Chapter 63: 5-13 Scattered

Chapter 63: 5-13 Scattered

Scattered 5.13

2001, July 13: Washington, DC, United States

"It's been a while since we went on patrol together, huh?" Jonathan, Brickhouse, said. It wouldn't be long until he graduated from the Wards, perhaps a month at most.

"It has," I agreed. I was decked out in full regalia, my cobalt-blue and gray armor matched with my shield. Isolde was left at a medium length and strapped to the small of my back like a strange shortsword. The Ymelo hovered behind me, occasionally pulsing an eerie blue for the benefit of passerby. "You won't be a Ward for much longer so this might be the last one we have together."

"You say that, but you're already basically Protectorate."

"Only because of my potions," I demurred. "And even then, I can never seem to make enough."

The two of us walked in silence. We had been dropped off at the Southwest Waterfront and were told to walk along the Potomac until we reached the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. There, we were to do some PR work and sign a few autographs before skewing back east towards HQ. Overall, it was an easy walk, about an hour and a half, with an additional thirty to forty minutes thrown in for PR. It was one of our favorite patrol routes for the view if nothing else.

I should be back in my lab in two and a half hours, a tolerable delay.

Brickhouse broke the quiet. "Say, Hyunmu?"

"What's up?"

"You ever feel like powers kind of… screw you over?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. "Hahahahaha."

"Hey, I'm trying to have a serious conversation here."

"Sorry, sorry. It just came out of left field. What brought this on?"

"You. How you said you can never seem to have enough potions." He paused, mulling his words, before speaking again. "I've been thinking something similar too, you know? I mean, I'm not saving thousands of lives a week or anything, but… I guess I've been feeling a little bit helpless…"

"How so? Geokinesis is a strong power and you have good control and range. I've seen you fling yourself across the street so it's not like you're lacking mobility either. You're probably one of the stronger capes in the city."

"So I've been told. But that's all fighting. I mean, I move dirt. I can even make new types of dirt. There's got to be more I can do with it than throw mudballs at people… Did you know I asked to go to Hyderabad?"

That was news to me. "No, I didn't. I though you needed to be an adult."

"You need to be Protectorate. I'm eighteen now, but officially, 'Brickhouse' isn't, so I couldn't go."

"Realistically, there isn't much you can do against Leviathan though. I suppose if you got there before he arrived, you could help set up a ton of wavebreakers. In the fight itself though?"

"I know. I wanted to go help them build houses."

"Oh…"

"Yeah. Still too much apparently. Didn't want to expose me to the aftermath, like I'm some dainty flower," he spoke through gritted teeth.

That was unlike the Becky I knew. "Director Costa-Brown? I would have thought she'd jump at the chance to send you for support. Maybe under supervision, but still, she seems like the sort to let you go for the experience if nothing else."

"No, she was fine with it. Mom wasn't. She used my hero identity's age to keep me here, something about the Youth Guard… I mean, I get it. I do. No mother wants to watch her son go off to an endbringer fight, even days after. It's just…"

"You don't feel like you're doing enough," I finished for him. I could relate and I told him so. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm really not in the mood for a patrol today. I have some stuff I really want to finish back at the lab."

"Heh, so I heard. Why do you think I asked Pyro to get you? Didn't want you trying to stab me."

"Laugh it up. I'm not that bad."

"You react like a drowned cat whenever someone drags you from tinkering."

"I can't help it," I whined. "It's a tinker thing."

"So I've been told. I'm not mad. You work harder than any other Ward I've ever met. Me included. I'm man enough to admit that."

"But it's never enough."

"Hah. Guess not. Powers don't solve problems, just give you the perspective to see bigger problems. You feel me?"

'Like you wouldn't believe,' I thought. I gave Brick's clay pauldron a firm punch. "I feel you. Let's just hurry up and get through the route."

"Let's."

X

I sighed. I really should have known better. Earth-Bet existed to fuck over my plans, however minor.

The trouble started at the Kennedy Center. We set up shop in the Presidential Grove on the southern lawn of the center. Brickhouse made an impromptu pottery wheel and made a few simple vases while I read off a script in my back pocket via some not-byakugan hijinks. I didn't know much about pottery, but I sure looked like I did and that's all that mattered. We were about fourteen minutes into our demonstration when we heard a slew of angry shouting from behind us.

