Chapter Text
"Carol Dallon, Brandish," the blonde woman in front of me said tersely. "You're the new Protectorate member, Crystallus. I read about you, but there's not much detail. I have a couple questions for you."
"Please, call me Dylan. How can I help?"
"What exactly are your powers, and do not give me the alien caveman story," Brandish said snidely, "I already heard that nonsense from Sarah. What did you give Amy and how dangerous is it? Don't think I wasn't watching you with my daughters. I saw everything." She stood in the backyard, held back by her sister. At least she wasn't yelling or going blades out, even though she was being recklessly antagonistic towards me. Armsmaster stood by my side, calmly, as if this were normal.
I took a deep, calming breath and said, "I am an Adaptive Trump that can learn from seeing other powers in action, to create new powers. I also came with a number of powers innately, so I'm technically a Grab-Bag as well. One of my powers lets me crystalize my powers and give them out to others. I gave your daughter flight, after your other daughter asked me to. The only danger is they last ten minutes, and if she's still flying then she could fall. They have been given an all-clear on any potential Mastering or danger."
She immediately turned to Colin. "Is that true?"
He looked at her placidly. "If my colleague," he emphasized, "ever spoke a lie, I would let you know."
"So you aren't a Power Copier?" she asked warily. "There's been rumors on PHO that you're a Power Copier."
"I am not. May I demonstrate a power I learned from observing Shadow Stalker? I believe it would demonstrate how I learn, and do not copy."
She nodded shortly and I made Shadow Figures as I walked left and right. They stood, darkly ethereal and I punched one twice, so it vanished like fog under the rising sun. I let the other go, not finding it a worthwhile expenditure of energy. "As you can see, I created a Stranger power, but one different from Shadow Stalkers own."
She gave a reluctant nod, "I see the similarities and differences."
"If I studied your power, I would gain insights into my own powers and how to improve them, and how to create new ones, but I cannot replicate other's powers. To try to do so would be folly. I am the caveman striking rocks together for a spark, not the lightning lighting the grass fire."
"And that's why he's an alien caveman! He makes crude recreations of powers, not actual copies," Eric butted in from the back, much to the horror of his mother.
A look from Carol had him shut his mouth. "I understand the metaphor, Eric, I am not a fool." She looked to be about to continue, but was interrupted by a Victoria and Amy coming in for a landing, hand in hand. She eyed the two girls, and focused on them. "And what exactly were you thinking Amy? Taking a power from a stranger like it was candy. Why that is one of the stupidest things I've honestly heard someone do. You had no idea if it would work and you could have been Mastered!"
"Mom, I asked her to. And I've already tried Dylan's Power Crystals before, at the PRT with Dean. They're absolutely safe. The Protectorate have been using them."
"Victoria! You what? Without asking me first?"
Victoria looked sheepish. "Dean was testing them and it seemed fun. I tried the superspeed one and had a blast."
"We're going to have a serious talk when we get home about this. The both of you. And as for you, Crystallus. I apologize if I seem harsh, but power sharing and power copying without downsides are few and far between."
Not wanting to get her hackles raised any further, I put my hands up and said, "Completely understandable. I am not offended in the least." I was. More than a little, but whatever. Carol is a bitch, news at eleven. "I take it you need time to consider the agreement?"
She nodded tightly. "Yes, the… agreement." Then she paused, and considered me as if for the first time. "I realize why you chose the Protectorate, and not us, when you moved to Brockton Bay. If this was the other way around, if you and I were approaching the Director and Armsmaster about letting an 'Adaptive Trump' examine their heroes for their powers, we would be laughed out of the room and you would be press-ganged in a month."
I didn't know what to say to that, but thankfully Victoria chose to butt in. "I wanna do it. I want him to learn from my power. Right, Amy? I wonder what he'll learn."
"Speak for yourself," Amy said with disgust. "I'm not letting him anywhere near my power."
"Harsh. I doubt I could learn all that much from your power, anyway. It's too complicated for a caveman like me." Though seeing Shaper in action would be cool, I planned on staying as far away from Panacea as possible. No butt cancer, please. I had already tripped too many death flags.
Amy glared at me, like I had insulted her somehow. Christ, girl, some people like a complicated power, it's nothing to be ashamed of.
