Narwhal focused on her paperwork. Sort of. A little.
Chewing on her pen, she glanced back at the virtual screen showing Variance doing... whatever he was doing. Supposedly to help those poor victims out.
It would be fine.
She tried to continue reading her last batch of forms before giving up with a sigh. Adam was still doing something, swaying. His skeletal costume was starting to glow strangely too... that was fine, right?
It would be fine.
She absently created a force field, thirty on top of each other, to create a solid white surface to tap her fingernails on.
Dragon was helping make this as safe as possible... but unlike Adam's other adventures, this one could go VERY public if anything happened. And public capes became targeted by some pretty terrible people. Strong, terrible people.
But it would be fine.
She had rescheduled thirty separate 'Help Gray Boy Victim' attempts for today, testing everything from chemicals to tinkertech. Dozens of security teams made complicated patterns while guarding places that did and did not have personnel.
She had personally misfiled thirty documents to ensure that even SHE couldn't verify where exactly Adam was stationed. And Dragon had decoy escorts to get her man out without someone tracking him down.
Which wouldn't matter, because it would be fine.
Ideally, Variance would never notice how much effort was being put into making this 'Save victims targeted by terrorists' safer. And it was all just in case someone decided to attack the man in some sort of 'THIS will appease/displease the Slaughterhouse 9' crazies.
Not like logic worked on those people.
But it would be fine.
She watched stunned as Adam collapsed to the ground and his hair flamed out. Even as dozens of reports started flooding her inbox and Dragon began Endbringer Truce levels of coordination to the chaos, all she could see was her boyfriend being quickly moved to a transport shuttle and lifted toward the hidden check point Narwhal had hoped to not need.
She dashed toward her own transport, thankful that the medical team she set up would be ready to handle whatever the hell had happened.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam blinked as he tried to 'enter' the Worm Realm.
It... well, it wasn't rejecting him exactly. But it WAS asking for something. Sort of like a template request.
As he felt the world try to accommodate his modified soul, he felt... questions.
Then again, his former body was a mutated power mess, changing shape and type all the time on some level and twisting each time his power was selected.
A normal human body couldn't grow paper hair, for example.
So... what did he want, exactly?
He absently felt his power charges being spent as he pushed 'Recovery' with data retrieved from Panacea's power shards. Specifically, the ability to store a body and swap control/position with it, also known as standard 'Changer' powers. He didn't need the ability, just the information for 'Research' to handle.
When it felt right... he just clicked.
Somehow he was inside his body, currently on some sort of medical bed in a transport of unknown origins. His soul, a black fishbowl covered in blue fire and white peanuts, settled into the husk... and ignited something within it.
His perception of time went nuts. Everything slowed.
Adam's soul journey had helped him find what guided him. What made him unique. It even helped establish his sexuality (Straight male, Homosexual Female, or Female Oriented Other) and refined what his goals in existing should be.
And his advancements in spirituality, magic, and souls required him to make some choices.
His corpse exploded into blue power, 'Conversion' working with 'Growth' to reduce his former self into potential.
White peanuts of faith bound themselves tightly, blue flames of magic twisting them into tighter and tighter constructs as 'Recovery' forced the core to twist into bones.
Even as each white bone collapsed into existence, thin patterns of Null Metal and Flame Metal wove through the constructions.
Null Metal, which blocked everything, was interestingly enough an amazing material for conducting magic. Flame Metal, which could conduct energy beyond levels possible, acted as a magical insulator. 'Research' was going into overdrive testing patterns that would allow easy energy transfer as well as magical support... getting it wrong by even a little could cause his bones to burn flesh or explode in magical chaos.
The trick was kami, or faith. It acted as part of the other, something not of himself yet formed from himself. The patterns of metal that grew in his bones could be kept from interfering with each other thanks to bands of power, seals and bindings constructed from faith. So far, at least.
It was... tricky.
