Chapter 19

A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

Chapter Nineteen

by Skysaber

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Story Day Eleven, April 16th 2011, Saturday - Early Evening

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Armsmaster had really done New Wave dirty.

They had been in the lead when he'd started throwing out containment foam grenades. Foolishly, they had trusted him not to aim for them, but that trust had been misplaced.

Before they'd even suspected what danger they'd been in, he had efficiently set off grenades foaming all but one of their cars to the ground. Laserdream had been the exception, having so much trouble maintaining her weak shield, her focus had been on all-around protection, and so when those grenades went off, her weak shield had been a complete bubble around her car, not focused in the direction of the greatest danger like the others.

Since containment foam could not stick to force fields, she had escaped entrapment.

Glory Girl's car was one of those hit by a containment foam grenade. Violently brought to a stop as the wheel wells gummed up, it turned over a couple times, and landed on its roof. Her forcefield saved her from any real harm, but she was still frustrated.

She didn't play to lose.

New Wave had all entered together.

They didn't have, for the most part, specialized or speedy cars.

They didn't have superpowers that would directly aid them in a race.

But they needed some of the prizes, for her dad among other things. Those serums were one of the few things they'd ever heard of that promised they could cure depression, and restore her dad to the man he'd one been.

Somewhat to New Wave's surprise, they had been doing particularly well, as they did have one thing nobody else in the race apparently had. They were a team, and while their teamwork wasn't perfect, they were used to working together.

And Glory Girl wasn't going to stop trying now.

They would still get a prize each for participating, but Glory Girl wasn't satisfied with that.

She wanted to race.

She wanted to win.

She wanted to protect her family.

While Laserdream raced ahead, Glory Girl felt a surge of pride in her team, and had an idea. So she gripped a sturdy part of her car's frame, lifted it, turned it right side up, and started flying along the race course under her own power, leaving the traffic jam of former leading racers snarled up in PRT containment foam behind.

She could still push on towards victory.

She could still protect her team.

And while playing shield for her cousin Laserdream, she could be aiming for some of the airburst time-bubbles for extra points.

Five minutes later, Laserdream's car was the first across the finish line, earning that extra one hundred and fifty points, pushing her score up high enough to achieve victory.

Her cousin Glory Girl's car, battered and ruined from the crash, full of bullet holes and blasted by several attacks since, came in second, hovering over her cousin, providing cover until the end.

Together, the cousins celebrated, holding aloft their prizes, hugging and dancing while wearing victory ribbons over their costumes amidst showers of bubbly beverage.

The former Kid Win, now dubbed Hover Jockey by Victor playing announcer, humbly stood by with the prize for third place, the wind from his fans having kept the spreading foam from touching his vehicle, and joining in the multi-car pileup the Protectorate had caused.

OoOoO

Everyone was eager to get away from the scene, now that the PRT had attacked and the race was over. Some were in so much of a panic that they left without collecting their prizes, though very few.

Jared would arrange it so those would get their prizes delivered via Lantern Archon.

Prizes for participation were a single potion, two if you'd managed to pop a time bubble, randomly selected out of a selection of about a half-dozen different types, to keep things interesting. It also served as advertising for new products available from Toybox, and of course preventing the government from knowing too much about winners, as they would be trying to track down who had been involved, using every trick of forensic accounting available to them.

So it was good to introduce variables to prevent giving them easy leads to follow.

If the race promoters had given everyone the same potion, then the whole weight of the government's financial tracking system could have been leveled to track and count those sales, how many there were, how much they sold for, and who had suspicious deposits made to their bank accounts matching those prices.

Giving out random potions, however, mixed things up a bit, as demand was not the same for, say, a potion to give someone Perfect Teeth, as it would be for a Remove Disease, and they would appeal to slightly different markets, with different demands and resources.

Plus, since every last type was something Skysaber had made available through Toybox, nobody could be *perfectly* sure these potions hadn't come from the mysterious group of Tinkers, instead of as awards from this race - although they *would* be able to tell the difference between one of his potions and any fakes or imitators, as he'd had his Dedicated Wrights apply the spell Guild Mark to each one (a variant of Arcane Mark, that instead of being a purely personal mark, guaranteed that a product was produced by a certain guild and master. Better still, a Guild Mark would disappear if that item was tampered with or adulterated).

Having a nice, unique sigil that served as a magical, glowing safety seal, that could not be faked, proved a product was genuine and was made to industry standards, had all sorts of trade advantages. So Jared had eagerly snapped up that cantrip once he'd learned of its existence.

As these potions would be traded.

Victor, for one, had arranged for representatives from Medhall to set up a small booth near where the rewards were being handed out, underneath a large sign stating how much they were willing to pay, cash, right then, right there, for each of the different types of Tinker Serums (what they were calling his potions).

They were not the only ones with that idea, and each of the local hospitals had representatives there ready to buy as well, as well as one or two foreign interests who'd lucked into having representatives nearby.

Even the Brockton Bay police department had tapped a few of their officers who they knew to be well-connected to the local gangs, and who had quietly, behind the scenes, approached the Empire with offers to trade items out of their evidence lockers, like seized drugs, in return for a few potions - chiefly Cure Serious Wounds to save the lives of officers shot in the line of duty.

Since many of the potions sold here would be re-sold overseas to international buyers, as even the cash-strapped local police needed extra operating funds, or traded as barter for things locally, or even just consumed among the close friends and family of those who had won them, things were shaping up that the crippled Federal bureaucracies were going to find it nearly impossible to track the majority of sales.

