Got the Grimoire, Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Monday, March 28, 2011

“Knock knock,” I said cheerfully. I leaned my head into the workshop and glanced around at the ongoing projects and maintenance that Kid Win had going. “How’s it going down here?”

Kid Win flinched and looked up from his welding with a wide-eyed look, though that might have just been the goggles. “Oh, Magus, sir, c’mon in. I didn’t realize you were visiting HQ today.”

“Not in any official capacity.” Permission granted, I stepped over the threshold of the door. I picked up a piece of tech that was lying discarded and with an idle thought, traced it. Complex tech, but with many components that defied physics as they were known to humans. Ah tinker-tech, what lovely bullshit. “Just checking in on you, seeing how the Tinkering is going, all that jazz. And you can call me ‘Mak’, I unmasked to you all for a reason.”

“Don’t you care about your secret identity?” He asked curiously while still fiddling with his project.

“My girlfriend is Laserdream, her whole family are capes, I’m not close with any of my blood family, and I’ve got enough firepower to take on an entire gang of capes,” I listed off. “It’s only secret still so that I don’t have to deal with people out in public, but even if the worst came to pass, I’ve gotten pretty good with illusions. But enough about me, what are you working on?” I walked up and eyed the project. “Some kind of beam weapon?”

Chris grinned and hefted it up. “I call it my Alternator Cannon! After all the stuff going on in the world, like the Endbringers and other S-class threats, but also seeing you fight Lung and the Empire, I figured I could use something that packs a punch. I designed the main fire mode based on you actually.”

“Me?” I asked, bemused.

“Yeah, those big golden beams of light. They impart kinetic and thermal energy seemingly at random and at a wide range of intensity. I wanted something similar, a big gun that I can also use on weaker opponents too, instead of accidentally hurting or killing them,” he explained.

“Ah, yeah, my beams are more intent based than anything else,” I said, somewhat sheepishly. “They’re as strong as I want and can do basically anything to a person, from punching them across the room, all the way to leveling a building.” Or mountain, but no need to give him any ideas. “But it’s good you’re building something that gives you multiple options. You filled out the proper forms for all this, yeah?”

His face fell. “Ah, no. I just kind of got in the zone and… the forms make my head hurt, not to mention how much it would suck if I put all the effort into designing it only for it to get rejected.”

“So then what was the plan?”

“Unveil it next time it was needed and hope it impressed the Director?”

I gave him a level look. “Does Piggot strike you as an easily impressed woman?”

He winced. “I guess not. I just… it’s a struggle to pay attention sometimes, so when I latch onto something like this, it’s hard to stop.”

“That’s fair. I actually thought I might be able to help you with that. That’s part of the reason I came by today actually.”

“Wait, help with my ADD and dyscalculia you mean?”

“Yep. It’s all an imbalance of brain chemicals or some other irregularity up there. Panacea doesn’t do brains, but I don’t mind making a few tweaks if you’d like.”

Chris jumped at the offer, no hesitation. “Please, that would be great!”

I nodded and closed my eyes for just a moment. Then I released the magical equivalent of a sonar pulse aimed at him. After a moment, I received a bunch of feedback on his brain and mind. It probably wasn’t as detailed as Amy could do or at least, I didn’t have a Shard giving me a shortcut, but I had something just as good.

Oh how far human minds have fallen since perfection, Raziel lamented. You should have seen how they operated before that, the sheer beauty of neurological connections and electrical impulses. So messy, but flowing so wonderfully.

They’re still pretty cool.

If you saw only water colors your entire life, then you’d be impressed by even the simplest pencil drawing. Compared to how your minds once were, human brains these days are like… like… Scribbles on a chalkboard.

And yet, even scribbles can be beautiful to the right person.

Do not even try to be philosophical with me, young man, I was there when the art was invented in Ancient Greece.

Oh stop it with the high and mighty act and just help me fix the kid’s brain.

As you command.

With Raziel’s deep knowledge of biology and my magic, we carefully made the smallest of adjustments to Chris’ brain. Not enough to have any kind of effect on his memory or personality, just balancing him out, bringing him to his fullest potential.

