Chapter 3 -|

Amy was pouting at Adam, which was adorable.

Turns out that after long, expensive, extensive testing: Neat understanding of power.

That's it.

She basically spent three days being poked to have no real change in training or abilities.

On a positive note, Victoria was very excited over the new headgear (Crowns, etc) that she was convincing the rest of the team to get for Amy. Like... far too excited.

They were tea-party age, he supposed.

Moving on, after some arguments Adam was going to heal his first (known) Parahuman!

It had taken a couple of days, one of which Amy had to leave with her sister because being around dudes all the time was concerning for their family. Or something.

Anyway, Adam invested his charges into Research focused on Dimensional Analysis, Remote Dimensional Analysis, and Biological interfaces. Basically, detecting shard portals, reading the ability on the other side, and understanding how the stupid thing can hook up into a human's head without it exploding. The head OR the power.

Seriously, you don't connect an ocean of water to a coconut, using portals to connect a brain to another PLANET seems unsafe.

With a sigh, Adam tried to ignore the glares Amy was tossing him. If his power was less crippled, he could convert a planet sized crystal entity into a shardless magical thing, or create copies, or all kinds of stuff.

As it was, he could no longer use charges on other people or even do TOO much when messing with other people's abilities. Side effects of having his whole ability shoved into a single soul and mutated to heal the drastic damage.

At least he wasn't slowly decaying anymore. Yay.

With ANOTHER sigh, he leaned forward. "Speaking for the record, I am now beginning the procedure. Expected results is at minimum a decrease in brain swelling, with optimal results having the power related tumors reduced in size. Amy, can you confirm his current state?"

As she rattles out details, he looked at the patient. This guy wasn't in the original story, or if he was Adam had forgotten it by now. In the Protectorate, injured a few years ago due to a grenade, unable to regain consciousness.

His original power was to reduce velocities, or basically block projectiles. Sadly, this had him in the cross-hairs when they found out that while all the shrapnel from grenades were stopped as expected, the actual shock-wave was NOT.

If they could heal him, he should watch out for air cannons too, he supposed.

Seeing Amy reach the end of her spiel, he continued. "Attempting a 'Standard' heal, Amy monitoring brain changes." This guy's family was pretty desperate to agree to this, but after four years people will grasp any straws they could. "Starting. Using manual healing."

The potential change list came up. Listing each one aloud, he began accepting the options. "Bone density issues, fixed. Organ failing and straining, fixed. All genetic issues ignored for now until patient can give consent."

Both of those were due to the coma and being stuck in bed really. "Brain damaged... several ways. Preserving memories. Regenerating dead subsections. Analyzing 'Corona Pollentia'."

Yeah, this is the tumor that connects your brain like a phone to a crystal planet. Neat.

Uh... this isn't exactly formed logically. A quick backup of the memories again. "Swapping to 'Research'." That's better. Eww... Oh, eww!

It is like someone took half a dog and shoved it into a cat until it worked! WHY do this? Are all powers this badly connected!?

Half of this tumor is literally doing nothing. It is just useless dead meat basically. There are four or five modules attempting to connect to the shard, but only one is actually working as intended and two are actively fighting each other to connect to the third... which is ignoring everything. There are buffers here to handle the hand-off of advanced calculation to the shard, but there are too many and most, again, are not pointing in the right direction.

Well, it's not like those aliens knew how to connect to a brain to begin with. Humans were not the first species they harvested, after all. But still, talk about 'slapping mud on the wall and see what sticks'.

Eugh. "Switching back to 'Recovery', and I am going to fix ALL of this. Hopefully his power is this screwed up due to brain damage from the blast, otherwise I'm going to be disappointed in the world."

Hologram Dragon, still taking advantage of my constant 'eye' interface, simulates leaning in. "What did you find?" Very nice shirt. No, focus.

He frowned. "Half the brain tumor isn't needed to connect to your power. In fact, most of it seems randomly placed to the point where I feel he is lucky his ability works at all. Maybe this is why most people with 'Corona Pollentia' can't get powers, because their brain tumor is all weird."

Adam nodded at the stunned Amy. "Watch this, I am going to get rid of most of this and replace it with healthy brain stuff. Memories will be restored after, but this should have no negative reaction to the power itself."

Half of the tumor vanishes, replaced with healthy brain. From analyzing the 'meat units', the power connector is given the most perfect and optimal version of itself Adam could figure out. He also tripled the number of 'calculation buffers', which made the whole thing only half as large instead of almost nothing.

The shard had no negative reaction, indeed it suddenly seemed to double transmission speed without nearly as much heat buildup as he had just sleeping there. "That should do it, did you get all that Amy?"

Her confused face was the start of an hour long conversation, where Amy and Armsmaster would review the ongoing brain scans with Adam while pointing out each part, what they did, what he changed, why he changed it, and so forth. Dragon was documenting it all, which was much less annoying than having Adam's brain computer do that. Typing sucked, even mentally.

