Ignition

In the end, I decided on an arguably more complicated plan. Probably not the best idea, since it could go wrong, but I might just be able to pull it off. I still wasn't sure how I wanted to spend my charges, and I wanted to study more trumps before I made those powers, so I decided to put things off.

I had gone over Noelle's condition remotely several more times over the next couple of days, and while I couldn't fix her without additional powers, I could basically reset her. It wouldn't be permanent, but I would be able to put her back to the way she was when she first got her power, with more control over her body. Keeping her that way wouldn't last long, but it would give me breathing room, and lay the groundwork for further treatment as I managed to study more Trumps and established myself.

Revealing the full scope of my abilities would put me in too much danger from the group that made the vials, but with seven capes working with me, and possibly more as I take down the gangs, I think I'll start to be able to at least hold them off for long enough to reveal them and get allies.

I just need to manage a fight against Othalla in order to get a good look at her powers.

Until then, I couldn't risk pissing off those people. A group that could make powers was frankly terrifying. There were almost a dozen people with vial powers in Brockton alone. They could have hundreds of capes they could attack me with. I can't imagine that they would just give away their powers to other people.

Judging by the Case 53s they have some way of wiping memories. I can't imagine that they didn't wipe the memories of a few of the more powerful capes they got. If the Case 53s exist, then they could just say that the experiment went wrong and the client died or something, and then they just have a cape they can use for their own purposes.

Given the Vial capes in the protectorate, I can't imagine that it's even all that hard.

So, I needed to be subtle about this, I needed to figure out something that wouldn't out me before I had a chance to establish myself. I needed time to prepare myself, to think about the people who might be after me, and what I could do to stand up against them. They could obviously make much more powerful powers than I could, and they have had who knows how long to get things working.

I took a moment to consider things. As long as I didn't reveal the Trump aspect of my powers, I think that I should be able to remain under the radar for now. I mean, I'm making moves, but right now, I don't think I'm all that much more active as a cape than the gangs are.

That said, there's still a lot that I'm going to need so that I can actually pull this off. Since I can't afford to properly cure Noelle right now, I needed a way to contain her safely. If nothing else, to make sure that the gangs don't somehow get a hold of her.

So, I set Etelinda on purchasing the warehouses in the docks where the Travellers were staying, while getting the toilets and kitchens set up for at least a few of the apartments.

If nothing else, Jefferson and Virginia were happy to finally not be living out of the back of my clinic soon.

I was making one new power though, The thinker power that would let me know if someone broke an agreement with me.

I messed with it for a long time before I was happy with it. Still only a single power, but I managed to get it to the point of not having even the range restrictions of a Target.

Back when I made that power, my first version got cheaper when I limited it to a planetary range, which I found weird, so a couple of lanes messed with it. From what I could tell, the default Target was actually set up to be able to work in other dimensions, like earth Aleph. I'm not sure why, I suppose I was trying to set it up to reach everywhere I knew of, but I figured that while I didn't really care if my Target couldn't reach across dimensions, I did want to make sure that no one could skip out on my contracts by going to another dimension, at least if it didn't cost too much.

And it didn't.

It took a while, to fiddle with other ways to restrict my powers, but eventually, I was able to figure out something that worked. Basically, I couldn't just get it to work for any agreement. To get the power under a single charge, I had to alter the power so that it required a bit of a ritual to set up. I had to have two physical copies of the contract, give them a chance to read it, give them a chance to negotiate the terms and then we both had to sign the things, at which point they kept their copy and I kept mine.

If I did all that, I would be able to automatically know when they broke the terms of the contract as written. It was a little complicated, but on the plus side, the power didn't seem to have a limit on the number of contracts it would be able to support and it wouldn't be limited by distance or dimensions.

I'm not entirely sure how that works? I mean, the power was definitely making something and putting it in the contracts, but I don't know what it was. Plus, I could only tell what it was by studying my power, my Sensor couldn't pick it up.

Oh, I got to know how they broke the contract, and it wouldn't even end the first time, the power ended only when the contract is formally terminated, so if someone broke different clauses over time I would know about all of them until I told them the contract was ended, or I ended it myself.

