Brockton's Celestial Forge

by Lord Roustabout

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

57. 45 Realization - Preamble Taylor

Preamble Taylor

Taylor shifted in her bed as the smell of frying bacon drifted up to her. Thoughts of food punched through the haze of troubled sleep and dragged her back into consciousness. For an instant she felt herself flailing in confusion as her brain worked to make sense of the information being thrust upon her.

It was her connection to her swarm that allowed her to sort through the residual jumbled thoughts from the previous night and grasp the situation. Instant awareness snapped into place as her mind immediately mapped out every detail of her surroundings through the locations and senses of her insects. Her costume was still hidden in the back of her closet, sealed away after a night of grueling cape work. The people of the neighborhood were milling through their normal routines. The family car was back in the driveway, and her father was in the kitchen, making breakfast.

However, all the awareness in the world didn't give her a sense of the time. The sun was bright through her closed curtains and a quick check of her watch showed it to be about nine thirty in the morning. Before she pulled her eyes away she found herself briefly marveling at the way the diffused sunlight caught the surface of the watch, bringing to life a thousand tiny details that could be overlooked in any other conditions. The watch, it was just incredible. It was more than a work of art or advanced technology. It had some other effect, some power tied to it.

Just the fact that she had been able to convince her father that it came from a surplus outlet stall at the Market rather than the highest end of Boardwalk boutiques was proof of that. Honestly, looking at it right now she doubted he would have been able to buy the idea that even the most expensive shops in the city would have carried something like the tiny band that now sat elegantly on her wrist. She'd been nervous to the point of near panic when he first saw it, but there was something about that specific situation that made her otherwise laughable lie completely believable.

She remembered what Lisa had said, back when the girl had thought she understood what was happening with Joe. The idea that his specialization was based on materials. It was a handy explanation of how he'd been able to make the knives, been able to stand up to Oni Lee, and it could even be stretched to explain the special blade and baton he had made for her.

Really, it was the only way you could explain that knife and baton. Despite Joe being announced as a tinker from the start she hadn't seen anything from him that really looked like technology. Not until he rode to their rescue on Saturday night, and even then he seemed to have skipped the traditional tinker loadout for something closer to magic with a science fiction twist.. Nothing he made had any identifiable power sources, circuitry, or evidence of technical elements. If not for the fact that he had clearly been desperate for materials and equipment you could look at the weapons he'd handed out and assume he worked on a level closer to Chevalier or Dauntless than Armsmaster.

Of course, that was before every crazy moment of the previous week. That was before he had admitted he was getting stronger. That was before the events of last night. Looking at the watch now, it was clear to her that it wasn't a question of if the insane feats he was demonstrating were due to technology or some kind of crazy supporting powers. The question was what kind of combination of the two had he decided to put together to make the watch, and to enable each of the feats in question.

Joe was more than a tinker. Surprise of the century, really. It's not like everyone had been suspecting as much when Lisa finally confirmed it for the group. It was rare, but people could end up with multiple powers, and not just in the packaged 'flight and strength' way. Completely different powers, with different sources and expressions. And that was what had happened with Joe. They already knew he had a thinker power, but that was something that could be lumped in with the tinker label. After Lisa's confirmation they knew it went much further than that.

Frankly, it was a relief in spite of how terrifying the concept could be. Without knowing about that detail, that confirmation from Lisa, then everything they saw, everything that had been broadcast would need to be attributed to some nightmare project conducted in preparation for facing the ABB. Dangerous biological or dimensional technology, or any other combination of principles that could potentially be world ending in the wrong situation. The fact that some of what they'd seen during that conflict had been innate abilities rather than incredibly questionable projects was one of the few rays of comfort in the entire mess.

Particularly considering those attack name effects. Knowing that Joe had support powers and that they probably helped set up events around him to control appearances and that they were growing stronger meant the effect that was currently being regarded as some deeply concerning borderline master technology was just a possibly unexpected development of whatever directed his posing and framing during the videos of the fight.

The thought of that fight made her stomach roil. She'd holed up with her father through most of it, for the worst of Bakuda's attacks, but they'd been able to see the second broadcast live. She shook off the thoughts of that nightmarish display as she slipped out of bed and made her way downstairs. She hadn't gotten that much sleep, and her father must have been running on less than her. He'd still been out when she'd slipped back in and hidden her costume and weapons before collapsing from physical and emotional exhaustion of the night's events.

Seeing her dad in the kitchen confirmed her theory. He looked tired, but not tired in the way she was used to seeing him. She was used to a kind of aimless weariness, like it was more that he didn't know what to do than not having the energy to do it. This was completely different. It was like physical exhaustion being held back by force of will. Something she only half remembered seeing when he was on one of his crusades for some cause in the city or with the Dockworkers. Something she hadn't really seen since before her mother…

She swallowed the emotions that welled up with that thought and called out from the kitchen door.

"Good morning, Dad."

He turned towards her and a smile punched through the clear signs of lack of sleep. "Morning Taylor. Sorry if I woke you up. I was hoping to have breakfast ready first."

"I was already awake." She lied. Without being disturbed she probably would have been out until the early afternoon. Any hopes of keeping her morning training schedule had died when realities of cape work set in. Between her 'injury' and the long nights from her last two outings she really wondered if it was worth sticking to her morning runs. "I didn't hear you get back. What time did you get in?"

"Around six o'clock." She kept her face neutral at the news. She had beaten him back by more than an hour, saving her the need for any lies about why she left the house while he was out helping organize relief work. Still, it was closer than she liked pushing things. "I didn't want to disturb you, so I grabbed some sleep on the sofa bed downstairs."

"You're heading back out?" She asked, looking around at the disorder of the kitchen. Her father had been prepping lunches along with an excessively large breakfast and had an assortment of maps, address books, and emergency equipment spread across the counters.

He nodded as he shifted his attention between her and the frying bacon. "Sorry to leave you here, but it's looking to be nearly as hectic today as it was last night. Probably more, now that they can see inside the Dark Zone." He let out a little tired sigh that was quickly buried under his focus on breakfast.

"It's pretty bad out there, huh?" Taylor ventured, as if she hadn't been crawling over the nightmare landscape for half the night, driving her swarm into every crack and ruined building in a search for survivors whenever she wasn't focused on driving off looters and gang members.

That aspect had actually been much simpler than she expected. Brian was right about how important reputation was in cape work. To say she had mixed feelings about the image that had built up around her masked persona would be a massive understatement, but she couldn't deny that it had some uses. It never took more than a brief appearance to send looters running. Eventually she was just assembling insects into rough approximations of her shape to cover more ground.

That was a trick she'd need to remember. And probably refine, at least to the point where's be able to mimic actual movement rather than just looming menacingly. That had only mostly worked, and the results of her run-ins with capes was enough evidence of that.

Her dad cricked his neck and transferred the bacon to a plate. "Bad, sure, but people are trying to stay positive. Still a mess. Hundreds of displaced and injured, and the Dark Zone hit some of the last industry the city really had. Plus, the bombings themselves, and those lines of whatever through the city…" He sighed and shook his head. "Still, at least we have a city."

Taylor moved into the kitchen and looked for ways to help with breakfast. She settled for bringing plates and cutlery to the kitchen table as her dad finished with the bacon. "You think it would have gotten that bad?" She asked, thinking back to the updates they had received after the fight was over.

That had been distressing. She could say Joe certainly hadn't underestimated March's power, and whatever it took for him to recover was concerning on a lot of levels. After he had vanished they'd only been able to reach him through texts as he was dealing with things on his end. She didn't know what that meant exactly, but probably nothing good.

And nothing she could do about it, either. Instead, she had thrown herself into the rescue effort. Her first real heroic action, even if it was something she was technically coerced into. It actually brought a bit of a smile to her lips. Joe had framed it as wanting to minimize the number of fatalities that could be attributed to his actions, but the search instructions were clearly broader than that. He wanted to help people, even if his situation meant he needed to come up with a cover explanation.

And that thought brought her mood back down. That was still on her. It was her plan, her decision to infiltrate the Undersiders that had dragged Joe into this. But it was important. Joe had confirmed it himself. He admitted his thinker power wasn't perfect, but he'd been right about March. He'd been right about Bakuda's attacks. She could trust that he was right about the importance of her mission.

Without that confirmation would she still be trying? Still riding things out with the Undersiders, trying to figure out the identity of the person behind them? Maybe, but she suspected it would mostly be out of a lack of options. Feeling in too deep and desperately hoping for something that could make her actions less than a total waste. Not with conviction that she had made the right call, that what she was doing was important.

Important enough to see it through even in the face of everything that had happened. She knew what her father was talking about. She'd seen the damage herself, and gotten reports directly from Joe, not the truncated notes he had issued to the public or posted on his website. The bombs and the side effects from his damaged technology were bad enough, and that wasn't getting into what could have happened with Lung.

"With Lung like that? Maybe." Her father admitted. "Apparently that was the biggest they've ever confirmed from him." He indicated to a copy of that morning's Bay Bulletin on the counter. Headlines jumped out at her from the front page. 'City Reels', 'The ABB's Ungodly Hour', and 'Lung Dead?'

"Apparently there's a push to retroactively declare it an S-class conflict to help with relief funds and insurance claims." Her dad's face dropped into a familiar frown. "There'll be push-back against that, of course. Nobody will want to admit they almost let the city get destroyed."

Taylor nodded numbly as she pulled finished slices from the toaster and transferred them to the kitchen table as her father switched his attention from bacon to eggs. "Do you think things will be alright?" She'd been so focused on the fight and the immediate aftermath that she hadn't given much thought to how the city would actually recover from this.

Her father looked troubled by the question. "Probably, but they'll be feeling the impact for a long time. The damage is bad enough, uh, that's why I'll need to head out." He explained. "There's a big push to clear roads and access points. They've put out a call for anyone who can help, and pretty much the entire Dockworkers Association has stepped up. I'm helping organize things."

There was an edge to pride in his voice that Taylor hadn't heard for a long time. It was encouraging, but also brought back pains of nostalgia with it. "Most of that's in the 'Dark Zone', right?"

It seemed like a dozen names had been thrown around for the area blacked out by whatever had come from that giant robot. That was a whole other issue from the other concerns that Taylor had been wrestling with. Joe had been happy to provide safety information, but was being cagey about what exactly had caused the effect, just like with the damage that had spread from the point of his ambush. Even direct questions wouldn't get her an answer to what was going on.

The robot in question was another matter entirely. The consensus online was that Apeiron obviously hadn't built it, with theories ranging from a new Leet-like cape to a commission from one of the Toybox's tinkers. Lisa hadn't confirmed anything, but Taylor suspected she knew more than she was telling. It wouldn't have mattered as much if not for the fact that a fifth of the city was either blacked out or cut off from communications and nobody had any idea what caused it or how long it would last.

They were lucky they were far enough into the South Docks to avoid the effect, and that it hadn't hit a denser area of the city. Interestingly, based on the maps Joe had put out, Winslow was in the fringe area of the effect, towards the western edge. Enough to block radio transmissions, but not enough to burn out electronics. So, hurray for that, the computer lab's collection of decade old equipment would be safe.

She did wonder if they would try to have classes even if the effect continued. Winslow was already a disaster, so what was a mystery tinker effect on top of everything else? Also, she might have enjoyed the vindictive idea of Emma's cell phone being useless while her watch stayed in perfect working order. She knew they coordinated against her through the school day despite rules on cellphone use. The idea of that being cut off was oddly appealing.

Though that was probably the only good thing about this mess. She suspected if the effect was easy to get rid of then Joe would have just told them. Something like that as part of the landscape of the city was a frightening idea. Most vehicles couldn't operate in it, communication was impossible, and the central area fried anything electronic.

"Yeah, the Dark Zone's going to be a big problem. Recovery would be hard even without something like that in place. Plus, it looks like every electrical system and appliance in that area is a write off." He shook his head. "They've pulled some of the cars out, and the older ones can be fixed, but anything with a microchip is done for."

Taylor swallowed as she helped move serving plates to the table. That was the other side of the situation. That field, whatever it was, was a disaster when accidently released. Of course, everyone had to be thinking about what would have happened if it wasn't an accident. Could Joe cover a city with that kind of effect? Even if it faded after a couple of days it would still be devastating on a level you didn't see outside of something like Shatterbird's announcements. If it persisted, and if Joe was the only one unaffected by it, then that alone might be dangerous enough to call down serious reprisals.