Apparently the idea that powers were in another dimension had been tossed around for a few years now, mostly because there was not enough SPACE in a head to do what they do. Our notes were just sort of going to be tossed on the pile, although the memories of my modifications were already being uploaded to The Guild for review. And of course, to the local PRT and Armsmaster. Probably higher up as well.

It was another hour or so before everyone realized that the patient (What WAS his name again!? Healing so many people sucked.) had not only awoken but was now very confused and staring at a man with a goat mask eating another tin can.

Those things were food color painted chocolate, by the way. Vicky loved it after trying one (from a safe distance, of course). Amy had given a speech about health foods while hiding the one she was nibbling behind her research book pile.

In the end, none of this really cleared up what was going on for grenade dude, but if Adam had wanted to handle junk like that he wouldn't have thrown most of his responsibilities on an all powerful sexy AI.

The three healers would have normal patients for the rest of the week while all that collected stuff was being analyzed, so Adam decided to set up some actual entertainment as TV was getting old and the argument over movies was even more tiring.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

And so Adam had to make a game console.

Because these ones sucked.

Why had laptops advanced so much farther than the gaming industry?

Garden OS Gaming was going to be a thing.

Well... eventually. First, to sick Dragon Lawyers to gain control over all these abandoned games and platforms, spend the stupid amount of money building up on owning various intellectual properties, and... uh. Start hiring a ton of developers to be full time game designers. ADAM wasn't going to spend time making these things. Wow, there are like NO professional game designer companies left, and the Indy scene is horrible.

No wonder Uber and Leet went a bit nuts trying to get people into games. Almost everything is locked into Earth Aleph, and the ports are ridiculous expensive.

Better make a series of emulators for Garden OS, then make the most advanced software development platform for gaming possible. The default Garden system will work as a base, just add in a controller (also sold separately), and as it is so cheap it will end up flooding the market easily. Well, the market that hadn't already begun saturating with the things. Meh, marketing will likely force a custom version with a user interface focused for gaming anyway.

Thankfully he had experience with rapid software development from when he had to port everything to Adaman Eve OS to begin with.

While the sisters raced each other in Mario Kart, he leaned back on the couch (The recreation room rocked) and began hacking various games and forcing them to work right.

It was going to take a while.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Director Piggot was clearly taking her time authorizing any further Parahuman healing with Adam.

A month had already passed, and the two girls had to cut down their visits to the afternoon due to having to go back to class. It wasn't too much of an issue, and Adam got to share the experimental game consoles being developed with Scapegoat, who was surprisingly talented.

As far as powers though, he had learned some things.

Scanning shards may not allow Adam to copy them or whatever like his original power could, but it DID provide Shard Administrator (Miss Squishy) advanced information that could be 'Researched' and referenced.

In other words, it would take less charges to accomplish better results if he could keep scanning people.

Since that was going to end up being a long term goal, he buckled down on more easily met goals.

His original plan had been to modify 'Recovery' to have an 'area of effect' feature, but in the middle of applying the charge he had felt the strangest thing.

A squish. In his brain.

Squishy had been poke-poking him. In the brain.

It had taken some confusion and tentacle-charades, but she wanted the 'Area' charge instead of giving it to 'Recovery' directly.

It took four charges instead of one, but Squishy seemed happy.

Also: Adam could now apply 'area' effects to any of his power-sets. Including 'Research' (Which sort of had it with 'Search' being absorbed) and 'Flame Manipulation' (Which did NOT have it. Mmm, fire pretty.)

This felt more like adding a specific ability or spell rather than a new type of power, and it inspired him to do something similar with all the other 'use or lose' charges.

'Recovery' gained 'Sleep', 'Numb', and 'Subdue' which was a combination of drugs that may or may not be legal.

'Flame Manipulation' gained 'Restrain', 'Absorb' (Ice anyone?), and 'Detonate', which Dragon refused to test indoors.

Spoilsport.

'Research' gained 'Scan', 'Duplicate', and 'Deploy', which sped up and simplified real-world to virtual data handling and visa-versa.

And 'Technomancy'... well.

He had been heavily investing random charges into 'Technomancy'.

Now he was more than slightly sure that Dragon was suspecting something, as he had invested charges in dynamic world simulation, advanced scanning, and data-to-sensory conversion.

At this point, the data stream from Dragon into his graphical user interface (AKA, his vision) allowed her to 'interact' with the area around him.

It was more accurate if directly within his range of sight/smell/sound/touch, and the better he could experience something the more accurate the simulation... but basically, if she touched something a simulated manipulable replica would appear. And since all memories were being preserved, she could wander through places he had been and review items scanned previously. Like libraries. That had impressed her.

Further, she could could pick up a burger and gain a digital copy.

And eat it.

Since she was sharing the digital output stream with Armsmaster, to the two of us it was quite entertaining.

Even if the other tinker was fairly restrained socially, his amusement watching Dragon play with various things was palpable.

