Ascent 9.8

2005, September 18: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I spent the rest of August and first half of September fulfilling my promise to Glen. Which was to say, I went on tours to the cities of friends and associates, mostly just to show my face.

It was unexpectedly nice, and in general not a huge time commitment with Doormaker’s help. I spent most of that time with the Wards, giving them basic training exercises or tutoring a local tinker if they had one.

Another way to kill time was to pass out potions. I wasn’t necessary for that, but I couldn’t deny the warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest. There was something different about seeing people get healthier in my presence, something that elevated them from mere numbers on a report to actual lives changed.

Occasionally, I also helped out with any ongoing investigations or raids, but I was told not to do too much. If I was too heavy-handed, it could make the gangs desperate. Worse, when the gangs did choose to retaliate, I wouldn’t be there to shelter their cities from the fallout. 

The result was that I often acted in the background. I provided law enforcement with information gathered through my eyes and spared extra potions to tip the scales in their favor. As always, law enforcement was a balancing act and there was no such thing as a crime-free utopia.

Albuquerque especially was a bittersweet experience. Catching up with Ranchero and Stingray again was awesome, especially because Stingray, now Penelope Morrison, had taken maternity leave. She was six months pregnant with a son on the way and couldn’t go around punching villains for the moment. It was yet another reminder that time had marched on while I laid asleep. Their marriage was an event I’d hoped to attend.

Josie Morrison, David’s little sister, was also eleven years old now, five years older than Riley. She was doing well, inasmuch as a girl raised solely by her extremely busy older brother could be. I still felt a bitter sting at that; I was why they didn’t have a dad, after all.

I considered introducing her to Riley, but David talked me out of it. According to him, his kid sis couldn’t keep a secret to save her life and had nearly outed him and Penny on multiple occasions. She was a little girl who wanted to brag about her heroic big bro. Whatever work I was doing with the “scary thinker lady in a dandy hat,” he didn’t want her to accidentally blurt out if Riley picked anything up.

Comparatively, San Francisco was a little more business than pleasure. Yasmine “call me Jazz” de la Rosa, was a university student at UC Berkeley’s nursing program now. She was doing well for herself as Hat Trick, often doing ride-alongs with emergency services with her broad arsenal of costumes and skills.

No, the person who really caught my interest there was Agnes Court, a rising star in the Elite’s San Francisco branch. Or rather, the boy she’d sent to keep an eye on Jazz.

Seeing how she’d seen nothing wrong with figuring out Jazz’s civilian identity to approach her, presumably for recruitment down the line, I Doored into her bedroom at three in the morning before freezing the startled woman to her bed.

She had a good power, a wide-area shaker ability that could grow stone-like wood. Functionally, she was Labyrinth-lite, albeit with her sanity intact. At her best, I knew she could even hinder an endbringer.

No matter. Arctic winds howled. Death ripped the life from every last organic construct she sprouted.

In the end, we had a somewhat amicable chat. She wasn’t an unreasonable mass murderer; the higher-ups in the Elite generally weren’t. She was also smart enough to understand that targeting Jazz, or even threatening to, would not end in her favor. In fact, the organization as a whole was considerably tamer than I remembered it being in canon.

The syndicate began in the early 1990s as a confederation of tinkers and thinkers who objected to the NEPEA-5. Led by Uppermost, the organization got its start here in San Francisco. Their goal was always money rather than territory or power so they usually focused on less obvious crimes like stock manipulation, black market trade of tinkertech, and similar.

My actions as Rubedo four years ago had resulted in the loosening of restrictions concerning parahumans in business. Those amendments did not magically disband the Elite; I was a decade too late for that. They were far too entrenched into the criminal underworld for them to consider going legitimate.

That said, those amendments did have a mellowing effect on various Elite cells. Rather than becoming radicalized, the cells self-regulated. Now that there were alternative methods of making money, they often purged their most violent members in favor of a more business-minded approach.

This of course had nothing to do with morals. It was because when parahumans were permitted more access to the free market, there was also the added effect of making money easier to launder.

