Plan? What Plan? (Worm/ToF)

[Fabled Webs]

Preface

Yes. Yes, I did. Yes, I am.

Why?

Because fuck you, that's why.

If Legendary Tinker is an exploration of what could have been and an exercise in worldbuilding, this fic is very much the opposite. I am intentionally going to rehash some played out tropes common to both the Worm fandom and American media at large, then try to put an interesting spin on them.

Also, LT will still be updated on August 1. Don't worry about that.

Wake 1.1

2010, August 28: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

"Bryce, you okay, sweetie?" I heard from behind my door. Mom was concerned. She was desperate. As far as she knew, her son had always been quiet, always been alone, always been depressed. She had no idea what to do and neither did Sierra.

When dad died a week ago, this family broke apart. It didn't shatter violently, but it crumbled, like a set of ruins on fast forward through the ages. Ironically, his death gave me the chance to build myself up again. After the funeral, in the quiet of my room, I triggered. John Kiley was the man who raised me in this life, the one who would sit me on his lap for hours with a guitar in hand. Losing him felt like losing the one good thing in my life. I know, everyone says that, but damn if it isn't true. Both figuratively and literally, he was my music, my sound.

I played dad's favorite song at his funeral, fingers trembling and barely hitting the chords as tears dripped down my face.

So yeah, that's me, Bryce Kiley.

Formerly Jonathan Kim. Formerly not of this world, this life.

My memories returned when I was four years old, about as young as a child can be and still have the thinky-thinky bits. Is it any wonder then that I was a loner? Sorry if my twenty-seven year old self couldn't stand to make friends with toddlers. Nonetheless, I was grateful for the second chance at life, grateful enough that I was happy to bear the indignity of daycare.

Then I found out where I was: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, also known as Cauldron's Shitheap.

I was in Worm and I had no powers. No random deity dropped by to give me magic. No CYOAs were filled out. I passed GO, but someone cheated me out of my two hundred. I died one day and I woke up as a four year old in Brockton.

On the plus side, Worm was a story I knew well, almost to encyclopedic levels in fact. For whatever reason, though memories of my old life dulled like motion picture from an age before color, the memories of the stories I'd enjoyed remained fresh. Not just Worm, every story from the shittiest isekai guilty pleasure to the autobiography of that one Al Qaida defector I'd read. Fascinating book, that.

Still, I thought I could be forgiven if this threw me into the pits for most of my life. If that was my gift from the powers that be, I felt I got ripped off big time.

I tried to enjoy my second lease on life, but there's only so much existential dread a man can put off before it all crashes down.

"Bryce?" mom called again. I realized I never answered her.

"Sorry, mom," I replied. "I'm okay. I'll be down for dinner in a bit."

My dad died. I triggered, luckily in the privacy of my own room as I cried myself to sleep.

I finally felt like I had power, a way to make myself relevant, a way to give myself a fighting chance. Ironic that it was built on the death of the man I admired most.

"How very Wildbow," I muttered.

Mom, Sierra, and I tried our best to have a normal conversation, a normal dinner. I recognized Sierra of course. In less than a year, she would be one of Taylor's most loyal lieutenants. And me? I was the snot-nosed punk kid who threw himself in with the Merchants following Leviathan. Looking at mom's fragile smile and Sierra's determined eyes, I swore for the millionth time that I wouldn't be the Bryce I'd read about.

X​

Back in my room, I put on some music. Nothing too loud, just the quiet strumming of guitars dad and I liked to have in the background while we worked. I turned on my PC and started to brainstorm. The power that I didn't get when I was four? Yeah, I wasn't bitter anymore. I doubt the existential dread would ever completely leave me, not until Scion was dead and gone, but my power had the potential to rival any of the Triumvirate, or even Scion, given time.

I was the Tinker of Fiction. I knew, somehow, that I could translate anything and everything from any work of fiction into Earth Bet using what could vaguely be described as techno-magic.

I discovered my current specialization when I saw a spider in the bathtub and thought of all the different genetic modifications I could make to it. I thought of spiders with elemental attacks, psychic powers, poison that could drop a dozen bull elephants, and more. I thought of containment devices in the shape of size-changing spheres and compatible healing units designed to restore six of these creatures to perfect health at a time. I thought of bottled medicine, mass produced, that could heal many injuries and poisons.

I thought of Pokémon, AKA Cockfighting with Friendship.

I grinned. It seemed only fitting that my favorite franchise would be the one to kickstart my cape life.

Typically, stories I'd read that involved a tinker of fiction had shifting specializations. It was a mechanic used by the author to both introduce fresh skillsets and ensure the main character didn't get too overpowered too quickly. Now, that mechanic was a major part of my life. One month. Like it or not, I would get exactly four weeks with each specialization before someone upstairs rolled the cosmic dice. After that, anything I made could be maintained, I could even make more of whatever I'd already made, but nothing new could be accessed.

It only took a cursory overview of the franchise for me to conclude that having Pokémon as my first fiction was a mixed blessing.

One would think that a Pokémon specialization would make me the greatest biotinker ever. One would be wrong. I had access to the technology, not the creatures. If it couldn't in some way be achieved by human hands, it was by extension beyond mine.

That meant I couldn't just take a goldfish from a pet store and tinker with it until it became a gyarados, the quintessential city-busting sea serpent of Pokémon fame.

Even if I could, I wasn't sure that I would have embraced my inner biotinker.

I was in Brockton Bay, the home of Emily Piggot, the Ellisburg survivor with an irrational but completely understandable hatred of everything Frankenstein. The last think I needed was to mark myself for a kill order the very day of my debut. If I ever dabbled in that branch of tinkertech, it'd be in slow, subtle steps.

But that didn't mean I had no options.

Even without biotinkering, the Pokémon universe had plenty to offer me. For one, there was at least one evolutionary line that was man-made. Two, I really wouldn't mind learning how to fix myself an extra-rejuvenating lemonade or some super-soda pop, because those were a thing. Warp pads, inertia amplifiers, barrier generators, perfect insulators, and robots were all bits of tech that regularly appeared throughout the series.

But the biggest prize? I considered them to be the TMs, technical machines. The Pokémon universe had technology that could download vast quantities of information into a creature's brain, or whatever passed as one in some cases, with no consequences.

And with the specialization came the auxiliary powers necessary to make the specialization work: I knew how to ignite aura in living creatures. I could foster psychic energy within myself given enough time. I could harness the bonds between pokémon and trainer, literally the power of friendship, in the form of z-crystals and mega stones.

Theoretically.

"Shit, I know what I want first," I muttered. Opening up my PC's notepad, I started to code.

I worked long into the night. So absorbed was I that I didn't even notice when the sun started to peak over my window. It was rough. If I showed Dragon my work, she'd probably laugh herself silly. Still, I had a burgeoning AI, a porygon.

Kind of… I had a digital imprint, basically the equivalent of a cluster of embryonic stem cells that may one day become a fetus that may one day become a baby that may one day become a contributing member of society. It was a long way off from porygon-z, the powerhouse pokémon that could tangle with most dragons, but it was a start.

'Baby steps, Bryce,' I told myself.

I stretched and cracked every bone in my spine before shivering with satisfaction. My fourteen year old body wasn't used to all-nighters, but I couldn't deny the feeling of accomplishment welling up in my chest.

X​

2010, August 29: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I left my nascent porygon to steep in its embryonic code and joined my family for breakfast. We were pretty well off, all things considered. We weren't obscenely rich like the Anders, Christners, or Stansfields, but dad was a dentist with his own private practice and mom is a chiropractor. Thankfully, my parents were pretty frugal so Sierra's college fund was paid for. Mom was the sort who couldn't just lie around the house so she'd renewed her license and gone back to work the moment I showed I could handle myself. Even with dad's passing, we weren't hurting for money.

"So honey, what are you planning to do today?" mom asked.

"Oh, you know, pack for school, go back to bed," I shrugged. "What else do I do on Sunday?"

Sierra rolled her eyes like only a big sister could. "She's telling you to get some sun, little bro."

"It couldn't hurt, dear."

I chewed my beignets and bacon, a Kiley Sunday tradition, and mulled it over. "I don't mind going outside," I said slowly. "I've been meaning to go buy a few things so the mall wouldn't be bad."

"What do you need?"

"I don't know. I was just planning on wandering around. I guess… I just want a hobby."

"I'll drive you there," Sierra said softly. "I'm going to visit a friend anyway."

"Thanks, sis."

"Do you need some money?"

"It's fine, mom. My allowance should be enough. It's not like I've been using it anyway."

"But still…"

I kept her from reaching for her purse. "Mom," I said gently, "I don't even know what kind of hobby I want to pick up yet. If I need something I can't get on my own, I promise I'll come to you."

"Okay, sweetie." She got up to put the dishes in the dishwasher and gave me a hug on the way.

That feeling was… uncomfortable. It was the embrace of a woman who had no idea how to cope with grief. She couldn't wrap her mind around being a single mother and so tried to show us, or me being the youngest, as much affection as she humanly could.

X​

"You know, you probably could have gotten a few hundred out of mom for your shopping spree," my sister said from the driver seat of her 2006 Ford Focus. She'd gotten it last year from dad for getting into college.

"I know," I sighed in frustration. "I don't want her money like that though. She's sick, Sierra. She's trying to do anything possible to stop thinking about dad and spoiling me is just what's convenient."

Her expression softened. "You're perceptive, little bro. But I could say the same about you. I haven't seen you touch dad's guitar since the funeral."

I laughed derisively. "You're not wrong." My sister and I, I'd made sure we had a better relationship than the canon Bryce had. No pointless displays of teenage angst for me, thanks. "It's pathetic, but playing it hurts, you know?"

"It's not pathetic, Bryce. It's human."

"Well what's your coping strategy? Mom's become a doting mother hen. I'm using retail therapy. You?"

"Friends. Booze," she smiled sheepishly. It was the smile of an older sister wishing her little brother wouldn't follow her example. "Don't tell mom?"

"Sure," I said slyly. "Save me a bottle?"

She snorted. "Of course. I'll hold it seven years until you're twenty-one."

"You're not legal either."

"Maybe, but I'm the cool older sister and you still look like a tween," she said with a grin.

I huffed but it was true. Bryce Kiley was a short five-two and barely past a hundred pounds soaking wet. I was as Wildbow described, an Arcadia student with black hair and pasty white skin who could pass for anywhere between a leggy ten and a midget sixteen. "I'm not that short," I still said.

"You are, but it's okay. I still love you, my dorky, artsy baby bro."

"At least I don't wear dreads," I sniped.

"And what's wrong with dreads?"

"You mean besides the cultural appropriation?"

"Big words for a little man."

"You know I'm smarter than you, right?"

"Ugh, will you let it go? You tutored me in biology. Once."

"And made you sign a paper admitting my intellectual superiority," I said smugly. It happened when she was in high school, a result of my past life's career as a physician's assistant that I never let her forget. "After all, what are little brothers for if not to flex on big sisters?"

"Want to walk?" she threatened.

"Pssh, you love me too much to kick me out of your car."

"I'm considering it."

We fell into an amiable silence. Hillside Mall was located just three blocks from the Forsberg Gallery, where practically every kid in the city went on a field trip at least once. The mall itself was a three story complex shaped vaguely like a lopsided doughnut with an open-air plaza in the center that doubled as the food court seating area. Beyond that, I wasn't sure what to say about it. It… didn't look trashy? The mall was on the good side of town and it showed. That the Wards regularly held PR events here certainly didn't hurt either.

I waved to my sister goodbye and started to walk around the stores. Despite what I told my mom and sister, I'd thought carefully about what I wanted to buy last night.

Whatever I picked up would have to be something a teenage boy could reasonably take an interest in. Even better, it had to be something Bryce Kiley could feasibly take an interest in. I needed my new hobby to disguise my tinkering, not just to mom, but to the PRT, Empire, Coil, and every other faction that would love to pressgang me into their service. Ideally, this hobby would require a lot of technical equipment that I could use to fuel my tinkering without resorting to erratic shopping sprees, a theme to justify my habits.

I made my way to the music store, Keys & Notes. I wasn't lying to Sierra, I really didn't want to touch the guitar much anymore, but I realized over my woolgathering last night that musical recording and production gear had a lot of things I wanted as a tinker.

A TM in the series was depicted as a CD, but it wasn't just an aesthetic similarity. When I thought about it, the existence of TMs implied a lot, such as the technology needed to scan a move and upload its data into compact storage. Somewhere out there in Silph Co. was a machine that could digitize the memories of pokémon and upload them for future download, a bit like an mp3 file one might say.

"Hey, mister," I called to the cashier. "Do you guys sell blank CDs and recording equipment?"

The cashier was a chubby man with a friendly smile and a five 'o' clock shadow that made him look older than he was. He wore a shirt with some Earth-Bet band's logo that I didn't recognize and a pair of cargo pants with too many pockets. "Yeah, little man. You want to be a DJ?"

"Not really a DJ," I said. "Performing in front of people isn't really my thing, but something to play with at home would be really cool."

He looked a little conflicted. "Sorry to break it to you, but even the home studio stuff can get really pricey. You could get your parents in here and I'll show them around."

"Would you believe me if I said I knew what I was talking about and could pay?"

"You have experience with making music?"

"Kind of," I replied. "Dad was really into music so I can play the guitar and piano. I've wanted to get into electronic music for a while though. How much is a MIDI?"

"Alright," he said, still unsure, "Don't say I didn't warn you. You need a good computer to start."

"I have that."

"A digital audio workstation, or DAW, should be next on your list. It can do a lot of the things a MIDI can do, especially for a beginner. It's software though and we only sell hardware here. Try the Best Buy. Warning you, even that's probably a bit out of your budget."

"Thanks, anything else?" 'I could have my porygon handle much of the legwork. It should be able to flush out a program if I give it a demo CD to work from,' I thought. I took a quick look around the store. "Can I take a look at the other stuff anyway?"

"Sure. As far as the hardware goes, you need an audio interface, headphones, and mic for a home studio. Some sound-dampening panels would be nice to have too. Trust me, your neighbors will thank you. Our selection isn't that great though, we're not too big into editing here."

"Cool, that's fine. Mind if I look around for the headphones?"

He shrugged. "Knock yourself out, kid, just don't break anything."

He went back to his magazine and I wandered around the store. The headphones sold here were geared towards consumers, with filters that adjusted sound to highlight specific frequencies for listener enjoyment, but that was fine. I picked up two of the better sets for three hundred dollars. I also grabbed a case of one hundred blank CDs. I also bought the cheapest mic I could. I'd probably end up gutting that but leaving the skeleton out for mom and Sierra to see wouldn't be bad to keep them off my tinker trail.

At Best Buy, I bought myself the most basic DAW that the clerk recommended. Seeing how I'd be developing my own AI, it was the space that really concerned me. I took the chance and pretended to be interested in gaming. He promised me a hard drive that would make my computer faster so I bought an external add-on for the purpose. Purchases made, I texted my sister to let her know I'd take the bus home.

Mom saw the mic and headphones as I walked in. "Music, Bryce?"

