Chapter 5: 1-5 Call

Call 1.5

2000, May 10: Phoenix, AZ, USA

After school, Agent Morrison, David/Ranchero's father, picked me up and drove me home. Mom was out working and this was but one of the accommodations the PRT made for us.

"How're things, Andy?" he asked with a friendly nod.

As soon as I closed the car door, I pulled out my thermos and drank a mouthful of the Elixir. "Good," I said as my world expanded around me. "Boring, but nothing to complain about."

"Boring is good. You'll see. Kids always want to punch bad guys, but a quiet day is the best kind. David's like that, too."

'But I said boring was fine,' I thought, rolling my eyes a little. Agent Morrison took his shtick as a "cape-dad" very seriously and did his best to advise his son whenever possible. It seemed as though I'd gotten rolled into that without my knowing.

We stopped by my apartment to pick up a box of twelve potions, four each of Wrath, Iron, and the standard health potion, and then promptly headed to the PRT.

Wards Team One, along with Protectorate Team One, operated from PRT HQ in downtown Phoenix. The building was an eight story affair of concrete and glass, with a separate parking lot and garage for emergency vehicles. There were two other such buildings, but being the main administrative building and host to the director, this one was the largest.

I was led through a side door placed discreetly in an out of the way corner of the parking lot. Redbird explained to me that the parking lot was swept for cameras and other surveillance equipment twice a day at random times much like the other accessible sections of HQ. From there, I took a small underground pathway to the main building, where I switched into costume and headed to the labs.

My current "costume" was just a white lab coat and tinted safety goggles that barely obscured my face. A thermos filled with Oracle's Elixir was kept in a deep pocket. I was pretty sure the researchers all knew who I was by this point, but polite fiction had to be maintained.

I met Dr. Sanchez, the lead researcher in charge of power testing in lab 1-C. I say lab, but it was more of a gym with some extra monitoring equipment on top of the standard treadmills and dumbbells.

Dr. Sanchez, Chief Scientist and Head of Power Testing, was a wiry-thin man with a wispy brown beard. He was balding and some salt and pepper had started to settle above his ears. He wore a typical lab coat not unlike my own and a lanyard around his neck that proclaimed his identity. I'm pretty sure my own "costume" was just a spare they had lying around.

"Hello, Rubedo," he said with a genial smile. "I heard you have something for us today."

"Hello, doctor," I said, bowing slightly. "I made three new types of potions last night and wanted to test them out."

"Excellent, tell me about them." He gestured to an aide who took the potions from me and set them on a nearby workbench.

"They're labeled. One heals things. Another makes you stronger but also angry, lack of impulse control. The third one makes your skin like steel and a little bit bigger too."

"'Health potion?' 'Elixir of Wrath?' 'Elixir of Iron?'" the aide read out. "Did you name them?"

"The names just came to me. I think they're powers related," I said honestly.

"A tad fanciful, but the names fit with your own so it's fine," Dr. Sanchez waved him off. "Let's start with this health potion of yours. What exactly can it heal? How does it work?"

I focused and reached out for the well of mana within. Instead of letting it well to the surface, I dove down, trying to remember exactly why I followed the steps that I did. "One sec, trying to think," I muttered. The knowledge of a Runeterran alchemist filled my mind, or rather, the knowledge of countless Runeterran alchemists.

At its core, the health potion was a homebrew remedy with regional variants across all of Runeterra. Most were made of mana-rich herbs, but others could use blood of animals or ground bones and minerals. It was why the potion had no specific name like "Elixir of Wrath." Last night, the World Rune had acted as a filter, allowing me to pick out the best recipe of the bunch, and transmuted it from the ingredients I'd used. Now, I tapped into the alchemical knowledge of the sages of Ionia to answer. "They contain energy, mana, and release it into the drinker's bloodstream. The mana is attuned to life and promotes natural regeneration."

"That's… not terribly helpful."

"Sorry, doctor."

"No, no, you're not the first tinker to give vague or hard to understand explanations." He patted my head like a grandfather and I suppressed the urge to slap his hand away. "Even Hero has a hard time explaining how his wonderful creations work. Tell me, do you know what kinds of injuries your potion can heal?"

I nodded enthusiastically, still playing at being a child. "Yeah! It can stop blood loss and close wounds," I said excitedly, "but it won't regenerate vital organs or limbs. It also won't magically set bones or anything so broken bones need to be aligned correctly before you drink one. Oh, and it also doesn't do much against poisons. I mean, it can give you a bit more time, but it won't destroy the poisons or toxins in your bloodstream."

