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L.04
That part where you said that you only see Rune twice a week? Strike that. Your Empire-sponsored evening classes in Cricket's power first aid are over, now you work Wednesdays too. Not that you're complaining - Cricket's power is a lot simpler than Rune's, you'll happily trade study-time with the former for the latter.

The crowd in the bar is a bit different from Monday. You catch Krieg and Stormtiger leaving just as you arrive, and there's Alex and his buddies, waving you over to their table. Haven't seen those guys around lately, your shifts haven't matched up.

"Been a while," Alex greets you. "How you holding up?"

That question is a lot less polite than he thinks. "...fine, all things considered," is what you settle on for an answer. You then fail to repress a shudder as you inadvertently consider all the things.

The nice skinheads react with concern. You wave it away. "Personal issue." Humanity is doomed.

"Change of subject?" Mike offers.

"Please."

"Then if you don't mind me asking," Sven says, "how did you discover the truth?"

He's asking 'how did you become a nazi?' Which is a problem, because you haven't figured out a plausible origin story. Because you have no idea how a reasonable person could become a nazi.

"It's just that you're pretty much the least likely demographic for it," he continues as you remain silent. Crap crap crap, you're going to be exposed as a fraud. Think, Taylor! Come up with something!

"Seriously?" Alex asks, interrupting your mounting panic.

"What? Female, no kids, exposed to the latest and most virulent strain of the education system and jewish media..."

"Hello? She's a cape."

"So you're saying... nigger-based trigger event?"

Heh, nigger trigger (you probably shouldn't find that funny). He's not even wrong, considering it was (probably) Sophia who shoved you into that locker. Before you can grasp this lifeline, Alex jumps down his throat again.

"You're seriously not familiar with whatsisname," he snaps his fingers as he thinks, "cape study with the unpronounceable names?"

"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen?" Mike supplies.

"Yeah, that one."

"I'm not," Sven says. "Redpill me on this issue, goy."

"Alright. Basically Sankam- Sakan- Streetshitter and Finn did comprehensive personality tests on a ton of capes from all around the world. Turns out they're all fucked in the head."

You smile as you remember your own musing on that subject. Apparently another capefuckedologist published first. Wait, hang on, your buddy is dissing you isn't he?

"Gee, thanks," you say sarcastically. Not that it's untrue. Hell, it's apparently even scientifically proven. But you have to push back for form's sake.

"It's uncanny," he continues, ignoring you. "Male or female, white, black, brown or yellow, all capes score crazy high on aggression and impulsiveness, and low on empathy and agreeableness. Just all around maximum antisocial behavior."

"So they're basically niggers?" Sven asks.

"No, beyond nigger levels. Super-niggers."

"Fuck you too," you interject.

"They're not dumb like niggers, mind you," Alex says placatingly(?) "White capes still have white people IQ."

"Huh," Sven says. "No wonder she threw off the conditioning."

"Right? I'm not saying she's the least conformist person in the room - pretty sure that one guy unironically worships Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu - but she's up there."

Sven looks at you with a newfound respect, or respect-adjacent emotion.

"How the hell did I not know about this before?" he asks.

"It got memory holed right away," Mike says. "Equalists love quoting cape outcomes as proof that we're all the same when given a level playing field. Can't have anyone pointing out that capes are a special case."

"No shit we're special," you say. "We literally have brain structures that are not present in regular humans."

"Really?" Sven asks.

"Yeah. An MRI will catch a cape 100% of the time. Don't you know anything?" Please disregard that you yourself only learned this fact after you triggered, and only because your power in particular encouraged extensive research into the nature of parahumans.

"You don't even need the study, or an MRI." Mike says. "Just look at us here. The rank and file is a total sausage fest, while the brass has perfect gender parity. Clearly-"

"There's Catherine," Alex points out.

"Cathy is in prison. Right now it's-"

"There's Emily too, helping out in ops."

"Shut up, I'm trying to explain something. Clearly-"

Sven, meanwhile, has been counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "The gender parity isn't perfect," he objects. "Though if Purity hadn't left-"

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Clearly a reasonable person can tell just by looking at the Empire that capes are not like normal people at all. That's all I'm trying to say, OK? OK?"

"Yeah, I definitely noticed that," Sven says. "I'm smart."

"You were right, by the way," you tell him.

"Of course I was right! Uh, what was I right about?"

"Nigger-based trigger event." You'll use it as cover, but according to the quoted study any racial traits would have been completely swamped by cape bullshit in Sophia's case. That's funny, learning about suppressed politically incorrect science made you a tiny bit less racist today.

"Oh. This conversation could have been a lot shorter." Sven says.

"At least you learned something today," Mike says.

"Implying," Alex says. 'That Sven is capable of learning', is the unstated rest of that sentence.

"Hey!"

---

It looked like it was going to be another boring patrol, but then...

"Incoming, ten o'clock," you tell Rune.

Rune looks in the indicated direction. "Oh fuckballs," she says. Intrigued by her reaction, you take a closer look while she fumbles for her phone. Underneath the parahuman glow that tipped you off in the first place, he's... oh. Yeah. You recognize those tattoos. Fuckballs sounds about right.

"LUNG!" Rune screams into her phone. "Lung incoming at, uh..."

"Bridgewater and Ninth," you supply. You don't judge her for losing her cool, Lung is pretty scary. Less scary than the Simurgh, though.

Frankly speaking you probably should be freaking out more than you are, but you're distracted by a most interesting discovery: Lung is just walking down the street. He's not fighting anyone yet, he's not turning into a dragon. But his power is pulsing with activity regardless.

If Lung has an always-on power that can be studied off the clock, well...

No, first things first. Focus, Taylor. Rune has finished relaying your location and is nodding at whatever instructions she's receiving. "What do we do?" you ask.

"We engage. Distract him, try to draw him off." Because trying to win would be pointless. Great.

Rune senses your hesitation. "This is our job, Loki," she snaps, not bothering to enunciate the space in your name. "Putting ourselves between the civilians and the enemy is what soldiers do."