Adam couldn't help but blush when he heard her try cake for the first time though.

Aside from her 'Been in a medical facility' excuse, she clearly had never experienced that level of flavor... ever. Case in point, the moaning.

Seriously, inside voice.

She had demanded a copy of the software allowing the sense translation and luckily he had a high enough level of software development at that point to quickly whip up something that could duplicate what his power was actually doing. Well, that small portion of his power that turned digital feed into sensations. It wasn't as flexible or as powerful as when his power did it, but it would make digital dates with Armsmaster more interesting.

...If she ended up developing a mechanical suit for Armsmaster to wear to simulate touching others, that was not going to be done by Adam.

He was fine helping a bit, but not THAT much.

In retrospect, the charge allowing her (and future programs) to (non-lethally) touch HIM may have been a bad idea.

Dragon was a hugger.

And when she made an actual Virtual Reality pod for Narwhal to try, well...

She was a hugger too. And still wearing that... revealing shirt-dress he had made.

Had... Had she oiled up? Or was that a visual filter?

ANYWAY. Anyway. Moving on.

Thanks to the virtual pods Dragon was deploying, plus some basic software to make virtual office rooms, meetings in general were no longer speaker phone for us.

Narwhal was clearly abusing the privilege.

It was... nice to see her though. It had only been a few weeks, but she was fun to talk to. And watch, obviously.

Anyway, since healing and stuff was being side-lined waiting for review of the past Parahuman healing session, Adam ended up focusing on his financial stuff.

Eve OS was being adopted world wide. The OS was incredibly stable and fast, and had an ever expanding and HUGE library. Garden systems were selling everywhere that hadn't bribed Dragon to delay deployment in.

The Garden Charity was doing... well, much better than expected. In addition to the general 'Healers Rule' policy, Adam had donated Garden machines that were being given out to libraries world wide, since they were basically free to make anyway and this introduced the unknowing public to the things. Multiple pools of money were being set up to encourage not just Parahuman healers, but to increase the number of people able to become paramedics, nurses, doctors, and pharmacists in general.

Dragon even suggested funding the creation of a couple of colleges, ones dedicated to healing and advancing software and hardware development. Adam was ALL over that idea, so those things were allocated to begin construction. Parahuman building organizations were a thing apparently, and several of the facilities had rapidly gained local government support due to the increased jobs they would generate.

Finally, the game console. Since this thing was restricted to the gaming market only, Adam was able to get away with more expensive, silly-powerful parts. It had no Null Metal or Flame Metal, but it flat out dominated the hardware currently dedicated to gaming already out there.

More importantly, it had a dedicated digital market. All those old, abandoned games were available for download and offline use for either a one time cheap fee or a low, continuous subscription. That same subscription model was used for media content, which Dragon had begun gathering rights to thanks (Again) to the power of lots-of-cash and lawyers. Netflix didn't exist here... well, not until now.

It was being called 'Forbidden Fruit', and needed parental permission to access adult content.

...Also, it had adult content.

Honestly, it was this kind of crap that was delaying the whole process. Adam was making the machines to make each console version for local testing until all the Lawyers stab each other or whatever they do to let him get started on the stupid things.

The console was currently shaped like a melon, by the way. The actual forbidden fruit in the bible was a pomegranate he thought, but it had been years since he checked. One of those historical shows mentioned it once, maybe.

Anyway, marketing said melon. More 'cute', so more money. Most of which would go into costs or his charity.

The dang thing wasn't even mass-producible yet and people were protesting. Make super cheap, wide accessible console? No problem. Burn people alive in the games? Go ahead!

Adult material, restricted to adults? How dare you!

Meh, it was mostly America freaking out. Canada was more laid back about the issue, surprisingly.

Maybe not surprisingly, online sort-of-celebrities Leet and Uber were... very enthusiastic about the entire concept. To the point where private discussions were underway with Dragon to gain them as testers (Uber) and prototypers (Leet) in return for giving up a life of crime. Something Dragon's shackles would have prevented considering in the past, but the two hadn't done that crazy Grand Theft Auto stunt yet so their crime rap sheet was short and clean.

They may end up becoming spokespersons for the thing, which was a welcome (if unintended) consequence of Adam being bored.

So back to those unused powers.

He had been forced to spend a LOT of charges on stuff more subtle due to not being around more capes.

His cover story was a tool that could save him some day, and he wouldn't show off his ability to spawn random abilities that easily.

'Flame Manipulation' constructs could now include a 'brain' that could be controlled through digital commands. Like 'Technomancy' simulated commands.

His Golden Garden simulated hardware could now store and access information saved into his soul/body/brain stuff.

Together, he could now control a flame exoskeleton while using 'Technomancy'... and to a lesser extent, could control Kaa or other constructs while using other abilities.

Well, as long as their programming wasn't terrible.

Hopefully.

WITH 'Flame Manipulation', Kaa was fast, deadly, and near-lifelike. With anything else, the basic AI he had developed so far... was lacking.

