5.4

5.4

Wednesday, 6th April

Despite your membership of the Wards now extending over multiple weeks, and your visits to headquarters numbering in the dozens, you were still finding new places in the building that you had never seen before.

The gym was one such place.

Partitioned between a weight room containing all of the equipment you might expect to see at any high end gym plus a baffling array of other devices that you could only assume were specialised for very targeted actions and the other room, in which you found yourself, which had a sort of firm rubber flooring that appeared segmented, such that one could remove the panels for cleaning, but was otherwise uniform.

Along each wall, a rail extended around waist-height, with the exception of the rear wall which had soft corners that seemed to curve around themselves.

The walls, too, were covered in the same firm rubberised material, and the only light that entered the room aside from the overhead fluorescents came from a narrow window that ran along the back and right hand walls, currently pushed open to allow for an influx of cool air.

More strange than being in such an unfamiliar room was the outfit.

Apparently, training for combat in your usual uniform was seen as atypical. While not strictly forbidden, the expectation was that your costume was for hero duty and hero action, not for training – especially when there was the possibility of sparring with other heroes.

That idea alone scared you. You'd spent long enough working with New Wave on how to spar without actually hurting anyone, and that required a lot of suboptimal movement. Trying out new, purposefully effective techniques on other Wards seemed like a quick way to get yourself sent to the Birdcage without even getting the opportunity to discuss the situation with Dragon again.

The end result of that was that rather than being dressed in Rhizome's typical excellent tailoring, with your face obscured by a solid helmet that covered every angle, you instead were wearing a pair of tracksuit pants in grey, a white tank top that gave away precisely how needle thin you were without the illusion of musculature built into the costume, and a pre-production sample Penumbra branded pair of combat gloves. Your face was covered by a fairly breathable wrap-around mask that obscured your features from the nose-down and the eyebrows up, which you recognised as objectively sufficient.

But with it being the first time you had been around other Wards with even your eyes exposed, you couldn't say that you liked it too much.

Not all of the Wards were present. You'd gathered that hand to hand combat was offered more for practicality and in order to ensure that the PRT could ensure that it was meeting minimum requirements, but that it wasn't really enforced on everyone evenly. Aegis, wearing a similar outfit to your own but looking far more comfortable and worn in, his shirt even having developed a small hole near the hem, was apparently a fairly regular attendee due to the nature of his powers allowing for constant close-up entanglements, but he was the only one.

Well, the only one that was regular. To your right, Vista stood in her own work-out gear, all in a soft green colour which matched well with her usual outfit. You got the feeling that she didn't wear it all that often, but she didn't appear uncomfortable or out of place. That kind of thing seemed reserved for Taylor Hebert, regardless of the context she appeared in, and without the helmet pretending that it was Penumbra rather than Taylor was a lost cause to begin with.

Aside from the three of you, the only other occupant was a grizzled looking man, perhaps two inches shorter than yourself, who had a nasty set of white lines tracing his face, as though he'd gotten into a particularly ferocious squabble with a blender and come out the wrong side of it some years ago. Your instructor, it seemed.

'Today,' he began, 'we have a new face. And so I will give the same introduction I give to all students, before we begin.'

You turned to listen, following in Aegis and Vista's footsteps.

'We are not here to learn martial arts. We are not here to learn a system with belts and certificates. If you are interested in that, pursue it in your civilian time. There will be no such thing as a kata here – real fights don't use them. Instead, what you will learn is how to apply force in a way that doesn't injure yourself, how to use the full range of weapons available to you biologically, and a few tips and tricks to allow you to control the flow of any hand to hand engagement.'

He moved across the front of the room, his footsteps quiet but not silent; the kind of quiet that blended into the background, rather than the starkness of a silence that drew attention to itself by its uncanny nature.

'Fighting is hard, and people get hurt. It's always better that the person getting hurt is the other person, and so, we aren't going to focus on how to pull punches. As parahumans, you should only ever be fighting villains you intend to harm in the first place, or minor criminals who shouldn't need any specific technique to subdue. This isn't competition and there are no grades for aesthetics. Am I understood?'

He was, and so the room rang quiet.

'Good.'

