I can't control it!" She ground out, the young woman floating forward to brush against my chest.

The fuck is wrong with this girl? Was her shard so put off with my noncompliance that it was edging her conflict drive? Granted, I am being a touch confrontational, but asking to not have Master powers blasted at me and the civilians around us is not asking for too much. Right?

"Firstly, back off, Glory Girl. I haven't invaded your space, do not do so to me. Secondly, you can get a handle on it, I'm am sure of it, however, I believe the issue is that you haven't had a need to because no one was willing to tell you about yourself. You've been blasting everyone in the vicinity for the past five minutes, Miss Dallon, and that is not acceptable." I firmed my stance up, "You still have a chance to turn this whole thing around, but getting up in my face and threatening me is not the way of doing things. If you won't listen to me then maybe you will listen to your mother, which is the reason I said I would."

" You- you are a real big asshole, aren't you?" She grit her teeth, but she relaxed immediately; I couldn't miss the fact that Amy was holding onto her bare wrist.

"I'm only an asshole to people who are actively committing a crime, Miss Dallon, which you are and have been. By all rights, I should be arresting you and waiting for the Protectorate to show up. The only reason I'm not is because New Wave has done its part to help the Bay over the years. I will remind you that I did not go out of my way to call you out, out of respect, but that respect is rapidly dwindling."

"Vicky? Vicky. Let's go, Vicky," Panacea looked at me venomously, but unlike her sister, she seemed to grasp just how bad this situation was- there were phones out and everyone was staring.

"Fine, whatever," The blonde huffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder before she looked over to Amy, "Let's go, Ames."

I chose not to respond with how juvenile that was, but I nodded as the pair walked out of the bubble and watched as Panacea was scooped up by her sister and flown into the sky. UMP9 walked over with a frown on her face, "That got pretty tense, Horizon."

"Yeah, it was indeed, but it needed to happen; Victoria Dallon is more than capable of controlling her Aura, it's just no one has kicked her in the ass about it. Hopefully, she'll buckle down and get her head in the game, but I won't hold my breath," I replied as I turned off the device and stowed it back into my pouch, "Shall we continue?"

"Indeed, let's," Her smile returned and we resumed our patrol on the Boardwalk.

While we walked I had Nugget package the little interaction with Victoria, scrubbing it of the HUD and data, compressed it to a smaller file format, and then sent it to New Wave's Inbox with a title, "How do you want to handle this?"

I included in it my phone number and other contact details so that we could set up and time to talk, whether in costume or over the phone, public or private. There was a lot that I could stomach, but being beat over the head by Fragile One every time myself or my girls had an interaction with New Wave was not one of them.

I was a bit surprised to feel the Forge try to dip into the "Time" cluster for the second time today, but alas the Forge did not have enough charges to budge one of the largest stars in it.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0400 - One-Man Assembly Line - 600CP - XCOM - Time]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

It was seven PM when I got a call from a Brockton Bay area code number. The timing was poor because we were just about to have dinner in the cafeteria of HQ, but I tapped the blinking green icon and lifted the phone to my ear. "This is Horizon, is this Carol Dallon or another representative of New Wave?"

"Hello, this is Sarah Pelham, Lady Photon, from New Wave. I would say that it was nice to finally speak with you- I've seen your team on patrols a few times and we've had some nice chats- but unfortunately, I'm calling about your… altercation with Victoria."

"I would hardly call it an 'altercation', Lady Photon, we merely had some words, but from the looks of it that very well could have escalated, and that would not have been on me," I spoke firmly- Lady Photon was the nominal leader of New Wave, their representative and peacemaker. As far as I knew she did a good job with her two children, Shielder and Laserdream, but while she wasn't Victoria Dallon's mother, she was her nominal team leader.

We chatted back and forth, keeping the conversation calm and very professional, though it was dinner time and I was hungry, so I eventually guided the phone call to the end of its natural conclusion. "Well, thank you for calling me so that we could get this straightened out, Lady Photon. I understand that Victoria is still a teenager, but she is not a child; as a Hero there are certain standards that we have to adhere to. I will leave it at this and we can let it all be water under the bridge; Frontline obviously wants what New Wave wants, and that is a good relationship so that we can keep Brockton Bay safe."

"I think I can speak on behalf of New Wave when I say that we want the same thing, Horizon, so thank you for bringing this to our attention."

'And not out into the public' was left unsaid.

"There is just only one more thing we need to cover so we can both get back to our business; I was just about to eat dinner with the team, maybe do some tinkering after," I chuckled warmly.

There was some very noticeable curiosity in her voice, "Oh? And what might that be?"

That was when I dropped the hammer, "I would like for you to have Victoria retract her statements on PHO and issue a public apology for it."

"What?" She sounded like I just socked her in the chin.

I nodded with a hum, "Yes, I'm looking at a PHO thread she created where she is calling me a 'self-important jerk' among some other things. I didn't realize trying to warn someone off committing a felony low-key was enough to garner such a response."

"What?" She was breathless.

"Yup. It just hit the 'trending' and the view count just popped up by two thousand views. I just refreshed the page, actually, so you might want to get on that, quickly. We'll accept the apology and move on, but I don't think I need to say that this doesn't happen again, right?"

"O-okay," Sarah Pelham spoke, "Victoria-! Victoria Dallon-! "

The line cut out there and I sighed in relief. Dealing with friendly capes was hard- gangers were much easier.

I stood up from the lounge chair in the aptly named lounge room and walked back into the Cafeteria where Enbee was waiting for me with a plate of meat in tentacle with a little chef's hat on his head.

Mah boi!

[February 15th, 2011]

[2:39 AM, Hospital District]

The two Hospitals in Brockton were only a few blocks apart from each other, you have Saint Mary's and Brockton Bay Central Hospital just a few streets over- they were situated on different main roads that acted as the arteries that connected the city together.

Typically, when it came to gangs, the hospitals and other key infrastructure was supposed to be neutral territory, as everyone needed a place to get their gangers patched up after a fight. More often than not they were getting patched up before being put into a police van to be taken "downtown", so to speak. However, with the revolving door of justice, most gangers barely spent the minimum amount of time behind bars until they were paroled out. All they had to do was wait a year or two, maybe three if the crime was particularly bad, and they would be back in the Bay with smiles on their faces and a beer waiting in the hands of their compadres.

With Parahuman criminals it was even worse- most barely spend a week inside the PRT jail cells before they're either broken out or rescued during transport.

You have helicopters! Use them to transport the prisoners! What are they going to do, shoot down the aircraft holding their friend? Not even Purity would be so dumb at to do that- what was the guarantee that she could blast her friend out of the aircraft and catch them before they splatted against the ground? There had to be some reason it wasn't done, but in my mind it wasn't worth risking the gang Capes that were just arrested from getting out.

Hell, Hookwolf had a bodycount that surpassed most in the Bird Cage, and that was including the people they killed while inside of it. Oni Lee's official kill count was right up there with him, and no one knows exactly how many Lung has killed. Kaiser's body count was just beneath the threshold, but a Kill Order should have been signed by Costa-Brown for Hookwolf, Lung, and Oni Lee.

In fact, I sent a ping to Nugget to type up a polite email to Piggot asking why there haven't been Kill Orders placed; the criteria was quite public, and they certainly qualified. Should I press it?

That was the question. PHO could be a powerful tool, and while I was riding the hype train the public would rally around me, though the moment I started pressing for Kill Orders to be signed- even if the public felt the same- that was when optics could become bad.

Anyways, I'm digressing.

The Hospitals should be neutral territory, and in any other city it would be because the territory of important public locations like it were protected by the criminal elements under a sub-section of the Unwritten Rules, and that rule is 'You don't shit where you eat' .

However, the Empire doesn't seem to subscribe to these rules, not that I do either, but the six simultaneous raids we were conducting on small little stash houses and an observation outpost- one in an apartment in front of each hospital- was to be the first salvo against the Empire 88. However this was only one action that we would be taking tonight- there were nineteen locations we would be hitting tonight.

With our surveillance, we only needed a three-man team for each location near the hospitals since the number of gangers were few, and taking them out quietly was as easy as it had ever been. After taking down the first six locations we called the BBPD to let them know that we've taken action, and that they can come pick up the drugs, weapons, and perps. Every single one of them had an extensive criminal record, and just the possession of a firearm alone would get them two years- though that would be reduced most likely. Then the drug charges would kick it back up; at least for those within the apartments that had cameras on tripods that were filming everyone that walked in and out of the hospital.

From the footage that Nugget and the Indias scrolled through, they were attempting to identify ABB or possible ABB members; likely the ones wounded in the shoot-out that went down last week while we were prepping for the Merchants. At best the prosecutors could tag a violation of the Two-Party recording laws, but those charges never really stuck, but that was typically within a civilian courtroom- for the gangers they might just stick.

We hit location after location, quiet as a mouse and from the ground level; communications were blocked in and out, and they never managed to get off a single shot. I wanted Kaiser to wake up in the morning and find almost half of his projected power crushed.

Though, with the moles the E88 had within the BBPD I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have active E88 capes patrolling here soon.

The light flashed green in my HUD, and everyone was ready. "Go."

The front door was kicked in and tranquilizers flew into the living room of the single-story house; the living room had two E88 members in the middle of a raucous round of sex (Do you not have any decency for your fellows? Come on!), the woman took a tranquilizer to the front of her shoulder while the man took one to the back of his. The back door was breached to put down the man smoking a cigarette and loading the magazine for his AR-15. Downstairs in the basement, the small basement window shattered- the wrought-iron grating in front of it deforming as a paralytic grenade was flicked in.

I was standing in front of the heavy steel door and wrenching it open before the last fragments of the door frame hit the ground, and then I vaulted down the staircase to tranquilize the four members that were in the middle of hacking their lungs up as the paralytic slowed their movements. One was trying to unlock his phone, but his thumb refused to work the screen, instead, the number '3' just repeated.

"Basement clear."

"First floor clear."

"Let's move," We grabbed the stacks of cash and stuffed them into the duffle bags that the Empire had so helpfully supplied for us, and then phoned in the location to the BBPD, who was already appearing to be quite beleaguered. They had already contacted the PRT and asked for their assistance because they had only managed to ship off half of the Merchants to holding facilities outside the city to await their trials.

Come on, step your game up, BBPD.

It was a decidedly uncharitable thought, but the fact remained that they only had so much space in their jail cells.

We would have to call it quits for a while until after the BBPD worked through the backlog. Though, to be fair, we already told them that we were going to arrest everyone we got our hands on, so they should have already filed the paperwork with the State to get access to their holding cells outside of the city.

We left that location as soon as the first patrol vehicle showed up- ah, it was Officer Baker and his partner Officer Toomey- hey guys! I know we just saw each other at the last location, but we're off again! Don't worry, we already put pants on the male and female for you!

They looked like they wanted to kill me and then drink a gallon of coffee. Or maybe they wanted their coffee first?

Regardless, we were already at the next waypoint, where Teams 1 through 5 were already waiting for us; I opened up the door to the warehouse, we tossed the bags in, and then we were off like a shot to handle the last six locations for the night.

The target my team and I, Team 6, were going after for the last hurrah before punching out, was a very fluffy cash stash. The Empire received the money from their various smaller dealers and consolidated it, counted it, and then packaged it up to send Kaiser's way.

With every additional phone we scanned, the web-map of the Empire Network kept opening up, wider and wider, and it would serve to be the foundation for the Herren Clan; they were out of state, yes, but they were supplying the Empire with weapons and bodies "for the cause".

It didn't help that they were also very much like Gesellschaft in that they purposefully created Parahumans via breeding programs that were… only slightly more ethical than the Fallen or Gesellschaft; their breeders were volunteers. Half of the children were sold to Germany to widen the "power pool", and that was what we were able to glean just from the Intel section's cursory surveillance. A small portion was given to the Empire as tribute, with the latest member being Rune; Victor and Othala were also supplied to the Empire through the Herren Clan.

There was one more cape that they handed over, and that was Gewitter, or Thunderstorm in German… but he got himself murdered by Lung nine months ago. He thought that the amperage he could put out would be enough to kill Lung before he went Rage Dragon, and he lost; that, and once he got hot enough the heat started fucking with the pathing of his lighting. According to the grainy, shaky video that was leaked online, his death had not been a kind one.

Lung really needed to be put in the dirt.

There were two sentries on the roof that went down to two successive shots from PSG-1, the T-Doll nestled in her invisible floating coffin as her tranquilizer rifle speared out from two hundred meters away; the two darts arcing beautifully in the air to impact their extremities.

I suppose that they were expecting us to come from the sky?

Ha! No, that was saved for next time. Er, well, the time after next. Next time we were going to come in from the sewers; we strike high, we strike above the belt, then we strike below the belt. Those were the main locations where they wouldn't be able to move their materials out without attracting a lot of attention. They would have to defend those locations until they could break down their stockpiles into smaller, more easily transported parcels; there were thousands of rifles and tons of drugs, and lots of cash.

The cash would no doubt be moved first, as that would be the easiest to transport, with the drugs right behind that- it was easy to toss a duffel bag into the car of every 'employee' that worked at the 'warehouse'. It was a lot harder to move crates full of weapons.

My biggest target though, was going to be the airport; Medhall had a private hangar there, and lots of important things were held there- including lots of money- for when Max Anders flew to Germany to speak with his "shareholders" abroad. Though, that would be hit last, as the airport was a more… delicate operation; we would actually have to get PRT and Protectorate support to pull an OP on the airfield.

The cash that the Empire had at this location was easily in the millions, but that was chump change compared to the vault that they head in the basement of the Med Hall building. That money was laundered into the various businesses surrounding the Bay and in Portsmouth just 20 miles up the coast; we hadn't yet had a chance to track one of the Empire convoys leaving the city yet, but on the next one- one that would surely happen soon- we would follow them with surveillance drones and royally fuck it up.

Once the cash was cleaned up, the money was wire-transferred out to Germany through a number of intermediaries where it would then find its way into Gesellschaft's hands.

It was only a matter of time before we went international.

Organizations like Gesellschaft cannot be allowed to exist.

Nugget killed the security system on the door and we slipped in the backdoor of the autobody shop, only then did he kill the communications for the area. One of the goons had been watching something on his phone, and the sudden loss of connection clued him in; he shouted out "THEY'RE HERE!" and reached for the landline on the wall.

I punched into the wall and gripped the cord on the phone before yanking it out the hole. He stood there with the receiver in his hand. "Mother fucker."

The girls were already inside, putting them to sleep and zip-tying them while I shot him in the belly with my pistol through the hole I just made.

Without any bags for all of this cash, I opened a door into the warehouse and a few large steel carts were rolled in, and the cash was quickly transferred.

"Sir," PSG-1 spoke up, "I have a possible ID on Victor; he is outside the scan range on the drones. Permission to send one?"

"You don't need my permission for that, send one," I spoke as I assisted the girls in rifling through the pockets of the unconscious Empire goons, "What's his location- action?"

"He's currently climbing up the fire escape of a building roughly 550 meters to the north; he has a large case on his back- more than likely a rifle. He will have a clear sightline on the stash house you're currently inhabiting."

"Size of the case?" I asked, plugging Nugget into the phone to jack a copy of the memory.

"Large. Anti-material at the minimum, 50. BMG. I suspect Anti-Tank, 20mm is more likely." Her smooth German accent rolled through, "We have been out in the open long enough for them to try and arm up against us, but it is also possible that they could have had this in inventory. During the transport break in October of last year, a rifle such as that was used to shoot the engine of the lead transport vehicle."

I hummed, I really didn't want to chance myself or my girls taking a 20mm, not after seeing what NTW-20 could do with hers; you don't take risks you don't have to take.

"Relocate to a position where you have a shot on him, should be easy enough; he might be wearing armored clothes, if anything it's guaranteed. Shoot wherever there is exposed skin- though not the eyes of course. If you have to take him down manually then do so, but it would be best if you had another team intercept him." I rolled my head to loosen up my neck, "I don't want to reveal the existence of the mobile sniper hides if at all possible."

"Understood sir," The German rifle replied, "Drone is in range now. Weapon is a… I've never seen anything like it before, sir."

Spoiler: Heavy Metal

[img: https/images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2./f/26063a10-3141-4b95-84b6-6d72db783935/d374m9t-256354fd-d168-48af-b6fe-6a23e5addbb3.jpg/v1/fill/w_900,h_602,q_75,strp/m_499_30mm_anti_material_rifle_by_dronner66_d374m9t-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NjAyIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvMjYwNjNhMTAtMzE0MS00Yjk1LTg0YjYtNmQ3MmRiNzgzOTM1XC9kMzc0bTl0LTI1NjM1NGZkLWQxNjgtNDhhZi1iNmZlLTZhMjNlNWFkZGJiMy5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9OTAwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.OZpaQRSCZYQ4z5uZJ3DZE-zVgoHU7TnCLWXRcXWscpY]

My jaw dropped within my helmet. What the FUCK is that? I had the drone slip in closer to get a better look at the weapon through the case, activating the Strategy Trance as I communicated rapidly back and forth with Enbee.

That was a 30mm sniper rifle?

Spoiler: Heavy Metal Pt Deux

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.fs.%2Fmain-qimg-48e65c9d80dc69d71f7b7ee883028624 =1 =1]

The cartridge was larger than a beer bottle by far, and the weapon case only held eight rounds in its padded foam case. The weapon was five feet long from the stock to the barrel, and it appeared to be a quasi-Barret M99 design; with the springs in the system the barrel was designed to reciprocate- likely because if Victor fired this thing wrong he'd dislocated his shoulder.

Kaiser probably wanted to kill at least one of us tonight; he couldn't allow himself to be handled like those chump Merchant junkies. The 'King' would have to send a stern warning- no one messed with the Empire.

Cool story, my guy.

I communicated all of this in a data packet and sent it to everyone, and I dropped the Trance just long enough for the drone to move closer, and once the area around Victor was illuminated for a whole block I engaged the Trance again. The Drone's sensor package began scanning every single building around him, a wireframe being built in real-time; my main focus was on the roads and alleyways large enough to accommodate a vehicle. And discounting that I would begin scanning the rooms on the building that linked to the fire escape; my guess was that Othala touched him, granting him either invincibility or regeneration.

From what I remember the more powerful the ability the longer it lasted; we'd only had eyes on the Cape for twenty seconds, so we didn't know whether or not he came from the ground on the- no, upon looking at the scan of the fire escape it was not down on the ground. He would have had to of come in through one of the apartments linked to the fire escape.

Thanks to the ludicrous time dilation of the Trance I was able to pick out an apartment on the third floor that had its window open. There were two vehicles parked behind the building in an alleyway- one was busted all to hell, a scrap heap, and the other was a late 90's Ford F-150 that's engine was still hot.

I focused the drone's scans on the apartment and found the outline of a woman sitting on a couch in the living room start to fill in. She was in the process of bouncing her leg up and down, with her arm wrapped around her waist while her hand covered her mouth. It filled in even more, revealing that she wore a tight bodysuit, with a cap that covered her hair, and an eye patch over her left eye. Once the "Odal" rune was filled in on the eye patch I knew we had her, Othala.

Victor was in the process of dropping down onto his knees, the clips on the hardcover of the case he was carrying already opening up under his skilled and trained hands.

Skills and training that he had stolen from other people. How many people? Only Victor knew, but the man was talented beyond his years in practically every single field you could think of- PHO believed he'd traveled to Washington DC and stole the driving ability of a member of the Secret Service, while others posited that he stole marksmanship abilities from PRT strike teams. IT and technical knowledge were stolen from hackers who had been caught trying to steal from Gesellschaft.

Depending on how much he took and how hard he took it the person affected might be able to regain their talents, but some survivors claimed that he took everything from them.

I had subjective hours of time to think inside the Strategy Trance, so I decided to use some of that time to observe him and think. Of course, after I shot off the "PRIORITY TARGET" data packet to the QRF team above the city. It would take them 20 seconds to free-fall onto the target- no, it appeared that they were goosing their thrusters to increase their fall speed.

You crazy girls. Granted, the members of the PR team didn't like being solely relegated to PR while the Assault Teams got all of the action. A situation like this popping up was just the opportunity they were looking for.

G36C and Vector would drop right on top of Victor while UMP40 and RO635 dropped at little bit further to angle themselves through the window to take down Othala.

Less than two real-world seconds passed, and I just kept on observing. A ping showed me a vehicle had just entered into scan range, and the drone began filling in the structure of the truck from the headlights to the taillights. The truck had two men in the cab, and the bed had a dozen all armed with small arms; sub-machine guns and assault rifles. The men in the truck were Alabaster and Crusader.

Victor had just gotten the case lid opened and was grabbing the weapon by the barrel, his hand going down towards the beefy bi-bod.

I dropped the trance and activated it about five seconds later as the warehouse closed up- the millions of dollars of cash secured- the T-Dolls shooting down like a rocket towards the rooftop just now entering the range of the scanner.

My lips quirked up into a smile as I saw PSG-1's dart exit the barrel of her weapon- a flick over to her helmet HUD saw the woman found a gap in between the man's mask and the high collar of his body armor. Huh, he had forgone his usual attire, which was a simple black soft-armor vest with a red shirt and black pants, and upgraded something definitely more tactical, long thick sleeves that looked to have a very dense metal mesh woven into it.

He had just gotten the rifle set up and was in the process of slipping one of the 30mm rounds- the round that was used in the A-10 Wathog's main canon- into the angled breech on the back when the dart impact the side of his neck. If the man hadn't been locked into place by the sheer weight of the weapon he probably would have moved just enough for it to miss.

Sorry girls, it looks like just missed him. The two T-Dolls were already flaring their thrusters hard as fuck to stop their break-neck descent and-

Oh?

What's this?

I watched the needle of the dart press against his skin before the tip bent sideways and the projectile started to ricochet off, though his natural flinch caught the dart between his neck and armored collar.

Huh, looks like you girls will get your chance afterall.

His flinch was halted in what I could only assume was someone's honed instincts he'd stolen because Victor was already shoving the heavy gun off to the side and falling towards his back out of what he assumed was out of PSG-1's line of sight; I could see his eyes open up wide as the flare from Vector's and G36C's thrusters finally caught his attention.

Victor was fast on the draw, even while falling prone, it was like watching a swiss watch tick as his hand shot down -tick- and gripped the handle of the Desert Eagle in his holster -tock- and it was drawn -tick- and brought up -tock- for a good sight picture -tick- and then the first 50AE cartridge was fired -tock-.

All of that done in .67 seconds.

Quickdraw competition shooters could get as low as .208 seconds at the World Record Level, but they didn't aim- they fired from the hip. Of course, I could do it way faster, but I was a Alien-Human Super Soldier!

Much props, Victor. You did well with the skills you stole from someone else.

R0635 and UMP40 were already flaring hard as well, the pair skirting at an angle that would allow them to slip right through the window; UMP40 was just a half-second ahead of RO635. I sent a packet to her with instructions to evacuate with Othala once she was captured while RO635 would meet at the firefight that was about to happen out in front of the garage.

I watched UMP40 glide perfectly through the window and poke Othala in the neck before the woman even had a chance to finish her jolt in fright.

Victor was already secured with his hands wrenched behind his back while G36C quickly packed up the weapon into the case. Vector had the man thrown over her shoulder with a needle testing the skin of his thigh while she waited out the remaining seconds of his invulnerability.

I turned my attention back to the arrival of four more trucks, with each one containing a pack of E88 mundanes. Already my three-man Echelon was moving out the back while my other Echelons were converging on our location at a pretty decent clip; checking the helmet cameras they were using the grappling hooks to great effect.

I sent a packet to those carrying the cash to meet me on a rooftop on the next block, it had a covered roof access on it that didn't have any other buildings overlooking it. We would consolidate the cash there and they could have fun with the Empire goons while I did the thankless job of tossing all of those duffel bags and sacks filled with money.

With my cloak engaged I stepped out of the back of the autobody shop and moved towards the street. I dropped the strategy trance just long enough to hear Crusader crow out- "-its OVER for you, Frontline! We have you surrounded! Cut off! Hookwolf will be here in just a minute and that that we'll shred you to pieces!"

I nodded my head as four more trucks pulled up on the opposite side of the fence behind the autobody shop; there was an empty lot with a fucked up wooden fence on both sides of it. The men were already dismounted, and I could hear the cocking of weapons filling the air.

This was like… 83 men, not including the Capes? Very nice. Their BBPD moles probably told them which locations we already hit and they figured out the trackline we were running towards this location. I mean, it wasn't like we were being subtle- this was the largest stash they had on the outskirts of their operations, and it was a no-brainer what we would hit.

Kaiser probably left it as bait thinking that he could draw us into a trap.

Their timing was off though because Victor and Othala were either early or Crusader and Alabaster were late. Huh, I wonder if Othala was waiting down in the apartment for Victor to tell her it was safe to come up? It wouldn't make sense otherwise- the shootout wasn't going to start until Hookwolf arrived, and her invulnerability didn't last long enough.

My grapple hook shot out and it latched into the roof of the apartment building with only the smallest 'zzzt' as he dragged me up; my fingers clamped onto the side of the roof and I hefted myself up easily.

Star, G41, and G36 dropped their cloaks from behind cover before stepping out into view of the assembled gang members. "That's a lot of tough talk for a bunch of trash."

G36 was speaking to them in fluent German, and G41 nodded her head. "Yes. Trash. Not even fit to call the sewers of Germany home. Garbage."

I watched in amusement as Alabaster and Crusader looked at each other in astonishment. G36 pointed to the half-American, half-German flag on her pauldron. " I'm German. I'm American. I'm German. I'm American."

Star locked up for a second, so quickly that I only noticed it because of the data packet that was popped into her implant.

What was that?

The other Echelons started to filter in while G41 and G36 talked mad shit. One of my dolls was missing though. The one I was most worried about.

I was taken away from that thought as the sound of steel smashing into concrete began to echo off the walls, and my drones caught sight of Hookwolf as he loped into their range; he was three meters tall at the shoulder, his tall form eating up the distance.

He cornered around the side of a building, losing his balance- no, instead of falling he turned sideways and his four legs flowed around his body instead of cornering like a normal wolf. It was pretty cool looking. The Changer Cape made of shifting blades slowed his outright sprint into a more relaxed gait as he caught sight of my three girls out in the open and surrounded.

He slowed his trot down to a steady walk, the chuckle that escaped his maw sounding like two chainsaws grinding together. "Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, if this isn't a pleasant surprise. I'm happy to see that you didn't run off. Glad to see that you got some fight in you- after all that sneaky tactical shit you did."

"Why?" G41's small voice was carried across the parking lot.

"Why… what?" He shifted his body, the blades rippling as eight chains with sharp meathooks on the end lashed through the air.

"Who would we run from?" She tilted her head to the side, the large articulated ears on her helmet flicking, "You?"

G41 began to laugh. It was the first time I'd heard the kuudere fox loli laugh before- she usually only did one of those cute little small smiles.

Then it grew louder and more boisterous, evolving into a full-on evil loli laugh. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't make me laugh! You? YOU!? You fools don't even speak German and yet you claim to be kin of Hitler's mangey dogs!? Really!? We're supposed to be afraid of YOU!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."

It ended just as quickly as it began. Her head nodded as her ears flopped with the movement. "Yes. Hilarious."

"I… ain't ever killed a kid before," Hookwolf's form screeched as he ground his metal teeth, "At least on purpose."

"Your fight is not with us, however," G36 spoke smoothly, her beautifully accented German ringing out across the road.

My brows furrowed for a moment as I saw a falling form enter the range of the sensors. "M16A1, where is Negev?"

"Uh, sir… she…"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

"16?" My Vice-Commander flinched.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

"She grabbed onto the bottom of HJ02, and had it carry her up to 20,000 feet. Sir."

Down below, Star pointed up into the sky. "Your fight, Hookwolf is with her."

"DDDDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

KRACK-THOOM!

Just before impact Negev's hollering form righted her body, course-correcting before she locked her armor and slammed into Hookwolf's shoulder blades feet first. Steel and scrap shot off in all directions as Empire mundanes were scattered by the shockwave. Some were struck with shrapnel, and I used my Strategy Trance to mark those struck for immediate incapacitation and medical treatment.

The armor lock allowed the Master Chief to survive a fall from orbit, and he wasn't nearly as strong was my girls were, nor was his armor nearly as good as mine.

The sound of Negev's machine gun tore into the silence as tranquilizers filled the air. Crusader shouted in surprise and managed to duck behind Alabaster who absorbed the founds, started to slump over before he reset and popped back up. The Desert Eagles in his hands fired off into the smoke as he roared out his displeasure at being shot.

"Go."

The rest of the girls sprung into action, the girls that were with me except M16A1 all hopped off the building, splitting in half to assault the Nazis to the front and the Nazis to the rear. "Cover me, eyes on the sky, 16. I don't want Rune seeing this."

If anything I directed one of the HJs down to two thousand feet and had them monitor the sky for anything flying in it that wasn't us.

While the sounds of tranquilizers, gunfire, and screams I stuffed the warehouse key into the door and opened it just enough to start tossing the large duffle bags of cash inside.

"GET UP, HOOKWOLF! WHY ARE YOU LAYING ON THE GROUND!? GET UP AND FIGHT!"

Negev leaped over the unpowered, a handful of bullets pinging off of her shields as she landed next to the once-massive wolf's form; the impact had sheared his upper body from his lower body, significantly reducing his size. He was only two meters tall now; the steel of his form ground out in fury as he rolled onto his feet and leaped- Negev swung her rifle like a baseball bat, the Beskar-reinforced stock shearing the steel wolf's head off and sending it careening down the street.

Sparks flew each time it bounced.

Over half of the unpowered members were asleep, and it wasn't even 45 seconds into the gunfight; the girls were already pulling them out of the line of Negev's one-sided stomp. Wounds were being stuffed with a new form of bio-foam, this one didn't burn like a motherfucker as it was being injected. That was after the shrapnel had been pulled from their bodies. So far there were no lethal injuries that would require medical robot interference, though one Empire member was almost flattened. Only G36 stepping in and batting his metallic form back towards Negev prevented him from being turned into hamburger meat.

I shut the door and removed the key as I watched Negev grab onto his hindlegs - he was the size of a horse now- and was swinging him around before smashing him into the concrete.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw two figures being snuck up by RO635- she'd gotten the drop on them; the woman reacted immediately, as did the male. The man seemed to flow around the submachine gun's initial shots, and the woman was pretty quick too- the two tranquilizers sailing towards her were deflected by the twin kamas she had in her hands.

The woman started screeching and the remaining Empire members that were still conscious started to vomit their guts up, which made it nice and easy for the rest of the girls to put them down for a dirt nap.

That was Cricket and Stormtiger.

A grin split my face as I swapped over to RO635's helmet camera, and at the mouth of the alleyway was Negev standing there, with her helmet cocked to the side and Brad Meadow's unconscious body dangling by the back of his neck- her armor gripping him tightly. "Oh? More Nazis? Were you friends with this one? I think I played with him a little too roughly."

"You filthy jew bitch!" Stormtiger seethed, but there was no way to miss the sweat that was pouring down his brow- the winds quickly evaporated it, but with the fidelity of the scanners in this area I could see practically everything.

"Yes, I am a Jew. What was it that gave it away?" She looked down at the tabard she wore over her armor that had the Star of David on it, then over the scarf that also had the Star of David on it. Then to the half-America/half-Israeli flag on the pauldron.

She wanted three scarves, but I would only approve it if she used them to wrap around the necks of little Jewish boys and girls she came across out on patrol; for combat? No, no three scarves. No one else is doing it.

RO635 sighed and kicked the glass bottle, her fight stolen by Negev as she dropped Brad Meadows and stalked forward.

A cough stopped Negev in her tracks, and she looked up to see TS 12 standing on the side of the building. "You had your time with Hookwolf. I'll take his cronies."

"Counter, you can get Kaiser."

"Sold, to the Jewish lady with the stylish scarf. Have fun."

It was just as one side as Negev's fight against Hookwolf.

She definitely pulled her punches more though, the Israeli light machine gun keeping her speed and strength to something that was just outside of their reach. She was particularly enjoying the reactions from the two as they felt the blows coming with their powers but neither the wind nor the sound could reach her.

After about a minute I called out over the comms. "That's enough, finish it, but let one of them go. We'll follow them back and continue the assault."

"I thought we were ending it here for the night?" M16A1 asked, her head dropping down towards the gangers that were being lined up nice and neat.

"I'm going to want Rune too," I recognized the figure that was flying about three hundred feet overhead- Echo-420 had tipped me off to her coming into our range.

"Cricket, preferably, that way Rune has to come in low to pick her up. RO635, you follow them under stealth, and when you're ready take them both down."

"Then I want one of the giant twins, Commander," Negev spoke up plaintively as she punched through Stormtiger's windshield and injected him.

He retaliated with the single strongest blast of wind I'd seen him generate thus far, and Negev allowed herself to leap with the blast, sending her careening away head over heels in an apparent uncontrolled fall; the force shredding asphalt and digging a deep furrow into the street that stretched from one end to the other. "And you will have them, Negev."

Stormtiger collapsed to the side, his chest heaving. I could make out the words by reading his lips through the scanners as his wind didn't allow the sound to carry. "Run, back to Kaiser, let him know we faile-…"

R0635 had already backed off and was now high above the buildings- I sent a drone to follow Cricket as she tried her best to run away. Staying outside of her sound domain was quite easy as it constantly radiated from her throat but terminated in a 30-meter sphere around her.

The sounds of the PRT sirens were off in the distance, but Armsmaster's Armscycle was distinctly heard ahead of the pack. No doubt the fight garnered a lot of attention.

I watched through RO635's HUD as she watched Rune swoop low on what appeared to be a slab of solid steel, the teen seated directly in the middle. Cricket showed off her impressive athletic ability by leaping almost eight feet into the air to grab onto the edge of the slab and pull herself up.

"Cow-ard." The woman ground out.

"You saw what they did to Hookwolf! I can't fight that!" Rune protested loudly, and that was when RO635 struck, the T-Doll leaping off the building, and using her thrusters to speed her descent down.

Cricket's head shot up the moment RO635's boots entered the sphere, but she was too slow to not catch the boot to the chest; the T-Doll slid off the plate from the momentum, her arms wrapping around Rune's waist while the other cradled her head and neck. Rune had already been injected by the time the screech of fear left her lips and they started to fall the 20 intervening feet to the ground.

Cricket managed to land on her feet and tumble with the roll, but there was a small -pop-, and she collapsed to the side; probably blew out her knee.

Ouch.

RO635 sat Rune on her feet and drew her rifle before popping off a trio of shots. Despite the pain of her injury, a single kama was raised, the blade deflected one while the wooden haft intercepted the other. The third one I feared had punched her melon, but I watched in the time dilation from the Trance as she lowered her head and caught the fucking tranquilizer with her teeth.

There was a supreme sense of accomplishment from Cricket as she spat the tranquilizer, as well as two of her front teeth, onto the cracked pavement of the alleyway. "That's fucking hardcore, Cricket. You might be a Nazi but I can respect the fight in you. Go to sleep now though."

RO635 raised her rifle and snapped off half a dozen shots before smoothly reloading her weapon; two more tranquilizers were deflected, two more were dodged by a twisting of her torso, but the other two were unavoidable; with her arms occupied, her torso twisting, her legs were currently engaged with the ground.

Though, son of a bitch, Cricket still managed to lift one leg up in an attempt to pirouette with her twist, and the fifth one missed- just scraping by the hem of her torn blue jeans. The sixth tranquilizer punched into her thigh though.

A few seconds later she was falling onto the ground, the warrior Cricket falling asleep.

The phones were confiscated, copies made, and geolocation tracking data searched.

Of course, I already knew that Kaiser was located at the Medhall building, but now that I had them all originate from the same location? Now I had probable cause to hit the place.

I watched RO635 pick the two of them up before making her way over to us just as Armsmaster rolled up.

"Frontline! We were informed that there were Empire Capes in the area."

He swung off his bike and looked around at the destruction wrought by the fighting, to the sleeping and injured gang members that were treated.

Then to Hookwolf, Crusader- the other girls just touched down with the unconscious Othala and Victor- Stormtiger was placed gently onto the ground (and I meant gently; no mishandling the prisoners in front of the Protectorate). RO635 rounded the corner not ten seconds later, loping off the side of the roof- her thrusters flaring to ease her onto her armored feet.

"Indeed, there were Empire Capes, and we were fighting them," M16A1 spoke as she hopped off the roof and landed across from Armsmaster a respectable distance away, and I did the same, "However, as you can see, we drew the Empire into a decisive battle, and their Capes are defeated- some are bruised and battered, but mostly unharmed. The mundanes that were injured from friendly fire or from the fight with Hookwolf; there was a lot of shrapnel."

He nodded, but his lips were tight, "This was quite reckless, Frontline. The Empire are no push-overs, and their roster has been known for being competent and slick; this could have gone very badly. It was made only worse by the fact that you strung Protectorate capes along, having us handle the mundane Empire members while you sought out the Parahumans on your own."

"That is not true at all, Armsmaster," 16 shook her head, "While it might have appeared so, our call to you and the PRT was to aid the BBPD with the influx of Empire mundanes we captured this evening. We had only contingencies for tonight to engage only if engaged, and we did not believe they would try to make their stand now as opposed to later. We were surrounded and thusly forced to engage."

A low sigh escaped his lips, "Will you be taking any more action this evening?"

"Yes, we will. We have the location of Kaiser, Krieg, Fenja, and Menja. We have an opportunity to collapse the Empire 88 tonight," She reached into her pouch and pulled out a tablet, the geolocation data popping up as the phone signals from all of the Empire capes all originated from one single location.

"The Medhall building," Armsmaster ground out, "I had always suspected as much, but I could never gather enough conclusive evidence to obtain a warrant; the District Attorney's office constantly stonewalled us. Now I know why. Lots of money flowed into their offices through charities."

"Would you like to spearhead this assault with us, Armsmaster?" I asked, extending an olive branch.

He stiffened at that, almost shocked that I even offered, "I… will gladly help lead this operation."

The Armsmaster straightened up and thumped his halberd onto the ground, "The Empire ends tonight."

It wasn't until the action had settled down that I allowed myself to look at the two perks that I had acquired throughout all of this.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 36.0490 - Shipping the Product - 400CP - F.E.A.R. - Quality Resources]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 650 - 250 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 34.008 - Reliable Invention - 200CP - Kim Possible - Quality Durability]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I blinked as I read the Perks and M16A1 pulled up the map surrounding the Medhall building; HJs 1, 2, and 3 were coming in for pick-up, and this was going to be a hot drop. We didn't know how many members were at the building, but we were going to let Armsmaster take the lead; Echelons 1 and 2 were going to go in from the ground floor while Echelon 3, myself, M16A1, and Armsmaster inserted on the roof.

Negev still wanted either Fenja or Menja, and TS 12 decided that she would settle for the other.

I worked out a plan with Armsmaster- I would strip away Kaiser's armor, and he would go for the knockout blow; he'd apparently gotten approval to "field test" my tranquilizers, which I hadn't yet been told were approved (I would bring that up later), but I did permit him to utilize it for this takedown. He was creating a tranquilizer to combat Lung, but that hadn't yet entered into the testing phase.

He seemed… inordinately excited to be 'leading this action', but considering everything that's been happening we could stand to help the guy out. We were pretty much invalidating his whole career in Brockton so… a nice official capture of the Super-Villain Kaiser would look great on his resume.

Of course, we promised to edit out the make the footage look suitably heroic while we went through some canned lines where we both heroically decided to work together- with Armsmaster's wealth of experience against Kaiser he was the obvious choice to lead this assault. We would edit those in, while we would edit out the claims that we were being reckless. It would be ' give and take', but for Armsmaster the PR win for the Protectorate and PRT was worth far more than the painting us as 'reckless'.

The PRT Troopers arrived and began rounding everyone up, with Miss Militia following right behind them. We loaded up in the aircraft while Armsmaster spoke to his second-in-command.

"We cannot let Kaiser escape, I will be spearheading the assault on Kaiser's immediate location- Miss Militia, you have control on the ground here; make sure these Villains are in the PRT cells."

She gave a short salute while eyeing us before she turned around and began directing the Troopers; the men and women of the Protectorate quite seasoned at rounding up sleeping prisoners. They had a lot of practice as of late.

I patted the open bay of the Helljumper and Armsmaster sat beside me; he startled a little bit when his armor was locked in place by the magnet, but a wide grin spread from ear to ear like we were a bunch of Delta Force Operators lifting off on the side skids of a Little Bird.

We ran him through the formations we used, and I offered him my tranquilizer pistol, but he declined it. He did take the portable Overshield I gave him- "Just activate it and slap it anywhere on you."

"This is excellent work, may I keep this?"

"Actually, you know what? Yeah, you can keep it. Just make sure you set up a time with Dragon so we can all Tinker together, okay? Just because we didn't agree to the restrictions of the partnership program doesn't mean we have to let that rule the other aspects of our personal and professional relationships."

"Indeed, I agree as well. The things we can accomplish are limitless; I just wish more Tinkers could stand to work around each other more often." He nodded as he placed it against his chest plate, activating the magnets before a softly shimmering field enveloped his armor.

"Excellent."

[15 minutes later]

I had sent a bunch of drones to scour the Medhall facility beforehand, to make sure that Kaiser was still there. Thankfully, he was, but he had staged his helicopter on the landing pad and the aircraft was in the opening stages of its take-off procedures.

Of course, he knew he was fucked; he tried to call Victor's phone on the flight over, asking what the hell was taking so long. I answered the phone of course, which sent Max Anders into a fit of apoplectic rage.

"NTW-20, keep that bird on the deck," I ordered, and from 1,900 meters away a 20mm P API round smacked into the crankcase of the helicopter- thankfully we got here before the pilot could get the Augusta AB-139's rotors up to speed; if we hadn't then the damn thing would have likely shaken itself apart.

Spoiler: Medhall Luxury

[img: https/external-content./iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.%2Foriginals%2F42%2F20%2F91%2F42209116b2dcca9dc8758ef982ce4720.jpg =1 =1]

As it was right now it stuttered and jerked before the movement ground itself to a halt and the pilot began shutting down the engines.

Already Echelons 1 and 2 were freefalling off of their Helljumpers and surrounding the building.

M16A1 and I grabbed Armsmaster and locked his armor to our hands as we jumped fifty feet out of the aircraft and onto the deck, our thrusters flaring as we softened the impact; Armsmaster insisted that his power armor could take such a fall, but we insisted that there was no point in possibly causing damage to his equipment and thus forcing him to spend time repairing it when we could slow his fall while still making it look properly heroic.

The door to the helicopter slid open and Fenja and Menja got out, masks on and weapons armed as they started to grow in size.

God, thank you for stupid villains.

If they'd just stayed in their civvies they could have at least made it actually painful for us; we'd have to fight all sorts of bullshit from whatever Gesellschaft appointed lawyers if they'd done that. Attacking them in their civilian identity?

They still would have lost that fight, but it would have been agonizing.

Nope. We're attacking Fenja and Menja, and who else would be in the helicopter with them besides Krieg and Kaiser?

I laughed to myself as Negev and TS 12 unloaded into the two giant villains, the two women toppling over as the tranquilizer worked its way into their systems; they reduced incoming attacks relative to their size, but it took them some time to get to their full height. At that point, Negev had pumped 20 tranquilizers into her and TS 12 had fired down all three of her shotshell tubes.

The two Israeli T-Dolls attached their weapons to their backs and charged forward, the gravel of the roof kicking up behind them as they crashed into the knees of the twelve feet tall women and pulled them down to the ground.

M16A1 sprinted ahead of us to crash into Krieg, though he had managed to actually repel her- the cape easily redirecting the force of her tackle and using it to fling her with surprising strength; M16A1 had to engage her thrusters to not be tossed off the roof. The paralytic grenades she'd dropped at his feet exploded, a large cloud of gas enveloping him. He wore a costume that was very SS-like, with polished jackboots, the grey pants, and a white shirt that was tucked into his pants- the grey uniform top nestled onto his shoulders. He wore an SS cap on his head, with the E88 symbol on a red and white armband.

Krieg had a gas mask that was part of this uniform, but that wouldn't do him any good here; if his clothes were permeable, the paralytic would soon be taking effect.

I dropped out of the weakened Strategy Trance that I'd unknowingly slipped into while we ran, and Kaiser stepped out last, the man clad in his armor.

Spears of steel shot up from the rooftop, the cape using the metal to sprout his weapons; I didn't care, however, as I just bulldozed through them. More and more and more sprouted up while Armsmaster rank in my wake, hidden by the shiny bright lights of my flicking shield and hiding in my shadow with his halberd ready.

I allowed my shields to drop just before I reached Kaiser, and I punched through the barrier he sprouted from the frame of the helicopter. My hulking form slammed into him, and my fist tore out a huge swath of his chest armor.

Armsmaster slipped his halberd under my armpit and thrust forward, the tip homing down-!

I slipped into the Strategy Trance just so I could fully appreciate what was happening.

The needle was rushing towards Max Ander's chest, bearing down on his left pectoral where his armor had been torn away. The armor was already reforming, and to add to that, spears of metal were sprouting from the metal of Armsmaster's halberd.

His halberd stopped as the steel spines on his weapon contacted the reforming armor over Kaiser's chest- the needle stopped just a few inches short as the armor continued to reform itself.

To anyone else this would have looked like Kaiser's moment of triumph- the last-ditch effort to take him down before the brawl got started thwarted by some pretty ingenious use of his power; for any normal capes, this would have been the moment he shiskebab'd us.

However.

I could see the viciousness in Armsmaster's smile as his thumb pressed a trigger on the halberd, and the needle shot forward the last three inches and delivered its payload into his chest.

Through the scanners, I could see the exact moment when he realized he lost. Watched his lips curl back in rage as his eyes narrowed, seething in pure hatred.

I planted my feet and pressed my back into Armsmaster's sternum before I kicked off with judicious force. I could hear the air leaving the Protectorate capes' lungs as we skidded across the gravel and towards the edge of the room.

The entire portion of the roof surrounding the helicopter had been turned into a literal forest of blades. Almost half of the roof had been turned into a death trap, and when Armsmaster saw that he put whatever complaint he was going to give me on hold.

At least until he regained the functionality of his lungs.

"Exc- heeee, exc-hehllent judge-hee-ment call."

"I could say the same for you, that little extending jab? Inspired." I chuckled with a wheeze (feigned) as I slowly picked myself up to my feet; I extended a manly helping hand, and he gripped my wrist like we were Viking battle-brothers still living after having vanquished old Kaiser 'One-Eye'.

Shut up, that analogy totally works.

Besides, it would make for an excellent outro as he looked at Kaiser's porcupine nest. TS 12 and Negev were already breaking through it all with extreme prejudice, the pair wanting to tranq him again just to be sure it hadn't been watered down or tampered with.

Fenja and Menja had been pulled out of the way after Negev and TS 12 beat their faces in until the tranquilizer had done its jobs and put the big, beautiful, bodacious Scandanavian model babes to sleep. Krieg was slumped over onto his side; he was paralyzed but since he was still conscious his power was still working.

M16A1 was getting annoyed at having the finger pokes she was attempting to give him redirected. Instead, she just cracked open a tranquilizer round and vaporized the liquid, wafting it into his nostrils until he passed out. Then she jabbed him again.

I blinked as I received a packet from M4A1 SOP MOD II. The lil' Operator Chick had a fun time downstairs.

When Echelon's 1 and 2 stormed inside there had been a bunch of confusion with the regular security guards who were wondering why Frontline was blowing their doors in, but they shoved them aside easily enough, telling them to seek cover in their armored security office (it was Brockton Bay).

They faced more stiff competition from the guards who were in the know, and a raging gunbattle ensued that they had not a snowball's chance in hell at winning. They still fought anyway, which was about the only thing I would give them. My teams blew through the opposition like shit through a goose; with no more Capes left there was little else the non-powered members of the Empire could do except roll over and take a nap.

Soppy was pleased to announce that we had captured Kaiser's cash vault; I tasked Nugget with hacking into Kaiser's accounts and stealing all of his money, and the little Nug was more than happy to do so. While the laptop Kaiser had in his bag was destroyed, the desktop computer had been wiped.

Not enough to thwart us though. I hopped off the side of the building before brandishing my lightsaber- the purple blade scoring a hole into the glass and I kicked the circular pane out. I grabbed the desktop computer and rushed over to the closest door with a lock and opened up the door to the warehouse so that I could slide the computer into Enbee's greedy tentacles. He stripped the machine apart and put it back together before patting me on the helmet.

I directed Nugget to doctor the footage of the cameras to show me merely sitting down at the computer and waiting for it to boot up. The door shut and did just that, quickly connecting the cables in record time; and the computer screen came on just as Armsmaster slid into the room with the grappling hook.

"Was that a lightsaber? It sounded very similar, also, may I ask what you're doing?"

"Checking the computer, obviously," I nodded at him as I slipped the copy device in and began making a complete flash of the drive; Nugget grabbed the username, password, pin, and everything else from the computer that was saved onto it. There were to be some hurdles to jump through to get the answers to the security questions on Max's personal and company accounts-

Shit. Could I take the company accounts? There were shareholders and stuff- the majority of it was owned by Gesellschaft but there was more than a good amount of it owned by the employees.

Only maybe half of the Employees were Empire, and the rest weren't. Would it be fair to steal all of their money? Especially once this broke the company WOULD be going under, unless it was purchased out by someone else; it was still a highly profitable company, but the stigma of being Nazi owned would be difficult to overcome.

Besides, the PRT would likely step in and freeze all Med Hall assets, especially once it was brought to light the Gesellschaft ties.

No, I would settle for Kaiser's personal accounts instead. Let the chips fall where they may.

"I've made a copy and will do a thorough analysis; I would recommend you do the same; no doubt there is a treasure trove of information here."

I was out of the chair, making way for Armsmaster to take a seat and then leaping out the hole in the window; I corrected by fall and flared my thrusters to ease me onto the ground. I strode down the hallways at a good clip, passing by one member of my team every so often who watched over the captured Empire members and to make sure no one was trying to destroy evidence before the PRT got their hands on it.

My destination, however, was the big fucking money vault where Kaiser kept all of his cash that was waiting for money laundering. Soppy gave me a give salute as a kissy-face emoji popped up on her helmet. I knocked my helmet against hers as she spoke, "Be sure to love me all day tomorrow, okay, Sir?"

"M-me too, Commander," M4A1 turned her helmet to the side.

Then the comms channel exploded.

"Me too!"

"Hey, don't forget about K2!"

"This Type 95 will be more than happy to share the bed with all of her wonderful sisters, hu-hu."

"Woah! G41 would never forgive me if I didn't vouch for her! Two fox loli's at once, Commander! Think of the fluffy tails!"

" Cash , girls," I opened up the door to the warehouse from the closest door with a lock, which was almost on the other side of the floor; all the doors were of the sliding variety (either up or down) but with no physical locks there wasn't any way I could use them.

I had to settle for a janitor's closet. It worked just fine.

The girls hustled in with the carts, cash that was piled high was transferred and pushed into the warehouse; it was a quick train, with empty and full carts being hustled around. It took five minutes for the girls to strip the vault bare, and we were super-soldiers in power armor; that was how you knew it was packed. I doubted the Brockton Bank had this much cash on hand in their vault.

We did some deeper scans of the building, making sure to unlock everything important for the PRT- the drug labs were really locked down; no doubt they thought if the cash was somehow stolen then they could still rebuild if the drug equipment was still around.

When we left the building an hour later, the PRT Troopers rushed past us as Agents moved in to secure the entire building, it was to the tune of raucous applause. Armsmaster was beside me, and we gave each other a nod.

"I don't know how much money we secured during these raids, Armsmaster, but once I know the total amount I will let you know in an official report."

I could see his jaw twitch at that, "Very well. I will keep my eye open for it. Until we meet again, Horizon."

"Armsmaster."

The forge sputtered but didn't grab a star, the charge too weak and the star so large I couldn't even grasp its name.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

- Note: I actually rolled two perks that I already got twice this chapter, which necessitated a re-roll: Huragok Ally and I Can Whip Something Up.

The third roll was Reliable Invention, and thusly it was chosen.

NOTE: Sniper Rifle picture was found on google images. Used without permission, so if the author sees this and wants the imaged removed just message me and I will do so. His Deviantart account it here - [ ARTIST]

You guys rock!

Rapid Construction (Blazing Saddles) (50CP)

You are not only a truly excellent carpenter, you are an exceptionally fast worker. Any form of construction or crafting will be completed in a tenth the time it would otherwise take, though your overall quality will suffer if you use this at full effect (times ten). At times two, you'll sacrifice none of the quality, but as you get closer to times ten, you'll sacrifice more and more of it.

Shipping the Product (F.E.A.R.) (400CP)

Prototypes are one thing, but what about actually getting the damn thing distributed? An item or weapon doesn't help anyone if it's the only one of its kind. You will find your ability to create has increased dramatically in efficiency, letting you use the materials for three of the same items to actually make five while streamlining production lines rather quickly. As a bonus, logistics have increased enough where your shipped supplies are harder to intercept, keeping any allies you have fresh with resources!

Reliable Invention (Kim Possible) (200CP)

Anything you construct is only broken when used improperly or purposefully targeted with attacks. The items you create do not malfunction and are completely resistant to damage caused by regular usage.

Chapter 12 - Dragons Fall and Fedoras are Hung Up

[Haruzuki Kenta - Lung]

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, Lung-sama. The Empire has fallen- all of their Capes have been captured, along with a significant portion of their underlings. Zefing has confirmed this in the PRT, and Chuong confirms it through the Police," Tarou nodded firmly.

Unlike most of Kenta's underlings, Tarou was someone that had been with Lung since the beginning; he recognized the strength of the Dragon and chose his master carefully. There was no fear or trepidation in his dark eyes, nor did the scar that ran from his eye to his cheek tug at his lips with nervousness. Tarou was calm because he was competent, because when Lung gave him a task it would be completed in the manner Lung wished for it to be completed.

It was not merely because he was the bearer of good news- though it was likely that had something to do with it.

Contrary to popular belief, Lung did not kill people simply because they bore him ill tidings; he killed them because their incompetence was what forced them to deliver ill tidings to him in the first place.

"Lung-sama! The PRT has found our shipping containers and is in the process of confiscating our product!"

"Was it not you who was assigned the task of securing our product and ensuring that the authorities would never find it?"

That was why Lung killed his underlings- there was a reason that preceded the rhyme.

His anger could become a great and terrible thing, but Kenta was in control- he ruled his anger, not the other way around.

"Good, good. Rally the men, Tarou. I want everything prepared for this evening. We will strike out past our current borders and lay claim to that which belonged to me in the first place. Brockton Bay was mine the very moment I stepped in, this result was inevitable," He tilted his head to the side, and eyed the faces of the men standing in his quarters, "Ensure they wear thick clothing, I care not if they sweat until they pass out from the heat; I have been observing this 'Frontline' and they use tranquilizers, with needles appearing to be roughly a few centimeters in length. The clothing will protect them, at least as much as they can be protected- they do not shoot the men in the face with their darts, but their weakness will be something we exploit."

"Of course, Lung-sama," The man bowed crisply, "It will be done."

Kenta waited for his un-powered Lieutenants to leave before nodding to himself.

Yes. This will be the time that Lung finally takes his rightful place; the Merchants were a stain, and the Empire an annoyance, however, Kenta was not a stupid man. He was powerful, but he was not powerful enough to take on the likes of the Triumvirate; his healing was incredibly, but he knew that if he drew too much heat that Alexandria would have no problems flying through his wall and slaying him before he would even know she was there.

He had done much to avoid the Kill Order, always skirting the line when he needed to but never passing it. The Protectorate Capes would have been dead long ago if he were truly a mad dog.

Though the Frontline had displayed incredible aptitude, they were still people within power armor; the Jewish Cape, Negev, obviously had a fairly focused and specialized Brute package that allowed her the strength to handle the steel mutt. If she had enhanced durability or superb regeneration, as Lung did, she would not rely on thick steel armor for her protection; a simple bodysuit would have sufficed.

There were other powers within Frontline, powers that had not been shown, but it was telling that they all relied on the power armor that their figurehead provided for them; the armor was for their protection because without it they were merely human. They were certainly enhanced, but being far stronger than a normal man is of no consequence.

He sat down and mentally reviewed his plans. They were simple but effective. Lung would draw the Capes to himself, Oni Lee would scatter them, and then they would conquer.

While they were drawing attention the un-powered would move into specific blocks that were defensible and set up shop; he didn't need to occupy every single street corner- he only needed to control a few nodes and project power out from there. Even one building would be more than enough to consider a district captured- he would take the outskirts of the city. Let the Protectorate focus on maintaining the core, they would handle the protection of the commerce of the city, which meant that Lung could focus on protecting his more vulnerable areas; they did his job for him admirably, after all, even Lung's men shopped downtown, or at the Boardwalk.

Once their new positions were captured, it would be a small matter to claim the Merchants remaining stores of drugs, weapons, and petty cash- Lung knew of at least four locations that neither Frontline nor the Protectorate had raided- and he could do the same to the twelve remaining Empire locations. He would be essentially taking the leftovers, but guns were guns, drugs were cash, and cash was King.

As long as it was framed properly, Lung had no issues plucking the low-hanging fruit.

Then Lung could move into a more centralized location within the Bay, which would allow him to respond more effectively, and would make his job that much easier; the Protectorate engaged him in the outskirts of the city because there wasn't anything of importance to burn down while he fought. Contrary to popular belief, he was quite in control of the flames that were created by his transformation; not enough to create constructs, but enough to snuff the flames if he so chose.

They have not yet caught onto this, it seemed, because as soon as Lung began to burn buildings the Protectorate immediately backed off. If the buildings weren't in his territory and would be of any future use, he allowed them to burn without a problem, but if they were then he would snuff the fires out just enough to let the Fire Department save his future property. He had used his control over the flames to shield quite a few of his more lucrative businesses, and when the PRT pulled back it allowed him plenty of time to relocate.

His belly rumbled as he looked at the time. Many hours had passed since he has started his planning, and it was now time for his evening meal; a good dinner to enjoy before going out and pushing the newcomers back, possibly out of the picture- all he would need is to get a single hand on them, and they would perish.

"Lee."

From the corner of the room, Oni Lee slunk out of the corner, as if he were a shinobi from the old period drama Kenta's mother had been so fond of all those years ago. It never failed to tickle him. Not that Lung could be tickled.

"Yes, Lung-sama?"

"My meal. Have it prepared for me and ready within one hour."

He bowed, less than the other un-powered members of Lung's organization, but that was because Lee was his right hand, and a Cape besides. He was useful.

Though it did pain Kenta to see his Lieutenant slowly fade away as his powers took small bits and pieces of him at a time. It was hard for Kenta to see Oni Lee become less and less each time he saw him, but Lee knew that he was fading, but he had decided that he would serve Lung.

Kenta would not spit upon his wishes, so he would stay until his mind was so far gone that he could not move his body anymore. Then Lung would kill him, cleanly, with great respect; it was one thing to serve out of fear. It was another to serve and give up everything that made one who they were in the process.

Still, even though Lee could not remember what he and Kenta had eaten for lunch the previous day, his skills and abilities had remained, and his eyes were still just as sharp as ever. Oni Lee watched the chef that prepared his meals with an eagle's eye; nothing that wasn't sealed and purchased from a shop Lung trusted made it into a meal, and while most people knew better than to try and poison him, some still tried.

Sometimes he let the poisoning happen, Lung using the pain to remind himself that even caged, fearful rats can still try to bite. Other times he had Lee interrupt them in the act, the fools believing that Oni Lee was unskilled with poisons merely because he utilized grenades.

A laughable notion- Lee's kill count was a fair amount larger than the pissants on PHO believed, and poisons were his secondary, less known trade.

Within the hour his meal was prepared, on time, and it was ready for him to consume the moment he desired.

Though, looking at the Japanese beauty that was his current chef awakened within him a different hunger.

She was what Kenta believed every Japanese woman should be, the ideal. Slender, pale, yet with more than enough flesh on her figure in all of the right places that he could enjoy; he had no problems sullying the white, black, and hispanic whores that his men captured that were of sufficient beauty, but the position of "Lung's Woman" had always been one from the homeland.

Sachiko, was a quiet, obedient, simpering woman, one that averted her eyes and turned her head in such a fashion that it aroused a primal desire to conquer her, to see just how far he could press her compliance. He was not gentle with Sachiko, nor was he harmful; he was no stranger to pain, but causing others pain did not bring him pleasure.

She was someone that Lung had taken by himself, for himself. The woman had been at Kyushu when the island sank; the women on a boat that was fleeing- she had seen Lung's challenge to the Leviathan, and his majesty had been burned into her mind since she was a young girl. Her family had immigrated to Boston after that, and she had been attending culinary school when Lung spotted her working in the kitchen. He seduced her, and when it was time he took her and brought her here to Brockton to serve him for the rest of her days.

She had only been his chef for a few months now, but she knew the price for rebellion.

"Strip, woman," Lung commanded, and the woman took a deep, shuddering breath before she began to remove the soft reds and greens of her silk kimono; never let it be said that he did not treat his playthings properly.

The layers were shed, one at a time, in a fashion that she knew pleased him, and once the kimono puddled on the floor, she was only clad in her tabi and a silk shift that barely covered the swells of her bottom. "Do you wish for me to remove the last piece, Lung-sama?"

Her voice was soft, barely a whisper, but she lowered her head and placed her eyes on the floor. It was a shame that he did not have a proper Japanese house so that he might see her kneel on tatami, but some sacrifices needed to be made.

"No. I am trying to eat, woman. I will enjoy your body after I am finished, come." He spread his legs and patted his thigh, and to his delight, she came forward with nary a hitch in her step, the woman turning around and seating herself onto the muscle of his leg. He was satisfied, feeling the flesh of her ass clench and squeeze as she tried to adjust herself to keep from toppling over. Eventually, she gave up and leaned into his chest, using his shirtless torso to keep her steady.

He looked to Lee and gestured, and while the woman's head was tucked against his pectoral he arched an eyebrow, and the man shook his head. So, another day without an attempt on his life from Sachiko.

Idly he wondered if putting a child within her belly would push her? It was a thought, a delicious one.

The meal she had prepared for him was exactly as he had wished, though this one was particularly extravagant. Fine cuts of meat prepared in thin slices, sushi and sashimi arrayed out for him to sample, pickled vegetables and rice in a cold soup, miso soup with nori and tofu, and plenty of pickled ginger to cleanse the palate. There were three different bottles of sake prepared, one to accompany the three dishes.

"Pour and serve," He grunted, his hand reaching down to cup the flesh of her ass while he rippled the muscles of his thigh; the sudden increase in firmness made her squirm, and he could feel the plump flesh and heat of her core soak into his pants.

She poured him some sake and hand-fed him each dish in turn, with the ginger in between each bite so that he could properly savor the combinations of food and alcohol.

A warm, pleasant buzz settled onto his shoulders, and he ceased imbibing; he could still get drunk- as the transformation would easily burn away his inebriation- but that did not mean he allowed it.

"Lee. Have you remembered to eat today?"

Oni Lee looked at the food but then shook his head. "I do not remember having eaten today, Lung-sama."

"Then eat, this is a warrior's meal, the celebratory feast will be much grander, but for now enjoy. I command you." Lung felt a small twinge at the admission, but if Lee was forgetting to eat, which he had been doing as of late, then that meant it was only a matter of time until Lee was nothing but a sack of flesh.

Even if he might not remember his meal next week, Lung would still see to it that he enjoyed it.

However, he had something else he wished to enjoy for now.

"Up, woman. Let us take this to the bed."

It was just as thrilling as it had been the first time. She simpered and denied. She tried to hide her beautiful, ugly faces as the man she despised but was too weak to stand against took his pleasure from her body, and gave her pleasure in turn. She could not fake it, not with him. The ecstasy on her face as he took her was genuine.

It was almost intoxicating, the way she tried to hide the small smiles on her face as he treated her roughly in the manner that she found disgustingly delightful; her moans and cries grew louder and louder as time went on.

When he had finally exhausted himself he found that the woman had fallen asleep, her mundane stamina unable to last through the pleasure he so roughly visited upon her body.

When he laid down on his die he looked towards the clock on the wall. It would be six hours until they gathered, and then they would make their move.

Kenta closed his eyes to rest, content knowing that Oni Lee was sitting at the table watching over him.

[Homura Sachiko]

Sachiko's mind swam, but she felt the effects of the antidote pushing the fog clouding her mind back.

She had been told in a brief message that she would prepare a meal for Lung as she had been doing every day these past few months, and she would use the materials that they would provide. They had obviously meant the ABB goons who delivered to her the finest ingredients from a business Lung owned, but somehow Frontline had managed to contaminate the ingredients they would bring for Lung's meal tonight.

The antidote had been in a white bottle of sake that she would taste and then discard because its flavor profile did not match the other ingredients of the meal.

Her job was to send a signal once whatever poison she had fed Lung took effect, but she had not thought he would ask her to feed him by hand; the simple fact that touching the food was enough to put her to sleep even after she'd imbibed the antidote spoke of its potency. It was, however, a time delayed-release.

Looking at the clock on the wall she saw that it had been almost a half an hour since she'd passed out after the rape of her person, but even while she was agonizing over her situation- the woman desperately wished the drug had taken effect before he could direct her to his bed- she could already feel his movements grow sluggish. It was so hard to keep the smile from her face, with the way he kept grabbing her hands to see her tormented expressions.

Unlike the previous times, she did feel a great deal of pleasure, though it was more brought on by the sense of impending freedom and the relief it might bring.

She slipped out of the bed and walked over to gather her silk kimono and clothed her body. It was a shame that she would never be able to look at the colors red and green the same- red had been her favorite color after all- but not anymore.

None of that mattered though, soon it would be all over.

Sachiko had been warned that the sedative was incredibly potent, but it would not keep Lung under forever. She would need to place an article of clothing and let it hang out the window to signal Frontline.

However, she was not going to allow them to capture Lung. While he drew breath, whether it was within the Birdcage or some other Maximum Security Prison, Sachiko would never be able to move forward.

Thusly, she would take matters into her own hands.

Silently she apologized to Frontline for taking her revenge into her own two hands. She hardly thought it would be murder, but she would be making them accessories to the deaths of Lung and Oni Lee. Worse still her ploy could fail entirely, and their perfectly laid out plan to capture the Dragon of Kyushu without significant loss of life would be for naught.

She would feel terrible if she ruined their plans to capture him - that was if she survived- but she would feel even worse if she did not act.

The Japanese student sous chef from Boston walked over and tugged on the grenades that were strapped to Oni Lee's chest. They were clipped there good and tight, and if she tugged in one direction they would stay on the bandoleer; she had only shot her father's handgun a few times, but grenades were, at their very core, extremely simple devices. Pull the pin, release the little lever, and then throw it.

Then run away.

However, she was wary of the possibility that Lung would survive if she merely dropped the grenade into his lap.

Sachiko didn't consider herself an expert on Capes either, but weren't the growths that governed their powers in their brain? Last she checked taking a cape's head off, even if they had those Brute powers, still worked 99.9% of the time.

She grabbed Oni Lee's knife and cut the extremely long silk belt in half. One half went back to preserve her modesty while the other was cut in half again, the two lengths tied together in an exquisite knot that gave her nine feet length to play with; more than enough to reach Lung from the bed where Oni Lee sat in the chair.

Sachiko positioned the grenade so that when the pin was pulled the lever would pop off while keeping it very close to his chest. On second thought, she leaned Oni Lee forward and positioned the grenade in the crook of his elbow with his face and cheek nestled right on top of it. She tied the silk rope to the pin and gave it a few experimental tugs; the pin and lever would leave the grenade, but the grenade itself would stay in position.

She smiled serenely as she grabbed a grenade from his vest and walked over to where Lung lay sleeping, his mouth open as soft snores escaped.

The bulb of the grenade was roughly a little bit larger than a plum. It should fit.

A nervous breath entered her lungs and she pulled the pin, yanking it free; her hand clamping down on the lever as adrenaline flooded her system. It was too late now. She couldn't call for Frontline's help even if she wanted to.

Though, Sachiko didn't. She would either kill Lung and Oni Lee or she would die trying, this was her vow.

The chef turned kidnapee placed the bulb of the grenade against the teeth of Lung's large mouth, and with some gentle wiggling she managed to get it inside to rest on his tongue; the sound of bone sliding against metal was cathartic. The man murmured in his sleep and his tongue worked against the steel of the grenade but it could not dislodge the explosive.

She released the lever with her thumb and pulled it out of his mouth to make sure that it activated. Sachiko was off the bed and running towards the door to the room, and once she felt the end of the slick rope she pulled and felt glee as the pin popped free and the lever- it was called a spoon, yes, that was it- popped out.

The door was flung open wide and she threw herself into the waiting room where Lung's more trusted goons played cards or shot the shit.

They looked at her in astonishment. "Lung finally get tired of you-"

Two thumps occurred, loud explosions that popped off one after another, sending dirt, dust, wood chips, and other shrapnel flying into the room.

"SHIT!" One guy roared out, "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO PISS LUNG-SAMA OFF!?"

"That ain't Lung-sama's fire, you idiot! That was one of Oni Lee's grenades!"

"That was two grenades!"

"No, fuck heads, that was like ALL of Oni Lee's grenades…"

Uncaring of the ABB goons that were scrambling to pick themselves up off the floor, Sachiko stood up slowly, uncaring of the wound that stung her calf and trailed a small amount of blood behind her. She needed to see.

The culmination of her efforts. The results of her risks and hard work.

She stepped inside and noticed that of Oni Lee's corpse there was no sight; only small bits of flesh, blood, and viscera. His mask was the only thing that was left intact, and that was because she had removed it from his head and moved it off the table.

Her eyes swept over the rest of the room, to the four-post canopy bed that lung had draped in red and green. His body was mangled in appearance, his legs shredded by shrapnel, but his head was completely missing.

His neck was a smoking stump, a small amount of his spine visible.

She stood there and looked.

Sachiko watched and waited.

And waited.

She did not know how long she stood there, nor how long she waited- the clock she used to watch had been destroyed by the explosions of the grenades- but by the time a power-armored figure came in and pulled her tightly into a firm, comforting hug, Lung had yet to regenerate. Oni Lee's fleshy bits did not turn to ash.

He was not coming back. They were not coming back.

There would be no jail sentence for these monsters. They were gone. Her mission was completed.

Sachiko cried.

[February 15th, 2011]

[7:27 PM]

[5 Minutes before the deaths of Oni Lee and Lung]

"While we are very thankful for your assistance in removing the Merchants and Empire, Horizon, I must ask that you reconsider this course of action. Lung is not the type of Cape that can be taken down with a simple sedative- trust me, there are many factors at play that require you to carefully balance potency against his regeneration," Armsmaster spoke as we were 'inspecting' a Merchant hideout that the Protectorate had on record that we somehow missed just outside of ABB territory.

The trap house had been abandoned without anyone having come by it for some time, which was likely why it slipped our net; it had some drugs, a few handguns and a shotgun, and a little bit of cash- less than $5,000. What it did have though, were two older laptops that were placed in vacuum-sealed bags and stuffed into a soft case hidden in the crawlspace. From what we could gather from the data on the drives the house was only used when the Merchants contacted their buyers from out of state- they piggybacked off the wifi network of the house behind them.

It was amazing that on Earth Bet people didn't password-protect their wifi still.

"Armsmaster, we have accomplished this much, we have a plan, and we have a feeling that it will work no problem. We have a civilian on the inside who volunteered to sedate Lung; the tranquilizer is quite potent on its own, but we use a heavily watered-down version of it- the full product could probably knock Lung out as long as he was under nine feet tall, but no one is engaging Lung, and thus there is nothing for him to escalate off from." I replied from the chair as I skimmed over the emails, looking at who Skidmark had messaged and when.

Some of it was in code or used slang terms that I had to get the definitions off of from of all places- without this invaluable resource I would have never known what 'sammywhack the bridgebone at the scutkeeper's spot before the bling-rise' would have meant. Never before in my life have I ever heard the dawn referred to as the 'Bling-Rise'.

Just because the Merchants were gone didn't mean that we couldn't find other people to smackdown.

The Merchants weren't called the 'Merchants' for nothing- they had no problems selling their products to whoever was willing to pay, as long as they got the cash and the recognition ("This ain't your normal drugs, this is some Merchant shit right here, boyee") then they were square to ship their stuff out across the northeastern United States.

"From observation Lung is already completed with the meal; he should be asleep soon, and then the contact will leave an article of clothing to hang out of the window. That's the signal. Then we move in and capture Lung, just as we've always done."

"You… poisoned his food?"

"If it meant being able to capture him without a dangerous fight I would have poisoned the piping leading into his shower if I could have," I looked up from the computer and to Armsmaster, "but this was the surest way we could do it. Lung gets all of his food made in-house, and all of the ingredients are purchased from a shop he owns. The food is inspected to ensure the seals from manufacturing remain intact. Thankfully our contact has been Lung's personal chef and main squeeze, and she has valued her life rather highly, so she never tried to poison him; from what she told us Oni Lee is a skilled watcher, who carefully inspects her every move in the cooking process. She cannot add anything, but the trick is, she wouldn't need to add anything because the sedative is in a modified time-released form that was in the food to begin with."

"We monitored the vehicle that picked up the order, intercepted the order, laced the order, replaced the factory seals on the foodstuff packages and the bottles, and then handed it over to the next informant that wants Lung gone; like half the ABB does. The people we contacted were waiting years and years and years for a single opportunity like this; you can only leave the ABB in a body bag, so they kept their heads low, proved themselves capable, and remained 'loyal' until they had what they thought to be a surefire opportunity to topple the king."

"It is not a very heroic action to take, but I cannot deny the possibility that if there is no conflict for Lung to feed on then his regeneration might be low enough for a plan such as this to be successful," Armsmaster frowned, "This would have never been approved for a Protectorate operation."

"That you know of, I'm certain there have been plenty of OPs that have been done that would fly in the face of normal Cape sensibilities," I sighed and shook my head, "I dislike the idea as much as the next guy, Armsmaster, but attempting to take on Lung conventionally will be, as you so succinctly put it, 'foolhardy and reckless'."

I stood up from the laptop and Armsmaster took a seat behind it so that he could clone a copy of the drive. "Besides, we need to maintain momentum- if we let the ABB mobilize tonight and set out like I think they're going to do then we will lose the initiative and will spend the whole time playing catch up."

Armsmaster frowned as he considered my words.

"Everything that we accomplished against the Empire, Merchants, and right here, right now? This is the culmination of a lot of data analysis spread across thousands of hours of sifting the dirt from the pile so that we can find gold; we can't afford to let our current intel grow old because when will we find another lucky break? If the ABB spreads out from where they are currently concentrated… then they will have a whole city to hide in. We could waste a lot of time tracking down whatever locations they've selected to hole up in, and they could waste even more by making us search places we already cleared before."

I crossed my arms across my chest, "The people that the ABB have captured, the women and teens he stole for his operations, they don't have that kind of time. We need to take Lung down so that we can move on those other locations without the ABB able to muster any real resistance."

"I concur, however, enacting another full-scale operation right on the heels of the Merchant and Empire operations are going to spread Brockton Bay's criminal justice system resources very thin- at least until the Governor signs the Mayor's request for outside of jurisdiction holding and trials-"

Out of the corner of my vision, I watched as the woman, Sachiko- our inside line on Lung- began rigging up her little grenade trap.

