6.7

6.7

It took nearly the full half an hour that your empowerments lasted for Cinereal's transformation to fade. With it, the room stabilised and as if time had been run in reverse, the walls, door, desk, photo frames, and other items that had been dissolved into ash slowly reconstituted themselves. While there were a few visual blemishes, signs that they had been altered, they seemed stable enough.

Cinereal, on the other hand, was clearly somewhat shaken. Still holding her posture upright, there was a tension in the set of her jaw that told you that she wasn't feeling particularly well. You had seen a similar reaction in other people post-empowerment, Glacial herself being a good example, but it did seem that the more dramatic the effect, the more dramatic the come-down, and Cinereal's shift had been visually expansive to say the least.

Webby seemed to recognise that much too, because her questions were far less extensive for the Protectorate leader than they had been for Glacial, and it was the least you were able to do to quickly inform Glacial of the results of the questions you had asked on your way over before the small girl left the room alongside the boss, hand hovering as though prepared to support her in the case that she fell.

Certainly, you agreed with Cinereal's own diagnosis: a powerful looking change, but not the kind of transformation you would want to engage lightly. Not only was the potential for collateral high, even if only in the short term, but its usage would leave Cinereal herself possibly vulnerable once it wore off, and the consequences of that could be disastrous if whichever enemy had provoked such desperate measures had managed to survive.

With Cinereal and Glacial gone from the room, you let out of a breath. The air was hot and humid, as though the fiery final empowerment had worked its magic on the remnants of Glacial's frosty manifestations, and you needed air.

Even through the filters of your helmet, the air was heavy and moist.

Webby herself cracked a window, though it was small and positioned at the top of the room, presumably to prevent onlookers from looking in on medical procedures.

'How are you feeling?'

It took a moment before you realised that she was talking to you, but with nobody else in the room, there was no other possibility.

'Fine. It's not the first time I've seen something like that. Well, not exactly like that, but similar.'

'Oh?'

'Vista, in Brockton Bay. She's a Ward there. It wasn't quite as bad, but she had some involuntary effects too. Maybe it's a Shaker thing.'

'I'll prepare for Scrivener's empowerment in advance, then, shall I?'

Webby's voice held more humour than you thought that you would be able to muster, and you wondered whether it was a good idea to move along with the empowerments so quickly after such extreme results. That said, Cinereal had given no command to call things off and if she changed her mind during the course of the afternoon you were sure that everyone would hear about it, so guesswork was probably unnecessary.

'I just wanted to check,' Webby said, standing up and moving in your direction, 'that you're feeling well. Obviously I can't see your face, and your vitals seem fine, but when it comes to parahuman abilities these things aren't always obvious, and I'm not sure that you've ever used a full three in a day. At least, if you had it wasn't noted in your cover sheets.'

'No, I'm fine. Feeling a little drained. Hungry. But nothing that we should worry about I think.'

'Good. Well then, you're free to go. If you need a break, please don't be afraid to take one.'

You nodded and removed the sticky pad from the back of your hand, setting it down on the desk, before turning and making a few steps towards the door. A slim network of cracks wormed their way across it, the only reminders of how it had dissolved into ash and dust under Cinereal's enhanced powers.

'Oh, and Penumbra?'

Pausing, you didn't look back. 'Yes?'

'I know that Cinereal can be a little hard on you Wards. We clash over it sometimes. If you ever need a longer break – a few days or even a week – please jut let me know. I can always argue with her for you. Doctor's orders.'

You weren't sure how to feel about that. While you appreciated that the doctor seemed to be on your side, you didn't really know if you needed someone to fight your corner on such things, and the implication that you could find yourself overwhelmed wasn't one that you liked. If there was anything else that had been true about your parahuman career thus far, it was that you had been motoring along from point to point without much delay, and there hadn't been more than a week or so since getting your powers that you hadn't ended up getting at least something done.

