Ancient Legos

Chapter 01

Legacy

Captain's Log, Earth Date: February 6th, 2011

I don't remember my trigger. Most parahumans do. The only ones that don't are Case 53s, and I am not monstrous in any way or form. I am not sure what happened to me, to be honest.

Not sure at all…

All I do remember is that one week, everything was going fine. The next week, that hadn't stopped, but I started getting…

Sigh. Ideas.

Odd ones, honestly. It's as if something inside me is telling me that I can make things, incredible things. All kinds of spacecraft, technology like you wouldn't believe. Even stuff that makes what the Tinkers of our world come up with these days look like calculators.

But none of that can be right, because it tells me I can make these things with Legos.

Legos. The children's toy bricks that can be used to construct models. Colorful, varied, but mostly rectangular plastic.

I have many craft constructed in my bedroom now. Even as I compose this log, I'm messing around, or as my brother and sister say, 'Stupid Tinkering', with my smallest craft model. Something that looks like a cylinder with a sloped top and bottom. It even has a little window on the front.

But something is missing. All my projects have that problem.

Not to mention, it's clear to me now that I haven't actually triggered. I'm not a Tinker. No amount of Tinker bullshit can make Legos do something. My parents are disappointed, not in me but for me. They've seen how much this means to me now. They've even followed my pleas for random, esoteric Lego pieces that haven't been made for decades.

Thankfully I haven't needed many of those. They aren't exactly cheap, especially after Leviathan sank a large part of Japan, wiped out a portion of the East Asian coastline, and the most relevant, brought international shipping to a halt.

Well, the product and stuff kind. The pairing kind has only escalated in response.

Anyways… I'm disheartened. If I indeed have powers, they're cruel. They fill my mind with visions of fantastic space battles, spacecraft flying through the sky, advanced alien metropolises and even flying cities.

Yet they relegate me to reproducing these designs with frakking Legos.

Oh, and they don't actually do anything, either. At least if they did I could actually help my city. Might look kinda stupid but at least my powers wouldn't be useless.

End Log.


I sighed, placing my laptop down next to me on our porch swing couch. It'd been two weeks since I 'triggered'. Models of ships were filling up my bedroom. But no matter what I did, nothing came of it; just more Lego models.

Is that what I was? The world's lamest Tinker? Someone with a specialization so bad that I had eclipsed Leet? Frakking Leet, the guy who could never build anything twice and had most of his creations explode in his face?!

I was done with this shit, frankly. I abruptly found myself standing up, growling. My anger rose fast.

"It's not fair!" I yelled to the sky.

Nobody answered.

They hadn't the last six times, either.

With one last look of disgust, I turned back from my yard and started to enter my house. In a final fit of anger, I threw the model of the little shuttlecraft over my shoulder as hard as I could. If they wouldn't do anything for me, well…

I was done indulging whatever power I might have.

FWOOMPH

A huge displacement of air slammed into my back. It rattled the porch, set our swing chair moving, and slammed the screen door I'd just opened shut in front of my face.

Thankfully my laptop was decently heavy, so it only moved an inch. My heart rate began to come down from the beat of a hummingbird's wings it had so helpfully decided to emulate.

What in the hell?

I spun back around to try and see what happened. What I found made me stand there, stunned.

What the frak.

What. The. Frak.

No seriously. What.

My brother came out of the screen door, initially looking at me. "What happened?" he asked. "We heard some kind of boom!"

I just put my hand on his shoulder and slightly turned him. My brother was confused for a couple of seconds until his eyes landed on what I was looking at too.

"Bro," he asked, "what the hell?"

My jaw worked up and down, trying and failing to speak. "I… It was just a Lego model. In my hand," I finally managed to get out.

My brother looked at me again. "How did you turn a Lego model into that?!"

"I just… I threw it over my shoulder," I stammered.

"You threw a model over your shoulder and it turned into a spaceship," he deadpanned.

I gulped. "Ye-yeah."

My sister exited the house next. "Guys, what's taking you so lo-" she started, but cut herself off. "Woah."

Our parents were last, having followed my sister out. "Son," my dad asked, "Why is there a spaceship on the lawn?"

My mouth was dry. The implications of this were… staggering. Absolutely incredible. "I was working on my shuttle model, got pissed at how useless my apparently completely real powers seemingly were, turned to go back into the house and threw it over my shoulder," I explained. "Then… that." I raised both hands in the direction of the craft, shaking them for presentation.

