Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

[Silently Watches]

Realign 14.o

Monday, August 1

"Sun's getting real low, boss," Ryan Hunter said, watching the sun set behind the outline of Philadelphia. "We doing this or what?"

The helmet of Tanya Abigail, the leader of this ragtag crew of theirs, turned towards him, and he had hold back a grin when she realized he could not see the glare she was sending him because it was hidden behind her visor. "We wait until nightfall," she bit out.

He rolled his eyes at her attempt at a rebuke. He had never worked with her in the field before, but he knew she had a reputation for being a bit of a hard-ass. She would have to lighten up if this thing was going to work out. A stick in the mud like her and someone like him with a dozen notes in his file mentioning his issues with authority? Either they'd get into a fistfight at some point or she would lose her mind.

Just to tweak her nose, he sent a grin to the beagle-boy standing at her side. The apparent twelve-year-old smiled back, his thin tail whipping back and forth.

«She's going to hit you one of these days.You know that, right?» He turned slightly to the side to glance at the husky lying on the ground at his feet. The dog turned pale blue eyes up to look at him. «Don't say I didn't warn you.»

«It'll be fine,» he told Jeremy. «Won't be the first time my CO's hated me.» "I'm just saying, if we're going to be standing around waiting, we could do that inside just fine."

Greg Weis, the designated second in command, cleared his throat and pointed at Abigail's boy and the leggy woman lounging next to their resident sniper. Ryan would find her rather sexy, actually, if she were not a dog. "I think the extra ears on some of us might raise questions."

"Thank you, Weis. We need to wait until night so we are all but invisible in the sky." She crossed her arms, her gaze firmly on him. "We need to be cautious and subtle, Hunter."

Subtle? He sighed and shook his head. "Boss – Lieutenant Abigail – think about what we're doing tonight. We're about to get in a firefight with magic. I don't think we're going to pull off this whole subtle thing, and I say that as the guy who turns into the Invisible Man."

Abigail stared at him for a long moment before her helmet dissolved in a wave of blue pixels. The reason why became clear when she ran her hand through her cropped blonde hair. "God, I hate it when you're right," she muttered just loudly enough that he could hear her. "Anyone have a problem with setting out now?"

"I don't know about anybody else," Loomis said, rolling the arming sword the doggo Tinkers had built for him around in his hands, "but I'm game for getting started."

"Alright, Hunter. You get your wish. Let's roll out, people."

Finally! His own helmet formed over his head, and Jeremy stretched into human form beside him, the Guardian Beast dressed in standard PRT armor with 'Mask' stenciled over his chest instead of his name. Then again, Ryan's own ballistic vest read 'Charlie', so he did not have much room to criticize.

He was looking forward to the unclear time in the future when their team would go public and they could personalize their Barrier Jackets, but until then they needed to look like every other PRT trooper to maintain the pretense that they were not something new and special.

Abigail – sorry, Alpha now that they were actually entering the field – raised her grey and navy blue staff, and the team took to the sky and shot into the air. «You two know where we're heading,» she said in his head on their telepathic 'team channel'. «Lead on and fill us in on any details.»

'Fill them in'. He rolled his eyes as they flew through the sky. In reality, that meant 'review all the stuff we already know about this guy'. «Villain's name is Vulture. At least, his alias is because we aren't supposed to know their real names or faces even though we're arresting them—»

«You know why that is, Charlie,» Bravo cut in before Alpha could do the same. «And you know none of us like it, either, but there's nothing we can do about it right now. Let's focus on what we can do.»

Blowing out a frustrated breath, he eventually nodded. He knew he was not the only one who chafed under the dumbass restrictions they had to work under, but Bob Samuels, the head of field operations and their direct superior now that they were a special operations team, had laid out the logic in a way that was hard to argue against.

"This is something ingrained in cape culture," Samuels had said when Morgan suggested tracking them down and just plugging them in the back to haul in for booking. "When the masks come off, they aren't villains anymore. They're regular people just like everyone else. It's dumb, it's backwards, but it's also a testament to the fact that the bad guys outnumber the good guys by three or four to one on average. They have what's called the 'monopoly of force', basically a different take on the golden rule. Whoever has the gold, or in this case the raw power, makes the rules.

"This program is the first step to changing that, along with arming even the regular grunts with magic Tinkertech weapons, but we still can't hold out if every villain in the city and the vigilantes who see their 'Unwritten Rules' as more important than law and order decided to join forces and attack us all at once. That's why we can't break their rules of engagement, even if we are going to bend them.

"As we arm ourselves and this program expands to the other PRT branches, we will eventually outnumber and outgun the capes, and then we can start doing things based on common sense. But not yet, not while Operation Pentagram can still be strangled in the crib."

Just remembering that conversation put a frown on his face, but he forced it away. This was how they would change things. Get the villains out of the sky, and then they could rain down holy hell on their heads. «Yeah, yeah. I know.

«Vulture. Tinker, makes wearable gear including winged backpack things that he and his henchmen use to fly around. He's the only flying villain who can give other people the means to get up in our airspace, which is why he's our first target. Has a total of eight henchmen, though only four or five of them are normally in the base at a time. Should be easy enough to deal with.»

«Anything we need to know about their base?»

He shook his head only to remember that they could not see it. «Not much. Old photography store. Not a lot of windows, so Foxtrot, you won't have many lines of sight to snipe anybody. Front door is locked and blocked, but they enter through the back door and have an electric garage door setup to block off the hole they use when they fly in and out.»

«Sounds like it will be easy to limit their chances of escape, then. How much farther?»

Glancing at the marker his gauntlet-computer-thing projected on the inside of his helmet, he turned his head downwards and descended until he landed in an empty parking lot behind a couple of dumpsters. "We're here."

The rest of the team turned to look at the building, and Foxtrot's wolfhound-turned-woman said what Ryan thought the first time he saw it. "They made their base in this dump?"

"That just makes it easier for us to get in," Alpha said after a moment. "Charlie, Mask, get in and make sure the target is actually here and is appropriately dressed."

He rolled his eyes behind his visor and toggled the mental switch that would start up his invisibility spell. 'Appropriately dressed', right; costume and all. It was not as if he did not know what Vulture looked like underneath it. Surveillance and skulking around unseen kind of made that impossible. It certainly made it awkward a few days after that when he ran into Vulture without a mask in the grocery store and had to force himself not to arrest the bastard right there and then.

Mask was right behind him when he ran to the door, both of them hidden under their Cover spells. A quick twist confirmed what he suspected; once or twice the henchmen might have left the door unlocked, but not often. Thankfully, they had another way in.

He held up one hand and focused. He had a very specific image in mind, and dark purple energy flowed out of his hand to solidify into that very shape. It looked almost like a screwdriver, but one with a much wider tip. That tip fit perfectly into the innocent-looking gap under one of the windows, and with slow, careful motions he pried the bottom of the window pane out of the frame. He did not want it breaking and alerting everyone inside that someone was breaking in, after all.

Soon enough, the square of glass was free, leaving a hole into the building. Too high and awkward for a human to climb though, but one of them was not limited to human form like that. Ryan crouched and pressed his hands against the wall. «Just like last time—»

Something heavy landed on his back and bounced off, and he shot a glare after the husky that had used him as a springboard. «You need to lose some weight, buddy.»

«You could have crawled through that hole, you know,» came his Guardian Beast's rejoinder. Something clicked in the back door, and it opened without any obvious source.

He shook his head and stepped through the open door. «Ready for this, Mad King?» he asked the red gauntlet covering his left arm.

«Affirmative. Combat ready.»

Awesome. «Enhance Jeremy's outline so I can see him. Then we get to take this bastard down.»

The pair of invisible agents crept down the hall towards the front door. It was in the opposite direction of the main workspace, but they had found a break room on their previous trip that the henchmen still used. It would suck for the team to jump in only to be surprised by armed guards coming up behind them.

Sure enough, one hench was sipping a cup of coffee in the break room, and as they turned the corner another was visible sorting through some equipment in what Vulture used as his storage room. Jerking his thumb at the coffee-drinker, he left Mask to take care of that while he went after the man in the storage room. More mana flowed into his hand to form a second energy construct, and he jammed the tip of his knife into the back of the man's head.

It was a funky quirk of this spell he had noticed while casually sparring with Loomis and Michael. The spell itself would not kill anyone, which stabbing someone in the kidney or lung or heart would normally do, but it apparently still felt like there was a piece of steel sitting wherever. The henchman dropped to the ground as surely as if he were dead, but pulling the blade caused him to let out a quiet gasp.

Ryan put his fingers on the man's neck and nodded to himself. Alive, but having his brains scrambled and then magically unscrambled was too much for him to regain consciousness anytime soon. He knew from his and Jeremy's experiments with some rats near their apartment that once he woke up, he would be dizzy for a little while but otherwise fine.

Glancing behind him, he watched the unconscious body of the other man be lowered to the ground by a white outline that shot him a thumbs-up.

That was two down, which meant there should only be two or three more henchmen around. Assuming Vulture was here in the first place, otherwise they would have to wait. «Gag and tie up both these guys. We don't want anyone stumbling on them,» he told Mask. While the Guardian Beast was doing that, he snuck back the way they came.

«Charlie, Mask, we have movement above the building. Looks like Vulture coming in.»

Perfect timing. He opened the door to the main workshop and froze. It was not two or three henchmen running around inside the room but six. The garage door on the roof noisily slid open, and Vulture dropped into the building. The rocket-powered wings folding up to fit better on his back, the villain stomped around and started barking out orders.

«He's here, and he's in costume. The entire rest of his crew's running around, too. Your call, boss. We moving in or not?»

xxxxxxxxxxxxx​

«He's here, and he's in costume. The entire rest of his crew's running around, too. Your call, boss. We moving in or not?»

Tanya took a deep breath in and held it. One, two, three. She let it out, imagining that her worry for her team and her knowledge about the risks they were about to face were pouring out of her along with the air. «Delta, are you, Echo, and Sword in position at the back door?»

«In position and ready to rock and roll,» the former paper-pusher sent with an audible grin.

She blinked and shook her head. She still had a hard time believing he was former Marines, let alone that he spent nearly a year in the front lines in Vietnam. He was just so jolly and weird!

Maybe it had something to do with when they had done their service. He was a soldier when superheroes were still confined to the old comic books. She had been an eighteen-year-old Army grunt in Bosnia in '93, when capes had sided with their respective ethnic groups and turned what would have been a brutal civil war even without superpowers into an absolute bloodbath. He lost comrades to traps and fellow soldiers; she had watched half her squad be literally torn apart by one man.

A high-pitched whine from a short distance away pulled her thoughts out of that dark spiral, and she shoved the memories of those months deep down where they belonged. They still had a job to do. She looked down at the hole in the garage that was to be her entry point and ignored the little boy her magic had made from a dog. «We are in position as well. This mission is a go. Proceed on my mark. Three. Two. One.

«Mark.»

The three men ran into the building, and in just a couple of seconds she heard the odd bangs that were not quite gunshots but still faintly reminiscent of them. They were drawing the attention of Vulture and his men to them, and that would leave the backs of the villain exposed.

She dropped through the hole, coming to a stop a foot off the ground. Vulture had no way to know things were about to go from bad to worse. Leveling her staff at the villain's winged jetpack, she called out, "Force Blast!"

A cone of blue energy flew from her Device like a science fiction shotgun, hitting the jetpack and crumpling it as it threw Vulture forwards. She wished him luck using that thing again now that she had turned into little more than scrap. Reaching out with mental hands, she picked up a number of tools on the ground with magical telekinesis and flung them at a decent speed at a pair of henchmen who were turning around in shock at the voice coming from behind them. A pair of bullets from Delta hit them in the head immediately afterwards.

On their other side, Tanya could see Echo using his sword to knock a woman's gun away and then slicing her across the belly, leaving the blade coated with red. It was a good thing Delta's Guardian Beast could use healing magic, otherwise that could turn out badly.

One of the remaining henchmen finished turning towards her with an assault rifle in his hands, but without warning he dropped the gun and collapsed. A knife formed from purple magic poked out of his back.

"Nice throw," she said as the air wavered and revealed Charlie standing fifteen or twenty feet away.

"Eh," the admittedly irritating field agent said, shrugging one shoulder and looking away from her. She felt a thoughtful frown form on her face at that reaction. Hunter tended to respond to everything she said with some degree of sarcasm and insubordination, but she had never seen him act like this before. Then again, she had never given him a genuine compliment before, either.

She filed that tidbit away to think about later. Anything to make him less of a pain in the ass would be worth its weight in gold.

"Is this everyone?" she asked, looking around at the unconscious bodies on the ground. Everything about this fight felt wrong. She was used to having to find cover and fight for every inch of ground when fighting a villain and his entourage, not dropping in from the sky and casually crushing them.

If this was how cape fights felt on the other side, it was no wonder some of them were so full of themselves.

"Vulture. Three, five, six henchmen, plus the two Mask and I took out," Charlie counted up. "Yeah, this is everybody. His whole damn team."

Vulture groaned, and a moment later a golf ball–sized 'bullet' hit him. She looked back to find her own Guardian Beast standing with one hand outstretched and his tail whipping back and forth at a mile a minute.

"Then it sounds like this mission is done. Get Tome in here to heal that woman, and let's call in a prison transport. I want these people in cells within the hour."


Operation Pentagram's character sheets added.

Yes, this supervillain is heavily influenced by the villain of the same name from Spider-Man. No, I don't particularly care. I needed a throwaway baddie.

The normal Device experience thing is going into effect this arc, by the way. Any non-template mage starts this week with 0 XP in the bank. Writing this chapter reminded me I might want to announce that.

 

[Silently Watches]

[] Social with Standstill, see how she's settling back in with the Protectorate and how she's dealing with magic.


Realign 14.2

Tuesday, August 2

"You going to call that number or just stare at it some more?"

You ignore Samantha's comment with the ease of long practice. In front of you is a screen containing all the contact information stored in Perfect Storm. You never use it, mostly because it is so much easier to tell your Device to call the person in question, but right now it gives you a degree of separation that you need to consider your actions.

"I'm pretty sure if you tap her name, Storm will call the number."

"Shush." You tear your eyes away from Laura's name. "I don't know what I would say. 'Sorry I called you a coward and said you deserved to be murdered. By the way, you're a magical girl!' Yeah, I don't think that's going to work."

The Guardian Beast sighs. "Not phrased like that, it won't. You haven't thought about what you're going to say to her at all, have you?"

You have thought about it quite a bit. The problem is that even after all that thinking, you still haven't yet figured out what to say and how to say it. You made some horrible accusations out of anger, and then not only did she prove you wrong but she did it in the most impressive way. It is hard to call someone a coward when they then let the Simurgh into their brain, which Cassiel admitted she told Laura when you questioned her about it during those two days in Master/Stranger quarantine.

In Laura's shoes, you do not think you would have been willing to do the same.

Flicking the screen, you scroll through your list of contacts to find someone else to talk to who does not bring up so many complicated feelings. Your finger lands on the name Standstill, and you tilt your head in thought. You have not spoken to the hero turned villain turned hero in a while, not since the two of you gave a quick class about Guardian Beasts to the Philadelphia PRT.

Now you find yourself wondering how she is doing.

You give the name a tap and watch the screen expand. Now you just have to wait. She is a full Protectorate hero, so more than likely you'll be sent to voice mail—

"Hello?" a voice asks after only a couple of seconds.

Or maybe she has today off. "Standstill, it's Calamity Witch. I was just calling to see how you and Cat Sith were doing."

Her snort catches you by surprise. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"No, now I very much do. I know I'm not part of the Adepts or the Protectorate, but we're both mages. There aren't enough of us for us to leave each other out in the cold." Not that you have kept up with Maclibuin or Epoch, either, you realize guiltily. You taught them magic and have only given them passing thoughts since. «Storm, can you send Maclibuin a text? Just checking in, seeing how he and Epoch are doing.»

"That'd be a first," Standstill mutters almost too quietly for you to hear. "You really want to hear me bitch about my day?"

"I have nothing better to do," you tell her in a forcibly lighthearted voice.

"That makes two of us. I'm stuck on Console." That is what the faint clicking in the background is! "Actually, there's no one else in here at the moment. Let me… Okay. If you have that much free time, you can teleport in."

Teleport in? Just like that? You turn to look at Samantha, who gives you a shrug. Alright, then. Dismissing the screen, you spin code through your head and hurtle both of you through space.

The room that reforms around you looks more like a lounge area than an office. Couches and chairs are scattered around with a few coffee tables added almost randomly. A door in the corner leads to what looks like a kitchenette, but one that is rarely used if the stack of pizza boxes and Chinese take-out containers piled up in the trash can are any indication. One wall of the room is taken up by almost a dozen screens set above a desk with three keyboards. It is here that Standstill sits, her cowl pulled off and lying on the desk within easy reach.

A black house cat is stretched out on the middle cushion of one couch, and she opens one green eye to look at you and Samantha before closing it and returning to her nap.

"Don't try sitting in that couch," Standstill says helpfully, typing something on one keyboard. "The last time Jouster tried it, she turned into a tiger just to spite him. She's claimed that as her territory."

«Jouster is an asshole,» the cat replies. «I don't know why you wanted to date him at any point, though it explains your thing with Felix Swoop.»

"Hey!" she yelps, her cheeks stained bright red. "Ix-nay on anything about my love life!"

Cat Sith has her eyes closed, but you still imagine you can see them rolling. «More like your sex life. There was no love in either of those.»

"Days like today, I wish I hadn't given you the ability to talk," the cape mutters, but the smile on her face belies her words. She turns to you and gives you a small, weak smile. "We haven't exactly met like this. Out of costume, my name's Sarah."

A thought has your hat and mask vanishing. "Taylor. And she's still Samantha." You look around the room again. "Are you sure it's okay for us to be here? We aren't Protectorate, after all."

