I made it exactly ten feet down the road, the PRT motor pool entrance behind me, before I heard Assault calling out for me. I tapped Troy on the side to get him to stop, turning to look back as Assault closed the distance. He approached sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"So listen, I forgot to mention, my boss is pretty worried about the golem things you made," He explained, gesturing to Troy. "Especially since you handed a bunch out to civilians."

I sat up a little straighter on Troy's back, concerned he was about to ask me to hand over the golems at the Docks community, thereby leaving it undefended.

"She would appreciate receiving a copy so our tinkers could evaluate it."

I tilted my head to the side with a frown. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem since I could whip up a simple, dumb golem in an hour, after all.

"And who is going to pay for the materials?" I asked. "And what style would she want?"

"Style?" Assault asked, confusion coloring his voice.

"Living tree, stone, metal, clay," I listed off. "Hell, if you give me some time, I could probably make an ice one, though I don't know how long it would last. Winter in Brockton Bay is weirdly warm."

"We were not aware there were different types," Assualt admitted. "Okay, I need to talk to the Director about this. I will get back to you about the specifics."

"Yeah, you do that."

Assault nodded and retreated, a bit of frustration leaking out of his mannerisms as he walked back to the motor pool entrance. I watched him disappear, shaking my head before tapping Troy to continue.

Putting the new PRT request from my mind, I focused on the obvious elephant in the room, one I had ignored since I was busy inside the PRT and couldn't exactly drop everything to pace back and forth. The quest had awarded me three points, a shocking amount compared to the single point I received for helping Dinah and her aunt. I could feel pretty easily why I had earned the first two, one for completing the word of the quest and the second for making sure that Taylor got the justice she deserved.

I just couldn't figure out what the third point was for. I spent a few minutes explaining to Ayla what had happened, and she immediately understood what I had prevented.

"Taylor Hebert is a Cape," She explained. "You prevented her from having an utter meltdown and probably from attacking the PRT with her powers."

"W-What?" I asked, pulling myself back in surprise. "How did you figure that out?"

"I'm sure you notice her bouts of coldness?"

"Yeah… it was like she was replaced by a machine or something," I responded, unable to fight a shiver that ran up my spine. "She did it a few times that I can remember."

"Well, as I was observing the area, I began to notice that the bugs were acting strangely within a certain area, just inside my maximum capacity."

"How exactly were they acting strange?" I whispered as we trotted along the bike lane.

"For one, they were far too orderly," she explained. "It took a moment for me to pick up on it at first, but it was pretty obvious once I did. All around us, almost past my range, the bugs were all acting too orderly, too in sync. There was no way it was natural. It had to have been a parahuman."

"But that could have been one of the boys," I pointed out. "Hell, it could have been one of the police officers or just someone watching."

"Maybe, but there's also that cold, blank face. Every time she did that, it got worse," She explained. "Massive swarms of distant bugs would become agitated, buzzing and flying around aggressively. Then, when we were in the PRT, and Director Piggot revealed that Sophia was Shadow Stalker? The insects began to fight, tearing each other to pieces by the thousands. It was horrific, and if it had been anything other than insects…"

"So she is a master, specifically for bugs?" I asked, scratching my cheek. "That is... Well, it's not a pretty power, is it?"

"I suppose she could be more than that," Alya admitted. "But that was all I observed."

"And that coldness… was she using her powers to work out her emotions?"

"Or offloading them completely," Alya added. "That is what it looked like to me. Like she was switching off her emotions by loading them into the swarms around her."

I nodded, agreeing with her theory. Masters were a messy subject at the best of times, and controlling bugs was about as dirty as you could get without controlling people. On top of that, we had no idea what her limitations were, if she was stuck to bugs, or if she could control other stuff as well. Maybe bugs were just the easiest to control?

"How many bugs was she controlling at once?" I asked. "You were watching a considerable area at once, so how far and how many?"

"Countless," She responded, sounding unsure. "As insane as it sounds, I think she might have been controlling all of the bugs inside her range, which was just within mine. That would very easily be billions of bugs under her control."