"Your powers are bullshit, bro," my sister said it all for us.


Of course I became a Ward. I wasn't remotely interested in the Villain shtick. And while I could have made it well as a rogue, I'd rather help the guys trying to fight against the bad guys, thank you very much.

That doesn't mean that I wasn't massively entertained when I uncloaked my shuttle in front of the PRT building. Or the reaction of the Director when she interviewed me.

"You're a Tinker," Piggot stated flatly, "who makes things out of Legos, and then somehow brings them to life?"

I looked between the assembled capes and my family. They all were wearing chagrined disbelief on their faces. I looked back at Director Piggot and nodded. "Uh, I think so?" I cautioned.

At her unimpressed lol I hastily contributed. "All I know is, I've got plans in my head, need to make them into Lego models, and somehow one of those models turned into my shuttle when I threw it over my shoulder."

Piggot stared at me for a good thirty seconds. "Weldon," she said evenly, "I've met a lot of Tinkers. You have just managed to eclipse them all in your severe levels of complete, total, and utter bullshit."

I grinned. "Thanks?"

She sighed and rubbed her nose. "What else can you conceivably build? Do you know your specialization?"

"I'm decently sure it's ships, Director," I announced.

She let her hand hang, a now entirely, completely disbelieving look sent my way.

"Ships?" Armsmaster asked.

"Yeah. Like spaceships," I confirmed.

Now everyone was staring at me with even more disbelief. "What?" I asked.

"Your Tinker specialization is just as much bullshit as your power itself," Assault grumbled.

"How big are these… Ships?" Miss Militia asked, looking like she really didn't want to.

"Uh… They vary? I mean, if you want the biggest one's dimensions, the Cityships are like… Five kilometers square and one tall," I informed them. "I think, anyways."

More disbelieving stares. "What?" I asked again, confused.

"I take it back," Director Piggot said. "Your power now holds the record for bullshit, period, Tinker or no."

I grinned widely. "I've got a really cool battlecruiser in my pocket. Want to see it?" I looked more at Assault than the director as I said this.

What? I'm a cape geek. I knew he'd appreciate the joke.

"Hah!" he exclaimed. "Are you happy to see me?"

"I don't know man, you might have problems keeping up," I fired off.

The guy's eyes widened and he grinned back. "Please, please join the Wards," he almost begged. "I need someone besides Clockblocker with a sense of humor!"

Battery punched him on the shoulder, facepalming with her free hand. He barely reacted beyond the clearly exaggerated wince and the expression of mock pain that would win him one of my school's drama awards. "Don't encourage him," she complained.

I shrugged. "Hey, I want to join the Wards. If the PRT thinks they… you, can handle my apparently unique levels of bullshit, I'm game."

A stern glare from my mom brought me back down to Earth again. "And, y'know, if my folks agree."

They agreed. After making me promise to fill out everything as payment for that comment.

...

Paperwork sucks.


I met the current leader of the Wards just outside the conference room.

"Aegis!" I greeted him, happily shaking his hand. I had a lot of energy now that I'd realized my powers really existed.

"Hey," he responded. Despite the shock in his eyes at my display, he weathered through it. "I wanted to welcome you to the Wards, Will. I've also been asked to take you to see the Wards themselves while the adults finish up in there."

I pumped his arm one more time and grinned. "Sounds good. Gotta admit, full disclosure; I'm a big fan of yours."

He snorted. "Not the first and won't be the last. Come on, the elevator's this way."

Aegis led me to the obviously Tinkertech elevator on the other end of the building from the one my family head taken from the lobby. "So what's your specialty? I know we have you pegged as a Tinker, but your power ratings didn't mention it."

I grinned widely as the elevator doors interleaved closed and the metal box started to move downwards. "Spaceships."

Aegis' eyes shot wide open and he looked straight at me. "You're joking."

I shook my head. "Nope. I also have this odd Breaker/Striker power that makes my creations real, but I don't really have a solid handle on activating that yet," I explained. "Just a hunch."

The elevator arrived at the Wards floor far faster than it should have. Tinkertech indeed. As we walked out, Aegis raised his eyebrows. "Why do you need to make them real? I mean, you build spaceships, right?"