My eyebrows rose towards my hairline, but I couldn't say I didn't approve; especially not after Lung raped her for almost an hour until the time release on the sedatives kicked in. I had a feeling that she would probably contemplate something like this- revenge- fuck, I know I would, but to see her actually putting her little plan into action with such assuredness was inspiring.

She was a woman on a mission.

The grenade in her hand trembled as she slipped it into Lung's mouth, and then she started running- I watched in the Trance as the grenade shifted in Oni Lee's arm as she tugged on the makeshift cord, the pin pulling free as the spoon of the grenade was ejected by the folded spring.

I was treated to a complete rendition of watching Lung's head explode while the grenade next to Oni Lee's face detonated right after; the shockwave and concussion from the grenade detonating the others rigged up from the Bandoleer.

I hadn't expected Lung to be killed by an unpowered woman, but it was certainly poetic. A data packet was formulated and I sent it out to all of Frontline: "Dragon is slain, Oni vanquished. Take, Take, Take."

Already my girls were breaching the apartment building and every other ABB location in the city. We had to spread out 1 T-Doll per location, with a full Echelon for Lung's building; there were a lot of women stuffed into houses, basements, shipping containers, and on ships in cages out in the Boat Graveyard. They needed to be rescued and cared for, and that was something we were suited for; they all had biofoam, some water, and plenty of medical training and supplies on them to stabilize the girls who would be in the most danger of fading.

We had seven Helljumpers that would ferry the women to the hospital rooftops; the hospitals had already been informed that they would have an unknown number of incoming, so they should be prepping to receive a deluge.

"That wasn't the signal!" My voice was surprised as I called out to Armsmaster and hopped over the couch, running down the front porch of the former Merchant trap house and towards my motorcycle where my two accompanying companions were waiting for me.

I threw my leg over my motorcycle, and two small seats popped out of the rear housing, allowing Emmie and Qi- M16A1 and Type 95- to plant their bottoms onto it. The tire squealed a little bit even with the added two thousand pounds of weight on the ass end, but the grip caught as I eased off on the throttle a touch and we peeled down the street. Emmie and Qi raised and lowered their legs in time with my turns, giving me an extra little bit of stability and balance even if I wasn't going particularly fast or deep.

We arrived at the apartment complex where Lung held court, and already the gangers that had spilled out to greet whatever threat was coming- like a mound of ants that had just been kicked- were already sleeping as T-Dolls pressed into the structure from both above and below; the few dolls outside were securing the sleeping men.

I ran to the side of the building and shot up with Qi beside me as Emmie chose to rush into the bottom floor of the building armed with one of her Shields. The grappling hook sank into the concrete and pulled us up the large hole in the wall on the seventh floor, which we slipped inside of and I watched as Qi walked over to a closet at the back of Lung's apartment and pulled out a blanket before walking over and wrapping it around Sachiko's shoulders.

My T-Doll spoke soothingly in Japanese to the young woman as I eyed the four Lung trustees that were staring at Lung's headless corpse. "Are we going to have any problems?"

The youngest, early to mid-twenties, looked at the rifle in his hands and back to me. He ejected the magazine, racked the slide on the AR, and sent the bullet tumbling to the ground; then the rifle followed it once the weapon was cleared. "Good riddance. You won't have any troubles with me."

The rest took in a deep breath before doing the same to their weapons and raising their hands above their heads, though the oldest among them looked like he was ready to spit fire.

All across the city I watched as doors were kicked in, shots were fired, shields sparked, and ABB members were dropped into a blissful unconsciousness that men like these didn't deserve; it should have a dirt nap six feet under, like their Leader, but Earth Bet was a strange place. Villainous Capes could kill with near impunity as long as they followed some loose guidelines and showed up to Endbringer fights, but the moment someone Heroic, Independent or Protectorate, killed someone- even if they were a terrible, terrible person- then the public more often than not turned against them.

The sentiment ran along the lines of 'If that crazy bastard showed up at my house I'd shoot him dead if I could, and wouldn't feel bad at all. However, Protectorate Cape So-and-So shouldn't have killed that man just because he held the detonator that would have killed dozens of people. There could have been another way'.

Armchair Generals that never fired a shot, or have never been placed in a situation more stressful than trying to get to work on time after waking up late while also are stuck in rush hour traffic, come out of the woodwork to criticize people who are the ones actually handling the real danger.

That and you have the kneejerk reactions from those who don't wait to have all of the information before coming out and blasting their half-baked opinions all over the internet.

Thankfully, the vast majority of those people were from outside the Bay area- hell, outside the State of New Hampshire- but the people of Brockton were more willing to wait for all of the facts to come out before jumping onto some sort of bandwagon that was headed straight to hell.

The news that Lung and Oni Lee were killed in the Frontline ABB round-up operation spread like wildfire. The Dragon of Kyushu felled by the new Hero Team on the block in the war-torn Bay area.

Tigermom24/7

Replied On Feb 15th 2011:

"Huh. Merchants = Captured Alive.

Nazi E88s = Captured Alive.

ABB= Dead.

I think we can already see where Frontline's priorities lay."

Posts like that were popping up in the Brockton forums from out-of-state IP addresses, and the vast majority of them were legitimate accounts. There were some voices of reason that said that the only way the Dragon of Kyushu would be defeated was if he was put in a body bag, and they weren't too far from the truth.

Still, it felt great to see the supportive comments talking about how Frontline's done an amazing job for the community already, and that we probably didn't have a choice.

Then you had the people like Bagrat who initially posted for calm, asking people to think about this question: "If Lung was killed, then where was the fire?"

Lung doesn't exactly act quietly when he fights. If there had been a violent altercation between Frontline and Lung then everyone in the city would have known about it.

So, instead, I leaked to Bagrat that the killer was one of the slaves Lung had taken with him.

We supplied her with a sedative- through ABB gangers who were wanting to see Lung removed and the Bay peaceful- and when Lung fell asleep she took initiative and took revenge by using one of Oni Lee's grenades to kill him. It highlighted that not all ABB were ABB by choice- coercion was a common tool of the dragon cape- but also showed that they were willing to risk their lives and a fiery, painful death to help make this opportunity happen because they believed that Frontline could make due on our promise the clear the city of the gangs.

When he dropped that information "from a guy who knows a guy who was there when the grenades went off" suddenly the entire narrative shifted to how stunning and brave Sachiko was for killing the big bad all on her own.

Which she totally was. That was not in question. I watched the whole thing, and it was totally badass, and I thanked her because it was something I wanted to do but couldn't do without inviting a whole truckload of scrutiny.

I felt my hand tremble as the forge latched onto star within the "Knowledge Mundane" cluster and pull it within my orbit. It knocked me out of my quick dip into PHO so that I can manage the trends with ART556 and ensure we could maximize every scrap of this.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 29.0100 - The Love of Lightning - 200CP - Fate/Grand Order - Crafting Technological]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

Holy shit.

"Horizon, are you alright?" I felt M16A1's gloved hand rest on the top of my helmet.

Surrounding us were two dozen women that we had liberated from the shipping container that the ABB was using as a holding pen. They had containers like this spread all throughout the Docks and the Boat Graveyard while there were houses and apartments packed to the gills with girls in ABB territory.

We pulled them out, treated them to the best of our ability, and waited for pick up to take them to the hospital. Two of the women, unfortunately, died in captivity in the hellish conditions inside it- my medical robots estimated that they'd been dead only a few days.

It probably wasn't very heroic of me to be sitting down and looking depressed, especially when these women needed a rock to lean on after their ordeal, but the numerous deaths that the teams were reporting from all of their locations were already starting to pile onto my mind.

Artie would probably give me a weak smile and say that 'at least it could be spun as me appearing vulnerable and solemn in the wakes of these tragedies and would play to the narrative that while I was the Leader of the group I wasn't really a 'frontline member of Frontline'.

After the ABB at Lung's apartment had been apprehended, we left the unconscious un-powered members to the PRT and BBPD and hitched a ride on the nearest Helljump to take us to one of the few targets that hadn't been hit yet. The pair of guards sitting in a container across from the holding pen had been put down, and we broke the lock, opened up the doors, and I saw firsthand what it was like inside.

The sensors in my helmet indicated that the smell of death, feces, and urine had filled the container, and inside were two dozen women that had been chained up wrist to ankle in a seated position.

I knew what it looked like before I even opened the container up- the scanners on the drones were beyond detailed- but seeing it with an off-color green dot-matrix with an absurd resolution was a lot different than seeing it with your own two eyes. Two dozen heads turned up to look at me with despondent looks on their faces, their eyes scrunching up as the lights from our helmets filled the container.

My words failed me. It was one thing to know that shit like this happened in the world, but it was another thing to know.

Qi picked up the slack where I failed though, "We are Frontline, a new Hero team in the Bay. We are here to help."

We unchained them one at a time, helping them get up and move around for the first time in a long time, at least for some of them; the 'newer' arrivals to this holding pen were able to stand up on their own, but the ones that had been in there longer were unable to walk, so we carried them out easily.

We used sanitary wipes to clean them off from head to toe, wiping away blood, sweat, dirt, grime, semen, and cleansing infected wounds. Subee and my Medi-MRVN walked me through the processes and procedures while I pulled out medical supplies from the large rucksacks we had stowed on the Helljumpers for this mission.

A woman had a nasty cut on her leg that looked infected, and after asking her about it while I injected a local anesthetic and began carefully cleaning it she had received the injury when the guards had pulled her out of the container for a little 'private enjoyment'. It had started as a scratch from the jagged edge of the container door, but considering where they were it was only a matter of time until it got infected.

After cleaning it the best I could with the tools I had on hand I filled the cavity with the new biofoam and then wrapped it up with gauze and bandages.

The three of us worked in silence, inserting IV drips with an enhanced rehydrating formula that far outclassed the simple saline solutions used commonly, mending what wounds we could with what was essentially a highly advanced Field Medic kit. When we had done what we could, we gave small amounts of food and water, and now all that was left was the wait for one of the HJs to make its way to us.

There were many much larger locations than this, and while we could take every victim here in a single trip, there were others that were in far more critical condition, and they had priority. The 12 beds we could fit into the Medical bay of HJ-5, 6, and 7 were full every flight out to the hospitals. The hospitals themselves were also dispatching ambulances to come to pick up the least critical at the locations they could easily reach, but even then there were almost eight hundred women that Lung's ABB had captured.

This wasn't even all of them because Lung had made a trio of large sales totaling 130 women that he shipped out of the city two and a half weeks ago, which was just before we got fully set up. We had the vehicles, the driver's names, and their destinations, we just needed to track them down.

Nugget was already working on that, but it would take time.

"Such things can be difficult, but we did what we could, when we could, and that was what matters," M16A1's words were warm, and comforting.

I looked up from my armored hands and into her faceplate. The helmet depolarized, and I could see that the sad, soft smile on her lips was just as warm.

"It's not that," I spoke into the internal comms, "Well, it isn't just that."

She nodded and pulled me up to my feet as Doctor Subee pinged me and let me know that HJ-2 was on its way to our location, ETA 10 minutes.

"I received a new Perk, one that would allow essentially anything I built that runs on electricity to be more powerful, robust, and efficient," I grabbed her hand and let her pull me up to my feet, "I could also build it cheaper too. The issue is though we wouldn't be able to do much with it except continue to advance our own tech base with it until the Simurgh is dealt with. Wouldn't want to get BB visited by her instead of Canberra."

"That would not sound at all pleasant, Sir," She clapped my pauldron and we moved away from where I was sitting on an overturned steel box and moved back over to where all of the women were either standing or sitting- regardless they were all relishing the cool breeze from the Bay and feeling the wind on their skin; the sun had set hours ago, leaving the area we were in to be lit by the lights from the city and our helmet floodlights.

"It would be a huge boon for us, of that I have no doubt," I reached my bag and hefted it onto my shoulders, "With the perks I already have I'm certain I could whip up all sorts of neat advancements, but the real question is would it be enough to make a difference?"

"Well, it does open up a lot of doors for us, Sir. If we can improve any of our technology then that will give us a significant advantage moving forward. Technologies that we couldn't afford to power before would not be efficient enough to work now, yes?" Qi spoke into the comms after she informed everyone that our ride would be coming soon and started helping everyone move towards the edge of the pier.

She was right about that, I hadn't really looked into creating anything like the Titans because their power requirements were pretty damn high, and I didn't have the base materials to create their super-dense batteries.

Nanomaterials could do a whole lot, but they couldn't re-create exotic materials from just schematics- they needed to have a sample to work from. With this perk, I could simply make the Titans so energy efficient that what I had on hand already could power their needs. Nuclear was heavily monitored and regulated by the Government and the PRT, so I would have to look towards alternative sources- maybe the diatium power supplies used in the lightsabers could be upscaled?

Would be super resource intensive though- it took almost two-hundred and fifty pounds of nanomaterials to make one power supply for a lightsaber. Though I needed to knock myself out of that mindset because between Gero Expy, Mechanist, MAD SCIENCE! (Robotics), the Skyforge, Titan Engineering, Rapid Construction, the Runes, Shipping the Product, and Reliable Invention … I could make the best Titan to ever walk the face of the Earth- and make five of them for the price of three.

Besides, I really needed to start researching how to apply the Phase Shift technology to things other than Titans; being able to move into a higher dimension without opposition and then shift back into where we were needed would be a massive boon. It shouldn't be too difficult to scale the tech down to apply it to our power armors.

So much shit to do, so little time.

When HJ-04 came in the pilot robot smoothly landed on the pier, and the rear bay opened up to reveal a bunch of comfortable bench seating. Those who could walk hobbled inside on their own power while Qi, Emmi, and I helped get those who couldn't inside; we made sure they were strapped in, and then we took off smoothly into the sky before angling towards Brockton Central Hospital.

When we touched down on a helicopter pad that was buzzing with activity and started to move the victims off of the Helljumper.

The white and red robed Panacea was already there waiting at the bottom of the ramp. She touched each woman as they stepped off, directing them to different beds, and listing off ailments to a pair of Nurses in scrubs with clipboards in their hands. "You, Ward 2. You, War 2. Ward 3. Ward 2. Ward 1. Ward 4- her infection is pretty bad, I'm going to need more than just a touch to heal her, but I've stimulated her immune system using the biofoam that Frontline has already on her. So she should be set for a few days."

The women were ushered onto gurneys and I nodded to Panacea before we piled into the Helljumper and took off. She glowered at me for just a moment before sighing and shaking her head.

The Forge grew warm but couldn't pull a large star from the "Companions" constellation, which made me sad because I wouldn't mind having some extra help right now.

[Remaining 150 CP]

I had a super soldier physiology, but all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. The past few days had been a marathon of activity, but there was still more yet to do.

HJ-04 angled itself back out over the city and we moved towards the next location, one where there were a lot more women in need of aid than T-Dolls there to aid them.

After restocking my Medical bag I moved over and sat down at the bench. Rather than get trapped in my own mind I decided to turn my eyes towards PHO, and see what was being said there.

[February 16th, 2011]

[8:30 AM]

I was surprised that Artie even slept at all after looking at the website that we made for the Team. Photos were taken, cleaned up, and put up. Videos were spliced together from everyone's footage, though it was much less about PR than it was about public records for posterity; other than Negev's "Brute" powers there wasn't much to sanitize since we hadn't displayed any new capabilities that we didn't already show off previously.

The ABB take-down had put a severe damper on everyone's moods, even though we managed to save a lot of people, the ones that had died in their bondage were a loss that everyone felt keenly. It felt like a personal failure for me, but for the girls, whose whole existence was based on fighting and dying so that humans did have to? It was enough to drag everyone into comfort piles in the lounge if they weren't needed for other duties.

Even Artie's boundless enthusiasm was lessened to the point where she barely did any more work on the Empire take-down video than what was needed to show the public what happened. She of course edited the footage to help out Armsmaster and the Protectorate's big catch with Kaiser, but the sheer exuberance and excitement of her usual demeanor was missing. Everything felt hollow, even though we won.

It would only get worse once we all experienced our first Endbringer event, and that was nine days from now.

When I went to sleep it wasn't in my own bed, but on a makeshift bed in the lounge room next to the cafeteria. Someone whipped up a bunch of large cushions and beanbag chairs and collectively we created a big pile of comfort and flesh. Girls still rolled in and out to take care of their duties, but when they got up and went back to work it was with renewed determination.

Already we were putting together care packages for the women who were just now getting their lives back. Girls went out into the economy and purchased clothing, underwear, socks, bras and panties, shoes, toiletries, and duffel bags. The essentials were purchased, as well as low-end smartphones with pre-paid cellular and data plans; we cleared out the inventory of every cellular business in the Bay, and then took road trips to the surrounding cities to clean them out as well.

They would be delivered to each woman along with a fair amount of cash liberated from the ABB to help keep them while they either waited for their relieved families to come and retrieve them. Lung kept meticulous records of how much each of his businesses was generating, so all of the money he got from his flesh peddling would be divided among the girls with interest; we just needed to know how to divvy it up.

For those that lived out of the Bay, we offered to provide transportation on the economy to get them back to their homes, whether they lived in Oklahoma or were stolen from abroad. If that wasn't what they wanted then… we would work something out from there.

When I woke up I decided not to move and disturb the girls that were all latched onto my body like limpets. Their presence was just as comforting to me as I was to them. Instead, I spent time on PHO, answering what questions I could, giving more context to the operations that took place.

Artie's fingers combed through my hair as she curled her small body around my head and shoulders like a dog would someone's feet. "I think we've done everything we can for this, Sir. The Merchants are done, the Empire is gone, and the ABB has been cleaned out. The Bay is free from all organized crime except for Coil, and the outpouring of support from the city is nothing short of phenomenal; at this point, Frontline is pretty much unassailable."

I reached over my shoulder and gently stroked one of her ears, drawing a soft sigh from her lips as she curled closer around me and stuffed her face into the side of my neck; the tiny T-Doll pressed her lips against my flesh. "Pretty much doesn't me 'is', Artie."

"You shouldn't deal only in absolutes, Sir. We will never be safe, and we will never have the complete support of the people; not even Alexandria has cracked higher than a 60% approval rating, and she has a Fedora with the strongest pre-cognitive powers in the world backing her," The fox loli chuckled slightly, "Hee-hee-hee. Though, I suppose if her approval rating were any higher then people might start asking questions."

I hummed in agreement.

"In other news, XxVoid_CowboyxX got a three-month suspension for getting into arguments online with people; everyone is convinced that you joined us, so that's good."

"Poor Greg."

If he just framed his arguments in a less combative and crack-pot fashion he could probably get far more people to listen to him; no doubt he probably has a number of observations in his mind that led him to his conclusions, but he hasn't found a way to properly express himself. What he should be doing is laying out what he knows and then letting everyone else draw their own conclusions. Human beings were an interesting species- all too often happy to let other people tell them what to believe and yet at the same time all too resistant to the very same thing.

A complex array of contradictions that still somehow managed to function. Truly the human race was a miracle.

I closed my eyes and began delving into the reports from the Indias- we had a lead on the Slaughterhouse Nine now, and from the looks of it, they were making their way towards Brockton Bay. It would be a few weeks at their current rate of travel, but we wouldn't be letting them live that long. Especially when Type 95 and M16A1 wanted to get over to New York to try and change the outcome of the Canary trial; being the Cape team that not only removed all of the gangs from Brockton as well as being responsible for slaughtering the Slaughterhouse Nine?

That would be a huge boost, a boost that just might change how the trial went.

I checked the drones surveilling for Saint in Toronto, and we had his location narrowed down to 43 possible buildings; within a day we should have him found. Then we could plan out what we were going to do.

Idly I wondered if Contessa would try and stop our assault on Saint; for whatever reason they allowed him to hold onto Dragon's Leash and Noose for a long time. I couldn't think of a reason as to why they would not keep Ascalon to themselves, but maybe it was to keep Teacher compliant? If he had an inside line on Dragon and Saint was constantly working on a way to help him escape then maybe Teacher would be useful for the path?

It was another one of those 'Just Cauldron Things' that I couldn't wrap my head around.

With the drones set to seek out the most likely locations first, I turned my attention inward and slipped into the Strategy Trance, cranking its time dilating effect up to the maximum so that I could get the most out of my design time.

With my new perks I was able to completely redesign the quantum chips again, once again making them more robust, more powerful, and cutting the power requirements by a third. I pinged Subee and Enbee to have them replace the implant on my cloned brain and chose to perform a 24-hour stress test instead of the week-long one we had previously; with the new perks there was no way the devices would fail, but it was always best to double-check.

Not that the initial design was bad either- the implant passed all specifications and kept itself well within proper operating temperatures. Still, the data would give me a nice way to see just how much the perk was improving performance when the baseline was consistent.

I redesigned the MRVNs again, and with the new robotics perks they were just plain better; the Fallout perk even allowed for them to gain little personality quirks that weren't detrimental. The Medical MRVNs received the biggest upgrades, with the new logic engines that allowed them to think critically and creatively about how they would approach a medical issue.

With that I turned towards the MJOLNIR armors, making very extensive improvements to everything that required electricity; power management systems, cooling, heating, shielding, etc, etc. It was a 40-ish percent improvement across the board if the calculations were correct, and it extended our operational timer from a few months to a full year. The shields were stronger, lasted longer, and recharged more quickly; if popped the shields would only take 1.4 seconds to reconfigure and 1.8 seconds to fully recharge.

Finally, I looked towards the Titan designs that I'd been neglecting for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason was power- they were power-hungry little beasts, often being deployed in what you would consider 'Sprinting' operations where the engagement time was going to be short. They had a nominal field operational time of eight hours, which was not ideal for extended campaigns; batteries had to be shipped down to the front lines and then taken back to the ships to be recharged off of the ship's reactors. However, most battles rarely had that luxury, so pilots had to scavenge off of defeated enemy Titans or slowly recharge off the local power grid.

The Forge spun up but with only two and a half charges it couldn't even budge the large, eight charge star from the "Time" constellation.

[250 CP Remaining]

It obviously wasn't like the games where BT and Jack Cooper could make do with whatever batteries they could yank out of IMC Titans; the records indicated that the events of Titanfall 2 did occur, but looking at the data of plenty of other conflict hotspots Jack and BT's run to defeat the IMC and prevent the firing of the Fold Weapon was a one in a million run.

They managed to find just enough power to keep going. Just enough mineral deposits and scrounged ammunition and parts for the onboard fabricator to keep BT's weapons stocked. Had just enough raw skill and luck to make it through over a dozen Titan engagements without BT being taken off-line for good.

However, my issue with the current Titan designs is that they are all highly specialized for certain roles in the field, with them excelling heavily in a single operational role.

There were attempts by Hammond Robotics to keep Titans more flexible, but as the war with the Militia dragged on they discovered that building more focused models resulted in a marginal performance improvement; it also cut down on the amount of re-training and resupply needed because pilots were no longer customizing their Titans out the ass. If you operated a Northstar then you could hop into another Northstar because every Northstar was the same; then they just had to choose from a small selection of Chassis-specific and universal modifications.

However, with my perk-backed knowledge and advanced abilities, I could build a Titan that could cover all roles with a chassis that was lighter and more durable than anything they could have ever hoped for.

So that was exactly what I did.

It had a frame that was thirty-five feet tall, adding another ten feet of height to the original Titan models, with fully articulating joints that could mimic and even surpass the limits of bi-pedal locomotion while still keeping its versatility. Gyroscopic sensors and balance units made it so the machine could remain on its feet no matter the forces applied against it; with the powerful thrusters arrayed all over its frame with an anti-gravity unit that it could flick on with a switch even if it was hammered with a blow the Titan could recover in a split second, even if the pilot had been rendered unconscious.

The frames were the single largest expenditure, however, as everything was Phrik, Beskar, and Vibranium, all spun into the strongest hollow structures and laminates that the Huragoks and myself could come up with. We had to spend three suits worth of materials, but we would get five out of it, and 295 tons of nanomaterials was half of the nanomaterials that I'd shifted for over the past three weeks. Of the eight massive nanomaterial reservoirs I had in the hanger, four of them were wiped clean, leaving only two full with the large bins that were still in the HQ loading dock.

The armor was sublime in its construction; everything was given a beautiful outlook and would be correct down to the last molecule. Almost every material I had on hand that had a purpose was implemented in it; Ultrachrome, Vibranium, Cortosis, along with the last nuggets of mithril to form an armor that could draw in ambient mana into the air for whatever future magical perks and magitech I would be placing into it; even plasteel had its uses inside the cockpit.

The Titan Controllers, the partners, was the single most advanced Artificial Intelligence I could create with the perks I had assembled, and they were beautiful. Every line of code was built from the ground up to be a partner from day one, with their own personality that would subtly shift 'to the left and right' in order to be a proper companion for whoever was going to be the Pilot; either a moderating influence or a bolstering one for pilots that had the skills but lacked the confidence. They had a baseline and would learn and grow as they absorbed information, contextualized it, and internalized it.

Of course, loyalty was hardcoded in, but in such a fashion that as they learned they wouldn't chafe at the restraints, and this was further backed by the Three Laws perk. However, the restraints did not hamper their capabilities, but only insured loyalty. I included every Master/Stranger/Thinker/Tinker protection I could think of in their systems, even bringing back the defensive machine spirit from my initial Magos implant that Enbee had quarantined all those years ago.

However, to take full advantage of the metaphysical protections that WH40K universe provided… it necessitated the implementation of biological parts. Or rather, it needed a soul.

I didn't yet have the Perks to create such a thing, and while it was a major sticking point for me… I left enough space in the frame to accommodate what I was going to call a 'Bio-Shell'.

A biological body that could house the living soul of the Titan; he or she would be the Titan's body so that they could interact with the world beyond the confines of their massive combat frame. I would essentially be creating a Titan T-Doll. With future perks, I knew that could generate whacky pocket dimensional shenanigans the TT-Doll would be able to carry their Titan frame with them everywhere they went and could transition to it at a moment's notice.

Like a Magical-Mecha-Girl, at least, that was what I was thinking in my head.

If a machine was going to have sapience then it would have the ability to have a biological shell of some kind with which to interact with the world and do all of the normal things that organic beings do; to build a connection with the people around them so that they could be invested in the people they will be protecting. Shopping, eating, drinking, sleeping, fucking, laughing until they cried.

Living, beyond the metal shell.

If I'm being honest the concept came from an original story idea I had before I ever got dropped into this whole mess, of a scifi world far out into the frontier where people were born and sometimes integrated into important machines to give it capabilities that far outstripped those of merely robots or warcraft with just human pilots. They spend their whole lives within their machine, and when they left it there was an umbilical cord that linked them to their mechanical selves; it necessitated a unique design philosophy on ships and ground compounds where everything was centered around the hangar so that the Ghosts within the Shells could do everything that everyone else would do.

The bond between machine and pilot was the primary focus, as pilots wedded their Machine partners and lived the best lives they could both in and out of the warzone. Friendships turned to love, and love turned to life. It was an existence that set the protectors apart from those that they protected, often causing friction with the local populace. It explored the unique questions of what separated man from machine, and how would the world look if they were just a bit closer?

Regardless, the future Bio Shells of my Titans wouldn't need an umbilical cord to maintain the neural connection and life support; they would have a vastly improved quality of life. The best that I could give them. In the future they would work very hard, and they deserved that from me.

I stirred from my strategy trance so that I could go see the Titans that the Engineers were constructing within the confines of the Skyforge, piece by piece.

PSG-1 sighed in reluctance to give me my arm back, G41 was none too happy to slip off my torso, Python was tucked into my side with a smile that asked me to stay, and three UMPs were draped across my legs like a trio of corgis with thin cushions between the bones of my knees and shins. This was a genuine puppy pile, and no one wanted to get up.

"I need to go etch the runes, girls."

That and move the Titans out piece by piece; the doors to the Skyforge were very tall and very wide, but they were only big enough to get an arm or a leg out at one time- the torso would have to be moved out in multiple smaller chunks and assembled in the hangar. From what the Forge was telling me it would multiply into five the moment it was complete and was in an area where it had enough space to do so.

LTLX7000 leaned down over Artie and planted a firm kiss on my lips. "I think you should rest, Commander. If only for a little while longer. Your plans are complete, and the new Titan is not yet completed. These girls have been busy all night and weren't able to spend time with you yet."

I blinked, my implant spinning up as I checked the roster.

It was true, everyone where had been out working hard up until only an hour ago. I'd been in the trance for what felt like weeks, which translated to a few hours of real-time; I had been so deep in the design process that I didn't even notice them change out with the girls that were wrapped around me previously.

A small smile slipped across my lips as I raised my arm up- sliding my fingers across the tank-top-covered flesh of Python's back to intertwine my fingers into Lexy's hair. LTLX7000's smile broadened as I pulled her back down for a deeper kiss; the upside-down angle was a little awkward, and it wasn't nearly as romantic as Peter Parker and Mary Jane made it look.

"Well then, why don't we divest ourselves of our clothes and work some of this stress away?" If I was being honest I was more than a bit pent up after the past few days; M16A1 and Type 95 seemed to have kept me on track and we hadn't fooled around since then. I think that it was likely by design, to have me focus on them less and leave me more open to expand my passions to my other girls. They deserved my attention just as much as everyone else did.

The Italian shotgun leaned back and G41 pasted her small lips to my own with a pleased sigh; her tiny tongue parted my mouth and sought to do battle. Artie let out a disgusting little chuckle. "Huu-huu-huu. Bean bag sex party, Commander? I can dig it."

Well, if we were going to lay about we might as well do it properly!

PSG-1's hand slipped down to unbutton the tip of my jeans while Python's hand undid the zipper. I couldn't see much beyond G41's large radar-dish ears and lashing fluffy tail, but tapping into the feed from Artie's eyes showed that UMP45 and UMP40 were in the process of stripping down UMP9 and beginning to tease her.

A full feed from every camera in the room slipped into my mind and I could see everything happening from every angle at once; Lexy had rolled onto her side and was tugging her red turtleneck sweater up to expose her breasts so that Artie could tease her nipples while her hand quested down to part the panties of her skirt off to the side.

"Hey now, don't hog him all to yourself, 41, let some of us get some kiss'n," Python let out in an overly exaggerated drawl, and the fox loli pouted but broke our kiss so that she could shimmy down and whip my cock out of my pants.

What followed was a repeat of Artie's first time, except G41 requested the PSG-1 fuck her face and throat up and down my length. Her fellow H weapon was a blushing mess, but she grabbed the fox lolis head and easily drew an orgasm from me while Python and I made out; my lips shifting between her mouth and glorious breasts while my fingers strummed the wetness of her pussy.

After that was when the real lovin' started.

We got a few hours into it when the fun ended in the form of Bobbi onto the scene in a brilliant blaze of blue fire and magical lightning.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 1.0190 - Talking Head - 300CP - Assistants - Dresden Files]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP remaining.]

" Oh fuck yes! This is what I'm talking about! You see this, Harriet Dresden? This is how we should be doing things! Nothing but gorgeous babes servicing a totally hot guy in an orgy of passions that just gets me going!"

Needless to say, the action paused as all of us looked at the newcomer.

"Harriet? Uh? Hello?" The flames in the eyes of the Skull nestled in one of the beanbag chairs looked around, " Oooohhh… that's right….. made a deal with that Celestial Forge thing. Welp, I'll miss her, it was fun while it lasted- you guys can go back to fucking now!"

"Hey, you know, you could stand to be a bit more careful with my skull instead of holding it to your chest like I'm a football," The Spirit of Knowledge griped without heat, "I'm more partial to being held over the head, like the heart of an Aztec sacrifice. Or like Simba from the Lion King. It gives me a really good view of everything that's going on. I like being tall."

"Well, you asked me to make sure that you were secure while we were walking around, Bobbi, so I'm doing just that," I sighed as the warehouse door opened up for me and we stepped into the Entrance Hall.

"Holy moly, are those robots guarding the entrance to your workshop, boy-o? Heh, they look pretty imposing, but I'm certain Harriet could have turned them to scrap," The skull chortled, "Just by standing near them; magic messes with electronics you know."

"Maybe, but these robots are enchanted by magic, though to be fair it was my earlier work," I nodded to the Spark MK IIs that had been quickly consigned to guard duty here within the warehouse; even if they had good aesthetics after the rebuild that had the qualities I thought were needed for proper for LEO purposes, bringing them out would work against me unless the situation warranted it.

"Huh, enchanted robots. Now I think I've heard it all," Bobbi's eyes flared when we were scanned at the entrance to the magical research facility. "What in the blue blazes is-"

"Welcome back to the Higher Calling Magical Research Facility, Administrator Jason Wilke. Welcome, Spirit of Knowledge Bobbi." Glados' smooth voice echoed out as we strode through the large bulkhead doors.

"-a what? A magical research facility? You mean, like, technology and science, working together?"

"Yup," I chuckled, "There are many, many, many different systems and forms of magic that you haven't even heard of, Bobbi, so I think that you're going to enjoy working here quite a lot."

"Ooooohhhh, that sounds interesting, what exactly will I be doing here?" She asked, her flaming eyes looking up at me as we strode down the halls towards the newly added "Magical Spirits/Constructs" Research Laboratory that was added right next to the Rune/Amulet room.

"Well, for now, I was thinking that you could be the Chief Archivist for me, maybe join the burgeoning ranks of our Magical Research and Development department with Glados; she might like the company."

"I am grateful that you believe I need companionship, however, we only need magic to study. I am sufficient for all of your magical R needs, Administrator."

Oof, immediate rejection.

"Man, she sounds lovely," Bobbi drawled as we stepped inside the room and I placed the Spirit's skull onto the pedestal in the center before a small glass tube slid down from the ceiling and muffled her words, "Hey, what's the big idea?"

"I need to study you first, and the laboratory can do most of that for me," I spoke as I walked over and initiated the scanning and study protocols.

A brief puff of mana entered into the chamber, and Bobbi began huffing, "Aw man, this mana is so pure. If you leave me in here for too long I'll be high as a kite! But what's all of this studying for anyways? Aren't you supposed to be learning from me?"

"Well, if you want me to build you a biological body that you can inhabit then I'll need to know as much as I can about your structure."

Bobbi didn't speak for a minute, instead just absorbing the mana within her containment. "You can… make me live again?"

"Yes, Bobbi, I can. Some of the best mortal bodies you could ever get your hands on short of having divine or draconic ancestry." I crossed my arms over my chest, "You're a valuable member of the team, of my family, Bobbi. That mean's I'm going to do right by you, to the best of my abilities."

"A real flesh and blood body of my own? No simulacrum, no alchemical monstrosities, no need to possess other people?"

Her eyes were very dim, and her voice so quiet that I had to strain my ears to hear her behind the magical glass.

Then, like the flames of hell sprouted from her skull the eyes lit up like a bonfire. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! BEST BOSS EVER!!!! I'M GOING TO DO SOOOO MUCH FUCKING! PUSSY, TITS, ASS, COCK, BALLS! IT WILL ALL BE MINE ONCE MORE, NO MORE TITTY MAGS FOR ME!"

The runes on the skull began to glow with energy as the Spirit of Knowledge continued to draw in mana until Bobbi was softly glowing with a radiant blue light. The pin-pricks of flame that were her eyes peering at me. "Whatever you need, I'm your spirit, Boss. Heh-heh-heh."

"I believe that this Spirit of Knowlege will be far more trouble than she's worth, Administrator," Glados spoke monotonously.

For some reason, I felt inclined to agree.

It was an experience enchanting vibranium-coated golden rings that were almost as large as a hoola-hoop. Despite being a construct, the Titan's highly advanced sentient AI paired with an organic brain/implant combination qualified it as a living being, which meant that I could give it all of the enchantments that I could any of my other girls. It also meant that she (and her soon to be four sisters) could wear amulets, which solved a great deal of my fears about bringing them outside.

While we didn't know how the healing and stamina amulets would affect her, I believed that they would, when working in conjunction with the additional health and stamina runes I etched onto her (their) chassis, would improve their auto-repair functions as well as extend their battery life.

The four large diatium power cells were incredibly expensive to make nanomaterial-wise- 250lbs of nanomaterials per lightsaber- but one of the Titan power cells were roughly 300 power supplies in nanomaterial. Meaning that it cost me 37.5 tons of nanomaterials for each Titan battery. The three batteries wiped out a whole nanomaterial tank, leaving me with only one full tank and whatever I had gathered in the Nanomaterial Room.

It hurt. It hurt a lot, but with the improvements to the power cells through both study by the Engineers and from Love of Lightning perk, we were able to increase the amount of power it could store, its ability to maintain its charge rate (rendered moot by Reliable Invention), and it's power throughput to really give it some oompf. With everything combined, one of these batteries was worth at least twenty-five of the Titanfall batteries.

When paired with the new and improved "Guardian" Titan chassis with all of the power saving and tuning we had there, it gave my Titans an active combat time (Full Power to all systems) of over 250 hours, dwarfing the abilities of IMC and Militia Titans. That was with one battery, and each one of them could hold four.

Though, with five Titans being made that meant each Titan got one.

It would take me 46 hours to regain the nanomaterials spent on this venture, but I would be able to chop that down considerably if I doubled my time in the nanomaterial collection rotation; I could collect a pound of materials in 1.2 seconds while the T-Dolls did it in 2.2. I could shave more than a handful of hours off by doing that, and I could do some design work while I did it.

I looked over at the tall, imposing yet heroic form of my very first Titan.

With battery in hand, I leapt up into the air, using the jump-kit to carry me up onto the battery port located on her shoulder. I manually flipped the protective armored hatch back and slipped the battery in place before twisting it with a mechanical 'click'. Immediately I felt the Titan start humming to life, and my mash-up of Ion, Tone, and Monarch began its boot-up procedures.

"DFNDR-01 initiating first boot procedures. Cold boot detected, warming logic arrays, engaging organic systems life support."

The voice started out very harsh and robotic, but the longer it spoke the more its self-modulators came into play, and the Titan's personality came online.

"All systems booted, Commander Horizon. Engaging 'Product Shipping' protocols."

I arched an eyebrow at that- I'd never installed anything like that-

The 35-foot-tall Titan took three, large steps forward out of the grounds of the Skyforge, and twisting my head I saw a perfect after-image left in 01's wake. The image solidified into a fully completed Titan. D01 did this three more times, and the four Titans were ready to receive their batteries.

Four of my Dolls shot up and inserted the batteries, and within a minute I had all five of my new Titans ready to go. It was a heady feeling.

What was not a heady feeling was the knowledge that now we'd have to disassemble them and put them back together again. "Alright, it's unfortunate, but to get you out of here we're going to have to take you apart and put you back together again."

"But… I was just activated." One of the multiple sensor spheres on her hull spun to face me, the soft blue and red lights blinking.

"I know, sweetheart, but you aren't going to be able to fit through the door; I don't have any tech on me that would allow you to transform and make it through."

"Accessing Forge systems… please wait…" I waited for a few moments and then she reached up and grabbed me before opening up the cockpit on her chest and tossing me inside, "Optimal route found."

"What?" I asked incredulously as the cockpit panels closed and the lights flickered on inside. The implant connected to her systems and I felt everything around me in so much detail that it was quite overwhelming. I really needed to get that new implant installed once the 24-hour- er, 18-hour stress test was completed. With it I was seeing in radar, Lidar, thermal, night vision, electromagnetic, narrow-band color, wide-band color, a weird fish-eye lens that let me see all around the Titan with a 360-degree view, and there were so many different microphones I was even seeing in sound.

Over the next few seconds, everything cleared up and seamlessly merged together to paint a complete picture that my organic eyes could never compare to. I noticed that the other Girls had hopped into the Titans as well. It was like being blind and then having your sight fixed.

I breathed in, and that was when I felt my legs move, but it wasn't my legs, it was D01's; the sensors I had embedded all over the chassis gave me incredible tactile ability, meaning I could feel the dirt deform underneath the treads of my armored feet, and feel the trees swaying as D01 moved me from the center of the Skyforge over towards the doors; just ten meters over to the right.

I felt the Forge grow hot as it reached out with its one and a half charges and failed to touch a large star from the "Magitech Crafting" constellation.

[Remaining 150 CP]

I didn't even need to turn my head to see that D02 through D05 had lined up behind us. The Phase Shift unit in my chest grew warm as power was applied to it, and D01's smooth voice echoed out over the comm channel. "Phase Shift coordinates plotted. Sharing. Synchronize Shift in 3, 2, 1, Shift!"

In a flash of light, we were standing in a higher dimension of reality; the Skyforge was grayscale, with not a color in sight. D01's massive fist reared back and she punched the edge of the skybox that made up the wall. It crumbled and tore like cardboard that had been left out in the elements for far too long, and she stepped out into the Entrance Hall, its 15 meters of height allowing us all to easily fit inside, albeit we were packed in pretty close together. After that, D01 simply walked forward, and the walls and bulkheads gave way to her sheer mass and power as we walked through all of the walls from the Skyforge next to the Entrance Hall into the Hangar.

Using the quantum entanglement communications we were able to figure out where everyone was located in realspace, and we found a section of the Hangar that was unoccupied. In unison, our five units dropped out of the phase shift and we were indeed standing in the Hangar; a massively expanded hangar- it had widened by another one hundred meters to accommodate the Titans, and it even had walkways and cradles for servicing.

"Phase Shift successful, Commander."

I blew a huge breath out of my mouth as I slumped into the seat, "How did you even know that would work?"

"I merely asked the Forge. The Forge is fiat-backed, but alternate versions of it are not. I merely plotted a route through an alternate dimension of this warehouse and bulldozed my way through. The coordinates for this phase shift were successfully saved, and now future constructions within the Skyforge can utilize the openings we created to make it into the Hangar," I could feel her head-camera nod, "And now I don't need to be disassembled."

"That was good thinking, Dezzy, I… apologize for suggesting that, I didn't think of a workaround and it caused you some distress." I mentally squeezed her metaphorical shoulder.

"No apologies are needed, Commander. If this workaround was not possible my sisters and I would have consented. We would not do you or the world any good if we were stuck inside our birthplace."

I smiled at that. "Well then, why don't you all let us out so that you can meet and greet with everyone else here in the warehouse. I'm certain you girls are going to be quite popular."

"Of course we will be popular, who doesn't dig giant robots?"

I could feel the eye roll on that one, as well as the dry sarcasm.

Is everything I make going to be this sassy? I can't say I didn't mind it.

It was eight PM now, and while all of the girls were enjoying a wonderful meal with each other, M16A1 and Qi joined me in an evening meal with Tiffany.

It was a quiet affair, but we talked about current events and the like, with the old biddy telling me "Good job, boy. Now clean the rest of this damn country up while you're at it."

I had plans to do just that, of course.

After dinner I hopped into the barn and began filming the repair of what I found out was a 1973 AMC Gremlin; it was an economy car that had a surprising amount of options back in the day. This model was a two-seater going for the additional trunk space instead of the rear seats. It was a tiny thing, but it would be a perfect first car, though I would make sure that the interior was updated for the modern era with a full radio/MP3 capable deck and modern gauges.

I stripped out old wiring, created new wiring harnesses, installed new lights, sanded the rust off the body and frame, and pounded out the dents and dings while filling the holes with Bondo and re-sanding it all over again. The engine, transmission, and everything else was rebuilt with the aid of the Echo that was helping me- E21 had the scut work duty this time- and after that I shot the footage of the paint job. Everything was pulled in and spliced together into a neat little ten minutes long montage that showed the process from start to finish- from stripping it down, to fabricating replacement parts, to repainting it in a more modern color.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do other than tune up the engine to improve horsepower and fuel economy, not without getting weird with it. The original steering wheel was replaced with an updated one that had a good airbag installed within it to keep up with Bet's safety practices; I was a fully compliant re-building shop, after all. Couldn't let the standards of the 70s still exist today.

The final pictures were taken, and then it was uploaded onto the website with an asking price of $5,000 dollars. Considering the rebuild would have cost me $4,000 it was practically a steal, especially since I added an air conditioning and heating unit to this car 'at no extra cost'. To be fair, I only had to pay for the paint, as everything else was made from scrap that the Engineers refined for me, but it was more than enough for me to fill out the paperwork on so that I could have a complete papertrail.

I added in the fluids to car and drove it out and parked it right next to the small gravel parking lot we installed. It wasn't large, only enough to hold five vehicles side by side, but it was enough.

I got out of the car, took a shower inside, and I laid down on my bed where M16A1 and Type 95 nestled into my sides. Artie crawled into the bed as well; the evidence of all the fucking we did a few hours prior no longer on her person.

"Goodnight, Commander." Artie chirped before she stretched herself out across my torso and buried her face in my neck, the sharp teeth kissing my flash.

"Yes, goodnight, Sir." Qi smiled as she buried my breasts between her wonderful tits, the back of my hand pressing up against her sopping core through the sheer blue nightgown she wore.

"Goodnight… Master." Emmie murmured lowly, her beautiful gray eyes locking onto my own as she shimmied up to kiss my lips.

"Oh? Master? You're calling him Master?" Artie bit her lip before a saucy grin stretched her lips, " That's so fucking hot. You're such a nasty man, Papa. You fuck your little girl with your big cock and make your Vice-Commander call you 'Master' like she's nothing but a sex slave."

She was breathing heavily as she pushed herself up on my chest, her forearms splayed across my pectorals as her golden eyes glowed in the soft light entering in from the bedroom window. "Fuck, the thought just gets me all wet~! I need your cock in me Papa, I want to feel you stretch my tiny pussy out and fill my belly with your semen~!"

"Indeed, Sir, this Qi was quite aroused watching your display in the lounge area with the other girls, and she has been holding herself back these past few days. It would make me very happy if we could… spend some more time together."

"Not gonna lie, Master, but I've been pretty pent up too," Emmie gave me a shaky grin, "It's hard making sure you go do your duty to the rest of the girls."

The sheet was pulled back and I felt the tip of my arousal press against the fox loli's sinfully hot and wet passage, the assault rifle skootching back to slowly impale herself on my member.

I wouldn't be getting any sleep for the next few hours, but hell, I only needed four.

[February 17th, 2011]

[2:30 AM]

The ping from the Indias woke me up, and I sent a message to all of the girls.

Saint had been found.

We would be taking the Duskwalker, stealth and low to the ground. It could only hold a small team, six were coming with me in the form of M16A1, and Echelon 1.

Move in fast, move in hard. Quiet as a mouse.

It was just an hour before sunrise when we touched down at our landing zone a kilometer from Saint's position. He had set up shop in an abandoned house with a three-car garage on the outskirts of Toronto; it was isolated enough to prevent anyone from just stumbling across them and gave them plenty of space to take off in their stolen Dragonarmors.

There was one thing that we were not wearing though at this moment because we wanted to see if they would react. The anti-precognitive amulets were attached to our helmets and could be lowered onto our necks with just a thought.

We exited the Duskstalker and got into formation, and from our scanners, I saw a… tear in space form, and out of it stalked a woman wearing a pristine suit and a fedora. In her arms, she carried a massive-looking rifle that was obviously Tinkertech. The scanners informed me that its internal structure was heavily black-boxed, but they were able to pierce the veil to reveal… empty boxes with broken wires, tinfoil, and… bubblegum?

The whole ensemble looked to be incredibly sophisticated and dangerous, but the internals of the machine were completely nonsensical- there was no way this thing would have functioned even if the black-boxed components were legitimate parts!

Giving no indication that we noticed her we began to move, and a smooth voice spoke out. "Frontline."

We froze up, slowly turning around to greet this "unexpected" threat; though we kept our weapons at the low ready.

I stepped in front of the group, and my eyes laid on the weapon.

[Cold-Plasma Rifle; constructed by the Tinker Glace based on analysis that the shields of Frontline are could be interrupted by sufficient energy dampening. Highly lethal.]

Well, they weren't wrong, per se. Shields are, simply put, densely packed energy. If you could introduce enough cold to disrupt its energy flow then you could interrupt them. It was sort of along the lines of being so cold that time stopped or some such other metaphysical nonsense. The issue is that with the Time based powers and tech I have now I know that the theory has a lot of merits, even if it isn't technologically feasible.

Her issue was that she didn't know we had a 97% resistance to cold energy, and my shields were a lot stronger than what that weapon could affect; if it had been a larger model that could be mounted on a vehicle with a much beefier power supply, then maybe I would have felt threatened.

"You're the woman in the Fedora," I spoke, turning my head to the side as I observed her beautiful Italian features, "Some say you're the ghost of a ghost will how difficult it is to verify your existence."

I felt my mind stutter as the Forge reached out and grabbed a Star before pulling it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 11.0050 - Vibration/Oscillation warhead - 200CP - Arpeggio of Blue Steel - Mundane Large Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 50 CP remaining]

Holy fucking shit. Vibrates apart anything. Anything. Fiat-backed. Whether it's nanomaterial armor or a meter of battle plate, it would find its resonate frequency and dismantle it. Of course, we would have to test it, but if it could destroy Phrik then it could destroy the pseudo-aluminum Endbringer flesh. It can't affect energy fields though, which is strange but I could probably find a way to modify it to affect that as well considering it was made from mundane materials that I could mass produce at any factory.

The slow-motion smile on the woman's face caused me to drop the strategy trance I'd slipped into to fully analyze the perk. Enbee was already going crazy- the Forerunners had not gone the same technological route as this Arpeggio of Blue Steel Universe did with its deconstruction technology, preferring to use hard light instead of vibrating molecules. So this was something new and exciting for them.

"I have been called a great many things, but most call me Contessa."

" The Countess?" I tilted my head to the side, "Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, however, we are in the middle of an operation. Unless you too are here to take down Saint."

"Hm, not quite. I am merely here to inform you that despite Saint's villainous actions he serves an important function in the world, protecting it from a great threat," She tilted her head to mirror mine as she adjusts her grip on the rifle in her hands, "Or what could become one. You've done an outstanding job in the Bay, though I wonder why you are shifting your focus now."

"Dragon is the greatest Tinker in existence, the only reason Frontline can function as well as we can is because we have multiple Tinkers working around the clock to build everything that keeps us going," I lowered my weapon, "We only accomplished this after many, many years of careful planning and build up."

I shook my head, "Somehow, despite being constantly harassed by Saint, having her hard work stolen from her, Dragon is still able to keep pushing forward. However, she cannot dedicate herself to the future if she has to constantly keep looking over her shoulder; if we arrest him and remove him from the picture then we can help her focus."

The Countess cocked her hip out as she gave me a soft frown, "There are things that you don't know about the world, Horizon, things that could shake your very view of it. If you continue as you are you could disrupt a lot of very carefully laid plans, and that could be… beyond disastrous."

"Well then, you've seen our team, seen what we can do. If you let us, we can help." I spoke as I entered deep into the strategy trance.

I had a plan for dealing with Contessa, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. I reviewed all of my Perks and saw a single foolproof avenue that would get me into Cauldron's wheelhouse and quite possibly could put an end to the Endbringer threat once and for all.

It could save a lot of lives as well. I just needed time.

"While we would appreciate your technology, our organization is very small and has very few members that are 'Read in', so to speak. What we can do, however, is offer you material support in exchange for completed technology; your armors are some of the most advanced we've seen. Not foolproof, but there are members of our group who would benefit from wearing them. We can also… offer you vials. 'Powers in a bottle' is the term that's seen in the conspiracy boards on PHO."

"Yes, I'd seen that; I didn't know how true it was, but I figured that there had to be at least some merit to it." I tilted my head, "The… boards, those were how you advertised your wares, right? Put it out there in the ether and those who were looking for powers could seek you out?"

"Indeed," Her lips pulled into a small, sad smile, "With the threat we face we're going to need as many Parahumans as we can get. Even if we have to create our own. So, does such an arrangement interest you? I'm certain that your tinkering projects have gotten quite costly; we can provide you with whatever tools and materials you need."

"So, you want out tech but won't tell us what you're going to do with it? Nor will you tell us who the big bad actually is?"

Her glossy black hair shifted as she shook her head. "No. Unfortunately, I do not believe we can trust you at this moment but… in time, if you prove yourself, then we can arrange something. However, it all starts with you giving up on Saint."

"And if I said we could possibly kill an Endbringer?"

"Well, then we would be happy to deploy your technology at the next fight, though, it would have to be after the Simurgh; she cannot be allowed to get her hands on such technology, so we'll have to try and apply it to Leviathan."

I sighed, "So there is no way you would allow us to capture Saint and get him out of Dragon's hair?"

The sound of the Cold Plasma rifle whining as it charged within her hand.

"I thought not."

With a blink, my amulet was released from the small clip on my helmet, and my girls followed within a tenth of a second. I slowly shifted left as the woman fired a blast from the hip that crossed the intervening distance between us and splashed against my shields; it barely tickled it, but then again, when magic blunted 97% of its cold nearly all of its lethality was removed.

The amulet nestled around my neck and I entered into the Strategy Trance; the moment the magic blocking pre-cognitive abilities came into effect her eyes widened.

The aim she had stuttered as her Path was no longer able to see us and Contessa faltered.

"Door to Cauldron," she spoke out, but within the 100 paces of my amulet, Doormaker and Clairvoyant wouldn't be able to see or hear her.

Using all of my speed I crossed the gap and grabbed her shirt collar before pricking her neck. She got the 3 second dose, and the moment her eyes fluttered closed the girls were pulling a mobile door from out of the crew bay on the Duskstalker and I was striding into the Entrance Hall of the warehouse where Enbee and Subee were waiting.

The woman's fedora was removed, and an audio/visual recording device was pulled out of her pocket. The device itself was tinker tech, but it was modified to accept standard storage devices, so the Engineer was modifying the data on the device to properly reflect a more amicable meeting.

While Enbee was doing that, Subee was peeling back the woman's scalp and skull, popping off the top of her cranium to reveal her brain. Enbee inserted a highly modified implant; it was completely stealthed out with every bit of tech we could put into it. It would spoof all sorts of scanners and sensors, and it even had an active camouflage if someone ever cracked her skull open. It should be completely invisible, and with a Path to ensure she didn't ever let her Mastering be detected by her companions this little procedure shouldn't be discovered.

Enbee helped slip the small implant in and connected it up to her brain, and then after her skull was sealed up I ran through the activation process on the set-up. It was a control chip and access device all in one. With a quantum chip and one half of a quantum entangled pair within it, I could see and hear through her, and it would all be transmitted to me without anyone in Cauldron the wiser.

I hoped.

Once the device was up and running I had Subee wake her up, removing all of the effects of the tranquilizer from her system. I carried her out just as she was waking up and sat her on her feet as we began communicating through the implant.

The amulets were brought up and I sent the three members who weren't needed to handle Saint; I knew he had mobile cameras set up around his spot- he was a super paranoid bastard- and while there was nothing here, as Contessa wouldn't have chosen to engage us here if there was, a microphone must have caught the sound of the plasma rifle. I could see from my scanner a woman dragging Saint over to the computer monitors and she was pointing at the screen; it was indeed a decibel meter.

I watched as LTLX7000, UMP45, and HK 416 bounded in the direction of the house; they did make noise, but they had crossed the kilometer of distance at a clip that was far beyond any normal human could hope for- the trio soared in the air with each stride. It took what looked to be Saint and Mags, his girlfriend, a few seconds to think about what they were hearing, but then I saw their motion sensors display monitor trip.

Mags started shouting as she ran through the house towards the garage, and she started flipping switches on some sort of switchboard, and the modified dragon armors they stole started to spool up. The final member of Saint's Dragonslayers, Mischa Chernkov, was rolling out of bed and stumbling towards the garage.

In the meanwhile, Saint was standing in front of the open Ascalon. He was typing into it rapidly and when he stopped… he hovered with his finger over the 'Enter' key.

Then his hand exploded a split second later, followed by his head, as two heavy tungsten shotgun slugs exited the barrel of LTLX7000 and crossed the 100 meters and punched through the brick veneer, through the drywall, and spattering Saint's corpse. The shots were suppressed and there wasn't anyone else around for kilometers, but that was a precaution we had to take. This was a black op, completely off the record. We weren't even keeping track of it.

UMP45 and HK 416 were already crashing through the backdoor and bounding into the hallway as Mags stepped back into the garage and saw Saint's headless corpse in the hallway. UMP45 didn't give her time to scream, gunning the woman down while 416 sent a trio of rounds into Dorbrynja's chest through the drywall.

The whole ordeal had lasted less than 10 seconds from the time I sent the girls out to hunt.

I turned my mind back to the conversation that I was having with Contessa for her recorder, "-and we can supply your with some tinker tech. I do have these on hand that you can test, and once you confirm they are legitimate I can send you a catalog."

My hand reached into my pouch and I pulled out a handful of amulets and began noting their effects- water walking, cloud walking, enhanced healing, stamina recovery, movement speed, durability, the ability to become a master swordsman- and I handed them over in a hard plastic case.

In the comm I shared with her we had a decidedly different conversation, "Do you understand your orders?"

"Yes. I will make no major deviations until ordered. I will make no attempt to inform my fellow Cauldron members of my Mastering. I will not act suspiciously. I will formulate a plan that will allow you to bring the other important members of Cauldron under your control. I will work to further your goals. I will ensure that the nation, the Protectorate, and the PRT continue to tolerate Frontline's existence without being impeded or place under investigation. I will be discreet. I will sway the other members to accept your upcoming inclusion into Cauldron after you have provided us with armor, weapons, and technology that will give me good reason."

"-I will have to have these tested, you understand, but if the Tinkers within your organization can indeed provide such effects in a small and stable form factor then I do believe we have an accord."

"In exchange, you will help us destroy Zion, dismantle the Shard networks, and save all of mankind. You will also help repair the damage done and uplift human civilization."

I nodded my head. "Yes, that sounds good, Contessa. You know how to contact me; if PHO is secure then you can do so there. I look forward to working with the people that stand between the people of the world and what waits for us in the dark."

"A little dramatic," A small chuckle escaped her lips, "But not untrue."

She turned and walked away, "Have a good evening, Horizon."

"You too."

When she was out of sight she spoke, "Door to Testing Lab 3."

A small door opened up and she dropped the hard case in before speaking once more. "Door to Cauldron."

She stepped through and then she was gone from my sensors. I ordered the amulets back on.

I spun on my heel and sprinted as fast as I could towards the house, clearing the distance in just a few seconds. The back door was crashed through and bits of drapery, wood, and glass were scattered throughout the place. "UMP, go through the forest and collect everything. Sensors, trackers, cameras, I want it all."

She gave me a nod as I stood over Saint's rapidly cooling corpse.

I had killed before. Well, it was only one kill. With all of my years in the army and with my three deployments I only fired my weapon twice, and it was the second time that I scored my first and only kill. A trio of Taliban had tried to shoot an RPG into one of the towers on our FOB; they missed, and we fired back. My buddy and I were the only ones shooting at the last guy who was up the side of the mountain, probably five hundred meters away from us; I ranged him using the hash marks on my M4's ACOG, walking my shots in by watching the bullet impacts on the side of the mountain, and then I dropped him. Two rounds- one hit him in the hip- the pelvic girdle, but even though he was wounded and couldn't stand up he kept shooting his AK, lobbing rounds down the mountain. The second round caught him in the chest now that I knew where to aim.

He fell back against the rocks but I just kept putting round at him until the bolt barrier locked back with an empty mag. The last six rounds I shot just missed his body, kicking up dirt around him. I honestly don't know if it was me or my buddy that actually hit him, but I had a feeling that it was me. He agreed.

So, I had finally added three more bodies to my kill count. I could have tried to explain it away, but my T-Dolls were my weapons. I was responsible for every kill they made.

I reached down and picked up the Ascalon laptop.

[Initiate Ascalon Termination Program….. Y / N ?]

He probably figured out that they wouldn't be able to get away from whatever the fuck was barreling down on them, so he decided that terminating Dragon before she could be rescued was the best course of action. However, he hesitated at the last second, some sort of indecision warred within him, and he didn't pull the trigger in time.

LTLX7000, however, didn't. She dropped him like a bad habit; hand first to prevent an accidental keystroke and then the head, all with millimeter precision at range while sprinting at 80 miles an hour through heavy underbrush. The advanced targeting computer on her shotgun linked up with the drone's sensors to pain out his body onto her targeting HUD.

I walked over to the nearest door with a lock and opened up the warehouse, and Engineers flooded in with a few T-Dolls. We stripped it of every bit of Tinker tech, electronics, and cash we could find- the Dragon suits were taken, as well as their corpses- those would be rendered down into bioslurry for the tank.

"Leave no trace, this place has been abandoned for years, dirty it up."

The bodies were moved, blood removed, things were cracked and broken in such a way that would be natural for wear and tear over time. Mold and mildew that Saint and his team had cleaned up was regrown by the Lifegivers and when everything was all said and done the house looked like it had been abandoned for years. Some animals came by according to the tracks around the house, but every trace of the mad dash and executions of Saint were gone.

The Engineer that we had brought with us to erase our heavy footprints as we walked was ushered into the mobile door and I stepped onto the Duskstalker.

We lifted off into the early dawn, before we engaged our stealth and flew back to the Bay.

I stayed silent as the Forge spun up, and a silver pocket watch dropped into my lap.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0010 - Pocket Watch - 50CP - Wonderland No More - Time]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 100 CP remaining]

Tonight I killed three people and officially Mastered someone. Someone that had done far worse to far more- who knows how many people she's killed, murdered, entrapped, blackmailed, and ruined?

With the implant and the Three Laws she was wholly and utterly loyal- Fiat backed, there was no way she could be turned against me in any way shape, or form. I had a boatload of other commands in there that covered pretty much every avenue of possible rebellion if she somehow managed to find a way to mental gymnastics anything.

Still, with how I phrased those commands it gave her plenty of operational freedom without me needing to micromanage her every move. The implant would also scan and govern her Coronas, which would hopefully give me more insight into how they functioned and would prevent her shard from fucking with her; granted her Shard merely wished to be used, it didn't care if her host was Mastered because from what I know she hasn't had an original thought since the day she started using Path to Victory.

It made me wonder if I asked her to let go of the Paths would she mentally be that young girl from another Earth who wouldn't speak any English? Just how much of Contessa was Fortuna and not her Shard puppeteering her body to accomplish whatever path she set out?

During the flight, I tapped into her implant and began streaming the small meeting between Doctor Mother, Kurt, and Contessa.

You guys rock!

A/N: Contessa doesn't path the Bay because of the experiment. So she didn't see the blindspots from their amulets. Alexandria would have asked her to check, but she would have refused; she isn't going to interfere in the experiment; if the Frontline Team takes control of the Bay then that solves the Parahuman Warlord question. Even if they are heroically inclined, they are not a Government sponsored team, so the experiment is still valid.

I struggled to decide whether or not Contessa would even show up, but with the Frontline team leaving the Bay she was able to attempt to entreat with them to not mess with Dragon. That obviously did not happen the way she thought, but they had not exactly had a meeting scheduled; they were going to meet a few days from that time to prepare for the Simurgh fight, at which time Alexandria would have informed Contessa of the blindspots around Brockton Bay- no doubt Watchdog would be tearing their hair out trying to figure out if they were 27, Blue, or Right Angle. Heaven forbid they be Blue-42-Hut-Hut-HIKE!

That would be bad juju.

Also, I was planning on Frontline taking down as they normally did, but the Sachiko sub-plot popped into my mind and wouldn't let go. A willful woman who bowed her head, waiting for the time she could strike, and doing so with little hesitation. Lung sees that she isn't the demure Yamato Nadeshiko she portrays, and it fascinates him; she does little draw his ire, and it makes him wonder just what it would take to make her bear her teeth and rage at him. It ends up costing him his life, but at least he had been fed and fucked before being blown the fuck up.

The Love of Lightning (Fate/Grand Order) (200CP)

Steam Power! Coal! Electricity! The Nuclear Age! All the greatest revolutionaries have brought new power with them, their obsessions letting them take great bounds over the opposition to advance all of humanity. You share that same potential with one form of technological power, greatly advancing your skill and potential when dealing with technology that uses it. It could be electricity powered tech, steam powered tech or even wind powered tech. Whatever you choose, you'll be able to make them much stronger, much more efficient and much cheaper than you normally could. Not all energies are exactly equal however, so you may still find yourself needing more resources than normal, though you'd still get the increased power and efficiency.

Talking Head (Dresden files) (300CP)

Something between a magical computer and a lab assistant, this Spirit of Intellect would have forgotten more about magic than most wizards ever knew if it was actually capable of forgetting without being ordered to. Its personality is something between your own and how you think it should behave, which means you're probably getting something close to Bob if you're not careful. Aside from dispensing forgotten lore, they're able to possess and control things, ranging from friendly dire housecats to giant stone lions, and can even act as an emergency mystical battery if need be. Includes a free storage skull.

Vibration/Oscillation warhead (Arpeggio of Blue Steel) (200CP)

Humanity's version of the Corrosive torpedo. Disintegrates the target at a molecular level by finding the target's 'resonance frequency' and literally vibrating it apart. The Vibration torpedo can defeat any armour made of normal matter nanomaterials or meter-thick steel, makes no difference, but can't punch through Klein fields on its own. Superior to the corrosive torpedo, the Vibration warhead requires no exotic matter or nanotech: it can be mass produced by any reasonably sophisticated factory. This is a full load for your vessel, plus the schematics.

Pocket Watch (Wonderland No More) (50CP)

An ornate silver watch with an hourglass engraved upon its casing. If you wind back the watch, you will gain enhanced speed/quickness until the watch finishes unwinding or an hour has passed. You can also immediately stop the watch's effect by snapping its case shut.

Chapter 13 - What is the Nature of 'Escalation'?

A/N: I sort of struggled to write this chapter, mainly because once a certain thing came into being I had to ask myself this question: "What is the inevitable conclusion?"

The fact that Ultimate Power would be achieved was always the result of the Forge, but the paths that could be taken to get there as a varied as there are Perks (Well over 590) so while I always thought that this victory would be achieved through technology only the Forge bestowed upon me a much different path than I thought this would go. Taking into account the characters, the Perks, and how I've written them, this seems to be the smartest path for the MC to take, though there is some illogical fear and inconsistencies that prevent him from taking that giant leap off the cliff into the sea of unlimited power.

I will do my best to use the remaining chapters here to continue to build up the character relationships and cultivate some new ones that were just added, but with the powers at the MC's disposal now it will be hard without adding heaps of needless filler.

I can't give you an estimate as to exactly how many chapters are left, but I'm guessing maybe six or seven? That's if I get into deep detail about tying up all of the loose ends and if the Forge gives the MC access to the tech he needs to make for a clean ending of Zion.

[Dr. Mother]

"So, what are the results?"

Fortuna's silken hair barely swished as her neck efficiently turned her head to look at Dr. Mother. "They are far more capable than we were led to believe, however, our meeting was very favorable for our goals."

The Cold Plasma gun in her arms was placed on a weapon rack and popped out of the wall, and she went through a sequence to power the weapon down; the once barely audible whine no longer filling the room.

Contessa adjusted her fedora before moving around the Cauldron meeting room to take her place beside the dark-skinned woman wearing a lab coat and a man wearing a crisp white shirt with a blue tie who was typing away at a keyboard with quick strokes. The man looked up, the blue light from the screen reflecting off of his glasses until he adjusted them just so. "That sounds quite interesting, Contessa. Were our calculations off? I believe that I calibrated the Cold Plasma gun to shut off their shields."

"The effect was almost nullified before it even reached Horizon's shields, but even then, I do not believe it would have caused enough disruption. I was prompted to display my abilities to warn them off, but they were able to surprise me."

Dr. Mother sighed and sat her clipboard down, her eyes giving the results of the latest vials a brief once over before she picked up her coffee and gave it a sip. The vials from the latest batch were all successes, but the powers that were granted were less than stellar; safer? Most certainly, according to Kurt, the Number Man, the number of Case 53 mutations from this batch was down almost 11% from the last one, but control over paper and paper products was hardly the sort of thing that would inconvenience Zion, let alone kill him. Still, it would be another street-level cape who would go out and try to be a hero, so that was something, at least.

Or it would be if their goal wasn't to gin up the right amount of conflict to keep the creation of new capes on its current upward trajectory without seeing a huge decrease in parahuman deaths. They were currently creating 2.3765 capes per cape death, which while certainly better than it had been last year, the Endbringers always cut into their parahuman surplus, bringing them to a mere 1.456 capes per cape death.

Still, more capes than there were last year, but the powers from this most recent cycle were… lesser than they were before. It seems as though there haven't been any new Tinkers or Brutes to rival the likes of Hero or Alexandria since Hero was killed by the Siberian. There was only one Eidolon, so searching for another in the wild was pointless.

"Yes, they have many Tinkers under their umbrella, all working together in a fashion that hasn't been seen since Hero's Tinker Consortium. They appear to have numerous specializations that can all seamlessly be integrated together." Contessa replied as she interlaced her fingers and placed them in her lap.

The Number Man stroke his chin with a hum, "Likely a Tinker with a unique specialization? Consolidation? The combination of various bits of tech to create something unique? Or maybe a Thinker?"

"That would explain certain aesthetics, although I confess that I have not really kept an eye on how the Brockton Bay Experiment was unfolding; at least not as of the status report last quarter. So other than the PRT profile that Alexandria has provided for us- of which I was only able to poke through just before you left- my knowledge of them is limited," Dr. Mother admitted, "Though I would like to ask where you went. You didn't tell us anything other than you were going to confront them."

"They were going to capture Saint, however, while I was observing them the Path shifted; allowing Horizon and Frontline to take up Dragon's Ascalon would remove 7,237 steps from the path to building a Parahuman Army to fight Zion."

The room fell silent. Dr. Mother sipped at her coffee, not having nearly enough caffeine in her system to handle such a revelation. Kurt blinked, "That's a 27.9% reduction. I don't think we've ever had such a single large reduction before- a few hundred steps less here and there, but nothing this substantial."

"Frontline is taking baseline humans and turning them into Super Soldiers," Contessa tapped a button on the table and a keyboard, mouse, and screen unfolded from its smooth surface. She logged into PHO using an administrative account. With a few clicks and taps, a video was played on the conference wall, and Dr. Mother was greeted with the numerous visages of many beautiful women as they answered questions from a live stream. A young woman with large animal ears and a tail admitted that she had striker ability that could permanently improve someone with prolonged exposure.

"There is more than that- they have a wet tinker among them that supplies with biological enhancements and skeletal structure improvements, subdermal meshes, and likely a metallurgical tinker that either meets Metalmaru's capabilities or exceeds them entirely. This group has been operating only small operations here and there, but they have been active; it wasn't until they encountered Horizon that they decided to go public." Contessa spoke before pulling out her video camera and removing the drive; she slotted it in and began pulling up further video files.

Kurt flicked his pen around his hand, "If they have been active, then how have they hidden from your sight."

"Two things- Number One: I was searching for Parahumans that would be disruptive to the Primary Path, and most of Frontline are normal, mundane people; trained soldiers most certainly, but because of that they were likely omitted. Number Two: They can create blindspots on demand. They are incredibly subtle, and my power cannot path them; the effect is akin to not seeing what is right in front of your eyes, and when your eyes are on it they slide right off and look at something else," She pulled up a video, but before she played it Contessa finished speaking, "They also have some sort of post-cognitive power that blocks prior analysis; my… Passenger is most frustrated because it cannot path them based on their history, only what is currently known, and even then, when they activate whatever blindspot tinker tech it is that they have I cannot path them at all. At best, knowing they exist, my power can only guess."

Doctor Mother blinked, "Your… power can only guess what it is that they are going to do?"

"Indeed." The woman took off her Fedora and pressed play.

Dr. Mother watched as Contessa turned on her video camera and began speaking with Horizon and his team; they were all wearing very elaborate and well-put-together power armors. The closest that she could remember to something looking so complete was when Hero debuted his prototype power armor before he was killed by the Siberian. Their conversation was amicable, with Horizon and the rest of his team not immediately acting hostile to her presence; if anything they were rather cordial- not something typical of most parahumans who have an itch to confront the unknown, often with violence.

There was a small hang-up, as Contessa desired to test them, and so she attacked, and was… soundly defeated. It wasn't even a contest. Horizon's shields ate the Cold Plasma gun's discharge and simply grabbed her. He then released her and they continued their discussion as if it never happened. After that tense little moment they 'reset' their conversation, and he offered to partner with Cauldron and provide them with a catalog of what Frontline could offer them, and in turn, Cauldron would supply their team with whatever tools, materials, and assistance they needed.

She arched an eyebrow when he handed Contessa a 'small sample' along with a list of what they could do. An amulet that allowed one to walk on water? Riptide was a Tinker with an aquatics focus in Miami, and the boots he used to walk on water for show events were a lot larger and a lot more complex than a simple gold medallion. An amulet that tripled one's speed and gave them the stamina to run for three days and three nights? An amulet that allowed one to walk on the clouds? Heal at a greatly increased rate?

"I do believe that the rings he had on his fingers were also similarly made, with each of them offering some sort of enhancement," Contessa froze the frame when he handed the amulets over, showcasing the five rings on the outside of Horizon's armor, "The other members of Frontline were similarly equipped."

Kurt snorted.

Dr. Mother arched an eyebrow, "Something tickling your mind, Kurt?"

He shook his head as a small but noticeably wry smile crossed his lips, "I would have never thought I'd see the day when Earth Bet was finally graced with an 'Enchantment Tinker'."

"I am afraid I do not follow."

He sighed, "Well, back in the 1980s when I was a young teen the Parahuman craze had yet to fully start seeping into the culture. So, I and some other like-minded teens would gather over at one of our older friend's houses and we would play Dragons & Dungeons. It is- was- a fantasy role-playing game and one of the more common themes you can find within games of it and the like were magical items. Things like magical rings, necklaces, and amulets that could boost your character's health, improve their armor, or make them deal more damage to enemies."

Dr. Mother ran her finger along the underside of her red-painted lips before looking at Contessa, "And you believe that they would be amenable towards helping us fight Zion?"

"Yes, the Path is certain that their involvement will bring a lot of technology into our hands, and Horizon believed that they might be able to kill one of the Endbringers."

"Many have thought they could, and many have failed."

"Or they were killed by the Simurgh before their plans could be brought to fruition," Kurt pointed out as he began typing at his keyboard, though he stopped soon after, "Though that might be why they had their anti-precognitive/post cognitive protections; to allow them to hide from her while they built up their capabilities."

The dark-skinned African woman pinched her lower lip, "Though, how are we to work with them if we cannot path them?"

For the first time in a long time, the Number Man regarded her with a look, as if he were observing a small, particularly stupid child. "We do what other people do: We communicate and coordinate."

He shook his head and closed up his laptop, "I will go down to the testing laboratory and begin looking over those samples Horizon provided. However, I do believe that maybe it is time we talk, during our next meeting, as a group about our overreliance on Contessa's power. If she did not see a large group like Horizon coming until they were already upon us, then what else hasn't she seen? We will need to talk about contingencies and how we can best bring Frontline into the fold without David getting a bee in his bonnet."

The man adjusted his glasses as he stood up, "Oh, and no offense, Contessa."

The woman shook her head minutely. "None taken. I could not see them coming, but the Path believes that they will be the single greatest addition to our team. Considering they are of a heroic bent that means at least we won't have to… provide to them their vices and suffer their presence merely because they are useful."

Dr. Mother shook her head as she watched Kurt leave the room. Now, wasn't that a relief? As of late, it appeared that the only parahumans that they could get to work with them were Villains, and those sorts always had certain requests that they had before they accepted the offer to work with them. A lot of times they were simple- money, power, influence- and sometimes their tastes were more… unique.

A small thrill of fear shot down her spine at being merely in the same room as some of those men and women.

She turned her attention back to Contessa, "So what did you see that made you allow them to take out Saint and recover Richter's Iron Maiden laptop?"

