9

Chapter 9: Ripple 2-1

Beta'd by BigCC.

"Damn you Sophia!" – Speech

'Why Emma?' – Thought

Ripple 2.1

+++Taylor+++

Of course, life was never going to be as simple as going out and kicking bad guy booty.

Something that both Dodge and Amphitrite had emphasized time and time again was that a Tinker's Workshop was their final line of defense when the world started to go pear-shaped. When everywhere else was unsafe, when the world itself seemed to be your enemy, when your life just seemed to be falling down around your ears; your workshop had to be the one place you could count on to be a bastion of safety and security.

For my lab, my first line of defence was secrecy and obscurity. No one knew I even existed as a cape, let alone the location/existence of my workshop-slash-base on the Evermore…well aside from the Toybox and there was little I could do about that…yet.

The longer that held true the better, but as soon as I started working as a Cape, people would know that I existed, and most anyone who knew about Tinkers would guess that I had a lab. When that happened, people (ranging from gang 'recruiters' to Protectorate recruiters, to nosey Cape Enthusiasts) would start looking and I needed to be ready for that

So, I wearily got up and set about tinkering with the hard-light hologram projectors.

Why hard-light rather than soft-light? Several reasons. While soft-light was far easier and less technologically intensive to create, it was also next to useless for anything outside maintaining a simple optical illusion. There were dozens of ways of detecting it, and bypassing it was as simple as walking through it. Hard-light, on the other hand, was basically creating a mixture of a soft-light hologram and a forcefield, giving the projections actual physical structure and solidity. Hell, if done correctly, hard-light could even be used to simulate texture, adding another layer to the illusion. So, not only did hard-light offer a better disguise, but added a secondary layer of defense on top of my Replacium (I seriously needed to come up with a better name for it), which was still slowly spreading its way through the ships' hull and bulkheads.

Personally, I couldn't think of any real use for soft-light where hard-light wouldn't be the superior choice, outside maybe advertising where appearances were all you needed.

Anyway, while I was building the projectors, I had Amphitrite start manufacturing a small number of remote drones from her blueprint storage. Visibly, they looked like any commercial remote-controlled drones, vaguely box-shaped with four rotors at each point. But while some commercial drones had basic, low-tech camera functions, the ones my personal VI assistant was creating had cameras that were not only high-quality, but could switch between night-vision, infrared, and ultraviolet lenses.

While on their own they'd be an excellent addition to the Evermore's external security at night, having them circling my base during the day would be a Bad Idea. However, a quick perusal of my notes produced an idea I'd had a few days ago, a water-based optical camouflage system. It basically released a low-level electrostatic pulse that stimulated the water in the air and used it to bend the light around anything within a small radius of the device, rendering them completely invisible to most normal methods of sight.

Creating a sound dampener as well had been a bit trickier, since sound traveled through and across water far better than it did through air, but I was able to put together a crude prototype design before I forced myself to head home for the night, since it was nearly five in the morning. I could finish the designs tomorrow and hopefully give the drones a test-flight after I finished work with the hard-light projectors.

I left Amphitrite with instructions to continue the production processes and maintain a constant surveillance using the cameras I'd already installed. I also had her start working on building a patrol route to program into my drones as well that would cover most of the Graveyard. That way, even if someone did manage to find one, they wouldn't know exactly where my base was, just the general area.

I managed to make it home in time to grab a quick power nap before I had to get up and put Dad's lunch together and see him off. It would get me through the morning until after dad left for work and I could grab a few more hours before doing my school work

"Thanks Taylor." He smiled at me as he finished getting read and I handed him the lunch pail. "What's in the box today?"

"Mom's recipe lasagna." I answered him with a laugh. "Tomorrow, do you want something with chicken and beef?"

"Sounds good." Dad nodded. "I'd better be going. Kurt was wanting to get things going bright and early."

"Tell him to not overdo it." I said with a roll of my eyes. "Lacey'll kick his ass if he gets a trapped nerve in his back or something."

He winced at that. That was one of the more painful things that could happen to someone's back. It had happened to almost every member of the Dockworker's Association who worked manual labor when they'd overdone it and tried to lift something way too heavy or unwieldy on their own. You'd think they'd learn their lesson from seeing it happen, but nine times out of ten, nope.