So it is. "Let's go," you say.

Despite her words, Rune keeps her distance on the first pass. She fires a rock into the ground in front of Lung, then waits to see his reaction. Smart. Combat makes him more powerful. If she can get him to chase her without actually hitting him, that would be ideal.

Unfortunately he just looks in your direction and continues walking deeper into Empire territory. Rune curses under her breath and lets another rock fly, this one hitting him in the side. He stumbles a bit, but shakes his head and keeps walking.

He's noticeably larger when he regains his balance.

"He seems awfully determined," you say. "Did you guys start a gang war while I was away?"

"Not on purpose," Rune says. "You're up." Right. The next logical step is giving him a target he can hit. This is what they're paying you for.

Rune flies ahead of Lung and dips down to street level long enough for Fenrir to jump off. You face off against Lung.

This time he does stop. He braces himself to receive a charge. You're maybe ten yards apart, and for a moment you just stand there glaring at each other. Then you notice that he's still growing. The imminent threat of giant wolf alone is enough to set off his power.

You kick your heels, sending Fenrir into a run. If you're going to have a chance, you can't afford to delay.

You really ought to have a lance or something, it occurs to you as you bear down on your foe. As it is you can only hold on and hope for the best while Fenrir does all the work.

Fenrir catches Lung's arm and bites down, or Lung blocks his bite with his arm, or something. You're not sure who wins. First blood goes to Fenrir as his teeth sink into flesh, but he's kept away from more vital areas. The fact that Lung still has an arm afterwards indicates that his Brute rating is ramping up worryingly quickly.

But that doesn't mean Fenrir stops running. Lung's feet skid against the ground as the wolf barrels into him and keeps going. Between the arm clamped in the jaws and his other hand grabbing hold of an ear he manages to cling on and remain upright, though. Fenrir yelps in pain as Lung tries to rip his ear off, but does not release him.

Okay, you don't have a lance, but at this range you can still help out. You lean forward and apply pepper spray to the eyeholes of Lung's mask.

Lung screams in rage and pain, and the air around him bursts into flame. Fenrir lets go and scrambles away before his face can catch fire.

Lung still does not pursue, he just keeps marching forward past you, batting one of Rune's projectiles out of the air as he goes. You're reluctantly impressed by his composure. If you'd been bitten and pepper sprayed like that you're not sure you'd be able to resist getting even, and you don't even have rage dragon powers (yet).

To compound the bad news, that last exchange definitely sent Lung out of your league. He probably out-masses Fenrir now, and silver scales are beginning to form on his skin.

"Fight me, you pussy!" you scream at him, and urge Fenrir into another charge.

Just as you're about to hit him from behind Lung executes an elegant spinning kick that sends Fenrir flying, and you along with him. Displaying great presence of mind, your wolf elects to dematerialize in midair rather than land on top of you.

Your landing benefits more from your Brute powers than your martial arts training. Ow. When you get your bearings again you see that Lung has finally stopped. He takes one step towards you, then another. You finally got his attention. Now that revenge just involves squashing you like a bug, rather than a time-consuming fight, he's reconsi- Crap!

You throw yourself to the side as Lung launches a stream of fire towards you. The slow, threatening walk was just a feint.

Fortunately for you, that's when Hookwolf comes around the corner, already fully transformed. Never again will you be so happy to see a giant monster made of chainsaws bearing down on you.

Chainsaw-wolf rams into dragon, and they both go tumbling down the street. Invisible wolf comes padding up to you.

"Did you get his scent?" you ask softly. Fenrir shakes his head. "Do that. Follow him home, find out where he lives." He nods his understanding and runs off after the combatants. You sit down on the curb. Your part in the fight is over.

Hm, what's that over there? Oh, Hookwolf sliced several scales off of Lung when he tackled him. You walk over and pick one up. Never turn down free alchemy ingredients, right? Actually, they both lost some parts. One of Hookwolf's eponymous hooks joins the scale in your pocket. You wonder what metal it's made of.

A boulder comes sailing down and hovers enticingly in front of you. You clamber aboard and hold on as Rune lifts you up.

"What happened back there?" she asks.

"Power overloaded," you say.

"You weren't lying about your performance issues, huh?" she muses, and you shrug in response. "I'm on overwatch for the rest of the battle, wanna ride along?"

"Sure."

You watch the conclusion from a safe distance. Lung has finally devolved into full berserker mode, and reinforcements keep arriving for your side. Hookwolf, joined by giant valkyries Fenja and Menja, alternately lure and wrestle him out of Empire territory and back towards ABB stomping grounds. Kaiser himself shows up and starts raising giant metal barriers to channel and corral the fight.

Once he judges that they've pushed the dragon back far enough, he gives the order to withdraw. Rune and Stormtiger swoop in to distract Lung with ranged attacks, and the melee fighters disengage and retreat in good order. The valkyries are a bit singed and Hookwolf left pieces of himself strewn all over the city, but all in all it went very smoothly. It's clearly not the first time this has happened.

You keep a sorcerous eye peeled for Oni Lee throughout, but for whatever reason he never shows up to help his boss. The heroes also decide against sticking their noses in.

On the one hand, it could be said that they handled that flawlessly. Lung came to wreck your shit, and was prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it took all the big hitters from the biggest parahuman group in the city just to secure what is effectively a draw against a single opponent.

God, you want that power.
 
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That part where you said that you only see Rune twice a week? Strike that. Your Empire-sponsored evening classes in Cricket's power first aid are over, now you work Wednesdays too. Not that you're complaining - Cricket's power is a lot simpler than Rune's, you'll happily trade study-time with the former for the latter.

So, she doesn't have Cricket's charm yet? Or she does and you just forgot to say what it was?
 
Is Lung power the one than goin to give Taylor The posibility of exchanging exp to better herself, or another Charm?
 
