Wish upon the Stars chapter 28

I snuck out the back window again in my costume to meet up with Cap. I  made a note to be careful about using cape names when in costume. Even  though Cap was outed, I very much wasn't, and most of my team wasn't  either so it seemed like a good habit to get into. When my mentor  finally showed up thankfully, it was in a car and not on a two wheeled  death machine. He grinned as he saw me, gesturing me to get in before we  pulled out of the alley and headed into town.

He  took in my appearance with amusement. "I still can't believe you want  to go out after spending three straight days doing nonstop crafting  jobs? Don't you sleep? Still, I won't pretend I'm not relieved to get  away. Shadowthorn has been on the warpath since Callie pulled her stunt  at the fight club. She's furious, but knows she can't actually  discipline her without the guild masters say so, and mom slapped Callie  with that desk duty too quick for her to run a complaint up the chain.  They never did get along."

I  raised an eyebrow. "Isn't Shadowthorn high up in the guild? You would  think with the capital guild master on speed dial she could do whatever  she wants." I'd heard nothing but shitty things about Callie's dad, and I  could absolutely see him interfering in a branch matter directly if he  felt like it. He was obviously someone with a lot of rep. Actually, if  he'd been around for that long I might have heard of him. I'd never  bothered to ask about him before. "Who actually is Callie's dad?"

He  looked at me in surprise. "You didn't know? Her dad is Midknight. As  for his position..." He waggled a hand indecisively. "He's pretty high  up, but there are other factors. The smaller cities' guild masters reign  by virtue of absolute power, but the capital has the strongest  Ascendants on the planet. The executives at the capital branch are all E  rankers and they mostly have connections higher up in the Unity.  Midknight has to watch his step or they can force him out. Based on what  I've heard of him he hates it, but he has to play ball anyway."

That  was interesting to hear, but it paled in comparison to who her dad was.  Midknight was...a big deal. He was one of the most prolific and  powerful Ascendants to have ever lived in Valen. The inner workings of  the Unity had never been clear to mortals so I hadn't know he was the  guild master, but I KNEW who Midknight was. Everyone did. Which I  supposed was to be expected from someone who managed to hit E rank in  Valen, but still, it was a pretty intense thing to hear. I'd had several  data packets focused on him in my education downloads, the guy was a  legend.

Though  thinking about it his power did bear some similarities to Nightstrike's  shadow ability. The thing she did with her hair and clothes was  incredibly reminiscent of the living black knight armor that Midknight  paired with his control over shadows to devastating effect. His main  method of attack was to send a legion of shadow armors against his foes,  and knowing how Callie's powers worked I could recognize a very high  level of her shadow conjuration mixed with her stealth skills. It was  easy to see where she learned to use her powers.

While inherited powers like mine seemed to be rare enough that I hadn't even heard of them, it wasn't uncommon for people to  sometimes get abilities slightly reminiscent of their parent when they  Ascended. It wasn't a hard and fast rule but it happened. In those cases  parents would often pass down the combinations of skills synergized  with their ability if they had any, creating legacy powers that allowed  some capes to mimic what their parents could do. The benefits there that  it made training exponentially easier, but it also somewhat limited  creativity.

It  didn't shock me that Callie had a legacy ability. I knew Cap's power  was based on his mother's too, both of them using star based abilities.  If someone like Stella was able to pass down a legacy, a monster like  Midknight definitely had enough experience. Of course sometimes people  did what I did and never synergized their skills, but often descendants  would go out of their way to create a duplicate power of a famous  relative to siphon off some of the renown of their more powerful  ancestor.

Cap  seemed to have been lost in thought right along with me, but he shook  it off, clearing his throat to refocus. "Anyway, so yeah. Shadowthorn  has to play by the rules, which means local guild master has priority  over punishing wayward subordinates. The main branch frowns on  micromanaging. They do their best to keep the cities isolated from the  mid tier branches because it lets them farm more renown from small towns  like ours without having it siphoned off by some capital big shot."

That  I knew about. The factions all seeded every planet they could terraform  with as many colonists as possible. The more people the more renown  there was. Because of this the higher ups in the carious factions tended  to keep the heirarchy strictly isolated at each step up the ladder. It  was the same reason cities tended to be split up into tiers of three or  four ranks. By keeping things contained and sectioned off they left  enough renown for local Ascendants to get stronger but funneled the rest  of it directly to the big shots, bypassing all the mid level capes who  might distract the populace.

