Chapter 47: 4-15 Ripples

2000, September 15: Arlington, VA, USA

Sitting at my desk, I absentmindedly sketched out the alchemical formula for a more advanced healing potion I'd been playing with. For the first time in weeks, I'd foregone my morning exercise.

There was only so much healing potion I could make without feeling a little fed up with the redundancy and I'd reached that point a week ago. I sucked it up and bore it, but Leviathan's conspicuous absence was making me paranoid as all hell.

After my endbringer preparations were finished, I made sure to deliver them to Director Costa-Brown personally. Since then, I'd been walking on pins and needles. My luck was terrible and this was Earth-Bet. Why would I get weeks to prepare? Surely the other shoe would drop soon, right?

My mounting nervousness made me look up endbringer statistics only to find much of it was unavailable to me as a Ward. The data wasn't classified per se, but I got the impression that it wasn't something shared with the Wards on principle.

I knew from canon that on a good day, about twenty-five percent of people died from a Leviathan fight. If I remembered right, there were dozens of names listed on the Brockton Bay memorial, though I was pretty sure less than a hundred. Assuming the nice round number of fifty confirmed deaths, that meant more or less two hundred capes had attended the battle. It was all just napkin math in the end, but it seemed reasonable.

But that could have been a very good day. Dragon and Armsmaster had worked together to warn them ahead of time, something that hadn't been done before.

From what I could guess, two to three hundred attendees per battle sounded about right. I also had to account for emergency response personnel. The military would be present to coordinate evacuation efforts. The PRT would set up their own command center. Doctors and nurses would conduct triage from multiple medical tents, spread out across several favorable locations because putting all your medics in a conveniently obliterated spot was idiotic.

All told, I ballparked the number of cape and normal attendees at anywhere between five to eight hundred total. Assuming a thirty percent casualty rate, that was two-hundred-forty potions I needed to brew, and even then, not all casualties could be saved.

I clear overshot that number. I made enough to fill a literal oil drum, forty-two gallons. At eight fluid ounces per serving, that was six hundred seventy-two servings of healing potions. Of course, I'd also provided fifty Elixirs of Iron for the brute squad who would be tangling with Leviathan up close and personal.

And still I felt like I hadn't done enough.

I was stuck in a bit of a rut of my own making. I felt that making more potions wouldn't do much good, nor could I hope to finish a new project in time to matter, but I couldn't bring myself to tear myself completely from the looming endbringer.

That left me studying alchemy as known by the likes of Singed, Renata, and even some of the less kosher secrets rediscovered by the Black Rose throughout LeBlanc's tenure as its mistress. Even discounting the most unpleasant influences, alchemy was an exceedingly broad subject and there was plenty to learn. The blend of magic and chemistry was both beautiful and harrowing in equal measure. I was finally approaching the territory of what I jokingly called "anime alchemy," with its ritual circles of transmutation, adherence to the phases of the moon and stars, and exacting measurements of mana.

I'd gotten a small taste of it during the creation of the Elixir of Life, but that left me working backwards. In a way, I was like a university student who somehow enrolled in his senior thesis during his freshman year. If it wasn't for the bullshit of Inspiration propping me up, there was no way I'd have succeeded at all.

Perhaps the World Rune was sardonically correct; I was more of a baker than a true alchemist. I followed the recipe and relied on a crutch to arrive at the Elixir of Life, but the complex principles that leashed the fluctuations in mana to create the final product eluded my comprehension.

So, here I was, fiddling with alchemical circles and formulae for potions that did more than just heal. A potion of rejuvenation that could regrow limbs or organs was my first choice, one that did not have such a heavy material cost like the Elixir of Life but in exchange could only be used to replace a singular body part.

A potion which improved the five senses similar to Warwick's was my second, though I found that formula somewhat tricky due to the complex interactions in the brain. In the end, I could only make a brew that would enhance a specific sense depending on the ingredient used. A falcon's eye would grant improved vision, a rabbit's ear improved hearing, and so on. Still very useful, but not quite what I was looking for.

Inspiration was free. Understanding and application were far pricier commodities.

I rose and joined my mom for breakfast, a combination of jangjorim, kimchi, and rice. As it was Friday, lessons in Korean language and history were followed European history.

For Korean history, I was reading the biography of Admiral Yi Sunsin. Fascinating man and the true greatest admiral to ever live. Fuck Francis Drake. No, I wasn't biased. He really is just that much of a badass. European history was an overview of the decline of the Catholic Church throughout Western Europe. Most of my lessons were handled by me in a similar manner. I presented a book to Ms. Kosker and she approved it so long as the subject was vaguely in line with the syllabus.

After a dose of compulsory self-study, I took a break from the lab as mandated by my upcoming PR event. Or, as much of a break as I was willing to give myself.

