Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Doctor Mother had seen much and done most of it, so the shock of seeing an unknown, well-built and fairly tall gentleman in an exquisitely tailored suit, looking intensely at one of the case 53's Cauldron kept in one of its too-many cells wore off rather quickly, and she promptly reached into her pocket to hold down the emergency button on her smartphone.

Of course, rather than contacting any world's emergency services, this resulted in Cauldron's HQ going into lock down, with thick metallic curtains falling down before every door (in the already windowless structure) and an automated alarm beginning to blast her location over the building's PA system.

The gentleman frowned, looked up at the alarm lights, and proceeded to ignore them as he continued his inspection of the case 53 on the next cell.

Contessa was the first to arrive. She took a look at the intruder and began running in his direction, before her pupils dilated and her expression froze in panic as she stumbled on her own feet and she flacepanted on the ground.

That caused Doctor Mother to pause and gape for twice as long as spotting the intruder had.

Speaking of whom, he kept at Contessa with a raised eyebrow for about a dozen seconds, then finally spoke:

"You should try and ask 'how do I stop depending on my power for basic things?' young lady." The man's voice carried, even when it should have been suffocated by the blaring alarms. "Or perhaps has it been so long you have forgotten how to walk on your own? Fascinating."

"That's more than enough!" This time it was Eidolon who charged at the man, flying fists first, only to fade away as soon as he was about to make contact with his target.

A portal opened, and Eidolon was back for the briefest moment before disappearing again and again, until Doormaker failed to find him again.

"What- who-?" Doctor Mother tried to star talking.

"Ah, it took you a while longer this time. That's discouraging. I was hoping this version of you would be quicker on the uptake," the man commented off-handedly. "Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. Let us hope it will be a pleasure to meet this version of you."

Doctor Mother dissected the man's words, looked down at the confused and stuttering Contessa, stiffened her upper lip, inhaled deeply for five seconds, and let it go over seven, then tried starting again.

"What have you done with Eidolon?" She inquired as calmly as she could.

"Mister Jennings is unharmed. I simply sent him to a version of Earth a bit further away than what your mister Volkov can readily perceive. I must say, this version can see considerably further away than most."

If Doctor Mother had any shame left, perhaps she would have felt something when she realized it took her almost five seconds to realize the intruder was talking about Clairvoyant. Honestly, Cauldron's 'seer' had been so young when she gave him powers, she had never really thought of him by name.

Or thought of him as a person at all, really.

"What are your intentions here?" She asked with a confidence she didn't have.

"Rejoice, girl. Your wish will finally be granted," he said, and the corners of his lips twitched upwards for an instant.

Rebecca Costa Brown looked away from the screen replaying Cauldron's intruder, and directly at the shaky figure of her nominal leader.

Indeed, Doctor Mother was the very picture of distress, slumping forward so her elbows rested on the table and her head rested on the palms of both her hands while Contessa was waddling about in the background, doing her best to relearn to walk without depending on her power, even if she had to support herself with a hand on the wall to do so.

"That was japanese," she pointed out intelligently. "But everything else was in german."

"And that is relevant, how?" Asked a disgruntled Eidolon, whom the intruder had finally returned to HQ.

"It is important because our language affects the way we think. By choosing a spefific language for those specific words, our guest was sending a very specific message, but I don't get it," Alexandria explained.

"Maybe he was making a joke," David mumbled, and Alexandria couldn't help but frown.

Honestly, their new situation is everything they said they wanted. No matter what, humanity would survive, if at a cost.

Where Cauldron was willing to sacrifice thousands of people in the name of Humanity's Survival, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg was ready to sacrifice thousands of Earths. Had done so without trembling or a second thought.

Because where Cauldron could see thousands of Earths, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg could see them all. An infinity of Earths could not, by any metric, be endangered to preserve a paltry dozen thousands.

To do so would have been immoral, and it wasn't as if Cauldron had a working plan.

According to Zelretch, he had observed events across multiple timelines, and while some versions of Cauldron managed to find success with different plans, their version of a plan amounted to 'hope Scion stabs at its own heart.'

After all, and in hindsight this was so obvious none of them could avoid a migraine when thinking about it now - All parahumans in Scion's network are empowered by passengers in Scion's network, and ultimately under Scion's control.

The army they were hoping to assemble would belong to Scion, as the plan their version of Cauldron came up with was no different from hoping an enemy soldier would randomly decide to shoot itself on the head.

"You should have worked to minimize the parahuman population under Scion's control. Instead, you have given it an army. I cannot fathom the thought process that birthed such a plan," Zelretch had said to Doctor Mother. "However and despite your own work, Mankind will survive. I am henceforth isolating this timeline from the rest, so its end won't affect the greater whole."

Like a surgeon removing a tumor from a patient's body, Zelretch had removed them from the multiverse. However, he had enough kindness to throw them some hope.

"I won't endanger a living soul for your sake, but the dead are another matter," Zelretch stated, calmly before helping Contessa up and leading her into Doctor Mother's arms. "Having said that, it is clear your version of Cauldron cannot be trusted to choose a wielder that won't just turn around and join Scion or something equally asinine. Goodbye."

~I~

"I need a herooo~♪" Pearl sung while floating over the streets of Brockton Bay.

Magical Pearl isn't great at stealth. Then again, that wasn't her job.

"I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light~♪"

The newest Kaleidostick is on the prowl for a hero(ine)! Its preference is cute! Its requirements are brave and pure!

It sung and hummed while floating over the streets, but not so high it couldn't study the crowd beneath. Nor, evidently, high enough they couldn't spot it.

In most other cities, the sight of a singing, wriggling and colorful tinkertech device floating over their heads would have quickly emptied the streets, but the people of Brockton Bay are made of sterner stuff.

Quite simply, their everyday lives were such that the needle of their danger-o-meter wouldn't even flinch for anything under 'super powered nazi' anymore, and in a Brockton Bay with Uber and Leet, a cheerful and colorful singing stick barely earned a half dozen replies in PHO.

Pthoom!

Armsmaster on the other hand, famously had zero chill. And that's why as soon as Magical Pearl was over an empty street, the leader of the local Protectorate fired a grappling hook and propelled himself towards it.

"Oops!" Pearl dodged at the last moment, twisted in such a way as to make it clear she was looking at the rapelling hero, and floated towards it at fluttering speeds.

Armsmaster saw it coming, and readied his halberd for a swing.

"Excuse me~!" Pearl called out in a cheerful tone. "Would you happen to be the famous Armsmaster, leader of the Protectorate ENE, known far and wide for his perfect beard?"

Colin blinked, but didn't flinch, and remained ready to swing.

"Identify yourself. Are you one of Uber and Leet's?"

"Oho~ you want to know who I a~am?" Pearl somehow gave Armsmaster an owlish look.

"Correct."

"I. AM. SPARTA! ...actually no, I am the one, the only... Magical Pearl!" The kaleidostick declared aloud, spinning in place while confetti fell from the sky and beams of colorful light floated up into the sky from... somewhere behind it. "My friends call me Pearl, or will when I have some. I'm brand new, you see, so I haven't made any yet, but as I am designed for maximum cuteness and zany humor, I amsurethisawfulstateofaffairswillquicklyrectifyitself, and-!"

The head of Armsmaster's halberd flicked open, and a net came out. He swung for Pearl, who promptly dodged, its wings fluttering at top speed while its little figure floated away.

"You are coming to PHQ with me," stated the hero.

"Alright!" Pearl easily conceded.

"...what?"

"You wish for me to go to the protectorate headquarters, correct?"

"Yes."

"I want to go to the PHQ, so that's good!"

Armsmaster swung again, and Pearl fluttered out of the way again.

"I... don't get it. we both want the same thing, so why are you swinging that thing at me?"

"You are unsanctioned, dangerous tinkertech and must be safely restrained before being allowed in PHQ."

"Lies and slander!" chirped Pearl. "I am not this tinkertech thing, I am magitech, thank you very much! Also, when was the last time you washed that thing? Have you ever caught a nazi with it? I am allergic to nazi, you know? I could get a rash and then where would we be!?"

Armsmaster swung, again.

Pearl dodged, again.

Hanna's left hand rose to her bandana as she tried to hold a chuckle from escape as soon as she realized Armsmaster looked like a child struggling to catch a somewhat larger than usual butterfly.

And the butterfly was winning that struggle.

~I~

"This is unfaaa~air!" Pearly cried out from inside this 'Unscapable Magitech Container Device' Miss Militia was carrying in both hands.

It was no shoebox, no sireee! Not even if you squint at it, nope!

"You said you wanted to come to HQ with us, and Armsmaster was not going to let you come without some kind of restraint," explained Hanna as she lowered the shoebox unto Armsmaster's work table and placed a solid-looking tool over its lid.

"But he's a brute! A bearded ape! He's gonna try and poke at me, he'll try to probe me! I'm allergic to probes! To probes and nazis!"

"Well, we have to make sure you are not dangerous, so I'm afraid you'll have to endure a little... errr... " Hanna turned towards her colleage and friend. "Armsmaster, you won't probe Pearl, will you?"

"I didn't see any openings on it, so that seems unlikely," the man replied, still a bit sulky about the self-proclaimed magitech device agreeing to Hanna's terms and meekly floating into a shoebox, of all things.

"See? No probing," reaffirmed Hanna.

"I'll need to disassemble it, though."

"Nooo~ooo~♪! Help! Help! I'm about to be killed!"

Pearl's cries echoed into the dark of the rig. Which shouldn't have been possible since Armsmaster's workshop was thoroughly soundproof.

"You are not alive to begin with. Would being disassembled and reassembled do anything to you... why am I talking to a thing?"

"I am self aware and able to feel fear, is that not proof of life!? You fiend! Brute! And there's thirty two hairs on your beard that are longer than the rest!"

Armsmaster froze, blinked, and walked out of the workshop to his room.

"Uh," emoted Hanna, intelligently.

"Think he went to get a shave?" Asked Pearl.

"I want to believe otherwise."

"Can you let me out now?"

"No."

"Help! Help! I'm trapped inside an unscapable prison and they're trying to kill me!"

Unknown to Hanna, Pearl's cries continued to echo across the entirety of the rig, and it wasn't long before people began peeking in through the still open door into Armsmaster's workshop, just to find an apologetic looking Hanna and a mildly shaking shoebox.

"W-why is that shoebox screaming like a girl?" asked a very confused Aegis after a couple moments of very, very confused observation.

"It is not a shoebox!" Denied the shoebox, "but an inescapable Magitech Containment Device!"

"I'm pretty sure that's a shoebox, tho," was Vista's mildly amused comment as she peeked into the room from a somewhat lower position than Aegis.

"Aha! Heroine candidate detected!" Cried out Pearl, before proceeding to burn a hole in the box's side and flying out through it.

"Hey! We had an agreement!" Complained Hanna as she formed a bug net in both hands.

"Foolish candidate number two! I am Magical Pearl, the latest and greatest of the kaleidosticks! There are no strings on me!"

"Was that an Ultron reference? Oooh, that's bad..." Winced Vista as she shrunk a little bit.

"Ultra-who? It was a Pinocchio reference, it was meant to make me look endearing and safe!"

"I got it," said Hanna, as she got ready to swing.

"Thank you, number two. Now, what's an Ultra-on?"

