2.12 Wave

2010, October 19: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

It wasn't until we were headed for the lockers after PE that I got the chance to chat with Eric. I jogged up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yo."

"Oh, hey, Bryce. How's it going?"

"Pretty good. You know how you said you wanted to hang out sometime? You have some free time to go to the arcade today?"

He looked surprised at that but smiled. "You know what? Yeah, sure. I could use the break. Mind if Grace comes too?"

"Sure, why not?"

X

"Hey Dean," I called to him between classes. He walked over, curious. I wasn't the type to call people out outside of lunch. "Hey man, I wanted to apologize for being a bit harsh on you yesterday. I still don't think Creed was wrong, but I didn't mean to start a debate over it at lunch."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Don't apologize. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing and you're right, we're just talking about hypotheticals. We don't know what Creed could do so it's all just a bunch of what-ifs." We started walking in the same direction, him to AP US government and me to generic world issues. That was a fascinating little shift from my past life. At my age, I'd taken world history but that was almost entirely gone now in favor of more contemporary affairs. "I talked to my dad, you know."

"Hmm?"

"About Creed and Uppercrust. He's big in the real estate business and has some properties in New York," he mentioned casually, as if being the son of a real estate mogul was nothing. To him, it was; it was what I both liked and hated about him. On one hand, he genuinely didn't care about his affluence and so didn't feel he was entitled to anything. On the other hand, he lacked self-awareness; since he didn't care, he assumed his views weren't influenced by his background and that they were entirely logical, thus should be shared by any rational person.

I quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah? What'd he say?"

"You were right about Uppercrust being a stabilizing influence on the gangs." He held out a hand before I could say "I told you so." "But! That's a very small part of the picture, Bryce. Uppercrust is only one part of the Elite. People like Bastard Son are his peers and they're nowhere near as benign."

"Point. Counterpoint: Creed works alone as far as we know and so he should be treated as an individual. The organizational problems of the Elite aren't applicable to him. The only one whose career he parallels is Uppercrust. In fact, the only associate Creed has that we know of is The GOAT, who seems far more heroically inclined than Creed himself."

"Maybe that's true, but even Uppercrust isn't bloodless. You were right; data says he's a stabilizing influence now, but how about when he was starting out like Creed is now? He had to do something to prove he could keep the peace. People don't mess with him now because they've already seen what he can do. What will Creed have to do to get that kind of credibility?'

I paused. That… was an uncomfortably salient argument. My actions, hopefully, proved I could look at the bigger picture. At the very least, it showed I could analyze a battlefield, discern relationships and vulnerabilities, and manipulate others into working with me. But while those were all well and good, I hadn't shown my willingness to follow through on a threat. I hadn't made a threat at all.

Would Kaiser test me next? Would Lung? Could I expect a response from Coil? I didn't know and truthfully, the possibility that I might have to kill someone to make my point scared me a little. There would come a day when I became too powerful to oppose, but until then…?

"I don't know," I finally answered Dean. "You have some good points. Maybe he'll just become a merchant kingpin by selling his tinkertech. Maybe he'll make his point by hunting down Hookwolf and making sure he actually makes it to the Birdcage this time. I don't know, Dean, I'm still not sure how it'll work out for Creed, but I can only hope he succeeds."

He sighed and offered me a wan smile. "You and me both, Bryce."

Thinking about it, Dean likely saw me as a particularly insightful freshman, with perhaps a bit too much interest in capes, who was a bit too invested in Creed. I wanted to appear reconciliatory, not just because he was a genuinely nice guy and I could see the points he made as valid, but because I was afraid he suspected me, if not of being Creed, then of being related to him.

We soon split off to class, though nothing of note happened during the school day.

I spent the rest of school designing my long-ranged options, the Walker pistols used by the Big Mom pirates. I planned to convert the pistols looted from the Merchant lab into their far deadlier variants. These, I swore, would never go into circulation, for heroes or otherwise.

They were a special type of pistol designed by the Charlotte family specifically to pierce through the hardened dermal armor of the Vinsmoke family. In other words, despite being only .36 calibers, they were fully armor piercing, enough to make Reiju bleed and she was no pushover. Add in Buggy's explosives expertise miniaturized into bullets and I had something truly impressive.

That was an interesting quirk of my powers. Rather than make bullets out of Buggy's explosives, I had been forced to make bombs and cannonballs. It was only after having made the finished products that I could attempt to modify them. It was the same with Labyrinth's shawl and my suit.

