And really, who would be going around at such a late hour? Certainly that noise is nothing.

Walta glances in the general direction of the noise.

She considers for a long moment, then unhooks a contraption that doesn't look much like a gun except that it has a stubby barrel from her backpack, sets it on the ground, and goes back to stripping the drink machine - faster.

Over there now.

Okay forget the damn condenser she can't actually tell if there's someone over there - she could make a bioelectric field RADAR if she could only get the parts. Not the time. Not the time. Someone might be here and could see her. Tubing and valves get shoved into backpack. She puts it on and picks up the gun(?) and starts picking her way to the edge of the junkyard, soft mechanical noises coming from the leg-things.

Another noise! And oh look it's a cat! It meows at her.

She lets out a tense breath and laughs softly in release. But no sense pushing her luck - she got a few useful bits and bobs already. The valves and tubing in particular will make an upgrade to the Longlegs a lot easier. She keeps going for the edge of the place and checks to see if anyone is obviously watching as she approaches.

Nope! No on—oh, wait, there's that guy leaning against a pole over there, in shadow, barely visible but looking directly at her, lighting and putting out a lighter methodically.

Great.

Back into the junkyard. She'll leave from a different spot.

She can see him starting to move to follow her from the corner of her eye when she turns back into the junkyard.

So she goes behind a pile of cars and waits a couple of minutes - she'll run out the same way and hope to surprise him in a minute.

He's not there, apparently.

Then she can swap modes and leap over the fence with stored energy and then keep running.

And she will trip over the man's foot, which hadn't been there a moment before.

Trip, her? Nah, there's a weird knee-thing that pops out as she unbalances and recovers her almost by itself. It leaves a dent in the alley floor, though. Back to running, put those long legs to good use.

There's a flash behind her like fire, and then the guy is standing directly in front of her.

Shiiiit. Jump. A more anemic one than before, the springs are wound down now. "Ain't here for trouble! Just parts!"

And who the fuck is this guy - has she heard of him?

Doesn't look familiar. Tall, muscular, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, close-cropped hair. "If you aren't here for trouble, why are you running?"

"S-Strange guy tries to corner girl in dark junkyard. Yeah, I'm running." She adjusts her mask with one hand, shaking, then returns it to the probably-a-gun.

He raises both hands in a 'peace' gesture. "Just wanna talk."

She starts walking backwards slowly. "Okay, talk."

"What are you called?"

"...Let's go with Hopper for now. And you?"

"I'm Will."

"And what do you want here, Will? Because I want to get the hell out of here."

"You're a tinker. I want a tinker."

"Fuck you!" And she's running again. Aiming for somewhere open-ish.

"Come on, just hear me out!" he says, and there's a flash and he's ahead of her again. "We can give you parts!"

"I ain't joining nobody! No gangs, no debts!" Is he going to get out of the way or is he going to get kicked?

He's not exactly in the way, she can run past him if she runs in a straight line, he'll just be—sorta close if she does.

"Not a gang! Just a deal! One hand washes the other, you know how it goes."

"Call me paranoid but I have a sneaking suspicion you are not particularly heroic. And you tried to trip me." She passes by without kicking him. Timing the stride so she can lash out with a springloaded kick if he tries to grab her or something.

Nope, he just appears directly in front of her—

—and a set of weighted ropes are thrown at him from the side with enough strength to knock him to the ground and tie him up.

She turns the kick that she was about to put into his chest back into spring energy as it hits the ground, stopping crouched-down, and tries to see where that came from.

A [gender undetermined] with a rather... strange costume. Fully white body suit, white cape, and a glass mask with moving emoji.

"Go, I'll distract him!" the carefully androgynous voice says.

She doesn't stop to nod at them or anything, just exits the crouch at speed with a click-THOOMP and sprints down alleys, making random turns. She doesn't slow down for several minutes.

She's not followed. White-masked person probably managed to hold that dude back.

Or they were both too busy fighting each other and he lost track, or that guy was more interested in the new cape. 

Either way, this seems like a good alley to stop, catch her breath, and see if she managed to break anything in her legs. Zip ties and shoelaces both feature in its construction, which tends to make durability an iffy prospect.

"Oi! You okay?" masked person calls from the top of a building after a few minutes.

"Fucked up one of my legs - er, the longlegs, not my legs - when I aborted that kick. Ugh. He's not coming back, is he?"

She reaches for her weapon as she says this, but leaves it pointing at the ground.

"Nah, pretty sure he's stuck for a while. Should probably not work out in the open again like that, though."

"No duh. I thought I was being sneaky enough. Not like I can buy hundreds of dollars worth of stuff in a hardware store twice a week and not get weird looks, y'know?"

"Yeah. You got any reason you didn't want to join him? Other than the 'probably a villain or Toybox' reason?"

"That pretty much covers it."

"And not the Wards because 'ugh Protectorate'?"

"That one's a little more complicated, and I don't quite see that I owe you my life story. Not that I'm ungrateful, but..."

"No, no, it's okay. I'm not joining the Protectorate either, it sounds terrible, but I'm not a tinker so that's easier on me."