"Evil artificial intelligence that tried to destroy the world," said Vista, feeling a little bit safer as Miss Militia's net falls down over the floating Magical Pearl.

Having said that, Pearl simply remained in place, unmoving despite Hanna's best efforts to move it back or hold it down as it continued to slowly flutter towards the workshop's door.

"And you, young lady? Who would you happen to be?" Asked pearl as she dragged Miss Militia along towards Vista, lowering itself so she's looking up at the young ward in an effort to look as inoffensive as possible.

"...you don't count as people."

"What?"

Suddenly, the space between Pearl and Vista grew by several magnitudes, leaving the kaleidostick's little star spinning in place inside its surrounding ring in the magitech equivalent of a confused double take.

"Uh, neat. It looks like candidate number one comes pre-equipped with powers of her own. Convenient!" The kaleidostick flutters back to Vista, moving in a straight line despite the tween ward doing everything in her power to twist or stretch the space between them.

"Uh... Vista?" Aegis sounded mildly worried

"W-why isn't it working?"

"Vista, what do you mean it isn't working?" Now he sounded considerably more worried.

"There's nothing wrong with brave Vista's power," explains Pearl as she flutters in front of the wards. "I'm a kaleidostick, capable of interdimensional, multiverse-wide operation and inter-trimeline travel, there's no way simple spatial manipulation is going to stop me if I decide to move from point A to point B."

""""You what?""" Missy, Hanna and Carlos ask at the same time.

"I'm the ultimate travel aid!" A very smug Pearl declares, puffing up, or in her case, sort of bending backwards and pushing a bit of its stick forth while one of its little wings bends over to cover her 'mouth'.

It was about this time Armsmaster came back.

"Step away from the Wards," he growled, hefting his halberd at the Kalleidostrick.

"Dear sir, I couldn't step in any direction even if I wanted to, for I have no legs!"

"...flutter away from Aegis and Vista."

"But she needs me!" Objected Pearl.

""What?"" This time it was both Carlos and Missy talking together.

Pearl rose into the air, tall enough to look Armsmaster in the eye before declaring her intent.

"I am Magical Pearl, the latest version of the kaleidostick, a multiverse-powered hero-making device chosen to grant near-infinite cosmic power to a worthy heroine!" Pearl declared aloud, then floated down so she was looking slightly up at Vista. "And you, young missy, are perfect! You're so young, but you have the bone structure... and magic circuits of a magecraft genius. If your prana can be channelled, then you vill be invincible!"

"...Kung Fu Hustle?" Carlos arced an eyebrow.

"Best.Movie.Ever." declared Pearl, and Carlos couldn't help but to agree, before Pearl contiued talking to Missy. "Come on... Vista, was it?"

"Y-yes?"

"Don't you want to be respected? The amazing Kalleido Pearl, saviour of Earth-Bet! Everyone will love you, and despair!"

"That's Lord of the Rings." Aegis deadpanned.

"It's so nice when someone recognizes your movie quotes. Too bad you're a boy." Said Pearl as she twisted her body to 'look' approvingly at Carlos, who by now had relaxed a little bit. "What do you say, Vista?" Pearl turned back towards Missy. "Would you like to be the greatest hero Earth-Bet has ever seen?"

"Well... yes, so?"

"Vista, don't encourage it!" Warned Armsmaster.

"Come on, Vista. Won't you shake a poor sinner's hand?"

"Alright, I got that one, so..." commented Hanna as Pearl wiggled the end of her handle at Vista.

Armsmaster moved to intercept, when Vista timidly stretched her hand towards Pearl's handle, and the kaleidostick soomed into the young girl's grip...

~I~

"Uuuh..." Missy moped in her seat as Armsmaster's scanner roamed over her.

"Please try to remain still," the leader of the local protectorate reminded the young ward.

"Uuuh..." she groaned again, covering her face with both hands as she struggled to hide her blush.

Miss Militia and Battery spared her a commiserating smile, while Armsmaster simply continued to read the results of the scan.

"Your new uniform seems to be projectile resistant up to and including a modern battle tank's main gun," he stated after a few more moments. "Fascinating."

"Of course it is!" Cried out Pearl from inside her freshly-patched Magitech Container Device. "My precious mistress is as far above the worries of lesser heroes!"

Pearl was peeking at the procedures through a small hole she had poked on the box's side.

"It also appears impervious to radiation, though I don't see the point as it doesn't covers her completely to begin with."

"Why do police officers bother with Kevlar vests if they don't cover their arms and legs? Same answer, applied to energy beams." Pearl supplies as helpfully as she can.

Armsmaster seems to think about that for a moment, before nodding in approval.

"...why?" mumbled Vista into her hands.

"Why what?" Asked Armsmaster.

"Why did I had to get naked first, if you were just going to replace my old uniform with one looking just like it anyway!?" Cried out Missy, her blush going crimson red and stretching from tip to toe.

"Tradition. tempered by local law," explained Pearl. "The PRT owns all rights to your image, do they not? You are not legally allowed to alter your outfit's appearance in any way."

"And what part of that was tradition?" Asked a mildly bemused Battery.

"Magical girls transform! Everybody knows that!"

Hanna nodded softly. Everybody knows that, after all.

"So, you were sent to give Vista an outfit upgrade?" Asked Cockblocker, who was eating chips while observing from the far side.

"Oh! That's right!" Pearl declared as she burst out of the shoebox, and a golden portal opened in midair, causing everybody in the room to go into full alert as over a dozen fast-moving projectiles were fired at Vista, before stopping right in front of the girl and beginning to circle around her head, their near-blinding glow dimming down slowly until everyone could see the fifteen cards as they continued to float around Vista's head.

"Vista, don't touch those!" Armsmaster quickly switches to scanning the floating cards.

"Behold, the Class Cards!" Declares Pearl. "As Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg's second geatest work, these Mystic Codes carry the essence, skills and powers of the multiverse greatest heroes in a form that is conveniently pocket-sized! Parallel timelines, alternate Earths, singularities, Lostbelts and alters! The Wizard Marshall has chosen you, Missy Byron, as the saviour of Earth-Bet and entrusted you with the power of humanity's greatest heroes!"

Much to Pearl's annoyance, Miss Militia hurriedly called out to Missy, warning her about touching anything before Armsmaster can study it.

"Hm. If she doesn't bond with the cards right now, I can almost certainly guarantee it'll be trouble later, tho," chirped the Kalleidosctick.

"Well, based on the fact she won't be 'bonding' with any more unauthorized tinkertech, that won't be an issue," says Armsmaster as he places a container in the cards' flight path, and lets them float into it before closing the lid.

"You're making a mistake~♪"

"I doubt it. Vista is already going to go through M/S protocols as is because of you."

"Hmm~ well, good luck with that," Pearl commented softly, yet everyone could hear just fine.

~I~

"This sucks and it is your fault," complained Missy as she sat in the bench of her M/S observation cell.

"Its not that bad. Would you like to watch some television?" Pearl bent so the bottom of its handle pointed at the wall and began projecting some old japanese cartoons.

"I don't watch cartoons," grumbled Missy, even as she watched the colorful screen out of the corner of her eye.

Meanwhile, director Piggot was rubbing at the bridge of her nose as she contemplating what wonderful things she'll do to this ' Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg' once she got her hands on him. If such a person even existed, given that the name had all the hallmarks of a nonsensical alias.

"Do I want to know why that damn stick is in the cell with her?" She asked to the room in general.

"Apparently, now that Magical Pearl has found a master, she no longer needs to pretend we can affect it in any way. And trust me, we tried," reported a very disgrunted Armsmaster. "There's nothing anyone on the rig can do to stop it from going anywhere or doing anything. It can basically melt any container, exert more force than any of us is capable of fighting against, and seems completely unable to care about anything beyond remaining within a dozen feet of Vista at all times.

"Magical Pearl, really?" The director gave Armsmaster a look so heavy gravity may or may not have temporarily gone up inside the room.

"That is its designation, so that's what I'm calling it. To do otherwise may lead to misunderstandings, on top of being inaccurate."

"Why not just call it the stick?"

"Because it would be incorrect?" Armsmaster sounded actually confused he even needed to say as much.

Director Piggot sighed, and looked towards Miss Militia, searching for some hope.

"Considering how fast and thin a target it is, I don't feel comfortable trying to shoot at the stick inside the rig."

The director considered that, and was once again thankful for Hanna's healthy common sense.

"How are we going to keep the damn thing from compromising Vista's civilian identity if it floats behind her at all times?"

"Erh... Pearl herself said she could turn into multiple, and I quote 'appropiately adorable fashion accessories for a girl as cute as her new master', but hasn't agreed to do so as of yet, so we're simply hoping that it can really do as promised..."

"Are we really at the stick's mercy, then?"

When noone else came to her rescue, Emily looked at Armsmaster, hoping the workaholic would have a useful suggestions.

"We could simply keep Vista in the rig," he said, completely dashing Piggot's hopes.

"I doubt the youthguard would allow that. We can't basically suspend Vista's normal life for our own convenience, Colin."

"I bet I could come up with a better lesson plan that whatever the school system would put her through..." the tall man commented, more to himself than Hanna or the director.

Piggot straightened on her seat, inhaled for five seconds, and then exhaled for seven seconds in an effort to calm down.

"What can you tell me about the cards?" She looked at Colin.

"They appear to be made of metal, and are completely indestructible. If nothing else, I wish to talk with this Zelretch about his metallurgy. Honestly, they're as thick as a fingernail, but I haven't been able to dent, bend or marr them no matter what. Incredibly light, too. I could thin my armor by as much as 97% if I could so much as take a sample to study."

Piggot was mildly amused by the obvious distress on their resident chief tinker's voice.

"Alright, so beyond the material science and our inability to destroy them, what else can you tell me about them?"

"The back of the cards appears completely normal and indistinguishable from one another, but the play side shows different designs along the a medieval fantasy theme, with figures of warriors or magicians in various poses. As there's only fifteen cards, it seems fairly obvious that they're not tarot cards."

"Since I have no idea how many cards there are in a tarot deck, its not as obvious as you seem to think," commented Piggot, opening some image files that Armsmaster had sent to her email.

Indeed, the images looked like rather simple, if somewhat stylized, fantasy-style pictures of wizards, warriors and monsters.

"No visible numbers or point values, so they're not actually playing cards," Colin continued with the results of his exams. "A tarot deck is seventy eight cards, so that's not it either, though Magical Pearl insists that they are Mystic Devices, or what we'd consider as the medium for Trump powers."

"Pearl said they were basically data storage for powers, which she can download unto Vista on command," provided Hanna, and Piggot quickly decided that was not going to happen. Ever.

~I~

"Oh, you'll love installing the cards!~♪" Pearl sing-song tone was all smiles as she continued telling Vista about how awesome their adventures were going to be. "Just imagine yourself atop a mighty steed, spear in hand as you charge a mighty dragon! Oooh, or as a beautidul, dangerous assassin, your touch the last thing a nazi will ever feel before darkness claims them!"

"There is absolutely no scenario in which director Piggot will let me use the cards. I am one hundred percent sure that if she could, she lock you into a metal safe, have someone ferry you into the open sea and drop you down the side of a boat."

That made Piggot smile as she continued to watch from her office. Oh, if only she could do such a thing to 90%... no, 95% of every parahuman in the bay.

