Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) - Fabled_Webs

Chapter 1 Chapter Text

Call 1.1

3 BN: Khom, Pre-Noxus

A man with skin of ocean-blue sank to his knees as the world tore itself apart. His bald head and shirtless torso were covered in ancient scripts, a language only he now knew. Tyrus, his master, could read it; he was the one who carved these very runes onto a young Ryze, but Tyrus was dead. Ryze gazed down at his hands and mourned. He could practically see his master's lifeblood staining them.

And all around, Khom, his birthplace, burned.

"The World Runes are power incarnate," his master had said with a voice like gravel and filled with warmth. "They are fragments of creation, crystallizations of celestial might. Once, all the world was empty and these five runes transformed fields of barren stone into wonders of life and magic. Theirs is the power of creation, of life itself."

Ryze could picture the face of his master, so easily wrinkled with smiles for his young apprentice, turn solemn and serious as he spoke in warning. "All that creates can destroy, Ryze," he'd said. "All that gives life can take it away. Theirs is the power of creation, but terrible is that same power when turned towards destruction. Theirs is the power to carve mountains, drain oceans, and burn skies."

And all around, his home burned.

"Master," he choked back a sob. "Why?"

In the distance, the earth sank into the sea and the sky wept mana. Tremors shook the land, as though Runeterra itself was undergoing its death throes. Ryze stared at the body that had once been Tyrus, a mere husk of dried and mummified flesh. Both men had heard the Call. The World Runes beckoned. They promised an end to the fighting. They promised peace. They promised life, reborn anew from the ashes of the Rune Wars. They promised hope, if only a man of supreme will and unshakable virtue would wield them.

Ryze resisted while his master failed, and so Tyrus died by the hand of his student.

And so, Khom burned even as Ryze watched his master's body age a thousand years in a blink, the mana of his very soul drawn out to become a catalyst for two of the World Runes. A man touched the power of the gods and was found woefully wanting.

"You were the one who taught me… warned me…" His hands reached out and grasped the robe his master once wore. They crumbled to ash, even such perfect mortal enchantments unable to withstand their power. "Tyrus… master… father…"

Runeterra shook itself apart. Khom burned. And for once, Ryze couldn't give a damn.

Yet he stood. There, before him was ultimate power, two World Runes, one an ominous red and the other a tranquil blue reminiscent of the cloudless sky. He wanted nothing more than to throw them away, to leave them in the depths of the earth as Runeterra yawned to its core. Still, he took them in hand and bid his master farewell.

Thus his quest began.

97 AN: Howling Abyss, Freljord

Ryze stood at the northernmost edge of the world, a gaping chasm that imprisoned terrors even gods feared. A century after his quest began, he was at his journey's end. The magic of the World Runes flowed through him despite his utter loathing for them. The raw mana they exuded was enough to change him, make him more than mortal, an archmage with one foot into the realm of gods.

The Rune Mage stood at the edge of the world and held the five keys to unlimited power for one last time. They were beautiful, utterly breathtaking even. Five gems bound in Petricite pyramids, the only way for Ryze to hold them for an extended period without being driven mad with power.

They sickened him.

Yet still they beckoned.

With them, he could forge a new era. He could guide the fledgling kingdoms into an age of peace and prosperity like none other. He could see it now, harmony among the nations and peoples as far as the eye could see, a world where no one would go hungry, where no injustice would go unpunished, where-

Ryze flinched back as though struck and the World Runes fell into the Abyss. He shook his head as he strode away.

"The only power I truly have… is the strength to let go."

Void

The Watchers saw all. They were there before Runeterra began, before all but the eldest celestials came into being. They would persist long after the stars burned out.

They saw.

They saw, but could do nothing.

The bonds of the Forgelord were absolute, should have been absolute. Would have been absolute, unbreakable even to the gods of the Void, had it not been for the Third Sister. Her enchantment entombed the Watchers, but also ate away at the bridge, weakening the Forgelord's work. One day, the bridge would fall and the Watchers would among mortals once more.

Yet, today was not that day.

And so the five World Runes fell. The passed the Watchers and crossed the Void into the space between worlds. There, they scattered like birds into cosmos unknown.

Each World Rune traveled aimlessly through the space between worlds, until one met a soul, all but expended and ready to fade. The probability of this meeting was infinitesimally small. The probability of that World Rune meeting this specific soul even more so. And yet, the probability was not zero and so, in the space between worlds, the Rune of Inspiration found a master.

1999, November 2: Busan, South Korea

I was drowning. I'd never been much for waterpsorts. My father and uncles loved to fish; they even owned a dingy little boat for the purpose back in California. I knew how to swim, or at least how to float and doggy-paddle, but I was woefully unprepared for the storm that took the cruise ship. To be fair to myself, neither was the captain.

So, my Korean-American ass swam for his life like a rat in a toilet bowl, thrown from the ship my sister and her husband had promised would be so f*cking fun.

We were off the southeastern coast of Korea, near Busan, when the storm hit. It was supposed to be a cruise around Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, a vacation within a vacation as we visited our relatives in the motherland. God obviously had other plans. Of mice and men and all that…

I was drowning. Then, there was blackness and a flash of blue, purer than the cloudless sky. After that, everything felt detached, as though in a fever dream.

"I've got you!" someone shouted over the howling wind. He must have been a giant because his forearm wrapped around my entire torso with ease.

We were lifted by helicopter, the rescue worker holding me in one arm while he grabbed on to the rope ladder with the other. Mad respect for that, the upper body strength was damn impressive. 'I didn't even know the cruise ship had a copter; Guess I didn't give the crew enough credit,' I thought as I shivered in his arms.

Then, the copter rose higher and I saw just how f*cked Busan was. The streets were flooded, water extending as far as the eye could see. Even as I watched, waves upon waves and torrential downpours battered at the broken city. I could see little dots in the distance, law enforcement and even the military trying to guide civilians away from the shoreline in organized chaos.

We landed in the courtyard of a school, likely because it was one of the few places in a metropolis like Busan where there wasn't a giant risk of something falling on us.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I still felt like I was in a fever dream, like there was a cellophane bubble between me and the rest of the world. The obvious disaster zone wasn't helping matters. Hell, this whole ordeal was reminding me to brush up on my Korean. Sure, I hadn't been back in Korea in eight years, but that was hardly an excuse for my spotty understanding.

'I think I heard something about a sea monster…'

"Come on, kid. You gotta let go now," the giant rescue worker said, firmly but not unkindly.

'Kid? I know I'm short, but I'm twenty-eight!' I thought indignantly as I forced my frozen fingers to unclench.

A thermal blanket was wrapped around me as I was ushered inside the medical tent. There, a doctor or orderly gave me a quick once over before confirming that I had no untreated injuries.

"Everyone is bigger than me," I mumbled to myself, still in shock.

"Do you know where your parents are?" an orderly asked. I must have been shunted off as a noncritical patient because the middle-aged, balding man was replaced by a woman in her early twenties, far too young to have an MD. She had to stoop a little to put a lanyard around my neck.

"No, they must still be on the boat."

"What boat? Oh, child," she cooed and hugged me. "I'm so sorry. It's going to be okay."

I struggled to escape her grasp, but she was too strong. Or rather, I was too weak. The frigid ocean and a helicopter ride where I made a passable impression of a koala weren't helping matters. Then, I caught my reflection on a stainless steel counter, one of those rapid-deploy foldout tables used by emergency personnel.

'Oh, I'm a kid again.'

Realization struck me like a bucket of ice water and thunder rumbled in the sky.

As in, thunder literally rumbled in the sky. Several somethings crashed to the ground in the distance.

"We've gotta go!" Someone in gray fatigues shouted. He yelled something into a walkie-talkie then began to round people up and command them. "Road's cleared! Grab all civilians and load 'em up!"

"You heard the officer," the orderly said with a watery smile. "Follow them okay? They'll protect you. Don't worry, this noona is staying behind so she'll find your parents for you."

'What the f*ck is going on?'

I was shoved unceremoniously onto the back of a truck alongside eight civilians and four officers. Then, just before the doors closed, I saw a man in traditional Korean hanbok drop down from the sky. He wore a pale, featureless mask that covered his entire face along with a navy-blue and jade-green hanbok outfit. All around him, the rain stopped falling, levitating in the air. For a moment, he appeared to literally be standing on the raindrops.

'Oh… I'm dreaming. Makes more sense. I must have passed out in the water.'

"Hwarang-nim," one policeman called. "What's going on?"

Whatever the man said back, I didn't hear because that's when the van was shut and started to roll. We sat there, twelve people crammed like sardines, as the driver tried his best to navigate a city shattered by disaster.

"That f*cking Akk-ryong," one man swore. That sent several men in the van into a fury.

"Husband, enough," one woman said, placing an arm on his. "There are children here."

"Let them vent. Anger is good. Anger keeps you going." This time, it was an officer who swore. "f*ck that dragon. There will be time for calm later when you pick your lives back together again. Now? Be angry so you can put one foot in front of the other."

We were interrupted again by the sound of static from an officer's walkie-talkie.

"Hang tight, another building collapsed. I'm going to try to drive around it," came the driver's voice.

A middle-aged man seated next to me made sure my seatbelt was fastened securely. Not ten seconds later, the car lurched and a loud banging noise filled the cabin. He grabbed me, pulling me towards him and shielding me with his own body. I heard a grunt of pain and screams of fear before the car stopped rolling. Slowly, he let me go.

"Thank you, ahjussi," I felt compelled to say. The car was on its side, which meant I was hanging from what was now the ceiling, attached by the seatbelt that likely saved my life.

"You're a good kid."

One by one, the officers let us out into the waterlogged street. I stood there in the rain as the adults in the situation tried to figure out what to do. The street around me looked familiar even in its destruction.

"This is the street where Sunyeop lives," I muttered. My cousin, younger than me by two years, was a good man who was training to be a pilot. 'Or, he will be?'

I found myself walking towards his childhood home, a two-story affair with a tiny yard. That there were houses at all made this Busan's wealthier district. Otherwise, we'd be surrounded by high rises and apartments. In hindsight, the lack of tall buildings was probably why we were driving this way in the first place.

I stopped in front of the home and read the bronze plaque. "Hong… That's not their surname…"

Lightning flashed in the sky and struck a power line with a thunderous boom, sending us to the ground.

"Kid!" I heard behind me.

I turned, just fast enough to see the power line come down around me. There was a whipping sound as broken cables cut through the air.

There was a buzz.

Then a zap.

Then agony.

Then blissful silence…

[Destination]

[Trajectory]

A flash of blue filled the nothingness of the void, a blue clearer than the cloudless sky pulsed with a power no Shard could comprehend. It was unfamiliar. It was potential.

It had found a master. It would not relent.

[Proposal]

[Alteration]

[Agreement]

2000, May 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I tapped my way through the corridor, my telescopic walking stick making soft clicking noises as it collided with the wall. It was surprisingly well-made. Surprising as in there's a surprising amount of thought that goes into engineering one of these. From what I could tell, the tip had a pliable rubber cap with a spring attachment to give me a better sense of pressure and hardness. The telescopic body could extend to almost my full height, not that I was particularly tall at eight years old. The handle was perfectly ergonomic, with a hardened foam grip to fit snugly into the swell of the palm. There was even a strap I could loop around my wrist so I don't accidentally lose it. All in all, a perfect example of human-factors engineering at work.

Oh, I'm blind. And eight. In Worm. More than a decade before canon.

I felt cold sweat run down my back as my breathing shortened. Then, a comforting hand rested on my shoulder.

"Breathe, Andy," Redbird said, his smooth voice far gentler than one would expect from a man built like a brick sh*thouse. "No need to be nervous. The Wards are all good kids."

'Not why I'm freaking,' I thought, but flashed him a smile anyway and took several deep breaths. "Thank you, Redbird."

Leviathan was seven months ago. Turns out, when Kyushu went the way of Atlantis, it caused a whole lot of trouble for surrounding countries. Tidal waves struck the Korean peninsula and while it wasn't as bad as Kyushu itself, that was cold comfort to the nine thousand people who drowned. My father among them.

Over the past seven months, my memories blended together until I couldn't tell where the Yusung of this life and the Yusung I was ended. My father was a part of the Korean military, specifically the declining Coast Guard. It really existed for only two reasons: to crack down on smuggling and illegal migration, and to be a national warning bell in the event of an endbringer attack. My dad, Captain Namjoon Kim, did his duty and died for it. Hell, in a city of millions, that only nine thousand died from even a tangential endbringer attack was impressive.

That's what mom told me. It's what the twenty-eight year old me told my eight year old self.

Shortly after I was evacuated, I was reunited with my mom. I didn't have the full story, but she pulled some favors from dad's old military contacts and arranged for two tickets to America, just one of many refugees fleeing the decimated region. We settled in Phoenix, about as far from the rain and the sea as we could get.

"We're here," Redbird said, his words bringing me from my melancholy.

The customary buzzer went off, a thirty second grace period for Wards to scramble for their masks. While they did that, I reached into my pocket and brought out a Gatorade bottle filled with a neon-pink fluid. I brought it to my lips and took a sip.

"Alright," I breathed, "let's meet the team."

Author's Note

Ryze's cinematic is honestly one of my favorites because of how tired that man looks. I could definitely believe that in another universe, Ryze, broken and exhausted following his quest, did not hide the World Runes away and instead tossed them into the Void, "returning" them to the origin of the universe in his own way. That's what happened in this alternate universe.

Interestingly enough, there are three distinct myths regarding how the howling Abyss came to be. One says that there was a great battle between the Three Sisters and the Watchers over the bridge in which the sisters triumphed. A second says that the battle was actually between the sisters, Lissandra against Avarosa and Serylda, in which Lissandra realized her mistake and betrayed the Watchers, entombing them, and her sisters, in True Ice. The third myth, the one I'm going with as factual, says the sisters came to Ornn and asked him to build the bridge, a crossbar to bar the Watchers from ever entering the Freljord. Lissandra f*cked it up trying to improve it with her magic and put Ornn's prison on a time limit.

악용 , or "Akk-ryong" literally uses the Hanja for evil and dragon, which is how I imagine Koreans (and many Asian communities) would refer to Leviathan.

Power Description: Andy is fused to the World Rune, specifically the Rune of Inspiration. He's effectively a Runeterra-tinker, able to draw upon the world and its Champions for inspiration. The World Rune acts as an infinite source of mana that can power anything and everything he makes without fail. It, being quite literally a godly artifact of creation, can transmute earthly materials into Runeterran analogs as necessary to make up for the lack of materials of esoteric powers. Because he is not a standard cape, Andy lacks a conflict drive common to most parahumans.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.

Chapter 2: 1.2 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

1.2 Call

2000, May 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The pink liquid flowed down my throat and my world expanded, from a pitch-black void to a cascade of hues and textures beyond mere human sight.

How does one explain sight to a blind man? Even having once had eyes, I still had no clue. I was now in the curious position of having to explain the blessings of the Oracle's Elixir to the PRT, to mere mortals who were utterly incapable of wielding mana, who didn't even consider the possibility of the supernatural. I just ended up telling them that the elixir could give me sight for one hour per mouthful. After some rigorous testing, they marked it down as pericognition within fifty meters. The closer truth was that it expanded my magical senses outward and opened my inner eye, as cliché as that sounded, literally allowing me to see and feel the spiritual reality overlaid onto the physical. Sight, but not. Touch, but not.

With a snap of my wrist, I contracted my telescopic walking stick and stashed it on a belt loop.

"You good?" Redbird asked.

"Quite."

Taking the lead, I shoved the doors open, allowing them to hit the walls a little louder than strictly necessary as I walked in. Four people were already facing me, three girls and one boy. This wasn't the entirety of the Wards. In fact, it was but one of three teams.

The common room itself was large, far larger than a team of four, now five, merited. Wards Team One was almost entirely dedicated to PR and rescue missions and fought almost never. At least, that was the ideal. Where capes were concerned, that was a pipe dream. My new headquarters had three large couches, a coffee table, flatscreen TV, and a fully stocked kitchen. It was honestly better than my apartment, both in this life and my previous.

Phoenix was a city of one and a half million people and the local Protectorate catered to more than just the city proper, responding to emergency calls from the local national parks and Native American reservations as well. That was what Redbird was, in many ways: He didn't just work as a Protectorate hero; he was also the primary liaison to the Gila River Indian Community, a reservation that lied to the south of the city.

Given the larger population size and massively upscaled patrol area compared to Brockton Bay, it was no wonder that there were multiple Protectorate and Wards teams. It still wasn't enough. As I heard Redbird tell it, the local Protectorate teams, yes, plural, worked in close cooperation with National Park Service rangers as well as the nearby Tucson branch of the Protectorate to manage their wide territory. In a lot of ways, Arizona was one of the better-managed sectors: large enough for a sizable hero presence, small enough to not attract any big villain names, close enough for Alexandria to do a flyby, and best of all, not a Cauldron feudalism experiment.

Before I knew it, a tall, leggy blonde in a navy jumpsuit stood before me with a winning smile. Her blue eyes danced with amusem*nt and I could feel every twitch of her lips, every bob of her hair as she tried to position herself with a welcoming, big sister persona. It was her hands that caught my interest though. She wore heavily modified boxing gloves, flattened a little with additional hardened foam padding on the knuckles. The gloves extended past her wrists and almost to her elbows, with the wrists flaring outward in a diamond pattern, almost like wings. On the back of each glove was a stylized ray, its tail curling up her forearms.

"Hey, Redbird, who's this?" she said. Her voice was confident, but why wouldn't she be? I was an eight year old child with an obviously blinding scar across his eyes. I could feel her smile shrink by a few molars when she met my glass eyes. "Oh…"

"This is Rubedo, Andy," Redbird said, his hand placed comfortingly on my shoulder. "He's going to be a new member of the Wards. Rubedo, this one is called Stingray."

"sh*t, what the f*ck happened to your eyes?" said one of the other girls. She was leaning against the wall with a large, black domino mask that covered most of her face. The mask was unique, embossed with golden tophat designs.

"Hat Trick!" Redbird and the blond admonished as one.

"It's fine," I waved them off. I brought my feet together and bowed at the waist. Regardless of my mental age, these were my sunbae. "Hello everyone, my name is Yusung Kim, but you can call me Andy. The director and I agreed that seeing how I'm blind most of the time, it's pointless trying to keep a secret identity from my own team. As for how I got this scar," I gestured to my face, "I got it during Leviathan's recent attack on Kyushu when a telephone pole fell near me, the broken power line raking across my eyes."

"sh*t," the now named Hat Trick hissed.

I shrugged. If she didn't like the answer, she shouldn't have asked the question. "Quite."

She came up to me and pointed her fist at me, which I bumped. She was rail-thin and dressed almost stereotypically like a skater, with a backwards facing baseball cap with a flattened bill, a t-shirt promoting some metal band I'd never heard of, loose jeans, and one too many belts. At her side was a skateboard with the sandpaper-like grip tape colored in waves of hot pink and purple. "That's f*ckin' metal, little dude."

"Wait, what do you mean you're blind only most of the time?" the sole boy asked. He looked to be the oldest in the room, maybe par with Stingray. He was handsome, with wavy brown hair and a strong jaw. His appearance was marred only by the fact that half his left ear was partially missing. His feet were still up on the coffee table, an easygoing smile on his face. I noticed he hadn't bothered with a mask at all. At his feet was a ten-gallon hat. "Howdy," he drawled, "Ranchero at your service. David out of costume."

"Dave," the blonde warned.

"It's fine," I repeated. I pulled out my bottle of pink Gatorade. "I'd rather get through the boring stuff right away. Powers. I'm a tinker who makes potions, including one I call the Oracle's Elixir. It gives me a thinker power that makes me aware of everything within fifty meters or so for an hour."

"Cool, that's awesome!" shouted the final girl as she jumped up to me. She was short, almost as short as I was, with wavy black hair and almond eyes. Her costume was… juvenile, though I supposed I shouldn't have expected any different from the infamous PR department. It was… It was a giant raccoon onesie, with the raccoon's face as a hoodie attachment. The "mask" of the raccoon extended down to cover her own eyes. Hell, she even had the fluffy ears and striped tail, with some kind of internal wire to lift it up. "Hey, I'm Raquel, or the Masked Bandit in costume!"

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I mimed giving her a once-over. I didn't need to nod to look her over, but I was told by the local PR guru that emoting and body language was important. I'd never seen a woman look more uncomfortable than in that meeting. She had to explain to a blind eight year old that his scar was too freaky to talk to people normally so he should make big gestures. "That's a hell of a costume," I told Masked Bandit. "Do you… change into a raccoon?"

She visibly winced even as the tall blond wrapped an arm around her. "Yeah… I didn't get much of a choice."

"Sorry, Bandit and I just came off a patrol, which is why we're the only ones in full regalia. And since these two already unmasked," she pulled off her navy-blue domino to reveal an attractive teen with a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, "Penelope, leader of Wards Team One."

"Alright, you kids seem like you won't tear each other apart so I'm going to get back to the Protectorate side and grab a shower before heading out," Redbird said.

"Thank you, Redbird," I told him before walking over to the sofa and taking a seat.

"So," Penelope clapped her hands. "Powers. Mine lets me punch things from far away with an additional drill-like effect. I'm also a lot stronger than normal."

"She's also a massive dork," Hat Trick said snidely and mimed punching the air. "Every time she punches something from a distance, she shouts, 'Stingray Straight!'"

"Hey, every superhero needs a super move alright? You have no class."

"Whatever," she said, eyes rolling at the well-trodden argument. She took off her black domino mask to reveal a face that looked like it could be an older version of Raquel's. "Since everyone else unmasked, I'm Yasmine. Jazz for short. I have a shaker power that lets me turn any hat I own into a pocket dimension. I automatically know how to use everything I keep in my hats."

To demonstrate, she walked over to a coat rack where a tophat hung. With a neat flip, she replaced her baseball cap and a violet light filled the air around her. When the light faded, she was dressed in a stage magician's outfit, cane and all. "Ta-da," she drawled, taking a mocking bow.

"Very nice," I told her. "So, if you store a hammer inside your hat, do you become a master carpenter when you take it out again?"

"If it's a carpenter's hammer, sure, and only for a day or so before my connection breaks."

"That's pretty cool. So you're a superpowered handyman."

"Snrkk," Penelope tried to suppress a laugh but failed miserably.

"Not. A. Handyman," Jazz growled.

Seeing a budding argument, David tossed his hat over to Jazz, who caught it with a scowl but placed it on the coat rack. "Anyway, I'm Ranchero, as I said. I have a minor brute power but my real power is the ability to make hardlight projections of bulls. The more bulls I have, the stronger I get."

"That explains the cowboy hat."

"Yup. I wanted to go by Stampede, but the PR lady told me it was 'too rowdy.'"

"That's probably because I'm already the Masked Bandit," Raquel said. "We can't have two mavericks on one team, even if I don't want to be one."

I leaned back into my couch but paused. I couldn't feel my collapsible walking stick anymore. "Hey, anyone seen my stick?"

"Raquel," all three Wards groaned as one.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the raccoon-themed girl said, placing the stick in my hand. She bowed a full ninety degrees. "I'm really sorry, Andy. My power sometimes acts up without my say-so. It's so bad that I'm homeschooled."

"You're… an involuntary kleptomaniac?" I asked incredulously.

"Err… yeah? My power is to teleport anyone or anything towards me. It's great for rescue work, but it activates without me noticing sometimes. I was just thinking that your baton thing looked kind of cool attached to your hip and suddenly…"

"Got it. I'm not mad. No biggie. Just don't take my Gatorade. Trust me, it's not a good idea."

"How so? It's a potion, right? Does it have anything to do with only being blind part of the time?"

"Yes. It's called the Oracle's Elixir and gives a form of pericognition. I don't recommend trying some though. The scientist who tried a mouthful during testing spent the duration crying in a ball at the overstimulation."

"Don't f*ck with tinkertech," Jazz drawled. "What else is new?"

"Yeah, exactly," I nodded. "You wouldn't mess with Hero's raygun so don't touch my things."

"What else can you make, Andy?" David asked curiously. "Tinkers are pretty wild; you guys can make your own powers and stuff."

"Yeah, I do like being a tinker. I haven't made anything else though. Most of the past seven months has been physical therapy. I honestly made the Oracle's Elixir out of glass cleaner on accident."

"Wait, you're drinking glass cleaner?"

"Yup."

"And it's not… poisoning you?" Penelope asked with concern.

"No, we checked, trust me."

"Tinkers are wild," Dave said with an easy laugh. "Had a small seminar with Hero a few months back when he went on tour visiting the Wards. He showed us some of the cool stuff he built and… wow… I like my powers, but I'm kind of jealous."

"You've met Hero?" I was mildly surprised. I had to remind myself that Hero was alive and would be until sometime this year. Hell, some of the major players weren't capes yet. Panacea. Glory Girl. Skitter. Tattletale. Dragon. 'Holy sh*t, Riley isn't Bonesaw yet…'

"You will too," Penelope said. "He's the most approachable of the Founders and likes to do tours all around the PRT offices."

"Say, Andy," Raquel said with a chipper smile.

"Yes?"

"How old are you?"

"Eight, you?"

"Thirteen."

"Huh. You're short."

I immediately regretted that. The hyperactive girl all but straddled me, pointing a finger an inch from my nose.

"I'm not short. You're short!"

'In for a penny…' "I'm eight. Girls mature faster than guys. You have five years on me and you're only an inch taller."

Her cheeks puffed with frustration before she ran to Penelope. "Penny, he's making fun of me!"

"Don't call me Penny," our leader grumbled. "It sounds childish."

The conversation devolved into a bickering snarkfest between the older and younger girls, with David trying to play mediator and Yasmine happily watching the show. Soon enough, my hour was up and darkness settled around me once more. I brought the bottle to my lips and marveled as my world was expanded anew.

'I wonder if this stuff is addictive?'

The five of us ordered some pizza. They were surprised that I could read the menu while hopped up on elixir. For some reason, they'd imagined my pericognition as akin to echolocation.

"Say, Andy," David said through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza. "When's your debut?"

I shrugged. "We're still deciding my costume, honestly. Besides, what am I going to tell the public? 'Hi, I'm Rubedo and my power is not being blind for one hour?'" I snarked. "Director Lyons, Royalle, and Ms. Youngston all agreed that I shouldn't be made public until I have something to show. I'm going to try and make some healing potions."

"Like a videogame?"

"Yeah. I'm sure I can make more than just those." As I said that, ideas, Inspirations, ran through my mind. Elixirs of Iron, Sorcery, and Wrath. Health and mana potions, wards, and more. Hell, a recipe for Poro-Snax even. Even while limiting myself to things that could be loosely defined as "alchemy," there was plenty Runeterra had to offer. Many examples didn't even show up in-game, referenced only in the flavortext of one Champion or another.

My power, the World Rune of Inspiration, has been good to me over the past several months. It pulsed within me, attached to my immortal soul like a limpet. This extrasensory perception, the ability to physically feel my own soul, unnerved me to no end at the start, but was now a constant source of comfort, a reminder of my own potential.

That said, my power didn't exactly come with an instruction manual. The only reason I knew what had happened was because I dreamed each night. I dreamed of twelve stars that formed a constellation. I dreamed of an azure orb of infinite mana surrounded by golden hoops turning ever so slowly. I dreamed and felt all of Runeterra latch on to the rune, and through it, me. The twelve stars were dark, like unlit braziers in a temple, but somehow, I knew that I would be able to light them all one day. With each star, my connection to Runeterra would strengthen and that world would grow ever closer.

Author's Note

Chapter 3: 1.3 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Call 1.3

2000, May 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I sat in the back seat of Agent Morrison's car. He was, for all intents and purposes, my handler. Mom had been busy ever since we moved out here, not that I held it against her. If anything, it was somewhat of a relief; I didn't think I could act like an immature eight year old under close scrutiny so I wasn't trying very hard.

She was a professional musician, classically trained in piano and violin. Apparently, she'd studied abroad in Munich when she was young thanks to a wealthy uncle, where she learned both German and smatterings of English. She used her rudimentary language skills to get a job as a maid during the day and managed to arrange a gig as part of a live band in some fancy restaurant at night. I suspected the PRT had a role in the latter.

When the PRT found out about a crippled tinker with a largely absentee mother with poor language skills, you'd better believe they jumped on that faster than a lion on a legless zebra. We got the standard Wards contract adjusted for tinkers read to us by a Korean lawyer. To be fair to feds, they were quite generous. They paid for my physical therapy and even offered my mom a monthly income. Her pride wouldn't let her accept and she insisted that all of it be dumped into a stipend for me.

'That's just how some parents are,' I sighed. 'She'd rather work two jobs and run herself into the ground than take a single dollar from me.'

So, that's how Field Agent Vincent Morrison became my handler. It wasn't random by any means. When Director Lyons heard about my situation, she'd shanghaied him specifically for the job. He was responsible for getting me to and from home, school, HQ, and wherever else I needed to be. He was already doing it for his son David after all, so she saw no real harm in adding another.

The car came to a stop in front of my apartment and I extended my walking stick with a snap of the wrist.

"Agent Morrison, thank you for the ride," I said with a deep bow. It never hurt to be polite and my dad, this world's version, would have accepted nothing less.

"No problem, kid," he tussled my hair. He spoke with an old country drawl that made me think of summertime barbeque. "You sure you don't need help getting up the stairs?"

"I'm okay, sir. Thanks for asking."

"Alright, but if you need anything at your after school program, you tell David, you hear? That lazy son of mine might be a layabout, but his heart's in the right place."

"Yes, sir. He seemed like a good man. I'm sure you're proud of him."

"Shucks, how's a little fellow like you talking like a grownup? All adult-like and no accent."

"I guess I just learn quickly."

"Alright, I'm going to let you head on up." He leaned forward to whisper. "If you feel the urge to… play around, try to remember exactly what you're making and how you're doing it. Director Lyons thinks you might be onto something."

"Yes, sir," I smiled, glad that even this early on, tinker fugues were well-documented. Given that I was an "alchemical tinker," at least as far as they knew, I could work with relatively cheap equipment.

Policy regarding tinkertech and experimentation was still being written. There was significant discussion on whether it was safe to allow children to tinker in their homes, or at least, whether it was safer than letting a fugue build up into a straight-up panic. This was good for me because Director Lyons was firmly in the camp that said I should be permitted to tinker in my home, at least in small doses. I expected that to change as the PRT evolved, but for now, I had much more freedom than someone like Kid Win would have in the future.

I took a sip of my elixir but made a show of tapping the stairs with my walking stick. Mom and I were situated on the edge of the good side of Phoenix. Our neighborhood lacked the opulence of the newer districts, but patrols were common here and crime rates were minimal. That said, this was inland US in a world where all countries were forced into pseudo-isolationist policies by Leviathan. Two Korean immigrants stuck out like sore thumbs, especially when one had a giant strip of crimson scar tissue instead of eyes.

The neighbors weren't hostile or anything, but they certainly weren't friends. Children avoided me like the plague and my mom wasn't able to connect with them in any meaningful way, a difference in life experiences and language to blame.

I arrived in my apartment unmolested and fished the key out of a ring looped to my belt. The moment I was inside, I collapsed the walking stick and hung it on a hook by the door. There was no one else to pretend for. I made my way to the kitchen and fixed myself a quick sandwich before plugging in a prerecorded headset. It came with a book, one written in braille to teach the blind their letters.

"A… B…" the recording droned rhythmically as my finger traced the appropriate bumps. Each accompanying page was made so I could trace the corresponding letters from left to right, moving on to the next letter every five seconds. I may have adapted quickly to walking and maneuvering without sight, but that wasn't to say my reading comprehension had caught up. My fingers still weren't delicate enough and I stumbled over some letters, even after so many months. It was only the pericognition of the Oracle's that saved me.

After a half hour of this, I moved onto an actual storybook, one meant for children so I could grasp the tale even through bumbling fingertips. It was funny; I'd grown up reading Korean translations of Aesop's fables in my past life and here I was doing the same in braille.

My mom came home after another hour of this, a bag of takeout in hand. I stood from the dining room table and bowed at the waist. I'd spent my entire previous life greeting my parents this way and I wasn't about to stop now.

"Welcome home, mom," I said in Korean.

She smiled a tired smile and leaned in to hug me. It felt strange. My old parents were never very affectionate, certainly not past the age of twelve. I hadn't had a hug from my mother in sixteen years. That wasn't to say my previous parents didn't love me, far from it, but they subscribed to the stoic, disciplinarian style of parenting so common among Asian cultures. This, this put me on the back foot, though not in a bad way. If I had to rely on my own sh*tty psychoanalysis, I would guess that she latched on to me, her only surviving family, more than she otherwise would have. Or perhaps, she was just more empathetic in general being a musician and all.

"I'm home," she whispered into my hair.

We talked briefly about our days over a simple dinner of rice, kimchi, and Spam. It was nostalgic: Back when my family moved to Los Angeles in my previous life, my parents likewise worked late and could only afford things like this. 'The more things change,' I chuckled.

"Is something funny, son?"

"Just something that Masked Bandit said," I said. I told her about the Wards and how I would be the youngest there. I talked about their individual quirks, of Hat Trick's devil-may-care attitude and Ranchero's easygoing grin, Stingray's big sister energy and Masked Bandit's accidental kleptomania.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Be careful. I don't want you to get hurt." Her eyes were full of concern. "You're the youngest and… What if you have to fight a villain?"

"Wards don't fight villains," I repeated the brochure by rote. "Joining the Wards isn't about going out and fighting bad guys, mom; it's about learning to control our powers so we can live normal lives with normal childhoods. Besides, I'm a tinker and tinkers are very valuable because we can give other people powers too."

"I know, Rhee-ssi explained it all but I'm your mother. It's my job to worry."

"If you worry so much, you're going to get gray hairs," I joked. "And then how will you be a popular musician?"

She swatted my knuckles with a spoon and I suckled on my fingers in mock pain. "Brat."

"Really, mom. If you want me to stay away from any fighting, the best way for me to do that is to be more valuable in the base than out on the streets. How about I go ahead and make some new potions recipes so I can impress the director? That way, she'll give me a fancy lab and have me make potions instead of throwing me at a villain."

"As if people would say you're not Namjoon's son," she clicked her tongue but gave me a warm smile. "You're a lot like your father, you know. He was always like this too, always thinking about the next steps forward, a military man with military thinking."

"I'm a lot like you too, mom. I love music."

"Haha, yes, yes you are, Yusung." We laughed together for a minute before she brought up tinkering again. "Son, what can I do to help you tinker?"

"I could use more glass cleaner," I said truthfully. "Do we have more of that?"

She smiled. "Yes, yes we do. The PRT gave us a card to use on materials so I can always run to the market."

I balked at that, years of reading fanfiction told me that'd be a terrible idea, the easiest way to out ourselves as a house with a tinker. Then I remembered that this was years before sh*t hit the fan and we weren't in Brockton Bay. There was no rage dragon here to kidnap my mom, nor any Nazis to kill her off for "being a gook."

"That sounds great, mom. Let me give you a full shopping list."

I'd given mom a list while I set up a small brewing station in the living room. It wasn't like we could afford a TV anyway, so having a dedicated station, away from sight of the doorway of course, was natural. It could barely be called a lab station in truth. It was just a few beakers, two hot plates, and a blender, hardly professional. I was promised something more official back in HQ once they had an idea of what I wanted.

Though it was nice to putter about the apartment on my own and I really did need more ingredients, the real reason for sending my mom away was so I could have some peace and quiet while I meditated. I couldn't visit the constellation that represented the World Rune while I was awake, but I could draw on a portion of its power.

I pulled one of the dining chairs over and sat in front of the beakers, breathing in and out in a rough approximation of the breathing exercises my old taekwondo master showed me oh so many years ago. It was faint, but the World Rune answered and mana trickled forth from my soul like water from a hidden spring. The first time I tried this, almost six months ago, I could barely feel the World Rune before I lost contact. It was much like grasping at smoke. I'd persisted largely because there was only so much physical therapy I could go through and I had a lot of time to myself.

Then, ever so slowly, that smoke became like a single strand of hair, oiled and slippery. That was the first real success, if I could call it that. That hair thickened with time to be like dental floss, then thread, then yarn, then rope. There, I reached a bottleneck. I pulled and pulled over a month; it was like trying to pull a mountain. Nothing I did worked, until I had an epiphany: Of course I couldn't drag mana from my soul. It was too "big" and I was too "small," conceptually speaking.

I stopped imagining myself pulling an impossible burden and instead pictured our relationship like a well to be drawn from and widened. I dug deeper with each meditation, wider, until I could finally receive a steady flow of mana. The well was infinite, but the flow was limited. I got the distinct impression that for the moment, it was best that I kept it that way.

As I sat there deep in the recesses of my own mind, I took a small amount of mana and cupped it in my hands, bringing it to my lips. As I drank, my eyes opened to the real world and the azure glow of mana suffused my body. It was a heady feeling. When I first managed this, I felt like I could do anything. I stubbed my toe against the wall, knocked down a clock, and made a giant nuisance of myself while I learned to contain the energy. Experience had tempered my reaction, but nothing could quell the immense desire to create that burned in me.

The next step was simple. I channeled the mana into my hands, forming a single sphere the size of a basketball. Then, bit by bit, I started to compress. I found that if I compressed mana enough, I would eventually force it to take solid shape, arranging itself into a crystalline structure. This was the Mana Crystal and from what I could tell through touch and the Oracle's Elixir, it looked exactly like the ones I could buy in-game. This too, I discovered almost entirely on accident while I was messing about when my mom was asleep.

By the time mom came back with the materials I'd requested, I had a small basket full of a dozen blue, hexagonal crystals. Clustered in the straw basket, they looked like the world's most expensive Easter eggs with glowing blue cores and edges of a lighter blue. The Oracle's Elixir had run out halfway through and I'd had to take another mouthful to keep myself functioning.

"What do those do?" mom asked with thinly veiled interest. As much as she claimed she enjoyed her mundane, uninvolved life, she couldn't hide her curiosity from me. She put the grocery bags down next to my work station and began to arrange the purchases.

"They're concentrations of energy," I said, framing it in a way as to minimalize any conversations about actual magic. Sure, I called them Mana Crystals, but everyone assumed it was a quirk of branding or the whims of a child than honest truth. "They're solid energy that I can use to infuse anything I make. They're how I make the Oracle's Elixir and how I'll make everything else. I don't think it's possible for me to build anything unless I have one of these."

That wasn't strictly true. It wasn't possible to build anything and enchant supernatural effects without an infusion of mana from the World Rune. The crystals just happened to be how I imagined mana to work, a function of my time playing the game rather than a true limitation.

"So one of these can turn glass cleaner into something drinkable?"

"And so much more."

As far as the PRT understood it, my power gave me a well of energy I could draw on, which I could form into crystals then infuse into potions. That was how it was explained to my mom and me. It was a little grating for mom to repeatedly ask the same question, especially because I knew she remembered and was humoring an eight year old, but I ignored the feeling with practiced ease.

I reached for a bottle of glass cleaner and poured it into a saucepan before heating it on a hotplate. Once heated, I'd combine it with a Mana Crystal and the crystal would dissolve somehow, rendering into an Oracle's Elixir. It was deceptively simple, though when a scientist tried it during testing, the crystal remained inert, something about a unique energy wavelength that responded to me alone.

"Okay, Yusung. You let me know if you need any help," she said before heading into her room.

"Yes, mom," I replied dutifully, but my attention was already on the rest of the bottles she'd left by the table. "Thanks again for the grocery run."

"Anything for my son."

My work station was full of an eclectic array of bottles. Complete nutrition powdered shakes, iron supplements, protein supplements, cough medicine, and more. If the Oracle's Elixir taught me anything, it was that the World Rune functioned off of concepts and desires. It would take a mundane analog and use the Mana Crystals I had on hand to reinforce a concept, in this case "seeing clearly," to create what I envisioned. That vision had to be inspired by something or someone from Runeterra, but even with that limitation, I couldn't be happier with my power. It was bullsh*t, pure categorical bullsh*t even beyond that of most tinkers. It was the kind of bullsh*t that transmuted mundane glass cleaner into something consumable, and more importantly, magic. I didn't know if the PRT fully understood the implications of my power. Hell, I wasn't sure I understood the implications of my power.

I grinned toothily and cracked my knuckles. "Let's get started."

Author's Note

"-ssi" as a suffix is the Korean equivalent of "-san" in Japanese, a general term of respect to strangers, business partners, proprietors, etc.

"As if people would say you're not Namjoon's son," doesn't really translate in English very well, but in Korean, it's said to mean that you behave exactly like X almost like you're afraid people will think you're unrelated if you don't. It's used as a fond compliment here but can also be an insult depending on the comparison. I'm trying to insert little bits of Korean culture or ways of speech, but I'm not sure how well it's carrying over.

Chapter 4: 1.4 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Call 1.4

2000, May 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I leaned back in my chair and pressed myself against the backrest, cracking my spine with a satisfying series of pops. I wasn't a typical tinker so I didn't experience normal fugues, but the World Rune did influence me in other ways.

For one, I found myself with a deep appreciation for art. Anything I could point to as an example of fine craftsmanship and creativity, I liked, never mind that I needed to be drugged up to actually perceive most forms of art. It didn't matter if it was a song or a highly customized luxury car; the passion was just as important as the final product.

More relevant to the present, I also felt a near obsessive reverence for the creation process. Something about Inspiration as a concept lit a fire in me that I couldn't fully control. When a PRT researcher tried to take an Oracle's Elixir from me while I was tinkering, I took it as an interruption of the creation process and literally bit his hand. Luckily, though I did have a small black mark for assaulting someone, the incident was jotted down as a part of the neuroses imposed by my power.

The precedent was embarrassing, PRT agents still teased me sometimes, but it ensured that no one would interrupt my tinkering unless it was an emergency. Even my mom was told to either let me burn myself out or come to a stopping place on my own.

By the time I stopped for the night, it was well past ten, approaching eleven.

In front of me were four sets of four potions. Each potion was stored in one of those mini water bottles that schools liked to give out for lunch, barely more than a few mouthfuls. The first set was a familiar neon-pink.

The second set was the standard health potion, made from a Mana Crystal, nutrition shakes, and strawberries. I didn't know if that last one was just for taste and pigment or if it had a real effect on the outcome, but I wasn't ready to question the whys of my power. It looked red, with a vibrancy that reminded me of fresh blood. I knew without testing that the potion would close wounds, replenish blood loss, and even minimize scarring. What it would not do however, was regenerate limbs or major organs. It had the potential to save lives, but it was not a cure-all.

The third set was also red, but a slightly darker hue. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that the potions looked angry. The Elixir of Wrath was made from protein supplements, orange juice, and Gatorade. The elixir had two effects. First, it removed the brain's subconscious limitations, effectively inducing an extended bout of hysterical strength. Second, it enhanced the body by flooding it with mana, protecting the drinker from themselves while augmenting the effect. The drinker should be able to rip a thin tree from the sidewalk or use a STOP sign like a polearm with ease for one hour.

That kind of power, I estimated it at roughly brute four or five, did come with a significant downside: Removing the brain's limiters also meant removing a person's general impulse control. I was seriously hoping it wouldn't drive the drinker into a berserk rage, but "wrath" was in the name. The last thing I needed was the PRT shackling restrictions on my tinkering because they thought it was "unsafe."

The final set of four was a silvery-white and reminiscent of liquid mercury. It was the Elixir of Iron, a potion that reinforced the drinker's skin, giving it the durability of high quality steel without sacrificing flexibility. It also increased the drinker's size by approximately twenty percent. That meant that if a six feet tall man drank it, he would find himself slightly north of seven feet. The potion also granted the drinker the strength and constitution necessary to withstand that sudden shift in size and weight. All told, it was probably the more useful of the two new elixirs I'd made today. No real side effects beyond a drop in stamina and a brute power that could keep agents from getting injured in the first place? Yeah, I'd be milking this for all it's worth later.

I retired for the night after brushing my teeth with a tired but satisfied smile on my face.

I stood in the vast expanse of space, just me and the World Rune. Here, in the deepest depths of my soul, the rune manifested as a constellation of stars, each unlit like empty braziers in some ancient temple. The stars were arranged in the form of the Rune of Inspiration from League of Legends, a spherical core surrounded by three rings. The core was formed from the three Keystones while the runes of the Contraption, Tomorrow, and Beyond formed the rings.

It was daunting being in the presence of a World Rune. Here in my soul, it wasn't just a single, palm-sized marble lodged in the middle of a petricite container. It manifested as an entire constellation and still the image seemed too small for the infinite well of mana it represented. Standing in front of it, I could not doubt or question: The World Rune wasn't just a McGuffin; it was an ideal, a crystalized concept formed into a single word that could rewrite reality.

This was my rune page and it left my breath catching every time I saw it.

This, this was the dream I'd had every night since my awakening in this world.

Yet, something had changed.

I felt strength fill me. I'd never been uncomfortable or tired in my mindscape. Awestruck, yes, maybe even a little unworthy at times, but nor did I ever feel powerful. There was always a clear distinction between me, Andy, the squishy mortal lucky enough to house cosmic power, and said cosmic power. It didn't take me long to figure that the warmth I felt bursting in my chest wasn't my own.

It was calling me.

It was calling me in the same way its brethren had called to Ryze. To Tyrus. To so many others.

But where Domination called to conquer and destroy, Inspiration called to create and discover.

A wide grin broke on my face. There was only one way to answer.

I walked to the stars that made up the World Rune, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence. I reached out with reverent hands and a golden star met me eagerly.

My hands grasped the star and the warmth in my chest blazed into an inferno. For a moment, I thought my soul would burn to ash. Then, as soon as it came, the fire subsided, leaving me with a deeper connection to the World Rune. The star I'd touched stood out from the other eleven. It shone with a steady light, the first of many flames to be lit. As the connection solidified, a new power slotted into place.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Time Warp Tonic," I breathed. I was very familiar with the ability.

In League of Legends, it was a good supplementary rune to take that gave a significant boost in the early game. It granted fifty percent of a potion's effects immediately, along with a small boost to speed. My version was similar, but not exact. The World Rune may have manifested in a way that paralleled my previous understanding, but it was not a mirror match by any means.

Knowledge of the ability fully sank into my mind. Time Warp Tonic was as it said on the tin: Whenever I drank a potion, I would experience a period of accelerated time, allowing me to move a little bit faster, have a little bit more time to consider my actions, than I would normally. The potion would also now be fifty percent more effective across the board: better healing, better durability, better duration, everything. I smiled. It was much better than the boon I remembered from the game.

2000, May 10: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The next morning found me in front of Acacia Elementary School, one of many in Phoenix. I'd only been attending the school for the past month after physical therapy, but it was already the bane of my existence.

"Take care, honey," mom said as she held me tight.

"I'll be fine, mom," I reassured her as I did each morning.

"If you need anything-"

"I'll talk to Mrs. Owens. I promise."

"Okay, have a nice day."

As she drove off, I snapped my walking stick to full length and tapped my way through the entrance. I wanted to take out my thermos and drink the Oracle's Elixir, but I couldn't. One of the things Ms. Youngston, the local PR head, and I agreed on was that I had to be visibly blind in my civilian identity. I could pretend well enough as I tapped my way through the halls, but all it would take would be a single sip of the tongue or a casual dodge around a corner I shouldn't have been able to perceive to out myself.

Unacceptable. It was far too difficult to describe a world without colors or shapes, or even to hold a conversation without giving in to visual cues and body language. Better that I just didn't have any of these to accidentally trip up on at all.

Mom threw a fit, but was talked down with a clear report on survival statistics for outed capes. While the unwritten rules were a thing, they weren't as well-cemented as they would be a decade from now. Hell, it was only this past February when the Brigade stormed Marquis in his own house. They unmasked as New Wave only a week later. Right now was the height of their cape accountability movement and Sarah Pelham was America's super-mom. No chance. No risks.

So, blind I would be.

It wasn't long before someone bumped into me in the crowd.

"Hey, watch i-" His voice cut off suddenly; that's how I knew he must have gotten a good look at my face. "Oh, sorry."

"It's cool," I said placatingly. I turned to face the speaker and gave him a light poke. "It happens, yeah? No worries."

"Y-yeah…"

Even a month later, I still unnerved the kids a great deal. It didn't help that Behemoth attacked Lyon days before my irregular start. Did that have anything to do with my appearance here? No. Did that stop the rumors? Also no. Humans were curious creatures and I could already distinguish at least four separate rumors about how I got my scar.

The one that said that I was rescued by Alexandria during the Behemoth attack before being resettled here was the closest. No hero, wrong endbringer, but close enough.

I made my way down to the far end of the hall and entered the first classroom.

"Hello, Mrs. Owens," I shouted cheerily. "I'm here for class!"

"This is the wrong class, Mr. Kim," said a tired voice.

"I'll see about finding the right class then, Mr. Rivera," I winked. I had it on good authority that winking through the scar and glass eyes made me look rather unsettling.

His class chortled at our usual byplay. Mr. Rivera was bar none the most beloved teacher. I had no clue what he looked like, but from what the principal told me, he wore a different colored tie for each day of the week and hadn't deviated from his wardrobe choice in the last fifteen years. He was the right mix of quirky and firm that made him both relatable to kids and a respected authority figure.

Meeting him on the daily like this also helped me sculpt my in-school persona. In an effort to seem more approachable, another of Ms. Youngston's suggestions, I decided to model myself after Toph from Avatar, a constant barrage of sarcasm, snark, and tactless blind jokes to keep people from focusing on my scar. Refuge in audacity. Mr. Rivera was an excellent person to practice banter with.

I gave the class a jaunty grin and moved to the room directly to the right.

"Good morning, Andy. Have you had your fun with Mr. Rivera?" Mrs. Owens said. She was the special needs teacher and had a smile you could hear. I heard she recently got married and moved to Phoenix two years ago. She still had that new car smell, a palpable aura of naïve optimism before the reality of the American education system crushed her dreams to dust.

"Yup," I said, popping the "p." "Gave the class an eye-full."

"Good, take a seat."

Lessons began. Braille first, then recess, followed by math. By lunch, I was thoroughly done with this. I could only feign interest for so long and though the lessons on braille helped, math was… aggravating to say the least. The less said about "nature studies" the better.

"Do you want to have lunch in the cafeteria or in here?" Mrs. Owens asked us. The class only had eight kids, each of us with unique disabilities. It was district policy to promote socialization without forcing the issue, so Mrs. Owens allowed us to eat in class instead of going out into the cafeteria like the rest of the kids.

Most of us remained, but myself and two other kids got up.

"I want to eat outside, Mrs. Owens," Sarah Baxter, a girl with a mousy voice, said. I had no idea why she was in this class, truth be told. She didn't have any obvious disabilities that I could discern, nor did she have trouble speaking or socializing, so I could only assume her problem was developmental. It could be as simple as severe dyslexia for all I knew.

"Of course you can, sweetie. You three stick together, okay?"

"Yes, Mrs. Owens," the three of us chorused.

Pierce Lovelace stuttered a little, he didn't speak well, but he was a good kid. For whatever reason, he insisted on meeting new people daily. It was honestly encouraging to see such an upbeat kid.

"Do you want me to hold your hand, Andy?" Sarah said, tugging gently on my sleeve.

I thought about refusing. There was still a big part of me that was too prideful to accept help from an eight year old girl, my current appearance be damned. I hammered that part of me into the depths of my mind and smiled. "Yes, thank you, Sarah."

I spent much of lunch trying to parse out what Pierce said, with Sarah chattering on about whatever most recently caught her fancy. Perhaps it was a bit patronizing of me, but I relegated most of it to background noise as I tried to figure out my cape career going forward.

My own debut with Wards Team One was put on hold indefinitely until the PRT could figure out what to do with me. Hell, my costume wasn't even fleshed out yet. This left me in the curious position of being a tinker with near carte blanche, but with neither a lab nor an identity in the cape world. I considered myself lucky; how many people got to fully build an identity for themselves and had the benefit of maturity and future knowledge?

It'd all start today…

Author's Note

Yes, this means that Andy will be able to acquire new powers in a manner similar to the Celestial Forge. Most of these powers will relate directly to the things he makes, but some will be innate. Instead of setting some quota for myself based on word count, I'm going to follow DnD logic and "level by milestone." In this case, meeting the Wards and making new potions.

Andy's poor connection to the World Rune is a big part of why he's not going the way of Tyrus and turning to dust from the strain of channeling its power. Really, he should be grateful for the limited access.

In the Call of Power cinematic, the World Rune Ryze is holding shows him images of power. When he lets go, crimson wisps seem to reach out to him. Since the World Runes we see at the end are all differently colored, I'm assuming that the one Ryze locked away was Domination, which explains all the destruction and whatnot.

Chapter 5: 1.5 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Call 1.5

2000, May 10: Phoenix, AZ, USA

After school, Agent Morrison, David/Ranchero's father, picked me up and drove me home. Mom was out working and this was but one of the accommodations the PRT made for us.

"How're things, Andy?" he asked with a friendly nod.

As soon as I closed the car door, I pulled out my thermos and drank a mouthful of the Elixir. "Good," I said as my world expanded around me. "Boring, but nothing to complain about."

"Boring is good. You'll see. Kids always want to punch bad guys, but a quiet day is the best kind. David's like that, too."

'But I said boring was fine,' I thought, rolling my eyes a little. Agent Morrison took his shtick as a "cape-dad" very seriously and did his best to advise his son whenever possible. It seemed as though I'd gotten rolled into that without my knowing.

We stopped by my apartment to pick up a box of twelve potions, four each of Wrath, Iron, and the standard health potion, and then promptly headed to the PRT.

Wards Team One, along with Protectorate Team One, operated from PRT HQ in downtown Phoenix. The building was an eight story affair of concrete and glass, with a separate parking lot and garage for emergency vehicles. There were two other such buildings, but being the main administrative building and host to the director, this one was the largest.

I was led through a side door placed discreetly in an out of the way corner of the parking lot. Redbird explained to me that the parking lot was swept for cameras and other surveillance equipment twice a day at random times much like the other accessible sections of HQ. From there, I took a small underground pathway to the main building, where I switched into costume and headed to the labs.

My current "costume" was just a white lab coat and tinted safety goggles that barely obscured my face. A thermos filled with Oracle's Elixir was kept in a deep pocket. I was pretty sure the researchers all knew who I was by this point, but polite fiction had to be maintained.

I met Dr. Sanchez, the lead researcher in charge of power testing in lab 1-C. I say lab, but it was more of a gym with some extra monitoring equipment on top of the standard treadmills and dumbbells.

Dr. Sanchez, Chief Scientist and Head of Power Testing, was a wiry-thin man with a wispy brown beard. He was balding and some salt and pepper had started to settle above his ears. He wore a typical lab coat not unlike my own and a lanyard around his neck that proclaimed his identity. I'm pretty sure my own "costume" was just a spare they had lying around.

"Hello, Rubedo," he said with a genial smile. "I heard you have something for us today."

"Hello, doctor," I said, bowing slightly. "I made three new types of potions last night and wanted to test them out."

"Excellent, tell me about them." He gestured to an aide who took the potions from me and set them on a nearby workbench.

"They're labeled. One heals things. Another makes you stronger but also angry, lack of impulse control. The third one makes your skin like steel and a little bit bigger too."

"'Health potion?' 'Elixir of Wrath?' 'Elixir of Iron?'" the aide read out. "Did you name them?"

"The names just came to me. I think they're powers related," I said honestly.

"A tad fanciful, but the names fit with your own so it's fine," Dr. Sanchez waved him off. "Let's start with this health potion of yours. What exactly can it heal? How does it work?"

I focused and reached out for the well of mana within. Instead of letting it well to the surface, I dove down, trying to remember exactly why I followed the steps that I did. "One sec, trying to think," I muttered. The knowledge of a Runeterran alchemist filled my mind, or rather, the knowledge of countless Runeterran alchemists.

At its core, the health potion was a homebrew remedy with regional variants across all of Runeterra. Most were made of mana-rich herbs, but others could use blood of animals or ground bones and minerals. It was why the potion had no specific name like "Elixir of Wrath." Last night, the World Rune had acted as a filter, allowing me to pick out the best recipe of the bunch, and transmuted it from the ingredients I'd used. Now, I tapped into the alchemical knowledge of the sages of Ionia to answer. "They contain energy, mana, and release it into the drinker's bloodstream. The mana is attuned to life and promotes natural regeneration."

"That's… not terribly helpful."

"Sorry, doctor."

"No, no, you're not the first tinker to give vague or hard to understand explanations." He patted my head like a grandfather and I suppressed the urge to slap his hand away. "Even Hero has a hard time explaining how his wonderful creations work. Tell me, do you know what kinds of injuries your potion can heal?"

I nodded enthusiastically, still playing at being a child. "Yeah! It can stop blood loss and close wounds," I said excitedly, "but it won't regenerate vital organs or limbs. It also won't magically set bones or anything so broken bones need to be aligned correctly before you drink one. Oh, and it also doesn't do much against poisons. I mean, it can give you a bit more time, but it won't destroy the poisons or toxins in your bloodstream."

"I see, that's a surprisingly detailed response."

"So what now?"

"What now" turned out to be practical testing. They brought in a lab rat and put it to sleep with anesthesia before making a small incision in its hindquarters. They then slid the tray with the rat on it over to me. I couldn't help but think I'd freak out if I were actually eight. 'Then again, maybe they're relying on the fact that capes psychologically need to see their powers in use,' I mused.

"Now, Rubedo," Dr. Sanchez said, "how much of your potion would you say is required to heal a person?"

"The potions aren't any more dangerous than water," I responded. "If the injury is not serious, they should take mouthfuls until the wound closes. If it is serious, just take the full bottle. However, drinking more than one bottle will not improve the rate of regeneration. There are limits to pushing the human body. Oh, and the regeneration effect lasts for one minute. You can drink another bottle when the minute's up."

"Excellent, now how much would you feed this rat to close the wound?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I took a pipette from one workstation and poured the potion onto the rat's wound one drop at a time. "It's not an exact science and drinking more isn't going to hurt the rat so it doesn't matter beyond trying to save the potion."

After just three drops, the wound began to close visibly. The tray was taken from me and placed under a microscope so Dr. Sanchez could get an in-depth look.

"Blood coagulates in under two seconds," he recited, the aide jotting notes. "Dried platelets are being pushed out by regenerating tissue. Six seconds. Wound is fully closed in ten. I even see hair starting to grow back on bare skin." He turned to me with a wide smile on his face. "You should be proud of yourself, Rubedo. This could save a lot of lives."

"We still need to check for potential side effects, doctor," the aide reminded him.

"My potions don't have side effects I don't know about," I huffed. I knew it was procedure, bit a part of me, maybe a bleed-over from the Ionian sage I'd ripped the recipe from, felt slighted by his skepticism. 'Then again, it's possible to be allergic to the herbs… can a brand new potion in a world without said herbs cause allergic reactions in the first place?'

"We still need to check, Rubedo," the old doctor chided gently. "Now, what did you make this out of?"

"A Mana Crystal and a nutrition shake. Any nutrition shake with a full complement of vitamins, minerals, and proteins required for daily living will do."

"Amazing…"

After that, we moved on to testing the two elixirs, starting with the Elixir of Iron. After a brief stint with a different lab rat, the eggheads agreed that I, being the tinker in question, should be able to drink it without detrimental side effects.

Standing next to the exercise equipment, I drained the bottle as quickly as I could and felt the changes settle in. My four-two height shot up ten inches to five feet even. I bulked up a bit too so I didn't look like a reed. A gunmetal sheen briefly covered me before dissipating. Then I felt something unexpected happen. Mana flowed through my body, enhancing the effects of the Elixir of Iron. Time Warp Tonic had activated, and with it, my height shot up another five inches and I knew I was much tougher than the potion could normally make me, fifty percent tougher.

"That is a rather dramatic change."

"My potions are more effective when I drink them. I don't know why, they just are," I shrugged, lying through my teeth. "But normally, the Elixir of Iron should make you approximately twenty percent larger and give your skin the strength of steel."

"I-is it permanent?"

"Nope, sorry, doctor." I tried to take a step and stumbled a little, unused to my height. "Observation: Rapid changes in height can be a bit disorienting," I said. "This potion will last for one hour for everyone else and an extra half hour for me."

The same was true of the Oracle's Elixir. I f*cking loved Time Warp Tonic. A fifty percent boost to the beneficial effect of all potions was a massive amplifier, in both scope and durability. Though I was so much earlier than canon, I couldn't fully suppress my mistrust of the PRT. I didn't really have a choice, being both already outed and a cripple, but that didn't mean I'd happily give up all my secrets, just enough to be useful. I decided to keep the chrono-acceleration granted by the Time Warp Tonic a secret.

From there, they had Agent Morrison test out the elixirs. The durability granted by the Elixir of Iron was tested bit by bit until we did confirm that he was fully bulletproof to small arms fire. The Elixir of Wrath saw him deadlift a full thousand pounds, which was all they had on hand at this particular lab. He did explain that he felt drunk almost, a tangible loss of inhibition in a way that he considered dangerous in a combat situation.

He was soon ushered off into a secluded room to wait out the effect. I wanted to drink one myself, but the doctor decided that having a drunk, berserk pre-teen capable of lifting a small car sounded like a terrible idea.

After power testing, I had a meeting with Ms. Janet Youngston, Head of Public Relations. She was a mousy woman with short, blonde hair worn in a pixie cut and green eyes that seemed to peer into my soul. Or at least, treat me like an interesting dress-up doll. It was eerie.

Her office was similarly unsettling. It reminded me of how I imagined Parian's fanon dollhouse would look like, a forest of mannequins with dozens of unfinished costumes and prototype masks in a nauseating sea of colors. In one corner was a large worktable with sketchbooks full of costume designs and loose scraps of fabric littering the surface.

"Hello, Ms. Youngston," I said politely as I tried to navigate the maze of mannequins.

"Hello, Rubedo," she said. She then did a double take as she got a look at me. "Weren't you… shorter?"

"Elixir of Iron. It makes me bigger and gives me a brute rating."

"Huh, that's going to be a challenge to work with. Do your clothes increase in size with you?"

I took off my lab coat to reveal a shirt that was now uncomfortably tight. "No, no it does not."

"Yes… a challenge… Have you put any thought into the designs I showed you last week?"

I grimaced. The designs weren't… bad... but she was insistent on making me the mascot of Wards Team One. 'And I suddenly empathize with Missy so damn much…' On the plus side, she was really trying to play up the alchemy and magic angle. On the downside, more than one sketch had me holding a wand. Glitter-dusted star included.

I had standards, damn it.

I flipped through the pictures on my Wards-issue phone. And wasn't that a trip? A fully-functional smartphone in 2000. It made me snort a little. The scraps of technological knowledge that could be gleaned from tinkers had advanced Earth-Bet to be a bit further along than I remembered in my last life. It was a pity that this same availability of supernatural techno-savants would breed reliance; and with reliance, stagnation. I expected Earth-Aleph to catch up and surpass Earth-Bet in the next five years. Ten at most; not that I was supposed to know any of that.

"Here," I nudged one picture towards Ms. Youngston. The picture was a mannequin wearing stylized priest robes colored red and white. Over that, Ms. Youngston had draped a medieval traveler's cloak, hood and all. A regular domino mask covered the eyes but little else. "See this? I think this is the best of the bunch. I just don't like the mask. Give me a fully covering mask, like a hockey mask, but completely plain."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Why this one? I thought you'd definitely go for the crimson knight look."

The "crimson knight" as she called it was a bizarre mix of protective sports gear and riot police equipment, all wrapped up in a medieval aesthetic. Angular lines and metallic paint of burnished burgundy made the whole getup look like some legendary hero. It wasn't for me.

"Nah, too combative. I'm a tinker, one whose specialization seems to lie in weird pseudo-magic, kinda-but-not-science alchemy. If I'm in a fight, something's gone terribly wrong. I mean, even worse than any other Ward being in a fight."

"True. So you like the robes? You don't think they'd be too hot? This is Phoenix after all."

"That's a good point… I'm not sure anymore. I do like the aesthetic though."

"Okay, let's start from the top. We need something that covers your eyes. Andy Kim is blind, but Rubedo is not."

"Right," I nodded. "It helps with the unwritten rules."

"Yes, separation of identities is good. Beyond that, what is it about the robes that you like?"

I shrugged. I wasn't sure either. "I don't know… they remind me of a priest."

"Are you religious?"

"Kind of? My dad used to visit my grandparents' graves every anniversary of their deaths, but that was more of a cultural thing than a religious thing. The practice started as a matter of ancestral worship with Buddhist influence but is done in Korea more as a sign of respect than any fear of ghosts or the afterlife or anything." I thought about the church I used to attend in my past life. 'Yeah, not touching that.'

"Fascinating, but back to the robes. Is it because they look serene? Dignified?"

"Yeah, dignified. Like someone you should respect."

"Figures a child wants respect," Ms. Youngston muttered, too quiet for me to fully catch. "Excellent, Rubedo. I can work with that."

"I figure I'll be inside making potions most of the time or do PR tours so it's okay to be hot outside I think."

"Anything else?"

"Elixir of Iron," I reminded her. "I would like clothes that can fit me even when I'm bigger."

"How much bigger do you get?"

"Thirty percent height and width. The robes would be better with the potion than a tight costume or armor."

"You're right, that would work. I'll have a full mockup for you in two days, Rubedo. We'll see how you feel about it all once you have it on."

Author's Note

Legends of Runeterra flavortext around the health potion reads, "Every generation, region, and family has its own home remedy-though some are undeniably more effective than others." Whenever LoR flavortext doesn't conflict with LoL lore, I'm going to be drawing on them.

Chapter 6: 1.6 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Call 1.6

2000, May 10: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I didn't see the problem with Ms. Youngston or the PRT PR department as a whole. Their stated mission was to integrate capes into society. Public relations was always going to play a major part in that. Once I put aside the knee-jerk response of bitching against the establishment ingrained in me by both canon and fanon, she was honestly fairly reasonable. She listened to most of my wants, got rid of the more ridiculous outfits, and gave me a choice between four or five that the director had pre-approved.

'Maybe the wands were just to soften me up for the "least sh*tty option,"' I mused. Would I have preferred to have my own image? Of course. But this wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been lead to believe. It helped that I had an image-friendly power, unlike her majesty the Queen of Escalation.

After my meeting with the head of PR, I had some free time to kill so I headed back to the Wards section. I was surprised to find only Stingray, Penelope. She sat in front of three computer screens that doubled as our console. She was in costume, with a large pair of headphones and mic over her mask. Seeing me, she waved me over with a happy smile. She tapped something on the mic and faced me.

"Mute button. Hey, Rubedo, how's it going?"

"Not bad, just got out of a meeting with PR." I yanked a chair over and sat next to her. "Where's everyone else?"

"Raquel's got gymnastics practice. Dave and Jazz are on patrol right now." She gestured to one of the monitors, where I could see the pair walking down a street in downtown. Jazz was in her stage magician outfit and signing autographs while Dave twirled his lasso for the crowd. "Call them Ranchero and Hat Trick while on console though. Not everyone in the PRT knows who we are so it's just good opsec. Ah, 'opsec' is short for 'operational security.'"

I nodded indulgently. "Right. What exactly do you do on console?"

She passed me a spare set of headphones and unmuted herself. "Stingray back online. I have Rubedo with me, Agent Carter. Mind explaining what we do on console?"

"Sure, Stingray. And it's a pleasure to meet you, Rubedo," came a warm female voice. "Console is what we call general overwatch and communications management. Every Wards and Protectorate HQ has one of these desks you're sitting in. These desks patch you through to the PRT console, where agents like me can teach you some of the operational protocols. Do you understand so far?"

I smiled. In a city that wasn't Brockton, it made sense for Wards console to be a training module more than anything. "Makes sense. So what should I know?"

"Let's start with the projected patrol routes. Stingray?"

"Yes, Agent Carter," the blonde said dutifully. She hit some keys on the keyboard and brought up a map of the city. "See this? The bright blue line is Ranchero and Hat Trick's patrol routes. The muted blue lines are Protectorate patrol routes."

I saw several blue dots moving along their respective lines. "How long does a patrol take?"

"It depends, Rubedo. Wards only patrol for two or three hours at most so we get much shorter routes. The Protectorate can have much longer routes."

"Why are the routes so close together?" I asked, though I could guess. Of the four active routes, two, the one Ranchero was leading and a Protectorate route, were almost neck and neck, just four streets over.

"Wards are not meant to get into active engagements," Agent Carter said over the mic. "A Protectorate patrol is always nearby just in case something goes wrong or you require additional assistance."

"How often does that happen?"

"Not very," Stingray said. "And when it does happen, it's almost always not combat related. For example, the other day, Bandit and I had to go find someone's lost dog so we had to deviate from the route a little while Royalle and Hotflash did double duty with our patrol for a bit."

The rest of their impromptu lesson was surprisingly informative, covering everything from first aid protocols to what we should do if confronted by villains. Really, that last one boiled down to "Disengage, retreat, and dial for backup," but it was helpful nonetheless. I was a little surprised to hear that Wards were allowed to handle nonviolent crimes like purse snatching. I'd figured that the PRT would order us to avoid any and all scenarios that had the potential to escalate to violence.

'Glad we're not being treated completely with bubble wrap.'

From what Stingray and Agent Carter told me, most Wards activities fell into three categories: community outreach, standard patrols for street-level misdemeanors, and emergency rescue work. I decided then and there that I would focus on the latter. Along with Raquel, I was likely the best suited for rescue work.

As if summoned by thought, the "mask on" buzzer rang and Penelope turned to greet Raquel as she skipped into the room. "Hi, Penny! Hi, Andy!" She wore an infectious smile. Coupled with her fuzzy costume, she looked almost as young as me.

"In costume, Bandit," Penelope admonished. "And don't call me Penny."

She ignored our captain and gave her a hug. "But Penny works so well." In an instant, my ears felt the cool air in the room. She was wearing my headset. "Hi, Hat Trick! Hi, Ranchero!" she babbled into the mic.

"At least she remembers to use codenames over the mic," Penelope grumbled.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Raquel frowned and pulled the headphones from her head. "Meanies."

I shot Penelope a questioning look. "She got scolded by PRT console for chattering on patrol," she explained.

"Meanies," the shorter girl pouted.

"Meanies," I nodded with her. "Want to check out my lab? They should have some of it set up already."

It was funny how she did a full one-eighty. "Is that ready?'

"Mostly. I was promised an industrial grade centrifuge and electrolysis machine so I can separate chemicals, but those are taking a while to arrive."

"Oh, poo. Your lab just looks like my school's chemistry lab…"

"Well… yeah? I mean… alchemy."

"Nah, no thanks."

"Suit yourself. If any of you need me, I'll be in my room."

I spent the rest of my time with the Wards in meditation, churning out Mana Crystals as quickly as I could. Something about my actions yesterday allowed me to reinforce my connection to the World Rune. Absent other evidence, I had to assume it was because I finally got off my ass and made some new things. Did that mean the World Rune had a conscience? Was a Shard masquerading as a World Rune and using my memories to fill in the gaps? I was certain it wasn't the latter, but aside from my own conviction, I had no real proof.

Still, if my power wanted to be used, I'd use it.

As I worked, I thought about my "specialization." Runeterra. What could I make? Hell, what did I want to make? Off the cuff, Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger was the greatest mind on Runeterra, its very own Tony Stark. He industrialized magic by pioneering the field known as techmaturgy, founded Piltover, and taught some of the greatest scientists in Runeterran history, including Viktor and Jayce.

As I pondered the Revered Inventor, ideas flooded my mind. Most he'd made himself, many he did not. A Wrenchbot to help around my lab. A multi-story techmaturgical t-rex, I'm sorry, T-Hex, because why the f*ck not. Jayce's Mercury Cannon. Viktor's third arm. Camille's eyes. Blitzcrank's… Blitzcrank. I paused. 'I can make myself eyes!'

That threw me for a loop. Did I want to be known as a biotinker? The profession did not inspire the same kind of terror it would in the future. Bonesaw, Riley at the moment, was an infant somewhere out there. Ellisburg wouldn't happen for another seven or eight months. Blasto wasn't even active yet.

'I could become a biotinker,' I realized. I could, theoretically, be known as the first biotinker and set the standard for how they're treated.

I scrapped that idea almost as soon as I thought it. It wasn't worth it. I didn't think I could build a strong enough reputation before 2001, before Rinke's trigger. One day, I promised myself, when I became fully independent of the Protectorate and powerful enough to stand on my own, I would make myself a pair of eyes. They would be such bullsh*t that Satoru Gojo and Itachi Uchiha would cry with envy.

'What else can I make?'

Even sticking to the alchemical theme, the twin cities of Piltover and Zaun had much to offer me. Singed had created Warwick, slowly pumping him full of regenerative potions and chimeric DNA even as he was vivisected over the course of months. The memories of the harrowing procedures almost knocked me from my meditation but I pressed on. The Mad Chemist's works, despite his revolting lack of ethics, had many, many uses. That was more than could be said of Mundo.

'Shimmer. Singed invented Shimmer, a drug that can make super soldiers, substitute for healing potions, and be burned for fuel.'

He, and eventually, most of Zaun, used the damn thing for so much that it was hard to find chemtech in Zaun that wasn't compatible with the stuff. Putting aside what he became, Singed originally developed the drug as another healing potion, back when he was still sane.

ZAC, the Zaun Amorphous Combatant, could be said to be an alchemical creation, albeit accidental. Viktor's Hex Core was another such example. Ekko's Zero Drive was fueled by a fuel source of his own design, one with an unusual affinity for time magic.

There as so much more, but I moved on, turning my gaze to the rest of Runeterra.

Hextech wasn't everything. In fact, the most powerful things on Runeterra were not hextech creations. Someone, somewhere, had to make Leona's shield, Kayle's swords, and Nasus' scepter after all. Thoughts of how I might enchant the same flooded my head and left me with a splitting headache. A sense of solemn admonishment filled me from within as my connection sputtered.

'Okay… nowhere near strong enough to build one of those… Maybe when I have a stronger connection to the World Rune…'

Even putting aside some of the most powerful relics of Runeterra, there were a great deal of materials and items that were referenced by the various Champions.

Ashe's bow was made of something called True Ice, an incredibly powerful conduit for ice magic that could not be broken by any conventional force nor melted by any mortal fire. It was also utterly impractical. I could make a shard the size of a guitar pick using a fist-sized snowball… and a hundred Mana Crystals. Not only was that prohibitively expensive, I literally couldn't forge anything from it. It was what I liked to call the vibranium paradox. If it could withstand any force, how did Howard Stark shape Cap's shield? Add to that an absolute immunity to mundane forms of heat and I had a material that was effectively unforgeable even if I were to gather enough to make something.

My thoughts then turned south to Demacia, a new Mana Crystal forming in my hand. Jarvan had that fancy extending lance, but I didn't need a weapon right now, nor could I wield such a ridiculous thing. Someone had to have forged Shyvana's gauntlets, but I discarded the possibility for the same reason. I was masquerading as an alchemical tinker. While not all of alchemy was about potions, it wasn't about forging legendary weapons either. I was more interested in building a foundation for myself, a list of materials…

'Petricite!' I thought happily. The World Rune pulsed in what I could only assume was approval. Even for Runeterra, Petricite was unique.

At their most basic, petricite trees were trees mutated by the chaotic magic of the Rune Wars. They took on traits similar to stone, hence the name, and absorbed ambient mana to grow. This ability to absorb mana also made them magical dampeners, calming the land and providing stability to the ecosystems of western Valoran. Refugees fleeing the Rune Wars would eventually settle around these forests, founding the kingdom of Demacia.

Ancient Demacians would go on to mix powdered petricite with ash and lime to create an elegant white substance they uncreatively called Petricite. This magic suppressing material was as hard as stone and used in fortifications and buildings. When mixed with steel into an alloy, it could even be used to arm the fabled Dauntless Vanguard. Ground up, it could make the Petricite Elixirs favored by the Mageseekers.

'But… will Petricite work with powers? I have mana, but do other capes?' I wondered. 'Either Shards pull their dimensional hijinks using mana and channel their powers via the corona pollentia, or they don't… and I'll end up creating my own kryptonite. That'd be f*cking embarrassing…'

Author's Note

Yes, Heimerdinger is his last name. Yes, his name is Cecil. He's actually one of the youngest yordles, or at least, one of the yordles who emerged from the Spirit Realm latest. He designed the Sun Gates and founded Piltover approximately two hundred years before modern day Runeterra, making him centuries younger than the likes of Veigar.

Chapter 7: 1.7 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Call 1.7

2000, May 15: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Five days after I submitted the two elixirs and health potion for testing, I got called into the director's office. Despite being a building of only middling height, her office managed to get a decent view overlooking the Gammage Memorial Auditorium in the Tempe section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. The interior of the office was well-furnished, with comfortable furniture, posters of the local Protectorate, a map of Phoenix, and Director Lyons' diplomas. A flag of the Phoenix Suns basketball team hung in one corner as the lone splash of non-work related color.

I sat in my brand-spanking new costume, fresh from the sewing machine and approved only a few days before. I wore a large, red domino mask that covered the upper half of my face snugly and contoured itself to imply a different facial structure. The eye holes were tinted so it was impossible to see my glass eyes. As far as the public knew, Rubedo wasn't blind.

The robes were done in two layers. The thin and airy inner layer was an unfortunately eye-searing yellow instead of the dull white or black I'd wanted originally. According to Ms. Youngston, the PRT wanted to avoid implying a religiosity that did not exist by wearing too much white. The sleeves were long, but easily pinned with a notch on the elbows if I wanted to roll them back for work. They also came with pockets like a monk's robes so I could hide my phone, wallet, or other knickknack inside.

Thankfully, most of the inner robes were covered by the outer, which draped itself like a traveler's overcoat. The fabric was thicker, with a visible mesh pattern that I was told would reflect sunlight and provide some protection if worst came to worst. The coat was a dull red, with a thick hood that looked like it could be worn to completely shroud the face in shadow. It couldn't; the hood was literally sewn tight to the back of my coat. Ms. Youngston had again put her foot down, saying that heroes who showed their faces appeared more approachable. On the plus side, that did make my costume much more breathable.

The ensemble was completed with burgundy boots that were mostly hidden by my robes and a thick, leather belt that went around my midriff. The belt was lined with a multitude of slots for glass vials and a thermos filled with Oracle's Elixir stylized to look like a medieval waterskin. A pair of sturdy leather gloves were hooked onto a belt loop to complete the image of a hard-working hero.

My personal sigil was stitched over my heart and both shoulders. It was an octagonal patch depicting a stylized potion bottle in white with a red "R" inside over a black background with yellow borders. When I first saw it, I couldn't stop myself from making a Team Rocket joke, not that anyone else got the reference.

All told, even though I had no intention of keeping the persona, I had to admit that the PRT did good work. It looked professional, wasn't difficult to move in, and got my aesthetic across. As a Ward, that was probably the best I could expect of them.

"Thank you for being punctual, Rubedo," Director Lyons said. Director Amelia Lyons was a tall woman in her forties with red hair and brown eyes. She looked like she'd let herself go a bit, but had been very athletic in her youth.

I gave her a polite bow in greeting. "Afternoon, director. What's this about?"

"I wanted to let you know that your debut will be this Saturday on the twentieth and to see you in your full costume."

I did a little twirl. "Well, how is it? Do I look like a proper wizard?"

"Or maybe a candle," she said with a faint smile.

"That's me, Rubedo the Wonder-Candle."

"Don't tempt me. I'm sure I could get Ms. Youngston to make some Rubedo-brand scented candles."

"Or, here's an idea, you could be truly ironic and make some Rubedo-brand sunglasses," I shot back with a cheeky grin. I got a small snort from her so I counted that a win. "Actually, could you? I want to wear my own branded sunglasses to school. I can just say I'm wearing them because I don't like people staring at my scar."

"I'll think about it. Now, although you're a part of the Wards, we're not entirely comfortable putting you on patrols quite yet."

"I figured. Even if I can temporarily gain a thinker power, it's just that: temporary. It's a pretty big risk so I always knew I'd probably be kept inside to tinker and only brought out for publicity stunts."

"Not necessarily. While we don't feel comfortable letting you patrol, we think you could do a lot of good with your potions. How would you like to make rounds at hospitals?"

I shrugged. "That's fine, but I'd prefer to tinker. And like I said, publicity stunts. You could just as easily have a PRT agent carry a crate of health potions over and distribute them out in the trauma ward. My presence is more about aesthetics than any actual expertise on my end."

"And… you're okay with that?" Director Lyons asked cautiously.

"Should I not be? I think I'm being sensible."

"No, that's… that's great. I thought you'd want something more exciting."

'No doubt because the parahuman conflict drive has already been heavily documented,' I mused knowingly. "Well, I don't. I know what I'm good at and fighting isn't one of them. Even if I could do well enough by drinking both elixirs, I'd rather give them to Stingray so she can punch people for me."

"I'm glad you understand. Now, about your lab…"

"Yes?"

"The centrifuge and electrolysis machines will arrive by the nineteenth. If we bought you an industrial mixer, do you think you could mass produce your potions?" She had a hungry glint in her eye that almost scared me with its intensity. And, honestly, I understood. In more than two decades since Scion's appearance, I was one of less than fifty capes capable of healing. In twenty-two years.

Sure, it was impossible to get a proper census of all capes in the US, never mind the world, but that there were so few healing capes on record amplified my worth a great deal. Any PRT branch that hosted me would by default rise in prestige, especially since I could temporarily grant powers as well as heal.

In a world without Panacea, even a relatively minor healing power like my potion was a godsend.

I happily took her dreams and crushed them to dust. "No. It takes a lot of concentration for me to make a Mana Crystal so even if you get me enough ingredients, I'd still hit a bottleneck. Twenty or so bottles of various kinds is probably my soft limit," I said. "I also want to experiment with things on my own so I'd need to put aside some crystals for that as well."

"Well, we'll at least make sure you never run out of the more mundane ingredients."

I heard what she was saying loud and clear: I was their heal-slave and they'd milk me for everything I had. It worked out for me so I didn't complain. I expected I'd be able to channel more mana and create more potent Mana Crystals as my connection to the World Rune improved, but I didn't mention that. The rest of the meeting passed quickly with some questions on her end about what I might need for my lab and how I was faring in school.

2000, May 20: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The reveal of a new Ward was always a bit of a spectacle. Ms. Youngston started a PR campaign the moment my signature was on the contract. Talking heads had been trying to guess everything from my exact powerset to my favorite food for weeks. This meant that my debut was a long-anticipated event that had been curated since before I myself first knew anything about it.

The minor press conference was set to be held at the Scottsdale Fashion Square, the largest mall in the Phoenix Metro Area. The interior had a climate-controlled lobby with a glass ceiling where a stage had been set up for our use. Even the location was intentional. We could have rented out the Gammage Auditorium, but Ms. Youngston said that would send the image of a hero who was separated from the people, a stage production rather than the genuine article. I did my best to not point out the irony in that statement.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

A second venue that was considered was a local middle school, but that too was scrapped. Though the unwritten rules were more or less established, hinting at my identity by implying I attended a certain school was a big no-no, especially since that wasn't my school.

Holding my debut at the mall would both make the event accessible to the public and make me seem more approachable and childlike. She'd called it "youthful candor," whatever the hell that meant. It didn't hurt that a major hospital was so close to the mall.

'Honestly,' I thought, suppressing a sneeze as some lady powdered my nose, 'I think she's just happy to have a Ward that doesn't zone off to la la land the moment she starts talking about the nuances of her job.'

"There, all done," the lady powdering my face chirped. She looked like an intern of some sort, no older than her mid-twenties. "You look positively dashing, Rubedo."

"Thanks, Miss Noda," I said, grateful for the pericognition granted by the Oracle's Elixir; I didn't need to look down to read her name tag. "I appreciate it. How much time until we're on?"

She checked her watch. "Eight minutes, hon. Sit tight. Do you remember everything?"

"Yes, I do. When I walk up, I should shake Director Lyons' hand, then Royalle's, then Stingray's, and then read the lines on the podium. Then I should bow and sit down next to Stingray."

"Good, you'll do great."

I waited behind the stage for another seven minutes. The owner of the mall, some fat cat named Mr. Briggs, wrapped up whatever attempt he was making at kissing ass and Director Lyons took the mic. I was almost ready to zone out when she raised her voice slightly.

"Without further ado, please welcome Rubedo to the Wards family!" she said to polite applause.

Miss Noda gave me a gentle push. I thanked the celestials for the Oracle's Elixir again as camera lights flashed with every step I took. 'Oh the benefits of being blind,' I chuckled and did my best to give the crowd a "winning" smile. I'm pretty sure I just ended up looking a little constipated.

Still, I did as I was bid and shook hands with each of my superiors. Royalle, the leader of Protectorate Team One and nominally my ultimate superior in the Protectorate, was an interesting character. I'd met him briefly when I first signed on to be a Ward, but he'd seemed impatient and rather detached at the time. Now, he was all smiles.

He was a handsome man with black hair, hazel eyes, and teeth so straight and shiny that he could have starred in an Oral-B commercial. He wore a domino mask that I thought was dangerously thin, doing the bare minimum to nod towards the unwritten rules. He wore a metallic breastplate paired with a detachable cape of royal-blue. The cape had a white fur trim emblazoned with the golden crown that was his symbol. Hell, he even wore a crown on his head.

"Welcome aboard, kid, officially," he said in a deep, rich baritone.

"Thank you, sir," I replied, no reason to antagonize the man, even if I thought the crown was pretty tacky.

Stingray had a far more laidback response. She gave me a small, genuine smile and ruffled my hair, setting the crowd to laughter at my exaggerated umbrage. I stepped onto a small stool that had been prepped for me so I could "see" the podium. That earned me another few chuckles. The speech itself was mercifully short.

"Hello, everyone, my name is Rubedo," I began. "I am the newest Ward of Wards Team One under Wards Leader Stingray and Protectorate Leader Royalle. I have the honor of being the youngest Ward, not just in Phoenix, but also in the entire Southwest."

I made a show of holding up the paper to "read," then promptly threw it away to some surprised gasps. This too was something Ms. Youngston planned for my persona when she found out about my pericognition.

"Yeah, I'm not reading that. Sorry, let me be candid for a few minutes," I said, still reading the script lying on the floor. "I'm young. I could be as great as Hero, but that wouldn't change my age. Can you imagine someone like me fighting villains? Would you let your children fight people who can throw around cars or shoot lightning from their hands? Of course not. The truth is, I may be a Ward, but I can't be called a hero. Not yet.

"I'm incredibly fortunate that my powers complement my age. I'm a tinker, just like Hero, Armsmaster, and Gyroscope. Unlike them though, I can't make mechanical wonders. I can't make a teleporter or a hovercar or a giant laser," I lied through my teeth and held up a glass vial filled with crimson liquid. "Instead, I can make these. I am the first alchemical tinker and this is a health potion. It can stabilize and close wounds, replenish blood cells, and accelerate cellular mitosis. I'm fortunate, because I won't be on the front line. Instead, my patrol is in the hospitals and emergency clinics, where I'll be working with doctors and paramedics to save lives.

"The truth? The truth is that I'm not a hero. I don't deserve to be called that, not yet," I said, looking into the camera. "I'm just a kid who got lucky. But I will be. One day, 'Rubedo' will be a name you remember alongside Hero and Armsmaster and Gyroscope as a tinker worth respecting. And I am honored to start that journey serving the people of Phoenix."

Speech recited, I walked over and sat down next to Stingray, releasing a breath I didn't know I was holding. I shuddered a little. The crowd was silent; that kind of brutal honesty taking them from left field, especially coming from a child. Then, a single applause started an cascade.

"You did great," she encouraged, "better than my own debut."

"Thanks," I said honestly, maybe the first truly honest thing I'd said on stage.

That whole stunt was an attempt to kickstart my cape persona. According to the PRT, I had a "wallflower" power, one that wouldn't stand out because they were intent on keeping me out of conflicts. That meant that for me to be a noticeable public presence, I had to supplement my power with sheer force of personality, something normally impossible to expect of a child still in elementary school. Instead of being a meek healer who the PRT was keeping back from the frontlines, I would be a "fiercely independent, determined young man dedicated to filling some very large shoes." It was why Director Lyons allowed the little bit of scripted rebellion, a bit of "youthful candor."

I shrugged. 'Anything to sell more merch, I guess.'

"That was unexpected," Director Lyons said, "though not unwelcome. Thank you, Rubedo, for that sincerity. We will now open ourselves to questions."

She pointed at a young woman in a sharp pantsuit. "Melissa Hawthorne, Phoenix Gazette. Rubedo, can you go more in-depth about your powers?"

The mic was passed back to me so I didn't have to get up again. "Of course, Miss Hawthorne," I said with a polite smile. "As I said before, I am a tinker. My power seems to take inspiration from alchemy, hence the name. For now, I can create potions that promote healing or grant temporary effects. To be completely honest, I am still exploring the limits of my powers, so you'll know more even as I do."

"Carter McCullough, The Arizona Republic. If you don't know your power's limits, how can you be sure that there are no side effects to drinking your potion?"

Director Lyons fielded that one. "As you know, Rubedo's presence in the Wards was a highly anticipated affair. In fact, he joined the Wards months ago but we felt that any parahuman-made medicine deserved the utmost scrutiny. That is why his debut was such a long time coming. We have thoroughly tested his potions and feel that all side effects are manageable or miniscule." It was a lie, I'd only shown her the potion last week and the eggheads had rushed through testing as much as they could, but it sure sounded nice.

"So there are side effects?"

"All pharmaceuticals have side effects. For example, because Rubedo's potion accelerates cellular mitosis, it is not recommended that current or at-risk cancer patients take the potion. The potion is for physical wounds only, not diseases. That said, I assure you that the doctors have been briefed and any patient prescribed one of Rubedo's potions will be able to take them safely."

The next journalist could barely be called that, more of a gossip columnist than anything. "Kyle Stuckey, Cape Colors. Rubedo, you said your power seems to be based on alchemy. Any chance you can turn lead into gold?"

I shot the director a grateful smile for the deflection. "Not that I'm aware. If I could, I'd be a hero in Hawaii," I joked to polite laughter.

"What does your name mean?" some other journalist asked. Their names started to blend together.

"My name is a reference to alchemy. Medieval alchemists believed that the alchemical process could be described in three stages. Nigredo, the blackness, represented the impure and unrefined state of matter. Albedo, the whiteness, represented the purification process. Rubedo, the redness, was the final stage and the perfection of matter, whether that be to gold or a panacea. That is my namesake. It's also why my costume is mostly red."

"That's very interesting. Do you have an interest in medieval alchemy?"

"No, or at least, nothing specific. I have an interest in mythology as a whole."

"What's your favorite story?"

I thought about it and decided to answer honestly. "Surprisingly, my favorite myth isn't European, despite my cape name. It's the story of the Jade Rabbit. Once, the emperor of heaven decided to walk among the earth disguised as a poor traveler. He sat in the forest and was hungry. Three animals came to help him: the fox, the monkey, and the rabbit. The fox, thinking that this starving man needed it more, stole a chicken from a nearby farmer. The monkey knocked down fruit from the branches. But the rabbit, the rabbit saw that he could neither hunt nor gather. So, he threw himself into the fire.

"The self-sacrifice touched the emperor's heart and he revealed himself, taking the rabbit out of the fire and blessing him with the title of the Jade Rabbit. He gave him a home on the moon and tasked him with the creation of the Elixir of Life. That is how the moon bunny came to be."

The rest of the debut went off without a hitch. I couldn't be certain, but I thought I'd managed to build a reputation for myself as a serious, determined, and well-spoken cape who could be expected to act with a maturity beyond his years. That maturity bit was important considering I'd have doctors taking cues from me in the future. As I walked away, I couldn't help but think that Vista would have been jealous of me. Instead of downplaying my maturity as Director Piggot had, Director Lyons was going out of her way to point it out.

Author's Note

Chapter 8: 1.7.5 Amelia Lyons - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 1.7.5: Amelia Lyons

2000, May 20: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Some days just weren't worth getting up for. Then again, there were days like this that made my life a little brighter. Rubedo, Andy, was an extraordinary child. Pryce, my dear brother, used to say back when we were kids, "No matter how good you are, there's always an Asian somewhere in the world that does it better."

Was it racist to think that? Probably.

Racially insensitive it may be, but interacting with my newest Ward made me think of that little nugget of wisdom. By all rights, he should be a traumatized, closed off wreck with zero to minimal communication skills. Hell, he shouldn't even speak goddamn English. A handful of months was nowhere near the time needed to develop fluency, especially not to the degree of eloquence he so casually displayed, and especially especially not while learning braille and grieving for his dead father.

And yet, I'd just watched him debut with a performance that wouldn't have been amiss coming from actors thrice his age. Could a tinker also be a social thinker? Did powers grant supernatural maturity in young children? I didn't know, but I knew for a fact that more than one researcher in my employ wanted to make Rubedo the subject of a paper.

Even putting his prodigious maturity and intelligence aside, he was a godsend for the Phoenix PRT.

The truth was, this branch wasn't the most well-funded branch out there. The entire Southwest could use a bit more federal love, really. Being relatively sparsely populated and sandwiched next to two districts overseen by Alexandria and Eidolon meant federal auditors assumed we could handle it. Backup was only a quick hop away; how bad could it be?

'Idiots,' I scoffed.

I tried to shelter the Wards, and thankfully, I had two full Protectorate teams to help, but Arizona and New Mexico were dangerous places to be a cape. The southwestern United States have always had a problem with gangs, both homebrew and from down south. The entire area is practically a revolving door in which drugs, arms, and men cycle back and forth.

Alexandria? Eidolon? They were rocks, massive boulders dropped into an ever-flowing river that diverted the water around them. No one wanted to f*ck with them so the gangs, cartels, and other ne'er-do-wells inevitably looked for greener pastures. My pastures. No, being sandwiched between two demigods wasn't a good thing, I'd found.

Rubedo was my ticket. Healing? Brute powers in a bottle? Hysterical strength? His lab was only now being installed and I already had people clamoring for my newest Ward's attention. What more could he make in the next ten years as my Ward?

Hours later, I was reminded that the world didn't like seeing me happy. I was dragged away from dinner to an emergency briefing called by Levi Silva, one of my two deputy directors.

I was the last to arrive. As I sat, I took stock of the room. To my left was Royalle, that arrogant prick. He was competent and dedicated, that I didn't doubt, but he was also condescending and dismissive of anything that wasn't either his image or a major cape. He had his thick, blue cape folded over one shoulder as he lounged carelessly in his chair.

