January 5, 2011
Alex Miller
Brockton Bay
Two days.
For two days, the only sound in the living room was the near-constant, frantic click-click-click of Greg's mouse as he refreshed the burner email account. The noise had become the metronome of our collective anxiety. He was a sentry hunched over his laptop, surrounded by the crumpled tombs of three different brands of potato chips. The faint smell of instant noodles had been replaced by the sharper scent of stale salt and vinegar.
"Anything?" I asked, not for the first time.
"If there was anything, I'd be yelling, man! Or running around. Or spontaneously combusting," he muttered, his eyes never leaving the stark white of the empty inbox. "This was a dumb idea. The post got buried in five minutes. No one believed it. We're gonna have to sell your lightning to the city as a backup generator or something."
I ignored his spiral into depression, focusing instead on the space just above my palm. A faint, blue spark flickered into existence, unstable as a moth's wing. I concentrated, feeding it a trickle of intention. The twitching settled, and the spark coalesced into a humming marble of azure light, perfectly silent, casting a soft glow on the dusty floorboards. Control. It was all about control. Sparky was a wild thing, but it was learning.
"Patience, Greg," I said, letting the marble of light dissolve into nothing. "A rumor needs time to marinate. You can't rush faith."
"Faith doesn't pay for your costume," he shot back, just as the laptop emitted a soft, almost apologetic ping.
Silence.
The clicking stopped. Greg froze, his entire body rigid as if the sound had been a gunshot. I slowly sat up from the couch, my own carefully constructed calm evaporating.
"No way," he whispered.
He clicked once, deliberately this time. His eyes scanned the screen, wide and unblinking.
"Holy shit," he breathed. "We got one. We actually got one."
I was at his side in an instant, leaning over his shoulder to read the text on the screen. The email was short, the language simple and devoid of the usual internet slang. It felt heavy, weighed down by a desperation that bled through the pixels.
The sender was a woman named Sarah M. Her son, five years old, suffered from a form of eczema so severe that it left his skin cracked and bleeding. They'd tried everything—specialists, diets, experimental treatments. Nothing had worked. She'd seen a "whisper of a rumor" on a local PHO board and was writing on the slimmest of chances.
Greg scrolled to the bottom.
"She asked what the price is… for a miracle. Damn." He leaned back, running a hand through his already messy hair.
"This feels… heavy. For a first try."
I stared at the words, but my [Eyes of Faerie] saw deeper than ink and the pixels it peered into the sincerity of the soul. They could sense intent, truth, emotion. There were no traps here. No deceit. Just raw, honest pain.
"She's telling the truth," I said, my voice quiet but firm. "She's not setting a trap. She's just at the end of her rope."
Greg looked from the screen to me, a new kind of energy replacing his anxiety. It was the focus of a commander seeing the battlefield for the first time.
"I'm wondering why they couldn't just have gotten Panacea to deal with this. "
I half asked and half muttered in confusion.
"I read in PHO some guy named Apeiron was looking into that. He made a lot of research showing hospitals were prioritizing insurance related injuries and that the hospitals themselves were getting a cut from the operation. " Greg whispered as if he was telling a big secret. "PHO mods took down the post and that guy never posted again... Ever. "
"Okay," he said, pulling a fresh page in his notebook and uncapping his pen. "Okay. She's legit. Now, we make sure we are."
Greg's pen scratched furiously against the paper, lines and boxes appearing faster than I could track.
"First order of business would be scope," he said. "We keep it simple. Surface healing only. You said you can handle shallow wounds, minor infections, stuff like that. Eczema sounds… doable, right?"
I hesitated. "[Once Bound] can alter flesh, purge disease, and heal, but it depends on the cost. It's not a push-button miracle. It would really depend on how much power it takes, but I can definitely help him even if it's not all the way," I said as I reviewed what I knew about my power for perhaps the hundredth time.
Greg nodded, already writing. "Then we give her the rules. One: No guarantees of full recovery, but we can definitely help. Two: No refunds. Three: The price is hers to offer, not ours. You decide if it's worth it."
That tracked. Everything in this world had a cost.
I leaned over, reading the messy scrawl of his notes. "You're treating this like a service contract."
He grinned. "You literally make contracts with reality, dude. I'm just your paralegal."
That earned him a faint smile. "And what if it fails?"
He paused, twirling his pen. "Then we document everything. We need to know what limits the power, how much drain it costs, how you channel it. We fail forward."
It was clinical. Ruthless, even. But he was right. Every bargain was an experiment, and I couldn't afford sentimentality.
The reply came within the hour.
No hesitation. No bargaining. Just belief.
Greg stared at the screen for a long moment, chewing his lip. "Well. Guess we're doing this."
I nodded once. "Where's the meet?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "There's an old storage lot on Taylor Street. My uncle used to keep car parts there before he got busted for DUI. It's quiet, no cameras, no one goes near it at night. I'll text her the address."
She responded soon after saying she can be there in an hour.
"Time to suit up." I said, it's a good thing that Greg and I took the time yesterday to go through some thrift shops to piece together a decent outfit.
The coat came first. It was long and dark, something Greg dug out from a thrift bin. It wasn't fancy, but it draped well and had presence.The kind of presence that told people you were some sort of noir detective from the 40's.
Under it: black shirt, black gloves. Simple. Unremarkable. I can use glamour in a pinch to add pizzazz, but it is highly unnecessary.
Then came the mask, the final piece to the ensemble. It was a worn-off opera mask with seemingly arcane, gibberish symbols engraved in it. It looked like it had sufficient gravitas, and we bought it for $2.50 at a dollar store. Well worth the price.
Greg sat cross-legged on the floor, chin propped on one hand, studying me like I was a science project he wasn't sure would pass inspection.
"Not bad," he said finally. "It will do for now. The mask really ties it together."
I gave him a look through the dark eyeholes. "You ready?"
Greg nodded, shutting his laptop and slinging his backpack over one shoulder. Greg was going to be there to watch, and I will cover him in glamour as needed, but just in case, he also had a cowboy hat and a domino mask in the backpack.
The lot was exactly as Greg promised: a chain-link fence, rusted padlock, concrete floor littered with debris, and the scent of old oil. A few half-stripped cars leaned against the far wall like tired sentinels.
We got there early, so I stood near one of them, testing the air for watchers. Nothing. [Outsider] was quiet tonight. Greg hid inside one of the cars; he had a good vantage point, and it was not easy to spot him even if I didn't put him under glamour.
The sound of tires crunching gravel broke the silence. Headlights swept across the lot, briefly illuminating the walls before flicking off. A woman stepped out first; she carried a sleepy boy with her. I could clearly see dark red rashes on every part of his visible skin.
A man got out after her. Taller. Muscular. His jacket bulged near the ribs where the outline of a gun pressed against the fabric.
They stopped just past the gate, eyes locked on me.
"You're the one they call Beacon?" the man asked. His tone wasn't hostile—just guarded, the voice of someone who'd learned not to expect good things from strangers.
I inclined my head. "I am."
The voice that came out wasn't quite mine; it was deeper, steadier, older. My frame was more robust, shoulders broader, spine straighter, movements deliberate.
After brainstorming with Greg, we'd agreed that "older" was better.
People trusted authority, and most of the time, in things that needed expertise, age was a qualifier. No one was going to hand their hope, or their child, to someone who looked barely old enough to rent a car. A deeper voice and a taller frame went a long way.
Kind and Old—that was the persona. The miracle worker with tired eyes and calm hands. The 50-year-old veteran doctor who'd seen everything and still had a little light left to give.
The woman's breath hitched softly, eyes flicking over me. She started believing.
"I mean no harm," I added gently, turning my palms outward. The faint blue shimmer of glamour rippled across my gloves, like light playing on water. "You came here to save your son. That's what I do."
Her eyes welled up instantly. "Then please," she said, almost tripping over the words. "He's three. He—he scratches until he bleeds. He wakes up screaming and we can't—" She choked back a sob. "We moved here from Boston to meet Panacea. It's been six months and we're still on the wait list." She added.
The man's voice cut in, gruff and raw. "You said this wouldn't hurt him. We pay and you heal him, is that right?"
"Correct," I said, voice calm and deliberate. "No harm will come to him. No pain, no tricks. I'd actually heal him for free but my power requires a bargain. Money is the easiest exchanges." I added for his benefit.
He grunted, not convinced but out of arguments. "How much?"
"Whatever you think it's worth," I replied. "If you try to lowball me, my power won't take it."
He looked at me, weighing my words, then dug into his jacket. "Five hundred," he said finally, pulling out a wad of bills. His hand shook slightly. "That's everything we've got. It's real."