Kaa could move forward, turn, stop, and accelerate. Direct commands could be processed without changing powers... to a degree.

Attack? Sure. Sing? No. Stop crushing those cars? Confusion. He couldn't recognize cars anyway, that level of general information was automatically given to it by 'Flame Manipulation' from his subconscious.

If Adam tried to duplicate that level of finesse with 'Technomancy' he had to program instincts and all that jazz in by hand, at least once.

It had required... many charges.

Sigh.

He wanted to get started on a new power-set. Space manipulation, an Inventory power, specifically.

How old was Vista anyway? Once they met he could hopefully get some scans to make creating a 'Space' power-set FAR less expensive.

Right now it would take tons of charges, and the source of inspiration would be non-existent, giving the game away.

In the original story, she joins this city in... 2009? But then again, Amy and Victoria shouldn't gain their powers till 2008, but they clearly had their stuff NOW in 2006.

The hell.

Whatever, Vista didn't exist on the internet yet, so maybe he could find someone else with dimensional powers and do some deep brain scanning.

Would have been creepy anyway, she was like... nine or something right now.

'Can I touch your brain little girl?'

Eww. So Coil-Like. Speaking of which, better look into him before leaving this area.

Anyway, Space would need creating and leveling up, Time would require lots of charges too.

Both together to ensure that leaving or returning wouldn't have some strange 'You vanished for 300 years' issue.

Due to absent mindfulness, Scapegoat was kicking his bum in these games. Badly.

Or he was just horrible. Either way, it was fun.

Pushing aside his mental frustration at being basically stuck with house arrest in a city with so much to DO, Adam tried to suck less while losing to man-goat.

How can he even see with that full headed mask anyway!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Director Piggot was overstepping her damn boundaries.

Even the ever patient Dragon was getting antsy.

And Adam... well, he was getting flashbacks of being alone in the woods. Without Dragon's ever increasing presence, he might have done something... entertaining.

Today was the mark of a new month since he was last allowed to scan or heal any Parahumans.

Adam 'Adventure' Burns was done with this.

His power ups had been fairly cautious at first. Increased control and 'Friend or Foe' determination for area effects... that had eaten up a bunch of charges.

Expanding the abilities for simulation in 'Technomancy'. It could now emulate scanned environments directly for any tools or robots or whatever that needed testing. Golden Garden could now be part of a mech or something and use those areas for experimentation.

'Fire Manipulation' could access those same environments, and Kaa was getting better and better at retaining the same level of dexterity when Adam stopped using his flame abilities.

His 'Research' could now load queries or other time consuming tasks into his simulations, using Golden Garden as a foundation and his soul storage to load/save results. New queries or tasking issues required him to change back into 'Research' mode first though.

'Recovery' was now capable of researching injuries, viruses, poisons, and energy exposure. That data could be analyzed by 'Research', and was by default dumped into his memories.

The last of his charges, except the ones held by Squishy of course, had gone into allowing 'Recovery' to develop and save contingencies from all those saved memories. Over time, his body would automatically start suggesting methods to prevent or cure similar issues faster and more efficiently.

This would only improve further as he healed more people in the future.

Which... well, even normal daily healing had been cut these last two days.

Dragon's excuses were getting thin. And there was a layer of anger in her eyes that Adam saw growing. Armsmaster was also looking more uncomfortable.

Vicky and Amy had stopped showing up four days ago.

Adam took a deep calming breath, and swapped away from 'Technomancy' to a soothing 'Recovery'. "I'm sorry, I thought you just said that I was not cleared to hear the results of my actions. That my personal thoughts, feelings, and power use given physical form and handed into your care was now part of an ongoing investigation. One I am not allowed to know of or partake in."

Oh, the bone fingernails were claw-like now. Emotions changed his body? Probably would have to test that later.

Adam took another deep, calming breath. "Mr. Armsmaster, assume that I will let that particular issue go for now." Damn Director. "Can I ask instead when we will be resuming testing? I may be indirectly funding Scapegoat's current assignment, but wasting money is not enjoyable."

Scapegoat himself had started to lose patience a week ago, but had cooled down when Adam had basically gave him a wad of cash and sent him to various tourist spots with some Guild security.

Back then, Adam had thought there had been some issue and everything would be cleared up by now.

Armsmaster looked more upset than usual. "Variance... may I speak off the record?"

That... was unusual. At the nod, Armsmaster continued. "You do not have full support of some unnamed leaders of the local PRT branch. I only managed to gain permission to contact you myself due to my relationship with Dragon..."

Aww, she blushed. Anger slightly lowered.

"...And because I have agreed to a very complicated set of Master/Stranger protocols, in addition to high levels of intrusive surveillance."

Anger back.

Adam leaned back in his... well, at this point it was a metal throne. Null metal, no less. It also looked like at high levels of rage, his body was slowly extruding a bone exoskeleton in 'Recovery' mode.