I snorted and shook my head. "Yes and no. I build Lego models of my ships, and the second power turns them into fully functional, full size ones."

Aegis stopped dead. When he looked at me again, his face was a mask of disbelief.

"Yeah, that's how the entire room looked when I announced my powers."

The leader of the team I'd just joined blew out a breath. "Dare I ask how big your spaceships get?"

"The Cityships are five by five by one kilometers," I revealed.

Aegis tripped over his own feet.

"You okay dude?" I asked him, feeling concerned.

He got up shakily, groaning. "I'm fine. They must have redone the floors in this hallway when I wasn't looking."

I smirked at him as we arrived at the end of the hall, a heavily reinforced door with an obvious eye scanner rig next to it. "Suuure," I snarked.

"You, of all people, don't get to say anything about belief, mister I make spaceships," he shot back.

I grinned at him. He'd gotten over the surprise fairly quickly. "That's fair."

Aegis scoffed. "At least we've got another heavy hitter on the team," he managed, sending me a somewhat stable grin.

I gave him a thumbs up. "It'd be a pretty lame specialization if I didn't get big honking space guns out of it."

That one cracked his grump. He laughed, rolling his eyes. "Good point. Anyways, let's go in." He held his eyes down slightly to the wall mounted eye scanner. Two little beams of green light flashed out, traced his eyes, and disappeared. A mellow alarm started chiming softly.

At my raised eyebrow, he explained. "There's a thirty second delay so that anyone who needs to mask up can do so before someone comes in."

"Ah," I nodded.


"Wards," Aegis boomed, "I'd like you to meet our newest member."

"Hey guys," I waved. "I'm Weldon, but I go by Will. Don't really have a costume or cape name yet."

"That's fine. Good to meet you, Will," Gallant said. "I'm Gallant. Or Dean Stansfield on the street."

Well no shit, hard to miss that particular armor design.

Also, score one. Though it didn't really count because of Glory Girl being as subtle as the brick she flew.

Kid Win was sitting at what I recognized as the infamous Console. He turned to look at me, but didn't get up. "Hey," he greeted me. "Kid Win, or Chris."

"Hey Chris," I nodded to him. Internally, my eyes were wide. Not necessarily in surprise, more with glee, because Chris being the Ward meant I won the betting pot. That Tinker pudding would be mine!

"Sup," Clockblocker said, approaching me with an offered hand. "I'm Dennis, or Clockblocker in costume."

...Wat.

Oh hell no. They were both Wards?! MY PUDDING!

I noticed Vista approaching out of the side of my eye while I peered at Dennis' hand disbelievingly in order to cover up my internal turmoil. I was sure Dean was getting an eye full but he at least seemed to be considerate enough to not mention anything.

"Dude. I'm a cape geek. I frequent PHO. I'm not falling for that."

Dennis frowned. "Damn. Well, nice to meet a fellow forum troll," he smirked.

"Likewise," I grinned back.

"Vista, or Missy when I'm out of costume," the resident space warper introduced herself, shaking my hand.

"Nice to meet you, Missy," I greeted her.

Well, she was technically in the running... but she didn't go to my school. Our school, I guess, since I was in the room with several classmates. Anyways, she wasn't really a priority target.

Also, it hit me that I wouldn't actually be able to collect my wins because it would violate the conflict of interest thing that my friends and I had set up.

But I also couldn't not participate because that would blow my cover faster than I already thought it was going to be!

...On reflecting, that policy was so obviously a logic trap just in case any of us became a Ward and didn't want to tell the group that it was obscene.

When nobody else approached me, I turned my head with a raised eyebrow to Aegis.

"Browbeat and Shadow Stalker are currently out on patrol," he informed me.

"Ah," I acquiesced. I was about to turn fully around when he took his helmet off.

"I'm Aegis, though you already know that," he grinned. "My name is Carlos out of uniform."

SON OF AN ICEBERG! IT'S ALL THREE OF THEM!

"Nice to meet you, Carlos," I said, shaking his hand again. Dean was starting to send me weird looks and if I kept cursing my cape geek friends and myself in my head he'd probably eventually say something.

I resolved to try and calm down and deal with the fact every single one of the schoolmates my group had pegged as Wards were in fact exactly what we thought they were.

Also that their ability to keep a secret identity really, really sucked.