Or it would be if not for absolutely everything else that he had shown during the previous night. As crazy as the idea was, the fact that Joe had another way of devastating a city wasn't likely to seriously impact things at this point. After what he had done to Lung it was really just a note that he could take out electronics and communication, instead of just wiping a large geographic area of a map.

That was the harrowing part of this, but also what steeled her resolve. Joe was playing at a different level. Honestly, he'd been doing that for a while, but it hadn't been truly driven home until last night. You didn't look at Joe through the lens of Lisa's cops and robbers analogy. You looked at him from the level of national capes, entire teams or response forces. She never thought she'd end up putting Joe in the same category as the members of the Triumvirate, the Guild, or entire parahuman teams.

And never thought that despite operating at that level, that her work would still be important. Apparently more important that she could have imagined. Joe had said that she was important to this, to it working out. It was something that he needed her for, something he was putting effort and resources behind in order to support. Even with all his power, he needed her for this. Because someone who could black out a city, who could fight Lung at his strongest, who could build incredible wonders, they needed her for this. Her undercover work was important, and she had to see it through.

"So, you're mostly working around the Dark Zone, or going into it?" She asked as her father arrived at the table with a fresh cup of coffee for himself and a small pot of tea for her. It was from a simple set that they had picked up at the Market years ago, surplus from some café chain that she barely remembered before it closed down. It must have been buried at the back of one of the cupboards, and she wondered if her dad had gone looking for it specifically, or just happened upon it while assembling supplies and equipment for the day.

"Inside. Older diesels can operate inside the zone as long as you start them outside. Lots of the guys have trucks that qualify, so we're going to be ferrying in recovery crews for most of the day." He settled in across from her and started serving out the steaming breakfast. "Also, some people from the college."

Taylor blinked. "Seriously?" She asked.

Her dad nodded between bites of his scrambled eggs. "They want to send some research equipment into the effect. Everyone is studying it, but you know how it is with academics and being first." He smiled slightly in a way she hadn't seen in years. "Apparently they heard the Association had trucks that could work inside the Dark Zone, so they called and asked if I could arrange something for them."

"Wow." Taylor took a small bite of toast before leaning back. "They just called out of the blue like that?"

Her father looked a little evasive as he took a sip of his coffee. "Well, I reached out to them a few days ago, so I was probably fresh in their mind."

"Why did you…" Taylor paused. "Wait, were you checking up on Joe?"

Her dad's expression was unapologetic. "Not exactly." He sighed and she suddenly felt sorry for pressing him. "Seeing him did remind me of a lot of people we'd drifted away from. It was really an excuse to reconnect with some friends of …your mother and mine." His eyes looked distant for a moment before taking a sip of coffee. "And yes, I did check up on Joe."

He cracked a smile at the sour look she sent him and she found herself unable to suppress a grin herself. "So, did you unveil any secrets that I should be careful about? Dig up any skeletons?"

He looked a little sad as he replied with a small sigh. "Nothing bad or public." He gave her a serious look. "Taylor, some people who have to leave college are dodging serious… 'matters'." He swallowed awkwardly and Taylor got his meaning. She still wasn't thrilled about it, but considering some of the things she'd heard, she could understand it. "Nothing like that with Joe." He assured her. "People who remembered him didn't have anything bad to say. Just had trouble managing things. It happens."

Taylor nodded, and put the issue behind her. "You're seriously taking professors into that place? I thought people couldn't understand tinker technology."

She was answered with a shrug as her father took another bite of his breakfast. "Doesn't stop them from trying. And if I know anything about these things it will probably be a truck full of starving grad students with some equipment worth ten times their tuition."

Taylor eyed the stack of simple sandwiches on the counter. "Was that what you were preparing for?"

"Mostly." He replied. "With work like this it's always a good idea to have some extra food on hand. It's hard enough to keep everyone fed, even when things are working properly. If we don't need it there are probably people who do, so better to prepare."

She nodded as she sat with her father in the comfort of their kitchen, basking in the morning sunshine and enjoying a home cooked breakfast. Outside the house her swarm automatically tracked the movements of people in the neighborhood. Some frantic, some sedate. All managing to continue with their lives after the near disaster of the previous day. Her range didn't stretch to the point where the real damage started to appear. The worst she could detect was a point where a fire hydrant had been torn up to deal with one of Bakuda's more obscure bomb effects.

It almost let her pretend things were normal. No, more than normal, better. Normal would have had her father aimlessly shuffling around the house, drifting from work to home with a vague air of concern over her situation that he knew he couldn't do anything about. Normal would have her stressing over Emma's next move, worrying about her return to school or possible ambush. Normal would have been mounting dread and hopelessness with only vague ideas of a cape career to help her push through.

Sitting there, listening to her father talk about Dockworker efforts or people he'd reconnected with at the college, it was normal in an unexceptional way, but also nice. She couldn't remember the last time they'd had a meal like this. Not even her lack of sleep or her dad's concealed exhaustion could really put a damper on it. No, for that all she needed was thoughts of the future.

The situation with Joe, her work with the Undersiders with the mystery issue that she was somehow crucial to, the future of the city, they all stood looming in her future. But they could wait until afterwards.

Afterwards came all too soon. "Sorry about this, but I've got to get down to the college."

"Don't worry. I can handle the dishes." She promised. It was simple, normal, and something she knew she could manage. Pretty much the complete opposite of what the rest of her life had become. "Who are you meeting at the college?" She asked, trying to remember what she could about her mother's colleagues. It still hurt to think about those times, but it was also nice in a weird way. She'd been coping by trying to bury everything away, and she suspected her dad had been doing the same. It was a strategy that seemed ideal until you suddenly couldn't do it anymore and reality came crashing down.

Well, not fully crashing. Confronting the thought was easier than she thought it would be. Maybe because her dad had been doing the same thing, maybe because of that reminder from Joe that other people remembered her mother, that her life still mattered. Whatever the reason, it made dealing with things a little bit easier.

"I think the physics department is setting this up. I'm meeting with Professor Singh before they send out people for the readings, or experiment or whatever." He explained.

"Professor Singh?" Taylor racked her brain; the name ringing bells in her memory. "I didn't think mom got along with her…"

Her father made a dismissive gesture. "That was just interdepartmental relations. You know, academia." He smiled. "She was actually really receptive when I spoke with her, and wanted to catch up, even before the experiment test thing."

Taylor found herself doubting the idea that it was just academia, with a handful of her mother's less than candid statements jumping to mind. Still, just the fact that the professor had talked about her mother was a sign that they knew each other. That she was remembered. Taylor shook off the thoughts and saw her father to the door. "Be careful out there, Dad."

"I promise. I don't know how often I'll be able to check in, but I'll give you a call when I get a chance, and I'll be home for dinner. Are you alright for lunch?"

Taylor nodded. "We've got plenty of leftovers. I'll be fine."

With a last set of goodbyes her father drove off and Taylor found herself alone in the house. She shifted her attention between practicing with her swarm and clearing the kitchen, a room that felt considerably emptier with her father's notes and supplies packed away with him. Still, she relaxed, losing herself in the mundane activity as in the basement swarms of insects consolidated into her shape and shifted through jerky approximations of normal movement. It was improving, but it would be a while before he could convincingly mimic more than a stationary form.

A tone and voice pulled her attention away from the work and down to her watch.

"Video call from Lisa." The digital assistant said clearly.

Taylor found herself checking her surrounding area out of completely unnecessary habit. Everyone in the neighborhood was accounted for by part of her swarm, and none of them could see into the kitchen, much less hear a message that was limited to her ears only. Still, the secondary check made her feel better about the situation, as did moving to a section of the living room away from windows before calling up the screen.

"Hey Taylor." Lisa said her name with a weary smile. She looked tired, but the girl had seemed perpetually exhausted from the moment of the first attack, so she couldn't be sure how much that indicated about the girl's condition.

"Hey Lisa, did you get any sleep last night?" She asked, looking at the girl and the dim background of her room in the hideout with concern.

Lisa just shook her head. "No time. Everyone's scrambling after Joe's stunt, and as soon as March was out of play things started lining up again. Just more work."

"I thought you turned in when you signed off last night?" Lisa had been providing secondary coordination and analysis for the rescue efforts, but had dropped out shortly before Taylor had finished her own sweeps of the area.

"No, that was…" The girl looked somewhere between frustrated and embarrassed. "I was having trouble with my watch."

"What? With Joe's watch?" She asked in confusion. "Aren't these supposed to last for hundreds of years?"

"That's not it." Lisa countered.

"Then what happened?"

The blond girl slumped back in her chair. "I kind of got my watch stuck in safe mode."

Taylor blinked in surprise. "What?"

"These damn things have contingency measures. If you dig too far into the operating system they lock down most of the features." Lisa admitted.

"You…" Taylor looked at Lisa in shock. "You're telling me you tried to hack Joe's technology?"

"It wasn't hacking." Lisa complained. "Look, this technology? It's not doing a sliver of what it's capable of. That cell phone emulation? It can run virtual machines of anything with a SIM card. If you hook one up to a high-end server it can copy the entire system with no problem."

Taylor gave the girl a suspicious look. "Are you telling me you…?"

"All I did was try to access more of the scanning systems. The watches can access and process wide band EM signals simultaneously, to say nothing of the medical scanners. I was just trying to access more of the sensor suite when the damn thing locked down." She frowned. "I'm stuck on basic functions and the assistant is ignoring anything but the simplest commands."

"Uh, sorry to hear that?"

Lisa raised a hand and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I know this is on me, alright? It's just, you don't dangle technology like this in front of someone and expect them to ignore it."

Taylor quirked an eyebrow, but remained silent on that particular point. "So, do you want me to talk to Joe about that?"

"No, I'm going to have to face up to this myself. Joe's still out of contact, but it sounds like he's dealt with whatever he was dealing with." Taylor shifted to the side of the video window and pulled up her messages. Really, she should have checked them as soon as she woke up, but thinking back to breakfast she felt she made the right decision.

In addition to a smattering of texts from Brian, Alec, and even the odd one from Rachel, there was a final message from Joe. 'Situation dealt with. Will be in touch later.' It was barely more than what they'd received through the night concerning his condition, but was still an encouraging sign.

"I just wanted to check in with you and give you a heads up." Lisa took a breath before continuing. "I've got a meeting with the boss." Taylor felt a spike of excitement at the news and tried to avoid showing it. Fortunately, Lisa didn't show any hint that she noticed. "After last night things are up in the air for the entire city. This is going to be important for what's coming up, and not just for the Undersiders."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

Lisa shrugged. "We've always focused on smash and grab, harmless stuff. That's pretty much behind us after the bank and throwing down with the ABB. With Joe in the mix there's a lot of uncertainty, and because of our contract we're the only ones with a point of contact to… well, to what set everything on its head."

"So, we're going to be important because we know Joe?"

"We'd be important anyway, after the bank, after fighting our way out of the storage yard… Yeah, that was mostly Joe, but people know what we can do. But I don't need to tell you that people are nervous about what's happening, on both sides."

"Are you saying we need to try to rein him in? You think we can do that?"

"Not exactly, and I don't know. But having any information, any way of dealing with the uncertainty is going to help things from blowing up again." Lisa sighed. "This will probably take a couple of days to sort out, at an absolute minimum, and I'm going to have to hash things out with Joe." Lisa didn't look thrilled about the idea. "I'm just giving you a heads-up on the situation, in case he contacts you."

Taylor nodded. "Thanks, I guess?"

"Okay," Lisa said lightly, "…not a great heads-up. But this is going to get complicated, and we need to get ahead of it if we want the city to make it through in one piece."

That brought back sobering thoughts of her father's concerns over breakfast. The very real possibility that the city might not make it, or might never recover from the damage. "I understand. If I speak with Joe…"

"Just let him know what's happening. That things are in motion." Lisa glanced off to the side. "Look, I need to go."

"Right." Taylor took another look at the girl, remembering how worn out her father had looked over breakfast. "Uh, promise me you'll get some sleep after this? I don't imagine exhaustion will help you sort out this mess."