Some lessons just had to be learned the hard way

When Dad left, I went back to bed until nine. Four hours of sleep wasn't much, but apparently it was enough to allow me to function normally for the time being. Hopefully I'd have more time to sleep once all my preparations were done and I had the Evermore as secure as I could make it. I had breakfast, jogged around the block, finished up my schoolwork for the day and graded myself before having lunch. That was at the back-end of one. Once lunch was eaten and the dishes washed and put away, I sat down to consider two new projects.

The first would be the vehicle I would use to get from wherever I would stash it to my base using the storm drains and sewer system. That one was easy, as I was already thinking of a motorbike design of some sort, maybe an enclosed cockpit added…

Ahem, anyway, the second project was something that had occurred to me as I worked on my suit the previous night; until I had my proper armour built, which would take a lot of time, I had no way to use hydrokinetic flight without giving away the fact that I was a true hydrokinetic. I was keeping that card firmly in reserve. Better to make the villains think I was helpless without my tech, and then give them a nasty surprise if the worst came to the worst. Not to many the many issues being associated with Leviathan (the Hydrokinetic Endbringer of DOOM!) would cause me.

Yes, I am aware that I'm being paranoid. Sue me

That was rather easily taken care of as my pencil danced across paper. I was could already see it in my brain, it looked like a metallic backpack that could attach to my current armour designs (which I was really going to have to name) or be worn independently. It featured a set of rods similar to the ones my Aqua Striker Gauntlets (Fuck, I suck at naming things) that could deployed to act as a pair of wings and antennae, spreading a field that created hydrokinetic 'wings' from them. Add a small water-fueled jetpack for additional propulsion and I was good.

Frowning, I altered the jetpack's size up a bit as, while large enough for thrust while in the air, it was too small to achieve liftoff from the ground. I also added in a small, tinker-tech dehumidifier into it so it would draw water into it to help power the jet. The jetpack would also have a couple of my Flasks of Storage (damn, my naming sense sucked ass!) plugged into it to provide a more than adequate fuel source, but it never hurt to have a back-up.

A lot of people who hadn't done their research would have thought about perhaps trying to revolutionize the world by this point, with water-powered cars and easy ways to clear water of impurities on a large scale. Aside from the issues with mass-production which would make said dreams nearly impossible, there were two names that stopped any thoughts in that direction before they were half-conceived.

Mannequin.

The Simurgh.

Alan Gramme, formerly the Tinker Hero known as Sphere, had become Mannequin and joined the Slaughterhouse Nine years ago, after his family was killed in a Simurgh attack and he was subjected to its insanity-inducing song. Now, the man who had once been one part of the earlier Holy Triumvirate of Tinkers (along with Hero) was a serial killer whose favorite targets were like his former heroic identity; benevolent people who sought to improve the world, especially if they were Tinkers.

The Simurgh, the youngest and (in my opinion at least) most terrifying of the Endbringers was known to target Tinkers and Thinkers herself. All of her targets, aside from Switzerland and even then there were rumors, seemed to contain at least one Tinker working on game-changing technology.

So, with those two terrifying dangers resting in my mind, I was staying the fuck away from making the world a better place via my Tinkertech. I would instead improve Brockton Bay by kicking ass.

For now at least. Once I'd cemented my place and maybe built up mine and the city's defenses to the point that we could counter them, then…

But that was years away at the very least.

I eyed the two sketches of equipment and decided that the easiest to make would be the backpack. I could also make the alterations to the rest of the armour to mount it fairly easily, a night or two of work at the most after I finished my work on the drones and the hard-light projector. The problem was the bike. I already had most of the designs worked out, and knew I could build it from scratch if needed, but I also knew that if I used an existing chassis and even the engine of an already built motorcycle it would cut down the building time of the bike by at least three weeks. Not to mention the materials it would save me that I could use on other projects.

It took a bit of deliberation, but I eventually made my decision and I decided to start searching the scrapyards using my drones after I finished working on them tonight. It would be a good test run to see if their stealth systems were working.

The biggest problem was that it would be monumentally stupid to go in and buy one. That'd be practically holding up a big, neon sign saying 'TINKER' over my head for all the gangs and the PRT to see. No, if I wanted to get this done I'd have to…borrow one with absolutely no intention of returning. I'd leave money once I got some from somewhere.