To his left was Oathkeeper, leader of Protectorate Team Two, in her mock-samurai armor. It was scaled, with lamellar wood coated in black varnish. The threading and accents were done in green, giving her a distinguished but menacing look. The outfit characterized her well. She was a distinct contrast to her fellow team leader, a disciplined warrior compared with the irreverent king. Her monstrous nodachi, far heavier than even a greatsword had any business being, leaned against the table.

To my right was Deputy Director Caleb Irish, the second of my two deputies. He was a balding man with a permanent deep tan that settled somewhere between healthy bronze and lobster-red. He hadn't started his career in the PRT. Once upon a time, he was a park ranger. When he retired to become a desk jockey, the national office decided he'd be a good liaison between me and the National Parks Service. As such, he managed the northern section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and handled many rescue and disaster response requests on my behalf. Not very knowledgeable about capes, but very useful to have around nonetheless.

Up front was the man who called the meeting: Levi Silva. He was a hard man, short, but with noticeable muscles that stretched out his office shirt. He kept his hair in a close military crop and did not deviate in the least from the professional dress code. He too did not begin his career with the PRT. He was once a military enlistee. When his service ended, he joined the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he rose up the local branch dealing with trafficking attempts from South American cartels. Because of his experience, I'd handed off much of the southern districts to him.

"Apologies if I'm late," I said as I pulled out a notepad and pen.

"You're just in time, director," Silva nodded and pushed something on the laptop in front of him, bringing up a series of slides. "We're all busy people so I'll jump right into things. As of fourteen hundred yesterday, Halloween is dead."

He did not raise his voice or slam the table, but the words echoed with tangible gravitas.

"Halloween. Peckerwood's Halloween?" Royalle asked. He leaned forward with interest. "How the f*ck did he die?"

"We don't know the details, only that Dos Caras now has his face." He flipped the slide, showing photos of a cadaver dressed in white robes. Whatever he looked like in life, his face had been completely flayed off.

"How sure are we that that's him?" I asked.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Positive. I've had forensics go over the body twice already. They're sure. The Peckerwoods are going through a succession crisis. It won't be long before they reorganize and start a gang war against the Southside Mesas."

"Projected timeframe?"

"A few days at most."

I sighed. And today was going great, too. "Lovely. What are the Mesas doing?"

"Two hours ago, four of my squads responded to various firefights, arson, and other violent crimes against suspected Peckerwood holdings. Arrested members have SSM tattoos so the Mesas are fully on the move."

"And the Crips?"

"La Torcha has been completely silent."

"Who cares about the skan*?" Royalle scoffed. "She's just leading around whatever's left after Lexi ripped them a new one and kicked them out of Cali."

"As distasteful as he is," Oathkeeper glared at her peer, "he's not wrong. The Westside Crips were almost wiped to the last after they tried to contest Alexandria and the Los Angeles Protectorate. They shouldn't have any force worth mentioning."

"You'd think so, but no. They're still the most numerous gang in terms of unpowered members," I pointed out. "Last I checked, most capes aren't bulletproof."

"That sounds like someone else's problem."

"Must you be so callous, Royalle? They're your men."

"And I draw fire so they keep breathing, yeah?"

"Enough," I snapped. "La Torcha is silent while SSM and the Peckerwoods are going to war. Do we know who's going to be leading the Peckerwoods?"

Silva shrugged. "If I had to guess? Freeform. He's the most charismatic. I'm sure Bull Rush or Gatling would make a play if they had the support, but they have bigger things to worry about at the moment. So, what's our play?"

"What we always do," I smiled sardonically, "keep the city from burning down. Show me a heatmap." Silva brought up a map covering all known gang territories: Crips spread all over, Peckerwoods around Chandler and Gilbert, and Southside Mesa in Mesa and spreading to Tempe. "Our first priority is to keep Dos Caras in check."

"Agreed," Oathkeeper nodded. "He's a mad dog who makes up for his lack of numbers with brutality. With Halloween's power, he just got even deadlier."

"Do we know what face he's replaced?" Irish asked. His face had gone a little pale at the image of Halloween's corpse, still not fully used to the brutality of our local gang leader. "He can only have two of them at a time, right?"

"We don't know. For all we know, he decided that Halloween wasn't worth keeping," Silva grunted. "For now, we should assume he's got three until we can verify which one he threw away: La Llorona, Condor, and Halloween."

"Che," Royalle clicked his tongue in annoyance. "All cowardly powers. Widespread depression, silent flight, and invisibility."

"This does mean we can't send you in, Royalle," I said. "Oathkeeper, you'll be taking point in Tempe with your team. Royalle will remain north. I might reassign some members of Team One to Team Two for the duration of this crisis."

"What? Director, I can take Dos Caras!"

"I'm sure you could," I placated the idiot's bruised ego. "But we need you to keep La Torcha in check. She's got the most men and I'm sure she'll try making a claim when her rivals are weak. You'll be there to put a stop to that."

He grumbled but settled down. Oathkeeper said nothing, but I could practically tan myself off the raw smug radiating from her.

"And the Wards?"

I turned back to Silva. "What about them?"

"We have three Wards teams. Thirteen capes. Can we really afford to keep them benched?"

"We're not putting them against Dos Caras," I growled out. "They're children."

"Maybe so, director, but there are several who are ready to graduate to the Protectorate. Stingray? Ranchero? Diamondback? Wildshot? They're all good kids and they could be a lot of help."

"Exactly. Kids. I'm not ready to explain to their parents why they're coming home in a box." This, this was why I hated military types. Silva wasn't the worst I'd seen, but he tended to see the capes as assets first and people second.

"Hold on, director," Irish said.

He often played mediator between the two of us. I started my career fifteen years ago as a parahuman researcher. Silva as an enlisted soldier. As the one with neither the knowledge of capes nor experience with organized crime, Irish usually had little expertise to contribute to these meetings, but his outside perspective struck a happy medium between me and Silva. He reminded Silva that morality wasn't something to shrug off and me that sometimes, hard decisions had to be made.

"Maybe we can come to a compromise. Now, I don't feel comfortable putting the Wards up against hardened gangb*ngers, but that doesn't mean they don't have anything to contribute here. What if we expanded their patrols in the central Phoenix area? You know, let them take a bit more off the Protectorate's shoulders so the adults can head to the outskirts."

"Tier it by age maybe?" Royalle shrugged. "Hey, I've been saying the kids need more experience punching faces and less smiling for the cameras."

"We would need to mix the Wards team roster. Stingray and Ranchero work well together, but Wildshot's rivalry with Diamondback is getting troublesome," Oathkeeper pointed out. She'd always been the more invested in the Wards compared to Royalle. "I recommend Diamondback be paired with Stingray so he has some ranged support. Ranchero with Wildshot for the same."

We fell into deep discussion about patrols, placements, and the best way to present this to both parents and the general public. Eventually, we came to the eight hundred pound elephant in the room.

"What about Rubedo?" Irish asked. "He's the only underage tinker we've got, but he might really be able to make a difference. I don't know much about sting ops, but I can't imagine a dozen officers with those fancy iron elixirs would be useless."

"Heh, yeah, kid's a goldmine," Silva agreed. "We're using him, right?"

I nodded reluctantly. I'd set his weekly potions quota to only twenty-four potions. I knew he could make more, but I wanted him to have time to himself. Our problems shouldn't burden an eight year old. Still, given the gang war on the horizon, I couldn't justify not using such a vital power. "I'll have him increase his potions production," I told them. "Anything else you wanted to talk about, Silva?"

"No, this is good. This gives us a plan moving forward."

"Good. Let's clear out."

Author's Note

The three major gangs mentioned in this story are actual gangs that were or are active in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. The AU here is that parahumans have integrated and usurped longstanding gangs. Not entirely happy with this setup chapter, but meh. Arc 2 will begin… Monday! Also, this will be a bit of a slow war. Anyone expecting the anarchy of Bakuda's rampage is going to be disappointed.

Even though a single powerful cape can gather henchmen and even keep territory, that cape must then run a business, importing resources, refining products, distributing to sellers, and of course, protecting these assets. Superpowers can help you with the latter, but not the others (most of the time). And so, established gangs like the Crips provided the experience, connections, and manpower that would-be warlords lacked.

I will say one more thing: Do not call anyone a "peckerwood" or "woodpecker" in real life. It is a racial slur similar to "cracker" aimed at rural, white men. The slur is most often heard in the South. The Peckerwoods are a series of white supremacist prison gangs that chose to embrace the slur. Though both the Peckerwoods here and the canonical Empire are white supremacists, they have very different operational styles.

Chapter 9: 2.1 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.1

2000, May 22: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I sat in my brand-spankin' new lab at our headquarters, spinning on a swivel chair.

The lab was large, far too big to have just been empty space lying around. As I understood it, the space had been meant to be an underground garage and storage space. The PRT had recently purchased the lot next door to create a discreet entrance and so did not need this one for its original purpose.

Everything I'd ordered and been approved for had arrived and been installed by PRT technicians while I was at my debut conference. To one end was an industrial centrifuge, powerful enough to separate DNA strands and handle volumes that I couldn't possibly hope to fully utilize at my current connection to the World Rune. Next to it stood an electrolysis machine in case I needed to separate chemical solutions without relying on kinetic energy. On a wall running adjacent to that was a cabinet full of beakers, potion vials, Bunsen burners, scales, microscopes, and other smaller lab equipment. On the opposite wall was a computer, as high-tech as I could expect to have in 2000. Alongside it was a printer. It was monitored, they made no secret of it, but that was fine for my purposes. On the bottom, beneath one of the supply cabinets, was an oven that could heat things to over 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, much like a professional kiln. Near that was a fridge that could store liquid nitrogen. There was still plenty of space for whatever else I might need in the future.

'They really went overboard, huh?' I thought ruefully. It was amazing what sort of budget I could get once it was confirmed that I could manufacture powers. "Right," I clapped, "time to get to work."

My agreement with the PRT was simple: I would make them a set number of potions per week and they would procure any materials I desired. If ever I wanted something that wasn't for tinkering, I would need it garnished from my wages. This did mean I'd have to disclose every recipe I used, but that was fine. It wasn't as though I was planning on building a Hextech Anivia or anything. Yet.

'Although, I might have to accelerate my timetable if the gang war gets out of hand,' I thought.

I didn't know everything. Really, I only knew as much as the local news talked about. Director Lyons was annoyingly insistent about keeping the Wards sheltered, especially the youngest one. Understandable, but incredibly inconvenient. All I knew was that my quota had risen from twenty-four to forty-two potions per week. Twenty-four of them were to be health potions alongside twelve Elixirs of Iron and six Elixirs of Wrath.

I sighed and got to work.

The first thing I did was drop glass cleaner fluid into the centrifuge to isolate active chemicals. I wanted to see if it was possible to make a concentrated dose of Oracle's Elixir. An hour and a half of pericognition wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it was a little annoying having to keep my tinkering on a schedule. The worst part about my elixir limitation was that I could only carry so much fluid on my person at a time. It wasn't as though I had a pocket dimension of my own.

'Heh, I'm going to make the PRT the largest sponsor of Windex in the state, aren't I?' The thought made me chuckle.

Next came the health potions requested by the local emergency room. That, that was honestly a bit of a doozy. No, not the order. The order itself was small, just a batch of twenty-four. I had enough Mana Crystals stockpiled from my months of inactivity that I could easily fill it. The order was so small because I was effectively pioneering the field of parahuman pharmacology. My drugs were effectively in the clinical trials phase. The PRT might be willing to rely on them in an emergency, but it was a different story for civilian distribution.

No, the problem came from the NEPEA-5. The infamous law was passed by Congress in 1998 and was derisively nicknamed the "Elite Bill" by vocal critics for having spawned the formation of the largest crime syndicate in the United States. On paper, it was a bill designed to curb parahuman involvement in the market, making it illegal for any cape or cape team to own a controlling share in a corporation. It also made the sale of "cape products," the phrase used to encompass more than just tinkertech, illegal should that product have the potential to upset the existing market or establish a monopoly.

I'd read it when it was first mentioned to me and the wording was disgustingly broad, to the point that I could only assume that it was intentional on the part of Cauldron. It intentionally left "disturbing the market" up for interpretation to the local PRT director and federal inspectors, leaving them a nice, legal precedent to browbeat rogues into submission.

I scoffed. 'No wonder Uppermost f*cked right off and started a mob.'

Director Lyons mentioned it to me because my potions potentially fell in violation of that law. If I provided them for free, not that I would, there was real concern that my potions could cut into profits in the medical industry. We both found the consideration of lives as "profits" revolting, but nonetheless, even the director was forced to tread carefully.

In the end, this meant that my potions would be made in small batches, perfectly fine with me as it'd give me time to tinker on other projects, and the PRT would charge local hospitals a price that had yet to be negotiated for each bottle.

'That's the US for you,' I scoffed, 'even charity is needlessly complicated.'

With focused meditation, I could generate a Mana Crystal every ten minutes or so. Most nights, I meditated for roughly an hour and a half to net myself nine each day. The production rate had risen a little from my previous limit when I deepened my connection to the World Rune and got Time Warp Tonic. I'd been building up a reserve of Mana Crystals since long before this lab was ready, so I was ready to mass produce, at least for a while. I'd even kept a solid store of crystals in my room at home, both to hide my true production rate and to hopefully start an independent project of my own.

"Hello~" I was brought out of my ponderings by Raquel's singsong voice. She had her giant, fuzzy hood down, revealing a shock of auburn hair and large, mischievous, doe-like eyes. "What's up, Andy!" Her nose immediately scrunched up in disapproval. "Eww, this place looks exactly like my school lab."

"Maybe because it is a lab?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but… I was expecting something… you know… cooler…"

"Sorry, my lead cauldron and pickled frog eyes haven't arrived in the mail yet," I replied sardonically.

"Boo! I demand cauldrons!" She slapped her hand on the table.

"You know, for a girl who hates her costume, you sure like acting childish."

"Only when it's fun. Besides, I hate looking like I'm in my pajamas getting ready to be tucked into bed. I don't mind a little childishness. And, I'm five years older than you. Aren't Koreans supposed to respect their elders?" she sniffed haughtily.

I laughed and pat her head. "Not when they're legal midgets."

She slapped my hand away with a surly glare. "I'm not a midget. I'm still growing!"

"Sure, sure, I'm sorry, noona, how could I be so disrespectful?"

"Noona?"

"Korean word for 'older sister' used by younger boys. It can be used by any two people when the girl is older than the boy though."

"Yes, ha! That's right, I'm your noona now."

I smiled and made a show of banging my head against the table. "I regret this already."

"So, make anything cool?"

"Getting ready to make some Elixirs of Iron."

"Ooh, I read the brief on that. It makes your skin metal, right?"

"Right, and makes you a little taller." I grinned teasingly. "Sorry, not permanent."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She elbowed me in the ribs, making me wince. The girl had some bony elbows. "Jerk."

"Sorry, too much snark. If it makes you feel better, I'm going to try and talk the director into giving all Wards the Elixir of Iron as an emergency provision. You know, just in case someone decides to chuck a car at you."

"Awesome! Thanks, Andy," Raquel squealed and gave me a tight hug.

"You're welcome." She was skipping her way out of my lab when I called out. "Raquel?"

"Yes?"

"I'd like my paperweight back please. It's in your pocket."

"Ah!" She fumbled with the small snowglobe. It had a generic Asian tiled house inside, with little flecks of white that could be swirled around to mimic snowstorms. Mom got it for me. "I'm sorry! I thought it looked pretty and didn't even notice."

"It's fine. Now that I know to be on the lookout, I can tell when an object around me teleports to your pockets."

"Huh… Say, Andy? Rubedo? Buddy ol' pal?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you could give me a dose of your pink juice? Maybe if I had the same awareness you do, I would notice when my power popped off and I could give it back on my own."

"It takes a lot of practice to get used to the extra sense, you know. And it almost gave the scientist who tested it out a seizure. It got pretty bad."

"Damn…"

"Don't worry," I said comfortingly. "I might have something that can regulate your powers for you."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

2000, June 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I sat around at recess mulling over the past two weeks. It wasn't as though I could join in a game of kickball or anything. On my lap was a book in braille so I could pretend to be reading.

When I first debuted, Rubedo was the talk of the city, or at least, the talk of the school. It wasn't often that a new Ward joined up, especially not one as young as me. Now, only two weeks later, I was old news. I didn't patrol or punch bad guys so children didn't take an interest in me. Sure, I was a model Ward, saving lives without putting my own in jeopardy, but that just meant I was boring. Coupled with the urgency of flaring gang violence, my name got swept up to the wayside rather quickly.

I wasn't complaining; the past two weeks went as smoothly as I could expect. When I wasn't filling the weekly potions quota, plus a bit extra since I had nothing else in my pipeline, I was taught various things a Ward ought to know. At the top of that list was console training along with other PRT procedures and regulations. After that, I was ushered into a room where one of Ms. Youngston's PR interns taught me how to smile, laugh, and generally be expressive in front of the cameras while wearing a mask that completely hid the upper half of my face.

Those were the lessons I hated most. On one hand, I understood fully where they were coming from: What else would they do with an eight year old besides make him the team mascot? On the other, the lessons did not come naturally to me and I could understand why child actors felt the need to lash out.

At least one good thing came of them though: When I became noticeably less cooperative, the intern tried to bribe me with candy. I instead asked for lessons in first aid, something I could use to make a tangible difference. I now had those every Tuesday and Friday, just one more lesson to add to my workload.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Hmm?" I turned towards the voice.

"Oh, sorry, it's Mrs. Owens, sweetheart," my teacher said.

"No problem, Mrs. Owens. Should I come inside?"

"No, you still have a few more minutes of recess. You just looked like you weren't really reading."

Caught out, I pressed the braille book closed. "Ah, yeah… just thinking."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong."

"Okay, Andy, but if you want to talk, you can tell me anything," she promised reassuringly. "I think you've been doing an amazing job, picking up English so quickly. It's not an easy language to learn." Especially if you're blind, she didn't say.

"Thank you, I have a lot of great teachers."

"Flatterer. Is the gentleman who drives you from school one of them?"

"Who? Mr. Morrison?" I asked, panicking a little.

"Yes, he seemed like a nice man. Is he a neighbor?"

The few seconds gave me enough time to blurt out the PRT approved response. "He's a family friend. David, his son, is in high school and babysits me sometimes."

"Oh, that's sweet. What do you do together?"

"We play music," I said, digging deep up my own ass. I tried to change the topic. "Say, Mrs. Owens? Did you know mom is a musician?"

"Oh? Really? That's great!" To her credit, she sounded genuinely excited. If I lacked the mind of an adult, I doubt I'd have been able to notice her digging for information. "What kind of instrument does she play?"

"She was classically trained in piano and violin. Grandpa and grandma were rich so she got to study abroad in Germany."

"That's wonderful. Do you like classical music, Andy?"

"No, I'm more into jazz. I like how much improvisation there is in things like the saxophone."

"You can play the saxophone?" I didn't need the Oracle's Elixir to know she had an eyebrow raised.

"No, but I like to listen. Maybe I'll try one day."

"Oh… Well I'm sure you'll make a wonderful musician," she said, patting my head. I suppressed the urge to slap her hand away and counted it as a win. Distraction successful.

"My teacher asked about you," I said as I hopped into Agent Morrison's car.

"Oh? What'd she say?"

I buckled my seatbelt and picked out a bottle of elixir I kept in back. "Nothing big, but she was digging into my family situation. Asked if you were my neighbor so I told her that David babysits me sometimes and you're a family friend."

"Good, great job sticking to cover, Andy."

"Yeah, well, I told her I wanted to learn to play the saxophone. Ugh… I feel so stupid…"

"Hey, it's not impossible. Why'd you say that anyway?"

"Mom's a musician. It was the first excuse that popped into my head," I huffed.

"Don't worry, you did good. It's our job to make sure that the questions don't get too intrusive."

"Who exactly knows I'm a Ward anyway?"

"At school?"

"Yeah."

"The principal."

"And?"

"The principal."

"Seriously? No one else? What if there's an emergency?"

"You tell me," he said with a sly grin. "This was one of the things you should have learned already."

"The principal will call me into her office. When we're alone, she'll tell me that my uncle has passed away and that I'm being pulled from school. You or another agent will meet me out front in as normal an appearance as possible," I said by rote. This was in one of the procedural handbooks. "If a different agent, they will include the words 'home,' 'hope,' and 'safe' in their greeting to confirm their identity. After this, they will take me to Wards HQ, where I can dress as Rubedo and await dispatch."

"Damn, kid," he whistled. "I didn't think you'd have that memorized."

"This still doesn't explain why none of the other teachers know."

"It does. We're not taking any chances with your identity. I suppose having a few more teachers know to help coordinate could be helpful, but it's not worthwhile. A single contact is enough for one Ward. It might be different if there were a number of Wards in the school, but there's just you."

"Yay for being the youngest."

"Why? Did you want to tell your teacher?"

"No, absolutely not. I just felt a little uncomfortable with the digging. She means well I think, but she's showing a lot of personal attention towards me because I'm the only blind kid in class and a man who is obviously not my father is picking me up from school."

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I'll have a chat with Director Lyons. We'll work something out to get her to stop."

I huffed and puffed as I cleared my first mile. A little over twelve minutes. It wasn't slow per se, but it definitely wasn't anything to write home about, especially given my flagging endurance. Dead average, but dead average for an eight year old would leave me dead for real.

"Off," David, Ranchero at the moment, said, motioning me from the treadmill. He had the same easygoing smile on his face, but there was a deeper undercurrent of tiredness even as he jogged on the machine next to me.

"Cooldown," I staggered out.

He rolled his eyes and pushed some buttons, slowing the pace way down. "Five minutes. It's not good to go full hog like that every day."

I nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Two minutes into my cooldown, I could feel Yasmine, Hat Trick, enter the gym. She popped her skateboard into an ollie and stashed her entire outfit into her cap with one fluid motion, replacing her outfit with workout clothes and a bandana. She made a beeline towards Ranchero and me.

"Twelve minutes? Damn, brat, you slow," Hat Trick teased, leaning in to see my time and ruffling my hair. She immediately recoiled. "Ugh, you're sweaty."

I rolled my eyes but kept jogging. "This is what hard work looks like. Try it sometime."

"Ooh, midget's got fangs."

"Keep it up and I'll turn you into a frog."

"Pfft, yeah right."

"Double double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

"What, you a bruja now, muchacho?"

"Alchemist," I corrected.

"Where did you learn Macbeth?" Ranchero cut in incredulously. "Little dude's got class."

"Wait, can you actually turn me into a frog?"

"No." As if to prove that the World Rune did in fact had a mind of its own, it decided that now was the best time to nudge forward an idea, a very purple idea. My vision faded into a psychedelic aurora of colors and tastes. Laughter, the sort filled with unbridled joy and all-consuming wonder, resounded in my ears. Colors became tastes and sounds became smells before the world twisted back into place.

I was brought out of my daze by Ranchero snapping his fingers. "Hello? Off the treadmill, Rubedo. Don't work out too hard at your age."

"Uh, yeah, sorry." I turned to Hat Trick. "Sorry, no frogs. How do you feel about squirrels?"

"Wait, was that a tinker fugue?"

"No, that wasn't. Those are much worse, more like full on trances than just daydreaming like that. I guess you gave me an idea."

"So you can turn me into a squirrel?" she asked, her brow nearly meeting her hairline. "Your powers are weird."

"No, no I can't turn you into a squirrel. Or any other creature. It was a joke, but you did give me an idea, so thanks." I snatched a towel I'd set aside and headed to the showers.

"Where're you off to?"

"Shower," I called back. "Then to fill out a few procurement forms." I couldn't enchant myself some pixie dust, or whatever the hell Lulu used to turn people into squirrels, but it was yet another good reminder that I should be looking outward, at more than just the twin cities. 'Yes… Polymorph isn't the only way to shut someone down…'

Author's Note

Slow war is slow, but don't worry. Andy's going to be busy in his own way. He's also hopscotching through the weeks bit by bit, though I can't call anything a timeskip per se.

Chapter 10: 2.2 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.2

2000, June 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Before I could get to my lab, I was stopped by Redbird. Every time I met him, I was surprised by just how far he towered over me. The man had to be nearly seven feet tall, or maybe he just looked that tall since I barely hit four-two.

"Hey, Rubedo," he called tiredly. "How's it going?"

"Pretty good, Redbird," I replied with a polite bow. "I just got off a run. I'm still really slow, but I'll get there."

"I know you will," he said in his way that was both indulging yet not patronizing. I still didn't know his name, too much of a security risk to just let a bunch of kids know Protectorate identities, but he had an easy grin about him.

"How about you, Redbird? How are things?"

He knew what I was really asking. "Things aren't too bad out there, Rubedo. Your potions have already saved lives from what I've heard. Team One's set up out north so we're a bit far from the battles breaking out."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked with a raised brow. "You don't look like the kind of man who likes sitting around."

"I don't," he let out an aggressive sigh. "If I had my way, I'd be up there supporting Oathkeeper. But yeah, it's a good thing. Royalle's a terrible matchup for Dos Caras, but me and Echo? We could help. That we haven't been reassigned to Oathkeeper means things aren't desperate enough to start mixing teams around. That's a good thing." He seemed to be telling himself that as much as he was talking to me. "But you let us worry about the gangs. You've got a meeting with the boss."

"Director Lyons or Royalle?"

"Director Lyons."

I didn't miss the slight scowl on his face at the mention of his team leader. "Go on up."

"Will do. Thanks." I bowed.

"None of that. We're colleagues now, my little friend. Powers are all expressions of the spirit and it doesn't do your spirit any good to be so wound up all the time."

I nodded agreeably. "Sure, thank you, Redbird."

The man walked off, leaving me contemplative. It was certainly an interesting take on powers. With so few people understanding the mechanics in this world, he was hardly the first to claim some spiritual or mystical origin. Hell, he might even be right. In canon, there was Haven, the team centered around Christianity. I found out during my readings that they were actually the second iteration of a similar attempt called the Stars of Bethlehem. And of course, there were whispers of religious extremists who worshipped the endbringers. The Fallen weren't quite an organized institution yet, but I knew they would be soon enough.

That was just in America. China saw the rebirth of esoteric martial arts and Taoism while warrior sages claiming Buddhist enlightenment wandered Tibet and Nepal, fighting the Chinese Union-Imperial in the name of political and religious freedom. I unfortunately knew how that contest would end. There were dozens of capes named after Greek, Egyptian, or Roman gods in the Mediterranean and the near-Middle East; who knew how many believed they were avatars or descendants or whatever? And in much of rural Africa? Tribal ancestral and shamanistic worship had always held strong. I couldn't imagine that declining now that shamans might literally have superpowers.

'I wonder what Redbird really believes,' I mused as I knocked on the director's office. 'Is he religious or just spiritual? Does that make him more or less conflict-prone?'

"Come in, Rubedo," Director Lyons said.

I pushed the door open and bowed. "Hello, director," I said. "How did you know?"

"Besides that I called for you? There is a camera with a view of the hall I can tap into. Take a seat, and try not to drip over my chair too much."

"Yes, ma'am. I just got out of the shower." I tied my towel loosely around my neck.

"I can see that. How are you liking things so far?"

"I see the necessity of console and PR training, but find them tedious," I said honestly. "I appreciate physical conditioning and the first aid course as I feel more tangible improvements."

"So you've said, but you do need those lessons anyway."

"I understand."

"Do you know why you're here?"

"No, ma'am. I was going to put in some procurement orders to try and make something new, but I don't think you read minds."

"That'd make my life a lot easier, but no," she said with a wry smile. "To put it simply, people aren't happy with your health potions."

"In my defense, ma'am, I did give them a detailed list of what they can and cannot fix."

"You did and that's not why. You see, there is a law called the NEPEA-5 and it makes parahuman involvement in markets difficult. I mentioned it to you before."

I nodded. "I'm familiar with the law, director."

"You are?"

"Yes, I read up on it when you last mentioned it. It's sometimes mockingly called the 'Elite Bill.' I was under the impression that since I am a federal employee, under eighteen, and producing medicines, it doesn't apply to me. Surely there are some exceptions in place?"

She sighed and ran a hand down her face. "In a perfect world, it wouldn't. Most are grateful, but there is a vocal minority who are trying to claim that your potions will disturb the market."

'Of course. f*cking Earth-Bet,' I thought, rolling my eyes. "Is it the pharmaceutical companies or hospitals who are upset with me?"

"Both. As you know, we work with the Banner University Medical Center, the largest hospital in Phoenix. We chose them because they happen to have one of the better organized and staffed emergency rooms. However, other hospitals in the area are claiming that your potions represent an unfair advantage, as are pharmaceutical companies."

"That… is disgusting."

"I agree, and I suspect they'll be shot down by any federal judge, but it will go to court."

I processed that for a moment. "Wait, I'm being sued?"

"No, we are. A civil suit has been filed against the Phoenix PRT."

"I made literally less than a hundred bottles!" I raged.

"It's not about what you've made. They're afraid of what you represent."

I shook my head. "I'm not a PR wiz or anything, but this would kill their reputation. Suing a Ward with medical tech because… the potions decrease the number of patients they can charge? And this in the middle of a gang war?"

"It would, but that's not important. And the gangs have been surprisingly subdued since SSM's initial strike. They've filed a court order and until this is resolved, you cannot produce potions for use by hospitals and that could take months. If I had to guess, they're doing this because they intend to rearrange their business in the meantime. Restructure so things like emergency bandages, anesthetics, and other products used in trauma centers take up less of their product pipelines. Either that, or the executives are taking the chance to jump ship off the stock. It's a bit above your head, but it's possible to make a company nosedive while still reaping a profit."

"They're buying time. But do they know that I can't mass produce these potions? I can't possibly affect an entire section of the medical field, can I?"

"Probably not, not at the pace you're going," the director said. "But they don't know that. Tinkers like Hero can only produce enough tech for themselves, maybe a few more people. You seem to be able to manufacture enough potions for dozens. Given how new you are, they're betting that your production rate will rise significantly if left unchecked."

"Idiots. So what happens now?"

"Now? We blast them over their PR suicide and make them pay for every second of this mess."

"The NEPEA-5 has to have exceptions, right?" I tried again. "It can't be completely blank."

"No, no it does not. At least, none that apply to you specifically. It was only passed recently after all. There are too many kinks to be worked out. There are some thinkers who are employed by the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and similar to monitor the markets and they are exceptions to the 'no influencing the market' rule for obvious reasons."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"The joy of being the first medical tinker?"

"Indeed. They don't expect to win, not in the long term. This is the kind of case that catches national attention and eventually, it will head to a big enough court that Congress will take notice and add addendums to the law."

"But they don't need to win, just buy time. What happens to me then? Will I be expected to show up to court?"

"No, you will not. This is a job for our lawyers and PR department. As for you…" Director Lyons dug into a cabinet and pulled out several sheets of paper. "Well, you did say you wanted procurement forms. You'll still be making those potions, you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am. Even if we can't distribute to hospitals, they can still be used by our own, right?"

"Good. Now, what else did you need?"

"I'm already here so I may as well," I shrugged. "I have four requests, but they might be… tricky."

"Go on."

"Night phlox flowers. They're also called 'night candies' sometimes. Any strain will do, but they're native to South Africa."

"Africa. You want flowers. From Africa." She shook her head in exasperation. "You're quickly turning out to be the most troublesome of my Wards."

"Apologies, director. If it makes you feel better, I'm sure they can be found in local stores. Native isn't the same as exclusive after all."

"No, it's fine, but I'm going to need to know what could possibly justify that."

"I need a bunch to make something called Shimmer."

"Which is?"

I winced. "Don't freak out?"

"That's not encouraging to hear."

"Okay, so Shimmer by itself is a very powerful regenerative draught, as effective as a health potion, but it works differently so the two effects can stack. It can even give someone superhuman abilities for a short time, strength, speed, the whole package, while the potion is still in their system."

"That sounds wonderful. So what's the downside?"

"It makes you… mentally unstable?"

"Rubedo," she said warningly. "You will not make narcotics with your tinkering budget."

"Ehehehe… brand new sentence?"

"Rubedo."

"Hear me out, ma'am. If you overdose, yeah, it'll make you bonkers, but that's basically true of every drug. In smaller doses, it can supplement the health potion I have now, even regenerating limbs if administered in controlled doses over a long time. Hell, if you stick to just a drop or two, it'd even double as a painkiller."

"I'll… consider it…" she said flatly, taking all but three of the procurement forms away. "I'm willing to give you a lot of freedom, but a psychoactive drug is going to be an automatic no without a lot of oversight. This might change when you are fully a member of the Protectorate, but as a Ward, I just can't authorize something like that."

I sighed. It wasn't unexpected. "Okay, but the others?"

"Tell me about the others. We'll fill these forms out together. Just in case."

"How do you feel about black widow and cobra venom?"

The deadpan stare could make even the Kindred nervous. "No."

"You haven't even let me finish." I whined. I'm eight. I'm allowed to whine.

"Against my better judgment… what do you need highly toxic poisons for?"

"Actually, a poison and a venom are very different in appli-" I saw the tired look on her face and decided that caution was the better part of valor. "Okay, fine. I want the venoms so I can refine them into extremely potent versions of themselves." Two women, as enchanting as they were terrifying, came to mind. I wouldn't be able to manufacture Vilemaw's poison, that thing was practically a god, but the venom of a mere spiderling? The noxious mist used by Cassiopeia? Those shouldn't be too far outside my abilities.

The incredulous look on her face was priceless. "You… want to make something… even deadlier than black widow venom… And you think I'd let you?"

"You didn't let me finish. I want to make a super-deadly venom because I can then refine that into a universal antivenom. You know, a venom that attacks all the impurities inside the body instead of the body itself. It'd be another easy way for me to contribute without leaving my lab."

"That does sound useful… I'll have to think about it. And the last thing you need?"

"Don't worry, it's nothing dangerous. Or addictive. Or hard to get. It's less than two hours' drive."

"But you saved it for last because…?"

"Imayormaynotneedtocutdownanationalforest," I rambled out.

"One more time, Rubedo."

"I need trees. The species doesn't matter, but the age does. I need fossilized trees and the best way for me to find them is to take them from the Petrified Forest National Park. It's like two hours away but… you know… national park."

"I don't have the authority to cut down a national forest for you," she said dryly.

"I know, I know. Could you kick it up the chain? Maybe have Director Costa-Brown bring it up as a possibility?"

"Believe it or not, I don't have tea with the head of the PRT every week. What do you even want with that stuff? And how is a fossilized tree different from any other tree? Or rock for that matter?"

"It just is," I huffed out, a little annoyed myself. This meeting was taking far longer than either of us expected. "And I think I can use it to make Petricite. Yeah, that's what I'm calling it. Basically, it is something that absorbs ambient energy and I think that it can be used to make handcuffs that can keep people from using powers."

"I thought you were a potions tinker?"

"Alchemy," I corrected, "which is a lot more than just fancy drugs. And besides, it's not like handcuffs are mechanically complex or anything. The handcuffs would seal away all external expressions of powers like fire breath or something, but someone whose powers are internal or isolated to just their bodies would be fine like brutes or people with flight. Although… I should be able to make a Petricite Elixir that seals all powers as long as it's in their system…"

"How sure are you that this will work?"

I shrugged. "Maybe… seventy percent? It might react differently with different powers."

I was taking a big risk asking for this, but I decided that the gamble was worth it. In the end, it came down to one question: Does a Shard's dimensional f*ckery have any basis in magic? What convinced me was the impossibility of powers like Shaper's. An archive of biological knowledge was one thing, but spatial manipulation did not in itself account for such radical changes in biology, not unless Amy wasn't really fixing biology as much as replacing cells with parallel dimension counterparts. And she wasn't. That much, I was certain of.

Ergo, Shards must be able to use mana even if they themselves lack an ability to quantify or perceive it. If they weren't using mana consciously, I had a hypothesis that they were somehow drawing mana from their host, however limited that may be. After all, I knew for a fact that souls existed.

What little I knew of the origin of Runeterra's universe and the nature of the soul supported my hypothesis. It wasn't a guarantee, but it was enough for me to take a shot at it.

"I'll see what I can do," the director said. "I should be able to get you a small branch or something. Deputy Director Irish might have a better idea of how to go about this; he used to be a ranger."

"Yeah, that'd be great, director. Thank you very much."

"Good, that'll be all, Rubedo." As I stood to leave, she called me back. "Rubedo, one last thing. I've approved each Ward and Protectorate to carry one Elixir of Iron and a health potion for emergencies."

"Thank you, ma'am."

That night, my thoughts wandered to the Illuminati of Earth-Bet: Cauldron. What would the boogey-lady herself want from me? Did me getting sued have anything to do with her Path? Was I even a visible variable on the Path? Or did the World Rune protect me in any way?

That last one, I knew was false. The World Rune was Inspiration, an idea made manifest. It wouldn't protect me from anything unless I made something that could. That left the question: How would Contessa react to this case and how could I influence her? No, that very notion was arrogant. Still…

It may be laughable to think about, an eight year old manipulating Contessa, but she wasn't omniscient, nor was she a mind reader. She didn't know about a variable until it became relevant to the Path, and only knew about that variable inasmuch as it was relevant to the Path. In fact, until quite recently, she probably didn't even know I existed and would have been briefed only when Alexandria mentioned a medical tinker.

I finished up my meditations for the night and set down the Mana Crystal in a box in the closet. Not very secure, but having an actual safe in a low-class apartment like mine would stand out.

Right now, I could comfortably say that I was a Cauldron asset. They wouldn't throw me away until 2005 at minimum, when Riley became Bonesaw. Even then, I'd definitely be much more mentally stable. There were medical capes, but few with my versatility or ability to stockpile treatments, certainly none able to grant powers.

'Assuming the patron saintess of dandy hats doesn't actively want me dead… how can I leverage this? How can I make sure she protects me, unwittingly or not?'

The answer was simple: I needed to be so goddamn valuable as to be irreplaceable.

Cauldron's goals were threefold: First, kill Scion with minimal casualties. Second, in support of the first, preserve as many powerful capes as possible for the final fight. Third, establish a foundation for a post-Scion world. Brockton Bay was their experiment towards the latter, a petri dish exploring the effects of cape feudalism.

If I wanted to be irreplaceable, I needed to be someone with tech that could help them in one of their goals. The first would be impossible unless I could gain the help of a celestial. Visions of the Star Forger threatened to scorch my eyes but I pushed them down. The third was too nebulous and impossible to quantify from outside their organization. The second though…

'Could I become irreplaceable using healing tech and Petricite? How many capes' survival would I have to ensure for Contessa's Path to decide I'm more valuable to them alive and in good health?' That made me pause. 'Wait… is this why I'm being sued? I wouldn't have this train of thought if I didn't think I'd caught their attention. I wouldn't have thought that, at least not this soon, if I hadn't received a lawsuit sure to make national news.

'Okay, let's assume Contessa is using the lawsuit. Why? To refine and restrict the NEPEA-5? No, she doesn't actually care about it. Or if she does, it's too nuanced for me to tell without Path to Victory on my side. She surely could have written any exceptions into the law as she damn well pleased when it was first being drafted. To make me produce powers in a bottle exclusively? Maybe, but then that means she intends to make sure the PRT loses this case, forcing me to deviate from health potions to something else. Why weaken her own puppet organization? To make me famous in my own right? Possible. That would tie me closer to the PRT, right?

'Or maybe, she wants the PRT to gain more influence by winning this case. Simultaneously, she's trying to nudge me towards powers creation by using this case and a burgeoning gang war. Did… Did Phoenix just become a petri dish for my own not-Cauldron vials? At the very least, she can't make the gang war flare up too violently, or I might get caught into the thick of things instead of staying on the sidelines and remaining her potions-mule. Right?'

I threw myself down onto my bed, possibilities upon possibilities swirling in my mind like a Freljordian blizzard. It was impossible to predict Contessa. I probably understood Path to Victory better than she herself did. At the very least, I had insights she lacked. Even so, I could conceive of any number of ways the next few weeks could go and the best thing I could think of was to simply be the best damn Ward I could be.

"f*ck thinkers," I mumbled as I allowed sleep to take me.

Author's Note

Wow, that conversation really dragged on longer than I expected. So much setup…

That's the trouble with the hat lady (Not you, Cait); you can't play around her unless you're a blindspot or she willingly shuts off her powers.

Chapter 11: 2.3 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.3

2000, June 6: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I sat in the Wards common room sofa with my books spread out on the coffee table. I had two sets of textbooks, one in braille and one in plain English. I took the braille books to school but relied on the Oracle's Elixir to breeze through my homework. With the Wards being my "after school program," I kept my English textbooks here in HQ.

I heard the "masks on" buzzer go off. I reached into my pocket, but relaxed. Behind the door, through a haze of pink mist, I could see Yasmine tapping her foot impatiently.

"What's up, shortstack?" she said as she marched in. Even in her civilian guise, Jazz liked to wear a heavily customized baseball cap with a flat bill. Hip or chic or something like that. She dropped her backpack next to the table. "You doing homework?"

"Yup."

"Need some help?"

"Nope."

"Mind if I join you?"

I waved to the seat across from me. "Be my guest. How was school?"

She snorted. "You sound like mi papi."

"Good man. Still, really, how was your day?"

"f*ck Mr. Wilson, that's all I'll say."

"f*ck Mr. Wilson," I said in solemn solidarity.

"f*ck Mr. Wilson," she repeated. We stared at each other for two seconds before chuckling. "How 'bout you, shorty?"

"Miserable. Ever try to pretend to be blind? Because that's what school is like for me. Without the Oracle's Elixir, I'm stuck tapping away with a stick. Doesn't help that there's a f*cking gang war going on in the background that I'm not allowed to help with."

"sh*t, yeah, that sucks. They can't homeschool you?" She put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "And dude, relax. Even I'm not doing a whole lot. I've been riding along with paramedics, but the real fighting? Yeah, no way in hell is Director Lyons letting me get anywhere near that. Trust me, you've saved lives."

"I know," I sighed. "I'm just frustrated. I know why, but that doesn't mean I like it."

"Life sucks."

"Amen."

We fell into companionable silence as we tried to knock out our homework before the others arrived. Jazz was a bit of a paradoxical character, I found. She typically dressed like a skater, though I heard she was a fan of costume design in general and liked to cosplay as other capes on occasion. She was definitely at the teenage rebellion stage, especially regarding teachers, but also tried to give off the image of a "chill" big sister to me by doing things like letting me swear.

I quickly wrapped up my homework and opened up my phone to browse the burgeoning internet.

"You're done already?"

"Yup."

"I miss elementary school."

"I've been working at this longer than you."

"Still sucks."

A while later, the buzzer sounded again, revealing Penelope and David. The two walked in holding hands and I noticed Jazz look wistfully towards the older boy.

'Nope, not dealing with another Vista-Gallant situation,' I promised myself. 'I didn't see anything. f*ck that.' "Hey, David, Penelope," I called.

"It's weird how you can know we're here without even turning around," David said. He winced at his girlfriend's probing elbow.

"What he means to say is, 'Hey, Andy, hope you had a good day.'" Penelope made her way to the kitchenette to pour herself some water. "And I think that's cool."

"Yeah, that's what I meant. No offense."

"None taken. I either have super-vision or none at all. It's honestly pretty weird for me too."

Soon enough, the buzzer rang for the third and final time, letting in Raquel, still dressed in her leotard from gymnastics.

"Hey everyone," she chirped. "¿Qué pasa?"

"Hey, Raquel," Penelope greeted her back. The older girl gave her a once over then frowned.

"Oh no, what's wrong?" Raquel started to pat herself down.

"I could be wrong, but I don't think you've ever been a big fan of Eidolon," she pointed out, gesturing to the emerald-green water bottle Raquel had attached to her backpack. It was shaped like the hero, with his billowing cape twisted into a handle and the hood attaching a cap to the hero's head.

She frowned and unclipped the bottle. "No, I mean, he's cool and all, but this definitely isn't mine. I'll return it tomorrow," she said with a sigh. "I know who it belongs to."

"It's okay, chica," Jazz said. "It just makes our days interesting, ya know? Keeps us on our toes."

"My friends shouldn't have to be on guard around me," she sulked, good mood ruined.

"We're not," our leader assured her. "But friends should look out for each other."

I clapped my hands. "On that note, good news!"

"Yeah? You finally figured out girls don't have cooties?"

"Shut up, Jazz."

"What's the good news?" David said, leaning back. "Anyone mind if I turn on the TV? Like a little background noise."

Penny led the shorter girl to the sofas and sat between Raquel and David. "Sure, why not? What's up, Andy?"

"I was talking to the director the other day and I got permission to give you all an Elixir of Iron. You know, a holdout power in a bottle for emergencies. I've already made one each for the Protectorate and some of the field officers so it's your turn."

"Seriously? Sweet! It's the one that makes you a brute, right?"

"Yeah, it'll make you about twenty percent larger and turn your skin into steel. You'll also gain a bit of extra physical strength to make sure you can run and support your own weight and whatnot." I placed four bottles on the coffee table. They were made of plexiglass, nonreactive and durable without being heavy. The silver liquid swirling inside looked like liquid mercury. "Go ahead and take one each. Keep them in your lockers and take them when you go out on patrol."

"Thank you, we appreciate this. I've read reports about the cost of tinkertech and…" she let out a low whistle.

"Yeah, for real, little dude," David smiled. "Now I can be a brute without a herd of bulls."

"Last resort only," his girlfriend scolded.

"I know, I know. I'm just saying."

"I'm gonna add this to my FUBAR hat," Yasmine said as she whipped out a military helmet. She promptly stuffed the potion inside the helmet and stuffed the helmet back inside her cap. At my questioning glance, she shrugged and shot me a devious smirk. "'Hat' is pretty flexible. Bandanas count. So do helmets. Really, it's headwear. This one came from a retired Navy SEAL who gave his stuff to military surplus. It doesn't make me any more athletic, but it does make me an expert in everything a SEAL should know. Throw in the potion and…"

"Ah, damn. Your power's a lot more versatile than I thought."

"Most capes have something like that," Raquel added. One of the bottles teleported across the room to appear in her hand. "We usually have a few holdout abilities or some unique aspect of our powers we keep for a rainy day."

"What's yours?" I couldn't help but ask. "Your power is just moving things, right?"

"I don't have one. If I do, I haven't thought of it yet. It's a part of why I'm a rescue-cape. Even when I graduate to the Protectorate, I don't think that'll change."

"Right, anyway, I just wanted to get the elixirs out to you guys before I holed myself up in my lab. Before I go, any updates about the gangs?" I asked the elder Wards. The two had been patrolling with two older Wards from the other teams, Wildshot and Diamondback.

David and Penelope glanced meaningfully at each other. "Not much," David said. "It's died down a bunch in the last two weeks."

I looked at Yasmine. From the look on her face, even she wasn't buying it. "Yeah, pull the other one," I scoffed. "We're young, not stupid."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I've been on patrol with Diamondback and Dave's not wrong," Penelope said. "We've responded to some cases of arson, but I've only dealt with a single violent crime in two weeks. I'm sure a part of it is that the Protectorate leaves us the safe routes, but still. It's been remarkably quiet."

"Same for me with Wildshot," David added. "We broke up two street fights, but one of them was just a pair of drunks, no affiliation at all."

"That's… good, right?" Raquel said tentatively.

"I sure hope so, Raquel."

I poured the last of this week's quota into its vial and leaned back in my chair. The dehydrator rang just in time, making me smile with hope. Pulling out the tray, I poked the goopy pink puddle.

"Not long enough," I muttered and shoved the tray back in. "Let's see if another overnight will dry it out completely."

This was my pet project, my first attempt at something original. If I could make magic potions, there was nothing to say I couldn't make magic pills. After all, pills were just medicine in powder form. I was hoping that if I could dehydrate the Oracle's Elixir completely, I could scrape it off, grind it down into a fine powder, and then stuff it inside a gelatin casing. The pills would be both easier to carry and less likely to break or spill in a fight. It would also make long-term storage more viable. The vials weren't overly large or anything, but they quickly added up. If this worked, I planned to make all my potions into pill form so my teammates could pop them like Tic Tacs.

It'd take a while longer though. I'd already ruined a tray when my first dehydrated mess stuck to the tray and couldn't be scraped off at all. This time, I'd layered a sheet of rice paper underneath so I could just remove the rice paper and grind it up alongside the dried elixir.

2000, June 7: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The day after found me at my first official PR event, discounting my debut of course. I was once again left impressed by how much thought went into planning an event like this. It was Wednesday and even that was chosen with the goal in mind. It was a fact that most PR events were held during the weekend so as to draw as big a crowd as possible. My first event was midweek specifically so that wouldn't happen.

Following my debut and the news that I was being sued, I'd quickly built a reputation as a serious, determined boy who just wanted to make potions and help people and wasn't afraid to go against my bosses. I looked genuine in other words, and that meant attending obviously scripted events should be done in moderation.

'Did Contessa plan the lawsuit so it'd help my image?' I wondered. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. There was no use in trying to guess at her special brand of bullsh*t. Even if she did, it was certain to bite me in the ass if I dove down that rabbit hole.

So what was my first event? How could they make a cape's appearance look "real" if I wasn't allowed to be at the hospital? Simple. They planned a playdate.

"Ready to go, guys?" Stingray called.

"Joy." I could see Hat Trick rolling her eyes even through her mask.

Ranchero grinned and put an arm around both girls. "Cheer up, Hats. It's free food on the boss' dime."

The five of us started walking down the street towards El Jefe's, a popular Mexican restaurant seven blocks away from HQ. It was chosen because it was conceivably within walking distance, popular, and was the least disagreeable choice among the team. Basically, Ms. Youngston approached Stingray and told her to treat ourselves and make it look natural, humanize the heroes. I suspected she wanted to make me a known quantity for the coming smear campaigns. Of course, this wasn't just about me. This was also Ms. Youngston's way of taking the elder Wards away from the more conflict-prone patrol routes, at least for a night.

"Yeah, Hat Trick, I thought you liked Tex-Mex."

"I like mi abuela's food, not what gringos call Mexican food."

"Don't mind her, Sting. She's a food snob," Masked Bandit sniffed. "Her abuela does make amazing tamales though."

"I'm not a food snob. You just have no respect for your heritage, chica."

"I do too! So what if I mix ketchup with my hot sauce?"

"Blasphemy, that's what."

"Ladies, can't we all get along?" Ranchero tried to play peacekeeper. "Isn't one burrito as good as another?"

Both girls turned to him, judgment in their eyes. "Absolutely not," they echoed each other.

"Maybe us white kids should stay out of this," our illustrious leader said with a laugh.

I tuned out their friendly bickering in favor of looking over the people. We were just walking down the street and people still insisted on snapping pictures. With the Oracle's Elixir active, I was aware of absolutely everything around me: every eye, every camera, and every pointed finger. It was an unnerving feeling. During my debut, I was largely sheltered from it through the knowledge that it was a stage. The stares were expected then. Here, I was "in the wild" and I'd be lying if I said the attention wasn't getting to me a little.

"Relax, tune it out," Stingray said. She'd stalled so she could walk in step with me. "It's always weird for the first time."

"Oracle's," I explained. "I see everything and I can't not see everything."

"Ouch. Yeah, that sounds bad."

Just then, I noticed, felt as much as saw, a phone land in Masked Bandit's kangaroo-like pouch. I gave her onesie costume a small tug. "Pocket. Phone."

"Oh, thanks!" she beamed at me and fished the expensive looking phone out of her pocket. She held it in the air. "Hello! Anyone? Does this belong to anyone?"

The way she waved that phone in the air drew all the attention to herself. She even nailed the apologetic smile and skipped over to the person who'd lost the phone.

"The Masked Bandit strikes again," someone in the crowd whispered.

"Seriously, she's adorable."

"Yeah, I can't be mad at that."

The person she'd taken the phone form, a college student it looked like, smiled as he shook her fuzzy paw gloves. "No worries, Bandit."

"Thank you, and I'm really sorry," she said again, bowing at the waist. As she skipped back, she shot me a knowing wink.

"Did she do that on purpose?" I whispered to Stingray.

"Maybe? Once you get past the cutesy act she puts on for PR, she's surprisingly perceptive. She probably didn't want you to feel too singled out because you're the new Ward."

The rest of our trip to El Jefe's went without incident. It was clear from the reactions of the public that Masked Bandit was bar none the crowd favorite. Ranchero, Stingray, and Hat Trick all had their fans, especially when Ranchero decided to summon a hardlight bull and ride it for a block, but the sheer enthusiasm, feigned or not, on her part made her overwhelmingly popular. People seemed to take it as a badge of pride to have something stolen by her.

We were seated in the corner booth and a waitress came by with five glasses of water and menus. I frowned as I looked down at the cheap coloring book. "¡La fiesta esta ahora!" it read. A cheeseburger with a smiley face burned onto the bun stared up at me. There was a little maze in the shape of a sombrero on the next page.

"Let me see that menu when you're done, Hats," I said, shoving the coloring book away with disgust.

"Ey, someone spent a lot of time designing that." I could hear the mirth just dripping from her tone.

Ranchero slid his menu over to me. "Here, Rubedo. I know what I want already. They have a great chimichanga and I'm feeling the queso dip today."

I nodded in thanks as a little girl came over to take a picture with Masked Bandit.

"You sure are popular," I said as I browsed the menu.

"Jealous?" she replied teasingly. The raccoon hood really made her mischievous side stand out. "You'll get your share of fans soon enough."

"Yeah, don't worry 'bout it. Hat Trick's really popular with the performing arts crowds, I have my whole cowboy shtick, and Stingray's actually competed in exhibition matches for boxing and stuff." Ranchero said. "We all have a niche. PR's pretty devious like that."

"Not looking forward to having a fanbase honestly. It seems like it'd be troublesome. Should we be talking about PR like this though? This is still technically a PR function."

"It's fine. This booth is far enough away to avoid being overheard. It's why we always eat at this spot," Stingray chimed in.

"Alright then, what's good here?"

"Ooh! Can I order for him?"

"Bandit," Stingray chided tiredly. "Not everyone likes spicy food."

"But la muerte is tradition," she whined.

"She's right you know," Ranchero said with a sh*t-eating grin.

"What is it?" I asked. "I don't see it on the menu."

"Secret menu. Habanero and Sonora arcana pepper blended into a mole sauce poured over two enchiladas stuffed with spicy, slow-roasted pork. It's actually really good in small doses."

"Okay, so why is it called 'the dead?'"

He shrugged. "No idea. It is a lot of habanero though."

"I'll take it."

"Yes!" Masked Bandit pumped her fist.

"You like spicy food?"

"I'm Korean, so yes."

"Oh, right, don't you guys eat spicy cabbages?"

I nodded. "Kimchi. And yes. It's fermented vegetables. Cabbages are the most common, but you can make kimchi out of turnips, cucumbers, and a few other stuff. And it's not always spicy."

Ranchero scrunched up his nose. "Not gonna lie, fermented cabbage sounds weird."

"Sauerkraut is basically that. Pickles are fermented cucumbers. A lot of cultures have them," I pointed out.

"True. Not a fan of pickles either."

When my order came, the waitress placed a steaming plate of two enchiladas completely smothered in a spicy mole. Three lumps of pico de gallo, guacamole, and sour cream jutted out like islands in a pool of lava. Seeing how the PRT was paying, I also grabbed myself a glass of horchata, a sweet rice and cinnamon drink.

"Have you ever had horchata before, Rubedo?" Hat Trick asked. "Didn't expect you to know it."

"Yeah, it's good. It reminds me of a Korean rice drink called sikhye. The cinnamon is definitely a nice touch. What'd you get?" I asked as I put a bite of enchilada in my mouth. It was almost bitter from the unsweetened chocolate and I got a nice hit of spice that coated the tongue. Perfect.

"Tacos. Carnitas, al pastor, and carne asada. Want one?" She gestured to her plate.

"Sure, trade you a bite of pastor for some enchiladas?"

"Deal."

As we traded food, Ranchero grumbled. "How do you eat that? It's too spicy."

"Because you're white," the two Latinas and I chorused as one. A moment of ethnic solidarity was had.

"Sting, they're ganging up on me," he whined with an exaggerated pout.

"There, there, cowboy." She rolled her eyes but couldn't fully suppress a smile. "Just enjoy your fried affront to cooking."

"Hey, chimichangas are great!"

"I don't understand how you never gain weight."

"What can I say? Punching bad guys really works up a sweat."

"We don't punch bad guys though," I pointed out. "We're Wards."

"You don't punch bad guys. The rest of us have all had fights. Not anything crazy dangerous, but we do handle some of the smaller stuff."

As we were talking, I felt the Oracle's Elixir wear off, darkness encroaching at the edges of my senses. I fumbled with the waterskin attached to my belt, still not used to the costume, and brought it to my lips. The by now familiar taste flooded my mouth, overwhelming the heat of the mole. A moment later, my world expanded again.

Bandit noticed and asked. "How often do you need to do that?"

"Hour and a half. My potions last longer when I'm the one using them."

"Wait, how does that work?"

"Dunno, guess they're tailor-made for me or something," I shrugged.

"Any of you want dessert?" Stingray asked. "Now's the time to pig out you know, while we're not paying for our own dinner."

Bandit scrunched her nose in protest. "I wish. I'm going to be paying for this tomorrow in gymnastics as it is."

Ranchero and I ordered fried ice cream and Hat Trick grabbed a slice of cheesecake. When the food came, Stingray took several bites of her boyfriend's dessert, much to his consternation. Hat Trick rolled her eyes with poorly hidden annoyance and I resolved once again to stay away from that awkward love triangle.

I turned my attention back to my own ice cream and cracked the fried exterior with a spoon. I raised it to my lips and took a bite, only to hit solid steel.

"Thanks, this stuff is pretty good," Bandit said with a cheeky grin. A fried corn chip, dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon instead of salt, disappeared from my bowl.

"I thought you didn't want one?" I grouched.

"I'm weak, what can I say?"

"Thief."

"Brat."

"Midget."

"Drug dealer."

"Trash panda."

"You didn't!" she gasped.

The two of us glared at each other for several seconds before we burst into laughter. I took a bite then pushed the bowl in her direction. For a single evening, we forgot about the city at large and became children again.

Author's Note

I speak very rudimentary Spanish. I had a teacher who insisted on calling himself el Jefe, which is the only reason I know what that means. I figured it'd be a nice, inoffensive name for a Mexican place. And yes, I do mix ketchup with my Tabasco. Fight me.

Chapter 12: 2.4 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.4

2000, June 13: Phoenix, AZ, USA

About a week later, I leaned back in my lab chair and read over the email Director Lyons sent me.

Rubedo,

Your power-limiting cuffs have been approved. We were both mistaken. According to Deputy Director Irish, the Petrified Forest National Park protects only twenty percent of all petrified wood in the state. The rest are held by the Navajo Nation and various private entities. A company known as Xanterra procures petrified wood from external sources and sells them in the park's gift shop.

Deputy Director Irish has taken it upon himself to contact a company representative and has acquired a ten pound sample for your use. It is available in your mailbox. If your "Petricite" works as intended, we'll see about acquiring more.

Amelia Lyons

Director of the PRT

1 (603) 413-4124

prt_

I grinned and made a mad dash to my mailbox. Sure enough, nestled in a cardboard box was a piece of fossilized tree. No, it didn't matter what type it was specifically. The petrified wood was surprisingly colorful, a mix of the expected grays along with reds, blues, and even some purple hues mixed in.

"That's quite the paperweight you got there," David said behind me.

I handed it to him for him to examine. "Hey, David. It's pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, what's with the fancy crystal?"

"It's a piece of fossilized tree. You know, like from the Petrified Forest National Park. And yeah, it's a crystal. Fossilized trees turn into quartz, which is why it breaks so cleanly into reflective surfaces like this."

"Uh huh… and you're getting that in the mail because?"

"It's a tinkering ingredient. Magic tree powder."

"Right… Alright, little dude. You have fun."

David walked off, muttering something about wacky tinkers and mad science.

I locked the door to my lab and placed the fossil in my hands. I looked in my crystal drawer and found it mostly empty. I'd just finished making some potions after all. Most of my reserves were at home. I sat down on the floor with my legs crossed and waited for my thoughts to quiet. I allowed my breath to still and sank into the now familiar meditation. As always, the comforting warmth of mana welled up from within my soul, a little more eagerly than it had yesterday. Bit by bit, I was growing stronger.

Instead of condensing the mana into a crystal, I poured it directly into the fossil. It didn't sink in immediately, almost as though it was resisting my efforts. No that wasn't quite right. It felt firm yet porous, like a hill of sandstone I had to slowly erode into shape.

One crystal's worth. Then two. Then five. It took me almost a full hour to infuse the fossil with mana and convert it into a Petricite ingot. I made note of the rate of conversion, about one Mana Crystal per two pounds of wood. Unlike before, no new memories filled me. Petricite wasn't a material made by man; it was a byproduct of the Rune Wars. Strictly speaking, petricite trees could grow, much like any other tree, albeit very slowly. By Garen's time, they were seeing a noticeable drop in available trees.

I got the impression that if I managed to find a fossilized seed, maybe a prehistoric acorn or pine cone or something, I could turn it into a living petricite seed, introducing a brand new species into the world.

I stared at the lump of ash-white wood in my hand. "Now what to do with you…"

I ended up filling out a few more procurement forms for a water jet cutter to shape the petricite, along with a crucible, furnace, drop hammer, lathe, and other things I'd need for my new forge. Oh, and ten pounds of steel, ash, and lime. Petricite wood wasn't by itself all that useful. It was hard, but brittle, and stone wasn't exactly great for armor. On its own, Petricite could be used to build walls and fortifications, but even those would be relatively weak compared to plain old brick. It needed to be powdered and mixed into other materials to make the walls that surrounded Demacia and armor that the Dauntless Vanguard used.

'Heh, bet they thought an alchemical tinker would be relatively cheap to provide for,' I thought, amused.

2000, June 14: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The day after saw me taking a break from my lab. The whole team was gathered in an underground testing facility with a representative of the eggheads. Really, it was just an old parking space that had yet to be remodeled by the time the PRT moved in. They took one look at the empty lot, shrugged, and decided to let the capes have it.

"Hello everyone, my name is Dr. William Marshall and I am the head physician here. I was told that you were here to get accustomed to the Elixir of Iron."

The man was tall and broad, not at all like one would expect of a stereotypical doctor or scientist. He was built like a brick sh*thouse with some extra muscles stapled on top for good measure. A thick but well-groomed beard framed his jawline and a thin scar ran along his right cheek. His brown hair was kept short at the sides, with a few extra inches up top that was gelled into a sleek finish.

"Yes, sir," I said with a bow. "After that, I also have something else I'd like to try."

I'd brought my Petricite along. I still had no way to carve it in any meaningful way, but I figured that we could at least test how it interacted with cape powers.

"Good. We'll start with the elixir first before moving on to whatever you've got planned, Rubedo. That way we're not holding up the rest of you."

I grinned and handed them out. "Bottoms up, everyone."

Five bottles were emptied in rapid succession, grimaces all around.

"I take it that it's not pleasant?" the doctor chuckled.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Tastes like rust blended into a smoothie. Chalky and really metallic." Ranchero said, holding back a hurl.

"Seriously, what's in that?"

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. Besides, it should take effect right about now." Sure enough we started to grow, twenty percent for them, thirty for me. I grinned and placed a hand on Bandit's head, giving her hood a good tussle. "Heh. I'm taller than you now."

"This is so not fair," she pouted. She was only three inches taller than me normally, so after the elixir, I was a tad taller than her.

"My potions work better for me than for anyone else. Better effects, lasts longer, the whole shebang." 'Thank you Time Warp Tonic.'

"Nice, so we're super durable now, right?" Stingray asked, eyeing her new gunmetal sheen appreciatively.

"Right."

She walked up to a heavy bag attached to a pressure sensor and took a boxer's stance. She bobbed and weaved under imaginary punches before stepping forward to put her weight into a single, textbook-perfect jab. The fluid motion from standing to striking caught me off guard. With Oracle's I could see and feel every motion she took, every contour of her body and costume as she transitioned into her punch. I wasn't expecting that kind of grace from an amateur boxer.

'I wonder if her power has anything to do with it?' I thought. 'Her power extends the distance of her thrusts and gives them a piercing effect. Does it also subconsciously make her better at thrusting attacks in general?'

The heavy bag shook with the impact, the chains that held it up rattling.

She stepped back and took another stance. "Not bad. What was that, doc?"

"1,822 psi. That's a bit north of a punch from your average heavyweight boxer. How serious were you?"

"Ehh, not very? I just wanted to get the hang of it. Bigger me's got two left feet. Now for the serious punch."

"No, wait. Come here and wear some sensors. I want to make sure intense activity won't affect you adversely while on the potion."

"Yes, sir."

After she got kitted out in a myriad of sensory equipment, she faced the heavy bag again. "Okay. Powers or no powers?"

"Hard as you can, but no powers. Give me a baseline."

"Yes, sir."

She took a step back. In the next moment, she lunged forward, striking with all her newfound metallic weight. "HA!" she shouted as her fist met the bag. A loud bang echoed her voice.

"3,677 psi. Well above a normal athlete. For the record, a 2,000 psi punch would make a normal athlete a boxing legend. This is also quite a bit higher than your unenhanced max at 2125 psi."

"Awesome! Now with powers?" She seemed practically giddy.

"Yes, but move to the other machine," the doctor said, gesturing to a machine that looked like something out of a punching game. It was padded, but the texture of the surface material seemed to be Kevlar, or maybe some different weave. The target was attached to thick coils of metal shaped like springs, which in turn fed into a machine to better measure the impact. "This baby was designed by Percussive, a kinetics-tinker out in Boise. It's completely mundane, thank God, but it's more durable than anything we knew how to build beforehand."

"Sweet! Alright, here I go!"

As Stingray boxed the air and hopped around, I turned to the others. "Is she always this… happy?"

"Haha, yeah, when it comes to boxing anyway," Ranchero spoke fondly. "She's definitely the best fighter in the Wards, better than a lot of people in the Protectorate, honestly, at least when it comes to pure hand to hand. A big part of that is because of how much she loves boxing."

"Yeah, passion is what carries you far," Hat Trick said. "I think it's a bit much sometimes, but damn. Gotta respect that, you know, squirt?"

"Huh. So, even if you dress up as a boxer or wear one of those helmets used in karate competitions, you'd lose?"

"No," she said, a little too quickly.

"Yes," my other two teammates said at the same time.

"Maybe. She's really good, alright?"

"Respect."

"Respect," they echoed.

Stingray decided that she'd had enough fun shadow boxing and pulled her arms in like a coiled viper.

"Stingray Straight!" she shouted.

The punch was a bit different. Like before, I could feel her kick off the ground with her back foot and step into a perfect jab. The force of her kick twisted around her hips and her shoulder into her bicep. As her arm snapped forward, she added a twisting motion with her wrist that made her punch curl through the air like a drill.

The impact pad didn't stand a chance. The machine behind it was mostly fine, if a bit dinged up. The springs would need to be checked over and the frame looked like it had scrunched up a bit. The pad? The hole was so clean that it looked like someone had taken a laser and carved through it.

"How was that, doc?"

"12,938 psi," Dr. Marshall said with a low whistle. "Or, that's as much as the machine was able to clock without breaking. We'd need to bring in specialized tinkertech to measure you fully, but that's for another day. And I see no abnormal changes to your heartbeat, blood pressure, or anything else of note either. I think the elixir is fine to use. Just in case, we'll look at the rest of the team."

The rest of their hour was spent in the ring, one by one getting their asses handed to them by the metallized Stingray. The only reason they didn't suffer any broken bones was because they were also similarly metallized. As for me, I simply did some calisthenics and ran a mile as per the doctor's orders. Eight was a bit young to box with someone like her. Using the sensors hooked up to them, the doctor was also able to gauge how much force they could withstand under the influence of the elixirs. When the elixir wore off, we gathered in front of the doctor again.

"Alright, nothing major's come up. I'm approving an elixir for each of you as a holdout weapon." His face became stern. "And I do mean it. The elixir is a weapon. Against a normal person, it may as well be power armor. You're immune to small arms and even Masked Bandit has enough power behind her hits to crush cement. Do not use it unless absolutely necessary. Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir," we all chorused.

I then ran over to the bag I'd brought, the one with the Petricite. I pulled it out of the box, making sure to not touch the rock directly. "This here is Petricite, and I think it can inhibit powers."

"Excuse me?" the doctor looked at me skeptically. "Are you certain?"

I wriggled my hand back and forth. "Ehh… maybe? It's the most mysterious of everything I've made so far for sure. If I'm right, it should prevent any cape touching it from using their powers."

"Is this the thing that you think might regulate my powers?" Masked Bandit asked.

"Yeah. Anyone want to be first?"

"I got this," Ranchero said, wrapping an arm around Bandit's raccoon onesie and tousling her hood. He touched the pale, white stone. "Huh, it just… feels like a rock?"

"That's because it is. It's kind of in the name 'Petricite.'"

"So what do I do now?"

"Try to use your power. Call a bull."

He furrowed his brows in concentration. Then, an eyebrow rose in curiosity. "Huh… I… can't?"

"Wait, really?" Stingray took the ten pound rock from her boyfriend and removed a glove. "I don't feel any weaker."

"I was right then," I nodded. "I have a hypothesis. Petricite will prevent outward expressions of powers. Projections, shaker effects, lasers, shields, etc. It will not prevent internal changes that have already taken place, not unless you swallow some of it. It can't suppress a brute like Stingray, but projections are fair game."

"Could I have a sample, Rubedo? There's quite a bit to test."

"I've put in several procurement forms for a metalworking forge setup in my lab. I don't really have a way to cut this into manageable chunks until my water jet gets approved." I gestured to Masked Bandit. "If this works for her, I was thinking I'd take a sliver maybe and carve it into a bracelet or something. Too small and it'll only dampen powers."

The raccoon-themed heroine tentatively placed a hand onto the stone. "I… I can't steal Sting's glove. It works!" The next second, I was nearly bowled over by the girl. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou."

"You're welcome," I said as I awkwardly patted her back. 'The whole accidental kleptomania thing must have been bothering her more than she let on.'

Wards Team One retired back to our common room soon after. I left the chunk of Petricite with the good doctor; he promised to put a bit of pressure on the director to get me what I needed.

Author's Note

Leave the phone number alone or you're going on the naughty list. It doesn't belong to anyone.

Xanterra is indeed the name of the company that sells petrified wood in real life. It's also true that the Petrified Forest National Park only holds twenty percent of all such wood. It just happens to be the most localized concentration thanks to a riverbed. Something something sediment. Something something geology. Something something too smart for me.

Chapter 13: 2.4.5 Heather Suzuki - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 2.4.5: Heather Suzuki

2000, June 13: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I allowed myself a tired sigh. Even with the eldest Wards' assistance, trying to keep a lid on a gang war while simultaneously eyeing a third major gang was not easy. People dismissed the Westside Crips. Hell, even Royalle, that overpowered arrogant jackass, tended to brush them off as a bunch of has-beens who got beaten senseless by Alexandria.

Admittedly, they were.

But people conveniently forgot that at one point, the Crips genuinely, unironically looked at a woman who could wrestle Behemoth and thought, "Yeah, we can win this." They weren't insane, most of them at any rate. They were just that dangerous once upon a time. Alexandria strangled Mortician, but Cryptkeeper, Headsman, and La Torcha were still around.

'Thank God only La Torcha moved to Phoenix,' I thought as I walked through the Phoenix headquarters after yet another late night of patrols and stamping out fires. Somewhere along the way, I headed to the canteen and grabbed myself a vaguely coffee-flavored cup of swill and sat in the corner.

'But… what if La Torcha calls them in? She's got a crew of six capes, but that doesn't mean she can't bring in reinforcements. She wasn't just Mortician's squeeze; she was their tactician. Is she quiet because she's afraid Alexandria will fly east and finish her? Or is she waiting for something? She's got the most mooks after all-'

I was startled out of my thoughts by a hand on my shoulder. My hand immediately moved to my sword as the storm within threatened to make itself known.

"Woah, easy, Bushi-babe," Janet, my longtime friend from college and head of PR said as she backed away rapidly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. You were off in your own head again."

"I told you not to call me that," I growled without any real heat. Janet would do as Janet does, always pushing buttons to see how people ticked.

"Still mad you didn't let me name you Bushi Dame," the mousy blonde teased as she sat across from me.

"Shut up. I know you only included that stupid name so I'd accept Oathkeeper. I barely even speak Japanese for f*ck's sake."

"Maybe not, but no one else needs to know that. And, you understand plenty so you can always make your answers short. You'll look very serious and professional then, which works for you. The understanding is the important part, not the speaking."

"You're impossible."

"Besides," she shrugged, "the samurai look totally suits you. Much more dignified than my other mockups. They love you, you know. Your team, the Wards, even the field agents. Almost a decade of service and not one death on your watch. They say it's your personal oath."

"Well they're full of sh*t," I rolled my eyes. "You know there is no oath. I'm just lucky."

"Maybe, but again, the optics matter."

I nodded. Optics mattered, but having a rock to stand on mattered more. I was that rock for so many; Janet was mine.

I could still remember it like it was yesterday. When I… got my powers out in San Francisco, the director there gave me a choice: remain or get assigned elsewhere. I heard my college friend was out here so I moved too. Janet was the island of familiarity I needed to settle, both from my move and… more. I banished the thought in favor of continuing our old spat.

"One mockup was an Ultraman gimmick. Another was a sailor uniform," I growled. "You know, for the head of PR, you're horribly uncreative."

She gasped as a hand flew to her chest. "Blasphemy! You're the one who showed me old Ultraman shows! You used to pretend you were the 'Warrior of Light' or something. In college!"

I slumped, resigned but involuntarily amused nonetheless. There was no winning with this one. "What do you want, Jan?"

"Nothing. I just thought I'd check in on my best friend."

"Well I'm fine."

"You're never fine when you say that. When you're fine, you watch your Ultraman collection while eating whatever insult to food you cooked up."

"Hey! My cooking's great," I defended.

"Roast beef, French dip style sandwich. With miso soup instead of au jus." She stared at me flatly.

"It's way better than it sounds," I said mulishly.

"Lovely, so your palate is still disgusting. Good to know."

I suppressed the urge to slap the mousy midget. She'd die and it'd be awfully inconvenient finding a new bestie. "Are you here just to make fun of me?"

Her mocking smirk softened. "I told you, I'm here to check up on you. What's up?"

"Nothing. Patrols are fine. Agent Johnson got shot a few days back but Rubedo's healing potion patched him right up again. Agent Steinhart had a run-in with Stampede, but another potion was able to stabilize him long enough to drag him to the surgeons."

"That's good, right? So what's the problem? Wonderboy's stuff really works."

"The problem," I sighed, "is that they're too quiet. A few days to plan? Sure, we expected that. Civil war among the Peckerwoods? Predictable. But weeks? Villains aren't this easygoing. It's not just the Crips. Both the SSM and Peckerwood capes have stuck to small-scale fights, most of them without powers."

"And… that's bad?"

"It just makes me nervous. We've had a lot more street fights, driveby shootings, arsons, even a few homicides here and there, but almost nothing from the capes themselves. Jan, the Peckerwoods' gang leader died. They're supposed to show how macho they are and how they're not to be f*cked with by escalating, not keeping their heads down."

"Hey," she said, placing a hand on mine from across the table. "Don't think too hard. You know you have a habit of worrying too much. Maybe we should just accept the gift horse without taking it to the dentist."

'I can't do that, not when there are lives riding on my judgment,' I thought glumly. The storm within pressed against me, a dull rumble reminding me that it's always on the horizon. Still, I did my best to give her a comforting squeeze back. "Thanks, Jan."

2000, June 14: Phoenix, AZ, USA

'I should have called a dentist,' I thought sardonically, thinking back to the conversation yesterday.

Calavera and four Southside Mesa grunts had been in the process of setting fire to Sunshine Auto Wash, a suspected Peckerwood front. Already, the building was on fire from an ignited propane tank and Bull Rush, a Peckerwood cape, lay strewn about the lot like a macabre postmodern art piece. Bits of him were charred black and the smell of offal made me want to gag but I held it in.

Gyroscope and I had responded with six PRT agents, though only myself and three agents had Elixirs of Iron in our pockets. Seeing the high-ranked blaster, we immediately drank our elixirs while the others fell back a ways and took up flanking positions. Despite their usefulness, not everyone had access to the potions yet. Rubedo's production rate couldn't keep up with demand and there was a not unreasonable fear that some might go "missing" if we were careless.

Gyroscope backed off even further, taking to the air on his hoverpack and alighting on a stoplight. He pushed something on his wrist and the capsules attached to his costume whirred to life, taking to the air like a swarm of hornets. He was a reliable partner, a tinker who specialized in his namesake. With incredibly advanced gyroscopes that "balanced things in multiple higher dimensions," he made drones that could be deployed with any number of cumbersome gadgets stored in folded space. The rest of his tech was comparatively mundane, but when a drone smaller than a baseball could carry a shield of reinforced metal more commonly found on armored vehicles, "mundane" served just fine.

I dashed towards her as I saw a dozen skulls the size of basketballs merge into one the size of a dumpster. "Surrender, Cal-"

I didn't even get to finish the obligatory greeting before she chucked her blazing skull at me. I wasn't upset. If anything, this was cathartic. The capes had been dancing around each other for weeks now and there was a sense of liberation at finally letting the storm out.

Oathkeeper, Janet called me, the stalwart warrior in the eye of the storm. Come what may, I would stand tall, a sword to protect. I would face the storm in the name of duty and justice.

All utter bullsh*t. The public saw the miniature hurricane that surrounded me and liked to imagine that it was my tightly controlled wrath, righteous anger at all the wrongs in this city. Me? It was every moment of anxiety and stress, every thought of paranoia and fear that I couldn't put to words finally roaring out into the world. This, this was how I de-stressed.

The winds that had built up for weeks now sought freedom and they could not be denied. The storm became my shroud, launching me forward with all the fury of a tornado. It surrounded my nodachi, and holy sh*t was learning kendo just for the costume a pain in the ass. Even years later, I was an adept, but not a master by any stretch, not that I usually needed to be.

My sword met Calavera's attack. Practically anyone else would have been consumed in an explosion that could blow entire houses to rubble. Me? The storm roared and met the challenge, a chorus of four winds blasting the explosion aside in a textbook parry as though condensed fire and force was no more threatening than a bamboo shinai.

I charged on through, my projected arc set to meet the arsonist's face with the pommel of my nodachi. Bullets from the four SSM soldiers ricocheted off of my wind armor, doing jack all. I saw one go down and the rest scatter after my own men returned fire. Live rounds, keeping perps alive wasn't worth risking my own men, not when they started lethal.

She danced behind a tree. It turned to so much kindling before my sword fully touched it, the raging winds more than enough to rip it apart.

I let the wind around my sword uncoil. It ruptured the very air around us as it did everything else, arcing out in a horizontal strike that could cleave train cars in half. She dropped to the ground and rolled, letting the attack fly harmlessly above her, but she wasn't immune to the sonic boom like I was. She let out a shriek of pain she couldn't hear even as she retaliated.

My storm gone for the moment, I had to block Calavera's retaliatory fireball with my scabbard. It exploded into wooden shrapnel, the impact throwing the two of us apart.

I skid along the ground as I willed the storm anew. It built up slowly, the wind picking up around me and lightening my footsteps but providing less defense than it had before.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

My opponent didn't let that go to waste, launching dozens of skulls after me. The explosion that destroyed my scabbard also marked me in their sights. Every skull homed in on me, becoming a guided missile to anything that had been struck by them before. I ducked one and cut apart a second, letting myself be carried away by wind and force.

I didn't have to defend myself for long. Gyroscope's drones did a flyover, nine of them carrying oversized metal plates that wouldn't be out of place on an M1 Abrams. His specialization allowed them to balance and orient perfectly, each forming a shield wall in front of me like my own portable Roman legion.

I took the moment to flip through the air, landing behind a large delivery truck, right between two SSM gangb*ngers.

"¡Qué mierda!" they yelled. I rolled my eyes and flexed, allowing the gale to pick them up and bodily throw them from cover.

A flaming skull that had been following me struck one, diverting all other skulls in the near vicinity. A series of smaller explosions and screams followed. I felt a pang of guilt at that; he definitely wouldn't survive his boss' attention.

'Later, Heather,' I scolded myself. 'You're Oathkeeper. Act like it.'

With that, the storm howled full force and I encircled it around my sword once more. Calavera hadn't been idle. She called up every fireball she had, combining each skull like before. But before we could clash, a barrage of gunfire finished off the second SSM soldier I'd thrown out of cover. The three elixir-fed agents turned on a dime to defend their unpowered comrades, but one was too slow and a flanking agent took a bullet. Another unpowered agent rushed to drag him off the lot and behind our armored van.

We both turned to a group of eight men and two women marching towards us, two capes at their helm. The Peckerwoods had apparently decided to stop hiding, showing up in force. This wasn't all of them, but it was half their capes and probably a quarter of their grunts.

'Lockjaw and Stampede,' I thought. I recognized them from an earlier briefing. Halloween's death had resulted in quite a bit of internal chaos from what little the PRT could glean. It surprised me to see the two willing to work with one another.

"Boss?" Gyroscope's voice came over the comms. "What's our plan?"

"Get the injured out of there," I shouted. I landed between the capes and my men, a whirlwind shoving them apart. I grunted into the mic. "SSM inbound?"

"None I can find."

Lockjaw was already transformed; he was a changer who turned into a rock monster with an excessively large jaw. Two protruding tusks extended from his lower jaw, pointing upwards and outwards like wicked daggers. He knelt and took a large bite of the asphalt. It audibly crunched and molded into a cannonball.

Stampede, a co*cksure man with blonde hair and blue eyes, dipped into a mocking bow. "Oathkeeper! Gyroscope! I'm glad the heroes were so quick to defend the right sort," he said, "but I'm quite sure me and the boys have got things handled. Do you mind?" I hated how handsome he looked in his pressed, wine-red shirt with bull horns encircling his shoulders. Despite having a straightforward power, he made it work through raw eloquence and charisma. Hell, even Janet thought he'd make a good hero, if he wasn't a f*cking scumbag.

"You're insane if you think we're leaving without Calavera," I bit back.

"We could let them fight it out," James Leeson, the PRT agent on console, spoke up. He'd remained silent during combat, but chose to chime in now. "If we withdraw, they'd just wipe themselves out. Calavera's strong, but I don't think she can beat both at the same time."

"Absolutely not," I answered them both. "Leaving is permission, telling the gangs that we're letting them escalate their little war without government involvement. That's not how things work, agent."

Leaving would mean condoning whatever happened here. It would mean a return to the Protectorate capes sitting on our asses as gang leaders did whatever the f*ck they wanted with my city. It'd mean bottling the storm again, always at the ready but with no outlet to vent. I couldn't stand the stifling pressure again. I wouldn't.

I adjusted the storm-clad sword in my hands. "Gyroscope, contain the Peckerwoods for a bit. I'm going to take out Calavera."

"Yes, boss," came the reply. The three powered agents made ready, my answer to Stampede obvious.

The man shrugged as if he had no care in the world. "Pity. I thought Japs were smarter than spics."

Lockjaw took that as the signal to fire on one of my agents, the ball of asphalt launching with the force of a cannonball. The agent, an Agent Tyson if I remembered right, grunted in pain as the makeshift cannonball punched straight through the bulletproof riot shield and dented his steel-like arm. The tough son of a bitch swallowed the pain and rushed forward anyway with his police baton. On the enlarged agent, it looked more like a toy cricket bat, but the Peckerwoods scattered anyway, well-accustomed to the dangers of an irate brute.

The rest of my men provided support as Gyroscope's drones descended to corral the new arrivals.

Calavera, with her one remaining unpowered soldier, had been backing off, mayhem caused, mission accomplished. I couldn't let her get away so I leapt like a bat out of hell and let the storm carry me towards her. She'd been combining skulls by the second while we talked and the biggest fireball of the evening launched towards my face.

I had no choice but to focus the storm into my sword, uncoiling in a violent display of destruction. The air cracked and ruptured in a furious spiral. It wasn't enough. She was a blaster-seven, someone with enough power to mimic tactical missiles given enough time. We'd stupidly given her that time.

The explosion ripped through my lamellar armor, shattering plates and punching me with the force of a warhead. I made a note to thank Rubedo even as I was launched backwards. My sword dispersed much of the blast, but even the residual was enough to leave massive scorch marks on concrete and liquefy the asphalt.

Her final SSM soldier fared no better. She'd shoved him out of the way in a token attempt to protect him, but that was too little too late. Being closer to Calavera than me, he took the explosion as it was, a torrential downpour of fire and force.

Calavera herself was launched in a beautiful arc, her costume smoking. She rolled and I saw her arm bent the wrong way. She shrieked something in Spanish, probably not for polite company. I mourned the Manton Limit; that arbitrary bullsh*t had allowed her to survive her own explosion, only injuring her arm as she collided with the ground.

My own downward strike had been deflected by Calavera's flaming skull, tearing a massive gouge through the parking lot but missing her with the direct edge.

With the storm building again, I was forced to dodge her explosions even as she made a fighting retreat. Gyroscope's drones fell around me into a defensive formation, giving me time to take stock of the situation.

I saw two blooming clouds of tear gas, probably fired by the last remaining unpowered agent. Four men were disabled, left retching on the ground. Lockjaw was immune to gas-based attacks while in his rock-monster form and Stampede had simply run out of the gas with ease.

Stampede charged, that co*cky smirk still on his face, and ran over one of the agents. The elixir was not enough. Steel skin sounds great, but against a brute known for running through vault doors, it meant little. The villain had enough sense of mind to not rip his opponent in half and for that, I promised to not shove a tornado up his ass. Even so, the agent whose name I couldn't remember was blasted back with a sickening snap. Steel skin did not mean bones couldn't break.

Agent Tyson, that crazy bastard, had made his way into the cloud of tear gas and was hammering away at the men, utterly ignoring the snot running down his own face. That'd probably get him a disciplinary hearing in the future, but I had bigger concerns at the moment.

"Gyroscope, take out the rest," I barked into my comms.

"Yes, boss," he said. His drones rammed into the six remaining Peckerwood soldiers, bowling them over even as they tried to take potshots on the steel-skinned agents.

I turned to check on my last powered agent and swore. Lockjaw had given up on ranged combat and leapt straight at the seven feet tall man. The villain's jaws unhinged with an ominous crack and pointed tusks closed on the agent's right shoulder. His jaws were so large that they covered a good portion of the upper torso. I heard the whine of tortured metal and the scream of the dying man.

I'd never had a man die under my command. I knew I wasn't some miracle-worker, just very lucky. Still, I saw red and Calavera became a distant afterthought. The winds surged around me in response. Street signs and lights tore themselves from rest. Trees were uprooted and flung about. I screamed and the storm screamed with me.

"LOCKJAW!"

I sprinted forward and swung at the beast made of stone. It was crude, a heavy baseball swing rather than the refined and precise cut of kendo. In the moment, I wouldn't have had it any other way. The gale that blew from my sword was a wild, untamed thing. It would have cleaved him in half, had Stampede not dashed out between us.

I knew Stampede's power to be one that ignored kinetic force while he was running. It was a deceptively simple power that made him all but unstoppable while in motion, one that made him insufferably arrogant.

"Now, I admit my partner is a tad crude, but there's no need for raised voices, Oathkeeper," he drawled.

The storm had died down but I was in no mood to hear him and rushed forward anyway. I heard Gyroscope and Agent Leeson say something, but I was beyond listening. He ran towards me and aimed a backhand at my helmet, but I stamped the ground and a rush of wind carried me out of reach. I cut downward, but he managed to lunge forward, removing most of my momentum and letting his power counter the rest. My sword skidded off his shoulder as though there was some barrier even as he ran by me.

We traded blows until I was too slow on the dodge and he bowled me over. It was only the cloak of wind that pushed me out of the way of his descending foot. The gale carried me backwards, skidding along the ground until I could roll to my knees, using my sword to balance me.

"Where are you going, Oathkeeper? A Jap belongs beneath my feet," he taunted.

"Breathe, Oathkeeper," Agent Leeson spoke, finally piercing my red haze. "Don't let him get to you."

I slowly got to my feet as the six Peckerwood grunts flanked their powered officers. I breathed in deeply and let it out in a controlled exhale, feeling the storm breathe with me. It did not quell. Instead, it gained momentum with every breath like a bellow feeding the fire. I had no sheath, but held my sword in a textbook iado stance. Not a master; with my power, I didn't need to be.

"Enough. Surrender, Stampede. I won't ask again." Below hearing range, I whispered into my comms. "Targeting Lockjaw. Handle Stampede."

He grinned and began to charge. The world fell away and only Lockjaw and Stampede remained. The shroud flared behind me and I felt like an angel was at my back. "Cut once. Cut clean," my sensei had told me. A nodachi had no business being this fast, but neither did I.

My sword came up in a horizontal draw, parrying Stampede's run with the pommel. I felt the storm disperse a little, but it was enough to redirect his momentum into Gyroscope's drones. The look of realization when he figured out that he wasn't the target would be one I'd cherish.

In the next blink, I was in front of Lockjaw. A stone body was great for defense, not so for quick reaction. In the same stroke I used to parry Stampede, I cut Lockjaw across the chest. The sonic boom from my storm's release shattered his stone body, sending him flying. He crashed into the burning auto wash and did not emerge again.

Agent Tyson had turned to the mooks. Even six on one, the elixir was an overwhelming advantage in the hands of a trained combatant. With no cape support of their own, they went down in short order.

I drew my sword and aimed it cleanly at Stampede. "Now, I believe this is the part where I accept your surrender."

Before I could do anything else to make good on my threat, I screamed as I felt jagged teeth close on my legs. Screams from my men confirmed the same, leaving only Gyroscope. Looking down, I saw steel jaws, with curved teeth that went straight through my armor.

I turned and faced the new arrivals. "Beartrap," I bit out.

"Sorry to cut in like this, chica," the lanky black man said with a carefree shrug. He was leaning next to a car that had pulled up. "If I had my way, I'd let you castrate the f*cking cracker, but eh, boss-lady's rules. Her words, my command."

Next to him, Lawless, Bone Maiden, and Parade stepped out. La Torcha's Crips.

"What's Torcha's game?" I tried. I didn't expect a real answer, but was surprised to see truly clueless shrugs from them all.

Bone Maiden spoke. "Who knows? Seriously? She just told us to come bail out the trailer trash. They're gone now by the way, so our job's done. Show up, make sure the capes live to fight another day, then get out. Easy money."

I glanced around and sure enough, the grunts were still on the ground but both SSM and Peckerwood capes had made themselves scarce. "sh*t," I swore.

"Ta-ta~" she waved as they got back into their car and left.

That was when the cops and news crew arrived. Minutes later, the area was cordoned off and Gyroscope and I stood pretty for the cameras. He lent me his hand while I used my nodachi to balance subtly. Best not to draw attention to my mangled ankles. I tried not to wince too obviously as I recited some bullsh*t fed to me through my comms. All the while, only one thought ran through my mind:

'Just what the hell was La Torcha's game?'

Author's Note

I've decided to mark my interludes as "x.y.5" rather than "x.A" because I might include these in the middle of my arcs again. I'm doing this primarily to show that what Andy sees of cape life is the sugar-coated version. Things are happening behind the scenes and our eight year old MC has a very limited perspective on things.

Oathkeeper's definitely got a conflict drive. Hers isn't about aggression or battlelust. Instead, it's from anxiety and stress, bottled up until she lashes out in a tantrum that literally blows people away. The need to do something . Hope I portrayed that right.

Yes, calling someone a "Jap" is usually a slur, though it depends on the location. In the US, "Jap" was used as short for "Japanese" during the WWII internment camps and so developed a negative connotation. However, in other parts of the world, for example Singapore, a Japanese person might just be called a "Jap" with less malice. Spic should be obvious. Don't call Hispanic people that.

Also note that this is before the advent of Dragon's containment foam. Lacking an option between tasers, rubber bullets, and anything stronger, they default to plain old lead in a firefight. They're effectively using a mix of riot and SWAT gear.

Chapter 14: 2.5 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.5

2000, June 14: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I'd cleaned up after testing and grabbed a bite to-go with Agent Morrison and David before returning home. After a quick shower and an hour of meditation, I set the sixth Mana Crystal down on a basket and turned on the news. It'd been three weeks since Dos Caras killed off Halloween and I had no more clue about the brewing war than any other plebian on the street. The news, as doctored as it undoubtedly was, was still the best way for me to hear anything.

With a frustrated sigh, I took a drink from my Oracle's stockpile and settled down for the late night report:

"And with us, we have our field correspondent, Laura Henderson, to talk about the ongoing spat of gang violence," Jack Thomas, one of the anchors for ABC News, said. "To you, Laura."

The camera switched over to a pretty blonde with a little too much makeup over her face. Behind her were three police cruisers surrounding two car wrecks and an ambulance. EMTs, cops, and two Protectorate heroes had secured the scene. "Thanks, Jack. We're standing on the corner of South Greenfield Road and East Main Street where Sunshine Auto Wash, a suspected front for the Peckerwoods, was hit by an arson attack just minutes ago. Notorious villains Calavera, Stampede, and Lockjaw were seen in heavy combat resulting in the deaths of six gang members and one PRT officer. Thanks to the combined efforts of Oathkeeper, Gyroscope, and six agents, eight gang members were taken into custody.

"This marks the fourth arson in just three weeks. Bull Rush, another member of the Peckerwoods, was pronounced dead on site by the EMTs, bringing the total death toll to a staggering seventy-eight people. Thankfully, no civilians were caught up in this latest attack." The curly blonde turned towards the statuesque woman in samurai armor. "Oathkeeper, a word, please?"

The black-clad warrior's expression was hidden by her half-mask, but the irritation was practically palpable. "Mark my words: Gang members or not, white supremacists or not, this was a tragedy. They didn't die for some noble cause or to protect their own." She pointed angrily at a street lamp that looked rather dented. "See that? They died for that. One meaningless street corner. Everyone they loved. Everything that mattered to them. Gone for that. One. Lamp. This was a tragedy. Gyroscope and I… The Protectorate… We will do all in our power to end this. This I swear," she promised, the very picture of a resolute warrior ready to march. "Now excuse me, I have work to do."