"Alright well, since you've been introduced to everyone, and given you seem to be up to date on our powers given your statement about PHO," Aegis said, knocking me out of my thoughts, "would you mind telling us about yours?"

I saw that grin. "You already know them, Carlos, you just want to see who faints from shock," I accused.

"I reserve the right against self incrimination," he smirked back.

"Cape nerd!" Dennis coughed under his breath.

I mean, he was right, but I wasn't going to let the class clown of Arcadia one to me. Especially not as a fellow Ward.

"Just for that, Dennis," I said, "you're gonna be the one who learns about them first."

He widened his eyes and grabbed his chest in mock pain. "Woe is me! Will is going to turn his terrible powers upon my lowly self!"

Vista scoffed, did something incredibly uncomfortable with spacetime, and smacked him.

"Hey!" Dennis protested.

"Stop being such an idiot," she complained.

"So I can be a little bit less of an idiot and that's fine?"

Turning to me and ignoring him, she smiled. "Go ahead, Will."

I nodded to her. Then I allowed the glee I felt for my powers to reach the surface, smirked, and crossed my arms. "I'm a Tinker with a rather interesting Breaker/Striker ability." Kid Win, Chris, sat up and paid attention. "Yes Chris, that means we can both nerd out over tech at some point."

Several of the Wards chuckled as he blushed. Carlos barely managed to remain straight faced.

"However, you might not be very compatible with me. It's not you, it's me. I need to figure some things out," I joked.

Dennis took a second to realize what I'd said… then he busted up laughing.

"In all seriousness, I'm a Tinker. I was told I'm a Tinker 10," I announced.

Dead silence. Chris dropped his pen. Even Dennis cut off his laughing fit. I guess the info was shocking, or something?

Carlos crossed his arms. "You didn't mention that," he scowled.

"Oops?" I sheepishly offered.

"What the hell can you build that made them give you a Tinker 10 rating?!" Chris bristled.

"My specialization is spaceships," I revealed. "Carlos already knew that."

Every face except our team leader's paled. Even he was a little… put off base is probably the best term, shuffling back and forth on his red clad feet.

"Like…," Dean spoke up, "Star Wars, Star Trek spaceships?" he asked hesitantly.

I shook my head. "No. My ships pretty much make those look like kid toys. They might not be as big as some of the 'Wars ships, but they are so much more advanced the difference is akin to that between an Abacus and Dragon's Tinkertech mainframes."

Chris gulped. Carlos eyed me speculatively.

"Okay, well, even if you can build really powerful spaceships, they must cost a ton and take a lot of material, right?" Dennis asked, half smiling.

In response, I pulled one of my spare Shuttle models out of my pocket. "Nope."

Missy blinked. "Is that Lego?" she asked.

"Yup."

"You make Lego spaceships," Chris drawled.

"Uh huh."

"They gave you Tinker 10, for Legos," he repeated.

To respond to that, I eyeballed the open space in the middle of the Wards room. It looked like enough area. "Watch and learn," I grinned.I turned around, held the model over my shoulder, and tossed. I also nearly prayed, hoping this was the right way to trigger my bullshit powers.

It was.

FWOOMPH

"Holy shit!" Chris yelled.

Various screams of shock and alarm erupted from the other Wards as the wave of air slammed into us. Papers on the tables flew into the walls. Chairs shuddered, and Missy's hair blew out of shape.

Oh she was gonna be maaad when she finally looked in the mirror. She looked like she'd been in a hurricane.

"You weren't kidding," Carlos breathed, staring at the huge gray shuttle sitting on the rug.

"Told ya," I grinned, moving towards the ship. It'd spawned with the back end facing me, just like the one on my lawn had earlier that day. I located and hit the external button for the back hatch, noting the other button right below it that looked like a tilted cross made out of red Lego pieces.

My other shuttle was sitting in the PRT garage. I hadn't managed to find a way to make it return to Lego form, if that was even possible. If it was, I was even more bullshit than before, and it was possible that button was what did it. I must've missed the red X on my other craft.

I'd have to test that later.

The back door shifted down, touching down on the rug with a solid sounding thunk.

"Anyone wanna come in?" I asked. Not waiting for a reply, I strolled up the ramp, through the cargo compartment, and into the pilot cabin.

The clear crystalline dashboard caught my eye first, much like my other shuttle's had. It lent credence to my idea that all ships of a given class I created would be identical.