With more of their liquid assets tied up in legitimate businesses, the Elite cells had a noteworthy incentive to maintain the status quo, for a certain definition of the phrase. Many of them, like the one in San Francisco, had a tacit understanding with the local Protectorate, not unlike the agreement casino syndicates had with the Las Vegas branch.

All that to say, people like Bastard Son, who was compared to the Slaughterhouse in canon, didn’t rise far in the organization. They were ostracized, purged, or the authorities were given tips so they could be removed seamlessly without the organization’s leadership dirtying their hands.

Agnes Court, her name was also actually Agnes, was a serious, business-minded woman. Already, I could see the person who, in another timeline, would have been a key player against Khonsu. She wasn’t the head of the San Francisco branch quite yet, Uppermost still retained power over the syndicate, but she served as one of his inner circle in the city.

Unlike many of her compatriots, her focus was on recruitment and she went out of her way to sponsor several corporate hero teams through shell companies as a way to help her boss control the narrative. By leaking information to the heroes, or directing her teams to investigate certain points of interest, she helped the Elite keep a handle on crime and maintain control over the city’s underworld in ways that weren’t immediately obvious.

I listened as Agnes explained what was happening with Jazz. The boy, I didn’t even bother to learn his name, was told to befriend her. If possible, he was to recruit her for a corporate hero team she was forming, not the gang directly.

Upon further consideration, I didn’t actually have a problem with Hat Trick leaving the Protectorate. She spent most of her time as a paramedic; she’d do that well enough as a corporate hero. In the end, we agreed that neither of us would intervene in Jazz’s life. The choice would be presented to her upon her graduation from UC Berkeley, but would be hers to make.

Comparatively speaking, I only spent a few days in Brockton Bay. It’d been roughly three weeks since I’d sent Lulu to the home of Earth-Bet’s canon and… I wasn’t sorry. It was arguably the best decision I could have made.

Long story short, the Empire was a crippled mess. In just a few, short weeks, Lulu utterly dismantled the most entrenched Nazi gang in the country.

She started by triggering an amber alert for a “missing child who wants to know what a Nazi is,” mostly because people couldn’t see through her glamor. Then, through a series of random coincidences, she ended up in an actual Nazi rally, where her childlike mind finally connected the dots.

And then, it was open season. Time slowed as Pix’s fairy dust showered the rally. Lulu’s Glitterlance ripped through Kaiser’s steel like paper. Wild magic lashed out in waves of raw, unfiltered change. A gigantified Lulu swung her staff with a delighted cackle, humbling the twins.

That night, people all across the city would claim to have seen a young girl, tugging a red, toy wagon behind her. That wagon was filled with produce, from radishes to carrots to potatoes.

She marched right into the Protectorate HQ, never mind that it was an oil rig on the water, and dumped the produce in Armsmaster’s lab. She demanded that they be counted for fairness’ sake, then that this produce be presented to me for her “cookie budget.” Because to her, Nazis were not people to fear; “Nazi” was a form of currency.

I owed Lulu many cookies. On the plus side, Lulu had fun and I got to help Brockton Bay without having to go out of my way. And, best of all, Colin was really, really confused.

I mostly spent my time there signing autographs and cleaning up the rest of the major factions in the city. I found out that Lulu met both Crystal and Shawn, Laserdream and Dauntless, during their triggers. Truly, it was like destiny smiled on yordles.

X

I adored Lulu, truly, I did. She was a fun, delightful bundle of chaos and mayhem. All things considered, she was also a great friend and role model for Riley.

The idea might seem strange at first glance, but my kid sister was much like me. Sometimes, I wondered if she looked up to me a bit too much. Like me, she had a structured, almost regimented outlook to life and problem solving, to the point that she wanted to impose order onto the world around her. I could see it in her tinkering, martial arts training, and even the chores mom assigned her.

That wasn’t a bad thing in itself of course. Structure was important. As more than one Karma had claimed throughout Ionia’s long history, “An orderly life reflects a disciplined mind. A disciplined mind is the foundation of wisdom.”