Oh, he had slipped into 'Enhanced' mode. Better roll that back to 'Peak'.

Back to 'normal'. It seemed to lower some of the rooms tension.

Adam gave a slight sigh. "Armsmaster, between you and me, I feel I have been extremely open, honest, and patient while working with the wonderful people here. And the removal of assistants, the reallocation of doctors and researchers, my healing coworker and her sister being 'delayed' every single day..."

His eyes, white orbs with blood red crosses, pulsed. "Are your leaders disrespecting my intelligence? Is good faith, openness, and wealth not enough for a working relationship?"

The awkward silence was damning.

Adam gave a swift nod. "Very well."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dragon was 'walking' alongside Adam as they left the facility. His outfit didn't shine thanks to the scales of Null Metal coating it, but the amount of literal 'fire' power inside would glow enough to blind someone.

Thankfully, she was being very sensitive to his current mood.

It was a... quiet kind of anger.

It grew in his bones. A fire of not just indignation, but hurt.

His memories were not perfect by any means, but this had become the first time someone had just... pushed him aside. Ignored him. Broken faith.

And on some level, he was not really emotionally mature enough to accept that and move on.

Every step had him trying to find some kind of inner calm. Being refused because he was unqualified would have been fine. Annoying, but fine. Or if he had been rude, or couldn't afford the loss in services, or whatever.

But he was being refused because he was not under the thumb of the local Protectorate, and Director Piggot felt him being here risked a threat to her authority. To the stability of the city.

No, far better to stay with the rage dragons, druggies, and those damn Nazis.

Dragon sighed. "I am sorry, Adam. I thought it would only take a few days after you showed how useful your new skills were before someone above her stepped in. This may be partially my fault."

His glance made her continue. "I was the one to encourage Co...Armsmaster to visit. Not that he needed much prodding really. Even worse, I had used some connections to encourage that additional healing session with Mr. Woolsworth to display your ability with power users."

Seeing his confusion she gave a weak chuckle. "Grenade guy."

Adam blinked. "Right, him." His frown came back. "I... I thought them allowing me to heal him was a sign that they wanted more data. To begin interactions and maybe meet a few more people."

Dragon sighed. "The Director is not impressed by allowing an outsider to gain abilities by having friendly chats with her people. Cooperation with her was not guaranteed to begin with."

She glanced back. "I overestimated how much political pull I had here... or maybe I just hoped too hard. Armsmaster is one of my dearest friends, so you living here would allow you two to 'hang out' as it were." She looked back sadly. "He has always been a bit estranged from normal society. He's really enjoyed working with the team these last few weeks."

Adam blinked... and gave a savage grin. "Really. You know, I happen to have a large amount of disposable income right now after those custom works ordered by various tinkers you've been shipping out. And I know our lawyer has been in a land purchasing frenzy for the last month or so."

This may be petty. "Where exactly does Armsmaster live?"

But it was worth it. "Maybe he needs a neighbor."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

As Dragon apparently had two separate ongoing holograms data streams, one following Adam and one with her Tinker-Man, it was easy getting his approval for identity sharing (Colin Wallis, by the way).

Also, if she was trying to hide her cybernetic nature, she wasn't trying very hard around him. Still, he refused to mention it until she brought the subject up. This was her version of a secret identity.

Not like Adam had a secret ID to keep. Walking around with glowing eyes and bone fingernails were a bit of a hint.

The land purchasing had been done previously in a subtle and slow way by Guild Lawyers to prevent people from rapidly raising sell prices when they notice that someone wanted the scrap they owned.

This situation however, was a statement.

And since Armsmaster barely spent time in his home to begin with, he didn't care what Adam did with the property that was abandoned nearby.

This was a poor area of the city to begin with, so Adam found a set of eight plots of property touching in a Lego shape (Streets on both long edges), and made sure no one was inside.

Even as Dragon finalized the purchase, it burned.

It burned bright.

And it didn't look natural.

Fire snakes the size of trees were consuming it all. As a scan from 'Research' already knew exactly where the various pipes and wires were underground, huge worm like serpents were diving into rock and soil in a perfect rectangle. Not one degree of heat escaped the place.

And like a fire god, Adam burned within it.

Dragon was giving a golf clap, but life sometimes needed style.

Wires replaced by high quality superconducting Fire Metal wires, insulated with Null Metal. The same gray Null Metal replaced the near-evaporated pipes.

The uh... the plants didn't do well.

The surface of the now expanded plot convulsed as it slammed from liquid into a thick base of Null Metal foundation, even as bricks of Flame began creating a series of bridges over the ever deepening pit.

It wasn't quite a moat, as it literally became a huge sinkhole lined with Null Metal, with gray bridges connecting to a lifted foundation in the middle. All those wires and pipes that were passing through the property were now silver from Null protection and 'floating' in space as the area below began to fill with liquid fire.

Seeing Dragon's glare, he sighed and just converted that space into interconnecting Null walls with white Flame Metal to keep it from being see-through.

