Chapter 38: 4-7 Ripples

2000, August 26: Washington, DC, USA

"Yusung, it's Saturday," mom called. "Are you still going in?"

I nodded. "Yeah, mom. I start homeschool on Monday so I won't have as much time to tinker. I want to do as much as I can."

"Why? Why do you work so hard?"

"Most moms think their sons don't work hard enough," I said wryly.

"Most moms don't have you for a son. Yusung… This life…"

'I know. I know it's dangerous. I know that better than anyone. That's why I need to work harder. The more I make, the stronger I become, the safer I'll be. I... I don't want to be weak ever again."

"Just… be careful," she finished lamely.

"I will," I smiled. "And besides, this really is what I love doing, mom. The making. I feel most like myself when I'm creating something new."

I understood. Really, I did. And it was because I understood that I couldn't stop. If I stopped, she really might lose me.

X

I was seated next to Metalmaru at his station as he went over the properties of his new favorite alloy. His lecture was a complicated mess full of jargon I didn't fully understand, made more difficult by his rambling tangents, but the gist was that this new Petricite alloy was more durable than any conventional metal yet only slightly heavier than aluminum. It was a dazzling silver, but with a lighter note that leaned towards white.

Like every metal, it was a conductor, but I had an idea on how to turn that into an asset rather than a vulnerability. Since Petricite stored magic, I planned to conduct any electricity that hit my shield or armor into a transformer, converting it into mana before fueling it back into the metal to store for later use. I could then release the stored mana and the process would then reverse. All that mana would be converted back into electricity and directed into my shield, electrifying the metal exterior.

Blitzcrank's Power Fist? Yes, please.

Now that I had a better grasp of the material, I could finally get to designing my armor. Hero's bodysuit was great, but it wasn't mine. I'd still wear it, it did boast some impressive defensive properties, but it'd be the underlayer.

"You know what this means, right, Hyunmu?" Metalmaru said.

"What?"

"You get to meet PR again so they can hound you over what your image should be."

"Crap," I groaned. "It's gonna be such a pain…"

"Hey, it won't be too bad. You already know what kind of image they're going for thanks to your debut so build with that in mind. Go ahead and design the blueprints online then load it up into the fabricator. I should have the settings coded to work with this stuff by Tuesday at the latest."

"Shouldn't I wait to build? PR will nitpick and make me remake this stuff anyway, right?"

He leaned forward and whispered conspirationally, "Between you and me? If you tell them the metal's special tinkertech and hard to make with other demands on both my time and yours… Well, I won't tell them otherwise," he winked. "They tend to let tinkers get away with a lot more freedom for our image because at the end of the day, most of us build our own costumes and we can blame it on a fugue. Just about the only thing about my costume that PR had absolute control over was the color scheme. It's not like they can take away something just because it doesn't fit their ideal image. If one of those PR goons tries to take away your armor just for something like that, tell Hero. He'll have their heads for depriving a Ward of protection.

"Ah, I'm not saying you can just build what you want, though. Even we have limits. You're supposed to be a cultural warrior who's disciplined and polite and all that jazz. If you make an electric guitar and get a Mohawk, Hero's going to bench you regardless."

"Haha, yeah, fair enough. Thanks."

X

My Blitzshield was ready. It was two feet in diameter and looked like Blitzcrank's faceplate, if said faceplate was painted a lustrous black. The emblem of a turtle shell was stenciled in cobalt-gray paint on the forehead. In my tiny hands, it looked like a Spartan's aspis but would one day be much more manageable. The two "eyes" glowed a haunting blue, indicating that its shockwave function was loaded and live. The lightweight alloy meant it weighed only ten pounds, a big change from the twenty-some pounds it used to weigh as a spherical hunk of steel.

It wasn't comfortable to wear, but a shield wasn't supposed to be comfortable anyway. With my increased fitness and magical reinforcement, I could swing it about without slowing myself too much or losing balance. By now, my continued exercise and mana infusion made me comparable to athletic teenagers.

I carried the shield to the basement after converting a batch of healing potions into pills. The lower levels were in fact more like a tunnel system, with underground pathways connecting to the PRT administration building, emergency bunkers, and Wards commons. I used them to get around sometimes.

These tunnels also sported several testing areas and gyms designed with capes in mind. Tinkers weren't the only ones who frequented the place, but I managed to snag one of the specialized rooms. The target area contained a host of sensors that measured everything from kinetic force to temperature and electrical current.

I called for a target and the automated system obeyed, depositing a metal cutout of a person.

Breathing in, I held my shield in front of me and, holding it steady with a bit of magic, pressed the trigger.

Blitzcrank's entire face lit up before a flash of light and electricity blinded the area for a moment. An instant later, the light faded as the electric charge dispersed.

I walked over to the monitor and read the display. During the adjustment process, I decided to halve the range from two hundred to one hundred feet in order to further minimize chances of collateral damage. Now, the conic blast was tweaked to maximize brightness in exchange for a slightly lower amperage.

I pulled out a spare Mana Crystal and armed the shield before firing again. I repeated the exercise, giving myself a chance to get accustomed to aiming with such a cumbersome weapon. It was a good thing the blast was conic because had I made it as precise as Zeri's rifle, I wouldn't be able to hit anything.