However, humans weren’t robots. Riley needed a bit of external stimulation, something to inspire her sharp, inquisitive mind and introduce new possibilities.

My tutoring and martial arts training taught Riley how to approach problems. Lulu’s brand of chaos was ideal for teaching Riley how to preserve a sense of wonder. The fae sorceress had a certain organic charm to her chaos that tugged my sister along. Truthfully, I too benefited from Lulu’s company.

That said, I couldn’t deny that my tinkering time had diminished greatly with her arrival. Having foisted her off on Armsmaster for a few weeks, and by Aurelion’s cosmic whiskers did I owe that man booze, I’d regained most of that time back. This was true even after accounting for my brief excursions to other cities. Now that I had more time to tinker, I made steady progress through my project pipeline.

Hextech was something I’d touched on with Heimerdinger, Jayce, and Viktor’s creations, but I’d yet to fully tap into its potential. I knew for instance, that in another time, another reality, Piltover would undergo a Hextech Renaissance, giving rise to the Hextech line of skins I loved in the game. Runeterra had no such records, but I knew that they were possible.

Theoretically, I should be able to replicate the abilities and skills of many Champions via hextech alone. Maybe none of it would help me take down Scion, but that was what training was for. My forays into the industrialization of magic proved to be welcome reprieves from the Mask.

It wasn’t like I was wasting my time. I finally got to update my arsenal with something I’d wanted for a long time: Camille’s adaptive shield matrix. Though Camille was a ruthless assassin, her clan, Clan Ferros, was among the most technologically advanced in Piltover. 

Her shield matrix was a complex bit of tech that incorporated highly advanced scanners, an adjustable energy matrix, a hardlight projector, and phasic system that could single out a target for assassination while pushing aside everything and everyone else in the vicinity.

It came in two parts: The first was a pair of eyes, retinal scanners included, that helped Camille identify incoming threats and locate critical vulnerabilities in her opponents by analyzing both the mechanical structure of their equipment and their energy signatures. Replicating that bit of hextech via a runic amulet left me feeling inordinately smug for days.

The second was the shield generator itself. It could project an orange force field that blocked kinetic impacts or a blue force field that absorbed various forms of energy, mana included. It was hardly the strongest protective equipment I had, but unlike spells or runes, the shield could be mass produced. I hoped to hand out copies eventually.

I opted to make a bracer for my left arm and attach it there. That way, I could control the size and strength of the shield. I tested it out and ensured I could project a buckler for myself instantly. It reminded me of the Blitzshield, that petricite frisbee I made during the Red Sands Incident. If all else failed, I could use it to single out a target via my version of Camille’s Hextech Ultimatum.

Having finished two major projects in Gamera and my new bracer, the World Rune ignited once more. I received Future’s Market when I finished Gamera and Approach Velocity when I finished the adaptive shield matrix.

The former was largely pointless. It told me the current price of anything according to the local market and offered an estimate of how that might change later. It would have been a wonderful boon to have had it gone to Kurt, but I had no time to dabble in economics, nor did I have the mind for business.

Approach Velocity was more interesting to me. It allowed me to accelerate towards a target as if I was in freefall. More importantly, I gained an intuitive understanding of acceleration, gravity, and related principles. As a proof of concept, and for completeness sake, I tinkered up Camille’s wire rappel hooks.

I didn’t need them, what with running on clouds and Hallowed Mist and such, so I gave them to Fortuna. Because that was what Earth-Bet needed, right? Fortuna doing an Australian drop bear impression?

Technically, she didn’t need them either. The Path was perfectly capable of maneuvering her without an Attack on Titian ripoff, but she’d developed something of a sense of humor, to everyone else’s misfortune.

I shrugged and leaned back into my chair. That sounded like a whole lot of not-my-problem.

My recent progress just left one final rune. I’d actually forgotten what First Strike did in the game. I knew it was a Keystone so it’d be pretty damn strong, but I couldn’t remember the exact mechanics. For that matter, none of the runes I’d received perfectly aligned with what I remembered anyway, so no matter.