She shrugs. "It's okay. This is the branch that Legend is personally in charge of, so we often play nice and open like this to capes who are thinking about joining up. There's an alarm set up for just that reason. It'll go off for ten seconds when someone hits the button to enter, so that gives us time to put masks back on. Way more than enough time for you, apparently," she adds with a quirked eyebrow.

"My costume is a full-body illusion and forcefield. One of the benefits of magic." That comment causes her to frown, and you find your worry returning. "You offered to bitch about your day. Lay it on me."

«She's miserable.»

"Things haven't been going great," she explains, ignoring the commentary from her Guardian Beast. "Mostly it's because I painted myself black when I left to join the Adepts and then came back with my tail between my legs. There isn't a lot of trust left, and then Cat decided she had to be a cat to everyone, so…"

«I will not go so far as to say that humans are lesser beings, but it is a near thing.»

That pulls a smile from Sarah, and you find yourself mirroring the expression. "I remember Legend had some complaints about her fitting in."

"They seem to have sorted things out between them, or at least they're pretending to do so for my sake. Took them long enough, though." Once again the humor falls away. "No, my problems are more to do with my capabilities or lack thereof, not to mention trying to fit them in with my job. I heard you were in Sydney."

You assume there is a point to this seeming non sequitur. "I was."

"Me too, not that I could do much. Not much of a use for search and rescue thanks to Dragon's new armbands, and Cat refused to leave my side, so I wound up standing around with the wave group so she would use her shield to block the waves." Sarah crossed her arms and scowled at nothing in particular. "Felt pretty damn useless, I can tell you that much. Not like I can put Leviathan to sleep. Tried that, actually, with all the charms Mac made for me. Didn't even touch him."

"Not much does," you remind her. "Five of us poured some of our heaviest firepower on him. He just blocked it with his echo." Which does make you a little happier in hindsight that you did not shoot him with Ragnarök and miss.

"It sucks alright. 'Course, my power always makes me useless. It was why I joined up with Epoch in the first place. Thought we'd come up with some way for me to stay awake." She sighs. "Anyway. I thought being useless and mistrusted was bad enough. Turns out being mistrusted and seen as scary is far worse."

"What happened?" asks Samantha.

«She saved a bunch of idiots who should be kissing her feet in thanks, and instead they are treating her like a monster,» Cat Sith says with an audible growl.

"It's— Okay, it is that bad." Sarah looks over at the screens and nods to herself. "Sorry, have to make sure things are okay. Console shifts are ninety-five percent boredom and five percent terror.

"It was this past weekend. Cat and I were actually in the field for a change, working with a few other capes from the other borough offices. There is a Master running around in SoHo, so enough rich people screaming about it to the mayor turned it into an all hands on deck situation. We actually managed to track her down. Powerful emotion manipulator; the Think Tank thinks she may be one of Heartbreaker's kids."

You wince at that. Heartbreaker is considered to be the human-controlling Master in North America. Any kids of his, presuming they have powers related to his own, would be scary for anyone without telepathic immunity to fight.

Sarah gives you a nod. "Looks like you get the picture. Problem is, by the time we found her, she already knew we were coming. Toyed with us for a while, but then she decided she had enough fun and it was time to run. As she was walking out, she hit us with a ton of depression and guilt and told us to kill ourselves."

Cat Sith growls at that and slides off the couch to pad over to Sarah's chair and hop into her lap. Sarah runs her hands through the black fur and takes a deep breath. "Sorry. I can still feel it in the back of my head sometimes. Cat was outside in tiger form, and because she wasn't human and doesn't think like a human, she could throw the effect off. Then she noticed what was going on in my head and yelled at me."

«I didn't know exactly what was going on,» the Guardian Beast says with a shake of her head. «I could tell something wasn't right, though.»

"When she did that, it snapped me out of it, but I was the only one. Some of the others were about to follow her command, and I didn't have many options available to me. So I, well, whistled."

"You… whistled?" You have to be missing something because that makes no sense.

She nods. "I whistled, in my head. I have powerful telepathy, so I used that and sent that whistle to everyone I could. It worked to block her powers over them just like it did me, and we could give chase. When she saw we were after her, I guess she panicked, and we had to deal with everyone in the hotel she had control over attacking us. By the time we finally had that taken care of, she was gone.

"Word got around after that. I've never done anything like that before, and for some reason trying to explain it as a magic power isn't convincing to most people. So now everyone believes I have a Master power that's stronger than one of Heartbreaker's kid's powers and I've been hiding it all this time. Doesn't create a lot of trust. Legend tried to calm them down, but apparently they didn't listen to him, either."

"Wait. You saved their butts, and they're being dicks about it?" you demand.

«Pretty much.»

"Unfortunately. None of the other borough offices want their capes near me, and the ones here already thought they had reason to keep me at arm's length. So long story short, whether I like it or not I'm getting rebranded and have to transfer to another branch. They haven't told me where, but Legend promised it wouldn't be the ass end of nowhere or a quarantine zone. L.A. or Houston is possible since those are Alexandria's and Eidolon's cities. Chicago maybe. Or Kansas City, especially with the Fallen expanding out like they did in Florida." She shrugs. "I don't know."

Sarah hesitates for a moment. "That does bring to mind something I, uh, do want to talk to you about." You wave for her to go on. "Back when you were offering to teach us magic, you said you could gives us a tool to help us with it or… something else, where we remember spells we've never used before? Something like that, anyway."

You nod, thinking you know where she is going with this.

"I remember I said thanks but no thanks to both of those because I would have to go through the trouble of rebranding, but, well… I mean, I have to rebrand now anyway?" She grimaces. "It sounds really selfish to say it like that, and I don't want it to sound like I'm ungrateful for teaching me how to make Cat Sith. It's more like I'm rethinking my decision, both because my power's kind of crap and useless and because completely getting rid of it and going full magic would give me a fresh start. Even if I rebrand with the same power, word's probably going to get around that the new cape with the sleeping power is that traitor Standstill, don't trust her."

"No, I get it," you assure her. "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you right now. Making templates isn't easy or simple, and I can't do it for… How long until we can make a new template, Storm?"

"Ten days," the Device answers.

"For that long. A regular Device would be more doable, but I can't build them on my own. You and I would need to coordinate things with Shipwright."

She nods along with your words. "I can understand that. I know I'm springing a big request on you out of the blue. And this is after I already refused. I'm actually kind of surprised you're willing to consider it at all. I appreciate it!" she adds before you can say anything. "I'm just surprised. It's, you know, more trust than I'm getting from my own team right now, and they've known me for three years."

«Response from Maclibuin, Mistress. 'We're doing real good right now. I got a new job with one of the children's hospitals in town. That's keeping me busy. Epoch hasn't gone the rogue route yet, but I think he's having too much fun spanking some of the local gangs and upstart vigilantes. Things are going better for us now than they have pretty much since we started the Adepts.'»

You are glad two-thirds of the Adepts are happy with how things are going. Now you just have to figure out what to do to help the last one. "Like I said, we're both mages. There are only a few of us running around. Let me see what I can do to help, okay?"

"Thanks," she says softly. "Don't think it's something you have to do right now. Rebranding isn't fast. I probably won't be going anywhere until September. Anything you can do to help before then, though, I'll be thankful for."


No vote this chapter. Partly because building Devices or templates are Tim votes or social votes respectively, partly because you can't make a new template yet anyway, and partly because making you choose a Device or template or nothing for Standstill when you still have characters to scan whose power levels you don't know would be dumb.

 

[Silently Watches]

Finally one of the chapters in this arc I've been REALLY looking forwards to.


Realign 14.3

Wednesday, August 3

The flash of orange light fades to reveal the Vancouver manufacturing plant that serves as Dragon's and Tim's primary workshop. You have taken to using the alcove where their teleporter pads are located as your general entry point to their lab – it is basically the one place you can be sure you won't appear on top of a Gear or a Tinker rushing about with who knows what in their hands – and it is thanks to this that you see the bright blue rings that signify someone using the pads for their intended purpose.

You also know of only two people who would be using it, so it is no great surprise when the rings and glow vanish to reveal Missy standing there. "Did Tim call you to see what he did, too?"

"Huh?" Missy says, looking at you in confusion. "What do you mean, what he did?"

"He sent me a message to come check something out. I don't know if he was excited or manic, but either way it came across as real mad scientist. Did you not get it?"

She pulls out a blocky phone and taps the screen a few times. "Oh! Yeah, I did. I must not have heard it come through." Her eyes flick over the screen, and she smiles faintly. "He does sound a little crazy, doesn't he?"

"That's what I told him when he showed me the message," Dragon's voice says. A few seconds later the fairy herself floated around the corner, a bright smile on her face. "He was going to send out a second message claiming he really wasn't crazy, but eventually I convinced him that probably would do more harm than good."

Both you and Missy laugh at that, and as the giggles fade you find yourself wondering something. "If you weren't coming by for that, was there something else you wanted to talk to him about?"

That question wipes the humor off her face, and she reaches up to tap on her left bicep where you know her prosthetic's connector ring is. "I actually wanted to talk to him about my arm."

"Oh? Is something the matter with it? Lost responsiveness, decreased sensation, phantom pains?" Dragon asks with obvious worry painted over her face.

"No, no, no! Nothing like that! It's just…" Missy nibbles on her bottom lip for a moment. "I noticed while we were in Florida that it's not easy hiding the connector. If I'm somewhere where it doesn't matter if anyone thinks it looks weird, like when you and I went on that world trip," she explains looking at you, "then it's fine, but if anyone looks too close it starts looking a little suspicious. It doesn't exactly look like a simple piece of jewelry or anything, you know?"

Dragon nods. "You are thinking about whether he can use a different mechanism to connect the prosthetic?"

"Not… well, yes and no. Yes, a different connector would probably do the job, but also maybe it's just in a bad place?"

A bad place? You have no idea what that means, and from the expression on Dragon's face, she doesn't either. "I don't understand. The connector is located where it is because that's where your natural arm ends…" She trails off and narrows her eyes at Missy. "What are you planning?"

"I must have missed something," you tell no one in particular as you look back and forth between the two of them.

"I just thought that if there has to be a seam or something between my body and the arm, maybe it would be more convenient to have it at the shoulder rather than the middle of my bicep? I mean, my combat arm has to fold out armor to cover the rest of the stump anyway, and it isn't like there's anything but metal and whatever he made the muscles out of in the first place so he could just whack the rest of the stump off and it would be fine and then it's probably easy to extend the arms to make up for what's gone and—"

"Missy! Breathe!" demands Dragon. Missy does just that and sucks up a lungful of air. Shaking her head, the Tinker says, "I don't know if you have considered all the ramifications of what you're asking. The generator that powers your current arms is located in your shoulder. It gets the fuel it needs to run from the remnants of your deltoid muscle. If Tim removes the remains of your organic arm, he has to build a new generator and hook it up directly to the artery that sent blood to that arm. It would be an extremely risky surgery."

"Couldn't he just clamp it or something? If it's supposed to go down my arm, then everything that needs blood from it is either already gone or would be by the end of the surgery. That should make it less risky."

"True…"

While Dragon is contemplating the mechanics of a surgery like this, a different issue has come to your own mind. "Doesn't school start on Monday for you, too?" At her nod, you continue, "If you're worried about people realizing something's different about you, going back to school with only one arm is a bad way to hide it."

"Ah, but that's why I want to talk to him about it today. If we do it sometime this week, I should have recovered enough that I can wear my civilian prosthetic to school on Monday. At least, I should if last time was any indication of how long it takes to heal up. He would need to focus on lengthening that arm first, but the combat arm can wait." A sheepish grin appears on her face. "Especially since I want to talk to him about some minor redesigns while he's working on it. It has plenty of bite, I don't have any complaints there, but it deserves a little more bark, you know? Somebody should be able to look at it and think 'Getting hit with that would be bad'."

A door opens on the other side of the room, and Tim's eyes light up. "Good, you're here! Come on, come on!"

"You look way too excited about this for someone Dragon had to push to start experimenting with mutations," you tell him as you slide past to enter the room beyond.

He chuckles at that comment and rubs the back of his head. "She told you about that, huh? There are still some ethical dilemmas to deal with with experimentation on humans, but I'll admit it was pretty fun to play around with.

"Anyway, welcome to the Zoo."

You have to blink in surprise when you see why he nicknamed this part of the workshop. There is another fabricator in the corner that has what looks like a coffee maker built into the top, wires connecting it to a mana collector that resembles a flower with solar panels in place of petals. In the middle of the room are a couple of stainless steel tables. Most of the room, however, is taken up by a multicolored maze of tunnels. It looks vaguely familiar, and it takes only a single glance at the animals within to figure out why. "You experimented on a bunch of hamsters?"

"Gerbils, actually. I needed a large number to experiment on, and apparently hamsters don't do well in groups." He shrugs. "It was news to me, too."

Missy is crouched down to look closer at them, and you join her to see just what monstrosities Tim has cooked up. It does not look like any two of the rodents has the same mutation. Some have scales, others horns. One scuttles around on ten tiny feet, and another has a flap of skin between its front and rear legs that reminds you of pictures of flying squirrels. None of them seem disturbed by the unnatural changes, and they race around the tunnels and connected cages with curious abandon.

"Did you even have a plan for what mutations you were giving them, or did you pick things at random?" you ask.

"I had a plan!" he says, shocked at the accusation. Before you can apologize, Dragon clears her throat and gives him a Look. "Well, for the first several, anyway. Then it was a question of how far I could push the mutations. Which actually leads to my special projects."

He waves at two more cages that are separate from the rest. One of them has a gerbil that honestly looks the most normal out of all of them barring its bright yellow fur. The other is more interesting, in part because it is swimming in an aquarium full of water without a speck of dry land to its name and in part because it has spiny frills along its neck and at the tuft of its tail. It is also completely hairless, displaying slick blue-grey skin for all the world to see.

"Meet Zeus and Ralph," he says proudly, pointing to the gerbils in turn.

"Zeus and Ralph," you repeat slowly. He nods, apparently not seeing anything wrong with those names. You point at the water-filled tank and say once more, "Ralph?"

Tim lets out what you are sure he will later describe as a 'manly' giggle. "Ralph. Because he can't." You stare at him in complete lack of comprehension, and he finally lowers himself to explain, "The mutation for him… didn't work out how I wanted. He doesn't have lungs anymore and instead grew gills, hence why he's in a fish tank. Whales and fish can't vomit."

"Yes they can." Dragon shakes her head at his display of ignorance. "They both vomit just like humans. In fact, ambergris, the proper term for whale vomit, was once considered a valuable find in the sea because it was an essential ingredient in perfumes and colognes."

You look to the side to find Missy has a face of horror that is a perfect match to your own. "That's disgusting," she says.

"Moving on," you cut in before Dragon can say anything else that makes you want to lose your own lunch. You were never one for lots of perfume, but you clearly remember Emma smelling like she had bathed in it. Which, in hindsight, means this information is also a little funny, but still mostly gross. "What stupid pun made you name Zeus?"

He shrugs. "No pun this time. It seemed appropriate considering he shoots little bolts of lightning when he's startled."

Missy stops in her tracks, her right hand reaching into Zeus's cage. The little rodent scurries over and gives one of her fingers a delicate sniff. "Shoots… lightning?" she asks in confusion. "What kind of mutations were you giving them in the first place?!"

You nod in agreement. "Especially Ralph. I thought you said the mutations developed to provide whatever benefit you were trying to give them. What in the world did you put that thing through for it to grow gills?"

"Ah." Tim rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment before calling up a screen showing a mess of lines and dots that you suppose is whatever chemical or protein he developed. "These two were my test subjects to see if I could induce a mutation that produces a Linker Core. Zeus's test went fine. Ralph's? Less so."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait." Missy points her finger at you. "Linker Core. That's what you have that lets you cast magic." You nod, only for her to move her finger to Tim. "And you can just make one out of nothing?!"

"Uh, technically it's not nothing—"

Missy is no longer listening. She pulls up the right sleeve of her t-shirt and holds out her arm with the elbow prominently exposed. "I want it."

"I don't— I don't have a vial of it just lying around!" He shakes his head. "And didn't you hear what I just said? I gave Zeus and Ralph the exact same serum. Zeus is fine. Ralph isn't. If I did inject you with it, there is no way to predict what would happen to you! You could turn into something like a Case-53 for all we know!"

"I heard you. I don't care." You stare at her in disbelief, and she is more than happy to explain. "If I get a Linker Core, I can have a Device. If I have a Device, I'm immune to Masters just like you are, Taylor. I never have to worry about somebody screwing with my head again." Her voice softens, and she looks away. "…Not like Ose did."

You grimace. Of course it would come back to the trauma she suffered at the Fallen's hands. She knows the only way to get perfect immunity from their Masters and Strangers or anyone else who could manipulate her mind is a Device. You should have realized she was going to jump on that possibility as soon as she knew about it.

"And when you grow gills or, I don't know, turn into a tree or something? What then?" Tim presses.

"I walk around with a fishbowl on my head? Or I sunbathe a lot?" She shakes her head. "Look, I get it. You're worried what it will do to me. And I really do appreciate that you're worrying about me! The thing is, I know nothing is without risks. Definitely nothing worth having. Even hearing about the risks, I think taking the serum will be worth it." She spreads her arms wide. "I'm not saying we have to do this right this second. I'm not saying we do it without some sort of planning for what we're going to do if I grow gills or something and need to be teleported somewhere I can survive. All I am saying is that I will accept even a terrible mutation without hesitation if it takes the chance of being Mastered away for good."

Even without looking, you know Dragon and Tim's minds have started spiraling down the paths of possibility, working on ways to make this course of action as safe as inherently random mutations can be. Because it is obvious that Missy will not let this go. There is still another aspect of this that you do not know if Missy knows, and perhaps it is because of your conversation with Standstill yesterday, but there is an element to this that you need to remind her about. "Getting a Device doesn't just make you immune to Masters. It also will burn out your powers. Permanently." That catches her by surprise, so you keep going. "You told Chevalier that you're one of, what, ten or eleven Shaker 9s on this entire continent? That power would be gone—"

"Being a Shaker 9 doesn't help much when someone can get in my head and make me think my enemies are friends and my friends are enemies, does it?" Missy mutters.