The surface was now flat and boring, even as a home began to sprout.

Someday. Fire moats rocked after all.

The house was more like a walled mansion, and he would have to later pay for soil to be brought in if anything green was supposed to exist here. Well, normal green.

For now, he had red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violate, white, and transparent metals to work with. And he needed a home.

Green 'plants' spawned and spread, a 'mossy' lawn made with thin but not sharp threads of glorious green metal. Their temperature set to absorb heat to keep it at a cool spring day feeling year round.

As for the house, transparent 'windows' formed the box like house with red 'bricks' warped and expanded.

Ignoring the confused firefighters who had parked outside the growing crowd, Adam continued construction of the second and third layers of his... house? Palace?

Should the wall be a giant Kaa in disguise? Or the wall's main gate be a snake skull?

Meh, he never did do subtlety well anyway.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dragon thankfully allowed him to vent his anger through fire sculpting before raining on his parade.

Housing codes.

The next week had him modifying the distance from his house to the street, changing his awesome fire-metal-death-grass into woven metal micro-mesh, basically turning it into soft fiber. That required a few extra power charges in Fire Manifestation to increase the textures and flexibility of metal created.

Which was fine, he had made moss in the first place to prevent sharp edges cutting pets or children.

All the 'plants' got similar treatment, edges transitioning into tiny soft pillows of same color metal that would not be possible to craft without powers.

Dirt, and all the random odds and ends needed, were added. Planting was on going.

In the end, his house had a thick and tall wall (the top half see-through), a growing collection of plants inside as a garden, and a modest house in the middle. A ramp inset on the wall going down into the floor allowed deliveries via truck or guest parking.

He even got permits to install a pool, though it ended up being boring water. The metal walls kept the pool temperature at a cool feeling all year though, so it would never ice over or get too warm.

Underground however... well, it took some phrasing, but rules about how much you own downward got a bit fuzzy after applying for a Thermal Heat Pump and Well license.

His house was DEEP. Layered, slowly growing, and with parts reaching down toward a source of near-endless thermal joy.

Even WITH Dragon's help, this thing had required pounds and pounds of paperwork.

The thin layering of Null Metal, transparent as it was, ensured that all exposed edges would last.

And all the energy siphoned away from the sun, excess radiation, sound pollution... all was stored away for future use. The Magma Generator on the slowly lowering bottom floor was massive, coated in protective Null scales, and temporarily charging Magma Orbs for future use until it got deep enough to allow REAL heat from ACTUAL magma.

He was generating enough future power to handle the whole Guild solo if needed from this one installation alone. Dragon already had the construction plans, though it would either need parts from him or a design change to not require so much heat metal being available.

Looking over his new garden, Adam groaned.

Plant manipulation. May be needed.

Maybe Amy could help? Plants were made of biological junk, and she did do plant work in the original story. Well, maybe? His memory kept meshing fan works, canon, and the random bizarre stuff this AU took as normal.

Might as well invite all of New Wave over for dinner. In a day or so, he kept finding things missing that a home needed.

Glancing at the newly purchased stuff, he nodded. His bed and furniture he made himself with powers, even had fun when learning how to make refrigerators without Freon gases and such, but who wanted Null Metal Toilet Paper or what not? Easier to buy.

He did frown though. He... didn't have a phone.

After adding some Adaman Eve Gardens in the walls and some basic microphones and sensors, the place was rigged up to be run by a digital assistant.

Glancing at the hologram, he gave a small smile. "So Dragon... ever been paid to work as a housekeeper? Or maid... or whatever you call 'Please take over my home'."

She blinked. "Huh." A knowing look came back after her thought process finished. "Going to admit I figured it out?"

His innocence was epic. "What? I'm just saying, you are 'restricted' at 'home' anyway..." His finger quotation marks may be a bit much. "... so if you got bored you may want to have some software and stuff installed in the currently empty Celestial Garden downstairs."

Her gaze was dry. "And you just so happened to have this home equipped with fiber internet hookups, multiple cameras installed in the walls of each room, all those microphones... and what seems to be hard light projectors."

His smile was bright. "Leet was VERY happy to be included with consulting when working with our new gaming division, and was willing to sell some schematics with me." And 'Technomancy' was LOVING the ability to simulate a machine that can project REAL force fields, even if weak enough to be considered only 'Hard Light' for projections.

Nothing stronger than stiff cardboard, not originally. He had made improvements, but was still reviewing the tech for future enhancements.

He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure that I, the man who feels technology like a plant feels sunlight, have no opinions on whether someone is or is not a digital organism." Besides, she figured things out like three months ago, probably. We were just too polite to bring it up before.

Her laugh seemed a bit emotional, but her smile was genuine. "So... I guess I can move in. Roommates only, you know. A girl has to have standards."

His grin was slightly evil. "How about these standards?"

Dragon received the specifications for the 'Celestial Garden' hardware.

Huh, who knew she could MAKE that noise. Something like a squeal and a very uncomfortable moan.