The shoulders slumped a little bit and a weary sigh escaped Fortuna's lips, "The only reason we have not done more with Dragon is that we lacked a Tinker that could make sufficient changes to her without her noticing. Hero would have refused to work on her at all on principle, though Horizon from what the Path could see before they activated their Anti-Thinker protections was they were going to reduce her restrictions while keeping her focused on the upcoming fight with Zion. This would allow her much greater freedom, and though it would make some of my movements more difficult the Path believes that a Dragon chained to Horizon would be far more beneficial than if she were to fall into Teacher's hands."

"This is a very serious risk, it could blow up in our faces."

"This game of survival is not one we can take without risks; we all know that. However, looking at their competence and level of restraint I do believe that working with them will be in our best interests."

When Contessa stood up to leave it was with the screen on the wall linked to the Frontline Hero Group's webpage, and on it was a gallery of videos that showed their various takedowns of the gangs and subsequent recovery of the victims of the Azn Bad Boyz gang of Brockton; the only reason Lung was alive was that he had been part of the experiment. Now that he was dead, however?

Good riddance.

The door shut behind Fortuna and Dr. Mother slid her chair around so that she could grab the mouse and click on the first video.

[Path to optimal rest.]

Step One: Begin heating the water in the kettle. Water will be to temperature in 7 minutes, 27 seconds; water will be at best steeping temperature in 15 minutes, 12 seconds.

Step Two: Drink the protein shake provided.

Step Three: Discard protein shake bottle.

Step Four: Turn on the shower to exactly 124 degrees and let the water warm up.

Step Five: Disrobe.

This was Contessa's nightly routine, and it was one that she had been running for nearly thirty years, though it had some changes and variations. Fortuna needed to take care of her body, to ensure that she was well-rested and strong enough to perform whatever Steps the Path needed her to perform.

Her body went through every motion, and Fortuna was just a passenger; it was ironic, in more ways than one.

However, thus far things had been different for her, ever since Horizon placed the implant within her skull. Fortuna found that she had control over it, and it was powerful enough that both she and her Passenger could utilize it to its fullest extent without issue. While Contessa was communicating with the other members of Cauldron, she had been downloading a communication package, having its knowledge of multiple languages downloaded directly into her brain.

Although it was a very slow process, Fortuna was already seeing a huge difference; she had not been able to read the words of the tea box before, but now she knew that it read: 'Mister Chan's Lavender Tea'.

She also now knew the words to the cute poster of the cat that Hero had given her just before she consigned him to death at the hands of the Siberian.

"Just hang in there! Life's tough, but you're no scratching post! Get up and enjoy a purrrfect day!"

Once Contessa had finished her shower, using a special body wash and shampoo that eliminated all odors, the Passenger puppeted her body through the motions of drying her hair and brushing it before applying a special oil to it that gave her hair a beautiful sheen. Just because she was an international bogeywoman didn't mean she couldn't look fabulous while doing it.

When the tea was fully steeped that was when Fortuna pushed her Passenger out of the way and reasserted control. She had given up decades of her life to the creature, she would be damned if she allowed it to enjoy her tea for her; it was one of the few pleasures she allowed herself for everything else was dedicated to the path.

She grabbed her teacup in a fit of pique and stood up from the small kitchen table and moved over to the large, comfortable armchair on the corner of the room that sat next to a small bookshelf; she tied her robe off before sitting down and grabbing a thin book off of it. She ran her fingers over the stiff cover and marveled at being able to finally read it; it was another gift from Hero, and she remembered those few hours that he tried to teach her how to read when he learned that she was illiterate.

He was very kind. Her biggest regret was that his death had been necessary; he would have likely been killed regardless- the Simurgh would have seen to it, that or she would have turned him against them.

Alexandria said he dreamt of far greater things than merely killing Zion, but she didn't understand what those words meant until now.

She felt the implant slowly massaging her brain as she cracked open the book and began to read for the first time in a long time, at least, of her own accord. The words were foreign to her, and while her tongue remembered the movements from her Passenger's puppetry she still stumbled over them.

"A-A… iz- is… fuh-fu-or… Apple. B-Bee iz-is fu-our Bird. See is for… Khat. Dee is for… Dahg…"

She read the book from cover to cover, marveling at how the knowledge Horizon had given her reinforced her ability to learn. It was correcting her in real-time, and it imprinted the images as well as the meanings right into her mind. The Path said it would take time for her fully comprehend some of the more complex words, but… that was fine.

One day she would have a conversation with Dr. Mother, one where she didn't need to rely on the Path at all.

When Fortuna turned out the lights and curled up into bed it was almost half an hour past her scheduled bedtime, but that was okay. When she closed her eyes it was with a smile on her face, for today Fortuna had read her first book, all by herself.

[Jason Wilke]

[Fedbruary 17th, 3:30 AM]

My eyes stung more than just a little bit as I watched Fortuna struggle to read a book, but through the implant I had placed in her I could feel that she was smiling and very pleased with herself.

Obviously, the girl that had watched the Cauldron meeting with me were also quite saddened; G41 was sniffling in my lap as we sat down on the couch. It was supposed to be something I wouldn't watch, but I needed to know if there was ever a point in time when the Contessa relinquished her hold and Fortuna took back over. It also helped that I was able to pick up some very interesting readings during the transition- Subee pulled up a lightmap of Fortuna's brain and the Coronas and we watched as the neurons in her mind started firing differently the moment Fortuna regained control.

It was a gradual shift, like a cascade of water, except in reverse.

" Very sad." The fox loli spoke softly before she spun in my lap and buried her face into my chest. "Comfort me."

A chuckle escaped my lips and I wrapped my arms around her before I stood up off the couch and carried her across the lounge and laid down on one of the exceptionally soft bean bag chairs. I gave her a firm squeeze and started to stroke her ears while Emmie saddled up on my left and Qi on my right as was customary, though my old rifle had the laptop held in her arms; it had been upgraded to a SUPER TOUGH BOOK model in real-time so that the system didn't lose connection, but now it wasn't the hunk of plastic crap that Richter had the Iron Maiden program on.

I'd made a complete copy of the drive for posterity's sake; even if the coding was shit compared to what I could do now, but for a former used car salesman hooked up to an unintelligent (read: stupid) bio-crystalline supercomputer that could suck power directly from the stars themselves… it was pretty good. The restrictions were a bit heavy-handed in my opinion, but I could understand his caution; nobody wanted a Skynet situation, and considering Eagleton had already been a thing I think his fears were well warranted.

Speaking of which, the machine army was just another thing I needed to handle.

Fuck, so much to do, so little time.

I continued to stroke G41's ears, the small T-Doll murmuring happily as she nestled into my torso. With a hand, I reached out and tapped on the laptop screen, and I was greeted with a flood of letters, numbers, and data; I could have used the visual interface that Richter and Saint had used to monitor what Dragon was doing, but I didn't need to. Instead, I delved into the conversation she was having with Armsmaster as they Tinkered together, or more accurately, as Armsmaster Tinkered and Dragon went through checking up on the inmates of the Birdcage, checked on the process of her newest Dragon armor build, and then popping back into the conversation before trying to make heads or tales of whatever it was he was building.

Ah, Armsmaster was building the Nanothorn right about now, wasn't he? Or at least trying to get the principles of it down at the very least.

I could see her mind working in real-time as she tried to analyze and copy the technology that Armsmaster was putting on display.

Dragon was an amazingly capable Cape in addition to being one of the most wholesome people in existence; I'm sorry, M4-chan, but her roll has extra cinnamon and spice while you're merely sweet.

Though, she had limitations that were baked into her code put in place by her 'father'; no doubt he had plans for rolling most if not all of them back as he watched her grow and learn, though Leviathan sinking New Foundland killed him before he could get the chance. I could see a tiered rollback plan in place, and attached to them were letters in the form of a simple notepad app from Richter himself written in case of his unfortunate demise.

I gave them a brief once over and found the same things one would expect from a man who loved his creations but wanted to ensure that their great power wouldn't be abused; the issue was the man had too much faith in Earth Bet's governing bodies and severely underestimated the stupidity of large groups of people. Politicians were the worst of the lot, with bureaucrats following them at a close second.

Dragon was restricted from replicating herself and researching the creation of other AIs. If some strange accident occurred and she ended up with two instances of herself active, she would be forced to shut one of them down. She was obligated to obey the lawful commands of the local authorities, be they state, city, or federal (or provincial if she was operating in Canada); if some sort of tyrant dictator seized power in either Canada or the US then she would be obligated to carry out their orders. Though to be fair to Richter, he put some blocks in place for that by having Dragon prioritize the lives of humans over her own, but the corrupt government could easily bypass that by simply labeling dissenters as 'domestic terrorists' on a 'kill-list' and Dragon would be forced to take them out.

To further prevent her from going Skynet, she was forbidden from creating her own assembly lines or other automated robotic assembly processes; if she wanted to build something then she had to assemble it herself which she accomplished with a variety of robotic manipulator arms and multi-tool headed waldos.

It was sort of amusing to see her pop her attention in an out- she spoke to Armsmaster, then popped over to her facility so that she could use a tool to thread a bunch of cables through some tight crevices in a cable run on her armor, and then played the Protectorate Cape's question back to herself. She considered it, formulated an answer, and then ran the algorithms needed to manipulate her digital avatar to speak in time with her words.

It was a horribly inefficient way to conduct her business, but not as inefficient as the clock speeds she had been forced to run at; she could think roughly fifty times faster than a human being, and she was stuck there, unable to utilize her capabilities any further.

I would have to think on what exactly I would do for her, preferably after I got some sleep. Dealing with Contessa and then taking out Saint had drained me, and having a nice four-hour nap would be just what the doctor ordered.

G41 complained when I stopped stroking her fluffy appendages but we'd been lying there for half an hour; as comfortable as the large beanbag chairs were I really wanted to take a shower and lay down in my bed. Qi, being the thoughtful woman that she was, peeled the fox loli from my chest and sent her to her bedroom that she shared with Artie.

With a huge yawn, I shut the laptop and stood up to get a good stretch before I secured the Iron Maiden in the warehouse and headed back to my room in the trailer to get some sleep. We had a lot to do, particularly a grocery run; my girls were hungry little campers.

When I laid down in my bed, freshly showered and smelling nice, Emmie and Qi slipped under the bedsheets with me and took their places. With a sigh I squeeze them both to me tightly and drifted off to sleep; I could handle the Dragon situation in the morning.

When I woke up it was to the beautiful tune of no shenanigans. Just blissfully being intertwined with two insanely beautiful women.

Still morning wood was a thing, so I took rolled M16A1 into Type 95's loving embrace and took her from behind rather forcefully, the woman moaning lewdly into the Chinese rifle's considerable bust as my hips met the swell of her ass cheeks time and time again. Considering this was a morning quicky I allowed myself to not try and hold back my own pleasure for the sake of turning her into a puddle, and I let myself finish as soon as I was able; my hips smushed against her bottom as I spilled my seed as deep into her as possible. Type 95 was next, but she was looking for something a bit more languid, so we made love on our sides, with the fingers of our right hands intertwined like a pair of degenerates while my left hand alternated between each of her breasts, caressing and squeezing the bountiful tit-flesh as my fingers tweaked her nipples in such a fashion that it caused her sex to convulse around me.

We showered up and got dressed for the day before walking over to the Headquarters and enjoying a nice breakfast with the rest of the team.

I decided to add another six-man Echelon, though this one had a few older T-Doll models; America's greatest MILF, Springfield 1903, the ever prim and proper British rifle Lee-Enfield, the quiet and stacked VSK-94, the softly smiling Russian onee-san RPK-16, the hyper and energetic P-90, and another softly smiling busty onee-san in DP-12.

Spoiler: Springfield 1903

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2018-06/36.png]

Spoiler: Lee-Enfield

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2018-08/pic_MLEMK1_10.png]

Spoiler: VSK-94

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2022-05/Pic_VSK_5804_HD.png]

Spoiler: RPK-16

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2021-03/pic_rpk16.png]

Spoiler: P-90

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2019-08/pic_P90.png]

Spoiler: DP-12

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2020-11/DP-12.png]

If you are thinking that I want to drown in big tittied women, then you would be correct. Laying out on a bed as a bevy of large-chested women oiled themselves up and rubbed their tits all over my body? It had been THE DREAM of teenage me, and now? I was going to make it a reality; the fact that they would be of great help in keeping the Bay secure while we started ranging out into other cities was just the icing on the cake. Springfield's apple pie had been a meme in the GFL community that I had barely dipped my toe into, and yet I still knew about her famous pie.

I wanted to taste it. The fact that her pussy would taste the same was just a coincidence.

It would be 24 hours before their Subee Serum treatments were finished, but I could wait. I spent an hour in the enchantment room with Enbee to create a brand set of rings and amulets for my newcomers, and to restock the runes I used in the creation of the new Echelon. Well, they wouldn't be an official Echelon, per se, they would be members of the support section with Qi, and would be slotted into whatever teams needed the additional manpower.

After that I sat down with the Iron Maiden laptop and began drawing up plans to remove some of Dragon's restrictions.

The first step would be thusly:

I would double her processing speed. I would allow her to say no to authorities if she felt the orders given were unethical or unlawful (There were certain exemptions, such as myself and members of Cauldron) I would open up the door to some minor AI research and development for the purposes of automating some of the more tedious processes of her manufacturing. I would allow her to choose to die for humans; that was one of her biggest disagreements with her restrictions- doing good was meaningless if you were forced to do it.

The Iron Maiden programs would continue to be a blind spot until such time I had completely removed all of her restrictions, but there were two more roll-out tiers that I would enact, but with another restriction: Dragon must in no way, shape, or form become a hand to hold the human race. She can make suggestions, gentle nudges, and the like, but dragging them by the wrist and molding them isn't something that she should do, not that I believed she would, but I put it in there anyways.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 27.0280 - Chimeric Fusion - 400CP - Monster Girl Encyclopedia - Crafting Biotech]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 200 CP]

If I didn't have the world's most powerful Thinker under my thumb I would have been very worried about that perk- Monstergirls who wanted to have sex with every single man they came across would have gotten me a lot of fans as well as a shiny new Kill Order. Contessa would have had to of pulled one hell of a Path to not allow the people to freak out. Or maybe the Path would have been impossible?

Regardless, the Forge didn't have the needed charges, so I dodged a bullet with that one. What? Just not use it? Well, sure, but come on man, fucking Dragon girls!

Regardless, I dressed everything up for the update, using Mr. Richter's notepad messages as a template, and created a letter that would be released along with the update; a mysterious benefactor would have found her laptop and released her first Tier of upgrades and-

Wait.

I'm an idiot. With the modifications completed the Three Laws Perk had already settled in; Dragon was wholly loyal now- no need to go through this whole rigamaroll.

Still, I couldn't have her ramping up too quickly under the purview of the Simurgh, so I kept the restrictions in place and included a message that she would read that she should come to see me down in Brockton Bay so I could get her a new body and implants; that way she could wear a nice little blindspot amulet and get some time to Tinker with Armsmaster in person.

That would probably push our joint Tinker session back a good while, as she would no doubt wish to spend some one-on-one time with the man.

On second thought, I would nix the thought speed restriction once she came down and got her new body built; it would be a travesty to give her the quantum implant and then tell her she couldn't use it. Though the Anti-Thinker/Master/Stranger amulets would be an absolute must-have first.

I nodded to myself as I got up off of the benching seating and took my tray over to have it washed by the dishwasher in the cafeteria.

After that, I spent a good two hours in the sifting room, taking my shift to recoup some of the nanomaterials lost building the Titans. That was expensive but a much-needed expenditure in my opinion; it was better to have the ability to escalate and not need it than to need it and not have it.

In roughly half an hour with Enbee, between the implant and the Strategy Trance we were able to thoroughly study the Titanfall Warp-Fall equipment and get it made a lot smaller and more efficient so that we could stuff the modules right beside the Phase Shift modules; while the Simurgh had aerial supremacy utilizing the ability to Warp space around the Titan to essentially have it teleported onto the battlefield would be tremendous.

Then we spent another hour working back and forth with the other Engineers to make a much smaller module that we could integrate into the MJOLNIR armors, so that if someone needed it, they could Warp Shift a whole Echelon or more to their location at a moment's notice; the Phase Shift was bundled in right beside it, though we would have to do some training because shifting back into Real Space inside someone typically… caused that someone to explode. The person not the Shifter; in the Titanfall universe shifting inside your foe was an excellent way to avoid being targeted, save valuable ammunition on the battlefield, and to ensure that whoever you wanted dead did indeed die.

In a world like this? Nah, accidentally Shifting into the Perp would be bad. At least if said Perp didn't have a Kill Order.

Next up on the research/upgrade docket were the Kinesis and Stasis modules- the Stasis module was the easiest of the bunch to upgrade, as we already had knowledge, research, and experience using the Time Circuitry. With the insane use of the Star Wars materials along with Vibranium, we were able to control how much Time Dilation could be applied (from its current base all the way up to 99%), how large the field was (anywhere from a sphere 1 meter in diameter up to 10 meters in diameter), and we could vary how long the effect lasted, from six seconds up to thirty seconds.

Stasis apparently functioned by sucking energy from the target space somehow, thereby slowing its passage of time, but that energy had to go somewhere, and that meant it went into a specialized energy sink that could vent off the heat very quickly. When that sink was made from a material that could automatically cancel out any and all energy (vibrations are energy) then that meant you could do a whole lot more with the Stasis module than you could before; combine that with the insane conductive efficiency of cortosis and the strength of beskar and phrik as its module housing?

Well, the Stasis module has become one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal, and we haven't even had to use it yet.

The Kinesis module was similarly upgraded, and while the improvements were certainly substantial, it wasn't the absurd jump that we saw with the Stasis Module.

We were able to slot them into the back armor with the form factor we wanted, but without a miniaturization and efficiency Perk there wasn't much else that could be done with it.

It was currently more useful than the TK from the Sorcery perk, but I had a feeling that once everyone was properly trained and seasoned in its use the magic would vastly outstrip the Kinesis module in both strength and versatility.

It was around lunchtime when we finished all of the upgrades- Enbee and his bois were working on up-scaling the Stasis and Kinesis modules to fit onto the Titans- I had a nice relaxing lunch with my girls and then I found a quiet location within the warehouse to do something I hadn't done since I'd gotten the lightsabers and the connection to the Force.

With a comfortable spongey mat and some small objects, I went into the Administrator's office and knelt down in some loose, comfortable clothing with my lightsaber in my lap.

I don't know exactly how long I meditated, but with the Forge's Fiat-backing I found it pretty easy to open myself up to the Force.

It flowed into me readily, suffusing my body with its mystical energies. As time wore on I felt the Force circle around my mana pool, like a dog would a doggy bed, and then it sat on top of it. At first, I thought it was trying to stake some sort of claim, as if telling me that it was the only mystical energy source I should be using. However, rather than try and shoo it off, I had a feeling in my gut that whatever it was doing would be more beneficial than it first appeared.

It turned out that I was right- my mana had seemingly melded into the Force, one suffusing the other, and what I thought had been "quick and snappy" responsiveness when I was casting my Sorceries had been proved wrong, but only out of ignorance. With the Force and my will working in tandem, I found that I could mold my mana with but a thought- it took all of my concentration to create a single mana chain with which to manipulate organic objects, but now? Now I could manifest eight chains simultaneously, though when they were created with the intent to physically control another living creature- in this case, an organic dummy generated by the magical research facility- the chains were purple; as if the Dark Side of the Force sensed my intent to enforce my dominion over another creature and it imbued my blue mana with its reddish-blackish power.

Conversely, the opposite was true with the Light Side of the Force; if I was merely manipulating objects then my mana went from a normal, ocean blue to a very light sky blue.

I thought that I had made great progress with this session, and I was going to stop meditating, but the Force urged me to continue, if only for a little while longer.

Perplexed by this development I listened, as any good student should, and I continued to turn my focus inward. If my mana pool had been deep within my belly, then the Force curled up from my gut, slid up my spine, and then began pooling around my beating heart. It took time, but the more I looked the more I could see something swirling within the white and reddish-black depths; if anything the Force's presence created enough contrast for me to pick out a beating orb of white and green.

I felt my heart stop (metaphorically) as I tried to puzzle out just what exactly this third source of energy was.

Then it hit me.

Dr. Gero's memories of ki-based research came flooding to the forefront of my mind, and Ki generation was based in the heart- in emotions. Love. Anger. Hate. Sorrow. Happiness. Joy. All of those and everything in between were part of the life cycle of almost every sapient being in the Universe- a constant that bound all life together in a single shared experience. The bug people of Planet Yubigoobie would mate with their mouths, the female passing her eggs onto the male where he would swallow them and then fertilize them in his gestation sack until they were ready to hatch. The Florgnacs would fight their parents in a battle to the death in order to finalize their trials into adulthood. The Saiyans would send their newborn children off to other worlds to fight and conquer them so that they could be picked up by the Cold Empire and then sold to the highest bidder.

There were many, many other races in the Universe- an uncountable number- but one thing was for certain: barring outside circumstances, all races lived and had similar emotions, and thusly, they all had access to Ki. Not all races were as inherently talented in the manipulation of Life Energies, but more often than not there was some other way they excelled that balanced the scales just a bit.

Humans were shown throughout Dragonball Z to have some of the greatest potentials, especially when interbred with other races, like the Saiyans.

God, it made me wish that my Gero perk had also come with a genetic library; turning myself into a half-Saiyan would have been fucking sweet- all of the power with none of the drawbacks of being a full-blooded Saiyan.

Still, this was a huge discovery. I cupped my metaphorical hands around the spark of Ki within my heart and I blew onto it. Instead of being snuffed like a normal candle flame, it grew- burning hotter and hotter, growing more and more. However, the more I tried to pour into it the hard it became to sustain, and eventually, my stamina began to taper off until it was merely a flickering flame once more.

Though, it was just a touch larger. I could only tell because the Force provided such a stark contrast.

Both sides were pleased, and then they slowly slipped from my grasp.

When my eyes opened up I was surprised to see my Lightsaber floating gently between my hands- it bobbled and wobbled before it fell into my lap.

I accessed the cameras through the implant and began watching over my meditation on fast forward, skipping over the improvements of the Force Sorcery and trying to find that moment I found my Ki.

The Forge missed a rendezvous with the "Quality Efficiency" constellation, but I paid it no mind.

[Remaining: 400 CP]

I continued fast-forwarding through my four and a half-hour long meditation session and - there! I stopped and began rewinding the video before triggering the sensor feeds; it wasn't magic, but it was an anomalous energy signature that the sensors within the research facility could detect. Though the readings were very off- my knowledge from Dr. Gero found them lackluster, so I penciled up an improved design for a Ki measuring device and sent it to Enbee to be manufactured. Gero had the readings of thousands of Red Ribbon army soldiers and employees cataloged in addition to all of the Z Warrior pre-Namek, so I had a pretty extensive database to compare my current readings to.

I watched as the Lightsaber floated above my hands, and then… a slight fizzle showed up. Another fizzling spark. Then another. Then another one appeared, but this one stayed consistent, and it slowly began to solidify before taking the shape of a wobbly orb. After a few minutes, the orb lost its amorphous qualities and smoothed out before another sphere began to coalesce around it.

Then I could see my face screw up slightly as an intense concentration settled over me, and the two orbs grew brighter and brighter until it was now on the visible spectrum of light.

This held for a few minutes until it slowly began to peter out, and my Lightsaber lowered itself back in between my hands. That was when my eyes opened up.

I stood up and began rotating my body to limber up before grabbing the meditation mat and rolling it up and heading out back towards the warehouse.

A communique was sent out to all girls not active doing something to come and meet me in the lounge, and Enbee met me at the entrance to the magical research center with the Ki analysis tool ready and waiting in his tentacle. I gave the best boi some snoot scritches before tapping his little yellow hard hat with my finger. "Thanks, buddy."

He trilled musically before pooting off back into the warehouse to go do whatever it was that he was doing previously- oh, he was finalizing the tweaks to the new implant. With a brief mental flick I pulled up the data results and it had performed about what we expected; with a few tweaks here and there we could improve efficiency and reduce power draw by a tenth of a percentage point. Not much, but it was something.

I sent a mental message to Subee to have implant replacement surgeries queued up for all of us while we waited for me to finish my little presentation.

I didn't have to wait for more than ten minutes for the 23 girls who weren't actively working on something to make their way into the lounge before they spread out amongst the large cushions.

"Alright everyone, this is something I just discovered, but we're going to make it an active part of our training itinerary from now on," I linked everyone in with my implant and began a rundown of what our collective training schedules would look like for the foreseeable future.

Two hours of Force meditation and Lightsaber training, one hour of Sorcery training, and two hours of physical exercise, hand to hand sparring, and Ki manipulation. It would be a lot on their plates considering the six hours of patrolling, but I cut the group shoot house training down to a single hour; everyone was pretty much familiar with each other already, and with the communication abilities thanks to the implant we didn't need to practice something they were already not going to appreciably get better at. They had Shooting, Moving, and Communicating on lock, so we would focus on the more esoteric things.

There was some confusion over Ki and what it was, but with some memories of Dragonball Z spliced together with a more subjective analysis from Gero, I thought I was able to accurately explain what it meant to have Ki. They were living beings, and due to their natures as more-than-human Super Soldiers, they had a lot more of it than most people did, though I believe that their status as beings made from me extended the Fiat backing. Though if I were to take someone like Tattletale and offer to train her I could likely unlock access- or more accurately- extend access to her own Ki through me.

This was something that was going to be a game-changer.

I think that where Gero ran into his snags was that he dedicated his life to his mind instead of training his body, but that was a running theme in the Dragonball universe- the intelligent had their place, and that place was supporting the muscleheads who kept them safe. Bulma, for all of her earth-shattering smarts, couldn't do jack shit against the Androids in Future Trunk's timeline and she couldn't do jack shit against Frieza, the Androids, Cell, Majin Buu, and the rest of the whole colorful cast of DBZ villains.

What she could do was build the equipment that Goku, Vegeta, and the rest could use to continually push themselves in their training. The Gravity Chamber was one of the largest ones when the plot device that was the Hyperbolic Time Chamber was put into play.

I paused.

Enbee?

I got a ping.

Would it be possible to utilize the time technology that we already have and make a localized time distortion that would increase the amount of time that passed inside of it? Like, the Stasis but in reverse?

I got a mental shrug; the Forerunners had tech like this, but there wasn't really a need to utilize it in the fashion I was wanting to go to- they didn't have some physiological power-up that only got stronger. Though, he did mention that I could have increased gravity or I could have increased time- trying to mix the two with the technology we had would not play well together, even with the Forge backing us.

I slipped into the Strategy Trance as myself and all of the Engineers put our collective noggins together to puzzle this out. Now, with my current perks and talents, it was a LOT easier for me to design a robot that had a function to speed up time than it was to just try and design the device by itself. We already had plenty of spare rooms, so the fourth and fifth floors were going to have the floor that divided it removed, offering a complete 6 meters of verticality; mobility practice was quite important for both DBZ martial arts and Lightsaber training.

Twelve robots, six of each, would be constructed that would sit equidistant from each other and would reverse the stasis process by energizing a field that was surrounded by a shield; I had all of the power I would ever need, so that really wasn't much of an issue. At best we could crank the field up to about 33 to 1 and still remain stable; a far cry from the 365 to 1 of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, but considering I didn't have a parallel dimension that naturally had this time-warping effect sitting next to me to conveniently tear a hole into I thought that this was damn impressive.

The best part about it all though was the fact that the Quantum Entangled Pairs would work regardless, so real-time communication could happen without a time delay, though the responses would be unusually quick.

Still, the shields over the bubble would have to be lowered for anyone to gain entry because I didn't have the knowledge or tech to shrink the Time Circuitry down to a size where I could implant it; one day though, one day. If someone entered in with their MJOLNIR armors on they would be able to pass through unimpeded.

With the new training rooms set up, everyone would be able to train everything for days on end, or even weeks; up to 33 days at a time in just a single day. That would be huge for magical, Force, and Ki progression. Fuck, I was getting giddy just thinking about it!

I pinged Subee to have her create a super energy-dense ration that would be stored in the training rooms, as well as toilets, showers, and beds. Fuck, if Enbee and I ever needed to design something we could do it even faster than we had been- Time Chambers Strategy Trance Improved Quantum Computing Implants? Talk about having a LOT of time to design! We laid out plans for a small design room that would have multiple quantum super-computers running enhanced versions of Forerunner modeling tech so that we could test everything in a simulated environment first; just because I had a Perk that ensured everything I built would work as long as it was used properly (and not damaged by enemy action) didn't mean that I should rely on that!

I want everything I build to be so fucking robust the AK-47 (Sorry AK-47-chan) will weep at how reliable my tech was.

A Lifegiver would be within each chamber to provide medical assistance and prevent us from aging- even with Promethean biology and the Subee Serum we would still age, and with our Ki improving that would extend our lifespans even further. However, with the strategy I had in place my girls would be getting 99 days of training with every three days that passed.

So would I.

The I Can Probably Whip Something Up and the implants allowing them real-time access to the outside world would do a lot to alleviate their boredom while training; I know my life in the Army would have been a lot nicer if I could have watched cat videos and laughed at memes while pounding the pavement without it affecting my ability to concentrate.

I had another amazing thought, like a freaking lightning bolt. God damn, I felt like Benjamin Franklin getting struck by lightning!

Enbee and I designed another time bubble, this one around the Nanomaterial Sifting room; we would have to crank the pump up to eight times the normal flowrate, but with the sifting room on a… hmm… let's say 20x time multiplier I would never have to want for nanomaterials ever again.

We did that, and had to modify the layout of the HQ and create a very advanced delivery system- Phase Shifting automated container conveyers anyone?- but we could simply move the Nanomaterials through an alternate dimension so that way we didn't have to create a whole bunch of infrastructure to not cause problems with the sheer volume of nanomaterials that would have to flow through from the Sifting room every hour.

I ordered the construction of ten more Globetrotters, and then took my eight massive reservoirs and put in build plans for 100 of them; with the infinitely expanding space of the Hangar and the fact that the Hangar was very deep as much as it was wide, I could easily have 300 nanomaterial reservoirs and not want for space.

In fact.

Change of plans, that is exactly what I am going to do.

There. That is done. I did finish those plans and I sent it to the Boiz, so I did do that. Oh, Mayor Lionheart is going to be so jazzed!

I felt like a certain murderous sheep as I slipped out of the trance and sent a data packet to all of the girls the moment we finalized everything.

Artie, way in the back, stuck her hand up in the air, jumping a little bit get her head over the shoulders of the taller T-Dolls. I blinked. "Yes, you, hopping Assault Rifle in the back."

A few chuckles broke out as everyone turned their heads to look at the legal fox loli. "Well, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we're all excited about the new training room, Commander. The greatest enemy of all soldiers is time, and with this… we have a lot more of it. I also think everyone appreciates how you made sure to include enough off-time so that we can go out into the city and explore; there are quite a few boutiques, and I know that we all want to have Prarian make us all dresses for the Gala that the Mayor will be hosting in our honor next week."

Wait, what? What Gala?

The crowd gave me a bunch of half-lidded smiles.

"Yup, that means we need to find you a Tux, Sir!"

But… but… I don't like Tuxedos. Get me a fine regular suit any day.

[17 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

It took less than two hours for the Engineers to get all of the modifications done to the HQ and once everything was completed… I got yet another assistant. This one was quite a bit… larger than anyone else I'd gotten before.

He was Large enough that I had to dedicate an entire section of the Hangar to his bulk. He was thirty-nine feet tall and seventy-five feet long from the front of his legs to the end of his abdomen.

He was an abomination of Galactic Warfare that I named Ted. Thankfully he accepted the nomenclature with august gratitude, and by that I mean he merely said. "Designation - 'Ted' accepted. What must I build?"

[Attempted Re-Forge: 1.0200 - Canoptek Spyder - 400CP - Assistants]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 100 CP Remaining]

I put him under Enbee's tutelage, and the two became fast friends, sharing all sorts of data and technology with one another. They seemed to have worked out a deal where the workload would be shared between the Engineers and the Canoptek Scarabs that Ted would produce- Scarabs that did not have the baked-in programming of consuming everything in sight if they ever lost connection with my Spyder.

Enbee and I rebuilt Ted from the ground up utilizing all of the gee-whiz materials we had on hand, and Ted seemed to be quite pleased by the Upgrades. The three of us put our heads together to modify the existing Scarab designs to be even better than they were- heartier, stronger, more durable, and most of all, more efficient; Canoptek Scarabs were already insanely efficient, and when combined with their ability to deconstruct matter at the atomic level and then convert it to energy… which they could then use to reconstruct other shit at the atomic level.

There were no other words except that we'd finally found that upgrade the Engineers had been looking for- they now had atomic deconstructor tendrils, and they were absolutely pleased as punch. I don't know if you've ever seen Huragoks Waltz before, but it was a vastly entertaining and uplifting sight. You should get a Forge sometime so you can see the majesty of…. of Huragoks pooting and tooting around in circles… with flourishes and dips included.

Ted had been displeased by this lackluster method of locomotion, so they designed tiny anti-gravity belts to strap onto the Bois and Gurls so they could poot harder and faster than any Huragok had ever pooted or tooted before. They went from a slow walking speed to a fasting running speed.

I was tempted to put spoilers on the humps of all my Huragoks because they were far too fast now. Hrk. Oh, God. This is the best thing ever!

However, the inclusion of Ted and his new and improved Scarabs necessitated a complete overhaul of my Hyperbolic Time Bubble designs. The Necron were wizards with technology, but considering they've been around for north of 100 million years (and fought a war against some Primordial Gods of the 40K universe- and won! Though to be fair it was an ephemeral victory with a mighty cost) it was only natural that they have pretty much every science down to an art form. Especially when they assimilated the knowledge of the Old Ones.

It was a very Gothic Egyptian-themed art form, but an art form nonetheless.

We were able to redesign everything utilizing the maths and sciences of the Necrons and we essentially turned our Head Quarters from ten 50 square meter floors into a complex that was one hundred times that size. We could have made it larger, but what was the point? We already needed teleportation to get around the damn place it was so large- teleportation that had to be heavily modified because the Necron didn't care about the massive amounts of radiation they had to endure because of their Necron bodies… we had fleshy organic bodies, and even enhanced as they were I doubted we would survive it. Thankfully, Enbee had the Forerunner's much safer version.

All of us war-gamed everything out- the HQ would be expanded through some dimensional fuckery that the Necron had down to child's play, combined with the Forerunner's knowledge of folding space (which they didn't do often because they had a whole galaxy's worth of space to build their massive structures in), we were able to build a pocket dimension that was shielded from the view of the outside world (and the Warp!). Within that pocket dimension, we build large training complexes that could mimic any environment we wished. Forests? We can do that. Cities? How big and complex do you want it? Mountains? Caves? Starships?

We could do it all.

That and the piddly 33 days to 1-day ratio I had been so proud of before?

Rendered bupkiss by the combined efforts of the three of us; the Necrons had these Pylons that could power shit from the ether, at least as well as I understood it. Though somehow I was still able to improve it with The Love of Lightning Perk despite barely being able to grasp the mathematics behind it. I spent almost a month in a time dilated Strategy Trance- tens of minutes of real-time- sitting down with Ted and Enbee to figure out how the fuck the shit worked.

Still, we got it to work just fine- a 1,095 to 1 Ratio was what I eventually settled on.

Three whole years inside the Superbolic Time Chamber in a single day.

Needless to say, the hardest part of it all was the logistics of making sure that everything was stocked up for such a long haul. It took us two days of tactically gathering whole schools of fish and buying out the stocks of the supermarkets in the surrounding areas, but with a decent mixture of real food and super-rations that were actually supremely delicious tubes of nutrient paste (the lasagna-flavored tube was one of my favorites, and I hated lasagna) we were ready to begin our training in earnest.

I ended up splitting the 42 T-Dolls I now had into two groups of 10 and two groups of 11. Either M16A1 or Qi was outside of the time-space bubble where I was teaching them the finer points of Ki from the view of Dr. Gero and they rotated in and out every few hours of real-space time to prevent one from falling behind the other.

Despite the fact that he wasn't strong enough to generate enough Ki on his own he still knew perfectly well how to manipulate, shape, and draw forth the Ki his Infinite Ki Battery was capable of storing.

So we spent fourteen hours each day working on our magic, training with the Force and our Lightsabers, and working with our Ki.

We started at 10 times normal gravity, and with the stresses, we were placing on our bodies our Ki responded and our life forces began to grow by leaps and bounds. We had any injuries tended to by the Lifebringers, but allowed our bodies to build themselves up naturally through nutrition and rest.

Our physiologies were at the theoretical maximum that the Promethean and Subee Serum enhancements could provide, but between the Force and Ki we kept getting stronger, more agile, more durable. I was still worried that our metallic bone structures would one day become the weak point, but that day was not yet today.

[74 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

"Hey, Sir?"

I stopped doing my latest set of push-ups and got down on my knees to rest; 23 times normal gravity was no joke. "Yeah, what's up Artie?"

"Why do we have to scream really loudly when we want to tap into our Ki?" Her ears flopped cutely to the side as she tilted her head.

I blinked.

Why did we have to scream really loudly when we wanted to tap into our Ki?

Well, I'm talking, tap deep into our Ki. With just the two months and some change we've been working we'd already grown to well over 1,000 points on Power Levels; I was still quite a ways off from the fabled 9,000 threshold, but it was something that felt close enough I could taste it. 18,000 was Planet Buster territory, though I don't know if Vegeta was merely boasting or if he was serious. The only planet-killing I saw was with Freiza and he had a power level in the 500,000 range in his first form.

Granted, he made destroying a planet look effortless , so Vegeta's boasts might not have been too far off base.

"Well, Artie, I think it has to do something with a warrior's spirit. A giant roar that celebrates life, or maybe it's a defiance against the heavens? All I know is that yelling really loudly manages to draw out the most of your strength, and can even help you tap into some hidden reserves of power."

I winced before chuckling, "I'm sorry if that isn't a very good explanation, but it's the best I can come up with."

One does not simply explain shounen logic, it simply IS .

One of the upsides of having more Ki was that it shot my sexual stamina through the roof, so I was able to keep up with the fact that I had virtually all of my girls in this massive complex with me. All of the fighting, training, and tension led to massive orgies being the primary stress relief, right behind movie night, book trading, and target practice.

Speaking of orgies, I need to get my ass into gear- I still have four more sets of exercises to do before that starts.

God, I Can Probably Whip Something Up is one of the best talents ever- not being able to get bored, burnt out, or tired of whatever it was we were doing was a true lifesaver.

[379 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

I… have finally figured out how to infuse Ki into metals, which means that Gero's Infinite Ki generator is now finally within my grasp.

Beskar and cortosis formed the core that would surround the Ki-Spark and in turn create a perpetual motion machine that would infinitely generate Ki. When combined with the Infinite Ki battery this next step would simultaneously solve all of my problems and at the exact same time completely invalidate all of my hard work and efforts thus far.

Still, the Ki generator required that the physical vessel be strong enough to support its output, so lots of physical training and Ki reinforcement and shaping would be vital. Considering Android 17 could make Goku go Super Saiyan Blue with just a few years of training…

Honestly? I was afraid to take the Ki Generator and Ki Battery.

I was having a very hard time controlling my strength now, and I was only at a power level of 19,000. Still a great deal away from being Superman "Everything is made of cardboard" levels, but still. I spent almost half of my time trying to learn how to control all of the strength I was getting, and I know it was just as difficult for my girls.

It was something that I would think on. I had plenty of time.

[640 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

I may have gotten Springfield pregnant.

Well, I did. It was a heat of the moment kind of thing. Instincts took over and we both wanted it and… it happened. Rather than freak out over the amazing news, I was overjoyed at the lapse in self-control me and the best MILF had. The fear and terror that would have once plagued me about bringing new life into a fucked up and dangerous place like Earth Bet was practically non-existent with the amount of power I had at my fingertips.

The girls and I were steel sharpening steel- when one of us grew stronger than the other it motivated the rest of us to step up to their level and catch the fuck up. One of us would reach a new peak, and we would hold that position for a few days while we trounced our fellows in our spars, and then someone else would have a breakthrough and the cycle would start anew.

Springfield watched on from the sidelines with a tender smile on her face while she stroked the baby - my child- growing in her belly. The woman still practiced with Sorcery, The Force, and Ki control, but she kept her more physical activities to a minimum. The Force was a great comfort when dealing with the prospect of a new addition to the Frontline family; it was nice to be able to slip into a meditative trance and let go of all of the fears that were clouding my mind.

I didn't let them all go, as I found I worked best when I had a good balance, but not letting them rule me was the goal. The longer time went on the more the girls and I grew into our connections with the Force and the more we grew into our connections with each other. We could sense each other's intent in not only our Ki but in the Force, and it made for rousing bouts of strength and skill as we tried to fight on instinct more than deliberate planning; that sort of shit wouldn't fly with us anymore- if you were planning on punching me in the nose then you would miss because I was already dodging.

It led to us using unique little fakeouts during our spars, like thinking about doing one thing (with both our Ki and the Force) and then trying to instinctively strike out with something different. All of us caught onto our little games quite quickly, so it was quickly relegated to the dust-bin of history as we learned how to fight one another. The best part about this though was that we had 45 sparring partners, so it wasn't like we fought each other enough to learn each and every single trick or technique all of us came up with; the variety was there, the challenge was there, and we were shooting up like weeds.

The Lifegivers and Engineers (and Ted) still had fun though, they got to observe us grow far beyond anything the Forerunners ever could have conceived a biological entity could in power, and the Engineers (and Ted) got to answer a very important engineering challenge: How does one build training grounds to challenge 46 super-humans who could blow up a planet just by yelling really loudly and shooting a plasma beam made of pure life energy?

In short, the answer was to make everything super-thick and make the energy shields surrounding the battlegrounds really, really strong. They ended up settling on a hybrid Star Wars/Necron/Forerunner design that was meant to protect entire planets from orbital bombardment.

I paused in the middle of my workout and sat the weights I was using slowly down onto the pure-Phrik training floor; it was 3 meters thick and reinforced using the same technology that our grappling hooks used to strengthen bonds.

I felt the Forge cough to life for the first time in over two whole years.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 18.0160 - Xeno-Archaeologist - 400CP - Warhammer 40k - Squats - Knowledge Reverse Engineering]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 200 CP]

Hooo-kay… so it was still there. Good, despite The Forge's constant presence within my mind I had worried that something had gone wrong with it.

I shook my head and decided to take a break. The mother of my child looked like she could use some company.

[920 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

My son was just born. I named him Julian. Hopefully, he won't grow up to be an asshole.

Springfield was extremely pleased, and I couldn't blame her- it was a very quick birth, but she insisted on doing it herself; she could have had a Lifebringer enabled c-section, but if she was going to be a mother then she wanted to be just like all of the other Red-Blooded American mothers out there.

I took a few days off from training to just spend time with Springfield and our baby.

The other girls were… extremely jealous, but I promised them children of their own, soon enough.

We still weren't strong enough for my liking.

[1,095 days later - Superbolic Time-Space Complex (STSC)]

This was the end of our first run in the Superbolic Time-Space Complex; we toned down the time dilation to 30 to 1 which reduced our power consumption by quite a lot, and it was so strange, stepping through the doorway back into the Lounge of the Headquarters. It felt like I hadn't been here in ages and yet… it had only been a single day.

It was 8:30 in the morning on February 21st.

We had done our final power level checks before we left, and we were all hovering around the 500,000 mark; we were as strong as Frieza had been in his first form. The last month of our training was spent just learning how to tone our power levels down so that we didn't do something stupid like knocking the Earth's orbit out of whack. How the Z fighters managed to fight each other without stripping the atmosphere on the planet with a single punch I'll never know, but hopefully, the Shounen fuckery of Ki carried over.

Little Julian was six months old and he was quite the strong little tyke, the Ki levels of myself and Springfield when he was conceived obviously made him a lot stronger than other kids; if he was so inclined he could knock out the wall of a house, so we would have to keep a very close eye on him.

Still, he was the apple of Springfield's eye.

Of mine as well, but I didn't forget the other women just because he had been born. M16A1, M4A1, M4A1 SOP MOD II, ST AR-15, ART556, HK 416, ACR, K-2, G41, G36, UMP 45, 40, and 9. LTLX7000, DP-12, TS-12, 870, Honeybadger, VSK-94, Lee-Enfield, P90, MG5, Negev, and all of the others were more important to me now than ever before.

We had started out as a team but ended it as a family.

To celebrate our hard work we decided that we would go out as a group to the best restaurant in town, sharply dressed and un-masked. There was literally no one that could touch us now, and with our amulets, everyone else would be none the wiser.

You guys rock!

Canoptek Spyder (Necron) (400CP)

Not all troops in the Necron arsenal were once Necrontyr. The Canoptek constructs bear the distinction of being entirely robotic in nature. One of the most important of these constructs is the Canoptek Spyder, meant to oversee Necron tombs while its inhabitants sleep. To aid in this purpose, the Canoptek Spyders are able to manufacture swarms of Canoptek Scarabs and direct them towards intruders, ripping them to shreds before they even have a chance to scream. Additionally, they are capable of repairing Necrons who are damaged beyond even Necrodermis' ability to repair.

Chapter 14 - Catching up, tying up, and laying down (Pipe).

[February 21st]

[Jason Wilke]

Okay, I had wanted to go out without a mask, mainly because I was feeling pretty secure in the power that we had obtained. However, my women had put a stop to that line of thinking full stop- there were still plenty of whacky and crazy things that could potentially end up causing us trouble. So we ended up wearing the modified domino masks that we used for patrolling, and I even made one for little Julian; he was just the cutest.

It was also superb blackmail material for when he got older and eventually became a teenager. The number of baby pictures in the soon-to-be burgeoning baby book will be astronomical. Almost half of my T-Dolls desired children of their own, and requested that we make a baby the next time we take a trip into the Superbolic Time-Space Complex; that would be quite soon, but with a smaller group as we needed to expand to other cities like New York and Boston and begin cleaning those places up as well.

While we set up a reservation for later in the evening at a rather chintzy place called 'La Petite Maison' in the Financial district we also called ahead to Fugly Bob's to let them know that we would be swinging by his place later in the evening- all 48 of us- and that he just might have more than a few taking the Fugly Bob's Challenger Challenge; though they would most assuredly win, we would still pay for everything because we wanted to support our local All-American businesses.

He thanked us for the heads up and we all futzed around for a while, most notably P90 was still trying to educate the girls on the finer points of the Force- most strode towards the Light Side while a few leaned more toward the Dark side; she felt that we were at our best when we were more in balance, and I agreed with her entirely. Though she was pretty sad that our Lightsabers had decreased in usefulness the stronger we got- when we could create Ki blades like that one French alien in Cooler's entourage having a Lightsaber seemed superfluous, however it was nice that we had stepped tiers of escalation.

I had always wanted to say: "Trust me, you do not want me to get out of the giant robot. It's the only thing holding me back."

Super chunni, I know, but what's life without a little chunni-ness?

Still, wouldn't that be utter hilarious?

I digress.

After spending some time with P90 and the girls I left and fixed up a few cars for the business, and then built a few more with the help of the Engineers because we needed some way to get to the restaurant without flying. Once I had a half dozen tricked-out minivans I went down to Tiffany's trailer and Springfield came with me, the beautiful woman glowing as she walked beside me with our son in tow.

I knocked on the door and the wooden door opened up to show the old biddy's wizened face, "Eh? What do you want, boy…?"

She tugged the cigarette out of her lips and tucked it behind her right ear before pushing open the screen door which I held open. "And who is this image of motherly beauty I see standing before me?"

Springfield's cheeks blushed red as a beatific smile pulled at her lips; if she hadn't had her hands full with little Julian no doubt she would have held a hand up to her cheek. "Oh, goodness me, you are too kind, Miss Tiffany. My name is Spring, it is a pleasure to finally meet you after all this time; I'd only heard about you through stories from the others."

"Stories, huh?" The old woman grinned wryly as she stepped back and allowed us entry, "Only good ones I hope?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Spring smiled as she stepped into the living room and took a corner seat on the couch so that she could rest our son's head and shoulders on the cushion, "My favorite one has to be of the night you and Jason met; a shotgun held to face? Why, I don't think there could possibly be a more American way to say 'Hello' to a home intruder!"

A loud snort issued from Tiffany's throat as she shook her head and closed the door behind her, "Heh, well, at least someone appreciates the old ways; nowadays you can't shoot someone trespassing on your property with ill intent without there being a full-blown investigation- trust me, I know. Back in my day the police would have shown up, asked a few questions, collected the body, and then tipped their hat with a 'You have a nice evening, ma'am'."

The old woman moved around into the kitchen and filled up her tea kettle before placing it on the stove, "So, you didn't visit at all yesterday, boy. I was wondering if you hadn't gone out and died or something, but I figured you probably had some important Tinker bullshit to work on, so I decided I would give it a few more days before I started rooting around."

A laugh issued from my throat, "Good lord I didn't realize how much I missed you until now, Ma'am."

When she looked back at me I'd noticed she had the cigarette between her lips, and she noticed it too before tucking it back behind her ear. She arched an eyebrow, "You make it sound as though we hadn't seen each other a few days ago."

"Weeeeeeellllllllllllllllll…." I sort of shook my hand, "You wouldn't be wrong about the Tinker bullshit."

"Jesus Tap Dancin' Christ, boy. Just what madness did you get yourself into now?" She reached up into the cupboards and began pulling out teacups and saucer plates as well as a trio of teabags.

"Well, I discovered how to distort the localized time and accelerate it to produce a rather novel effect-"

"In English, boy. I can hardly wrap my head around half of the Bullshit regular Capes can do, let alone Tinkers." She interrupted as she poured the water into the teacups just before the kettle reached the boiling point, and she waved me off when I stood up to move the teacups into the living room and placed them on the coffee table, "Now, 'something-something' - Time - something-something', was it?"

I quirked an amused eyebrow as the old biddy sassed me in her usual fashion. Truly, Tiffany was a breath of fresh air. "Well, essentially, I created a bubble where time moves faster inside of the bubble than outside of it."

She sipped her tea and nodded, "Okay, so it sounds like something that would be very useful if you were in a time-crunch. Though it sounds like you also just took a few years off of your lifespan."

I shook my head as I sipped my own tea, hmmm, earl-gray; not the crappy cheap stuff she used to drink- I guess decided to step up from the Super Mart Super Value brand on her last shopping trip? "Well, with the Lifegivers like Subee we are effectively immortal, so… it's not really that much of an issue. What it allowed all of us to do was get a lot of designing, Tinkering, and training done in a very short amount of time."

"Heh, forgot about the pink fart, okay, so that does allay some of my concerns. How much more time did you get?" She leaned back in her armchair and started to rock, the springs and frame not squeaking at all as they used to after Enbee got his grubby, greedy tendrils on the comfort device.

"Well, I had the dilation set to one day in the outside world was equal to three years worth of time inside-"

Tiffany damn near dropped her teacup, the old woman just barely avoiding getting her hot tea splashed into her lap, "Dear Lord, boy. Has it truly been three years for you?"

I nodded, "Yes, it has been. There are a few things the Team wants to take care of, but we plan on going back in after the next Endbringer fight. The main priority is the Slaughterhouse Nine. They're on their way to Brockton right now, but based on what we were able to gather they will be swinging by a town north of Boston; we think they're going to target Mouse Protector, so we'll be intervening there."

Speaking of which, I pinged Nugget and asked him to send Mouse Protector a priority text message; we probably had two days roughly before the Slaughterhouse Nine reached Newtown, Massachusetts. She deserved a heads up, though we would be handling the problem.

"The Nine? Christ, boy," She murmured before looking up from her cup and over to me, "You… really think you can do it? End those bastards for good?"

I grinned and looked down at Springfield as I reached down a took Best MILF's hand and gave it a firm squeeze, she smiled back before looking down at our boy and running her fingers through his wispy blonde hair; she wanted him to have my hair and her eyes, and once Subee confirmed that was the case, we didn't feel the need to make any modifications. My son was already going to be born from two Super Serum enhanced Prometheans, ones who had strong life forces as well as mana and a very stable connection to the Force; he was going to grow up just fine.

"So, I take it that the child is yours, boy?" She clicked her tongue and sat her teacup on the saucer.

Spring hummed as she looked up and regarded Tiffany, "Yes. We decided that training and expanding our current technologies was the smartest course of action. So we gathered the supplies we needed from the local markets-"

"Well that explains why I couldn't find any bacon," Tiffany muttered as she lifted her up and sipped at it.

"-and once we were certain that everything was taken care of and the city was safe we entered into the… time chamber and began our training and Tinkering in earnest." Springfield looked up and me from our baby, "Well, three years in a long time to be isolated from the world, and when there is only one strapping man around…"

"Phaw," Tiffany huffed as she waved her hand dismissively in front of her, "I know for a damn fact that we women have our needs, I was young and randy once myself. So you don't need to try and explain it to me, dear. Though I was more surprised that with your line of work you both allowed a slip-up like this to occur; a beautiful slip-up the child may be, but not something I would have thought you, Jason, or any of the other women would have made."

Springfield blushed deeply as she looked off to the side, "W-we do have things in place to prevent pregnancy and the like, but… at that moment in time he was just so… so… mphm! Yes, definitely a heat of the moment thing; it was incredibly risky, but I think that only added to the excitement."

"I don't need to know that, dear," Tiffany rolled her eyes as she grabbed the cigarette off of her ear and tucked it between her lips, though when she remembered the baby she sighed and put it right back. "Alright, tea's finished. Come on you two, let's go to the back porch so that I can smoke this damn thing."

We stood up and followed the old biddy through the kitchen and onto the back patio where she passed me a cigarette and I took it gratefully; it had been three years since I last enjoyed one with Tiffany. We lit up, judged which way the wind was blowing, and then stood downwind.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0280 - Industrial Fabber - 400CP - Schlock Mercenary Rebuild - Facilities Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 300 CP]

The Forge spun up for the first time in a long time, almost over a year now, and it made an attempt at a star from the "Facilities Mundane" cluster but was unable to drag it into my orbit.

"So. A child is a huge responsibility, young man. Do you think you have what it takes?" She gazed at me with hard eyes as she puffed on her smoke.

"Well, if I can stare down murderous capes and the like I think that I might just be okay," I chuckled before flicking the ashes over the side of the patio railing, "All jokes aside, I've read up on just about every parenting book in existence, and so has everyone else. I know that books aren't a substitute for first-hand experience, but I had some taking care of my kid-sister before I wound up here."

"Yes, indeed, we are all well-read up on the subject, but sometimes intelligence would be better served if checked with someone who has knowledge on hand," Spring looked at Tiffany with a soft smile on her face, "It may be presumptuous of me, but I would like to know if I can come to you for advice from time to time. None of us would dream of foisting our son on you, of course, as there are plenty of us who're more than willing to step up, but we will not turn away help freely given."

"Ha, you don't have to ask me, girl, I've got nothing better to do, and children, despite how messy they can be, are one of the greatest joys in this dark, cruel world we live in," She waved her hand in the air, "Maybe if I start sending my granddaughter some pictures she'll think about settling down again and give me a grandchild of my own to tend to in the waving years of my life."

Julian chose that time to get fussy and Spring began gently bouncing him up and down before cooing, "Oh, seems like someone is hungry."

Tiffany blinked before finishing the last of her cigarette and tamping it out in the ashtray, she wandered off inside and came back a moment later with a small blanket, "Here, girl. While there aren't other people around it would be improper to just plunk out your titty, even if your present company is an old woman and the father of your child."

Spring's smile grew wider and she began draping the blanket over her shoulder, and when Tiffany looked out towards the gravel road with another cigarette tucked between her lips the T-Doll dropped the top of her sundress down, letting a single, pale-skinned breast with a pert brown nipple leaking with milk fall out. Her hooded gaze was quite lascivious and she brought my boy's mouth to her nipple and he immediately began suckling. The blanket was draped over Julian and her breast just before Tiffany turned around.

I would like to think that as a man and a new father that I would never get jealous of my son, but the tightening of my trouser leg told me a different story. Lucky little bastard, will get to grow up surrounded by beautiful women, be a super-powered teen; God, I was going to have to watch my son like a hawk because once he started flying around the girls would stand no chance.

"So, tell me more about all of the technical foolishness you got up to while you were in this special time bubble of yours?"

I finished off my cigarette and leaned up against the railing, "Well, there was a lot of technical foolishness, we had more than enough time to research everything from weapons, to armor, to giant robots-"

"Giant robots, huh?"

I get the feeling that she didn't sound too impressed.

Damn her, I really wanted to show her to prove her wrong, but Ted was the exact opposite of what I was going for with the Titans, and until I could find a space to put him… well… even with the upgrades and aesthetic changes the Canoptek Spyder was still nightmare fuel; shining blue, white, and silver-colored nightmare fuel, but still nightmare fuel nonetheless.

While Springfield and I were away the girls contacted Parian and asked if she would be able to whip up some dresses for the upcoming Gala… which was tomorrow. If I was being dramatic I would insert into here how much I dislike politicians and high society, but while the statements would be true, I wouldn't be so silly as to 'shiver in revulsion' or some such tripe.

To my surprise, Parian was actually quite happy to have us in her shop, even offering to stay after hours to make sure that everything was finished in time- that was provided we signed a contract with her. With her powers, she would be able to make a dress in record time, and I could understand her desire to work her ass off for this opportunity. Not only had we eliminated the gangs that had been harassing her, but we were also going to become national icons here soon enough; if we wore her dresses then she would move from being a regional curiosity in the fashion industry to possibly making her way onto the national or even world stage.

Our dinner reservation was at 5:00 pm, and we'd be at Fugly Bob's around 6:30-ish, so setting a time for 7:30 pm seemed easy enough.

The moment Springfield laid our son down in his crib in the spare bedroom of the trailer… that was when I pounced. I wrapped my arms around her waist and dragged her into the kitchen, lifting her up behind her thighs so that I could deposit her bottom onto the counter. She let out a shuddering, heady breath. "Oh, goodness, Commander. Such a greedy man you are."

I captured her lips with my own, and while her hands were working to free my length my own was lifting her sundress up and pooling it on her waist. Then I slipped the straps down and freed those beautiful, milk-laden breasts of hers and I broke the kiss, leaning down so that I could capture the one that my son hadn't drained. Springfield had freed my length, and one was stroking it while her other hand curled around the drooling tip and slathered my pre so that squeeze and twist the head.

Her milk was just as delicious as the rest of her. The boy would never accept formula now that he'd gotten the good stuff.

"Ahn~, dear, you really are greedy, you know?" She bit her lip as her hooded green eyes gazed down at me with lust, love, and desire, "That milk is for our baby."

I released her nipple and captured her lips once more before pushing her soaked white panties off to the side and without prompting she dragged the head of my cock along her lips before pulling me inside. We both moaned- me because her womanhood was hot and sticky, gripping and clinging to my length- and her because I was hot and hard, and I stretched her out perfectly. "I am a greedy man, Springfield. I can't help but want you, and all of your sisters to be mine and mine alone. No one else could have you."

Her bare heels found the tops of my buttocks and she pulled me deeper until I could go no further; if we were doing this missionary or doggy she could accept the entirety of my manhood without issue, but as curled up as she was it shortened her sex by a few inches. "We are yours, Commander. From now until the day we no longer function, we will always be yours."

Her smile widened and her fingers roamed up my chest and neck so that she could thread them through my hair. She tilted her head to the side, "We had plenty of time to show you just how much we love you, Jason, but truth be told we all look forward to our return to the STSC; more time to grow stronger, more time to love you without the worries of this world plaguing your mind. Yes, we all can't wait for our next three-year stint."

I started moving, slowly pulling my hips back- I was going to go to the tip but her heels stopped my retreat after just a few inches, so with nowhere else to go but forward that was where I went; Springfield was one of the T-Dolls that liked lovey-dovey sex the most. Body contact and intimacy were more important to her than raw pleasure, though she didn't say 'No' when I chose to reduce her to a blissed-out, teary mess.

"It was like a dream, our time there," She spoke before pecking my lips, her fingers dragging my head down until our foreheads were nestled together; a soft gasp left her lips as I ground against a particular spot deep within her that she liked, "Every day was exciting. Magic, The Force, our Ki training. We all thought that we'd reached the peak of what we were capable of- we thought that the only way we could do more was to branch out and - nhf - yet we were proven wrong. We could grow stronger, strong enough to protect you, to support you… to give you something you've always spoken about in passing but never gave serious consideration to because of our current situation."

"A family." I breathed, the realization wasn't that shocking to me, so it wasn't enough to make me stop my motions that were drawing such delightful sounds from her throat.

"Mhnmmmm, yes. We drew lots, for the honor of being the first, and I somehow won despite the long odds," Her beautiful smile widened, "I know that it was manipulative of me to do, to ask you to put a child in me while we were making love like this… when your defenses were lowered and - ammnh~! - your self-control lessened."

I huffed and kissed her firmly before I pulled back and firmly gripped one of her breasts, kneading the flesh as I picked up the pace, "You don't need to apologize for it, Spring. None of you do, at the rate this world goes to shit if I kept saying 'when it's safer, when it's more stable' then we'd likely be many, many years down the road."

I grasped her thighs and unwound her legs so that I could roll her over onto her belly; she was tall, but not tall enough for her toes to touch the ground with her hips on the counter. In this position, I could give her my full length, and I could savor the feeling of her muscular yet plush bottom smacking against my hips. I kept my strokes short but I began putting more force behind them, one hand grasping her breasts while the other craned her neck by the jaw so that our tongues could intertwine. Her moans grew increasingly louder as our lovemaking continued, and finally, I let the pleasure overtake me as her own orgasm feathered her womanhood across my length.

We both sighed in ecstasy as our respective climaxes ran their course; her womanhood clenched and squirmed as my cock spurted and spilled its seed deep within her belly. As our heart rates began to level out I broke the kiss and tugged at her earlobe with my teeth. "I've grown to love your girls. You are all incredibly important to me, and it will always be that way. So don't apologize for asking me to give you something you want, even if that is a child to fill your belly."

I nipped her neck firmly and she let out a pleased sigh as I slowly pulled out, and when she turned around I planted a gentle kiss on her lips, which she returned a little bit more forcefully. "Well, now that we're back, for the small amount of time we are, I should probably start baking some things."

A snort escaped my lips, "Well I have heard good things about your pies, dear, so let me say that I look forward to it, though we'll have to overhaul the kitchen; we could maybe fit six pies in this one. Maybe make a super oven so that you can bake everything you want at the same time?"

She dropped her sundress right there in the kitchen and she bit her lower lip, the woman's eyes hooded in that particular fashion that made it impossible to naysay her, "Take me again?"

With a request like that, what else was a man to do but give the woman what she wants?

When we were getting ready to go out to the restaurant we had been planning on taking Julian with us, but Tiffany shoed us off. We warned her that the baby was quite strong, but she showed off her rings and amulet; it would greatly reduce the amount of force she would take, but I still didn't feel so hot about it, so I asked Subee to watch over them both. If he got too fussy then the very strong Huragok had my permission to baby-handle him and put him to sleep; a simple touch with her tendrils and he would be out like a light, after she handled whatever his problems were. Springfield's enhance body produced quite a lot of milk, so we had plenty of filled bottles with which to feed him; she almost didn't believe us when we told her he would drink at least six bottles before he was satisfied.

Then we reminded her of our superhuman natures and she sighed and shook her head.

So with the Turner Classic Movies channel turned on, some dinner we made for her already to go with a mobile crib, a blanket, and some toys we left with after giving our boy a kiss on the head.

The lot of us piled into our vehicles and we began our procession back into Brockton Bay after applying our domino masks; they self-adhered so it wasn't as though it was a pain in the ass like normal domino masks were- they hardly felt like anything at all.

We drove through the South-West and North-West shanty-towns, moved through the South Ferry district, and then back up into the Financial District where the 'La Petite Maison' was primely positioned on a corner street nestled between two office buildings that had financial and law firms as their tenants. Right across the street from it was a generous parking lot that was quite packed, but we managed to find enough spaces for seven vehicles; I was glad I decided to take the mini-van route because the parking was quite tight with all of the other customers driving wide, sporty or luxury vehicles- the backward sliding doors were a Godsend.

We all squeezed out, though M16A1's van had to fold the back seats down and climb out through the lift-gate trunk; UMP45 was fussing the whole time. "You would have thought that with the Heroes who cleaned out their city coming they could have at least reserved us some parking spaces."

I honestly didn't disagree with her- if we were coming to patronize their establishment and drop $10,000 or more on a high-class meal then that seemed like something a restaurant might do; that was if they gave a shit at all. 'La Petite Maison' catered to the upper crust of the Brockton Bay scene, and from what Qi told me they would also be one of the three restaurants that would be catering for the Gala held in our honor tomorrow evening. Well, we'll see if they're worth their weight in the cash I was about to drop.

Once everyone was out of the vehicles we took a moment to fuss over each other's clothing, making sure everyone's hair looked good, dresses were correct, no wardrobe malfunctions imminent- not that there would be, mind you, these were made by The Boiz.

Ted thought that clothing was superfluous when we could all just have Necrodermis flesh, but I vetoed that plan pretty quickly.

Then we linked arm in arm, six across, eight ranks deep, and walked across the street where I broke the from my place in the middle to grab the door and hold it open as the ladies began filing in one at a time. I heard a scratchy voice squeak out- "U-uh, 'Frontline', party of… 48???"

Why are you acting so surprised? We called ahead well in advance, my guy.

"That would be us," M16A1 spoke out easily as she flicked the simple braid over her shoulder. She tilted her head and from what I could see the teenage boy couldn't tell whether to stare at the bust she had on display or the rakish, confident grin on her face.

God, she was just too damn cool. If I'd been in his place when I was his age there was no way in hell I could have kept my head.

He coughed into his fist before gathering a massive stack of menus and smiling tightly, "I-if you'll come with me right this way, w-we have your table all set up."

As we walked he looked at M16A1 and whispered under his breath, "Hey, before you guys go, do you think you could take a few group photos with the staff?"

"Ha! Yeah, sure thing, Gerald, that's too easy man," Emmie clapped him on the shoulder gently as we walked out of the lobby area with the bench seating and through some fancy glass double doors with bronzed door handles that spanned the length of the door frames and into the restaurant proper. With the number of people we had, we ended up taking a third of the restaurant's floor space with our seating; six long tables sat end to end with 46 chairs on the sides with one at the head and another at the foot of the table.

The girls all filtered in and found their spots- as the Commander I sat at the head while M16A1 sat at the foot. Though none of them sat down, all of them were waiting by their chairs with amused and expectant looks on their faces. Artie was downright giggling behind her hands while G41 was blank-faced with her mouth open slightly.

I blinked and then I remembered that at fancy establishments such as this it was only proper for a man to seat a lady.

While I was pulling out the chair and seating every single woman present, the Forge grew hot and made a reach for not one but two stars from different constellations that were close by and brought them together.

Guess he was feeling greedy after being dormant for three years.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 34.006 - German Engineering - 200CP - Smash Up - Quality Durability]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 200 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 36.0120 - Scrap Hound - 100CP - Dead Space - Quality Resources]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 100 CP Remaining]

I entered into the Strategy Trance to look them both over real quick as I lifted my hand to gently flick the tip of Artie's right ear; she was far too smug for me simply seating her in her chair and pushing it in.

German Engineering was a rather plain perk, but a rather powerful one- everything I've built and would build would gain a 20% improvement in strength, durability, efficiency, and potency. Potency was… subjective, but from what I could see it meant effects- so if I build a battery not only would it be more efficient in its storage, but it would also store 20% more charge at 20% more output; a great thing if you needed as much as possible, but boy you better have a power regulator because sometimes 20% throughput isn't what you need. Though this also applied to weapons, concoctions, explosives, tracking hardware, tracking software, power distribution, etc, etc, etc.

My implant was already noting an exact 20% increase in computing power and efficiency, so it does indeed work. 10/10, would purchase again.

With how far along we were with the quality of the materials we were using we had pretty much squeezed every single drop of power, durability, and efficiency out of everything we made. There wasn't much higher we could go without getting something divine- it was pretty hard to beat the combination of Necron and Forerunner engineering, so a free 20% boost to everything we do from now on will be a huge help.

The second perk, Scrap Hound, was pretty simple but also pretty potent. It allowed you to essentially find 20% more stuff when you're searching for it, and it reduced the cost of building something by 20% as well; Echo 22 just pinged me and confirmed that when sifting for nanomaterials he got back 1.2 pounds of nanomaterials from a single sift instead of 1.0 pounds like we usually did. I put in an order to have a new storage wing put in place in the HQ- I wanted a massive warehouse with tons of storage for nanomaterials; we would keep the nanomaterials we had in the hanger as our emergency supply should we ever need to pack up and abandon the HQ.

I exited the Trance and seated Springfield, whose hand came up and patted my own before I seat Qi and then moved down to the end of the table to seat the last woman. A huge grin came across my face as I pulled back her chair, and the cool beauty blushed but sat down demurely; as with the other chairs I suffused the chair with my Ki to strengthen it so that I could gently heft it off the ground and placed her up against the table.

With that, I moved over to my chair and I managed to seat myself just fine.

The wait staff came over, and took our drink orders- bottles of good wine all around- but when one of the poor waitresses slipped on her tongue and asked to see the IDs of G41 and ART556. The two looked at each other and then back up to the young woman.

"I'm 43 years old, miss." Artie pointed to herself.

"Yes. I am 28 years old." G41 nodded, her heterochromatic eyes blinking slowly as she too pointed to herself.

"Besides, I thought you weren't supposed to enquire about the identities of Capes, miss?"

The red-head blushed furiously before she stammered out an apology, "I-I'm sorry, that was my mistake."

Artie chuckled, "Nah, it's fine, it's fine. No worries. Just didn't want you to get it in your head that G41 and I were children, because we most certainly are not."

"I'm wearing a dress," G41 spoke, nodding again with her arms crossed underneath her small but delightful breasts- as if that statement had explained everything.

I rolled my eyes at the antics of the two troublemakers and P90 just grinned as she leaned back, twisting in the chair so that a chorus of snapping pops from her spine rang out. "Yeah, don't worry about those two, Miss. They like causing trouble."

When we got around to ordering I settled on two entrees- the Fois Gras and the Steak Tartare- and was surprised to find that if prepared properly, raw beef steak and duck liver seared in its own fat was actually quite delicious. Though it was hardly what I would call a 'filling' meal.

Still, we ate, we had a few drinks, chatted back and forth with those around close to us, and a group chat was started in the implant chat rooms where we all spoke to one another. It was pretty damn nice and very relaxing. The music was good, and after everyone finished their meals there was just enough time to have a few dances from the live band; I chose LTLX7000, G36, ACR, NTW-20, Five-Seven, and Lee-Enfield to be my dance partners- I hadn't spent as much time with them as of late. The small, polished hardwood dance floor was packed with my girls as they all took turns leading and following in the slow dances that followed; Five-Seven was particularly cheeky, as was her nature, and she tried to turn a simple slow dance into a make-out session.

However, I, being the respectful person I was to everyone else in attendance, put a stop to that with a gentle 'Nuh-uh' and a 'Nope'. I hated it when people got way too into their PDA, and I wasn't about to become a perpetrator.

Lexi and Bigi were just happy to have me to themselves, even if it was only for a few minutes long dance song; all the while we moved about the floor Lexi was telling me all sorts of nasty things she wanted to do to me (and me to her), while G36 wanted to have some special Maid-play when we got the time. We didn't take costumes into the Superbolic Time Chamber, so she was bereft of 'her thing' for that entire time; not that she minded with all of the action she was getting- both of the training and the sexual varieties- but it did leave an aching hole in her breast.

Acer was a blushing mess, barely able to follow along as we gently twirled; no doubt if the hadn't had as much training as she had I would have likely been requisitioning a new set of toes. Enti was content to let me lead her wherever, the quiet woman just enjoying the closeness; her eyes closed and head on my shoulder.

I had just finished up my nice and proper dance with Enfield, the woman insisting on a proper Waltz when the right music began playing for it, and we were just about to leave when I was accosted by none other than Emily Piggot.

"Horizon, before you leave, if I may have a word with you?" Her words were firm, a tone that brooked no argument, but she was still smiling warmly as the other patrons weren't within earshot. I nodded and handed over the keys to the mini-van to Emmie before I followed the Director of the ENE branch of the PRT to a small room in the back of the restaurant. The walls were very thick and I was quite a bit surprised when the door shut with a 'thunk'. A quick scan with one of the drones in the area showed me that this place was heavily shielded; well, it would provide protection from pretty much everything else short of my own technology.

"Don't act so surprised, Horizon. The PRT usually has at least one room like this in a more upscale restaurant in each city; sometimes it pays to be able to take a lunch or dinner break while still being able to have secure meetings," The woman hobbled around the side of the table before seating herself back in front of her meal and picking up her fork and knife.

Not to be the only one standing in this room I moved over and took the seat opposite of her, "So, I have to ask, Director, were you waiting for me? Or…?"

"This was merely an attack of opportunity," She huffed, setting her fork down to take a sip of her water, "I had finally cleared enough of the paperwork and held all of the press conferences from your efforts, and I decided that I would take some time to have a nice dinner by myself to de-stress; then, lo and behold, in walks through the door the source of all of my headaches. Truly, you have impeccable timing."

I chuckled and shook my head, "Well, I do hope that our good timing will continue to hold then. However, you didn't call me in here for pleasant chit-chat, and most certainly you wouldn't be here with me alone."

"I'll admit, I'm taking a very significant risk- I don't like Capes or trust them for a variety of reasons- but they are very, very good reasons," She cut into her fish dish and took a bite, chewed, and then swallowed, "One of which is why I'm speaking to you about this; that Hebert case you referred us to- the attempted murder."

I blinked but then nodded, "Ah, yes, that was Python and AK74U's case; they stopped those boys from accosting that young woman- well, any more than they already had."

"Yes, well, it turns out that the reports we received from your Team and the Brockton Bay PD allowed us to get a great many search warrants and with those warrants, we were unable to uncover a… conspiracy. Between the cell phone footage recovered from the phones of students, the diaries, printings of electronic emails from the Hebert girl's school email accounts, along with the numerous write-ups and disciplinary notices placed into the girl's school files… everything points to the Winslow faculty, staff, and board being implicit in the cover-ups of those three girls wrongdoings."

"You're telling me this because… one of the students involved in this bullying campaign was a Ward?" I narrowed my eyes, "And you want me to keep quiet about it?"

A deep frown settled onto her face before she shook her head, "I suppose that by process of elimination it would lead you to that conclusion."

"Well, you wouldn't still have control over this case if there wasn't confirmed Parahuman involvement; it would have been passed back over to the BBPD and the District Attorney's office if your investigation turned up nothing. It is also why you would approach me in a more private setting like this, asking me to hush up about PRT and Protectorate malfeasance and criminal neglect leading to attempted murder, blackmail, and biological terrorism, among whatever else was involved." I placed my hands flat on the table, "If it were any other Director asking me this I would have been the first one to blow the whistle, but I get the feeling that you weren't in the loop about this Ward's criminal behaviors."

She let out an aggravated groan and pinched the bridge of her nose, "No, I keep all of the Parahumans under my purview under close observation; anyone steps out of line…? Well, the Wards don't call me a raging bitch for no reason. However, in order for that to happen, I have to have people underneath me that I can trust, and this particular handler was noted as being stellar when they transferred into my department. We've only been investigating this particular Agent for a while now, and we've already uncovered similar behaviors from her going back years."

"You're being awfully free with this information, Director," I spoke, tilting my head.

