79 Preliminary Work
In Garment's defense, it hadn't been a complete absence of containment measures that resulted in Aisha finding the apocyan outfit. Not that she was that overly concerned with security when it came to innovative fashion, but to be fair, you didn't normally have outfits that required high levels of containment.
Still, it had at least been set aside in an isolated part of the workshop. The past tense was relevant because that had been before the arrival of the Robotics Workshop, and thus the upgrading of all the other workshops. In addition to the equipment and stocks of materials improving, each workshop had increased in size. That necessitated a reshuffling of layout, moving both active projects and stored items. Garment had a LOT of stored items in her workshop, and the resulting reorganization had moved the Catsuit into a more apparent location, just in time for Aisha to stumble across it.
Of course, Garment could have taken additional steps to conceal the Catsuit, but she was more interested in investigating the application of impossible colors to fabric and their integration into outfits than any aggressive containment measures. And Aisha, being unfamiliar with the new layout of the workshop, had stumbled onto Garment's work area as she was finding her bearings.
In short, this was either nobody's fault, or the fault of a lot of people who weren't me. That fact did nothing to help address Aisha's frustration at the situation, or to deflect it towards any more worthy parties. Though, to be fair, it was hard to stay mad at Garment, not when there was genuine contrition on her part. Even if it was at war with her excitement over the new outfit and the fact that she got to share it with someone.
"Fine, I understand how it happened." Aisha said as the Vehicles constellation missed a connection. She was keeping her back to the catsuit as it continued to exist in an impossible color. "What I don't get is why something like that ended up outside that lab." Her eyes started to drift back before she stopped herself and refocused on me. "You're sure they're not from the same place?"
"Certain." I said. "That was a spy gadget power. A pretty strong one, but if it was connected to any of that I would know. Those powers are kind of distinct."
"Right. Lab, glove, and the name thing." She said with a slight nod.
"Yeah. I've had stuff like that happen before, some items affected by other powers, but this is the first time something's shown up fully formed like that." I shrugged. "An aspect of the suit was that it could be any color. I just didn't expect it to be one of those colors."
"Okay, 'those colors'." Aisha said, staying focused on me as she shook her head. "And this was the part of the lab you were okay with me finding out about?"
"It's not that bad." She gave me a critical look. "Okay, some of it's bad, and it's hard to get your head around it, but it's better than some of the other stuff. That's a bit out there."
Aisha let out a long breath. "I really wish I didn't have the context for what that kind of statement means coming from you." She steeled herself, then turned around, looking directly at the Catsuit.
With the expansion of the workshop there was no shortage of equipment for any possible clothing related project. As such, the Catsuit wasn't on a hangar or spread across a table. Garment had mounted it on a custom molded mannequin formed out of a kind of clear plastic. It let the shape and fit of the outfit come across without distracting from the clothing.
Also, given that this Catsuit was custom fit for me and cut to be nearly skintight, it was easy to tell who had been the basis for the stand that Garment was using. I was given the opportunity to see exactly how well that would have fit, had I decided to wear it. The cut left very little to the imagination, at fact that was becoming apparent even without the striking effect of apocyan.
"Alright." She said as she looked over the outfit. "Now that I know about this, what exactly am I looking at?"
"It's a color called apocyan." I explained. "It's one of seven new colors that the Prismatic Laboratory can produce."
Aisha took a deep breath without taking her eyes off the outfit. "You know, when you said you had 'new colors' I kind of imagined new shades of existing stuff, you know? Like when you go from the sixteen-color crayon pack to the sixty-four-color one. Not something like this." She paused as she continued to look at the outfit as Garment hovered beside her. "What's the deal with this?" She tore her eyes away and turned to face me. "I know it's doing something. You wouldn't have been so careful if it was just a new way to play dress-up. What does this do?"
"I'm not completely sure." I admitted. Aisha's expression shifted from confusion to horror and I quickly moved to amend my statement. "I mean, I'm not sure of everything they can do. These aren't just colors; they have an impact on reality. It's what makes them so hard to study, because the laws of physics aren't constant where they're concerned."
"Fuck." Aisha muttered. "Okay, what do you know about this one in particular?" She asked in a concerned voice.
"These colors, they're connected to things. Concepts, ideas, effects, that sort of thing. Apocyan is the color of indelible memory. It's connected with dreams of the future, uncertain potential. It has effects on the space around it, but all the colors do if you have a high enough concentration. Part of why Garment was studying it was to figure out how it was bound to the outfit and what the effects were."
Aisha blinked, her eyes unfocusing slightly. "That was a lot to take in. But I get the first part." She turned to the outfit. "Indelible memory. I can see that. Not forgetting that any time soon."
I paused and turned towards the Catsuit. "Oh, right. I guess apocyan does that too.
"Too?" Aisha asked. "You have other colors that affect memory like that?"
"Well, not exactly like that." I admitted. "There's another color that has a similar effect, but it's not as subtle."
"That's subtle?" Aisha asked in a tone of disbelief as she gestured towards the outfit.
"There's another color called violant. It's… it's kind of the color of forced connections. You literally can't forget it once you see it. It always stays in your mind, no matter what." Mental Fortress had addressed the impact of early exposures to the color, but it was easy to see how destructive that color could be. Not on the level of gant or irrigo, but still pretty bad.
Aisha glanced towards the outfit, then back to me. "How many of these colors do stuff with memories?" She asked.
"Directly? Four of them, but the others probably have some effects." I pulled up a display screen and showed Aisha recordings of the seven colors. "Irrigo, violant, cosmogone, and apocyan all have some kind of memory effect. Peligin, viric, and gant do other things."
Aisha looked at the recording of apocyan dye from the laboratory, then back at the outfit. "What…?" She began to ask.
"The colors don't show up normally in recordings." I explained. "Normal cameras and displays can't recreate them. You take a picture, it comes out like this, not like their actual colors."
"Okay, I get that." She paused again, then looked back at the outfit. "It's just…"
"Just what?" I asked.
She took a breath, then turned to face me. "Okay, I haven't had to deal with this for a long time, so it's hard to put into words, right?" I nodded. "Before you helped me out, made Ren," She raised a hand to her diamond hair clip. "I could barely control my power. It kind of flowed wherever it wanted. The harder I tried to get it to do something, the more it went against me. I could tell there was this huge effect going on, but the only way I could direct it was to like, ignore the effect, kind of trick it to go where I wanted, but not actually try to?" She scrunched her nose. "Sorry, it's hard to explain."
"It's okay." I said. "I know how difficult powers can be."
She gave me a weak smile as she continued. "Right. So, my power does memory stuff, and I know that color does memory stuff because I can feel my power trying to do memory stuff, and it's trying to do memory stuff on its own, and in a way that I kind of have to not try to try to direct it." She gave me an apologetic look as her ramblings concluded.