Taking a day off without working on anything at all wasn't out of the question, you'd done that, but a week seemed exorbitant. You'd get restless to the point of distress, you were sure.

Still, with no reason to doubt that it was anything but a generous offer, you were glad that there was someone around who would make the offer in the first place, whether you needed it or not.

'I'll keep that in mind, Doctor. Thank you.'

The door swung open easily and you left without anything further.

With the time ticking, and afternoon drawing near, you knew that the time was approaching to meet Regent and give him the bad news. Percentile had already made it clear that he wasn't going to take it well, though with your assurances he did seem more likely to stay and see things through than not, and after the unexpected drama of Cinereal's empowerment you weren't really in the mood for high tension.

Still, with the meeting pre-arranged and time of the essence, there wasn't really much in the way of choice and you weren't one to back down from a challenge.

When you entered the Wards' room, it was fairly empty. Scrivener was on the console, typing something with deft fingers that told you that he was probably either procrastinating on a truly elite level or in the middle of some fairly important support work for someone on patrol – Undercut, maybe, given who had been absent from your own morning session. It was impossible to tell without more information and you weren't about to interrupt him to find out, lest it be the latter.

The rest of the room was deserted, and you were grateful of that fact. While even Scrivener's presence made it inevitable that you were going to have to pull Regent off into one of the side rooms for a private conversation, even that much would have drawn attention if the room had been full. Atlanta's Wards were absent from school slightly more often than Brockton Bay's, as a result of heavier workloads and fewer Wards to go around, and for once that was paying off – it was less of a madhouse in the headquarters.

You burned the time thinking over Webby and her medical staff. While the doctors were numerous, most of them seemed interchangeable, and it was only the fact that some of them had given you ideas to run with regarding your Master power that made the new power evaluation seem worth it.

Throwing the ideas around in your head seemed to be leading nowhere, so with time to allow Percentile to work, you simply conceded the argument to the ability.

Chances that some kind of animal spy network would be possible, given my Master ability?

73%

Chances that it would actually return me information that I would consider useful within a few weeks of deployment?

21%

Higher than you had thought, and perhaps worth attempting them, if only on the hopes for a long shot. Even if nothing major came back for a while, any information at all was invaluable. Such a method of spying during the Coil operation might have made things go a little bit more smoothly, though at the possible cost of you never unlocking your boosts. While you were appreciative at how that had gone, and glad that they had worked out well, in hindsight there might have been easier ways to go about things.

Especially if Armsmaster had been more communicative. He had been improving by the time you had left Brockton Bay, but there was still some ground for him to gain. You only hoped that Dragon would be able to lecture him into making the next few steps, until he was able to walk a more open path on his own. Who knew what the future might hold?

With the issue of a spy network – maybe starting with some birds or rats, the kinds of animals that might move about the city without being suspected? - sorted for the time being, your mind shifted to other questions.

Octave had resisted your questioning. It didn't make sense; Coil had interfered with your own powers in the past, but that hadn't stopped you from asking more general questions about his location. Inquiring into Octave had simply spat out inconclusivity without any other response. That meant, quite obviously, that at least one of the members had a power that was doing the same thing Coil's power had done, and that either they were powerful enough that it was obscuring even things they were associated with, or that they were operative to Octave's actions, and therefore would interfere with anything asked on a structural level.

Cinereal's briefing pack had given a few possibilities for that. The Count seemed obvious – he led the team, and presumably made the lion's share of the decisions. If he was obscured, then the group as a whole was obscured, at least when asking in general terms.

The second option was potentially Ripcord, who was widely suspected of being part of The Count's family. If anyone was likely to get delegated authority, it was her.

Final suspect was Oneironaut, whose power was entirely unknown, at least in the specifics, but enough was understood that it was clear his power could interfere with others at times. Undercut, in particular, had experienced some difficulty in laying down his tracks in areas that Oneironaut's power influenced most strongly.

Beginning with The Count seemed fair, even though with his track record, you suspected the unknown factor to be responsible.