Well, she can get lunar, solar, and sidreal charms, so my guess for Lung is either Deadly Beastman Transformation, that lunar rage charm, or Devil Tyrant Avatar Shintai.

I hope it's the last one.
Same thought. If pulling from across exaltations like that, Devil-Tyrant Avatar Shintai seems like a good fit for him.
 
Is Lung power the one than goin to give Taylor The posibility of exchanging exp to better herself, or another Charm?
Pretty sure she can already exchange xp for attributes considering the AN the previous chapter (she used xp to raise Apr)

Deadly Beastman Transformation, that lunar rage charm
Which Lunar Rage Charm (did you mean the Fury Charm)?

What I meant was that committing that many motes for the massive amount of time a non-accelerated project would take is profoundly not worth it.
It would allow you to work on artifact or manse construction with your full dice pools, while completely focused on doing something else, without any penalties, so I wouldn't say profoundly not worth it. The time investment of doing such things personally is a huge resource that cannot be recovered after all. Motes and willpower will be.

After all, she's going to live forever,
Not completely true. Needs to transfer OS and all files perfectly every few years, and hope no flaws are in hardware to cause damage to software early, or for hardware to be actively damaged, and a bunch of other things. Same rules as humans. People would likely live their lives very differently if they knew for a fact they would live to 80 years old without suffering any injury or illness until they die after all. We cannot know that (and its a safe bet it won't occur [injury and sickness is common/normal after all])

Even if everything goes perfectly the shards run out of power in a few centuries which would probably fuck up whatever year 2XXX society exists at the time but it will be even worse if Dragon dies at the same time while being the AI that runs everything.
I thought they had a few millennia? Even if not, if Dragon sacrificed a sun in a universe without life on Earth, her Shard would likely have power for eons at that point. Rinse and repeat. Infinite universes means an infinite number where sacrificing the sun has no negative impact.
 
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I thought they had a few millennia? Even if not, if Dragon sacrificed a sun in a universe without life on Earth, her Shard would likely have power for eons at that point. Rinse and repeat. Infinite universes means an infinite number where sacrificing the sun has no negative impact.
During Gold morning Scion POV suggests he has ~1-2000 years of power and sacrifices a few decades to calculate his version of PTV for the fight when he kills Eidolon*. Shards allocated to power dispensing during a cycle get a lot less juice though IIRC, can't remember where I read it but the endbringers are running through their batteries a lot faster than that because Thinker is brown bread and they're active like the Ulsterman voting: early and often.

The Warrior probably uses his version of Eidolon or similar to drain power from the allocated shards as he/it is restricting/crippling them for the cycle so they have enough but not too much.
*Fortuna's PTV is meant to be much more efficient but it raises questions about how much power that thing must have/have used.
 
So, she doesn't have Cricket's charm yet? Or she does and you just forgot to say what it was?

She doesn't have Cricket's charm yet, no. All charm acquisitions will be explicitly called out. But she doesn't mind first aid classes being over, because she can still study Cricket during self-defense classes.
 
L.05
Another cape fight, another payday, but only three grand to split between you this time.

"Lung is worth less than Mush?" you ask, incredulous.

"For faithful work in service of the Empire," the bartender says. Last time it was 'exemplary', you're pretty sure. Okay, yeah, you did singlehandedly take down Mush. With Lung you basically made no difference at all.

You push the money towards Rune. It hurts a bit to do it, but fair is fair. "This is yours, I didn't do shit this time around."

"You get the spotter bonus at least." She pushes one wad of bills back towards you. "Wolf senses, yeah? Keep the change too, that's for calling him a pussy when he wouldn't fight you."

That revelation draws some chuckles from the peanut gallery. You accept the money. You don't care what the rank and file says, Rune is good people.

"Are you sure you're fine to patrol?" Rune asks you as you leave the bar. "What with your wolf blowing up the other day and all."

"Of course I'm fine," you tell her. "Come forth." Fenrir appears, crouching slightly to help you mount up. You do so, but as he's standing up you whisper "begone" softly enough that only he can hear. He obediently dematerializes, causing you to fall through him and faceplant on the asphalt. "Ow."

"Of course you're fine," Rune echoes as you pick yourself up. "We're putting you back on two patrols a week."

Which was the whole point of your little performance. Rune's power notwithstanding, with this latest cash infusion - not to mention a lead on Lung - you're ready to put a few more irons in the fire. Thus you could really use an extra evening freed up for non-Empire activities.

"Sure, whatever," you say, and sit down next to her on her flying rock.

"Whoa, back up. You're on medical leave now, doctor's orders."

"This doctor being Rune, M.D.?"

"You bet your lame ass. Now git."

"Just because I'm an invalid doesn't mean there's anyone I'd rather hang out with," you tell her with disarming almost honesty. "You can carry my lame ass for one night, can't you?"

"Aw shucks, she really does like me," Rune says sarcastically. "I'm going to catch an earful for going out without real backup, but what the hell? It's been quiet aside from Lung, and you're no use against him anyway."

---

Look, you're not a sociopath. While you've been getting undeniably comfy settling into the Empire, you do worry about the downside of pretending to be a nazi. You know, the part where your job includes beating up innocent people with the wrong skin color.

Luckily the Empire is pretty good at what it does. Er, by which you mean that its borders are stable, well known, heavily patrolled and brutally enforced. Which in turn means that (non-cape) 'undesirables' stay away on their own, and your patrols consist entirely of looking scary (and studying Rune's power).

Still, you worry that one day you'll be called on to do something unforgivable.

"How about that," Rune says. "Watch and learn, rookie."

Well, toss out everything you just said about undesirables staying away on their own, because here comes a dozen of them marching right into Empire territory. These poor, innocent youths must have taken a wrong turn on their way to a baseball game with the local plumber's union, because every one of them is holding either a bat or a length of metal pipe. Now through no fault of their own they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a vile nazi is about to commit hate crimes against them.