"Fucking hell… Okay, I need to make some master protection gear," I said, shaking my head. "I've been putting that off for long enough, and it should be more than possible with rituals. Then- Wait…"

"What is it?" Alya asked after I stopped for a moment before slapping my face and rubbing my eyes.

"She went super cold inside the PRT," I reminded her. "So she must have been offloading her emotions during the meeting. Inside a building that probably has more internal security than any other building in the city."

"Oh… so they definitely know she is a cape, then."

"Assuming competence, nearly a hundred percent," I responded. "Assuming mediocrity, they probably know that either Danny or Taylor is a cape. Assuming incompetence… well, they probably wonder when I learned to control bugs. The worst is that I'm kind of hoping they are incompetent. If they assume it's me, then they won't start pestering her."

I could feel her approval of that comment, though she wasn't exactly happy with my casual self-sacrifice.

"Okay, well… there isn't much we can do about it now," I said, shaking my head. "Let's keep an eye out for a bug-controlling master or something similar. Both her and her father have my number, which means they can call me if they need help or advice. She looked like a good kid, so maybe we can shake hands with a new hero sometime soon."

"She certainly isn't likely to join the Wards, not after all she went through," Alya pointed out, and I nodded with a sigh.

By the time we were finished talking about Taylor and what we could or couldn't do about her being a parahuman, we were already pushing through the center of town. I found a secluded alleyway with Alya's help, climbed off his back, and quickly changed into civilian clothes. Once I was changed and armed with my backpack and duffel bag combo, I set Troy home, carrying my costume and gear. I would play the overnight hiker again to make my way back into the forest once I was done shopping.

At this point, my main goal was an anti-master item, something I could use to keep from being mind-controlled. I didn't think I had anything to worry about from Taylor specifically, though mostly only because all signs pointed to her powers being about controlling bugs. Teenagers were hard to predict at the best of times, and while Taylor seemed like a good kid with frankly excellent self-control if she had powers and hadn't used them to permanently fix her tormentors, having powers made that already present unpredictability even worse.

I spent a few hours shopping, visiting random shops and stores, and buying anything that I found interesting. At this point, I started to realize that the concepts I was reinforcing with rituals could be extremely flexible, and while it would absolutely affect the resulting look and feel of the creation, it would still do what I designed the ritual to do. Though, leaving things more open, like I had for Olivia's cloak, did lead to some exciting results.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

As I shopped, I spent some time considering the three points I had sitting in my head. The temptation to slap them into something was strong, but I managed to hold back. With my new cycle so close, it made way more sense to wait to spend them. If I did, I would start off the new cycle with nine points, plus whatever random branch of knowledge that my power decided to give me. Plus, it also gave me some time to consider what I really needed.

I returned home two and a half hours after sending Troy on his way. As I entered the compound, I spotted him immediately, sitting in the sun by one of the clearing's larger boulders. I could also feel Kali as I approached, the powerful spirit greeting me with a comfortable sensation of being welcomed back into my home.

"Okay, so first, I plan on performing the permanent geomancy ritual," I said, explaining my thoughts to Alya and Kali as I put most of what I had purchased away into my storage. "Then I'll spend the rest of the night trying to puzzle through some anti-mind control gear. Worse comes to worse, I'll design it tonight and perform the ritual first thing in the morning."

It didn't take me very long to set up the ritual for permanent absorption since I had already finished the design, and a good chunk of it was already done with slate carved partional. I quickly set the slate partional in the middle of the ritual platform, sinking it down into the wood with a spell. I then drew the rest of the ritual out of chalk before finally placing all of the new metals out in their specific spots. The only material that needed any special attention was mercury, since it was a room-temperature liquid. To keep it from pouring out into the ritual, I used druidcraft to grow a small bowl out of the platform, just big enough to contain all five pounds of liquid metal.

The rest of the ritual was simple, just making my way into the center and feeding it magic. It took a lot longer than most absorptions, but that was good because it gave Kali more time to fiddle and play with the magic as it grew, streamlining and making the whole thing more potent.