Even the plucky reporter seemed subdued after that. "Thank you, Oathkeeper, for those stirring words. With the death of Bull Rush, the Peckerwoods have been reduced to just four capes. We can only hope that this means we'll soon see an end to the violence. Back to you, Jack."

I leaned in to my mom's side as she wrapped a tired arm around my shoulders. "You don't need to worry about things like this, my son. I'm sure the heroes have it handled."

'If only you knew,' I thought, but couldn't bring myself to pop that bubble of optimism. "They do," I said instead. "Oathkeeper's strong, one of the strongest in the state."

"You're not going out there." A question as much as a statement.

"No, no I'm not. I'm just making potions for everyone else."

"Good."

Even as we sat there, I couldn't help but feel like the silence was the quiet before the storm.

'Is it… Is it already time to stop being the alchemist?'

2000, June 15: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I finally figured out why dehydrating the Oracle's Elixir into pills didn't work. I needed Mana Crystals. To be more specific, I needed an extra Mana Crystal for each potion because something got lost in the dehydration process. Somewhere along the line, the mana that made up the elixir evaporated into the air along with the water and I needed another crystal to stabilize the substance into powder. Or maybe not? Even I wasn't entirely sure about the why. In any case, two crystals in exchange for a far more compact and durable product was… selectively worthwhile.

It wasn't worth it, not for the Oracle's Elixir anyway. I moved on to the Elixir of Iron and health potions. Those would benefit from being miniaturized, but since I was the only one who drank Oracle's, blowing another crystal on each one was unnecessary.

After a productive day at the lab, I was at home, thinking about what I wanted to do with my stockpile of fifty-three crystals. It had dipped a bit when I was forced to build up a stockpile of Elixirs of Iron and health potions, but I'd restocked my reserves during the past few days of meditations. The question was, what did I want to do with so many?

I had no intention of taking them into the PRT. Hell, they didn't even know I had these. As far as Director Lyons knew, I was pushing myself ragged in the lab to churn out a quantity of potions exceeding my standard output. The director was busy with a civil suit and playing politics. The PRT liaisons were busy managing a suddenly far more active Wards team. The Protectorate heroes were busy trying to clamp down on the gang war before it could escalate. This was my chance to build with minimal oversight, to make something that wasn't strictly alchemical, something with a little more… oomph.

As if that idea was all it'd been waiting for, the World Rune leapt like an eager puppy into my focus, shoving ideas upon ideas into the forefront of my mind. Most of them were ideas I'd considered and discarded for one reason or another: too expensive, too obvious, too dangerous, too reliant on another piece of tech, not impactful enough…

One of the best things I could make was a Hex Core, the very same implanted into Viktor like Tony Stark's arc reactor. It was the foundation of virtually everything else in Viktor's arsenal, though it didn't start that way. The transhuman genius made it in several iterations, starting with Blitzcrank. He hadn't intended to make a sentient golem, only to make something that could help clear debris after an accident in Zaun. The golem grew beyond he'd ever expected. Years later, when he abandoned Piltover in favor of his glorious evolution, he remembered the sentient golem and made something that could learn along with him.

The Hex Core wasn't just a battery, but it wasn't entirely honest to call it an AI either. It wasn't sentient, not truly. It could learn, but it was designed specifically to integrate with Viktor himself, and he wasn't insane enough to have another personality piloting his body. The modern miracle could be used to channel incredible amounts of mana to do anything from power cybernetics, fire lasers, calibrate gravitational fields, generate magnetic force fields, or even create ionic storms comparable to any natural tornado, all the while refining its own processes to be more efficient and streamlined.

And yet, for all its promises, I cast it aside. It was one of the greatest, most versatile creations I could make at the moment, but it was too reliant on me building something else to pair with it. I needed a standalone invention, one that could help me protect myself while being discreet. I wanted a holdout weapon.

I opened up my notebook, one I kept specifically for the purpose. It was written in Korean, with sketches and doodles along the edges. This notebook contained many of the ideas I'd considered, the less destructive ones at any rate. I browsed the book with some amusem*nt. The very first thing I scribbled in these pages was not from Piltover or Zaun surprisingly enough. It was from Ionia, Jhin the Virtuoso to be specific. Who knew the man was such an inventive mechanic?

For example, the man built his own mass accelerator to work with Whisper, his pistol. I found it funny that such a powerful weapon came from outside the twin cities, but moved on. Too expensive. Too conspicuous. I had no intention of replacing my arm or grafting a mass accelerator to my shoulder blade. For one, it wouldn't grow with me.

I eventually settled on the weapon I'd been agonizing over for weeks: Senna's relic pistol, as wielded by Lucian. I was honest enough to admit that I had no idea how to dual-wield, or shoot a gun of any sort for that matter, but in my current age, learning to shoot a single pistol was far easier than picking up a melee weapon or mastering two pistols simultaneously. Lucian, I was not.

The relic pistol wasn't the only gun in Runeterra, or the only pistol for that matter. Sarah Fortune used twin pistols called Shock and Awe. Gangplank had one, and Samira's gunblade was infamous. I still chose the relic gun.

Sure, there were no undead to fight, but Lucian's pistols had two advantages over more conventional weapons: First, they used no ammo, and no bullets meant they would be more likely to be seen as props rather than the incredibly potent weapons I knew them to be. Second, like every other relic weapon used by the Sentinels, they were fueled by the sheer righteousness of the wielder, the light of their soul made manifest. There was a World Rune in my soul, a light brighter than any. If there was one thing I knew I'd never run out of, it was mana.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Thus decided, I began to plan…

2000, June 22: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Things moved rather quickly after my Petricite was confirmed to work on external expressions of powers. It was amazing how much money the PRT was willing to throw around when they felt motivated. Or maybe, they'd always had this money and hardware prepped and were using the trial to push me towards creating power suppressors; I wasn't discounting Contessa-induced f*ckery.

Regardless of how it happened, I got a forge installed into my lab. Some of it was used, donated from a local agricultural university, but that was fine as long as they were all in working order. After a rather extensive safety lesson from a local smith, mostly to put the minds of adults at ease and cross the "t's" for bureaucracy's sake, I was ready to begin.

I let the World Rune guide me as I ground the block into powder through a series of steps. First, I put it into a large bag and shoved the bag beneath a drop hammer until I had petrified wood that resembled coarse gravel. Then, the bag was emptied into a shatterbox, a machine that uses vibrations, friction, and constant pressure to grind stone to powder. Equal parts lime and ash were added in to mix evenly. Several hours later, I had a bag of powdered Petricite, as fine as beach sand and ready to be mixed into an alloy.

Seeing how I wouldn't be sticking around long enough to melt any steel plates, I called it an early night.

As I was being driven home by Agent Morrison, I thought about just what I'd need for my holdout weapon. To start, I'd need the unique stone used to form each relic weapon. The stone had to come from the Blessed Isles, bathed in light magic.

'Am I going to have to travel to a holy site and open a quarry there?' I wondered. 'I don't think the pope would be happy with me. Does the Vatican even exist on Bet? No, there's got to be a better way. What exactly is it about the stones of the Blessed Isles was it that made them so special to the Sentinels?'

I delved deeper into the well in my soul. My connection to Runeterra deepened as I searched for the answers. It was only far in the distant past that I found the truth: a magic spring. There was a literal Well of Life at the center of the Blessed Isles, the same well that first captured Maokai's attention and the same well that birthed the Hallowed Mist. The well's water had nourished the isles, filling them with life and magic and drawing nature spirits from all over to dwell within its shores.

Maokai may have discovered the Water of Life, but it was the Vesani people, nomadic, vulpine travelers from Ionia, who pioneered its use. Ahri's distant cousins were especially sensitive to magic, even among the Vastaya. They explored the uses of memory magic as a form of energy and eventually discovered how to combine it with the sacred water to power golems that protected Helia, the capitol of the Blessed Isles.

It was at this point that I took a metaphorical step back to admire the sheer ingenuity of that. The Vesani were so gifted with magic that they made AIs out of their own memories to create semi-independent golems, a feat that would only be replicated by Viktor in the creation of Blitzcrank a full millennium later.

'Mad respect, pity they didn't last.' Thinking about the Ruination filled me with melancholy, but I did get what I wanted. The isles themselves weren't special, the well on the other hand… 'Holy water… Yeah, I can do that…'

2000, June 23: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The following day was Friday, which meant yet another infuriating day of pretending to be blind in a building full of children I couldn't relate to. The only upside to my obvious disfigurement was that I made people nervous and no one wanted much to do with me. Even in my special education class, there was a palpable distance between us. I told myself I was fine with that, and the adult part of me was, but a different, eight year old part rebelled at the constant isolation.

Still, this school day wasn't as bad as the others. It was the end of the year and it showed. The entire elementary school was gathered inside the auditorium to watch a public safety presentation delivered by two very familiar heroines. I couldn't quite suppress a sh*t-eating grin as I listened to Hat Trick and Stingray act sweet and cheery for us "snot-nosed ankle-biters." Mostly Hat Trick. This would bother her for the rest of the day for sure. My only regret was that I had no Oracle's to see the show properly.

"… and remember, stick together, follow only adults you trust, and be safe," Hat Trick said, sounding a bit stilted.

"Right, thank you for having us, everyone!" Stingray finished. She had that peppy tone she used whenever she was talking to the public. I didn't have to see to know she had her pearly whites displayed into a wide, encouraging smile. She really was perfect for PR stunts like this: tall, pretty, well-spoken, and with a cool, upfront power. It was no wonder she'd be sent to reassure the public.

The principal took the mic from the two Wards. "Yes, thank you, Stingray, Hat Trick. Can we get a round of applause for the two heroines?" The auditorium filled with enthusiastic clapping. "Now, I think we have time for a few questions about the Wards. Anyone? Yes, Mr. Silva?"

A teacher took a portable mic to one of the older students, a fifth grader I'd heard of during recess as being a bit aggressive. He wasn't a bully, but he was a little pushy with the younger kids and insisted on being Royalle or Eidolon during their games of "cape tag."

He spoke up somewhere to my left. "H-Hello, Stingray," he said, uncharacteristically nervous now that he was talking to a real heroine, "Ha-Have you met Eidolon before?"

"No, ''fraid not. He's a very busy man. But you know, of all the heroes I've met, my favorite is Mouse Protector. She's not the strongest hero, but she makes people laugh and sometimes, that's worth its weight in gold."

Another question, different student. "Why do you shout 'Stingray Straight!' whenever you punch bad guys?"

I could practically feel Hat Trick rolling her eyes. "Why not?" Stingray responded. "It makes people smile, right? Help me think up a super move for the rest of my team and post it on PHO, okay?"

I grinned and raised my walking stick into the air. Soon enough, I felt a teacher put the mic in my outstretched hand after a light scolding. I stood and grinned. "Hi, I'm Andy. I've never seen heroes before," I said, waggling my eyebrows. I was told it looked unsettling. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Sure, Andy, go ahead," Hat Trick said, a tad forced.

"Where's Rubedo? How come I've never heard of him going on patrols? Is it because he's a scaredy-cat? Mom says I shouldn't do drugs. Does this make Rubedo a bad hero?" I couldn't quite manage to suppress my sh*t-eating grin.

"You-" Hat Trick began, but stopped when Stingray placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Rubedo is a respected member of the Wards," Stingray said, her tone wooden. "He does not join us in patrols because his power is unsuited for combat, but he has expressed his wishes to be more involved. His medicines will save many lives and I am proud to call him my friend and teammate, even if he can be a little difficult."

"What's he like?" Someone else, a girl a ways behind me, asked.

"He's a brat," Hat Trick said bluntly. "Him and Masked Bandit love to bicker, but they're good kids."

I felt the hit coming the moment I stepped into the Wards common room but let it land. "You're such a little sh*t," Hat Trick growled.

"Whatever do you mean?" I said, rubbing the back of my head.

"PHO's talking about 'Rubedo the drug dealer' now. Are you happy?"

"Very. Never been smugger. Is that a word? It is now."

Stingray shot me her "big sister's frown of disapproval" and passed me a cookie from the fridge. "Well, I hope you've had your fun, because you have remedial PR lessons today. And every day for a week."

"Aww," I let out an exaggerated whine. "I have important sciencing to do!"

"Should've thought of that before you called yourself a drug dealer, kiddo. That was hilarious though," Ranchero laughed. He then saw his girlfriend's glower and gulped. "I mean… that was irresponsible and very unheroic… and maybe a little funny. But definitely irresponsible!"

"Whtchee," Masked Bandit cracked an imaginary whip. The last half of the cookie in my hand disappeared into hers. "Thanks for the cookie, Rube."

"You're welcome," I said dryly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get chewed out by Ms. Youngston. Maybe I can get my tinkering done before I have to head home."

I didn't get much done. I severely underestimated just how miffed Ms. Youngston would be with me. Disappointed, apparently, because I was supposed to be the chosen one. Or, at the very least, the easy to milk PR cash cow. I gave her team more work to do so that meant she'd be giving me more work to do. Circle of life. Bureaucracy. Same difference.

She eventually decided to use me being a "drug dealer" as evidence for how the ongoing lawsuit has damaged my reputation. I didn't plan that, but damn. Had to admit, she was good.

Nonetheless, "not much" wasn't "nothing" and I was able to upgrade my team's Elixirs of Iron with pills of the same. I also got to make drafts of Senna's relic pistol and portion out the ingredients needed for my Petricite alloy.

Author's Note

I feel like I'm going to get questions about the death toll so I'll talk about it here. Let's start with the obvious: Brockton Bay is NOT NORMAL. Their gang violence stemming from Bakuda's madness and the Empire getting outed represent exceptional circ*mstances. Bakuda and Oni Lee were uniquely suited to mass destruction. The Empire had an enormous advantage in both powered and unpowered manpower alongside major heavy hitters like Purity and Hookwolf. That kind of violence typically doesn't happen, in Worm and in the real world.

For reference, the LA Race Riots of 1992, one of the most notorious riots in US history, resulted in the deaths of sixty-four people over the course of six days. And that was when seemingly the entire city blew up and out of towners were driving in to "protect" businesses. Forty-three in three weeks isn't an unreasonable death toll for a conflict between two local gangs, powers or no powers.

I'm also going to get a lot of questions about Arcane, so I'll preempt them here: Arcane is not canon to Runeterra Prime. The Viktor of Arcane is very different from Viktor the Champion. He and Jayce did work together in both timelines, but they had very different relationships. And yeah, the lore behind the Hex Core is that it is self-adapting.

Chapter 15: 2.6 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.6

2000, June 24: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I was always an early riser in both lives. When my family moved to California in my past life, my dad looked for any jobs he could find with his limited English. That turned out to be construction work from the crack of dawn to sunset. My mom made me and my sister wake up at six in the morning each day so we could have breakfast with my dad before he had to head out to work. "Family should eat together," she'd said.

Despite being a single mother, my mom was in a much better place than my old parent thanks to the benevolence of the PRT. She may have refused any stipends, saying they were for me when I got older, but that didn't mean the PRT had done nothing about our situation. Every weekend, she had English classes at a local community college, with tuition mysteriously waived.

That meant Saturdays found both me and mom up and early, sharing a breakfast of rice, fried eggs, and kimchi. A glass of neon-pink sat on the table.

"Where are you headed today, son?"

"I'm going to the PRT as soon as Agent Morrison can pick me up, mom," I told her. "They need me there."

She looked at me with a proud smile that warmed my chest. "Don't work too hard."

"You don't have to worry. I enjoy this; I promise. Besides, the more I make, the safer my friends will be."

She cleared the table as I took a morning shower. Half an hour later, Agent Morrison picked me up just in time for mom to see me off before she too went off to class.

"Thank you for taking care of my son," my mom said in her broken English. She bowed deep, in the same way she used to bow to my tutors in Korea.

"Aww, shucks, ma'am. Don't bow. It's my job."

"Thank you for picking me up anyway, Agent Morrison," I added, bowing with her out of courtesy. "I'm sure you'd rather be doing something else."

We got into the car with a final wave.

"Ya know, son," David's dad began in his old country drawl. "You're supposed to be watching children's cartoons and eating cereal in sludge that's more sugar than milk, not going off to work."

I shrugged. "What can I say, Agent Morrison? Tinkering is my hobby."

"Maybe, but it shouldn't be your only hobby, ya hear?"

"Yes, sir. I listen to jazz."

"Oh, right, you still trying to learn music like your mama?"

"Yes, sir," I lied. I knew a bit of piano from my past and I could sing without being completely off-key, but I didn't exactly have an instrument to practice with here. "Mom says I should start learning notes and pitches, then work on learning to read sheet music."

"Hah, like studying, eh? You got enough of that fancy pink juice for that?"

"Yes, sir. The potions last longer when I drink them."

He nodded and focused back on the road. My apartment, located in the hilariously unimaginatively named Phoenix Heights neighborhood, was not quite in the downtown area, but close enough that it received regular visits from hero patrols. At only fifteen blocks from HQ, it was only a few minutes' drive.

I sat through my mandated remedial PR sessions and was in my lab after snagging a ham and cheese sandwich from the PRT cafeteria to go station for lunch.

I them made full use of the alarm system built into my lab to multitask. Now that the PRT knew my potions could be condensed into pills, each final output would require two Mana Crystals rather than one. I'd thought about not mentioning it for a while in order to further build my crystal reserves, but in the end, I scrapped the notion. It wasn't worth making a fuss over, especially since the dehydration process was such an uninvolved process on my part.

After loading the dehydrators for the next twelve hours, I picked out the bricks of high-carbon steel they'd provided and melted them down in the furnace provided. While I waited for those to melt, I sketched out a simple design of an amulet for Raquel alongside knuckle dusters that could be inserted into Stingray's gloves. Hopefully, she wouldn't need them, but Petricite knuckles couldn't hurt.

Technically, I could just give Bandit a little lump of Petricite and call it a day, but that wouldn't do. She'd have to be holding that lump constantly if she wanted to suppress her power. My idea was to make a two-sided amulet, one face made of regular steel and one with a Petricite-infused alloy. The amulet would then be attached at two ends to a rotating joint and chain so she could wear it as a necklace. She could then flip the coin whenever to forcibly shut down her power in her civilian life. I hoped that this would let her get out more; we were the only friends she had thanks to being homeschooled because of her power and it wasn't healthy.

The furnace was uncomfortably warm at over 2,700 degrees. I gingerly took out each vat of metal, only a pound each so I wouldn't strain myself and spill it on accident, and stirred in the ten bags of Petricite. After loading another, much smaller crucible with steel, set aside so as to not make Petricite alloy, I returned to my sketchbook.

By the time evening rolled around, I had two, flat discs of metal, one the characteristic sheen of carbon steel and the other an ivory-white. Tomorrow, I'd forge them together into a single disc, stencil on a design, and slap a chain onto it.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Next to those were two sets of knuckles, made in several disjointed pieces that could be inserted into the padding of Stingray's gloves. I had to take her measurements from the spare costume she kept on base, but I thought I got it right. They weren't just so she could punch harder. Pieces of Petricite could be made to protrude from her palms and fingertips. They'd come into contact with her opponent and allow her to shut down their powers at close range.

I also intended to make something for Ranchero and Hat Trick, but they were difficult for different reasons. Ranchero didn't rely on any weapons, nor did he have trouble controlling his power. For lack of anything better, I set aside a few pounds of the alloy so I could hammer them into plates. I'd sew them into his shirt later. Even if they saw no offensive use, they would insulate him from cape powers.

As for Hat Trick, she had the opposite problem: She was too good at using… anything, depending on her headwear for the day. I considered a baton or spear as she liked to use her riot police gear or knight's helm, but decided to get her input.

It wasn't entirely altruistic. The last thing I did was take Three pounds worth of the miracle alloy and shape it using the drop hammer until I had an even, rectangular block with a single protrusion at one end, vaguely gun-shaped "L." I smuggled that back home with me and left the designs for my teammates' gear strewn about the lab. By leaving the lab intentionally sloppy, with future designs clearly on display, I hoped to ensure that the bit I was taking for my own use wouldn't be missed.

2000, June 25: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I ate an early breakfast with mom on Sunday morning and bid her goodbye for the day. I was wearing a thick pair of shades to hide my scar along with a wide-brim sunhat, shorts, and t-shirt. In my pocket, I held both an Elixir of Iron, Elixir of Wrath, and several Oracle's Elixirs in pill form. Most people wouldn't pick on a blind kid, but I refused to not have any options in an emergency. My backpack held several empty bottles.

Rather than call Agent Morrison to head to HQ, I stepped outside and tapped my way to the stairs. I wasn't supposed to know how to read the numbers.

"Hello, dear," Mrs. Clarkson called. She was an elderly black grandmother who lived four doors down. "Do you need help getting down the stairs?"

I bowed. "That's okay, ma'am. I don't need any help."

"Nonsense, young man. I'm going down anyway to water the flowers. Come on, take my hand." She grabbed my sleeve with surprising strength. I sighed internally and allowed her to lead me down. There was just no arguing with grandmothers.

Mrs. Clarkson lived alone, retired from her work as a chef some years ago. She was friendly, though a little too mothering in my opinion. She had a son who visited often named Shawn, a tall man who worked as an electrician. Mom was scared of him, though perhaps "scared" wasn't the right word. Nervous? Wary? Suspicious? I could only hope that her behavior was dismissed as the shyness of an immigrant lacking basic language skills.

It was f*cked up, honestly. In both my lives, my Korean parents were some of the most racist people I'd ever met. The worst part was that there wasn't even any actual malice behind it, just a nervousness stemming from being an immigrant from a hom*ogenous culture. No matter where it came from, they were very quick to stereotype. I'd thought it was funny when I was much younger than I was now. Spiritually, I mean. Now, I could only try to befriend the man as much as possible. Exposure therapy was a thing, right?

When I got to the ground floor, I bowed, thanked her again, and made my way towards the nearest Catholic church. That turned out to be the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There, I was greeted by a priest.

"Father Morales?" I asked.

"Yes, who are you, young man?" I'd done my research the night before. The Heart of Mary was a mid-sized church catering to the Spanish-speaking population. Father Manuel Morales was the head priest here and liked to greet his congregation by name.

"My name is Andy and well," I gestured to my eyes with my walking stick. "I know I'm a little early, but do you mind if I come inside to pray before the altar?"

"Of course, my son. God has a place for all his lambs."

And with that, I was in. He showed me to the altar and let me be as I sank to my knees. I surreptitiously swallowed a single mouthful of Oracle's and allowed my vision to bloom outward. While the father prepared for his sermon, I feigned prayer. Was it sacrilegious, what I was doing? I wasn't sure if the God existed anymore, but I used to be very religious because of my previous mother. Still, I couldn't deny that the supernatural was a verifiable existence, one I couldn't ignore.

'Should I pray to you, abba? Or does my soul belong to another? Bard? Aurelion? Another Aspect perhaps? Would Kayle hear me and grant me justice? Would Taric give me his protection? Can Atreus make me brave? Or maybe, it is the Kindred who claim my soul now. I did die after all…'

I blinked away tears. My mother in this life wasn't religious, so this was the first time I'd stepped inside a place of worship. There was something weighty in the air, an almost palpable feeling of reverence and history. Sitting there at the altar of the God I used to worship, I couldn't fully suppress the feeling that I'd been lost to another. A heavy melancholy filled me. Was it divinely inspired? Or merely the sorrow of a man who'd lost his identity?

'Perhaps one day I'll find my answer.'

I had come planning to meditate while feigning prayer for lack of anything else to do, but the hour passed quickly and soon, I'd taken a seat at the corner of the furthest pew, listening to the father's sermon.

When the sermon ended, I remained in my seat and ignored any attempts to welcome me into the flock by the local parishioners. At last, everyone but the priest left and I tapped my way to the altar. I soon caught his eye.

"Andy, my son, what troubles you?"

"What makes a man?" I asked him. "Is it the god he worships? Or his history?"

"You have deep thoughts for someone so young."

"I've been told, father."

"I believe the answer is up to the individual. But there is one thing I know: Seek and you will find."

"Matthew? Ask and it shall be given, right?"

"Indeed. That is not to say that all answers are given to us immediately, but the first step of any journey is to begin at all."

I nodded. In a way, they were empty platitudes, meaningless nuggets of wisdom. And yet, hearing his words made me feel a little better. "Thank you, father." I opened up my bag and showed him the empty containers. "Father, would it be much trouble if I took some holy water home?"

"No, of course not. I'd be happy to bless some water for you."

"Just some from the stoup should be fine."

"It is never a burden to pray over a child, my son."

I bowed. "Thank you, father."

Author's Note

Most Catholic churches have stoups, little basins or fountains where priests can wash their hands for sacraments. This holy water, sometimes even on a spigot, can be taken for free by the churchgoers. It's encouraged that you donate, but it isn't always required.

If you were curious, holy water isn't chemically special. It's just regular water prayed over by a priest, with a dash of salt for purification purposes.

Chapter 16: 2.7 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.7

2000, June 25: Phoenix, AZ, USA

After storing the holy water in my room, I called for pickup and headed to the lab for the afternoon.

I was finished by four. I ended up with roughly twenty-five pounds of Petricite alloy separated into ten bricks, ready to be machined into handcuffs or whatever else the director had in mind. One of them was a little lighter than the others, the one I'd used to make the amulet, glove inserts, and armor plates for my teammates. I'd probably be scolded for making them without approval, but I couldn't be bothered to care. Stingray had a close run-in with Gatling of the Peckerwoods the other day and a bit of power negation wouldn't have gone amiss. Besides, the more I "accidentally" used up in my excitement, the more difficult it would be to notice some of my stock was missing.

Each brick had taken another Mana Crystal to ensure the Petricite was fully merged with the steel, but the result was a material that was heavily absorbent to magic and esoteric powers. It was the very same steel used to craft the armor of the fabled Dauntless Vanguard. Such an armor would be too heavy for me, but I promised I'd make myself a set one day.

I loaded them all onto a small cart and dropped them off with Dr. Sanchez, Head of Power Testing. The write-up for this was sizable, but I was let go within the hour.

That night, I dropped my teammates' new gear into their owners' lockers and settled into my first full, unsupervised shift on console.

"Ranchero, Wildshot, this is Rubedo on console," I spoke into the mic as I topped myself off on Oracle's.

"This is Agent Carter on console for the PRT. Glad to have you, Rubedo."

"Howdy, partner," Ranchero's voice sounded through the headset in an even thicker accent than his father's. I knew he played up the cowboy theme in costume, even going as far as to wave around a lasso he barely had any idea how to use, but the fake accent always got a chuckle out of me.

"Hey, good to meet the littlest Ward. Wildshot of Wards Team Three." I could see on Ranchero's camera a sandy-haired young man with a similar motif to Ranchero. He wore a red bandana over his nose alongside a large ten gallon hat. At his side were twin repeating crossbows. Anachronistic, but probably more PR friendly than actual revolvers.

"Short patrol tonight," Ranchero said, more upbeat than in his civilian guise. With a spin of his lasso, he summoned a golden bull. Ten seconds later, another joined it. "Let's… Run wild!"

"Your puns are bad and you should feel bad."

"Bah, this is why you're single, Wild. No sense of humor. Right, Rubedo?"

"No comment."

"Children," Agent Carter said tiredly. "Focus."

The Wards mounted the bulls and began their patrol. Their route would start from the Tempe Police Department HQ just south of Salt River. From there, they wanted to circle Arizona State University, take the roundabout to Tempe St. Luke's Hospital, then finally head north again to cross Salt River back into Phoenix for pickup. If all went well, it was a four hour walk, two and a half by bull assuming they didn't stop for anything.

The two Wards trotted along on their golden bulls for ten minutes, signing autographs, taking pictures, and generally making sure they were seen. Contrary to my original estimation, in ten minutes, they crossed less than two blocks and I had a newfound appreciation for Taylor's hatred for such patrols. I'd zoned out for a bit thinking about my new pistol when Wildshot's mic came live.

"Console, I'm hearing yelling," he said. "South, three blocks away. Permission to investigate?" Ranchero had already turned his bulls in that direction.

"Granted, but be careful. You have your potions?"

"Yes, ma'am. Pills, ma'am," Ranchero said. "I made sure Wildshot got both the healing and brute ones."

"Good. Ranchero, call out a few more bulls until you feel you have a high enough brute rating. Wildshot behind. Intel only."

"Yes, ma'am," the two Wards echoed.

I glanced at the city map and found the nearest Protectorate patrol. "Cloudstreak and Bunyan are eight blocks away. Two minutes ETA. Should I call them?"

"Negative, Rubedo. We'll reach out if things escalate."

"Yes, ma'am."

Ranchero took point, swinging his lasso every ten seconds until he had a small wedge of six bulls. Each bull he summoned provided him a higher brute rating so long as they "lived," but with diminishing returns. During testing, I'd heard he summoned forty for a brute seven rating. Impressive, if it didn't take north of six minutes to accomplish. Under normal conditions, he typically never called more than eight. There were only so many angus bulls he could cram onto a street before they got in each other's ways.

I watched on Ranchero's bodycam as the two reached the scene. Eleven men faced each other, four to seven. They were clearly divided along ethnic lines, which meant one side was Peckerwood for sure. I couldn't see much else in the twilight, my pericognition limited through video, but Wildshot wasn't similarly hampered.

"Four Hispanics, seven whites," he spoke crisply. "I see gang signs on both sides. PW and SSM. Won't be long 'til someone sees us. Ranchero isn't exactly subtle."

"Don't blame me for being fabulous."

"Ranchero," Agent Carter snapped. "Business now."

"Yes, ma'am," he coughed. "Should I surround them?"

"Hold position. Wildshot, are they armed and how?"

"No guns in sight, but I can see a few bulges that might be pistols. I wouldn't discount smaller weapons too, ma'am."

"Rubedo, are the police aware of the problem?"

I checked the local dispatch for the street names. "No, ma'am."

"Let them know. No capes, not our problem."

"But ma'am," Wildshot cried.

"We're here to keep people safe and arrest villains. Any of them draw?"

"No ma'am," the ranged hero sighed sulkily. "Just insults and slurs."

"If we go in now, there's a good chance our presence will escalate things into violence. Hold position and try to make your bulls inconspicuous, Ranchero. Pull back a bit if you need to."

Ranchero maneuvered his bulls until they were out of the gang members' line of sight. Two bulls were hidden flush against a bus while the others ducked behind a corner. It said much about Earth-Bet that only a handful of people glanced twice, choosing to make themselves scarce from the potential cape fight.

We watched for a minute before twin gunshots pierced the night. A revving noise filled the air.

"Ma'am, Sawtooth inbound!" Wildshot shouted.

Before the Wards could react, a giant of a man fell from the sky like a meteor in between the gangb*ngers. He wore a leather jacket with "SSM" embossed onto the back, a white wifebeater, and ragged jeans. His only nod to a formal costume was the burlap sack he wore over his head with holes cut out for eyes.

He shouted something I couldn't understand in Spanish before swinging his trademark chainsaw-shotgun in a wide arc. It was an abomination of a weapon, a "sword" with two shotgun barrels stapled to either side of the motorized blade. It was suggested that he was a ballistics tinker purely based on how he could fire the shotguns without breaking the chainsaw. Even so, the demented blade ripped through the first of the Peckerwoods and a nearby fire hydrant, sending blood spraying through the air.

I was shaken out of my stupor by Agent Carter's shouting. "Rubedo, ETA on cops!"

"Four minutes, ma'am," I snapped back.

"Ma'am," Ranchero said urgently.

"Go, prioritize civilians, bulls first. Wildshot rear! I'll call Protectorate console."

"Yes, ma'am!" the two shouted as Ranchero ushered his projections into a stampede.

Everything devolved into chaos as the thundering of hooves filled the air. I saw all but two Peckerwoods scatter. One was the one who had been sawn in half, but the other was shrinking.

In the blink of an eye, a full-grown komodo dragon lunged towards the SSM cape with deceptive speed.

"¡Pinche puto!" Sawtooth shouted, loud enough for Ranchero's mic to catch. I rolled my eyes at one of the few curses I understood in Spanish. Still, his reaction time was better than his language and he managed to shove the sleeve of his left arm into the lizard's mouth. Miraculously, the leather held.

'Must be armored,' I mused as I checked on the Protectorate patrol. Cloudstreak and Bunyan were eleven blocks away and gaining, one much faster than the other. 'Good. Streak must be a mover.'

Sawtooth said something else before aiming his twin barrels at the ground. With a deafening bang, he sailed through the air, his jacket torn from his opponent's jaws. The giant of a man took aim with unexpected precision, firing twice into the komodo's body. Its toxic saliva sputtered as its torso erupted in gore. That was as far as they got before Ranchero's stampede arrived.

He had time to call a seventh. Three bulls charged shoulder to shoulder, forcing the gangb*ngers to scatter. Two more circled around the intersection on either side, keeping them from simply running away. One bull nicked an SSM member with its horn, the force alone enough to knock him on his ass with a torn bicep. His pistol clattered to the floor. Two more gunshots filled the air, but the hardlight bulls ignored the bullets completely.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I glanced at the Protectorate response timer. "One minute 'til Cloudstreak," I said. "Bunyan shouldn't be far behind."

The komodo dragon changed again while we weren't paying attention. He rapidly gained mass until a full-blown t-rex stood roaring into the night sky. Wildshot let loose with his repeating crossbows, but both shots were ignored. He winced as he ducked behind cover to avoid a gunshot.

"Tranqs aren't working," he growled over the mic. "Freeform's changing too fast for the drugs to take hold."

"Focus on the grunts," Agent Carter ordered. "Ranchero, stand back and crowd Sawtooth. See if you can keep him busy."

"Yes, ma'am," they barked out as they rushed to follow the senior officer.

The Peckerwoods, seeing the massive t-rex on their side, regrouped behind a van and began firing at anything that moved. One of the SSM grunts went down clutching his thigh. Before they could finish off the other three, a golden bull rammed straight into the van, cratering its side and tilting it precariously onto two wheels. That was enough for the five of them to scatter again.

One of the Peckerwoods was running past a STOP sign. Two crossbow bolts fired with pinpoint precision landed through the notched holes of the street sign and into his arm. He was out moments later.

"Got 'em marked," Wildshot said.

I glanced over to his bodycam. He was still crouched behind a car. Rather than rise to take aim, he fired both repeaters into the air, emptying the magazines in the span of six seconds.

I had to switch to Ranchero's camera to see what happened. Each bolt swerved in the air, homing in like demented hornets to separate targets. Six shots, six hits, each on a major vein.

I let out a low whistle. "Damn, that's impressive."

"Thanks, kid."

"Enough patting yourselves on the back. Move the gangb*ngers out of the cape fight," Agent Carter barked.

"Yes, ma'am!" Ranchero scrambled. With no need to secure the perimeter any longer, he had six bulls charge Sawtooth and Freeform, forcing them to disengage. Each bull didn't last long on its own, but that was enough for him to start moving the gang members. I saw both villains put their fight on hold to slaughter the bulls.

Wildshot tried to distract them by throwing a rock into their eyes, but Sawtooth shot his out of the air and Freeform ignored it completely. The size difference between a t-rex and an angus bull was so large that the bulls could only gore Freeform's shins at best. The wounds closed practically as soon as they were made even as the tyrant lizard's jaws closed on each projection.

Sawtooth blended his way through one bull and dodged the horns of another, only to get clipped by the third. He swore and fiddled with something on the shotgun before firing into the ground, launching himself skyward again. He landed atop a car and took aim at Ranchero from mere feet away

"Ranchero, Sawtooth," I yelled. I felt utterly out of my depth just watching this.

Ranchero summoned another projection as the shotgun roared. The latest golden bull died the moment it was called. I thought for a moment I'd lose a teammate so soon.

Before he could take aim again, Cloudstreak descended on a stream of billowing white clouds. Four fist-sized hunks of hail launched towards Sawtooth, forcing him to fire on them instead of Ranchero. Cloudstreak herself was a woman clad in a form-fitting white costume with blue clouds providing tasteful accents. Her domino mask did nothing to hide her disdain for the Peckerwood cape.

"Ranchero, Wildshot," her voice echoed through the speakers with a faint Jamaican accent. "Withdraw. We'll take it from here."

A whirling chainsaw blade, attached only to the hilt by a rappelling wire, lashed towards the heroine, only for a thick cloud of white to shroud her like a shield. The blade roared but found no purchase and for a moment, I wondered what her clouds were actually made of. Were they just cloud-shaped dimension-f*ckery or did Shards physically alter clouds to be denser than metal?

Sawtooth turned around and fired behind him, thrusting himself forward and catching the rebounding blade into its slot with expert skill. He swung overhand, this time at the seams of the forming clouds, and they parted before they could fully solidify. Cloudstreak launched herself back with a curse. Freeform was nowhere to be found.

"Go!" she barked out.

Ranchero ran back, but called a bull to assist her as he retreated.

Seconds later, the ground shook with yet another airborne cape. Bunyan had arrived. He was a tall man with a busy, red beard dressed like a lumberjack in jeans and flannel. Sticking on-brand, he hefted a giant axe almost as tall as he was with one hand. Standing from the cratered asphalt, he glowered at the SSM cape.

"Now would be a good time to surrender," he growled as he held his axe aloft. It wasn't my imagination. The lumberjack cape was rapidly growing taller, gaining entire feet in seconds as though he'd been drugged by Lulu.

Sawtooth shrugged and said something else I didn't understand in Spanish before twisting something on his ridiculous chain-sword-shotgun. Its teeth spun even faster, creating visible heat shimmers in the evening light.

"Ranchero, Wildshot, pull back. This is as far as we go. You two did well," came Agent Carter's voice threw the comms.

"Ma'am, if we stay, we could provide support," Wildshot tried.

"Negative. Pull back. SSM capes are too willing to kill."

While the two Wards were arguing with console, I saw Bunyan lunge forward with his axe. He launched himself with enough force to crater concrete. He shrank as he flew through the air, gaining speed and concentrating force due to his newly decreased mass. His axe blade met Sawtooth's in a shower of sparks, forcing the two apart.

Cloudstreak wasted no time releasing more clouds from her hands, covering the world around them like a veil. It created an arena of sorts, forcing Wildshot and Ranchero out of the fight while locking the two Protectorate Capes in with the villain.

"Pull back and look for civilian casualties," Agent Carter said.

I doubted there would be any. It wasn't as though people couldn't sense a confrontation coming from a setup like that. Still, "keeping civilians safe" was an excuse the Wards could swallow rather than "let the adults handle this" so they said nothing and got to work securing the perimeter. It was then that the cops finally arrived.

'Guess cops being late is a multiversal truism,' I snorted.

It was over in minutes. The gang members were rounded up. Sawtooth, lacking mobility in the cloud cover, could do little against a high-end brute like Bunyan. When the clouds dispersed, it was to Cloudstreak sauntering confidently with her partner slinging an unconscious villain over one shoulder.

"Where's Freeform?" I asked. "He was a t-rex then… I think I lost him sometime when Cloudstreak arrived."

"Yeah, he does that," Ranchero said with a frustrated sigh. "He can turn into any living thing he's ever touched so guy's slipperier than an eel."

"How the hell's he a t-rex then?"

"Museum," three voices echoed.

"We'll get him next time," Agent Carter said. "He's dangerous, but doesn't go out of his way to target civilians. He's less of a priority than SSM right now."

'Huh,' I thought. 'The white supremacists follow the rules? Wouldn't be the first time, I guess.'

2000, June 26: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I of course saw last night's escapades blasted over the Monday morning news. Wards heroically kept civilians from harm. Protectorate heroes Cloudstreak and Bunyan arrived in time to arrest nine gangb*ngers and one cape with multiple homicide charges under his belt. The dead Peckerwood member didn't even get a mention.

I ignored it all in favor of something far more vital: breakfast.

Doenjang-jjigae, Korean version of miso stew, was a staple in both lives. Tofu, mushrooms, clams, squash, onions, scallions, and potatoes gave the dish a deep, hearty flavor that warmed the soul. Funky fermented smell aside, it was a favorite of mine that reminded me of home.

"What are they saying?" my mother asked as she picked out some kimchi.

"A powered gang member was arrested last night," I said.

"Were the Wards involved?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully. "Don't worry, they were two of the oldest and they were there only long enough to make sure civilians didn't get hurt."

"Kids shouldn't be involved at all. What about you?"

"I was in the office, didn't even leave."

"Good. Yusung, I don't want you to fight."

I sipped some broth and tofu. "I know, mom. I'm just working on something for my team."

"Are you going in again today?"

I shook my head. "No, the contract is thirty hours per week. Just because it's summer break doesn't mean I need to spend all my time at the office."

"That's good. You should be a child. Do you want to go to the park?"

"You have work, mom. I'm just going to do some homework, read a book, listen to music, maybe meditate a little. I promise."

"Okay, son. I worry about you."

"I love you too, mom."

I wasn't entirely truthful. I intended to stay home, but the moment mom left the house, I brought out my three pounds of Petricite alloy and bottles of holy water. I started by converting each bottle into the Water of Life found in the deepest fountain of Helia. Or at least, my best approximation of it.

Runeterra followed the same general rule as most fantasy settings: Age meant power. And the Water of Life? It was old. It predated Helia and much like True Ice, I would need a hundred Mana Crystals for a single thimble-full. The stuff Maokai saw when he was first born on the Blessed Isles was far from practical at the moment, but that didn't mean my quest was a lost cause.

The Ruination had corrupted the sacred well. Though the relic weapons held a portion of the water's holy power, it was just that, the cinder of a cinder of what it once was. By the time the first Sentinels got their hands on the stones of Helia, the pool had been diluted by the countless undead and corrupted nature spirits into something much more manageable. This, this I could do.

It was unsurprisingly more expensive than a regular healing potion, at five Mana Crystals per bottle. Considering the sizable stockpile under my bed, that wasn't much of an issue.

Then came the part I wasn't sure about: I soaked the Petricite alloy in a pool of the Water of Life while flooding both with Mana Crystals. The goal was to infuse the concepts of "life" and "light" into the metal.

Strictly speaking, I was treading new ground. Petricite trees as a species were born of the Rune Wars and native to Western Valoran, not the Blessed Isles. The Blessed Isles, before the Ruination, predated the Rune Wars by centuries. And yet, I had reason to believe that Petricite alloy would be a worthy substitute for the stones quarried there.

Petricite wasn't just a magic dampener after all; it, being a plant, absorbed mana and used it to grow like any other form of energy. That was why the white forests had so little mana, because the trees hogged it all. My hope was that with the naturally absorbent properties of the magical wood, I would be able to infuse brand new concepts into the metal, creating a relic weapon despite the lack of the Blessed Isles.

Forty. It took forty goddamn crystals and four hours of constant focus before the World Rune pulsed with satisfaction.

'sh*t, there goes my stockpile,' I grouched.

Still, I couldn't suppress my glee. It was hardly Avarosa's bow, but damn… The alloy itself had been trimmed and reshaped by the sacred water and transmuted by the World Rune into something else. Instead of the metallic sheen it held before, it now looked to be made of a pristine, white marble that glowed dimly with a light from within. Its body had also been slimmed down, as though tailored for younger hands. I knew that even as I aged, the grip would not fail me.

The grip of the gun had taken inspiration from Lucian's twin pistols. Rather than stone, it had instead doubled down on the metallic sheen, transmuting into a magic-absorbent metal that looked like it was made of wrought iron. It was shaped like a bat's wing. It coiled around the stone, though it lacked the "S" inscribed on the side for Lucian's wife.

If I didn't know any better, I'd call it a glorified prop. Perfect.

I reached out and held it in my hands, feeling the weight of my new pistol. Even at just three pounds, I found it hard to steady with one hand and knew it'd be a long while before I crafted a second. Sometimes, being a kid sucked.

I allowed the World Rune to jump to the surface and fuel the pistol. The inner light brightened in answer and I knew that I could fire this thing as quickly as I could think the thought, the beauty of a soul-fueled weapon.

"Now… how do I test this thing?"

Author's Note

Repeating crossbows are not like automatic weapons. They don't "rapid fire." It really just means you can pull a lever (or a trigger) to load the next bolt and draw. Wildshot's are two one-handed repeaters carrying tranq darts instead of steel bolts. Because they're one-handed, they only store five bolts each.

Gee… the gang leader with virtually limitless shapeshifting escaped… can't possibly be a bad thing…

I can't be the only Korean that eats jjigae for breakfast, right?

Lucian has two relic pistols, but they look distinct if you care to look. One has an "L" carved on it, the other an "S" for his wife, Senna. Her pistol looks sleeker and the grip flares near where the hammer would normally be. The grip's also edged at the other end almost like a bat's wing.

Chapter 17: 2.8 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.8

2000, June 26: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Phoenix was not Brockton Bay. It did not have a convenient Boat Graveyard where all the local capes went to test their powers or beat their breasts in shows of force before scouting competition and recruits alike. In fact, its overall economy had increased as a result of Leviathan's appearance.

Phoenix was a hub for the aerospace industry, military and civilian alike, manufacturing everything from helicopters to electronic circuits and navigational components. With land and sea very much in jeopardy, people invested heavily into aerial transportation. Companies like Boeing and Northrop adjusted significant portions of their production lines into designing more efficient cargo planes.

It was also a hub for medical devices and pharmaceutical companies, which may have explained that farce of a lawsuit.

I had no intention of letting the PRT know what I made so using their firing range was right out.

There wasn't an easy way for me to test out my new relic pistol. The single downside to the weapon was that it literally glowed in the dark after all. Still, I did my best to find somewhere secluded and easily overlooked.

I snuck out near midnight with a crude mask and sunglasses along with dad's old military dress coat. It was one of the few things mom kept of him and I hated having to use it as a disguise, but I had nothing else. I obscured the Korean flag and any identifying insignias with masking tape. It made me look like an idiot, but that was better than being seen as dangerous or tracked back home because I wore a foreign military medal.

Several blocks away from my house was Encanto Park. It was one of if not the biggest park in the city, with its own mini-island and an "amusem*nt park" in the middle. The amusem*nt park had train rides, carnival games, and other small things to keep the kids busy while parents shot the breeze. The park, being a public space, didn't officially close until eleven and I was worried that the security guard would not have dozed off yet. Instead, I set my sights next door to the Encanto Golf Course. It was a full eighteen-hole course with a driving range and practice green. It also closed at six, meaning the whole area was deserted.

After all, who'd bother stealing from a golfing green?

The lights near the driving range were on to deter entrants, but I wasn't interested in the expensive golfing equipment. I made my way around to the furthest hole and climbed the fence. I mentally cordoned off my target range in a section of the course isolated by a miniature grove. It was as close to alone I'd get in the middle of a city like Phoenix.

I took my place at the edge of the grove, legs spread shoulder-width apart for stability. With my right hand holding the pistol and left hand supporting the wrist, I took aim at a tree about thirty feet away and fired.

There was no easy description. The recoil was somehow both physical and spiritual. My soul lurched. A burst of mana was drawn from the well and fed directly into the gun's grip. From there, it pulsed a brilliant blue before, with the pull of an imagined trigger, it launched into the tree. My hands jerked a little from a recoil I wasn't expecting. Light shouldn't have mass like that, right?

I tossed any expectations of being able to dual-wield out the window. I could tell that aiming properly in the middle of a fight would be a challenge even while bracing with both hands. The gun wasn't exceptionally heavy or anything, but I was a pint-sized little snot at the moment.

"One day," I promised myself.

I walked up to the tree and saw the damage. There was no neat bullet hole, but I did see a small indent along with some scorched bark. I felt that if I put in more mana, I'd get a bigger blast.

I took my position again and shot a few more blasts of mana at different quantities. The biggest burst made a sizable dent into a tree, enough so that I had to move for fear of breaking the trunk altogether with repeated rounds. It also came with a large recoil, enough to make me stumble back and fling my hands above my head. After that, I stuck to minor mana bullets and focused on trying to fire as many of them as I could without dropping my accuracy too much. I was no Lucian, but one per second seemed like a respectable amount. It was like a mental muscle, one I needed focus to use.

To close off the night, I found a different tree and decided to emulate one of the Purifier's signature techniques.

I delved deep into the World Rune and drew out memories of his practices with Senna. It was an interesting experience. The memories I found weren't at all like my own. I could remember my mother's smile, the jjigae I had for breakfast, the designs on the back of my spoon, and more. With Lucian's memories, individual details like Senna's hair ornaments or the way she laughed and mocked him teasingly were vague, like mist in the breeze. The style, each movement and focus as he channeled mana into his pistols, those were as crisp as the winter wind.

This time, I didn't just allow the mana to flow, I pulled. The drain was palpable; I could feel the mana travel through my spine and my arms to pool into the relic pistol. There, instead of releasing, I held it and condensed it, shaping it into a nearly solid mass. I took a deep breath and released on the exhale.

This time, when I fired, the kickback tossed my arms over my head. The result was not a single shining bullet, but a beam of light that ripped a neat hole straight through the tree. I could smell the burning wood from where I was standing.

I stared dumbstruck but moved when I heard the wood creak and begin to fall on itself.

'Nope, not sticking around.'

I spent the rest of the night firing bullets of varying intensities. I used the bare minimum amount of mana to practice my aim and fired stronger shots into the earth. I wanted to see if it was possible to tire myself. The answer was yes: By the time I snuck back home and crawled into bed, there was a soul-deep exhaustion. The World Rune was as bright as ever, but my body didn't take well to channeling mana constantly. It was just one more thing to practice.

That night, I was once again brought to the altar that housed the World Rune. The nine orbited the three Keystones, with one I knew to be Time Warp Tonic lit. I felt the same pull as before and knew that I was about to ignite a second star.

It was by now a familiar scene, but rather than contempt, it bred in me a greater sense of gravitas. My connection to the World Rune was widening and my very soul trembled with anticipation.

I stepped onto the altar and a star came to me eagerly, shining with a light that warmed my soul. Azure flames covered my right hand and when they faded, three runic tattoos in the shape of stylized bullets decorated the back. Memories, instructions, and knowledge flooded my brain, settling into the very core of my identity as though they'd always been mine.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Minion Dematerializer," I whispered.

In game, the player got three items that could instantly vaporize a minion. Good for farming early on when a Champion's damage didn't scale. Good for getting gold. Good for removing the enemy's cover so you could land your skill shots.

"Wouldn't it be funny if I could just zap away an endbringer?" I laughed to myself. But no, if I channeled that kind of mana through my squishy human body, I'd go the way of Tyrus in the blink of an eye.

Just as the chrono-acceleration provided by Time Warp Tonic came with the hard limitation of having to drink a potion first, Minion Dematerializer came with its own limitations. To start, I'd gain a "bullet" every twenty-four hours. I could hold up to three, one per rune.

Once activated, I could channel the mana stored in a tattoo for three seconds before releasing a beam of highly concentrated mana with a pre-coded spell. It would dematerialize anything it hit first regardless of physical makeup, transmuting the target into raw mana and dissipating it harmlessly into the atmosphere.

The final limitation was based on mass. It could transmute anything with a comparable mass to myself, a restraint necessitated by my own body's ability. On the plus side, anyone missing a me-sized sphere of matter is probably going to die regardless of what happens to the rest of them.

I'd built myself a holdout weapon and received the most aggressive of the minor runes in response. Was the World Rune adapting itself to my desires?

With that mildly concerning thought, I allowed myself to leave my mindscape, emerging to a new day.

2000, June 28: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I spent nearly all of yesterday in meditation. I woke up, had breakfast with mom, saw her off to work, then meditated for three hours at home until lunch. After lunch, I called in an absence from the Wards, telling them that I meditate more effectively at home. It was partially true even, but mostly to hide how my crystal generation rate had increased yet again.

It wasn't much, barely a minute shaved off my time, but an extra crystal was nonetheless an extra potion. More importantly, normal powers didn't improve like mine did barring a second trigger. Best to keep that little tidbit on the down low.

So I spent all day after lunch meditating too, until mom came back and she forced me to do something childish, that being watching Disney movies with her. For the record, the Korean translation of The Lion King left much to be desired.

Nine hours. Nine, nonstop hours of meditation got me fifty-three Mana Crystals. By my estimate, it should have been a bit higher than sixty, but I found my focus flagging if I didn't take frequent breaks. I stored most of them in the old box under my bed and set twenty of them aside to take to the Wards. I didn't know what I wanted to make for myself next, but the next egg never hurt.

The day after saw me at Wards HQ with only Raquel for company.

I'd received an email from the director telling me she appreciated my concern for my teammates, but that all changes to costume design must go through official channels. She'd then confiscated the majority of my Petricite for further testing and fabrication into handcuffs and the like. Bitch move, but bureaucracy was a bitch so that wasn't unexpected. Even so, my little theft hadn't gone noticed and that was the main purpose.

Almost as important, I got belated permission to give Raquel her amulet since that wouldn't change her costume in any way so that was what I was doing at the moment.

"Hey, Bandit," I called. I was in my civvies while she was in full regalia. "How was your PR tour?"

"Horrible." She pouted. "Ms. Youngston made me hand out raccoon-themed ice cream to kindergarteners."

I couldn't suppress my snickers. "Sucks."

"Shut up. I'm not the baby anymore. Why aren't you doing this?"

"I'm currently being sued, remember?" I asked dryly. "Can't exactly give out potions at hospitals. Besides, my costume doesn't make me look like a stuffed animal."

She flopped down onto the sofa with a frustrated whine. "I just want to do something meaningful. Is that so much to ask? Sting and Ranch are off on grownup patrols. Hat Trick is on ride-alongs wearing a surgical hat. Even you're making super important potions and stuff."

I ran a hand gently through her hair. "You matter, Bandit," I spoke softly. "It might not seem like it, but you do. The cheery act you put on in public, even if it's all a lie, really does mean something to people. There's a reason you're the most popular Ward, you know? And for the record, I wouldn't want to be Trick right now. Paramedics see some sh*t."

"What good is being popular if I can't help anyone? Isn't that what heroes do? Save lives? Well, I haven't been doing a whole lot of that."

"Didn't you ride-along as a first responder to that arson attack the other day? Saw that on the news. I heard you pulled someone from the fire."

"One."

"Still more than me," I said honestly. "I'm told my potions help, but I've yet to personally see any of that."

"I just… I just wish I could do more," she said, almost at a whisper.

"Me too," I admitted quietly. "Me too." We sat there in companionable silence before I remembered my original reason for talking to her. "I have something for you."

I took out the necklace and presented it to her. It was a simple affair, a chain with a circular coin in the middle, one side white and the other a metallic gray. She eyed the necklace then looked back to me thoughtfully before her expression settled on a mischievous smile.

"Aww that's sweet, Andy," she cooed, "but you're a little young for girls."

"Fine, if you don't want your Petricite amulet, then who am I to force you?" I said with a voice as dry as the Grand Canyon. I made to pull away.

"Nonono, I'll be good," she whined. She tried to blink the amulet from my hands, but it clattered to the floor. All she received was the chain itself.

I looked at the amulet. "And now we know it works. You can't blink away the Petricite alloy, can you?"

"Yeah, now can I please have the magic doodad?"

"Doodad? Lulu would love you," I grumbled, but tossed her the amulet nonetheless.

"Who?"

"A cheerful midget. Now, one side of the coin is made of regular steel so you can rest that against your skin. When you want to shut your power off, all you need to do is flip it so the Petricite is what touches you directly."

"Thanks, easy enough to understand."

"Yeah, made it idiot-proof for my favorite trash panda," I smirked.

"Jerk," she replied with her tongue sticking out.

"Maybe, but I'm the best jerk."

After a bit of friendly back and forth, Raquel took her turn on console while I holed myself up in my lab. Not all of the Petricite had been taken; enough remained so that I could work on an elixir to negate innate powers. Brutes, movers, changers, and thinkers generally weren't affected by Petricite coming in contact with their skin, so, I'd suppress their powers in the same way the mageseekers did to Sylas: poison.

My first attempt at a Petricite Elixir was a failure, not because it wasn't strong enough, but because it was too potent. As it turned out, eating powdered rock-tree did terrible things to your digestive tract, even in drinkable form. Thankfully, I didn't have to find out the hard way; the World Rune informed me that what I'd made would "clog the pipes" so to speak and cause intestinal failure.

I remedied this by mixing the new solution with a health potion at a ratio of three to one. This would allow the potion to pass more smoothly through the body, the health potion's beneficial effects fixing minor inconveniences on the way through. The result was a potion that would prevent the activation of all powers. However, it still wouldn't reverse any changes. For example, Crawler would not be able to adapt to any stimulus while the elixir was in his body, but nor would the monster turn back into a man.

Author's Note

The laser he gets when he tries to condense the mana in the gun is Lucian's Piercing Light.

Heh, I bet some of you forgot the rune page. He got Minion Dematerializer. Andy made a gun, so he gets some bullets. Never quite understood why the Dematerializer was a part of the Inspiration rune page, but *shrugs* blame Riot.

Chapter 18: 2.9 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Antebellum 2.9

2000, June 29: Phoenix, AZ, USA

My summer homework was finished in mere hours and with nothing left to do, I spent much of the day in meditation again. I wasn't blind, figuratively, I mean. I knew the PRT hid things from us younger Wards and though I couldn't be sure to what extent, I had my suspicions. Events were escalating and my potions were being used up as fast as I could make them. Coupled with the fact that Redbird and Echo, another member of Protectorate Team One, had been reassigned to Oathkeeper's command and the things I'd heard implied some worrying times for the city.

I did at least manage to find out what happened to the Petricite they took. Most of it was machined into handcuffs, but a few slivers were ground down into caps for bullets. They wouldn't work. I could've told them that if they bothered to ask, but of course they didn't. They saw a magic metal and figured they could do whatever they wanted.

At its core, Petricite wasn't a mana dampener, though I often referred to it that way. It was a mana absorber, a sink. There were ways to draw out the mana stored in Petricite, that was how Galio could move, but it also meant there was only so much mana a nugget of Petricite could absorb at a time before it became ineffective. Like with any energy sink, if you introduced too much energy into the material faster than its maximum rate of absorption, it'd explode like a pipe bursting during a flood. And with no one but me able to measure mana, they had no surefire way of knowing how to best use the material.

Raquel's amulet would passively discharge the stored mana harmlessly into the atmosphere, that was the whole point of me reinforcing it with mana in the forging process, but if she intentionally tried to activate her power constantly, she would eventually overwhelm the material. It'd then fail to inhibit her for a while until its mana reserves emptied again. Accidental, infrequent surges of her power, it could handle, but constant use? That was too much for a single nugget the size of a quarter.

Which made the tiny caps placed over bullets absolutely worthless. They might inhibit a cape's power for all of a second or two, but getting shot tended to do that anyway.

If one good thing came of this mess, it was that I got begrudging permission to machine my own Petricite. Eventually, the PRT would learn that tinkertech shouldn't be fiddled with by normal humans with few sparing exceptions, and I supposed I was just another data point on the way to that lesson. In the future, they'd give me a list of things they wanted it to do and I'd machine up the appropriate designs for them. Easier for everyone and less of a waste. That, and I got to smirk smugly at the director while explaining this a few days back. That was also important.

My at-home meditation sessions were productive, but I couldn't just do that all day. At the moment, I was staring at another wonder of creation, one I'd completely overlooked in my rush to make the relic pistol: the Water of Life. Kind of. More specifically, the corrupted Water of Life that was a pale reflection of the original Well found by Maokai.

I only had two bottles' worth left, but I figured I could use them to make something valuable.

'Let's see… the Water of Life comes from Helia and is inherently infused with mana aligned to life, nature, and light. Maokai found it first. Then more nature spirits came along. Then the Vesani people used it to build autonomous golems, using it to draw out their own memories. It was sacred in a way few things on Runeterra truly were, a force for creation and a conduit for raw, distilled experience that remained utterly pure until the Ruination. Surely an alchemist could make much of such a magically charged ingredient.

The World Rune pulsed in my soul as it leveraged options into my focus: A true healing potion, one that could restore my eyes without the addictive properties of the Shimmer or the curse of Vilemaw.

Hell, Vilemaw himself, the so-called "spider god" worshipped by Elise, was in fact a product of the Well. During the Ruination, Vilemaw was a nature spirit who became corrupted and drank of the Water of Life, gaining his godlike power. His water-infused venom was what Elise drank to gain her limited form of immortality and if I was willing to shell out, I could skip the middleman and take a sip from the genuine article.

That was the problem: shelling out. The two flawed bottles in my hands wouldn't be enough. Typically, age equated to power on Runeterra and if I wanted the pure Water of Life as Maokai first found it, enough to heal and empower myself, I'd need enough Mana Crystals to fill a truck. Much like a weapon made of True Ice or one of Ornn's masterworks, the Water of Life was beyond me.

'What else?' I probed my soul, delving deeper. 'What else can I do with this?'

More relic weapons came to the surface: A shield of light that could banish the shadows and reveal all lies. A relic cannon of black and white that could wield the Black Mist as sure as it could wield the light of the soul. A crossbow so large that it better suited a ballista attached to a cart than a single wielder.

'No,' I dismissed them all. 'I don't need another weapon. If this thing can't give me my eyes now… can I restore it somehow? Charge it?'

A different memory surfaced, one that I initially thought had nothing to do with Helia. It was a Mana Crystal encased in a blue, teardrop-shaped gem. The Prodigal Explorer would find it in a Shuriman tomb.

'The Tear of the Goddess,' I thought reverently.

In-game, it was the staple item of many rapid-fire casters because it allowed the wielder to permanently increase their mana reserves with every spell used, eventually capping out and becoming material for an even better item. If that was all it could do, I'd have no need for it. The World Rune was a limitless well after all. Why seek more mana when the little I could access already taxed me so?

But it was so much more than that. It was an anchor, a bridge between the physical and spiritual. When Ezreal reached the Tear, it was being used as the anchor of a seal used to keep the Void from bleeding over into Runeterra. Kai'Sa, who had been investigating the tomb for this exact seal, joined him and the two pushed back the Void together. After that, the Tear was brought back to Piltover, where it remained at the university for research purposes. Even I didn't know exactly where the Tear came from; the World Rune was silent on the matter, only that it was not truly the relic of a celestial.

'Does it even matter? The Tear is at least partially sacred. It's greatly attuned to protection. It can store incredible amounts of mana. Even better, it could ultimately be used as the core for a powerful artifact, not quite a masterwork to the Forgelord's standard, but near enough to be considered a national treasure by any kingdom. Combined with the World Rune's ability to transmute materials for me… Can I make this?'

I didn't even notice my hands move. Before I knew it, I had my last two bottles emptied into a bowl along with the sum total of the Mana Crystals I'd made today, twenty-eight all told. I'd probably get an earful about responsibility and "slacking off" when I showed up at the PRT with no crystals, but that was acceptable.

On the surface, the process felt superficially similar to making a relic pistol, a whole lot of transmutation and focused meditation, but there were some noteworthy differences. Unlike the Petricite, the Water of Life had much of the concepts and attunements inherent to the Tear of the Goddess. Life, light, a bridge between the physical and spiritual, a reservoir of magic… Perhaps it was this metaphysical similarity, or perhaps it was simply because I'd done something comparable before, but the transmutation came easier.

The twenty-eight crystals merged themselves into one even as the water gathered and coagulated. At the end of two hours, I had a single, beautiful gem bluer than any sapphire. It was a little bigger than my thumb and along the tail end of the Tear was a hole, perfect for a thin chain to tie it around my neck. If I needed any proof that the World Rune would indulge my intent, this minor adjustment was it.

I quickly found a chain and hooked it around my neck. The chain itself was a spare, one I'd gotten just in case the size didn't match on Raque's pendant. The moment I put it on, I felt my mana surge.

The sensation was impossible to put to words. My magic was always there; the World Rune was quite literally grafted to my soul after all. But now, now it felt closer to the surface. I didn't need extra mana, but in making the Tear and infusing my own intent into the creation process, I'd inadvertently made my first magical focus.

Wearing it also reminded me of something else that happened in-game: The wearer could deal a little extra damage against minions. It was a way to make farming a little easier, a tiny nod on the part of the developers to make sure the player didn't fall too far behind early game.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The Tear was a bridge between the spiritual and physical. I now had a far more literal understanding of what that meant: Simply having it on my person would attune my body to mana, slowly increasing my physical body's ability to process magic. It was a glacial process, but I'd eventually become superhuman as my body adapted to the increased metaphysical "weight" hanging from my neck. When I'd finally gotten the full use from this item, I could turn it into something else.

'It's an item that evolves with me.' I grinned. 'It's perfect.'

2000, June 30: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I'd discovered a tangential benefit to having the Tear: It let me hide how efficient my Mana Crystal generating meditations had become. I stopped meditating at HQ because I was afraid my crystal generation rate would be monitored, making it all the more difficult for me to store up stockpiles for myself. Now, I could simply produce one every ten minutes and sink the excess mana into my greedy little necklace. I hadn't planned it that way, but it did give me a bit more freedom.

I was fortunate in that most of my "tinkering" could be automated. I still needed to produce the appropriate amount of crystals, enchant items, etc. but I could leave the machining to computer programs and premade casts.

I had more free time on my hands than many tinkers, but I found that it was a curse as well as a blessing. After ensuring that all my dehydrators, casts, and furnaces were running, I was ushered off to the Scottsdale Fashion Square, the mall where I'd held my debut. The PRT was insistent on "keeping up morale" and wanted me to sign my very first merchandise.

So, that's what I did for three hours. I shook hands, smiled, and pretended I gave a damn about Rubedo-brand lunchboxes and whatnot while there was a gang war going on. On the upside, Director Lyons had indeed commissioned some Rubedo-brand sunglasses which I found deliciously ironic.

Following the PR event, I changed back into my civvies. I was decked out almost entirely in PRT merch, from a Redbird-brand t-shirt and Ranchero jeans to my own sunglasses.

I spent a rare afternoon with my mom. She fussed over me like only a mother could. We had lunch, got a haircut and some new clothes she promised made me look "dashing," and visited the local music store for some jazz CDs for me and a new metronome for her.

All told, the interruption represented a startling bit of normalcy in my otherwise cape-centric life, one I suspect mom planned days in advance.

I heard the central fountain gargling in the background. Mom let go of my hand and replaced hers with my collapsible walking stick. She pushed me gently onto a bench.

"I'm going to go use the restroom. Stay here a while, okay?" she said.

I nodded agreeably. "Okay, mom. I'll be right here."

I heard her walking off into the distance and turned inwards to meditate. It wasn't like I could check my phone or anything. I didn't get to sink much into the Tear.

I hadn't sat there longer than three minutes when I heard someone come up.

"Hey, are those the new hero-glasses?" said a boy I'd never heard before. He sounded like he was a few years older than me, not old enough to have his balls drop, but not my age either. Two more footsteps accompanied him.

I mentally sighed and turned to face him. "Yeah, Rubedo's. Do you like them?"

"They're cool, but he doesn't show up much. Mom says that's 'cause he's in big trouble."

"Maybe, but these glasses are pretty comfortable."

"Can I see?" said another voice.

Seeing no harm in it, I took them off and held them out to that other boy. "Sure."

"Woah, what happened to your eyes?"

I gestured to my walking stick. "I'm blind," I explained patiently. "I got hurt, see?" I felt someone take the walking stick from me. "Please give that back. I need it to go anywhere."

"Hey, look, I'm Oathkeeper," a third voice said.

I sighed. I'd already drank three servings of Oracle's during my work as a Ward and hadn't bothered to bring any extra with me. Agent Morrison had a few, but he'd driven off already. Mom had an extra in her handbag, but she'd taken that with her. I lamented my carelessness even as I held out my hand. "Hey, give that back," I said as firmly as my eight year old body would allow.

"No, this is my sword," the child said stubbornly. Judging by the whooshing noises he kept making, he was probably acting out some of her sword draws.

'Heh, I used to do the same,' I thought bemusedly. Not quite the same, but I used to take mom's umbrella and pretend it was a lance back in my old life. 'Still annoying as f*ck though.'

I stood and made a lunge for where I thought the "sword" would be. I knew Oathkeeper liked her iaido, so I reached near waist-level expecting a horizontal swing. I'd guessed right. My forearm collided with the pole and a slight sting shot up my arm. I grabbed it and yanked firmly, but the older boy held on. "Enough. I'd like my walking stick back now."

"Nu-uh," he yanked back. I winced at how much effort it took me to simply hold on to the stick and couldn't help the realization that I had a long way to go to compete with trained normal, never mind brutes and combat thinkers.

"We'll give the stick back if I can keep your glasses," the second voice said slyly, the one who'd asked to see them. "You don't even need them."

I almost lost it at that. Cover or not, playing the blind kid wasn't fun. In school, I was known as a vulnerable student and the teachers were extra-watchful around me. I didn't have that protection here. It wasn't as though I could take my emergency pills and slap the little sh*ts around via Iron either, no matter how tempting that was. The worst part of all this was that I couldn't tell if there was any actual malice or they were just kids too stupid to know better.

"No, they're both mine so give them back."

The original boy to approach me said something, but I couldn't hear him over some girl screeching. The weight on the other end of the stick suddenly fell away.

"Leave him alone," she growled. She sounded like she'd be around our age and had a vaguely Asian accent. It wasn't thick enough that I could place her country, but it was there nonetheless.

"Hey, you kicked him!"

"Yeah, so? f*ck are you going to do about it?"

That was as far as they got because an adult finally decided to intervene now that there was actual violence.

"Hey!" he shouted. I could hear heavy footsteps coming our way and I pictured an overweight, middle-aged man with a receding hairline and puffing cheeks. "What's going on here?"

"She kicked him!" The three were readily yelling.

"She kicked my baby," a shrill woman cried. "Get her out of here!"

'For f*ck's sake,' I thought. 'You mean the mom was watching nearby? Talk about sh*t parenting.' I was sorely tempted to hit her, consequences be damned. Instead, I yelled. "Excuse me!" When I felt eyes on me, I gestured generally to the middle-aged man. "Are you the mall security, sir?"

"Yeah, can't you see the bad-" he cut himself off, only now noticing my eyes and the walking stick in my hand.

I smiled beatifically. "No, sir. I can't see your badge. I was sitting here waiting for my mom. She's in the restroom by the way. Three boys came and took my sunglasses and walking stick. I think they were pretending the stick was Oathkeeper's sword. I asked them to give it back, but they wouldn't. Then some girl came and helped me. I don't know if she kicked him or not, but she's helping me."

"You-"

"No," the mall cop cut off the overprotective mom. He tried to cover up his faux pas the way most people do: by being seen to be doing something. "You get those three kids out of there and give me those sunglasses back," he snapped. "They each get a warning on their record. You hear me?"

'Miracle of miracles, an adult doing his job on Earth-Bet,' I drawled in my head. Still, I got up and tucked the walking stick under my arm before bowing respectfully to him. "Thank you, sir."

"Sure, kid. Here're your sunglasses."

I turned to the girl. "Thank you too. My name's Andy, what's yours?"

"Alice." I couldn't see, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

And that was how I met one Alice Nohara, daughter of super tiger-mom Shigure and major type-A personality herself. When mom arrived, she and Alice's mom got to talking. Before us kids knew what was happening, she and Shigure were gossiping like old friends.

Shigure and her husband, Kenji, owned a small izakaya called "Izakaya Nohara" not far from our own apartment. Alice had apparently recognized me from school, though I couldn't say the same for obvious reasons. She was a year above me and hadn't found a reason to hang out with someone younger during recess.

Mom thanked her profusely.

When the adults got to talking about hobbies and talents, read: subtly bragging about how awesome their kids were, Shigure expressed how she'd like Alice to pick up an instrument to "broaden her horizons and stand out for college applications." I couldn't suppress a roll of my eyes, but that went thankfully unnoticed. Mom talked about her own musical career and offered to tutor Alice in the violin. She'd become a regular voice in my life from that point.

Author's Note

Vilemaw's lore is AU. His true origins are completely unknown. We only know that he is a spider god who lives in the Shadow Isles (one of the few living things there), is worshipped by Elise, and granted her a form of immortality that lasts so long as she drinks his venom. I figured it'd be an interesting bit of flavortext to say he's a nature spirit corrupted by the Ruination who made his cave over the old Well of Life. The faded text that Markus sees near his cave in "Strand by Silken Strand" are the ruins of the sacred well.

The mall scene is admittedly very cliché, but eh. I wanted a try at handling childishness for childishness' sake. I think this fic is a bit too mature at times, not in content, but definitely in how Andy approaches matters. He can't help it, but there's an inexplicable charm in kids being kids that I like. Or maybe, this scene is more important than you'd think? Hmm...

Now, this is the conclusion of the second arc. An interlude will follow.

Chapter 19: 2.9.5 Kevin Rivers - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 2.9.5: Kevin Rivers

2000, June 30: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I did my best work in coffee shops and libraries. Ironic, I know. It certainly wasn't where people expected the lieutenant of the biggest, baddest gang in town to do his business, but that was the point. I didn't need some sh*tty tough-guy wannabe cholo who couldn't rub two brain cells together looking over my shoulder and only a f*cking retard kept paperwork inside meth labs. No, a quiet table at the local coffee shop at the mall served just fine, thank you.

I smoothed my pressed gray shirt and took a sip of my drink, barista's recommendation, before shooting said girl a playful wink and a nod. She blushed the color of her ginger hair and I considered asking her out for a "night on the town." Who knew? If I liked her, I might not even show her to the boys after I was through.

I grinned as I responded to a message from one of my unpowered officers. He was exactly the kind of underling I liked to have: competent, but with plenty of strings I could pull. He wasn't good in a fight, short dude with a gut like Fat Albert, but that wasn't the point. He had a nice, disarming smile and a boisterous, cheery laugh that no one could stay mad at. The fat little bowling ball knew every goddamn cop this side of Phoenix. Guys like these were the useful ones, the sort that could do more than swing a tire iron or pull a trigger.

Ever since me and the rest of the Crips let Stampede and Lockjaw get away from Oathkeeper, things had really been coming together. La Torcha's plan was slow, but this was how it had to be if we didn't want to invite the flying brick into our backyard. Some of our soldiers didn't get that, too much fire in their blood, but that was fine; people went missing all the time.

We, meaning Tequila and I, got an in with the Peckerwoods for that little cameo the other night.

Tequila was a Filipina who was raised Catholic by her strict granny. Fell away, a bit like me. She was another one that was impossible to dislike, a short, curvy party girl who knew how to flaunt it. "Sex on legs," Parade kept calling her. She was a pretty face and a nice pair of tit* for the peckers to stare at while I did the actual negotiating.

I took a sip of my drink and let out a silent snort. Racist f*ckers thought they were so smart, playing the spic and the nigg*r against each other, never mind that Tequila wasn't Latina. Didn't matter, we had to let them keep thinking that. Tequila shook her ass and sucked a few dicks while I promised a few soldiers here and there, organized the occasional breakout. Two weeks later, between the two of us, we knew every white trash worth mentioning, every single weapons stash, and every donut-stained pig they had on dial.

We got what we wanted in the end. Crips always got what we wanted. Torcha always got what she wanted: More unpowered violence. More tension. Regular contact with that oily bastard Freeform. Pretty sure Tequila was his squeeze now. Perfect. sh*t for her, she's gay for Torcha, but perfect for the plan.

I was disturbed from my thoughts by a commotion outside. I glared through the window at some fat redneck huffing and puffing towards a bunch of kids. His face was a glistening red and the mall "security" jacket wasn't doing the Pillsbury doughboy any favors. Sure clung to that sh*t like a letterman though.

Wants to quit. Wants to punch his boss. Wants to slap the kids.

'Figures,' I snorted. The "law" kept him down. Society. Decency. Morality. Pretty words for the same thing: Chains. They were laws, rules that people were bound by. And me? I was Lawless, the man who heard all the desires people had. As ironic as it was that the keeper of the "law" wanted to punt a few kids, he wasn't the one who caught my interest.

No, it was the blind boy standing by the fountain. And he was blind. Even from inside the store, I could see the line of angry scar tissue streaking through his eyes. He faked it well enough. If I couldn't hear his wants, I'd have thought he was a normal Asian boy.

'Heh. Can a chink be a chink without eyes?' I'd have to ask Tequila that, maybe when she didn't have a knife on her.

Wants to hit the other boys. Wants to shoot them.

'Hoh? Little boy thinks he's a little man,' I snorted with laughter. People had the strangest desires in the confines of their own hearts. They wouldn't voice them aloud, not even to themselves, but I heard them all. Most weren't so extreme, especially at that age, but that only made him worth looking at more closely.

Wants to break free of authority. Wants to fix his eyes. Wants to drink.

The last two whispers made me pause. I drained my cup and closed my laptop before leaving the café to go closer. 'Fix his eyes, eh?'

Wants to make something to fix his eyes so he never has to deal with annoying children again.

I did my best work in libraries and coffee shops. After all, half the job of being a thinker was being in the best place for opportunities to land in your lap. I left, the cute, ginger barista utterly forgotten in favor of my new lucky break.

2000, July 1: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Contrary to popular opinion, we Crips did not have our main base above a restaurant or behind a laundromat. Nor did we buy out a motel. No, we did the other cliché thing: We started a moving company and bought some normal office space.

Clichés were clichés for a reason though.

Being in the supply chain and logistics industries meant we could have a large lot to separate our building from our neighbors. It meant we could have a lot of vans and that people could come and go without drawing attention from any nosy f*ckers. It meant having a legitimate business, one that didn't need too much overhead or license inspections beyond the CDL.

I walked into the Red Sands Moving Company headquarters, whistling a jaunty tune. I found the rest of the executives in the second floor lounge. None of us were in costume, not that many of us bothered with much, but that was how La Torcha liked it. No powers or masks in the building. Deniability.

La Torcha, Veronica, lounged like a queen on a sofa against the wall, her business skirt wrinkled from her posture. She was the president of Red Sands and dressed the part during the day. I couldn't remember the last time she ever went out at night.

To her left was Tequila, Camille, a Filipina who thought she was Mexican. She was cuddled into Veronica's side like a limpet. Or maybe a cat marking her territory. If "trashy chic" had a model, she'd be it. She wore a strapless tube top that showed off her tit* and midriff and a pair of ripped jeans with one leg completely missing. If she'd heard of a bra, I didn't know it. I saw her hands twitch towards the boss' curves and decided for the thousandth time to not touch the sh*tshow that was Cam's personal life. Thinker I may be, but there were limits to even my meddling.

To her left was Brent, also known as Parade. I knew he'd already checked out of the meeting. If he could focus on anything but Camille's nips, I'd take it as divine providence and become a monk. He was the youngest of us at seventeen and dressed in whatever he could find from the military surplus store. Pathetic little sh*t couldn't even hit on her, but he had no problem mastering women who shared her features. The funny thing was that she was about as gay as could be; she had eyes for the boss and no one else. The boss just tried to keep the punk out of the way.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Jamal, Beartrap, sat with Nisha, Bone Maiden, on the far couch. Jamal handled shipping schedules and logistics for the company's more legitimate operations so I worked with him frequently to smuggle this or that. He was a violent f*cker who liked to make his toys saw off their own legs, but he knew how to keep his hobbies to his off hours. A professional, I could respect that. The chubby f*cker wore the Red Sands polo shirt, with a trucker hat with our company logo tossed onto the coffee table.

Nisha acted as Veronica's secretary and the face of business. Put her in a middle school PTA meeting and you wouldn't be able to tell her apart from any other middle-aged soccer mom. She was pale, lanky, and blonde with a few acne scars here and there. Not ugly, but she sure as hell wasn't a looker either. In other words, a face perfect for being our forgettable secretary.

She was as checked out as Brent, but on her phone instead of ogling anyone. As one of our heaviest hitters, she got a lot of leeway for sh*t like that. Even I had no idea how she ended up with the Crips, but it wasn't my business either. Of the other executives, I found her and Jamal the easiest to work with.

"Kevin, what's up?" Camille cheered with an angelic smile even as her eyes gave me the once over. She wasn't checking me out; she was looking for my hidden pistol and knives. Wasn't much of a fighter, but it was that duplicity that made the bitch so damn dangerous. I could feel her aura tugging at my focus already, her attention subconsciously making the influence worse. My gaze flickered down for a moment but I steeled myself and met her eyes. She nodded subtly, then shot Brent a longsuffering glare that even I only barely noticed.

Wants to strip for Veronica. Wants to f*ck her. Wants to make Brent watch so he knows how out of his f*cking league she is. Wants to scoop out his eyes and feed them to him.

I rolled my eyes. I knew. She knew I knew. Sometimes, being a thinker sucked sweaty balls. "Not much, fake-chola," I greeted as I took my seat to the boss' right. I ignored the middle finger she flipped my way and took no small pleasure in seeing that once again, I was the sharpest dressed f*cker in the room with a wine-red collared shirt and tan slacks. I set my spotless loafers onto the coffee table so Brent could stare at my feet and wish he could fill these shoes.

It was rare for all six of us to meet like this; most of us were busy with our own affairs.

"Good, everyone's here so let's get this meeting over and done with," Veronica said, never one to mince words. The boss looked around the room and met each of our eyes. "We're ready. There will be several prison breaks held on the Fourth of July. Jamal's been smuggling in the gear over the last two months. Cam's going to stir up the Peckerwoods. The plan is to start a city-wide war, force the attention off us."

"How sure are we that this won't bring Alexandria out east?" Nisha tried. "I thought that was why we were sitting quiet."

"It's a balancing game, but that's life, no? Tell me, Nisha, how many of our boys are held in Phoenix?"

"Not many. They're mostly…" The puzzled look on her face bled away into a wicked grin. "They're mostly locals. Mesa. Peckers."

"Exactly." She spread out her arms. "This is a business, ladies and gentlemen. What happens when you flood the market with low-skilled workers?"

"A bloodbath," I finished for her. "The Peckers have been getting pushed back because Phoenix has two whole Protectorate teams. Even if the peewees don't get involved, that's a lot to deal with on top of the SSM. And Caras? That mad dog is going to light the fuse just to watch this city burn. With a bit of help, Phoenix blows up."

"Yes, that's right. Jamal's organized the breakouts. Nisha's kept eyes off us. You and Cam's got inroads into the Peckerwoods. When sh*t hits the fan, I want you to hit them hard while making it look like the Mesas did it. Brent will tag along with Cam and take control of Freeform."

"They bleed each other out and we get our hands on a high level changer," Jamal nodded. "I can dig it. We're not keeping the racist f*ckers long-term though, right?"

"Of course not, Jamal. We're going to swallow them whole then shoot the f*ckers we don't like. We can deal with the SSM after that."

I found Veronica in her office after the blessedly short meeting. It was one of the upsides of being in the wrong side of the law. High level meetings like that one ended rather quickly because none of us had the power to tell Veronica no or quibble about the plan. She decided the plan, with some occasional input from me. Everyone else shut up and trailed along.

Veronica Camacho looked at me over a pair of reading glasses. She was going over the papers, a deceptively mundane hobby if I didn't know for a fact she was scoping out the best places to bomb in a few days. With how the crazy bitch thought, we basically had two thinkers in our little crew.

"Yes, Kevin?"

"We might need to change the plan," I said honestly; best to rip the Band-Aid off now. "I got some new intel for you, boss."

"And you didn't tell me earlier because?"

"I found out yesterday entirely by coincidence and spent the day following up on it. It's legit."

When she spoke, I tried to pretend I didn't have cold sweat running down my spine. I saw what she could do and had no intention of being on the business end of things. "Fine, you wouldn't do me like that. Tell me."

"I found Rubedo. The new Ward."

"You're smarter than this, Kevin. We don't touch Wards. It's never worth the effort."

"Even if he's a tinker-f*ck-yeah?" I shot back. "You know he makes those potions, right?"

"Who doesn't? Getting sued at eight over healing tech?" she snorted. "And they say I'm the monster. Those potions could be good for our boys, but they're not worth it by themselves."

"Yeah, well, those aren't all he can make. Remember the steelskins?" That was what the Peckerwoods had started calling the PRT goons with brute powers. They certainly hadn't gone unnoticed.

She caught on quickly. "You think he makes powers in a bottle. He's not an alchemy-tinker; he's a powers-tinker."

"Positive." I tapped the side of my head. "I heard him. He's chafing, doesn't think the Wards can use him right but can't leave the lab setup. He's got so many ideas too. So many wants. And you know what? I think we could provide."

I told her what else I'd found.

It honestly didn't take much, though even I had to admit there was some luck involved. I followed up on a few contacts after leaving the mall. One of my moles in the police passed along something a PRT buddy had told him, something about some magic metal that could shut down powers…

Yes, I was lucky indeed, so lucky that it almost felt like a trap. I'd dismissed the idea. Who the f*ck would greenlight using a Ward as bait? Sure as hell wasn't Lyons.

I had a list of blind kids in local elementary schools by the end of the day. Wards typically lived near HQ for obvious reasons, and the blind kid was at the mall, so I was able to triangulate his neighborhood using those three data points: Phoenix Heights. It wasn't too well off, single mother and all, but safe enough. Perfect, as it meant no one would expect the Crips to move.

I spent last night and this morning listening in on all the things dear little Andy wouldn't or couldn't make because the law bound him. It was quite the list.

When I finished, she leaned back with a satisfied nod. "Yes, you did well, Kevin. I can see why you didn't bring this up with everyone. A Ward is a bit dicey, but what's life without risks?"

"So, new plan?"

"Yes. Prison breaks still happen. We still incite a massive war. Then? Then a blind boy goes missing. I'm thinking of getting Cam to pay the kid a visit."

I nodded. "Fair. We can't kill the mom or that'll break her hold on him."

"Exactly. Nice and quiet. Does he do anything out of the house?"

"Won't matter much. His mom works two jobs."

"Pity. I can respect a woman with some hustle. We take him in the chaos. Get him under Cam and no one needs to know."

"Alright, boss. But… playing devil's advocate here. Do we need the kid right now? It's not like he's going anywhere, right? We could take him after we take over Phoenix."

She thought about it. She had this habit of tapping her pen when she focused. "No, that wouldn't work. Kidnapping a Ward is big news, Kev. If we establish ourselves, make sure we're the only gang worth knowing in Phoenix, and then go for a Ward? No, that's how we get that flying bitch on our asses. But if a Ward goes missing in his civilian identity… an accident maybe…"

"Security in anonymity. Got it. We're going to need something to throw them off."

"Freeform," she said simply. "We were never going to keep the racist puto for long. He's too slippery."

I felt a grin spread over my face. "Yeah. Yeah, I hear you, boss."

"Lovely. Do me a favor and call in Camille. And Brent too. I have a plan."

I walked away from her office with an easy grin. Plans changed all the time, usually for the worse. I was happy to see fate pull some strings for me for a change.

Author's Note

I don't think it needs to be said, but Kevin Rivers' views are not my own.

Lawless' power is simple: He can hear the desires of anyone he can see, closer the target, the louder and more detailed the whispers, but with one caveat. The target must have no intention of acting on them in the immediate. Weird power, dead useful though.

La Torcha thinks Alexandria has it out for her. She doesn't. The only reason Becky even remembers her is because she's physically incapable of forgetting. Alexandria has no interest in the Phoenix Crips.

Chapter 20: 3.1 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.1

2000, July 2: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I'd hoped that making the Tear of the Goddess would have gotten me what I needed to ignite a third star in the World Rune, but it wasn't enough. Perhaps I needed to make a "finished product," though that notion was already flawed seeing how I'd had access to the Petricite Elixir for days now. Or perhaps, this was the World Rune's way of telling me that there was more to build with the corrupted Water of Life.

'Maybe it wasn't satisfied with just the Tear?' I wondered.

I woke up at six in the morning and meditated for an hour, not to replenish my crystal stockpile, though I should do that too, but to sink all my gathered mana into the Tear of the Goddess hanging from my neck. It had become my new routine in the past few days. The whole point of the Tear was to slowly increase my body's tolerance for channeling mana. Basically, I wanted to sculpt my body in the same way someone from Runeterra could.

I got up and went through my stretches, everything I could remember being practiced by Lee Sin's acolytes. I didn't know exactly what my fighting style would be when I fully matured, but I figured being flexible enough to make contortionists jealous would only help in the future.

The forms were difficult for this young body. I was left sweating buckets after a single cycle through the basic forms. There was a pressure inside of me, a feeling that I wasn't doing this quite right even though I was, as far as I could tell from the hazy memories.

"Not having a master is going to slow me down so much," I grumbled.

I emerged from my room and took a shower before greeting my mom with a hug. Back in my old life, my Korean parents weren't huggers. They showed love by kicking my ass, not letting me watch The Simpsons, demanding I get straight As. This time around, mom was definitely a hugger and the reason why depressed me a bit.

I saw her off to her ESL class. Then, nearing ten in the morning, I decided that I wasn't done with the Water of Life and went back to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

It was one in the afternoon when I made my way back home, a quart of holy water in my backpack. Mass was both similar and different to many of the sermons I'd attended as a Baptist in the past. I'd stuck around for a bit after the service; churches always left me feeling somewhat introspective, even if I didn't always agree with the message.

I took a sip of Oracle's the moment I got home and turned on my laptop. I found an email waiting for me addressed to all Wards.

Phoenix Wards,

Large-scale prison breaks have been reported all across the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and its surroundings at roughly 11:30am this morning. The coordination and methods used in these instances indicate a high likelihood of parahuman involvement.

You are hereby ordered to remain alert. There is no declared emergency at this time, but you may be required to act in a greater capacity for the good of the community according to the Critical Response Clause of the Wards Charter.

Regards,

Levi Silva

Deputy Director of the PRT

1 (602) 555-0112

prt_

I let out a frustrated sigh and ran my fingers through my hair. "Well… that's ominous. And yet they've told me virtually nothing. How typically of the PRT."

I opened up several local news sites and began to search for more information. As it turns out, there were quite a few prisons in the Phoenix area. Including all the city jails run by the municipal authorities and the private jails of… questionable… repute, there were well over a dozen. It didn't take me long to find out what was going on. Even in the early days of the internet, word travelled fast. To say the city was blowing up would only be a slight exaggeration, and I feared not for much longer.

According to one blogger who lived near Arizona State Prison, there was a large explosion near the gates. I managed to corroborate the information with four other entries. One of them even had a shaky video of the explosion.

It didn't take a genius to extrapolate: Somehow, they'd managed to coordinate a simultaneous attack on every local prison to devastating effect. Or, close enough that the detail was a matter of semantics. Question was, who were "they?"

"sh*t," I summed up in a word.

I fixed myself a bowl of leftover miyeokguk, a type of Korean seaweed soup, and ate a light lunch before giving Agent Morrison a call. He picked up on the second ring.

"Rubedo?" he asked, his old country drawl sounding a bit worn out.

"Sir, are the Wards being called in?"

He sighed. "Told him this wasn't a good idea," I caught him muttering under his breath. "No, no you are not being called in."

"I heard about the bombs. Is it like that everywhere?"

"You're not going to let up, are you, kid?"

"Probably not."

"Fine. Yes. Over a dozen complexes were hit, causing massive breakouts. Someone's smuggled the inmates weapons and the mayor's asked for reinforcements from the state."

"How is this not our problem?"

"It's not our problem until there is a clear case of parahuman involvement," he said sternly. "Rubedo, son, I know you want to help. The best thing you can do now is to make more of them potions."

I sighed. "Yes, sir."

I gave the other Wards a call as well. Stingray and Ranchero were unusually high-strung, already tired from their patrols. Hat Trick was no better. Playing ride-along on an ambulance had to be no less exhausting than patrols expecting combat.

I let out yet another sigh and settled down to make as many Mana Crystals as possible.

My mom came home a few hours later and we talked about our day. I told her about my new favorite jazz band. It was heavy on the sax and drums, just perfect to vibe with while meditating. I started singing and listening to jazz as a hobby for two reasons: First, I wanted to relieve mom's worries that I was spending too much time on my cape life. Second, I wanted this hobby to be something a blind child could enjoy so I'd have something to talk about when talking to my peers or teachers at school.

I had no true talent for music, not like my mom, but I was a passable singer and I was slowly learning to match pitch mostly successfully. I had to admit, I was happy with myself. Musical talent was something I'd lacked in my past life as well, ever since I ran out crying from my piano hagwon when I was my current age. It felt almost like I was fulfilling a long lost ambition, however minor.

The doorbell rang at four in the afternoon.

I glanced outside using the Oracle's pericognition and smiled. Standing at our door was one Alice Nohara in jeans and a white t-shirt with Royalle and Oathkeeper's faces halved and spliced together. It looked cool, honestly. I would've appreciated it more if I didn't keep hearing so many negative stories about the monarch-themed hero. "Alice is here, mom."

"Right. You have all your hero things put away?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Of course."

"Your room clean?"

"Yes, mother," I drawled.

"Are you rolling your eyes at me?" she said in that tone all sons know. Sure, I was mentally in my thirties, but it never failed to send a chill down my back. Fear the slipper for it brings pain.

"No, mother," I replied dutifully. "This hyoja would never dream of such a disrespectful thing."

She flicked my ear. "That's what I thought. Now open the door and let her in, won't you?"

"Yes, mother."

I made a show of grumpily walking to the door. When I got there, I flung it open, arms spread wide for a hug. "What do, Scooby-Doo?"

"Hi, I'm here for… What?" My Oracle's Elixir had not worn off yet and confusion on her face was positively delicious. She was a cute kid, with the expected dark brown eyes of someone with Japanese ancestry, but her hair was a bit lighter than I thought it'd be.

'Does she have some Caucasian in her?' I wondered before mentally shaking my head. It didn't matter. I made a note to pretend to be fully blind in her presence.

I felt mom's knuckles on my head. "Alice, welcome, welcome," she said in a thick accent, all smiles. "Ignore my son. He blind and stupid."

"Right, hello, Mrs. Kim," she said, bowing towards my mom. She held out a small shopping bag labeled with the Izakaya Nohara logo, a cute snail with a green and blue striped shell. "Mom asked me to give you this. It's mochi."

"Oh, very nice. Thank you, thank you."

I shook my head in amusem*nt. I didn't know what I was expecting, but her Asian mom hospitality instincts were kicking in hard.

"I'll leave you two to the violin lesson," I said as I excused myself. "Before I go, Alice, want something to drink? Water? Soda?"

"Mom says I can't have any soda," she said, nose scrunched.

"Have soda," mom said, grinning. "Shigure don't know, don't hurt."

"Lovely example you're setting, mom," I muttered under my breath. I grabbed a can of co*ke for my new friend anyway.

"How did you know where the fridge is?" Alice asked curiously.

"I know my own house," I said simply. "Stub your toes on the same table enough times and you figure it out sooner or later."