The night prior, I'd given mom a shopping list of everything I'd need to bake six dozen palm-sized cookies. I'd be taking two types, dark chocolate chip with a dusting of cinnamon and a walnut-pecan mix.

I considered arriving with a basket of yakwa, traditional Korean cookies made of wheat flour and flavored with honey and ginger, but decided against it. I didn't think they would sell very well. They'd likely just be relegated to being gimmicks and conversation starters so I stuck with twists on American classics. Besides, yakwa was supposed to be fried; I could bake them, but they wouldn't taste quite the same and making anything less than the genuine article bugged me, even for something small like this.

Though I'd prefer to be in the lab, it was a good chance to take a breather from worrying myself sick over Leviathan while testing the World Rune and the results were… interesting.

The moment I thought about baking, countless recipes rushed into my head. They were like a swirling sandstorm that narrowed down to a few grains as I listed off the ingredients I had available. As I reached for the flour, the perfect way to make the dough brought itself to the forefront of my mind. Little tricks and quirks typically earned through decades of experience made themselves known to me. I knew precisely how much baking soda to use, the exact ratio of brown and white sugar, the ideal temperature of butter and cinnamon. Never once did I reach for a measuring cup or scale.

There was surprisingly no dissonance. I hadn't known the first thing about baking before Biscuit Delivery crashed into my soul, but merging with my soul apparently meant that the sum total knowledge of the culinary arts were mine now without the slightest discomfort, at least as a baker.

It was a strange feeling, even for me.

When I drew upon the experience of Champions, it was abundantly clear that their skills were not my own. I knew how Yi twisted his sword just so to parry a blow, but that didn't mean I could do it. I knew how Ahri smiled to make even the most hardheaded guardsman weak in the knees, but I definitely didn't have her superlative grace. Singed's knowledge was all there, but there was a level of detachment, as though I was reading his most intimate notes throughout years of doctoral study.

Eventually, I concluded that it was the difference between an aspect of the World Rune merged with my soul and the inspiration drawn from others.

Several hours later, I had three dozen of each flavor cooling on the table. Being the host of Inspiration must have rubbed off on me because I couldn't stop myself from experimenting a bit. Taking one chocolate chip cookie, I focused on flooding it with mana.

The results were simultaneously disappointing and promising.

Mana by itself did jack all; there was nothing to bind to, whether via alchemic transmutation or through a physical matrix. It just kind of settled in the cookie before dissipating into the air.

But then, that in itself was proof of untapped possibilities. If it could hold mana, it could hold spells. With a little effort, I felt that I could craft magic cookies much like magic potions. I'd need to come up with my own recipes, but the Biscuits of Everlasting Will seemed like good aspirational targets.

That was an experiment for another time, yet another branch of magic I wanted to explore someday. It may actually be my first original branch of magic, or at least not one that wasn't as heavily copied from preexisting foundations such as techmaturgy.

X

Washington-Lee High School was disappointingly average. I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I heard from Powell that it was one of if not the best school in Arlington, the city of course already being one of the most educated cities in the country. A part of me expected manicured lawns and a fountain like a prep school. In the end, a public school was a public school. It sucked no matter what rank it scored on standardized tests.

To be fair to WLHS, it had a hell of a backyard. Just southeast of the softball field was Quincy Park, bequeathed to the people of then Quincy City in 1919 by some old rich guy when he went belly-up. The school's track and cross country teams often ran around the park, probably because running around the track field for a dozen laps got boring real fast.

In order to not disturb the marching band rehearsing on the football field for the rally later tonight, someone had the bright idea to hold the bake sale at the park. With the addition of three Wards, it was already an event in its own right and holding it at the park would make drawing in lucky joggers easier.

I met the two senior Wards at the tables, Just-Ice and Brigadier.

Both were male and significantly older than me, though Brigadier was clearly in the tail end of high school while Just-Ice could be in anything from eight to tenth grade. They were talking to one Mrs. Andrews, the rail-thin PTA coordinator, while surreptitiously staring at the tables laden with sweets. The only reason I could tell who she was was thanks to the lanyard she wore around her neck.

Brigadier was dressed in a military dress uniform, though left intentionally ambiguous so as to not incite any accusations of stolen valor from overly sensitive idiots. The uniform was comprised of a navy-blue top with durable white pants and brass buttons. A white cap with a navy bill and his personal logo sat on his blonde head. Even his hair was cropped short to evoke the boot camp aesthetic.

Just-Ice wore a far more typical hero outfit, a white bodysuit with blue accents. His shoulders had the blue lining in irregular triangles to evoke icicles. His face was mostly covered by a visor instead of a mask, though I didn't know if it had any tinkertech. Maybe it was just meant to look like stylized ski goggles. I thought he looked a little like Frozone from the Incredibles, but that movie wouldn't come out for another four years in Earth-Aleph.