I blinked, then sent an inquiry towards the workshop's network. Aisha's power was active, which wasn't a problem for me anymore, but it was something she had taken to reigning in as much as possible. No doubt there would be a string of panicked responses across everyone who was monitoring for the effect, but that wasn't what I was interested in. Direct analysis showed that it was particularly active. Given Aisha's power started at global scale it took significant effort for it to register above the normal level, but there was something going on right now.
I steeled myself. "Aisha, this could be serious, so I'm going to ask you to restrain your response to what's going to happen next."
"Uh, okay. Sure." She said, giving me a concerned look.
I nodded, then reached out to my familiar. I felt the primordial Lycaenops spirit settle over me, amplifying my magical potential. There was a poofing sound as the ear tufts and tail manifested. Aisha at least made an attempt to contain her reaction, hiding a snicker behind her hand. Garment was far less subtle.
I did my best to ignore them as I focused on my mana awareness. The Lycaenops has a third eye, which amplified my ability to sense mana. Coupled with the enhanced magical abilities that came from being connected with the spirit and my shadow affinity's focus on connections and spatial effects, it gave me the ability to discern what was happening.
Aisha's power was active, and it was trying to interact with the apocyan outfit. I could see the power reaching out, tendrils of energy similar to Survey's display of Victor's power, and I could see it twist and alter when it encountered the effect of the outfit.
The outfit wasn't even interacting with a human mind. There should be nothing for a memory wiping power to do, but apocyan wasn't something that affected memory, it was the color of memory. I was watching two incredibly disparate effects try to come together in a way that by all rights should have been impossible.
It was impossible. I mean, it should have been, but Aisha's power wasn't functioning in a normal way. Because Aisha's power was supported beyond the limits of a typical parahuman. Aisha had an arcane focus directing her power. Looking at the diamonds of Ren I could see the effect in play.
"Oh." I said.
"Oh?" Aisha echoed. "Oh what? What's wrong?" She asked. Tracking where I was looking she reached up and snatched her hairpin off her head. With a quick glance she spotted what I had noticed. "What the hell?"
Dancing within the facets of the perfectly cut gems was the unforgettable radiance of apocyan light. I could see the way it pulsed and grew in time with the rhythms of her power, the light flowing from one crystal to the next in a contained circuit.
"Did it… did that thing break Ren?" She asked, a look of horror on her face.
"No." I said quickly. "Not break." I took the hairpin from her and showed her the traces of apocyan moving through the diamonds. "It's channeling the light. Reflecting it in a circuit. There's equipment in the lab with a similar effect. Mirrorcatch boxes. They're mirror lined containers that hold the light inside them."
"What?" Aisha's confusion seemed to momentarily drive away her horror at the situation. "What the hell? Mirrors don't work that way. You can't hold active radiant energy inside a box like that." She blinked. "Unless they really fuck up physics." I shrugged. "Okay, reality is fucked where this stuff is concerned. Just the kind of thing you'd want for the fall line." Next to her Garment made a conspicuously innocent gesture. "But what's happening here? Why is Ren fucked up."
"It's not fucked up." I explained. "This is a named arcane focus designed to assist with the control of memory related effects. Even if it's not at the peak of what I can create, it's still really powerful."
"Right, but you built it for my power, before you even knew about this bullshit. What's going on?" She asked.
I took a breath. "Remember Heretical Adaptation?" I asked.
It took her a moment to recall what I was talking about. "That power that makes things improve on their own?" I nodded. "Right, but that hasn't done anything yet, has it?"
"It has." I pulled up my original design for her hairpin alongside a display of its current configuration. "The initial changes weren't physical, but the pin has been improving itself as you used it. Making it easier for you to control and develop your power. This is just the first change that we can clearly see."
"This is an improvement?" She asked, waving the faint glow of apocyan in my face.
"It is." I said firmly. "Heretical Adaptation isn't the kind of effect that causes problems. This is an independently developed moderation of the effects of the laboratory's colors, facilitated by your own power. It should still allow you to control it, so it you want it gone-"
I didn't even have a chance to finish my sentence before Aisha focused on the hairpin and a burst of apocyan light flashed forth. As I blinked away the aftermath of a wave of pure potential I saw Aisha holding a Ren, its diamonds completely pristine.
"Okay, that's…" I paused as I felt another connection to the Personal Reality constellation. The workshop shook as new additions were made. Aisha gave me a sympathetic look. "That's something we should check out."
"Wow." Aisha said, looking down at the storage area. "That would be really impressive if it wasn't a whole lot of nothing."
I had to agree with her. Viewing an empty concrete pad from a kilometer up didn't make it any less bland. The fact that we were viewing it from another concrete pad didn't really help matters.
The latest additions had been a clustered pair of motes called the Lofty Loft and the Underside.
No relation to any currently active villain groups.
The Underside had the effect of adding basement space to my storage area. The space was configurable to a maximum volume of half my usable storage space. That meant I had thirty-two cubic kilometers of basement space. Just as calling something the size of a city with dual waterfronts a 'storage area' already felt like a misnomer, calling something that had to be measured in cubic kilometers a basement felt like it was badly underselling things.
Compared to the mammoth amount of underground storage, the Lofty Loft was considerably more frivolous. It gave a copy of the original storage space placed above the original. Well, above and to the side. I was standing with Aisha on the edge of one of the storage area's kilometer high concrete walls looking down at the empty expanse. Perched above the open space was an eighty-by-eighty-meter square of concrete with a salt water cove on one side and a fresh water pond on the other. Behind us was the entrance to the loft, which led back to the entryway, directly next to the entrance to the storage space below. Because my workshop didn't care about spatial arrangements.
Fortunately, my new portal tech also didn't care about spatial arrangements. Garment's workshop could be seen through the washed-out bluish tint of the rectangle hanging in the air behind us. The debut of a new type of portal technology hadn't garnered comment from Aisha in the aftermath of reality altering colors and massive expansions of my workshop.
"But it is like, a lot of space." She said, looking over the edge. I wondered if she would have been as comfortable standing that close to the sheer drop if she didn't have flight capable armor that could be deployed in a heartbeat. "Do you have any idea what you're going to do with it?"
I shook my head. "No idea, really. It's the size of a small city with a build height taller than the biggest skyscrapers. I could use it to practice architecture or civic planning or something like that." I shrugged. "One of my powers lets me scale up technology infinitely, so I could have used it to build oversized versions of generators or replicators, but energy and resources aren't really a priority right now." I inclined my head towards the rest of the workshop. "Other stuff got impacted by the size upgrade as well. Garage can now park oil tankers, and the Shooting Range got a really big laser-tag area."