The same pattern allowed energy to flow within paths formed by channels that allowed magic to travel. Without faith ensuring some paths would only act as restraints, ANY solution would also be a bomb to the opposite material or energy.
Unicorn horn 'Recovery' scans had the solution in the end. It was why the horns all twisted... it allowed directional motivation to magical forces as the spiral moved toward a single point.
White bones gained black and silver patterns of metal, even as the silver began to glow softly with blue magic. Each bone in Adam's spinal column began to reform from the flames.
Adam's focus was being pressed though. Each bone was a unique shape. Simulation had to first design the most durable shape possible that still looked human once covered in flesh, THEN he had to determine which patterns of metal would give the most magical potential along with the most energy transmission.
The spine sacrificed magical power for maximum energy transfer, the limbs went for a full magic focus, and his torso was attempting to keep balanced between the two.
His skull though was being created very carefully, and in layers. Null Metal and Flame Metal, one to protect from energy attacks and mental assaults, the other to handle blades or spikes being rammed into his brain later on. Within the multiple thin layers his bone became more dense as Adam forced layers of magical power and bushels of prayer peanuts.
As the skull grinned at nothing in the magical fire, Adam filled the cavity with Shard Crystal, or at least his castle's version of it, and used the glinting material as a base for the first spell to be cast in this Realm.
'Technomancy', 'Harmony', 'Binding'.
"Spell Seed: Golden Garden."
This should work. Theoretically.
Layers of spell frameworks began forming... and collapsing into each other.
As expected, the mess of magic being bound to his shard brain had to be constructed such that the pieces left over from casting would basically implement and trigger the 'Repair' function.
Which would see the mess of magical slurry and try to repair it.
Thus, 'Repair' would be repairing the spell that was never actually performed in the first place.
In all honesty, this was the best he and the girls could come up with. The upgraded Golden Garden spell seed was too complicated for even a dozen unicorns to cast, so instead this spell would build a framework that could build other frameworks.
It would 'repair' itself up to a 'recovered' form over the next few weeks or so, and thankfully Adam only had to successfully cast that initial part of the process himself. It would drain his magic pretty heavily during the correction process though.
Seeing the clear crystal exposed in the skull sockets light up with blue flames, Adam began focusing on the rest of his new body.
Unlike most Parahumans, his mind was now stored in his soul rather then flesh. His bones had structures that could theoretically recover into a working body even if pulled apart, messy as that thought was. So technically he could stop now and consider himself done! But life would suck without taste, touch, and so forth. Thus the more... gooey bits.
Each internal organ was tested. Magic added, removed, modified. Some, like his liver, received runes made of Null Metal embedded within. Nerves were given trace amounts of Flame Metal to enhance signal delivery. 'Purification' was used to ensure each design wouldn't slowly poison him or posses some sort of slowly escalating maintenance cost.
He didn't even feel the twist inside as Squishy used some of the rapidly dwindling power charges to allow passive power use inside his body via patterns or runes.
He was more focused on design changes. For example, the intestine was much shorter. It basically had patterns based on 'Purification', 'Consume' and 'Conversion' to just handle anything Adam ate or drank in the future. 'Purification' in fact was being carved into the jawbone, eye socket, ear hole, and so forth just so that nothing too bad would be absorbed by his body as it traveled to his stomach.
It... should work. Liquids or chemicals designed to pass through the skin might still get in his body, though. Better than nothing.
With the freed up space in the torso, the heart and lungs were both expanded and the bones present were given a honeycomb pattern under-layer and a bit of expanded coverage behind the normal setup. It wasn't as good as full coverage armor or a sub-dermal material beneath the skin, but it would prevent someone from slipping a blade between his ribs while still allowing his body feel normal to his girlfriend if she didn't check too closely.
Thin layers of fat, layers of muscle, skin... did he need body hair? Nothing below the neck was fine. Wait, back up. Too much muscle, no reason to look like a gorilla. Nails would not grow, but were far more dense and way better connected to the finger and toe. Hopefully they would look normal, but wouldn't crack or whatever when abused.