"No, it doesn't," you admit. "But what I don't think you've thought about is that warping space? That is Vista's hallmark." She blinks at you, lost at the implication. "If you lose your powers, you forever give up being Vista. And considering what we talked about on the beach…"

She does not remember how to be anything but a cape. If she is no longer Vista, you worry she will be unmoored without a firm identity in her own mind.

"That—" She cuts herself off, and a strange expression crosses her face. Part grimace, part scowl, and some other emotion glints in her eyes. Regret, maybe? You do not want to try piecing together what she is thinking, and when she notices you watching her face, she immediately forces her expression blank. "We both think it's time I figured out how to be Missy again, right? And neither of us knows how to do it without throwing me into the deep end.

"Maybe a clean break with Vista is the only way to do that."


Mutagenic Workshop updated.

Now you know what Tim's been working on. And like we all knew was going to happen, Missy instantly demanded a Linker Core mutation.

With that out of the way, it's time to vote on what Tim works on next. Since we're getting into the holiday season, a moratorium IS IN EFFECT though it will probably last longer than 24 hours. I can't say how long. I will post a new threadmark when the vote is officially open.

• Supervise the PRT's Gears (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
• Help out the Enforcers (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
• Resurgerize Missy and adapt her old arms (2 slots, 0 tech points)
• Brew a Linker Core mutagenic serum for Missy (1 slot, 1 tech point)
• Analyze Sparky's cannon (3 slots, 1 tech point)
• Pop Grey Boy's bubbles (max 4 slots, 3 bubbles per slot, 0 tech points)
• Something else from the "Ideas for Tim to Build" threadmark
• Write-in (subject to my approval)

 

[Silently Watches]

Realign 14.3.5

It should not come as a surprise that Dragon's manufacturing plant has a lounge room, but it does. After all, before being converted into a Unison Device and then hiring Tim, it was not as if she was in a position to enjoy physical comforts, and as this is one of her main plants, it is almost fully automated.

You do not ask why she had it built, though, in part because you can spot what looks almost like a nest made out of fluffy towels in the corner. If this room doubles as her bedroom, you would prefer not to bring too much potentially embarrassing attention to it.

Tim sits on the lone couch in the room, flipping through anatomical diagrams and holding an intense telepathic conversation with Dragon. You sit in a chair, just watching the rest of the room. Samantha leans against the wall behind you. Missy is the only person who seems at ease, sitting in another chair and letting the bright yellow electric gerbil climb all over her and softly smiling to herself.

With a sigh, Tim banishes the screens he had been examining back to Sextant's memory banks. "Missy."

"Yeah?"

"What you're asking for…" He frowns and scrubs at one cheek for a moment. "The surgery I could probably do with a reasonable margin of safety. Most of the hurdles I'd be concerned about I took care of when I replaced the muscles in your chest. But the mutation…"

She tilts her head. "You don't think you could do it?"

"I think it's insanely risky." Tim sighs. "I know we've done plenty of procedure on you already, but I'd really prefer if we had your guardian involved in this one."

He does not say 'parents', thankfully. You mentioned that to him at one point or another, but now that you think about it, you do not know if you ever told him who Missy's guardian actually is.

"You want me to ask Miss Militia for permission?" Missy asks in a scoffing voice. "No."

"She is your legal guardian. You can't keep her in the dark just because you don't want her to refuse to permit something. If you were not a cape and did not therefore have a legal identity that gives you wiggle room around the normal limits of your age, she would have needed to give her consent for any of the surgeries Tim has already done," Dragon reminds her. "This is a bigger change than giving you a high-tech prosthetic."

A sad smile slides onto Missy's lips. "There's a small problem with your plan. You two are reluctant to do this because you're worried about my safety. You're worried about me. If my concern was that Miss Militia would be hesitant about it or would say no because she was worried, too, I'd be willing to talk to her about it."

"You don't think she would be worried about you?"

Missy shakes her head. "Not in the way you are. She may be my legal guardian, but I don't trust her to make major decisions with my best interests in mind."

Silence follows in the wake of that bombshell.

"What… What makes you say that?" you finally ask. You are not sure you have ever seen Missy act this way. Angry and frustrated at being ignored by Miss Militia and Chevalier? Plenty of times. But not this resignation and dismissal.

"I spent two days in M/S quarantine," she reminds you. "I had lots of time and not much to do but think. I had plenty of things to think about, though. The difference between Missy and Vista was a big one. What I said about making a clean break from being Vista? That wasn't a spur of the moment thing." She grimaces. "I, uh, I've actually been working on my letter of resignation and all the paperwork that goes with it since we got back from Florida. I'm leaving the Wards."

You wince at that. "I guess you finally got fed up with Chevalier's restrictions?"

"No," she says, surprising you. "Or that's not the main reason, anyway. Actually, I think I understand what he was trying to do now. It just doesn't work, or at least won't work for me. He wanted me to separate being a hero from fighting criminals and villains. That doesn't make any sense. Fighting crime is the core of our job.

"What I need isn't to separate being Vista and acting like a hero. I need to learn how to be Missy and also be Vista. How to have a civilian life, not just a civilian name on paper. That's the biggest lesson I took away from this vacation." She sighs. "That's also why I have to quit the Wards. The Protectorate isn't somewhere I can learn to do that. We're always wearing our masks, figuratively and sometimes literally. There is no time to do anything outside of the Wards, either. There's always some training exercise or course we have to take or something else. It's funny," she adds, almost as though she is talking to herself, "but I used to like that part. I was always busy with something. Now I see the flaws. I need time and I need space to figure out my life, and I can't get it while I'm still part of the Protectorate."

"Which means you have already given up being Vista," Dragon says, earning a nod from Missy.

You look back and forth between the two of them. "Wait. Why does she have to give up being Vista? I thought you just said you wanted to learn how to be both?"

Missy waves for Dragon to explain things, then has to catch Zeus before he tumbles off her shoulder.

"A Protectorate cape's identity isn't just their name. It is their brand. The Protectorate made a large business out of selling cape merchandise, and in order to protect their claim to the profits they retain ownership of their capes' names and appearances and the associated image rights. It's part of the contract any cape joining any division of the Protectorate has to sign.

"From a marketing protective, Missy isn't Vista. She was just using Vista's likeness, and if she quits, she would no longer have the Protectorate's permission to do so. They, however, can continue to produce Vista-themed merchandise if they so choose, although with you being relatively new to Philadelphia and a Ward, they probably won't."

"That's…" You do not even know the right word for what you're feeling.

"Abhorrent?" Dragon suggests. "Absurd? Greedy? Yes, it is. Like I said when they let us out of quarantine, I have many reasons why I never joined the Protectorate. They have good people, as we have seen," she says with an offhanded wave towards the soon-to-be ex-Ward, "but as an organization? I have my reservations. It makes me extremely glad that being a Unison Device, I now no longer have to follow every one of their orders against my will."

"Anyway, that's going to cause friction all on its own," Missy says as she returns to her explanation. "But the main reason I don't trust Miss Militia is something I realized when I was deciding what to do. When she and Chevalier told me I couldn't patrol, they said it was because it was Protectorate rules and breaking them would bring the attention of the Youth Guard down on them. Then they talked about how it wasn't safe and other things, but if safety was the real hurdle something could have been arranged, some workaround or precaution or something. Nothing ever was. When they forbade me from using the combat arm, it was because a Ward with an armored arm and a particle cannon wasn't a good look for the Protectorate. Every time they said I couldn't do this or had to do that, the reason was never because it would help me or make me better. It was always because it was what was best for the company."

She looks at you again. "You said that I'm one of only a few Shaker 9s on this continent. You're right. When I leave, I take that power with me. That's not in the Protectorate's interests. And if you said you wanted to do something that would get rid of that power forever? That's even worse because then there's no chance that it can be brought back into the fold."

"Do you really think that would be the basis for Miss Militia's decision? Not that she would have justifiable concerns about what it could do to you?" asks Tim.

Missy bobs her head around as she considers her next words. "Chevalier I can understand making his decisions about me based on what the Protectorate needs. He's just my superior officer, and I'm the problem child. I get it. Miss Militia parroting the same reasons, never explaining why the decision is best for me personally? Never saying 'you need to make more friends' or 'I think you need to talk to someone about what happened in Brockton Bay before you go back on the streets'? Even the fact that she didn't have a word to say against the way things were run in the Bay but now all the rules Chevalier says I have to follow are set in stone? That isn't the behavior of a concerned guardian. Not as I see it, anyway, and I have first hand experience with parents who cared more about something else than they did me. I know what that looks like.

"If you ask her for permission to change my power, she will tell you no. But I guarantee it will be because she's looking out for the Protectorate, not Missy Biron."


By popular demand, the suggestion that Missy talk to Miss Militia about the Linker Core mutation. You can now see why I was laughing maniacally.

And with that out of the way, it is time to vote.

[ ] Supervise the PRT's Gears (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
[ ] Help out the Enforcers (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
[ ] Resurgerize Missy and adapt her old arms (2 slots, 0 tech points)
[ ] Brew Linker Core mutagenic serum for Missy (1 slot, 1 tech point)
[ ] Analyze Sparky's cannon (3 slots, 1 tech point)
[ ] Pop Grey Boy's bubbles (max 4 slots, 3 bubbles per slot, 0 tech points)
[ ] Something else from the "Ideas for Tim to Build" threadmark
[ ] Write-in (subject to my approval)

Also, if you wish to spend any of Tim's accumulated tech points, vote for what skill you want as well.

 

[Silently Watches]

[] Explore somewhere on Earth Bet. A location must be included. You may bring 1-3 other characters with you.
-[] Kayleigh drags you and Laura out to a gun range because apparently not knowing the difference between a revolver and semi-automatic is a sin. Fortunately Samantha came so you aren't the worst one there.
-[] While you are out you make sure to scan both of them for Linker Cores and give them the magic explanation.


Realign 14.4

Friday, August 5

Dropping quietly to the ground, you glance around to make sure no one is nearby to see either your flight or the flash of light as your Barrier Jacket vanishes to be replaced by your normal clothes. Samantha is right behind you and rearranges her clothes, though thanks to the illusion generator around her neck, she looks no different afterwards. "This is the right place, yeah?"

You have never been to this building, but Kayleigh found it easy to give you the address. You suppose that makes sense as you look up at the sign. Of course Kayleigh would want to hang out at a gun range. "Should be. Otherwise we're going to get some very strange looks." The idea of people looking at you like you're something odd reminds you once again of what is going on in Vancouver, and you ask, "Do you think Tim's plan is going to work?"

"What, making Missy help out with his mutagen experiments so she can see firsthand what the gerbils go through?" She shrugs. "I don't think it will change her mind about wanting one, but it is probably the best way for her to understand just what she's risking. If she goes through that and decides she still wants it, that's about as informed a consent as she could possibly give."

Hurrying to the front door before the angry storm clouds can open up and dump far too much water on your head, the two of you step inside. Just inside the building is a hallway with coat hooks and rubber mats on the floor, still set out for shooters coming in to practice during the snowy winter months, and beyond that is another door leading to the range proper. You open the inner door to find Kayleigh giving you a too-bright smile…

…and Laura standing behind her, looking at anything but you.

"Oh good," Kayleigh says, "you're here. I, uh, invited you out for a couple of reasons, actually. Number one is to go shooting, obviously, but number two is so you and Laura can quit talking yourselves out of talking and just kiss and make up."

Talking yourself out of talking? Somehow, you don't think that is a random guess at your behavior, so you turn to Kayleigh's most probable co-conspirator. "You told her about me not calling, didn't you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Samantha says in a bland voice.

"Uh-huh." She smiles beatifically at you, and you can only sigh. Blasted Guardian Beasts trying to be helpful. "But I suppose this works. I do owe you an apology, Laura. I made some serious accusations about you, and then you went and proved every one of them wrong. Fighting with powers you are familiar with is a risk. Fighting with powers you've never practiced before? That takes even more courage."

Laura finally looks up at you. "You don't have to apologize. You were totally right. If it weren't for… you know who finding me and giving me a kick in the pants, I don't know if I would have gone out to help on my own."

"Hold up," Kayleigh says as she turns around to stare hard at Laura. "You told me you hung back and didn't need to get involved after all."

"I didn't want to worry you?" Laura mutters.

Kayleigh scowls and reaches out to flick the tip of the cape's nose. "No. Bad."

You grin slightly at the byplay and then wider just to further tweak Laura's nose when she notices. "So… We done then?"

"Are we done?" Kayleigh looks back at you in confusion. "Why would we be done? We still have the actual shooting to get to. You especially need some education in guns."

"Me especially?"

Kayleigh sighs and lays one hand on your shoulder. "Taylor, honey, you apparently don't know the difference between a revolver and a semi-automatic. That's basic common sense stuff. I'm not saying you need to become an expert on firearm trivia or anything, but it is my duty as your friend to make sure you at least know enough that you're not a danger to yourself."

A certain raccoon woman can't muffle what sounds suspiciously like a snigger.

You glance around to make sure that the four of you are still alone. "If I want to shoot someone, you do realize that I'm not going to reach for a gun, right?"

"And what will you do if you find yourself in a situation like last weekend except you can't risk using your other skills?" Kayleigh shrugs. "It's like my grandpa used to say. Better to have a skill and never need it than to need it and never have learned it. Besides, with the way you normally do your work, i wouldn't be surprised if you found out that you enjoy it."

"Sounds like you girls have a plan. Taylor, I'll see you back home—"

"Oh no you don't." You cross your arms and glare at Samantha. "You were part of organizing this whole thing. You get to hang around and participate."

Samantha's face blanches, and for good reason. You remember Firefly asking her to test out a laser rifle and the debacle that became. A menace, wasn't that how the Gear described her afterwards?

"The more the merrier," Kayleigh says, either unaware of Samantha's panic or perhaps taking some sort of amusement out of it. You have discovered firsthand how perceptive she can be when she wants, and that makes you wonder how much of her cheerful obliviousness is a facade. Or maybe she's just selectively smart. You honestly have no idea. "Now, I have to warn you. Because you are first time shooters, you need to go through a basic gun safety course before you can go out on the range." She checks her watch. "And how convenient. There's one that's supposed to start in just a few minutes."

"You planned this," you accuse.

"Planned this?" she asks in a suspiciously innocent voice. "Sometimes things just come together all on their own." She grins, ruining any pretense of ignorance. "Although I will admit I thought it would take longer for you two to apologize, otherwise the timing would have been perfect."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx​

"Shoot me," Samantha begs half an hour later as the two of you leave the classroom. "They'll give you a gun. Just use that."

"It wasn't that bad," you tell her, although you both know your defense is a weak one. The class was not bad, exactly, though it was boring. You are not sure whether that is because you don't expect to be a regular shooter, because if things really go south you have a Barrier Jacket to protect you, or because the guy who gave the lecture was way too interested in the intricacies of gun safety.

Yes, you get it. Don't point the gun anywhere you wouldn't want a bullet going. You understood it the first time he said it. The next ten times were just overkill.

"Let's get everyone started," the instructor says to the entire class. "Everyone grab a lane on this end. I need to be able to supervise and make sure everything is going fine—"

"These two are with me, Sean," Kayleigh says, laying her hands on your and Samantha's shoulders. You blink and look around. Where in the world did she come from?

He frowns for a moment before shrugging. "Okay. It's a little irregular, but if you're keeping an eye on them, that'll make things easier."

"Cool. Come on, let's come down here."

"For him being all gung-ho about gun safety, letting us run off with someone random seems a little lax," Samantha says once you are out of earshot with the other girls.

Laura coughs lightly and looks at Kayleigh, who blushes. "Ah. Yeah. About that. I'm actually not someone random. I do a lot of shooting here between practicing on the rifle range outside and occasionally some fun time with pistols in here."

"And…" the brunette with blue bangs prompts.

"…And Mom told me I was sixteen and it was time to get a summer job, so I took a small arms instructor course and started working here." The blush glows an even brighter red. "I actually spent the summer teaching the same class you just took."

It is rare to catch her so embarrassed, and you cannot help but smile. "I guess we're in good hands then, aren't we?"

"Just get some safety glasses and ear protection. I'll grab a couple of guns for you," she says, not looking at you but sending a glare at Laura who has started snickering.

After fitting some goggles over your glasses, you set a pair of bulky plastic earmuffs on the counter in one of the cubicles. Stretching out in front of you is a long lane with a stereotypical law enforcement style target at the other end, human silhouette and all. Kayleigh comes back with a couple of matte black guns in her hands and gives you one along with several replacement magazines. It sits heavier in your hands than you would have expected. "I figured we'd get you started with something basic, a Glock 19. It fires 9 millimeter bullets, which has a pretty weak recoil all things considered. I think it was the first semi-auto I ever fired," she adds thoughtfully, "and it's definitely a good one to start with."

She gives the other gun and magazines to Samantha and then stands there with her arms crossed. You suppose that is as good of proof as anything else that she actually wants to watch you shoot. Sliding one of the magazines into the gun with a click, you point it downrange.

"Taylor. Ear protection."

Oh. Right.

By the time you have emptied the first magazine, you think you can appreciate why Kayleigh finds this to be so much fun, even if you personally have no inclination of taking it up as a major hobby. The gun is too noisy for you, and after spending months throwing around fireballs that can dance elaborately on their way to your target, being stuck with straight lines feels incredibly restrictive. There is still the satisfaction of landing a shot exactly where you want it, though, and while you have to think about each step in the process, for somebody who knows everything by muscle memory, it could be a zen experience.

You look at the holes in the target and sigh. Most of them are at least in center mass, but there are several that are nowhere close to where you wanted them to be. You thought your aim was better than that—

Another hole appears in the white background of the target, and with an empty gun in your hands, there is no way that came from you.

Movement to the side turns out to be Kayleigh tapping Samantha on the shoulder. You pull off your earmuffs in time to hear her say, "You do know you're supposed to be shooting at your own target, right?"

