Goes the Clock
After school, barely 3pm I was met by a PRT trooper in civilian clothing outside an unmarked, the man wasn't the best at pretending, so his appearance only feed the rumors of me being a Ward. I didn't know if the PRT was internationally creating those rumors or if I just wasn't important enough to warrant anymore thoughts than absolutely necessary, I doubted the real Ward would have such blatant handlers, trough this might be part of a strategy to hide the Wards in plain sight, in any case I didn't appreciate others making decisions for me, if I had tried to go under the radar this pick up would have destroyed any chance I had.
Luckily for the trooper I was much to distracted by the powers I had gained that day to really waste the energy on the grunt, forced to do the evil deed by his draconian ruler. I wasn't stupid enough to out myself by summoning magic crystals from thin air, but I was very excited about that power, not because of the material I could gain, I already had enough material, even magic gems stored in my tomb, no this power was practically a parahuman power by itself. Creating any crystal from thin air in a matter of seconds didn't sound all that impressive compared to super strength, supersonic flight and the ability to stop time, but If Kaiser could maintain an empire by summoning metal from surfaces, I could create one with one of the most valuable material in the world. If it wasn't for me not trying to attract too much attention I could probably become the richest person on the planet in a matter of days. Imagine a fort build of rubies, a pool of emeralds and a skyscraper made from diamond. This might immediately crash the market, but diamonds where some of the toughest material, so selling houses made of different gemstones was certainly possible. The best thing about the ability, it was practically free. Summoning non magical gemstones only needed a little bit of concentration and stamina, which was completely negated by my other powers, especially because I was a cultivator, I might have to invest some time to increase my cultivation stage, but as a cultivator my energy was constantly replenished by Spiritual Energy. I could literally spent all day summoning non magical gemstones and never run out of energy.
Magical gems were harder, but if I didn't plan on using them to cause acts of violence or aggression I could simply use the unlimited energy that was light. It would still be much slower and the quality of the gems would differ by the amount of violence and aggression in my mind during summoning, the gems might even break if I tried using them aggressively, but if I wanted another castle made entirely out of magical gems I could build one in a few days. If I hadn't already had unlimited magical and non magical gemstones before this power would have been more of a game changer, but the ability to summon the gems in any way I wished and the possibility of a second parahuman identity as a crystal Shaker, were the real advantages for me at this point in time.
The second power wasn't as impressive at first glance, it was a general crafting power, allowing me to create tools of any kind. Weapons, shields, armor, pliers as long as a person could use it I could create it and give it some basic magical ability. That by itself was basically enchanting and crafting at a basic level, but what really made this power special was threefold: First I could designate wielders for those tools, only those people would be able to use them to its full potential and while others could use them in their most basic form, they would only be a little better than common tools made from the same materials. Second, if the wielder died, the weapons would return to me, no matter how far, no matter the dimension even, they would return. Third, and the real meat of that power, the tools would grow with the wielder and the challenges he or she overcame. Imagine a key, each time it opened a door it would gain a little more power to do so and after using it for a while the key wouldn't just open physical doors anymore, but you could use it to open up other dimensions. A thief with such a key would become a legend and the legend itself would feed into the power of the key, an eternal loop until the key wasn't just be a key, but the possibility to open anyone and anything.
And this was just this power by itself, I had the material, the knowledge to create tools that would start out as powerful and versatile as those in folklore. Imagine Excalibur, but it would grow with each battle, become stronger with each defeated foe and rise to true prominence by simply existing. To be honest, this was way to much power for me to be comfortable with handing out. If I hadn't gained the ability of limiting limit my creations in the beginning of my career I wouldn't ever hand out one of those weapons. Unlimited growth, meant that even the tiniest paper weight could one day destroy planets and I wouldn't even trust myself with such power, no from now one I would limit all my tools. Maybe using crystals summoned with the light could further reduce the danger, I would have to test that.
After the PRT trooper spearheaded my into the apartment building I was left to my own devices. I thought about simply tinkering the rest of the day away, but I wasn't in a hurry. I still hadn't visited my castle and I was excited about what I would find there, so I spend some time gathering, read begging, for ingredients from the cooks in the cafeteria to make myself something for dinner that evening. If I wanted to avoid appearing suspicious, spending time in public places, pretending to prepare stuff to spend a lot of time on something normal, could only be beneficial. If I wanted to sell the story of me spending a lot of time cooking even more thoroughly I could even bring some to school for lunch. If people thought they knew what I was doing they wouldn't look for anything else and I knew from the dossier the Captain had gotten for me that my hobbies and habits had been analyzed and checked by both the PRT and the Youth Guard. Luckily I had always been known for enjoying my privacy a little too much for someone my age. But I was still on a timer, sometime soon people would come to my room and check the surveillance devices and find them destroyed. Captain had assured me that they wouldn't look for me because of that, he had left enough clues to make certain that they knew it had been a policemen, but not enough for them to actually prove it. If I couldn't trust a policeman to do this right, I didn't have a chance. In the end that only meant that my time crafting inside the apartment was running out fast and I needed to find a better place for it as well as a way to spend time outside the strengthened surveillance that was bound to happen. It was pure luck that the first person to discover my secrets had his own considerations and didn't out me to the PRT, or worse, sell the info to a gang.