I nodded and took the money. [Once Bound] pulsed in acknowledgment of the bargain.
"Good," I said softly. "Then let's begin."
I closed my eyes and reached inward. The world dimmed around me, replaced by the quiet hum of power threading through my veins. I shaped the intent to heal the boy, ease his pain, close his wounds.
Even with eyes closed, I could feel the rashes retreat, leaving pale, healthy skin. The pull on my reserves was light at first, a gentle trickle of glamour, nothing I couldn't handle. But when the last of the irritation vanished, when the body was whole again, that's when the drain became aggressive.
To the Fae, it wasn't the disease it was fixing; it never was. It calculated the balance between cause and effect, the weight between what was and what should be. The rashes were the surface, the symptom—a cheap fix. But the cause? To affect the origin of something came with a bigger price tag.
Treating that was many times more expensive took nearly all that I had to deal with it. I was left with barely a few minutes of glamour left.
And [Once Bound] didn't do charity. In fact, it ran on the principle of equivalent exchange. Every action had to balance. Every gift needed a price. It's just that it factored what I needed as well. For a real Fae, five hundred dollars wasn't worth the effort. For me, it was like sending coal in a snowstorm.
A soft gasp interrupted my thoughts. It was a startled inhalation of a mother who couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.
I opened my eyes. I didn't quite need to do so, actually, but it paid to act like there was more to this than just me willing people to get better. The boy's skin was clear—no cracks, no bleeding, no inflamed patches—just pale, unblemished skin. He blinked up at his mother, confused, then started to giggle, which later turned to full-blown laughter. It seemed like he liked his current condition.
Sarah covered her mouth, tears spilling freely now. Her husband stood behind her, staring between me and his son like he'd forgotten how breathing worked. I could see the tension leaving his shoulders as some sort of relief came to him.
"It's… it's gone," she whispered. "Oh my God, it's gone."
I nodded once, steadying myself. My legs felt like they were made of sand. I needed to get this done quickly.
"Your son's cured," I said softly. "He'll need rest. His body's still catching up to what I did. This concludes our deal, please leave the premises as soon as you can." I added a small smile came to my lips as I watched the family celebrate.
They didn't even question it. Relief makes people obedient. Sarah stood, eyes wet and shining, and pressed an envelope into my hand with both of hers. "Thank you," she said, voice trembling. "Thank you, thank you—"
I nodded and caught the husbands eyes urging him to take his family away. He caught the idea and nodded back. Herding his deliriously happy wife and son back into the car before promptly driving away back into the city.
I sighed in relief. Taking the time to check if someone was watching me via [Outsider] only to feelone thread from Greg. I released the glamour.
The illusion peeled away like mist under sunlight, leaving only me, Alex Miller. Apparently Brockton Bay's newest healer.
Greg was standing a few feet away, still half-hidden behind a stack of rusted storage bins. His hat was tilted at a ridiculous angle, and his eyes were huge behind the cheap domino mask.
I can see him shiver in barely contained excitement. Greg let out a strangled laugh. "Dude. You healed a kid. You actually—holy crap, we're in business."
I leaned against an old car, exhaling slow. My body trembled from the strain, but there was a warmth inside me. A deal was completed and I felt my reserves expand once more. It wasn't as crazy as my deal with Greg but it was something.
And for the first time since this all began, I felt something almost like pride. I was saving the world, even if it was by one kid at a time.
---------------------
We were at the bus when it happened, Once again I felt the pedestals wake up. Then the pull came. Familiar now. The unseen drag of the void, of the pedestals buried somewhere beneath the surface of my mind.
A vortex spring from the [I am human] pedestal once again this time it was about twice as strong as before.
A rock got caught up, and it tried to struggle, but it didn't have enough power to do so. The pull was absolute. It fought and cracked. It got sucked in on the pedestal, sinking into the waiting pedestal with a soundless click, and I gained my new power.
[Spark of Genius] That was the power I gained. Just by the name, you could already tell what it did, but to make it simple: men were not born equal. Some men just had more talent than the rest. In music, math, the arts, there were always geniuses that dominated those fields. I was now one of those geniuses. In me was a nascent genius, the Da Vinci of this era. This power allowed me to be a genius in any pursuit I cared to indulge in.
I froze up, one hand gripping the railing of the bus shelter. Greg was still scribbling things on his notes, but the change was notable enough to him that it made him tilt his head toward me in askance.
I mouthed 'New power. Later' to him, and he nodded and went back to scribbling on his notes.
We arrived at the house a little richer. The first thing we did was order takeout—Chinese this time. Some oily fried rice and dumplings on the side, as well as some fried chicken that was more grease than meat.
I wasn't much of a cook, but that would have to change. With this new power, it shouldn't take much to learn. It would be cheaper, probably healthier, and a good excuse to put this "genius" to use on something that didn't risk breaking reality.
For now, though, greasy food and the faint light of the moon through the window were good enough.
I told Greg about [Spark of Genius], about how I was now comparable to the greats, the ones who bent music, art, science, or war to their will—Da Vinci, Einstein, Tesla, names that burned through history. I was no less than them; in fact, I was probably more.
Greg's excited exclamations filled the room, rapid-fire like an overclocked typewriter. His pen scratched furiously across the pages of his notebook, every word punctuated by the sound of him muttering theories under his breath.
For a while, I just watched him: the manic energy, the way his thoughts spiraled faster than his mouth could keep up.
The questions we asked changed, Before it was along the lines of what can we do. Now it was more of what was worth doing?
Power gained in this chapter.
[200] A Spark of Genius
That spark has awakened in you, that which separated the greats from the rest.
You will have greatly increased analytical speed, creative intuition, and the ability to synthesize new knowledge in any area of knowledge you actively pursue.
Once in every few hundred years, a genius of an era is born in humanity, heralding great change in their areas of interest. They carry with them the momentum of humanity's desire for improvement and refusal to be limited.
You may now proudly exclaim to be the genius of no equal in this era.
Note: Yes I've seen severe eczema and I hope I was able to translate the hopelessness that a parent will feel with this type of disease. Thankfully most of these cases outgrow the kid but it might take years.
January 6
Alex Miller
Brockton Bay
The morning after, the first thing I did after Greg went to school was go to the markets and buy eggs, pasta, condiments, meats, and sauces. Simple, cheap, familiar things I've seen my mom buy countless times when I was younger.
Back at the house, I made breakfast and then started to experiment. Greg left his phone, and unfortunately, there wasn't any sign of YouTube in this world. I found a cooking sub forum in PHO, and I went over recipes and videos posted by long time moms and dads.
Cooking felt like pattern recognition made tactile. Recipes stopped being inscrutable lists and turned into systems.
My hands moved with a confidence I didn't have yesterday; the spark nudged my fingers to correct a simmer, to tilt the pan an extra degree, to pinch the salt before the sauce remembered it needed to be bright. Each small adjustment fed back into me as if the world were a set of rules waiting to be read and rewritten.
Aside from cooking, I also went ahead and started looking into coding/information technology and specifically hacking. Greg had mentioned that we were one tinker's attention away from being compromised, and I agreed. It also could lead to me hacking my way into a new legal identity, but that might take awhile.
That clarity bled into everything I touched. Thirty minutes in, after learning the basics, I'd rewritten a gnarly chunk of code that had been sitting in a forum example like an unfinished sentence. Thus, I started working on the website.
So I started working on the website.
At first, it wasn't anything fancy—just clean, minimal, anonymous. A plain white page, black text, no metadata, no geotags, and no trackers that could be traced back to Greg's IP. Just a single, simple message:
> BEACON
Light in the dark. Help for those without options.
No promises. No miracles. Just hope, fairly traded.
Inquire through contact form. Cash only.
As I worked on it, inspiration and creativity came, no, cascaded into me. Ideas overlapped, braided together, each whispering that it could be improved, refined, perfected. The real challenge wasn't creating something good; it was knowing when to stop.
Minimalism wasn't a limitation. It was an art form. The Spark guided my hand, showing me how restraint could speak louder than ornament. Every line of code, every margin, and typeface, carried intent.
It seemed like my genius did not activate with just coding; it forayed into website design as well.
I hadn't planned on that. I just wanted a functional site, something discrete and sterile. But the Spark didn't care about "functional." It cared about mastery, about elegance. Every time I touched a line of code, a layout grid, or a font pairing, I knew what would work, not by logic, but by instinct, like an artist who could already see the finished painting behind the empty canvas.
