Chapter 35: 4-4 Ripples

Ripples 4.4

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

I stood outside the Wards common room and took a deep breath. Wards introduction, round two.

I was in an interesting position. On one hand, I was a Ward under Jon, Brickhouse. On the other, I was now a part of Hero's lab, fondly nicknamed the Madhouse.

That meant that outside of patrols and PR events, I likely wouldn't be spending much time here. And judging by the looks on their faces as I walked in, they knew it. There wasn't any hostility, but they weren't exactly thrilled to see me either, just a whole lot of ambivalence.

"Hyunmu, welcome," Brickhouse said with a smile.

He stood in full uniform. Next to him was a green, bipedal deer with two pairs of antlers. The stag stood an impressive six-six without the antlers. With the antlers, he easily cleared seven-ten. It certainly explained why the doors were so wide. I wondered how his neck could support the weight then shrugged it off as Shard fuckery. I recognized this one as the only Case 53 in the District Wards, Verdeer.

Verdant. Deer.

Creativity was dead and we now danced in its ashes.

That was where my knowledge ended.

To my leader's other side stood a boy of about sixteen of middling height. The only thing noteworthy about him was that he wore long, white robes and hood that obscured everything. The robes had bright golden highlights and a closed eye on the hood, probably to avoid looking like a Klan symbol or some Halloween ghost costume.

The last Ward was a girl who stood an inch taller than the boy in white. She wore a sunshine-yellow bodysuit with crimson lightning streaks. By her costume alone, I pegged her as some sort of mover, though electrokinesis was also a possibility. The Flash inspiration couldn't have been more obvious if they just wrote out "Flash" on her chest.

"Hey," I greeted with a friendly smile. There was no reason to make enemies of them. "I'm Hyunmu, nice to meet you all."

"Didn't you have an accent?" Verdeer asked. His voice was an odd mix of deep rumbling and the honk-chirp of a deer. "Also, Verdeer."

"Only in public."

"Powell?"

"Powell."

In that single moment, a connection formed between us. We all shared a commiserating look at the PR head's expense.

"Anyway," Brickhouse coughed and tapped the boy in white, "this is Whiteout. He can white out cameras and recorders. He's not a tinker, but he gets called in for private meetings a whole lot."

"Sup, turtle-boy," Whiteout said with a smirk.

"Sup, toaster strudel."

"What'd you call me?"

"Don't talk smack if you can't take it."

Ignoring Whiteout's grumbling, Brickhouse continued. "And this lovely missy is Gold Rush. She's really fast and doesn't get tired. She also leaves behind a trail that slows down anyone who enters it."

"Hello, Hyunmu. I think the turtle theme is cool. Are you going to make a giant shield to carry around?"

"If I do, it'll have a ram's head on it," I said easily.

"Huh?"

"Don't worry, it makes perfect sense."

"Sure…"

"Right. Everyone, Hyunmu will be working with the other tinkers in the lab most of the time, but he'll also have his share of patrols."

That caused Gold Rush's eyes to light up. "You work with Hero? How is he? He's great, right?" She was in my personal space in the blink of an eye and the scary part was that I wasn't sure that was her power.

"Your fangirl is showing," Whiteout drawled.

"Shut up, toaster strudel."

"Sure, if you can come up with something original."

"Oh, fuck you."

He made two finger-guns and winked. "Is that an invitation, babe?"

"Ugh, you're such a pervert."

"You say 'pervert,' I say 'healthy teenager.'"

I sided up to my new leader. "Are they…"

"They're always like this, don't stress," he sighed. "And yes, Gold Rush really likes Hero. She even wanted a golden bodysuit like Hero's armor, but Powell said it'd look too showy."

"Not that I disagree, but… is sunshine-yellow any better?" I asked incredulously.

"It's marigold," she huffed.

I rolled my eyes. They… They didn't leave the best impression. I knew that I was being unfair to them, but I couldn't help but compare them to my old team. Brickhouse seemed to be a mix of Stingray and Ranchero, acting as both the older sibling and mediator to Whiteout and Gold Rush's squabbling. Gold Rush gave off the impression of someone who was a little naïve, though perhaps it was too early to judge. Bandit, but without the bubbly cheer. Whiteout was as obnoxious as Hat Trick, but without her versatility. Verdeer… was Verdeer.

