Two weeks into designing a piece of equipment that could measure the dimensional wavelengths of essences, It Happened.

Perry was hunched over a computer, brainstorming both an algorithm to patch holes in the modified soul-surgery equipment’s sight, and ways to pack the sensors tighter, so they didn’t have to.

The cluster of evenly spaced crystals needed a certain amount of space between them, and originally, Perry’d had trouble squishing them together because of limitation in what he could personally cook up.

With a hundred eggheads brainstorming ideas in clusters of five, each of them crowded around a blueprint of his soul-surgery equipment.

Well, they’d picked out an embarrassing amount of ways it could be tightened up.

Embarrassing, but not surprising. Perry might be smarter than all of them by a large margin, but he only had one brain, one train of thought, one life-experience. UC Berkeley brought perspective and experience to the table.

Now there was a prototype sitting next to him that you could barely fit a fingernail between the tightly packed crystals.

What they were working on now was sharpening the image further by refining the software and also finding ways to make the sensors themselves smaller.

Perry was running simulations of different lensing effects he could try while also considering the possibility of using a composite material, while code scrolled down his other monitor, waiting for him to catch something that could be improved.

And he often did, stopping the scrolling every roughly fifteen seconds or so to tweak something. A few lab-coats did double takes at the manic energy of Perry’s monitor setup, flickering fast enough to require a seizure warning.

Could these tiny, iterative improvements all be made by Tyrannus’s people? Yep. Was it a good idea to sit back and let them make all the improvements? Absolutely not.

It was safe to assume that anything the other researchers knew, Tyrannus knew. Any improvements they made went into Tyrannus’s pocket as well as Perry’s. Just sitting back and letting them do everything would, at best, keep him even with the dragon’s advancement.

And Perry would bet everything the dragon was making his own private advances separate from the combined avenues of research they were working on.

So, allowing himself to fall behind was not an option. He needed to understand any improvements that were made, and how they interacted with each other, not develop a civilian mindset that didn’t care how a microwave worked, as long as it heated up their food.

Perry had shared his research, Tyrannus had shared his, now Perry had to digest three of his own lifetimes worth of data, while Tyrannus only had to wrap his head around the narrow focus Perry had pursued, which was soul-essence interactions to allow machines (and himself) to use magic.

It was a good deal for both of them, since Tyrannus had the easier time, and would have more leeway to experiment and advance, while Perry would be playing catch-up the entire time, but it would improve his fundamentals beyond anything he could’ve imagined.

I just gotta be several times faster than a super-intelligent dragon with an entire country’s resources, Perry thought, reading the mass of research papers as they scrolled by on his fourth monitor out of the corner of his eye. He was absorbing the pages, but he wasn’t digesting them.

He could unpack the information and internalize it later, maybe when he sat down to eat.

There was plenty of free time to make connections while masticating.

He had to keep pace with Tyrannus. No. He had to win.

Something tapped him on the shoulder.

“Uh?” Perry grunted and looked up at one of the lab-coats. A thin, balding man in glasses, who would’ve reminded Perry of his dad had it not been for the man’s nervous demeanor.

“Your phone’s ringing?” He said, his nerves making it more question than statement.

Perry glanced down, the sounds of his surroundings filtering back in as the fugue state of the Tinker Twitch faded away.

BeeDooLoo dooo!

“So it is,” Perry muttered, answering Nat’s call. “What’s up, I’m kinda-“

“It’s Happening!”

Perry glanced at the life-or-death research that he needed to continue stuffing into himself in order to outpace the dragon’s mastery of magic.

He jumped out of his seat, sending the plastic swivel chair to the ground.

“Fuck this! Somebody take over here! I’m gonna be a dad!”

Dragor’s Kinesis.EXE

(2/3) remaining.

Perry literally flew up into the air, scattering papers and rocketing towards the door, creating a mini-vaccum ahead of himself to enhance his speed and protect his eyes from the wind.

There were a few startled screams and maybe a bit of scattered applause, but Perry was gone before he thought to check who might’ve clapped.

Perry burst out into the open air and blasted away from William’s lair, which was an underground research facility buried just outside of the capital.

He arrived at the hospital only a few seconds later, mortified to discover…basically his entire family, and even a few people he didn’t expect.

Mom and dad already there, of course, as was Gramma.

And his entire extended family, who were arranging what looked like a tailgating event in the parking lot of the civilian hospital.

“Did I get the message last?” Perry demanded as he dropped down from the sky at the hospital’s entrance, where his cousins were talking to his mom, drinks and snacks in hand. Like this was a sporting event.

“No.” Ellanore – Perry’s cousin, AKA aka Moonlight Flash – said, throwing a handful of popcorn at him. “Learn to teleport, you Dullard.”

For once, it didn’t sting. The word had none of the old vitriol he’d come to expect from his cousins. Not even a little bit. Perry had beaten the smear into submission and now it was a badge of honor.

“What are you all here for?” Perry asked.

“Officially, we’re here to celebrate the birth of an heir to the Zauberer line.” George –Perry’s other older cousin– said with a shrug, taking a sip of expensive wine straight out of a beer can. “Although honestly, I’m sure my father is hoping he can trick you into an arranged marriage.”

George pointed at the aged duelist Mage, Andre Demetre, and a few of his sons watching the goings on with stony expressions and swords at their waists. “Your grandmother’s general is providing security, so father won’t try anything more than that.”

Her general? But… a few details about Perry’s ‘debut duel’ were starting to line up, but Perry shoved them aside.