"Pffft, now that you are my master, you can simply call me to your side, and I'll be there. Same for the cards, by the way." Pearl seemed all too happy to dash Vista's expectations.

"Ugh... you are going to kill my secret identity, aren't you?"

"Oh, don't worry. I can be super discreet when I need to!"

"Really now? You?" Vista looked rather incredulous at the claim.

"Oh ye of little faith, behold!"

And with that, Pearl's handle and wings somehow shrunk into the ring surrounding its head, and she dropped to the floor as a completely inanimate object.

"...Pearl?" Missy looked at it for a couple of minutes, then up at the cameras she could feel in the ceiling, but since noone came into the cell and no instructions were forthcoming, she finally bent down and picked up the completely unresponsive... hair clip?

Yup, it was a hair clip. An incredibly cutesy, girly hairclip that Missy would never, ever admit to finding cute.

"Uh... this... may actually work," she said.

Pearl waited for another minute, then wiggled softly, stretching its handle and finally poking its wings back out from its ring.

"See? It'll be fi~ine."

"Uh."

"So, how about we go somewhere fun and you try installing a card, now? Let's go blow up some bad guys!"

"Absolutely fucking not. I'm in enough trouble as it is already."

"Missy Byron, language! A magical girl has to be an example to all girls!"

"I don't want to be a magical girl."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You don't want to try flying, befriending people with energy blasts, or transforming into grown-up versions of yourself?"

"What was that last one?!"

"...ah."

It appears, Pearl had found the chink in Vista's armor.

Author's Note: Yes, this is my first non-lemon work on this site, because sometimes I like wholesome things. If you're here because of this specific work, I really do not recommend you to look into my other fics in the site. You've been warned.

Heck, the only reason I'm uploading it here is because other sites seem to fuck up the formatting pretty badly, for some reason.

Chapter Text

Chapter II - I power-tested a Kaleidostick and all I got was this T-Shirt.

Director Piggot slammed her hand on the communicator, and yelled at the guards outside the M/S cells to activate the foam sprayers, but by the time their hands were about to, it was already too late.

"This.Is.Amazing!" A young woman with an unbelievable level of likeness to Vista was shouting excitedly while standing where the young ward had been a couple of moments prior.

Her suit was much like Vista's own, except for the addition of a scarf and the subtraction of its sleeves and skirt that PR saddled her with when she was too young to know better.

Her new, thigh-high boots have heels! She feels so grown up in her heels, she doesn't even registers the confoam spraying against the glowing green-white energy shield all around her. In all fairness though, Pearl's shield was bright enough that even while buried in confoam, the level of light inside it wasn't affected at all, and the noise of the confoam sprayers was barely more than that of a garden hose to begin with.

Besides, Vista had heels to gaze at. And awesome, thigh-high boots, and she was tall, and had curves and felt stronger than she ever had.

And then she realized she had a catalogue of brand new skills.

She couldn't call it knowledge, because she didn't get the memories of their acquisition, but she wasn't meant to. That is a safety feature, really, in order to stop Missy from developing a multiple personality disorder as lifetimes worth of memories get dumped into her very human brain.

Instead, it was nothing but the necessary neural pathways for whatever skills had made Pearl chose this particular future or alternative Vista over any other.

Not that it matters to Vista, as she is vibing with anticipation and the desire to shoot a Rod From Gof at Hookwolf the next time she sees him. Also, she's now pretty much bulletproof.

'Can't believe I didn't think of that,' she chastised herself as she considered twisting space as to force incoming bullets to aim for the ground. Honestly, she probably could force them to turn around, but it said something about her still innocent personality that the thought didn't even cross her mind.

And her high heel boots were pretty cool, too. Did she mention the boots yet? Because she had high-heel boots, and they're awesome.

Jury is still out on the scarf, tho.

Also, she just realized she knows how to kiss, now.

~II~

"We can't stop the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick, ma'am," Armsmaster was not particularly happy about the fact, but facts are facts and he wasn't the type to deny reality, "and we tried. Now that it has bonded with Vista, the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick-"

Piggot stopped him with a raised hand. "Why are you calling it all that, every time?"

"That is its name. We are professionals. If we were discussing a murder scene, you'd want to know the caliber of ammunition used, the make of the guns, angles of fire and so on."

"This isn't a murder scene, and that stick looks like a children's toy. Is this a tinker thing?"

People say Armsmaster has trouble emoting, yet everyone could tell he was mildly frustrated as he nodded, slowly.

"Whoever made it-" he began, to be gently interrupted by Hannah

"Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, according to Pearl."

Armsmaster gave her a look.

"...ccording to the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick," the patriotic heroine did her best to hide her smile.

"Right," continued Armsmaster, "the previously unknown tinker calling himself Kiss-chur Cell-retch Schw... whatever, its creator. According to Magical Pearl Kaleidosctick, its creator made it as a tool for multiversal travel and as a funnel capable of drawing minuscule amounts of energy from an unlimited number of parallel Earths. If this is true, then the Ma-" Piggot gave him a look, "the stick can, in fact, utilize infinite amounts of power. Director, quite simply, if it decides to move in a specific direction and melt whatever gets in its way, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

"Alright, so why is Vista still in the M/S cell, if we can't isolate her from the damn thing? How are we supposed to free her from its influence?"

"Because the M/S cells have more than enough sensors I can get somewhat accurate readings without asking a preteen to stay still for multiple hours inside my laboratory..." The leader of the protectorate ENE declared matter of fact.

"Just... get her out of there... and call PR," Emily sighed. 'Really, more parahuman bullshit. I swear tinkers are the worst of the lot.'

~II~

"Master, don't you want to turn back now?" Pearl asks while floating next to Missy's shoulder.

"What? No!"

"...alright."

"Is there a problem?" Vista stopped and looked at Pearl. To be honest, while it was incredibly cool to be older, taller and have Dean pause to look at her when he thought she didn't notice, she still wanted to go back to her normal self. Eventually.

In a couple of hours.

"Well, your body is the same, just... displaced," said Pearl. who suddenly found herself popping back next to Vista no matter what direction it tried to fly in.

"Explain," said the littlest... most experienced(?) ward, in a tone so cold Pearl could have swore there was some rime forming in her wings.

"Your real body is completely safe, since it has been moved into a pocket dimension. This body you are piloting is akin to what you'd call a Projection, so whatever wounds you take in this state will become irrelevant once you switch back, and-"

"I don't think any of that sounds like a bad thing," said Vista as she restarted walking towards the wards common room.

"Well, it still isn't your real body. Which still needs food and water. Eating in this body won't help with any of that. Air isn't a problem, though."

"Oh, I see. So, if I get hungry, I should switch back to eat?"

"And to exercise, and sleep, and live your daily life, yes. You shouldn't abuse the decoy body. You are still a growing girl, you need food, exercise, sun, and all the other things."

"...how come I can still see and hear out of this... uh, decoy body?"

"Your senses are connected to it."

"I guess that makes sense..."

Pearl floated a little slower for a moment, letting Vista walk a little bit ahead of herself for a couple of moments before catching up.

"Also, while I'll agree with your older self's fashion sense and admit that the high-cut thighs look great on you, perhaps your own sensibilities would be affe-"

"My what!?"

Suddenly, Vista was not okay with the PHQ staff turning around to stare at her as she passed by.

~II~

"Alright Pearl, please blast the target at the end of the room," said Dr Crue as he watched from behind the tempered glass window of the observation deck.

"Unless it is to remove obstacles preventing me from reaching my master's side, I'm not really authorized to use energy blasts. Safety feature, you see."

The scientists and Armsmaster felt a little better hearing that.

"Alright, then what if Vista is holding you at the time?"

"Of course! Master is free to blast away to her heart's content!~♪" Chirped a much more cheerful Kaleidosctick, much to the staff's worry.

"What about your energy shield?"

"Of course, I can always protect master or myself."

"Alright, what else can you do?"

"...a number of things."

"Which things?"

"It'll be easier if I print you a list," said Pearl, and the printer in the lab turned on, then got started on a 300-page pdf file.

"How are you doing that?"

"The printer is part of the PHQ wireless network, how else would I do that?"

"And how did you connect to the network?"

"My master gave me her login and password, of course. Once she understood I have effectively infinite storage and broadband capacity, plus the ability to access public networks across multiple Earths, she asked me to download her the entire run of Earth-Aleph's My Litt-"

"Fan Mail! I wanted Pearl to help manage my fan mail!" Cried out Vista.

~II~

"Alright Vista, please blast the target at the end of the wall," Dr Crue repeated himself, this time with Vista holding the Kaleidostick by the handle.

"How hard?"

"Start with however much power you can, then we'll tone it down as needed."

"Alright," Vista looked at Pearl, "are you ready?"

"Of course, Master. A befriended-grade blast, coming right up!"

~II~

"...how was I supposed to know nobody here had watched Nanoha? You know about My Little Po-" Pearl tried to defend herself, but Vista just closed the shoebox as the Kaleidostick was placed on time out after blasting the north side of the PHQ and several sea side cliffs before its blast kept going out of the atmosphere and lost itself into the depths of space.

"We'll watch it when we get home," said Vista, with a sigh.

Armsmaster seemed to think about it.

"Actually, if this show will help us form a frame of reference for Pearl's Blaster Rating, perhaps we should watch it now."

~II~

"You know, I never thought I'd see the day..." commented Battery as she stood by the entrance to the wards common room with Hannah, and saw that yes, Armsmaster is watching cutesy japanese cartoons with the wards.

"I am not complaining," replied Hannah, "it is literally supposed to be part of his job to spend time with the wards. Watching over their training, tracking their progress and wellbeing. all that. He just focuses so much on being the best he can be, I think he completely forgets that there's more to being the protectorate leader than just focusing on his own performance. When we were in the wards, Hero used to take us out for pizza from time to time, heard us out whenever he thought we could use a friendly adult, and I can assure you, none of us thought any less of him because he wasn't tinkering or training all day, every day. Hero... he was an incredibly inspiring role model."

"Well, its nice to see he's finally doing his job, then?"

Hannah couldn't help but nod as Armsmaster, Vista, Kid Win, Clockblocker and Pearl sat down to watch the first season of Nanoha. Well, Pearl was floating behind them and acting as a projector for everybody.

Despite his colleagues whispering to each other under the noise of the admittedly colorful show, Colin's armor had good enough sensors to track their conversation and convert it to text, and he couldn't help but feel guilty about it. Yes, Hannah was completely right, and he was doing an awful job of filling his mentor's shoes, wasn't he? He resolved to talk with Dragon about it, and ask her to help him be a better role model for the wards. One closer to Hero.

Then again, he wasn't sure if he even knew of any good pizza places in Brockton Bay, but that's what customer reviews were for, right?

~II~

"Alright, so as long as Vista is holding to Pearl, her Blaster Rating is Yes. Am I understanding this correctly?" Director Piggot rubbed at the bridge of her nose and looked at the incident report on her hands from top to bottom one more time.

"That would be correct, but we haven't measured how long it takes her to reload in between blasts of that magnitude, for obvious reasons. Maybe if we could borrow the army's firing range, or sail off to international waters..." replied Deputy Director Renick

"Why would we need to sail off to international waters?"

