It was over a week before he started using his power again. His parents had found out about the hole in his wall, and needless to say, they were not pleased. Fortunately for the him of now, punishment was to be delayed until his dad got back from an unexpected business meeting. The him of the future was in trouble, however.

The nightmares continued. While he wasn’t as bothered in the waking world (the man had been going to rob and kill him), his subconscious mind didn’t see it that way. Visions of what happened tormented him, playing again and again. These dreams didn’t always conform to reality, either.

Sometimes, he would be the one robbing the man. He would see him, crouching there, fear in his eyes, sobbing. Sometimes the entire junkyard was on fire, or piled with corpses. Sometimes he was walking with the man, when something else attacked them. Often, Dylan failed to fend him off, getting stabbed, dying. Most often, it was simply fragments of a dream, flashes of blood, pain, and screaming.

Waking up from the nightmares left him shaking and drained. He’d often stay in bed, listlessly staring up at the ceiling, trying to process what he’d just seen.

Dylan was currently seated over his desk, trying to work out what he wanted to make with the components. He wanted something that would help him gather supplies. It wasn’t enough to have to haul things back and forth, so finishing his exoskeleton was out. Plus, he didn’t think he had enough materials for it right now. He might be able to get another limb finished, but that was it.

The salvaged drone called to him. It would solve his transportation problems. He knew he could sup it up, somehow, and it would be awful convenient. Perhaps eventually, he wouldn’t even have to journey to the junkyard, instead letting his drone do it for him.

He waited a day or two after the though occurred to him to see if there was anything else he wanted to make that he couldn’t think of at the moment, but nothing came to him. There wasn’t much that would be as immediately useful in the current moment, and it’s not like he could make something that could defend himself much better than the arm he had stashed under his bed.

He organized his workspace, clearing his desk off, and setting the drone on it. He took the rest of the pieces he had and set them on the floor to the side. He had already disassembled the microwave. He made sure to wait till after lunch, to minimize the chance of his mother disturbing him, before setting off to work.

First, Dylan removed the external casing protecting the inside mechanisms, setting it aside. He started removing gears, chains, and motors, his hands no longer moving consciously, blurring over parts, extracting things faster than should be possible, morphing material, and making changes that would leave anybody who knew anything about mundane engineering scratching their head.

First, the motors were upgraded. He wanted the drone to be able to hold at least a hundred pounds, in a semi stable manner. If it were to actually carry useful amounts of parts, it would have to be at least that strong. There was no point in making a drone with a maximum capacity of three watches. The new ones would be stronger, more durable, quieter.

Next, to handle the increased load, the frame and propellers also needed to be stronger. He ended up stripping down the drone completely, before adding in components to increase the load the drone could handle.

For the propellers, he broke down components, and remolded them in the shape of the old propellers, except larger this time. The volume of air they would be able to move would be far greater than before, and hopefully this would allow a greater amount of lifting capacity.

Next, he had to -

When he came to, Dylan saw the completely reassembled drone on his desk. It was now a metallic bronze color, with four large rotor blades in circular housing at each diagonal. A faint blue light glowed at the front, almost like a mechanical eye. Its frame was thick, and looked sturdy, and industrial.

Scanning it over, Dylan failed to find a charging port, or any sort of battery slot. The drone looked completely different from before he had blacked out. Most of the components present he didn’t have. The material the drone was made out of, the light on the front, the large metal plate on its underside… he had had no memory of these things, neither possessing nor making them.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

That worried him. Where did it come from? Was it sourced from his power? Was he transforming matter, putting together little pieces to form something bigger? Or when he blacked out, was he going on a rampage, stealing, grabbing whatever he could?

If he was, it probably wasn’t happening here, or at least, not physically. People would certainly tell him if he was going out on a superpowered thieving binge, possibly even in the form of a super at the front door.

There was always the possibility that he was summoning the components from somewhere. That could be a good thing, or a bad thing. On one hand, some supers had access to alternate dimensions far different from their own. Dylan thought he had heard of an infinitely expansive mechanical dimension before, so that could be the source of these unexplained materials.

