Memoirs of a Human Flashlight Thread 2: Now with more Arguments! [Exalted/Worm]

[Golden Lark]

Scraped from here.

(Credit to Wildbow for Worm, its characters, etc. Credit to White Wolf/Onyx Path for Exalted)


And we're back again. The first thread was a bit of a mess. New ground rules:

1. No arguing about things irrelevant to the story. Go nuts about the setting, the crossover mechanics, the plot, the characters, the costume, my grammar; that's all fine. Going nuts about McDonald's Coffee or wasting two pages on a totally unrelated game? Less so.

Other standard rules of engagement: No namecalling and no empty shitposting. Think a chaper/snippet/other poster's comment was garbage? That's fine. Want to say it? Perfectly acceptable. However, I only ask that you justify it. This is more so that people don't shift from simply calling each other idiots to calling each other's posts idiotic. It's semantics, but hopefully it helps.

[WARNING WARNING] I have been politely asked to remind readers that Taylor Hebert is 15 years old, and that one should think on the cultural and legal implications of this fact before driving discussions in certain directions. I post this per the request. [WARNING WARNING]

Okay, index and new snippet. As always, thanks for reading.

Index:

Breath 1.1
Breath 1.2
Breath 1.3
Breath 1.4
Breath 1.5
Breath 1.6
Breath 1.7

Excellence 2.1.1
Excellence 2.1.2
Excellence 2.2.1
Excellence 2.2.2
Excellence 2.2.3
Excellence 2.2.4
Excellence 2.3.1

[*******Begin thread 2*******]

Excellence 2.3.2 (Below)
Excellence 2.3.3
Excellence 2.3.4
Excellence 2.3.5
Intermission: Daniel
Essence 3.1.1
Essence 3.1.2
Essence 3.1.3
Essence 3.1.4
Essence 3.2.1


[*******]

One lightning fast spread of rumor later and the rest of the present Wards were lounging in the break room munching on mini sandwiches. Noises of appreciation washed over the room as everyone devoured their share. I sat back on one of the couches after having my fill, balancing my bewilderment with my new skill with my consternation at the powers-that-be.

After a minute or two passed and everyone was more or less done eating, I threw my cards on the table.

"So, what are the chances that me not being told anything about that engagement was a set up for a big test?"

Chatter ceased and my peers all exchanged glances at each other. Everyone looked to Dennis as the first one to respond- Carlos wasn't in the room. Dennis shrugged, not even making a joke. Missy spoke up first.

"It sounds crazy, you know? But we all have stories of nonsensical orders or inaccurate intel. I think it was a little creepy they did this to you on your first outing, but then again I'd keep in mind that no one at all accounted for the pocket dimension. I think if things had been ideal you would have encountered them on stage then been overrun by PRT agents from all sides the moment they appeared. Glory Girl and a total newbie would be a tempting enough force to attempt to attack, you know? Assuming you knew you could handle Glory Girl."

Dennis cut in next.

"Yeah, those two jokers can be pretty mean, but usually they don't go full lethal or even crippling versus heroes. They're assholes but they play the game. Leet doesn't make horrifically lethal death rays to vaporize us, we don't freeze him in time, space-warp cinder blocks around his ankles, and toss him into the bay. And that's just Wards-tier potential. Miss Militia . . . she has to go nonlethal when her power is a universal deadly weapon. She wants someone dead, they die. We're under heavy pressure to play nice, but everyone knows we're human and we can snap."

I was nodding my head with my eyes closed when Chris started mumbling, but his voice gained volume as he went on to become clearly audible.

"-about that, I really am, oh man. Ah, anyway, my orders were to film what went on during your debut fight, and to disable Leet's cameras. I was also to report on the ideal time for everyone to storm in. The cameras were autoprogrammed to film all capes, but when the pocket dimension opened I was cut off from input. That was definitely not accounted for."

After he finished, I stood up.

"Ah, Taylor," Missy said.

"Hmm?"

"I don't know if you caught it, but Piggot was kind of pissed off after the op before the briefing. Then she got a text, ducked into a conference room, and came out ten minutes later all stonefaced," said Missy.

I didn't have time to comment before Dennis interjected again.

"Yeah, Piggy's 'need to know' line was kind of out of character, even for her. You might not have been able to tell but she didn't look too happy saying it."

I, in fact, had been focused on my power at the time. When she said the words, I became aware that she was saying it to get a particular reaction. I then had mentally spun off into conspiracy theories and suspicions of incompetence. I hadn't considered her personal emotional context.

Mind whirling, I remembered to address my new team one last time before I retreated to my room.

"Thanks, guys. I'll try to not dwell on it too much."

Before anything else could be said I was gone.

[***]

And then I was in my room, dwelling on it too much. The internet was serving as a mediocre resource; even after I casually noticed the censorship filters in place, then proxied outside the country to continue browsing in peace. A few minutes later and I was seeing the Director's PRT service record.

Three minutes of reading later and I had more insight into her personality than I ever wanted. Only survivor of the famous failed raid on Nilbog, before they raised the wall around him. All but crippled from injuries, never to work in the field again.

There wasn't much commentary about her personality online because she was more of an internal face to the PRT. From what I understood of the talk of the Wards, she was a no-nonsense leader who didn't give an inch to anybody. Her way or the highway. I began to understand how such a person could have potentially squeezed constructive use out of anyone- she would just disregard their own feelings in any given matter.

Still, what did she have to gain by antagonizing me? I considered a dozen alternate ways she could have handled the debriefing. I considered my likely reactions in each.

I still couldn't shake off the feeling that this is exactly what they wanted me to do. Thinker speed chess? I'm getting paranoid.

As I mused I dug a tunnel through another couple asian VPNs, then a TOR node, then another proxy. I was only casually familiar with these things before I had my powers, but I was using them like a veteran. As a final step I found someone's home router with compromised firmware, hijacked the malware on it, and proceeded to start loading a handful of tools to its internal flash. I also referenced the existing malware's database of wherelese it had tried to spread, and grabbed hold of a few more compromised home routers around the world as well.

I then burrowed through another series of proxies, VPNs, and TOR nodes from that router. Once I was sure I would be able to notice any backtracing before they reached the first compromised router, I started some common script-kiddie class portscans and tests for various exploitable services exposed to the internet.