"Really? How big?" Aisha asked.
"About eight stories high." She nodded. "And sixteen square kilometers of area." She blinked, looked down at the expanse beneath us, then over at me. "Yeah, I know. Just lucky it's not taking up space in the volcano." I checked the workshop systems. "Tybalt is already scouting it out, planning configurations for upcoming training." I shrugged. "Some of this stuff kind of comes out of nowhere."
"Yeah." She leaned over the edge, looking at the kilometer long drop down to the storage floor, then turned back from the edge. "That's your power, right? Just throws things at you and you need to figure out how to deal with them?"
I could tell there was more going on here than commentary on the latest Workshop addition. "This is about the changes to your hairpin?" I asked.
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "Yeah." She reached up and ran her fingers over the gleaming stones, now completely devoid of impossible colors. "I know how crazy your power can get, but I guess I always counted on being two steps away from it, you know? Like, anything I had to deal with, everyone else already has a handle on. I'm not used to being at the forefront."
"Aisha, you don't need to have anything to do with those colors if you don't want to." I assured her.
"I know, but it's an opportunity, right?" She asked. "You couldn't figure them out, and then my power works with Ren and suddenly there's a way to use them, right?"
I shook my head. "The Arcane Craft, the power behind your hairpin? It's really versatile. Works on any 'mysterious force'. The colors from that lab definitely count. I could have built items that could capture, bend, or shape those effects."
"But it's different for me, right?" Aisha asked, looking back to where Garment was visible, loitering on the other side of the portal. "I could tell that from Garment."
I nodded. "Garment has an affinity for light. She's really invested in what the colors can do, mostly for fashion, but not limited to that. With the Arcane Craft, if someone is a source of an effect then the focuses can augment and amplify, not just shape. That's what your power was doing with the color." I smiled slightly as I shook my head. "I never would have considered that approach, but apparently the focuses can adapt to similar effects from different systems of power."
She returned my smile. "You know, before this I didn't get the way you reacted to every power, like it was this big thing that you needed to get the most out of." She raised her hand to the hairpin again. "When you're the only one who can do something big, there's this sense of obligation, like you need to live up to it." She shrugged. "Kind of a weird feeling for me, to be honest."
"Look, I'm sorry that this got dumped on you out of nowhere." I said. "It kind of came out of nowhere for me as well."
"I get that. Probably better now than before." She let out a short laugh as she looked down at the ocean shore of the storage area. The morning sun, emulated by the simulated sky, was gleaming over the water. Eight kilometers of it now extending to a nondescript barrier allowed a striking view of the open water. "I was kind of focused on psyching myself up for the training thing. Didn't really think about much else."
"About that training…" I said. "If you don't want to join in, that's fine. I know it's a much bigger commitment than the other blocks we've done."
"Just a bit." She said with a grin. "I mean, I know we were getting up there in terms of how fast things were going, but this is the first time it's all out Narnia shit."
"I don't know if I'd put it that way." I protested.
"A year and a half in a spiritual realm while a couple of hours pass outside. That's either Narnia or some kind of thing from the Faerie Courts." She declared.
I decided not to engage over that point. "It's not a year and a half." I explained, taking a new approach. "The book would require three years of work. That works out to about four thousand hours per year. My powers can cut that in half, so a year and a half of work hours is only six thousand. And three thousand for downtime."
"Fine, a year and ten days." She was wearing the teasing grin I was now quite familiar with. Honestly, it was a nice change from the way the Prismatic Lab's colors had hit her. "And that's sixteen-hour days as well. You're really going full slave driver here." She prodded.
I let out a breath. "It's not going to be that bad." I promised.
She gave a quick nod. "Yeah, I figured." I raised an eyebrow and she continued. "Everyone knows you'd work yourself like that if you had the chance, but you don't drag anyone else into that kind of hell."
"I don't…" I paused. "Wait, is this why everyone's been 'helping out' with my training so much?" She gave me a flat look. And suddenly all the times I'd been sure to schedule breaks for other people's benefit took on a new light. "Anyway, if you did try to cover all the material in one sitting it would burn you out, but this isn't like that." I explained. "I can cover the theory in a couple of hours. The rest is practice and experimentation. I can combine that with training in other areas, so we can bring everyone up to speed on some of the new technology I've gotten."
"Just some?" She prodded. I scowled at her and she backed off. "Okay, just teasing. I'm sure it will be great. Uh, same kind of lessons you used before? Because honestly, they never really felt like classwork when you put them together."
"That was kind of the idea." I said. "Teaching skills, memory knowledge, and management of the environment. With everything coming together you can create a state where you have that kind of focus you get when you're lost in a good book or serious hobby. Except in the computer, you don't get distracted by hunger, exhaustion, or personal commitments. It's a year in the virtual environment, but it's not going to feel like a year." I assured her.
"Yeah, I figured it was something like that." She said. "But even with all of that, it's still a long time, right?" I nodded. "Honestly, I'm still a little nervous about that. Before this, the longest commitment I had was three weeks at sleepaway camp."
"Aisha, if you want to sit this out, that's fine. We can go through the book at a slower pace, and the rest of us will only be in there for a couple of hours." I thought back to her reactions to the changes to her hairpin. "You don't need to feel like you need to live up to anything here."
She shook her head adamantly. "No, everyone else is going in there, I'm not sitting this out. Besides, this is a calibration run right? You need a normal parahuman in there for a baseline."
"It would help but…" I saw the expression on her face. "Okay, but you can leave whenever you want. It gets too much, or you just need a break, say the word and we can drop out."
"That's not going to mess up your timeline?" She asked.
I shook my head. "I'm going to take Uppercrust up on his offer for a meeting, but we've got enough slack in the schedule. And if you want to call it for the day that's fine as well. Even if you don't cover everything in one sitting, anything you pick up should still be helpful."
"I guess." She looked out over the contained ocean again as the Size constellation passed by without a connection. "It's still hard to believe you can learn something like that with just a book and some practice. I mean, I know enough to know that it shouldn't work."
I shrugged. "Part of the craziness of my powers. Always a surprise."
"Yeah, I know that." She turned to me with a more serious expression. "Okay, so what's the deal with the rest of the colors?"
I gave her an uncertain look. "Are you sure you want to go after something like this? I know it is seriously out-there stuff."
"I already know about them. It's just a question of whether I get the full story or try to piece it together from what I've seen so far." She shot back.
I nodded. Given how unsettling some of the aspects of the Prismatic Laboratory could be, I didn't want to consider where someone's mind might go with just a piece of the puzzle and no guide to the rest of the picture.
"Okay." I called up the displays again. "First up, from what I can tell, these don't function like normal colors of light."
"No, really?" She asked, her voice thick with sarcasm. I elected to ignore it.