"Because the US people and government tends to look very poorly on nuclear weapons testing, and there's always a chance such a thing will attract Scion."

Piggot gave the man a stare even as her hands crunpled the document on her hands.

"Are you seriously telling me that Vista's toy wand can shoot nukes?"

"Well, its not really a nuclear blast, of course. It just has a comparable yield, so-"

"And Crue had her fire that inside PHQ?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Alright, dock his salary for the month, pending a psych evaluation on his motherfucking common sense, then tell him to power test Vista's doom stick again, and to start with its lowest setting, before working their way up to 'fuck Lung' levels and calling it quits, understood?"

"Yes ma'am."

"What about the Changer ability?"

"Right now, it appears to be limited to older versions of Vista herself, though according to Pearl after she read through our documentation and procedures xo she could 'talk our language', it would seem Pearl is also a power-granting Trump when used in conjunction with the... Class Cards?"

"I don't suppose we can lock those away from Vista, can we?"

"According to Pearl-"

"Yes or No, please."

"No ma'am. Pearl can apparently teleport them to Vista at will."

"Alright, alright... I don't suppose we can just tell Vista not to use them and be done with it, either?"

"In an ideal world, and considering Vista's personality and general cooperaive attitude, absolutely. In Brockton Bay? I am sure a situation will come up where she'll find it necessary to..."

"Yes, I know." Piggot stopped him with a raised hand. "Just... test those too, then. Somewhere other than PHQ, please. Preferably somewhere we can afford getting blown up."

"Yes ma'am."

~II~

"Thanks for letting me come along," said Clockblocker as he opened his backpack and reached in for a bag of Doritos.

"You are her teammate, so you'll need this information," said Armsmaster, "and there's nothing in procedure about forbidding a ward from witnessing power testing."

"Cool."

With Shadow Stalker not asking to tag along, Aegis in console duty, Kid Win and Gallant on patrol, that left Clockblocker as the only ward that could (and cared to) tag along for Vista's latest attempt at power testing.

This time, the tests were being performed about 12 miles north of the bay, atop rocky cliffs overlooking the sea, so that Vista could blast at the water without worry of hitting anything or anyone.

Armsmaster checked the connections for all the measuring gear they brought along one more time, then looked up at the cloudy winter sky. Conveniently, the thick clouds meant that despite it being a very sunny day, the light was heavily diffused and there were nearly no shadows to be found, which he found to be as close to ideal for the battery of tests they had in mind.

"Hey, Vista. what do you want to bet your doomstick will break the testing gear?" Dennis asked before chomping on a dorito.

"I will not!" argued Vista.

"I would rather you don't," added Armsmaster, "but I am also going to raise a tarp over the equipment, just in case the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick blows up a large enough amount of water the drizzle reaches us anyway."

Dennis nodded along, thinking it sounded perfectly reasonable, while Vista looked mildly offended.

"Hey, Pearl. That kind of sounds like a challenge, doesn't it?" Added Dennis as he chomped on another dorito.

"I am much too smart to fall for such obvious bait," replied Pearl. "You'll have to bet something if you want me to try for it."

"Nah, you don't have pockets, I doubt you have money. How could you pay for whatever you lose?"

"Who's saying I'd lose?"

"Me. I'm saying you'd lose."

"Oh, you're on!"

"Dennis!" Cried out Vista as she grabbed Pearl by the handle and pulled her down. "Don't incenti- don't trick Pearl into blowing things up!"

"Eeeeh!? I was tricked!?"

A few minutes later, the tarp was firmly in place and everything seemed ready to begin. Armsmaster opened the Secure Tinkertech Containment Device they were keeping the Class Cards in, and turned towards Vista and Pearl.

"This is Armsmaster for the record," began Colin, "and I am handing Vista her newly acquired 'Class Cards', which the tinkertech device identified as Magical Pearl Kaleidostick has identified as power granting devices. We are out eleven miles north of Brockton Bay to test that out."

Armsmaster starts spreading out the cards over the table in five rows of three.

"Pearl," began Armsmaster, "why do the cards' aesthetics differ so greatly from your own?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your aesthetics are very... youthful."

"Ow chucks, thank you!"

"On the other hand, the illustrations on the cards could be described as serious or even threatening, to a degree."

"The cards are an older invention, meant for bitter and grim, boring grownups with no sense of humour, while I am not."

"I am extremely aware, and I want to have a long conversation about your creator and why, exactly, is it that you were designed to fit with and attract young minors."

"Less corrupted, more trustworthy. Not much else to it, really." Pearl shrugs, which is rather surprising for someone without arms, though her wings managed just fine.

"Hm. Anyway, back to the cards, if you don't mind."

Pearl nods nods, and floats up gently from Vista's hand towards the table, moving the cards around into a different order.

"First you have the thrree knightly classes, or the Archer, Lancer and Saber. Archers specialize in long-range attacks, while Sabers are melee specialists and Lancers tend to fit somewhere in between... I suppose you'd call them Blasters, Brutes and Grab Bags?"

"Alright. Please proceed." Armsmaster adjusted his HUD so it would overlay 'Saber' 'Lancer' and 'Archer' over their corresponding cards, then continued to do so as Pearl explained the rest of the cards, ending with 'Shielder'.

"Installing the cards will allow my Master to transform into the heroes they represent, which in your organization's system, would by default give her a Changer rating, and maybe a Stranger rating, depending on which Card she is using at the time," explains Pearl.

"As expected from different power sets," Armsmaster nods. "Please continue."

"Unlike with other versions of herself, there is a maximum time for a Card-based transformation, though that time will go up as she gets more used to that particular card. We call that a 'Bond Value," all of whom are at zero right now, and can go as far up as ten."

"And the time will increase as the Bond Value goes up, seems straightforward enough."

Dennis chomps down on the last of his doritos, and stores the empty package away in one of his backpack's pockets, with the crumbling of the bag interrupting the conversation for a couple of moments.

Seeing as they are all looking at him (with Pearl having twisted around to do so), he adds his own two cents.

"I mean, if the whole thing was designed for chil-" he coughs into his hand and corrects himself when he notices the look Vista is shooting at him, "I mean, for ease of use, so you'd want it to be as simple to understand as possible, correct? I'm surprised the cards aren't color-coded."

"That seems... fair." Vista leans her head slightly to the left.

After the brief interruption, Pearl continues.

"Well, lets begin by testing Vista's powers with the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick before we involve the cards, I think." He gestures to a series of metal plates placed some 10ft behind each other along the edge of the cliff. "Please begin with as low power a blast as you can manage after I give the signal, understood?"

"Yes."

Armsmaster and Clockblocker move behind a temporally placed blast shield, and Armsmaster checks to make sure their recording equipment is working as intended.

"Alright, please fire when ready."

Vista arms the Kaleidostick and smiles as she calls out the shot.

"Bang."

A beam of green-white light hits the target near the middle, and pushes it a couple of inches back while leaving a visible mark on its paint, but no dent.

"That should be enough to stun an unpowered gang member, so let's call that your default when dealing with such people, alright?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, start turning up the power until you make a noticeable dent on the target..."

Over the next two hours or so, they perforated all the targets and learned that while Vista can fire off low-power blasts pretty much forever, 'fuck off Lung' blasts forced almost half a minute of recharge time on Pearl, so it would be important to work on Vista's aim.

Both to ensure every shot counts, and to lower the chances of collateral damage or friendly fire.

"Alright, I am going to schedule you for two hours a week in the PHQ firing range, at your lowest setting, understood?"

"Yes sir."

Armsmaster nodded, wishing all the wards (and some of his colleagues) were as cooperative as the youngest ward.

"That should do it for your Blaster rating. What else can you do while holding the Magical Pearl Kaleidostick?"

"You can just call me Pearl, you know?"

"Is that what your creator calls you?"

"I mean, yes? Unless he's using the 'you're in trouble' voice, but you know how dads are..."

Everyone present nodded to one degree or another.

"Alright then. What else can you do for young Vista?"

"Shield, flight, enhanced ballistic and energy resistance. I believe you'd rate her as a Brute three and Mover four. No enhanced strength, though."

"So, your typical flying artillery piece," adds Clockblocker. "Purity, Laserdream and Legend have no problem making it work for them, and they don't have the shield bit. I think. Actually, can you fire while keeping your shield up? I'm sure that'd be important."

Armsmaster nods, noting not for the first time that Dennis can be perfectly insightful when he tries.

"Can I?" Vista asks Pearl.

"Can you?" Replies the Kaleidostick, voice perfectly even.

"What?"

"Its up to you. I know of at least one Kaleidostick wielder who has no issue flying on her own, while another can only run from one self-created platform to the next. Your Kaleidostick mileage may vary according to your imagination and understanding."

"Huh."

Vista focused, and a greenish-white bubble came into existence around her. Then she turned back towards the targets.

Armsmaster and Clockblocker walked back behind the targets, and Vista opened fire again. There were no problems as she opened a tiny hole on her shield and poked Pearl's head through it to fire away.

~II~

Meanwhile at Cauldron HQ...

Contessa was busying herself with a brand new eagerness for self-improvement. Right now, that meant browsing through a dictionary and expanding her vocabulary as to lower her dependency on her shard's translating modern concepts and ideas into terms that would be familiar to her original society.

Currently she was beginning the letter B, which was not bad at all, when one considers that she had thoroughly exhausted every single word beginning with A, their synonyms, and related concepts in barely two days, really.

Or as any wiki diver would know, tabs lead to tabs lead to tabs.

Regardless, now she was familiar with concepts such as 'automation' and 'asinine', the later of which gave her a whole new perspective on David's speech as the manchild suggested they should track down their visitor and demand answers out of him.

"And how do you propose we do so, when Clairvoyant cannot find him in any of the Earths we can still access?" Asked Doctor Mother, a little more calmly than she really felt.

"Well, I... uh..."

"I thought as much. Now, our visitor said he wouldn't endanger another living soul on our behalf, yet he still sent this... Magical Pearl Kaleidostick to Brockton Bay? Did someone attach the wrong picture to this file?"

To be fair, Pearl does look like something a prepubescent child would wave around with joy.

"You know that's not the case," commented Rebecca.

"One can hope. Now, should we confiscate this device? It claims to have access to an infinity of parallel Earths, so it can still bypass our visitor's 'lock', correct?"

"Only through micro wormholes, for the purpose of channeling a few motes worth of energy from them. I doubt we could send a radio message through one, let alone a scouting force."

"Are we really going to rely on a twelve years old to fight Scion?" David facepalmed and rubbed at his eyes. "We can surely produce a better candidate."

"The... stick." repeated the Number Man, "refuses to 'bond' with a different master, and so far it looks like we can't really move it, stop it or even suggest it to do anything it doesn't want to do."

Yes, David was indeed incredibly powerful, but Contessa was beginning to wonder if being strong was equivalent to being a good tactician. Why was he sitting at the planning table, again?

Chapter Text

Chapter III - ‘Saber’ equals Sword Beams

The next phase of Missy's power testing included extending her shield over a target and seeing how hard it would be to damage said target. Honestly? This was a lot safer than it sounds like, no matter what the Youth Guard may have to say about it.

Two pedestals were prepared, one with a target, the other with a weapon mount to ensure the weapon would hit the target (and only the target) dead center every time it was fired. Like this, Armsmaster felt confident enough to have Missy stand (relatively) close to the target so she could stretch her shield over it before opening fire.

