29

hate to tempt fate and everything, but after the initial surprise this just isn't doing anything for me, thrill-wise."

"Oh hush James," Crystal sighs, popping another shield up. You'd already told her you needed a way out if Warlock was going to appear, but neither of you had a useful excuse at the moment.

"So anyhow, Karen, you'd refused to answer the question when I asked if your master was on campus. How about 'Is your master in a dorm building?'"

The tired redhead struggles a bit against the belt. "No."

"Is he in a building with classrooms?"

"No."

"Is he-"

A blue bubble springs up and traps the guys inside as Lady Photon and Shielder move past. Crystal starts filling them in on what's happened as you gather the girls together. Looks like your game of twenty questions came to an end.

Lady Photon looks over at the four of you, then nods back at Crystal. "All of you will need to be checked over by Amy to make sure you aren't Mastered, but James should be put somewhere separately. I'm sure the RAs would find a reason to complain if we let you all go to one of your rooms. James, you can stay in Crystal's room for the moment, she'll—"

"I can pop him nearby if that would help," Warlock offers, striding into the room. "Also, Shielder, when I get back if you can open that shield up a bit and I'll stun them."

"Oh. Thank you. Warlock." Lady Photon manages. Her eyes are a bit wild as they roll over to her daughter, and her diction is somewhat jerky.

Warlock tips his hat—which you realize sadly doesn't look nearly as cool as it feels—and comes over to you with an outstretched arm. "Hold on tight."

You don't really side-apparate yourself as much as both of you apparate to the lair and make it look like you side-apparated. Warlock gives a head-nod. "We thought we had 15 minutes left, but the ride's shaky. You'll get taken back 15 minutes and then feel pretty shitty for a couple of them. We might need to assume our safe time amounts are more like and hour-and-a-half to three-quarters. Cheers!" He pops out, and you crank the time-turner and go back in time.

…you curse your own gift for understatement. Instead of a smooth transition, you feel like someone's impaled you with a stick blender and set it on frappe. You don't puke, but you kind of wish you did, honestly. Nevertheless, you get changed and feel a bit better after a couple of minutes. Instead of heading directly back to continue your time loop, you pop over to where you had pulled Mook-Man's location out of Karen's head and verify he's still there, and discreetly colloport some of the doors so he can't escape out the back, as well as throw an intruder ward on the only door left in the front so you'll know if someone uses it.

After that you pop back, take yourself to the lair and pop back again, this time arriving right as Manpower and Panacea come hurrying in. Amy looks around wildly, sees you, and narrows her eyes before moving to check out Karen under her Aunt's supervision. You head over to Shielder who's floating and watching the guys beat against his shield boredly. Manpower joins you.

"So, I have a question."

Eric ruffles his (recently dyed, you think) blue hair and sighs. "What?"

"Are you able to move your shields around?"

"Nah, but I can change the shape, which kinda works the same way."

You create a illusion of a ball between your hands. "So if you trapped someone—say Hookwolf—in a ball and made it do this," you have the ball expand, contract, and contort wildly, "would the person inside get all shook up like one of those snowglobes?"

"That's…a novel way to use his shield. Eric's pushed people against walls to trap them before, but I don't think he's tried that." The giant man looks at his son who has started laughing creepily. "Eric, Brutes only."

That doesn't even begin to wipe the smile off the teenager's face. Shielder reshapes the shield so you can stun the zombies and continues chuckling off-and-on to himself. At one point he says 'hamster ball' and sets himself off again.

When you rejoin the ladies, Amy has a hand on Karen's head and is making some disgusted faces. You squat down next to her. "So?"

"The stuff this guy uses feels gross. Without poking it too hard because I don't want to get near the slimy stuff, the more uhh… goo, the weaker and less mentally 'there' they are. Somehow there's a connection that's draining from them to him. Pretty sure it's just the strength, not the brains." She pulls back and scrubs her hands together until you hit her with a cleaning charm. "Frickin' disgusting, but she's clean."

Karen does, in fact, look miles better, if tired. You hit her with a diagnostic and see where Amy has cleaned the 'goo' you had noticed, and with it gone the connection was no longer there. "I think I got a decent link off of one of the zomboys so I can track the master down. It's like a mile that-a-way." You hook a thumb in the direction of the shed.