I closed the door to my room and spent the next two hours in a mini meditation session trying to drown out the music lesson. Alice was… horrible. To be strictly fair, I was being rather harsh on a nine year old, but that didn't mean I didn't reach for my headphones.

2000, July 3: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I walked into the Wards common room on Monday and decked myself out in full Rubedo regalia. With all the Mana Crystals I'd been making over the weekend, I was able to easily knock out the increased weekly quota. Strictly speaking, I wasn't supposed to work on the weekends outside of sanctioned PR events, but I doubted they'd make a fuss of it given the circ*mstances.

I spent that morning machining out four additional Petricite handcuffs and mixed a single Petricite Elixir. The elixir was confirmed to work, first tested on Sawtooth, the SSM tinker captured by Cloudstreak and Bunyan. There was an ongoing study into the psychological impact of denying a tinker their fugue and the results ranged from "not pretty" to "possibly worse than solitary confinement." The sample Petricite they'd taken hadn't decreased his urges in any way, but the elixir did.

Keeping Sawtooth in a manageable, fugue-less state had become one of many things added to my to-do list. He got one a week. Once consumed, the elixir disseminated the microscopic granules of Petricite through his bloodstream, the process aided by the health potion used to craft the elixir. The Petricite could eventually be filtered out by the liver, but seven days was already an immense boon.

Around two in the afternoon, I piled everything I made, thirty-one health potions, eight Elixirs of Iron, four Petricite cuffs, and the single Petricite Elixir, onto a small cart and began pushing them out into the hallway. I made my way to the research department on the first floor and knocked.

"Dr. Sanchez?" I called. "I have the week's potions and a few other things."

The egghead-in-chief opened the door to his office with a welcoming grin. His wispy, brown beard had been combed into something vaguely resembling order, a tidy point rather than the smoke-like mess it usually was.

"Ah, excellent, Rubedo. You're right on time as always," he said. He was the one who handled the distribution of my potions, and was also the one who helped me test them when I first began making them. "Go ahead and put them over by the corner. How've you been, young man?"

"I've been well, doctor. It's getting a little crazy out there, huh?"

"Yes, yes it is, and I'm afraid it'll get much worse before it gets better," he said gravely. That's what I liked about the good doctor. He didn't mince words. Maybe it was the mask that allowed people to disassociate the eight year old from the hero, but regardless of the reason, I found that he was one of the adults most willing to fill me in.

"How so? The prisons are empty so the worst has already happened, right?"

"Yes, that's one way of looking at it. But now, the gangs have their unpowered members back. Thankfully, we've managed to hold on to Sawtooth."

"Well… f*ck," I swore under my breath. Not loud enough if the warning look he gave me was any indication.

"Now, was that all? I'm afraid I'm a bit rushed today."

"Yes, doctor. You have a good one."

I bid him goodbye with a polite bow and headed towards the canteen for a late lunch.

The Phoenix PRT canteen was a mysterious beast. On one hand, it reminded me of my old life's high school cafeteria, with a buffet style row of counters on one end that served sandwiches made to order and a juice bar with added coffee machines. Hell, there were even some obvious cliques that translated over: The researchers sat in one group, the field agents in another. Strip away the quasi-military paintjob and you'd have the nerds and jocks.

On the other hand, there was a sense of solemnity in the atmosphere, a pressure that definitely wasn't there in high school. It was the air of people who knew sh*t had hit the fan.

I grabbed myself a premade roast beef sandwich and sat across from a fourteen year old boy named Poundtown. He was a part of Wards Team Three led by Wildshot. The older boy was massive, standing at an impressive six-two. He towered over me even while seated. He was dressed in a gray muscle-shirt, with a metal and ceramic breastplate. He wore no pauldrons, showing off some massive muscles. On his head was a stereotypically fictional Viking helmet, unwieldy horns and all. Two gauntlets with exaggerated spikes on the knuckles, rubber, not metal, were laid out next to his lunch tray.

"Hey, Poundtown, how's it going?" I greeted. It wasn't too often that I saw anyone from the other Wards teams, but I saw no reason to be distant.

He shot me a surprisingly gentle smile that was at odds with his aggressive costume. "Not too bad, all things considered. You, Rubedo?"

"Just got through delivering a batch of potions. What's new on the grapevine?"

That was another good reason to talk to the others. They generally kept abreast of the PRT rumor mill better than I did, purely by stint of not being cooped up in a lab most of the time. Poundtown was an especially good one to know for the purpose. He had an unexpectedly mild-mannered, talkative personality and often volunteered for PR tours of elementary schools, daring kids to work together to "wrestle" him. How he ended up with such a ridiculous name escaped me.

He tore open a bag of chips, sour cream and onion, and took a handful. "Yeah, funny you should mention it, but I heard from some of the PRT troopers that Royalle's in hot water."

"Oh?"

"You know about Loud Crowd?"

I nodded tentatively. It was a bar and grill with only one claim to fame: It was a well-known gang hotspot ever since the Crips took over the place. It, and its general neighborhood, was one of the places I was briefed on to avoid even in my civilian identity, as though I could go anywhere as Andy Kim.

"Crips bar?"

"Yeah. Royalle, Nine Lives, and Hotflash apparently hit the joint after getting a warrant through. The place is torched."

"Anyone hurt?" I asked. This rang some bells for me; Royalle was a dick. Impulsive, too, but he wasn't stupid. You didn't become a Protectorate team leader without more than two brain cells to rub together.

He shook his head. "None of ours. The bar's ashes now though because La Torcha herself showed up to defend it. I heard those three got reamed by the directors."

"I'd hope so."

"Why? What do you have against Royalle?"

"Nothing personal," I snorted. I chewed as I thought about the situation. The more I thought, the weirder it sounded. "He's strong, but I don't think he was thinking that through. Think about it. How many gang hangouts and safe houses do we know about?"

"Probably more than they're telling us Wards, but less than we'd like."

"Right. If so many unpowered mooks broke out of prison yesterday, the cops would naturally try to follow up on where they went, right?"

"Mhmm," he hummed assent as he took another bite of his sandwich, a turkey, bacon club.

"Well, one of the few places we knew about just burned to the ground because Royalle got impatient. Now, it just got a lot harder. Plain clothes officers could have been sent to try and get an idea of gang movements and stuff like that."

"Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Explains why the directors weren't happy. Bet the cops weren't either."

I nodded. "Yeah. I guess he got twitchy from sitting around while Oathkeeper took point on the gang war thing." I doubted that was all, but I could hardly say so.

Poundtown took a sip of his sweet tea. Really, it was more sugar with a side of tea. "It's not all bad, Rubedo. I hear they caught Beartrap out of it so the Crips are down a cape."

"At least there's that," I agreed.

We shot the breeze for a bit longer before I told him I had to go do more work in my lab. Still, I couldn't suppress the feeling that things were about to get worse. Too much was happening. I'd managed to stay on the sidelines so far, for both good and ill, but I worried that I wouldn't get that luxury for much longer.

Author's Note

Anyone else's parents thought The Simpsons was too violent or adult-themed to watch as children? I can't be the only one, right?

The hagwon story is actually true. A hagwon is an extracurricular school, an "academy" that a lot of Korean students go to. I started a piano hagwon when I was about Andy's age, a bit younger actually. Except, I'm visually impaired, so I couldn't read sheet music. I had to lean so far forward to read the notes that I did this weird t-rex claw thing while playing. I got so frustrated that I ran out crying in less than a week. And that, boys and girls, is how Fabled Webs' dreams of being a musician died.

Remember. When in doubt, it's always a Ziz plot. Or Contessa. Or Andy's paranoid.

Chapter 21: 3.2 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.2

2000, July 3: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I returned to the common room after my discussion with Poundtown. A part of me felt bad for the older Ward. Not because of his name or costume, there wasn't anything egregiously wrong with a Viking theme, even if the historically inaccurate horns were a bit over the top.

I felt bad because his power made him a bog-standard brute, and a relatively weak one at that. He was technically a breaker or changer who turned his body into hard, rubber-like foam. In that state, he could absorb and redirect kinetic energy, letting him hit a bit harder than his minor brute rating would imply. The problem was that he couldn't remain in that form for long, nor was the durability high enough to keep up with stronger brutes.

A mover could always run and pick his battles. A blaster had range. A master had proxies. But when a brute wasn't strong enough…

A part of me also envied him in a way. He was a simple man who liked making kids smile and had a simple power. No one expected much of him, not even himself. There was no great expectation that he would change the medical field or kill Scion as I knew I one day must. He could live his life as a hero to children, never even entertaining the possibility of having to compromise his morals for "the greater good."

My musings about my colleague ended as I stepped into the common room. I saw Hat Trick on console. It was a rare enough sight these past few weeks. As our resident jack of all trades, she was always busy and console seemed like a waste of her talents. She waved me over.

"Yo. What's up, chico?" she said with an easygoing smile, but I could see the slight bags under her eyes.

"Hey, Hat Trick," I greeted. "Odd to see you on console these days."

She slumped and let out a small sigh. "Yeah, I'm taking a break. Even I need one of those every now and then."

"You deserve it," I said reassuringly, "but wasn't Bandit supposed to be on?"

"She got reassigned, temporarily, I mean. There was this big fire in Prescott National Forest and the rangers and firefighters wanted her flying with them for a bit. She's the best at rescuing estupido campers and whatnot, you know?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I could see that." It was more than just that. Masked Bandit's power was simple in theory, but had a wide variety of applications. She could easily move tree trunks and other detritus towards herself, creating fire breaks in minutes. She could even be flown roughly to the center of the fire, where she could draw in burning wood into a focused location. "She must be pretty popular with the rangers, huh?"

"You have no idea. She's an honorary ranger already. Has the badge and everything. She even got invited to their annual dinner last year."

Then a worrying thought occurred to me. "Say, doesn't it seem a little convenient that a forest fire ignites within days of a mass prison break?"

She mulled it over before laughing. "Chico, you're seeing shadows that aren't there. Wildfire season's May to July around here. It's honestly a surprise that it hasn't happened earlier this year. She did the same thing last year, too. Besides, who'd start a forest fire just to pull away a Ward?"

"Yeah, maybe you're right…"

She shrugged helplessly. "Ehh, you know how it is. When it rains, it pours."

2000, July 4: Phoenix, AZ, USA

As many had predicted, the tenuous peace in our sunny city didn't last. Both gangs must have felt greatly emboldened by their recent swell in numbers, because six separate raids were documented last night alone. Twenty-one people died in a single night, not all of them gang soldiers. Two buildings burned to the ground and a few more suffered significant fire and water damage. With firefighters already pressed to contain the wildfire minutes from the Phoenix Metro Area, the city had no choice but to rely on volunteers, most nowhere near as experienced as the professionals.

It didn't sound like a lot. In the grand scheme of things, it meant almost nothing. Twenty-one people seemed almost laughable compared to what an endbringer could do, never mind Scion. And yet, these deaths weren't caused by multidimensional abominations. These were caused by humans, and not even powered humans at that.

With fighting breaking out in the streets, it didn't take long for the city mayor to petition the governor for a declared state of emergency. I had it explained to me just what that would mean.

Already, there was a curfew enforced by the local law enforcement. Anyone out past six could and would be stopped and potentially arrested. Roads to and from the southeast were closed to all but emergency vehicles. It was up to the governor to deploy the National Guard, but I suspected that would happen soon enough.

"Heh, and it didn't even take us Leviathan showing up. Suck it Brockton," I chuckled mirthlessly. The thought that things would deteriorate so far in a decade that nothing less than an endbringer would qualify as a "state of emergency" was both morbidly funny and depressing..

"Did you say something, son?" mom asked as she flipped some bindae-tteok, a type of Korean mung bean pancake. Hers had a hodgepodge of seafood and kimchi in it. We ate it whenever it rained back in Korea. Here in Phoenix, she made it whenever she was feeling homesick.

"Nothing, mom."

Twenty minutes later, I'd just finished breakfast when I received an email from the director's office, calling the team back to base.

"I've got to head in," I said.

She gave me a hug. "Be careful."

"I'm not even on the front lines. There's nothing to worry about. Besides, you know I always keep a few potions for myself. If something does happen, I'm prepared."

I found myself alone in the common room minutes after arriving. We had a brief meeting with Stingray and some faceless PRT captain. He introduced himself and everything, but I forgot his name the moment he left my perception field. The meeting, which included a message from the city council, boiled down to: The cops can't handle this alone and it'll take a few days for the National Guard to mobilize. We know unpowered crime isn't in your wheelhouse, but please send cape support.

We were deputized, I still didn't know if that was the right term, to act in the same capacity as Protectorate heroes for the duration of the conflict. Essentially it just meant we'd keep doing what we were already doing, but with more frequency and permissions.

Stingray, Ranchero, Diamondback, and Wildshot were authorized to engage in combat with unpowered gang members on their own prerogative with minimal oversight and arrest criminals so long as they had video evidence, which was already a must anyway. Actual Protectorate would still focus on caped gang members. Hat Trick would work with the paramedics again.

The big change was that the gear that Director Lyons had confiscated for being unapproved, Stingray's Petricite knuckles and Ranchero's armor plating, were handed back. The PRT was very image-conscious, but nothing would ruin their PR-friendly reputation faster than a Ward who got killed because they weren't allowed protection they already had access to. That, and Director Lyons seemed mostly like an alright sort; I didn't expect her to be so hung up on bureaucracy as to deny them an advantage and was happy to be proven right.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

As for me, I was ordered to make as many Elixirs of Iron as I could for protection, steering me away from the primarily health potion focused path I was on before. They were no good against even a mid-tier cape, but being highly bullet-resistant went a long way in scenarios like this. So, that's what I did.

I got into the office at nine-thirty in the morning and spent the entire day making potions out of distilled iron supplements and energy drinks. There was a sense of urgency in my actions now that I knew for a fact that my friends would be out there fighting. More than once, my hand reached down to my lower back, to the relic pistol hidden by my long robes.

"Not yet," I told myself. "I can do more good back here than I can by being another gun."

I loathed the feeling that I wasn't contributing enough and threw myself into potions-making. It was all the more frustrating because had I not hidden what I could do, I could conceivably be out there fighting with them. Yes, building armor for myself came with its own problems and potions still had more impact overall than one more body in the field, but the need to do something felt like a palpable pressure on my mind.

I was only shaken from my self-induced fugue when Agent Morrison came down to get me.

"Rubedo, squirt," he shook me as I was condensing another Mana Crystal in my hand.

Startled, I turned and hurled the half-formed crystal at him, barely missing his head. The crystal sailed out the door and exploded against the opposite wall. It sounded deafening in the cramped corridor.

"Please don't do that, Agent Morrison," I said as calmly as I could. "Tinkers don't take well to being shaken awake."

I didn't have normal fugues, but found myself in a similar boat regardless. Meditation wasn't just clearing my thoughts or breathing deeply for me. It was a literal and metaphysical dive into my soul to draw out the World Rune. It was easy to lose track of my surroundings, Oracle's or no, and I tended to be jumpy.

He let out a low whistle. "Geez, kid, that stuff supposed to explode?"

I nodded. The Mana Crystal was just that, a crystal. It needed a specific structure to retain solid form otherwise, it tended to disperse into the atmosphere. Violently. "If it's half-formed, yes. Otherwise, it's stable. How can I help you?"

"You're going home," Agent Morrison said in his best dad-voice.

I looked up at the digital clock on my desk: Eight. "It's not that late," I argued.

"It is for you. Your mom called already."

"I can still make more potions."

"Nope. I'm betting you didn't have lunch either."

"I did," I whined, pointing to my trash bin, immaculate save for two granola wrappers and an empty bag of chips. "See?"

"That ain't lunch," he drawled flatly. He then grabbed me by my not-a-hood and yanked me to my feet. "Come on, kid. I know you're worried about your friends, I appreciate it, 'specially seein' how one's my son and all, but you can't burn yourself out like this."

"I-" I was interrupted by my own body betraying me. A tired yawn forced itself from my throat.

"No. I'm taking you home. I'm already goin' to get chewed out by your mother."

"She needs to speak English for that," I grumbled.

"Don't give me none of that lip, son," he warned. "Lord knows I get enough from David."

I was waging a war on two fronts and knew I couldn't keep arguing with Agent Morrison and my own body. I trudged along behind him as he led me to the lockers so I could change into my civvies. Even with the enhancements offered by the Tear of the Goddess, this body simply lacked the stamina I was used to as an adult.

As expected, mom chewed me out and hit me upside the head with a wooden spoon. She'd cooked up a small feast for me from worry despite her own tiredness. I apologized for worrying her, ate a delicious meal of grilled Korean mackerel and gaeran-jjim , took a quick shower, then retired to my room for the night.

But I couldn't sleep.

Briefly energized from the dinner and a hot shower, I pulled up a pillow and sat down to meditate once again. They could pull me from my lab, but they couldn't keep me from preparing for the day ahead. Every Mana Crystal was a potion that could stop bullets or heal a lethal wound. Time lost its meaning in short order as my breathing became deeper and I sank into the depths of that mystical well in my soul.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with my young body and I fell asleep at three in the morning, still leaning against the wall in a vague semblance of meditation.

2000, July 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I woke up to the sound of my alarm with a hell of a crick in my back. Young or not, humans weren't meant to sleep sitting down. I did my best to at least pretend to be alert, a cold shower helped with that, and shared a quick breakfast of leftovers with mom before seeing her off to work. Luckily, anyone who could afford a housekeeper was also likely to live in more affluent, safer neighborhoods. Mom was in minimal danger.

Afterwards, I fought through my exhaustion and forced myself to do my stretches and forms, entering a sort of moving meditation while I dumped mana into the Tear. The motions were barely remembered, hazy like a long-forgotten dream. They weren't from any particular style, though the Shojin, Wuju, and Kinkou orders as well as various military knighthoods and similar all practiced a form of calisthenics. After all, general fitness, balance, and flexibility were always boons, regardless of the specific martial art.

As I progressed through the motions, I felt myself become more alert. It wasn't noticeably supernatural, there wasn't a mystical shroud of blue aura empowering me or anything, nor was I any stronger or faster. The best way I could describe it was that I had more "oomph" to my actions, like a man walking with purpose and determination, an energy derived from intent instead of some supernatural force.

I came down from my workout high and knew that it'd be a long, long while before I could do anything even the most amateurish acolyte could manage.

After my morning exercise, I gave Agent Morrison a call. He was a few minutes late to pick me up.

"Hello? Rubedo?" he answered on the fifth ring.

"Good morning, sir. I'm calling because you're a little late picking me up. Is everything alright?"

"Not a problem. I had someone else to pick up this morning as well. She's an independent consultant who specializes in crisis management for the PRT. You'll love her. Don't worry about your identity, she's signed so many NDAs that I'm pretty sure even she's lost track."

I wasn't fully comfortable with meeting someone new before I'd put on my mask, but if a senior liaison like Agent Morrison said it was fine, it probably was. She likely knew my identity from dossiers anyway. "Great, when should I expect you?"

"You sure you wouldn't like the day off, kid? A gang war's no place for little heroes like you."

"I need to do this, sir. Besides, even if I stay home, there's only so much music I can listen to before I go stir crazy. I'd end up tinkering anyway," I assured him.

"Fine, kid. Have it your way. We'll be there in a few minutes, so do you mind waiting out by the curb?"

"No problem, sir. Thank you as always. I'll see you then."

I hung up and grabbed my relic pistol along with the twenty-six Mana Crystals I'd made last night. Looking at them reminded me how tired I was, but I powered through. I tucked the pistol in my backpack and saw the quart of holy water I'd received from Father Manuel. I hadn't had a chance to do more with the material, but I was hoping to get more time later. I didn't want to keep him waiting so I shrugged and left it there alongside my bottle of Oracle's. Three minutes later, I was out on the curb waiting for Agent Morrison and the new consultant.

I "saw" them before they arrived. Agent Morrison looked as he always did, though his tie was a bit crooked.

'I guess I'm not the only one tired,' I thought.

What really caught my attention was the vision of beauty sitting in the back.

She wore a classy, charcoal-gray pantsuit with a white shirt that hugged her generous curves. Her outfit was perfectly pressed, with not a crease out of place. The only thing that broke her professional appearance was a thin, blue choker around her neck. She was short, a foot taller than me, though no one would mistake her for a little girl. She had flawless caramel skin and wavy brown hair held in a ponytail. Twin bangs framed a perfectly heart-shaped face with large, almond eyes and pouty lips that seemed both innocent and playful.

I opened the door and bowed to her respectfully. "Hello ma'am," I began. "I'm told you know who I am?"

"Yes," she said. She had an almost magically charming voice, sultry yet soothing all at once. "Rubedo, right? It's a pleasure to meet another one of the Wards."

"Another, ma'am?" I asked curiously. She wouldn't be the first to travel around different PRT offices as needed. I knew that in canon, Dr. Jessica Yamada did something similar, doing her best to put Band-Aids on the psyches of broken heroes.

"I travel often and have met quite a few of them, though I hope you'll forgive me if I don't say just who. Rules, you understand?" she winked.

"Of course. I wouldn't want you telling anyone else about me," I said back. "What does a crisis management specialist do?"

"Well, cutie, I travel around and tell people how to do their jobs. Every branch is a bit different, so my job is a bit different depending on where I am. When things get messy, I show up and do my best to make things better. It means I can deal with troopers, Wards, Protectorate, or even the local police force. There isn't any uniformly consistent thing I do. And please," she smiled beatifically, "call me Camille."

Author's Note

Well then… How much do you trust Agent Morrison?

Chapter 22: 3.3 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.3

2000, July 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Truth be told, Camille was very close to my image of an ideal woman. In the past, I probably would have shot my shot and made a fool of myself trying to impress her only to get pathetically rejected after buying her a drink or something. She was beautiful, charming, well-spoken, and had a career that made for an interesting life. I felt no small regret that I was stuck in the body of an eight year old.

We cruised along slowly and surprisingly, it was Camille who struck up a conversation with me.

"So, Andy, tell me about yourself. I hear you've made some big ripples for such a little guy," she smiled teasingly.

I chuckled bashfully. "I just made a few potions. It's not my fault some bigwigs decided I'd be cutting into their bottom line."

"Hah, you mean fat cats are greedy? What else is new?"

"Yeah, I should have expected that. Still, there's plenty to do around here without throwing hospital visits into the mix. With the way the city's been blowing up, it feels like the world's going to catch fire."

"Already did up north, I hear," she said wryly. "You know what they say. Bad things come in threes."

"Yeah. Masked Bandit, another Ward, is up there right now helping out by making fire breaks and stuff." I had an idea. Hat Trick had brushed my suspicions off as paranoid, but perhaps the crisis management consultant would think differently. "Say, do you think there's any connection between the prison breaks and the wildfire in Prescott National Forest?"

"What do you mean? I hear it's fire season in Phoenix."

"It is, but the timing seems a bit too convenient."

She scrunched her nose in thought and I couldn't help but think the expression looked good on her. "Maybe, but it's unlikely. From what I know about La Torcha, Dos Caras, and Freeform, it's none of their modus operandi. There's no reason to dismiss the possibility though. I'll look into it," she promised.

I nodded. Talking to her was comforting. She felt like a very charming person and those big, expressive eyes made me want to trust her.

"Andy? You okay, cutie?" She shook my shoulder gently. I didn't realize I hadn't stopped nodding.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my eyes. I opened my bag to show her the dozens of blue crystals inside. "I guess I'm a bit tired. I didn't get much sleep last night. I tried to make as many Mana Crystals as I could. I just… I feel like I need to be doing something, you know?"

"I do, believe it or not. I think I can understand that. But that doesn't mean you should work yourself to the bone like that," she admonished gently. She sounded so caring, so concerned. "Say, Vincent."

"Yes, Camille?" Agent Morrison spoke up from the driver's seat. I didn't know his first name was Vincent. I chuckled to myself. It didn't seem to suit him. I thought it'd be John or Sam or something more cowboy-ish. "Vincent" made me think of "my cousin Vinnie" from New York.

"I have that noon meeting, right? The one with Deputy Director Silva and the squad captains? Nothing else before?"

"No, I don't think so. You wanna play hooky? How old are you, Camille?"

She thumped his backrest with a kick. "Hey! I'm still in my twenties! Besides, I think Andy can use some time off."

"Been tellin' him that. Kid could use a break."

"I don't-" I started to argue, but Camille placed a single dainty finger on my lips.

"Hush, Andy. I know burnout when I see it," she chided. "You've worked so hard to keep people safe. Don't you think you could use a break?"

'I've never had a total stranger care so much for me,' I thought. She sounded so warm and genuine. "I can't. What if someone gets hurt because I wasn't there?"

"That's not on you. If they get hurt, it's because they were unlucky or careless. You're not responsible for them," she said matter-of-factly.

I frowned. "I get that but…"

"It's hard to accept sometimes, isn't it? But it's something you have to get used to. Not even Scion can save everyone."

"Yeah…" Going through my first city-wide crisis, I now had an in-depth understanding of what Amy must have felt in canon. The truth was that I didn't care much for the average person. I cared for those close to me: the Wards, mom, and perhaps a few PRT troopers and Protectorate heroes I'd met in person. I didn't have the iron discipline or gnawing guilt that drove Amy to care for everyone. Even so, even this much felt like a lead weight on my heart. I was older than them. Seeing them go off to fight while I sat around safe in my lab felt wrong.

"Andy, what are the rest of the Wards up to? You said Masked Bandit was up north helping out with the wildfire."

"Ranchero and Stingray were deputized so they're handling regular gang members with the cops. Hat Trick is off doing ride-alongs with the EMTs."

"Right. They're all safe," she assured me. "None of your friends are being asked to duke it out with La Torcha, cutie. They're all equipped with your tinkertech, right?"

"They all have potions."

"Of course they do. And who's going to attack an ambulance? Even gangb*ngers know to not mess with the people who keep you alive. They're not going to get hurt because you take a little break."

"Ranchero and Stingray might," I said stubbornly, but my argument was undercut by a suppressed yawn.

"You're so cute when you worry," she cooed. "But EMTs and doctors take breaks too or they burn out. You're a smart boy. You know that, don't you?"

I yawned. It felt so comfortable. I almost felt drunk; I'd always been a sleepy drunk… "Maybe… Maybe a little is okay."

As I drifted off, I felt her pat my head gently. "You take a nap. At least until noon," she whispered. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine…"

I woke up sprawled on a comfortable sofa, the two-seater more than big enough for my small frame.

Before I could fully wake, the smooth, honeyed voice of an angel greeted me. "You're awake."

"Camille?" I asked, still bleary-eyed.

"Yes. It's almost noon. We don't have a lot here, but Vincent and I did pick up a sandwich for lunch. There's one for you in the fridge. We didn't know what you liked so you'll just have to settle for ham and cheese I'm afraid."

"Ham and cheese is fine." I fumbled around for a bit. "Sorry, can you give me my Oracle's? It's that water bottle with Hero's logo on it. I can't see anything right now."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Oh, right, my bad, Andy."

I felt my familiar water bottle nudged into my hand. I drank and the world expanded around me.

I sat up and looked around. The three of us were in a large, generic office that doubled as a locker and kitchenette. It had gray, faux-wood floors and eggshell-white walls with an open window that I could look out of. The office was one of several on the second floor of a warehouse of some sort. A series of walkways and ramps connected them. Down below, crates were stacked neatly atop each other.

In the next room over, I found what could only be a rudimentary laboratory. It lacked the industrial-grade tools in my own lab, but it was surprisingly well-equipped. The lab contained an electric saw, welding torch, drop hammer, and even its own gas kiln. Another room had clearly once been an office like this one, but had been converted into a barrack of sorts, with metal bedframes bolted into the walls and Spartan nightstands. The beds didn't exactly look comfortable, but they'd suffice in a pinch.

Off in the distance, at the farthest edges of my range, I could see a few people taking a smoke break. A handful more were loading boxes into trucks while another man seemed to be listening to music in another office.

"Where is here exactly?"

Camille smiled and I felt the warm and fuzzies settle in my chest, banishing my unease. "We're in a safehouse of sorts," she said. The uneasiness immediately returned. At no point was hearing the word "safehouse" a good thing.

"After you fell asleep, we received notice that HQ has been attacked. I was given orders to rendezvous with other agents after taking you to safety." Agent Morrison continued. "I'll be heading out in a little bit to figure out how I can help."

"Wait what?"

"Andy, calm down," Camille admonished. "This warehouse was bought by the PRT and originally used to belong to a moving company. They had plans to renovate it into an offsite training area for unconventional powers, but they never got around to it thanks to the recent chaos. Instead, bureaucracy happened and it became an overgrown storage shed. Figures, right?"

"No, that's not the problem, Camille. What exactly happened? How come I'm not home?"

"It's nothing to worry about. Please let the experts handle this."

"Camille, please," I pleaded. "If I'm being shipped around, at least tell me what's going on."

She sighed. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, but fine. There was a bombing in the parking lot. We think the support pillars have been damaged. After that, several more were found in different places so the building was completely evacuated. Bomb squad technicians are combing the building as we speak. After that, we'll need engineers to come in and rate the building's structural integrity. Does that help?" She looked me in the eyes, full well expecting me to not understand.

"It does. But doesn't this mean I should be headed home? The Wards Handbook-"

"Says that, yes. But this is something of an emergency. I've never encountered a situation like this either if I'm honest. How did they get the bombs inside?"

Her words stuck me. "You think there were moles in the PRT."

"Yes. This means that until we know exactly how this happened, all civilian staff have been sent home and all heroes must act like their identities have been compromised. Right now, the Phoenix PRT has scattered to several different smaller offices. This one just happened to have what we needed for a small lab thanks to the whole 'was going to be a training site' thing." She smiled wryly. "I didn't think you'd accept being unable to help in a situation like this. And right now? We could use all the help you can provide."

Her words struck me as odd, but I couldn't put my finger on precisely why. I trusted her; Camille seemed like an extremely competent agent and my surroundings confirmed what she told me. Now that I looked closer, each crate had the logo of a company called the Red Sands Moving Company, a yellow sun over red mesas and a truck driving through. 'Still…' "Camille," I asked, "where are the other Wards? This safehouse… There are too few people, right? What about mom? Is she okay? Can I call her?"

"One at a time, Andy," she chided gently. "I know you're worried, but everything is fine. No one was seriously hurt in the explosion. We're just being extra-cautious. As for your mother, she's okay too. We made sure of that and have a few people keeping tabs on her. I'm sorry that I can't let you call her. We're all pretty much radio silent except for mission-critical calls."

"And… And the Wards?"

"You know where they are. They're off on patrols and ride-alongs. Right now, being on the move might actually be safer than being cooped up in one place. Really, Andy, don't worry about them. Or yourself. We'll take care of you, alright?"

She leaned forward and locked me in place with deep, expressive eyes. The concern and assurance in her tone made me feel a little guilty, perhaps irrationally so, for asking so many questions.

"Right. Sorry. I'm panicking a bit." I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

'She makes sense. Right?' I thought. 'It's hard to think. So much is happening all at once…' I didn't voice my thoughts.

"Thank you for indulging me, Camille," I said instead. "So what happens now?"

"No, you're doing great, Andy. I would have expected far worse from any other Ward. You're very mature for your age."

My chest swelled at her praise.

Agent Morrison spoke up. "Given the unusual circ*mstances, Camille and I will work out of this safehouse alongside you. We'll be your handlers, of sorts, until things calm down."

"Look on the upside," Camille said, sending me a genuine smile. "You and I will get to know each other real well. It's always nice to make new friends, don't you think?"

I nodded and felt my face redden a little. It wasn't lust per se, but even in a child's body, there was something uniquely appealing about having the friendship of a beautiful older woman.

Her silken voice sounded just about perfect, warm and empathetic with a bit of cheerful mischief. She made perfect sense. 'She's the crisis management consultant,' I thought. 'If anyone can be trusted in this scenario, it's her. There's no chance that she can be compromised after all; she's not even from here.'

Mind at ease, I took another look around with the Oracle's Elixir. The lab itself contained several large boxes of electronics, ranging from household appliances like toasters and microwaves to office supplies like computers and printers. I even saw some MIDI hardware, the sort used by high-end sound studios. That struck me as a bit strange.

'I'm an alchemist. Why would there be so many miscellaneous electronics lying around?' I wondered. I turned back to my handlers. 'It'd make some sense for tinkers to be put in the same location in an emergency, right? After all, there can't be too many spare labs lying around.'

"Will Gyroscope be joining us? The lab next door, there're a lot of electrical supplies that I don't use."

Agent Morrison shook his head. "Sorry, squirt, but no. Gyroscope is off coordinating a counterstrike against the SSM. He's got a bunch of police tailing him; his reconnaissance capabilities are too useful to take him off the field."

"Okay. I'll get to work right away." My stomach betrayed me, letting out an audible growl. I chuckled bashfully. "After lunch…"

I ate the ham and cheese sandwich in the fridge with gusto, barely tasting it so I could get to work. More than ever, people were counting on my potions.

I got to work immediately… Or, as immediately as could be allowed. Camille was somewhat surprised to learn that all I needed for health potions were nutrient shakes, but quickly ordered some of the men loitering outside to get me as much as they could from a nearby Costco. Fifteen minutes later, I was set.

The lab wasn't great, but I'd never been a "tools to build more tools to build more tools" type of tinker anyway. I needed some exotic or unusual materials, but I was very low-maintenance compared to other tinkers.

I'd found early on that if I could distill and concentrate the nutrient shakes a bit by boiling them before turning them into potions, the potions would be a little bit better. They wouldn't suddenly regenerate lost limbs or anything, but they would be slightly faster acting, and an extra few seconds could be lifesaving in a firefight. While I waited, I reached for my phone. I figured that even though I wasn't allowed to call anyone, I could still check the local news.

I came up empty.

I patted myself down even as I gave myself a once-over with the Oracle's.

No phone.

No relic pistol either.

A chill ran down my back. I turned around to see Camille and Agent Morrison. She smiled that sweet, comforting smile. "What's wrong, Andy?"

"I can't find my pho…" I trailed off as I noticed something strapped to her lower back. A pistol, though nothing made through conventional means.

A quick check revealed that no one around me carried ID cards issued by the PRT either.

She must have seen something in my eyes, because her charming smile gained a distinctly harsher edge. She snapped her finger and the man I'd thought was Agent Morrison changed, bulging with grotesque muscle until a Siberian tiger lounged by her side.

'Freeform,' I realized too late. I took a quick glance outside, only to find that more men had gathered. In the next room, the man who'd been listening to music stood and removed his earphones before facing me and giving me a cheery wave.

I summed up my present circ*mstances in a word: "sh*t."

Author's Note

I realize that chapters where the main character gets duped so thoroughly are unpopular and very hard to read. Honestly? The reason this arc was so hard to write was largely because of this section. That said, I ask that you remember just what information is and is not available to Andy at present. You may know what's going on, but from within the fourth wall, things are far more obscure, especially given the subtlety of Camille's power. Trust is a hell of a drug, no?

A MIDI is a musical instrument digital interface, the tech that sound technicians use to modify and remix songs in musical studios.

Chapter 23: 3.4 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.4

2000, July 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

'I swear to God, if I ever get out of this, the first thing I'm going to do is figure out how to be omniscient,' I grumbled in my head as cold sweat broke over my brow.

"Aww," Camille cooed. She still looked as charming as ever, but with her allure temporarily shocked out of my system, I couldn't ignore the taunting mockery in her tone if I tried. "Is reality finally sinking in, Andy?"

She took out my relic pistol from her hidden holster and flipped it around in her hand. The pistol itself was deadly, though not that much more so than a mundane equivalent, but that wasn't my concern. My only concern regarding that pistol was how I could get it back; it was almost certainly useless in the hands of another.

I breathed deep. 'If she's hoping for a child's meltdown, she's going to be sorely disappointed,' I swore.

Instead, I gestured to the tiger staring hungrily at me. "Freeform. Since when does he work with the Crips? You are Crips, right? I thought he was a Klan wannabe."

"He was. Let's just say he's had a change of heart. And yes, we're the Crips. I didn't expect you to figure it out so soon though. What gave it away?"

"The guy in the other room has a gang tattoo over his heart. So, what's this about? A few potions can't be it, right? I'm worth a lot, but I'm not worth that much."

I typically tried not to pay attention to tattoos and piercings, usually had bigger demands on my time, but I wished I'd taken note earlier. Looking around more closely now, the sh*t I'd gotten myself into was plainly obvious to me. This was the biggest flaw that came with the Oracle's Elixir. The information could be present, but if I didn't pay attention to it or know what to look for, it'd get glossed over in the same way normal people ignored the eye color of random people they met on the street.

"Potions are great, but they're not all you can make, are they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied. "I'm an alchemical tinker, remember?"

"And alchemy is a very broad subject," Camille said simply. "A little birdie told us about a magic metal, one that could even lock away powers."

I felt a pit in my stomach form as I began to doubt everything I'd heard today. 'Just how much do they know? Who do they have on the inside? Did the attack even happen? Is Agent Morrison alive? Or was he Freeform all along?'

It was obvious what would happen if I refused to work with them. I could erase both Camille and Freeform right this instant, but that still left me trapped in a building with only one shot left. I'd recover my relic pistol, but it wasn't enough. Never mind my own life, I didn't forget how they'd picked me up at my apartment. Mom was in danger.

If there was a bright spot in all this, it was that they couldn't hold my supply of Oracle's Elixir over my head. They needed me to tinker or I'd be dead weight, so they couldn't deprive me of my vision.

I sighed. There was no point in hiding it if they knew that much already. "Petricite," I said solemnly. "I figured I'd become a big deal because of it, but I didn't think anyone would make a move this soon. It's not as all-powerful as you're making it seem though."

"Oh? Do tell."

"It's about as strong as steel, but can seal away external expressions of powers on contact. Too little Petricite and it can still fail. You'd need full-on medieval shackles and even then, it doesn't work on all powers."

She laughed. "Andy, Andy, you really don't know how important even that much is, do you? And the best part of all this is that you're still new! You made this within a few months of your debut. I can't wait to see what you'll manage next, all for us of course."

"Fine. I know when I'm beat," I growled. "For now" went unsaid. I gestured to the vat of healing potion I'd been readying. "Healing potions. Some Petricite. What else? What exactly do you expect me to make you?"

The man who'd been lounging in the other room came into our office. "I can answer that," he said with a roguish grin. He was handsome, with dreads swept back in a ponytail and a well-groomed beard tapered into a neat point. He didn't bother with a domino mask, but the co*cksure way he walked screamed "cape." "You're a real impressive brat, you know that? So many neat little ideas floating around your head."

I pegged him as a thinker from that. Knowing the Crips roster, that made him Lawless, assuming they didn't pick up someone else like Freeform.

"Kevin," Camille whined, still beautiful even now. I shook my head to clear my mind of her power. It was like a persistent fog, always rolling in. I could clear away the clouds, but never for long. Even being around her, knowing what a two-faced bitch she was, I wanted to like her. "Must you interrupt?"

"Your little skit was coming to an end anyway, dear Tequila."

"You have no respect for secret identities, do you?" she huffed. Next to her, Freeform growled low.

He shrugged helplessly. "It doesn't matter with him anyway. He wasn't trying to unmask anyone before, but he's sure as hell paying attention now. That pink stuff's real powerful if you can handle drinking it. He already figured out who you are."

He flipped his phone and started to dial. Four rings later, a sultry voice rang through the phone. "Kevin?"

"Hey, boss lady. Got our new tinker on the line. He's got a fantastic list of inventions just floating around in his head."

"Just what do you know?" I tried.

"That would be telling, Andy."

"Not going to monologue? What kind of thinker are you?"

"A smart one. I'd like to think I'm not a cardboard cutout of a Bond villain," he said flippantly.

"Hello, Andy," La Torcha said from the phone. For a gang leader, she sounded surprisingly amiable. "My apologies if Kevin and Camille have been getting on your nerves. I promise they grow on you. Now, let's set everything on the table, hmm? As is no doubt clear by now, Kevin's discovered quite a few things about you. We know you're much more than an alchemical tinker and we want you to be one of us."

"A recruitment attempt? And in exchange you don't shoot me?"

"Well, there's that too I suppose, but I see no reason to be so uncouth. Believe it or not, I don't enjoy harming children. If I were so inclined, I could even pay your mother a visit. You wouldn't want that, would you?" La Torcha said, her voice sickeningly sweet. My knuckles turned white at that. Almost as if she sensed my rage, she continued. "But don't worry, your mom's fine. Honestly? It's easier to have you work with us than look for every chance to escape. No, no. Your life is the stick so you can go ahead and take this next bit as the carrot."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Camille stood up and sat next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I hated that I took comfort in it.

"Think about it, Andy. Rubedo. You got the raw end of the deal. We know all about how constraining the Wards have been on you. You can build so much more, but the white hats won't let you, yeah? Money. Resources. We're not lacking compared to the local office. You want to build a gun? Great. Armor? Sure. Some kind of power in a bottle? Even better. You can build anything with us.

"Hell, give it a few years for you to prove your loyalty and we'll even help you build yourself new eyes. I'm promising you freedom, true, unbridled freedom. More than that, we can give you a market. We have connections with everyone worth mentioning in the West Coast. If you want the freedom to build what you want, the power to do what you want, and the money to get there, you need us."

She stared at me with large, soulful eyes and even though I turned my face away, I could see her fine, another weakness of the Oracle's Elixir.

The offer itself was nothing special, downright predictable even, but it sounded almost irresistible because Camille was the one saying it. Despite it all, she was literally impossible to dislike. She had an undefinable allure that made me crave her approval. I wanted to call her my friend. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to be happy. And if it meant walking down the road to Hell, well… I now knew why Tequila was so hard to capture even with such a flimsy secret identity.

Still, now that I was aware of what was happening, I could at least compartmentalize a bit. I ultimately had three choices: accept, decline, or fight. Really, that just left the first. If I declined, I couldn't guarantee my mom's safety, nor could I receive materials and information. If I fought, I'd die and I wouldn't put it past them to kill mom out of spite. There would be time for fighting, but now wasn't it.

Kevin, Lawless, grinned smugly at me, already aware of my answer.

"I accept," I said as firmly as I could. No matter what, I had to seem in control of my emotions. It was frankly the only think I could be in control of at the moment.

"No, no he doesn't," Lawless crowed. "He's thinking of ways to kill us slowly. Now mostly just me. Oh ho, he even knows how to make a vaporization beam." I schooled my expression and tried to empty my thoughts; I had plenty of practice in that regard. "Huh… impressive kid. He stopped thinking."

"Stopped thinking or spoofed your power?" Camille asked.

"Stopped thinking. You know, stopped focusing on anything in particular. Turned his mind into a white void. It's harder than it sounds. He can't really do anything like this, but I can't read him either."

'I want to see mom,' I thought. I saw him twitch a bit.

'I want to figure out his power.' His smirk widened further. He was giving away an awful lot, though I suspected he would have been far more cautious if I didn't look like an eight year old. A blind, disarmed eight year old.

This offer, it scared me. As early as six months ago, I might have accepted. Had they been the first to approach me, had Camille been the first to find me, I could see myself joining them full tilt, dedicating my life and the World Rune for her sake, giving her everything just to see her smile. She was just that achingly beautiful, even now.

I saw Lawless throw his head back and laugh as he looked between us. I knew this was her power talking and that I was severely compromised. Hell, I was hardly the first to feel this way, but even knowing that could only help so much.

It wasn't just her beauty either.

How much could I accomplish if I joined them over the PRT? How much closer could I get to defeating Scion? To making the world a better place? To preparing for the disasters I knew were coming?

I wanted so very much to make a difference, to be more than I was.

"Holy sh*t."

"Lawless?" Torcha called.

"Holy sh*t," he repeated. He then started cackling like a madman. "Hahahahahaha! Oh, God. Holy sh*t! You're precious, Andy! Hahahahahahaha!"

"For the rest of the class?" Camille said impatiently.

"He-" he wheezed. "He wants to kill Scion!"

"What?" La Torcha's voice crackled over the line.

"Seriously, boss lady. I'm not sh*tting you, I swear. I f*cking told you he's not some prissy goody two shoes. Kid's f*cking metal!"

"Oh? My, our little tinker has some big dreams," Camille cooed, pinching my cheek.

I had a fair handle on Lawless' power now. He'd been picking up on everything that I wanted, simple enough. My first guess was a more restricted version of Tattletale's power, albeit with a broader range.

His power could clearly cover a large area, though I didn't have any idea as to the limit. He'd discovered much about me by spying on me without ever having entered my apartment, which meant he wasn't limited by obstacles like walls. He was probably listening in from the other room, too.

I played it off the only way I could think of.

I folded my hands across my chest and said, "I want to be the greatest tinker ever. I want to prove to everyone that there is no one like me and there never will be. And well," I shrugged, "if you want to be the best, you gotta beat the best."

"And we can help you there. Whatever you want to accomplish, you're going to need freedom," La Torcha was quick to promise. I knew it was bullsh*t. She knew it was bullsh*t. But it contained a kernel of truth nonetheless. "You want to be the best tinker? Fine, come prove it with us. We won't hold you back like the PRT."

And yet, as attractive as her offer was, I could see the bigger picture. My wants and desires aside, the Crips would not help me better the world, not truly. Every advancement I made, they'd use for their own gain. They weren't like the Undersiders, criminals with hearts of gold, or the Travelers, a bunch of kids stranded in an alien world driven by desperate hope. They were murderers, rapists, and druglords who would happily damn thousands for their own ambitions. I'd read the internal reports summarizing the circ*mstances that led to them getting massacred by Alexandria. They were stone-cold villains.

More than that, joining them right now would mean burning my bridges with the PRT. Skitter had made it abundantly clear where that road led. Half the dumpster-fire that was her cape life could be blamed on her paranoia and stubborn unwillingness to mend bridges or utilize existing resources. Yes, the PRT was corrupt, but she'd so thoroughly poisoned the water that any hope of reconciliation was buried in an avalanche of mutual distrust.

And Director Lyons wasn't Director Piggot. I had to keep reminding myself of that. The PRT of now was not the PRT of Brockton Bay. As much sh*t as the PRT got in canon, most of it admittedly well-deserved, in the here and now, they represented resources I couldn't hope to tap into if I left. In the end, Camille's promise was but empty air: The Crips couldn't hope to equal the PRT and they certainly couldn't match the ones pulling the strings.

"I accept," I said again. Seeing no point in lying with a thinker in the room, I added, "For now."

"Ha!" Lawless barked. "The nerve of this brat, eh, Teq?"

"Give it time, Andy," Camille cooed, pulling me tighter into a side-hug. "We're going to be the best of friends. You'll see."

"We'll talk more later," Came La Torcha's voice. "For the moment, I want him making as many health potions as possible. Just remember, Andy. The more you help us, the more we'll be willing to help you."

When the call ended, most everything I had in my backpack was returned to me. I had to explain just how my creation process worked, but did the best I could to not get into details. I needed the Mana Crystals to make health potions and the quart of water, they didn't know it was blessed, was deemed harmless. I made a point to not think about anything except obeying La Torcha; I had no doubt that Lawless would be sticking around to keep an ear out for any treacherous thoughts.

Author's Note

Camille cannot use the relic pistol. There isn't some magic DNA scanner to it. Rather, it's a matter of just what the relic pistol was made from. Verbatim from the wiki: "These weapons aren't activated by force or trigger but by the sheer force of righteous will of the user, channeling the light of their soul to push back the darkness."

Camille's body is not attuned to mana and so would have a lot of trouble channeling it into the weapon. Even if she could, it's debatable whether or not the weapon would sync with her. How can she use a weapon powered by the soul if she doesn't even know it exists?

On another note, conversations with thinkers are really hard to write. Just keep in mind that Lawless can hear "desires." For example, he can't gain anything from a thought like "The PRT is run by Cauldron." But, if Andy's thought changes to "I want to shove a rusty fire iron up Contessa's ass," he would be able to pick up the hostility towards someone named Contessa, but not who she is or why.

Chapter 24: 3.5 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.5

2000, July 7: Phoenix, AZ, USA

It had been two days since my kidnapping and I'd yet to hear from La Torcha at all. Lawless lived in the warehouse with me, constantly taunting me with that mocking smirk on his face whenever I considered vaporizing him with the Minion Dematerializer. I wondered at first why he wasn't freaking out over the tattooed weapon then came to the conclusion that his power wasn't like Tattletale's at all.

The scope was just too different. Tattletale would have flipped her sh*t and done her best to never stay in range of my right hand. Lawless' power did not fill in the blanks for him. He could hear my desires, but not what they meant. He knew I wanted to kill him, that was a given, but so long as I didn't think too deeply into specifics, he wouldn't know with what.

Either that, or he had to have heard "Minion Dematerializer" and assumed it was some weapon I'd yet to build. I was clearly unarmed after all.

I tried to keep tabs on everyone who came and went, but that was futile. Too many people entered and left the warehouse. And truth be told? I wasn't sure that all of them were gang members judging by how much raw merchandise got moved around. It wasn't as though every gang member had a Crips tattoo over their heart like Lawless. Camille didn't have one, neither did the mooks she'd been ordering around. This had to be a civilian front for them somewhere, not that that made anything easier. If anything, it just added one more complication to fighting my way out.

I considered trying to alert a civilian, but it'd mean putting someone needlessly at risk, and that was assuming I could pick someone that wasn't just a low-key gang member. Or someone that wouldn't panic and get us both killed. That seemed likely. My faith in humanity, especially Earth-Bet's flavor of humanity, wasn't all that high to start with.

Surprisingly, Lawless' order for me wasn't to make them Elixirs of Iron, or worse. I'd done nothing but meditate and make health potions. I suspected that would change when La Torcha found the time to see me.

As infuriating as Lawless could be, the worst was Camille. Tequila. She too was staying with me and represented the honeypot side of my recruitment. She was apparently called that because she was the perfect party girl, that enchanting face you glimpsed at a night out with friends, only to feel closer to her than anyone you came with.

I wanted to hate her. I knew intellectually that every time she looked at me with those hungry eyes, I should feel disgusted. I should feel bone-deep loathing. I knew that had she been anyone else, I would have loathed her with every fiber of my being. I knew that she was a terrible person. She even bragged about her "funniest kills" or "the most pathetic way some guy's tried to get in my pants."

But I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to hate her and I hated myself for it.

Worst of all? I could feel myself growing increasingly attached to her a little bit more each day. I didn't have much time.

2000, July 8: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I met La Torcha in person on the morning of the third day.

We had our meeting in the same office I'd woken up in. I sat on one side while La Torcha sat on the other. Lawless leaned casually against the wall while Tequila cuddled against her boss like a big cat.

I didn't appreciate the pang of jealousy that shot through me at the sight.

La Torcha, Veronica Camacho as I'd been introduced, was a tall, busty woman with calculating eyes that made me think she was measuring every last inch of me. I wouldn't be surprised if she knew down to the penny what my kidney was worth and where she could sell it for the best price.

The big boss of the Crips hadn't bothered with a costume nor a mask, full well knowing I could see through them. I took the fact that she was willing to meet me in civilian guise as a message of commitment. It said, "We won't let you go. We can't let you go now."

Heard. Loud and clear.

"I hope these two have been treating you well," La Torcha began. And, unexpectedly, they had. It wasn't just my bias towards Camille talking either. They got me decent food, didn't disturb my meditations, and generally tried to be accommodating without giving away just where I was. Some mook was on call twenty-four-seven to get me the nutrition shakes and glass cleaner I needed to tinker. Just one more part of their campaign to recruit me.

"They've treated me fine, La Torcha. Although, I'm surprised you've got me working on nothing but health potions," I said guardedly, fishing for information.

"You thought I'd have you making as many of those steelskin elixirs as possible?" She laughed. It was deep and throaty, the laugh of a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. It didn't suit the calculating glint in her eyes.

She flipped her phone to a news article and tossed it to me. It was national news; someone had leaked my disappearance. "Ward Missing! PRT Inept?" screamed the title.

"I am no fool. Right now, no one knows where you are. All they know is that their liaison's body was found in a gas station dumpster and that someone took you in the chaos. The moment one of my boys use your steelskin formula, they come down on us like the hammer of God. You won't be making anything the PRT have used in the field. Even these health potions will only be handed out to my most trusted, and only to be consumed immediately."

I glared at her. That confirmed it. Agent Morrison was dead. "You killed an innocent man for what? A tinker you can't even use?"

"No, don't be silly, Andy. I didn't kill one innocent man. I've killed dozens. More importantly, you're not a waste. You'll be making much more than just potions. This… Petricite for one."

"Pretty sure he can make a lot more than that," Lawless chimed in. "I remember him wanting everything. Seriously, he makes that f*ckwit Sawtooth look like a monkey playing with a couple sticks and rubber bands. Armor? Weapons? Magic drugs? Bottled powers? Kid's got it all."

"It's not that easy. In exchange for versatility, my power requires very specific materials," I explained. The more I cooperated now, the more slack I'd be given and the better my chances of escape. "For example, see that Petricite you were talking about? It can block powers, true, but it needs to be made of petrified wood. You know, fossils. It's a big part of why I haven't been transferred out of the city even though there aren't any major tinkers in Phoenix to mentor me. The more complex the tinkertech, the more specific my ingredient list gets."

"Ehh, it's not that big of a deal, boss. Fossilized wood is for sale in damn near every gift shop if you know where to look," Camille said. "I've seen them around."

"That's true, Cam, but we can't go buy them in bulk. Stuff like that is probably going to either be seized or is being watched very carefully," La Torcha pointed out. "One person buying enough for a paperweight? Great. Someone ordering enough to load up a pickup truck? No way."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"What then? We get him to make us a fancy gun?"

"Sure, I can make you a clockwork gun," I said easily. I thought about Caitlyn's cool sniper rifle. "But it'll be just that. A gun. It'll never jam and it'll have pretty great range, but it's a gun at the end of the day. Thing is, there are only so many ways you can make a gun deadly. Sure, exploding bullets sound cool, but they're not any more dangerous than a normal bullet to the head."

La Torcha shrugged Camille off her shoulder and leaned forward. "Okay then, smart guy. Let's hear it from you. What do you think you can build us to remain in our good graces? And remember, we'll stop being so polite if you can't give us something good. But if you do, well, like I said, I reward my boys well."

I mulled it over. It'd be a careful balancing act moving forward. I had to appease them while gathering information and resources to kill them all. Lawless' smirking mug wasn't exactly helping matters. "It depends on what your aim is. You want my help? Fine, you have it. But what exactly are you working towards? I want to know what you want the Crips to become."

"We're not too different, you and I. You want to kill Scion to prove you're the best. I want to kill Alexandria because she's a bitch," she began.

"That's… That's it? That's your big goal? You want something that can kill Alexandria?" I asked incredulously. It's not like I didn't understand. Rebecca Costa-Brown was a stone-cold bitch in canon. "Difficult" was putting it mildly. She was a bit of a bitch like Renekton was a bit bloodthirsty.

"Why are you so surprised? You had to have heard about what brought us here. That bitch killed my husband, you know."

"Mortician was your husband?"

"What? You didn't read that in the dossier, did you? God forbid the PRT humanize a villain. Believe it or not, Andy, we're people too. We don't all stroke white cats and feed our shark tanks twenty-four hours a day. We have lives outside of the vida loca."

"Well, sorry to break it to you, but I can't kill Alexandria for you. If I ever get to that point, it won't be in the next decade," I told her.

She leaned back and Camille immediately latched onto her side like a limpet again. I couldn't help but think she was as obsessed over La Torcha as her victims were of her.

"You think that's all I want? You're adorable, Andy. The world isn't black and white and people aren't so one-dimensional. Would I love to see that bitch suffer? Sure. But as they say, 'The best revenge is a life well lived.' No, Andy. I don't want you to kill Alexandria for me. I want you to help me rebuild the Crips, Torcha's Crips. After we take over Phoenix, we're going to go national. With the kind of gear you can make, I don't doubt that we'll be able to forge the connections needed to rival the Elite."

"You're awfully open about your ambitions. Isn't the gang leader supposed to be all cagey and stuff?"

"You'd think so, but no. Not with you. I told you, I want you as one of us. I'm telling you this so you know where I'm coming from. I don't want to hurt your mom. Honestly? I respect a lady with some hustle, you know? Can't be easy being a single mother and an immigrant. My mama was like that too. I don't want to hurt your friends in the Wards either. None of them did anything to me so I don't need to start anything with them. We don't need to be enemies, Andy."

I nodded slowly, deep in thought. The problem was, she was almost sounding reasonable, like she had more depth to her than some moustache-twirling villain. Then again, this was real life, not a comic strip. Her experiences would shaper her in more ways than leaving her with a craving for power and wealth. Oh, she wanted those things, no doubt, but she also wanted prestige, and if she was to be believed, to ruin the strongest brute.

It wouldn't work of course. I knew that. Contessa would never allow it and Lawless would be about as useful as a banana slug compared to the lady of snazzy hats.

But… I could use this. Her ambition wasn't mine; I had nothing personal against Alexandria and I wouldn't until I considered her unredeemable, but that didn't exactly mean I considered her some irreplaceable ally either.

"To start, you need to get control of this city, right?" I began slowly, trying to flush out my thoughts as I put them to words. "At some point, you're going to have to kill off SSM and Peckerwood. Or have you absorbed the Peckerwoods yet?"

"We haven't. We can get rid of them as we please, but Freeform is too useful as an independent agent right now."

A plan started to form. It was a nebulous thing, a vapor within a wisp within a cloud. I clamped down on it. I couldn't let Lawless see. No specifics, not 'til the iron was hot. "Dos Caras. What faces does he have right now? Do you know?"

"La Llorona and Halloween."

"Halloween… makes an orange mist that makes him invisible," I recalled from an old PRT dossier. "Anyone he touches skin-to-skin starts to cackle uncontrollably and becomes his puppet, but only for a few minutes. He led the Peckerwoods. I don't remember La Llorona."

"Good memory," Camille praised, sending butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. She waved her hand dismissively, "La Llorona isn't anyone worth mentioning. She cries a lot and makes other people cry."

I couldn't help but think that even her disinterest was captivating. I then immediately shook myself to the amusem*nt of the other capes in the room.

"A bit more complicated than that, Camille," La Torcha said. "She cries and anyone who hears her gets depressed. Suicidally depressed."

"And what's your plan for that? Caras can also flay people alive on touch, right? That's how he gets new faces? So striker, shaker, master, stranger. There's a reason SSM's been in this fight despite being so outnumbered."

"Good, we'll make an executive out of you yet." Lawless said. "There are two ways to deal with Dos Caras. One, you can be immune to his master effects. Or two, you can shoot him from farther than two city blocks away. Either way, you need to be able to see him through Halloween's mist. I think he should make us something to see Caras, boss."

"Yes, that makes sense. Think you can manage that, Andy?"

I considered the request. It was unexpected. I would have assumed their first real order would be for a weapon. If not that, an armored car or something, not a utility item. I suspected that this was so they could ease me into crime, an insidiously pleasant road, much like Camille's power. Still, it was easy enough. There were plenty of magics that revealed an invisible foe.

The simplest would of course be a Control Ward, a totem version of my Oracle's Elixir. I just needed to build the body. The body would house a portion of my mana along with a unique rune sequence, allowing anyone to activate it. Once placed, it would generate a spherical field in which all invisibility would fail. More specifically, it would send out pulses of mana, visibly highlighting everything in an area in eerie red light.

"I can," I confirmed.

"Then that's what you'll start with," La Torcha said, ending this discussion.

I spent the rest of the morning making health potions. By lunch, some mook or other had dropped off a load of marble and steel along with a chisel, everything I'd said I'd need to start.

Making the actual body of the ward was more complicated than expected. In short, enchanting was hard. Predictably, it required the carving of runes. Runic knowledge wasn't itself hard to get; it was one of those things naturally provided by the World Rune, much like the memories of potions recipes. The problem was my inability to enter a true tinker fugue.

A newly triggered tinker could pick up a soldering iron and make anything his specialization allowed regardless of experience by entering his bullsh*t trance. Lacking a fugue meant I didn't get that ability. The World Rune gave me knowledge, but it wasn't puppeting my body so my hands were my own. That was fine for general crafts such as how to work a kiln or grind on a lathe, but for things that required exacting detail with a difficult to master tool like a chisel? It was hours before I had something I could be proud of.

And I was proud of it, no matter the client. The World Rune would not allow for anything short of my best on a project.

Each ward was charged with my mana and so could be activated by anyone. When placed, it would reveal all invisible targets within a fifty meter radius, much like my Oracle's Elixir. However, making it portable did result in a drop in quality, so each ward would function for only five minutes before fizzling out.

Thus began my life as a Crip.

Author's Note

The reason La Torcha was being so upfront with him, or at least appearing that way, was that she was using Lawless to gauge Andy's intent. If you were to tell an eight year old that you planned to murder the greatest hero of your era, that child would naturally object. It'd be normal to want to stop you. But… Andy felt none of that. No real desire to defend an idol. La Torcha is taking that as a litmus test of his opinions on the PRT.

After all, you can learn a lot about a man by gauging his desires. You can learn just as much if not more by figuring out what he doesn't want.

Chapter 25: 3.5.5 David Morrison - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 3.5.5: David Morrison

2000, July 5: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The world was ending. At any moment, the floor would open up and the yawning maw of Hell would drag me down to where I belonged. The room spun as I desperately tried to focus, to process what Agent Carter was telling me.

Dad's body was found in some gas station like a two-bit druggie. The gas station manager noticed nothing, knew nothing. The security camera was broken, only there to scare casual thieves. We had no leads and a PRT liaison was dead. A Ward liaison was dead.

Dad was dead.

"-some time to yourself." Agent Carter's mouth was moving but the world was still spinning.

'Dad is dead.'

"Ranchero? Ranchero? David?"

'How the f*ck was I going to explain this to Josie? Oh f*ck. Josie. She's six years old.' I couldn't. I couldn't do this. It'd been dad, me, and Josie for as long as she'd been alive. How was I supposed to tell her she'd never see dad again?

I froze as Agent Carter gave me a tight hug. All I could think about was how she'd never broken decorum like this before and how f*cked up I must look if this was her response.

"-to be okay. It's going to be okay," she kept murmuring.

But it wasn't. Dad was dead.

The world spun around me. The floor fell from my feet as the stars came alive. Swirling and spinning and making no sense at all. Dad was my rock. He was the ground I built myself on and now he was gone.

I was in the air.

The stars reached down to me and all faded to black.

When I woke up, it was to the sound of a heart monitor beeping away. White ceiling tiles speckled with black greeted me. Fluorescent lights illuminated the overly-sanitized hospital room.

"You're up," came Dr. Marshall's voice. Head physician. Former military man who used his experience dealing with unruly soldiers to deal with unruly troopers and heroes. That meant I was still on base.

I nursed a killer headache. 'What was I doing in the infirmary?'

Then it call came back. I returned from my patrol. I stopped a firefight and arrested eight gangb*ngers, might have even saved a few lives. I felt tired, but good, like I was making a difference. Then Agent Carter called me into her office; it was strange because a face-to-face meeting was rare; she usually just worked with us over console.

Then… dad.

My heart clenched.

"Doc," I rasped. What happened?"

"You… heard some troubling news, young man. Then you hit your head," Dr. Marshall said in his usual frank tone. "I recommend taking some time to rest."

"No. I know that. Dad… I don't just… collapse like that though. I'm not-"

"You're not, but you did." He placed a firm hand on my shoulder and pushed me down. "Rest up, son. I promise we'll talk about this."

I glanced at the clock. "I-But Josie…"

"We know. We had her picked up from school and brought here. Lovely young lady. She's having a blast getting autographs from Echo and Redbird."

Echo. Redbird. Protectorate Team One. Temporarily on loan to Protectorate Team Two. They were good people. I let out a sigh of relief and sank into the pillow. I felt tired, more tired than I'd ever felt in my life. Exhaustion settled in my bones like a physical weight, like sediment building against my joints, making every motion a struggle. The last time I'd felt something like this was… was when mom died…

"Doc?"

"Yes, son?"

"Can a person trigger twice?"

He was silent for a long moment. "Yes, David. Yes, they can. It has been observed that if a parahuman receives the same sorts of physical and emotional stimulus that resulted in their original trigger, their power can mutate, removing some of the restrictions they worked under previously."

I laid there and piled that information atop the mountain of other things I needed to process. "sh*t," I said finally.

"Quite."

I let out a watery laugh. "Power testing is going to suck so much."

I thought I saw his mouth twitch upwards a little. "Yes, yes it will."

We bantered back and forth, him indulging in more of my bitching than he'd ever had before. It was all a distraction of course, to get my mind focused on anything else but the fact that dad was dead.

I clung to it like a lifeline, desperate for anything to shield me from my own thoughts.

2000, July 7: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I finally told Josie.

I insisted. She deserved to hear it from me. Dad was dead and was never coming home. Could a six year old really understand? She wasn't some freaky genius like Rubedo, and she was younger than him besides.

Yes. Yes she could.

I held her as she bawled and hit me and wailed into my chest. Every cry of abject despair ripped through me, tearing the wound open again.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks. I was the cape. I was the hero. I was the one with powers. I was supposed to save the day and make everything better.

But I didn't.

I couldn't.

Dad was dead.

Funny thing about the five stages of grief: They're not so much stages as they are stations, like bus stops or subways. I felt like a pinball, my mind bouncing from despair to denial to anger to acceptance and back around again.

In my better moments, there was a bit of pride there too. Dad died in the line of duty. He died protecting a child, right? Rubedo was alive somewhere because of dad, right?

I had to believe that, that he didn't die for nothing.

I was pissed. At dad for dying. At myself for not being there and not being able to help even now. At Rubedo for being so f*cking brilliant, becoming a goddamn target. At whoever took him. At the PRT. At myself all over again for being pissed.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The shrinks saw me. They encouraged me to talk about my trigger, said talking would help.

It wasn't anything new. I'd done it before when I first joined the Wards. It had helped.

So I talked again, rehashing old ground, tearing open old wounds.

I triggered a bit after Josie was born, when mom died. I blamed her. The eggheads said my trigger was almost getting run over by Uncle Elliott's stud bulls when I was twelve, but they're wrong. It's never just one thing. It's never just one thing.

When mom died, dad moved us back to his family ranch, the ranch Uncle Elliott inherited from grandpa. It was a stud farm and stud bulls are mean. The idyllic image of black and white spotted cows grazing in a tranquil meadow? Yeah, those are dairy cows. Stud cows compete for mates, claim territory, and will gore everything that even looks at them wrong.

I hated them. I hated farm life. I hated waking up with the sun and taking care of smelly animals.

I wanted mom back. I wanted home back.

And one day, I messed up. I didn't lock up right and the stud bulls got out in the night. I knew they'd wreck the neighbor's farm so I went out to go get them. I f*cked up. I turned a mistake into a fight for my life. I still don't know how I lost half my ear.

Maybe a stud bull bit me; God knows those f*ckers are mean enough. Maybe I fell and cut something.

I f*cked up and when I woke up again, golden bulls were driving the herd back into our farm.

It was too late. They wrecked a good $90,000 worth of the neighbor's farm and Uncle Elliott lashed me hard for it.

Triggers ain't ever just one thing, but mom dying was the start, the catalyst. New home. New life. New worries. New stresses. New sister. Everything came back to mom. I missed mom.

Talking… It didn't help much. It was too raw. Dad was still in the morgue, couldn't even bury him yet.

When I triggered, dad was the one who set me straight. He moved us back to the city and started working at the PRT. Being a sheriff before we left probably helped landing that job.

He talked to me. He got me help. He made sure I was setting in with the Wards nicely. He was my rock, the reason I moved forward each day.

And he was dead.

2000, July 7: Phoenix, AZ, USA

There was a melancholic cloud hanging over the Wards common room. Truthfully, Rubedo didn't spend much time in the common room, always cooped up in his lab as he was. His absence wasn't anything new, but there was now a sense of foreboding that came with his empty seat.

Whoever took Rubedo had leaked the kidnapping of a Ward and it had played merry hell with the morale of the city. In comparison, the death of a PRT agent was almost a footnote, forgotten amidst the drama. Part of me was grateful for it; dad never liked being the center of attention, but part of me felt like he was being forgotten much too soon.

The news of a Ward's kidnapping led to some sweeping changes for us. We couldn't be sure just whose information had been leaked and so Director Lyons was working under the assumption that absolutely no one's secret identity was safe. She'd pulled absolutely everyone related to a hero into witness protection, sending them out of the city altogether, likely Tucson.

The rest of the Wards had been recalled as well. It was likely that the perpetrators wouldn't target another Ward for a long while, but no one wanted to take any chances.

This left Raquel on base trying and failing to get her homeschool work done. Jazz had on a chef's hat and was baker her way through a small supermarket's worth of flour. I didn't know she was a stress-baker. I would have found it funny if things weren't so dire.

And as for my lovely girlfriend?

She was taking Rubedo's absence especially hard. She considered the team her family, treated Rubedo like a baby brother, so felt that it was her fault somehow, never mind the irrationality of it. Penelope hadn't left her room in days. She combed through every news article, cape dossier, and investigation report in the vain hope of finding a clue that the detectives had missed.

I sat on the couch, head in my hands as I tried to figure out how I could help. Not that the PRT would let any of us help at all. Penelope and I were eighteen now, Protectorate age, but so long as we were legally Wards, we were off active duty.

I wanted to find Rubedo. What I'd do when I did, I didn't know. Did I want to punch him? Hug him?

I wanted to settle things for Josie as fast as I could. I was eighteen. I could claim guardianship. It'd be hard, but I could do it.

Truthfully, not an insignificant part of me wanted to leave, to quit being a hero. My faith in the PRT was shattered. Rubedo was kidnapped from his home. How long would it take before Josie became a target?

But I couldn't leave. Leaving meant being an eighteen year old with no job. I could make it work if it was just me, but I had to think of my sister now. There was no way in hell the courts would let me keep her around if I didn't even have a steady income.

"Ranchero?" Agent Carter called over the intercoms. She'd been taking over for dad's role as Wards liaison lately. "Director Lyons would like to speak with you. Please make your way to her office."

I got up to obey and allowed a faint glimmer of hope to ignite. Maybe she found something.

"Sit down, David," Director Lyons said as I walked in. She looked older than when I last saw her, the stress of her job carving lines into her brow. She took a long dip of her coffee before letting out a depressed sigh. "How are you holding up?"

White hot flashes of anger sparked within me. "How am I doing? How the hell am I doing? Dad's dead!" I yelled. "Dad's dead and we don't have a f*cking clue who did it!"

"Dav-"

"Don't 'David' me, director. Unless you're about to tell me who killed dad so I can rip him apart, we don't have sh*t to talk about," I snarled.

It went on like that for too long. The floodgates were opened. Everything I'd held back spilled out like water from a broken dam and I just… I couldn't stop. Everything that hurt, every grievance I had with the PRT, with the world, just spilled from my mouth in an unceasing wave of word-vomit. Until finally, I ran out of breath. I was breathing hard, tears running down my face.

I knew she wasn't at fault, not truly. But at the moment, I didn't care. I glared at her heatedly. Right now, she represented everything I found wrong with the world, with this f*cked up system that left me in charge of a six year old girl.

We stared at each other for a long minute.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. She seemed to age a decade before my eyes. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry the PRT information network wasn't secure enough. I'm sorry that it was your father who paid the ultimate price. I'm sorry that words won't ever be enough."

"Director, I-"

"No, you're right. Words like 'He died in the line of duty,' are just that, pretty words. I can only try to make things easier for you. Not right, that ship's sailed. But maybe, I can help. I called you here to talk about what the PRT can do for you moving forward. I want to hear from you. You've always been a mature young man. What can I do for you, David?"

'I want out,' I wanted to say. I couldn't though. The past few days had forced me to do a bit of studying and soul-searching.

A Protectorate hero was on the G-schedule for federal pay. There was some wiggle room for negotiation, but generally, a new hero entered at GS-10. Heroes who'd worked as a Ward were a little different though. Our years as Wards counted as experience, meaning I'd be allowed to enter at GS-12. It was more money than a high school graduate with no college education or work experience could ever hope to make on his own.

It was the only way I'd have the kind of income needed to support Josie.

I settled for the next best thing. "I want a transfer," I said, voice hard. "I'm sorry, director. I didn't mean a lot of what I said, but I just can't trust the PRT here anymore. I need to leave."

"Understandable. You have every right. You'll graduate into a branch of choice. I take it you have no intention of parting form your sister?"

"No, ma'am. I can't," my voice broke, "I can't leave my sister here. Not even with Uncle Elliott and Aunt Mary. She's… She's the only one left. I need to take her out of here. Somewhere safer."

She nodded and produced three manila folders. "I expected as much. I took the initiative to draw up three possible stations for you, but I recommend Albuquerque, New Mexico. Director Watson is a good man and runs a tight ship. It's also a city with only a third of our population and nowhere near as many capes. It's safe and I think you'd do well there. He owes me a favor so I don't think there will be a fuss in organizing a transfer. And if there are any… political… issues, I'm willing to throw my weight around a little. It's the least I can do."

"When… When would I leave?"

"You'll graduate with the current batch in a month or so. This should give you the chance to say goodbye."

"Thank you, director," I said honestly.

"I'm just doing my best to look out for one of my own. There are a few more things however. His funeral. The PRT will of course handle everything while working with you and your uncle. He'll be buried with full honors and his life insurance paid out to you in accordance with his will."

"Thank you, director," I said again, though now I was swallowing a lump in my throat.

There was a sense of permanence to it, talking about dad's funeral. Still, needs must and I spoke with the director at length about what dad would have wanted. When I left her office, I wasn't happy, far from it, but it was with a weight off my shoulders.

Author's Note

Ugh… I don't write grief very well.

I'm also not sure I've portrayed second triggers correctly. For that matter, I'm certain I didn't. Still, we know so little about them and have so few in-text examples that I'm not too shaken up over it.

The G-schedule is a real thing. A federal employee, whether he is a janitor or a department head, receives compensation according to the G-schedule, or the general schedule. It goes from GS-1 to GS-15, with 15 being the most senior officials. Each numeric level has ten "steps" based on seniority, experience, expertise, etc.

Also note that the PRT is operating under the assumption that they've been compromised. Whether that's true or not, that isn't how Lawless found Andy of course, but they don't know that.

I felt that David's perspective was necessary, even though it added very little in the way of progression. The PRT is doing things, he's just not aware of it. I also wanted to paint a picture of a man who wanted to go off half-co*cked, but couldn't because he has someone anchoring him, Josie. Josie is just a narrative tool in that sense.

Chapter 26: 3.6 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.6

2000, July 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Judging by the digital clock in one end of the room, it was one in the morning. I spent all of today, yesterday technically, creating Control Wards. They were confiscated from me and placed in a storage room on the first floor of the warehouse. I could still see them with the Oracle's Elixir, though hiding them from me wasn't the point. The point was to keep them out of my reach just in case it was possible to tinker them into something more problematic.

Lawless and Camille had checked in on me regularly. The latter had even asked me what I wanted for dinner and spent time hanging out with me. Honestly, she reminded me of an older girl I used to have a crush on in my past life. It would have been endearing if her plan to consistently expose me to her power wasn't so transparent.

And now I was free. Sort of.

I shared the barracks with Lawless and two other mooks. Camille had another room, with Freeform as a cat curled up at her feet. She'd had sex with him and did a remarkable job of feigning affection, before rushing to the bathroom to vomit into the toilet after the fact. Every. Night. It was… not my favorite thing to watch.

I now knew just how far she was willing to go for La Torcha's ambitions.

Lawless heard every bit of the co*cktail of conflicting desires whirling within me and laughed. I swore every night to kill him, just one more desire I couldn't act on. It only made him laugh harder.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Instead, I'd forced my young body awake for the past several nights to memorize their sleep schedules. I wanted to know just how light a sleeper Lawless was. After all, whispers were only damning if he was awake to hear them.

I'd been meditating for hours while lying on my back, the stillness, even breathing, and emptiness of thought good enough to fool my captors. All my gathered mana went into my Tear, removing any distinctive light shows.

Hearing their soft snores, I finally allowed myself to emerge from within my soul and plan my escape.

To start, no matter my violent intentions, I had to admit that the likelihood of fighting my way out of here on my own was slim at best. Three insta-kill bullets. I could probably steal my gun back, but… then what? I was good enough to not shoot myself, but I was no marksman. The relic pistol wasn't something that'd let me win against multiple gunmen. The only chance of escape I had would be to use the resources they'd need to provide me to make my own solution. That'd be hard enough to do from under Lawless' nose without having to also hide the specifics of how I'd love to murder him with whatever my current project happened to be.

No. No matter what, busting my way out like an action movie star was out of the question.

'Let's see… What do I have available to me? I had a quart of holy water, which they didn't know was special in any way. I knew where my relic pistol was being kept, on Camille's nightstand as a memento. I could reasonably make requests for more potions ingredients.' Seeing how pitched combat was out of the question, my thoughts immediately strayed to the most basic of all underhanded weapons: poison.

'Can I make a poison?' I wondered as I allowed the tidal wave that was the World Rune's memories wash over me. 'I can't hope to shoot everyone with a dart or stab them with a dagger, so it'd also have to be aerosolized. I'd need to be immune to it obviously. It'd have to be fast-acting to give them no time to raise the alarm. Odorless. Colorless too… Do I have anything like that?'

I dismissed Cassiopeia's noxious fumes. Though highly lethal, they were also an eye-catching purple.

There were subtler poisons used by both the Du Couteau family and the mythical Black Rose, but none would suffice. 'The poison won't spread fast enough,' I realized. 'The warehouse is too big.'

Nor, for that matter, could I think of a ready justification for why I needed twelve quarts of rattlesnake venom, the minimum I estimated I'd need if I wanted to cover the warehouse and the surrounding lot.

Poisons used by Singed, Twitch, and Teemo faced similar problems.

On top of that, I was almost certain that La Torcha was immune to poisons. Her breaker state effectively made her Portgas D. Ace, all but invulnerable to physical dangers. I could conceivably catch her by surprise, but that surprise wouldn't be long enough to kill her with poison and it'd certainly end with my own death. There was also a good chance that she would burn away the poison, if it could reach her at all. And Freeform… He'd simply change himself into a new body, washing away all poisons before they could incapacitate him.

Worst of all? I had no time to devise a safe delivery mechanism and I wasn't immune.

No, poisons weren't the way to go here…

My thoughts then turned to the simplest method of escape: teleportation.

It was only simple on paper though. While the World Rune gave me recipes and ideas, it would require a fully functional Hex Core and an intricate enchantment, at minimum. And to build that, I'd need a Namestone of the Brackern, something that obviously didn't exist on Earth-Bet. It was theoretically possible to fashion one, albeit greatly diminished, but not in any reasonable length of time. This was one of those "build tools to build better tools" scenarios tinkers often found themselves in and I couldn't afford to sink into this spiral.

'it'd be nice if they could just sleep forever…' My thoughts trailed off as a lightningbolt shot through my mind. It'd been a while since I had such a blatant eureka moment. I could put them to sleep for an extended period of time. It wasn't reliant on the airflow and wouldn't weaken over a large area. It couldn't be avoided nor resisted, not by a human who was completely unaware of the spiritual anyway. They could be in the middle of a fight to the death and it'd still take effect. Best of all, I had holy water already.

I was talking about the God-Willow.

Well… kind of.

More specifically, I was interested in the dream blossoms nurtured by Lillia in the Garden of Forgetting.

I was extremely fortunate in that the dream blossom was in the same boat as the relic stones that made up the weapons of the Sentinels. Once, the God-Willow represented the very heart of the world, the focal point of all life magic in the First Lands. It arguably predated even the likes of Ornn.

Once.

I burned at the hands of Ivern the Cruel, the very same who would one day come to be known as Ivern the Green Father. And when it fell, the very land wept.

Just as the Water of Life I used was a pale imitation of the Well of Life originally discovered by Maokai, the dream blossoms were several times removed from the God-Willow, and very much its lesser for it. The God-Willow made a seedling. That seedling made the Dreaming Tree. The Dreaming Tree lost a branch and that branch flowered into the Bashful Bloom.

In a way, Lillia was Ivern's granddaughter.

I couldn't make the God-Willow, but I could make dream blossoms.

'Yes… A cup of holy water… Some flowers conceptually tied to dreams…' A broad grin split my face. Yes, this was possible.

I allowed myself to drift off to sleep, the skeleton of my plan starting to take shape.

"Oi, wake up, kid." I was shaken awake by Lawless. "Take a shower and come out in six minutes," he ordered, shoving a cup of elixir into my hand.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I dragged my groggy ass into the water and emerged mostly awake.

"You know what would help? Setting an alarm," I grumbled as I walked into the office that doubled as our living room. A squishy lump impacted my face, my body too lethargic to catch it.

"Ha, not a morning person, cutie?" came Camille's cheery greeting.

"Huh?"

"Pick it up 'cause that's your breakfast."

"Right…" I picked it up. It was a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's. For all that Lawless and Camille loved to hear themselves talk, they were careful, leaving me as few clues as possible to discern my location. For instance, by buying food from places so ubiquitous I could be anywhere, or by intentionally removing packaging labels from local stores before feeding me.

I scarfed down the Egg McMuffin and brushed my teeth before returning to stretch in the office. Yes, I was kidnapped. Yes, I wanted to escape. No, that wasn't a good reason to stop my morning practice. If anything, the more I worked out, the less time I'd spend helping my captors.

"Heh, doing some karate kid sh*t again?" Lawless laughed. "You imagining beating my ass like a drum, little tinker?"

I flowed from the kneeling dragon to the swirling cloud, a series of movements meant to harmonize the spirit with the body and center the practitioner. It was a part of the foundational motions taught to every Shojin acolyte. I stepped lightly and brought my hands forward into a grasping claw before my claws turned into two middle fingers.

"Heehee, leave him alone, Kev. Let the little guy do his thing. Besides, I'm pretty sure that's not karate."

"What the hell do you know? You ain't Asian."

"Filipinas are Asians too, you piece of sh*t."

"Sure as hell don't act Asian."

"And what does an Asian act like?"

Lawless shrugged and gestured towards me. "That."

"f*ck you, Kevin."

"That in invitation, sweetheart?"

Camille made a disgusted face. "Ugh, I'd rather replace my tampon with a lit cigar."

"Bitch PMSing all the time, I thought you already did," he snarked back.

I did my best to tune them out. I couldn't spot Freeform, which admittedly didn't mean much. He could have been sent away on some mission to win Camille's favor or he could be that spider in the corner of the room, waiting for me to make my escape attempt. When I made my break for it, I'd have to make sure to kill him first.

The bickering between Lawless and Camille was practically a ritual. As much as La Torcha tried to portray the Crips as one big dysfunctional family, they weren't. They worked together well enough, or they'd never be trusted to watch me, but they definitely didn't like each other. The impression I got was that Lawless thought of Camille as little better than a cheap whor* while Camille considered herself La Torcha's real right hand gal.

Eventually, I could put off my tinkering no longer.

On the bright side, my skill at engraving runes was progressing rapidly. Having the memories of rune masters certainly helped, and like my martial arts, I was slowly turning distant, hypothetical memory into something more actionable.

By the time lunch rolled around, I'd made four more Control Wards, all stored in the same room on the first floor.

The three of us sat together, eating some bulgogi that Camille had Freeform pick up for her. It was manipulative, a blatant attempt to get an eight year old boy to associate her with something familiar, something reminiscent of home. It stung that it was working. The bulgogi was subpar, made for the overly sweet American palette. A part of me still loved that she'd thought of me as she ordered lunch.

"You're not making any more of those wards," Lawless spoke as he polished off the last of his meat.

"They work."

"They do. And we got enough. Ain't so many invisible capes that we need a giant stockpile. Next time Dos Caras squares up with us, someone's gonna set a ward and we'll have a sniper on watch. f*cker's gonna pop like a balloon."

"They only last five minutes apiece."

"See? That's how I know you never traded hands with anyone before. Five minutes is f*cking forever in a fight, midget."

"Fine. What else am I making?"

"Powers in a bottle." He must have seen something in the way my face paled. "f*ck's wrong with that? You got more than that steelskin sh*t."

"I do," I admitted hesitantly. He'd obviously heard my internal bitching at some point. "There's a reason I don't make it, a reason I didn't make it for the PRT. And it's not because Director Lyons didn't know about it. Did you know I admitted I could give people permanent enhancements?"

"For real?"

"Yeah. We decided we shouldn't touch it. If she sees a bunch of guys running around with identical brute and mover packages and shiny purple veins, she'll know who took me. I told her about Shimmer, that's the formula by the way, but we agreed to scrap the idea because it drives people insane. And I don't mean a little eccentric; I mean full-on catch and eat roaches, peel off your own face with your fingernails kind of insane.

"Look, Lawless. I know you probably heard me thinking something like, 'I wish I could give myself powers.' And you heard right. I wish I could. And I can. It wasn't because the PRT didn't like the idea. It was because I didn't, and still don't, know how to make the Shimmer formula safe. Trust me. Don't touch Shimmer. It's really not worth it."

I could have simply not said anything and gone ahead with making Shimmer. It would have given the PRT a heads up as to who had taken me, if Watchdog hadn't figured it out already. But it would also cause wonton destruction across the city while costing La Torcha many of her soldiers. I couldn't afford to alienate the Crips yet.

"Well f*ck."

"Make me a knife, Andy," Camille interjected. "You know, one of them super tinker weapons."

I wanted to immediately agree but caught myself. "A knife is a knife is a knife. It won't be much more deadly than any other blade just because a tinker made it."

"I know."

She then did something unexpected and placed a pound of fossilized wood on the table. "Had a mook order another mook who got some homeless guy to buy it for me yesterday," she said in explanation. "I want one of them fancy Petricite knives. It'll block powers, right?"

I looked at the multicolored block of calcium, its red and blue crystalline hues carved into something resembling a howling wolf. My pistol was made with only three pounds of Petricite alloy. With a pound of pure Petricite… Yes… I nodded slowly. "This is enough for a blade."

She pumped her fist and pulled me into a hug, one I'd no doubt have enjoyed more had I been older. Flushing red, I reluctantly pulled away and did my best to banish the warm and fuzzies.

"I-I want a reward," I said, stuttering.

"Hahahahaha, hear that, Teq? Kid wants a reward," Lawless cackled, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at the two of us.

Camille's face went through a myriad of emotions in rapid succession. Surprise. Bemusem*nt. Revulsion. Hate. Her expressions shot conflicting feelings through me.

"N-Not like that! I want a tea set!"

"Oh, thank f*cking God," she sighed with relief. "A tea set..."

"Kind of. More than that. The whole thing, really. One of those traditional Korean tea sets. Teapot. Cups. Jasmine and chamomile. Incense burner, press, and mold. White ash bedding. Powdered sandalwood incense. The whole shebang."

"What the hell? Most kids ask for a video game."

"Trust me, the tea set is more expensive," I said simply. "Besides, we all have our hobbies. Mine is martial arts, listening to jazz music, and tea. If you're so hell-bent on making me a gangster, I'm going to be one with style."

"I'm not buying you a full tea set, Andy. Where would I even find one of those?"

"Probably in Chinatown. It doesn't need to be authentically Korean, just made in that style. I wouldn't know the difference, but I do know my teas though. I want jasmine, chamomile, and sandalwood incense."

She looked at Lawless with an arched brow. The thinker shrugged with an amused smirk on his face. "Ehh, he really does want them. Tea bags ain't good enough apparently. Wants the pressed flower kind. Gook's got class."

I flipped him off. "f*ck you too. Oh, and a pound of good knife steel. The better the steel you get me, the better your knife will be. In fact, if you get me the wood as well, I can make a proper handle too. If you have a picture of your ideal style and length, it'd help to have that too."

"f*ck. You know what? Fine. You have a deal, Andy. I'll get you your tea set. Just write it all down."

"Good, now what else can you build?" Lawless said, leaning forward. "sh*t don't need to be a weapon, just has to be useful."

I shrugged, not wanting to volunteer anything too powerful. "More health potions?"

"Nah, the two dozen you made are enough for now. Try again."

I looked to through the wall and over my temporary lab. I couldn't deny that a part of me was drawn to all the tools and materials I hadn't used yet. The problem was, anything I built would be taken from me immediately to ensure that I couldn't use it against them. I didn't want to empower the Crips. The least I could do was make something that wouldn't hurt anyone directly.

"An EMP, an electromagnetic pulse that shorts out electronics in an area," I said. I wanted to use it to make my great escape.

Lawless smirked. "He's f*cking adorable. He wants to use the EMP on us. Knock out the electronics and sneak away in the chaos."

"Andy, can't you see we want to be your friends?" she cooed. "You may as well stop trying to find a way out. Everyone becomes my friend eventually."

"Pretty sure Lawless isn't," I snarked back.

"Yes, because I don't want him to be," she scrunched her nose cutely. "He's an asshole."

"Ehh, she starts with her power on me, I put two between her eyes. She's smarter than that," the thinker said. After a moment, he added. "You know what? Sure, kid. Build your EMP machine, but know I'll be listening even more closely. I can just take it away the moment it's done. And if you do activate it, well… Let's hope you're faster than you look."

Author's Note

Camille isn't gay, at least conventionally. Her entire sense of identity is focused on Veronica. The inspiration for their dynamic was a more f*cked up version of the relationship between Emerald Sustrai and Cinder Fall in RWBY.

Camille doesn't want a knife, not really. It'd be great to have, but it's hardly going to change her life with the way she operates. What she wants is to slowly get him used to the idea of following her orders. She wants to eventually control his pipeline, what he can and can't build, while simultaneously getting him used to the idea of making lethal weapons, starting with the simplest weapon she could think of.

Chapter 27: 3.7 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.7

2000, July 12: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Honestly, I thought she'd ask for something smaller and leaner, a stiletto maybe. She wasn't the sort to actually get into a frontal fight with anyone so I expected her to want something she could hide in a discrete pocket, maybe even a ring with a collapsible blade she could drag over someone's throat when they weren't paying attention.

Instead, she asked for something with far more substance. I suspected that this overlarge kitchen knife would either be a gift for her dear Veronica or a way to arm Freeform further. Or perhaps a bribe for someone else? Who knew with her?

Regardless, I finished the knife in two days, though it looked more like a shortsword than a knife in my diminutive hands. It was as long as my thigh, a tad less than twelve inches, five inches of hilt and seven of blade. It was a sleek, double-edged thing made for thrusting, with a nice, sturdy spine that did not fold. The hilt was wrapped walnut and colored with a smoky, dark lacquer that contrasted nicely with the almost pearlescent-white Petricite alloy. All told, it was a beautiful piece, both functional and elegant.

'Leave it to Inspiration to make sure I give it my all.'

And true to her word, Camille had delivered on her side of the deal. The very evening I gave her the knife, she gave me an extremely pricey tea set, the sort used in Shinto and Buddhist tea ceremonies. It was the single most expensive thing I'd ever owned in either of my lives, not counting my car or similar major purchase. Just the tea set, cups and pot, cost over seven hundred dollars, with the incense burner and complementary supplies adding up to an additional four hundred. For a boy who'd been born to immigrant parents in both lives, a thousand one hundred dollars was an absolutely staggering price tag for some leisure items.

"This is the kind of money a Crip exec can throw around," she said with her characteristic seductive smile. "You could have this kind of luxury too," she implied.

It was early in the morning, hours before daybreak. I took a sip of the Oracle's Elixir on my nightstand and made sure Lawless was still asleep before I shuffled out of bed and got to work. It wasn't the expensive tea cups I was interested in. Rather, it was the chamomile.

It was no coincidence that I'd asked for it, buried as one of many requests addressing my personal cravings. Fun fact: Chamomile was a type of daisy, but that wasn't important by its lonesome. Good chamomile was characterized by its mild flavor and fragrance and only the flower heads were used to brew the tea. The tea was most commonly known for being a home remedy for insomnia.

A flower associated with a good night's sleep.

A flower associated with good dreams.

Perfect.

In the main office, I gently cupped a handful of dried flowers and poured mana into them, focusing earnestly on my need. A hauntingly beautiful blue light shone from the flowers as they were remade into something different, something that didn't exist on this world. A set of six half-bloomed buds sat where the chamomile daisies were moments ago.

The dream blossoms were flowers with five large petals, blue on the inside and royal-purple on the exterior. They were creations of magic and spirit as much as standard matter and seemed to glow with an inner light, thankfully not too bright in the darkness.

I took a whiff of the flowers. Their smell was impossible to describe, a fragrance that reminded me of tranquil nights and childhood bedtime stories. It reminded me of my father in my past life, who decorated the ceiling of my childhood room with glow in the dark stars because I was afraid of the dark.

But there was danger there too, a hint of bitterness and something briny. It smelled of the ocean and I was briefly taken back to Busan. Salt on my tongue. Shouting. Feeling so small as I sank, paralyzed by the cold. White hot pain in my eyes.

I reeled back as though struck. Too much was definitely a bad thing. It was a warning, like ominous stormclouds in the distance.

Nightmares were dreams too.

I stood and immediately staggered a bit, feeling drowsy. I frowned. It was as I thought: Just as I wasn't automatically immune to any poisons I could make, I wasn't immune to the dream blossom's effects either. Still, this was a solid proof of concept. I could control this, my first foray into the higher magics of the First Lands.

I spent as much time as I dared pouring mana into the dream blossoms then pressed the flowers inside my pillowcase until they lied flat and hidden. Lillia cultivated them, but they also naturally nourished themselves off of the dreams of mortals; it was what had gotten Lillia so fascinated with humanity in the first place. By leaving them inside my pillow, I was both hiding them and giving them the chance to absorb my own dreams.

Soon, the blossoms would bloom in full and I'd be able to make my escape.

I went to sleep and found myself within the temple of my soul once more. The Rune of Inspiration swirled before me, three Keystones surrounded by nine lesser runes in an ever expanding orbit. It took my breath away, every time like the first time.

I was familiar by now. I knew what had happened; the dream blossoms had been enough to propel my progress. It wasn't too much of a surprise. One of the lesser runes ignited after I built my relic pistol, but I hadn't received anything from making the Petricite Elixir, the Tear of the Goddess, or the Control Wards. I was very close anyway.

With eager hands trembling, I stepped towards the altar and beckoned a star down.

I'd never been happier to receive one of these before. Every one of them was unique in their own way, each a fragment of eternity, but there was an undeniable urgency that accompanied this one.

Help, it promised. More and more, I was realizing that the World Rune had a mind of its own.

"Hextech Flashtraption." I recognized the rune with ease.