I remember reading about Michael Angelo saying something about how he didn't carve stone so much as free the angel trapped within it. That was me right now. I was freeing this angel trapped in code.
Every keystroke felt like chipping away at marble, revealing something that had always been there, waiting for my hands to uncover it.
The deeper I went, the more the page began to breathe. White space found its rhythm. The text aligned like constellations. The balance between emptiness and form became almost divine — rightness made visible.
This wasn't work anymore. This was a revelation.
Greg leaned over my shoulder, wide-eyed. "Damn, that's good." I jumped. When did he come back? Didn't he just go to school? I surreptitiously checked the time, and it was already after 4.
For a moment, I just stared at the time, my brain trying to reconcile the gap. I hadn't eaten. I hadn't even stood up. The only thing I remembered clearly was flow and that intoxicating hum of perfect focus where thought and action blurred together.
"Guess I got carried away," I said finally, rubbing my temples. I told Greg about what had happened.
"That was basically a tinker fugue," he noted, bringing up his trusty notebook.
"This website is so good it might start a geek religion out of nowhere," he added, looking at the now optimized website.
I looked at it and frowned. I knew it could still be better. I moved towards the keyboard only to be stopped by Greg.
Greg groaned, throwing his hands up. "Oh, come on, man. It's already perfect!"
I exhaled, shaking myself. "Right. Sorry. It's… weird, Greg. This power is not just knowing things. It's seeing what should exist. I look at code, I don't see text, I see intent. Like I can feel what the website wants to be." It was a masterpiece begging to be completed, but Greg was right; I had better things to do.
Greg eyed me warily, like I'd just confessed to hearing the call of the void. "You realize that's how half the Tinkers on PHO start their villain arc, right? 'I can feel what the machine wants to be,' and then two weeks later they're uploading their consciousness to a coffee maker."
"At the very least, it has to be a toast maker," I said, acting offended. I laughed quietly. The tension eased a little, though the hum of unfinished work still itched at the back of my mind.
Greg finally dropped into the chair beside me, scanning through the lines of code again. "Alright, fine. This is art. It doesn't even feel like a website anymore, more of a promise for salvation in coded form."
That made me pause. I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right. Hope and bargain, woven into something tangible.
I smiled faintly. "Then it's doing its job."
Greg nodded, satisfied, then spun lazily in his chair. "So what now, Mr. Da Vinci 2.0? You've made the Mona Lisa of websites. Do we just sit around and wait for the next desperate email?"
"Now? I'll make some damn food," I replied, feeling the hunger catching up to me.
I cooked some basic carbonara, all the while answering questions that Greg was throwing at me about [Spark of Genius].
Greg leaned against the counter, notebook in hand, like a tabloid journalist chasing a scoop. "So, what's it like? Is it just… instant knowledge? Like downloading Kung Fu into your brain?"
I cracked an egg into the pan and snorted. "Not exactly. It's not information; it's more like better understanding. The moment I start doing something, I see the patterns. I know what's wrong, what's right, and what would make it better. It's like having a lifetime of trial and error compressed into instinct."
Greg scribbled furiously. "Dude, that's insane. You could be, like, the world's best at anything if you just focused long enough."
I stirred the sauce, letting the smell of garlic and butter fill the air. "In theory. But there's a limit—it doesn't just hand me skills. I still need to learn, to experiment. It just… shortcuts the process."
He looked thoughtful for a moment. "So, basically, you're the anti-procrastination power. You learn fast, you don't get bored, and you don't waste time."
"Sounds nice until you realize there's no off switch," I said quietly, tasting the sauce. "We have so many things to do, so the problem we have is time. If we have enough time, we can solve pretty much anything."
I finished plating the food, handing Greg his own and just started diving into it.
Greg twirled a forkful of pasta, still watching me like he was observing a new lifeform. "So, Spark of Genius is basically cheating at life. You're like… the final boss of self-improvement." He mused before taking a bite; then, he let out an undignified moan as he savored the flavor.
I gave him a look. "You good there, Gordon Ramsay?"
Greg pointed at the plate with his fork, eyes wide. "Dude, this is insane. You cooked this from scratch after one morning of learning? I take it back—this isn't cheating, this is a war crime. You're setting impossible standards for the rest of humanity."
I snorted. "Relax. It's just pasta, Greg."
He jabbed the air with his fork, bits of sauce nearly flying off. "Just pasta, he says. No, this is, like, divine intervention in carb form. If you ever go broke, open a restaurant called 'Deals and Meals.' You'd make bank."
I rolled my eyes, hiding the small smile tugging at my lips. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for when the wish-granting business tanks."
Greg grinned, shaking his head. "You say that now, but I can already tell. You're not the kind of guy who stays small. Give it a few weeks. Beacon's gonna be something big."
I looked at him then, really looked. For all the snark and bravado, he believed that. In me. In us.
Greg wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, still buzzing with that restless, infectious energy of his. "Alright," he said, tapping the notebook he'd pulled out mid-meal. "Since you're officially a genius now, we need to plan like one. What's next on the to-do list for Beacon Industries?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Industries?"
"Hey, it's all about branding." He flipped the notebook open to a page labeled Next Steps: Operations Beacon. "We can't just heal a kid and then sit around waiting for the universe to hand us more side quests. We need infrastructure."
I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed. "Alright, let's hear it."
He grinned and started counting off on his fingers. "One: Money. The healing paid, sure, but we can't rely on chance emails. We need consistent income—maybe a waiting list, private clients, or a donation system through the site. Something low-profile but steady."
"Reasonable," I said, though a faint tension crept into my voice. "But that means we'll need stronger online security. I can probably fake encryption keys and mask IPs, but if a Thinker or a Tinker with a tech specialty digs deep enough, they'll find us."
Greg nodded; he was channeling enough energy to power the city for a year.
"Cybersecurity. You're already diving into hacking, double down on it. Learn to spoof identities, erase digital footprints, maybe even build us clean records or whatever else you can do with your broken power."
"Fake IDs," I muttered. "If I'm going to move freely, I'll need paperwork that holds up to a background check."
Greg scribbled down the next point.
"Networking. We need contacts. Information brokers, neutral capes, or even regular people who can help us move without drawing attention. PHO's a start, but that's surface-level. If you're going to play big, you'll need allies or at least people who owe us favors."
I tilted my head, smirking faintly. "You really are enjoying this."
Greg grinned unabashedly. "I live for this stuff, man. Strategy, planning, cloak-and-dagger cape ops. It's like running a campaign, except the stakes are real."
"Alright then," I said, tapping the table thoughtfully. "Training. I need to refine what I have. [Sparky] and [Carapace] are both combat-useful, but I've never actually pushed them in a fight."
Greg went quiet for a beat, the pen in his hand suddenly serious. "Then we need a plan for what you do as a cape," he said.
I set my fork down. "I want to—eventually—kill Endbringers." If I wanted to live in this world, I needed a world to live in; that means we needed to stop the apocalypse.
The sentence landed between us like a thrown stone. It was ridiculous and honest and exactly the kind of thing you say when you're done pretending small is enough.
"We can't just pretend they're not there. If left long enough, they will probably end the world. That means everything you and I are doing will be meaningless. They need to die."
"We can't just pretend they're not there," I said, voice low enough that my words wouldn't sound like a boast. "If left long enough they'll finish what started. Everything we build the fame, the clients, the little good we patch into people's lives. It'll mean nothing. They need to die."
Greg's pen froze mid-tap. For a second, the kid looked like every PHO poster who'd ever dared to imagine themselves a hero: big dreams, shaky logistics. Then he blinked, and the mask of giddy opportunism slid back into place, replaced by something quieter, sharper.
"So... saving the world wasn't even a joke, huh," he said, half grin, half dare.
I shrugged. "Never was funny." Greg didn't say anything, he was just lost in thought.
Halfway through his second helping, he finally spoke. "Alright," he said, swallowing hard, "let's get you started on cybersecurity. I'll draft some plans for the weekend."
I blinked. "That's it? No 'you're insane'? No 'what's wrong with you'? Just network protocols and a to-do list?"
Greg looked up from his food, deadpan. "Man, I've been on PHO for three years. You'd be shocked how many people have tried to 'fix the world' with a forum post and a prayer. At least you've got powers and a working brain. That's two more than most."
I huffed out a quiet laugh. "Comforting."
I didn't waste any more time. I sat down, hands on the keyboard, and dove headfirst into the rabbit hole.
Greg had left me a messy stack of bookmarked guides and links he'd printed and scribbled on like they were treasure maps. "Start with the basics," he'd said. "Terminal, SSH, VPNs, then work your way up. If you can't read a packet, you can't hide in one."