The healer stands up and cracks her knuckles. "I wanna punch him in his dumb mouth for injecting gross goo into people. I also don't want to deal with that goo more than I have to."

Lady Photon puts her hand on Amy's shoulder. "Manpower, Warlock, and you can go. See if you can convince the master to release his minions peacefully. If he won't, then convince him… non-peacefully."

Amy's smile is full of teeth. "Gladly."

Laserdream sighs. "I guess we'll wait here for the campus police and the PRT."

"We'll try and make it quick," you say. "The zombies should be out for a couple of hours."

You decide to cut to the case and apparate both capes near the shed so you only need to walk a short distance. Right after you land Manpower nudges his niece gently with a big elbow. "Nice night for a stroll with your boyfriend, huh? Just pretend I'm not here."

The local light level increases a bit from Amy's blush. "S-shut up Uncle Neil!"

You resign yourself to having confession time with Crystal later about all of this and just take Amy's hand. "So depending on how many zombies there are inside, d'you wanna just bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid man and scare the crap out of the master?"

The blonde giant laughs as you lead them towards the shed. "Can't, Sarah would kill me if I did that much property damage."

"Dude, I can fix that, remember?" Amy attempts to squeeze your fingers off, whether from amusement or trying to contain your destructive tendencies you're not sure.

Neil's eyes actually sparkle. "Holy crap, that's right!"

Stopping in front of the shed you shrug. "Four people inside over there," you point to the far side, "three feel weird, one feels normal-ish." You see the looks and give a twist of your free hand. "Human-presence detecting spell."

"Wizard," they chorus. Neil makes little wiggly finger-motions.

"Yep."

After exchanging a look, Manpower goes running right through a garage door screaming 'Oh Yeah!'. The two of you are right on his heels.

Mook-ma—it's Kevin. Kevin who apparently has no idea how to fight, because that punch was horribly sloppy. Manpower blocks it and then blinks when it apparently breaks the shield over one arm. You hit Kevin with a body-bind before Neil gets to see if Kevin's stolen strength comes with equal defense. The three zombies are girls, all three are familiar from the breakup scene a couple of weeks ago. A quick gander in their heads as you stun the girls for the moment shows that one is Kevin's ex, and two are the main reason for the breakup. The one with hipster-dyed grey hair happens to be Chloe Barker, Sarah's big sister.

With a seven-foot tall mountain of muscle, an edgy death-skeleton, and short, angry Amy looming overhim, an unfrozen Kevin spills all the details. He had gone to pick a fight with the guy his girlfriend Kim cheated on him with and got beaten pretty badly. He triggered not then, but in the aftermath when he felt that he had been betrayed by everyone. After some experimentation with his abilities he learned he could absorb 'essence' from people by either holding his palms on them or biting them.

…he's a vampire. Or at least vampire-themed. Fucking hell. In any case, he set out to get revenge on the guy, who happened to be on the baseball team and had a girlfriend in the same sorority as Kim was in—the same one that Chloe is in, and the same one Sarah is in. Turns out that some of the girls were stirring up shit and having two cheaters that could be gossiped about was ever-so-fun.

So naturally, Kevin decided that he was going to enslave the entire baseball team and the entire Nu Tau sorority. It was, to him, only logical.

The three of you look at each other before you calmly conjure a large wooden stake and hand it over to Amy. "Aright man, here's what's going to happen. You're going to release all your minions and go into custody peacefully, or I'm gonna let Buffy the Vampire Slayer stake you." Amy happens to aim a little lower than his heart.

Kevin might be super-strong, but the threat is good enough that he agrees. Under your watchful eyes, he un-mooks Chloe, Kim, and Janice. Amy checks them and declares them clean, as does your scan. It's not going to keep them from being put into observation for a while, but it's good to know he's capable of doing it.

So you re-stun everyone and after repairing the shed float everyone back to the dorm, which is now neck-deep in cops and PRT. You end up reconvening with the rest of New Wave out on the lawn, along with a bubble of zombies and Armsmaster. The Protectorate cape is taking and gesturing to people who aren't there, likely coordinating other PRT teams. You drop your cargo off and fill everyone in until Halbeard finishes up and joins you. He is silent as Amy fills in what she knows about Kevin's abilities. Once she's done he steps forward slightly.