Honestly, for a single charge, it was pretty good. I could even chain the notification into my Mental Computer to sync it up with other powers, or use the contract as a more complex condition mechanism for my power granting. Unfortunately, I can't quite set it up to limit the powers I've already given someone without just taking them all away.

Though, if all the E88 attacks I've been dealing with in my clinic mean anything, I might be able to change that soon. I mean, they can't just keep throwing thugs at me and expecting something to come of it. They need to send a cape soon.

On the plus side, between me and the security guards fighting off so many gangsters, I'm already receiving a lot of requests for apartments. Even if I'm setting aside E Block for my employees, I'll have plenty of stable money coming in from the rest of the apartment blocks. Enough that I can set up one of the blocks as collateral against the loan I need to buy out the property in the docks and begin work on connecting the two properties through Charleston Street.

That's been proving harder than expected though. Charleston Street is mostly commercial, and I don't have enough business to really set up shops yet.

I might be able to get away with a hotel or two, but I would need to arrange for a hospitality license. At least I would know that I could guarantee business since it would be the most convenient place for people coming in from out of town to visit me to stay.

And having a proper place for that, paired with my contacts with mom in the medical tourism industry, I should have no problem keeping things going. Plus, with the Travellers, I could probably do a cape tourism thing too.

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I looked up at the clock. I really wish I didn't have to come to class. It was like six hours where I couldn't actually do anything actually important. I wanted to start homeschooling next year, but mom didn't want me to do that.

I mean, I guess that leaving school could be something people link with me as a parahuman, but it was months away. By then I would probably have everything I need to protect them and it would have been ages since my debut, so I don't think too many people would be looking that far into it.

As the bell rung, I walked over to Dave, "Hey man, how're things?"

"Pretty good honestly," he grinned, "I'm taking Cindy out on a date later!"

I grinned, "She said yes? I'm happy for you!" I said, lifting my hand for a fist bump.

He grinned as she bumped me, "So, you got your eye on anyone?"

"Meh, I mean, Annie is pretty cute, but I'm busy with some stuff at home. Plus," I flexed, showing off the efforts of my workouts, "I'm still not in top shape yet. By the time spring break rolls around, girls will be staring at me on the beach!"

Dave laughed, "I get you! But damn man, we need to work out together sometime. You're getting ripped!"

I laughed, "You free at like six am? There's a 24-hour gym not too far from my house, and since I've been busy in the afternoons, I've been running out there in the mornings to work out."

"Fuck, six am? Really?"

"Look, I'm busy what do you want me to do?"

"Yeah, I'm not getting up that early. I need my beauty sleep."

"Yeah, don't want to scare away Cindy do you?"

"Come on! I might not be as ripped as you, but I still look good." He said, popping the collar on his jacket.

I laughed, "You look like you walked out of the nineties, put that back down." I looked at my watch and frowned, "You better get to your next class. I have my driver's test today."

He nodded as I headed out.

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After I was done with my driving test, I disappeared into the storm drains again, changing before I headed out to the docks. It took a while to pop out onto Cannery Row, but I soon found the Percival and Sons Shipping Co warehouse the Travellers had commandeered. Though, I guess it was soon going to be my warehouse, given how quickly Etelinda has been working.

I touched down in front of the travellers, "Hello!"

They blinked for a moment before looking at me, "Hello…" Said the guy whose name I didn't know.

I sighed, "Err… so I didn't get your name last time…"

"Oh, um… I don't have a cape name or anything, but I guess you can call me Oliver?"

I took a moment to introduce myself to him, before looking up at the warehouse. "So, I think we are going to have to go in there. Noelle is going to want to hear this and She's ultimately the patient here." I tell them. I see Trickster about to say something but he wilts when I stare him down. We walk around to the fire escape and climbed back out onto the gantry.

"Hello Noelle," I said with a nod, "I have been examining your condition thus far, and I have come to some conclusions." I frowned for a moment, "I have good news and bad news, unfortunately, so I'll leave it up to you to decide which you want first."

She paused, the tentacles on her lower body beginning to lash out around her, "Um, the bad news? It might be nice to end on a high note."