Sigh. "How do people keep doing this for years?"

"Which part?"

"Running around and fighting and worrying about who's going to attack me next or why I have to keep it secret that I even exist. Building things with twigs and scraps and shoelaces."

"...well that's why most tinkers get a team. Or you could I suppose just not—tinker."

"I can't not tinker. It's like an itch that keeps getting worse. Plus, my life kind of sucks and tinkering is better than leaving things like they are."

"...yeah, okay. Then it might actually be a good idea to join a team, even temporarily, until you've found your feet."

"Are there even any teams that aren't villains, the Toybox, or the Wards?"

"Well there's independent hero teams. I'm an independent, but not on a team."

"...Independent hero teams. How do you get introduced to one of those? I don't know anything about all this."

"Well the problem with those is that the Protectorate doesn't really... encourage... independent heroing. Like, they encourage roguing, but technically independent heroing falls under vigilantism which isn't really super legal. So it's not extremely easy to find them. Brockton Bay has that one that doesn't like secret identities, although I think they're actually official not independent, just not affiliated with the Protectorate."

"Well if the system - ugh. I could see 'roguing', not everything I try to build is meant for combat. But it's... Become clear to me that I'm the only one who can actually use the really complicated stuff I build. I don't know how well that would go."

"Yeah that's a tinker thing, reverse-engineering is also almost always extremely hard or impossible and sans constant maintenance everything falls to pieces. Toybox is mostly rogue though aren't they? ...well, mostly neutral anyway. Why not them?"

"Join Toybox and it's very easy to end up owing Toybox more and more for years and years. Or so I fear."

"Well, there's some of that, yeah, but it's kinda—more like a society of sorts? They give you money and parts to get you on your feet, you give them some when you're super rich so they can do the same to other tinkers."

"How do you know that if you're not a tinker?"

"I was a cape nerd even before I became a cape."

She feels very alone, all of a sudden.

"W-well, I can tell you're more heroic than not. Even if I'm not absolutely sure. So..." She trails off. "Nevermind. I need to go home and sleep."

"Okay. I have a cape email, although it's nothing official, it's glam at gmail dot com. Glam's my cape name by the way. If you ever want to talk or anything."

"I can't get to a computer very often but I'll keep it in mind."

"Good luck."

She goes home. She fixes her legs. She takes a day off from tinkering and goes to the library after school and verifies a lot of what Glam implied or told her. They do seem to be on the hero-ish side of things. What does the internet say about Glam given her limited ability to search it? What about independent hero teams?

There is absolutely nothing about Glam online. No Parahumans Wiki entry, no mentions on the Parahumans Online forums, nothing. Everything Glam said about Toybox and independent hero things seems to check out, though: independent heroing is vigilantism and against the law, if you wish to fight villains you should either register your team or join the Protectorate, yadda yadda.

Email to Glam on a random email address she just invented:

This is Hopper for lack of a better name. You helped scare off a thug for me the other day, but my leg got twisted. It's fine now. Your lack of online presence means I can't really trust you completely but what you said all checks out. I can get my hands on a pretty good walkie talkie set and I kind of want to talk more. Know a place where I could drop one end off?

P.S. Describe the thug so I know it's you.

Hi! Yeah I only really started capeing a couple of weeks ago so I don't exist online yet. Thug was a fire-themed mover-blaster, wanted to recruit you, didn't have a mask. And you can pick a place and a time to be and I can make a walkie talkie of my own that will communicate with yours. If you'd rather just leave yours somewhere though there's an alley—

And they give an address.

I was going to include some tricks to make it hard to intercept the signal, so I'll leave one end on the roof at-

She names a place near where the fight happened, and a time tomorrow night.

And there Glam is.

There's a walkie-talkie with clear signs of modification on the roof with a note attached.

Set 'channel' to '2' and 'phase' to 'A'. Push to talk.

They do.

"Helloooo."

"Hello. Good, you found it. I thought about things some and realized I never actually thanked you, you know? So thanks."

"You're welcome! How're you today? Feeling better?"

"Yeah. I've kind of accepted that these things are going to happen, that's just what having powers is like. Especially if I'm going to be a hero. So I should try not to get hung up on it as much. Push forward, you know?"

"Yeah, that's good. You're gonna be a hero?"

"Gonna try. My not-for-your-ears reason to avoid the Wards is still valid, though, which makes things a bit tricky."

"Is it just the Wards or any official hero org?"

"Protectorate too. Maybe some of the other orgs would be alright, I don't know yet. I've only been making stuff for like a month."

"Maybe I could rec you some sites and some forums, so you can talk to people and read up on stuff. You particularly attached to Brockton Bay?"

"I don't think I could leave right now unless I could sneak a lot of tools to some safehouse too. I've been working on making more tools, mostly, it would really suck to lose them. But... I like this city, but if I have to go, I have to go."

"I mean you don't necessarily have to go, it just changes which options you can take if it's a possibility."

"Yeah, I get that. I mean, mostly what I want is a steady supply of parts and supplies. Now that I've got a good set of tools hidden in the basement, if I can find a place to do it, I can build some of the bigger ideas I've had since day one."