"I see, that's a surprisingly detailed response."

"So what now?"

"What now" turned out to be practical testing. They brought in a lab rat and put it to sleep with anesthesia before making a small incision in its hindquarters. They then slid the tray with the rat on it over to me. I couldn't help but think I'd freak out if I were actually eight. 'Then again, maybe they're relying on the fact that capes psychologically need to see their powers in use,' I mused.

"Now, Rubedo," Dr. Sanchez said, "how much of your potion would you say is required to heal a person?"

"The potions aren't any more dangerous than water," I responded. "If the injury is not serious, they should take mouthfuls until the wound closes. If it is serious, just take the full bottle. However, drinking more than one bottle will not improve the rate of regeneration. There are limits to pushing the human body. Oh, and the regeneration effect lasts for one minute. You can drink another bottle when the minute's up."

"Excellent, now how much would you feed this rat to close the wound?"

I took a pipette from one workstation and poured the potion onto the rat's wound one drop at a time. "It's not an exact science and drinking more isn't going to hurt the rat so it doesn't matter beyond trying to save the potion."

After just three drops, the wound began to close visibly. The tray was taken from me and placed under a microscope so Dr. Sanchez could get an in-depth look.

"Blood coagulates in under two seconds," he recited, the aide jotting notes. "Dried platelets are being pushed out by regenerating tissue. Six seconds. Wound is fully closed in ten. I even see hair starting to grow back on bare skin." He turned to me with a wide smile on his face. "You should be proud of yourself, Rubedo. This could save a lot of lives."

"We still need to check for potential side effects, doctor," the aide reminded him.

"My potions don't have side effects I don't know about," I huffed. I knew it was procedure, bit a part of me, maybe a bleed-over from the Ionian sage I'd ripped the recipe from, felt slighted by his skepticism. 'Then again, it's possible to be allergic to the herbs… can a brand new potion in a world without said herbs cause allergic reactions in the first place?'

"We still need to check, Rubedo," the old doctor chided gently. "Now, what did you make this out of?"

"A Mana Crystal and a nutrition shake. Any nutrition shake with a full complement of vitamins, minerals, and proteins required for daily living will do."

"Amazing…"

After that, we moved on to testing the two elixirs, starting with the Elixir of Iron. After a brief stint with a different lab rat, the eggheads agreed that I, being the tinker in question, should be able to drink it without detrimental side effects.

Standing next to the exercise equipment, I drained the bottle as quickly as I could and felt the changes settle in. My four-two height shot up ten inches to five feet even. I bulked up a bit too so I didn't look like a reed. A gunmetal sheen briefly covered me before dissipating. Then I felt something unexpected happen. Mana flowed through my body, enhancing the effects of the Elixir of Iron. Time Warp Tonic had activated, and with it, my height shot up another five inches and I knew I was much tougher than the potion could normally make me, fifty percent tougher.

"That is a rather dramatic change."

"My potions are more effective when I drink them. I don't know why, they just are," I shrugged, lying through my teeth. "But normally, the Elixir of Iron should make you approximately twenty percent larger and give your skin the strength of steel."

"I-is it permanent?"

"Nope, sorry, doctor." I tried to take a step and stumbled a little, unused to my height. "Observation: Rapid changes in height can be a bit disorienting," I said. "This potion will last for one hour for everyone else and an extra half hour for me."

The same was true of the Oracle's Elixir. I fucking loved Time Warp Tonic. A fifty percent boost to the beneficial effect of all potions was a massive amplifier, in both scope and durability. Though I was so much earlier than canon, I couldn't fully suppress my mistrust of the PRT. I didn't really have a choice, being both already outed and a cripple, but that didn't mean I'd happily give up all my secrets, just enough to be useful. I decided to keep the chrono-acceleration granted by the Time Warp Tonic a secret.

From there, they had Agent Morrison test out the elixirs. The durability granted by the Elixir of Iron was tested bit by bit until we did confirm that he was fully bulletproof to small arms fire. The Elixir of Wrath saw him deadlift a full thousand pounds, which was all they had on hand at this particular lab. He did explain that he felt drunk almost, a tangible loss of inhibition in a way that he considered dangerous in a combat situation.

He was soon ushered off into a secluded room to wait out the effect. I wanted to drink one myself, but the doctor decided that having a drunk, berserk pre-teen capable of lifting a small car sounded like a terrible idea.