He blinked and his eyes lit up. He quickly scooped up a pile of paperwork and began writing frantically. After a moment, he stared with wonder before turning the numbers toward me.

“They’re all in the right places and facing the same direction,” he said, voice awed. “I can actually read them without any effort now.”

“Well go on, strut your stuff. Good luck, Kid,” I called over my shoulder, the young tinker already digging through a pile of material.

Nice kid.

That was very kind of you.

Eh, it wasn’t entirely altruistic. It will help the next generation of the heroes in the long run.

How so?

Without a learning disability, his tinkering quality will skyrocket. He’ll be able to do great things, probably learn his tinker specialty sooner than he ordinarily would have.

Why not just tell him?

I think telling him will be a short term benefit as he falls into his specialty, but it will always be tainted by the knowledge that someone else told him first. If he discovers it on his own, it will help his sense of achievement and self worth far more.

An interesting viewpoint. Fair, perhaps, even if many might just wish you to give them the easy answer.

Achievements that have not been earned, ultimately feel hollow.

…My host- Mak, are you alright?

I didn’t do anything to earn my powers, Raziel. I voiced the thought with barely concealed bitterness. I won the cosmic lottery and it just feels… unfair. These powers could have gone to any number of people that could use them better.

Do not focus on such self doubt. It is unbecoming of a champion of this world. Do not think of the ‘what ifs’ and ‘might haves’, think only what you can do now to put your gifts to their best possible use. Tell me, if you had gained powers through the natural ways of parahumans, rather than the magic of the Grimoire, would you still feel this way?

Probably not.

Even if the source of your powers were not your own, but that of an alien parasite?

I’d at least feel like I’d earned them in some way, even if that was trauma.

Interesting standards. Think of it this way then: Your body’s previous tenant, do you think he went through the necessary steps to experience a trigger event?

If he was depressed enough to take his own life, then yeah, probably.

Then think of yourself as his gift from the universe. Rather than die entirely, he keeps up the fight of a relative good. Do not allow his death to be in vain.

…You give horrible pep talks.

Apologies. I am not used to giving them.

Still… thanks.

It is my pleasure to serve.

My work phone rang, breaking me out of my thought conversation. “This is Magus,” I answered.

“Piggot here. GPS puts you at HQ right now?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“My office. You have a visitor.”

I stared at my phone in confusion, but followed her instructions, heading up to the Director’s office. Piggot’s secretary looked a little more stressed than usual and I gave her a questioning look as I flicked my eyes toward the door.

“Head on in. Important guest. Very important,” the woman said, voice nervous. Not in a ‘I’m in danger’ kind of way, more of a ‘I don’t want to screw up in front of a big-shot' way.

I gave her a nod and headed on in. I felt the sense of power as soon as I entered. The aura of a man who had battled monsters for decades and intended to be the last line of defense against an even greater one.

“Magus,” Eidolon greeted me. “Glad you could join us.”

“Eidolon, sir.” I almost saluted out of sheer instinct, but settled with a nod instead. “How can I help you today?”

Eidolon glanced at the Director and she just shrugged. “This matter strikes me as above my pay-grade.”

“You’re the Director of the PRT ENE,” I pointed out.

“Yes and this is a potentially international issue, making it the Chief Director’s prerogative.”

Eidolon cleared his throat. “Thinker intelligence as well as word of mouth from allies across the pond suggest that Gesellschaft are going to be staging a retaliatory strike against you for your capture of the Empire Eighty-Eight.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “And that requires the presence of the most powerful member of the Triumvirate? The Empire were strong, but a lot of that was momentum and presence in the city, a strike team from their European allies would be obvious, we could take them on easily.”

“These capes don’t play by the rules,” Eidolon said warningly. “Even at their worst, the Empire wasn’t targeting you in your civilian identity or using civilians as collateral, they were just trying to kill you.”

How comforting.

“Gesellschaft is less like the gangs here in America and far more like a terrorist organization,” Piggot continued. “The Empire was supposed to be their ‘in’ with the continental US, a way to spread their influence even further as well as acquire more parahumans.”