"I want to see if I can teach him to make shields," said Eric quickly into the awkward silence. "That would be cool, if it worked."
"I can help with laser beams," added Crystal, giving me a quick apologetic look, after a brief glance at Amy.
"And I can help with flight, while Neil can work the Brute angle?" offered Sarah. "And when Carol and Mark decide, they can contact you?" She eyed her sister hopefully.
Carol nodded slowly. "I can agree to that, but no daughter of mine is letting their powers be analyzed without my permission. That means you, Victoria."
She sent me an apologetic look, and then winced.
[Fragile One is upset at Burning Light's Host] my power chirped unhelpfully.
"I'm glad we could come to an agreement," Colin said. "Would you mind if we began today? Dylan usually gains an insight within an hour and goes into a pseudo-tinker fugue and he is lost to the world. With multiple heroes it may happen quite a bit sooner."
Eric stepped forward. "I'll start! It's easier to do big shields in the air, if you'll join me?"
"Oh, I can actually see from down here just fine, but if you would do different shield sizes and shapes, while flying around that would be great."
I was immediately fascinated, watching the hard light forcefield with its regimented magnetic field in tight ordered curlicues. And from it, I got ideas. I had yet to try to enforce all but the most basic of order on my Dynakinesis, in the form of beams. What if I tried to contain it, shape it? I was lost in my emulation almost before I knew it, shaping and carving Shardstuff into a power that took from Dynakinesis, before arcane geometry took over, forcing the energy into a bubble of a magnetic field, forming a sphere. A simple, basic shape, nothing too fancy, but not just a blob or a circle. I think my power was helping, hinting at pathways and designs, because a sphere could easily become a half sphere and a perfect shield. But then the fugue was over and I was back.
Alone in the backyard but for Colin.
"Only fifty-four minutes this time, and you almost immediately dropped into the fugue this time. You're getting quicker," he said, somehow noticing I was back.
Without comment, I reached for my new power and formed a flickering iridescent sphere of energy in front of me, that moved as I moved.
"Very nice, Dylan. And a three-dimensional shape, as well." He nodded approvingly.
"I figured a half sphere would be a quick and easy modification to make as a shield."
"Smart choice then. The Dallon's left, but Glory Girl told me to tell you to contact her on Parahumans Online, a popular messageboard on the Internet. If its to secretly meet up so you can study her power, I would advise against it," Colin said.
"Why?"
Colin looked extremely uncomfortable. "It may be she simply has that in mind. It may be… less than innocuous. It did not go unnoticed how she hung on you, by Carol or Sarah. As I unfortunately have to be aware of, she is currently broken up with Dean, over flirting with him as Gallant. Maybe she sees you as an opportunity to get back at him? I do not pretend to know the minds of women, but be careful. You are an Open Cape. Things will follow you."
"It's not like I'm attractive."
"You are not unattractive," Colin offered. Thanks Colin, I feel the love. "But you are also older, and new, and a Trump."
"What does being a Trump have to do with it?" I asked, confused.
"Trumps are statistically far more likely to be in relationships with other capes, then any other type of Parahuman. Eidolon is the exception, not the rule, as with so many things, probably because he has yet to meet his match." He said, as if that explained anything.
"Okay, that's weird. I definitely did not know that from my snapshot." Colin grimaced at the mention of the future I saw.
"It's not a topic that is well researched, Parahuman relationship habits, but there has been some seminal work done recently, sponsored by Dragon. Trumps are ten times as likely to have children, who have a far higher chance than average of being parahuman. 46% if I am remembering correctly. Of course, you have outliers like the Dallon's and the Pelham's, but many parahumans don't have children, much less live long enough to raise them. Trumps, however, seem to make do."
At that odd tangent, I rolled my eyes. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because I know she just wants to let me learn her power. There's nothing… untoward going on."
"And I didn't think there was. I viewed it entirely as one-sided. We would have a very different conversation had I been watching you flirt with an underage girl rather than the other way around. We can discuss this another time. Just please let me know if that is why she contacts you."
I nodded. I could do that. I wouldn't feed that weird Trump Alpha shit he had going on, though. Purely chaste meetings only. I don't care how nice or pretty she is, or whatever. I did not need to be known as a chaser of underage girls.