Proceeding onwards, your instructor gave you a series of short exercises to complete to warm up, focusing on stretches and balance, before giving you time to perform them on your own, with him providing occasional commentary to make sure that you weren't doing anything counter-productive. In following Aegis' lead, you made it through without too much correction.

'Now,' he picked up again. Your muscles were burning and you felt sweat already; some of the movements you had been forced into were the kind that strained your body against itself, and you were surprised by how difficult they had been without weights or even a partner to push back. You hadn't felt so tired physically since prior to gaining your Brute power; though mentally, you were sharp and ready to proceed.

'Be aware that the methods we are covering, and will continue to cover in subsequent sessions, are formulated for Brute fighters. I won't be sparring with you, because I am not a parahuman and I don't have a death wish. Similarly, Vista here is not going to be sparring with you for similar reasons. That, and age.'

The younger girl grumbled but didn't protest beyond that. You couldn't blame her: she may have been young, but you'd seen her in action and she was more than capable, and at least she was showing up. Clockblocker, Kid Win, and Gallant were older but you would have been surprised if any of them had pursued this kind of training. Vista took herself extremely seriously as a parahuman, and you reminded yourself again that she was the longest tenured of the current Wards.

'You know your capacities as a Brute better than I do, so use your judgement. I'm going to tell you the most effective ways to hit someone and if you don't want to kill them, you can choose not to use it in the wrong moment. I'm going to tell you the downsides to certain strikes and if you know your Brute rating can't handle that strike, don't hurt yourself. If you do, that's your own fault, not mine. Clear?'

'Clear.'

All three of you spoke in unison, and it was eerie to see how soon you all fell in line. Vista and Aegis were experienced with this guy, so their response was well honed, but your own answer came purely as a result of following the rhythm set up by his own speech and it was honestly impressive, in a somewhat unsettling way. You wondered if he might have some form of subtle mastering power, but you didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

Though, you supposed that was what made mastering powers so dangerous; you usually didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

After his second miniature speech, Vista was taken aside to work with the instructor briefly while you were shown some of the basic ideas by Aegis. Due to her own relative fragility, it was determined that it was probably for the best for now if you weren't working with Vista while getting to grips with some of the basics.

Luckily, it gave you a small opportunity to interrogate the friendly boy, in between his corrections of your movements; while the training with New Wave had done a lot to give you a sense of security working with unpowered civilians and other non-Brutes, it turned out that for actual Brute-to-Brute combat you were doing yourself a disservice.

'I'm glad I'm not the only one here today. It feels weird being out of costume.'

'Oh, I'm always here. Vista is too, whenever she can make it. She's a lot better than me, she'll be dangerous in a few years.'

It was hard to imagine, but you supposed he was right; technique could do a lot to overcome strength, so once she was fifteen or sixteen and had more height and natural strength to work with, her superlative technical prowess might take her over the top. Double that if she could incorporate her shaker powers alongside it to maximise her advantages.

'I don't know why I didn't expect to see her. I guess I just thought she would prefer working from range. Containment foam, if anything, you know?'

Aegis thought for a moment, before answering back.

'We all get containment foam training, ever since Dragon made it widely available, but sometimes you can't choose the range you fight at. Especially if you don't have a mover power. Better to have a skill that you don't need, than to need a skill you haven't got, right? Besides, are you containment foam trained?'

You shook your head. 'Not yet. You're right though, it could be handy. How do I go about getting that done?'

Aegis explained that it was less complicated than you might have thought; containment foam was intended to cover humans entirely, including their heads, so it was largely an inert substance that wasn't easily inhaled, wasn't dangerous to ingest, and didn't have any known allergenic components. As a result, getting your certification was as simply as passing a simple approval form that clarified that you understood your liability for any damage you caused while using it, and that you accepted the consequences of using it in any non-approved fashion.

'Definitely something to look into, then.'

He nodded, before looking over your shoulder; the instructor had moved away from Vista, and approached the two of you as a pair. Bringing the group back together as a three, he moved into training proper; perhaps the first fifteen minutes of the two hour booking had passed, and you were eager to learn something new.

Unfortunately, you hadn't quite realised the extent to which you needed help.

