The Phase Carrier bursts into existence, in the mostly-abandoned garage. It screeches for a moment, settling down on the skids, and you hear Squealer- Sherrel- call out in surprise. You slide open the side door, and throw yourself out in the opposite direction. She stares at the vehicle for a few moments, stunned at it, as you work your way around the garage. She has barely enough time to recognize you before you have an arm around her. She struggles for a few moments, but you'd looked up how a chokehold works, and your boosted physiology makes it almost too easy. A few seconds later, she's unconscious. You bundle her up, pull the hood over her head, and tie her into the back of the Leech Carrier.
The seat back there is a relatively new installation, but you figured you might end up kidnapping people often enough that you may as well set up a proper seat for it. It's a little depressing, honestly, but you don't have an easy way to keep someone sedated.
Before she's even awake less than a minute later, you have the oxygen mask strapped over her face, and you're in the front seat. You engage the phase engine again, and the new, retrofitted device seems to purr as it fades from existence. You hear Sherrel's phone- in her pocket- pop and crackle as the phase device runs. You must have forgotten to turn it off. Oh well.
The entire drive home, her hood doesn't come loose, and neither does her oxygen mask. She tries to struggle free, but you're a professional. It's a short subterranean ride before you pull yourself into your lab, into the parking spot you'd demarcated with a set of old pieces of rebar, so you can see it through the vehicle's electromagnetic vision.
"You fucker!" Squealer is yelling, though the mask is muffling most of her voice."Let go of me! Adam's gonna kick your ass! He's gonna fuck you up!"
You don't respond. Since you plan on letting her go, you don't want her to have any sort of information on your identity. Instead you scoop up a wheeled chair, and wheel over the table with your computer, Leech Device, and Power Interface. The helmet clamps over her head- even if she tries bucking and shaking her head- and you sit down, Interface Device on yours.
You reach out, and activate the device.
(Kidnapping Results: 77, 99. Critical Success)
When you open your eyes again, your vision is twisted. Eyes blurry. Squealer- Sherrel's head is drooping forward, and there's blood in her oxygen mask.
Shit! You hadn't been out for more than a minute, this time! You throw yourself forward and pull off the mask, checking her pulse. She's still alive, but unconscious. Her nose is bleeding. It's a lot. After you pull off the mask and move her head to keep her from drowning in it- along with a whole roll of paper towels- her bleeding eventually slows, and stops.
You pluck the Leech Device off of her head, and replace it with the Power Interface. It's not really good at this, but it has some minor scanning capability. You tweak the numbers and the programming, running a quick scan… and pause. The Interface can't find her Corona Pollentia. There's too much intracranial pressure in her skull, slightly, but it's already fading. Loose blood and matter in the brain can't be good, but you're not seeing long-term side-effects. You're not even seeing any evidence that it even existed in the first place, other than the scans your computer still has clogging up its' harddrive.
She's... not a tinker anymore. Your device was the very first thing you built. The best of the best. If it can't find a pollentia, it means there isn't one to be found. There's no signals from 'Agent-Space' or whatever interacting with her. You might have just de-triggered her.
So. She's unconscious. You're not sure when she'll wake up, or if. If she keeps abusing her body the way she has been, it will make her condition even worse.
Fuck. You were planning on dropping her off elsewhere anyway, so… May as well be a hospital. You'll say you were in the area, saw her stumble around and then collapse.
You do what you can, packing up your stuff. Boston isn't super far away, but it should be far enough for Sherrel to pull away from the Merchants, if she so desires.
After you make sure her breathing is fine, you adjust the oxygen tank, replace the mask with a clean one, and then begin the drive to Boston.
Hell, maybe they'll tell her the brain issues are a result of her substance abuse. Might give her a scare worth breaking free. At least you don't have to worry about Panacea taking a look at her,. At least until she triggers sometime later this year. You're pretty sure it's just after the year starts again… Around the same time New Wave went so hard against Chorus, probably.
You'll have to figure out what you're going to build after this. You've got a bundle of ideas for what to build, and a bundle of designs you want to work on. It's time to do some real tinkering.
Affinity: Slightly Fond (10)
Resources: 7
Gained Keyword: Vehicle, and Trait Hyperspecialist.
Hyperspecialist (Vehicle): Any device that has at least one Hyperspecialist Keyword has its Misfire chance halved, up to a minimum of 5%. Furthermore, any activities involving such a device rolls a Best of 2, though the first roll is still used to determine the results of the device's Misfire Chance.