After that, I switched off between the shield and relic pistol. I imagined facing an opponent and crouched behind my shield as I fired back. One benefit of the Oracle's Elixir was that so long as the target was in range, I could aim just fine regardless of my posture.

Then, I mimed a few of the martial arts movements I'd been practicing, flowing from one form to another and focusing on footwork above all else. Burgeoning talent in martial arts or not, I didn't think I was ready to try and make my own "gun fu." As Lee Sin liked to say, the center was everything. Everything else could be built upon in due time.

By the time I was finished training, I'd reduced the metal target to Swiss cheese. And yet, I was unsatisfied. I took too long switching between weapons and the weight of the shield threw me off a little. I sighed. There was nothing for it but to condition my body rigorously until I could compensate.

To the gym it was…

X

After my stint in the gym, I grabbed a club sandwich from the communal fridge then headed back to my station to work while eating. I checked my email and received the notice that another batch of fossilized lizard eggs would arrive tomorrow so I could merge them with mundane sunstones to get the alchemically potent Helian variety.

With little else to do, I focused on transmuting fossilized trees into Petricite. It was the material that was most in demand, both personally and from the PRT at large. I needed it for my Worldstone, Wayfinder, armor, shackles, and of course, as bribes to curry favor with curious tinkers. With so many uses, I could seemingly never make enough.

I was only at it for an hour and a half when I heard heavy footfalls headed for my station.

"Hyunmu, are you busy?" came Armsmaster's voice.

I cracked on eye open. "Two minutes." The transmutation process wasn't one that should be interrupted. Even were it not dangerous, I found the notion irritating, a quirk of being the host of Inspiration.

"Understood." Credit where it's due, the man stood patiently to the side while I finished with the piece in my hands. When the light faded and the browns and blues warped to white, he spoke again. "I would like to incorporate Petricite into my halberd and wanted your thoughts on the matter."

I nodded. I assumed it'd be something like this. "Sure, but you know that it doesn't have any truly valuable properties besides power negation and that it won't negate powers unless in contact with an enemy cape?"

"Yes. I initially wanted to make a blade out of it but realized that it would only be effective if I stabbed every cape I encountered. Such brutality is unbecoming of a hero so I designed a wire bola that would replace my current grappling hook attachment."

"Let me see your halberd."

He handed it over, a five feet long shaft with an extra foot of blade. It was as thick as my wrist and sturdily built. I suspected that even a man as athletic as Armsmaster would have trouble wielding it without his armor's assistance.

"I don't recommend this," I said flatly. I learned quickly that though Armsmaster was far from the robot that fanon portrayed him to be, he considered social niceties to be a pain, something we could both agree on. Anything that saved us time was good. "The amount of Petricite a cape needs to come in contact with is affected by both the concentration of Petricite in the alloy and the surface area of contact. A bola made of the material would not provide enough of either, especially through costumes."

Really, the gauntlets I'd made Stingray contained the minimum amount of Petricite required to disrupt a cape's powers, and even that was only in short bursts so she could land the knockout punch in the opening provided.

"What do you recommend?"

"A blade is effective because it comes in contact with the cape's blood. That would have been my first suggestion. Do you know about the elixir?"

"Yes. It was used to suppress a villainous tinker's urge while in captivity. Each elixir was said to work for one week."

"Right. A hypodermic needle would probably be your best bet."

"How much Petricite Elixir would be required to disable a cape?"

"No idea. Let me get back to you with the calculations," I said. "I fed Sawtooth a small bottle each week, roughly twenty fluid ounces, but that's unlikely to be efficient for you since you have limited space. Their powers only need to be off for a few minutes in the field."

"I can handle efficiency," he said. "Liquids can be easily concentrated."

"Maybe, but consider incorporating a knockout drug alongside the elixir. The quantity of elixir necessary to negate a cape's power completely is unlikely to fit in a single dart assuming you want to carry more than one dart. Disrupt their power for a few minutes then knock them out while they have no defense."

He smiled. "Yes, that sounds like an effective method. I would like a sample of the Petricite Elixir so I can analyze it to see which drug works best in tandem."

"That's fine. I'll send it along in a day or two," I promised.

He turned and made to walk away before stopping. "Thank you," he remembered.

I waved him off and got back to work.

The Worldstone and Wayfinder were both due soon. They were more urgent than my own costume, though I couldn't explain to anyone precisely why without inviting some uncomfortable conversations. I knew that sometime in September, the Founders would confront Manton. I also knew that Leviathan would attack the day after, though the exact dates escaped me. Eleventh? Nineteenth? It was in the tens for certain. Regardless, I had approximately three weeks, give or take a few days.

That just meant I'd have to work faster. Both tools of the Sentinel s were made from the relic stones found in Helia, not unlike the relic pistol on my hip. In total, I estimated that I would need at least forty pounds of Petricite to convert into relic stone.

Sighing, I placed an extra order for the unorthodox materials I'd need to make more Petricite. At the very least, fossilized wood wasn't very expensive, ranging anywhere from a quarter up to ten dollars per pound at the absolute maximum. And thankfully, holy water was free, though acquiring it was a bit awkward for the nonbeliever.

'If I keep using fossilized wood like this, will Cauldron eventually start a mining operation into other earths for me?'