Your punching mechanics, already being fixed by Aegis when you had been interrupted, were a shambles; your Brute abilities had saved you from various degrees of broken hand and wrist as your strikes came in awkward angles with your wrist deviated from a straight line, turning awkwardly upon landing, and with a failure to follow through on some of your strikes. You threw elbows far wider than your instructor liked, the gangliness of your limbs encouraging a sort of flailing motion that was far from the tight arc he was encouraging, and you had no real experience in striking with your lower body at all.

Luckily, things weren't a complete embarrassment. Contrary to your own expectations, you had fairly competent natural balance and the resilience of your empowered body meant that you could get away with some of the weaker motions without damaging yourself; technique was a matter of maximising what you had, rather than preventing catastrophic damage to yourself.

And you were learning fast.

Schoolwork had always been a strength of yours, but not one that came without effort. Even as you homeschooled, between the patrols and scuffles with the Empire, you had to make sure every chapter in the textbook was read twice over and your flashcard collection had become almost gaudy in size. The less you spoke of your highlighter pens, the better; you would die before you allowed Clockblocker the opportunities to make fun of your colour-coding.

But combat seemed different. Whether it was simply because you had already been in a number of practical combat situations that gave you fantastic context, or whether there was something in your Brute power that nudged you in the right direction, things felt like they were slotting into place readily with each hint and piece of advice you received.

Your instructor seemed to realise it, and the advice was plentiful.

Aiming elbows at the brow-line, to open up cuts and obscure an enemy's vision. Throwing consecutive strikes with the same hand, doubling the jab and hooking off it. Learning not to panic when you were grabbed, and instead to secure foot position and use it to unbalance your opponent. Using your head to disrupt their positioning, posting it up under their jawline. Elbowing off the break. Throwing knees to the mid-section. So much that almost none of it was guaranteed to stick after one session, but enough to load your mind with ideas and inspiration and possibilities.

Fighting was a lot more than just throwing punches, and you were amazed that nobody had wrecked you in the field thus far. Part of it was because of the luck of your own strength, of course, but even then you weren't the only Brute around; Lung, as little as you knew about him, was probably not too far from your own strength and you were willing to bet he was a more imaginative fighter than you. Trying to picture going toe-to-toe with him when you were sure he had figured out some of this stuff by experience if not through his own training – assuming he did any, you couldn't be sure – was a humbling experience.

And contrary to your revelation about your own strength exceeding Alexandria's over a month earlier, you were certain that she knew a lot more about how to break a body than you did.

Knowing that there were going to be more sessions excited you; you were leaving for Atlanta in just under two weeks, but if you could get in even just a handful of additional sessions that were as productive as the first, you were sure that your combat effectiveness would improve dramatically, especially when you eventually got into a situation that meant dealing with someone who could actually take your shot. You weren't sure when that was going to happen, but you weren't even nearly arrogant enough to believe it would be never. Especially not after being so humbled by your own ignorance.

You chose to ignore that part of it was also being humbled by Vista. Aegis' own lack of understanding his pain threshold and the strange redundancies of his biology rendered a need for honed technique irrelevant; you got a feeling he was mostly there to learn new offence rather than overall combat capacity. Vista, on the other hand, was scary.

Despite his serious face and his scarred skin assuring you that he was more than prepared, watching the instructor hold pads as Vista worked through a series of frankly intimidating knees did not allow you room to envy him.

But you weren't discouraged. And you would be back.

Leaving the training room with Aegis and Vista, covered in sweat and sore, you made your way to the adjoining showers where your costume awaited you. Things were individual enough that you didn't much fear the risk of being seen, particularly with Vista's professional demeanour. Even Clockblocker, had he been present, was sensible enough not to steal someone's clothes from a locker room when secret identities were involved, and if that was the case then the chances of Vista doing anything strange were slim to none.

Indeed, she finished before you, and by the time you stepped out of the changing rooms as Penumbra, the hallways were empty; Aegis had gone off to who-knows-where or, potentially, was still taking his time in the male changing room, and Vista had probably gone off to do something weirdly advanced for her age, as was her wont.

Rather than heading off, you decided to make a trip up to the Wards' rooms, and say hello to everyone. While you knew that you weren't going to be around Brockton Bay forever, there was a benefit to getting along well with the people who were going to be the next generation of the Protectorate, and while you hadn't had the opportunity to spend a massive amount of time with them all they had all come across well in the short time you'd known them. Even Clockblocker had helped you with the PHO question and answer session you had blundered into, and Kid Win had been the only person who had given you the information what what Armsmaster's power boost had done to him; discovering the reasoning behind his occasional mechanised voice had cleared up a lot for you.