"We're sorry everyone, but we need to check that out," Brickhouse raised his voice, taking control of the crowd around us. The clay around him rose up into the air and melded back with his armor. "Hyunmu, can you see anything?"

"I see people running out of the main building, but I can't see too far inside."

"Console, we might have an emergency. People are rapidly exiting the Kennedy Center. We're going to go see what's happening."

"Parahuman hostiles?" came a nasally voice over comms. He wasn't Agent Mitchell, so that was a plus in my book.

"None we can see, sir."

"Don't enter. Hyunmu, scout the area. Brickhouse, protect him."

"Yes, sir," Brickhouse said, but I could hear the frustration in his tone.

It wasn't long before I had the answer. "Stage Crew," I groaned. Showbiz had taken over the Hall of Nations and placed some kind of hardlight stage over the ticketing booth. I could see the original workers tied up in a cramped closet nearby. They weren't exactly comfortable, but they were safe enough. "They're taking 'admission fees' to some magic show or other. Who's Halo?"

"Not important. Console?"

"You can engage. Prioritize civilian protection and evacuation. Reinforcements en route. Twelve minutes."

I groaned. I had Galio to prep for. I had the Mask to carve. I had an improved potion recipe I needed to test. I had defenses I'd been meaning to make for mom. There were a million and one demands on my time and I was stuck dealing with these fucking clowns.

Two hours for patrol? Fine. Throw in these idiots? Not fine.

"Any chance we can ditch and let the Protectorate handle this?" I whispered back.

"Negative. They've got bigger concerns than Stage Crew. Hero just returned from Hyderabad and will be heading out again this evening, as will Bluesong. Nor should our heroes be seen running."

"Cheer up, Hyunmu. They're not dangerous."

"That's not why I don't want to put up with them." The two of us began to powerwalk towards the Center. "Why now?"

"It is a little weird. The last time they did something like this was two months ago and it was a bank heist. They had that teleportation box and grabbed a hostage so they got away with $28,000. Not a lot, but it's always been about the pageantry with them. Maybe we should have expected the Kennedy Center at some point."

I grunted something less than polite back. Then we were inside.

The moment we stepped inside the hall, a pair of Showbiz's drones marked us with two spotlights. Brickhouse flinched back at the unexpected brightness and Prestige took it as his cue to speak.

"Ah, heroes of the hour. Welcome, Brickhouse and the littlest Ward," he said, enunciating over the crowd. The suit and bowtie he wore was supposed to make him look dashing, like an elegant magician, but I couldn't help but compare him to Fortuna's understated poise and find him wanting. In his hand was a stereotypical collapsible baton that every fifth grader owned at some point or other. Inside, I could see some mechanisms that were likely Showbiz's work, though I couldn't tell what they did exactly. "August personages or not, I'm afraid you're still going to have to pay admission if you want to see this show."

Brickhouse let out a longsuffering sigh. I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one fed up with their shit. "Why are you here, Prestige?" he asked. Behind him, I popped open two pills, one gray and one red. If Brickhouse could get them to back down, great, but I doubted it. I breathed in as the two elixirs set in. Behind me, I could see the Ymelo begin to pulse softly, acting as a buttress against Wrath even as Iron made me grow.

"Why else? We're charging admission to Halo's magic show."

"Since when do you try to toll for a show you're not hosting? Isn't there something about artistic integrity?"

"Ah, but that's exactly what this is about. Halo's gimmicks are a shoddy copy of our own magnificence, so it's only fair that we take our cut. Artistic integrity. You understand," he shot back. Behind his mask, I could see his eyes tighten with anger. Whoever or whatever "Halo" was, I could only assume they knew each other. Or maybe, they'd seen one of Stage Crew's past productions and decided to turn it into a professional routine. It didn't matter.

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

"You can't possibly be making much money from this," I cut in. "Your power is transmutation of nonliving matter. Why not just retire and join a corporate team? Turn a deck of playing cards into gold and make some priceless collectables. I can think of half a dozen ideas to make more money than rob an artistic nonprofit. Are you really this uncreative?"

"I'm afraid that would ruin the prestige," he replied smugly. "It's in the name, turtle-boy. It's not about the money, but the art."

"Nothing he makes lasts longer than twenty-four hours," Brickhouse chimed in with the more likely reason. "Trust me. It is about the money and if he had options, he wouldn't be here acting the fool."

