Chapter 58 Secrets and Seekers

“What do you mean I shouldn’t overcomplicate this? Just shoot them?! HOW CRASS! Plotting is half the fun!” - Megalovania, S-Class Supervillain.

Four changed the mind of the third head, replacing it with something more inclined to the analytical. A train attacked, one dead metahuman, and a name on Ad Infinitum who no one remembers. Combat occurred, that much was certain from the damage and the breadth of powers involved.

The third head frowned, and moved to change the brain of the middle head to another analytical mind. There were several reports of scattered combat, some casualties, all against registered metahumans. Too organised and sudden to be a coincidence.

Batro’s Spinal Cord.

It was recovered at the site, still usable, but not at all flecked with any blood or gore. Records show it was lost years ago.

That could mean one thing, the user spent themselves in a Requiem, their body and memory were gone, but not their weapons. There was a good chance the user was an official cape, and had survived a Requiem in the past. It was policy for officials who’ve experienced a Requiem to take an internal Meta Tool. Not to mention Batro’s Spinal Cord lent itself to improved reflexes, it wasn’t the selected tool of a paper pusher like him, that narrowed it down to the active officers.

Information of the officer capes have been leaked, at least the combat ones. There was possibility of a traitor. That must’ve been why Monger chose him, Four mused. There was low chance he himself was a spy. Though he was licensed he never became a civil servant, and he only took an interest in human politics when it came to changes on xenian policy.

That reminded him, he should check up with that ‘Ranpo’ fellow. He exhibited enough intelligence and independence to gain if not citizenship, then human rights. It did baffle Four however to see them still stubbornly refer to them as ‘human’ rights despite the fact they encompassed an entire nation of emus and countless independently sapient creatures.

His mind was getting off track, he shunted the thoughts of preparing Ranpo’s citizenry papers to the unoccupied first head as the other two continued reviewing the clues provided. The people who investigated the site were thorough, and he was likely not the only Thinker dedicated to this task. Though his Thinker abilities were more incidental due to his biology and not at all related to his ability.

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“Aiden do the thing!” Jun yelled as she frantically gestured at a fly.

He twirled a straw between his fingers before he said, “Frog head.”

The straw turned fleshy and curled into his pinched hand which made the rest of the frog. With a quick explosion of elastic energy, the tongue drew the still living fly into his hand. Cheers abounded as he presented the fly with a flourish.

It was for that reason he didn’t notice Trist Brake until she was right beside them. He politely nodded, “Ms Brake.”

There was a pause as the group quietened down with all the awkwardness of a kid getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Their teacher sighed, “You guys really made a mess huh?”

“I think we did admirably,” Luther defended.

She raised an eyebrow, “Severe collateral damage to several buildings, thousands in damages, and what do I hear about one of you getting mortally injured?”

“Won’t insurance cover that?” “He got better.” Aiden and Jun said at the same time.

She rubbed her brow in exasperation, “First off, insurance paid out by the government. You know the people who write your paychecks and you have to go to for license renewal?”

Aiden winced as he released the fly. He didn’t need to brush against Bu’s memories for this, just a second thought about it made him realise the constant destruction and disasters meant insurance was a comically unsustainable private business model.

“And second off, I’m assuming one of you pulled a power trick to bring Aiden back to full health. What happens if that situation didn’t allow for that?” Turning to him, she said, “I hope you have a good reason to expose yourself to whatever risk you took.”

She continued, “You’ll all be taking remedial classes after school, and we’ll be reviewing the actions you took today.”

Ranpo spoke up, “That’s no fair, you didn’t do anything about the people who fought the zombies.”

“It’s Necrada, they show up like twice a year,” she dismissed, “I’m surprised it isn’t a holiday at this point.”

“Yeah that is true,” the crow conceded, the rest of them murmured agreement. Even unpowered Bu wasn’t worried about Necrada.

“Now that that is out of the way,” she clapped her hands. “Congratulations! There were zero casualties, only a few injured, and most importantly all of you are breathing by the end of it. I’d say this was cause for celebration, but clearly you guys already beat me to it.”

“INDEED! WE FEAST IN CELEBRATION!” Josh Tuba yelled as he raised his glass of milk high.

“I won’t cramp you guys up,” Trist said, already moving. “Remember, don’t let fame get to your head, and there is still room for improvement, but tonight just know you did a good job.”

“Thanks!” Jun waved goodbye, “You’re the cool teacher in my books Trist!”

That got a chuckle out of her, “I better be when my competition is an isopod and someone who only speaks in emojis.”

“I thought your favourite teacher was Mr Gry-” Jun quickly shushed Aiden as she waved Trist off.

“Just smile and wave boys,” she said, “smile and wave.”

Once Trist was out of sight, Wren spoke up, “So what did she mean by fame?”

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Very literally, it turned out as he came to school the next day and got quickly swarmed by questions. Aiden could barely take a step away from his locker as they crowded him.

“Hey are you the one who made the t-rex?”

“Was the person you fought really strong?”

“I heard he died, did you guys kill him?”

Aiden gave a few polite non-answers for a few minutes, seeing the crowd refuse to disperse however, he placed his hands behind him and vaulted over the lockers to stick to the walls, then made a run for it. “Sorry about that!”