This is one of the times you can Design and Build as part of the same phase. While technically you could design a device and build it immediately, you might not want to do it without being sure what keywords or how many resources that might consume. You will also be designing at least two devices this phase.The armored plugsuit needed to be skintight. It just wouldn't work properly if it wasn't- so you needed to design it perfectly. Sketches on a notebook were usually close enough to base something tinkertech off of- the power doing the heavy lifting- but you've learned the less it has to lift, the better things end up. So you needed a 3D model.
Only problem was, the mannequin you bought wasn't the right shape or size for you. It sat in the corner of the lab, with half-done markings for module placement and components before you'd realized the problem. The mannequin was the wrong shape and wrong size. It just wouldn't fit you. You needed to build a proper sized mannequin.
It… wasn't easy. This was definitely one of those things that Uber's help would have made a lot easier. But without a backstabbing assistant, you had to use some of the theater's old wire-work, the winch, and a timer to make a mold out of your body from the neck down. From there, you were able to put together a mannequin that was as close a replica of you as possible. Eventually, a lifescale Stuart Mannequin stood proudly, T-posing in your lab to assert dominance over all other in there.
Not that it'd last long like that.
First went on the underlayer. In liquid form, it was easy enough to apply, at least before you treated it with the activation wavelength. The polymer you'd destroyed half your chemistry equipment to make was soft, comfortable. Almost like the gel for fancy shoe inserts, only it also wicked away sweat, compressed and stretched well, and was resistant to pretty much everything you could throw at it. Electricity, acids, heat. It took impacts well, too. It wasn't good against stabbing or slicing, but the gel would fuse back together if it touched itself for long enough. You'd just have to make sure not to let entire chunks get carved out or whatever.
The second layer is the wiring. First, you install high-data optic cables across the entire suit, thirty-two sets spanning the arms, legs, along the entire body. Each one is attached to an anchor module on one end, terminating in specific positions along the spine on the other. Once placed, you layer them in more polymer, locking them in place. It might make repairs to the cables a little annoying, but they'll be secure.
Third layer, the alloy. It's the same supermetal you'd made your Golden Snitch out of, back in the last timeline. It has two properties you need for the plugsuit- it's nearly indestructible, and returns to shape after being deformed, which isn't easy to begin with. You work it into a thin mesh over each section of the suit- thin enough to keep it light, leaving enough space around your joints to keep it from getting in the way. You're also able to use thicker beams around the anchors, holding them in place relative to the limbs they're attached to, and other edges- almost like hooks or clips- hanging out so that you can attach things to them in the future. You end up with something like a golden wireframe around each segment of your body, leaving your joints free.
Finally, the outer layer; the paper mache. Not that it's actually paper and glue. It's various fabrics, treated with your custom polymer. Swathes of silk, lycra, even a few places where you used honest-to-goodness kevlar or carbon fiber. All of it is soaked in your custom polymer, and you brush it on between the layers of the fabric.
Eventually, you're looking at a mostly-black suit, the fibrous texture clear and obvious. The supermetal trim seems to pop, especially in places where you plan on using clips as well as the anchor mounts to hold extra modules secure.
Now, while that dries, you can get to work on the real tinkering. The 'plug' that turns it from a bodysuit into an interface directly to your body. The nerve splice.
Your reactor will be a tube. That's clear. You're tapping the desk, eyes glazed over as you stare into the distance. Your mind is racing with dozens- hundreds- of ideas. Your power seems almost bursting at the seams, like it's excited about the concept. You consider maybe some kind of ferrofluid reactor, a cycle generated and empowered by electromag- no. You already did that. You consider some kind of shardbased reactor, one that taps into powers- but you don't want to be Balminder, and you're already having to deal with the sort of effects Leech Devices will be.
Black hole extraction? Possible, but… you don't think you want to mess with containment. It could be unstable. Zero-point extractor, maybe. Quantum mechanics could come in handy, especially since your power seems to suggest you could rip the potential energy out of uncertainty itself.
But it won't be enough. The idea is neat. But it's too small. The reactor's too large. Too much energy will be required to maintain the false vacuum, and even more for the extractors. You want to be able to use one power source. Generate power for everything. Plug it into everything you build from now on. It needs to scale to need. Produce energy in a usable form. Ideally, electricity, but you could make due with something else, as long as you can convert the energy properly using mundane technology.
Then, something comes to mind. It's a perfect, crystalline idea. Burning bright, almost boring a hole in your mind. The solution burns in your mind. It's a pure, elegant line from A to B. There's something beautiful about the simplicity of it, despite the complexity of everything around it. It's simple. Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry. Generate pairs not from true matter, but virtual stuff. Projected matter. The difference in decay rates means you're creating more virtual matter projected into existence from nothing but itself. Take the result. Lock it, inobservable. Unreactive to everything without the right stimulus.
It's beautiful. It's fucking brilliant.