As I expected the vast majority of my paltry assault vanished as if falling into a black hole- as a properly firewalled network should respond. To my complete lack of surprise a few successes got through, revealing poorly configured Apache Tomcat implementations and other services ripe for the taking. About then I noticed a backtrace rapidly climbing through the first proxies and VPNs; the IP addresses came from all over the place simultaneously. I had the router wipe itself out and jumped to another I had ready.

This time I dove straight into the compromised server. No backtrace happened.

It's like there were hundreds of high-tech information warfare countermeasures arrayed around the PRT's entire network like a looming wall, and then there was just one section that was a typical American house's chain link fence.

I apparently had root access on a PRT web server. It wouldn't get me too far by itself, so I found a folder excluded from antivirus scanning and tossed in a keylogger. Confident I'd have a password in a few hours to a few days, I burned my second compromised router, carefully disassembled my chain of connections, and went to hit the sack.

I wasn't even impressed that I could pull all of this off; any normal human with the appropriate knowledge could have done the same thing. This particular feat of mine was simply artificially boosted skill, no superhuman crap involved. The horribly exploitable hole in security was neither unusual or special. The only question was if it was a honeypot. I'd find out soon enough.

As I faded to sleep I considered how I felt about this course of action. It could be called . . . no, it was definitely a betrayal, of sorts. But I couldn't feel bad about it. Piggot lied to me. She might not have wanted to. But something smelled bad, and I intended to find out what. Depending on what I discovered, I may even quietly continue to follow orders and not raise any hell.

Ha. Yeah, that sounds likely.

 

[Golden Lark]

Some Lightshow notes:

Motivation: Prove herself in the Wards.

Anima: Setting-sun-colored red-orange cape flowing from her shoulders behind her on a sunset-sky purple/pink field of light.

Caste: Twilight - Her anima power is a damage absorbing shield she can invoke at the last second, preventing hits that otherwise would have bypassed all of her DV and soak and hurt her.

Caste Abiltiies:

Craft
Investigation
Lore (This covers computers!)
Medicine
Occult (This covers the 'science' of Creation, the way that Essence works and why. Insight as to her own nature will be found here)

Favored Abilities:

Firearms (Replacing Archery)
Melee
Athletics
Bureaucracy (Covers Business as well)
Drive (Replacing Ride)

For the purposes of this story, training time is the big limiting factor. As such, all ten of the above abilities are more or less going to be at '5' the moment she attempts something. Other abilities still take time to grind up without training charms.

Charms normally take eighteen days to train without a teacher, favored or not. For our purposes we'll assume a day of training is 8 hours of work on it. So, 144 hours of effort related to a given problem or ability will allow her to unlock a charm. Note that an hour of work on one issue may in fact count as 'training time' for multiple charms. Struggling to stay up late would factor towards Resistance. Running until she cannot run anymore would train Athletics, Resistance, AND Stamina. The hours dedicated to Resistance here will count towards raising her dot rating AND learning a resistance charm. She may 'bank' hours of practice in each ability like XP; she will only spontaneously gain a new power at a dramatic moment assuming she did in fact dedicate enough time to that ability beforehand.

I won't be showing all progress on screen. Progress can be assumed to happen during timeskips. I am not using XP as a base for growth. Essence will rise as she fulfills motivations. Eventually she will understand that she can become supernaturally competent and effective at anything, she just has to sink time into growth, and she has a battery that is very capable of running out. The Essence respiration thing is a speedbump that will be addressed from multiple directions, she just needs a chance to focus on the problem. Remember, this is Worm. In canon Skitter may have done things quite differently had she had time to focus on problems.

She has a smattering of low level charms, mostly Second (X) Excellencies. While she had a Craft excellency when she was Tinker tested, she did not actually break any known physics and she was not inspired to make something crazy, so she didn't get pegged as a tinker. That couple days of testing counted for many many hours of qualification for stuff. Any training she does with guidance counts for double. The Protectorate has much in the way of training resources available.

Her talk with Glenn was some investigation rolls and a whole lot of introspection on human nature and facts she was already aware of. Sagacious Reading of Intent helped too. Glenn was just overjoyed to have such a camera-friendly cape be that intuitive; he was only called in that fast because of her scene-stealing nature; more than the average ward she was going to stand out, if the column of light from her Exaltation was any clue. The sun erosion effect was going to need some extra-good PR to counter when she is deployed.

Her nature as a Solar Exalt completely neutralizes any penalties to her motion the heels on the costume provide. She's not even going to remember they're there until the next time she dons the costume, and she'll realize she didn't notice them impeding her during the Uber/Leet fight. Getting this one out of the way ASAP. The costume was an afterthought, it was never supposed to be a big thing beyond some resistance to accepting her appearance boost. The 20 page shitstorm last thread sort of had me holding my face in my hands.

The fact that this post was necessary makes me sad. Oh well.

CRW has new mods that are actually quite familiar with Exalted. I have NO idea what that means for enforcement of various infractions in this thread; be warned. Follow SB rules, follow my rules, and mind the preferences of your friendly mod team as you post, and everything should be fine.

If you guys bump this thread right before necro like the last one, I'll be unhappy. Don't do it.

Arright, that's all I have for now, if you have questions that won't be huge fuckoff spoilers to anser try your luck, I promise nothing with regards to responses!

 

[Golden Lark]

I sort of kind of subscribe to the Shyft school of Exalted 2E; a good amount of the errata merely band aided one issue only to exacerbate others; upping the cost of Perfects and removing explicit Combos only serves to once again highlight the overall lethality of the system, and it does virtually nothing to stop a Chungian school min-maxer from adapting to the new scenario and creating a new ideal build. Better, IMHO, to keep as close to the original Borgstrom balance in 2E core as possible, and only use errata that fixes outright mistakes or errors- not wild attempts at rebalancing by people who came late to the party. Part of this is assuming that there is no race to the most ideal possible builds; that it is not known and common sense for people to have all the right charms at the same time in the same combo.

Before we get too incredibly far I might change my mind about Combos for the sake of the story; when the appropriate event comes up in story I'll switch gears and see how it might play out with and without the new combo rules. I will admit they are so horrifically unintuitive as to befuddle me the first few times I tried to use them a decade ago in 1E.

And re: Kyte's comment, oh yes, it was slow as hell. she might have been especially careful in picking the fastest options, but the price of that level of security w/o breaking any rules via magic was, in the end, sloooooooowness. When she amps up her game with computer Lore charms things will get interesting. In the Chinese sense. For now she is relying on the Excellencies- basic magic that makes you take the ideal actions for your purposes within the scope of a single action/roll. Those ideal actions explicitly do not break the laws of physics; Creation's laws are a taa~ad more flexible than Earth's, but she's not playing by Creation's rules yet.