The Internal Revenue Service would be chewing on their plush, leather seat cushions in outrage over that.

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Operations were underway to get everyone involved in the race out of there as soon as possible.

Victor had even gone so far as to offer Gertie Growler a free, temporary power-up from Othala, so the faux-Tinker could go around fixing vehicles that much faster. The former Bitch had accepted, and over the course of a few minutes had righted, via the super-strength Jared had given her, and repaired, via taps from her giant wrench, literally hundreds of vehicles.

His homunculi were even bringing down doses of Universal Solvent from Fairhaven to dissolve the containment foam.

Universal Solvent had been around for entire generations of the D&D game, and could dissolve any adhesives. Containment foam was just one more thing to be tossed onto that list.

Although the PRT was going to freak when they got this proof that somebody else had the ability to dissolve their signature containment substance. So much of their power as a law enforcement agency came from their having a monopoly on that, they could not take it well.

Well, that was all to the good, as getting the PRT to throw fits was so much of the point of this exercise, as it destroyed their reputation.

Nobody could respect some idiot throwing tantrums, or freaking out. It was pathetic, and made anyone who did it look bad. And destroying the reputation of corrupt organizations was the point, as one of the only ways to truly take them down.

PRT Directors had more power than any government position he could find, until you went back to the old colonial governors, before this was even a country. There were medieval kings who had not held comparable authority. That anything like that got set up in a supposedly democratic society was sufficient proof in itself that this world was dying - as you cannot give someone authority you don't have, and the US government itself did not have the powers they gave to their PRT directors - like shooting missiles at their own cities, or throwing someone into indefinite confinement without a trial (as their Master/Stranger containment violated habeas corpus - something not even the Federal Government was allowed to do).

Not legally, anyway.

And any governments that can't be bothered to obey their own laws are, by definition, unlawful governments. Therefore illegitimate.

So as far as Jared was concerned, this USA was no different from any wilderness adventure, far outside of civilization, where no lawful government held sway. Meaning he could ignore their laws and authority figures at his whim. They were no different from any bandit chief.

And, as Lina Inverse was so fond of saying, "Bandits have no rights."

Ignoring the illegitimate laws of an illegitimate government did not mean that you could go out and do anything you liked, as there was still Moral Law, which comes with its own reasons for following it. But it did mean that he got to ignore the cheese-heads that gave orders around here, for the same reasons you could ignore a mugger when he gave orders - that he has force and threatens to use it does not make him a legitimate authority figure.

If you are able to defy his use of force, you are right to do so.

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Jared had quickly cancelled out the Faerie Fire effect outlining him, because being outlined and highlighted like that destroyed all of the concealment value of his invisibility. Then, having the value of his invisibility restored once more, he had gone over to the drow bodies and used their hand crossbows to fire enough poisoned bolts into each troll to knock them unconscious.

Then he had placed those trolls, and the other bodies from this encounter, inside of his extradimensional bags.

Normally, you'd avoid putting a living thing in there, as the air in one of those lasted only a handful of minutes, and once it was out, any living creatures inside suffocated to death. However, this was actually one of the best ways to kill trolls, if you did not have enough acid or fire to burn them to death, as suffocation was one of the few forms of damage that regeneration could not save you from.

Then he cast Trace Purge, eliminating all DNA and other evidence of those otherworldly creatures ever having been there.

No need to leave DNA about that people like Blasto would do anything to get hold of - then make their own monsters from.

He also collected their equipment, as drow poison, among other things, could occasionally prove useful.

Not that he did not know how to make his own, of course. That HAD been one of those things he'd studied. But the ingredients were almost impossible to find outside of the deep, dank, underground tunnel systems where the drow lived.

Now, just having bodies disappear into thin air would have the PRT freaking out, and not in a good way. So rather than have rampant paranoia sweep the town, before doing anything else Jared had first cast an illusion that overlay the battle site, showing everything exactly as it was before he cast the illusion. Then, he had the Addams Family car come from around a corner and drive over to the bodies, whereupon it parked and Lurch came out. Lurch then, very calmly, loaded all of those bodies one by one into the back of the vehicle (to cover for Jared doing the same thing, placing bodies into his extradimensional bags). While Lurch was doing that Cousin Itt emerged from the car and began wandering about, wandering over the scene of the brief battle absorbing all of the blood and viscera wherever it went.

When Lurch had the last body loaded into the car, Cousin Itt had cleaned up all other traces. Then they got back inside of the hearse and drove off, back around that same corner, the way they came, and vanished.

That ought to leave the authorities puzzled for a while.

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One of the first to leave, Chris had ditched his hovercraft and new costume in a storage unit he'd paid cash for under a false name (business being what it was in Brockton Bay, landlords of all sorts had learned to ask a lot fewer questions. Those who were sticklers for the rules found they had a lot fewer customers, which meant they often went out of business entirely).

Not like that was terribly secure, but at least it was better than leading anyone following him straight back to his home.

Now Chris was back in his bedroom, staring at one of the crates, of twenty-four bottles each, of miracle cures he'd gotten as winner in third place. He was a millionaire several times over if he wanted to sell them, however he was beginning to have second thoughts.

He'd gotten Blackjack's contact information and rates, which were surprisingly reasonable for the guy's undercover nature and quality of the services he offered. Chris honestly expected he'd pay more to a hospital, without insurance anyway, which he didn't have.

But the startling reminder was that where all people needed medicine, active capes needed it far more than most, about on par with active duty soldiers fighting on the front, to be honest. Nor was he being cared for under the blanket of the PRT's medical program anymore.