On the other hand, most people knew the story of The Magician. He could seemingly pull anything out of his hat, from cards to lifesaving organs. Nobody knew where they came from. Until one day, he was helping stabilize a building after a battle between supers, and they needed a piece that was on backorder. He, trying to be helpful, reached into his hat, and pulled it out. There wasn’t anything wrong with the piece itself.

The issue was where it came from. As it turns out, it was a key structural component for another damaged building nearby, and its loss caused a collapse within hours. Luckily, it was mostly depopulated, but over a dozen construction workers lost their lives.

Suddenly, conjuration powers weren’t seen with nearly as much enthusiasm as before. The Magician had to go into retirement due to public outrage, and there was a petition that went out to get him thrown in jail. It never gained much momentum, but it showed how quickly public opinion could turn. Before this, The Magician was a beloved hero, nearly a household name.

If Dylan’s powers pulled materials from our reality, then he needed to understand where they pulled from or how it worked, or figure out how to get a handle on that aspect of his abilities. He refused to be responsible for a disaster. At least what he had taken so far should only be a minor amount of material, no matter where it came from. It’s not like he had grabbed a whole structural support. Well, unless he had compressed it down by a lot, which he couldn’t technically discount. Shit… Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. He would try and figure out what was happening later.

For now, he left the drone alone, and walked downstairs, plopping down the couch. He had done enough work for today. It was time for a break. He turned on the tv, flipping through the channels. A rerun of friends, some weird reality show, one of the ones nobody ever seemed to watch, a serious news anchorman, dressed in a dark blue suit complete with a serious expression.

“Multiple supers are responding to a global catastrophe. At least a hundred are already confirmed dead, and the situation shows no signs of resolving soon. The World Super Organization-”

He changed the channel. The report would have been far more alarming if there didn’t seem to be on like it every other week. Always a catastrophe here, or an invasion there. While he heart went out to those affected by these events, they weren’t uncommon enough to be unique. Most people knew someone who had been through one, or even lived through one of these super catastrophes themselves.

The World Super Organzation (Or WSO, for short) was usually pretty good about handling these outbreaks. While some level of casualties was unavoidable, they were often contained within 12 hours. The WSO was a global network comprising a major super team, and about 10 minor ones. They also had authority to commandeer other countries teams when they weren’t currently responding to an emergency.

The fact that Nebula, their figurehead, was an unimaginably powerful super surely helped. He was a man with the ability to transform into an 8-foot tall glowing being made out of a mysterious purple energy. Able to fly, shoot energy blasts from his hands, and being nearly indestructible were the most notable of his powers, but he certainly had several other ones that weren’t as eye catching.

He couldn’t find anything to watch on tv, after nearly 15 minutes of changing channels. With a sigh of frustration, he threw the remote down onto his couch. He could find a book to read, or something. He crinkled his nose is disgust.

He began the arduous process of climbing the stairs up to his room. As the rhythmic creak of the broads, shrieking after being subjected to his weight, resounded throughout the air, he thought about what he was going to do tomorrow.

Dylan felt it was time to go back to the garbage heap. Or, rather, he was desperate to prevent his power from stagnating, and the dump was the only place he could think off where he could get the materials he would need to do that.

If he had any other option, Dylan would have taken in a heartbeat. The nightmares would have been enough to ward him off in any normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances.

Ultimately, there was no point in debating with himself. He needed to grow his power, that was where he got the things he needed to do that, and no matter the fact that it was dangerous or that it still scared him, Dylan would be going back.

This would give him an opportunity to test his drone as well. It was a welcome positive. He had made it for this purpose, after all, and Dylan would be lying if he said that he wasn’t eager to try out his newest invention. After seeing the unexpectedly good performance of his singular exo arm, something that was almost a failure compared to what he wanted to make, he couldn’t wait to see what the drone could do. It was a complete project, after all.

He laid in bed until eventually he drifted off to sleep. The nightmares weren’t as bad tonight.