They didn't go as far as they could have, but in the end the kissing, hugging, and cuddling felt more... intimate.
And honestly, while no further undressing occurred, he was sure both of them ended up needing a fresh set of clothing towards the end. Very... very sure.
Still, it sort of destroyed his work ethic for the next day. And hurt his ability to say no to the saucy woman, whom somehow convinced him to develop, design, and deploy a drone that would allow Dragon and Narwhal to go shopping later.
Positive reinforcement does wonders though. And he was glad his software 'senses' translation allowed him to smell her shampoo.
No, focus.
So now he had a surveillance drone. One that allowed hard light holograms and had amazing battery life thanks to the tiny Magma Generator built into it.
Their use was both good short term (Happy girlfriend best girlfriend) and long term (These things would eventually be used like Taylor used her bugs for sensory overview of territory). That it allowed his new significant-other to shop without him (And ship the stuff to Toronto, so no carrying!) was a lovely side effect.
Plus, he got the high-definition video of the trip anyway... and he KNEW she was 'testing out' those outfits on purpose.
Wow, that wasn't focused at all.
Anyway, he had finished a couple of harvester devices that fed into a reservoir, one of Dragon's designs, so his newly modified 3d printers and assemblers would be well stocked.
He could probably get away with only having one, but in the end he built three. One for Dragon, one for him, and one for the (likely) visitation from Armsmaster. They were networked and could be used remotely for obvious reasons.
Adam invested some charges into 'Fire Manipulation' again, gaining the ability to create 'Binary Flame Fluid'. It would take a day or two for Squishy to be recharged, but for now his printers had two new liquids to use that (when combined) could form 'Flame Metal' or 'Null Metal', depending on the ratios.
It still needed him to stock the reservoirs, and he honestly wouldn't trust anyone near this stuff if it wasn't secured inside a house made out of raw fire... but it would allow Dragon to directly accept AND craft orders from now on.
That it would also free up some snuggling time was completely coincidental.
That he could now make a null-metal spandex equivalent was... less coincidental. Honestly, if he just wanted binary metal fluid, less charges would have been required.
Having already sent Narwhal a skin tight Null Metal suit, one that was mostly transparent...
Mmm.
With a sigh, Adam went back to work adding features and fixing issues with both Garden systems and the new 'Forbidden Fruit' consoles. Not many problems had actually happened so far, and Dragon had already made some sort of deals with Uber and Leet... L33t? Whatever.
They were getting the alpha consoles for testing, which would now be much less annoying since Dragon could take over the crafting part with the new printers.
New printers that he could feel already going strong... Looks like Dragon was keeping an eye on base even as they tried on those... very tight swimsuits.
Today was a good day.
He tried to focus more on assigning his personal printer to craft more drones instead of on the two overly attractive women posing near the windows of the shop.
He had mixed results.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Emily Piggot, Director of the PRT ENE, manager of the local Protectorate, Wards, and all PRT agents... was a bit overwhelmingly furious.
The current meeting was pretty silent as they read the reports.
She pushed aside Armsmaster's latest 'summary', long as it was. "So. Who exactly ordered these modifications to my plan of action?"
The room shifted awkwardly as Armsmaster tapped the table, a hologram being displayed. "Michal E. Phelman. While an unscheduled Master/Stranger scenario was being tested in the facility, he acquired the written orders as per procedure, but had a modified version with approved seals and paperwork that he delivered instead. It contained information he should not have had, clearances he should not have known about. See evidence 2.b.ii for a copy."
She shuffled the documents as he continued. "The return confirmation codes were also replaced, preventing this issue from being caught. As per the fraudulent orders, significant pressure was applied to visiting Guild Affiliate Variance, attempting to force his early departure."
He looked uncomfortable. "Due to personal beliefs, I found the orders to be both unsavory but believable due to past actions from you Director, and thus did not properly inspect their veracity beyond the requirements stated in the standard operating procedures."
She frowned... but couldn't really argue. The fraudulent document even contained certain phrases she tended to use in paperwork like this, to the degree that she had privately undergone some Master/Stranger testing to verify her memories hadn't been modified. "Continue."
He nodded. "Investigation with the Thinker Tank confirmed that the objective, removing Variance from the area of Brockton Bay, was not achieved. He has purchased a large size property as stated in reports C3222, C3223, and C3226. Dragon has also been providing information of his short term and long term plans, given with Variance's knowledge and consent."
Miss Militia was twirled her power, currently a glowing green knife. Lower face covered with an American flag, it didn't prevent her from sighing as she spread apart the papers. "So we were able to capture Mr. Phelman in time?"
Armsmaster shook his head. "Within a half hour of leaving work on the day in question, he was found as a casualty in what appeared to be a mugging. He did not survive, but evidence collected on scene suggests it was not a coincidence."
Emily held her head in her hands. Assault and Battery had not been able to make this meeting, and at this point she was grateful that Assault couldn't work his 'comedy' to make this mess 'less tense'. What a foul-up. "Tell me what we HAVE accomplished."
Armsmaster nodded. "Dragon's reduced work load has enabled us to work together on larger projects than usual, and we detected a number of electronic footholds and backdoor vulnerabilities in our systems, both hardware and software. As of 0312 this morning, we have either completely cleared all detected issues or disabled their ability to acquire useful data until we can formulate an official response."
Miss Militia glared at the personnel documents. "How many of these detected spies were involved?"
He gestured. "ID's 3, 4, 8, and 12 were directly involved in some fashion. The others were found in the process of searching for security threats and through heuristic behavior analysis. They are all under observation, and we have established protocols to handle them in various emergencies that may crop up."