You can almost see it. A fluid, thick and congealed, almost more like mud. A false liquid substrate, crackling as it breaks down into electricity. Dark as night. An Ichor.
It'll solve so many problems. The energy reaction will decay over time, after the fluid is consumed. Waste heat? Radiation? It'll evaporate from existence. Virtual energy, dissolving back into the nothingness you're generating it from.
It feels almost like this is what you were meant to make. You find yourself grinning.
It isn't until you see your own reflection in the window of the store that you flinch.
It was String Theory's grin you're wearing.
You look down at the paper. The notes you'd written. You had it, for just a second. A perfect solution.
Stabler than antimatter. Not nearly as powerful. But exponentially more powerful the more tightly it's clustered. You could draw out small containers, each the size of an AA battery, but the main generator… It'll be dangerous. If you want it to scale up, you'll need more and more void fluid contained in the device. If there's a breach… it'll all decompose into electricity at once. And you're not thinking it'll be just an EMP, or a fire. You're thinking a crater.
You could bleed it off, of course. Set up an emergency shutdown, pump the fluid into multiple canisters when it's not in use. Set up a control rod mechanism to keep it from interacting with itself. But nothing you can think of will make it completely safe.
It'll still be safer than a runaway black hole, at least.
"You okay, man?" Keith asks, his apron slung over his shoulder as he clocks out. "You look pretty pleased with yourself."
"... Yeah," You say, and come up with a quick lie. "I've got a hot date."
The tall, bulky man nods. "Nice! You've really been taking care of yourself lately, you know? You've been looking good."
"Yeah, I found a skin cream that works," You respond. "Thanks."
He shoots you a thumbs up, and then steps out.
You continue staring at your reflection.
String Theory's grin threatens to resurface.
The back of the nerve splice is made of golden and black metal. It's heavily armored, enough that it might actually weigh you down a little, but you made sure to articulate it enough that you'll be able to curve your back as much as you need. It's a raised, bulging mechanism along the back of the plugsuit, where each of the cables are connected to. You even have a few more anchors in the base of the neck, to connect to whatever helmet-borne devices you might make in the future. You look it over, making sure the size and scale is perfect. You've gone over your scans of your nervous system a dozen times.
You take a deep breath, and then press the button, right above and between the shoulderblades. There's a click- and needles punch their way through the holes in the back of the plugsuit. Along each vertebrae, prongs of pale metal, each of them shaped perfectly to scale with your spine. You'd looked it over dozens of times, making sure the scans of your nervous system were perfect. The slightest problem here could punch through your vertebrae and paralyze you.
The first time you activate this, will also be the time it directly and immediately implants you with pegs and interfaces to use the Plugsuit in the future.
It looks right. It feels right.
This is much less dangerous than the potion you'd taken, but somehow it's more brutal. It feels more savage. Which makes sense- you're effectively pressing a remote-control staple gun against your nervous system. The bodysuit was designed to fit you perfectly. The needles are even supposed to be self-adjusting. But it's still a worry. You press the button again, and the armored, raised ridges of the bodysuit's spine falls apart. Like a zipper, separating into two halves.
It's done. And it's time to try it.
You pull on the legs first. It feels kind of like footsie pyjamas, at first. The hardened soles are nothing like true shoes, but might give you a bit more grip. You might wear actual shoes over them, though. Then, arm by arm, you pull it on. It fits perfectly. The polymer gel is smooth and comfortable- simultaneously too soft to feel tight, but too thin to feel swaddling. You adjust it, carefully tweaking how it fits, and then pull the points of the spine together. It locks, teeth clamping themselves into position. You can feel it pull and tug at the cables and architecture of the plugsuit, adjusting itself into perfect position. Slight spots where the suit had been bunching or stretching are suddenly comfortable, in the perfect spots.
The only discomfort left are some sharp nubs piercing into the bare skin of your back.
Those won't be there forever. They won't be there for long.
You close your eyes.
You're ankle deep in Balminder's blood. You pull glasses from the fluid. You push them onto your face.
You open your eyes.
You press the button again. Two taps. Then you put your arms down, into a resting state, as relaxed as possible. You feel the machinery work, and twist. Adjust.
Then, pain. It's a pinch. It barely even hurts. Your fingers and legs spasm, slightly. But that's it.
You're still standing. Not paralyzed. Not dying on the floor.
The pegs are already home. Adjusted properly.
Something buzzes along your spine, and you can feel it. The plugsuit's embrace. It's like a living thing, hugging you. A symbiote.
Curiously, you pull a Cable from the desk. You twist it into your plugsuit's shoulder module… and the other one into your computer's USB port.
Your computer gives you a happy chirp, and you feel the plugsuit adapting. Learning. You feel new limbs seeming to stretch from you, toward the computer.