"PRT squads have found two more groups, both of which appeared to have been successful at their tasks and were bringing hostages. All of the subjects involved have been encased in containment foam." He pauses for a moment and you can almost sense the momentary distraction as he looks at something in his heads-up display. "Due to a lack of space and the number of individuals involved, requests are currently being made to quarantine the affected in the nearby gym area." He turns to you and Amy. "Are both of you capable of curing the mastering?"

The two of you look at each other. Amy's face is already screwed up in distaste. "I haven't tried, but I'll attempt one while Panacea checks afterwards. She's already stated that the method of mastering turns her stomach, no reason to subject her to more of it than we have to. The master willingly withdrew his control over three subjects, so he could be monitored to do that and one of us could verify."

There's a twitch in the beard when he frowns. "While that would indeed be faster, there are a number of safety issues I can see with it…."

You and Amy share another look and she sighs. "Let's see how it works for you."

Actually, due to the mind-control being partially physical, you're able to 'cure' it pretty simply. Amy checks over your work and approves the first couple of cures, so you send her off to relax for a bit while you start healing the close to thirty people that Kevin'd managed to infect. You're not surprised that Armsy takes the time to come over and start up a conversation.

"The breadth of your abilities is very impressive," he starts, like you were in the middle of a conversation, "I would have focused narrowly on one or two applications at first."

You turn your head and barely manage to bull your way through the faceplate to form a weak legilimency connection. He seems to think you're a Tinker of some kind for some reason.

[X][Armsy] Write-in.

You hold up a hand and finish fixing the guy you were working on, waving him off to Amy and gesturing for the next people in line to wait a minute before turning to the blue-armored cape.

"If you're trying to dance around the subject, you have two proverbial left feet. I'm not going to be offended, just ask the question."

You register his faint hint of surprise, and something else that might be him reading information from his HUD. "As a fellow Tinker—"

Crossing both hands in an 'X' you cut him off with an error noise. "Weird, but I can see the logic—kinda. However, I am not a Tinker."

"…You're telling the truth." His voice becomes ever-so-slightly less friendly, "In that case, the Tinker who makes your equipment."

You repeat your 'bzzt' and 'X'. "None of that, now. No Tinker tricks, the armor is merely rich Corinthian leather." You raise some earth into a seat and make a second for him, then continue as he looks the bar-stool-looking chair over. "Look, I'm not gonna just spew details about me at you for no reason—it'd be like taking off my mask and whipping my dick out at the same time—but I'm an energy manipulator. I like to call it the 'Will-based Transmogrification Force'."

Armsmaster's hands twitch minutely on the haft of his halberd as he ponders that for a moment or two. The roll of emotions—incredulity, irritation, resignation—is pretty amusing. "You're claiming you do magic."

"Dude, three wrong answers, I could call down the next contestant. Look," you point to Laserdream floating nearby, "she has lasers and flight, he," Kevin, "injects goo in people and controls them, and you make mad scientist creations. I can't explain how she, he, or you accomplish that shit. For all I know she has mental switches in her brain for 'fly', 'shield', and 'pew-pew', he meditates on the sound of one hand clapping and maybe you eat materials and extrude parts out of your bellybutton like a 3D printer.

"I'm claiming I manipulate energy using my will to get effects. I'm cool with 'Will-based Transmogrification Force', or magic if you want to call it that. Pretend I'm calling functions from the underlying API of the universe if you'd prefer."

That actually gets an attempt at a smile from the dour cape. "Clarke's Law?"

You shrug, "Yeah, close enough for government work." Pausing for a moment you smirk behind your mask. "You could say I was bitten by a radioactive Myrddin and mutated, turning into—"

"The good Myrddin?"

Freezing, you tilt your mask as you read embarrassed nervousness and a few other connected emotions. You have a sneaking suspicion that Dragon was listening in and Armsy just stole his Canadian girlfriend's joke. You throw him two thumbs-up. "Nice, throwing your hat in the ring to be the next Archbishop of Banterbury, eh?"