Chances that The Count is the one interfering with my powers?

0%

You smiled softly, glad to hear it. Finding out that the leader of one of the more powerful gangs in the city was completely immune to your thinker power wasn't exactly the kind of thing you ever wanted to find out, let alone when you were fewer than two weeks into your life in that city.

You moved towards the primary suspect.

Chances that Oneironaut is the one interfering with my powers?

Inconclusive.

Which was, in the context of your question, as good as one hundred per cent.

A soft creak of the main doors swinging open found itself timed remarkably well with the end of your questioning session, and Regent entered holding his staff in one hand lazily, its horizontal orientation making it a danger to the thighs and knees of people everywhere, his crown tilted slightly on his head.

Without wasting a word or a moment, you rose to your feet and gestured for him to follow you, leading your way immediately into the bedrooms that lined the hallway adjacent to the main room. You had spent time in the Brockton Bay equivalent while waiting for Rachel to wake following her encounter with Hookwolf, and you were starting to begrudge the places as a symbol that things were not going optimally.

Even without knowing why, Regent followed along, though you could hear from the tapping of his staff on the ground that he had straightened his posture and adjusted his grip on the weaponry. While he wasn't exactly a threat to you, you could tell that he was on edge. Presumably, he too understood the connotations between heading off for a private conversation.

Once the end of the hallway was reached, you opened the last door. It was, as with three others, completely spare, and the interior was sparse, the slight reverb of the room and its hard stone walls adding to the cold air it held. You checked briefly that the window was shut, and drew the curtains.

'So,' Regent said, following you inside and turning to close the door. 'What's the deal?'

Another confirmation that he was taking things seriously; Regent on any other day wouldn't pass up the opportunity to make a joke out of the situation.

Being straightforward was the best bet. While you knew there was risk, you didn't think that Regent would appreciate you dancing around the topic or trying to let him figure things out by implication. Sometimes it paid to be up front.

'Cinereal started a program this morning for me to empower everyone in the Atlanta Protectorate, Wards included, for tactical reasons. I don't know why you were against it in Brockton Bay, but I wanted to let you know in advance so that you could tell me if you're still against it.'

His posture changed immediately, and he gripped the shaft of his staff so tightly that you could see his knuckles bulging against his porcelain skin.

'If you are, I'm happy to tell Cinereal that I won't empower you. It isn't in my contract as a requirement, so she can't make me.'

'She'll still be mad that I didn't want to do it. She'll ask questions.'

'And you don't have to answer. As far as she's concerned, you aren't the one saying no, I am. You can even show up in the room if you want, play the role, and I'll just tell her it's not happening.'

The blank face of his mask did little to hide his anxiety. It was strange seeing him so overtly emotional – Regent seemed, at least on the surface, to be a pretty simple guy and that came without a huge amount of volatility in his moods. He seemed the same fighting Fenja and Menja as he did in a cell in Brockton Bay and playing video games. To see him so obviously on edge was unnerving.

'Look, I appreciate that, and I get that you think you're being helpful, but I can't afford for her to push me here. It was nice while it lasted, playing the hero, but if you want to help me just cover for me while I get the fuck out of here. Deal?'

'No deal.'

'Listen, -'

'No, you listen. If you want, you don't have to show up. I will go to Cinereal myself, on my own, and tell her you're not getting empowered. If she asks why, I can tell her that it's because you didn't want to be empowered in Brockton Bay and I'm not going to push you. As far as she has to know, you never even got offered it this second time. She's not going to question it, because she can't. If she tries, she will find that I can be pretty stubborn myself. And if you try and run away, you're going to find that too, because you are my teammate and I'm not letting you vanish just because you're panicking.'

Finishing your tirade, you felt a rush of warmth come over you. You face was flushed, and you were glad that your helmet's filtering was probably doing something to stop Regent hearing how intense your breathing had become.