As a result, you were pleased to see that the Wards' room was pretty busy when you entered. While you had spent a lot of time in the PRT headquarters, most of it took place when the other Wards were probably at school or engaged in other real-world commitments, so you didn't often get to see everyone gathered together.

Vista's rapid disappearance had been justified, as you saw her sat at Console, presumably acting as co-ordinator and first point of contact for whichever Protectorate heroes were currently out patrolling the streets, but aside from her nobody else seemed to be doing anything of any particular import.

Aegis was reading, and Clockblocker was next to him on the couch seemingly embroiled in a tempestuous war with what looked to be homework, and Kid Win was sitting across from the pair of them alongside Gallant, who was hard at work on his phone texting at a prodigious rate.

You assumed that it was a result of not having used a phone in years and therefore losing a lot of the knack for it, but you could never emulate that kind of precision or speed. Just another reason for you to continue pursuing the plans Armsmaster had approved; get something built that didn't find itself limited by your own dexterity.

Joining the group, you took a seat nearest Gallant, placing you between him and Kid Win, and you took advantage of the situation as best you could.

'Hi,' you said, opening up conversation with your fellow tinker. Gallant's concentration currently seemed as though it wouldn't appreciate interruption, and so you decided to follow what appeared to be a trend recently; bothering other tinkers for advice.

'Hey,' Kid replied, 'what's up?'

'Just finished with training, so I thought it was a good idea to come and say hello before I went off on patrol again.'

'Sounds like a good idea to me.'

Kid Win was a friendly enough guy, but you weren't exactly his best friend in the world and so breaching the topic felt awkward. That said, you had plenty of experience at this point in breaching somewhat awkward topics and so you forged onwards with the perseverance of a particularly stubborn blacksmith – striking while the iron was whatever colour made itself available.

'I was wondering, and of course it's absolutely fine if the answer is no, whether I could ask you a few tinkering questions. I think I might have found myself in the same boat. Armsmaster says so, at least. I thought you might have some insight that would be helpful for someone who hasn't really figured out their specialty yet.'

Kid Win winced slightly, and you nearly kicked yourself for the insensitivity; while it was true that he had discovered his true calling recently – modularity, if you remembered rightly – that was only as a result of your power boosting. Prior to that, he had spent well over a year as a member of the Wards without really knowing what he was doing, and the result was a long string of experimental failures and weaponry banned from approval that you knew he didn't find pleasant.

Still, his sunny disposition apparently outweighed any of the offence you might have caused him.

'Yeah, I definitely know the feeling. What do you need to know?'

'Not much honestly, I have some ideas already. I just don't want to blow up my house. Could I borrow your tinker space at some point, maybe when you're at home? I wouldn't want to take up your time and I won't use any of your stuff either, it's just about safety.'

'Sure, whenever you want. Honestly, a lot of my own ideas come from Armsmaster too so if he says you should try it, it's probably not much different from when I try stuff he's told me as well. You can use my gear too, just not anything that's in the green boxes. That's the expensive stuff I use my tinker budget on.'

'Tinker budget?'

'You didn't know?'

You didn't. It made sense that tinkers would get some kind of financial support – from what you knew, Protectorate members made good but not stunningly good money, and there was little chance that Armsmaster could build and maintain several of his suits and motorcycles without some form of financial aid, let alone his halberds which each packed more technology than the average university campus.

Chances that I'm going to get a tinker workshop once my power is confirmed?

100%

Glad to have confirmed that much, at least, you decided to head back into conversation with Kid Win; you were being gauche enough to ask him for help straight up so it was the least you could do to actually maintain the conversation rather than allowing it to drift off into your wondering and dreaming.

'I didn't, but it makes sense. Don't worry, I won't use your stuff.'

'You should let me know when you're done, so I can take a look. Who knows what kind of ideas I met get from it, y'know?'

You did know; a lot of your own ideas, the ones that had been accumulating in the back of your mind since Armsmaster's approval of your initial design, were related to Armsmaster's own work. Or at least, inspired by it; the idea of fitting things in smaller and smaller spaces, making sure that you were using every nanogram of material to its utmost, seemed more appealing than ever. You weren't even sure how you could go about building something the size of Armsmaster's motorcycle, and you weren't sure how he managed it either; it seemed contrary to his entire ethos.