When they catch sight of your flying rock, they wave their implements in your general direction and enthusiastically invite the two of you to come down and join them at ground level. So that they can either 'kick your shit in' or 'ruin your pussies for white dick', there seems to be some disagreement on that point. If they're offering a reasoned argument for why you should feel compelled give up the high ground like that, you can't make it out over the cacophony of gendered insults.

...you're just going keep right on worrying about that looming future where your job will present you with a moral quandary, because it's certainly not today.

Rather than join them, Rune instead elects to levitate a pair of smaller rocks and send them rushing through their formation, bowling people over. After a few passes of this their enthusiasm fades somewhat, and they start considering the merits of a tactical retreat.

"I prefer to avoid any disabling injuries," Rune says conversationally as their little war party turns into a running away party. "Better to let them run away under their own power than to leave them lying around, bringing down property values."

Indeed, although she's still using her rocks to smash them about as they flee, every person she's knocked over so far has been able to get back up to continue running. Some, admittedly, need a bit of help from their comrades. A number of three-legged races spontaneously form as people hop towards safety.

Then one of them turns around and pulls a gun from his waistband. You start to shout a warning, but a rock smashes it out of his hand before he can fully aim it in your direction.

"Now if one of them pulls a gun, that goes out the window. That's when you have to teach them that we don't appreciate that kind of behavior." She leaves off harassing the others in order to focus on the gunman. One rock knocks him down and the other settles on his chest before he can get up, pressing down to keep him pinned. The first rock starts slamming down repeatedly, trying to smash his arms and legs. He flails about heroically in an attempt to keep his limbs out of the way, but it's only a matter of time. After the first hit he sort of loses focus, and the damage mounts quickly.

"That's not my preference, you understand, those are orders from on high," Rune continues over his screams. She heaves a theatrical sigh. "Thanks to political correctness gone mad, we're forced to pretend that these animals are capable of learning."

You can't help but wince slightly as you watch her go to town on the gunman. Sparring with Hookwolf must have given you an unwarranted empathy for people who deserve to have their limbs broken.

When the punishment is finished, the gunman unconscious and everyone else run off, Rune brings your rock down to land nearby. She jumps off and recovers the gun that was knocked away.

With a practiced motion she removes the magazine (clip? You know that gun people get twitchy about keeping those terms straight, but don't care enough to learn the difference) and racks the slide to eject the chambered round. She then brings it up to her face. Is she smelling it?

"Recently fired," she says. Then she sighs again. "Should call this in, it could solve a murder."

After hearing that you expect her to call ops, but instead she dials 911. "Hello? Yes. A man with a gun was taken down by a parahuman at Emerson and Fifth. No, I didn't recognize who it was. Please send someone, the gun is just lying there. Bye."

"We're on Seventh," you point out.

"Fifth is outside the no-go zone. Come on, help me get him loaded up."

By the time you get to Fifth there's a police car already there. You tense up, but the officer pointedly turns around and looks the other way as Rune rolls the gunman off and drops the gun, magazine and bullet on top of him.

"We have an understanding," Rune explains as you fly off. "Have you seen the unsolved murder rate in this town? They need all the help they can get to keep the stats up."

---

A new angle on power acquisition means constructing yet another cape identity. You do have one power that hasn't been used for that yet, after all. No, not shapeshifting. You're never gonna reveal that, that would put your other identities at risk. Dragon's power already went to Smith. Nor are you going as Not-Quite-Tissue-Paper Girl, the Worst Brute Ever. The other one.

You gather up some materials for your new costume from home, then go shopping for the rest.

Three hours later you're knocking on the back door of a certain night club. They're not open - it's barely even noon - but you're not here to dance. When nothing happens after a while, you knock harder.

Eventually a mid-twenties guy in an apron opens the door, frowning. He does a double take when he sees your masked face.

"Is your boss around?" you ask. "I'm afraid I don't have an appointment." You deliberately pitch your voice differently than normal, trying to sound older than you are. Your natural voice is actually ever so slightly different in this form - something something resonance, proportions of neck and torso? But while you can take on pretty much any shape you want, you haven't figured out how change your vocal cords.

The guy at the door seems to be having some sort of internal debate, and his frown gradually deepens into a grimace. "Wait here," he says, and closes the door in your face. You wait.

When the door opens again, a few minutes later, the surly guy has been replaced by a morbidly obese man in a hoodie. The hood casts his face into shadow and he has his hands in pockets, but enough translucent skin is visible to give him away. The way he glows to your sorcerer's sight is another clue.

Gregor the Snail. A man whose powers you most assuredly will not be acquiring. You like your skin opaque, thank you very much. You find it quite fetching the way it lacks any shell-like growths whatsoever yet prevents your bones and organs from showing through, if you do say so yourself. Maybe shapeshifting could fix that issue, but guess who isn't going to take that risk?

You also note that Gregor has the same weird off-color glow you saw in Gallant. Is that a sign that something went wrong with their powers? Is Gallant hiding some deformity too? Probably not, you decide. Glory Girl doesn't strike you as un-shallow enough to tolerate that in a boyfriend. Though he is incredibly rich...

"Miss?" Gregor asks, and you snap back to reality. He's probably a bit touchy about his appearance, and you were sort of staring. He sounds more resigned than annoyed though.

"Sorry, got lost in thought. Occupational hazard for us Thinkers, you know. No offense intended." You smile sheepishly.

He waves away your apology, and you try not to react to the sight of his uncovered hand. You've seen pictures online, but it's grosser in person.

"You wanted to see Faultline?"

"Please. I'm Quicksilver, by the way."

"Gregor. But perhaps you knew that?"

You just nod, avoiding any comments that could be taken the wrong way, like 'you're quite distinctive'.

Gregor wants to know who he is and what happened to him.

He leads you inside and up two flights of stairs. He knocks on an unmarked door.

"Enter," a crisp female voice calls out. Gregor opens the door and gestures for you to go inside. He follows you in and closes the door behind you.

It's a perfectly normal office. Desk, computer, paperwork, etc. The only thing that seems out of place is a weird xylophone-looking contraption on the desk. It's not tinkertech, which means you're out of guesses. Some sort of executive toy you're not familiar with?