You glance at the computer… and mentally imagine the mouse cursor moving. It doesn't, of course. This isn't technopathy. It's not based off of your neurology, but your nervous system. It's a new limb, not a mental power.
So instead, you flex the new limb your plugsuit is insisting is there.
Your computer immediately closes three windows, opens another, and somehow hits the hotkey combination to try to go online to LinkedIn. None of what you wanted… But it was something.
Perfect.
You're laying on your back, practicing to draw. Physically, you're not actually acting- you're just laying there, and the computer is slowly drawing diagrams for you. The wonders of your new plugsuit, the cable attached to your wristport. It's surprisingly comfortable, all things considered. Even after you fabricated some basic armor modules for it, mundane steel painted a burnished goldish bronze, you're able to lay down in what amounted to a set of light armor and football pads, and it feels like you're just lying down in a strangely-bulging bed.
On the computer's screen, The new visor diagram- drawn in MSpaint- is taking shape. You're planning on stuffing as many technological sensors as you can into a headset. Making them as small and efficient as possible. Record it all on a device for later extraction. It won't be as detailed as some kind of extensive testing, like with Shadow Stalker, and some more esoteric effects might not get noticed… But being able to see electromagnetic fields, or having thermographic vision could definitely come in handy.
Only thing is, you're a little torn. Not on the device itself, but on the aesthetic. The black with gold trim, that looks good. Almost a little greek, with the gold being nearly close enough to bronze to count.
Then again… Didn't Atlantis have orichalicum? Wasn't that basically brass?
You still haven't even decided if you're going to go out as a hero or villain yet, and you're already trying to figure out an aesthetic. You don't exactly want to take Dauntless's corinthian helm style, so you might go for something a bit more space-age…
The the police scanner in the corner of your lab suddenly buzzes. You sit up slightly, looking at it, listening in.
Chorus. They're attacking Weymouth mall, raiding the stores. They're just going store to store, warping through while Wrecker is pulling open cash registers. It's a bunch of minor shenanigans, for some empowered gangers, but something about it strikes you as familiar. As notable.
… Oh.
You remember now.
Wrecker put a hole through Glory Girl, didn't he? Right through her invulnerability? That's when Panacea triggered. New Wave came crashing down hard on Chorus, to the point where they're all either in jail or in the hospital.
Something clenches in your gut.
You remember what happened with Panacea. The healing power might have helped the heroes keep up as the Empire grew in strength, and as the ABB grew to match them. But it was just a holding action, an excuse for the rest of the Protectorate to sit on their asses. It wasn't good on the girl, either. You'd seen her as a civvy, once, one time when you sprained your ankle. She'd looked exhausted. Dead on her feet.
Her power had been just as bad for her as yours was for you.
…
You could stop them. Chorus, that is. Maybe not stop the robbery, but you could go there. Do something. Keep Glory Girl from getting hurt.
You already saved Challenger's life. Things will already be different. You don't know for sure that Glory girl will still be there, that Panacea will for sure trigger the same way, with the same power.
But if she was, if she would… Would you want to stop it? Should you?
Out of all the stupid things you've done, this is probably…
Well, it's not the stupidest. Probably the smartest stupid thing you've done, you reason.
You spring out of the Phase Carrier. It's sitting atop the parking garage. The vehicles, hunks of metal and steel, were more than perfect roads to ride it straight up to the top. You spring out the door, running as quickly as you can.
The roof of the mall is nothing but air conditioners and skylights. Despite the sun on the horizon, you can see flickers of light roiling through the skylights, streamers and flashes as firework-like expression of Dazzle's power echo through the building. Ribbons of light are phasing through the walls and ceiling, even. It's the perfect signal for you.
You run. You've had to relearn how to run, in fact. Your boosted strength makes it feel like you're trying to run on the moon, when you do it normally. When it comes to a full on sprint, you've found that you need to push forward more than up- which means leaning forward, almost far enough forward that you're at risk of falling over. It's only with your boosted balance that you're even able to make it work. You spring forward, stepping over vents and fans and strange rooftop attachments before you make it to one of the skylights.
It's not a big skylight. Not particularly important. But you can see Dazzle whooping and cheering, almost skidding backward as he rides along Skip-to-the-loo's power. A wholly different kind of lightshow roiled along the floor. It bubbled and quaked, an energy field that seemed to be carrying the capes in the same direction. Skip was the youngest of the group, quiet and keeping to himself. Unlike Dazzler and his bombastic blasts of light and sound, fireworks spraying from his body in all directions, Skip was different; wherever he skidded to, his feet sliding along inside the shimmering field, his allies did too. A strange combination of shaker and mover.