I looked down as power filled me. Heat coursed through my body and condensed itself onto my hand, forming yet another tattoo just behind the three bullets of the Minion Dematerializer. It looked like a swirl of energy overlaid atop some complex gear.

'No, not energy,' I realized, 'a portal.'

As the power settled, its properties engraved themselves in my soul and I knew that nothing in existence could separate it from me.

Once per day, I could overcharge this fragment of the World Rune, allowing me to channel for three seconds then teleport to anywhere within my field of perception. I got the sense that this could improve, if only I could grasp a complete understanding of the magics that governed space and time. The obvious solution would be to simply increase my range of perception.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Can I make binoculars for the Oracle's?" I wondered to myself.

I shook my head. That was stupid…

"But… maybe not?"

What were Master Yi's goggles if not overlarge binoculars? The Seven Lenses of Insight, they were called. They were unique, crafted by none less than the Revered Inventor who was so impressed by the blademaster's martial prowess that he gave them to him as a gift. They were synchronized to Yi's own magical resonance and could change their settings through thoughts alone.

That certainly gave me some ideas…

I laughed. I laughed and laughed and had I been anywhere else but the confines of my own soul, would no doubt have been committed to an asylum. Here I was wracking my brain for a way out and one possible avenue dropped into my lap. I hadn't truly counted on it either; the growth of my personal power thanks to the World Rune seemed so very unreliable.

"But maybe," I said aloud, "unreliable is the way to go. Lawless can't hear anything if I don't know what I want either."

I could leave right now. Rouse myself, pack up what I could, then teleport away. Fifty meters, or a hundred-sixty-four feet wasn't a great distance, but it could be a good head start, right? They were all asleep anyway…

Then, like an icy deluge, reality reasserted itself into my life.

"No," I denied myself. Flash was not a quiet spell, nor a lightless one. Half the warehouse would be looking for me the moment I left.

At the end of the day, I still had no idea where I was. Even if I left, if Red Sands was located on the outskirts of town, I'd have to travel far on my stubby little legs to reach home, assuming I could figure out where that was. I could try to arm myself, I knew Camille kept the Petricite dagger and relic pistol in her nightstand, but trying to sneak into her room like that without the aid of the blossoms might get me caught.

And if I went to a cop… I knew for a fact that Lawless had cops on retainer; he certainly bragged about it enough. Phoenix wasn't Brockton Bay, but it wasn't exactly the safest city in the world either. I had no idea who could be trusted. There was a good chance that the first cop I met wouldn't be corrupt, but by putting myself into the system, I'd alert my pursuers of my location sooner than not. There were even odds of me having an "accident" as the PRT picking me up.

Worse, that would be plenty of time for them to take my mother hostage.

The same went for the PRT, but for different reasons. There could be moles, but… maybe not? My best bet would be to steal a phone and try to contact them, hoping that they could reach me before I was discovered, if they were in any position to come at all. Did the bombings happen or was it one more lie? They would have reorganized with reinforcements from other departments by now, right? Did mom get scooped up into protective custody? Or did she fall between the cracks amidst the chaos?

The appalling truth was that right now, I had no idea how solvent the local PRT was and the uncertainty weighed on me like heavy chains.

"They need to die," I realized.

I had similar thoughts during the day of course. When Lawless not so subtly threatened my mother. When he dropped racial slurs at me or told me about all the "fun" he'd had with this or that woman. When Camille hurled into the toilet after a night "convincing" Freeform.

But this, this was an epiphany. It wasn't a moment of passion or some dark thoughts sprouted in irritation. No. They needed to die because my circ*mstances would not change without their deaths. My physical escape would get me away from Camille, but it would put them on high alert and force them to retaliate in a way I found unacceptable. I knew their faces and names. If I wasn't theirs, I couldn't be allowed to live; La Torcha made that abundantly clear.

A wave of nausea filled me at the thought of harming Camille. It told me how deeply she'd already wormed herself into my head. I hardened my heart and decided on the only course I had left, the only course there could be since my kidnapping:

"So be it," I resolved myself. "There needs to be a precedent for the unwritten rules, right? Fine. Let's set a goddamn precedent."

The past few days had seen me make some progress on the EMP generator. It was Blitzcrank's, scaled down to be roughly the size of a basketball and only slightly south of twenty pounds, light compared to the behemoth that was the Great Steam Golem.

Blitzcrank didn't pop up in Zaun out of nothing; he was made by Viktor when the mad scientist was mostly sane. Viktor had wanted to eliminate human error from dangerous jobs like sump-diving, construction, and mining. When there was a massive chemical spill in Zaun, he created Blitzcrank to rescue and protect Zaun's denizens. If he hadn't, if his intentions had been to conquer or destroy rather than to save and defend, I suspected I would have had a much harder time isolating and adapting Blitzcrank's generator design into something completely nonlethal and human-friendly.

Still, this was my first foray into hextech, that mysterious and at times utterly paradoxical branch of science which sought to quantify and industrialize magic.

It wasn't easy.

Like any creation of Viktor, I needed a Hex Core. Or, an early-gen prototype of one that didn't require a Brackern's Namestone.

The real Hex Core that was embedded in Viktor's staff was a fully functioning artificial intelligence in its own right, capable of adapting and streamlining its systems on its own prerogative to better assist its master. That was how Viktor could use a single power source to power everything from an electromagnetic force field to a gravity field, thermal laser, and even a fully unrestrained mana storm… that could be remote-controlled somehow because genius and sociopath were often synonyms.

Blitzcrank's version was nowhere near that adaptable, but that was fine. I didn't need it to be. I just needed it to power a static discharge.

It took some carefully worded maneuvering, but I got everything I needed to build one from two car batteries and ten Mana Crystals. Or technically, six car batteries, seven portable generators used by campers, and a box of transformers. I had my fair share of failures.

No lie, I felt a bit like Tony Stark as I put the finishing touches on my prototype. Hell, it even looked a bit like an arc reactor, cylindrical and glowing with the blue light of mana. I wanted to turn it into a bomb. It wouldn't be too difficult to destabi-

The moment I thought that, the core was taken from my hands.

"No. No bombs, kid," Lawless said.

"I wasn't going to."

"I know. You got it good here. You ain't about to make sh*t worse for yourself. This an EMP?"

"Ha! No. That's the battery."

"You spent three days… making a battery?" he said, face carefully neutral.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, but sure. You know how a battery loses its capacity over time?" He stared at me blankly. "Well it does. That one doesn't. It's clean, light, and will last damn near forever. It also has a high enough capacity to shut down an entire city block."

"It need to be in an EMP?"

"That one? Yes."

And it was even true. I would love to explore the possibilities that a Hex Core represented, but right now? In their captivity? Not a chance in hell. "That thing can do a lot, but it also needs a lot of juice to get started. Kind of like how a boulder rolling down the hill has loads of energy, but you need something strong enough to shove the boulder off that ledge in the first place." I preempted his next question with a carefree shrug. "And no, you can't just hook it up to a car battery. It specifically needs to be steam. Don't ask me why, but my tech wants to be a hodgepodge of magic bullsh*t and steampunk."

"You made an infinite battery that only responds to… steam?"

"Not infinite. Nothing's infinite. Sure, it'll last for decades, maybe even centuries, but it'll still deteriorate eventually. But yes. Steam."

He looked at the first-gen Hex Core for a moment and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me out of the lab. "You know what? I don't give a damn. You can tell me what you need for the rest of this over lunch."

"Peruvian chicken?"

"Sure, kid. Where does a chink even get a taste for Peruvian chicken?"

I let the casual racism slide off me like water off a duck's back. It was practically second nature now. "What can I say? I'm a cosmopolitan."

Author's Note

Ugh… Not happy with this, but ehh. I think it's a decent attempt at getting Andy to build something more than potions and vague enchanted things.

Yup. Hextech Flashtraption. Useful, but very situational, just like the in-game ability.

A reminder that Andy was captured on the fifth of July, making this one week in captivity. Camille started working on Freeform since Oathkeeper's interlude, June fourteenth. She's had a full four weeks to work on Freeform, as opposed to just a week with Andy and she'd been far more… physical… with the older cape for obvious reasons. Andy isn't magically resistant to her power; she's just taking her sweet time for a number of reasons.

Chapter 28: 3.8 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.8

2000, July 13: Phoenix, AZ, USA

With the most complicated part of the EMP generator finished, I was able to complete the project a day later. The materials weren't expensive or hard to find either. I essentially just needed various bits of piping from an old school steam boiler in good condition.

I stripped down most of it and even fashioned brand new pieces scaled down to fit, but when it was over, I was left with something the size of a basketball.

I was proud of it. When you pressed a button, it would use an internal battery supply to flash-boil a container of water. The energy and pressure would then catalyze the activation of the prototype Hex Core, releasing a large amount of mana. An intricate web of wires and transformers would then channel the flood of mana and convert it into electricity, scattering the electricity outward in a dome of static that was completely harmless to organics but would play merry hell on any form of technology.

The truth was that electricity did not play nice with open air. Pokemon lied: Flying types would sh*t on electric types because air was one of the best insulators out there.

The Hex Core and internal transformers did not convert mana into electricity perfectly. This wasn't a design flaw, but a matter of necessity. It needed at least some mana to function. In order to keep the static discharge both nonlethal and somehow coherent through air, the device wove mana amidst the electric currents in a way that was frankly impossible to put to words.

Hextech was bullsh*t.

As homage to the great golem, I made my new contraption look like Blitzcrank's faceplate, two golden plates that joined together at the center to form the outline of a skull. Two shining "eyes" finished the look. Taken on its own and without the context of Blitzcrank's body, it actually looked a little like the closed carapace of a beetle.

I heard footsteps behind me. La Torcha. I'd felt her coming when she entered the building, her confident gait and pantsuit attire at odds with the disguised gang members who dressed like they did hard labor working for a shipping company.

"Is that the EMP generator you promised Lawless?" she asked.

"Yes," I nodded. "I'm thinking about naming it the Blitzpack. What do you think?"

She took it from me, the bitch. "I think it's mine and I don't care what it's called so long as it works. What's its range?"

"About two hundred feet, so approximately the length of a city block. Radius, not diameter."

"I think I'm going to have this tested outside the city first. We have so many beautiful national parks after all."

I snorted. "Aren't they on fire at the moment?"

"Not all of them. A fair chunk is desert."

"Fine, whatever." I pointed to a knob where Blitzcrank's spine would be. Below that was a switch that could have belonged to a lamp. Because it had. "That holds water, a bottle's worth. You're going to need to refill it whenever you use it. That switch turns it on. The static will fry absolutely everything in the area that relies on electricity, from cars to phones."

"Use once. Reload. Simple enough. Anything you want from me?" She laughed at the look on my face. "You don't have to look so surprised. I told you, I want you on my team and my executives get rewarded."

I could see Lawless listening in from the other room, no doubt using the chance to figure out what exactly I can make. Out of sight, out of mind, except he wasn't ever out of my sight. I needed something that wouldn't be considered too risky, but something that could also give me an edge.

"Tools," I decided. "All the tools. Power drills. Electric saws. Voltage testers. The strongest welding torch on the market. Everything an electrician, plumber, carpenter, or construction foreman might have in his truck? I want the best there is."

La Torcha made a show of looking around the room at the lab she'd had set up before my arrival. "What's wrong with this?"

I shrugged. "Nothing, but I'm going through the 'tools to build better tools' phase. I could probably make a better welding torch for myself out of a car battery and a lighter if I needed to, but why bother when I can source better materials to start with?"

"I give you free reign to ask me for something and you want tools? No games? Food?"

"I told you. My goal is to murder Scion and prove I'm the greatest tinker ever. This is my hobby. Besides, Cam gives me good food anyway."

A slow smile spread across her face. "Fine, I can do that." She gave me the side-eye. "Don't think you can use any of this to escape. I'll be working out of here for a few days while you make this thing."

"Then you'll test all its functions and make sure I can't use it to kill any of your minions," I finished for her. "Yeah, yeah. I got it."

The swat I got for my cheek was worth it.

I had a pile of handheld power tools on my workbench within the hour.

I wasn't just testing La Torcha's willingness to give me potentially dangerous tools; she obviously didn't think I could make anything to escape with while she was on-site. And truthfully? She was right. Her power let her turn into fire, phasing through all physical attacks. As far as anyone knew, she was invulnerable.

I had my own guesses. I hypothesized that La Torcha's Shard was taking her physical body and translocating it into a different dimension and that the energy required to do this produced an exothermic reaction which ignited the air around her, causing everyone to mistake her breaker state as "turning into fire."

Which meant simply dousing her in water or otherwise depriving her of oxygen wasn't going to work since she wasn't in the world to begin with. Hell, even the blossoms likely wouldn't work in her breaker state. It was why I also guessed that she'd be immune to poison. She'd shown some instinctive phasing ability in the past when she avoided gunfire she couldn't have seen coming. There was a reason she managed to escape LA without Alexandria ramming a fist up her ass.

No, my goal was for once completely transparent: I wanted a multi-tool, one that would be with me throughout the years. And since I didn't need to pretend my tinker specialization was strictly alchemy anymore, I saw no reason to limit myself.

I'd drawn from Viktor, so it was only fair that I drew on his counterpart this time: Jayce, the Defender of Tomorrow. Pretentious and hopelessly optimistic name aside, he was a genius whose work rivaled Viktor's.

Everyone saw his Mercury Hammer as the single greatest thing he'd ever made. That's because people were easily distracted magpies. They saw the flashy, shiny weapon and oohed and aahed, but never considered what it took to make such a hilariously impractical thing function in the first place. Not just function, but have all of its parts synergize to create a greater whole than the sum of its parts.

Jayce's goal in life was to raise the standard of living among Piltovans and Zaunites by creating mechanical marvels that could perform anything and everything a job required. Essentially, he made mecha-shift weapons from RWBY, but for civilian use.

He made a shovel that could shift into a pickaxe for miners. He made a hammer that could double as a laser drill for demolitionists. But that alone wouldn't have made him a legend. Even in Earth-Bet's fledgling internet, there were dozens of pictures of "redneck engineers" stapling together random tools in the name of innovation. Hell, there were professional manufacturing companies coming up with "tactical shovels" that had their heads sharpened into hatchets with telescopic shafts that could house a hidden flashlight and so on.

They were all, without exception, utter dogsh*t.

A multi-tool alone wouldn't have made Jayce a legend. Rather, it was what he did to get mecha-shifting multi-tools to work perfectly that made him a household name. He, alongside Viktor, made hextech capacitors that could seamlessly transition from one function to the next while adapting to different energy sources, switching from mana to electricity to steam and more. Versatility was the name of Jayce's game and he was a master. Hell, it would be the inspiration for Viktor's own Hex Core.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Take the Mercury Hammer for example. Though it was originally made for civilian use, Jayce tweaked it into his iconic hammer to fight Viktor and reclaim the Namestone.

The Namestones were crystalline containers which housed the life force and memories of the Brackern, a race of scorpion-like sentients native to Shurima. Skarner, the Crystal Vanguard, was the greatest of their number.

The Namestone was also required for the construction of a truly sentient Hex Core, which was why I'd called the one in the Blitzpack a prototype.

'It's funny,' I mused, 'how so many things Piltover and Zaun made come back to the crystals of Skarner's people. In a way, they were never inventing anything new using magic, merely reapplying an existing magical resource in a new way. Then again, I suppose that is the soul of innovation in the end…'

The Mercury Hammer was no different in that regard. It used a fragment of a Namestone to meet its tremendous energy requirement. Jayce had to make his own hextech capacitors because the ones widely available weren't good enough. But the end product spoke for itself. It was a hammer that could lob electricity on rapid-fire, shift into a fully functioning cannon, generate a static field that somehow had kinetic force enough to knock back and electrocute enemies, and enhance the hammer's impact using electromagnetic fields. Defense. Offense. Utility. Range. It had it all.

My head slammed into my workbench. I opened one eye and glared at my latest creations. Two rectangular capacitors stared back at me. They were small, the size of a Lego block each.

They were also the only things I'd managed to make despite working at this for over four hours.

"Andy, come have dinner," Camille called in that entrancing way of hers. It was almost familial the way I could see her in the other room pulling out paper plates for pizza.

I glared at the evidence of my snail's pace but got up. Paradoxically, I'd found that the easiest way to minimize my contact with Camille and her power was to force myself into interacting with her. She'd seek me out less this way. Even that was getting more difficult by the day.

2000, July 14: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I snuck into my lab at two-thirty in the morning. Time was working against me. Not only was Camille's power slowly Pavlov-ing me into being her lapdog, the only way I could tinker without Lawless' oversight was to do so in the dead of night. But working like this was wreaking havoc on my eight year old body. And equally as bad, I needed to sleep more if I wanted to make my blossoms bloom.

More meditation. More sleep. More tinkering. More… everything.

It was wearing me thin.

Still, I powered through. Once the blossoms fully bloomed, I would be able to make my escape. Until then, I needed to make use of every second I had.

I pulled my pillowcase inside out, removing the six dream blossoms. Every night, as I waited for Lawless to fall asleep, I'd made small handfuls of Mana Crystals, storing them alongside the blossoms. And every night, as I got up to tinker, I'd move what few I'd managed to make without my trademark blue light show into a box in my lab. So long as I didn't think about wanting to use them and kept myself distracted during the day, I could keep them hidden.

Tonight was no different. I snuck into my lab and added the crystals to my hidden stash. Thirty-three in all greeted me. That seemed like a lot, but I reminded myself that my relic pistol had taken forty. Even counting my newly increased pace, I'd need more.

Thankfully, tonight's tinkering session could barely be called that. I converted the holy water into the Water of Life before placing a pair of scissors and ten Mana Crystals inside. After that, I used the Mana Crystals to slowly merge the water and the scissors.

As dawn approached, I stuck the bowl of holy water inside an out of the way cabinet and thanked God I didn't necessarily need loud power tools to tinker.

Tomorrow, I'd be ready.

I finished my multi-tool.

It wouldn't exactly be seeing much combat, so I didn't need the overwhelming energy capacity of a Brackern Namestone. Instead, the two capacitors acted sort of like batteries. The primary difference between a capacitor and a battery was that a capacitor kept electrical energy as a charged field while a battery generated electrical energy through chemical reaction. A capacitor could also discharge its electrical field instantly, where as a battery could take a bit of time. In exchange, a capacitor couldn't usually hold its charge for longer than a day.

I wanted to make sure that no one else could use my tech, so I hooked up a transformer to the capacitors. The transformer was tinkered to convert mana to electricity, something I'd figured out how to do while making the Blitzpack. This way, no one could charge the capacitors except me and the multi-tool would quickly run out of power when in someone else's hands.

Eventually, I wanted to replace this setup with a full Hex Core, turning it into a smart-tool that could assist me independently, perhaps even making it into a Wrenchbot like Dr. Heimerdinger did, but for the moment, this would suffice.

The tool itself looked for all the world like a standard wrench, if thicker and heavier than normal with a blockier profile. The teeth could be adjusted, naturally, but would also emit plasma between them to weld anything with ease. It was thicker than the average wrench because I'd made sure it could double as a hammer. Hell, there was even a mana-based scanning array modeled off of the Oracle's Elixir and a voltage tester that could tell me the exact metrics of anything the light touched, along with the voltage, amperage, density, and atomic composition.

A portion of the shaft had even been replaced by a thick, transparent plastic filled with fluid so it could act as a leveler. Its reverse end contained a power drill, electric saw, miniature compartment to store screws, a foldout ratcheting box end, and a flashlight, just in case.

It wasn't the bullsh*t plot device that was a Mass Effect omnitool, but I was reasonably confident that it could do everything I'd need it to even should I be forced from my lab.

It was evening when I finished. I very reluctantly demonstrated every function to La Torcha, then only thought about how much I wanted it back as she took it away.

I unfolded a taco dorado and slathered on a layer of sour cream and guacamole before sprinkling a layer of ketchup and hot sauce. Rolling the goopy mess, I took a giant bite.

"Okay, that ain't right," Lawless whined. "Which f*cking idiot told you you're supposed to put ketchup on tacos?"

"Bandit," I said plainly, shoving him the bird. I missed the peppy shortstack. "She's 'bout as Mexican as it gets so f*ck off."

"Ain't no accounting for good taste."

"Leave him alone, Kevin," Camille said, sending my heart aflutter. "You're not the one who has to eat that."

"But I do have to watch. What happened to expensive tea and sh*t? Thought you had class, kid."

"I do. For tea. And music. And literally nothing else. Now f*ck off and let me enjoy my tacos."

"sh*t, been here a week and he's already giving me lip. I ought to smack you for that."

"You will not," La Torcha said calmly, but there was an audible hint of warning in her tone, like embers smoldering beneath the coals. "Leave him to enjoy his dinner as he pleases."

Lawless raised his hands in the air in mock surrender. "Alright, fine. Let the kid have his insult to food. Anyway, he's done with that sonic screwdriver sh*t, so what else is he gonna make?"

"Something for me," she said as she looked at me with eyes like smoldering embers. No, there were literal embers dancing within them. "Eventually, I want you to kit out your fellow executives in tinkertech tailored for their specific powers. You'll start with me of course."

I stared at her flatly; it was about as much rebellion as I dared. "And what would complement your powers? You're immune to physical harm because you phase through everything so armor is useless. I'm pretty sure your breaker state makes you super fast and you can set things you touch on fire. What? You want a gun so you don't have to run people down? Some goggles so you can see infrared? Maybe some kind of knife for heatproof enemies? For that matter, can you even use tech? Your power generates heat. A lot of it. Wouldn't it just melt anything that isn't custom-made for you?"

"No to the last one. Otherwise, I'd burn off my own costume. As much as men might prefer that, that's not how my power works. I think it was called a Manton limit? Nothing I have on me seems to burn or heat up."

I nodded. This was one more support for my theory that her Shard was shunting her body, and anything she was carrying, into a separate dimension away from her power's exothermic output.

"Okay, fair enough. Have you tried firing a gun while in your breaker state? If you can't fire a normal weapon, I don't recommend trying it with tinkertech."

"I can," she confirmed with an uncaring shrug. "Who knows how physics works where powers are concerned?"

"Fine. So gun, knife, or goggles?"

"Hmm… You know, ever since I was a little girl, I've always wanted to fly. Not that I'm complaining of course, but it'd be nice."

I thought about it. Had she chosen a knife, I would have just made another Petricite dagger. Had she demanded a gun, I would have made her the most inconvenient weapon I could with an incredibly high skill cap, namely Cait's sniper rifle.

In contrast, I actually wanted to make the goggles. By drawing on Master Yi's Seven Lenses of Insight, I wanted to make some progress into figuring out permanent sight for myself, even if it meant giving La Torcha telescopic, infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray vision. It'd give her some utility, but she wouldn't become any deadlier.

"Wings…"

"You can't do it?"

"I can…" I trailed off. "Let me think…"

Hextech Anivia had wings of course, but I felt like I'd be insulting the goddess if I gave someone like La Torcha her wings, even a sh*tty, third-rate effigy. No, a regular hoverpack was fine. It wasn't about the specs; it was a pride thing.

"I'm going to need more generators, maybe a solar battery or dozen, exhaust pipes, and a few laptops. Oh, and a motorcycle helmet with tinted out lenses."

"I don't exactly need a helmet."

"No, but you do need the UI. User interface," I explained at their blank looks. "You do want to be able to steer this thing, right?"

"Fair enough, get me a list."

Author's Note

Did you know that a plasma cutter can output plasma at 45,032 F? Or that the surface of the sun is about 9,940 F? A plasma cutter is about five times hotter than the sun. I read that while doing some research for this fic and it blew my mind.

Tacos dorados are sometimes called flautas or taquitos. They're a Mexican dish inspired by American hard-shell tacos. Because no, Mexican tacos are almost always soft-shell. A tortilla is layered thinly with meat on one half before being dropped into oil and deep fried. The tortilla is folded immediately in the oil, making it a bit crispy but still decently chewy. It's served as is, with cheese, lettuce, and other condiments on the side so each diner can add their own. They're popular in southwestern United States and northern Mexico.

I live in the DC area and I'd murder your dog for a good taco… Send help.

Chapter 29: 3.9 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Charmed 3.9

2000, July 15: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Veronica, La Torcha, wouldn't be seeing her hoverpack. Or anything else for that matter.

It was time.

All throughout, my captivity had been one giant exercise in self-control. During the day, I had to be very careful about what I wanted, what I was willing to act on, and what I was willing to sacrifice in the name of buying myself time and materials.

I was no Lee Sin, with an unshakable discipline that could channel the Dragon of Ionia. I was no Kai'Sa, with an iron will that could hold back the Void for a decade. I was no Atreus, with an unrelenting resolve to face down gods.

Aside from the Mana Crystals, I gained no supernatural effects from meditation, but the ability to compartmentalize my burgeoning love for Camille and balance it with rational thoughts and the need for subtlety even in my own mind was a testament to my increasing self-discipline. I would have never been able to do this in my past life and I felt a burst of pride at my progress.

This last stretch was the single hardest meditation session I'd ever put myself through.

I'd waited for so long, prepared and bided my time. I could surely wait five more hours, I told myself

That didn't change the restlessness I felt. My skin tingled in anticipation even as I drowned out the nervous energy in a sea of mana and introspection.

And still I waited. I didn't know when La Torcha liked to sleep so I had no choice but to stay in meditation longer. I formed crystals in my hands beneath the covers and sank the rest into the Tear.

Finally, at long last, Lawless went to sleep. I reached out and took a sip of the Oracle's Elixir beside my bed as my world expanded around me. Off near the edge of my range, I saw La Torcha getting into bed. Dozing, but not fully asleep yet. I glanced at the clock; three-twenty, two hours later than usual. There were eight normal humans I could see around the warehouse in varying states of wakefulness. I could see a few stirring restlessly, but with the time being what it was, this was as good as I'd get.

As quietly as I could, I shuffle-tugged my pillow from the pillowcase and carried the entire thing like a makeshift sack filled with Mana Crystals and dream blossoms.

First things first, I had to ensure that the gang members would remain asleep while I worked. To that end, I snuck into the kitchenette and picked out my incense burner before taking it to my lab. Fortunately for me, Lawless and Camille had largely forgotten about my incense burner. After all, what the hell could I make with a fancy clay pot, right?

Arrogance was a sin punishable by death.

Then, I snuck into the office Lawless worked out of. He always kept the shutters raised so he could shout profanities down at the workers so I lowered them as quietly as I could, plunging the office into darkness.

There was a safe beneath the desk, three inches of hardened steel. It was where the previous warehouse manager kept his cash and valuables, also where La Torcha locked up my multi-tool. Only she and Lawless knew the password and they figured that with the most versatile tool I had in their control, I wouldn't be able to sneak off to tinker without their oversight, or lash out and hurt someone.

The safe itself was a sturdy affair. Even if I had the Elixir of Wrath, I didn't think I'd be able to break it open, and definitely not without waking the entire warehouse. The lock wasn't really something I knew how to pick either. While there were hundreds of thousands of expert thieves in Runeterra, Inspiration didn't automatically mean I'd be able to draw on their memories, not unless I was in the midst of creating something new.

I formed my hand into a finger pistol and channeled. The spark of infinity within my soul answered. My right hand glowed as the first of three bullets ignited. It was warm, almost uncomfortably so. I felt the World Rune consolidate into my tattoo before lancing out in a beam of azure light. There was an almost cartoonish "pshwoo" sound as the hyper-concentrated mana displaced the air and made contact with the safe. Thankfully, the noise wasn't too loud and confined by the office walls.

The transmutation spell contained within activated immediately. A single flash of light and I was looking at a neat hole carved into the safe. It was almost artistic how most of the safe, about my weight in steel, had vanished into thin air, converted into mana and dispersed in moments. The "cut" was so perfect that the edge looked professionally done, as if made intentionally to be some kind of postmodern art sculpture.

Inside, my multi-tool and Blitzpack sat waiting for me.

"I f*cking love this thing," I chuckled as I glanced at my hand. One of the three bullets was dull now.

I snuck back into my lab and set my incense burner on the workbench. Normally, working with glazes was a pain. Trying to make any change, however minor, to an already finished ceramic piece was damn near impossible thanks to how rigid it was. After all, glazes were essentially chemically altered glass and ceramics weren't exactly known for malleability.

That was where my new multi-tool came in. With a narrow enough nozzle, I could condense the welding torch. Even a normal welding torch was much hotter than high-fire glazed ceramic, but I didn't want to melt the glass. I needed the plasma to be so hot and so concentrated that it would immediately cut through the material like butter. It was possible if I overcharged the capacitors. They'd burn out in short order and I'd need to replace them, but I planned on that anyway.

So, hextech multi-tool in hand, I began to engrave runes into the incense burner. Every finished rune was charged with a Mana Crystal until I was left with a fully functional censer, one specifically designed for dream blossoms.

Originally, Lillia's censer was made from the branch of the Dreaming Tree, but I had none so this bastardized version would have to do. Along with propagating the incense through both physical and spiritual means, the censer was engraved with runes of protection for the wielder, me. It wouldn't do to knock my own ass out after all, a bit of Lillia's magic bullsh*tted into my version of the censer.

Six dream blossoms, fully bloomed over the course of the week, were joined with the censer in an alchemical ritual that reshaped the vessel. Milky-white porcelain was replaced with a deep, rich blue. Jade-green carps were replaced with royal-purple flowers. A hoop extended from the top so it could be held in hand or hung from a staff. I knew that despite its fragile, elegant appearance, it could easily be used to club a man's skull open and not receive the slightest fracture.

I grinned. It was four-fifteen, but that would be enough time for what I had planned.

I channeled mana from within, holding nothing back. Every rune glowed with an azure light, almost indistinguishable from the inlaid flowers. A blue smoke that smelled of midsummer nights and forest floors wafted from the censer. I knew that so long as I supplied it with mana, it could produce this smoke at will.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The dream blossoms were special. The reason I went for these instead of any type of mundane or even magical poison was that these flowers were intrinsically tied to the spirit world. They were dual existences, with a half-step in both the mortal and spiritual worlds. Because of this, walls did not confine their influence. Nor were they impacted by wind, temperature, rain, or anything else that would typically hinder a gaseous attack. As an added plus, they couldn't be resisted by any kind of enhanced biology either. The only way for a human to resist was to reside in an entirely separate space, to not be in the area at all.

I watched the smoke-that-wasn't-smoke disperse throughout the warehouse and even further out. Everyone I could see fell deep into slumber, their chests rising and falling in steady rhythm. Outside, the guards who had been masquerading as night watchmen slumped in their booths. I had until the break of dawn and the new shift to make my escape. I didn't know exactly when the changing of the guard was, but I decided to assume it was at five-thirty and gave myself a little over an hour.

The first thing I did was find a duffel bag and fill it with my creations. Moving to an unused cabinet in my lab, I pulled out the tray full of holy water. Inside was a pair of scissors I'd intended to engrave with runes had I any reason to extend my stay. I tossed the tray but packed the scissors; I could complete this one later.

This was one of the main advantages alchemy had over traditional mechanics: Tools and an established lab were more like suggestions than requirements.

I loaded the Blitzpack and released, causing a complete electronic blackout in a two-hundred foot radius. It also shorted out my multi-tool, but that was fine; I'd gotten my use out of it.

I then slung the EMP generator and wore it like a backpack. In hindsight, the spherical design made carrying it a bit awkward. That was what I got for my tunnel-vision insistence on making it look like Blitzcrank, one more thing I'd have to reshape when I had the time.

With the multi-tool, Blitzpack, and Dream Blossom Censer in hand, I only had to collect three more of my creations: the Petricite dagger, my relic pistol that I still needed a name for, and the Control Wards.

I decided to knock out the hardest part of this right away and moved to Camille's room.

The room reeked of half-dried sem*n and sweat. I almost wished I was an actual eight year old; at least that way I wouldn't recognize the smell for what it was. Freeform and Camille were sprawled on the bed butt-naked, blankets kicked to the floor in the heat of their nighttime activities.

I made a beeline for the nightstand drawer where I knew Camille kept my relic pistol and the knife I'd made her. I was taking no chances with the changer-yes. I tucked the pistol and holster in my belt and faced the two "lovers."

I crawled onto the bed and placed my left hand over Freeform's mouth before unsheathing my dagger and plunging it into his heart.

His eyes shot open as he let out an agonized scream. He began to thrash about but could not escape nor change. I could have drawn the blade over his throat, but then the Petricite might slip away from contact with his body. This way, his own ribs would help my child body hold the dagger there. I wanted to give him no opportunity to shift away.

I didn't know if he could make out my face in the darkness, but I didn't give him long before I let go of the dagger and jammed my finger into his would, expending my second Minion Dematerializer directly into his chest cavity. His eyes widened further but he couldn't say a word before sixty-eight pounds worth of flesh and blood vanished into mana. I'd made sure to aim upward, taking his brain and corona with the attack. No corona, no power. His leftover lower torso and legs began to soak blood into the sheets.

"Huh?" I heard Camille slur in her sleep. "Babe?"

"sh*t, you weren't supposed to be awake," I muttered before I could stop myself. I picked up my dagger and loomed above her.

That forced her wide awake. "Andy?"

A single word and I was hers. My name on her lips was the sweetest song I'd ever heard.

Her power demanded my attention. It demanded that I focus on her honey-sweet voice and her naked body, never mind that the Oracle's Elixir meant I already knew what she looked like at all times. I saw the pool of half-dried fluids around her core and smelt the faint stench of vomit and liquor on her lips. Disgusting, but forgivable, the sinister part of me whispered. I saw her expression as she felt the warm, sticky blood from her lover's stray legs and put two and two together.

"Camille," I breathed out. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to just kill her. I knew it had to be done, but my blade wouldn't move. I backed away, first one step then another.

"You-You're awake," she tried as she rose to a seated position. "You killed Freeform… You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

"I…"

"I love you," she said, three words I'd happily kill to hear, three words I knew people had killed for.

'No doubt Freeform felt the same,' I thought.

I knew. I knew in my mind what she was doing. It didn't help much. I felt like a sheep being sedated before being lured into the slaughterhouse.

"You killed him," she continued, eyes wide and facing where she assumed I was standing. "You saved me. H-He hurt me, Andy, and you saved me. You're my little hero, you know that?"

Another step back. "I'm not-"

"You are. Come here. Can… Can you hold me?"

I knew it was pure manipulation. I knew that my feelings weren't real. It did very little to help when faced with the siren before me. I took a half-step forward.

'I can't hurt her,' I thought despairingly, conflicting feelings of love and hate waging war in my heart. "I can't…"

"You can. Come here."

I turned the dagger away from her. For one moment, the briefest instant, I saw a triumphant smirk flit across her face.

Hesitance transformed into resolve, resolve into rage, rage into hate.

Hate into action.

The dagger dropped.

Pain lanced through my leg.

I didn't know whether it was the Petricite or the pain, but I felt like True Ice had been injected into my veins.

Clarity restored, the relic pistol rose and I snapped off three shots faster than I'd ever fired before, not that that was saying much. One went wide, but another struck her chest. I lucked out with the third, striking her in the base of the neck, cutting off her startled shriek.

I felt numb as I watched her lifeless corpse collapse.

'Firearms practice. One more thing to add to my to-do list,' I thought. Thinking of anything else but her cooling corpse helped me shove my mounting despair into a deep hole. 'Later.'

I walked over and knelt by her side as her mouth opened to give voice to soundless cries. Did she want to curse me? Tell me how La Torcha would burn me alive? Break me with words as she confessed her eternal love for me? Or perhaps plead for her life one last time?

I didn't know and not knowing hurt.

I watched the light fade from her eyes as I whispered, "I love you."

I sat like that for far too long, too emotionally troubled to find it in myself to move.

I buried my emotions deep and got up on shaky knees.

In comparison to the clusterf*ck that was Camille, the rest of my raid through the warehouse was hilariously simple.

A quick slash across the throat here. A charged beam of light through the head there.

La Torcha got the Freeform treatment, a stab through the heart with Petricite to disable her power while my final Minion Dematerializer removed her corona along with any chance for her Shard to retaliate.

I looted the warehouse of any cash, almost $30,000 in loose bills. Then, I found myself some nondescript clothes, a pair of gray sweatpants and jacket, and used the blood-soaked ones for target practice.

Just as the earliest rays of dawn broke over the horizon, I walked out of that warehouse with newfound resolve and a broken heart, a killer of a dozen men before the age of ten.

They were waiting for me.

Author's Note

Not 100% happy with this. Honestly, it's my first time writing an escape scene, though it was very low risk thanks to the Dream Blossom Censer. That's the trouble with League items sometimes. They're honestly game-breaking even when I stay away from the OP sh*t (for the moment). Hopefully I did the Camille scene some justice. The biggest challenge for an author is providing a sense of catharsis and I don't know that I did that well here.

Also, a brief show of how the Minion Dematerializer works. "Anything in its path" gets converted to raw mana and dispersed into the air. The safe is that "thing," meaning it won't just automatically take a spherical bite out of everything. If it hits a shield for example, the shield will vanish, but the person holding it will still have his hand. I'm going to take some liberties with this and say it ignores most clothing so he's not just stripping people. It's a shameless narrative "f*ck you" beam.

I know that this fic took a turn for some heavy sh*t towards the end of this arc. Honestly? I'm pretty surprised by this too. I didn't set out to write something this heavy; I just wanted something fun to distract myself with. Originally, the Inspired Inventor mini-series was how I envisioned this fic: comedic, with a touch of seriousness. Still, I'm more or less happy with how things turned out so I won't apologize.

Chapter 30: 3.9.5 Rebecca Costa-Brown - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 3.9.5: Rebecca Costa-Brown

2000, July 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I sat ramrod straight before the cameras, the picture of professionalism. I schooled my microexpressions into a countenance of practiced concern and focused resolve. My dress shirt was perfectly pressed save for a few minor but noticeable creases, an intentional departure from my typically immaculate appearance. A few crow's feet had been added to my makeup as well, giving the appearance of a stern woman weathered by age and worry over the current crisis.

All according to the Path.

The cameras started blinking, telling me that they were rolling.

"Evening to all," I began. Even those three simple words were calculated not to be friendly, but to be clinical, a woman who wasted as few words on aimless pleasantries as possible. "There have been many rumors and false allegations coming out of the Phoenix area. I am here to set the record straight."

I shuffled the manila folder in front of me. Pointless props of course. I knew what color the janitor's shoe laces were, never mind such an important briefing. Still, Alexandria knew those things. Rebecca Costa-Brown was bound by mortal limits. One more thing to humanize me.

I cleared my throat and began again, head bowed in the picture of remorse.

"It has remained a longstanding mission of the Parahuman Response Team to integrate parahumans into society. We have gone through great lengths to provide parahumans with productive outlets for their powers and have attracted and nurtured a great many promising youths through the Wards program. In the course of this mission, we have likewise faced a great many number of trials and tribulations. Some were growing pains of a young organization with a noble mission but a lack of experience. Others… Others were less forgivable.

"And on July fifth, the Wards program failed utterly and unreservedly. I will not make excuses, nor will I try to hide what has occurred. A Ward was kidnapped from his own home. A senior Wards liaison was murdered. I will not speak further on ongoing investigations, but this much, I believe I must say: We failed. We, the PRT. We, the Protectorate. We, the nation, failed to safeguard one of our own, one who swore to be a hero and entrusted us with his safety. We cannot make things right; but we must try.

"To that end, I have authorized Watchdog to use every resource available. We are at this time certain that Rubedo is alive and well. Further, Alexandria has been dispatched to lead the investigative efforts from the ground. Rest assured, we will save Rubedo. We will bring his kidnappers to justice."

I stood. A brief address, but that was for the best. The cameras stopped rolling and I allowed myself a brief nod at a job well done. I began to walk out, my footsteps echoed by my secretary.

"You have an appointment to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee in fifteen, ma'am," she said. Lena, I remembered. A pretty young thing who studied at Georgetown before deciding she wanted to do something domestic instead of pursue international relations.

She went on for precisely another forty-three seconds and I allowed her to "remind" me of my commitments. Letting her feel useful cost me nothing after all.

"Thank you for your help, Lena," I said, awarding her a practiced smile. It looked "warmer," a smile I'd practiced for those who were presumably in my confidence and a departure from the stern visage I kept up on camera.

She'd be useful one day. She too was a part of the Path.

2000, July 12: Phoenix, AZ, USA

"Take her," I said to Oathkeeper. "There is something I want to verify."

"Yes, ma'am," came her comms.

Chapter 31: 4.1 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.1

2000, August 19: Washington, DC, USA

A month.

Even with La Torcha dead, it took a full month to clean up the mess in Phoenix. The Crips, or at least her branch, were largely defunct. With Beartrap captured by Royalle, it left just Bone Maiden and Parade as surviving members. And if Camille's gossip was anything to go by, Parade was only tolerated because he was useful.

I tried to hold back the bile in my throat as I thought of her mangled corpse. After constant therapy, it was getting easier, if only a little.

I didn't see Bone Maiden putting up with Parade for long; she was nowhere near as patient as La Torcha.

The fall of the Crips also signaled an end for the Peckerwoods. I killed Freeform and Royalle's Team One had mopped up the rest in the same day that Alexandria "rescued" me. By all accounts, it was a quick, one-sided battle in which none of the remaining Peckerwoods were capable of handling Royalle's powers.

That just left Dos Caras. Yes, he was dangerous, but at this point, I felt he survived almost entirely because bigger fish had bigger plans. The Southside Mesa were mostly done too with Calavera and Sawtooth in custody, but Dos Caras was the kind of high-functioning crazy that could cause problems regardless of companions. Alexandria had flown back to LA shortly after the Red Sands raid.

Still, the gang war was being smothered out, an unequivocally good thing. I had no doubt that with the Control Wards I'd left in Director Lyons' care, he would be captured sooner or later as well. Not quickly or definitively enough to keep other villainous factions from moving in, but I couldn't do anything about that.

f*ck. Cauldron.

I laughed as I slid into a breathable body stocking meant to prevent pinching. Wasn't it sad? The gang war was an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. A hundred-twenty-nine people dead over the course of a single week and it was a f*cking afterthought.

"God I hate Earth-Bet," I muttered.

"You say something, Andy?" Pyrotechnical asked as he tossed me my bodysuit.

I knew for a fact that he was in his early twenties, but he looked older than he should. Pyro was a bulky man of Italian descent with a gut, Mario without the 'stache. I found it funny that his costume even included blue suspenders and a red hat. Though to be fair, it was a red bomb squad cap with flame patterns.

I gave him a smile that wasn't terribly convincing. "Nothing."

And wasn't that a trip. Pyrotechnical, canonically of Toybox fame, was a recent graduate of the Washington, DC Wards program alongside Glace of the same. The two were the "fire 'n' ice" duo, tag-team partners who played up the buddy-cop angle while being mentored by Hero. They even went for the ridiculous "will they, won't they" romance dynamic at the behest of the DC PR department.

I could only assume that they left the Protectorate sometime in the future, possibly following this September. Whether that was canonically because of Hero's passing or because they got fed up with the ridiculous bullsh*t PR put them through was anyone's guess.

And by Mantheon's sourdough aegis, Hero.

I had a single month until Hero would confront the Siberian in New York.

I slid the external bodysuit Hero gifted me on over the stocking and swore I'd do my best to save his ass. The world was a quantifiably darker place without the cheery blonde.

"Okay, well, you're about to step out in front of the nation. Lincoln Monument, too. You nervous?"

"I wasn't, but thanks, you plumber wannabe," I grouched.

"Hey now, I'll have you know I've been losing weight," he complained.

"Sure, sure." I looked over my suit once more. It was a neutral cobalt-gray, made of some intricate mesh material that looked almost like chainmail in the right light. If I twitched just so, polyhedral patterns would reveal themselves, a unique molecular bonding structure that was visible even extrapolated to the human eye. It was thick enough to not feel like spandex but still breathable. Over my heart was my new emblem, a black turtle shell.

According to Hero, the suit was a tinkertech material he made while studying the way free electrons in the electron sea of tungsten blocks interacted with radiation waves. It was airy, light, temperature-regulating, insulating, and resistant to both knives and small-arms fire. It would even grow with me to an extent. It cost something like twelve thousand dollars and every one of Hero's tinkers got one.

Bullsh*t, pure bullsh*t, in other words.

At my hip was a holster with the relic pistol securely fastened. It fit pretty well with the quasi-Star Trek getup I had going on so they didn't take it from me. That it was a murder weapon was a closely guarded secret.

I also wore a black domino mask, long enough to cover my scars but thin enough to give a good look of my face. It was more revealing than my old mask, but that too was intentional. I would build over it eventually, but appearing to start from zero sent a good message apparently.

"Sir, stage in five," Pyro's communicator chimed.

"Got it, thanks, Brickhouse."

I allowed my mind to wander as someone powdered my face for the cameras.

My transfer to DC wasn't the only meaningful outcome of that sh*tfest.

I'd been played. By La Torcha, yes, but also by Cauldron. I always knew I'd be one cobblestone in the Path, but it was only in hindsight that I could grasp just how thoroughly I'd been used. A part of my problem was that I was so focused on what Contessa might want with me specifically, that I failed to take into account broader implications. And if I could somehow delude myself into thinking this wasn't all part of Contessa's shenanigans, Alexandria picking me up as I left the warehouse put paid to that.

In a way, it was a relief. When I first heard about getting sued, I knew I was national, and therefore a known quantity to Cauldron. I decided then that the best way to not get offed by Contessa was to be useful. I theorized that the Path wouldn't allow her to get rid of me so long as I could be valuable and… I was right.

By all measures, my detainment at La Torcha's hands was mild, downright pleasant at some points. I'd never been hurt. No one I love got hurt. Camille, as emotionally painful as it was to think about her, was a slow-acting master I could reasonably escape if I put some effort into it. In the end, I'd come out of my kidnapping with a handful of creations I'd never have made had I remained in the Wards and a mentorship with Hero.

I couldn't deny that I'd grown tremendously from the experience.

That was proof that Cauldron didn't want me dead, right?

On the other hand, I was livid. Contessa had threatened my mom. Indirectly, sure, but the message was loud and clear. And for what? To see me create without the constraints of the Wards?

No, it was more than that.

I had a month to ponder my place in all this and as galling as it was to admit, I was a catalyst. Nothing more. My own development was just one desirable outcome among many.

Not only was the whole sh*tshow an incredible PR boost for Alexandria, footage of her hugging me and apologizing taken from an officer's personal camera was still making the rounds, it was also reason for the PRT to grab even more authority.

Following the Red Sands raid, Watchdog confirmed Lawless' ability from my extensive debriefs and linked several information leaks to the local police and government. Most of them weren't hostile or corrupt, but simply had predictable patterns and hobbies that could be exploited, like a woman who loved the slots a little too much or a man who loved to drink at one bar religiously. Coupled with the few that Alexandria had already identified, that allowed Costa-Brown to push for increased compartmentalization and isolation of PRT assets, reducing PRT cooperation with and reliance on local governments.

The argument was that because the PRT could not be held responsible for the cybersecurity measures of local organizations and these organizations had cybersecurity measures of dubious reliability, the PRT should take increased caution to safeguard the identities of their heroes.

It all meant the PRT gained more independence and less oversight, never mind that that wasn't how Lawless found out about my identity. Petricite, yes. My name, no.

But since when did truth matter?

Worse, I found out later that my actions were used by Costa-Brown to justify a post-hoc kill order authorization against La Torcha and the Crips. In order to protect me from legal consequences for "decisive actions taken in self-defense during extreme duress," she back-dated kill orders and announced that Alexandria and local heroes had done the deed. The on-site teams were sworn to secrecy, all to protect a traumatized Ward of course.

I'm sure things like that happened before, but for a Ward? From a supposed civilian agency? I helped to set a hell of a precedent. It was power, plain and simple.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Even then, I couldn't hate Cauldron entirely. I, however grudgingly, had to admit that there were two good things that came of this.

First was the "Red Sands standard" as acknowledge by the courts in a closed hearing. Second triggers, that was the explanation I gave for my vastly increased repertoire, were treated with the same kind of leniency as first triggers. It was effectively a form of temporary insanity and court opinion was a whole lot of complicated legalese that boiled down to, "If you make someone trigger, you deserve whatever happens next."

I didn't second trigger. I didn't even know if I was capable of it. Contessa had to know that seeing how trigger events were some of her only blindspots. And yet, it didn't matter. Polite fiction would be maintained on both our parts.

Second, I helped cement the unwritten rules. As far as the public knew, Costa-Brown had signed off on kill orders against whoever had dared to kidnap a Ward. Alexandria had carried out the order with merciless efficiency, sparing absolutely no one, powers or no powers. The message couldn't be clearer if Scion burned it into the surface of the moon. "If you break the rules, the rules don't protect you."

I could only hope a stronger foundation for the unwritten rules would mitigate some needless suffering later on.

I was brought back to reality by the announcement of Chief Director Costa-Brown: "As promised, I've kept my speech short. Now, it is my pleasure and duty to introduce DC's newest Ward, Hyunmu," she said. Even in a celebratory occasion, her tone was rather clipped.

I accepted my cue and walked out. The downside of joining such a high-profile department like DC's was that the PR head was far more opinionated and less willing to take my preferences into account. Ms. Youngston back in Phoenix was pretty chill; she'd listened to what I was willing to do and crafted Rubedo's kayfabe around my input.

Mr. Powell was the opposite. He was the kind of man who considered any input besides glowing praise as criticism and hated taking sh*t from his heroes, especially Wards. It took a direct order from Costa-Brown to get him to leave my costume alone, though she didn't do anything about the ridiculous name. Worse, he was the kind of racially profiling jackass that couldn't quite be called racist.

I couldn't wait for Chambers to take over for the asshat. Fanon heresy, but I'd die on that hill.

My new name didn't quite fit with the generic sci-fi theme most tinkers had going on, but that was fine. It was a talking point to draw from other subjects I very much didn't want broached.

I walked up, shook the chief director's hand, shook Hero's, then Brickhouse's, before finally returning to the podium to give my speech. My debut was a mirror of the one I'd had as Rubedo: Different people and backdrop, but the vibe was mostly the same. The Reflecting Pool was beautiful and the journalists were loaded up with softballs.

I stood before the podium and took a polite bow, something I'd only done as Rubedo before Redbird, Director Lyons, and other senior members. "Hello, people of Washington, DC," I read from the paper in front of me with a slight accent I definitely didn't have normally. "My name is Hyunmu and I am the newest and youngest Ward. Although I am young, I have the privilege of learning from some of the best tinkers in the world like Pyrotechnical, Glace, Metalmaru, and of course, Hero himself. I will also be supporting the other Wards in the field while working under Brickhouse.

"When my family moved to the United States, many of my neighbors, friends, and teachers reached out to us. They opened their lives and their hearts to make room for us, allowing us to make a home for ourselves in a new country. Their kindness is what inspires me and it is for their sake that I stand here today.

"My namesake, the Hyunmu, is the Black Tortoise of the North. In Korean mythology, he is associated with winter, but also protection and longevity. Ancient Korean warriors would paint black turtles onto shields to receive the blessing of this divine beast. It's a big name to live up to, but I chose it to honor my heritage as well as to symbolize my determination to act as your shield for many years to come." I didn't. I really didn't. "I look forward to working with you all," I finished with another deep bow. I allowed myself a visible wince at the cringey speech the moment my head was bowed and they couldn't see my expression.

It was a drastic departure from my first debut. Where Rubedo had willfully tossed his speech to the winds for some "youthful candor," Hyunmu was respectful, disciplined, and leaned heavily onto Korean culture. Where Rubedo was ambitious, Hyunmu was wise beyond his years. Rubedo's name implied alchemy, where Hyunmu's name was far broader in scope. All intentional. Rubedo was a backline tinker, where Hyunmu would make himself visible.

Soon, we moved on to the expected interview, though not before Director Costa-Brown pretended to pick up her phone and made an excuse to be elsewhere. It could be that Alexandria was needed, but it could just as easily be yet another ruse to emphasize her hardass image. Deputy Director Byron took over.

The first question was eye-rollingly predictable.

"Mike Waldorf from NPR. Hyunmu," an overweight man wearing glasses said, "can you tell us more about your powers?"

I received the mic from Deputy Director Byron with a respectful bow before turning to bow to the reporter as well. "Of course, Mr. Waldorf. I am a tinker, though I do not yet know my specialization. I am very fortunate and it seems I can build many different things like Hero. I have many ideas and I hope that learning from him will help me discover myself."

"Lindsay Insley, The Washingtonian," a pretty young brunette with her hair in a tight bun said next. She smiled at me gently and I knew it'd be a softball. "Welcome to the United States, Hyunmu. Your English is excellent and I'm sure the people of DC are happy to have you. What has been your favorite thing about being in a new country?"

"I love the food. Washington, DC is such an amazing place to try new things. The first week I arrived, I had a different dish every day, from Ethiopian to Thai to Vietnamese. I don't think I will ever get bored of the restaurants here."

"What's your favorite restaurant?"

"Texas Jack's," I replied, no hesitation. "Beef is very hard to raise in large amounts in Korea because of limited land so I never had a barbeque like that before. Brisket might be my new favorite food."

"Donnell Stewart from the Washington Post, Hyunmu. I know you said you're still exploring your specialization, but what are you personally interested in? Have you built anything so far?"

I glanced at Deputy Director Byron. When he gave me a small nod, I pulled the relic pistol from its holster. "This is the first thing I made," I lied through my teeth. With a minute infusion of mana, it began to glow. "It doesn't have a trigger because I wanted to make sure that only I could use it. I can use it to fire hardlight projectiles."

Brickhouse had caught on and tapped his foot. A stone target sprouted from the ground, not even four inches thick. I got up and carefully took aim, cradling my firing hand in the other for stability. I breathed in, and intentionally missed.

Frowning, I took a second shot, this time striking the stone target but leaving it whole. A faint black singe was the only proof that anything had happened at all.

Turning and bowing, I apologized. "I'm sorry, that wasn't very impressive to see, was it? I have a lot of work to do, both practicing my marksmanship and learning more about my specialization. As for something that I really, really want to make… I want to fly like Hero. I know turtles don't fly, but I hope the directors will forgive me if this one grows wings."

"Ugh, that was exhausting," I moaned as I collapsed into a sofa in the Wards common room after a grueling run of questions. Most were predictable nonsense, but keeping up that polite wallflower with a funny accent act was exhausting. I wasn't looking forward to PR events.

Thankfully, the room was mostly abandoned save myself and my new leader, Jonathan Rucker, also called Brickhouse.

The DC Wards were divided into three teams: District, Virginia, and Maryland. With Hero being the f*ck-massive deterrent he was, there honestly wasn't a whole lot for Wards to do, giving us weekends off. We probably had the best work-life balance compared to all other Wards because despite DC's political importance, it was a relatively small city.

Only about 650,000 people lived in Washington, DC compared to the 8.6 million in New York, four million in Los Angeles, and 2.3 million in Houston, DC was positively tiny. Even Phoenix dwarfed the city with 1.7 million. Sure, the greater metro area was significantly larger, but that was why we had partitioned teams.

Hero was here for the symbolic importance, not because the city warranted such a heavy hitter, which meant the District Team got a lot of free time. We did sortie out to relieve the Virginia or Maryland crews, but it wasn't as common for the Wards.

"You did good, Andy," Jon said.

He had shed the brickwork-patterned armor he wore over his costume, revealing a blend of what looked like a construction foreman's outfit crossed with a football linebacker's protective gear. At five-eleven, my leader was a bulky, tall-ish man with dark skin and short, curly hair that formed a dense dome around his head. He had a bit of a snub nose from one too many football practices, but was otherwise a decently good-looking dude. If I remembered right, he was actually eighteen and would turn nineteen in four months but had not graduated to the Protectorate in order to obfuscate his identity. He would be attending Howard University in a week.

"Thanks, Jon," I replied as I sank deeper into the cushions. "Can't say I enjoyed that mess though. Do we have anything else?"

"You have your therapy session at two and I think Hero wanted to grab lunch with you before that, but until then, you're free."

"Cool. Thanks, man."

"Yeah, no problem.," he grunted as he walked off. "Just remember that you're meeting the rest of the team in two days."

I nodded. It was a long time coming. The circ*mstances of my transfer meant I was given a lot of time to acclimate, but this debut spelled the end for my isolation.

I relaxed and forced myself to take a deep breath.

I'd been stuck in master-stranger containment for a week, during which time I was briefed basically nonstop, forced to tread the same ground over and over again in the hopes that if I were truly compromised, I would accidentally let something slip in my frustration.

That, I understood. It was infuriating, but the excessive scrutiny made sense.

The thing I hated most was the mandatory therapy sessions. Not even Watchdog clearing me could keep me out of those because like any bureaucracy, they needed to dot their "i"s and cross their "t"s.

My friends kept me sane through it all. Raquel was as jolly as ever and sniping barbs at Jazz let me endure the federally mandated therapy. Penny, for all her worrying, was always happy to lend an ear. David… Our relationship was… complicated.

I… didn't think he hated me? And that was about as much as I could hope for. Every time he saw me, he saw the reason his dad died. Even if he knew I wasn't at fault, he couldn't fully absolve me of blame; his heart wouldn't let him. Things got a little better towards the end when he figured out that Camille and Freeform were dead at my hands; "avenged pops," he'd said. I wasn't supposed to, but I told him anyway. He deserved to hear it from me. Still, he found it hard to be in the same room as me and I heard that he requested a transfer out before I'd ever returned.

I hoped Albuquerque worked out for him.

Author's Note

Yup. Arc Four takes place in Washington, DC. It's actually the city I know best, seeing how I currently live in the area. It's weird, isn't it, how none of the Triumvirate were stationed in DC in canon despite it being the capitol of the country and the Protectorate being a federal agency. I figured Hero being in DC made sense, both for his charisma and for how bullsh*t-powerful he was.

Honestly, I was waffling between keeping Andy in the Protectorate and making him go rogue, but I decided that if I played Contessa straight and didn't pull anything out of my ass, I just couldn't justify making Andy go rogue. In the end, I think having Andy apprentice under Hero is both the most likely thing Cauldron would arrange and also the thing that lets Andy grow as a tinker most while placing him in a position to affect change.

DC's food scene is low-key really awesome, though they're lacking in good Mexican (for obvious reasons) and their Korean food could be better. Yes, Annandale is K-Town, but it's a huge trek if you can't drive. Worth it, but definitely not a "grab a quick bite" sorta thing.

Andy's relocation and rebranding likely means an end to the Inspired Inventor mini-series. I might work on those for fun, but having divergent timelines is going to make writing more difficult.

Chapter 32: 4.2 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.2

2000, August 20: Washington, DC, USA

Inspiration danced before me, its turquoise light bathing me in a comforting glow. I'd stood in this temple countless times before, but never like this. The core of the World Rune was shining brighter than before, almost too bright to see. The nine censers that stood around the core seemed like a simple candle in comparison.

It was calling me.

"Why though?" I asked. "I haven't made anything. Hell, I wasn't even able to finish making Gwen's scissors because there was so much red tape to go through… Was it the debut? Are you trying to tell me to make a fresh start? Or maybe that I'm now fully free of Camille's master effect? Or maybe this is anticipation?"

I had no idea and I received no answers. Even if the World Rune was conscious in its own way, it wasn't the sort to give me a response. I'd just have to live with the mystery of it all.

I shook my head with exasperated fondness and stepped forward.

I did what I'd done before and reached out, expecting one of the stars inhabiting the three outer rings to descend into my hand. Information in the form of memories and knowledge would fill me, giving me an ability I didn't have before.

Or, that was what was supposed to happen.

Instead, the outer rings danced out of my way, each star grazing my fingertips and sending a bolt of heat through my body.

Just when I was getting impatient, the core ignited brighter than before. It was drawing me into the light, a promise of power I couldn't begin to comprehend.

"A… Keystone?" I tried. I knew what those were of course. In-game, they were major runes that granted immense buffs. Players would build entire playstyles around each and having the "wrong" runes was a popular excuse for those who just plain sucked at League. Normally, a player could unlock one Keystone and three lesser runes. It seemed that the World Rune before me would work accordingly.

Inspiration beckoned me forward with another pulse.

"First Strike, Glacial Augment, and Unsealed Spellbook if I remember right. Any of them would be… game changing... Do I get to choose?"

No, no I did not. The altar of the temple sported three orbs that made up the core, but I couldn't tell the difference between any of them for the life of me. I didn't need to do anything on my own though, because one of the Keystones separated itself and rested on my hand.

Then my world became pain.

Cold fire spread through me as Glacial Augment and I became one. I felt like liquid nitrogen was being injected into my veins, like my body and spirit both were being scalded and scoured raw, taken apart, only to be remade. I was getting an intimate lesson in the "augment" part of the Keystone and it was as though my entire existence was judged and found wanting.

The Keystone had taken one look at my body and soul and decided to renovate in the most excruciating way before moving in. It was the single most agonizing thing I'd ever felt in my life, and I was including both nearly drowning to death and having a charged power cable rake across my eyes.

"It carved mountains, drained oceans, and burned skies," I heard Ryze say. Or perhaps I imagined it in the delirium.

I didn't know how long I stood there as I got a firsthand experience of the power Ryze so feared. Eternity blended into a moment as I screamed myself hoarse. Until finally, the pain came to an end and I could hear myself think again.

And with my thoughts came knowledge beyond my own. Supernatural clarity washed over me like the whitewater of a newly melted stream.

As if it wasn't blatantly obvious, a Keystone was special. It wasn't just a milestone that marked my progress with a third of a World Rune. It was as its name implied: Just as the keystone of an arch was the wedge at the top that kept it all together by distributing pressure evenly throughout the structure, the Keystones were the defining pieces that held a World Rune together. They were Inspiration, distilled in a way I couldn't fully grasp.

I would one day become a celestial. A piece of the infinite dwelled in me.

On some level, I'd known that of course. I'd known exactly what the World Runes were. I was an out of context spectator and that gave me some information that not even Tyrus or Ryze had.

But it had never hit home quite so clearly before. A piece of infinity was bound to my soul.

I didn't even have to do a single thing. So long as I continued to bond with the World Rune, I would one day become immortal. The unobtainable ambition of alchemists and kings, granted to me simply because I existed.

Laughter welled up from within at the absurdity.

When even that finally petered out, I was left with the space to breathe again and examine the changes to my soul.

The Keystone could not integrate perfectly in a normal human body. So, it didn't even try. If the vessel was weak, the vessel must be changed. The icy immolation I'd felt was it forcibly changing me, turning me into something that could wield its power, turning me into an Iceborn.

I was now kin with Ashe, Braum, and others.

Becoming an Iceborn didn't magically make me as physically powerful as Braum, nor did it give me the precision and grace of Ashe. What it did give me was potential. I knew without testing that I would never again be bothered by the cold. I knew that I had an innate affinity for ice magic, though it manifested most clearly in creation, as did all aspects of Inspiration.

When I first considered my options, I discovered that making a sliver of True Ice the size of a guitar pick would cost me an overwhelming one hundred Mana Crystals. I knew now that this was because my mana wasn't suited for it. With Glacial Augment, that price was halved to start, and it would decrease further as I became stronger.

I could also manipulate ice directly, a discount pokemon, though barely more than a snowball at the moment. Now that the Minion Dematerializer was known to the PRT, I needed new aces up my sleeves and both the Hextech Flashtraption and the Glacial Augment seemed like excellent last resort weapons. Best of all, Glacial Augment didn't have a built-in ammo system.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

I yawned and turned in my bed. I reached out and slapped the alarm clock on snooze before rolling up into my blankets again.

"Morning, my son," I heard my mom pour me a cup of Oracle's Elixir. She placed it in my hands as I sat up with bleary eyes. I drank and saw the world expand around me.

"Morning, mom," I said as I examined the premature lines on her face, lines from worrying about me, the son who was too valuable to be ignored and too weak to stand on his own.

One more reason to stop holding myself back.

In a lot of ways, I thought that my kidnapping did more damage to my mom than me. This wasn't the first time she watched me sleep. Ever since I got back, she would enter my room to check on me in the middle of the night. She was almost always awake and waiting for me in the morning. She had a compulsive need to know what I was doing at all hours, to know that I was safe.

As weird as the feeling of having someone watch me sleep was, I tried not to hold it against her.

Moving so near the sea hadn't exactly been a comforting notion. It took her weeks until she finally gave the go ahead to move us out east and even then it was only the promise of personal tutelage from the world's greatest tinker that sold it.

She was getting better, but it'd likely be a while before she trusted anyone else with my safety again.

If I was being honest with myself, I wasn't a fan of the sea either. Just looking out at the horizon made me wonder when the waves would start to rise.

I looked at mom's concerned face. She wasn't even thirty but already had creases from worrying. It made me want to murder them all over again.

"Wash up and come to breakfast. I made your favorite," she said with a watery smile as she left for the kitchen.

"Yes, mom, good morning to you too."

After a breakfast of rice and tuna omelets, I set up in the living room and flowed through the stances of the second string of kata favored by the Shojin acolytes, something about the Dragon of Ionia breathing life into the plains or somesuch. I'd graduated from the first in the past month, which really only meant that I didn't feel like my ligaments were in open rebellion after the first set.

The second was as hard as the first, though I now knew for a fact that what had felt impossible then could be achieved even with my lackluster athleticism.

"A true master is an eternal student, right, Yi?"

I rolled my hips as I took a long stride forward, arms swirling in a circle that ended with my palms meeting the hardwood floor. In Lee Sin's hands, this move would have cratered the earth and launched a shockwave that could shatter great trees.

Slowly dragging myself with one foot like a serpent, my arms rose back up into the archer stance. Then my back foot followed at the same snail's pace, curving all the way around my body in what would be a textbook horizontal snap kick if it were faster before straightening out again parallel to my torso.

All the while, I was trying to channel mana into my limbs.

It was a heady experience. Being an Iceborn didn't just mean an affinity for snow cones and poro snacks. With an affinity for ice magic came magic in general. Mana flowed more readily, which meant the Tear filled more rapidly, which in turn meant my body felt lighter, stronger, faster. I wasn't suddenly Captain America, but I moved with a fluidity and crispness that was found among seasoned martial arts masters in my old life, far beyond what an eight year old should be able to accomplish.

I'd never thought of myself as graceful before, but that was the only word that came to mind.

I slowed to a stop as mom clapped from the sofa. "That was amazing, Yusung," she said, but became hesitant. "Was that…"

"Yeah," I nodded. "It was a part of my powers."

Some doctor and a Korean translator had explained the concept of second triggers to her. I didn't correct them of course, I didn't think I even could put words to what I was. A second trigger was the most convenient way for me to handwave my new abilities away. It meant that I was the fascination of every parahuman scholar and "expert" in the world.

My "second trigger" was one more reason I was moved to DC; Johns Hopkins University was one of the best medical universities in the country and plenty of these so-called experts gathered here. The first week I'd moved here, spent my days almost exclusively in various interviews and lab settings. A second trigger open to being studied was rare, and not one had anything close to the versatility demonstrated by my own.

Cauldron likely knew otherwise, but they were happy to keep their mouths shut for their own machinations. As always.

Mom… She didn't take it too well. I was no psychologist, but for her, it was one more way in which she failed me.

I gave her a hug. "I'm going to get strong, mom," I promised, "so strong that no one can ever take me away again. So strong that even Alexandria won't be able to tell me what to do."

One of the perks of being forcibly relocated by the federal government, and being incredibly valuable besides, was the free housing. By the whims of the bureaucrats on high, mom and I were now among the vaunted elite of homeowners.

We, like many of the upper-middle class, didn't actually live in DC. We lived in the Clarendon neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, three metro stops away from Foggy Bottom, home of both George Washington University and many federal buildings, including the national headquarters of the PRT.

Our house was a two room affair, three counting a small basem*nt. Having only one car, the garage doubled as storage space for my materials. I intended to co-opt the basem*nt into a lab. I hadn't had the chance to do much, but by the time I was done, I intended to make this house a goddamn fortress to rival the Immortal Bastion. And if the PRT had anything to say about it, f*ck them.

No more holding back. No more being the backline potion dispenser. In Earth-Bet? Weakness was a sin.

I had plans. I did not forget about my promise. I swore that if I ever got out of the mess with the Crips, I'd tinker myself a way to flip two birds to masters and thinkers.

Thinkers… They were complicated. Powerful thinkers could just pull information out of their asses. Their Shards would tell them details like asshole spectators spoiling a movie. Tattletale, Contessa, Coil, and even Dinah were all examples of this.

Upon reflection, I had to admit that Lawless fell into his camp too, though he was far more limited. Had he been smarter, had he not underestimated me because of my age, had he been more cautious… I would have lost. It grated at me to admit, but I would have been forced to resort to far worse than the Dream Blossom Censer to escape. And had I done that…

A loss, no matter how I looked at it.

The problem was, I didn't think I could just make myself a blank slate to thinkers, not unless I could directly f*ck up their Shards. And if I could do that, Scion wouldn't be a problem. If I couldn't interfere with the Shard network, the other option would be to make myself incomprehensible, a "does not compute" error. I… I wasn't willing to touch the Void. I wasn't that desperate yet. There were other options, but not many and none without their price. It would take a while to enact the ones I knew.

But masters though? Those were far simpler.

All parahuman master effects boiled down to two schools: body or mind. And in truth, even the latter was just nuanced body manipulation. It'd be more accurate to say that some masters manipulated the nervous and muscle systems of their victims while the rest hijacked control of the emotion centers in their brains. Cherish, Nice Guy, Valefor, and Tequila all fell into this latter category. They either overwhelmed cognitive thought with emotions or suppressed higher thoughts via Shard-assisted hypnosis.

And that was why I spent the entire day converting my stockpile of holy water into the Water of Life.

The Water of Life was such a versatile thing. An intrinsic connection to life was great, but I was interested in the more limited uses found by the Vesani: memories.

Yes… Gwen's hallowed scissors, as phenomenally versatile a weapon as they would be, were not a priority. They could stay on the backburner for a bit while I figured out the best way to lock my own memories. The Vesani were the key.

Author's Note

Yes, I'm back. Yes, this does mean you can look forward to a full arc day by day. This is the longest arc I've written yet and will go on for the next two weeks.

Think of the Keystones like major feats. I did say I'd be "leveling" Andy based on significant milestones and I think DC counts.

There's a Korean dish called jun or jeon. It is a "pancake" that's more like an omelet. My favorite happens to be tuna and scallions. Eggs and tuna are great together. It's not the most popular dish even for Koreans, but I'll die on that hill.

Chapter 33: 4.3 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.3

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

Metalmaru, Hero's assistant and longtime colleague, had come to pick me up in his civilian guise. A subtly but fully armed tinker in an equally heavily armored car was far less likely to end up a little square in the papers after all. He picked me up and though mom showed the traditional hospitality, there was a coldness to her that hadn't been there before.

"How are you, Andy," he asked as I got into the passenger seat. Metalmaru, or Steven Kajiya out of costume, was a tall, lanky man with corded muscle in his early thirties. He had tan skin and sharp eyes. In costume, he had a trademark ponytail. Out of it, the tail was kept in a tight bun beneath a bowler hat.

"Pretty good. Ready to finally start doing something. They're giving me the rest of my stuff back, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry about that. A month's hiatus has to be good for something, right? We got them through the approval process. They've already been field tested anyway," he chuckled, then realized what he said. "sh*t, I mean, darn, sorry, kid."

I waved him off. "Don't worry about it. And you can swear. It's not like I haven't heard it enough."

"Nah, gotta get in the habit. Big boss was talking about putting me in charge of a Wards team and I don't want to set a bad example, you know?"

"I guess. Early congrats then. You looking forward to it?"

"Ehh, sure. I mean, people say I'm a kid at heart, and I am, but maybe that's why I shouldn't be put in charge of kids."

"Maybe. Or maybe, you'll have an easier time relating to us young'uns than the other old timers."

"Hey, I'm thirty-one! I'm not old yet!"

"And I'm eight. That makes you almost four times my age."

"Che. What happened to respecting your elders," he grumbled.

"I'm American now. I'm embracing American values. Respect is earned, geezer," I teased.

We drove in amiable silence for several minutes before the older tinker broke it.

"Say, what're you looking forward to building?"

"You mean besides my costume?" I asked dryly. Hero may have gifted me a bodysuit, but it was just the foundation. I was expected to build up a kit of my own. I was honestly looking forward to it. "Maybe something to work against masters."

"Ah…"

"Yeah." As the second-most senior member of the District Protectorate and the head whenever Hero was off on one international crisis or other, he was one of the few fully briefed on my situation. I let the awkward silence drag on for a bit before asking a question of my own. "How about you? You've been a tinker for what? A decade? What's the coolest thing you've built?"

He embraced the subject change like a drowning man hanging onto a rope. "Not quite a decade. I was twenty-four when I triggered," he said with the ease of many years of separation. Most capes didn't refer to their triggers at all if they could help it. "You know what my specialization is, right?"

"Mmhm."

And it was a good one. Not phenomenal, but excellent for support. Metalmaru was a tinker who specialized in metal alloys, creating new ones to perfectly suit any function, often with seemingly supernatural properties. His power also came with an innate understanding of metallurgy and mineralogy. Because he wasn't the best at making weapons or armor to protect himself, he worked as Hero's assistant and had seen several tinkers graduate from the Wards already.

"Well if I had to pick one, it'd be my multiform shape-memory alloy. An SMA is a metal that bends itself back into shape when it's warped, effectively repairing itself. I tinkered up one that can 'remember' multiple shapes depending on the specific frequency of the electric current run through it."

"That's pretty cool."

"I know, right?"

"But doesn't something like that mean it's more fragile than regular reinforced steel? I think I read about SMAs somewhere. If they were as sturdy as regular steel, they'd be used for everything."

"Right," he grinned. "That's true, but I'm a tinker. My SMA is stronger than steel and can turn into my armor whenever I need it using my own bioelectricity."

I thought about what he said. "You stuck armor into your own body so it can react to your nervous system, maybe hormones. Threat response?"

"Yes and no. I didn't graft metal into my bones or something crazy. I'm a metals-tinker, not some super-surgeon. There's a signal amplifier in my skull though that'll activate like you said if I feel threatened. I had to trade a few favors with Zero Day and Armsmaster for that one."

"That's… That's brilliant."

"Thanks. It's not exactly power armor and I'm not much stronger with it, but it helps to have for sure. It had its problems, but we mostly worked out the kinks. Anyway, you'll be working on your own collaborations soon. Excited?"

"Don't senior tinkers decide the project? I figured Hero would just tell me who I'm working with and what I'm building for a while." It was what I expected of Cauldron if not Hero himself.

"Nah, boss-man isn't like that. You tell him what you want to work on and he'll try to have your back with Costa-Brown so long as you can show that you're working safe. You'll have to negotiate with the other tinkers on your own though."

"Dino eggs," I blurted out. "And sunstone."

"What?"

"Those are what I need. The PRT said they'd get me what I needed, so here it is."

"But… why?"

I reminded myself that Metalmaru didn't know much about my tinkering. "My tinkering focuses on making technology or enchanted objects that work with an internal energy source I call mana. I sometimes need unique or rare materials that have conceptual significance."

"Enchantments?"

"Yes, like magic. Seeing how no one seems to be able to explain how powers work, it's as good a name as any. Seriously, you've been briefed on Petricite, right?"

"Right, alright. I understand… I think. But dinosaur eggs?"

"Not specifically dinosaur eggs," I corrected myself. "I need fossilized lizard eggs from any species, but it does need to be a lizard… alongside sunstone, which is-"

"Plagioclase feldspar," he said. "I'm familiar. Mineralogy is my thing, remember? What do you think you can make with those? The sunstone will be easy to get, but the fossils might be harder. If a museum loans one out to you, I take it you're not going to be giving it back?"

"No, they won't be seeing it again. I want to make something that protects my mind from master effects."

"You can do that?"

"I wasn't lying in my debut," I said with a shrug. We were over the bridge now. I did my best to quell the butterflies in my stomach; open water still didn't agree with me. "I have an incredibly versatile repertoire now. It just might be the only honest thing I said in my debut."

"Huh… How does it work?"

"Ymelo," I said, "I think I'll call them Ymelos. A Ymelo is a set of two piece lockets that interlock to form perfect spheres. They can lock away and return memories."

"So if someone erases memories, you can just… reboot like a computer?"

"Yeah, that's a fair way of thinking about it. It'd also work for rapid shifts in emotion too. Like, if your past until now represents your baseline, the Ymelo would trigger automatically if you suddenly find yourself suicidal, reminding your brain that you don't normally think this way and therefore breaking the master effect."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"That's… You just might be the strangest tinker I've ever met."

"Didn't you make a superconductor metal that functions in absolute zero to work with Glace's freeze-ray? I'm not the only weird one."

"Yeah, but that at least has some grounding in scientific principles. You're saying a locket and some squiggly lines can make you immune to masters."

"Not immune, just highly resistant," I corrected. "Anyway, is it possible? Can you get me a fossilized egg?"

"For an anti-master effect? Definitely. It's going to need testing before it gets approved, but if it does clear… You'd be doing the world a big favor."

I thought of the space pigeon who had yet to descend. "I know, Steven. I know."

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

I sat at my desk, my tools and creations before me. The Petricite dagger I'd named Sobriety (because f*ck Camille) was set off to the side. I wanted to engrave runes into it, but that could come at a later date. The relic pistol was next to it; I wouldn't name it until I had its twin. The Dream Blossom Censer was placed against one wall, a staff of willow holding it up.

It was the "tech" that the PRT was most conflicted about. On one hand, it could end fights instantly. Unless the opponent wasn't human in the first place, like an endbringer, or kept their body in another dimension, like La Torcha, the smoke wasn't a resistible or avoidable attack.

On the other hand, it affected everyone, allies included. Knocking out emergency response personnel and civilians alongside gang members would not end well. At minimum, it was begging for a car crash and multiple fatalities. For a tool with no offensive application, the potential for collateral damage was immense. Nonetheless, it was in the end cleared for use by multiple thinkers and psychologists who examined the after effects on animals then volunteers.

On a not unrelated note, I had a bit of a following among the many insomniacs that made up the PRT administration and dream blossom petals were in high demand. The tea brewed from one granted luxuriously good sleep and rumors of "super-coffee" were making their rounds already.

The censer was the first of my new emergency loadout. Kid Win had his Alternator Cannon. I had a massive AOE sleep that could force an end to almost any conflict.

Call me motherf*cking Mystogan.

The Blitzpack was cracked open in front of me, its innards scattered as I tried to improve on the design I'd made in captivity. With the Crips, I very carefully kept from building my best because I wasn't sure I would ever get them back, better that the Crips had half-assed tech in case I need to deal with them later. But here, I had no such reservations.

To start, I wanted to make it so the Blitzpack's prototype Hex Core could function without steam. Homage to my favorite yoink-bot or not, it was an unnecessary inconvenience. I instead made it so I could slot Mana Crystals directly into the back. From there, the raw mana would be directed to the transformers which would convert it into electricity, letting me activate its EMP function almost at will. I also planned to make an exterior that wasn't spherical; a skull shape made handling difficult. Once I replaced some of the internals with the high-quality materials provided by Metalmaru and Glace, I expected to decrease both its size and weight.

I leisurely sketched out a design for it. If I made the design hemispherical and reinforced the exterior a great deal, I could strap it to my arm like a buckler. It'd go well with the Black Tortoise image, too. I was short enough that I'd have to strap it to my biceps along with my forearm, but I'd grow into it.

I imagined myself with my full loadout. Some nebulous, vaguely Asian armor hiding enough tech to wage a war with the shield in my left hand and the pistol in my right. The dagger that was more like a shortsword to me was strapped to my left hip while the censer hung from my back like an oversized blue lamp. I looked ridiculous. Even in my own head I couldn't make that look good.

"I really need a way to quick-swap between items," I muttered.

"Yo, newbie, how's it going?" came Pyrotechnical's voice behind me.

That was my one minor gripe. We didn't have a separate lab, not normally. The national PRT HQ wasn't a building as much as it was an entire complex. It sat near the Justice and State Department buildings in Foggy Bottom. The lab was a separate building altogether and although there were smaller rooms dedicated to highly hazardous testing, such as those involving radioactive materials, the main lab was a wide open floorplan with different stations for different tinkers.

I didn't expect Hero's overt extroversion to grate on me in this way, but it proved to be a minor irritation.

Not that the floorplan was bad or anything. A series of incredibly advanced force fields and blast shutters could close down a station with ease and a set of teleporters courtesy of Warptek, a former DC tinker who'd been transferred out to Milwaukee of all places, made transporting materials and tools to the right tinker from the loading dock simple.

It honestly did promote cooperation and allowed for more senior tinkers to check up on and advise newcomers with ease. Best of all, all the "tools to make better tools" were already present in several communal stations. Any tinker could schedule some time on them and maintenance duties went to whoever could do the job, with some like Warptek being called in once or twice a year for upkeep.

Still, the introvert in me really wanted his own lab. I supposed that was what my basem*nt would be.

Turning, I gave Pyro a wan smile. "Doing alright. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted from the PRT so I spent most of the morning filling out procurement forms. You?"

"Pretty good. I wanted to let you know that a hundred pounds of fossilized tree came into the loading dock. Should be he-"

He didn't even get to finish before the teleporter nearest to my station flashed, rolling out a palette of red, brown, and blue quartz-like crystals.

"Yup, there it is."

"Oh, lovely," I said, dry as the Sahara. "I can now spend the next few days turning it into Petricite."

"That's the power-null stuff, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Mind if I get a brick for myself?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ah, and now we're finally at the reason you're here. What, can't visit a junior just 'cause?"

"Hey, I'm just calling dibs before everyone else. Seriously, there are seven tinkers here excluding you. Do you know how rare that is? We don't typically work together, too many differences in specializations and egos, but when there's a new wonder-material to be had? All bets are off."

"Thanks for the warning. Metalmaru said something similar. I'll keep the blast doors shut."

"You might want to. Or at the very least, start thinking about what you want from other tinkers. You know, start bargaining."

"You said there are too many differences in specializations. How does that work then?"

"I mean, yeah. You probably won't be able to incorporate my thermal lance inside of that shield thing you got there, but you might be able to learn a few things from studying the blueprints, you know? Or in the case of Glace and Metalmaru, they might hold their superconductors hostage now that you have something worth trading for. And all else fails, you can take over the IT shift or something. Services are just as good as products; time is money after all."

"Wait, tinkers get put on IT? I don't actually know any programming languages."

He waved his hand a bit. "Ehh… Sometimes…? It really depends on the tinker, but that was just an example. Coding is really more Zero Day's gig. But even if you don't write code as a part of your power, you'd be amazed at how many people will just trust your word for it because 'you're a tinker so you must know tech.' You can repair microwaves, fridges, toasters… You know, that sort of thing. You'd be amazed at how often the other departments call us to fix their crap. Or want a super-microwave or something dumb.

"Lovely, looking forward to it. Fine, what can you offer me in exchange?"

"I have an old thermal lance? It's a bit obsolete for me, but it's close to the limit of what other tinkers can understand about my specialization. That's the only reason I haven't scrapped it yet actually; I even finished a writeup on it meant to guide newbies through my thought process."

"Maybe," I said noncommittally. It'd be nice to have, but that's all. I wasn't exactly lacking offensive options myself. Besides, my priority right now was the Ymelo. "I'm really focused on something else right now. Let's say you owe me, deal?"

"Deal."

As Pyro predicted, a small horde of tinkers descended upon my station the moment they heard I had the materials for Petricite. Eventually, the PRT wanted me to machine out shackles, but for now, they wanted to see what other tinkers would make of the wonder-material first. I had to explain repeatedly that Petricite normally was about as rigid and uncooperative as marble and that I needed to transmute it into a metal alloy for it to be much use.

By the end of the impromptu negotiations, I had a standing invitation from Metalmaru to work on a stronger Petricite alloy with him. Seeing how I needed to make my costume and shield, I'd be taking him up on that sooner rather than later.

Glace agreed to take a look at my capacitors for the Blitzpack and multi-tool in exchange for five pounds of raw Petricite. She wanted to see if it was possible to extend its power nullifying properties through a beam the same way she made a laser endothermic. I wasn't holding my breath but I wished her luck anyway.

Pyro, Armsmaster, and Bluesong owed me favors for the same.

I was mildly surprised at seeing Armsmaster, though I shouldn't have been. He was Hero's apprentice after all. He apparently graduated from the Wards two years ago and was the youngest person here save me. He acted far more grown up than Pyrotechnical though.

Hero claimed "dictator privileges" and preordered several pounds for his own use, something about using it to disrupt higher dimensional wave patterns. To be fair, he already made me a bodysuit; he'd earned his share.

The only one who wasn't interested was the aforementioned Zero Day, who was busy designing a nationwide cybersecurity network on account of the sh*tshow revolving around yours truly. How effective it'd be, I had no idea. I was no expert, but I knew that human error had a way of bringing down even the greatest firewalls and there was no real way to eliminate human error from the equation for a project like this.

Truly, stupidity was the mightiest force in the universe.

Even while I waited for a goddamn dinosaur egg, I was still up to my nonexistent eyeballs with work.

Author's Note

A zero day vulnerability is a cybersecurity vulnerability for which the developers have no patch or do not know exists. White-hat hackers get paid lots of money to discover zero day vulnerabilities on behalf of their clients. That is the tinker's namesake.

The Helian Sunstones, not to be confused with Earth's sunstones, are materials made by the Vesani in the Blessed Isles using the Hallowed Mist, a byproduct of the Water of Life. They were a tribe of Vastaya capable of manipulating memories and drawing power from memories. These Sunstones were used to create golems.

Ymelo is the name of the Vesani craftsman who made Ahri's Sunstones. The orb she throws in game can stop glowing and will turn into a golden ball with flaming designs. These designs separate like puzzle pieces into two halves. As per A Fair Trade, Ahri finds out that Ymelo made his tokens from the eggs of ancient lizards, while the Vesani made theirs from Sunstone.

This is where I'm getting the dinosaur egg + sunstone + Water of Life requirement for Andy's craftsmanship, along with Ymelo's namesake.

Chapter 34: 4.4 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.4

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

I stood outside the Wards common room and took a deep breath. Wards introduction, round two.

I was in an interesting position. On one hand, I was a Ward under Jon, Brickhouse. On the other, I was now a part of Hero's lab, fondly nicknamed the Madhouse.

That meant that outside of patrols and PR events, I likely wouldn't be spending much time here. And judging by the looks on their faces as I walked in, they knew it. There wasn't any hostility, but they weren't exactly thrilled to see me either, just a whole lot of ambivalence.

"Hyunmu, welcome," Brickhouse said with a smile.

He stood in full uniform. Next to him was a green, bipedal deer with two pairs of antlers. The stag stood an impressive six-six without the antlers. With the antlers, he easily cleared seven-ten. It certainly explained why the doors were so wide. I wondered how his neck could support the weight then shrugged it off as Shard f*ckery. I recognized this one as the only Case 53 in the District Wards, Verdeer.

Verdant. Deer.

Creativity was dead and we now danced in its ashes.

That was where my knowledge ended.

To my leader's other side stood a boy of about sixteen of middling height. The only thing noteworthy about him was that he wore long, white robes and hood that obscured everything. The robes had bright golden highlights and a closed eye on the hood, probably to avoid looking like a Klan symbol or some Halloween ghost costume.

The last Ward was a girl who stood an inch taller than the boy in white. She wore a sunshine-yellow bodysuit with crimson lightning streaks. By her costume alone, I pegged her as some sort of mover, though electrokinesis was also a possibility. The Flash inspiration couldn't have been more obvious if they just wrote out "Flash" on her chest.

"Hey," I greeted with a friendly smile. There was no reason to make enemies of them. "I'm Hyunmu, nice to meet you all."

"Didn't you have an accent?" Verdeer asked. His voice was an odd mix of deep rumbling and the honk-chirp of a deer. "Also, Verdeer."

"Only in public."

"Powell?"

"Powell."

In that single moment, a connection formed between us. We all shared a commiserating look at the PR head's expense.

"Anyway," Brickhouse coughed and tapped the boy in white, "this is Whiteout. He can white out cameras and recorders. He's not a tinker, but he gets called in for private meetings a whole lot."

"Sup, turtle-boy," Whiteout said with a smirk.

"Sup, toaster strudel."

"What'd you call me?"

"Don't talk smack if you can't take it."

Ignoring Whiteout's grumbling, Brickhouse continued. "And this lovely missy is Gold Rush. She's really fast and doesn't get tired. She also leaves behind a trail that slows down anyone who enters it."

"Hello, Hyunmu. I think the turtle theme is cool. Are you going to make a giant shield to carry around?"

"If I do, it'll have a ram's head on it," I said easily.

"Huh?"

"Don't worry, it makes perfect sense."

"Sure…"

"Right. Everyone, Hyunmu will be working with the other tinkers in the lab most of the time, but he'll also have his share of patrols."

That caused Gold Rush's eyes to light up. "You work with Hero? How is he? He's great, right?" She was in my personal space in the blink of an eye and the scary part was that I wasn't sure that was her power.

"Your fangirl is showing," Whiteout drawled.

"Shut up, toaster strudel."

"Sure, if you can come up with something original."

"Oh, f*ck you."

He made two finger-guns and winked. "Is that an invitation, babe?"

"Ugh, you're such a pervert."

"You say 'pervert,' I say 'healthy teenager.'"

I sided up to my new leader. "Are they…"

"They're always like this, don't stress," he sighed. "And yes, Gold Rush really likes Hero. She even wanted a golden bodysuit like Hero's armor, but Powell said it'd look too showy."

"Not that I disagree, but… is sunshine-yellow any better?" I asked incredulously.

"It's marigold," she huffed.

I rolled my eyes. They… They didn't leave the best impression. I knew that I was being unfair to them, but I couldn't help but compare them to my old team. Brickhouse seemed to be a mix of Stingray and Ranchero, acting as both the older sibling and mediator to Whiteout and Gold Rush's squabbling. Gold Rush gave off the impression of someone who was a little naïve, though perhaps it was too early to judge. Bandit, but without the bubbly cheer. Whiteout was as obnoxious as Hat Trick, but without her versatility. Verdeer… was Verdeer.

I had no beef with the antler-horse.

"So, what else did Powell have you do for your public persona?" Verdeer asked. "The first thing he did was make me do a photoshoot for the National Zoo."

"Oof, sorry," I winced.

"Wasn't so bad. I really like animals."

"Oh, then I guess that's cool. Do animals… react to you differently?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"What, 'cause I'm a Case 53?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sorry if that was rude."

"Nah, we're good. It's a legitimate question. And yeah. Herbivores don't see me as a threat because I look like them. Even had a stag try to square up to me during this Thanksgiving shoot I did."

"Wait, why?"

"Mating season," he laughed. "He thought I was trying to poach his girls. Funniest thing to happen to me at the zoo to this day."

I laughed with him. For a man with a stag's head, his smiles could be very expressive. "That's awesome. Bet the camera crew got a kick out of that. Did you butt heads?"

"Nah, my horns are harder than diamond. Like for real. Metalmaru confirmed it and everything; he has no idea how or what they're made of, but he can't scratch them with anything. If we butted heads, the zoo would be selling venison."

"Damn, that's pretty awesome. Wait… stags shed their antlers…"

"Sorry, he already checked. I don't shed so you can't have any to tinker with."

I clicked my tongue. "Tsk. Damn."

"So yeah, is the PR team making you do anything?"

"Just some suggestions I'm pretty sure aren't really suggestions. Mr. Powell is trying to get me to start a video series teaching either origami or tea ceremonies." I made no secret of my disapproval.

"Don't like those?"

"It's not that. I'm not even Japanese."

"Most people won't know the difference so they likely won't care."

"Yeah, that's what he said too, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

"Hey, at least that's not so bad," Gold Rush cut in. "When he found out I was from Georgia, he wanted me to appear on a cooking show, a 'southern belle cooking some classic peach cobbler.' It was horrible. I didn't even know how to cook. I still don't!"

The green stag smiled. "I thought you did alright. It tasted pretty good."

"Thanks, Verd, but you like to eat everything."

"True. Don't mean I'm lying."

"Come on, guys," Brickhouse said. "Powell's not that bad. He doesn't mean any harm."

"Maybe not," Whiteout said, "but he's super annoying."

"You don't even have to do anything," Gold Rush complained.

"I give tours at the International Spy Museum once a week. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"

"That doesn't sound so bad," I said.

"I mean, the place is super cool, but once you've seen it all a dozen times it gets pretty dull, you know?"

"Fair enough. I think he's just throwing everything at me to see what I'd be willing to do."

"Yeah, that's Powell. Try to agree to as little as possible; he'll take a mile if you give him an inch."

"Noted. Thanks, Whiteout."

"Yeah. You're also a tinker so that'll work in your favor. It's unfair," he groused.

"Why? I mean, I think my power's awesome but-"

"It's not that," Gold Rush cut in with a pout. "It's because Hero runs the show here. I mean, Director Costa-Brown does her thing too, but as far as we capes go? Hero's the boss and he looks out for the tinkers a lot more than us normal capes."

"It's not like that," Brickhouse placated. "It's because tinkers all work together at the Madhouse so you see him more often. You'll get more chances to tell him how you're doing than the rest of us."

"Yeah, he's told Powell to f*ck off before," Whiteout said. "I mean, not literally, but basically that."

"What happened there?"

"Nothing much. This was like three or four years ago when Pyrotechnical and Glace were still in the Virginia Wards. Glace was the leader back then and Powell wanted them to do a kissing scene for Valentine's Day," my leader added. "Hero put a stop to that real quick."

"They were underage so, duh."

"That and they don't actually like each other," Gold Rush said.

"They're friends," Verdeer rumbled.

"Yeah, but they don't like like each other."

I sighed. "That's good to know. I want to be in charge of my own image as much as possible. I still need to build my armor and that's one less thing to worry about."

"Right. That's the suit hero made, right?" she asked.

"Yes. All the tinkers on staff help each other where we can and this was his welcome gift to me."

Whiteout rolled his eyes. "Tinkers got it good here. So not fair."

Our yellow mover gave him the side-eye. "Jealous much?"

"Yes. I'm man enough to admit it. How much does a bodysuit like that cost?"

"Not a clue," I lied, no sense telling a bunch of kids they couldn't have a fancy new toy. "I owe him some unique mats I can make though so it's not like it was completely free."

"Whatever. Just don't do laundry on-base. Gold Rush's gonna sneak in and sniff it, watch."

"I wouldn't do that!"

