It took several days for us to get everything set up. Multiple trips  to the Academy, to the WCP, and to a shop in the center of Rajak had  been exhausting and time consuming, but after all that effort everything  was finally done. A full four sets of gear at the peak of F rank, one  for each member of my crew. They had just now been delivered for us to  look over before we headed down to participate in our mission in G  district, infiltrating Melissa, or rather Starbreaker's faction within  the cavalcade for Cicero so we could find out who our enemy was.

Callie  and I had discussed Cicero's actions toward us at length, and despite  still wanting to punch him in the eye socket because of it, we figured  out the motivations in retrospect at least. Aside from his stated  reasoning, we'd neglected the obvious fact that Melissa would definitely  be watching. My show with the bull and donation of the chits would have  been an obvious sign we were on team Cicero, and for his plan to work  we had to be our own separate entity. By being so aggressive and  manipulative he not only secured our help, he also visibly and obviously  alienated us, something Melissa was sure to have noticed.

Since  she would know we hated him now she would be more open to us being  recruited, hoping to snatch a pair of talented kids that Cicero clearly  wanted on his side. It made me think slightly better of the old ring  master, though not by much. I was still pissed about the danger and lack  of warning. I was planning to repay that favor whatever his reasoning.   Until then though, we would have to be satisfied wasting a ton of his  cash, and we had definitely done that well enough.

Which  led us to now. We were all in the living room with the wolves, and since  this was such a big moment we had decided to open the new gear up one  at a time so we could all see what the others had gotten. We'd gone out  of our way to keep the details private so we could surprise our  teammates, and I for one couldn't wait to show everyone my new  equipment. Since we'd left them behind for the negotiations though, we  had decided to let Benny and Jessie go first.

Rather than  agree to take turns the both of them decided to settle it with a game of  rock paper scissors. Shockingly they played about a dozen hands before  Jessie managed to eke out a win, and I briefly wondered if one or both  of them might have cheated slightly with Perception or something. It  would have been easy enough, but whatever the case they had settled it  now, and Jessie practically sprinted from the room to put her new gear  on, excited to get to show off the powerful armor set that she'd had  custom made for herself.

When she came back in, we were  all absolutely floored by her new gear. Technically speaking, Jessie's  outfit was similar to her previous one, but at the same time, they  couldn't have been more different. Rather than one of concept, the main  difference was in execution here. Despite being a green cloak and  leotard with boots and a green mask, the relation between Jessie's old  costume and her new one was akin to the similarity between a child's  finger painting of a car and an actual living feline.

There  were plenty of differences despite the thematic similarities too  though. The materials were what appeared to be literal leaves instead of  fabric, though they were special leaves, the golden vessels inside the  leaf structures forming intricate rune patterns so spiderweb thin I had  to focus to even spot them. The runes, which had somehow been grown INTO  the leaves, held a series of powerful enchantments I couldn't begin to  recognize.

Her mask wasn't leaves, but it was a single  piece of carved emerald filigreed to look like leaves, with traceries of  gold along the edges. The cloak itself was a long carpet of crushed  velvet with runes sewn in using some gold thread, and the boots were  green leather I didn't actually recognize. It fit together flawlessy,  possessing a subtle and harmonious wholesomeness of design that made it  clear the set had been made all by one person. Jessie was obviously  thrilled with it, doing a pirouette to show off her new gear and  shooting us a grin.

She gestured down to herself. "Isn't  this great? The leaves are life tree leaves. Celine got them for me.  They're super heavy in Vitality and they amplify life and healing based  abilities. The enchantments are elven design. I wasn't sure I could get  them, but Celine called in a favor to get them laid into the leaves.  They had to be done once the outfit was already finished, but it was so  worth it!" Doesn't it look amazing? Aside from amplification it also has  insane defense and will protect me from most anything."

I  could see the elven handiwork in the design now that I was looking for  it. Well, not exactly, I could see what looked like elven handiwork. I'd  never seen elf gear really. Celine had gear but I was pretty sure she  used locally sourced stuff. In any case we all clapped for Jessie, who  looked thrilled and walked over to flop down on her wolf as Benny got up  to go and get into his new costume. He was just as excited about this  whole thing as Jessie had been, and I realized that this was his first  set of custom gear.

He'd made his own stuff for  integration, but this was his first set of real armor he had bought and I  could see why he would want to celebrate it. I was looking forward to  seeing how excited he got when he was showing us his new clothes, and to  see exactly how impressive they were. I had high hopes after seeing the  masterpiece Jessie had on when she'd come out to show us.

