Chapter 101: Recap

Chapter 101: Recap

***8 hours earlier***

“Alright, everyone’s here, good,” Perry said, scanning his crew.

Hardcase, Wraith, Breaker, Plagius, Titan, and...dad.

“Yo, I heard you got your legs all busted up. You look fine,” Plagius said, scanning Perry up and down.

“Nothing a balanced breakfast can’t fix,” Perry said. “Alright, so Underwriter Paid Mass Driver an exorbitant amount to pay me a beating, Mass Driver in turn hired some support to make the attack a bit easier on him, while Underwriter tagged along to make sure the job got done.

“Underwriter himself was hired by Neuron, whose insurance fraud empire stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, should the price of premiums tank.”

“I’ll handle Neuron,” Dad said, cracking his knuckles.

“No you will not.” Perry said, scowling at dad. “This has to come from me, or it fails to solve the primary issue: All my contacts and family set aside, Neuron feels like it’s safe to send goons at me. I have to change his mind about that.”

“How did you find out all this stuff?” Natalie asked, glancing down at Perry’s hand drawn map with a frown.

“My contacts in my family,” Perry said, shrugging sheepishly, raising his phone. On the screen was a massive wall of text from Gramma, giving Perry not only who hired Underwriter, but why and what his intended outcome was.

“Dad, all you have to do is your usual schtick at any building insured by Big Brain Energy that is worth more than thirty million but less than one-fifty, with low stakes in his companies. Those are the ones he likes to cut loose.”

“I have been wanting to destroy the fountain at the Coleman building,” dad said, rubbing his chin.

“What do you mean his usual?” Titan asked. Perry froze and could see Nat, Bret, and Titan all giving him curious glances.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

“You could call me a professional improvised nonconsensual demolition and resource acquisition specialist,” Dad said with a grin. Plagius didn’t get it, but Titan and Hardcase gave dad wary glances.

“Anyway, dad’s job is pretty self-explanatory. Plagius, Breaker, and Titan, all you gotta do is be the bait. I’ll transform the three of you into me and these two,” Perry said, pointing at himself, Heather and Nat. “You’ll be able to catch whatever attack Mass Driver sends at us.”

He glanced at Breaker. “Breaker, you’ll be me, because Mass Driver is going to go after me specifically, and you can tie him up for a long time. Maybe even beat him under the right circumstances. You’re pretty much the only one who can.”

“Sweet.” Breaker said, nodding.

“Titan, you’ll be Heather. Your superpowers are still usable in my disguise, so you fit Heather better than the other two, because she could pump up her muscles if she wanted to.”

“I just don’t because it’s gross.” Heather said with a scowl.

“So is it like a hologram or...” Titan asked.

“It’s a living meat-suit that magically vanishes your real body while you pilot it,” Perry said. “Plagius, you get to be Nat.”

“Aw, man...no offense.” Plagius said, paling at Nat’s scowl.

“None taken,” Nat said, eyes narrowed.

“Plagius gets Hardcase here, because she’s the perfect hostage. She’s small, portable, and without her mechsuit, has difficulty opening and closing widows that require twenty pounds of pressure.”

Perry continued on without a hitch, even as Nat’s glare was turned on him.

“If someone takes our fake Hardcase hostage, that will put Plagius in the perfect position to drain the shit out of them.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“I’ve ordered and modified a ton of used car sales supplies, including several dozen wacky waving arms flailing inflatable tube men to make the trap more attention-grabbing. I also paid top dollar to have an ad broadcast this morning, which will help lure them in.”

“Aren’t they gonna know it’s a trap?” Titan asked.

Perry nodded with a grin. “But they’re gonna be expecting drones or disintegration beams or something of that nature. Instead, I’m throwing two of Mass-Driver’s hardest counters at him.” Perry pointed at Plagius and Breaker.

“While you three wait for an attack, Hardcase, Wraith and I are going on the offensive. The Underwriter has information about how to request access to Neuron’s Database. Wraith, you’re going to go into his base dressed in my suit. He’s going to respond as if it were me, and waste most of his effort on the suit.”