"I think they're aspects of reality pulled out of balance. Parts added or removed so you end up with a distortion that exists as the color in question." I explained.
"Well, that's terrifying. Please continue." She quipped. I had the feeling she was enjoying herself a little too much.
"You've had firsthand experience with apocyan. It's the color of memory, potential and some complicated spatial things. There's the potential that I could use it to help with my control and generation of spiral energy, but that's just theory right now." Aisha nodded and I continued. "These are the three others that have direct connections to memory."
I brought forward the pictures of irrigo, violant, and cosmogone.
"This is violant." I indicated towards the burgundy dyes and lenses from the laboratory. "It's the color of connections, possibly forced connections. It's less that you can't forget it and more that it stays in your mind. It's not a pleasant color to look at in person."
Aisha nodded and I continued.
"Irrigo is kind of its opposite. You can't remember irrigo." Aisha looked up, glancing between me and the purplish objects on screen. "It kind of absorbs memories. You can function normally around it, but once you look away, it takes the memories of the event, making you forget everything that happened."
I could tell Aisha had questions, but she restrained herself and gestured for me to continue.
"Cosmogone is like nostalgia, it's more about remembering than memory itself." Aisha gave me a confused look and I could only shrug. "Not the easiest thing to explain. It has more emotional impacts than mental ones, something we're still investigating."
"Alright." Aisha said, pulling herself up. "What about the rest? Like that green one, which I'm betting isn't actually green?"
"It's Viric. Color of shallow sleep. Kind of numbs you, makes it hard to focus on what's happening in the moment. Possibly connected to the past, or maybe perceptions of the past? I don't know, it's-"
"Complicated. I get that." Aisha said with a nod. "And the last two? Black and brown?"
"Peligin and gant. Peligin isn't black, but it is dark. It's connected with dread and the unknown. Really unnerving color. Great for intimidation, but probably not the easiest thing to use."
"Okay, and gant?" Aisha asked.
I took a breath. "Gant is nothing." She gave me a confused look and I did my best to elaborate. "If the other colors are parts of reality out of balance, gant is what happens when you take them all away. It's nothingness on a conceptual level. Reality running into the negatives type-nothingness."
A bit of emotion edged into my voice and Aisha clearly picked up on it. "Okay, I'm guessing that's kind of on the back burner for this experimentation?"
I nodded. "It's the worst of them, but none of them are really safe. You don't have to be involved in this kind of research. We can look at the way your focus adapted and work from there."
"But it won't be as good, right?" She asked. "Sources of power can augment and amplify, right?" She grinned at me. "Look, I'll take some time to think about it and give you my decision in a year."
"Ha. Very funny." I replied.
"Yeah, well I haven't missed the fact that irrigo and apocyan pretty much match the colors of my armor." She said with a wide smile. Meanwhile I tried to imagine the effect of a combination of those two colors in high volume and felt my brain white out for a moment. "I can't be the only one sitting out the dangerous reality altering stuff, right?"
She most definitely could, but I felt that I needed to at least respect her decisions on the matter. She may be young, but that wasn't an excuse to dismiss her.
"On that note, there's something I need to talk to you about." I said. She gave me a concerned look and I moved to explain. "We're working on something, a new problem that's come up. It's a big project, and an important one, but also dangerous."
"Okay, but we do a lot of that, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, but this is different." I explained. "I'm going off my thinker power for a lot of this, but it's big, and really sensitive. From what I can tell, it's not safe to share the information with you."
Her eyebrows rose. "Seriously?"
I nodded solemnly. "Yes. The workshop defenses should be enough to keep things secure, but if I tell you, it won't be safe for you to leave until we figure out a way to defend against a breach."
"Okay, don't tell me." She said quickly.
I blinked. "What, just like that?"
"Hey, after this morning I'm not in a hurry to learn dangerous stuff I could have avoided. Besides, if this thing, whatever it is, is worse than what these are supposed to protect against…" She held up her wrist, showing her anti-precognitive charm bracelet. "Then it must be serious. Sort out the security stuff first, then fill me in."
"If you're sure." I cautioned. "Just so you know, everyone else is working on this. I just didn't want you to feel like you were being excluded for no reason."
"It's not for no reason. I get it." She assured me, then quickly looked up. "It's because I'm a parahuman, right?"
"What?" I asked.
"Your trigger was really messed up. Fleet, Survey, and Matrix are robots, Tetra's an alien, Tybalt's a cat god, and Garment is Garment. I'm the only normal parahuman here. That's it, right?" She asked.
I let out a breath. "I don't want to confirm anything in case it causes a breach, but your logic is probably sound."
"Okay, so how are you going to deal with this?" She asked. "You have a plan, right?"
I nodded. "I'm investigating the effect. Well, Survey's taking point, but you know." She nodded. "If I can figure out exactly what the danger is then I can deal with it. Otherwise, mental defenses might help, but I'm not sure."
"Defenses like that psi-operative stuff? From the lab?" Aisha asked. "The stuff Survey tried out?"
"That might help, but it might not be enough." I said. "Solace is a really powerful form of mental defense. It would be good for you to have it in general, but I'm not sure if it will be enough for this."
"Well, no harm in trying, right?" Aisha asked, but some of the levity left her face when she saw my expression.
"Aisha, there's a genetic therapy aspect to the Psi Lab's treatments. It's safe and stable, but it's not the kind of thing that's easy to reverse. I still think it's a good idea for you to have those defenses, but this isn't something you should rush into."
"Right, if only I had about a year to think on this, and read up on the details of the procedure. Then I could make a fully informed decision that would satisfy everyone." She replied.
I let out a breath. "Okay, point made. We'll go over the details during down time from training. All of them. Then you can decide if you want to do this."
"Yes, I'm sure that learning how I can get more superpowers is totally going to change my opinion on getting superpowers." She quipped. "Seriously, if I'm okay dealing with the crazy impossible light mad memories, a stable gene sequencing program is a walk in the park."
It was the kind of statement I really wished I could counter, but she did have a point. At least the Psi Lab worked off of established physical properties rather than flexible reality and symbolic concepts.
"Hey, there is going to be stuff to do inside the computer right?" She asked. "It's not just going to be studying and sleeping?" She paused. "Can you actually sleep in there?"
"You should be able to." I explained. "It's a spiritron based medium for computation. You exist as a spiritual presence. You won't need to sleep, but you can for relaxation and mental benefits. Same with food, or anything else really. It effectively is the Workshop's computer core, so it has access to all the media and information stored on it, including the library and everything Survey's downloaded from the internet."
"Right. I guess even your connection speeds aren't going to cut it when we're running at five thousand times normal speed." She replied.
