“Dad!” Tom and Felix called as they stormed into the mansion.

“In the reading room!” Dad’s voice emanated from down a side hall.

They stormed over to the reading room, angry enough to ignore their aching feet. They hadn’t been planning on walking home barefoot.

“Dad, this-“

“Hold it right there,” Dad said, peering out from behind his book. The Tinker looked his sons up and down, taking in their ragged states, wearing only swim trunks, bruises and mud.

“Stay in the hallway.” He said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t want Amy to have to clean this room too. Looks like you two had a fun day at the beach?”

“Dad, this punk destroyed our armor and stole our battery!” Tom said. “The one we planted to force people to play volleyball with us!”

“Help us ruin his life!” Felix added.

Dad rubbed his temples. “What’s his name?” Dad asked.

“Paradox.”

“Oh.” Dad paused, staring out into the distance.

“Young guy, about five ten, dark hair, green eyes?”

“He never left his armor.”

“Armor?” Dad asked frowning. “Maybe it’s some other kid?”

“Dad, he melted our armor with a tinker ray! You said that was impossible.”

“It is impossible. It wasn’t a tinker ray that hit your suits, it was magic.”

“Like the magic our housekeeper uses?” Felix asked.

“There’s more than one kind of magic, boys.” Dad said.

“Look, normally, I would move heaven and earth to soothe your petty butthurt, but in this case I’d rather not die or get turned into a frog. Getting your ass kicked builds character. You should do it more often. I used to get my ass kicked all the time and look at me now.”

Metalon went back to his book, ignoring his sons.

“And eat some food and get some exercise, seriously. You two look like what’s under Death’s robe.

******

After his sons left, the super shook his head, chuckling.

“A mage in power-armor. What will the world come up with next?”

Idly, the Tinker looked up Paradox’s wiki.

There were pictures of the newcomer battling Locust and a picture of him sitting on the curb in a shredded suit of cardboard armor, his elbows on his knees, head hung in exhaustion, his armor torn away to reveal his abs.

He’d been dubbed the ‘cardboard kid’ after that fight, before his official name had become public.

The rabid super-groupies were already tossing around theories on the boy’s powers, generating a long discussion chain at the bottom of the page of ‘facts known’.

Material reinforcement, obviously. - NigelWashere

I think it’s less reinforcement and getting things to do stuff they’re not supposed to, hence the name Paradox. Material reinforcement doesn’t explain the floating, see-through knives. -BreedmeSolaris

Did you see those abs? The cardboard was torn almost down to his co-

Metalon scrolled down until he found a post that confirmed his suspicions.

The knives look like a spell called Kolath’s Floating Armaments.

A picture was provided of a mage super in Funkytown using six floating swords of the same color and clarity.

I’d bet my bottom dollar that Paradox is a mage/tinker duo. The Tinker provides cheap armor and Paradox wears it. The techy look of the knives is a red herring. – PushesuphisGlasses

Yeah, that’s probably Hexen’s kid, Metalon thought, scrolling back up the wiki. Where’d he get the Tinker who can reinforce materials? A friend?

There were more pictures of him hanging out with a group called the East Block Defenders. A relatively new group of supers who’d been gaining traction on the East side, under the wall.

A temp member, one Star, was wearing identical armor. There was the Tinker.

On a shaky video filmed by a civvie with more balls than sense, was Paradox shooting something at Tung-stan out of his forearm, which caused the elemental to buckle and fall, allowing Titan to get the finishing blow.

Was that a melt ray?

Or was it a melt spell?

Metalon couldn’t discount the possibility of the little disc that popped out of Paradox’s armor being a red herring, and Paradox cast the spell himself.

But why would he do that?

Metalon tapped his finger on the desk beside him, pondering.

Paradox was living up to his name.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 3

HP: 4

Body: 3

Stability: 3

Nerve: 6

Attunement: 16

Free Points: 0

XP to next level 1848

After taking some time to calm down, Perry had come to the conclusion that he was probably overreacting.

There were a million ways the world could keep his powers in check.

XP might start getting harder and harder to get, softcaping him at level nine. He could be wrong. Attunement might have a cap on the amount it could effect the Generalist Perk.

And so many more he couldn’t even imagine. Nature tended to interfere with unchecked exponential growth.

He still needed to increase his counter intelligence, though.

And a new computer. Man, I was really freaking out.

And some time to design my new spell-frames.

And a new suit.

And a better lair.

The list of things Perry needed to do vastly outweighed the amount of time he had.

Especially today.

Today he was setting aside time for Heather and increasing her combat efficiency. Titan had offered himself as a punching bag, and the rest of the team had followed suit.

“Wow!” Titan said, entering the gym “You built all this in two days?”

“Yep,” Perry said, leaning against the wall as The East Block Defenders gawked.

“So you own a motel now?” Hardcase asked, frowning.

“I guess.” Perry said with a shrug. “Haven’t talked to my lawyer about it yet, but I’m sure he can set me up with a manager.