The girl smiled at her. "I'll do my best. And thanks Taylor. Hopefully we can all make it through this."

The call cut out, leaving Taylor anxious and uncertain. The swarm clones in the basement were twitching more than flowing in their movements, but the expression helped her push past her own apprehension.

Lisa was meeting with the boss. Not a call, or blind instructions, but a proper meeting, probably a strategy meeting. Things were coming together, but that only made her feel like they were closer to falling apart.

It probably didn't help that Lisa was relying on her to deal with Joe. She resented it somewhat, but could understand it. At this point it was like she had a completely different impression of the tinker. Lisa was continuously frustrated with him, Brian was struggling with the mountain of debt and the scale of trouble they had been thrust into, Alec was clearly disturbed about something and badly covering it with humor, and Rachel seemed to have her own impression of the situation that she felt no need to explain to anyone else. Maybe Lisa had a read on the girl, but Taylor was at a loss.

She remembered that blanket offer of help, up to weapons if necessary and he came along for support. She'd had only the vaguest idea of what that involved when he made the offer, and the fact that he had given her a weaponized watch was evidence of that. Well, a restricted weaponized watch, but that didn't change the fact that hers could potentially shoot fire and lightning with a single modification in its code.

How far did that offer go now? She understood why Lisa needed to talk with Joe. The technology displayed was frightening. Even if some of it was from support powers rather than bio-tinkering it was still of incredible scale and destructiveness. Frankly, it scared her, but it was also exciting. It was serious, but that also made it significant. She was involved in something important, something with real consequence. For that she could see this through, no matter how dangerous things got or what technology Joe could bring to bear. Or what he would do next. She could handle it. After all, once you got to the point of taking out cities, what else was there to be worried about?

45 Realization

I looked over the work sitting before me, the product of generations of duplicates, and slowly let the implications sink in. One question bubbled to the top, pushing aside the fetid stew of more grievous concerns.

"Why did it have to be in here?"

The Prismatic Laboratory had a name much more lighthearted than the reality of the place deserved. The workshop was dark and archaic with a distinctly Victorian feel in the cavernous architecture and lumbering equipment. There was also a Victorian feel in the scientific principles on display, and the general regard for research ethics that seemed to be held by the labratory. That is to say, a complete lack of them. There were anatomical samples included that didn't look particularly wholesome and an array of equipment that seemed almost deliberately cruel in its application, and I'm pretty sure one of the machines was designed to juice beetles like wriggly lemons.

That brought things to the other concerning aspect. The live samples. I'm not talking about the cuttings of strange plants and suspect fungi. Those were fine, if a little unsettling in certain cases. The problem was there were animals included with the workshop. Strange ones, lining the walls in cages and terrariums. Some were just skittering sounds within piles of debris that I wouldn't have been able to notice without the Dragon's Pulse or my heat sense. Some concerningly registered to the Dragon's Pulse without any noticeable body heat. And some had body heat without any life energy that could be detected by the Dragon's Pulse.

"We weren't the ones who set this up." One of the duplicates explained. "And besides, it didn't feel right to move it. I don't think the rest of the workshop is ready for this kind of stuff."

"I mean, I don't think we need to wall it off or anything." The other duplicate added. "Probably. But if this needed to happen, it was probably best for it to happen here."

Here. The Knowledge constellation passed by as I considered the situation. The latest addition to the Workshop was as impressive in scale as it was in contents. The laboratory wasn't on the level of the massive factory structure that had been added on Saturday night, but it was probably second place in terms of one-time additions to the workshop, at least tying the Laboratorium.

That was excluding the Volcano, of course.

The loft ceiling was easily three stories tall and sported mezzanine levels of railings and catwalks. Entire sections of the workspace seemed to be designed to be suspended in the air or had single pieces of equipment spread over an area larger than my apartment. Pipes snaked back and forth working on chemical functions with no input or monitoring from an outside source necessary. Trap doors and steep stairs revealed the existence of sublevels, most of which were kept in pitch darkness save slight flashes of impossible colors.

Really feeling out the mechanisms at work made the scope of what was happening frightfully clear. The ability that had granted this space was on the same scale as Master Builder and required even more reach than the volcano had. Some of that could be chalked up to its additional motes, St Andrew's Candle and the concerning 'connections', but the space itself had a power the likes of which I'd never felt before.

It was wrong. Not wrong as in unsettling, though there was no shortage of that element present in the massive room. Wrong in the sense of incorrect. Natural laws of the universe were being disregarded in this space. As someone who regularly violated the principles of conservation of energy and mass, that shouldn't have been such a shock, but there was a distinct difference between the manner in which my abilities forced principles onto the world and the nature of this laboratory. This wasn't new effects being slotted into an otherwise ordered universe. This was that fundamental order being eroded, rotted from underneath and warped into shapes it was never meant to hold.

I suspect this kind of thing was never intended to be observed by a demigod of technology. The lab would probably have been perfectly content to chug along with its overly autonomous functions with no regard from anyone over the nature of what was actually happening within its distillation columns or fermenting tanks. Then someone had to come along and notice how casually it was skewing the fabric of reality.

I mean, the outputs of the experiments should have been enough of a clue. New colors were not something that could just be created. If they could, they should never have been visible to the human eye. In spite of that clear fact, samples of seven new shades were being produced at an industrious pace in every medium that you could think of. It was like having a rainbow of spatial distortions, except I understood the principle of spatial distortion and this went significantly beyond that. Any alteration of normal space was seemingly a side effect of the impossible reality that was being churned out in paint, ink, dye, textile, and lenses.

If I didn't know better I would have thought the 'colors' in question were some kind of bound master effect. When observed through any kind of recording medium you only obtained recordings of conventional shades. That should have been obvious, really. Photoreceptors designed to detect certain frequencies of light couldn't be expected to function on whatever was being produced in this room. Rather than impossible colors, the shades were consistently reproduced in different hues of purple, burgundy, orange, black, cyan, green, or brown.

It was the way the colors behaved that dismissed any possibility of them just being artifacts of the mind. You only had to look at a recording of a peligin lens projecting pitch black light across the room to see that these colors were absolutely real, and disturbingly powerful.

It was hard to even describe what they were like, because really, how do you describe a color to someone? As frustrated as the situation made Survey, there was no empirical way to quantify the actual nature of the colors. The best you could do was use abstract terms, almost poetry really. It was getting into the space of metaphor, rather than scientific observation. But just like some colors felt warm or cold the colors of the Laboratory had their own character.

Irrigo was one of the more dramatic colors in terms of its effects. In recordings it came across as a pinkish-purple. In reality I had no idea what the color looked like, because I couldn't remember it. It was the color of something forgotten, a shade that couldn't stay in your mind. Looking at it left you functional, but glancing resulted in all memory of that experience being cast to the wind. It was like someone took Aisha's power and distilled it into paint and ink.

Violant was a color that stood as irrigo's opposite, which seemed to be something of a theme with these shades. It appeared as a deep red in recordings, but had an odd tendency to shift to other outlandish shades in certain situations. The color, it was like it burned into your mind. It couldn't be forgotten easily. Even now every casual glance that contained a sliver of the color stuck in memory, rising to the surface of my thoughts with almost no prompting and remaining there for a stubbornly long time.

The effects of those colors were more dramatic than the rest. Rather than direct impact on the mind the other colors seemed to be almost shades of emotions, or hope or dreads brought into the world and cast in a unique color. Cosmogone was a prime example, appearing orangey in photos but being more of a softer hue of nostalgia in real life. It was a color that had a sense of warm memory. Not the stark clarity of recollection created by violant, but instead a comforting idea of times gone by.

Apocyan was as far removed from cosmogone as violant was from irrigo. Cosmogone was soft and sedate while apocyan was sharp and aggressive. The color looked greenish-blue in recordings, but in reality it burned with the promise of the future. Not the warm thoughts of comfortable days, but the beating drive to an ambitious and unknown future.

It was a color that contrasted and complemented with peligin. Though it appeared black in recordings, peligin was much more complex. It was a deep color, one with near literal hidden depths. It was a color of unknown things, of dread in the dark or beyond understanding. A primal emotion bound to ink and paint by the arts of the Prismatic Laboratory.

Viric stood as its opposite. A color that looked bright green in recordings, it was a color that slipped from your mind, though not with the violent energy that caused irrigo to eject itself from a person's recollection. It was the color of willful ignorance, of ignoring a problem, or letting someone else worry about a situation. It contrasted with peligin's inevitable dread through a refusal to be acknowledged.

Then there was gant. Gant looked like an ugly shade of brown in photographs, but was much more than that. Actually, it would be more accurate to say it was much less. Gant was the color left by the absence of all of the above colors. That should have left nothing, but apparently there were worse things than nothing in this place. With normal colors combining all of them resulted in white light. With the Laboratory's pigments removing them left gant.

That fact alone was telling about the nature of these colors. They weren't obtrusions on reality so much as they were aspects of it, sent out of balance to the point where they became visible. If you remove them completely you don't get normal space. You get gant. A color of ends, not the dreaded end of peligin, but the inevitable cessation of all things. An end of self beyond which there will be nothing left. Nothing but gant.

The laboratory was producing precious little of that color, and I was damn grateful for its scarcity. That didn't stop the pressing awareness that the production was continuous, running non-stop without input or oversight, producing and storing endlessly.

That sense of activity was constantly burning in the back of my mind, but it was matched by awareness of an even more concerning aspect of this place. It was growing. Between all my senses I could feel the expansion, both in terms of space and sophistication. At some point this complex was nothing but a workspace, a tiny cordoned off area designed to play with insane pigments. By the time of its arrival, it had bloomed into a fully autonomous monstrosity, a mad genius's workshop. And it was still growing. Senses of the space around us made that clear. Volcanic rock shifting and buckling as the rafters rose by fractions of millimeters or the machinery added extra cogs or vials from nowhere.

The growth at least didn't have the same sense of wrongness as the rest of the products of the laboratory. It was my power at work. A guarantee of expanded production, quality, and size. It wasn't consuming my Workshop, just shifting the place around it. I had no shortage of concerns about this place, but at least one aspect of its unnatural existence seemed to conform with the shaky grasp of my abilities that I had built up over the past weeks.

Those unsettling aspects were the reason I had found myself in here, accompanied by my duplicates, as soon as I was mobile. It all went back to the connections.

This room, this laboratory, it was linked to another place. That was an aspect of my powers I'd been suspecting for a while, but had never fully confirmed. The appearance of fully constructed rooms or equipment seemed to indicate that various sources provided them, and sources that weren't likely to be found within Earth Bet. Whether it was the presence of equipment clearly produced by military contractors or the arrival of assets that seemed to have their own history and distinct characteristics, it was clear there were some other places that my power was connecting to.

I'd just never received mail from any of them.

Connections: Hell and Connections: Rubbery Men. Two tiny motes bundled with the Prismatic Laboratory, but two of the most troubling abilities I'd received so far. Considering my reaction to Belmont Alchemy that was not a statement that I would make lightly.

The fruits of those motes arrived as bundles of letters and packages. Specifically, backdated deliveries of letters and packages. The first was dated to the day of my trigger, the second two weeks later, with every indication that I should expect the third delivery a week from now. This was beyond happenstance that could be explained away. I was looking at indisputable proof of a connection to another world.

The packages from the 'rubbery men' were the easiest to deal with. They were still profoundly concerning, but concerning in an impersonal way. A pile of slimy correspondence filled with unpronounceable names, strange statements, and questions so detached from a human mindset that it was a wonder they had been able to even structure their thoughts into the vague form of a letter. The packages were wrapped in greasy paper or waxy cloth and contained mostly curiosities. Tiny, strange skulls, coins of ancient make and unfathomable denomination, and a collection of pieces of amber in various colors.

That was the item that immediately jumped out to my senses. It figured that even the least concerning of the packages still contained a massive warning flag around its contents. Without the Dragon's Pulse the amber would have appeared to be nothing more than a collection of semi-precious baubles. With that sense connecting me to the flow of life forces in the world around me I could see the truth.

The 'amber' was a tool. It collected the vital essence of anyone it came in contact with. Tiny amounts, mostly insignificant, but still something that would accumulate as the nodules of material were handled, passed from person to person. The amber wasn't just a trinket, it was a device. A mechanism designed for the collection of life force to be directed towards… something.