Perhaps understandably, after that verbal sally the rest of the conversation breaks down and you get back to fixing the remaining minions as Armsmaster wanders off, possibly to put himself in M/S confinement for cracking a joke.

It is once again late as hell when you finally wrap things up and everyone is quarantined. Amy is staying with Crystal to remain 'on-site' enough for a quick response. You're not at the level where the PRT is willing to call you in in similar circumstances, so you bow out and get naked in your lair before putting your civvies on and hiding back in Crystal's dorm.

You don't wait long as the key rattles in the lock and Amy storms in and stops in front of you. The choker is dark against the flushed skin of her neck. "Hand." Crystal follows her cousin in and locks the door.

Widening your eyes and pressing your palm against your chest you try to force a blush. "L-lewd, right in front of onee-san?"

Her flush seems a bit more like irritation and less like embarrassment. "Fucking. Hand. Now."

When she touches you, she's going to realize you're not a normal cape—you know you don't have a corona pollentia. She's unlikely to take no for an answer, so all you're left to do is.

[X][Hands] Take her hand. Answer questions truthfully (you're a wizard)

"Alright." You crack your knuckles and your wrist, using the motions to throw up silencing spells and a muffalatio. "D'you want to hold Crystal's hand too and make this a threesome?"

"Jaaaaaames…"

Pushing yourself to your feet you cup her hand and start to bring it up to your lips to kiss when her eyes flutter closed and her knees buckle under her. You somewhat-smoothly levitate her into your arms instead and sit down on the bed, throwing a look over at Crystal, who hurries over. "Did she just pass out?"

Amy's hands coming up and cupping your face answer before you could, but you continue anyway. "No, I think she just got overwhelmed." You're about to say more when one of her hands clamps your lips together, so you merely roll your eyes over to your girlfriend and shrug.

It's probably a minute later that Amy looks up from your arms and frowns at you. "You don't have a corona pollentia or gemma." Crystal makes a noise, but you keep looking at the healer.

"I don't."

"But you can…" she looks around and wiggles her fingers after taking them off your face.

"Yep."

"So you're—"

"A wizard."

Crystal interrupts, "So when you told me you called yourself a wizard and you did magic?

You shake your head. "I hadn't actually scanned myself for one at that point. With or without one, I'm still weird in comparison to what we've learned in class. I seem to be able to learn entirely new tricks, not just changing existing stuff for one, and things I do are way too wide to be a grab-bag. So wizard, one way or the other."

"You have some kind of energy that like, flows all through you." Amy comments, "It, I dunno, swirled, swelled, something, when you caught me. It feels nice, real calm."

You look over at Crystal. "I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no, I'm not."

Your girlfriend gains a toothed smile. "Can you do the 'Mr. Magic Hands' thing?"

With a little shuffling the healer is laying across both of your laps while you lean against the wall. You hold your hand out and look at Amy, "Hand."

"Jerk," she laces her fingers with yours but can't completely hide her blush. You just smile and hit her with a soft touch of magic. Rather than squeaking or startling or anything loud like that her legs shake a bit in Crystal's lap for a second as her eyes lock on you and then roll up as she sighs and goes limp.

"The answer is yes, this time she did."

"Holy shit, Ames must be super sensitive to your magic."

You look over at her. "I think that's the first time you actually called the stuff I do magic."

She leans over and kisses you. "I thought you were just being a dork." She kisses you again as if in apology. "A cute dork, but a dork."

"Gee, thanks." You feel Amy's awake again, but staying quiet. "Any other questions about it?"

"Nah, not tonight. I've got plenty of time to ask more. You, Amy?" When the brunette in your lap turns away, embarrassed, she shrugs at you. "Get some sleep, I'll hit you up tomorrow—no today, later this afternoon—and we'll check in on Sierra, since she's the only one not under quarantine. I think everyone except Karen will probably be out sometime Friday."

You kiss your girlfriend and run your hands (without magic) through Amy's hair for a moment before apparating back to your apartment. It's been a weird fucking day, and you fall asleep as soon as you can banish your clothes and flop onto the bed.