I woke up fresh and rested the next morning before the sun even came up. This was going to be a great day. No debt, no kidnappers, a monster put down for good, a bit of cash, a good dinner, a hopefully good breakfast, a few cures to create, and waking up next to a warm… pillow.

Man, I needed to get my head on straight. I spent five years not being interested. Yeah, I was traumatized, and it sucked, but it was better than craving human contact.

I had a plan and actually tried to look at myself again to see if I had changed. Metas were known to grow as they became more experienced, and it had been a while. Did Parahumans?

Louis Albert McCarthy

Parahuman 21% Class D (S)

Aspects: body

Power: 152 (92)

Conditions: Extreme fitness

Projected Lifespan: ??? Current Age: 27

pleased, refreshed, mildly alienated

Powers: concoct, analyze, improved endurance, Freedom, improved strength, improved durability, improved reflexes, regeneration, healing

no current abnormal infections

I guess the answer was yes. I knew improved endurance had tipped over the line as well as freedom, healing, and regeneration, but when had I gained superhuman strength, reflexes, and durability?

I hadn’t tested my weight for literally years. The last time I had done 700 lb squats. Could I do more?

I put on my shorts and one of Tino’s Hawaiian shirts, and a pair of sandals, and headed out to the elevator. I was shortly on the bottom floor of the Day’s Inn and stepped up to the check-in counter. There was an older lady sitting back there. I know that check-in closes at nine, but it was nice to see that there was always someone on duty in case of emergencies.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” I asked her curiously.

She looked up from crocheting. Wow, an older woman that actually crochets. I was living in stereotype land. “Yes, may I help you?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I know that it’s a little early, but is there a weight room I could use?”

She nodded and pointed at the pool. “Yes, right on the other side of the pool. We are not responsible for any accidents in the pool room or the weight room, but you are not a child. Children are not allowed into the pool between nine at night and nine in the morning, or any time in the weight room.”

I nodded and smiled, “Thank you very much.”

She beamed back at me. “You are very welcome. Oh, and the continental breakfast starts at 7 AM if you are hungry.”

I was lucky, the room had both a nautilus machine and some standing free weights, although it didn’t have a free weight bench press. Good idea, since bench presses could be very dangerous if you didn’t have a spotter or didn’t know what you were doing.

The Nautilus machine was a wash. It quickly showed me that I had grown in strength, but it’s racks only went up to 800 pounds, and even 800 pound back presses were no challenge.

I was going to have to try something else, because even a 1200-pound military press, with literally every single weight in the room on the bar, was only mildly stressful. I could go much higher. Probably not to the tossing-cars stage, yet, but that was only a fifth away.

I sighed, pulling the weights off and putting them back on their frames before cleaning off the equipment and heading back out. I hadn’t even broken a sweat and would have gone swimming if I had thought to bring a suit. I had shorts, but cargo shorts would get you yelled at in a hotel pool.

I shrugged and headed to the dining room. A continental breakfast mostly meant cereal, milk, and muffins, but I was surprised and pleased to note that this place also had trays of fried eggs, sausage, and bacon on hot plates at one corner.

I was only looking for a snack, I could eat hugely if I tried, and didn’t want to strip this place bear, so I grabbed a couple of muffins, made some egg, bacon, and cheese english muffin sandwiches, and added some fruit. In a few minutes, I was joined by Baldwin, who was apparently a similarly early riser and liked filling his own plate for free.

“You know I checked your room. You weren’t there. I get up early, but it’s going to be damned hard to play bodyguard if you don’t sleep normal hours and don’t knock on my door.”

I nodded, “Sorry. I just don’t sleep much. I came down here to check on my lifting. It’s been a while since I could lift for real. I wanted to see if I had improved any.”

“And?” Baldwin asked curiously.

“I ran out of weights.”

He shook his head. “I know I am just sort of playing nursemaid right now. That doesn’t bother me since I am also keeping an eye out for threats you might not know about, but if you keep getting stronger it’s going to be damned hard to convince people you aren’t a meta.”