He didn't react at first. His fists were still tight, and his shoulders sloped like someone carrying the weight of the world. You weren't a fan – it didn't suit him.

'Are you sure you want to do that for me? She won't be happy.'

'I don't care. People don't always get what they want.'

You knew that too well, and you felt like despite Regent's concerns, Cinereal probably would too. Her own empowerment had gone sub-optimally, so she knew it wasn't always a flawless process, and while you weren't planning on mentioning any of it, her own teenage years had been rough enough that she had to be used to getting less than she wanted. She would be mad at first, but she was practical more than anything, and it would be counter-productive to get into a feud with you over something so minor.

'What do you want for it?'

'What?'

His question caught you off guard. It didn't make any sense.

'In exchange for helping me. This isn't some small thing, this is big. You're going to get into a fight with your boss over this, for me. What do you want in exchange?'

Dignifying the question with contemplation was beneath you. It was almost offensive.

'Nothing. I told you, you are my teammate. That means that I'm on your side, against anyone. Sure, maybe I'd like to know why you're so against getting empowered, but that's your business. You'll tell me when you want to, if that ever happens. All I know is that you don't want boosting, and since I'm the one handing the boosts out, I'm the one who gets final say. It's that simple. I'm not even helping you, I'm just not not helping you. Besides, Cinereal's empowerment was this morning and it didn't go to plan either. She'll get it, probably. There's risks.'

'That was what that was?' He asked, as though distracted by the comment. 'I felt the heat from down the street, in our apartment block. It was pretty intense.'

'Yeah, it was.'

Calm settled over the room for a moment like snow, cooling the heat of the discussion. Some of the tension sapped away from his body, you heard him slump against the wall a little, only falling an inch or two but making the most out of the distance with a dull thud.

'Can you tell her for me? I don't really want to have to answer questions about it. At least not straight away, when she's still mad.'

His voice was flat, and you got the sense that he wasn't as much intimidated by her anger as he was just concerned about how difficult it would have been to deal with, but you couldn't really get annoyed at him for palming off the responsibility for something like that when you had just told him that you'd do it in the first place.

'Sure, I'll handle it. I'm pretty sure you would be on Wednesday, so I'll talk to her tomorrow and make sure she knows.'

'Thanks.'

Conversation had died a fairly brutal death, but the resolution had come out the way you had wanted, and though the two of you spoke very little to one another – words reduced to telling Regent about the empowerments of the morning, and him telling you a little bit about what it felt like from outside such intense weather-related powers – you thought that he was relaxing a little. Part of you didn't want to leave him when he could so easily just run, given the state of the conversation, and so you were forced to rely once again on Percentile for something social skills might have otherwise provided – something that you couldn't help but feel came from your long absence from social engagements during your time at Winslow.

Chances that Regent's still planning on leaving now?

15%

Acceptable. Given his history as a villain and probational status, you figured that there was probable something going on in his head suggesting leaving at any given moment, so getting the number much lower than that might have been a pipe dream. It had shrunk massively from the day prior, however, and that told you that he'd taken the re-assurances on face value.

After a short while talking and allowing the mood to stabilise a little, you heard movement outside. Cracking open the door, you saw a few other figures in the distance, out in the Wards' room, milling around and checked the time – school was out. Either that, or there was a significant boost to the shifts on a Monday afternoon that excused people, something that didn't feel entirely convincing.

'Time to head out,' you said. 'Coming with, or am I leaving you to think for a while?'

Wafting a hand in the air as though gesturing at something only slightly to the left of this universe, Regent gave a non-committal noise. 'You can go. I'm going to stay here for a little while. Might nap.'

'Alright, I'll let them know you're here. See you later, Regent.'

'It's Alec.'

'Excuse me?'

You weren't sure whether you had heard him right.

'Alec, that's my name. Just don't use it in front of everyone else, okay?'

Something about the name fit him, though you couldn't really say why. The fact that he had decided to trust you with it was large, though, especially when you had already seen his face even if only by accident. As far as you knew, he hadn't seen yours, and so the entire thing was one-sided.

