14

Chapter Text

"So what's our next step, Beerless Leader?" Aisha asked.

"For now we've got a lull in the action," Bayleaf said. "We got some small moves to make-- the Trio needs to be dealt with; the Undersiders, and so on. But even before that--" he paused to crack his knuckles. It sounded like popping chestnuts. "-- we gear up."

"Parian, I want to commission you. Taylor needs a whole new wardrobe. Skin out. All Azeroth materials of course." Parian let out an "oh" and started looking over her new project.

"OmiGOSH a whole wardrobe by PARIAN!" Vicky almost shrieked. She would have started bouncing up and down too if she hadn't already been floating off the floor.

"What??" Taylor said, eyes going wide in surprise. "I-- I can't accept something that EXTRAVAGANT--" she looked at her father. "That's just too much, it--"

"You'll HAVE to accept, unless you want to spend all your time exploding out of your clothes," Parian said. "Your lupine form is at least a foot and a half taller than your human one, and your other measurements get a little boost too." Taylor's ears flicked madly. "So you either spend your life wearing a tent, dressing in stretch body stockings, or ripping apart your new favorite blouse every time you have to transform."

"She's right, little Owl," Danny said, pinching her eartip in amusement. "And call it a hunch but I don't think many of your old clothes even fit your human form now." Taylor groaned and nodded. It had been an uncomfortable few days. She'd had to resort to baggy sweats and tee shirts-- and taping down her new boobs.

Uh, Parian, " Bayleaf paused and his ears flicked in a canine blush. "You do handle, er, foundation garments.."

"BAYLEAF!" Taylor covered her ears in her hands.

Parian laughed. "I can, yes. Like you said, skin out. Don't worry, Taylor, we'll kit you out in everything you need."

"Wait, why would Parian's outfits be better for this kind of thing than regular stuff? Am I missing something?" Aisha asked.

"Thanks to a little donation by Bayleaf, I can make Azeroth fabrics now," Parian said. "Clothing made with it is not just durable, strong and tear-proof, it's also self-resizing."

"Self resizing??" Vicky's eyes gleamed.

"NO! No no no no," Amy said, holding up her hands as if holding Vicky back. "No. You get clothes made out of this stuff and you'll be face down in a chocolate cake every night because you don't have to worry about 'fat pants' anymore." A chorus of laughter greeted Vicky's theatrical pout.

"Actually, I also want to commission at least one uniform for everyone," Bayleaf said. "Even Aisha and Danny." The two look surprised at this.

"Heavy on protective properties, I'm assuming," she said.

Bayleaf nodded. "a replica of their current look, or something they can wear underneath their regular clothes, depending."

"All of us?" Amy said.

"We're all in this, we're all important to the big plan in some way, so that makes us all targets," Bayleaf said soberly. "For Murphy's Law if nothing else. And frankly, Amy, you're the single most powerful healer and biokinetic on the planet. You've been to Endbringer battles. It's almost criminal that you've never been given anything more protective than a layer of cotton to wear."

Vicky put her hand to her mouth. "Omigosh, I never thought about that!" she said. She gave her sister a protective hug. "That was stupid of us!"

"And frankly, all of you could use an extra layer of second-chance armor. Especially you, 'Glory Girl,'" Bayleaf said.

"Why me? I'm invulnerable, after all--" Vicky said, flexing.

Bayleaf's ears laid flat as he gave her a deadpan look. "I know about your forcefield, Vicky," he said. Her confident pose faltered. "If it takes a sufficiently solid blow, it fails. And it takes up to several seconds to reboot. You're completely vulnerable for that space of time." He shrugged. "All Shard-based supers have defects like that. By design, I suspect. Sort of like how some technology companies were caught deliberately putting defects in their products' software. Which is why we have a whole thing with people "Jailbreaking" their phones."

"So how do we "jailbreak" our powers?" Amy said. "Wait, don't tell me. Second Triggers."

Bayleaf nodded, an offput expression on his face. "Not what I'd call a recommended course of action. I've been using my Azeroth engineering to cobble up ways to compensate, instead. That's what most of those gifts to the Wards and the Protectorate were for: Workarounds for the most obvious limitations of their powers. They're going to be hitting Coil soon, and however they do it they're going to need every edge they can get." He paused and gave them all a look. "I also made countermeasures, before you ask. I don't want any of my more exotic toys being turned against me."

"Anyway, if you let me take a few measurements, I should be able to finish out some ideas I've been noodling. In fact I want to tinker up something for everyone, if I can."

"Bigger shinier weapons aren't going to be enough," Danny said, frowning. "They were barely enough when it was just you against the Merchants." The implication was unspoken but clear.

Bayleaf looked away and ducked his head. "I get what you're saying, Mr. Hebert," he said. "You don't want Taylor leaping in with both feet like… like I did." He scratched the back of his head, smiling ruefully. "I know how it must look. But I sort of had to hit the ground running, and running hard. I sort of had to establish a beach head." He sobered. "Almost took it too far, too.

"But now we've got some leeway. We can step back, dig in, and make some proper preparations. And that's my plan for the immediate future: equipment, gear… and training." He looked around suddenly and coughed. "I… that is, if we're actually a team and all. Beyond Hemlokk and myself, for obvious reasons--"

He coughed again. " I know some of you are averse to violence," he said looking at Parian. "And others of you have other obligations. I'm not holding anyone here to any obligations or anything; if you want to just walk away now that this Gaslighting thing is done, that's cool. But I still want to stay in touch, and I'm still making this gear for you. Para Bellum. War is coming, and war doesn't care who's a bystander and who's not. So if you leave, I'd rather know that you left with a fighting chance." He looked up. "It's your call, guys."

Parian was the first to speak. "I'm afraid I'll have to take that exit," she said sadly. "It's been fun, really, but I have my business to run, I have my reputation as an impartial Rogue I'd rather not throw away-- and I don't cope well with violence." She reached over and patted Bayleaf's hand. "I hope there are no hard feelings, and I'm still willing to do business with you, or with World of Crafts."

"No hard feelings," Bayleaf smiled.

"I'm in," Aisha burst out. "We still got 'Cape Business' to take care of," she said, making quote marks in the air with her fingers, "And this is the least bored I've been in YEARS. Heck, see if you can get rid of me." She stopped and looked a little taken aback. "Not that I'm sure how well I'm gonna keep up unless I wake up with funky werewolf ninja magic shapeshifter tinker powers too..."

"Yeah, well-- you've kept up this far," Bayleaf said awkwardly. He was not going to tell her that her baseline alternate had become a Cape. There was no telling what Aisha might do if she decided to try and make herself Trigger.

"We're still in too," Vicky said. Then her face soured. "That is, once we get everything at home straightened out…"

"That spare one-room is still available, if it comes to that," Bayleaf said. "Either of you can crash there if you have to. But… I'd… recommend not together," he finished awkwardly. The two girls looked at each other and nodded, before hastily looking away.

"Tomorrow's Saturday, isn't it?" Parian said suddenly. "Taylor, if you're free, that would be a good day to come in for your fitting."

"Eeee, can I--"

"Yes, you can come along, Vicky," Parian said, while Taylor tried to hide her face behind her paws.

"And I need to do a little shopping myself," Bayleaf said ruefully.

"Do you need a lift?" Danny said.

"No, I'm good. Hmm, that's another thing, transport..." he pulled a marker board off the wall and started writing.

They demolished the last of the pizza and went their separate ways. Vicky and Amy went home to face the music; Parian left to check on her shop and prepare for tomorrow's fitting with Taylor. Taylor, finally confident she could keep from going wolfen without warning, went home with her father to finally sleep in her own bed. And Bayleaf sat alone in his strangely quiet Lost Workshop, going over his to-do list.

CLOTHING-- that one was being handily covered. Costumes would still be an individual matter-- there were few advantages to a one-size-fits-all look or style, especially for people with wildly different abilities. New Wave did it for PR reasons. PR was the least of Bayleaf's concerns. He was here to stop the end of the world, not win Nielson ratings.

ARMOR-- There was only so much one could do with even enchanted cloth and leather, and even what they had there was limited because Parian for all her skill did not have an Azeroth tailoring knowledge base. Anything heavier than leather was currently unreachable: Because of the overlap between metallurgy and engineering, he could kludge some workable stuff-- but it would be dismal quality compared to what he could get out of someone who was an actual World of Warcraft blacksmith.

WEAPONS--- again he cursed his lack of an actual blacksmith. He and Hemlokk would have to do with whatever was commercially available. He hoped her dual-wielding skill had translated over.