Only the Spark made that sound dangerously simple.
There's a useful image for how the power works: most people learn by fumbling in the dark and then turning on a lamp. The Spark doesn't turn on a lamp. It hands you the blueprint for building the entire lighting grid, installs it overnight, and then explains why a particular filament resonates at 3,200K.
It collapses trial-and-error into intuition. Great when you need a bridge that won't fall down.
Only I wasn't starting from scratch. I had Greg's piles of printouts, forum guides, and other people's mistakes laid out like a map. The Spark didn't invent the road; it showed me the fastest lane through traffic. That made the work feel less like discovery and more like finishing someone else's sentence with confidence.
I spent the afternoon with my head bent over the keyboard and the Spark buzzing at the edges of my awareness. Commands that would have felt like a foreign language yesterday slotted into place like familiar keys on an instrument. Where I'd been guessing, I was now seeing patterns, which setting mattered, which option was theater, and which change would leave a fingerprint.
Then an idea came to me. It wasn't "how do we stay invisible?" Invisibility felt like a vertigo trick you could lose in a blink. The right question was, "how do we survive being seen?" I knew that from experience; invisibility wasn't foolproof.
The Spark gave me the shape of answers like a blueprint: not pretty, not stealthy, but unbreakable. Redundancy over cleverness. Fail-safes over flash. If someone found one trail, there'd be sixteen others that led nowhere useful. If a server got taken, the data would already be mirrored, shredded, and scattered into dead-drop storage.
I implemented everything with relish. I wanted to welcome everyone who tried to break into my masterpiece into a hellscape of 1's and 0's. If anyone tried to pry, they'd find mirrors, muffled echoes, and a thousand useless breadcrumbs leading to empty rooms. If they kept digging, they'd be routed into a soft, polite prison of corrupted logs and time-locked sandboxes; if they persisted, they'd find themselves going deeper and deeper in a rabbit hole that never ended.
When the last test finished and everything went well, Greg exhaled like a man who'd just watched his house survive an earthquake. "Okay. Now's a good time to tell you that Sarah posted about us in PHO."
I nodded and he handed me the phone
> To the Cape Who Healed My Son — Thank You
Posted by: MomOfThree_83
Board: PHO ► Parahumans ► General ► Local Bay Area
Date: January 6th, 2011 — 8:47 PM
---
> I don't post much anymore, but I used to be active on the "Chronic Eczema Support Thread."
My youngest had a severe case since birth — bleeding, sleepless nights, everything. We tried every doctor, every cream, every diet. Nothing worked.
Yesterday, we met someone who changed that.
He called himself Beacon.
He said his power worked through bargains, asked for a small payment, and promised no harm. He didn't touch my son, didn't use any device — he just looked at him, said a few words, and suddenly the wounds were gone.
It's been a full day. The skin's still smooth, no bleeding, no pain. My son slept through the night for the first time in his life.
I don't know who you are, Beacon, but if you're reading this:
Thank you.
The post itself went viral,
Sarah's post had been shared to local neighborhood groups, screenshots had leaked to private chatlines, and half a dozen commenters left breathless, single-line praise before moderators started asking for proof.
"We got traction," Greg said, sounding equal parts thrilled and terrified.
Sarah posted a before and an after. Not grainy or edited, but clean. The same lighting, the same angle, the same toy dinosaur sitting by her kid's pillow. She'd posted that exact photo set on the eczema support thread weeks ago, and that was what sold it. It was real, verifiable, timestamped.
Everyone was losing their minds over the possibility of another healer, in the same city even. Someone accessible.
Greg scrolled through the exploding comments, the light from his laptop flickering across his face.
> "This can't be real. Panacea doesn't work outside New Wave."
"Saw her old post. The timestamps match. Holy crap."
"Anyone know how to contact this 'Beacon'? DM me, please!"
"If this is true, people are going to kill to find him."
"Mods, verify this. NOW."
Greg went to work as a Void Cowboy. I could see him go to town on the forum, corralling hysteria into something that looked like order. The thread was already ballooning with speculation, but his comments, all measured, skeptical, and credible, started to shape the narrative.
While he handled the chaos outside, I felt something stir within.
The world dimmed, my attention drawn inward to that silent constellation of pedestals floating in the dark of my mind.
I felt the telltale sign of my pedestals' vortex reaching out for a new power. I noticed it reset back into the same weaker pull as before. It started pulling into the cluster of stones floating around, finally latching onto one of the visibly stronger powers. It tried its best, but it wasn't good enough; the stone resisted it without any effort at all.
The power that got away was evidently a power of the thunder tree. I could feel its nature before the vortex even touched it, judgment, divine wrath. Thunder. It was raw and regal, the kind of power that could split mountains or obliterate annoyances. Thunder not like it is, but how the ancients saw it, the symbol of God's wrath.
I exhaled, blinking myself back into the world of dust, screens, and the sound of typing. The attempt had failed, but not wasted. I could feel the pedestal grow slightly stronger, as though resistance itself was nourishment.
"Divine thunder," I murmured to myself.
A power somewhere in the middle of that tree, which meant throwing a Zeus-level lightning bolt wasn't impossible; it wasn't even the end of the road.
The idea sat heavy in my chest.
It could take days, or weeks. I didn't know if I wanted the vortex to succeed too soon… or to keep failing, slowly building itself up until it could grasp something truly monumental.
CP gained: 200
Current CP: 200
Note: He actually had a pull going on while he had that 'tinker fugue'.
January 7, 2011
Alex Miller
Brockton Bay
By morning, Beacon was not a rumor anymore.
The post had exploded overnight. Sarah's thread was locked after five hundred replies, half of them begging for contact, the rest accusing her of faking everything.
And like every secret worth knowing, the harder the mods tried to bury it, the faster it spread.
Greg had gone to school early but not before leaving a note on the counter, written in a rush:
> Don't panic.
We're trending.
I'll handle PHO.
DO. NOT. REPLY.
I didn't panic.
I just stared at the laptop, scrolling through endless reposts of Beacon's Miracle. My website.
The comments were a warzone:
> "Fake."
"The site was made by a tinker"
"Second Panacea?"
And buried between all that noise were messages from people who weren't arguing, desperate people who were pleading.
> "Please, Beacon. My daughter can't walk."
"My wife's lungs collapsed last winter."
"My dad's dying. Please, I'll pay anything."
The inbox counter in the corner ticked upward seemingly without end. Forty-one new messages. Then fifty-three. Then seventy-two. I closed all the tabs and the computer as a whole.
I had things to do. Greg and I made a to-do list for today, and I intend to get things done before lunch.
The kettle hissed on the counter, a thin whistle filling the silence. I poured myself a cup of instant coffee and stared at the steam as if it might spell out an answer.
I noted down on the to-do list to find a way to sort requests. There were a lot of things I couldn't fix; we needed to take care of the ones we could so I can build up my reserves for the bigger stuff.
I kind of get why Panacea does what she does now. It's not arrogance; it's math.
You can't heal the world one person at a time, but it was too late to back out now. We needed to scale.
I took another sip of coffee, grimaced, and opened Greg's notebook. His handwriting was an atrocity.
I took note of the things I needed to do.
It seemed like image was first on the list. I needed costumes for the rest: Void Watcher, Tempest, and even Greg's Cowboy.
It needed to be on budget, too.
If we were going to sell the idea of a team, we had to look like one.
The problem was, we didn't have tinker money.
We had thrift-store money.
So whatever I made had to look intentional. Designed.
Cheap didn't have to mean amateur, not when I had [Spark of Genius].
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling, then at the meager pile of cash on the table.
First thing to do was get learning materials. That meant going to the library again.
----
The library was mostly empty when I arrived: a few college kids pretending to study, an old man asleep behind a newspaper, and the faint hum of ancient computers that sounded like they were held together by nothing more than the dust that covered them.
The front desk was manned by the same elderly librarian from last time, a woman who looked like she'd been part of the building's original construction. Her glasses hung on a chain, and her cardigan was the exact shade of oatmeal that screamed institutional neutrality.
She glanced up as I approached, giving me a polite but weary smile.
"Back again so soon?"
"I'm on a learning spree," I said, setting my bag down. "Do you have any old fashion magazines? Maybe cape culture ones, or anything about costume design?"
That got me a look. A slow, assessing one—the kind that measured how much nonsense she was willing to entertain before cutting you off.
"Fashion?" she echoed.
I nodded. "It's… for a project. Something about how people see things. How looks change what they believe."
