ThatGit
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LiFS Chapter 14 - Blah Blah Blah Please Join the Heroes
🕑 Added 2023-11-27 04:02:29 +0000 UTCSometimes I’m not the sharpest sword in the armory. I’ve made some pretty dumb decisions over the years and even taking into account my dyslexia and ADHD my grades pretty clearly reflect my academic talents. I’ve had like, a B-. Once. Out of sheer dumb luck. Hades, I’m a sixteen year old highschool dropout. Like I said, academics were never really my thing
On the other hand, I’ve also had some pretty great ideas over the years. Like dropping out of school (though my step dad probably thought that was one of my dumber choices, sorry Paul!) to do demigod stuff full time, giving Luke Annabeth’s dagger, and shipping mom Medusa’s head that one time. Now I had another thing to add to my list of really fucking great plans. ‘Hiring’, for all that I hadn’t really paid her anything yet, Carol Dallon to represent me to the PRT was an absolutely ten out of ten banger of an idea.
I honestly don’t know how I would have managed without her. Not only had she somehow gotten us a meeting with the PRT on less than a day’s notice, and on a weekend to boot, but she also cut through mountains of papers and questions like Riptide sliced through empousa.
Without her, I’d probably still be working on that first evaluation test they’d given me, a thick ream of papers that reminded me of those horrible standardized tests I had to take every year. That was if I even managed to get that far without doing something stupid––having someone else to do most of the talking and keep me from putting my foot in my mouth was really, really handy. Carol’s presence had probably saved the annoying, well-dressed PRT agent they’d sent to talk to us from a fist to the face
Instead, we’d spent less than an hour dealing with random bullshit and then I got to talk to Armsmaster, a Protectorate hero wearing some super cool looking power armor, and show off a little. The dude was a little abrupt, but Carol told me that was just how we was, and I didn’t begrudge him being a little grumpy about getting pulled away from what he actually wanted to be doing on a lovely Sunday morning to help me out.
I answered a few questions for him, doing my best to stick to the story I’d established ahead of time. It was even mostly true since I just sort of avoided talking about all the blatantly supernatural stuff. Dad and the other gods were just powerful parahumans and anything silly I said was just a difference in terminology, nothing more.
Then we went down to this cool little testing room they had set up. It really did look like something out of a movie, complete with two scientists with clipboards in white lab coats and a big glass window on one side of the room to let people look in.
I lifted some weights, moved some water around, and let the scientists futilely poke and smack my hand with an entire cabinet of high-tech mallets, needles, and even this crazy blowtorch looking thing that kinda reminded me of when I fought Hyperion. None of it did anything––it took more than brute force to bypass the Curse of Achilles––but it made them happy and staying on the good side of an international superhero organization seemed like a good call if I was going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future.
After that, I had a bit of a break while Carol reviewed some preliminary documents and a nice PRT trooper brought us a cart of food from the cafeteria. It was honestly kind of good, much better than what I expected when I heard it came from a cafeteria. I still had nightmares about some of the disgusting goop American schools tried to pass off as real food. They even had some kind of sour blue soda that I’d never heard of! Not my favorite, but very blue and pretty tasty to boot.
And now I was sitting in a different meeting room with Carol, this one two floors higher in the building with a larger table and a few more chairs. I was sitting on one side of the table, Carol beside me with her briefcase in front of her and a severe look on her face. She was very, very good at severe looks.
Across from us sat Armsmaster––whose armor was honestly starting to make me feel a little self conscious (maybe I should be wearing my armor too?)––along with another hero by the name of Miss Militia and two PRT people, a man and a woman, in matching suits.
“We were told you would have confirmation for us more than an hour ago, but all I’m seeing are delays and more tests for my client. I would like an explanation.” Carol fixed the PRT man with a firm stare, “My client wishes to resolve the situation he finds himself in as soon as possible, but it seems to me that the PRT is dragging its feet on anything but preliminary documents and examinations.”
“Mrs. Dallon, please, we are working on––”
A raised palm from Armsmaster cut the man off before he could keep going. “We have encountered some moderate issues in terms of confirming Riptide’s story. Certain elements that we typically utilize have proven to be unreliable when it comes to your client. We have found no evidence of Riptide’s civilian identity existing on Earth Bet, but have not been able to rule out all other potential cases.” He turned his head to address me directly, “It appears that a number of associated Thinkers have experienced complications when attempting to ascertain the validity of your claims. Are you aware of the effects your power has on such individuals?”
I played back Armsmaster’s words in my head and still wasn’t quite sure what exactly he was saying, so I turned to Carol. “Uh, what?”