That set the two off, bickering with one another over the "value of art" or somesuch. While they were talking, I took a closer look around. I didn't want to be blindsided by Masquerade or something. That'd truly be humiliating.

Off to the side, I could see Showbiz messing with some kind of switchboard. The tinker was wearing a new top hat and half-cape draped over one shoulder. Both were tinkertech. He'd also upped his drone count from the first time I saw him. I counted eight hardlight drones supporting the stage, eight more behind him hidden from view, two spotlights on us, and four more with Masquerade, probably to provide their thinker with some protection.

Masquerade had been busy snagging some fat cat's fancy watch but stopped so he could start to flank us. In his hands was a cane that I could tell was a stun gun repurposed into a prop. Despite being the lowest priority, I made a note to watch my words. His ability to determine truth from lies was an irritating one and unless I strictly spoke about metaphysicals or things I myself was unsure about, I could accidentally offer up too much intel.

"Enough," I cut in again, my annoyance clear. This time, I made sure to let my mana flow through both my armor and weapon. Frosty mist began to fill the area, causing an effect similar to dry ice. "You are robbing people a mere seven days after Leviathan. Do you truly have no shame?"

Prestige spread his arms wide and shot us a smug grin. "Ah, but it's been long enough that we're not interfering in endbringer response. Hence, we're not breaking the truce."

I couldn't. I just… couldn't. It wasn't any one thing. All the accumulated annoyances and stress boiled over: Babylon. My self-imposed exposure therapy. Leviathan. Terminus. Nemesis. The Mask. Galio. At the end of the day, I knew that Prestige, Masquerade, and Showbiz weren't unique. They were just one of a thousand "not that bad" criminals across the states that got the nod from society because they weren't important enough to matter.

I remembered a year ago, seemed like forever, how when I first met these clowns, Agent Mitchell told me then that if they were ever brought in, they would be transferred out of the city, to Protectorate branches across the states to pad some numbers. I decided then that they weren't worth my time, that I didn't approve of pressganging and so wouldn't go out of my way to capture them.

Behind me, the Ymelo shone like a blue fireball, a will-o-wisp that soothed the senses. I felt an artificial calm take hold of the complicated cocktail of emotions and my soul became as the great mirror of the Salar de Uyuni. I made my choice. We already had permission to engage.

Looking at Prestige's smug smirk, I thought different now. "Fine. Rebrand them. As long as I don't have to have these idiots cut into my tinker time," I muttered lowly.

"Copy, Hyunmu?"

"Nothing, Console." I glared at Prestige, not that he could tell with my mask. Something dark welled up in me. Perhaps it was a whisper of the Waves and Wind, but I found their casual dismissal of Hyderabad intolerable. "I have had it with you. This isn't about the letter of the endbringer truce. This is about respect. Three million passed away and here you are, insistent on pursuing a petty vendetta. Enough. You have two choices: Withdraw or surrender."

My Wards Leader looked at the emerging mist with obvious trepidation. "Hyunmu? You sure about this?"

"I'm sure. Protect the civilians."

"What are you planning?"

"Nothing," I said truthfully, my voice filled with a deathly calm. "A plan implies they are opponents. They are not. They are stress relief."

"Ohoho, is the littlest Ward making ultimatums?" He stalked off the stage, twirling his baton like he belonged in a marching band. It was so very typical of Prestige to be as flamboyant as possible, a peacock that didn't know when to tuck tail and run. He put one finger to his chin in an exaggerated thinking posture. "Hmm… Withdraw or surrender. Showbiz, what do you say?"

The chubby stagehand-tinker grinned down from his switchboard. They weren't taking me seriously. "I don't know, how 'bout neither?"

"Masq?"

"Three against two. We like them odds," came Masquerade's voice from behind me and Brickhouse, stun-cane raised like a fencer's foil. He probably thought he was being stealthy but I'd marked him before we even entered the hall. "You couldn't stop us when you had numbers."

"You heard them, turtle-boy, we're going to sit tight and hang around. You don't mind, do you?"

I breathed deep and began to call the wellspring of power in my soul. Beneath my armor, mana flooded through my bloodstream, strengthening me in an art passed down since the time of the Vastayashai'rei. I was no Lee Sin. The Dragon of Ionia did not live through me. I could not wield its flames with iron discipline nor rout armies nor reshape mountains.