I had no beef with the antler-horse.

"So, what else did Powell have you do for your public persona?" Verdeer asked. "The first thing he did was make me do a photoshoot for the National Zoo."

"Oof, sorry," I winced.

"Wasn't so bad. I really like animals."

"Oh, then I guess that's cool. Do animals… react to you differently?"

"What, 'cause I'm a Case 53?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sorry if that was rude."

"Nah, we're good. It's a legitimate question. And yeah. Herbivores don't see me as a threat because I look like them. Even had a stag try to square up to me during this Thanksgiving shoot I did."

"Wait, why?"

"Mating season," he laughed. "He thought I was trying to poach his girls. Funniest thing to happen to me at the zoo to this day."

I laughed with him. For a man with a stag's head, his smiles could be very expressive. "That's awesome. Bet the camera crew got a kick out of that. Did you butt heads?"

"Nah, my horns are harder than diamond. Like for real. Metalmaru confirmed it and everything; he has no idea how or what they're made of, but he can't scratch them with anything. If we butted heads, the zoo would be selling venison."

"Damn, that's pretty awesome. Wait… stags shed their antlers…"

"Sorry, he already checked. I don't shed so you can't have any to tinker with."

I clicked my tongue. "Tsk. Damn."

"So yeah, is the PR team making you do anything?"

"Just some suggestions I'm pretty sure aren't really suggestions. Mr. Powell is trying to get me to start a video series teaching either origami or tea ceremonies." I made no secret of my disapproval.

"Don't like those?"

"It's not that. I'm not even Japanese."

"Most people won't know the difference so they likely won't care."

"Yeah, that's what he said too, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

"Hey, at least that's not so bad," Gold Rush cut in. "When he found out I was from Georgia, he wanted me to appear on a cooking show, a 'southern belle cooking some classic peach cobbler.' It was horrible. I didn't even know how to cook. I still don't!"

The green stag smiled. "I thought you did alright. It tasted pretty good."

"Thanks, Verd, but you like to eat everything."

"True. Don't mean I'm lying."

"Come on, guys," Brickhouse said. "Powell's not that bad. He doesn't mean any harm."

"Maybe not," Whiteout said, "but he's super annoying."

"You don't even have to do anything," Gold Rush complained.

"I give tours at the International Spy Museum once a week. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"

"That doesn't sound so bad," I said.

"I mean, the place is super cool, but once you've seen it all a dozen times it gets pretty dull, you know?"

"Fair enough. I think he's just throwing everything at me to see what I'd be willing to do."

"Yeah, that's Powell. Try to agree to as little as possible; he'll take a mile if you give him an inch."

"Noted. Thanks, Whiteout."

"Yeah. You're also a tinker so that'll work in your favor. It's unfair," he groused.

"Why? I mean, I think my power's awesome but-"

"It's not that," Gold Rush cut in with a pout. "It's because Hero runs the show here. I mean, Director Costa-Brown does her thing too, but as far as we capes go? Hero's the boss and he looks out for the tinkers a lot more than us normal capes."

"It's not like that," Brickhouse placated. "It's because tinkers all work together at the Madhouse so you see him more often. You'll get more chances to tell him how you're doing than the rest of us."

"Yeah, he's told Powell to fuck off before," Whiteout said. "I mean, not literally, but basically that."

"What happened there?"

"Nothing much. This was like three or four years ago when Pyrotechnical and Glace were still in the Virginia Wards. Glace was the leader back then and Powell wanted them to do a kissing scene for Valentine's Day," my leader added. "Hero put a stop to that real quick."

"They were underage so, duh."

"That and they don't actually like each other," Gold Rush said.

"They're friends," Verdeer rumbled.

"Yeah, but they don't like like each other."

I sighed. "That's good to know. I want to be in charge of my own image as much as possible. I still need to build my armor and that's one less thing to worry about."

"Right. That's the suit hero made, right?" she asked.

"Yes. All the tinkers on staff help each other where we can and this was his welcome gift to me."