“He’s saying that Watchdog is having trouble verifying that you’re really a Case-22 and they think it might be because of something your powers are doing.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.” I paused for a moment. “Wait, why are they having trouble? Or I guess what kind of trouble?”
“Armsmaster?” Carol prompted.
He remained silent for several seconds, his lips moving soundlessly, then set his armored arm back down onto the table with a heavy clunk. “We believe that Riptide may possess some form of secondary power that causes Thinker effects directed at him to fail. We would ask that Riptide consents to further power testing to confirm the validity of this claim while we continue to ascertain the truth of his story.”
“Riptide?” Carol asked.
My immediate thought was that this was something the Mist was doing passively, since unlike all of these parahumans I actually attracted the Mist towards me instead of pushing it away. In fact I’d noticed that the Mist around me and in places I went was considerably thicker than it was on average. When I woke up this morning, it was noticeably denser in my room than it had been when I’d gone to bed. That wasn’t necessarily a great theory, but I had no idea what else they might be talking about.
“Um, I guess that's––” Carol shot me a sharp look, “Uh. That's maybe okay, but I’d like to hear more before I agree to anything,” I hurriedly corrected. “I don’t think my powers do anything like that though?”
“There is precedent for certain Brute powers to provide resistance to other types of powers,” Miss Militia chimed in. “For example it is well known that Alexandria is immune to Master powers. It might be something like that.”
“Maybe?” I shrugged. “I don’t think anyone back home ever had any problems, but maybe they just never told me.” I’d been part of too many prophecies to think I was immune to the sort of stuff they classified as Thinker abilities around here, but perhaps it was a matter of different power sources? I had no idea how the powers around here worked, but they were clearly not the same as what gods, monsters, and demigods could do.
From there, the conversation once again turned to specific details, most of which were hashed out between Carol and the PRT guy with little input from me. Basically it was going to take a while because they didn’t have any real Thinkers on their team and they needed to bring someone in, but that was complicated and annoying to set up or something.
On the bright side, once I’d agreed to that they finally started moving forward with the actually important stuff that I wanted; namely getting me set up in this new world. Apparently what they had found so far was convincing enough that they were going to give me a chance even if their fancy acronym superhero organization hadn’t been able to confirm things one-hundred percent.
Apparently the PRT had a small fund set up for dimensionally displaced individuals like me to help us get back on our feet, which was a pretty cool thing for them to do. Also they wanted me to join the Protectorate. They also offered me some free housing while I got acclimated to Earth Bet, and maybe I could do that by joining the Protectorate.
Did you know that the Protectorate pays its heroes a competitive salary? Wow, what a fun fact. Oh, you mentioned that you have some fancy tinkertech armor? Well, Brockton Bay’s Protectorate had two Tinkers who might be willing to maintain it for you, but only if you joined up! There were also three different pamphlets about joining the Protectorate shoved in with the other papers they gave me about places I could choose to live and basic information I needed to know.
I had a feeling that they kind of wanted me to join the Protectorate. Me getting papers and having a new identity drawn up wasn’t conditional on joining, but they certainly did seem to just keep slamming the sales pitch down my throat. It eventually got to the point that Carol would loudly clear her throat every time someone mentioned the idea, which mostly got them to shut up. Mostly.
“So Riptide,” Miss Militia asked, “have you considered what you’d like to do going forward? There’s a spot for you in the Protectorate if you’re interested. We could really use another experienced hero like you. Triumph only just graduated from the wards you know, he’s about your age.”
“I’m really not sure, to be honest,” I told her truthfully. “Ideally, I think I’d want to go home. I miss my friends and family a lot.” I sighed heavily, “But from everything I’ve read that's not very likely now, is it?”
Miss Militia said nothing. The only permanent connection Earth Bet had to another Earth was with Aleph, and even then it was data-only. Furthermore, Professor Haywire, who might have been able to actually help me, had been dead for several years and there was no Tinker or Mover with comparable capabilities. I’d tentatively floated the idea earlier and Armsmaster had told me flatly that the Protectorate was likely unable to help me, or any other Case-22, get home.
“I’m probably going to keep being a hero,” I eventually said. “It's the only thing I really know well. I guess I could be like, a fisherman or something, but that’s mostly a spare time thing, you know? Heroing… Well, it's in my blood. Literally.”
Miss Militia nodded, “Of course. As a Protectorate hero you would not be expected to work at all hours of the day, with some exceptions for emergencies and the like. Heroing is my calling, but it's important to work in moderation to avoid burning out. If fishing is how you relax after a long day, well, the Rig is certainly in a good spot for you to do so.” Then she did this thing with her eyes that told me she was smiling even though her mouth was covered. It was…weird.