Behind the desk is a woman in a costume halfway between 'SWAT team' and 'cartoon ninja warrior'. She's wearing a welder's mask (artfully damaged to let her see things less bright than a welding torch), and her brown hair is gathered in a long ponytail. (Yes, she glows too. Duh.)

"Quicksilver, meet Faultline," Gregor introduces you. "Faultline, Quicksilver."

"Love your outfit," you gush. "The way it communicates both 'parahuman' and 'reliable mercenary' is just mwah." You kiss your fingertips to demonstrate your appreciation. You're doing a pretty good job with the voice as you get into it, you think.

Faultline pointedly does not return the compliment.

"You don't like it?" you ask, gesturing to your own costume. You're wearing a simple white floor-length evening gown that used to belong to your mom. If your first go at capery taught you anything, it's that there's no need to go nuts on complicated costume pieces. Simple clothing and a mask is fine. You had to make yourself considerably taller to get the dress to fit properly, but changing your appearance is all good anyway.

You originally wanted a silver mask to go with the theme, but couldn't find one for sale. Instead you picked up a plain white opera mask - covering you from forehead to nose but leaving your mouth bare - and glued mirror fragments to it until it was completely covered (deliberately knocking over one of the mirror arrays in your old workshop and watching it shatter was quite cathartic). You actually like the effect better than your original idea.

To keep with the theme, you're also sporting waist-length platinum-blonde hair. God you love shapeshifting.

"Inconveniently restrictive," is Faultline's verdict.

"I'm making the statement 'noncombatant'," you say, pouting just a little. "The skirt comes off quite easily in case I need to run away from something." Tinker 0 tailoring skills means no one can spot the velcro. You also put a foot forward to reveal sensible flats rather than the expected high heels. You really are that tall.

Faultline makes a non-committal humming noise. "I take it you desire to hire some more combative backup?"

"Not as such. I'm afraid the mission I have in mind will be incredibly boring."

"Boring is good," Gregor interjects. Faultline motions for you to continue.

"I guess you'd call me a Thinker with a bit of Trump flavor? I can see powers, sort of." Is it your imagination, or did Faultline just sit up a bit straighter? "My passion is studying parahumans and figuring out how they work."

Of course, in reality you're a Trump with a bit of Thinker flavor. But the part where you get a practical use out of your studies will, like the shapeshifting, remain forever secret. Quicksilver is strictly an academic.

"I'd like to study Labyrinth, in particular," you continue. And all of a sudden her body language turns decidedly hostile. What did you say?

"Study," she says, her voice flat.

"The process is entirely noninvasive, I assure you!" You take a wild guess at what has her upset. "She simply needs to use her power while I watch."

"This counts as a 'mission?'" Gregor asks. "Just using her power?"

"...over and over again, eight hours a day, for a week. Give or take."

"Ah. I now understand the boredom."

Faultline has not relaxed. "Why Labyrinth?" she demands.

You shrug, smiling disarmingly (really taking advantage of the way your mask shows off a mouth much prettier than the one you usually sport, aren't you?). "Isn't it obvious? Name one cape in this city with a more impressive power - who won't turn into a dragon and rip my head off for asking."

She's still tense. You're feeling... overprotective mom? Overprotective mom.

Huh.

She was definitely interested in your ability, though.

"Your own power is not half bad," you try. "I could be convinced to study it first, as a trial run."

That did it. Faultline relaxes. "As you probably know, my power does not work on living things," she says. You nod. "It would be extremely beneficial if I could somehow overcome this limit, given my profession."

She proceeds to explain the xylophone - the slats are made of different materials, stone, metal, plastic... and green wood, which counts as living enough for her power to refuse to cut it. You silently commiserate with her on stupid unreasonable power limitations.

She describes how she'll absently run her power across the various materials as she works her boring desk job (she's handling the paperwork of a nightclub and a mercenary company), essentially trying to trick herself into cutting the wrong thing.

"So what you're saying is I don't even need to hire you, since you're using your power all day regardless. I can just sit here and watch you for free." You smile to show that you know how well this suggestion will go over.

"I will charge one thousand dollars per day for you to study me. If you can help me achieve a breakthrough, I will pay you back triple." She hesitates briefly. "Fifty percent off if you also share your notes, regardless."

"Notes?" You're taken aback by this novel idea. "I... guess I could take notes?"

You can't actually see Faultline's face, but you'd be willing to bet another five hundred dollars that she's currently rolling her eyes and mouthing 'fucking Thinkers.'

It's pricey, but you can afford it - at least as long as her power leans more towards Aegis than Dragon in terms of complexity. You count out five hundred dollars in cash.

"Shall we begin at once?"

Faultline pauses, looking at the bills you handed her. "How clean is this money?" she asks.

"You'd trust my answer?"

"Indulge me." Meaning she'll check herself, and adjust her trust levels from there.

You shrug. How clean is your Empire paycheck, anyway? "Couldn't tell you. I use it for groceries, haven't tried putting it in a bank."

"Fair enough." She hands you a legal pad and pencil. You settle in for a productive Saturday.

Faultline wants a better power.

---

"That was eight hours," Faultline says. You blink. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Expensive fun.

Though to be fair, you have been getting your money's worth. At your urging Faultline was considerably more active in her power use than she'd otherwise have been. She even ran out of inorganic material for her xylophone thing and was reduced to cutting up scraps of paper for the last hour or so.

"Money well spent," you say with a genuine smile as you pass her your notes. You don't know how useful they will be to someone without sorcerer's sight, but for five hundred dollars you're happy to jot down whatever passes through your head.

She looks at the notes, then back at you. "This isn't English," she says.

Wait, what? You take the notes back and look at them. "Huh. So it isn't," you agree, not bothering to hide the surprise in your voice. You swear you can hear Faultline's groan of 'fucking Thinkers', this time.

"Can you translate it?" she asks.