A few people chased him as he ran onto the rooftops. Aiden saw an explosion of bamboo growth acting as footholds for one, a girl who twirled her braid like a helicopter, and another who simply parkoured through. Grumbling in annoyance at the schools extensive movement training, he maintained a lead for a few moments before he turned a corner and leapt down a gap between buildings.

Helicopter braid girl and the parkourer leapt over him, as did the bamboo controller. Though a moment later the boy doubled back and looked over the gap. Eyes glancing right over Aiden’s camouflaged body.

The boy frowned and grew a bamboo to lower him down, peering closer, he muttered, “Is that-”

Aiden sighed and dismissed the cephalopods on his body, “Yes, you caught me, what do you want?”

“Can we fight?” the bamboo grower asked as bamboo sprouted underneath his feet to form stairs. “Like duel, I wanna start filling out my challenges. You guys seemed strong, I have a few friends so we can go at it.”

“I’ll have to ask them about it, so no promises,” he answered.

“That’s ok!” he waved as he grew a ladder, “I won’t reveal where you are I promise!”

Aiden waited a few moments after he left. He looked at his lunch, for a moment he considered eating it right here, then shrugged as he went out looking for the rest of the group.

Only to get ambushed immediately by a girl who rushed into him and vigorously shook his hand, “Hi, huge fan! I’m from the journalism club, would you mind giving a few words for the school newspaper? Also can I get your autograph?”

“Maybe some other time,” Aiden politely replied as he mentally decided to never do either of those things. He broke the handshake, “Sorry but I need to be looking for my friends now.”

“Maybe I can interview them?” she hurriedly suggested.

“I’ll tell them you asked!” Aiden said as he leapt over the roof again.

In the end, Aiden found Jun sneakily gesturing him from the forested area near the edge of the school. Right next to the tree from before. She blurred and suddenly he was right there, at the same spot where Ranpo had led her to him.

“Phew!” she wiped some sweat, “I know you’re recovering weight but no need to be so diligent about it.”

“Haha,” he drily laughed. “You carried me perfectly fine yesterday.” He glanced around as he saw a picnic table and the rest of the group eating, “Where’s Darius and Luther?”

“They’re scamming people with Luther’s power,” Josh replied between mouthfuls of his sandwich.

Wren shuddered, “Luther doesn’t get a lotta chances to shine because he’s a boogeyman, and they drew a very big crowd.”

Jun sat down by her lunch, rice with tofu on the side. He noted with a strange feeling that she had prepared the stir fry exceptionally well.

Shrugging off the feeling, he sat down. Right as he took out his utensils, Wren’s phone rang.

She answered, “Hey sis- oh? Yeah he’s right beside me.” She handed Aiden the phone, “It’s for you.”

“Hello?” he said.

“Hey, I’m Caitlyn, Wren’s sister, your classmate,” a bored voice answered him, “I can make pretty limited future tellings. It’s not deterministic nor is it guaranteed to happen, it just predicts the scenarios that’ll most likely lead to certain events.”

Aiden paused as he recalled, “Google Your Own Death right? Wren mentioned it.”

She had described it as an ability that allowed her to determine the most likely cause of death of a person within a week through a search engine. Even if they weren’t going to die, it would still grab the most likely cause of death and spin a prediction around it.

“Good, this’ll be easier. I googled you and Wren’s friends outta boredom. Nothing too much, but if --and I really do mean if here because this isn’t guaranteed to happen-- if you die it’ll be really messy. You don’t have a dead man’s switch thing where if you die your power will go berserk and start murdering everything around you right?”

He paused as briefly fingered the spot where the Umbrella used to occupy. “...Not unless I want it to.”

“Right, don’t do that, and especially don’t do that after you go out to sea.”

“The sea?”

“I dunno, it’s your life,” She hung up.

“What was that about?” Jun asked as he passed the phone back to Wren.

“A warning I think,” Aiden said, “she told me not to die, and if I was going to die not to unleash something with my last breath.”

Jun frowned, “Yeah, don’t do that. Especially not with the other thing you have in your pocket.”

“What other thing?” Wren asked curiously.

“I can make things from memory and I saw an eldritch abomination a few months ago,” he frankly told her. “I used it as an umbrella until recently.”

She looked at him as if he had grown a third head. “Right.”

Jun perked up, “Actually you should keep using it as an umbrella, it was a lot more useful that way.” She added at the end, “Probably safer too.”

Aiden began eating, “I attempted it yesterday mid fight, but failed, I suspect it has something to do with the glove.” He flicked the Slitted Decapitator.

“Should we remain here for this?” Josh Tuba asked, “You two have been training in secret for a while, and I would not wish to be privy to them unless you desire it.”

Jun exchanged a look with Aiden, his face was deep with contemplation, after a moment, he said, “Fine, I don’t mind sharing these capabilities.”

Afterwards, he demonstrated the Slitted Decapitator, and told them about the Umbrella.

The first question was surprisingly more mundane, Wren asked, “Why don’t you constantly have tattoos over your clothing like yesterday?”