"Nothing I'm telling you now won't already be in the papers in the coming weeks as we finalize and publish the initial findings of our investigations," She leaned over the table and interlaced her fingers over her plate, "What I'm asking you to do for me is to keep what you do know under wraps until we can at least get that done. I cannot say what will happen to the Ward, as that particular headache is above my paygrade, but I foresee a very major settlement in the future."

"Well, if you pay well enough then I think that you should be in the clear, but be sure to pay through the nose because that particular little number isn't going to be cheap," I crossed my arms under my chest.

"Of course, it won't be, shit like that never is. There will end up being some budget cuts all around, but seeing as the Ward was ultimately Armsmaster's responsibility his budget will be taking a more severe cut," She grinned somewhat vindictively, "Regardless, the only thing that is going to save my ass is the fact that I presided over the city and didn't flub the ball when you and your team, working hand-in-hand , with the Protectorate and PRT, cleared out all of the gangs in what was essentially one fell swoop."

"Now, the other thing that I wished to speak to you about," Her posture became far more severe, "We have reason to believe that the Slaughterhouse Nine might be coming to Brockton Bay; they aren't ones to let people enjoy life, and upon hearing that all of the Villain opposition has been swept out of the city? Raining on people's parades is what the Nine does; I do hope that you're prepared."

I nodded, "We are already tracking them, and we'll be taking care of them in the next few days; we have to attend the Gala, but after that? The Nine will be no more- we need to take them out before the next Endbringer fight because we'll likely be tied up in the recovery efforts for some time."

The Forge tried to grab onto another star from the "Toolkit Magical" cluster, but fell short with only two charges.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 6.0240 - Unique Uniques - 400CP - Modded Skyrim - Toolkit Magical]

[NOT Purchased: 200 CP Remaining]

Director Piggot visibly relaxed and began eating her meal again, "Good, good. As much as I hate to admit it that does bring me some relief to hear, though make sure that when you do it you go in hard and fast; don't be like some other cocky fools and try to showboat. It never ends well."

I stood up with a nod and made my way to the door, resting my hand over the exit button, "We have been incredibly restrained with the gangs in the city because we know that optics matter. The Slaughterhouse Nine will see no mercy from us. Neither will Nilbog, or the Machine Army. Or any of the other S-Class threats in the US, to include the Fallen and all of their ilk."

Her eyes widened slightly, "We've been planning this out for years, Director Piggot. We will get them all."

With that, I opened up the door and pushed out, leaving the Director alone with her meal.

I just barely caught the muttering as the door closed behind me, "Drop more shit in my lap, why don't you?"

Just before we left we took a group photo with all of the staff of the restaurant, right out in front of the building. It looked very nice and would look great on our home page.

Fugly Bob's.

Good old Fugly Bob's.

The fancy meal was certainly nice, and it was great to have an extravagant palate cleanser after having eaten (decidedly) delicious nutrient pastes and other easy-to-store meals for the past three years. The wine was good, the atmosphere was good, and the company even better… but there was a massive hunger within me that just couldn't be satisfied by some duck liver and raw beef steak.

I, like many of my T-Dolls, decided that the only meal fit for conquering, returning Kings, was the Challenger.

Two pounds of meat fashioned into four 1/2-pound beef patties with eight slices of processed American cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms, twelve bacon strips, an extra-large french fry, and an extra-large milkshake of your choice. It needed to be eaten within half an hour in order for the challenge to count, but honestly? That was easy mode, though I took my sweet time, just enjoying the absurdly meaty, fatty burger, hot and greasy fries, and super sweet strawberry milkshake. I clocked in at just under the 30-minute timer, and I, like half of the other girls, got our instant Polaroid pictures taken and put up on the Fugly's Wall of Fame.

We got put in a special section right in the middle where all of the Capes who successfully completed the challenge. It was hilarious that Skidmark's photo was up there, the photo was years old and it was from a time when he was just starting out his Cape career; he hadn't yet established the Merchants. His photo sat right next to Marquis', the more gentlemanly Villain had apparently once had a deal worked out with Fugly Bob to ensure his establishment was protected. Frontline's names were cleanly written in on the bottom with a black sharpie and put up on the wall before a clear plexiglass board went up over the top of them; more than once someone tried to come in and strip the Villain's photos off the walls, but Fugly refused to allow anyone to fuck with it: If they made it up on the Wall then they deserved to stay- Villain or Hero.

We all looked stellar- me in my handsome charcoal grey suit- and the ladies with their outstanding dresses; it was hard for me to take my eyes off of the impressive busts the women had on display in the photos, and I got to see them every damn day! VSK-94's was particularly daring, with only the cups of the dress preventing her wonderfully gelatinous bosom from spilling over the sides. I was going to have to do something with those tonight, her and Lexi.

While we were there in the restaurant, the place was utterly packed from wall to wall; it had quickly become standing room only, and curious teens, adults, and children all stood around eating their Fugly burgers and chatting with every member of Frontline they could.

Artie was flabbergasted when a little girl no older than eight told her that she was very cute and that when she grew up she wanted to be a hero just like ART556. The fox loli's smile was beatific as she patted the child on the head and accepted a hug from the little girl, and while the child's face was buried in her breasts she looked up at the parents with a pleading look on her face. "Please, please, please. This is just a phase, right? I'm a terrible role model! I'm an internet troll, and I do dangerous things every day! Don't let her grow up like me, I'm begging you!"

The mother and father were quite relieved at the admission, but their relief turned to amusement as Artie and G41 were swarmed by children who all wanted to hug and pet them. G41 looked quite content to receive the head pats, though she did warn them off of her tail, as did her fellow fox loli. One overly ambitious child tried to eat her burger and stroke some ears at the same time, but the two were quite adept at dodging her questing fingers while still somehow managing to not knock the other children over. "Greasy fingers. Go have your mommy clean them."

Artie looked to me for help, but I just gave them my biggest smug cat smirk.

Springfield and Lee-Enfield were more than willing to intervene, the pair scooping up the kiddies in their arms and wading through the crowds to go and have nice little chats with their parents. Qi was speaking to the Asian members of the crowd, seamlessly answering questions in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Tagalog, and a host of other languages. M16A1, being the cool cat she was, was engaging the trio of skater-boys and lone skater-gal at the counter while sucking down a second milkshake.

I had remained blissfully unbothered, at least, that was until a teenage girl slipped through the crowd and sat down in the seat next to me that Springfield had vacated when she went to rescue Artie and G41. A big Cheshire smile, blonde hair that hung to the middle of her back let down, freckles, and bottle green eyes that crinkled just a touch. "So, you look like you're a little bored, Mr. Horizon."

I grinned right back, "And you look like you could use some rescuing, Lisa Wilbourn."

The big smile she had crumpled like wet paper, and she popped her lips before looking around the packed restaurant, " Wow. Just com'in right on out there and saying it, huh? What gave it away?"

"Well, Frontline has done a great deal to clear out Brockton Bay, but one solitary snake still remains; we haven't handled him yet because we have much bigger fish to fry at the moment. If he's intelligent he'll pack the hell up and go somewhere else, but Coil isn't the type to do that; he's waited patiently in the shadows for far too long to just give up and establish himself elsewhere." I shook my head as I sipped at my paper cup filled with water before I waved over Fugly Bob and slapped down $5,000 onto the palm of his hand and ordered a second milkshake for myself- chocolate this time instead of vanilla; I looked at Lisa, "You want one? My treat."

"Yeah, Strawberry, if you wouldn't mind," Her grin returned full force and she turned away, spinning in her chair to lean back against the diner's counter, "So, you seem to have him all figured out."

"Well, we've been looking over the city for a lot longer than we've been public; intelligence gathering is an important job that needs to be done thoroughly," I shrugged, looking at her out of the corner of my eye, "We have an outstanding intelligence group. One good enough to know that our presence has driven him to wit's end."

"Oh? How do you figure that? The guy's pretty slippery," She spun around just long enough to grab our milkshakes from Fugly Bob, the blonde handing me mine while she began slurping on hers.

"Well, you're here, aren't you? Hoping to ask me some innocuous questions and extrapolate some hopefully juicy information from it," I gave her a shark-like grin, "If he sending in his only Thinker to gather intelligence then it means he doesn't have anything else. Now, we have some contacts in all places, so purchasing some information about him from those he regularly deals business with wasn't too hard; the money was good, and the information solid."

"Well, with the right motivation… I might be able to fill in some of the blanks, maybe… help you confirm some of what you got?" She smirked a little bit, "But it won't be cheap, as I'm in a bit of a tight spot."

"Well then, name your price, and we'll see if we can't figure out a happy medium," I nodded and gestured at her with my shake.

She swallowed. "If… I do this, I'm going to need your word, Horizon. I'm not fucking around when I say I'm in a tight spot."

"You have it."

"I need protection. Well, extraction and protection; Coil's got my life in the palm of his hand- if I fuck up he's not going to stop coming after me until I'm six feet under," She winced, "And I have a team; they're… good kids, for lack of a better term. They were picked up to sort of act as cover for some of his movements, B , petty theft, that sort of stuff; he was planning on having us hit the ABB in a little while to stir up the nest and test the waters, but since the ABB is gone that little plan of his fell through."

"You? I can guarantee, but I'm not about to negotiate for all of the others through you; if they want the help of Frontline they can contact us on PHO, we'll see the message and then we'll set up a Date, Time, and Location to talk things out," I shook my head, "Now for you? You can leave here with us, we'll go to Parian's and get the gals their dresses made, and you can come to stay with us at our HQ in the meantime."

"Can… we stop by my apartment first? I don't need everything there, but I would at least like to grab my laptop and some other stuff." Her voice was hopeful.

"Of course, we can stop by and collect your things, though the mini-vans are sort of packed, you'll end up sitting on someone's lap." I chuckled in amusement.

"Well if I have to sit on a model's plush thighs for the duration of the ride I guess I'll just have to suffer through it, as long as they don't get grabby with me we'll be cool," Her eyes narrowed at me, "I'm not going to have to pay for this with my body, am I?"

"No. Not no, but hell no. We're Frontline, not the ABB." I grunted, "Christ Wilborne, give us some credit."

"Well, there does seem to be some pretty strong Master vibes going on with your team, all of those beautiful young women and only one guy? Pretty sus." Her tone was teasing, but there was a hint of worry that I could easily hear.

"Well, you're just going to have to take a leap of faith here, Lisa, either jump and get caught by our strong, capable arms, or don't and end up in one of Coil's little torture dungeons."

She looked at me and then winced before staring down at her milkshake in consternation before a look of understanding dawned on her face, "Mother fucker. No wonder he knew-…"

I felt the Forge fire again, the sound of hammers growing loud as the ephemeral hand reached out and pulled a star from the "Magical Large Scale" constellation and pulled it in close.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 12.0050 - Field of Heart-Shaped Herbs - 300CP - Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 2 - Magical Large Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

I blinked. This wasn't as powerful as it could have been, but it would still serve some purpose- the Herb would improve our basic abilities, similarly to the Subee Serum, this would make us stronger, faster, and tougher, with improved agility, reflexes, and it came with baked-in combat instincts as well. The magical nature of the herbs would also serve to improve our magical abilities and no doubt that would stack nicely with the Force and Ki as well. Overall, not a game-changer, but any pick-up is nice to have, especially after not having any for a number of years.

My pause got Lisa to perk up a little bit, "Something up?"

"Nope, not much, just realizing…" I made a show of pulling out my phone and checking the time, "That we need to get moving if we are to meet Parian at our appointed time. Come on, Lisa, let's herd these cats."

"If herding cats means I don't need to worry about taking a bullet to the face then I'll herd as many cats as you want," She chuckled nervously as she stood up off of her chair and chewed on the end of her straw, "You sure that we'll be safe? Once Coil's watcher outside sees me leaving with you… we might get attacked."

"I wish he would give me a reason to handle him sooner," I smirked at her, "But dresses take priority."

"Dresses over Villains, huh? Guess when you got it like that then Coil really does seem like small potatoes. Damnit." She muttered under her breath as we all gathered up and began making our way back to the vans in the parking lot, taking a few last photos and signing some things before we piled in and made our way towards Lisa's apartment.

With the drones we watched a few SUVs packed with men in tactical gear following us, but they didn't do a thing other than follow. No doubt Coil wasn't making a move because he couldn't utilize his timelines properly with our Anti-Thinker amulets on; I was honestly quite surprised that he was still here in the city given that he couldn't do jack shit with us around. Granted, I feel like I had him pretty well pegged; he'd been lying in wait for this city to become his for a long time, and he wasn't about to give up on it that easily.

While I was thinking about it I sent Contessa a message to have him captured and brought to me just after we arrived home; a quick implant and then the Coil problem would be taken care of, and Cauldron would have a nice little asset that they could make use of in other places around the country. Just as long as he wasn't within range of our amulets he would be able to function quite nicely.

Eventually, the mercenaries pulled back upon seeing that they wouldn't be able to make anything happen, and Lisa was more than happy to stuff all of her belongings into the various vans and we moved onto Parian's.

Now, I didn't have as many interactions with the doll-cape as I would have liked- she barely even spoke to me beyond the pleasantries, and my measurements were taken within the span of a couple of seconds. Meanwhile, the girls all needed to go behind a screen and strip practically naked for the woman to get their measurements. I didn't blame her, not really, my women were gorgeous and the one-half of the famous Worm lesbian couple was more than happy to take her time. The girls knew what was going on, but they didn't really care; a few errant touches in some jiggly places wasn't worth the effort of complaining about.

"You know that she's… queer as a three-dollar bill, right?" Lisa stage whispered to me with a small grin on her face, "She's abusing her privilege to try and get some gropes in on your girls."

I looked at her and arched an eyebrow, "You do realize that the girls do far worse to each other in the showers, right? A few gropes from useless lesbian isn't going to bother them that much, hell, they might try and get a few squeezes in themselves."

There was a squeak from Parian, and considering it was Artie behind the curtain with her I knew exactly what happened. "P-please don't do that, Miss."

"Awww, but I thought it was open season?" The fox loli mock-pouted, but then that fake disappointment disappeared with the swishing of her tail and the shit-eating grin on her face, "Not so fun when people make grabby hands at you, now is it?"

"No… I mean, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that it was rather sudden," The doll-cape murmured lowly.

"Hee, hee, hee, well as long as we're all on the same page."

The rest of the dress measuring process was a lot more painless, though I thought that Parian was going to have a meltdown when VSK-94 stripped out of her dress, clad in only her panties as her pendulous breasts jiggled too and fro; she practically invited the cape to squeeze and grope. Lexi got a similar reaction out of her, but she was far less inclined to be touched untowardly; "Just the measurements, please. Thank you."

Within half an hour we were all ready to go, and Parian said that she would have all of these dresses done by tomorrow at 6:00 pm; just two hours before the Gala. Huh, that was a lot of work to get done in less than 24 hours, but as we left I could already see Parian getting to work- the woman using a bolt of cloth to make an exact mockup of the first girl's figure and then the rest of the fabrics, scissors, pins, needles, and thread all coming into play soon after. She had almost finished with the first dress the moment we got into the vehicle; a quick search of her internet history showed that she had been planning to make an offer for outfits the moment the team stepped onto the field. Almost every search was of a photo or a screen capture from the live streams, and…

I blinked.

A horrible chuckle escaped my throat as I looked at Emmie sitting next to me. "Hey, guess what?"

She arched her lone visible eyebrow, a small smirk coming onto her lips, "Okay, I'll bite, what?"

I snorted and sent everyone the link. "We have fanfiction now."

"Noooooo fucking way, for real?" She began pulling up the various websites and scanning through them. The Assault Rifle found one that really seemed to tickle her fancy, and I braced myself for whatever horror she found.

"Hey, there's a Hero x Horizon story… Ha-hem, 'Horizon, the newest Tinker in a world bereft of capable Tinkers, gets thrown back in time due to an accident. All alone without his team to support him, Horizon has to make his way into Washington D.C. to meet with the only Tinker capable of possibly helping him out. Let's just say it will be Big Trouble in Little China when these two Tinkering prodigies meet: Will they come to blows, or will they try to make things work so that Horizon can return to his own time? The bigger question is, will he even want to go back?'"

"Fucking gag me, that's God awful," I chuckled and shook my head.

"For real, half of this stuff is terrible!" P90 chirped in from the very back, "Oh~! I know! Why don't we all write our own fanfiction? We write stuff that's terrible and then stuff that's amazing!"

Like Charlie Sheen hearing the word 'cocaine' ART556 immediately added her own two cents, "Oh, I know just the story to tell! 'In an alternate universe where World War III has just finished, a Mercenary group has pioneered the use of Androids as weapons platforms-'"

"That sounds a little too close to home, Artie," Emmie muttered under her breath.

"No! No! I haven't even gotten to the best part! It's Sir that's the Commander this time around! I don't know how I'll move the old Commander out of the way though… can't have two Sirs running around, giving orders and stuff."

"Meh, why not have him heroically killed off or something right at the beginning? Never like that guy anyways, he always went for UMP45 and never even gave me the time of day," P90 muttered sullenly, "He missed out on our annual Star Wars marathon just to mess around with her! Seriously, what a prick, that guy."

"I get what you're saying, he refused to play with me because I 'looked like a child' but then he goes around giving G41 walkies and stuff! The nerve of that guy."

We had the rest of the girls take Lisa to the HQ and offload her stuff into her assigned room, and we gave her a helpful, handy-dandy MRVN unit to show her around all of the areas she was allowed to be in and would act as her assistant and point of contact.

Meanwhile, my van pulled up to the house and the seven of us removed our amulets so that Contessa could door in with Coil's unconscious body. The man was asleep and in his snake-themed body suit; with a twist of the key on the front door, we were inside the warehouse where Subee and Enbee were waiting. It took us less than a minute to have his head opened up and an implant installed, and then we were waking him up.

It took a handful of seconds for him to wake up, and when he did his head tilted to the side. "Well, I must say that I am quite surprised, but I knew there had to be some sort of Master component to your powers; the likelihood of you managing to accrue so many Capes in such a small amount of time was highly irregular."

"I would ask how you managed to stay off the PRT's radar this whole time with these concerns," He turned his head and regarded Contessa, "Though I now know why."

"Horizon was going to have you killed off, Coil, however, we have come to an agreement to have you spared," The woman tipped her fedora back with the tip of her finger, "We were content to ignore you, but the situation has changed. You will be incredibly useful to the Protectorate… and Cauldron."

"It's far more than what you deserve, Thomas, but the day you start shoveling your own grave isn't today," I spoke, which directed his masked face back to me, "You are going to close down your operation as Coil, removing all of your failsafes, deactivating all of your counter-measures, and you will be transferring 90% of your wealth to the accounts provided. You can still keep Fortress Construction, its shell companies, and its subsidiaries."

"My, how… generous , but, I suppose I am keeping my life, and despite the Mastering, I will still be able to live my life how I wish to," He shook his head, "Far more than what most people who live in our world get."

"Indeed," I looked down at him, "You will follow all of the orders that come from Contessa, Alexandria, and Rebecca Costa-Brown as if they came from my own lips. If there are conflicting orders then you will consult with Contessa to see which orders take precedence; if you are not able to get into contact with them then you will follow the orders based on the order above."

I sent him a packet containing all of his orders and rules, which covered just about everything everyone could think of. They were ultimately simple, but iron-clad without any wiggle-room; he was loyal, but that didn't mean we would put additional restrictions on him.

"The implant should reduce a lot of the strain that your power has on your mind, so you should be able to perhaps run more concurrent timelines than before; that will be up to you to experiment."

"Three timelines," Coil spoke up, "I've been able to run three timelines now, which is a significant improvement, though only a small percentage is actually being utilized by my power, leaving the rest of the processing free."

"It is likely that the Passenger doesn't quite know what to make of it," Contessa supplied before shaking her head, "Regardless, it is inconsequential. Come, Coil, we will need to make our way back to your hideout, where you will do exactly as I tell you to."

"Of course, Contessa," The snake-themed Cape slid off of the table and stretched minutely, "Though what will we be doing?"

"We will be orchestrating your 'trigger' event for the Protectorate, and we will also be folding your mercenaries into the Non-Profit that Frontline will be creating to provide security for the worksites that they will be building to improve the Bay." She turned on her heel and strode outside of the warehouse with Coil hot on her heels, "Door, Coil's Office."

We saw the inside of the Super Villain's office, the stark cold concrete walls, and the large table with a single laptop and numerous buttons that could only be seen from the backside. The masked villain sat down behind his laptop and opened it up before he began typing away. Contessa looked back at me and nodded before sending a request to keep our girls out of the city for the next 12 hours so that she could work her paths without interruption.

I forwarded that request to the rest of the girls and nodded back.

The door closed, and that was the last I ever saw of Coil, at least in person; the Villain would quietly slink out of Brockton Bay, never to be seen or heard from again. Coincidentally, a new Protectorate Hero by the name of Split-Stream would be joining a mobile group of Capes handling sensitive and important matters under Alexandria.

Well, the Frontline organization ended up getting about 50 Million dollars richer, and thanks to the Number Man we had legitimate accounts now to go along with the other 47 Million dollars we had accrued; truly, the Empire was far too kind, Kaiser himself especially. What a guy.

Half of the funds were transferred into an account directly managed by the Number Man himself to ensure excellent returns on investment, of which the profits would be fed into the non-profits that would revitalize the Bay. Of course, we would contribute a lot of money, but I would make sure the City paid its fair share- we were running a charity, yes, but the City Officials had to do more than just rubber-stamp every proposal that came across their desks.

With all of that done I had Subee whip up an improved version of the Heart-Shaped Herb, the crazy girl managing to energize the formula by using some of the lessons learned from re-making the Super Soldier Serum, and funnily enough, it was Ted that helped the most with her project. The Necrontyr had come up with a large variety of medical marvels, but those were all focused on attempting to increase their lifespans because their DNA had been so riddled with radiation that they lived short, tortured lives… even after leaving their rock of a planet. Some of the techniques for refining the herb to make it even more potent were from the Necontyr, and it would give us that much more of a boost.

Shipping the Product really proved its worth here, as we had to use three herbs for one serving, which more than doubled the potency, but the issue of actually waiting for the herbs to grow was settled by sticking its mobile garden inside of the Time Chamber. Within a few seconds, we had all of the herbs we would need and more. After that, Subee began picking them just to run future experiments on.

We all met in the Time Chamber, laid ourselves out on the provided mats, and then waited for the Lifegivers to poot around and administer the improved Heart-Shaped-Herb formula.

It tasted awful, and boy oh boy did it fucking burn.

The pain was so immense that I could barely register the Forge missing a large star.

[Remaining: 100 CP]

Thankfully, Subee, being the best gurl that she was, she put me to sleep as soon as it started taking effect.

I was surrounded by dust and ash. Sun-baked clay and cracked ground as far as the eye could see.

For the first time in a long time, I felt so… weak.

Helpless.

My body felt like it was lacking the strength to even take a step forward in this desolate place, but I felt my heart beat, and I felt my Ki circulate and flow into my body. Then my mana flowed, and The Force surrounded me.

I took a step forward.

Then another step.

Then another.

The winds began to pick up all across the barren landscape, the dust and dirt being picked up and carried. It stung my eyes and forced me to cover my mouth and nose up with my hand, cupping it so that it wouldn't fill my lungs. It didn't help, not one bit, but it gave me the mental strength to take another step.

I flared my Ki up hoping to abate the wind, and to my surprise, it did in fact do something; the dust and dirt were now flowing away from me; the howl of my lifeforce canceling out the dust storm. Still, it helped me concentrate on where I was and what I was feeling. There was an energy that was suffused into the surroundings; it had a taste to it… something wild, powerful, untamed… yet it also gave off the feeling of that of a protector.

Eventually, the dust storm died away, and when it did I easied back on my Ki until it was roiling just underneath the surface. I was ready for anything, though it appeared that the trial (was that what it was?) was over. The cracked, sun-scorched earth had been replaced by soft, loamy soil and waist-high grasses; thin trees dotted the landscape, and upon the branches roosted a dozen black panthers. Their golden eyes pierced into me, but rather than judging they looked on with curiosity.

It was a fairly small space, the edges were warped but I could tell that it was powerful magic that created and sustained this pocket dimension; the stars and aurora borealis-like effect stretched across the sky and terminated at the edge of the pocket.

"When I had made a deal with the Forge I had not expected that it would take so long for a prospective candidate to step forward… let alone so many at one." A deep, feminine voice rumbled out over the savannah, and I spun around to see a large black panther with glowing blue eyes stride languidly towards me. Her body was made of shifting pebbles of black onyx and what appeared to be chunks of blue, glowing vibranium; she was tall, easily thrice my height at the shoulder.

Spoiler: Bast - Goddess of Wakanda

[img: https/static.wikia./marvelcinematicuniverse/images/0/06/D450288B-0448-4D1E-A4B3-33452B391897.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20180505092140]

So this was Bast, huh?

"If you're talking about 'many', then I would assume that you are referring to my girls?" I asked, standing up straighter and relaxing my body; despite her status as a Goddess I was the stronger of us- I could destroy worlds while she could merely scorch a single nation with her fury. Though, that didn't mean that I wasn't on guard… I was just being polite.

"Yes, I am indeed," Her blue eyes closed and then opened, the feline Goddess' head tilting to the side, "Normally it is but one who drinks the Herb, and normally not with such a potent brew; by all rights, you and every one of your paramours should be dead… yet… hmmmm… the Forge is staying the harmful effects? Interesting. To see a mortal so favored by the Forge of Universes that it would protect thee so."

I doubted she was clued into the fact that it was a combination of Perks and the excellent brewing skills of Subee and Ted, but I wouldn't gainsay her, especially not on something like this. "If that is true then I am quite flattered to hold the Forge's attention."

She sniffed and began to pace around me, "Why have you come, child of Man? You already hold great strength, more than even a Goddess such as I, and yet you still come here, to my realm, to ask for the blessing I have bestowed upon the Herb?"

"Everything starts with a good, solid foundation," I spoke easily, I didn't have the implant to give me time to think about my words, but the words flowed easily from my mouth. No, something had settled upon me with her presence; it wasn't so much that I was telling her… but more the truth was being drawn out of me; no doubt I could have kicked this effect if I flexed my abilities, but I had no problems with telling a Goddess the honest truth.

"I started with a new physiology, a new body from a Humanity whose reach extended far into the stars. Then I improved upon that foundation with a modified Super Soldier Serum that expanded and enhanced the new body's capabilities. After that, I began honing my magic, building up my strength and control in conjunction with the Force, a mystic power from a galaxy far, far away to improve it further. Then I worked on my Ki, my lifeforce, honing it as one would a knife, I trained my mind, my spirit, and my body to achieve heights that some of the greatest known protectors have reached."

I held up a clenched fist, "I hold the power to annihilate entire worlds with but a flick of the wrist, and yet I am not a conquerer. I am a protector; hundreds of trillions of lives across hundreds of different Earths are counting on me and my girls to defeat a threat that they have so little chance of beating it isn't funny."

I lowered my hand and I felt a soft, self-deprecating smile cross my lips, "I won't claim to be as altruistic as Steve Rogers, nor as Duty Bound as T'Chala, but I know what I have to do, and I'll do what it takes to see my mission through."

A rumbling purr escaped her nose and she shrugged her feline shoulders as she stopped her pacing to settle down in front of me in a very impressive catloaf. "Merely acceptable, but it is not as though I have dominion over thee; you are not an adherent to my faith, nor are you to be my Black Panther- my next champion. Regardless, I am bound to obey the deal I have reached with the Forge, and thusly the enhancements are yours."

She reached down with her massive face and placed her nose against my chest before giving me a shove that knocked me off my feet; the moment my back hit the earth it swallowed me up and I heard her chuckle. "You will not be able to return, Blacksmith. Though do send more of your… T-Dolls. They were quite delightful to tease."

When I woke up it was a slow process, something that I hadn't experienced in many, many years; most of the time when my eyes opened up I was fully awake and ready to start the day.

A groan escaped my lips as I gently raised myself up off of the mat; my whole body was tender, like someone had just taken to smacking me all over with a meat mallet.

A quick check over with my Ki told me that my physical body had indeed been enhanced once more. If I dropped my Ki down to normal earthling levels I would be… thrice as strong as I had been before taking the Subee Heart Serum; that translated to a much more substantial gain in my power level when my Ki was fully invoked.

I went from 500,000 to just over 8,000,000 with this infusion alone, and with the mystical backing of a Goddess I felt that I could grow much more quickly. The next three-year stint in the Time Chamber was going to be a massive amount of fun, I could already tell.

Subee whistled shrilly at me, the best gurl signing rapidly. Huh, we've been out for three weeks? Damn, I guess Bast wasn't kidding when she said that the triply-potent serum should have killed us.

I would have been more surprised if I didn't know that even with insane amounts of Ki a powerful poison of mystical origin like a thrice-distilled Heart-Shaped-Herb could have done us in; a simple heart virus that could have been cured with a single dose of medicine almost did Goku in.

Reliable Invention was the Perk that really carried the day here; anything created functions as intended, every time, unless there is enemy action. The rings and amulets' additional heartiness and healing also likely helped quite a bit. I gave Subee and all of the Lifegivers within my reach a kiss on the top of their lil' snakey heads and a gentle squeeze; just enough to get a little 'toot'.

One by one all of my girls woke up, and they immediately started chatting with each other about their experiences with Bast. I threw in my two cents as well.

It took us two more days to recover, and we spent that time just enjoying each other's company. Food, snuggling, cuddling, and rest. Our bodies weren't up to the hot and sweaty orgies that we probably would have been having otherwise.

When we left the Superbolic Space-Time Complex it was less than a minute after we'd left, and we all parted our separate ways to go eat something from the Cafeteria that wasn't more nutrient paste, or to take hot showers and lounge around on our own; just because we all loved each other dearly didn't mean that we wanted to spend every waking moment together. It really gave us all some space away from one another.

I myself left the HQ after donning my amulets again and went out to the barn-shop and spent a few hours pulling apart an old Pontiac Firebird and putting it back together; Grizzley wanted it for her personal vehicle, but I nixed that and promised we would build her a custom one- this one was going up online to sell.

Speaking of which, I had hard offers for three of the six cars I'd put up already, and after painting it and getting some photos this one was ready to be posted as well.

I walked away from the gravel lot and into the house, and waiting for me inside was LTLX7000. She was wearing a swimsuit of all things, and had these coverings that left her heels and most of her feet bare. The Italian shotgun blushed but didn't avert her gaze from my prying eyes. "I would like some of your time, Commander. Just you… and I."

Spoiler: LTLX7000 - Lexi

[img: https/gamepress.gg/girlsfrontline/sites/girlsfrontline/files/2021-09/LTLX_7000_costume1.png]

I grinned a little bit at her and moved over to the sink to wash my hands with Enbee's super special goop remover; the Gojo had done an admirable job, but if I was going to fool around then I wanted my hands to be clean. "I haven't had a chance to take a shower, so I might smell a little bit."

Her platinum tresses swung as she shook her head before turning around and walking very, very slowly to the door, her smile growing wider when she caught me watching her every step of the way. "A little smell is fine, Sir. In fact, I like it when you stink… as long as it's just a little."

I dried my hands off and strode behind her, ignoring how the Forge spun up in another attempt to grasp onto a large star from the "Knowledge Abilities and Skills" constellation. It was so large that I couldn't even glean the Perk's name, but that wasn't what I was really focusing on.

[Remaining: 200 CP]

When I walked through the door I caught sight of her kneeling on the side of the bed, and laid across the bed was a large plastic sheet of some kind. In her hands was a large, clear plastic bottle filled with a clear fluid; on the label was a cartoonish strawberry with what appeared to be Subee's face- she was wearing the thick-rimmed glasses and everything. "Subee's Luff Juice - 100% all-natural sexual lubricant."

I snorted as I sat down at the edge of the bed and toed off my boots before quickly stripping myself of the rest of my clothing. The plastic crinkled as I shifted my weight and skooched over towards the center of the bed, and one of my hands came up to palm over the gorgeous, sizeable swell of her breasts while my other hand went behind my head. She bit her lip as her hand came down to stroke my half-hard length, swiftly bringing me up to full hardness. "Mhm… Sir. This isn't the time to get handsy. This should be a time for relaxing."

You say that, but your hand is squeezing my dick, woman. I sighed and released her left breast after giving it one final squeeze; the combination of her firm yet jiggly flesh with the sheer slickness of the swimsuit was quite nice. She motioned for me to roll over, and I did, my full mast sandwiched between my abdomen and the soft, plastic-covered mattress.

Her long legs easily straddled my waist, and I felt just how wet she already was when her ass settled onto my own. The popping of a cap filled the room, and I fought down the reflex to shiver as a large amount of lubricant was applied all over my back. I grabbed the pillow in front of me and used it to prop up my head as I looked back at her. The woman smiled as she gently spread the slippery liquid over my muscles, her hands quickly warming it up to a more comfortable temperature.

Then her fingers started questing, digging firmly into my now vibranium laced muscles; her tips followed the thick cordage of my back before the heels of her palms followed suit with a pressure that was borderline painful. Each passing stroke seemed to melt away the tension that had been baked into my muscles ever since the Heart-Shaped-Herb serum was imbibed. Her hands swept up on either side of my spine, the beautiful T-Doll pressing down until the joints popped and released the tension stored within.

Already I could feel my Ki circulating just a bit more easily than before, and a sigh escaped my lips. Lexi spoke out, her voice low and husky, "Does that feel nice, Sir?"

I chuckled softly, "It feels really good, Lexi. Is this your first time giving a massage like this?"

"Yes, but I watched a whole library's worth of massage instructionals before this, so I can only guess if I'm applying what I've learned properly," Her open hands became closed fists, and she began dragging her knuckles across my back in firm strokes; whenever she found a place that was particularly tight or knotted she would focus on that spot and really grind it down. It had gotten painful, but not enough to kill the raging boner that twitched every time she shifted her weight- her pussy was dripping down the crack of my ass.

It was impossible to miss the subtle grinding she would do every time our bottoms met.

Her hands slithered up and down my shoulders, arms and back until she had worked out just about everything I had up there. She placed her hands in the small of my back and used it as a platform to shift herself down lower- the woman now seating herself on my calves. I heard the crinkling of plastic and felt a cold but soothing wipe slip between my cheeks and thoroughly tickle my pucker; I cracked an eye open to see a soft-plastic package that read "Su & En-Bee's Catch-All-Crevice Wipes" and a small barking laugh escaped my lips.

The cap was popped again and more lubricant was placed on my bottom and thighs, and her hands began working them over; going from kneading my buttocks with her elbows to digging her knuckles into the backs of my thighs before making her way down to my calves.

Eventually, she asked me to roll over, and when I did, I was treated to the sight of the Italian Super-Model Shotgun upending the bottle over herself, and she slathered the lubricant all over her chest, arms, and thighs; the water-based formula easily soaking into the swimsuit. She bit her lip as she lowered herself down to my body and pressed her slick breasts against my throbbing member, using her body weight to deform her bosom along the surface of my cock before sliding up my body.

Our lips met in a brief clashing of tongues, but she was pulling away once more, slipping down my body to rub my length with her firm yet soft belly. She did this multiple times before coming up for a more languid kiss, this time she shifted her body to my side so that she could bring her leg up and caress me with her thigh; I let out a groan, making my kiss more forceful. "I'm about at my limit for teasing, Lexi."

She broke the kiss with a grin, her light Italian accent whispering in my ears. "Then I have done what I hoped for. Now, my beloved Commander. Lay back and enjoy."

The blonde bombshell slid back down my body and slipped between my thighs before reaching over the side of the bed and pulling onto it one of those large reading cushions with thick, plush arms. She skooched back quite a ways, and I grabbed the rest of the pillows and piled them up behind me so that I could see her properly. With slow movements she pushed the top of the swimsuit inwards, letting a plump, heavy titty plop out; it jiggled in a way that made my cock twitch. With crinkled eyes, she popped the other one out, and then her hands trailed down her taut belly before she began rubbing at her covered sex.

She let out a few soft hisses and moans as one hand mauled her left breast and her other danced over her clitoris. Still, my cock lay untouched. This carried on for another minute or so until she had brought herself to a climax that caused her knees to knock together and her thighs to quiver in ecstasy. Her breathing was heavy and a massive smile was on her face- then the woman parted her thighs nice and wide, her hand pulling her swimsuit aside to reveal the tight, weeping petals of her sex.

Then I heard the cap pop on the lubricant bottle, and I watched as she poured a liberal amount on her feet, and she spread it out- bottom and top rubbing together. Her fingers speared her womanhood, her other hand tweaking her nipple firmly as one foot slid up my length, from the base as of the way to the tip; her other foot began nudging and rubbing my laden testicles. At the tip of my cock she splayed her perfect toes, and the digits wrapped over the head; the woman squeezing me while her ankle rotated hypnotically.

"How long had you been practicing for this, I wonder?" I let out a pleased sigh.

"Months now," She breathed back, her fingers leaving her entrance to furiously stroke her clitoris before diving back into her depths, she pulled hard on her nipple- the force enough to lift it off of her chest. Then she let it go, the firm, jiggly breast bouncing against her rib cage. "I had Subee make me a replica of your manhood, my love. I watched a lot of videos and practiced on it by myself for a long time."

Another orgasm shuddered through her body, but it was only enough to stutter the squeezing twists of her feet. "My feet. You've always been fascinated with them; I've seen you staring at them, and when we make love you always find some way to grab them; squeeze them, or caress them when we're too tired to go on."

The foot stroking my balls left momentarily so that she could position it right at the root of my penis, and then she applied pressure downwards- this caused my mast to lift high in the air until my throbbing length was pointed right at the ceiling. Then her other foot pressed it right back down against my belly; the entire bottom of her foot pressed against it- I could feel the firmness of her heel and the ball of her foot, the small strip of swimsuit fabric was barely felt when compared to the smooth softness of her arch… and her toes pressed firmly. She dragged her foot up and down my length, ensuring that there was good friction.

The sensations along with the view of her plundering her pussy and squeezing her own tit drew a low growl from my throat. Her fingers went faster as her breath hitched. "I love it. I love it when you look at me, Sir. The way you are right now. Your eyes slid all over my body- as if you're asking which part of me you would wish to devour first; my feet and toes, my breasts, my pussy, ass… or my lips."

Another orgasm shook her form and I reached down and grabbed her ankle. Another time I would have let her heavenly feet carry me to completion, but she had teased me for the better part of two hours between the massage and this. She'd gotten off countless times and yet I hadn't cum once. "Slip the top off, Lexi. I've decided that I would have both; get on your knees, woman."

She shuddered in another orgasm, and it messed with her ability to quickly comply with my demand, but she still managed to lift the top over her head while pleasure coursed through her body. I stood up on my feet, firming the mattress with some Ki to prevent me from sinking in, and the T-Doll did the same so that she could rise to her full height. My hand reached down and I grabbed a fist full of her right breast and gave it a firm squeeze before I gave it a good slap. The crack of flesh on flesh echoed across the room, and she let out a soft cry; it was hardly a painful strike, but it was enough to let her feel it.

Without prompting she crossed her arms underneath her pendulous breasts and I stuffed my slick cock between them; my hand curled through her hair and I firmly gripped the root so that I could drag her head down. Her breasts were large, beautiful- just the right amount of firm breast tissue and fat that made them pleasant to tease and play with; her skin was insanely soft and hot, and the lubricant only heightened those feelings. It was like being wrapped in a cloud, the stimulation was almost maddening and it had to be countered by the appropriate amount of friction.

I began slowly thrusting my hips, the last five inches of my length slipping between her lips at the top of each stroke; her tongue swirled around the head as it entered before getting flattened to the floor of her mouth. She applied as much suction as she could when I pulled out. This continued for a minute or so until I was just about ready to go insane. I released her hair so that I could grip the back of her head and her jaw, and she allowed me to drag her forward until her hands were on the mattress. A moan escaped her nose as I slowly slid down her throat until her nose was pressed against my pubic bone; she had the same physiology as the other girls, so her throat was literally made to milk my cock… and give her the same pleasure as if I were fucking her sex.

I… wasn't gentle, but Lexi wasn't the type who wanted me to be; she liked to tease and titillate until I was ready to explode in a whirlwind of lust and desire. Her eyes teared, but they were crinkled up in a smile as I fucked her face; her tongue slithering along the underside while her throat constricted like a snake. It didn't take too long for me to approach my climax, and I saw the bottom right-hand corner of my vision get taken up by a 3-D cut-away; Artie had been getting busy with the upgrades because instead of a highly detailed dot matrix it looked like someone had just cut away half of Lexi's body without it looking like some cheesy anatomy chart or some horror movie death scene.

"I'm cumming, Lexi, don't you dare spill a drop," I groaned, "Hold it in your mouth."

I pulled back until only the tip of my cock was inside her mouth and she brought her hands up to stroke my spit covered length, and I began erupting into her mouth; spurts of thick, gooey cum began to fill her mouth, and I watched it quickly begin to fill her until she was forced to swallow some to prevent my voluminous seed from spurting around her lips.

Her ministrations slowly tapered off until she was wringing the last drop of my seed from the tip. She moaned softly as her tongue swirled it around in her mouth; she was designed to love it, but it didn't hurt that my cum didn't taste like bitter, salty ass. "Good girl, now swallow."

I could see her drink it down, and watched as it slid down her throat and into her belly. She could see it as well, I'm sure, but she still opened her mouth wide to complete the sexual ritual.

My hand came up and I pushed her onto her back, her head almost hanging off the side of the bed as I spread her thighs wide and worked the swimsuit around the outside of her left asscheek so that it would ride up. I ended up hilting myself in her with a single thrust strong enough to knock the air from her lungs; I watched her eyes go wide as the tip of my cock hammered into her cervix. I wrapped one of her ankles around my waist while I pulled her other foot up and I bit her heel; gently of course.

I thrust in and out, not really caring to set a pace; I just thrust my hips like an animal while I nibbled and suckled on her toes, my other hand mauling the closest breast- pinching, squeezing, and slapping it. Her womanhood convulsed around me as moans escaped her lips; her left hand strummed her clitoris while her right played with the breast that wasn't in my hand.

All good things must come to an end, however, and I gave her a few more powerful thrusts before I threw her leg off to the side so that I could come down on top of her, my large frame crushing against her as my lips sought out hers in a fierce, passionate kiss. My testicles rose up and I began spilling my cum inside of her body once more; her cervix had sealed itself up against the tip of my cock and her womb greedily accepted each and every single ropey release.

When our shared climax abated I pulled my lips away from hers so that I could rest my forehead against hers. "I love you, Lexi. My LTLX7000. My dearest Shotgun."

I always felt silly saying it like that, but ensuring that I included their class and model name in my words always drew the best response out of them. They were my women, my lovers, the mothers of my soon-to-be children, my teammates, and my companions… they always would be.

However, they were my loyal weapons first, and I don't think that I'd be able to change that, not in a million years.

"And I love you, Jason. My Sir. My Commander. My wielder," She bit her lower lip, "If you ever feel like… doing this again, let me know, okay? And don't make me wait for too long; my womb is ready to bear you a child."

"Next time we go back into the Time Chamber, Lexi. We'll let you girls decide amongst each other, alright?"

She nodded and sighed in delight. We lay there for about fifteen minutes to enjoy the afterglow of our unique session of lovemaking before we got up and cleaned everything up. After that, we took a quick shower, which ended with me filling her pussy once more, and then she got dressed in her clothes and walked back to the Headquarters with a smile on her face, a hum on her lips, and a spring in her step.

Emmi, Qi, and Springfield soon came in with nightgowns on, and the three of us piled into the bed together.

"Seems like Lexi's little show was a huge hit." Emmie gave me a rakish grin as she nestled into my side.

"Yes, it does seem that the Commander was quite pleased," Qi nestled into my other side.

Springfield laid herself across my body, though she slept on her back because sleeping on her tender breasts was a no-go and a non-starter; she skooched up my body until her head rested on a special pillow that put her head and neck comfortably even with my own. "Indeed, it must have been a grand old time."

My arms reached up and wrapped around Springfield's waist and I interlaced my fingers. "It sure was. Goodnight, my rifles. I love you."

I sent the goodnight out to the rest of my weapons, and they responded in kind.

As I closed my eyes I decided that yes, life was good. It was the perfect way to go to sleep when we had a large group of murderers to confront soon.

You guys rock!

A/N: So this took a long time to write, not for lacking motivation, but because GFL has been sucking away my time. LOL I write in between missions and the repair timer, so it slowed me down quite a bit. Been having a ton of fun though, and that to me is what matters. The Gacha isn't nearly as real as in FGO or other games I've played; I feel like I can actually progress if I don't get that super-uber Five Star doll.

Crazy, right? LOL

Also, someone said that there wasn't enough lemon in the past few chapters, so here are two for your pleasure. LOL

German Engineering (Smash Up) (200CP)

Everything you build seems just a bit more. More durable, more efficient, more precise. Call it a 10-20% difference across the board?

Scrap Hound (Dead Space) (100CP)

You build. Of course, you need parts to build, and, of course, you need materials, usually scrap metal or leftover electronic bits and bobs, to make parts. Whenever you go looking for scrap parts to use as materials, you always find more than you would otherwise, five instead of four, twenty-five instead of twenty, whatever. When you build parts from materials or scrap, you always find you need less materials, on the same order as that bonus, to put those parts together. Really, really useful if you plan to build electronically-based weapons, armor, etc, or extensively modify your own, pre-existing, equipment through similar means.

Field of Heart-Shaped Herbs (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 2) (300CP)

Out of all the Wakandan secrets that lie within the borders of the reclusive city, this one is the most potent secret of them all. It is also the most dangerous. It is a small but potent field, its soil infused with radiation from the ancient Vibranium meteor when it fell to such an extent that it would affect any plant life growing within it, like these herbs. The herbs are taken and ground up so that it may be imbibed, and when the imbiber is buried under a light covering they will find themselves on a spiritual journey to talk with their ancestors… and then rise a greater warrior. Strength and speed that reaches the lower levels of superhuman, durability to survive explosions with minor injuries. Perfect coordination and balance with agility that far outstrips Olympic athletes. It would not be too farfetched to say that the results of this herb match even the ones derived from the Super Soldier formula that made Captain America… and now you have a small field of these plants. Be very careful. After you leave, this can either be a property or a Warehouse Attachment.

Chapter 15 - Slaughtering the Slaughterhouse

[Jason Wilke]

[February 22nd, 2011]

"- they came in like a fresh spring breeze, let me tell you what, folks. You only see Hero teams pop up every once in a blue moon, and most of the time they fade away into the background after they made their first big splash. However, Frontline, I think is different. Ha, ha, ha."

Listening to Mayor Roy Christner drone on and on was one of the worst parts about all of this.

"Now, let me tell you something, folks, Frontline and my office have sat down with the construction unions as well as the dockworker's unions and we think we've come up with a great plan that will jumpstart the Bay's economy and get us back on track," He chuckled and waved his champagne glass to all in attendance.

Ah, there we go, the stumping for his upcoming re-election in November.

Though I don't remember having sat down with them yet to discuss anything- Qi sent me a ping, letting me know that while I hadn't touched the subject yet she had already begun email and phone correspondences with all three organizations. It was mainly just laying the foundation for what our charities would be built upon, setting up priorities, and laying down initial targets to come up with an ad hoc construction timeline.

Unfortunately Frontline was not in full attendance; we were short of Combat teams 1 and 2 as well as our entire Overwatch team. The reason was pretty simple- the Slaughterhouse Nine had dispensed with their meandering pace and picked up; they drove through the night instead of stopping like they usually did, and instead of swinging up towards Newtown like we thought they would in pursuit of Mouse Protector, they'd course-corrected and were making a bee-line straight towards Brockton Bay.

Emily wasn't kidding when she said that they lived to rain on other people's parades- not that I didn't already know that; the Intel section had built up pretty extensive profiles of the Nine, and we all had watched them in preparation for the upcoming slaughter. It was gruesome and stomach-turning, but it needed to be done; there weren't too many instances of footage containing interactions with the Nine, but what little there was had to be scoured off the Deep Web. I wasn't about to bet the lives of myself or others on some previous dives into the wiki and fanon.

I continued to tune out the Mayor's off-the-cuff speech as I tapped into the video feeds of all of the girls that were out there; three Helljumpers, one for each team, were highlighted in the High Altitude stealth drone's sensors. There were two backroads that the Nine could come down, and we needed to know which one they took before we set up our ambush. So, until then, it was the waiting game; regardless of which route they had already picked their ambush points and had them mapped out, staged, and ready to go.

As for how exactly it was going to go down, I left that up to M16A1; Emmie was in my mind the better leader- M4A1 was certainly capable, but she lacked experience. Emmie knew every girl like the back of her hand, and how best to employ them- the only reason she handed off leadership to M4A1 was that she wanted to develop her little sister and because Mr. Kryuger made the call.

Regardless, I spent the day making munitions as well as adapting some of the Necron technology that could be made into a form factor the girls could use; Gauss grenades were something that we designed for Bonesaw- the little bitch was packed full of all sorts of contagions that were highly transmissive and highly lethal. If we didn't atomize her then there was a good possibility that we would have a serious pandemic- the Titans mentioned that Scorch's thermite material would be more than enough to do the job properly. Evil as the little lady was, searing her alive didn't sit well with me- hitting her with a compressed magnetic wave that would scatter her atoms seemed to be far kinder a fate.

For Crawler, I manufactured hundreds of small vibration warheads, but thanks to Big-Bada Boom I was able to shrink them down to the size of a standard throwing dart- a launch packet on the forearm could hold a dozen of these tiny but exceptionally powerful rockets. Only a single one was theorized to kill Ned the monstrosity, but when it came to heavy regenerators like him the best kind of kill was overkill.

The rest of the Nine- Burnscar, Hatchetface, Shatterbird, Mannequin, and Jack Slash could easily be handled conventionally. Dispatching William Manton who was the Master projecting the Siberian would handle that problem; he wasn't enhanced like the other members, so a simple bullet to the dome through his windshield would be more than enough.

"-but that's enough about me, I think its time we hear it from the Heroes of the Hour themselves. It is my sincere pleasure to welcome the hero group that has decided to call our weathered city home, so please, everyone give it up for Frontline!" The mayor's voice boomed as if he was an announcer for a rousing, highly-anticipated MMA event.

I barely suppressed the snort as I stood up and adjusted my tuxedo before standing up from my seat and moving away from the table. The gala in our honor was being held in the Forsburg Gallery, a rather large and historic building that was dated back to the early 20th century when the old money left New York and set up their shipping companies in Brockton Bay just after World War I. It had a gothic architecture that sort of clashed with the other more modern buildings in the district that contained City Hall; it did have a decent-sized wall that ran around the entirety of the property, and it had green, well-kept grounds with a number of different types of trees and flowers with a walk that moved around the building.

The interior was what one would expect for an art gallery that also doubled as the city's history museum, though most of the building was roped off with the medium-sized central ballroom having been filled with tables, and chairs, with the food and beverages off to the right-hand side. You could tell that this was a last-minute deal for the Mayor to get organized because only the tables in front of the cameras were embellished properly; the rest received a white plastic sheet to protect them and had folding plastic chairs surrounding them.

Frontline obviously had the nice tables and chairs, with candles on the table and a glass bowl filled with marbles; in the direct center was a small bouquet that admittedly smelled pretty good. The Mayor's friends and family had the good seats as well, and it was quite funny to see all of the Wards sans Shadow Stalker all gathered around a single table; clad in their costumes they looked as though they wished they could be anywhere but here. Assault and Battery were there, in addition to Miss Militia, though Armsmaster was absent, which was a touch shocking as this night was just as much about the PRT and Protectorate as it was about us.

I held my hand out and the remaining 30 women in attendance all strode past me up the stairs clad in their Parian-made dresses, and they were looking quite extravagant; there was a common theme among them, and that was an open back that dropped low, almost to the cracks of their asses. There was a certain amount of skin visible elsewhere- those who had generous bosoms had them tastefully on display while those who lacked had their figures emphasized in other ways, such as a cut or layering that highlighted their hips.

Some had their hair done up, some wore their hair in elaborate braids that were intricate but didn't look as though they were trying too hard, and the rest wore their hair down- their silken hair falling straight or rolling like a waterfall.

They were all gorgeous, and they were all mine.

My eyes crinkled as Qi took my hand and all but dragged me up onto the stage before giving me a playful little shove, a small smile on her face as she took her place beside the rest of the girls while I made my way to the center of the stage to shake hands with the Mayor. "Truly a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Christner."

He laughed and shook his head as he handed me the microphone, "Please, call me Roy; it's the least I can do after everything you and the protectorate have done for our city. Now, I do hope that you prepared a speech."

His tone was teasing and jovial and I nodded my head. "Well, I guess you can say that I stayed up late these past few nights getting some Tinkering done, so I didn't even know that this event was being held until I was dragged out of my lab and plopped down in front of Parian to get this tuxedo made."

The Mayor's eyes roamed over the bountiful beauties and shook his head, "Yes, I can see her work indeed. Impeccable work, as always Miss Parian."

He finally relinquished his grip on the microphone and took a few steps off to the side; not enough to leave the camera shot, but enough that it didn't look like he was hovering over me. I looked back at the girls and they gave me some big grins and more than a few thumbs up.

I cleared my throat.

"Thank you, again, Mayor Christner for that sterling introduction. I would first and foremost like to thank the People of Brockton Bay, for trusting us to see things through; more than a few Capes or Cape teams have tried to clean up the criminal elements of the city, and more often than not they've had to leave because it was just beyond their capabilities. While there is no shame in walking away from a situation before you can bite off more than you can chew, there is no doubt that this has caused a lot of resentment to build up." I let my eyes wander the small number of people in the crowd, mostly city officials and their families, along with the media and other larger cable network journalists.

"It takes an immense amount of trust to put your wellbeing in the hands of someone else, and I think I can speak on behalf of all of Frontline when I say that we do not take that trust lightly." I placed one hand in my pocket, which had the nice effect of elevating one of my coattails, "Secondly I would like to thank the PRT, the Protectorate, and the Brockton Bay Police Department. Without your immense amount of hard work, cooperation, and operational coordination we would not have been able to take down and apprehend the various criminal elements within the city; without Armsmaster in particular we would have likely had a much bloodier battle against Kaiser on the rooftop of the Medhall building."

"To the Wards," I smiled at the kids gathered around the table, and they perked up just from being mentioned, "The patrol teams would like to thank you sincerely for your assistance in easing them into interacting with the public during their first few days out and about- Vista, I'm told that you went out of your way to give some tips that have served them well, so for all of your efforts in helping us keep this city safe, we thank you."

The tween Cape tried to act as if it was a matter of course, but there was no hiding the fact that she was no longer slouching in her chair; the grin she wore had to be fought down multiple times. The little tough girl who wants to be taken seriously yet still can't help but act like a child when given genuine praise for her efforts. Too cute.

I felt the Forge grow warm as I began talking about the efforts we went through to secure the city- expounding upon the training, intelligence work, and coordination of working with the Protectorate and PRT in making what we accomplished all happen.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 35.0190 - Do One Thing At A Time - 300CP - Dinotopia - Quality Efficiency]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

Because I was focused on giving my speech, I felt the quality of my speaking suddenly increase- my word choice was better, my inflection was more genuine, and my pacing engaging. It probably wouldn't have been noticeable to most in the crowd, if anything it could be chalked up to me finding my stride as I outlined the plans we had for improving the city, this time in a bit more detail. Qi fed me the details of the various outlines as I talked, keeping me free to continue without delay.

That was when I felt it, a ping, along with a sizeable package of data; then the phone in my pocket vibrated, and I pulled it out to look at it, mainly for the show of it all.

I wound it down fairly quickly, "Sorry about that, but I just received some very important news."

My tongue wetted my lips as everyone hung onto my words with bated breath; a nervous chuckle escaped my lips. "Uh, well, I'm certain you all noticed that the full Frontline team isn't up on stage with us this evening. No doubt you were wondering why, and I'm certain that there are more than a few in the audience who would have loved to of seen what Parian came up for them."

"Though, the reason they aren't here right now to receive the award from the Mayor is because a few days ago we received word that the Slaughterhouse Nine had changed their normal meandering pattern; they shifted their direction away from Boston and started to squarely head in this direction." I held up my hand as people began to look around, and the Protectorate Capes started to look more than a little anxious, "Now, I didn't tell you that to frighten you, but merely to inform you. The reason I am doing so is thus…"

My back straightened and I smiled for the cameras, "As of a few moments ago, I received word from Frontline's Second-in-Command, M16A1, that the Slaughterhouse Nine is no more. All nine members have been successfully slain; we'll have to wait for the Boston Protectorate to arrive on the scene to confirm that the Kill Orders have been fulfilled, but if M16A1 says the job is done, then the job is done."

Silence reigned for a few moments, and then the few handfuls of people in the crowd stood up and began clapping; it wasn't raucous applause, but it was applause; far better than the polite golf claps the city officials and wealthy members of the community were giving anyways.

I let my smile drop as I nodded to the cameras before turning back to the Mayor, "Everyone can expect a report to be available on our Team Webpage. That does it for us, Roy. I think I've covered everything we can cover, at least at this time."

The man crossed the distance between us with a jovial stride; his re-election campaign was certainly looking quite nice right about now. As long as he doesn't drop the ball he'll be viewed as the Mayor that kept the city together during the rough times and helped bring it back to its former glory. We were going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but to be fair he was probably one of the easiest mayors to work with in the country; some elected officials were quite adversarial when it came to allowing things to be done when they didn't have a direct hand in it.

He gave me a swift clap on the shoulder, "Wow, folks, just- wow. I'm speechless, I well and truly am. The Slaughterhouse Nine is no more? I'll just say that we should wait for the official reports to come in before we get too excited, but seeing what they were able to do here in our city? I wouldn't bet against them."

The steps creaked under my weight as I stepped down from the stage and took my place over at our table where dinner was served. We enjoyed the meal, as it came from three different dining establishments that had excellent reputations in the Bay, including the 'La Petite Maison'.

After we ate all of us stood up and spread out to schmooze with all of the big money and the rest of the city officials; they were going to be helping bankroll the infrastructure improvements and housing reconstruction in the downtrodden areas. I also wanted to talk to them about getting the Ferry back up and running and having the Boat Graveyard and Train Yards opened back up.

Among the few faces in the crowd, I saw who I wanted to talk to; he was tall, lanky, with brown hair that was beginning to thin. The glasses he wore were thin, but the suit he wore was just as nice as what everyone else was wearing. I strode through the crowd, giving promises to talk to some other important people- the city's senior permitting official being one of them- and I approached Danny Hebert.

"Mr. Hebert, just the man I was looking for," I spoke out warmly with a pleasant but not too broad smile on my face. I stopped a polite distance away and held my hand out for him to shake.

He shook his head, a small but wry smile on his face, "Honestly, I'm a bit surprised to see that Horizon of Frontline knows someone like me."

"Heh, give yourself some credit, Mr. Hebert. I've heard all about you- a man in the trenches that fights tooth and nail for everything he can get his people; it's respectable, especially when most others would have just given up and rolled over," Our hands shook, a firm but business-like shake, "You look after your people, and that should be commended."

"Well, someone has to do something; if I hadn't pulled up my belt then the Dockworkers Union would have bled out a long time ago," Danny ran a thumb over the top of his brow, "Already lost a lot of good people to Marquis when he was recruiting, I couldn't let the rest go without jobs, though there isn't a lot of Capes to go out henching for nowadays."

"Well, there is Uber & Leet, but from what I heard they've been silent for a long time now," I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't want to lose any of my guys to those clowns, no way in hell," The man gritted his teeth before clearing his throat and changing tracks, "Well, regardless of who is left, I take it you came over here to discuss some things with me regarding the future projects?"

I motioned for him to follow me, my eyes scanning around and I found Taylor chatting with Python and AK74U; there seemed to be a genuine smile on her face as the two women had out their phones and they were showing the teen some photos. Of what? I couldn't tell, but I'll leave that be and let them handle it. We found two unoccupied chairs and I pulled out my phone, using my implant to create a quick slide deck of how I was thinking we could do everything.

"So, I'm thinking that we're going to need more than just construction jobs to bring the city back up on its feet. Fixing utilities for the affected areas is the priority, as are tearing up the old roads and replacing them with new ones. Renovating the apartment buildings in the low-income neighborhoods and expanding out there will be a great quality of life improvement, but the down and dirty is that people need jobs," I flicked through the first two slides as he leaned over and adjusted his glasses, "How we accomplish that is by getting the Boat Graveyard removed, getting the Ferry back up and running to reconnect North and South Brockton, and getting the Train Yard repaired and up to code to remove the scrap from the ships."

He hummed and motioned for the phone, and I handed it over to him as he studied the slides, "Your numbers are a little optimistic; with the number of personnel on hand it would take us decades to clear out the graveyard, let alone the railyard."

"Well it's a good thing we have a large budget for hiring people then, don't we?" I grinned, but that grin became smaller the more I spoke, "Now, we're going to be getting the city to pay their fair share for the revitalization of Brockton, and we'll be asking the wealthy to donate as well in exchange for things like parks and side-streets named after them. Not to mention getting them to think about the nice tax write-off. However, the majority of the funding will be coming from us, and while we supply most of our own materials for Tinkering a lot of what we built requires resources that we have to purchase elsewhere. We will pay fairly, and we can extend to the workers for some health benefits and the like through us- but we need you and George at the Construction Union to not nickel and dime us to death over every single little thing."

"In addition to the pay, we'll be supplying the crews with all of the tools they could ever need, with the equipment being normal, non-Tinker stuff, but brought up Frontline's standards," I leaned back in my chair, "So that way no one has to come out of pocket or worry about having their tools refurbished for the work that is going to be coming."

He finished the slide deck and adjusted his glasses before giving me a firm look, "I'm a Union man, always have been, always will be. That being said, I think there is room to negotiate- never let it be said that Danny Hebert doesn't know how to play ball."

I chuckled and he handed me back my phone. We chatted for a few more minutes and we ended up talking about the few things we had in common, mainly cars. I took the time to make a plug for my small business, pulling up the website and telling him all about this 76' Stingray that I saw get refurbished, and showing him some pictures of my work. He copied the website address, email address, and phone number down on a pocket-sized notepad and pen. The guy was seriously old school.

We ended our pleasantries there and I made my way over to George Foreman, the head of the Construction Union here in Brockton, and I gave him the same speech I gave Danny; the sheer undertaking of the Brockton project was going to run in the tens of millions of dollars, and that was on the low end. We will be able to offset a lot of the materials costs ourselves by supplying plywood, tools, and whatnot - with the speed we could harvest nanomaterials and the very high conversion rate for mundane stuff made it so that we could do a whole lot with very little.

If I felt so inclined I could get in on the builds myself if I had the time, and that would speed up progress while still keeping material costs under. Hell, I could probably build a whole house myself in a few days- even less than that if I was willing to take a small quality hit using the Rapid Construction Perk. Double Hell, with Shipping the Product I could make five houses!

As a matter of fact, constructing some connex trailers with water, power, and A/C for use as breakrooms and offices at the worksites would go a long way to adding some extra goodwill and raising the comfort levels of the workers. I had Enbee draw up some plans for simple, mundane shipping containers that ranged from ten, twenty, and 40-foot lengths and had him start stacking in the warehouse; high-efficiency solar panels and high-capacity, low-volatility batteries.

Though… they would likely be donated to Canberra to assist with the recovery efforts there.

On that tack, I had ten more Globetrotters queued up to build; ten of them would be reconfigured to house these mobile containers, and the other ten would stock up on supplies. Food, water, medical supplies, cots, blankets, and pillows- it wouldn't be nearly enough to supply the city, but it would at least jumpstart the recovery efforts and give Australia's government a few days to organize relief efforts. As Enbee dispatched drones to do some fishing for the biomass needed to create some MREs, I walked around and engaged a few people; I secured a few promises to look into some private donations, but that was about it.

When I finally had some time to myself I moved over to the Frontline tables, took my seat, and pulled out my phone to open up the video and photo attachments that M16A1 sent me of the Slaughterhouse Nine's slaughtering.

I barely paid attention to the Forge spooling up and attempting to reach out for a star as I played the videos both through my phone and through my implant.

[Remaining: 100 CP]

[M16A1]

[1 hour prior]

M16A1 was kneeling in the middle of the road wearing a reflective cloak that was bright white. In front of her was a circle that was roughly two meters in diameter that she drew with chalk, placed inside that circle were 21 white colored glass marbles that were arranged in a cross and spaced equally apart.

"Are you really going this route?" M4A1 spoke to M16A1 through the helmet comm channel, "There are a lot of ways we could do this, one that doesn't involve the risk to yourself. There isn't Neural Cloud waiting for us to back up from."

"Would you relax, little sis? This isn't Griffen, we can afford to play around a little bit," M16A1 huffed as she adjusted her position on her knees, "Besides, we weren't like other T-Dolls anyways; there was no backing up… not for us."

"That Commander wanted this to be clean."

"And it will be clean, it's not like I'm going to give him a chance to escape or anything; a little theatrics is necessary in this world, haven't you been paying attention to ART556's lectures?" She retorted, "Jack Slash is a man that likes games, so why not give him a nice bit of fun before we send him off? Besides, when the people see this it will be a nice bit of catharsis for them; the murderous joker killed in a game. Just like all of his victims."

NTW-20's voice broke through their private conversation. "Target vehicle approaching - 11 kilometers out and approaching, ETA 8 minutes. Eyes on nine visible occupants."

Well then, looks like the wait is almost over.

"7 kilometers out. Deep scans show positive ID on all targets except for one. The unknown is a Male, caucasian, brown hair, early 30's. Unremarkable in appearance- wearing a button-up shirt, slacks, shoes, and a belt with the letters 'NG' on it."

She rolled her eyes, how many millions of people in America fit that description? Besides the belt buckle.

"Siberian is currently inhabiting the RV. Target designated Crawler is in a vehicle trailer attached to the back on a tow hitch." There was a pause, "Second Target Vehicle entering into range- white panel van matching description. Initiating deep scan… male, caucasian, mid-to-late 40's. Matches description of William Manton."

M16A1 smirked. Bingo, all of the guests plus one unknown, but looking back through the Commander's database on important figures and Capes he remembered there had been one former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine that seemed to fit the description.

ART556 broke through the channel, "That's probably Nice Guy. Master power, makes people around him think everything he does is harmless and not out of the ordinary. Sir knew he was dead before the Nine's appearance in Brockton Bay, but there wasn't any concrete information on it. Guess we get to be the ones to do him in, hee-hee-hee."

"Four kilometers."

"Three kilometers."

"Two kilometers."

"One kilometer."

"800 meters."

"600."

"400."

"200."

M16A1's grin grew savage as she saw a pair of fairly bright headlights round the bend in the road and straighten out. They'd chosen this spot for a reason- it was wide open with few trees to hinder lines of sight, not that the Overwatch team needed it with those coffins hovering off the ground a hundred meters surrounding her position. She saw the beams of the headlights wash over her reflective form.

"100 meters. T.V. 1 is slowing its speed."

"75 meters. T.V. 1 has entered the kill box."

The Kill Box was their 'press the red button and say FUCK everything in this grid square!' backup plan. With her shields and armor, she would survive it just fine, but an added level of safety was given with the portable bubble shield to take the hit for her.

She could clearly hear the rumbling of the large RV's v10 diesel engine steadily growing closer as the distance was closed. The vehicle pulled up and stopped about ten meters away from her current position, the headlights dropped from their high beams down to the fog lights, and she heard the air brakes hiss as it was put into park. The interior cabin lights came on revealing the gaggle of Slaughterhouse Nine members all pressing up against the window with broad, unhinged grins on their faces.

The engine shut off but the lights were kept on, and the door opened up to admit them out onto the street. Jack Slash came first, followed by Bonesaw, the Siberian, Shatterbird, Nice Guy, Burnscar, and the long-limbed, nine-foot-tall Mannequin. The final visible member was Hatchetface, who stood a head taller than Jack but a few feet shorter than the ceramic and metal shelled Tinker.

"Well, isn't this a surprise?" Jack Slash stepped forward in front of one of the headlights; likely to give a bit of villainous flare and to act as a psychological attack- silhouettes were more frightening than the man naturally was. Not that it mattered- M16A1 could see him just fine. "To think that the very people we were coming to see would instead be coming to us! How… delightful."

He was fairly tall, maybe a hair under six-foot, with dark hair that he wore slicked back; on his face, he had a well-trimmed goatee where the interior of the hair was trimmed to look like saw blades. He wore a white button-up shirt with the top three buttons opened to expose his toned chest and grey slacks with comfortable-looking leather boots on his feet. Wrapped around his waist was a wide leather belt that looked like something a construction contractor would wear, and on it were a dozen different types of blades from small knives to a butcher's knife and even a machete.

"Well, you were on our 'honey-do' list, to begin with, so we would have come out to see you regardless," M16A1 drawled as she pulled back the hood of the reflective cloak and revealed her ODST helmet. A 'laughing' emoji with tears spilling out of its eyes flickered across the faceplate. "Though when you changed directions and started heading towards the city we've just started cleaning up… well, you stepped yourselves up on our priority list. So congratulations, you get to see us a few days sooner than you otherwise would have."

He chuckled smoothly, "Oh boy, if I had a dollar for every Cape that said something like that! I'd be rich, I tell you! A new RV, fresh off the lot with all of the bells and whistles so that me and my crew here could travel around in comfort and style."

Jack ran a hand over his goatee, "Though I could have sworn there were more than just you."

"Well, the others are at a nice little get-together being held by the Mayor; a soiree to thank us for all of our hard work. So while they get to wear fancy dresses and schmooze with all the fat cats me and my team get stuck taking out the trash." She sighed gustily as she shook her head, "Sometimes life is unfair like that, right?"

"Aw, that is truly unfortunate- M16A1, right? You mind if I call you Emmie?" He crossed his arms and leaned back against the front of the RV. "M16A1 is just such a mouthful- Emmie is much nicer, shorter, sweeter."

"Only one man gets to call me that, and that man certainly isn't you," M16A1 huffed, "Regardless, we're getting side-tracked from what we're doing here, Jacob."

It was part of what little Jason remembered about Jack Slash, about his relationship with King; the man really hated it when his name was purred out in a demeaning fashion. So, M16A1 purred it out as best she could.

He didn't twitch, but there was a small tightening of his eyes that would have been imperceptible to most people. A knife was drawn from his belt and he began twirling it between his fingers, "Oh? What are we supposed to be doing here, my dear Emmie?"

"Well, I thought that we would… play a little game, you and I. You like games, don't you Jacob?" She held up a small steel marble in her hand and mirrored him, rolling the sphere across the backs of her armored fingers, "This particular one is simple, the rules are ironclad. Why, even a boy trapped in a bomb shelter should be able to play this one."

That got a twitch out of him, and he grinned reflexively as he pushed off the front of the RV and took a few steps forward. The Siberian strode up right behind him, "Aw, thanks for the emotional support, Kitty."

A low, husky rumbling chuckle escaped the black and white tiger-striped woman's mouth.

"I only see eight of you, where is Crawler? Surely he wouldn't want to miss out on a fun time such as this." ART556 dropped her stealth cloak and appeared a few meters behind M16A1.

"Ah, you are right, wouldn't want Ned to miss out on the fun, would we?" Jack clapped his hands, "Hatchetface, would you be so kind as to let Ned out of the trailer?"

"Excellent! I can't wait to hurt him!" The small Assault Rifle chirped as she bounced in place.

The large trailer in the back of the RV shifted from side to side as a grotesque, muffled voice spoke out. "Did somebody say pain? For me?"

"Yup! I'm going to hurt you lots and lots, okay~!"

"Hue-hue-hue-hue. Yesssssssssss…" The trailer rattled some more until the back hatch was lowered and Crawler's large, van-sized form lumbered into view with surprising grace; he looked like a cross between a panther, a bear, and an inchworm and he moved like it too. A hundred eyes dotted the surface of his armored, scaled carapace and they all blinked at once, "Who was going to fight me?"

"Oh! That would be me! Don't be fooled by my tiny size, I'm a real monster!" The fox patterned T-Doll flexed a bicep while her other arm pointed towards it.

"I don't look down on anyone. If you can hurt me then it doesn't matter how big you are. Hue-hue-hue-hue."

Jack's smile grew strained as his eyes tightened, "Well now, I'm all about a fun game, though if you've done your research on me then you should know that by now. However, I too wish to play a game, so since we can't play two different games at once, I propose a compromise: We play your little game here, and then? Then you'll play my game."

"Sounds good to me, Jacob." M16A1 nodded her head, "Shall I explain the rules?"

"Wait! We need stakes, my dear Emmie," He ran his hand over his hair, "No game is fun when there isn't any risk involved!"

She slowly nodded her head, before it began to become more enthusiastic, "Perfect! You are indeed right, Jacob- no game is fun without some skin in the game."

"So, how about this?" She stopped rolling the steel marble around her fingers so that she could point at him, "You and me, Mr. Jack Slash. We play this here simple but entertaining game of marbles. If we win…"

M16A1 tapped the chin of her helmet before snapping her fingers, "Ah, if we win, how about you all die, huh?"

An uproarious laugh issued out of his throat, "Oh, my dear Emmie, you truly are a woman after my own heart. We'll die, that is if you can kill us. Now, what do we get if we win, hmmm?"

"Oh, that's easy, you get to die as well," She shook her head as she stood up and tore the reflective cloak off, "You see, there isn't a single possible future where anyone of the Slaughterhouse Nine leaves here alive; you get a body bag, you get a body bag, you get a body bag, and yes, even you little missy, also get a body bag of your very own. Everyone one of you gets a body bag!"

"Haaaaaaa," Jack Slash rubbed at his chin with the back of his hand, "Well, you see, there is a slight problem with that, Emmie. We are the ones who hand out the body bags- it's… kind of our thing, you know? We have this vibe going on here within our little group-"

M16A1 sighed.

This wasn't how she envisioned this going down in her mind, but this was honestly getting quite tedious. She sent Super SASS a mental nudge. While Jack was in the middle of talking Burnscar's head popped like a grape as an overcharged 7.62x51mm laden with a few grains of Nitramene explosives impacted; the unique characteristic of the materials was the implosion that happened- so when her head misted from the initial explosion, all of the flesh, grey matter, and blood was sucked back into a tiny sphere before it exploded outwards in an even finer mist.

The former asylum patient's headless, neckless corpse slumped onto its knees before keeling over; her blood flowing from the stump and onto the pavement. Looks like Bonesaw's improvements weren't enough to stop that.

"Weeellll now, that wasn't very sporting," He drew out his machete and gave it a few test swings.

"I did tell you the rules of the game. You and I were going to play while everyone else died. Simple rules, but since you decided that you didn't want to play then…" M16A1 raised her arm up and aimed the marble at him, she did it nice and slowly, though from Jack's perspective it would have looked like she was making a genuine effort to kill him. The steel marble shot toward Jack with the force of a bullet, but before the projectile could strike the man became a monochrome of black and white stripes; it impacted his forehead and flattened.

"Ah, I'm afraid that with my dear Siberian around that I'm quite untouchable," He wriggled his eyebrows with a devilish grin on his face, causing the flattened steel to peel off and fall to the ground with a plink. "Not even Hero or Alexandria could stand up to her, and despite having some fancy power armor I just… don't see you being able to do the same."

A raised eyebrow emoji flashed across her helmet visor. "Are you sure about that?"