I grinned, “But dad, it’s true. I am not a meta.”

He nodded and chuckled, “Relax, son, it’s perfectly normal for a boy your age to experiment with KY jelly and a watermelon.”

I shook my head. “I still have two days.”

He chuckled, “Man, I would have already lost that bet. She came to my room to talk tonight. If I hadn’t called her provisional Special Agent Andropolis like six times, I think she would have gone back and crawled into your bed or something. It’s weird, she was scared as hell, but she kept deciding to head back there and then changing her mind.”

I shrugged, “I wasn’t trying to get her into bed. I might have kicked her out.”

He smiled slightly, “A cute girl like that crawls into your bed, you aren’t married or have a girlfriend, and you would kick her out?”

I shook my head, “I said might. Besides, you sort of cheated.”

He shook his head, taking a big bite of a muffin and chewing for a moment before he replied, “No, I was saving her ass. I think you need to lay off the charm. I have no doubts you could get her to do things that are illegal in some states in three days.”

I was confused, “Dude, I am just trying to be friends.”

He shook his head. “She is the agent in charge of your case. She can’t be your friend. You want to be buds with me? That’s fine, I am not in charge, I am just your bodyguard and her backup. We can have a beer. What do you think will happen to her career if she shows favoritism on her very first case? Goes to bed with you? Falls in love with you? Her career, her dreams are over. She’s already on thin ice for losing you once. This would be a death blow. Even if it wouldn’t cost her her job, no one would ever trust her again, and even the jokes would be horrible.”

“Oh.” I said eloquently.

“Oh.” he nodded, “Exactly.”

“I am such a selfish shit.”

He shook his head, “No. you are a 27-year-old guy that suddenly figured out that girls think he’s hot after 20 years of being either ignorable or detestable. It actually happens a lot in my line of work. But do her a favor. Find a girlfriend. Talk about that Callie girl some more. Hell, I would even go find you a hooker if you don’t feel like chatting some girl up. Get a sexy female sidekick. Talk about how hot you are for redheads. Just make yourself off-limits or you really will wreck her life. If you told me you were in love with her it would be a different story, but I know you aren’t. Hell, I have been married 3 times. You are prettier than I am, but I sure know how to wreck their lives, and you are taking plays right out of my book.”

I nodded, thoughtfully. “You are right. Maybe I should just hit up tinder or something.”

He chuckled, “I would tell you that’s the spirit. But that would honestly be the second dumbest thing you could possibly do, right after sleeping with Antonia.”

I realized I was looking at an empty plate. I had been pretty hungry, but I forgot how fast I could wolf down food when I wasn’t paying attention, and I wasn’t really full. “Why is that so stupid?”

He grinned, “Think about it. You are going to be headed around the world talking to excitable new groups of up-and-coming superheroes, half of whom are legally obligated to be female. Every one of them will be in their prime age and health, most likely have amazing bodies, and care enough about people to become vigilantes just to protect them. You literally could not find better groups of women on the planet, plus, if you get stronger, a lot of them will be able to deal with your strength. Hell, it would probably be better than being on the panty raid patrol at a college.”

We were joined, finally, by Antonia, who was yawning and singlehandedly lugging all of our luggage. “You guys are dicks. I woke up and found you both gone, so I thought you might have left for the Defenders already. I had to pick up your rooms, pack everything up, and head down here as quickly as possible, and the sun is just barely up.”

I smiled, “Look at the bright side, it could have been worse. Baldwin could have tried to sneak into your shower like he did mine.”

Antonia dropped all of her luggage, “What? Wait. Was that why… what the hell?”

Baldwin was almost crying with suppressed laughter. He was shaking his head slowly and trying to catch up as I continued. “Oh yeah, right after you left. He came right in wearing a set of spangled speedos with a rainbow down the middle and a President Leary mask and said he was going to tune me up proper. Man, the way that rainbow was bending I thought a bunch of kids were trying to steal me lucky charms.”