Director Piggot tried not to grunt in frustration. "Am I going to have to apologize to Variance?"
Glancing at his notes, he paused. "It may be wise. Right now, he has convinced Dragon to help him with legal issues preventing him from tunneling downwards with his home. If we do not distract him, he may end up creating an artificial volcano out of petty vengeance." Glancing at his notes, he sighed. "That said, he has not focused his displeasure on our organizations as a whole. In fact, I have personally been invited by him and by Dragon to visit their new home, without requiring me to withhold information from said visit in my future reports."
That he apparently had a lab already developed and assigned for his future use did not seem relevant to this conversation. It was in the footnotes, if anyone really cared.
Director Piggot looked through the larger summary a bit more, her thoughts racing. In the end, it came down to doing what felt right (Avoiding any unneeded contact with more damn Parahumans) and what was needed (Evaluating the development and threat level of her new 'neighbor').
Still, this visiting mechanize-medic had convinced a threat to abandon his or her covert infiltration in a blatant attempt to force the boy out of the state.
And doing something that clearly pissed off and scared this invisible enemy felt like the right course of action. Her personal feelings hated the idea of a leech hiding in her home more than working with that body switching oddball.
She would keep her eyes open and resources listening though. No reason to let either opponent gain a edge on her kingdom.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Thomas Calvert, the man of mystery and shadow, ex-member of the PRT's special forces, secret Supervillian Coil, the genius with an unlimited future... vomited into the toilet.
Again.
It had started with a mild twinge, like a headache. So mild he had ignored it for several days.
Then he had used his power, the ability to feel and experience two timelines split from one choice, to go inspect the visiting Parahuman, Variance. Determine if he should use his mercenaries to capture and torture the boy for a while, find his family for future blackmail, maybe cut some body parts off, basic stuff.
Not like the child would remember it anyway.
He had barely stepped in the room when everything in that timeline stopped. He didn't die, he didn't even feel anything go wrong... but his ability just stopped working, but continued trying.
For hours.
Eventually his safe timeline managed to cut the other one down, but the minor headache had jumped in power to a throb.
And didn't go away.
Something about this Variance had made his Thinker ability sort of... spin. Like light entering a maze of mirrors, it didn't stop or get blocked.
It just... kept trying. And failing. Forever.
Thankfully the healing bastard was being kept in a small restricted area for now, but the idea of this mental hazard wandering around HIS city was beyond crossing the line.
So... he tried to 'fix' the issue.
One timeline, he had a gang fight 'accidentally' shoot some civilians, this Variance included, as they fought through the building.
That timeline was going to be dropped anyway, after all that new healer, Panacea, and her sister (whoever) had both died, and he wanted her power under his thumb eventually.
Then the head mercenary reported that boy's corpse twitched... and everything became fire.
Everywhere.
If it was just normal fire, maybe he wouldn't have felt such terror... but the fire was alive.
Spiders the size of towers, snakes like trains, and some sort of giant jellyfish that was so large only the tentacles reached the ground... they covered the city and sky.
Again, he was underground.
it should have been enough.
The fire was alive and SMART. Civilians went from terror to confused as fire literally turned into clothing and armor, gang members were either chained with flaming metal without a burn on them or...vaporized. Like Hookwolf.
When Lung came out, Coil had felt some hope that more of Variance's abilities would be exposed, something usable in the future, some weakness exposed... until the dragon lost all his fire and began to melt.
Each attempt at fire would turn into small orbs of what his records called 'Null Metal', which both removed a good part of his battle ability and made the ground treacherous to move on.
And then... his base had been located. Like the fire had known roughly WHERE to look, his base had been blazing above ground as fire snakes and creatures burrowed and twisted, melted and searched.
Seeing the door melt to his last resort room, he ended the timeline.
The timeline should have ended at that point.
A face that looked part skull and mostly fire had entered the room... and the timeline went blank again.
It took slightly LONGER to shut down his ability this time.
He didn't try another attempt for a week after that.
Still, the fear that this man would be able to go anywhere, turning Thomas into a coma patient waiting to occur... the risks were too high.
Each further attempt that occurred taught new lessons... well, at least he learned to not attack others.
As long as only Variance was injured, the reprisals would be short and straight forward.
The one time he had attempted to use hostages... things did not go well.
This boy liked fire FAR too much.
He had eventually burned almost all his resources and hidden assets, but after a couple of tries he FINALLY convinced that flame menace (Healer? Bullshit.) that Director Piggot was an uncooperative ass, that he should head home and stop wasting his damn time here in COIL'S city.
His agents had stated that Variance had left the state before he ended his 'safe' timeline.
At which point, he found out... that this timeline didn't match what he had been experiencing.
In fact, the agent who moments ago had been informing him of code green... had died hours earlier in some mugging.
There was no record of the call.
And Variance now had a massive home/mansion thing.
And may be staying. Possibly forever.
In shock, he ended up looking at the home through one of the many nearby cameras deployed and hijacked for his use.
It only took a few seconds before the most intense, crippling pain he had ever experienced forced him to the ground, where even after crawling to the bathroom he was forced to stay.
Something about Variance's power made HIS ability fail. Be inaccurate.
Something about this child was world breaking.
He felt nausea again.
This wasn't caused by the boy's power directly... he had felt something like this around that damn fedora woman before.
It was a recoil, recoil from trying to work against someone beyond his ability to control.
The idea that this random bastard had the same effect on him as trying to control encounters with Endbringers was horrifying.
