I was about five minutes away from the general transition from the Docks to Downtown when my cape phone rang. Alya whispered that she would keep an eye out and muffle my words while I pulled out the cheap, prepaid flip phone.

"Hello, this is Arcanum," I stated once the call was connected. "Who is this?"

"Arcanum, this is Assault," The familiar voice said through the phone. "How's it going?"

"Just about as well as I could hope," I responded honestly. "I'm surprised to hear from you, didn't think they would let you off the hook that quickly."

"I was let off for good behavior," He responded, his smile audible through the phone. "They also tasked me with being your main point of contact. Thought my act of honesty would help you trust me."

I paused for a moment to consider his words. I did trust him marginally more than the rest of the PRT and Protectorate, but only by a slight degree. They had seriously fucked up my first encounter with them, and just because Assualt grew half a brain and a conscience didn't mean it was all sunshine and rainbows between us. Especially after the Shadow Stalker incident.

"Anyway, what are you up to?" The older hero asked.

"I just finished visiting one of the homeless communities around the city," I responded politely. "There something you need?"

"Well, as of ten minutes ago, your healing ability was officially sanctioned by the PRT as safe," He explained. "It will take a bit to get out to everyone, including the hospital, but in the meantime, would you mind coming in? We have two agents with concussions, one of them pretty serious."

"Yes, absolutely. Could you send a pickup to save time?"

"That was my next question," he admitted.

I gave him my location, which was actually where I was going to be once I crossed into Downtown. We hung up, and I quickly jogged into position, an unmarked PRT van pulling up alongside me after a few minutes. We exchanged confirmation codes before I climbed into the empty back seat. About five minutes later, we pulled into the familiar space of the underground PRT motor pool. Assault was waiting for me as I climbed out, while his partner in crime Battery was nowhere to be found.

"We appreciate you coming in," he said, extending his hand to shake, which I took. "I can't imagine this is your favorite place right now."

"I can handle it," I assured him. "I might not trust you guys, but I don't think you're stupid enough to do anything else."

"Yeah, that's fair," Assault agreed with a wince, nodding in understanding. After a moment of silence, walking through the building. He continued.

"Listen, there isn't a lot I can say without getting into serious trouble, but I think you should know that… a lot of questions are being asked about what happened with the whole power testing thing," he explained, chewing his cheek as he tugged at one of the red plates of armor on his chest. "Director Piggot was asking the questions, and I was cleared of wrongdoing."

I frowned at his words, trying to connect the dots at what he was alluding to. If Piggot didn't know what was going on and Assault was just following orders, someone below Piggot must have given those orders. And if they were asking questions, then that calls into focus if they should have given the orders. I could feel Alya's confusion as well, and after a moment, I shook my head. It sounded like something was going on behind the scenes, and they weren't sure what it was. The implication, however, was that the orders weren't legal or official. It raised a lot of questions and was a lot less reassuring than I think Assualt intended it to be. And that was assuming, of course, that Assault was telling the truth at all.

We were quiet until we reached the PRT in-house hospital, where one of the nurses guided me to my patients. The first was conscious, though clearly not having fun. Apparently, he was hit in the head a bit harder than necessary during a training exercise, and I had him cleared up in just a few minutes. The second man was a bit worse off, having been clocked in the head with a bat. His helmet had almost certainly saved his life, but the trauma was still major.

In the end, after scanning him to make sure there wasn't anything else going on, I ended up having to use my most powerful brain-healing spell, the same one I used to heal that poor child at the hospital. When I was done, I stepped back and let the Doctor begin his own examination, carting the now-sleeping man away.

"Nicely done, thanks for your help," Assault said with a smile. "Battery is on her way with your payment."

It only took a few seconds for the female hero to arrive, who handed me a rather over-filled money envelope. I accepted it and took a peek inside.

"Ten thousand dollars in mixed bills," Battery said, answering my question before I asked. "Unmarked and clean for you to spend in costume or in your civilian ID."

"Thank you very much," I said, managing to drag my eyes away from the cash and look back at the two heroes. "This will help immensely."

After that, there wasn't much small talk to make. I did ask Assault if the PRT van could drop me off at Brockton Bay Hospital, as I was sure they would like to know I was finally verified as safe. He called in the request, and fifteen minutes later, I was stepping out of the unmarked van in front of the hospital. Luckily, I had remembered to call ahead, so my visit didn't catch anyone off guard. In fact, the same medical director I had talked to before was waiting for me at the main entrance, standing by the medical secretary's desk.

"Director Clarus, good to see you," I said, shaking his hand. "Did you get an opportunity to call the PRT?"

"I did, and everything seems to be in order," He confirmed with a smile, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "I will be escorting you around today, until we can designate someone to be your handler of sorts."

"Makes sense. Any idea how many people I'll be looking at?"

"Twenty-three," He explained, catching me by surprise. "I may or may not have been notified in advance by the PRT in-house doctor, which meant I could call in a few people who you might be able to help. There are also four long-term patients for whom we are hoping you can help."

"So this is a lot?" I asked, looking around as the man led me to a nearby elevator.

"For head injuries, yes," He confirmed. "We don't keep nonconcerning minor concussions on site, though we can offer them your help if you're so inclined."

"Sure, sounds like a plan," I agreed, continuing to follow the older man as he stepped out of the elevator and into a much busier ward.

For the next five hours, I was guided from room to room, healing as many of the patients as I could. Unfortunately, two of the long-term stay patients were beyond help, as the damage to their brains was way too advanced and old for me to do much about it. There was only so much brain damage I could fix before it started to not work. I could probably restore the brain matter itself, but my know-how was telling me that that was more or less pointless.