In  some ways, Benny had a lot more to work with than Jessie had. While he  had an aesthetic to stick to like Jessie, Benny's aesthetic was much  more average and unimpressive. That was a problem for getting his name  out there aside from certain situations like the hunt, but it was also  an asset when redesigning his image like this. There was a lot more  variety you could get in the strike zone of 'boring black outfit' than  'green leotard and cloak'. There was lots of variety to be found in a  black mask and a hood.

And find it he did. I blinked in  impressed shock as he stepped out from behind the wall, preening  ridiculously as he waltzed into the room like a model on a catwalk. He  whirled, looking dramatically back over one shoulder, and Jessie clapped  as I rolled my eyes. Callie was doing her best not to laugh, and I  finally had to cut in. "Would you two stop feeding the animals?" The  wolves all looked up at me suspiciously and I coughed in embarrassment.  "Not like that guys, I mean can you stop humoring him. He's got a big  enough head as it is, and the last thing he needs is someone convincing  him his jokes are actually funny."

Benny sniffed  disdainfully. "The intricacies of my humor are far beyond the petty  thought processes of an unsophisticated thug such as yourself." His tone  was haughty and snobbish, but in an over the top way that made it clear  he was just messing around.

Which didn't mean I wasn't  going to respond. "Ok, first of all, I'll thuggishly unsophisticate you  upside the head. Second of all your back is turned you nimrod. Your  stupid cloak is covering up your costume so we can only see parts of it.  It's pretty impressive but maybe you can sit still so we can admire it  instead of having to look at your frankly underwhelming face, mask or  not." I grinned to let him know I was also teasing, and enjoyed the over  the top look of offense as he literally put a hand to his chest in  shocked outrage.

That faded after a second though, and he  rolled his eyes. "Fine. You sure your power isn't cancelling  electricity? Because I've never met such an effective buzzkill." He  swept back the cloak dramatically. "Very well nerds, behold!" He exposed  the entirety of the new armor, and with a better look my impressed  shock was amplified. Benny's new costume was a basic black set of gear. A  thick arming jacket over a black leather breastplate and leather pants.  The pants were thick rough leather rather than the kind you might see  for fashion, and had thick cargo style pockets for holding objects.

The  entire outfit was covered in a tracery of gold, silver, and copper  filigree, traced over the leather in the shapes of mechanical gears of  varying sized and complexity, with runes set into the material at  various intervals. Nothing as impressive or flowing as Jessie's but I  could tell just from the impressions I was getting there was some  durability and protection mixed in there.

The subtle  accents of the metallic thread changed what had been a basic and  uninspired costume into something understated and elegant. I hated to  admit it but I kind of wished I'd been able to go for a change that  dramatic with my gear, but with my current rep I had to stay on brand as  best as I could. Callie waited for Benny to get his preening and posing  out of the way before she hopped up and bolted out of the room to get  her own new costume. I knew hers had been a bit more difficult to find  materials for because she needed either a ton of time to imbue the  shadow aspect of her embodiment into the clothes or something shadow  attuned that would accept the power more easily. Her embodiment power  was extremely useful and I knew she wouldn't be comfortable without her  clothes fully empowered so we'd chosen to look carefully for more  suitable mats.

I was surprised to  learn about the time requirement for her embodiment skill, but it made  sense. I'd never seen her use it on anything not prepared, and she had  mentioned something about special materials when she showed me her bike I  was pretty sure. Still, despite knowing what was coming, when Callie  stepped out I admit my jaw dropped a bit. As she'd mentioned, she didn't  change her style or aesthetic at all, the design was literally  identical. The material however, was a total shift.

Callie's  old costume had been black. As in the color. This new one was dark, as  in, the absence of light. The entire thing seemed to literally consume  the light around her, giving the very jarring impression that she was  wearing some kind of screen that was giving us a view into a bottomless  abyss. I was almost positive that would harmonize perfectly with stealth  and her shadow power both, and just watching her move took a bit of  adjustment before I could even process what was happening. My brain kept  losing track of her because it didn't want to process the effect, and I  was damn impressed with the work of whoever made it.

She  gave a twirl and a wide smile and I applauded alongside Jessie. She  posed, gesturing to herself dramatically like Benny had, only much more  appealingly and with way more grace. "As you can see, my new gear is  made of shadowspun wraith weave. It holds dark energy better than almost  any material at G rank, only losing out to some proprietary fabrics  from the cult we would have had to wait for months to get. It's  enchanted with stealth runes." She dropped the pose and looked to me.  "Now. Why not get changed into your own costume and show us what you got  because we have to go soon." She held up her hand, scan ring out.  "Apparently the delivery service told Cicero we got the gear. We've been  summoned." I cursed internally. Not my big reveal was going to be  spoiled.