While the two returned to bickering, Verdeer nodded to him and walked to the kitchen. "You want anything, Hyunmu?"

I looked around and sighed. "You know what? Yeah, sure. What's there to eat?"

2000, August 22: Washington, DC, USA

I glanced down at the box in front of me then looked back up at Hero's smiling face. "Fast."

The man, the myth, the not-Legend, stood tall at six-five, though a few inches of that I knew came from the armored boots and helmet. He wore a friendly smile and golden armor over a blue, chain mesh material not dissimilar to my own suit. Surprisingly, his armor wasn't "power armor" in the traditional sense; it didn't grant him augmented strength or come with a mechanical exoskeleton. Instead, it was a collection of tastefully designed gadgets that came together to form a unified whole.

"Heh, yeah. Rebecca really wanted to see if the anti-master locket could work. She can pull some strings when she needs to. Even if mass production isn't on the table, having it handed out to a few important people would make the whole organization much safer."

I looked at the roughly eighty-four pounds of fossilized wood in one corner of my station. "So I noticed. Thank you for this, Hero," I said sincerely. The box contained a sunstone as large as two chicken eggs polished to a mirror shine and an oval stone with bumpy, scaled patterns of about the same size.

"Don't mention it. You're one of my people now. If you need anything, let me or Metalmaru know. And between you and me," he leaned forward as if to share some big secret, "Becky has a soft spot for young heroes like you. Don't be intimidated by her, you hear?"

"Got it." It was sometimes hard to remember that the man before me was a part of Cauldron. He was "the best of them" according to Alexandria, but that wasn't really a bar as much as it was a ditch in the ground. "Say, Hero?"

"Yes, Hyunmu?"

"Can you add holy water to the list of stuff I need?"

"Holy water?"

"Alchemy, remember? I mean, my power's expanded a lot, but things with conceptual importance apparently matter and I'm almost out of my own stock. You can find holy water in any Catholic church. They'll give it out for free so have some agents pick up a gallon each. I mean, chemically, it's just mild salt water, but the priestly blessing matters to my power for some reason."

"Huh. Weird. Sure, that's fine. Shouldn't be too hard to get some in bulk. Just don't go around telling everyone your locket can absolve people of their sins or anything."

"Deal." We shared a light chuckle at that.

As he walked away, I turned back to the Petricite I'd been working on. With both Hextech Flashtraption and Glacial Augment, the rate at which I could pull mana had increased a great deal. Before, my kidnapping, the PRT was under the impression that I could generate one every ten minutes or so. In reality, I could do so once every eight minutes and had used that slight difference in time to create a stockpile of Mana Crystals for myself.

My change into an Iceborn halved that time again. Fifteen Mana Crystals per hour didn't seem like a lot, but it meant seventy-five in a five hour meditation session. It was the kind of production rate I'd only dreamed of before. It wasn't long ago that forty-eight potions per week seemed like a reasonable quota.

And yet, I'd only grown busier. Demands on my time grew as fast as my capability.

My lab station was everything I'd ever needed back in Phoenix. Seeing how Rubedo was retired as an identity, I couldn't generate potions and distribute them publically. That just meant I needed to dehydrate them into pills, which meant an extra Mana Crystal to stabilize them during the process. A massive dehydrator to one side was used for the purpose.

Next to it was a smelter I could use to turn Petricite into its alloy. And next to that was a furnace alongside a lathe, drop hammer, and some other tools I could use to shape metal.

I was fortunate in that much of what I did could be automatic, leaving me time to work on my costume and Ymelo tokens. I took one look at the half-finished Blitzpack, more of a Blitzshield now, and shrugged. The Ymelos came first. My costume could wait.

Author's Note

You know, I'm quickly starting to realize that the problem with these tinker of fiction style fics is that there is so much potential. It's like a random person shoving a blank canvas in your face and demanding that you paint a picture. It's hard deciding what to make because there are so many options.

"What do you want for dinner?"

"Uh…"

Yeah, definitely one of those people.

Chapter 35: 4.5 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.5

2000, August 24: Washington, DC, USA

Two days. The Ymelo tokens took two days to complete even despite my expanded mana generation rate. The dinosaur egg and sunstone had to be alchemically merged into a Sunstone, not to be confused with the Earth-Bet variety, after which the painstaking process of engraving runes could begin.

Each rune needed to be infused with a steady stream of mana during the carving process, meaning I couldn't just pass off the task to an automated machine like I could with Petricite alloys or dehydrated potions. The runes needed to be precise too, a talent I was slowly developing ever since I started work with the Control Wards. The engraving process did go by a bit faster thanks to my new multi-tool, but it was still a laborious task.

But finally, I was done.

Before me sat two hemispheres, twin flames that shone a molten gold. The surface seemed to flicker with an inner flame, dancing as it caught the light. Each token was smaller than Ahri's, only about the size of half a tennis ball. I slowly put the two pieces together, the "tongues" of flame interlocking. Protrusions that seemingly had no purpose filled hidden cavities, two perfect reflections that formed a greater whole.

Then, a single blue spark danced at one end of the golden orb. That stray spark of mana traced the barely visible seams where the two tokens joined, leaving behind a line of blue flame. It circumnavigated the sphere and ignited every tiny rune carved onto the face until it returned where it started, a corona of fire encircling the orb.

The fire spread and covered the surface, molten gold replaced by radiant azure. It was beautiful to watch, utterly breathtaking. I gingerly picked up the blue orb and felt the warmth of mana flowing through me. This, this was a treasure of the Vesani, Ahri's inheritance. I had no ability to draw power from memories, nor could I charm or steal the memories of others. Only the most basic of its functions were available to me. In my lackluster hands, it was just a storage device, but that was enough.

Piece by piece, I sank my essence into the globe of light, every memory, my very identity. First went the memories of my past, thoughts of a distant world and a distant life. Then went the memories of this life. Dad. Mom. Leviathan. Phoenix. The Crips. Everything. Third went my knowledge of Worm, of Ward, of Wildbow who may as well be a prophet in my situation. Secrets that many would kill for were sealed away in my new Ymelo, locked away so I couldn't forget until the day there should be the need.

The last thoughts to be copied were not really memories; they were feelings. It was the feeling of helplessness I felt as I worked out how to escape from both a thinker and a master. It was the dismay I felt when Alexandria hugged me and I realized I'd been played more than a Bon Jovi song at an eighties high school reunion. It was the regret I felt as I apologized to my mother for being too weak, for making her cry… for leaving her alone. It was the sorrow that made me get on my knees before Agent Morrison's grave.

Most of all, it was determination, the same as I bid my friends goodbye and boarded that plane knowing I'd be at the heart of Cauldron's influence.

The globe pulsed in my hand when I finished and I knew that I would be the only one capable of drawing these memories out. This Ymelo was mine and mine alone; it would answer to no other. It was, in a very real way, a part of my identity now. There was a connection between it and me, a link that bound it to my soul and therefore to the World Rune. Inspiration would keep it inviolable, immutable save in its intended function. Not even I could change that now.

It would take in every memory of mine and, should I so choose, I could draw it outward again to trigger something similar to a system reboot. That function was also linked to an automatic trigger, the single most difficult runic matrix I'd carved thus far. If the Ymelo sensed a significant deviation between my present emotions and the historical standard, it would flood my brain with the same, forcing me to recall the reason I was the way I was. My resolve. My pain. My triumphs. My failures. My very identity was now my shield.

This was my answer to emotional masters: A love-me aura wouldn't work if I remembered exactly why I hated them with a passion. Suicidal depression wouldn't take hold if I forced myself to remember the people and things that drove me.

And seeing how it was linked to the Inspiration, my new floating buddy wouldn't be running out of juice anytime soon.

It wasn't perfect. For one, I had to have the Ymelo on my person. It could be made to hover and follow me around, but I'd have to carry it in my pocket while in my civilian guise. While I could call it, it could still be separated from me.

Second, it worked for any significant deviation in my mental state. It didn't necessarily have to come from a power. That meant that I was cutting off the bell curve on both ends. I could feel joy, but never the delirious kind, grief, but never the soul-crushing kind. Something like this would have required a month of review at least, which was why I didn't really ask for permission or clarify exactly what I was doing.

As it was, I was probably going to get chewed out by Hero. If nothing else, I was about to let a therapist retire early.

Lastly, it did nothing for masters with a focus on nervous control. Alec, currently Jean-Paul, could f*ck me over just as easily as before.

Even so, this would have been enough to keep me from getting Pavlov'd by Tequila and that alone was a weight off my mind.

I gently set the glowing blue orb down onto my desk to the sound of applause. I didn't notice I'd drawn a crowd.

"That was quite the light show," Pyro said with a low whistle. "Does everything you make glow like that?

I looked back to see the entire lab facing me. "Are you all really this bored?" I asked, a tad miffed.

"Yes," the man I'd learned was Zero Day spoke flatly but I could spy a slight smirk of the lips. He wore a gray bodysuit like my own, but with a lab coat over it. The lab coat was decked out in green lines tracing a pattern reminiscent of computer chips. On his left breast was his logo, a big fat "Z" with a lock overlaid onto it.

"Aww, don't be like that, Hyunmu," our chief said, his smile annoyingly bright. "The first time a tinker completes a project in this lab is always a bit of an occasion. Besides, yours is pretty important. You called it the Ymelo, right?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Right. This lets me reboot my memories, but it's tied to me and I'm not giving it away."

"Why would you want to make something like that?" Pyro asked.

"Anti-master protocols," I said. I breathed deep. He didn't have the full story. "It's been a personal mission of mine to make myself immune to them." And thinkers, I didn't say.

"Right…"

"How?" Armsmaster asked, or really, demanded. He wasn't nearly as abrasive as he was in canon, jaded determination hadn't quite set in, but he was nonetheless a very direct person. I tried not to take it personally. "How were you able to link it to you?"

I shrugged. I had no idea how to explain the existence of the soul to someone like Armsmaster so I didn't even bother trying. Instead, I ignited my hand in a soft, blue glow. "My energy is very versatile. It's also why I can't really give a Ymelo away."

"So even if you made a few extra, no one else would be able to use them?"

"No… Maybe? Give me a sec to think."

They didn't know how to draw mana from their souls. They couldn't activate anything complicated, but… the core function of the Ymelo tokens weren't complex. All the fancy bells and whistles Ahri could do weren't relevant. Hell, most of the things I could do weren't relevant either.

The tokens just needed to work once, provide a dose of clarity and emotional void for the wearer. I considered it. I could scrap the linkage matrix. No reason to forge a permanent connection if they had no idea how to channel mana along that connection in the first place. It didn't need to hover either. No storing memories because no link existed, but… that would mean it'd need to be voluntarily activated rather than have an automatic trigger because no history exists to identify deviance in emotional patterns...

Theoretically, the runes carved onto the Control Wards that allowed a person to activate them without mana could be repurposed here. So long as I infused it with some of my own…

"Maybe," I began, "but it wouldn't' be easy. The carvings get more complicated because I'm effectively going to have to design a battery containing my internal energy so anyone else can activate it. It'd also only have enough juice for one shot, a few minutes of clarity to hopefully give someone a fighting chance against a master."

"I'm going to kick this up the chain to the chief director," Hero said. He called her by title so we knew it was serious. "This is big news if you can cleanse a master effect. She'll want to test that in detail."

"How? Will we have him mastered in a controlled environment?" Armsmaster asked. I stiffened at that. I'd kill him before I'd let them try, canon be damned.

"They'll probably get a low-level master to try their power on someone then have that volunteer use a Ymelo to cleanse himself. I'll have the chief director hold off on testing until Hyunmu makes another."

"Thank you," I said earnestly. "I appreciate it, boss."

"No problem, kid."

The rest of the day was spent in cooperation with my fellow tinkers. I expected the next few weeks to look similar. Glace took a look at my capacitors for both the multi-tool and Blitzshield. They were hextech and so preferred to channel mana over standard electricity, but I learned a lot just by listening to her lectures on the way temperature could affect metals and their conductive properties. I considered asking her for more blueprints so I could learn more about my own Glacial Augment, but held off. No time. Just one more thing to make a note of for later.

After a few hours of that, I had dinner with Metalmaru at the PRT canteen. The food was surprisingly nice, perhaps because the operations director contracted out catering services to local restaurants rather than hire in-house cooks. It did mean we needed to keep our masks on, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for a solid meal.

Metalmaru wanted to talk about the incorporation of Petricite into a new super-metal, as promised. We sat in an out of the way table in the corner. Some sort of tech he set down on the table kept away eavesdroppers.

"Alright Hyunmu, tell me everything you know about the properties of Petricite."

"Excuse me?"

"You know. Malleability. Conductivity. Melting point. Boiling point. Density. All that good stuff."

I looked at him blankly. He'd grabbed himself a chicken sandwich but I'd settled for an instant cup of Shin ramen. Sue me, I was feeling nostalgic. "Umm… I don't know any of that."

"You… How?"

"It's technically a tree," I said. "Malleability is closer to marble than any metal. It's a poor conductor, as are all trees. It… burns into charcoal if the fire is hot enough, but probably has a higher combustion point than something like… the melting point of copper?"

"Are you telling me or asking me?"

"Telling you? Telling you. Yeah. Boiling point is irrelevant. It's denser than water, despite being plant matter, so will sink under normal circ*mstances. It's lighter than most metals though."

"Don't you have any specifics?"

I shook my head. "No? I mean… It's a material that absorbs the energy I call mana, an energy that is released in small quantities by parahumans as they use their powers. This disrupts a parahuman's power. I thought this was more important."

He put his head in his hands. "Oh, we have so much work to do."

"Fine," I huffed. "What did you have in mind?"

"Okay, so there is this thing called graphene and it's got the highest tensile strength in the known universe."

"I know what graphene is. Single sheet of carbon molecules. What's that got to do with metals?"

"Everything," he said brightly, eager to talk about his favorite subject. "So normally, metals bond to create something called an 'electron sea.' But, when I tinker, I can blend the two electron seas of two separate metals in a way that forms magnetic links between protons and electrons."

"So you build alloys like Legos?"

"Not quite, but yeah, that's a good description. It means I can position atoms and molecules to form the best structure chemically possible, which in most cases looks remarkably like graphene."

"I see… And Petricite, being an unknown material…"

"Needs testing!" he exclaimed. "We're going to be working together to discover every last property of the material. And then, we're going to figure out what its atomic structure is so I can incorporate it into a new alloy."

"Sounds good," I said. Metalmaru was a surprisingly methodical man. I wouldn't have expected that from the motor-mouth. "But doesn't the 'perfect' alloy depend on what you're trying to use it for? It's not like every super-metal is equally conductive or durable, right?"

"Right, and that gets to the next question: What do you want? I mean, how do you think Petricite can be best used?"

"Containment for prisoners," I ticked off on my fingers, "maybe body armor for troopers if we can get enough of it, something to relieve thinker headaches in a consumable form, but that's something I'll have to figure out on my own. Really, what I was hoping for from you was a lightweight, protective material I could use to make my armor out of. Oh, and coating for my shield. If I could do that, I should be able to negate most powers, or at least dampen them enough to shrug them off without too much consequence."

"Is there any reason heroes can't use the same armor?"

"Tinkers can," I agreed, "but a blaster like Legend would find that Petricite armor interferes with their own power."

"Yeah, fair enough." He polished off the last of his fries and stood. "Alright, let's get to work. We won't be able to do too much today, but we can get started on the basic physical properties. Man, I can't believe you never recorded this."

"I had other things on my mind, sue me."

Author's Note

I'm pulling sh*t out of my ass so much now. The Ymelo tokens are mysterious even by Runeterra standards. Literally no one, not even Ahri herself, knows exactly what they can do in full because as far as anyone knows Ymelo is dead. I'm pulling sh*t out of my ass based on what Ahri can do, but without her drain and charm abilities. The summoner spell Cleanse doesn't actually have anything to do with Ahri, but I figured the function of the Ymelo tokens as I described them was close enough that I could get away with a bastardized version of it.

It's funny that narratively, it's called Inspiration. Andy's branching out. From a meta-narrative perspective, it's called an asspull.

Chapter 36: 4.6 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.6

2000, August 25: Washington, DC, USA

I felt better now that I had my Ymelo. I kept the glowy tennis ball in my pocket at all times, a safety measure against emotional masters. It was basically my security blanket now. If it ever activated automatically, I'd start dematerializing and ask questions never.

I arrived at the lab early in the morning and got through Metalmaru's intensive testing regimen by ten. According to him, it'd take another few hours before he could figure out how to best incorporate Petricite into an alloy. Then, he'd need a few more hours to actually craft the metal. Finally, we'd have to undergo all the same tests all over again to make sure that we had what we aimed for in the first place.

Seeing how I was no longer any help, I returned to my station and tried to incorporate all the lessons Glace had taught me about capacitors and temperatures into my Blitzshield. Before her extensive instruction, I only vaguely knew that lowering a material's temperature reduced its resistivity and that if you lowered the temperature enough, you could sometimes get a superconductor. There was a surprising amount of nuance that high school physics had glossed over and I was happy to find most of it meshed with the knowledge I'd gleaned from the likes of Jayce and Dr. Heimerdinger.

Using the materials provided by Glace and Metalmaru, I was able to make better hextech capacitors that stored energy longer. In that sense, removing the prototype Hex Core was a good idea. Like this, I could have my shield store Mana Crystals like bullets in a magazine and recharge the capacitors directly as needed.

There was one more thing that made me feel really stupid. Proof positive that even having a slice of infinity stuck to my soul didn't make me any more detail-oriented. I'd forgotten the cardinal rule of tinkertech: Never make something that can be used against you. An omnidirectional EMP that shorted out all tech in a city block could, and would, f*ck over anything I built as well.

It's not like I lived on Summoner's Rift. Friendly fire was very much on.

This wasn't a huge problem at the moment because I didn't have any hextech besides my multi-tool and I wouldn't be bringing that on patrols, but it would be eventually if I didn't redesign it. I needed a way to either harden my tech against EMPs, or make my EMP more selective, a short-out laser of some sort instead of an omni-directional wave. Or better yet, both.

Hero was off in New York for a meeting with Legend, something about the Butcher causing problems and how they wanted to deal with the inheritance mechanic of his Shard, but he wasn't the only expert on wave motion in the lab. The thought of a Butcher-Hero hybrid sent shivers down my spine, but I consoled myself with the fact that it wasn't September yet. sh*t wouldn't go down until the Founders met up with Manton.

Putting my future worries aside, I headed to Bluesong's station.

Bluesong was a tall, Nigerian woman in her late twenties who wore her hair in long cornrows that touched her hip. She had a lithe build accentuated by a skintight bodysuit, ocean-blue with white, wave-patterned highlights, another work of Hero's. The logo on her breast was a cartoonish blue whale and a music note. Her most notable feature was a multi-layered shawl that reminded me of the aurora. It was decked out in so many sensors that she could hear a cricket chirp from a mile away if she so chose. She was like Hero in that she too dealt with wavelengths, though her power seemed to focus almost exclusively on sound and fluid dynamics, hence her name.

The woman was much beloved. I heard from Metalmaru's gossip-mongering that she was born in Nigeria. When she triggered, her condition for joining Hero's burgeoning tinker collective was that he escort every last person in her village to safety in the United States and provide them a new life. He, in a move counter to everything I'd come to expect of Earth-Bet, did. Since then, she became the pillar of her community. Technically speaking, more people knew her secret identity than anyone else in the Protectorate, but her shield was the unshakable loyalty her village had towards her.

It didn't hurt that she was capable of crafting far-reaching sonars. With the advent of Leviathan, she became the cornerstone in an international warning network. I suspected that Dragon and Armsmaster would take pointers from her in their own efforts.

Such an important woman wasn't likely to be targeted, not that she was a slouch in a fight herself. Sound could really f*ck up a person and her tinker-eight classification proved it. Resonant frequency wasn't a joke.

"Hey, Bluesong," I called as I walked into her station. It was immaculate, with countless pieces of equipment kept on neat shelves. Most of it looked like some sort of cross between steampunk and radar systems, possibly a hybrid of her water and sound specializations. "Oceanpunk," if that was a thing. A large stuffed whale, a gift from her old village, sat in a place of prominence on her writing desk.

"Yes, Hyunmu? How may I help you?" she spoke. Her voice had a thick accent, completely genuine unlike my bullsh*t PR gimmick. It lent her voice a smooth, sultry quality that I knew Metalmaru appreciated.

Man really talked too much…

"You're good with wavelengths, right?"

"You could say that."

"Well, I was hoping you could help me focus this," I said, holding up the Blitzshield. "When I originally made it, it was supposed to act as a wide-area EMP. But now…"

"Now you've realized that bigger lightshows do not make for a more effective hero," she finished for me. At my nod, she smiled. "You are learning, my young friend. That's good. A scalpel is far more versatile than a bomb."

"I know you mostly do sound, but sound disperses too. Can you help me?"

She thought about it, then looked at the three pounds of Petricite on her desk. I had no idea what she wanted with it, but she did owe me a favor. "I don't know how much help I can be. You will likely have to ask Hero for help once he returns, but I can show you a little bit of what I've been working on. Maybe you'll have a breakthrough by observing."

"That's great. Thanks, Bluesong."

"Don't mention it, my friend. This is what I'm here for." She took out a gun as large as her arm. It was long and sleek, with a satellite dish at the end instead of a muzzle. "This is a sonic rifle. It focuses vibrations and launches a wave of high frequency sound so dense that it can be felt like a physical force. It was the first thing I ever made so I could never bring myself to tear it apart. Now, listen closely…"

Bluesong was a phenomenal teacher. Admittedly, many of the concepts she talked about flew over my head. Multivariable refraction quotient of sound across different dimensions? Yeah, no way in hell; just seeing that equation made me want to inject some Shimmer and jump off the roof. Even so, what I could understand did give me several ideas.

I was inspired.

Heh.

It wasn't that I fully grasped her specialization. Rather, speaking with her jogged memories within the World Rune, giving me a hint as to who and what I should be diving for.

She interspersed her lesson with stories from her childhood, including building a special alarm system that released subvocalizations that deterred elephants from her village's crops without harming the animals. They were fascinating to hear about and I could see why she was so widely respected.

Soon after, I returned to my own station and put some of my new ideas to paper. What I needed was a focusing lens that could condense Blitzcrank's immense electrical charge into a beam without losing cohesion over long distances in the same way she did with her sound. Or at least, make it so that the damage area was a cone rather than a sphere. What little I could comprehend from her lecture helped.

Zeri. I turned to the Runeterran pikachu.

The Spark of Zaun had an innate affinity for lightning magic, so much so that she had trouble controlling it in her youth. Every time she so much as giggled, electricity would run wild. As impressive as that was, I wasn't too interested in her personal magic. Rather, it was her weapon I had my nonexistent eyes on.

Much like Bluesong's, Zeri's story was a story about community, unity and fellowship amidst hardship and strife.

She once waged a one-gal war against the chem-barons of Zaun and made such a nuisance of herself that she forced feuding barons to unite to stamp her out. They almost succeeded and destroyed her neighborhood in retaliation. In response, her family and neighbors banded together to pool their resources and expertise. Her mother built her a rifle, one that could be fueled by her emotions, launching an unending salvo of electricity.

And the best part of all this? It was made by civilians. Sure, skilled tradesmen who grew up around hextech, but still civilians. They weren't genii who would go on to change the course of history; they were just normal people. The rifle wasn't some incredibly advanced tech like Viktor's Hex Core or some divine enchantment like Soraka's banana-launcher. It was just that, a rifle that focused electricity. I could build it rather cheaply.

Yes, talking to other tinkers was an excellent idea.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I finished the Blitzshield's internals around four in the afternoon. It cost me a working lunch, but that was fine, it wasn't like I had any other obligations.

Metalmaru called and told me that a secondary project blew up on him, metaphorically, always needed to clarify in the Madhouse, and that he likely wouldn't be done with the Petricite testing until tomorrow.

With several hours to kill and both Hero and Metalmaru busy, I dedicated the time to a more personal project. Namely, keeping Hero from starring in the history section.

'How does one defeat the Siberian?' I asked myself, then immediately amended my query. 'Or really, I don't need to kill Manton, just keeping Hero alive would be enough for me...'

One option was simply to give him Gwen's scissors. It wouldn't be too much of a hassle to finish them. The Siberian projection ignored any and every physical law at will. It was Assault, Madcap pre-canon, on steroids. So, it stood to reason then that a weapon that could impart force that wasn't physical would be able to kill or dispel the Siberian. Gwen's scissors, being spiritual weapons, should lie outside the scope of the Shard's power, if not necessarily its understanding.

But… That only gave Hero the chance to fight back. It didn't mean he'd escape alive. If anything, giving him something like that might make him more aggressive in the name of preventing other casualties. As callous as it was, the rest didn't matter. Eden's version of Stilling did.

The second option was to somehow guarantee Hero's survival with an immensely powerful defensive item. Zhonya's Hourglass was practically the go-to item for survivability. And, it might even work. Shards didn't stop time, not really. The theory was complex, but I knew that "time stop" as a concept was just elaborate dimensional f*ckery on their part. This was true of Phir Se, Gray Boy, and Clockblocker. And I knew for a fact that Clock's "time stop" versus the Siberian resulted in the cancellation of both powers.

Even if the hourglass could be broken by the Siberian, Manton would be forced to remake the projection, giving Hero precious seconds to escape.

That did seem like the ideal pick but… I couldn't build it. There wasn't a damn thing on Earth Bet with that kind of conceptual weight and I was loathe to try without the Commencing Stopwatch to start me off.

Zilean was a freak of nature and he had no business existing in the first place. I personally chalked it up to the general f*ckery of Icathian mages. A nation of idiot-savants who looked at the Void and said "Let's open it!" shouldn't be taken as the norm of anything. And yes, that was coming from the child with a slice of infinity grafted to his soul.

So, if I wanted to keep Hero alive without resorting to timey-wimey shenanigans, I would need to remove Hero from the situation completely. Then, I would have to have a healing potion powerful enough to fix any injuries incurred, up to and including bisection, a true Elixir of Life.

There were several ways to teleport someone, but the best, the Worldstone and Wayfinder, came from the Sentinels. The Worldstone was an enchanted map used by the Sentinels of Light. It was a map of Runeterra which tracked the Black Mist. It, alongside the Wayfinder, allowed a certain Rookie Sentinel to teleport his teammates around the world and confront the Black Mist.

Cauldron had Doormaker of course, but they didn't use it to save Hero. Why? Was Manton's pseudo-trigger enough to muddle Contessa's sight? If I had to guess, Leviathan's attack a mere day after coupled with Manton's vial clouded her Path. It was truly the kind of freak accident I could only expect from Earth-Bet. I couldn't think of any other reason than that, no way she would have sacrificed Hero unless she had no say in the matter.

My own teleporter would be far more limited, but it could work. The Worldstone was able to scan all of Runeterra the way it did because of the mana in the air, a far greater application of the principle behind the Control Wards. But even with the mana-poor environment of Earth-Bet, it could still act as an anchor, a beacon for the Wayfinder to latch on to.

A Wayfinder that led back to HQ. It'd only lead back to HQ, but it would suffice.

The Worldstone and Wayfinder would be my priorities moving forward. Then, I'd craft the Elixir of Life, or as close as I can get with my current abilities.

With enough mana, it was possible to elevate the corrupted Water of Life I had back to its original state, as pure as it was when Maokai first found it. Pair that with the bioengineering knowledge Singed used to create Warwick and… It was doable, a potion that could keep Hero alive post-bisection.

Best of all, everything started with the Water of Life. It made the refining process a bit tedious, but a simplified procurement pipeline was always best.

I put in the order for many more gallons of holy water and got to work.

I sat in my private lab, the basem*nt of my new house. It wasn't much. Perhaps I was being a bit hasty calling it a lab. Really, there was a hot plate and kettle with a set of pipes and beakers for distilling potions ingredients, a water dispenser with a five gallon tank half full of holy water, and a small collection of boards of a variety of woods for engraving practice. It was basic, but I could get away with it for the most part thanks to the multi-tool.

My phone was propped up against a book, the screen revealing Penelope's smiling face. On their end, Jazz had her phone on a call to Albuquerque as well. It was ten in DC, eight in Albuquerque, and seven in Phoenix.

This wasn't the first time I spoke with my old teammates. We agreed to keep in touch once a week so Friday evenings became our scheduled time to reconnect. Truthfully, we spent most of this time watching a movie or playing games; none of us were particularly good with emotions and my and David's departure was still raw between us.

"Hey, Penny," I greeted. "Are Jaz and Raquel there?"

The phone was pointed towards my old leader's smiling face one second then I was peering up into Raquel's nostril the next. "Yup! Hey, Andy!"

"Hey, give my phone back," my old leader complained.

"I just wanna say hi."

"You have very long nose hairs," I said dryly.

"Eep!"

The phone fell, only to be snatched up by Penelope.

"Just kidding"

"Thanks, Andy," she chuckled.

"Boo, jerk."

"I still have no idea how you can see faces through a screen," Jazz remarked from the side somewhere. "I mean, tinkers are bullsh*t, but come on. Oh, and Dave's on."

"Hey guys," David called. His voice sounded a bit tinny through the disjointed connection.

"Hey, David. I'm just more bullsh*t than other people," I said proudly.

"Clearly. So, chico, what'chu been up to? ¿Qué pasa?"

"Rebranded as Hyunmu. It's this black turtle thing from Asian mythology. I've been working on something I call the Ymelo, something to keep me from getting mastered or kidnapped again."

"Ooh! I saw your debut. You had a funny accent and everything," Raquel chirped. "Was that on purpose?"

"Does Andy ever do anything on accident?" Penelope laughed. "I can't imagine that was your idea though. PR?"

"PR," I confirmed. "How about you guys? You do anything special? How's Albuquerque, David?"

"I've been busier ever since I got into the Protectorate. New SOPs. Moving in. Finding a school for Josie. You know. Things are a lot calmer here though. Josie's setting in well; the director even helped me arrange a nanny for her." Even through the line I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. Still, there was palpable relief in his tone.

"I'm glad," I said honestly. "If you need anything…"

"I know, Andy. I know you have my back."

"Hey," Raquel cut in, obviously trying to draw us away from heavier topics. "Did you know Jazz got asked out?"

"Oi!"

"Oh, right!" Penelope crowed with delight. "You know Poundtown, right?"

"Yeah, did you give him the shovel talk?" David asked, going along with the change. "Agent Carter might let you borrow her pistol, you know, just as a prop."

"Psh, please. I can punch holes through a car. I don't need a gun. Besides, he seemed like a sweet boy. Looks all big and tough but a big teddy bear inside."

I nodded as I sketched out draft number eight of the Sunstone Talisman. "Yeah, that's the impression I got from him too. Did you know he volunteers for every PR tour around orphanages and elementary schools? Guy loves kids."

"I did know that actually. Anyway, Jazz, you say yes?"

"No… I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, he's not a bad guy and he's not ugly or anything, but…"

"It's fine," David said. "Dating's complicated enough without a mask between you guys. Take your time."

"Thanks, David," she said, perhaps with a bit more than gratitude. For all that had happened, I was glad that at least something had remained consistent. Still wasn't touching that with Wukong's pole.

The conversation died for a bit before Penelope picked it back up. "Oh! I got to punch some new villain named Shakedown in the face. He was really surprised when his power stopped working for a second."

"Yep. Getting decked with Petricite will do that. You have to keep holding on to him though."

"I know. I did… after I fed him his teeth."

"I'm sensing a lot of unresolved aggression here…"

"Heh, I remember that. He called her a gym-slu*t," Jazz snorted. She then realized who she was talking to and said lamely, "Ah, that's um… a not nice word."

"I can guess," I said dryly. "How 'bout you, Raquel?"

The current youngest Phoenix Ward shrugged. "Oh, you know. I've just been hanging out. The wildfire died down so it's been much more relaxed lately. Turned fourteen, had a birthday party. No big."

"Oh, right. Happy birthday. August twenty-second, right? Sorry I didn't get you anything."

"Don't worry about it. Say, you joined that fancy tinker lab run by Hero, right?"

"Yeah, we call it the Madhouse here. You want his autograph or something?"

"Already have it. He dropped by on his tour of the Wards bases last year. I just wanted to know how it was."

"A ton of work," I drawled. I picked up my phone and adjusted the camera so it hovered over the sketchpad. "I'm still drawing drafts while I'm talking to you guys, see?"

"Ooh, what's that? Is it a badge for something?"

"Kind of. It's a talisman. One time use only, but it can cleanse someone's mind of any master effects."

Jazz let out a whistle. "That's going to be huge. Mind sending any of those our way? Dos Caras is still a pain." Although she'd never been Wards Leader, Jazz was one of the best informed among all of the Wards thanks to the many literal and not so literal hats she wore. Her social circle was wider than anyone else's so she tended to hear more gossip and grasp the broader implications faster than the others.

"Definitely," I agreed easily. I made a note to send a package of potions as well. Rubedo might have been retired from the public eye, but it wouldn't be strange for the now heavily guarded tinker to send his old team a care package every now and then.

I allowed the conversation to wash over me like gentle waves as I carefully etched the sketch pattern onto plywood for practice. The real deal would be carved into Sunstone then alchemically infused with mana, but it was always good to know I could actually do the carving before I ruined something more expensive.

The five of us eventually agreed to shelve further talks in favor of a movie. I headed to the living room and turned it on before muting the phone. Just knowing we were watching something together helped. As per rotation, David got to choose and his pick was The Temple of Doom, the first Indiana Jones movie. He wasn't okay, far from it, but I thought he was getting better. That was all I could ask.

By the time I needed to turn in for bed, I had a good idea of what the runework should look like.

Author's Note

I have no idea how to describe a Nigerian accent. I've heard it a few times, but damn if it's hard to put to text. Hopefully I'm not poking anyone's buttons.

The Wayfinder is a weapon built specifically for a rookie sentinel during the Rise of the Sentinels event. Though the Rookie is not a playable character, you choose their dialogue.

And yeah, I agree. The conversation with the old crew was a long time coming. I think that if I were to release multiple arcs simultaneously, people would be able to read through them all at once, but because you're forced to put up with the segmented release, you all felt like there wasn't much closure between them. It's a fair criticism, and one I feel that the fanfiction medium doesn't support well. I can really only keep writing. Just know that just because I dropped a plot threads in Phoenix doesn't mean I've decided to burn them. I'm very much aware that they're there.

Chapter 37: 4.7 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.7

2000, August 26: Washington, DC, USA

"Yusung, it's Saturday," mom called. "Are you still going in?"

I nodded. "Yeah, mom. I start homeschool on Monday so I won't have as much time to tinker. I want to do as much as I can."

"Why? Why do you work so hard?"

"Most moms think their sons don't work hard enough," I said wryly.

"Most moms don't have you for a son. Yusung… This life…"

'I know. I know it's dangerous. I know that better than anyone. That's why I need to work harder. The more I make, the stronger I become, the safer I'll be. I... I don't want to be weak ever again."

"Just… be careful," she finished lamely.

"I will," I smiled. "And besides, this really is what I love doing, mom. The making. I feel most like myself when I'm creating something new."

I understood. Really, I did. And it was because I understood that I couldn't stop. If I stopped, she really might lose me.

I was seated next to Metalmaru at his station as he went over the properties of his new favorite alloy. His lecture was a complicated mess full of jargon I didn't fully understand, made more difficult by his rambling tangents, but the gist was that this new Petricite alloy was more durable than any conventional metal yet only slightly heavier than aluminum. It was a dazzling silver, but with a lighter note that leaned towards white.

Like every metal, it was a conductor, but I had an idea on how to turn that into an asset rather than a vulnerability. Since Petricite stored magic, I planned to conduct any electricity that hit my shield or armor into a transformer, converting it into mana before fueling it back into the metal to store for later use. I could then release the stored mana and the process would then reverse. All that mana would be converted back into electricity and directed into my shield, electrifying the metal exterior.

Blitzcrank's Power Fist? Yes, please.

Now that I had a better grasp of the material, I could finally get to designing my armor. Hero's bodysuit was great, but it wasn't mine. I'd still wear it, it did boast some impressive defensive properties, but it'd be the underlayer.

"You know what this means, right, Hyunmu?" Metalmaru said.

"What?"

"You get to meet PR again so they can hound you over what your image should be."

"Crap," I groaned. "It's gonna be such a pain…"

"Hey, it won't be too bad. You already know what kind of image they're going for thanks to your debut so build with that in mind. Go ahead and design the blueprints online then load it up into the fabricator. I should have the settings coded to work with this stuff by Tuesday at the latest."

"Shouldn't I wait to build? PR will nitpick and make me remake this stuff anyway, right?"

He leaned forward and whispered conspirationally, "Between you and me? If you tell them the metal's special tinkertech and hard to make with other demands on both my time and yours… Well, I won't tell them otherwise," he winked. "They tend to let tinkers get away with a lot more freedom for our image because at the end of the day, most of us build our own costumes and we can blame it on a fugue. Just about the only thing about my costume that PR had absolute control over was the color scheme. It's not like they can take away something just because it doesn't fit their ideal image. If one of those PR goons tries to take away your armor just for something like that, tell Hero. He'll have their heads for depriving a Ward of protection.

"Ah, I'm not saying you can just build what you want, though. Even we have limits. You're supposed to be a cultural warrior who's disciplined and polite and all that jazz. If you make an electric guitar and get a Mohawk, Hero's going to bench you regardless."

"Haha, yeah, fair enough. Thanks."

My Blitzshield was ready. It was two feet in diameter and looked like Blitzcrank's faceplate, if said faceplate was painted a lustrous black. The emblem of a turtle shell was stenciled in cobalt-gray paint on the forehead. In my tiny hands, it looked like a Spartan's aspis but would one day be much more manageable. The two "eyes" glowed a haunting blue, indicating that its shockwave function was loaded and live. The lightweight alloy meant it weighed only ten pounds, a big change from the twenty-some pounds it used to weigh as a spherical hunk of steel.

It wasn't comfortable to wear, but a shield wasn't supposed to be comfortable anyway. With my increased fitness and magical reinforcement, I could swing it about without slowing myself too much or losing balance. By now, my continued exercise and mana infusion made me comparable to athletic teenagers.

I carried the shield to the basem*nt after converting a batch of healing potions into pills. The lower levels were in fact more like a tunnel system, with underground pathways connecting to the PRT administration building, emergency bunkers, and Wards commons. I used them to get around sometimes.

These tunnels also sported several testing areas and gyms designed with capes in mind. Tinkers weren't the only ones who frequented the place, but I managed to snag one of the specialized rooms. The target area contained a host of sensors that measured everything from kinetic force to temperature and electrical current.

I called for a target and the automated system obeyed, depositing a metal cutout of a person.

Breathing in, I held my shield in front of me and, holding it steady with a bit of magic, pressed the trigger.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Blitzcrank's entire face lit up before a flash of light and electricity blinded the area for a moment. An instant later, the light faded as the electric charge dispersed.

I walked over to the monitor and read the display. During the adjustment process, I decided to halve the range from two hundred to one hundred feet in order to further minimize chances of collateral damage. Now, the conic blast was tweaked to maximize brightness in exchange for a slightly lower amperage.

I pulled out a spare Mana Crystal and armed the shield before firing again. I repeated the exercise, giving myself a chance to get accustomed to aiming with such a cumbersome weapon. It was a good thing the blast was conic because had I made it as precise as Zeri's rifle, I wouldn't be able to hit anything.

After that, I switched off between the shield and relic pistol. I imagined facing an opponent and crouched behind my shield as I fired back. One benefit of the Oracle's Elixir was that so long as the target was in range, I could aim just fine regardless of my posture.

Then, I mimed a few of the martial arts movements I'd been practicing, flowing from one form to another and focusing on footwork above all else. Burgeoning talent in martial arts or not, I didn't think I was ready to try and make my own "gun fu." As Lee Sin liked to say, the center was everything. Everything else could be built upon in due time.

By the time I was finished training, I'd reduced the metal target to Swiss cheese. And yet, I was unsatisfied. I took too long switching between weapons and the weight of the shield threw me off a little. I sighed. There was nothing for it but to condition my body rigorously until I could compensate.

To the gym it was…

After my stint in the gym, I grabbed a club sandwich from the communal fridge then headed back to my station to work while eating. I checked my email and received the notice that another batch of fossilized lizard eggs would arrive tomorrow so I could merge them with mundane sunstones to get the alchemically potent Helian variety.

With little else to do, I focused on transmuting fossilized trees into Petricite. It was the material that was most in demand, both personally and from the PRT at large. I needed it for my Worldstone, Wayfinder, armor, shackles, and of course, as bribes to curry favor with curious tinkers. With so many uses, I could seemingly never make enough.

I was only at it for an hour and a half when I heard heavy footfalls headed for my station.

"Hyunmu, are you busy?" came Armsmaster's voice.

I cracked on eye open. "Two minutes." The transmutation process wasn't one that should be interrupted. Even were it not dangerous, I found the notion irritating, a quirk of being the host of Inspiration.

"Understood." Credit where it's due, the man stood patiently to the side while I finished with the piece in my hands. When the light faded and the browns and blues warped to white, he spoke again. "I would like to incorporate Petricite into my halberd and wanted your thoughts on the matter."

I nodded. I assumed it'd be something like this. "Sure, but you know that it doesn't have any truly valuable properties besides power negation and that it won't negate powers unless in contact with an enemy cape?"

"Yes. I initially wanted to make a blade out of it but realized that it would only be effective if I stabbed every cape I encountered. Such brutality is unbecoming of a hero so I designed a wire bola that would replace my current grappling hook attachment."

"Let me see your halberd."

He handed it over, a five feet long shaft with an extra foot of blade. It was as thick as my wrist and sturdily built. I suspected that even a man as athletic as Armsmaster would have trouble wielding it without his armor's assistance.

"I don't recommend this," I said flatly. I learned quickly that though Armsmaster was far from the robot that fanon portrayed him to be, he considered social niceties to be a pain, something we could both agree on. Anything that saved us time was good. "The amount of Petricite a cape needs to come in contact with is affected by both the concentration of Petricite in the alloy and the surface area of contact. A bola made of the material would not provide enough of either, especially through costumes."

Really, the gauntlets I'd made Stingray contained the minimum amount of Petricite required to disrupt a cape's powers, and even that was only in short bursts so she could land the knockout punch in the opening provided.

"What do you recommend?"

"A blade is effective because it comes in contact with the cape's blood. That would have been my first suggestion. Do you know about the elixir?"

"Yes. It was used to suppress a villainous tinker's urge while in captivity. Each elixir was said to work for one week."

"Right. A hypodermic needle would probably be your best bet."

"How much Petricite Elixir would be required to disable a cape?"

"No idea. Let me get back to you with the calculations," I said. "I fed Sawtooth a small bottle each week, roughly twenty fluid ounces, but that's unlikely to be efficient for you since you have limited space. Their powers only need to be off for a few minutes in the field."

"I can handle efficiency," he said. "Liquids can be easily concentrated."

"Maybe, but consider incorporating a knockout drug alongside the elixir. The quantity of elixir necessary to negate a cape's power completely is unlikely to fit in a single dart assuming you want to carry more than one dart. Disrupt their power for a few minutes then knock them out while they have no defense."

He smiled. "Yes, that sounds like an effective method. I would like a sample of the Petricite Elixir so I can analyze it to see which drug works best in tandem."

"That's fine. I'll send it along in a day or two," I promised.

He turned and made to walk away before stopping. "Thank you," he remembered.

I waved him off and got back to work.

The Worldstone and Wayfinder were both due soon. They were more urgent than my own costume, though I couldn't explain to anyone precisely why without inviting some uncomfortable conversations. I knew that sometime in September, the Founders would confront Manton. I also knew that Leviathan would attack the day after, though the exact dates escaped me. Eleventh? Nineteenth? It was in the tens for certain. Regardless, I had approximately three weeks, give or take a few days.

That just meant I'd have to work faster. Both tools of the Sentinel s were made from the relic stones found in Helia, not unlike the relic pistol on my hip. In total, I estimated that I would need at least forty pounds of Petricite to convert into relic stone.

Sighing, I placed an extra order for the unorthodox materials I'd need to make more Petricite. At the very least, fossilized wood wasn't very expensive, ranging anywhere from a quarter up to ten dollars per pound at the absolute maximum. And thankfully, holy water was free, though acquiring it was a bit awkward for the nonbeliever.

'If I keep using fossilized wood like this, will Cauldron eventually start a mining operation into other earths for me?'

Author's Note

The PRT building, lab, and Wards commons being connected underground isn't unusual. The US Capitol building and separate buildings for House and Senate are all linked in these tunnels. You can take tours of them. There's even a cafeteria under them that reminded me of high school canteens the last time I was there. The mystique and awe I had for senators disappeared real fast after watching them eat chicken nuggets from those cafeteria trays. Ah… intern days…

Yeah, did you know that most homeschool parents teach their kids for two to three hours a day only? Like, sh*t, wish my school years were that nice.

"22.1-254.(A): The requirements of this section shall not apply to… (b) any child who has obtained a high school diploma or its equivalent, a certificate of completion, or has achieved a passing score on a high school equivalency examination approved by the Board of Education, or who has otherwise complied with compulsory school attendance requirements as set forth in this article."

According to the state of Virginia, a homeschooled student can graduate at any time regardless of age, so long as the course administrator signs off on a diploma-equivalent document.

Chapter 38: 4.8 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.8

2000, August 27: Washington, DC, USA

I made a bottle of Petricite Elixir in my basem*nt last night and left it in Armsmaster's mailbox in the morning. Not ten minutes later, I received a prompt but scripted thank you email from the overly serious man.

On another note, Hero returned late last night.

I decided to give him the morning to decompress and spent the time working on my own. I made some Sunstone, sketched runic matrices for the Worldstone, then sketched some designs for my armor when I got tired of that.

The matrices were the most complicated piece of runework I'd ever attempted. The closes comparison I could make was to coding a new program or video game, not that I knew much about either. Each bit of "code" needed to do something different and in a specific sequence to get the effect I desired. There was the common matrix for mana absorption so the Worldstone could take in mana from me. Another would release a steady pulse of mana like a beacon atop a lighthouse, allowing the Wayfinder to latch on to the specific signature.

I also set the foundations for future adjustments by setting aside several more matrices designed to scan a region, interface with nearby wardstones, and take on some of the burden of portal generation from the Wayfinder. It was my hope that after the fiasco with Hero was done, I could make a Worldstone that covered the entire metro area. That way, it could play a more active role in threat response.

Finally, I called out the most approachable member of Cauldron for lunch.

"Hello, Hero," I greeted him, making sure to bow and seem extremely polite. One benefit of the ridiculous kayfabe PR forced on me was that it was easier to hide my nervousness. My Ymelo token hovered merrily by my head. We were both in our costumes, or what passed for one in my case, and out in public. "Thank you for meeting me."

He'd insisted on a place called Tonic At Quigley's, a restaurant on G Street that used to be a pharmacy. It was a popular watering hole for George Washington University students and federal employees alike but afforded us some privacy by virtue of being a three story restaurant. The university dorms, State Department, Red Cross headquarters, and more were all within three blocks, making it an extremely well-situated business.

The food was nothing spectacular, but was affordable, tasty, and easily accessible.

The armored blonde waved away my greeting with a friendly grin. "None of that, Hyunmu. I really enjoy meeting my Wards. I've been meaning to check in with you anyway but things got a little hectic in New York. Sorry for that, you kids should always be my priority."

The trouble was, I knew he was a member of Cauldron. I knew he at least tacitly condoned some horrible things in the name of the greater good. But either this man was schizophrenic or a deceiver on par with LeBlanc because I couldn't for the life of me sense even a shred of duplicity in his greeting. He seemed like a genuine, friendly man who showed sincere concern for a Ward who had been through a traumatic experience. Even through the Oracle's Elixir, I couldn't spy any difference in expressions, heart rate, breathing, or muscular impulses that might have indicated deceit.

I, somewhat hesitantly, was forced to conclude once again that Hero was indeed as nice as he seemed. Alexandria may not have been remembering him with rose-tinted glasses; he truly might be the best of them.

"There is nothing to apologize for," I spoke, playing up my accent. I dipped my waist a little, a half-bow that advertised a willingness to sink into a senseless apology-spiral that would only leave us both looking like idiots.

"Holy sh*t, that's Hero," I heard the hostess gasp the moment we walked in. She was a rather chubby looking woman in her twenties, probably a grad student trying to pay the bills.

Thankfully, this being a Sunday, there weren't many patrons. I still felt as awkward as a three-flippered turtle standing around while he gave her an autograph. Then that turned into several waitresses arguing about who'd get to serve us, which led to the manager coming out to see what's going on, only for him to pose for a selfie so he could put the picture up on the wall next to presidents and other notable patrons. Never mind that there were four other pictures of Hero already. Then they asked me for autographs too, mostly out of pity.

We were seated in a corner booth on the third floor… eventually.

"Sorry about that," he said with a sheepish chuckle. "It's been a while since I've visited my alma mater. I used to eat here all the time back before I got my power. I still do sometimes. Hope you don't mind my nostalgia trip."

"Of course not, sir. I didn't know you went to GWU though."

"Not many do. Secret identities, you understand. I wasn't in the best health so I barely attended truth be told, but I ate here pretty often after a visit to the hospital as a treat to myself. It wasn't much, but man did it mean the world to me at the time."

"I am glad you can indulge a little more now," I said honestly. "I do not need to worry about your failing health, do I?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I got better, I promise. So, how are things?" he asked, changing the subject. Seeing how I was the first tinker with medical applications, he likely didn't want to explain how his multiple organ problems, migraines, and diabetes were cured. Less he had to allude to a Cauldron vial, the better from his perspective.

I went along with the shift in topic, no need to dig for information I already knew. I also wasn't sure how much I could talk about in public. Eating with Hero was very different from grabbing some Tex-Mex from El Jefe's with the Wards. I could see at least four patrons and a waitress not so subtly trying to listen in. "Things are better…"

Seeing me gesture towards them, he smiled and unclipped a blue toy whale from his belt about the size of a golf ball and placed it on the table. "It cancels sound waves and shorts out listening devices," he answered my unasked question. "Originally a Bluesong creation that I adapted to my own kit. Cute, huh?"

"That explains the whale theme. I enjoyed working with Metalmaru and the other tinkers to develop a new Petricite alloy. I think I will simply call it Neo-Petricite."

"I'm glad. How is Dr. Kazmar? I know you've been going in to see him every week. And you can drop the accent. I still have no clue what Powell was thinking."

I shrugged and relaxed. "The doc's alright. He's a bit confused about me though."

"How so?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I'm too smart."

"And humble," he teased.

"Humility and I are mortal enemies," I drawled. "No, really. He'll couch it in as much psychobabble jargon as he likes, but that's the gist of it. I don't talk like an eight year old. I don't process information like an eight year old. I don't behave like an eight year old. Most of all, I don't handle trauma like an eight year old.

"He has no idea how to deal with me because he's expecting some traumatized kid, and to an extent, I am. On the other hand, I'm also someone who's perfectly capable of coping through that trauma. I'm not saying I'm some once in a generation prodigy or anything, but I don't behave like I should so he seems really conflicted on how to treat me. Sometimes, he talks to me like you are now, as an adult, but other times, he brings me chocolate bars and asks me to draw my emotions."

"Hyunmu, I know that you're smart, brilliant even, but you do need to take the sessions seriously. They're for your own good."

"I do," I defended. "I'm pretty open with him, actually. Thing is, he's not the first psychiatrist to not have a clue about me. When I first came to the states, I saw this doctor named Owens. She legit thought I was sociopathic for a good while because I don't react to emotional stimulus like someone my age should. It took a while, but her professional opinion was that my trigger event and subsequent physical therapy forced me to mature at an accelerated rate."

He smiled though it was a little bittersweet. "Yes, I read the files. It wasn't always as detailed as I'd like, but her recommendations were pretty clear. Maybe that's the problem, huh? We keep expecting you to break down like any other kid and you're… not. Did you know? Even Lexi thinks you're a genius from what brief interaction she's had with you. And trust me, impressing her isn't easy. I just wish you didn't have to grow up so fast. Powers. Circ*mstance. Doesn't matter what caused it."

"If it makes you feel better, I really do appreciate Dr. Kazmar. He's trying and it's not so bad to just talk to someone for an hour. Sure, he isn't making up some behavioral modification plan for me or anything, but he's a great listener."

"That does make me feel better. Sometimes, all we can ask for is someone to listen to our troubles."

We nodded solemnly. I saw the waitress approach and tapped a finger against the wood before pointing behind me.

"She's coming."

Hero tweaked the whale ornament a certain way and I could hear my surroundings again.

"Thanks. Oracle's Elixir, huh? That's a good name."

"Hello, Hero, sir. And… Hyunmu?" she asked, the foreign word not quite rolling from her tongue.

I nodded with a soft smile. "Yes, I am a new Ward. It is a pleasure to meet you, ma'am," I said, accent back.

"Do you know what you want, sweetie?"

I gestured towards my senior. "Please take his order first. It is courtesy."

"Right, can I get an eggs benedict and an order of tater tots for the table?" he said. "If it helps, they have great chicken wings. Have you tried mambo sauce yet?"

"I have not, sir. What is it?"

"It's a DC regional sauce. Think sweet and sour sauce with the smokiness of barbeque sauce. You should have it at least once."

"That sounds excellent," I said, handing the menu back to the waitress. "I'll have that, please."

As she walked away, Hero tapped the whale and the silence was back. "You're really good at keeping up that accent."

"It's not much different than what I did as Rubedo. Besides, I'm just copying mom's accent. Did you see my original debut?"

"No, I didn't. What'd you do?"

"Ms. Youngston, the PR head in Phoenix, had me throw the script behind me and pretend I was going off the cuff. I could read everything with the Oracle's so it was fine. She wanted me to show some 'youthful candor,' apparently. Whatever that means."

"Heh, you could be an actor if being a hero doesn't work out for you."

"I could, but that sounds boring."

We shared a grin. "So, what did you want to talk to me about? You wanted to ask me something, right? Is it a new project?"

"Kind of," I said. "I would like to delay my costume construction for at least one more week. Ideally two. I figured you're the man who can make it happen."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Oh, thank God. Is it because you can't think of a cool design? Because I can help with that."

"No thanks, I'd rather not look like a streetlight," I drawled.

"Hey," he whined back goodnaturedly. "I look like at least three streetlights."

"Heh. Well, jokes aside, I have a different project that I want to prioritize. It's something I call the Worldstone."

Hero was silent as I told him about the project that might well save his life. Now that we were talking about business, I could see how he became the universally respected icon he was. He may have been a goofball, but he could turn it off like a switch the moment things got serious.

"So…" he began, "let me get this straight. The Worldstone is an anchor that these Wayfinders can teleport to?"

"That's the gist. It'll work from anywhere in the world, an instant recall to portal someone out of danger, but it can become much more than that. I think that if I bury some wards around the DC metro area and carve a relief of the area into the Worldstone, it can also be used to create portals to and from anywhere in DC. Think about it. Immediate evacuation of civilians in the event of an emergency. Instant deployment of troopers or medics as needed."

"That does sound good, but why are you so focused on this?"

'Because you're going to die,' I wanted to shout. Instead I said, "DC is my city now, Hero. I want this to be my proof of concept. If I can do this, and if I made one for major cities across the world… Imagine… an endbringer battle with no casualties. I might be able to pull it off. I know that if I can prove this works, it'll be something far more valuable than anything I can achieve by pounding pavement.

"Stingray, my old Wards Leader, once told me that being a hero is about doing the most good however we can. Well, this is how I can do the most good."

We briefly put the conversation on hold so the waitress could give us our food. The wings were good, though not the best. The mambo sauce was a bit too sweet for me.

Hero nodded slowly as he chewed on a piece of biscuit. He then looked at me with a proud smile. "She sounds like a wonderful girl," he said. "And… I agree. If the Worldstone works as promised, you'll have built a safety net like nothing else. I'll talk to the chief director."

'Yes!' I crowed in my mind. "Thank you, Hero," I said earnestly. Now I only needed to make a healing potion on steroids and my plan to yoink him away from danger was a go.

I returned to the lab with my belly full and satisfied that my plan could go ahead. With the Blitzshield ready and my costume on hold, I only had the Worldstone and Wayfinder to work through.

To start, I measured out fifty pounds of fossilized wood on what used to be a tree trunk then popped an Elixir of Iron for the added strength. I needed the Worldstone to be one whole piece, easier to engrave runic matrices, so I had to make a single large cut. I weighed south of seventy pounds soaking wet so even fifty was a bit of a stretch for me without enhancements.

As I was rolling the tree trunk onto a cart, it hit me: Iron wasn't the only elixir I had. Wrath… I had thus far avoided using it for obvious reasons, but… My gaze flickered to the Ymelo hovering by my head. That would require some testing…

I whistled a jaunty tune as I shoved my cart towards some of the communal work stations. This one was designed specifically for cutting larger materials down to size. Pyrotechnical built it so it used some kind of hyper-dense plasma wire, but damned if I knew how he got it that hot or that focused. He didn't use it often enough to warrant keeping it to himself so it became communal property.

Soon, ash and lime joined the chunk of rock-tree in a vat. At fifteen crystals per hour, the conversion to usable Petricite still took a massive three hours and change. Had I tried this before I merged with the Glacial Augment Keystone, I would have tired myself out after a full day of this. Or more likely, been forced to waste several days tuning my mana as I tried to break up the monumental task before me into manageable chunks.

I then loaded up on snacks to quell the munchies before returning back to the materials conversion process. I had my Petricite. I now needed the Water of Life to infuse into the Petricite so I can get my relic stone. Then and only then could I finally start making the actual Worldstone.

Another three hours passed before I was satisfied with the amount I had. I got nothing else done; there just wasn't enough bandwidth to attempt anything else.

Author's Note

I kind of like writing Hero. He's a canonical character, sure, but he's such a blank slate that it's almost impossible to f*ck up. It's like night and day compared with Armsmaster.

Next up, a look at Hero.

Chapter 39: 4.8.5 Eugene Lewis - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 4.8.5 Eugene Lewis

2000, July 22: Cauldron, Ivory Coast, Africa

I walked into Cauldron's main compound with the familiarity of a man returning home. It was here that I first discovered the limits of my powers. It was here that I broke down weeping as I felt my Agent mend my broken body, both the most agonizing and satisfying moment of my life. The compound's many halls were a plain, boring white reminiscent of hospitals, but to me, this was as much my home as the penthouse flat in DC.

I quelled the flood of emotions that threatened to overwhelm me and hardened my heart for what needed to be done.

We failed.

Again.

Years ago, Rebecca, David, Keith, and I had all but knelt before the President of the United States. We, the greatest heroes of our generation, bowed our heads and submitted to lawful authority in the name of peace. We founded the Protectorate and did our best to grow the organization into an international presence. We recruited. We trained. We inspired. All in the name of ensuring humanity's survival.

That was the big irony: Our mission wasn't to be heroes. It wasn't for justice. Or hope. Or glory. Or even the simple pleasure of saving lives.

No. Our mission was singular: the survival of humanity and the end of the Cycle.

The death of a god.

Everything else was secondary.

I was secondary.

I came to terms with that. I acknowledged that I would have to do terrible things. Already, my hands were stained red. I knew there were harsh choices and harsher truths awaiting me and my friends. I sometimes wondered how it would feel to look ourselves in the mirror when it was all said and done, if we survived at all. I wondered how history would paint me because I had no delusions that Cauldron could remain a secret forever.

I wasn't a good person. Neither was anyone in Cauldron. In the end, I was a hero in name only, a gilded statue built on a pile of bodies.

And despite it all, there were days when my resolve was shaken. I clenched my fists to keep my hands from trembling as I thought back to Rebecca's report.

Rubedo. Andy Kim.

Our fault.

I walked into the meeting room and took a seat by Keith. All but two were already in attendance. Keith, Legend, was a friendly fellow whose greatest superpower was the ability to charm strangers to his side. He wasn't the strongest of us, but he was without a doubt the only one who could wear the mantle of the leader of the Protectorate. A frown didn't suit the man.

To his other side was David, Eidolon, greatest hero in the world save Scion himself. Without his mask and suit tailored to appear flattering on his slightly overweight frame, one would never know. David looked so very plain right now. In him I saw little interest in the upcoming matters, though I didn't hold it against him.

His power was waning. We didn't know why and being Fortuna's blindspot was coming to bite him. For a man who had dedicated himself to his mantle so thoroughly, it was as good as a terminal illness. David had no family. David had no friends save Cauldron. David… David was the mask and Eidolon was the man. I pitied my friend as much as I loved him. He was a reminder of why I couldn't let the mask take over my life.

Across from us sat Kurt, Harbinger, Number Man. When Fortuna brought him into the fold, it took everything I had to not kill him then and there. The lanky man was sociopathic in the extreme. I had no idea if it was his Agent's influence, but Kurt simply did not have empathic concerns. It was all about numbers. Statistics. Probability. Everything else was secondary and I found myself wondering how far we could trust him even while grudgingly acknowledging his necessity.

The world economy wouldn't run itself. No, it was best run by a sociopathic mass murderer.

God, this world was depressing.

Next to him was Rebecca, Alexandria, chief director of the PRT. She was as beautiful as ever. Her Agent had fixed her cancer-ridden form and she hadn't aged a day since. She was flawless. No, perhaps that wasn't the right word. Meticulously calculated was a better way of putting things. Even now, carefully maintained poise and discipline assisted by her not inconsiderable thinker power oozed from every pore.

She nodded towards me and shot me and Keith an apologetic smile. She knew exactly how we felt about the Red Sands Incident. I doubted she cared truth be told. Not for the first time, I wondered what immortality must feel like. Could it be that out of all of us, she was the one most detached from the human experience?

Precisely the moment my ass touched the seat, Doctor Eva and Fortuna stepped through a Doormaker portal.

"We'll begin with the Red Sands Incident," the doctor began.

"Yes, let's talk about that," Keith said with a frown. "Doctor, with respect, what the hell? Since when do we arrange for the kidnapping of children? How does that help us?"

"We gained immense goodwill on a national level as both Director Costa-Brown and Alexandria. Rest assured, the competence of the national PRT is not under question."

"That's not the point! When did we decide kidnaping a minor was an acceptable way to boost our image?"

"He's right," I said, getting angry myself. "We formed the Wards program to make sure things like this wouldn't happen. What's the point of being in charge if we do exactly what we set out to prevent?"

"Director Costa-Brown's approval rating rose by thirteen percent from this event alone. The Founders are similarly seen in a favorable light as decisive decision-makers," Kurt drawled. He'd never been particularly interested in the human experience, a "Number Man" through and through. "We've gained more than PR. By all measures, we benefited a great deal."

"All at the cost of our morals," Keith growled. Sparks of azure energy danced along his costume. It was rare to see my jovial friend so upset. "What exactly did we get that was so valuable? Was this worth it?"

"The Red Sands Standard has set a heavy precedent in favor of trigger-leniency. It has also verified conclusively that second triggers are possible and that second triggers should be treated with the same approach as firsts. We were also able to demonstrate our commitment to preserving the unwritten rules.

Kurt shuffled the papers before him, no doubt ready for the question. "Coupled with the positive PR from this event, I approximate a twenty-two percent rise in new parahumans joining the Protectorate as a result of a more favorable initial impression of the government over the next four years. This will result in a six percent drop in new villains across the country, which translates to a one-point-nine percent drop in violent crime over the same period.

"I realize that the numbers don't sound like much, but I would like to point out that a single percentage point is massive when taken on a national scale. An event with such a large positive impact on the nation's law enforcement is exceedingly rare, especially one in which the person of interest was completely unharmed.

"Further, the majority of parahumans die or retire within six months of their trigger events as you well know. This event created a sort of buffer zone. New triggers are now fourteen percent more likely to either join the Protectorate or another local power, whether out of moral purpose or fear of something similar happening to them. This encourages them to fully discover their powers, raising the chance that useful parahumans will remain alive by three-point-nine percent. We will have thousands more bodies by the final battle."

"That's…"

I glanced at Fortuna. She was of course already turned to meet my gaze. A subtle nod.

Planned then. Statistics prepared to placate Keith and me. Of f*cking course.

"That doesn't change the trauma done to one little boy," I said firmly. I tried to appeal to their pragmatism. "Are we ready to throw away children for the sake of having more cannon fodder? Practically all of them will be nothing more than distractions, if that. Didn't we agree that Rubedo was too useful to waste his potential like this?"

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"We don't know that, so yes," Rebecca said matter-of-factly. "Rubedo himself is immensely valuable, but he was never in any true danger. Furthermore, his psych profile concludes definitively that he has the mind of an adult. His trigger, for whatever reason, has forced him to mature at an unprecedented rate, something I was able to verify in my brief conversation with him."

"Correct. The Path is more efficient if we treat him like a small adult rather than a boy," Fortuna confirmed.

"I don't like it," I said. "It still feels like we're slipping down a slope we've been trying to avoid."

"You don't have to like it, but I ask that you understand. My actions were for the greater good."

'And maybe that's the problem,' I thought. We were so focused on what needed to be done, I sometimes wondered if we were giving up something irreplaceable along her vaunted Path. I hated that I could see their point.

The meeting had just begun and I already wanted it to be over. "So what now? It's been a week since his second trigger. What do we know about it?"

"He didn't second trigger. That was just the narrative that advanced out goals the most. I was able to monitor him for the full duration of his captivity and you know that my Path gets muddled during a trigger event."

"Then he was hiding his abilities?"

"Yes. Like I said, treat him like a little adult rather than a young boy. He had his relic pistol long before his kidnapping but did not tell the PRT so he could secure an emergency weapon for himself. I was unaware of his disintegration beam however."

"That's…" I didn't know what to think. I had to accept that an eight year old managed to dupe the Phoenix PRT. Director Lyons wasn't an idiot so she must have noticed something, if not precisely how much he was holding back. She clearly saw no need to pursue the matter however. "Why?"

Fortuna had no trouble parsing the meaning behind my one word question. "Director Lyons believed that his sudden maturity and traumatic trigger event caused him to develop a highly paranoid personality. As such, she wanted to give him time to open up to her on his own. He grew close to the other Wards in a short time so she thought this approach was likely to be effective."

"Until you decided to upend the board," I said dryly.

"Quite," she said unapologetically, a ghost of a smile dancing on her lips.

f*cking thinkers. Even when they were on my side. Sometimes, especially because they were on my side.

"So what can he do then?" David asked exasperatedly. "Is he useful against Scion or not?"

"Very," Doctor Eva said. To this day, I still had no clue what sort of "doctor" she was, or if she was one at all. "Petricite in particular will allow us to keep parahumans in reserve. Along with his potions, even if he never grows beyond what he is capable of now, he represents an enormous force multiplier."

"Can we use Petricite in lieu of the Birdcage?" Keith asked. Life sentence without chance for parole always rubbed my friend the wrong way. No, the Cage was far worse than a life sentence. A life sentence at least included wardens and the promise of physical safety. There was none of that in the Cage where villains ran the roost. To be honest, I couldn't say I disagreed.

"Both," Rebecca answered, "It won't replace the Birdcage. Too many parahumans are unaffected by Petricite shackles and Rubedo cannot be expected to produce nothing but Petricite Elixirs to quell tinkers. There will always be those who invite a Birdcage sentence as well. However, Petricite represents a middle ground between the revolving door of normal prisons and the absolute life sentence of the Birdcage."

"How about his alchemy?" David demanded. We all knew where he was coming from. Eidolon, the strongest pillar of the Founders, was weakening. It wasn't common knowledge, and wouldn't be if Fortuna had anything to say about it, but he was. The Eden Agent was, for whatever reason, dropping off in power. Then, almost as if by miracle, a new Ward emerged who could craft powers. "Can those elixirs be made permanent?"

"Can they be used to recharge me?" He didn't say but was heard loud and clear.

"I wouldn't mind taking a look at a few vials myself," I admitted. "It's not my specialization, but who knows?"

"They cannot at this time be used to bolster your power as far as I am aware," Fortuna said, crushing his burgeoning hopes. And just like that, he lost all interest in the meeting.

"At this time?"

She nodded to me. "I am not omniscient. The Path shows me what I need to know in order to accomplish my objectives, but that does not mean I know everything that happens in the world at any given moment. This is true of tinkertech as well. I can largely model your growth because of our close working relationship, but beyond tinkertech that may be useful to kill Scion, I do not know what you will make next. I have a limited bandwidth and only so many things are worthy of my attention.

"In the case of Eidolon, his power remains a blindspot. I can model his behavior, but not the workings of his Agent. How his Agent may react to the mana generated by Rubedo is a mystery, though my models suggest that his elixirs will be ineffective at this time.

"Rubedo himself represents a unique challenge. I can see him on the Path, but at each point of interaction, his power grows. He is one of a handful of parahumans whose power seemingly increases without limit, and not simply because he has been hiding his abilities from the PRT. Because of this, I know what he can build now. I do not know what he may build for anything outside the Path's direct oversight."

"That… That makes him one of the most promising tinkers in the world."

"Quite, Hero."

"So it may be possible that Rubedo can one day repower Eidolon," the doctor summed up. "The best that we can do is to encourage his growth, which was partially what the Red Sands Incident was about."

"Fine, moving on, what's the best way to develop Rubedo as a cape then?" I really just wanted this to be over. "I won't throw him into fights again and again if that's your idea, doctor."

"That would be far too crude. We need to rebrand and relocate young Andy anyway."

I seized my chance. "I volunteer. I can give him a safe environment and still have him grow as a tinker. Combat isn't the only drive for growth."

"Acceptable. He has much to learn from you. The Path predicts that we can influence the effectiveness of Petricite by bringing him in contact with your second," Fortuna said with that same self-satisfied smile. It was incredible how she always managed to get what she wanted.

Rebecca nodded in approval. "I can keep an eye on him in DC as well. This will bring him further under our influence."

The meeting progressed into a conversation about the Path's current objectives. As always, the primary directive was the creation of more parahumans. Soon after, the meeting concluded. I left the base feeling conflicted all over again. Taking Andy under my wing was the best way to keep him safe, make sure he's not one more casualty tossed by the wayside in the name of the greater good, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. In the end, everything, everything was for the sake of the Path.

2000, August 27: Washington, DC, USA

I kept up my smile as I walked away, fully aware that Andy could see me even with his back turned.

Lunch with the young man was… an experience. I read the psych reports. Rebecca briefed me. Steven briefed me. And yet, I wasn't prepared for the enigma called Andy Kim.

I went into that luncheon expecting a traumatized child. I assumed I would have to put up with an hour of hero-worship, pun intended. I'd sign a few things, take a few pictures, and he'd babble on about his day while I nodded along. I'd have to dissuade him from building the biggest baddest robot he could in favor of something more pragmatic. Or maybe, I'd have to hold him as he dribbled snot on my armor, forced to act as a therapist I definitely wasn't equipped to replace.

Andy did not talk like a child. It wasn't a matter of being precocious; I'd met plenty of precocious children. No, with him, there was an air of experience that was impossible to fake, a look in his eyes that demanded he be considered an equal.

If I closed my eyes, I would never have pegged him as a boy of eight. The waitress who served my crab cake was less mature than him. He asked after my health, talked about my alma mater, was conscientious of his public persona, noticed eavesdroppers, cited his psychiatric reports to explain why he should be treated like an adult, and demonstrated incredible foresight and ambition in his project pipeline.

Hell, he knew what a project pipeline was!

That… That wasn't the thinking of an eight year old. The lunch felt more like an amiable meeting with Keith or Steven than a chance to check up on a Ward.

What really sold it for me was the scope of his proposal. His goal wasn't just a portal device, because following Warptek's example wasn't good enough apparently. His ultimate goal was a global network dedicated to emergency deployment of heroes and evacuation of civilians.

A zero casualty endbringer event. I knew how he triggered. Few were the capes with the resolve to chase an endbringer. Fewer still could potentially make good on that burning passion.

It was a dream even I didn't dare entertain.

As much as I could admire his dedication, it broke my heart to see it in someone so young. I guess I was still struggling to put his age past me because a small part of me wanted to steer him away from such an ambitious project. The same part of me that took Wards fishing or to Disney Land wanted to keep him on street-level patrols. Maybe set him up with the Aerospace Museum so he could interact with the public.

I wanted to shield him from the bitterness of failure, the crippling despair that inevitably crashes down on anyone who stands against an endbringer. I wanted to tell him not to get his hopes up, that sacrifices were necessary, perhaps make some ambiguous promise about how we'll triumph one day. Perhaps if I steered him from such lofty goals, I could help him preserve that childish innocence for a while longer.

A bigger part of me had asked, 'What innocence?'

He triggered from Leviathan's tsunami. The same had taken his father. He was kidnapped because of Fortuna's machinations. Only a month prior, he became a killer of a dozen people. Andy Kim wasn't innocent. I'd be doing a disservice holding him back, both to him and to Cauldron's goals.

Cauldron came first. Scion's death came first.

Everything else was secondary, even my conscience. If I needed to exploit an uncomfortably mature eight year old for the greater good, I knew I would. I'd hate myself and resent the circ*mstances I found myself in, but there was no other way.

No other Path.

Author's Note

Finally a look at Hero. I didn't have a name for him, so I went with Eugene. Don't ask why, I have no idea either. There isn't even a fanon name like how Rune was called Cassie before Wildbow decided her name was Tammi.

Nod to Ward: Battery explored Cauldron's main compound and found that it was somewhere around what should be the Ivory Coast. The compound stretches across multiple continents and its branches are only connected by Doormaker so she needed a GPS to get anywhere. The description reminds me a little of the Team Rocket hideouts from the Pokémon games with those teleporter pads that always led to a master ball surrounded by electrodes.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, your childhood sucked.

More details on the Path and Andy's role on it.

Steven Kajiya is Metalmaru. I mentioned his name literally just once so I don't expect you to remember it.

Chapter 40: 4.9 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.9

2000, August 28: Washington, DC, USA

The last week of August also meant the start of my homeschooling experience. Though admittedly, mom didn't exactly teach anything.

The PRT had introduced her to several banks in Annandale, the closest thing the metro area had to K-Town. Because the city had so many Korean immigrants, being able to speak the language was mandatory and she managed to snag a job at Hanmi Bank as a teller. It wasn't glamorous or particularly high paying, but it was out of the way, in a good neighborhood, and did not impose too much on her time.

Maybe I was seeing shadows where there were none, but I took her rapid employment as Cauldron's olive branch to me. I told myself that I would try to look at the big picture. Contessa had managed to use my kidnapping to advance the PRT's agenda immensely, to the point that my personal growth seemed almost an afterthought. Even so, I couldn't help but focus on myself and what Contessa was planning for me, if anything at all.

As for my homeschool schedule, one Ms. Emily Kosker materialized seemingly out of thin air. I didn't know which hole Costa-Brown dug her out from, but she apparently was a teacher for a few years before seeking a career as a budgeting analyst with the feds. Since then, she'd acquired a security clearance, high enough to be let in on my identity if not my past. Which meant she was cleared to know who I was and could sign off as a course administrator for my homeschooling schedule. I had a feeling that she was pulled from her budget team and volun-told to oversee my education.

I hoped they were paying her overtime.

By the end of the day, the chubby middle-aged woman left a little shellshocked. No one told her I was that far advanced, I guess.

She promised to look into testing so I could hopefully graduate early. There were some concerns about the legality of it all, but the state of Virginia had some different provisions for homeschooled students. Then came the discussion about what exactly I wanted to study and how it would look for an eight year old to be a high school graduate, but that was to be expected. In the end, she'd be presenting me with a series of math, literature, science, and history exams for each grade level to make sure I learned the material.

Of these, I was really only worried about history. I read and wrote at a grad student's level. Math was a joke compared to the calculations needed for techmaturgy. Sciences? I could write a dissertation on any subject should I choose to delve into the World Rune.

Was it a conflict of interest that a PRT affiliated teacher was my course administrator? Definitely. Was anyone asking too many questions? Not if they wanted me in the lab as much as possible.

Social interaction? I was homeschooled! What social interaction?

All things considered, the PRT was adapting smoothly to my abnormal mental state.

That wasn't to say mom didn't have any say in my education. She, with Ms. Kosker's enthusiastic approval, tacked on Korean language and music lessons three days a week. To "enrich my learning experience," Ms. Kosker had said. Really, mom just wanted to spend time with me and I couldn't bear to deny her that.

Back at the lab, I received an email from Brickhouse. He and Hero had a chat about my costume and they agreed that I would be going out on PR patrols anyway. After all, Hyunmu was supposed to be visible. Even if I only had my pistol, Sobriety, and Hero's bodysuit, I couldn't be mistaken as anything other than a Ward and the suit alone looked nice enough or they wouldn't have let me debut in the first place.

They agreed that seeing me start from nothing then grow into a tinker persona would be best for my image. So, seeing how both of my bosses were in harmony, I had no choice but to join Verdeer for a lap around the National Mall.

"Hello, Verdeer," I greeted with a polite bow. The two of us were standing outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the building directly west of the White House. We were already attracting people's attention. This was an extremely tourist-heavy neighborhood; plenty of people visited every day to take pictures of famous buildings, not least of which was the White House.

"Hello, Hyunmu. I see you've added some new inventions," he said. His voice had that rumble-honk of a stag that was hard to place. Still clearly audible, but it made me wonder how much of his vocal cord were cervid. He also spoke a bit louder than strictly necessary so he could be overheard.

"I did." With a gesture, I sent the Ymelo hovering to his side. "Please meet Ymelo. It is a drone tuned to my biorhythm."

"Very pretty. What does it do?"

We began walking south, a small but not inconspicuous trail of tourists following behind us.

"It is my flashlight," I said brightly. "I only jest. It is also a tool which keeps me focused longer. Imagine it like coffee, but without the caffeine addiction and turned to only work for me."

"Huh, that's pretty cool. It's a big shift from your laser gun."

"It is. I am slowly discovering my specialization. I also made a shield. It seemed only fitting given my name."

The two of us made for an odd sight. His six-six height towered over my own four and change even without his added antlers. With them, the guy could have easily posed as a small tree.

He did, in fact. It was a bit of an ongoing game for Verdeer to hide in Theodore Roosevelt Island off the Potomac and dare children and parents to find him before anyone else. The monthly game of hide and seek made him one of the most popular Case 53s in the nation.

A few minutes later, we stopped at a hotdog stand that served classic New York style dogs, boiled in suspiciously murky water instead of grilled. We intentionally took our time to eat and "connect with the community," which really just meant signing a few autographs and letting people touch my relic pistol. Some of the parents were a little nervous, but we reassured them that because the gun was attuned to my unique biorhythm, no one could fire it but me.

Biorhythms… Like anyone knew what the hell those were. Pseudo-scientific jargon was amazing at explaining things without explaining anything. Bullsh*t, but convenient bullsh*t. If that's what it took to get the public used to seeing a Ward open-carrying, then that's what it took.

Seriously, there was a small pamphlet titled "Science-y Things You Can Tell Civvies to Avoid Long Explanations They Won't Understand Anyway" that was basically a list of meaningless soundbites that sounded tinkertech-y but was vaguely sensible to the average person. It was written as a joke by Warptek before he transferred out years ago but still made the rounds for a good chuckle once in a while. Metalmaru included it in my introductory packet. That thing came in surprisingly handy at times.

Our path took us from the Eisenhower Building south to the Lincoln Monument where I had my debut. From there, we made a tour of the National Mall and its varying memorials, starting with a walk around the Tidal Basin. The Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson Memorials were around the waterfront. Somewhere along the way, Verdeer turned to the gathering tourists and began talking about the history of the Tidal Basin and the monuments, turning our patrol into a guided tour.

He was a good speaker and had clearly done this before. I found myself wishing this was back in February so I could see the sakura trees in bloom. Yes, sakura trees. Apparently, there was a petition from one Mrs. Eliza Scidmore as early as the 1880s to plant these Japanese trees on the National Mall. She was a bit of a globetrotter and fell in love with these trees during her visit to Japan, so much so that she approached every new superintendent for twenty-four years with the idea. Eventually, the movement grew to involve one First Lady Taft and the mayor of Tokyo.

Even today, there was an annual Cherry Blossom Festival as well as a ten mile run during peak bloom.

After that spontaneous history lesson, we circled up to the Washington Monument where Verdeer took several pictures in front of the monument, positioned so it looked like he was charging the monument horns first.

Then came a winding trek that saw us through several Smithsonian museums. Some smart-aleck asked me to explain jet propulsion because "tinkers know science things." The impromptu lecture on aerodynamics forced me to draw on Corki and Dr. Heimerdinger's knowledge but I managed to shut him up and leave a nerdy video recording for posterity.

The trip wouldn't have taken more than an hour and a half at a leisurely walk, all the monuments were fairly close together, but the constant press of tourists kept our pace slow.

We were turning north to the National Gallery of Art and back towards HQ when we heard someone shout through a megaphone.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Gather 'round, gather 'round, for the greatest show in the city!" shouted a college-aged Asian man in a crisp, black tux. He also wore a white domino mask, a crimson bowtie, white felt gloves, and a tophat. In his hand was a cane.

Next to him were two more men in sharp tuxedos. One had a far more elaborate mask that covered much of his face and another was short and rotund with both an obviously fake Monopoly-man style moustache and an honest-to-God monocle. He took a seat on a hardlight chair that seemingly materialized from nothing.

I wondered how they could stand to wear tuxedos in the middle of August. That truly had to be a superpower.

The three men were standing on the steps of the gallery and drawing quite the crowd with their antics. Above them, a squad of eight drones hovered. Four shone down spotlights that had an obvious tinkertech component; it was the middle of the day but the lights still shone brightly without being blinding. They even seemed to have a minor entrancing effect, almost as though they were whispering, "don't look away."

Two more drones created hardlight curtains to frame their impromptu stage. The final two hovered at Monopoly-man's side, presumably for self-defense or some future stunt.

"Ah, f*ck," Verdeer grumbled lowly before speaking into his mic. "Console, we've got Stage Crew. National Gallery of Art. Should we engage?"

"Negative," came the static-filled response. "Back off and we'll see what Prestige has planned for us."

I wracked my brain for the dossiers I'd been given. "Prestige, Masquerade, and Showbiz of Stage Crew, correct? I was told they are villainous rogues. Are they a threat?"

"Right. They're mostly harmless but make a habit of putting on shows and taking 'donations' from tourists."

Nodding, I readied my shield. "Agent Mitchell, Wards have engaged them in the past."

"You're not ready yet, Hyunmu," he told me. "You haven't worked with any of the Wards before."

I had to remind myself that he almost certainly didn't know me. That I was rebranded Rubedo? He might have the clearance to know that much. That I murdered twelve people and had enough firepower in the back of my hand to write those three into the history section? Probably above his paygrade. From his perspective, he was keeping a fresh Ward from getting in over his head.

I took several steps back and merged into the gathering crowd. It would be very much against my kayfabe to go against orders. "Understood, sir. I will be on standby."

"Thank you. Verdeer, wait for Brickhouse and Gold Rush. Hyunmu, this will be a good chance to see how they operate. ETA ten minutes. Park police have been notified. They'll begin herding people back to give us some space."

Ten minutes? That alone told me everything I needed to know about the PRT's assessment of the three before me. There was no way in hell that such a delay would be permitted against anyone actually dangerous. Washington, DC had its own Uber and Leet, it seemed. "I understand, sir."

I took stock of everything I had going for me. I had a packet of a dozen health potions turned into pills as well as pill variants of both elixirs. If pressed, Time Warp Tonic would also grant me a burst of speed. And of course, the Blitzshield, Sobriety, and relic pistol were holstered at my side.

I doubted things would escalate to lethal levels, but I also had all three charges of my Minion Dematerializer as well as my Hexflash. A blast of ice magic should also prove useful in the right circ*mstance. It'd mean tipping my hand so I wouldn't use it unless I had no other options, but itw as comforting to know that I was better armed than most SWAT teams.

Satisfied that I could salvage the situation if things got bad, I settled down to watch the show.

"Thank you, thank you. It's always nice to hear such a welcoming reception. And look, we even have two of the Wards in the audience," the man with the tophat, Prestige, called.

Two spotlight drones took that as their cue and pointed us out. People backed away, leaving me alone. A few feet away, Verdeer received the same treatment.

"Play along and try to be humorous," the agent on call told us. "They want a reaction out of you so let them play their tricks until they do something blatantly dangerous. Hyunmu, withdraw further if you can."

"Yes, sir," I heard Verdeer rumble. Louder, he said. "You carry on, Prestige. I'll just be a deer and watch for a bit."

Prestige groaned exaggeratedly. "Well, it's a good thing you're a hero, Verdeer. You have no future as a comic."

"Maybe, but I won't turn green over it," my senior drawled, "… much."

Up on stage, I could see the three men crack a smile. "Alright, can we hear from the littlest Ward, please? How's DC?"

"Greetings, Prestige of Stage Crew. I am learning much," I said respectfully. "Mambo sauce is too sweet. People from Maryland cannot drive. The subway is, as you Americans say, 'on fire.' Quite literally, oftentimes. This is a truly fascinating city."

"Ha! Dry wit's the best kind of wit. Bravo, turtle-boy. Now, let's get on with the show!"

He waved and the tallest, skinniest man with the elaborate mask, stepped forward. "How is everyone this afternoon? I'm Masquerade and we're going to start things off simple. I'm going to need someone to volunteer to come up on stage with me. Yes, you, the pretty lady over there." A girl no older than eighteen skipped onto the stage. "I'm going to read your mind," he told her.

"Okay, what am I thinking?" she snarked back.

"That I am the most roguishly handsome man you've ever met in your life." Whatever retort she was going to say was drowned out. "Or that you think I'm really weird and kind of creepy. See, everybody? Mind-reading."

"Boo," a few voices called from the crowd, proving that idiots will call out even villains with no regard for self-preservation. Thankfully, I saw two pairs of the DC park police begin to herd people away. They weren't getting much done, but even a bit of extra room would be nice if things came to a head.

To his credit, Masquerade played off the hecklers and laughed along. "Haha, alright, fine, fine. Let's get serious. For those of you who don't know, my name is Masquerade and I am a mentalist, someone who can read minds and peel back the mask on any falsehood. So, here's what's going to happen. You and I are going to have a conversation. It can be about anything you want, absolutely any subject at all. We'll have a chat and your goal is to lie to me."

"Okay, my name is Sarah."

"It's Jamie, but good, good, exactly like that."

"What?"

I felt her heartbeat quicken. 'She's not a plant in the audience,' I mused to myself. 'That must mean he's very confident. He's either a very good mentalist or he's a thinker. Probably both given the context.'

Masquerade grinned and pulled out his wallet. It looked pretty thick. "If, throughout this conversation, you can sneak a single lie past me, I'll give you everything in this wallet. If you can't… Hmmm… How about a kiss from the lovely lady?"

The brunette, Jamie, seemed intrigued. "You're on."

"You can start talking about anything, anything at all."

"Okay, so I'm a freshman at Georgeto-"

"You're a junior in high school, but nice try."

"My favorite class is marching band." She waited expectantly to see if he'd call her out. Seeing nothing, she continued. "I play the French horn. In the off season, I'm also a part of the drama club."

"You're part of the orchestra. You must be very talented, Jamie."

She scowled. "Damn. Okay, I have three cats…"

"Do we know what Masquerade's power actually is?" I whispered into my comms.

"Not the specifics, but he does this often enough. He likes to get people to lie to him then tell them the real information," came the reply. "He's mostly harmless. ETA seven minutes. Just hold out for a while longer."

"Yes, sir."

After a few minutes of that, he sent her back down with a few hundred bucks in cash. He then tossed someone in the crowd a marker and told them to tell him a random statement, truth or lie. That marker was passed around popcorn-style for audience participation.

Finally, someone tossed it my way.

"Alright, let's see if the youngest hero can lie to me," Masquerade said confidently. "Come on, little hero, tell me something."

I rolled my eyes. By now, it was fairly clear what his power was. Like any magic trick, it stopped being mysterious if you showed it off a few dozen times. I decided to f*ck with him a little.

"Truth or lie? My life goal is to murder God," I said, face flat as a board.

"Hyunmu," the agent admonished me.

I could just about see the cogs turning in Masquerade's brain.

Logic was telling him that there was no way in hell that this was true. By appearance, I was ten at the very oldest. The idea of "God" was a nebulous concept at best. By its very definition, God wasn't an entity who could be murdered at all. A child shouldn't have a life goal in the first place, at best a whimsical wish like "I want to be an astronaut," certainly not the kind of resolve I spoke with.

Everything about that statement should logically be false, but Masquerade's power wasn't answering him, which implied it was true. Cogs were turning, spinning faster and faster until I almost expected steam to start pouring out of his ears.

He flinched back and cradled his head, a thinker headache rampaging inside his skull like a bull in a china shop. "Oww…"

I got up on stage and wordlessly took another of the wallets he'd been dangling as a prize, my victory obvious.

"Huh, two hundred, not bad," I chuckled to myself before tossing it into the crowd somewhere.

Privately, I couldn't lie to myself. After resigning myself to being vulnerable to Contessa's shenanigans for a while longer, there was not a little schadenfreude at causing a thinker to short circuit like that.

"How'd you do that?" some kid asked as I got back to my place near the stage.

"Mentalism is not a superpower," I told him in my heavy accent. "It is the art of understanding the mind, discovering truths inside others. It appears that my truth is greater than his."

"So how?"

I shrugged with a mischievous grin. "Knowledge is like fruit. It is all the sweeter if you grow the tree with your own hands."

He huffed but turned his attention back to the stage.

'Heh, being a fortune cookie stereotype might be fun after all.'

Author's Note

Stage Crew is a very low-risk kind of villain team. They're here because I wanted to show something low-risk and more or less consequence-free before I get anywhere specific.

Brockton Bay canonically has a civilian population of ~350,000. DC has about twice that. Though DC is a much safer city than Brockton (not that that's saying much), it wouldn't be out of the question for DC to have nine Protectorate members: Hero, Metalmaru, Bluesong, Pyrotechnical, Glace, Armsmaster, Zero Day, Wonderland, and Outreach. For reference, Brockton Bay had seven Protectorate members at the start of canon: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Dauntless, Velocity, and Triumph with Challenger being a recent transfer out.

I am firmly of the opinion that Earth-Bet has its share of responsible adults. The problem is that they're all in the wrong place doing the wrong things. Turns out, your efforts can be morally righteous and still be horribly misplaced.

Chapter 41: 4.10 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.10

2000, August 28: Washington, DC, USA

The show went like that for a while. To their credit, Stage Crew did an excellent job of adapting to an inebriated member. Prestige did a few card tricks and Showbiz told some jokes to buy a few minutes for Masquerade to recover and continue his act.

He returned eventually and called up a few more people, guessed someone's PIN number for their credit card, and did other neat tricks to prime the audience for the flashier act to come. He notably stopped calling on me. Eventually, he bowed out and took a step back, one of Showbiz's drones turning into a hardlight chair for him to sit on.

"Masquerade is pretty great, isn't he? Give him another round of applause. Oh, and Percy, you gotta change that PIN number, man," Prestige said, taking center stage again to some laughter. With the flick of his wrist, a dove appeared from his sleeve. "Now, keep your eye on the bird."

The bird turned into a sparkler. Then the sparkler became a bouquet of flowers he tossed into the crowd. At the very edge of my senses, I saw Brickhouse and Gold Rush pull up. Brickhouse seemed a tad out of breath, though our resident speedster looked just dandy.

"Verdeer, Brickhouse and Gold Rush are here," I spoke under my breath.

"Thanks," came Agent Mitchell's sheepish response. "I… may have gotten caught up in the show. Let me patch you all through. Mic check?"

"Brickhouse here."

"Gold Rush."

"Verdeer."

"Hyunmu."

"Great. Hyunmu, sit back and watch," he reminded me. "Brickhouse, show's yours."

"Thank you, sir," my leader said. "We're on the roof."

Up on stage, Showbiz handed Prestige a large tablecloth that he shook, causing a dining table to appear. That alone wasn't impossible with clever mirrors and the right set of pulleys, but in front of the National Art Gallery? I somehow doubted they came here the previous night to set up the necessary equipment. A tap of his cane caused a set of fine china to materialize on top in full view of the audience.

"What was Prestige's power again?" I asked.

"That wasn't it. It's inorganic transmutation based on mass. Striker medium," Verdeer told me. "That was Showbiz. Showbiz might be the most versatile tinker in the city, with only Hero matching him. He handles everything from lights and camerawork to sound and props."

"Is he a tinker with a stagehand focus?"

"That's how he uses his power, but we don't really know much more than that."

"Yeah, they're really good at tricking the viewer. It's hard to tell what's their power and what's just really good sleight of hand sometimes," Gold Rush added. "We even had to hire magicians to help us isolate what is and is not a trick."

A few more tricks. The dining table was covered then turned into a birdcage as the tablecloth was pulled away. The bird that became a sparkler reappeared with the snap of his fingers. It went into the cage, only for the cage to vanish at the next swish of the cloth. I had to give him some credit; he was a genuinely engaging performer who focused as much on keeping up a constant string of jokes and repartee as flashy tricks.

"Now for the grand finale," Prestige raised his voice. In his hand was the tablecloth he'd been throwing about all day. If I had to guess, the cloth was a dimensional storage device made by Showbiz and everything else was some very sneaky fingers, though I couldn't be sure. "Can I get one last volunteer? How about you, good sir? Yes, you, the jolly fellow in the front with two kids. Kids, you think daddy can help me out a little?"

"Yeah!" I heard them shout, tugging their dad forward.

The man who came forward wasn't fat per se, though he did have a bit of a beer belly. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip flops, the picture of a tourist.

Prestige flipped his tablecloth into the air and it settled over something that wasn't there a moment ago. "As for what the finale is…" He pulled it away with his typical flourish to reveal an ornate coffin decked out in gothic angels. Its edges were glowing with an eerie light. With the snap of his fingers, the tablecloth folded itself into a wicked looking saw. "Let's stick to the classics, shall we? Sir, please get inside the box. Who knows? You might even come out again," he joked.

"Go." The agent on call sounded firm despite the static.

"Yes, sir," Brickhouse grunted. "On three. Two. One!"

Plenty of people considered Brickhouse to be the tank of the group, a mobile fortress for his team to rally around. And this was true, but it was a mistake to think that the terrakinetic couldn't pile on the speed if the situation called for it.

Out at the edge of my vision, I saw Brickhouse stamp his foot, creating a concrete pillar that rocketed out of the rooftop.