"I, uh, was trying to."

Kayleigh blinks several times and looks at Samantha's target. Looking at it yourself, you notice that it is absolutely pristine. "Oh," the blonde says after a moment to process that. "Maybe we should get you a lane with no one on either side so you don't interfere with their shooting?"

"Or maybe I should just stop."

"…That would be for the best, yeah."

You shake your head at that. "Anything you need to tell me, Professor Stevens?"

"More practice, less sass."

You laugh at that, joined by the other girl. Setting the gun down on the bench, you find yourself wondering, "What were you shooting while we were stuck in class?"

She vanishes behind the small wall between the lanes and pops back out with a very familiar gun in her hands. "It's been a while since I last fired a revolver, so it felt right to use your present. Plus, shooting .45 is always an experience. With my tiny hands," she says, wiggling the finger of one of the hands in question, "it feels like I'm wrestling a cannon every time I pull the trigger. It's not easy, but lots and lots of fun."

If she had been forced to use that gun in self-defense against the Fallen, you have a feeling she would have found it much less fun. Pushing what-ifs that never happened and can never happen again out of your mind, you focus on reality. She's safe and happy. If she wants to use a gun that has likely murdered nobody knows how many people to get some target practice in, you will do your best not to damage her innocence.

A series of bangs a short distance away stops, and Laura comes into sight as well. "Did you bring any extra rounds?"

"You can have mine/Samantha's," Samantha and Kayleigh say simultaneously.

"O…kay?" She looks back and forth between the two before deciding that she doesn't want to know after all. Moving her attention to you, she frowns. "Taylor. Any chance we can talk? Away from prying ears?" she adds with a look at the rest of the novice shooters.

"Took you this long to work up the nerve to ask?" you ask her teasingly. She looks away, but not before you see the frown that appears on her face. You did not mean to hit whatever exposed nerve you clearly danced on top of. "Sorry. I didn't… Sorry. Kayleigh, you work here. Anywhere we can talk?"

"I think I know just the place."

'Just the place' turns out to be the outdoor portion of the range, the part she uses for her riflery practice. No one is out here, and the pouring rain that is the most likely explanation for it being empty also creates a nice screen to prevent anyone from listening in. "I suppose you want to talk about what happened at the resort," you say, figuring being upfront will be the best way to open what you expect is going to be a complicated conversation. "What happened after we had our argument when you met Cassiel?"

"You do know what she is," Laura says with a voice of relief. "I assumed at the time that you did, but when I looked back at it, some of the things she said made me worry."

"Who's Cassiel?" Kayleigh asks.

Ah. You had not thought of this complication. After finding out that Laura had a Linker Core, you had planned to talk to her about magic, but you had not thought about how it would mean that Kayleigh would also find out. Still, if you are going to reveal it to one, you might as well do it to two, and better to jump right into the deep end than wade in and waste time. "Cassiel's a fairy."

She shakes her head. "Ha ha. I'm serious."

"So am I. She really is a fairy. Nine inches tall and magic."

"Magic? Really?" Kayleigh looks at you and Laura. "Magic and fairies? Is this a cape thing? Because if it is, it's my first time hearing about it."

"I hadn't heard about it until Saturday." Laura looks back at you expectantly, joined by Kayleigh with her own puppy dog eyes added on.

«You did plan to tell her,» Samantha reminds you.

«I know that!» You close your eyes and shake your head. This is not the first, nor the second, nor the third time you have told other people about magic. Somebody would think that you have gotten used to this. "Yes, magic is real. Everything you have seen me do, from flying around to throwing fireballs to teleporting place to place, is magic. I'm not a Tinker or anything. I just have the ability to use magic and Perfect Storm"—you touch the pendant hanging from your neck—"to help out with all the math."

"Math?" Kayleigh asks in weak voice.

That's right, math is very much not her best subject. "There's a lot of math involved in magic. Spells? They're just programs that work on the real world instead of in a computer. That's what Devices like Storm are for. They're supercomputers that assist in running the programs.

"The reason I'm bringing it is that you have magic too, Laura. You wouldn't have been able to Unison with Cassiel if you didn't."

Laura opens her mouth and immediately shuts it. This repeats a few times before she decides what she wants to say and how she wants to say it. "Assuming magic is real and you're not just a Tinker who's lost her mind or something… How did you know you had it? Is it something like if your magic is useful, it pops out and says 'hey, I can make you a super-cape' and if it's not, you never know you have it?"

"I didn't know I had magic until I found Perfect Storm. It's a long story," you tell them before they can react to the found comment. "Everything I can do, I learned to do with his help, and so have other people."

"Huh," Kayleigh says, looking at your necklace with new respect. "So you can teach other people to use magic?"

"If they have it, yeah. Like I said, I've taught a few people." For a moment, you consider passing along a warning about the PRT's new mages, but only for a moment. You like Laura, and you wonder about her heroic leanings, but right now she is still a villain and would be obligated to pass along what she finds out about the PRT to the rest of Winter Hill. They for sure do not need to know about the good guys' new advantage.

"Sounds like a lot of work to replace what comes naturally to capes," Laura says, blissfully unaware of the threats coming after her and the rest of her natural capes.

You open your mouth to shoot back at her dismissal, but strangely it is Kayleigh who beats you to it. "Or maybe it's the perfect way to get you out of Winter Hill. You're miserable," she continues, talking over Laura's denial. "You've been miserable since you got those damn powers. You hate that you're the only who cares about the people you claim to be protecting. You hate that you can't do more to do some good. You can pretend you're this stone cold bitch who doesn't give a shit about anyone else, but I remember when we were little and you cried because you didn't have any change to put in that Salvation Army kettle one Christmas. You want to help people, you want to do something good with your powers, and it breaks my heart that every time I see you put on that fucking costume I have to watch you kill off a little more of yourself."

Kayleigh grabbed Laura's hand during her impassioned plea, but the older girl looks down at the ground and tries to pull away. Not that she tries that hard, you notice. "It doesn't matter. What's done is done. I'm part of Winter Hill, and that's just the way it is."

"We both know the only reason you joined Winter Hill in the first place is because you didn't have any other choice. Now maybe you do!"

You wave your hand to get their attention. "What do you mean, you didn't have any other choice?"

Kayleigh blanches, but thankfully Laura is willing and able to explain. "Winter Hill doesn't allow any other capes in their territory. They even fight off the Protectorate when they try to muscle in. I live in the middle of their turf, so it was either I join up, my family has to up and leave, or the next time they saw me, things would get… ugly. My powers aren't all that strong. Any one of our other capes can and has kicked my ass. So yeah, I joined up. I would have to be stupid not to."

"Is there any way you can test her to find out how much magic she has?" Kayleigh asks.

"I can," you tell her with a nod. Internally, you are still reeling at the outburst the other girl let loose and everything you learned as a result. It certainly explains all the heroic tendencies you observed from Cailleach before, and maybe in its own way why she was so scared of doing anything at the resort that could out her as Cailleach. It has nothing at all to do with capes threatening Winter Hill through her. It's because she is afraid of what her own allies would do to her. She is trapped in a terrible situation with no way out, so she has buckled down and is just trying to get through it one day at a time.

Just like you were doing to try to survive at Winslow.

"Storm, staff please." Your necklace vanishes to reconstruct itself as your staff. Pointing it at Laura, you can't help but see that she is watching it with undisguised caution. "I'm going to scan you. You won't feel a thing."

Laura looks over at Kayleigh and finds only a silent plea to let you do your thing. "Okay, okay. Just get it over with."

Blue lines sweep over the girl, and the four of you watch the digital scan be deconstructed layer by layer to reveal the glittering spark in her chest that you already know she possesses. «Mistress,» Perfect Storm says, the telepathy catching you by surprise, «unexpected result. Mage still part of enemy organization. Does Mistress wish for mage to hear true result?»

You glance at the head of the staff quickly enough that the other girls should not notice anything amiss. «From what they just told me, I'd like to get Laura out of Winter Hill. I can't convince her to trust me more than them if I'm lying to her.»

«Understood.» Switching back to audible speech, your Device announces, "Linker Core detected. Estimated rank: AAA. Thermoelectric spectrum consistent with Ice Mana Conversion Affinity."

"Someone willing to explain any of that to me?" Laura drawls. "Like what the hell a 'triple-A' rank means? Do I have to go around picking up stranded people to recharge or something?"

"AAA rank highest rank of Linker Core capacity. Found in top 2% of mages."

Laura's mouth drops open slightly at that news. You decide to answer the next unspoken question. "A mana conversion affinity is a trait your magic has that will give some of your spells a certain 'element'." You conjure a single Flare Shooter. "Like mine. I have a Flare Mana Conversion Affinity. Makes me really good with anything related to fire."

Kayleigh smiles before sidling up to Laura and bumping her with her hip. "I'm sorry I said you were pretending to be an ice queen."

"Shut up."

The other girl laughs at her expense. "Now I'm kind of curious about me. Do you think you can scan me, too?"

"I can, but…" Your mind goes to Missy and how disappointed she was when she found out she did not have a Linker Core. "It's rare to have one. Our best estimates is that it's only in five percent of the population. One in twenty. Chances are you won't have magic."

Kayleigh waves your warning off. "Then I don't have something I never heard about until today. No big deal. I'm just curious."

It is hard to argue against that way of thinking, and now that she knows the probabilities, it probably is better if you just scan her and find out for sure one way or the other. A second scan takes only a few seconds, and you wait for the results to be processed and show her that she does not have any magic.

"Linker Core detected. Estimated rank: D."

Or maybe you'll be proven wrong.

"If AAA is the highest rank, I'm guessing D's pretty low," Kayleigh says. A moment later, she shrugs. "At least it isn't an F. If I found out I earned an F in life, that might be a little distressing. A D is still passing."

"As your grades proved again and again," Laura mutters, earning a pout from Kayleigh. "How do we have magic, anyway? Is it random or genetic or what?"

"It is genetic," you confirm, "but it's entirely maternal. Mother to child. Men can have magic, no question about that, but they can't pass it on."

"Thank god," Laura says in a whisper.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Kayleigh adds excitedly, all but drowning Laura out. "If it's maternal, then Aunt Emma has to have magic too, because she's my mom's sister! But that also means Herman has magic." The eager light in her eyes dies. "Shoot. That would have been fun to hold over his head."

"You don't have to tell him, you know," Samantha tells her.

"True enough. Hey, are there any movies or TV shows that are close to right about magic?" she asks. "If we're going to be the witch squad, I want to make sure I'm acting the part."

"Compiling list," Perfect Storm says before you can even fully ask yourself what she wants. "Transmitting to Kayleigh's communication device."

Sure enough, a few seconds later her phone dings. She pulls it out and looks at it, her eyes growing wide. "Oh. That's, uh, several. I guess I'll see you at school on Monday, Taylor. I have a lot of homework to do."


Laura's character entry updated.
Kayleigh added to Magical Potentiates.

I have done so much research into different guns the last few chapters, and I don't even own or want one!

Question that has nothing directly to do with the characters in the chapter. It's been suggested that since I am restricting templates for the near future and Lacey has essentially ignored her Infinite Enhancement template except to heal, we redo her design to make her a normal Device mage and "refund" her template so we can give it to someone else who's actually willing to play combat support.

If we do this, Lacey will go back to being a C-rank mage, still with her current Boost Device. She WILL keep four spells from her current list: Cover (her invisibility spell), Strike Boost, and Physical Heal she has either been seen or been mentioned to use in-story. Her last spell, Guardian Beast, was LancerisDead's reward. She will start with 0 XP in the bank but will benefit from the same passive XP gain all Device mages are getting, so she won't have to get into fights in order to learn more healing spells and might actually grow.

[ ] Keep Lacey as a template mage
[ ] Make Lacey a regular mage

 

[Silently Watches]

Realign 14.5

Monday, August 8

The bell in the hallway rings, and you save the code you spent the last hour working on to the desktop in the computer lab. «You have a copy of that, Storm?»

«Affirmative. Will upload file upon completion.»

This is one of the advantages of having a supercomputer that is also an accomplished hacker hanging around your neck. It can pull your half-done assignment into its internal databanks and let you finish it, and when you're done return the completed file into the school network. Back in Brockton Bay, when you completed your work ahead of time, Mrs. Knott would let you do whatever you wished with the rest of your time. The new computer teacher has a similar policy, though that is not why you want to get your work done early. The computers at Winslow were far better than the old desktop you used to have, making them your preferred access for idle web surfing, but thanks to Perfect Storm you no longer have such a restriction.

No, the reason you want to finish early is that Mrs. Larson is willing to let students work at their own pace, which means you can start work on the next assignment as soon as you are done with the one before it. When you have completed the syllabus, she has a stack of books on more advanced programming that you can flip through at your leisure.

Sure, you could ask Perfect Storm to download all those books and work on them in your own time, and you probably will do that closer to the end of the year just to have them, but you know you need a solid foundation before you start building towards the sky. The idea you had of going to college for a degree in programming has not left, and while working as a hero for your actually career – though more likely than not not within the Protectorate – is certainly viable, Missy's issues are proof enough that you need something else besides that, if only to keep you anchored to the world of normal people. Being able to do freelance programming on your own schedule would help with that and give you an extra source of income to boot.

«Communication from Kayleigh. Requests your location.»

«Tell her to meet me at the front doors. I'm not going to try to find her in all of this,» you think back as your eyes land on the stream of your fellow students already rushing for the exit after the first day of the new school year. You hike your backpack higher on your shoulders and shove your way into the crowd.

Thinking of Missy reminds you of just where you are heading once you hear what Kayleigh wants and find a safe place to transform. Even after spending the weekend in Canada working with Tim as his assistant and seeing firsthand what undergoing mutation involves, she is apparently undeterred in her desire for a Linker Core serum. You received a message from Tim last night requesting your presence during the injection this afternoon to make sure that if something does go wrong, like her growing gills, you are there to get her wherever she needs to go to survive.

Stepping to the side, you wait for the rest of the crowd to pass you to make it easier to see Kayleigh. A substantial portion of the student body is still around when she pushes her way through. "There you are! You know, it's going to be harder to keep track of you this year. I don't know why they couldn't have put us in any classes together."

"Because there are multiple English classes, you did chemistry last year when I didn't, because I've already passed geometry and am in the calculus class…" You count the reasons off on your fingers and grin when her glower becomes more and more intense.

Finally she breaks and sighs. "Fine. Fine! I get it. Just keep being mean to me, why don't you." That just earns a chuckle. "Anyway. How's your day back gone so far?"

"Not too bad. Lots of 'welcome to the class' speeches. I have to head to 'work' in a few minutes, though," you add on. Not that you mind talking to Kayleigh, but the longer it takes to get to Vancouver, the longer everyone has to worry about how badly Missy's mutation will go.

"Kayleigh, where did you run—" Laura turns the corner and sighs when she spots the two of you. "You could have just said you wanted to talk to Taylor." She adjusts her uniform jacket, the gold trim marking her as a senior compared to the junior green trim you and Kayleigh wear. "I wanted to talk to you too, though, so I suppose it works out for the best."

There are a few things both of them might want to talk to you about, but considering how the gun range trip ended, you think one of them is probably at the top of the list. You wave them to follow you, and you walk around the front of the building towards the hedges that along the sides. This was where Laura revealed that she is Cailleach, now that you think about it, which makes you wonder what revelation is about to come out now.

"This is cozy," Kayleigh says once the three of you are mostly out of view and out of earshot. "I bet you want to ask her the same thing I do, don't you?"

"Magic?" you ask.

The two girls nod, and Laura continues, "We never exactly talked about how magic actually gets done. I know you said it was computer programs, and I've seen some of the tech stuff… Perfect Storm, wasn't it?… can do, but the details got lost in the shuffle."

That is a fair question. It's unfortunate that there are several problems with answering their questions. "Any chance we can push off that talk for a few days? I would have to arrange some things with Dragon and Shipwright first. I don't actually build Devices, so if you have any technical questions, they'd be better equipped to answer them."

Kayleigh's eyes are wide, no doubt at the mention of you hanging out with Dragon. Her mouthing that name clears any lingering confusion.

"That's the first reason I'd like to wait, anyway. The second…" You weigh your words and after a few moments give up. There is no way to make this sound nice, so you'll just have to be blunt. "The second is you."

Laura follows your pointing finger. "Me?"

"You. Specifically, you and Winter Hill." Both girls grimace, but there is nothing you can do about that. "I don't have a problem with you personally. If you wanted to go straight, I'd be more than happy to have you watching my back. Right now's the problem because you're a member of a gang. You're a villain. You tell me you want to get out, I'll help you in any way I can, but I will not give more power to Winter Hill."

She runs a hand through her blue bangs, but immediately after she nods. "I get it. If one of the Maras or the Warlocks or one of the other gangs asked me for a power up, I wouldn't exactly be eager to help them out either."

"Kayleigh, you I would be more than happy to give a Device right now, but—"

"Yeah. I know." She looks over at Laura and then back at you. "Give us a couple of days? Unless this offer has a time limit?"

"No time limit. Just a requirement for entry."

Kayleigh nods. Laura looks at her and grimaces at the expression on her face. Considering Kayleigh's outburst about her best friend's gang membership the last time the three of you were together, you expect this will be one conversation you do not want to be anywhere near.

Thankfully, you don't have to be. "While you two have your talk, I need to head out. Dragon's expecting me to help with an experiment this afternoon. Bye." Stepping deeper into the hedge, all anyone will be able to see of your exit is two flashes of light.

You arrive in Dragon's main base and stare at the setup waiting for you. A new contraption sits in the middle of the room, large curved arms reaching up from the base and spinning at a decent clip. Within those arms stands Missy, wearing a sports bra, gym shorts, one arm, and a bored expression. Dragon floats in the air typing on two different keyboards and staring at twice as many screens. Tim is testing the straps on a metal chair that looks like something out of a prison movie. Lacey is sitting in another chair petting a raccoon, and you sidle up to them and look at everything more closely. "What in the world is going on here?"

