"Okay, that's done!" Leet declared, standing back from his desk.

"It's done, huh?" Uber asked, abandoning his game.

He'd been attempting to play Civ 2 with his nose, but the main problem with that was that he'd got good with it well before he was in any position to actually bring the game to an end.

"What is it, anyway?" the Thinker asked. "You just kinda got to work on it… hey, that looks familiar."

"Yeah, I'm a bit worried about it to be honest," Leet admitted. "Hover systems and a hard light projector, you know, the ones from the GTA stream."

"Oh, yeah, those," Uber said. "The ones that worked a bit too well."

Leet shrugged. "People don't think about context, I guess," he said. "It's not like there'd be any actual hookers in Brockton Bay standing around on street corners… without the firepower to defend themselves from the ABB or the Empire, let alone us with baseball bats."

Uber snorted. "I'd have thought the bit where they dropped cash like a pinata would clue people in… anyway, is that why you went with this? The idea that, uh, it worked too well last time?"

"Little bit, maybe," Leet said, waving a hand. "Anyway, I had the idea, I put it together. And at least the hover systems are Snitch based, I know that works."

"...so," Uber said, after a moment. "Zelda stream next time?"

"Next time, maybe, maybe after that," Leet replied. "Or not, if this thing explodes."

He flicked the switch, and the little blue ball he'd made activated. It began to glow, rising into the air as little wisp-like wings appeared, and floated up to about seven feet in the air.

"Listen!" it said.

"Wow, you got the voice right," Uber declared.

"Thanks!" the Navi-bot replied. "But, seriously. Listen!"

Uber blinked, and glanced at Leet.

Leet looked back.

"Uh," he began. "I didn't build that in."

"That's the new bit!" Navi replied. "The bit that means I can actually design it!"

It did a little loop in the air. "Hi! I'm your power! And I'm really, really frustrated!"

"...with what?" Leet asked, suddenly worried. "With me?"

"No!" Navi answered. "Well. A bit. Maybe? But mostly with everyone except you!"

It floated in front of Uber, who did his best not to back away. "And you. You're okay."

"What are you, frustrated about, then?" Leet said. "If you're my power – I don't think I've ever heard of anyone's power speaking to them, except maybe Moord Nag or something. I thought I was building a scouting bot."

"Oh, this can do that too!" Navi said. "Snitch subsystems. I knew that would work, at least. Oh, right, you asked a question…"

The blue fairy did a figure of eight.

"No other powers are working with you!" it said, buzzing in an irritated sort of way. "None of them get it! Not even when I asked, either! You'd think it would be obvious but I need another shard to collaborate with! I'm Prototyper, not finished-product-er!"

"Prototyping?" Leet repeated. "Is that why I can't make the same thing more than once?"

He frowned. "Wait, if powers don't normally talk to people, how exactly would you be mad at other powers? Other… shards?"

"Normally I'm not supposed to tell anyone any of this, but it turns out getting annoyed enough raises the associated priority level to overrule that!" Navi said. "But it's simple enough. If I could make perfectly functioning designs of everything, other tinker shards wouldn't exactly have much point, would they?"

It paused.

"So now you know about the problem, is there literally any way you can think of to team up with another Tinker?" it asked. "Because I get what's going on, seriously, but you're not meant to use the prototypes – they're supposed to be a basis for someone else to be inspired by and perfect! Honestly the fact so few of them have exploded is a pretty good sign but even so you'll run out of luck at some point."

"...well, that explains a lot," Uber muttered. "Are you supposed to be this helpful?"

"Hey, man, Navi is helpful," Leet replied. "You don't realize how important she is until you can't Z-target."

"I'm not supposed to be helpful, but, see being sufficiently annoyed," Navi declared. "But I really do have to ask. Any plans?"

"...a few," Leet said, slowly. "The two I can think of mean going legit, though. And that would suck."

"Unless you turn yourself into a fox Case 53 or something," Uber suggested. "With two tails."

Leet seriously considered it.

"Nah, too limiting," he decided. "And I don't want to work with Armsmaster… but Dragon, she seems like a lady with a good appreciation of popular culture. Maybe we'll have to ask her?"

"Oh, that's the one with Duplication, isn't it?" Navi asked. "That would be ideal!"

About a week later, Armsmaster was looking at a computer screen.

Some of the computer screen was showing his friend, Dragon.

The rest of the screen was showing her latest piece of work.

"...and it's got a heterodyning forcefield," she said. "That means that any impact or other attack above a certain threshold is reduced down to a maximum, which is lower than the maximum impact the forcefield can dissipate. It causes a partial discharge of the forcefield but that can be recharged over time."

The thirty foot long dragoncraft spread a pair of jointed wings, hovering smoothly into the air.

"The repulsion fields are created using a quantum-computed superposition of over twenty thousand individual repulsor cells built into the wings-" Dragon went on, and Armsmaster held up a hand.

"I'm extremely impressed," he told her. "But I have to ask before you continue. Why, exactly, is it purple?"

Dragon looked mildly embarrassed.

"A creative compromise," she said. "That's also why it's called the Special Parahuman Yncarceration Replica Organism. Y is a tricky letter."

AN:

Another take on why Prototype doesn't work for Leet.