Maybe he was just a more flexible tinker than you were. A higher rating, perhaps.

Worth a question, you thought, given that you had no real patrol upcoming that evening and therefore probably very little use for saving them.

Chances my tinker power, once properly explored, will be rated lower than Armsmaster's?

0%

Kid Win's next sentences were spoken into the aether, as you froze up in surprise. Higher than Armsmaster's seemed impossible; other than Dragon, there was perhaps no finer tinker the world and even then there was debate; some claimed that Dragon's reliance on the tinkertech of others made it impossible to rate her quite so highly. Those people were a minority of course, but no such minority even existed for Armsmaster. His renown was universal; he was incredible. The greatest heroic tinker since Hero himself.

Being told that your own power would be rated more highly was like being told that you were a better blaster than Legend.

Or, you realised grimly, that you were physically stronger than Alexandria; perhaps not quite so impossible as it seemed.

By the time you had returned to your body from a brief astral jaunt of incredulity, Gallant had dropped his phone to his lap and sighed deep in his throat, drawing attention from everyone gathered around the table.

'Something bothering you?' Kid Win asked, voice soft.

'Yeah, what's the moaning for?' Clockblocker added, less so.

'Nothing. Just personal stuff. Dealing with drama.'

Instantly you understood; Amy related stuff.

Her ongoing tension with Vicky had spilled out on to you, and was continuing to spill out on to Gallant; she was, whatever else you could say about her, whatever praise you could grant her for her healing capacities, entirely capable of being a menace when the mood struck her, and it was striking with alarming regularity.

'Want to talk about it somewhere quieter?'

The words escaped your mouth before you even really processed them, and garnered a quizzical tilt of the head from Clockblocker.

'Yes please,' Gallant said. 'And keep it to yourself, Clock.'

'Aye aye Captain.'

Hauling yourself up off the couch, still feeling the strain in your muscles from your earlier workout, you followed the metal clad master to the far end of the room; it wasn't truly private, in the conventional sense, but unless someone was actively attempting to eavesdrop the odds of being overheard were minimal.

'So what's the problem?'

'Nothing new. Vicky's upset that Amy won't talk to her, Amy won't talk to her no matter what she tries, so it loops.'

'Was it like that the whole time you were trying to speak to her?'

'No,' he said, resting his head in his hands. You could tell that he was truly upset about it, and you weren't surprised; emotions were his entire thing, and the situation was becoming more emotionally fraught with every passing day. Whatever means he used to sense different emotional states must have been going haywire every time he stepped into a room with Vicky, and if Amy happened to be nearby he was probably getting the equivalent of a thinker headache with semi-regularity.

'It was okay at first. Surprisingly okay. She was listening and she agreed that she's stressed out. Felt like she was honestly relieved someone else was talking about it instead of her, like she had been thinking it for a long time. It was only really when things moved towards her,' he paused again. Like he had on the rooftop, during your first conversation. Then, he pivoted, like he had then too. 'Towards her more personal issues. Then she flipped.'

Something was amiss, and you weren't sure exactly what. You weren't going to pry; if Gallant knew, then it was being factored in and you didn't need to be privy to the precise details of Amy's no doubt fascinating psychological life. Parahumans, especially those with an out and out identity like New Wave had, suffered from a lack of privacy to begin with, what with photos being taken, blogs being posted, and news being reported with regularity. The last thing any of them needed was you trying to psychoanalyse them when you didn't even really know what psychoanalysis was beyond sketchy things regarding mothers.

'So what are you going to do?'

'What can I do? Vicky told me you spoke to her, and she said she might talk about it. Or something close enough to that, at least. We'll wait for her to come out of her shell a little and start working on the things we can fix. Hopefully that will improve her state of mind enough that when we move on to the more sensitive things she has some coping mechanisms and support stuff in place.'

'Coping mechanisms? Like, meditation or something?'

'Maybe, but really it can be anything. Gardening, baking, knitting, whittling, whatever. Just something she can do that's for her and that nobody else can control. People benefit a lot from that kind of stuff.'