The results show that the basic shield is tough enough to stand up to automatic shotgun levels of firepower, but an anti-material rifle would be enough to pop it, at least when it is stretched beyond Missy's body. However, if she focuses on nothing but the shield, then it would be strong enough to withstand an autocannon's firepower.

However, that means no flying, no blasts, nothing but the shield.

"Very impressive," commented Armsmaster as he wrote down his findings.

"Yee~es?" Clockblocker looked first at Armsmaster, then at Vista with a complicated expression.

"Would you like to suggest something?" The blue armored hero asked after a moment.

"Well, if Vista is completely focused on her shield, shouldn't she just do her space manipulation thingie and deflect incoming fire to the ground like she was talking about earlier?"

""..."" Both Armsmaster and Vista look at Dennis, then at each other before Armsmaster starts disassembling the weapon pedestal and mount.

"What? Is it a bad idea for some reason?"

"No, its just... ah..." Vista looks away

"That is not the point of this exercise," supplies Armsmaster.

"Yes, that."

"Uh." Dennis shrugs and looks for any snacks he may have left, opening a package of mints.

"Well, that seems to be all the powers the Magi- I mean, Pearl gives you, correct?" Asks Armsmaster. "Other than the Changer powers."

"...I think so?" Vista holds Pearl in front of her face, arm fully stretched out as she looks at it.

"I also have broadband internet access, live video and audio capability, a scientific calculator, text messaging and a horoscope!" Pearl announces, sounding mighty proud of itself.

"A horoscope, really?" Asks Dennis, fairly unimpresed.

"You do remember I was designed for the perusal of young ladies, yes?"

"Right."

"Besides, this isn't your newspaper balooney, this is based on highly systematized formulae. Its not going to say 'you should wear blue today,' you know?"

"Then what is it going to say?" Asks Armsmaster, sounding slightly amused.

"You could ask for a raise, avoud travelling to Rome, or this is the beginning of Saber week."

"Saber week?"

"Also known as Saber Wars, it is a silly time."

"""...""" Armsmaster, Dennis and Missy gave Pearl a look, but chose not to say anything else.

~III~

"Uh, I didn't know her royal smugness was epileptic," commented Alec in between sips of his Dr. Pepper.

"She's not! ...I think. Just, grab me a pillow from the couch and help me take her jacket off-"

"I never thought I'd claim the moral high ground boss, but taking advantage of-"

"Oh for fuck's sake, Alec! We're supposed to make her comfortable until she calms down!"

"Oh. Ooooh, well, that's a lot less fun," said Alec, though he still went over to the couch for a pillow.

Brian couldn't understand, epilepsy's supposed to trigger with bright, stroboscopic lights, so why did Lisa start spasming after looking at the picture of a children's toy? It isn't even a gif, so what was the problem?

~III~

"And now finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, the install!" Announces Pearl as Missy holds it aloft. "Please raise me more, Master," the Kaleidosctick stage-whispers as it makes an effort to emit soft light and sparkles. There's even the occasional golden star flying off.

"Like this?" Missy does her best, and even raises to her tippy toes to push Pearl aloft.

"Yes, perfect, now use me to tap one of the cards and call out 'Install', Master!"

"Install!"

Missy pokes the Ruler card with the ring surrounding Pearl's ...head? The little star at the top. She pokes the Ruler card with the ring surrounding the star at the end of Pearl's body, and calls out 'Install.'

Nothing happens.

"You need to say it louder~"

"Install!!"

An explosion of light green and white burst forth from some mysterious point behind Vista (regardless of where she's being observed from, its origin is opposite to her observer's), and as waves of little stars and beams of soft green-white light burst, Vista's figure is (almost) completely obscured by the illusion of a starry sky! As her Wards uniform visibly evaporates like a shadow under sunlight, the Ruler card glows white and is visibly absorbed by Pearl as Vista turns in mid air, her glowing figure quickly being covered by z pair of denim shorts and bikini top and a bolero leather jacket.

"Uh..." Dennis emotes, intelligently.

"..." Armsmaster says nothing at all.

"Behold, Summer da Vinci!" Pearl calls aloud.

"Don't reveal a hero's civilian identity, please." Armsmaster says to Pearl, then turns towards Dennis. "Clockblocker, I'm assuming you plan to share that video, correct? make sure you delete that bit first."

"Got it."

Missy twists and turns, looking at herself.

"Pearl, this one of the multiverse's strongest heroes? I barely changed at all!" Vista demands from the Kaleidostick, then realizes she's holding a pair of toy-like guns instead of Pearl. "I like the hair, tho."

"You know how strong and tough a Brute 1 is?"

"Yes...?"

"Summe-" Armsmaster clears his throat, so Pearl corrects herself before continuing. "Using your measurement system, I believe Ruler would be a Thinker 7, with a specialty in hard light constructs."

""..."" Dennis just stares, and has to catch his phone before it hits the ground, while Armsmaster is almost vibing in place, his normally stoic expression morphing into an intrigued one as he eyes Ruler's 'guns'.

"Extraordinary, but with such a specialization and Tinker rating, why isn't she wearing some type of armor?" Asks Armsmaster. "Force field generator, I assume?"

"No," explains Pearl helpfully, "Ruler is tough enough to qualify as a Brute 5 on that alone, and she takes massively reduced damage from all sources, so whatever armor she chose to wear would be little more than decorative in nature..."

"If her Earth's PR department is anything like ours, I bet they designed her looks by committee, too." Dennis visibly shivers for a couple of moments. "Do you think they have a Glenn Chambers equivalent?"

That causes Armsmaster, Clockblocker and Vista to shiver in shared misery.

"Hm. With time, Tinkers tend to dip into most other power ratings, such as Brute, Mover or Thinker anyway, so what about miss Ruler?" Asks Armsmaster as he eyes the 'gun' in Vista's hand.

"Well, I supposes she qualifies as a combat Thinker? But isn't assigning extra ratings to people based on tools kind of inane? I mean, does that mean every person with a pilot license has a Mover rating? Wait, you have a motorcycle, correct? Do you have a Mover rating?" Pearl asks, her voice coming from the gun in Vista's hand.

"Management likes to quantify everything and anything." Nods Armsmaster.

"Uh. Well, she's also a polymath, and can pilot, drive or steer pretty much any kind of vehicle you could imagine with better than professional skill."

"I believe that would probably be included within the Thinker rating you mentioned before," supplies Armsmaster. "Now, I'd like to examine those weapons of hers before asking Vista for a demonstration."

Vista is about to hand them over, when Pearl talks again.

"You'll find that you can't disassemble them or take samples. No more than you could disassemble me, anyway." Pearl tries not to sound smug about it. "If you are genuinely worried about malfunctions and such, keep in mind that they are basically reproduced in their optimal state."

"Hm, I would still want to test-fire them before asking Vista to do the same." Armsmaster states in what is probably a perfectly reasonable way for the leader of the local protectorate to feel about handing guns to a Ward.

"Same safety features as with myself. It will simply not work for anyone but master. Besides, Ruler is a Brute, are you sure you can handle the kind of kick a Brute's guns can put out?"

At this point, Colin was beginning to feel more than a little frustrated, but he couldn't help but think that Hero wouldn't appreciate it if he threw a 'hissy fit' about a fellow tinker reasonably making sure her weapons were identity locked.

He still sighed, tho.

"Alright, but only because you mentioned miss Ruler's relatively high Brute rating, which makes me think she could probably handle a misfire with little trouble. I'm still letting an untrained ward handle a gun, after all."

"In the future, I think I will refer to them as hardlight generators."

That gave Colin pause.

"That... will probably help a lot," Armsmaster nodded. Thankfully, the colorful guns already look mostly like toys, and hardlight generators will make most people think of some kind of exotic flashlight. "Alright Vista, Pearl already said you'd get the skills associated with installing a card. How do you feel about the hardlight generators ? Think you know how to use them?"

"...actually, yes. It feels completely natural in my hand."

"In that case, I'll set some more targets."

~III~

"So," Director Piggot said once she was done reading the report on the capabilities of Vista's hardlight generators, "they fire... sorry, I meant, they project 'brightly colored baby dinosaur-shaped energy constructs' with an auto-target, auto-tracking function. PR is going to love her."

"I gathered as much," comments Armsmaster.

"Alternatively," she continues, "she can use them to move around at high speeds, either by having her constructs carry her around, or using the kick of her guns- I mean, her hardlight generators and I can already tell PR will make absolutely sure we all say that every single time, just in case there's a camera nearby, to bounce around the battlefield like a squirrel on a sugar rush."

"That is correct," offered Armsmaster.

"I assume you didn't test her Brute rating yet?"

"Of course not. We will do that tomorrow evening, in a laboratory with all due safety precautions taken into account."

"Good, so how many other Class Cards did you try while on your little road trip?"

"Two more," Armsmaster handed another brown folder to the Director, who handed Ruler's folder to Rennick so he could read it and hand it around the meeting table.

Director Piggot looked at the picture, then back at Armsmaster before looking at the picture again.

"This is..."

~III~

"...a case 53?"

As the light effects of her transformation into Caster die down, Dennis blinks as his phone tilts slightly so he can look at Missy with his own two eyes.

"Uhm. Honestly, I'd say no," explains Armsmaster, "after all, she still has her memories, so not all the requisites for a case 53 are met."

"Oh!" Missy checks herself out, twisting around to look at her three very, very fluffy tails, "these feel like they'd be great to cuddle with..."

As she does so, Caster's rather generous cleavage threatens to spill forth from her small navy seal kimono, causing Dennis to quickly avent his eyes to the south.

"Heretic!" He cries out amusedly.

"Whut?" Missy straightens up to look dead at him.

"Sandals with socks is heresy, you heretic." He deadpans.

"...you know what, at least they match my overall color theme."

Armsmaster turns around one of the screens so Missy can look at herself.

"Are those...?" asks Missy, wiggling her fluffy ears a couple of times as her hands hover next to them.

She immediately checks the sides of her head.

"Oh thanks fuck they're still there."

Dennis snorts, and Armsmaster lets out a smile, then clears his throat.

"So, the Caster card, what are the capabilities of its hero?" He asks to Pearl, who is currently transformed into a mirror and floating along behind Missy.

"Blaster and ...is a ranged healer a kind of Trump, or a kind of Blaster? Your Panacea is qualified as a Striker because she's a touch-only healer, correct?"

"Trumps can grant, modify or negate powers on others or themselves." Provides Armsmaster.

"Oh, so then a Blaster and a Trump, since Tamamo-" Armsmaster makes a 'cut!' gesture, and Pearl harrumphs and continues. "Since Caster can make powers more cooperative with their users, and heal at range."

Armsmaster looks at Dennis, who nods in understanding. Yup, he'll have to cut that bit out again before sharing the video anywhere.

"Well, we can't test Caster's healing at present, so what about the Trump side of her powers? Oh, and does she has any physical powers?"

"Well, she is an incredibly high combat Thinker if we are talking only about her coordination and reflexes, but also barely stronger and tougher than a Brute 1."

Armsmaster nods, considering that a healer really doesn't need to be a front liner to be effective, and one that can safely retreat from conflict would in fact be preferred, which means Caster may become extremely important if her healing proves half as effective as Panacea's. Plus, he can already guess Director Piggot's opinion as well as that of the PR department, if for wildly different reasons.