"Lets head inside, and get Shielder his powercrystals, and maybe see if we cannot get another idea or two out of you before the sun sets." It was only 1:42 pm yet I had a feeling I would be staying here all day.
I had easily gotten something from watching Crystal, a realization of how slapdash and stupid my 'Blaster' power was, that I had to almost rebuild half of it—implanting particle accelerators, and smoothing fuel lines, carving heat exhausts and backup capacitors, and banks upon banks of batteries, strange little silver sculptures of mercury-like substance—into a far more elegant power, and more importantly an actual laser beam. An hour and six minutes later, and my new and improved Homing Beams were finished.
And then there was watching the manipulation of gravity as Lady Photon danced through the sky, pulling tight turns and hard acceleration. It sheathed her, carried smoothly, and smothered any of the dangers of flight. I had no idea how to do that. I did, however get an idea from watching her energy blasts. What if I could do that with Dynakinesis, not just release the energy, but fire it in a field-locked burst? And so I took shardstuff and carved tubes and tanks nestled into a connection to my battery, etched runic symbols into strange and arcane geometry, making focusing arrays, and field modulators out of pitch black crystal, finishing with a wide, flaring muzzle. Fifty-nine minutes later, she was asking if I wanted to try Neil as well, and stay for dinner, and I agreed.
From Neil, one look at his biology in action, somehow functioning normally despite the intricate electromagnetic field that surrounded his body, gave me an idea that combined insights I had made in the case of Battery, and of Assault, with Manpower. If you could get yourself a personal magnetic field, why not a kinetic field, something that stops incoming movement, but accelerates outgoing movement? Taking principles I learned from Shielder, I tried to make a human shaped kinetic field and failed, that shaping being far too intricate. So instead I made a tube, tall enough for me to stand in and throw things out. If I was Uber and Leet I'd probably call it the Kinetic Box.
As the evening drew to a close, we found ourselves lingering for dinner. Armsmaster settled comfortably into his 'Tinker' chair, a formidable metal fortress designed for mighty Brutes and power armor. Around us, the aroma of homemade garlic bread filled the air, mingling with the savory scent of chicken alfredo. With each bite, the exquisite flavors tantalized our taste buds, leaving us fully satisfied. Sarah was a damn good cook.
"So, who gets to choose their powers next?" I asked.
Eric had chosen two Deadshot's and two Brute's.
"I'll go next. I'll take four Deadshots. Making me even more accurate is a no brainer," Crystal said with a smile. "Plus maybe I learn some skills I can keep even after the power ends. A girl can hope, right?"
"Then, I'll take a Deadshot, two Flights and a Brute please," Sarah asked politely.
"Four Flights for me, Dylan," Neil said, holding his fingers up.
I nodded, before taking another bite.
"Before I leave, I'll make everyone's. It shouldn't take too long."
"Oh, there is no hurry."
"We've overextended our patrol by four hours. It was useful, and your home is lovely, but we really should get going soon, Sarah," Colin said, having finished his meal. I was just about done, anyway, so I began making crystals, reds and whites and blues.
Later I flew above and to the side of Colin's motorcycle—which is sadly just a really well tuned motorcycle and not a Tinker monstrosity. Fanfiction lied to me.—as we chatted about how it went.
"We'll have to get you into power testing again tomorrow. See what we're working with, but the Dynablast sounds viable in combat, as does your new Homing Lasers, at least from your description of your 'emulation.' I also see viability in having you study villains in combat, from a distance, through your Shardsenses. I want you to begin accompanying patrols, but not engaging, sticking in the van. You need to study Parahumans in their natural element. I'm sure your insights will be great, but we cannot have you going into a fugue because Kaiser makes you realize you can turn energy into matter in the middle of a fight."
I flushed a little. I wasn't that bad, was I?
Colin continued. "I do not blame you for it, or think it your fault. Every power has its little hiccups, especially powerful ones. Frankly, you have fewer negatives than usual, but the trance is a big one."
"Do you think Brandish will agree to the deal?"
"Once she sees the usefulness of your powercrystals, she will come crawling back, much more polite. Power Copiers make even the most level-headed Parahuman upset, and your power is close enough that it sets off alarms. I don't necessarily blame her, but her approach could have been more level-headed than stomping out into the yard."