I scratched the back of my head, a nervous tick from my old life that carried over. "Yeah, I guess it's something to remember dad by. Can't really let it go, you know? And I always wanted to dabble in electric so…"

"Oh, honey." She hugged me. I made no comment of the wet spot on my shoulder. "He'd be proud of you."

"I hope so, mom. I hope so."

X​

I spent the rest of my Sunday tinkering in my room. Mom wasn't an absentee parent like Daniel Hebert. She'd notice if appliances suddenly disappeared around the house, so I made sure to nick only what was absolutely necessary.

Grandpa's old tool kit found its way into my room. Dad's tweezers, used for teeth but just as good for precise manipulation disappeared into my drawer. From the garage, I dug out dad's old electric bass and amp. He dropped the rock 'n' roll shtick in favor of acoustic as he grew older, but he apparently had a wild side when he was younger.

I moved my porygon to the external hard drive then downloaded my new DAW onto my computer. I then tinkered until it had been converted to a TM Interface, an all-in-one system that would help me modify the specifics of any TM for use by any applicable pokémon.

Or in this case, a human. After all, humans could use aura, even firing off Aura Spheres in some rare cases. There was absolutely no reason a TM couldn't be configured for the human brain.

After that, first set of headphones had taken most of my attention. They became a downloader designed to input the data from a TM directly into a target's brain.

There were some limitations I ran into. To start, it was one thing to say humans had the potential to use pokémon moves, and a whole different matter to actually make TMs for humans. My bullshit power let me get around that, but the download time would be a full eight hours per move and my mastery of those moves would be limited until I had a firm foundation in aura manipulation comparable to a pokémon's. I wouldn't be using Hydro Pump to fly like Ash's squirtle could; the memories would be more rigid, like selecting a menu in a video game instead of any creative control.

That left the obvious question: Where were the TMs? I had the setup needed to download them into my brain, but I had nothing to download.

The answer was my porygon.

I didn't just code the little guy into existence because I liked blocky ducks. Yes, it would become a wonderful digital assistant, but it was more than that.

Porygon as a species had an extremely large movepool. Competitive players often said in my world that the porygon line suffered from the "four move syndrome," the trouble of having too many possibilities and only four slots. It could learn almost anything, and, because it was a digital existence, internet exposure was as valid a form of experience as direct physical tutelage. Once my porygon learned viable pokémon moves, I could turn those into TMs for my own use.

It wasn't just a digital assistant; it was my ticket to a customizable library of powers.

I suppressed my urge to cackle. It wouldn't do to worry mom.

For now, the little guy did what it was doing the night before: sleeping. Or rather, building its code from the seed I'd made. I estimated that it would wake in a week and almost cried at the thought of losing a full week of my favorite franchise.

By the time dinner came around and Sierra stumbled into the house, I had most of a working setup.

"You want to be a DJ, Bryce?" Sierra asked over a mouthful of meatloaf.

"Chew, dear," mom chided.

"Sorry," she swallowed. "So, DJ?"

I shrugged helplessly. "No, I just want to edit some music on my own. Play around with it, you know?"

"Sweet, just don't be one of those weirdos that try to sell their mixtape to all their friends."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said dryly.

Mom watched us bicker with a warm smile. "Are you ready for school tomorrow, dear?"

"Yeah, mom. I'm packed."

"Did your summer reading?"

"Two months ago."

"Know where you need to go?"

"No, but that's what orientation is for."

"Where is orientation?"

"Mom," I sighed, "I'm going to be okay."

"I know, sweetie, but I'm still worried. You're in high school now."

"Mom, he'll be fine. I turned out great, didn't I?" Sierra chirped.

"For a certain definition of great," I snarked. She stuck her tongue out at me. "Real mature, sis."

"Children," my mom said sternly, but we could both see the corner of her mouth twitch upwards.

AN

Huh, first chapter of a new segment. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Some of you may remember me bitching about why tinker of fiction style fics tend to struggle. Well, I'm going to give it a go myself.

Also, did you know goldfish are carps? Magikarps could be made from a goldfish, if I wanted to go the unrestricted biotinker route. But no, I have no intention of breaking my story that quickly.

 

[Andre Chaos]

Well, it looks so calm and pleasant for now. Let's see how it will go. Pokemon - mostly wet-tinker kind of specialisation, I suspect. Can go pretty bad without serious precautions and advanced tools. It's kinda weird, that almost non Tinker of Fiction or other similiar fics have situations, in which something goes wrong about created tinkertech. Like, MC doesn't have good enough tools or just made a mistake - did not plan certain consequences, there was a banal misfire during tinker process or an unpredictable interaction of the device with something else. Even a thing created exactly according to the instructions can cause a lot of harm if its creator puts the device in the wrong place. This one of the reasons tinkers are closely watched, especially if it's biotinker.

Let's hope our guy won't change Brockton into containment zone for stone parasitic fungus that controls human behavior or something.

 

[Falconis]

Certainly unexpected but still within my spheres of interest so I suppose watched for now.

I'm a bit iffy on the 'TMs for Humans' bit but with worm powers (and Tinker of Fiction in particular) theres a decent amount of handwavium happening behind the scenes - in universe - to make things work so, ill live.

It'll be interesting to see if Conversion does anything when used by a human at least.

 

[Fabled Webs]

Wake 1.2

2010, August 30: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

Arcadia was honestly better than my old high school by miles. From the air, it'd look like a sideways H, with two large buildings making up the north and south halls and a shorter building connecting the two. The halls were four stories tall, with the cafeteria and gym in the south and the auditorium in the north. The central building was dedicated to administration. The school's two quads were manicured with neatly cut grass and trees that had just begun to change color for the approaching autumn. My sister dropped me off at the north quad and I followed the stream of shuffling students to the auditorium.

I was alone amidst the student body; no one tried to strike up a conversation. There were a few nods from a handful of familiar faces, but I was left mostly to myself. I was that quiet kid who did nothing wrong and bothered no one, but I wondered here if being the aloof loner was the right choice. When I was younger, it was because I struggled with depression and the reality of my own existence in a fictional setting.

Now, now I had power. I could chart my own life as I pleased without fear of being helpless. Arcadia was the "Wards' school." I had no intention of ever joining the Wards, too much regulation for a tinker of fiction to thrive, but would it be worth getting to know them?

'Eh, let the chips fall where they may,' I thought. 'Whatever happens, happens.'

I went to elementary school with Eric Pelham, Shielder, and I was of similar mind even then. I made no attempt to befriend him or "make him a better hero" or whatever. It wasn't as though my worldview changed now that I triggered. As far as I was concerned, I had two priorities: Keep my family safe, and explore my power.

That was it. Beyond mom and Sierra, I didn't care too much about being some noble paragon. Ultimately, I wanted to make things and have fun doing it.

We were packed into the auditorium like sardines. The orientation was as one would expect: introduction of teachers, overview of Arcadia's alternating days and unique vocational schedules, and a generic "We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of Wards at Arcadia. Do not ask. Attempting to unmask a hero is a federal crime."

That, of course, got the students whispering. There is nothing like a taboo to get teenagers excited about a subject. But before we could get too far into the blatantly prohibited guessing game, the student council president stepped up to the podium to address us.

Dean Stansfield. In Worm, he was depicted as the perfect boyfriend and hero: Rich, handsome, and genuinely well-meaning in a way that few people in the setting were. He was Gallant, in both name and deeds, or at least, he tried to live up to that name with an earnestness that really made his interlude stand out to me.

Of course, Brockton wasn't allowed to have nice things by order of Grimlord Wildbow, so he died early on in the Leviathan attack. The hilarious part was that Wildbow himself had little to do with that particular bit of mischief. He rolled for all Leviathan encounters and Dean's die was one of many that came up short.

Fun fact: Had Taylor rolled poorly, Carlos, Aegis, would have become the new protagonist of Worm.

Looking at him now, he was… just a boy. No angels sang his coming, no halo sprouted from his head. He was just some kid whose parents bought him powers. He was handsome enough to have several girls in my row giggling, but nothing truly exceptional stood out to me.

'I think I may have made the Wards out to be a bit larger than life,' I thought ruefully.

Following the orientation, we were all ushered into our second periods, algebra II with Mr. Kalil in my case. Mr. Kalil was a tall, black man with a bit of a beer belly. He wore his beard thick and the most interesting thing about him was his wacky bowtie collection. His words, not mine. Credit where it's due, he did try to make his class engaging. Two other freshmen and I drew some stares for being in an upper level class, but we gamely ignored them.

Then came AP biology with Mrs. Pearce, a rail-thin, no nonsense woman with thick, coke-bottle glasses. She was the sort to just hand out the syllabus, tell us to read it on our own time, then immediately dive into a lecture about cell division. I was the only freshman in this class. Halfway through the class, we were split into pairs to introduce us to our lab partners for the semester. Mine was a pale girl with dyed blonde hair named Chelsea.

"Mrs. Pearce, can I pair up with Stephanie?" she asked.

'One of those people,' I rolled my eyes.

I could see our teacher doing the same. "No, not being able to gossip with your friend for twenty minutes won't kill you. Sit back down and get to work, Ms. Hawthorne. Everything you don't finish becomes homework," she addressed the class.

We tackled our textbooks with much groaning. "So…," Chelsea began," freshie, huh? That's neat."

"Mmhm," I hummed in acknowledgement. I flew through the material. I couldn't claim to have perfect recall of my past life, but I was a physician's assistant. High school biology, AP or otherwise, was frankly insulting.

"What number are you on?"

"Thirteen," I said.

"You work fast."

"Mmhm."

"Not a talker, huh?"

"Mmhm."

"Ugh, fine," she groaned before finally glancing at her own textbook. "What's number three?"

"Cellulose."

"Why?"

"Cellulose is substance that makes up cell walls in plants. It's a complex carbohydrate and makes the plants feel fibrous or rigid."

"Cool, thanks. I'm Chelsea."

"I know."

"You really don't like talking, huh?"

I scribbled the answer to number twenty and dropped my pencil. "And… done." I turned to her. "I just like to get my work done. I have better things to do at home than this. Bryce Kiley, by the way."

"Yeah, good point. Help me out?"

"Ask if you have any questions, but I'm just going to do my homework from algebra otherwise."

"Nerd," she said, but the jab had no heat behind it.

"Dumb blonde," I shot back.

"I dare you to say that to Vicky."

"Who?" I feigned ignorance.

"Glory Girl? Victoria Dallon? Miss Perfect?"

"Collateral Damage Barbie?" I chuckled. "Sure, why not? I've been meaning to get my face rearranged."

She let out an unladylike snort. "You're alright for a freshie."

"You're alright for… whatever you are."

AP biology ended and we were released to lunch. Before I could shuffle off to eat on my own, Chelsea tapped my shoulder. "Want to eat with us?" she asked. I'd pegged her as one of the vapid girls who never shut up, but it turned out that she was just overly social. She still talked too much, but there was no malice behind it. "Unless you plan to rejoin the freshie flock."

I realized I took too long to answer. "Sorry, spaced out. I was just going to finish my homework."

"Seriously? You need to learn to have fun, Bryce."

"I do have fun," I said flatly, "it's why I'm trying to do my work now."

She looked at me skeptically. "What do you do for fun then?"

"I play music."

"Really?" she perked up. "Do you play in a band?"

"No, just a hobby."

"Lame." She took my hand and dragged me over to her friend. "Steph! I have a freshie!"

"Pffttt, did she kidnap you, little guy?" she cooed. Stephanie was a tall girl, almost six feet tall, with braided brown hair that reached her butt. To my five-two stature, she was practically a giant.

"Yes, please call nine-one-one," I deadpanned.

"Can he sit with us?"

"Sure, Chelsea, I don't care. You sure he doesn't have any of his own friends to sit with though?"

"He doesn't. He was going to spend lunch doing homework," she gasped as though that was the most heinous thing she'd ever heard.

"Is she always like this?" The three of us started walking to the cafeteria in the south hall.

"Yup, Chelsea's a bit of a social butterfly," Stephanie said with an apologetic smile. "She thinks that if you don't have friends, you're automatically unhappy. Sorry if the super extrovert is a bit pushy."

"It's fine. I can tell she means well."

Instead of long tables arranged into rows, the cafeteria was dotted with circular tables that could seat a maximum of eight with the serving station on one side. Students were also free to eat out in the quad. We took a seat near the center and were soon joined by several more people.

One, a sinuously fit redhead boy, called, "Hey, Steph, Chels, who's the squirt?"

"Hey, Dennis," the girls greeted back. Stephanie waved towards me. "Chelsea's new project."

"Bryce, nice to meet you, Dennis," I said.

"Let me guess, Hurricane Chelsea swept you into this group, right?" came a deeper voice. A tan, Hispanic boy placed his tray down next to mine. "Carlos, by the way."

"I resent that," Chelsea protested. "I'm a fresh breeze to brighten your day, thank you very much."

"She's… She's really peppy," I said diplomatically. "She found me in AP bio and dragged me over."

"Heh, don't mind it. Believe it or not, Chelsea is how a lot of us met. Dennis and I met in an after school program, but Chelsea dragged Dennis here because she thought he was funny."

"Yeah, and this meaty lug just decided to follow yours truly," the redhead chimed in.

"Good to know she's not just kidnapping random freshmen." I gave Dennis and Carlos a once over. Even over their clothes, it was plainly obvious that the two were very fit.

'What are the odds that these are Clockblocker and Aegis?'

I had my answer when Dean Stansfield, the student council president I recognized from orientation, took a seat with his girlfriend. A mousy, brunette shuffled in next to Victoria Dallon.

"Stop being mean to Chelsea," New Wave's golden girl said. "There's nothing wrong with making new friends. Right?" she addressed me directly.

I'm ashamed to say my breath hitched in my throat when her eyes met mine. There was something about her that captivated me. Her eyes seem bluer; her hair looked like spun sunlight. Her voice was music to my ears. Beside me, Carlos coughed lightly and jabbed a finger into my side.

"Eep! Sorry, you're… really pretty," I finished lamely. I could feel my face turn red.

I thought being mentally in my forties would help keep me grounded; it did not. It wasn't just that she was the hottest girl I'd ever met; she inspired awe in ways I didn't know was possible.

"Vicky, aura," Dean said chidingly. There was some disapproval directed towards me, as expected of a guy who just caught someone else eyeing his girlfriend, but it was drowned out by exasperation. He'd been through this song and dance so frequently that it was more of a routine annoyance than something to be truly upset about.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized. And suddenly, she was much more human: still pretty, but not so breathtaking that I couldn't look away from her. She seemed sincere, though I could tell that a part of her appreciated the attention. "I forget that it's really hard to resist if you've never felt my aura before."

"No, that's alright. I just… didn't expect it to be that strong."

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Amy giving me the stink eye. 'Welp, talk about starting off with a negative reputation.'

"You knew about her aura?" Chelsea asked.

I thought about how to respond. "Ah… Yeah, kind of. I'm a bit of a cape geek."

"Favorite hero?" Dennis asked. Around the table, I could see Dennis, Carlos, Dean, and Victoria perk up. Amy, perhaps expectedly, didn't seem to give a damn. Somewhere along the way, she'd pulled out a book to read and started to tune out the conversation.