That, at least, was completely honest.
Her expression softened, curiosity replacing suspicion. "That's an interesting way to put it," she said finally. "Most of the old magazines are boxed up in the archives. We usually recycle them, but if you want a few, take them. No one reads Cape Culture anymore."
"Appreciate it," I said.
She nodded slowly, then said, "Fashion magazines are in the archives. Storage boxes in the back. Most are past their prime, but some still have usable pages."
I offered what felt like the most neutral expression I could manage: "That's fine. I'll take what I can get."
"Don't tear everything up," she warned, adjusting her glasses. "Just pick a few you want. I can bring them out."
A moment later, she disappeared into a back room. I watched the dust motes dance in the fluorescent light, my nails tapping the edge of the checkout counter.
When she returned, she carried two battered boxes and a thin cart stacked with magazines. She wheeled them to a table and set them down with a soft thunk.
I knelt, pulling open the top of a box.
Inside were old Vogue, Fashion Forward, a few editions of Cape Culture Quarterly with covers of capes in blurred motion shots, and one long-forgotten HeroStyle '98 with a cape-as-armor feature on the cover, edges dog-eared and yellowed.
The librarian watched quietly. "Those Cape Culture ones don't circulate, but they do get used for reference now and then."
I thumbed a page with cape silhouettes: draped, tiered, full-length, half length. I felt the Spark stirring as I studied folds, seams, and how capes caught the wind.
"Thanks," I said quietly.
She nodded once, then turned away to shelve some non-magazine books nearby, giving me a few minutes of privacy.
I spread the magazines over a long table: covers, inside spreads, fabric swatches. The Spark was doing the rest—drawing lines, recombining shapes in my mind.
I sketched rough outlines: cape length, hood shape, seam lines that would hide wiring. I noted which fabrics looked thin but strong, which textiles would move with aerodynamics, and which masks flaunted intrigue.
When the librarian returned, she looked over my spread and gave me a faint smile. "You know, most people just pick one magazine and flip through. You—" she paused, studied me, "—you take more than you need."
I met her gaze. "I plan to use every bit."
She nodded, as if that made sense. She replaced her glasses on the chain and walked away, leaving me with the boxes, the pages, and the quiet hum of possibility.
When I finished sorting through the boxes, I'd made a neat pile half Cape Culture, half regular fashion issues, each filled with sketches and glossy spreads that had already started rearranging themselves into something coherent in my head.
I stacked them carefully and brought them back to the desk.
The librarian looked up from her computer, mildly surprised. "Find what you needed?"
"Yeah," I said, "these should help. Would it be alright if I borrowed a few?"
She peered at the pile, then gave a small shrug. "Most of those aren't in the system anymore. You can take them; just bring them back if you're done. Or don't."
"Thanks," I said sincerely.
As I turned to leave, she called out, "Whatever you're making, make it count."
That earned her a small smile. "I intend to."
I'm pretty sure she knows, but I don't think it's anything to worry about.
-------
The market was just waking when I arrived, steel shutters yawning open, the streets slick with last night's rain. I kept my head down and moved fast. I wasn't looking to talk to anyone.
The stall owners were used to people like me: quiet, young, paying in cash. They didn't ask questions, and I didn't offer answers.
Bolts of fabric hung from rusting racks with gray canvas, imitation leather, matte synthetics. To most, they were scraps. To me, they were potential. The Spark stirred, whispering possibilities: movement, texture, silhouette.
I picked what I needed, paid with small bills, and left before anyone could remember my face.
By the time I reached Greg's, I already had the whole costume built in my head—every seam, every line, every way it would catch the light when lightning flashed behind it.
Tempest wouldn't be a man in a costume. He'd be a message.
A message on a budget.
Cheap didn't have to mean amateur, not when I had [Spark of Genius].
Surprisingly, I was able to get all the materials for under four hundred dollars.
The base came from a discount rack of compression wear—black and gray, torn in places, but easy enough to stitch and reinforce. A few yards of conductive fabric from a DIY electronics stall covered the inner lining, cheap enough that the seller didn't even know what he had. Copper thread, stripped from old phone cables. Rubberized plating from a thrifted biker jacket, softened and reshaped with heat. A visor mask from a cracked motorcycle helmet—cut down, smoothed, and spray-painted matte black; and finally, spray dye and reflective ink, scavenged from a hobby store clearance bin, to give the lightning veins their faint shimmer.
I didn't waste a cent. Everything had a purpose.
When I spread it all across the table, it didn't look like much. Most of it scraps, junk, leftovers of a dozen forgotten hobbies. But the Spark hummed under my skin, whispering how it would all fit together.
It took a few hours of concentrated effort, but scraps and wire eventually turned into a suit.
The bodysuit lay across the table like living lightning frozen mid-strike.
Storm-gray with faint gold and white veins woven through the fabric, the pattern looked subtle in shadow until the light hit it, and arcs of pale shimmer rippled across the surface like veins of thunderclouds flashing from within.
The Spark guided every motion, every stitch. It told me what resonated. The weave wasn't just aesthetic; it conducted power, distributing it evenly so I wouldn't burn myself alive if I lost control. Flexible. Breathable. Armored in the ways that mattered.
I built it in layers: a base of soft compression fabric for movement, an underlayer of conductive mesh, and plating over vital spots that mimicked muscle lines instead of covering them. It looked like something between tactical gear and ceremonial armor. It wasn't really built to protect; more so, it was built to inspire.
The gloves were the real trick.
Each fingertip contained a minuscule copper thread network. When I flexed my hand, faint light chased across the pattern, collecting in the palms: a ready-made conduit for [Sparky].
Then came the mask. Simple. Matte black with a faint, lightning-bolt line tracing across one side in silver ink. The eyes glowed faintly blue when I let the current hum under my skin.
I slipped into the suit. The fabric clung perfectly: weightless, reactive, alive. Every movement felt clean, precise. The Spark approved, humming quiet satisfaction in the back of my skull.
Static built under my skin as if the atmosphere itself were listening.
I raised a hand, and lightning arced between my knuckles, bright and sharp, snapping through the air with that divine crack that echoed through my bones.
For a moment, I wasn't Alex Miller.
I wasn't Beacon.
I was Tempest, the budding Thunder God.
The energy dissipated, fading back into the veins of the suit, the glow pulsing once before settling. I flexed my fingers, feeling the faint vibration of restrained power still whispering beneath the surface.
By the time I finished, it was just over 2 PM. I was just on the verge of a stomach rebellion.
I was still admiring the way light caught the faint shimmer in the veins when the front door creaked open.
"Greg?" I called out, frowning. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"
Greg shut the door behind him, slightly out of breath, a paper bag of convenience-store chips dangling from his hand like a peace offering.
"Skipped," he said bluntly. "Sue me. You're trending again, and I wasn't about to spend algebra pretending this isn't happening."
He froze mid-step when his eyes landed on the suit.
"Holy—" He blinked once, twice. "You actually finished it."
I nodded. "Tempest," I said simply.
Greg set the chips on the table and circle me like it was I artifact in a museum.
"It looks like something you'd see in a movie. You did all this from thrift scraps?"
"Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars," I corrected absently. "I kept the receipts."
He let out a low whistle. "You're a menace. A stylish menace."
I smirked. "Good. We'll need the optics." We also needed more money, I left unsaid.
Greg didn't even comment on the cost. He was already pulling out his phone, thumb flying over the screen.
"Alright," he said after a moment, voice turning businesslike. "That leaves us dry, so let's start rebuilding the funds."
He flipped open his notebook, pages covered in messy bullet points and web links. "Sarah's post got mirrored across half the local threads. I filtered through the inbox last night—there's at least a dozen requests we can actually do without drawing the Protectorate's attention."
"Such as?" I asked.
Greg scanned the list. "Surface-level stuff. Cosmetic healing, scar removal, chronic pain cases, maybe a few skin or joint conditions. Nothing terminal. Easy wins."
"That'll work," I said, thinking it through. "Quick, visible results. Builds reputation and gives me more field practice."
"There's a flood of requests, and I sorted them by effort versus payout."
I raised a brow. "You made a price list?"
He grinned. "Of course I did. Think assembly line. You can handle half a dozen small jobs a day, maybe more once you get a feel for your limits. Cosmetic fixes, scars, skin conditions, pain management, stuff that makes people grateful without burning you out."
I leaned back, thinking. "So we start small-scale mass work. Quiet, private, fast turnover. No showboating."
"Exactly," Greg said, jotting something down. "If we run it right, we'll build reputation and capital. Two weeks of this and we'll have enough to fund everything: gear, safehouses, maybe even an actual workspace."