"You grok what your specialty is yet?"

"It's weird. I'm not sure if there's some connection I haven't figured out, but it's almost like I have two. Electrical stuff - but not computers - one one hand, and kinetic and movement stuff on the other. The walkie talkies are all category one, and the legs are all category two."

"Why not computers?"

"No clue. I just... Don't get tinkery ideas for computers."

"Huh. Tinker powers are weird."

"Pot, meet kettle. Your power's weirder. Looks like you can just make stuff. Kinda reminds me of that wizard guy."

"—Myrddin? Eh, my theme's more sleek and tinkery but that's by design, I could go with a wix aesthetic I suppose. But yeah I can just make stuff."

"Powers are weird. And good powers feel kind of like cheating. But whatever, I'll just have to be clever with what I do have. Which brings me to another point... Started listening to police radio a while ago, so sometimes I hear 'cape fight on such a street' or 'fire on whichever avenue'. I'm- I want to be able to go and help the next time that happens. But I'm missing a few key parts for the gear I'd like to have before I do that."

"...tell you what, I can go get you parts, and people won't think I'm a tinker. Can't just make you parts 'cause my stuff disappears after a while, but I can hold my own in a fight so I'm safer looking for stuff."

"Yeah, that's the idea! What do you think, two times market value for payment sound fair? Or possibly a device or two if there's something specific and kinda simple that you want."

"...I wasn't expecting to be paid at all, actually."

"Well, I don't like owing favors, so you're going to either get paid or agree to do it for free."

"Yeah, free sounds good."

"Alright then. I'll give you cash for the cost of the stuff, anyway. Should only be a few hundred. If you change your mind, say so, okay?"

"Yeah. Whaddaya need?"

She starts listing stuff. Wire, fuses and capacitors and other small electrical components, electrical solder. A gas tank (as in a tank for holding gases - she names a specialty supplier that does CO2 tanks). Rope. One of the big assemblies from the back of old CRT monitors, but she might reject a few of them until she finds one that works. A few pressure gauges - she has valves, but no gauges, and it would be so annoying to spend hours making those when she can (indirectly) just buy them. And a laser pointer or two, the more powerful the better. Plus a few miscellaneous items.

Glam can collect those!

And they can arrange a drop-off point! The cash with which to purchase the stuff will be there tonight and she'll come back for it in three days.

"It'll probably be most of a week to finish up once I have it all, but this is still a big step forward."

"Yeah, I hope it works out for you. ...why don't you want to buy it yourself, by the way?"

"People might think I'm a tinker and I really need to lay low on that front until I have stuff to actually fight. As the thing a couple days ago shows."

"Yeah, fair enough."

"Anything else you want to talk about? I'll leave my end of this on most evenings and listen, if something comes up. Should be okay to talk to each other for a month or two if you plug it in to charge and switch phase every so often."

"Not right now, I should be heading back home soon."

"Good luck with whatever you're up to, then. And goodbye."

Click. She packs up and leaves cash in that spot she mentioned and heads home.

No one harasses her on the way.

And she carefully makes pleasantries and avoids subjects with her parents.

It helps a lot that they think she's a goth, something that she'll grow out of in a year or two. Dark clothes designed for scavenging, she can see the misconception. Her father - tangled up in that mess as he is, he's still her dad - gave her drug safety tips, ugh.

She leaves the radio on for a few hours the next evening, in case Glam has something to say.

Radio silent.

But the next morning the news mentions a cape fight with a few unknown capes.

Troubling. Hard to research stuff like that as she is now.

...She goes to the drop point the next day geared up and with a new weapon that appears to be a long pole with a bulge at the end.

There's stuff there! All the stuff.

She's watching the place from a block or two away. Stabilized binoculars are useful. Paranoia is useful.

She tries the walkie-talkie again. "Hello, hello. Please respond if able."

"Hi! I'm able. Hello."

"Good! Good. Uh... I see the stuff. Just want to make sure there was no trouble and everything's legit. Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but, yeah..."

"Yeah absolutely."

"So you don't think you were followed or seen or anybody has a reason to stake out this dump or anything?"

"Pretty sure I'd have noticed if that had happened, I think you're safe."

"Right! The money I left covered expenses just fine?"

"Yeah, there was some extra and I left it with the parts."

"Awesome."

"...What would you think about sparring this weekend? I've got to test out my gear somehow, and I'm not going to do that with a villain."

"Sure! Sounds fun."

"It's a plan. Talk to you on Friday." She starts making her way between rooftops towards the stash of stuff.

"See you then!"

Does anybody or anything interfere with her checking the supplies for quality of parts and tracking devices, packing it all up, and heading off?

Absolutely not.

Then it's time to be fairly convincingly sick, and take advantage of her parents' inattention to spend a whole day in her hideaway tinkering!

She swings by the library Thursday evening and tries to read up on known Brockton Bay capes, more than background knowledge gives her. Just in case. Has Glam made the news?

Glam has made the news! As an unknown cape with unknown powers who knocked out a couple minor villains.

Her 'anon' profile holds no power over the parahumans wiki, so she can't satisfy the urge to describe what she knows about their power.