Re: Anasurimbor, well, the first time she thinks about it she gets 5 dots of medicine. And eventually Medicine charms. That means that given time (and eventually even not given time), she can more or less fix any traumatic damage done to her body (or others) as long as the patient is alive and she is capable of taking medicine actions. And regarding the speed of events moving, well . . . Lung was about to make a big move before Taylor ruined his day in canon. We are still pre-canon start date. Everything depends on how many chaos butterflies get released in the meantime, but as it stands Lung is going to be going after the Undersiders hard that night, personally. Bakuda will be subordinate to him if he doesn't get arrested, etc. The ABB will be a much more dangerous if not in-your-face threat for a while. Things were coming to a head in Brockton Bay even without Taylor's help. In the end there were four parahuman forces in BB. Lung's, Kaiser's, Coil's, and Piggot's. Those four were playing chinese checkers for the soul of the city before Leviathan and the SH9 came and shot everything to hell. All four were playing a low-chaos game, then Bakuda took over Lung's side and started wildly blowing shit up. Now, even though the non-Coil sides don't understand how many teams Coil controls, in the end there were only four players at the table until Leviathan.

Solar Taylor will get up to plenty of trouble when she gets enough information about the game board.

 

[Golden Lark]

Excellence 2.3.3

There is a point between wakefulness and sleep that is never truly remembered. As the primary worries of the day fade away, the last few desperate concerns flare themselves out and insert themselves into the spot that would allow them to be processed by dreams.

Or at least, that might be how it works for mere mortals.

Even as consciousness fades, the body and the soul respire. The Chosen of the Sun do not need to suffer the choking, alien landscapes of other realms as their lessers do. With tonight's mental exercises regarding cold, calculating machines- stringently programmed systems that act in a proper way, certain reflexes and assumptions resonated within Taylor's soul.

With her last partially conscious breath, she invoked a new (old) power. The nature of another place filled her dorm room and overrode the paltry physics of the surrounding world.

For one hour she absorbed this ambient nature as was her right, making up for the expenditure.

For the next four hours she was respiring the fading traces of that power, gaining a bit more more than she had spent.

Her final three hours of sleep were as unfulfilling as the previous nights since she gained her power. She would wake up with a refreshed body and mind, but her soul would still thirst and no dreams would come.

Just, this time, it would thirst a bit less than all the nights before.

[***]

I awoke to a pounding on my door.

Thoughts of felonies overwhelmed me before I looked at the clock and realized it was about time for me to wake up anyway. Groaning as I got up, I wasn't quite awake enough to understand what Dennis was yelling; just that it was Dennis doing the yelling.

Which, on review, was unusual enough to jolt me to consciousness completely; if this was frivolous he'd know I'd get him back for it. He wouldn't risk it unless the prank was priceless.

And if the tone was any indication he wasn't screwing around. I slipped into some shorts and a shirt and opened the door. Clockblocker faced me as

"-et up before this gets any- oh good morning, Sunshine," he cut off while looking me in my (probably bleary) face. "You don't look like you've been hearing what I've been saying."

I gave him a shake of my head.

"Video of you leaked to the net last night. Your official public debut and introduction is being pushed ahead of schedule; in other words, it's at noon today. Suit up and get to PR, they'll give you a go-over and then have you memorizing some lame crap."

I could feel my eyes widening. Clockblocker's blank faceplate tilted slightly.

"Good, you can still be caught off guard. If you were too perfect I was going to have to consider early retirement!"

Wait, was this a joke?

My next expression must have shown as he jumped backwards a bit.

"No, no, I'm dead serious! My luxurious and beautiful hair isn't shown off when I'm suited up; I figured you'd appreciate the extra prep time before you would have gotten around to checking your messages. Girls, and all."

I weighed the mildly sexist snark against the sheer utility of the extra 20 or so minutes he had just bought me. They didn't even compare.

"Thanks." I nodded and closed the door in his face, then turned to my makeshift vanity.

It didn't take me that much time to suit up and make sure every hair was in place; the "airbrushing" kind of helped a lot in that regard. I was primping and preening not to simply look good or attract anyone; I was trying to look strong. Strong in the sense of untouchable. Alexandria's projected image fed into that as much as her trading of blows with the Endbringers.

A quick glance down at the costume (Damn you, Chambers!) had me stopping on the heels.

Heels. Thick, boot heels, but still heels. On a combat suit.

My memories of the fight on the stage flitted through my mind. At any point was I inconvenienced? Did I even notice they were there?

I blinked when I realized I was sporting a small smile. No. No, they hadn't impeded me in the slightest. Missy will probably hit me once she learns about it.

I almost floated out into the hallway after thinking about it for a moment. Not even Alexandria could project that with her image.

I might truly have the most bullshit superpower of all.

 

[Golden Lark]

Excellence 2.3.4

The stage was set. I was behind a makeshift curtain-barricade of a PR trailer and some assembled iconography that had been arranged at a scenic point in town for the best possible debut performance. I had been given a quick look over (the makeup artists murmured appreciatively and changed nothing, to my mild embarrassment) and a few minutes to read a packet of talking points. In it was a note.

Normally these things are hard scripted. Normally the script gets flubbed based on the personality of the new Ward. In your case I am giving you all the cards and having you stack your own hand. You understand the game, so you'll know the best choices to make- or at least I am certain I will be able to easily salvage anything you choose that I didn't predict. Knock 'em dead.

-Glenn Chambers

No pressure. None at all.

The talking points read like a mad-libs game for a full speech instead of a single sentence. It was oddly reassuring how empty and interchangeable the options were. I could more or less build a harmless and generic introduction without any effort at all.

Glenn had more or less given me carte blanche to go hog wild, however.

I had slipped over to the techie section of the trailer and gotten a preview of the footage they planned on showing as I spoke. It was . . . sanitized. They didn't officially like showing young girls (well, young boys or girls) getting subjected to Cape violence.

It looked too clean. It hid the important part. I took those hits, and I got back up and won anyway. That was the whole point. Über and Leet were sidelined in the footage; as villains known to crave the spotlight they were being denied the notoriety they desired. It didn't sit right with me.