I glanced toward the mirror, the suit fit quite well. "And after that?"
Greg smirked. "Then Tempest hits the streets."
"Hold that thought," I said as I felt the vortex activate once again. The pedestals stirred beneath the surface of my consciousness, and this time the vortex didn't hesitate. The Thunder Pedestal's vortex roared; it was stronger than I've ever seen it before.
A ripple of energy surged through my chest like a deep breath drawn by the world itself. One of the larger stones, crackling faintly with bluish-white arcs, was caught in the pull. It resisted for a heartbeat, then shattered like glass under pressure, folding into the pedestal with a soundless crash that echoed only in my mind.
The connection hit like a thunderclap.
[Sky Born]
Every hair on my arm stood up as something ancient and electric whispered through my blood. That drop of Divine blood I had bubbled and throbbed.
The sky itself had turned its attention on me, and it approved. The Sky has claimed me, and I claimed the sky as was my birthright. The sky welcomed me as one of its own.
Greg stared. "New Power."
"Yeah." I took a slow breath, the air feeling lighter somehow. "[Sky Born]"
"Meaning?"
I looked up, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. "I can fly," floating up to show him.
Greg's mouth fell open. "You're—holy shit, you're actually flying."
I rose a few feet off the ground, steady, the air rippling faintly around me. It wasn't raw lift; it was like the sky itself held me up, threads of invisible current moving beneath my skin. I didn't feel any drain, too.
Lightning danced faintly under the veins of the Tempest suit, tracing the pattern I'd stitched myself only hours before.
I drifted back down, landing with the softest tap of boots on wood.
Greg just stared, then let out a low, incredulous laugh. "You're telling me you went from 'guy with a spark' to flying demigod in a week? Do you even hear yourself?"
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I hear the sky calling to me, too."
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing.
"This is it, man. You're officially in the big leagues. Flight, lightning, healing — this is like a PR team's dream lineup."
I smirked. "Don't let it get to your head."
Greg snorted. "My head? Dude, you're the one who can fly."
"Soon," I murmured, almost to myself. "Tempest hits the streets."
Greg glanced up from his notes. "You planning a patrol or something?"
"Not yet," I said. "We need to test what I can do with this: how fast, how high, how long I can keep it going. If I'm going to sell the image, I can't fake it."
"Right," Greg said, already pulling out his phone to start a list. "Field test tonight, then. Somewhere quiet. High altitude, low visibility. I'll prep a few contingency notes in case you, uh, fall."
"Appreciated," I said dryly.
"Let's add testing [Carapace] on top of that, too," Greg said, falling back into his notes predictively. "If that armor's going to grow or evolve, we need baseline data: durability, reaction, maybe regeneration rates."
"Sounds like you're building a research paper," I said, stretching my shoulders as faint arcs of static rolled over my suit.
"Correction," he said, without missing a beat. "I'm building a franchise."
That earned him a faint smirk.
Before he could start on a tangent about branding, his phone chimed twice. He frowned, swiping through notifications. "Alright, so—remember when we said we'd sort requests by payout?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he said, turning the screen toward me, "two of the top offers are within walking distance. One's a guy offering three hundred cash to fix an old rotator-cuff injury—says he can't lift his arm past shoulder height anymore. The other's a hairstylist who burned her hand with a curling iron yesterday and can't work until it heals."
I nodded slowly. "Both manageable. Small scale. I can work through them without draining myself."
Greg grabbed his jacket and a notebook. "Good. Because we're doing both in a bit."
I blinked. "In a bit?"
He shrugged. "You said we needed to build reserves, right? Well, the more you heal, the more juice you get for big jobs later. Besides," he said, smirking, "it's not like people are gonna stop asking."
I sighed, finishing off my coffee. "You're going to turn me into a walking urgent care clinic."
"Correction again," Greg said cheerfully, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. "A profitable urgent care clinic. Come on, Tempest. Let's make some money before sunset."
We left just before three.
Greg had mapped out the route on a folded printout, complete with hand-drawn arrows and big block letters that said "NO CAPE SHIT IN PUBLIC."
For someone who joked constantly, he planned like a paranoid general.
Our first stop was an apartment complex near the docks, the kind where the paint peeled like sunburn and the hallways smelled like fried oil and resignation. The client, a tired-looking dockworker named Martin, opened the door with a cautious expression that melted into disbelief the second he saw me. The coat, the mask, the faint shimmer crawling along my gloves, it sold the part.
"You're him," he said, voice rough with years of smoke and salt. "The healer."
"Beacon," I corrected softly. The glamour shifted my posture, made me older, calmer. The role slid into place as easily as breathing. "You said it was your shoulder?"
He nodded, rubbing his right arm. "Tore it a few years back. Never healed right."
I reached out, letting my hand hover over the joint. "Do you accept the bargain? I heal, you pay. Fair trade."
He hesitated, then nodded. "Deal."
The moment the words left his mouth, [Once Bound] stirred with a quiet ripple of agreement that shimmered through the air like heat. The magic threaded through my fingers, weaving light into flesh, knitting old pain into new strength.
It took seconds.
Martin flexed his arm, blinked, then raised it above his head for the first time in years. The look on his face—shock, then laughter, then tears—was worth more than the envelope he pressed into my hand.
"Next," Greg, dressed as Void Cowboy under glamour, said briskly, though his grin gave him away.
The second job was easier—a small salon on the corner, shuttered for the day. The woman, a young stylist named Dani, had a burn running across her palm. She was nervous, skeptical, but desperate.
Another handshake. Another bargain. Another soft flash of light.
When it was over, her skin was smooth again, untouched. She stared, then grabbed my hand like she wanted to make sure I was real.
"Thank you," she whispered. "I thought I'd have to close for a week."
I inclined my head. "You won't need to."
Outside, I slipped into the shadow of a streetlight where Greg waited just beyond sight, watching from behind the glamour's veil. I could sense him there, notebook open, pen scratching, documenting everything like a field researcher chronicling a god's early miracles.
"That's two for two," he murmured once we were clear. "And no witnesses."
"Good," I said, feeling the residual energy hum beneath my skin. "Let's keep it that way."
Just like that, we made five hundred dollars again. I had the feeling that as my reserves grew, money was never going to be a problem anymore.
----
The docks were dead quiet by the time we got there.
Massive ship carcasses leaned against each other like tombstones, gulls circling above, the sea crashing against the rocks.
A great place to test things out.
Greg stood a few meters back, hood up, his phone camera glowing faintly in the dark. "Alright, Storm boy. Flight test one: try not to die."
I rolled my shoulders, flexed my hands, and let the current rise. I could smell a faint smell of ozone as I rose.
The air clung and pushed at once, every shift of pressure mapping itself in my mind. I adjusted instinctively—subtle corrections, micro-bursts of force. It felt right. Natural.
Like I said, the sky welcomed me.
"Tempest in flight," Greg said over comms, half in awe. "You make it look easy"
I laughed, breathless as I zipped along in the air. I loved the feeling of the air caressing my face like a lover trailing gentle kisses along my skin.
I angled higher, the air thinning, the city shrinking. From here, Brockton Bay looked small.
Once again, I felt the vortex open up, my pedestals called for a new power. I was able to pull a relatively dull stone and as it slotted itself in, the world changed.
[Eye of Non-Euclid]
Those that lived in the Abyss lived in a place outside of rules, outside of shape. To them, lines, geometry, and shapes didn't make sense, and so they had eyes that were meant for different dimensions of existence.
I snapped myself out of the reverie. I saw things as before, just more. Maybe a few dimensions more.
Greg's voice came through the comm again, faintly distorted. "Alex? You still with me, man?"
I exhaled, shaky but steady. "Yeah. Just—new power. Weird one."
"Weird like…?"
"I can now see things in more than 3 dimensions."
He let out a low whistle. "You sure that's safe?"
"No," I admitted. "But it might be useful."
I steadied myself, rising again. The air felt thinner, cleaner. From the distance I saw light and power converge.
Flashes of light near the docks.
Red and blue, gold and white. In short bursts that led me to believe something was up.
Cape fight.
"Greg," I said quietly. "There are people fighting over there."
"Alex, we don't know if you're bullet proof yet," Greg warned seriously; his usual awkwardness was gone.
I sighed, acknowledging that it would be stupid to do this. "Yeah, yeah." I made to descend, but as I did, like a scorned ex, [Once Bound] pulsed.
If worded, the best I could define it would be...
Unfinished business.
"Greg..." I paused before continuing, "you're not gonna like this."
