I ended up taking a short nap after soaking in the hot tub, Kali waking me up after an hour or so of rest. I was going to be spending the whole night working on New Waves gear, after all, I was due an hour to turn my brain off at least. The ability to cast a spell that washed away all the residual tiredness when I was done made the nap a viable alternative to a natural night's sleep, at least in terms of my mental health.

Once I woke up, had some dinner, and settled down, I once again started a small campfire to brush away the chill that settled in after dark. Brockton Bay may have startlingly mild winters, but that didn't mean the nights didn't get cold. Plus, there was something nice about the vibe of a fire pit. I would have preferred the wondrous wizard's workshop vibe, but I hadn't gotten the chance to work on that quite yet.

After a quick debate and sometimes bouncing ideas off of Alya, I decided to work on Eric Pelham's item first. I remember what it was like to be his age, and while I lacked the hero's perspective of that time in my life, I remember how fragile my self-esteem was. I could only imagine what it was like for the whole city to know what you sucked at.

Plus, what he wanted was cut and dry, a boost to his flight speed and his blaster effect. Shooting his energy blast harder was simple since I had samples of his mother and sister's blaster ability, which meant I had plenty of flexibility to improve his power.

The problem was that he wanted a boost to his flight speed first and foremost, which was something I didn't have an easy sample connection for. Thankfully, he could already fly, which meant I just needed to worry about buffing his speed, not giving him flight from the ground up. If a ritualized object for flight was something I could just sit down and create, I would have already made one for myself, after all.

A bit of mental experimenting and troubleshooting later, and I was pretty sure I had a solution, and from a classic course as well. I was considering different ways to fly and gain thrust when the image of Iron Man flying around popped into my head, using his hands as stabilizers, his repulsors functioning as thrusters and weapons.

I got to work on the ritual, settling on a pair of sturdy leather gloves as the object, which I bought secondhand from a used clothing store. Kali repaired a few hidden faults in the gloves while I started designing the ritual, spending about three hours on it. I wanted to keep it as open as possible so that the power of the ritual could come through as much as possible, but as I warned Eric, it was probably going to take a minor hit to power since I was keeping a relatively tight grip on the ritual effects.

When I completed the design, I immediately started laying out the ritual on the ritual platform, using my new, improved silver and gold ritual chalk. Once it was done, I put the gloves in the center before putting a sample of his energy blasts and his blood in a close ring of arcane symbols. In a second ring further out, I put a sample of his sister and mother's energy blasts on one side before putting a containment vial filled with a powerful airburst I conjured with one of my new instant cast spells, as well as several hawk feathers.

The final product was a pair of leather gloves that looked startlingly close to what Shielder already wore, save a feather wing motif stamped into the back of his hand. Now, unfortunately, because this piece of equipment relied so heavily on his pre-existing powers, I wasn't going to be able to test the gloves at all before handing them to him. Still, I was happy with how they had come out, and Kali seemed confident they would work how I intended.

I spent the rest of the night and into the next morning designing and ritualizing five more items. It was a bit rough of a task, but since these items were a lot less directed, they were considerably easier to design and implement. I sent a message to the Patrol text thread that the Pelhams had put together to keep track of any changes that needed attention or substitutions. I immediately got several excited responses despite it being relatively early.

"Okay, looks like I am seeing the group right after my patrol with Crow," I explained to Alya, sliding my phone back into my coat pocket. "I can show off what I did before passing off the patrol buck."

I cast a quick wake-up spell on myself, letting out a sigh as the fatigue and tiredness melted away. I got ready rather quickly as well before teleporting to Crow and our usual meeting spot. Troy already had the Pelham's equipment stored away in his torso. Crow, who was expecting me this time, barely even started when I arrived.

"That really is bizarre," She said, having once again watched and heard my arrival. "I always thought teleportation was supposed to be this loud, explosive thing as you punched through reality or whatever."

"I worked hard to keep it from doing just that," I explained. "It's unnerving, maybe, but better than an explosive surprise every time I want to go somewhere."