Über and Leet were, for the PRT's purposes, the perfect villains. Yes, they were criminals. Yes, they had hurt people; however, they played by two sets of rules; the cops-and-robbers unwritten rules, and the rules of whatever game they were emulating each day. It's like they were making fun of the greater facade by running their own. They even had their 'cause' to promote that laughed in the face of the other more zealous capes that fought for racial or religious purposes, for good or ill.

I suddenly wanted to know how many Endbringer fights they'd participated in since they went active. Maybe I was giving them too much credit, but the final joke on this whole system would be acting as the 'perfect' villains for the public . . . except for refusing to fight the Endbringers. Some small part of my mind was recoiling from this chain of thought, but the cynical analytical part of me was finding the dark humor in spades. Oh well.

One of the stage hands summoned me, and I walked to the edge of the platform. Armsmaster was at the podium being his stoic photogenic self. The other Wards were lined up behind him in a row.

"-and now I a proud to introduce the newest member of the Wards family: Lightshow!"

As I walked out into view, my mind split between deciding precisely how I wanted to walk (femininity verses swagger versus youthful innocence, etc) and wondering at how many words Armsmaster must have just said all in a row. He was usually succinct, but I guess if he needed to do a speech he could deliver. Given prep time, he could probably accomplish anything.

I felt the warmth of my power suffuse through me as I got close to the mic. It was a bit early, as I hadn't started doing anything yet . . . unless it reacted to my attention to my entrance. The applause and murmur of conversation faded to virtually nothing; usually these events had a constant dull roar from the peanut gallery that no amount of polite requesting could suppress.

Huh.

I breathed in and felt my power flare up again; this time it was working as I was more used to: Do Stuff Better Right Now. I put a hand on a cocked hip, and donned a grin.

"So I got in a fight with Über and Leet last night."

Chuckles.

"Technically I was still in the trial phase. A little guard work, getting used to standing around in costume, feeling more like a sports team mascot than a hero. Fortunately, I don't have one of those creepy costumes that doesn't let you see my face."

"Oy!" Clockblocker burst out. Vista, next to him, reflexively reached up and bopped him on the head. After a second she then flushed with embarrassment.

Another warm wave of laughter.

"Unfortunately someone forgot to tell me what the event was about, because there was no way I was going to willingly stand guard at an anti video game event in Brockton Bay. Seriously, whose idea was that? Do they even watch the news?"

Murmurs.

"Anyways so I'm just standing off to one side of the stage, right? I literally just realized the nature of the event after seeing the decorations when I took up my post . . . " I flicked my wrist and snapped my finger with my free hand. The screens lit up with the opening shot of the incident. Angry lady on stage, and everything.

Thank you techie audio-video guy! I will make you the tastiest sandwich in the entire world.

"Right. Murphy's law came into full power as soon as I was aware of the circumstances. You've probably seen some of the footage leaked, but here's a bit more."

Various carefully selected clips of the battle played in succession. It was very sterile, very Soviet propaganda style. Glorious Ward fights videogamist pigdogs on behalf of the State! Look as they are crushed by her might!

"I would have been pasted if Glory Girl wasn't there too. Victoria is a powerhouse anyone would be glad to have at their back." Humility, credit to allies, and a bit of dark humor- anyone would be glad to have her because her power makes them glad to have her. Not that anyone picks up on that.

Applause. From behind, too; my team (ah that feels kind of embarrassing to think) clapping too. Sincerely.

It had happened. I had proven myself. It was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Supernatural grace and power, coupled with a willingness to do the right thing in the face of adversity, layered around the principles of perfection as applied to the human condition . . .

Something clicked. It hadn't really made sense before, but I realized a bit about how my power worked. The flavor. I had limits, in a sense. Only by knowing those limits could I approach them. I can do stuff. Stuff that I can do, I can do better, in ways beyond normal humans.

My aura, my Anima, flared to life behind me. The sunset backdrop awed the audience visibly, and the glowing red-orange cape fluttered to one side. The audience gave a standing ovation.

However, I wasn't done yet.

*********************

HELLO!

Thank you for your support! Things got ugly in the other thread, as they had every right to. Regardless of whether or not I get disqualified, I will fulfill my promise based on the number of votes and place I (would) have in the final count.

I will cheerfully admit this was a crass move, and I don't hold it against anyone that refused to support it.

Thank you once again for reading, whether you voted or not!



[snip] - No! - Isil`Zha

 

[Golden Lark]

1077/7000 promised words!

GreggHL kindly offered to let me outsource my production to him per the precise conditions I promised. While I decided against it, He did provide the 7000 words free of charge. If you are interested here is the link: http://pastebin.com/ZMKmZ0n0 I considered posting that directly in the thread first but figured the humor might be lost on many of you considering the previous thread~

Excellence 2.3.5

Stuff that I can do, I can do better . . .

I closed my eyes. I could imagine the illusionary cape behind me. I knew how big the image projected around me was. I knew it didn't have to project a mere cape on a field of sunset.

I heard the audience gasp and I knew I was onto something. I opened my eyes, confident in what was visible behind me. Shifting my balance, I gestured up and behind me.

"The last camera angle I have to share from is mine." Über loomed behind me as a larger-than-life projection, bearing down on the audience- fox ears and all. Our duel began.

"The thing with Über is, he's good. He's very good. He's not someone fresh capes are put up against on purpose for good reason." The audience flinches a bit in time with 'me' taking some hits. I skip around a bit to our more energetic exchanges.

"However, capes don't choose when and where they get attacked. This is just par for course in the world today." Now I was taking a beating. The part of the fight I was obviously losing, that was so cleanly snipped from the footage played behind me. The murmurs grew concerned.

"Yesterday afternoon I was wavering on my decision to be part of the Wards." A lie. They bought it in the audience, though. The fight turned again, with clips of Victora as I caught glances of her fighting Leet.

"But the fight last night convinced me that I could make a difference. That I had this power for a reason, and that I didn't have to be alone." Words that sounded good without much depth. Made nice soundbytes.

As the audience applauded again, and a whole bunch of camera flashes went off, I released my grip on my anima and it reverted to the normal colors-and-cape. However, the cape now had a Protectorate logo etched on to it.

That . . . wasn't something I did on purpose. Also it was kind of corny.

The press ate it up though. As the questions began I got the signal to leave, and let PR handle the actively curious press for now. I made my way over to Vista and gave her a hug, then casually ignored Clockblocker when he opened his arms hopefully. With a new background of chuckles we made our way off the impromptu stage to the vehicles, and loaded up in a transport van to go home.

Once we were all seated, Dennis got right to the point.