I sat in the pilot's chair, on the left, and sighed as the incredibly advanced gel padding conformed to my body.

"Oh that feels good," I groaned. My eyes closed and I escaped into ergonomic bliss for a few moments.

The sound of short heels on the metal floor brought me out of it. "What feels good?" Missy spoke up.

I opened my eyes at her, grinning. "These chairs. They're super comfy. Feel free to grab one," I offered.

She raised an eyebrow, but did as I suggested. She took the copilot's chair. She was positively groaning when she felt the gel kick in.

"Oh my God," she breathed. The chairs were that good.

"Nice, right?" I asked her.

"Will, you're giving me one of these," she declared.

"They come with the ship, Missy," I apologized. "Otherwise I'd have put these in my house before we got here."

"I was talking about the ship," she corrected me.

I opened my mouth to protest, but jumped when an annoyance entered the cabin. "What's all the groaning about in here?" Dennis grinned. "Nobody's getting it on inside the ship are they?"

"Shut up and sit down, Dennis, before I make you just fit that comment," Missy ordered, understandably rather annoyed.

I subtly edged away from the girl in the copilot's chair. "Uh, Dennis," I asked, then shook my head and sighed. "Nevermind. Missy, are you alright? I've never had anyone else sit in one of my chairs and they are tinkertech so..."

"I'm fine," she responded, relaxing. "These are just really, really nice chairs. Other than being really comfy I don't feel anything off."

Dennis directed a joking glance my way. I had the sinking feeling that he was about to do something stupid. I subtly shook my head to warn him off of it, but it was useless. This was the guy who'd named himself Clockblocker on live TV.

"Are you sure they're not really nice chairs? I mean, you were groaning-" he started to ask.

Abruptly the girl sat up, blushing to her toes. "Not a word, 'Clockblocker'," she declared, "or you'll find your home suddenly Non-Euclidian." Then she glared at me, almost physically daring me to join in with Dennis.

I gulped and raised my hands. "Hey, don't look at me. This is all him." I turned to look at the dashboard, ran out of resistance, and teasingly muttered, "Still… damn."

Missy must've heard me, because her face went even redder. Dennis spared me from her wrath though. "So," he grinned, wiggling his eyebrows, "Really good chairs, huh?"

Why was he still trying?!

Missy was mortified. "DENNIS!" she shrieked. Space warped, Missy's shoe suddenly planting deep in his groin.

I winced and instinctively curled in on myself. "Damn, Missy. You didn't have to do that."

As Dennis lay whimpering on the floor, she shrugged. "He deserved it," Missy replied.

"Uh huh."

"...Why is Dennis on the floor?" Carlos asked, walking into the cockpit.

Missy and I looked at each other.

She raised a challenging eyebrow.

I sighed in defeat.

"He deserved it," we both repeated Missy's earlier words.


"Your powers are bullshit," Chris remarked. He'd repeated that and only that whenever I tried to say anything to him since I'd summoned the shuttle. Dean informed me that it was his power that was jealous, not Chris himself, and given Dean's power set I was inclined to believe him. I'd give Chris the time he needed to soothe his power's rear end from the kicking mine gave it.

That by no means prevented me from teasing the ever living shit out of him by offering to let him take a look under the hood of the shuttle. The first time his face lit up like a kid at Christmas.

The next seven times earned me scowls after he realized the technology was complete gibberish to him.

Dennis and I tag teamed the poor guy. We'd hit it off well, even with Missy crushing his groin because of his jokes about my shuttle's chairs.

I mean, she didn't actually do any damage because she knows how to hold back and Dennis is a drama queen, but still.

Once we'd all had a chance to check out the inside of the ship I hustled everyone out and closed the back door from outside. After the hermetic vacuum sealing was finished, I hesitantly placed my hand on the red Lego X below the back door button.

A moment later, I had my Lego model of the shuttle sitting in my hand again.

CRACK

"OUCH!" I yelled. Damn it, that felt like thunder going off in front of me!

"CAN ANYONE ELSE HEAR THEMSELVES THINK?" Missy asked.

Carlos glared at me. "NO MORE DEPLOYING SHIPS INSIDE!" he declared.

I gulped, nodded, and put the ship away in my pocket. "LET'S GO TO THE ROOF! I NEED TO GET SOME AIR!"