And it had inescapably been brought to the former Kid Win's attention that most, if not all, of the Tinker super-serums he had gotten as his prize were medical in nature.

There was that red formula that Blackjack had referred to as Trauma One. Chris had seen that working miracles out on the race track, putting back together bodies so mangled Panacea might have had trouble with them. Her cures weren't instant, so sometimes she'd had to race against time to fix a body faster than it was dying. But these were instant, taking mangled crash victims with but seconds to live and putting them back together, right and whole again, in the blink of an eye.

Any police force or military in the world would do anything for that level of care.

Or, any cape for that matter.

So now Chris was debating if he even wanted to give up his supply of Trauma One.

In a moment he had concluded that, no, he did not want to. He was in a high risk profession, and he'd seen how badly he'd need more support than he had out there on that field today. In fact, he might even be able to form a team if he offered to share his supply of Trauma One on an at-need basis with a few independents he'd heard of around town.

Chris himself would certainly have joined a small hero group on learning they had such a luxury.

Now that opened the question of, did he want to trade any of these valuable serums away?

On the one hand, they meant cash, pure and simple. On the other, an invaluable trade good. He was certain he could trade just about any one of these for reasonable medical care from Blackjack. Trade favor to favor, that way both got what they needed; Blackjack getting a 'Cure any and all diseases' serum to use on one of his other patients in return for stitching up Chris or a theoretical teammate's combat wounds, for example.

Put that way, Chris was not certain he was willing to give up many of these Tinker-Serums. They were too valuable. He could sell a few, but not all of them, and certainly not all at once.

One final point, was that on meeting him, Blackjack had sized him up with a glance and told him flat-out that the Heart's Ease serum would fix up his dyscalculia and ADD.

All his life as Kid Win, Chris had been ashamed over his mental disorders preventing him from being the cape, the Tinker, he knew he ought to be. Who had ever heard before of a Tinker that had trouble with basic math?

Holding the bottle of Heart's Ease, taken from the open crate on his bed, Chris stared at it. The fluid's color was uninteresting, a flat pink like girls were supposed to like but, in his experience anyway, almost never did. What feelings it brought to him as he gazed on it, though, were difficult to explain. It felt calm, warm... loving even, evoking imagery of warm apple pies and soft blankets while staring into a fire at Christmas, safe and protected while the snow fell softly outside.

If someone could bottle a mother's love, so that when you looked at it, you almost felt it, this was that. One could practically feel a hug just staring at the bottle.

Convinced, the teenage superhero pulled out the cork and drank it.

OoOoO

After they left, the only difficulty Skysaber's Sirens had getting back up to Fairhaven was all of the rampant partying going on all throughout the city. With the people turned to glass restored, and the airport freed from time bubbles and predicted to reopen, there was a lot to celebrate. So there was a lot of activity in the streets that made traffic go slowly.

When they arrived, back in their civilian identities, they parked their cars and went inside as one, laughing mob, only to find a collection of Empire capes, in costume, waiting for them.

One shot rang out.

Jared's lightsaber knock-off was out and had deflected the blow literally faster than thought.

Victor smiled and raised a light pistol in a way to show off how he was now setting it aside on a small table that had been brought out for that purpose. "A .22 pistol, an underpowered one at that, aimed at the right foot, with Othala here to regenerate the extremity shot before any lingering harm could set in. This was not an attack, merely a test. So you are a parahuman. We had suspected as much."

"Really?" Jared asked sarcastically, glowing plasma blade held in guard position. "What was your first hint?"

Victor smiled tightly back. "Let's just say I'm rarely outsmarted by teenagers and leave it at that."

Jared's smile held nothing of humor in it. "Funny thing about that is I don't have any super powers upgrading my intellect. That's all natural."

The man with Thinker powers he'd begun trading barbs with had his victorious smile go sour.

Somehow missing the bitterness in that exchange, Rune stepped forward and posed, proclaiming, "There's also the fact that, when I needed my costume, you guys had all mysteriously vanished. So I had to go looking for it."

"Laundry facilities are in the basement," Lisa snapped out, full of dread, suddenly recalling she had put Rune's costume into the wash.

"I know that now," Rune replied smugly. "Back then I had to go looking, and I stumbled upon this room where you had stashed over two hundred girls - every one of them an identical copy of one of you!"

Victor was back to smiling in, well, victory. "That, and a stolen shipping container filled with the highest end Tinker materials it is possible to achieve, were convincing evidence that you were capes."

Jared's reply was bitter. "I hate it when my schemes fail because other people never got to hear my wonderful excuses. I had a story all prepared about a contract with Blasto to make the duplicates, and the shipping container wasn't us. That was actually robbed by the Dragonslayers under contract with Coil. We merely redirected it. You were supposed to probe delicately in conversation, then be confused by all of my wonderful redirections. There are rules about things like this. You know, 'don't look for someone's civilian identity,' and 'Don't involve people's families,' that you are both breaking here."

Victor's confidence was back. "Well, you do know Kaiser's civilian identity."

"I did not look for it," the Jedi-impersonator currently in Rick disguise shot back. "Having the information dropped in your lap is one thing, and I shared it with you only as part of a warning about another cape seeking your destruction - a demonstration of my source's credibility for which I asked nothing in return."

"Well, isn't it convenient that Rune's discovery was also a happy accident?" Victor returned smugly.

