Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Although you are the power behind the throne, your control isn't perfect. Purity doesn't know that she's a minion. As far as she knows, she just feels gratitude and respect towards you for the obvious reasons. She's happy to juggle schedules to have you be guarded by Crusader, because Crusader is her most trusted sub-minion. But she also sees nothing wrong with guarding you herself, when that would involve less juggling.

You're not about to explain to her why this isn't ideal for you, so you just have to accept it. Oh woe is you, to have to occasionally study Purity instead.

She's is a bit of an experiment on your part, actually. See, you already have quite the number of hours sunk into studying Glory Girl. Hours that you're never getting back, because you'll have another non-violent encounter with Glory Girl shortly after hell freezes over. But what if you could combine your insights into two similar capes, to construct one complete power?

Some would argue that Purity and Glory Girl are not very similar at all, but consider: They are both all about flying and projecting light. Glory Girl's projection was admittedly twisted emotion-wards because she hooked up with Gallant before she triggered, but she shares a family with Brandish and Laserdream and Photon Mom and Flashbang. Wait no, Flashbang married into the family. Before or after triggering? You don't remember. But the theory is sound! The New Wave family power is very much like Purity's at its base.

Yes, your power expression is affected by what capes you hook up with before triggering. Scientifically proven. No idea why or how, but who's even trying to make sense of powers at this point? Certainly not you. Though you sometimes wonder if there's an alternative universe where Aurelius's power isn't gold-related at all, because he never hooked up with Smith the orichalcum Tinker.

---

Yes, you're still going after Crusader, even with Flechette offering herself up for your use. You're not going to put all your eggs in one basket like that, not when you know how far from the original your copy of a power can land. But, sometimes you get interrupted.

Usually it's some concerned member of the rank and file, worried that you're overexerting yourself. You don't even know how much of that is them being overprotective, and how much is them correctly judging how much a mortal girl your size can safely do. But your power was already making you unreasonably strong, and all the exercise you've been getting lately certainly isn't making you any weaker. It's gotten to the point that you have to stop and think before picking things up, to make sure you're not outing yourself as a Brute.

Sometimes it's Rune, trying to get you to go flying with her like in the old days. You have to remind her that you both have work to do.

"When did you become such a stick in the mud?" she demands. "Sulking isn't going to get your powers back!" Then she winces. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

Today, the interruption is of a more exciting variety. "Capes!" comes the cry from ground level. Without thinking you grab one of the exterior I-beams and swing yourself around to the outside of the building frame. With your feet planted against the beam and your fingers gripping the edges, you start sliding down.

It's not something you'd want to try without superpowers - your Brute strength to maintain your grip, your Brute durability to deal with the friction heating your work gloves to an uncomfortable degree, and graceful crane stance to handle the exciting part where you have to let go every time you pass a cross-beam, and resume your grip below it before you fall. But it's not something a mortal couldn't do, if they were a professional climber and/or a bit nuts.

About halfway down it occurs to you that you have very limited options for dealing with hostile capes while remaining mortal-compliant, but, um, you don't think you can actually stop at this point. Well, when you can't abort a poorly chosen course of action, all that is left is to double down on it.

You're moving at a fair clip when you reach the ground, and you make sure to absorb the impact with bent knees despite graceful crane stance making that unnecessary. Mortal-compliant, see? The way you peel off your gloves and shake your fingers through the air to cool them is entirely sincere, though. But you very deliberately do not make any humorous 'ouch ouch ouch' noises, and when you turn around to face the intruders, your face shows no trace of hesitation or concern.

"Clockblocker. Iscariot," you greet them calmly.

"It's 'Chariot'," the newest Tinker in the Wards complains.

"Isn't that what I said?" you ask, frowning slightly.

You actually beat Crusader's ghosts to the ground, but as if to punctuate your words half a dozen of them arrive to hover threateningly in a loose circle around the heroes, brandishing a variety of insubstantial stabbing implements. Crusader himself doesn't show up though, seemingly content to let you do the talking.

"You'll have to excuse him," you tell the suddenly tense heroes. "Having members of a rival gang show up unannounced has a way of making people jumpy."

"We ain't no rival gang!" Chariot protests.

"We're not rivals any more?" you exclaim happily and with no trace of sarcasm whatsoever. "That's great news!"

Clockblocker shakes his head at your question, or possibly at his colleague for handing you a setup like that. "Off the record? Yeah, pretty much. As long as you keep order and rebuild, and keep your race war boner in your pants, we're too busy to deal with you right now. On the record: Die nazi scum." He delivers that last message in a thoroughly unenthusiastic monotone.

