PWP: 5.5 Scale (Patreon)

Preface

Welp, here's the first of your monthly poll winner chapters. As always, PWP is king. Also, I don't like yams. No relevance, just thought I'd share.

Scale 5.5

Bryce Kiley2010, December 8: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I really wasn’t sure what to do about Sabah. As fond of her as I was, she was ultimately more Sierra’s friend than mine. Beyond that “she’s a nice person,” I didn’t actually know a whole lot about her.

Which left me in a bit of a pickle. I knew who Parian was, how she’d rapidly transition from “Parian the rogue” to “Parian the Undersider” and later “Parian the Needlepoint.” But that wasn’t Sabah Azimi.

If I had my say, Bakuda and Leviathan would never destroy the Bay. Jack would never surgically alter the people under her protection to look like Slaughterhouse members. Sabah would never feel the pressure to join the Undersiders or make any of the other tough choices. The Sabah Azimi I knew currently was soft, kind, and pacifistic. Truthfully, I would prefer she remain that way.

I found myself resenting the need for this conversation for much the same reason I refused to recruit my sister as my lieutenant. Sure, they’d be great to have at my side, but I didn’t want this kind of life for her.

Damascus showed me that I wasn’t perfect; I couldn’t be the ever-victorious shonen protagonist who won the day with good vibes and gumption. Earth-Bet was dangerous, and sparing Sabah one horrible future just for me to end up making her a target left a bad taste in my mouth.

I would do horrible things to keep her safe, just as I would for Sierra. But the truth was, I couldn’t guarantee that my protection would be enough. And unlike Sierra, she wouldn’t ever go overlooked as just another unpowered mook.

I considered and reconsidered my options as I sat at Harvey’s Bar & Grill. Technically, I owned the basement. Though I hadn’t used it much lately, this was the first lab I negotiated for with Faultline. There was still an old forge where I could make wapometal or distill pyrobloin from volcanic ash. Upstairs, there was a small studio apartment that, on paper, belonged to an out-of-state owner of the bar but was in reality a safehouse for either Faultline or me to use.

Right now, I was disguised as said owner. He was a chubby man in his fifties with a salt and pepper beard. He looked old, unathletic, and wore the restaurant uniform with a brass nametag. In front of me was a half-eaten plate of fish and chips. In other words, I looked like I belonged here.

Sabah arrived several minutes early, a bundle of nervous energy. She probably hadn’t expected a meetup with a notorious cape to be somewhere so public. Still, she squared her shoulders and came up to me.

“Umm, are you Harvey?” she began.

It wasn’t the owner’s name, but I nodded anyway. I spoke in a gruff, Irish accent. “That’s right. Who wants to know?”

“O-Oh! I’m here for a waitressing job. I heard that you guys are hiring?”

“Eh, you know what? Sure, let’s talk. You ever work in the food service industry before?”

“No, this is my first time,” Sabah said. She made a show of looking around in frustration. “Is it always so loud in here?”

“You’re right. Can’t hear myself think in here.” I slid my plate and a twenty on the counter towards the barkeep and stood. “Come on, there’s a small office upstairs.”

I could practically feel her tension as she followed me upstairs. She remembered to find “Harvey” and say all the right things, but her nervousness was a dead giveaway. Lucky me, the bar was hosting a live karaoke night so no one was paying us much attention.

The studio was a simple affair, with a small kitchenette, bathroom, air mattress, and coffee table. I pulled out a thermos of my tinkertech coffee and poured us two mugs as Sabah closed the door behind us.

“Um, a-are you The GOAT?”

I snapped my fingers and allowed the texture module to bleed away. “Sorry, just Creed.”

“Oh… I’m sorry, I wanted to speak with your boss. I have some things I want to talk ab–”

“You have powers. You’re a fresh trigger. You want to ask The GOAT about what options you have as a cape. Sound about right?”

“That’s–”

“Relax, I’m not here to blackmail you, or whatever other horrible thing you think might happen.”

“Then why did you trick me? PHO said The GOAT was the one who’d come.”

That made me chuckle. Sabah was so adorably naive at this point. “Your mistake was thinking that The GOAT, a high-level thinker who has so far gone out of their way to remain anonymous to everyone, would, for some bizarre reason, make time to meet a complete stranger, an unknown cape, face-to-face.”