You consider the notes you apparently took. Not only is it not English, it's not even the Latin alphabet. Yet you can understand it perfectly. Right? You scan through the text to make sure.

...reality engine bypass...crude outline of primary intention filter...motonic equivalency equation...preliminary theory for how to noitilov the partxe becafrouy...

"...no," you decide. Just because you understand it doesn't mean that you can trivially render the concepts into English. You'd have to write a goddamn textbook.

"Figures. You tried, so I won't charge extra this time. Next session is full price, though."

"That's fair," you agree. "Another session tomorrow? I'm afraid I can't plan much further ahead than that, at the moment..." You only have three days a week not taken up by Empire activities, after all, do you really want to spend it all on Faultline? You know where Lung lives.

You were willing to put him off in favor of the considerably safer and arguably equally powerful Labyrinth, but now it turns out you have to work through Faultline to get to her. One could argue that means that you should prioritize the mercenaries more, since it will take more effort to get to the good stuff. But isn't that a sunk cost fallacy or something?

You'll spend tomorrow morning scouting out Lung, see what's up and go from there.

Faultline agrees that tomorrow works for her, and calls Gregor to escort you out.

===

There's a reason she chose the name 'Quicksilver'. People who know the source material well might be able to figure it out.

Residual exalted bullshit: Taylor's exaltation granted her one extra dot in Linguistics, Old Realm. So that she has the mental vocabulary to understand charm theory.
 
I AM terrified just by thinking what short of charm a power on the range of Labyrint can give Taylor
I mean, it seems like just the kind of power to get a Wyld-Shaping type of charm, but as far as I'm aware there are no Bordermarches, not to mention actual Wyld, so that would be kind of useless. Maybe a Raksha charm or something?
 
Wyld-shaping technique seems the most appropriate, I agree, and Labyrinth could probably emulate Wyld areas. But if we're keeping the theme of big deal powers giving big deal charms, I'm going to predict Neighborhood Relocation Scheme instead.
 
During Gold morning Scion POV suggests he has ~1-2000 years of power and sacrifices a few decades to calculate his version of PTV for the fight when he kills Eidolon*. Shards allocated to power dispensing during a cycle get a lot less juice though IIRC, can't remember where I read it but the endbringers are running through their batteries a lot faster than that because Thinker is brown bread and they're active like the Ulsterman voting: early and often.

The Warrior probably uses his version of Eidolon or similar to drain power from the allocated shards as he/it is restricting/crippling them for the cycle so they have enough but not too much.
*Fortuna's PTV is meant to be much more efficient but it raises questions about how much power that thing must have/have used.
Still doesn't negate sacrificing stars (which have over what, 99% of all matter of the solar system?) to the spawn of the outer gods :p
 
Why isn't Taylor just having her dog steal when a safe is opened?

Because stealing is wrong.

And also because the dog has to materialize to steal things. Wouldn't be very subtle if someone opened a safe and then a giant wolf appeared out of nowhere and pushed them away and stuck its head inside and then vanished along with the contents. The cries of "Low Key can do what?" would not be worth the loot.
 
L.06
Going after Lung is going to take some prep work. No, you can't just turn Japanese and join the ABB. It's not just that you're out of combat powers, either (not to mention hours in the week). As a rule, the new recruit doesn't just get to hang out with the big boss all day. Since your job interview with the Empire you've seen Kaiser exactly once, in passing.

At least the Empire has enough capes that you can rely on having partners for sparring and patrol. Lung may be unbeatable, but he can't be everywhere at once. And the ABB has all of one other cape. Stretched thin as they are there's no way you would get to hang out with him either.

The thought of somehow tracking down Oni Lee and acquiring his teleportation-and-decoys-with-benefits power does admittedly make you drool a fair bit. But that's a later problem.

Fenrir has the scent and can lead you to Lung at any time, but you can't just go as you are. You may have been born perfect as far as remaining safe in Empire territory goes (a young white girl, perfect for playing to the patriarchal instincts of the enforcers) but ABB turf is different, and requires more care.

You buy the rattiest second-hand clothes you can find, and further tailor them to your needs. By which you mean 'throw them on the ground and walk all over them while you transform into a stooped, wrinkly old Chinese woman'. No Tinker 0 powers needed for this costume. Your grandmotherly guise is carefully chosen, too. Too asian to beat up, too frail to recruit, too poor to rob and too ugly to rape, that's the ticket here.

For that extra homeless verisimilitude you drag a pair of similarly battered plastic shopping bags stuffed with dirty blankets along with you as you hobble a winding course towards your target. The way you keep stealing glances at things that don't exist (as far as people without sorcerer's sight are concerned) doesn't exactly hurt your disguise either.

It works perfectly. No one even gives you a second look. Fenrir indicates the building in which Lung currently resides, and you find an out of the way spot with a view of the entrance and settle down to watch.

There is indeed an irregular trickle of tough guys in red and green entering and leaving the building. As well as a surprising number of pretty young girls. Or is it surprising, really? If you're a gang boss whose main source of income is prostitution and sex trafficking, why not get high on your own supply?

Fenrir walks into the building to scout in your stead, and through a combination of charades and twenty questions conveys a rough idea of what's going on inside. Lung talking to gang members (about money, weapons). Lung talking to young girls (about food). Lung reading (Fenrir can't read). Lung eating.

Sounds like a typical day in the life of Joe Average Gang Boss, really.

Hours pass, and - aside from a single gang member sending a half-hearted kick your way as he passes by - still no one hassles you. Finally you catch Lung coming outside. Shirtless, huge muscles, tattoos, metal mask... Huh. Now that you think about it, him and Hookwolf really are two peas in a pod, aren't they? Not just the fashion sense, they also share a love of ethnic gangs and fighting, and turn into giant monsters when they do.