You consider the capes before you. While their official unofficial stance may be one of noninterference, having Wards patrol the very edge of Empire territory like this clearly demonstrates that their unofficial unofficial policy is to provoke an incident that lets them attack you in self defense. Because not poking the bear would be dangerously close to saying that it's OK to be white.

Or perhaps 'waving a red flag in front of a bull' is a better metaphor. Because while Clockblocker's costume doesn't leave a single inch of skin exposed (and you happen to know that beneath it he sports that most caucasian of phenotypes, the redhead), Chariot's heavier but less comprehensive Tinker-armor reveals him to be black. The point being that the color of the flag doesn't actually matter. Sure it might be the single best heuristic for determining the content of your character, but heroes are already assumed to be hostile and belligerent by default. In this instance the metaphorical bull is colorblind, and the red flag just looks good to the audience.

"Well, I appreciate you coming by to visit, then," you tell Clockblocker politely, waving for the ghosts to provide them an exit route. The bull is also not going to charge into the matador's sword today. "But I'm afraid wolf freezing is no longer on the menu. You understand, I'm sure."

Spoiler: Clockblocker-o-vision

"-and she called him 'Iscariot'. She pretended she misspoke, but I'm sure it was deliberate."

"Yes?" Miss Militia is polite, but clearly confused.

"You know, as in Judas Iscariot?"

"Oh!" She frowns in thought. "But how did she know? And why did she tell us? Are they making a move against Coil?"

She's clearly talking to herself, but I'm not ready for this conversation to be over!

"Wait, Trevor is a traitor? And you knew? When were you going to tell us?"

I remember what Vista said to me just before she left: 'If you ever want to know something people don't want you to know, talk to Low Key.' I just nodded at the time, but now I understand.

---

Your copy of Crusader's power works the way you hoped it would, but not as well as you hoped it would. Yes, your otherwise mundane steel knife passed right through the breastplate you made Sophia wear, and the tip came back out bloody. But you still felt significant resistance pushing it through, and as a result the wound is nowhere near as deep as you would like.

You wipe the knife clean and try again. And again. Different angles, overhand vs underhand grip... no matter how you stab her it's a bitch and a half to punch through the plate. Sometimes you don't even draw blood.

Still, it's a start. Unlike what you see in the movies, without the power your thrusts barely even leave a scratch on the breastplate as they slide off. It does inarguably pass through steel to damage the fleshy bits beneath in a manner decidedly supernatural. If you pick up more Brute strength to put behind the blow, and/or more Striker powers to layer on top of it... like maybe Flechette's power, if that one fizzles too. All in all, you're not going to complain.

"Did you really need me for this?" Alec complains in your stead.

"It's literally impossible to make her wear something she doesn't want to wear without you. She just kept phasing through the breastplate when I tried."

---

Oh. You can fly now. That's certainly something Purity and Glory Girl have in common. Maybe you should have remembered what usually happens when you come up with clever plans. Maybe if you hadn't been so clever, you'd have building-collapsing force-lasers a few days from now. Instead you can fly, and you're having a hell of a time getting used to the controls.

Yes, you said 'controls'. It's really weird. Flight is like the second most common superpower (after, ironically, force-lasers), so how come your version is so bad? Purity and Glory Girl just have to think 'up' and gravity can go suck a fat one, but you get to manifest a... a sort of magic hovercraft? An invisible force that controls your position relative to the ground? That attaches to your right hand, and you control by minute twitches of your fingers.

It's really finicky, and no matter what you do you can't seem to rise more than ten-ish yards off the ground. Top speed is about, well, about car-fast, you think. Which beats walking, but is a far cry from airplane-fast. And despite you calling it a hovercraft just now, it can't actually hover. If you don't keep moving the whole thing destabilizes and you fall down. Luckily you were trying to imitate Crusader's ghost's 'swoop down and hover threateningly' maneuver when you found that out, and only fell a couple of feet.

Your powers have certainly been underwhelming lately. With 'flight' like this you won't even be able to clear most rooftops. Unless... oh. Turns out your position doesn't have to be relative to the ground. Any solid surface will do, horizontal or no. Less hovercraft, more antigravity-tether-thing? At least you can 'climb' any building in your way as long as you stay within ten yards of it.

Wait. You said 'a solid surface' just now, didn't you? But you don't actually know that. You're going to have to test it out on the convenient liquid surface right next to your chosen testing spot (you are, of course, back at the boat graveyard), and probably end up taking a bath in the ocean.