"We do not know what effect the serum will have on Missy, but we know there will be some physical change," Dragon says, not looking over from her screens. "We are therefore gathering a large number of images to construct a full-body appearance that I can load into another illusion projector like Samantha's. This way no matter how her appearance changes, it can be masked in public."

That explains Missy's outfit, you suppose. It lets them map as much as they can for her current appearance, and if she mutates into a hulk, she has not lost any valuable clothing. You sit down next to Lacey. "You wanted to see what happens, too?"

"Tim asked me to come just in case she is injured during the process. I don't know how much help I'll be, though." She shrugs at your inquisitive look. "Work is just draining me dry every day."

You blink at that. "That shouldn't be still happening. Not unless they're working you until you physically can't do any more. The template we gave you should increase the size of your Linker Core, or at least I thought it would."

"Mistress correct. Linker Core growth designed aspect of template implantation. Should be approximate A rank at this time based on projected growth rate."

"Once we get Missy situated, I'd like to rescan you," you tell her. "It's probably just that they've been working you more, but better safe than sorry."

She shrugs. "If you want. It doesn't feel like I'm seeing that many more people than I was when I started, but maybe I am. They all start blurring together after a while, especially with all the traumas rolling in. There's a lot more gang violence happening now than there was just a couple of weeks ago, particularly against blacks and Latinos. It seems like every day there are lots of people coming in for gunshots and knife wounds. Especially the second one," she adds after a moment's thought, "which is odd, now that I think about it. It's been a lot more of those than the gunshots."

The scanner-thing slows down to a stop, and Missy hops lightly off the platform. "That give you everything you need?"

"With duplicates as well," Dragon says. "Now I just need to combine them into a 3D image. I think we're as prepared as we are going to get."

"Then let's—"

"Now we just need to record your consent." At those words, Tim pulls out an old video recorder and holds it up.

"…You have got to be kidding." She points at Tim and then Dragon. "Digital is a thing. You two can record stuff right now!"

Dragon nods and rotates the screens and keyboards around her to move them out of the way. "True, but digital recordings are more easily manipulated than film. Not that film can't be altered, but it would take far more work to do so. If we need this for any kind of legal defense, which is unlikely but never impossible, the fact it is on tape should make verifying its authenticity a simpler matter."

Missy takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. "Fine. Push the button." Tim trains the camera on her, and she says in a bored voice, "I, Missy Kaye Biron, formerly known as the Protectorate Ward Vista, do hereby give consent to Dragon and Shipwright to alter my genetic code in an attempt to give me a Linker Core in accordance with all relevant federal and international laws. I give this consent of my own free will and have not been manipulated or coerced into doing this. Unless we consider that I'm not capable of magic or using a Device unless I have a Linker Core, but I think that's less coercion and more physical impossibility." She props her right hand on her hip and stares at Tim through the camera. "That good enough?"

"Could have done without the sarcasm at the end, but I'm sure Miss Militia and Chevalier can confirm that's normal for you," Tim shoots back. He puts the camera down. "Sextant, let's record this. I want to be able to review it if something goes wrong."

Missy sits herself in the chair and cannot help but watch warily as Tim tightens the straps around her wrist and ankles. "Is that really necessarily?" you ask. If Missy is willing to go through this but is still nervous, you feel justified in being worried for her.

The girl nods, as does Tim. "I wish it weren't," the Gadgeteer tells you, "but the mutation process itself is painful, or at least it looked like the mice were in pain. Tying her down will actually keep her from injuring herself. Hopefully this will, too."

He wheels what looks like a tank of compressed air next to the chair and puts an oxygen mask over her face. "Last chance to back out," he tells her as he lays his hand on the knob on the tank.

"No chance. Shoot me up, doc."

"Okay. This is nitrous oxide mixed with oxygen. More commonly known as laughing gas, best friend of dentists the world over. It should anesthetize you and hopefully will keep you from remembering the actual change."

"I'll take a blank spot over hurting," Missy mutters.

That sounds like an agreement to you, and apparently to Tim too because he turns the knob. "Take some deep breaths. Once you're out of it, I'll inject the serum and we'll take it from there."

Lacey sits up straighter, and Samantha hops out of her lap and returns to human form. "This is where we come in, right?"

"Hopefully we won't need either of you. Best case scenario, nothing goes wrong, it's a relatively mild or even cosmetic mutation, and we all laugh at ourselves for being worried over nothing." He wipes his forehead. "But we can't guarantee a best case. Part of the experiments we did was trying to figure out what could influence the probability of different severities of mutation. Other mutations can channel it to a certain extent, but that doesn't provide much benefit in terms of not looking inhuman. Instead we're just rolling the dice."

Nostromo walks over with a thin cylinder that looks almost like a pen injector and hands it to Tim. Tim in turn presses the end against her exposed quad muscle hits the button on the other end. A soft click comes from the device, and he hands it back to the Gear. "Now we just have to wait for it."

Just a couple of seconds after he says that, Missy starts shaking uncontrollably.

Lacey jumps out of her seat, but Tim holds a hand up to stop her. "It's okay. I know what it looks like, but she isn't having a seizure. It's a lot of muscle spasms for sure, but we think that's the after effect of having a new kind of energy shooting through her body. It'll calm down in a few seconds, and then we'll see what kind—"

Something is wrong with Missy's head. You narrow your eyes, and after another moment it becomes clear it isn't her head that is changing. It is her hair. A bright red is spreading from her roots and overtaking her natural blonde, though the hairs themselves are not growing any longer. Instead she is changing so that her new hair color is entirely natural. On its own, it does not look more than mildly eye-catching at all.

Then patches of black and white overtake small portions of the red in turn, leaving her with a strange tricolor hairdo.

Samantha cocks her head and stares at the no longer twitching girl. "Is it just me, or does she look like an evil calico?"

"Not helping, Sam."

Tim bent down and picked Missy's head up from her chest to check both her eyes. "Eyes look normal. Body structure is unchanged. Looks like she got out of this with just a change in her hair pigmentation, though I would presume it is all hair over her entire body." He points to her face, and you see her eyebrows got a similar treatment, though they are least are unicolored with red on her right side and black on her left.

"I'm perfectly fine with that, and I expect Missy will be too," Dragons says. A few swipes of the keyboard, and large swaths of Missy's 3D scan vanish. "If all we have to do is account for her hair color, I can dedicate all the illusion projector's processing power to match her hair movements in real time rather than covering them up entirely."

"Okay. I'll turn off her nitrous oxide and let her wake up."

You leave the Tinkers to do their stuff and look over at Lacey again. "While they're busy with that, let me scan you again."

"Alright. I don't think its worth all the trouble, but if that's what you want, might as well get it over with."

You raise Perfect Storm's staff up and let the lines of light wash over her. "What do you think, Storm?" you ask when it has finished its task.

"Abnormal. Linker Core rank C. Unchanged from previous scan. No detected mana structure changes consistent with template installation."

You look over at Lacey and then back to your Device. "How is that possible?"

"Template installation failure occurred rarely in first decade of Immortal Assimilation Engine use. Complication with gene duplication process. Corrected. No further instances.

"Infinite Enhancement template possesses Rare Skill. Installation failed. Transcendent Gadgeteer template possesses no Rare Skill. Installation success. Theory. Mistress's Flare Mana Conversion Affinity Rare Skill interfered with gene duplication. Boost Device created but contained no template."

You think back to how much effort Frost Beam needed the one time you used it. That your mana affinity would work against you with other elemental spells is reasonable, so is it so hard to believe that it would fight against other such talents? "How did Galea handle that problem?"

"Immortal Assimilation Engine not designed to use natural Linker Core as energy source. Designed to pull energy from mana supply infrastructure. Method Mistress uses emergency protocol."

A light groan from Missy interrupts your thoughts of how you could possibly overcome the lack of an industrial mana power grid. "How are you feeling?" you ask instead.

"Like I got run over by a truck." Nostromo releases the straps holding her limbs in place, and she wobbly climbs to her feet. "I don't… feel different?"

"We got incredibly lucky." Tim pulls up an image of her new look and shows it to her. "From what I can see, your hair is the only thing that changed."

She lets out a triumphant laugh. "Fine by me. I was willing to become a magical monster, but I'm not complaining about magic and not being a monster. Taaaaaylor, can I get a reading or something?"

"Not today," Tim cuts in before you can say a word. "We only just created your Core. If we want an accurate reading, it would be best to give you a day or two to let it settle and stabilize."

The now-redhead sighs. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I've waited this long to get magic. A couple days more to get my results isn't too bad. I just need that illusion thing sooner than later. Showing up like this"—she fluffs her new hair—"to school? That'll cause questions."

"You're not worried about Chevalier and Miss Militia seeing it before you leave?" you ask.

"Already left. Dropped off my resignation letter on Saturday. Not that they'll notice for a while, anyway." She shrugs. "Paulson has some big press conference this week, but the details are all hush hush. Nobody in the Protectorate knows what's up."

You suspect you do. The only big change they made recently was related to magic. Is Paulson planning on telling the whole world about it already?

You shake your head. Probably not, not when people would think he's just crazy. It has to be something else.

«Speaking of scans,» you send on a tight channel to Tim. It is getting harder and harder to have private conversations now that so many of you can talk in your heads. «There are a couple of people I found who are also capable of magic. Depending on what they decide about some other things, I might bring them over to ask about getting Devices.»

«It'll have to wait a couple of days. I've already arranged to take some time with Legend to go to some Grey Boy bubbles and see if I can disrupt them. That'll take at least a day, maybe day and a half. Plus I need to find a time to go back to L.A. and give Alexandria her new eye. She wasn't confident it would work, but I think I figured out a way to keep it in that doesn't require any surgery. Since, you know, no one would be able to do that to her in the first place.»

Sounds like he has a full plate. Knowing your tendencies, in just a couple of days you will too.


Vista's Missy's character sheet updated.
Aeris's character sheet reworked.
(Plus some general clean up.)

With school back in session, it's time to pick out this week's activities. Exciting, right?

Keep in mind that you can pick TWO main quests…

• Final Frontier – The Triumvirate Dynamic Duo is interested in what resources Earth Bet would have access to with convenient interdimensional transport. "Adventure of the week" format.
• Bone of the Father – You have heard whispers of several new gangs taking up residence in Philadelphia despite the PRT's and the established gang's best efforts. One may be interesting than the rest. Be available if you need to help out.
• Daddy's Little Girl – It's been a while since you last checked on your dad. It hurts to see him and know that he doesn't and probably never will recognize you, but you should probably stomach the hurt and go to his nursing home.
• Burn the Sinners – The Fallen made a BIG mistake ruining your vacation. The Protectorate should have the most information on them out of anyone, and you need that info to make the Fallen wish they had never been born.
• Law and Order – The PRT has announced a press conference to show off their newest strategy to stop crime in your city. Are they planning to reveal magic to the world? Pop over and see what's up.

…and TWO social activities.

• Participate in Law and Order as a social event instead of as a subquest event.
• Hang out with another character(s). This is by definition a non-combat activity.
• Go on patrol. You can vote for one non-Samantha character to join you if you want.
• Explore somewhere on Earth Bet. A location must be included. You may bring 1-3 other characters with you.
• Explore another world. If you do not select a world where Taylor has been or already knows about, one will be selected randomly.
• Train, either in the real world or in Perfect Storm's simulator. SPECIFY which spell or skill to work on.
• Write-in (subject to my approval)

Let's have 24 HOURS to discuss.

 

[Silently Watches]

[] Participate in Law and Order as a social activity instead of as a main activity.


Realign 14.6

Tuesday, August 7

It takes little effort to find the time and place for the PRT press conference Missy mentioned, and the next day you drop onto a rooftop adjacent to city hall. Your sudden appearance startles the sniper perched on that same roof, but you give her and the wolfhound lying on the ground next to her a friendly wave when she points her giant rifle at you. "Afternoon. How are you two doing?"

"…We're good?" the woman says, apparently not sure what the proper protocol is for something like this. She probably has not had that many interactions with capes, not even now that she is a mage herself. "No offense, but what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to listen to the press conference, and I wasn't going to wait in all of that." You jerk your thumb at the crowd of reporters and other spectators to make sure she understands just what you mean by 'that'. Everyone is milling about waiting for the show to start, and from their impatience, you expect they know little more than you do about what is to come. Standing at attention and possibly providing security are the members of the Protectorate and Wards. You do not know whether to smile or sigh at the way the Wards are obviously and Chevalier is more circumspectly looking around as though waiting for one more member of the group to appear.

They will be waiting a long time.

The doors to the building open, and Director Paulson walks out in an unremarkable blue suit. Behind him, however, is a much more imposing sight. Eight PRT agents come into view, dressed not in their normal bulletproof vests and helmets but in full suits of sleek, reflective black armor. You recognize the new look, too; Dragon was pitching this exact design of power armor to Legend when you arrived at the PRT base to look for mages like the woman who is again crouched down and resting her gun on the edge of the roof. Six agents carry big rifle-looking guns with two barrels rather than one, and the other pair each has a massive tube strapped across their backs. What really catches your eye is that the handles are attached to the front of the tubes while a box that you can only presume contains ammunition is at the back.

«Any idea what those tube things are?»

Perfect Storm takes a moment before providing an answer. «Design atypical for mechanical-chemical weapon system. Mana battery contained at back. Low level magnetic signal detectable even at range. Appearance matches Earth Bet shoulder-mounted rocket systems. Hypothesize energy propulsion system, specifically magnetic acceleration weapon.»

"Hello, everyone," Paulson says, cutting you off from asking just what Perfect Storm is talking about. "Thank you for coming to the grand unveiling of the next stage in the evolution of the Parahuman Response Team.

"As most of you know, following the arrival of Scion and the rise of parahumans, Philadelphia once again earned its moniker of the City of Brotherly Love. For years we had one of if not the lowest cape per capita rate of any major city in the United States. We have one of the smallest branches of the PRT as well as one of the smallest branches of the Protectorate," he adds with a wave at the capes. "That was all we needed to keep the gangs in check.

"The chaos caused by the Mara Salvatrucha changed all that. First it was the gangs turning our streets into a war zone, and even when the Mara Salvatrucha were gone other villains poured in trying to take their place. The Protectorate was spread too thin, and the PRT was unequipped to assist them as much as they needed.

"We failed you, and we failed our city."

As far as uplifting press conferences go, this one could use some work. If the wave of mutterings go, the press is just as confused by the tone of Paulson's speech and especially considering the armored agents positioned behind him. Chevalier and Sere, meanwhile, look more irritated at their own role in holding off as many villains as they could being diminished. Even the Wards seem upset, though whether that is because they had felt as useless as Missy did or because they do not appreciate their superiors being badmouthed is anybody's guess.

"We failed you," Paulson repeats, "but we will not fail you again. The PRT's specialty engineers have been in contact with their colleagues working at Dragontech"—that is probably the most oblique reference to the Guardian Beasts of the Gear and Tim you could have ever imagined—"and the fruit of their collaboration stands before you. Too many parahumans have powers that are so dangerous and destructive that normal humans, even the trained and dedicated men and women who serve this city, are incapable of capturing them.

"The Liberator power armor will level the field. This is not Tinkertech that can only be operated by a single person. This is a fully reproducible and fully maintainable marvel of human ingenuity. In a short time, every field agent will be on patrol with armor and weapons that will give even the strongest villain pause. It is no longer just the Protectorate the gangs need to fear. It is all of us."

Paulson waits to let his bold declaration sweep over the crowd. This is it, you realize. He will not have a better time to reveal the mages within the PRT, not when he is talking about how much stronger the PRT has become. And yet, you cannot help but feel that it does not feel right.

"To the citizens of this city, I give you a promise of peace. Every man and woman in the PRT swore a solemn oath to protect you, even if it costs us our lives. We have not forgotten that oath.

"To any villains, here or elsewhere, who thinks Philadelphia is vulnerable to their predations, I have only a warning. This is our city, not yours. You want a piece of us? We will make you choke on it."

As soon as it becomes clear his speech is over, the reporters start shouting questions at him. You tune out the chaos and lean back on your heels. "Huh. I honestly expected him to tell the world about magic and you guys."

The wolfhound stands up and becomes a blur that resolves into a woman who would not look out of place on a supermodel catwalk. You cast an envious eye at the way she makes even a pair of jeans and a loose top look like the height of fashion. At least she is not massively endowed on top of it; you do not think your feminine pride could handle that heavy a blow. "Director Paulson is keeping mages, and our team in particular, as a covert force. Eventually we will have our time in the limelight, but right now we are much more effective if no one knows we are here."

"Ivy! That's classified," the sniper says, not taking her eyes or her scope off the area around city hall.

"How exactly can it be classified from her when she taught you how to make me and knows more about magic than any of us put together?"

The other mage sighs and drops the rifle from her shoulder. A quick look down shows the reason: Paulson has left the podium and walked back into the building, the armored troops following him shortly after. "I'm not talking about that. It's just, no offense, but this is part of a classified PRT operation. We can't tell you anything without the Director's approval."

They need the Director's approval? That is simple enough to get. "Storm, find Director Paulson's number and give him a call, would you?"

A screen pops up in midair, the word 'Processing' flashing in red script a few times before changing to Paulson's name. A phone ringing comes from the display.

"You can use a Device like a phone?" the sniper asks, pulling her helmet off and ruffling her curly hair.

"Sure, just tell it to tap into your phone and copy the contact information. You can think of your Device as a combination magic wand, phone, and supercomputer. It's a lot more useful than you'd think."

"And I suppose it can also trace numbers that you should have no way of knowing," Paulson says in a dry voice. "I presume I'm speaking with Calamity Witch?"

Oops. You forgot to listen to know when he answered the call. "Yes, sir. That's me. I was up here on a rooftop listening to the press conference. Very nice speech."

"…Uh-huh…"

"And while I was here," you quickly continue as it is clear Paulson is in no mood for small talk, "I ran into one of your mages. She says she needs your permission to tell me what you guys are doing. I noticed you didn't mention them in the speech, and I'm curious."