Luck powers like the Underwriter’s didn’t work on a person’s body, most of the time, which made people like Titan, Plagius and Wraith, who needed no external enhancement, a nightmare for him. Wraith was one of the man’s hard-counters.

“Once Wraith gets the login information, she’ll forward it to Nat, who will get permission to access the database from Neuron, who will have been informed of...certain events.” Perry skirted around the words ‘Mechanaut attack’.

“And around the same time, I will have a nice, peaceful chat with Neuron about how he should be kind to others and turn the other cheek,” Perry said.

“That’s a lot of C-4 on the table behind you.” Titan said, brows raised. “That legal?”

“Of course it’s legal, I made it myself,” Perry said.

“You planning on killing him?”

“According to Franklin City law, any attack made by a super in the course of a heated battle which subjects both combatants to equal forces and kills one of them cannot be considered first degree murder, and is instead a misdemeanor.” Perry said with a smile.

“So...yes?” Titan asked.

“No, I’m sure Neuron has some first class, redundant protection on his personal thinkmeats that can resist a hundred pounds of high explosive. The C-4 is just a way to lure out and hopefully remove some of those defences.”

A flash of movement out of the corner of Perry’s eye caught his attention and made his heart stop.

HIPPIE VAN!

Perry ran out to meet Dave’s thugs, who climbed out of the car and wordlessly handed him the keys before sauntering away to meet a black truck at the road.

“Agree to disagree.” Perry said with a shrug. “Except I’m right.”

Breaker grunted sourly. Now that Perry was clean he had to clean up the showers, which involved using a floor squeegee to push their discarded disguises into a trash can lined with heavy duty plastic, tipped on its side.

Comic books never really show the cleanup after a successful mission. Usually it’s everyone drinking champagne or celebrating, or even mourning the dead. Not shoving a pile of meat into a trash can.

Superheroing is dirty work, sometimes.

Quest Complete!

Find out who is responsible for the attack and make them understand it was a mistake.

Reward: 2000XP, Respect from Neuron

Bonus: For going above and beyond in the consumption of causal energy, Respect amongst criminal underworld has increased.

Congratulations! You are now a level 6 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 6

HP: 7

Body: 6

Stability: 6

Nerve: 9

Attunement: 28

Free Points:8

XP to next level: 3814

Oh, excellent. Put one point in Attunement and seven in Stability, Perry thought, already working on his plan to even out the two stats.

One point in Attunement would make the difference between an extra free point next level, and the rest in Stability would do a lot of work towards closing the gap. Perry was originally tempted to only close the gap by one point, but given that he was going to be experimenting with his soul, it seemed prudent to frontload Stability and prevent some serious problems.

Attunement to Stability ratio at 2.5 hypothesized to result in the emergence of minor mental illness due to soul damage.

Current ratio:

4.11/1.88 = 2.18

Hypothetical ratio if the gap between attunement and Stability were only closed by one:

4.53/1.71 = 2.65

An unacceptable ratio, especially with him about to cause minor soul damage of his own. Perry needed that extra leeway in order to be a good person and be a good boyfriend. It was a lot safer for everyone involved If Perry had a healthy amount of Stability as a buffer between him and the crazy.

Perry rested on his floor squeegee in the middle of the steamy, bloodsoaked shower room, frowning.

Boyfriend? Are we officially dating? Did we mention anything out loud? How is this gonna work? What’s the future gonna look like?

Perry shook his head and went back to cleaning up bloody bits and pieces of his girlfriend...s? strewn out across the floor.

It occurred to him that this was exactly what it would look like if he’d brutally murdered Heather and Natalie in the shower room, then hacked them to pieces.

...Stupid Stability, making me think about things I’d rather ignore. Now I now why I ignored you in the first place.

Perry heaved a sigh. Gotta be an adult and take your medicine, though. Even if it’s bitter.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 6

HP: 7

Body: 6

Stability: 13

Nerve: 9

Attunement: 29

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 3814