She was shaking her head in confusion, so I added, “I think you should try to turn him straight. I mean, he has a kickstand that could stop him on a dime, it’s a shame to waste that on the turkey track.”

I was honestly wondering if I was going to have to give him resuscitation. Baldwin was turning red and bent over towards his shoes almost choking from laughing. I clapped him on the back just firmly enough to thump and said. “See? He’s still trying to seduce me.”

Antonia was giggling a little bit by now and said, “No, I was talking to him last night while you were showering, the whole time. We were talking about the case.”

I scowled. “Wait, seriously? Then who the fuck was it that gave me a blowjob? I owe them a lot of money.”

Both of them were laughing, but Baldwin was trying desperately to stand up, only to fall over again when I said, “Holy shit, maybe that wasn’t a mask!” Only the secret service.

We arrived at the headquarters, and it looked like a lot had been built up. The rooms were finished and filled with furniture, very corporate chic, and a young lady buzzed us into the conference room.

This time there were only 5 people there, including our former greeter, Miss Petty. Baldwin was out picking up supplies, and I smiled slightly. “No Victrix?” I asked her.

She shook her head, her face red. “I cannot apologize enough for that. Victrix was vetted thoroughly, and I had no idea that someone had gotten to her. I notice you are not wearing a mask?

I shrugged, “Alchemyst never existed. Some genius at DMA said I should wear a mask to make the new people feel welcome, but I have since convinced them that it was a bad idea. Your team looks a lot smaller than it was.”

Grace nodded, “Yes, we lost over half of the parolees, and one of our teams is patrolling. We have the people we were missing before, except for Girder, of course, would you like to set up a similar situation to what you had before?

I shook my head. “No, last time turned out to be a bit of an unintended sting operation. This time, let’s just set up a table for interviews and the rest can hang out over there or wherever.”

Grace nodded, “Of course.” She headed over to talk to the people. I moved a chair, and Antonia stood behind me in the “I am some kind of emergency ass-kicker” position.

I was wearing a short-sleeved collared shirt, and a pair of brown slacks we had picked up at a big and tall. I looked a lot like a personal trainer in an expensive spa, and wasn’t giving off nearly the same ‘efficiency expert’ vibe I had before, despite the lack of a mask. I didn’t feel like one either.

Grace came back with two people. One was a guy dressed in a skintight white suit with flames at his hands and feet, and a pair of ski goggles. His lanky frame screamed ‘speedster’ at the top of its voice. I shook his hand as he sat down.

Speedburn always wanted to be a speedster. He used to walk at a run, everywhere, and when his powers developed, he became exactly what he always wanted, a speedster.

Except he hadn’t. Manipulating friction, especially with his abilities, was a tremendously powerful control ability. He had Class C potential but was currently class E, almost F. I shook my head a little and marked down that the boy probably need some psychiatric help since his own mind was limiting his powers inconceivably.

Rick and Waynette Wilson. That was Speedburn and Miss Katonic’s names, and they were twins. I didn’t particularly think having siblings on the same team was a good idea, but it was not for me to remark. Miss Katonic was a surprisingly sweet-natured girl only her powers were scary, and it turned out she had truly staggering control.

The next contestant was the second to the last, a kid named Fractal. He really WAS a kid, only 15, despite a somewhat mature voice and build, and I quickly informed Grace. I hoped he wouldn’t be removed from the team, but if there was a junior team he was definitely the first in line. His powerset was the ability to create fractal shields, that were small but completely immune to everything. They worked by getting assembled together. They were small, about 6 inches each, and at his current power he could only create about 24 of them since they consumed 5 energy and held it while they existed.

I had Antonia text Baldwin with several more ingredients, and headed into the group, trying to be social. I was going to be paying, in pain and life, to help these people, so I deserved to get to know them.

I asked Grace, “So what kinds of missions are you planning on having these people do?”

