Chapter 2: 1-2 Call

1.2 Call

2000, May 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The pink liquid flowed down my throat and my world expanded, from a pitch-black void to a cascade of hues and textures beyond mere human sight.

How does one explain sight to a blind man? Even having once had eyes, I still had no clue. I was now in the curious position of having to explain the blessings of the Oracle's Elixir to the PRT, to mere mortals who were utterly incapable of wielding mana, who didn't even consider the possibility of the supernatural. I just ended up telling them that the elixir could give me sight for one hour per mouthful. After some rigorous testing, they marked it down as pericognition within fifty meters. The closer truth was that it expanded my magical senses outward and opened my inner eye, as cliché as that sounded, literally allowing me to see and feel the spiritual reality overlaid onto the physical. Sight, but not. Touch, but not.

With a snap of my wrist, I contracted my telescopic walking stick and stashed it on a belt loop.

"You good?" Redbird asked.

"Quite."

Taking the lead, I shoved the doors open, allowing them to hit the walls a little louder than strictly necessary as I walked in. Four people were already facing me, three girls and one boy. This wasn't the entirety of the Wards. In fact, it was but one of three teams.

The common room itself was large, far larger than a team of four, now five, merited. Wards Team One was almost entirely dedicated to PR and rescue missions and fought almost never. At least, that was the ideal. Where capes were concerned, that was a pipe dream. My new headquarters had three large couches, a coffee table, flatscreen TV, and a fully stocked kitchen. It was honestly better than my apartment, both in this life and my previous.

Phoenix was a city of one and a half million people and the local Protectorate catered to more than just the city proper, responding to emergency calls from the local national parks and Native American reservations as well. That was what Redbird was, in many ways: He didn't just work as a Protectorate hero; he was also the primary liaison to the Gila River Indian Community, a reservation that lied to the south of the city.

Given the larger population size and massively upscaled patrol area compared to Brockton Bay, it was no wonder that there were multiple Protectorate and Wards teams. It still wasn't enough. As I heard Redbird tell it, the local Protectorate teams, yes, plural, worked in close cooperation with National Park Service rangers as well as the nearby Tucson branch of the Protectorate to manage their wide territory. In a lot of ways, Arizona was one of the better-managed sectors: large enough for a sizable hero presence, small enough to not attract any big villain names, close enough for Alexandria to do a flyby, and best of all, not a Cauldron feudalism experiment.

Before I knew it, a tall, leggy blonde in a navy jumpsuit stood before me with a winning smile. Her blue eyes danced with amusement and I could feel every twitch of her lips, every bob of her hair as she tried to position herself with a welcoming, big sister persona. It was her hands that caught my interest though. She wore heavily modified boxing gloves, flattened a little with additional hardened foam padding on the knuckles. The gloves extended past her wrists and almost to her elbows, with the wrists flaring outward in a diamond pattern, almost like wings. On the back of each glove was a stylized ray, its tail curling up her forearms.

"Hey, Redbird, who's this?" she said. Her voice was confident, but why wouldn't she be? I was an eight year old child with an obviously blinding scar across his eyes. I could feel her smile shrink by a few molars when she met my glass eyes. "Oh…"

"This is Rubedo, Andy," Redbird said, his hand placed comfortingly on my shoulder. "He's going to be a new member of the Wards. Rubedo, this one is called Stingray."

"Shit, what the fuck happened to your eyes?" said one of the other girls. She was leaning against the wall with a large, black domino mask that covered most of her face. The mask was unique, embossed with golden tophat designs.

"Hat Trick!" Redbird and the blond admonished as one.

"It's fine," I waved them off. I brought my feet together and bowed at the waist. Regardless of my mental age, these were my sunbae. "Hello everyone, my name is Yusung Kim, but you can call me Andy. The director and I agreed that seeing how I'm blind most of the time, it's pointless trying to keep a secret identity from my own team. As for how I got this scar," I gestured to my face, "I got it during Leviathan's recent attack on Kyushu when a telephone pole fell near me, the broken power line raking across my eyes."

"Shit," the now named Hat Trick hissed.

I shrugged. If she didn't like the answer, she shouldn't have asked the question. "Quite."

She came up to me and pointed her fist at me, which I bumped. She was rail-thin and dressed almost stereotypically like a skater, with a backwards facing baseball cap with a flattened bill, a t-shirt promoting some metal band I'd never heard of, loose jeans, and one too many belts. At her side was a skateboard with the sandpaper-like grip tape colored in waves of hot pink and purple. "That's fuckin' metal, little dude."