She stood to walk away. “Then I guess we don’t have anything to talk about. Look, thanks for healing my father, really, but I’m not here to play whatever game you’re playing.”

“But what if I told you The GOAT doesn’t exist?” I said, making her pause at the door. “What if I told you that The GOAT and Creed are one and the same? What if I told you that The GOAT is a persona fabricated to send everyone else on a wild goose chase?”

Maybe I was naive too. Maybe I had a few screws loose for telling a fresh trigger about myself. But the more I considered my options, the more I found myself leaning towards the truth.

Pokemon, One Piece, Air Gear, and now, Fullmetal Alchemist, all taught me lessons that went beyond technology. Friendship. Freedom. Choices. And, the price I might be asked to pay because  of said choices. These all made up the Mirage Road to me, my Creed, as tacky as that sounded.

Now, Sabah herself stood at a crossroad. She was being asked to make a choice.

In an ideal world, Sabah would never have to make this choice. But we were in Earth-Bet, about as far from “ideal” as could be. The conclusion I’d reached was that what was “ideal” wasn’t as important as what was. Sabah had triggered. She would join the cape scene, one way or another.

With that in mind, didn’t I owe it to her to give her as much information as possible? Didn’t I owe it to her to give her as strong a start as possible? Information was power. Whatever path she chose, I decided that she would choose knowing all that I could tell her.

She turned to me with a skeptical scowl. “You expect me to believe that The GOAT isn’t real? That you made them up?”

“Pretty much. I know that sounds crazy, but sit down and listen. Whatever advice you thought to get from The GOAT, please trust that I can provide the same, and with less of the pageantry.”

“Bullshit. Pull the other one, Creed. Someone would have noticed.”

I laughed at that. “Do you have any idea how ambiguous most thinker powers are? Precogs are rare and usually give answers like ‘purple’ or ‘the hound barks at noon.’ When thinkers get a vague answer about a supposed thinker whose information has been proven time and again, they don’t think, ‘This person doesn’t exist,’ they think, ‘This person has precautions against thinker powers.’ That’s called confirmation bias, Sabah. They come in with certain assumptions and their own powers’ ambiguity reinforces those assumptions.”

“Why me? Assuming you’re not lying, why me? You said The GOAT would never meet some random person. So, why would you tell some random person this secret?”

I nodded and slipped down my chin guard. The coffee really was great. It also conveniently removed my voice modulator. “Good, you’re starting to ask the right questions.”

“Wait, you… you sound familiar.”

“I would hope so, Sabs, because you’re sure as hell not some random person.” With that, I removed my helmet and set it aside. “You’re Sisi’s best friend, and my friend too. You deserve the truth.”

“Bryce?!?!” she yelled.

“Sit, have some coffee. And please stop the yelling. The safehouse is soundproofed but I’d rather not test that more than necessary.”

“I-You-How?”

“Hush. Now, this is the second time in a week I’m having this conversation so please, hold your questions until I’m done talking, alright? There’s a lot to go over, especially since you’re a completely fresh trigger.”

“I’m so confused right now…”

“I know, Sabs. Relax, okay? It’s going to be alright.”

X

“Wow… So all of that happened,” Sabah said, almost in a whisper.

“Yup. It’s been a busy few months,” I replied, leaning back against the air mattress. We didn’t have any chairs in the safehouse. She crawled closer and gave me a hug. “Sabs?”

“Thanks for healing my dad.”

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “You’re welcome. And sorry I sounded so apathetic, can’t really act like I know you in costume.”

“I figured. You’ve been trying to hint that you could get Amy to help. You really meant you could help, huh?”

“Ehh, both. I only learned organic alchemy relatively recently.”

“Thanks…”

“Anytime. You’re my friend too, you know.”

“Yeah… Hey, Bryce?”

“Hmm?”

“Does Sierra know you have powers?”

“Ah…”

“Bryce,” she stressed in that way only big sisters could. She wasn’t my big sister, but she did have three younger brothers and it showed. It was honestly kind of impressive how much disappointment she could pack into one word.