But I was more than enough.

I was calm; the Ymelo made it so.

I treasured life; the Hallowed Mist made it so.

I respected death; the Waves and Wind made it so.

"Calm" and "passive" were very different things.

"Brickhouse, please protect the civilians," I repeated. He took one look at my face and decided to just roll with it. It was out of line for me to command my senior in the field, but age be damned, respect for my abilities was a lesson I'd literally beaten into the Wards over a year of grueling sparring sessions. Slowly, like a cat only now uncurling from its nap, I spread my legs and sank into a familiar stance. I looked up at the two members of Stage Crew and made zero effort to acknowledge the third. "Then you will suffer."

Caught by the venom in my promise, they were woefully unprepared for my burst in speed. To be truthful, I was nearly caught flatfooted as well; it wasn't often that I relied on both elixirs and mana reinforcement simultaneously.

I crossed the gap to the stage, weaving in between the shocked spectators with casual fluidity. I jumped and nailed Prestige in the chest with a snap kick that had us both flying clear off their hardlight stage.

I had enough presence of mind to pull my kick a little so his ribs wouldn't shatter like glass. Still, I glanced under and saw that beneath his shirt, Prestige wore some kind of padded armor. He'd also seemingly turned his suit vest into metal in time to take the brunt of the blow.

'Good. Don't let this be boring now,' I thought grimly. If they were going to waste my time, I was going to make sure to test as many features of my new gear as possible in a combat scenario.

"Gah!" he coughed, his armor doing not nearly enough to protect him fully. His breath was driven from his lungs and he'd be sporting a bruise the shape of my White Walker come morning. Then, he ragdolled across the floor while I landed in a graceful crouch.

Seeing their leader temporarily out of the fight, I turned to face Showbiz, wisps of mist and ice flurries dancing around me.

I was mildly surprised and a little bit impressed when the spotlight drone that had been marking me descended to my eye-level. It had managed to track my sudden burst of speed and now let out a bright flash that would have blinded anyone else.

And then that surprise turned to irritation. His tech was fine, good even. This was one more proof that they could do so much better. I wasn't sure what bothered me more about Stage Crew, their irreverence or their wasted potential.

My hand whipped out, fingers dragging along the mist until they pulled talons of ice that tore the nuisance to ribbons.

By then, Showbiz had recovered from his initial shock. The eight drones behind him came to life, launching dozens of hardlight constructs in the shape of playing cards in my general direction.

I clenched my fist, shattering the frozen claws, and picked up the relic pistol. We descended into a duel of quantity versus quality. A hail of cards rushed towards me, only to freeze in midair to my enhanced senses. With my new eyes, missing became all but impossible and I fired off light bullet after light bullet, shooting down anything that might possibly hit people behind me.

Several playing cards struck the Blitzshield, exploding with surprising force. A single burst of the Hallowed Mist would have been enough to shield my side, but I allowed him to think he had a shot. Across from me on the opposite side of the stage, I saw Brickhouse raising walls out of the surrounding marble flooring, making cover for the civilians on his side.

"You good, Hyunmu?" he checked in on me.

"Fine. I was waiting for you. Got everyone?"

"Heh, yeah. Give 'em hell."

Bulwark raised, I dropped the distraction and put the gun away. Isolde enlarged from the small of my back, becoming the size of a longsword in the span of a single breath. I felt the swell of its handle fit into my palm and whipped it out, calling on the Hallowed Mist.

I called and it was as though the Queen of Camavor answered. The Hall of Nations was flooded with an eerie mist that whispered of life, death, and wonder in the same breath. Every playing card shattered into motes of light as though they ran into Alexandria.

I dashed forward, completely ignoring Showbiz's increasingly desperate barrage. He must have seen me like the blurry shape of a shark lurking beneath the waves, because he flipped his cape outward. The cape stiffened into a sheet. No, not a sheet, I realized, but a flying carpet.

It would have been an impressive trick, but I didn't much care for the tinker. The dash was a feint. I skid to a stop and fell to one knee, before bringing the Blitzshield around in front of me like I was ready to block a mighty blow.

Rather than block, the Blitzshield bloomed to life. Every playing card that struck the shield had fueled it, the Neo-Petricite absorbing the energy used to form the constructs. Now, with a flood of my own mana, that stored energy was released in a torrent. The augmentations inspired by Zeri's electric rifle paid dividends in the form of a cone of electromagnetic force that crashed onto the stage.