"Okay, you weren't as obviously teen rebel as I was, but that speech might get you in trouble."

I shook my head.

"The spin will make it look fine. It will probably be explained as a bureaucratic screw-up and partly blamed on New Wave. It's not their fault, but saving face is the order of the day, and I'm just an innocent little girl," I said while batting my eyelashes.

Dennis started at me, deadpan.

"I need to buy you a copy of Machiavelli's The Prince. You could take over the whole world. Ow."

Missy wasn't really holding back, today.

"Nah, this is me venting my frustration about the crappy briefing. It in no way undermines the public's perception of parahumans, and points some eyes at the agents giving us orders and information."

"So, a Piggy-seeking missile," joked Carlos.

I shrugged.

"A Nerf missile. It should still sting a bit, however."

Dean tilted his head back at me speculatively.

"Taylor, you, ah, did you have a bit of a moment there on stage?"

My mind flashed back to the epiphany. I nodded.

"You could say that. I realized exactly how my power applies. Not about how it's charged or anything, but how the ability wraps around me."

Every eye was now on me.

"Basically, like we figured, if I can do it, the power lets me do it better. Kind of like Über, but not as universal or as constant. Some stuff I learn is just like him. Guns, weapons, apparently cooking, acrobatics, and probably more. I try, it comes to me, and it never goes away. Beyond that, I also get to supercharge anything I can do. That where the limits come in. The moment I start 'cheating' I drain my tank." I paused for a breath. "Supercharging sort of just makes me do stuff better beyond knowing how. I'm breaking limits. But that's not the crazy bit. When I first walked on stage, did you guys feel anything?"

The other Wards glanced at each other. Dennis spoke up first, this time without his usual mirth.

"I say this in utter sincerity, with no humor or lecherous subtext. I could not tear my eyes away for a second the whole time. Even when Missy hit me."

A murmur of assent. Carlos was next.

"You stole the show all right. No one heckled or chatted or anything."

"Yeah, you were craving the attention, to a degree, but not like personally. You put on your game face and controlled the crowd. I . . . I want to say it was everything? How you carried yourself, how you spoke and gestured? But I can't be sure. All I know is the moment you appeared the whole damn audience suddenly focused on you; the entire emotional weather of the crowd dulled down as they all set aside their concerns and baggage and listened," Dean said next.

There was some awkward silence, then. He spoke up again.

"Hey hey I'm not saying it was like mind control. I can read the emotions, I've felt someone while they triggered some earlier hypnosis effect. There was no disassociation here, everyone just suddenly wanted to hear what you had to say."

I nodded.

"Yeah, that was me. I walked out knowing I wanted to get their attention, and my power just reacted. I didn't supercharge, it just sort of whipped out and did something. Once I got to the podium I did my normal trick, and went from speaking mediocrity to speaking excellence. I had my revelation, and then realized something. The light show? The sunset backdrop? It's a thing I could do. So I tried to do it better."

Dennis' jaw dropped open.

Missy made the comment in his stead.

"So you get to apply your bullcrap to your bullcrap?"

Dean started laughing. I imagine the air was so thick with raw indignation it tickled him.

I shrugged.

"Yeah, pretty much!"

The rest of the ride back felt extremely short.

 

[Golden Lark]

1180+1077=2257 out of 7000 words!

Intermission: Daniel

His daughter had come back to life.

He barely saw her now, compared to before, but that was fine. It was wonderful. Why? Because every time he spoke to her now she seemed happy to be alive.

It had been a long time since he'd seen her like that, and one more second of it was worth any price.

Only seeing her for a little bit over the course of a month was just fine with him.

Of course, the fact that she was ostensibly in danger every one of those days didn't sit totally well with him. It wouldn't with any proper father. However, he didn't let it influence him into stopping her.

After all, before she had joined the Wards, she had already been dead.

It sounded morbid, but it was something he'd seen many times while managing the dockworkers. Men who had nowhere else to go, nothing else to aspire to, doing hard labor day in and day out, as light faded from their eyes. His job was to make them keep carrying cargo onto and off of ships, to make sure those ships got in and out of port safely and quickly. His style was to make them not resent their lot in life for doing it. That meant a few rules, a few lectures, and learning every man's name, their family status, and being someone who visibly gave a damn if they lived or died.

He was more of a technical guy himself, but in an odd way he sympathized utterly with the dockworkers. In a bigger corporate IT kind of department, he'd be them; the nameless, faceless guy who made sure data got from source to destination in the organization, never acknowledged and never remembered. Here, he was one of the forces directing them; applying a technical mind to schedules and rotations and shifts was wonderful for efficiency. However, what made him good at his job was not forgetting his workers' humanity. To listen, to understand, and to work with them to make sure they could support their responsibilities at work and at home. That meant having more on staff than they absolutely needed. That meant slightly shorter hours for everyone on a day that everyone was available to work. That meant no one was put in a bind when someone was gone and they needed to cover more time with less people.

He had to make the hard calls on when a worker was slacking due to temporary circumstance, or if they were a liability to the team and the company. For a poorer section of the city, the docks paid well- if you had the back for it and the responsibility to show up to work. There was no end to the list of prospective replacement workers. Still, he knew better than to exacerbate a longshoreman going through a rough spot in life. Those men he'd give a day off without pay or penalty- unthinkable to the average manager, but it was better than the normal human resources kerfuffle that the over-company's policy normally required.

In the machine that was Danny's section of the docks, he decided the most efficient way to use his resources to achieve his goals. That the common method was to make a rotating door of dockworkers to keep pay as low as the unions would tolerate was one thing. However, even for such a simple job, there was a cost to high turnover. Danny chose instead to improve the resources he had. That his numbers were good was testament that he was skilled at his task.

That he had not been promoted in years was testament that he put his money where his mouth was.

It was still whispered on his section of the docks (in places they didn't think Danny would overhear) what happened in the wake of his wife's death, when some suits showed up and tried to get him to conform to the standard practice of rotating out workers under frivolous pretenses so as to keep paychecks low. Danny Hebert had never screamed at any man he managed. He had rarely raised his voice at them. That evening the windows shook and the suits ran out of the room looking like they were about to piss themselves.

In the coming weeks more suits from corporate would slip around the docks, asking Danny's men if they had seen their boss do anything questionable. They implied rewards would be given for testimony, even if it was only a 'suspicion.'

Not a single man gave them a reason to implicate Danny for anything.