His soul blinked. Huh.
His hair grew in as bright blue. So... no mustache or beard. Unless he went pirate. Blue beard, Parahuman of the seas!
The eyes were trickier. In the end, it was a thin layer of prayer peanuts to make the 'white' portions of the eye, solid black Fire Metal to make the pupil. The blue flames glowing in his eye socket made the iris really show off, but... well, it would be a giveaway that he wasn't a normal person. Way more telling than blue 'Oh this? I just love dying it!' hairstyle.
Not important. He could see just as well even if he had a full mask of Null Metal or whatever, as long as it was his material then he could see through the stuff. Was that a full power, or a side effect from the magic? Anyway, he could just get some sunglasses or something.
Hold up, no tail. No. No wings either. Or shoulder spikes. Who even needed shoulder spikes? A firmer focus forced his body into something like swimmer, if an athlete could get muscles that tight without drug use.
He frowned. Was his hair slowly becoming tentacle limbs like those on Tree?
...Fine.
But no longer than a few inches, and they can't move much or it would be super obvious. Bright blue hair was strange enough.
He looked at the nude body wreathed in magic and fire. And with a sigh, reduced his 'size' by a lot. Stories and some movies suggested that bigger was better, but honestly beyond a basic point it was just painful for a woman and unsatisfying for a guy. THAT thing was just a joke. Or a very specific fetish.
Anyway, if he ever had second thoughts later on, body modification was FAR easier than the soul mutilation stuff he went through.
A thin layer of clothing, mesh made from Null Metal and Flame Metal, and he was wearing a very dapper black suit with a gray tie.... one that turned glowing blue as his power began to saturate the outfit.
Good enough.
His soul collapsed into the protective layers of Null Metal that coated all organs in his body, finding and binding to the heart in some mix of magical suggestion and conceptual significance. It would spread out refill his new body once everything had some time settle and balance.
Activating 'Recovery', 'Growth', and 'Purification', he felt his world fall away as darkness filled the sky.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Dragon's hologram rested next to Variance as her shuttle sped to the medical fallback point.
It had all just... gone wrong. So quickly.
One moment, and her friend was studying something she couldn't see like normal. The next, she gasped in horror as he began to collapse like a stroke patient.
Thankful once again for her own over complicated backup and 'just in case' plans, she kept all sensors available scanning Adam for anything to explain what was going on.
Her initial personal theory... a second trigger. Which could be anything.
The followup reports sort of supported the concept.
SOMETHING had allowed all those victims to escape. Healed them. Teleported them to Adam's home town.
Somehow, she believed that Adam had (hopefully temporarily) donated his capabilities to all the victims connected to the one he was studying and attempting to help.
But if that theory was accurate, then the cost was grave. Because without his powers, Adam had collapsed. Scans implied that most of his body was still healthy, but... well.
His brain was showing signs of being... reset. It was showing up on her tools as raw brain cells, on the development level of an infant rather than the man she had become friends with.
Somewhere in her heart she almost cursed the removed security chains. Several of her past restrictions prevented her from having too many 'emotional' connections or outbursts as a security setting... but even with the pain of possibly transporting the living corpse of her friend, it was still better than the mental torture and binding her past life consisted of. And mastering yourself to remove sadness or emotional pain would probably lead to nothing good.
Still, she wish she could do more. Panacea was still being contacted, but it would take long enough that it was better to rely on standard medical science for now... even though chances were it was too late already.
Her inward thoughts were a bit disturbed however when Adam exploded into blue flames. And she herself now being on fire. Really nice, comfortable fire... that she could feel even as a hologram.
Dragon's rapid emails and checked sensors however didn't remove her wide smile and tears though. This would probably add more paperwork and she might (hopefully) have to cancel Panacea's sudden trip... She felt waves of relief as Variance began snoring naturally on the now charred furniture.
It was fine.