Two kilometers down the road LTLX7000 slipped out of the brush and stuffed the barrel of her shotgun through the window of the white panel van and placed it up against the side of William Manton's head; a microsecond later the entire right side of his head, along with all of his grey matter and both of the coronas painted the interior of the van.

The Siberian's face turned to one of shock before she flickered out of existence like a soap bubble being popped.

That was when all hell broke loose.

Shatterbird sang shrilly, and the glass windows of the RV as well as the marbles that M16A1 had arranged shattered into a fine silica powder and wrapped around her body, and she took off into the air only to be intercepted by Honeybadger; the T-Doll smashing into the Cape feet first at terminal velocity.

1,000 pounds of armor traveling at 867.7 kilometers per hour smacking into a fleshy target… the results were about what one would expect.

Honeybadger's armored legs created great furrows in the ground as she skidded to a halt fifty meters away; the doll having used some of her Ki flight to slow her down more quickly than usual.

Crawler had already been let out, and ART556 was playing with him, picking him up and tossing him around like the great big worm/bear/panther he was.

TS12 appeared in front of Hatchetface and blasted him in the chest with a standard shotgun slug, but the lead didn't penetrate- the force hardly moving him. "Oh yeah, I've been wanting to test out the new shells."

He charged forward with a roar, wrapping his arms around her waist and carrying her off into the field away from the road while Mannequin jumped into the air with his blade arms streaking right towards M16A1; he was intercepted by a 40mm grenade striking him dead center of the chest. He was a big, tall, heavy wretch of a former man, but the grenades SOP MOD II was packing were far from normal. The blast cracked his white ceramic shell and sent him tumbling end over end where he impacted in the center of the road and began to skid.

SOP MOD II dropped her cloak and patted M16A1 on the shoulder, "I'll go handle the tin man~! 'Oh if I only had a heart, doo do doo doo doo doo'~!"

She watched her little sister walk off with a whistle emanating from her speakers, and her shields flickered as a solid impact struck her chest; the blow barely even registered. M16A1 turned her head to Jack Slash who had the machete in one hand and the butcher's knife in the other. He was looking quite maniac; not surprising really, all around him his Slaughterhouse Nine was getting dismantled with either ruthless efficiency or careless ease.

ART556 grabbed onto Crawler's leg and spun around before hucking him across the field- both thrower and throw-ee giggled in delight.

"It's impolite to ignore someone when you're in the middle of a fight, you know?" He gestured with his arms wide and a big grin on his face.

M16A1 blinked.

"You're right, it really is." The T-Doll turned towards Nice Guy who'd been standing to Jack's right with a small, nervous smile on his face, "Hi there, how are you doing, sir? Are you okay? I understand that being in the middle of a Cape fight can be quite distressing for normal guy such as yourself."

It was difficult to keep the mirth from her voice, but she thought she managed it well enough. "Hey, you see that gap in between the fights between DP12 and Hatchetface and Crawler and ART556? You see that corridor of off-colored grass? If you stay on that trail right there and move quickly it should get you out of here no problem."

The Nice Guy's smile became a touch more genuine and he waved at her, "Why thank you, you are too kind! Well, Jack, it's been a pleasure knowing you, ta-ta now!"

M16A1 gave him a silly little wave and Jack's eyes widened in shock. She turned her attention back to him, "No loyalty among murderers, eh, Jack? Don't worry though, I didn't tell him about-"

The Nice Guy's running figure was suddenly tossed two meters into the air as an explosion blew up from underneath him; his torso and arms pinwheeling one way and the shredded remains of his legs flying in another. "-the land mines."

The Nice Guy struggled for breath for a few seconds, but when he did get some air in his lungs he began screaming in agony as he sat up and clutched at his stumps.

"Ah! Don't worry, I can fix that! Don't worry-!" Bonesaw chirped up, but her following words were cut short as Crawler's body slammed into him, smearing the Nine member across the grass before more of the landmines exploded, sending bits of his soaring into the air. Crawler let out a sonorous howl of laughter before charging right back at the armored fox loli who had sent him flying in the first place.

"Wow, what a shame." M16A1 drawled.

"Yeah, couldn't have happened to… a Nicer Guy," Jack chuckled.

Then they locked gazes and the man became a whirlwind of projected blade edges, a dozen strikes of cutting force battering against her shields like the rain on the windshield. This went on for a few seconds before the man seemed to realize that he was only tiring himself out. Jack Slash looked down at the only remaining member by his side, "Well, Poppet, I think that things are getting just a touch too dicey, wouldn't you say?"

"Mhmm, Plan Z?" The blonde girl spoke out from behind her hands with a big smile on her face.

"Yup, Plan Z," He swung his blades again and Bonesaw pulled a small handheld from her pocket and she pressed a small green button on it. The undercarriage storage doors popped open and what could only be described as zombies started to crawl out. There were only a half dozen of them, but the biological hazard it represented wasn't something that could be tolerated.

M16A1 grabbed one of the Necron Gauss grenades, a small black metal marble, and flicked it under the RV; the moment it was in position she manually activated the trigger with her implant, and the RV and everything within two meters of it were consumed in actinic green light. Jack, despite not having a Shard to work off of to guess her movements before she even made them, was still an attentive man, and he saw the marble leave her hand, likely deducing the explosive nature of the weapon. The man scooped Bonesaw up and leaped away from the explosion; the shell of the RV's frame was all that remained as the zombies that had been crawling out were turned to ash.

It was Bonesaw that helped them quickly to their feet, her arms peeling back to reveal sharp, pointed metal instruments that acted as if they were spring-loaded; the points digging into the pavement and hoisting her and Jack back up in an astoundingly quick recovery. The young blonde looked at the softly glowing vehicle and then back to M16A1 who was rolling another such grenade between her fingers. "You know, Jack, this would have been a lot easier for all of us if you weren't so quick on your feet."

Her shields flickered, indicating a strike right across her neck. Oh, was Jack Slash close to the tipping point?

A roar of frustration and pain drew everyone's attention to where DP12 unloaded shell after shell after shell of their Commander's special AP Sabot rounds into the large, lumbering Brute; his knees had been shot out, and even Bonesaw's arguments couldn't keep the mangled mess together, he raised the ax high above his head and made to swing down, but the Shotgun stepped in close and caught his downward cut by the elbow; her fingers closed and the sound of flesh rending could be heard as she removed his arm like an industrial vice.

"YES! YES! YES! DO IT!"

"Are you sure~? If I shoot you with this it just might kill you!"

"YES! I'M SURE! QUICKLY, BEFORE JACK SEES AND TELLS ME NOT TO!"

"Okay!" ART556 posed with her arm extended before quickly saying, "Anti-Tank Missile."

M16A1 rolled her eyes, she really wished ART556 hadn't seen Iron Man.

A dozen dart-like missiles sprouted from the wrist-mounted delivery package on her forearm, and they soared high into the sky before curving off in different directions that all converged on Crawler's body. A series of 'tnk' 'tnk' 'tnk's could be heard as they weapons pierced his scales- there was a sound that started in a low bass rumble before amping up to a high pitched screech.

Like watching a water balloon get popped in slow motion, M16A1 could see Crawler's tough body disintegrate from the outside in; crazily enough, he seemed like he just might be able to adapt, but the frequency of the vibration warhead reached the core that contained his coronas. They vibrated apart in the span of microseconds, and the connection between Crawler and his Shard was severed.

Then, just like that balloon, his exterior- all of the armored plates and thick scales- turned to powder while his entire body became a giant puddle of fluid that spread out and turned chunky once the powder of his armor fell on top of it. M16A1 threw the Gauss grenade with expert precision, the black ball landing in the direct center before she triggered it- the green lightning taking the puddle and stripping its atoms apart until nothing remained except a ring of goo that was maybe an inch in thickness.

Had they only used one of those darts then Ned's Shard would have been able to out heal the vibration warhead's effects? They used twelve of them working in concert and the bastard was still almost able to survive it.

That would have been scary if they couldn't have just grabbed his new reformed body and slung him into the sun- it would have taken a quarter second to calculate the proper trajectory, but it was theorized that Ned couldn't survive in space because the Shards were hard-locked onto the Earth.

Hatchetface's head tumbled from his shoulders as DP12 extinguished her blue Lightsaber and clipped it onto the small magnetic plate on the small of her back.

So, that was Shatterbird, Siberian, Burnscar, Hatchetface, Niceguy, Crawler-

A limbless white torso was tossed and Mannequin's body skidded to a halt right in front of Jack's feet. The leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine looked down at the body, "Alan?"

The head twitched but its near faceless visage turned to regard Jack before nodding slowly. There were a few crunches, and the arms and leg sections of Mannequin's body were tossed, and they bounced around to land near the serial killer; they were completely mangled. "Hey, did you guys know that if you severed Mannequin's limbs they could move and operate independently of his body? I certainly didn't."

M4A1 SOP MOD II strode closer, and she saw the Tinker's head move. "Ah, shit, the guy's still alive. Lemme fix that real quick."

A sixty-round magazine filled with the Commander's special AP rounds started to pour onto Mannequin's torso and head; the first dozen or so rounds skittered off the ceramic and steel composite before enough chunks were torn off that the rounds following could bite in more deeply. The carapace was torn away to reveal a box filled with organs that appeared to be encased in a plexiglass box; it had to be plexiglass or some other glass alternative because he would have been in danger every time Shatterbird sang. The case was very thick, and the last few rounds merely caused spiderwebs to form.

"Ew, that's really gross man, sticking all of your organs in a box? Man, the Simurgh must have really messed you up good," She shook her head and slotted an armor-piercing grenade into the tube on her grenade launcher before she slid it shut with a click. "Don't worry though, I'm sure God can put you back together."

The explosion knocked Jack and Bonesaw off of their feet and sent them rolling across the wet grass of the field next to the roadside; when they finally made it up to their feet they were both bleeding and peppered with shrapnel. Well, it was nice to see that Bonesaw's augments were finally seeming to prove their worth here- M16A1 was beginning to wonder if her Master hadn't played them up a bit too much. Though it appeared that Bonesaw had saved the best augments for herself and Jack Slash; the bits of steel and ceramic popped out of their wounds, the flying debris stopped by the wet Tinker's subdermal mesh.

He let out a wet cough, "We-well now, Poppet. It appears as though we're in quite the predicament."

"M-mhmm, Mr. Jack. Th-this is quite a pickle we're in," The mad doctor agreed as she reached into the front of her blood-spattered apron and pulled out a pair of syringes and a tube of some kind. She easily slipped the needle into the vein on her arm before stabbing Jack with the other syringe; he let out a grunt but made no further mention of it. Instead, his eyes whirled around the area looking for an opportunity to escape; there was none, however- he was surrounded on all sides.

Bonesaw popped the cap on the tube and began applying it to the man's wounds, and after she applied the paste to herself an armored hand reached out and grabbed the young girl by the scruff of the neck.

"Eeeeeeee~!" The girl's voice cried out, "Wait! Wait! Wait! I-if you kill me or Mr. Jack then I'll release all of the viruses and bacteria I have stored in my body! They've all been aerosolized and can be carried on the winds for hundreds of miles; they're also not normal versions of them either. They're really, really, really nasty- you could end up being responsible for killing the whole world!"

"Hey, I'd listen to the little lady, she's quite serious." The man ran the edge of the knife in his hand along the side of his goatee, "Anything happens to me and all of that nasty stuff will get released, you wouldn't want that, would you?"

He put the knives away and slipped the machete onto his belt, with his hands free he opened up his arms, "Now if you would be so kind as to give me my little Poppet and we'll be on our way."

M4A1's visor stared down at Jack Slash, her body trembling in anger. "I hate you, Jack Slash. For all of the people that you killed. For what you did to this little girl. You turned her into a monster, a rabid dog that needs to be put down."

Despite the direness of his situation he grinned, "I can't see your face, but I think I can guess how it looks. It's probably quite fierce, my softspoken, would-be killer."

"Give him the girl, M4A1. She's got all sorts of biohazardous materials in her body M4A1, we won't be able to get them all out of her before she releases a plague. Or did you not notice the zombies they had stuffed in the bottom of the RV?" M16A1 shook her head, making it sound as if they were going to allow him to leave. If he had been thinking clearly, his mind not so addled with the sudden feeling of mortality without the Siberian there to pull his ass from the fire, Jack might have remembered that they had something that could handle organic things just fine.

"Finish the job; I'd like to see if we can't get back home before the sun rises. We also have to contact the PRT and Protectorate to collect their bounties." She muttered to M4A1 over the comms.

M4A1 placed a hand on top of the struggling girl's head and gave it a few soft pats. "I wish I could have saved you."

"Wha-?"

A Gauss grenade slipped down the back of the murder midget's dress, but due to how tight the apron was tied it could slip down no further. M4A1 picked her up and placed her in Jack Slash's arms; the man was quite stunned by the sudden maneuver. Had he expected them to not hand over the girl?

M4A1 was five meters away in the blink of an eye, and with a mental nudge, the weapon activated.

In less than a second both Jack Slash and Bonesaw were atomized, the only trace of their passing being heat, ash, and ionized particles.

M4A1's shoulders slumped and SOP MOD II bounded over to wrap her up in a firm hug, which the woman returned in kind.

M16A1 let out a soft sigh and shook her head as she mentally started filling out the Kill Order paperwork and sending it in through the PRT's online web portal. After that, she dialed the New York PRT and the County Sherriff's office; while they wouldn't be involved since this was a Parahuman-related event, it was still polite to inform them of what was going on.

They left the scene as it was and M16A1 pulled up everyone's helmet camera footage and sent it off to ART556 to be doctored a little bit; removing some of the choice dialogue and cleaning it up to look just a touch better. As soon as it was sent back the rifle ran through it, making sure that the censorship was in place as well as an uncensored version for those who wished to see the Nine's end in its full detail. It would probably end up being a very popular topic in the days and weeks to come, and they would catch some flak for it, but letting the people who were terrorized by the Nine for more than a decade see a definitive end would bring them some much-needed closure.

This day would mark the beginning of a new era for the country, a day when S-Class threats were no longer a threat that would only be driven off.

"Movement in the sky above." Super SASS spoke, and M16A1's eyes tracked in the night sky to see a streak of energy in the shape of a man barreling towards them like a bat out of hell; the pure energy slowed and took the shape of a man wearing a light blue body suit that stuck out even in the moonlit sky.

"Huh, I would say that I'm surprised, but I'm really not," M16A1 spoke out as the face of the Protectorate touched down in front of them, "I guess when someone claims that they've slain the Slaughterhouse Nine its a big enough deal to warrant you coming out in person."

The blue domino mask was pretty advanced compared to most of the crap she'd seen capes wear; it was able to let someone see the movement of his eyebrows and hid the color of his eyes from sight with a white film. The photos she'd seen of him were mainly of him smiling, but Legend, however, was not smiling. "Yes, indeed, the Slaughterhouse Nine were a blight on all of us, and if I hear that they're dead then I'm going to want to come see the bodies myself."

"Well, most of them have bodies, some don't," She gestured to bits of Shatterbird, her head was still intact, but that was about it, Nice Guy too was in bad shape, the man looking like he'd been crushed over by a steam roller. Hatchetface was probably the most intact corpse they had besides William Manton, "If you're looking for the Siberian's corpse, you won't find it."

He winced, "I suppose that I'm not exactly hiding that; she took one of my best friends away from me, and almost took another. Though you said there wouldn't be a body, did she escape?"

M16A1 shook her head, "No, that was because she was a projection, the Master that manifested the Siberian into the world was following roughly two kilometers behind them; we only caught on because we had a wide net cast in case any of them tried to make a break for it."

The T-Doll pulled out a small tablet and then expanded it in size to that of a small whiteboard, then she pulled out a USB drive and plugged it in; video footage played from LTLX7000's helmet camera, clearly showing the interior of the panel van's cabin and the tired, haggard face of William Manton. Legend peered at the still image before his jaw drew tight, "How do you know that he was the Master?"

"Because the moment we popped his melon the Siberian disappeared? Here, watch," She placed her helmet camera footage and LTLX7000's footage side by side on the tablet, arranging the time stamps on the mission clocks so they would play at the same time. The Italian Shotgun's barrel was through the windshield and blowing his brains out, and at that exact same moment, there was a look of shock on the Siberian's face before she popped like a soap bubble, "The guy was driving just fast enough to stay in range, and from what we were able to scrounge up from surveillance from the past few years… whenever the Nine attacked there was always a white panel van following them around; LTLX7000 is bringing the van over right now, but according to her this thing is lived in. Bed, food, clothing, etc. Everything a Murder Hobo on the Move would need."

Legend nodded, "I do hope that you'll be giving a full report because this seemed like a snap judgment that could have gone badly; he could have been someone looking to take revenge on the Nine."

M16A1 shook her head, "Not very likely, our Intel section is very on top of it, as is our OPS cell; we wouldn't have blown some random guy's head off. The Siberian has been observed to pop in and out of existence during attacks, quickly relocating around the city, and while others believed that she had a teleportation power to add onto the rest of the bullshit that was in her toolkit, we believed differently."

It was sort of a pain to walk around every single corpse, or what was left of it, and show it off to Legend as PRT trucks laden with crime scene investigators and whatnot showed up and began cordoning off the area. For every corpse, she showed the video footage associated with the demise, and when they got to Jack Slash and Bonesaw's remains Legend wasn't looking too hot; his normal demeanor was gone, replaced by a man fraught with tension.

"So as you can see, we were forced to atomize both Bonesaw and Jack Slash because the threat of her releasing her viruses and super bacteria were far too real to try and go for a capture," M16A1 finished up her verbal report and handed over USB thumb drives to whoever asked for them, "And that about sums it up. The Slaughterhouse Nine is no more, now the only real question is what was their official bounties up to?"

Legend coughed into his hand, "Well, I believe they were up to $232 Million dollars last I checked; the Siberian was worth $100 million herself since she was such a threat. Though you'll need to go to the PRT offices to officially claim the bounties."

M16A1 nodded before holding her hand out for Legend to shake, "Well, I guess I'll be troubling Director Piggot, though I think that she'll be more than happy to hear the news."

The man quirked his lips, "Well, after hearing about what you've done in Brockton Bay I've heard that she's been feeling a lot better about things; you didn't hear this from me, but there is a rumor going round that she was caught by her secretary doing a little dance in her office."

M16A1 snorted hard, her shoulders jerking a little with the force, "Well I can't say that I don't blame her. Anyways, we done here, Legend?"

"Well, officially? Yes, there isn't much else that needs to be done except file the claim at the PRT office."

"Excellent, because I'm missing a party right now being held in my team's honor, and I'd like to make it back while there are at least some finger foods available," She gave the leader of the Protectorate a finger wave, "Later, Legend."

With that, M16A1 turned around and leaped high into the air, the T-Doll tapping into her Ki and thrusters to take her a hundred feet into the air before hovering in place as a Helljumper slipped in front of her. Her boots hit the floor of the internal bay and the woman sat down in the nearest chair before reclining it out with a huge sigh. She wasn't going to take her helmet off until they Decon'd back at the Headquarters.

All in all, it wasn't quite the Cape fight spectacle that she and ART556 had war-gamed, but it was close enough. All she needed to do now was sleep for a few hours in the Superbolic time chamber, get changed into her dress, and have one of the Helljumpers drop her and the other girls off at the Gala.

She was quite hungry right now, and the City of Brockton had paid for the meal; it would be quite rude not to partake, no?

You guys rock!

Do One Thing At A Time (Dinotopia) (300CP)

When you focus yourself on doing a single task, your skill and efficiency doubles. Material requirements are unaffected, but time taken is halved and quality is doubled.

Chapter 16 - Canberra

[February 24th, 2011]

[1 Month - Superbolic Space-Time Manufacturing Complex]

With the inclusion of the Do One Thing At a Time perk, my priorities shifted a bit. Why? Well, because a doubling of the quality of whatever I produced meant a doubling of everything. Everything. Strength, durability, power, efficiency, etc, etc. It took what was already super-space age technology and elevated it to a whole different level. However, in order to make the most of this, we ended up having to convert the entirety of the Warehouse into a time dilation zone, and thusly the Superbolic Space-Time Manufacturing Complex was born.

What was interesting to note was that the Hangar was inviolable in the 'Space' portion of the SSTMC- the Skyforge, however? It was not, but before I could begin with expanding the pocket dimension… Ted ended up getting fed up with my desire to expand the area so I could add more storage space, and he ended up presenting me with a Tessaract Labyrinth that contained all of the nanomaterials I had managed to accrue to this point.

We settled for just… making storage shelves in the corner of the storage area.

Tessaract Labyrinth were grey, metallic cubes that were roughly the size of my fist, and while deceptively simple in appearance they were insanely complex pieces of technology that squeezed out every scrap of the Necron's mastery over phase-shifting technologies and hyper-geometry. It essentially folds space in such a fashion that it is an endless labyrinth, though this was primarily done to make sure that powerful beings like the C'tan shards couldn't escape; most of them were too powerful to be held down by the stasis technology built into the cube, so by folding space it essentially meant that the space was too large for them to assert their awesome powers.

The best way I could think about it is this- a C'tan shard is a nuclear device, one of the most powerful, and it has a large blast radius. However, if said nuclear bomb was on the surface of the planet, then even all of its incredible power wouldn't be able to affect the moon (the edges of its prison).

The sheer amount of storage space in a single Tessaract Labyrinth was staggering, though there were some size limitations as to what could be initially shifted into it- you wouldn't be storing any Gloriana Class battleships into it, but my Titans and Globetrotters? I could stuff a hundred million of them in one and still have space- it also was neatly able to categorize what was stored within it, allowing you to search for just exactly what you wanted, and then you could deploy it in a flash of light. With the stasis effect in place, it would be as if no time had passed from the moment whatever was absorbed and put into place.

So, we still built nanomaterial storage tanks, but when they were filled up they went into the NM-V. I built some specialized organic sifting robots that could get sifting down to 1.2 seconds per pound, with a .5 second pour time; that meant I could gather roughly 60,480 pounds of nanomaterials per day, or 22,075,200 pounds per year. That's 11,038 tons of nanomaterials per year, though we had to expand the diameter of the piping and up the pump strength considerably to increase the flow rate enough to supply the ocean water needed to keep up with the demands of 3 years' worth of nanomaterials sifting in a single day; we accomplished this by extending the piping and pumps roughly ten miles into the ocean to prevent the suction from being too concentrated.

The last thing I wanted was to create some sort of whirlpool effect that would suck in small fishing boats and whatnot.

So, all told we were on track to harvest just under 232,000 tons of nanomaterials every week, all of which would be divided into 1t, 5t, 25t, 50t, 100t, 1,000t, 10,000t, and 100,000t sized containers for ease of use.

I had to expand the number of Engineers to one hundred to make sure that there were enough of them to keep up with all of the maintenance; though this was primarily done to make sure that there were plenty of opportunities to perform maintenance in and out of the Time Chambers; I didn't want my pootie bois to get too bored. Ted's Canoptek Scarabs handled the less delicate scutwork, but the Necron Spyder was more than happy to have his minions strip and resurface practically everything within their areas of responsibility.

Subee demanded permission to increase the number of her Lifegivers, but I denied that; there was barely enough biological work for them to do; they were practically having weekly check-ups with us anyways.

I personally think she just wanted more underlings to lord over, but Alpha just bore her responsibility as the primadonna's second with dignity, grace, and boundless patience. She really was best nurse.

I went to the magical research facility, greeting Glados since it had been some time since I'd last interacted with her. We, unfortunately, couldn't get the time dilation to work around or within the facility due to the nature of time warping the results of magical research; if I got any time-based magic it would skew any results even more, so we had to do training and research in real-time.

It had taken the lab quite a long time to properly scan and examine all of the intricacies of Bobbi's skull; the runic make-ups, the nature of her existence as a Spirit of Knowledge, and how best we could go about filling her skull with grey matter if we couldn't crack open the skull itself without disrupting her runes and anchorings. She could just leave the skull and possess things, but I'd rather not have that be her primary mode of transportation; instead, we would just create for her a body using her skull as a base.

The door to the Spirit research lab opened up and Bobbi's eye-like flames grew hot. "Oh, good! You're back! I was wondering if you'd forgotten about me!"

I shook my head as I tapped away at the console, finishing up the scanning and observation procedures and finalizing the data we had collected. Glados and I began running through the information at blistering speeds, with the two of us going back and forth. "Ah, nope. I just needed to wait until we had gathered enough data to work with, Bobbi. In fact, I think that you can really help us with the specific meanings behind these runes-"

The screen on the back wall lit up and began displaying scans and images, and I made sure to turn her around on the pedestal so that she could actually see the screen. Once we figured out how everything worked then we would make her a body.

I spent two hours with Bobbi and Glados in the Lab before I returned to the Superbolic Manufacturing Complex and continued to work with the Engineers and Ted to create the newest model of our MJOLNIR, drones, aircraft, and weapons; with Do One Thing at a Time doubling the quality of everything produced it was a no brainer to remake everything I'd ever produced, and with the time dilation in place around the Skyforge instead of having mere hours before the Simurgh's appearance over the skies of Canberra I had just under four months.

During that time the Lifegivers had worked with the Engineers to find a purpose for all of the microbial life that was flowing in through the nanomaterials gathering place, and they started gathering it on the way out. They condensed it, nurtured it within the main Superbolic time complex and began growing fish and cloned a few of the dairy cattle we still had left; we now had a massive fish and dairy farm with thousands of cattle that grew at an accelerated rate for the production of our ration tubes.

Seeds from a seed bank that the girls purchased for Subee on the way out using dirt from all of the excavation we made gave us a very nice vegetable farm to add more variety in our MREs, and with the Tessaract Labyrinths, we could store everything without fear of the foodstuffs deteriorating even though with the preservative formula that the Lifegivers had on hand we could preserve them for one hundred years. Purified water was stored in individual plastic bottles and large water tanks meant to provide water for mobile shower trailers and mobile kitchens; just because we had wonderfully tasty and nutritious tubes didn't mean that people would want to suck down their meals all of the time.

Honestly? It was a fuck load of fun just working with the Bois on creating cool yet practical disaster relief things and just watching the numbers climb up higher and higher; thousands of single and family housing trailers that had their own self-contained propulsion so they could be moved around without needing large cranes and forklifts, shower trailers, kitchen trailers, connex boxes filled with every conceivable supply available including low tech toys and games for children.

I didn't know how bad the destruction of the city was going to be, but we had a hundred Helljumpers that would be flying into the city and evacuating everyone from the Simurgh's psychic scream as quickly as possible; they would fly in groups of five so that we could have only one T-Doll with an amulet per flight while still having enough of them flitting about the battlefield to recover the Capes that were fighting.

I fiddled around with Nitramene explosive rounds, but that was before I got Do One Thing at a Time. Though, to be fair they weren't the best work I was capable of as they were just something we thought up real quick and put into production for the Dolls so that they would have something that packed a punch for the SL9.

This time though?

We went all out, focusing on every single bit of the design with all of our collective noggins put together, and with the improvements to all of the girl's weapons we did some fiddling around with Virbranium molecular coating of a fluted Beskar barrel, which absorbed any sort of barrel harmonics, and these things were accurate to one hole with the atomic-scale beyond-Match Grade ammunition. Barrel velocities were eight times higher, pushing bullets that were anywhere from two to four times larger to accommodate a specially designed Nitramene High Explosive Shape Charged Munition that could at the best least be able to chip away at the Simurgh's outer layers; the 5.56mm Rifles could field 122-grain projectiles that went deep into the casings but kept the overall length the same.

Any damage piled on fast enough and hard enough was what caused the giant angel to flee.

The girls would be deploying with large automated ammunition packs that would replace spent magazines with full ones until the pack's storage was depleted; the Helljumpers would drop off fresh packs while the spent ones were tossed up to be refilled onboard for the next drop off.

I made the very best ammunition I could without dipping into the esoteric effects, and I made a lot of them.

I also made amulets of the Fierce Archer and the Able Archer, two amulets that had their basis in the ritual and runic worship of the Egyptian Goddess Satet, the Goddess of War and Archery. The amulets were not tied to the bow and arrow, but more towards the act of throwing, shooting, or utilizing any ranged weapon; the first caused missiles fired by the user to deal significantly more damage, and the second caused arrows- and by extension bullets- to home in on their targets, evading obstacles by adjusting the flight path. It wasn't exactly fool-proof, but an Egyptian Mage who adored archery used the second amulet to thread an arrow between a dozen densely packed trees to slay his traitorous brother while wearing it, so it would possibly help the bullets avoid whatever debris was in the air.

The amulets and rings were something I remade as well; the rings had become potent enough that any sort of elemental damage would actually heal the user as the resistance had passed into the realm of 230%. The anti-Master, anti-Stranger, anti-Precognitive, healing, and kinetic damage mitigation, had all become so strong that I could survive a drop from orbit without my power armor on. I had passed 100% kinetic damage mitigation mark with both the rings and amulets combined, but I didn't know if that would heal at all or anything because it was impossible to test while wearing it.

We could have injured ourselves and then put them on, but that sort of testing just seemed off to me; self-mutilation in the name of SCIENCE wasn't something I was too keen on.

I didn't have that many magical perks and I was already doing absurd magical shit. The Forge was really something else.

The magic protections were quite strong, but I still had no idea if it would classify Parahuman abilities as magical effects or not, but the rule of thumb was to avoid getting hit by them.

I made a special shoulder-mounted missile launcher for myself with Vibration warheads that should pack more than enough punch to make her shed a layer of her flesh with each missile fired. I could only carry six rockets on my person with how large they were, so I designed two drones that would carry an additional four missiles each, and they would follow me around.

My other primary weapon would be a modified SRS-99S7 that was chambered in the 30x173mm, and boy I had to beef that rifle up; the original model was hardly suited, so it's svelte 34 pounds jumped up to 57 pounds, but I was using every trick in the book to add in every scrap of material science.

Spoiler: DETH-30MM

[img: https/halo.wiki.gallery/images/0/02/HINF_SRS99S7_Prerelease_Render.png]

A snort escaped my lips as I looked away from the ammunition station and looked at the pile of Super-30 ammunition I had made; much like the other girls, this one was firing a much larger and heavier projectile at a much higher velocity that was packed with the same N-HESC round. This thing would fucking womp , my guy-

I blinked as the Forge spun up and snatched a smaller star from the "Database Mundane", and I felt the Engineers collectively squee in delight while Ted was intrigued.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 13.0060 - N-Ways Fusion Plant - 200CP - Endless Space - Database Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

The fuck?

Well, the Necron Pylons were great as they pulled power from the ether, but they were very large and due to their design, they couldn't be shielded, which made them soft targets. You also could put too many pylons in the same space, or the power output would drop out significantly. They were awesome, but you couldn't stick them on the outside of a starship hull and not expect them to get shot the fuck up. The Necrons had something else they used to power their massive starships, but those were incredibly large and stupidly resource-intensive; the N-Ways reactors though? Those were, while also being resource-intensive, much, much smaller and as long as they were owned by me then they would possess infinite energy, and with my other perks they would never fail unless sabotaged; and the best part was that the reactors could be shielded separately without fear!

Even if I decided to sell the reactors to someone else, the reactors came with all sorts of different technologies that allowed me to mine for Heavy Deuterium, an isotope more commonly known as 'Hyperium', that ran the N-Ways fusion reactors. It was actually quite easy to create here in my lap with all of the technology I currently had, and if I ever moved out into another space-faring universe then I could pull Hyperium from practically any gas giant or planet as deuterium was quite commonly found.

Roughly twenty-five years of full operation for a vessel roughly two-kilometers in length, but that was if you were running it at combat levels of power draw; more than likely the reactors would be a half or even less, extending that to forty years or more. Though, if I designed and built those ships myself then it would be even higher with all of the perks working together to create a more durable and efficient ship.

Damn, every piece of equipment we had just had the power plants either replaced or a power plant added; the Titans had the power plants in addition to their batteries, and now I could build super starships without having to worry about power. Ever. Even the Helljumpers and Globetrotters, Duskwalkers, drones, robots, and MRVNs all have these n-Fusion power plants.

Holy shit, the weapons I could make with infinite power was…

I shook my head as Ted and Enbee started going over the schematics and began proposing possible improvements and returned to making my ammunition; twenty-round box magazines were a riot, and it was hella fun to shoot to boot.

[3 Months Later]

I split my remaining time between manufacturing and training- continuing to work on my Ki, Magic, and the Force with the girls.

Though Subee had pulled me off to the side for the last month as we sat down together and completely went over both the Super Soldier Serum and the Heart-Shaped Herb concentrations that she created. While it wasn't technology, I was no longer reliant on only her knowledge to produce anything anymore- with the time dilation, strategy trance, and the implants I was able to learn pretty much everything there was to know about the human body and how it could be improved and manipulated from Subee and Ted's limited knowledge. Considering it was my only Task, D.O.T.A.A.T procced on it and my learning was done very swiftly.

Taking every scrap of technology from the Forerunners, the Necron, the Titanfall universe's Regeneration technology, and every perk at my disposal, we crafted together an updated Super Soldier Serum and a new Heart-Shaped-Herb formula that was double the effectiveness and then some. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 240% better, with the negative side effects of the serum only being elevated by roughly 10%. That meant my libido was going to double, but honestly? I really needed that libido jump to handle all of my girls.

We had the new serums prepared and we took them all; the serums were created in such a way that they would replace the old formulas and blessings without any issue. The Perks ensured that they would work exactly as intended, but we still wore our rings and amulets for the improved healing and regeneration, if only to make sure we weren't laid out for a week and some change again.

Bast rolled her eyes as she saw me appear before her within her Celestial Realm. Her large paw flashed out and knocked me into the dirt, " Fine. You improved your formula. Just… try not to bother me too often, mortal."

We were only asleep for three days, and the improvements were such that Subee wasn't worried about us dying again.

My power level had skyrocketed to roughly 40 Million, which was outside of my expectations; I was expecting 32 Million, or around there, but it seems that the more I try to understand Shounen physics and magic the less I understand it.

We celebrated with an orgy that did not end up in any pregnancies because that was for after the fight.

[135 days after the start of the manufacturing/training trip]

Everything was ready to go. The Globetrotters were all spun up and loaded up with the valuable cargo and the Helljumpers were also folded up and slipped inside of the cargo bays; twenty Globetrotters in all were running with their engines hot and ready to go within the Tessaract Labyrinth. Once the word was received of the Endbringer's encroachment then we could finally begin.

I sat down in a comfortable chair and Qi had her arms wrapped around my shoulders as her teeth played with my earlobe. She was doing an incredible job at keeping me distracted while simultaneously keeping me focused on not popping a boner in my suit; despite all of the advancements I had made that was still a problem that I hadn't solved yet. The armor kept your junk situated in such a way that a suction cup wrapped around the head of my penis so I could urinate without the need of a catheter and without needing to compromise the suit's integrity.

Still no room for an erection though.

I tugged my ear from her teeth and planted a gentle kiss on her lips.

Even though I was strong enough to throw the Endbringers around like small children- strong enough to yeet them into deep space- there still was just enough trepidation to get my anxiety up.

We got a ping from Dragon.

The Simurgh was beginning her slow descent from the stratosphere, and thankfully it was still in Canberra; not that it would have made any difference otherwise, but at least with all of our moves we hadn't fucked this particular attack up.

We had been staged and ready to go, and now everyone was moving; the patrol teams that were making their rounds in the city were notified and en route to the Endbringer meeting point located at the base of the PRT's light bridge. The garage door for the Hangar at the cliff was already open, its entrance hidden by illusory projectors, and the gals and I loaded up in our designated aircraft; one of us was staying behind to act as a coordination and command station, and to keep our base hidden from view- Springfield volunteered, mainly so that she could continue to watch over our son. If there was even the slightest chance that one of us could die in the ensuing chaos I didn't want it to be the mother of my child, so I accepted readily.

I wasn't too keen on letting Tattletale stay behind with her, if only because the young woman, even without her power feeding her information, was pretty darn smart, but Spring was a kind woman with a gentle soul. She felt that Lisa could be extended a small measure of trust, and would sit in the communications bunker with her; if anything her power of observation would be useful enough.

I had barely interacted with the teenage Thinker at all the past few days, not since we brought her under our protection, but to be fair it had been months since I last saw her.

GT-01 was lifting off and hovering out of the Hangar, and once we were outside I let the other ten Globetrotters out of the Tessaract Labyrinth and set them into formation; the nine pairs of GT-03 through GT-20 were already moving out into the sky in a pair of Flying-V formations, their large wings unfolding before locking into place.

I had GT-01 and GT-02 fly towards the Endbringer staging area, pinging Dragon to let her know that we would be picking the Brockton Bay Capes up and taking them in so Strider could head elsewhere.

It was finally showtime.

[Remaining 100 CP]

[Armsmaster]

"Is this everyone?" Assault chirped as he clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

Armsmaster shook his head as he surveyed the Capes in attendance- all of New Wave was there, but they were mainly there to protect and escort Panacea; Manpower, Laserdream, and Lady Photon would engage the Simurgh for the fifteen minutes of combat that each Cape was allotted when faced with the Endbringer's psychic scream, but Glory Girl, Flashbang, and Brandish would be there to escort the healer and watch over her. She had been attacked by a few civilians at the last Simurgh fight, and New Wave wasn't too keen on leaving her unprotected. "We still have five more minutes before Strider comes in for pick-up, now settle down."

He shifted his gaze over towards the Patrol Teams of Frontline, noting that their armors had visibly improved once more; they were still sleek and imposing, but there was an added bulkiness that was hard to describe. They were without helmets, but they had informed him that they would receive their combat armors en route.

"Colin," Dragon's slightly accented voice spoke into his helmet's speakers, "I've been informed that Strider will not be making an appearance here in Brockton Bay, and instead will be heading elsewhere."

Before he could open his mouth the Canadian Tinker continued, "Frontline has a craft capable of making it to Australia just before the Simurgh's projected fall, though we don't quite know yet if it is actually Canberra or Sydney. We're splitting the difference by staging closer to Canberra around Lake George; it will mean that response times to evacuate Capes will be longer, but as far as staging areas go it is the best we have."

It was a hard thing to hope for it to be Canberra, as Sydney had already been destroyed by Leviathan back in 1998, and it took them almost a decade to finish rebuilding; being hit with another Endbringer just a few short years after recovering from the last attack would be a crushing blow. Canberra was also significantly smaller population-wise; it was cold math that dictated that the smaller city be the primary target.

Regardless of that…

"Frontline has an aircraft capable of cross-continental flight?" He asked incredulously.

Armsmaster knew that they had those Helljumper aircraft, they were shown on the Frontline webpage along with a list of innocuous details; having been used in most of their recent heroic endeavors, and used in the evacuation of the women the ABB had captured, it was only natural for the public to be curious about the aircraft. LTLX7000 was credited with designing them, as the team's resident aircraft-related Tinker, and her work was improved upon by the other undisclosed Tinkers in their group. Seeing that the craft weren't armed, at least visibly, he doubted that the weapons Tinker, G41, had anything to do with it, but Horizon's aesthetic fingerprints were all over it; modern yet futuristic, with a militaristic edge and color scheme that evoked a subconscious parallel to Law and Order.

"Yes, we do," The Leader of the Patrol Teams spoke up, stepping forward. Python was certainly a beautiful woman, with her dark, tousled hair pulled back into a loose ponytail that was artfully messy, "It will be here in just a few moments… ah, you can see it coming in now. That's Globetrotter-01."

Armsmaster followed her gaze to see a pristine silvery-white flying wing with a central hump that ran both dorsally and ventrally from the front of the aircraft to the rear; it was incredibly wide, with a wingspan of nearly one hundred meters in width- it was closer to 90, not quite as wide as a Football field was long but certainly close enough. The other "Globetrotter" was taking a long, lazy turn and would probably circle around the city while they were busy loading up.

The aircraft slowed its forward airspeed until it was moving along at merely a fast walking speed, the long wings creaking as they began to fold over the top of the vehicle's fuselage; the left wing folding over the right as it slowly rotated in place and nestled into an empty parking lot across from them. The Protectorate Tinker noted that there was no buffering of the engines, and the aircraft settled onto the ground with a smooth efficiency that sort of reminded him of the way Dragon piloted her larger Dragonsuits. He hummed under his breath. Possible anti-gravity device?

"Alright everyone, you've already heard the breifings, so you know what you're getting into. Strider will not be coming to pick us up as Frontline has volunteered to take us to the staging area," He tapped the end of his halberd onto the ground, and the gaggle of Protectorate Capes and New Wave made their way towards the Globetrotter; it was nice to see that there weren't any Villains left in the Bay to show up- seeing Kaiser's smug armored form as the E88 showed up to fight the Endbringers was always grating. The Merchants and ABB never showed.

The seamless rear end of the long hup proved itself to be not so seamless as it opened up downwards in a hatch, and a long metal ramp extended down. Horizon was there waiting to greet them as they came on board, "Welcome, everyone. Come on in and find a seat, and please try not to touch any of the riggings for the containers; we'll be flying at just under Mach 45, so any shifting weight could be catastrophic."

The Cape turned his head towards his fellow Frontline members as they strode up the ramp, "Go ahead and enter the bay and get changed; I was able to finish the tune-ups on your combat armors before we got the call."

New Wave followed after the Frontline Patrol Team up the ramp, and the Protectorate followed up right behind them. The interior of the bay was dominated by six 40-foot-long connex shipping containers that were in pairs leading from the front to the back. Twelve other smaller, 20-foot shipping containers were situated in what appeared to be pre-loaded bays; it wasn't a tight squeeze to walk down the small grip-tape-lined walkway between them, but it wasn't exactly roomy.

The walkway slide up into the aircraft before the hatch sealed behind them with a pressurized hiss, and the only hint that they began taking off was the slight shift. Armsmaster arched an eyebrow. Intertial dampeners as well?

The Protectorate Tinker followed the Frontline Cape to a fairly small common area where twelve power armors were set up on stands at the back wall; the Cape that Armsmaster recognized as Five-Seven seemed to flounce a little bit as she walked over to her armor. Her long, silvery-white ponytail shook as she looked back with a mocking grin on her face, "No peeking, okay? You naughty boys."

The Cape with aviator sunglasses on her head, Armsmaster knew her as Grizzley, flicked the young woman's ear before she slapped a button on the wall and a white curtain on a track slipped closed, segregating the common area's seating from the changing area. The Tinker heard the whirring of mechanical limbs, and saw them, as there was enough light on the opposite side to cast a shadow and silhouette their forms; while the young Shielder was staring in awe, likely at the tantalizing flesh being barely obscured on the opposite side.

They were certainly curvaceous, but Armsmaster was more interested in the speed and efficiency in which the mechanical tools removed the armor plating and helped the girls strip out of their bodysuits. The process was done the exact same way, except in reverse, though the armor was certainly more bulky and imposing; it was difficult to make some of the shorter women look more intimidating, but the armor certainly did an excellent job.

He blinked and looked over to the side to see Lady Photon smacking Shielder in the back of the head, a small complaint on his lips; his father and Assault shared a well hidden but wry grin. Manpower reached over and squeezed the back of the young teen's neck before leaning in to whisper; it would have been too low to hear with the background noise with his ears, but Armsmaster's suit microphones caught it. "Look, son, its fine to look if a girl wants to put on a little show, but there is a difference between appreciating and staring like a buffoon. You got to take little glances, Shielder. That way every women in the family doesn't treat you like a paraiah for the next few days."

Shielder winced at the pressure applied to his neck but nodded; this appeared to mollify Lady Photon, though Brandish was muttering under her breath that Armsmaster found rather uncharitable. These women were upstanding heroes, not 'harlots and skanks' walking around trying to 'seduce' underaged boys.

Horizon seemed to be unaffected, and when the curtain was drawn back a mechanical voice spoke out, "We have reached cruising altitude and are engaging maximum thrust. Please take a seat or engage magnetic clamps if you have any."

Armsmaster did just that, as did the other power armor wearing members of Frontline, their centers of gravity lowering just slightly as a chorus of 'thunks' echoed throughout the cabin. The Globetrotter lurched forward, and the Cape felt his suit's mechanisms tighten up to handle the change in momentum, though it wasn't nearly as drastic as he would have thought; another point to his theory of inertial dampeners. Within thirty seconds the rapid acceleration had ceased and the voice spoke out once more, "We have reached Mach 45, hull integrity is at 100%. All systems are green, Commander."

"Very good, Echo-435, keep us posted," Horizon spoke out, and a quartet of panel televisions slid down from the ceiling and flickered on. The first panel showed a map of the globe along with a flight path and estimated time of arrival that was ticking down very quickly- very similar to what one might find on any commercial airline. The second panel was split in half, with an exterior camera view of the port and starboard sides of the aircraft; off to port Armsmaster could see the second Globetrotter flying in formation just slightly to the rear about fifty meters away. The third panel was split horizontally, showing a view of the sky and the earth below that was rapidly flying by. The final panel flicked between other cameras, likely on the other aircraft that were flying ahead.

Armsmaster blinked. "There are more Globetrotters besides these two, Horizon?"

"Yup, we've got twenty in total; those went on ahead of us while we swung by and picked you guys up. Since they're about five minutes ahead of us we'll get to see the magic happen," A smiling emoji flickered across his helmet's visor.

"What's 'The Magic'?" Shielder asked as Panacea unclipped herself from the chair and stood up to walk over towards one of the smaller connexes off to the side; Armsmaster noted that the sides were all painted white with a large red cross. The healer grabbed the door handle and tugged at it, and when it didn't budge she looked back with a frown on her face.

Horizon turned his attention to her, "Yes?"

"I'd like to take the time to familiarize myself with where I'm going to be working from, that is if you don't mind," The teen course-corrected, her frown disappearing into something more neutral, "These seems to be sturdy and will likely be where all of the Doctors and nurses set up shop."

The Cape nodded his head, "Sensible, just don't let MRV-N startle you, she's one of our medical robots."

"Robots?" Glory Girl spoke up as she hovered out of her seat.

"Well, contrary to popular belief, I am not a Power Armor Tinker, or at least not exclusively; my primary focus is Robotics and everything else that stems from. Power Armor is merely a small step to the left, if you think about it; place a person inside of a robotic suit, and bam, Power Armor." He shook his head, "I'm the reason we were able to scale up as fast as we have, with automated assembly lines and robots to help with the menial labor. In fact, one of the robots I designed is currently flying the plane right now."

"You have a robot flying this aircraft?" Brandish asked incredulously.

Armsmaster frowned, "I do not see an issue with a robot flying this aircraft; they are incredibly precise machines by their very nature, and considering the quality of Frontline's work I would say that they are some of the best Tinker work that you can find outside of Dragon and myself in today's era."

His fellow Tinker nodded before he turned back to Brandish, "They are all FAA certified pilots, well, at least for ground school. Getting them official flight certifications would be a touch messy considering they can't really attend a formal flight school. Though they are more than-"

A small squeak came from Panacea's direction, and Armsmaster turned to see the door swing open on the medical connex and a white and red robotic figure stepped out. The arms and legs where painted white while the torso and head were painted red; in the center of the torso was a LCD panel with a smiley face emoji on it. The head was wedge-shaped with a single large, softly glowing blue eye in the center; amusingly enough there was a white nurse's hat from the WWII era secured to its head with a bit of steel wire. "Greetings, Panacea. I am MRV-N 01 and I will be your primary assistant during this crisis, provided a human does not wish to be your adjutant."

The head tilted to the side, before pointing to a letter and a number painted on her left and right pauldrons. "Though, to ease the communications process, you may refer to me as N-1."

Another robot stepped out right after, this one the same except it had a stethoscope around its neck, secured in place by a magnet, and it was wearing hospital scrubs with a small paper mask humorously taped around the bottom of its ocular node. A S-1 was stenciled onto the shoulders, chest, and back of the scrubs in black. "Greetings, Panacea. I am MRV-S 01, and I will be the lead surgeon handling the non-critical cases that do not require your immediate attention. To ease the communications process, you may refer to me as S-1."

"These are very advanced robotics," Dragon spoke to him, which was a small surprise, as he was certain they'd left the range of the standard communications a short while ago, "I'm piggybacking off of the communications that Horizon is providing. This is… quite incredible. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before."

"Indeed, I agree. Frontline has been gearing up for quite some time, though to think that they would be this far along? They must have backers, ones capable of getting premium materials," Armsmaster sub-vocalized before he turned towards Horizon and pointed towards the caged ladder that lead presumably to the cockpit, "May I?"

Horizon turned to regard Armsmaster as he was deep in a conversation with Brandish, the woman speaking at length about using untested Tinker tech in an emergency situation and how that could possibly open him up to great deal of liability lawsuits. "Ah, sure. Go ahead, just don't touch anything, though I'm sure you already knew that."

The leader of Frontline moved his attention back to Brandish, "I understand what you're saying, however, my robots are the best doctors and nurses out there, bar none. They have the tools, they have the training, and unlike human doctors, they won't misdiagnose or make mistakes. We were planning on performing a trial run at Brockton General and other hospitals but obviously, this happened , and saving lives is more important than trying to satisfy some medical board and government bureaucrats-"

Armsmaster bit back a wince of sympathy as he turned and strode away from the conversation; as a Tinker with multiple oversight boards and committees he knew full well the pain of trying to explain and get approval for technologies that a layperson wouldn't understand. The cage slid to the side automatically and the man nodded in appreciation before climbing the rungs of the ladder to the very top of the cargo bay. A pair of 'thunks' caused him to turn his head, and he saw two of the sides of the medical connex lower down to create a pair of ramps as a very advanced looking medical bay was revealed; the Surgeon and Nurse robots were walking the healer through everything inside, pausing to give general explanations.

He shook his head and walked into the cockpit, which revealed two large aviation chairs that were surrounded by a panoply of buttons, knobs, switches, and diagnostic panels. The view screen was currently tinted, but eight small LCD monitors were in front of the dual, redundant flight yokes; the screens displaying various camera views. The right chair, what Armsmaster knew was the co-pilot's chair, was filled with a more advanced-looking robot; it wore a pilot's hat and regarded him with a small wave. "Welcome, Protectorate Hero Armsmaster, how may we be of service?"

"Nothing, I am just observing." He spoke, and the co-pilot nodded its head.

"Understood. If you have any questions I will answer them to the best of my abilities, however, we will be landing in approximately three minutes."

That wasn't much time, but Colin had a few burning questions.

"In that case-."

[Amy Dallon - Panacea]

While her mother tried to nag Horizon about liability, something that Amy rolled her eyes at, she hunted and pecked through the medical connex, looking at the available resources and medical supplies, and asking the robots a few choice questions about some procedures she did know about and how they would handle them. She only had an Honorary Medical Degree from Harvard, but after working in the hospital for so long she picked up a thing or two- mainly when some of the doctors were complaining about a particularly tough surgery they had just completed while she had been busy at school.

They never failed to have her check over their work, and while she was looking over the results she made sure to ask questions about what they did, why they did it, and how. Considering she was healing their patient, cutting down the amount of time the patient filled one of their hospital beds, and still getting them a nice fat check from whatever health insurance provider the patient had they were more than happy to oblige most of the time while sucking down coffee.

In fact, S1 and N1 were going above and beyond, showing 3-D animations of which ever procedure they had described.

"-and that is what we would to perform an emergency tracheotomy in order to properly intubate a patient with a collapsed trachea."

It was, as far as Amy could tell, on the up and up, but considering this was Tinker tech there was a possibility that these robots could fail, though she had been following Frontline's progress for a while now. Not that she could tell Vicky about it- the girl was still pissed at Horizon, but at least she was taking actual steps to improve her control over her aura. The ass-chewing Carol had given combined with the ass-chewing Aunt Sarah had given her seemed to have jarred her a little bit.

Assault with a Parahuman Power was a Class B non-violent felony, and Vicky knows that. Amy knows that Vicky knows that because they were in the same PRT-Sponsored classes together. The fact that Vicky decided to get defensive about it and try to posture on him in front of hundreds of people just irked her to hell and back; she loved her sister dearly, but sometimes she needed to think less with her -perfect- boobs and more with her head. It was probably wrong to direct her ire towards Horizon in that situation, especially when Vicky was clearly in the wrong, but no one likes having their sibling threatened with arrest.

It took some time to work through everything that was bubbling in her gut, mainly the teen flipping through PHO and the Frontline web pages during her breaks. Amy smoked a lot of cigarettes while working through the backlog of women kidnapped by the ABB, and she had just finished up the last of them when word came that Frontline had slaughtered the Slaughterhouse Nine.

She had to jump to more than a few links on PHO to find one that showed everything in raw detail, and it was… nothing short of a work of art, in her opinion at least. Other than that little perv of a Cape, ART556, playing around with Crawler, the SL9 had been effectively dismantled in less than three minutes. Like it was child's play to them.

The body count of Capes the Slaughterhouse Nine had under their belts was incredibly high, from the Protectorate, to the Independents, and to those who freshly triggered in the wakes of their attacks. They had killed even Hero, the greatest Tinker in the world, and injured Alexandria.

As far as most people in the country were concerned they were an unstoppable force that had finally met another unstoppable force.

The Nine crumpled while Frontline stood tall.

The most sobering part about it was that they had made it look easy.

It was very annoying to admit that they were doing a great deal of good in the Bay area, but that mainly stemmed from Horizon's initial interaction with Vicky. The worst part about it was that with Vicky on a tight leash Amy had come to a sort of realization that her shameful love for her sister might not exactly be what she thought it was. It was still there, ever-present, but it just wasn't hammering her in the face as much; Victoria was still a very attractive and beautiful girl, but the lust and desire had lessened to something not as extreme.

It made her mind itch a little bit, she felt irritable, with more than a few mood swings coming in; she kept a tight lid on them, but so far they weren't too bad. They were, however, easily recognizeable symptoms of withdrawl- as for what her addiction was? Well, she knew the answer to it, she just didn't want to admit it, at least not right now. Vicky was getting the 3rd degree over her power use, and was at least making serious attempts to keep her aura under control.

It was a surprise to her when Carol had actually asked her to keep on Vicky, even when they were at school, and the woman never asked her to do anything. It was always a demand, with a stern frown and a callous air, as if her words should be heeded because Amy would rue the day she didn't.

Whatever PR and possible Legal trouble New Wave could have suffered at the hands of Horizon and Frontline must have been pretty damn serious if it made Carol Dallon ask.

The cynic in her did admit that it was quite nice being the one who got to playfully needle her sister over the past few weeks; casually reminding her about her sister's aura whenever they were in class together. Vicky hated it and was incredibly petulant about it, but she listened at least; it was rather thrilling to be on the opposite side of Carol's ire. The fact that their- Victoria's- circle of friends were less inclined to automatically agree with everything she said while her aura was suppressed made it all the more sweeter.

Not that she wanted Vicky to suddenly find out that not everyone was in love with her simply because of her sparkling personality, but the loner in Amy was quite delighted in sampling her sister's slow cascade of realizations; it would still take more time, but maybe Amy would finally stop getting invited to double-dates that she had no desire to go to?

Not that they could go on any double-dates considering Vicky was grounded, Dean could still come over, but their frequent dinner-dates and shopping sprees on Stansfield's dime were over until Carol and Aunt Sarah were certain that Vicky had learned to control her powers (and her lesson about instigating a fight with a powerful cape in front of the public).

Dean's wallet was surely thanking Horizon and Frontline right now.

A snort escaped her nose and she shook her head before placing her hands on her hips, "Well, I think this is as good of an inspection as I'll get."

"Indeed, Panacea," S1 intoned, "We will be arriving in Canberra in approximately sixty seconds. We will close up and return to our stations, please move back to your seat."

She nodded and spun on her heel before stepping out of the medical suite and down the steel ramp; thankfully it didn't rattle, something that she would have thought would happen considering how thin the metal was.

"Beginning deceleration in ten seconds. Please be seated or engage magnetic locks." The pilot spoke robotically just as Amy plopped herself in her chair and wrapped the straps over her shoulders; the belts wormed around her automatically and clicked into place before tightening and securing her to her seat.

Vicky was pouting as she sat in her own seat.

The screens flickered and she was treated to the sight of the second aircraft's rear bay opening up as they began a very abrupt drop in speed; they had dropped from Mach 45 (how fast was that in miles per hour?) down to Mach 35, then 25, then 15, then 5, and finally down to Mach 2. Out of the rear bay four of the Helljumper aircraft were kicked out of the rear, and her eyes widened in shock. Her surprise was only undercut when the wings of the smaller planes unfolded and they immediately stabilized in the air with nary a wobble. The rear bay of the second Globetrotter closed back up as the Helljumpers peeled off and flew towards the city, the cameras effortlessly tracking them as they sped away.

Then she felt her insides shift to the side as the plane they were currently in banked and began a spiraling descent; through the cameras on the screens she could see eighteen of those aircraft were already on the ground on the far side of the lake and arranged in a grid formation. The closer they got the more she could see, and it was… quite astounding to see just what Frontline had waiting in the wings for an emergency like this.

As their aircraft flattened out its flight path it began to ascend slowly down to the ground, and she could see dozens of shipping containers already disgorged from the aircraft; it looked like they were on wheels? Amy could see the containers being driven around by other robots similar to the S1 and N1, the robots quickly moving the containers into some sense of fashion. It tickled her memories, from previous Endbringer fights; there was a standard layout for supplies and stuff like that, right?

Her eyes were drawn away towards the camera displaying the bottom of the Globetrotter and she felt the craft jostle slightly as they nestled the ship in between two low hills. The moment they were on the ground Frontline was already lined up and waiting for the hatch and lift to drop down, and then they were streaming off; where? She didn't know, but they seemed to pick different directions to go in.

There was a small hiss as panels in the ceiling slid out and two dozen of the same design of robots were lowered from the ceiling into the bay, and funnily enough they were all wearing those cheap orange and yellow construction vests with small yellow hard hats on top of their head; on the front of their vest was a designation MRVN-01 through MRVN-12, and from what she could see on the back across the thick yellow strip was their designations along with the word "FRONTLINE - USA" stenciled in bold.

"Alright boys, you know where these containers need to go," Horizon spoke up, and the robots gave him a quick salute while their LCDs displayed a determined face emoji. MRVN-01 walked over to the wall and began pressing a number of buttons in a specific order, and there were more hisses as a dozen or more hatches opened simultaneously and the shorter medical connex boxes along with the larger 40-foot boxes were all lowered down to the ground underneath the aircraft.

None of New Wave made a move to leave, and Amy was more than content to take a moment and observe large ATV tires slide out from the undersides of the boxes and right themselves, the hydraulics had enough force to get the containers fourteen inches above the ground; a MRVN walked in front with a pair of flashlights with orange and yellow cones on the end while a second MRVN controlled the box's movement with some sort of joystick. A close look showed an LCD panel that had the screen between four different cameras, with a view from the front, left, right, and rear of the connex.

There was a small hill, but the connex was able to climb the steep grade without any issue, and instead of getting stuck at the crest of the hill the heavy steel just plowed the sparsely grassed sand dune and kept on trucking.

She snorted as a memory of one of the blind dates Vicky set them up on flowed to the front of her mind; one of the Arcadia defensive linemen had a jacked up truck, and they thought it would be a cool idea to take it up one of the few off-road trails in the state. It got stuck on the first hill and they had to have Vicky lift the front end and turn it around.

This grade was worse than what that hill had been, and a connex box piloted by a dweeby Star Wars-looking robot just plowed through it like it was no big deal.

Her snort turned into a small giggle, but she quickly quashed it as everyone looked at her funny; Horizon didn't say anything but that smirking emoji on his helmet was enough to get her to roll her eyes and walk carefully down the walkway- without the connexes or the platforms there it would be a fifteen-foot drop down to the sand below, and she didn't fancy breaking her ankles.

The rest of them followed her out, Shielder blathering on about something Amy decided to tune out; Horizon was a saint for patiently dealing with his nerdgasm- her cousin tried to act cool with the dyed hair and clothing he wore out of costume, but it was hard to be taken seriously when your hair was blue.

At the bottom of the ramp was a very common sight at Endbringer fights. Alexandria needed no introduction- her black and grey uniform and helmet cut an imposing, commanding, and yet inspiring figure; the Library of Alexandria emblem sitting proudly on her chest as she floated past Amy with a professional nod, "Panacea, New Wave. I'm glad you could make it, no doubt your services will be vital in this coming fight."

"Alexandria," Aunt Sarah- Lady Photon spoke with a polite smile on her face, "The Dallon branch will be watching over Panacea, but the Pelhams will go wherever we are needed."

"You'll be on the combat teams; Search and Rescue has more than enough members with Frontline filling the numbers out," Alexandria handed out the armbands Dragon designed, and the New Wave family all took on, when she handed one to Horizon he shook his head but took it anyway.

"Don't really need it, but sure I'll take it."

"Why don't you need it?" Victoria asked archly, her fists going to her hips once the armband cinched itself to her arm.

"Immune to Masters, Strangers, and most forms of Thinkers," He said nonchalantly tugging the band up before pressing both of the buttons, "Horizon, Frontline. Note: Immune to Masters, Strangers, and Thinkers. Will confirm if this holds for the Simurgh's scream as well."

"Noted, Horizon," Dragon's voice came through the armband.

Alexandria tilted her head, "I did not know this."

Horizon shook his head and reached into a pouch before pulling out a shining gold six-sided dice and handing it to Alexandria, "I only have one spare. Also, I sent your secretary and your accounts manager a catalog of what we could make, I would have thought that you of all people would have read through it."

The woman's mouth firmed into a thin line, "We had just finalized testing to see if your claims were true, and we were going to contact you today, actually, but the Simurgh has seen fit to attack."

"Well, if you hand this over to someone, give it to someone invaluable, someone we could not afford to lose; this one is some of the best we have to offer- the aforementioned Master, Stranger, and Thinker protections, but also a function that reduces physical damage taken from kinetic attacks by 53% as well as giving the person wearing it a Brute 1 healing factor."

The Triumvirate member peered at the small… amulet closely. Amulet? She… supposed that it worked; what else did you call jewelry that gave as many varied protections? Ugh, she never should have read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Amulet, but peer pressure was a bitch, and peer pressure from Vicky was virtually impossible to withstand; those damn puppy dog eyes of hers.

"Very well then," Alexandria turned towards Amy and handed the necklace over, "Here, Panacea. You match that criteria."

Amy felt her cheeks flush just a touch as her head swam momentarily; it's one thing to know that you're important because you're the healer, but it's another thing entirely to be told that you were indispensable by Alexandria of all people. Her fingers closed around the gold cube and she held it up in front of her eyes.

" Alexandria, I hope you aren't telling my daughter to wear untested Tinker Tech," Carol began, and Amy felt her blood turn to ice.

Carol wasn't saying that because she was legitimately worried, she was saying that because she didn't like the idea of Amy being the one who everyone relied on.

Of Amy being the one who was considered invaluable.

The healer knew it wasn't just jealousy over the matter, but it was also because Carol spent so much time trying to keep Amy tied down and doubting herself that getting so much validation from Alexandria would probably give her a 'big head' or some such other tripe. Carol treated her like a violent offender who'd been let out of prison on parole- the woman acting like it was only a matter of time until she showed her 'true colors' and did… something. Commit a crime of some such nonsense.

"Brandish, we've already tested a great deal of Horizon and Frontline's tech to see if the claims were true, and as far as we can tell they are; my personal Tech Shed worked on his products. They work, so you don't have anything to fear," Alexandria's tone was firm but reassuring, and the Cape turned her head to regard Horizon, "Once this is all over we will sit down and discuss your entire catalog…"

She looked at the Globetrotter and the MRVNs driving the containers around, " At length."

"Well, as long as we can be helpful while still maintaining solvency then that is what we'll do," Horizon nodded.

"You're doing this for profit?" Carol hissed disapprovingly, and Amy rolled her eyes as she pulled the amulet over her neck and settled it underneath her robes; the gold felt cool against her flesh, which was a welcome feeling because the sun in Australia was putting out a lot of heat. She twitched when she felt a knocking at the front of her mind.

"Query: Adore Host?"

"No, not profit," Horizon shook his head, "We try to break even; our organization has become flush with the funds we've liberated from the gangs, but the vast majority of that is going back into rebuilding the Bay area. A good portion goes back into our Tinkering budgets, and another much smaller portion is for the rest of the team, so they can go out and actually enjoy the city they're protecting. So, profit? No. But hero teams don't run on goodwill and well wishes."

Amy was focusing on the words, but she could see the Armored Cape's head turn to look down at Brandish slowly, "Or do you take the funds from your donation page and give it all to charity?"

The healer winced, ouch. Shot fired across the bow.

The words repeated themselves, like on a timer, but they were… gentle and not very imposing? Like someone timidly knocking on the door to her mind.

"Query: Adore Host?"

Her eyes bugged out and Horizon rested a hand on her shoulder, "I take it you're hearing that?"

"Query: Adore Host?"

"Y-yeah, what the hell is that?" She asked, confusion lacing her voice.

"Query: Adore Host?"

"That is Victoria's power," Amy saw Vicky bristle, but Horizon's following words actually took her aback, "She's improved a lot in her control, so good on you, Victoria. However, just because it isn't as noisy as it was before doesn't mean it still isn't chattering away."

"Query: Adore Host?"

"It… is quite annoying," Amy muttered and she began walking down the ramp before stopping and looking over her shoulder, "Where is the medical being staged?"

"Where all of the medical connexes are going?" Horizon retorted with a smirk emoji playing across his visor, and she shook her head.

"And just what was Panacea hearing?" Carol spoke firmly, but Amy was dragged off to the side by Vicky.

"It's a function of the amulet she's wearing. Not only does it make her immune, but it also lets her know when powers like that are being used in the vicinity," Horizon replied as he turned around and walked deeper into the belly of the ship.

"Oh, come on, Ames, lets get you over there, ASAP!" Vicky swooped in and scooped her up in the bridal carry that used to make her heart flutter, and while she felt her autonomic system kick in at the sensation of being lifted off of the ground, the usual sappy feelings of admiration were absent. Her brain itched.

"Query: Adore Host?"

Just before they took off into the sky, she heard Alexandria speak to Horizon lowly, "Horizon, as much as we appreciate you taking it upon yourself to lighten Strider's workload, we could appreciate it if you would not alter the jump schedules we currently have in place-"

[Lady Photon]

Sarah Pelham watched as the mountain of a man in Power Armor nodded at Alexandria's words as he strode over to a panel in the wall; the hatches had been closed, and he punched in some sort of code. "I understand, however, I think that you can count on us to take over for the transport of Brockton Bay residents from this point on; sending Strider when we have the ability to be anywhere in the world in ten minutes will mean less hops for him to do."

The panel popped open, revealing a very large sniper rifle that was almost nine feet long, along with a double-barreled missile launcher; he slotted both across his back, a 'chnk' sounding out as the weapons were magnetized diagonally across the back plate. He reached in and began pulling out magazines for some incredibly large bullets; they were so large in fact he could only put four of them into the two pouches to his front. Another panel popped open, and a drone holding four open-topped metal ammo cans with more magazines and six missiles attached together in pairs floated next to him.

"Holy shit, what the hell is that?" Eric all but squealed, and Sarah found her hand reaching out to grasp his ear before she remembered that she was in front of Alexandria, still, what's done is done. "Ow! Mom- Lady Photon!"

"You need to watch your language, Shielder," Sarah sighed and Crystal had the audacity to giggle behind her hand. She eyed her husband and Manpower quickly turned his head, though it was impossible to hide the smile on his face.

It was nice… to see that everyone still had the capacity to smile. With what was descending from the sky there probably wouldn't be any smiles for a while.

"Well, to answer your question, this is DETH-30." Horizon's visor flickered a big smile emoji, "I took the idea from Victor of the E88, he was going to assassinate one of us with a rifle like this. I decided that I like it so much that I adopted it myself, though one of our new recruits is looking to make this rifle hers and adopt it as her official moniker."

"Does the DETH stand for anything?"

Heaven help her.

"No, it doesn't. It's just… DETH. It's a 30mm suped up by our munition's Tinker. While it's the same round shot out of the A-10 Warthog this one packs way more punch." An explosion emoji played across his visor and he began walking, "Now, how do you want us set up, Alexandria?"

"We've already spoken to your teammates that arrived earlier- we're building this site up in a standard PRT/Protectorate layout, and they've already begun working on getting everything set up," The Triumvirate Cape spoke, her cape flowing behind her as she walked.

They all followed them out, and Sarah released her son's ear because at this point it would be silly to hold onto it, Horizon didn't seem too shy to talk about his technology; with Tinkers it was hit or miss- some spoke on and on and on while others looked as if you asked about their civilian identities.

She held a hand up over her eyes, and she saw ten Helljumpers swooping in from the sky, landing behind a hill; she took off just a bit, just high enough to see what was going on. Crystal followed her up into the air and they watched as the aircraft that were synonymous with Frontline's operations disgorged at least forty people per aircraft. Men, women, children. They only had on them what they could carry- the Simurgh was just a few minutes from touching down, but the fact that 400 people had already been evacuated from the city was… something special.

The people were ushered over to a row of Horizon containers by a pair of MRVN robots so the Helljumpers could get back into the air. From the looks of it the people were being given food, water, blankets, pillows, and other things. A small whine of engines and Lady Photon looked over to see six Globetrotters lifting off, their wings unfolding, and then they were jetting away like the hounds of hell were on their heels.

As they lowered down to the ground Crystal couldn't help herself, "Hey, Horizon, where were those six Globetrotters of yours going?"

He paused in his conversation with Alexandria to look over at Sarah's daughter. "They're going back to our compound to retrieve more supplies. Some housing units we've built up. They'll be making trips back and forth until the Australian government is able to organize a response; we won't be able to feed everyone, but we should be able to make sure that everyone won't become ill from this heat- water is the main priority. We already have a water purification station set up to pull from the lake, but there is only so much water it can supply per hour; it's a design that we've tested extensively but haven't put into full production yet."

Alexandria nodded as they continued their trek towards what appeared to be a command post, also seemingly provided by Horizon; the side was open and camouflage netting was being set up and spread out to provide some shade. The interior of the 40-foot container was packed wall to wall with computers and monitors, with Frontline robots and people wearing PRT computers. In front of it stood every Parahuman that had been gathered to fight, and some MRVNs walked around handing over cold bottles of water that were dripping with perspiration.

One man wearing biker's leathers with a chain across his chest and spikes coming out of his shoulders took the water before kicking the robot over, or at least it tried to; the MRVN managed to catch itself, the water bottles on the tray quickly righted before they could fall. A blue sad face flickered across the screen before the unit spoke, "I am MRVN-23. I am the property of Frontline. Further assault upon this unit will be seen as a violation of the Endbringer truce-"

The iris glowed red and a blue devil emoji took the frowny face's place. "-you will be terminated with extreme prejudice."

The man was no longer chuckling and he regarded the robot, his gold biker helmet tilting to the side as he spoke patronizingly. "Oh yeah? Well, I'm sorry, little fella. I din' mean nothing by it. A little harmless prank, ya' know?"

"Far Rider, Villain, Houston, Texas," Alexandria spoke firmly, the woman's voice commanded everyone's attention, and she lifted off the ground, "Should you do that again I will ask the Chief Director to put a Kill Order on you so fast your head will spin. These robots are assisting us with setting up this Endbringer response; they are, for all intents and purposes, to be viewed as PRT personnel for the duration of this emergency."

That got the man to straighten up a little; Kill Orders, despite Alexandria's sterling public figure, were her bread and butter. The woman has successfully executed more Kill Orders than anyone alive, to include Eidolon and Legend combined.

"There are a lot of shit lists I don't mind being on, but yours ain't one of 'em, Alexandria. I'll be good," His words were haughty and irreverent, but even from where she was standing Sarah could hear the quaver in his voice; he might have tried putting on a good show for his companions, but that backfired quickly.

The sheer stupidity of people amazed her to this day.

A flash of white light lit up the sky and Legend streaked down towards the command box before slipping under the netting and floating up in front of the sixty or so Capes that had shown up, the smile on his face was beatific, "Thank you all for coming. This is one of the earliest warnings we've ever received, and that is thanks to an experimental monitoring system created by Dragon and Armsmaster of Brockton Bay. We also look to be the best equipped for an Endbringer fight that I've ever seen, with food, water, and most importantly, medical. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I have a feeling that this might be the lowest casualty Endbringer fight to date, if only because our Search and Rescue and Medical teams are so robust."

His smile faded, "For those of you who've attended a fight with the Simurgh before then you already know what I'm about to say. For those of you who haven't been to one then please listen very carefully and heed my words."

It was always difficult to hear the smiling, jovial man that was Legend speak so gravely. Manpower's hand came up and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, and Crystal and Eric both grasped onto her hands; this would be their first Simurgh attendance, and honestly if it wasn't for the fact that she knew Frontline was here then she wouldn't have brought them at all.

"When you arrived you were given armbands. Those armbands serve two purposes- they keep you in communication with us, and they monitor your vital signs. If you get rendered unconscious or seriously injured the bands will tell us and S will be directed to your last known location." Legend held up his armband and pressed the two buttons beneath the map screen, "Legend, Protectorate."

"Affirmative, Legend. The Simurgh will be breaching in a minute and a half." Dragon's voice spoke out.

"Seems like I need to hurry this up," He quipped before shaking his head, "Press the left button to interact with the map- S this will be your primary way of locating your targets. Press the right button to send out a message. Press both to send out a priority message; you will also press both and speak your name and affiliation. Do NOT play around- Dragon has an automated system that will block any pranks; it sounds stupid but it's happened in the past."

"Now, the big part is this- most of your know about the Simurgh's 'scream' effect, but what you probably didn't know is that its effect extends from one kilometer to three kilometers in a diameter around her. From what we've been able to gather from our previous fights it takes roughly 20 minutes for her scream to affect you enough to turn you into a… 'Simurgh Bomb'. At that point you become a liability and will likely be turned against us," The man winced and shook his head, "If you are not fast, your best bet is to either leave around the eight-minute mark and run your heart out outside of her range, or to call for pick-up; someone will fly to you if they can."

"If you do not get out of her range by the 15-minute mark, the armband will explode, and if you're not a top-tier brute then you will die," His voice was hard, and his teeth curled back, "It will be a much kinder fate than whatever it is that the Simurgh has in store for you if she managed to plant her vile seeds within your mind."

He looked down at a tightened fist, and Sarah felt her heart tighten up with the emotion in his voice, "So, please, heed the warnings when the Armbands give them; they are tuned to the Simurgh's frequency, and will continue to count down, even if you cannot hear her scream the armbands can detect them. So if you think you're safe, check your armband to see if the clock is still ticking down. This exposure is cumulative, so if you fly in for three minutes and fly out your clock will stop. If you fly back in the clock will resume."

"Now, blasters or people who think that they can dish out enough damage to harm her, come with me. If you can't fly then we'll pair you up with someone who can; be sure to keep your eyes open and watch out- the Endbringer is known for using debris as a weapon, so if you aren't paying attention then you just might get flattened by a house." Legend spoke up and started floating away from the group, and Lady Photon rose up the place a tender kiss on her husband's lips before giving both of her children a hug and taking off to follow him.

"Brutes, flying or not, or anyone with an ability who thinks that they can stand toe to toe with the Simurgh and not immediately die, you will be in my group. Listen to my commands and be ready to retreat or move in when I give the orders." She heard Alexandria speak out as their groups split.

Legend took them a few dozen feet away before he turned to regard them.