MATERIAL SUPPLIES-- Not only was he running low on raw materials for his own work, Hemlokk was both an alchemist and a jeweler, and she would be getting the "itch" to use those skills soon. She'd need materials and tools for both, and probably a ton of them. He wrote down "greenhouses, jewelry stores, new age shops, science hobby stores" and circled them.

TRANSPORTATION-- Not everyone on this team could fly. And of the two that could, only one could carry another person with them. They could hardly hitch a ride in the back of Mr. Hebert's truck all the time. Something was needed, he wasn't sure what yet.

COMMS--- the cell phones were darned useful, but they ran off the existing cell phone network and were insecure, among other shortcomings. He had some ideas for a better setup, though, and if he did it right it would give Aisha an area to contribute while keeping her out of harm's way.

More members-- That one he put a big question mark next to. He'd learned the hard way he that no matter how skilled, powerful or prepared in advance he was, no matter how many cheat codes and sneak peeks to the universe he had, he wasn't going to be able to do everything himself. And a team of three teenage cape girls, one normal teenage girl, and a middle-aged union head of hiring wasn't going to cut it too well either. That left the question of WHO he was going to recruit, and HOW. The briefcase of Cauldron vials offered one dark solution. He could try to recruit the Undersiders after they were out from under Coil's thumb… but that didn't strike him as too savory a choice either. Tattletale was marginally amoral, highly manipulative and dangerously obsessed with showing everyone else she was smarter than them-- the sort of person who, had she led a more mundane life would have probably ended up stealing from the store they worked at just to prove they could get away with it, then bragged about it on Facebook under an "anonymous" name. Rachel-- Hellhound or "Bitch"-- was essentially a violently antisocial autistic. Regent had been abused by his father Heartbreaker… tortured with waves of mindblowing fear until he was little more than a high-functioning sociopath. His trick of causing muscular spasms in his targets was a cover for his real ability: the ability to turn anyone he was exposed to long enough into a puppet he could control, see and hear through, so long as he was within range. As much as Bayleaf pitied him he did NOT want the kid anywhere he could eventually puppeteer any of the girls-- or himself. That was one fox he would not trust within reach of any grapes. And Grue… well, what could be said except he was the most sensible and responsible of the group and he had decided that the best way to secure a better future for his little sister was to turn to a life of crime. The kid needed a thump between the ears and his parents probably needed arrested.

The Travelers were an even worse mess, with one of them a Simurgh time-bomb and another a potential S-class monster. And everyone else he knew of was either already contentedly tucked away in their various teams and groups, or was totally unsuitable.

Membership would have to wait.

"--Do you MEAN, You're not coming home tonight?"

"I mean just that, Mom," Vicky said. Even over the phone this was proving exhausting. "Amy's staying at Aunt Sarah's; I'm staying at a friend's place." Vicky swallowed and tried to steel her nerve. "Look, we just, just learned some things--"

"What things?" Carol Dallon's voice got suspicious. "Does it have anything to do with why the PRT wants to speak to her?"

"Wait, what?"

"She's been using her-- her other powers again!" Carol said with a touch of hysteria. "She's been planting these TREES all over the place!"

"Trees?" Vicky couldn't help it, she snickered out loud. "Who ratted her out, the National Arbor Day Foundation?"

"This is serious, Victoria!" Carol ranted. "Those trees are untested biotechnology! They could do anything!"

"Yah, Mom, they could oxygenate someone to death," Vicky snarked. "Amy told me all about them. They're just TREES, that's all. They're just really tough and sturdy and disease resistant. They can't even grow flowers or seeds, so they can't reproduce. The Giving Tree let her copy his healing power into them--"

"Healing power? Giving Tree? What?"

"Yes, you know HEALING? That stuff Amy does morning noon and night without pay?" Vicky could feel herself getting irritated. "One of the other healer capes--- this Case 53 guy, looks like a tree-- helped her make these trees that shed this healing aura, to help people at the hospital heal faster even when they aren't around. So you and the PRT can quit wetting your collective pants over it."

"I don't like this tone, missy! You come home right now and--"

"I CAN'T!" Vicky all but shouted. She stopped, took a deep breath and started again. "We found out something, Amy and me. Something about my powers."

There was quiet on the other end of the line. "What about your powers," her mother said.

"My aura. It-- it's addictive." There was a sound of confusion on the other end. "Amy checked-- we had a couple of friends who let themselves be exposed to my aura, and she checked their brains. The chemical changes in the brain were similar to those found in someone who had recently ingested a concentrated dose of heroin. Her words. We.. we checked a couple of my friends at school… She said it caused chemical changes in the… I forget what it's called but the part of the brain… the changes were typical of someone in the first stages of addiction." Vicky stopped and wiped her eyes.

"That's why I'm staying where I am. You know how my power is, how hard it is to control. Even when my power's "off," it's still on, a little bit. To keep you and Dad… out of my aura. And it's why Amy's at Aunt Sarah's. To try and go 'cold turkey' off my aura. It turns out she's been getting it full blast for ages… and since she's not a blood relative she isn't even partially immune like everyone else." She laughed, but there was little humor in it. "And here we'd always thought we'd have to wean her off cigarettes or something."

"It's not all bad. We made contact with a Tinker who thinks he can build something to block my power, or something. So this shouldn't be too long. I'm going to talk to the school about doing my classwork by internet--"

"You will do no such thing. This is nonsense. I don't know what game Amy thinks she's playing, but--"

"Oh for-- This is tearing up Amy worse than it is me! She kept going off on crying jags-- all this time I've been, I've been doping her emotions and she never realized it!"

"I don't understand..."

"Mom, don't you get it? Didn't you ever notice how jealous she got whenever Dean and I were together? Mom, she wasn't jealous of me for being with Dean… she was jealous of Dean for being with me."

There was a silence followed by a sound of revolted disbelief. "That..."

"Mom, I've had my powers since before she hit her teens. I've been pickling her brains in love-me rays since she started puberty! She's been having all these feelings for me and they weren't even really hers. The guilt and the shame were killing her. It nearly did kill her to admit it, once we figured it out. All it took was some egghead saying something about pleasure centers and the chemical nature of addiction and…" She ran her hand down her face, her chin crumpling.

It wasn't the confession that drew her tears.

"I KNEW it!" Carol Dallon ranted on the other end of the line. "I KNEW that bringing that girl into this house would be a-- a-- a horrorshow for us all!" She got back on the phone. "Vicky, where are you, we'll pick you up--"

"He was right," Vicky said, her voice emotionless. "You really do hate her."

That froze Carol cold. "Vicky-- I didn't mean--"

"Yes, you did," Vicky said coldly. "You meant it. Will you LISTEN to yourself? "What's Amy up to, what did Amy do, this has got to be Amy's fault!" Well, hey, Mom, look on the bright side. The PRT is freaking over some houseplants. If you get out your briefcase and whip up a little lawyerese to go with your hissy fit, maybe you can finally get your daughter-- your other daughter-- THROWN IN THE BIRDCAGE. Then you can live your little Happily Ever After without her!"

She slammed the receiver on the apartment's old-fashioned phone down on the hook so hard it cracked. Then she slammed it two or three times more for good measure. She started sobbing in full earnest then.

It was going to be a long wait till morning.

Taylor found herself at waiting at the front door of Parian's shop, bright and early. Her father drove off in his truck, off on who knew what mysterious purposes for the Cause-- or maybe for the Dockworkers' Union. The door opened from the inside and there stood Parian, dressed in her old-fashioned ruffled dress and doll mask. "Oh come in, come in, I've been looking forward to this!" she said, all but dragging Taylor inside. She threw a "closed" sign in the window and all but pranced on into the store.

"I really have to say that this is an interesting challenge," she chattered, while Taylor nervously tiptoed through the mannequins into the center of the floor. "Granted that the size-changing cloth makes it so much easier, but designing styles that will look good on both your human and werewolf--"

"Worgen," Taylor blurted out. "Um. That's what our species is called. Apparently."

"Ah. Well, on both your forms." She came out of the back carrying an armload of undergarments. "Now, here are some of the basic style's I've made thus far for undergarments. I'm thinking basic black will go well both with your skin tone and your silver-grey fur… so," she said coyly, "Does Bayleaf like simple lines, or does he prefer it when you wear lace, hmm?"

"What???"

Bayleaf awoke, to his disgruntlement, as someone rapped on his skylight.

He had to replay that thought a few times before it sank in. He rolled out of bed and struggled his way into a pair of sweatpants and an old tee-shirt (was there any other kind, really? he wondered in groggy passing), then climbed the ladder to undo the latch, yawning and grumping. Glory Girl, came floating in, looking distinctly miserable.

