***8 hours earlier***

“Alright, everyone’s here, good,” Perry said, scanning his crew.

Hardcase, Wraith, Breaker, Plagius, Titan, and…dad.

“Yo, I heard you got your legs all busted up. You look fine,” Plagius said, scanning Perry up and down.

“Nothing a balanced breakfast can’t fix,” Perry said. “Alright, so Underwriter Paid Mass Driver an exorbitant amount to pay me a beating, Mass Driver in turn hired some support to make the attack a bit easier on him, while Underwriter tagged along to make sure the job got done.

“Underwriter himself was hired by Neuron, whose insurance fraud empire stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, should the price of premiums tank.”

“I’ll handle Neuron,” Dad said, cracking his knuckles.

“No you will not.” Perry said, scowling at dad. “This has to come from me, or it fails to solve the primary issue: All my contacts and family set aside, Neuron feels like it’s safe to send goons at me. I have to change his mind about that.”

“How did you find out all this stuff?” Natalie asked, glancing down at Perry’s hand drawn map with a frown.

“My contacts in my family,” Perry said, shrugging sheepishly, raising his phone. On the screen was a massive wall of text from Gramma, giving Perry not only who hired Underwriter, but why and what his intended outcome was.

“Dad, all you have to do is your usual schtick at any building insured by Big Brain Energy that is worth more than thirty million but less than one-fifty, with low stakes in his companies. Those are the ones he likes to cut loose.”

“I have been wanting to destroy the fountain at the Coleman building,” dad said, rubbing his chin.

“What do you mean his usual?” Titan asked. Perry froze and could see Nat, Bret, and Titan all giving him curious glances.

“You could call me a professional improvised nonconsensual demolition and resource acquisition specialist,” Dad said with a grin. Plagius didn’t get it, but Titan and Hardcase gave dad wary glances.

“Anyway, dad’s job is pretty self-explanatory. Plagius, Breaker, and Titan, all you gotta do is be the bait. I’ll transform the three of you into me and these two,” Perry said, pointing at himself, Heather and Nat. “You’ll be able to catch whatever attack Mass Driver sends at us.”

He glanced at Breaker. “Breaker, you’ll be me, because Mass Driver is going to go after me specifically, and you can tie him up for a long time. Maybe even beat him under the right circumstances. You’re pretty much the only one who can.”

“Sweet.” Breaker said, nodding.

“Titan, you’ll be Heather. Your superpowers are still usable in my disguise, so you fit Heather better than the other two, because she could pump up her muscles if she wanted to.”

“I just don’t because it’s gross.” Heather said with a scowl.

“So is it like a hologram or…” Titan asked.

“It’s a living meat-suit that magically vanishes your real body while you pilot it,” Perry said. “Plagius, you get to be Nat.”

“Aw, man…no offense.” Plagius said, paling at Nat’s scowl.

“None taken,” Nat said, eyes narrowed.

“Plagius gets Hardcase here, because she’s the perfect hostage. She’s small, portable, and without her mechsuit, has difficulty opening and closing widows that require twenty pounds of pressure.”

Perry continued on without a hitch, even as Nat’s glare was turned on him.

“If someone takes our fake Hardcase hostage, that will put Plagius in the perfect position to drain the shit out of them.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“I’ve ordered and modified a ton of used car sales supplies, including several dozen wacky waving arms flailing inflatable tube men to make the trap more attention-grabbing. I also paid top dollar to have an ad broadcast this morning, which will help lure them in.”

“Aren’t they gonna know it’s a trap?” Titan asked.

Perry nodded with a grin. “But they’re gonna be expecting drones or disintegration beams or something of that nature. Instead, I’m throwing two of Mass-Driver’s hardest counters at him.” Perry pointed at Plagius and Breaker.

“While you three wait for an attack, Hardcase, Wraith and I are going on the offensive. The Underwriter has information about how to request access to Neuron’s Database. Wraith, you’re going to go into his base dressed in my suit. He’s going to respond as if it were me, and waste most of his effort on the suit.”

Luck powers like the Underwriter’s didn’t work on a person’s body, most of the time, which made people like Titan, Plagius and Wraith, who needed no external enhancement, a nightmare for him. Wraith was one of the man’s hard-counters.

“Once Wraith gets the login information, she’ll forward it to Nat, who will get permission to access the database from Neuron, who will have been informed of…certain events.” Perry skirted around the words ‘Mechanaut attack’.