Whiteout rolled his eyes. "Tinkers got it good here. So not fair."

Our yellow mover gave him the side-eye. "Jealous much?"

"Yes. I'm man enough to admit it. How much does a bodysuit like that cost?"

"Not a clue," I lied, no sense telling a bunch of kids they couldn't have a fancy new toy. "I owe him some unique mats I can make though so it's not like it was completely free."

"Whatever. Just don't do laundry on-base. Gold Rush's gonna sneak in and sniff it, watch."

"I wouldn't do that!"

While the two returned to bickering, Verdeer nodded to him and walked to the kitchen. "You want anything, Hyunmu?"

I looked around and sighed. "You know what? Yeah, sure. What's there to eat?"

X

2000, August 22: Washington, DC, USA

I glanced down at the box in front of me then looked back up at Hero's smiling face. "Fast."

The man, the myth, the not-Legend, stood tall at six-five, though a few inches of that I knew came from the armored boots and helmet. He wore a friendly smile and golden armor over a blue, chain mesh material not dissimilar to my own suit. Surprisingly, his armor wasn't "power armor" in the traditional sense; it didn't grant him augmented strength or come with a mechanical exoskeleton. Instead, it was a collection of tastefully designed gadgets that came together to form a unified whole.

"Heh, yeah. Rebecca really wanted to see if the anti-master locket could work. She can pull some strings when she needs to. Even if mass production isn't on the table, having it handed out to a few important people would make the whole organization much safer."

I looked at the roughly eighty-four pounds of fossilized wood in one corner of my station. "So I noticed. Thank you for this, Hero," I said sincerely. The box contained a sunstone as large as two chicken eggs polished to a mirror shine and an oval stone with bumpy, scaled patterns of about the same size.

"Don't mention it. You're one of my people now. If you need anything, let me or Metalmaru know. And between you and me," he leaned forward as if to share some big secret, "Becky has a soft spot for young heroes like you. Don't be intimidated by her, you hear?"

"Got it." It was sometimes hard to remember that the man before me was a part of Cauldron. He was "the best of them" according to Alexandria, but that wasn't really a bar as much as it was a ditch in the ground. "Say, Hero?"

"Yes, Hyunmu?"

"Can you add holy water to the list of stuff I need?"

"Holy water?"

"Alchemy, remember? I mean, my power's expanded a lot, but things with conceptual importance apparently matter and I'm almost out of my own stock. You can find holy water in any Catholic church. They'll give it out for free so have some agents pick up a gallon each. I mean, chemically, it's just mild salt water, but the priestly blessing matters to my power for some reason."

"Huh. Weird. Sure, that's fine. Shouldn't be too hard to get some in bulk. Just don't go around telling everyone your locket can absolve people of their sins or anything."

"Deal." We shared a light chuckle at that.

As he walked away, I turned back to the Petricite I'd been working on. With both Hextech Flashtraption and Glacial Augment, the rate at which I could pull mana had increased a great deal. Before, my kidnapping, the PRT was under the impression that I could generate one every ten minutes or so. In reality, I could do so once every eight minutes and had used that slight difference in time to create a stockpile of Mana Crystals for myself.

My change into an Iceborn halved that time again. Fifteen Mana Crystals per hour didn't seem like a lot, but it meant seventy-five in a five hour meditation session. It was the kind of production rate I'd only dreamed of before. It wasn't long ago that forty-eight potions per week seemed like a reasonable quota.

And yet, I'd only grown busier. Demands on my time grew as fast as my capability.

My lab station was everything I'd ever needed back in Phoenix. Seeing how Rubedo was retired as an identity, I couldn't generate potions and distribute them publically. That just meant I needed to dehydrate them into pills, which meant an extra Mana Crystal to stabilize them during the process. A massive dehydrator to one side was used for the purpose.

Next to it was a smelter I could use to turn Petricite into its alloy. And next to that was a furnace alongside a lathe, drop hammer, and some other tools I could use to shape metal.

I was fortunate in that much of what I did could be automatic, leaving me time to work on my costume and Ymelo tokens. I took one look at the half-finished Blitzpack, more of a Blitzshield now, and shrugged. The Ymelos came first. My costume could wait.