A lesser evil to combat the greater evils of the bay. This sucked muchly, but I knew it would be worth it in the end. And it was better than the risks I'd be putting myself under if I did things 'legally.'

Making dinner was easy; I made beef olives, with some veggies on the side. Dad liked them, but also added that they lacked something compared to my usual fare. I resolved to experiment until I got it right. Cooking was one of the few non-parahuman skills that I could still take pride in, after all!

After Dad fell asleep, I headed out to do some more Tinkering. Seriously, the run was good for me, but it took so goddamn long to get there!

"Evening, Amphitrite." I said briskly as I entered the main hold. "Anything to report?"

"Good evening, Mistress Riptide." Amphitrite responded, her hologram appearing above her main unit. "There have been no abnormalities in any of my systems and the feeds from the various cameras have showed no abnormalities that I could detect. I have also finished writing the patrol programs for the drones you requested as well as the monitoring program to gather the needed data to build the camouflage projections for the Evermore. It should take approximately half our drone force a full 24 hour period of monitoring to gather sufficient data.

"Excellent." I nodded in approval. "Have one of the drones prepared for my personal use, I have some reconnaissance work that I'll need it for, but we should have the rest ready to start work by the end of the night. Now then, I suppose we should install the emitters. Where would be the optimum places for them?"

Amphitrite's image vanished from the projector and a blueprint of the Evermore instantly took its place, with seven dots glowing in certain locations over the hull. One was on the prow, one was on the stern, two were on opposite sides of the middle of the main deck, one was atop the bridge, one was in the middle of the main deck in between the bridge and the prow and one was at the top of what remained of the radio tower. Seven locations for the seven emitters that I had built yesterday.

"Okay…this seems to be right, but powering them is still a bit of an issue." I mused. "I mean, the cameras run on batteries and the drones have internal batteries we can charge from your power module, but I don't think a handful of AA batteries are going to handle these bad boys."

"The construction and installation of power cables will be required to link the holo-emitters to my power module." my VI agreed. "Unfortunately, while my internal power supply would be sufficient to maintain the emitters, it would tie up a not-inconsiderable amount of my redundant power generation capability and increase the production time of all future projects considerably. Instead, I would also recommend that once the emitters are deployed and suitable cables run out to them, the construction of an alternate main power source be shuffled to the top of the building cue."

"I think I had at least three different power generator designs in my notes." I mused thoughtfully. "Which ones are the most practicable for our current resources?"

A screen flared to life and my three generator designs appeared side-by-side. One was about the same size as a Volkswagen Beetle, one was the size of a horse and the other was a monster that would fill one of the primary holds on the Evermore.

"The third design, while powerful, is outside of our current manufacturing capabilities at the moment." Amphitrite stated regretfully. If my memory served, that particular design could power a ship-sized railgun non-stop for hours. Useful, but as Amphitrite had said it was outside our current capacities for the time being.

"The second design is insufficient to requirements and is more suited as part of a backup generator system with multiple copies of it." The VI continued. "The first design is within limits, but I estimate that it will take roughly 72% of remaining supplies gained from the Toybox."

Great, I need power to keep my base hidden and protected, but I also need those supplies if I wanted to build my power armour. I fought over the choice for a moment before caving in to my sensible side.

"OK, start manufacturing the cables for the emitters." I sighed. "I'll go play engineer and install them where you indicated. Then we can make a slight modification to my armour…I really need to name the damn thing…and then we'll start throwing together this damned power generator. Once that's done, however…I think I can start patrolling. Riptide's hidden enough, I think. It's high time the villains of the Bay learned why a riptide is so deadly."

+++Waterworks+++

A Week Later

Second Primary Hold of the Evermore

Seven…Goddamn…Days!

Seven days where I could have been patrolling the streets, spent building a water-powered generator!

Granted, it told physics to fuck the hell off while giving them a double single-finger salute and was completely clean, leaving no carbon footprint and the only fuel component outside of a source of water was a reactive agent I could mix together using a few bulk bottles of household chemicals and only needed to be refilled once a month.

But still!

My whining and bitching about the unfairness of my physical limits to one side, it was actually satisfying to work on. Just me and the machine. No Bitches, no worries. Total peace and serenity. Until, y'know, I had to leg it back home to sleep for a couple of hours. Thank god I started making Dad's lunch from leftovers!