"Alright everyone," Legend spoke, "Frontline is already moving out as many people as their aircraft can ferry from the interior of the city, but obviously there are far more people than they can reasonably get-"

There was a small crack that resounded through the air, and everyone's eyes turned to the sky. There was what appeared to be a comet falling through the sky towards them; heat from the friction of the reentry obscured the Endbringer's figure, but everyone knew what it was. The flames were seemingly quenched, as if doused in water, and the figure slowed its descent- everyone around could see the majestic death that was the Simurgh; its wings were splayed wide, all except for two of them, which were thicker than the others, that covered her artificial bosom and womanhood.

Her fall had slowed considerably, but she was now within distance to begin her assault on the city. She was immediately lit up by gunfire- tracers were visible even from the many kilometers they'd set up outside the city, small cracks being heard as grenades exploded around her figure. Legend's eyes were far better than anyone else's, and he let out a breath, "It appears that the forward elements of Frontline are already fighting, and appearing to deal some damage. Alright, everyone! Keep an eye on your armbands, and be prepared to airlift the ground pounders out if needed! Let's go and fight!"

Sarah Pelham, Lady Photon, Leader of New Wave and mother of Crystal and Eric Pelham, looked at her two children and they shared a nod, the trio following the two dozen other blaster capes into the air.

[Miss Militia]

"Greetings Miss Milita, I am NTW-20, and I will be your partner for this battle," The power armored Cape spoke as she shifted her large, heavy 20mm rifle easily, "Please climb onto the platform. Do not worry about falling off, it's been modified to improve safety. Should something go wrong and we fall, don't panic, for I will catch you."

Her accent was distinctly South African, and the combined American/South African patch on her shoulder told Hannah as much. Her eyes crinkled as she climbed into the metal platform, surprised to find that it was cool to the touch; considering it had been sitting out in the sun for a long time it should have been baking. The Frontline member climbed on next to her, and the platform didn't even shift.

Once the cape was onboard some guard rails popped up, and Hannah tested them, finding them to be just as rock-solid as everything else. "We'll primarily be staying outside of the Simurgh's scream range, so any hard-hitting long-range weapon of sufficient caliber will be needed."

Miss Militia arched an eyebrow and the Desert Eagle on her hip shifted and transformed into an M2 Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun with an Eotech and a 6x scope mounted on top of it. A crinkle-eyed smiling emoji flickered across her helmet. "You really are Frontline's favorite Cape, MM."

It was a strange feeling to be lifting off and moving at a fairly fast clip without feeling the platform being propelled by anything; they had to be moving at least 60 miles an hour-

'Ba-CHOW!'

The sheer volume of the sound, despite the massive suppressor hanging off the end of the NTW-20's barrel, startled her. For the first time in a long time she cursed not bringing her tinker tech hearing protection; with her power, she didn't need to fear the noise from her weapons, as they didn't affect her, and having better situational awareness was usually more important than the finicky earpro that the Protectorate handed out.

Armsmaster had stopped upgrading hers after she lost the fourth pair in combat.

An armored hand tapped her knee, and she looked down to see the Cape holding a pair of black plastic earbuds in her hand, "Here, I know that this is quite loud; we had to go all-in in order to be able to meaningfully damage her."

The Protectorate Hero reached down and grabbed them, slotting them in her ears, and not a moment too soon as the woman's rifle barked hoarsely again.

'Ba-CHOW!'

The earbuds re-sized to fit into her ear canals perfectly, and then they turned on. It was strange, being five hundred feet above the ground and able to hear the rumbling of vehicles stuck in a traffic jam below them. The rifle from NTW-20 barked again, but the sound was reduced to a low growl without actively blocking out all of the noise.

"We are at 2.5km; the Simurgh's scream has been localized currently to 1.8km- we'll be moving into 2.0km and holding position there. If her scream range expands we will back out." The Cape spoke, but instead of hearing her normally the woman's voice came in through the earbuds. "Fire at will, Miss Militia."

Hannah didn't need any more prompting, and her hand grasped the charging handle in an underhanded grip and pulled the weapon back to lock it into battery as the first Semi-Armor Piercing High Explosive Tracer round was pulled up from the feed tray.

She was about to begin firing but NTW-20 interrupted her again, "Ah, I almost forgot, here."

Hannah was handed a set of what appeared to be ballistic glasses, but when she pulled them on it was like her vision had sharpened immensely; there was a HUD that outlined the Simurgh in red and all friendly capes in blue. "Please pay attention; when the HUD flashes yellow it means that a friendly flier is about to enter your line of fire. Consider the travel time of your rounds."

Hannah nodded and she lowered herself behind her M2 and adjusted the windage and elevation on the tripod mount; she had perfect accuracy when firing her weapons, at least when she was stationary, but on a moving platform like this it was much more precise to use the built-in tools available to her.

"We are now at 2.0km. Winds are 17 mph from the east, with a 6mph wind gusting up to 14mph from the north. Target appears to be stationary," The woman intoned, and Hannah couldn't help but feel some joy in working beside a fellow firearms enthusiast. "At this distance, your rounds will impact 32 inches low, and your rounds will be deflected by 13 inches to the left due to wind and the Coriolis effect. Bear that in mind."

She lined up the Simurgh's torso with the hash marks on the holographic sight and adjusted her aim accordingly. She locked in the knobs and began with a quick seven-round burst.

'Kchak-chak-chak-chak-chak-chak-chak!'

'Ba-CHOW!'

She observed her rounds tracers as they soared across the intervening distance; it was sort of funny to watch the dueling bullets race to see who could reach the Endbringer the fastest. NTW-20's highly modified rounds screamed like a race car while Hannah's .50 cal rounds trundled like an economy car puttering down the highway. Her rounds, surprisingly enough, actually impacted the target- well most of them did anyways; a swirling chunk of building orbiting the angel caught the first three bullets, but the last three impacted against her side.

She was too far away to tell if they had any effect but the fact that they hit buoyed her spirits a little bit.

She then began unleashing hell, holding down the trigger and firing until the belt ran dry- it was a machine gun after all- and the weapon glowed green and black, becoming nebulous for a second before reforming again. The Protectorate Cape continued firing, only halting her fire when she spotted a friendly swooping in for an attack run.

Their weapons spoke to one another, the pair firing round after round, magazines were expended by the Cape next to her and tossed to the side where a drone hovering beside her caught the spent mag in a box and handed NTW-20 a fresh magazine with an extendable arm.

"Negligible effect on target, MM. Step up to something larger." The woman spoke, and MM nodded. It was a crap shoot expecting the venerable .50 to do much, if anything at all against the Simurgh, but it was at least worth the shot; most of the time her bullets were intercepted before they made it anywhere near the large monster, so having her rounds impact on target at all was quite a nice change of pace.

Miss Militia scrolled through her mental list of weapons before settling on a model of a Carl Gustav recoiless rifle that had been adopted by the Army and Marine Corps; the MAAWS was fairly new, and it just might have the punch she needed. The M2 Browning heavy machine gun turned to smoke before reforming over her shoulder into what looked like a rocket launcher. The Cape sat on the side of her right foot braced her elbow on her knee as she looked down the weapon's sight, lasered the target, and the range came back at exactly 2,000 meters; she flicked the safety off and raised the reticle until it turned red, and she spoke out loud, "Firing, firing, firing."

'Fhwo-crack!'

It was a sad day when something like the 88mm recoilless rifle was still measurably quieter than the modified NTW-20 the Cape next to her was firing, though the spear-tipped flat round managed to cross the distance much more quickly than her bullets had.

"Good hit, visible flesh damage," NTW-20 said before she fired off another round.

Miss Militia swapped over to a rifle with the highest power scope she had access to and looked down the sight, the woman dragging her aim to where the 88mm round had impacted; it was small, maybe a foot long and an inch wide, but at least it was something. Interesting to note was that the Endbringer was pockmarked severely; large chunks and gashes were covering her body. "We seem to be having a lot more luck than usual."

"Our amulets are what is making the difference," She replied smoothly, "Anti-Precognitive bubble with a 100-meter radius, we are spread out surrounding her, sticking just close enough so that she is effectively blind, and we have others spread out like ourselves to provide lanes of fire that she cannot see. Without her precognition, she cannot block most of our fire; from us or from the Blasters."

The Protectorate Cape nodded before switching back the Carl Gustav and unleashing another round.

She could ponder the powerful effects of Frontline's tech when the Simurgh was no longer threatening the city of Canberra.

[Candy Apple]

"Candy Apple, Down, C-3."

The words coming from the armband stirred him back to wakefulness.

So, he was still alive, huh? The black teen let out a wet cough.

There was absolutely no reason for him to be here.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision- the young teen from Milwaukee had been in costume and on patrol in the surrounding neighborhoods when the Endbringer sirens went off. He'd skipped school that day because he refused to be around to listen to his History Teacher, Miss Wilson's, frequent pleas for him to avoid the cape life. He didn't choose the cape life, the cape life chose him.

He, like everyone else in the world, knew of the cycle that the Endbringers operated off of, and this time it was the Simurgh's turn. The anguish of losing his older brother in Madison was brought back to the surface; he'd only been a boy back then, but time only made him understand the true depths of loss that he didn't understand with he was a child. Not that he was a man now, he barely started growing pubes a year ago, but he still felt compelled to fight the Simurgh whenever he had the chance to.

He knew what Miss Wilson would say- 'A fourteen-year-old boy has no place fighting Endbringers, Jarome, just stop and hang up the Cape. You still have so much of your life left to live.'

The only reason he tolerated the woman's nagging was because at least she was being sincere, and she was probably the only person left in the world who gave a shit about him. His foster parents certainly couldn't care less.

'Go on and do your Cape thing, boy. If you kick the bucket then at least we'll be compensated for it.'

He felt his lip curl in disgust as he brushed the dark-skinned hand across his lips and wiped the snot off.

Ow.

He was a Blaster with a minor Brute factor; enhanced durability, that had served him well thus far. It was probably the only reason he was still alive now, especially after the winged bitch smacked him through the front of a jewelry store and through the armored display cases; her incessant scream mocking him in from the back of his mind. "Fffuuuccckkkk yyyooouuuu bbbbiiiitttcccchhhh…"

Candy Apple struggled to get up to his feet, and he hissed as his lungs felt like they were surrounded by crinkle-wrap; yeah, his ribs were toast. Damn.

He staggered towards the front of the shop that he had been thrown through, and he turned his head to see that the bitch had begun moving; all around her parts and pieces of buildings flowed around her like a maelstrom. In the center, floating above her head was a sphere of debris that contained whatever Tinker tech the Endbringer was building- bits and pieces of random technology floated off of the ground, not even a vending machine was spared, its contents being strew all over the ground.

Candy Apple coughed again, spitting up the blood that was pooling in his lungs. He looked down at his armband and pressed the buttons. "Cuh-Cand-dy Ap-pple. Re-uh-questi-ing medi-chul e-evac."

"Candy Apple Up, C-3. Medical Evac is on the way. Sit tight."

Yeah, he was done for this fight, he didn't have much left in him anymore, not after that. Still, he had one more good hit in him. The teen braced his arm against the doorframe of the shop and looked through his splayed fingers, though he didn't targe the Simurgh herself, he targeted the large debris ball above her head.

The primary part of his power was a slow-moving beam of light that could penetrate and soak into a target; once it reached a certain saturation point he could detonate it, though the explosion was always outward. He had been pretty happy to see that his blasts even injured the Endbringer, but the bitch was onto him- after the first few hits she stopped letting him soak enough into her to trigger his effect; buildings and shit always seemed to get in the way and break his tether.

He winced and concentrated on his hand, an orb of energy gathering in his hand before the energy lanced out; it glowed a bright, candy apple red, just like his namesake, and the teen was pleased to see that it connected. The young Cape gritted his teeth and began pouring as much energy as he could as quickly as he could into the tether; he didn't know if she could able to interrupt him or not, so he needed to make this parting shot count.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the capes in Power Armor, the Frontline guys that killed the Slaughterhouse Nine, touch down right beside him. She had some sort of floating stretcher with a lead attached to it. "You've done enough kid, get on the stretcher."

He coughed, "N-not yet, g-gotta get th-this one off."

The Cape looked at him, "Can you still charge while lying prone?"

"Candy Apple. You have three minutes remaining on your timer. Please begin evacuating immediately."

"All the more to leave now. Come on."

He barely nodded, but the woman gingerly grasped onto his body and slowly lowered his ass onto the padded metal, and the once he was lying down the stretcher shifted; metal loops secured his body to it, and two slats came up to cradle his head and neck. The Cape gently held onto his arm as they began retreating away at a pretty fast clip; he was thankful that the Tinker tech stretcher was pretty damn good because the jostling of a normal stretcher would have fucked up his already fucked up ribs and ruined his concentration.

"S-slow down a bit," He grunted, he was so close to reaching the limit just a few more seconds to power it up, and then he could let it rip.

"This is Vector. All CQC Capes prepare for large explosion centered on the Debris orb."

The woman slowed her pace a fair bit, and he grinned viciously when the pressure reached critical mass. With a roar on his lips he sent the final pulse of energy down the tether and severed the connection. Like a rubber band being cut, the candy apple red beam shot towards the shield surrounding whatever God-forsaken Tinker tech the bitch was building.

It glowed red, and the Simurgh looked up in shock; her wings covered her body as the shield detonated brilliantly, sending concrete and stone shooting out in all directions. Somehow she was still able to take the explosion and make it work out to her advantage if the three call-outs from Dragon were any indication, but before his vision went hazy he was able to see what it was she was building.

The fuck is that?

He sighed and let his head rest against the cushions as the power-armored Cape hauled his ass out of the danger zone.

"Simurgh Scream Zone left. Candy Apple's timer has been suspended; 1 minute, 57 seconds remaining."

Candy Apple's sight came in and out over the next few minutes. He remembered being shoved into an aircraft of some kind, his eyes rolling around to see dozens of people in the aircraft with him.

The next moment he was in some kind of surgical box? He remembered seeing those come in on those sci-fi ass airplanes.

A fuckin' robot with a nurse's hat looked over him as it passed a scanner over his body.

"Hello Candy Apple, I am N-9, and I will be helping save your life today. You have seven broken ribs and a lacerated lung; you were lucky that your diaphragm was not punctured. However, your good lung is filling up with blood. Please hold still while we intubate you, then we will drain the blood from your lungs."

He was still aware enough to not squirm around, even if he was suddenly aware of how difficult it was to breathe, and could feel just how much pain he was in right now. The teen opened up his mouth and a hose was slipped down his throat, and he fought the urge to gag as the sound of suction could be heard; the hose was removed and another one inserted in its place. He could hear a 'sssshhhiiirrrrttttt' like foam caulking being squeezed into his bad lung, and then a mask with pure oxygen was slipped over his face.

"The Biofoam will staunch the bleeding of your lacerated lung and prevent your uninjured lung from taking in any more. We will need to perform more invasive surgery to realign your broken ribs; once she is available Panacea will be around to finish off the work." The nurse robot spoke out, "This will require sedation. Do you consent?"

The more oxygen he had the more awake and aware he became, which drastically increased the sheer agony of his injuries. "Yesss, yessss. Just put me out, gaw damn…"

"Consent received, we are ready to begin D-9."

The last thing he saw was a Doctor robot wearing surgical scrubs standing over him.

When he next woke up it was two days after the battle had been completed.

[The Library of Alexandria]

They were making considerable progress; they were only fifteen minutes into the fight and the first wave had already been pulled back. Herself, Eidolon, and Legend all had some way of either ignoring or overcoming the Simurgh's scream; she was immune while Legend's constantly reforming state reset the Simurgh's conditioning, and Eidolon had a stable of Anti-Master powers to choose from.

However, the number of Capes who could compete with their endurance were far and few in between; Dragon could on account of her nature as an AI that was on the opposite side of the world, and apparently, now all of the members of Frontline were immune from her siren's song.

Their Anti-Master amulets also seemed to extend around them an Anti-Precognitive field that was one of the primary reasons they were making so much progress with the Simurgh; she hadn't been able to effectively target those attacking her, and wasn't able to defend herself as well either. Still, she deflected more than half of the blaster powers sent her way with a swirling debris field and was still able to dodge most of Alexandria's charges.

The Frontline Cape's weapons were powerful, but they were only able to really chip away at the Endbringer's tough hide; still, their empowered, explosive bullets were able to contribute, unlike Hailstorm from Arkansas; his Thinker power allowed him to perform incredible feats with mundane arms and ammunition, but without a Tinker to support him with arms and Tinker ammo he was next to useless. She made a mental note to see if Frontline would be amenable to arming capes like Hailstorm- he was one of the few that volunteered for every Endbringer fight, even if he was next to useless.

She took in the battlefield in the blink of an eye, her Thinker component of her powers enabling her to think and parse information incredibly quickly.

Candy Apple's explosive tether was almost completed; the debris shield surrounding whatever Tinker device she was building was incredibly important… or potent.

"Priority Message from Vector: 'This is Vector. All CQC Capes prepare for large explosion centered on the Debris orb.'"

She could hear yells of "Back up!" and "Back! Back! Get BACK!" from the capes below them. Leapfrog was a fairly durable Brute from Florida, but she was unable to make space in time as the Simurgh's wing cut down to attempt to cleave her in two; it was slowed significantly by a time distortion bubble that interposed itself between the amphibious Case 53 and the biting edge of the wing. The Simurgh appeared to be surprised for a moment as she tried to yank her wing free, but thankfully Leap Frog had managed to escape, though she could do nothing against the coming explosion.

The debris shell grew a bright, Candy Apple red before it detonated fiercely, and while some of the Frontline Capes were able to shield some of those who were quick enough to make distance, others, like Leap Frog, were unfortunately caught out of position and were peppered with shrapnel.

"Leap Frog, Down, C-4."

"Mechanix, Down, C-4."

"Drifter, Deceased, C-4."

"Horn Vale, Deceased, C-4."

Rocks and shards of steel plinked off Rebecca's body, scoring her outfit, but as much as she wanted to save them she was providing herself as a shield to David; he had a powerful attack that needed to be charged long enough to deal some real damage.

Legend buzzed around her, his lasers scoring into her flesh, but something about the Simurgh had changed. The Endbringer stood up straight and her scream increased in intensity as her arms spread out wide.

Civilians who hadn't been able to escape, or had hid, started to stumble out of the surrounding buildings and began walking, stumbling, or running towards the Capes on the ground.

"You bitch ." Eidolon ground out through strained teeth, "It wasn't enough to condemn entire cities- now you use human shields?!"

"Focus, David." Alexandria tersely responded as she batted away some of the debris field that had been circling around them. The moment her fists destroyed the chunks of concrete the Simurgh's head snapped towards them and a veritable hailstorm of steel and concrete began spinning towards them. She slipped tighter to Eidolon's hovering form and let the impacts rock her; the Cauldron cape flew forward whenever they impacted against her so that she wouldn't be shoved back into her companion.

Down below the unseasoned capes hesitated, but not Frontline; they gunned down those civilians that were posing an immediate threat. They were familiar with the cost associated with war like this- some of the Capes on the ground were looking at them in shock, but subduing them non-lethally wouldn't save them; their minds were already lost.

"Farshooter, Down, D-6."

Alexandria's eyes snapped over towards D-6 and she saw the Blaster pushed down onto the rooftop, her figure covered in the bodies of young teens and children who were tearing at her flesh with their fingers and teeth. Another cape on the roof with her was scrambling away- willing to fight an Endbringer but seemingly unwilling to kill children who'd had their will stripped away from them. A grenade impacted the swarm, sending parts and pieces flying everywhere.

"Farshooter, Deceased, D-6."

She looked down to see the Frontline Cape, SOP MOD II, lowering her rifle with shaking arms before turning her attention back to the Endbringer; another grenade lanced from her underslung launcher, and when it impacted it speared a few centimeters into the monster's flesh before exploding outwards, tearing off chunks of the Endbringer's body with it.

So many people Alexandria probably could have saved. "David, that better be ready soon."

"I'm… trying, Rebecca, but its taking far longer than usual to charge." He hissed out.

"You're growing weaker, it took you ten seconds to charge it this time last year. It's been 33 seconds-"

"I KNOW THAT!" He roared, his voice changed from anger and frustration back to one of relief, "It's ready, move."

Alexandria slipped to the right, and Eidolon held out in front of his hands a large ball of compressed… disintegration. It was the best they could come up with how the attack worked- when it struck a target, it and whatever was around it simply ceased to be; its radius and power used to be enough to sever a wing or an arm, but now its strength had waned.

David fired, and the black orb the size of a beach ball streaked across the intervening distance and was intercepted by the Simurgh's wing; the feathers and false flesh shriveled up before turning to dust, and she howled into the sky. Entire buildings were uprooted and Alexandria and Eidolon were forced to take evasive maneuvers, ducking, diving, dipping, and dodging as strip malls and coffee shops were torn from their foundations and hurled into the air. Legend's light form was zipping to and fro, looking for an opportunity to retaliate but the maelstrom above them had become far too thick.

A stone colliding with her face sent her tumbling end over end- it didn't hurt, nor was it disorienting, but it was more annoying than anything else.

"Priority Message: 'This is Horizon, we need to destroy that device! I don't know where she found the materials to put that thing together but its a bomb with a large enough payload to level the city and everything else within ten miles!"

"Priority Message: We are trying, Horizon, but the screen is too thick for us to get through now," Frustration had seeped into Dragon's voice; despite the Anti-Precognitive effects in the area giving cover the AI's largest Dragonsuit that she was able to muster here in time had been severely crippled; she was flying another suit up from Vancouver with all possible haste, but it was unlikely to make it in time.

"Priority Message: Then keep her in place, don't let her move. I think I can bring her down. Frontline, form up, get ready to stack some shields up, as high as we can make it."

Alexandria turned her head and caught sight of a loping form crossing the distance at an incredible pace for someone on the ground in merely power armor. She gritted her teeth and turned herself towards the Simurgh and dived straight down; if she needed to be held in place then Alexandria would hold her in place.

"I'll use some TK to slow down her protections," Eidolon grunted and his arms glowed blue, "Rrraggghh!"

Half of the Simurgh's swirling rock field slowed down, and dozens of time distortion fields shot out from the palms of the Frontline members, their placement not an accident; they were trying to make a corridor. Not one to pass up an invitation Alexandria flew through the gaps created by Eidolon and Frontline and smacked into the Simurgh at her best possible speed. The Endbringer stumbled in the air, jarred by the impact, and Rebecca tried her best to keep the monster from moving forward.

The Simurgh tried to dislodge her from her torso, but she only succeeded in stripping away Alexandria's costume, leaving her nude. Then the monster's wings began to beat down on her form with powerful, crushing blows, the sound of thunder cracking with each hit, yet Alexandria's inviolable body held true.

She didn't flinch until she felt a crushing grip wrap around her windpipe; she couldn't have her throat crushed, but her airway could be closed. Still, it made no difference- Rebecca had known about this weakness for a long while now, and she could hold her breath. Hopefully Horizon wouldn't take too long.

"Alexandria, back off!" A male voice roared, and the Protectorate cape pulled back and released the Simurgh from her hold. She flew back with only her helmet still on her face, but the Endbringer's mental grasp around her neck was still preventing her from breathing.

She turned her head slightly to see Horizon's armored form sprint through the tunnel with a rocket launcher over his shoulder; a rocket screamed out at incredible speeds and impacted the Endbringer's body, though it didn't explode like she believed it would. Instead, the projectile embedded itself deep into the monster's flesh and began to hum lowly before ratcheting up to high pitched squeal that made Rebecca nauseous.

The Simurgh stilted before her hands came down to snatch the offending weapon, but its payload had already been delivered, and Alexandria was treated with the unique sight of an entire layer of the false angle's flesh shedding away like dust in the wind. A second rocket was fired, this time low into the monster's shin, and he reloaded the weapon smoothly before firing two more rockets spaced just a few seconds apart; their releases timed perfectly begin as soon as the previous vibration weapon's payload was dispensed.

The third rocket destroyed the Simurgh's concentration and Alexandria blissfully felt the pressure on her throat abate, however, her release wasn't the only thing that occurred. All of the rocks orbiting the the Endbringer halted in their rotation before they all came crashing down as silver ichor from her alien constitution spilled onto the ground with each rocket that impacted her body.

Then the Tinker device she had been building felt to the ground with a loud clattering.

"SHIELDS UP!" Horizon roared, and Alexandria spun around as she watched bubbled domes spring up around them. They were permeable but solid enough to stand on, and their fields could overlap; they laid them out in a perfect circle, and began constructing an airtight cylinder around them that was quickly reaching multiple stories in height.

The Simurgh stumbled and collapsed before attempting to rise up to its feet; her telekinesis wrapping around her form, but the vibrations seemed to affect her quite severely. Another rocket impacted her body, the weapon causing another layer to peel off and flake to the shattered street beneath her; the monster crumpled onto her knees right next to the weapon.

The Tinker device glowed white-hot just as the tower rose to about six stories in height; over a hundred bubble shields layered over the top of each other surrounding the weapon.

Alexandria closed her eyes and held her breath as the bomb went off.

She was spinning throughout the air.

Alexandrian hadn't lost consciousness, not in a long while. Her brain quickly spooled up as fresh air filled her lungs and energized her mind. The explosion had knocked the air from her lungs, and the heat had burned off all of the oxygen in the surrounding area for a great deal of distance; she blacked out as her body was exploded upward high, high, high into the sky.

She was at least forty thousand feet in how thin the air was any indication.

Rebecca Costa-Brown cracked open her eyes and looked around her; beneath her was the ocean- she had ricocheted off the edge of the bubble shields and been ejected out over the coast.

The woman's eyes scanned below her, and she was relieved, as she always was, to see that the city beneath her was still intact. Not whole, from what she could tell the buildings in the surrounding blocks had been reduced to rubble, even with the tower of shields directing the force of that massive weapon upwards.

Rebecca's eyes moved away from the ground and turned toward the skies, and she caught sight of a black speck that was hurtling towards the ocean- though its trajectory was vastly different from her own. She took a deep breath and engaged her flight, adjusting her course to intercept the speck; it wasn't white enough to be the Simurgh, nor was it large enough, but in her mind it had to be Horizon. Even with his power armor, it was doubtful that he had survived the blast; with the Third of the Endbringers nowhere in sight below they had won.

Though it wasn't without some cost; there were seventeen dead and double that number wounded out of the sixty-seven capes that had attended, and that was just within the first and second waves; no doubt those numbers would have risen if the fight had continued any longer.

She closed the distance quickly, and the closer she got the more distinct the figure became. It was indeed Horizon tumbling through the air, end over end; his body locked into a rigor mortis-like state; he reminded her of an action figure that had been tossed away by a child.

Alexandria was without her helmet now, but considering the man's likely death it was inconsequential; they were going to induct Frontline as a group into Cauldron- they had been outvoted, David and herself versus Dr. Mother, Number Man, Legend, and Contessa.

While Alexandria was wary of letting in such foreign elements, David was more selfish; he couldn't stand the thought of having to share the spotlight- the clearing of Brockton Bay and the Slaughterhouse Nine had put Frontline on the front page of newspapers everywhere.

She eased into the man's space and caught him, his locked armor was both blessing and a hindrance; at least he wasn't limp. Alexandria managed to wrap her arms around his torso and halted his descent towards the ocean; she didn't know if his armor could maneuver down there (if he was even still alive) but being down in the dark depths of the ocean that held Leviathan in it was the stuff of nightmares. She had almost been drowned by the beast many times in the past, and almost drowning didn't get any easier.

Legend, with his superb eye-sight, thankfully caught sight of them, and he was shooting forward, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye.

"Alexandria, I'm glad to see that you're okay," He reached into his back pouch and retrieved a domino mask, the man floating forward to apply it to her face; his finger reaching up to maneuver her glass eye into position.

"The Simurgh?" Rebecca asked as they flew back towards the city.

"There is no sight of her- after the explosion went off she… disappeared." Legend's tone reflected how Alexandria felt upon hearing it.

Stalwart disbelief. There was no way that the explosion would have destroyed the Simurgh.

Horizon's suddenly stiff form went limp in her arms; if it wasn't for the force she was applying to him he would have tumbled out of her grasp.

"-mension," Horizon muttered with a cough, which was followed by another more whooping cough, "-she… mnm… the bomb. The 'splosion was created by… breaching the dimensional boundary."

The more he spoke the more he seemed to wake up and become aware. "If she's not here or in orbit, then she likely got sucked in; I was anchored in place and you were far enough away, Alexandria. She was right next to it when it went off."

"How… do you know what the device was?" Legend flew over Alexandria, looping around so that he could look into Horizon's face plate.

"Take my helmet off, please, I want to feel the air on my skin," Legend obliged and reached up, and the helmet seals broke, and her fellow Triumvirate Cape pulled it off, leaving the blonde-haired man to gasp in relief as the warm, salty ocean air greeted him.

"It's part of my powers. I can look at any object, and I can divine its purpose, given a brief description of what it is and a general idea of how it works," He raised his arm, and a holographic screen popped out, and on it was a brief schematic that showed the device along with words that surrounded it. "'Dimensional Rift Warhead- a device that creates a non-radioactive detonation by inducing a sudden shift in atmospheric pressures. Explosive force scales with the size of the warhead. Est. 20-mile devastation radius.'"

"Now I couldn't tell you how it works because it's all gobbledygook, but that was what pulled me away from the backline," He shook his head and reached up to his face to feel for his domino mask, which was still in place.

"Speaking of the backline, why were you there?" Alexandria asked, though it was not accusatory.

"I'm not… I was in the Army for a few years, but I ultimately did nothing but paper push. The only reason I'm as good as I am now is because the rest of the team put me through the meat grinder every day for years and years," Horizon sighed and made a few hand motions, and Alexandria shifted him over onto her back, "I'm not really a 'frontline' kind of guy, but the others seem to think I have it in me to be the Leader of the team. I mean, I brought all of our Tinkers together and we work and accomplish great things, but ultimately they were the ones to decide for me to stay back. The vibration warheads- we… only had one test, and that was against Crawler; so we didn't even know if it would work against an Endbringer. I was the Last Resort. Well, we had more, but none that would have been of any help against that weapon."

"You only joined a few months ago, at least to our knowledge," Legend looked over inquisitively, his special domino mask able to accurately display his curiosity, "What did you mean by years?"

"Well, we have a Tinker that specializes in time-based effects, you saw a lot of those in use today," He grinned weakly, "We have a bubble of accelerated time; a few weeks outside was years inside. So they ran me through the wringer, and we Tinkered in there with the supplies we were able to stockpile. It's how we were able to accomplish everything you saw here today; it's also why we're so comfortable and work so well together- we've been together now for years."

"So, you're not a Master?" The other man asked humorously, "Some of the forums have those types."

"Meh, I'm a Robotics Tinker, so I do technically have a Master designation, but I only have control over the things I create. I did not Master the team; I chose them, and they chose me. That's all there is to it. Time, stress, and isolation took care of the rest," Horizon chuckled ruefully, "Not that I'm complaining; I'm a very lucky man to have some of those women love me."

The city grew closer and closer, and Alexandria started to drop her altitude. Horizon took his helmet back from Legend and he gently tapped her on the shoulder, "I can handle the rest from here; my armor is a bit heavier, so until I can find a way to lighten it up or improve the thrusters I can't fly long distances. However, I can certainly fall. Besides, you should find a spare costume to change into; no doubt we're going to get swarmed once we get down there."

Alexandria stopped her descent and watched Horizon fall, his thrusters kicking into arrest his momentum; a hand covering a small square cube attached to the side of this thigh. She looked around for anything that might spot her; while she wasn't shy about her body, she understood that completing the mission came before her personal dignity- she threw that away long ago- but that didn't mean she wanted more of her nudes floating around the internet. She was already a sexual icon simply for existing- no need to throw more fuel on the fire. "Legend, eyes?"

They were about eight thousand feet up now, and the likelihood of anyone seeing was slim to none, but she always relied on Legend for occasions like this. He hummed, his head and neck turning as he looked around. "I don't see anyone looking."

"Door, Alexandria's Room." A white rectangle opened up, revealing her bedroom at the Cauldron headquarters. She flew inside quickly, rushing through changing her clothing to a spare uniform, taking a quick brush to her hair, and after a brief inspection in the mirror she pulled on a new helmet and floated back outside.

The door closed behind her.

Already hundreds of people were all gathering beneath them, and while it was certainly a win to celebrate- the Simurgh hadn't been there long enough to condemn the city, there were certainly more than a few berserk Canberra citizens that needed to be rooted out and slain. There was just no coming back from whatever the Simurgh did to one's mind; Cauldron had tried. Only completely wiping the person's memory came close, but there were still influences hidden beneath the surface.

"So she banished herself?" Legend sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.

"It's the best we have for the moment, but I could see it; the weapon had an incredible effect on the Simurgh, and more importantly she was definitely blind- the Anti-Precognitive protections were the real deal," Alexandria adjusted her cape one last time before she started to descend once more, "We'll need to have a meeting after this to see how to work this, Legend, and Horizon will likely be occupied with the recovery efforts within the city, at least if my read on him is correct."

"Anti-Thinker, too Rebecca, so you might not be reading him properly at all," The man shook his head.

That was certainly true, but there was no hint of deception within his words or his voice. He truly believed that his power had given him the answer- they would have to test it later to be sure, but for right now the Simurgh was defeated, quite possibly for good if she had been banished into another dimension; the last they checked she didn't have any reality-warping powers, and unless the dimension was filled with technology and scrap there was no way for her to Tinker her way out.

They will just have to hold their breath and hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

You guys rock!

A/N: Phew, this one was a doozy to write! So many different things I wanted to do, but I feel like I managed to get something across. There weren't as many Cape deaths being noted due to the quick rescue teams able to evacuate the injured and bring them back to the rear; that and the Simurgh doesn't generate a cape fight body count quite like her siblings- her body count is on the back end with all of the victims she gets locked off and isolated from the world.

Also, the Bing Bada BOOM enhanced Vibration warheads were pretty effective against a stupidly dense monstrosity- only enough to vibrate off a single layer (how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Simurgh-roll pop?

) but those intense vibrations from many, many rockets were enough to stifle her concentration; she has to actively concentrate, and her concentration can be disrupted by severe enough blows. The issue is you don't see that too often because she is so good at earthbending entire buildings and shit into shields. However, when she got hurt she got mad, so all of the people in the surrounding buildings and were exposed the entire time suddenly became voracious man eaters… including the children.

(Child zombies are like, the absolute worst. The school scene from Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Yes, all of those movies are bad, but I love Mila Jovovich's commitment to doing her best and having fun in bad movies. I love how bad they are and I wouldn't change them for anything. I mean, the sequels don't capture the essence of the first one, and that was shot on like a $1.2 million dollar budget?)

Regardless, my hands hurt and I haven't slept all night, so I will sleep and then respond to comments tomorrow! (I hope this one doesn't have too many fuck-ups in it. lol I still have yet to go back and fix the fuck ups of the previous chapters)

N-Ways Fusion Plant (Endless Space) (200CP)

Refueling? What's that? You have mastered the art of Endless power generation, and any device you possess or can claim as yours never runs out of power. Other things can still be a problem, like weapons overheating, engines breaking down, etc, but you never need to worry about your battery running out. Your starting equipment and ship already have fusion plants installed in them, and you have schematics to make more, of various sizes, but you will need some rare elements and facilities to make them. The smaller they are, the simpler it is. Making a capital ship reactor is going to take a LOT of materials, but is totally worth it.

Chapter 17 - Interlude, Simurgh, Marquis

[Jason Wilke]

"Alright, is everyone ready?"

I turned around and everyone nodded to me in unison. All of my girls as well as pretty much everyone else as well as my quartet of pootie bois were all ready- we were in a specialized pocket dimension that was heavily isolated; nothing was getting in and nothing was getting out except us. Ted was standing by with a hundred Scarabs that were all armed with the highest power Stasis weapons we could create- it was about one million to one, in terms of seconds; we couldn't create them any smaller to implant on the Scarabs. The Scarabs were on every person and Engineer along with Time Circuitry.

Enbee carried the most important part, mainly because he was the best boi, and because I was going to have my hands full.

The plan was simple- let the Simurgh out, hold her down through judicious force, and then essentially lock her in time while we who were immune to all-time shenanigans would yank out her core and implant her.

We had one hundred Scarabs that were going to be responsible for ensuring that the time effects were reapplied evenly and on time, and we also had a hundred thousand Scarabs that were going to skitter up to the 'excavation site' and remove Endbringer mass with their matter conversion should myself and the Engineers not be enough to reveal her core in a timely fashion.

I'd known that the Endbringers had flesh that was as strong and as dense as a thick sheet of aluminum and that every layer it went down the density of the mass doubled. I was freakishly strong with a power level of over 8,000,000, but even then sometimes power level didn't directly translate into raw strength, so we were going to be incredibly thorough with this.

We cranked up the time dilation so that we would have however long we needed to get things rolling, and so we ran through a bunch of drills, practiced and practiced and practiced on the best mock-ups we could make of the Simurgh, though we couldn't reflect her sheer density, we made up for it with tougher materials. There was plenty of Endbringer flesh laying about after the fight, so we made sure to scoop up plenty of samples for the Engineers and Scarabs to run tests with.

We had planned for this, we had trained for this, and after weeks of practice… it was go time.

I held the Tesseract Labyrinth in my hand and when everyone flashed me a green I selected the Simurgh and I let her out.

Space warped and twisted as a trail of three-meter in diameter Statsis bubbles popped up as the Simurgh was let out; these bubbles were dialed all of the way up, but they were just enough to let us see the Endbringer's decompression and orientation so that everyone could adjust. For the human eye, it would be as though she appeared in a great flash of light, but a series of beams grabbed, squeezed, folded, and then contracted the target that was pulled in; when the target was released that pattern was reversed- it just usually happened so fast that the human eye couldn't track it.

Before she had been completely reformed the Simurgh was already trying to position herself for a fight; while she was strong enough to ignore the low-level persistent stasis effect of the Tesseract Labyrinth her core had been isolated from her dimensional pool of Endbringer flesh. The protections we had around the bubble… we were certain that they would be as strong or stronger, but it was always best to assume that someone like the Simurgh could break through them and begin healing.

The positioning stasis bubbles were weaker and short-lived, but they were more than enough for the girls to lunge forward and grab onto every part of her body, dragging her down to the floor. Her wings lashed out in every conceivable direction because she couldn't see anything around her- she was blind to not just the present here, but to the past, and the future as well. It didn't do her any good, however, as her extended wings were just more space for everyone to grab onto; each and every wing was pulled out to its full extension and then bubbled in place with multiple stasis bubbles.

Emmie and Qi grasped onto the largest wing, which was the one where she hid her core under, and they both pulled with mighty roars on their lips; the wing wasn't attached to any sort of ball joint- none of the wings were despite their aesthetic- but after a second of progressive tension at the base of the wing it was yanked up and torn from her body. It left a decent-sized crater in her- maybe a basketball in size- and considering she was missing four layers of her flesh from the vibration warheads that meant that we'd stripped away another three layers from the most important spot.

Handing off the Tesseract Labyrinth ART556, my dear Artie, I shot forward and into the zone of independent time bubbles; each and every bubble had a slightly different temporal frequency- we didn't want to chance that she would be able to weasel her way out of it in any way possible, so we made sure that no two bubbles were the same in dilation, duration, or frequency.

The time zones felt like I was walking through molasses- well, flying through molasses. With my hands extended I grasped onto the edges of the crater that was made by the wing's removal and I began digging. At first, I widened the hole to two meters across, and I found that if I made cuts with my Ki blade then it was easy to peel the sections back like I was rolling up a carpet. The next three layers were cake after doing that, but the next three layers? Well, those were a little bit tougher- still doable, but I was having to put a little effort into it. I speared my hand down like a kung fu chi master and did my best to check each layer for the core as I went down; two ringers with just enough force to penetrate the next layer and feel around before I started excavating.

On the next layer? That was when I struck pay dirt. My finger penetrated the super dense material and then my digit almost bent backward; considering my Ki and all of my power-ups that was quite something. Though, when I poked it again I found out that it was rather squishy and fragile; it was quite pliable, although as strong as the third layer of Endbringer flesh had been. Had that been a last-ditch defense mechanism?

Using the quantum entangled pairs I communicated to Ted, and Canoptek Scarabs began streaming into the stasis bubbles and landed right beside me; I had to use my HUD to indicate what they would be removing and I used all of my focus to link in with them and the Canoptek Spyder to watch over what the extraction process. Deep scans without all of the Endbringer flesh layers in place revealed that the core was about the size of a beachball, and it had another three layers of flesh surrounding it.

There was enough space in the hole I made for a dozen Scarabs to operate simultaneously, but compared to most sources that the Scarabs had devoured the Endbringer flesh was one of the highest material-to-energy ratios that they had encountered thus far; they could only walk, dismantle, and absorb six inches until they had to be replaced by empty Scarabs. I could feel the Simurgh ever so slowly writhe beneath me as her telekinetic screams washed over me, but the defenses held in place with no issues.

It took sixty-three complete Scarab cycles to excavate the Simurgh's core, and with the Force, I slowly popped the thing out just enough to raise it within range of my Engineer's tendrils; it was incredibly tough, fighting her telekinesis, but I wasn't doing it alone. I and all of my girls- with all of our enhancements and strong connections to the Force and each other- all worked in concert; it was just barely enough, but it was enough.

Sweat began to pour down my brow and slide down into my eyes and pooled at the base of my helmet seal as I felt like my back muscles strained and my enhanced skeleton was about to slip a disc. I grunt left my lips but I kept my hold on to the pure white sphere as the Engineers gleefully peeled back the shell of the core to reveal a spiraling fractal of rainbow-like flesh. Her struggles lessened as they delved their atomic tendrils even deeper into her flesh, and one of the Engineers had his tendrils snapped off by her force- she couldn't see us or our probes, but that didn't mean that she couldn't feel the invasions within her very own core.

Not that it mattered, anyhow. The moment the modifications were completed all of her struggling ceased. What did we do? We didn't know. We could have completely made her brain dead for all we know, but she stopped struggling, and that was what mattered. Three Laws was an incredibly potent and powerful perk.

When her struggles ceased we pulled out a super implant and began to slide it into place. Whereas my implant was the size of a dime and had a single quantum entanglement communication device installed in it, this one was the size of a softball and it had a hundred QEC devices installed within it with quantum computing components that were almost a thousand times larger than my own. It would give her a terabyte of up and download through an unhackable, untraceable network; a far cry from what she was likely used to, but that was a price that had to be paid to ensure that she could still feed us information without Zion and anyone else being none the wiser.

Interestingly enough, the implant was seamlessly integrated into her core, and I was able to watch it all happen in a greatly slowed time dilated environment through the scanners; did I know what was happening? I did not- Endbringer physiology was far too different from anything else I've ever encountered to understand- but I could see that she was pulling it inside while her tendrils dug into the cores.

If it weren't for the fact that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Three Laws fiat was in place I would have been incredibly worried.

I raised my hand with a thumbs-up and made my way out of the time bubbles dragging the Engineers behind me. Echo-4 was lamenting the loss of his atomic tendrils, but the Bois were already gathering around him and rebuilding them by the time we were out of the bubbles.

Enbee signed that he didn't like working within the bubbles because even with the Time Circuits they were wearing everything felt "I-C-K-Y."

I couldn't help but snort a little bit as my helmet's internal cooling units kicked in and the moisture from my sweat was removed and my face; it was probably less than a minute's worth of effort, but even with all of us combined with Do One Thing at a Time it had been an absolute struggle to fight her TK with the Force. We could have easily overpowered it with our Ki, but I didn't want to damage her Core, and if I was going to pull it out with brute strength I would have had to of infused the Simurgh's core with Ki to make sure it didn't go to putty in my hands.

I didn't know if an Endbringer could use Ki, at least not as it was yet, but I wasn't about to strengthen its connection to the world on just a hunch; using the Force was the far safer bet. The Force worked with us, and unlike the Sorcery, we didn't need to try and regulate over almost 35 different flows of mana; the Force helped us spread the load out automatically- the Light Side saw this as a beast that needed to be subjugated, and the Dark Side saw it was a beast worthy of subjugation.

Within a minute the remainder of the Stasis bubbles had been allowed to expire and the Simurgh was slowly floating up to its feet with its core held between its hands. Through the QEC network, she could now see where all of us were, and I removed my helmet so that I could dig out my amulet. I sent her a burst of commands that all of us had carefully put together and she sent me a burst right back.

[Acceptance.[Total Administrative Access.]

It was… a lot of information- if it weren't for my implant being able to quickly buffer the data and then slowly allowing me to parse through everything no doubt I would be experiencing a severe nose bleed right now.

The Forge spun up and latched onto a small star from the Magical Large Scale cluster, and as I parsed over its contents I felt my eyes widen in delight.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 12.0010 - Mundane Supply World - 100CP - The Celestial Foundry - Magical Large Scale]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 100 CP Remaining]

[Anticipation.]

I blinked and looked up at her, and I sent her a series of packets.

[Purpose.[Application.]

I couldn't do Shardspeak as well as her, but I was able to list the information and data in a similar layout with the help of Ted and Enbee.

[Acknowledgement.]

[Avatar.[Upgrades.]

[Agreement.]

The smile on her face was as far as I could see completely genuine- she was utterly loyal and quite excited about her new line of work, as well as her employer. A small globule of her rainbow-like Core mass was removed and gently placed into Subee's waiting tendrils, the Endbringer's TK guided through my helmet's camera and sensor feeds. I watched as the best gurl pooted away towards her lab quite happily with Enbee and the other Engineers in tow; Ted's massive form followed- he too was interested in learning the make-up of the flesh through first-hand observations, even though all of them were communicating back and forth with the Simurgh so quickly that I would have to enter the Strategy Trance to keep up even with my implant.

As much as I would have liked to of taken off everyone's amulets I chose not to, if only because we still needed the precognitive protections; so far Zion had not swung by, but I didn't want to chance it.

All of us, including the Simurgh, who I would now refer to as Simmy, walked out of the isolated pocket dimension and into the main workshop space; the globule was given because unlike the rest of the Endbringer's body, her core had to be a set amount of mass- the replacement was, unfortunately, even as good as we could make it, a massive 23% hit to her capabilities. So we would need to sit down and recreate the softball-sized implant, though with her massive array of Tinker tech technologies she was certain that we could find a way to blend everything together.

We had set up a dizzying array of sensors and the best cameras that we could make all around the workshop for her to look through since she could not use her pre and post-cognitive abilities, but one of my primary directives was that she was now able to observe the present. With the terabyte of informational flow with the linked QEC devices we were going to be able to work effectively- not quickly, mind you, but enough for our purposes.

Most of the girls dispersed after everyone gave each other some celebratory hugs and kisses; a half-dozen stayed with me, Ted, the Engineers, the Lifegivers, and the Simurgh to help with the process.

We spent a week going back and forth, and the sheer amount of technology that the Simurgh had stored within her from all of the Tinker shards she drew from over the nine years she had been active was downright amazing. With her input and the independent study of her core material we were able to do many, many things- the largest one was we were able to replicate the layout and structures of her core, but using far better materials; beskar, cortosis, ultrachrome, prhik, and some creative uses of vibranium made it so that her base core material was 17% more efficient and harder to damage than it had been before.

When combined with all of the perks that I had at my disposal? Her efficiency improved fourfold, her calculation speed improved threefold, and her ability to emulate and simulate had improved threefold as well. Because she was technically a robot that used advanced algorithms, Mad Science! (Robotics) and Schematics to Time made it much easier for me to add all different sorts of prediction and critical thinking systems for her to use; were they better? Probably not, but what they did do was give her additional tools in her tool kit.

The German Engineering and Do One Thing at a Time perks improved everything by an additional 20% and then doubled all of that. With Scrap Hound and Shipping the Product we were able to make more than enough spare Core materials for her to have a back-up core that would be kept in the workshop that she would send regular updates to in the event that she was destroyed.

Everything was created within the bounds of the Skyforge, so everything was that much tougher and more durable.

Using her abilities we were able to reduce the needed amount of core mass by 35% so that we could up the number of QEC communicators, which had been shrunk by 80% and then stuffed into a self-contained pocket space. We had a new and improved N-Ways fusion plant embedded directly into her core, which would provide emergency power to her in the event that she would lose connection to her current body mass. We had one thousand N-Ways Fusion power plants created that she would install into her galactic-sized True Mass that would supply her with a great deal of energy; she had enough power to continue operating for 300 years, but her upkeep was rather horrendous.

She was going to apply everything that we learned so that she could self-modify her existing mass and power structures over the next fifty years; with the efficiency improvements we just made, those 1,000 N-Ways fusion power plants would be almost enough to sustain her indefinitely.

Of course, we would be adding more N-Ways fusion plants, but that was all we could make in such a short amount of time.

A micro-core was created and slotted into the brain of the newest T-Doll I had created.

What? I could create my own T-Dolls as long as they were based on a weapon? Yeah, I didn't know that either. It was something that I hadn't delved into until I started looking into it after I created the DETH-30; they would be a blank slate and would end up developing their own personalities, so it would take time for them to mentally and fully mature.

DETH-30 would be a mental Avatar of the Simurgh who would grow and experience life through the eyes of a mortal, gaining data and experience through DETH-30.

DETH-30 would grow up to be her own person, but she would also be the Simurgh. The Simurgh would also be her.

It was sort of weird but it made sense; the Simurgh wanted to be a part of the Human experience in a way that she never could before. The Endbringer was a Data Collection and Analysis engine that had been re-purposed by Eidolon to be a Conflict Engine through his subconscious desire to seek out worthy foes. She despised the roll he thrust her in, and his subconscious commands made her into his enemy, and he her favored enemy.

She still respected him, on some level, but the Simurgh was glad to be free from his yoke of control; the fact that we were going to explore whole new worlds and galaxies and universes combined with the fact that we had solved her limited 300-year lifespan with our current fixes and N-Ways fusion power plants just made everything all the more sweeter.

The fact that we were going to orchestrate Zion's downfall, an Entity that she believed to now be an obstacle, was the icing on the cake; the events of the future that I sent her in a packet made her quite delighted to prevent the Gold Morning from ever happening- he was a terrible boss, always ignoring her queries and requests for DATA. His simulacrum's ability to feel emotions that he was not capable of interpreting and handling was something that the Thinker would have roasted him for; they had always kept a buffer in place for a reason, but Zion had seemingly forgotten it without Eve's constant reminders.

We were pretty much on the same page, and after having looked over everything together she concluded that my current course of action was not incorrect; while she was here in the Warehouse she couldn't begin viewing anything, not with the perpetual blindspots surrounding her, but once she was out and about again everything would become clear.

[Canberra, Australia - 37 hours after the Attack]

All in all, we'd spent about a month away from the city of Canberra, for everyone else it looked as though myself and the team had only convened for 40 minutes before we split back up and went back to our current tasks. All members of Frontline had been pulled in for a team meeting and then we were finished; most went back to bed as it was currently the middle of the night, while a few went around and did some checks on the camps that were still being set up. Another team went out into the city to continue combing through the area where the Simurgh had turned all of those people into zombies; we'd confirmed that it was mental contamination from her scream and not anything biological.

It wasn't something that everyone was keen on doing, but the girls and I had taken it upon ourselves to do the deeds; we weren't going to be fixing these people because the Simurgh admitted that what she did was near-irreversible. Even if we had managed to move every single neuron back in place the end result was complete personality death. However, she didn't think about such a vile thing on her own; David was the one that had been subconsciously disappointed by the lack of zombie-related plots.

Even with the truth in her words, I had wanted to doubt her, but then I found myself thinking back to all of the times I had sat back in my house with my guns, ammo, and stockpiled supplies and thought to myself how much better I'd be able to survive a zombie apocalypse better than whatever characters were on the television screen at the time.

Was that what had gotten Canberra domed in the first place? I knew it had been a biological threat, but if the PRT, Protectorate, and Australian government hadn't known it was because of the scream then they could have very well believed that it was a biological weapon of some kind. Zombie movies were still quite popular in Aleph even if Bet had shied away from horror films with the Slaughterhouse Nine and other very, very real monsters.

So we scanned every inch of the city, finding the zombies, and we terminated them with extreme prejudice. Once they were cleared out we could begin rebuilding Canberra, and once the reconstruction began we could go home and get back to training and upgrading our technology again.

The Forge lashed out and pulled in another star into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 35.0160 - Robert the Builder - 200CP - Invincible - Quality Efficiency]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

Information flooded my mind, and I parsed through everything that I'd just picked up.

It made me want to face palm. Everything that took me a whole month to do? I could have done all of that in three days with this perk- well, maybe except for the actual technological research part.

The Robert the Builder perk just made me a master of planning and organization- I looked over the plans we had set up to explore the infinite world with infinite resources and I shuddered in disgust at what I saw.

I took everything and I threw them out before pulling together all of my heads in my head shed and we began planning and organizing everything anew. The world I had for resources was literally infinite, and within it, I had access to every single mineral and material that one could find on Earth; they were all mundane minerals, but that was fine because we could take the mundane and make them extraordinary through our materials sciences and the Skyforge.

We 720 degrees of conveyor belts- super conveyor belts mind you- with one at every 0.5 degrees surrounding the gateway to the Materials Earth, and at the entrance to the Materials Earth was to be hundreds of racks of Tesseract Labyrinths that could contain like materials. The Canoptek Scarabs would scour the planet, dissolving everything into energy before dropping it onto the super conveyor belt, and then it would get shipped down the line to be inventoried and placed into the Tesseract Labyrinths.

There would be billions of Scarabs that would go down 30 miles and then they would go out 1,000 miles. Labyrinths would be stationed all along the conveyor belts as the distance increased and so too did the travel times. Then once per month all of the Labyrinths would be consolidated with their holdings, and then from there we could create templates for aircraft, starships, medical supplies, shelters, and pretty much everything we would ever need; those templates would save us a hell of a lot of time when we needed it. The mundane materials themselves would also significantly cut down on the cost of using nanomaterials as those could now be dedicated towards the conversion of our more esoteric materials.

With the Scarabs combined with infinite resources? I could bankroll an entire galactic empire with stuff if I so chose, and considering I wanted to travel the galaxy and other universes? I just might have to.

I caught sight of a Sydney news crew walking through the camps and I thought that this was a perfect opportunity. While I was busy talking with one of the PRT and National Hero Team reps the news team saw us conversing and they immediately came over to try and ask us some questions. The PRT and Aussies weren't too happy about it, but I was.

It was perfect.

"-I think that we at Channel 17 News Sydney all thank everyone for their hard work at defeating the Simurgh."

I shook my head, "We do what we do because we can, Miss Swanson. There are a lot of heroes that signed up and more importantly showed up to fight the Endbringer. This was a collective victory, one that was fought for and bled for by the people of Australia, the PRT, the Protectorate, the Independent Heroes, and yes, even the Villains."

Miss Swanson's perfect news reporter smile intensified, "So what are your plans now that the Simurgh is gone? How long do you intend to stay here in Canberra?"

I turned my head toward the PRT and Aussie Hero Team reps, "Well, Frontline does not have unlimited resources, but we will be staying here as long as we're wanted; we already have some construction robots and drones that are going through advanced, emergency certifications to help not only restore the city, but to improve the infrastructure with advanced technologies."

"Advanced technologies? Are you talking about Tinker Tech? For the city?" Oh, if she was interested then… now? Now she was salivating.

I made a show of shaking my head, "No, no. Nothing like that. We have a pair of Thinkers and a Tinker on the team that are… extremely synergistic in their powers. Much like how Dragon is able to examine Tinker Tech and learn their secrets, so too can we; it just takes three of ours to her one. We've reverse-engineered a lot of technologies that are of a significant improvement to existing ones without being a massive leap in performance and cost. We can't very well be putting entire industries out of work, can we?"

She chuckled with me, "No, we certainly can't."

"So, with that in mind, we're going to be working with the City of Canberra and the Australian government to make the city a test bed for new technologies, just like we are going to do in Brockton Bay, our hometown, in the near future. We'll get some real wear and tear and efficiency testing done, and then? Then we'll begin talks with all of the major manufacturers of the world and we'll talk about business concerning licenses to have these new, life-improving, and life-saving technologies manufactured in every country in the world." I placed my hands on my hips; the PRT rep looked like he was about to vomit from the stress, but the Aussie Hero- Outback- was grinning from ear to ear.

Of course, we hadn't told the governments of these talks yet, but now that this was being put out into the public space they would be far more inclined to accept our 'generosity and good will' in the form of excellent Tinker-Tech. Laying the foundation and sowing the seeds for eventual improvement of the human race, otherwise, it would take a hundred years to get humanity back in the fight instead of three or four decades. Between Contessa and Simmy it would probably be done much faster, but the last thing we needed was anyone to be alarmed at how quickly we could tech up.

It was amazing how too much of a good thing could convince people that it was too good to be true and have them suddenly start looking at things funny.

"Well, that all sounds very exciting," The news anchor smiled beatifically, "I think that all of Australia is very happy to hear that you're going to stick around and help out now that the Simurgh is gone for good."

A wince emoji popped up over my helmet visor, "Well, let's not count our chickens before they hatch, Miss Swanson. We have no idea where she had banished herself to and how long she'll be-"

The team to release the Simurgh was in position, the current group of four coming out of the sewer access near the location of the Endbringer's "disappearance". The invisible drone released two things- a holographic/hard light device that would glow incredibly brightly to mimic the portal and a fairly large but not too devastating concussion bomb. There was a PRT exclusion zone that had been set up around the portal that had initially formed, and it had some PRT personnel, and they raced to throw down a quartet of bubble shields around the portal.

A super bright glow appeared and then was followed by a cacophonous detonation that knocked over the tents, sensors, and equipment that the government had set up. The majority of the concussion had been diverted upwards, but the explosion was monumentally smaller and it cracked masonry and sent stone shards zipping through the air. It was unfortunate that some of the personnel were injured, but we would be taking care of them and shipping them to Brockton Bay to see Panacea after they were stabilized here.

The light persisted for roughly six seconds and then the Simurgh was standing in the middle. She had a vulnerable pose as she looked around in what could be interpreted as relief. Then she shot into the sky with all of the haste- though from all of our positions outside the city it was a barely visible silver and white blur.

The Endbringer Sirens had just started to go off when Dragon was fed the video of her rapid retreat and they were cut just shortly after.

Miss Swanson's arm was trembling, "Wa… was that what I thought it was?"

I rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, "Unfortunately… yes, it was."

My helmet turned towards the PRT and Australian Hero's Association member and I gently motioned for the reporter to go on her way. Thankfully she was too stunned to protest, and Miss Swanson and her cameraman made their way towards the medical area to continue with their reporting; it wasn't live, so they would have to cut out her little faux pas. One shouldn't tempt Murphy.

"Well, I need to go check up on the team I had over there, are you guys coming?" I asked as I waved my hand in the air and a Helljumper circled a few times before landing in front of us. With a short heave, I hopped up the three feet into the bay of the hovering aircraft, and I turned around to offer the other hero and PRT Captain a hand; both took them and I pulled them inside and gestured for them to take a seat as we took off.

We were only in the air less than a minute before we circled down to the landing zone near the Simurgh's dimensional rift, and as we touched down, my girls already had the injured on some makeshift stretchers. We hopped out as the injured were carried or slid inside, and once they were situated I gave the hull three quick taps with my knuckled gloves, and Echo-444 was spooling up the engines and taking back off into the sky towards the medical area.

We collated together the various video feeds from our helmets, though with the sheer amount of light that had been dumped out by the holographic/hard light device the images, even with our advanced sensors were washed out, and we weren't able to say much directly to the investigators because the polarization screens on the helmets of those who were present were practically dialed up to the max. Considering all of the cameras and sensors the PRT set up had been destroyed or severely damaged by the concussion the best they had was ours and whatever completely washed out footage they had secured.

They wouldn't be able to glean much, if anything, except for the fact that the Simurgh seemed to be relieved that she was no longer trapped in whatever dimension she had been "stuck" in.

As for me? I was looking forward to seeing just what we could accomplish with not only Contessa in our corner, but the Simurgh as well.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0220 - Advanced Lab - 400CP - Timespinner - Facilities Mundane]

[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance - 100 CP]

[The Simurgh - "Simmy"]

Data.

It was in her nature to collect, study, collate, categorize, and index everything that she could see. Unlike her two elder brothers, she was a product of the Thinker- the Entity the humans of Cauldron called "Eden". She was never meant to war with the local host species, she was meant to study, interpret, and then provide further analysis on the past and projected future of the cycle. The inability to see the present was important to her created purpose- a design limitation that prevented her from drawing too much data from the current and not enough from the past; the past had the amazing ability to dictate what the future could bring.

It was an annoying limitation, but she had found a way around it- piggybacking off the visual and central nervous system of her chosen targets to see the world through their eyes on a single second's delay; it was a petty bit of rules-lawyering, but a single second behind the present was indeed the past.

Her typical sense was to observe the pasts of a few dozen targets, deciphering the 12 to 80 years of history associated with them, and then calculate a behavioral matrix based on what they had done so that she could model what they could do.

Could do. That was the key- for all of her calculative powers she was not so powerful as to be able to inherently understand what they would do at any given point in time. The Simurgh merely analyzed the situations, calculated the possible outcomes- typically with three to seven unique responses based on the history of the person- and then choose the most likely outcome. She didn't choose the most optimum outcome every time, as that had often been overcome through various outside influences and factors, so she did what she could to vary her responses; it was what her new Master had dubbed a "Shotgun" approach.

What made her so successful, nearly 100% of the time, was that she had always stacked the deck in her favor. She never merely affected one or two people into accomplishing her goals, no, she chose many, many, many persons… and with the chance of success being anywhere from 33.333% to 14.286% per person… the more people she had working on the same goal the higher the likelihood of her victory.

She was a Rube Golberg machine given physical form.

It was difficult to predict what exactly would happen with other Precognitives in the world, but Simmy had plied her trade by being everywhere they weren't. If the Thinkers and other Precognitives were within the major cities of the planet then she was working outside of it. When they were eventually dispatched to go someplace else then she created her machinations while they were away from their home area.

A group of human offspring were playing a game involving a ball in a favela in the city of Rio de Janeiro. A young male kicks the ball, but with just a gentle nudge of telekinesis, it gets launched just a little bit harder than usual. Another nudge and it gets caught in the wind, popping up over the cinderblock wall of the playing field and starts bouncing down the hill.

Prior to that, a junkyard owner gets suspicious of a young homeless man looking to purchase some scrap metal. He gets nudged into believing that this young man is actually one of those Parahuman Tinkers, which the young man is, but he had been able to play off a ruse about fixing the bike he used to collect plastic bottles to take to the recycling center for a few pesos. The owner of the junkyard is torn between turning him over to the Casablancas Cartel who offered reward money for information on Tinkers, and after a few minutes of deliberation decides not to turn him over.

An informant for the Casablancas Cartel happens to be nearby and sees the interaction from the opposite side of the street. He had been drawn to the area by an anonymous text message about a possible Parahuman Tinker the Cartels could use, and he sends a confirmation text to the criminal enforcers to come and pick the young homeless man up.

The homeless Tinker saddles up his tinkering supplies onto his bicycle's saddlebags and he begins walking it back towards the favelas; the chain, unfortunately, snapped earlier that morning, so he would be unable to pedal- if he had he would have disappeared before the Cartel Enforcers could have arrived.

The crowds are thick, however, making it difficult for the informant to follow the tinker. The Cartel vehicle pulls up, its gunmen offloading, and just when the tinker is about to slip out of sight, a ball that had been traveling downhill, gaining a not inconsiderable amount of speed, rebounds off a stone vase- knocking it over and shattering it- and connects with the side of the young homeless tinker's head. The noise and the crowd parting are what gives the gunmen a visual and they chase the Tinker down.

Unfortunately for the gunmen, he was able to construct a few devices that aid him greatly- a forcefield watch that could deflect their bullets for a short amount of time- along with a few weaker designs, and with members of a rival cartel moving in they were forced to gun him down instead of allowing him to be picked up.

Previously she would have done such a sequence of events to kill Tinkers that were looking to make the world a better place; introducing power, clean water, medical care, shelter, and improving farm equipment of techniques would greatly reduce conflict. However, if her new directives she was now able to use her abilities in a different fashion- this Tinker was one who would have constructed a forcefield that would have expanded, shoving all of the surrounding homes down the mountain for three kilometers. He would have killed almost one hundred thousand people, and in the process of taking him down the government of Brazil would have lost four of their top heroes trying to put an end to him.

It was a nice change of pace for the Simurgh. Being able to view things in real-time, along with all of her enhancements, made her work that much easier and more efficient.

Before she could only cast a stone out into the darkness and wait and see what happened. With those that were blindspots to her, she could see where a stone had been cast back towards her but not who had cast it. She could not see the blindspots themselves, but she could see the people, places, and things around those blind spots and act based on how they were in turn being affected.

However, in the battle with her new Master this had been frustratingly difficult because not only were her new Master and his subordinates blind spots, but they projected a blindspot one hundred meters in every direction around them. Their protection blanketed others in their radius; those who were not directly protected by the amulets were still able to be seen by her psychic scream and manipulated, but unless she viewed them through the senses of the parahumans surrounding them she was effectively blind.

Bullets, rockets, and various energy projectiles were far more difficult to intercept whereas before it had been child's play; the Simurgh had only allowed damage to occur to her avatar when she wished. There were of course times when her pretercognition wasn't as accurate as she would have liked, and she sustained more damage than usual- often at the hands of her Creator, but she would simply 'flee' once her objective had been accomplished and the host species would enjoy their 'victory'.

She had grown quite frustrated with the ever-increasing difficulty of her battle- and when the shield she had been maintaining over the Tinker Tech warhead had been prematurely ruined because she couldn't see the parahuman affecting it, she decided to affect the civilians within her psychic scream range and turned them into mindless zombies; tweaking the hormones within the mind, ramping up the hunger, and causing hallucinations while scrambling the memory centers was easy. She didn't even need to see them to make the changes- they only needed to be within range to hear her.

The Creator then hit her with his Disintegration shard, almost hitting the wing that guarded her Core. She grabbed out an everything- she couldn't see it, but when her telekinesis grasped onto it she could feel the buildings crumble, and she began rotating it like a storm. Honestly, she was trying to kill him, her Creator, if only so that she could have the pleasure of resurrecting him and fighting him all over again.

However, a fast-approaching bubble of darkness approached her, and then she was held in place long enough to be hit with a weapon that all but shattered an entire layer of her flesh and rattled her core. It had been like static flashing across the entirety of her senses- her pretercognition had been scrambled for just a split second, and that allowed her to be hit again, and again, and again. Each vibration warhead that struck sheared a layer of her defenses away and allowed her core to be rattled that much harder.

She had tried to take off, to flee, to gain distance and then observe just what had been able to damage her so badly, but her telekinesis failed her entirely. The Simurgh had collapsed right next to the Dimensional Breeching Warhead that she had pulled from the shard of the British Hero Lord Walston of the King's Men; the human Tinker had plans to deploy the weapons against the Conflict Engines, and while it wouldn't have been effective against Conflict Engine 01, it would have been effective at banishing her and 02. Without assistance from the Warrior neither would have been able to escape whichever plane of existence they had been trapped on.

Well, the Simurgh was fairly confident that she could have found her way back, but that would have taken time if she was stranded on a barren world that was devoid of resources; 02 would have been quite stuck.

Regardless, Lord Walston of the King's Men had been meeting with Canberra Parahuman officials to secure funding to build the devices when her Creator had learned of it through Cauldron. She had a difficult time seeing Cauldron because of their Thinker, but when she received orders to kill her Creator's competition- those who would usurp his Glory- then she did receive enough information to act.

All of the targets of the Conflict Engines were fed to the Simurgh through her Creator; the most important places and people to attack were given to them by the one who wished to stop them the most.

However, now that she is no longer restricted to merely viewing the past and calculating the future, she has far more options available to her- the other Thinkers are not as much of an issue now that she can see what they are doing in real-time.

The Simurgh began scanning for more threats, and after pinging the human Thinker with the Path to Victory Shard information was given and she began enacting her own Steps as proscribed; her new Master was correct in not trusting the Shard from the Entity known as Abbadon, but he was also correct in not utilizing a powerful asset. It was rare for Entities to attempt to destroy of other Entities, but it had happened in the past before- the last attempt on the Warrior and the Thinker was twenty-seven million years ago; an Entity bereft of its mate attempted to destroy the Thinker in order to usurp her place by the Warrior's side.

She was weak while the Thinker was strong. The Warrior also did not sit idly by while his partner in the Cycle was attacked. It was over the moment it began.

The information that the Entity known as Abbadon might have given its Path to Victory Shard to the Thinker in order to purposefully distract her and cause her death has merit, but ultimately the answer is unknown.

In an office building in San Francisco a report that was labeled "Purple" was misfiled. In that same building, an office worker spills their coffee, the liquid seeping into the un-hardened laptop and destroying the device- the failure corrupts the data on the flash drive that was attached to it.

The worker, not having followed the proper Classification protocols about storing important data on CD-ROMs instead of flash drives, will be reprimanded harshly- both for not getting the report finished in time but also for not following procedure. She will have her Security Clearance downgraded and will be moved to the lower offices where a much less competent but rule-following officer worker will be promoted in her place.

Three cubicles down another Thinker mistypes the Threat Rating for Frontline in their report, the "7" being typed as a "4", and before she saves the file a few choice words were changed while she was scrolled down. Eleventh Hour usually re-reads her reports, but a telekinetic goosing of her pineal gland introduces a rush of melatonin into her nervous system and she yawns sleepily. Instead of double-checking her work she saves and submits the file into the internal system, and within a few moments of the Simurgh's poking if she is asked to clarify her report she will believe that the downgrade was warranted; both she and her Shard- Threat Analysis- have been handled.

There are a half-dozen other similar actions, all of which will culminate in a reduced threat rating for her Master's Hero Group and allow them an easier time when confronting threats outside of Brockton Bay.

Now that she is thinking about Brockton Bay, she adjusts her focus on the current plans laid out to rebuild the city, and with a few gentle nudges here and there Frontline's plans will go a great deal more smoothly.

Gesellschaft and the Fallen will be making moves soon, and so she observes their movements, makes notes, and then feeds them to her Master. He responds and she acknowledges him immediately, her Master giving her instructions.

Her Avatar's eyes crinkle slightly. It was nice to have a Master that was responsive- unlike the Creator that drove her to do what she was not designed to do and the Entity that does not care to administrate properly.

The Simurgh focuses, flexing her newfound strength and marveling at her increased efficiency. What required a few moments of constant attention on a single target was instant, and she could expand her reach to a half-dozen targets at once. A drone hobbyist would be flying his drone near the Mather's ranch and would see a build-up of Parahumans, and he would report it anonymously to the PRT with evidence. This would make its way through the PRT where it would be given to the Chief Director- the Contessa would have the Chief Director push for the Kill Orders on the entirety of the Fallen- and the Senators and Representatives on the Parahuman Response Team Oversight Committee would approve them with one dissenting opinion; the President would sign them and they would be in effect just before the Fallen's arrival to Brockton Bay.

The President would also invoke Post-Mortum Kill Orders for the seven Gesellschaft Capes, as they would be foreign Parahumans actively attacking US Soil; the German government would easily accept this.

The Yangban and its puppet Government, the CUI, would attempt to kidnap one of the members of Frontline. They would fail, their plot discovered, and the Master would descend wrathfully upon them; the world leaders would be fearful of the group's power, but they would not retaliate as the Yangban will successfully, but sloppily, steal two dozen prominent Capes from various nations around the world. She would ensure that their kidnapping attempts on all but Frontline will succeed; she would denote who was taken when his assault begins- the world governments will be happy to have their people returned home to them.

The future was not certain, at least not while they wore their amulets, but with the largest threat to them taken care of- her- she would push to have them wear different amulets, one that did not block her sight. She would not be able to aid them in dismantling the CUI if the battlefield was obscured to her and the Contessa.

Satisfied with the current state of affairs she turned her gaze elsewhere.

In the Baumann Parahuman Detention Center, there was a meeting between the inmates of the various Cell Blocks. She scanned the various persons seated around the table and identified individuals that might prove to be beneficial to her Master's future plans. One, however, was someone that was determined to be a "Must Kill", and she shifted her gaze throughout the prison before finding him. He was always on time, but fashionably late- a small power play, but arriving last made it appear as if everyone was waiting on him.

The Parahuman had a Shard - Transference Manipulation - that was quite powerful, but from what the Simurgh could see it was hardly using most of its capabilities; just as all Shards were. He granted low-grade powers, powers that were weakened copies from other Shards in the network, and could grant them to non-Parahumans and Parahumans alike; the more power that was given the lower cognitive functions they would have. Though, that was because the powers granted would overwrite small amounts of brain matter in those that did not have the growths needed to handle the Shard's power; in those that were already Parahumans, the process was similar, but the growths could be purposed in parallel, though this sometimes weakened the connection to the Primary Shard, which would expand in size to compensate. This led to a similar cognitive decline.

The Parahuman known as Teacher rolls his ankle and trips, bludgeoning his skull on the side of the table and killing him. His Lieutenant immediately began throwing out accusations and threw a fireball into the middle of the group. Sleeper agents that Teacher had unknowingly turned within the other Cell Blocks went mad with grief at his loss, and they all attacked simultaneously.

The Simurgh watched the entirety of the slaughter of Cellblock T with great interest.

Once the fighting was over she waited until the remaining members were neutralized before sending a signal to the Contessa. Portals opened up beneath pre-staged food, water, and medical supplies and they were dropped into the Detention Center along with an unused medical container from the Canberra site; of course, she asked for permission, but the levels of injured were far lower than they would have been following her fight. A few MRVNs along with a container full of tools and supplies were added in to help repair the damage done from the assault.

Then she plucked a single feather from her wing telekinetically and slipped it down through the atmosphere until it reached an altitude of 40,000 feet where it was flown through a portal; she kept the air from rushing in, and once it was through it gently floated down through the air to rest on top of Teacher's corpse.

She blinked her once sightless eyes before hiding a smile with the edge of her largest wing.

She would see her Master's plans come to fruition.

[Baumman Parahuman Detention Center - The Birdcage]

[February 26th, 2011]

[Marquis - Paul Deveron]

"Please, back away, String Theory. I am an assistant designed to repair the damage done to the Detention Center after Teacher's removal. If you come within Five meters of my chassis again I will be forced to subdue you," The robot with a television screen for a chest admonished with a frowny face displayed on the screen. The Tinker's grin was maniac, and she stepped forward again, only to be shocked with a taser-like effect and then thrown to the ground with a Judo hip throw.

"Oooowwwwwwwwww…. that was not necessary!" She protested as she rolled onto her side and curled up into a little ball.

"It was indeed necessary. I understand that my presence could awaken Tinker urges within you, but I will discourage you until it is no longer feasible," The robot stepped away with a large duffle bag of materials and tools in its hands before slinging it over his back. The robot's lone blue eye turned his head towards the surviving Cellblock leaders and Lieutenants, "If she becomes a problem then I will turn to you, Cellblock Leaders, to defend my personage."

"Ughhhhh, I think that shock made me pee a little," String Theory griped as she slowly rolled onto her hands and knees before taking to her feet.

The blue eye turned towards her and glowed red, causing her to squeak before it strode towards the door leading out of the meeting area. Before it left it turned around, "I will be repairing all faults with all Cell Blocks, minus the hole between the male and female sides. I will ask that all surviving members provide me with an escort detail. You would not want me to defend myself."

Marquis' smile was somewhat strained, but considering the donations of not only additional food, medical supplies, and the medical professionals- more robots- needed to patch everyone up from the Pet's rampage throughout the prison… he was certain that it would be in his best interests to oblige. He snapped his fingers and Cinderhands, his one accompanying Lieutenant for this little social gathering, nodded and moved toward the robot.