At his best, the earth he created could be launched at speeds a little slower than a car on the freeway, roughly fifty-three miles per hour. He wasn't going all out, but the pillar still had enough kinetic energy to launch him from the roof, clear over the drones that made up the hardlight "curtains," and onto the stage. The brickwork panels he wore shifted at his command to his feet even as a ramp rose up to meet him, allowing him to skid across the stage and between the tourist and Prestige.

It looked impressive, but I had to wonder how he could bleed off that much energy using only varieties of stone. A normal person would have fractured their legs at the very minimum, definitely some Shard-enabled bullsh*t on his part.

Gold Rush, her brunette ponytail flying behind her, raced to his side in a yellow streak. Thanks to the curtains in the way, I was the only one who saw her race down the side of the gallery, dashing on a Roman pillar as though it were flat ground. If I had to put a number on it, I would have guessed her speed to be approaching ninety miles an hour. She wasn't the Flash or anything, but she was far faster than most could hope to keep up with. She left behind a visible light trail, almost like smudged paint or a camera that couldn't quite keep up. I found it a little funny that I could see her power's effects despite it not being a physical manifestation.

Verdeer was slowest to arrive despite his closer proximity. His lumbering form and two pairs of branch-like antlers were impossible to ignore. The crowd wisely began to back away.

"It's rude to interrupt a show, you know," Prestige scowled.

"Show's over, Stage Crew. You can't use untested tinkertech on tourists, especially not to cut them apart," Brickhouse snapped.

"He consented. Besides, Showbiz's tech is perfectly safe."

"He came up here before you revealed your finale. Surrender and don't make this worse for yourselves."

"Worse? We're not breaking any laws," Showbiz huffed.

"You're breaking the city busking laws for one. I somehow doubt you have a license. More importantly, we can't let you use untested tinkertech on dangerous stunts," our leader repeated. "You're also wanted for multiple counts of theft, including grand larceny which is a felony crime."

"You really want to do this here?" Masquerade taunted. "See the crowd? Everyone was having a good time until you showed up on your high horse, Brickhouse. Hell, even your game animal and the pint-size over there were enjoying the show."

"We were, until you went too far," Verdeer rumbled.

"Yeah, whatever."

The two parties stared each other down even as Verdeer herded the father back to his children. I fingered my pistol but did as told, better to watch than enter and force them into a confrontation. I stepped away from the tourists a little ways and made to stand perpendicular to a cop car. If I had to, I wanted to catch them in a crossfire with the fuzz.

I was happy to see that a van of PRT troopers had shown up during the festivities. Four troopers stepped out and I couldn't help but think that it was a bit light for backup against an established cape team. They weren't carrying even half the loadout I was used to seeing in Phoenix.

"What's the goal with them?" I asked, dropping the accent. "Arrest them then… what?"

"They haven't killed anyone and respect the unwritten rules. They'll be rebranded and relocated to a different city where they can hopefully use their powers more productively."

I rolled my eyes. 'How typical of the PRT.'

"Understood," I said, voice clipped.

All motivation I had to actually catch them vanished and my pistol went back into its holster. This wasn't about putting bad people in jail, but about getting extra bodies as heroes. A worthy cause perhaps, but I wasn't down with the pressganging. Unless someone was about to die, I resolved myself to not intervene. I wasn't being ordered to after all.

If Hero asked later, I was just obeying orders and learning more about teamwork.

"Now how about we all just pack up and go our separate ways?" Showbiz tried to be the mediator. "We do need a busking license, but hey, no one really cares about that. We haven't actually done anything dangerous today."

"Today," Gold Rush stressed. "You three are a menace."

"Sweetheart, you wound us," he gasped.

"Don't call me sweetheart!"

"Enough. Stop letting them set the pace," Verdeer said.

Two of the eight drones Showbiz had shined the "look at me" spotlights down on the Wards and rogues. The drones manning the curtains cut the projections and joined the other four.

"Six drones behind Showbiz," I warned. "They might be getting ready to cut and run."

Brickhouse nodded but didn't respond. Instead, he squared his shoulders and took a wider stance. "Last chance," he warned.

"I think it's about time for us to leave, don't you?" Prestige drawled to his comrades. "We've worn out our welcome."

"Seems like it," Masquerade eyed me cautiously. "And you. Hyunmu, was it? I'll figure you out next time."

I snorted. That was unlikely.

Showbiz snapped his fingers and the two spotlight drones descended, turning the harsh lights onto my teammates. At the same time, the six drones behind him burst into action. Two of them began spewing smoke and irritants while four created hardlight constructs. Stage prop walls that were usually made of painted cardboard. Chairs. Even a giant cube with question marks on each face. Anything and everything that could reasonably show up as a gimmick emerged and launched themselves towards the Heroes. The drones then compressed into palm-sized discs and tucked themselves in a pouch on Showbiz's lower back.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The crowd reacted predictably. Most of them ran away from the irritating smoke, but one in ten of them stuck around to keep recording. This no longer surprised me about Earth-Bet, but my faith in the survival of my species died a little more each time I saw sh*t like this.

The three rogues dashed away from the Wards. My teammates were still trying to blink the spots from their eyes when Showbiz whipped a goddamn invisibility cloak out of his ass. It was a rich burgundy but faded into transparency with a flick of his wrist.

I stood there narrating for the PRT agent on comms. "Showbiz has an invisibility cloak of some kind. He covered himself and his teammates. They are not moving very quickly. Should I give chase?"

"Where?" Gold Rush demanded.

"Northeast. To your right. Other right. Turn. Turn a little more. There."

She shot off almost before I could finish. The problem was, she had no idea how far she had to go before running into them and she was still blinking away the flash and smoke, so she ran headfirst into what had to be Prestige's back.

"Hey!"

"Gah!"

"Ow!"

"What the hell?"

The four of them got tangled into the cloak and rolled like a cartoon dust cloud before crashing painfully into a tree. Somewhere in the scuffle, Stage Crew's invisibility cloak fell away.

"When did our patrol turn into a comedy routine?" I heard Brickhouse moan.

"This is fine, at least we can see them now," Verdeer added.

I sighed. I now knew precisely why only Wards were ever sent out against Stage Crew. These guys were jokes. Both sides. I had no doubt that they could be more dangerous if they wanted to be, but it was clear that both parties were playing with kid gloves. Suddenly the civilians with video cameras made more sense.

Brickhouse tapped his feet and stone walls encircled all four downed capes. A moment later, Gold Rush dashed out of the makeshift jail by running straight up the wall.

"Well, that's a wrap."

"Good job, Brickhouse," Agent Mitchell said. "Verdeer, Hyunmu, continue your route. Brickhouse, Gold Rush, join the troopers and escort the prisoners to base."

"Yes, sir," we said together.

But before we could do anything else, I saw Prestige lay a single hand on the wall and the wall turned to so much melted wax. He walked out at the head of the three rogues with an irritated frown on his face.

"Now that was ru - Woah!"

Before he could get his quip in, Gold Rush dashed forward and decked Showbiz in the face. Her form was mediocre at best and she wasn't leveraging her speed nearly as well as she could, but her speed was still enough to send the much heavier man reeling. Frankly, I was surprised she managed to not break her own wrist. She had to have a brute power of some sort, maybe some biological toughness that compensated for her mover rating.

"Gold Rush! Don't go in without us," Brickhouse chided.

"Not the time, leader," Verdeer rumbled as he lowered his horns.

He growled but began to snap out orders. "Gold, containment. Run circles around them."

She did as told, running fast enough that she touched the edge of her own trail. Since the trail of light wasn't a physical object, Prestige couldn't touch it and turn it into something else. It was honestly a clever strategy for containment. Anyone could pass through, but their movement would be slowed relative to Gold Rush's own speed, making running them down a trivial task.

So, Prestige did the only thing he could. He held out his hand and waited until a finger brushed her costume as she dashed by. He pulled his hand back with a wince, even if it wasn't a direct hit, a hundred miles an hour wasn't a joke. Still, the damage was done. She skidded to a stop and crouched low to cover herself as the torso of her costume turned into chains that tried to trip her up.

"Kyaa!" she shrieked as she crouched on the ground to cover up her sudden wardrobe malfunction.

"Showbiz!" Prestige shouted.

"On it!" Their tinker hurled everything he had in his hidden cache.

All eight drones flew at Brickhouse and Verdeer. Brickhouse chucked several stone spears, spearing three out of the air in an impressive display of marksmanship. Verdeer began his charge and his antlers caught another two even as they tried to evade, breaking them apart like matchsticks.

But that was the only distraction they needed because Showbiz waved his wonder-cape and conjured a human-sized cabinet, one with three doors and multiple slots that could be used to insert swords.

"Inside!"

I watched the last of Stage Crew disappear into the cabinet, the remaining drones following after them, just as Verdeer reached them, rendering their magic box into splinters and sparkling wires. I paid no heed to the ongoing dialogue and lamented the fact that we couldn't get a single working sample of tinkertech. If I knew how his Shard bent space, I might be able to improve the constraints of Flashtraption.

When I came back into focus, Brickhouse had created an earthen screen for Gold Rush to hide behind. I was glad to see that the park police were already confiscating phones. This likely raised their rap sheet from larceny to include sexual assault, however accidental. At the very least, Prestige would likely be threatened with the charge. Her being a minor, the police weren't taking no for an answer from any onlookers.

The four of us were gathered in a meeting room in the Wards' wing alongside Agent Jeremy Mitchell, our communications officer, and Outreach, one of the available members of the Protectorate. Agent Mitchell looked like a shaved bear, with a beard as large as my head. Outreach wore a skintight bodysuit that in my opinion showed altogether too much. It was white with a blue hand reaching out from his chest done in some pigment that seemed to glow.

The hand-themed hero was one of the two non-tinker members of the District Protectorate. He could fire bolts of light that struck with variable force. Anything hit by his blasts could be pushed or pulled relative to his position.

"Welcome back, kids," he said with a smile. He had a good smile, friendly and warm without appearing condescending. Made sense, with a name like Outreach, he was often a shoe-in for participation in charity events. It made him exceedingly well-liked, but also very vanilla, as though no one expected much of him beyond reading to children at the library, not that there was anything wrong with that.

"Sir," Brickhouse nodded with tired sigh.

Verdeer, Gold Rush, and I took a seat next to our leader. The only one out of costume was Gold Rush who had gotten changed into a Hero-themed hoodie. She still wore the mask though.

"It's always good to start from the top so let's hear it from you. What happened in your words?"

That prompted Verdeer rehashing our patrol and how we encountered them. He mentioned how we decided to take a wait and see approach at the prompting of Agent Mitchell, after which reinforcements were called because I was deemed unfit for actual fieldwork. That still rankled but I let it pass. If that was an example of "actual fieldwork" by their standards, I was happy to be left out.

Sour grapes.

Verdeer's narration ended at the arrival of Brickhouse and Gold Rush.

"Hold on, Verdeer," Outreach stopped him. "Hyunmu, how exactly did you see your teammates arrive?"

"I have a pill that grants temporary pericognition," I replied with my standard refrain. "My field of vision expands spherically up to one hundred meters or one hundred sixty four feet."

"Right, did any of you know this?"

"I did," Brickhouse said. "It's in his file, sir."

"I didn't," Gold Rush pouted, still sulking from her run-in with Prestige. No one got an eyeful or anything, but she wouldn't be getting over it anytime soon.

"Verdeer?"

"I knew he had enhanced senses because I saw him react to tourists and obstacles during our patrol that he shouldn't have been able to see, but I admit I haven't read his file in any real depth either."

"That's a mistake. Correct it," Outreach said sternly. "Not knowing what your teammate can bring to the table is unacceptable, especially for a tinker. Their files get updated practically on the weekly."

"He wasn't even allowed to do anything," Gold Rush huffed.

"Yes," Agent Mitchell chimed in. "But that was on the grounds that none of the Wards were used to working with Hyunmu. That you had no idea he had enhanced senses only proves my point."

"You kids get it so I won't say any more on the matter. Now, Brickhouse, why did you go in?"

"I went in on Agent Mitchell's directions, sir. We decided that the risk of pitched combat was low and that letting Stage Crew use untested tinkertech for a potentially fatal magic trick was riskier than trying to take them down."

"Good. Now let's hear about the fight itself. Brickhouse?"

"Showbiz used his drones to make some kind of irritating smoke and bright light that somehow didn't interfere with each other. He then pulled out an invisibility cloak. Hyunmu was able to see them through the cloak. Gold Rush chased them but tripped and collapsed with all three of them.

"I then trapped them all in a stone cylinder that Gold Rush ran out of. Prestige dismantled the wall by turning it into wax. Gold Rush decked Showbiz. She then ran circles to keep them in her trail. Showbiz used his drones to distract Verdeer and me. Then… Gold Rush had an accident… and then they got away in some kind of teleporter box that Showbiz pulled out."

"Asshole did it on purpose," our mover grumbled. "I'm going to kill him."

"Let's not plan first degrees. We're still a law enforcement agency last I checked," Outreach said dryly. "We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen next time. He'll also have his rap sheet updated."

Gold Rush leaned back into her seat with a huff. "Good."

"Now, let's talk about powers. What exactly did you notice about them that we didn't know previously?"

"Oh! Hyunmu was able to fool Masquerade's thinker power. Any idea how you did that?" Mitchell asked. "Anything that can mess with a thinker is very valuable."

I nodded. I'd thought about how I wanted to phrase this on the way back. "I do. He used his power to play that lying game so many times that it was pretty easy to figure out what his power did. If he hears a false statement, his power tells him what the truth is. Or something very close to that."

"We already knew that."

"Right. So I said that my life's goal was to kill God and his power registered it as true. I mostly said that because I thought it'd get under his skin, but I think there are two possibilities for why my little prank worked.

"First, I'm not religious. Or rather, I think there is a god out there, but I don't ascribe to a concrete faith. Because the world 'god' is a nebulous idea, 'to kill God' with a capital 'g' is likewise an equally ambiguous notion to me. It could be that since I don't really know what I want myself, his power was unable to provide him an answer. In essence, it was a more elaborate version of saying, 'This statement is false.' He then took that silence as truth."

"That… That's very well thought out," Outreach said. "What was the other possibility?"

I waved and my Ymelo glowed. "This. The details are a little complicated, but it's an anti-master tool that's synched to my unique biorhythm. There could have been an unexpected power interaction that kept him from reading me. This would be because his power enhances his cold-reading capabilities. Honestly? It could easily be a mix of both possibilities."

'Or just me trolling him with some harsh truths,' I thought, amused. I couldn't wait to f*ck with Tattletale. 2010 couldn't come fast enough in that regard.

"You said it was light-based caffeine during our patrol," Verdeer noted.

"I lied. It's an anti-master ball. If masters don't know I can counter them, having it might let me catch them by surprise."

"And how do we know you're not lying now? You really shouldn't be able to lie so easily."

"Ask Hero," I said with a shrug. "It is as I said. I have no reason to lie to my teammates."

"Only to the public."

"Absolutely."

I thought Verdeer lost a bit of respect he had for me. Regrettable, but I stood by my decision.

Outreach finished taking notes of the encounter. We then moved on to Prestige, though there were no changes from his extant dossier. Showbiz however, had debuted a few new inventions that we didn't know about before, namely the invisibility cloak and a more robust hardlight drone. Apparently, he had used the "look at me" spotlights as distraction while the rest of Stage Crew robbed a bank in the past.

"Good, this is all good information for next time," the Protectorate hero encouraged. "Now the hard part: What did you do wrong?"

The room was silent. I didn't think it was my place to criticize so I remained mum. Agent Mitchell clearly wanted to see what they had to say for themselves so likewise kept his peace. And the rest were teenagers; self-reflection was never going to be a strength of theirs. After a minute of the awkwardness, Brickhouse bit the bullet and spoke up.

"I didn't react in time. No, I wasn't a good enough leader," he admitted sourly. "We were there watching their magic show for several minutes before their finale. I should have taken the time to prepare. I should have told Gold Rush to circle behind them and cut off their escape. Verdeer and I should have hit them from different sides. We had the time to plan and I wasted it."

"It's not all on you, Brick," Gold Rush said. "I'm the one who ran in headfirst. Twice. Just… Showbiz… ughhh!"

"What's your problem with the guy? You looked like you were out for blood," I asked.

"He's a sanctimonious hypocrite."

"He seemed alright though? He didn't do anything egregious that I could tell."

"That's because you're new," Brickhouse filled me in. "He's a lot more polished now, but he wasn't always. In one of his first acts, he made a ring of fire that malfunctioned. It… It got a friend of hers hurt."

"And he still pretends it wasn't his fault!" she exclaimed. "He goes on about how they're gentleman thieves and how they don't hurt anyone. Bullsh*t!"

I held my hands before me placatingly. "Okay, he's not a good guy. His inventions can be dangerous but not enough for a Protectorate response?"

Brickhouse sighed. "Yep. He's very polished now and some of his antics are funny, but not all."

"Back to the debrief," Outreach tapped his pencil. "Verdeer?"

"We should have involved Hyunmu more," he rumbled. "He could see through their invisibility but only Gold Rush followed him on it."

"You have a point. None of the Wards are familiar with what he can do, but that doesn't mean he's helpless. Brickhouse, you plan for at least two weekly training sessions between the four of you."

"Yes, sir. We already train Monday and Wednesday in the afternoon."

"I'll be there," I promised. "But… Four? What about Whiteout?"

"He doesn't train with us because he's usually on information security detail," my leader explained. "He gets told to shadow ambassadors and whatnot. I think he might have the highest security clearance out of all of us."

"And he's a smug jerk about it," Gold Rush huffed.

"Enough," Outreach chided. "You will not badmouth a teammate. If that's everything, I think we can break for the afternoon."

I left with yet another obligation, but one I'd gladly uphold. While it was time away from tinkering, I was lacking in actual combat experience. There as only so much image training could do for me. I already had a solid foundation; it was time I started building on it.

Author's Note

A bit longer than expected, but I wanted to wrap up Stage Crew's intro scene. I won't lie, I'm not too happy with it. Maybe it's because I'm having a bit of trouble inserting a bit of levity and low-risk combat in an otherwise serious arc. Or maybe I'm just bad at writing fight scenes.

Either way, if you as the readers felt a bit exasperated with Stage Crew and the District Wards, you were supposed to. Andy's personal priority is obviously saving Hero. From the perspective of a protagonist who knows the stakes are high, a fight like this can't help but seem like an unnecessary distraction. Alas, bureaucracy is bureaucracy and there is a limit to how little Andy can show himself in public.

Chapter 42: 4.11 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.11

2000, August 29: Washington, DC, USA

I kicked up towards my imagined opponent's throat, really closer to their solar plexus considering my height, and spun with my own momentum, jumping into a flying knee towards what would be the small of his chin. Landing in a soundless crouch, I turned the downward momentum into a leg sweep before tucking my feet under me and rising with a cleaving elbow towards the kidney.

All four strikes took less than three seconds. Fast for a normal person, barely adequate for an acolyte of the Shojin Monastery, a disciple of Wuju, or a student of Souma's. Panting, I allowed my breath to calm and the mana flowing within my veins to still. The Ice relaxed me, washing my frustrations away as my mind was covered in new snow.

No, I couldn't allow myself to get frustrated. Progress would come with time. I was already excellent for a child. I knew for a fact that the masters I tried so hard to emulate spent decades honing their crafts.

It was still cold comfort.

I looked at the clock without turning my head. Six-thirty in the morning. Mom would wake up soon. On cue, I heard her alarm begin to chime as I settled in to meditate facing the sun. There was no specific reason for it. I couldn't' even see the sun from the living room, nor would it have mattered given my Oracle's. In the end, I was a creature of habit and Master Yi had Wukong meditate this way.

"Greet the dawn with a clear mind. Let your meditation harden your resolve for the trials of the day," he'd said.

If it was good enough for the Monkey King, it was good enough for me.

The living room was and odd mix of modern sensibilities and my own workout needs. We didn't have a coffee table, but we did have a sofa and TV so mom could watch her Korean dramas and relax after work. Instead of the coffee table, we had a large, roll-up mat that I would roll out each morning to practice on. We did have very good blackout curtains though, wouldn't want any nosy neighbors peering in on my sessions.

I breathed in and felt mom begin to putter about in the kitchen. This was my solution for mom insisting on checking in on me during the night. I woke up earlier so I could greet her instead.

"Good morning, mom," I said, legs crossed and eyes still closed.

"Good morning, son. Did you have a nice workout?"

"I did. It's refreshing."

"That's good. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Grilled mackerel?"

I could feel her smile. "Are you afraid I'd say you're not your father's son? Namjoon loved mackerel too."

"Fish is good for me."

She chuckled lightly and returned to washing the rice, allowing me to delve deeper within.

My mana had changed somewhat, and not just in the way it leapt to my metaphorical hands like an eager puppy. There was a coldness there that was absent before I'd merged with the Keystone. If I had to describe it, it wasn't quite like ice manipulation so commonly found among anime and superhero comics. It was more like the Elven Rings of Power in Lord of the Rings, a metaphysical type of chill that gave me clarity, focus, and purpose.

The glacier did not stop for anything. Neither would I.

The actual ice manipulation was there, but most closely associated with invention. Runes of ice, methods to shape True Ice itself, and the science of endothermic reactions swirled in my brain as I allowed the World Rune to envelop me.

'Worldstone first. Explore all the other cool sh*t after you make sure Hero's entrails aren't spaghetti.'

After breakfast came homeschool.

I headed to the lab immediately after testing out of high school calculus. Tomorrow, I'd crash through advanced placement tests for physics, biology, and chemistry.

In the end, Ms. Kosker had no choice but to agree to a greatly reduced homeschool schedule of three hours per weekday: one for world and national history, or "world issues" as Taylor knew it, the second alternatively for Korean language or music, and the third for my own personal reading, an elective period she insisted on to give me some breathing room from tinkering. This allowed me to end my compulsory education at noon, much like the Wards' student-learning programs.

When I got to my lab, I received the email form Metalmaru that the large fabricator at the center station could now handle Neo-Petricite. Good to know, but my focus remained on the Worldstone.

I finished converting Water of Life and Petricite into fifty pounds of relic stone after that ridiculous patrol yesterday. The encounter with Stage Crew did show me one thing: Compared to the Wards, I was hilariously over-prepared and over-equipped. That made me feel a little better about putting my own costume on the backburner.

Right now, I was knelt atop the relic stone, a large tablet of pristine, milky-white, marble-like stone. Despite the similar appearance to Petricite, it had wildly different properties. It was attuned to life and light magic specifically and lacked the mana-absorbent property unique to the Demacian wood. That was important: I could cut it with the plasma cutter function of my multi-tool.

One of the details I'd overlooked was that a plasma-cutter fueled by mana would have trouble cutting Petricite for obvious reasons. It wasn't some impossible hurdle; there were plenty of other ways to cut it without relying on the high-temperature exacto-knife, for example by waiting to transmute fossilized wood into Petricite until after I'd cut it into shape, but I was once again reminded of my own absent-mindedness.

I spent the entire day swapping out between carving runes onto the Worldstone, making pills for my teammates, and meditating to regain my center and charge the Tear.

By the end of it, I had sets of health pills, pills for iron, and even two Control Wards ready for each of the Wards. The next time we faced Stage Crew, they wouldn't be reliant on my Oracle's to see through Showbiz's invisibility cloak.

I returned to my meditations right after dinner. This time, the focus wasn't on training my body or infusing the Tear. Instead, I uncorked a bottle of crimson as red as blood.

It tasted like blood. The coppery tang filled my tongue. It even had a citrusy-sour aftertaste going down. I wished I could devote some time to make this thing taste better, but there were better things to focus on.

Then my metaphorical vision turned red as the Elixir of Wrath took hold. And with it came the benefits of Time Warp Tonic. My strength was increased half again. My body accelerated as my personal time ceased to flow in harmony with the world. There was so much energy flowing through me that I felt like I could headbutt a car and come out on top.

I did my best to expend my energy in the basem*nt, doing pushups that shoved my body six feet into the air. When that wasn't enough, I pulled a Might Guy and started doing handstand pushups while balancing on my thumbs. This switched to seeing how fast I could punch the air. No, I wasn't setting the air on fire with friction alone, but the whistling sound my fists made as they cleaved the air brought a smile to my lips.

'I wonder what would happen if I punched concrete?' I thought.

Then, before I could think things through, I wound back my right arm and struck down, stone cratering before my fist. I felt my knuckles pop and break, shooting lances of agony through my arm.

"f*ck!"

'Reduced restraint, idiot,' I chided myself as I reached for a health potion.

The pain made me angry. My own lack of restraint made me angry. Then I got angry because that too was a sign of my loosening discipline. I-

A blue glow suffused me as my Ymelo activated. Memories and emotions flooded me, reestablishing my identity. This wasn't like me.

And just like that, I had control again. The Elixir of Wrath induced a version of hysterical strength. Sure, there was magic involved, but that was the closest approximation. With the Ymelo, I could have its strength without sacrificing my inhibitions.

I grinned widely. Yes, this would do nicely.

2000, August 30: Washington, DC, USA

As promised, 1:00 PM found me in the Wards' training ground. As expected, Whiteout was absent.

"So, how does this work?" I asked. I'd chosen to appear in full regalia. The Blitzshield was strapped to my left forearm and Sobriety, my Petricite dagger, was sheathed at my left hip like a shortsword. The relic pistol was holstered on the opposite side and my Ymelo was shining merrily behind me, bathing me in a blue halo. A pouch on my belt contained pills of every potion I'd ever made.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The training studio was in the basem*nt of the building reserved for Wards and Protectorate members. It was honestly very similar to the one I saw in Phoenix, if a little more advanced. There was a large sparring area with a myriad of sensors aimed that way. There were gym equipment and even some that were obviously tinkertech and designed for esoteric powers.

Brickhouse grinned. "Glad you're excited. Let's start with the basics. You know what we can do, but we don't know a whole lot about you. Want to enlighten us?"

I nodded. "Make sense. I'm a tinker. I make things."

"Wow, so specific. I feel enlightened," Gold Rush snarked.

"That's about as specific as I can get, actually. Look, the easiest way would be to give you a rundown of everything I'm packing, alright?" Seeing their nods, I continued by whipping my pistol out. "This is my relic pistol. It has no name yet. It can shoot lasers with enough force to punch through reinforced steel or only leave a bit of browning."

"Another deception from your debut," Verdeer noted distastefully. "You seem to have a lot of secrets."

"I do. Most of them, I'll share with you. There are somethings that only Brickhouse gets to know about and a few more that only Hero and Metalmaru know."

"It's fine," Brickhouse reassured me. "Whiteout's got a ton of stuff he doesn't tell us either. This is DC. We're used to it."

"Good. Anyway, this is the Blitzshield. It can shock people, launch EMP blasts in a cone, and is also very, very durable."

"So if you participated on Monday…"

"I could have disabled everything Showbiz had and left them twitching wrecks on the ground. I did not because I was ordered not to."

"Damn. Okay, and… what's with the knife?" Gold Rush pointed. "Are Wards allowed those?"

"Only if you make it yourself and it's verifiably tinkertech. Don't worry about it. Safe to say, if I have any other option, I'm not using my emergency weapons."

"Weapons? Plural?"

"Ah… Forget I said that?"

"Nope. You have to tell us now."

"Nope. Deal with it. If you ever see me draw my dagger, things will have truly gone to sh*t."

"Ugh, you're as bad as Whiteout."

"Now, now," Verdeer said placatingly. "He can have his secrets. But remember, Hyunmu, we won't always tell you everything either."

I nodded. "That's fine. I wouldn't expect you to be open with me when I can't with you. And mark my words. Can not. Not would not."

"Fine, anything else?"

I tapped the pouch on my belt. "This contains a set of pills that can do a few things, including grant me the pericognition that lets me see through invisibility, make me stronger, more durable, et cetera."

"Huh, I see what you mean about not being able to describe your own specialization. You seem to have a bit of everything."

"Yeah… So, that's all the stuff I'm willing to use in a normal patrol."

"Do you actually know how to use your weapons?" Brickhouse questioned me. It was fair. I was rather heavily armed for a child.

"Yup. I practice martial arts regularly and am confident that I could at least not embarrass myself with a gun."

"Alright, how about a spar?"

"Ooh! Me!" Gold Rush said, excitable as ever.

"One on one against Gold Rush sound good to you, Hyunmu?"

I nodded. "Sure, if she fights like how she punched Showbiz, this will be quick."

"Ooh, you're on, brat," she growled playfully. "I'll have you know I box."

"That's not as intimidating as you think it is."

"Gold Rush is a brute-two," Verdeer cautioned. "Her body is denser with stronger muscles, bones, and tendons than she appears at first glance to accommodate her running."

I decided to tease her a little. "So you're heavier? Rough."

The room became silent and a chill went down my spine. "Don't you know better than to comment on a lady's weight?" she hissed.

I did the only thing an eight year old would do. I doubled down with a sh*t-eating grin. "Lady? Where?"

"Pint-sized brat."

"Hero fangirl."

"So what? You wish you could be as cool."

"No, didn't you hear me? I'm going to kill a god. I'll be cooler."

"You're so weird."

"And you're heavy."

"… Get on the mat."

"Should we stop this, leader?" our cervid friend asked worriedly.

"Ehh, either this will teach Gold to stop underestimating capes based on their age or this will teach Hyunmu a lesson in humility. We'll just make sure no one dies."

Gold Rush and I stared each other down from almost a hundred feet away. She twirled a handcuff on a finger and smirked at me. "We spar until one of us taps out or until someone can't move anymore. Getting cuffed counts as a loss."

"That's fine."

"Good. Brickhouse, call it?"

"Sure. Three. Two. One!"

She dashed towards me, leaving a trail of golden light with every footstep. If I had to guess, she had to be moving somewhere in the ballpark of eighty miles per hour. It was a bit slower than she'd shown the other day. Her speed still let her cross the hundred feet between us in under a second.

I could see the triumphant grin on her face as she reached out towards me, cuff in hand.

Unfortunately for her, a hundred feet wasn't far enough away to be outside Oracle's range. While I'd forgotten or overlooked some details before, here, she was the only possible target of my attention. I saw her coming the moment she started to move and my training kicked in.

Most humans had an average reaction time to visual stimulus of approximately 0.2 seconds. Professional athletes had something closer to 0.15 seconds. I wasn't quite an Olympian, but I wasn't a normal person either.

I stepped towards her and allowed my body to go through motions practiced tirelessly for months. I grabbed her outstretched wrist with my left hand even as I twisted and hip-checked her. My right elbow struck her kidney as she passed. Verdeer wasn't lying; she was heavier than a girl her size should be, probably a good three times my weight. That didn't matter. I didn't need to send her flying like Team Rocket. I just needed to destabilize her center of balance. Her own speed took care of the rest.

Her smug smirk turned into a look of shock and pain. She had time to squawk once before she tripped and started rolling ass over tea kettle. I noticed with some amusem*nt that her golden trail broke apart the moment she lost control of her own movement.

"That's one point to me," I drawled. "Round two?"

"Oww, did you have to hit me so hard?"

"You're a brute. And you were the one doing the moving. I just nudged you in the right direction."

Brickhouse let out a low whistle. "Okay, so Hyunmu wasn't kidding about the martial arts. That was really smooth."

"Thank you," I said, giving him a smug bow with a flourish. When I rose again, a crimson pill was in m hand. I swallowed it with a cheeky grin. "You good?"

"Yeah, I won't be going easy on you anymore!" she shouted.

At our leader's call, Gold Rush charged me again. This time, she came at me a little slower, more mindful of her footwork. She tried to weave, almost like she was trying to avoid my counterattack.

It didn't work because I had no fancy tricks in mind. I held my hands out and braced myself. Power flooded me from the Elixir of Wrath a moment before two hundred ten pounds of teenage girl crashed into me. Her palms found my shoulders and she tried to cuff me without hurting me.

"Wha-Hey!" I picked her up like a sack of potatoes and tossed her across the mat.

"That's two for me," I said, not a little smugly.

"What the hell was that?"

"Power pill. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but," I patted my waist. "The pills I carry can have different effects. So, round three?"

"Any chance we can get some of that?" Brickhouse looked very interested.

"No, they loosen inhibitions and can drive you into a berserk rage. The side effects aren't a problem for me because of my Ymelo, the anti-master thing. I'm basically self-mastering myself to not self-master myself."

"Damn."

"I do have something else, though you'll have to practice using it. I'll talk to Hero and make something… after I beat Gold Rush like a drum a few more times."

"You're so not cute," she moaned.

I pulled my shield from my back. "Round three? I still want to use this in a spar at least once."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to try," Verdeer said. "I want to know how strong you are like this."

"Alright, but let me grow a few inches first," I said, popping a gray, metallic pill in my mouth. Mixing potions wasn't usually a good idea, but I made sure to make sure mine were compatible with each other. All my potions needed to work together with my Oracle's after all. Poisoning myself to death because I forgot I needed a potion to see sounded like a hilariously pathetic way to die.

The green cervid and I squared off. Even with the extra height from the Elixir of Iron, Verdeer stood almost twice as tall as I did. That didn't stop me though; I dashed forward and aimed a shallow jab to test him.

He was… not particularly trained. I reminded myself that Wards weren't required to pick up a martial art beyond basic self-defense classes and that for all his intimidation factor, my antlered friend didn't have any powers that made him a better combatant. His altered biology made him great at charging, he even had the skull padding commonly found among bighorn sheep, but his brute rating wasn't otherwise anything impressive.

I guided a sloppy punch away from me and kicked out his left leg, bringing him to one knee. I stepped on his knee and used an antler to pull myself up at the same time to knee him in the face.

"Gah!"

His hands came up automatically to protect his face, but my new shield, more manageable now that I had my elixirs active, spread his arms apart, letting me land another jab to his lower jaw. A final kick to his chest staggered him while launching me in a backflip that put twelve feet of distance between us.

"You good or should we stop?"

A wordless grunt followed as Verdeer lowered his head and charged. He tried to sweep me with his antlers and I blocked it with the Blitzshield. He was strong, but I could rip a small tree from the ground. His horns, as far as anyone could tell, were nearly indestructible, but that didn't mean they were sharpened into monomolecular edges or anything. In fact, their durability made sharpening them virtually impossible.

I skidded back a foot but otherwise remained still. Flipping my relic pistol into my hand, I loosed three shots directly to the top of his skull. He took those like a champ, the glowing bullets doing nothing to his thick skull.

"Huh, so I can turn up the settings a bit then," I mumbled.

He stood and shook his head. "Nah, we're good. You're a lot more than just mind games and secrets."

"Thanks, you hit pretty hard too."

"Pretty hard he says. What's that shield made of?"

"Neo-Petricite. Metalmaru and I made it in collaboration. It's unique to me for now though I'm hoping I can get some of the tinkers outfitted."

"Any chance we can get some of that?"

"Maybe?" I tossed him the shield. "Catch."

He hefted the cobalt-gray shield and examined the black turtle shell insignia. "Light."

"Very. But yeah, I'd be open to making you something. Later. I don't even have my own armor yet."

"Fair enough."

"Let me see," Gold Rush said. She dashed up and touched it. A moment later, her trails broke apart. "Woah, what?"

"That's what really makes Petricite alloys special," I explained. "Petricite has the power to cancel out powers. Not all of them, but most emissions. It's why I'm never making one for Brickhouse. You wouldn't be able to use it without shutting off your own power."

"Damn. You're immune to powers too?"

"No. Some of them. Kind of?"

"Tinkers are bullsh*t," he grumbled goodnaturedly.

Gold Rush tried to run but found that she was limited to a normal speed while holding my shield. "Aww… I wanted a fancy shield too."

"Tough. A shield isn't worth your powers."

"I know…"

We didn't spar for the entire training session. After they got a good look at what I could do, we also discussed potential maneuvers and what we should do if faced with specific types of opponents. We then broke off to work on our own thing, with Gold Rush and Verdeer going off to do some balance training while Brickhouse tried to block every single bolt I fired his way. It wasn't the best way I could spend my time, but I couldn't deny that there was a relaxing quality to it.

Author's Note

Chapter 43: 4.12 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.12

2000, August 30: Washington, DC, USA

Three hours later, I returned to my lab and worked to carve the last of the runes onto the Worldstone. Then, I dumped another fifty Mana Crystals into it to stabilize the enchantment.

And I was done.

Sort of.

What I had was a pale stone tablet that wouldn't be out of place in a museum. Hell, with the runes inscribed onto it, if I stood it up on its side, it looked kind of like the Code of Hammurabi. But, you know, white. With neater writing. And smaller. Forty-eight pounds of stone wasn't actually that large in terms of volume.

The runes engraved onto the Worldstone were actually on the bottom. I planned to make a relief of the greater DC metro area over the pristine topside. That, coupled with eight focusing wards buried at the edges of the metro area would allow the District Protectorate to teleport to anywhere in our jurisdiction with the help of the Wayfinder. In the event of catastrophe, we would even be able to evacuate significant portions of the populace using this method.

More than that, Cauldron kept Doormaker and Clairvoyant to itself though they could have been used to organize large-scale evacuations and emergency responses. If this project got off the ground, I could make it the public option before Strider ever came along. Visions of a giant Worldstone, one that depicted the entire globe on its face, made me almost salivate with anticipation. The more I worked at this, the more I realized that my little project had the potential to grow beyond just saving Hero.

But this idyllic vison depended on me being able to craft more than one Wayfinder. The Wayfinder wasn't originally a tool in every sentinel's arsenal. It was a weapon made for the Rookie Sentinel, a nameless protagonist who accompanied Lucian and Senna on their mission to stop the Black Mist. Lucian had initially wanted to take the Wayfinder and ditch the rookie, but the Wayfinder was inseparably linked to him and would answer to no other.

In the future, I planned to make Wayfinders that weren't attuned to an individual, but with Hero's that connection was critical. Similar to the Ymelo, I wanted to include an automatic evacuation function, something that would activate when he got injured, just in case he was too bullheaded to get out when the situation called for it.

That meant tying his soul to a weapon.

Not every Sentinel was a mage. Lucian wasn't. Neither was Sarah Fortune when she was deputized. For that matter, Shauna Vayne absolutely loathed magic of all sorts and went out of her way to murder anyone who even vaguely smelled like a mage… including her own adoptive mother. The ability to channel mana actively wasn't a prerequisite to wielding a relic weapon.

A soul attuned to light, a desire to do righteous deeds, and the conviction to fight were more important. Vayne was proof that these desires did not have to be enacted in productive ways, only that they exist. A heart full of righteous conviction was what was truly important. As embarrassing as it was to admit, relic weapons worked very much on shounen anime logic: Power of friendship and a heart of justice surpassed all.

If Shauna Vayne could be attuned to a relic weapon, Hero was a no brainer.

The trouble was, Vayne at least knew that the soul existed. She was familiar with the idea of a magic weapon, even if she loathed them with every fiber of her being. It didn't take her long to learn to draw mana from her soul and empower her crossbow. Hero… didn't even know for sure that souls were real, quantifiable things.

And I had no time to teach him. I could make the Wayfinder. Then, I'd have to spend the entire time making an advanced healing draught just in case he got himself bisected.

I did what I always did when troubled: I sat down to meditate as I wracked my brain for alternative options.

Several hours later, I arrived at one: blood magic. I could use a different medium to bridge the gap between body and soul.

If Hero couldn't channel magic consciously, I would make a runic matrix that did it for him. The power would come from his own soul, but the matrix would monitor his body and teleport him to the Worldstone if it took too much damage. A drop of blood was all that was needed.

Plan thusly made, I packed up another eight pounds of Petricite to work with at home.

2000, September 2: Washington, DC, USA

Three days later, I looked upon my newest creation with pride. I even heard an earful from Raquel and Yasmine for being distracted the night prior during our weekly check-ins. In my defense, she had terrible taste in movies; I saw A Bug's Life several times across both lives and it never failed to put me to sleep.

The Wayfinder was a gun made of pristine white stone, much like my own relic pistol. The grip was made of some strange black metal that always felt warm to the touch. That's where similarities ended. It looked a little flat, almost as though someone had taken the slide and barrel of a handgun off the stock and ground the stock into a mirror sheen. The top of the gun had a stylized compass rose embossed in gold and the black metal of the grip was engraved with countless runes so intricately carved that they almost felt like something textured by a machine for better handling.

All that was left was to attune it to Hero.

Unfortunately, the man was down in Tampa Bay, off fishing with the local Wards. Here I was trying to save his life and he. Was. Off. Fishing…

I growled audibly, teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. I wanted to scream when I heard that. He was... a genuinely good guy. Penelope and David told me about how, during his tour of different Wards programs, he dropped by Phoenix and took the Wards to the Arizona Chinese Lantern Festival. From the few conversations I'd had about him with Jonathan, my new Wards leader made it clear that Hero's priority was making sure us Wards got to live our lives as children. Hell, Pyro even told me once about how Hero gave him a signed copy of Back to the Future because that was a favorite sci-fi movie for both of them.

The fishing thing wasn't new or unusual for him. By all accounts, he just wanted to see kids smile. Everyone liked Hero because he was a genuinely good guy who wanted to help people for no other reason than to see them happy.

It wasn't his fault that he was out making sure the Wards were doing alright. He literally didn't know any better. He didn't know that the one most at risk was himself.

"I can't f*cking believe this," I mumbled. "Is this the curse of Wildbow? May no good deed go unpunished?"

With a frustrated sigh, I put aside my Wayfinder and picked up one of my other critical projects, the Elixir of Life.

Assuming the Wayfinder's automatic retreat function worked, it would drag Hero to the Worldstone in whatever condition he happened to be in, which could range from a punctured lung to "entrails hanging like spaghetti," leaving me to repair the damage the Siberian wrought. In an ideal world, his injuries would be treatable with a few health potions and a team of surgeons, but if this were an ideal world, it wouldn't be called Earth-Bet.

More than likely, I'd find the literal Cauldron golden boy in pieces, staining my nice floor red.

"But… what if I'm too slow? Or, what if I'm not there? What if I'm out on patrol or grabbing lunch or taking a sh*t? Or the meeting takes place at night as so many clandestine meetings do and he gets teleported here, only for no one to be there to help him?"

An alarm was the obvious solution.

In fact, even if I did nothing, any unauthorized means of entry into the building would spark a dozen different alerts. Even I had my identity confirmed three times before being allowed entry each day: once by facial recognition, a second by magnetic fob, and lastly by being asked to identify a picture from behind a wall. The inventions here weren't the kinds of things anyone would be comfortable losing. The staff here was used to teleportation tech thanks to Warptek and while I wouldn't call the defenses robust, countermeasures designed to reduce response time did exist.

And they were too slow. I didn't need the staff to respond. I needed to respond and I could potentially be all the way in Clarendon.

The staff responding to an emergency teleport then shutting the building down for investigation would actually slow my own arrival, and that's assuming I found a way to get here at all. A bisected Hero would have mere minutes at most until his brain started to shut down, if shock didn't take care of that already.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Hexflash extended to any location I could perceive, but I couldn't teleport to a video feed; I'd tried. That meant I'd need a way to treat Hero even without my presence.

I pondered the dilemma and settled on the easiest solution: I was going to build him a fish tank and stick my Worldstone inside. If I filled it with some sort of Elixir of Life, he'd land in it as he teleported to the Worldstone and treatment could commence without my involvement.

f*ck it, that was the plan. Operation: Fish Bowl. He could be my goldfish until he recovered.

With that morbidly amusing thought, I got to work processing as much Water of Life as I could.

2000, September 3: Washington, DC, USA

If I wanted to make a potion capable of healing any wound regardless of severity, a true Elixir of Life, I'd need a solid hundred Mana Crystals. Compared to the single crystal used for each health potion and two per pill, it was a truly astronomical amount.

That I could afford it with a little less than seven hours of meditation put into stark relief just how far I'd come.

No lie, that realization felt damn good.

I spent all of yesterday acquiring enough crystals. I even put aside infusing the Tear to rush this.

Now that I had enough crystals, I infused each crystal one by one into a single vial of the Water of Life. It wasn't about quantity, but quality. A hundred bottles of the tainted Water of Life wouldn't be worth a single pure vial. I continued, one by one, until I had a fluid so heavily saturated with mana that it glowed blue, so dense that the bottle would explode if I tried to infuse a single crystal more.

Then I filled a bowl with health potions before stirring in the true Water of Life drop by drop. Honestly? If I had to make a mundane comparison, it felt a little like emulsifying olive oil and egg yolks to make mayo. It was a painstakingly slow process, but a full fifty minutes later, I finished.

The liquid in the bowl was thick, almost like maple syrup, and a blend of the health potion-red and crystal-blue of the Water of Life. It glistened like the purest amethyst, the kind of rich violet that Roman emperors would have killed to have.

But even then, the outward appearance was a mere footnote to what the Oracle's Elixir revealed to me.

When people asked about the elixir, I often called it pericognition and compared it to sight. While sight was the most relatable parallel, the truth was that the elixir could show me so much more. In the privacy of my own mind, I likened it more to an overlay, a hybrid of both physical and magical senses that allowed me to see magic as it was being woven. Truthfully, I counted this as the primary reason for my rapid advancement in highly complex fields like alchemy and runecraft.

And the Elixir of Life was positively radiant to my senses. The Water of Life was mana-rich too, but not like this. From memory to healing, water to plants, the water by itself was a powerful relic of life, but one without concrete direction. It was potential, plain and simple. Mixing it with the health potions had a focusing effect, narrowing down its myriad affinities to one centered on healing and healing alone.

My actions were almost reverent as I poured it into a vial.

This, this was a potion that could heal absolutely every injury and malady, from a mangled spine to the most severe examples of blastoma. So long as the target breathed, it would restore them to optimal health, even reversing staving off the effects of age for a time.

I paused.

"I could have my eyesight back," I whispered.

It was obvious in hindsight. Anything that could knit someone back together after being sawn in half was almost guaranteed to be powerful enough to regrow a few eyeballs. If I drank it, I could have my eyes back. I could stop being reliant on the Oracle's Elixir. I could…

"Could… what?" I wondered. What exactly did I gain that the Oracle's Elixir did not already provide? Would this make me a better tinker? A better inventor? Could I build more things if I had functional eyes? I'd gotten so good at making the Oracle's Elixir that infusing a single crystal's worth of mana was the work of but a single moment.

The answer, I reluctantly admitted to myself, was no. I gained nothing. Having eyes would not make me a better craftsman. I would still end up brewing a small lake's worth of Oracle's so I could better sense the magic as I engraved it into my runes or infused it into my potions.

I thought of mom. I hadn't been outside in my civilian identity since we got to DC for the same reason we'd insisted on me being homeschooled. An Asian boy with a single mother and distinctive scars across his empty eye sockets was rather noticeable after all. Pretending to be blind just wasn't worth the hassle.

'But… if I'm not blind anymore…' I thought. 'The Elixir of Life might not make me a better craftsman, but it might be worth it just for mom's peace of mind… Later… After Hero comes Leviathan. Then I should have a few months until Elisburg. Yeah… later…'

Thus decided, I paid a visit Pyro's workstation.

"What's up, Hyunmu?" the chubby definitely-not-Mario asked as I walked up to him.

He was stooped over his gear, a large, twin-barreled bazooka-like jetpack. He typically wore the contraption strapped on his back with the twin barrels facing down. The barrels could each rotate over his shoulders and act as artillery. It was heavy, which was why he wore an exoskeleton helped distribute and support its weight. I had no idea if the exoskeleton was supposed to look like a mechanized pair of suspenders, but if it was truly an accident, the similarities were positively delicious.

"I need you to build me an aquarium."

"You… What?"

"I want an aquarium."

"Kid, go to a pet shop."

"It needs to be big enough for a person. Preferably about six and a half feet tall. Maybe seven."

He finally turned from his jet-zookas and leveled me with an unimpressed stare. "I don't like where this conversation is headed."

"Why? A person-sized aquarium isn't too much to ask for, right?"

"Why can't you bug Metalmaru about this?"

"Because he doesn't have welding tools to build a plexiglass container that large. And he's in a meeting with Director Byron."

"Of course he is." He sighed, but finally decided to humor me. "Fine. Why do you want an aquarium? Why does it need to fit a person?"

"You know about the healing potions?"

"Right." The dots connected. "You want to make a healing tank."

I nodded. His approval was the real reason I was here. It wasn't too hard to build a container for the Elixir of Life on my own but as a Ward, there were limits to new materials I could order without oversight. Any Protectorate tinker could give me permission, but Pyro just happened to be available, and the most approachable. "Yeah. I think it'd be great to have around. You know, just in case. The potions are great stopgaps, but…"

"Alright, fine. You know, not everything needs to be built in-house. Like, we can just order something like this. You know that, right?"

"Who sells aquariums this large?"

"Dunno, that's for someone else to figure out. I'm sure it's going to be a special order, but whoever supplies the National Zoo should be able to manage it. Every procurement request from us gets marked for rush delivery anyway. It'll arrive in a few days at most."

"That's great. Thanks, Pyro. Owe you one."

"Sure, bud. You need anything else?"

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks."

As I walked back to my station, I thought about what else I wanted to do today.

The answer was obvious: Potions.

Leviathan would hit Naples the day after Hero's would-be death. I wasn't about to enter an endbringer fight. The thought of drawing near the ocean normally made me uneasy. The thought of drawing near the ocean during a Leviathan attack…

The world swam around me.

My chest felt tight. I couldn't breathe.

It was cold. The chill of the waves reminded me why I couldn't.

I couldn't…

Then the Ymelo flashed with spiritual flame and I was whole again. The wave of clarity washed away my thalassophobia like winds blowing clear the clouded sky. It was only a moment, but in that moment, I was taken back to Busan.

There was a good reason I tried not to think about Leviathan.

No, no I would not be attending that fight. My mom might actually die of a heart attack if I tried; she was even worse than I was.

As it was, my combat abilities were lackluster at best. Theoretically, if I could reach the core, my Minion Dematerializer might be able to convert enough mass to mana to destabilize it, but I that was a big if. An endbringer's body became denser layer by layer, exponentially increasing in mass, the exact thing my Dematerializer scaled off of. And even if, by some miracle, I got a hit off on the core and the core destabilized, Leviathan would be taking me with him. And likely most of Italy if not more. Behemoth's canonical demise had not been quiet and I had no reason to believe his brother wouldn't explode catastrophically too.

So, potions it was. "Rubedo" would make a quiet return, contributing crates upon crates of potions for the defenders. Why had no one seen him thus far?

Why, surely an asset like him needed to be defended at all costs. He was living a quiet, productive life away from potential dangers, thank you very much. Rest assured that he will contribute in his own way…

Sunday turned out to be quite productive.

With the prospect of Hero's impending doom looming over my head, I had to put aside a few projects and paths I wanted to explore. Now that I'd done as much as I could, I turned back to one of them, the Sunstone Talismans.

With my constant experimentation and studying, the runic matrix had been written out days ago. I'd even tested it in my basem*nt by engraving it onto a plywood charm, not unlike one you'd find in a Shinto temple. I drank an Elixir of Wrath then activated the talisman much as I'd done to test the Ymelo.

The runic matrix channeled mana like an electrical circuit, activating each individual rune in the sequence I'd designed. First, the power storage that soaked up my mana like a sponge. Second to activate was the conversion rune that attuned this mana to the concepts of memory and purity. Third, the spell-weaving rune, one designed to weave a spell that would purge the target of outside influence. Lastly, a runic sequence poured that spell-laden mana back into me, all the while modulating the amount to be safe for normal humans.

The plywood? It shattered into a thousand pieces that shot jagged splinters into my hand. I did feel a trickle of the cleansing spell enter my body though. After much swearing, a pair of tweezers, and a healing potion, I worked out what went wrong.

If I needed an object lesson in why the material composition of my works mattered, I got one.

The wood was not Helian Sunstone. It had no affinity for memories, nor was it built to handle the quantity of mana I was trying to process. That had greatly reduced the effects of the spell and overtaxed the fragile medium, causing it to shatter.

Lesson learned but finally ready to craft with actual Sunstone, I got to work and knocked out four Sunstone Talismans before bed. They were one-time use items and would only grant clarity for three minutes, but they wouldn't shatter and could be recharged by yours truly.

One more way to be indispensable.

Author's Note

The Code of Hammurabi is the oldest written codex of laws composed in the mid-1700s BC by the Babylonians. It's got absolutely zero relevance to this fic. I just happen to like mythology and anthropology.

There are three modes of security identification: who you are, what you have, and what you know. Two factor authentication that banks sometimes insist on these days addresses two of these by asking you to use your cell phone (what you have) alongside your password (what you know). The Madhouse is using all three: Andy's face (who you are), the fob (what you have), and what you know (a password only Andy would be able to retrieve each day).

Chapter 44: 4.13 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.13

2000, September 4: Washington, DC, USA

I wasn't surprised to find myself back in the temple. If anything, it was worrying that the World Rune took this long to ignite. Would each rune following a Keystone take more effort to activate? Or perhaps, did the World Rune consider the Wayfinder incomplete because it had yet to be attuned to Hero? Maybe the Worldstone was seen likewise because it lacked a paired Wayfinder? Even without the Wayfinder, I'd built quite a bit since the activation of Glacial Augment.

I worked with Metalmaru to develop Neo-Petricite, a material more durable than any conventional metal alloy that retained Petricite's mana-absorbent properties. I completely revamped my Blitzpack into the Blitzshield, refining several of its more slapdash properties and even adding other features like Blitzcrank's Power Fist. I created the Ymelo and Sunstone Talismans, making myself all but immune to emotional masters while giving myself a way to use the Elixir of Wrath safely.

"What aren't you telling me?" I addressed the swirling slice of infinity. "Will I plateau eventually? Or are you telling me to seek out greater challenges like a parahuman?"

As always, silence was my answer.

I took a deep breath and set aside my grumblings. My dissatisfaction wasn't with Inspiration, not truly. I understood that having access to a World Rune without my very existence crumbling to dust was an immense boon. As with so many things in life, bitterness and frustration were conscious choices and I made an effort to be content.

No matter the exact circ*mstances, I was here again. Once again, I had the opportunity to reach out and snag a piece of the World Rune for myself, to augment my soul in ways most people could only dream of.

A smile broke over my face as I climbed the steps to the altar. One day, perhaps I would understand.

That smile died as the nearest node leapt into my hands. It merged with my soul and the censer representing it lit up like a torch in the night.

"Well… f*ck," I sighed even as I tried to suppress a laugh. I poked Inspiration straight in its core. "Are you sure you're not the Rune of Cosmic Irony or something? At least my soul doesn't feel like it's being replaced with liquid nitrogen this time."

If anything, I felt utterly refreshed, comforted like I'd woken up groggy but walked into the most delightful bakery run by a Michelin three-star baker. The alluring aroma of fresh bread filled my nose, filling my body with renewed vigor. If the idea of "the perfect morning" could be distilled into a singular feeling, this was it.

There was no question as to which rune this was. "Biscuit Delivery, really?" I laughed. "I make an elixir to cure all ills and you make me the finest baker in the world. I swear there's a joke in here somewhere."

Was Inspiration telling me to be happy? To take each day as it came? Or was I reading too much into this?

For all my griping, I was pretty copacetic with my new rune. Like the Dematerializer, I could activate Biscuit Delivery thrice per day, conjuring a palm-sized biscuit in my hand.

These biscuits, called the Total Biscuits of Everlasting Will, were not only cosmically ordained to be the most delicious biscuits ever, but also contained all nutrients necessary for healthy living. I and two others could live the rest of our lives on nothing but these biscuits. Better, they were bullsh*t-magical and would not interfere with any normal diet. If anything, they would encourage optimal physical development, as perfect a body as genetics would allow.

Comparatively, the knowledge of baking techniques seemed trivial. From cookies to wedding cakes, eclairs to deep-dish pizza, if it belonged in an oven at some point, I could make it. For a moment, I had an all-consuming urge to make a spear out of a baguette, but I had to throw that dream away. Beyond my supernatural skill, there were no additional magical effects.

"Watch… PR's going to saddle me with my own cooking show by the end of the year."

2000, September 6: Washington, DC, USA

I spent the past two days making potions in bulk. Forget about the Elixir of Life. Forget about perfectly portioned vials. I made health potions in fifty gallon drums used in sporting events. Quality could go take a hike; this was all about quantity. Filled drums were being taken out of the Madhouse to be separated into six fluid ounce bottles, which would be handed out to movers for the next Leviathan fight so they could stabilize capes before evacuating them to the medical tent.

I also planned to make Elixirs of Iron for the brute squad, though those would need to be turned into pills so as to keep them from being spilled. Wrath wouldn't be seeing much use. Inhibited decision-making sounded like a horrible idea amidst an endbringer fight.

On another note, my aquarium arrived. I spent an hour and a half rigging up a sensor that would release the Elixir of Life into the water when it sensed something entering the tank. The Worldstone was placed at the center of the tank. Over it was a thin laser. When that laser was disrupted from reaching the opposite wall of the tank, it would send a signal to the container that held the elixir. In essence, it was an over-engineered mousetrap.

After I conducted some tests using normal potions, I triple checked to make sure that a tank of water would not in fact dilute the Elixir of Life. The effect was magical; physical properties seldom had an impact, especially not on a potion this potent. The contraption was armed once again and the elixir removed, ready to be placed closer to the date.

Following lunch came my scheduled appointment with Hero.

Hero's station in the Madhouse was the one closest to the main entrance. Metalmaru told me he placed it there so everyone would have to walk by it in the morning and he could greet us all. That he wasn't in DC half the time because of an emergency or celebrity dinner or whatever kind of defeated the purpose, but he was still by far the most approachable boss I'd ever had.

It also meant he saw me coming long before I was in speaking distance.

The man was fiddling with a large gun almost the size of a coffin, something I was more comfortable seeing attached to the top of a jeep than carried by a person. Instead of six cylindrical barrels on a rotary system like a minigun, it had a single rectangular barrel that ran the whole length and width of the cannon. The body was painted shiny chrome blue with gold accents that matched Hero's bodysuit. Frankly, it looked almost comical, like something that might be drawn by a child who'd just seen a Gundam episode than a real gun.

I knew better. That thing was his disintegration cannon. When fired, it would launch a laser with the properties of Eden's version of the Stilling, destroying anything and everything in its path. So far, the only things that we knew could conclusively stop it were the two endbringers. Even they took significant damage, though only I knew it to be cosmetic at this time. If I had to guess, Hero's understanding of the Stilling wasn't quite complete. Or, his Shard wasn't operating at full capacity much like Eidolon's own.

One more thing to think about for later.

"Hero," I called. "Do you have some time?"

He turned and gave me a smile. "Yeah, can you give me a few minutes to finish this up? The amplifier needs adjusting. I think I can make it .12 percent more effective if I adjust its frequency output." I nodded and leaned against a wall to wait. He reached a good stopping place after four minutes and put aside the weapon to face me. "Sorry about that, I know you said you had something you wanted to talk about. I saw your email but I guess I lost track of time. We should've gone for lunch again."

"It's fine. I ate already. I came to tell you that I finished making the Worldstone and Wayfinder." I presented him with the gun. "I want you to help me test it."

"Didn't you tell me that no one could use it but you?" he asked with a quirked brow. "No one else can produce mana, right?"

"Something like that, but it's not a hard and fast rule. I made the Control Wards, remember? The runic matrix is kind of elaborate and makes all the other calculations more complex so I don't like making it, but it's doable. Anyway, this is the Wayfinder."

"And you need someone else to test it out to make sure that anyone can use it?"

I nodded and proffered the gun to him.

He pulled off his work gloves and held the gun in one hand before miming taking a shot. "There isn't a trigger though. I don't even see any seams or joints. How do you activate this?"

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

I pulled out my own relic pistol and showed him the finger placements. "Here, adjust your fingers a bit like this. Yeah, just like a normal handgun, but without a trigger so your index finger goes here instead. Then take your other hand and put your thumb out onto the compass rose insignia. Mine doesn't have one."

"Okay – ouch!" He almost dropped the pistol and brought his now bleeding thumb to his mouth to suck.

"Good, now that thing's attuned to you," I said happily. Even after going through all my preparations, the big question remained: How was I going to get Hero's blood? The answer, as with most answers, laid with my runes, the same runic matrix disguised as a compass rose. That, and simply not asking for permission. I didn't want to scrap this plan after coming so far just because Hero didn't like giving blood.

Should I have thought of this before? Probably. Was it one more proof that I wasn't the most detail-oriented person? Absolutely.

Was I turning into Urahara? I saw nothing wrong with that. Hell, give me six months and I'd have a divine-tier fan and bucket hat to match.

"And that means?" he leveled me with a pointed glare. "Is this thing even sanitized?"

I let out an indignant scoff. "Of course it is. And don't worry, I don't need your blood anymore. I was serious about that Wayfinder being yours. It just needed to get a biological sample to start. Now, no one else will be able to use it but you, except me, but I'm kind of an exception for obvious reasons. Even better, you know how my Ymelo works, right?"

"Right…"

"Well the gun has a similar scanning function. If your body takes too much damage, it'll automatically make a gate to the lab, evacuating you."

"Hyunmu, I'm not happy with this. Taking other people's blood without their permission is a big violation of their privacy," he said sternly. "You should have simply explained it before giving me the gun."

"I'm not taking your blood. The Wayfinder is yours. I don't want it back," I defended.

"Even so. You should have asked."

I did my best impression of a kicked puppy. Puppy eyes were kind of hard for me, not having any and all, but I'd be damned if I didn't try my best. I kicked my feet dejectedly and looked down at the ground. "You made me my bodysuit so I wanted the first attuned item to be yours…"

"Stop that," he snapped. "You're not good at the pouting child act."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I promise not to do it in the future," I said solemnly. I was even honest, too. This was a bit of an emergency. "Will you help me test it?"

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"I'm signing you up for a course on laboratory ethics anyway."

"Wha-"

"Consider it your punishment," he said plainly.

"Already took it when I first signed on with the Wards."

"Good, you get the extended remedial version then."

"I can't though."

"Why not?"

"I'm making a stockpile of potions for the endbringer fight. It's coming up, right? Sometime this month or October?"

He nodded slowly and ran his fingers through his blonde locks before letting out a frustrated sigh. "You shouldn't have to worry about things like this."

"Well, I'm the only medical tinker on record so it is my business. Trust me, brewing eight hours a day isn't exactly my idea of a fun time either. Besides, it's not like I'm going to the fight." I forced down the queasy shiver that ran through me at the thought. "Ain't no amount of money the director can pay me to make me go. Anyway, help me test this so I can get back to potions?"

"Fine, but you're taking the course as soon as the attack is over. No excuses."

I gave him a smug grin and a crisp salute. "Yes, sir."

He muttered something unintelligible and likely unflattering about me under his breath. "Okay, so how does this work?"

"Hold it in your hand like I showed you. Good. Now, focus. Imagine a stream. Of anything. It can be a well of water or a ray of light or even a spider web. Just imagine a connection between you and the Wayfinder." I smiled as the gun in his hand began to glow. Hero wasn't a magical prodigy, but my runes were making up for his lack of familiarity. The Wayfinder was using his blood to sense his intent and drawing on his mana, all without his active input. He wasn't an infinite mana battery like me, but his soul did produce some, had to or he wouldn't exist in the first place.

"Holy sh*t," he whispered.

"Hey, I'm an impressionable youth or something." I snarked. I ignored the withering look he sent me. "Glowing means it's working. Now all you have to do is to want to open a portal. Then, fire."

"How do you fire a gun without a trig-"

Before he could even finish, it shot out a shimmering beam that traveled two feet ahead of him before expanding into a circle, roughly eight feet in diameter. I could sense the other side. The portal led directly into the tank, mere feet from the Worldstone. A part of me was afraid that the water from the tank would spill onto Hero's floor, but I reminded myself that the Wayfinder was a one-way street. The gun was the starting point, always.

I was confident in my creation, but Hero insisted on taking the Worldstone out of the tank so we could run more elaborate tests. He took us both to one of the specialized labs dedicated to radiation and ensured I wasn't poisoning myself or anything. Naturally, I wasn't.

After turning on more scanners and doodads than I could identify, we began by closing and reopening the portal. Hero found that with a bit of concentration, he could make the portal anywhere within a few feet of the Worldstone. Then, we tossed in simple, nonliving matter to confirm that the portal would not fluctuate or damage the things that passed through.

Hero also managed to requisition a lab rat from somewhere, a snow-white fluffball with ruby-red eyes.

"Her name is Lily," he said with a grin. "Want to hold her?"

I took the rat from him, making sure to cradle her gently and let her run through my hands like a treadmill. "Sure, but… how many Lilys are there?"

"One," he said, a bit quickly.

Looking at him suspiciously, I asked, "How many Lilys were there?"

"It's all in the name of science, okay?"

"You're not making me feel better."

"Rat mortality is actually lower than you think, you know. We're very careful here and most tinkertech either can't be tested on rats, get field-tested before we're fully ready because tinkers are still capes, or are benign enough that animal testing isn't applicable at all."

"… Sure…"

"What? Did you think we microwave rats for fun?"

I thought about Armsmaster making a miniature power armor for a rat, "for maximum efficiency," or something, then accidentally frying it. I snorted. "Okay, fair enough. We can send Lily through, right? Then, will you believe me that this portal's safe?"

"It's not that I don't believe you," he reassured me. "It's just good practice. Safe is always better than sorry."

"Yeah, I get it. In you go, Lily."

We put Lily back into the cage and pushed her through via remote-operated cart. The portal didn't even hitch and Lily, cart and all, emerged onto the other side of the room none the worse for wear.

"Get anything with your scanners?"

Hero nodded excitedly, eyes dazzling like a small child's. "Yeah, a little. Whatever this "mana" is, it's not something I've ever encountered before. I can draw similarities to light, electricity, or even sound, but they all seem superficial. It's like there's a whole other dimension that I'm not equipped to analyze. This is awesome!"

"Haha, yeah, it's like that with all the other tinkers, too, right?"

"Yup. This is why I set up the Madhouse. Tinker specializations rarely overlap and even when we make something basic like a raygun, everyone does it a little differently, applying slightly different principles or calculations that only make sense to them. It's like a great big puzzle, you know? I can't help but wonder what we could do if we all understood each other."

'And there's the dreamer in him,' I thought, though not unkindly. It was unfortunate that Hero's dream would never come true. No matter how much he studied, how hard he worked, or how many tinkers he gathered in the Madhouse, he'd never understand another tinker completely. There was a significant part of tinkertech that was Shard-assisted bullsh*try. Too much deviated from concrete science for his dream to be possible. 'Pity that…'

"Is this the real reason you wanted me in here? To inspire you?" I teased.

"No, I mean, it's part of it, but testing is important, Hyunmu."

"I know, I know, I'm only kidding. So, will you keep the pistol?"

He mulled it over. "Yeah, you know what? I think I will. Even if it only lets me portal back here, it'll still shave me a few hours off my flight time," he said. It wasn't as though he could tell me about Doormaker.

"You have to wear it in-costume. I don't care if you stick it in a pocket and never use it, but promise me you'll have it with you?" I demanded as sincerely as an eight year old could.

"Alright, I promise."

"Great, thanks, Hero. This means a lot to me."

"Don't mention it. Also, has Powell reached out about your first solo PR event?"

I groaned. I'd been trying to avoid thinking about that. I received an email a few days ago and… just… not replied. Sure, I was playing into tinker stereotypes, but if drowning myself in legitimate work was the best way to keep him off my back, I'd take it.

"I got the email a few days ago," I admitted reluctantly. "Why?"

"Because he's been riding me to give you some free time. And seeing your schedule this past week, I agree."

I glanced down at a watch I didn't have. "Oh, look at the time. I must be getting to that ethics course. Guess I have no room in my extremely busy schedule for a meaningless PR stunt," I drawled, tone as dry as the Sahara, and turned to walk away.

Hero reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. "Nope. Stay."

"But I have work to do." I didn't whine; I expressed my displeasure professionally and courteously.

"You do, but some time off isn't bad either. Your hours are almost as bad as mine. And I said your ethics course can be done later."

"Because of potions. For Leviathan."

"Which is very important," he conceded, "but not so important that I want you doing nothing else. Two hours at a PR function won't kill you."

"Oh, so I can put off class but not the cameras? Methinks you've got your priorities mixed up," I snarked.

"The course is a two week long seminar on laboratory protocols, bioethics, and necessary deception. You can't spare two weeks right now. You can spare an afternoon."

"What? The class I took was just a two hour lecture and an online test!"

"Yeah, well, you're playing with the big boys now and that means big boy certifications. The one offered to the Wards is a heavily watered down version, that you apparently didn't bother listening to anyway, so you get to suffer through the whole thing this time."

I grumbled and complained but Hero remained unmoved. He had me schedule a meeting with Powell for image management. As I understood it, Powell would give me a few options and I'd have to pick one.

Still, I walked away knowing that Hero was as safe as I could reasonably make him. PR in comparison was a cheap price to pay.

Author's Note

f*ck it. Sinful Succulence is canon to Andy's Runeterra. Morgana ran off and opened a bakery after her sibling spat with Kayle. Atreus occasionally drops by to learn the secrets to her literally divine cupcakes. No, it's not relevant. No, I don't care.

I miss the old Journals of Justice. Anyone else?

Fun fact: I had a lab rat named Lily during my undergrad for a semester. My professor sat us down in the beginning of the year and insisted that we name the rats. We would care for them, feed them, and at the end of the semester, find homes for them as pets. If not, we would be forced to euthanize the rats ourselves.

Yeah, she was pretty hardcore.

It was a running joke that someone should name their rat Euthanasia. No one was brave enough.

Chapter 45: 4.14 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.14

2000, September 8: Washington, DC, USA

The biscuits were delicious. No, saying they were delicious didn't do them justice. They were more like teatime cookies than the bready biscuits served for American breakfasts, but that didn't make them any less buttery. There was the slightly oily goodness of perfectly browned butter, the faint hint of richness from caramelized brown sugar, and a nuttiness that I couldn't place to any earthly treat. There was even a slight touch of bitterness from burnt edges that made the treats so much more real to me.

This complex weave of flavors was unique to me. Hell, I found myself tasting something a little different each day as my own preferences shifted. Mom tasted something with a hint of dark chocolate and raspberries, a flavor combination she grew to love during her study abroad in Germany.

I crammed a second of the palm-sized f*ckers in my mouth like a chipmunk before I realized what I was doing. When the third materialized in my hand in a shower of blue sparks, I had to physically struggle with myself to not eat it right away. And this, this was the self-control I'd managed only days after receiving the rune.

I always was the snacking sort, the type that could empty a bag of almonds without even knowing. It wasn't about being hungry as much as it was keeping my mouth occupied.

Yes, I had an oral fixation. Go f*ck yourself.

I reluctantly put it on a plate on the dining room table and got to my morning workout.

Mom was surprisingly cool with my "magic cookie powers." She'd long since gotten used to the idea that her son wasn't a normal tinker. She knew basically everything about my powers, all but my past life's memories.

Hiding new abilities like the Hexflash from the PRT was one thing; hiding it from my mom just rubbed me the wrong way. Her knowing that I had escape options even outside of my tech went a long way to ease her worries and I couldn't justify not telling her for my own paranoid ass. More, her knowing what I could do and how I might react in an emergency might well save her life. It wasn't like she was going to tell the PRT anyway. She could admit that they had all the resources needed to help me thrive as a tinker, but she wasn't exactly their biggest fan. With these points in mind, obfuscation wasn't an attractive option to me.

I heard mom come down the stairs and glance at me. She smiled and munched on the last biscuit with as much enthusiasm as I before puttering about in the kitchen. I grinned, content with the domestic atmosphere. By the looks of it, it looked like breakfast would be a bowl of rice, cucumber kimchi, and slices of Spam.

I was seated on the mat, legs crossed and a shroud of blue aura glowing from my small form. I made the Tear of the Goddess shortly before my kidnapping, a little more than two months ago. It varied by the day, but I'd made sure to set aside some of my daily meditations to sink mana into the Tear. After two months of this, it was finally starting to pay dividends. The quantity of mana I could channel through my body had increased greatly. Things like reinforcing my muscles or reaction times were well within my abilities. Hell, if I focused, I could even send out pulses of mana with each strike, rupturing my target from within.

I suspected that the Tear would be full by the end of the month, or perhaps shortly into October. Deciding what I wanted to evolve my Tear into would be yet another task before me.

Today was Friday, which meant Korean lessons. Mom gave me my assignments for the day before heading off to work. Ms. Kosker came by to act as my teacher, though she could do little else but supervise. After zipping through my Korean language coursework, I sat through a few lectures from Ms. Kosker about European history and the Treaty of Westphalia before heading off to the lab. It was a pity, she wasn't a bad teacher, but it was pretty damn clear that she was an accountant first and foremost. History just wasn't her subject and it made for a somewhat by-the-books experience.

I arrived at the lab nearing noon and was immediately ushered into Travis Powell's office for that promised PR meeting. This would only be my third or fourth time meeting the man. Normally, the Wards and I dealt with one of the countless PR drones that made up his department.

Being the head of PR for the PRT in the capitol meant he was a very, very busy individual. More often than not, it seemed he dabbled in everything from legislative affairs to media relations. Costume design and merchandising was in fact only a very small part of the ferocious beast that made up the PR department

I respected him for his ability to juggle so many hats. Almost. He was still a dick. A competent dick, but a dick.

I walked into his office and gave him a polite nod. The office was surprisingly plain with few garnishes that hinted at personal taste of any sort. No pictures. Not even a fake flowerpot. One of the few things that nodded towards any sort of individuality was a pen holder, a figurine of a knight on one knee, fountain pen held up in the flat of both hands as though presenting his sword to his liegelord.

Travis Powell, head of PR, was seated with both hands firmly on the desk. He was clean-shaven with slicked back brown hair. He wore his navy suit jacket even indoors and allowed it to complement the emerald-green tie, a pop of color in an otherwise normal guise. Everything about him screamed that he was a successful man to be taken seriously, the picture of business professionalism.

"Hello, Mr. Powell," I said. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, sit, Hyunmu. You're in an interesting position, you know," he began. "All tinkers are, especially in DC. You see, a hero's image is a careful balancing act. Is he the sinless paragon who defends the weak and espouses justice with every breath? Or is he the reclusive inventor who seldom emerges from his lab, and only to offer life-changing insights? Or perhaps, he is the young, sincere immigrant trying to discover an identity for himself. Tell me, Hyunmu, which do you think fits you best?"

"None of them. I don't think I've ever claimed to know much about justice and it's only my mentorship under Hero that might lead people to think this way. My identity as Rubedo is somewhat of a secret and certainly not for public ears so any contributions I've made so far get underplayed by necessity. I think I can make such life-changing inventions, but I've yet to do so as Hyunmu. And lastly, I know my identity. I've kept up that ridiculous accent because it plays out a convenient narrative that's easily marketable, but Hyunmu is not me."

"Indeed," he leaned back in his chair. "Hyunmu is not you, Andy Kim. Neither is Rubedo. In fact, 'Andy' isn't quite right either, is it, Yusung? Am I saying that right?"

I nodded. It was only with that motion that I noticed his beer belly. It wasn't really important, but so crisp and flattering was his suit and tie that I almost didn't even consider his excessive weight. I knew that he would be image-conscious, came with the job, but the meticulousness of his dress made me wonder what else I'd missed. Looking closer, I could spot hints of white roots along his temples. He was graying but dyed his hair a rich brown. I doubt I would have noticed without the pericognition of the Oracle's Elixir.

"The pronunciation could use a bit of work but it's close enough."

"Names are funny like that, aren't they?" he said, completely ignoring the input he asked for. "We all have them. In the case of you capes, you have more than one. You in particular happen to have more than most. And yet, names seldom encompass everything we are, do they?"

He paused and pulled a gray coffee mug to his lips before continuing, seemingly on a tangent. "You're wonderful, by the way. Ms. Youngston from down in Phoenix had nothing but glowing praise for you. Rubedo's debut, yes I saw that, was perfect, with just the right amount of, what'd she call it? Right, 'youthful candor.'

"And you're wonderful here. You've played your part as the respectful, polite young man struggling with English as a second language to perfection. Really, you have potential as a child actor if you wanted."

"Thank… you?" I said, unsure of how to take it.

"I'm not done. See, you're right in saying that none of the three types of heroes I've mentioned describe you. The closest would be the third, but that's more of an image you need to slowly evolve away from. Eventually, we want Hyunmu to grow. We want Hyunmu to develop into a confident, capable tinker, preferably with fluent English. It's the concept of change I was going for when I designed your aesthetic.

"You see, change as an idea is complicated for the public. A part of them wants to see their heroes remain the immortal, immutable bastions of justice and hope they were when they were children. It's a big reason why Alexandria is so perfect for marketing, despite her drab, overly serious getup. Another part wants to see heroes grow with them, to hold their hand on the road of life, eventually passing the torch to the next generation. There is a dichotomy here.

"That's Hero. That's Armsmaster, Pyro, and Glace. And that's you. That's why the Madhouse really exists. Hero has many years in him, hopefully many decades, but one day, he will pass. His star will wane and it will be up to you to hold up that torch. Change. Your image is all about change, Hyunmu."

'He really likes to hear himself talk,' I thought, mentally rolling my eyes. That was a surprising amount of insight into my own image, I'd honestly thought he just pulled the concept for my image out of his ass all slapdash, but it was good that he had some plan for it.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Why the sh*t accent though?" I asked. "We could have done the 'changing of the guard' theme without sticking me with a ridiculous accent."

"You tell me," he said smugly. He didn't correct my language surprisingly enough. "You're not like the others, I'm told. So you tell me. Why would I saddle you with something like this?"

I considered it. "DC is a multinational city. You think I can appeal to an untapped audience."

"Good, that's one reason. What else?"

"Having an obvious immigrant embrace American culture and the PRT specifically is great branding. Bluesong comes to mind."

"That's a second, tied to the first. What else?"

"To distance myself from Rubedo. I need to be as different as possible."

"That's a third, obvious too. What else?"

I came up blank. "Nothing comes to mind."

"You. You're the reason."

"You think I want to pretend to trip over my words?"

"No." Instead of continuing the conversation, he dug through a drawer and placed a folder in front of me. "Public Relations and Outreach Opportunities: Hyunmu," it read. "This was complied by several of my assistants. Well, they had a dozen different ideas, but these three were what were not discounted for one reason or another. Read them. Go on. Read them and tell me what you like most."

I obliged. The first was almost insultingly stereotypical: Go to a kindergarten and teach children how to fold paper cranes. I did my level best to not interact with kids my age, why would I willingly choose to drown myself in a tide of ankle-biters?

The second was relatively more bearable and I suspected that they included the first to make me more agreeable to the second. If I chose this, I would visit the National Aerospace Museum and join the tour guides for a day, essentially acting as a guest guide. Apparently, my little impromptu lecture on aerodynamics during my patrol had not gone unnoticed.

The third was equally tinker-ish. I was to join an extracurricular robotics team. Nothing I built would be competition-permissible for obvious reasons, but I would be required to make regular appearances and show off whatever robot I made in exhibition matches.

"None of them," I sighed, "I'd rather not be involved with any of them."

"Explain from the top."

"The first? I hate children. I barely tolerated school back when I had to go. And if my personal opinion wasn't enough then I don't think I can keep up my accent in a room full of kids, especially if I have to teach them something. I just don't have the patience to deal with something like this."

"Yes, your accent. It's an awfully convenient way to limit interaction with your relative age group, isn't it?" he winked. It was then that I realized he might have thought my image through more than I gave him credit for. Perhaps he wasn't just a racially profiling asshat. "And the second?"

"It's the least objectionable," I admitted. "The tour is a two hour commitment, which by itself isn't bad. I can pass off my awkwardness as my poor grasp of English and it helps that my audience would be mature enough to follow the subject even if it's delivered with an accent. But there's too much of a time commitment outside of the actual tour. Getting familiar with the exhibits, meeting the local staff beforehand, and doing a meet and greet afterwards for another two hours makes this a full day affair. I can't do that."

"Can't or won't?" he quirked an eyebrow.

"Can't," I said firmly. "Look, Mr. Powell, I'll work with you. I want to work with you. But I can't take too much time away from tinkering, especially when I haven't even made my own armor yet."

"And what's keeping you from making your armor?"

"Endbringer prep. Potions. Lots of them. Seriously, ask me again about the tour thing in a month. Or hell, I'll give a lecture on robotics in a high school if you want."

"Fair enough, and what's wrong with the last one?"

"I don't want a long-term commitment. I also think it runs counter to my image. I'm supposed to be this sincere kid who's trying a bit of everything to discover his own specialization as a tinker, right? Sticking with robotics doesn't play well with that theme and it wouldn't be good to narrow my own audience."

For the first time, I saw Travis Powell smile. "Good, good. I wasn't sure why you'd object, but I figured you'd object to all of these. I have a note from Hero and the chief director asking me to limit your PR schedule until the endbringer passes as well. We've given you a load of things you could do, but I don't think anyone's asked you what you would like to do. So, Hyunmu, what do you think would be best for your image?"

I shrugged. "Sorry, but I don't really care too much. You can say it's because I'm inexperienced or don't know the headaches a bad image can cause, but in the end, I care about tinkering. Anything that gives me more time to tinker is good. Anything that gives me less time to tinker is bad."

"Figures. You're just like Armsmaster. Metalmaru too. Fine, you still need to make a public appearance of some sort however. It would be good to be able to show off a talent that isn't tinkering. Got anything?"

"Baking," I said automatically. Really, it was a no brainer. "Baking is just tinkering you can eat."

"You can bake?"

"Yup. Any chance I can just contribute a few dozen cookies to a bake sale or something?"

He hummed to himself for a bit. "You know… There is something. What do you know about high school schedules?"

"I tested out of everything except history and world issues," I said dryly.

"Nothing then. Okay, public schools in America really like football. Most schools align their first major social function to the start of the football season, which they call homecoming."

"I do know what homecoming is, thank you. But that's a dance."

"Yes. But the week before, school clubs often hold fundraisers for their extracurricular activities. The schools have a half day, there is a bake sale, then everyone comes back for a rally around the school's teams."

"You want me to attend a high school rally? Why not a middle school then?"

"Not enough exposure," he waved me off. "Normally, I wouldn't have someone so young join a rally like this, sticks out like a sore thumb, but you won't be alone. Two of the Arlington Wards will be there as well, Just-Ice and Brigadier."

I thought about it. Attending one would mean a smaller time commitment since I could leave shortly after the bake sale and before the start of the rally. I could also leave much of the talking to two other Wards who are bound to be more interesting to teenagers than I. And, not a small part of myself was happy with the chance to flex my bullsh*t baking talents.

"Sounds perfect," I said, "when is it?"

"The fifteenth. Next Friday. I'll email you the details."

"Thanks, Mr. Powell. You were…" He was a lot more flexible than I expected but I wasn't sure how to phrase it without sounding like a backhanded compliment. "… reasonable," I finished lamely.

"The PR department isn't some unreasonable monster, Hyunmu. We exist to make sure you heroes don't get in over your heads."

"So you're going to bake cookies?" Yasmine said disbelievingly. "And that's your PR shtick? Dude, that's so lame."

We five current and former members of the Phoenix Wards were on a video call again. Penelope must have worked something out because I could hear David fine from Albuquerque. I'd been telling them about my upcoming PR stunt.

"It's not lame, Jazz," Raquel chided. "I think it's great. How come you didn't make anything for us? Don't you love us, Andy?"

"I'll mail you some cookies," I promised. "Speaking of, did you get the potions?"

"Yes, thanks a lot," Penelope said. I saw David nod from his end. "What have you boys been up to?"

"Endbringer prep. Potions, potions, and more potions. I've made enough to literally fill an oil drum. No one ever told me being a hero could be so tedious."

"You're doing good work. I'm sure they'll be very grateful."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just bitching. You, Dave?"

It was a relief to see the half-eared man smile. He still had bags under his eyes but they were fading from last week. "It's good," he said. We could tell how relieved he was by how much his accent shone through. "Really good. I got Josie enrolled into a good school for first grade and Director Watson even arranged a nanny for her so I can still be a hero full time. I still take mostly morning patrols after Josie goes to school though. The director's been real understanding about that. Oh, we even found a church and she's made a few friends there so I'm happy."

"I'm glad," I said honestly. "No major villains? Rivals?"

"Nah, Albuquerque is kind of quiet. Drug trafficking's the main issue here, but all the major cartels set up cells in California and Texas. New Mexico is a small market in comparison. It's mostly watching for handoffs to lesser gangs and local middlemen."

"Ooh! Penny got into a fight with Shakedown again," Raquel grinned. "That guy never learns."

"It wasn't a big deal, Raquel."

"Still the most interesting thing to happen to us in weeks," Jazz grumbled. "I swear, things have gotten way too quiet ever since you guys left."

"Quiet is good, Jazz," Penny admonished.

"Yeah, yeah, at least you get to actually do things, Miss Protectorate."

"Are the Wards really that boring now?" I asked.

"Yup. They stole your Control Wards by the way."

"What? Who?"

"They didn't steal anything, Jazz. Stop trying to rile people up." Penelope explained, "Royalle, Oathkeeper, and Director Lyons took our Control Wards so the Protectorate teams could counter Dos Caras. He found out about them and hasn't gotten caught out since the first time. So yeah, things are pretty quiet on our end too."

"Oh, yeah, then I don't mind. The wards were made to deal with strangers like him anyway. Hell, he was the stranger I made them for. Just let me know if you need more potions."

"Don't you need everything? I thought you couldn't make that many crystals?"

"I'm growing, remember? My production rate's skyrocketed so don't worry about it. Besides, what's the point of being a tinker if I can't pamper my friends?"

"Aww, you're sweet," she cooed, making my eight year old face flush in embarrassment.

"Yeah, thanks, midget."

I then had a thought that left a pit in my stomach. "Penny, you're not going to go join an endbringer fight, are you?"

"I mean… not this one for sure. I don't think I'm ready, but I thought about joining later… maybe as search and rescue? Say, how effective would Petricite be against an endbringer?"

"Not at all," I said flatly. "Petricite absorbs energy but the quantity of output released by an endbringer would easily overload what you've got. Hell, I don't know that a full suit of armor made of Petricite would work. In fact, pretty sure it won't."

"Oh, damn… That… I guess I shouldn't rely on it."

"Definitely not. Same goes for you, David."

"Don't worry, I have no intention of attending," he promised. "If something happens to me… I won't leave Josie alone."

I sighed with relief. Promises made, we heckled Jazz about her first date with Poundtown, bowling apparently, and settled on a movie for the night. My pick, so that was an easy one: Pokémon: The First Movie. It was released in 1998 in Earth-Aleph but the franchise never caught on in Earth-Bet. I took it upon myself to introduce them to the wonders of Pokémon, but none of the others liked it much.

Author's Note

Anyone else have slices of Spam with ketchup for protein growing up? I swear it's better than it sounds. Or maybe it's my nostalgia goggles talking. I grew up in a poor family and my parents worked so this was one of the simplest, fastest things mom could make for me and my kid sis. I still eat Spam with rice on occasion even though I can afford better now.

Yeah, another PR meeting. Dunno why, just came out. Funny how being a government-sanctioned hero is more about your image than punching bad guys, huh?

Yes, the multiverse is a commonly accepted fact even as early as 2000. This isn't an AU element; it's canon. Professor Haywire broke the boundary between worlds in 1988. Seeing how the Simurgh was able to coopt his tech during the Madison attack in 2009, he had to have been active fairly recently for it to have not broken down. He was confirmed dead by the time of Madison, but that leaves a huge window of time between 1988 and December, 2009.

Chapter 46: 4.15 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.15

2000, September 15: Arlington, VA, USA

Sitting at my desk, I absentmindedly sketched out the alchemical formula for a more advanced healing potion I'd been playing with. For the first time in weeks, I'd foregone my morning exercise.

There was only so much healing potion I could make without feeling a little fed up with the redundancy and I'd reached that point a week ago. I sucked it up and bore it, but Leviathan's conspicuous absence was making me paranoid as all hell.

After my endbringer preparations were finished, I made sure to deliver them to Director Costa-Brown personally. Since then, I'd been walking on pins and needles. My luck was terrible and this was Earth-Bet. Why would I get weeks to prepare? Surely the other shoe would drop soon, right?

My mounting nervousness made me look up endbringer statistics only to find much of it was unavailable to me as a Ward. The data wasn't classified per se, but I got the impression that it wasn't something shared with the Wards on principle.

I knew from canon that on a good day, about twenty-five percent of people died from a Leviathan fight. If I remembered right, there were dozens of names listed on the Brockton Bay memorial, though I was pretty sure less than a hundred. Assuming the nice round number of fifty confirmed deaths, that meant more or less two hundred capes had attended the battle. It was all just napkin math in the end, but it seemed reasonable.

But that could have been a very good day. Dragon and Armsmaster had worked together to warn them ahead of time, something that hadn't been done before.

From what I could guess, two to three hundred attendees per battle sounded about right. I also had to account for emergency response personnel. The military would be present to coordinate evacuation efforts. The PRT would set up their own command center. Doctors and nurses would conduct triage from multiple medical tents, spread out across several favorable locations because putting all your medics in a conveniently obliterated spot was idiotic.

All told, I ballparked the number of cape and normal attendees at anywhere between five to eight hundred total. Assuming a thirty percent casualty rate, that was two-hundred-forty potions I needed to brew, and even then, not all casualties could be saved.

I clear overshot that number. I made enough to fill a literal oil drum, forty-two gallons. At eight fluid ounces per serving, that was six hundred seventy-two servings of healing potions. Of course, I'd also provided fifty Elixirs of Iron for the brute squad who would be tangling with Leviathan up close and personal.

And still I felt like I hadn't done enough.

I was stuck in a bit of a rut of my own making. I felt that making more potions wouldn't do much good, nor could I hope to finish a new project in time to matter, but I couldn't bring myself to tear myself completely from the looming endbringer.

That left me studying alchemy as known by the likes of Singed, Renata, and even some of the less kosher secrets rediscovered by the Black Rose throughout LeBlanc's tenure as its mistress. Even discounting the most unpleasant influences, alchemy was an exceedingly broad subject and there was plenty to learn. The blend of magic and chemistry was both beautiful and harrowing in equal measure. I was finally approaching the territory of what I jokingly called "anime alchemy," with its ritual circles of transmutation, adherence to the phases of the moon and stars, and exacting measurements of mana.

I'd gotten a small taste of it during the creation of the Elixir of Life, but that left me working backwards. In a way, I was like a university student who somehow enrolled in his senior thesis during his freshman year. If it wasn't for the bullsh*t of Inspiration propping me up, there was no way I'd have succeeded at all.

Perhaps the World Rune was sardonically correct; I was more of a baker than a true alchemist. I followed the recipe and relied on a crutch to arrive at the Elixir of Life, but the complex principles that leashed the fluctuations in mana to create the final product eluded my comprehension.

So, here I was, fiddling with alchemical circles and formulae for potions that did more than just heal. A potion of rejuvenation that could regrow limbs or organs was my first choice, one that did not have such a heavy material cost like the Elixir of Life but in exchange could only be used to replace a singular body part.

A potion which improved the five senses similar to Warwick's was my second, though I found that formula somewhat tricky due to the complex interactions in the brain. In the end, I could only make a brew that would enhance a specific sense depending on the ingredient used. A falcon's eye would grant improved vision, a rabbit's ear improved hearing, and so on. Still very useful, but not quite what I was looking for.

Inspiration was free. Understanding and application were far pricier commodities.

I rose and joined my mom for breakfast, a combination of jangjorim, kimchi, and rice. As it was Friday, lessons in Korean language and history were followed European history.

For Korean history, I was reading the biography of Admiral Yi Sunsin. Fascinating man and the true greatest admiral to ever live. f*ck Francis Drake. No, I wasn't biased. He really is just that much of a badass. European history was an overview of the decline of the Catholic Church throughout Western Europe. Most of my lessons were handled by me in a similar manner. I presented a book to Ms. Kosker and she approved it so long as the subject was vaguely in line with the syllabus.

After a dose of compulsory self-study, I took a break from the lab as mandated by my upcoming PR event. Or, as much of a break as I was willing to give myself.

The night prior, I'd given mom a shopping list of everything I'd need to bake six dozen palm-sized cookies. I'd be taking two types, dark chocolate chip with a dusting of cinnamon and a walnut-pecan mix.

I considered arriving with a basket of yakwa, traditional Korean cookies made of wheat flour and flavored with honey and ginger, but decided against it. I didn't think they would sell very well. They'd likely just be relegated to being gimmicks and conversation starters so I stuck with twists on American classics. Besides, yakwa was supposed to be fried; I could bake them, but they wouldn't taste quite the same and making anything less than the genuine article bugged me, even for something small like this.

Though I'd prefer to be in the lab, it was a good chance to take a breather from worrying myself sick over Leviathan while testing the World Rune and the results were… interesting.

The moment I thought about baking, countless recipes rushed into my head. They were like a swirling sandstorm that narrowed down to a few grains as I listed off the ingredients I had available. As I reached for the flour, the perfect way to make the dough brought itself to the forefront of my mind. Little tricks and quirks typically earned through decades of experience made themselves known to me. I knew precisely how much baking soda to use, the exact ratio of brown and white sugar, the ideal temperature of butter and cinnamon. Never once did I reach for a measuring cup or scale.

There was surprisingly no dissonance. I hadn't known the first thing about baking before Biscuit Delivery crashed into my soul, but merging with my soul apparently meant that the sum total knowledge of the culinary arts were mine now without the slightest discomfort, at least as a baker.

It was a strange feeling, even for me.

When I drew upon the experience of Champions, it was abundantly clear that their skills were not my own. I knew how Yi twisted his sword just so to parry a blow, but that didn't mean I could do it. I knew how Ahri smiled to make even the most hardheaded guardsman weak in the knees, but I definitely didn't have her superlative grace. Singed's knowledge was all there, but there was a level of detachment, as though I was reading his most intimate notes throughout years of doctoral study.

Eventually, I concluded that it was the difference between an aspect of the World Rune merged with my soul and the inspiration drawn from others.

Several hours later, I had three dozen of each flavor cooling on the table. Being the host of Inspiration must have rubbed off on me because I couldn't stop myself from experimenting a bit. Taking one chocolate chip cookie, I focused on flooding it with mana.

The results were simultaneously disappointing and promising.

Mana by itself did jack all; there was nothing to bind to, whether via alchemic transmutation or through a physical matrix. It just kind of settled in the cookie before dissipating into the air.