Still, the generator, (which I had dubbed the Charybdis to keep with my, apparent, Ancient Greek Mythology naming sense) was up and running now and the current power drain from my hard-light projects only accounting for a meager ten percent of its maximum output. I had plans for the other ninety, mostly involving internal and external weaponry, shields and other Tinkertech bullshit to really make an invader's day a bad one.

For now though, I was free to start my patrols. I had made the necessary modifications to my armour in order to let me fly. I had decided to call it the Triton Armour MK1, Mod 2. Triton was the son and Herald of his father, Poseidon, which worked for me. The armour would herald my arrival as a Cape, so it seemed appropriate. I had also renamed all my notes regarding the more powerful, power-assisted armour the Poseidon Armour for the time being.

I had also made some additions to the Triton Armour other than the flight capabilities. I had taken the noise cancellers and water-based optical camouflage systems from the drones and upgraded them to work for me when I was in the armour. I was now able to be silent as I flew, as well as invisible. It wouldn't do much for motion sensors or infrared sensors, but I had some ideas on how to overcome those in the future, but for now it would do.

There was also the pouch full of handcuffs, twelve of them, plus a bundle of zip-ties as a backup. I didn't like the idea of using zip-ties, mostly because one flick of a knife and they were cut through, but I had made these ones out of a special polymer that was slightly more resistant to being cut. That had been a pain to make, as it was just outside of my specialisation.

Now I was checking and double-checking my armour, pouch and other gear before my first patrol. I had to admit, I was nervous as hell and totally worried about doing something stupid on my first real time out as a Cape. I didn't count that incident with the woman and the skinheads as an actual fight, as all I did was strike from the shadows. No, this time, I'd be playing a white knight, albeit one who used invisibility to conceal myself.

"You will do fine, Mistress Riptide." Amphitrite soothed me. She had been saying that for the past ten minutes.

"I hope so, otherwise I'll either be maimed, dead or conscripted into either the PRT or one of the Gangs." I said steadily. Just keeping the three least desirable outcomes fresh in mind. You know, to sharpen my focus.

"Your stress levels are rising, Mistress." Dang it. Why did I agree to let her monitor my vitals again? Oh, because it's a good idea to have someone ready the medikit in case things went pear-shaped in the field.

Taking in a deep breath, I held it for a moment before exhaling. OK, no more stalling and overthinking things. I was going to go out, I was going to patrol and I was going to be a hero. Right.

I grabbed my hair and tied it into a plait before rolling it into a bun. Long hair was just a handhold for the enemy to grab and use against you, or so a few articles Amphitrite had looked up had said. This would also make it harder to identify me, as I had also modified the helmet to fully enclose my head.

Grabbing aforementioned piece of armour, I looked at its faceplate for a moment. This was going to be the face of Riptide to the world at large. It looked like a metallic skull helmet from an Earth Aleph anime called Blue Gender, although that wasn't the intent at all when I made it. I only knew about the existence of the anime because Amphitrite pulled up the image from the internet when I finished its modification yesterday.

The wide blue eyes were freaky as hell, especially when the helmet was powered on and they glowed. The overall effect was very unsettling, but hey, it worked for intimidation. Always a plus in my book.

Turning it around, I lowered the helmet onto my head and felt the mechanism hiss as it sealed itself closed. I swear I could feel a change start to come over me as my helmet sealed itself. In that moment I was now no longer Taylor Hebert; I was the Tinker Hero Riptide.

"Amphitrite, open the hold hatch." I ordered. "Once I'm gone, lock the base down until I get back."

Oh yeah, I'd also jiggered about with the large hold hatches on the main deck. I had already permanently sealed the ones leading to the hold where Amphitrite and my workshop was, but I actually repaired and improved on the hatch leading to the second hold where I was currently standing, granting Amphitrite complete control over them. She could now open and close them as quickly or as slowly as she wanted to…within reason, of course.

"Compliance. Safe journey, Mistress Riptide." My VI stated.

With the groan of metal on metal, the hatch moved to one side, revealing the slightly cloudy sky above me. A shimmer in the air, glowing softly in the night air, showed where a portion of the hard-light camouflage had dissolved to create an opening as well.