She leaves when she finds herself sketching a book reshelver without fully realizing it. Back to tinkering.

It's exciting, getting all these things she's been thinking about since day two or three finished in front of her. The cathode ray emitter is working triple duty, but it'll work for now.

On Friday she contacts Glam through the walkie-talkies again. "Hello, hello. Respond if able."

"Am able! Hello."

"By golly gee I've got some tricks to show ya! Shall we go near where we first met? Further north?"

"...'by golly gee'," they repeat, and giggle. "Up to you."

She names an address. "Be there in half an hour. Oh, and about time to change phase on these, so we should both switch to 'B' now."

Click. She's there in half an hour.

So is Glam, sitting cross-legged upside down, their cape somehow failing to be affected by gravity. "Hi again!"

Powers. Feh. 

She's equipped with something that looks like a bastardization of the concept of power armor. It's... Bulky, compared to the longlegs. Very bulky. It has three main legs, with a fourth curled underneath. The legs are many-jointed and segmented, looking like something out of the deep sea forged in rusty steel plates. They move jerkily, contort in inhuman ways to move her around - which they're obviously pretty good at. From the waist up it's more normal. Two armored arms, various bits of gear hanging on mounts or straps, clanging as she moves. What sounds like a lawnmower engine running on idle spitting fumes into the air through vents on a big bulge the back. There are plenty of sharp angles though no outright spikes, and gaps in the armor. The overall aesthetic is 'reassembled scrap'. Fitting, since that's what it is. The most human part of it is a sort of paneled glass(?) cabin much larger than a helmet needs to be that shows her wearing a hoodie and some kind of custom half-face mask inside.

She - shambles? - into the scrap yard with jerky leg movements that don't seem to shake her upper body around at all, then flexes her fingers in a pattern and the spindly arm shooting off one shoulder stows something with a screen and returns to attention.

She waves. "What do you think?"

"It certainly is something."

"It looks creepy and villainous. Well, I already knew that, and I should be able to do better with less... Heavy gear, and with better materials, once I can get at them."

"Tinker powers are super cool but often also extremely annoying like that."

"You should see my first try at a nonlethal restraint. Well, maybe not if you're prone to nightmares."

"I'm not, show me!"

"If you say so."

She pulls out something vaguely spider-like. "It's supposed to latch on to someone's head, and then give a pulsed electric shock. Not enough to burn or damage anything, I hope, but my power says it's some kind of sleep-like effect. Haven't tested it."

"...wow that looks terrifying."

"Yeah. I managed to turn it into a thing on the end of a long pole, later. Kinda like a taser. But most of the - things that I don't control directly, that I can wind up and let go, look like this... Headcrab, to some extent."

"Creepy and crustacean?"

"Creepy and threatening and alien-looking, yeah."

"Oh so you've got non-crustacean designs?"

"...Yeah? I've got designs that hover and fly and stuff too. It's just that none of them are particularly compatible with shoelaces-and-scrap style tinkering."

"Yeah, makes sense."

"But enough about that! I want to see if I can credibly cape fight."

"Alright.—your things are nonlethal, right? My suit is bulletproof but I'd rather not, like, break anything."

"I'm not going to use the big one on you! It's in case I run into Empire 88 or something. Everything else should be pretty nonlethal unless I shoot your face from point blank a dozen times in a row or something."

"Cool then." They float right way up. "Hit me."

She raises one arm, and with surprising speed a telescoping pole shoots out of the wrist towards Glam.

The mechanical arm on her shoulder grabs something attached to the armor's back.

Glam dodges out of the way, having been expecting that, and grabs a sleek white tinker-looking gun from behind their back.

The long pole has the advantage of still being attached to her body, she uses that to swing it into one of Glam's legs despite the dodge. It delivers a sting that's followed by a numbing sensation.

She starts moving towards the dubious cover of a burnt-out car. The robot arm has grabbed... Something, and points it at Glam.

"Ow! Should make that insulating," they say, flying away towards the cover of a dumpster.

"Wouldn't have helped!"

The ball at the tip of the taser-pole explodes into a few dozen prongs as he passes it - a couple make brief contact with the same shock. Then everything retracts.

They grunt, but they don't really need to move to fly, and now they're surrounded by a forcefield. "I can just figure out what would!"

No more words. A barrage of winged projectiles spring from the armor, they arc high and aim to fall on him on their way now. Another strike with the pole.

The thing the robot arm is wielding follows her gaze, mostly, but it's not shooting anything.

Well Glam's behind a car and has a forcefield around them, the projectiles can do whatever they want Glam's protected.

She puts away the targeting laser and pulls out a scanner. Forcefield: What are you made of and how can she disrupt you?

Who knows, it's disabled as soon as she starts looking and now Glam is fleeing that way—

Eat telescoping pole again!

The legs are very nimble - she dashes over to where all the projectiles landed and the curled-up one picks them up and loads them back into their launcher. She keeps the scanner out to track where Glam's going by his nerves' bio-electricity.

...well if she's scanning Glam's nerves' bio-electricity she'll find out they're probably not a he. Or a she.