"SOUNDS GOOD!" Dennis yelled.

That's when the alarms went off. Our ears started ringing, so we evacuated the Wards room.

We went to the roof.

Several PRT officers passed us, offering greetings. They also ran away when faced with six yelling Wards.


"Ahh," I breathed in, "Non-thundered air."

We were standing on top of the PRT building's roof. It was more like a patio than a proper roof, basically just another floor of the building with some railing around the outside to keep non fliers from falling off.

"Like the view?" Missy asked, walking up to lean on the rail beside me.

"Not bad," I agreed. "Needs something, though."

Missy quirked her lips, amused. "Oh? Like what?"

I eyed the Bay itself, calculating distance in my head. "The Bay's bigger than five by five kilometers, right?"

Missy had an instinctual sense of distance, something I'd learned came with her power on the walk up. "It's almost eight by ten," she corrected me.

"We could totally plop a Cityship right in the middle, then."

Missy's eyes widened. "You mentioned Cityships before. What are they?"

I grinned at her and sighed happily. "Imagine a giant metal snowflake, gleaming silver and reflecting light off thousands of skyscrapers, floating on the surface of the water," I began describing. "The central tower dwarfs the others in height. Every other skyscraper is unique, somehow managing to also look themed. A Cityship can house over five million people in the residential towers, has space for hundreds of thousands of science labs, and the top of the central tower even contains a Gate." I'm sure my eyes were twinkling after that.

Missy's eyes were wide with awe this time. "Wow. But that just sounds like a city from the future. Where does the -ship part come in?"

I grinned sideways at her. "It flies."

Her mouth dropped open. "You're kidding me."

"Serious like a heart attack," I refuted.

"How? The power requirements must be enormous!"

I mimed holding a Potentia in both hands. "Crystalline power source. Contains an artificial region of subspace. Extracts power from that, but can't be recharged except by a station that sits inside a star. A Cityship can technically fly on one, but they're designed to run on three."

Chris yelled at me from the other side of the roof. "Your power is bullshit!"

Was he ever going to stop?

Missy eyed me warily. "How much power does one of those contain?"

I screwed up my face for a moment. "Well," I finally answered her, "rupturing one would take a good sized chunk out of the planet, even if it was only 1% charged, so use that for your answer. I don't think I can really express their total power capacity in human energy terms, it's just too much."

Missy's face was white. Carlos spoke up from behind me. Apparently he'd been listening.

"You are not to construct one of those without authorization," he almost growled at me.

I turned around and leaned back on the railing. "Which? The Cityship or the Potentia?"

He looked confused for a moment. "Is Potentia the name for that crystalline energy source you just talked about?"

"Yes."

"That. Do not build that," he declared.

I shrugged. "It's fine. Cityships can be powered by anything from coal to lightning, it won't be too hard to find a replacement," I reasoned. "But they won't be able to fly without a Potentia."

"You can save the flying five kilometer square city for when you get clearance for these 'Potentia'. Just keep it non flying for now. I'm sure it'll be difficult to resist, but you must resist the thrill of danger," he semi joked.

I was just glad he wasn't upset with me.

I grinned at him. "Sure thing, Chief." I even gave him a mock salute.

"Hey, Will?" Dean approached.

"Yeah?"

"What's a Gate? You said the central tower of a Cityship contains one," he asked.

My eyes lit up. "Ah! Sorry, Gate is short for Stargate. Their proper name is Astria Porta."

I was getting dumbfounded looks again. "What? Why do people keep looking at me like that?"

"What," Carlos sighed, "is a Stargate?"

"Stable wormhole generator that allows near instantaneous travel between itself and another Stargate, no matter where in the galaxy they are," I explained. "Uses about the power output of a decently advanced fusion reactor for each connection, unless you want to reach another galaxy. Generally you need a Potentia for that. It has a ridiculously impressive capacitor built in, so one could easily use lesser energy generators to just charge it up slower. Either way, they're designed to be plopped down on millions of planets, and they utilize a glyph system and seven glyph addresses, almost like telephone numbers, for locating the target Stargate. Eight glyphs for another local group galaxy, nine for special hardcoded addresses like Cityships or extragalactic distance research vessels have."

Every Ward had come over to me as I spoke. Now they were standing around me and just staring. Their mouths were all gaping, no exceptions.