I'd  stumbled onto this bit of trivia when asking around at the guild at why  the hell I didn't know that the capital had a hundred billion people in  it. It wasn't something people talked about much but it was a known  fact even among lower level Ascendants. It was crazy to me to see how  compartmentalized the various powers kept information with seemingly no  effort. The mortals knew exactly enough to be of benefit but not enough  to know how anything worked. It was a staggering degree of information  control.

When  we arrived downtown we were in a totally different area of the city  than last time. Cap turned to me with a grin. "Since our last patrol was  such a bad experience I thought I'd bring you somewhere a bit  more...fun. I relieved a friend of mine for the day so we could play  around in a more direct part of the city. This, specifically, is where  the Jack-tastic Jerks run the show. I thought you might enjoy the chance  to blow off some steam, and this is the place we're most likely to find  random street crime."

We  climbed out of the car, ready to head out, and took a walk down what  seemed to me like a random street, though most likely Cap had a reason  for picking it. I had to admit, past experiences aside I was genuinely  excited to be back out on the street again, if only for the chance to  test my new abilities. My stats had all risen, so even my basic DS  Gymnastics combo would be way stronger and able to handle more input,  and I couldn't wait to test it out in combat.

Luckily  it didn't take us long to find a crime. Cap hadn't been kidding, things  in this part of town were wilder by far. In fact, things were weird  enough that I had to stop and blink a bit as we stumbled on the first  set of Jerks perpetrating a theft. I turned to Cap. "So, is this  actually happening? Or did I just snap and now I'm hallucinating the  most ridiculous thing I can think up?"

In  front of us two huge Jerks were climbing through a broken window...out  of an artisanal meat shop. They were covered in sausages, most worn  around their necks in link form, some shoved in pockets or held in their  mouths and hands, and when they saw us, they both froze. Cap reached up  to pinch the bridge of his nose. "No. This is happening. Stuff like  this happens all the time over here. I suspect it's why the friend whose  area this usually is is so weird most of the time." He glared drolly at  the two Jerks. "Do we need to tell you to give up and put down the..."  He looked pained. "Meat?"

The  smaller of the two jerks, who was still about as tall as I was at six  three and much more heavily muscled, sneered at him.  "You think we're  scared of you Captain Pol-asshole?" He snickered at his own really bad  joke. "We know what you can do, and we ain't afraid a' nobody. This is  the crime of the century, we're gonna be legends! Everyone is gonna know  the name Punchin' Carl!" He pulled himself up to his full height when  he said that last part, as if he'd just made a powerful declaration.

I  had to force myself not to face palm, or would it be mask palm?  Whatever the case it was difficult not to just outright show how stupid I  thought he was. His buddy chimed in, bigger and somehow giving the  impression of being even dumber. "Yeah, and he ain't alone neither. You  wanna pick a fight with Carl you gotta go through me, Stephen the Shoe!"  I looked down. Stephen was, in fact, not wearing any shoes. Because of  course he wasn't. I was beginning to understand that comment earlier  about Cap's friend being weird. If I had to deal with this nonsense on  the regular I'd be weird too.

I  activated my overlay, because there was no way people this stupid  wouldn't try some kind of surpris-. Yup. As soon as it came up I saw the  arrow for an attack arc over from the two of them. I reacted before  Stephen even finished attacking and my foot arced up to intercept...a  sausage. They had thrown a sausage at us. The lone piece of meat went  flying off back into the broken window behind them and the two of them  just stared at us, beginning to grow slightly uneasy. We all kind of  just stood there for a minute before Carl yelled. "Run for it!"

The  two of them then proceeded to turn and sprint in the other direction.  Stephen, having two points of Impact as far as I could tell was unharmed  as he ran through the glass, and they made decent time, but didn't get  far before they ran into Cap. Who could fly. The two of them glanced at  him, then back at me. Punchin' Carl sneered at us. "You might think you  beat us, but we almost got away! People will be tellin' stories about  this heist for years! How even Captain Polaris needed backup to take us  down."

As he  spoke he started taking the sausage from around his neck and from his  pockets and laying them on the ground. I winced, because I was pretty  sure those weren't really ok to eat anymore, but we let them...disarm,  so we could detain them. Once we had them swept up and restrained we  called the local security bureau to come and haul them away. The Unity  had close ties with the Conglomerate government so we dealt with  Ascendant crime but they were the ones who picked up minor offenders.

After  they left I turned to Cap. "So...what are the chances that's going to  be the weirdest thing to happen to us today?" He gave me a sheepish look  and I closed my eyes and sighed. Now I understood why his friend was so  willing to pass of this beat to us for the day. I had the very  unpleasant suspicion that this day was going to be much longer than I  had expected it to be. But hey, maybe I would get some decent points out  of it?