'I'm Taylor. Nice to meet you, Alec.'

He snorted, and slumped down on the bed.

'Later.'

He didn't answer, and you headed out into the hallway wondering whether he'd heard how fast your heart had been beating at giving away your name or not. It was a big step to take – other than the senior brass, Vicky and Rachel were the only two people who really knew your name and face outside of costume – but if he was willing to trust you with his real name, you had to be willing to do the same. That was part of being a team, even if it didn't feel entirely comfortable.

With the conversation with Cinereal looming, you felt as though there was much more discomfort in your future. Better to get used to it now.

Tuesday, 26th​ April

Showing up early the following day was easy enough. You had already been waking up early, and simply making the flight first thing rather than taking the time to go on a run around the block and get changed an extra time wasn't any great task.

Making your way to the empowerment room, too, was simple enough. You didn't know everywhere in the Atlanta Protectorate yet, but you knew most of it after a week of visits, and specific rooms that you spent a lot of time in stuck better in your memory than most. While you were pretty sure you could remember which of the rooms on the second floor Shrugg's office was, you were certain that you could find the medical bays and you felt as though, particularly given the easy structure of that wing, you could find your way to the tinker's workshop practically blindfolded.

When you arrived, not everyone was present. Doctor Webby was there, looking identical to the day prior, wearing a set of identical medical scrubs and the same warm smile. Scrivener, too, looked his usual self, though his hair was wild enough that you thought he may have skipped the brush not only that morning but every morning for the last few days. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and you wondered not for the first time if he had been sleeping poorly.

Melder, by comparison, looked as though he had been awake for hours. His visor hid his eyes, which helped the illusion of alertness, but his posture was upright and he seemed to be conversing with Webby with a casual friendliness that would have been out of the question for most people before the hour hit double digits.

Undercut, who you expected as the third of your group, was absent. There wasn't much time left before you were expected to begin empowering, but he wasn't technically late so you didn't worry. There was always a chance that he had been caught up with something mundane, or even run across a crime that needed dealing with on his way in. Dad had a saying that sometimes, anything that could go wrong, would, and you didn't think that being a parahuman stopped that. If anything, it just seemed to turn a trend into an iron law of reality.

As the clock ticked over, the door burst open.

'Sorry I'm late,' said the man who was very evidently Undercut, 'car broke down.'

What?

'Are you still driving that thing? You know you can get a brand new one from the PRT.'

'I know, but I didn't drive home from prom in a new one from the PRT, did I?'

Webby rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer, typing something in. Probably some kind of verification of his arrival.

Undercut was an incredibly average build, with short black hair that had a small spattering of grey. His costume was fairly simple, and it reminded you in some ways of Velocity's. A silver and black bodysuit with pads attached at the joints, gloves with heavy plates across the knuckles, a utility belt, and what looked like a very large knife holster strapped to his thigh. His mask, which began at his brow line, cut away like the baleen of a whale towards his neck, where it met the bodysuit and tapered into nothing. It was an unusual design, to say the least.

'Penumbra, I take it?'

He held out his hand, and you shook it.

'Yes. Do we have a preferred order today?'

Something about repeating the phrase from the previous morning made you feel almost like a professional, which you supposed you were even if only in a voluntary capacity.

'Not at all,' Webby answered, 'whoever wants to go first is alright by me.'

Undercut held up his hand, as though answering a question in class. 'I'll do it.'

Quickly, he swept off his glove and held out his hand again, and you did the same. It probably would have just been easier if he hadn't been wearing gloves in the first place and you could have hit him the moment he walked in the door, but sometimes inefficiency isn't the worst thing in the world.

Boosting him felt easy after the day before. While there had been a minor delay on Flashdrive as you got used to the feeling of empowerment again after a few days off, there was no such delay at work with Undercut, and you felt the heat pour into him so quickly you were surprised he didn't break out into a sweat.