Finally, Wrecker. He was the burliest of the group, carrying a rolling suitcase along with him as they flew through the mall. People were covering their eyes and faces, getting out of the way as Dazzle threatened to burn them with his fireworks.
Right. These guys are kind of pushovers, you note. All you have to do to stop them was get Skip's feet off the ground. Dazzle might be able to give someone some burns or a bit of blinding or sound, and your helmet might not be totally protected from it, but you're ready for it. Aware. All you really need to worry about is Wrecker's power.
You look down at the skylight… then step back and throw yourself into it. You jump, springing yourself against it, your feet slamming into it.
And you bounce off. You stumble, ankles twisting unnaturally as you try to keep your balance- and fail, falling onto your hands and knees.
"Fuck." You hiss. You look at the pane of clearly-not glass and there's a large crack in it now.
You look down again- and see the group's stopped. Glory Girl is standing before them, hovering in place in the middle of the food court. She's speaking imperiously, as if she doesn't know Wrecker can punch straight through her shields.
This time, you throw yourself against the glass elbow-first. You slam the hardened edge of your plugsuit's armor modules against it, and the glass shatters. You're falling.
Nobody seems to notice you're there, except for Skip. The kid looks up, under his thick bicycle helmet.
Right. This was the stupid part. The really stupid part. The part where you throw yourself three stories downward into the middle of a food court.
Fuck it, though, right? Your armor's designed to take impacts. Your body's been boosted. For all you know, you'll be able to tank this shit, right?
Right?
You land between Chorus and Glory Girl on your hands and legs, trying to catch the ground. Your knees scream. Your ankles hate it. Even your wrists scream- a moment of blistering pain.
You let out a loose hiss, loud enough that it seems to echo through the room.
"... The fuck are you?" Wrecker asks. He lets go of the luggage container, slowly gliding forward on Skip's power. Dazzle looks between him and Skip, then shrugs.
Slowly, you stand. You're in pain, but nothing seems to actually be broken. Or torn. You must have ligaments of steel.
"Just go home, kids." You drawl. "Isn't it your bedtime?"
Dazzle- the closest- thrusts a palm at you. A shriek of light and heat and power burns against you. It's like living in a flashbang for a moment. But you're used to explosions. You take a step forward and fling a hand upward. You bat his palm away, and then he's throwing the storm straight upward for a moment. Just long enough for you to punch him just below the ribs. The armored knuckles of your plugsuit crash against his chest.
He ends up crashing to the ground, wheezing, trying to breathe.
Once, Uber had taught you how to throw a straight. You weren't very good at it.
But somehow, this time, Dazzle ends up on his back, wheezing.
Someone yells something, but you're still a little deaf from the flashbang. You feel the ground tremble- and turn just to see Wrecker carving a section out of the ground,
A section of tile and concrete are ripped effortlessly from the ground, cracking and crumbling to pieces. He thrust them up and out at you, an explosion of fragments of sharp edges and rock smashing straight into you.
You walk through it. Wrecker doesn't actually have enhanced strength. His hands- everywhere below the wrist- can carve through things. Cut with his fingers. Destroy things. But it's so limited.
He tries to punch you. You lean out of the way, and catch his arm by the wrist. You shove it away from yourself, and find yourself catching his other arm at the elbow. He twists and writhes, trying to touch you with his hands, but it's easy to keep him away, once you have a grip on his forearms. It's... simple leverage. Wrecker's feet are slipping and sliding, as if on ice, as he's trying to gain control. But he's not actually that strong.
You're stronger than him.
God, your arms hurt. And your ears. And your eyes. Dazzle's power went straight through your eyelids. You headbutt Wrecker, and while he's dazed, you readjust your grip, holding his arms spread and unable to touch anything.
"Hey, Glory Girl," You call, trying to keep from calling out too loudly over the ringing in your ears. "Do pick up Skip for me, will you?"
You see her nod, and say something, before she flies over, scooping the youngest member up off the ground. As soon as his feet leave the ground, a spark seems to flicker in your mind.
You glance over at Skip- and hanging on his feet are skates. Ones with spheres for wheels. Frictionless movement. Automated acceleration. Adaptive movement. Direct control for simultaneous movement. The lightshow was an emissive energy field.
… This…
He's a fucking tinker.
You swipe Wrecker's feet out from under him, and press his arms into the ground, hands-first. He tries to buck and knock you off, but you slowly push his arms into the ground until he's stuck there, arms held in place. Your weight on his back, he's completely unable to push his arms out of the ground. Then you look at his feet. He's wearing the same sort of skates. Interlinked with Skip's, controlled using the same emissive field that created the lightshow people thought was his Shaker effect.
Dazzle tries to get up, winded and coughing, when a mundane civilian girl brings a chair down on him.