~III~

"Have her healing tested asap . I am looking forward to not needing to call for New Wave's prickly teenager every time we have a medical emergency." Piggot says with as close to an honest smile as her face will go.

And depending on how invasive 'Caster' is when healing someone, perhaps...

"Of course, Director, I already called ahead and got her an appointment at the hospital for tomorrow's evening." The blue armored hero replies, approvingly.

"PR is going to love her, aren't they? I can already see the plushie dolls." Assault/Ethan comments after looking at some pictures of Vista in her 'Caster' persona. Battery leans in to look at the pictures, and nods.

"How tall is she?" She asks after realizing there's nothing to use as reference in the pictures, since its all pictures of Caster/Vista with the sea in the background.

"A hundred and sixty centimeters, exactly." Colin supplies right away.

"And in freedom units?" Assault asks with a serious expression.

"Five point Two," Armsmaster deadpans.

"Oh, so she's a cute, fluffy and conventionally attractive healer who also happens to be petite enough to be non-threatening to anyone involved? PR is so going to love her."

He hands the pictures to Battery, who hands them over to Miss Militia.

"She's barely tougher than a Brute 1, correct? Can we get some armor on her?" Hannah asks after a moment's contemplation.

"Considering the Magi- I mean, Pearl has stated that it isn't recommended for Vista to remain transformed for long periods of time, Vista would have to carry whatever armor we give to her on a backpack at all times just in case she needs to transform into Caster."

"Lets not add extra weight on a 12 years old kit, Hanna." Velocity/Robin opinionates. "There's not a single grunt in existence that wouldn't complain about carrying unnecessary weight over long periods of time, and those are adults." He receives the pictures and looks at them for a moment. "Are we sure we can't convince Pearl to just modify Caster's outfit?"

"Quite."

~III~

"Absolutely not!" Pearl denies emphatically. "Your PR department already owns my master's hero likeness and pays her no royalties for her own merchandise. I refuse to cater to their whims."

"What about giving her some extra armor? A visor to help hide her face?" Asks Dennis.

"I mean, that's simply not part of hero culture where Caster comes from," Pearl shrugs, which is quite a sight when she's just a round, floating mirror.

"Hm... could we make the skirt a little longer...?" Asks Missy, trying to pull down on the hem of her kimono, but not so far down that her top suffers a wardrobe malfunction.

"Denied. You're the very embodiment of playful beauty, Master." Pearl goes silent for a moment, then adds. "But Caster does have some alternative outfits?"

"Oh, that's good to know, so lets try those!"

~III~

Armsmaster hands the newest round of pictures to Director Piggot, who nods approvingly and hands them over so they begin going around the table.

"Oh that's gorgeous. Is that some sort of ceremonial kimono?" Battery looks like she's about to gush over the longer version of Caster's outfit before she passes the pictures over.

"I don't care how agile she is or how highly rated a Combat Thinker she is, it has to be hell to do anything with any sort of skill in that." Comments Velocity.

"Vista appeared unaffected either way," Armsmaster shrugs. "It doesn't even seems to affect her body temperature, according to my helmet's thermal camera."

"Well, so long as she's comfortable..." Hannah comments while looking at the pictures of Vista in Caster's royal robes. "You tested one more, right?"

~III~

"Ah, sword beams I mean, Saber!" Chirps Pearl as Vista picks the last card they'll test for the day.

"Sword beams?" Asks Dennis.

"Sword beams." Confirms Pearl. "Also, may or may not be a saberface."

"Wut?"

"Don't worry about it. Sabers just tend to be very marketable."

"Alright...?"

"Now, behold the majestic glory of highschool Saber!"

A transformation sequence later...

"I thought the highschool bit was a joke!" Vista cries out as she looks at herself as a highschool girl with a uniform that isn't that different from the one she wears at Immaculata, including the thin tie, though with a shorter skirt.

Or is it a normal-length skirt on a particularly leggy girl? No, Saber's skirt definitively counts as a miniskirt, doesn't it?

"Uh, this one also has fox ears, or are those a leftover from Caster?" Asks Armsmaster as he looks 'Saber' over.

"No, no, these are all Suzuka's... I mean, Saber's."

"...you know what? Considering how unlikely it is for Caster or Saber to keep secret identities given their very identifiable extra bits, I suppose its fine, but try to get used to keeping their names to yourself in the future, please."

"Got it~♪"

Vista tries moving around for a bit, looking at herself on screen as she does so.

"Saber is really limber... like, really limber." She says as she easily lifts a leg on a vertical split, then easily lowers it back to the ground in a slow circle with no balance issues whatsoever.

"Well, she is a classically trained dancer," Pearl chirps from the side, her voice coming from Saber's right katana. "Do you want to change to her dancer outfit?"

"Hm? No, no, I think this is fine...?" Vista says while looking at Armsmaster for his opinion.

"This should be fine." He confirms. "Now, about Saber's capabilities? Oh, and Dennis?"

Clockblocker is already deleting the bit about Saber's name so he just offers a thumbs up at the blue-armored hero, who nods in appreciation.

"On the lower end for a mid-level Brute, but as an incredibly high-rating combat Thinker, she can easily identify and target weak spots on whatever or whoever she happens to be up against, plus she's easily a genius when it comes to wielding her swords. She also has multiple driving and piloting licenses." Pearl supplies as helpfully as she can.

"That seems to be a recurring theme?"

"We call it the Riding skill. Honestly, I can't imagine a hero who wouldn't find it useful to know how to drive, if need be."

"Sir, do you think I could take the driving exam?" Asks Vista.

"Like Pearl said, I can't think of a reason to say no, if you learn to do so properly, though I'm sure the Youth Guard will have something to say about it."

"Aww." Vista pauses for a moment, then perks back up. "Can I try the sword beams now?"

~III~

"...and that's how we got a mid-afternoon starfall yesterday." Explains Armsmaster as he accesses the projector of the meeting room, and shows as Vista, with the Saber card equipped, easily hops on top of a boulder by the sea side and conjures dozens and dozens of golden swords high in mid air, then gestures towards the targets and begins what brocktonites thought was a sudden star shower in the sky north of town.

"How many of those can she make, and how accurate are they?" Hanna asks after a moment of silence.

"We tried with 'friendly' targets marked blue in the second test, and she had no issue avoiding them."

Then Armsmaster shows video of Saber/Vista swinging her swords in such a way as to hurl wind blades at individual targets, or jumping at them and spinning in mid air fast enough to make a very believable buzzaw.

"However much of a genius with the sword 'Saber' may be, I doubt PR will be happy with Vista being involved in the kind of conflicts that would necessitate such a thing." Armsmaster states, bringing everybody back down to Earth.

"Better to hacve it and not need it," supplies Assault, "than to need it and not have it."

That causes everyone to nod or agree in different ways.

"I believe we can all agree that 'Caster' looks like the most promising card, with 'Ruler' as a strong contender and 'Saber' as an ace-in-the-hole?" Director Piggot asks to the room in general, and everyone seems to agree.

"I am curious about Pearl's comment on Caster being able to make powers work better, myself." Supplies Hannah. "Maybe I can finally make something other than weapons?"

"I'd like to be able to interact with the word while going at super speeds," Velocity agrees from the side.

"I'd like to see what Caster can do to help Kid Win or myself." Armsmaster agrees.

"Yes well, before you go into a tinker fugue and we lose you for a few days, please test her healing first." Deadpans Piggot, and Armsmaster nods in agreement. "Try and set space in your schedule so you can take Vista and whoever wants to tag along to test three more cards next week, and then the week after that and so on until you've gone through all fifteen. That's all."

With everyone in agreement, and the heroes correctly interpreting Piggot's words for the dismissal that they are, everyone starts emptying the meeting room.

~III~

"Really, Vista? I mean REALLY? You transform into a combat thinker and the first thing you do is crush people online?" Says Dennis/Clockblocker in his best disappointed tone, looking down at his friends as they chill in the wards common room with snack bags and soft drinks to either side of them.

"Shh... that's Uber and he doesn't know its us." Chris/Kid Win hurriedly shushes their friend. "I signed Vista for Uber and Leet's livestream tournament. If they lose, they have to donate all the sign-up money to charity."

Dennis considers this for a moment, lowers his hand and with a nod and a shrug, moves to the side so Vista/Saber doesn't has to lean to the side to see the screen around him anymore.

"You know what? Its for a good cause," he says as he moves behind the couch and leans in to support his elbows on its back, looking at the screen. "But he's winning?"

"Nah, just letting him talk big before I do this..." Says Vista, and proceeds to recreate Moment #37 on Earth Bet.

Dennis needs to perform a Heimlick on Chris to save him from death by cheeto as Uber starts raging live on the stream. Vista/Saber is cackling as she shit talks over the microphone.

"Like, I’ve totally never played this before. Are you, like, for real Uber and not Super Lame?" Says Vista/Saber in her best valley girl impersonation. "Like, I'm totes 12, what's your excuse?"

"New girl? Wait, you're 12!?" Asks Carlos as he walks in at just the right time to hear that last bit. "...what the hell are they feeding girls now?" he adds softly at the end.

Vista cackles harder.

Chapter Text

Chapter IV - A New Hope

It is a period of civil unrest. The Parahuman Response Team, striking from their public base in a former oil rig right in the middle of the bay, have acquired a Kaleidostick and thus won their first victory against normalcy and Common Sense.

"The Protectorate, which is a separate thing, is subordinate to the PRT. The rig is protectorate headquarters, not PRT," explains Vista in a deadpan tone.

Due to a field commander's treachery, villainous spies managed to steal the PRT secret plans to fool the villains of Brockton Bay into thinking they're getting 'a shitload of reinforcements'. All thanks to their ultimate weapon, the MAGICAL PEARL KALEIDOSTICK, an adorable and corky mystic code with enough firepower to destroy an entire planet, and MAGICAL GIRL VISTA, her amazing and beautiful master.

Pursued by the villain's sinister agents, Princess Vista races to school aboard her starship, custodian of the ability to transform into multiple Heroic Spirits that can save her people and restore freedom to the bay...

"Pearl, why are you narrating? And this is a PRT van, not a starship. Also, please don't talk so loud once we're at school. I have a secret identity to maintain!" Vista whine-begs as Pearl insists on acting as if she's in a movie, for some reason.

"But master, this is episode four! How could I not!?"

"...I have no idea what you are talking about."

Lt Christoff, though, takes notice of the 'villainous agents' and 'corrupt field commander' comments, and calls back to base, just in case.

And Coil drops the timeline.

Apparently, no matter how he tries to disguise his agents, the 'damn stick' can sniff them out a literal mile away, and it always ends with Armsmaster and Miss Militia counter-ambushing them before they have a chance to steal the thing.

It already incapacitated his Tattletale just by existing and being whatever the hell it is, but to make things worse, it keeps ruining his plans in the most doltish ways possible. If not downright name-dropping his involvement and forcing him to drop the timeline before his entire operation becomes exposed.

'Just... how the hell does it know about me? Did it sniff out my bugs at PHQ and track them back here, or did it piggyback on my backdoors in the PRT network or...'