"Closer to four and a half, but yeah. There's plenty of options for downtime in there, and as I said, you can drop out if you get fed up." I said.
"Nope. I'm seeing this through." She said with a wide grin. "Just wanted to make sure there were options beyond Survey's movie choices."
I shook my head. "It wasn't that bad."
"The Swedish course wasn't that bad. The movie was ninety-six minutes of drudging through a plague-ridden countryside where everything is either a metaphor for death, or actual death." She shot back. "Oh, and the ending was literally 'everyone dies', except the people who were there to show that they were dead."
"It was supposed to be symbolic." I said in a weak defense.
"I got the symbolism; I just hated it." She smiled at me. "But you know what they say, 'Don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over'."
I gave her a strained look. "Think you might have gotten that backwards?"
"Not really." She said cheerfully, then turned serious. "Honestly, the whole 'end of the world' thing with all the bible quotes was probably the most unsettling part. It's like something out of one of those Fallen videos."
I nodded in understanding. "Yeah, makes sense. I think before they were an Endbringer cult the Fallen started as a church that thought the Endbringers were a sign out of the Book of Revelations." I shrugged. "You've had doomsayers predicting the end of the world before, they just never had superpowers and giant monsters in the mix. Most of the religious stuff has washed out by this point, but when they started out it was a lot more of the traditional fire and brimstone, rather than Behemoth worship."
If there was ever a topic that could bring the mood lower than Swedish cinema, the Endbringers and their cults did the trick. Right now, I was focused on the Nine, but there was no shortage of monstrous groups across the country, across the world really. All of them I would have to deal with, as soon as I could act freely.
Just like the Nine, I didn't like leaving any of them at large any longer than necessary, but once I started to move openly there would be no going back. This wasn't something you could take half measures on. Once things started, there was no stopping until everything was dealt with. If the Fallen didn't deserve to exist, then the same could be said for Heartbreaker, for Bastard Son, for Gesellschaft or the CUI or the worst of the warlords.
The buildup I was doing was overkill for the problems in Brockton Bay. It was overkill even for the Nine, because it wasn't something that would stop at the city borders. This was something that would need to fight the entire world if necessary, and given the nature of parahumans, there probably wasn't a peaceful option. At least not one I would be willing to accept.
My musings were interrupted by a sudden connection to a mote from the Knowledge constellation. It was a smaller mote called 'What's This Do?'. It was a fairly standard power for understanding technology. With it I could figure out any technology as long as I could mess around with it. It was a godsend for tinker tech and, while not a silver bullet, would certainly help with cracking Bakuda's code once the new core was fully calibrated. The main power was useful, but not that significant. As usual, it was everything it had been paired with that was completely insane.
"Okay, new power?" Aisha guessed. "So, is this a serious one, or one of them with ridiculous addons that overshadow everything?"
I took a breath. "Reverse engineering power, same source as the Titans. Helps me figure out technology. Also comes with some improvements for the Titan core systems." I explained.
"But there's more, right?" Aisha prodded. "Something weird or fun?"
"Weird, yes." I said. "Additional power called 'Oi!'."
"Oi?" Aisha asked.
There was a wicked edge to my expression. "Power to change my accent, and have it spread to anyone I work with." Aisha looked suitably horrified at the implications. "Don't worry, not the kind of thing I'm going to mess with." I assured her. "The bigger concern is Tybalt."
"What about Tybalt?" She asked.
"He got a lot of powers from this." I said. "Powers and equipment, including his own Titan designs."
"Okay, but why is that concerning?" Aisha asked.
"Most of it isn't." I said, reviewing the abilities that Tybalt had received. "Combat stuff that makes him more resilient or harder to pick out as a target or better at planning ambushes." I explained as Aisha nodded along. "The only one we should probably be concerned about is called Combat Stims, since it lets him do as much meth as he wants with no negative side effects."
I watched as Aisha's mouth dropped open at the news, and extended my awareness to track Survey's negotiation with Tybalt. Unfortunately, Tybalt had also received a Tactical playbook specific to the world he came from. Given Survey's thirst for knowledge, particularly knowledge that was completely impossible to obtain in our world, her negotiations basically amounted to 'How many drugs do you want for the book? All of them? You can have all of them! Why aren't you giving me the book?'.
It was a discussion I felt the need to intercede in before Survey started accessing my Star Trek medical data for the kind of stims that can revive the recently deceased. Tybalt happily explained that, since there were no negative side effects to any level of stimulant use, it made perfect sense for him to include them in his standard loadout. Aisha and I took the significantly more reasonable stance that perhaps the world wasn't ready for a methed up divine war cat. It served as yet another example of the topic of my earlier discussion with Aisha. Having a power makes you want to use that power, even if that power is the ability to take what should be lethal quantities of drugs.
Meanwhile, Fleet interrupted the conversation, asking why we were bothering with a discussion about chemical stimulants when Tybalt had just received his own spaceship. It was actually a model of orbital shuttle known as a Crow, but it came with a fully functional jump drive, even if it was usually intended to only jump from space to a planet's surface and back. FTL as a means of rapid insertion. Still, all the tech was there, just waiting to be used on a grander scale.
Eventually, we were able to resolve things, prying Fleet away from the shuttle, depositing the book in the library for Survey, and convincing Tybalt by assuring him that if he ran into anyone he seriously needed physical enhancement to take down we would provide him with the most advanced divine combat stims I was able to create. Right now, that list was composed of 'Maybe Behemoth', so it was safe to say the point had been put to rest.
With matters mostly settled with Aisha she returned to a more contained section of the Clothing Workshop to review some of the plans for the charity event. Fleet and Tybalt decided to take the Crow on a pre-training test flight in the sky above my storage area. Seeing as that basically passed for space it was safe for them to open up with anything short of the FTL drive. Meanwhile, I set about fulfilling my commission from Survey.
The creation of divine tools of observation was new ground for me. Generally, I had either tried to moderate Daedalus' Student, or accepted whatever aspect of the work it naturally enhanced. This was substantially more complicated. I was attempting to control the expression of ephemeral qualities tied to the expression of an item in terms of force interaction and intent. The order of matter, extended beyond its current form.
Survey stood by as she watched me work. The Skyforge served to provide the most enhanced materials to act as a starting point, Elven enchantment took the items' physical qualities to their limit, Lathe of Heaven drew out potential beyond what should be possible for the materials used, and Master Craftsman took the work beyond the realm of man. Combined with my accumulated powers I was creating works of art, pinnacles of the craft. And then I was taking things further.
A mirror reflects the world, but it need not reflect the world that lies before it. An image was a figment that could be captured on many levels, and what you saw in the mirror could have been a reflection of any moment. No, not possible futures. Not unseen forces, or the nature of the viewer. Hundreds of possibilities exploded before me as the work was extended beyond the limits of its physical components. It was more than a mirror, but how much more, and in what way? The order was maintained, the progression of intellect and development, but pruning that back to the point where a single purpose could be obtained, that way lay the challenge.