"Dragon or Panacea," I replied easily.

"Ooh! Hear that, Ames?" Vicky nudged her sister. "You've got a fan."

"Joy." She looked at me with the tired glare of a surgeon who hadn't slept in two days. It was the glare that said, "If that coffee isn't for me, fuck off before I castrate you with a scalpel." I'd seen it plenty during my PA days. "You need something fixed?"

"Nope," I popped the 'p.' "I'm in good health, thanks. And before you ask, so is my family." I briefly thought of dad but didn't let it get me down. "I mean it; you really are my favorite hero. I'm not saying that just to get you to look at something for me."

"Why?" Stephanie asked. She quailed at Vicky's disapproval. "Not that Amy's not amazing, but most people go with Legend or one of the other Triumvirate."

"He is the most charismatic Triumvirate member for sure," I agreed diplomatically, not quite willing to tell them exactly why I hated the other two. "But let me ask you something: How do you measure the worth of a hero?"

"You can't," Carlos said as he chewed through a bite of his lunch. "There isn't an easy metric you can used to compare heroes so it's all subjective."

"Partially true, but at the end of the day, a hero is someone who saves lives," I replied. "You can couch heroics in whatever flavor you want, but that's what it comes down to. And Amy's hands down the best at it. And Dragon? She's just plain cool."

"See? He gets it." Vicky offered me a fist bump. "Anyone who can recognize Amy's awesomeness deserves to be here. You're alright, new guy."

"Joy," I said flatly. I poked my microwaved burrito with a fork. It bled a clear, gel-like liquid. "Is this supposed to leak so much?"

"It wouldn't if you stopped poking holes in it," Stephanie pointed out. "For the record, the pizza and chicken sandwiches are pretty good if you're buying in the school. I still recommend you bring your own though."

"Noted, thanks." I munched my mediocre burrito. The cheese had melted and mixed with the gooey beans, leaving a sloppy mess barely held together by soggy tortillas. If nothing else, this presented an opportunity to try some Pokémon world cooking. Maybe Brock's infamous "donuts?" "What about you guys? Any heroes you follow?"

"The Wards, obviously," Stephanie said, almost squealing. Around me, the three actual Wards at our table looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Like, Aegis is so hot. Have you seen those abs?"

"I'm straight, but I can see the appeal. Are you sure he's not just strong because of his powers though? He could be wearing a padded costume," I teased.

"No, he's actually got redundant biology." Surprisingly, it was Amy who spoke. She placed her book to the side and took a sip of chocolate milk. "His power lets him be strong, breathe through his skin, or whatever else."

"Huh, that's pretty cool, but are you supposed to tell us that?"

She shrugged. "It's not a secret. Aegis isn't a brute because he has a force field like Vicky. He's a brute because he's got better muscles than a human should be able to develop."

"See?" Stephanie said. "Muscles."

"She's had a crush on him since he first debuted," Chelsea chimed in. "And on Velocity. Like seriously, does that guy's costume really need to be that tight?"

Next to me, I could feel Carlos squirm in his seat. I decided to take the mickey out of the guy.

"Like him?" I poked his impressive biceps. "Carlos is pretty buff too. Pretty sure he's the buffest high schooler I've ever seen actually."

"Nah, no way," Stephanie denied with a snort. "Aegis is more toned. I think he's a bit taller, too."

"You really like the guy, huh?"

"What's not to like? He's buff, strong, a great leader, and has that awesome husky growl in his voice," the brunette swooned.

"Ugh, leave us out of your fantasizing," Amy grumbled.

I couldn't suppress a grin. If the look Dennis was shooting Carlos' way said anything, the Wards wouldn't stop giving him shit for this anytime soon. Dean expertly steered the conversation back to more mundane topics after that.

X​

That night, I started to build an Upgrade, the item that would turn my porygon into a porygon-2. It was a complicated bit of code, as expected of something designed to fundamentally change and improve every aspect of an AI, and would take me several days to develop.

On the plus side, it confirmed something vital to me: My porygon, or anything else I made, couldn't be hacked. At least, not by any casuals. I was coding using KSB, Kantoan Standard Binary. Besides the obvious of it being a form of binary, it had absolutely nothing in common with Earth-Bet's programming languages like JavaScript or C#.

My computer spoke Swahili and everyone else spoke Italian.

I knew intellectually that my ability to program new software was head and shoulders beyond anything a normal human could hope to replicate. My progress was comparable to the likes of Bill who developed the Pokémon Storage System. Even so, my progress felt exceedingly slow to my impatient self.

X​

2010, September 3: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

By the end of the week, I'd fully joined their circle of friends. I said at the start that I'd let events happen as they may, but I certainly didn't expect to be dragged into contact with the Wards so soon.

Surprisingly, Chris had his own circle of friends. He and Dennis seemed friendly with each other, but Chris ate with a different group. If they were besties as Wards, they didn't let it show in their civilian personas. Not that either of them cared about cliques, but their interests just differed too much.

When I wasn't busy with school or the Upgrade, I compiled a collection of videos of capes using their powers and arranged them by the type of move I'd like my porygon to develop through watching them. Bastion, Lady Photon, Shielder, Narwhal, and the like went into a small folder for Protect. Manpower and a cape named Statik in San Diego went into a folder for Thunder Wave.

Over the past five days, my archive had grown to include close to two hundred videos. Legend, with his seemingly unending arsenal of bullshit lasers, was a frequent contributor.

I finished my porygon's Upgrade and set it aside in a separate USB drive.

From what my power was telling me, all pokémon developed at an exponential rate during their infancy. It was why many pokémon that evolved using evolution stones did not learn any more moves naturally and had to rely on TMs or arduous training regimens.

Porygon were a bit different. Being made of code, they could be edited as necessary, but that didn't mean that a porygon-2's growth rate was the same as a standard porygon's. Like hardened clay, a porygon-2 would have a harder time learning new moves or integrating new information into its programming. In exchange, it would become incredibly durable, both physically and in cyberspace.

I couldn't wait to troll Lung by tossing a Protect-spamming, Recover-abusing, near indestructible balloon duck at him.

After finishing my Upgrade, I immediately got to work on my own version of the Pokémon Storage System. Not that I needed it for pokémon.

In the games, if you looked into the PC in your room, you could find a potion. In other words, just as pokéballs could be digitally transferred from a pokémon center to Professor Oak's lab by Ash, the potion could be digitized into a packet of data for later retrieval. It obviously needed a standing system and not a simple laptop, but a way to digitally store matter sounded phenomenal.

Finally, I also looked into what it'd take to make an eviolite.

In the series, it was an item that greatly amplified a pokémon's defenses so long as that pokémon had yet to fully evolve. Seeing how I intended for my porygon to be my mobile barricade, it was the perfect item. Even better, tinkering with a fist-sized ball of purple quartz would draw far less attention than tinkering with a living being. I went online and ordered myself a ball of polished, purple agate, a type of quartz, for only twelve dollars. If anyone asked, it was for a friend's birthday.

Once I couldn't stand to look at a computer screen for a moment longer, I pulled out a sketchpad and started to draw blueprints of what might one day become a PokéNav.

Then, satisfied with my preparations, I went to bed knowing I had some all-nighters ahead of me.

Author's Note

I know, this chapter made half the Worm fandom wince with sympathetic cringe. Immediate Wards encounter? New Wave? Of course. Cue the eye-rolls. But in my defense, I did warn you. This fic won't be nearly as serious as LT and the goal isn't necessarily to write a good story from a mechanics or narrative point of view as it is to write a fun story.

I've decided that Bryce isn't allowed to stay impartial. The almighty hand of destiny (author) will drag his ass into the plot one way or another.

Also, the donut comment is a dig at 4Kids. They had this hilarious episode where Brock pulls out snacks during their journey and they're clearly onigiri rice balls, but 4Kids, in their infinite wisdom, decided to translate them as donuts because I guess they're more relatable to children or something. Binging with Babish even did an episode on them.

My headcanon in Pokémon is that everything works with aura. Humans call it different things, psychics specifically, but at the end of the day, every pokémon uses aura to perform their moves.

Humans have aura too, as seen by Sir Aaron, Ash, Riley, Red, Yellow, Sapphire, etc. Sometimes, what I'm broadly calling aura manifests as more than empathic powers though. Sabrina was able to turn people into dolls. There was a girl who made a "magic potion" that switched Ash and Pikachu's consciousness.

The TM Interface edits Earth-Bet's definition of "human" to be in line with the pokémon world's, giving the user the potential to use aura. The Downloader then makes it possible for some moves to be usable by humans.

It's all just bullshit headcanon, but one based off the lore from games, anime, and manga. I'm sticking to it.

 

[Isiri Pudireach]

So one thing:

Surprisingly, Chris had his own circle of friends. He and Dennis seemed friendly with each other, but Chris ate with a different group. If they were besties as Wards, they didn't let it show in their civilian personas. Not that either of them cared about cliques, but their interests just differed too much.

Click to shrink...

As Chris is 14 by his first canon appearance, this would actually be his first year at Arcadia. I can understand him having friends that made it as well, but its just some information you should consider.

 

[PinkShadowReader]

So Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise, has graciously created a new story for us. Looks good. *Looks at your OC's destiny. Winces in sympathy.*

Nice that your OC noticed he had built up Wards larger than life. Hopefully he notices it too for Undersiders and Taylor. Just as long as he doesn't become a simp I will follow this train wreck of yours. That is a compliment.

Did he really manage to fake learn how to read and other basic stuff for between 6 and 14 years. Phew, that's really something.

--Omake - And that was it 2.5
And next chapter he gets pushed against Amy so she does a body scan with her powers. She discovers he as a pair of space cancers in his head active talks to to wunderbar GloryGirl about it.

Victoria is so happy happy about it so they approaches him to say to him that they knows he has powers and they will keep quiet. Unknown to them a Coil spy voice transmittor is nearby and catches his secret with his name.

Coil preperes to catch him or make use of him. Meanwhile after Victoria got rejected by the new parahuman (MC) because he didn't want to join New Wave or the local Wards, Victoria goes to cry to Dean about the new parahuman that rejected her offer. Dean is a such a good guy so he goes to PRT about it.

Because he is such a good guy Director Piggot decides take it into account when she makes planes for the month. She archive it because she is just a dedicated Director, confirming it for Coil, and then asks a PRT ward invitee to talk to his parents and this child about biased death parahuman statistics later in the week. Every gang in the city plus Dragon suddenly knows it. Dragon because she is a dragon. The gangs because PRT is so infested of corruption and is such a hellhole that many is either blackmailed or owes something to gangs whatever it is drugs, money or services.

Skidmark decides to invite MC to become honorable Merchant.

Kaiser says that "Because he is white invite him, but even if he wasn't that they would even then invite him because he is so amazing."

Lung sits in his mahogany chair and sees MC in his spy's report. He says "invite this guy. He's Asian."
Coil discovers he must hastily move because he is so used to have unlimited tries as long as its he who makes a move.
Timeskip on 2 days.

When school ends MC asks Victoria if she had been silent on his private matter like she promised, she said that she hadn't blabbed about his secret identity to someone else at all.
He walks out of Arcadia. A long red carpet is on the earth. He didn't see anyone else but nonetheless just walked on the red carpet because it wasn't like he could go to some other exit in the school who has many secret identities who no doubt has had similar problems but different problems.

MC walked halfway of the long 500m carpet. There was four cape villains in propose positions.
https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5349395/il_fullxfull.225046835.jpg
Skidmark was on knees and said "I, mother fricking, want to have you in my Merchants gang. In return you will become honorable Merchant and get how much drugs as you want."
Lung was on his knees and said "I want you in my Anz Bad Boyz gang. You're Asian if you accept and you will become richly rewarded. You'll become in laws with me and get a yearly brothel all-you-can-get pass."
Kaiser was on his knees and said "I want you in Empire Eighty Eight. If you choose to accept my humble offer I'll make you my heir to E88."
Coil was on his knees and said "I want you to work for me. I have grand plans for this city. If you decide to accept my offer you'll become my top lieutenant and top handler of any future parahumans teams that I decide to employ. And best of all you if you want you can play real life Cities Skylines and sometimes real life Poly Bridge 2."

MC become so shocked that they knew his identity that he accepted all four offers. Because each one of the misunderstood crime boss took it as a genuine accept they decided to kill the other crime boss because they tried to poach him.

Kaiser killed Lung.
Before Lung died he took a swing against Coil, which killed him.
Coil had a contingency pacemaker that aired mass secrets. In those secrets was MC's identity.
Skidmark killed Kaiser with weaponized roller skates but when he tried to walk up to MC Skidmark somehow activated a command that made his roller skates to crash into the nearby building.

PRT is on the way to his house but then came coil contingency activated that said MC has done this biotinker crime and that other crime. Coil also bombed the hospital and kicked kitties because of course he did.

Director Piggot signed a warrant on the terrible villain MC. And created an ultimatum if he doesn't surrender peacefully to the birdcage he'll get a kill order.

Director Costa-brown commended Director Piggot on her quick thinking. Offers Triumvirate assistance. She accepts.

MC refused to do the right thing. He got a kill order.

Alexanderia comes flying and attacks him. MC somehow managed to flail perfect so her helmet got destroyed and her make up got swiped away all while being in the cameras.
She gets outed as the Chief Director. Alexanderia gets pissed and says to mc that she will sign a 2nd grade kill order to kill him. She takes out a paper and sign it.

The Elite looks at MC's kill order and thinks its fantastic money. They hired the Dragon Slayers that hacked Dragon to hack all the worlds nuclear missiles. Dragon Slayers knew that it wasn't possible to shot it to Brockton Bay so they just launched them to be destroyed.

Approximately 13 000 warheads exploded all around the world.

It will become nuclear winter for circa 50 years. Simurgh attacks Brockton Bay because it was a perfect target for their goals.

Zion has been on Twitter with account I_GIANT_EVIL_SPACE_MOUNTAIN by his dearest human friend Kevin Norton has setup for him. Threw a temper tantrum because the Twitter databases and servers got destroyed in all nukes. Accidentally destroyed Earth Bet and a couple of extra Earths exact like in post-GM. Got extremely depressed and then decided to kill themselves.

The End.
--
Wow. Don't know where this came from but you did say tropes inbound, any chances it goes like this?

 

[Fabled Webs]

Wake 1.3

2010, September 4: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

The first thing I did when I woke up was to disconnect my computer from the internet and connect my external hard drive to the computer. My hard drive linked to my PC with the sound of whirling fans. Then, out of the corner of the screen, came a pastel blue and red duck. It waddled on awkward, trapezoidal limbs as it explored the screen. I put on my modified headphones and connected the miniature mic.

"Hello," I spoke softly. It startled, looking around before ducking behind the Internet Explorer icon. "Can you hear me?" Slowly, its head peaked back above the "e" and looked through the monitor at me. "My name is Bryce Kiley and I'm your trainer. Do you understand?"