Also they swat away the telescoping pole by twirling midair and hitting it with a pole of their own, except the tip of theirs wraps around hers and gets very strongly attached to it.

The scanner isn't sophisticated enough to tell that. Just that there's a human-size mammal thereabouts.

As to the pole-attaching... She can use that to pull sharply and accelerate towards him. Or just run towards him with those powerful tentacle legs if his weapon comes loose. Two of the flying wings come out again on a lower arc, too.

...This is fun!

...pulling sharply might not have been the best move, because Glam's other hand now has a gun thing that shoots a set of weighted ropes directly towards her—

Sharp dodge that looks mechanically improbable! She leaves cracks in the concrete from where that foot pushed off.

The flying wing things burst into nets of their own, made with some kind of metal in intricate patterns.

Round forcefield, crackling with energy and expanding outwards—

- Okay scanner what is it and can she tune her pulse field into destructive interference...

Yeah her scanner isn't gonna help identify things here, this is either tinker tech of a different stripe altogether or something else entirely. As far as the scanner is concerned, there's nothing there.

If there's no electromagnetic bounce there, it can't block her electro-gun. Zap time!

...yeah it totally doesn't block her electro-gun, but Glam's suit does. "Ow! How'd you do that?"

"Whatever that is, it's not blocking electrons or I'd be able to scan it. So of course a coherent electron packet goes right through!"

"Hmm. Well then I can just change a thing here—" And now it's completely opaque to her.

"...Bullshit. You're not a tinker. Are you secretly Eidolon's kid?"

They make the forcefield disappear. "I'm not a tinker, but I can make anything! Like your headcrab." They demonstrate.

"Yeah, but can you use it?"

"Well, if I can't use this one I can make one that looks just the same and that I can use."

"But then it's not the same. There's no spare space in there and the control systems are all interconnected."

Shrug. "Then if you teach me how to operate the headcrab I'll be able to make the same and use it."

"That could be powerful! If you can duplicate my gear and actually use it, or let others use it. Too bad I don't trust you enough to think about teaming up yet."

"When I'm not paying attention to the stuff I make it disappears after a while, though, so there's limited use for other people. Also it might be a good idea to... not be that directly blunt at other capes, I'm cool but capes are notoriously ill-tempered."

"If someone can't handle the truth maybe they deserve to be upset. But I'll keep it in mind."

"I mean, if the only consequence were their being upset and not them trying to put holes in you I'd be inclined to agree."

"I think this little fight has shown I have half a decent chance in a fight though. I'm keeping some tricks up my sleeve of course."

"So'm I, of course. But yeah you do, that was real good with so little preparation."

"You mentioned sites and forums I could lurk on a few days ago, I think...?"

"Yeah?"

"So what are they?"

"Well there's the Parahumans Online community, they got a wiki and a forum and pretty much everything official ends up there one way or another. They got really good mods, too, and if you create a cape account they'll recognize you."

"Alright. Kind of scared of being tracked. Cookies or whatever. But maybe."

"Supposedly the people in charge are very very good at making sure no one's traceable, even Legend has an account."

"Supposedly. Supposedly the police shut down extortion rackets, right?"

"I mean, I can't personally verify that they're good except by noting that high-profile capes have accounts."

"Oh well. I found it while googling earlier, actually. Thanks for the info, I guess?"

"You're welcome! There are other forums, some more specific, but you can find everything starting from that."

"Let me pick up my ammo and then show you how this thing can climb and run. We didn't actually do much of that."

"Alright. I'll set this suit and the forcefield to be immune to your stuff though."

"Uh huh."

She's beginning to think he doesn't understand his own power and is bluffing half the time. Or that it's not good at unexpected threats. Why else would she have gone through the first time with two separate things?

She picks up the flying nets that bounced off that forcefield and packs them away.

And they fly a bit farther away, making another tinker-looking gun.

She clambers up the side of a building! How is something that heavy climbing a wall that fast while looking that unbalanced? Tinker nonsense, that's how.

Tinker nonsense indeed. They wait for her to be ready.

And the engine revs louder and she turns on a megaphone. "Three! Two! One! GO!"

The three-legged contraption accelerates her to about twenty miles an hour over the first roof's width.

They can fly faster than that.

They can't fly faster than that while carrying this much mass in armor and gear along with them, she takes some consolation in that idea.

She makes the leap to the neighboring roof casually enough, at least.

Flying is fun!!!

"Powers are weird."

Let's see just how far she can leap at once. She slows down as the capacitors, tanks, and springs all store it up...

...And then makes a huge, wild looking jump, moving hundreds of feet before touching down again. "Wooooooooh!"

"Awesome!"

She just laughs and laughs.

But that jump was pretty loud and possibly attention-getting...

Yes it was. So it must be very anticlimactic when absolutely nothing happens because of that.

"So what are your plans, now?"

"I'm thinking fire rescue, general evacuation stuff. I think mobility is going to be a big advantage for me."

"I meant now as in, for the next short while. D'you think you'll want to look into joining a team or try to be an independent or...?"