"What? Why is this so surprising to you guys?"


I was back in Director Piggot's office again. This time with all the Wards on the base present behind me.

They'd just finished giving a rather panicked rundown of what I'd 'revealed' on the roof. I honestly didn't understand why they were so concerned. Rupturing a Potentia was hard. It was so much easier to destroy a planet with a Naquadah fusion bomb than to destabilize the crystalline batteries.

Of course when I told them what Naquadah was and how it magnified explosions, that the Stargates contained vast quantities of the material, plus the multi-teraton yield of the bomb I'd mentioned, that was when they lost their cool and marched me down to the Director's office.

"Weldon," Piggot asked testily, "why didn't you tell us any of this?" She gestured to the nervous Wards behind me.

I blinked and tried to sit up. "Uh, you never asked?" I ventured.

She scowled. "When a cape has the ability to create multi-teraton nuclear bombs out of thin air, it's incredibly important they notify us about that," she seethed. "Ignoring the dangerous aspects of forgetting to do so, we have treaties in place about this kind of thing!"

I looked around at the gathered faces and swallowed. "Oh," I sheepishly said. "Sorry."

Piggot sighed, clasping her hands together above her desk. "Anything else Earth-shattering you'd like to share with us today about your abilities?"

Dennis and I both smirked, but her scowl tightened. "That pun was unintended. Focus. What else can you make that is dangerous as hell?"

I twisted my lips slightly as I thought, my head worlds away. I tried going over all the things I could build. Tried to see if anything registered as dangerous to me.

There were a few devices and sciences that came to mind. Galactic Scale Matter Manipulation, and the Wave Generators that emanated the effect, Stargate Destroyers, Singularity or Wormhole bombs, Supergates, even that one idiot Janus' experiments with time travel, Hyperdrive/Subspace band blocking and the failed Arcturus project. A few people believed the experiment with sentient nano-mechanical life had also been dangerous and a failure, something I did not agree with, but those who thought like me had been outvoted, and so our children died.

Screaming.

I shuddered in remembrance. They did not deserve what the Council had decreed.

Regardless, all of those could be, if not handled, at least contained by my civilization. We hadn't lasted hundreds of millions of years after all for no-

Wait.

My eyes widened to their maximum. "Ooohhhh, I see it now," I mumbled.

I wasn't an Alteran. I hadn't spoken up against the destruction of the Asurans. I didn't answer to a Council. I never lived on Atlantis.

I was human. And so was my civilization. But apparently I happened to have memories of an Alteran in my brain.

Now I could see why my teammates had been freaking out. Okay, look at it from a human point of view, seal up the Alteran memories and psyche for later review.

How much was dangerous?

Oh.

That's… that's a lot of stuff.

"See what?" Armsmaster demanded, snapping me out of my headspace.

"Okay, so," I began, glad I'd finally fixed the little (huge, not going to tell them that though) problem I'd just found. "I apparently have a different Tinker specialization than we thought."

Everyone raised their eyebrows. "Explain," Piggot said.

"It's not just ships. I have the ability to build anything a certain civilization made, at any point in their several hundred million year history," I admitted.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Chris complained. "First spaceships, now you can access an entire civilization? Goddamnit, Will."

"What kinds of items did this civilization manage to create?" Armsmaster asked.

"And do any others violate treaties?" Piggot added.

"Uh, way too many to list, Armsmaster," I answered him first, "and for the Director, uh… Like, sixty percent of it. Probably. I don't know treaties that well, so I'm probably overestimating it."

Piggot ground her teeth. "Give me an example," she demanded.

"Alright. Uh… off the top of my head, all 'modern' Alteran craft, that's the name of their civilization by the way," I trailed off slightly, "are armed with Drones. These are golden squid like objects about… yea big," I held out my hands to indicate something twice the size of a football, "that are essentially incredibly smart, hunter killer missiles. They have their own drive units, work in space, and phase through shielding and hull until they can detonate in crucial components of an enemy ship with the force of a small nuke. Their passage actually emits a crapton of heat, so they can be sent through ships for multiple passes until they run low on energy, then explode," I explained.

Piggot was pale. "That certainly violates a few treaties," she grumbled, "though they sound like a fantastic weapon."

Carlos spoke up. "Wait, you said all Alteran craft?" he asked.

"Yeah?" I sent back, curious as to why he was asking. "At least the modern ones."