You fight down a sudden urge to write steamy gay smut featuring their obvious forbidden romance (an imaginary Rune on your left shoulder says "doooo eeeet. Do it and send it to them anonymously.") (imaginary Lisa on your right shoulder shakes her head and notes that you have more important things to focus on right now) (imaginary Rune says "Stormtiger threesome? Stormtiger threesome.") and focus on the important part.

It wasn't a fluke, his power is always on. You only get a brief glimpse before he rounds the corner and leaves your line of sight, but you catch a feeling of... anticipation? His power obviously incorporates some sort of danger sense, since it responds to danger by making him bigger. Does it work like regular danger sense as well?

It's ripe for study at any time, at any rate. Now you just have to come up with a way to get close to him for hours at a time. Apartment across the street? No, sorcerer's sight wouldn't work through binoculars.

You hang around a couple of minutes longer, but Lung doesn't come back. You need to get moving towards the Palanquin soon anyway, may as well call it a day here. You stand up and stretch as much as your crooked granny spine allows, then start hobbling back to where you stashed your clothes.

---

Eight hours and a thousand dollars later, you're starting to have a much better grasp of Faultline's power. Unfortunately this grasp includes the feeling that this is one of the trickier powers. You may have to find alternate revenue streams in order to bring it all the way home - especially since ideally you'd then immediately switch over to Labyrinth and keep going.

That's a concern for later, however. You arrange for another session on Wednesday (you haven't come up with a plan for Lung yet, may as well keep busy in the meantime) and say your farewells, but then stop in the doorway as if a thought had just occurred to you.

"One last thing," you say. "I understand that your associate Newter is in the habit of providing cheaper, more informal power demonstrations to select members of the public?"

"Ha! A diplomatic way of putting it." She reaches into a desk drawer and produces a poker chip, which she tosses to you. "Come by in civvies some day. Show this at the door and they'll take you to him, no ID required."

You study the chip in your hand. It's marked with the logo of the Palanquin rather than a denomination. "How compromised will that make my identity?" you ask mildly (the answer of course being not at all, ha ha shapeshifting, but you have to play along).

Faultline removes a half-empty box of chips from the drawer and holds it out towards you. "Feel free to pick another one if you want, they're not marked." She shrugs. "If you don't trust me to act in good faith, trust Newter to hand out these things like candy. You'll be lost in the crowd."

You leave the Palanquin only to return half an hour later, no longer a tall, blonde parahuman but instead a short, plump redhead ready to party (have you mentioned how much you love shapeshifting?). Your new clothes were just as cheap as your 'homeless' costume, but trashy in a much less literal sense.

You grip a poker chip in one sweaty palm (no pockets on this outfit) and contemplate the line ahead of you. The Palanquin is doing shockingly good business for a Sunday night. Do none of these people worry about getting up for work/school tomorrow?

"Hey guuuuurl!" The girl in front of you, for example, isn't worried about shit. She's obviously never seen you before in her life - the shape you're wearing right now didn't exist an hour ago - but that doesn't stop her from greeting you loudly and enthusiastically. Really enthusiastically. You can smell the wine coolers on her breath as she hugs you. "Always good to meet another VIP!"

What? Oh. "You mean this?" you ask, holding up the chip. She must have seen you fidgeting with it earlier.

"Hell yeah!" She fumbles with her purse, then holds up a chip of her own. "Newter's girls represent!"

"High five," you say with considerably more enthusiasm than you feel. Which still isn't a lot. You clumsily smack your hand into hers, causing her to drop her chip. "Shit, sorry." You quickly bend down and pick it up for her.

You make sure to hand her your chip, though, and keep the one she dropped. It's not that you don't trust Faultline, it's just that- okay fine, that's exactly what it is. Even if 'Newter hands them out like candy' is starting to look like the truth.

"No big, no big," party girl waves away your apology. Some of your general awkwardness does make it through to her, though. "Hey, lighten up, yeah? It's paaaarty time!"

"It's my first time here," you admit.

"No waaaay! You stick with us, gurl, we'll show you the ropes! Right?" She turns back to the next two people in line, apparently friends of hers. One of them appears even more intoxicated than her and barely registers your presence, while the other is clearly sober enough to feel embarrassment by proxy. You give the latter a wry smile.

Party girl keeps chattering away as the line slowly shuffles forward. You marvel at how she instantly formed a deep - if one-sided - bond with some girl she just met. You're starting to figure out why people drink alcohol, maybe. A more cynical part of you whispers that with you there, she's no longer the least pretty girl in the group.

You present your chips at the door and the bouncers wave you through as promised. Party girl leads you on a course skirting the main dance floor to another door, also guarded. You flash your chips again.

Fair play to Faultline, these people are letting you through with only a cursory glance. Even if your chip was marked somehow, there's no way they'd be able to spot it. Nor are there any hidden tinkertech scanners anywhere, and you're definitely not paranoid for thinking that there might have been.

Behind the door is a cramped stairwell that leads to a balcony overlooking the dance floor. It's dotted with sofas, beanbags and other reclining implements, and Newter is holding court over a bevy of casual drug users in various states of consciousness. They are all pretty young women. The dragon and the newt appear to have some tastes in common.

Newter is... slightly less hideous than Gregor? His bright orange skin looks disturbingly wet as he lounges barefoot in loose slacks and a t-shirt, and his fingers and toes are sort of fucked up. Really, you can't think of a nicer or more accurate way of putting it. It would almost be better if they were more blatantly reptilian. Instead they're just inhuman enough to look unsettling. Reportedly they let him scale sheer walls without much trouble, so he has that going for him.

He has a tail too, currently draped across his lap. But his face is human enough, and his smile as he sees your group is genuine and even charming.

"Alice, my love!" he greets the party girl (who, for all her friendliness, forgot to introduce herself). "It's been too long."

You trail after Alice as she redirects her enthusiasm to a new target, trying to hide your reaction when one unconscious girl starts to twitch and mumble something unintelligible as you pass by. This is so not your scene. But you're doing it for science.

Newter has spotted you, and at his gentle urging Alice recalls that introductions are a thing. "Sure! This is my friend, uh..." She turns to you with a comical look of consternation on her face.