But then, that in itself was proof of untapped possibilities. If it could hold mana, it could hold spells. With a little effort, I felt that I could craft magic cookies much like magic potions. I'd need to come up with my own recipes, but the Biscuits of Everlasting Will seemed like good aspirational targets.

That was an experiment for another time, yet another branch of magic I wanted to explore someday. It may actually be my first original branch of magic, or at least not one that wasn't as heavily copied from preexisting foundations such as techmaturgy.

Washington-Lee High School was disappointingly average. I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I heard from Powell that it was one of if not the best school in Arlington, the city of course already being one of the most educated cities in the country. A part of me expected manicured lawns and a fountain like a prep school. In the end, a public school was a public school. It sucked no matter what rank it scored on standardized tests.

To be fair to WLHS, it had a hell of a backyard. Just southeast of the softball field was Quincy Park, bequeathed to the people of then Quincy City in 1919 by some old rich guy when he went belly-up. The school's track and cross country teams often ran around the park, probably because running around the track field for a dozen laps got boring real fast.

In order to not disturb the marching band rehearsing on the football field for the rally later tonight, someone had the bright idea to hold the bake sale at the park. With the addition of three Wards, it was already an event in its own right and holding it at the park would make drawing in lucky joggers easier.

I met the two senior Wards at the tables, Just-Ice and Brigadier.

Both were male and significantly older than me, though Brigadier was clearly in the tail end of high school while Just-Ice could be in anything from eight to tenth grade. They were talking to one Mrs. Andrews, the rail-thin PTA coordinator, while surreptitiously staring at the tables laden with sweets. The only reason I could tell who she was was thanks to the lanyard she wore around her neck.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Brigadier was dressed in a military dress uniform, though left intentionally ambiguous so as to not incite any accusations of stolen valor from overly sensitive idiots. The uniform was comprised of a navy-blue top with durable white pants and brass buttons. A white cap with a navy bill and his personal logo sat on his blonde head. Even his hair was cropped short to evoke the boot camp aesthetic.

Just-Ice wore a far more typical hero outfit, a white bodysuit with blue accents. His shoulders had the blue lining in irregular triangles to evoke icicles. His face was mostly covered by a visor instead of a mask, though I didn't know if it had any tinkertech. Maybe it was just meant to look like stylized ski goggles. I thought he looked a little like Frozone from the Incredibles, but that movie wouldn't come out for another four years in Earth-Aleph.

I could see why the two were chosen for this PR stunt. Washington-Lee High School's colors were blue and white and its team was the Generals.

"Here comes the last Ward," Brigadier pointed me out for Mrs. Andrews. He stepped up and offered me a firm handshake, back ramrod straight. "Hyunmu of the DC Team, right? It's good to meet someone from across the river."

I wondered how much of that military bearing was an act. Putting my question aside, I took his hand and shook it once as I bowed at the waist. "It is good to meet you, Brigadier. And you as well, Just-Ice. Your name is very funny," I responded in my typical faked accent. I held out a shopping bag full of cookies. "Mrs. Andrews, here are the cookies."

"Oh, sweetheart, you shouldn't have," she cooed, practically baby-talk. I could already tell it'd be a long two hours. She ushered the three of us to prominent places of honor behind the tables so everyone could get a chance to talk to us while browsing the wares. "Did your mom make them for you?"

"I enjoy baking."

"Aww, I'm sure she appreciated your help, sweetie." She then spoke to all of us. "Now, the cookies have numbered tags. The sheets in front of you have ingredient lists so you can talk about them to whoever comes by. Also remember to warn people about allergies."

I breathed out a sigh of relief when she walked off to make a nuisance of herself somewhere else and placed my two trays down in front of me, each tagged with the numbers I'd received in a previous email.

Curious, I began to read the sheets she handed out. One by one, I matched the goods on exhibit to the numbers and examined them to see if I could spot any really great examples of confectionary.

There was one particular gem, a riff on a classic pound cake made with marshmallow fluff and chocolate mixed into the center and graham cracker crumble for the crust. The s'mores theme was nice, but it was the mechanical perfection that caught my attention. Everything from the baking time to the temperature was as near to perfect as something made by mortal hands could get.

I hadn't expected to ever associate "mechanical perfection" with baked goods before, but here I was.

The World Rune was weird.

Sure enough, I looked through the directory Mrs. Andrews handed us and saw that it was the contribution of Bayou Bakery, a Louisiana-style café and bakery near my house. There was enough skill in that cake that I didn't think someone's stay at home mom made it.

The rest were about what I expected, decent enough but nothing worth mentioning. What did it say about me, I wondered, that I became a culinary snob with a single rune?

Still, some of the gimmicks were fun. I saw shortbreads shaped like the Founders, an éclair meant to look like the Washington Monument, and miniature king cakes for some reason. Guess someone missed out on Mardi Gras.

"Seriously, this is the twenty-first century! Who names a school after Robert Lee?" Just-Ice's question dragged me back from my impromptu bakery critique. "Just sayin'. That's wack."

Brigadier rolled his eyes, obviously not the first time he'd heard this particular refrain. "It's just a name, Ice. Deal."

"I'm dealin' but there's gotta be at least one famous dude whose last name starts with an 'L' and didn't own slaves."

"Luther comes to mind. I am told he is somewhat important to this country," I drawled sarcastically.

"See? The school can be Washington-Luther High School and they wouldn't even need to change the logo."

"Then they'd have to change the Generals. Washington and Lee were both famous generals."

"That's better than catering to a slave owner," the younger boy grumbled.

"What would their mascot be then?"

"Lady Liberty? They've got the whole patriotism thing going strong here."

"The Libertarians," I quipped. "They can say the school shouldn't fund buses then have an excuse for missing every game."

"Ooh, snap, lil' dude's got fangs."

"Hah, yeah, hopefully the Generals do better this season."

"Name's still wack."

I snatched two of my cookies and stuffed them in their mouths before the two could strike up their argument again. "No arguing. It is not seemly."

Brigadier choked down his cookie and brushed the crumbs from his jacket. "Ahem, yeah, he's right. Also, your mom's am awesome baker, Hyunmu."

"Seriously, can I get one more?"

"You may not. And I am the only one who bakes in my house."

"Wait, for real?"

"de Janeiro."

"What?"

"Ask silly questions, receive silly answers," I nodded as I dispensed to him the wisdom of the ancients.

"Heh. Rio de Janeiro," Brigadier chuckled.

"Yeah, I got that. Snarky pipsqueak."

"Only on Fridays. To answer your question, baking is like tinkering without the fancy tools. If you follow the steps, you will eventually arrive at something edible."

We didn't get to continue our back and forth because people started to arrive and browse the tables. One middle-aged man reached out for a cookie but I tossed the Ymelo into his hand instead.

"Do not touch the cookies," I told him in my most serious tone. It had all the gravitas as a wet puppy yapping at an elephant, but the strange accent and mask were enough to make him stop. I spoke as frigidly as I could. "If you wish to know more about the ingredients or have concerns about allergies, I would be happy to inform you, sir."

"Uh, right, sorry," he mumbled out before shuffling away.

"Pretty sure we're supposed to get them to buy stuff, not scare them away," Just-Ice snigg*red.

"Hush, you."

Still, he was right. Lacking any other ideas, I took a few cookies from each of my trays and broke them into pieces before laying them out on another plate. On an index card, I wrote, "Free samples: chocolate chip & cinnamon, walnut & pecan."

The next few hours passed in a dull haze of irritation interspersed with self-indulgence of my own cookies. I was fairly sure I'd eaten less than I sold, but who could say?

"If I get called 'sweetie' one more time, I am going to turn Mrs. Andrews into a squirrel," I grumbled.

"Can you actually?" Just-Ice asked.

"No turning people into woodland creatures," Brigadier drawled, insistent on being the adult in the room.

Soon after, we helped them pack up before I said my goodbyes to the VA Team. They were sticking around for the actual rally while I could skip out.

On my way back, I thought about how the event went. As expected, I received a lot more baby-talk than I was happy with, but there was no easy fix for that.

On the plus side, I got to learn about the different ways PRT managed its heroes' images. Metalmaru had told me that it was important to see the different styles so I could develop my own and I felt like I better understood what he meant. Brigadier and Just-Ice represented two very different paradigms even as they participated in the same event and interacted with the same group of people.

Brigadier was crisp and formal, military down to the core. He was polite but brisk, almost as though he was ready to snap to attention at any second. Accusations of child soldiers weren't as prominent at the moment and the dress uniform was a far cry from actual combat gear. Basically, he could get away with it because Miss Militia blazed that trail already.

Throughout the evening, I found out that he'd only joined as a Ward four months ago so even though he was the oldest on their team, he wasn't the leader, Megamix was. The PRT didn't want him to graduate until he had a better background in SOPs and other general knowledge.

He was a vigilante for a short while before joining the Wards, but some basic context told me those weren't fond memories. He wasn't an ass, but he definitely had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, especially towards his leader. In that sense, having a more rigid public persona likely helped him present a heroic image.

Just-Ice was the exact opposite. My earlier Frozone comparison was spot on. He was friendly and funny, in small doses. There were only so many ice related puns I could handle. Even here, his persona helped. He confided that he actually memorized a dozen different ice and cold puns and recycled them as appropriate. His young-ish age meant he could afford to be immature to appeal to his age group.

I typed up some notes, dos and don'ts of public relations that I'd learned from observing my seniors. Before I knew it, I was home.

I arrived home at seven but I was exhausted despite the early hour. It seemed that I was an introvert in this life as well; social interaction drained me faster than even full-throttle training regimens.

I gratefully ate a bowl of budae-jjigae prepared by my mom. The jjigae was something of a family specialty. It literally translated to "army stew" and was about the unhealthiest thing in common Korean cuisine. Still, my dad loved it when he was alive, saying it reminded him of his barrack days. Coast guard he might have been, but he went through basic like everyone else. The stew made mom and me feel nostalgic.

After another movie night with my old crew, I staggered into the shower and let myself get carried away by the hot water. Something about taking time off from endbringer prep coupled with the PR stunt and the stress of worrying about Hero almost knocked me clear out. I shook myself off and got out of the shower before I could really fall asleep standing up.

I froze, the towel still on my damp hair.

There was someone on my bed.

She had flawless pale skin and black hair that was somewhere between wavy and curly. It fell a bit past her shoulder, framing her naturally pretty face. Even with the Oracle's Elixir, I couldn't tell if she was wearing makeup at all. If I had to guess, I'd put her at around thirty years of age.

All of that was immaterial. The perfectly tailored black suit, white dress shirt, and black tie were far more noteworthy. But if the suit sent warning bells through my head, the fedora turned them into endbringer alarms in their intensity.

I stepped back into the bathroom and started to channel. 'Hexflash in. Minion Dematerializer to the head. No. This is Contessa. Center mass,' I thought. 'Blow all charges to either side. No chance to dodge. No, She'll dodge and shove a Q-tip up my nose before kicking my ass with a rolled up newspaper.'

Just as I got ready to make the attempt anyway, she turned my way. Our eyes met through the wall because of f*cking course they did. She shot me a cheeky smile and a wink before wagging a finger towards her.

Cautiously, I dressed and walked back to my room before settling against the far corner. I didn't want to notify mom. What was she going to do? Call the cops? She'd panic and making her panic was the worst thing I could do right now. But I also needed to give myself as much space as possible in case it came down to a fight. If it did, I'd flash out of there and hope for the best.

"Hyunmu," she spoke, the corner of her lips upturned in a confident smirk. Her voice was silky-smooth and perfectly conveyed her mood, or at least allowed people to draw whatever conclusion she wanted them to. In my case, she was almost playful, teasing and friendly with an undercurrent of sharpened steel. I felt like a rabbit being charmed to death by a swaying cobra. "Let's chat."

Author's Note

Jangjorim is a popular Korean banchan. It's eggs braised in soy sauce with different ingredients added depending on the house. My mom liked to braise chuck roast at the same time alongside onions, garlic, and ginger. It keeps very well in the fridge and like pizza, arguably better cold so the flavors have a chance to meld.

Seriously though, Admiral Yi is legit the greatest admiral no one's ever heard of. For real, Nasu did him dirty ignoring him. Like the f*ck? Bonnie and Clyde got a cameo but not this badass?

Shut up. I'm not salty.

Budae-jjigae is kimchi-jjigae with Spam, ramen, American cheese, sausages, ramen seasoning (Shin if you're being legit), and tteok, or Korean rice cake. It came out of the Korean War, partly when the US shipped literal tons of Spam to Korea in the name of humanitarian aid (getting rid of sh*t). Koreans had no f*cking clue what to do with it so… we just kind of dumped everything into a stew. And since it was most commonly made in barracks by combining the rations of the team, it came to be known as "army stew."

Seriously though, it's good sh*t. Super-unhealthy, but amazing. There are restaurants that specialize in just this in Korea and they're amazing places to get drunk in.

Heh. One of these days, he'll stop getting caught by surprise despite having 360 degree vision.

Or maybe not.

In his defense, it's Contessa.

I don't think I've ever ended an arc at this much of a cliffhanger before but needs must. See you in a month or two!

Nah, just playing. I was going to, but decided that this conversation really needed to happen to close off Ripples.

Chapter 47: 4.15.5 Eugene Lewis - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Interlude 4.15.5 Eugene Lewis

2000, September 15: New York, NY, USA

I walked through the Door and emerged on a rooftop overlooking the Big Apple skyline. Alexandria and Legend were already waiting for me. I took a moment to appreciate the wind on my face as the sun began to set.

"Alexandria, Legend," I greeted, suppressing the urge to call them by name. I always did have the most trouble separating the mask from the man beneath. "Dr. Manton's gone rogue then?"

"Yes," the gray-clad heroine said clinically. As chief director, Rebecca and I worked in the same city most of the time but to avoid any awkward questions, we typically arrived at any destination separately. "He had a psychotic break and stole two vials from Cauldron before fleeing. He has since been excluded from Doormaker's network."

Just then, Eidolon came through from a Door of his own. As usual, flight was one of the powers he'd arranged for himself.

"Let's get this over with," he said impatiently. "We all have better things to do."

"We should try to talk him down first," Legend tried. "He's a friend, not a criminal to be hunted down. We need to find him before he does anything regrettable. What caused this? Do we have any idea where he might be headed?"

Eidolon snorted. "Does it matter? We need those vials back. What was Contessa doing in all this?"

"Number Man thinks Dr. Manton's breakdown was caused at least in part by his messy divorce. He's had a strenuous relationship with his wife as she believed that his research cut into time spent with her and their daughter. He recently lost the custody hearing," Alexandria explained. "Contessa believes the doctor timed his betrayal for today. Her foresight is limited with the looming endbringer attack. It is also possible that she did not foresee this because his actions do not influence the Path in a meaningful way."

"Whatever, do we know where he is?"

"Yes, he is not beyond Clairvoyant's sight."

Legend took a step off the roof and began to hover. "Then that's where we're going. We'll try to calm him down. Get the vials back and see if we can get the man some help."

"Ever the optimist," Eidolon muttered, but allowed our friend to take the lead.

Alexandria and I followed. I adjusted my flightpack and brushed my hand against something that wasn't typically there: Hyunmu's Wayfinder.

I promised to keep it on my person so I stuck it in my utility belt, but I promptly forgot about it. He had no way of knowing of course, but while I appreciated the thought, a portal-gun was a completely redundant tool in my hands, especially with such a limited destination. Still, I figured it'd do the young man some good to be able to brag that he contributed to my kit, however minor.

In some small way, each of my former Wards had left their marks on my costume. Armsmaster helped me design the utility belt I was wearing for optimal ergonomics. Pyrotechnical helped me adjust my focusing array for my flightpack and Glace gave me the eureka moment I needed to better manage excess heat. Not every idea made it in to the final product, but there were enough tidbits that bled through that a small fingerprint of theirs remained.

Was this what parents felt when they hung macaroni art on the fridge?

Thinking about the littlest Ward was a poor distraction. His ambition and desire to help made me proud to call him a Ward, but that same jaded pragmatism that drove his work ethic made me wince with regret.

Cauldron was supposed to better the world, make sure that children like him wouldn't have to have eyes like that.

We were proving tonight that we couldn't even clean our own house. Were we really good stewards of the world?

We arrived before I could ruminate further.

Dr. Manton was smart enough to relocate. He'd taken his daughter from his ex-wife's flat and rented a room in an inconspicuous hotel, blending in among the thousands of visitors to the city.

The security was a joke so we had no trouble entering without alerting anyone. Half the video cameras weren't working and a literal child with a toy magnet could have picked the electronic lock.

When we entered, it was to find Dr. Manton cradling a monster.

She was vaguely feminine in shape, with bleached, bone-white fur that sprouted in patches all over her distorted form. The right half of her torso had merged with the corresponding arm, forming a mouth that stretched from her hip to her breast, jagged teeth and drool running down matted fur. The left half of her body, from her sternum to the crown of her head, had also fused, like a soda can crunched into a disc. A drooping, cat-like eye glared outward. Black growths of stone, similar in appearance to basalt, clung to her torso like an unwieldy mockery of a tiger's stripes.

"Abby," the doctor moaned. "Abby…"

The… thing groaned, a half growl and wheezing whimper.

"Oh my God," I heard Legend whisper.

His daughter. We knew her. Dr. Manton had been the proudest man I'd ever seen when he showed off a photo of her years ago. She was holding a trophy then, from her eighth grade science fair, with the good doctor's arm draped over her lovingly. She wasn't a genius like the doctor and the project was nothing special, just a hamster-wheel attached to a digital clock, but that didn't matter to him. The smile he wore nearly split his face open from joy; his daughter was taking after him, he'd bragged.

We'd all happily put up with the man's doting antics then.

As the years passed and his marriage started to fail, he'd gotten even worse, devoting all his attention on his daughter rather than a wife who didn't love him anymore.

Last I saw, Abby had grown to be a beautiful young woman of seventeen, with waist-length, dark-brown tresses. She took after her father, his full lips and strong brow. He was the sort of father who fretted over every little thing, anything for his baby girl. I remembered the doctor going out of his way to look for high quality nail polish because she liked to wear her nails long.

Funny what one remembers in moments of crisis.

She looked nothing like him now.

"Doctor, what have you done?" I heard Alexandria whisper, a rare moment of shock for her.

"It was supposed to work…" he mumbled. I didn't think he even knew we were here. "The research… been a hero… better than her… show her…"

"Doctor," Legend tried. He placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "William, it's me. Keith."

"Abby…"

His daughter moaned in piteous agony, halfway between a whimper and a growl; none of her organs were where they were meant to be and the Agent clearly wasn't compensating.

"Wil-"

Dr. Manton whirled, slapping Legend's hand away. "You!" he shouted. He grabbed my friend by the collar and shook him. "Fix this! Fix her!"

"William, I-"

"Fix her!" he wailed. "Bring her back! Abby!"

Tears and snot streamed down the broken man's face as he continued to shake Legend. His eyes were glassy, so wracked with grief that he wasn't seeing anything. For all his shouting, he wasn't truly registering my friend in front of him. Legend for his part knelt there, taking the man's bawling with tears in his own eyes.

That was the difference between Keith and I. He always was the most empathetic of us. I could be nice. I could be fun. But it was one thing to be with someone in the good times and a whole different matter to weep with them. Keith was always able to do that, to break his heart for what broke theirs in a completely sincere way. It was what made him the best choice as head of the Protectorate.

Alexandria floated towards them and separated the two. "I'm sorry, doctor. There is nothing we can do."

Dr. Manton hit her. His fists pounded against her chest even as she held him firmly by the shoulders. He bawled and swung as hard as he could until his fists began to bruise and bleed but Alexandria remained unmoved.

"Fix her…" he moaned, "please… Abby… I'm so sorry. Dad's so, so sorry."

He collapsed to his knees and held Alexandria's costume as he wept. The man had truly lost everything.

Eidolon and I… We stood there. A wave of shame flushed through me. I'd never been good at consoling others. Play with the Wards? Give them a childhood? I could do that. Tell a mother her son died fighting Behemoth? That was beyond me.

Still, I swallowed thickly and stepped into the room.

"Doctor," I started. I had no idea what to say. My throat was dry. Words just wouldn't form. A thousand platitudes ran through my mind and every last one rang hollow.

What could I say? The world knew me as the tinker who could make anything, the man with a nifty gadget for every problem, the answer to every question. Then why was it that I kept drawing blanks when I most needed a miracle?

"…all your fault…" I heard him whisper. It sounded like he'd finally begun to register who we were. "Cauldron…"

"Doctor," Alexandria began. "William-"

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Your fault… It's all Cauldron's fault…"

"We need to move Abby." She turned to do just that. Gently but firmly, she pried the doctor's fingers from her costume and lifted Abby into her arms. "Door, Cauldron HQ."

The all too familiar portal appeared against the wall.

"No, you can't take her!" He grasped at her cape and pulled desperately, a feather straining against a hurricane.

"If there is any hope of stabilizing her, we need to get her to Contessa."

"Contessa, yes. She has the Path. She saw this! She could have stopped it!" I saw his grief turn to unbridled rage, the kind of white, all-consuming fury that blinded the brightest of men. "This is her fault! You can't have her! You can't take Abby!"

His flailing became desperate before some shred of his normal brilliance entered his eyes. He let go of Alexandria's cape and reached into a coat pocket, withdrawing a familiar vial.

"Abby, daddy will protect you," he promised no one.

He brought the vial to his lips.

"Alex!" I shouted, too late as the doctor collapsed to his knees.

"Aaaaahhhhh!" he screamed out in agony as the Agent reached out.

Then, the world became a kaleidoscope of stars.

A waltz of constellations filled my vision as two entities swam through the cosmic sea. They were hauntingly beautiful. Seeing them again was almost a religious experience, albeit an omen of Armageddon.

The four of us had hit the ground without realizing.

I staggered to my knees and readied my blaster. I felt for the man but quashed my emotions and locked them in a box for later. There was no telling what his power would be. Would he mutate like Abby? Be driven insane as the Agent capitalized on his instability? Or would it stabilize his mind like mine restored my body?

I didn't know and so I waited, praying for the best but prepared for the worst.

"All your fault," I heard him mutter under his breath and my heart sank.

The rest of us were still down, clutching their heads to banish the trigger-vision. Still on my knees, I reached out a hand towards him. "Doctor, can you hear me? It's Eugene."

"You took Abby from me!"

He let out a wordless shout and lunged for me.

I tossed myself backwards and upwards, engaging my flightpack with the UI over my eyes. I had no idea what kind of power he received. A striker ability could kill me dead before I had a chance to reason with him.

"Doctor! Get yourself together," I yelled, trying to reason with him. In the back of my mind, I scolded myself. Screaming at a man undergoing a mental break probably wasn't the right way to handle this, but I had no f*cking clue what I was doing.

My blaster snapped to my hand and I readied the stun setting.

"Shut up! Bring Abby back!"

"Please, we have to get her help," I tried to reason with him but it was futile.

Then, something appeared in front of him. It was like a monochrome Abby, a nude young woman clad only in black and white stripes. She jumped, running along the air as if it were solid ground.

I fired before I consciously registered the master projection. I was on target, perfect center mass, but the stunning bolt splashed off her sternum harmlessly. Desperately, I tried to maneuver in the cramped hotel room. It was only the flight assist system that kept me alive through the fog of the trigger-vision.

A hail of lasers from Legend similarly splashed against her without doing any damage.

"William, you've got to turn it off," he pleaded. "We want to help you!"

"Shut up! This is all Cauldron's fault! I never should have joined. I'll end it all!"

"Enough," Eidolon declared. A sphere of black that visibly distorted the space around it collided with the zebra-striped projection, popping both out of existence. "This has gone on long enough."

He was about to say something else, but the projection was back and looming behind him. The doctor didn't need to summon it directly in front of him.

"Behi-"

I tried to warn him but I wasn't fast enough. Not-Abby's nails were sharpened into claws and already lunging for my friend's back.

Then, a gray blur shoved Eidolon out of the way.

"Ahhh!" The strongest brute collapsed to the floor shrieking in agony as rivets of red ran down her cheek.

Dr. Manton's projection had gouged out Alexandria's eye. Somehow. A woman who regularly wrestled endbringers suddenly found herself on the back foot. It caught everyone by surprise, so much so that the projection paused in confusion. Not even the doctor had expected this. The implications were massive. Legend was by our downed teammate's side in a flash.

Eidolon wasted no time in taking the obvious route. A nearby lamp tore itself form the wall and streaked towards the doctor. When in doubt, take out the master.

The projection whirled and popped like a soap bubble before teleporting to the doctor, shielding him with her body. She then grabbed the bedframe and swung it like a club, ripping through the hotel walls with contemptuous ease. I noted belatedly that she could grant her durability, likely by touch. The doctor jumped onto the bed and they were making their escape out the window.

Seeing no other choice, I flew after them and holstered my handheld blaster before equipping the cannon I used every endbringer fight. Things had escalated enough and I couldn't imagine the damage the doctor could cause with a power like that. Behind me, I could see Eidolon give chase.

He soon caught up with me.

"Where's Manton?" he spoke, voice carried by the miniature comms unit installed into each of our outfits.

"He took a corner there," I pointed. "What are you using?"

"General gravity, black hole, and telekinesis, thought they'd be versatile enough," he grunted, voice tinged with frustration. "It'll take a few minutes to swap one out."

We flew after the doctor. Down below, I could see people start to take notice. Eidolon and I were easily identifiable, though I didn't know how well they could see Dr. Manton with the bedframe in the way.

"We're drawing too much attention," I told him. "We need to end this, fast."

"I know."

Just ahead, I saw the doctor and his projection race into the sky. He made sure to run towards the setting sun, making him harder for Eidolon to aim at. My mask's scanning software compensated for the excessive glare and I fired off a shot towards the projection. My disintegration ray should be strong enough to pop the projection; it drew energy from different dimensions and fired a hyper-dense wave along photon channels. Its output wasn't too far off Eidolon's best.

Should. It didn't.

My trademark golden laser lanced out but Not-Abby slashed it apart with a wave of her hand as if it were a solid object.

"Thought you wanted to end it fast?" my green-clad teammate snarked. "Doesn't that thing go any higher?"

"It's at what I use for endbringers."

"sh*t. Run distraction? I can pop it, but the black hole is slow."

"Got it."

With a bit of effort, I managed to outpace them and circled around to cut off their escape. I didn't know if Not-Abby could run faster, she seemed to selectively ignore physics at will, but she shouldn't be able to influence her master directly, which meant he was still feeling the inertia of flight.

A Manton limit, coined by the very man I needed to stop.

I toned down my cannon's power in favor of volume and let loose a salvo of stunning bolts towards the pair. I hoped that like most masters, the projection would take care of itself if the master was unconscious. So long as I could tag the doctor, the power wasn't relevant.

A moment later, the sky was flooded with blue-white lasers that covered the clouds. Clearly, Legend was done looking after Alexandria. I hoped that meant good news.

The lasers fell like rain, forcing the doctor to descend. Just when I thought he wouldn't be able to avoid or block them all, his projection dropped the bed.

He began to fall but before he could get far, she tore the bedsheet from the bedframe and swirled it around the doctor, hiding him from view. I never thought I would see the day the Founders were stymied by a bedsheet, but here we were. Legend and my lasers bounced off and she carried the cocooned doctor through a building wall, disappearing into a skyscraper.

The doctor knew our abilities. Seeing that he couldn't outfly us, he was choosing to hide from my friend's superhuman vision. How willing he was to put bystanders at risk remained to be seen.

I descended into the Abby-sized hole. She'd left a clear path of destruction into the heart of the building but had been smart enough to make detours and winding turns, making sure to avoid line of sight and forcing us to slow.

The three of us followed her into what had been an office kitchenette to find a person missing an arm. Legend stayed behind, his power much less useful in close quarters. Six floors and the odd corpse later, we'd lost them.

Not for the first time, I lambasted myself for prioritizing offense over utility. My scanners were designed to make me superhumanly accurate, an "aim-bot" that tracked the disturbances in wavelengths caused by objects as they moved through the atmosphere. It was designed for use in the open to track Leviathan. A much smaller target in the building wasn't ideal.

"Anything?" Eidolon asked.

"No, either there're too many obstacles in the building or she's somehow made herself invisible to my scanner," I said bitterly. I had an anti-personnel scanner back at the lab, too! It was a collaboration project between me and Bluesong that used a combination of infrared and sonic vibrations to trace a person no matter the distance. I just never considered that the good doctor would lose his sh*t like this.

"Sixteen seconds until my power swaps out. I think I found one that lets me focus on heartbeats."

I nodded. It'd help, but who knew how many people there were in the building? That was the big problem with Eidolon. His Agent seemingly had access to every power, but he couldn't just pick and choose what he wanted. He likened it to trying to guide a drunk elephant. Doable, but precision wasn't exactly an option.

Before we could propose a solution, I felt my body grow cold. The world began to teeter and say as I tried to right myself.

"Hero!" I heard Eidolon shout. He reached out for something behind me.

I felt myself go slack. Looking down, I saw a pale hand emerging from my stomach. Turning, I saw her. Abby's deep brown eyes were a sinister yellow. With a predatory grin, she slashed her hand to the side, tearing out through the left side of my torso.

'Are those what my ribs look like?' I found myself thinking nonsense. My arms twitched, trying to bring my cannon to bear with strength I no longer had.

Then the pain came. If the shock was cold, the wave of burning agony brought my mind back into focus. I heard Eidolon shout something but I couldn't make sense of it one way or the other.

'He can't attack because of me.' I had time to realize that and commanded my legs to move but my spine was rent to shreds.

"Fire," I mouthed with what faculties I could control.

My eyes were fluttering, the pain too much to ignore. I still managed to engage my flightpack to its maximum output with the visor's UI, launching myself forward and off her hand. Belatedly, I felt my left arm go numb and realized that she as holding me by the shoulder as well.

'I'm going to die,' I thought. 'It's cold… Cauldron… There was so much to do…'

My vision faded to black. Then there was a flash, a halo of pale white light that beckoned me home.

Author's Note

I actually wrote this interlude at the same time as 4.8.5 but decided to publish them separately. One reason was that it was getting long. The other because I felt like having Eugene's perspective earlier on would be good for the story.

So, we know very little about the Siberian Incident. We know that Dr. Manton stole two vials, gave one to his daughter, then drank the other when her trigger failed horribly. Though we don't know conclusively if she survived or not, suffice to say she didn't make it. I glossed over the incident in the Inspired Inventor omakes, but I figured it deserved a more flushed out sequence of events here.

We also know nothing about his daughter so I made up a lot of things. Most of it is based on descriptions of the Siberian, assuming that she is of course a proportional analog rather than his idealized image of her. The Siberian has waist-length hair and long nails and appears to be a young woman at most in her early twenties. I settled on Abby/Abigail as a name… just because, really. I like the name, had a friend named Abby.

Fun fact: Elephants can get drunk. They sometimes seek out fermented/rotting marula fruits. Scientists claimed in 2006 that they can't get drunk from this because the amount of ethanol is too small compared to an elephant's mass, but this might not be true. Humans are somewhat unique in that we process ethanol very quickly. Elephants do not. It's very possible that eating enough overripe marula fruit can give an elephant a buzz.

No one's quite sure about the amount, but I choose to believe that alcoholic elephants are a thing that naturally occurs in the wild.

This has been Fabled Web's animal facts.

I agree that the conclusion was rather anti-climactic, but that was kind of the point. No dramatics, just a reasonably competent villain who plays to her strengths.

Chapter 48: 4.16 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Ripples 4.16

2000, September 15: Arlington, VA, USA

I stood in the corner of my room like a scared puppy as the Boogeyman of Earth-Bet sat on my bed like she owned it. It was my first time seeing the legendary thinker in the flesh and I was… disappointed?

Truth be told, I wasn't sure what I was expecting. She was beautiful, but not in the same way movie stars and K-pop idols were. She was the kind of pretty that could fade into the crowd, be one part of an appealing background.

I didn't doubt that it was an image she cultivated meticulously. Easy enough to overlook, but oh so dangerous once you knew what you were looking at.

Then, as if to challenge those very thoughts, she stretched like a cat and lounged back against my favorite pillow as if to say, "It's my pillow now and there's nothing you can do about it." It wasn't exactly a subtle power play, but she was clearly done being subtle.

I scowled at her, my irritation overriding my survival instincts for a moment. It gave me the presence of mind to at least stand up straight. If I was about to die, I may as well die staring her down.

"Oh, quit the melodramatics, Hyunmu," she drawled. "Or, do you prefer Andy? Yusung?"

"Yusung," I replied.

She nodded magnanimously, like a queen deigning to learn the name of a useful servant.

I took a deep breath. 'Focus,' I chided myself. 'Think. Why is she here? What does she want?'

She smiled at me, an almost playful smile, as if to tell me that I could take my time.

Just our brief interaction thus far told me much about her and my current predicament.

I was helpless. It was a sobering realization, but it was true. There was no way around it and deluding myself wouldn't help now. If she wanted me dead, I would be dead. If she wanted me chained to a lab in some undisclosed alternate earth, I would be.

'But you're not,' a voice inside whispered.

And that was the rub. She didn't want either of those things for me. If she did, she would have no reason to visit me like this. She could just as easily have taken me in my most vulnerable moment and that'd have been that. The fact that she was willing to have a conversation with me at all proved that she wanted something more.

Contessa nodded subtly, that same maddening smile dancing on her lips.

'She can read me like an open book. Is this because the Path is fully focused on me?'

No, the exact details didn't matter. Putting on airs would do me no good here. The time for false bravado and delusions of grandeur was long behind me. The fact that she was here and I was free implied she meant what she said: She wanted to talk.

And that… that meant something big had happened.

I knew since the lawsuit against Rubedo's healing potions that I was on Cauldron's radar. Me moving out here meant I'd be at the heart of their power. I'd made peace with that. I knew I was being used and seeing how we had the same ultimate goal, I went with the flow, using them in turn.

But now, she'd chosen to strip the curtains bare.

Something massive had changed, big enough that the Path no longer called for granting me the illusion of freedom. Big enough to warrant this conversation.

Realization struck me like a bolt from the blue. Perhaps, my situation wasn't as hopeless as I'd assumed… Perhaps, I wasn't completely helpless here…

"Hero," we spoke in the same breath.

She removed her fedora and twirled it on a finger in lazy arcs. "And now we are at the crux of the matter. Hero is alive, currently doing his best impression of the world's most awkward goldfish."

Despite my current predicament, hearing of his survival was a weight off my shoulders. "That's good."

"Indeed."

"You're welcome," I said as the details of our dynamic solidified in my mind. "He's really important, you know."

"I know. Although the question remains: How do you know?"

"Limited precognition. I had a vision of what might happen without my intervention."

"We'll have to talk about that."

"Vaguely depreciating value," I shrugged. "The dream was a one-time thing. Information about someone's powers is likely to be consistent, but events are already changing."

"You changed things by making sure Hero survives."

"You're welcome. Seriously, I don't think you understand how important he is."

"Enlighten me. Just how much do you know?"

"Rebecca. Keith. David. Kurt. Eva." I pointed at her. "Fortuna."

"You don't know Hero's name?"

"No. The vision was more like reading a book or watching a play. I know a lot, but not everything."

"Thank you. That clears up quite a bit."

I sighed. "Is this the part where you torture me for information?"

"That depends." She tossed her hat with a flick of her wrist. It flew in a perfect arc and alighted gently on my head. "That depends on you, Yusung. You know what Cauldron stands for."

"I do."

"You represent a tricky new player, an unforeseen variable. So, what do you stand for?"

I said the first thing that came to mind. "Inspiration." At her puzzled glance, one I wasn't sure was true, I continued. "I stand for Inspiration. It's the closest thing to a name you'll find regarding my power. I want to create, to better the world. And yes, to kill Scion. Or Zion. Or the Warrior. Whichever name you prefer."

"We have the same goal."

"We do."

We stared each other down, Contessa and I. It wasn't awkward; awkward wasn't the right word. Nor was the atmosphere quite as threatening as before.

In a way, this was my worst nightmare. There was a reason she was called the boogeyman and a visit from her usually meant you weren't waking up tomorrow. But, the worst had not happened. I wasn't a rabbit about to be devoured by a cobra. We weren't equals here, I had no delusions about that, but nor was our dynamic completely one-sided.

I had something more valuable than any singular nugget of information: I'd proven I could refine the Path, bypass restrictions imposed upon her by Eden. In my own limited way, saving Hero proved I could contest a god and that made me valuable. That made my agency valuable.

With that in mind, I spoke.

"You're short-sighted," I began cautiously. "It's not your fault, but you think killing Scion will save humanity. You think that if the Warrior vanishes, we can rebuild, no matter how bad the damage, no matter how many earths are lost. So long as some spark of humanity remains, we can rise anew."

"Oh?" it was a single syllable, but there was danger there, a warning. I'd effectively told her that her entire life was meaningless. Path or no, there was no way she wouldn't be offended.

"It's not your fault," I repeated, "you're working off incomplete information."

"Enlighten me."

"The Shards, the fragments of entities you call Agents, do you know what they want? What the purpose of the Cycle truly is? Why they visited and extinguished so many worlds, so many species?"

"No, only that the Cycle will culminate in the end of humanity," she admitted.

"Immortality. You can laugh, but that's what it boils down to in the end. It sounds like a bad fantasy novel, but at the end of the day, the entities are no different than some medieval alchemist who couldn't tell the ass end of a fish. They want immortality.

"Somewhere along the line, they discovered that the universe will end. Not this dimension, all dimensions as they know it. No transfer of energy is truly perfect, some will always be lost into the surroundings. And eventually, all energy in the universe will just… cool down… and the universe will end. Geeks like me call it the heat death. The entities seek to solve that, to exist forever.

"That's it. That's all they want, to exist. And in turn, to grow infinitely as they devour countless worlds and each other. Funny, isn't it?"

"And you think killing the Warrior will not end the Cycle." She reached the logical conclusion. "There is a third entity."

I shrugged. "Kind of? But not really the issue. The problem is that the Cycle is like a boulder rolling down the hill. You can kill the idiots who shoved it, but the boulder's still going to crash."

"How do we end the Cycle?"

"We kill the Warrior, then the Thinker's exigency condition. She'll emerge as an endbringer called the Simurgh, a naked woman with many wings. At the start, she'll just be another endbringer, though one with a focus on thinker, master, and tinker powers. If you kill Scion, you'll put her in charge of the Shard network. She'll then activate contingencies, trying to gather as much data via human suffering until another entity can arrive and end the Cycle, resulting in the destruction of humanity. More importantly, killing Scion will damage the network, enabling broken triggers."

"Broken triggers?"

"Yeah, they're… They're what happens when a Shard takes over the parahuman completely. They lack a Manton limit because they're no longer human. The Shard has no interest in keeping the parahuman alive or limiting its power. And, if a broken trigger happens to also be the second trigger, they become titans, pseudo-endbringers that stand as tall as skyscrapers.

"My point… My point is that the Path can only take you so far." I sighed. I really didn't want to be the one who told the strongest thinker in the world she wasn't smart enough, but… I was literally the only person who could, the only person who had a shot at averting the sh*tstorm that was Ward. "There are too many blindspots. Endbringers. Eidolon. Triggers. Metaphysics…"

"You."

That brought me up short. "Me?"

"Yes. And no. You exist on the Path. And yet, you act outside of it with knowledge that should be impossible. Every time I see you on the Path, you become more powerful. Your creations seem to have fewer limits. I can see you, but not the source of your power."

'She can't see the World Rune,' I realized. She could see me, but not Inspiration. It made sense in hindsight. If an infinite source of mana wasn't metaphysical nonsense, what was?

"Why tell me this?"

She shrugged. "Consider it my 'thank you' for saving Hero. I told you; I want to talk. Lay our cards on the table. What you've told me so far. It's only proven the Path right."

"And what's the Path you're running now?"

"Path to making Yusung trust and cooperate with me."

"That's… That's f*cked." I let out a frustrated sigh.

The Path was, infuriatingly, correct. I'd trust her a lot less if she fed me some bullsh*t and it'd clearly decided that the easiest way to take advantage of my psychological profile was to speak truthfully. Reciprocity: Truth for truth. That she was running a Path just to soothe my insecurities annoyed me like nothing else, but that she was honest about her manipulations actually helped put my mind at ease.

I could second guess her motives. She could be lying. But… But that way laid madness. I'd get nothing for my paranoia except an ever-deepening spiral of fear and desperation.

Contessa, everything she did, from the way she dressed to the way she lounged on my favorite pillow, said and did just enough, just enough to allow me to slowly unclench my fist. It wasn't enough, not fully, but it was a start. Knowing I had nothing else, leaving me no choice but to accept her outstretched hand in friendship, I was made to let go of my paranoia.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

In a single sentence, she'd thoroughly checkmated me.

"f*cking thinkers," I cursed.

"Oh? Are you any different, Mister 'I want to kill God?'" she asked with a teasing lilt.

"It's not as fun when it happens to me."

"I wouldn't know."

"Bitch."

"Brat."

We shared a moment of solidarity and no matter how manufactured, it gave me the chance to take a breath.

"So what now?"

"Now you tell me everything, starting with how we can kill Scion."

"We can't," I admitted freely, "not as we are."

"But you know how."

"I do. Scion is just a piñata. You pop the human-sized balloon and it'll create a portal to the Warrior's real body, a body the size of a planet. You need to blow that to kingdom come."

"And who can pop the piñata?"

I held out a hand and started to tick my fingers down. "Sting. Stilling. High Priest. Harvest assuming she has the right powers. Inspiration."

"They are?"

"Sting hasn't been distributed yet. It's a Shard that entities use in combat against one another. Stilling is what I call Hero's Shard. It was Eden's equivalent to Scion's golden beams. High Priest is Eidolon's Shard. Harvest is Glaistig Uaine. Inspiration… is me."

"So you've said. You can kill Scion?"

"No, not right now. Later, in the same way that Hero might one day have the potential to kill Scion."

"What do you need?"

"Not a clue. I'll let you know when I get there. You said Hero's alive, right?"

She nodded, going with the change in topic. "Yes. Alexandria lost an eye. Manton escaped by bisecting Hero. Was that supposed to happen?"

"Yeah. Hero was supposed to die without me, but yeah. What exactly happened to his daughter?"

"Abby. You don't have her name. She expired during the fighting."

"That's…" I wished I could say I cared, but… I didn't, not really. The Siberian was an avatar of his daughter. I knew that in my head but his daughter wasn't really a person to me as much as she was some nebulous plot point. Insignificant. Irrelevant.

"You don't care. And it bothers you that you don't care."

"Can you stop Pathing me? You won. I'm on your side," I scowled.

And, surprisingly, she did. Or, I thought she did.

She flopped back to the bed and placed her hands behind her head, the picture of relaxation. For once, she didn't seem to mind that her perfectly tailored suit was getting wrinkled. It was the first crease that seemed out of place on her otherwise immaculate outfit. It was a small thing, ultimately meaningless, but the impeccable poise and control I'd begun to associate with her was gone. She wasn't Contessa, but Fortuna.

Or she was once again Pathing the best way to put me at ease.

'No,' I told myself, 'no more senseless spirals.'

"Don't you have a million better things to do than relax on my bed?"

"They'll keep going without me for another two hours and thirteen minutes," she said with the kind of smug surety only found in thinkers. "It's nice, you know, to shut it off, to be Fortuna again, to talk without the Path guiding me."

"But it is guiding you."

"Perhaps. We're still in the car, but I've taken my hands off the steering wheel. It'll follow the road for now. That's as much as you're going to get from me I'm afraid."

Sighing, I acquiesced. "Fine. Whatever. Do you crash Eva's bed when you want to relax or am I just lucky?"

"I don't relax, especially not around her. I respect her about as much as I respect me, really. Which is to say, not at all. I know we're monsters, Yusung. Your paranoia wasn't misplaced. I know too much of what the doctor's done to respect her. Alexandria too."

"Not the rest?"

"Number Man needs no explanations. Eidolon is a single-minded hero, for good and for ill. Hero and Legend… They are Cauldron's moral conscience, our heart."

"Then why do you keep insisting on ignoring their misgivings? Why hide so much from them?"

"Why do you?" she scoffed, throwing the question back at me. "You know the answer to that. Sometimes, you have to put aside what the heart wants for the greater good. Keith and Eugene, they're not soft, the opposite, really. Too hard in some ways. Too principled."

I raised a single brow. "Eugene?"

"What did you think his name was?"

"If I had to guess? Arthur. Maybe Clark."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Not important. That's hardly the only thing I didn't know. I feel like I know enough to know I don't know anything, you know?" I processed what I said and laughed. "sh*t. Can barely talk."

"You think you're the only one who feels like a Dunning-Kruger stereotype? Join the club."

"Club Sisyphus?"

"That implies we did anything to deserve it."

"Fair."

We shared a quiet chuckle. I never thought I'd ever relate to Fortuna of all people, but the end of the world made for strange bedfellows. I spun my swivel chair around so the back faced her and sat, leaning forward against the backrest.

"Thank you," I said. I was surprised to find that I was sincere. The chance to lay everything bare was worth more than I thought I knew. "Thank you for arranging this."

"I needed this too. Not just because you can seemingly refine the Path. It's… good to be Fortuna again." She looked at me intently. "Will you help me?"

"Join Cauldron?"

"Yes. Tell me all you know so I can better refine the Path. In exchange, I will provide you with more opportunities to grow. You'll have a say in the running of this world."

It was tempting. More importantly, there was only ever one answer. "Yes. But-"

"I never placed your mother at risk, Yusung."

"Not the point."

"You know that she'll never stop worrying for you. I'm told that's what mothers do."

"You'll actively keep her away from threats and protect her to the best of your ability."

"She can't be my priority."

"That's not what I said."

"Very well. She will be a consideration on the Path. She will not be the only consideration, but I will endeavor to keep her safe."

"Then yes, I will join you. But your question, it was the wrong one."

"Oh?"

"You asked if I could kill Scion. That's far-reaching. Too far in fact."

"And what is the right question?"

"Your Path is muddled. That's why Hero died and you couldn't prevent it, right?"

She nodded. I saw her eyes widen. "You know where Leviathan will be."

"Tomorrow." I glanced at the clock and corrected myself. "Today. Leviathan hits Naples, Italy. I wasn't sure about the date, but I know it's the day after Hero's death."

"Can we kill it?" she asked, all business again. Contessa was back.

"No. And until we can, we shouldn't even try. Cornering an endbringer just makes it stop sandbagging. Focus on minimizing loss of life because all the damage you do to it is superficial. You can behead it and it won't matter."

"So what will?"

"The core. An endbringer is a puppet made of layered crystals that get denser towards the core. If you can breach the layers and hit the core, it will destabilize, turning into a bomb that can wipe out a mid-sized country. Until you can do that and take the collateral damage elsewhere, it's not worth even trying."

"Then we let this one go."

"It sucks, but yeah. The next big event I know about happens sometime in January next year. A man named Jamie Rinke will trigger, becoming the greatest biokinetic alive."

I proceeded to tell her about Ellisburg. I told her about how he enacted the plot of a horror movie over the course of a week before killing all three thousand people in a single day of hostile takeover. I told her about his creations to the best of my knowledge. Lastly, I told her how he would trigger after being fired from his job at a bank.

"Nilbog, that's his cape name, ultimately turns Ellisburg into his personal kingdom and the PRT quarantines the whole place, fences and everything. As long as he's left alone, he's pretty much happy to remain in his own fantasy world. You let him live in the hopes of having more cannon fodder for the final battle," I finished.

"And?"

"And what?"

"And was he useful in the final battle?"

I thought about it. Khepri had mastered trillions of people across countless worlds. Ellisburg had a population of three thousand, give or take a few hundred. "Not really. You're talking about little goblins with bone spears and acid against Scion. He was a distraction, but only in the sense that his army was a novelty, nothing more."

"So why are you telling me this? Do you want me to keep him from triggering?"

"If I said yes, would you? Like I said, the only reason he triggered was because he lacked the support structure after he got fired from his job. Keeping the bank solvent enough to not need to lay people off would probably take the Number Man what? Five minutes? If that? He could save three thousand lives with minimal effort."

"You're testing my willingness to offer you concessions."

"Partially. I also want to know how the Path changes if I offer you actionable intel like this. As much as I want to say you should save Ellisburg, I'm not crazy enough to think they outweigh all of Earth-Bet. In the end, I'm not going to ask you to devote the Path to Victory to getting Rinke some friends if there are better ways it can be used."

"If he was able to distract Scion, even for a millisecond, I'm not willing to prevent his trigger. You may have knowledge on how Scion can be killed, but I will not gamble everything on you."

I sighed. It was pointless to argue. Worse, she was right. Were I in her shoes, I doubt I'd think any differently. Was I already falling down Cauldron's slippery slope? Would I sacrifice three thousand people to buy a single second against Scion?

Yes. Yes, I would. It wasn't even a question. If it came down to it, three thousand was nothing. But the truth of my own callousness disquieted me further.

I looked around for anything to distract me and saw the clock again. We'd been talking for a while and it was now past midnight.

'I could use the snack.' I just wanted something to chew on while I mulled things over.

Shrugging, I popped a Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will into my hand. If it could provide me "everlasting will," would it give me the resolve needed to make terrible sacrifices?

No, I knew the answer to that. The biscuits were powerful creations of magic, but they didn't harden your resolve. They just gave you the daily sustenance needed to carry on. And tasted amazing. That was important too.

Then I saw Contessa move.

She withdrew two somethings from her suit pocket and tossed them with inhuman precision. One bounced against the wall, off the ceiling fan just so, and down the back of my shirt.

I realized then that she threw two rubber balls.

Startling a little, I fumbled for the ball in my shirt and accidentally tossed the biscuit into the air. The second ball, tossed with an impossibly precise spin and bounced off the desk and closet, knocked the biscuit by the edge and back towards her.

Dainty fingers caught the biscuit like a miniature Frisbee.

"Mmm, always wanted to try one of these. Pistachio and wildflower honey. Delicious," she said with that infuriatingly smug smirk. "More."

"I only have three per day."

"One for you, one for your mother, and one for me. Perfect."

"Oh, f*ck off," I grumbled. Still, I made my second biscuit and shoved it into my mouth before the bitch could decide she wanted that one too.

"You'll have to tell me just what the limits of your power are one day."

"Not today."

"Not today," she agreed easily, dropping not a single crumb onto my sheets. And then, the moment of levity was gone. "Let's compromise, Yusung. You don't want to become a second Doctor Mother, and rightly so. There are plenty of people in Cauldron who have no trouble making hard decisions, who have cast their morality by the wayside. I'm one of them. So, don't. Don't become another me. You know much. How can you use what you know to save lives while improving our chances against Scion?"

I chewed my delicious treat for a long moment. 'Rinke could trigger, but he is one of the greatest biokinetics in the setting. Is using him as cannon fodder against Scion really the best we can do? No… That's not right. Rinke could make goblins in the shape of Eden just like Leet did. There's no reason why we can't play on Scion's neuroses and that wouldn't require Ellisburg being written off.'

And then I had it. Amy manipulated Taylor's Shard, "jailbroke" it until Queen Administrator took over. 'Could… Could Nilbog do something similar? If Nilbog could be made mentally stable, or at least controlled, could he be used to ameliorate the worst mutations of a Case-53?'

Maybe I was grasping at straws, I was desperate to find a way to make him useful without throwing away the entire town, but… why wouldn't it work? As far as I understood it, a Case-53's Shard enforced mutated shapes onto their hosts and that form would be their new standard for "healthy." My own healing potion wouldn't turn them back into humans, but Nilbog's Shard had to have dealt with other Shards before. He had to have dealt with other triggers in Ellisburg.

After all, his little horror movie rampage was a textbook scenario for new triggers. Yet, he'd assimilated them all without any struggle that I knew of, making them loyal to him and turning them into his goblins. He's never done it with a Case-53, but he had a better shot than most. And even if Nilbog couldn't reverse their mutations, he should be able to stabilize the worst cases.

If he could be kept loyal, we could leave him at the head of an organized force of parahumans instead of his ragtag horde of goblins. They would be made to love him, but that love would be returned. Nor would it be absolute control; Dot was able to develop into her own personhood from her interactions with Amy and if a Case-53 wouldn't have any memories anyway… Didn't they deserve good health, family, and love?

"This is so f*cked up," I groaned.

"You have an idea."

"Can't you pluck it from my head?" I snarked.

"I could, but it's good for you to voice it."

"Fine. Any chance you'll stop making Case-53s?"

"No, for the same reason I won't prevent Nilbog's trigger. Any small chance is better than nothing. We also noticed early on that Scion does not like to look at Case-53s, perhaps because they are avatars of Eden's broken Shards."

"Right. You keep the majority of them in Cauldron bases to redirect his attention elsewhere. Almost forgot about that. Do Legend and Hero even know what kinds of monsters you are?"

"No. All they know is that some triggers result in wild mutations and destroy the host's memories. We made sure to not brand those we've released into the wild as it were. As far as the PRT is concerned, a Case-53 refers to amnesiac capes with gross mutations."

"You were going to use Manton as an excuse to release more, branding them with the Cauldron symbol."

She nodded. "I saw that if I let him take the vials, he would incite more triggers, though the immediate aftermath of his theft was hidden from me. By leaving our own brand, I wanted to promote the idea that Manton had gone insane and was responsible for inciting a large number of Case-53s, leaving clues about our identity in some twisted attempt to expose and destroy us."

"It helps that he's actually insane."

"Quite."

"This is so f*cked up," I repeated.

"So make it less 'f*cked.' Tell me, what is your plan?"

"Recruit Nilbog," I told her. "His name is Jamie Rinke. Knowing he works at a bank, it'll take Number Man moments to find him. He can keep tabs on Rinke until he's fired. You'll know when he triggers because Ellisburg will fall off the Path for a few days. Go there as soon as your Path clears. Offer him a place to call his own. Social-fu his psyche until he's loyal to you then take him to a Cauldron base."

"You want him to work with the Case-53s."

"I do. I want him to see if he can stabilize their worst mutations if not outright turn them back into humans. He loves them, his creations, and they'll love him in turn. Except this time, if he can truly fix some of them, they'll have a real reason for their loyalty besides Shard f*ckery."

"And with him sane, we'll have a far better organized army." I nodded. "That is acceptable. Congratulations, Yusung, I will save Ellisburg."

"And all it cost me was the Case-53s."

"They were already made and lacked both memories and identities. You've orchestrated a Path that could give them both."

Strangely, hearing that did make me feel a little better. "Thanks."

Contessa rose and spoke. "I'll have Alexandria arrange matters in your favor. The Elixir of Life, Wayfinder, and Worldstone. You made them because you were terrified of Leviathan. You made them in the hopes of protecting the primary male role model in your life in response to the death of your father. Agreed?"

I sighed. "Agreed."

"Good. You'll be expected to attend the next Cauldron meeting following Naples. I'll start the evacuations to minimize the loss of life there."

"I want Doormaker access."

"Granted."

"And safety for my mom."

"Already Pathed." She made for the closet. "Door, Cauldron base."

"So that's it then. I'm a member of Cauldron now."

"Indeed. Oh, Andy?"

"What?"

She nodded at me with a mischievous smile before stepping through the Door. "Keep the hat. It looks good on you."

Author's Note

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay, I'm done. This chapter… It got a bit long but I couldn't even find a good place to break it apart because it's just one long conversation.

As promised, I'll go over my thoughts on Contessa in Informational. Yes, her personality is massively AU, but I don't consider it too bad. After all, we see very little of Fortuna, not Contessa, and she is absolutely the kind of social chameleon who would tailor herself to achieve whatever outcome she wants.

I know the decision to not kill Nilbog is going to be pretty controversial, especially what I'm doing to the Case-53s, but that was the best possible solution Andy could come up with. He's officially a member of Cauldron. Contessa has, literally and metaphorically, shared her hat with him.

Chapter 49: 5.1 Scattered - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Scattered 5.1

2000, September 16: Washington, DC, USA

I couldn't sleep. My heart began to pound relentlessly the moment she left.

I survived Contessa. I survived Contessa.

Seriously, who could say that? How many people in the world could say that they shared cookies with the Eye of Abaddon?

I didn't know if I wanted to dance around with joy or cry in a corner. Either way, sleep eluded me.

At four, I finally gave up on trying to catch some Zs and began to meditate. An hour later, I placed my last Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will onto a plate for mom and scribbled a note beneath. I put on a domino mask and the fedora Fortuna left me and stood in my living room.

"Door, back alley of Quigley's," I called. True to Fortuna's promise, a portal winked into existence before me, revealing the back alley of the restaurant where Hero and I first had our chat. I could teleport directly to the lab, but it wouldn't do to bypass the security without authorization.

'Although… Making Rebecca cover for me without knowing how I suddenly have Doormaker access would be pretty funny,' I thought with a chuckle.

I walked the few blocks to the Madhouse. Thankfully, the Biscuit was more than enough to keep me alert and energized. I mindlessly went through the security checkpoints and got to the shared lab.

It was utterly empty save one person: Armsmaster. Collin "what the f*ck is sleep" Wallis. He was barely dressed. He wore his armor's undersuit, though it was pulled down to his waist. Beneath that was an Inspector Gadget t-shirt. Oddly appropriate. Like me, a classic domino mask was the only homage he paid to the unwritten rules.

"Hyunmu," he glanced up from his work then nodded curtly, bringing attention to his beard. Even despite the early hour, it was combed and tapered to perfection. It even had a subtle shine to it from whatever beard oil he used.

"Armsmaster," I greeted back. "Good morning. Are you always here at five?"

"I am. Clinical studies suggest that the human brain is most alert immediately after exiting the natural sleep cycle. As such, I endeavor to make use of this time as productively as possible."

"Agreed. I'm most alert in the mornings as well, though I usually work out and meditate."

"Why are you here?"

I let out a small snort. From anyone else, that would have implied that he didn't want to see me. The more I talked with him, the more I could see just how he got the rep he did in canon. "I wanted to change things up a bit. Variety is the spice of life and all that. Anyways, happy tinkering," I waved.

"Likewise." Social niceties finished, he turned back to his work.

It seemed some things never changed. He could be observant when it suited him, but when it concerned anything outside his work, his interest dropped rapidly, such as just how I managed to get to the lab this early. He likely made his own assumptions and didn't care enough to inquire further. As far as he was concerned, I was permitted to be here and the hour was irrelevant.

I headed deeper into the Madhouse, passing by the different workstations. Finally, I arrived at my little corner and sighed, grateful that no one else was here. Armsmaster had no reason to be in my workspace and so missed the man-sized aquarium filled with a liquid that glowed in varying shades of subtle purples. More important than the weird lava lamp was what was in it: Hero. Awake.

He let out a string of bubbles when he saw me approach.

I couldn't help myself. I waggled my eyebrows and tipped my fedora in a jaunty wave. "Yo, boss-man, fancy seeing you here." I made a show of looking down. "Feeling chilly?"

His glub-glubbing turned a little more frantic as he tried to cover himself the best he could. The Elixir of Life cured all ills and injuries, but it didn't repair clothes. One hand waved angrily while the other tried to keep his bait and tackle from view.

"You know that I already know what everyone looks like naked, right?" More angry garbling. I rolled my eyes. "Fine, fine, not a morning person. I get it."

I turned on my computer and skimmed through last night's footage. Sure enough, I saw him dunking into the tank via Wayfinder. The crude contraption in the tank triggered and mixed the water with the Elixir of Life, turning it a violet hue. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Glub."

I flipped a switch and the tank began to drain. "Say, how upset would you be if I market some of this stuff as Hero's bathwater? If the internet's taught me anything, it's that there's bound to be some idiot out there with more money than brain cells."

"No. Don't you f*cking dare," he growled. "Andy, what the hell?"

"Hyunmu, Eugene," I grinned. I sighed at the complete deadpan on his face. "Alright, fine. We don't have time for the long answer though. Go fix your costume and get yourself kitted out in your spare gear. And if you have any big guns you've been keeping on a shelf somewhere, go ahead and dust them off too. You're going to need everything you've got today."

"What?"

"Leviathan hits Naples sometime today," I told him. I watched his face pale and tapped my dandy new hat. "Like I said, no time for the long answer. Short answer is that the lady of dandy hats and I had a chat. I'll see you and Rebecca at the next Illuminati meeting after you deal with Naples. Seriously, Eugene, you don't have time. Go."

He looked at me then towards his workstation. "I… We'll talk about this."

I opened the aquarium door and waved him off.

I was about to turn back to my computer, I had much to do, but then I heard metal footsteps approaching my workstation. 'Oh… Oh no…'

"Identify yourself, degenerate," came Armsmaster's bark.

"Stand down, Armsmaster," Hero tried to calm him down. "I'm Her-"

"Unlikely. Hero has shown no inclination towards exhibitionism."

"I'm not an exhibitionist!"

"You are a pervert and thief. You are charged with trespassing, indecency, grand larceny, and intent to expose yourself to a minor. You will be brought into custody immediately. Surrender."

"Your name is Collin. See? I'm Hero!"

"I must instigate master-stranger protocols. Regardless, come with me or you will be subdued."

"Colli-Argghh!" I heard him yell as Armsmaster activated his taser. He must have done something else because the lab's security systems began to activate.

"Ah, sh*t," I sighed. I looked around for anything that would help me diffuse this situation and found a post-it note on my desk lamp that I hadn't noticed before. "Oh, great. Thanks, Fortuna." Flipping on the lab-wide intercoms, I spoke. "Stand down, Armsmaster. There is no cause for alarm. Code Mike-Charlie-Foxtrot-Lima-Yankee-Delta-Mike-Charlie-One-Two. Wait, seriously? The code to cancel MS procedures is McFly-DMC-12? f*ck. I blame Zero Day for this nonsense."

I walked over and stuffed another healing potion in Hero's mouth.

"This is highly irregular."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"It is, Armsmaster. Come on, let me show you last night's footage."

"If he has not been mastered, there are serious allegations to consider, not least of which would include exposing himself before a minor."

"You are jumping to conclusions without having all the available information," I pointed out. "That's not like you. I promise there is a reason our glorious leader looks like a drowned rat."

He made a pinched face then nodded curtly. "Very well. I insist that he not leave my sight."

We acquiesced and Hero ran to his locker to get dressed. The two of them reconvened in my workstation a few minutes later.

I played the video. Really, it was just ten seconds long. Hero teleported into my aquarium missing everything from the waist down. The elixir mixed into the water. He began to heal. End clip.

I used the Oracle's Elixir to read from the post-it note in the trash bin. "Last night, Hero and the Founders engaged in a covert operation against an extremely dangerous cape called the Siberian. In preparation for this, and as a proof of concept against future S-class threats, I was tasked with making a sort of healing tank. I did not expect to need it, but it was good that I finished."

"Why was no one else in the lab informed?" Before I could answer, he received a phone call. "Armsmaster speaking. Chief Director Costa-Brown. Yes, ma'am. I'll be right there, ma'am, ETA one minute."

I sighed as Armsmaster left. No doubt, that was more of Fortuna's meddling.

"Hyunmu, what's going on?"

"Didn't you see the video? You ran into William. He went cray-cray and you discovered a newfound love for skinny-dipping."

"Since when are you a part of Cauldron?"

"Since yesterday. The better question is how long I knew of Cauldron's existence. And really, you need to go see to your armor. I wasn't lying about Leviathan."

"I… We'll talk alter."

"We will," I promised.

He left and I leaned back into my chair. It was barely six in the morning and I already felt like going to bed. For all my cavalier snark, that was absolutely exhausting. Funny, but exhausting.

Still, I knew what this meant. I was done. Finished. Rebecca had my potions. The heroes were forewarned of Leviathan. The Italian government was doing its best to prepare without giving the game away. Short of going to Naples myself and committing creative suicide, I'd done all I could and it was out of my hands.

I was free, finally free to turn to my own projects, at least for a time.

"Okay… Priorities, Yusung," I muttered to myself. I opened a notepad and began to brainstorm. "The next attack should be sometime this February. British Columbia if nothing else changes and since the bird-bitch isn't active yet, High Priest shouldn't change anything… Okay, but… where in British Columbia?"

I swore and cursed Wildbow. British Columbia wasn't a city; it was a whole goddamn province, the fourth largest one in Canada at that. At the very least, I knew it wasn't Vancouver. If Behemoth wrecked Vancouver, Dragon wouldn't have made it her HQ. That left… the rest of the f*ck-massive province. And since Behemoth tended to gravitate towards infrastructure and energy sources, I couldn't even narrow down by population density. He could target everything from roads to the electrical grid and I wouldn't have any way of knowing until it was too late.

"f*ck it," I swore. I jotted down what details I could but dismissed the idea of the Worldstone network. It was hard enough making a network to cover major cities. And honestly, the one following February was just as bad. I knew Leviathan would hit somewhere in India in July, but India was an entire subcontinent. Even if I could narrow down the area, getting the Indian government to cooperate would be a giant hurdle in itself. No, the Worldstone network would have to begin with the US, maybe Canada once I had a proof of concept up and running.

"Okay, table that for now. I have a long time before the network becomes a priority. What else?"

I stayed like that for hours, scribbling down idea after idea. In the end, I'd run out of excuses; it was time to focus on my eyes and armor. If nothing else, I'd spent so long infusing mana into the Tear of the Goddess that it was nearly ready. Thanks to Glacial Augment, I had knowledge of how to make True Ice efficiently as well as an incredible building material in Neo-Petricite.

It wouldn't be exact, but I wanted to make an armor based off Winter's Approach, tossing in my own brand of enchantments here and there.

The drawing I ended up with was rough. It was a set of plate armor with four blue crystals, one on each shoulder, chest, and back. I planned for each of these to be made of True Ice, anchors for my enchantments. The neck and shoulders were trimmed with fur, though I had no idea where I'd find a dead polar bear. All told, the armor looked largely like the one from the game, though I stuck to my color theme of gray, black, and cobalt-blue.

Similarly, I planned to make my eyes out of True Ice.

There was one major benefit to True Ice as an enchanting material: It was still. Which as to say, it embodied the concept of cold, of stillness. It was a material formed alongside the Freljord, ancient beyond mortal understanding. And, like much of the Freljord, it was one of the hardiest, most stubborn things around. It loathed change and once formed into something, it would retain that shape through the ages, enchantments included.

Avarosa's bow was a good example of this. Thousands of years after its creation, it loosed arrows as surely as the day it was first made.

Grinning, I got to work. Finally, it was time for me.

I was shaken from my work at three in the afternoon. A long, low siren rang out throughout the lab. I'd never heard it before, but I knew what it meant: Leviathan. Endbringer sirens didn't ring throughout every city in the world, but they did ring in every Protectorate and PRT office. From there, the PRT would send out emergency messages and provide logistical support to coordinate the response from independents and villains.

I put down my work, a large block of Neo-Petricite I was fashioning, and rushed to the lab entrance.

I saw Hero, Bluesong, and Armsmaster rush out. Hero's armor worried me. I knew that his prime kit was wrecked last night so he must be using a spare he kept in reserve.

'Hopefully, he'll stick to search and rescue,' I thought. 'Would be a real pity if he goes and offs himself right after I saved his ass.'

Seeing nothing else I could do, I returned back to my project. The Tear wasn't ready for enchanting, but I could make the plates easily enough.

2000, September 23: Washington, DC, USA

When Behemoth hit Lyon in April, I was finishing up my physical therapy sessions and figuring out what kind of Ward I wanted to be. I paid very little attention to the mood of the city as a whole. And when Leviathan hit Kyushu before that, I was a little busy trying not to drown.

All that to say, I'd never been quite so cognizant of the environment immediately following an endbringer battle and it was… It was depressing.

Everywhere I went, it felt like the entire city was on edge, as though all of DC was in mourning. Some residents even hung black flags or shirts from their windows followed by the Italian flag, something about showing solidarity. It had only been eight years since Behemoth's first appearance at Marun Fields and the world had yet to truly grow numb to every tragedy.

Heroes and villains from all around the world remained in Naples, helping with humanitarian. Hero and Bluesong were among them. Armsmaster himself had only returned three days ago after doing all he knew how to do.

Despite the absence of our illustrious leader, not a single villain tested the waters. Even Stage Crew and other comics were silent, as though they could sense the mood.

This, I realized, was how the endbringer truce truly came to be. No one signed it into law. There were no formal declarations or grand gestures. There was no council of heroes and villains that shook on it. The endbringer truce became a universally accepted part of cape life because that was just how oppressive those attacks were. Really, it was a polite way of describing the depressing state of affairs than any concrete agreement.

So, the whole week passed in subdued silence. Hero and Bluesong remained in Naples, building water purifiers, organizing humanitarian aid, and helping the Italian government with whatever else they needed.

I spent the week refining my armor's designs and infusing every drop of mana I could into the Tear of the Goddess. The armor was a surprisingly complicated piece of tech for something that looked like it could have come out of a fantasy novel. After all, if I was going to make myself armor, I was going to do it right; the World Rune would allow nothing less.

That meant I had to consider every minute detail, separating the armor into different layers to optimize each enchantment before bringing it all together to form a greater whole. I spent three days just deciding on the exact fabric and weave I wanted for the undersuit, straight down to the molecular structure of each fiber.

After all, Petricite didn't exactly hold enchantments well on its own. The outer layer could be Petricite, but if I wanted it to channel my mana properly, the interior needed to be something else. Bit by bit, I drew on Jayce's memories and worked out the network of mana-conductive fabrics and wires I'd need.

That brought a smile to my face. I loved how everything I built was being used as the foundation for something else. This was Inspiration, to build on the backs of giants.

And then, a week after Naples, things had finally begun to quiet down and the cloud of melancholy had begun to lift from the city.

It was time.

I glanced at the post-it note taped to my closet door. "Clothes picked out. Best first impression. -F," it read.

Sure enough, when I opened the closet, I found several articles of clothing I definitely didn't own. It seemed Fortuna was going all-in on the "Contessa's new protégé" angle. The stylishly slim black suit, pressed white shirt, and embroidered charcoal-gray tie could lead to no other conclusion. Everything about the outfit screamed pricey and given my age and height, I knew she had to have it custom-made. Just running my fingers through the fabric made me wince at the imagined price tag.

"Door, Cauldron HQ."

Author's Note

I wanted to start this arc on a more humorous note. Don't like dick jokes? Tough. Andy's a smug little sh*t, but he's just spent a night with Fortuna. He's allowed to be a smug little sh*t.

Also, I've clearly found the secret to dealing with endbringer fights: Make them someone else's problem.

Yes. Yes I did end the first chapter on a cliffhanger. Really, if I included the Cauldron meeting, this would be too long. I guess I don't feel as bad about cliffhangers since I post daily and it's not like I'm locking it behind a paywall. So, allow me to be a little bit smug:

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Chapter 50: 5.2 Scattered - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Scattered 5.2

2000, September 23: Unnamed, Ivory Coast

I stepped through the portal.

Fluorescent lights illuminated the hall. The walls were painted an eggshell-white, almost insulting in its inoffensiveness. The hall I found myself in looked like it belonged in a hospital. One thing I noticed was how immaculately clean this whole place was. There wasn't a single smudge nor the slightest stain of dirt. If I were a poetic man, I'd say it was in contrast to Cauldron's many, many sins, perhaps some insightful comment about the banality of evil, but I wasn't.

"Thank you, Doormaker, Clairvoyant," I nodded as the portal closed behind me. It never hurt to be nice, especially to people who saw your every breath. "Custodian? Are you there?"

I felt something brush my shoulder and fix my fedora just so. "Thank you, Custodian. My name is Hyunmu, the newest member of Cauldron. Can you point me to the meeting room?"

I felt something gently tugging me by the sleeve and allowed myself to be led through the winding maze of corridors, each as pristinely white as the last. Finally, Custodian released the hardened air of her power and left me standing before a pair of office doors. The varnished wood was as pristine as the rest of the hall, completely unassuming. If I didn't know better, I'd never guess that the biggest conspiracy across countless earths was headquartered here.

I could see behind them easily enough. Everyone was there. A dark-skinned woman in a lab coat who could only be Doctor Mother was flipping through a list of dossiers, each populated with names, psych profiles, and driving motives and ambitions. It seemed Cauldron was ready to distribute its newest batch of powers.

To her right, a man in his late twenties with professionally cropped blonde hair and a clean-shaven face looked through a report on the most recent endbringer casualties. He could only be Kurt Wynn, formerly Harbinger of the Slaughterhouse and currently known as the Number Man. The casualty report he was skimming was incredibly detailed. There were things I'd expect, like the number of dead capes, but his report also included the cost of injuries and damaged infrastructure, down to the last cent and euro with a ninety-eight percent confidence and a two percent margin of error.

f*cking ridiculous.

To the maybe-not-a-doctor's left was the iconic flying brick herself. She had a laptop open in front of her and was typing out an email to the US president in her capacity as the chief director. I skimmed it. It was mostly meaningless platitudes about how she'd pursue the national interest. I smiled a little at the pace she was typing. I could see the keyboard and the reinforced springs that made up its many keys. The speed she was typing at required nothing less. Not quite tinkertech, but not exactly available on the market.

The rest of the Founders sat to the left of Alexandria. Legend, Eidolon, and Hero looked just about dead in their chairs; they lacked Alexandria's chrono-static stamina and they'd all been floating around Naples for a week of nearly nonstop humanitarian aid.

I saw Hero glance worriedly at the chair next to Contessa. My chair.

Contessa, even after our last sorta-friendly chat, I didn't dare think of her as Fortuna here, sat sipping from a cup of black coffee. She sat to the right of Number Man and across from Hero. As always, she was the picture of understated confidence.

I breathed in deeply. "Well, Yusung, congratu-f*cking-lations, you're one of the people who rule the world. Now get in there and un-f*ck Earth-Bet."

With that less than stellar pep talk, I turned the handles and pulled the doors wide. I could imagine what Contessa wanted with her outfit choice. For all their posturing, capes weren't immune to the magic of a good first impression, perhaps even more susceptible than most. So, I did my best.

I strutted. I marched up to my chair like I owned the place.

I plopped down into my chair, raised slightly so the table didn't swallow me completely, and tucked my bangs behind my ear. I removed my fedora and twirled it on one finger before placing it right next to Contessa's.

"Hello everyone, marvelous day we're having, eh?" I said with a cheeky grin and savored the way they stared at me. I may or may not have practiced my thinker-smug grin in the mirror, all for this one moment.

Legend, Eidolon, Number Man, and Doctor Mother looked at me like the Matrix had begun to unravel, like I was the last piece of a puzzle they'd been working on for years, only to find that the final piece didn't fit into the hole they'd made.

To her credit, the only sign of Alexandria's surprise was a minute twitch of her eyebrow, one I'd never have noticed if I wasn't specifically looking for it. Her lips twitched upward into what could, maybe, be considered a smile.

The real gold was Hero. After all, he knew me best. He had built up an image of who Andy Kim was over the past few months. And though his image of me shattered irreparably last week, he had bigger things on his mind until now. He'd shelved any concerns regarding me as something to address after Leviathan. Now that Leviathan had been pushed back, the giant conundrum that was my existence came crashing back down on him.

Like Alexandria, he knew of my relationship with Contessa, at least the bare bones of it, but the intentional similarities we were playing up made his brain blue screen like an old Windows. He gaped like a goldfish.

Then the comparison made me giggle and the illusion we crafted began to crack.

Number Man recovered first. Initial surprise over, our resident sociopath seemed to accept my presence like a sea otter bobbing with the waves. "Your tie is crooked two-point-six degrees to the left," he drawled.

I rolled my eyes and flipped him off. "Everyone's a critic."

"Quite."

Alexandria interrupted our verbal spar. "Perhaps we should begin by introducing our newest member?"

I nodded. "Andy Yusung Kim. Hyunmu of the DC Wards. Formerly Rubedo of the Phoenix Wards. Nice to meet you all. As for why I'm here, I had a one-time vision of the future, including the death of Scion. Or Zion, or the Warrior if you prefer to go by the entity's self-designation. Said vision could be best compared to a book or play, a what-if series of events that might have happened if I did not exist. I don't know everything, but I know enough to refine Contessa's Path for more favorable outcomes. As such, I will be working with her primarily as her protégé and advisor."

"What the hell? What vision?" Eidolon started. For the most powerful parahuman in the world, he looked shockingly unremarkable. He had a bit of a gut that, sitting down, his cloak failed to fully hide. "What did you change?"

"For starters, Dave, Hero was supposed to die a week ago during the Siberian Incident."

"How do you-"

"I didn't tell him," Contessa cut him off with a shrug. "He knew my real name as well."

The room fell silent to process that information. Contessa's name wasn't a secret because it could be taken advantage of, but because she wasn't even from Earth-Bet in the first place. The name "Fortuna" was a completely meaningless designation for most. Knowing it made absolutely zero difference. One could argue that "Fortuna" ceased to exist long ago and "Contessa" was all that remained.

And because of this, it was a name that just wasn't used. Ever.

"I also knew that Leviathan would hit Naples and arranged matters with Contessa to evacuate as many people as feasible without raising too much attention. Oh, and just to get this out of the way," I began to point at each person. "Eva. Kurt. Keith. David. Eugene. Rebecca. Fortuna. William left, but his designation is now the Siberian. I'm also aware of other auxiliary members of Cauldron such as Doormaker, Clairvoyant, Custodian, and Slug. And again, I'm Andy."

More silence. It was Legend who spoke first this time.

"Then let me start by saying thank you," he said. "Hero is a dear friend and I don't know what we would do without him."

"I do. Trust me, it's not pretty."

"Be that as it may, Cauldron isn't a place for young-"

"No," I cut him off. "None of that, Legend. I appreciate it. Truly, I do, but you're not doing yourself any favors. Get this through your head. I'm not a child. Mentally, I mean. I know what I look like, but I was already an adult trapped in a child's body long before the Red Sands Incident. I know how Eidolon dies. I know how Alexandria dies. I knew how Hero was supposed to die. I know how to kill an endbringer. I know how to kill Scion. Frankly, you need me."

"This isn't a daycare-" Eidolon started again.

"No, this is the Illuminati. This is the place where we decide the course of the world and damn millions to their deaths for the single fragment, a cinder of a cinder of a cinder's worth of hope of being able to break the Cycle. If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, this is where we make the cobblestones."

"Contessa-"

"Didn't tell him anything," she said, interrupting the trump-ten yet again. "I picked out his outfit, but that is all. The fact of the matter is that I am blind during trigger events and endbringer fights. Yusung provides valuable insights that I can use to refine the Path."

"Can you see endbringers?" Alexandria asked, all business. I shouldn't have been surprised that she was so readily accepting of my presence. She always was the poster-girl for the "greater good" school of moral f*ckups.

"Some. Like I said, it was a one-time vision. Next one will be Behemoth in February, somewhere in British Columbia. Leviathan will hit the following July, somewhere in India. After that, my information gets murky as the future gets changed around. Endbringer attacks aren't the vital information you think they are anyway."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Oh?"

"No, what you really need to know is the true nature of the Cycle, the purpose of the Shards, different ways of killing Scion, and potential ideas for how to remove Eden's failsafe."

"Failsafe?" Doctor Mother asked. She was a middle-aged, dusky-skinned woman with a lab coat, though I had no clue just what she was a doctor of. Last I checked, "geocide and war crimes" wasn't an available major.

"Yup. Sorry to break it to you, but there will be a third endbringer called the Simurgh. Nine feet tall naked lady with ivory-white skin and dozens of wings sprouting from her body in no particular pattern. Hauntingly beautiful, but in an uncanny valley sort of way. In my vision, she appeared over Lausanne, Switzerland in December of 2002. She's the least immediately destructive, but also the most dangerous endbringer by far."

"Powers?"

"Shaker, tinker, thinker, master. She's going to be the most powerful precog in the world and will use her telekinetic abilities to treat humans like Rube Goldberg machines, setting up dominos months or even years in advance. Worst of all, she'll be able to access every tinker Shard in the network within her immediate vicinity."

"And how do we beat her?"

"Sleeper. You locked her in Sleeper's storm, but even that's a delaying tactic in my opinion. Still, she might not show up in the same place or at the same time anymore." I shrugged. "Like I said, the future's changed. It's not worth hypothesizing about at the moment."

"Then your information is unreliable."

"Some of it, but others, such as the capabilities of powerful capes and different synergies, are not. Ultimately, I had several crisis-points, points at which I could alter the course of events, and I had to choose when I wanted to act. I decided that saving Hero was worth losing some future knowledge."

"Why?" Hero asked. He startled, as if he hadn't expected himself to speak. "Not that I'm not grateful to be alive, but… Why me?"

I smiled wanly. "The PR answer is that you're a major male role model in my life and I wanted to make sure my idol was safe. Admittedly, that's at least partly true. You're one of the few good things in this world, a real light in the dark type, but the real answer is that you have the Stilling."

"Excuse me?"

"Stilling, that's the name of your Shard. You know how Scion has his golden beams? Well, those beams dismantle things on a subatomic level, literally causing particles to 'go still.' Those beams are one of the few things that can seriously injure an entity and you have them because you won the Shard lottery. You drank Eden's version of Scion's beams."

"I…"

I gave him a moment. I could understand his shock. I'd effectively told him that he could one day make tech that could rival our greatest enemy. He'd hoped, as had everyone else, but it was only now that they had full confirmation of his importance.

"Yeah, heavy is the crown and all that. And that's why you need to live, no matter what. You matter, more than practically anyone else. It was a freak accident that William had his meltdown immediately prior to an endbringer attack, but that kept Contessa from acting against him, and therefore from saving you. I decided the Stilling was worth it, even if it means I have to take a bigger role in things going forward."

"And what role will you be taking going forward?" Number Man asked. He peered at me with a hawkish gaze that made me want to squirm. I wondered what sorts of numbers he was seeing from me.

"He will be my protégé," Contessa spoke. "His primary job will be to reinforce and refine the Path with the ultimate aim of making Cauldron's position as strong as possible when we inevitably confront Scion. In the meantime, he will also work to develop his power and act as auxiliary support for our operations."

"Lovely, there are two of them," Eidolon muttered. Still, he seemed resigned to my presence if not outright welcoming.

"Even had you not brought him here, you would have continued to work with him," Alexandria pointed out.

Contessa nodded. "Indeed. This is courtesy, a way to tell you that we have a new member, nothing more."

"Very well then. Let us move on with the meeting. Number Man?"

And surprisingly, they did. Hero and Legend obviously had reservations, but they acquiesced all the same, one more proof that they were too reliant on the Path.

Number Man gathered the report in front of him and spoke. "Of the roughly two million people in the metro area of Naples, Italy, one hundred twenty thousand people were evacuated before Leviathan made landfall. Initial evacuations did not involve the Italian national government. Contessa arranged for accidents, pipe breaks, gas leaks, and other minor emergency drills that subtly relocated coastal neighborhoods without raising excessive alarm with the goal of making organized evacuation efforts smoother by relieving potential areas of congestion. She then raised a more general evacuation warning in crucial residential areas to further streamline upcoming emergency response. She also repositioned the undersea warning network made by Bluesong around the Mediterranean.

"Six hours before landfall, the Italian government was made aware of the imminent attack and began to gather humanitarian aid and military resources. Military regiments were repositioned to best use the window of time provided. They also alerted select allies with the possibility but did not sound a global alarm because the source of the information remained untested.

"Two hours before landfall, Leviathan entered the Mediterranean. A general evacuation order was issued to the people of Naples and the surrounding coastline at this time. The initial domino effects arranged by Contessa previously relieved the congestion typical of general evacuation orders, allowing the remaining people to either leave the city or head to a shelter.

"By the end of the battle, eight thousand two hundred forty-eight people died, all of them when a shelter was breached during the battle. An additional one hundred seventy-eight people were killed over the last week through a variety of sources ranging from lack of readily available medication to general looting and mayhem. Damage reports are still coming in, but most have been quantified. I estimate that two billion euros worth of damages have been done to the city, with an additional eight hundred million euros of damages spread out across various other coastal settlements.

"This is officially the least destructive endbringer battle we've had to date," Number Man finished his report, tone still strictly clinical. I could see Legend and Hero sit up a little straighter at the news. "However, there may be some unforeseen side effects of the battle. Namely, rumors are already spreading that someone was able to predict an endbringer attack. Immense pressure is being placed on the Italian government to reveal this new thinker, information they naturally lack. Nonetheless, there is mounting resentment among the residents of Naples who were not able to evacuate the city completely and numbers predict that the city will become a cape hotzone in the near future."

I sighed. Of f*cking course. I should have expected it. Even for Contessa, there weren't many ways for her to move everyone in the city in less than a day, and no way of doing so without Leviathan potentially changing targets. The Simurgh wasn't active yet, but that didn't mean Leviathan had no agency of his own. I knew this. I specifically asked her to minimize the loss of life and she'd done so. But I failed to account for how the people remaining behind would feel.

Numbers meant jack sh*t. From the perspective of those forced to take shelter, their government failed them. The Italian government had vital information and cherry-picked who would be evacuated and who would be forced to remain. I could imagine what they were thinking. Weren't they Italians too? Weren't they citizens too? Didn't they deserve to know?

A lower statistic must have felt like cold comfort, a slap in the face compared to the abandonment they must have felt. Not everyone would feel this way of course, but a large enough minority would that they could cause some problems down the line.

"f*cking Earth-Bet," I swore under my breath. Even when I did something praiseworthy, it seemed like Murphy would find a way to f*ck me over. I did my best to clamp down on the frustration.

Contessa continued the report from there. "I followed up on the situation when my Path cleared. I identified forty-nine new triggers. The three most numerous categories are master, mover, and brute, presumably in accordance with their desire for control over their situation, escape, and survival respectively. Our theory on trigger trends does seem to hold some weight.

"I've made arrangements for most to join various heroic or independent organizations to stabilize the region, though it's worth noting that almost half of all heroically aligned capes, both new triggers and those native to Naples prior to this, will leave Italy altogether. Their disillusionment with their government is not something I can fix without distorting the Path too far."

"That's acceptable," Alexandria nodded. "Will those who remain cause problems for the Custodes?"

"Yes. Fifty-seven percent of heroic capes will remain in Naples and the surrounding area. Many will form power blocs of their own, though a few will sign up with the Custodes. We should be able to capitalize on their declining popularity to pursue our own political agenda."

Alexandria nodded in agreement even as I rolled my eyes. I wished I could handwave away all the problems and moral quandaries that came with running a global conspiracy, but I couldn't. Of course they'd seize more power with every opportunity given. Truthfully, I couldn't say that I'd do any different.

Then it was Alexandria's turn.

"Three hundred twenty-nine capes participated in the defense of Naples. Casualties were likewise minimal among parahumans thanks to Rubedo's contribution." She gave me a minute nod. "Sixty-three capes were lost, a nineteen percent casualty rate. Leftover potions were distributed to the local disaster response teams as per his wishes."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Hearing that was like a weight of my back. I finally knew for a fact, had concrete proof in the numbers, that I'd done it. I mattered. I'd made a difference. It wasn't large. Leviathan casualty rates typically hovered somewhere around thirty percent, but that eleven percent difference was a difference of thirty people, thirty lives I'd saved.

So absorbed in my own relief was I that I almost didn't hear her continue.

"As stated, the Italian government is unaware of where the warning came from. However, certain parties strongly suspect the United States and Watchdog because we were the ones to respond first to their call for aid. We should discuss how to leverage this information."

Eidolon let out an annoyed sigh. "Alright, fine. Great endbringer fight. Fewer deaths. Are we done with the casualty reports? None of this affects how we do things."

"Yes," she replied. "We can move on to what we should do going forward to maximize our influence in Europe."

"Fine, let's just get on with it."

The meeting continued, though most of what was discussed was just rehashing what they were already doing. They would step up sale of Cauldron vials, carefully curating conflict in major cities to incite new triggers.

As it turned out, Cauldron did not exclusively sell to those with heroic intentions such as Battery, Triumph, and Gallant. Their, our, general policy was to sell the vials to prop up whichever side was losing at the time.

It was like a pendulum. When the heroes threatened to stabilize a city, Cauldron would drop a few vials in the hands of prospective villains or call in a favor to have a gang relocate from elsewhere. When circ*mstances threatened to destabilize the status quo too far in the other direction, such as immediately following an endbringer attack, vials would go to those who were lawful-good, or at least more neutral, to ensure that society did not collapse entirely.

Just knowing I was now part of this made me a little queasy inside and I resolved to get my hands on those dossiers Doctor Mother was flipping through earlier. If nothing else, I could hopefully provide a moderating influence. Curating conflict didn't mean the vials had to go to indiscriminate murderers and rapists after all.

The Blasphemies could not be directed nor predicted. I knew they would commit regicide in the Netherlands, but that was a decade in the future so I had little to contribute there. The consensus was to have them and powerful tinkers across Europe monitored, just in case the creation of a fourth Blasphemy began. I suspected that they were independent agents controlled by the Shard network, but I had no great insight into what their precise aims were.

Lastly, I proposed that we watch for endbringer worship as a growing movement. Originally, the attack on Naples saw a surge of people disillusioned with the system. They saw the endbringers as heralds of change, God's agents sent to punish the corrupt world. Sure, most were the sorts of religious nutjobs that knew nothing of their own religion, but there were also plenty of people who took advantage of said idiots to gain power.

Author's Note

I keep thinking that meetings are long and annoying to write. Then I remember that I did this to myself and have no one else to bitch at. So, have an animal fact:

Cats have barbed penises. They also do not meow in the wild. Kittens pick up the habit in the same way that babies do in a form of operant conditioning because they realize sooner or later that humans like it when they meow. They condition themselves to be cuter for you, but in turn condition you to feed and pamper them.

EDIT: Yes, I suck at math. Yes, I mistook Custodian's gender. Both have been fixed. Custodian is now female as canon.

Population size of Naples metro area: 2.1 million

Contessa's initial evacuation dominos: 120 thousand

Civilian deaths during the endbringer fight: 8,248

Civilian deaths following the endbringer fight: 178

Chapter 51: 5.3 Scattered - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Scattered 5.3

2000, September 23: Unnamed, Ivory Coast

The meeting was over, but Contessa, Doctor Mother, Alexandria, and I remained in the meeting room. The rest of the Founders were off back to their cities, no doubt to catch up on whatever they'd missed while they were in Naples. The Number Man must have seen something in the numbers surrounding Contessa because he took one look and decided he wanted no part of this conversation.

"Andy," Alexandria nodded.

"Becky," I greeted back with a cheeky grin. If she wanted to drop the formalities, I'd return the favor.

"You wanted to tell us something. Something you couldn't say in front of the others."

"Yeah. Hero and Legend are too kind. Eidolon is too callous, and maybe even unstable. And Number Man… actually, I wouldn't have minded him being here. He's a sociopath, but a competent one."

"He is broadly uninterested in anything beyond the numbers that define the global economy," Contessa said from my right. "He will participate if requested, but he considers morality to be a social construct and the nature of powers to be too abstract to be worth serious investigation."

"The nature of powers?" Doctor Mother questioned. "And you think the rest should be excluded from this information?"

I nodded. "I'll send Contessa a full writeup of just what entities, powers, and all that are. Knowing won't change too much, but it might inform how you mix your vials going forward."

"That doesn't sound like something to hide."

"It's not on its own. Long conversation, better had after you read the brief. There are two things that really need to be said in the immediate. First, Eidolon. The man needs therapy."

"I assure you that in spite of his personal issues, he is an effective agent-"

"He's also responsible for the endbringers."

That shut her up.

"Explain," Alexandria demanded.

"Well, okay. I don't know that he's responsible for the endbringers, but I do know that during the final battle in my vision, Eidolon gets killed by Scion laughably easily. Lots of things happen, but they have a conversation. Scion tells him, 'You needed worthy opponents,' and that realization horrifies him. It paralyzes him to know that he is responsible for the greatest tragedies in our world and he shuts down. He does nothing as Scion kills him. That's how the supposed greatest hero dies, like a f*cking chump."

"Scion could have been lying."

"True, which is why I said I don't know for sure. However, I do know that his Shard is the High Priest. Think of it as the right hand of Eden, her COO. It was, is, responsible for managing Eden's entire Shard network and has the highest authority available to Shards, only overridden by the entities themselves. That's why Eidolon can seemingly access any power in the world; because he can."

"You are accusing Eidolon of making endbringers, of working against us."

I shook my head. "No, no I'm not. He's a lot of things, but he's not evil. In the end, he's just a deeply flawed man trying to live up to an impossible ideal. He's trying to hold up the sky but he's no Atlas."

"Explain."

"Long story short, in my vision, you won. Kind of. Scion died, but so did Eidolon. The Simurgh, Eden's contingency, acted at that point with two driving directives: First, she was to preserve the Cycle as mandated by Eden. Second, she was to provide Eidolon worthy opponents. But of course, Eidolon was dead via Scion, so she cloned him."

"That…" The doctor trailed off. Unlike Alexandria or Contessa, she was far from unreadable. Compared to those two, she may as well have been shouting her emotions from the rooftops.

"Ridiculous? I know. But if you need to check the validity of my words, note that Contessa hasn't shot me yet."

"Fine… Proceed."

"I'm not saying Eidolon is a traitor to mankind or anything. In fact, he's arguably the most dedicated hero alive, though that's not a good thing in his case. I'm saying that he's banked so much of his identity into being a hero that when he lacks a worthy opponent, he feels like he loses a piece of himself.

"It could be that with the gradual decline of his powers, he's looking for something li

Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) - Fabled_Webs - Parahumans Series (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: 1.2 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: 1.3 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: 1.4 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: 1.5 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: 1.6 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: 1.7 Call - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: 1.7.5 Amelia Lyons - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: 2.1 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: 2.2 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: 2.3 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: 2.4 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: 2.4.5 Heather Suzuki - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 14: 2.5 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: 2.6 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: 2.7 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: 2.8 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: 2.9 Antebellum - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: 2.9.5 Kevin Rivers - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: 3.1 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: 3.2 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 22: 3.3 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 23: 3.4 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 24: 3.5 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 25: 3.5.5 David Morrison - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 26: 3.6 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 27: 3.7 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 28: 3.8 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 29: 3.9 Charmed - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 30: 3.9.5 Rebecca Costa-Brown - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 31: 4.1 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 32: 4.2 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 33: 4.3 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 34: 4.4 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 35: 4.5 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 36: 4.6 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 37: 4.7 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 38: 4.8 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 39: 4.8.5 Eugene Lewis - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road

Chapter Text

Chapter 40: 4.9 Ripples - Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL) | Royal Road