Well, to be fair, this isn't the first Worm timeline Zelretch has ever observed, and its not as if he wouldn't impart some basic, relevant information unto Pearl's database. You'd think that means Coil is absolutely screwed, but honestly in the great scheme of things, Pearl rates him so low on her 'its-a-threat meter' that if he'd just stopped, she'd happily forget about him.

And yet Thomas Calvert can't just stop being a control freak, and a powerful, small and portable power-granting tinkertech tool is not something he can just skip on, so he keeps trying.

~IV~

"Pearl, what are you doing?" Vista whisper-shouts as suddenly she's seeing the world through a HUD despite being in school, in her regular uniform, and not wearing her visor.

"I'm projecting directly into your retina, master. As you can see, there's four bad guys closing in on your location."

A useful red arrow pops up in front of Vista's field of view, pointing at a handy little minimap of her surroundings, showing all the green dots that are her school mates and teachers, as well as four red dots that are coming towards her classroom from the hallway.

Choosing between keeping her secret identity or endangering her classmates, Missy erects some space distortion fields to ensure any shots are redirected into the ground, enlarges the hallway so the unknown agents have to run a couple miles to reach her classroom doors, and hits the panic button on her PRT cellphone.

Coil drops the timeline.

~IV~

"Alright Vista, please transform into Caster before we go to the hangar. Most of the staff haven't been told about Pearl yet, so they think we're getting three new wards at the same time," explains Armsmaster as he picks Vista up from the Wards common room.

"Eh? How long do you think that'll work?"

"Maybe a couple of weeks, but it should be enough time to switch Caster, Ruler and Saber out of town for three new Wards."

"Oooh, because we're testing three Class Cards every two weeks?"

"Exactly."

"And how long do you think that will last?"

"I will be honest, we are pretty sure that the gangs have informants among the regular personnel. So as soon as they figure out that Vista is never around at the same time as the rotating new Wards, the gangs may start suspecting something, but... well, the Merchants are unlikely to ever figure it out. And Lung is too lazy to bother with agents or worry about Wards, so the ABB may just not care, but we're hoping to keep the Empire guessing for as long as possible."

Explains the blue-armored hero. "If we get a regular rotation of strong wards coming and going all the time, they won't be able to plan around them... or well, around you."

"And even those who are sent out of the Bay can suddenly show up even though they shouldn't be around anymore," comments Vista, nodding in understanding.

"That's correct."

"Got it."

The Wards common room is gone, replaced with a world of blue under a pink light, with shining bubbles everywhere. Vista's body becomes a bright source of light and her clothes evaporate off her as she spins in place, her hair floating upwards as her body grows and changes. The Kaleidostick manifests a short, soft-looking navy blue kimono over her now much more curvaceous figure. A pair of fox ears and three fluffy tails burst forth from under the hem of her clothes, and the pink light overcomes the blue before Caster is left where Vista used to be.

"...wasn't that transformation sequence longer than the one you showed during power testing?"

"Pearl?" Vista adds herself to Armsmaster inquiry.

"Obviously, since master went from her base state straight to Caster, so I included the Magical Girl Vista transformation along with the Caster install."

"What if there's an emergency?"

"Then I'll use the emergency install," says Pearl, and within half a second and a bang of light, Vista transforms into Saber, then into Caster again.

"Can't you do that all the time?" Asks Vista, and Armsmaster nods along.

"This wasn't an emergency, though?"

""But its inefficient/embarrassing."" They counter as one.

"Heresy!"

~IV~

Amy wasn't having the best day... or week... or month... or life. Her mom kept pushing for her to volunteer at the hospital almost from the day right after her trigger event, despite young (12 years old) Amy being understandably freaked and horrified at seeing terribly maimed and injured people on the ER or dying patients everywhere else around the hospital. Thankfully, her power helped to blunt the impact a lot, and she quickly got somewhat desensitized to it all, but in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but know that she was being used.

By her family for PR, by the hospital for prestige, and by the city for a medical tourism industry that may as well be called Panacea tourism, because there's no way none of them ever had the random thought of 'hey, maybe constantly exposing a preteen girl to horribly disfigured and/or maimed people isn't good for her'.

Well, she's 14 now, and quite sure that if whatever scruples the adults in her life had didn't stop them from pushing her 12 years old self into the hospital, they sure as hell aren't going to help her now. And she's just as sure it can't possibly be healthy that she's used to all this now... no its worse, because she's bored of it.

Horrifically maimed, suffering people? She really shouldn't look at them with bored eyes. She's turning into a twisted being, and the people around her know and don't care, all of them too busy making use of them while she can.

"Panacea?" One of the nurses calls out to her, intruding on her smoking break to do so. "Armsmaster is downstairs with Dr. Schugel and they are hoping to talk with you."

"Uhm? Alright, thanks," says Amy as she squishes the cigarrete butt underfoot, grows a bacteria under her tongue to get rid of any traces on her breath, and promptly kills it before going downstairs.

The nurse doesn't bother saying anything about the smoking 14 years old, and Amy can't decide if its because she understands she needs it, or doesn't care. Well, so long as she is left alone and as unbothered as possible to keep her gray world from going black, she's-

"Hey, Panpan, nice ta' meet cha!" A blur of soft, soft and creamy white skin, navy blue silks and incredibly fluffy auburn fluff tackle-hugs her out of nowhere.

~IV~

"So, I should pretend that Caster is her own person?" Asked Vista as the PRT van approached the hospital.

"If you can. Just when you are transformed, of course. But if you can't then that's fine. Your normal attitude is a model of professionalism among the wards, anyway, but our plan is to make the gangs think we are getting reinforcements from other branches of the PRT."

"No, no. I can do it. To be honest, I think it'll be really easy. I feel like... the Class Cards really want to... play? Is that weird?"

Armsmaster looks at Vista/Caster's mirror/Pearl.

"Master's actual body is safely stored away in an extra-dimensional pocket, remember? Right now, she's running Vista software in Caster hardware, and of course that'll influence her to some degree, but it'll go away as soon as she uninstalls the Card and there won't be any side effects." Explains Pearl. "Safely managing mental imprints is like... 80% of everything I do. Trust me, I was made for this."

"...understood." Then he looks at Vista/Caster. "You heard Pearl, but if you don't feel comfortable, we'll think of something else."

"I can do it, mikon!" Vista chirps, and both her and Armsmaster freeze for a couple of moments.

Pearl was cackling still when the van stopped and the doors were opened.

~IV~

Amy felt as if the softest, warmest, fluffiest and nicest-scented comforter had fallen on top of her and was smothering her into a nap under the sun.

Therefore, she did the obvious thing. She hugged it and enjoyed the fluff. The warm, wonderful, soft soft fluff. And then her power kicked in and she was lost in trying to understand what it was telling her and...

"Ouch, stop! Stop, please! That's... that's attached to me! It won't come off, it won't come off, he-help! I- nghh?!"

And then Amy realized the wonderful comforter was talking to her, and complaining, and it was soo~o soft and nap inducing...

"Do... do you need help?" Dr. Schugel wasn't sure how to help untangle the young girls in front of him. Honestly, as a white man in his middle forties, there weren't many scenarios in which he didn't end up sued for improper conduct if he tried to grab and lift either of them, more so considering the rather diminutive clothes of the young lady with the fox bits growing out of her. Not that grabbing Panacea would be any easier, given that her robes covered her so completely it was hard to judge what was where under all that...

Extricating her head from under two wonderfully soft, warm pillows, Amy found herself looking up at a very uncomfortable, very pretty young woman that couldn't be more than a couple years older than herself.

"Wait, what?"

She reached under the girl's robe (it wasn't exactly hard), and gave her sides an exploratory squeeze.

Nothing.

There was no feedback from her power, it was as if her trigger event had never happened, as if she was a normal girl. Her power, quite simply, didn't recognize the very obviously alive girl on top of her as a living being. No insights into her anatomy, no analysis of her overall state of health, no disgusting information about her intestinal flora, cuts, bruises, old scars, nothing.

It was incredibly refreshing.

And then Amy realized she was pulling on something incredibly soft and fluffy, and did so just a little harder, which forced a loud whimper and an atomic blush out of the curious girl, while both the head of surgery and Armsmaster made no effort to disguise their turning away.

"Let go of my tail already!" The fluffy girl in blue cried out, and Amy finally did so.

'Uh, she must be a mover,' was the first thing to cross Amy's mind, which wasn't surprising, considering the fluffy girl in blue seemingly teleported away from her and was now busy trying to brush her tail's fluff black into place.

"Here, miss Dallon," said Armsmaster as he offered her a hand and helped her up. "Are you unharmed?"

Panacea looked at Armsmaster, then back at the indignant girl for a couple of moments.

"That's not a real girl," was the first thing she said, causing the girl to squawk in indignation.

"Hey! I resent that!"

"I... you... uh."

"Panacea, this is Caster. She's a case 53 and a new ward that has temporarily transferred to Brockton Bay while her paperwork is sorted out and the Protectorate decides on where to assign her. Caster, Panacea." The blue-armored hero gestures to each girl in turn, and Caster seems to calm down as soon as she's done readjusting her navy blue ...dress? Robe? That's an asian-style outfit, right?

"Ah... nice to meet you?" Asks Amy, feeling very awkward after denying the girl's existence. "I'm sorry but, normally my power gives me all sorts of feedback whenever I touch another living being but ...you don't count."

"Your power is very rude." The girl... Caster? Caster frowns for a moment, but seems to forgive her quickly enough. "But if you promise not to be, I'm sure it'll be nice to meet you."

"Ah, yes. Sorry about that."

~IV~

A few minutes later, Panacea is leading Caster by the hand as she shows the slightly older fox-themed case 53 around the hospital, heading towards the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) wing of the hospital.

"I had terminal patients with no known relatives moved into the same room," explains Dr Schugel. "It should free the hospital of any responsibility, were anything unfortunate to happen."

"I understand," says Armsmaster, and he truly does.

Caster looks understandably indignant, but a beautiful silver mirror begins floating by her side and nudging against her in an encouraging manner.

"Uhmm... you'll supervise, just in case, right?" Caster looks at Amy with a somewhat worried expression.

"Yes, of course."

"Alright..." Caster calms down, takes a deep breath and lets it go. "Eight Blessings of Amaterasu..."

The room goes dark, bathed in a star-dotted cosmic blackness, and eight ancient wooden gates appear to surround everyone present from a distance that would obviously exceed the size of the room.

"...on the Eight Stones under the Sunlit Watery Heavens~"

A bright but gentle light bathes the room, and Armsmaster quickly brings up his own biometrics.

"I know you said you did ranged healing, but I didn't know it was Area of Effect," comments Armsmaster as his HUD reports that he's perfectly fine.

"Wait, what?" Panacea blinks, and rushes to touch the nearest patient.

"I have so many questions..." Dr Schugel says as the room goes back to normal.

Amy reaches for the nearest patient. She finds him to be perfectly fine, and not in the 'there's no signs of his life-threatening disease' way, but in a 'this person could win the Olympics' way. She wiggles inside her robes so she can pull an arm under them, and feels her own tummy. "Eight pack abs!?"

Dr Schugel excuses himself to the adjacent bathroom to check himself, while Colin/Armsmaster hums in thought.

"What about the patients' state? Was their overall health state affected in the same way?"