"Ugh. I don't know. The Wards... I might talk to the Protectorate about it. I really don't think it's a good idea though. And other than New Wave, which is also very iffy, I don't know enough about the other hero groups. But going independent is... Daunting."

"Hear hear. I haven't joined the Wards for a reason."

"Wards might be an option for me. It's a rock and hard place thing. I'm thinking about selling stun grenades if I'm forced to give something to unsavory types. Same thing the lance does, shock then numb and hopefully a safe knockout. One time use, is the idea. They won't have it forever."

"Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea actually."

"Mm-hmm... Anything else we ought to talk about or do right now, you think? I'm running a bit low on gas. Can't wait until I'm done with my supercaps, using gas is annoying."

"Don't think so. Supercaps?"

"Tinker batteries big enough to power all my stuff instead of just some. More portable than an engine. I think I'll say bye for now, in that case."

"Yeah, 'bye, and good luck with that!"

And she heads back to her dubiously-secure lab.

And she makes a phone call to the Protectorate general line.

"East-North-East Protectorate Office, how can I help you?"

"Hello. I'm a new parahuman and I'd like to schedule time with... Someone, to talk about some things. I can show up at the Brockton Bay PRT or Protectorate offices with proof if necessary. I don't want to get attacked for doing so, is why I'm calling ahead."

"—I see. Is tomorrow good for you?"

"Depends on the time. I'd prefer late afternoon or evening. I will come with tinkertech, sorry. Not negotiable, that. I'll do 'no weapons' though."

"That can be arranged. How's eight PM for you?"

"Eight PM tomorrow. Got it. Where should I go?"

"The headquarters, unless this is inconvenient for you?"

"That will be fine. Thanks for arranging it."

She's there at the appointed time, coming out of an alley and approaching on foot. Or rather, on tinkertech foot. She has those long-legs contraptions looking somewhat improved but still weird, a reasonably fancy mask, and that's about it.

...She almost feels naked. But no weapons means no weapons, and that big machine from yesterday isn't easily separated from its offensive devices.

Except on the way there she hears a familiar voice. "You didn't even hear me out."

Ugh. "You want to buy tinkertech? Convince me, you have until I get where I'm going."

"I want to give you an opportunity."

"I'm listening. Actually listening this time."

"—what, really? Huh. Cool, then. Right, so, y'ever heard of the Toybox?"

"Yeah, and I consider it rather high on the 'sketchy' scale."

"Good! So do I. I have a different proposal."

"Stop beating around the bush, what is it you're proposing, exactly?"

"Not a contract, nothing that forces you. I just give you parts, in exchange for something you make with some of those parts, and you can keep the rest. And you can just say no to any deal."

"That's... Potentially doable. I'll want to use dead drops, no telling you where my place is. And I'll be much more willing to make defensive and mobility stuff than weapons. But I'm still working some stuff out. I'll give you a radio and call it when I decide?"

"Sounds good!"

She tosses over a walkie talkie that's had a tinker go at it. "Leave it on channel three, phase A from eight to ten or so every night. You'll need to recharge it."

"Great! Pleasure doin' business with you!"

"Not business yet, mind you. This is just the op'ning negotiations or something."

"Pleasure opening negotiations with you!" he says with a smile.

"Likewise I'm sure. But bye for now, I have a previous engagement."

"See you!"

Off he goes, whistling a merry tune.

She sighs heavily once he's around a corner.

That didn't turn into a fight, at least. And she really might take the offer. She'd have to be kind of desperate though.

Onward to her Protectorate appointment.

Oh? But what about this shirtless hairy dude with a metal wolf mask standing in her way?

Why does she run into nobody for days, and then multiple capes in one day?

"I'm not interested in trouble, whoever you are. No weapons, if you can tell."

He tilts his head. "Whoever I am?"

"You're clearly some kind of cape. I have a guess but I don't fancy saying it out loud. Christ, I'm gonna be late at this rate."

"Late for what?"

"I don't really see any strong reason to answer that."

"Indulging a stranger's curiosity?"

"Any other day, maybe, but I'm trying to deal with my own problems one at a time and I don't want to risk gaining more quite yet."

"Dunno if you have a choice, there."

"Okay, that's a threat, bye."

WHOOMP. She's on a roof now, sprinting for a main street. She pulls out a cheap phone and dials 911.

Well and now he's made of metal and climbing the building pretty fast.

"State your emergency."

"Independent Cape being chased by Hookwolf near-" Street sign, street sign, she says the first pair she sees.

Go go go towards the PRT building!

"We're sending someone."

And there's a man in metal armor with a crown of spikes over there. "Now, Hookwolf, is that the way to treat our new recruit?"

The wolf-shaped creature doesn't respond.

"Kaiser's here too- Shit. I'm a Tinker in leg contraptions, silver mask."

They know she was coming or something? How about a left turn. She doesn't spend any more of her stored energy, she's probably about to really need it.

"Do not engage, these are extremely dangerous parahumans even veteran heroes have trouble with."

Hookwolf is actually really really fast. Kaiser extends a blade from the palm of his armor, not to hurt her, just to reach long enough that he can block her way.