"Vicky?" Bayleaf said, scratching himself and yawning. She eeped a bit at the sight of his fangs. "wAAAahat are you doing here so early?… Oh." Wheels rusty from lack of coffee slowly began turning. "I'm guessing things didn't go well with your folks," he said solemnly. "I mean, they weren't going great even on the phone, so..."

Vicky shook her head. She didn't cry though; she'd cried out hours past. "Amy's staying with Aunt Sarah; I stayed in that little apartment. Mom's on the warpath, she's blaming Amy for everything."

Bayleaf growled in annoyance. He'd sincerely hoped that Carol Dallon was more sensible than the baseline version seemed.

"And the fact the PRT is getting torqued about the trees--"

"What about the trees? OH crap," Bayleaf said. He was fully awake now whether he wanted to be or not. He started rooting around, looking for his cellphone. "I'm an idiot, of course the PRT is freaking out about a whole new biotinkered species showing up in the wild! This is all my fault--"

"Your fault?" Vicky said.

"I encouraged her, I showed her my tree form, let her copy my Blessing of Elune power… where is my bleepin' PHONE?" One of the workerbots came clattering up, cellphone in hand. "Thanks-- " He clumsily grabbed it and held it up to his ear. "Dial Panacea. Panacea? This is Bayleaf. I heard about the PRT and the trees--"

"What? Oh." To his relief Amy actually chuckled a little. "It's okay, Bayleaf," Amy reassured him. "Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil-- you know, Lady Photon and Manpower? They're taking me to the PRT to sort it out. They say that so long as the trees are non-harmful and incapable of reproducing, the law should put them in the clear. I made a couple of saplings this morning and I'm bringing them for the power wonks to test."

Bayleaf sighed silently in relief. He made a mental note to check the news channels to see if things had stirred up. "I hope they make a decision before they chop down all the trees you planted," Bayleaf said irritably.

Amy actually laughed. "They tried. The PRT sent out some sort of cleanup crew to First General with chainsaws and portable incinerators. The Chief of Staff threatened to surgically neuter them if they touched that tree. Same story from all the other hospitals, the hospice, the old folks home…even in hibernation the healing aura has sped up healing by a noticeable margin. Piggot called them off quick. She was probably afraid there'd be riots if she gave the go-ahead."

"Good to know something's working in our favor," Bayleaf said. "Maybe you can arrange something with the PRT so you can do your little plant experiments without them freaking out?"

"That's one of the things we're gonna hash out," Amy said ruefully. "I'm going to be spending days wading through paperwork and lawyerese. Wish me luck."

"Good luck then," Bayleaf said. Amy hung up. Bayleaf heaved a sigh. "Well, that's one thing-- sort of resolved..."

"What did she say?" Vicky asked. Bayleaf relayed the news to her. Vicky looked relieved.

"My fault," Bayleaf muttered, ears laid back. "I didn't think--"

"Well neither did she," Vicky said, fists on hips. "And you're new here. But it's all good, right?"

Bayleaf gave her a half smile. "One can hope." grabbed a stool from his worktable and set it in the middle of his workspace with a clatter. "Here, pull up a seat. Might as well get those readings..."

She pulled up a stool and sat fidgeting while he spent several minutes waving various crystals, odd-looking widgets made of brass and vacuum tubes, what looked like a copper wand and other oddments around her head. All the while he was talking, less to her and more thinking out loud. "The problem, you see, is that thanks to the perpetual crises that keep popping up on Azeroth, most of the thaumaturgic and morphic resonance research has become, er, sort of specialized," he said, putting a circuit-studded colander on her head. "And not very… hm how to put it…" he scratched his chin thoughtfully while the bowl on Victoria's head beeped and booped and made unnerving sparking noises.

"Well, in the middle of a war-- or a demonic invasion, or a rising Great Old Ugly Mofo, or whatever-- while most people can use Azeroth's "Magic" in some form or other, they've really not got the patience to understand it in depth. They want quick, dirty and functional--- sort of like apps on a cellphone. Poke the icon and it goes. And also like apps they've only got enough room, time and patience for a dozen or so on their desktop. Uh, so to speak.

"Or maybe it's more like the difference between a cook and a chef," he said. The colander was removed. With a loud THOK a miniature plunger with wires trailing from the handle was stuck to her forehead. "Yes, that's actually a better metaphor. Analogy? Whatever."

"What's the difference between a cook and a chef?" Vicky said, her eyes crossing as she stared at the plunger. If this thing gives me a forehead-hickey… she thought.

"A cook works from a cookbook. A chef works with techniques," Bayleaf said. "And unfortunately due to necessity, pretty much everyone in Azeroth, except a few really rarified intellectual types, are working with a cookbook." He yanked the plunger loose.

"Ow!"

"Sorry. So, when I got rebooted as a worgen, I got my brain stuffed full of recipes: Druid abilities, Engineering schematics, mining and smelting formulas, first aid techniques-- even some actual cooking recipes, though I don't use them. And despite the fact that some of the most effective attacks used on the battlefield are the Fear spell and the Seduce spell, it seems like nobody in those fields worked on anything specifically for shielding against those kind of aura attacks.

"I'm having to go back to first principles… breaking down what I've learned from the "recipes" I've got filed away in my brain and my files--" here he waved at a filing cabinet stuffed to overflowing with blueprints, charts and formulas-- "and trying to assemble something completely new from the mess." He sat down at a desk situated between his racks of Enchantment ingredient jars, and another rack of jars holding bits and bobs of electronic devices and more mundane chunks of minerals, crystals, and metals. He popped open twenty or so jars and emptied their contents on the graph-paper topped desk.

She saw him pulling sets of tools out. "You've got something? Already?" Disbelief and hope warred in her voice.

"Maybe," he said, holding up a screwdriver in warning. "This is only a first attempt, and really a kludge… just a stopgap till I can make something more permanent and functional. Spit and baling wire-- fetch the mice," he said to a nearby workerbot. The workerbot saluted and marched off. "Give me a minute or two." He laid out the pieces next to a leather strap and picked up a soldering gun.

A slow hour passed. While he was working, a workerbot came and went, leaving a wire cage with four white mice in it next to the table. A few more minutes crawled by. "Done," Bayleaf said, holding up the fruits of his labor.

Vicky looked at it skeptically. "It looks like you crossed a pocket radio with a New Age wall hanging and wired the bits to a belt," she said.

"You'd be surprised how close to accurate that is," he said dryly. "You wouldn't believe where I've had to shop. Oh, before we try this, better conduct the control side of the experiment..." He reached down and picked up the cage, setting it on the desk. "I realized I'd need some way to test some of the mental effects stuff, so I stopped by a pet store a couple of days ago and picked up some white mice. Say hello to Eenie, Meenie, Minie, and Fred." The four mice sat up and peered about in curiosity, squeaking and wiggling their pink noses.

"Fred? What happened to Moe?" she said.

"Oh, we don't need no Moe," he said-- and gave her a goofy doggy grin.

"Ugh, I hate you."

"Okay," he said, getting up and dusting off his hands. "First off, I want you to hit them with your fear whammy. Hard as you can. Ready?" He backed up a few steps. "Okay, now." Vicky scowled and squinted at the mice. The four began shrieking in terror and scrambling like mad, digging away at the bottom of the cage to try and get away from her.

"Okay, off, off!" Bayleaf yelped. He was halfway across the floor and backing up, eyes wide, when she finally cut if off. "Whuff, that's potent," he said, shaking himself off dog style.

Vicky blinked at him. "Hardly. I was giving it all I had. Usually people are down on the ground screaming in terror. You must be resistant or something."

"Good to know I suppose." He shook again. "Okay, now hit them with the love-me rays." Vicky repeated the performance; this time the mice were up against the bars, staring at her adoringly and reaching through the wire to try and touch her. "Aww. that's kind of cute," she said as she turned the aura off.

The next instant she was glomped in a hairy werewolf hug. "WAUGH!"

"HEWWO, I am a werewuff! I haff just met yoo and I wuv yoo," he singsonged, resting his shaggy head on her shoulder and giving her a goofy grin.

"Very funny," she said, giving him a sharp enough push that it knocked the wind out of him. Bayleaf whuffed and snorted with laughter, staggering away. "Okay okay. We've established your power affects animals too. Now we try it with the headband..." He lifted it up and settled it on her forehead, so the largest crystals in the array were over either temple. "Okay, hit it."

Amy squinted at the cage. Nothing happened. She tried again, harder. Then she switched from "love me" to "fear" and back again… "It works!" she squealed, jumping up and throwing her arms around Bayleaf's neck in a throttling hug.