I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of things about this place. I had a massive bank of scientific knowledge to draw upon that was largely useless in a realm where the laws that served as its foundation were mutable in the extreme. There was some process that could utilize the lifeforce contained in the amber, something I could potentially use, something that the letters of the rubbery men seemed to suggest, but it wasn't something I could piece together. Not now. Not without work, not without focus, and not with the significantly larger concern burning before me.

Burning. That was a funny way to put things when considering the correspondences from Hell. Unlike the soggy scrawled notes from the rubbery men these letters were pristine. They were written with impeccable penmanship that almost looked printed at times. Seriously, whoes handwriting has actual serifs?

Okay, mine does, but that's my style powers at work. If I didn't keep a handle on them the calligraphy would overflow to full illumination of whatever I was working on. I had some hastily scrawled notes in my office that could put parts of the Book of Kells to shame.

The point was the letters were clear, completely legible, and most certainly written from a perspective perfectly in line with the description of the ability. I didn't know the exact meaning or nature of 'Hell' with respect to this power, but the devils writing to me seemed to be fully consistent with that idea.

I had two sets of very clearly written letters commenting on my life from an infernal perspective. The first set was dated to the night of my trigger with discussion of the actual events leading up to my trigger. That was hard enough to read on its own, but the letters went deeper than that. Discussion of how I handled the situation with my family, various comments about my relationship with them, and commentary on my future as a cape, all laid out with a type of familiarity that felt incredibly unnerving.

The idea of devils taking an interest in your life should have been the most troubling thing imaginable, but the tone was completely at odds with everything you would expect. There was seemingly no interest in temptation, vile acts, or damnation. Instead, it was somewhere between writing to an old friend or a minor celebrity. They even shared details of their own lives, the work of collection and processing… what they collected and processed, and their frustrations with rival groups in their sphere of influence. Some of the letters even contained informal additions of complex symbols. The glyphs of intricate and esoteric meanings pulsed with heat, either smoking or even sparking to flame when read. It should have been threatening, but from context and content it seemed more like I was looking at the infernal equivalent of adding an emoji to the end of a text message.

That tone continued in the second set of letters, this set dated two weeks later, right after the events of the bank and my healing of Panacea. That had been of particular interest to the devils and included commentary on the potential chaos that would result, something I had woefully overlooked at the time. The real point was the undeniable presence of a connection. They, whoever or whatever they were, had a link to me through my power, and interest in my life. More than that they had affection, enough to send 'gifts'.

That was the point that circled back to why I was in this room, staring at the work of duplicates past. The packages from Hell had contained some samples of exotic brass that burned with continuous heat, several obscure chemical mixes, bottles of poisonous mushroom wine, some immaculate invitations to lavish events to be taken up 'at my convenience'…

And souls.

The devils had casually thrown a few bottled human souls in with their care package. Well, presumably human. Given the twisted nature of the source of this power there were few things I could be completely sure of. One of those things was the veracity of their claims. That Undefinable Thing had given me the power to work with souls. It was enough to recognize the truth that was in front of me, and the massed roiling green mist contained inside the glass bottles were unquestionably souls.

The sheer casualness of their inclusion was the most shocking thing. A soul was supposed to be something rare, precious, and treasured. Hard fought and beyond value. The regard paid to those included in the deliveries seemed to be nearly nonexistent. These were 'spare' souls. Souls that had been misfiled, or found to be surplus in one department or another, cases where it was easier to throw them in with the collections of metal and poisonous wine than take the effort needed to find their proper place. In fact, the wine in question seemed to be prized significantly more than the included souls, particularly the single bottle of Muscaria Brandy from the second delivery.

It was insane. It was insane in a way that could only be possible through the complete disregard for natural laws. The gaseous essence of a person was contained within a bottle and handed out like a party favor. It was disturbing to even look at the things. Occasionally a misty face would form in the bottle showing a listless expression before fading back into green smoke. Hardly the vibrant source of self that you associate with an immortal soul.

That led to another detail I'd been able to discern from the devils' letters. These weren't considered valuable because, by their standards of souls, they were completely unremarkable. I knew there were differences in souls. It was information that came with That Undefinable Thing. Souls could be diminished or grown, and not all souls were the same by the standards of their potential applications. It wasn't something I liked to think about, but that couldn't have been further from the case with the devils. They were incredibly familiar with the value of souls, their characteristics, and the type of life that led to a more valuable 'product'.

These weren't from people like that. These were the souls of the quiet dregs who had been ground away by life and left little impact. I didn't know how they ended up in Hell's keeping, but it probably wasn't a happy story. The attitude seemed to be that these souls didn't matter, that their little lives and sad end somehow made them irrelevant. Just another cog, ignored or used by society and then treated exactly the same way after death, or possible even before, based on some of the phrasing I was seeing in letters.

That didn't sit right with me. I literally had 'poor lost souls' on my hands, and correspondence with 'people' who regarded them as something between a commodity and a curiosity. The thing was, even in their diminished state, they were still usable. That Undefinable Thing didn't care about the state or strength of souls. They were still functional by the standards of that power. What's more, other powers, other avenues to use souls became clear when looking at the modest collection of bottles. Avenues that would make insurmountable problems trivial. Avenues that could have easily solved my earlier predicament.

I would never do that. I would never take the essence of a person who was thrown away by society and expend them all over again for my own benefit. I had hoped that my duplicates felt the same. That they wouldn't cross that line. That despite cycles of struggle and effort in the aftermath of the worst fight of my life that they wouldn't violate that principle, wouldn't expend another person's existence for my own sake.

I was right. My duplicates, when presented with an easy solution to all their problems, hadn't taken it. They hadn't turned one of the souls into a key crest that would have instantly protected me from Tetra's influence. They hadn't used them in Belmont Alchemy to fuel rituals or empower items that could have addressed the problem. They hadn't taken any of the easy solutions.

No, they took the complicated solution. One that raised even more questions and concerns than a situation where souls enclosed with diabolic fan mail would be used to facilitate medical treatment for a person fused with an alien parasite.

"Do you know which set of duplicates did this?" I asked as the Magitech constellation passed by. I had network access again. I could dig through the logs myself, but I was having a hard enough time with the situation as it was. I wasn't up for the idea of fishing through digital records at the moment.

"It was incremental. Different parts were done by different sets. When we formed everything was ready for us, all set to go." He sounded slightly conflicted about that, but I suppose the duplicates had enough time to process things as they caught up with the work of their predecessors. Now it was my turn.

"The shrine? It was built by a different set than the ones who did the refinement, but it was planned out ahead of time. From what we can tell everyone knew this was something that could be recovered from before they took the first step." The second duplicate explained slowly.

I nodded blankly as I looked at the 'shrine' in question. It was really more of an array for energies facilitated by some of my furthest reaching powers. That Undefinable Thing. The Arcane Craft. Even Build that Wall for the concentrating of mantic energy. The result was a focusing array of spiritual energy, masterfully crafted at a divine level to draw restorative forces into a single point.

All for the purposes of repairing the damage my duplicates had done.

On the focal point of the shrine sat a glass bottle, identical to any of the ones enclosed in Hell's parcels. The contents were another matter. The souls inside those bottles were already weak, listless things. The gaseous substance of its body was thinner and more transparent. It moved less vigorously and when the face did form it was for shorter periods with an expression of exhaustion. It was particularly notable when contrasted with the bottles arrayed behind it.

"Lack of Materials and Manufacturing Line?" I guessed, looking at the damage.

One of the duplicates nodded. "Combined they dropped the requirements down to a quarter. The soul could handle that level of diminishment, and the array will bring it back to its previous strength soon enough." He paused and glanced at the other souls. "Probably better than its previous level, once all is said and done."

"Right." I muttered. If the duplicates had just decided to sacrifice souls then this would have been a simple matter of outrage, rather than the existential crisis brought about by the results of their work. Their power. My power.

Souls had different levels of strength, but that wasn't fixed. They could be diminished or grown. That was a core principle of That Undefinable Thing and was also commented on at length in the letters of the devils. For most people that would be a reference to spiritual growth, development as a person, refinement of self and general but slow improvement.

Most people didn't have Exotic Compatibility. Most people couldn't treat any workable material as iron. Most people couldn't work with souls in the first place. They certainly couldn't grab a quarter of an already diminished soul and take it to the volcano to be refined like a chunk of scrap iron. Most people didn't have the skills and power necessary to markedly improve the quality of anything they worked on. And, most importantly, most people didn't have Workaholic multiplying the production of everything they made.

Five bottles sat behind the slowly healing soul. These weren't inhabited by the dim, listless souls that had been so casually sent from Hell. They shone like stars in the gloomy laboratory. Rather than dull green gas they glowed bluish white, positively coruscating with brilliance. The motion of the amorphous material was quick and alert. When faces formed they were serious and attentive. Even without the benefit of powers capable of evaluating souls, the difference between these and ones that arrived was obvious.

My duplicates had made souls. I could make souls. I could produce a surplus of a fundamental aspect of a person's existence with all the effort it would take to multiply a sample of metal or copy a rare material. Because, for the purposes of my powers, souls were just that. Material that I could produce. And use. There was no question about that, because only four of the five jars were occupied.

"So…" I took a moment to try to wrestle with the gravity of the situation. "One set figured out it was possible; another did the refinement. Another built the restoration array…" so no damage done. Soul torn apart and just patched up, because apparently that was possible with my power.

One of the duplicates took my faltering as the opportunity to step in. "Another set worked out the alchemy for the initial transmutation. Then the next set, they produced the red stone." He paused at that, looking at the empty bottle. The other duplicate took over for him.

"After that it was all lined up. By the time we showed up everything was set. All the costs were already paid. It was just waiting for us, and when you look over what the other options were…"

I nodded again. It was hard to deal with, but my duplicates hadn't exactly come into a good situation themselves. Tiny step after tiny step until the final move barely seems worth noting. Everything morally compromised has already been put in place, so your part seems less significant. Probably because we were decidedly in new territory with this mess. There really isn't an ethical outline for the treatment of supposedly immortal souls that you produced from nothing. That was more of a theological problem than a moral one, and it seemed to be a problem approached from the other direction in terms of most theological concerns.

"We turned a soul into an alchemy reagent." I said numbly.

"Resource powers, plus workaholic. It… it would have taken dozens of souls otherwise. We were able to do it with one."

"Well, that's…. better than it could have been." I let out a slow breath. The alchemy that had separated me from Tetra had been beyond even my expanded capabilities when it came to that art. The Law of Equivalent Exchange, The Law of Conservation of Mass, and particularly The Law of Natural Providence. They all needed to be bent or broken in some way, and the precision of the work meant my duplicates couldn't just rely on my other powers to carry them through.

The red stone was the apex of alchemy. Accelerated research assisted by cognitive acceleration, my Researcher power, and the less trivial half of Simple Scientific Solution had condensed what would likely be years of work into a single night, with Unnatural Skill carrying things the rest of the way. The size increase version of Workaholic had allowed tiny amounts of input 'material' to produce a workable stone. A stone that could perform technically impossible alchemy.

The red stone was a conjunction of souls arranged so that their passage would generate the power necessary to ignore the restraints of alchemical transmutation. From a plebeian perspective they would probably assume the souls were being 'consumed' or otherwise used up, but I knew better. That was one of the few points of relief in this mess. I hadn't actually destroyed a soul, because you can't destroy a soul. When the stone was expended in the procedure that restored me and Tetra the contained souls had been released. Sent beyond mortal reach, but not damaged.

Souls. That was another part of this that was hard to wrap my head around. Standard multiplication of Workaholic. Every step increases the output, so you get an exponential increase. One fifth of one quarter of a soul had produced a transmutation focus that had to contain dozens of souls. I wasn't just creating souls; I was churning them out at an insane rate. I was a god damn bottling plant for immortal souls.

"Uh, okay. I don't know if this is going to make it better, because when dealing with this kind of shit there's really only lateral moves. So not better, but different?" I nodded and the duplicate continued. "The refined souls? They aren't like the ones the devils sent. You can communicate with them." My eyebrows shot up and I gave the duplicates a questioning look.