When the ritual finished, about twenty minutes after the start, I slowly made my way off of the ritual platform, careful not to use too much force or move too fast. When I was far enough away from anything fragile, I slowly started to experiment, stretching and jumping around, lifting up rocks and smashing them with my bare hands. I ran around the compound several times, marveling at my new increased speed. It was hard to tell exactly how much faster I was, but I was pretty sure I was now running as fast as I did when I used the vaulting run. I could feel my reflexes were faster as well, as I ran around with Kali's wolves, playing tag through the forest.

I was also considerably tougher and stronger, both the titanium and tungsten making it easy for me to hurl rocks as big as my torso halfway across the clearing. I could also crack them in half with my bare hands. On top of that, not only was the copper making me much more flexible, but I was now at least partially immune to electricity. It would enter my body and pass through me with little resistance and little damage. Of course, dumping enough through me would override that, but after casting a few spells on myself to confirm, I was confident that I was safe from any of my basic-level lightning spells.

The nickel was also doing its job, giving me a solid amount of heat resistance. It wasn't enough to call it an immunity, but judging how I could pick up red-hot coal from a fire and crush it in my hands without feeling anything but a little burn, it was a good solid start.

"All these improvements, and I don't even need to replenish them every eight or nine hours," I said, finally sitting down along the storage trees, looking out over the ritual platform. "And just in time for me to run out of steel and iron."

"It is well done," Alya said encouragingly. "I am glad to see your survivability so well increased."

As I sat down to take a break, I could feel Kali brushing over me. She had been watching as I was experimenting, like a mother watching her kids at a playground. Now that I was done, she got closer, her presence reaching out to tap me high on my sternum, through my clothes. For a long moment, I was confused at what she wanted, opening my mouth to ask when she expressed the same hunger and concern as she had not long ago.

"Oh! Yeah, okay. You want me to make that necklace thing to help you grow?" I asked, feeling her happiness confirm my question. "Sure, that should be easy. Then I can start the anti-mind control stuff."

I pulled out my notebook and spent half an hour designing the ritual. It was a straightforward ritual that I stabilized with a few drops of my blood, some of Kali's essence, a vail of contained sunlight, and an empty containment vial, specifically without a cap. The necklace, which gave off a light glow, would constantly drain my magic, dispersing it to the surrounding area. Normally, without Kali, this would be incredibly stupid, as dispersing that much mana into the air for such a long period of time could have massive unintended consequences, not the least of which was rogue magical reactions. But with the Genius Loci around, she could control and absorb the magic faster than I could release it, keeping the area clean and safe.

When it was finished, I put the simple, lightly glowing necklace around my neck, tucking it under my shirt. I could immediately feel it, the sensation of my mana just being slightly drained tugging at the corner of my mind. I kept expecting it to start refilling, but it never did. It wasn't anything majorly debilitating, but more like a vague soreness that got worse the more I focused on it. I was used to it enough to ignore it within an hour of sitting down in my living space, my notebook out, as I worked on designing a ritual to protect me from mind control.

It took an hour of me smacking my head up against the stubborn problem before I finally came to the conclusion that there was no real answer. There were many, many ways to control someone's mind. Illusions, pheromones, memory alteration, ambient consciousness manipulation, nervous system overrides, and who knows how many more.

Hell, even outside magic, my research into parahumans had led to several dozen ways that masters worked, with more than half of those labeled as "people just do what they said, with no discernible physical reason why."

When it came down to it, the issue was that with so many ways to control someone's mind, there had to be just as many ways to protect someone's mind from being manipulated. Preventing my memories from being altered was something I could probably do, but it would be useless if someone with the power to control my nervous system popped up.

After a few hours of attacking the problem from different angles while trying to figure out the best combination or solution, I realized that my best bet was ritualizing an object to make my brain tougher and more resistant to manipulation. There were a lot of holes in that sort of protection, but it was the best option I had.

I designed it all up in another two hours, but by then, it was getting late. I had been pushing myself over the last few days, staying up way too late and running all over the place, so with some encouragement from Alya and Kali, I headed to bed relatively early, with plans to perform the ritual the following morning.