"Ack! AIR!" he gagged. She backed off, still grinning gleefully. "Okay, it works, but-- uh oh--"

Just as Glory Girl noticed the light glowing on her forehead and the odd warm spot, there was a "POP" and one of the crystals shattered to dust. "Awwwww…" she said.

Bayleaf squinted and poked at the burnt spot on the headband. "Mm, I kind of expected that," he said. "The storage capacitor wasn't bleeding off the energy fast enough. One surge and you overloaded it. No problem though--" He removed the band from her head and fished for some replacement gems. "We'll brute-force it for now, just add a half dozen bigger storage crystals… I'll build you something sturdier and easier to use later. You'll still have to exercise restraint to keep from burning out anything, and bleed off the excess juice every now and then, but this will let you walk around without whammying everyone in the vicinity. Here, let me add a fresnel lens to direct the discharge, that way you can just fire it off into the air when the charge gets too high… gimme that cell phone buzzer..."

He finished his repairs and put the band back on her head. This time the trial went perfectly: the moment the crystals started overloading the coronet buzzed. She looked to the side and tapped the button; the disc in the middle of her forehead glowed, there was a brief flash of light on the wall and then-- nothing. "I think the prototype's a success," Bayleaf said with a grin.

"Yes, yesyesyes!" Vicky did a victory dance in midair.

Bayleaf trotted over to his "rag bag" and dug around a bit. "Here we go," he said, pulling out a sweatband. "Not exactly fashion cutting edge but it'll cover it up so you don't look like you're sprouting an FM radio from your head." She took it and carefully eased it down over top of the magitek headband.

She looked at her reflection in the glass of one of the cabinets. "Hey, kinda sporty. I like it." She spun around, eager. "Okay, what next??"

"Well, I'm going to go shower and get dressed," Bayleaf said, pulling some jeans, a tee and a hoodie off the clothesline stretched between the two furnaces (of all the things he'd bought, assembled, and created thus far, to his disgruntlement and embarrassment he hadn't put in a clothes dryer yet.) "Then we've got to go get some things." He loped into the bathroom and locked the door. "So, I don't know what you had planned today, But I gotta do some shopping--"

"I'M IN!"

"This was not what I had in mind when you said you were going shopping," Vicky grumbled. She glared at the rack of test tubes in front of her.

"You could always go see what Parian is up to with Taylor, you were invited after all," Adrian said, amused. He was preoccupied stacking a box of erlenmyer flasks on their shopping trolley. "Would you get a box of those round-bottom flasks and stoppers there? No, the small ones. Thanks."

It seemed that even with international commerce struggling thanks to Leviathan prowling the oceans, and even interstate or continental trade taking a one-two punch from roaming threats like the Slaughterhouse Nine or the Ash Beast, there was always some sort of niche for giant wholesale outlet stores. Perhaps, Bayleaf mused, because there was a growing need for failing businesses to unload their stock, even at a loss…

"Uh uh," Vicky said. "You don't know how this works, do you?" At his confused look she smirked and levitated over to him like an oversized impious Tinkerbell. "You're a new couple. So one of us girls keeps you distracted while the others all gang up on the girl and pump her for dirt."

"We're not… not officially a couple," he protested, not meeting her eye.

"Oh come ON," Vicky said, dropping to the floor next to him. "You protected her from bullies, you were always at her side, you even charged in and rescued her like a knight in shining armor and carried away in your arms--"

"Vicky!" he said under his breath, looking around. She hadn't said anything overt yet, but he'd rather not have people drawing conclusions.

Her smirk grew absolutely wicked. " T ell me more, tell me more, does he have a nice car, tell me more, tell me more, did you get very faaar-- " she sang under her breath.

"No, we didn't!" Adrian said, heat rising in his cheeks. "We're not-- I mean we-- We haven't even gone on an actual date yet!" he scowled. "And don't be crass. She's not that kind of a girl, and I'm not that kind of guy." His voice got a little heated.

Her demeanor changed rapidly. "Okay, okay, I didn't mean to rub your fur the wrong way," she said. "I didn't mean to suggest either of you were-- like that," she said, flushing a little.

Adrian's eyebrows actually rose at that. That seemed a rather… conservative response for a typical 21st century girl. Heck, it was practically Victorian, if one could pardon the pun.

But then he recalled that he wasn't on the Earth where he'd been born. There had actually been a bit of culture shock here and there as he'd adjusted to Earth Bet, and little of it had to do with people in tights who could fly. The advent of the Cape Age, especially the debut of the Endbringers, had brought about some unexpected cultural sea changes.

Some things were obvious. Gun control wasn't quite gone but it was dying a hard and painful death. When some lunatic could kill you by pointing his FINGER at you, any government's claims it could keep you safe by taking your guns away went from merely laughable, straight to actionable.

Others were not so obvious. Among other things, the impact on international trade, and culture at large. Leviathan's ongoing threat to the ships of the world had turned international trade to a trickle at best, and society had been forced to adapt.

Once-simple luxuries were dwindling. Year-round produce was far less of a thing, and many spices practically vanished from store shelves. Even things like ordinary black pepper were getting scarce, and forget things like saffron or coriander. You'd have to go to online auctions with three-digit bids for that. There was a reason that the Spice Road had been a thing.

But the first thing to drop really hard had been the trade in crude oil. Offshore rigs were shut down. Supertankers sat idle and empty; noone was willing to risk losing billions of dollars in precious crude to Leviathan, or give him an easy way to create an ecological disaster with an oil spill. As it was there were already spots on the shoreline around Africa and the Mediterranean that would never be the same.

Once it became apparent this was not a problem that was going away, the people had given their representatives a swift kick in the pants and gotten some changes made. Pipelines were laid, wells were drilled, moratoriums on things like shale oil and coal oil were lifted. Ground was broken on new nuclear and geothermal and hydroelectric dams wherever there was space to put them. Solar farms and wind farms were put out in the deserts too, of course… but typical of the technology were little more than a symbolic gesture when it came to power production. A lot of the political nonsense and environmentalist virtue-signaling went by the wayside; what would be nice was less important than what actually worked. People decided that they could sit around and fret over their soymilk about the one-tenth of a degree change forecast over the next decade after their cities were no longer in danger of turning into darkened, lifeless tombs.

But as much as they had ramped up domestic production of energy, the impact was still felt, and felt deeply. Travel and transport had become much more expensive due to fuel costs, and those that held out hope that battery powered cars would somehow fill the gap left by trucks and diesel trains swiftly had their bubble burst when it was pointed out that the rare earths that went into those expensive batteries and fuel cells were foreign products too. Which required oil to ship. And still more oil to run the power plants that kept those batteries topped up...

Zeppelins were actually making a comeback as a source of mass transit and shipping, because while they were relatively slow they were far more fuel efficient and could carry far more cargo. Old airliners were being scrapped and recycled, old military vehicle graveyards were being salvaged; landfills were being excavated to dig up all those "useless and outdated" electronics and recycle them for rare earths.

But beyond fuel for shipping, certain other luxuries associated with petroleum distillates had started disappearing: particularly, Rubber, latex and plastics.

Rubber, as it came from the tropical rubber tree plant, was now much more expensive. Which meant "cheap and plentiful" latex condoms weren't so cheap anymore. Diminished oil production meant fewer plastics as well-- as well as far fewer raw petrochemicals to give to the pharmaceutical industry. So all sorts of normally available medicines and medical supplies were suddenly scarce. Marijuana was legalized largely because it did, after all, have both industrial and medicinal uses and could practically grow on the hood of a Dodge. Half the reason Skidmark and his band of losers were so despised was because their trade was built off of pirated drugs: stealing lifesaving medicine and turning it into party favors for depraved idiots.

Consequently birth control pills, abortifacients, treatments for various venereal diseases and procedures like "convenience" abortions were suddenly much more expensive and hard to come by.

"Casual" sex suddenly became a lot more risky.

Statistics was a bitch. Simply using a condom during sex reduced the chance of pregnancy to about 15%…about one in seven. But that meant nothing if the person using the condom had sex several times more often than they used to... and people using "protection" naturally felt safer, so they tended to do just that.

Only having one bullet in the gun doesn't help much if you play Russian Roulette six times in a row.

But once society was stripped of the illusion of safety-- when the security blanket of pills and plastic was stripped away by the petroleum shortage-- certain morally conservative attitudes came back in vogue again. Oh, extramarital sex, infidelity, and all their related little sins continued on, because people are people and people are stupid... but they were no longer as openly celebrated as they had been from the sixties to the eighties. Illicit sex rates statistically dropped; venereal disease, abortion and unwed motherhood with it. Blatantly promiscuous behavior had become commonly regarded, once again, as the province of fools. The Free Love Movement was dead with none to mourn it.