Unlike the previous day, too, there was little immediate reaction. Glacial and Cinereal both had experienced fairly rapid results that were evident, at least in some form or another, for everyone in the room – whatever changes Undercut was experiencing fell much more under the category you had seen with Velocity or even Assault, whose changes were a mystery until they themselves chose to articulate them.

'Oh that's neat,' he said, 'I feel it, for sure. Doesn't feel like how I thought it would, but I see the vision. Hard to see anything that's not vision, really.'

Webby slapped her hand to her face, and you resisted the urge to do the same.

'Can you explain for the rest of us, please?'

From the sound in the doctor's voice, you got the feeling that Undercut was something of a handful to deal with. Fantastic, you thought to yourself, yet another member of the Atlanta Protectorate that I have to make sure never gets to meet Clockblocker.

'Sure, there's a bunch of stuff that I'm thinking of but bullet point list is that tracks don't have to go on the horizontally, there's more control over their size, maximum speed is up probably double, and I'm pretty sure that they can go in stuff. Which would not be very pretty, unless that stuff happened to look very pretty on the inside.'

You barely followed. Racking your brains, you tried to remember exactly how Undercut's power worked from your notes in the first place to put the new claims into context – something about laying down tracks that acted like conveyor belts. That made some sense about the speed and the size, though you weren't one hundred per cent sure about what the previous limits were so whether that was impressive or not seemed beyond your immediate recall, but putting them inside of things didn't seem to make sense.

'Can you explain a little more?'

Undercut turned to face you in a single, clean motion, and started speaking as though there was no interruption. 'Sure, so most of the time I put a track down and whatever you put on the track moves along it, sticking to the track. Then it heads on down the track at whatever speed I put it on. The rule is, the track has to go on top of things, and it's flat, running left to right. No up or down. Now, I can turn the track sideways and stick stuff to it, which might be useful but not really most of the time. The big thing is that if you lay a track inside of a solid thing like a wall and then run it, all the stuff that's directly touching it will get pulled along but the rest of the wall won't.'

'So it'll tear itself apart from the inside.'

Melder's voice sounded quietly impressed, and you had to admit that once it had been explained, you were too. For a hero, the ability to quickly destroy things wasn't quite as valuable as it might have been for a villain but there was almost always a time where getting through a fortification or destroying a tinker's device from a distance could come in handy, and this sounded like a way to do it without making it obvious from the outside.

Evidently impressed, Melder stepped forward and you remembered vaguely that he had been sceptical about your empowerment, at least a little bit. Part of you felt smug about showing him what you were really capable of, but you didn't try to make it known. Sometimes it was nice to have something to be self-satisfied about.

Undercut answered a few questions to Webby while you empowered Melder, going faster than you had done the previous day. The novelty had worn off, and with the meeting with Cinereal looming, you weren't as present in the moment as you had been the day before. It helped that, at least to that point, nobody had displayed quite so dramatic a result as there had been then either.

Melder followed Undercut's pathway and produced no visual effect, and moved on to discuss his own power with Webby as Scrivener stepped up. From what you could hear of his descriptions, his power sounded more immediately useful than Undercut's had; in addition to his existing eponymous capacity to fuse items together at a touch and understand their material makeup, he had gained the ability to invert that process, essentially pulling things apart into their constituent material parts. While you understood that much, and the example he gave of splitting steel into iron and carbon was straightforward enough, you lost focus of their conversation as Scrivener spoke.

'You feeling okay? Not sure how many of these you can do.'

'I'm fine. Three is the max, but I don't feel much from it.'

'That's pretty cool. Can you do yourself?'

'Sadly, no. Would be pretty cool though.'

'For sure. First week went well? I remember you were worrying about it a little when we spoke on PHO.'

'Yeah, things have been mostly okay. Still cleaning cake out of other costume, though.'

Scrivener laughed, a surprisingly high sound for his voice. 'I'm surprised you haven't got her back for that yet.'