Danny Hebert approached the problems in the lives of his men with a gentle hand. If they asked for his advice or help, he would give it. If they did not ask, he did not give it. He simply gave them a chance to work it out themselves.

That the same policy when applied to his daughter failed to produce any results of its own accord haunted him slightly, but he had faith in her. If she was not coming to him, it was probably because he couldn't help. Taylor was smart enough to know when Danny's style of force was appropriate or not. As much as it saddened him that she obviously had a problem she didn't think he could solve, he had let it go.

He tried not to think too hard about how differently things might have gone.

So, when she visited home and insisted on cooking, he was glad to let her. When her food was better than anything he had ever tasted, he complimented her then questioned if her training was being put to the best possible use. After they had stopped laughing, she assured him that the cooking wasn't anything she had spent time on, it had just happened.

Had just happened like how she had grown into her frame, and had become beautiful and confident enough for him to worry about boys. Like how she had gone from almost needing him to being able to stand on her own without flinching. He listened to stories of patrols, of petty crimes stopped, of terrible bits of their city she had seen firsthand; and how she thought they might be improved or fixed over time. Never once did she seem to look down on the normal citizens. Never once did she imply she was too good for what she was doing, or that she resented being around people who might be considered her lessers in some easily quantifiable way.

Just like her mother.

When she came down for breakfast the next morning, she sheepishly mentioned her bed was a bit too small. Before he could say a word about replacing it she shushed him and said she'd take care of it.

She then wandered around the house and mumbled to herself while poking at all the various bits of wear and tear. She came back to the dining room and said she'd be taking care of a lot of things.

He didn't doubt it for a second.

 

[Golden Lark]

1418+1180+1077=3675 out of 7000

Essence 3.1.1

If there were any after-effects as to my little bit of sniping during my intro speech, they were never explained to me. I started going out on patrol like the others, and more or less shifted into being a Ward completely. Weekly duties, public appearances, the works.

None of that stopped me from the occasional nightly hacking spree.

I had been making minor forays into my compromised server and the keylogger's records. Eventually I got a password and started to gently poke around the network. Home share of my victim, his resume, then the likely places he'd access as part of his job that I deduced from said resume. Each time I left a bit of further infrastructure in my wake. Sometimes it was corrected or erased, sometimes it wasn't. Eventually I realized that anything I did directly from the compromised web server wasn't being undone.

This made less and less sense.

I both secured my path to said server more and grew bolder in my adventures 'past' it. I was finding all sorts of stuff left lying around on the network in not-particularly secure places. I also began to realize that virus scanning and other passive countermeasures would fail on any given machine as soon as I made a connection from my 'home' webserver. Like whatever protected the network was deathly allergic to that one machine and any other device connected to it. Not one to question my good fortune, I just stretched out my probing over the nights to more places I could 'black out.' I did not dismiss the idea I had fallen into a gigantic honeypot, however. No backtraces were being attempted.

Eventually I found reference to a chain of e-mails about some dumb employee that got fired for pushing a ridiculous plan too hard to the top even after he had been told no by multiple levels of management. I wouldn't have noticed it but it was a reference in so many nasty e-mails that it had become something of an in-joke across the whole PRT/Protectorate; asking your peers if they were going to pull a Stevenson after getting a proposal shot down. Curiosity got the better of me and I went to try to find a copy of the Stevenson Proposal.

After directing my efforts into digging up various e-mails from further and further back, it became apparent that no digital copies of the proposal seemed to exist. Eventually I found someone (from Brockton Bay's PRT no less) bragging that they had printed it out to serve as a paperweight and emergency blunt weapon. Cruel, but useful for my purposes.

Later that week I had whipped up a batch of sandwiches and made a whirlwind tour of the PRT side of the facility, offering sandwiches and asking if anyone else inside might like any. I was ushered into the various departments and introduced to the various stuff, to mixed receptions. Every one of them changed their tone for the better on getting a sandwich. I made a point of hitting the stagehands' area and rewarding AV guy for the great timing. Eventually I got ushered through the part of the building where the guy that wrote the mean mail was.

He got a sandwich, I swiped the terribly thick packet from his shelf when no one was looking. I smuggled it out under my tray and got it back to my room without much effort.

That night I started to read.

[***]

Well, my power let me cheat, so it didn't take long. A fully fleshed out plan of how to globally end human hunger. Every factor addressed, every detail notated. Well, with one glaring pattern of expections.

The plan lacked a human element. It decreed all sorts of things be improved or fixed or tweaked in procedures and policies and even law, but didn't account for how the people who would be held responsible for the previous system would be treated. Following a plan like this through would have gotten thousands of people fired or humiliated, and have put thousands more in awkward political situations if they tried to funnel money from local pork to feeding strange foreigners. This became evident from the second page, and the pattern continued. To the very end.

The plan, as it was, was perfect. It just lacked the same meticulous level of detail and thought whenever people and their feelings were relevant. There was a mild arrogance throughout the whole thing, like people weren't good enough to do this before it had been written and should be held accountable for it. Understandable feelings for someone that could think this whole thing through.

The saddest part was that human hunger was likely to be the least of our problems, in the wake of the Endbringers. That alone probably cause anyone with political motivations to simply toss the packet in the garbage.

Still. This . . . wasn't useless. It wasn't worthless. I found myself typing up a fresh copy into digital form over the next couple nights; the original text verbatim, with annotations and corrections for the years that had passed since the original draft, and justifications of the 'human' changes I would make. Insistence that laws be changed were morphed into campaignable reasons to do so. A theme of hope in the face of the Endbringers added a positive spin on a dreary topic. Massive changes to the Department of Agriculture could be framed in a more liberal progressive light than a searing critique and tearing down of an outdated institution. This continued each night for a week, depsite attempts by Clockblocker to pull me out of my 'cave.'

My sun bleached, whitened, damaged cave.

My typing was interrupted by a scream when my monitor shorted out. It was mine. Then I blinked and realized I was almost fully glowing. I had been warned about 'maxing out' and causing the towering column of light to appear when not necessary. I had to sheepishly wait to 'cool off' then go beg Dennis and Missy to submit a request for fresh equipment on my behalf; and for an analysis of the damage I had done to my previous possessions. The whole wards team had cycled through a second set of costumes since starting to work with me; my bleaching effect was not kind to any fabric, heroic or not.

One awkward series of requisitions later, and I had a new PC. Apparently my sandwiches had won me more friends in corporate than I had realized. I resolved to press that advantage.