“And around the same time, I will have a nice, peaceful chat with Neuron about how he should be kind to others and turn the other cheek,” Perry said.

“That’s a lot of C-4 on the table behind you.” Titan said, brows raised. “That legal?”

“Of course it’s legal, I made it myself,” Perry said.

“You planning on killing him?”

“According to Franklin City law, any attack made by a super in the course of a heated battle which subjects both combatants to equal forces and kills one of them cannot be considered first degree murder, and is instead a misdemeanor.” Perry said with a smile.

“So…yes?” Titan asked.

“No, I’m sure Neuron has some first class, redundant protection on his personal thinkmeats that can resist a hundred pounds of high explosive. The C-4 is just a way to lure out and hopefully remove some of those defences.”

A flash of movement out of the corner of Perry’s eye caught his attention and made his heart stop.

HIPPIE VAN!

Perry ran out to meet Dave’s thugs, who climbed out of the car and wordlessly handed him the keys before sauntering away to meet a black truck at the road.

The aged hippie van was a little ray of faded pastel sunshine in Perry’s injury-filled sleepless morning.

Perry wanted nothing more than to unwrap all the ingredients like it was Christmas and immediately start playing with his new toys, but no…Perry had to be a grown-up and do the responsible thing:

Pursue violent retribution.

Perry heaved a sigh as he parked the hippie van underground and locked it up tight, fiddling with the magical ring that made it harder to plot against him. It would probably factor heavily into stupid decision making going forward, tipping the odds ever so slightly in his favor.

If Neuron really wanted to hurt him, the brain in a jar would’ve destroyed Perry’s supply of magical ingredients, rendering him a middling Tinker, rather than breaking his knees, accomplishing nothing more than making him angry. Perry was fairly sure the ring was working overtime.

Pfft. Knees. Who needs ‘em?

Hopefully the ring kept people from targeting that particular weakness long enough for him to address it.

Soon, Perry thought, patting the flower-power painted van filled with magical ingredients on the side.

Perry went back up to the surface, handed out the mission details and answered questions for the next half hour, until finally it was time to get the ball rolling.

Perry used Wayward’s Defensive Disguise on Breaker, Titan and Plagius, turning them into machine-accurate copies of Perry, Heather, and Nat.

Titan took the gender-bending with his typical stoicism, but Plagius kept getting his hands slapped away from himself by Nat.

“I’m not gonna have to get…murdered again to break the spell, am I?” Breaker asked, going through some exercises to adjust to Perry’s dimensions.

“Nah, I made a chamber to break the spell early.” Perry said, pointing to where the three dolls of lunt bone were resting inside a tank.

“The tank swirls raw earth essence around inside like a blender until the spell fails. I made it after Breaker overstayed his disguise last time.” Perry said.

“Oh, thank god,” Breaker groaned.

“Just make sure you’re in the shower when the spell breaks,” Perry said. “Way easier to clean up.”

Last of all was Perry, turning himself into the duplicate of a disgruntled Big Brain Energy employee named Greg.

With a few minor alterations.

‘Greg’s’ chest cavity and generous beer belly was hollowed out to make space for C-4, only leaving the very edges that wrapped most of the way around.

“Ewww,” Heather said, upon seeing Perry’s inhuman proportions.

“Oh, come on,” Perry said, following Heather around with his middle-aged voice and face along with his Kronenburg-like malformations. “I need someone to insert the C-4. Don’t you wanna insert it? It’s not hard, you just insert-”

“Stop saying ‘insert’!” Heather shouted, averting her eyes.

Once everything was set, they set off on their complicated plan to send a message to the rest of the super community: Paradox didn’t take that shit lying down.

Things fell apart for a bit when Perry’s C-4 was neutralized, and he got poisoned and electrocuted, but once he popped out of the Defensive Disguise, he boosted his Attunement to unhealthy levels and modified the tiny layer of air around him with the intention of boosting its electrical insulative capacity.

Perry was white-knuckling it the entire time, feeling the burning-hot ropes of lightning scorching his zero-HP skin as they slid across the thin layer of air he was actively modifying.

Perry knew there was no way the lightning tentacles were the only thing Neuron had up his sleeve, so he left him with an armor-piercing pen and a parting gloat then ran like hell before he could get caught again.

Sure, he had to sprint through the office building clothed in nothing but blood and viscera, but that just made everyone get out of his way.

Perry met one of his suits outside the building, the alarm sirens blaring behind him. He slipped into the suit and flew away in a matter of seconds, making a clean getaway.