“What you did, undermined that,” Eidolon continued. “You present a clear and present threat to their ideology. Which is good, but as Director Piggot pointed out, they won’t come at you directly on the street like the Empire did. They’ll send Thinkers, Strangers, Masters, parahumans meant to infiltrate your life and those around you and then execute or kidnap you the moment they think they have a chance.”

“I’m sorry, kidnap?”

“A cape like you is powerful and a threat, but if you could be turned to their ideology, whether by Master powers or other conditioning, you would be a tremendous boon to them,” Piggot said. “They’ve done it before. The Fallen probably had a similar objective in mind when they sent Valefor and Eligos here.”

I frowned, remembering that the Empire wasn’t the only neo-Nazi organization in America, just the largest. More of an alliance or confederation than a single group. “So why haven’t Gesellschaft done something similar against you or Alexandria, or Legend? You guys are pretty damn dangerous yourselves,” I pointed out.

Eidolon let out a short bark of laughter, surprising me. “Magus, I’ve been dealing with attempts like this for years, basically since I first became active. We all have, any Protectorate member who achieves a certain level of international fame does. We’re superheroes, but we’re also American superheroes, which makes us a threat to those who don’t like the country. I’ve stopped counting how many attempts there have been against me. Most of them don’t go anywhere, but I’ve had to fend off kill squads that managed to slip past Watchdog on more than one occasion.”

“Oh…” That made me feel only slightly better. “I’m surprised that groups are willing to try that.”

I had the distinct impression that Eidolon was smiling beneath his mask. “Some of them don’t exist anymore. Gesellschaft is just a little too big to rip out of Germany with a snap of our fingers, but some of the teams sent against me and other American heroes were of the expendable variety or small independent groups to begin with, before we dealt with them.”

“Welcome to politics, Magus,” Piggot said grimly. “The unwritten rules are mostly an American thing. Internationally things get a lot… messier.”

“The Endbringer Truce, while sacrosanct here, is a lot different outside of America’s borders,” Eidolon agreed. “If a group or individual here in the states broke it, they’d have to contend with the entire Protectorate, other villains, and of course, the Triumvirate. But internationally? The Yangban have broken it before, because we can’t control who chooses to show up to the fight and we can’t divide our forces to tell them to fuck off. And once the attack is over, we can’t exactly mount an invasion of the CUI. Too large, not to mention too many parahumans-“

Piggot let out a small cough.

“-And it would be unethical for parahumans of the Protectorate to be used as a military asset when we’re technically a law enforcement agency,” he finished. “Anyway, I’d like to take you for a short jaunt, if the Director is willing to spare you?” He directed the last question to Piggot.

The Director simply shrugged. “Magus doesn’t have any particular duties or appointments today, he can be spared.”

“Thanks,” Eidolon said politely. “C’mon.” He gestured for me to follow.

Once we arrived to the rooftop, he took off into the sky and I followed right behind, propelled by sorcery. He glanced at me with some confusion. “I thought you needed that fancy coat to fly.”

“New power. I can basically do everything I already could with the power boost, but without the potential of overstraining myself.” Not to mention I was adjusted fairly well to the Vestments by that point, but no one needed to know that. “Better for regulated power use. This way I don’t have to go full power on smaller opponents or issues.”

He gave a small nod and we continued into the sky some more before stopping. I stopped beside him and gazed out over Brockton Bay with him for a moment, just taking in the sight. It was an ugly city in so many ways, but it was now my city and I would do what I could to make it a better place.

“Strange that such a small city would produce so many important parahumans,” Eidolon mused. “Panacea, Skitter- Arachne if you prefer - and of course, you.”

“You know of Skitter?” I questioned.

“Yes. Contessa saw fit to share certain details from that document you left lying around,” he explained. “Careless of you not to protect it more closely. Anyway, it wasn’t everything, she decided that some of it was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but enough to paint a rather bleak picture of the future. One without you, in any case.”

“I’ve only done what I can to help. It would have worked out well enough. Maybe a lot more chaos and destruction, but humanity would still have survived.”

“Thanks to sheer dumb luck,” he scoffed. “I failed due to a few small words. I’m no longer failing, weakening, instead I feel my powers growing stronger. The height of my power, combined with the years of experience I’ve gained since then… For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can accomplish something again.”