Early work. Simple. In fact, a lot of the systems look like the sort that Chariot would eventually-
You glance at Skip again.
Familiar eyes look back.
That… that's fucking Trevor. Chariot.
Of course, at that moment is when the Protectorate arrives.
[Combat Results: 22, 79. Success]
"Nice to see you again. You've gotten a bit of an upgrade, haven't you?" Challenger asks. Glory Girl seems to be vibrating with excitement, hugging Challenger's axe as if she's about to start making out with it. Meanwhile, Pre-Panacea- whatever her name was- is picking at her food, trying to hide from anyone who seems to want to ask her questions. The PRT and Armsmaster are taking statements from civilians, while Dauntless and Velocity are puzzling out how to pull Wrecker from the ground.
"A bit," You say. "Glad to see you're looking healthier."
"The bandages will be coming off in a few days," She responds. "So, what exactly happened here? Who was here first?"
"Uh, I was. Me and my sister were eating, and they started rolling through and grabbing stuff, right," Glory Girl begins. "And these guys aren't much a big deal, so I got up and was doing the whole 'halt evildoers' sort of thing, and then this guy throws himself through the ceiling!"
"Skylight," You say, and shrug.
"It wasn't even really a fight. I didn't get to do anything. He just stood up, punched Dazzle through his own power, and wrestled the big guy into the ground." She continues, pantomiming. "Like, bam twist grab. Do you have super strength too?"
"Not really," You shrug. "It's just leverage."
At that, Glory Girl's eyes seem to glitter even more. She's definitely not the badass you're used to, that's for sure.
"So, uh, Icarus. Were you here for any particular reason?" Challenger asks. You look her in the eyes, and instantly know what she's asking. There's a minor glance at Glory Girl.
"Wrecker's power is one of those that can cut through a lot of things it shouldn't be able to," You say. "Glory Girl's power included."
"Wait. What?"
"I see." Challenger says.
"It terminates at the wrist. So, you know. Give him big goofy spheres attached to his shackles," You say with a shrug. "With the outer edge further than his fingers can reach. Then he can't carve through cell walls or whatever."
"No, what do you mean by-" Glory Girl begins.
There's a sudden, crackling shriek. A bunch of PRT officers are stumbling, and Armsmaster is running.
Char- no, Skip- is sliding away, trails of electricity arcing off behind him. Armsmaster tries to shoot him with a grappling hook- and Skip suddenly flickers in the air, a short-ranged teleporter buzzing and burning out on his belt. The kid is panicking.
… You could catch him. Grab him. Drag him back. Wrecker's version of the skates are on the ground. You could hop in, give them a shot.
But something else inside of you is telling you that you can just wait. You know Trevor's full name. You can find out where he lives.
"No, see, you need to hold his arms firm," You say. "His power's focused on his wrists. Like this."
You carefully pull Wrecker directly out of the ground, and Velocity blurs into movement, holding his wrists in place. Wrecker just sighs- he's not about to start wrestling now that he's surrounded by capes.
"My fabrication is almost complete," Armsmaster says. His halberd has a damned metal rolling tool, and he's used it to fabricate some basic makeshift cuffs for Wrecker. "Do you have any restraint recommendations for Dazzle?"
"His lightshow has two sides," You say with a shrug. "The firework effect involves heat and sparks, but is otherwise limited to conventional physics. The lightshow, on the other hand, penetrates most solids. I couldn't say what might be able to stop that."
"Hey, I mean, I don't mean any trouble." Dazzle said. "I'm just gonna sit here peacefully. Not resisting or anything. I'm already in trouble, and I don't wanna make it any worse."
"That's a good decision, kid." Velocity says. "Doesn't even begin to make up for the bad one that had you here in the first place, though. Try to use that kind of thinking more in the future."
Looking at him, you realize something. These are just kids. Even Wrecker- Big and overweight- is younger than you first thought, you're starting to realize. You think you can envision what it might have been like, having blood on their hands. Suddenly turning their fun rebellion into something with serious consequences, more serious than before. Suddenly they're being hunted down not for a bit of robbery or pranks, but for attempted murder.
Panacea might not have been the only person you saved today.
"So, um, what was Challenger talking about before?" Glory Girl asks. She's still not wearing a mask, which is strange to you, but her trigger event was rather popular, after all.
"Oh. Last time she saw me was when Lung first showed up. I popped in to make sure nobody would get permanently hurt. She was wondering if I popped in here for the same reason."
"Oh. And, uh, was it?"
You glance at Not!Panacea. Under your ski goggles, it's hard to tell where you're looking, but the girl glances at you.
"Yeah," You say.
"... So what is your power?" She asks.
"I'd like to keep that under wraps," You say. "It's not as strong as you might think, and even a little bit of information getting out could spell problems."
