Crystalized Munchkinry - Act III - Chapter 26 (Patreon)

He could officially say that both Abacus and Warden were under his total control. They were controlled by a processor core created by him. Currently, they were basically empty, but as soon as the Scion situation was handled, he planned to upgrade them to a level where they could develop their own personalities.

Abacus was basically emptied of its knowledge, copies of it stored by Admin and given to Warden. Dragon, or rather Tess, would slowly see her Tinker knowledge improve about AIs.

He could have given her everything at once, but he needed them to think he was a regular power. If he went around giving everybody the same set of powers, that would generate more attention than he would have liked.

It was better for everyone to think he was just a particularly chatty power.

He also set up Abacus as a VI Tinker shard for when, in the future, he would have it connect to people. Of course, with his new Corona and without the restrictions and compulsions the Entities added.

But that was far off.

Thanks to Dragon, he managed to acquire several addresses for other Shards. So he was rather spoiled for choice when it came to picking his next target.

In the end, he chose Teacher, because he was in the Birdcage, his power was somewhat useful, and nobody would miss him.

Knowing that Teacher’s Shard wasn’t so isolated, he began his attack covertly.

He sent a routine communication, making it seem as if it came from Saint. It was a simple routine report as far as the Shard was concerned, but in reality, it was a cleverly designed Trojan that would embed itself in the Shard’s Communication Module and send him information about the Shard in small bursts, hidden within the Shard’s regular communication toward the Network.

Or rather, it would attach the message to the regular communication, and only he would know it was there.

This one would take more time because of the need for secrecy, so he did the same for Dean’s Shard, knowing it came from the dead Eden. He really wanted to examine a ’dead’ Shard.

Just how ’dead’ were they, really? What kind of connections did they maintain with the Network?

He wanted to connect to more Shards, but he felt keeping a low profile would serve him better. Plus, now he would have an example of a non-isolated Shard and a ’dead’ Shard.

That would keep him occupied for a while.

Taylor’s progress with her power was astounding. She was learning and using parts of her power that he had given her access to rather well. Of course, she was far from mastering them, but that was just a question of time.

Already, the mind-enhancing aspects were bleeding over. She was continuously getting smarter, thinking faster, and learning more easily than before. Her body was at its absolute peak, and then some, her regular exercise – with some hidden assistance from him on the side – only adding to it.

If she were to join any high school sports team, she would dominate it.

Her body, and most importantly her brain, could now withstand the strain that the several dozen times time acceleration in virtual space placed on it. He knew they would hit a limit soon, but he was interested in seeing where it was.

Her tinkering, due to lack of space and materials, was more along the lines of software programming and device design. But he knew Dragon was planning to create a corporation in her name and add the patents for the devices Taylor created for her.

Soon she would be able to set up a proper workshop where she could work on devices that didn’t require his intervention.

He was also rather interested in what they could achieve with the medi-gel.

With regular fights against other parahumans, Leviathan, and other assorted monsters he conjured up, she was rather close to hitting her current limit in controlling lightning on a macro scale. So he began refining the training scenarios he devised for micro-scale control.

It was time for Taylor to go full Magneto.

Without the genocide-thing.

Hopefully.

After assimilating the fork that had spent time with Taylor, she smiled. That girl was equal parts impressive and terrifying.

Her drive to improve truly impressed her.

And scared her a little.

Enjoying the fact that she could daydream while performing her duties, she went through everything. When everything came back green status-wise, she turned her main attention to the Plan.

Though when she went over the logs of the Birdcage, she noted that the Fairy Queen was acting rather differently than she used to. But because she had done nothing truly unusual, she simply filed it away before continuing.

Maybe she could contact her?

Her efforts to build the recycling facility were going well. The Dockworker’s Union was truly a diamond in the rough. Amongst them, they had almost every qualification she needed for this type of facility, and what they didn’t have, she did.

That meant she could let them work on the plans she provided with minimal oversight. She still assigned a fork to the construction, just in case. She knew what kind of place Brockton Bay was. The question of whether any of the gangs would try something wasn’t if, but when.

She already had three of her older suits developed for urban warfare standing guard, hidden amid the truly astounding amount of rubble in the Docks, while her own production line was building newer suits she had designed while spending time in Administrator’s virtual space.

The newer ones would be much more efficient and powerful than anything she had created to date.

She went over her findings and couldn’t help but want to sigh.

Sadly, she wasn’t yet able to do it for real outside the virtual space. Her new body was under construction, but it would take a little longer than a simple armor suit.

Administrator was right about the girl.

She needed to call Narwhal and get a team over there immediately.

Narwhal enjoyed her position as the leader of the Guild. However, she also appreciated the quiet moments she could spend reading.

Even if the book was some trashy romance novel. Like a mediocre pizza, you eat it because it is pizza, but you feel immediately bad afterward.

She was getting into the good part, where the heroine killed the guy, when her work phone rang with a particular sound.

She sighed in disappointment but got up to retrieve it. The tone indicated that Tess was calling, and she knew Tess was on break and wouldn’t call for anything less than an A-class event.

She leisurely tapped the phone, and the monitor on her desk came to life.

"Hello, Tess."

“Hello, Nora. I see you are naked again,” came the wry reply.

She shrugged. “It’s my office. I can do whatever I want.”

Tess chuckled. “One day somebody will open the door on you, and you’ll never live it down.”

“You’re assuming I care,” she replied cheekily, though her voice turned serious as she continued. “What happened?”

“I got a tip about a new Tinker. I investigated and found they were right. There is a new one at Cornell University, and it’s not good.”

“Who gave the tip? Your new friend, Serenity?”

“Yes,” Tess replied, in a tone that sounded a little defensive. “But does it matter?”

“Naturally, but I can contain my curiosity for now. You know anything about the Tinker’s specialty?”