Interruption finished, I finished my revision and opened up Outlook. Hovering between what identity I wished to use, I settled on my heroic one.

Mr. Stevenson:

We haven't met, and I apologize for my forthrightness, but I have attached a copy of your proposal to this e-mail complete with some revisions. If this is no longer of interest to you then please disregard this mail. Otherwise, I can summarize my revisions as follows . . .

[***]

At an immaculately crafted and polished desk, a well-manicured hand manipulated a spotless mouse. It paused, and a slight twitch betrayed a sharp intake of breath, followed by a shudder of what might have been rage, or the anticipation of such. Two clicks followed by a scroll wheel's soothing spin.

Another spin.

And another.

An indeterminate amount of time later, that hand pressed a button on a phone.

"Sir?"

"Cancel my appointments for tomorrow, and arrange a list of appropriate gifts and compensation for each party. Secure the raw materials for those and have them delivered to my workshop as soon as feasible."

"Of course sir. Shall I phrase the cancellations in any particular way?"

A relevant question, presented properly.

"Yes. Let them know I received some news that has cost me a good night's sleep."

A pause.

"Shall I arrange a correction, sir?"

Correction. Their word for dealing with human errors, among other ones.

"That will not be necessary. The news was good."

"Very well sir. Is there anything else?"

"No, that will be all. Thank you."

The button was pressed again.

A handcrafted leather cushioned chair sighed as its burden lifted from it. A mind filled with thoughts of exacting precision considered the odds of subterfuge, juvenile delinquency, and/or a sting operation.

Those odds were dismissed.

A silver-threaded mask considered its reflection for a while over the backdrop of Boston's night traffic. The mask was removed and a bare face of flesh and imperfections stared back.

"It seems I need to confirm," it said.

 

[Golden Lark]

1109+1418+1180+1077=4784 out of 7000


Essence 3.1.2

A day or so later a report came back regarding the damage from my anima. I tossed it on to the lunch table for Dennis and Carlos to look at; Dean and Vista weren't around. Dennis read it aloud.

"Blah blah senors blah blah analysis blah blah conclusion: damage is consistent with four to five hundred years of direct exposure to uninterrupted sunlight."

The three of us kind of sat there for a minute. I was, on some level, kind of relieved that my power HAD some kind of downside. I waited for Dennis' inevitable comment.

He reached to his belt and whipped up his cell. He dialed and waited, nodding as a voicemail reception message played.

"Hey Armsmaster it's Clockblocker. In reference to lab results X3-523D I'd like to commission you for a few gallons of SPF ten billion sun protection in the form of clear gloss paint, clear matte paint, and fabric treatment, respectively. Kaythanksbye!"

He nodded sagely as he hung up the phone. "I'm sure he'll get right on that."

I tilted my head.

"Why Armsmaster?"

Dennis chuckled.

"Because he specialized in cramming all sorts of crap into tiny space. I'm sure he could engineer a treatment for any and all surfaces we have around here to make them sun-proof that barely requires a micron of coating on the surface. Also I've always wanted to call him like that."

"Won't you have to pay him for it?"

"Sure, but then his prices will skyrocket when it turns out everyone is going to bug him for it. Better to get in on the ground floor and sell the stuff myself directly, so I make money back and people get it faster. Eventually he'll make a device to mass produce the stuff if you stick around. This is just one of my many genius get rich quick schemes that does not involve abusing my power, you know."

Carlos cut it.

"More like get poor quick. Didn't Missy break your samo-"

"WE AGREED NOT TO TALK ABOUT THAT. EVER AGAIN."

"Right man, sorry. In any case I'm first in line for the super sunblock once you get some. I can't afford new threads every couple of weeks, no offense, Taylor."

"Ah, no problem," I said. "It's not exactly great for me either, since it tends to wreck my everything." Images of the PC, the slightly melted keyboard, and the cracking paint on my room's walls flashed in my mind. "Absolutely everything."

We started eating; today's lunch was salad. I kept coming to the break room finding more, fresher, and better ingredients stocked in the cabinets and fridge. Requests were implied. One of these days Dennis would replace every edible thing with tofu to see what I'd do, I was sure.

Carlos finished his bowl and made an appreciative noise.

"So, Taylor, you tested for tinker ability, right? Did you, ah, try for very long? I don't want to accuse you of making, uh, parafood or something, but I wonder how related to food your skills can bend."

I considered it seriously.

"I was trying see if I had any sudden bursts of odd inspiration; I wasn't actually trying to just make anything, true. Based on my little epiphany I have no reason not to try. Thanks for the thought!"

"Happy to be of service, my loyal minion. Unlike my hormonal counterpart here, I do not simply at-" he froze mid sentence as he reached to pat Dennis on the head. Dennis pulled back his finger from underneath Carlos' wrist, then ducked under the frozen hand as he pushed back his chair. He then proceeded to set tomato slices balanced over Carlos' eyes, gave him a lettuce mustache, and onion fangs. Finally, he whipped out his phone and took a series of pictures.

I just silently watched as he removed all the food, then sat back in his place. He made no attempt to strike a pose to match how he had been when Carlos reached for him, so I kept eating. When the freeze ended,

"-tempt to charm the l- ah," he stopped, hand freezing on Dennis' head. "He got me, didn't he."

Dennis simply turned to his leader, eyebrows raised in mock outrage.

"You wound me, sir," he said as he tossed his bowl in the auto-sink (yes, we have an auto sink) and wandered off.

I, for one, kept from laughing until I was once again safely behind a closed door in my room.

[***]

A bit later I was back in one of the workshops, and had sat down to poke at the equipment a bit more. My mind had once again reached that blank spot of 'What the heck do I want to do?' that it visited the first time I had been here. I wandered from the workbenches to some of the machining equipment, completely bereft of inspiration. I walked past that section when my nose caught a whiff of something. Turning, I went back to the last machine, some variety of lathe. I opened one of the side panels and took another sniff. I stuck in a finger and came out with a dab of grease. I rubbed in on two fingers, smelled it again.

It was bad. I was lacking the vocabulary at the moment, but I knew it was breaking down when it got hot, and it was failing at its purpose. I had a few idea on making a replacement, but . . . glancing around the workshop, I saw little that would serve as a proper chemistry lab, let alone a source of petrochemicals to work with.

I blinked and shook my head. Okay. Chemistry apparently got a boost. Smelling machine grease and diagnosing it? Wow.