"Right. Of course. Lips zipped. But uh."
She trails off. God, it's so weird to see the indomitable Glory Girl- the one who once stuffed you in a trash can- looking like a shy, bashful kid.
"... Was it me you were protecting? Or them?" She asks.
"Both." You say. "I don't know if you know much about your power, but you're not completely invincible."
"... I'm not?"
"Your shield blocks one good hit. One. Could be a bullet. Could be a death ray," You say, remembering the Overkiller 6000 hitting her to no effect. "Then it goes down. The bigger the hit, the longer it takes. But during that time, you're vulnerable."
"... Oh." She says, quietly. "But certain things can cut right through. Like Wrecker's power."
"Exactly. I'd figure your shield is also responsible for some of your super strength. It's the field lifting things, using its durability to lift and maintain things. I'd need to take some scans to make sure-"
You cut yourself off.
"Scans?" She asks, and you see realization enter her eyes. "Oh!"
"Shit." You mutter. Glory Girl's aura flickers for a moment, and people notice- they're glancing over to see what's going on, for a moment.
"... Right. Lips zipped. Like I said," She says with a nod and a serious expression.
You step away, making your way back to Armsmaster.
"Is there anything else you might need from me at the moment?" You ask. You'd already given your statements, being especially vague about how you got here, but Armsmaster just shakes his head.
"No, I believe I have everything under control here." He says with a nod. He seems actually pleased to see you. You hold out a hand, and the two of you shake.
"Alright, I'll be heading out then," You say.
"If you happen to gain any information about the third member of this little group, that could come in handy," He says.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that," You respond. He nods firmly, and you make your way out of the building.
Then you limber up, and start to climb.
Trevor Medina was still a kid. He clearly wasn't that experienced a tinker, though he definitely had more experience than Squealer had. You were able to get to his home before he did. Hidden away underneath his house, your Phase Carrier was able to wait there, sedately, for a nice few hours. It's using up a lot of oxygen, but you still have leftover tanks from the trip to New York and back. It also helps that you weren't actually driving- just floating in place, suspended in the earth, oriented upward.
You know the moment he gets home because you can see the shape of his gadgets in the Carrier's electromagnetic vision. Tinkertech seems a lot brighter than it should be, and you're sure he used some kind of electromagnetic concepts in his own work. His shed is also full of tinkertech- and that's where you watch him stash his backpack, his costume, everything. As far as you can interpret, at least. Watching a bobbing chunk of tinkertech balled up make its way into a shed full of other pieces of tinkertech, at least.
It's a pity that the phase carrier's passive sensing ability isn't strong enough to have any real range, or you'd be able to float through the suburbs keeping an eye out for tech like that. You'd only noticed because you were making sure this was the right place.
You sit in the phase carrier, eyes dozing closed, and relax, slowing your breathing.
Your eyes stay locked on the clock. You stare. You wait.
And you think.
This is against the unwritten rules. So far beyond the rules that you're firmly in 'asshole' territory. The only way you could be in a worse situation would be if you outed people specifically, or kidnapped someone's kid and family. But the rules aren't laws. They're social constructs. Used to keep the world working the way they want, to prevent widespread chaos, to give capes the globe over the opportunity to take off their masks and return to normal life.
But that's now how the authorities treat it. It's not a game of cops and robbers. It's real fucking life. Real fucking death.
Despite the dread in your gut, the guilt you're already starting to feel, something starts to harden inside of you.
Hojo again. Madness and chaos and experimentation for the sake of power and knowledge.
You can still remember the flooding, blood-filled room from the future. You can still remember that determination. That moment you snapped. That moment you broke.
Compared to that moment, your trigger event was a party.
You refuse to become nothing. You refuse to become a joke. If that means ambushing a kid in his bed at night? You'll do it. If that means releasing a monster on the world, you'll do it.
If it means becoming that monster…
Something buzzes against your wrist. Your timer. Spring-wound.
You open your eyes, and begin to pilot.
You pull the phase carrier up, slowly phasing it into the air. Then into the backyard, cramped between the back of the shed and the fence separating the Medina household from their neighbors. You slowly open the door, peeking out.
Just like you'd planned, it's late. Impossibly late, in fact. Beyond where even unreasonable people would stay up. You make sure your secondary costume is fully attached, the anchors and straps keeping the plugsuit fully connected to the outer frame.
Strapped to the small of your back- linked into the suit as well- is a cheap laptop. It's about as terrible as your PC, and prone to overheating, but it's portable. Your helmet, on the other hand, underneath your makeshift costume… is the Power Interaction Device. It's not active, technically. Not yet.