It was easier when a single function was being amplified. An edge sharpened; a shield strengthened. Make a maze more complicated or allow wings that were not quite able to fly the ability to reach that final point. Dedicated machines could be extended along their function. Abstract items had no such path, but they bore much more potential.
The secret was the Arcane Craft. The power to affect power. Mysterious forces, bound and channeled. This wasn't one of infinite possibilities for a mirror. This was Survey's mirror, a divine sheet of mithril, bound in celestial bronze and crafted by skill beyond mortal understanding. It was an item of myth, a portal to the secrets of the world.
At least that was the idea. The wall mirror I created was undeniably powerful, but directing it was a challenge. It took focus, intent, and patience. It also needed to be taken beyond the Workshop. Even divine workmanship couldn't skirt the restrictions of Simple Scientific Solution.
"It will get better." I assured Survey as she examined the mirror. "This is just a start."
"It is an excellent start." She angled the mirror slightly and the image shifted to show a corner of her library. Another shift showed the Titans beginning to make their way down towards the computer core. "There is no sign of any observation effect on the locations being viewed. While the control interface could stand additional refinement, the underlying effect is ideal."
I smiled at the compliment. "It's too bad that it's just observation." I said. "Sensors won't work through the mirror." I placed a hand on the frame, feeling the effect of Feel it Out. My psionic ability peeled back the aspects of the mirror's operation, slowly deconstructing its function in a process that would eventually provide information on how to design improvements.
"The primary problem is the limited range of the Analysis sensors, and the security concern involved with dispatching of remote drones." Survey replied.
Something struck me when she said 'problem'. It was a problem, but that just meant a solution was needed. And I had just received a power specialized in finding solutions. A power that ensured that all my technology would be compatible with my gadgets, and that I would never run out of ideas for gadgets. And I had just gotten one.
I turned from Survey and threw myself into work. I had access to all the resources I needed at the Skyforge even without the supplementation of Gadgeteer. The problem was simple, range for an effect of limited range. I had multiple powers that could bring something distant closer or bridge gaps in space, but this needed to be subtle. The most subtle thing I could create. Able to hold against any possible means of detection.
I found a solution. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was a start, and the rest of my abilities could take it the rest of the way. Miniaturization of portal technology with Analysis sensors. The ability to open a portal just big enough to allow the sensor to function.
There were consequences to the mechanism. Lower range, limited field of view, but by creating a link that was barely a flicker in the air, remote scanning was possible. Survey could reach beyond the city.
"This is an extraordinary work." She stated as the Time constellation passed by. The device was approximately the size of a matchbox, easily concealed even without the refinements that would come later. "There is the potential of detection, but it remains remote. Avoiding direct observation of priority targets should reduce that risk to negligible levels."
"We can improve that." I said, focusing on my psionic awareness of possible upgrade paths. For something this complex they were slow to emerge, but they would come eventually. "And you'll still be able to actively scan areas around the Nine and possible routes they could take. It could identify high risk areas and mitigate the damage they do during their approach."
"I concur." She said, accepting the gadget again. "It could also provide a marked improvement to our detection abilities within the city, though with the range of thinker effects directed at us I would advise caution and an additional trial period."
"Do whatever you think is best." I said. "And keep me informed." I glanced towards the computer core. "Are you sure you're alright for joining in the training?"
She nodded. "My ancillary processes can continue work outside of the spiritron environment, and the drones remain active with no sign they have been detected. We can discuss an expansion of surveillance efforts following the conclusion of training."
"During the training as well." I said as we started towards the computer core. "We'll have enough downtime in there. I want to review everything you have on the Nine. Every member, every attack, every bit of analysis and history you've pulled together."
Survey blinked. "That is quite an extensive amount of information. Additionally, the vast majority of such accounts would be characterized as being of a highly disturbing nature."
"I know." I said. "But I need to be ready for this. I need to know what they've done and what they're likely to do, both when they arrive and on their way here. We need to know so that we can make sure they don't have a ghost of a chance of accomplishing anything, not here, and not ever again."
"Understood." Survey said, and I could feel the pulse of conviction through her code. This was possibly the biggest project I had ever given her and it was encouraging to see how seriously she was taking it.
That seriousness contrasted sharply with the trio of rainbow animals that were being wired into the spiritron core by my duplicates while being herded by Fleet. I watched dumbfounded for a moment, then finally found the will to speak.
"What the hell?" I asked the group in general.
"Hey." My first duplicate called as he connected interface modules to the dragon wish-zoid. "Quick answer? Zoids have a technorganic core, which should be able to link to the system. Since we're calibrating everything we can on this run, it seemed like a good idea."
"This is a good idea?" I asked. "We're supposed to be training in there."
"Well, a third of the schedule is downtime. Might as well get to know your zoids while you're in there." The second replied, linking Aisha's unicorn in next to the Ion and Tone Titans.
I looked around. Fleet had clearly facilitated things, Survey was impartial, the Matrix didn't care, Tetra was enjoying the show, and both Aisha and Tybalt seemed thrilled about the idea.
"Fine." I said. Honestly, I was somewhat interested in what the spiritual form of a technorganic core would be. I helped my duplicates with the final check, then loaded into the upgraded spiritron interface throne for the next two hours, or twelve months, depending on your perspective.
I opened my eyes to a grassy plateau. White clouds floated through a blue sky overhead and I could feel the wind blowing through my hair as gusts caused the grass to shimmer and dance. Other simulations had been able to emulate senses, but not like this. With them I was always aware of the machinery behind the effect. Here, I could feel everything like it was really happening.
Because, in a way, it was.
The plateau was a slowly expanding circle sitting under a summer sky. The edges vanished into a misty void, one that was slowly being reclaimed and the world loaded around us. At the moment the only feature was a single tree in the center of the plateau. I watched as Fleet appeared, loading an avatar identical to his humanoid body. Then Survey. Then the Matrix, still in a golden armored form. Then Aisha.
"Woah." She said, steadying herself against the tree. She took a moment to look around. She took a deep breath, then looked up at the blue sky. "Okay, this is definitely a step up from before." She paused, looking around. "Is this everything? I figured we'd have a classroom or something."
"Everything's still loading in." I explained. "And this is only the first floor."
"This is a floor?" She asked, looking at the windswept grass and Tybalt appeared behind her.
"Floor, or layer." I said. "It's only entry level now, but as we progress my duplicates will be able to calibrate the environment, allowing more complex metaphysics to be emulated. That leads to the creation of layers of reality in increasing levels of complexity, a kind of serial phantasm that will eventually be able to perfectly emulate the universe."