"It's true." The second explained. "The duplicates who did this were able to convey what the plan was." He shook his head in borderline disbelief. "The soul that was used for the red stone was the one that volunteered."

"He means the first that volunteered." The first clarified. "They wanted to help, and were willing, for what it's worth."

I considered the full implications of that fact and sighed. "So, what are the chances they're only like that because we made them, and everything we make is fucking perfect for its purpose? What are the odds the only reason they were falling over themselves to be crafting materials is because they were literally constructed with the purpose of being crafting materials?"

"Pretty good." The second admitted. "Look, everything you're dealing with we've already had to work through. I get that we have it a bit easier than you and won't need to wrestle with this long term, but that doesn't change the fact. We. Can. Make. Souls. Nothing we do from here on is going to change that fact."

"I know." I admitted. "I fucking know. It's just, I was only just getting a handle on the magical side of all of this shit, and now we get into this? How am I supposed to deal with this?"

"It's kind of funny." I shot the duplicate a hard look. "That's pretty much what everyone out there has been dealing with after the fight. Wonder how they'd feel if they knew we were wrestling with the same themes."

Despite everything I felt a dry smile form on my face. "What, you mean if the people who were wondering 'what the fuck is up with Apeiron's power' knew Apeiron was wondering 'what the fuck is up with Apeiron's power'?"

"Yeah." He replied. "Doubt it would do much to calm their nerves."

There was some very light humor shared at that thought before the Forge made a connection to a mid-sized mote from the Resources and Durability constellation. Really it only added to the dark humor of the situation.

"More with Less, huh?" The first duplicate commented. "Great, that would have taken it down to what, an eighth of a soul at the start?"

"At minimum." The second agreed. "And we probably would have gotten a second use out of the stone. Actually, it probably would have counted as rare materials, so could have stretched even further."

The power was another resource conservation power, halving the material requirement of anything I made. It had a unique ability in that exceptionally rare materials could be stretched even further. It cut the amount necessary down to a tenth, rather than one half. And of course, that would have propagated through the entire crafting process.

This was the real insanity of the Celestial Forge. Something that started as a collection of tinker powers, and tinker related powers, turns into something out of a creation myth.

Oh, right. Celestial Forge. Who could have guessed with a name like that?

The real kicker was the way it had snuck up on me. Innocent powers that did simple things like save materials or increase production, then suddenly you find yourself treating the spiritual underpinnings of reality as construction material. It was the kind of problem where I wasn't sure if I needed a therapist or a priest.

That was at least one area where I was covered. Dr. Campbell had texted last night to check up on me. Technically it was to confirm our appointment for tomorrow, but it was clear he had put the pieces together. That was looking to be an interesting session, and frankly one I probably should have moved up with everything that had happened. For once I was actually looking forward to it, if just to have some help in dealing with shit like this. Well, maybe not this specifically, but the stress around it, definitely. I was grateful that my duplicates had handled replying to that text.

They had handled a lot of things. Things I would need to deal with now. I knew everyone wanted me to take things easy, but there was just so much to do. Even beyond the monolithic implications of this power that I was still struggling with there were crisis level commitments demanding my attention on every level, from the workshop to the national stage.

As much as I would have loved to stay in the creepy impossible color lab and wrestle with the fact that I might count as a creator deity I couldn't afford to waste time like that.

"We can… We will need to deal with this later." My duplicates nodded to me. "Right. Until then we put this aside and put a pin in the whole 'using souls' thing, agreed?"

"Yeah." The first said. "Power, but with a boatload of implications. Not something we need to tackle in a post-crisis atmosphere."

Power was right. The possibilities here were beyond extreme. Just a steady supply of transmutation stones would be a game changer. With my skill that was basically innate command of the material world. Just for the cost of a soul. Or the potential to power magic independently of my own pools of energy. Just for the cost of a soul. Or empower weapons beyond the furthest reach of even my massive skills. Just for the cost of a soul. Or any number of other sources of energy, enhancement, or empowerment.

Just for the cost of a soul.

God, I was not ready to deal with this, not when I had the second burning revelation waiting for me out in the workshop. Well, not directly out in the workshop. That was an entirely different problem, and one that would be even harder to deal with.

"Garment, no."

My words were met with nothing but an indignant gesture and the swish of an evening dress. Understandably, combining Garment with reality warping dyes was a bad idea that nobody was keen to explore in the current situation. Even more unfortunately Garment was innately aware of my powers as I received them, meaning she knew there was an entire laboratory of new colors to work with, and for some unacceptable reason she was being denied access. She had apparently relented during my medical treatment, but she had very different ideas about the level of crisis that warranted depriving her of new fashion options.

"I'm serious Garment. Some of those colors…" I briefly lost my train of thought as flashes of violant jumped to mind, followed by combinations of cosmogone, apocyan, peligin, and even gant. The strength of my reaction did nothing to diminish Garment's interest in the room. "No. Seriously, no. Not until I know they're safe, or at least have some time to study them more."

Garment wilted at the announcement and I found myself looking to my duplicates for support, and of course finding none. I sighed and turned back. "Look, I don't want you working with those colors yet, but if you promise me you'll be careful then we can look through what's there…" She perked up instantly. "After we deal with the other issues."

There was a sense of begrudging agreement and Garment made a series of excited gestures. A voice crept out from somewhere behind Garment's dress.

"Can I see it too?"

My duplicates reacted, though only to the red glow that accompanied the voice, not the actual sound of it. There was a sense of movement and Tetra emerged from behind Garment. The life fibers were suspended in Garment's telekinesis, as usual, only there were a lot more of them now. Tetra had grown well beyond the confines of her original spool, with a mass that seemed to settle into a four-foot-long cocoon shape. She was animate, but not particularly mobile. The prospect of returning her to stasis wasn't even being considered, but thankfully Garment seemed more than up to the task of assisting her. She took some time away from her quest for the Laboratory colors to begin doting on Tetra, teasing out clusters of threads from the cocoon and smoothing or styling them.

I leaned around Garment to face the faceless mass of fibers. "Maybe not right away." I answered her. "Some of the stuff in there was pretty difficult for Survey to handle. This is different from the other technology in a way I don't really understand yet."

There was a dimming of glow from the bundle, and I could feel a sense of acceptance through the Dragon's Pulse. I also heard a quiet mutter of something like "Well, if SURVEY can't handle it…", but decided not to comment further.

Turning back, I found I had my duplicates' full attention. A message came from their implants, which was probably more polite than speaking in front of someone. Slightly more polite, at least. 'You really can hear her? Totally clear speech?'

'That's right.' I sent back. 'Totally clear speech too, no need for neural links of interpretation through the computer core.' There were some more pulses of data, mostly related to the exact reason why I could now understand Tetra.

Even with the red stone and the expertise of my duplicates performing the transmutation it wasn't a perfect split. The nature of the matter where my reinforced body intersected with Tetra's regeneration was too much for a conventional alchemical deconstruction. The process needed to cheat. Portions of my body were duplicated and then integrated into each of us. The consequence was integration of genetics from the other individual into the final results of the separation.

I was effectively a life fiber hybrid now. Successful and stable, despite becoming one as a full adult. A minor life fiber hybrid, but the degree of integration didn't matter when you were talking about material with the kind of growth curve seen in life fibers. I should have been put off by the fact that yet another effect had decided to play jump rope with my genetic code, but that wasn't the most pressing thing. The transfer had gone both ways. Some of my genetics had been copied to Tetra.

Despite everything else about the situation, that was the part that was sticking with me. Now, Tetra was effectively related to me. That had massive implications, but the most pressing realization was that undeniable fact that she was also related to my family.

I kind of felt like I needed to apologize to her for that.

I still wasn't completely sure what it meant to be a life fiber hybrid. The idea of one existing was only theoretical within the knowledge base that came with Tailor. It was more focused on the idea of 'maybe if everything goes perfectly you might be able to put this together without the test subject being torn into glowing red spaghetti' to really get into what the after effects would be. The best guess would be an accelerated version of the physical and genetic drift that resulted from my earlier life fiber exposure.

The only confirmed differences were superficial, but superficial enough that it added another layer of difficulty to the whole 'blend in as a normal human' thing. First off was the red highlights. Well, highlight. I had a red lock of hair now, and I don't mean auburn. I mean full on bright life-fiber-red. Actually, I think it may have actually been an extrusion of life fibers, but I still needed to test that, and confirm if that part of my hair really did glow red in low light conditions.

Then there were my eyes. Considering I had completely regrown one of them in the past day I should probably be grateful that they were both still recognizably human. That said, I have no idea where the rifled pupils came from, what they mean, or how they would affect my vision in the long term.

Beyond that things weren't too bad. My body shape was actually slightly closer to what it had been before multiple levels of demigod enhancement had decided I could use shoulders like a linebacker with built in football pads. That was thanks to another little liberty that had been taken, one I wasn't exactly thrilled about, but in the face of EVERYTHING else I'd been dealing with I was prepared to let it slide.

The alchemical fission involved a near complete rework of my body. At that level they could have put things back as close to the way they were before as possible, but if they were going that far the sentiment seemed to be there was no harm in taking it a couple of extra levels. After all, I already had a handful of bioactive metamaterials floating around my body, and it was just as easy to integrate them properly as it was to flush them out. Easier in fact, thanks to the various enhancements that had ended up on them.

I had basically recieved a complete biological overhaul. Really, it was more the fault of Survey than my duplicates. She had been working overclocked to find some kind of solution and had been pulling concepts from every power that had been documented. When the 'rebuild' idea was put together they already had a stack of biological enhancements with all necessary analysis completed.

My body was now sporting enhancements from Valkyrian Science, complete with the notes from my Hidden Hideaway Laboratory, system overhauls and synthetic proteins from Creation of Chimeras, base infusions from Natural Alchemy, Element Zero integration from Class: Engineer, and an overhaul of my musculature from the wet ware knowledge of Grease Monkey. That was the reason I had managed to return to a more reasonable level of build, essentially giving me the same muscle mass on a smaller frame. My weight would be seriously off for my build, but that was preferable to juggling drain potions to pass for something other than a career weightlifter.

The other aspects were a bit harder to conceal universally, but I could probably manage something. Hair dye and contacts could probably cover things, but I knew I could do better than that. The modifications also had the potential for a plethora of esoteric effects, but I would need to dig into the principles behind them before I could even think about trying to develop any of them, and I wasn't exactly short on things I needed to practice.

As for what Tetra ended up with out of this mess… Well, we had no idea. There was a list of potential traits she could have picked up as long as my arm, but there was no way of knowing which, if any, had been passed along. For a lot of them it wasn't even clear what they could end up looking like if picked up by a life fiber cluster. It was a situation that necessitated more wet work, just to figure out how far that last batch had pushed. I had kind of crossed that threshold anyway. There was really no way of getting around it.

"We should loop around and meet up with the others." I said to the general agreement of the group.

"They're set up in a new addition we built for the snail tank. We can loop around to it, get a chance to check out the hangers on the way. Maybe some of the other additions too." One duplicate offered.

I was grateful for that, and not just because it let me put off the implications of the next meeting for slightly longer. It gave me a chance to actually see the additions that had been made to the workshop since the last time I was both here and conscious. The two mobile suit hangers were certainly impressive, but I had also gotten an Armor-Shift Manufacture system for allowing resizing armor, great if you happened to be the kind of person who spontaneously transformed into a were-dino-wolf. Finally seeing the Secret of Steel was an incredible experience. You could practically feel the weight of knowledge from the illustrated forging guide housed in a purpose-built shrine near the Skyforge.

One addition I hadn't seen coming was the second hangar, installed next to the automated bay housing my F-18. It was built on the exact same scale with the same technology, but for a very different piece of equipment.

"How did the striker end up here?" I asked, looking at the partially disassembled magitech flight system.

"Apparently it's some kind of synergy effect. Hanger works specifically with the striker. So does Basic Flight Training and even Missile Surplus. No idea why exactly, but it might have something to do with… that stuff?" The duplicate ventured.

I was kind of grateful for him not getting into the 'magical circuits' business here. That would be enough of a pain on its own, and not something I wanted to slot into a 'walking conversation'. Instead, I took a moment to appreciate the workmanship of the striker.