I nodded in understanding, "I have done some research into attempted alterations of the Gemma and Corona Potentia and unfortunately, I believe that attempting to modify your powers is currently extremely unsafe."

She sighed expecting the answer a little bit, "You said you had good news?"

"While I cannot alter your power, I believe that I was able to determine the ongoing changes in your body, and I believe that I can safely revert you to your initial state when you first got your powers." I explain, "It should keep you from hurting people, and it should limit the challenges in further managing your care."

I waved my hand around at the warehouse, "I have begun work to purchase this warehouse among others, and I believe I can retrofit it into a clean room. It should allow me to establish a place where we can precisely monitor your condition to help me establish further treatment options, as well as limit accidental exposure to anything that might cause a relapse."

She brightened up, "Really!? You can do that?"

I nod, "I don't believe the effects will be permanent. You gained mass over time even during the initial stages of your power. However, I believe that continued care should result in a minimum of risk to yourself and others as we study your condition. Plus, it should mean that you can use computers and stuff safely. You have not shown strength beyond what is expected for your limbs, so a return to human size should mean that there won't be any issues with bringing in some technology to ensure that you are relatively comfortable. In the meantime."

She looks down at her body, "You really think so?"

I nodded, "Once my real estate agent is done purchasing these properties, I will begin work on converting this place to be a little more comfortable and to establish safety constraints. If everything does according to plan, I should be able to begin work next week to equip this place for long-term habitation and study."

It would technically be for commercial purposes, acting as an R&D facility, so I think this is all actually still legal. "In the meantime, I think we should probably get you back in a less dangerous size."

She nodded, and carefully controlled herself as my telekinetic grip settled on her. We waited for the others to leave the room before I touched her, her flesh began to fall apart, torn apart into various constituent elements as I rendered the flesh into something her powers couldn't use anymore. It was draining my reserves quickly but after a while, I could stop holding her down as more of her flesh sloughed off of her.

Still, it wasn't much longer before I got to the point that I needed to reconstruct her legs.

That was the hardest part, actually, Unlike a lot of missing limbs I've done in the past, there isn't a template to build from on the other side, still, I have plenty of examples from Panacea's repository to work off of. That and her genetics meant that I could put together a relatively reasonable idea of what her legs should look like.

I set her down in the puddle of her former body, and looked away, taking a moment to summon my bag over and give her one of the gowns from my clinic.

She nodded and pulled herself into a seating position as I checked my reserves. Nearly empty. And I'm going to have to leave to get to the clinic soon to open that up.

I took a moment to pull one of my fancy new business cards out of my jacket and hand it to her. "Get one of your associates to email me your contact information. I'm probably going to have people come in here in a few days to clean it up and get it refitted to hold you properly, so I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the premises for a few days I take a moment to stare at the truck. "And get rid of that. I understand that you weren't in the best of straits before this, but I would rather not be associated with any criminal activity you have performed."

She sets her face with a determined look, staring at the card, "I'll do it as soon as I can."

I nod, "Also, feel free to email me if you notice anything strange in the meantime. For now, I'll tentatively schedule another appointment on the 3rd, since it will take at least a week for the purchase to go through, and I'll need some time for the renovations here so that you can move in."

She nodded, "I'll speak to the others."

I considered asking for payment going forward, but honestly, I was learning so much from trying to use my biokinetics to fix her power that I'm not going to worry about it. If nothing else, this would be an investment into the untapped market of Case 53s, as well as various capes. Plus, as it stands, I probably have enough pull to hire the rest of the travellers.

I mean, they need to stick around here so that they can make use of the services I'm providing for Noelle, and I don't know how easy it will be for them to get jobs. I talked to some of the rest of the Travellers as we let Trickster and Noelle catch up and she explained what I had told her, and from what I can tell, they've spent the better part of a year wandering from city to city trying to find a way to cure Noelle.

I frowned as I looked at my watch. "Sorry Sundancer, but I need to leave soon. Healing Noelle took a lot longer than I expected, so I can't stay too much longer. I have an appointment in fifteen minutes.".

She smiled and gave me a quick hug, "Um… wait. Let me give you my number!"

I pulled out a card, "Just give me a missed call. I'm going to be busy for most of today, but I'm mostly free tomorrow after four."