I hoped so. The seed data that had developed into a porygon contained a number of directives, including obedience to myself. If it could not understand me, it meant that I'd fucked up the seed somehow. It nodded. 'Good, I wond-'

My thoughts were interrupted when it lunged through the monitor directly at my face. "Ack!" I yelped, tilting back and falling from my chair as what felt like a giant Lego crashed into my head. "Oww…"

"Reee?" it said. Its voice was something between the trill of a bird and the squeak of a mouse, if you put that noise through a digital filter. It sat comfortably on my chest like it belonged there and the impression I got from it was that it was… happy? Curious? A bit of both? A gentle weight settled in my mind and I knew then that the "bond between trainers and pokémon" that Oak talked about wasn't just a bunch of nonsense.

I should have figured. Mega evolution, z-moves, and friendship based evolution paths all pointed at aura playing a role in this bond. The pokémon drew strength from their trainer and their trainer pushed the pokémon to new heights. It was why Ash's pikachu could tangle with some legendary pokémon and come out on top. Whatever that bond might be exactly, it had been forged between this porygon and me.

"Your name is SAINT," I said. I couldn't help myself, JARVIS had to be respected. "You are the Sophisticated Artificially Intelligent Numerative Technopath. And one day, you're going to make the Dragonslayers shit themselves."

"Pory?" the newly named SAINT chirped. It looked around my room with a blank expression that somehow still managed to radiate curiosity.

"Bryce, you okay there?" We were interrupted by my sister's knocking. "We heard shouting."

I stuffed the porygon in my closet and opened the door a tad. "Sorry, Sierra, I stubbed my toe when I got out of bed," I said sheepishly.

"Alright, but come downstairs soon. Mom made pancakes."

She walked away, humming her favorite tune and I closed the door. "SAINT," I spoke softly. "Come." The bond between us pulsed gently as my intentions were carried over. At the moment, SAINT was about as smart as a dog, albeit a very well-trained one. It floated towards my arms, unsteady little feet wriggling in the air.

I held it in my hands and pondered. "I can't keep thinking of you as an 'it,' you're not an object. So, in the great tradition of Samuel Oak, 'Are you a boy or a girl?'"

My new porygon stared at me blankly, completely missing the reference. The bond pulsed with confusion. "Alright, fine, you don't really understand the distinction between male or female. I'm going to call you a 'he' from now on. Okay?"

"Ree." He nodded in the affirmative.

"Great, now your directives are threefold: First, do not be seen or otherwise discovered by any other human, whether physically or digitally. Do you understand?" He nodded. "Second, you are to assist me by learning new moves using the archive of powers I compiled." Another nod. "Good. Third, at some point in the future, you will accompany me in my cape persona. You will be responsible for my protection in the field." A final nod, though I felt some confusion concerning the relevance of a cape persona.

As far as SAINT was concerned, he was a porygon. I was the trainer. He was therefore responsible for my protection, no matter what I wore.

I gently pushed him back into the monitor and opened up my archive. "Excellent. For now, please focus on learning the move Protect." Not being connected to the internet, I would be able to build up my relationship with SAINT before he could be influenced by external factors.

X​

That done, I joined my family for breakfast.

"Morning," I yawned. I sat at the table and allowed the aroma of fresh pancakes and scrambled eggs to fill my nostrils. "Smells great, mom."

"Morning," Sierra mumbled through a mouthful of eggs.

"Morning, sweetie," mom smiled and set a plate for me. "Eat up."

I leaned back in my chair to grab the hot sauce and ketchup bottles from the fridge. A healthy dose of both made its way onto my eggs.

"I still have no idea how you eat that," my sister grumbled.

"What? Eggs?"

"Hot sauce with eggs."

"It's good, you should try some." I held my fork out for her.

"Nope, that's weird. Eggs should be eaten with just salt and pepper, maybe some cheese. Ketchup is forgivable. Hot sauce is not."

"Lies. You lack my refined taste buds."

"Right, refined. That's what you call it. Hot sauce on eggs, pineapples on pizza, ranch dressing on hot dogs, teriyaki sauce on burgers…"

I took a sip of orange juice. "They're all delicious, way better than your bland palette."

"Children," mom chided.

"I'm twenty, mom," Sierra huffed.

"Then act like it. Must you two bicker every meal?"

Our eyes met. "Yes," we replied in unison.

"What am I going to do with you two?"

"It's how we bond," I said.

"Yeah, this is how we show affection," my sister added.

"Well you can also bond over chores. Sierra, do the dishes. Bryce, take out the trash."

"How is that bonding?" I protested. "We're not even in the same room together."

"You can bond over your shared misery," she said smugly.

After breakfast, I checked up on SAINT's progress. According to the data, he'd gotten the basic gist of putting up a barrier in front of him but simulations indicated that it wouldn't even stop a punch.

"SAINT," I spoke into the mic, "how long do you think it'll take for you to learn Protect?" A small window popped up on my monitor. It was a standard Windows loading screen, with green dots filling a white, horizontal bar. A miniature porygon waddled across the green dots. It was less than a fifth of the way full. "That long, huh? Thank you for your hard work, pal."

I changed into a pair of basketball shorts and walked back downstairs.

"Going somewhere, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, mom, I was going to take out the trash then go running."

"Bryce, are you okay?" she asked.

"Why would me going running mean I'm not okay?"

"Because it's you doing the running," Sierra chimed in. "You don't exercise, Bryce. You're a skinny beanpole."

"Ooh, doing wonders for my self-esteem, sis."

"Sierra!"

"What, mom? It's true. You were thinking it too."

"Well…"

"Well, I decided that I'm going to exercise from now on," I said. "New school, new me." 'And I need to get fit quickly if I want to be able to protect myself,' I added mentally.

"Alright, take care of yourself, Bryce."

"Will do, mom."

"Carry your phone."

"I have it," I held it out for her benefit. "Relax, I'm going to jog to the Boardwalk and back, maybe circle my school or something."

"Have fun, baby bro," my sister waved.

X​

The jog to the Boardwalk was fine. I was breathing heavily, but the distance wasn't so large that I felt overwhelmed. I was walking along the shoreline to cool off when I heard a loud bang coming from the very end of the Boardwalk.

The noise came from a gas station that doubled as a general store and tourist trap. They sold coffee for the 'rents and Protectorate action figures for the kids. One of the propane tanks set aside for the summer grilling season had exploded into shrapnel, rupturing a gas pump and starting an oil fire that was quickly spreading. People screamed as do-gooders and Boardwalk enforcers unfortunate enough to be on the dawn shift rushed to the scene.

I froze, stuck between the fleeing crowds and my own fear.

Brockton Bay wasn't safe. I knew that, everyone did, but my parents had sheltered me from the worst of it. All I'd ever experienced of the dangers of this city was taken from the news. It was always someone else's problem, someone else's tragedy. So when a gas station blew up less than a block away from me, my idiot hind-brain chose neither fight nor flight. It chose "deer meets train."

Then, a slim figure in gold and red tights jumped out of the smoke. They wore a mask that looked like the Muse of Comedy in that Greek tragedy-comedy pairing that everyone used to represent theater as a whole. A matching jester's hat, split with twin tails capped with jangling bells, completed the image. They did a full summersault and landed with their hands in the air in a perfect "Y" pose.

Someone swore like a sailor and several more bangs were heard, this time of gunfire. Before I could even flinch back from the noise, the cape swung their arms out in a short, crisp arc. A large sledgehammer decorated with bells and streamers materialized out of thin air halfway through the swing, just in time for optimal momentum, and deflected the bullets.

'Holy shit, discount Harley Quinn blocked bullets with a hammer,' I thought, mouth agape. 'Can they can see the bullets somehow? Are they reacting to the noise faster than a bullet can travel? Or do they have some kind of danger-sense?

My mind ran a mile a second, but it wasn't until an enforcer roughly pulled me away that I thought to step out of the line of fire.

"Thanks," I mumbled to the burly man.

He grunted something incoherent before snapping open a walkie-talkie. "Circus sighted. Shopkeeper just ran out with a gun. ETA on Protectorate?"

"Militia inbound. Two minutes," came the response through muffling static.

The enforcer turned to me and gave me a firm shove away. "Get somewhere safe, kid," he insisted.

"Y-yeah, thanks again," I stammered out before I started a light jog down an alley.

A street away, I saw Miss Militia's telltale motorcycle zoom past. Less than a minute later, Circus jumped between rooftops, sank into another alley across the street from me, and summoned a gymnast's ribbon from somewhere that they used to tangle onto a fire escape to divert her course. In seconds, they were gone.

As I jogged away from the Circus heist, I couldn't suppress the feeling of inadequacy.

Was I strange?

I'd always known just how dangerous Earth-Bet could be. Was I strange for freezing up like that? Did personal experience make such a big difference? Fear was irrational and though Circus was nowhere near me, though they were a minor villain barely worth mentioning, the gas explosion paralyzed me like a deer caught in the headlights. Instead of acting, I stood there wondering about the mechanics of their powers like I was Izuku fucking Midoriya.

Worse, I fucking knew their powers. Pocket space. Minor pyrokinetic. Enhanced agility and balance. Now that I was away from danger, the list of their powers sprang to mind as though I had the wiki entry in front of me. But in that moment, I froze, mind as well as body. I was always more of a thinker than a doer and it seemed that a new life hadn't changed that in the slightest.

'I need to be stronger,' I thought. I'd told myself those exact words dozens, hundreds, of times, but they'd lacked substance until now. They'd lacked a means until now. Honestly, I was ashamed of myself. I felt like a coward.

Freezing might have been the normal response, but I couldn't be normal. Normal got capes killed.

X​

When I got home, I opened my phone and logged on to PHO. Surprisingly, Circus was on the site defending themselves.

According to them, they'd robbed the gas station when the owner picked up a hunting rifle from behind the counter. They deflected a bullet, only for it to nail one of the propane tanks that the owner had yet to put away. Things only escalated from there. Admittedly, Circus wasn't typically this destructive in their heists, but that didn't make them any less of a criminal, something the keyboard warriors on PHO were more than happy to point out.

I checked up on SAINT's progress; Protect was twenty-six percent mastered.

Watching Circus pull a giant mallet out of their ass did remind me of one thing that Pokémon had: expanded bags. I wouldn't get a pocket space like they had, but I could mimic a bag of holding. And as a tinker, what I could carry into battle was what I had to fight with. Seeing how I wouldn't be able to take my digital storage system into battle, this was the next best alternative.

Before I knew it, I sank into a tinker fugue. I woke up from my trance three hours later with my school bag transformed into a discount bag of holding. The vacuum cleaner in my closet was also suspiciously dismantled. The expanded bag looked like my old schoolbag, a generic navy blue with a tan, faux leather bottom, but with a carrying capacity of six hundred pounds, this bag was far from ordinary.

'Guess I'll be using my old bag from now on,' I thought ruefully. If and when I chose to go out as a cape, I couldn't carry the same expanded bag as I was using at school. I dug in my closet to find what I was looking for: A limited time Protectorate backpack styled after Legend, rainbows and all, that I used up to middle school until I decided that it looked a little too childish.

After a light caprese sandwich for lunch, I worked on the digital storage system for a while. Even allowing my power to assist me with a fugue, there was a mountain's worth of code to write. I eventually realized that the fastest way for me to make it would be to make the framework, a skeleton, and let SAINT build the meat of the system. After all, no matter how superhumanly fast I was, I wasn't an AI.

A few hours of coding later, I sat on my favorite beanbag chair, dad's guitar in hand and strumming the afternoon away. My mind was drowning in ideas, but the simple truth was that I was running low on materials. I could and would turn my phone into a PokéNav hybrid and the second pair of headphones I bought from Keys & Notes could become a wireless communicator, but I'd eventually have to brave the city if I wanted to progress.

The worst part was that I would still be squishy. Protect was great, nearly unbreakable for capes in Brockton Bay, but it wasn't automatic. With SAINT fighting for me, I could have him use Sharpen and Tackle to deal some serious damage to non-brutes. But that wasn't survivability and the thought of going out with so little made me feel nervous. What I needed was a way to react to threats quickly, something that could help me use my new moves efficiently…

My woolgathering was interrupted by Sierra.

"Sounds good, baby bro." She stood in the doorway with a book in hand. "You try to edit any music yet?"

"Not yet," I said. "I bought all this stuff, but I'm not sure how to get started. It's a bit daunting."

"It's like that any time you start something new, you know? Sometimes, you just have to dive in."

"Yeah, thanks." I smiled, then turned the conversation away from my hardware. I had no intention of showing Sierra just what all this "recording equipment" had become. "What's up? Not going to go drink your troubles away?"

She made a face. "Don't say that out loud, you idiot." She nudged the door closed with her butt after making sure mom wouldn't rush in here in an indignant rage. "I'm not an alcoholic."

"Day drinking is a sign…"

"Shut up, I had a glass of wine with some friends, okay? Besides, I wasn't the only one drinking to forget."

I put my guitar back in its stand and leaned into the cushy chair. "Hmm? Do tell."

"A friend of mine just has a pushy admirer is all." She flopped down onto my bed with an aggravated groan. We often did this, come into each other's' room to vent.

"Isn't Brockton College a big place? She can just avoid him right?"

"Not that simple, baby bro. The creep's her lab assistant."

"A lab assistant's the person from a higher year who helps a professor, right?" I asked for the sake of having her "fill me in."

"Right. She literally can't get away from him unless she drops her major."

I winced in sympathy. "Campus security? Or maybe the professor?"

"The professor's distant and it's her word against his. Why can't men just fuck off?"

I rolled my eyes. "You don't mean that. You've been trying to get a date for… six months now?"

A pillow collided with my face. "Shut up. Why can't this man fuck off?"

"She's going to have to be the one to shut him down," I advised. "If you try to interject yourself, he's going to tell you to mind your own business."

"That's the problem!" She flipped over, arms flailing in frustration. "I want to help her, but she's too nice to tell him to go fuck himself."

"That's rough."

"Yeah… I don't know what to do."

"Coach her through it," I said gently. "Maybe be there with her when she confronts him?"

"I'll try," she sighed. "Let's talk about something else. How's high school, bro? You got a crush already?"

"I don't," I said flatly, ignoring the blush creeping over my face.

"You're blushing."

"Yes, because I'm a teenager with hormones."

"Nope," she sang, "it's not just that. You know what I think? I think you want to impress a girl. Why else would you start running?"

'Because I want to survive being a cape,' I thought sardonically. Instead, I said, "Because I want to not look like a scrawny stick anymore? Really, I don't have a crush. Or friends."

"What about those kids I saw you say hi to when I dropped you off? The buff, Latino boy and that cute girl with dyed blonde hair."

"I eat lunch with them, that's all. The buff boy's Puerto Rican and his name is Carlos. The blonde is Chelsea and she's the type of social butterfly that drags everyone into her pace."

"Ohoho, so that's the girl that's gotten our dear Bryce out of his shell, hmm?" She said with a mischievous grin. "She's cute."

"She's an annoyance that I could do without."

"Then why do you eat with her?"

'Because having a way to keep tabs on the Wards is invaluable,' I thought. "Because she'll hound me incessantly and drag me back to their table if I don't."