“WHeeee!” Manic was outside in his swim trunks, running across the length of the pool, sending up a spray of chlorinated water as he passed.

Jetset had already begun lifting weights on a nearby bench.

“How did you do all this so fast? Where’d you get the equipment?” Hardcase asked.

“Trade secret, sorry,” Perry said.

“Is this what I think it is?” Titan asked, pointing at the giant bowflex made of solid spring steel reinforced by Perry’s perk.

“Sure is.” Perry said. “Knock yourself out.”

Titan gave a squeal of joy and set the bows to eight thousand pounds apiece before he began doing butterflies by drawing the two handles towards each other. The slabs of spring steel bent precipitously as the huge bruiser did his reps.

“I haven’t been able to work out since I Triggered,” Titan said with a grin. “I hear Nexus has a gym for bruisers, but I’ve never been.”

“That’ll be five thousand dollars.” Perry said, holding out his hand.

“Umm…”

“I’m kidding, you guys are welcome to visit whenever you want. That’s what I made the place for, after all.”

“Five grand probably isn’t a bad monthly fee.” Titan said. Switching the configuration on the machine to a different exercise.

“Eh?” Perry asked.

“I think you underestimate exactly how hard it is to find a gym with facilities for a bruiser. I’m also a millionaire now. So it’s not actually that big a problem.”

“Lucky,” Hardcase muttered. “I spent all mine on new parts.”

“Bought my parents a new place.” Jetset said.

“Manic lost half of his on a bad investment, and ate the other half.” Hardcase said, glancing outside at the speedster.

“Well, I still got two mil! In bitcoin!” Warcry said from the rack of weighted balls.

Perry glanced at Titan.

“I got together with a lawyer, established a trust that owns a paper business that in turn owns a variety of dividend paying, low risk ETFs, paying about one hundred and twenty thousand a year into a separate account earmarked for paying infrastructure damages and petty spending. As the trust is the legal owner of that money, and a legally separate entity from me, should I get sued for any reason, they can’t take it from me.” Titan said, wiping off the bench with a towel like a polite gym-bro as if some other person was going to walk in off the street and start benching ten thousand.

“What, are you seventy? Purchase growth stocks like a normal person your age, the return is higher.” Perry said.

“I’m more concerned with keeping the lights on and a steady paycheck for my secretary,” Titan said. “Constantly selling my growth stocks to achieve that would be beside the point.”

“Why is Titan the only one who has his life together?” Perry assumed it was because the man was at least eight years older than his team-mates.

“Superpowers foster an easy come, easy go mentality towards money,” Titan said with a shrug. “I could make ten grand a night as a security guard.”

He pointed at Hardcase.

“Hardcase here could probably earn a half mil a month at the Workshop. The non-penal portion of it, anyway.”

“Manic’s abilities are always in demand, Jetset…well, he can fly. Somebody’s gotta be paying for that…probably.”

“Hey!” Jetset said from his machine where he was benching one eighty.

“Before you get too burned out on the exercise equipment,” Perry said, motioning to where Heather was limbering up, wearing a hyperweave suit that had set Perry back nearly fifty grand.

“Sounds good,” Titan said, nodding, approaching the sparring mat.

“Don’t hit him in the head until you know if he can take it!” Perry shouted to Wraith. Heather nodded. Titan frowned but kept walking.

Perry spotted Hardcase looking around the gym nervously.

“What’s up? Exercise is good for the brain. You don’t have to get muscley, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I umm…don’t know how to use any of the equipment.” Hardcase admitted, shifting from foot to foot and tapping her fingers together.

“Well, why don’t we start with the treadmills, those are pretty easy to figure out, plus they’ve got a great view of Titan getting beat up by a girl.”

Hardcase nodded and the two Tinkers jogged side by side while Titan acted at the guinea pig for Heather’s newest moves.

“Good afternoon, Wraith. What are you planning on doing to me today?” Titan asked.

“You’re gonna find out,” Heather said with a grin.

The spar started and Heather leapt towards Titan.

Titan kept his distance and jabbed out with his oversized arm to keep his distance.

Copying her move from the fight with the robot, she folded around his arm and started oozing up it.

Titan reacted instantly, twisting his body and whipping his arm around fast enough that the G-forces tore Heather off of him.

Heather shot out to the side with worrying speed, impacting against the wall. Instead of staying there, she bounced off like a superball, hurtling back toward Titan’s face.

The giant tried to intercept her flight with a clothesline, but Heather spread her body out in midair, altering her trajectory and making the giant whiff.

A moment later she was twisted around Titan’s neck, trying her best to choke him out like a red-headed anaconda. Titan, completely unaffected by her squeezing, raised his hand.

“You got me. Reset.”

“But you’re not even feeling it,” Wraith groused.

“And you’re not going into my mouth and nose, when you could be. This is a spar, after all,” Titan said.

“Ah.” Heather scowled. That was her dad’s favorite move, and she’d likely not considered it a possibility for that very reason.

“Okay, I’m gonna try something different.” Heather said, returning to the other side of the mat.