I snorted. "That's one way to say it. But it's fine, I expected something like that, anyway. Honestly, I expected the Director to be more…" Bitchy? Angry? An asshole?
"She is a hard woman, but she does her job, as thankless as it is. Would you be surprised to hear that she was in fact excited to have you join us? An adaptive Trump, not a Ward, well-adjusted for a parahuman, attentive and steady worker. She was over the moon. Still is, if begrudgingly and under protest, despite everything. You're mentored by Eidolon, for Christ's sake. And you chose Brockton Bay? Sheer madness."
"It's familiar. I know its beats and the potentials. Speaking of which, would it be possible for me to start removing part of the Boat Graveyard with a power, as an act of volunteering?"
"Resource Cracking? I wouldn't know the first thing about the legalities, but you know who probably would, would be either Carol or someone at her law firm, or someone down at the Dockworkers Association. Maybe their Head of Hiring? A man named Daniel Hebert. No known gang connections, runs a tight ship."
"I'll look into the Dockworker's Association. Perhaps there's some waste I can remove too, or things they cannot recycle. Something to do my part that isn't beating up the bad guys in a tight costume."
"I'd run it by PR first. They'll want to know all about this."
I had forgotten. Or tried to forget. PR. Telling me what I could and couldn't eat, where I could and couldn't go, what I could and couldn't talk about in public. Nightmarish bullshit, and I could tell they were gleeful to control my public life, eager to ride the coattails of the first non-Case 53 Open Cape in the Protectorate all the way to the top. Too bad for them I have a self-isolating social recluse! Cindy Rathman, and Bernard Shawe. I decided to try Bernard first. I knocked on his door and he bid me enter.
Bernard with a short white guy with a skinny mustache, and a manbun who wore suits to work, so I hated him already.
"Well hello, Crystallus, I would love to help you out today, but I have to know, have you been sticking to your approved meal plan?"
"I'm going to tell this to you straight up. I am doing this, so this is not a thing you get to deny for me, like fucking fried chicken and brownies." Seriously, PR had way too much control in my life. It had the fingerprints of Alexandria fucking with me all over it. Or maybe the Protectorate was really this fucked. I didn't need a meal plan, I was literally Olympic and a Brute for Christ's sake. "I want to help get rid of the Boat Graveyard, one ship at a time. I was thinking of contacting the Head of Hiring over at the Dockworker's Union, seeing what the legal trouble would be behind that, and if there's also anything I can help with in regards to industrial and unrecyclable waste. My power, Resource Cracking, should help with this."
"You want to take your pristine, beautiful costume, and go get dirty with a bunch of Dockworkers?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yes. I feel like my duty as a hero is more than just stopping the bad guy. If—"
"Stop, say no more. Brilliant. That's the line we're going with for you, 'My duty as a hero is more' is the perfect tagline for you. People know you as Dylan from Liveleak, as Dylan From Another Earth, as Crystallus the hero who apprehended Uber and Leet on his first day in the city. Lets have them also think of you as a hardworking stiff just like them, working labor down at the docks, breaking down ships. Just like Brockton Bay used to be. Crystallus: My duty as a hero is more."
"So you'll set it up?" I asked.
"Oh, I'll set it up. In fact, let's call Mr. Hebert right now—I just so happen to have his number—and we can ask what he thinks is possible."
I was surprised, but eager. "Yeah, okay! Sounds like a plan to me."
The phone rang thrice, before a man picked up. "Dockworker's Association, this is Daniel Hebert, Head of Hiring, speaking. May I ask whose calling?"
"Danny, my man. It's Bernard Shawe in Public Relations over at the PRT."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Shawe." It was obvious Danny had no idea who he was talking to, and Bernard grimaced.
"Yes, well, I had our latest hero in the office, my good man Crystallus, and he was wondering if he couldn't help pay back to the community in some way. He has a power that lets him dissolve matter into energy, and he wanted to know if there was any kind of industrial waste he could get ride of? Something that's a blight or an eyesore."
"Oh, uh, the one on the Internet? I see. Well, there is the old oil bunker for tankers out north, that a pretty nasty site that's just waiting for the concrete to crack so it can spill into the bay. Could he handle something like that? And there are plenty of waste barrels thrown into the Bay. I heard he's a Brute. Do you think he could handle going deep underwater?"
