Got the Grimoire, Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Mimi found me slumped over the kitchen island, eyes bloodshot as I kind of just stared out into space.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.

“Oh, just dealing with the moral complexities of life. Also I hid an entire dimension from a god’s sight. Nothing major,” I said dully.

Her eyebrows shot into her hairline, but she didn’t comment further. Instead she went over to the fridge and grabbed a pair of sodas, setting one down in front of me. I shot her a questioning look.

“You look like death, have some caffeine,” she informed me.

“Right-o.” I took a sip of the bubbly drink and sighed slightly to myself. Good. Not coffee levels of good, but still helpful. “How’d the interview go.”

She frowned as she sat down next to me. “Ehhhhh, it went alright. I think the fact that I don’t have much in the way of education is kind of hurting my chances, just the GED from when I was in the Asylum.”

I grunted and sat up. “Yeah, that probably doesn’t help.” I reached into my shadow and pulled out a package that had been sitting on the doorstep when I’d returned. “Here, I ordered this for you on Saturday.”

Mimi eyed it suspiciously before opening it. Her eyes widened slightly. “Holy shit, how much did this cost?”

“You don’t want to know,” I said gravely. I’d paid extra for a rush job after all.

She slowly unpackaged the brand new laptop, the symbol of Toybox proudly stamped on the box. “What is this for?”

“Well we were talking about furthering your education and applying for remote jobs, but you mentioned not having a computer. Which makes sense, the hobo thing and all. So I got you one,” I explained. “It’s top of the line with tinker-tech components. Faster than anything else on the market, wi-fi enabled basically anywhere on the globe, virtually unhackable, and it comes with a lifetime warranty against defect. Plus maintenance is included of course, seeing as it’s tinker-tech.” I reached out and tapped the box. “Same model that Lisa uses, she’s the one who recommended it. Figured if I was going to get you something, I’d make sure it was a good investment.”

Different emotions flickered through Mimi’s eyes before finally settling on resigned gratitude. “I’m never going to be able to pay you back at this rate,” she muttered. “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing, really. I’m just doing what I can to help and with the amount of money I have these days, this is just a drop in the bucket.” A big drop, but still a drop. She still looked conflicted. “If you want to be all mercenary about it, think of it as an investment in the hero known as Firestorm,” I said while rolling my eyes. “Countries pay good money for capes, even more for capes as powerful as you. It’s a small investment in the end.”

“Oh…” She suddenly grinned. “Does that mean I should be asking for more money then?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

She punched my arm fondly. “I won’t. You’ve done more than enough for me, so promise me you won’t do anything else this big or generous.”

“Sure, sure. Just as long as you keep doing the hero thing. Or at least vigilante.”

“Not like there are many other options with my powers. But I like punching out bad guys it’s… satisfying.”

“That it is.”

***

Friday, April 1, 2011

“You wanted to see me, boss?”

Colin glanced up from his workbench and nodded. “You offered to provide me with enhancements thanks to one of your more recent power acquisitions.”

“That’s right. Figured if we were going to boost anyone on the team, starting with our leader was a logical move.”

“As opposed to parahumans that aren’t members of the Protectorate. I agree.”

I’d spent enough time around him by that point to notice the sarcasm in his tone. “Look, I only powered up Laserdream because she’s my girlfriend and I just worry sometimes-“

“I was just ah, I believe the term is, ‘messing with you’.” He shot me a quick smirk before walking over to the small fridge in his workshop. He pulled out two unmarked bottles and two covered plates. “Sacrifices seem to fuel this new ability if I remember correctly?”

“That they do. You know that money apparently works just fine, right?”

“I wanted to pursue a more efficient model if possible. It would be strange for currency to just start disappearing from the economy and would certainly pique the interest of certain Thinkers in the employ of the government if it started happening too often,” he explained.

“Alright, so what’s this?”

“A test of sorts.” The cover came off both plates revealing… cookies. Just plain, chocolate chip cookies. “Food and drink function for the ‘sacrifices’ as I recall.”

“You recall correctly.”

“Then I offer these to you,” he said as he pushed both plates forward. “But for the interests of science, could you try and give me an approximation of which one gives you more energy?”