“Hey, it’s not like you’ve told Sisi eith–”

“I did, actually. They… They were there,” she whispered into my shoulder. “Not the point. Bryce, you know Sierra’s going to throw a fit when she finds out you’ve been hiding this from her, right?”

“Excuse me, when?”

“Yes, when. I’m not going to tell her, but… but I think you should. Your sister is strong, stronger than you think. I think she would support you.”

“I know, Sabs.” I pulled her into a sideways hug and leaned my head on hers. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She’ll want to get involved. Never mind that she has no powers. Never mind that she doesn’t know the first thing about capes. Never mind that she’d be throwing away so much of her life for me. She’ll insist on getting involved, on turning herself into a target on my behalf.”

“Bryce…”

“How could I accept that? I’m not almighty, Sabs. And if she got hurt because of me… I don’t know what I’d do, but I know it’d make Nilbog look like a petulant child.”

Even with just the specializations I had, how much damage could I do if I stopped holding back? What if I made an army of porygon, abandoning the friendship espoused by Pokemon in favor of sheer cyber might? What if I gave every two-bit thug an artificial zoan and set them on my enemies, replacing freedom and the thirst for adventure with revenge and domination?

What if I stretched my hands towards Truth? Would he answer? What would be the price he’d demand of me for power? Lives? Souls? My most cherished memories?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that I would be sorely tempted to pay that price. There would be very little I would not do to take revenge if something happened to my sister and right now, anonymity was worth more than any shield module I could craft for her.

Sabah was silent in the face of my declaration. I appreciated the warmth. I hadn’t realized how close my cape life had come to Sierra. With Sabah’s trigger, Sierra herself was that much closer to learning the truth.

“You’re… You’re right. I… I still don’t know what my power does exactly, but I think I would do a lot if something happened to Sisi. I… I haven’t told my family either, you know?” she said softly. “I shouldn’t judge you for it. You… You know so much more about the cape world than I do. Sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Sabah. You were trying to spare my sister’s feelings. And you’re not wrong. It’s a conversation that needs to happen.”

“Then…”

“Later,” I said. “I don’t know when ‘later’ will be, but it’ll happen. I need to build a few things, gadgets that will help keep her safe.”

“Yeah… When you do tell her, call me first. I want to be there.”

“I will.”

“In the meantime, teach me. Teach me about capes.”

And that’s what I did. Our heart-to-heart turned into a practical lecture on the intricacies of cape politics in the city. I covered the unwritten rules, and more importantly, when they could or would be broken or ignored. I drew on concrete examples such as the capture of Marquis and the assassination of Fleur to make my point.

I covered each of the current factions in the city, both heroes and villains. I laid out their greatest assets, threat profiles, and how I thought they were likely to react to provocation given the information I had. 

Until finally, there was only one thing left to do. I held out a hand.

“Hmm?” Sabah blinked in question.

“Your power, let’s see it.”

Oh, umm, it’s not that impressive,” she said bashfully.

“It’s something to do with fabric control, right?”

“How did–Oh, the dossier thing.”

“Yeah. It’s not perfect, but I can guess. In a world without my interference, you would have gained a form of telekinesis that allows you to control threads and fabrics, filling in the space inside each weave. Basically, you could beat people up with a giant teddy bear,” I said, carefully not mentioning the other facet of her power. Given she likely got it from watching the death of her father, I didn’t think her knowing about it would be helpful.

Sabah laughed mirthlessly. She gestured to her outfit, a thick, wooly jacket to ward off the chill, hip-hugging jeans, and a set of hand-knit earmuffs with cute penguins on them. “That’s wrong. I mean… You’re going to laugh. Doll golems sound so much cooler than what I’ve got.”

“Tell me.”

“You’ll laugh.”

“If my presence somehow butterflied away your power, I want to know so I can tease you.” At her pouty glare, I quickly backtracked. “I’m kidding, you know I wouldn’t.”

“Do I?”

“Okay, but seriously, tell me. There is no such thing as a truly useless power, even those super-vague thinker powers I talked about earlier. I bet there’s more to it than whatever you’ve been doing.”

She sighed and slid her earmuffs over her head. She handed it to me with an adorably pouty frown. “Here. I have… straws? I’ve been calling them straws. I have three of these ‘straws’ that I can sheath over thread. When I make articles of clothing with them, they can be worn by other people. I can sense all fabrics within thirty feet of both myself and my clothes.”