"Jetpack, ignite. Hover Mode." I ordered.

A dull roar and a slight tremble along my back told me that my order had worked. Hover Mode meant that unless I gave a specific order to the contrary, or I was already in the air, I would be floating about a meter above the ground-slash-deck. Just as I hoped, I moved up to the designated distance before halting there.

Mentally fist pumping, I gave my next order. "Deploy hydrokinetic wing system."

With a small whine of servos, the wings deployed. I'd had two choices to choose between when it came to them; either make them look vaguely bat-like, similar to a dragons, or make them look like the wings from a butterfly. I had no desire to piss off Lung in my first armour, so I had chosen the butterfly wings. They snapped out of their housing and extended. They weren't large, just about the size of a dinner plates for each quadrant.

The draconic wings would have been way more efficient, but I'll keep that idea on the back burner for the moment.

"Activate the sound dampener and hydrokinetic obscuration system!" I ordered, while it was unlikely there was anyone nearby to see me leave the Evermore, it never hurt to be cautious. Instantly, the low hum of my jetpack cut off as the sound dampeners kicked in. Seconds later the air around me began to ripple slightly, indicating that the optical camouflage system had activated as well. It was a side-effect of the system being upsized to cover an entire person rather than a roughly foot-long drone.

I'd had to do some serious tweaking on that to make it so I could see through the haze, and even now the rippling would make it difficult to fight with the camouflage system active, and I had some ideas for how to lessen it, but for now it would serve its purpose.

"Liftoff!"

With a sound dampeners active there was only a I only heard a deep thrum and felt a heavy vibration from my back as my jetpack kicked in, accelerating me up, through the open hatch, and into the sky.

"Activate hydrokinetic wing system!" I yelled. There was another slight hum (only audible to my ears since I was right next to it) as the wings glowed blue and activated, the water in the air around me, as plentiful as it always was in rainy, dreary Brockton Bay, was bound by the field and turned into wings. With my hydrokinesis, I could alter them as I pleased to change my height and angle at a moment's notice.

I levelled off and turned towards Brockton Bay. Let's see what the criminal element was up to at this later hour…

+++Waterworks+++

Evidently not much. Did villains and criminals have bank holidays?

I had been cruising around the Docks section of the Bay for fifteen minutes already, with no sign of so much as a mugging. This was odd in a city like Brockton Bay, where there were so many criminals that you generally just had to throw a brick to find a criminal of some description.

I turned myself to fly over the Boardwalk area. I severely doubted there'd be any criminals of any description here. Not only was this the most commonly assigned patrol area of the Protectorate and the Wards, there was also the shop of the Rogue Cape Parian, the clothing Cape, here. She was a strictly neutral player in the Cape scene of the Bay, but she had shown already that she was both capable and willing to use her powers to defend herself and her homes. Several gang recruiters had quickly learned that 'neutral' did not equate 'weak and easily browbeaten,' much to their pain and humiliation. The likelihood of a crime here was very small.

The distant and distinctive sound of glass shattering made me sigh and roll my eyes. Of course, there were those who were stupid enough to think that just because it was night, they could do as they pleased. I angled myself around and swooped in the direction of the sound. It didn't take me long to find the source. A group of ABB thugs were knocking over a shop full of…were those TVs? Yup. TVs and DVD Players and loading them into the back of a van rather quickly.

Really? What next, ripping an ATM out of a bank? How clichéd could these guys get? Ah well, whatever. These guys would do nicely as my first crime fighting scene and enemies. Lessee…no sign of Oni Lee or any other Capes, so…let's go.

From everything Amphitrite had gathered by trawling PHO and several local forums, the Azn Bad Boyz rarely carried guns unless they were raiding the territory of another gang, with the Empire actually being the ones to carry pistols more often than not. Still, less likely does not equal unlikely, so carefully does it.

I flew in closer and hovered to count the gangbangers. One, two…seven of them outside of the big white van and two or three inside it, one in the driver's seat and two in the back, I think. None have any sign of pistols or assault rifles, just one with some kind of sword slung over one shoulder. Interesting.

Deciding that taking the bastards down quickly was what counted here, I hefted my right arm and opened the aperture three-fifths of the way, set the firing mode to a three-round burst and set the velocity of those rounds to the equivalent of an average rubber bullet.