"Sounds like she likes you."

"Sounds like she's a pain."

"Bryce," Sierra reached over to plant a hand on my shoulder, "you know you can count on big sis for any advice about girls, right?"

I made a gagging noise. "No thanks, I have porn for that."

It was her turn to gag. "I didn't need to hear that."

"You also don't need to be in my room," I pointed out.

She got up with a huff. "You know what? Fine. I, your lovely big sister, dropped in to spend time with her darling baby bro and this is how you treat me?"

"You came here to vent, the same as we always do."

"Well, consider me vented." She stormed off but I could spy a hint of a smile on her face.

Author's Note

Short chapter, but very relevant.

SAINT is live! I originally planned to have him start learning every move available, but that seemed OP, too far too fast, so I settled on what I would prioritize in this scenario: Protect. Survival trumps everything else.

Also, Circus has enhanced aim, balance, and agility. They can do a very good job of aping Spidey-sense. I don't often see them show up in fics so I thought I'd give them a cool moment before the story really kicks off.

Sierra's personality is a mix of canon and a friend who was the "mom-friend" in my group back in high school.

 

[PinkShadowReader]

Smart of MC to isolate SAINT from the Internet in the beginning and build up him with trust before he gets unleashed.

I haven't heard of "deer meets train." I've only heard of "deer meets headlight."

Yeah. If he was an actual teenager and he would consult porn on girls it would end in a disaster.

Thank you for the chapter. I'm grateful for your work.

 

[Idoneior]

You've made Sierra a sufficiently interesting character here that I can't wait to see her reaction when she finds out what her brother is up to.

 

[Toguro]

Spoiler

Wonder how legal it is for Sierra's friend to record the guy starting sh*t and not knowing when to f*ck off??

 

[Kris-71854]

I had a funny thought. Sierra's friend needs a token boyfriend. Sadly, our MC couldn't remotely pull that off. Being his age isn't the bad thing, it's that he is far too short and not remotely built. I vaguely recalled 12. I was about 5'8" and could pass for 16 at that age. By 14, I was 5'10" and regularly mistaken for my dad when out with my mom. The MC doesn't have the build to play the part of her friend's boyfriend.

In some respects, it would be funny if they tried or even just used him as a stand-in for her friend's drama/role-playing lessons.

Poor boy doesn't have a crush on Glory Girl. He is human without any current psi defenses. Hey, pokemon might actually have something for that.

I can't believe the guy is even thinking about being a cape at all. He could barely handle a jog out. That was likely a minor cape encounter that most merely shrugs and goes on about their business with. His reactions to it? Not something that would mean he'd survive 5 minutes of actual cape life. He'd need to be a Ward for any hope of survival. That's mainly because he'd be protected and wouldn't be out of older folks sight.

The one bit about this MC that I don't like is that the kid wasn't an accidental fitness nut. I understand his POV and where he was coming from. He was there since he was 4 though. He didn't have any powers. The only thing that he could do is routine exercise and pray that he'd trigger later in life.

His life didn't sound that bad other than being in Worm on Earth Bet and knowing what was coming.

 

[Fabled Webs]

Preface

Happy 'Murica Day. I live in Arlington, VA so I will be on my condo rooftop watching the fireworks this evening. I've seen them from in front of the Lincoln Monument before too and… it's not worth it. Seriously, the ashes have to fall somewhere and somewhere happens to be on the Reflecting Pool.

Wake 1.4

2010, September 4: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

That night, I was happy to find that SAINT had finished learning Protect. Along with Tackle, Conversion, and Sharpen, that gave him four moves to rely on. But just because I could theoretically learn new moves didn't mean I could learn all of them. Of SAINT's current arsenal, I could learn Protect and Tackle, not that there was much point in learning the latter.

Sharpen required an incredibly rugged body, like that of a porygon, onix, or cryogonal.

Conversion required a body that could adapt to different energy types at will by literally rewriting its own code, or DNA for organics like me. There was a reason that the only similar examples were found among ditto and the staryu line.

"Hey, buddy, thanks for all your hard work," I said softly. SAINT responded with a quiet trilling noise. "Come on out. I've got a treat for you."

After dinner, I'd raided the kitchen pantry for different snacks. Porygon were creatures made up of data, but they were also creatures of physical matter and aura. This left them in the curious position where they could survive without food, subsisting entirely off junk data packets in cyberspace, but could also consume regular food if they so desired. SAINT appeared through the screen with a ripple and I set an array of chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, nuts, and dried fruits on a plate before him.

"Go on," I encouraged. "This is what humans eat as a snack. Try each of them and tell me what you like."

"Poreee," he trilled. He nudged my hand and I found myself scratching his blocky head. I wasn't sure if and how he could derive pleasure from headpats; he wasn't a dog after all, but if he liked it, then I'd happily oblige.

One by one, he took the samples into his mouth, a hole that appeared from his blue beak and seemingly led nowhere. He spat out the dried cherries, but seemed to enjoy the caramel-crusted almonds most. He even did this weird duck-waddle butt-wiggle thing.

"You like crunchy things?" I asked. "Or do you just not like the sour fruits?" I couldn't decipher the noises he made, but the pulses I received through our bond left me with the impression that he enjoyed crunchy, sweet things with a savory aftertaste. "Alright, buddy, I'll get you more of these." I made sure to take a picture of the brand that sold the almonds so I could purchase more. "Hey, SAINT, how do you feel about showing me your moves?"

"Reee," he nodded. He couldn't show me Tackle without breaking something, but he did show me Protect.

His body glowed with a dim, white light before a green dome of energy spread outward. He held it in place, a perfect sphere surrounding a floating cyber duck.

"That's awesome, SAINT," I praised him. "Do you mind if I hit it?" He nodded in assent so I started to tap away with increasing force. Eventually, I punched the barrier hard enough to bruise my own hand. "Fuck," I muttered as I sucked on my tender knuckles.

"Pory?" He made a sound I'd never heard him make before. The barrier came down and he floated over to examine my hand.

"Are you worried, little guy?" I fed him another almond. "Don't worry; your Protect was just really strong. Can you do that again?"

"Gon," he replied, a stern warning to not punch the barrier again. For someone who could only make vague crooning noises, he was surprisingly expressive.

This time, when his Protect went up, I brought out the screwdriver I'd been using to tinker with from grandpa's toolbox. I held it against the green sphere with one hand and got a mallet with the other. The idea was to put as much force as I could into a single point, but even that had no effect. I hammered away at it, but all I heard was a dull tinkling noise, like breaking glass muffled through a wall of cotton.

"Awesome," I said, wiping the sweat from my brow. "You're really strong, SAINT. I don't think there's anything a normal person can do to your Protect." The porygon preened with a happy trill before setting into my lap. "I guess this makes sense," I mused. "Even weaker pokémon consistently output multiple tons of force after all. It'd be weird if I could scratch your Protect in the first place. I'm glad I didn't have you try to Tackle me. Can you show me Sharpen?"

He floated or a brief moment before a reflective sheen seemed to coat his blocky body. As the shine faded, he seemed to briefly change into a wall of pixels before fleshing out again. This time, his beak tapered to a wicked edge, as did his little feet.

I gingerly held out a sheet of paper and ran it along his beak, only to find that it came away in pieces. Bolder, I tried to cut everything from cardboard to an old t-shirt using his face. Sharpen made his edges as fine as a knife's, though that still left plenty of things he couldn't readily cut.

Test finished, he popped back into his safer form and hopped into my lap.

I laughed and picked up my guitar again. At approximately eighty pounds, he was heavy, but no more than a chubby child. A part of me wished I remembered songs from my past life, but I wasn't big into music back then. Still, Earth-Aleph had many of the same music so I looked up the Guns N' Roses. SAINT spent the rest of the evening huddled in my lap as I strummed to "Sweet Child of Mine." I wasn't much of a singer, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway.

Before I went to bed, I put him back into the TM Scanner and hooked up the Downloader and Interface. After adjusting the settings for human use, I locked my door and put on the headphones.

"SAINT," I spoke into the mic, "I'm going to have you monitor the download process. I want to learn Protect tonight so while I'm asleep, can you upload the data you have of the move to the Interface? It should do the rest."

I felt nervous. If this worked, I'd be able to use a move. Hell, it meant more than that.

I was learning to use aura.

I would have effectively given myself powers, something only the best of trumps could manage in this world. This set of tech alone would make me one of the most wanted men in the world. I took a deep breath and lied down on the bed.

"Good night, SAINT. Begin the download."

X​

2010, September 5: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I woke up to a throbbing headache. Most people described hangovers like a "nail through the skull," but this was nothing so pointed. Instead, there was a pervading ache, like a long-term injury that just wouldn't go away. I groaned in misery and checked the TM Interface. Green, so the upload was complete. I set my headphones on top of the desk and stumbled into the bathroom.

I normally liked to take my showers at night but opted for one this morning. The hot water did wonders to dispel the lingering headache and gave me some much needed clarity. Protect, the single most essential move in competitive battling, was now firmly embedded in my brain.

Hopefully, I'd need to spam it a bit less than they did in VGC.

Now that I had a chance to turn my focus inward, I realized that my TM Downloader did a bit more than simply download the procedures needed to perform a move. It was a machine that tailored a pokémon's technique for use by a human. To accomplish this, the human body itself needed to be changed, not on a physical level, but on a metaphysical one, hence the pervading headache.

I grit my teeth and drew from the flickering light I felt inside.

"Protect," I called, my voice drowned out in the hot water.

A barrier made of emerald motes of light, much like SAINT's own, materialized around my body. Unlike his, it was practically translucent and flickered as though it would vanish at any moment. After about ten seconds of trying to hold it, the aura I felt escaped my grasp and the shield faded to nothing.

"Tch, guess I'm going to need to practice that."

I got out of the tub and toweled off before returning to my room.

"Morning, SAINT," I greeted. Sometime during my shower, he'd crawled out of the monitor to explore my room. He opened my desk drawer somehow and was currently upside down, head stuck with his fat, blue feet waddling in the air. I picked him up and placed him on the bed. "Didn't I tell you not to be spotted by mom or Sierra?"

"Gon!" he said, and I could hear a mix of indignation and mischief.

"You won't be spotted? The door was closed?" He nodded enthusiastically. "Well what if Sierra barged in? Besides, that's not where I keep the crusted almonds."

He drooped in disappointment. "Poreee…"

"You know, for an overgrown block of Legos, you're dangerously cute," I mock-chided. "Fine, fine. I'll go buy some more for you tonight, but only if you learn Recover by the end of the day, Deal?" He nodded frantically and I realized that what I was doing was the equivalent of bribing a child into doing his chores with cookies. Still, alongside Protect, Recover would go a long way to keeping me alive.

Our deal struck, he dove back into his monitor. Earth-Bet was filled with regenerating brutes and there were countless videos of Panacea working her magic. He wouldn't be lacking any examples on that front. Reasonably sure that he wouldn't be leaving cyberspace for at least today, I went downstairs to join my family for breakfast.

'I wonder if I should tell Sierra about my powers?' I mused. 'She was a splendid lieutenant for Skitter in canon and as far as unpowered help goes, I'm not sure I can get someone more loyal than my own sister. But if I tell her, she'll want me to join the Wards, or at least moderate my tinkering.'

Sierra was a deeply morally-conscious person who cared for others even to her own detriment. I'd grown to truly love and cherish my big sister in this life, but I had no delusions about her. The same moral compass that pushed her to support Skitter and rebuild the Boardwalk following Leviathan would push her to force me into the Wards. Hell, she was a woman who looked at a city post-endbringer and said, "You know what? I'm going to start an orphanage."

That beautiful, compassionate heart was exactly why I loved her, and also why I feared involving her. At the very least, she would try to moderate my tinkering and force me to become a hero.

'But is that such a bad thing? Doesn't a power like mine need a strong moral compass?'

An uncomfortable pit settled in my stomach as I realized I had no answer. I wasn't evil, but I was broadly selfish. I didn't mind helping those around me, but I knew I wouldn't go out of my way to perform great acts of heroics if left to my own devices. The age-old adage came to mind: With great power comes great responsibility.

Except… That wasn't necessarily true. I amended the quote. 'With great power comes great possibilities.'

Frankly, I didn't know what kind of cape I wanted to be, only that the Wards would stifle my potential and something in me railed at the mere thought of my freedom being restricted so. But even discounting the Wards, I had a breadth of options I wasn't ready to explore. Beyond ensuring my family's safety, I was all about fun.

I supposed I wasn't entirely free from the hedonism of the original Bryce Kiley. I only hoped I'd be less of a reckless fuckwit doing it.

'Power first, options later,' I decided in the time-honored tradition of all teenagers: procrastination.

"Hey, mom," I was drawn out of my ponderings by my sister, "can my friends drop in sometime this week?"

"Of course," mom replied. "Kayla, right? I haven't seen her since you both graduated."

"Oh… Kayla and I don't really talk anymore," Sierra said awkwardly.

"What? Why? She was such a sweet girl."

"She's that Filipino girl, right?" I asked. I vaguely remembered the short, Asian girl with a wide smile and dazzlingly white teeth. "She was pretty cool."

"Yeah, I guess we just kind of drifted apart. I majored in engineering and she went into history so we just never found time to hang out."

"So who's coming then?"

"Some girls from my major. You haven't met them."

I nodded. "Alright, cool. Do you need me to leave the house for a few hours?"

Sierra and I had an understanding. It started when she first brought home some of her friends in high school. She'd give me twenty bucks to go wander the Boardwalk or Hillside, giving her the house to hang out. My own lack of friends meant I never reversed the same privilege.

"Nah, it's cool. Just don't be too loud," she said. "We have a group lab and their housemates are a bit… party-hardy."

I snorted. "Party-hardy? You're so lame."

"I'm amazing," she sniffed. "I at least have friends."

"Sierra!" mom chided.

"So amazing," I drawled, "friends you're bringing to do lab work… Much jealous."

"Whatever, Bryce. Just wait 'til you get to college and see how you deal."

'Been there, done that,' I thought wryly. "Sure, I'll make sure to stay out of your way," I said instead.

Breakfast ended, mom went to church, and Sierra holed herself up in her room with a textbook. I did the dishes then went up to my room.

I locked the door and tossed what few tinkering materials I had onto the floor. The last of the two headphones I bought from Keys & Notes, my old Zune mp3 player, my collapsible phone with a keyboard, and my mic that I wasn't getting much mileage out of. It wasn't much to build with; if I had a different specialization like Mass Effect, I could probably build an omnitool and some programs. I was once again reminded that I would need more materials soon.

"SAINT, please set an alarm for four hours," I spoke. I initially bought the mic with the thought that I would need it to communicate with SAINT while he was in my computer, but it turned out that the mic built into my PC was sufficient. Its shitty quality aside, it could still pick up my voice so long as I spoke at a reasonable volume.

I set grandpa's toolbox, a set of dentist's tweezers from dad's supply, and other tools I'd nicked around the house on the floor and got to tinkering.

A tinker fugue was an interesting thing to experience.