"I don't think I have - oof - much choice!"

Can she get over him? If he touches the wrong part of the legs he'll get an electric shock.

What he has now is effectively a very long crowbar so he uses it to try to pull her towards him.

She lashes out with a mechanically assisted kick towards Kaiser, but with the other leg hooked around that metal bit all it does is make a loud noise and shake them both. Plus hurt her hips from the bad distribution of force. Ow.

And Kaiser is rather kick-resistant. "Why is it that no one wants to talk? Hookwolf, did you do something to spook her?"

Noncommittal sound of metal scraping against mental.

The phone is lying on the street somewhere, now.

"The hell won't anyone just fucking talk without making threats and attacking me! Let me go let me go!"

"—of course he threatened you. Hookwolf, stand down. Yes I just want to talk."

He doesn't let go, though.

Two deep breaths. She peers at the hole his metal spar poked in her left leg-gear and grimaces.

"So?"

"Thank you." He shoots Hookwolf a mild glance then looks at her again. "Do you have a name yet?"

"...Been going by 'Hopper'."

"It's a pleasure, Hopper. I'm Kaiser. I trust you've heard of the Empire?"

"Who hasn't heard of the local Nazis, eh? You're going to try and recruit me or make some sort of deal. It will be a hard sell."

"I think the 'Nazi' image is rather unfair. It's very easy to paint us with the label and let people make their own assumptions."

"Every group wants to be legitimate. The merchants are just out to have a good time. Those Asians on the east side are looking after its own. The Protectorate is a bastion of law and order. You, too. Gets old."

"Does it? What do you think about all of these groups?"

The Protectorate is sending someone. Hopefully. Stall.

"The Merchants are lying, selfish, filthy bastards. The smaller gangs are all racketeering thugs. The Empire I don't know as much about but I'm sure there's something besides casual racism. The Protectorate is a lot less effective than it needs to be."

She sits on the ground, glancing mournfully at the hole in her gear, and reaches for it.

"Ah ah ah, no tricks, we're having a polite conversation," he says—

—and then immediately looks up at someone who's just arrived behind Hopper. "Kaiser," Armsmaster says.

She turns around to look - she can grab a few particular wires out of Kaiser's view - 

And Hookwolf is on Armsmaster—no, he's swatted aside, that pole is really effective, but Kaiser casually starts making several more blades sprout from the large crowbar—Armsmaster breaks it—

She yells out in fear - rolls aside, reaches down, crosses wires and yanks something important-looking out - 

She could use a big distraction. Slip away and call to apologize later.

She connects a wire from the left leg to the right, opens them both to release her as they fold into unnatural spiky lumps that don't look like legs - kicks them towards the center of the fight and starts sprinting away as an electric whine builds - 

"What—" There is a loud electrical noise.

Followed by a BOOM.

Oh shit I did not expect it to be that powerful - it started fires...

Is Armsmaster okay - she glances backward - Hookwolf's still here. No gear. Nothing but my mask.

...She hesitates, then stands back up and keeps running away.

Armsmaster, Kaiser, and Hookwolf are both stirring clumps on the ground. Hookwolf reforms first and is on top of the hero.

Also cars nearby seem to have had their ignitions set on fire and fuse boxes seem to have been blown. So that's nice.

There's very little she can do about that at the moment!

Indeed! She can hear the fight resuming just before she's too far to actually discern anything through the regular background noise.

All the way back to her little 'base', which takes like twenty goddamn minutes, and she gears up and pulls out the other burner phone.

...Does she call them?

Yeah. She has to apologize to Armsmaster.

"East-North-East Protectorate Office, how can I help you?"

"Uh... I'm a tinker. Er, the tinker who was just involved with a thing with the Empire and Armsmaster and I need to say sorry."

"Hold for a moment, please."

She's wandering around the general area. If they're going to track her - tinker intuition says they can't, not easily - no sense giving them a postcard.

She holds, feeling terrible.

"When are you free?" the person on the other side asks, cautiously.

"...Now. A couple hours from now. Saturday. I mean, I want to say this before anything else even if you don't know the situation, I had no idea it would be that powerful. I was just hoping for a distraction."

"...a couple of hours from now is tentatively good. Where is best for you?"

"By phone is best for me. Kaiser found me last time I tried to go talk to you guys... Sorry."

"I don't think by phone is possible at all."

"I'm- I can't. I was on my way when that whole thing happened and now... Ugh."

"We could meet you somewhere."

"...I guess you'll want to come in force so I don't ambush you or something. Or maybe I'm being paranoid all of a sudden. Can I name an intersection and you pick an address nearby, for a couple hours from now?"

"Yes."

And here's the important question, "Are you going to try to arrest me for what was totally completely an accident?"

"I'm sorry, I'm a secretary, I can't make these kinds of decisions."

"Well, this s- stuff has me really freaked out and nervous, I'm not sure I want to do it at all. I have stuff I need to talk to someone about before I decide if I want to join the Wards but every time I try to do anything involving other parahumans it turns into a fight somehow. I kind of just want to not have that happen again today."

"It shouldn't be a problem, those villains will probably not attack you again tonight."