X

I had to say, I had a lot more fun hanging out with Eric and Grace than I'd expected. I asked him out to fulfill a social obligation, but he was good company. They were energetic in that way only kids could be; had I gone out with any couple in my twenties, I would have felt rightly like a third wheel. We went to the same arcade that I visited with the Wards before the homecoming game.

"Dude, why are you so good at whack-a-mole?" Eric complained as I racked up the high score.

'Because I'm cheating with Psychic.' Instead, I grinned genially. "Who knows? Maybe I'm the avatar of a god the mole-people offended in a past life."

"He's a cape," Grace chimed in. I froze, missing a mole. "His power is being good at games."

"I've lost every other game."

"That's your cover. You're trying to throw us off your trail."

"Your logic is flawless and I find myself in awe," I said dryly.

"As you should be." She puffed out her chest with faux arrogance. My turn came to an end and I handed the mallet to Eric. "Come on, boyfriend, show him how it's done!"

"I don't think I can top double nines, Grace."

"Fine, I expect you to win me a plushy though. Some traditions must be respected after all."

"Is this a date? Should I leave?" I said, wagging my eyebrows.

"Hmm, nah, maybe if he's lucky," she said coyly.

I could see a faint blush on Eric's face. "Come on guys, Do you need to do this?"

"Yes," we replied in unison.

"I'm a guy. As the only guy friend here, I find it my solemn, divinely ordained duty to make fun of your love life."

"No duty here," Grace sang. "I just think you're cute when you blush."

That just made him flush harder. Despite what he said, he did drop by the claw machine on our way out. He failed a few times but stuck to it with the dogged determination of a boy trying to impress a girl. I eventually took pity on him and held the flimsy claws closed with Magnet Rise. Grace squealed happily over some plush watermelon with googly eyes and I counted my wingmanship a success.

After that, they ended up dragging me to their favorite comic book shop, something Eric seemed a tad nervous about sharing at first until I told him about the manga and anime I used to enjoy in my past life. I even found some of them on the shelves, though they were either Earth-Aleph imports or had weird plot twists that made them a little different from what I remembered.

X

2010, October 22: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

Between school, tutoring Matt, hanging out with Eric and Grace, committing the science of lineage factors to memory, and working on Accord's expanded bags, I had a pretty busy week. It wasn't until Friday after school that I finally got around to making a Walker pistol of my own. I had the design ready for days, but I just hadn't been able to find the free time.

I tried to stick to the old-timey feel of the original used by Charlotte Pudding. Like hers, it had a varnished walnut grip that attached to a closed revolving chamber. Six shots to be classic, and because I couldn't make the chamber any bigger without making it look ridiculous in my hands. All metal components from the frame to the firing pin were made either of seastone or durable wapometal, whichever was more appropriate for the function. The trigger guard and the underside of the pistol were coated in gleaming brass for decoration, with golden flames trailing the frame.

All told, it looked like something an actor would use as a prop if he were to play the role of a marauding pirate from the eighteen hundreds. It wasn't period-accurate by any means, but it had the same general aesthetic. I thought it'd go well with the admiral-esque motif of my GES.

The tinkertech portion was a unique combination of metallurgy and mechanical engineering that made up the firing pin, trigger, spring, and barrel. It granted extreme penetrating power to whatever projectile was fired from it.

Normally, a barrel as short as this Walker would never be rifled. Even if it were, it'd never be able to put enough torque on the bullet to matter. My power decided physics could go die in a fire. Not only did the Walker pistol fire rounds equivalent to sniper bullets, it also compensated for the recoil damn near perfectly, so much so that the kickback was comparable to a regular .22 caliber handgun.

I emerged from my fugue and examined the finished pistol, twelve muggy ball .36 caliber bullets, and speed loader. I'd have to arrange for some regular bullets if I didn't want to blow up a small building with every shot, but I felt having a speed loader filled with the flashy clown specials was a smart idea.

I didn't just make the gun look like a period-drama prop out of some misplaced sense of homage to Charlotte Pudding. She was a bitch.

Simply put, the gun needed to look harmless. No gun would ever truly "look harmless," but barring that, I needed it to look like I'd only picked it up to fit my weird sentai-admiral-biker aesthetic, not because I truly intended to use it. I doubted the appearance would fool most veteran capes or gang members, but like with everything else about cape life, it was the optics presented to the general public that mattered.

'I keep telling Amy I don't want to deal with the PRT's PR guys, but I've basically become my own image consultant, huh?' I thought with a chuckle.