All sixteen drones, eight that maintained the stage and eight that were shooting at me, fell like puppets with cut strings. In a single motion, Showbiz was reduced to whatever he had on his person. I took a moment to regret the lack of anything to Mark with that burst. Pulling a Cap would've been fun.

"What the fuck?"

I made to jump towards Showbiz so I could knock him out of the air, but I saw Prestige stand back up. Across the hall, Masquerade was getting ready to surprise my leader. His mask must have been tinkertech of some sort because he now wore the face of a middle-aged man. The bulwark raised by Brickhouse had protected anything held by Masquerade from the EMP.

I growled in frustration and made my choice. "Brick, behind you. Masquerade is disguised," I barked into the comms.

In the same moment, I whirled and lashed out with a slash that met Prestige's own wand. He'd turned it into some kind of metal and expanded it before capping the ends in diamond.

"You've been holding out on us, turtle-boy," he snarled.

I said nothing. Instead, I parried his staff to the side with a twist and pivoted my back foot into a textbook side kick. It became painfully apparent that Prestige, for all his bombastic flair, had zero experience in hand to hand combat. Made sense, but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

I refused to rely on Iron or Wrath to simply overpower him. Instead, I matched him strike for strike and relished in the increasing desperation on his face.

I was calm. Annoyed. Irritated. Frustrated. But calm, calm enough to think. Calm enough to hold back. Calm enough to demonstrate precisely the gap between us.

Isolde bit deep, splitting his baton in twain as I punched forward with my left hand. He dropped one half and reached out to grab my hand, thinking to transmute my armor into something else, maybe cancel out my augmented strength. It didn't work. Ice built up like a snowball rolling downhill, keeping his fingers from contacting my armor. I didn't think he'd be able to affect the Neo-Petricite shell, but I also wasn't willing to let him try.

The ice on my wrist turned into rigid concrete, but my fist wasn't slowed in the least, Wrath more than making up for the weight. All it did was put more mass behind the strike and for the second time that day, air fled his lungs and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

I wanted to finish him then and there, but Showbiz forced me to pay him more attention. He'd removed his top hat and pulled out some kind of laser rope like a circus ringmaster. His flying carpet swept down to try and lasso me, making me dodge aside.

"Prestige!" The opening in his hat then enlarged, firing a salvo of everything vaguely magic related. I saw darts shaped like roses, doves, more playing cards, balls, and even a small swarm of butterflies.

I flipped out of the way and jumped into the air. It was as good a testing environment as I'd get so I activated the White Walkers. Clouds formed beneath my feet as I wove between the rain of projectiles.

"Fuck he hits hard!"

"Yeah well, my drones are dead. We need time."

"Give me a divider."

Showbiz twirled his hat and a set of curtains flowed into place between us. With a touch, they turned to diamond.

"Cut that you little shi-"

I obliged. I poured enough mana into Isolde to make it gleam like sapphires before tearing through the layer of diamond like a plasma torch through rice paper.

Showbiz hadn't been idle. He pulled out a second curtain, which hardened into diamond at Prestige's touch.

I cut through that too.

"Fuck! What the hell is this shit?" Prestige was losing his cool now. Another curtain went up. I thought about jumping over it, but this wasn't about taking them down anymore. It was about proving a point.

I braced myself and pulled back my shield arm. I activated the Ghost enchantment on my White Walkers and jumped. Clouds formed beneath my feet, letting me run until I hung parallel to the ground. Motes of turquoise light cloaked my shoes as I spun, gathering momentum. Then, I brought down the edge of my shield like an ax against the diamond wall.

Diamond met Petricite and diamond shattered like glass.

Showbiz had taken my little moment of showboating and grabbed his leader before throwing down a pellet on the ground. Said pellet exploded into a plume of red smoke. Inside, I saw the two vanish, replaced by six doves. I didn't know what they were, but each made to leave the building so I decided to shoot them down.

Isolde spread its blades apart and spun like a windmill, sending three spirit-needles and thread from its spiked handle. Each pierced a dove, only for the doves to fade and the needles to pass straight through and embed themselves into a wall.

'No mass,' I noted, 'not hardlight then.'

I swept the threads in Isolde's teeth and tossed another set. This time, two of the doves flew downward before they were struck.