"Y-yes, they're all... well, I am pretty sure most people never get to be this healthy," comments a very confused Panacea.

"Anything wrong with them? What about lingering scars? Evidence of broken bones?" He reaches for a patient's chart and browses through their medical history, then moves to another patient. "This man had a broken femur. Any signs of it?"

Panacea hurries to check and finds that no, there's no signs of the man ever having suffered a fracture, and as Dr Schugel comes back, he comments that he no longer needs glasses.

"I do believe I am experiencing a moment of peak efficiency," says Armsmaster, "Perhaps Caster could help combat exhaustion, in which case, my productivity... no, wait. First of all, when you said Caster was a ranged healer, I expected a ray or projectile of some sort. This is more of a shaker effect over an area."

By the way, Dragon will ban Armsmaster from using Caster as an anti-sleep stimulant soon enough.

"How large an area can you affect, and how often can you do that, miss?" asks Dr Schugel.

"Uhmm... I-I think I could probably do it once every ten minutes or so? Probably a lot more often if I was in combat... somehow."

Panacea seems to think about it for a bit.

"Give me a minute..." she checks the patients again. "As I thought, their body fat is dangerously low. Their new musculature had to come from somewhere, after all. We'll need to change their IVs, assuming they don't just wake... up... on their... uh"

~IV~

"And that's when you went to check on the Hebert girl?" Director Piggot looked at Armsmaster after lowering the report on Caster's healing.

"That is correct. She was comatose even after Panacea had taken care of her, and miss Dallon wanted Caster to take a look at her. Since Pearl mentioned that Caster can make others' powers 'work better', I suggested we test that with Panacea as well, since 'better healing' sounds a lot safer than testing the same on any Ward or PRT member at our disposal."

"I am kind of interested on what 'better guns' would mean for Hannah."

That caused Hannah to look thoughtful as she considered the Director's words.

"Honestly? I'd like it if I could make things other than weapons, for once." She said softly, but loud enough the rest of the table heard her.

"Yes, we already said that we are all interested in testing that." Shrugs Assault. "How did it go with the sleeping girl? Is it related to why you are in such a mood despite everything working out fine with Caster's healing?"

"Well, it turns out-" Armsmaster began to explain.

~IV~

Amy/Panacea led them to Taylor Hebert's room. As a minor, she was in the pediatric wing of the hospital, and since she wasn't at risk and her family couldn't afford a private room, she shared it with two children a little younger than Vista, who were understandably excited to see Armsmaster and Panacea walking in, and just as curious about Caster.

"Wah~!? H-hey, David look up, its Armsmaster!" One of the kids called out to his impromptu friend on the other bed, who was playing on a handheld as Panacea's group walked into the room.

"Hey, what about me? Am I chopped liver, now?" Panacea let out with a sigh.

"Ah, sorry... thank you for visiting."

David looked up, paused the game and left it on top of the sheets by his side before quickly grabbing a notebook from the little table next to his bed.

"Panacea, can you give me your autograph, please?"

"Now that's a smart boy who's also gonna get some healing while I'm here..." commented Panacea with a little smile.

"I'm sorry..." said the first kid, but Panacea waved him a dismissal.

"Don't worry, I'm already here so I'll check you over too."

"Yaah, thank you!"

Vista thought it must be nice to get people to thank you all the time, but Amy didn't look all that pleased.

"I assume this is miss Hebert. You said her condition is stable and she should be awake already?" Armsmaster went straight to the point as he approached the feet of the bed and picked up Taylor's medical chart. Immediately, he made a disgruntled face. "School shouldn't include such an experience..."

He began accessing the local police investigation on the case, and found that the PRT had taken over, which was strange until he remembered Sophia Hess goes to the same school as well. He picked the files from the PRT's inner network, and his mood turned sour as he saw how empty they were.

'Self inflicted? With her facing away from the door and the locker being closed from outside?' He ruminated on that. 'Is the school covering for someone? No, since this is clearly impossible, whoever the PRT sent to investigate should have noticed right away, so are we covering this up? Why- ...was miss Hess involved? Is the director involved in covering this up?"

~IV~

"I most certainly am not covering this up." Director Piggot said emphatically. "You think I want Shadow Stalker in my Wards? If it was up to me, she'd be off in juvie already, and if she's involved in this, you can bet your workshop that she'll be shipped off tomorrow."

"She's involved, isn't she?" Velocity/Robin said with a sigh.

"Oh, she most certainly is." Grunted Armsmaster. "As it turns out..."

~IV~

The children were understandably excited after Caster's Noble Phantasm lit up the room, and ended up asking for her autograph as well, which was more than a little awkward when Missy had to backtrack after signing one as Vista. She ripped off the page, excusing herself and saying that her handwriting was atrocious and trying again before signing "Caster," and then signing the other boy's pillow.

He didn't have anything else she could sign at hand, and his family had sent him his favorite pillow from home, so that was the best they had.

"Hoh... She's still not waking up?" Caster/Vista comments as she peeks at Taylor's sleeping form.

"She had a highly traumatic experience. I wouldn't be surprised if her situation is more psychological than physical." Comments Armsmaster as he finished re-checking the almost non-existent files on the PRT's investigation.

"You know," Pearl's voice piped up from Caster's mirror, catching everyone's attention. "Reading, storing, interpreting and expressing mind scans is basically what I was made for. I could take a peek at Sleeping Beauty's memories and show you what she knows?"

The children are obviously excited about a magical talking mirror, while Dr Schugel and Panacea are curious in different ways, with one wondering how such a thing could be used on the treatment of trauma patients, and the other wondering why they didn't know Caster's mirror could talk, but assuming it's some tinkertech tool.

"How invasive would the procedure be?" Asked Panacea/Amy after a moment's thought.

"About as invasive as taking somebody's picture." explains Pearl.

"Hm, what do you think, Armsmaster?" Caster/Vista looks up at the towering, armored hero.

"What happened to miss Hebert was nothing short of a criminal act. I would agree to gathering evidence on principle, but how would you share the information?"

"Memory imprint so you can experience it first hand, hologram, video, take your pick."

"Alright, I will review it on our way back, if Dr Schugel signs off on it as parahuman treatment."

"Give me a few minutes to call her father..."

~IV~

"So? I assume you have something to share with the rest of the class, then?"Assault asks matter of fact.

"Quite."

Armsmaster sends the file to the PRT system and starts playing it on the large screen at the end of the meeting room. A few minutes later, Armsmaster raises a hand to stop any questions before they start.

"You probably recognized miss Hess' voice," the blue-armored hero commented, "taunting miss Hebert after shoving her into the locker, but that's not enough to count as evidence." He raised a hand again when his colleagues very obviously wanted to protest, and took notice of how the Director's face was making a very good apple-impersonation right now. "But miss Hebert and miss Hess have a shared history that indicates precedent and a pattern... here."

This time, the video lasted just under two hours, and by the end of it, nobody felt like saying anything.

Nobody but Director Piggot.

"...get me Hess. I want her in a holding cell now." She looks at Velocity. "NOW!"

The speediest hero in the Protectorate took off in record time.

"Far be it from me to make light of Shadowstalker's... I don't even know what to call it..." started Assault, "but what the fuck!?" His wife grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back down when he stood up. "No, puppy hold on, I know we have handlers watching over us in case anything happens, like someone trying to attack us in our civilian IDs or us commuting a crime, which I never liked because it sounds really Big Brother-like, but in this case I really want to know, why didn't Shadow Stalker's handler do or say anything about... this!" He gestures at the screen.

"Oh, I'm about to find out," grumbles Piggot. "Believe you me, I'm about to find out."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Comments Hannah as she looks at Sophia Hess stealing a fellow classmate's homework for the umpteenth time, then pushing her hard enough to make Taylor bounce against the wall.

~IV~

"Sir, is everything alright?" Asks Vista as they ride back to PHQ.

"I... can't really say it is, Vista, but I'll do everything I can to make sure it is, don't worry about it." The leader of the local Protectorate says through his teeth.

"...alright?" Then she looks down at Pearl in her hands. "Pearl, what happened?"

"Nothing good, but also nothing you should involve yourself with, I think..." the usually chipper kaleidostick answers softly, "Did you enjoy healing people?"

"Oh! It was really nice! Knowing we really helped people, you know? It was..."

"Unequivocally a good thing?" Encourages Pearl.

"Une-qui-vocally..." Vista chews the word for a bit.

"It means, 'In a way that leaves no doubt,' master."

"Uhn. It was unequivocally a good thing, then." Vista smiles a little warmer,

~IV~

"Vista, what is it?" Carlos/Aegis asks as Vista stops mid-stride and turns towards the West.

"According to Pearl, there's a van full of armed people waiting for us one street over."

"Console, this is Aegis. It looks like we're being ambushed, over."

Coil drops the timeline.

~IV~

"Vista, miss Dallon was calling about your mutual friend," says Hannah as she finds Vista in the Wards common room.

"...?"

"Caster." Explains Miss Militia.

"Oh! What is it about?"

"She wanted to know if Caster would be available to talk with sometimes."

"...I guess?"

A quick transformation sequence, and Caster is calling Amy Dallon from Vista's phone.

"Hello? This is Caster. I got a message saying you wanted to talk with me?"

"Oh, hi Caster! Y-yes, I thought I should explain and apologize, or maybe just apologize, or maybe just explain? I'm not really sure..."

"Hoh... go with whatever's easier?"

"In that case, could we meet at the boardwalk? Or wherever you're more comfortable at? Please?"

"...alright. The boardwalk's northmost bus stop at six?"

"I end my shift at the hospital at nine..."

"Uh... I... kind of have curfew at ten, so how about tomorrow?"

"Wait, you have curfew? What are you, twelve?" Panacea snorted softly, a little amused at the idea.

"I'm not really sure...?" On the one hand, yes, Missy Biron is twelve, but Caster looks like she's somewhere between sixteen and nineteen? She's... really well developed.

"Oh shit right, case 53..." Panacea mumbled, and Missy could feel the embarrasment through the phone. "Of course you don't know how old you are..."

"I-its alright! I'll see you at the hospital's main gate at nine! That will be fine, right!?"

"...thank you."

It was only after the call was over that Missy realized she had no idea if she could go out as Caster. She looked over at Carlos, who looked back at her from behind the kitchen counter.

"Carlos, I need a favor."

"Sure?"

"You have a car, right?"

~IV~

Carlos was deeply amused and a little conflicted as he waited in the car. On the one hand, he was pretty sure both Missy and Amy needed more cape friends to talk and hang out with. Or any friends at all in Amy's case, but while a two years difference isn't much, he would admit to being a smidge worried about how things would play out.

Obviously, Amy wouldn't interact with a twelve year old the same way she would with... however old Caster happened to be. Seventeen to nineteen? That seemed about right. Also, he wasn't naive enough to think the truth wouldn't ever come up, and had no idea how Amy would take to being lied to by the youngest Ward.

And then there was a bright blue and pink glow, and lots of bubbles coming out from the hospital roof, and Caster landed on the pavement in the parking lot, followed right after by Saber, and to make things even better, Glory Girl.

"Oh for God's sake..." he facepalmed. Hard. 'I had no idea Missy was this bad at keeping secrets. Wait, why is she so bad at this? She has a secret identity of her own!'

To Be Continued ===>