She begrudgingly agreed, and we left our meeting spot, heading off to ABB territory. We were only patrolling for a few minutes before Crow brought up her own side investigation.

"So I asked around a bit," She revealed as we both sat on Troy's back.

"Already?" I asked, looking back at her. "I was honestly expecting that to take a little longer."

"I was too, but apparently, they aren't hiding much. Lots of information is going around because a lot of low-level people are leaving," she responded with a shrug.

"Fair, hard to keep everything a secret when everyone is looking for a place to jump off," I agreed. "So what did you hear?"

"Well, for the most part, our prediction of infighting was right," She revealed. "Factions are forming around the major sources of income since they were already divided and self pretty heavily and already mostly self-sufficient."

"Any idea of the major divisions?"

"As far as I heard, there are three. Drugs and smuggling, racket and robbery, and… The prostitution and sex trafficking."

"Fuck. That needs to be obliterated. We somehow managed to beat Lung, which was the only reason I hadn't already started hunting it down, so now that needs to be stopped."

"Glad you agree. Problem is, that group is used to being hunted," She explained. "There are a few whore houses around the city and plenty of corners that mysteriously become popular when the sun goes down. But the Farms… nobody knows where they are. Worse, it's not the kind of secret you can pick up by asking some homeless people. We were lucky to get this much."

"Jesus…" I said with a frown, shaking my head. "I'll come up with something. If there is anything we should actively do, it's taking down these Farms. It's horrific, and rescuing everyone trapped inside before burning it down to the ground is the least we could do. It's like… An affront to humanity. I feel sick knowing it exists in the same city as me."

"How do you plan on finding them?"

"I recently just got access to a whole new level of flexibility to my powers," I explained. "It's why I can suddenly teleport."

She nodded in understanding, more or less just accepting my powers were just weird at this point. In this specific instance, however, blaming a shift in my powers was a lie. Alya was all I needed to find this, or possibly these "Farms," especially as she had already been looking for any massive concentrations of ABB gang members as we went on patrol. There had been a few times when she had pointed out a drug house or a gathering in a building we passed, but so far, I hadn't been sharing her information.

Stolen novel; please report.

At some point, hopefully soon, when we were ready to start pushing the ABB out as an organization, we could use the air elementals information to wipe out any large gatherings. For now, we just noted what we passed by. So far, nothing we passed was even related to the Farm or even anything close to it.

Still, I wasn't exactly happy that I had been putting it off this long, especially since I was pretty sure I could get New Wave to help shut anything related to the Farm down.

We needed to dedicate more time to exploring the city, especially ABB territory. There were several chunks that Alya hadn't gotten a look at, and the Farm could be in any of them. And that was only if it was within city limits or ABB territory.

Crow and I continued our patrol, keeping our eyes open and ears to the ground, both of us on edge from our conversation. There were about forty-five minutes left in our patrol time when we stumbled on a small crowd grouped up around a seemingly random building on the edge of ABB territory. They were congregating and staring at a brick wall that ran along the back side of a gas station, which was covered entirely in graffiti.

As we approached, the crowd disappeared without a word, revealing a large purple M painted over a good chunk of the older graffiti. The M had two horizontal lines through it, which, if I had to guess, represented the bridges in Archer Bridge Merchants. The tag was painted hastily, with poor lines and a lot of dripping, but the point was clear and clearly out of the bag. The Merchants were encroaching on the ABB territory.

"Fuck." Crow said as I slid off Troy's back. "This is the last fucking thing we need."

"Just about," I agreed with a frown. "This is not good news."

After a few more seconds of examining the tag, I reached out to confirm it was still a bit wet. My fingertips stuck to the paint, and some of the purple residue came off on them as well.

"It's still tacky, which means it must have happened at least within the day or so…"

"Does it matter?"

"If it's the first step of escalating conflict?" I asked, looking back at her. "It could mean we still have some time before things get hot."

"How likely do you think that is?"

"Considering Merchants are known for being unhinged, and their leader is only worse?" I hypothetically asked. "I have no idea. I'll bring it up with New Wave, see what they think."