Jared now leveled a glare at the man. "While it is fun to fence with you verbally, what is your intention at this point? We've got a mutually beneficial arrangement. Do you really have to destroy it by getting into a pissing contest? If you absolutely insist on trying to enslave everyone around you, then you're no better than the Protectorate."

"This is not about a pissing contest," Victor lied, as if being part of a wall composed of a half-dozen of the Empire's heavy hitters was not a threat. "Those are hurtful words. This is a job interview - which you have passed with flying colors. You've met our recruitment standards and are qualified to join The Empire!"

"Don't take this the wrong way," Jared replied, plasma blade still held at the ready, "But stray dogs qualify to join the Empire. Or is that not where you source most of the animals used in your dog fighting rings?"

Standing behind him, Rachel smirked. She actually thought dogs were too good for the Empire, and had thought so for some time.

"Don't be like that," Victor controlled an eye twitch over how that barb had hit the mark. "We are merely after the establishment of closer working relations. Think of how much more effective we'll both be once you join our team."

The Empire spokesman snapped his fingers and a dozen Empire grunts with guns stepped out of doors and around corners, their weapons not quite pointed at Jared and his group, but nearly so - and clearly ready to be at a moment's notice.

"I am certain you will find the benefits satisfactory," Victor jibed.

The Jedi-impersonator replied in a droll tone of voice as he held his still-glowing lightsaber at the ready, "Oh dear, oh dear, they have guns pointed at me. Whatever shall I do? I gather that you're expecting that I'll just knuckle under and do whatever you demand? Because I must ask you, what kind of complete and utter moron would enter a working relationship with people like you, and *not* anticipate and prepare for getting guns pointed at them?"

"You'd be surprised," Victor replied in almost as droll a tone.

There came a pause in the conversation as both sides considered that.

"Ok, come to think of it, there are a lot of people who would just walk into that and be caught off guard. Doesn't mean they're not complete morons for doing it, though," the wizard admitted.

"Agreed." Despite himself, Victor found that he was even starting to like the kid.

Nodding despite himself, the wizard returned, "Clearly, you have already evaluated the cost versus benefit of risking the good situation we already have, in an attempt to get complete control. And I'm sure there are no words I can say that would get you to change your evaluation, given that people will say absolutely anything when they are desperate. So you couldn't be sure if whatever I said had any validity. But before we start a fight, ask yourself how far you are willing to go. Are you fully committed, or will a mere demonstration of strength suffice?"

Victor actually considered it, before admitting, "An adequate demonstration of strength should be enough."

Jared smiled. "Well, I see a dozen armed Empire grunts here. So let's first counter that. If you will be so good as to look out of that window, you will see I have over a thousand armed men, who have already subdued yours, and are waiting to charge into this place and rescue us."

Shock traversed over Victor's face, and he lunged towards that window. He stilled, upon seeing exactly what the youth had described.

Having telepathic control of one's golems could be useful like that.

"Subdued, not killed," Jared playfully supplied a reminder. "But they just as easily could have been dead, if I'd wanted them to be that way. You have rather a lot of your people up here who my men could easily have destroyed, if I'd been so inclined." It did not hurt that his golems were all heavily armed, thanks to that trick with the gun store.

Victor was struggling to compose himself, as he dropped hold of the drapes he'd pulled aside and stepped away from the window, returning his attention to those in the room. "Touche', but the capes I've got in here are veterans who've faced bad odds before. I think we could easily subdue you and the girls, and hold you hostage. Once we do so, I am certain your men will stand down."

Jared smirked, quoting a knight from a book he'd liked, "You plan has one flaw, methinks."

"Oh? And what is that?" Victor challenged.

The currently blond boy indicated with a nod of his head the Empire capes behind Victor. "I don't think they want to do that. In fact, you may be the only cape here willing to fight me."

Victor whirled around. The Empire Thinker scowled upon reading the expressions of those behind him. Rune, Othala, Purity, Menja and Fenja were all comrades-in-arms which he had worked with as well as fought beside countless times before. But now they were plainly torn, obviously caught between conflicting loyalties.

Victor's ability to read people was something he'd honed to a sharp edge. He did not believe if he forced the issue that any one of the capes he had brought here with him would take his side if things escalated into a conflict.

Suddenly he had the awful sensation of being alone, deep in hostile territory.

He whirled back to face the cape he'd been focused on recruiting.

The smile on Rick's face was predatory. "The danger with confronting unknown capes is you never truly know what their power is. I'm not actually a precog with the reflexes to block shots like a Jedi, that's her power set," Jared lied, jerking his head to indicate Lisa by his side, who gave him a puzzled glance that could have meant many things, but did not otherwise react, keeping up her focus on the Empire for now.

"Nor do I turn invisible, that's her power," the boy then indicated Taylor with another jerk of his head. "And she's the Tinker who made the lightsaber," another nod to Rachel.

Luckily his Sirens did not interrupt him when he was busy lying, childishly blurting out denials to give the game away, like so many would.

Trust, to him, was a thing of beauty, magnificent in its simplicity, and he cherished it.

The boy currently disguised as Rick was smiling much more genuinely now as he wove another plausible deception. "No, the troubling thing about Heartbreaker's kids is that he has so many of them, it's easy to lose track. But from that hint it's easy to guess my real power. I am a Master/Trump with power over women, and wouldn't you know? By having lots of sex with female capes I can sometimes learn how to share their powers - which naturally means I do what I can to form a harem of those who either have or can trigger."

Everyone in that room stiffened, most of them in fright. Unfortunately, only some were afraid of him being a powerful trump, as he'd intended.