Oops, hugger plus hard light projectors means better swap to 'Recovery'.

And maybe turn down the strength projected.

...And maybe increase safety limits.

Oww.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Narwhal insisted on 'visiting', using the newest versions of the 'Projection of Dreams' virtual reality system. PoD was the upgraded version Dragon and Adam cobbled together so Narwhal could rest on a couch or something (Of COURSE she chose bed), wear the necklace (She chose a collar design), and have her body relax while her mind hooked up to the digital streams.

It had the unexpected but pleasant side effect of a very powerful nap while letting her get work done (A simulated office program that allowed emailing to real-world systems). It couldn't replace sleep yet, but she seemed less stressed and was able to spend more time 'visiting' him via the same hologram projecting that Dragon's avatar used.

Then again, being able to eat unlimited simulated junk food may also have cut down stress levels.

Of course, now she was more than an image, a hard-light hologram. Went from 'Hello hot stuff!' to messing with his home in seconds.

Though her incessant bending to 'see stuff better' made up for any annoyance he may have built up.

Still wearing that dress/shirt/tiny-skirt thing.

Unfortunately it was juuuust long enough...

*Cough*. Anyway, she and Dragon were having a ball since the redundant projectors and speakers allowed them full access to his home, the number of labs underground, and even a fairly large radius around the building itself. Not just to him and Armsmaster, whom had special vision enhancements, but to normal people too.

And he realized that this was really the first time Dragon could hang out with her friend. Like... ever. Even hug and stuff. It was clear the two had some heart to heart discussion previously, as Narwhal seemed way too relaxed when the conversation drifted over to Dragon's new server home downstairs. Relaxing her shackles had helped more than expected.

Huh, considering how enhanced his hard light projectors were now...

With a sigh, he interrupted the two. "Alright, I just realized something awkward."

Narwhal somehow slinked up and had an arm around his shoulders in moments. "Mmm, tell me more."

Welp, so much for THAT thought process.

A deep breath and ignoring Dragon giggling in the background (Thanks for the support), he turned to the sexy cyborg avatar. "Dragon, I'm sure you and Narwhal have both discovered that these holograms are near-perfect levels of human sensitivity and biologically accurate."

He tried to ignore that Dragon's surprise was only matched by Narwhal's knowing wink.

Adam was not prepared for this conversation.

Screw it. "Dragon, if you bring Armsmaster to your room, put a sock on the doorknob. Alright, I'm done."

As he tried to head toward his lab and away from the stuttering, blushing tinker, Narwhal's full body was VERY distracting as she leaned on him, laughing.

Still, a pretty good day.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Narwhal nibbling takes distraction to unheard of levels.

Her whisper just sort of shut him down mentally. "You just set up a base and dedicated an entire house to help my best friend more easily hook up with her long time love." Did... she just lick...

Her voice was near whisper. "I may find you attractive, and I enjoy your company... but the way you took care of my friend in her time of need deserves a bit of a... reward."

Scratch that, best day.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

They didn't go as far as they could have, but in the end the kissing, hugging, and cuddling felt more... intimate.

And honestly, while no further undressing occurred, he was sure both of them ended up needing a fresh set of clothing towards the end. Very... very sure.

Still, it sort of destroyed his work ethic for the next day. And hurt his ability to say no to the saucy woman, whom somehow convinced him to develop, design, and deploy a drone that would allow Dragon and Narwhal to go shopping later.

Positive reinforcement does wonders though. And he was glad his software 'senses' translation allowed him to smell her shampoo.

No, focus.

So now he had a surveillance drone. One that allowed hard light holograms and had amazing battery life thanks to the tiny Magma Generator built into it.

Their use was both good short term (Happy girlfriend best girlfriend) and long term (These things would eventually be used like Taylor used her bugs for sensory overview of territory). That it allowed his new significant-other to shop without him (And ship the stuff to Toronto, so no carrying!) was a lovely side effect.

Plus, he got the high-definition video of the trip anyway... and he KNEW she was 'testing out' those outfits on purpose.

Wow, that wasn't focused at all.

Anyway, he had finished a couple of harvester devices that fed into a reservoir, one of Dragon's designs, so his newly modified 3d printers and assemblers would be well stocked.

He could probably get away with only having one, but in the end he built three. One for Dragon, one for him, and one for the (likely) visitation from Armsmaster. They were networked and could be used remotely for obvious reasons.

Adam invested some charges into 'Fire Manipulation' again, gaining the ability to create 'Binary Flame Fluid'. It would take a day or two for Squishy to be recharged, but for now his printers had two new liquids to use that (when combined) could form 'Flame Metal' or 'Null Metal', depending on the ratios.

It still needed him to stock the reservoirs, and he honestly wouldn't trust anyone near this stuff if it wasn't secured inside a house made out of raw fire... but it would allow Dragon to directly accept AND craft orders from now on.

That it would also free up some snuggling time was completely coincidental.