"I suppose if she doesn't tell you, you'll just hack the PRT system next to get the information," he says with an audible sigh. Before you can deny that accusation, he is talking again. "Agent Morgan, you have permission to tell her about the operation. Broad strokes only, no actionable details."

"Understood. Thank you, sir."

The call ends, and the screen vanishes. "Cool. What's up, and is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not right now?" Morgan looks at Ivy, who merely shrugs back. "Our first objective is clearing out any villains who are capable of flight. Pressuring the gangs will be easier when we can guarantee that mages own the skies."

You stare at her. Flight is something you have found useful on multiple occasions, but you have never thought about its strategic importance if one group is the only one that can travel by air. "Oh."

Morgan nods. "After that, we can back up the rest of the PRT and serve as the point of the spear against the five big gangs that have taken root."

"Five? I thought there were only three main gangs in Philly. Two since MS-13 is no more."

Ivy growls lightly. "We wish. MS-13 apparently had a larger influence over the underworld than anyone really understood. With them gone, more capes poured in."

"Or maybe just came out of the woodwork," Morgan corrects. "A bunch of out-of-town villains were driven off by the Protectorate, but others slipped in. Now instead of three gangs, we have five, and they're getting more entrenched by the day.

"Al," she tells the watch on her wrist, "open the gang map."

An image appears, showing the crooked 'Y' of Philadelphia's borders and the various major roads running through them. "Two gangs are fairly stable. Winter Hill has long claimed the northeastern part of the city," she says, highlighting everything past Highway 73. You blink at the realization that Winterrose Academy, your own high school, is therefore just within Winter Hill's borders, and you want to slap yourself for never putting the pieces together. You thought it was so much better than Winslow, but you are still going to a gang-run school!

"To the northwest," Morgan continues, highlighting the left arm of the Y beyond North Broad street and Highway 1, "is Fairyland's turf. These two haven't really changed their borders even after getting rid of the Maras."

This part at least is something you know. One of the reasons the Privateers focused on Fairyland first was because nearly everyone lived in East Falls and Germantown, both of which are on the princesses' land.

Morgan pulls your attention to the crux of the Y between Fairyland and Winter Hill. "The bigger problem is the other three gangs. Unlike a lot of the out-of-towners everyone was trying to shove out, they were careful and quiet. We didn't know they were there until they were already settled in. The Wolfheads have claimed this region. You're from Brockton Bay originally, right? That's what's on your file." You nod. Considering Miss Militia is also from your hometown, it is no surprise she would include that bit of information. "Then you should be familiar with the Wolfheads' M.O. They're another neo-Nazi gang, either sympathizers of the Empire Eighty-Eight from your town or actual members who left when the Simurgh hit.

"The southwest is frankly a mess." The stem of the Y splits roughly in half. "There are two gangs duking it out in here, the Terrorhorses and the Vendettas. The Terrorhorses— yes, I know it's a stupid name," she says with a roll of her eyes at your stifled laughter. "I don't know who picked it or why or what they were smoking beforehand. Anyway, they would be a bigger threat if they weren't fighting so much with the Vendettas to their south. The Vendettas themselves aren't that high a priority for the PRT. Other than some petty theft and a few B&Es, they spend most of their time butting heads with the Terrorhorses."

"What about the rest of the city?" you ask, pointing to the one part of the map she hasn't mentioned. You have a suspicion considering that you are currently standing almost in the dead center of it, but you would rather hear it from her directly.

Your question earns a smile. "No gangs here. It's too close to the PRT base. Everywhere from North Central down to the Navy Yard is the safest part of the city. There are a few villains here and there, but nothing organized like further out."

And the PRT plans on reclaiming all airspace over the entire city despite only holding a sixth of the ground? You shake your head. That is an impressive goal. "I suppose what you're going to do when you control the air is an 'actionable detail', but if I can offer a suggestion?" She nods at you to go on. "Focus on the Wolfheads. You're right, I've seen what happens when Nazis take over. It isn't pretty. Get rid of them before they can dig in any deeper."

"We'll take that under advisement," Ivy says, her tone of voice and her slight smile signs that you are thinking in the same direction they have already.

"Then I'll leave you to it." You lift off the rooftop and hover a foot up in the air. Inspiration strikes you, and you conjure a white tile in your hand and toss it to Agent Morgan. "I'm not part of the PRT or the Protectorate, but if you guys decide you want another pair of hands, that's my contact info. Just give me a call."


Most of this chapter was originally going to be in Paulson's office, but my muse decided that if I had PRT mages who know what's up, I might as well use them. I said early on that Philly only had 30 capes in total, but now that it looks like you guys are assembling a bigger team, I figured you needed a more target-rich environment.

Next chapter will be out on Thursday. I work a late shift on Friday and have five days off after that, and if you do what I expect you to do, we're going to have a complicated 4-part vote to deal with. I'd rather not be working and unable to catch bad assumptions being passed off as fact.

 

[Silently Watches]

Realign 14.7

Wednesday, August 8

You step out of the teleporter alcove and cock your head at what awaits you. Maybe introducing Missy to Dragon and Tim was a bad thing. Every time she gets to them ahead of you, you walk into something weird.

Not that this is nearly as strange as when she was getting scanned for her new illusion bracelet, you will give them that much. Instead she is sitting in a chair, her 'evil calico' hairdo out for all the world to see, but all her focus is instead on the heavy leather glove she wears on her right hand. She looks like she is trying to snap her fingers, but why she wants to do it wearing that bulky thing you have no clue. "What are you doing?" you finally ask.

The sudden voice causes Missy to jump, and she shoots you a glare. "I'm trying to get this stupid thing to work. Nostromo made it sound simple, but I think he's messing with me."

"It is simple," the brightly feathered Guardian Beast says, not taking his eyes off the shiny prosthetic arm he has partially taken apart. "Little witch needs to feed mana into the glove and snap her fingers. That is all. It is as simple as I can make it."

That does little to dispel your confusion. "What is it supposed to do?"

"It builds up a magical 'charge' and then sparks it to the other side, completing the circuit. The color of a mage's magic is individual, and the spark will be the same color."

That part you knew. It is why so many of your spells are orange, because orange is the color of your own magic. So Missy wants to see what color her magic is? "Why?"

"Uh…" Missy flushes. "I know it's silly, but… color coordination?"

"Color coordination," you repeat numbly. "That's your primary concern?"

"All my stuff is green!" She waves her left arm at her combat prosthetic. "Green costume, green visor, green armor plating, even a green energy shield. That's fine, I like green, but if I'm completely redoing my look, I don't want to pick a random color scheme and then find out it clashes with the color of whatever funky shape pops up when I'm casting spells. Like with you." She points at you now. "The red and orange and black go fine together. But if you were using, I don't know, blue as your accent color, it'd be kind of weird."

You shake your head, though you cannot help but smile as you do so. You can take the girl out of the Wards, but you guess you can't erase all the PR training the Wards receive. "Alright then. I was going to scan you and see how strong your magic is, but I'll leave you to this instead—"

"Oh hell no!" Faster than you can blink, the glove is off and Missy is standing in front of you. "I said I'd wait a couple of days. It's been a couple of days. I've been a good girl, now I want my present!"

You laugh at her undisguised excitement. "It's not Christmas time, you know." Nevertheless you hold your staff up and shoot out blue lines to sweep over her. "This is going to tingle, and then you're going to pass out and make a fool of yourself. Just FYI."

"Hardy har har."

You ignore the screen Perfect Storm throws up as you already know Missy has magic, or she better have, anyway. The mutagenic serum Tim injected into her would have to be thrown away and forgotten if all it had done was give her a new hair color. It is Perfect Storm's summary that you are really waiting for.

"Linker Core detected." Good. "Estimated rank: AA. Nonstandard mana structure detected."

You keep waiting, but your Device has nothing more to see. That is odd. "What does that mean?" you finally ask. The last time you heard Perfect Storm describe someone's Linker Core like that, it was because Epoch had that Regenerator Rare Skill. If it says the same about Missy, it should mean that she has a Rare Skill as well, but why not say what it is?

"Unknown." Perfect Storm has only ever had this particular tone of confusion was when it tried to remember its history; the fact that once again it is not sure what is happening does not comfort you. "All Rare Skills have distinct mana structures. Does not match any records in my database."

"What does that mean for me?" asks Missy. "What is a Rare Skill, anyway?"

"It's a special genetic variation. It gives you unusual powers. Like me. My Flare Mana Conversion Affinity is a Rare Skill. We met someone who could have a small healing factor. Those and an Ice Mana Conversion Affinity are the only ones I know of, but Perfect Storm should know more." And it's unusual that it has not said anything else. You turn your attention to your staff. "Are you okay?"

"Crossmatching with known Rare Skill mana structures… Two similar Rare Skills found. 81% match to Summoner Rare Skill belonging to Infinite Enhancement template. 57% match to Toad Summoner Rare Skill. All other Rare Skills less than 30% match. Deduction: Missy descendent of summoner line unknown to Galean Empire."

"How?" You wave at the former Ward. "She didn't have magic before, so she couldn't have a Rare Skill. This has to be a result of the mutation."

"No it isn't." You look over to find Tim walking out of the Zoo, a brace wrapped around his left wrist and forearm, and two fairies along with Firefly following along behind him. "I opened the door just in time to hear the results. I know a little more about how the mutation works thanks to the experiments Missy helped me with. The first version I made could create an unusual Linker Core like that, which is how Zeus can shoot lightning, but it creates more dramatic changes. Version two is what I gave Missy. All it does is create the genes needed to form a Linker Core and clear out the metabolic byproducts. If there's anything weird about her magic, it's all her."

"Magic incapable people occasionally born to mages even on high-magic worlds. Random single nucleotide polymorphisms inactivate one of genes required to develop Linker Core. If serum reintroduces active gene, dormant gene-line could awaken.

"Mistress, call from Kayleigh."

"She has terrible timing," Missy mutters.

You grimace. Considering how desperately Missy wants a Device, you cannot predict how she will handle hearing that both of your other friends naturally have the capabilities she needed to mutate herself to get. Hopefully now that she has one of her own, she will not care. "Or maybe good timing. I scanned her and Laura on Friday. They both have magic and expressed interest in Devices of their own."

She turns to stare at you. "Your team's getting real big, real fast. You know that, right?"

"Trust me, I know. Go ahead and answer the call." Your Device gives you an audio screen. "I'm here, Kayleigh. What's up?"

"Hey! Laura and I were just talking, and I know you said you needed to talk to your people about things, but is there any chance you could swing by so we could talk about those machine wands or whatever they're called?"

Missy either can not or chooses not to stifle her snort of laughter. You reach out to flick her, but she has already twisted space so your arm cannot reach across the gap. Resorting to a glare instead, you tell her, "Just wait. Once you get a Device, you won't be able to do that anymore."

"Am I, uh, interrupting something?"

"No, you're fine. Just having a disagreement with Missy. If you want, instead of me coming to you, I could have Samantha bring you over here. As long as it's okay with Shipwright?"

Tim just sighs before pulling his goggles up from around his neck to sit on his face.

"He's good with it. I'll have Samantha pick you up."

A quick telepathic message to your Guardian Beast to tell her just that, and you hang up the phone. "While we're waiting for them, what happened to your arm?" you ask, nodding toward Tim's doctored limb.

"I was out with Dragon opening a few more of Grey Boy's time bubbles," he says, sitting on a stool. A moment later, a pristine white lab coat covers the tank top and cargo pants that make up his costume. "We released a bunch of civilians yesterday, and they were all panicked as we let them out. It turns out that even though mentally they have been aware all this time of what's going on outside, the chemical signals that make up the body's response to fear were frozen. As soon as time started moving forward for them, they got hit with the adrenaline appropriate for running away from the Slaughterhouse 9." He waves his arm. "The last guy I unfroze was a Brute who had been fighting them. He whacked me good before he fully realized what was going on."

Your eyebrows rise. "I thought you had a Barrier Jacket like me to protect you from any accidents like that."

"I have a Hazard Jacket. We both thought it was just a difference in name, but it turns out that mine is not as protective as yours." Tim shrugs. "I guess it's a good thing I don't go around punching villains in the face."

Light flashes right behind you, and you glance over your shoulder to see Samantha standing there with one hand on each of Laura and Kayleigh's shoulders. The latter girl's eyes land on Missy, and she squeals in delight. "Missy! Oh my god, where did you get your hair done?! It looks so cool!"

"That's a conversation you can have later," you say, catching the look of apprehension on Missy's face. No doubt she would rather not have to discuss the lingering effects of being under the Fallen's sway. "If you two are asking about Devices, I presume you've made up your minds and accept the conditions?" You look directly at Laura when you say that, making it clear to her just what conditions you mean.

You were serious when you told her you refuse to help out Winter Hill. You can only hope she makes the right decision.

Laura looks around, her left hand coming up to rub her right arm. Her gaze freezes on the decidedly inhuman Nostromo and Firefly, but then her eyes flick to Samantha for a moment. When she decides there is nothing else with which to distract herself, she finally looks back at you. "I haven't fully decided," she admits. "This is a big decision, and if I say yes I can't undo it. I want to know all my options in detail before I commit myself."

Kayleigh's expression is anxious at her best friend's words, but you give Laura a nod. That much you can appreciate. There has been more than one occasion where in hindsight you wished you were half as cautious as she is being right now. "Okay. We'll give you some details. First, introductions. The three of you already know each other. This is Shipwright." He gives the three girls a smile and a nod. "He's considered a Tinker by the Protectorate, but in actuality he's a mage and a magiengineer. He'll be the one building your Devices should you decide you want them. The man and woman with the feathers on their heads are his assistants, Nostromo and Firefly. They are Guardian Beasts, much like Samantha, which means they are… what's the most accurate description?" you ask Tim.

"Sapient organomagical constructs. Essentially we took animals and transformed them through magic into people. Or at least they're close enough to being people to make no never mind."

"Remember how we talked about fairies being real?" Kayleigh and Laura nod, and you hold out one hand. Cassiel immediately lands on it. "This is Cassiel. I'm sure you recognize her, Laura. Our other resident Unison Device who doesn't look quite so much like a fairy," you add with a grin, "is none other than the Tinker extraordinaire herself, Dragon."

"It's a pleasure to see both of you again," she says, smiling when Kayleigh and Laura both stare at her shellshocked. "We have met before, but I was using the name Diana Richter at the time."

"Your aunt…" Kayleigh mutters before her eyes jump to Cassiel. "Wait, so you're Cassie! I thought you were weird! Being a fairy kind of explains why."

You give Cassiel a gentle toss into the air, and she glides over to Laura and perches herself imperiously on the villain's shoulder. "And now that that's done, I'll give Shipwright the floor so he can explain things."

He takes a step forwards and clears his throat. "Right. Well, there are a lot of details I could go into, but I think we'd rapidly find ourselves out in the weeds and confused, so I'll be brief and you can ask whatever questions you have as they come to mind. Taylor has sent me the results of both your scans, and I heard the results of Missy's, so I have a little information to go on.

"Devices are the spellcasting tools that mages use. They're portable, transforming supercomputers that handle the bulk of the calculations, and they come in four different flavors…"

It takes about ten minutes to go into the benefits and drawbacks of Intelligent Devices versus their Armed and Boost cousins. Even you learned something from his talk, though the broad strokes remain the same. Intelligent Devices are best at long-range fighting, Armed Devices are best at close quarters fighting, and Boost Devices are best at casting supportive spells and leveraging the more unusual Rare Skills, summoning being one of them.

"…Anyway, those are the different types of advanced Devices," he says, collecting the three piles of floating screens into stacks and pushing them to one side. "There is one more type of Device called a Storage Device. They're simpler with much less sophisticated A.I.s, and as a result they can't do any of the really advanced and powerful stuff the other types can. They're jacks of all trades.

"For you two"—Tim points at Missy and Laura—"I would very strongly recommend you pick out an advanced Device. It'll be more work to build, but they'll serve you better in the long run. Kayleigh, I hate to say it, but you're in the exact opposite camp. Your Linker Core just isn't strong enough to handle the spells you would need one of the advanced Devices for, so for you a Storage Device would be the best choice because of its flexibility."

"There is another option you could consider, Kayleigh," you chime in. "It's something called a template. It's… odd, but the best description I can give you is that you'll have your Linker Core modified to slowly grow until you're as strong as the rest of us, and memories of spells get installed in your mind in the process that you gradually 'remember'. It gets rid of any native Rare Skills, so it's useless for Missy and Laura, but you would be able to get more use from it."

You are not sure whether you want her to take you up on the offer or not. It takes several weeks for you and Perfect Storm to recover from building a template, and you made the same offer to Standstill. You will only be able to make one before Standstill is finished with her rebranding process. She did say she would be open for a normal Device, so that is still in the cards, but then she would be in essentially the same boat Kayleigh is in now.

Kayleigh sucks on her bottom lip for a moment before shaking her head. "Thank you for the offer, but honestly? I don't need to be this incredibly powerful super-mage. The fact that I have magic at all is impressive in its own right, and being able to do a lot of smaller stuff doesn't exactly sound like a bad thing." She looks up at the stack of screens again and the staves and swords and armbands and other things they show. "Not to mention, none of these scream 'me'. It's kind of unfortunate that magic doesn't seem to work with guns very well. At least those are something I'm familiar with."

"Guns?" Firefly perks up at that, her eyes alight with interest. "Now you have my interest. Between me and my twin, I am the one with the greater interest in weapon-crafting. There were some ideas I have had for exotic ammunition based on Sir's historical records. They should work with modified firearms."

Kayleigh gets a similar look on her face, and before you can say a word the two gun nuts are walking away. Firefly is pulling up screen after screen, and if Kayleigh nods any faster, you are worried her head is going to fall off.