“Huh, that’s… different…”

“Right? It’s useless. Like, why would I need to know that someone across the street is wearing a thong? Sisi said it could be a scouting power, but it…”

“It feels incomplete,” I finished for her. “Like there should be more?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you telekinetically control these?”

“Yeah. I guess I could… give people weak nudges to go in a certain direction without being obvious?”

I doubted that was all. Powers were… usually not this useless. Shards at least had the good grace to not give powers that could be replaced by a good earpiece. That made me wonder.

My hand closed around the earmuffs. “Pull.”

“What?”

“Yank as hard as you can.”

“I’ve already tried testing the force I can put on these. I can pull as hard as if I was holding it with my hands. I mean, I’m not exactly a buff jock.”

“No, but you could strangle someone quite easily,” I mused. “If this was a scarf? Or the Germa fiber that my suit’s made from? I bet you could do some serious damage, even if you have only your own physical strength.”

“I would never!”

“I know, but what you want and what your power wants are two different things.”

“Well it’s not like criminals are going to put on my clothes.”

I hummed in agreement. This was certainly unusual. “You’re right… It’s almost like you’re supposed to strangle your allies…”

“Bryce, that’s terrible!”

“Shush, I’m thinking... Which means there needs to be a reason to give these out to people. Communication via subtle telekinesis would be nice, but that can’t be it. Does whoever wear this gain any powers?”

“No, Sisi and Michelle already tried that.”

“And nothing happens to you either?”

“Nothing.”

I nodded. A picture was starting to form in my mind. “Sabah, I know this is really intrusive, but what did you feel when you triggered?”

“You… You said that was a taboo topic.”

“It is, but I want to confirm something. If you’ll let me?”

“I…” She took a deep breath. She pulled her knees together and curled in on herself. Slowly, as I rubbed her back, she whispered. “I wished I could be someone else. I felt so useless, you know? Weak. I wanted to be as strong as your sister, as confident as Michelle… as useful as Panacea. I guess I…”

“You wanted to be someone else. Not anyone specific, just, more than yourself.”

“Yeah, totally lame, huh?”

“No, not at all.” I pulled her into another hug. “I would never judge you for your lowest moments, Sabah. But it does confirm something for me.”

“What?”

“It is a lesser-known theory, but the individual’s frame of mind greatly impacts the way each power expresses itself,” I said. It was indeed a lesser-known theory, in the sense that it was something Wildbow largely confirmed through Reddit and Discord comments. “I suspect that you are a trump. And given your frame of mind, someone who gains rather than gifts power.”

“What does that mean? You know, in less cape-nerdy terms,” she joked with a fragile smile.

I laughed and bumped her shoulder with my own. Taking the earmuffs, I put them on over my ears. “Let’s find out.”

X

Sabah Azimi

Bryce put on my earmuffs and my world exploded. The range of my fabric-sense expanded a foot to my left, but that was nothing. I put it out of mind in favor of the tidal wave of information that flooded into my mind.

It was overwhelming. I saw thousands of circles lined with intricate script that I could not read. Each symbol felt poignant, laden with double meanings. They were… summoning circles? No, not summoning, alchemy.

There was more. I saw blueprints for metal prosthetics that interfaced perfectly with the human nervous system. They were amazing enough by themselves, but some had hidden knives and other weapons. Others had guns, cannons, or even a rotating minigun. Heck, one was even a chainsaw that could operate in arctic temperatures!

I clutched my head, willing the migraine to pass. “Ow…”

“Sabah?” I heard Bryce say. He was worried about me, just like Sisi. “Are you okay? Do you feel any different?”

“I… One sec. I’ll be fine.” Slowly, over the course of several minutes, my headache subsided. I clearly received powers from capes who wore my enhanced clothing, three straws, just like Eidolon’s three powers, but if this kind of headache was normal, I doubted I’d ever be able to change my powerset mid-combat. “I think I know how to do alchemy…”

“So I was right then? You get powers? I still remember how to use my own tech, so that means you’re not a power thief, just a copier.”

“Yeah, I can also make… automail…?”