Victor was thinking furiously. He'd come in here thinking he'd had the advantage, that at worst he'd be facing equal odds, in which case the edge in experience and working together had been very much on his side. Now, instead of his worst estimates of one male and five female capes on one side, facing the same on the other, it was one male and potentially TEN female capes all arrayed against him alone!

He wasn't willing to fight at those odds.

Rick had won.

Jared was keeping his poker face steady, and his mannerisms under careful control during this facedown. Most of everything he'd said had been a bluff, of course. But while he'd stacked maximum skill ranks, plus plenty of bonuses, into his Bluff skill, if there was anyone on this planet who could see through the deception, Victor was probably among those most to be able to do so.

Jared was also quietly blessing those rituals in the Savage Species handbook that allowed one to change one's race, as while being an elf was good, adding on the Half-Fey template had given him loads of advantages and powers - including the ability to cast Charm Person at will as a spell-like ability (which meant, without incantations or gestures or any outwardly obvious bits). So during odd moments of this confrontation, he had been hitting Victor's allies with Charm effects until they had all succumbed but Victor himself.

Unhappily, the skill thief had proven unusually resilient against the elf's charm attempts. Jared suspected, but could not prove, Victor having an extensive collection of anti-master skills stolen from others. He knew various people taught mental patterns and practices that allowed one more control over themselves than was usual.

If he were in Victor's place, Jared would have loaded up on those himself. So the man having those defenses was not exactly unexpected.

Nor was Jared using the most powerful form of mind control out there.

Charm Person was low level, which meant easier to resist, and even when successful only made someone view you as a close friend, nor did it undo any previous friendships or loyalties. So as far as forms of direct mind control went, it was pretty lame. You couldn't just give arbitrary orders and expect them to be obeyed.

As merely friends, people had no problems telling him to "get stuffed" if he told them to get him a sandwich.

But, like most people, they were reluctant to let some of their friends hurt their other friends. So handled the right way, Charm Person was still pretty useful.

"So, where does this leave us?" 'Rick' asked. "We have here a situation we need to do something about. I realize you have a need to save face with your soldiers. I'd suggest, if possible, you tell them that you came here to make a deal, and despite a misunderstanding, that deal has been successful. Next, just like the last falling out we had, I'd be willing to make a freebie offer, just to build some goodwill."

'Rick' fixed Victor with a beady eye. "Don't get too used to this. If we should come to another disagreement, it will be your gang's turn to make the goodwill offering. And it had better be on the level of what we've done to appease you."

Victor squirmed, thinking of what had been granted already: the revealing of Coil's powers and perfidy, and coming up empty as far as equal favors he could trade back that could be considered on that level.

Jared smiled winningly. "So, first off, I won't make any effort to include your capes in my harem. I know that I could do it, and you would be obliged to resist that to the best of your gang's power, but it's just better for both of us not to escalate into a conflict. Let's consider that an equal trade for you abandoning all future attempts at forcibly recruiting any of us."

"Second, I could not help noticing, on driving through town, the Empire warehouse holding all of the newly delivered alcohol got burned down in one of Lung's rampages." Jared volunteered, "So for the freebie, we'll happily replace that destroyed shipment, at cost even."

"Huh?" Rune sputtered. Then, on seeing him look at her, confessed, "Well... it's just that I'd heard you'd gouged us pretty hard on the last order... and, so I was sortuv thinking you'd do that?" her voice trailed off into a question.

Jared gave her a warm and welcoming smile, instead of the hostility she'd been expecting, as this conversation was taking place over a blade of glowing plasma. "Hey, current difficulties aside, we do appreciate the value of having good neighbors. We wouldn't have let you move in otherwise. And we'd *much* rather have you, than either the ABB or the Archers Bridge Merchants - or even worse, Coil. You, at least, are reasonable folks who can be worked with. You make deals, negotiate in good faith, and all that - which places you in better books than the government, even."

Now he grimaced a bit, eyes glancing down in regret over the situation before flashing back to meet her gaze. "However, we must face the fact there has been a serious problem, which has led to a breach between us."

His eyes switched and met Victor's, straight and level. "You abused our trust, and our generosity," he quoted the Empire cape's words from before, when Victor had been trying to perform a gang hit on him. "We offered you sanctuary and you violated that. Payback is required."

It was only through expert skill that Victor managed to avoid a wince over having those words turned back on him.

Then Jared smiled and shrugged, deactivating his lightsaber and stowing it away. "But, hey, neither side wants to go to war. We both have more enemies than we'd like already, and don't need any more. Now, we're not contesting you guys' rule over Brockton Bay, we barely go down there anyway. Our only questionable dealings down there have been with you; so far to our mutual satisfaction, am I right? So I don't see any good reason why we can't still work out our little difficulties together. But in order to achieve the necessary trust, somebody has to make the first friendly gesture, and it might as well be us. So you get booze at cost this once, to replace the order lost to Lung's little outrages. Besides," he smiled at Rune, before turning a sidelong gaze towards Victor. "One good turn deserves another, and there's another good movie we're all fond of up here, called Commando..."

Victor's eyes grew wide, sensing a very large gun order coming up. "You guys sure like your Arnold movies. What? You don't watch Cape films, like the rest of us?"

"What can I say?" Jared asked, spreading his hands innocently. "The really expensive stuff they got capes to star in? Couldn't afford that. But those just shoved films by normal actors into the bargain bin. And you've got to admit the appeal to the idea of guys, armed with just skills and guns, taking on the world like that, to a bunch of simple folks like us who'll never get closer to a superpower than owning a gun."