---

You don't end up taking a bath. Turns out pessimism is not always warranted, and your not-hovercraft can negotiate liquid surfaces just fine. Still, you're not exactly looking forward to aerial combat with this thing. If something were to jostle your steering hand... You return to shore and turn the power off and on again, trying to attach it to your left hand instead. It works. The steering is even wobblier this time, but at least this way you'll have your dominant hand fr-

Oh. You were so upset at being clever earlier that you didn't realize you were being dumb. Since when have you only had two hands? You toggle the power again, this time attaching it to a mind-hand.

Suddenly your flight is an extension of your mind, like a normal cape! You do couple of celebratory loops and rolls, flowing smoothly from one maneuver to the next with the absurd dexterity typical of your mind-hands. Okay, whoa, slow down. Your brain is having fun, but your stomach didn't like that last maneuver so much.

You switch to a more sedate, upright mode of flight as you ponder another idea: Mind-hands come from the heart. Physically, you mean. The glowing tendrils emerge from the center of your chest. If you were to make it really short - really short, so short it doesn't emerge from your chest?

You watch as the tendril withdraws and the last hint of glow vanishes beneath your clothes. But the mind-hand is still active, still controlling your movements. The tiny spatial distortions tickle a bit, but it means non-Poltergeist identities will be able to use this mode of flight. As long as you keep moving (and/or constantly bob up and down instead of hovering in place) you'll be able to pass for a normal (if fidgety) flying cape.

Yeah, okay, you can work with this. You give the results of your little cape-combining experiment a solid meh out of five. Not going to try that again with anyone important.

---

Testing a power like Flechette's for the first time demands some caution. Rather than attempting to infuse something you hold, and potentially having it cut through your fingers, you carefully brush your finger against a pebble on the ground. Nothing happens. You blow out your breath in a great sigh. It's one of those powers.

Ok, so pebbles don't work. Maybe it's limited to weapons? You've heard of stranger Manton limitations. You put your knife on the ground and poke it. Nope. Knife held in mind-hand? No. Knife carefully held with only your thumb and pinky finger? No. Knife wielded normally? No.

You hear a faint scrabbling sound, and a terrible suspicion hits you. A mind-hand snaps out and captures the rat that was making the noise. Another murine sacrifice on the altar of power testing, huh? You bring the it in close, reach out a finger and tap it with Flechette's power. The rat stops existing.

Huh. You somehow got things mixed up, and managed to apply Crusader's Manton limitation to Flechette's power? Perhaps sleep is not quite as optional as you thought? On the plus side, you just fucking deleted a rat! Deleted! None of this 'it can penetrate armor, but not very well' or 'it can fly, but not very high' bullshit. It's Flechette's power in all its glory, you're just skipping the 'imbue weapon' step and going straight to 'murder'.

Yeah, you're missing out on the utility of being able to destroy objects, but the charm of unmaking already has you fairly well covered on that front. It's not that big of an issue. No, the big issue that humans invented crossbows for a reason: It's really nice not to have to stand next to the people trying to murder you back.

You find and delete another rat, confirming that it is, in fact, limited to touch range. You can't even channel it through your mind-hands, you have to actually touch the rat with your actual hands. No ranged combat for you.

You spend some time berating your power/brain. No, of course this is fine! So what if your version of the Endbringer-slaying power is useless against Behemoth, whose aura kills anyone who ventures within 30 feet, or the Simurgh, who can fly into space? It's Leviathan you wanted revenge on, right? It's perfectly good against him, for 'closing to melee range with one of the fastest Movers in the world (who is also one of the deadliest Shakers and Blasters)' values of perfectly good.

Weeeell, your power-instincts say, there might be something more to it. You should try it again. Fine, whatever. You track down yet another rat. This time, you call on the power very, very slowly, straining senses you can't describe to feel what is going on. And there is something there, another mode of operation? This time you twist the power sideways(?) as you bop the rat.

The rat turns into a cat.

What? No, seriously, what? What the fuck, power?

===

Spoiler: Updated status

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer’s Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Spoiler: Mechanics corner

Shell-Cracking Atemi lets you ignore Hardness - but there's still Soak to worry about (Soak is 'this much damage is subtracted from your attack', while Hardness is 'you must be this tall to even roll for damage').

Eagle-Wing Style is a relatively shitty flight power simply for balance reasons - a sufficiently cinematic 'guy with big sword' type character might be able to leap up and bisect an eagle-wing stylist, but would be completely helpless against an archer hovering 100 yards above him. Thus, it carefully prevents you from rising too high, using two-handed weapons, or hovering.

Pattern Spider Touch lets you reach straight into the matrix code (in Exalted it's called 'the Loom of Fate') of someone you hit with an unarmed strike, and more or less arbitrarily rewrite or delete them. Usually delete.