"What, all of it?" Aisha asked. "Even the crazy colors?"
"With perfect emulation? Yeah, even stuff from the Prismatic Laboratory should be possible." I said as Tetra appeared in her humanoid-mink form. "Right now, it's limited to conventional physics, but that's a perfect emulation of conventional physics, perfect enough to develop the techniques from the skill book."
Garment flickered in as her usual mass of flowing clothing, followed by what I guessed were the Titans. Or the Titans' cores. Two vaguely cylindrical devices that floated in the air, observing the group stoically.
"So, that's everyone. We're just waiting for the Zoids…" I said as the final connections were made. And Aisha promptly squealed in excitement.
So, apparently 'technorganic cores' leaned much more heavily towards the organic than the technical when it came to spiritual presence. When Orudios, Aisha's unicorn appeared, it still had the silvery body and rainbow mane, but it had a silvery coat and a mane of rainbow hair. The same effect was present on Tybalt's Saber Fang and then the dragon, Dekalt, that had defaulted to me. Silver scales and a mane of rainbow hair beneath its horns.
"Okay, this was definitely the best idea, no question." Aisha said as she rushed towards her much more organic unicorn. "Both the spiritron computer thing and the fact that we get a whole year in here."
I felt like I should say something. I looked to Tybalt for support, but he was already scampering onto his Saber Fang's back, digging claws into silver fur and launching across the plateau. Aisha scrambled to follow. Mercifully, her unicorn had maintained its tack. Before I knew it, Fleet was helping her into the saddle and sending her on her way.
I turned suddenly to find Dekalt nuzzling me before turning to where the other Wishes were bounding across the field. I looked back to the central tree. Slowly, the beginnings of a school building were rising out of the grass. Loading at a speed that would have been imperceptible to anyone who wasn't experiencing time at our level.
"We will have several hours before the facilities are prepared to begin training." Survey assured me. "Perhaps you should join Tybalt and Aisha in this excursion?"
The weight of everything I needed to do pressed down on me. The preparations for the Nine. The mastery of the skill book that was integral to Tetra's conversion to a Kamui. The refinements of technology that were needed. The coming meeting with Uppercrust. The weight of all of that, and everything to come after it.
It was an enormous responsibility. But I could spare moments. A couple of hours that only amounted to a sliver of a couple of actual hours, as a chance to take a break. An indulgence of less than a second in the real world. A chance to briefly, but meaningfully, indulge.
And a chance to ride a real, or apparently real, dragon across the summer sky. Tetra scampered up next to me and was doing her best to look endearing with glowing red eyes. I smiled as I scooped her up and leapt onto the back of Dekalt. I could spare a moment for something like this. With a kick Dekalt launched into the air, pouncing after the Unicorn and Saber-Toothed Tiger.
(Author's Note: We'll pick up next week with a jump to the end of the training, leading into the meeting with Uppercrust. Details and impact of the training will be referenced, but we won't be covering more than is necessary for the story.)
Jumpchain abilities this chapter:
Lofty Loft (Personal Reality) 100:
Is it depressing having your home surrounded by storage space? You gain an area the same size as your starting space that is reserved entirely for housing and luxury facilities, such as pools and sports fields. It is situated either next to your Cosmic Warehouse or above your Cosmic Warehouse. Separate purchases of Additional Space applied to it instead of Cosmic Warehouse can be used to expand it. You'll have to decide if Warehouse mods from jumps are applied to the Lofty Loft or the Cosmic Warehouse.
Underside (Personal Reality) 200:
This allows you to create Basement Spaces in your Personal Reality. The maximum volume of all 'underground' spaces is equal to ½ the volume of your Personal Reality, but these spaces need not be contiguous. Connections such as chutes, corridors, or elevator shafts are not counted for that total unless you start trying to cheese it by creating an infinitely long corridor to store things in.
What's This Do? (Titanfall) 200:
The technology used in the frontier can be so complex and advanced it takes years for even the most brilliant minds to understand. Really now? That's good, you needed something to do after lunch today. Now, even if your in a dropship in the middle of a fire fight, you can decipher the inner workings of technology so long as you have the controls to scre- I mean analyze.
Oi! (Titanfall) Free:
The funny thing about accents is how divisive they are on the frontier. The IMC troops- who come from the Core Systems, all speak with a very distinct British accent. Meanwhile, the Militia have strong American accents, and strangely, any ex-IMC defectors seem to lose the accent in a matter of weeks. Now, you have the ability to alter your own accent, which seems to spread like wildfire to anyone that follows you, so it becomes an identifier of your faction.
Core Ability - Amp Core (Titanfall) Free:
A Titan's core ability is essentially it's trump card. Far too powerful to be charged off of standard munitions, a core is charged off of excess power from the Titan's reactor core until it is ready to be unleashed. Once activated, the Titan must be committed to using it, otherwise the excess energy will fry it's internal systems.
Amp Core - Some Pilots don't want fancy attacks or extra missiles. Instead, they'd simply rather their Titan's performance was boosted for a set period of time. The Amp Core provides this. A single parameter of the Titan may be boosted or extended for a set period of time, such as increasing the strength of bodyshields massively or granted indefinite dashing for a short period. Titan accuracy may be boosted, or firing rate may be increased, as examples.
New abilities for Tybalt:
Companion Import (Titanfall) Free:
You can import up to eight companions for free, with additional companions over eight costing an extra 50cp per companion. You may give them either the Drop In, Engineer or Corporate Origin. They receive the 100 and 200 perks of that Origin for free. They start with a free Pilot Weapon. If you wish, you may give all imported companions additional cp by sacrificing some of your own CP.
Grunt - Drop In Backgrond (Titanfall) Free:
You suddenly wake up with a start in the cramped metal interior of a dropship. The first words you hear is the shouting of a Sergeant as you are ushered into the blinding sunlight.
Oi! (Titanfall) Free:
The funny thing about accents is how divisive they are on the frontier. The IMC troops- who come from the Core Systems, all speak with a very distinct British accent. Meanwhile, the Militia have strong American accents, and strangely, any ex-IMC defectors seem to lose the accent in a matter of weeks. Now, you have the ability to alter your own accent, which seems to spread like wildfire to anyone that follows you, so it becomes an identifier of your faction.
Back from the Brink (Titanfall) Free:
You're like a roach, it's so hard to kill you. No matter how many times it would appear that you were downed in combat or crushed by falling rubble, if you can manage to stumble and crawl your way back to friendly territory, you'll eventually make a full recovery. Obviously this doesn't protect against death, but it does help you bleed out slower.