"That's not the point I was trying to make, ma'am."

"If you didn't attack anyone on purpose then no one should attack you, is what I'm saying."

"...Not what I was trying to say again, but whatever." She's totally taking all her remaining gear to the meeting spot though. She names an intersection.

Someone will be there.

And she walks there in that armored... Not-quite-a-suit, after having prepared a simple trap to slow down pursuit in a few places.

The motorcycle is much quieter than something that big and fast should be. The hero's armor is spotless, very unlike anything that just faced off against Kaiser and Hookwolf. He starts walking towards her, pauses, hits the ground with his halberd (which causes an electric pulse of some sort that disables her trap), then resumes walking.

"H-Hi! I'm sorry about earlier!"

She doesn't have any obvious weapons deployed.

He stops, and folds his arms.

"I have electricity based stun... Stuff. That was supposed to just be a bigger version. Wave degeneracy... I think."

"But you said you were not going to bring weapons."

"It was a battery... Almost anything's a weapon if you try hard enough, I didn't bring anything meant as a weapon."

Very unimpressed frowny lips.

"I panicked, okay! It was Hookwolf and Kaiser and I didn't have any armor!"

"A bunch of cars caught fire, you know."

"...I guess ionization potential will do that. Was anyone hurt?"

"Yes. Several people, and some had to be hospitalized."

"Well, shit. I really didn't mean to do that. Definitely no more big uncontrolled discharges."

"And even if you didn't mean to do it, I actually still have to take you in."

"What's likely to happen to me if I go with you?"

"If? You don't have a choice, you caused a lot of property damage and injury."

"I - you - self defense! Also, I've had a shitty life for the last two fucking years and only just the last month would my future maybe not be terrible, I can make things, and I was even going to join the Wards once I dealt with this other thing but life! Isn't! Fair! Is! It!"

The last few words are punctuated with the sound of servos clunking free and an engine revving up.

"Oh and you think every other parahuman's life is easy? That doesn't matter. You're coming with me."

She's going through the air toward a rooftop with a surprisingly energetic jump for something that just turned on.

Well he's a tinker too, he has a grappling hook and can start following her—

Walta - Hopper - is panicking. But one of her specialties seems to be creative movement. She can be creative about running away. Ducking into alleys off the rooftops and making a few turns before jumping back, making hairpin turns, leaping large gaps.

And she can tell where Armsmaster is. All that metal is fairly distinctive.

She heads north, to the bad parts of town.

She will in fact succeed at outrunning Armsmaster.

And then she'll scream in frustration and shoot dumpsters and garbage cans with her zappy-gun for a little while, venting.

And then she'll call Fire Guy and/or Glam on her radios.

"Hello."

Fire Guy doesn't answer.

"Agree or disagree: Life isn't really fair."

"—agree seven hundred and ten percent. What happened?"

"Panic and overreaction and an explosion and evading arrest."

She gives the full story, being cagey about what exactly exploded.

They listen, then—" Yeah, I heard about that one on the news. I—don't blame you for not wanting to go with him."

"I'm not a villain. I'm not going to be a villain. Except maybe I am if my options turn into 'petty crime to get parts' and 'jail'."

"Yeah. I don't know what they'd do, though, maybe they'd have offered you a position anyway or something, you're a tinker, they really need those..."

"I can't afford certain things. Just can't. Like 'not tinkering for a while', I think I'd literally go insane before two weeks are out. And the other thing, the secret thing."

"You could... maybe try talking to them on the phone or via email or whatever?"

"Maybe when they haven't tried to arrest me an hour ago. For self defense." 

"...well what would have happened if a regular human accidentally set fire to several cars?"

She gives a laugh-sob-type-sound. "In my part of town? They run away and hide before the police can arrive. So that fits."

Sigh. "I just mean, they're not—acting out of the ordinary, if you were a regular civilian they—wouldn't act different—"

Sigh. "C'est une impasse. Congratulations on creating another villain, Kaiser."

"You could just—remain an independent, run away if the heroes see you—"

"-Oh, I'm not going to rob people now. I'm just... This destroys the chance I'll work with the 'Official Heroes'. Ever."

"Does it? Why?"

"I'm not going to jail. I'm just not. If that's evading arrest, so be it."

"Yeah." Sigh. "I'm sorry."

"I'm still going to try to rescue people. Car wreck response, fire response. Any obvious assaults I happen on. I just have to leave when the police show up."

"For what it's worth I don't think they arrest everyone. They still have to fight Endbringers."

"...Even if I got what I needed to build an idea I've been calling 'The Big One', I don't know if it'd do much to an Endbringer."

"You can do mobility and relief. Not that you have to, of course, but—tinkers are good in general to at least turn a blind eye to."

"...I think I'm just going to go to sleep for now, though."

"Okay. Stay safe."

"Yeah. I-" Sigh. "I was going to ask for a favor but nevermind. No point. I might not be able to talk tomorrow or the day after. And your radio might break soonish. If it does, email I guess."

"...you can ask, though."

"It's not that I don't want to ask, it's that the whole thing is a bad idea. Anyway... Bye."