The remaining twenty-two people were fully healed, many of them shaking my hand or even giving me a tearful hug once I was finished. One man, in particular, was ecstatic to finally be free of the Damocles sword of a brain aneurysm. He had been living in fear for quite a few years that it would eventually rupture and kill him. Now, he could finally be free from that fear.

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When I was done, the director happily handed me a large envelope containing the information and details for the special account the hospital had set up for me. It even included a debit card for me to use, already activated and ready for me to use.

"I appreciate going the extra mile, Sir," I said as the old director led me out of the building, this time out the back, through the same smoking exit I had left through before.

"Nonsense, you're more than welcome. The fact that you refuse payment for children, emergencies, and people without coverage more than makes up for any inconvenience," He said, patting my back. "Any ideas when you will be back?"

"I think that's more up to you," I explained. "I'll come in for emergencies, but grouping people together would be appreciated."

"Reasonable, and appreciated," Director Clarus responded, nodding in understanding. "We will do our best to organize what we can. Do I have permission to pass your number to your handler?"

"Yes, but please try and vet them first," I added, holding up my hands when he gave me a look. "I'm sure all your employees are trustworthy, but handing out that number is a big deal."

"...Fair enough. I will ensure that they take the responsibility seriously," He confirmed.

Once more, we shook hands before I left through the back entrance, heading away from the hospital. My first goal was to find an ATM and use it to check the balance of my new hospital-funded account. In total, I had treated eleven people who met my requirements for needing to pay, and their insurance was doling out my paycheck. Now, according to what Director Clarus had said, the account contained a flat five grand as a sign of good faith, but that number would go up once I treated patients to that value. He also warned me that it would likely take a day or two for that money to make its way to the account. Considering I was getting paid for eleven people, I was expecting that number to jump prodigiously.

With my numbers checked, my business was finished for the day, which meant it was time to return to the shop. I had six or seven hours before I needed to go to bed, and I wanted to spend that time working on my next project. I had proven that my ritual design and crafting subject was sufficient to do all sorts of fun stuff, but now it was time to tackle the whole reason I selected that subject in the first place.

The sooner I had a safe, stable home, the sooner I could start making some bigger moves.

Admittedly, what exactly counted as "bigger moves" eluded me, but I could tackle that issue once I had a real bed to sleep in.

For the remainder of the night and the first few hours of the next morning, I did nothing but plan, design rituals, and discuss my options with Alya. I was really flexing all three levels in ritual design, pushing what I could do to the limits, both in potency and breadth. This was the foundation of my home base, after all. I needed it to be as good as I could manage. Not only that, but it would function as the foundation for any further upgrades and additions, prompting me to really think outside the box.

At around noon on the third day of the latest charge cycle, I left the shop and visited both of the homeless communities. I didn't stay long, as I was just checking up on the trees and sampling the fruit of each. All of them were good enough, perfectly edible and enjoyable, just nothing to write home about. That was another symptom of the forced growth and accelerated production. I made sure to make a spectacle of eating the fruit, making sure that everyone knew that they were safe to eat.

When I was done putting on a show to reassure any hesitant people, I did snag something from the woods around the dealership community. The building blocks that would eventually make up my new home, a handful of perfectly normal acorns, located through one of my druidcraft spells.

After saying goodbye, I made my way back to the shop, stopping to grab a chunk of granite from an abandoned building on the way. The granite, plus a few pounds of steel from a construction site and a brick from a random building, all sat perfectly in the sacrificial circles of a new ritual, feeding into the pile of acorns in the focusing circle. The ritual was finished in a few minutes, producing acorns with metal, granite, and brick veins running through them. I tried to stomp on one to break it and only succeeded in firing the acorn across the room as it popped out from under my heel.

The goal was to significantly enhance the strength of the trees grown from those acorns. Technically, these new oaks could reproduce, but one of the more basic spells in druidcraft was a plant sterilization spell, which would remove a plant's ability to produce viable seeds, pollen, or anything else capable of spreading its offspring. I knew what I was doing would not make the PRT happy, but as long as nothing I made could reproduce, I wasn't breaking any laws.

I made sure that every tree I had grown for the homeless communities had that spell cast on them multiple times. I could argue that it was less bio-tinkering and instead a simple striker ability, but I wasn't sure they would see it that way.

With my new building materials complete, I gathered up my stuff and headed out of the city. The most obvious place to build my home was in the forest, where any trees I grew would be camouflaged from above.

Once I had found a nice spot, a small clearing I could fill in with a bunch of massive trees, I quickly planted one acorn.

Druidcraft, at the high end of what I had available, was frequently used to build things like bridges, dams, fences, and other stuff. It was also used to build homes and even fortresses.

However, I wasn't ready to start building my home just yet. Before I could do that, I needed to perform several obfuscation-focused rituals to discourage and redirect people away from my home. Not only would getting them up now make hiding the construction much easier, but it would give me time to find more resources for some of the more potent rituals I wanted to perform later.

I muttered my spells and sank my magic into the ground, manipulating the modified acorn into growing and putting down roots. The strengthened seed drank in my magic greedily before following my direction and growing upwards. It was an unnatural shape, but the tree was completely under my command. It grew and grew, creating a flat wooden surface under my feet, extending three or four meters in all directions. The wood was smooth and cool to the touch, with a surface like stone but with the rigidity of steel.

When it was done, I pulled away from the spell, standing up to admire my work. It was plenty large enough for what I needed and almost perfectly flat, making it the perfect place to perform rituals.

"Well... That's step one," I commented. "Only several dozen left to go.