"I need to think about mine, but I should have an answer for you in a day or two. I doubt I'm going to be able to think about anything else." Missy slips the leather glove back on and rubs her fingers. "I think I can rule out an Intelligent Device, though. The idea of sitting back and being Blasty McBlaster never really appealed to me. No offense, Taylor. Even my particle cannon is more of a heavy midrange weapon."

Laura whips her head around to stare at Missy. "Wait. Particle cannon?!"

The grin on Missy's face is positively evil. "Don't worry about. Stick around with us, and I'm sure you'll see what I mean soon enough." She snaps her fingers, and a blood red spark flashes in her hand. "Hey, Taylor? Remember what I said a while back, about how this group needs a team name? Let me reiterate. We now have not six but ten mages and Beasts running around, plus Dragon and Cassiel.

"We're too big to be anonymous any longer."


Missy's character sheet updated (again).

And NOW you see why I got so irritated at the people who wanted to template Missy without waiting to see the result of her scan. I asked you guys way back to pick your favorite Rare Skill, and the whole reason I did that was so I knew which one would be the best to give Missy. It was my gift to you. AND why I thought the idea of IE!Standstill was funny, because it would mean both capes you poached from the Protectorate could summon massive pseudo-Endbringers to fight for them.

…*I* thought it was funny, anyway.

This is a bonus social event because you already built Kayleigh's Storage Device. Now it's time to work out Tim's next build vote. You have 6 slots to work with.

• Supervise the PRT's Gears (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
• Help out the Enforcers (max 6 slots, 1 tech point for every 3 slots)
• Pop Grey Boy's bubbles (max 4 slots, 3 bubbles per slot, 0 tech points)
• Build advanced Device for Missy (2 slots, 1 tech point)
• Build advanced Device for Laura (2 slots, 1 tech point)
• Build elemental bullet press and guns for Kayleigh (1 slot, 1 tech point OR 0.5 slot, 0 tech points)
• Resurgerize Missy and adapt her old arms (2 slots, 0 tech points)
• Analyze Sparky's cannon (3 slots, 1 tech point)
• Something else from the "Ideas for Tim to Build" threadmark
• Write-in (subject to my approval)

Let's not forget that Tim has a bunch of tech points to spend on new skills, too.

You're probably wondering why the bullet press needs to be voted on when the chapter mentions that specific build plan for Kayleigh. It's because while there were several people who showed interest in the idea, we never actually voted on it, so people who were opposed might have kept quiet or someone might have had a better idea in the meantime that they haven't mentioned. This is the time to decide for reals.

Build the bullet press, gunslinger Kayleigh is a go. Don't build the bullet press, we have a chargen vote and figure out a different plan for her.

Take 24 HOURS (maybe a little longer) to talk about what to do next. I have a feeling we'll need them.

 

[Silently Watches]

[] Bone of the Father


Realign 14.8

Thursday, August 9

"You know, people used to think the rise of computers would mean kids wouldn't learn how to write properly anymore," Lacey says as she passes through the living room. "I don't know whether they'd be happy or horrified if they saw you now."

You do your best to ignore her taunt, focusing instead on the paper you have to write for your English class. And you are writing it, even if it will not look like it when you are done. Three screens are positioned around you to help out. Two float, one showing the digitized version of the book you have to perform a literary analysis of and the other accessing the internet for various references. The last screen is sitting in your lap, and as you use a slim metal stylus to write words onto the screen, they are converted into type. The strange mix of analog and digital is entrancing in its own way, and you will almost be sad when it is finished and Perfect Storm uploads the document into the school's computer system so you can print it out and hand it in.

'Almost' being the key word here. Your mother might have been an English professor, but this is certainly not what you want to do with the rest of your life. At least with programming, there is a useful finished product at the end of a day's work.

Thankfully Samantha is not here to add on to the taunting, though you don't really know what she is doing other than that it involves Missy in some way or another. Your Guardian Beast was frustratingly tight-lipped on the subject. Asking Missy through text got you a smiling face emoji as the sole reply. Whatever it is, they want to keep it a secret for now.

"At least computer text is legible, unlike some people's handwriting—"

"Call from unknown individual," Lacey's Device says in its whispery voice, interrupting your comeback. "Not auto-dial number."

"You have Asclepius filtering out robo-calls?" you ask in surprise.

"Of course. Don't you?"

Well, when she puts it that way…

Lacey shakes her head at you. "Put it through."

"Hello? Is this Aeris?"

Her eyes turn to meet yours. You know she bought a burner phone as a justification so Aeris would have a dedicated number without giving out her personal cell – though why she didn't have it grab a random available number like Perfect Storm did, you haven't the foggiest – but you did not think she shared it with anyone except the hospital. Apparently she is thinking the same because she replies, "It is. Who are you, and how did you get this number?"

"It's Jujak." Lacey appears to think for a moment before her shoulders relax. "I got your number from the hospital. I need your help. Or I have somebody here who needs your help, anyway."

«What do you think?» Lacey asks.

«You mean if he's telling the truth or not?» You shrug. «There's no way to know without checking it out.»

You doubt your answer is as helpful as she wanted, but with few other options she sighs. "Where are you?"

Only a few seconds later, the two of your arrive at the street corner Jujak named. Both of you stand clad in your Barrier Jackets, and Lacey's drone hovers in the air around her. "Down here!" a voice calls out from a nearby alley.

Several Flare Shooters pop into existence next to you as a safety measure. You doubt many things can get through Lacey's barrier, much less yours, but there is no reason not to tread with caution. Caution that turns out to be entirely unnecessary when you walk down nearly out of sight of the street. A man in a faintly reflective scarlet bodysuit and a dull grey helmet kneels on the ground, his hand pressed hard against the stomach of a young black man who has slumped against the back corner of a dumpster. His head turns to you. "He needs healing now. I can feel his pulse getting weaker."

"Get out of the way." The cape you presume is Jujak backs away, and Lacey takes his place. Green light surrounds her hands and shines down on the red smear staining his torn shirt. "This looks like a gunshot wound."

"That's exactly what it is," Jujak says, leaning against the brick wall and clutching his chest. "I heard the gun go off and charged in. Found him like that surrounded by a bunch of gang bangers. Soon as I chased them off, I called you. Figured if I called an ambulance, they'd wind up taking him to the morgue instead of the hospital."

"They shot you too, didn't they?" you ask as the obvious reason why he is holding himself like this becomes clear.

Lacey whips her head around to stare at him, and he waves her off. "I'm fine. Sore, but that's it. He's the one you should worry about."

While Lacey is busy doing her job, you decide the investigative portion of this adventure should be yours. "Do you know what gang it was?" After Agent Morgan's explanation of the new gang boundaries, you think you know which group it is that claimed Nicetown and why they would attack a random black man, but why make assumptions when you have an eyewitness right here?

"Looked like the Wolfheads." You nod. That is about what you expected. The Empire used to do this exact thing, attacking minorities for no other reason than that they were there, so it doesn't surprise you that their offshoot does the same thing— "Least, I think it was. Both the Wolfheads and Fairyland treat this place like their turf, and I've heard one of the other new gangs, the Horses or something, was claiming the same thing. It's gotten bad the last month or so."

"I've done as much as I can," Lacey says, standing up and brushing off the knees of her robe-like outfit. "From what I can tell, the bullet is still inside. He'll need surgery to remove it, but his injury is no longer life-threatening. Asclepius, call EMS and have them come pick him up and take him to Temple."

"Yes, Madam."

"Alright, get over here. I have enough juice left to heal you."

Jujak waves his hands in front of him and hisses in pain at the movement. "Look, don't worry about it. I'm fine. See?" he says, pointing to a scuff on the right side of his chest. "Didn't even punch through my costume. I'm just bruised up and sore, but I'm sure it'll heal on its own."

Lacey looks over at you with raised eyebrows, her intention clear. You smile back and lift a hand, a relatively small bit of power running through you.

"Hey! Hey!" Jujak yells as he lifts off the ground. "What are you doing?!"

"Ignoring your machismo and fixing you up." This time Lacey's healing light falls on Jujak, and perhaps thirty seconds later she ends the spell. "There. All better. Was that so hard?"

"…No, I guess not."

She nods definitively, and you set him back down on the ground. "You need to be more careful," she continues, the firmness of her voice and lack of worry about lecturing a cape a sure sign she is in work mode. "You're not invincible. If a bullet can injure you, you need to make sure you don't get hit by a cape. That'll do a lot more damage."

"Yeah, I know," he says after a moment, his shoulders sagging. "But somebody's got to do it. The Protectorate doesn't come out this far, and Hellbeast… Let's just say there's a good reason he works alone. The only guy these people can count on to help them is me."

Lacey sighs in resignation. "I understand. Just be careful. If you're all these people have, you have to stick around for them."

"I don't plan on going out easy." He laughs quietly. "Besides, you can only die once. I intend for mine to be worth talking about."

You shake your head at his flippancy, but then you notice Lacey staring at Jujak. "You can only die once," she whispers. A fire appears in her eyes. "Paul?"

"Uh…"

Jujak or Paul or whoever he is looks like he is about to bolt, but another application of telekinesis fixes that problem. "You know him?" you ask Lacey.

"I think I do, and I have questions."

"Then let's get some answers." Jujak is heavier than you, so it takes a bit of magical oomph to toss him into the air and onto a nearby rooftop. Once he is up, you hold out your hand for Lacey to take and teleport both of you onto the same roof.

"I don't know when you learned how to do that, but I wish you hadn't," he wheezes when you arrive.

"And I wish you didn't have a death wish!" snaps Lacey. "How did you even get my work number, anyway?"

"Work number?" Jujak's voice is confused, and he pushes himself up onto his feet. "I just called your cell number. You have a different one for work?"

"Of course I—" She stops and rubs her forehead. "They both redirect to Ascii. Ascii, from now on could you please tell me which number someone's calling me at?"

"Yes, Madam. Apologies."

"Can I get some context, please?"

They both look at you as you stand there with your arms crossed and one foot tapping. If you do not get some answers quick, you will be sorely tempted to throw some fire around until somebody starts talking.

Lacey glares at Jujak. He in turn mutters something likely uncomplimentary and fiddles with the back of his head. The helmet splits into several connected plates, and he pulls it off to reveal an Asiatic face and a sheepish expression.

«Storm, I'm going to need more information than these two are willing to give.» Your eyes narrow. «Especially since he looks familiar but I can't place him.»

«Referencing database… Identity Paul Huynh. Former dockworker in Brockton Bay. Member of Privateers.»

That explains why you recognize his face, and with that information another piece clicks into place. "You were the guy who was arguing with Tim at the Fourth of July party."

He rubs the back of his head. "Yeah. He was trying to talk me out of doing this, and I was trying to talk him into making just one thing for me."

What he must have wanted was obvious. "A weapon."

"What? No. This." He motions to his shiny costume that you now realize must be made from Tim's special metalweave fabric. "All I wanted was something that looks appropriately cape-ish and provides some protection in case I got stabbed or shot. You know, like happened tonight."

"You're a cape now?" Knowing what kinds of horrors people have to go through to Trigger, you cannot help but feel sympathy for him. You know he was not a cape when the Privateers broke up, which means something awful must have happened after.

"Um…" He looks away from you. "I won't go and claim I'm a parahuman or anything."

Not a parahuman? You know he is not a mage; you scanned all the Privateers, and only Lacey and Tim came up positive. So if it he isn't a mage and isn't a parahuman… What is he?

"You're an idiot." Lacey looks like she is one wrong word from punching Paul's lights out, and putting someone who abhors fighting as much as she does in that state takes some effort. "What the hell were you thinking, dressing up like a cape and running around? You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I'm not going to get myself killed. At least, that's not the plan." He raises his hands as though to make some gesture to defend his action, then he just drops them again. "I'm not going after capes and gang members. I think we all learned that lesson a while ago. That's just a recipe for trouble. Thing is, there are plenty of bad people who aren't capes. They can't flick my head off or burn me with their minds. They're regular people just like me. They see a cape, or someone they think is a cape, and they'll run away. That means whoever they were hassling can go home without getting beaten to a pulp or shot or stabbed. Or at least will have someone around to call 911." He shrugs. "I did some thinking after the Privateers went kablooie. Somewhere between Brockton Bay and here, we forgot what we were doing and why. The goal wasn't to crush the gangs beneath our feet. It was to protect regular people who couldn't protect themselves.

"Just because I'm by myself instead of part of a group doesn't mean I can't do something to help, even if it's just a little thing like this."

The angry expression on Lacey's face fades as Paul keeps talking, and when he finishes she shakes her head. You can tell she does not have the heart to argue with him about why he is doing what he's doing, even though she still disagrees with the what. "Who gave you this idea to dress up like a cape, anyway?"

He flushes and winces. "Animal Planet?" he answers in a whisper.

"Wha?" Normally you would be more articulate, but that answer makes absolutely zero sense.

"It was late! I was flipping through channels! There was nothing good on, so I figured hey, I'll just watch some animals run around for a while before going to bed. This British guy was the narrator, and he started talking about something called biological mimicry. It's where animals that aren't dangerous have the same colors or shapes as other animals that are, or patterns that make them look bigger and scarier than they really are. That got me thinking about how everyone sees a costume and immediately thinks cape even though there's no way to know for sure unless they use their power, and anybody with brains is going to skedaddle way before that happens. If I look the part, nobody questions it."

"Anybody with brains, huh?" Whatever anger he managed to sooth away in Lacey's mind comes roaring back full force, and you just step back out of the line of fire.

You have to admit, though, this is far more entertaining than Ethan Frome.


Since this chapter involves Lacey, a question. She knows the Guardian Beast ritual, and she doesn't have a template (anymore) and thus will never be able to support twin Beasts. Do you want her to create a Guardian Beast sometime in the next week?

[ ] Yes
-[ ] Create a randomly generated Guardian Beast (no control, bonus skills)
-[ ] Design a Guardian Beast (choose animal/gender/age/class, no bonus)
[ ] No, do not create a Guardian Beast now

 

[Silently Watches]

[] Burn the Sinners
[] Social with Legend about Standstill's situation.


Realign 14.9

Friday, August 10

For someone who is charge of the entire Protectorate, Legend is surprisingly easy to get an appointment to see. You sent him an email on Wednesday after talking to the girls about their Device options, and early the next morning you had an appointment for this afternoon. Even for an independent with as much power as you have, and you say that with as much humility as you can, that seems like a particularly fast turnaround.

Still, you won't say no if it gets you the information you crave all the faster.

The glass 'outer door' that gives fliers like you access to Legend's 67th floor office slides open when you knock on it, and you give the masked receptionist a nod. "Calamity Witch here for a 4:40 appointment."

"Legend's been expecting you, dear," the woman says, giving you a smile. "Go right on in."

The wooden door is unlocked, and Legend looks up from a stack of papers sitting on his desk. "Good to see you again, Calamity Witch," he says as he collects the paperwork and slides it inside a plain manila folder. "What revelation do you have for me today that will force me to completely reevaluate everything I know about the world?"

He launches that barb with a bright smile, but your own is comparatively anemic. The topic on your mind is not one that lends itself to jokes. "I wish it were just something like that." You settle yourself in one of the chairs in front of his desk, and you watch the smile on his own face slide off to be replaced with a frown. "I'll get straight to the point. I need everything the Protectorate has on the Fallen. Who their members are, where their base is, what powers are available to them. Everything."

The frown grows deeper. "May I ask why you need that information?"

What you are about to say sounds silly in your own mind, but it is the absolute best description for what you want to do. "Because I have righteous vengeance that I need to deliver to them personally."

"Does this have something to do with what happened in Tampa?" Legend laces his fingers together in front of him as you gape. You made no mention at all that you were Calamity Witch. How would he know that? "Alexandria figured it out. There can only be so many capes who, when asked for their name, would call themselves Samantha."

…Blasted raccoon.

"Yes, it does," you answer. "Samantha and I were the ones who took them down, but we both know that wasn't all of them. If they were willing to attack a random group of people just trying to enjoy themselves on vacation, there is no telling who they are going to hurt or kill next. The only thing I can say with certainty is that they will."

The expressiveness of his frown surprises you. Before it was worried and mildly disapproving. Now it just looks sad. "I can't say I think you're wrong." At least he is willing to give you that. "I don't know that they would be ready to launch any immediate retaliation, however. From the information we have, they dedicated roughly half their total capes to that assault, and you sent most of them to the morgue and captured one of their stronger Masters. They have had the teeth taken out of them for the near future."

"The near future doesn't mean forever. Not even close." Why is he so resistant to the idea of you fighting the Fallen? It is almost like he wants them to be able to stick around torturing people!

Or, you consider more charitably, perhaps it has nothing to do with what the Fallen deserve at all. After all, Dragon mentioned that nearly an entire branch of the Protectorate was lost to the Fallen. Maybe Legend is trying to talk you out of this because he is thinking of all the heroes who died or were enslaved and does not want the same thing to happen to you.

It is certainly the more palatable option.

You sigh and lean back into the chair. "I don't know why they were so bold in Florida. I don't. But they fact that they were? That doesn't give me much confidence that they'll hole up and leave everybody else alone." Looking him square in the eye, you add, "I heard what they did to the Austin branch. If they were willing to do it once, there's nothing stopping them from trying it again. Two of their Masters are dead. I have no idea how many more they have waiting in the wings, and I don't think you want to find out either.

"You said they lost half their numbers. That means now is the best time we could possibly have in which to strike. If we wait, we are just giving them time to regroup and bring their numbers back up."

"And when you go in guns blazing and wind up getting brainwashed into fighting for their side?" Legend asks with a raised eyebrow.

This question brings a smile to your lips, and you tap the red orb of Perfect Storm's staff form. "One of the advantages of being a mage. Thanks to my Device, I enjoy total immunity to mind control. Not even the Simurgh could Master me, and I highly doubt some cheesy ripoffs can do it either."

He looks from you to his phone and back. "Give me a few minutes. There are a couple of people I want to talk to before I agree to this."

Before he agrees to this. Not before he makes his mind up. You give him a small smile as you stand. "Of course. I'll just be outside."