She beamed, “When they are up to speed, we hope to have two teams that can take over for meta crime when the protectors are spread thin. Right now, Team 1 is helping swat, and getting some decent optics, and this is team 2. The only person you haven’t spoken with is Windfall, She’s on team 1.”

I nodded, “Your team has some health issues and some training issues. My abilities don’t give me a lot of details, but since I am supposed to be here for two weeks, I figured I would accompany them and see if there’s anything I can teach them.”

“You know superhero work?” She asked curiously.

I shook my head, “No, I know bad guys. I have spent far too much time with them, especially drug dealers and smugglers. I won’t pretend to know more about fighting crime than some of the professionals you have on the teams already, but I might be able to help them enhance what they have if I see how they use it.”

“Professionals?” She asked, “None of the folks here were registered heroes before this team, and quite a few of them were doing some time first.”

I shook my head, “They have been fighting crime on their own, several of them, like Ballclub, have been doing it for years without support, without help, without finances, and in an environment where the slightest misstep could get them not only killed but arrested for doing it. I saw mercenaries down south that lived in the same sort of environment. Yeah, they were mostly rat bastards, but one on one, even with his power block, I wouldn’t bet against Ballclub against any registered class E you care to name and more than a few class Ds. Blackhawk has been known to take down Class D’s without any superpowers at all, and has wrecked the plots of more than one class C personally.”

I smiled a little, “I think Blackhawk might be your greatest possible resource, and if he agreed I’d give him my job in a heartbeat. All I am really useful for is helping stabilize things a little bit.” I shrugged. “I appreciate the fact that Vigilantes are getting a pass, but I am not sure that clumping them all together into teams like this is a good idea.”

Grace smiled, “Are you kidding? The optics are amazing. Some of these guys have a bigger following than a lot of registered heroes. Besides, we have managed to collect the toughest people in the city outside of jail and the protectors themselves. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Later that evening, the team was reassembled while I worked on a potion for Ballclub, and Blackhawk watched me as I tried to figure out the best combination. Two of them would have worked, but the cost to me, personally, was too high. They would have taken years off my life, and with a big question mark for my lifespan, I had no idea what it would do to me.

Ironically enough, the solution was adding in an actual stent, melting it into the eventual pill. I hadn’t really tried adding things that were supposed to be used in surgical procedures, but the association was there. The eventual pill would become a power drain, likely a good 20 points, but it sure beats waiting for a heart attack.

“Blackhawk?” I asked as I finished the assembly. I wasn’t going to catalyze it yet, because there was still a big sacrifice to make, this time in pain.

He nodded, and said, in a synthesized voice, “I have a master’s in chemistry. That ability is fascinating, and it really violates medical science.”

I nodded, “Yeah, the problem is that it always comes with a sacrifice. Some of my concoctions, when they are used to change something back to how it is supposed to be, like healing potions, use expensive ingredients as the sacrifice, so me or the target don’t have to deal with much more than the pain of healing or growing ever-so-slightly older to mimic the time that would normally be spent healing, or I can spend it myself, but it is miserable. I have some of those potions, though. They work much more effectively, but because of the personal costs I don’t just hand them out.”

“And this?” he said through his mask’s mechanical voice.

“This, well, it’s innate to him, part of his genetics. If he has a heart attack, a healing potion could set him straight, but then he’d just have another one unless he had surgery. Even then, the surgery would probably prevent him from playing the fighting hero game anymore.”

I shook my head, “This will fix the innate issue and should help him unlock control over his density, but he’s going to have to train it himself. It is much easier for doctors to treat injuries if they don’t have to fight their way into someone’s body through their defenses. Because it is not natural, though, both my sacrifice and his are going to be pretty huge.”

He nodded, “What kind of sacrifice are you talking about?”