"Wait, what do you mean you're blind only most of the time?" the sole boy asked. He looked to be the oldest in the room, maybe par with Stingray. He was handsome, with wavy brown hair and a strong jaw. His appearance was marred only by the fact that half his left ear was partially missing. His feet were still up on the coffee table, an easygoing smile on his face. I noticed he hadn't bothered with a mask at all. At his feet was a ten-gallon hat. "Howdy," he drawled, "Ranchero at your service. David out of costume."

"Dave," the blonde warned.

"It's fine," I repeated. I pulled out my bottle of pink Gatorade. "I'd rather get through the boring stuff right away. Powers. I'm a tinker who makes potions, including one I call the Oracle's Elixir. It gives me a thinker power that makes me aware of everything within fifty meters or so for an hour."

"Cool, that's awesome!" shouted the final girl as she jumped up to me. She was short, almost as short as I was, with wavy black hair and almond eyes. Her costume was… juvenile, though I supposed I shouldn't have expected any different from the infamous PR department. It was… It was a giant raccoon onesie, with the raccoon's face as a hoodie attachment. The "mask" of the raccoon extended down to cover her own eyes. Hell, she even had the fluffy ears and striped tail, with some kind of internal wire to lift it up. "Hey, I'm Raquel, or the Masked Bandit in costume!"

I mimed giving her a once-over. I didn't need to nod to look her over, but I was told by the local PR guru that emoting and body language was important. I'd never seen a woman look more uncomfortable than in that meeting. She had to explain to a blind eight year old that his scar was too freaky to talk to people normally so he should make big gestures. "That's a hell of a costume," I told Masked Bandit. "Do you… change into a raccoon?"

She visibly winced even as the tall blond wrapped an arm around her. "Yeah… I didn't get much of a choice."

"Sorry, Bandit and I just came off a patrol, which is why we're the only ones in full regalia. And since these two already unmasked," she pulled off her navy-blue domino to reveal an attractive teen with a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, "Penelope, leader of Wards Team One."

"Alright, you kids seem like you won't tear each other apart so I'm going to get back to the Protectorate side and grab a shower before heading out," Redbird said.

"Thank you, Redbird," I told him before walking over to the sofa and taking a seat.

"So," Penelope clapped her hands. "Powers. Mine lets me punch things from far away with an additional drill-like effect. I'm also a lot stronger than normal."

"She's also a massive dork," Hat Trick said snidely and mimed punching the air. "Every time she punches something from a distance, she shouts, 'Stingray Straight!'"

"Hey, every superhero needs a super move alright? You have no class."

"Whatever," she said, eyes rolling at the well-trodden argument. She took off her black domino mask to reveal a face that looked like it could be an older version of Raquel's. "Since everyone else unmasked, I'm Yasmine. Jazz for short. I have a shaker power that lets me turn any hat I own into a pocket dimension. I automatically know how to use everything I keep in my hats."

To demonstrate, she walked over to a coat rack where a tophat hung. With a neat flip, she replaced her baseball cap and a violet light filled the air around her. When the light faded, she was dressed in a stage magician's outfit, cane and all. "Ta-da," she drawled, taking a mocking bow.

"Very nice," I told her. "So, if you store a hammer inside your hat, do you become a master carpenter when you take it out again?"

"If it's a carpenter's hammer, sure, and only for a day or so before my connection breaks."

"That's pretty cool. So you're a superpowered handyman."

"Snrkk," Penelope tried to suppress a laugh but failed miserably.

"Not. A. Handyman," Jazz growled.

Seeing a budding argument, David tossed his hat over to Jazz, who caught it with a scowl but placed it on the coat rack. "Anyway, I'm Ranchero, as I said. I have a minor brute power but my real power is the ability to make hardlight projections of bulls. The more bulls I have, the stronger I get."

"That explains the cowboy hat."

"Yup. I wanted to go by Stampede, but the PR lady told me it was 'too rowdy.'"

"That's probably because I'm already the Masked Bandit," Raquel said. "We can't have two mavericks on one team, even if I don't want to be one."

I leaned back into my couch but paused. I couldn't feel my collapsible walking stick anymore. "Hey, anyone seen my stick?"

"Raquel," all three Wards groaned as one.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the raccoon-themed girl said, placing the stick in my hand. She bowed a full ninety degrees. "I'm really sorry, Andy. My power sometimes acts up without my say-so. It's so bad that I'm homeschooled."