I shrugged and waffled my hand.
"Maybe, but the oil bunker sounds good. I'll get a camera crew together and we can do a little historical video on the significance of the oil bunker, or something about its potential environmental impact, or maybe both. There was one other thing I wanted to ask you. The ships, what is their status?"
"Legally it's a grey area, but they have been abandoned for long enough that any claim would take precedent over the paper owners of the boat."
"So if Crystallus wanted to say, slowly destroy the Boat Graveyard ship by ship, there would be very little consequences?"
Danny laughed. "I didn't say that, not at all. If he's not salvaging them, but destroying them, that's entirely different. You would need to take ownership of the vessels first. You can't just start destroying a boat because it's been beached for a decade."
"Really? How odd. Would it be considered salvaging if Crystallus was personally gaining from the destruction of all the metal?"
"What could he possibly be gaining?"
"That doesn't matter, but there is a positive and noticeable gain with the ship's continued destruction. Could that be argued to be salvage?"
"No, salvaging means refloating the boat, not stripping it to destruction," Danny said, sighing tiredly.
There was an embarrassed silence.
"Look, I get you want to think your hero has an easy solution to all this, but there just isn't an easy solution. If they were declared environmental hazards, then maybe you could swing volunteer destruction, but they aren't and they're owned. The companies may be nearly dead and dying, but they still own the deeds. That's property he would be destroying."
"I see. Thank you for your frankness, Danny, it's always appreciated. I'll talk with our lawyers about the oil bunker, and if they say its safe legally, we'll get this done by Sunday." It was Wednesday, February 2nd.
It only took until Friday. Sunday they would post the video, and Eidolon would stop by for our bi-weekly 'mentoring' sessions. This time, I was going to get something useful out of it.
"I'm really glad you thought of this. I would never do it, of course, jump into a dark hole and cleaned out all the old oil, but heroes are built different, they say. Never had one so willing to get their hands dirty, though." That was Cindy, a half-asian woman who was as tall as me, with dark brown hair and had a tendency to give me back-handed compliments.
"Need to do something other than read and do PR patrols." The PR patrols had been on the Boardwalk and in the neighborhood around the PRT building, and both had been pleasant but boring. "And it's a good memento mori."
"A what?"
"A reminder I'm just a man."
She looked at me strangely. "You're a cape," she said, like that made sense. When I didn't respond she continued, "Well, anyway, we need to finish setting up the lights and then we'll be ready, and you can be reminded all you want down there."
Then she was off. I stood around waiting, until the film crew finished and then it started. An older man talked about tankers filling up and what it was like, back before, to the background of the Boat Graveyard. Then Cindy came on and talked about the environmental impact of the bunker possibly breaking open, before it was my turn.
"Hi, I'm Crystallus right now, but you might also know me as Dylan. I'm here today because my power can be used to clean up disasters-in-waiting like this one, and because heroes do more."
And just like that the brief stinger was over. They made me redo it three times, before they got a cut they liked. Next they filmed me floating down into the darkness, and then my helmet cam and light turned on.
It was a nasty. Heavy fuel oil coated and filled the room near two-thirds the way up, shining rancidly in the light. I was glad I was wearing scrubs, rather than my costume, as I stood near shoulder deep in oil. Then I turned me Resource Cracking power on, and started filling my reserves, heavily depleted with only stop-gap sun bathing keeping me mostly in the high twenties, low thirties. The moment I started I was at 28% energy reserves. Three hours later, smeared and covered in oil and draining the last few inches, I sat at a healthy 136% reserves. There was some continuous power loss inherent to having overfilled my battery, but it was miniscule, comparatively, to what I could bring in.
When I could not remove anymore, have sought all the lowest spots in the bunker, I flew back out to find most people had already left, but for a couple interns and Mr. Hebert, who stood talking with a young, lanky teenage girl, with curly brown hair. A fly landed curiously on my scrubs and grew stuck in the oil. Oh. Her. But first the chemical shower, and a change of clothes.
I was in PRT sweats when I approached Mr. Hebert and his daughter. Now don't get me wrong. I didn't want Taylor to suffer, or for her to turn villain, but let's face it; her power is terrifying. If I could have coasted along, never actually meeting her, that would have been fine with me. But here she was, showing up all nervous at my first real PR job.