I chuckled, “In this case, for the next few weeks, I will be losing my sense of taste. I absolutely love food, and I have only had a few good meals since I left prison. I also love cooking, and it’s part of my dating strategy. That counts as a really huge sacrifice, once you add in the fact that I am probably not going to sleep tonight because my nerves will feel like they are on fire. There are other, unspecified sacrifices, but I plan on forcing the DMA to pay through the nose for it. Their money is house-controlled, which means paperwork and justifications for weeks, splitting the sacrifice up by inconveniencing possibly hundreds of people and making them uncomfortable. Heck, even demanding the department spend a hundred bucks and document it might be enough. Government Organizations don’t usually have a petty cash fund for stuff like this.”

Blackhawk made a humming noise for a moment. “Your gift. It has all the earmarks of a dark power.”

I shrugged, “So do most gifts. I like to think I use my abilities for the greater good, even if they take a toll. Look at fire control or any of the weapon powers. Some things are just built for doing awful things, and it’s up to your own decisions and willpower to turn those things to good.”

He nodded, “I certainly hope you decide to remain concerned about doing good. With that sort of a price, it would be very easy to turn onto a darker path, and rationalize it.”

I nodded, “Speaking of which, You know you are a latent meta, right? With the number of aspects you possess, it would be easy to whip up an elixir for you with almost no sacrifice required. Hell, if I charged you enough to inconvenience your mild-mannered alter ego, even slightly, the sacrifice might be almost nothing.”

He nodded, “I am interested, but I will need to have more time to think about it. Right now, I could walk away from this life and nobody would notice, and I am starting to slow down a little. That’s why I am here. I don’t usually work well with others, I have been doing the solo thing for a long time.”

I smiled slightly. “Bear in mind that sometimes activating your meta gene will come with unintended side effects like changes in appearance. I haven’t had it happen with a custom elixir yet, but if you activate too powerfully, it might choose, say, turning your skin green as its sacrifice if public appearances are important to you. Like you said, it’s a bit of a dark gift and I think someone out there has a sense of humor. If the sacrifice is not big enough, it’s been known to choose its own. On the plus side, of course, metas with lots of aspects tend to gain a vastly improved lifespan. An elixir would give you quite a bit more time before you retire and coach.”

He nodded, “Both of those are things to bear in mind. What other sorts of sacrifices are accepted?”

I shrugged, “That depends on how masochistic and ethical you are. You could lose physical parts or abilities, one of the more common side effects is sterility. You could even choose to lose skills you have built up over time, and be afflicted with a strange deformity or speech impairment. The thing is, this happens if you awaken even without using the elixir, which makes me assume that my ability and meta powers are tied together in some intelligent way. Gemini, for instance, has two distinct powersets, but she has to shift between male and female forms to use them, and she considers herself completely female, regardless of her form’s sex. I suspect that that sort of sacrifice is why she’s a class C meta, and I don’t even want to imagine what sort of sacrifice Commander Freedom suffered.”

He chuckled, which was odd-sounding through the voice changer. “You have a very unique point of view at the very least. Most people talk about power, fame, and money. Few discuss what you have had to give up for it. I appreciate that point of view.

I shrugged and polished off a potion for Jasper. This one I knew would work, but cancer was kind of weird. It was both natural to your body and foreign to it at the same time, but many cancers had been cured years before. I have no idea how Baldwin had gotten Kentinol since it was incredibly expensive and tightly controlled, but it was well-known that Kentinol could cure certain forms of cancer. The sacrifice of its rarity and cost made up for its effects quite well. It wouldn’t work on Jasper’s cancer, of course, and there was little to no chance that surgery would be effective on a super-cancer, but I was able to adapt it with some more natural ingredients like turmeric, saffron, and silver nitrate to be confident of its effects.

“You do know what’s going to happen tomorrow after they do the news spot announcing two new vigilante superteams, and of course, showing off their brand new HQ right here?”

Blackhawk nodded, and Baldwin, who was standing nearby piped up. “It’s going to get hit. 24 hours max for the first attack, with probably two or three other attacks within the next week.”