I noticed something different about them. It was hard to describe. They had no mass like the others, but they seemed to ripple and fade. The impression I got was that they were reflections of sorts. My eyes couldn't see through them, but there was something lurking beneath the surface.

I was right. When these two faded, the two villains emerged from a wormhole that appeared.

'Short-range teleportation based on a vanishing act then.'

I didn't let them get up. Prestige reached for something in his pocket, a ring that made him invisible. A second later, Showbiz likewise disappeared from view. Showbiz had clearly upgraded his tech. It didn't matter. I lazily tossed Isolde into the air and watched it spin. In a split second, the relic pistol was back in my hand and I fired two shots into empty space. I saw both men collapse with a thud.

I holstered my pistol and caught my new favorite weapon on its way down, shrinking it until it fit snugly into a strap on the small of my back. Walking over, I pulled off the two rings and they shimmered into view.

My side taken care of, I turned back to check on their last member and my Wards Leader.

I froze.

All around the pair, the five drones Showbiz had left were rendered into so much scrap. Several of them had marble spikes sticking out of them and one of them was clenched in a stone fist like some strange art piece.

That wasn't what caught my attention.

"Shit, how the hell did they lose to the midget?" Masquerade said, one arm wrapped around a young boy about my age. That explained why Brick hadn't buried the thinker. Without any way to see through the disguise tech, he had no way to track his target and he was too busy protecting civilians from incoming projectiles.

"Oh, you're done, Hyunmu?" Brickhouse greeted as I walked up. "Seriously, Masquerade? It'd have been a small miracle if they managed to win. He's stronger than me."

"Bullshit!"

My leader shrugged. "What's your power telling you? Little guy's a monster. Now give it up already and go to jail like a normal person."

"Fuck you, I'm not going to jail. You let me go and he doesn't have to get hurt," he said, jabbing the crying kid with his staff.

"Really? You're resorting to a hostage?" I drawled. "Awfully cliché for a creative."

"Shut up, if you hadn't escalated this wouldn't be happening!"

I stopped. "Have I escalated? Yes… I suppose I have. See, you're also escalating, involving civilians. It was fine when it was just heroes and villains, but now, now you've given me a reason to get serious. You sure you want to do this?"

He started to drag the boy out towards the exit. "Fuck you. If you follow, he's going to get hurt. You hear me?"

"Conso-"

I put a hand on Brick's arm. "Don't bother."

The Hexflash I'd been channeling activated and I vanished in a shower of golden sparks before emerging behind Masquerade, hand already clamped over his stun-cane. It sparked as I crushed it to pieces. I wedged a rising knee between him and the kid, driving the air from his lungs.

In the moment, I forgot to account for one fact: He wasn't Prestige. He had minimal armor. I heard ribs snap like matchsticks even as the ice echo that followed pushed the child away.

"Gugh," he let out a gurgled cry before collapsing to his knees. Just in case, I shoved a health pill into his mouth and massaged his throat roughly until he swallowed. Then, I slapped his chin lightly to knock him out.

"There. That's everything."

"Yeah, good work, Hyunmu. I didn't know you could teleport." Brickhouse nodded my way and with a wave of his hand, the marble bulwarks that had protected most of the civilians sank back into the flooring.

"Something I've been saving."

"I swear, you tinkers make new powers whenever you want."

I smirked goodnaturedly. "That's us. Our power is to build powers."

Just then, we began to hear the telltale PRT sirens. "Looks like cavalry's here."

I looked around at the Hall of Nations. There were tiny holes where I'd had my spirit-needles and a bit of singing of the carpet where my Blitzshield fired its EMP, but other than that, the hall looked mostly pristine. "Good. Can I go back to my lab now?"

"This is Console," our comms sparked to life. "The chief director would like a word."

"Oh, for fuck's sake…"

Author's Note

I build characters like most people build a house: Foundation up, sure, but also over a full fucking year. Yes, I'm aware that the pacing of my stories tends to be very slow. I've yet to find a single satisfactory way for me to fix it.

Didn't want to leave Stage Crew's fight for the next chapter so there you go. I'm not a fan of hilariously stompy fights, but at this point, Andy's quite a bit beyond what a normal cape can accomplish, especially when one is a tinker who loses most of his firepower to an EMP. In reality, Brickhouse's performance is more in line with what can be expected of a Ward.