Now, somehow, people have this idiotic impression that rubber bullets were easy to shrug off. They aren't. Being shot in the head by one can give you a concussion. Being shot in the eye could make you lose said eye. And being shot in the body can hurt like hell and even break bones if the angle is just right. Calling them non-lethal ammunition was technically true, but even a rubber bullet can kill in certain unlucky circumstances.

That being said, these were going to be water bullets fired at the velocity of an average rubber bullet and I'd be aiming carefully. I would be up high, where they couldn't counterattack and I was invisible to sight. The perfect ambush situation. But just in case…

A whispered command and the two rods on my left arm deploy, ready to spray water that I could turn into an ersatz shield. OK, preparations made. Time to beat down some ABB.

The firing trigger (an addition so I didn't have to consciously command every shot) dropped into my hand with another whispered command and I carefully aimed at one gangbanger who was standing next to the store's door, playing lookout. Gently, I squeezed the trigger.

There was some recoil from the three small balls of water being fired, but I'd practiced firing this before, so this was expected. I watched with a grin as the three shots slammed into the ABB grunt, sending him crashing to the ground with a yell of pain. I quickly track onto another grunt and fire, swiftly moving through the other ABB guys until all of them were staggering to their feet with their arms clutched around their abused torsos, where I'd aimed.

Deactivating the camouflage and noise cancelling systems, I altered the Hydro Cannon to fire thin piercing streams of water and puncture the tires of the van than I can see from this side. It won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

"CAPE!" one gangbanger shouted, pointing at me.

I activated my external speakers and the voice-changer so I'd sound gender neutral. "Stand down and surrender."

"Fuck you!"

Haaaah. Why can nobody ever say something original?

"You aren't my type." I deadpanned back before deactivating my speakers and reconfiguring the Hydro Cannon to fire a large high-pressure stream of water. I unleashed it and then controlled it to wrap around as many of the ABB as possible before flooding them with water, wrapping them in a cocoon up to their necks, turning it into steel-hard water to keep them contained. That got six of them.

The leader started spewing words in some Asian language at me…Chinese, I think? Before grabbing his sword and gesticulating with it at me. I just reconfigured the Hydro Cannon back to rubber bullet mode and shot him again. He who lives by the sword, dies (or is fucked over) by the gun, bitch.

While I was dealing with the seven morons, the other three evaluated their chances and ran like hell. I let them go, pursuit would mean risking letting the ones I already had bound getting away. Seven out of ten isn't a bad score for my first night, if I do say so myself.

Landing and deactivating the jetpack and wings, I siphoned off a bunch of water from the six others' little prison to bind the guy hand and foot and drag him over to sit next to his fellow criminals.

"OK then." I said, turning the speakers back on and double-checking that yes, the voice-changer is still on. "I am Riptide. In Japanese, I think that would be 'Araumi' or something along those lines. And you guys have the honour of being the first criminals to be caught by me. Rejoice and all that."

A wave of invectives, both in broken English and in various foreign tongues, washed over me before I fired another burst past their heads, shutting them up.

"Now that you've finished proving your low IQs, was this raid organized by Lung or one of his Lieutenants or did you brainiacs think this up on your lonesome?" I asked in a bored tone. "It doesn't really matter, but I admit to curiosity."

"It was Ming's idea." One blurted out, nodding down at the bound former leader of their little troupe. "Lung-sama had no idea about this."

"Traitor!"

"Good to know." I nodded. "Now then…let's get you all ready for the law, shall we?"

In short order, I had them kneeling on the ground, their hands handcuffed behind their backs and their ankles zip-tied together. I sent the used water down a nearby storm drain and even dried off the ABB thugs as a mercy so they wouldn't catch a cold or something.

I also took the liberty of searching them for weapons and cash, ending up with several knives, a collapsible baton, a blackjack and the sword, which I identified as a katana thanks to a quick query to Amphitrite. There was also over $300 between them. What the heck? Were they planning on going on a spending spree after their robbery or something?

"Now remember, my name is Riptide." I informed the sullen gangbangers. "R.I.P.T.I.D.E. I seriously do not want the PRT to lump me with a lame-ass name like Chubster. That happens, I'll track you morons down and kick your asses again. We on the same wavelength here?"