“Yup, that’s what they’re called.” He nodded. He ran a hand along the earmuffs. “And the fact that you have enough telekinetic control to take the clothes away, or even strangle me, implies that something bad might happen to you if I get hurt or die while wearing this.”

“I wouldn’t! What’s with you and the strangling?”

“Shards are assholes. Anyway, I suspect that if I get severely injured, there might be some kind of mental feedback to you so your power has the telekinetic subset to help you detach yourself from a distance if necessary.”

“That makes sense… Let’s not test that.” Bryce obviously disagreed. He pulled a knife from one of his many pouches, yanked off his glove, and then stabbed himself without even a single moment of hesitation. “Bryce! What the hell?”

He winced but said clinically. “Okay, nothing? No feedback? That’s good.”

“No, it’s not fucking good! Why the hell would you do that? Where’s the first aid kit!”

“Relax, Sabah. I can heal myself, remember? Recover.” he said, voice still calm. A glowing light covered him before the wound stitched itself shut. “See? Nothing to it.”

What exactly had he been through to make this seem like nothing? Clearly, he’d left out a lot of details when he gave me that summary.

“Don’t ever hurt yourself again,” I snapped.

“I can–”

“I don’t care! I don’t want to see you hurt yourself!”

“I… Yeah, okay. This really was the best time to test it though. Sabah, if there is a negative aspect of your power, it’s best to know in a controlled environment than find out while you’re in the middle of a fight,” he said. He began cleaning up the blood as though nothing had happened.

“Still. Don’t do that to yourself. You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Alright, I’m sorry. I guess we can’t know what happens if I die.”

“Don’t joke about that.”

“Yeah. If I had to guess? I think you might inherit whatever power you copied from the cape on a permanent basis.”

I looked at him, horrified. “You think my power is supposed to get my own allies killed so I could empower myself permanently?”

He shrugged helplessly. “Like I said, Shards are assholes. It’s not like we’ll know until it happens so let’s move on.”

“Alright…” I muttered, shelving that nightmare fuel deep inside my mind.

“Can you use Recover?”

“What?”

“That healing light I did.”

“It’s not tinkertech?”

“It’s aura, the light of the soul. Close your eyes.” I did so. “Good. Now look deep within. Use your soul to nourish your body. Your body is the vessel, so fill it until the light of your soul overflows. Can you do that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You sound like a fortune cookie.”

“Okay, so you don’t get aura. How about your eyes? Do they feel any different?”

“No, why would my eyes change?”

He leaned forward, big, expressive blue staring into my soul. “Hmm, no twinkle eyes either. Good, it would have been really weird if your power gave you augments.”

“What are those? Bryce, did you do surgery on yourself?” I asked, a little panicked now.

“No, not surgery. And don’t worry, it’s been checked over by Panacea,” he reassured. That did make me feel better, but his sheer nonchalance was still concerning. “Okay, a few more tests.”

“I’m not letting you play doctor with me, buster.”

“Nothing like that.” He raised his hand towards me. Before I knew it, I was surrounded in a blue glow and hovering a few feet off the ground. He twisted me around until I was floating upside down.

I felt blood rush to my head. “Bryce, what the hell?”

“Relax, Sabah, I won’t drop you. Now, if I did, do you think you could land on your feet from this position?”

“No! I’m not a cat!”

“What if I left you on top of a power pole? Could you walk the lines like a tightrope?”

“That’s not humanly possible!”

“It is, just really hard for a normal person. It would be more than doable if you had the biomass gyroscope so you don’t have that either…”

“Let me down!”

I landed on the cushion gently. “Oh, sorry. We know that you don’t have any of the augmentations I did to myself. That’s good, those take a while to get used to.”

“Okay…” I took a deep breath. I’d never seen this side of Bryce before. He was always so chipper, a little sarcastic in that way all little brothers were, usually somewhat reserved too. This version of Bryce, the tinker, was new. I wasn’t sure I liked this side of him. “You’re starting to scare me.”

He paused and blinked, as if coming back to himself. “I’m sorry, Sabah. I guess I let the testing get away from me.”

“Yeah, girls don’t like being manhandled like that.”

“Sorry. We’re done with that though. I only have a few things I want to confirm with you. Please?”