“Because they’ll gradually warp it,” Aiden replied. “My tattoos can’t warp the shape of living things, but if Ranpo is any indicator, any material they possess will eventually be transmuted to their organic counterpart. If I do leave it on, I’ll eventually be wearing a literal flesh suit. Not mention the protective properties are better when it hasn’t transmuted at all, there’s a sweet spot where it provides both the clothes’ physical properties and the creatures’ physical properties at the same time. At fully transmuted it won’t be different from wearing a fursuit.” He thought about his notebook, “I can pause the transmutation properties, but it’s cost isn’t worth it in a spontaneous context.”

Josh spoke up, “What about keeping your specific chimera of armour stored on your skin and deploying it when needed?”

Aiden considered it, “That’ll work.” He agreed, already mentally going through all the pieces he used for the ‘Stack’. He didn’t appreciate how… edgy he became but Stack was an oddly good name for it. He was literally stacking layers atop layers through his clothing. Trist had been saying it was good to demarcate specific uses of their abilities as separate techniques.

Josh shrugged, “Anything to help, and we’re only a week away from Dawn Week.”

“Oh yeah!” Jun realised. “Ah shit we haven’t practised for the paintball war!”

“We have,” Josh said. He coughed, and said aloud, “SIMPLY OUR ACTS OF JUSTICE AND CAMARADERIE HAVE SOLIDIFIED US AS A SOLID TEAM IN THE RUNNING!”

Quieter he added, “Why do you think there were so many wanting to question us? Luther’s taking advantage of the fame so that he can get bad luck on as many people as possible.” Tuba glanced at Aiden, “Remember the chilli? His skill in sleight of hand is nothing to scoff at. I’m assuming he’s been replacing all the bets with rigged die just so he could expend the actual cursed die when he needs- what’s with the face?”

“Sorry,” Jun replied, “I’m just trying to reconcile the act you put on to inherit Tuba Knight and the you right now.”

He smirked, “Would you PREFER THE SUPREME FORCE OF PERSONALITY INBORN WITHIN THE SOUL OF EVERY TUBA!?”

Josh slapped Jun on the back, “AND YOU TOO HAVE BEEN HIDING SOMETHING FROM US! THE ABILITY TO TRANSFER YOUR POWERS? YOU HAVE SOLVED OUR GREATEST WEAKNESS!”

Despite the embarrassment, Aiden had to agree. “I was significantly more able to engage in close up fights with the mask. It’s probably better still for Jun to wear it, just because I can’t dial the speed higher than base, but if she ever taps out on Hume it’s a great fallback.”

“WE SHALL BE TESTING IT THIS AFTERNOON! TEACHER TRIST HAS AFTER ALL GIVEN US THE PERFECT TIME TO TRAIN!”

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After school, in an empty classroom, the girl who shook Aiden’s hand entered with a thoughtful face.

Sat waiting for her, Dale glanced up, “Hey cousin, did you shake his hand?”

“I did,” she replied.

“What’s the result?”

“Baffling,” she replied. “Something is off about his power. I can’t tell if he has one power, or two.”

Dale narrowed his eyes, he gestured at a seat, “Explain.”

“His power is the ability to turn his memories into summons- tattoos really, and those tattoos can move onto other objects and control them. The creatures are functionally independent entities, though he can expend memories and concepts to tweak them. The strangest thing is that while I held his hand, the number of powers I was sensing kept fluctuating from one to two.”

Dale thoughtfully scratched his chin, “It’s the same result as when you investigate someone who has inherited a power.”

“The other two were séance and projection by the way,” she added. “It’s functionally one now, the inheritance was done nigh perfectly. I didn’t think it was possible to get them to merge so cleanly. In a few months it’ll show up as one power under my ability.”

“Can you copy it?” Dale asked, that was the burning question.

“I can, but I can also easily tell the skill floor of this ability is beyond anything I can learn in a week. I think his secondary powers help him somehow, he’s shown limited regeneration, but I suspect he might have a weak thinker ability on top. Perhaps very conditional skill leapfrogging or near eidetic memory.”

Dale cursed, “Ah! I shouldn’t have confronted that Jito bitch then. There’s no chance I can nab him now.”

His cousin shrugged, “I can adapt a counter to his power, but we agreed it wasn’t a good idea to have me hard specialised into countering one specific person for the paintball war wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “Did you get Luther as well?”

She shook her head, “He’s too suspicious for that, but I think his power has to do with all the gambling he’s doing.”

“That much is obvious, the question is what is the benefit he’s getting from fulfilling all those conditions,” Dale rested his chin on his hands. “It’s obvious he’s going the boogeyman route like Darius. Given his personality it’s probably much more devious than sharing a drink.

“In their group the most dangerous would be Jun, Aiden, then Wren. The Tuba is a physical brute but he doesn’t have special tricks, with the rules his durability isn’t in account. Darius is a problem but only for groupings. Luther’s the wild card…”

Dale looked down at his laptop with all their plans and preparations. “How’s Shmebuloc’s investigation?”

“Should be able to yield something,” she answered, “Even if the seniors aren’t participating, there are some pretty dangerous folk this year.”

“There always is.”