On one hand, I knew exactly what I was doing; every step seemed so natural in this state, as though there was someone reading off a recipe in my mind.

On the other hand, if I tried to focus on the explanation for each step, why such piece had to be attached in such manner, I came up blank. The instruction manual in my mind evaporated into smoke. As I delved deeper into the fugue, I could feel my consciousness drifting away, replaced by my Shard with a subtlety that I wouldn't have noticed had I not been explicitly aware of Shards in the first place.

I was brought out of my fugue by the beeping of my computer alarm. In front of me was my very own pokémon navigator, or PokéNav for short.

Rather than the burnt orange color scheme from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it was a faded, military green like my old phone. In fact, it looked largely indistinguishable from my old collapsible phone on the surface. Appearances could be misleading though and I was honestly proud of my gear. My old phone had a physical keyboard that could snap out from one side for texting, giving it a thicker profile than the iPhones and Galaxies I used in my old life. The thicker profile worked out for me; I'd torn out the keyboard and completely replaced the phone's entrails with bits of machinery that I couldn't even name.

It was a phone, yes, but now it also doubled as a 3D map and navigator independent of any GPS on the planet. While it lacked any advanced tracking functions, it provided me with a bird's eye view of the city's layout and my position on it in real time. It could also access police and emergency medical dispatch frequencies, though I was unable to tap into those unique to the PRT and Protectorate.

All that aside, I was proudest of the way I'd imported the Pokémon Condition function from the games. I took inspiration from Alola's rotom-dex. In Hoenn, the Pokémon Condition was an app built into the PokéNav which allowed the main character to look over his team's condition in preparation for contests. I gutted the whole thing and coded in a giant, duck-shaped void in its place. Seeing how I wasn't likely to have any more pokémon, the entire app was essentially a mobile home for SAINT to reside.

This way, he could accompany me and interface with the PokéNav directly to provide me with real time intelligence. If things really went sideways, SAINT could also step out of the PokéNav to help kick some ass.

Daily tinkering complete, I slid in the accompanying in-ear headphones and went for a jog.

X​

That night, in the privacy of my room, I looked over SAINT's movepool. "Tackle, Conversion, Sharpen, Protect, and Recover… Great job, SAINT," I praised. "As promised, here are your nuts, bud."

We spent two hours just lounging about, SAINT munching on his snack while I fiddled around with the DAW. I then decided to practice with Protect for a bit. "SAINT, I'm going to use Protect. I need you to Tackle it so I can see how sturdy the barrier is."

"Porr," he trilled his disagreement and concern through the bond.

"I'd rather find out my limits here with you where it's safe," I pointed out. SAINT reluctantly stepped to the corner of the room and braced against the carpet. "Okay, here goes. Protect," I said, making sure to curb my impulse to shout the name of the move. I didn't need Sierra calling me a weeb again.

The sphere of emerald light surrounded me. I beckoned to SAINT. A moment later, his pastel colored head crashed into my Protect with the muted sound of glass breaking. It held, but I could feel a metaphysical strain on my mind.

"Reee?"

"It's fine. Again."

SAINT reluctantly wound himself back for another Tackle. "Pory-Gon!"

This time, the shield shattered like glass, though it did keep SAINT from reaching me. The backlash was enough to toss me on my ass with the beginnings of a migraine. "Okay, now I know why Protect isn't used constantly in the anime. Note to self: breaking backlash hurts."

"Reee," my loyal porygon crooned with concern.

"It's fine," I said. I held him in my arms to reassure the little guy that I was okay. "I need this. I need to get stronger or I'm going to get hurt out there. You're really helping out. I know it looks like I'm getting hurt, but sometimes, a little bit of sacrifice is a good thing if it means you can reach farther in the long term."

I don't think he understood everything, but he nodded with conviction anyway. Maybe I wasn't training the move right; it's not as though I had a full training manual used by Lance or Cynthia or anything, but I could feel my bond with SAINT growing along with my proficiency with the move and for that, I was content.

We practiced several more times until I could withstand a full three Tackles. Hopefully, that would give me enough time to either strike back or run.

Who was I kidding? I wasn't ready, not by a long shot.

But, I would be. Eventually.

Author's Note

Remember that SAINT is not a standard AI. He's also at least partially a creature of aura, as are all living things in pokémon. This makes him both better and worse than Dragon, JARVIS, Skynet, Cortana, etc. The major advantage SAINT has is obviously a tangible body that can interact with both the physical and digital worlds. This body can scale to some ludicrous feats of strength if properly trained. His adaptability and affinity for mystical or supernatural energies that can't readily be explained by science, like psionics, is much greater than that of a normal AI's.

That said, SAINT does not share the same intelligence as a human. He perceives the world differently, unlike Dragon, JARVIS, or Cortana, who have largely shown human feelings and responses. He is also incapable of forking himself and it's explicitly stated that a porygon cannot be directly copied in canon. This means that he's incapable of "going Skynet." I'm using this as an excuse for why he can't learn every move Bryce has stored up in his archives simultaneously. His ability to process information is greatly limited compared to Dragon. It may change when he becomes a porygon-2, but for now, SAINT can only do one thing at a time at maximum efficiency.

Porygon can eat normal food according to Bulbapedia. As for whether pokémon can eat human food or not, Ash's pikachu's addiction to ketchup is a long-running gag in the series. Aside from extraordinary diets like the grimer line consuming sewage to grow, humans can eat pokémon food and pokémon can eat human food.

VGC, or the Video Game Championships, is the official competitive format run by Nintendo. It is ironically the less popular format compared to the one run by fans, Smogon.

 

[BookMouse]

Loving it so far, have read all three of your stories, and I'm really enjoying your writing style. Hope to see more!

 

[TimeGear]

Found out about thos today, and I have to say this is positively fantastic!
Watched and excited to see where this goes- and thank goodness this is not an SI-Greg who goes to Winslow again

 

[Nuitblanche]

I would say your goal of tapping in every cliché of Worm but keeping things interestings is absolutely achieved.

 

[Fabled Webs]

Preface

In light of 'Murica Day, have another. And yes, I am ignoring reviews for a bit.

Wake 1.5

2010, September 6: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

The expected headache from downloading Recover wasn't as bad this time. I wasn't sure if it was because I was quickly adapting to the pressure of the TM Downloader or if the changes that needed to be made to my body had already been made, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Taking an exacto-knife, I gave myself a small papercut then focused on what the TM suggested, a mentality focused on rest and recovery without losing concentration or dozing off. Effectively, meditation with a desire to be well. I grinned as the cut closed. It was a slow thing, I wasn't going to be regrowing my arm like Piccolo, but a visibly fast regeneration effect was a godsend in and of itself. There was a brief feeling of tiredness that passed like a breeze. I knew Recover would take a far heavier toll for greater injuries.

I removed the two TM discs, Protect and Recover, and stored them with the blank CDs, hidden in plain sight. I still didn't know if four moves would be my limit, but knowing I could switch out my loadout with a single night's sleep was certainly reassuring. And, barring all else, I could bargain for powers.

Before heading off to school, I made the same deal with SAINT: a new move mastered for a bag of candied almonds.

Although the porygon line could learn an extremely diverse arsenal of moves, I knew that I ought to stick to moves a porygon picked up naturally, by "level up" in game terms.

Two factors influenced SAINT's learning speed as far as I could tell: First, his natural moveset would be faster in the same way a dog can learn to dig much easier than it can learn to balance on a ball. The further a move strayed from what came naturally to SAINT as a porygon, the harder it would be.

Second, types mattered. SAINT could channel some aura, but he had trouble converting it to different flavors. Lock-On would be simple for him because it was both a normal type move and in his natural moveset. Thunder Wave would be a bit more difficult because though SAINT wasn't an electric type, the porygon line had some affinity towards electronics. Ice Beam would be hardest of all because it was both a type he was unaccustomed to and outside his natural moveset.

With this in mind, I had to choose my moves carefully. I had recovery and defense, so I wanted something that would help me escape danger. To that end, I chose Agility over Psybeam. Although having an offensive option appealed to me, if I had to fight, I'd fucked up big time as is and I didn't think I had enough aura at the moment to toss out more than two or three attacks. A crowbar would be about as effective.

Even better, I hoped to accustom my body to psychic energy by using Agility to reinforce my muscles. Hopefully, that would eventually translate to actual psychic powers.

X​

Compared to the marvel of suddenly having another superpower, school was downright mundane. I'd never tried very hard to hide my relative intelligence; dumbing myself down when I possessed a postgraduate education in my past life would have driven me spare. Because of that, most of my classes were advanced placements and I seldom saw the majority of my fellow freshmen outside of our daily homeroom.

I nodded to my classmates and took a seat in the far corner.

"Morning," the kid next to me mumbled with his head on his backpack.

"Hey, Jacob."

"Jason," he grumbled.

"Sorry." I'd honestly forgotten. I remembered seeing him around in middle school, but we hadn't had enough classes to get to know each other.

"It's cool." He lifted his head to look at me. He was a pretty stereotypical skater, with a short cruiser he kept under his desk. "Nice bag."

I glanced at the rainbow Legend backpack. "Yeah, the one I used got ruined and hey, it's a limited edition."

He snorted. "Sure, but you look like a fruitcake."

I rolled my eyes. I'd almost forgotten the gay jokes of the mid-2000s. Legend was respected, but that didn't mean kids weren't idiots. Though to be fair, casual homophobic slurs weren't as big a problem in Arcadia thanks to the literal Nazis in the city. No one wanted to seem sympathetic to them and calling someone a "fag" or "dyke" was a surefire way to get a teacher to start paying excessive attention to you. Same for race.

Yep, ironic, I know. The Empire contributed to a culture of tolerance and understanding at Arcadia. That thought always made me giggle.

"Maybe. I still like the bag." That was the end of the conversation as our homeroom teacher, Mr. Maury, walked through the door.

X​

I sat with the Dallon sisters and most of the Wards again at lunch.

"Hey, guys," I greeted. Dennis, Dean, and Carlos had gotten to our table before the girls today.

"Hey, Bryce, how's it going?" the cheerful redhead waved.

"Ehh, it's alright. How was your weekend?"

"Pretty great, I got to see the city's dashing white knight get nailed in the head with eggs."

The boy in question groaned good-naturedly. "Can we not talk about this?"

Totally-not-Clockblocker started in on some story of Gallant trying to stop a shoplifter at the local grocer's and landing face first in someone's eggs. It was edited heavily, but the gist aligned vaguely with PHO's version of events I'd read about last night. The story on PHO was that Gallant and Clockblocker were on patrol when a purse snatcher raced past them. Gallant tried to stop him, but was tripped into a tomato stand by an accomplice. He then knocked over someone's cart and landed in the ass-end of a few dozen eggs, a true Jackass moment.

A picture of his armor covered in the entrails of massacred tomatoes and shattered eggshells was undoubtedly making the rounds on PHO and being memed to hell and back. Somewhere in the middle of the story, the girls arrived to join us.

"Seriously, I swear Dennis has powers," I said with a casual smile. I took some joy in watching the Wards and Dallon sisters freeze.

"W-what do you mean?" he said nervously. I could see Carlos giving him warning looks out of the corner of his eye.

"It's like Dennis has an aura like Vicky. Except instead of the whole 'love me or fear me' thing she has going on, Dennis has a 'rule of funny' aura that lets him pick out all the funny gossip. Either that or something stupid happens to him and it'll still be funny."

"Yeah, nothing like that happens when we're not around Dennis," Stephanie chimed in.

"Right? I need to hang out with Dennis more. I feel like my life would be more interesting then."

"I wouldn't mind a slapstick aura," Dennis recovered. "I mean, then I could make Lung pratfall into the sewer or something. I'd join the Wards and be Jokeman, the Comic Hero."

"You're already a joke so you're halfway there," Amy said as she picked up a French fry.

"Oof, oww." Dennis clutched his heart in mock agony. "You're really not holding back with the snark today, huh, Ames?"

"So pres," Chelsea changed the topic before the two could start trading barbs in earnest, "how's homecoming coming along?"

"It's good," Dean said with a smile that lit up the room. "The student council just decided on a theme over the weekend."

"Ooh, do tell."

"Nope, it's a secret."

"I know~" Vicky sang.

"You're his girlfriend; he tells you everything," Chelsea complained.

"Actually, I didn't tell her. She's also on the homecoming committee."

"Yeah, he doesn't always tell me stuff. I need to put in the work to weasel it out of him sometimes."

"That's ri- You're not helping, Vicky."

Dennis, Carlos, and I collectively rolled our eyes. "So," Dennis began, "got a date for homecoming?"

"You know we're too busy for that," Carlos said.

I nodded along. Poking at them was honestly my favorite pastime in school. "Right, you two have that vocation program, right? What do you do again?"

"Junior police academy. There are a few dozen of us from Arcadia, Immaculata, and Clarendon in the program. Why? Interested?"

"Nah, I'm happy with actually having free time, thanks," I said with a lazy smile. Privately, I thought, 'Besides, the PRT won't use the junior cadets to cover for my cape business. Must be nice, having the system on your side.'

Then, I got an idea. With my new resolution to get stronger, I'd considered looking up the Laborns, particularly Grue's father, so I could get some boxing training. It was almost a cliché for self-inserts to do this after all: Learn to kick ass and get close to the main cast at the same time. I'd tossed the idea because it would be too out of character for me to seek them out, but Carlos was right here. I made a show of poking his bicep. "You do a lot of working out as a junior fuzz, right?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Can you show me a thing or two?"

He stopped in the middle of dipping his chicken nuggets in a pool of ketchup. "You?" He gave me a visible once over before humming dubiously. "No offense, Bryce, but…"

"I'm a short, scrawny white boy with the complexion and durability of a saltine cracker. I'm aware," I drawled.

"Pff, you're not that bad, Bryce," Stephanie said with a laugh.

"Thanks, Steph."

"He's pretty out of shape, not so much that I'd worry about his health, but he could do with some exercise," Amy contributed.

"Hence the working out. I jog in the morning, but I'm not sure what else I should do if I want to get in shape. Weights? Basketball? Karate? I have no clue."

"Good on you, man," Carlos said. "I can't take time out of cadet stuff though. I could write down my own workout for you if you want."

"Please do."

"Hey, Carlos, maybe not do that. If he tried your workout right away, he might hurt himself. I'll give him some pointers," Dennis added.

I shrugged. "Either one of you would be fine. It'd help if I had a routine to follow."

Dennis texted me his own workout regimen towards the end of lunch. It was honestly much harsher than I expected and he sent a follow-up text telling me not to push myself. 'I guess even the non-brute Wards take their physical training seriously.' I wanted something that would help me with combat directly, like boxing, jujitsu, or muay thai, but I didn't want to push and come off as suspicious. Indirect physical conditioning tips from a Ward would have to suffice for the moment.

X​

2010, September 8: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

It took SAINT an extra day to pick up Agility and for me to download it into my own thinky bits.

After that, I was out on the town as soon as I could.