This sea change in attitude had been going on for a long time; since before Victoria or her sister had even been born. Promiscuity was not nearly the badge of achievement among the young that it had been in Adrian's own world. It was actually refreshing to be in a world where, as a teenager, Adrian wasn't practically obligated to be sexually active to be regarded as normal.

Of course the petroleum shortage and the shipping crisis was having a more immediate effect on Adrian's plans than (ahem) social. The rise in prices was not of course uniform. Exotic tools, equipment and materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, rare herbs, products organic and inorganic... hundreds of things which were of importance to his and Taylor's crafts... spiked particularly sharply in price thanks to Leviathan's work, the aquatic bastard. Getting even a few pounds of, say, an obscure alloy or crystal was no longer a matter of simply having it mail ordered or placing an international order on some website. After facing some of the more frustrating snags in getting a simple box of swiss watch parts shipped by plane to America, Adrian had out of curiosity done some investigating to determine just how much Coil from the original timeline had to have spent just to get Skitter her requested box of orb weaver spider eggs. He'd seen luxury yachts with smaller price tags. Small wonder the Powers That Be had little trouble tracking down Tinkers by their purchasing habits.

"So what is all this stuff for anyway?" Vicky said. "You got odd tastes in gifts for your girlfriend--"

"She's an alchemist and a jeweler," Adrian interrupted her in annoyed amusement. "Which means she's going to need supplies and tools. Test tubes, beakers, burners, mortars and pestles, pipettes and tubing… and jeweler's tools, too. Ah! They have a kit!" He grabbed a case with a three digit price tag off a shelf as they rolled by. "A lot of materials, too, which we'll get at the next couple of stops if we're lucky."

"Okay, I get alchemist: potions and stuff," Vicky said. "But why jeweler?"

"She's not just going to be making pretty trinkets," Bayleaf said. "She can put enhancements on them, or even some pretty snazzy defensive or offensive spells, if I remember correctly."

"Ohhh, magic rings!" She said, excited. She smirk. "Just so you know, though, if a short guy with hairy feet shows up, I'm as good as gone."

"Arf. She also needs weapons… and armor." He scowled. "But I'm no proper blacksmith. I don't know how to make innately enchanted armor or weapons, and that's what she needs. We'll have to make do with some martial arts gear that I'll juice up. C'mon, let's see what they got in sporting goods..."

"Sporting goods" proved a bit of a disappointment. Unless Taylor and the rest wanted to charge into battle looking like a pee-wee hockey team, they really didn't have anything in the way of armor. They really didn't have any weapons outside of airsoft guns and archery sets. (On a whim, he grabbed a couple anyway.) They had some wicked looking hunting knives and machetes. He grabbed a pair of the K-bar knives. He ruled the shotguns and hunting rifles out… not because he was opposed to them, but any damage they could do, his and Taylor's weakest attacks could outdo.

Besides, he could make better ones at home. Seriously scary better ones.

The self and home defense section (welcome to Brockton Bay, stranger) produced a few better results. Some collapsible batons, pepper spray, tasers, and the like.

Then he'd spotted the toy aisle and the electronics department. The 75% off signs were like a siren song... A quartet of quadcopters went on the trolley. Then several Go-Pros. Then several (outdated, bottom of the line) laptops that were going for virtual pennies.

After paying (in cash) for their purchases, they trundled out to the parking lot. Adrian had solved the problem of transportation and cargo this time by finding someone with a used truck and throwing a wad of money at him. It was fortunate indeed that he already had plans for the thing, because it was an actual, run down God-as-his-witness 1998 Prius electric hybrid truck, one of the last gasps of the environmentalist movement. It had been one last attempt by the Green party to bend the automotive industry over their knee, and was a dismal failure in every regard. It was less fuel efficient than a Humvee, its batteries alone made it an environmental hazard to rival a 1960s Volkswagon, and it had less horsepower than a Pinto. Just looking at it made him want to take a hammer to it, then go out and kill a spotted owl and roast it over a bonfire made of old growth forest wood.

"I don't know where you're going to park this old hunk of junk once you unload it," Vicky said. She stood watch as Adrian pretended to load everything into the truck-- only to slide nearly everything into his Haversacks (Parian had made him three more.)

He gave her a grin. "Not worried about parking it," he said. He shut the hatch.

The next several stops were greenhouses, where he purchased potting soil, pots, growing lamps and other supplies. Vicky watched in bemusement while he selected a variety of seeds and seedlings. His method was eccentric, to say the least. He drifted up and down the aisles of the greenhouses, letting his eyes trail over everything. Sometimes he'd get several dozen different plants, sometimes only one or two; at the last one he only bought a single packet of seeds. No explanations.

Then he drove to a junkyard, where he purchased a cheap, half broken down two-wheel flatbed trailer and loaded it with scrap… including a broken down washer-dryer combo.

He was a bit tired of washing his clothes in the shower and drying them over his furnaces.

His next stop was at an arts and crafts chain, which had a plethora of semiprecious gems, stones and crystals. He didn't leave until he had accumulated two heaping bags of the things. And after he had pried Glory Girl out of the store. Mr Dallon would probably thank him later; Vicky had started getting way too enthusiastic over all the "cute" folk art and craft projects. That was the warning sign. He'd probably saved the poor man from smothering to death in his own home under a pile of needlepoint, folksy bric a brac and potpourri.

The final stop was on the outskirts of Azn Bad Boyz territory: a martial arts shop. Bayleaf found himself more and more disgusted the longer he stayed in the store. He was no weaponsmith, but even he could tell that everything there was ornate, shiny, junk… stuff for floor demonstrations or hanging on the wall to impress your friends in the local Dungeons and Dragons group. He nearly lost it when he discovered that some of the "traditional weapons" had aluminum blades .

It wasn't hard to guess who the owners' main customer base was; every ABB in the neighborhood was probably running around with one of these chromed, wobbly made-in-taiwan swords strapped to his back or a handful of potmetal shuriken stuffed down his pants. After picking through what was on display for over an hour he finally gave up and purchased a pair of sai that didn't look too crappy, a couple of bokken, and a couple of training manikins. He left with his purchases and a foul temper.

"Junk," he growled, stuffing his purchases into the back of the nearly overloaded truck. "Shiny junk for tourists!"

"Wouldn't she be better off with a gun? Or one of your zap guns?" Vicky said as she hopped into the passenger seat.

"Oh she'll get one of those," he reassured her as he buckled in. "And a bandolier of smoke bombs, stun grenades, and the like. Believe me, before we even think of going out together I'm going to have her better equipped than Batman! But she's a melee fighter. All her downloaded instincts and knowledge and training and powers are for sneaking up fast and getting in close. Those are her strengths. If she tries to rely her instincts in a pinch and her weapons aren't suited for it--" he grimaced.

"Yeah, that would be bad," Vicky agreed. "So what are you gonna do?"

He brooded. "I got a couple ideas for those Sai. I think I can make them into something she can use, for now…" He started up the hybrid. It whined and complained, but it started rolling.

"I don't think she's going to be particularly thrilled with stabbing people," Vicky ventured carefully.

He didn't look away from the road. "I know," he said. "But I think I can make something nonlethal, or at least semi-lethal, for her to wield. I know for a fact I could make something perfectly suited for her-- if I'd picked up the Blacksmithing skill. But-- dang."

It was a slow, laborious drive as they crawled along, the Prius moaning and complaining all the way…. But they made it back. They pulled up to the loading dock of the warehouse. "So," Vicky said smugly, "how you gonna get all this in your workshop? Truck included? And don't expect ME to lift it," she added.

Adrian just smiled as he opened the shutter. He went inside, slid aside the plywood sheet and opened the double doors. Then he came back out… holding the gnomish shrink ray.

Smeeeerrp.

Changing back into his worgen form, he picked up the shrunken truck and trailer and hustled inside. He set it down in the open floor of the workshop and stepped back. A minute later the shrink ray wore off and the truck and its cargo all returned to full size. There was plenty of room; the Workshop had originally been sized to work on locomotive engines after all. Vicky glared at him. "Cheat," she muttered. "Come on, let's get to Parian's."

"What, why?"

"Why?? You just bought your girl an entire wardrobe of custom-made clothes! Don't you want to see what she looks like in 'em? Because I KNOW she wants to know what YOU think." She grabbed his arm and tugged.

"But-- It's only been a few hours," Bayleaf fumbled.

"Super awesome cloth powers, remember? Come on, don't leave your girlfriend waiting. Bet she'll give you a whole fashion show, just to see the look on your face." Her smirk got evil again. "If you're a good boy, maybe she'll model some of the lingerie for you--"

"VICK-ee!"