"Yes, I can," Victor grudgingly admitted, not immune to the appeal himself, seeing as his superpower was to have skills almost as good as those same action movies. Plus, he had a rather large collection of guns himself, to be honest. And he assumed that remark about 'simple guys without superpowers' referred to the other hillbillies, or perhaps Rick before he'd Triggered, as the boy was obviously a cape now.

So the Empire Thinker took out a pen and a pad to take notes on, gazing seriously at the teenage boy before him. "And I can see why your clan allows you the authority to bargain for them. You're a natural."

"I think of it as a way of making friends - and who couldn't use more friends? Eh?" 'Rick' shrugged, relaxing out of his combat stance. "Shall we begin by at least agreeing in principle that we'd rather have friends than enemies, and that a deal ought to be struck to repair our little relationship problem? We do not intend to ask anything unreasonable in the form of recompense." He extended his hand to Victor to shake.

Victor tucked his pen behind one ear to free up the hand, and shook. "What did you have in mind?" He asked, recovering the pen.

Jared smacked his lips, gazing skyward as if just considering something. "You know? We have a shared problem. Both of us are invested to one degree or another in Brockton Bay, and it would ill-suit both of us to have to uproot our current operations there and relocate them. I, myself, do not fancy the idea of having to drive the extra hour to Boston to buy bathroom supplies like soap and toilet paper. You guys, I am sure, have an even greater interest in this town not going belly-up and dying. So lets pick something that benefits both of us, shall we?"

Jared went to a sideboard and came back with a map of the area, which he placed on a convenient flat surface.

"Now, it is my understanding that Lung ordered his bomb-Tinker, when she was alive, to cut off Brockton Bay so Rune could not escape his vengeance. My congratulations on avoiding that, as well as how you keep putting him down like the punk he is. I'll see you get some more T-shirts to help commemorate your victories. But Lung has still caused us both a serious inconvenience. My request is a simple answer to those transportation difficulties that annoy us, but are going to destroy the town."

He placed his thumb on the map, drawing attention to it and causing the rest to lean forward to see what he was pointing at. "I had already planned, in return for that favor your organization already owes ours for allowing you to shelter up here, to ask for your leader, Kaiser, to spend an hour or so using his power on our behalf. Now you can pay off this new debt to us instead."

Rick shone his grin across the Empire capes. "We all know Kaiser is a cape who makes metal - and he is both versatile and powerful at it, able to make enough, fast enough, to control a battlefield; producing walls to shelter his allies or cut off the escapes of his enemies, spikes springing up as attacks on people who are trying to dodge, and so on. He can also do intricate work, like fully articulated plate armor with very complicated geometry. My hat is off to him for this accomplishment. So, given what we already know about his power, it ought to be no more than a few minutes work for him to build things like dams and bridges - which are, after all, composed almost entirely of shapes remarkably similar to walls and spikes. Now it just so happens that Fairhaven here had a dam, once. Only it got destroyed in a cape fight and the city never really got around to rebuilding it. Cost overruns and delays, you know the drill. Now it's not a big dam, seeing as it served only a limited community. I am guessing Kaiser could rebuild the whole thing in a couple of minutes. Ditto the bridge that used to be the main link between Fairhaven and Brockton, located on this road here." He placed another fingertip on the map.

Jared's eyes raised to Victor. "Plans for both of these ought to be on file in several convenient government offices, in which we have already established that your organization has moles. Since these plans are decades old, for projects no longer considered active, no one should care who looks at them. So getting copies ought to be pretty easy. Now, with a bit of experience doing those two minor tasks, aided by someone like you who is doubtless a skilled architect and engineer able to modify those plans, Kaiser could then build bridges across the great pits in the ground Bakuda's black-hole bombs scooped out, repairing the cut roads and railroads, thus reconnecting Brockton Bay with the rest of country, and saving the city."

Jared pulled his hand back from the map and posed, giving off a gangster shrug. "I imagine it would even tickle Kaiser's funny bone - and annoy the PRT and Protectorate to no end, if he were to celebrate this great achievement by adding tons of stylized statues of Empire capes and other decorative things celebrating your organization's people and imagery, all incorporated directly into the superstructure so they are hard to remove - just to give the government extra fits. 'Cause my take on it is if you reconnect the roads, people are going to use them for all the essential traffic that is currently backed up and can't get through, no matter what the bridges look like, or the icons you put on them. But it will give Piggot a wedgie like you'd never believe for *her* city to rely for its life-giving trade across bridges *you* built, and she is never going to forgive you for doing it, even as she struggles to find the budget to pull your placards off, or replace your bridges."

Jared stood up tall and stepped back, sporting a grin. "In fact, I don't think that's something that will ever stop annoying her - that you saved her job, and the city she works in owes its continued existence to you. Even if Piggot could pull those bridges down, and put up replacements as far removed in style from yours as possible, it would *still* never stop bugging her that you'd done it first."

The redhead smirked. "Better still, Kaiser is perfect for this, as not only can he do it, and do it overnight, but what he does may last forever."

Catching Rune's question in her eyes, the boy explained. "Wrought iron is a material already well known for its durability and weather-resistant properties. People use it in fancy decorative work all of the time, indoors and out. You've seen restaurants, bars, and cafes furnish their outdoor patios with this stuff: Tables, chairs, fences, and so on. They do that because of the style, sturdiness and longevity. Even minimal maintenance, and it'll have no problem lasting 25 years outdoors. Good maintenance? It could last forever. Plus, I believe it'll tickle Kaiser's funny bone even more to see a line item on the city's annual budget for paint on those bridges he made for them - after all, what choice does the city government have? They can't afford to build bridges of their own, or they would already be talking to contractors, accepting bids. Nor can they afford to be cut off from the rest of the country. So what choice would they have but to maintain Kaiser's?"