In a manner of speaking.

***Now***

“In an unprovoked attack, the tinker Paradox went on a bloody rampage this afternoon in a downtown office building. The death toll is uncertain, but it is expected to be high. The following footage contains graphic images, viewer discretion is advised.”

The newscaster’s face was replaced by a shaky video of Perry sprinting through an office building, whooping at the top of his lungs, covered in blood and gore, dongle dangling as he ran.

“I don’t remember hollering like that,” Perry said with a frown as he shampooed the blood out of his hair. “Must’ve been having more fun than I thought. Also that news station was bribed.”

“Not bad, your workout has been showing benefits. You must’ve gained what, fifteen pounds of muscle since we met?” Titan said, showering bits of gore out of his nooks and crannies with the extendable showerhead.

“Yeah, about that,” Perry said.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Plagius rocked himself back and forth under the torrent of water rinsing bits and pieces of his Nat-suit off of him. Plagius didn’t have a particularly strong stomach for gore. Maybe it was because a bloody chunk of Natalie’s face was staring back at him from the floor.

Learn something new every day.

“This is magic, right!? Magic is supposed to be magical and clean, and sparkly, and not so…bloody!” Plagius asked.

“Real magic is actually pretty gross sometimes,” Perry said, turning off the showerhead and wrapping a towel around his waist.

The shower rooms he’d been forced to make had finally came in handy at full capacity, and it had been the men’s side that needed it.

Perry chuckled at the irony.

“At least you didn’t have to get killed for the spell to break,” Breaker shuddered. “I got impaled and literally experienced a white light as I died.”

“Psssh, I got poisoned and electrocuted until my heart stopped.” Perry said.

“No, I got a stake literally through my heart.” Breaker said, tapping his chest. “Take all the worst pains you’ve ever experienced, stack them together, and freaking ball them up in your chest, then you’re on the right track. Electrocution and poison are crap by comparison.”

“Agree to disagree.” Perry said with a shrug. “Except I’m right.”

Breaker grunted sourly. Now that Perry was clean he had to clean up the showers, which involved using a floor squeegee to push their discarded disguises into a trash can lined with heavy duty plastic, tipped on its side.

Comic books never really show the cleanup after a successful mission. Usually it’s everyone drinking champagne or celebrating, or even mourning the dead. Not shoving a pile of meat into a trash can.

Superheroing is dirty work, sometimes.

Quest Complete!

Find out who is responsible for the attack and make them understand it was a mistake.

Reward: 2000XP, Respect from Neuron

Bonus: For going above and beyond in the consumption of causal energy, Respect amongst criminal underworld has increased.

Congratulations! You are now a level 6 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 6

HP: 7

Body: 6

Stability: 6

Nerve: 9

Attunement: 28

Free Points:8

XP to next level: 3814

Oh, excellent. Put one point in Attunement and seven in Stability, Perry thought, already working on his plan to even out the two stats.

One point in Attunement would make the difference between an extra free point next level, and the rest in Stability would do a lot of work towards closing the gap. Perry was originally tempted to only close the gap by one point, but given that he was going to be experimenting with his soul, it seemed prudent to frontload Stability and prevent some serious problems.

Attunement to Stability ratio at 2.5 hypothesized to result in the emergence of minor mental illness due to soul damage.

Current ratio:

4.11/1.88 = 2.18

Hypothetical ratio if the gap between attunement and Stability were only closed by one:

4.53/1.71 = 2.65

An unacceptable ratio, especially with him about to cause minor soul damage of his own. Perry needed that extra leeway in order to be a good person and be a good boyfriend. It was a lot safer for everyone involved If Perry had a healthy amount of Stability as a buffer between him and the crazy.

Perry rested on his floor squeegee in the middle of the steamy, bloodsoaked shower room, frowning.

Boyfriend? Are we officially dating? Did we mention anything out loud? How is this gonna work? What’s the future gonna look like?

Perry shook his head and went back to cleaning up bloody bits and pieces of his girlfriend…s? strewn out across the floor.

It occurred to him that this was exactly what it would look like if he’d brutally murdered Heather and Natalie in the shower room, then hacked them to pieces.

...Stupid Stability, making me think about things I’d rather ignore. Now I now why I ignored you in the first place.

Perry heaved a sigh. Gotta be an adult and take your medicine, though. Even if it’s bitter.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 6

HP: 7

Body: 6

Stability: 13

Nerve: 9

Attunement: 29

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 3814