“I’ll try.” I held out a hand over one plate and the cookies just seemed to melt away into a thin vapor that went into my hand. I felt the ghost of chocolate on the tip of my tongue, but not much else. I mirrored the gesture on the other plate and this time the power was much more tangible, the flavor more real. “This one, for sure, way more energy,” I said, tapping the second plate.

Colin looked pleased for a moment before pushing forward the bottles. “And these?”

I repeated the process, the phantom taste of whiskey passing over my palate. “The first bottle.”

Once again Colin looked pleased and began to jot down notes. “And how much accumulated power did you get from all of this combined?”

“Enough to grant someone a Brute 1 or 2 rating I think.”

“And how much cold hard cash would you have needed to do that? Best guess.”

I thought about when we’d been experimenting with the Greatest of Fairies power before and juggled the results through my memories. “Maybe a few hundred dollars?”

Colin nodded and began making notes. “Excellent.” He tapped the first empty plate. “Store bought cookies.” The second. “Homemade. Took me a few tries, but Dragon was happy to assist when I asked.”

I’ll bet she was. “And the booze?”

“The same. One batch I quick distilled using some equipment I had lying around and the other was a fifty dollar bottle of bourbon from off the shelf.” He wrote a few more notes down. “It seems that not only is food and drink more efficient in building up your power reserves than mere money, but food and drink made with purpose and care also provide more power. Less than ten dollars in materials, not counting the equipment to make it, and you already have a decent reservoir of power.”

“That’s really fricking weird. So you’re telling me that my power is somehow differentiating between mass produced stuff and homemade goodness?”

“Essentially, yes.”

It is most likely a spiritual component, Raziel chimed in. Offerings made without sincerity, made by dozens of hands and the vast majority through machinery just does not have the same amount of spiritual weight behind it as something made by just one or two people. There is just more heart in it.

So what you’re telling me is that my mom and grandma weren’t just full of crap when they said the secret ingredient was love?

I… I suppose so.

“Well it sounds like we have a new model on how I’m going to be empowering capes from now on. You want the boost now or do you want to accumulate more power first?”

“I believe it would be most efficient if you gave me the power as you received it, that way I can better train with my new physical abilities and also make necessary tweaks to my equipment if necessary.”

I nodded and then drew upon the small well of power that I now had and bestowed it upon Colin, focusing not on his power as I had with Crystal, but instead his body, strengthening flesh and bone with magic.

Once I was finished, Colin glanced at one hand with a small frown and flexed it experimentally. “I don’t feel all that different.”

“I’d be surprised if you did. Like I said, Brute 1 or 2, not all that far off from peak human performance.”

“Hm, I suppose I should be grateful for even the smallest of advantages, especially if they start to add up. I’m going to hit the gym and practice, get a proper reading on my new limits. Care to join me?”

“Sure.”

***

Crystal blinked at my appearance before clasping a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. “What the hell happened to you?”

I grimaced, feeling the split lip with the motion, and winced as she stepped forward and poked gently at my black eye. “I underestimated what a Brute 2 with martial arts training was capable of.”

“And you haven’t healed yourself because…?”

“Punishing myself for being so stupid. Also I wanted to see your reaction.” I grinned. “It was kinda funny. Well worth the minor discomfort.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re an idiot. Fix yourself up, that must sting pretty bad.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse.” I did as she said though and allowed a flicker of golden light to pass over my features, repairing the mostly cosmetic damage. “So I had an idea for patrol tonight…”

“Look, if you want me to wear the costume, we can use your bedroom, because doing it on a rooftop just sounds uncomfortable and getting a hotel is too risky.”

I blinked and then felt my face heat up. “That’s not what I- I mean I- That is not at all where I was going with that!”

Crystal grinned impishly at my expression. “I know, I’m just teasing you.” Then she grinned and tilted her head to the side, letting a lock of hair cover one eye. “Mostly.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, I swear,” I muttered.

We were at her place, Eric out with some friends while the elder Pelhams were having a date night. Crystal felt like going out and finding some bad guys to punch and I’d been more than happy to comply.

“I hope not, that’d kinda hurt any future prospects. ‘Oh my last boyfriend? Died under mysterious circumstances.’ Yeah, not in the cards, you gotta stay alive at this point.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said lazily with a mock salute. “In all seriousness though, I wanted to focus more on this area tonight.” I bent light and highlighted a section of the Brockton Bay map that New Wave kept for their ‘tactical briefings’. It was the outskirts of the ABB’s territory edging into the Trainyard and outer slums. “New gang has been making it’s appearance felt pretty hard. The ABB or what’s left of it, and the smaller groups that have fractured off from it are holding their own pretty well, but this new group has a pretty big advantage: They’ve got capes.”