"I know she's gonna have at least one swimsuit-- whether she knows it or not-- Parian was talking "string bikini." I wonder how tiny teenie--"

"VICKY!"

They left, her chivvying him out the door and teasing him till his face flamed.

He curled up in the corner of the dumpster they'd thrown him in. He was filthy, he had cuts on his arm from a broken bottle that was probably getting infected. He didn't care. He was trash. It didn't matter.

From the moment he'd heard what happened to Taylor he'd been horrified. He knew her, he sat in class with her-- he thought she was nice, thought of her as a friend, kind of-- or at least someone who didn't laugh at him or turn their nose up at him. He'd… kind of had a crush on her, maybe a little.

He cringed at the thought, his self loathing burrowing back in on itself like a toothed worm. He'd sure had a fine way of showing it, hadn't he. He'd seen her being picked on, being bullied, and he'd just kept his head down. Like a coward. Buried his head in his games and his comics and his anime and dreamed of being a hero, but when the chance came he ducked out like--- he flinched, his bruises throbbing.

Then the locker thing happened. He'd only heard about it hours after it happened; he'd been late for school because he overslept. The details were all confused; nobody told the same story twice. But he knew the important part. Noone had been there for her.

He'd let her down again.

He'd been shellshocked, he supposed. That could be the only thing that could explain his actions. The next day he'd been in the hallway at his locker-- people bumping him and elbowing him and stuff as usual-- and one of Sophia's nasty little friends, Emma, was chattering in a little clique of the school's snottier girls, ripping on someone--

Then he heard the name "Taylor."

"Oh yeah. You think she'll start CRYING again when she comes back?" Emma was saying. "The little slag spent a WEEK crying over her mom…."

He knew he wasn't socially skilled. Come on, he had a mirror, he knew what he was. He never quite engaged his personal filters. Even so, on a better day he might have noticed how… twitchy Emma was acting. Like she was trying desperately to play normal. But at that moment it was like every internal censor and social warning light he had was shut off.

"You really are a soulless bitch, Emma."

The hallway went quite for like, twenty feet in every direction. It was like noone in earshot could believe where those words came from. Emma stood there, her mouth hanging open. "What did you say to me you little toad?" she finally gasped out.

"You heard me, you SOULLESS BITCH. What kind of a bloodless hag laughs at a girl for crying over her dead Mom? Wouldn't YOU cry if your Mom died?" He paused, all but jittering in place with his suppressed anger. "No, I bet you wouldn't, You'd probably just roll her dead body for loose change and credit cards."

The WhoooaOAAOh that greeted this echoed down the hallway. "Did you hear what he said??" Emma screeched. "Principal Blackwell, did you hear what he said to me?!"

He turned and found himself facing a distinctly unamused Blackwell.

...Crap.

After school detention for a week. Parents called; grounded, all privileges revoked.

Not that he was going to have to worry about detention. Today, the first day of his detention, "friends" of Emma-- her boy-of-the-week and a couple of his buddies-- caught him outside the school, beat him black and blue, and threw him in a dumpster. They left, jeering and laughing, and throwing promises over their shoulder at him that they'd be waiting for him. Every single day. Coming and going.

He wrapped his arm around his stomach. He was a laughingstock at school, an embarrassment at home. His mother did nothing but complain about how he wasn't this, he wasn't that, he wasn't better; His father just looked at him like he was the worst mistake he'd ever made. He couldn't stick up for a fellow outcast. He couldn't even stick up for himself.

He'd never felt so worthless.

Ooh, I want this one.

Are you sure?

Yes, he's perfect.

He looked up, confused. He was on a misty, endless plane, under a twilit sky. He realized he couldn't feel his injuries anymore. Come to think of it, he couldn't feel anything! He was formless, shapeless… how was he seeing?

Before he could panic, a glowing something floated in front of his face. Hi!

"Uh, hello?"

Would you like to play the Game?

"Iiii… I like games, I guess? So… sure." A game of some sort would at least pass the time.

He said YES! The the baseball-sized light flitted and flew, loop-de-looping as it giggled in joy.

Yes, I heard.

She-- he couldn't help but think of her as "she," could only visualize her like a gleeful little girl-- flew back to hover before him again. Okay, let's start with words. When I say "Golden," you think… what?

The game went on, seemingly for hours yet at the same time, mere moments. Word association games, colors, numbers, shapes… little of it made any sense to him. Some of it that did cut him pretty deep, leaving old wounds open, sensitive nerves exposed. By the end of it he was in tears; for what he couldn't say.

Friend? The little light said. What do you want? The question was as innocent and artless as if from a child.

"I wanted..." he said, tears falling down his face. "I just wanted…" to be liked. To be respected. To be anything but the stupid, lazy, worthless, lonely embarrassment that he was.

But you are. You are smart, you just don't use it. You're diligent, just about the wrong things. And really, you can't help what other people are or are not embarrassed about. And now you're not lonely!

"I'm not?" he said.

Of course not. I am your Friend. And you are MY friend. And if you have ONE friend, you can't be alone.

He started actually gushing tears. "That's the nicest thing anyone ever said to me," he sniffled, wiping his nose on his arm. " Heh. I guess you are my friend."

Anyway, I wasn't asking what you wanted, she sing-songed. I was asking what you WANT.

The meaning in words and letters was obscure; in this featureless plain, the meaning echoed beyond the word. He stood up. Images flashed through his minds of cruel tauntings, of hateful words and hateful blows, of faces twisted with spite and malice, arrogant because they knew the ones they tormented were powerless. "I want to be strong," he said. "I want to be brave. I want to be kind. I want to help the Good fight the Wicked. I want to protect those who can't protect themselves. I want to SMITE EVIL.

"I WANT TO BE BETTER THAN I AM."

"OooOOo, gooood choice," Friend said.

If anyone had been looking behind that particular store at that moment, they would have seen something that-- probably would have sent them running in the first half-second. Light, golden light, began blazing through the gaps and rust-holes of the dumpster there. There was a bang, and one side dented outward from within. Then the other. Then, like someone setting off a cherry bomb inside a soda can, the steel container ruptured. Standing in the middle of the scattered trash and scraps of crumpled steel was a young man no more than fifteen. He was dressed in a tunic, breeches and cloth shoes, had a haversack hanging from his belt, a round wooden shield on one arm and a wooden mallet in his free hand. He had blonde hair in a bowl cut, blazing blue eyes, and was built like he'd spent his life bending metal to his will.

He staggered for a moment then looked down at himself. If he was cold in the January air, he did not show it. His arm was still bleeding. He grasped the wound with his other hand; it began to glow, squeezing the filth out, cleansing it, then sealing it closed. When he pulled his hand away, only clear, healed skin remained. He stared at his hands, awestruck, then waved them over himself. The grime and filth sloughed off him effortlessly. "That'll be useful," he muttered a bit absently.

He strapped the wooden shield to his back, stuck the wooden mallet handle down his shoulder blades, and began walking. He knew what he needed, and he knew where it was.

The salvage yard was mostly idle; it took few people to oversee it in the winter months, with fewer people dragging in aluminum cans and copper wire for recycling. It sat on a big wedge shaped lot, with the crushers and other heavy machinery at the broad end, and mountains of rusting junk everywhere else.

What Greg needed was at the far end, near the point of the wedge. Bayleaf's Lost Workshop wasn't the only relic of the past in this town; a small 18th century foundry had sat in this spot, quibbled over by the historians and preservation societies even as it rotted, till it had burned to the ground less than a year ago. All that stood now was a single blackened chimney and a lone anvil on a bare patch of floor, surrounded by mountains of rusting scrap.

Greg squeezed through a gap in the chainlink fence and went inside. He wasn't worried about dogs; the junkyard owner was too cheap to even buy one. It was futile anyway as buying a guard dog in this town was the same as buying a shot one.

Greg started dragging chunks and scraps of metal to the anvil. He spent an hour picking through the piles surrounding him, following he knew not what sense that led him to one mangled bumper or rusted wheel or refrigerator coil over another, till he had a heap on either side. Then he dug through charred wood and ash around the blackened fireplace till he surfaced with a hammer and tongs-- old, rusted from exposure, but still solid. Anyone else might have tried to at least dig the forge out of the rubble, stoke it with fire. Even the best tinkers needed all the tools of their trade; even making a silk purse out of a sow's ear still required a sow.

Greg didn't need fire.

He laid his first piece, the shell of a car's transmission, on the anvil. For the longest time he stood over it, his head bowed, the rusting tongs clamped to the metal, iron hammer clenched in his fist. His hands began to glow. Then the tools in them began to glow as well. Rust fell off them, dusting the air like golden snow. The glow spread to the metal, gold and red like a sunrise. He raised the hammer and brought it down.