A mutter.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you!"

"Yes." They chorused.

"And they say that old dogs can't learn new tricks." I nodded and grabbed a random phone before dialing the regular police hotline.

"This is the BBPD Hotline. Please state the nature of the emergency." The woman on the other end said professionally.

"This is Riptide, a new Independent Hero." I said with a smirk. "I've just apprehended seven members of a ten-man ABB group who attempted to rob a store, Clever Kevin's Electronics, on the Boardwalk. I'm requesting pickup."

"Request received, Riptide." The woman said, some surprise in her voice. "Will you be there to hand them over and provide a statement?"

"Will that help put them behind bars?" I asked.

"Yes." She answered emphatically.

"Then yes, I will." I said. "What's the ETA on a squad car getting here?"

"As that property's silent alarm was tripped at the start of the break in, a car was dispatched as soon as we received it." The woman answered. "Estimated three minutes to arrival."

"OK, I'll be waiting." I said and hung up before throwing the phone to the ground. "Looks like we'll be waiting together, guys. Cool, right?"

Groans answered my faux-cheerful words.

+++Waterworks+++

The car, when it arrived, had a large, strong-looking man with a female officer as his partner. He had a bulbous red nose that told me he was a heavy drinker, while she had the 'so new she squeaks' shine about her that told me she was a rookie. Hoo boy, the clichés just keep on coming don't they?

"I'm Officer Hernandez. This is Officer Blake." The man introduced himself and his partner gruffly. "So, a smash and grab? Tch. Stupid gangbangers."

"Do you mind if we record your testimony…err…" Officer Blake starts before looking sheepish. "I'm sorry, but I can't remember your name."

"Of course, I don't mind." I answered with a nod. "And the name is Riptide."

"OK." She looks a bit freaked by the modulated electronic voice. "Uhh…do you have to sound like that?"

"If I want to keep my identity a secret, keeping as much of myself concealed as is possible is paramount." I stated. "That includes my voice."

"Oh…"

"Blake, just grab the damned recorder from the car." Hernandez grunted. I had made certain to keep away from the camera that all cop cars were reported to have on the dashboard. The less footage someone like Armsmaster had, the less he could figure out about how my armour worked and the weaknesses it had.

Once said recorder was retrieved and the recording started, I gave an abbreviated account of my capture of the seven ABB thugs, omitting several details regarding my tech and using generalities wherever possible. For example, I only clarified that the bullets I shot were strictly non-lethal and left no traces behind.

Y'know, other than the bruises.

Once the tape clicked off, Hernandez looked at me for a moment before nodded with…was that respect in his eye? "OK Riptide. Thanks for your assistance and it's a shame that you didn't grab the other three."

"One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I said with a small shrug.

"True enough." He allowed. "Blake, when's that wagon getting here?"

"Two minutes out, Steve." Blake called back from the car a moment later.

"Thank you, Arabella." The man growled.

"Just Bella, dammit!"

I stifled a chuckle at the antics of the two of them. "Well, I had better get going. Crime never sleeps."

"And don't I know it." Hernandez glowered in the direction of the gangbangers.

Letting a chuckle out this time, I turned and walked away. "Stay safe, officers."

"You as well, kid. You as well." Hernandez grunted.

I almost faltered when he called me kid, but I forced myself to keep moving. He seemed like the kind of man who would call someone a kid if he knew or suspected someone was younger than him, and I was certainly that.

Rounding the corner, I activated the sound dampener first, then hovered up and activated the camo system and flew back over to see what the two were saying.

"…reckon that was actually a kid?" Blake was asking.

"Dunno. Late teens, early twenties at best would be my guess." Hernandez replied with a shrug. "I'm almost forty, so that makes them a kid as far as I can tell."

"True." The woman admitted. "Do you think this Riptide 'll join the Wards or Protectorate?"

Hernandez snorted. "The guy made that set of armour along with those handcuffs. Riptide's like Armsmaster, a Tinker, although it doesn't look like they're as much of a social retard as Armsmaster can be. A new Tinker is very, very vulnerable until they can make decent gear for themselves. That was very decent gear this kid had on, so obviously there's been a lot of prep work put in to it. If Riptide was gonna join the Protectorate or the Wards, the guy'd've done it before building the armour."