X

2005, October 19: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I was officially fourteen. My birthday was a quiet affair spent with family and friends. Well, some of them.

With my birthday landing on Wednesday this year, David and Penelope couldn’t find a babysitter they trusted with Josie in time. Given how much time off they’d already taken because of Penny’s pregnancy, they opted to remain in Albuquerque. Jazz was similarly absent. She was a student who worked part-time as an ER nurse/hero and had midterms to study for.

The only one who could make it was Raquel, who’d yet to leave Phoenix. She’d officially graduated from the Phoenix Wards this year, not that she looked it. At five feet tall and a hundred ten pounds soaking wet, the Latina gymnast could and often did get mistaken for a middle schooler.

On the plus side, she, Lulu, and Riley got along like a house on fire. Raquel was phenomenal with kids, maybe because she kept getting mistaken for one. She told funny stories about patrols, the other Wards, and all the dumb things I used to get up to when I was a government wage-slave.

Watching them, I once again got the sense that time had flowed by without me. My friends’ lives were going well, but the space we’d made for each other was gradually being filled with other things. It was a bittersweet feeling, knowing that we were bound to drift apart.

The day became just that bit more exciting when Lulu insisted on baking me a cake. Riley, always up for a bit of adventure, leapt at the chance.

They tried, but I did not in fact get to enjoy cake. Actually, I spent the latter half of my birthday cleaning my kitchen, but it was a valiant effort nonetheless. Besides, pizza was always a great plan B.

“It’s been a while since I got to hang out with you like this,” Raquel said as she cuddled with Lulu in her lap. Lulu was dozing, caught in the throes of a mighty food coma. “Everyone’s so busy these days.”

“That ‘everyone’ will include you soon enough, Miss Protectorate Hero,” I replied. Next to me, Riley was in much the same boat as Lulu. “They’re not reassigning you, are they?”

“Nah. Why would they? I’m pretty sure Director Lyons thinks I’m the only one you’ll listen to. She’s probably keeping me around just in case as her panic button.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you kidding? I love Phoenix. I don’t want to be drafted like an NBA player and sent to the middle of nowhere.”

“Most people would say Phoenix is the definition of ‘middle of nowhere.’”

“Hush, you. This way, I get to stay with my family and friends.” She stroked Lulu’s ear as she sighed. “But yeah, I’m probably going to get busier now. Director Lyons started her Heroes in Community initiative, remember?”

“Uh… Remind me?”

“Right, you were… asleep. It was like a year ago. Anyway, it’s this thing where heroes work with teachers, firefighters, cops, and all those other guys. You know, go out and do more things beyond just punching villains in the face.”

“That sounds pretty nice, actually. Aren’t you already an honorary firefighter? Arizona basically spontaneously combusts every summer anyway so you do tons of work with them.”

“Exactly, and that was when I was a Ward. Now that I’m legal, the director wants me to take point, teach a few classes, train some heroes and rookie firefighters, that sort of thing. It’s… It’s awesome, but it’s also going to eat a lot of my time,” she said. She looked down at Lulu’s peacefully dozing face with a confused smile. “I guess I’m a little nervous… maybe? I’m not sure how I feel to be honest. I’ve never done this sort of thing before. How about you? Any super-secret projects you’re not allowed to tell me?”

“If I was working on anything like that, why would I tell you?” I asked blandly.

“Because the idea of taking orders from anyone annoys you to no end.”

“True, but there aren’t any secret projects, sorry.”

“Really? Why do I not believe you?”

“I’m serious,” I said defensively. It was true, I had no secret projects; I had a secret mission to murder an already suicidally depressed god. That wasn’t the same thing.

“Okay, buster, what’s the coolest thing you’ve built lately?”

She was changing the subject, but I humored her. “Gamera? It was a collaboration between me, Hero, and Dragon.”

“Those are some big names you’re throwing around there.”