I'd agonized over whether or not I should keep it in a hammerspace pouch on my thigh or design an external holster to keep it on display. Ultimately, I was a craftsman and wanted my art on display so that was the last thing I made during the One Piece specialization: a holster for my left hip.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

All things considered, I was reasonably happy with the way I'd spent my specialization. Could I have done more? Definitely. But in the end, I lacked the resources and supply network to truly upscale my designs.

Even without an industrial manufacturing capacity, I'd set the foundations for future works by learning about lineage factors, forging wapometal, and crafting pyrobloin and seastone. I also learned to weave the special Germa fibers, reinvented alternative fuel engines, created highly volatile munitions, and fashioned hover boots, shield modules, and stealth suits. Most of all, I'd made for myself a scale model of the Thousand Sunny that now sat in its pride of place at the center of my lab.

I went to sleep that night with a satisfied smile, eager to see what the next specialization would entail.

X

2010, October 23: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I was a little better prepared for the onslaught of ideas that came with a shifting specialization this time.

I saw skates, skates of every design and type. Four wheelers, two wheelers, ones with wheels like tank treads, and even some with wheels that looked more like saw teeth. I even found one with wheels made of.. coiled, thornlike whips… that could unfurl for lashing kicks…?

They were motorized inline skates, with speed proportional to the leg strength of the wearer. They could reach speeds that broke the sound barrier, manipulate vibrations and friction to generate heat shimmers, and even run on the cloud trails of fighter jets. I didn't know roller blades could be so versatile…

Of all the variant designs running through my head, it was the regalia, the proof of kingship, that stood out to me. I only knew of one fictional series about sci-fi skates: Air Gear.

These skates, called air-trecks, or ATs in the series, took valid scientific principles and amplified them to the extreme for feats that were honestly hilariously unrealistic. In other words, par for the course as far as manga went.

They differed a great deal in appearance, some weren't even skates, but they all had three components in common: motorized wheels, a hydraulic cushioning system to help the wearer survive such ridiculous impacts, and a unique power injection system that relied on momentum to generate stupid amounts of energy. Some had braking systems, but most wearers, called storm riders, braked by spinning in place to bleed momentum.

As before, I decided to take SAINT with me and go on a jog to think about the possibilities.

Unlike One Piece, Air Gear took place in modern Japan so much of its tech base was familiar. Fantastical ideas such as tele-snails were replaced with standard phones and pagers. It made the scope of Air Gear's tech base much narrower than that of One Piece. That wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. If the Pokémon and One Piece tech trees were massive, sprawling oaks with countless branches and possibilities, the Air Gear tree was significantly more focused, a sky-high sequoia rather than a branching oak.

The fiction setting being modern Japan also meant that I could repair any mundane tech to superlative, if mundane, quality. I remembered enjoying the manga. There was that time Kururu, the Pledge Queen, took over the systems of an entire aircraft carrier with some pseudo-scientific bullshit that amounted to "vibration control, but fuck logic."

And… There it was. Modern shipbuilding. I knew how to tear apart a fucking aircraft carrier screw by screw. It was honestly a fascinating subject, one I set aside so I could compare it with the shipbuilding principles pioneered by Iceburg and Franky. I'd blend the best of both worlds later.

Like before, I decided to divide my tech tree into things I needed, things I wanted, and things I wouldn't be touching with a ten foot pole. The first thing I absolutely had to have from this tree wasn't a basic AT. While my hover boots were slower in every way, I could do without them for the moment. No, what I wanted was the Rumble Regalia: Ramjet. To be specific, I didn't need the regalia itself to skate on, as hilarious as it would be to show up to the next cape fight with two jet engines strapped to my feet; I wanted it to empower my Franky model soda engine to new heights.

The Ramjet was named after jet turbines because it worked according to the same basic principle. It sucked in air, compressed it to high temperature and pressure, and converted it into a supercritical fluid to use as fuel. The soda engine used the carbonation and sugar content of cola to achieve a comparable effect, but with more fantasy bullshit because One Piece. I felt giddy just thinking about trying to fuel it with supercritical cola.

The second must-have was a biotinkering project.

The mad scientists of Air Gear tried to make genetically engineered children capable of using ATs to their full potential. Because the goal was to create a human body designed for movement in zero gravity conditions, these children were called gravity children. The project was, as far as I could recall, perhaps the tamest and most user-friendly illegal genetic experimentation program in any fictional setting.

Gravity children looked largely the same as normal humans, discounting the wacky hair colors of your generic manga world, and weren't too strong compared to other bioengineered experiments in fiction such as Marvel's Captain America, Halo's Master Chief, or Prototype's Blacklight.

They weren't tailor-made for combat, but movement. They had an in-built biomass gyroscope, vastly improved and reconfigured eyes, enhanced proprioception, and resistance to inertia and air pressure. In other words, they looked mostly normal but were more agile than dragonflies.