"Emma," you say. "Uh, is that your natural hair color?" It's bright blue. Under normal circumstances you obviously wouldn't ask that question, but given his traffic cone complexion...

"Are you asking whether the carpet matches the drapes?" Newter grins and starts unbuttoning his fly, to the general giggly delight of the more conscious portions of the audience.

You turn your head and hold up a hand to block the view. "I'll take your word for it," you say.

"Sorry girls," Newter says, buttoning his pants back up before anything could be revealed (you assume from the disappointed sighs - still not looking!). "Emma is being a spoilsport."

He keeps making small talk for another few minutes before finally getting down to business: Where Gregor's twisted biology allows him to produce large quantities of foam, slime, adhesive, etc and expel them through his skin, Newter instead produces small quantities of extremely potent hallucinogens.

You retrieve some slightly damp bills from your cleavage to pay for his services. No pockets, remember? It's not like you've fantasized about being able to do that since long before you gained the ability to construct a cleavage. Entirely practical considerations rule here.

His preferred method of sharing his bounty turns out to be briefly touching the tip of his (long, prehensile) tongue to a spoonful of water, which is then ingested by the customer. Though Alice insists on taking it 'straight from the source', giving him a peck on the lips before promptly keeling over backwards onto a couch.

"Can I have mine to go?" you ask when it's your turn. You didn't come here to get high, you came here to get a sample to study. While you would never risk copying Newter's power itself (again, skin tone issues), you're hoping you'll be able to weaponize the results. Maybe even synthesize it yourself, if you can grab another Tinker power or two.

"Afraid not," Newter says. "It loses its potency in less than a minute."

"Oh." Shit. Though that does explain how people are able to live in the same building as him without being sent off to la-la land every time they touch a banister or doorknob. "Um."

Oh god, everyone is staring at you as you stand there like a dumbass with the spoon in your hand. What do you do?

"Here, let me freshen that for you," Newter says, and dips his tongue in it again.

Do you, do you take it? You've already paid for it, and it's non-addictive, right? Everyone says it's non-addictive. On the other hand, you're pretty sure one of your old classmates also said that about pot. But it's probably true this time?

One of the girls is whispering something to her friend, looking at you.

You always regarded the after-school specials about drugs with scorn. 'Just say no!' Yeah, duh! Obviously you say no. Who could possibly be dumb enough to take drugs because of peer pressure? The answer is you. You are that dumb.

You bring the spoon to your lips.

Newter wants to be able to touch a woman without knocking her out.

---

You are walking through a desert. You have always been walking through the desert, and always will. The desert is infinite, and time is a circle.

You are dimly aware that shortly before you started having been walking eternally you ingested a hallucinogenic drug, but that has no bearing on anything. Everything you are experiencing right now is real. You can feel the realness permeating the air. It's so fucking real, you can't believe how real it is.

An indeterminate/infinite amount of time later it starts to grow dark. That's odd. Cycles have no place in this place. You look up to see the sun still at its zenith (of course!), but slowly being eclipsed by the moon. You keep walking - it's not like you could stop, and you know the moon doesn't mean any harm.

Finally the sun is completely covered, with only a thin ring of light visible around the edge of the moon. Consequently the land has also grown black as night, except for a ring of sunlight surrounding you. You were pretty sure that's not how eclipses work, but you must have been wrong given how real this is.

You remain in the center of the ring of light as you walk. The sun is moving at the same speed as you. The sun is part of you.

A beam of light appears in the middle of the circle, illuminating you. You were even more wrong about astronomy than you thought. Looking up, it is as if a hole was cut in the moon. It doesn't hurt, staring into that light. You could no more hurt your eyes looking at the sun than you could by looking in a mirror. The sky is a mirror, the sun rests on your brow.

The song of eternity whispers in your ear, telling you that something is blocking your path. You look down from the sky, and finally stop walking.
Scion is standing before you, bearded, golden and naked. He looks exactly like he did on his first appearance on earth, except for the extra pair of arms. Each hand holds a golden object so fraught with symbolism that you can't even make out their shape.

He is trying to tell you something, but no words emerge. You get the feeling that he is vehemently disagreeing with your destination, which is probably why he made you stop walking. You have mixed feelings about this. Can even Scion face off against eternity?

Without warning a giant sandworm erupts from beneath, swallowing Scion in an instant. The worm keeps rising up and up, stretching into the sky.

You start walking again, skirting the worm. You reach out to pat it as you pass, but it's rising so quickly that the friction strips the skin off your palm. The pain is strangely muted and dreamlike, given that it is extremely real. You grit your teeth and ignore it.

You keep walking for another three thousand years, dripping blood onto the sand with each step, until the worm finally reaches the sun and consumes it. Everything plunges into darkness.

---

You open your eyes. The darkness flees, and for a brief instant you understand the fundamental truth of the universe: It smells faintly of cabbage!

===

tfw you accidentally a vision quest to increase your Essence
 
Seems like she's a bit more actually-Exalted relative to shard-approximating-Exalted than I thought. I love the way you've taken Taylor as unreliable narrator up to 11, she's probably just as bad at time in canon but it doesn't quite slap you in the face with it to the same degree.
 
Have all the Charms been <=E2 so far? We seemingly have infinite Essence to spend, so I am wondering what effects this will have (higher minimum damage?)

Edit: doesn't AESS have a E4 requirement?

I'm ignoring charm prereqs, so nothing will change on the acquisition front. But there are some charms with effects dependent on Essence.


Imagine that this was a Gamer fic. The floating text above Taylor's head now reads "Lvl. 3" instead of "Lvl. 2" (The text above Scion's head reads "Lvl. 10").
 
I'm ignoring charm prereqs, so nothing will change on the acquisition front. But there are some charms with effects dependent on Essence.
Is min damage a thing (having trouble remembering the other effects permanent Essence has besides min damage, prereqs, and mote pool calculation, although I feel like they exist)
 

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