Chapter 262: Give You The Tour

What kind of power armor would be good for Wraith? Perry wondered, while picking out his armor for the trip. She needed something that could flow like a non-newtonian fluid, but harden up when necessary to accommodate shapeshifting. It needed to be able to render itself intangible without falling off of her…

And we’re probably at the stage in our relationship where I can build some magic spells into her suit, and don’t have to worry about her using them against me or selling them…probably.

The Mark Nine was quite literally alive. Perry had used his lessons from creating every suit that came before it as well as Eugene, and combined them with all his new abilities since he hit level fifteen to create something truly unfair.

It blocked physical damage of every possible kind, stabilized reality around itself, stored mental damage where necessary – there was literally a ‘mental damage’ battery – it flew with six different kinds of propulsion (in case some of them stopped working) it teleported, it had unicorn MDNA (Perry didn’t give all of Dave’s horn back) powering some of it’s more powerful mojo, and whatever spells that didn’t cover were powered by pinkie-sized batteries that could tap into Perry’s soul to draw the essence they needed.

Perry had taken Terry’s unusually resilient brain cells and Paradoxed them up to eleven using his Bioprint Tinker perks. Rather than a clunky disk, they were grown into the machine along an artificial spine that was connected to every part of the machine. To allow the suit’s reaction time to match his own, he’d had to get real creative with spacetime manipulation, resulting in nerve cells that could spontaneously open portals just a few angstroms in size to skip the signal across the intervening space and move information faster than the speed of light.

It could fight completely autonomously, solve complex moral conundrums, and do your taxes for you. It, by itself, could probably give an Anchor a hard time.

Perry suited up, then got started on Wraith’s armor.

Fifteen minutes later, the crew arrived with Wraith, who was the only one not surprised to see Perry’s setup dominating a large portion of the hangar.

It would be overstepping to modify anything that didn’t belong to him, so Perry had quietly set up his suit-vat in the corner.

“You’re…here already.” Bob said. What the heck was Bob’s superpower, anyway? The Australian sported a criminally powerful mustache and a long sleeve shirt with a roll of duct tape on his hip where a gun might’ve rested. A bit of duct tape winded around his wrists and ankles, like a man who was serious about keeping ants out of his pants.

“Indeed. Wraith, I need you to test this armor for me,” Perry said, pointing to the armor.

“Oh, now I get new armor?” Wraith asked, stepping forward and taking off her civvies, revealing the Hyperweave underneath. “Not over the last three years of living together, but when you get the opportunity to show off in front of some strangers.”

“Well…yes, but It’s also because with the way everyone’s talking this place up, I’d rather be comically overprepared than lose someone I care about…If you die, your wife and our kids will never speak to me again.” Perry explained.

“But you said…” Natura raised a finger, frowned, then lowered it. The super wore a camouflage-print hyperweave with some fake vines tastefully looped over the naughty bits.

Heather chuckled and stepped forward, inspecting the suit. Perry had taken some design inspiration from the clothes he’d made for Heather and Nat during his debut ball, Favoring lightweight augmentation over pure power, unlike like his own suit.

Having improved significantly since the debut ball, this suit was going to make those look like finger-paintings.

The design was spooky, in black and white with hood, floating ivory crown, and a skull-themed belt to bring it together.

“Awww, you shouldn’t have.” Heather said, before motioning for him to come closer.

Perry leaned in.

“Does it have mox feather?” She whispered. When woven into fabric, mox feather passively changed the way light hit clothes to make the lighting and shadows as flattering as possible. It could make an 8 look like a 10, and a 10 look like an 11.

“Obviously. It represents my brand.” Perry whispered back. “Also I built some spells into it.” He pulled out the little pamphlet and handed it to her.

He didn’t include anything that required too much in-depth understanding or constant mental control, such as Dragor’s Kinesis, The Pernicious Prison or Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation. Things like Disintegration, Melt.exe…anything that was point and shoot was good to go. Perry included Kolath’s Floating Armaments in case she needed some hands of physical solution to a problem, since it was beginner-friendly.

“Paradox’s Seraphine Ouchie Corrector?” Heather asked, scanning the list of spells and their uses, looking up at him with a raised brow.

“It gets a lot of use,” Perry said, thinking of the time Seraphine had run full-speed into the edge of a frying pan. Or the time she ran into the pole at the playground. Or the time she nearly broke her shins on a decorative fence. “…I’m worried about Gareth.”

“Right? You’d think he’d get himself hurt more often. A boy that careful is denying himself valuable character-building moments.” Heather said, tucking the pamphlet in her Hyperweave and grabbing the suit. “Maybe we should-ACK!”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Heather’s no-doubt brilliant plan to prod Gareth into taking more risks in life was interrupted by the suit crawling its way up her arm the instant she touched it.

“Eeeeewwww,” Heather said, holding stock still as it squirmed its way into place, a shiver running up and down her spine.

“Now you know how Nat feels.” Perry blurted, unable to hold the snark in.

“Totally different. Context, dude, context.” Heather said, shrugging her shoulders as it settled around her. “Does it work with ghostwalk?”

“Try it out.” Perry said.

Heather dove towards the ground, turning ethereal. She and her suit disappeared into the ground. A moment later she sprang out of the ground, her arm turned into a wicked blade, cutting through the air with a sharp hiss.

The suit followed along every step of the way.

“Yeah, this’ll work,” She said. “I’ll probably make a few alterations when we get home, since your fashion sense is so limited.

“Pfft.” Perry waved her off.

“How do I look?” She asked, posing.

“Borderline criminally indecent.” Perry offered. “In a good way.”

“Excellent.” Heather said with an evil grin. Perry supposed in her imagination she was tying Natalie up and looking the part.

“You two done?” Bob asked.