“Bleh,” Perry said, pushing past George and Ellanore.

“Good luck sweetie!” Mom shouted after him as he barreled into the lobby.

“My girl-friend’s about to give birth to my child. Heather Skinner,” Perry said, slapping his palm down on the desk to get the receptionist’s attention back on him.

“Is that man riding a giant…rat?” she asked, peering around him through the glass doors, where the party was unfolding as the late arrivals began to show.

“Probably, they’re very intelligent, easy to care for, and make good riding animals.” Perry said without looking away. “Don’t let it distract you.”

“Oh, um…Heather Skinner?” she asked, glancing back down at her screen and entering a series of keystrokes, forcibly keeping her attention away from the weirdness outside as Funkeytown paid a visit to the west coast.

“It says she’s…already with her partner?” she said finally, with a touch of hesitance.

“Yes, but it’s my baby.” Perry said.

“Umm…I’m not sure…”

“Look, just call the room.”

She did so, giving Perry a look that gradually grew more and more confused until she finally gave up, giving him a pass and directions.

Since Dragor’s Kinesis was still active, Perry snatched the pass off the desk with his mind and flew over to the stairs, leaving behind a gust of wind and a squeaking receptionist.

Elevator’s too slow.

Perry flew up the stairs until he hit the eighth floor, and arrived at the room in what he expected was the average time for an expectant father: five seconds.

The nurse was turning away from the phone and yelped when Perry arrived in front of her.

“This one?” Perry confirmed.

“U-Um. Yeah.”

“Perry!” Nat said, tackling him in a hug as soon as he arrived, but pushing away soon after. “We need your help!”

“Whaddya need?” Perry asked, his heartrate skyrocketing. Was something going wrong? Did they need him to siphon his life-force into Heather, or the baby?”

“We need you to hold Heather’s hand,” Nat said, guiding him into the room, where Heather was laying in bed, groaning in pain as spikes and raised ridges appeared on her skin, coinciding with the timing of her contractions.

Heather’s hands turned into steel-hardened claws one moment, then back to her delicate fingers the next.

“The doctor suggested to avoid using her powers to make things easier because if she loses control of them during a contraction, it might cause damage…” Nat explained, nervously clutching a pair of protective anklets she’d been working on for the baby as she watching the roiling shapeshifting across Heather’s skin.

I guess this isn’t gonna be as easy as we thought.

“Okay,” Perry nodded, rolling up his sleeves and clutching Heather’s hand, which clamped down around his own, hardening until it felt like it would crush human bones with ease.

HP: 13

Ow, ow, ow, ow.

HP:12

“This is your fault, you know,” Heather panted between breaths, giving him a sullen smile, a sheen of sweat across her face.

“Yeah, I know.” Perry said. One of the rules of modern society: You’re not allowed to argue with a woman while she’s giving birth to your child. Even if she’s totally wrong.

“Take responsibility for knocking me up.”

“Hah,” Perry said. “Nice callba- OW ow ow!“

HP: 11

Heather let out a scream at a particularly bad contraction, her hand sharpening and threatening to carve into his. Perry couldn’t help but picture it happening to the baby’s head.

“Keep it up, young man,” the doctor said, using an ultrasound to keep an eye on things make sure the baby was still alive and unwounded.

“We’ll have to operate if one of the contractions causes damage.”

“Why not now!?” Heather demanded.

“Because we don’t know how your body will respond to being cut open,” The doctor said glancing over her mask at them. “Have you ever experienced an open wound since being Blessed?”

Heather snorted at ‘Blessed’.

She’d been zapped and bruised up a bit by Chemestro, but never cut. It was practically impossible with her…powerset.

Damn.

“Just focus on squeezing my hand, alright?” Perry said, juicing up his Body.

Body 39 -> 45

Hopefully it would be enough for him to keep his hand.

“Another half hour and she’ll be fully dilated. All her other numbers look good.” The doctor said,

Half an hour!?

Perry shrugged his shoulders, pulled up a seat and settled in for the long haul.

Almost an hour later, the baby came, and was immediately passed off to an assembly line of nurses standing elbow to elbow in the cramped room. They wrapped it up, took its vitals and passed it over to Nat in the shortest amount of time possible.

“It’s a girl!” Nat said, giddy with excitement, kneeling down beside Perry to show him, accommodating his occupied right hand, which was currently caught in a thresher.

It looked like a pink raisin that someone had taxidermied a face onto…poorly.

Hopefully she grows out of…all that.

Oh shit, I’m responsible for a human being? Perry had thought of it before, but until this point it’d been an amorphous cloud looming over his life.

This was more solid. More certain. More real.

Just as he was feeling the weight of the future, the shriveled up raisin opened an eye and peered up at him. Perry met the gaze of his daughter and knew everything would be okay. He’d figured out how to give himself magic. He’d figure out being a dad.

Congratulations! You have reached level 14!

I’ll check it later, Perry thought, pushing the notification aside. He wanted to stay in the moment just a little bit longer.

I don’t think anything could ruin this, Perry thought unwisely as Nat gave him a kiss, then transferred it over to Heather’s forehead. She gave a proud, exhausted, pained smile, tousling Nat’s hair before allowing her free hand to drop back down, barely able to move it.

“Alright, get ready for the next one.” The doctor warned the surrounding nurses, who formed a line and braced themselves, not unlike football players about to clash with the opposing team.

“Wait, what?” Perry said, glancing at the doctor. “What next o-Ow ow ow!”

Heather’s iron grip clamped down over his.