Victor's lips quirked into a smirk as he pictured just how delighted Max would be over those little details. "Yes, I can see it. Alright, you have a deal. You're right. It serves both of us, and costs us next to nothing. The Empire will be proud to do this public service." The Empire did owe much to its reputation to protecting its own people, after all.

Could anyone doubt it, after this?

Now that the idea had been brought up, the Empire would probably... no, almost certainly, Victor admitted to himself, have done it just because it was a good idea that would preserve their own interests, not to mention how it helped enormously to solidify their reputation and bought goodwill from the overall population of the town.

They probably owed the kid another favor, just for suggesting it.

Jared was nodding, arms folded, "And the fact that it makes you smell like roses, while simultaneously making all of the other gangs look even more like slime is just a bonus."

"As you say," Victor agreed, taking out his smart phone.

"Those don't work up here," Jared gestured to the cell phone. "Towers never got installed." He nodded to an old fashioned one nearby. "Use the landline."

"You have service?" Victor asked.

"Just got reconnected," Jared grinned, as if he'd had nothing to do with it.

As Victor went to the phone and began dialing, 'Rick' pondered aloud, "You know, we have extras of those Tinker serums. What do you say to the idea that we'll trade you a few boxes of those, in return for a little more of Kaiser's time?"

Victor assessed the kid while the phone worked on connecting. "What did you have in mind?"

'Rick' grinned. "Well, she was so important to this town, I was thinking a little monument to Panacea."

OoOoO

When they once again got to a place of privacy, Jared was shocked to find Taylor once again angrily confronting him.

"I TRUSTED you! You LIED to us!" she accused with pointed finger, along with a building swarm.

"HOW?" he pled helplessly.

"You MASTERED us!" she accused, tears streaming down both cheeks as hornets began to appear by the thousands.

Jared stood still and regarded her calmly. "While, in the interests of total disclosure, I do admit to some ability in using spells the PRT would classify as Master effects, I have *never* used any on one of you."

"LIAR!"

Hurt feelings along with fears of betrayal were obviously doing all of the thinking here.

He sighed, then gazed upon her gently. "My answer remains the same as it was before: When have I ever lied to you, Taylor?"

Her swarm buzzed ominously. The other girls all stood back, content to let this play out, as they all shared similar concerns.

Jared sat down, to appear inoffensive. "Taylor," he really addressed the whole group. "As you well know, lies hurt. They are an injury, and so I regard them as a weapon, and use them as I use any other weapon: on my enemies, and mostly in defense. You can't build anything long-term on lies. The rule still works: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. So if you want to live a happy life, one of the best ways to do that is not to lie - because eventually you will get caught, and reactions to that are often exactly like this one, full of outrage and disappointment, and destroyed relationships."

He gazed upon them all mildly. "Nothing I could have gained by lying to you, would have been worth losing it all in reactions like this one."

"So why did you tell them you've mastered us?" Lisa asked calmly, over crossed arms.

Jared rolled his eyes while tossing his hands in the air. "Never give your enemy valuable data that he will use against you! Give him junk that will waste his time. The whole reason why the PRT pushes new capes hard to come in for 'free' powers testing is so they can collect and file all of that data on you, your power, as well as its limits and weaknesses, so they know what they are up against, if events should come to a conflict between them and the new cape."

Scowling, he declared, "Calling that 'free' is one of the biggest swindles I've ever heard of, as the PRT gains nearly every benefit out of that exchange, since capes usually learn all about their powers over time anyway. Frankly, capes could charge the PRT in return for disclosing that information on their powers, and the PRT would gladly pay it! They want it at least as much as perverts want pornography."

He rose to his feet in emotion, before visibly calming himself down. "Look, we all took that potion of Secure Secret, vowing together never to tell an outsider of our real powers or capabilities. I *could not* tell them actual data about us, or our powers! So I made stuff up!"

He spun around in place, grappling with the frustration over being confronted like this.

"How does it make any sense that I would tell them lies about your powers," he gestured to the girls, "but the truth about mine? Where is the logic in that? Plus, you of yourselves, *know* that I haven't been having sex with anyone! Most, if not ALL of you, have powers that could have told you that! We've got here two super-sleuths, and two noses that could ferret out scents nobody else could, to say nothing of sex, which smells strongly enough ordinary humans can smell it just fine. Plus one potential super-peeper who could see through cracks under a doorframe three floors up, around who-even-knows-how-many corners, and half a dozen blocks away! There are NO SECRETS in this house! I am sure every one of you knows all of the details about my personal life that you care to!"

Several of the girls had the grace to look abashed, as his arguments scored a direct hit on them and their observational habits.

"Well, you mastered those women, how do I know that you haven't mastered us?" Taylor demanded.

Jared simply regarded her with a flat stare. "If I had mastered you, would you be yelling at me?"

Suddenly she saw the logic of that argument, and had the grace to look ashamed.

He drew himself up. "I command you to go make me a sandwich, right now!" he demanded.

All of her old doubts surged back to the surface. "Smurf You!"

"Exactly!" He smiled, waiting for her to get it. "That's *exactly* my point. If I had mastered you, could you say that?"