Wednesday night, I went to bed immediately after dinner and locked my door. After a suitable amount of time playing music and messing around with SAINT, I deemed the coast clear and snuck out of the house through my window. There wasn't a convenient tree I could climb down or anything, but a quick use of Protect broke my fall. As for getting back up, I'd just have to stand on top of the garbage bin when I returned.

It was about eleven at night when I left. As soon as I was a few blocks away from my house, I ducked into an alley and pulled out an old sweater from the expanded bag. I wrapped it around my neck and tied the sleeves around my face in the same way a kid does when he wants to be a ninja. Not the most glamorous of first costumes, but it did the job.

The downside of living in the reasonably safe part of town near the Boardwalk: all the desirable targets were far away. I wasn't fool enough to rob a shop near my own house or target the Boardwalk or Hillside, both would invite the kind of cape response I wasn't equipped to handle yet, so that left the north end of town. It took me an hour to get to my first destination: Good Neighbor.

Good Neighbor operated out of a warehouse just off the north end of the Boardwalk and a bit more inland. It was a nonprofit that bought up all the clothes that didn't sell at Hillside and gave them out for bargain prices to the lower income families on the other side of the tracks. The warehouse itself was large, probably taking up more than one acre like a Costco. It used to belong to a shipping company and was one of the few buildings from that era that still saw proper use.

I must have looked sketchy as hell, some scrawny figure with a hoodie wrapped around his head. I approached the warehouse door with a pair of bolt cutters from my grandpa's toolkit. It was older than me, hell, likely older than him, with splotches of brown rust along the frames. Still, the jaws were sharp and I got the chain off the warehouse door with minimal fuss.

I slid the bolt cutters back into my expanded bag and made my way inside. The teenage part of me wanted to explore a bit, look around and see if there was anything interesting to find, but robbing a charity already made me feel more than a little scummy so I promised to take only what I absolutely needed for tinkering.

Half an hour later, I reemerged with a pair of fabric sheers, a pair of biker boots, two pairs of heavy-duty canvas work pants, a set of used motorcycle leathers, and a helmet that I made sure was slightly too big for my head after checking and double checking for cameras. Even after promising myself to limit my stealing, a part of me couldn't help myself. This would become the core of my new costume moving forward.

It was when I snuck outside again that I first ran into trouble. I hadn't been as discreet about my breaking and entering as I'd thought. I was halfway across the parking lot when a flashlight was shone my way.

"Oi, there he is," a gruff, male voice shouted. "I told you, Lyles, some asshole's robbing Good Neighbor!"

"Fuck," I swore under my breath. I started running inland, towards what would become ABB territory in three blocks.

I heard heavy footsteps behind me, gaining. My short, fourteen year old legs couldn't keep up with the pace for long. Panicking, I wheezed out under my breath, "Agility!"

Blue aura coated my body and suddenly, I was twice as fast as I should be. It was far, far too slow by cape standards, but more than enough to outrun a random do-gooder.

"Hey, punk, get back here!"

'Does anyone ever stop running when you shout that?' I thought raggedly.

I tried to lose the man in the maze of alleys but he was clearly a local, he knew the area better than me. Less than two minutes after I began running, he'd herded me into an alley with only one way out, a brick wall as high as my head behind me.

Seeing no other way, I kicked off one building and jumped, clinging by my fingers from the high fence.

"SAINT, boost me up," I said. I could hear the man about to turn.

SAINT emerged from the PokéNav and shoved me from below, easily lifting me over the fence.

I hadn't counted on landing on my ass though and I heard a cracking noise as a sharp spike of agony shot straight up my ass.

"Fuck!" I swore.

"Pory?" he trilled in concern. He made to hover back over the fence, likely to fight the random guy, but I stopped him. There was no point in showing him off this soon.

"Stay. Ow, fuck, just had to break my ass on my first night out," I groaned. Way back in my old life, I remembered my friend James who cracked his tailbone after a fall during a snowboarding trip. That Sunday, everyone in church slapped his ass. I felt a bit more sympathy for the guy now. "Recover."

I stumbled to my feet as aura repaired my fractured tailbone.

"He's on the other side, Lyles," the first man shouted. "Go around!"

I pumped Agility and started running. I only stopped four blocks later.

A part of me wanted to head back home. The guilty, self-conscious part of me said I should just call it quits for the night. It was also the part I ruthlessly squashed. The Pokémon specialization was a godsend as a beginner and I didn't know how many rotations I'd have to live through before I saw it again. I had to make use of every night to the best of my abilities.

Despite the toll on my morale, it was only two in the morning.

Thankfully, my second destination wouldn't take much time to get to as it was also on the north end of town.

My destination was the local junkyard and landfill. It was risky as hell, being here as a new tinker, but I couldn't think of any other place where I could get dozens of pounds of industrial-grade wires, old computers, and car batteries all in one place.

"'Step into my parlor,' the spider said to the fly," I muttered under my breath.

This one, I didn't mind breaking into as much.

I took a quick walk around the interior of the junkyard before making a beeline for the wires in the office building. Even outside of the obvious tinker-bait, copper wires could get pricey and were often stripped down and stored separately from the useless junk.

My bag could store a maximum of six hundred pounds without me noticing the weight and considering that the only things I had in there were some clothes and tools, I had plenty of room. All the copper wires I saw went inside. Steel, too. I was hoping for gold, but that was wistful thinking. After more than eighty pounds in raw metal, I decided to look elsewhere.

Once again, I was marked as soon as I stepped outside, proving that Murphy had it out for me.

"Hey, how's it going, junkrat?" came a boyish voice.

I whirled. My hand fell to my hip, where I'd stashed the fabric sheers as an impromptu weapon. There, atop a ruined husk of a car, was Newter in all his orange glory. He wore a mischievous grin, pants, and literally nothing else. His tail flicked back and forth like a cat's. His eyes fell to the scissors I clutched like a dagger.

"Didn't anyone tell you not to play with scissors?"

"Didn't anyone tell you not to sneak up on people?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "Probably, but I wouldn't remember."

"Oh. Shit… sorry."

"Ehh, it's not all bad," he waved me off with a lazy grin. "I don't much care for trying to guess who I was. That way lies madness, y'know?"

"Right." I put away the scissors and approached. Still on guard, but willing to show him that I wasn't carrying a weapon. I remembered Faultline's Crew. They were professionals who avoided all conflict they weren't being paid for. "What's up?"

"Not much. We're new in town." He gave me an exaggerated once-over. "And judging by your… costume… so are you. Let me guess, tinker?"

"Yeah, guess that much is obvious. What about you? What're you doing out here?"

"Faultline, that's our boss, told me to take a look around the neighborhood. I figured I'd check out the creepy piles of unused trash here."

I nodded along. That meant the Palanquin was now under new management. This area was on the very edge of both ABB and Merchant territory, though Merchants tended to care more about the area because the ABB lacked a tinker at the moment. "Your boss wants to hold territory in Brockton?" I quirked an eyebrow. "He could do a lot better than this dump of a city."

"She," he corrected, "and we're here because Brockton's a dump." I pretended to be confused. "We're mercenaries and we'll mostly be taking jobs out of town, which means it's good that the city is so flush with capes. The local Protectorate will have too much on their plate to deal with little ol' us."

"Should you really be telling me your boss' strategy like this?"

"I don't know, but I don't think she'll care. It's not like this is some big secret," he shrugged. "Hey, I'm Newter, what's your name?"

"I don't have one yet, but you can just call me Tinker for now."

"Sweet. Hey, I know! Why don't I help you out?"

"Oh?"

"You're looking for stuff in all this mess, right? I'll help you out by bringing you things. That's cool, right?"

I thought about it. It was plain to see what he was doing. Faultline may not fight unless provoked or paid, but she wasn't the sort to ignore an obvious asset either. Newter could even be reaching out a hand because he thought of how Faultline recruited him from the sewers. "Sure, it never hurts to be friendly with the new neighbors," I said.

"Exactly!"

The two of us got to work. I sent Newter on a scavenger hunt for any computer chips or other pieces of tech while I looked for old power tools I could turn into better versions of themselves. The old adage was true: A tinker made tools to make better tools to make better tools. By the time I was done, he was staring at my bag like I was Doraemon.

"Just how much can you fit in that backpack?"

"Six hundred pounds or so," I said proudly. "Why? Interested in buying?"

"Hell yes. If this is what you can make with just a backpack and whatever you had lying around the house, I think my boss would like to meet you."

I hummed with indifference. "I don't know. I'm not looking to join anyone right now, especially not some new guys I don't know anything about. No offense."

He waved me off. "None taken, man. I get it. Look, can I give you the boss' number? You can give her a call yourself whenever you want. If you meet her, then she won't be someone you know, right?"

"Sure, I'll do that. I appreciate it." And I did. Newter was willing to let the new tinker take initiative rather than try to force a commitment here and now.

The two of us parted on good terms and I made it back home by four-thirty. All around, it was an excellent night, the moral quandary of robbing one of the few good businesses in Brockton offset by the high of an amazing haul and a potential ally.

Author's Note

I'm very new to D&D, but I decided to roll a d20 for Bryce's outing. I decided that Bryce would visit two places for clothes and junk to tinker with. He rolled a 5 at the clothing giveaway and a 19 at the junkyard.

1 to 5: Hostile encounter, severity depends on roll. He lucked out with the five because he's really not equipped for a fight.

6 to 15: No encounter, everything goes according to plan.

16 to 20: Positive encounter, boons depend on roll. He got to meet the least hostile cape faction in the city while they were still building their base, a massive opportunity.

 

[Ruby Boule]

That's some solid luck he's got there. Good loot and a potential contact to sell some easy-to-make non-weaponry tinker gear to get some shopping money.

Also, if he's got access to all the Pokemon tech--that is, both games and anime--it might be a good idea to invest some time in their non-mass-produced tech. Potions and pokeballs are all well and good, but if we want to really squeeze the maximum potential out of this month, have to turn to the works of lone geniuses and one-off items that show up in one episode then never again. Things like Jessie and James' non-mecha contraptions, Clemontic Gear (the ones that work, at least), even Team Dim Sun's mind control tech (if one wants to be a knockoff Skitter, or have as a defense against her).

 

[skye]

I'm currently moving and I've got soooo much envy for that bag of holding! Really enjoying the story, thanks for posting!

A part of me is hoping that beldum are an option, if only so the below nonsense might happen

Spoiler

 

[PinkShadowReader]

>I wasn't fool enough to rob a shop near my own house or target the Boardwalk or Hillside
Holy shit. He's robbing people. Not just robbing abandoned stuff. He better make sure his identity is secure and not show off his pokemon if he intends to be a Hero.

I really liked what you did with Newter here. It makes sense that Fautline hasn't always been in Brockton Bay and she came here sometimes before. Newter too is a chill guy as long as they are not hostile to each other.

> "I don't have one yet, but you can just call me Tinker for now."
"And now we have a report of the newest tinker named Tinker. He's captured Stormtiger and Victor last night. A Protectorate official reported that..."

 

[Fabled Webs]

Wake 1.6

2010, September 9: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

"Dude, you look like shit," Dennis said as I collapsed at the lunch table.

I raised my head just enough to glare and flipped him the bird. "Thank you, and you look like a soulless ginger."

"Just saying," he held out his palms in mock surrender. "Yeesh, you're as grumpy as Amy."

"What was that about my sister?" came Vicky's threatening growl from behind him.

"Ahahaha… I was just talking about how lovely and charming she is."

"He thinks we're both pissy asshats," I cut in, happy to toss him under the bus.

"Dude!"

"I'm grumpy, remember?" I snarked as I popped open a can of coke. "It's my day to be a dick."

"Seriously, Bryce, you okay?" Carlos asked with obvious concern.

"Yeah, I didn't get to sleep much last night. It won't be a regular thing."

"What were you doing all night?" Chelsea asked, ever the gossip. "Chatting up a girl for homecoming?"

"Yes, how'd you know?"

"Really?"

"No," I replied, tone drier than the desert.

"You suck today," she deflated like a balloon.

"I'm not going to homecoming, Chels."

"Why not? It's your first one!"

I rolled my eyes. "Exactly. Everyone knows freshmen are the bottom of the food chain and I don't feel like bumbling around the dance like a clueless idiot."

"It won't be that bad."

I stopped leaning on the table and dug around for my lunch. "Chels, have you ever seen me hang out with any other freshies?"

"Umm, no? You're always here."

"Exactly," I nodded. "I'm always here because I don't have any friends my own age. You guys are the extent of my social circle."

"What? Why?"

I shrugged. "I've always been a loner. Started when I was in higher year classes in elementary school. No one likes feeling stupid and even if I don't rub it in their faces, everyone knows I'm a nerd. Used to eat lunch in the classroom to avoid bullies and everything."

My isolation was mostly self-imposed and had a lot more to do with my past life's memories than any academic achievement on my part, but school made for an easy scapegoat.

"Aww, Bryce," she cooed and wrapped an arm around me. "Don't worry, we like you."

I gently pried her arm from my shoulder. "That wasn't an invitation to hug me. I'm not lonely. I don't feel like I'm 'missing out' or whatever. I'm just pointing out why I would be miserable at a school function like homecoming. I can't hang with any freshmen because I'm not actually close to any."

"You could hang out with us," Dean tried.

I rolled my eyes and pointed at each of them in turn, starting with Dean and Vicky. "You two will be tickling each other's tonsils." Carlos. "You already said you're not going because of some kind of police cadets thing." Dennis. "You're joining Carlos." Stephanie and Chelsea. "You two will have better things to do than hang with me all night." Amy. "Actually, I don't know what you're doing."

"Not going," she said matter-of-factly.

"What? Ames, we talked about this," her sister squawked.

"No, Vicky," she sighed. "You decided I'm going. I'm not this time. Homecoming is miserable."

"See? She gets it."

"Shut it, Bryce." Vicky's aura flared for a moment before Dean squeezed her hand. "But what are you going to do then?"

"I'll be at the hospital," Amy said.

'Ah, already working herself to death, almost a year before canon,' I thought sadly. 'Does she make money off it like a work study program? I somehow doubt it. I know she'll eventually become an unredeemable monster in Ward, but does a possible future justify her misery now? Like some kind of preemptive punishment? Hell, would she become the titan-making monster she did in canon if someone bothered to unravel a few of her issues?'

I promised myself that I'd let the chips fall where they may, but having Amy eat lunch only a few feet from me was tempting. It was like dangling a steak in front of a dog, a fix-it trope in front of an isekai protagonist.

"Right, Bryce?" Vicky drew me out of my plot-related introspection.

"What? Sure," I mumbled.

She shot me a beaming smile and I had to actively shut down my emotions before Dean noticed. Judging by the forgiving smile he sent me, I failed. "It's decided then."

"No," Amy protested, "nothing's decided. I don't want to go to homecoming."

"Why not, sis? You'll be bored without me and Bryce will be bored without Carlos and Dennis. You two can go and hang out," she chirped.

I leaned in to the large Ward. "What exactly did I agree to?" I whispered.

"You're going to homecoming with Amy," he said with a wry smile. "Congratulations."