“True enough, I’m just not sure I want to get tied down like that. Joining the Protectorate feels like a big commitment, and I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
Miss Militia jumped on that immediately. “If you’re worried about that, how about we start with something less formal? I’m certain the director would not mind you accompanying some of us on our daily patrols––it's not that uncommon for prospective members to do so. I believe Triumph and Velocity are on duty today, they should be heading out in a little over an hour. Perhaps you’d like to join them? I can’t imagine you’re enjoying sitting around here all day.”
“That does sound pretty good. Carol–”
Carol looked up from the papers she was reviewing. “I think we’re probably wrapping up for today anyway, especially if you aren’t planning to join the Protectorate right this minute. We should be able to finish filling out the paperwork for your new civilian identity in about half an hour and I know the PRT affiliate documents forwards and backwards by now so those shouldn’t take long either if they haven’t changed anything. After that it will take a few days for them to process everything so we’ll need to come back later in the week.”
“And there’s no problem with me going on a patrol?”
“It shouldn’t complicate anything. Just keep your mask on, remember that your name is Riptide, and don’t do anything reckless.”
Great, I could do two of those things! “Then that sounds like a great idea,” I told Miss Militia.”
“Wonderful, I will go get everything set up for you then.” She shook my hand, nodded to Carol, and left the room.
Carol promptly shoved a pen into my hand. “Now, we’re going to need your signature here, here, here, and here. This one is…”
Nearly two hours later, Triumph, Velocity, and I were walking together through central Brockton Bay. It had taken us slightly longer than anticipated to get going, mostly because of my armor. Apparently I hadn’t done a very good job of describing it and they’d expected something a little less…eye-catching. On the bright side, according to Triumph my armor would make the apparently nightmarish image team leave me mostly alone if I did join up.
So far the patrol had been pretty boring. We hadn’t run into any trouble and while my armor did stand out, the two well-known heroes with me attracted the majority of people’s attention. I briefly introduced myself to a few of the people that had come up to talk to us, but that was about it.
It was honestly really, really weird to walk around in public in my armor and have people actually see exactly what was in front of them. Normally if I did something like this, people would see me as wearing something like SWAT gear, not shiny plate armor. It certainly led to a lot more people taking pictures, and Velocity said I was probably going to be all over PHO by the end of the day.
On the bright side, Triumph did seem like a pretty cool guy. He was really into baseball and had a lot of interesting stories from his time in the Wards. It was also a good opportunity for me to get some first hand information about what it was like to be in the Protectorate, which was probably a good thing because what I’d heard so far hadn’t really impressed me very much.
He didn’t go out and say it outright, but the Protectorate seemed horribly passive, only ever reacting to what the villains were doing and mostly working to keep the status quo. Maybe things were different here, but I’d found in the past few months that it was much better to be active than reactive. In the wake of the war, I’d gone out with some of the other campers and massacred every monster we could find in the vicinity of New York, working out from Camp in a growing spiral.
It was not a permanent solution of course, monsters would always keep coming, but the new Athena head counselor had told me that they expected upwards of a twenty percent drop in demigod casualties in the next year. The right way to deal with monsters was overwhelming force applied with brutal efficiency.
Perhaps I was being a little over dramatic––the villains here and monsters back home were two very different types of fish––but the war against Kronos had left me very short on mercy when it came to those who endangered the people I cared about.
And then something finally happened. There was a crackle in my ear and a voice came out of the little earbud communicator they’d given me before I’d gone out with the other heroes. It was connected to my new phone, apparently something they gave to all PRT affiliated heroes, and was how the people back at the Protectorate base could communicate with the three of us.
“This is console, we have reports of independent hero Browbeat engaging with Victor and Othela near your location.”
Velocity, who’d been scouting around us using his power, suddenly blurred out of an alleyway and stopped beside Triumph and I. He tapped his ear, “Velocity responding, here with Triumph and Riptide. Where are we headed?”
Console gave us a location, the street names meaning absolutely nothing to me but Velocity nodded sharply. “I’m on it. ETA two minutes. Triumph, Riptide, follow along when you can.” And then he was gone again, disappearing into a red blur that rushed away down the sidewalk.
Triumph clicked his tongue. “I know where that is, we can be there in a few minutes if we hurry. Do you want to come along? I know this was supposed to be just a ‘learning the ropes’ kind of thing but––”
“Of course I’m coming! Don’t worry about me Triumph, I can handle myself.”
“Fair enough. Looks like we’ve got some excitement for your first patrol, then. Let’s go!”
Comments
ThatGit
Thank you! Thats one of those things I've been really working on with this story and its gratifying to hear that I've managed to hit the nail on the head.
Dekabos
Thank you for the chapter, I think you do a really good job capturing Percy's personality!