As appealing as it was to dedicate my entire specialization to the creation of the Sky Regalia, I didn't want to rely entirely on my raid suit so the genetic modifications came first. Frankly, without a way to process all the information that came with owning a regalia, I'd never be able to use one of those to its fullest potential. Thankfully, with the lineage factor research I retained from Dr. Vegapunk, it would be a simple if tedious matter to make myself a serum.

Last on my wish list was the Pledge Regalia used by Kururu Sumeragi. It was one of the few regalia that wasn't a pair of inline skates, instead taking the form of multiple cross-like structures one might find on headstones.

It granted masterful control of sonic vibrations bordering on telekinesis. She able to install the Wind Regalia core mid-battle. In under three seconds. While falling. She was also able to completely shut down AT based mechanical armor during an assault on an aircraft carrier, literally disassembling it down to the screws and bolts via precise manipulation of subsonic vibrations in a single pass. The girl wielded her screwdriver like Mihawk wielded a sword and I wanted that ability so, so badly.

In other words, the Pledge Regalia was technopathy thinly disguised as sonic manipulation. I wanted it. Yes, I'd need it if I wanted to tune my own regalias in the future, but the truth was that its use as a tuner paled in comparison to its ability to repair and deconstruct mechanical objects at will. It would more than triple my working speed, not that I was slow compared to other tinkers before.

As for the things I wanted but didn't absolutely need, that was obvious: the other regalias. There were twenty-eight originals, but several characters combined and mixed them like Legos. And while they were most often used in skates, they didn't need to be. I could think of several ways to incorporate something like Ramjet into my costume without sticking turbines to my feet. If I remembered right, the original Rumble King used his in a giant boombox he carried over his shoulder like a bazooka. I'd likely still upgrade my hover boots a great deal, but they wouldn't be my priority.

The last thing I wanted stemmed from something called the "Inorganic Net."

In Air Gear, the memory sticks incorporated into ATs recorded the tricks of the storm rider. This recording was stored in a giant database called "Skylink." Some riders, specifically the owner of the Flame Regalia, could download the tricks of others and copy them perfectly. I didn't know how exactly, it'd take some doing, but I felt that I could use this process of digitalizing memory to teach myself the skills I was lacking. I was already doing something similar with the TM Downloader so this should be well within my abilities.

Surprisingly, there was nothing I'd consider forbidden. I was aware that a month ago, I'd been hesitant to perform any sort of biotinkering, but it wasn't as though I was going to turn myself into a grotesque mutant or create self-replicating monsters.

Yes, Air Gear didn't have characters who could cleave tsunamis or punch mountains, but that weakness and relative moderation was honestly rather appealing.

X

After my run, I received a call from Marshall Brown, the father of Matthew Brown, the kid I'd been tutoring. He told me that his son's grades were now caught up and he was happy with his new interest in math. Thanking me, he canceled our tutoring sessions and told me that he'd keep me in mind if a friend needed my services. It being Saturday, most of the parents were home so it didn't take me long to set up another client, an eighth grade girl named Hannah Chong.

I spent the rest of the morning with SAINT, drafting designs for the Ramjet-inspired engine. The regalia itself came to me easily. Of all the regalia, it was the one used most often throughout the canonical timeline, by no less than four "kings." I had plenty of examples to draw from. Hell, one was even a cyborg who'd had his lungs replaced with the special turbines. And of course, the soda engine of One Piece was one I'd perfected weeks ago.

The trouble came with fusing the two together. The principle of Ramjet was designed for gaseous input, namely air, but there was no real reason that it couldn't be adjusted for liquid. Still, my power didn't want to cooperate. That wasn't to say that it was impossible, the science of both specializations were clear to me, but my power had stopped feeding me blueprints, stopped holding my hand.

The sad truth among tinkers was that we weren't special, not really. It was our powers that held our hands, guiding us through one physics-melting discovery after another. I still had no idea if I had a traditional shard or if the Tinker of Fiction merely aped at it, but I did know that it at least functioned in a comparable manner to the tinkers of this world.

I had my own Manton limit of sorts. The Manton limit colloquially referred to the self-others divide or the inorganic-organic divide among capes, but it could technically refer to any arbitrary limitations enforced by powers. Mine seemed to be that for whatever reason, my power would stop assisting me if I tried to fuse two pieces of tech from two separate fictions together.