Perhaps five minutes pass while you sit in the chair in the reception room twiddling your thumbs before the door opens again. You are not sure what to make of the frown on his face, but you follow along when he waves for you to come back in. "I have Alexandria on the line still," he tells you when he reclaims his seat behind the desk. "She said she wanted to be part of this discussion."

"I hope you don't mind," the world's most powerful Brute says from the phone.

"As long as you aren't also trying to talk me out of this like Legend was."

"You don't have to worry about that. I don't plan on talking you out of it. If anything, I want to wish you better luck than we had when we tried doing this."

You look back at Legend. "What? You've tried to take out the Fallen before?" He nods. "Why have I never heard about that? Why are they still around, for that matter?"

A snort comes from the phone. "You really think we'd publicize that the Fallen made the entire Triumvirate look like fools? That's cute."

"It was… four years ago, I think?" Legend looks at the calendar pinned to the wall and mutters under his breath for a moment. "About then, anyway. Endbringer cultists were not something we really wanted to allow run around, but there always seemed to be something else that was a more pressing issue. We finally had a minute to breathe and decided to deal with them, just the three of us. Against most villains, even most villain groups, that would be more than enough."

"I'm assuming from the fact they're still around that it didn't work out how you planned," you point out.

Alexandria's voice is as dry as the desert when she replies, "Very astute. We arrived in Kansas City ready to rain down hell. All we found was an empty compound.

"The Simurgh family became the biggest thorn in our side, and one we can do little about. They have several precognitive capes within their ranks, as you found out with Oriax." Even after having been the subject before of Alexandria's ability to know things she should have no way of knowing, it still feels strange to have your secrets picked apart like this. "That allows them to know when people are coming after them, and they simply pack up and move elsewhere."

"We tried to dedicate other types of Thinkers to finding where all their bases were so they wouldn't have anywhere to run, but then we ran into another issue. The leader of the Simurgh family is a woman called Balam. Any Thinker who tried to predict them or gather information about them could see only her eyes, and thereafter she could see through theirs." Legend shakes his head. "We lost several good capes because of that, both the Thinkers who became her unwilling spies and other heroes who Balam learned about."

"From what you're saying, we need a precog of our own, or at the minimum a Thinker who's immune to Masters, and someone who could search for their compound without being compromised. Is that about right?" Legend nods, and you smile.

Sounds like a job for Cassiel and Dragon, then.

«Mistress, communication from Miss Militia.»

You struggle but in the end succeed in keeping your sigh from leaking out. Miss Militia really needs to work on her sense of timing. This is too important a conversation to walk out of, especially when you are sure you know why she is calling you. «Record a voicemail and forward it to Missy. I don't have time to get in the middle of their spat.»

"I know one other thing about Balam," Alexandria says, pulling both your and Legend's attention toward the phone. "She is not a natural cape. She was a customer of Cauldron's."

Legends eyes flick to you and back to the phone. Quick, but not quick enough, and the implications leave you curious. Is Legend another Cauldron cape like Alexandria? If he is, and she is, does that mean that Eidolon and Hero, the other founding members of the Protectorate, are as well?

When she told you about Cauldron in the first place, Alexandria said all they required of her was to be a hero. If the original Protectorate were all their customers, it certainly supports her version of events. Still gets you no closer to the truth of why Cauldron was selling out to both sides, though.

"Her story is rather sad, though not enough to justify her actions since. Her son, the cape now known as Valefor, did not Trigger to gain his powers. He was actually born with them." She pauses to give you time to let that sink in, for which you are thankful. Your immediate reaction is absolutely disbelief that this could actually happen. "Such a thing is… incredibly rare," she continues. "I know of only two other instances besides Valefor's. The first, a Brute, was drowned by his parents not an hour after birth when his infantile grasping broke his mother's hand. They believed he was not human but a demon and thus had to be sent back to Hell. The other was a flier. She managed to escape her crib and apparently flew into a nearby forest. Her body was never found, but her blood-stained clothes indicated she had been eaten by some manner of predator.

"Regardless, Balam, then known as Christine Applegate, sought any assistance she could find to help her deal with her baby who could already bend her will to his whims. Cauldron found her and offered her a deal: five favors, to be repaid at some time in the future, and in exchange they would give her a power that would protect her from Masters."

If that was what their vial did, that would have been wonderful. It wasn't. "Instead they turned her into a more powerful Master."

"They did. Cauldron may have kept more information about her in their base. I do not know one way or another, but I cannot rule it out."

You are getting used to this politics game, you think, or else Alexandria is being very obvious about what she wants. "And if I'm there anyway, you'd like for me to search for more vials, I presume?"

"I wouldn't say no if you did." She does not sound at all put out about being caught. If anything, she sounds amused. "Besides, I'm not forcing you to trade vials for information. All I'd like is that if you do go looking for this information, bring myself or Legend along. I'm rather interested in just what sorts of resources we could find if we had your ability to cross dimensions on demand."

"I'll think about it." Because you highly doubt she would stop at access to one world. Not when she was part of a grand conspiracy to protect the multiverse from Scion. Her expectations are undoubtedly higher than that. Another thought crosses your mind, and you look between Legend and the phone. "Do the Fallen have Kill Orders on them? I would focus on the Simurgh family first, and— I don't like killing," you admit, "and I don't want to do it, but honestly I think they're too dangerous to be left alive."

"They do not strictly speaking have Kill Orders," Legend says, but he raises his hand when your expression falls. "That is due in part to the Slaughterhouse Nine showing us how badly that can go. After a judge in Detroit signed off on a blanket Kill Order on any current or future member of the Nine, they immediately went there even though they had just been driven out of Chicago. The judge and his entire family were found strung up like puppets as their opening act." He shakes his head. "To make matters worse, the next time they were seen they had many more capes accompanying them than had ever been seen before. Jack Slash called them 'auditions', and it was they who performed most of the cruelties perpetuated. Every 'round', one of them was killed until the survivor was brought into the fold as a formal new member."

"That's horrendous," you find yourself saying, although you do not know if that word would do it justice. "And nonsensical. If these capes knew they would get a Kill Order on them, why the hell would they want to join up with the Nine?"

"Because people are stupid."

Legend winces and nods at Alexandria's comment. "Pretty much. Anyway, that taught us our lesson about blanket Kill Orders, and the Fallen are far larger than the Nine ever were. Just because there aren't official Kill Orders doesn't mean anyone would bat an eye if you killed the lot of them, and there are unofficial bounties for some specific capes and lesser ones for unspecified capes. They are not as large as Kill Order bounties because we cannot legally accept public donations, but they are there. In fact," he says after a moment, "I expect the bounties for the Fallen you killed have already been transferred to the Tampa office if Samantha or 'Cinder' wishes to claim them."

The news that there is money waiting for you is welcome, but that is not the part that sticks in your mind. No one would bat an eye? The cape you met in Tampa who looked down on you for killing them would certainly disagree with that. Still, that is an argument you would prefer not to get into right now. So long as the higher ups are okay with it, you should be good. "I guess that makes things easier. Take out the actual Fallen and do my best to capture their victims so they can be de-Mastered."

You know you made a misstep somewhere when Legend winces. "That… won't end well."

"We have, on a few occasions, been able to capture capes and even non-capes the Fallen have taken over," Alexandria says. "The first few we tried to isolate and contain, thinking the effect would possibly fade with distance and time. It happens sometimes with Master powers.

"They without exception attempted escape and killed themselves when it proved impossible."

You find your eyes flicking to Legend, hoping he would disagree. All he does is close his eyes and nod.

"After that, we tried actively deprogramming them. Perhaps if we did that, we could undermine the effects before the kill command came down. This time not only did we lose the victims to suicide, they killed the therapists and capes nearby in their rampage.

"Thinkers analyzed the footage we were able to collect from all of this going wrong and came to the same conclusion everyone feared. Much like Heartbreaker, the majority of the Master powers available to the Fallen are permanent. Once enslaved, there is no way to undo it."

Those words, delivered in Alexandria's cold, clinical voice, chill you to the core. All the people you and Laura worked to save. They are all dead? Forced to commit suicide on the Fallen's underlying orders?

"In the years since, we have refined our understanding of how these powers work. It does seem to take either some amount of time or repeated exposure to solidify control over the victims like this, but the exact requirement is unclear other than that it is relatively minimal. If someone can get to the Simurgh family's victims within a couple of hours, such as you did in Tampa, they can be saved. Otherwise…"

"Wanting to save innocent victims is a noble sentiment," Legend tells you, "but in this case it just isn't possible. If you attack the Fallen in their own territory and find people they have brainwashed, kill them quickly. It is the only mercy any of us have left to offer."

That was very much not the news you wanted to hear. This sounds like something you need to clarify with Cassiel considering she spent time acting as Balam's patron devil, but if she concurs with the Protectorate's findings, you may not have anything approaching an acceptable choice. "I'd like that list you were talking about, not to mention all the powers of the capes you know about," you say with a sigh.

"I can email the information or put it on a thumb drive. It's a little much to print out."

"With Mistress's permission, can download directly from servers," Perfect Storm volunteers.

Legend looks at you, and you can only shrug and force your mind off the previous topic of discussion. "I won't tell him to download the information if you don't want me to, but it would be more convenient than trying to put it all on a flash drive. I'd just wind up putting it all in his databanks anyway."

He sighs, long and hard. "Alright. Go ahead and download it."

"Accessing network… Bypassing firewall… Searching… Data found. Downloading. Estimated time to completion: 60 seconds."

"That must be a big file," you say when it looks like Legend does not know how to respond to that. "Normally he doesn't take that long to download stuff."

"Somehow, that is less than encouraging."

"On that note, I need to get back to work. A pleasure as always, Calamity Witch. Good hunting."

The phone hangs up, and you are left sitting somewhat awkwardly with Legend. You do not want to leave just yet, not when Perfect Storm is still working. You do not want to talk about the Fallen any more until you have a chance to read through the information. What else is there to talk about?

"How's Standstill doing?" you finally ask.

If things are going to be awkward, you may as well double down on it.

"She's doing okay," Legend answers, looking at you strangely. "Or are you asking about something more than just a generic answer?"

You shrug. This is an easy answer. "I swung by to chat with her last week. She told me about what happened in SoHo and the aftermath. I know I only have her side of the story, but the idea that she saved everyone in her team and is being treated like a leper is… just…"

"Unconscionable." You look up to find Legend leaning back in his chair and glaring at nothing. "Trust me. I know. I talked with the other branch leaders, but after dealing with the Adepts, no one would be particularly accepting of the existence of magic. We both know some of them really did have magic, but no one else does. I hoped that telling them I've known about her anti-Master power for a while would make things better, but it didn't." He sighs. "I don't know what to do with her. Ever since coming back from the Adepts, she hasn't been able to reintegrate. It isn't her fault, it isn't anybody's fault, but that doesn't change the fact that there just aren't a lot of options."

"She told me she would have to rebrand." He nods, and you hesitate for a moment. Do you want to tell him about the offer you made her? On the one hand, tempting heroes to leave the Protectorate probably would not go over well with the leader of the Protectorate; on the other, the only reason you offered is to help her. "Since she has magic, if I gave her a Device, she would get a completely different set of powers. I told her that."

"Just switch her completely to magic?" You nod, and rather than upset he actually looks thoughtful. "That would solve the problem of someone recognizing her from how she fights. I was thinking about sending her to Chicago to work under Myrddin so she could be ready to start a new branch of mages for the PRT, but if you change her powers that substantially it might be better for her to go to Philadelphia. She works with the mages there, both you and the PRT, and then she can serve as a trainer for the next branch that expands into this area."

"Chevalier would love that," you mutter sarcastically.

"Oh? Is there an issue I need to know about?"

You are kind of surprised Legend doesn't already know, but you don't know how much branch leaders have to report to Legend in the first place. This might be something that is expected to be taken care of at the local level. Honesty seems to be working so far, so you admit, "I… kind of burned my bridges with him and the rest of the Protectorate. Or I will once they learn the full story. I'm friends with one of their Wards, and she got tired of how they were running things and jumped ship to join up with me since she also has magic." That she got magic only after she decided to leave is something you can and should leave out. For the moment, anyway.

Legend nods. "I can understand why he would be upset with that. Standstill was one of my Wards, and I know I was furious when I learned she joined the Adepts. We never really get over seeing Wards as people we need to protect from the world, even when they're old enough to make their own decisions."

…There is no way he will ever learn Missy is only thirteen.

"Anyway," you continue after lightly clearing your throat, "after that, I think anyone claiming magic powers is going to irritate him. And if she's seen with me? It probably won't be any better for her than it is here." You laugh. "I'd suggest she just come work with us, but I really don't want a reputation for poaching from the Protectorate."

"We tend to frown on that for some reason," he says in a dry voice, earning another laugh from you. His stern expression cracks not a second later to let a smile show. "That is unfortunate, though. Having her around would work in everybody's favor. I don't mind her working with you more closely, but she would be torn between two groups—"

He cuts himself off, and you narrow your eyes at his pensive face. "You're planning something, aren't you?"

"Perhaps. I'm trying to decide whether it will make things better or worse between you and Chevalier."

"Honestly, I don't know if you can make it worse. He doesn't like what I've done, and I'm not all that fond of several of his decisions, either." Such as leaking your age to the Protectorate at large. You are still a little bitter about that.

"Hm. Hm, hm, hm," he hums to himself. "Then this might work out. It sounds to me like you need an intermediary, someone who is familiar with your group and the Protectorate and the PRT and can work with all three as the situation calls for."

"This doesn't sound like a hypothetical," you tell him.

"It's not." He sits straight in his chair. "It should come as no surprise, but we don't like it when other hero groups find themselves at odds with the Protectorate. We should be working together, not fighting each other. It has happened before, though, and when reconciliation is not possible, at least not in the near term, we've found it useful sometimes to send another member of the Protectorate from an entirely different branch as a liaison. This liaison works with the independent group, learning how they work and what their priorities are, and that familiarity with both sides helps to get everyone on the same page. More often than not, we wind up working more closely together afterwards than before the initial split, and I would love it if every hero group that was willing had a Protectorate member in their ranks for that very reason, but we don't have enough capes to do that." He raises an eyebrow at you. "Particular when somebody's stealing away all our up and coming talent."

"One. I've stolen one Ward, and people think I'm making it a habit."

He shakes his head with a laugh. "I'd have to bring this up with Standstill, of course. It is technically an unofficial position, which means she would not be getting paid for this work"—Oh. That will be a bit of a problem considering you have never focused on earning money from your escapades.—"and there are a number of other details that we would have to work out. Still, if you're agreeable to it, I can mention it to her and see what she thinks.

"I do have to warn you, though, that she would be under some restrictions." He raises one finger. "She will not take part in any illegal activities, and if she sees you doing so, she is obligated to report them to the PRT and the Protectorate." That won't be a problem, so you nod and watch him raise a second finger. "Being a liaison, she will not take your side if you get in an argument with Chevalier. She won't take his side, either. Her job would be to mediate things and try to reach some kind of reconciliation."

"Believe it or not, I don't want to get in fights with you guys. I'd love it if we could all get along. I told Chevalier that as well. But I'm an independent, and that means I refuse to lick anyone's boot or follow rules that hurt somebody I care about just because they're the rules."

"And I'm not asking you to do so, nor will I." You nod again, and he raises a third finger. "Last but not least, this is not intended to be a permanent position. She is still a member of the Protectorate, and depending on what happens in the future, she could well be recalled."

"Like to expand the mage program." This time he is the one who nods. "I don't think any of those rules would be deal-breakers," you say after a moment's thought, "but I can think of a couple of prospective team members who might not want the Protectorate to know their civilian identities." Laura in particular would have an issue with that, provided she decides to join in the first place. She claimed after the discussion with Tim that she needed to weigh her options, but she was definitely looking unsure. "That's my one restriction. Whatever she learns about our civilian identities stays with her. I don't want it going into the Protectorate's database the way my age did. That was trust extended that came back to bite me in the behind. If it happens again, I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether the Protectorate is an organization I consider a friend or foe, and I know I won't be the only one with those same doubts."

"That," he says with a serious tone, "is something I can guarantee you will not need to worry about."

"Alright. If Standstill is okay with it, I'm okay with it."


This was supposed to be two different chapters, I know, but when two activities both involve Legend, somebody whose time Taylor doesn't want to waste…

Another template can now be created and given out. You have TWO templates to give out before we hit pause. There will also be two interludes following this chapter, one for Laura and one for Missy and Miss Militia, but after that we start a new week with new activities!

Like before, choose TWO main activities...

• Final Frontier – The Triumvirate Dynamic Duo is interested in what resources Earth Bet would have access to with convenient interdimensional transport. Explore Cauldron's base again, hunting for vials and information about the Fallen.
• Bone of the Father, part 2 – Maybe it's just because it's one you grew up hearing about, but the idea of an Empire offshoot running around Philly fills you with dread. Plus the fact that the real Empire was turned into Ziz-bombs. Check their territory for any known Empire capes calling the shots.
• Daddy's Little Girl – It's been a while since you last checked on your dad. It hurts to see him and know that he doesn't and probably never will recognize you, but you should probably stomach the hurt and go to his nursing home.
• Burn the Sinners, part 2 – You have the information about the Fallen you wanted, specifically about the Simurgh family. Track them down. Burn them out. Leave no survivors.

...and TWO social activities.

• Participate in Final Frontier as a social activity instead of a main activity.
• Build a template for somebody. Specify which character and which template.
• Hang out with another character(s). This is by definition a non-combat activity.
• Go on patrol. You can bring 1-3 other characters with you if you want.
• Make yourself available to help Operation Pentagram.
• Explore somewhere on Earth Bet. A location must be included. You may bring 1-3 other characters with you.
• Explore another world. If you do not select a world where Taylor has been or already knows about, one will be selected randomly. You may bring 1-3 other characters with you.
• Train, either in the real world or in Perfect Storm's simulator. SPECIFY which spell or skill to work on.
• Write-in (subject to my approval)

Take another 24 HOURS to talk things out.