It was both outdated and ingenious. The state of maintenance gave me a better look at the mechanics of it than even my technokinesis allowed. The machinery was seventy years out of date, combustion engines from the thirties or forties, and the rest of the components looked to be of the same era's designs. The other half of it, however, was brilliant. It was a perfect device for converting mechanical power into magical energy. A magical amplifier that both boosted the abilities of its user and provided all the functionality needed for effective flight, all crammed into a design that could best be described as fighter aircraft themed stockings.

The stockings idea was actually a bit deceptive. The entire body of the device was full of machinery, leaving no room for anyone's legs. The supposed entry points actually stored the user's legs in a pocket dimension, both saving space and facilitating the connection necessary for magical transfer. With that property the entire striker unit could be shredded and the user's legs would be completely unharmed.

It was also the design feature that basically made them incompatible with pants. That was a bit of a glib way of putting it, but anything but the thinnest fabrics wouldn't be able to interface with the pocket dimension, and any bulky clothing on the upper legs would disrupt the transfer. The design either needed outfits that were either ridiculously tight, or basically underwear.

Like with the mechanics of the mobile suit, the principles of the device seemed to be built around a physical principle that also worked to facilitate an idea. Of course, the giant robot warfare particles were a different matter than the magic pants-less fighter plane device. It was something with heavy implications, and ones I'd need to get into soon.

Fortunately, my duplicates offered me an excuse to divert my attention for a moment. "We haven't made any modifications to the core design, but there's a lot of potential for simplification, miniaturization, or just upgrading the technology." The first commented.

"Magic enhancement seems to be a blanket property. Not much testing with everything that was going on, but it could potentially work for parahumans. Even without a familiar." The second added, bringing my attention back to the core aspect of the magic system that came entangled with this technology.

Experimentally, I reached out, not with my mind exactly, more with my spirit. With almost no prompting I felt my familiar come bounding towards me. The spirit of a lycaenops settled over me and immediately I felt my connection to my magic strengthen. The ether in the air went from an indistinct presence to a tangible force that could be drawn and channeled. I could feel the resonance with the magical converters of the striker, the itch to connect to them and take to the air.

And I felt a brief puffing sensation as the physical aspects of the familiar manifested. And saw Garment's excitement as she practically coiled in joy. And watched my duplicates cowardly edge away, providing no resistance for her attentions.

"Garment, Garment no. Garment, that really tickles. Garment, please." Frantic attempts to bat her away only ended when I relinquished my connection to the familiar and the fluffy appendages disappeared. Garment's disappointment was palpable, but I was less than concerned given my duplicates' restrained, and Tetra's less than restrained, laughter.

"Hey, it's your own fault for bringing out the ears like that." One quipped.

"Great sentiment, that." I countered. "And you know those aren't ears. They predate ears. They're closer to bundles of whiskers than anything ear related."

"They're fluffy and on the sides of your head. I don't think the exact taxology is going to be that big of a concern."

I gave them a sour look and tried to ignore the sudden appearance of Garment's sketch book as we made our way out of the hangar. Channeling my familiar was an incredible experience, even more so with the beating source of power that was now housed in my chest. The connection to the spirit gave me more power and control of the magical energy I could draw from both significantly boosted internal reserves, and the world around me. It was an incredible advantage, with the one slight drawback of ridiculously fluffy ear-like structures. And a tail.

Given what I could turn into with my zoanthrope form I had a distant hope that the familiar manifestation would get lost in the mix, but that didn't seem likely given my luck with these matters. The first time I seriously needed to use magic in public there would probably be a dozen picture opportunities, all perfectly arranged thanks to posing and style perks. It was the kind of situation that made me wonder if there was any point in trying to restrain my public persona.

That was a problem for another time. Right now, I had a problem for the current time waiting to be dealt with. The place to confront that issue was a new sitting room that had been added to the collection of 'residential' areas that my workshop had collected.

Using the entryway as a reference point, they were mostly located in a 'back' direction, meaning you had to loop around either through the production areas to the left of the doorway or the research areas to the right to get to them. I wondered if it was some kind of defensive measure in the layout, a way of ensuring that invaders wouldn't have a straight avenue to where you were sleeping. It was equally likely that the rooms had been placed at random as the workshop had expanded, starting with the metal shop to the left, the Laboratorium to the right, the garage forward, which did give vehicles straight access to the workshop door, and the apartments 'back'.

Regardless of how the layout had happened it had created areas of roughly consistent theme that had been expanded upon not just in the arrival of new rooms but in the construction undertaken by my duplicates. The sitting room reminded me more of a corporate lobby or lounge than anything you'd find in a house. I was going with that impression, because the alternative was something out of the lair of the villain of a spy movie. Still, considering the rest of the Volcano had been filled with everything from swimming pools to hockey rinks, and you know, volcano, it fit in well enough.

The centerpiece of the room was an addition I only half remembered, understandable considering what was happening at the time. The room was built around a massive saltwater aquarium inside of which frolicked a set of ten super sea snails.

Well, as much as snails could be said to frolic. These were odd creatures, having only the vaguest connection to actual sea snails. They had elaborate crystalline shells that spiraled upwards and sported small, glimmering protrusions. The actual bodies of the snails were teal in color and sported a pair of big, expressive eyes. They displayed significantly more engagement than any mollusk had a right to, clearly relishing their newly constructed habitat.

The actual value of the snails was in their shells. Said shells could be used to imbue clothing with extra abilities. The selection was random, but a significant number of them affected use or recovery of internal energy sources, or provided other physical or situational boosts. With recent developments in my power that had become more important than it would have been at an earlier time.

The only problem was the shells couldn't be replicated or cloned. They needed to be harvested from a mature snail, which would obviously be lethal. The prospect would have been a lot more palatable if not for the aforesaid expressiveness and frolicking. Really, the only answer was to let the population increase and harvest at the end of life. Or maybe work something out with prosthetics? Either way, it was something I could deal with later. Right now, I had a crisis I had been avoiding thinking about.

"Hey." Aisha waved me over. "The copies had breakfast waiting for everyone. Figured you could use it." She gestured to a small buffet table loaded with enough food to feed an army, all of it smelling absolutely delicious. Knowing it had been of trivial effort from my duplicates didn't diminish my appreciation at the act. I had been sustained by nanites the entire night but had personal experience in that not really making up for expanded nutrition needs of life fiber exposure. Or I guess life fiber integration, as was now the case.

The stacking of a plate gave me a chance to take in the rest of the room's occupants. Fleet and Survey were 'present' in the form of projected holographic avatars, while that really just meant they were directing a sliver of their computational resources towards the events in the room. Matrix was present through a set of nanobots that had been copied along with my duplicates. The reserve of nanobots inside my own body was consistently cloned when duplicates formed, allowing them to project them freely. The mostly hollow mass of nanomachines in the shape of a Gun-EZ would vanish along with them, but it was enough for the Matrix to have a presence in the room.

Shifting to the residents of the room I hadn't directly constructed, that left Tetra and Garment settling into chairs near the central tank. Survey seemed to be working out some communication methodology with Tetra based on glow variances while Garment shifted her attention away from Tetra's cocoon and intently towards the snail tank.

Right, clothing components. Near Garment. I might have to do something about that before anything happened to the happy little creatures.

I settled into one of the comfortable chairs with a generous portion of breakfast food. My duplicates took their seats in with lighter snacks and Fleet and Survey projected themselves into nearby chairs, completing a rough circle. The Matrix moved closer, but seemed content to remain standing rather than attempt to settle a miniaturized mobile suit into an armchair.

"So, did you guys sort out the 'whatever disaster' in the room you don't want anyone else to enter?" Aisha asked. "The room I know Garment is sour about being kept out of?"

Garment pulled her attention away from the tank for enough time to look indignant, then immediately shifted back to tracking the movements of the snails.

"Yeah, we sorted it, for now at least." I gave my duplicates a glance that established we were still just as lost with the situation as when we started trying to deal with it. Well, at least we had made a decision. The decision was mostly 'ignore until later' but it was still a decision. "And sorry about keeping you out of there. I know I said I'd tell you anything you wanted to know, but some of that stuff is pretty heavy." I took a breath. "If you really want to…"

Aisha quickly raised her hands. "No, I'm good." She sighed before continuing. "Once we're done here I'm going to head home and sleep the rest of the day. I mean, I was glad to help and everything, but I am way past ready to crash at this point."

I nodded with a slight smile. The worst of this had begun when the sun set and we had burned through the entire night. Commendable, but that didn't make it any less of an ordeal. Despite being laid out for most of it I was bone tired myself. I hadn't really slept since that first period of unconsciousness. After that I had frantically been wrestling with the issues of my recovery, trying to reassure Tetra, and monitoring the work of my duplicates. It hadn't exactly been a vacation for me, and Aisha had been completely in the thick of it. I was honestly impressed she was still on her feet.

"Right. Well, there's a lot to deal with, but I guess we can start with the magical circuits thing."

The Alchemy constellation passed as Aisha's eyes lit up. "The magical circuits thing, the Gundam thing, the Transformers thing and probably like a dozen more things, right?"

I sighed and looked at my duplicates. They had dealt with the full analysis conducted by previous sets while I had just skimmed summaries while wrestling with the ethical and theological concerns of my treatment. One of them nodded at me before speaking

"Yeah, there's definitely a 'thing' going on." A signal from his implant brought up a set of holographic displays, some with data sets from my powers, but most of them showing cartoons, movies, or television shows. "Too many similarities on some of these to be a coincidence. So that leaves us with a few possibilities."

"Which are?" Aisha asked eagerly, leaning forward.

The duplicate glanced at the screens before continuing. "The most sensible answer would be parahuman abilities mirroring powers in another medium." The screens shifted to show a handful of magic themed parahumans and some tinker tech that looked like it was trying to invite a copyright lawsuit. "You see that sometimes. Mindset during a trigger causes powers to express in a certain way that lines up with something the parahuman was passionate about. It can result in abilities that look like classic magic or old superhero characters."

I looked over the displays and found myself dearly wishing I could have gone with that explanation. "But that's not it." I admitted. "These aren't normal parahuman expressions. There are too many details, too many supporting powers that line up and fall outside normal parahuman expression."

"Uh, I never asked." Aisha leaned forward. "You talk about normal parahumans like they're separate. I didn't want to press you on that, but it seems like you have a reason for why your powers work differently?"

That hit harder than I expected, but really the question was totally justified. I had been dancing around this whenever I talked about powers. Aisha had gone to the wire for me all night. She deserved the truth.

Looking around I realized that everyone else did as well. I had provided details of my power for the A.I.s, but not the context for how I ended up with them. I didn't know how much Garment was aware of, but even if she already understood what was happening it would feel good to actually tell her. Meanwhile the idea of keeping anything from Tetra at this point was laughable. We had been through way too much for that.

The bundle of glowing fibers in question, currently being partially styled by Garment's divided attention, glowed in a series of pulses. Unnoticed by everyone else in the room I heard her voice.

"I would like to know as well."

"Right." I glanced around, feeling the conviction I had just built-up waver. "Um, this is about my trigger, so you know, not a great moment." There were nods from the audience and sympathetic looks from my duplicates. I briefly considered if I could hoist this off on one of them, then decided against it. They may be temporary, but I doubted they had any better of a relationship with this event than I did.

"Okay. I had a tinker trigger." I looked at Aisha. "You know what that means?"

"This is that trigger theory stuff, right? Different causes for different powers?" I nodded. "Uh, I get that brute powers show up from like, physical danger and stuff, and blaster for fighting things, that kind of stuff. But tinkers…?"

I took a breath. "To trigger as a tinker you need to be dealing with a problem for a long time. The same problem, something that you can't solve. Usually weeks, sometimes months. Then something happens, it all comes crashing down, and you trigger with tinker powers." I swallowed. "I was with my family when it happened."

"I can see that." Aisha said without any judgement in her tone. Garment had shifted her attention away from Tetra and was making a gentle, sympathetic gesture towards me. I did notice that Tetra's fibers were still being styled even without Garment's apparent direct attention.

"Right." I braced myself. Here was the big moment, actually explaining what had happened. I had honestly been dreading this since I got my powers. It was just so incredible that I assumed people would think I was crazy. Some kind of psychotic break associated with a trigger that sent me on a delusion. When I only had shreds of power that might have been the case. Now? Now there was serious, world changing power behind my abilities. If I said something happened that fundamentally altered the way my powers worked it was a lot harder to dispute.