Combat Stims (Titanfall) Free:
Pilot suits and most life pods have auto-injectors that administer potentially life saving stims to infantry when needed. Unfortunately, some of these stims have debilitating side-effects like nausea and even hallucinations at points. With this perk, the negative side-effects of stims will be severely lessened, to the point that if they are ever experienced, it will be for seconds
Just Another Grunt (Titanfall) Free:
What? You? Nah, you're not anyone important, just another grunt here. The danger you pose is constantly undervalued, and you are often passed over for other targets. When surrounded by your cannon fodder brethren, its virtually impossible to pick you out.
Grand Theft Semi-Auto (Titanfall) Free:
When it's just you against the world, you're gonna need to get a little creative to survive. Ambushes, flanking, dropping mines- even shooting someone in the head with their own pistol. It doesn't matter how 'dirty' it is, if it exists, you've used it.
Playbook (Titanfall) Free:
A complete copy of the playbook written by James MacAllen and Marcus Graves, containing detailed war plans for a winning scenario against the IMC. It is dependent on predictions made several years ago, so any wild advancements and changes will throw the predictions off. Also contains detailed prediction on IMC force reaction and methods by which the IMC could win the scenario.
Pilot Weapon (Titanfall) One Free Grunt:
For every purchase you make, you get three weapons from the list below along with a maintenance kit for each. A crate of munitions will appear in your warehouse every week additionally containing a case of spare parts.
R-101C Carbine
An automatic rifle designed for reliability and modability, the R-101C is the weapon of the everyman on the frontier, found in the hands of Pilots and Grunts alike. While each individual 8.19mm round deals substandard damage through body armor, the high accuracy and rate of fire allow the operator to deal a killing blow in the same amount of time as slower firing rifles. This model has been modified to contain a suppressor while still being more deadly and with a higher clip capacity than the standard variant. Comes with a case and 2.4x AOG, 2.1x Holosight and 1.85x HCOG Scope attachments to swap out with the inbuilt iron sights as you wish.
EVA-8 Shotgun
Aside from some antique pieces that can be found in the hands of colonists, the EVA-8 is the only widely available shotgun in the Frontier. A semi-automatic shotgun fed from a drum magazine, the EVA-8 is highly lethal at short ranges, capable of downing even heavily modified pilots in a single blast. Strangely for a shotgun, this EVA-8 is modified with a unique suppressor that doesn't reduce the muzzle velocity of the rounds fired. In addition to the high-capacity drums included with the weapon, the operator may switch to Leadwall mode, significantly increasing the spread of the pellets for use in close quarters
Longbow-DMR Sniper
The long range derivative of the R-series rifles, the Longbow is a long range high velocity weapon designed for easy take down of moving targets – such as Pilots – at extreme ranges. The hyper-velocity rounds travel so fast that even over distances of two kilometers it is not necessary to lead targets to guarantee impact. This model has an integrated suppressor and computerassisted stabilizer in the grip, and in addition comes with a module that can be attached to the end of scopes that provides active Sonar Vision when looking through the scope. Comes with a case containing a 2.4x AOG and 4.5x Scope to be swapped out with the weapons 6x Zoom Scope as needed.
Smart Pistol MK5
Probably the most exotic Pilot weapon, the Smart Pistol is a semi-automatic handgun that automatically locks-on to valid targets in the direction its targeting sensor is aimed. The sensor itself is a module attached to headgear worn by the operator, and links into the display of the helmet that scans for targets based on thermal and optical imaging. Once a valid target is identified, the module automatically locks onto these targets in order of identification, a process that takes several seconds as the module calculates for current weather conditions and position relative to the barrel of the pistol. After lock is achieved, the computer estimates the number of shots required to kill the target and queues that number from the pistol, up to five at a time, once the trigger is pulled, the pistol automatically fires specialized fin stabilized anti-personnel discarding sabot rounds containing a tiny computer that automatically deflect themselves on the proper trajectory, guaranteeing a hit. The process may be spoofed by a target rapidly altering it's thermal or optical signature, such as when cloaking, which will immediately cancel the lock as the computer attempts to regain lock. This process is fairly short range, requiring targets being within twenty meters, although the pistol may still be manually aimed. This pistol has an integrated suppressor and advanced targeting computer, which locks on faster and over a slightly longer range. Optimized targeting procedures reduce the amount of rounds requiring for most targets by about one.
Aircraft - Crow (Titanfall) One Free Grunt:
These aircraft will repair damage to themselves slowly over time, taking about two weeks if fully destroyed. A large barrel of fuel will appear in the warehouse every week. If your Origin is Command, any purchase here will grant four of these Aircraft.
Crow - An older generation of dropship derived from the tested and proven designs of the Titan Wars, the Crow can be found everywhere on the frontier, usually in service with the Militia or in the hands of colonists. The Crow is a 26m long twin-engine jump-capable aircraft, with enough onboard fuel to jump from space to a planets surface and back twice. The Crow does feature an onboard jump computer, but substantially benefits from having network access to a carrier's computer to increase calculation speed. The cockpit holds two, a pilot and a gunner for the Crow's nose mounted heavy machine gun. The hold has space for approximately eight people under normal circumstances, but can more, albeit much more restrictively. Mounted in the roof of the hold is a small gunners pod fitted with an autocannon, allowing the Crow to serve as a form of Anti-Air power when landed.
Titan Chassis - Light (Titanfall) Free:
Buying a Titan chassis does not give you a single Titan. It instead gives you the plans to construct Titans, and during the jump, privilege to request a Titan from your faction, if you are acting in their interest or have sufficient rank, you can request a Titan more often. You get a clip on device that instantly relays coordinates to your faction for a Titan drop. If one of their ships are in range, a Titan will be delivered to your location in a drop pod.
Light – A descendent of the Stryder Titan, light chassis emphasize mobility, having a maximum of three dashes available at any given time. Thanks to it's light armor design (read: non-existent) it can maintain a high speed at the cost of damage protection. Titans that use the light chassis include the Northstar and Ronin Titans.
Core Ability - Melee Core (Titanfall) Free:
A Titan's core ability is essentially it's trump card. Far too powerful to be charged off of standard munitions, a core is charged off of excess power from the Titan's reactor core until it is ready to be unleashed. Once activated, the Titan must be committed to using it, otherwise the excess energy will fry it's internal systems.
Melee Core – Melee combat among Titans generally boils down to high-powered fist fights between two large war machines. For Pilots who choose to arm themselves with a melee weapon, however, it may be one of their only methods of attack, where speed and strength are crucial to survival. With this in mind, the Melee Core is used to supercharge the Titan's servos to greatly increase strength and speed, as well as activating electrical pads in the Titan's hands, which turns any conductive material in the Titan's hands – such as a Titan broadsword – into a lethal electrical weapon