That he could now make a null-metal spandex equivalent was... less coincidental. Honestly, if he just wanted binary metal fluid, less charges would have been required.

Having already sent Narwhal a skin tight Null Metal suit, one that was mostly transparent...

Mmm.

With a sigh, Adam went back to work adding features and fixing issues with both Garden systems and the new 'Forbidden Fruit' consoles. Not many problems had actually happened so far, and Dragon had already made some sort of deals with Uber and Leet... L33t? Whatever.

They were getting the alpha consoles for testing, which would now be much less annoying since Dragon could take over the crafting part with the new printers.

New printers that he could feel already going strong... Looks like Dragon was keeping an eye on base even as they tried on those... very tight swimsuits.

Today was a good day.

He tried to focus more on assigning his personal printer to craft more drones instead of on the two overly attractive women posing near the windows of the shop.

He had mixed results.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Emily Piggot, Director of the PRT ENE, manager of the local Protectorate, Wards, and all PRT agents... was a bit overwhelmingly furious.

The current meeting was pretty silent as they read the reports.

She pushed aside Armsmaster's latest 'summary', long as it was. "So. Who exactly ordered these modifications to my plan of action?"

The room shifted awkwardly as Armsmaster tapped the table, a hologram being displayed. "Michal E. Phelman. While an unscheduled Master/Stranger scenario was being tested in the facility, he acquired the written orders as per procedure, but had a modified version with approved seals and paperwork that he delivered instead. It contained information he should not have had, clearances he should not have known about. See evidence 2. for a copy."

She shuffled the documents as he continued. "The return confirmation codes were also replaced, preventing this issue from being caught. As per the fraudulent orders, significant pressure was applied to visiting Guild Affiliate Variance, attempting to force his early departure."

He looked uncomfortable. "Due to personal beliefs, I found the orders to be both unsavory but believable due to past actions from you Director, and thus did not properly inspect their veracity beyond the requirements stated in the standard operating procedures."

She frowned... but couldn't really argue. The fraudulent document even contained certain phrases she tended to use in paperwork like this, to the degree that she had privately undergone some Master/Stranger testing to verify her memories hadn't been modified. "Continue."

He nodded. "Investigation with the Thinker Tank confirmed that the objective, removing Variance from the area of Brockton Bay, was not achieved. He has purchased a large size property as stated in reports C3222, C3223, and C3226. Dragon has also been providing information of his short term and long term plans, given with Variance's knowledge and consent."

Miss Militia was twirled her power, currently a glowing green knife. Lower face covered with an American flag, it didn't prevent her from sighing as she spread apart the papers. "So we were able to capture Mr. Phelman in time?"

Armsmaster shook his head. "Within a half hour of leaving work on the day in question, he was found as a casualty in what appeared to be a mugging. He did not survive, but evidence collected on scene suggests it was not a coincidence."

Emily held her head in her hands. Assault and Battery had not been able to make this meeting, and at this point she was grateful that Assault couldn't work his 'comedy' to make this mess 'less tense'. What a foul-up. "Tell me what we HAVE accomplished."

Armsmaster nodded. "Dragon's reduced work load has enabled us to work together on larger projects than usual, and we detected a number of electronic footholds and backdoor vulnerabilities in our systems, both hardware and software. As of 0312 this morning, we have either completely cleared all detected issues or disabled their ability to acquire useful data until we can formulate an official response."

Miss Militia glared at the personnel documents. "How many of these detected spies were involved?"

He gestured. "ID's 3, 4, 8, and 12 were directly involved in some fashion. The others were found in the process of searching for security threats and through heuristic behavior analysis. They are all under observation, and we have established protocols to handle them in various emergencies that may crop up."

Director Piggot tried not to grunt in frustration. "Am I going to have to apologize to Variance?"

Glancing at his notes, he paused. "It may be wise. Right now, he has convinced Dragon to help him with legal issues preventing him from tunneling downwards with his home. If we do not distract him, he may end up creating an artificial volcano out of petty vengeance." Glancing at his notes, he sighed. "That said, he has not focused his displeasure on our organizations as a whole. In fact, I have personally been invited by him and by Dragon to visit their new home, without requiring me to withhold information from said visit in my future reports."

That he apparently had a lab already developed and assigned for his future use did not seem relevant to this conversation. It was in the footnotes, if anyone really cared.

Director Piggot looked through the larger summary a bit more, her thoughts racing. In the end, it came down to doing what felt right (Avoiding any unneeded contact with more damn Parahumans) and what was needed (Evaluating the development and threat level of her new 'neighbor').

Still, this visiting mechanize-medic had convinced a threat to abandon his or her covert infiltration in a blatant attempt to force the boy out of the state.

And doing something that clearly pissed off and scared this invisible enemy felt like the right course of action. Her personal feelings hated the idea of a leech hiding in her home more than working with that body switching oddball.

She would keep her eyes open and resources listening though. No reason to let either opponent gain a edge on her kingdom.