Sometimes life is really unfair, totally screwed in someone's favor and today was one of those days where It was me who had apparently drunk the luck potion in the morning. Because I had spent so much time gathering ingredients in the cafeteria, I was a lot later to my apartment rooms than I would have been otherwise, which meant the Captains message, send from his radiophone, unknowingly received no by my phone, but my choker AI, reached me just before I opened my door. It read:
"Careful, PRT sec restored, do nothing in your room."
My time had run out much faster than I had anticipated, unluckily for the PRT I hadn't been in any hurry to tinker today and they had missed their best chance, again. I spent the rest of the day cooking three different noodle dishes, a nice steak and pudding, I was still a kid, and while the PRT would certainly be impressed by my live show, choker AI picked up all of the signals, hacking the files to make sure it had found all devices, they had included both active and passive surveillance in all rooms now, only room without live video feed was the bathroom. My satisfaction of tricking them was just big enough to stifle the waves of rage about this invasion of privacy. I didn't know when and how, but those responsible would pay, someday soon. Spending my time cooking was actually very relaxing, but being watched all the time took the fun out of it. I decided to spend as much time as possible with after school activities from now on.
During the night I had the choker AI, now named Sebastian, because he had found the Black Butler series, an anime from Earth Aleph and just loved the character, hack all the surveillance devices and loop the scene for a few minutes, it was a risk, but I had to take that one to enter the Wardrobe, gather enough material and use my craftsmen abilities, the light and my enchanting to create a replica and then transfer the original, minus all the common items into Amanda. I had been afraid Amanda wouldn't be able to contain, what was basically a dimensional door, but apparently the space inside her had its own rules and laws which I didn't entirely understand because they came from the snake beast who had given her material, but allowed her to contain separate dimensions, as long as they weren't to big.
Putting the replica in place, and filling the now normal wardrobe with my clothes took only a few seconds, thanks to working speed and Amanda's help. Barely 10 minutes had passed before I was back in bed and ordered Sebastian to restore the surveillance. Tomorrow I would have to find a better, more secretive storage place for my Wardrobe.
--------------POV Change---------------------
He looked at the footage, having already read the entirety of the reports he knew the Boy hadn't done anything. It hadn't been him who had destroyed the previous equipment, but someone had and he needed to know who. He had intentionally fueled the minor conflicts between the Police and PRT, intentionally blocked some of the fastest and most convenient ways to share information. Legislation, intended to protect secrets, now served to give him enough time to access and evaluate each information before it was passed on, not just between the different forces but even between departments. Which made it all the more frustrating that he didn't know who had done it, he couldn't even narrow it down much and his Tattletale couldn't be used right now. He was using all his assets to find Bakuda. Without his pet he was lacking to much information and in the current climate it wasn't feasible for him to even try for another grab.
The ABB farm being found had not only derailed a lot of his PRT and Police spies, who were now forced to deal with the aftermath and couldn't keep him up to date, because they weren't even on site, it had also made Bakuda a lot more paranoid. The workshop he had found previously had been turned into a death trap, just like multiple other ABB locations, who now blew up, every time his mercenaries managed to fight their way in and Bakuda had gone under somewhere in the city. Implanting bombs into the heads of people made them loyal to a fault, at least temporary and for the time being he didn't know where she was. He didn't even know what her next move would be, Tattletale had only been able to tell him that Bakuda would aim for either the Underside to build her prestige by beating the cape and her team who had downed Lung, or she would frantically try to increase her workforce by forcibly conscripting anyone in the immediate area or in the worst case she would start a war to force the cape, fucking Desu, that had destroyed her farm operation to confront her. He still didn't know how that little shit had managed that. Him having wasted multiple timelines to try and narrow down the child behind the mask didn't help matters, it had only been a waste of time, there were more than 500 girls with the right age and stature in Brockton Bay's schools alone. He was frustrated, everything was crumbling apart and he was barely able to keep on step ahead. There just wasn't enough time. He needed more power, but without his pet he couldn't decide if he could take the risk with the travelers and Accord would soon run out of patience with them.
And, so the person who had twice the time, twice the lives and millions of times the opportunities of others spend the rest of the night desperately trying to keep his master plan from backfiring on itself, putting out fires all over the city and raging at the world for denying his, in his mind, entitlement to rule.