"You're… an involuntary kleptomaniac?" I asked incredulously.

"Err… yeah? My power is to teleport anyone or anything towards me. It's great for rescue work, but it activates without me noticing sometimes. I was just thinking that your baton thing looked kind of cool attached to your hip and suddenly…"

"Got it. I'm not mad. No biggie. Just don't take my Gatorade. Trust me, it's not a good idea."

"How so? It's a potion, right? Does it have anything to do with only being blind part of the time?"

"Yes. It's called the Oracle's Elixir and gives a form of pericognition. I don't recommend trying some though. The scientist who tried a mouthful during testing spent the duration crying in a ball at the overstimulation."

"Don't fuck with tinkertech," Jazz drawled. "What else is new?"

"Yeah, exactly," I nodded. "You wouldn't mess with Hero's raygun so don't touch my things."

"What else can you make, Andy?" David asked curiously. "Tinkers are pretty wild; you guys can make your own powers and stuff."

"Yeah, I do like being a tinker. I haven't made anything else though. Most of the past seven months has been physical therapy. I honestly made the Oracle's Elixir out of glass cleaner on accident."

"Wait, you're drinking glass cleaner?"

"Yup."

"And it's not… poisoning you?" Penelope asked with concern.

"No, we checked, trust me."

"Tinkers are wild," Dave said with an easy laugh. "Had a small seminar with Hero a few months back when he went on tour visiting the Wards. He showed us some of the cool stuff he built and… wow… I like my powers, but I'm kind of jealous."

"You've met Hero?" I was mildly surprised. I had to remind myself that Hero was alive and would be until sometime this year. Hell, some of the major players weren't capes yet. Panacea. Glory Girl. Skitter. Tattletale. Dragon. 'Holy shit, Riley isn't Bonesaw yet…'

"You will too," Penelope said. "He's the most approachable of the Founders and likes to do tours all around the PRT offices."

"Say, Andy," Raquel said with a chipper smile.

"Yes?"

"How old are you?"

"Eight, you?"

"Thirteen."

"Huh. You're short."

I immediately regretted that. The hyperactive girl all but straddled me, pointing a finger an inch from my nose.

"I'm not short. You're short!"

'In for a penny…' "I'm eight. Girls mature faster than guys. You have five years on me and you're only an inch taller."

Her cheeks puffed with frustration before she ran to Penelope. "Penny, he's making fun of me!"

"Don't call me Penny," our leader grumbled. "It sounds childish."

The conversation devolved into a bickering snarkfest between the older and younger girls, with David trying to play mediator and Yasmine happily watching the show. Soon enough, my hour was up and darkness settled around me once more. I brought the bottle to my lips and marveled as my world was expanded anew.

'I wonder if this stuff is addictive?'

The five of us ordered some pizza. They were surprised that I could read the menu while hopped up on elixir. For some reason, they'd imagined my pericognition as akin to echolocation.

"Say, Andy," David said through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza. "When's your debut?"

I shrugged. "We're still deciding my costume, honestly. Besides, what am I going to tell the public? 'Hi, I'm Rubedo and my power is not being blind for one hour?'" I snarked. "Director Lyons, Royalle, and Ms. Youngston all agreed that I shouldn't be made public until I have something to show. I'm going to try and make some healing potions."

"Like a videogame?"

"Yeah. I'm sure I can make more than just those." As I said that, ideas, Inspirations, ran through my mind. Elixirs of Iron, Sorcery, and Wrath. Health and mana potions, wards, and more. Hell, a recipe for Poro-Snax even. Even while limiting myself to things that could be loosely defined as "alchemy," there was plenty Runeterra had to offer. Many examples didn't even show up in-game, referenced only in the flavortext of one Champion or another.

My power, the World Rune of Inspiration, has been good to me over the past several months. It pulsed within me, attached to my immortal soul like a limpet. This extrasensory perception, the ability to physically feel my own soul, unnerved me to no end at the start, but was now a constant source of comfort, a reminder of my own potential.

That said, my power didn't exactly come with an instruction manual. The only reason I knew what had happened was because I dreamed each night. I dreamed of twelve stars that formed a constellation. I dreamed of an azure orb of infinite mana surrounded by golden hoops turning ever so slowly. I dreamed and felt all of Runeterra latch on to the rune, and through it, me. The twelve stars were dark, like unlit braziers in a temple, but somehow, I knew that I would be able to light them all one day. With each star, my connection to Runeterra would strengthen and that world would grow ever closer.