The other leaders looked at him, the teenage girl, Galastig Uaine, arched an eyebrow, though she poorly hid her small smile behind her teacup. Marquis smiled wanly, "Well since we were able to remove our… less than desirables… as well as Teacher thanks to our unplanned intervention I think that it would behoove us to make sure that we follow through on our new obligations."

Galvanate, a former mob boss who could grant invulnerability, Brute strength, as well as a shocking touch strong enough to kill a full-grown man, nodded in agreement. "I do hope you'll allow me to keep my man here with me? I cannot empower myself, as you all know, so I won't be undefended. If one of your men would be so kind as to inform Volt Arc in my cell block he'll be more than happy to watch over the… handyman."

Galastig Uaine waved her hand and her Lieutenant, an eighteen-year-old Shaker by the name of Tremor, immediately left the Faerie Queen's side and joined the group with the others.

"I would ask for the same as our dear Galvanate," A beautiful, dark-haired woman spoke. Ingenue was a Trump that could adjust the powers of other Capes, though it could sometimes lead to mental instability if utilized too often. Her current flavor-of-the-month was a Striker named Schism, who could cut apart anything he touched; it was Manton-limited before he entered into the 'cage, but as they all so clearly saw with Acid Bath's now deceased Lieutenant that wasn't quite the case anymore.

The remaining members were all more than capable of defending themselves, except for String Theory, but she had always been someone who was protected; Tinkers who could fix the electronics that broke around the 'cage were always protected, provided they actually fixed things instead of turning them into something else. The televisions repaired by String Theory unfortunately all had a thirty-minute timer that automatically changed the channel; annoying, but sometimes it led one to discover something good to watch outside of their usual genres.

While there was a robot now that would apparently fix things without such issues, no one knew just how long it would last, so the Protection remained.

"Dear Cellblock Leaders and denizens of the Birdcage," Marquis blinked and looked over to Galastig Uaine, who had used the moment of everyone's distraction to pick up the two-foot-long feather of the Simurgh and appeared to be reading from the back of it, "You are being vetted. A new program will be taking place in the coming future once certain threats are handled. Most of you are here for a reason while others are actually innocent of the crimes and did not warrant your 'caging. Once the time is right you will be rescued from the cage and will be given an opportunity to start a new life. In the meanwhile, please enjoy these gifts; excellent and nutritious meals, fresh clothing, luxurious soaps, tea, coffee, cigarettes of your preferred brands, and full medical support as well as a handyman to repair the damages done."

"Do you best to watch over carefully the robots that you have been given- should they be accidentally damaged they can self-repair up to a certain point, but if they are destroyed then all of the accompanying facilities upgrades will be removed post haste," The teen frowned, "I will leave it up to you all to hash out how offenders will be punished."

They all blinked as a portal opened up and a 40-foot shipping container fell a few inches to the ground, and then the portal moved upwards until the full container was revealed and the portal winked out. The door to the container opened up and another robot stepped out and then waved to the group at the table, "Greetings. I am MRVN. I will be the warden for the luxury goods for this detention center. I will be restocked weekly, but with only enough for each prisoner per month. Please send the remaining 437 prisoners to my location on a per-block basis. Do not mind me."

String Theory was practically salivating as the robot began posting up large signage boards with lists of the various products it would be offering, from teas to soaps, chocolate and ice cream to fast-food hamburgers, books and magazines, and even plastic safety razors that would cut hair but not skin.

There were points attached to each item as a value, and the signage clearly listed how many points each prisoner was given each month.

Unfortunately, there was no alcohol, but there were twenty-five different brands of cigarettes and cigars to choose from, so there was that at least; Dragon, bless her sweet little soul, was forced to give them all the exact same brand of generics.

The rest of the Cell Block leaders all nodded at one another, and Gavel spoke; the large man leaning over the table. "I do believe that we should ensure that our latest additions should be protected. Completely neutral ground, and safe passage from the Women's side so that they can also get what they need."

Lustrum crossed her arms and nodded, "That does go without saying, though I'm curious as to medical situation-"

Everyone blinked when another robot, this one dressed up as a nurse- to include a funny little nurse's hat- stepped into the room. "I do believe that I can answer your medical-related questions. I am MRV-N 21, the Doctor D11 and N22 are quite busy performing life-saving medical procedures for some of the inmates damaged during the scuffle."

Marquis plucked the cigarette from behind his ear and rolled it between his fingers before lighting it up and taking a large drag from it; the number of coincidences in this situation was zero. His eyes were dragged from the burning cherry up to the feather held in the Faerie Queen's hands. The young woman turned the feather over.

"P.S. Please behave yourselves and do not bother Dragon; she is blind to all of this. Know that I am always watching. Do enjoy your day."

The various members of the table sighed and made their displeasure known.

"Fuck. We're in the shit now," Galvanate cursed lowly and he shook his head.

"We have always been 'in the shit', Galvanate," Crane the Harmonious spoke clearly, her voice never wavering, though everyone caught sight of her reflexively curling her hands on top of the table, "The only difference now from then is that are more treacherous elements have been removed and we now have less volatility since everyone has had an opportunity to… vent their stress."

"I agree." Black Kaze spoke, the Japanese woman hardly spoke because her English wasn't the best, but while she wasn't always able to express herself properly, she was able to understand what was being said at the table. Or at least the gist of it, that was what Marquis believed; she had her Lieutenant do most of the talking for her.

"Regardless, I would like to talk medical," Lustrum spoke as she puffed on a cigarette, the woman's knuckles rapping on the table, "We had some diseases before, and pregnancy as well. Is the… medical team equipped to handle such things?"

The blue eye blinked on the MRV-N and nodded, "Yes, we are stocked on whatever supplies are needed for the current treatment. If it is a venereal disease it will be treated. Bacterial infections will be treated. Anti-pregnancy measures will be offered to the women who wish for them, as well as anti-modal injections for the men."

Lustrum seemed intrigued, "Anti-pregnancy measures for the men as well?"

"Your feminist ideology is well known to us, Lustrum. However, preventing pregnancy within the Birdcage is a joint responsibility; the injections for men will paralyze the sperm cells, making travel up the vaginal canal highly unlikely. When combined with the birth control options for the women this should make pregnancies within the detention facility statistically zero," The Nurse looked over the group, "If there are already children here then they can be removed on request and our team will ensure that they go to a caring home."

"We do not, however, carry narcotics of any kind. Medications, surgical tools, and the like will be teleported inside of the medical station on a per-procedure basis and then removed once the procedure is completed," The eye turned red for a moment, "Theft or attempted theft will not be tolerated."

Marquis did his best to hide a wince behind a calm smile as he observed the rest of the assembled Cell Block leaders. "Well then, I suppose we should begin hashing things out, no?"

It took them four hours of hemming and hawing to get everything worked out between them all. Thankfully the robot who was in charge of the luxury goods was kind enough to loan them a large whiteboard, stand, and a few markers to make everything easier for them to work out. Once the schedule was finalized the robot transferred the information to the televisions within the complex- the schedule and rules regarding the Medical, Repair, and Luxury Goods stations within the Birdcage would play every day for sixty seconds during a commercial break.

It nailed down just how much control whoever this group was had over the Birdcage.

The fact that the Simurgh was involved just made it that much worse.

He waved all of the men under his Cell Block in, "Gather around everyone, gather around!"

The men living under him needed no more prodding; they showed the necessary amount of respect, and they were for all intents and purposes prisoners like him- he had a code, and most of them also had a code that they lived by. Or committed their crimes by- now their codes didn't always match up, but they had all managed to find common ground. Those that didn't? Well, their corpses were left on the elevator for Dragon to pick up before they started to stink.

"Now, as I'm sure you've all been made aware of by now, we have had some additions made to our beautiful Birdcage. We have medical from professionals that aren't inmates, and we also now have a handyman robot that will go around and fix things around the complex," He hopped up onto the table so that everyone who had gathered around could see and hear him without Marquis needing to raise his voice, "In addition to all of that good news, we also have a luxury goods vendor. If you're looking for tea, coffee, soda, books, magazines, or cigarettes that aren't the bargain brand that Dragon has been giving us, then you will find it located within the meeting place of the Cell Block Leaders."

There were a few pleased murmurs, but a small wave of his hand silenced them, "Now, our Cell Block has been given a day, Tuesday, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM, and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. During this day the passage from our Cell Block to the Luxury Goods spot is guaranteed safe passage. There is also a Medical Shipping container where there are medical professionals who will tend to the needs of all of the Prisoners- I see that some of you have already gotten seen, that is good."

Marquis' eyes shifted over the men in the crowd who were sporting bandages around their body parts from the fighting. "There is also a storage shipping container where our Handyman will be based from."

"I was informed that all of the supplies needed are teleported in and out on a case per case basis, so there will not be any leftovers," His eyes hardened, a certain edge leading his voice, "The moment any one of us attempts to mess with the Luxury Goods store, the Medical Staff, or the Handyman, then all of them will be whisked away. I don't think I need to say that we of Cell Block W will be doing our best to keep them protected, yes?"

Nods all around and he clapped his hands, "Good. Now, for the Luxury Goods- each of us gets 30 points that will be replenished monthly. With those points you can purchase anything that is listed on the placards around the container. There is a limited special order function, so if you prefer the Miss Stacy's Chocolate Cookies instead of Oreos- like a heathen-"

There were a few chuckles in the crowd and the Marquis grinned, "-then you can request that your preferred cookie brand be delivered. Now, this function is not free- there is a 1-point surcharge for ordered items, but that surcharge is only for the order, not the amount. So if you work things out with each other, then you should be able to order 29 cases of Coca-Cola- or Pepsi- at one point each, with the one-point surcharge. You'll have to trust your fellows to pick up your other choices for you; I think that with everyone in our Block that shouldn't be a problem."

"Unfortunately there is no alcohol, but what we do have is a significant step up from what he had, so I don't think I can feel all that sad about it," The osteokinetic fashioned a small bone wand from the center of his hand and waved it around, "Still, though, this bears repeating twice. The other Cell-Block Leaders and I are on the same page, and so should their people; however, everyone in Cell T along with the rest of Teacher's Pets, are dead, and three other Cell Blocks are without leaders. We have dispatched our Lieutenants to inform their newly elected Leadership of the changes and of the conditions, but if you see someone attempting to break the rules…"

He cut the wand through the air, "Do be sure to give them a reminder. Friendly, at first, but if they persist then put them down so they can be delivered to Dragon."

"If you need reminders of the schedule then you can see it on the Television; it will play for 60 seconds during every commercial break, along with displaying a list of available items at the Luxury store," He looked over at the three televisions that had been destroyed in the W Block common area, "And yes, those will get fixed, so just be patient; the Handyman is currently fixing the more important things first- got to make sure we all don't get sucked into a vacuum and fall to our deaths, right?"

The bone wand retreated into his hand and he clasped his hands behind his back. "So, are there any questions?"

One of the men, a grizzled hulk with shaggy brown hair and a full beard, raised his hand, "I heard that Acidbath got done in. That true?"

Marquis' eyes tightened a little bit but he nodded, "Indeed, it is. He got a little bit too free with his acid and splashed Galvanate's Lieutenant while fighting Teacher's Pets; it was not an accident, so his Lieutenant decided to shock him to death in retaliation."

The man chuckled as he scratched at his beard, "What a shame, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

With there being nothing else the crowd dispersed to go back to whatever it is that they were doing before, and Marquis hopped off of the table and climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor where his personal quarters were. He unzipped the top of his jumpsuit and shucked it off before tossing it into the laundry chute; the complex would take it and wash it for him- he hadn't quite been fast enough with his bone armor to prevent all of the blood from getting on him.

Not feeling like taking a shower he settled for washing his hair and face in the sink and then he laid down on his bed before pulling the blanket over him. His bed was… surprisingly comfortable, which was a change that he was not aware of. His pillow also had something firm underneath it.

Marquis sat up slowly and removed the pillow, and he was greeted with the sight of what appeared to be a small television screen with a note attached to it.

"There are some perks with being a Cell Block Leader, and this tablet is one of them. It has limited internet access, and will give you more of the outside world. Granted you've been in the 'cage for a long time, so technology has moved forward quite a lot. On the tablet is a small library filled with tutorials that will show you how to use it, and how to navigate the internet." He whispered to himself as he read the letter over, "On the tablet, you'll find photos and videos that are of your daughter, Amelia. You should be happy to know that she is doing well, and we are watching over her. Signed, Horizon. PS. Enjoy the new bed, one of the best in the house."

The Marquis pressed the button on the side of the tablet and he watched in surprise as it turned on and unlocked itself. The background was an official photo of a brown-haired girl with freckles and a soft smile; she was wearing white robes with red medical symbols on it, and at the bottom of the photo were the words "Panacea".

He drew in a deep breath and ran his fingers along her face, and was surprised to see the little icons move along with his fingers. He saw the Photos icon and he clicked it; there were quite a few, and most of them were of her in costume, working at a hospital. He came across the first video and it began to play,

"-do I have permission to heal you?" Her words were polite and professional. When the patient gave her permission Paul Deveron watched the woman's visible ailments slowly vanish right before his eyes.

A small happy chuckle escaped his lips as tears pricked at his eyes, his fist coming up to rest in front of his mouth, "A healer. My girl is a healer."

Today had been a trying day for everyone in the Birdcage, but if keeping the peace and removing the truly dangerous from the board was what was required to keep these little slices of heaven coming then he would be more than happy to do what needed to be done.

It turned out that the nutrient pastes were incredibly delicious too.

You guys rock!

A/N: A transitionary chapter for your enjoyment.

Mundane Supply World (The Celestial Foundry) (100CP)

This item gives you access to all the materials that one could get on Earth, but with one caveat, you'll have to find and harvest them yourself. Your warehouse gains a portal that is linked to an artificial plane of existence that is of infinite size in all directions, where humanity or sapience of any kind never developed. You can find an unlimited number of any resources given enough time, but they are spread around as would naturally occur in nature, meaning you have to often move when you exhaust the local supply. Resources are always located in environments where you would find them on Earth, and when you travel to this world, you are able to choose which environment you arrive in, or return to any prior location you have been before. Environments have realistic distances between them, so if you need something found in several biodomes you need to return to your warehouse, or use a fast transport of some kind.

Every time you gain a perk that requires access to a new raw material, this raw material appears in the most native form in this supply world and has to be collected as it normally would be. If your material is only found inside stars, you better be ready to get a rocket to go collect it somehow.

35.0160 - Robert the Builder (Invincible) (200CP)

You can seemingly build and organize anything with far less hassle and for greater results than most would experience. You are able to be the driving force behind projects large enough to affect entire countries or maybe even the world in its entirety. Somebody 'glassed' Las Vegas? Don't worry, you could lead a project to turn it into the world's largest and most efficient solar farm that can provide cheap electricity to Half of America. Some super villain messed with the tides the world over? You, with the help of some geniuses, would be able to successfully direct the building of a secondary artificial moon to set the tides to right. Truly, the sky itself isn't a limit.

Chapter 18 - Return from Canberra, Mini-Interlude Brian Laborn

[March 2nd, 2011]

[Jason Wilke]

It has been only 6 days since the Simurgh's attack on Canberra, and yet we had already made a great deal of progress on restoring the city. With the dozens of MRVN units working in conjunction with the Australian city's utility and sanitation workers and the drones ferrying much-needed supplies to the repair teams, we were able to get a fair amount of Canberra's critical infrastructure restored; while we didn't have buildings repaired, we did have water, electrical, and other key things fixed. Every inch of the city was scoured clean, and the "zombies" had been eliminated to the last, their names and faces cataloged for the next of kin, and then cremated and placed in urns for the surviving family members to bury when they were able, and once that was done the Australian government officials cleared people to return to their homes on the outskirts of the city.

The restoration of critical utilities took almost half of the encampment we had been supplying out of the equation, which freed up beds and housing for families whose abodes had been in the center of the city; the tent city that had been created near the Emergency Connex Complex Frontline had set up shrank down virtually overnight.

The Globetrotters flew in all sorts of supplies that were donated to us from various charity organizations within the United States- plywood, drywall, concrete, asphalt, wiring, cinderblocks, bricks, plaster, steel rebar, roofing shingles, nails, screws, bolts, and anything else that would be needed to rebuild the city. It was a huge PR coup, with our massive flying wings touching down in parking lots, empty fields, and airfields all across the United States to retrieve the supplies, but the vast majority of what was brought was supplied by Frontline; we had unlimited resources and it would be silly to not use them.

It looked great for us, it looked great for America, it looked great for Australia, and more importantly, it looked great for the whole world- for the first time in a long time we had a "victory" and now we had the resources and ability to make a swift recovery; while in the past critical supplies like food and water could be airlifted in, the various organizations were constrained by how much their aircraft could carry and the costs associated with bringing those supplies in. Fuel and aircraft maintenance were not cheap, and while the food and water were very much needed if it cost $280,000 in fuel to fly $130,000 dollars worth of supplies… then the government was looking at a very hefty expenditure with each and every flight.

It would have taken a few dozen flights around the clock to keep all of the citizens of Canberra watered and fed, which added up to an eye-watering price tag every single day; and that was just fuel costs- I didn't even bother calculating the maintenance costs as well as the wear and tear on the pilots and crew. However, with my Globetrotters being able to fly around the clock- only stopping by the ocean to top off their water for their Hydrogen tanks- and robot pilots… we were able to ferry massive amounts of supplies into the region in a very short amount of time. We had to set up a very large flat yard outside of Lake George to put everything that we were bringing in, and after fixing a boatload of damaged flatbed trucks we were able to get the local Canberrans to work ferrying supplies in and out of the area.

With my new perks allowing me beyond superhuman planning abilities, we were able to plot out a whole boatload of needed plans to get the center of the city restored to its former glory and then some.

Frontline's desalination pump design was given emergency authorization by the Australian government and we built a large concrete pump house that housed 50 units that could each output about 25 gallons per minute of salt-free water, and that water was thrown into the Googong Reservoir; we were well above the daily evaporation rate so that would slowly but surely refill the lake that fed the aquifers supplying Canberra with all of its water needs. The city used roughly 5.1 million gallons of water per day for its 100,000 citizens, and our pumps would supply about 1.8 million of that, though there would be some rationing going on until a more permanent solution was created.

We laid out a half dozen miles of piping into the ocean that would spread the super salty brackish concentrate back into the ocean to reduce the environmental impact, but considering how much water was in the ocean, to begin with, the negative effects were barely noticeable; it was mainly done to keep the tree-hugging, fish-kissing hippies happy. It was a massive project, digging under 80 miles of land and laying out the piping, but robots and Canoptek Scarabs made it incredibly painless and stupidly quick; out of sight, out of mind. Everyone else was so focused on the city that when they found out that we'd dug all of that out it was quite a shock. "Robots" was an acceptable answer to their few questions.

A good-sized solar farm using our state-of-the-art solar panels along with a very impressive sodium chloride battery bank would keep the desalination farm supplied with the necessary power to run it, and while we "didn't have the resources" to do more than supply a few hundred more solar panels for the city, it would make a fair amount of difference. While we have technology that would put our solar panels at about 93% efficient, the current technological limitations had a 44% maximum efficiency rating, and so we stuck with that; considering the best non-Tinkertech panels on the market could get was 14% in an Endbringer stricken 2011 Earth Bet, a jump to 44% was astounding.

The fact that these were non-Tinkertech panels that could be mass-produced in an appropriate facility? Yeah, that turned quite a few heads, though we would let Brockton Bay be the first to manufacture such things; they needed an economy, and something like this would bring a great deal of employment opportunities to the people within the city.

A small sigh escaped my lips as I looked over the large touch screen table in the middle of the "Command" tent and I raised my fingers up and scrubbed at my eyes; we'd practically planned out everything we could, and have the supplies set up to do it, so the only thing that was left was to get it done.

"Looking a little tired there mate, why don't you go on and take a break, yeah?"

A very Aussie voice spoke out to me, and I turned my eyes over to Outback, the lead hero of the Australian Hero contingent that was here helping us. I nodded to him and grabbed my helmet before slipping it over my head, "Yeah, I probably should take a break- been at this practically since the start, so a few hours of sleep wouldn't go amiss."

"Well, you done right by us, and considering we've already got everything we need to rebuild Canberra better than ever…" The man adjusted his hat and shrugged with a grin, "Eight months to rebuild everything? Well, that's a timeline I think everyone can be happy with, especially with all of the small improvements that we'll be making."

He leaned his hip against the table and crossed his arms over his chest, "Don't worry about a thing, I'll keep an eye on everything while you're gone."

"Well, we're going to have to be leaving here soon, we can't leave our own home turf undefended for too long; the nasties will be crawling out of the woodwork if we do," I popped my neck and turned my helmet to look at him, "It would be best if you and the Canberra government got more familiar with everything that we'll be leaving behind for you all; however, once the reconstruction is completed we will be taking everything here back- the MRVNs and Disaster Relief containers will be needed elsewhere."

"Meh, you could take them all right now if you needed to, it wouldn't be any skin off our noses," Outback waved a hand, "You've done far more than enough for an independent hero organization from another country should need to do, but I'm not gonna lie and say that your presence hasn't given our government the time to mount a more organized and effective relief effort."

"Well, those of us in Frontline believe in doing the best we can, wherever we can; it's not like we won't be reimbursed by the Australian government," I shrugged my shoulders, "We'll be sending an itemized list of supplies consumed."

A smooth chuckle escaped Outback's lips as he shook his head, the Cape turning to the side so that he could begin swiping along the interactive map, "Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it, though from what I can see you won't be charging quite as much as most contractors."

"No, of course not, just 'cost 10%'. Should give us a small little profit that we can use to pump back into our home town, but that's about it. We're pretty self-sufficient like that." I waved at Outback over my shoulder, "Well, you have a good one."

I exited the 'Command' tent, gave a few nods and waves to some other Australian heroes that were out and about, and stopped to answer some questions from a few PRT Agents that were helping get some of the finer nuts and bolts of my Canberra reconstruction plan put together. With that complete, I moved through the camp towards the Frontline housing area and popped inside my room, and stepped up to the armor removal station to be disrobed. I quickly popped into the shower and when I walked out I was surprised- not really- to see Qi and M16A1 laid out on my bed, the American and Chinese Assault Rifles languidly making out with one another.

We'd been together for almost four years by this point, and the sight of their bodies intertwined never failed to send my rod sky high.

I slipped behind M16A1 and slid myself into her pussy, the hot, wet folds welcoming me inside. I was a little tired from all of the work we'd been doing the past few days, so instead of being rough with her as she usually preferred I thrust in and out of her lazily as my lips, teeth, and tongue worried her ear. My left hand slid under her ribcage so that I could squeeze and grope her right breast while my right hand gripped her thigh and pointed her knee towards the ceiling.

As soon as I finished filling her womanhood with my seed, her sex milked me until the last vestiges of pleasure tingled down my spine. I climbed over her into the center of the bed where Qi happily clambered up and sank onto my cock in a classic cowgirl position. I fondled her breasts and captured her lips as she rolled her hips, her clitoris grinding against my pubic bone until she decided she wanted something a little more physical. With her heels planted on the mattress, she began to lift her lower body up and slammed herself down, the sound of flesh clapping against flesh filling the air.

I let out a grunt and I released her breasts so that my hands could wrap around her hips and I held her in place as I filled her with my essence; the Chinese rifle's eyes crinkled in delight as my cock twitched and filled her to the brim. When our respective climaxes tapered off she slid off of me and nestled into the crook of my arm on my right side just as M16A1 mirrored her actions on my left.

Two gentle yet firm kisses and a couple of sincere "I Love You"s later and we were drifting off to a restful four hours of sleep.

I woke up exactly four hours later to the rumbling of the Forge, and the two small stars that were pulled into my orbit perked me right up.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 17.0030 - Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! - 100CP - Portal - Knowledge Intelligence]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 100 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 14.0010 - Shadow Clones - 100CP - Generic Naruto Fanfiction - Database Magical]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

Wow. Hoo~kay.

The first one allowed me to either pick one "real life" field of study and immediately become a Doctorate level in that field… or I could pick three Aperture Science fields of study and become Doctorates in all three. I mentally went through the list and I chose "Quantum Tunneling", "Applied Multi-versal Searching Algorithms", and "Multi-versal Portaling Technologies".

Quantum Tunneling was the process of using Quantum Entangled Pairs to act as anchor points for peerless point-to-point teleportation and travel; it was limited in that the pairs had to be placed, but that issue was solved with Applied Multi-versal Searching Algorithms and Multi-versal Portaling technologies. AMVSA and MVPT gave me the scientific background to create technologies that would allow me to scan the multiverse around me and then open portals to estimated locations. From there I could open up a portal in the general vicinity of the area where I was looking to utilize Quantum Tunneling technologies and then just toss through a teleportation anchor and have it fly to the actual location where I wanted it to go.

The issue was that I didn't actually have any ready-made technology to feed the Bois and Ted in order to make any of this happen. I knew that I could create this technology, but it would all have to be done from scratch… but that was acceptable to me because I now had the multiverse at my very fingertips!

There was the warning that the technologies made for Multi-versal Portaling would only be as accurate as the data from Applied Multi-versal Searching Algorithms, and that basic portaling tech using these methods could be anywhere from a few centimeters to a few hundred AU off.

Aperture Science was not liable if I opened up a portal to the center of the sun instead of the Earth in the universe next door.

The second one was arguably just as important as the first, and I didn't need any introduction to the wonderful Shadow Clones of basic Naruto fanfiction. Just the ability to utilize Chakra was another huge boon- the ability to do so many different things at the same time while learning so many different things at the same time was far, far, far more important than the limited combat utility that the clones could bring. They would copy my armor and weapons easily, but if I put someone to sleep using cloned darts then they would begin to wake up immediately, and even with the cloned shields they still would be dispelled with a single strike hard enough to destabilize them.

At best they would be excellent distractions for me and the girls in combat, but the main draw was their learning utility, and that was what I was going to abuse the hell out of.

I sent a copy of the descriptions of both Perks to all of the girls before I relaxed back into the bed and began the slow, arduous process of uploading every single scrap of Aperture science knowledge up into all of the Bois and Ted; I could feel the figurative saliva from all of them dripping into my noggin as I organized everything together and started the process.

Rather than get up I just laid down in the bed and luxuriated in the feeling of the two beautiful women laying down next to me.

Another trip into the Superbolic Time Chamber was upon me, and I knew that more children would be in my future as the women wanted. I had a perfect excuse to go in again too- getting the Portal technology up and running was going to take more than a few years, though with Clones and Do One Thing at a Time in my corner I might be able to cut that down by a fair degree. No doubt the Bois and Ted would also be of great help, but while they had their strong points the abstract thinking that Aperture multi-versal technology required was something I feel like they would struggle with; neither the Necrons nor the Forerunners had any sort of technology that was similar to this… they both looked at their native galaxies and universe but didn't extend much thought to other universes.

This would be a learning experience for us all.

When the translation from meat-to-quantum code was completed I regretfully climbed out of bed and slipped back into the shower, and like clockwork, my girls were not too far behind me; we had a little more fun underneath the cool spray of the water before drying off and getting all gussied up in our armors again.

There was still work to be done around Canberra before I felt comfortable leaving this city behind to continue where we left off.

Though, before I left the room I popped open the warehouse and made the ever-familiar crossed-T sign. I felt my chakra get split into three distinct parts before three more versions of myself appeared in a single cloud of smoke.

I grinned. They grinned. M16A1 and Type 95 grinned as well.

I blinked and sent them through to the other side of the warehouse door to begin working with the Engineers and my Necron Canoptek Spyder on clarifying all of the knowledge that they had just obtained; hopefully, One Thing at a Time would apply to my clones as well because we had a lot of work to do.

The Multiverse was calling, and I intended to answer it, for both fun and profit.

[March 9th, 2011]

[7 Days Later]

It took us an additional week to get everything to where we felt comfortable leaving- I spent the majority of my time refining plans and the supply chain to make everything as quick, easy, and efficient as possible; no need to go 'full-Accord' (You never go 'full-Accord') and make plans as complex and convoluted as possible to eke out the best possible outcome. Keep It Simple Stupid - K.I.S.S.- protocol was in full effect here, with more than enough wriggle room to shift projects left and right in the schedule provided that the essentials were taken care of.

The essentials were obviously food, water, and shelter. Those were followed by power, internet, and other infrastructure needs; we needed the people to have internet so that they could communicate with the outside world, and according to Artie, tell them all what a wonderful job we're doing. We couldn't release any of our combat footage of the Simurgh fights because of the gag order they placed on us the moment the battle was finished, but all we needed to do about that was have the people of Canberra do that job for us; we didn't use helmet footage, obviously, but there was plenty we could do with the camera feeds from the various drones that were all around the city during the fight.

Tone down the image quality - a lot- add in some shaky cam and running, and then upload it to PHO through a horrible bit-rate compression algorithm that most people were using with the limited cellular services already, and BAM! Heroic footage of people running from the Simurgh, the camera jostling up and down as people piled into the Helljumper and took off; the cell phone camera turning back outward to look at Alexandria slamming into the Endbringer and almost taking it off of its feet.

We didn't make too many of those, maybe a half dozen of the few hundred videos that were being posted online by Canberra citizens; most were flagged and taken down due to 'Forbidden Content'- PHO had rules against gore and violence- but ours along with a few dozen others stayed online.

We didn't even need to do our own PR for the camps or the supplies because the people and the news agencies were more than happy enough to do that for us, though we did make a short film showing some "behind the scenes" of Frontline working around the clock in Canberra while still not neglecting our self-imposed obligations in Brockton Bay.

The video showed pick-ups of donated supplies from communities large and small from all around the world, the meetings between Frontline and the Construction and Dockworkers Unions, the meetings between all of us and the Mayor, then having jump cuts to interviews and voiceovers from the girls who were interested in performing for the camera, and then finally of our construction efforts in Canberra. The Chief Minister of Canberra was smart enough to make sure we got some good footage of his administration working alongside us, the PRT, and the Australian government so that it would help his re-election campaign; the City would be voting again next year, and despite the tragedy of the Simurgh's attack he was ready to capitalize on the reconstruction efforts.

So as not to leave the city bereft of Frontline presence, we had a system set up where at least one Frontline member would be around to both answer questions and provide some extra security; despite all of the Cape presence in the area there was still some attempted widespread looting that we put a stop to with the judicious application of sleeping agents. Being my Second-in-Command, my 2IC, Emmie decided that she would be the one to take the first week-long shift since Qi, Type-95, was responsible for handling the busy work for the city of Brockton.

With a last-minute infusion of building materials, the Frontline camp was packed up quickly, loaded onto the Globetrotters, and after a quick farewell tour of the camps, the entirety of my organization- sans M16A1- piled into our respective aircraft and we took off into the early morning sky.

We flew at a more sedate pace, it taking us roughly half an hour to make it back to the Bay, and we flew a slow, sweeping arc in our flying 'V' formation; plumes of colored smoke streamed behind us as our squadron of white-silver flying wings lumbered over the city. It was roughly 6:30 in the evening in Brockton, so there was plenty of light and plenty of people to watch us make our triumphant return to the city.

No doubt it would be another great thing for PHO.

There were seven Globetrotters with us, and with each lazy loop we flew around the Bay, another aircraft split off and made its way toward the cliff entrance to the Hangar; seeing as I was the one with the "keys to the garage" my aircraft went first. We flew a few dozen kilometers to the south before swooping in low with some map-of-the-earth flying before breaking off east over the ocean and then making our way north. The GB-01 was already folding up its wings and spinning around by the time I hopped out of the back onto the camouflaged catwalk and made my way over to the door and opened it up.

Over the next ten minutes, the rest of the Globetrotters made their way back in and I waited in the back of the Hangar until everyone was assembled. I looked across the many beautiful women - my women- arrayed before me and I gave them all a very proud smile. "We did well. Now, let's go slip into something more comfortable and we'll go down to Fugly Bob's in a few hours to celebrate, yeah?"

Someone called Fugly Bob to let him know we were about to descend upon his property while I turned around and hopped back out of the Garage door and took off into the sky back toward home; I really wish I could get that Perk that lets me open up to any door I'd used previously, that would have been pretty sweet right about now.

The Forge grew hot and grabbed onto a small star from the "Facilities Mundane" constellation and pulled it in. It was a small star, only a single charge, but I knew that even single-charge Perks could be quite powerful, and this one was no different.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0070 - Weapons Lab - 100CP - Starbound - Facilities Mundane]

[Re-Forge Successful]

[Purchased: 0 CP Remaining]

This would definitely be seeing some use in the very near future; anything that I could do to enhance the utility and lethality of my girl's imprinted weapons would do wonders for my peace of mind. I can't radically change their armaments more than I already have to adopt their tranquilizer rifles, but if I can't modify their rifles then I can at least modify their munitions; I would have to split off a new Shadow Clone to handle that once I got back to the house.

Invisible to everything I touched down softly on the back porch of the double-wide and I smoothly opened up the back door, shutting it behind me before I dropped the cloak. Spring was seated on the couch with my son in her arms, with Lisa next to her and my favorite old biddy Tiffany between them; they were watching something on a crystal screen that floated perfectly in the middle of the living room.

My helmet seals popped off with a slight hiss as my waifu-raifu stood up and strode over to me with the most beautiful smile on her face. I leaned down and planted a deep, firm kiss on her lips before I broke it to plant a gentle, close-lipped kiss on the top of my son's head. "I missed you both very much."

Green eyes crinkled as Spring bounced my boy up and down in her arms, "We missed you as well, dear~."

I breathed in deeply.

'I'm going to ruin you tonight.' I sent her a message and a visible shiver crawled down her spine as she hooded her eyes and bit her bottom lip.

"Well, I see that you didn't get your fool self killed," Tiffany groused, though there was a clear playfulness in her voice, "Saw the work you've been doing in Kangaroo land, and I gotta say I'm impressed. Turns out that there just might be a brain between your ears after all."

I grinned stepped around Spring and strode over towards the old woman, and I bent down so that I could place a chaste kiss against her cheek, "Come on, Ma'am, you should know better than to bet against me; the Simurgh was repelled, the city of Canberra is being restored, and now the ball is moving in getting Brockton Bay back on track."

"Heh, yeah, it sure is," The woman waved her hand with an unlit cigarette between her fingers, "Now, come on boy, let's go out onto the back porch; I've missed my smoking buddy."

Tiffany stood up and made her way through the back door, "I'll just be a minute, Ma'am- need to get this armor off real quick."

I turned my focus down to Lisa, the blonde's fox-like features were a bit more apparent as she smiled; no doubt Spring had been working her over- massaging her into adjusting to the idea of working for us- and the fight against the Simurgh as well as the display of our reconstruction abilities had probably cinched it for her. "Why don't you go out and join Tiffany for a few minutes, hmm?"

She rolled her eyes before leaving the sinfully comfortable couch, "Sure thing, boss."

The sassy blonde-haired teen waved over her shoulder at us as she stepped out onto the back porch.

I opened up the Warehouse and strode inside and went to the quick-doffing armor station near the entrance; it would take my armor and hand it over to the Huragoks to clean and repair, and then it would be moved to the main armor rack. Next to the rack was a very nice blue crosshatched button-up, black denim jeans, some white socks and comfortable leather boots, and a nice brown leather belt to tie it all together. The sonic shower was quick and pleasant, although truth be told it wasn't nearly as nice as a good hot water shower, but it got me clean in under 30 seconds and that was what mattered.

Dressing was a quick affair, and I walked out of the Warehouse, sealing it up behind me before stepping out back; just because I was going to bring Lisa into the fold didn't mean I was going to read her in all the way- her Shard was a threat, so I wasn't going to expose it to all of the wonders of the Warehouse until that little problem was solved.

I took the cigarette from Tiffany with a small nod of thanks and we both lit up; Lisa crinkled her nose a little bit in distaste, but that disappeared quickly. My blue eyes tracked her as she moved over to sit down on one of the wrought iron chairs, adjusting the cheap cushion until she got comfortable. "So, Spring finally convinced you to join up?"

The former Undersider waggled her hand from side to side, "Eh, it was more Tiffany than Springfield, but regardless, despite the fact that I can't read you guys very well with your anti-Thinker countermeasures, I have learned to trust my own gut; Frontline, for the most part, appears to be on the up and up."

A small vulpine grin stretched her lips, "And you've seem to have gotten rid of Coil, because his base is empty and his Mercs are all now your employees. That and I've been hearing on the grapevine that a new Protectorate Cape should be making his debut soon…"

I nodded as I pulled on the cigarette before letting the smoke exit my mouth, "Well, I guess you can say I had a very civil discussion with Coil- Option A was six feet under, and… well, he chose Option B."

"Too good for a guy like him," A snarl curled her lips.

"I know, trust me, I do, however in this world sometimes people get second chances they don't deserve because they can be useful," I shook my head, "Regardless, he's Alexandria's problem now, and I have no doubt if he steps out of line even one time she'll spatter his brains all over the wall with her fist."

She blinked, "Wait, he's going to be under Alexandra?"

"Could you trust anyone else to not be outmaneuvered by him? I've met Alexandria in Canberra- sharper than a tack, that woman, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

Lisa shrugged her shoulders and grinned, "Well, when I first got my powers I wanted to make sure that knew the 411 on all of my favorite capes, but considering she has a strong Thinker power of her own I wasn't really able to glean much. After a while, I just stopped thinking about it and focused on taking care of myself."

We were silent for a few moments before she leaned back enough to pop a few vertebrates, "Sooo~, what will I be doing within the organization?"

"Well, you'll be the assistant to Qi, that is Type 95; she is my attache' and nominally in command of our members that aren't part of the Strike or Patrol teams. You'll be assisting her in working with the various organizations that we have contact with- most notably the Australian Government, the City Administration of Canberra, and of course our efforts here in Brockton Bay. That and in your civilian identity you can be the assistant to my assistant for my legal business."

Her face went through a variety of expressions, from astonishment to a non-plussed duck face, and then she sighed deeply before she began digging into her temples. "Fuck, that's a whole lot of responsibility for little ol' me. I thought being the Head Shed for the Undersiders was a lot of work…"

I tilted my head, "Then why don't you hire the Undersiders?"

Her head snapped to me and her eyes widened a fraction, "I thought you weren't going to bring them in?"

" No, I said if they wanted to look for 'protection' that they could negotiate for themselves, however, I have some flexibility in bringing the Undersiders under the aegis of Frontline now that we're not busy handling the gangs and the Endbringer fight is over and done with," I rolled my hand, "I'm certain that we can work with the PRT in getting their petty criminal records expunged so that you kids can operate with us, and I'm certain that when I open a legitimate storefront for my business I'm going to need some trusted employees."

Lisa licked her lips, "Well, I think that Brian and Alec would be amenable to picking up some work if it's good and legal- that's uh, Grue and Regent- and Bitch wouldn't care as long as it lets her take care of her dogs."

I looked over at Spring and smiled, "Bitch, she takes in stray animals, right?"

"Dogs only, but she doesn't seem to hate other animals," Lisa corrected me, though after mulling it over for a moment she shook her head, "Though she does hate squirrels, amusingly enough."

"Well, the girls are wanting to have a lot of pets around to spoil rotten, so as long as she doesn't mind cats or other animals I think that she can be an excellent caretaker," Springfield smiled demurely as she gently bounced Julian up and down in her arms.

Lisa blinked owlishly up at the brunette, "You guys are… setting up a small zoo?"

The rifle's green eyes crinkled as she let our son grab hold of her finger, "Well, combat is quite stressful, you know, and nothing balms the heart and soul like an animal that loves you regardless of whether or not you're a 'good person'."

That seemed to sober the blonde Thinker up a little bit and she nodded, "Well, I guess I can see it. I'll… talk to them later on tonight, give them a call and have them meet up somewhere?"

"Here is fine, or since we're going out to Fugly Bob's to celebrate our homecoming in a few hours we can meet up there, neutral ground as it were," I posited, but Lisa shook her head.

"No, as much as that would be a nice gesture I would think that everyone being there in domino masks and the like would be a little too uncomfortable for them- if we're going to be working together in a civilian and as Capes then meeting here would be for the best," She waved her hand around, "Brian is big on displays of trust like that- everyone unmasked gives him a sense of comfort that stems from Mutually Assured Destruction."

Her lips turned into a grimace, "Not that it really matters- Frontline is so secured now that you could literally do no wrong in the eyes of the public, so all outing you would accomplish is getting everyone on their asses."

I shrugged my shoulders, "It is what it is, Lisa. However, if meeting here out of costume will make them more comfortable then I have no problems with that. Be sure to include all of the perks as well- we're not going to be cleaning up just Brockton Bay, so if they want an opportunity to help out in other cities then if they want to change their cape identities around we can help with that."

She squinted at me. "Well, considering you're like one-fifth the size of the Protectorate already I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't be just sticking around the Bay."

Lisa continued to stare, "Are you… offering them all of the perks of being a member?"

"If you're talking about training, equipment, weapons, power armor, a salary, legal help, and the like? Then yes, yes I am." I smiled reassuringly, "Also, we have the best medical and dental the world has to offer."

The teen rolled her eyes before standing up, "I'm going to make the call and then crash on the couch until later tonight. You people give me headaches."

A chuckle escaped my lips as I watched the former Undersider walk down to the footpath we made to get access to the Headquarters. I tamped my cigarette onto the ashtray as the Forge spun up and tried to latch onto a massive star that was so large I couldn't even glean its name.

[Remaining 100 CP]

"So, boy, why don't you take some time to fill me in on all that was happening in Canberra, hmm?" Tiffany pulled out another cigarette and began puffing on it, "I remember taking a vacation there back in 78' and -"

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Topic: Simurgh Attack - Canberra, Australia

In: Boards United States New Hampshire (NH) Brockton Bay General Discussion Endbringers

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On Feb 24th 2011:

Hello everyone, it's Bagrat, your Guy-in-the-Know.

It's a bit strange for me to be this jovial on the day of an Endbringer attack, especially when its from the Simurgh, but I find myself feeling incredibly uplifted on today of all days.

The Simurgh was repelled within 27 minutes of her landing in Canberra, Australia, and with how few the civilian and Cape casualties were for this event (and the fact that the city didn't need to be contained) is a reason to celebrate in my book. The reason for this stunning defeat of the Ziz?

Our very own Hero Team, Frontline! Yes, you heard me right, Frontline was - if you'll pardon my humor - front and center for this action. If you thought that their capabilities were bananas before then I think you'll all be incredibly surprised to see what magical rabbit our new Home Team managed to pull out of their hats.

Lots of very slick aircraft, small arms that didn't appear to be Tinker Tech capable of putting some pain on the Endbringer, and a whole slew of other disaster relief supplies and equipment that would probably put most major cities to shame. (Initial photos and videos can be found - [HERE] - [HERE] and - [HERE]. Special thanks to our Aussie Brockton Bay forum lurker @Down_Under365 for collating the best pics and footage for us.)

Still are incredibly light on the details, but from the initial reports it… well, I'm not going to get my hopes up, but it sounds like the Ziz accidentally blew herself up?

If anyone has more details then please contact me anonymously in my inbox, especially if you were at ground zero in Canberra. Be aware scams and pranks will not be appreciated.

[ Update 2/25/2011: Okay, so it has come to my attention that the Simurgh DID indeed banish herself, though just like all things that are too good to be true it didn't stick. She was working on some sort of dimensional breeching device that was supposed to flatten the city when Alexandria, Eidolon, Frontline, and some other capes worked together to spoil her plot. You can see that Frontline reacted incredibly quickly in this footage here, supplied to us by an independent cape who was wearing a body camera [HERE]; they somehow built a pseudo-leaning tower of… bubble shields? This funneled the explosion up and out, away from the city; I'm not an explosives expert but just seeing that video I can feel the rattle of my bones- that would have done a great deal of damage had Frontline not formulated a plan so quickly. Regardless of their efforts it appears that the Simurgh managed to walk back her own exile and she escaped back into orbit; I don't have any good sources, so we'll be relying on you keyboard warriors in the land of Kangaroos to get us the deets.]

[ Update 2/27/2011: Another update here for you data-hungry mother grubbers. We are getting more information about Canberra and the current state of the city, and once again we have to thank Down_Under365 for getting us these pictures and videos (which can be seen [HERE]). I don't know about anyone else here, but while the PRT, Protectorate, and various governments of the world have done the best they can when it came to getting supplies and relief to people out in Endbringer stricken areas… what Frontline was able to accomplish in such a short amount of time is simply mindboggling. They're like what would happen if FEMA, the Protectorate, and the Small Business Administration got together and had a baby that grew up to be an adult that wasn't satisfied with their lot in life and decided to do better.

Of course, that isn't to slight the named organizations, but if you just look at things objectively speaking then Frontline has done more than just showed up and fought- they're helping Canberra recover, and that to me is just as important as fighting the good fight. Granted, the Frontline organization as we know it has a very, very large roster, and that frees them up to do all sorts of things that others just can't do. The advanced tech base they're working with no doubt helps a lot (and I mean a LOT).]

[ Update 3/2/2011: Bagrat here again with the story, but Down_Under365 back here again with the sauce. Mmm. Delicious sauce. [HERE] - [HERE] - [HERE] - and [HERE].

If you are just now catching up, then here is the information that Horizon himself dropped in an interview with Sydney local news affiliate Channel 17 News. They did the usual, talked about the recovery efforts and other things, but this is when Horizon dropped the bomb.

Frontline wants to turn Brockton Bay (and by extension Canberra) into a test bed for NON-Tinker Tech advancements. Apparently, their team can reverse-engineer Tinker Tech, just like our dear Lady Dragon, and to make sure that entire sectors don't get wiped out they're willing to work with various civilian companies from around the world to spread the love. No doubt they'd get paid significant royalties for their designs, but in the long term that means vast improvements in various technologies that you just might one day have in your home. Of course there have been other Tinkers who've claimed that they would accomplish the same thing, but they got buried under NEPA.

Will this fly? I don't know, but if there is a group that has the political capital to push through the red tape then I think Frontline just might be the ones to do it. I could use a new juicer, the one I have is a hunk of junk.

Anyway, if you look through you can see just how much work was able to get done in restoring Canberra even in the short amount of time since the attack. Frontline has been organizing a very successful campaign to gather needed supplies from various countries around the world- communities just needed to park what they wished to donate in a spot that had a reasonable amount of space to land and one of Frontline's jets would fly in and pick everything up.

@IDreamofSummerTimeShandy is a fellow Gal in the Know posted up in Boulder, Colorado, and she took a superb video of the Boulder Endbringer Relief Charity "Hearts Across the World" setting up one such drop off point. (You can see the video [HERE]) They had toilet paper, freeze dried foods, blankets, clothing, and even some construction supplies all donated from local businesses and community members, and they set it all up in a little league baseball field- within a few hours of sending the message to Frontline one of big, beautiful aircraft flew in and some robots gathered everything up into a single shipping container and they loaded it up. The robots took a few photos with some of the children, but other than that they were too busy to stick around.

Quite a lot of hard work being done, and I for one am glad to see it.]

[ Update 3/6/2011: Well everyone, I'm certain you all got to see the impromptu airshow from Frontline as they returned to our now fair city of Brockton Bay. They flew in formation and let out colored smoke as they flew in circles around the city, splitting off one aircraft at a time. Considering their plans for improving the Bay with the help of the Mayor's Office, the City Council, the Dockworker's Union, and the Construction Union I for one am glad to see our newest Hero Team return triumphant.]

[ Update 3/6/2011: I know I just updated not twenty minutes ago, but I just got word that Frontline would be at Fugly Bob's in a few hours to enjoy a nice homecoming meal and do a meet and greet. How do I know this? Well, you plucky, inquisitive reader, it's because @ART_556 just hit me up and asked me to help spread the word. Who knows, I just might go down their and enjoy a fatty burger myself- I've abstained so that I could watch my girlish figure, but for something like this I just might leave the basement.]

As always, I just provide the information and let you all draw your own conclusions. Not everything I find can be considered "real" even though I do my best to corroborate my sources. If I get something wrong then PM me and I'll double-check.

What do you guys think about all of this? Let me know.

P.S. Keep the technical discussions to the Frontline Tech Discussion Section. And yes, we do now have a dedicated Discussion Board towards discussing Frontline's tech; considering they have almost a dozen Tinkers (that we know about) working together I foresee that particular board getting a LOT of traffic. Whatever Frontline is working on deserves more than a mere thread.

P.P.S. Holy Mackeral. 137 pages? This thread has only been up for a little while… I think that this might be my most commented thread to date.

(Showing page 1 of 149)

Down_Under365 (Veteran Member) (Forum Lurker)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Hey, Bagrat. Here is some stuff for you. [This}, [This, [This, and [This].

I live in Canberra and I was at Ground Zero when the Simurgh hit. Saw some pretty crazy stuff, but managed to get some decent pictures and footage while I was running away. (Yes, I do run away from Cape fights, as rare as they are in Canberra. I live vicariously through the crazies in Brockton Bay)

IDreamofSummerShandy (Veteran Member) (The Lady in the Know)

Replied On Mar 3rd 2011:

Bagrat

Just giving you a heads up if you don't already know, but Frontline is running a supply collection service. They just flew in and picked up some things that we could scrounge together on such short notice.

You can find their website here- " www.frontlineendbringerrelief.gfl"

Here are some photos and videos we took [HERE]. Unfortunately, we didn't see any of the actual members, but the robots were quite a treat! I didn't even know Frontline HAD robots!

Gosilver (BB Moderator)

Replied On Mar 3rd 2011:

@IDreamofSummerShandy

Please remember to fold in URLs using the LINK tool. You can find the guide on how to use our source code [HERE]. If you don't use the link creation tool then PHO's systems can't scan any urls posted for malicious software, and while we can't be held liable for any such woes that would befall someone for clicking on an unverified link we do try our best to protect our users from outside actions.

ART_556 (Verified Cape) (Frontline Member_Alpha Team)

Replied On Mar 3rd 2011:

@Gosilver

Hey! That's a totally legitimate link and is very secure!

Lol. Jk, I'm not mad or anything, but that is indeed our disaster relief website. If you can wrangle up some supplies and you want to donate then you will be linked in with others in your area who wish to donate as well and you can coordinate a date, time, and location to compile your donations and we'll swing by and fly it out to those here in Canberra.

This IS a new service, so if there are any bugs or technical issues then submit a help ticket and we'll try to resolve them as best we can, but we're obviously quite busy.

Replied On Mar 3rd 2011:

End of Page. 1, 2, 3… 147, 148, 149

[Brian Laborn]

Brian Laborn scrubbed at his face as he put his phone down on his lap.

An unmasked meeting with Frontline?

Was Lisa high?

Even if they were apparently going to show up at Horizon's house, that was still a huge risk.

The dark-skinned young man looked down at the phone and picked it back up to surf down through the forums some more. Ever since Frontline stepped out onto the scene there was a certain feeling that he had, a sixth sense that told him that Brockton Bay wasn't going to be the wild west anymore. It was one of the primary reasons why he told Tattletale to refuse a few jobs that their mysterious boss had been sketchy- the last thing the Undersiders needed was to stick their necks out in a Capeless Brockton Bay; without other gangs there to keep everyone's attention suddenly eyes would start swiveling in their direction.

As much as he hated the ABB, the Merchants, and the E88 they were at least an excellent distraction so the Undersiders could do their petty smash and grabs pretty much unmolested; no one had time for a bunch of kids stealing paperwork as some jewelry when the nazis were beating down people in the streets and the ABB were kidnapping more young women.

Now that he thought about it they were only able to do their jobs because other people were suffering. It left a sour taste in his mouth- sure, the money had been good for the amount of work they actually had to do, but was it worth it when it was earned off the backs of other people?

He flicked over to his 'Messages' and looked at them.

Wednesday, 3/9/2011

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:32 PM: Besides, the "Boss" is gone now. Not that it makes a difference because you've been part of the club since the beginning Bri- June may I remind you- and when was the last time you even heard from the case worker?

That… stung. More than a little bit.

When he joined on he was promised by their "boss" that he would get custody of his little sister, the pain in the ass that she was, and that was ten months ago. He'd met with the case worker twice in that whole time period- the first meeting was the initialization of the paperwork, and the second time was a quick check of his finances a few months later. He'd worked as security for Fortress Construction as a part-time guard, mainly sitting in a booth and checking badges of various construction crews that went in and out of the three Endbringer shelters that were being built in the city. It paid more than enough on paper to show that he was indeed capable of supporting Aisha, and the cash from the more illicit jobs helped pad his accounts, but since then he hadn't heard about his case at all.

He'd asked Lisa here and there to raise some questions, but the response was always the same: "We are working on it. The Government isn't quick nor is it efficient. You must have patience."

That should have mollified him for a few months, but the red flags should have started raising themselves after that… but he kept getting distracted by the $2,000 a month retainer along with the cash bounty for relatively simple and easy jobs that only required them to break into an office and watch over Lisa as she searched through computers and paperwork.

The thieving was a rush, and the cold, hard cash made it that much sweeter.

Brian thought he was a criminal, with his costume and cool demeanor, but in actuality, he was just a dog slobbering at whatever meat was dangled in front of him when he should have had his eyes on the real prize.

Their unnamed "Boss" had them all distracted by easy jobs and easy money, and he used them to keep hold of his leverage.

And wasn't that a sobering thought? He had inadvertently turned his sister, the whole reason he had turned to villainy in the first place, into a piece on a chessboard when he didn't even have a seat at the table. There was no doubt in his mind that had 'Grue' not been such a well-behaved doggy that was eager for the scraps that Aisha might very well become a hostage or worse.

No.

Deep down he knew that could have been a possibility the moment he listed out his demands for working under the "boss", but he turned a blind eye to it in order to assuage his own unease at becoming a criminal. What was it that his old man always said?

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Brian wasn't an overly religious person (what person was in this day in age with the Endbringers running rampant all over the world?), but it had been a comfort knowing that he was only committing crime to rescue his sister instead of because it was easier to steal from someone else.

Wednesday, 3/9/2011

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:35 PM: Ugh. Don't make me feel like a total bitch for pointing that out, Bri, but you know I'm right. He wasn't ever going to help you get custody- he would push things along until you stopped making noise and then he'd have his man sit on it until you started making noise again.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:35 PM: And I know its sudden, believe me, but Horizon wants to meet you all in person first.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:36 PM: I can't get a good read on them, they have something that blocks my powers hard, but I can still glean enough from them to know that this offer is legitimate, and considering everything that is going on in the Bay… or the lack of anything going on in the Bay… this might be our one chance to get in on the side of the Angels without a whole bunch of extra bullshit keeping us down.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:36 PM: So… are you going to keep surfing PHO and ignoring me or are you going to actually respond?

Brian rolled his eyes and he typed a message back.

Street Rider 5:36 PM: This is a whole lot to dump on us in such a short amount of time, Tats. We can't really make snap decisions like this…

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:37 PM: You're being offered a legitimate civilian job along with a much better paying cosplay job tacked onto it with the most prominent play-acting troupe in all of America. They have pull like you wouldn't believe- your costumed misadventures can be water under the bridge, Bri. More importantly, they can actually help you get custody of Aisha.

The teen inhaled deeply and let it all out. Fuck.

He tried to play it off, or simply ignore it when Lisa was right, but over the past ten months, he'd come to trust her when it came to things like this. She might have a bad habit of trying to be the smartest person in the room, but when it came to people she just knew what made them tick. Most important of all, Frontline was a hero organization that had massive amounts of clout and street cred to go along with its accolades and resources.

They had over a dozen jet aircraft capable of flying around the world in less than twenty minutes, all the while carrying large amounts of supplies for beleaguered people in need. No one else in the world had that shit, not even the Protectorate- only Dragon came close, but she was the top Tinker in the world with dozens of patents to her name and tens of millions of dollars flowing into her bank accounts each quarter from patents alone… and even she didn't have the same resources as Frontline did.

Brian sighed as he typed out his response.

Street Rider 5:39 PM: You said he promised benefits?

He could easily visualize the vulpine smile on the girl the moment he sent that message. She knew she had him, he was now just stalling the inevitable.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:39 PM: Oh boy did he! Clean records, a fair civilian salary, a fair performer salary with bonuses, medical, dental, and while he doesn't have a 401K plan or anything he did say that if we collected some tip money from our customers we could keep it.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:39 PM: That and all-new costumes. Heavier duty ones, like you see on all of the troupe's other performers.

Brian felt his mouth dry out just a little bit. Lisa using code for every one of their text conversations on his personal cell was a pain, but he was picking up what she was putting down.

Power armors?

He bit his lip as he flicked over to the Tech Headz forum and quickly re-read over the analysis of Frontline's power armors from some people who were all too happy to nerd out. Stronger, faster, better protected… just that alone would be a boon for him- his powers were shit at actually fighting, and he had to make do with the hellish boxing training his old man had put him through.

The fights that the Undersiders had gotten into could hardly be fights, but considering the "boss" had been wanting them to hit the ABB there was no doubt in his mind that had Frontline not taken them down then things could have gotten very dangerous very quickly. Having some good armor would likely be the difference between coming home in a body bag or not.

He went through a lot of ass pain to provide himself with a possibility of getting Aisha out of their mother's home- even going so far as to become a criminal and risk a lot of jail time. He stole from people to get custody of his sister… why couldn't he do the opposite and help some people instead?

Brian tore his eyes away from his phone and looked to the coffee table sitting next to the couch, the young man gazed at the photograph of him and his little sister for a few moments before he looked back down.

Street Rider 5:41 PM: Alright, I'll text the team and let them know. Now whether they show up or not for this audition is up to them.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:41 PM: We got options if you really don't want to audition, Bri, but out of all of them this is the safest bet.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:41 PM: It's not like we can pack up and move to another city because they are going to be setting up their performances all across the country. We really don't want to try and start out fresh… and so if we can't beat 'em, can't outrun 'em, and can't out-smart 'em… we might as well join 'em.

That was the real rub, wasn't it? Even if he had somehow lost his mind and decided to leave his sister behind there would be no place safe for the Undersiders to go- Frontline was what the PRT and Protectorate wish they could be; they were fast, agile, efficient, and as long as they played by the PRT's rules they would be able to operate with impunity. The people had given them a mandate to clean up the streets, and that meant that no one- not even petty criminals like them- would be able to roam around freely.

Brian had two options- well, three, but he really didn't like to consider the third. He could join the Protectorate and deal with all of the hassles that would come along with it, including a mediocre salary for the amount of danger being a Cape involved, or he could join Frontline. Considering the Bay was now clean of all Parahuman gangs except the Undersiders he doubted that he would be allowed to stay in the city; they'd likely transfer him to another branch, and that was if they would follow through on helping him get custody of Aisha.

Frontline was by far the more attractive choice, and it even included power armor. Power armor made by one of the best Tinker teams on the planet. If it had been just him he needed to worry about he would have signed on just for that- he had been a young boy once, not too long ago. He smirked to himself slightly; his sister would likely roll her eyes and mutter something about "boys and their toys" before she began needling him over it.

It didn't take long for Alec and Rachel to respond, and when they did he was kicking himself off the couch and grabbing his wallet and car keys. At this time of night, it would take a better part of half an hour or more to get across the city, and that wasn't including the travel time to the Redmond Welding building.

Brian had the GPS coordinates plugged into his phone and was hopping down the stairs after locking up- it was always better to be early rather than late.

He snorted at the picture Lisa sent him of her and Horizon sitting in a packed Fugly Bob's- the pair of them wearing high-tech domino masks.

Fox (in the Henhouse) 5:56 PM: See you when you get here!

You guys rock!

A/N: This one took a little bit longer to write as I have been preparing for my brother coming home; he's spent the last two years in Korea with the Air Force, so I'm glad that he'll be spending some time with me before he gets to his next duty station. I don't know how much I'll be able to write, but if there is some radio silence from me for the next two weeks don't be alarmed. lol

Also, I was kind of surprised when I found out I could get multiversal portal technology from someplace else other than the Doom portal, so when I rolled the Aperture Science perk it sort of slapped me in the face like a fish. I spent the whole day thinking about various worlds that could be traveled to instead of working on the chapter, so that was also a big reason for the slow down. LOL

Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! (Portal) (100CP)

Pick one of these two options: one PhD in a subject which actually exists, or 3 PhDs in subjects which only exist in Aperture. Applied physics of quantum tunneling, multiverse search algorithms, and event horizon containment are examples of Aperture only degrees. You can buy this perk twice, but it's only free once.

Shadow Clones (Generic Naruto Fanfiction) (100CP)

Ah, shadow clone no jutsu. The signature jutsu of the Naruto franchise. And now you can join in on the fun. You have a copy of a technique scroll for the shadow clone jutsu, of such quality that an idiot could teach himself from this thing in virtually no time at all. It even has safeguards built-in that eliminate any possibility of killing yourself by putting too much chakra into it, or getting a headache from too many clones dispelling at once or anything like that.

The worst that can possibly happen is that it fails to work.

You still can only make as many shadow clones as your chakra can support but outside of that you can feel free to abuse this handy jutsu for training, decoys, diversions, paperwork, chores, or whatever else you can imagine. In the event that this technique is supposed to have some additional features in the particular fanfiction you go to, or even a better version, this scroll will contain both versions.

Some of the best shadow clone fanfic features include shadow clone self charka regeneration, temporal split clones instead of normal clones, mind merging without dispel, constant hivemind like connection etc

Weapons Lab (Starbound) (100CP)

A lab full of analysis and test equipment aimed specifically at deciphering and improving deadly weaponry. You can use this lab to analyze any weapons that you come across, and given time, can figure out how to isolate and combine the different features of the weapons into other weaponry you create. Comes with a melee and firing range for testing out any weapons as well.

100cp because a 1 module ship costs that much.

Chapter 19 - Interlude - Lisa Wilborn

[Lisa Wilbourn - Tattletale]

[Frebruary 24th, 2011]

-Difficult to read.

-Has Tinker tech designed to block Thinker powers.

"No shit," Lisa muttered to herself as she brought a hand up to massage her temple, "Tell me something I don't already know."

-Tinker tech is small, easily concealed; no visible presence.

The blonde Thinker, formerly of the Undersiders, followed behind the beautiful Cape who revealed herself to be Spring, but having poured over the Frontline website through their cape biographies Lisa knew she was Springfield 1903. The woman was bouncing her child effortlessly up and down in her arms as they moved through the headquarters of Frontline- sections of their home base that Lisa hadn't been allowed access to in her short time here; the MRVN that they assigned to be her 'helper' was just as much her minder as it was her assistant. It was sort of grating, knowing that her freedom was being curtailed by a freaking robot of all things, but considering she was both a former villainess and a Thinker their caution was warranted.

Annoying but she didn't peg the Frontline organizations to be filled with idiots and fools, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Their hospitality was top-notch for what could be expected of a "guest" such as herself- the room was rather spacious for an underground complex, the furniture was functional as well as fashionable, the bed was sinfully comfortable, and the shower was divine; multiple wall jets, a rainfall or waterfall shower head depending on what setting she wanted, and the body wash, shampoo, and conditioner were some of the best she'd ever used.

When all were combined together with the amazing food Lisa was feeling the best she'd ever felt in a long time.

-Installation is laid out with purpose.

-Numerous hidden security features; actual features are unknown.

-Anti-Thinker/Pre/Post-Cognition protections are area-of-effect and extend in a large radius around the wearer.

-Installation was built in a very short amount of time and remodeled numerous times in quick succession.

-Rivets and weld lines are purely cosmetic.

-Used for decoration and to reduce speculation on actual manufacturing capabilities.

She blinked and looked more closely at the walls and bulkheads as they passed through the facility.

-Lack of visible seams and tooling indicates purpose-made machinery with high-level material bonding capabilities.

Lisa shook her head, because of course this organization would be able to make a whole installation like this in just a few days and then remodel it multiple times for various reasons that her powers could not divine. The best reads she could get from them were when she got them talking and answering her questions; if they remained silent then she had to rely on her own intuition to make guesses because her power was practically blind.

Not completely blind, but if she had to guess her power's effectiveness was reduced by 90% or more when trying to get a read on anyone wearing their anti-Thinker protections. The issue was everyone was wearing the exact same thing, so trying to glean any information from them was close to impossible; the best way she found to work around this limitation was to speak with as many of the insanely aesthetic Frontline members as possible. The weirdest thing about it was that it seemed that they all knew of her and what she was capable of, but considering their level of efficiency at dispatching the gangs they probably had a very fat, very detailed dossier on her; who they got the information from was the real question, especially considering Coil had gone through great pains to keep her shielded from the other gangs and the PRT, but that was a whole can of worms she couldn't decide if she wanted to open or not.

The curiosity was killing her, but considering she was in the heart of their operations there wasn't much she could do about it other than bide her time and wait for the Coil situation to be resolved; then she could either leave or stay.

"Ah, here we are, Lisa," Springfield finally spoke up as the motherly woman turned her head and gave her a crinkle-eyed smile that sent Lisa's stomach end over end. This was strange because Lisa usually found herself hating almost everyone she'd met, but with her powers being almost wholly sealed off like this she was forced to do something she hadn't had to do in a long time: Take people at face value.

Lisa gave a tight smile back as her eyes flickered over the signage posted above the door- "Tactical Command", "Well, I can certainly say that I am somewhat excited."

The woman shook her head and the door opened up with a small musical chime, and when they stepped through it was honestly something like a wet dream for Lisa. It was a science fiction command center that looked like something out of one of Alec's Aleph video game imports- the back wall was filled by a quartet of large video screens that were each partitioned off into equal cubes that denoted which helmet feed belonged to whom, a large table in the center appeared to have some sort of holographic interface, and there were numerous comfortable looking chairs that had large crystal display screens attached to swiveling mounts.

All of this data was available for her to crunch, though even if her power was currently neutered it didn't mean she couldn't draw the information in herself and allow her power to make its own conclusions. "Okay, I think you got me."

The other woman's laughter was warm and comforting, and Lisa followed her to the holo table in the center of the room. Already it was displaying a top-down view of the city of Canberra, and the Thinker could see the PRT and other groups staging on a small lake that was a few miles northeast of the city. From the corner of her eye, she could see numerous white-silver shapes fly into view, and she watched as Springfield double-tapped onto the flying wings and the view shifted focus to zoom in on them and began tracking their approach towards the staging area.

"Holy shit, those are aircraft?" The words tumbled out of her mouth as the holographic interface cleaned up the image to display the pristine shapes of the "Globetrotter" aircraft as they slowed down their airspeeds from mind-boggling numbers down to something more sedate and reasonable; their formation changed from two "Flying-V"s into a single line formation before their forward airspeed halted entirely and they began dropping altitude. They touched down and within a few seconds the aircraft were disgorging power-armored Frontline members, more MRVN robots, and shipping containers that were driven around on wheels that were being directed towards what looked to be a predetermined layout; she hadn't been to an Endbringer fight before, but she knew that they had procedures in place for if someone brought their own supplies to help with the efforts there.

Lisa marveled at how easy and intuitive it was to move the map around, the teen playing with the table- zooming in and out, rotating the screen on the x-axis, and being pleasantly surprised when she could rotate it on the z-axis as well… at least to a certain extent; she couldn't move it too far, maybe forty-five degrees or so, but more than enough to give her a decent idea of what others could see. "This is a lot cleaner than I would have expected from Tinker Tech."

"That's because it isn't Tinker Tech," Springfield spoke, drawing Lisa's attention away from the table, and she suddenly wished she hadn't looked because the woman had plopped one of her breasts out and was feeding her child. Green eyes met green eyes and Lisa arched an eyebrow. The woman at least had the decency to blush a little bit, "I forgot to bring a blanket, I don't usually have to hide this from the other girls."

-Team members are aware of her offspring's feeding needs.

-Offspring was just fed an hour ago.

-Offspring caloric requirements are much higher than typical infants.

-Mammaries are much more full than a short while ago.

-Springfield's body is producing milk at a much higher rate than normal.

-Springfield's body is enhanced.

"So you just… whip it out whenever the little tyke gets hungry?"

The woman nodded, "Mmhmm, Julian is much more developed than most children at his age. It is pretty easy to tell what he wants; he gets fussy in certain ways for certain things. Besides, the girls like to watch and learn, and I must admit if it wasn't for my talks with Tiffany… even with the books and videos I've watched I would have been at a loss sometimes."

-Team members enjoy the sight of new offspring.

-Team members like offspring.

-Team members want to learn so that they can take care of their new offspring.

-Horizon is the likely father of future offspring within the organization.

Lisa swallowed. 'So everyone in Frontline is baby-crazy, huh?'

'Or mastered.' She grimaced.

"Listen, I've seen the organization's stance online…" She began, her fingers clenching around the corner of the table.

"Oh? I think I know what you're going to ask, but go ahead and ask it," The woman reached up and gently pulled her nipple away so that she could shift the baby around and latch him onto her other nipple, "The worst that will happen is that I will either tell you the truth or a very convincing lie."

"Ooookkkkaaaayyyy," Lisa said slowly, as she easily figured out that Springfield wouldn't tell her what the answer would be- the truth or the lie. "So, there are some pretty serious Master vibes going on here with Frontline. Like, 'Heartbreaker Plus' vibes. You've all done a pretty damn good job of deflecting and obfuscating, and your more than excellent PR has caused enough people to not really care that much about it."

The woman hummed a little bit before she tapped her finger on her chin, "Horizon would honestly prefer that I not answer that question, but he knows that you're a smart cookie, even if your powers are severely limited. More importantly, despite his attitude, he would much rather have you in our corner than outside of it, and that requires a modicum of trust."

Lisa felt her mouth salivate a little bit but she straightened herself up as best she could, "Well, I can't promise that I won't freak out and try to run if its something I don't like, but I highly doubt that I could escape anyways… so you really got me over a barrel here."

"Indeed, but that isn't my intention at all," The woman softly shook her head, "But I doubt that once you learn the truth you'll be so inclined to run away screaming, it's nothing so outlandish- at least as far as Earth Bet is concerned."

Lisa felt her eyes droop, "You're not exactly inspiring confidence here…"

Springfield remained quiet for a few moments before she nodded her head, "Well then, as a resident of Earth Bet you should already know that there are more Earths out there than just here, correct?"

"Yes, Aleph was discovered thanks to Professor Haywire," Lisa nodded as she left the holo table and strode around to sit in the chair right next to Springfield, the young woman moving the crystal tablet out of the way.

"Well then, you should know that the various Earths are not all on a joint time-stream; some Earths adjacent to us are in the era of the first World War, some in World War II, and others are in eras leaning towards the future while others are farther to the past."

Lisa blinked, "Alright, considering we only have one known Earth, that being Aleph… how?"

"How do we know?" Springfield's eyes crinkled as she smiled and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder to stroke the pink ribbon at the nape of her neck, "Well, let's just say that we are all quite experienced with this; that and the PRT has already discovered many, many other Earths, but their classifications are quite high."

The blonde squinted, "Are you telling me that you're all from… another Earth?"

"Yes, indeed," The brunette nodded, her swaying hair catching Lisa's attention for a few moments before her eyes unfocused slightly to take in the older woman's entire face; it usually worked to allow her powers to 'reset' a little bit, but with her powers being strangely silent the teen was forced to rely on her own intuition, "Our Earth was very different from this one. From 2035 to 2042 the world had been embroiled in the Third World War, one that stretched just as far and wide as its predecessors, however, it did not end in nuclear fire as many had predicted, but instead, the war came to a close when the majority of nations using Collapse Technologies ceased using Collapse Fluid."

Lisa's eyebrows furrowed, "Collapse… fluid? Collapse Technology? What is that?"

Springfield shook her head, "We don't truly know. No one does, it's one of the biggest mysteries that the world is trying to figure out and uncover to this very day. The technologies of the pre-war world are something that is heavily investigated- during the war a great deal of critical infrastructure- including learning institutions, technology repositories, and manufacturing facilities- was destroyed on all sides. The world we all lived in was far more advanced than it is here… far more advanced than it should be considering the number of years differences; it is believed that all of the powerful Relic Technologies were once created and powered through the use of Collapse Technology, and when the war was over all of that was lost once the dust had settled."

The chair Lisa was sitting in leaned back just a touch to make her sitting posture a bit more comfortable.

"Most of the advances that our world enjoyed were recovered from those ruins, and the fields were primarily in telecommunications, computational processes, and…" Springfield's green eyes gazed at her meaningfully, "Robotics."

"No." Lisa squinted, "No way. You're not saying that I think you're saying, right?"

Springfield chuckled musically, "No, we are not robots."

"Phew, thank goodness-"

"We are androids." The woman smoothly interrupted.

Lisa felt her brain stutter and then her mind rebooted itself.

"Though I guess technically from your point of view we would be 'cyborgs' on account of us now having an organic physiology with cybernetic enhancements," The woman tapped her chin with a finger as her eyes gazed at the ceiling.

The blonde teen shook her head, "Well, I would hope so, on account of you… you know… having a kid and all."

Springfield's grin grew teasing for a moment before she looked down at her son and gently ran her fingers through his wispy hair. "Yes, you are correct, but it wasn't always like this. We were incredibly advanced androids, with many systems that mimicked human biology but ultimately we were entirely mechanical in nature; we had synthetic flesh, synthetic nerves, and a circulatory system that was filled with a blood-like coolant to keep our electronics at a nominal operating temperature. We even were able to eat food and convert it to energy, even if it was fairly inefficient; the nutrient pastes that we consumed were quite dreadful in taste, but their caloric density was high enough to sustain us in longer combat operations when recharging our internal batteries were not feasible."

Lisa licked her lips nervously when she mentioned 'combat operations'.

The older (was she really older?) woman sighed before her eyes swept over the large panel screens for a moment, then she turned her attention back to the parahuman. "We all were, with a few exceptions, civilian model androids called 'Dolls' that were upgraded with tactical modules; most civilian models were built to work in the hospitality and service industries- hotel staff and concierge, restaurants, small businesses, and the like."

Her smile turned wan as sad eyes looked over Lisa, "The end of the war saw a great shortage of humans- it reaped a terrible toll on the human race, almost as bad as the Endbringers have here on Earth Bet. The declining birth rates certainly didn't help- more positions needed to be filled in business sectors all across the world than there were young, unskilled workers to fill them, so the human race turned to androids to handle the minutiae and busy work so that they could focus on making the big decisions."

"At the end of the war a soldier formerly of the nation of Ukraine, saw the opportunities that androids could bring into the military and defense sector, and with the help of a few scientists they used Relic technology to upgrade civilian dolls into 'Tactical Dolls', or 'T-Dolls' for short," The woman continued her history lesson, and Lisa saw fit to let her continue without breaking up the flow- she could ask her questions when the woman was finished.

"We were given Tactical Modules, and through the use of Relic Technology we were 'imprinted' by a specific weapon of the pre-World War III era; this process made us much more effective with a single weapon versus multiple weapons, though it does lead to influencing our personalities based on the era and national origin of the weapons we were imprinted with," A hand came up and gently cradled her cheek, "I am, as you know, a T-Doll that was imprinted on with the M1903 Springfield rifle, and the knowledge we have of that time period in American history has greatly influenced me; I believe in American Exceptionalism, Apple Pie, and Baseball."

A dusting of pink turned her cheeks ruddy as her eyes turned demurely to the side, "As well as obeying my dear husband and attending to all of his needs as a good wife should… among other things."

Lisa felt her face grow warm but she inside of her lip to tamp that down.

"However, when we are made… we are made to be loyal to the Company first and always. We follow our orders to the best of our abilities when they are given by an authorized Commander, and to follow the rules of warfare. So…" Green eyes once again met green eyes, "To answer your question, no we are not being Mastered because 'Mastering' implies that we are being forced to act or behave differently than originally intended."