'So what you're saying is that she needs a hobby.'

Gallant cringed physically, reducing his silhouette into a gnarled thing.

'Kind of, I guess, but really it's more important than it sounds. Amy's entire life basically revolves around being a hero. She's either at school, where she's Glory Girl's sister, or she's at the hospital saving lives. It's no wonder she's a little unstable.'

Chances that getting a hobby would help Amy's mental health?

56%

Good enough for you.

'Okay then, I'll defer to your expertise on the subject. If it helps, Gallant, I think you're doing a good job. Someone else should have dealt with these problems before it fell on your shoulders. You should be proud of yourself.'

Gallant sat back in his seat, the metal of his armour clinking softly against the exposed hard surfaces on the otherwise plush seat.

'I just hope you're right, Penumbra. Or else things are fucked.'

Thursday, 7th April

Speaking to Dad about your newfound tinkering powers went easier than you had expected. While he had been generally surprised that you had any powers at all in the first place, and then equally surprised that you had continued accumulating them, he didn't seem to see much of a difference between a tinker power and a blaster power in significance; for him, it was all bizarre and incredible, without much nuance.

Perhaps if you had come out with a power that let you transform into a thirty foot dragon or turn things into gold with a touch he would have taken it differently, but as far as he was concerned you were simply Taylor, whatever the extraneous details of the situation said.

So when you told him that you had developed tinker powers and that you were going to be borrowing Kid Win's workshop rather than risk blowing a hold in the garage, you could have predicted his response.

'Kid Win is a boy, right?'

'Yes, Dad.'

'Uh huh. Okay. And you're borrowing his workshop?'

'Yes, to work on tinkering.'

'Is that what they're calling it these days?'

Only the desire to prevent him from becoming embedded in the wall prevented you from slapping at his arm.

'Dad, honestly, it's just about tinkering.'

'You know, you're a teenager now, you can be honest with me if it something like that. I don't mind.'

'I know, and if it was I would tell you,' you weren't actually sure about that, but he didn't need to know that. 'But it isn't. I am legitimately just trying to use a cellphone to speak to my brain directly.'

And that was entirely normal for a tinker to do.

'And should I expect you home at a normal time?'

'Dad. Please.'

'Just being sure. Wouldn't want to forget to set out and extra plate if I was expecting a guest.'

You loved your Dad, but he could be every bit the menace that Clockblocker could. You were determined never to let the two meet, lest your sanity be the cost.

Honestly, you appreciated the concern but you had no real inclinations of that kind. Even if Aegis' tight shirt had suited him very well during training the previous day, it was purely an aesthetic judgment; his personality was far too happy-go-lucky for you, and his persona as a cape far too tailored to public image. It felt weird to even appreciate his physique.

And it wasn't as though he was the only handsome or pretty person in the world. You thought Laserdream was beautiful too, but you weren't about to start trying to date her, and you'd seen enough pictures of Narwhal to know what gorgeous looked like. Legend was famous for being attractive to everyone, and you were no exception. Even Cricket, as much as you hated her, looked fantastic and you weren't about take her out to coffee either.

Parents, you decided as you took off out of the house through the back wall, were simply obsessed with romance. It made sense, you decided; if they weren't, they probably wouldn't have ended up as parents in the first place.

Still, you weren't sure you could see any interest in it.

Actions Remaining:

- Do First Aid training with the PRT on April 8th

- Go Visit Mom on April 9th

- Follow Armsmaster's Device Advice

- Look up sign language online

- Propose empowering multiple tinkers at once

- Ask your thinker power about Dragon being forced to support the Birdcage

- Give a farewell speech before leaving Brockton Bay

- Speak to Theo and find out what he wants

Combat training initiated, and we will continue doing that in the background while we're in Brockton Bay. Next update, we will resume empowering people for the PRT, so my question is: who do you want us to empower most? Assault, Battery, Velocity, Triumph, and Clockblocker are all on the table for it as remaining candidates.

Aside from that, we've supported Gallant in his bold quest to make Amy less crazy, we've gotten permission from Kid Win to use his lab - which we will do in the next update - and we told Dad about it, which received some parental teasing that also gave some insight into Taylor's perspective on Attractive People.

No suggestions again this time, as there's plenty still on the list to pursue, but what do you want us to do?