Note: I didn't say it earlier, but once a roll fails, the vortex locks into that tree until it gets power from that line. Only
happens when it is a fresh roll.
Power gained this chapter:
[300] Sky Born
You can now fly
You are born from the lineage of the Thunder Gods; the sky is your birthright.
Lightning bends beneath your will, propelling you in graceful arcs or thunderous bursts.
The sky itself welcomes you
[100] Eye of non-Euclid
You are able to see beyond shapes, lines, and forms.
As abyssal beings live in a place without such geometry, they grew eyes for seeing things beyond those paltry shapes.
Laser Dream
Brockton Bay
January 7, 2011
It was supposed to be the last loop of the night. A quick Friday night patrol. Sweep the docks, scare off a few idiots tagging gang signs, call it a night, and maybe grab a milkshake on the way home.
Crystal Pelham drifted twenty meters above the cracked pavement. Below her, the city stretched like a tired old dog that refused to die. A light drizzle of rain softly blanketed her frame, the type people wouldn't have to take cover from, but she could already see the dark clouds overhead.
"Hey, Crystal," came Eric's voice through comms, warm with static and that permanent trace of amusement he carried like armor. "Tell me you're seeing the same thing I am."
"Define 'thing,'" she said, eyes scanning the maze of shipping containers below. Her light shimmered faintly around her, the glow of her flight field casting long shadows over rusted metal.
"Skidmark's Crew."
Crystal groaned. "Merchants. Great. I was actually starting to like this patrol."
"You say that every time until they throw up in your general direction," Eric said, amused at her expense. "Then it's all, 'Why can't we get Empire tonight? At least they bathe.'"
Crystal snorted despite herself. "Let's just keep it quiet. No fights, no collateral. Aunt Carol's still side-eyeing me for that billboard incident."
"That was one time!" he protested. "And technically, you melted the billboard."
She smiled. "Collateral damage is a team effort."
The comm crackled with his laugh. "Tell that to Vicky."
"Let's keep it simple. I'll handle the front, you keep shields ready. No heroics."
"Copy that. No heroics," Eric said, though she could hear the grin in his voice.
"Eric."
"Fine, fine. Responsible patrol sibling mode activated." She rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself. The banter always helped.
Crystal adjusted her altitude again, her glow dimming to a faint halo, moving swiftly but silently to a vantage point. Skidmark was dangerous, sure, but predictable. If they play it safe, no one is gonna get hurt.
She slowed above the docks, the light reflecting off decayed steel. Skidmark stood at the center of his little stage, barking orders at two men dragging a paint-smeared crate.
'Get it up, you morons! We're making a statement tonight!' he yelled, kicking one of them toward the crane.
Crystal hovered, frowning. "He's being aggressive all week. He's trying to send a message."
"To who?" Eric asked.
"How would I know?" She shrugged. Nobody briefed her on anything for this. She didn't say it, but she did remember a PHO post earlier this week that kept getting taken off. Some "Watcher" who'd scared Skidmark's crew into running away.
Before Eric could reply, Skidmark's next shout cut through the air:
'—tonight, we remind this city who runs these docks! Nobody makes me look like a damn fool! You hear me?! NOBODY!'
Crystal winced. Skidmark was never the sight of composure, but he was really off his rocker tonight.
"Crystal, look at that," Eric said quietly. "He's juicing the fields. I can see the distortion from here."
She narrowed her eyes. The air around Skidmark shimmered faintly — oily waves of blue energy rippling off the ground, bending light just enough to make everything look warped. The guy wasn't just showing off; he was layering his fields. Testing something.
"That's not his usual spray-and-pray routine," she muttered. "Looks like he's trying to make a perimeter."
"Or a stage," Eric added. "He's been bragging on PHO about 'Proving He's the Boss.' He probably wants footage."
Crystal bit her lip for a second before deciding, "Let's call for back up, things are looking to get serious from here."
Eric hummed over comms, the sound low and skeptical. "Already on it. Dispatch says Mom's on the Board call till nine. Aunt Carol's finishing a consult with the PRT. Uncle Mark's on the way. We've got at least ten minutes before anyone official shows. Already informing the PRT."
"So we're on our own." She sighed through her nose. "Great."
"Hey, look on the bright side," Eric said, scanning the area below them. "Maybe he'll tire himself out yelling before backup even gets here."
The sounds of an engine roaring filled the docks. A massive truck burst into view like a drunk angry bull.
It slammed onto the dock with a bone-rattling crash, tires shrieking against wet pavement. It wasn't pretty, in fact, it looked like a tank held together by bad physics and scrap metal.
Squealer leaned half out the driver's side window, hair wild fastened by her goggles with a wide grin. "Skid! Told you I'd make an entrance!"
Skidmark turned toward her, laughing, his manic energy feeding off Squealer's chaos. "Now this is how you make people remember who's boss!"
Crystal frowned down at the scene. "You ever get the feeling something's about to go very wrong?" Rain started to fall going from drizzle to full on shower, because of course it did.
"Only when we patrol together," Eric said dryly.
The ground near him flared again, the field distortion visible now, concentric ripples of warped light expanding outward. He was hyping himself up for something big.
If Skidmark used his field on that truck, half of the pier will be in rubbles before anyone could say 'Look out!'
Crystal's gut tightened. "Eric, stay high. He's priming something."
"I see it," he said, his shields flaring faintly around him. "You think he's just marking turf or—"
"—or planning to blow half the dock to prove a point," she finished grimly. "We can't let him start."
She touched her comm. "Dispatch, this is Laser Dream. We've got confirmed Merchant activity—Skidmark and Squealer—at the north docks. Engaging to contain."
"Copy, Laser Dream," the operator replied. "Protectorate ETA eight minutes."
"I texted Dad, he should be on the way too." Eric added.
"Eight minutes," she muttered. "We'll try not to die."
"Love the confidence," Eric said. "What's the play?"
"Standard containment. We drop, distract, and disable. Focus on keeping his fields contained. I'll take point."
"Roger that. Let's be heroic." Crystal rolled her eyes. She took a deep breath willing her powers ready for the fight ahead.
Below, Skidmark's ranting reached a crescendo.
"—this city forgets who built these streets! Tonight, we remind them!" He shouted with flourish hands wide as if embracing the oncoming rain.
She glanced over her shoulder. Eric was already in position, the blue glow of his shields flikering lightly in the fog.
"On your go," he said.
"Engage."
Crystal leapt.
She hit the ground like a falling star, light blooming around her. The sudden flash startled Skidmark's men; half stumbled back, hands up against the glare.
"Merchants!" she called out, voice clear and commanding. "This area's under New Wave's watch. Stand down and disengage!"
For half a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then one of the thugs laughed. "Oh, look! New Wave's glowstick showed up!"
Another one jeered. "Where's your cousin, princess?"
Skidmark turned, squinting through the light. "Laser Dream," he said with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. "Thought I smelled something pretty."
"Skidmark," she said evenly. "You and your crew are trespassing. You can walk away, or—"
"Or what? You'll zap me? Come on, girl, we both know you don't got the guts."
She knew what came next even before his hand twitched toward the ground.
"Eric, now!" she shouted.
The world turned blue and golden as Eric's shield tanked explosions from squealer's barrage and Skidmark's usual tactics.
The impact thundered, the dock shuddering underfoot.
Skidmark laughed, wide-eyed and wild. "Let's party!"
She didn't hesitate. Her flight field flared brighter, and she shot upward, using the height to her advantage. Skidmark thrived on chaos; the trick was to limit his playground.
"Eric, suppress fire! I'm taking left flank!" she barked through comms.
"Copy that!" he said, already repositioning behind cover. His hard-light constructs pulsed as he threw shimmering bolts that exploded into shields midair, fragmenting Skidmark's line of sight.
Crystal's power built at her fingertips. She dove. A crimson streak followed her as she did. She shot beams of red light striking at the edges of Skidmark's fields. Ripping it apart in a flash of light.
"Got one of his fields!" she shouted.
"Keep at it!" Eric replied. "He's got at least four more layered under the truck!"
"Not for long!"
She hit the next one, skimming barely twenty feet off the ground, firing pulse after pulse in precise bursts, designed to disrupt Skidmark's fields as soon as she can with minimal collateral damage.
"HEY!" he roared. "You think you can screw with my turf?!"
He slammed his hands down again, sending another distortion pulse toward her. The world bent; she jerked aside just in time to dodge a wave of rippling kinetic force that shattered a shipping crate where she'd been a heartbeat ago.