Honestly, it had been at that level for a while now. This was just a matter of actually telling someone. The opportunity hadn't come up, not until now. Well, there was nothing to do but take the plunge.

"Normally, in a normal trigger you don't remember what happens." Aisha gave me a confused look, so I elaborated. "There's this vision, it shows you what's actually happening with your passenger and how your powers express themselves. Most people don't remember it, and the people who do are in such a minority that they aren't really taken seriously."

"But you remember yours? Is that what's different?" Aisha asked.

I swallowed roughly. "I remember my trigger. My passenger" I admitted. "And I remember the one after it." Aisha's face twisted in confusion, and Tetra glowed in faint, troubled pulses. I quickly pressed on. "I was going to have a normal trigger, get normal powers. Tinker specialized in… biology. Not particularly nice biology." Thankfully Aisha didn't ask any follow up questions. "Instead of that happening I connected with another passenger. He, he kind of interrupted my trigger. Took over. I got a look at how powers work, and got to pick if I wanted my original powers, or the ones he could give. It would have been a lot of power to start, but normal power, with all the instability that came with it. Or I could take the other powers and let them build up over time."

"I think you made the right decision." Aisha quipped.

It brought a smile to my face, one that faltered slightly when I remembered what could have happened in that mindset, with that passenger, with those powers.

"No question." I let out a breath. "Uh, because of that I don't have normal connections to powers. Mine is more of an array of abilities than your typical expression of parahuman powers. I had thought it was just kind of a scattering of smaller powers, like I was continuously mini-triggering, but as time went on they got weirder, and that's not even getting into the ones that just added stuff to the workshop."

"Okay." Aisha nodded. "Unique passenger, unique trigger, and unique powers." She leaned forward. "But why Princess Gwenevere?"

It was said in such a solemn and serious tone that it broke me out of the ruminations of my trigger. Then a snicker reached me from one of my duplicates. It was mirrored by the other, and quickly any attempts to hold my own composure cracked and I was caught up in the laughter.

It went on longer that it probably should have, but the ridiculousness of the situation was just undeniable. It should have been deadly serious. My powers were emulating fictional works. The implications were dire no matter how you looked at it, but somehow the fact that it was being tied into a children's cartoon, well the more serious sequel to a children's cartoon robbed the matter of most of its potential for dread and serious contemplation.

"Right. Right, Princess Gwenevere, and Transformers and a Japanese giant robot cartoon series. Plus, any others that I've missed?" I turned to my duplicates.

"Okay, master list? Web of Magic, the Princess Gwenevere sequel is certain. Also, Transformers. We have way too much tech specific to that for it to be anything but the case." And memories from that experience, including a specific perspective. That was a rather serious point, and one opposing any 'passenger emulation of fictional abilities' theory. "As you said, Gundam. Specifically Mobile Suit Gundam, Japanese robot series from the late seventies."

The second duplicate took over. "Other stuff isn't as certain, but we're pretty sure the Veritech is from another Japanese cartoon, Macross." The floating screens scrolled some eerily familiar images, only obviously animated for television. "Once again, the technology gives it away, even though our fighter doesn't line up with anything in the show."

"That's the hard part." The first duplicate explained to the group. "A lot of stuff is similar, but not an exact match. For instance, I think we've been getting skills from Star Trek." I raised an eyebrow, but he quickly drew up a pair of images. One was from the terminals that had been added to the Alchemist's Laboratory, the second looked like some kind of production drawing. "These were some of the proposed designs for the LCARS displays for The Next Generation. Not what they ended up going with for the show, but you can see how they match up."

They did. Perfectly. The terminal's touch interface was an exact match for a rejected production design from twenty years ago that I had never seen before. Seriously thinking about it, the insight for FTL principles from the physics version of the Skills power had been centered on creating stable spatial distortion fields to allow a ship to exceed the speed of light. Almost as if you were bending space. Or warping it.

From the way the duplicates were watching my expression I could tell they knew I had realized the situation.

"Uh, one last thing on that." A mental command from the first duplicate opened a video clip from the original series. Moderately cheesy music played as William Shatner circled around a man in a lizard costume.

"What am I…" I trailed off as the man, or more likely his stunt double, attempted a double axe handle strike on the fake lizard monster. It was an awkward hit that was shrugged off immediately, but I recognized it. More specifically, I recognized the proper way to do the maneuver. It was part of what I had picked up from Skills: Combat. With my understanding I could actually use what would otherwise be a clumsy strike to massively amplify the impact, delivering powerful blows that could allow a person to handle themselves when pitted against a much stronger opponent. An opponent like an alien lizard monster.

"Fuck." I didn't know what else to say. I mean, I had suspected this from the moment I got actual magical circuits, but this, seeing it like this, was just too much.

"There are more, but lack of perfect matches makes this difficult." The first duplicate explained. "Survey did the best she could. She had a detailed report, but if it's alright with her, I'll just summarize it?"

Survey's hologram nodded her head and responded. "That would be acceptable, though I would appreciate detailed feedback on the matching protocols used once we reach a less critical time."

"That shouldn't be a problem." I nodded in agreement and the duplicate continued.

"The technology from Grease Monkey matches too many sources imperfectly. Some of the armor is similar to stuff from Japanese animations from the late 80s, but nothing close enough to be sure. It's like that for a lot of these, plenty of possibilities, but either the power is too generic or the property doesn't match up closely enough to really be certain."

"What are we sure about?" I asked. Really I could have just skimmed the report, but I wasn't feeling it right now.

"Uh, reasonable confidence in a few of these. Belmont Alchemy is probably a reference to the Castlevania games." A smattering of information on the titles sprang up on the screens. "In addition to the direct name, it matches up with a lot of the lore from the series. Not all of it, but the lore isn't consistent between games, so it's not like we have a firm basis for this."

"That's the biggest problem." The first duplicate added as the Quality constellation passed by. "Most of the time it's like we're just working from references. It either doesn't match up, or what it matches isn't even consistent."

"One key example." The second continued. "Mechanic, Garage, The Vehicle, and Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench? We're pretty sure all of them come from a movie series that started ten years ago."

"You're kidding." I looked at the screens in disbelief. "You're saying that I… That we have power based on… Gone in 60 Seconds?"

"Seriously?" Aisha exclaimed with a level of enthusiasm completely at odds with my own shock. "Can you do the flying tank thing from the seventh movie?"

"66 Seconds." Survey clarified for no one in particular. "Starring Nicolas Cage and Dwayne Johnson. Opening weekend box office one hundred and forty-three million dollars."

"Aisha, I don't…" I trailed off as I remembered the borderline insane modifications possible solely from Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench. "Shit. Yes, I can."

Aisha beamed, but the duplicates cut in before she could expand on her question. "Alright, based on the accompanying technology and the name we're pretty sure Space Command Engineer is from Halo, and that Space Command is a reference to the United Nations Space Command." He paused and rubbed the back of his head. "The brain implant and ATV also match up with that series."

Well, I felt much better about the chunk of neural integrated metal that was forced into my head now that I knew it drew its origins from an online tea bagging simulator.

"Also, 'I am Iron Man' is probably a reference to the old comics, just from the tech included in that. Not totally sure on this, but the wand from Setup Wizard matches the designs from the Harry Potter series…"

"I fucking knew it." Aisha muttered.

"And that power that lets us miniaturize technology? The one that came with the spy lab training?" The duplicate shifted one screen to a Wikipedia page. It was a sub-article for the Bond films outlining the history of Q. Q apparently had an actual name, not just a title. That name was Major Boothroyd, a name I specifically remembered. A name of a man I had learned from, gained understanding of operational principles I was currently using in all of my projects. A man I could personally recognize in a picture of a young Desmond Llewelyn.

"Jesus." I muttered, leaning back in my seat.

"What?" Aisha asked.

I looked to the duplicates, then decided to field it myself. "Uh, remember when you first snuck in and I said I got a power when we were having tea?" She nodded. "That was one of the big ones, the ones with memories attached. Memories of working in the tech lab of a spy organization."

Her eyes jumped to the screens and her eyebrows rose. "You mean…"

I nodded. "British spy lab, specifically under a man named Major Boothroyd."

"Q." She goggled at the screen. "You worked with Q? As in Bond Q? Bond is real?"

I sighed. "No idea, I just remember it." I turned to my duplicates. "Anything else?"

"Last one we're sure of. Elven Enchantment and Dwarven Craft, just from the associated knowledge? Almost certainly Lord of the Rings."

"What?" I asked. "I get elves and dwarves, but you see those everywhere. What makes you so…"

"The Silmarillion." He explained. "You take that into account and a lot of things line up. Once again too much to be a coincidence. And that's not even getting into the fact that we've actually been using elvish to Name things."

"Actually, it's Sindarin." The second clarified. "The other language? The one for the singing that we haven't tried? That's Quenya."

I wouldn't even know those words if I hadn't been in a gaming group with a couple of serious Tolkien fanatics. As such I was vaguely aware that they were the names of elven languages.

From the perspective of my powers, I could fully grasp the subtle differences in the use of their vocabulary to alter the world or call into existence new elements of reality, the mechanisms behind it, and the power it would both cost and yield through that particular act.

"Jesus." I muttered. "Is that everything?"

"Everything we're sure of." He answered. "Nothing else is close enough for a definite match, and some of it could actually be as generic as it seems."

I let out a slow breath. "Okay. Okay, so what are the theories for this?" The faces of my duplicates weren't exactly encouraging.

"Huh." Aisha glanced at us. "You know I always expected news like 'Star Trek, Princess Gwenevere and the Lord of the Rings are actually real' would be a more exciting prospect for most people."

"Most people haven't been building their power set around potentially fictional properties. And we don't know if they're real." My mind jumped back to the Prismatic Laboratory and the letters that for all intents appeared to come from real people in a real place. Extending that principle to every power I had wasn't a particularly pleasant prospect.

"Whatever the reason, we should probably assume any powers that have a connection to others that we've gotten have the same source." The second duplicate stated. "That would drop the current number down to eighty-eight."

"Well, that's much more manageable." I muttered, still wrestling with the weight of the situation.

The first duplicate sighed and shifted the screens to new readouts. "Okay, there were a lot more ways this could go, but the reality of the letters cuts down the possibilities."

"What letters?" Aisha asked.

"Connected with that room, so…"

"Got it, not worth the headache. You were saying?"

I couldn't help but smile slightly at her irreverence as my duplicate continued. "So, with that, we're pretty sure our power is connecting to something, meaning probably another universe."

"Except Professor Haywire…" I interjected.

"Is clearly wrong." The second duplicate cut me off. "The Workshop proves that a dozen times over. The man was the first to map out the multiverse, but maybe we shouldn't be taking the theories of a man whose brain literally existed in multiple universes until it drove him crazy as unquestionable facts."

I nodded slowly. It was a fair point. I had gotten no shortage of dimensional theory from my power, and it didn't all perfectly line up with Professor Haywire's work. Or at least the portion of his work that was open to the public.

"So, we're looking at a broader multiverse?" I asked.

"Only thing that makes sense. Haywire's model had variations on the same universe, but with consistent physical laws and properties. Based on what we've been seeing we could have stable arrangements of fundamental forces that exist outside the combination that is functional in our universe." The duplicate shifted the screen until a layered topographical model was being animated on it. "Best idea we have is a core set of universes on some kind of central finite curve, still incredibly large but not infinite. Then you have these islands of stability universes that exist further out, where stuff like our powers is possible."

I nodded along with the quite convenient explanation that I'm sure hadn't been influenced by confirmation bias at all. "Alright, that gives us context for what's happened, but we still have the whole question of why we're getting powers from these universes, and why they match up with pop culture."

The first duplicate shrugged. "For the first part, frankly pulling powers and equipment from other universes is as good an explanation as any. For the similarities, well, infinite monkeys?" He didn't sound that convinced with his own suggestion.

I snorted at the idea. "What, so if everything exists there must be somewhere where Star Trek is real?"

"Hey, infinity is a big number. And we're not connecting at random. We have fixed links and the work of our passenger. This could all have been set up in advance. There could even be more than just a one-way transfer."