For the first time in a century the sound of a ringing anvil rose from the ruins, chiming in time to the flashes of paladin gold…

Sparky flung the half-burned joint into the toilet, cursing himself. He hit the flusher before he could second-guess himself and grab the stupid thing out of the water again.

Crap. He'd swore he'd go clean. He'd swore it. But the minute he saw that roach lying in the medicine cabinet forgotten… He was already halfway to a buzz when he remembered what he'd promised. Just grab, flick a bic, and away he went.

He dropped his disposable lighter in the john and hit the flusher again. Maybe next time if it wasn't so easy to light up, he'd stop himself in time.

He hoped the lighter didn't blow up in the pipes or anything.

Last Christmas he'd gotten the scare of his life, one of those "go straight" scares that those DARE people wished they could whip up. He'd seen the news footage of the Merchant's big takedown. The gang hauled off in cuffs, their Capes dragged off by the PRT, cops everywhere… a few people dead, even, including Squealer.

It wasn't the bust that scared him. Mary-J was legal, and that was all he did, so he wasn't worried about that. But he'd gotten a real good look at the Merchants as they were hauled off. Especially Skidmark.

Skidmark was a CAPE, man. And he was a villain, but he was rich, and powerful, and-- top of the heap, you know? But they'd got footage of him being hauled off and tossed in a paddywagon… except for that raggedy pair-of-underwear mask he wore, you couldn't tell the difference between him and the worst ten-year meth-head. Shrivelled, skull-like face, rotting teeth, glazed eyes, head lolling about as he gibbered about who-knew-what…

That was a dead-end life. It'd never been so clear to Sparky before.

He'd stayed clean for a day, then two days. Just to take a look at his life when it wasn't blurred out by weed. It had been devastating to see for himself how far everything had slid. It was like being in a darkened room and thinking it was only a little cluttered, then turning on a light and seeing what a trash-strewn wreck it really was. His grades were shredded. His room was a dump. His parents… well, they had their own issues, they barely remembered him as more than another tenant in the apartment.

He'd sworn he was going to go straight arrow from then on. Totally clean.

That had lasted for a whole 'nother day. Then he'd found a dime bag he'd forgotten about. Then the next day he'd found a couple of roaches in the sofa cushion (he'd been looking for the remote, he'd swear to it.) Then his friends had come over with some kush and some snacks to share…

He wanted to kill himself. His parents were gonna end up burying him anyway at this rate--

Across manifold dimensions, something reached down--

No! <>

And was smacked down for its impudence.

Sparky looked up. Holy crap, it looked like an eighties album cover. Endless plain, twilit sky with hints of neon at the edges-- All it was missing was a naked chrome robot chick.

Hey! Hi there! Hi hi hi! A glowing blob of something was zipping around his head. Or… where his head ought to be. It was not a good sign when you couldn't locate body parts. "Oh no," he moaned. "That roach was bad, wasn't it. Laced with something--"

Nah, you're just having a paradimensional alien encounter.

"Uh… huh. Well, that is the sort of thing an LSD hallucination would say, innit?"

Good point I guess. But, okay, tell me, how do you FEEL right now?

Sparky thought it over. Actually, he felt… oh hey, there were his appendages… he actually felt more clearheaded and refreshed than he'd felt since-- since his brief stint as completely sober. His mood crashed again.

Oh, come on, don't get all mopey now! Especially since I'm here to give you a real chance to turn things around. Whole new life, whole new start!

Sparky looked at the zippy blob of light askance. "Uh, you're not about to try and get me to sell my soul to you or anything are you? Because I'm a stoner, not an idiot."

Zippy Light paused. What would I do with THAT?

Sparky shrugged (hey neat, shoulders) "Well, if you're the Devil or a demon or something--"

I am NOT! Zippy Light sounded mortally offended. I am a non-baryonic extradimensional alien lifeform.

"aaaaaaand ya lost me."

Urgh, not important. Point is, it's like this. My people pick Actors-- that's you-- to be heroes and do good deeds and stuff. We set you up with powers and knowledge and a whole new body, then we put you in a world to help it.

"Holy… is that how all Capes get their powers?"

Not even close. The answer was surprisingly cynical sounding. Okay, I'll try and sum up-- I give you these powers, new start, new life-- but in exchange, you have to help stop the end of the world.

"Wait-- end of the world??"

Yeah. It's really a bum trip. Did I use that phrase right? Anyway, it's like this…. Zippy Light gave Sparky the breakdown. Sparky was pretty sure that he should have fainted from shock. "Ohhhhh crap," he said, sitting crosslegged in the void. " So what happens if I say no?" he said.

No powers, you go back to your old body and life-- and the world ends anyway. Probably you along with it.

Sparky pondered that one. "So… I really got nothing to lose, huh."

Hey, it's not THAT bad. I'll stack the deck in your favor as best I can-- and there are others like you right in Brockton Bay who can help you. Don't worry, you'll find each other EASY. C'mon c'mon c'mon, say yes, PLEEEZ?

Sparky started to grin. "Sure. Sure, why not?"

EXCELLENT! Zippy did a celebratory loop de loop. Okay, let's get this picky-choosy thing over with… An enormous screen popped up in front of them. All right, these are the race templates we'll pick from…

Sparky snorted and woke up. He groaned and got up off the couch, stretching. Funny, he didn't remember putting on his bathrobe--

He looked down. It wasn't a bathrobe. It was actually a full body robe of elegant red and blue silk, trimmed in gold. "Whoa." Hastily he made his way to the bathroom. What he saw in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door left him speechless. A tall, robed young man with a ponytail of long blonde hair down to the middle of his back stared back at him. In one hand he clutched a winged red and gold staff. A leather pouch hung at his waist. He was tall, slender, with long graceful fingers and high-cheekboned, aristocratic features. But his most striking features were his long pointed ears and his glowing, solid green eyes.

He wasn't Sparky anymore. He was….

"Shar'Din," He breathed. "Shar'Din Belore."

Brockton Bay's first Blood Elf contemplated his next move.

Max Anders looked over the polished teak desk that dominated the penthouse office of the Medhall building. All around him were the evidence of his influence and power. The three hundred and sixty degree vista of Brockton Bay. The priceless works of art and sculpture that decorated his office. The tasteful furniture, even the persian rug lying in front of his gleaming desk, all of it gave testimony to his power, his prestige, his success. Even the ill-shaved presence of Hookwolf, despite all his brutish violent power waiting for Max Ander's next order as meekly as any valet, was proof of his authority. The only thing out of place in all that was standing on the rug next to Mr. Brian "Hookwolf" Meadows: Max Ander's son.

His son-- his son, a thing he only admitted to with resentment-- stood there next to Hookwolf, head down, a bandaged cut on his forehead vivid against his pale soft skin. Even from here he could see the boy was shaking. Even standing still the boy was a disappointment to him. Could he show no spine at all? "You put him through all the paces?" he asked Hookwolf, refusing to look at the boy.

"Everything you suggested, everything we could think of." Hookwolf shrugged. "Obstacle runs, forced marches, surprise attacks-- Nothing. Boy didn't trigger." He tossed his head at Theo. "Scared the literal piss outta him several times, but no Trigger." The scruffy thug of a man snickered.

Max Anders sighed as if every unfair burden in the world had been thrown on his shoulders. "You did your best, I'll assume," he said. "You may go." He buzzed him out; the neonazi Cape swaggered out without a glance back, hands in his pockets.

For several breaths Max Anders merely stood there, staring at his son. The boy still didn't look up. "Pissed yourself, did you." the CEO, millionaire and secret neonazi leader let the scorn drip from his voice.

Theo said nothing. Max Anders-- Kaiser-- wasn't sure whether that made him less, or more upset.

Before he could think of anything sufficiently or appropriately scathing to say, the automated office doors were forcibly pushed open. Kayden Anders came striding in, her face full of icy fury. "Go on downstairs, Theo," she said without taking her eyes off her ex-husband. All but sagging with relief, the boy hastened to obey.

The moment he was through the doors and in the elevator headed down, Kayden opened on Max. "I hear from Justin that you sent Theo on one of your little 'camping trips,'" she spat. "You gave your word that you would stop trying to make the boy Trigger!"

"The boy was unharmed--" Max began.

"'The boy' is your son, not a lab experiment and not a plaything for you to break," Kayden snapped. "'The boy' is also no longer your concern. He is already living with me, and he is going to remain with me. You are to keep your hands off him from now on the same as Aster and myself." She turned on her heel.

Max smoldered. He waited until she was halfway to the door. "I will permit this for now, Kayden," he said with insulting calm. "Along with all your other little indiscretions. But in the end we both know who's in charge here."