I could see why the two were chosen for this PR stunt. Washington-Lee High School's colors were blue and white and its team was the Generals.

"Here comes the last Ward," Brigadier pointed me out for Mrs. Andrews. He stepped up and offered me a firm handshake, back ramrod straight. "Hyunmu of the DC Team, right? It's good to meet someone from across the river."

I wondered how much of that military bearing was an act. Putting my question aside, I took his hand and shook it once as I bowed at the waist. "It is good to meet you, Brigadier. And you as well, Just-Ice. Your name is very funny," I responded in my typical faked accent. I held out a shopping bag full of cookies. "Mrs. Andrews, here are the cookies."

"Oh, sweetheart, you shouldn't have," she cooed, practically baby-talk. I could already tell it'd be a long two hours. She ushered the three of us to prominent places of honor behind the tables so everyone could get a chance to talk to us while browsing the wares. "Did your mom make them for you?"

"I enjoy baking."

"Aww, I'm sure she appreciated your help, sweetie." She then spoke to all of us. "Now, the cookies have numbered tags. The sheets in front of you have ingredient lists so you can talk about them to whoever comes by. Also remember to warn people about allergies."

I breathed out a sigh of relief when she walked off to make a nuisance of herself somewhere else and placed my two trays down in front of me, each tagged with the numbers I'd received in a previous email.

Curious, I began to read the sheets she handed out. One by one, I matched the goods on exhibit to the numbers and examined them to see if I could spot any really great examples of confectionary.

There was one particular gem, a riff on a classic pound cake made with marshmallow fluff and chocolate mixed into the center and graham cracker crumble for the crust. The s'mores theme was nice, but it was the mechanical perfection that caught my attention. Everything from the baking time to the temperature was as near to perfect as something made by mortal hands could get.

I hadn't expected to ever associate "mechanical perfection" with baked goods before, but here I was.

The World Rune was weird.

Sure enough, I looked through the directory Mrs. Andrews handed us and saw that it was the contribution of Bayou Bakery, a Louisiana-style café and bakery near my house. There was enough skill in that cake that I didn't think someone's stay at home mom made it.

The rest were about what I expected, decent enough but nothing worth mentioning. What did it say about me, I wondered, that I became a culinary snob with a single rune?

Still, some of the gimmicks were fun. I saw shortbreads shaped like the Founders, an éclair meant to look like the Washington Monument, and miniature king cakes for some reason. Guess someone missed out on Mardi Gras.

"Seriously, this is the twenty-first century! Who names a school after Robert Lee?" Just-Ice's question dragged me back from my impromptu bakery critique. "Just sayin'. That's wack."

Brigadier rolled his eyes, obviously not the first time he'd heard this particular refrain. "It's just a name, Ice. Deal."

"I'm dealin' but there's gotta be at least one famous dude whose last name starts with an 'L' and didn't own slaves."

"Luther comes to mind. I am told he is somewhat important to this country," I drawled sarcastically.

"See? The school can be Washington-Luther High School and they wouldn't even need to change the logo."

"Then they'd have to change the Generals. Washington and Lee were both famous generals."

"That's better than catering to a slave owner," the younger boy grumbled.

"What would their mascot be then?"

"Lady Liberty? They've got the whole patriotism thing going strong here."

"The Libertarians," I quipped. "They can say the school shouldn't fund buses then have an excuse for missing every game."

"Ooh, snap, lil' dude's got fangs."

"Hah, yeah, hopefully the Generals do better this season."

"Name's still wack."

I snatched two of my cookies and stuffed them in their mouths before the two could strike up their argument again. "No arguing. It is not seemly."

Brigadier choked down his cookie and brushed the crumbs from his jacket. "Ahem, yeah, he's right. Also, your mom's am awesome baker, Hyunmu."

"Seriously, can I get one more?"

"You may not. And I am the only one who bakes in my house."

"Wait, for real?"

"de Janeiro."

"What?"

"Ask silly questions, receive silly answers," I nodded as I dispensed to him the wisdom of the ancients.

"Heh. Rio de Janeiro," Brigadier chuckled.

"Yeah, I got that. Snarky pipsqueak."

"Only on Fridays. To answer your question, baking is like tinkering without the fancy tools. If you follow the steps, you will eventually arrive at something edible."

We didn't get to continue our back and forth because people started to arrive and browse the tables. One middle-aged man reached out for a cookie but I tossed the Ymelo into his hand instead.

"Do not touch the cookies," I told him in my most serious tone. It had all the gravitas as a wet puppy yapping at an elephant, but the strange accent and mask were enough to make him stop. I spoke as frigidly as I could. "If you wish to know more about the ingredients or have concerns about allergies, I would be happy to inform you, sir."

"Uh, right, sorry," he mumbled out before shuffling away.