That shot banished the humor at the idea. As ridiculous as it seemed, I had memories from some of these worlds. Memories that were deeply personal, and specific to me. Not like I was grabbing a random resident's life, but like I, or a version of me, was actually there. Infinity was a big number, and that could mean anything, even alternate versions of yourself that happened to be an alien robot, or space soldier, or technician in a MI6 movie laboratory.

Or a soul trader with devils. This was a frighteningly deep rabbit hole.

"Okay. Okay, so we have a workable theory. Where do we go from here?" I asked.

"Well, the resources we have are all over the place, and not exactly detailed, but some of them might be useful?" The second duplicate offered.

I considered the idea. "What, build experimental technology based on Star Trek episodes? Try out Harry Potter spells? Try to recreate fights from 'Web of Magic'."

"Yes!" Aisha blurted out loud enough to cause me to jump. She restrained herself slightly as the attention of the room shifted to her. "I mean, you said you'd need to practice with it, right? So, if stuff from the show works with the power, then you know there's something to it."

As much as I hated to admit it, it was a decent idea. The thought of acting out scenes from that cartoon made me feel equal parts excited and mortified. Still, I needed confirmation, and Aisha's expression said that she wasn't about to back down on this point.

"Alright, I'll…" I paused as the Vehicles constellation swung towards me. Then I froze as I realized my situation. I had been so focused on dealing with the revealed insanity of my power that I had missed the fact that my reach had built to its highest level. And one of the giant motes was drifting towards me. And ensnared. And descended.

Scale was irrelevant in the face of sufficient willpower.

That was the core, the beating heart of the ability that had been granted to me, but it was so much more than that. The fiery core that I basked in was called Always a Bigger Robot, and, thanks to me, there was. The power went beyond just the principles and technology necessary to design and build machines of staggering size, it actively allowed the for the complete disregard of any physical law that would impede their structure or operation.

I could already build to massive proportions. The Bigs and Megadeus from Valuable Memories operated on the scale of skyscrapers. The largest spacecraft from Master Builder were like small countries unto themselves. My demigod nature and unnatural skills would let me build structures that could tower over the very heavens. But for all of them there was logic, limits, constraints. Constraints that were pushed beyond the point of mortal comprehension, but constraints none the less. Power, science, and ingenuity was used to go past the limits of the ordinary. But the limits were only being moved. They still existed, looming over the new work, bearing down with a harsh reality, a point of unavoidable failure. A place where reality said 'This far, and no further'.

That limit, that constraint on size, mass, fuel, structural integrity, on anything that would make the work on that scale difficult, insurmountable, or impossible, it suddenly didn't exist. Impossible, it was something that happened to other people. Suddenly, basking in the core of a blazing nova of power, my limits were gone.

With any other power, any other ability, this was the point where things would end. My power had given me a way to ignore or defy some physical principle, some fiat imposed upon reality that would allow the ability to function. I would appreciate it, return to my workshop, and happily integrate the effect into my projects. But that didn't happen here. The power, the burning heart of cosmic creation wasn't done. It went further, beyond the usual 'limits' of the Celestial Forge, beyond my understanding of how my powers worked, beyond everything.

Because this power didn't operate on fiat. There was no external force rewriting reality to make its effects happen. Nothing defining a fixed effect from a power to ensure its performance regardless of the situation. No, this wasn't fueled by the strength of the Celestial Forge. This was fueled by the Spiral.

Spiral Energy. A second, tiny mote that bundled itself with Always a Bigger Robot and somehow managed to completely overshadow the larger power. Because it was what made the larger power possible. The dismissal of the laws of physics, that wasn't facilitated by the Forge. That was the Spiral. The energy of the universe, the drive towards greater things. A force of progress and evolution, building upon itself with each turn, burrowing through possibilities, limits, and the very laws of reality.

And I had it. I could feel it, the pure, undiluted possibility of the energy. Glowing within me, swirling around me. Imprinted on the very structure of my genetic code and mirrored in the shapes of galaxies. It was potential, it was possibility, it was the promise of a better tomorrow. I basked in it, I reveled in it.

Because I had missed it. Not the energy, but the feeling. The hope for a better tomorrow, the belief that you could do anything if you just tried hard enough. The power of imagination, or dreams, or determination to see a plan through to the very end. The spiral was a pure symbol of that. Starting small and growing with every rotation. Building upon itself, to the point where nothing could stand against it. It didn't matter if it seemed like you were stuck, or trapped, or had nowhere to go. Every rotation, every act of grinding against your problems built you up, brought you closer to breaking through. It was the feeling that nothing could stop you.

It was a feeling I could barely remember. How long had it been since I had felt this way? Since I had embraced feeling this way, without immediately burying the emotion under guilt, or shame, or the expectation of derision. Sometime, long ago, I had wanted to try. Wanted to move forward, to fight for the impossible dream. It was so long ago, and tied to such a simple emotion that it must have been years.

Back to my early childhood. Before a lifetime of learning limits, of keeping my head down, avoiding conflict. Before everything that led to… everything. The feeling, the hope, it had never gone away, not completely, but it had been buried, hidden. Made to feel wrong, out of place, shameful. Regulated and repressed to the point where any hope of pushing forward needed to war with a hundred memories of derision and embarrassment until it wasn't worth fighting anymore.

That wasn't what I was feeling now. That wasn't the light of evolution that burned within me. It was pure, limitless power at my fingertips. Power unrelenting, and all I had to do to seize it was believe in myself.

The mote settled. The power stabilized. The overwhelming sense of understanding, the pure rush of spiral energy faded into memory. Without its overpowering presence, doubts and worries were creeping back into my mind. Memories of failure, or when I was told I had failed. Lessons of restraint and avoidance. A lifetime of instruction on how not to be the problem that you clearly were.

But the spiral was still there. I could feel the energy, the potential. It was hard to grasp, difficult to hold the mindset to channel the power, much less harness it. It would take work, effort. Training on its use and practice on avoiding the mindsets that limited it. But I could do it. This was everything I wanted, everything I needed. Truly infinite, limitless power, but only if I could get my shit together.

Good thing I was seeing Dr. Campbell tomorrow.

"Uh, big power?" Aisha asked.

"The secondary parallel iteration had provided documentation of the abilities granted, ability 200-C-12-Hex-Alpha and ability 201-C-13-Null-Beta." Survey replied smartly.

"Right…" She drawled. "So, can someone tell me what that means, or do I need to start wearing my armor in order to link up to these talks?"

"New powers are called 'Always a Bigger Robot' and 'Spiral Energy'. The first lets me build to, well, to pretty much any size. I can ignore physical limits on the size of an object. Ship, robot, building, I can scale it up to as far as I can manage the logistics." I explained.

"Jesus, that's a big one, right?" She glanced at my duplicates for confirmation.

The second shot her a quick smile. "Actually, out of the two, it's a distant second place."

"Seriously? What's Spiral Energy do?" She asked, leaning forward.

I smiled at the irony of this combination. "It gives you instant, unlimited, reality altering power…" Aisha's eyebrows shot up "providing you have complete and absolute confidence and determination, with no doubts whatsoever."

"What?" The girl asked blankly. "Your power, it's fucking with you, right?" She looked around the room then back at me. "It's like, pissed that we figured out it was stealing from cartoons so it decided to fuck with you. That's the only explanation here."

"Quite possibly." One of the duplicates quipped.

"Wouldn't surprise me." Fleet added. Garment made a consenting gesture, and then returned to practicing what seemed to be a combination of hair styling, fashion, and topiary on Tetra. The mass of fibers were starting to take a more elegant shape than 'cocoon blob', but the feeling I got from Tetra was that she wasn't completely on board with the process.

Apparently she noticed my attention because, unheard by Garment, she muttered. "I'm not sure about this, but she's really enjoying herself so I don't want to tell her to stop. Is this what it's like for you?"

"Pretty much." I confessed quietly. It was the kind of insight that reminded me that not only had we spent more than half the night fused together, but we were technically related now. Tetra had never been able to resist Garment in terms of strength, and if she'd inherited my own skills for refusing her requests it probably didn't bode well for the young fibers.

"I mean, shit, you said infinite right?" I nodded to Aisha. "So, if you get a handle on this you could like, build something that would kill an Endbringer?"

I considered the nature of the spiral, the complete lack of limits and casual disregard for the laws or reality. "Uh, I get this thing up to enough power and I could probably just punch one out." I checked with my passenger. He'd been mostly offering nebulous emotional support through this ordeal, but could still be relied upon for a direct comparison. "Oh, yeah. Could definitely kill an Endbringer, no problem."

Aisha's eyes were like dinner plates as she stared at me. "Fuck, alright." Aisha turned to the rest of the room. "So where do we go from here? Do we like, hit him with a stick whenever he starts to get down on himself?"

"Great idea. We should get you a stick." I glared at my duplicate to his complete lack of concern. "In fact, sticks for everyone!"

The idea was embraced by the group with more enthusiasm than I was really comfortable with. I sighed and shook my head. "Seriously, training."

"And sticks." The duplicate quipped.

"Training." I said calmly.

"Training can involve sticks." At my glare he settled down. "Hey, we're technically on 20% time here. Cut us some slack."

I blinked and remembered the time. The longer potion durations made it easy to overlook how finite their existence could be. I shook my head and moved on. If they wanted to spend their 20% making jokes about my mental state… well, I wasn't happy about it, but 'hit with stick if down on self' was better than most of what I'd endured on that front.

"Training. Basic, enough to get a handle on the new abilities, then we can move on to more specialized stuff. There are entire systems of martial arts, magic, and new technology we need to be able to manage if we're going to make sure this never happens again." I sighed. "And we'll need to figure out how to deal with the mess outside."

"It's bigger than what happened on Saturday, but we've got a better grasp of it. It's not going to blindside us this time, but we'll need to make some decisions." The other duplicate explained.

"I know, I'm just not looking forward to it." I had only skimmed the reactions and the current situation, but I knew it was serious. I would have to take some kind of stance, action, or position, and I really didn't want to. Still, the time when I could stay out of the political side of the cape scene was behind me. Now all I could do was make sure I didn't mess it up. After all, I had a power that could do anything. I just needed to believe it could.

I climbed to my feet as a smile crept onto my face. "Come on, let's go practice magic."

Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

More With Less (XCOM) 300:

Through careful construction, you can remove unnecessary components and get maximum efficiency into your products. What this means, is that you can create the same quality item while using less resources. Items with which you have a limited supply, such as alien materials, can be stretched farther.

Always a Bigger Robot (Gurren Lagann) 600:

The design and maintenance of epic machines is your specialty. You can figure out how to build starships measuring several kilometers long or devise a way to make a mountain sized mecha. You'll also have no problems getting past all the laws of physics that should make such creations impossible, perhaps Spiral Energy has something to do with it?

Spiral Energy (Gurren Lagann) Free:

A mysterious but incredibly powerful evolutionary force that can be harnessed and manipulated by living beings. Spiral Energy can allow an individual to achieve virtually anything imaginable, but in order to keep things from getting too crazy you'll have to slowly unlock your Spiral powers over time. Initially you'll only have enough power to pilot a Gunmen but with enough time and the right circumstances you can figure out how to generate large powerful drill weapons from your mech that are capable of easily destroying other Gunmen and can cause massive explosions. After a few years of continued use you could potentially learn how to increase your physical abilities, Intelligence, and natural lifespan to superhuman levels. Once you've fully unlocked your Spiral power you'll be able to live for over a thousand years, punch apart small Gunmen with your bare hands, discover and forge incredible technological wonders, and generate drills and other constructs from Spiral Energy without the assistance of a mech.

Without going through any of the endgame scenarios you'll only be able achieve first arc levels of Spiral power (The feats mentioned in the description for Spiral Energy and displayed by Simon and Lordgenome during their battle at the end of the Beastmen War story arc.) until after you get your Spark and stop jumping.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to go through one of the endgame scenarios, you'll gain the ability to grant one individual in each world you go to a fraction of your Spiral Energy. The person you gift this power to can only improve if your directly train them yourself and the upper limits of their Spiral Powers cannot exceed your own.

Until you get your spark using Spiral Energy will always carry the risk of triggering the Spiral Nemesis, however doing so would probably require generating the same amount of matter and energy as the entire observable universe.