“Run!” Perry shouted, flicking a hand towards Nocturne and modifying the air to dull sound.

“Whoo!” Heather whooped as she dove into the floor.

“Why are they attacking you!?” Nat asked as Perry shoved the stunned Freddy Steel away from himself and gently seized her wrist.

“Presume it’s some kind of stress-test to make sure I don’t lose it under pressure.” Perry said. “Also speak only in questions and commands from now on out.”

“Why?”

“Whaddya think Truthslayer’s power is?” Perry asked, craning his neck to look for Guile.

“Ah.”

“Come on kid, it’s not that bad,” Truthslayer said. “We’re just gonna hold you for a while, maybe make you pay a fine.”

“Ah, but what if I get away without hurting any of you?” Perry asked, giving Truthslayer a jaunty wave.

Perry lifted Nat into his arms and sprinted for the exit, screeching to a halt when the doorway radiated bad vibes.

The question was: did Guile put them down to herd him, or was Perry feeling something he wasn’t supposed to feel? He had the senses from three new classes screaming at him NOT to go through that door.

Perry decided to err on the side of caution and jumped up above the doorway.

PPP.EXE

(5/6) Remaining.

Perry cut a hole in the wall of the Frepon mansion and flung himself out.

Walls were more of an abstract concept at this point anyway.

As he was flinging himself through the wall, he saw Guile emerging from the shadows around the doorway.

Chemestro was standing outside.

The musclebound Catalyst gave a languid wave as Perry sailed into the flurries of snow.

***Chemestro***

“Why’d you let him get away!?” Freddy Steel demanded, limping out into the frozen parking lot outside the Frepon mansion.

“Because it wasn’t the job I was assigned,” Chemestro said, fiddling with the sticky hand. “Plus, I don’t have an effective way of bringing him down nonlethally. Should I escalate to lethal attacks, one of us would die.”

“He’s right,” Truthslayer said, putting a calming hand on Freddy Steel’s shoulder. “We did what we were supposed to do. He didn’t crack.”

“Yeah but…” Freddy motioned back to the party of Manitians climbing to their feet, rubbing their temples and wincing as Nocturne woke them back up.

“Cursing a whole family? That’s some out-of-control supervillain shit, Hexen’s son should-”

“You know he’s the Mechanaut’s son too, right?” Truthslayer asked.

Chemestro stifled a yawn.

Freddy steel didn’t bother to control his reaction, his jaw dropping as he gaped at Truthslayer.

“But…she’s married to…that balding pipsqueak is The Mechanaut!? We fought him last week! WITH HER! Why are they fighting each other? Isn’t that a conflict of interest? How do they even…”

“There, there,” Truthslayer said, patting the young man on the shoulder. “I didn’t think I’d be explaining the super birds and bees, but some people, when they put on costumes and fight, the situation gets them…”

“Please don’t,” Freddy Steel said, waving her off. “I think I need to sit down.” He slumped down onto the stone steps leading up to the mansion, his expression pained. “Aftershocks.”

“He saw my traps,” Guile said, uncharacteristically talkative. “I didn’t think anyone could see my traps.”

“What about that one guy?” Truthslayer asked.

“He wasn’t seeing them, his power was Luck.”

“I’ll write the report,” Truthslayer said, glancing among them. “Did he pass?”

“Yep,” Nocturne said. “His reactions were all measured, appropriate, and restrained.”

“Yes,” Guile spoke. “He chose the path of escape over violence. It speaks to rationality.”

“He passed,” Chemestro added with a nod.

“No.” Freddy Steel said. “He kicked me in the balls.”

“Do I have to remind you that the criteria was rational behavior, not necessarily good behavior?” Truthslayer asked, giving the mustached super a pointed look.

“Fine, he passed, but I’m kicking his ass next time I see him.”

“That is your prerogative, but I wouldn’t advise it.” Truthslayer said.

***Paradox***

“Hell yeah!” Heather said, doing air-jabs. “That was over too soon, I didn’t even get to kick anyone’s butt. God, it’s good to be back!”

“Heather, if we had fought for any length of time, they would’ve caught us.” Natalie said from where she was digging through some of Perry’s old science experiments in the closet.

“Weird to be back in mom and dad’s place.” Perry said, inspecting his old room. He hadn’t been back in…a long time. Longer for him than them.

I was supposed to be back in Franklin City a long time ago.

Terry waved at Perry, and Perry gave his old pet some fish.