"Wow."

I agreed with Arabella Blake. That was excellent reasoning. 'Remember, appearances can be very deceiving.' I reminded myself dryly

"Uh-huh. Also, notice how the kid never went into details about what that suit of his could do?" Hernandez carried on. "He or she doesn't want Armsmaster to have as much detail as he'd like to figure out the way her stuff works. Riptide also made sure to stay well away from the angles of our dash-cam, which reinforces that theory."

"Jeez, why aren't you a detective?" Blake gaped at her partner in astonishment.

"Don't want to be." Hernandez said flippantly. "Too much damn paperwork and office politics."

"Urgh…" the woman shook her head before continuing, "If Riptide doesn't join the Protectorate or the Wards, hell even New Wave would be an idea, the guy 'll get ganked sometime after the first month. You know the statistics."

"Those're the averages." The older cop retorted. "The actual timeframe is something between six months to two years, and also includes them moving out of the city and joining places like Toybox and a few other indie teams. The actual number of deaths is pretty low; the PRT and Protectorate like to use the statistics thing to scare the parents of newly Triggered Parahuman minors into the Wards. A dirty tactic, but it works."

Sonofa-! Oh, that is dirty and underhanded! Gah! Seriously, what little respect I still had for the PRT was starting to go down the drain if this was how they operated.

"There are a couple of freelance heroes who work outside of the Bay." Hernandez continued. "PRT classes them as Rogues…hah! They don't charge money for what they do, so I call bullshit. They're Independents, and the PRT, especially the local Director, Piggot, hates having indie heroes around. With Riptide operating inside the city though, the PRT ain't gonna be able to do that. They'll try to persuade Riptide to join them, or at least become an Affiliate of the PRT."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Blake said with a frown.

"It can be. Tinkers are something that the PRT likes to keep an eye on, not without reason." The older cop snorted. "Thing is, the bad ones, like Mannequin, Bonesaw and Blasto? They ruin things for the rest. Same applies to biokinetics like Nilbog. One bad apple and they want to throw the rest down the crapper."

"I think anyone would after Ellisburg." Blake pointed out dryly.

"Again, true, but judging someone by the power they have and not by how they use it is shortsighted and stupid." Hernandez explained. "Speaking of stupid, where the hell's that damn wagon? Did the idiot stop at a doughnut shop or something?"

I decided I had eavesdropped enough and headed back to the Evermore. Tonight had highlighted some flaws in my equipment. First, it was damn good equipment for fighting with, but didn't do so well for capturing people. Second, I had to streamline the verbal commands to a few settings rather than having to specify each aspect of the Hydro Cannon. Third…flying was cool.

After arriving back in the hold of the Evermore, I went to the workshop and removed my helmet, the backpack, the Hydro Blaster and the Hydro Striker before getting drawn into building something that would be useful for covering the lack of capture-oriented equipment in my arsenal.

It was basically a souped-up water pistol (well, water rifle) that had an extra-long version of my Flasks of Storage holding the equivalent of three of the regular ones. As to its ammunition, I made it specifically to fire the faux-containment foam version of water I could create with my powers. I'd really love to see a bunch of regular humans, or even someone who wasn't a Brute, get out of that anytime fast. The name was rather uninspired…the Goop Gun.

Something else I flashed upon was a grenade version of the Goop Gun. They'd explode, releasing the syrup-like water and covering whatever they hit with would make an excellent surprise weapon, so I made a dozen or so for my next patrol. I wanted to make a grenade launcher for them to be fired out of, but I got a headache trying to think of a design. Maybe it was too mundane? Crap.

Tabling that for the moment, I stifled a yawn and took off the rest of my Triton Armour, slipping back into my travelling clothes. I made some plans to start creating the internal defences for the Evermore at some point. I could see turrets mounting hydro cannons, hydrokinetic partitions to block access and many other nasty traps for those who weren't supposed to be here.

Then I'd start building the external defences. Not to mention the offensive armaments.

Mind awhirl with blueprints and plans, I absently bid Amphitrite goodbye before heading home to my bed. I had debuted as a Cape, taken down seven gangbangers of the ABB and invented more stuff. Not only that, but things were looking up for my Dad and the Dockworkers as well.

Life was good.