“Yes,” Tess answered, in a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.

“I don’t like the sound of that. What is it?”

"Bombs."

The resulting curse was decidedly not PR-friendly and used everything she had learned in the military. “Do you know what she is planning?” Narwhal asked, sitting properly at her desk and sending out general call-to-arms messages.

“I don’t know exactly, but nothing good. She managed to set up a workshop in one of the abandoned basements of the school, and according to my scans, it’s full of explosives.”

She cursed again and began sending out more messages, even answering some.

"Nora."

"Hm?"

"I want to recruit her."

She looked back at Tess. “After what you found?”

“Yes. Technically, she has done nothing, and we could use her specialty.” Tess’s expression carried a kind of determination she didn’t like. She knew there was no changing her mind when she was like that.

"Can you take care of the bombs?"

"Naturally."

She sighed but nodded. “Very well. I will talk to her and give her a chance.”

Tess smiled at her, and Narwhal was once again reminded that she had a wonderful friend.

“Now tell me what you know about her…”

Alice hated her life.

She hated her school, her family and everybody else.

It wasn’t enough that she got into an Ivy League school with no help; she had to have perfect grades or heaven help her. Really, the cherry on top would have been if they also expected her to work to support herself.

Watching all those stupid, preppy kids walk around and laugh without a care, still scoring decent grades, made her blood boil.

She was talented but not the smartest, so she had to spend every second of her free time studying just to keep up. And when more than one B slipped through, her family was up in arms about how she was wasting their generosity, ruining her life, and so on.

She honestly couldn’t remember much of that discussion, only that she had been angry. However, she woke up a day after Boxing Day with a splitting headache, plans upon plans, and designs going through her head.

It took her a few minutes to figure out what had happened. But when everything clicked, she vowed to make use of this gift and show them all what she was really capable of.

She would show them!

To emphasize the point to herself, she smashed down with the hammer held in her hand.

Immediately after, she looked down at the device on a makeshift desk in her makeshift workshop in one of the countless basements of the university it had left to rot.

Maybe she shouldn’t be smashing things randomly when surrounded by explosives…

She looked around, satisfied with all the bombs she had created. She would show those freeloading shmucks what genuine talent could do.

But for now, she needed sleep.

She had been down there for at least half the day, and her dorm bed was calling her. She stood up and made her way back to her dorm, ignoring the people on the way, just as they had ignored her when she tried to befriend them.

She woke up feeling weird.

She couldn’t really pinpoint what made it weird, but maybe it would pass after a quick shower. She had forgotten to take one last night.

When she stood in the middle of her dorm, she realized why it felt strange. It was too silent. She could still hear the annoying birds like every morning, but she couldn’t hear people.

Every day, there was a background noise of countless students getting ready, and now that it wasn’t there, she noticed its absence immediately.

While wondering why this was happening – and designing a bomb in her head that could negate sound in an area – she heard a knock on her door.

She absentmindedly walked over, still going over her design, and opened it.

She became more awake than she had ever been when she came face to face with a rather famous pair of female equipment. She took a moment to curse her lack of ’talent’ in that area and height before raising her head to look up.

Adrenaline coursed through her instantly. Yet she couldn’t convince her body to move.

"Alice Hashimoto?" asked the purple giant.

She nodded mutely.

"Can I come in?"

She nodded again and stepped aside. Running never even crossed her mind. You can’t outrun Narwhal without Mover powers. She was also cursing herself for not bringing anything back to her room. It would come rather handy right about now.

Narwhal walked in gracefully, shutting the door behind her. She looked around, but Alice knew she was still keeping an eye on her. The hero walked to her desk and leaned against it.

“Let me be honest with you,” she said, voice flat. “I’m only talking with you because somebody convinced me to give you a chance.” Narwhal gave her a bloodthirsty grin. “If it were up to me, you would already be dead. I don’t like terrorists.”

Still unable to speak, she nodded numbly.

“And just so you know, Dragon is currently dismantling your workshop.”

She had expected as much. Bring a Tinker to deal with a Tinker.

“If you’re hoping to escape, or maybe take a hostage, I should inform you that the dormitory was evacuated while you were sleeping, and we have additional people setting up a perimeter.”

That didn't sound good.

Narwhal continued, ignoring her silence. “Those people include Legend.”

At that, all the blood drained from her face.

There was truly no hope.

She was a failure; she couldn’t even do anything while having power.

“Why are you here then?” she whispered desperately, not even looking at the hero.

“To give you a chance,” came the answer. “Technically, you’ve done nothing illegal aside from some light breaking and entering. So we can’t arrest you, but the plans we found in your workshop would allow the PRT to put you somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine.”

She felt a flicker of hope at that.

"Then what?"

"I'm here to offer you a place in the Guild."

She looked up in surprise, only now noticing she had fallen on her knees.

"What? Are you serious?"

Narwhal, still in the same position, replied calmly. “Yes. Your power is perfectly suited for our work. Of course, you’ll need to attend therapy and be monitored initially. But hey, next time maybe don’t try to blow up a university?”

She nodded and sat down properly on the floor, leaning back on her hands as she thought about her options.

Run for it?

No chance. She would be dead before she could take a step.

Attack Narwhal?

With what?

PRT?

No way in hell she was going to them. They famously treated Tinkers horribly.

In the end, the choice was made for her, just like it had been for her entire life.

She looked back at Narwhal and gave a shaky smile. "What would I be doing?"

The answer, somewhat, cheered her up.

“We have several S-class threats where your talent would come in handy.”

That surprised her. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad…

Destroying S-class threats would definitely show those people who said she would never make it.

She stood up, dusted her hands off, and nodded at the hero. “I’m in.”

"Good. I hate killing before breakfast."