“Mom and dad taking care of you?” Perry asked as Terry devoured his snack. Terry ignored the question, so instead, Perry looked around his old room, finding a letter from his high school.

Mr. Zauberer, we regret to inform you that due to your absence at the make-up semester, you are lacking the credits required to grant you your diploma. The good news is that this can be easily rectified with a simple test. Please contact our-

“Pbbbbt,” Perry blew a raspberry and tossed the letter in the trash.

As if his high school diploma meant shit at this point.

A sudden thought of Tyrannus turning him away until he got his GED made him chuckle as he crawled onto his bed, relaxing into the sheets.

Felt like home.

“I’ll probably be done in about fifteen minutes,” Perry said. “Then we can go home.”

“I wanna visit the old lair first,” Heather said. “Ooh, and visit some friends, see how they’re doing! Maybe I should call up Vanessa.”

“I want to see if Dave has anything for sale that I can use for Smithing.”

Perry chuckled.

“Okay, we can visit and do some shopping. Just give me a moment to spend my points.”

“I thought you did.” Heather said with a frown.

“’Bout half of ‘em,” Perry said, shrugging before he closed his eyes.

Free points: 128

Okay, first of all there’s Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit Integration

It and everything under it’s umbrella were the kind of things that Perry definitely wanted.

His first thought was to invest about fifty points in small Essence Filters, then fill them with interesting Essences using the Sampler perk, and upgrade the useful ones when he hit level 20.

Am I even gonna hit 20?

Killing Gorm netted a little more than 20k. Hypothetically, killing Solaris was worth 30k.

Both were civilization-altering events. Those didn’t exactly grow on trees. If Solaris was dead, that would upend the entire East Coast, if not more.

Level 16 required 35k. each successive level required 25% more XP.

XP gains were also dwindling. Had been for a while.

Gross estimate for total XP to level 20: 291K.

Or about 9.7 Solarises, or 14 Gorms.

Best not assume level 20 will come anytime soon.

How much does it take to add a casting of Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation? Perry thought to himself.

25 points.

Yikes.

Perry checked all the others, finding them to be less expensive, albeit not totally cheap.

Well, what Perks do I know I want? Perry asked himself.

The answer: most of them. He tallied up what that would cost.

Adaptive HP, HP integration, 9 points in sliding stats, Scent, Sampler.

Total cost: 13Attunement,6HP,1Body, 9 Free points. 29 total.

Perry spent the points and re-bought the point in Body, leaving him at 118 Free points, dropping his Attunement to 61 to match Stability.

Okay, that’s most of the basic stuff. Now I gotta ask myself: Do I need Underestimated?

It was a tricky perk. It would only work if the enemy thought his armor was shit and they were going to win. Could be a great safety net for when an enemy got the advantage over him and got cocky, triggering a defence he had never displayed until that point.

On the other hand it did nothing against people who were intimidated by Perry’s armor. People he was probably going to beat anyway.

Let’s shelve it until after we figure out how many points I need to Balance.

Perry checked his stats.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Potent Thaumaturge

Level 15

HP: 10

Body: 41

Stability: 62

Nerve: 46

Attunement: 61

Free Points: 118

Cost to raise all stats to 61: 35

118-35 netted him 83 remaining points.

So I can balance my stats, with enough left over for three more cross-class perks and change, OR take a few dozen Material specializations, OR some essence filters to take advantage of the Sampler Perk. Or pump all my primary stats up to 81.

The primary stats didn’t need to get that high.

…I could get one more cross-class, and have 58 points remaining. Maybe AI tinker…On the other hand, I’d really like to knuckle down and focus on what I’ve been building towards: The creation and storage of essences. And I think I’ll need every point.

That desire leaned him toward Material Specialization, and Unprimed Essence Filter.

Perry’s plan involved genetically engineering magical creatures and farming their essences. That meant he needed to Mat-Spec in the materials required to create life and the materials used to create Essence Filters and Storage.

Manitian DNA. Light. The bulk elements of life. The primary building-block essences…whatever those are. And the dozen materials used to create Essence Filters and Storage.

Perry figured he should reserve…maybe twenty points to purchase Material specializations as he completed his Essence Table of elements, or ran into difficulties with his plan to produce them.

He spent 18 points on Mat-spec for Manitian DNA, Light, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Sulfer, and the materials comprising his internal hardware, then mentally reserved another 20, leaving him at 45.

Now for storing them…

A 1-point Unprimed Essence Filter suggested it would grow a very small Essence filter/storage container inside him that he could then prime using the Sampler perk.