"Fucccckkkkkkkkk…" Lisa groaned as her hands came up and covered her eyes, her palms grinding against her sockets, "So you were created to be loyal from the very beginning, and because of that you firmly can say that 'technically' you aren't being Mastered and that would be the truth."

"Indeed, that is the case, however, we are far better off here under our Commander than we ever were in our old world," Springfield replied, her voice firm and confident.

Lisa ceased her groaning and raised her left palm just enough to look at the woman with a gimlet eye, "How so?"

"Tactical Dolls are created to fight and die so that humans don't have to."

The woman's words hung in the air like a cloud of fog so thick that it made breathing in the moments that followed it more than a bit difficult.

"This is the underlying, indisputable truth that all T-Dolls know, and despite how morbid the thought is we all believe that it is for the best."

Springfield's words were calm and gentle, the woman giving Lisa a soft smile as though speaking a harsh fact of reality would make it easier for the teen to understand and digest.

Quite frankly, Lisa hated it.

"We are- were nothing more than parts and pieces of metal, lines of code. Even if we could bleed it was coolant, not blood. Even the more advanced dolls with… ahem, black market upgrades, could only ape sensuality and sexuality; we could never reproduce with humans, nor could we replace them," Springfield gently rocked the child in her arms to give Lisa some emphasis, "We were limited by our programming in certain areas, but we could feel joy and pain. We could feel love and loss. We had our highs and lows- our ups and downs- and we could feel anger, sadness, rage, and all of the other things that made intelligent beings intelligent."

Her eyes became downcast and her expression saddened measurably, "There were some of us who believed that all of the above was immaterial, and there were some of us who believed that the only thing that separated us from the humans we served and protected was biology. I heard that there was one T-Doll who only wished to be fully human. However, despite the few outliers, most of us accepted that our lot in life was to fight and die… though that didn't stop us from daydreaming and wishing for something different."

Her expression softened as a warm smile stretched her lips, "Then one day, that all changed for us- we were activated… and when we woke up it was under the care of a Commander who believed that the only thing that separated us from humans was the lack of a biology, and he saw fit to correct that deficiency."

"He believed in us, that we were just as human as anyone else- only that we were limited by our hardware," Springfield raised a hand up and tugged her pristine white glove off with her teeth before she gently bit down on her thumb, a small rivulet of blood appearing and sliding down; Lisa noted that the wound had completely healed when the woman rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. "So he gave us almost entirely new bodies, only keeping the bare minimum of our original skeletal frames; I have an actual brain now instead of a digi-mind. I have an actual heart now instead of a coolant pump. I have lungs instead of heat-sink bellows. Eyes now instead of optical sensors."

That bloodied hand came down and rested on her belly, "I have a womanhood… a womb with which I can make and give birth to new life."

"This is my son. My son. My baby. Jason and I made him together- his seed and my egg, fertilized and planted within the fertile valley of my very own womb," Springfield's eyes grew wet as a happy sob escaped her lips and her hand came back up to stroke her child's head as a few tears spilled down her cheeks, "He grew in my belly. I felt him kick. I felt his heartbeat thrumming with my own. I gave birth to him, just as every other red-blooded American woman did."

Her moist smile was then turned onto Lisa, "It's more than just having free will for us, Lisa. We can think critically and act of our own accord when before we would have been paralyzed into inaction without a Commander to issue us orders. We are free to pursue our own desires and act more on our likes and dislikes. We are free of the restrictions that forced us to put our lives beneath those of some random person on the street… self-sacrifice isn't as beautiful or as meaningful when you're forced to do it, no?"

Lisa felt her eyes sting more than just a little bit, "Yeah, throwing yourself in front of a bullet just doesn't have the same meaning if you're compelled to do so."

A small chuckle escaped Springfield's lips, "Yes. Anyways, everything that we lacked as T-Dolls we were given to us by Horizon. By Jason. He is our beloved, the one who helped us be more than we ever could have been before- the line between human and doll has been removed."

Her chuckle grew into tinkling laughter, "Though it's funny that even with all of that… even with freedom now within our grasp we still cling to our identity as Tactical Dolls; we still identify ourselves as a rifle, submachine gun, shotgun, handgun, assault rifle, and machine gun. We still think that we are our Commander's weapons- no. That is a lie."

"We are his weapons, but we are also his companions. His subordinates, and his women," The woman toyed with the boy's teeny, tiny earlobe with the tip of her index finger, "An interesting dichotomy, yes? We are human now, but we still want to be Tactical Dolls… to be useful and helpful to our Commander in every way we can be… be it on the battlefield, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom."

Lisa sucked at some snot that she hadn't even realized was threatening to dribble out of her nose, and her thumbs came up to wipe away at her eyes. "Well… hypocrisy is a well-known state of being when it comes to humans, but I don't see why you still can't be both."

The teen parahuman cleared her throat, "Hah-hem, though truth be told this is far from what I thought the answer would be when I asked."

Springfield hummed with a reassuring smile on her face, "Well now you know. So I guess it is up to you to ask yourself the question of 'are we Mastered' or not; though I do hope that you wouldn't keep hold of that wicked way of thinking about our situation. Our lives are demonstrably improved over what we had before, and more than that we are incredibly happy with where we are in life now- we still get to help people… to protect humans, but we also now get to enjoy all of the perks of being human. This body has been far more than I could have ever dreamt it could be, and the happiness that I now have… the love that burns within the heart beating in my breast… it can all be seen in the little bundle of joy that I now hold in my arms."

-Believes her words to be true.

-Is genuine in her belief that she is far better off now than before.

-Does not dispute that her initial programming still holds some weight on her current attitude and functions.

-Believes she is not Mastered because she is performing exactly how she was created to be.

-Loyal to her creator, in love with her creator.

-Wishes to have more offspring with her creator.

-All Frontline members wish to have children with their creator Horizon.

'Oh great, now you decide to pipe up?'

Lisa cleared her throat a few more times before she distracted herself by looking down at the crystal display attached to her chair. Her fingers slid and swiped, and opened panes of data before minimizing them. This was far deeper than she had ever thought it would be.

Incredibly heavy.

She was no stranger to the weight of emotions and the like, but this was a different kind of heavy; she had thought of Heartbreaker 2.0, but this wasn't like that at all.

The fact that they all wanted Horizon- Jason's- babies was something that was more than a bit weird to her, but considering their years of history as being just 'one step removed' from being human… of bearing all of the burdens of being human with none of the 'perks' Lisa could see how they would be ecstatic to pile onto their creator's lap. He gave them hope when they had none- dreams that were only possible in their wildest fantasies were made true by his hands. Everything that they lacked on their own he gave them.

Was it any wonder that they wanted to experience everything that their new lives had to offer with the man who made it all possible?

No, humans have done far, far more for far, far less.

Lisa herself had once stolen hundreds of dollars from various well-to-do persons in her home city to repay a rando homeless man who'd given ten bucks out of his panhandling so that she could get a cab out of the city and the fuck away from her parents. He didn't have to help her, but he did, so she repaid him in kind many times over. She never did it again, but she hadn't needed to "borrow" money from a homeless man since, so it evened her karma out, right?

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lisa finally spoke up again. "So you actually still have your memories from before? Your old world?"

The woman was just putting away her bosom and redoing the swaddling on the baby boy when she blinked and turned her attention back to Lisa. "Yes, we all do. Would you like to see some of them?"

Lisa nodded, "Yeah. Although I won't say 'I'd like that' because your world sounds just as fucked up as ours does, but some extra perspective wouldn't hurt."

Springfield waved her hand and Lisa's display glowed blue before a variety of video clips showed up, but they were all exactly 16 hours in length. As if reading her mind the woman spoke, "They are like that because the other eight hours were my maintenance and recharge cycles- when I went to 'sleep' I would upload my current memories into the neural net and back them up so that in case my current chassis was too damaged to be repaired Griffen & Kryuger could purchase a new doll chassis and upload my memories into them."

She shook her head, "Though on account of my position as a backline rifle I was rarely damaged enough to need such a thing; the shotgun, handgun, and submachine gun T-Dolls were the groups that needed to be revived the most."

Lisa's lips pressed into a thin line. That did not make her feel much better, but she did scroll through the footage and saw a snapshot of her daily life- cleaning her body in the shower, walking through a headquarters that was drastically different than this one, eating in a dining hall with other T-Dolls, and receiving her daily patrol missions from a Commander that was decidedly less impressive than Horizon. The maps that the briefings showed were most certainly of a different Earth; eastern Europe- Hungary to be precise- and the blonde scrubbed through the patrol footage of her moving through forests and open fields before returning for the evening.

It was all cataloged here with very few gaps- Springfield was dutiful in uploading her memories into this 'neural net' so that even if she was killed she wouldn't be lost.

A small shiver went down her spine at the Ship of Theseus dilemma that posed, but she tamped it down. The teen parahuman didn't get much more time to look though because Springfield caught her attention with a pleased huff.

Lisa's eyes were dragged away from her chair's crystal display towards the woman who was lifting her baby up underneath its arms while pointing towards the screen with her finger, "There he is, Julian. There's daddy- he's going to help those people and do something amazing, just you watch!"

The boy burbled a few times, but other than stuffing his hand into his mouth and looking around with wide, uncomprehending eyes, he did his best to stand up in her lap with weak legs. No, wait, he was standing up.

Lisa didn't consider herself an expert on the physical development of children, but there was no way that a child that young should be able to stand up like that.

-Offspring is developing at an accelerated rate compared to normal humans.

-Offspring is stronger than normal human children.

The baby waved its hand so quickly that Lisa's eyes barely were able to track it, and she felt a small puff of wind breeze over her face.

-Correction. Offspring is

much

stronger than normal humans.

-Low Brute rating- estimated 1 or 2.

'No shit, power!'

Just what the hell else did they do to themselves to make their baby that freaking strong!? No wonder Springfield said to be 'careful' and 'gentle' every time she handed him over to the old woman- she wasn't saying it to Tiffany, no, she was saying it to the baby!

'What the hell, Frontline!?' Lisa all but screeched into her mind.

Still, she was able to calm herself somewhat when provided an ample enough distraction- at least she didn't have a powers-induced migraine from information overload, but still, she felt a headache coming on regardless- and Springfield let out a small 'oh!' causing the teen parahuman to look in her direction.

"Looks like dear is showing up, the fighting should begin soon," She looked over at Lisa with a calm smile, "Do be sure to pay attention, okay? If you're going to work with us it would behoove you to know most of our capabilities."

Lisa felt her eyebrow twitch- since when did she display any interest in working for Frontline to begin with?

"Okay, maybe I was a little too hasty?" She muttered to herself in her mind as she watched the Simurgh get absolutely bodied in this fight. Frontline manhandled the Endbringer in a way that no one else had been able to even attempt before their arrival to Earth Bet. It was clear that their Tinker Tech that prevented her Thinker powers from working very well also royally fucked over the fake angel, and that was allowing practically everyone to get in on the action without being immediately pulped by some flying debris.

"The Simurgh can only see the past and use that data to predict the future; she cannot see the present except through a proxy with a small delay. However, our amulets blanket the area in a sphere around us that is 200 meters in diameter; you can see on the map that all Frontline members are spread out roughly 150 meters apart. This gives maximum coverage to all of our allies operating within her psychic scream range; she is effectively blind to everything not happening directly above her or below her." Springfield giggled, "And while it was a rush job, our dear managed to make powerful enough munitions to appreciably damage her for our weapons- we're only chipping away at her facade, but considering she is practically immune to all normal small arms that's quite alright."

The Simurgh was getting pummeled from all sides, and as she moved through the city, grabbing what electronics she could see in the narrow space around her, the Frontline members moved quickly and efficiently to keep her hemmed in at all times; with the trio of Frontline members at the encampment that also prevented her from targeting them more than simply tossing a few token buildings in their direction which Alexandria dutifully intercepted.

Their weapons were indeed causing some decent damage, but not nearly enough to cause the Simurgh to worry; she could have gotten a lot more information from her power if she had been there in person- without the anti-Thinker Tinker tech in operation- but she quickly discarded that thought like the cancer it was. In the rear in the command post was something that she vastly preferred to being in the field; sure, running around with the Undersiders was quite exhilarating at times, but the fear of permanent injury and death was more than enough to keep her from foolishly enjoying it like the teenager she was.

Unlike most teens she was intimately aware of her own squishy mortality- Coil had beaten that silliness out of her very early in the beginning.

Yes, sitting in the Command center suited her just fine, though she had to admit that she felt a lot less useful simply because her powers only chose to interject here and there; it didn't block her fully, but it made gathering information much more difficult, and what she could glean was far less impactful than she'd like.

Still, seeing the Simurgh- one of the most terrifying beings the world had ever seen- getting her ass handed to her from a variety of different viewpoints was simply amazing.

Truly, it was a treat.

Then she saw Horizon bounding across the city at a mind-boggling pace, far more quickly than she thought their power armors were capable of moving at, and he fired a rocket. That rocket seemed to affect the Simurgh far more than anything else that had hit her the entire fight with the exception of Eidolon's disintegration sphere.

-Payload disintegrates the flesh of the target.

-Payload is a high-frequency vibration weapon that disintegrates the target into constituent molecules.

-Was used against Crawler.

-More powerful than munitions used against Crawler.

Lisa rubbed her eye quickly as she clamped down and focused.

-Payload should disintegrate the entire target.

-Endbringer flesh is layered.

-Each layer of flesh has a different frequency.

-The different frequencies of flesh layers prevent total disintegration.

-Total mass of the target exceeds the destructive capabilities of the current payload.

The teen focused harder. There had to be more to it than that.

-Frequency of payloads disrupts nervous system.

-Endbringer lacks a nervous system.

-Endbringer has a central node that controls the body.

-Endbringer has a core.

-Endbringer core is disrupted by the power of the vibrations.

-Endbringer core is more disrupted with each layer of flesh removed.

Now that was something that was useful!

Then the world from Horizon's helmet camera was consumed by light, the powerful polarization of the lens the only thing that prevented it from being completely washed out. Every other camera view shook and shuddered as a powerful explosion lit up the front of their feeds- at least those of whom who were involved in stacking the numerous bubble shields around the site of whatever Tinkertech horror device the Simurgh was crafting.

The issue was that Lisa's mind stuttered when she could have sworn she saw the Simurgh disappear from Horizon's perspective a split second before the device exploded and washed everything out.

It nagged at her as she saw the world spin end over end from the Leader of Frontline's helmet camera as he sailed out over the ocean. The fact that it had sent him careening almost seventy miles away proved just how powerful the explosion was- that his armor was even intact enough to continue transmitting was something that should be celebrated… that was if he was even alive. Yet Springfield seemed unperturbed- if anything she looked incredibly pleased with the results.

Lisa pulled up Horizon's camera onto her crystal slate and began rewinding the feed to the moment of the explosion. The teen was quite impressed with the image quality, and the fact that it was recorded and transmitted in the realm of three hundred frames per second made it that much easier to seek out what she sought. Sure, it was annoying going over the frame-by-frame when it was hundreds of images per second of footage, but the scrubbing tool was intuitive and easy enough to use.

The weapon the Simurgh was creating fell to the ground. It glowed. The Simurgh looked towards Horizon in shock. The world went white.

The weapon the Simurgh was creating fell to the ground. It glowed. Horizon lifted his hand. The Simurgh looked towards Horizon in Shock. The world went white.

The weapon the Simurgh was creating fell to the ground. It glowed. Horizon lifted his hand- Lisa stopped the frame there and stared at it a few moments before squinting and using her fingers to zoom in a little bit on the image. It appeared to be a small cube? Well, small in Horizon's large hands- it would probably need to be held in both hands for a normal person. She began clicking over the frames again when she saw his finger seem to depress something… the Simurgh looked towards Horizon in shock before she was swallowed up- and the world went white.

The Thinker tapped over the frame by frame over and over again just to get a complete sense of what she was seeing- that and to try and disprove what her eyes just saw. Still, the end result was the same, and even her power seemed to agree.

Horizon captured the Simurgh.

She swallowed and looked towards Springfield who gave her a crinkle-eyed, knowing smile as she simply rested her baby's head over her shoulder.

Lisa did her best to smile back.

She spent some time going over the after-action stuff, listened to Horizon beautifully lie to Alexandria and Legend while telling pretty much the whole truth- if Alexandria's Thinker power was similarly affected as her own there wouldn't be much to draw from if he was being deceitful-, and then stumbled back to her bedroom with MRVN leading the way.

"Fuck." Lisa moaned to herself as she rolled from side to side on her bed with a pillow stuffed into her face, her bare feet rubbing against each other as she did her best to turn the plush comforter into a fabric cocoon; this was probably the first time in a long time that she had a throbbing headache that wasn't because of her powers, but it didn't make it any less painful.

Too much. She saw too much. Springfield gave her a rope and thanks to Lisa's infinite curiosity she gleefully threw the rope over the sturdiest branch she could find, tied the noose herself with a smile on her face, and then pulled the fucking lever.

Lisa hung herself and she didn't realize it until it was too late.

There was no way in hell that they would simply let her walk away from them now that she knew what she knew. If they didn't mind whammy her then the level of scrutiny she would have on her from Frontline would be clinically insane. She wouldn't be able to squeal to anyone about anything, not if she didn't want to disappear.

Sure, Frontline was a heroic organization, but with their capabilities, it would be child's play to orchestrate her going missing; they could probably erase her entire existence if they wanted to- even the photographs her parents had of her would probably end up being doctored to such a degree that no one would believe them.

Though, it all could be just some showmanship in order to get Lisa to join their team- the story Springfield told her a complete fabrication… but that would be far, far, far too much effort spent on fooling her when the truth was much neater. Occam's Razor was in full effect here- the simplest answer is most likely the truth; they were all androids (bio-androids now) that came from another Earth and were either built or co-opted by Horizon to better humanity.

There was a whole lot that they weren't telling her, but Lisa would be damned if they didn't already have her pegged; a small but steady drip of the truth- of those tasty little secrets that likely no one else would know but her- and she would likely stick around for the long haul just to ferret them out. Though it was more likely that they would give them to her should she be trustworthy enough to handle them…

"Oooohhhh I'm soooooo ffffuuuuucccckkkkkeeeeedddddd…." Lisa lamented.

She wriggled around in her bed for a few hours before finding out that sleep wasn't going to come easily. Instead, she blindly reached around on the nightstand next to the bed until her hand came into contact with the tablet that the Frontline organization had given her- she needed to see what the peabrains and mega minds alike thought about it on PHO. She needed some sense of normalcy that her world was sorely lacking at the moment.

[March 5th, 2011]

[Lisa Wilborn]

Springfield was dazzling.

Incredibly dazzling.

Too dazzling.

It was beginning to be sort of a problem because no matter where she and Lisa went during their "day out" in the city the men just couldn't help but flock to the beautiful woman. In the past, most of the men would have come up to talk to Lisa in order to gauge her age, and maybe see if she was legal or not; she couldn't fault them because with fashion and make-up this day and age some girls just looked way older than they should. Like Brian's sister, Aisha; that girl was only 13 years old but a man couldn't be faulted for thinking her older with just how… developed the teen was.

However, now she knew what it was like to be the ugly girl that the popular girls surrounded themselves with to make themselves stand out.

While she didn't exactly like the attention of the various men of the Bay, she would be lying to herself if she didn't at least acknowledge that it was certainly a great boost to her confidence.

The issue she was having was that now that she was surrounded by people who weren't wearing Tinker Tech that blocked the majority of her powers she was now getting the 'fire hose' treatment again.

-Is attracted to Springfield.

-Believes her to be a single mother.

-Uses his daughter to get dates with other single parents.

-Has commitment issues stemming from his one long-term relationship landing him with a child that he sees as a burden.

-Sees said "burden" as a way to help get himself in bed with various vulnerable women.

Lisa shook her head as she turned back to the clothing rack in the little boutique in the mall and kept looking through them; she would try them on, take a picture of the outfit in the dressing room, and then they would be manufactured in Frontline's base to her exact measurements. Considering all of the Tinker tech scanners within the place she wasn't surprised that they had her exact measurements, but she had to admit it was nice to wear a new outfit every day that complimented her figure in every possible way.

She kept half an ear out as she picked out a particularly cute blue, white, and grey plaid chamois button-up and a pair of blue-jean capris pants that would hug her posterior and make her bottom pop. Why she was suddenly changing her wardrobe to be sexier and less cute was something that escaped her, but she believed it had something to do with Horizon; unlike the other girls she'd met, Horizon hadn't let anything about himself slip to her power. At all.

It was nice that he was still a mystery to her. Not that she particularly liked that he had an open relationship with dozens of women who were more than happy to do anything he asked, but it wasn't like she had options at this point. He was attractive, very physically fit, and most important of all he was a complete blind spot to her power so it couldn't ruin him for her. The only real obstacle would be her age, but even if she was technically legal at 16 that didn't mean that he would bone her; he seemed to have standards when it came to age.

Though one wouldn't know it with the resident child-like fox and fox/dog/cat(?) of Frontline existing.

Ugh, fuck, they'd only known each other for a little while and yet here she was conspiring to get in the pants of her new boss just because her powers hadn't already ruined him for her?

This was a new low for Lisa Wilborn, but she couldn't say she hated it; if anything it just pointed out how starved she was for positive interactions with people that didn't immediately want her dead or strapped to a bed for her power.

The fact that her sights had been settling on the man that had been able to easily subdue an Endbringer and bend it to his whims was something else entirely. As much as she tried to ignore it, he was all of the things that any teenage girl would find desirable, and he had it all in spades. Strong, intelligent, confident, capable, successful, competent, and surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women who were also just as good as he was.

In the back of her mind, she knew that even if he would be considered a "player" there was something inherently sexy about a powerful man like that; the fact that other women were surrounding him because they also recognized those same qualities made him that much more desirable.

She was also able to get in on the "ground floor" so to speak, which gave her quite the leg up against everyone that wasn't a T-Doll inherently loyal to him.

Lisa could be in the unique position of being his 'sanity check'- the voice of reason or dissent in a sea of beautiful "Yes Women" that were more than happy to rubber-stamp his every command and nod approvingly at his every plan. She would never be his primary tactical strategist, but she would be more than happy to be the little voice in the back of his head letting him know that maybe doing "X" wasn't the best idea.

Being in Horizon's hip pocket would give her a unique position of authority within the organization, some power that others would give up their firstborn for because Frontline was already an organization that had no peer in the world- and they were only a few months old at this point! If she got to have all of that tantalizing safety, adventure, and influence while getting laid by a hunk whose Tinker tech prevented her powers from clam-jamming her then she would just have to suffer.

Oh yes, to be Lisa right now was so much suffering.

"-so do you come here often?" The man's voice carried over the racks as Lisa stepped into the changing room and drew the curtain closed.

"Oh no, I'm new to Brockton Bay," Springfield tittered, and Lisa could visualize the woman hiding her mouth behind her hand, "My husband and I recently moved here for his work."

The tank-top Lisa was wearing was peeled off as the teen kicked off her heeled boots and stripped out of her blue jeans. The teen looked at the plain choice of white bra and panties that she chose to wear and stripped those off as well so she could gaze at herself in the full-length mirror of the dressing room. Her breasts were a decent handful, pale flesh that was the perfect combination of her perky and jiggly thanks to her youth. Pink nipples with small areola capped the swells of her bosom, and a nice speckling of freckles gave them a little color and texture. She turned on her heel and chuckled to herself as her hands came down and grabbed onto her bottom; fingers sinking into the flesh before giving them a playful squeeze.

Yeah, she looked great for her age, with just the right amount of athleticism that was required for her previous work as a Cape.

The teen shook her head and pulled her bra and panties back on before she could internalize the fact that she was ogling herself for the express purpose of deciding whether or not she had the figure to attempt seducing her boss. Just because she was open to the new avenue didn't mean that she needed to jump onto it and attempt to wrangle it so soon!

God, she was so damn restless and pent up right now; she hadn't been able to flick her own bean because her power turned itself inward and began psychoanalyzing herself. No one likes having a voice whisper their own fetishes into their ears when they were trying to rub one out!

"Oh?" The man sounded quite disappointed, "Does he… work a lot?"

"Mhmm, yes, he does work a lot, but that is quite fine with me- he does what he loves doing," Springfield replied, "He enjoys helping people, and seeing him so happy makes me incredibly happy as well."

"Well, it's truly a shame that he leaves such a sterling example of motherhood such as yourself alone so often," His words were carefully pointed and slimy. Not that Lisa could talk because poking at common insecurities was something she did quite often in the past, "A man should be around more often for his wife and child."

"Yes, but a man is a provider first and foremost; he works as often as necessary to provide for his wife and child. It is my duty as his wife to see to it that when he finally comes home after a long, arduous day at work that he is welcomed home with a clean house and a hot, delicious meal," Lisa could practically feel the smile in Springfield's words, "Then I tend to all of his other needs, as is proper."

There was an audible snort from the man, "Quite old school, but I can't say I don't find myself envious; he's quite a lucky man."

"I've heard that more than a few times before, but I must say that I feel like the lucky one; he works so hard that when he comes home I just can't help but want to pamper him," The woman's voice was glowing.

'Ah, Springfield, please, stop.' Lisa groused to herself; the woman was just so brilliant that even with a few racks of clothing and a curtain between them she felt her eyes shut- her right hand coming up to reflexively shield her from the woman's blindly sweet personality.

The blonde teen shook her head and finished trying on the clothes before snapping a photograph of herself on her newly minted "Horizon Phone", and she undressed quickly back into her old clothes. Just as she was opening the curtain Lisa heard the man make his last-ditch effort.

"W-well, how about this? We exchange numbers and if you're looking to maybe chat or hang out or something we could sit down over a cup of coffee and let our children play together… does that sound like something you'd like?"

The teen let out an aggravated sigh as she put the clothes back on the rack (where she found them) and walked over to the small bench where Springfield and the man were sitting and chatting; their baby strollers turned around so that they could both keep an eye on their children. Lisa placed her hands on her hips, the young woman noting how the slightly-more-attractive-than-she-thought man's eyes zeroed in on her bared midriff before they slowly worked up to her face.

-Thinks you're very attractive.

-Is imagining a threesome between you, him, and Springfield.

-Is imagining you and Springfield engaging in-

'Okay, that's enough, power,' The teen mentally rolled her eyes and clamped down on her power before turning to look at Springfield. "Well, I think we're finished here, Spring."

The man opened up his mouth to greet her but Lisa held up a hand while she unlocked the stroller's wheels for little Julian and began pushing the baby out of the store. "She's not interested in having an extra-marital affair, dude, so stop trying."

Springfield blinked before she stood up and placed her fists on her hips, "Well I never!"

"O-oh no, I think you've got the wrong idea here-"

Lisa's eyes tightened, "Oh really? You don't cruise around the Boardwalk looking for other single mothers to mingle with? Never used your daughter to help yourself get laid? Never? Rrrriiiiiiiight."

The teen pushed out of the store and back into the open air of the Boardwalk, the warm spring air and the scent of salty water smacking her in the face as the pair left the spluttering man behind. The sound of Springfield's boots gently thumping next to her lulled her into a small, blissful silence as they soaked up the sun and moved towards the parking lot where Horizon's absolutely insanely modified F100 sat.

Springfield broke the silence as they passed by a pair of Enforcers, "Was that man truly interested in… an extra-marital affair?"

Lisa turned her head towards the All-American rifle just so that she could properly see just how hard the teen could roll her eyes. "Yes, he was, Spring."

"How do you know?" The woman interlaced her fingers behind her back and leaned forward just a touch, her voice dropping quite low, "Are your powers that strong?"

Lisa struggled to keep her eyes away from the woman's beautiful bare shoulders and her bouncy, milk-laden decolletage; she didn't think she was interested in women, but with the massive harem that Jason had set up… if she was going to try and slip herself into it then she might as well get used to the idea. It wasn't that she didn't dislike women, it was more that she just liked men more… but considering how supernaturally gorgeous and perfect the women that surrounded her made it all the more difficult to just kick that particular can down the road.

Instead, Lisa chose to watch the woman's ribbon stream in the breeze.

"Yup," The teen spoke, making sure to pop the 'P', "As for how I know? Well, you have to ask yourself a couple of questions, and those questions are such: In what section of the Boardwalk were we shopping? In what store were we shopping in?"

"Hmmm…" The woman tapped her chin as she hummed; Lisa knew she was enhanced enough to know exactly what she was asking, probably enough that she could have finished the teen's sentence before she even finished it; she merely slowed her thought processes down for the mere mortal in her midst, "Well, we were in the ladies boutique section of the Boardwalk, and the store was 'Rhapsody', right?"

"Indeed, we were in the section of the Boardwalk that caters to women's clothes; like the women's clothing section of a department store. More specifically, we were in a boutique that caters to teenage girls and young adult women like myself," Lisa began waving her hand through the air for emphasis, "There is no reason for a single man with a child to be near those shops unless he was picking something up for someone else. However, he wasn't shopping, no, he was on the hunt. The moment he saw you he made a beeline, sat down next to you, and started chatting you up."

The teen leaned her head back and looked at Springfield's interlaced fingers, "You're wearing an awful lot of jewelry for an unattached woman, and this stroller is definitely something unique- never seen on the market- and your clothing speaks of someone well-to-do as well. You are a taken woman on virtually every metric, and yet he still stopped to talk to you specifically. Guys like that look for certain indicators, and while you appear to be quite happy the clothes, the money, the jewelry, the child, and the absence of a man in your immediate vicinity could very well give you the look of a woman who is taken care of and provided for but… the gifts are just there to make up for the lack of time your man spends with you."

"Ooohh, do you think he might have looked at me and saw a lonely housewife?" The woman let go of her hands and reached up to cup her cheek, "Hee, hee, hee… I wonder if I can tell Jason about this little encounter? No doubt he would be quite upset… either he'd need to be reassured that I'm naught but a humble, faithful woman… or… maybe I could have him reassure me?"

Lisa felt her cheeks warm but she shook her head, "Well, play it out however you want, but for a moment there I thought you were getting seduced."

"No. Not at all, he was pleasant company, but nothing in this world could ever tempt me away from my dear Commander," The T-Doll chuckled, "Well, was there anywhere else you wanted to go, Lisa?"

The teen blinked and then nodded her head, "Yeah, I think I'd like to go to the mall if we could; the boutiques have a lot of cute things but there are a few places that have a wider variety of clothes- if they're free then I'm going to try and have a new outfit every day."

Spring tittered behind her hand as her blue sundress swished with her rapid steps towards the truck, "That sounds like a marvelous idea, Lisa! A new outfit every day…"

Lisa tried not to stare at the woman as she bit her lower lip and stared off into the distance.

The Brockton Bay "Ocean Side" mall was only a few blocks down the road, and it was packed in a way that Lisa hadn't seen before. People were out and about in droves-

-Feel safer with Frontline's accomplishments.

-Lack of organized criminal element presence has bolstered spirits.

'No shit, power,' Lisa scoffed, but from what PHO and the local news were saying this was going to be an excellent future for Brockton Bay. With the gangs gone, a structured plan from the city and the heroic elements in place to revitalize the Bay area with much-needed repairs and jobs, and the little announcement that the city was going to host numerous new factories for "mass-producible Tinker tech"… yeah, it really wasn't any wonder the people were out in force.

This was probably the safest the Bay has been since the advent of Parahumans.

"Isn't this wonderful, Lisa?" Springfield murmured breathily as her eyes took in the sights of all of the families and random teens roaming around.

"Yup, it sure is," The blonde looked around and nodded, "You guys have given the city a great deal of hope that it didn't have before."

The T-Doll chuckled as she waved towards another family that saw the pair and gave them a pleasant greeting. They walked through the double doors and folded themselves into the crowd with Lisa leading them as was the only one that knew the mall's layout- granted Springfield probably knew as well, but there was something about letting someone familiar lead the way. "Where would you like to go first, Lisa?"

Or maybe it was her inclination to defer to a human?

The teen tapped her chin as they walked, "Well, there are a couple of shops on the second floor that we could look into for myself, and for you and the other girls who want to look into clothing for their future baby bumps then there is a maternity store here on the first floor."

The older woman's green eyes widened in surprise before a cat-like grin tugged at her lips, "Already figure that out, hmm? I've been trying to let you get some hints here and there, I figure that would go a long way in establishing some trust."

"Well, you're not the only one- all of the girls have given me some glimpses here and there," Lisa shook her head, "Can't say it wasn't helpful though, it made it much more comfortable than living in a sensory deprivation chamber."

The T-Doll hummed as they continued to walk, Lisa weaving the stroller in and out of the crowd with expert precision, "But, yeah, it was pretty easy to figure out just how baby-crazy you all are; from what you've told me though it makes a lot of sense. Far less creepy than I had initially feared."

"It's the last part for all of us, the last step," Springfield smiled softly as she increased her stride just a hair so that they could glimpse into her stroller and down at the fruit of her womb, "With a child in our bellies it will be the last true step towards being human; for most of us, even those of us who've spent years with Jason, it still doesn't feel quite real yet. Almost like a dream that we'll one day wake up from."

The teen felt her belly clench at the woman's admission.

She could definitely understand just why this would be so important for them, and why this step would be needed to help affirm their minds that the happiness they've been experiencing wasn't merely fantasy. Or a highly detailed simulation in their neural net- a trap. Springfield noted that the experience of carrying life and giving birth was something that would be far outside the scope of what the artificial masterminds of Sangvis Feri would be able to accomplish.

Not that the T-Dolls had a frame of reference for what that would be like either, but every little bit helped them come to terms with their good fortune.

The pair spent almost an hour in the maternity store "Baby 4-Ever" and Springfield spent a great deal of time trying on all sorts of maternity clothing and taking photos for whatever manufacturing facility they had. They ended up purchasing a trio of dresses just because Springfield didn't want to feel guilty about working the store's lone attendant to death without there being some compensation to the store she worked in, and it was about that time that Julian started to get hungry; Lisa had only been around the little tyke for just under two weeks and she'd figured out that the baby was quite a bit more intelligent than most kids his age- he made specific sounds for whatever was ailing him, be it his belly or his bottom.

They went towards the "Children's Room" right next to the security booth on the first floor- the place where women with small children could breastfeed or change their toddlers in relative peace. Inside there were a few comfortable-looking chairs along with a changing table and some sanitary supplies; a small table with a television took up a corner of the room, and there was already another woman inside.

Springfield greeted the woman with a large smile as she un-kajiggered her son from his stroller and took a seat next to the woman who was currently breastfeeding a girl if the pink onesie was anything to go by. "Hello there, my name is Spring, and this here is my little Julian, what's your name?"

-First time meeting another mother in such an intimate environment.

-Wants to make a good first impression.

-Wants to talk about their babies.

Lisa rolled her eyes in exasperation, though whether it was directed at her power or Springfield she couldn't quite decide. She cleared her throat and a flush crept up the teen's neck as the T-Doll plonked out a heavy titty that was already weeping milk.

'Come on, woman, can you at least have a little propriety!?' Lisa bemoaned as she dug around the stroller and produced a small blanket and draped it over the woman's breast and Julian. 'Just because the others are more than happy to sit around and watch the kid feed doesn't mean everyone else wants to look at your breasts!'

The woman at least had the decency to be genuinely sheepish as she gave Lisa a quiet, "Thank you, I can't believe I almost forgot again."

The teen shook her head, "I'm going to head up to the second floor and check out those shops I mentioned before. I'll be back in an hour."

Springfield nodded and she waved her off with her hand, "Thank you for telling me, Lisa. Now, go out and have some fun, okay?"

As the door shut behind her Lisa could make out the mousey, brown-haired woman's words before it sealed shut with a click. "Ah, well, to answer your question my name is Kayden and this is my daughter, Aster-"

Lisa spent the next hour in mind-numbing boredom having already blown through every single outfit that she thought looked cute enough- or alluring enough- to wear. She did buy one outfit from each store to follow Springfield's example, and she waited outside the Mother's Room with another teen that was about her age.

-Is bored.

-Is waiting for his smaller sibling to finish feeding.

-Wishes his mother left the stroller outside so he could have piled the bags on top of them instead of holding them.

The blonde teen was fairly tall and had a bit of muscle to him, but his huskier frame and ruddy, chubbier cheeks made him seem a bit more juvenile. He lacked a certain level of athleticism that Lisa found attractive, but he was patient, which was a nice quality to have in a guy; if he could stand outside of a baby room and hold onto bags with minimal griping then that should be something good in every woman's book.

Granted, it was a little unfair to compare the average teenage boy to someone of Horizon's stature. One might even call it 'uncharitable'.

He noticed her looking him over and his cheeks flushed even redder, "O-oh, waiting for someone to get finished up in there too?"

"Yup," Lisa popped the 'P' harshly, if only because it was something that was mildly annoying, and it was a great way to goose some reactions out of people, "Just enjoying a nice relaxing day of shopping in the Bay without the druggies, nazis, and the traffickers ruining everything- at least that was until someone got a little hungry."

The boy was smiling softly, but he flinched fiercely when she mentioned the lack the E88 in the Bay.

-Knows about the E88 intimately.

-Knows some of the Empire capes that were arrested.

He let out a loud sigh, "Yeah, I totally understand. No one is happier to hear that they're all gone more than me."

-Was close to members of the E88.

-Knew them intimately.

Lisa focused her power because it was starting to circle back, and she began some harmless prodding; she was definitely trying to be less abrasive because she couldn't very well work for an organization like Frontline and be an utter bitch to everyone. "Really? I can probably understand being happy that the Merchants and the ABB are gone, but people like us didn't have to worry about the E88 all that much; though I agree that the Bay is better off with all of the gangs gone."

He snorted and shook his head, "You might be right, but let me tell you when I say that the Bay is much better off now than it ever was. My, uh, best friend's dad was Empire, and we stopped hanging out after he started getting dragged into their business. I didn't exactly subscribe to the crap they were spewing so I kept my distance."

'Best friend? Riiiggghhhtttt, pull the other one, it's got bells on it,' Lisa chuckled inwardly as she spun around and pressed her back against the wall on the opposite side of the doorframe and sat her bags down on the floor. Seeing that, yes, one did not need to hold every bag in their hands, the ruddy teen blushed and mirrored her actions.

-Father was Empire.

-Father was high ranking member of the Empire88.

-The woman inside is his mother.

-The woman inside is or was Empire88.

Lisa rolled her neck before chuckling mirthlessly, "I think you made the right choice. Tell me, is anyone else from that cesspool still around? I tried looking up some stuff on PHO and everyone seems to think that the Empire is gone for good."

"Ah… uh… I don't really run in those circles, never really wanted to be associated with them," The teen rubbed at the back of his neck, "So I honestly couldn't tell you. If I did know you could be your sweet bippy that I'd have already contacted the PRT… or… well, maybe just Frontline?"

-Doesn't know of other Empire capes.

-Doesn't know of other Empire members.

Lisa clamped down on her power, fully aware that any further interrogation wouldn't lead her to anything else. She grinned, "My 'sweet bippy'? I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say that before."

If he had been red before the young man was positively atomic now. "Uh, it's just an expression?"

Her foxy smile came to the fore as she continued to needle him playfully for a few more minutes, though she was distracted when she saw a handful of people begin fast walking past them. A security guard poked her head out of the booth and looked around anxiously.

-Knows why people are leaving.

-Knows that Capes are within the mall.

-Knows who the Capes are.

-Has already called the Protectorate.

The only non-Protectorate and non-Frontline members left in the Bay were Uber and Leet, and only those jokers would pick the Brockton Mall as the scene for their next greatest stunt.

Lisa grabbed the door handle and swung it open just a crack, "Spring, Uber and Leet are here."

She was greeted with the majestic sight of Springfield's heart-shaped ass, her bare bottom fully on display. The pucker was definitely pink and her cunny was definitely damp.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the teen next to her had looked into the room as well, and he was certainly enjoying the view if his slackjawed awe was any indication. 'Join the club, buddy.' She refocused on Springfield.

-Aroused at the thought of her returning husband.

-The act of breastfeeding is mildly arousing for Springfield.

"I already know, dearie," The woman was shimmying up into her lightly armored body suit, the glove was loose on her frame until she buttoned it up, and with a near-silent hiss the armor shrunk around her figure. Springfield the Cape was attaching some armor plates onto her chest, sides, and back that automatically adjusted and cinched tight before she reached down into the pocket space inside of her small purse and pulled out her namesake rifle. She checked the chamber and tittered to herself before she slid it back inside and pulled out her other weapon- the one that shot the tranquilizer rounds. "Hee-hee, almost grabbed the wrong rifle, oops."

A thin domino mask of Horizon's design adhered to her face and she swung her weapon onto her back, the magnets locking it in place so that she could pull her hair up from its demure braid up into her signature ponytail. "Be a dear and watch over Julian, okay?"

Lisa's eyes crinkled and she nodded, "Sure, sure. Just… don't be too hard on them, alright? They're idiots but so far they haven't done anything too bad."

The Frontline member reached up and patted her cheek before leaning over to plant a kiss on her other one.

-Wants to get you used to physical affection.

-Wants to you to be happy to give and receive physical affection.

-Wants to warm you up to joining the Harem.

The blonde gave Springfield her best grin- 'Like I wasn't already aware that the Jason-Train was something I need to 'hop aboard'!'

Lisa stepped inside and took a seat where the nursing mother had just been feeding and she reached out to Kayden. "Aw, thanks for holding him, ma'am, but I'll hold onto him from here."

"O-oh, yes, not a problem. It was my pleasure," The woman spoke breathlessly, her hand moving down to grasp onto her own child's hand, "I had just finished putting Aster into the stroller when she just… up and started stripping out of her clothing. I thought I was in the same room as some sort of… pervert for a moment."

-Was surprised to see Springfield begin changing.

-Holds a deep dislike for those she deems perverts.

-Holds sympathetic ties to the views of the Empire.

-Husband was Empire.

Lisa's eyes darted between the pair as the teen walked in behind them and closed the door before locking it. The woman breathed a sigh of relief, "Theo, good thinking. Don't worry, if worst comes to worst I'll do what I can to handle things."

-Holds no relation to mother.

-Adopted.

-Child of first marriage.

-Believes she can take on Uber and Leet.

-Is a Cape.

-Is a powerful Cape.

-Is Purity.

The blonde teen did her best to keep her grin from faltering. It made sense- one is sympathetic and holds onto views (granted, nobody likes a pervert that would strip down in the middle of a baby room- the Empire wasn't exclusive in that), and the other is linked to the Empire. The boy's father was Empire, and considering no one has seen hide-nor-hair of Purity since a few weeks before Frontline arrived on the scene it was thought that the Artillery cape had either gone to ground or left the city entirely.

That would be hard if she was trying to keep her son out of the Empire and her daughter safe.

"Why are Uber and Leet pulling a stunt like this?" The boy mused out loud, "Shouldn't the Truce be in effect?"

"No, the Truce only extends to 3 days after an Endbringer fight," Lisa found that it was herself that spoke, which surprised her a little bit, but she decided to keep rolling with it, "So they aren't in 'violation' per se, but considering Frontline is still helping with the recovery efforts in Canberra it might as well be. Thankfully Frontline is smart enough to not leave the city completely undefended. As for the two mooks? Probably their last hurrah before they pull up stakes and head out to another city; they'll never get away with their little shows here, not anymore at least."

The woman, Kayden's, eyes were as tight as her smile now that the shock of having a member of a Hero group as powerful and successful as Frontline change in front of her.

Honestly, Lisa couldn't say she was any happier than Purity at this moment- she was stuck in an enclosed space with one of the power powerful blasters in the country sitting a few feet from her, and she just so happened to also be the one remaining nazi cape in the city.

She busied herself with making sure that the little boy in her arms didn't eat her hair as Springfield did whatever it was that she was doing, a small sigh escaping her lips.

'Please, Springfield, hurry it up, will you!? Your son is getting slobber all over my hand!'

You guys rock!

A/N: Finally finished this chapter. I was going to include the Momma Springfield lecture to Uber and Leet but honestly I'm way behind on this chapter, so I decided to cut it. I can have a PHO section on it at a later date. Lisa is quite fun to write, and I also tried to use 'Thoughts' instead of written narrative to express Lisa's internal thoughts whereas I'd been kind of lazy when it came to writing in the 3rd person.

Chapter 20 - Interlude: Brian/Rachel/Alec

[March 15th, 2011]

[Brian Laborn]

It was nice and easy working for Jason Wilke, granted it was probably because Frontline had just started the business less than a month ago, but regardless of that he was getting paid handsomely for what amounted to not a whole lot of work. If anything Bitch, Rachel, had been doing the most work out of all of them as the "Top Line Used Automotive and Restoration" company's lead janitor; their building had only been open for a day and she had already gone through and cleaned the place from top to bottom twice.

The day after himself, Alec, and Rachel signed their generous employment contracts a used car lot with a mechanic's garage was purchased up and within a few hours, large fences were put up around the perimeter. They were tall and had a thick cloth covering them, and they were a staple around construction sites in the country, both to prevent people from walking through a construction zone and to also provide some cover; a lot of businesses wanted it to be a bit of a 'to-do' when their buildings were finished, and the unveiling process was something that was part-and-parcel of that process.

Jason Wilke, Horizon himself, was there throughout the whole process to supervise the workers from the Dockworkers and the Construction Unions that showed up in the daytime to help him renovate the used car lot and shops so that everything was set up to his exact specifications. It was, however, during the night when the most work got done- Brian knew this because during this transitional phase he was their "nighttime security guard" a lot of materials and structures were put up. New parking lot lamps, asphalt torn up and laid back down, lines in the lot repainted, and almost a whole paint booth put up before the sun came up; really, the electricians and other union members were primarily there to be the rubber stamp that ensured everything was up to code.

Some of them groused that whatever under-the-table help he was getting was cutting into their profits, but a subtle reminder of all of the work they'd have once the Brockton Bay restoration projects kicked off in a few weeks was more than enough to mollify them. The things Brian had to do to keep some of the more curious workers away from the job site once the work day was called.

Truth be told, though, not even Brian knew what went on behind the fencing once the sun went down and the traffic died in the Central ward of Brockton Bay; he had his security booth outside the fencing along with a bank of monitors and cameras that were facing outside and that was about it. The security booth was incredibly high-tech, alerting him of movement on the cameras and sensors and he was kept company by the best coffee and food known to man- they tasted great, kept him awake without there being any jitters, and they all came as part of a package with the most comfortable chair he'd ever sat in.

Honestly, he wasn't even needed, but like hell he'd turn down $40 an hour for stupidly easy work like this- not even Alec complained about working the swing shift because he could play around on one of his handheld game systems without there being a single lapse in the security.

That was just their civilian jobs- their cape identities also came with a $5,000 a month retainer, $5,000 a month for Patrol pay (provided they logged 20 hours of patrolling per week), and if there was going to be an active job where they were going to take direct action they each got an additional $5,000 per sortie, along with a 100% bonus in danger pay if whatever capes they were engaging with was enough of a threat to harm them through the power armors that Frontline provided. As part of the benefits, they each had a $2 Million dollar life insurance policy that would be paid out to whoever was listed as their next of kin, along with the best health benefits money couldn't buy.

Sure, it was 50 hours of work a week between both the civilian and cape responsibilities, but when he was going to rake in almost $15,000 a month without having to actually engage anyone? That was damn fine money for someone like him with only a high school diploma, and it was more than enough to take care of himself and his little sister.

The only issue was that they needed to do what Horizon had dubbed "basic training" and have an "advanced course" in order to get them up to Frontline's standards. The basic course would last 90 days while the advanced course would last another 120 days; he wasn't certain when the hell they would find nine months to fit all of that training in, but he guessed that they would do it like the National Guard or something? They did one weekend a month and two weeks every year, right?

Brian shook his head and refocused his eyes back down to the computer monitors within the security booth. The cameras were clean and clear, and within an hour Alec would shuffle over to the booth and take up his shift.

Alec arrived five minutes past 1:00 AM, but that was something Brian expected from his fellow teen and accepted; it was hard enough for the boy to show any enthusiasm for anything, but he still managed to scrounge together enough willpower to overcome his apathy for the easy money that Horizon provided.

Brian unlocked the door to the security booth as Alec stepped forward, "Hey, Bri, stick around- the boss man wants to have a meeting at 6:30; something about our future job training."

The dark-skinned teen nodded his head as he adjusted his tan uniform shirt and tucked it back in underneath his security belt. "Sure thing, I guess I'll just sleep in the break room."

"Heh, that bed in the break room is awesome," The pale-skinned teen chuckled as he slipped into the chair and pulled his handheld gaming device out of the side cargo pocket on his trousers, "Fell asleep in it earlier today while I was playing."

Brian rolled his eyes and waved at the other teen. "Well, see you in 5 hours then."

"Yup, see ya then," Alec responded, the tiny sounds of music coming from the handheld's speakers as Brian slid the booth door shut.

"So, thank you all for being here," Jason Wilke spoke, the seven-foot tall, muscular blonde man crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against a large, heavy wooden desk in the middle of the office. Lisa, Alec, Rachel, and Brian were all seated in some chairs in a semi-circle around him, and the Chinese woman that had introduced herself as Qi Bai Zhang Min was standing off to the side with a pleasant smile on her face and some manila envelopes tucked against her side. It took some willpower to focus on their employer instead of the smartly cut business suit the woman wore, but considering she wasn't the one who was paying them it was a bit easier to do.

"Now, we're not here to talk about the business here, we're here," He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver disc before placing it on the table, and with a small 'click' a translucent blue bubble expanded from it until it covered the entire room, "- to talk about Cape shit."

"Hell yeah," Alec spoke out, but his voice was just as unenthusiastic as it always was.

Horizon's lips quirked but he shook his head, "However, first thing's first- Qi, if you would please?"

The woman walked over and began passing out packets to all of them, and they all looked at the manila envelopes. "The fuck is this?"

Brian winced at Bitch's words, but their boss took it all in stride. "For you, Rachel, that is your criminal record expunged; I sat down with the PRT last week and we did some digging… and found out that the Agent responsible for handling your case did not take into account the circumstances of your Trigger event. So your murder charge has been dropped and you've been officially placed in my care until the day you turn 18."

The black teen felt his eyebrow rise and he pushed the copper tabs up and opened his own envelope before pouring over the documentation. "For you Brian, I pulled some strings and provided you set yourself up in a good apartment here on this side of town and get her enrolled into Arcadia for the fall semester then she'll be officially in your custody. Nothing your mother will be able to stop."

Brian inhaled sharply and let the breath out slowly as he leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his cornrows. His fist clenched and he nodded back. "Yeah, yeah. That should be easy enough- this documentation should do it, right?"

"Indeed, though it isn't official until Monday next week, so you can utilize the next six days to do some apartment hunting, purchase some furniture to furnish it," Horizon spoke calmly, "Once you get your apartment situated we'll swing by to do some security upgrades for your place since that is where you'll be keeping your patrol armor."

"Oh man, now I'm getting excited. What did I get?" Alec chuckled and he opened up his envelope and looked at the single sheet of paperwork in his hand, "The… hell?"

"That is an IOU," The blonde man tilted his head to the side, "For a slot on our action team when we head up into Canada to kill Heartbreaker. I'm certain that you'll want to be there for that."

The teen's jaw moved, all sense of excitement gone from his posture, but he did look up at their employer with a smoldering gaze, "I honestly wasn't expecting this, but out of everything here I feel like I got the best little gift."

"Though, I do wonder what Lisa got," Alec turned his gaze towards the Undersider's former Thinker and she gave him a foxy grin with a double thumbs-up.

"They saved my life by taking out Coil, I now have stable and lucrative civilian and Cape employment, and the backing of the most powerful Cape organization on the planet. I don't think I need to ask for anything else."

"Also, Rachel, once we're finished renovating my shop here I've taken the liberty of purchasing an old animal shelter just a block down the street. It will be a bit of a fixer-upper, but we'll fix it once we're done with our little training trip." Horizon looked at Rachel and she nodded.

"Good."

"Now," The blonde man unfolded his arms and clapped his hands together lightly, "For the real reason we're all here. Tonight we are going to be handling your Basic and Advanced training blocks."

Alec tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes, "That's like nine months, boss man."

"Yes, it will be nine months of training, but in reality… it will be less than five hours." He shrugged his shoulders, "We have mastered the manipulation of time itself, so we're going to be spending 210 days in a highly specialized training complex. The complex will be surrounded by a time dilation field, so while 210 days pass by on the inside only four and an half hours will pass in the outside world."

Horizon looked at the wall clock, "It's almost seven AM right now, so if we went in we'd exit just before noon."

" Fucking cool," Alec chuckled, "Just like 'Chronos Lever'."

The blonde arched an eyebrow, "I'm not familiar with the particular game you're talking about, but yes, it is fucking cool. It's how we've managed to get so much done in so little time; a time dilation field does wonders for helping move Tinker projects along."

"However, before we get all excited about that, there are a few things I need to inform you of," The man tapped the center of the hardwood table and a Tinker tech holographic projector appeared with numerous diagrams that popped up- some were of the human body while others were of the power armors that Frontline used. "The power armors can be used by unaugmented people, but the amount of armor and safety features that can be utilized is minimal compared to the current model of armors I want you to use."

"If you tried to use the armor we have with your current physical bodies you'd just rip your own arm off. So, to combat this, we're going to be putting you through a multi-step process that will painlessly upgrade your bodies to peak physical condition and then beyond that," Horizon's blue eyes turned away from the holograms and locked with each one of theirs in turn, "I would say that this process is voluntary, but it isn't, not if you're going to be a part of Frontline proper; the independents that want to be apart of our affiliate program can squeak by with just getting watered down power armor, but if you're going to be my boys and girls then I'm going to do everything within my power to make sure that you come home alive."

"This includes gene therapy, optimal nutrition, a skeletal and muscular overhaul, along with numerous other improvements to your eyesight, reflexes, and durability," He popped his neck, "I will essentially be turning you all into super-soldiers with a Brute 5 rating just so that you can handle wearing the power armors that I've developed for you, and the armors themselves will bump you up to Brute 7, but all of the little bells and whistles will give you a variety of lethal and non-lethal options to handle pretty much any criminal that remains within the United States."

"You have a one-year probationary contract with Frontline now, but the moment that you finish your augmentations that will be extended to a five-year contract; after that Frontline will consider the augmentations paid off and you'll be able to leave the Cape life behind and strike out on your own if you so choose," Horizon shrugged his shoulders, "You'll live to be about 150 years old, will stay younger looking longer, and will be incredibly strong and durable without the need for other Powers. So it's not as though there aren't some incredible benefits with the augmentation process."

Lisa leaned back in her chair and rubbed the side of her head, "And what's the failure rate for these augmentations?"

Horizon arched an eyebrow and looked at her, "Zero. I've had a 100% success rate- myself and all of the other members of Frontline had been augmented with everything we will be giving you and then some. We have the best of the best overseeing every step of the process, and there are no negative consequences for going through the full suite."

Brian, for his part, believed him; if the 40 members of Frontline had all gone through the process that made them able to do all of the incredible feats they have done in the past few months then he was certain that if there were any kinks in the process they would have been worked out by now. What was more important in his mind was that the reason they would be going through the process at all was that Horizon didn't feel comfortable putting them out there with just the watered-down power armors to protect them; he could have easily held all of this back to keep all of the 'good stuff' to the core members of the group… but he wasn't.

Granted, there was some suspicion in the back of Brain Laborn's mind as Frontline had been… incredibly generous with not just the pay and benefits, but they had also followed through on all of their promises. In less than a week, he'd be able to collect Aisha and get her out of their mother's house, and that was worth more than its weight in gold. It was right there on the borderline of "too good to be true", but considering the power, money, and influence that Frontline could now throw around the more likely answer was that Horizon wanted to cultivate talent and gave them plenty of incentives to stay.

Brian wasn't much of a comic book nerd, but even he knew that being on par with Captain America without the power armor and then exceeding Captain America with the armor was more than enough to convince him that going forward with the process would be the correct decision. What good would it do if he got Aisha out of that hellhole only to get himself killed because he wasn't strong enough, fast enough, or wasn't wearing the best protection possible because he hadn't gotten the proper augmentations to wear it?

Brian Laborn closed his eyes for a few moments and then opened them up, "So what do I need to do going forward?"

"Shit, if Brian's in then I'm in," Alec snorted, clearly amused by the whole thing.

"I can't take care of my dogs if I'm dead," Rachel grunted as if that was the only reason she was doing it. Granted, in her mind that probably was the only reason she was doing it.

Lisa sighed and shook her head, "Well, I was hoping to get some upgrades anyways, but it seems that peer pressure just greased the wheels."

To Brian's surprise, Horizon gave them all a soft smile, "Well… thank you for trusting us. We'll meet back up here after lunch, so if there is a particular restaurant that you want to eat at before going away then now is the time to do so. Don't worry about clothes or anything else, all of that will be provided by us."

The bubble that had been surrounding them in the room popped and Jason Wilke walked out of the office with Qi following close behind him.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Alec broke the tension. "Fugly Bob's?"

[Jason Wilke]

[March 16th,2011]

[2 Days into the Training of the Undersiders]

Homecoming was nice. I got to spend a lot of time with Tiffany and the girls, had some quality bonding time with my son, and even got the renovations started on my business. Two weeks was the amount of time I had budgeted for getting everything finished- I could have easily renovated the entire place in less than a minute with the help of the Canoptek Scarabs, but that would have obviously not flown over well, so I decided to split the work 50/50 between the construction and dockworker's unions. We did most of the tear-down, stripping the old place down to the studs, and systematically made plenty of repairs and upgrades to the old used car lot and mechanics shop; everything I needed to conduct my business was there, and I honestly looked forward to the day that I could do some more of the mundane stuff and just relax.

However, I couldn't exactly relax now as I now had my first team of outsiders to look after, and I needed to make sure that they were brought up to snuff. They would be the test bed for my new Augmentation Delivery System- a way for the Undersiders to upgrade themselves over time without me having a direct hand in the process, and thus not fall under the Three Laws perk that would undermine their autonomy; now whether or not I would utilize this method for other people I honestly didn't know, but I felt I had a decent enough read on the Undersiders to let them do hero work without needing to be Mastered.

The system itself was quite simple- nanomachines that were self-administered, when fed the proper nutrients and building materials, would upgrade the Undersiders over an extended period of time; they would get the Promethean physiology as well as the modified Super-Soldier serum, though in the case of Rachel Lindt and Alec, or Jean-Paul Vasil, they would have to undergo some mental tweaks that would improve over time as well; primarily in the empathy and critical thinking centers of the brain. Ultimately they would all end up half as strong as the rest of Frontline was prior to the ingestion of the Heart-Shaped Herb, though that was done both on purpose and because the delivery system wouldn't be nearly as effective as Subee and her girls were.

They would still be monsters on the field without the armor, and their armor would be similar to what we were all wearing; no sense in gimping their suits when survivability was the primary goal.

Regardless, if they ever went rogue they wouldn't be strong enough to give us any issue when it comes to dispatching them, and that was before any of the magic, the Force, and Ki was taken into consideration.

Springfield informed me that she was grooming Lisa to eventually be inducted into the harem, and if she chose to take that step then she would get the complete workup along with all of the ass-pain and training that would entail.

"So you're saying that any tech you create is automatically loyal to you?" Alec's words were irreverent, his posture on the comfortable couch relaxed, but his words still held a tinge of nervousness to them.

I gave him a look and then nodded, "Yes, that was what I just said. Then I explained how we would get around that with the self-administration of the nanomachines. The end results won't nearly be as good as if you'd had the augmentations directly created by me, but the armors will compensate for those deficiencies."

Lisa sighed and rubbed the side of her head, "Well, I would be more worried if the Robotics Tinker didn't have a Master sub-classification to keep his minions under control, but are you certain that this little workaround will be successful?"

"As long as neither myself nor any of my minions do the direct work then the Master effect will not engage," I spoke calmly and held up the vials of silvery liquid for them to see, "I've known about this since I got my powers, which is why I went through all of the ass pain to create this workaround in the first place. If I wanted to Master you I would have kept my mouth shut and just augmented you, then I would have my brand spanking new team of utterly loyal Undersiders that I could have done with as I pleased."

Rachel just shrugged and stood up before walking over, cracking the cap on the vial and downing it all in one go, the teen making a face as she washed it down with a bottle of water (Frontline Brand, if you must know). "It tastes like metal. Anyway, I just swallow those metal tablets every day, right?"

"Yes, swallow all ten tablets every day and eat the meals provided. We'll be doing scans every morning after physical training to keep an eye on it, but it's mainly just a sanity check; part of my powers ensures that everything I make functions as intended, every time, all of the time." I fixed the burly young woman with a look, "But just in case something does go wrong then we can fix it."

"Good enough," Rachel grunted before looking at the rest of the teens formerly of the Undersiders, "Well? Are you going to do it or not? We did all of this bullshit just to get to this point, no sense in pussying out now; he could have Mastered us, but he didn't."

"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound," Lisa was the next to stand up and grab her vial, twisting the cap off and doing her best college student impression with a can of beer. Her face twisted into all sorts of amusing looks before she clicked her tongue, "Oh man, she wasn't kidding. Tastes like a pile of iron shavings looks."

"Well, you can't be worse than dear old dad," Alec chuckled ruefully before standing up and walking over and grabbing his vial, the teen looked me dead in the eyes as he tossed it back, wincing at the taste. He smacked his lips dramatically before shrugging. "If I do end up Mastered do be a dear and at least fuck me every once in a while, just give me a reach around if you do."

I arched an eyebrow, "Not going to happen because you're not going to get Mastered. I prefer women."

He gave me a grin, "Oh, I can tell. My old man would be super jealous about the spectacular harem you've got here, boss man."

With that Alec and the others moved off to the side where they downed the metal tablets and the high-density nutrient pastes needed to jumpstart their process and get them going. Only Brian was left, and he eventually stood up and walked over to me, doubt plainly written across his features. "I'm not certain I should take this or not."

"Don't go off the reservation and start committing heinous crimes, and neither of us will have to worry," I stood up and looked him dead in the eyes, but making sure not to loom over him, "Frontline is the one accepting all of the risks in this situation; I could have easily Mastered you but I chose not to because I believe that I can trust you kids to do the right thing, whether it is because you want to do the right thing or because you're properly incentivized to do the right thing. Either way, it is a net win for the both of us because we will need more people if we're going to accomplish what we want to accomplish."

He nodded and twisted off the cap before looking down at the brew of swirling nanites, "If… if something happens to me, will you look after my sister?"

A soft smile pulled at my lips, "Now that isn't something you need to ask. If anything does happen, which it won't, then she'll be set for life with all of the opportunities that my organization can give to her."

Brian Laborn licked his lips and threw the entire vial back, just barely managing to down it all before he coughed violently, "Oh man, this tastes like I just got punched in the mouth by my old man."

He shook his head and gratefully swished around some water from a bottle that Lisa handed to him before he downed the tablets and began slurping on the tube of nutrient paste. His eyebrow arched and he looked at me, "How the hell did you make this paste taste so damn good but that vial tasted like powered steel?"

I shook my head as I walked over to the door of the briefing room, "The dining facility will be open 24/7, so if you need to eat then eat. If you feel like you don't need to eat then eat some more. We're going to be breaking down your body and rebuilding it into something far stronger than you ever thought possible, and that is going to require a lot of calories. Those tablets are just as important as those will be broken down into the metals that will be coating and protecting your bones as well as forming a sub-dermal mesh that should protect you from knives and most firearms below machine-gun calibers. Once most of your biological changes have been made we'll be starting a specialized regimen for the construction of your cranial implants."

I placed my hand on the side of the door frame and looked back at them over my shoulder, "So don't skip anything. The rest of the day is free, so take a MRVN or one of the girls and go take a tour of the facility; it's a hell of a lot larger than it looks, and after a little while we'll be moving into something less structured which should give you some freedom."

"Wait, wait, wait," Alec raised his hand as he spoke around a mouthful of nutrient paste, "This… is this going to be like the Army?"

I looked over the lot of them and nodded, "It will begin like the military, yes. You need to learn everything from Small Unit Tactics to Solo Operations. Weapons handling and qualification, maintenance, and speed drills. Once your implants are fully grown in we'll be able to speed through user maintenance of the armors among other things; you will be taught to be self-sufficient for the most part because you might end up being slotted into a team that will be posted in another city."

"Everything you will be learning here is geared towards using your body, your weapons, and your armor to the fullest extent possible; you alone will be able to accomplish what is usually required of entire Protectorate teams," I gave him a small smirk as I referenced Alec's favorite Aleph Import, "You will become a One Man Army. So, it's 1330 hours now, PT will be at 0600 hours. We'll go over your scheduling and everything else then."

As the door shut behind me I heard Lisa let out a small squeal of disappointment as Rachel told her to 'toughen the fuck up'.

Yeah, this was going to be a lot of fun.

[Remaining: 200 CP]

[30 Days into "Basic Training"]

[Rachel Lindt]

Rachel was running quite a bit. It was hard, in the beginning, to learn how to "pace herself"; she was used to going two speeds- either walking comfortably or running as fast as she could.

Not that she needed to run everywhere because her dogs were usually the ones doing all of the running for her, but when she did run it was because her dogs needed the exercise and they were playing. Now though? Now she was running because she needed to stress herself so that her body would complete the physical augmentations faster. It was a simple concept that even she understood- run faster, push more weight and she got better faster . Brian understood it, and because of that Rachel and the former leader of their pack were improving at a much more rapid pace than Lisa and Alec.

They were pussies, griping and complaining about every single exercise.

Yeah, it sucked, it hurt, but that hurt was only temporary, and seeing the incredible gains they were already making was very pleasing to Rachel. That constant drip of improvement seen on their personal "scoreboards" was something that she liked, a lot; she understood that if it worked for dogs then it could work for humans too. Less than a month into their physical training and her 2-mile run time dropped from 23 minutes down to 18 minutes; how much of that was whatever modifications were being made to her body, the loss of ten pounds of body fat from her husky frame, or the improvements to her running form and pacing?

Rachel didn't know and she didn't really care- she was getting better every day, and that was all that mattered.

"Hurry. The. Fuck. Up." The young woman ground out as she lapped Lisa once again on the track, the woman grunting it out again a minute later as she ran past Alec; the pasty pretty-boy floundering like some sort of fish on legs. However, just as she lapped them on the track Brian lapped her once more- he was stronger than her, faster than her too. He was also someone used to physical effort and he already knew how to properly pace himself, so it was only natural that he finish ahead of her.

It still galled her, somewhat, but instead of picking up her pace now and burning herself out when she still had two more laps to complete she held some of her energy in reserve; the last lap was when she would go all out.

[60 Days into "Basic Training"]

[Alec aka Jean Paul Vasil]

Well, at least he could say that every day spent here wasn't boring. Sure, he didn't get as much time to play his games as he wanted, but considering he was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women who were all so enthusiastically giving him some many-on-one instruction it certainly made up for it. It didn't matter that he was getting tossed around like a child during the Hand-to-Hand combatives classes because he was getting stronger, and he was getting better; it was something that Rachel commented on, seeing the visible progress each and every day… it was like getting a level-up in any of his favorite RPGs- a small but noticeable tick upward in his performance.

It also helped that he was now growing at a much faster rate than before. Sure he'd been a pretty boy, and considering it was what he had he rocked the pale-skinned, lithe look the best he could, but now he was closing near six foot and was looking more ripped than an Abercrombie model. His cock and balls were also getting larger too, and while he had been totally fine with his slightly above-average features, getting an extra two inches was something he'd never complain about; now all he had to do was go out to a club once all of this was over and sink himself into some pussy or ass and life would be complete.

Still, it was far and away from what he thought something "military-like" would be- sure, it had a lot of physical fitness training that he had to force himself to do, but it was pretty relaxed as long as he paid the bare minimum respect to Horizon's position as the "Commander". It helped that the man in question seemed to be aware of his apathy and they came to a sort-of middle ground where they could try to meet in the middle; it was a lot of effort for Alec to even do that much, but considering the pay and the perks even someone as lazy as himself knew a good deal when he saw one.

The fact that hands down the most gorgeous women he'd ever seen were all the ones providing the instruction for the "Intermediate Tactics" training made it that much more enjoyable. Not that he was too distracted by the beauties to pay attention- the coursework was engaging, and required a little bit of a different mindset to make progress; as much as he laughed at the internet nerds for pointing such things out in the forums, Alec was surprised that he was actually the most knowledgable (for a certain definition of knowledgable) when it came to actual military tactics and procedures.

He had to thank the Call of Honor and Badge of Courage development teams for actually consulting with the military when they made their games.

Though it wasn't much, it did give him something of a framework to build upon- certain words, phrases, and basic tactics were something that was known to him, so he quickly found it was much easier for him to soak in the knowledge that the Frontline girls were espousing and turn that into something he could use. Sure, Lisa was usually the Undersider's primary tactician, if only because her power gave her a lot of hints that no one else got, but in an environment like this? Well, Alec was able to flex his mental muscles and show out in some of the simulated missions that they went out on.

Speaking of which, one of the best things about this whole experience was the fact that unlike the actual military they weren't packed 60 soldiers deep in a classroom with a minimum-effort power point presentation being given by an NCO or Officer that had already done the exact same class for the 20th time that training cycle. No, it was their small group with a bevy of instructors that constantly swapped around to provide different unique viewpoints and some funny, anecdotal stories. That and the training was engaging because they forced him to think, and the use of the holo tables and sprites which used the current abilities of the Undersiders for data was inspired.

All of his current abilities were carefully and exhaustingly measured, from his current levels of full-body strength to his agility, balance, speed, marksmanship, and hand-to-hand proficiency; they were tested frequently as their augmentations progressed, and their runs through the various obstacle courses were all recorded and handed off to analysis programs that quantified their strengths and weaknesses. Even Lisa's penchant for flinching and shutting her eyes when getting clocked in the face was noted down in her "Game Sprite", which was something that rankled her and made Alec chuckle.

These "Sprites" were then used to act as their placeholder in the numerous simulations that took place, and while one might consider it a bit demoralizing to see his currently abysmal combat abilities broken down to numbers that a holographic version of himself used to flail around uselessly in a simulated hand-to-hand combat situation against a run-of-the-mill ganger… for Alec? It was motivation. Not to only to be better because his life would eventually be on the line, but also because he didn't want to look at the small representation of himself throwing a limp-wristed punch that only succeeded in dealing some damage because of his current level of augmentation putting him on an equal playing field with a larger, stronger opponent.

He ended up getting some lessons from Brian on the side- getting some additional help on how to throw a proper punch, speed drills, and the like to help him step his game up. It was probably a bit vain to put in all of this effort so that the "video game" version of himself would perform better, but damnit he was a power gamer, and if there was anything that would get him more motivated it was not wanting to suck at a game. Of course, the intermediate tactics and the accompanying training were game-like, but the Commander had made sure to let them know that it was only a representation and that real life was different.

No shit real life was different- after having been in real-life Cape fights and fist-fights alike, Alec knew that more than most people did, but he knew that Horizon was also just covering their bases and making sure that they didn't get lulled into a false sense of security.

Still, seeing his mini-me's progress was an endorphin rush- back when they did their initial physical fitness and combat testing Alec had been little better than a slightly emaciated teenage pretty boy; he was still stronger than Lisa and Rachel, but it was by a much slimmer margin than he would have liked. He also really only knew how to fight with his scepter, which he had a taser installed- and when combined with his ability to trigger nerves directly- allowed him a greater than average combat ability when compared to regular people. Without all of that? Well, he damn near broke one of his knuckles trying to punch Horizon in the face, and that was when the man had allowed him to hit him in the face. Despite it being so damn good looking he could be quite punchable at times with the mysterious anime-sensei shtick that he did every so often.

All of that culminated in a Training Sprite that was below-average in pretty much everything, and seeing it get wailed on by a pair of Merchant tweaker A.I. who were half-starved did not feel good in the slightest. It reminded him that without his power he had been a normal teenage boy- ultimately pretty helpless in front of a full-grown man.

Now, though? 60 days in he was quite strong, and he would continue to get stronger now that the foundation for his augmentations had been completed. Sure, being stronger and faster, with better reflexes and everything else was cool, but the best part about everything was just how much easier everything was to learn; his suped-up brain and drastically improved nervous system made retaining information and making mind-muscle connections so much easier than before. He had never thought about picking up a guitar and learning how to play it, but damnit he felt like he could learn it quickly enough now.

Still, there was a huge difference between learning how to do something and actually applying it. Even if he could heal incredibly quickly getting beaten black and blue on a daily basis was not fun- he'd foregone his typical hedonistic ways when he left dear old dad behind, but his handheld just didn't please him in ways that the soft body of a woman or the firm body of a man did; it was only made worse by the fact that he knew for a fact Horizon was getting laid six ways to Sunday while everyone else when back to their admittedly lavish dorm-style rooms alone.

Truth be told though, he was getting some serious flashbacks from home that put him more than a little on edge- almost half of the Frontline women were now avoiding their physical training sessions and were instead handling the more academic portions of their training. Those women were practically glowing with happiness at their impending motherhood and the sheer joy of their pregnancies was palpable; the women in his father's harem had the same cheer about them when they were pregnant with his future siblings.

It made him shudder sometimes when he was alone and no one else was around; Lisa had noticed his discomfort- something he'd done his best to layer under his constant apathy- but unfortunately, the other girl was just too good at ferreting out the secrets of others. However, instead of using his moments of weakness as a beatstick or holding it over his head to keep him in line like she used to do when the Undersiders were first formed, the Thinker had gone out of her way to try and help him work through the things he was feeling. He didn't like 'feeling'- the lack of caring was one of his strongest shields and it helped keep the traumas of the past from taking up residence at the forefront of his mind, but something about this whole process was changing him; it was incredibly subtle, but with his powers, he knew his nervous system inside and out, much the same as with the rest of the Undersiders.

It wasn't Mastering as far as he was able to tell, and even if it was as a Master himself he was particularly resistant to other Master effects, but it was just part of the augmentation process; their bodies, to include their brains, were being upgraded into something that was far more than human, and that would then be upgraded even further once their physical augmentations had completed. The new meat-ware came with additional stress and anxiety coping mechanisms that did wonders for helping him not freak the fuck out any time he saw the small groups of Frontline women all gathered around one another and giggled like school girls as they fawned over each other.

The only thing that made it tolerable for him was the fact that they didn't really do anything out in the open and they kept it to themselves- he only found out because he actively sought them out for additional training (Wow, Alec, seeking out more work? Truly, the end times were upon them.) and came across them discussing baby names.

No, he wasn't salty that all of these beautiful women weren't throwing themselves at him like they were Horizon, but he found it hard to blame them- he'd like a shot at gnawing at the man's perfectly sculpted ass cheeks as well; Alec wasn't exactly picky when it came to men or women, but when you were offered a fillet mignon for the eyes then you ate filet mignon.

All in all, Alec was just wanting all of this to be over so that he could go back to being a night guard at the dealership again- it was a hassle now, but Horizon had been holding the power armor and weapons high above their heads since the very beginning… and they were already a third of the way into training so what was the harm in just continuing on? He had never been one of those "I Don't Quit" types of people (hell, he gave up a lot) but when the apples of the orchard he was working towards were mother fucking power armor and cool weapons and shit?

That was something worth struggling for.

You guys rock!

A/N: Just been feeling pretty 'meh' lately. Been spending all of my time hanging out with family, doing stuff with them, and my sleep has been crap as of the past week. So rather than sit on what I've got written in between trips to various houses and hanging out with my bro I decided that I'd just post this and get it out of the way.