You step out of the Phase Carrier. Walking feels strange, and you'd normally be stumbling all over the place, but your body's new sense of balance makes these stilts easy to use. You step forward, swaddled in the dark cloth your costume is made out of.
A dementor- some tall, gangly, black-cloaked thing- has arrived at Skip's house. Something that looks and moves nothing like Icarus, and absolutely isn't him.
At least the building's only a one-story house. That makes this a lot easier. You start to make it toward the window- and pause.
You look back to the shed. All of his tinkertech was in there, you're sure. And if Skip is as new to the game as you think, he probably doesn't have any real security. The door is locked with a padlock, but. It's an old, rusted shed. The lock might be new, but the metal plate used to hold the door shut? You stick the end of a flathead screwdriver between the plate and the lock, and tug. The half-rotted wood crunches, and the door is open.
Inside is a treasure trove. Well, a 'trove' is the wrong word. Closer to a treasure chest. There's some handy resources and parts you could use- stuff that you quickly stuff into a bag and toss into the Phase Carrier- and then you look at the other stuff Skip's created.
The tools are yours, instantly. Not a lot of it is super advanced, but there's a few interesting pieces. Most notable is some kind of omnitool with an interchangeable head- the head levitating about a half-foot away from the handle. Perfect for dealing with things in short spaces.
The omnidirectional skates are probably the earliest of the tech he was working with. It's handy, sure, and remoted into his buddies' skates as well, but there's a lot more in there that's interesting.
The generator's the largest and most notable device. It's made out of some kind of moped engine, the majority of the weight carved out. The pistons are running smoothly, the drive drain plugged directly into some kind of basic rotational converter. Fuel-based, so it's not perfect, but it's probably more efficient than any mundane fuel-based generator you might be able to afford.
Beyond that, he has a second pair of skates, half-designed as well. Inline this time, with motorized propulsion. There are thrusters, strange aerodynamic piping, even what looks like vector nozzles. A fuel cell on one side, power cell on the other.
But the most notable thing- more than the generator, or either of the skates, or even his tools, is the last piece. One he has sitting in an old dented metal pan, away from the splinter-filled wooden tables.
The telepack. Blink pack? It looks like an emergency system, about the size and shape of a soda-can. The guidance system is clumsy, almost unaimed entirely. From the smell it builds up heat every time it's used. A lot of heat, probably too much, according to the warped and partially-melted casing. It's what he'd used to escape, you're sure. They had him captured, and he was able to trigger the blink pack. You put that on your belt, just in case, and begin taking things back to the Phase Carrier.
The generator is the largest and bulkiest thing to carry, but your improved strength was barely enough. Finally, once it's all cleaned out, you make your way toward the house.
The sun is going to rise soon, after all.
You peer in through the window, and see Skip sleeping spread-eagled in bed, snoring loudly. The window is latched shut, but that's not about to stop you. Not for long, anyway.
You;ll need some real sedatives, you realize, after holding the tainted gas tank to Skip's mouth. This is too bulky to carry around, for the most part. It does its job, though, and keeps the kid unconscious while you strap the Leech Device to his head. It's a lot easier on him than it was on Squealer and String Theory, but that's likely because his hair's a lot shorter.
You sit at the foot of his bed, and plug the device into your Plugsuit. Your laptop automatically detects the connection, and begins the basic process of initialization. The fan whirrs, heat building up, and once it begins to slow, you take a deep breath.
Do it.
[DESTINATION]
[QUERY]
[DESTINATION]
[DIVISION]
[ACCEPTANCE]
You come to. Skip- Trevor- is twitching, head twisting and thrashing in his sleep. Some kind of nightmare. Something in his head that's reenacting something terrible.
You do a few quick scans, all you can before you have to go… and his Pollentia seems the same. No damage. No problems at all, in fact. You pull all of your electronics back under your cloak. As you clamber back out of the window, you see Skip's eyes slowly begin to open his eyes shoot open as soon as you begin to clamber back out of the window. Before he can see too much- his eyes widening- you trigger one of your homemade smoke grenades.
"Fire! Mom, there's a fire! MOM!" He yells, as you carry the burning smoke grenade toward the shed.
After a moment of hesitation, before you clamber into the carrier and run away, you grit your teeth- and dump a small can of thermite and magnesium into the shed.
As soon as it bursts into flames, you activate the Phase Carrier and you're gone.
You'll need sleep. Sleep, and a decision about what to do next.
Break-in Results (86)
Some vote prompts will have question marks in the prompt. This is a space for you to fill in with your own choices.
Affinity: Fond (15)
Resources: 6
Keywords: Teleportation, Propulsion, Atmospherics, Mobility, gained.
Items: Omnidirectional Skates, Accelerated Skates, Emergency Blinkpack, and Fuel Generator gained.