We finished our patrol, stopping a few more petty crimes but mostly just weathering the stares and sneers of totally innocent people, many of whom just happened to be wearing the same three matching colors. Rather than seeing Crow off, we teleported to the Docks community, both to check in and because it was where New Wave was going to meet me. I had just enough time to say goodbye to Crow, hello to Charles and John, and heal a few things before the family, including Panacea, landed on the same nearby rooftop I frequented.

"Hello, everyone," I said after jumping up to the roof, skipping the ladder. "Thanks for meeting me here, I wanted you guys to be familiar with the location just in case."

"We understand," Lady Photon said with a smile. "It's the least we could do, especially with you making our custom gear."

I could definitely see that the adults of the group were tempering their expectations on what exactly I had made for them. People knew I made golems, but there weren't a lot of examples of my ritualized creations floating around.

"I'm happy to help make the heroes of the city more powerful," I assured her with a smile. "But I'm guessing you guys are pretty eager to see what I've made, so let's get started. First, let's start with Shielder."

I dug through my duffel bag, handing the gloves to the teenage superhero. He eagerly accepted them, pulling his old gloves off and pulling the new ones on. He started for a moment as if surprised by something, but I raised a hand to stop him from doing anything.

"Alright, so my goal here was to make something that could interact with your powers, specifically your hard light blasts. You should have a mental gauge in your head. Do you feel it?" I asked, smiling when he nodded. "Good. Now, I want you to turn it all the way to one side. You should get a sense of expansion or maybe something like turning down the concentration."

"I… I think I got it," He said after a moment of concentration. "What now?"

"Now I want you to point your hands down, palms out, with your elbows locked. Then, when you're ready, fly upwards as fast as you can. After a few seconds, fire off your energy blasts," I explained. "Start off with a low blast and slowly increase it once you get a handle on the speed. And keep in mind, your natural flight is your steering until you get your mind around how it all works."

He looked confused for a moment before concentrating and following my directions. He took off into the air before firing his blasts. Instead of the blasts of blue energy that usually came from his hands, the energy was more diffused but still definitely pushing in one direction. He hesitated for a moment before pouring on the power a bit more, and suddenly, he was streaking up into the sky. For a moment, I thought he was just going to continue going up, but then he started to turn, making a huge loop before buzzing the building with a loud whooping sound.

"That… that is significantly faster than I have ever seen him move," Manpower said, using one of his large hands to block the sun from his eyes. "I-"

Suddenly, the teenager's hands glowed even brighter as he pushed his blasts as hard as he could. Instantly, his speed increased again, firing the young teen across the town like a multistage rocket. He flew around a considerable portion of downtown in only a few seconds, leaving his family speechless. His new boost didn't last very long, however, as he made his way back to the rooftop.

When he finally landed, his legs wobbled for a moment, and he sat down very quickly. He was also flip-flopping between laughing and breathing heavily.

"That was amazing!" He shouted, his words broken up with deep breaths. "So fast! I got tired really quickly at the end, though."

"You were definitely going faster than I can go," Lady Photon confidently revealed while Panacea approached and laid her hand on his forehead.

"He is just tired," The young healer confirmed. "Relax for a few minutes and drink some water."

For a moment, we quietly let Shielder recover, his sister passing him a water bottle from a pack she was wearing. As he recovered, I continued to explain his gloves.

"Well, in case you're wondering, Shielder, the opposite side of your gauge should return your energy blasts to normal and then some," I revealed. "You'll have to fiddle around to figure out what setting on the gauge is appropriate force, but it should become second nature the more you use it. Just take it slow-"

A powerful blue energy fired out into the air, cutting my words off. I turned to see Shielder, still sitting there, with his hand raised up into the air with a smirk on his face. Unfortunately, now he looked even more exhausted, and Panacea let out an exasperated groan.

"Seriously? What did I just say?" She asked, flicking the young man's forehead. "Do I need to put you to sleep?"

"No, I just had to try it out!" He said, just managing to not make it sound whiny. "I'm satisfied, Arcanum gets my vote."

I could hear a few of his family chuckling at the young teen's excitement while I just shook my head and reached into my bag.

"So… who is next?"