It wasn't directly opposing me, merely removing the guide rails. It could be done. I felt it. I knew it, but I wouldn't have the tinker fugue to draw upon. A part of me wanted to look into a different project, but I stubbornly stuck to this one. Was it wise? Probably not, but I felt the stirrings of pride. I was a maker. I felt that I wouldn't' be able to call myself a craftsman if I couldn't expand beyond my own power.

It took me the full morning to even come up with a prototype. It would break. It was guaranteed to be a failure. A mundane ramjet worked the way it did because the jet plane it was part of was flying forward at high speed, compressing the air by virtue of enormous forward momentum. I was trying that with a stationary engine using a feedback loop made of cola of all things.

Impossible.

And yet, I attempted it. Unlike with the designs derived from my powers, this was entirely original. I would not be spared from the grueling process of trial and error that defined the production process of any revolutionary technology. It would fail, but I would learn something new and be pushed one step further along the development process.

I joined my mom and sister for lunch, meatloaf sandwiches made from last night's leftovers. I grabbed a ciabatta roll and toasted it before fixing myself a quick slaw of mayo, mustard, vinaigrette, cabbage, and onions. I held the slaw mix out to my sister.

"Want some?"

She dipped a finger into the bowl and gave it a lick. "Yeah, that's pretty good. Mom, try it."

"I will, go ahead and help yourselves," my mom said, looking over a letter she'd received at the office.

I took my plate to the living room and turned on the TV, some sort of Saturday cartoon about a heroic team called the Trinity. It depicted a black-clad woman who was super strong, a blue man with super speed and lasers, and a green man whose power was to make wishes come true. The battled the Calamities, three giants of tremendous power who could only be opposed by the might, friendship, and chivalry of the Trinity. Subtle, the PRT was not.

"You haven't watched this stuff in years," mom said.

"Mmhm." I watched not-Alexandria unravel not-Simurgh's convoluted plan to blow up the moon before punching her through a mountain. "It's definitely got its entertainment value. Besides, I still remember Sierra deciding she was going to marry Legacy. Then she found out Legacy was just off-brand Legend and swore she'd marry Legend."

My sister's cheeks flushed red to match her dreads. "I was twelve!"

"And you were adorable dear."

"Seriously cute," I nodded with a shit-eating grin.

She shoved me. "Shut up, Bryce. Why don't you have any embarrassing stories?" she complained.

"Because shame is for lesser minds, sister dearest."

"Oh, I don't know," mom said with a coy smile, "I remember your postmodern macaroni portrait of me you did for Mother's Day."

"Oh yeah," Sierra crowed, "you were supposed to bring it home but tripped in front of the school and it scattered all over the sidewalk. You stood up with a straight face, looked mom square in the eyes, and swore it was supposed to be postmodern art."

"Hey, you gotta own your mistakes. Sometimes, that means apologizing. Other times, it means sticking to your guns and working with the hand you're dealt. Mom liked it, right?"

She leaned over and gave me a hug. "I loved it, sweetie."

My phone vibrated with a text. I opened it to find a message from Faultline asking me if I was finished with the eight bags for Accord. She intended to drive over to Boston tomorrow and wanted to deliver them while she had business there.

Creed: Yeah, I'm done with them. I can drop them off in an hour or two.

Faultline: Great, the club doesn't open until five so feel free to let yourself in.

Creed: Will do.

"Who's that," my sister tried to lean over my shoulder.

I pulled my phone out of her reach and locked it. "None of your business, sis."

"Was it Amy?" she asked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Oh right, how's that going, Bryce?" mom asked. It was the duty and privilege of mothers to be nosy about their sons' love lives, real or imagined. I understood. I still swore vengeance upon Sierra.

"That doesn't exist because we're not going out," I repeated for the thousandth time. "Amy and I went to homecoming together because she can't stand the random blind dates her sister tries to set her up with. I could at least hold a conversation with her without asking for a bigger dick or something equally idiotic."

"Don't be crude."

"Sorry, mom."

"So if it wasn't Amy, who was it?"

"A friend. I promised to meet up with them after lunch." I intentionally left "them" vague. Mom and Sierra assumed I meant people from school and I wanted to keep it that way. I stood as the episode of the over the top cartoon ended. "Speaking of which, I'm going to head out."

"Want a ride, bro?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"Mmk, later."

"Don't be out too late, Bryce," mom called as I walked through the door.

Author's Note

A supercritical fluid is one which exceeds the common temperature/pressure curve. It is a fluid which acts both as a gas and liquid simultaneously: too hot to be liquid, too pressured to be gas. It's an actual physical material and one of the reasons I used to love Air Gear. The other? I was a horny teenager and boobs.

End of arc 2.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.