She stopped in mid stride. She bother turning around. "Your little knife trick is cute, Max," she said, loading every syllable with contempt. "But we both know who'd win a dick-swinging contest between us. I can see Medhall from my bedroom window. You start a fight with me, little man, I won't even have to roll out of bed to finish it." She started walking again; the polished oaken doors closed behind her.

He waited until he heard the DING of the elevator. Only then did a five hundred dollar crystal inkwell fly across the room to smash against the oak doors.

She held her composure till the elevator doors closed. Then she clenched her fists and pressed them against her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

Theo was silent for most of the ride home. It was only when they reached the apartment complex that he spoke up. "Thank you for coming for me, Kayden," he said softly. "You didn't have to. I'm not worth it--"

I'm not worth it. The words stung Kayden's heart. She cursed Max Anders anew. That bastard had all but destroyed the boy. They'd never been close-- Theo was only her step-son, born from another woman long before Kayden came on the scene. But she was fond of the boy, and she wouldn't wish a father like Max on her worst enemy.

They arrived and went inside. The apartment was small but tidy, and well within her budget. It was a bit snug sometimes with her, the boy and Aster, but they made do. Would make do.

Justin was there waiting for them. Crusader was one of Kaiser's men, a cape who could generate dozens of ghostly duplicates of himself. His usefulness on the battlefield made him one of Kaiser's favored lieutenants. He'd be a lot less favored if Kaiser knew of the relationship growing between Justin and Kaiser's ex-wife. He nodded at both of them. "You two okay?" he asked.

Theo nodded, looking away; Kayden answered by all but throwing herself in Justin's arms. "It's ridiculous," she half-laughed, sniffling. "I'm powerful enough to wipe the floor with him, and I'm still scared to death to face him down."

"Max never fights fair if he can avoid it," Justin said. "That doesn't make you weak, it makes you smart. Aster's down for a nap…."

Kayden moved to the crib to look over her daughter. "Theo, go on and get some rest… we'll order in something for dinner in an hour or two, okay?" Theo half-nodded, half-shrugged, and went back to his room, closing the door behind him.

He sat down on the bed in the dark, his hand clenched into fists on his knees. This time had been the worst yet. There'd been several times where he'd thought he was actually going to die. He only hoped he didn't wake up screaming from nightmares this time.

Max-- Theo refused to think of him as anything remotely like "father"-- wanted a legacy, and if he couldn't have the one he wanted he would hammer Theo into the shape of one. He was convinced his superior genes should be showing through his son. That if Theo would just cooperate and Trigger, he would become an incredibly powerful Cape and a testimony to Max Ander's natural greatness.

The thought of doing anything that would make Max Anders proud made Theo want to puke.

It was only going to get worse. Despite all the physical and verbal abuse, the screaming, the violent assaults out of nowhere, Theo hadn't triggered. So Max Anders was bound to come up with an even better idea for getting Theo to trigger.

His head dropped to his chest, tears leaking out of his eyes. "Please," he whispered. "Please somebody just make it stop..."

I can make it stop.

Theo's head jerked up-- or it would have, if he'd had a head at the moment. All around him was a smoky, endless plain, lit by a midnight indigo sky. In front of him floated a glowing something…

About an hour later, Kayden heard… something odd from Theo's room. A tremendous thump, as if something had been dropped from a decent height onto the floor. "Theo?" she called out. When no reply came, she went to his room and started to open the door.

"DON'T!" Theo pleaded. "Don't come in. Don't look at me!"

Worry clutched at her heart. "Theo, what's wrong?"

"I-- I triggered! Please, noone can see me--"

" What??" Ignoring his pleas, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. She stared. And stared again. And stared again some more. Standing in the middle of Theo's bedroom was a panda bear wearing black silk pajamas and a frightened look on it's face. "I, I didn't want you to see me like this..." it moaned in Theo's voice.

Justin ran into the room behind her. "Kayden what-- What."

Kayden stared at her stepson, utterly flabbergasted. "….Kaiser's gonna freak," she said.

Justin thought it over. "Well, at least he's still HALF white," he muttered.

Lung was known to have only three real moods: Angry. About to Get Angry, and Asleep. His aggression level was astronomical; understandable since the powers that enabled him to transform into an ever more powerful great dragon only activated in combat. So thus he was always, in his own mind, about to spring into just such a combat… because maintaining that mental state kept his powers at a ready slow burn. His face, when he deigned to remove his mask, was always wearing one expression: slow burning anger.

Nonplussed was a new one.

He was still sitting in his oversized recliner-- truly a throne fit for the gods!--- and staring, chin in hand, at what two of his underlings had dragged before him In their clutches was… he struggled to find some other phrase to name it but there simply was none… a panda girl. A red panda to be exact. She was, what was the word? Rubenesque?-- of build, dressed in a simple black taiji uniform, and had her red hair done in a simple long braid which was currently wrapped in one ABB thug's fist. "We caught her sneaking around the neighborhood," the other thug was saying. "She's obviously a new Trigger, and so we knew she would just love to hear your recruitment pitch." They both grinned in amusement.

"You imbeciles!" The girl spat where she knelt. She squirmed in their grip. "I'm not even ASIAN!"

This got a roar of laughter from several of Lung's goons. "Not Asian?" the one holding her hair said. "Girl, you couldn't be more asian if you had 'Made in China' stamped on your backside!"

"I'm white, blast it!"

Lung leaned forward in his seat. She froze when she saw him move, but he merely rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands. "Then isn't it strange," he rumbled, "how you speak perfect Mandarin Chinese?"

The girl got an utterly dumbfounded look on her face. She started to speak, then looked distracted, as if she was trying to hear the words she was saying. "I… but… I… am… I am! I'm speaking Chinese?! How in Hell??" She yammered at herself, switching back and forth from English to Chinese and back again.

Inwardly Lung shrugged. Waking up knowing how to speak an entirely new language was hardly the strangest Cape ability he'd heard of, or even that unique, actually. Turning into a panda woman, well it was definitely unusual, but not of much use as far as he could see. Though some of the customers at the brothel could be… weird… meh. "Whatever you were before, you belong to the ABB now," he said.

"But--- look, just let me go! I'm no use to you! At all! My powers are gone!!"

"Gone?" Lung repeated.

She apparently realized her mistake because she paused as if to try and think of a way to cover her words, but obviously decided against it. "Yes. I... I'm Rune, from the Empire Eighty Eight."

That certainly got a reaction from the room. Rune was a teenage Cape who ran with the E88, and was one of the more powerful Capes in the Bay. She could levitate and control several multi-ton objects, so long as she had touched and "marked" them with her power. And if this was her… "Explain," he ordered.

"I don't know what happened," she said. "I was sitting in my room, feeling like crap 'cause I'd had a bad day. I musta dozed off because I had some sort of… weird dream..." she trailed off. "I only remember bits of it. Nonsense junk. Then I feel this… JOLT go through me like I'd stuck my head in a light socket. Then I wake up on the floor looking like this, and my powers don't work any more!

"I freaked out and ran off before anyone could see me, and the next thing I know I'm running into these two idiots!" She directed a kick at her captors.

Lung brooded on it for a second. "Whatever you were, you are ABB property now," he said. "Put her in one of the cells downstairs." The two thugs pulled her to her feet.

"What? No! You cant do this--!" They frogmarched her off.

Lung saw one of his lieutenants looking at him curiously and explained. "If she is lying, she may still prove useful. If she is who she says she is, she is a bargaining chip for dealing with the E88. If she has truly lost her powers, then there are people--- wealthy, powerful people-- who will pay quite handsomely for her, so they may try to learn why and how."

"And if she does have powers?"

"Then she will be taught, most swiftly, who her new master is," Lung said, cracking his knuckles.

Rune fell to her hands and knees in the middle of the floor. She heard the door slam behind her, heard the locks and bolts click home. For the thousandth time that day she tried to use her powers; to rip up a multi-ton chunk of the floor and send it ripping through the door and the goons on the other side of it. Like every other time, nothing happened.

She sat down on the floor and leaned against the bed, groaning. How had she ended up here, like this? For some reason she only remembered a smattering of that strange dream. The little living light that had heard her wishing for a way out-- out of the Nazis, out of her "family," out of the E88-- and had promised to help… then… that powerful, painful flash of light, then nothing. Just a big blank.

The frustrating, infuriating thing was: she knew, somehow she knew she had powers. She just couldn't remember how to make them work!

She sat there, spending what she was sure was the first of many hours yet to come, slowly poking and prodding at her mind like a sore tooth to try and reawaken her powers….

,