“And what’s that?”

“My beat stick. “Her names ‘Anya’.” Heater said, her body unfolding around a rusty iron rod about two and a half feet long and an inch and a half wide.

Not unlike a piece of rebar with a bone handle, really.

Simple is usually best when designing weapons. Plus Perry didn’t want to separate the ghost into multiple pieces for fear of damaging or diluting the thing. So he’d lightly melted the cast iron with magic and pressed it into a rod-shape, then affixed the giant-bone handle in a way that made the thing handle like a fly-swatter.

Titan cocked his head at heather’s beat-stick. “Unless you’ve got a trick, that thing’s probably not gonna do anything to me.”

“There’s a trick,” Heather said. “I suggest you don’t get hit.”

Titan shrugged and raised his fists defensively.

“Ready when you are.”

Heather smiled and her arm reabsorbed the beat-stick.

“Which hand is it in?” She asked, waving her empty hands.

“Crap.” Titan muttered.

Heather jumped forward, making swift jabs with her arms, stretching them out until they were longer than Titan’s, getting her past the giant’s guard.

“Shapeshifters are a pain in the ass.” Titan muttered, bobbing and weaving, dancing backwards to avoid Heather’s attacks that might contain her hidden blackjack.

It’s true, Perry thought. In rock-paper-scissors style, shapeshifters were good against bruisers, bruisers smashed tinker inventions, and tinker inventions often disabled shapeshifters before they had the ability to bring their formlessness to bear.

This was by no means absolute. Everybody who made it to the big leagues practiced against their weakness until they could at least hold their own. Shifters took precautions against electricity, rays, and AOE damage, Bruisers practiced anti-shifter techniques, and Tinkers made friends with the bruisers.

Energy users like Warcry existed somewhat outside this perverse love triangle, as she could easily kill any of the aforementioned supers. And they could kill her right back.

A glass cannon.

Energy users were best in teams that could protect their squishy bodies long enough to bring their powerful abilities to bear.

They were also very highly sought after by Nexus, and Perry suspected that Titan kept her around as a bonus incentive for Nexus to hire him.

If there was one person Perry wanted as a nemesis, it would be Titan. The dude was professional.

Ah well, a boy can dream.

“OW!” Titan bellowed, staggering backwards, clutching his ribs.

Heather froze in mid-strike, her ghost-iron club half-emerged from her heel.

Hardcase missed a beat and nearly fell off the treadmill. Jetset’s weight hit the rack. Warcry’s eyes widened.

“I’m okay, I think.” Titan said, hissing as he stumbled backwards. He peeled down his hyperweave, revealing a rapidly darkening bruise spreading across his ribs.

“It’s not broken,” he said, poking the ribs and wincing. “Just hurts like crazy. How did that go through the hyperweave!?”

“That was probably the ghost,” Perry said, still jogging.

“What!?”

“The iron is possessed and that gives it a little extra kick. Once it was reinforced by my ability it became pretty powerful.”

“Where did you get a possessed club!? I didn’t even think ghosts were a real thing!” Warcry said.

“I know a guy.” Perry said with a shrug.

“Can…can you introduce me?” Hardcase asked.

“Sure, you got time tomorrow?” Perry asked. As busy as Dave was, he would always make time for new clientele. “You can introduce me to some of your sources too. I’ve been looking for some counter-intelligence tech solutions.

“Sure,” Hardcase said, nodding vigorously.

“Cool, it’s a date.”

Hardcase turned crimson under her domino mask and stared straight forward, jogging with determination.

“Obviously it turned out a little too strong for sparring,” Perry said, turning his attention to Titan. “I wasn’t expecting it to hit that hard. We’ll sub it out for a regular iron pipe and call the match after what…

“Three good hits would probably make me wanna stop fighting,” Titan said, rolling the hyperweave back up his chest.

Heather shrugged, set aside her beat-stick and grabbed a less deadly iron pipe, folding her hands around it.

“Can you hold up the metal punching bag?” Heather asked. “I’ve got some ideas I wanna try out.”

“Sure,” Titan said, grabbing what looked like a hot-water tank and holding it in front of himself.

Heather whipped her arm forward, her hand melting into her wrist and forming a scythe-like spike, which embedded itself into the punching bag before she wrenched it back out.

“Damn!” Warcry said, having gravitated toward the sparring to spectate.

“So I can make myself harder, too,” Heather said, her breath beginning to speed up as she exerted her power more.

Heather practiced the move just shy of a hundred more times, successfully forming a hard enough spike out of herself about a third of the time. She needed more practice, but she was likely to be a terror on the battlefield.

“Alright…Now I wanna practice my civvie takedowns.” Heather said, panting hard.

“Not it!” Perry shouted, followed by Hardcase and Warcry.

“Not i- damn.” Jetset grudgingly stepped forward and spent the next half-hour getting tackled and hogtied by a pretty girl in spandex.

Some people would pay top dollar for that.

Jetset didn’t look like he was having fun, though.