"Cute trick," she muttered, banking hard, "but I've danced with worse."
Then a low growl filled the air. The sound of an engine roared through the fog. A massive truck burst through the stack of containers, tearing through metal like paper. Its headlights flared, blinding-bright.
Squealer must've gotten bored waiting. She'd taken the wheel herself. She'd taken to demolishing everything herself.
Good, because now the threat of the truck razing the pier was gone, but now they had to deal with this tank-truck monstrosity head-on.
"Eric, incoming!" she snapped.
The behemoth slammed through another line of shipping containers, sparks spraying like fireworks.
Squealer's laughter echoed through the commotion. More proof that she's not all there right now.
The truck's chassis was covered in jury-rigged armor, a nightmare collage of scrap steel, rust, and rotating barrels.Blue light flickered underneath, Skidmark's distortion fields clinging to its tires, amplifying every move.
Squealer whooped from the open window, goggles flashing in the light.
"Let's dance, glow girl!"
"Crystal!" Eric shouted. "Her turret's locking on—"
A thunderous bang split the air, cutting him off. A sphere of compressed sound detonated across the dock — not an explosion, but a controlled shockwave that folded the truck's armor inward like a crushed soda can. The vehicle skidded, groaning under its own weight.
The blast had come from the other end of the pier.
"—I leave you two alone for a few minutes," said a familiar voice through comms, dry but calm, the kind of tone that belonged to a man who'd seen too many of these nights. "And somehow, there's already a tank involved."
Crystal exhaled in relief. "Uncle Mark, good timing!"
"Uncle Mark?" Eric said, grin audible even over the comms. "Took you long enough."
"Some of us had to park the car, Eric," Flashbang's voice replied, deadpan. "Now stop standing in front of the armored vehicle."
Squealer shouted a curse and wrestled with the controls. "Screw you, old man!"
Mark's visor gleamed faintly as he turned toward her. "Language," he muttered, and flicked his wrist. Another pulse hit the front axle, the metal shrieked but it didn't quite budge. This thing was built like a... Well it was a tank.
Mark cursed under his breath and tried brute force. He fired another concussive pulse straight into the truck's flank. the plated metal groaned, but the rig kept powering through. Sparks sprayed. A strip of decking sheared off under the weight and fell into the black water with a wet, hollow thunk.
Crystal looped low, trying to angle a beam at the axles. The light hissed against improvised armor and skittered off; the protective plating flexed like it had been designed to shrug off everything they had. Squealer whooped and leaned on the horn, painting the dock with noise and metal and terror.
Their attacks hit like fireworks against a bunker. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't built to break very easily.
"Everyone clear the path!" Mark barked. "Get back, now!"
Crystal shot upward, Eric following close, his shields forming a blue shell as the truck plowed through a wall of containers. Steel shrieked. Sparks showered.
Then she saw the first sign of trouble.
Squealer's grin faltered. She wrestled with the steering wheel, one hand yanking hard as the truck swerved, tires skidding across wet pavement.
"Uh… Uncle Mark?" Eric said, hovering a little higher. "Is it just me or—"
"She's losing control," Mark said sharply. "Everyone up, now!"
The truck fishtailed, Skidmark's distortion fields warping beneath its tires. Every turn only made it worse. The glowing lines under the vehicle twisted, multiplying, feeding back on themselves as the truck accelerated straight towards the exit at the far edge of the pier.
If it continued it would reach the residential areas soon.
"Squealer, cut the power!" Skidmark yelled, voice cracking.
"I can't! It's locked!"
Her laughter from earlier had turned to panic. The truck swerved again, one of the wheels tearing through the edge of the dock and sending splinters flying.
From her vantage point, Crystal spotted him, it was a man hovering near the storm clouds, lightning crawling across his skin like veins of fire. He raised his hand toward the sky, and the sky answered
A jagged lance of light snapped downward. A mix of man and lightning. So bright it carved afterimages into her vision. The flash hit the truck dead-on, and for one suspended instant, the world held its breath.
Then impact.
The blast hit like a punch from the sky. Crystal's flight field flared instinctively, holding her steady as shrapnel and spray tore past.
For a few seconds, there was nothing but the ringing in Crystal's ears and the glow burning in her eyes.
When the light was gone, the truck was No more than a hunk of ruined metal. A large part of it was blasted off, and smoke coiled lazily upward, meeting the first streaks of rain that hissed as they hit the wreck.
Slow, deliberate, surrounded by a faint halo of static light. The storm bent around him, every droplet of rain turning to mist before it touched his skin.
Crystal's breath caught when she saw what he was carrying.
Squealer.
Unconscious, soot-streaked, but alive.
He landed lightly, boots splashing against the puddled concrete, cradling the tinker in one arm as though she weighed nothing. He set her down gently beside a piece of unbroken pavement before straightening.
The arcs of electricity still danced faintly around his arms, fading as his breathing steadied. His eyes glowed blue like it contained lightning inside.
No one spoke. Even the rain seemed to hesitate.
"You've got her,"Mark said at last, voice low but even.
The newcomer didn't answer right away. He just looked down at the unconscious villain, then back up at them.
"She would've died if I didn't catch her," he said simply.
His voice carried over the wind, he sounded young, around her age perhaps.
Crystal's pulse skipped. He didn't look much older than her, But the way he stood there, with the storm still coiling faintly behind him felt like he was the one who should be calling the shots.
"Dispatch to New Wave patrol," came a clipped, professional voice. "Protectorate and PRT backup arriving on site in sixty seconds. We're picking up residual energy spikes across the pier. Be advised—Skidmark and the remaining Merchants are retreating east toward the warehouse district."
Crystal exhaled, tension loosening slightly. "Copy, Dispatch. Scene's secure. Civilians accounted for. Squealer in custody, unconscious but alive."
"Understood," the dispatcher replied. "Medical's en route."
Mark gave a curt nod toward the wrecked truck. "Good. Let the PRT handle the mop-up."
The stranger's head tilted slightly like he was listening to something the rest of them couldn't hear. Then he leaned in, murmuring under his breath, voice low enough that only the faintest static crackle carried through the comms.
"…Yeah, I hear you," he murmured. "Keep the line open. I got it. "
"Medical's on the way," Mark said, studying him carefully. "You should stick around. The PRT will want your statement."
He seemed to weigh the thought, then met Mark's eyes again.
"I'll give you what you need," he said. "But only for the record."
Mark nodded slowly. "Name?"
A beat of silence. The storm above rumbled faintly, as if waiting too.
"Name..." as if he was chewing on how to say it, then finally. "You can call me Tempest."
"Affiliation?" Mark asked next, professional but cautious.
Tempest tilted his head slightly clearly listening to something in his earpiece, then nodded almost imperceptibly before answering.
"Team Outsiders," he said at last. His tone was calm, deliberate, every syllable measured. "We're… new."
Crystal blinked. "Outsiders?"
Tempest's gaze flicked toward her. "Because the team are people who are outsiders or treated as one before it was founded. We won't forget our origins."
"And what are your group's goals? " Mark said eyeing Tempest's expressions.
"Hope" he said simply. Then, after a pause "Because someone has to believe the world's still worth saving even when it doesn't believe it itself."
Mark studied the young man for a moment longer, visor gleaming faintly in the stormlight. The air still smelled of ozone, sharp and clean. "That's… a dangerous kind of ideal to carry alone."
Tempest didn't flinch. His voice stayed steady, quiet but cutting through the rain.
"I'm not alone."
For a second there was only the sound of the rain falling and the thunder rumbling above. Then the comms crackled.
"Protectorate ground team on-site. Merchants confirmed retreating. Containment crews inbound.
Armsmaster on-site. "
Mark turned slightly, already scanning the horizon. "Guess that's our wrap-up."
Tempest's lips curved into a faint grin of amusement . "Then that's my cue."
Before anyone could say another word, he flew and as he reached the clouds the storm seeming to fold around his form shielding him from sight.
Note: took my time here, prioritizing quality and consistency because that's what I'd expect from what I read anyways
I made a shorthand copy of the current powers I use to roll but I'm not sure if posting it is better or just keeping it to avoid spoilers on what type of BS he can pull out later.
Also I wanted to show that Alex was already affecting the timeline. Just meeting Skidmark already changed things.
-> roll failed [200] Trickster's Grace (Fae / Faerie Tree)
CP:100Last edited: Oct 13, 20254638BeyondWordsOct 13, 2025Reader modeNew Threadmarks ScreamyBirbHere is ScreamingOct 13, 2025#33mckertis said:Again, the whole "cant lie" thing, and statements like this one...