'Chips fall where they may… Damn, Vicky is definitely the type to try to play matchmaker, isn't she?' I sighed loudly and clapped for their attention. "Vicky, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I'm really not that interested in school dances and it looks like Amy isn't either."

"See? Exactly!" our favorite healer shouted, drawing some eyes from nearby tables.

"Oh, come on, Bryce," the blonde pouted. "You should at least try attending one dance before you decide you don't like it."

'I did, four years of homecoming, two proms, and way too many college parties, you brat. I grew out of it.' I felt old just thinking that so instead, I said, "Vicky, not everyone is as bubbly as you are. Some of us really appreciate a quiet evening to ourselves."

"Maybe you should just let those two decide on their own," Dean tried.

"If I do that, Amy will just coop herself up in the hospital. And without me to pick her up, she won't come home until well past midnight," she complained.

I frowned. It was a sobering realization. Vicky wasn't really concerned about Amy attending homecoming, she knew her sister didn't like crowds; she was concerned that her sister would overwork herself. Again.

Maybe Vicky was trying to unravel some of Amy's issues.

"Fine," I conceded and turned to Amy. "Amy Dallon, will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the homecoming dance? As friends? At the very least, a change of pace for one night couldn't hurt, right?"

"Yes!" she cheered.

Amy looked at me with a sour glare before she glanced at her beaming sister. I could practically see her mulish resistance crumbling at the force of Vicky's smile. "Fine," she huffed, "as friends."

And so my fate was sealed.

X​

I took a quick nap when I got home. When I woke up, I finished the digital storage system, DSS for short. Even working on it off and on over the course of several days, I was able to finish it so quickly thanks to SAINT's cooperation. When he wasn't learning a new move from the archive, he was filling in code in order to get this up and running. Ultimately, what I had was the bare bones, a bit like the most basic version of a word processor without all the bells and whistles Microsoft released with every updated version. Functional, but hardly groundbreaking by the standards of the Pokémon world.

I returned after dinner and got to sorting the previous night's haul. Six hundred pounds of old hard drives, wires, and car batteries weren't much, they certainly wouldn't let me build a mecha or anything, but they were a good start for a tinker with only a single outing to his name. I moved everything to the DSS over the course of the evening and arranged my new inventory to best reflect my pipeline.

The real prize however, was the phone number recorded into my PokéNav: Faultline's number.

'Do I call her now? But that implies desperation, right?' I rolled the idea around in my head before tossing my phone to the side. 'Who cares? I'll call her when I have a costume and a name ready. I'm acting like a boy who just got his crush's number.'

Thus the conversation with Faultline was turned into tomorrow-Bryce's problem. That just left the matter of my costume.

I planned to make the Expansion Suit, the same worn by Emma in Kalos. That was why the work clothes, leather, and wires were so important to me. Originally, the suit was made by Dr. Xerosic, the chief scientist of Team Flare, with the goal of developing a suit that could allow even normal people to battle like an elite.

Emma, an orphan living in the alleys of Lumiose City, volunteered for a series of experiments that would turn her into Essentia, a powerful masked thief who challenged trainers to battles before stealing their pokémon. She also robbed a museum to test the suit's hacking suite if I remembered correctly.

Following a series of incidents, Essentia joined Looker as a superheroine protecting her city.

The backstory aside, the Expansion Suit was honestly an incredible piece of hardware by modern Earth standards, even if it fell short of anything built by the likes of Tony Stark. It increased Emma's physical abilities, particularly reaction time, and carried with it an AI software that could help her battle like a member of the Elite Four. It could also override the programming of pokéballs with a ranged hacking suite and contained an advanced texturing function that let Emma disguise herself as other people.

Xerosic also showed that he could use the suit's systems to shut off Emma's consciousness, allowing him to pilot her body like a doll.

I wouldn't be including that particular function obviously, but everything else sounded amazing. The AI in question would of course be SAINT in my case, and rather than a hibernation mode, I would build a user interface designed to mesh our abilities together. That was the reason I looked for a motorcycle helmet a bit larger than my head, to include all the necessary hardware.

I checked in on my mom and Sierra to make sure they wouldn't be back until dinner. Mom's chiropractor clinic was doing pretty well, but she needed to work a bit later than usual if she wanted to catch clients who were just finishing up their own jobs. Sierra was in class, something about an evening course. Left to my own devices, I locked the door anyway and allowed myself to be dragged into a fugue.

Four short hours later, my alarm rang and all eighty-plus pounds of SAINT jumped on my back to knock me out of my fugue. I stared at my own version of the Expansion Suit. Or rather, the frame of what would eventually become the Expansion Suit.

It was a set of motorcycle leathers with lines of padding, wires, and bits of tech running throughout the full outfit. The suit was layered with the canvas work clothes on the inside and a softer lining after that to prevent chafing. At the moment, it was little more than a tricked out body suit; I would need to work on the helmet for it to be complete.

I folded the heavy material as best as I could and tucked it beneath my bed. I wouldn't be starting on the helmet until tomorrow.

With Protect, Recover, and Agility under my belt, I had SAINT start on Thunder Wave. It would take another three days, but I considered the nonlethal offensive option well worth the wait.

X​

2010, September 10: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I panted as I stumbled back into the house after my morning run. In the shower, I took the chance to practice Recover. With it healing the wear and tear of my muscles, I hoped I could see results faster because right now, even something moderate like two miles felt like a mountaintop hike.

At first, there was no outward sign of a move being used. Then, when the aura fully circulated through my body, I started to glow a dull white. I sighed with relief as the burning in my lungs diminished.

'It's not a cure-all,' I realized as I shook off the fatigue from the move. 'I don't magically regenerate half my health, whatever that might mean for a normal human body.'

From what my power was telling me, Recover sent a stream of aura through my body, diagnosing wounds and performing triage before targeting the major wounds first. It would keep me from bleeding out and heal me over time, but the aura cost was steep. Even if I was using aura to heal myself in the same way a pokémon like SAINT did, the simple truth was that my human body was not as robust and so the healing not as effective.

The dull glow faded and I trudged back to bed, exhausted with even that simple use of the move. It'd get easier, my power said, but for now, I just wanted to go back to bed.

My attempt to go back to sleep was ruined by an overeager duck. I'd told him to keep me from getting too lazy and he was hell-bent on obeying.

"Alright, I got it, I'm up," I complained.

Grudgingly, I gave up my powernap and got ready for school.

X​

Before I could go get lunch, I felt a hand grab me in a vice grip, tugging me under the stairs. I whirled around to find Amy Dallon scowling at me. Her shoulder-length hair was a frizzy mess and her big, brown eyes were narrowed in an approximation of an intimidating glower. The bags under her eyes had darkened over the week, making her look like an adorably grumpy raccoon.

But raccoons could be fucking rabid.

"Yes, Ames? Good day to you too," I said with a quirked brow.

"Homecoming," she growled.

"What about it?"

"Don't expect anything just because Vicky's dragging me there."

"I'll be sure to toss the condoms," I replied dryly. At her darkening glare, I backtracked and raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, just a joke. I know we're not going out. I didn't want to go to homecoming either, remember?"

"Then why'd you say yes?"

"Because of Vicky."

"If you think giving me a pity date is going to make Vicky suddenly fall for you-Eep!"

I cut her off by flicking her nose. Sure, she might one day become the Red Queen and I might get turned into a one-man human centipede for this, but audacity was my shield, damn it. If I didn't treat her like a monster, maybe she wouldn't become one.

The ostrich method, everyone. Guaranteed to work every time it works.

"Not what I meant, Ames." I sighed. I wrapped an arm around her and steered her out from under the stairs. "Walk with me."

She resisted for a moment but eventually complied when I started dragging her with me. "What? You're going to tell me you're not interested in my sister?" she sniped.

"Not a chance. I mean, don't get me wrong, Vicky is hot as hell, but even if I didn't respect Dean and she magically gave me a shot, we'd never work out. I'm too much of a sarcastic jackass and she's too… teen spirit."

"Then what's all this? Why are you going to the dance?"

"Because of Vicky," I repeated. "And, I suppose, because of you. Do you remember last week when school first started and I said you were my favorite hero?"

She threw my arm from her shoulder. "So that's what this is? Hero worship?"

"Not quite that either, though it's closer. Can I finish without interruptions now?" She huffed but remained silent. I pulled her out of the south hall towards a less crowded part of the manicured quad. I figured that at this point in her self-destructive spiral, honesty may well be the best policy. "Amy, Vicky doesn't give a damn about whether you go to homecoming or not. Well, okay, she'd like for you to be there, but that wasn't the point in her trying to play matchmaker between us. Hell, she doesn't actually care whether we fall in love or we never speak again. She just wants you to take a breather and step away from your hospital visits for a single weekend."

"I can't." I didn't think she meant for that to come out as a whisper.

"You can," I said gently. "Vicky said that without her to drag you home, you'd sleep in the ER if you could. I know that you save lives. I respect the hell out of you, but can't you see that you're worrying her?" Maybe it was a dick move to guilt trip her, but Amy being Amy, Vicky was literally the only leverage I could use to get through to her. "You need rest. You look like a coke addict raccoon going through withdrawal symptoms right now."

"Shut up."

"Sure, but that's why I agreed to go to homecoming with you. You could use a night off from work. Vicky could use a night off from worrying. And honestly? A bit selfishly? I could use a night chatting with my favorite hero who also happens to be my snarkiest friend."

She scowled and slugged me on the arm, but I could spy a hint of a smile. "Fine, I get it. I'll go to homecoming. Don't expect anything."

"Likewise," I said easily. "How pissed would Vicky be if we both showed up in t-shirts and jeans?"

"Pft, she'll twist you into a pretzel."

"And not you?"

"I'm her sister. She loves me. Which means she'll just take it out on you."

"Fine, suit and tie it is."

"At least Vicky's not dragging you dress shopping," she grumbled.

"Can't be that bad."

"I love her, but sometimes she's too… teen spirit," she returned my words.

"Good luck, and really, try to get more rest."

"You're one to talk. You've been dozing off all week."

"Both of us then." I held out a fist for her to bump. She rolled her eyes but obliged. "Now let's go back to our table before Chelsea starts rumors about us."

X​

I returned from school to find SAINT listening to music. He'd gotten into his head that music was a mode of communication, one I greatly enjoyed, and had taken it upon himself to familiarize himself with a number of classic bands. When I arrived, he was browsing the Hybrid Theory album from Linkin Park, an Earth-Aleph import here.

His exploration into the world of music was fascinating to watch in its own way. He didn't sing obviously, nor could he play instruments, but he did enjoy the melodies. Rather than just sitting in the computer and vibing with the tunes, he dissected each song, separating them by instrument and trying to figure out why some sequence of chords inspired some specific emotions in its listeners.

Back in my past life, everyone said the K-pop industry perfected the art of popular appeal and I couldn't help but wonder how SAINT would stack up if I gave him a bit more time. Could he produce an Earth-Bet equivalent of Girl's Generation or Big Bang?

He cooed at me from inside the speakers and I waved him off before immediately getting to work on my helmet.

Essentia's helmet was a full face visor with a glowing "E" on its surface. My motorcycle helmet was likewise colored black, but the burnt orange visor wasn't large enough to cover the face completely. Instead, the helmet boasted additional face protection that wrapped around my jaw. It was more than a stylistic choice because the smaller visor meant I'd have to settle for a more compact user interface.

I spent two hours just designing the layout I thought would be most ergonomic before I took a break to complete the workout regimen Dennis prepared for me. By the time I finished, I had the design plans of a system that could be toggled using a series of blinks and facial movements.

I would be able to rotate between an overview of the suit's status, my own biometrics, incoming calls and messages, and a 3D map, all augmented by my favorite virtual pokémon and the PokéNav. This additional integration between the Expansion Suit and my PokéNav would likely add a day or so to the helmet's construction, but anything that made me more effective in the field was worth the effort.

Author's Note

Why? Why the fuck not? I decided that I wanted to play to a lot of tropes even as I subverted just as many so here's my take on the "Save Panacea" trope mixed with the "definitely not dating" trope. I doubt this is ever going to turn into a romcom or anything, but it seemed like a fun idea.

School life, but with the shadow of the Red Queen. Doesn't that sound like fun? /s

*Oh god help me I have no idea what I've done.*

Also, who saw Essentia coming?

 

[Andorxor]

And then Vampires attack and Vicky burns down the gym.

 

[BookMouse]

Honestly, Amy is kinda like my Worm guilty pleasure character. I love it when she gets a role in the story, but I also really hate Wildbow's grimderp as Worm and Ward continues.

Honestly, even going full woobie is preferable to the Red Queen stuff in Ward, which honestly just seems like Wildbow put in cause people were liking Amy too much when it seems like he disliked the character.

 

[Fabled Webs]

Same here, truth be told. Of my MCs, Andy is the closest to myself in personality, but Bryce's views on Amy (being his favorite hero) also happen to be mine.

Does she become a monster? Yes. Is she a rapist? Yes. Slaver? Yes. Genocidal, titan-making harbinger of the apocalypse? Yes.

But I think that in a lot of ways, her slide into villainhood is what makes her such a complex character. At the start, she's genuinely a good person and I wish I had half the personal discipline and integrity she had when I was a teenager. I can't say I would have used her power as responsibly and that it took Bakuda, Leviathan, then the Slaughterhouse to finally make her snap says a lot.

I'm not saying it excuses her actions in Ward, but she's understandable if nothing else. And that understanding, I think, is what makes her such a tragic heroine.

 

[PinkShadowReader]

> And so my fate was sealed.
And thus she peeked at his body and saw that he has space whale cancer in his head.

>I planned to make the Expansion Suit, the same worn by Emma in Kalos.
It took an embarrassing long time to find the suit in question.

>My attempt to go back to sleep was ruined by an overeager duck. I'd told him to keep me from getting too lazy and he was hell-bent on obeying.
Its healthy to get enough sleep. Necessary sleep is an absolutely must. I don't get why he doesn't adjusts the ducks parameters about health factors.

>You need rest. You look like a coke addict raccoon going through withdrawal symptoms right now."
Pff! I spit out my drinking water reading this.

>"Both of us then." I held out a fist for her to bump. She rolled her eyes but obliged.
Aaaand bam! Secret gone! Okay, not really but extended contact could reveal that he has triggered if he has giant evil space cancer tunnels in his head.

>Essentia's helmet was a full face visor with a glowing "E" on its surface.
So he's going with Essentia as his cape name?

> Also, who saw Essentia coming?
I didn't.

>"On the plus side, Worm was a story I knew well, almost to encyclopedic levels in fact. For whatever reason, though memories of my old life dulled like motion picture from an age before color, the memories of the stories I'd enjoyed remained fresh. Not just Worm, every story from the shittiest isekai guilty pleasure to the autobiography of that one Al Qaida defector I'd read. Fascinating book, that."
Question! Why hasn't he plagiarized books and stories he has read to make money? If he remembers them word for word then it should be relatively easy to make money for himself.

 

[Fabled Webs]

Question! Why hasn't he plagiarized books and stories he has read to make money? If he remembers them word for word then it should be relatively easy to make money for himself.

Click to shrink...

May or may not exist on Aleph.