"Pretty sure we're supposed to get them to buy stuff, not scare them away," Just-Ice sniggered.

"Hush, you."

Still, he was right. Lacking any other ideas, I took a few cookies from each of my trays and broke them into pieces before laying them out on another plate. On an index card, I wrote, "Free samples: chocolate chip & cinnamon, walnut & pecan."

X

The next few hours passed in a dull haze of irritation interspersed with self-indulgence of my own cookies. I was fairly sure I'd eaten less than I sold, but who could say?

"If I get called 'sweetie' one more time, I am going to turn Mrs. Andrews into a squirrel," I grumbled.

"Can you actually?" Just-Ice asked.

"No turning people into woodland creatures," Brigadier drawled, insistent on being the adult in the room.

Soon after, we helped them pack up before I said my goodbyes to the VA Team. They were sticking around for the actual rally while I could skip out.

On my way back, I thought about how the event went. As expected, I received a lot more baby-talk than I was happy with, but there was no easy fix for that.

On the plus side, I got to learn about the different ways PRT managed its heroes' images. Metalmaru had told me that it was important to see the different styles so I could develop my own and I felt like I better understood what he meant. Brigadier and Just-Ice represented two very different paradigms even as they participated in the same event and interacted with the same group of people.

Brigadier was crisp and formal, military down to the core. He was polite but brisk, almost as though he was ready to snap to attention at any second. Accusations of child soldiers weren't as prominent at the moment and the dress uniform was a far cry from actual combat gear. Basically, he could get away with it because Miss Militia blazed that trail already.

Throughout the evening, I found out that he'd only joined as a Ward four months ago so even though he was the oldest on their team, he wasn't the leader, Megamix was. The PRT didn't want him to graduate until he had a better background in SOPs and other general knowledge.

He was a vigilante for a short while before joining the Wards, but some basic context told me those weren't fond memories. He wasn't an ass, but he definitely had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, especially towards his leader. In that sense, having a more rigid public persona likely helped him present a heroic image.

Just-Ice was the exact opposite. My earlier Frozone comparison was spot on. He was friendly and funny, in small doses. There were only so many ice related puns I could handle. Even here, his persona helped. He confided that he actually memorized a dozen different ice and cold puns and recycled them as appropriate. His young-ish age meant he could afford to be immature to appeal to his age group.

I typed up some notes, dos and don'ts of public relations that I'd learned from observing my seniors. Before I knew it, I was home.

X

I arrived home at seven but I was exhausted despite the early hour. It seemed that I was an introvert in this life as well; social interaction drained me faster than even full-throttle training regimens.

I gratefully ate a bowl of budae-jjigae prepared by my mom. The jjigae was something of a family specialty. It literally translated to "army stew" and was about the unhealthiest thing in common Korean cuisine. Still, my dad loved it when he was alive, saying it reminded him of his barrack days. Coast guard he might have been, but he went through basic like everyone else. The stew made mom and me feel nostalgic.

After another movie night with my old crew, I staggered into the shower and let myself get carried away by the hot water. Something about taking time off from endbringer prep coupled with the PR stunt and the stress of worrying about Hero almost knocked me clear out. I shook myself off and got out of the shower before I could really fall asleep standing up.

I froze, the towel still on my damp hair.

There was someone on my bed.

She had flawless pale skin and black hair that was somewhere between wavy and curly. It fell a bit past her shoulder, framing her naturally pretty face. Even with the Oracle's Elixir, I couldn't tell if she was wearing makeup at all. If I had to guess, I'd put her at around thirty years of age.

All of that was immaterial. The perfectly tailored black suit, white dress shirt, and black tie were far more noteworthy. But if the suit sent warning bells through my head, the fedora turned them into endbringer alarms in their intensity.

I stepped back into the bathroom and started to channel. 'Hexflash in. Minion Dematerializer to the head. No. This is Contessa. Center mass,' I thought. 'Blow all charges to either side. No chance to dodge. No, She'll dodge and shove a Q-tip up my nose before kicking my ass with a rolled up newspaper.'

Just as I got ready to make the attempt anyway, she turned my way. Our eyes met through the wall because of fucking course they did. She shot me a cheeky smile and a wink before wagging a finger towards her.

Cautiously, I dressed and walked back to my room before settling against the far corner. I didn't want to notify mom. What was she going to do? Call the cops? She'd panic and making her panic was the worst thing I could do right now. But I also needed to give myself as much space as possible in case it came down to a fight. If it did, I'd flash out of there and hope for the best.

"Hyunmu," she spoke, the corner of her lips upturned in a confident smirk. Her voice was silky-smooth and perfectly conveyed her mood, or at least allowed people to draw whatever conclusion she wanted them to. In my case, she was almost playful, teasing and friendly with an undercurrent of sharpened steel. I felt like a rabbit being charmed to death by a swaying cobra. "Let's chat."