Her face blushed as she got his point.

"Some Master rating I'd have," he shook his head, sadly. "Can't even get a sandwich. By the way, all of that work I've been forcing you to do, building my golden throne and polishing my collection of pornographic pictures of all of our depraved orgies, how is that going?"

Suddenly even more abashed, the girls all realized that their relationship had been, to this point, almost wholly to their benefit. He hadn't asked them to do anything, save for the things they'd been doing for their own good - which is what he'd openly told them they'd be doing, when they had elected him their leader.

They had literally voted on who got that post, and he had won that contest fair and square, as far as any of the girls (including two powerful Thinkers) had concluded.

"By the way, Taylor," he gently chided. "When we came up to the house, only to get ambushed by enemies inside of it - that's sort of your job to protect us from, by detecting that sort of thing ahead of time. That's what the recon cape does, and the others rely on her for. If I were the bad person it sounds like you currently imagine me to be, I'd be all over your case about that, forcing on you some horrible penance to protect *me* from that ever happening again in the future. As it is, I merely point it out, since I know your own conscience will drive you to do better in the future, and I understand this would have been a difficult call, as we'd been expecting those people to be here anyway, just not in costume, and those men to bear arms, just not against us. So none of the obvious tells of an enemy ambush were present."

Having him be so reasonable made her feel ashamed.

Back in teacher mode, he instructed, "I think the next step to consider is: you have through your bugs one of the most powerful senses of smell ever conceived of. You should be working to optimize that, as there are certain chemical traces dogs can smell that alert them to people's moods, anger and stress, and so forth, that could help you to read people the same, and detect anyone anticipating battle."

Taylor felt about two inches tall, recalling that he had been teaching her and helping out since the beginning.

As she well knew from Emma and her hangers-on, manipulators wanted to keep you weak, isolated and beaten down, so you'd be easy for them to control. Instead, Jared had been building her up since the beginning, helping her to discover new uses for her power, and building up her capabilities and confidence at every opportunity.

Far from isolation, she owed all of her current friends to him.

She now had more power and resources and friends than, well... ever! And he had not so much as demanded a kiss from her out of it in return!

Ok, so she had kissed him, and he had kissed her. But he'd never demanded that. It wasn't in return for deals or anything! They just liked each other!

And, boy, did that make her feel small, that she would blame him for what she knew was her own doing.

"Plus, he is not one of Heartbreaker's kids." Alec was leaning against the doorframe.

Jared's eyes went to Taylor, who blushed, dispersing her swarm so it could detect over ranges again, rather than all gathered in one place to attack.

"How would you know?" Missy asked.

The former Regent gave her a direct, flat stare. "Because I am one, and recognize all of the others who survived that childhood. I'd know them not just by name, or face, or things you could change, but by how they walk, move and hold themselves - but especially by how our powers interact." He waved idly towards Jared. "Him? He's not one of Heartbreaker's kids. For one thing, I never saw him there, and as part of daddy's little games, we did interact with each other regularly as Heartbreaker explored and tested our power interactions. For another, he's never shown any sign of the emotional damage Heartbreaker inflicts trying to get us all to Trigger. Believe me, even Heart's Ease does not erase all of the signs of that. The damage itself, yes, but not all of the habits and little idiosyncrasies you pick up in that environment. As someone who's been through both, and has the medical knowledge backing that up, I can tell."

"When did you get here?" Rachel asked, mildly.

Alec gave his former teammate a respectful nod. "I got here before the Empire, and was preparing a counter-ambush to their ambush. If they'd opened fire, half their troops would have sprayed down the other half. But you did not need my help to get out of their little trap."

Alec stood up from leaning against the doorframe, then looked at Taylor. "My super power is control of nerves. I can sense them. Your body reacts to lying. Nobody can lie to me. As some scientists somewhere said, if people had a window you could see through into their guts no one could ever lie to anyone else again, as no matter how good your poker face, your intestines churn and squirm when you lie - and that's just one of the reactions. No part of the body is unaffected. And your boyfriend? He lied like a rug to those Empire capes about the powers you and he are supposed to have. But he was totally honest now about never having mastered any of you."

He took a step towards the door. "Oh, and thanks to my background, experience, and powers, nobody can Master me without my knowing about it. Trust me, your boyfriend is on the level. I've never seen him lie to any of you. It's almost disgustingly cute how much he cares about you girls."

Then the former Regent was gone, a smirk almost hanging in the air behind him.

Jared blinked, inwardly resolving to do something nice for Alec in the future, as that save went above and beyond mere casual friendship.

They were now buds.

He'd kill for that man.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

The Half-Fey template is one of my favorites, as not only is it very useful, it is also very inexpensive for the benefits it offers, costing a mere +2 Level Adjustment (any Level Adjustment is always bad, and something you want to be as low as possible, if not outright eliminated).

But it gets even better when you consider, in one of their online articles, the property owners gave us the option of lowering that price by 1, to a mere +1 Level Adjustment, if you took a certain feat they offered, introduced in that same article. It wasn't even a bad feat. And further, there are rules for buying off Level Adjustment, that permit one to spend XP (which you can always get more of) to reduce it by 1 every 3 actual levels you obtain.

My SI, as a 3rd level character, has had opportunity to pay off 1 Level Adjustment. He has done so, and taken the feat, so his Half-Fey template, which comes with loads of bonuses, was effectively free. Oh, it cost him a feat, but very shortly I intend to get to his method of farming extras of those.

Beta work by Dogbertcarroll