“Fine, I do want to know what all I can do.”

“Excellent.” He handed his glove to me, the one he’d taken off earlier. It had an intricate alchemy circle on the back of the hand. “Put it on. Do you think you can use it? I’d find an injured lab rat or something for you to test yourself on, but–”

“No. No live animals,” I shook my head emphatically. There was a reason I hadn’t gone into medicine despite dad’s encouragements.

I didn’t have the stomach for that kind of thing. The dissections in high school biology were bad enough. Everyone told me that I’d get used to it, but I didn’t want to get used to it.

“Yeah, I figured. You should be able to at least activate the circle though.”

“How do I do that?”

“Focus. Draw energy and direct it. It helps to imagine the circle as irrigation channels and your power as the water filling in a preset design.”

I tried, I really did. Several minutes later, I had nothing to show for it. I handed the glove back to him. “I don’t think it’s working.”

“No, I guess not. Why? Can you tell me what you think you’re missing?”

“I don’t know? It’s like… I know the formula. I think the symbols make sense, sorta, but I just… don’t have whatever power is needed to trigger them.”

He hummed and began to mutter under his breath. I caught only one in every few words. “I see… Aura… tectonic forces, but translated… all fictions… wouldn’t have the aura… Shards…”

“So, what’s the verdict, doc?”

“Your power is heavily limited in what it gives you.”

“Yeah, I noticed. I have all this alchemy knowledge, but can’t use any of it.”

“You can make automail. The engineering skills necessary should complement your own academic background perfectly,” he pointed out. And he was right. I’d been an engineering student before I switched majors after all. I understood the implications. I could probably go home and supe up my toaster or something.

“That’s true. I shouldn’t get frustrated,” I said with a sigh. “It just feels like there’s a huge chunk of my power that I can’t use but even just the automail is incredible.”

“You mean my power,” he said slyly. “But yeah, a few more tests if you don’t mind.”

“No more throwing me around like a doll.”

“Sure. Do you know martial arts?”

“I did taekwondo for like two weeks when I was ten?”

“Muay thai? Capoeira? How about aikido?”

“No. Nope. Nada. Why do you know those?”

“General combat use, excellent for riding my ATs, and I needed a martial art that focused on nonlethal takedowns,” he said, ticking each off on his fingers.

It struck me then that Bryce wasn’t just a tinker. Or even a thinker-tinker hybrid. He really did go out of his way to cultivate new skills, all to be a better cape. I wasn’t sure what Creed was yet, but Bryce put his whole heart into it.

It was admirable in a way. I definitely wasn’t that dedicated to anything when I was a high school freshman. Hell, I wasn’t that dedicated now.

“Well, I don’t suddenly know skills I didn’t have before.”

“Okay, so nothing except technical knowledge…” He pulled out a pistol and set it atop the coffee table, an ornate, six-chamber revolver like in those westerns. Then, with practiced hands, he promptly dismantled it into several pieces. “This is my Walker Pistol. Now, reassemble it.”

“I… Okay…?”

I managed. It wasn’t as if I’d ever handled a gun before, but I wanted to prove myself to Bryce somehow. He was my friend? Little brother figure? Mentor now? I didn’t want him to think I was this weepy, helpless girl he needed to watch over twenty-four seven.

Four minutes later, I had the original piece back in place. I leaned back with a satisfied smile.

“There, not too bad for my first time, right?”

“Terrible, actually,” he said, deflating my ego. “But that also tells me something.”

“Like what?”

“It tells me that you didn’t gain an instinctive knowledge of how to use my tech, just the technical aspects. And even then, I suspect you only received the tech within my current specialization, not whatever I’d built before. Tell me, can you make an expanded bag?”

“Like a video game inventory?”

“Yes.”

“No. I want one, by the way.”

“Later. What about my ATs?” he said, gesturing to his skates. “The Crown Chimera. If you put them on right now, do you think you can ride them?”

“Sure, if you want me to smear my face across the block,” I said dryly. “I have no idea what your skates are made of beyond ‘complicated.’”

“Okay, so just the automail this time?”

“Right. I think so? There’s also a ton of early twentieth century technology that I now know how to build. Like, I’d never thought about the internals of a locomotive, but I can make one if I had the time. Is that normal?”