Pranking someone felt a little bit mean, and you couldn't help but feel like it was easy to go too far by mistake. Without much information on someone, you weren't sure how you could even arrange a prank without making sure you didn't step on any toes.

With Scrivener in front of you, however, the opportunity was ripe to scout things out.

'I hadn't even thought of it. Maybe I'll get her with something soon though.'

'Any ideas? I love conspiracies.'

'Nothing secure yet but tell me, what does Anchor think of snakes?'

He laughed again, and you took that as a good sign. Reaching out, you pressed your hand to the back of his and felt the power surge into him, and quickly you felt your own well of boost power run dry.

As you did so, the laughter came to a stop and you felt Scrivener go stiff, as though he had been struck. For several seconds, his body didn't relax, and when it did it came with an exhale forceful enough that the bandanas wrapped around the lower half of his face fluttered softly along with it.

'What is it?' Doctor Webby asked, concerned.

'Is something wrong?' Undercut's genial voice had been replaced with something sharper than that of which you had presumed him capable.

'No, no, it's fine.' Scrivener muttered, taking a second to reach up to his bandanas and re-adjust them. 'Just, I didn't expect it to be so different, is all.'

'What do you mean?'

Undercut moved forward, as though ready to catch Scrivener if he fell, though you didn't think such a thing was going to be necessary.

He explained: his power in normal times was essentially the ability to designate a zone and then, within that zone, reduce people's motivation to act in various ways. It was useful, especially in times of public unrest, and he had saved lives with in the past. Even better, it was largely undetectable, meaning that he could even get away with using it out of costume if the situation was dire enough.

The new change, prompted by the empowerment, did two things. Firstly, it made his instructions stick – while they only afflicted people caught in the zone, the effect no longer wore off when they left it. At least, if it did, it took hours or potentially even days. That alone was enough to make it scarier, and you were reminded of the thoughts you'd had about how well suited Undercut's empowered ability would have been for a villain. Scrivener's might have been even worse.

Cementing that idea was the second change; rather than simply designating motivations to act in particular ways and depressing them, something that was limited to active choices that the individuals could make, he could now target instinctive actions and reflexes, subduing them dramatically.

'Let's put it this way,' Scrivener had said. 'I don't think it's a good idea if people find out I can just tell someone not to bother breathing for the next few hours. Bad for the PR.'

You were inclined to agree, and despite her renowned distaste for it, you felt that even Cinereal would appreciate the need for tact in such a situation.

There were exceptions of course – Scrivener was very clear that some parahumans could resist his instructions anyway and he didn't feel that there was much change in that dimension, and he already admitted that he couldn't really impact most strangers in the first place, since his motivation depression needed him to have a real target to start with, but it was a fearsome capacity anyway. You shuddered to think what rating a villain with a power like his might get, were the boost simply their default.

As you left the room, Webby still taking notes and asking questions, you checked your phone. No new messages. It was coming up to eleven in the morning, and if you wanted to speak to Cinereal, it was probably best to do it early.

Heading up the stairs, you told yourself that you would get home straight after and take a long nap. What a start to the day.

Actions Remaining:

- Try out the following hobbies: reading, cooking, woodworking, swimming, puzzles

- Learn more about Atlanta as a city, beyond the parahuman element (2/3)

- Prank Anchor in your snake form

- Design your own scanner equipment to be installed in your helmet

Turns out, just communicating with Regent was a good idea - or should I say, with Alec? Yes, we have made a third friend, finally! It's a teammate friend, which isn't quite the same as maybe a BFF, but it's still more than just a work trust, so it counts. Yes, it took us 400k words to make three friends. That's not sad, it's fine.

We also got round to doing some more boosting and look at that, some neat powers. Including a Thinker, meaning only a Stranger remains on our list. Next chapter, we confront Cinereal and tell her Regent isn't getting boosted. That's something to do! We also have other goals, how do we move towards them?