Perry blinked, shifting his attention to the five supers waiting for them to arm themselves.

“Yeah, we’re done.”

“Alright, nobody likes surprises on these jobs,” Australia Man said, ducking back out from loading a duffle back onto the tiny plane. “So: Introductions.”

“Name’s Bob. I can heal, reinforce and protect with Duct tape,” Bob said, patting the roll on his hip. “I can fix tinker tech, a well, a deep sea pipeline, an awkward situation, a person, you name it. I’m also pretty fast.”

Wildcard with a bit of speedster.

“Natura. I can control plants and animals,” Natura said. “If we run into something really nasty, I’m the one you want on hand to convince it to leave.

Nature Themed Hippie.

“I can control earth,” Dirt said. “Generally I run support, logistics, defensive formations or stalling. I’m also a bit stronger than a human should be.”

Energy type plus low-level bruiser.

“I can reflect, condense, and amplify forces.” Backdraft said, holding up a finger and having a flame spark into being. “Typically that means using ambient temperature to cook things, but it’s not limited to that.”

Catalyst.

“I’m Australia Man.” Australia Man said, tipping his plain, off-the-shelf hat. The kind an old woman watering her fake garden might have. After saying his piece, he went back to packing the little plane.

Wildcard. That’s also my line, Perry groused internally.

“Wraith. Polymorphic, intangibility, Ghost summoning. Typically I function as a striker that can hit people from unexpected angles.”

“Ghosts? Like you can speak with the dead?” Natura asked, eyes widened.

“No, just one. Say Hi Anya, so they know not to shoot you.”

“Hi!” Anya, the long-dead ghost said, stepping out of Heather’s body and waving. “I can do everything she can do, for shorter periods of time.”

“She watches my back. Literally.” Heather said.

“…neat.” Natura said, a bit pale. Hopefully the woman wasn’t afraid of ghosts.

All eyes went to Perry, as the only one who hadn’t introduced himself. Perry took a deep breath and went through the list of things he could do.

“Are you kidding?” Backdraft asked. “Portals? Reality manipulation?”

“Nope. I could get us there in seconds, but I know how disruptive unsolicited assistance is, so I’m willing to sit through the plane ride.”

Australia Man frowned and pulled out his phone, tapping on the screen for a moment before showing Perry a set of coordinates. “Could you get the plane here?” He asked.

“Sure.”

Portal.exe

Perry created an extra-large portal directly in front of the plane, revealing an isolated, partially overgrown runway, with a sunbleached hangar in the distance.

Hot air, at least twenty degrees warmer than Bendigo, flooded out of the portal, blasting them in the face.

“Bewdy.” Australia Man said, setting himself behind the plane’s back wheel and pushing it through the portal.

“Saved us a trip.” Bob said, shrugging before ducking through the portal.

Backdraft silently ducked through the portal, looking worried it might snap shut and slice him in half.

Natura and Dirt followed shortly afterwards.

“Why do we still need the plane?” Heather asked.

“In case I die,” Perry said.

“That’s fair.” Heather said before the two of them hopped through into the outback.

“Welcome to Queensland!” Australia Man said as they stepped into the heat, unpacking the plane he’d been packing only a moment ago, without complaint.

A minute later they were geared up and ready to head out.

“There’s plenty of snakes that won’t kill you,” Natura said, taking the lead as they formed a single-file line and began walking, with Natura at the front and Australia Man at the back, in case ‘Somebody wants a hug.’

“But since you’re new, you should just assume any snake you see is venomous and act accordingly,” She said, opening up a satchel and handing Paradox and Wraith sunglasses.

“What’s this for?”

“Some critters are…what’s the word?” She asked, glancing at Backdraft.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Photopoisonous.” Backdraft said.

“Right. Some things are poisonous to look at, so if you see something real wobbly out of the corner of your eye:” She made a wavy motion with her hand. “And it’s smaller than about this big…” She held her hands apart about a foot. “Try not to look directly at it. We’re pretty sure they’re a species of cane toad that triggered and bred true, but obviously it’s hard to confirm. Can’t look at pictures of ‘em either. The sunglasses help prevent accidents though.”

“Jesus Christ.” Heather muttered, putting them on. “What if it’s bigger?”

“Land-crocodile, probably.”

“Excuse me?” Heather asked. “LAND crocodile?”

“Mmhmm,” Natura nodded. “They Triggered and got the ability to swim through soil and low foliage. If you see an exposed tree root in a place it doesn’t belong…it’s probably a land crocodile.

Heather craned her neck to throw Perry an incredulous glance.

Perry just shrugged. He had no idea if they were hazing them or not, but it was better to believe them and get laughed at than it would be to get a chunk bitten out of them. He tried to convey this with a look.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, try to ignore any sudden urges to wander away from the group,” Natura said. “There’s a lot of friendly spiders in and around the major cities, but some of them we call Outlaws. They don’t subscribe to the unspoken agreement not to eat sapes, and they tend to hang out in the sewers and the outback.”

Heather’s jaw dropped.

“What did you get me into?” she whispered.

“You guys are the ones who wanted to go honeymooning in Australia.” Perry whispered back.

“The sudden urges can feel like natural excuses, like you suddenly have to pee, so be suspicious of anything,” Natura continued, seemingly without hearing. “Oh look, there’s a land-crocodile right there.”

She pointed at a tree with a bunch of thick, gnarled roots exposed to the air as they jutted in and out of the heat-baked soil. One of them was just a little too straight, and…didn’t seem to connect to the main tree.

Natura gestured at the lump in the soil, sending a tiny dart of essence at the creature, seemingly communicating with it. A moment later the ‘tree root’ sank into the earth and disappeared.

Perry flipped on the ground-penetrating sensors in his suit.