Blackhawk chuckled again, “That’s the other reason I am here. Some of the people I have been keeping an eye on have gone dark, but they are not the type to let a challenge like this go unanswered. Considering there are at least five people here that are capable of rounding them up, I suspect we might be able to get at least three monsters off the streets permanently, and potentially many more. Just the fact that the police know where we are has already led to four independent actions in the week while you were gone. Jasper and Ballclub have both nabbed one each, and I picked up both of the Darklighter twins yesterday. They are cooling their heels in deep storage, and with any luck, both of them should be looking at death row before the end of the week.”

“You don’t feel bad about capturing them alive just to watch them executed?” I asked him curiously.

He shook his head, “Not even slightly. I don’t kill, both because I am the hero, and because killing suspects, no matter how guilty they are, would put me on the short list of trouble vigilantes. I am not crazy enough to think that locking monsters in an asylum or prison only to escape and kill more innocent people is a good idea. Yes, comic books were my original inspiration, but there are some things that are standard in comic books that just don’t work in real life.”

I nodded, that was for damned sure. Once I finished with a half-dozen specialty concoctions, uncatalyzed, I looked at Baldwin. “So, can I have a professional opinion?”

He nodded, “Yes, but I won’t give you my private opinion. I think your best bet would be with Aquantis since she’s been giving you fuck-me eyes all night, but I know she’s not your type, and you are too stupid to do the pump and dump thing.”

I hadn’t noticed. Oh, the young lady with the gills. They were, in fact, gills, but he was right about her not being my type. Not because of her appearance, Oh no, but because she had been playing Bronzium and Max Hardcore off against each other in a way that made me feel like she had seen a lot more of each of them than their costumes displayed. Call me selfish, I wouldn’t argue, but I preferred girls that were not such experienced lovers. Hell, I wasn’t that experienced myself, and thoroughly intended to evoke the chest-pounding atavistic response if I could get away with it.

Then again, that was probably why I’d be sleeping alone tonight. Especially when I gave Antonia the impression that I was a mercenary.

I chuckled politely. There was way too much man flesh here for her to give me more than a cursory look, especially with the way she’d been playing the two. “In your professional opinion, how much do you think I could soak the DMA for that they would pass it this evening, but it would still cause a lot of paperwork, angry muttering, and pain in order to use these potions? I assume it’s quite a bit since some of the mouthier ones were talking about getting six-figure allowances for doing what they were going to do anyway.”

Baldwin looked at me speculatively. “I assume it has something to do with the sacrifice thing, and not just greed, right?”

I nodded, “Yes, I will actually have to donate the lion’s share or get some nasty feedback. I mean, I guess you could call it greed not to want to suffer from a case of explosive diarrhea or have to walk around wearing a kick-me sign for a week, and I do have some basic needs that I want to take care of, but I am not wanting a mansion or something, just a list of a few things including better armor, some real clothes, and maybe enough money to take a girl out on a date.”

Baldwin nodded, “You do know that you have access to a drawing account through Agent Andropolis, right? I thought you weren’t using it out of pride or something.”

I shook my head, “Nope, nobody told me about that. Not even you.”

Baldwin sighed a little. “Keep it to small purchases, like a cellphone, clothes, or date nights, and you should be within the draw account with no problems. Getting a car might be a bit tougher, although she could requisition one if we are using it to get around with you. As far as demanding payment, you are in a weird position. If you wanted to threaten to go to the courts again, you could probably get up to a million, but sooner or later they will call your bluff. If you just imply it but don’t actually threaten, I would ask for about forty-five thousand. That’s low enough for instant approval, but sure to cause a few accounting and approval headaches.”

He chuckled, “You know, we have armor for you, right?”

I shrugged, “Yeah, but if I go for a Halloween costume, I plan on doing it myself. Whoever designed that costume for me probably planned for me to get my ass kicked by half of the new heroes, with that getup right out of an ’80s cartoon.