X

After power testing, I had a meeting with Ms. Janet Youngston, Head of Public Relations. She was a mousy woman with short, blonde hair worn in a pixie cut and green eyes that seemed to peer into my soul. Or at least, treat me like an interesting dress-up doll. It was eerie.

Her office was similarly unsettling. It reminded me of how I imagined Parian's fanon dollhouse would look like, a forest of mannequins with dozens of unfinished costumes and prototype masks in a nauseating sea of colors. In one corner was a large worktable with sketchbooks full of costume designs and loose scraps of fabric littering the surface.

"Hello, Ms. Youngston," I said politely as I tried to navigate the maze of mannequins.

"Hello, Rubedo," she said. She then did a double take as she got a look at me. "Weren't you… shorter?"

"Elixir of Iron. It makes me bigger and gives me a brute rating."

"Huh, that's going to be a challenge to work with. Do your clothes increase in size with you?"

I took off my lab coat to reveal a shirt that was now uncomfortably tight. "No, no it does not."

"Yes… a challenge… Have you put any thought into the designs I showed you last week?"

I grimaced. The designs weren't… bad... but she was insistent on making me the mascot of Wards Team One. 'And I suddenly empathize with Missy so damn much…' On the plus side, she was really trying to play up the alchemy and magic angle. On the downside, more than one sketch had me holding a wand. Glitter-dusted star included.

I had standards, damn it.

I flipped through the pictures on my Wards-issue phone. And wasn't that a trip? A fully-functional smartphone in 2000. It made me snort a little. The scraps of technological knowledge that could be gleaned from tinkers had advanced Earth-Bet to be a bit further along than I remembered in my last life. It was a pity that this same availability of supernatural techno-savants would breed reliance; and with reliance, stagnation. I expected Earth-Aleph to catch up and surpass Earth-Bet in the next five years. Ten at most; not that I was supposed to know any of that.

"Here," I nudged one picture towards Ms. Youngston. The picture was a mannequin wearing stylized priest robes colored red and white. Over that, Ms. Youngston had draped a medieval traveler's cloak, hood and all. A regular domino mask covered the eyes but little else. "See this? I think this is the best of the bunch. I just don't like the mask. Give me a fully covering mask, like a hockey mask, but completely plain."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Why this one? I thought you'd definitely go for the crimson knight look."

The "crimson knight" as she called it was a bizarre mix of protective sports gear and riot police equipment, all wrapped up in a medieval aesthetic. Angular lines and metallic paint of burnished burgundy made the whole getup look like some legendary hero. It wasn't for me.

"Nah, too combative. I'm a tinker, one whose specialization seems to lie in weird pseudo-magic, kinda-but-not-science alchemy. If I'm in a fight, something's gone terribly wrong. I mean, even worse than any other Ward being in a fight."

"True. So you like the robes? You don't think they'd be too hot? This is Phoenix after all."

"That's a good point… I'm not sure anymore. I do like the aesthetic though."

"Okay, let's start from the top. We need something that covers your eyes. Andy Kim is blind, but Rubedo is not."

"Right," I nodded. "It helps with the unwritten rules."

"Yes, separation of identities is good. Beyond that, what is it about the robes that you like?"

I shrugged. I wasn't sure either. "I don't know… they remind me of a priest."

"Are you religious?"

"Kind of? My dad used to visit my grandparents' graves every anniversary of their deaths, but that was more of a cultural thing than a religious thing. The practice started as a matter of ancestral worship with Buddhist influence but is done in Korea more as a sign of respect than any fear of ghosts or the afterlife or anything." I thought about the church I used to attend in my past life. 'Yeah, not touching that.'

"Fascinating, but back to the robes. Is it because they look serene? Dignified?"

"Yeah, dignified. Like someone you should respect."

"Figures a child wants respect," Ms. Youngston muttered, too quiet for me to fully catch. "Excellent, Rubedo. I can work with that."

"I figure I'll be inside making potions most of the time or do PR tours so it's okay to be hot outside I think."

"Anything else?"

"Elixir of Iron," I reminded her. "I would like clothes that can fit me even when I'm bigger."

"How much bigger do you get?"

"Thirty percent height and width. The robes would be better with the potion than a tight costume or armor."

"You're right, that would work. I'll have a full mockup for you in two days, Rubedo. We'll see how you feel about it all once you have it on."