The thing was, it didn’t have the asterisk at the top that implied it was unaffected by other Perks and Attunement.

Since he had Spendthrift, Material Specialization, Super Capacitor, Atypical Battery, and Big D Energy all targeting that one hyper-specific application of storing and retrieving things in his soul…Perry predicted that even a 1-point Unprimed Essence Filter would be quite potent.

Perry re-read his list and noticed there was an upgrade to Scent, unlocked when he’d purchased it.

Taste (5)

User knows an object’s constituent ingredients and will gain significant insight into its manufacturing method and history when tasting it.

I almost feel like the System is trolling me. Perry thought to himself. He decided to take it anyway. It would help with what he was planning on doing.

Okay, that leaves 40 points.

Let’s make a 32-bit setup with one-point Unprimed Essence Filters, leaving eight free points.

Let’s add it to the reserve, leaving me 28 unspent points reserved for expanding into areas I’m unaware of, or emergencies.

That was enough to take just about any major perk or give himself a dramatic increase in one or several stats.

He could even take the max level Underestimated.

But…let’s not take it unless I need it.

Perry took a deep breath, triple checked his numbers, and rattled off the order.

I’ll take 20 to Body, 15 to Nerve, Material Specialization for Manitian DNA, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, Photons, Soul-based Essence storage/retrieval systems (12), 32 1-point Unprimed Essence Filters, Taste.

Free Points remaining: 28

Perry laid still as The System got to work, trying not to jettison out of bed from the sheer depth of the changes that were being made. In short order, mental and physical fatigue he hadn’t even been aware of began to fade away, his body and mind finally able to keep up with his Attunement and with each other.

For the first time in a long time, Perry was balanced.

Perry opened his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks onto his pillow beneath him.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just a lot of stuff,” Perry said, wiping his cheeks. “Finally feel like myself again. Also, I think my life expectancy is over a thousand years now, which is a lot to think about.”

Nat’s brows rose in momentary surprise.

“Want a hug?” she asked.

“A hug…would be nice.”

Nat engulfed him in a warm hug, holding him together with her arms.

“Does that mean you’ll still be a hot teen when I’m in my forties?” Nat whispered into his ear.

Perry let out a strangled laugh.

***Zeke the Doppleganger***

I coulda sworn I’d be dead by now. Zeke thought, putting his feet up on Paradox’s desk as he studied the science of magic. He had a brain that could actually understand it right now, so why not do some self-improvement?

They do say knowledge is power after all.

It was unlikely the researchers noticed any difference between him and Paradox, but even if they did, they probably wouldn’t ascribe it to a Doppleganger borrowing his life. They didn’t know him well enough.

Honestly, this is a pretty good gig, Zeke thought, taking a sip of his soda. Plus it seems like Tyrannus is willing to play along with the façade for as long as it goes. A dragon’s lifespan is way higher than mine. If Paradox never comes back, I could ride this gravy train all the way to the grave.

A pair of legs came to stand beside him. Zeke didn’t think much of it, because the researchers consulted with him all the time. His borrowed body was just intelligent enough to put them all to shame.

It felt good.

“Shove off.” A vaguely familiar voice said.

Zeke glanced up and spotted his own face, albeit with a beard and a somewhat Pants-Shittingly-Terrifying expression.

Zeke inhaled in sheer panic and got some coke down his windpipe, coughing violently as he leapt out of the chair, backing away as fast as he could and grovelling simultaneously.

Paradox ignored him and sat at his desk, shoving Zeke’s soda cans off the desk and onto the ground, giving a sour expression as he tabbed through Zeke’s projects.

“Terribly sorry sir, I meant no disrespect a thousandpardonsmyapologiesI’lljustbeleavingnow, Zeke said as he scuttled backwards, his forehead nearly touching the floor.

“Hey.” Paradox’s voice froze him in place.

“Yyyyesir?” Zeke asked.

“This stuff’s pretty good.”

Zeke glanced up and saw Paradox tabbing through his projects.

“Stay and help the other researchers,” Paradox said. “Obviously you’re going to get a different desk, but it seems like a waste for you to leave.”

“Of…course.”

“Oh, Paradox, you’re back? Where have you been?”

Paradox’s eye twitched as he looked up at the dragon, who’d stopped on his way by the computers.

“Vacation.”

“Well, I hope you got some good rest and are flush with new ideas.”

“Oh, you bet,” Paradox said with an insincere smile.

The dragon matched it with his own toothy grin.

What did I get myself into? Zeke thought, a cold sweat beading on his forehead.