"Including the 'shuttles' you can make? One of which is currently parked in the PRT building, one of which you deployed in the Wards common room?!" His voice was steadily raising.

"Well, yeah. Pretty sure each shuttle is loaded out with thirty in each magazine for a total of sixty," I confirmed.

Chris stared at me. Armsmaster stared at me. Piggot glared at me. Carlos looked defeated. He even made this catlike mewling sound.

"Are you telling me that you have sixty nuclear level, intelligent, guided, and countermeasure defeating weapons sitting in our parking garage, and the ability to summon more from your pocket?!" Director Piggot shrieked.

I shrugged. "I guess so."

Dennis, Dean and Missy were basically catatonic at that point.

Several seconds went by without anyone saying anything. The continual focus on me and my powers was starting to actually get to me. I began to curl in on myself, stopping only once I realized it wasn't my fault.

"We're going to need to revisit your power ratings," Piggot bit out, finally.

I winced and continued with one of the things I thought might also infringe upon some kind of treaty. There must be an anti-teleportation one, surely? "It's probably worth mentioning that every ship I can make above the shuttles, including Cityships, have beaming arrays borrowed from an Alteran ally race built in," I hesitantly mentioned.

Armsmaster sighed. "And what are beaming arrays?" he sounded like he'd rather just forget I even existed.

I fidgeted and lowered my head. "Uh… planetwide range, from geosynchronous orbit, connectionless, nearly unblockable matter transporters?" I half asked, half told.

Piggot's head hit the desk.

"Goddamnit, Will," Carlos said.

Missy started sobbing. Gallant was holding her, rubbing soothing circles into her back.

Chris glared at me. "I hate you. You know that, right?"

I grimaced. "Sorry?"


Tinker 20+.

Blaster 10.

Mover 10+.

Breaker/Striker 7.

Those were my new ratings.

I had no idea that my stuff was considered that powerful by PRT standards.

They'd flat out told me that they added 10 levels to the Power Scales just for my Tinker rating. And then realized it wasn't enough. Thus, Tinker 20+.

I hadn't even told them about personal shields, nanites, constructors, or the computers themselves.

Or the devices which even the Alterans thought dangerous.

Shit, they'd probably just slap 20 all across the board if they found out about those.

To tell or not to tell. That is the quest-

No, wait. Do I want my friends, the Wards, safe?

That is the question.

"Hey Carlos?" I spoke up from my spot on the couch.

The team leader froze in the middle of taking a step. He took a deep breath, visibly tried to relax, and then spun to face me. "Yes Will," he asked.

"How would you, the Wards, and the PRT feel about impenetrable energy shields that are emitted from a cell phone sized amulet thing that sticks to whatever you're wearing via the Coulomb effect?"

Carlos sighed a long suffering sigh. "You can make those?" he asked respectfully.

"Yeah. Just need a few standard Lego pieces for each one," I confirmed.

"And what about maintenance?" he asked. "That's the primary problem with Tinkertech, only the Tinker can keep it from breaking down."

I blinked, surprised. "Maintenance?" I asked. I kept mouthing the word to myself.

My Tinker specialization didn't know the meaning of the word. Literally.

Seeing my confusion, Carlos sighed and growled at the same time. "Let me guess. Your stuff doesn't need maintenance," he deadpanned.

"Alteran stuff lasts for millions of years without any kind of wear, tear, or charge loss," I confirmed.

"Of course it does." He just walked over to a couch and collapsed into it. "Nope. We'll deal with your crazy extinct alien civilization bullshit tomorrow. I'm done."

"But-" I tried to speak up.

"I'm done! Go home! Take your unholy bullshit with you!"

I went.

I walked into the PRT garage, opened my shuttle, went inside, closed it, fired up the gravitational inertia engines, and slowly inched the craft out of the garage.

Once I was in the open air I accelerated, not feeling a single thing as I did. Even the high velocity air tricks I did up above Brockton Bay didn't affect me.

I did eventually actually go home. Landed on the lawn, walked out of my shuttle, closed the door, touched the red Lego X that I had confirmed was also on this craft, collected the Lego model, and went into the house to greet my family and go to bed.

After all, it'd been a long day. And I became a superhero, even if I was kinda driving the PRT insane with my capabilities.

Ah well, they'd get used to me.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?