“Yeah, it’s a mecha. Think of a giant turtle with a snake for a tail and you’re on the right track.”

“Of course you made a giant turtle…” she smiled with a rueful shake. “What’s it for?”

“Anti-Behemoth,” I said simply. “It’s mostly there to project force fields, evacuate civilians and injured heroes, and maybe launch one or two distracting attacks.”

“Huh… Sounds impressive. Can I drive it?”

“You’ll have to take it up with Dragon. Hero and I can each pilot it, but I’m pretty sure she’s the best for the job. She’s in love with the thing. It’s kinda sweet.”

“Huh… You know, you’ve really moved up in the world since I first saw you.”

“I’d hope so. When you first saw me, I was a blind, traumatized eight year old.”

“True. Do you ever look back and wonder how you got where you are?”

“All the time. It’s never any one thing, you know? If I hadn’t gone to DC and met Hero and Contessa, if I hadn’t been kidnapped, or if I hadn’t met you guys, my life would probably look very different.”

“Contessa? Right, the scary thinker-lady. Have I told you how much she gives me the heebie-jeebies?”

“Have you considered that she presents herself in such a way as to give you the maximum uncanny valley vibe so you’d not dig into her affairs?”

“That’s… probably true from what Penny’s told me. Honestly? That’s even more of a reason for me to not mess with whatever she’s doing.”

“Smart girl. But yeah, every time I think about what might have been, I think that my life wouldn’t have looked all that different. I was bound to get mixed up in this kind of thing one way or another.”

“Why? Because the PRT bigshots won’t leave you alone?”

“No, because I’d never forgive myself if I sat around doing nothing until I was eighteen,” I said. I leaned back but stilled again when Riley mumbled in annoyance. “It’s just not in my nature.”

It was true. Fortuna undoubtedly could, would, and did manipulate me. Rebecca probably did her fair share of that as the chief director too.

But, at the end of the day, knowing what I knew, with the power I had, I couldn’t imagine a world in which I’d remained on the sidelines for something as nebulous as “canon.”

“How do you do it?” she asked quietly. “How do you put up with everyone saying you’re too young? That it doesn’t matter how much difference you can make in the world because you should be in school and fumbling dates and sneaking dad’s tequila and stuff?”

I didn’t. The answer was that I didn’t put up with people like that because I didn’t even know people were saying that about me. I barely checked PHO and any other social media website or news outlet may as well not exist for me. I got my news through a VI that Richter set up, filtered and curated to include only the shit that mattered.

But that probably wasn’t the right answer. Raquel had always been a social butterfly. When she was younger, she used to surround herself with friends even though she hadn’t mastered her power yet. She had a bit of a reputation as an accidental kleptomaniac and had almost outed herself on several occasions by teleporting small objects into her hands. She was the kind of person who simply couldn’t “unplug” from society.

After some thought, I replied, “I have people who believe in me. I have a mother who tells me how proud she is of me. I have a kid sister who looks up to me. I have friends who tell me that I can change the world. And I make sure that those voices are louder in my ears.”

“That’s… Thanks…”

“You’re welcome, trash panda.”

“Asshole.”

I gestured pointedly towards Riley. “Language.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said sheepishly. Then, she stuck out her tongue. “Pinche puto.”

Riley looked up lazily. “I heard that.”

“Wait, she speaks Spanish?” Raquel hissed at me.

“No, but she can connect the dots,” I said with a laugh. “You owe her three cookies, by the way. One for English, two more for naughty Spanish words.”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll pay the cookie tax.”

Author’s Note

Slow chapter.

I was supposed to write a chapter or two per each city that the original Phoenix Wards ended up in. Then I realized it’d get a little long. I’m learning to manage my outline. See? Progress!

Animal Fact: Platypus have no nipples. They do produce milk, however. Rather than have little, milk-dispensing nozzles like the rest of us mammals, they instead have glands that secrete milk directly onto the skin. Baby platypuses lap it up from their mothers’ skin or suck milk from tufts of fur.

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