I washed my hands and hit the computer terminal in the workshop, focusing my efforts on pricing the various tools and equipment and raw materials that would serve to assist in solving this problem.

The dollar amounts were . . . prohibitive, to say the least.

Sighing, I leaned back and idly wondered if I might need to think of some get-rich-quick schemes of my own. Actually, that was a good point. I sat up straight. Dennis mentioned making money without abusing his power. Which implied there were many perfectly legitimate ways to make money using powers freely. My mind began to shift into high gear, and the telltale sign of my forehead sigil lit up the room.

"MEDICAL EMERGENCY AT THE WEST PROTECTORATE PRIVATE ENTRANCE. ALL AVAILABLE MEDICAL PERSONNEL PLEASE REPORT TO THE SCENE."

I snapped out of my thoughts and dashed for the exit. Medical personnel or not, I was certain I would be able to help.

 

[Golden Lark]

1160+4784=5944


Essence 3.1.3

A very hectic trip through the building later, and I was on scene to witness medics waving all sorts of sensors at a boy roughly my age - no, a man - wait, what?

His body was changing. Like, muscles flexing and then growing larger, then shrinking. Limbs stretched a bit and retracted. Bones stretching and retracting.

"ETA on Panacea?" said a medic.

"She was at a hospital upstate today, she won't be here for an hour at least barring a teleport," said another with a tablet.

I stepped up.

"Situation?" I asked.

They both looked at me and relaxed a bit. The first one spoke again.

"We're not sure what happened, but this kid was picked up around the ABB's territory. He's a parahuman, and we think the body changes are his power. We also think for whatever reason it's out of control. He was brought here instead of a hospital for obvious reasons; they can't possibly help him if his body is changing like this nonstop."

I took a deep breath and got closer. He was writing a bit, and bloodstains on his cut-and-removed shirt revealed some serious looking wounds.

Wounds that were healed and scarred over on his body.

Looking more, I saw a bunch of minor scrapes and bruises and cuts, and a few other more serious scars that matched bloodstains.

The portable EKG monitor bleeped irregularly. A glance at it showed a pattern that did not repeat smoothly. I froze, staring at it, a hand on his wrist.

Ba-dum.

BA-da-dum.

Ba-DUM.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. I could almost map it in my head.

"Internal bleeding, but otherwise heart is fine. Extremely stressed, but not damaged. I . . . I lack the medical vocabulary to describe further." The wrist under my hand warped and flexed and shrank. I repressed a shudder.

My mind whirled with options. Options that needed tools, clean tools, better equipment.

Damn it, dman damn damn! I could SEE his blood pressure falling.

Another deep breath.

I don't need to heal him.

I don't even need to fix what's wrong.

I just need to buy time until someone arrives who can do those things.

Inhale, exhale.

"Ah, Lightshow? You okay?"

"Kid froze up, first time seeing something like this. Nothing unusual."

I slowly shook my head and replied.

"No, it's not that. I need . . . I know what I could do with the right tools, but this isn't a hospital, and the hospital doesn't have the scanning equipment, and . . . "

I eyed a spent morphine cartridge that had been injected from a hypo-gun.

"And I don't think any of them will matter a damn if he isn't going to hold still."

Both medics were looking at me when I glanced back. Neither were smiling. Both nodded.

"There are ways we can paralyze a patient, but going beyond drugging is a little . . . " he faded out.

I looked back at the boy. Definitely a boy my age; the face was too young, even for the occasional Olympic-bodybuilder-class frame that he warped partially into and out of.

I could break his spine.

It would be fixed as soon as Panacea arrived. He'd only be paralyzed for a little while. It would barely even hurt.

I rolled him onto his side and considered it. His vertebrae writhed and warped like the rest of him.

No. I don't know if the warping would stop even if I did that. It wasn't a very nice thing to consider, regardless.

The EKG showed the blood loss was accelerating. Whatever holes inside him were leaking were getting bigger and/or having blood squeezed out of him by the warping in turn. He had four or five minutes left at this rate.

I rolled him back onto his back. Little wounds. Scratches.

Scratches? On his chest?

I pried open one scratch. It was actually a hole. I poked a finger inside, heedless of infection risk. Found something sharp. Pulled it out. Metal.

Shrapnel.

"I need a magnet!" I snapped.

"Ah, we don't exactly have one on hand. What kind do you need?"

They were concerned, but professional. They didn't see that the patient was on his way out; I couldn't blame them, and it wasn't worth the time to berate them for it.

I looked around their assorted supplies. The defibrillator. Perfect.

"Pass me the defib!"

It was slid over. They glanced at each other.

"Ah, Lightshow, maybe this isn't the best idea? He's not actually flat-lining at the moment, you know?"

I faced away from them with the portable pack open in front of me. Two paddles, battery. Perfect.

I ripped the wire from one paddle off and started wrapping it around the other.

This was gonna be ugly.

By the time I started wiring the first paddle's wire to the second's lead and bypassing the charge elements, the medics had moved over to see what I was doing.

"Holy shit- stop her!"

But before they could grab me I hopped over of the boy, kit in my hands, lowered it over his chest, and pulled the trigger on the paddle.

With a sickening meaty sound, a dozen or more shards wrenched themselves out of his body as I passed the makeshift electromagnet over him.

He immediately settled into an average teenager's frame. His heartbeat stabilized.

"Now he can use a hospital. Report me later. GO!"

The look they gave me was conflicted, but they reloaded him into their vehicle and took off.

I looked at the shards of metal frowned.

What the hell was this stuff?

A question for more important capes than me, for now.

I headed back into the building to turn them in and file a report.

[***]

In the end, the kid was saved. Long story short, he was fighting some ABB goons and then he was out. He didn't even know what hit him. Panacea confirmed it was a bomb, and took care of all the various damage.

My reckless move was neither lauded or scolded. After all the reports were in, Director Piggot decided I had acted to the best of my knowledge as well as I could have at the time. She then implied I might want to expand that knowledge if I wanted to be taken more seriously by medical personnel in the future. I agreed wholeheartedly.

Dennis got a bit of flak for not being present to freeze the boy; apparently he had just left the base to spend some free time in the city.

By the time the kid had gotten out of the hospital, he was talked into joining the Wards instead of being a solo vigilante. He took the name Browbeat and cheerfully relieved me of my newbie status.

Before he could settle in completely, however, the morning of February 24th dawned and we all awoke to hear that Behemoth had attacked Canberra.

They hadn't even woken us up to ask us if we wanted to join the fight.