He nodded. “It’s expected. My specialization shifts and that’s part of the current package. Okay, there’s one last test.”

“Shoot.”

He took off the earmuffs, plunging me back into metaphorical darkness. “Can you retain the knowledge you had?”

“I…” I tried to hang on to the power, but the blueprints I thought I knew fled my grasp like wisps of smoke. “No, sorry.”

“We’ll try this again in a week. My specialization should shift on the eighteenth.”

“So I’ll be able to build more things?”

“You should. You should also lose any knowledge of automail.”

I wasn’t sure I liked that. On one hand, more blueprints. Maybe his new specialization would have a bigger variety of things I could make. On the other hand, the sheer complexity of engineering knowledge represented by just a standard automail was incredible.

“Can I keep the power? Like, can you keep wearing the earmuffs?”

“Depends. Have you shown Sierra the earmuffs?”

“Oh… Yeah.”

“Then no. That’d be a big hint that something’s up with me.” Before I could get too down, he said, “Tell you what though. I’m going to give you Germa fibers. They’re the same super-tough fibers that make up my suit. You can make me a glove to replace one I already have.”

“But then I’d only be able to use your power if you were wearing your costume. Can I make you a cute bracelet then?”

“You know what? Sure, go ahead.”

“Thanks, Bryce,” I said sincerely. “For my dad… teaching me about my own power… everything…”

“I’m sorry it came to this,” he said with a bittersweet smile. “In a perfect world, you wouldn’t need to make this choice.”

“What choice?”

“This. All of it. You are now better informed about capes and this city’s geopolitics than most. You now understand your power. What do you want to do?”

“I… I thought I’d help you?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not why I’m giving you access to my power.”

“It’s not?”

“You’re your own person, Sabs. I’m not going to tell you how to use your power. I mostly called you out here to give you all the information you need to make a choice, not to dictate what that choice should be.”

“I… I don’t know.” I’d always been a conflict-avoidant person. It was a big part of why I admired my best friends so much, because they had the confidence to speak when I didn’t. The thought of fighting… “I don’t want to fight…”

“Then don’t. Be a rogue. Fess up to Amy and make her a bracelet. At the very least, you should get her bio-scanning power, probably a watered down version of her healing too.”

“Wouldn’t that make me a target?”

“Yeah, which is why I’d deck you out in enough shields and weaponry to wage a small war. Another option is to get Eric Pelham, Shielder, involved. You probably wouldn’t get flight, his flight sucks ass anyway, but even a watered down version of his shield would be an incredible layer of protection.”

“I don’t know if I want that kind of attention…”

“So pick something else. You’ll always have a tinker power in me if you want it. Healing is the obvious choice for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s your only choice.”

“I know. I’ll have to think about this more.”

“Take your time, Sabs. Just, please promise you won’t do anything until you consult me?”

“I promise.” I gave him one last hug before making for the door. “Thanks again, Bryce.”

“You’re welcome, Sabah.”

Author’s Note

Not fully happy with Sabah, but meh. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m just plain bad at emotions. I don’t think I’ll ever be fully satisfied with one of these dialogues.

I thought long and hard and decided that Sabah can copy the Tinker of Fiction, at least, in a heavily limited context. If it wasn’t clear from the interaction, Sabah’s Shard doesn’t understand metaphysical concepts. I said earlier that aura = chi = chakra = any other fictional energy for the purposes of the Tinker of Fiction.

Because of this, Bryce uses his aura as the conduit to channel tectonic forces into the circles to practice alchemy. This means that Sabah’s Shard is running into a problem.

Geothermal Energy + X + Alchemy Circle = Profit???

Except, for Sabah’s Shard, that X is an incalculable variable. It doesn’t know what aura is so it’s banging its head against a brick wall. It understands the symbols. It can recreate the circle perfectly. It just lacks that extra metaphysical oomph to truly complete the circuit.

Sabah is weaker, strictly speaking, than canon. She will never be the girl who can wrestle an endbringer (or titan) to a standstill using a corpse-puppet. In exchange, she is one of the few characters in Worm who are truly free to choose their skillset, and thus, their role in life.