“You’re telling me that you, Eidolon, the most powerful parahuman on Earth, felt inadequate? That’s insane.”

“When your opponents are the Endbringers and you have the looming threat of… him on the horizon, then yes, one can feel not up to the challenge,” he admitted. “I’ve been making progress by the way. Thought you might like to know that. I’ve recharged all of my strongest powers and I can sort of feel the Endbringers. Still can’t control them consciously, but there’s been progress.”

“Good. Even if it’s just those three, that would be a massive help against the true enemy.”

Eidolon nodded in agreement, then froze. “Wait, just those three?”

“…There are twenty total. The rest are dormant and shouldn’t awaken on their own now that you’re more aware of your connection, but yeah, there are more out there.”

“That is a horrifying thought. Do you know what they are.”

“I know of only two, erm, three kind of. Khonsu, a being who can manipulate time and space, allowing him to teleport as well as throw up time barriers that basically age anyone locked inside rapidly. Kind of makes it hard, if not impossible to mount a truly effective defense since he can hit all over the world. The other is a twin of sorts, Tohu and Bohu. I can’t remember exact details, they’re kind of fuzzy, but one was like a massive tower that infested an area with traps while the other was like it’s bodyguard and could use the powersets of three different capes, kind of like you.”

Eidolon nodded along with my explanation. “Well then it’s a good thing they won’t be waking up to fight us. Either sounds like a nightmare to deal with.” He glanced down at the city one more time, then back out toward the ocean. “Do you think you can handle Leviathan?”

“Yeah, I do. He’s a tough one, but my powers are even stronger now than when we fought the Simurgh. We can kill him for good or beat him back quickly enough to avoid collateral damage if you still think you can seize full control one day.”

“Your faith is astounding,” he said dryly. “Part of me wants to really test myself against him, see if now that I’m stronger than ever, I could really defeat one on my own, but I have to accept that that’s my ego talking.” Another sense that he was smiling. “Contessa and Alexandria insisted I start going to therapy. It’s been… helpful.”

“I’m glad. Not to feed your ego, but you’re kind of the strongest superhero on Earth. We need you at your best, in every way.”

“Strongest… not best?”

“Nah, Dragon is the best,” I said easily, without hesitation. “Legend is a close follow-up, but loses some points due to his involvement with Cauldron. Not that I’m saying you guys are evil or anything, I understand that a lot of the shady stuff you’ve done has all been with the ultimate goal of saving literally trillions of lives, but I mean… some things that y’all came up with just made me scratch my head.”

“Such as?”

“The Nemesis program.”

Eidolon winced. “We were all pretty young when we formed Cauldron. We had this idea that the Nemesis program would help convince more of those who bought the vials to be heroes. I admit it’s not our finest creation, but… broken eggs and all that. If it makes you feel better, Doctor Mother recently stopped it.”

“That actually does. Thanks.”

“Hm.”

Silence reigned for a minute before I said, “So are we going to deal with those Gesellschaft guys or what?”

“Oh them. Contessa already took care of them an hour ago, before they even got off their plane,” he said in an absent minded tone. “She had a more important assignment for us.”

“…What?”

“Her Path to Victory sometimes tells her to call in allies, in situations where she literally cannot do something as a baseline human,” he explained. “We’re those allies in this case.”

“And what are we going to be doing?”

“There are a few S-class threats that don’t need to exist anymore. I could probably deal with them myself, but Contessa thought it would be good if we worked together.”

...What?

“Did Contessa set up the equivalent of the a play date between two of the world's stronger heroes?”

“No need to be modest, between the two of us, there aren’t any stronger capes in America, probably the world. And… yes, I suppose she did. So how about it? This old dog might still be able to teach a young buck like you a few tricks, if you’re willing to learn.”

I summoned forth my mantle as a Lord of Balance, allowing power to suffuse my very being. “It would be my genuine pleasure.”
***

A/N: I didn't do quite as well this week in my self discipline, but still better than previous weeks, seeing as I'm posting this in the afternoon, rather than evening. Wish me well in further improving, so that I might deliver to you all even greater amounts of writing and potentially get a real book written :D