“Oh is it those Merchant guys? I’ve heard of them, but never really thought much. Just a bunch of druggies, right?”

I made a so-so gesture with my hand. “Their leader, Skidmark, is more clever than most give him credit for. You don’t build the kind of connections he does and get ahold of as much drugs as he can without some manner of money and influence. Why he still chooses to live the way he does is another matter entirely. He’s got two other capes on his roster. Mush, a Changer who collects trash into a sort of golem construct, and Squealer, a vehicle Tinker. She’s the whole reason that this group even has the potential to be anything more than a minor nuisance.”

“And what does Skidmark do?” she asked.

“Shaker. He lays down fields of light that accelerate an object passing through them and repels anything trying to come from the other side. Lets him basically make a railgun and also mostly immune to conventional arms. Assuming no one just shoots him in the back that is.”

“Why haven’t they gone bigger before? I mean, they don’t sound all that impressive, but three capes is still three capes.”

“Like I said, Skidmark is smart. He knows that if he went up against any of the previous big three gangs, the Merchants would get absolutely crushed. Coil could outmaneuver them, the Empire had raw numbers, and Lung was a class of his own. So they contented themselves with just the smallest dregs imaginable. But then we took the big players off the map…”

“Making a power vacuum…” Crystal sighed. “How do you have all this information on them if they’re such a small time group?”

“You remember I got weird precog powers…?”

“How can I forget? What, they important in those visions of yours or something?”

“Brockton got attacked by Leviathan after Lung gets put in the Birdcage. Empire gets crippled and the city starts breaking down, so up comes the Merchants, offering protection and power to the broken and downtrodden of the city. They became kind of a big deal for a bit until they got destroyed. Obviously I don’t want to let them gain that kind of traction this time around.”

“That makes sense.” A beat of silence passed between us. “You know, you’ve never told me about my personal future. Just kind of… vague generalities. But you seem to know about individuals, not just the shape of the future.”

Ah hell. “It never came up.”

She looked at me quietly for a minute. “Mak, do I need to be worried?”

“Not anymore.”

“Mak…”

“I’ve already changed things enough with just my presence in the city that what I saw shouldn’t, couldn’t come to pass. Do you really want me to give you information that will just make you feel terrible, but have no tangible impact on your life? The future is ever in motion, it won’t happen the way I saw things.”

She looked unsure for a moment, before finally sighing. “Look, you’d tell me if like, my family was in imminent danger or something, right?”

I tapped my knuckles against the table lightly. “I would. But any danger they might have hypothetically been in, is averted by me being here in the city.”

“… It was when Leviathan attacked, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Me?”

“No. You survived. But your dad and brother just got… unlucky.” More like Wildbow had rolled some freaking dice. Absolute bullshit. “Like I said, that won’t happen this time around. I’ll make sure of it. Or die trying.”

The expression on her face went from grim to eye rolling. “You’re such an idiot. Don’t even pretend like you couldn’t drive Leviathan out of the city by yourself if you really wanted to at this point.”

“Mayyyybeee,” I drawled. “There’s a reason I’m so confident that the future I saw won’t come to pass after all.”

“I’ll hold you to that. I’m literally trusting you with my family’s lives here, don’t take that for granted.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I promised. “Now do you want to just keep standing here moping about futures that won’t exist or do you want to go kick the asses of some drug dealers?”

Crystal grinned fiercely and held up a hand, letting it emit a blinding light. That looked… a good deal stronger than it had previously. Just how much had I buffed her?

“I’ve been told that I’m annoying when I mope, so drug dealers.”

“Drug dealers it is.”
***
A/N: A tad short, cause sometimes when you're writing you just hit those weird points where you either stop or you keep going way longer and I'd like to get some sleep tonight. Good news though, I get extra writing time this week and then I'm actually not going on vacation this upcoming week as the area my friends and I were going to go camping at is now smothered in smoke from a nearby wildfire. So that's been delayed. Anyway, huge thanks as always to you guys, you truly are the best. I'll catch you at a later date :)