I put on a smile, and said, "Mr. Hebert, thank you for this opportunity," reaching out a clean, freshly scrubbed hand that was taken with no hesitation of Danny's part.
"Please call me Danny, And it's my pleasure. I'm glad to see there's at least one hero whose idea of helping is more than just punching the poor and disaffected."
"Dad!" Taylor said sharply, shock in her voice. "In front of a hero?"
"Where's the lie though?" I ask her. "Let your father speak his mind, since I am contractually obligated not to."
Danny laughed. "See, this is why I like you, Crystallus."
"Please, please call me Dylan. Especially not on camera."
"Dylan, then. Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?"
"Dylan Thomas, they claim, but my dad is a big Bob Dylan fan."
Danny laughed again. "And your mother isn't, I'm guessing?"
"No, absolutely not."
"I wanted to thank you, Dylan, for reaching out to us, instead of the city."
"Didn't even cross my mind not to call you, Danny."
The man slaps himself in the forehead, "I completely forgot, let me introduce you to my daughter, Taylor. She has some questions she wanted to ask you. Do you think you could follow us back to our car? It's just, not the kind of topic you talk about, without a mask, if you get what I mean?"
I nodded. "How about I give you two some flight crystals, and we find a nice roof to stand on, away from prying ears and eyes? You can never be too careful."
"What do you mean 'flight crystals?'" asked Taylor.
I explained, and they both accepted, and soon we found ourselves overlooking an empty abandoned warehouse.
"So, what is it you wanted to talk about?"
"My daughter, she—That is we think she's…"
"I'm a Parahuman."
"You Triggered," I said. "They call it the worst day of your life. Mine happened before I even finished arriving in Earth Bet. I knew, knew in my heart, I would never see my friends and family again. I don't need to know what yours is. It's private."
"A… they…" she stopped, took a shuddering breath, and continued, despite what I said. "They put me in—put me in-"
"I know, already. There's no need to say. The PRT and the Protectorate know you're Parahuman. Do they know what your powers are? Absolutely not. And if you don't want me to tell them about this meeting, I won't."
Taylor looked stunned for a moment, before an icy calm went over her, emotion draining out of her, and her posture straightening. "I wanted to ask you questions, about why you chose Brockton Bay, and what you think I should do?"
"Well, which do you want to know first?"
"Why did you chose Brockton Bay. Your answer in the interview sounded like PR speak. There's no new horizons to be found here."
"Brockton Bay is a city where I can make a meaningful difference with my powers," without the interference of Cauldron too much, "and a place that needs more heroes, desperately. I hope you intend to be one."
"Of course!" she said, "I have powers, how can I not be a hero?"
I chuckled. "You'd be surprised. Some people think their powers are villainous powers and never even try to be a hero, or they wind up in a bad situation, with no way out but a life of villainy. People make mistakes, or bad choices, and get labeled villain and figure there's no way back."
"Well, I'm definitely a hero even if my power is villainous."
"No power is villainous, there is good you can do with any power," I replied promptly.
"Well said. And we've talked about this, Taylor. There's a very obvious profession you could work with your power, and the Ten Plagues of Egypt were all on God, so that makes your power a good one."
"Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to just use my power to get money, I want to be a hero, Dad," Taylor whined.
"Exterminator's are heroes," Danny said amusedly.
"Insect control," I said snapping my fingers. "That must be it, your power is insect control."
Taylor looked dejected, her hair a curtain in front of her face. "Yes."
"How far, a couple feet? A dozen? And how many insects? A hundred? A thousand?"
Taylor looked bewildered. "No, I control all of them."
"But it has to be close to your body, then, doesn't it?"
Again, she looked confused. "No? I control all the insects within five hundred feet."
"Are you serious?" I asked, leaning forward. "Every insect?"
"That is my power. I control every insect and bug within five hundred feet. I can feel them all the time, moving and twitching and feeding. It's awful and I'm not crazy." Her eyes began to tear up. "I'm not."
Shit! I put up my hands, "Woah, hold on. No one is saying you're crazy. If your power is telling you its giving you control of every insect in your range, then that's the truth. It's just, usually powers have some sort of drawback or restriction. How many insects are you controlling right now?"
"Forty-four million."
Danny looked just as shocked as I did. "Can you just feel them, or can you see and hear out of them?"
Her face scrunched up. "I can—I can kind of see if I concentrate on one of them really hard, but it blurry and makes my head hurt. Same with hearing."
"So you can see, feel, and hear out of forty-four million insects, and control each one. Taylor, that is an astounding power. If you train it and become skilled enough, it could make you, and I mean this with complete sincerity, Triumvirate tier."
"No," Taylor said, "You're messing with me. My powers gross, and awful. I have to feel bugs all day, everywhere."
"Have you tried drawing your focus inward and ignoring the insects? Or distancing yourself in your mind from the connections to your insects?"
"…No," she said, flushing embarrassedly.
"Those are two exercises that Masters who control large swarms use, when their power feels overwhelming. I read about it in a book on Parahuman therapy. Now, I was being serious. With the correct training and time, you will become unstoppable. A Brute might stand up to a Black Widow bite or ten, but a hundred? A thousand? You could honestly fight and defeat Lung." Maybe I was laying it on a bit thick, but the girl obviously needed affirmations, stat. And it had the benefit of being true.
She squirmed, as Danny stared at her with new eyes.
"I can't be that powerful. It's just bugs."
"'It's just bugs' she says, discounting the psychological terror you will inflict on the villains when they see your swarm coming for them, to bury them in chitinous bodies. Your power is scary." Taylor made a face. "You cannot change that, but what you can do is embrace and use it for good. Or you can stick with certain types of insects, like theming yourself with bees, or spiders or ants, or even butterflies and moths. You have options, with such an open power."
Taylor looked at me considering. "Well, you certainly given me ideas. What would you do, with my power?"
"You have three choices. You can stay independent, and try to be one of the 23% that survive the first six months, not getting picked up by a gang, killed, disappeared or joining the Protectorate. You can join New Wave as an open cape, a risky endeavor, and suffer from lack of resources and a focus on flyers, but enjoy a measure of freedom in the spotlight. Or you can join the Wards, and before you say anything, hear me out."
I paused, gathering my thoughts. "You need resources to find you rare and exotic insects to add to your swarm, and room to store your insects. The Protectorate can provide those resources and rooms. Your power is the perfect scout/spy for a team. You would be a valued member of the Wards. You can attack from afar, but you need someone to protect you. That's what the Wards offers you. Alone, you are squishy, with a team you are protected. And before you go telling me you don't want to deal with teenage drama, these are kids who went through the same level of traumatic event as you. They're not looking for any teenage drama, they want to be heroes with the shitty powers they got from a shitty situation, just like you."
Taylors face displayed a myriad of emotion as I spoke, and finally settled reluctant acceptance. "I knew you would try to shill the Wards, but I thought you'd tell me they'd be my friends or some nonsense like that, not actual good reasons. I decided to make a costume out of black widow silk, since its so strong, but finding enough black widow spiders in midwinter is taking forever. But the PRT could just buy me some, and store them in a heated room, and I wouldn't have to sleep in the same house as them."
Danny looked suddenly disturbed."Taylor… You're keeping black widows in our home?"
"In the basement. I'm trying to learn how to weave the silk," she said, sheepishly, "but it's slow going."
"I think I'm signing you up for the Wards, if that's the level of intelligence you're displaying. Keeping deadly venomous spiders in our basement, to make a costume? Really?"
She had the wherewithal to look embarrassed. "I couldn't keep them in my room."
"That's why you find a base, an old warehouse or abandoned bookstore. Not your basement," Danny said sternly.
"Well, it doesn't matter now, because… I'm thinking of joining the Wards, Dad."
"I think that's the best option moving forward. I was hoping you would not dismiss it out of hand," he said softly.
"I'm still worried about… things, but I'm going to be a hero. And heros are brave and they do what needs to be done. They do nasty things, like you, Crystallus, cleaning up the oil, to help others. I can stand more teen drama if it means I can help people as a hero. So that means I need to join the Wards." She sounded more and more sure as she spoke, ending with stubborn determination. I couldn't help my smile.
"I'm really glad you made this choice, Taylor. It may not be easy, but it is the right choice. Do you want to do this now, or wait—"
"Now, if I wait, I may change my mind," she said, interrupting me.
"Then let me call this in, so they can prepare for you. They'll have to get some insects for you to test with, since we cannot just go full Swarm Queen into Downtown, as fun as that would be. Too scary for the civilians, despite how it would make Kaiser piss his iron panties."
Danny snorted, and Taylor looked as if she wasn't sure she should scold me or laugh, before she decided on sighing. "You're a strange hero, if you think biblical swarms of insects would be 'fun' and thank you for that horrible image."
I dip an imaginary hat and begin making flight crystals, before contacting Console. "I've got a potential Ward looking to sign up here, console."
Vista answered, sounding all business. "Crystallus, roger that. Are they in costume?"
"She approached me in her civilian identity, and cannot prepare her power before she arrives. It is insect control, so I need you to relay to Power Testing that they need to purchase a large quantity of insects. In the thousands."
"I can do that, and I'll let Reception know to expect you with a recruit. And thousands, really?" She sounded sickly fascinated.
"Millions, supposedly."
Vista scoffed. "Yeah right."
"Don't dismiss her that easily, she might be the Master 9 to your Shaker 9. This is Brockton Bay. We have Lung and Armsmaster and you, and Leet and Dauntless. All powerful, strong capes."
"You believe her?"
"Yes, I do. Parahumans know their power." The line was silent. Vista must be thinking her cute little head off. "We'll probably be half an hour. We're leaving from the north Docks, as I finished cleaning up the oil. Nasty stuff, thick as tar and smells like sulfur. Don't recommend taking a bath in it. 3 out of 10."
Vista snorted. "Roger. ETA thirty minutes, and I should expect a new teammate. You said she, right?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Well hopefully she isn't like Shadow Stalker."
"I think she just about the opposite of that person, as you can be."
"Good. Anything else to report?"
"Nothing at all, Console. Everything went swimmingly."
She gave an affirmative, and signed off.
I turned back to the Hebert's, who had been talking quietly while I had been busy. My flight crystals were ready and I handed them out, and we flew back to their car, parked lonely in a half-abandoned parking lot.
I told them I had prepared the PRT for them, and handed them each a plain white domino mask, and then Taylor and her father were off, making their way out of the parking lot, and through the wastelands of the Docks. They weren't really that bad, but the sheer number of junkies that just hung about, and the homeless who squatted in the abandoned warehouses, made it a veritable no-man's-land in the city for housed civilians. It would be noticed if I was following a civilian's car, so I decided to wait around for a little bit, before I flew to the PRT building.
As I was getting ready to fly, I heard a rumbling coming from the north, and I switched to Shardsenses as something both appeared and didn't appear. A big, blocky rumbling thing that was moving closer, yet I couldn't for the life of me actually see it, until it suddenly resolved into acuity across my Shardsenses, and visual sight. I called it in, as it pulled to a stop in front of me.
It was a huge monster-truck festooned with extra parts and bits that may or may not be weapons of some kind, and a blonde woman in a simple visor across her face, wearing a white oil-stained wifebeater that strained to hold in her assets, leaned out the window.
"Are you the asshole that ate all my HFO?" her voice squeaked out, high, and chipmunky. It was an absurd situation to find myself in, and I stifled a laugh. She could tell, however, and her cheeks flushed red. "Laughing, huh? I was going to use that HFO! It was just lying around, doing nothing, and you ate it all. When I tell Skiddie, he's gonna blow his top! I totally had a way to make the best kind of high from it."
"You're a Tinker, obviously, but who are you? Are you a villain?" I asked, because I had yet to be taught about the Merchants, or Skidmark or Squealer, so obviously they either weren't super active yet, or they were so low priority that my training had yet to get to them.
She grew even more incensed. "You dont know who I am? I'm Squealer, with the Archer Street Bridge Merchants!"
"Doesn't ring a bell. Must not be that important."
"Well, who the fuck are you?"
"I'm Crystallus, but my friends call me Dylan."
"Well, Dillweed, give me back my HFO or I'll run you over."
I gave a casual thought wondering of whether that would work, then shook my head. No contemplating death.
"This is Console, you have go ahead to make an arrest. The Director says to not make too big a mess."
I grinned.