“I’ve only heard rumors of Web Sorcery, for exactly the reason you describe,” Briggs rumbled, very curious now. “How are you able to Cast safely from the Web of Worlds?”

“I made a list of the spells I wanted, Paragon Surged for them with Extra Spell Known, and received them right from the Web. Naturally they work perfectly well.”

Both of them screwed up their faces and spat, “D’oh!” at the same time. “And you just used your automatic Sorcerer spells by Level to get the starter spells you need, like the Surge...” Briggs sighed, shaking his big head.

Hey, Wizardry starts with Sorcery, amiright? ‘Course I am...

“Is this something any Spider Totem can do?” Sama groaned, trying to get back on track.

“No. You have to be bound to the Web. I’m guessing I was restricted to it so I wouldn’t run away. I suppose the potential is there for Peter and the others to tap the Web, but they aren’t Bound to it like I am, so I don’t know what would happen. They could all be normal Pact Casters if they wanted to be, I suppose?”

“But science kids,” Briggs the Great Bear rumbled knowingly, back on familiar ground, and crossing his arms. “Well, you did a marvelous job staying under our radar, Dynamo. I had no idea you were a true Caster at all, although I’ve read some of your modern Alchemy stuff. Very good work.”

“Thank you. If I don’t exercise my brains, I’ll go nuts.” Both of them nodded in total sympathy.

“Are you adverse to receiving a Mark?” Sama asked neutrally. “I’m... guessing you already have one?”

“Yes. Kwannon had to lose hers to take yours, so I hadn’t talked to her for a good two years until Boston. Had no idea what she was up to.” I waved my hand airily. “Obviously she’s the part of me that always wanted to be a Jedi Knight.” They both grinned despite themselves, a reference no one else on the planet would recognize. “I can’t take a Mark unless Mr. Hill takes one, too. I won’t divide my loyalties like that, and I won’t hide it from him.”

“The Mountain is his own person, but you’ve done a good job guiding him away from a more violent career,” Sama observed softly, then shook her head suddenly again. “Dammit! You’re the one who taught him all the fancy crap he’s been learning these last few years!” she accused me.

“Hey, true optimizers spread the love,” I shrugged. “Mr. Hill’s a pretty cool guy, and he pays his debts. He’s, um, in serious debt to Dealer and I. Nobody else can cook for him like we do.”

“Do I even want to... no, no, I don’t,” Sama huffed. “Fine, no Mark. You really have no interest in competing with what Briggs and I are doing?”

“None at all. A Source in charge of the world is a mega-cool thing, and people don’t even know it.” I gave him a double thumbs-up, and he grinned broadly despite himself. “Also, I’m really, REALLY tied into Fate by the damn Widow and my Pact. I’m pretty sure neither of you are. So, Fate-breakers should stay away from me.”

“There is absolutely no way we can NOT make use of an Optimized Power of Ten Powered gamer running around,” Briggs declared weightily. “I mean, seriously, Dynamo!”

Well, he had a point. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t work for or with you. I said I have no intention to compete. I don’t want an Allegiance. I’m not interested in being a Monarch. I know I could. I know that in some ways I should. But... I have no motivation to do that.”

Huh. I guess my Dupes weren’t the only ones rebalancing some elements of their forebear’s personality.

Such was life!

“Kwannon is, ah, inundated with students who would love to Swear under her,” Sama mused aloud. “She hasn’t taken any. Her focus is on her training and her family, and that is as far as it goes...”

“My lofty aspirations are all personal.” I looked up pointedly at Nova and Jewel, still all curled up and sucking in the juice. “My optimizing soul is saying ‘Hell, yes!’ to getting a Nova Core if I ever want to play with the Big Boys. I know that realistically I’m far too powerful to be playing down at the level I’m at, but I don’t care. Dealer is taking care of optimizing my magic, and I’m dealing with the rest of the stuff.”

“Your performance in the Champion Contest was exemplary,” Sama assured me, and I inclined my head in acknowledgement. “But your success was because of your unexpected style of fighting, and truly unexpected strength, right?” she judged.

“Correct. Ben and Mr. Hill were familiar with it, and I wouldn’t have been nearly as effective against either of them. Champion naturally shut most of it down, just like you would. My greatest strength was actually not getting hit by most of the competitors. Most Bricks are about toughness, not evasiveness.”

“Sun-style dodging along with Spider-totem Reflexes is truly a dangerous combination,” Sama agreed, looking up at Nova and Jewel. “I’m still inclined to give her a Nova Core, Fuzzy,” she elbowed him.

“I have no objections. Let her optimize. She’s using Sacred magic. I’m not worried about her turning, even if she’s not Marked,” the Great Bear agreed, nodding slowly.

The Golden Hag, the Terror of Murica, nodded. “Do you want to be charged up now, too? Forming the Nova Core actually doesn’t take long.”

I looked at the M’Kraan Crystal and got the kind of power-gaming hee-hee-hee expression on my face that had them looking at one another. “So, you know I have a Pact with a Spider Totem, and a direct link to the Underweb,” I said cheerfully.

“Yesss?” Sama drawled out, while Briggs looked cautiously interested in what I was about to do.

“Well, there’s a pocket dimension in there me and my doubles dump energy into constantly. Think of it as an infinite capacitor. Putting the energy in through the Web naturally perfectly acclimates it to all of us for rapid withdrawal.” My smile grew really, really wide. “So, just how much juice can you pull out of the Crystal, and how fast?

“Like, Nova Core Ten enough energy?”

Sama blinked once, looked behind her at the collection of a galaxy’s worth of mega-stars bound in crimson crystal by the Phoenix, then back at me.

Briggs just shook his head, totally impressed. “Power gamers,” he murmured, giving Sama a shoulder slug. “We’ve been out of the Game too long...”

------

I could dump a LOT more energy into the Pocket than I could absorb into the Nova Core, even with my physique, but that was fine. Unlike Nova and Jewel, I was getting everything in one humungous flow of energy, and just had to bleed some out constantly into my Nova Core.

Ah, yes, the Core.

“I have a borrowed Core,” I informed them as I was hooked up to a device that definitely had magic, superscience, and psitech involved together, my brains flipping out inside me in delight upon seeing it.

Both of them sighed again. “What?” Sama groaned, her heavens-blue eyes resigned now.

“The Beaubier Twins. Dealer caught them in the raid. They’re half-lios alfar from Asgard. I’ve got them Bound into my Totem right now.” I paused significantly. “I also spent six bloody hours going through their heads identifying all the people they’ve murdered. Dealer was going to send it off to Master Logan...”

Sama’s lips thinned. “How many?” she asked coldly.

“Between the two of them, nine hundred and fourteen people, outside of Optichaw. Most Tribal, scattered across hundreds of miles, some Canadians who crossed them, or just for fun...”

She exhaled long and low, and when she opened her eyes, they were full of murder. “Send it all to Kwannon. She has the telepathy to reach out to non-Marked authorities to deliver the news, and the prestige to carry it.”

“Speedster serial killers,” Briggs murmured. “And some people wonder why there are those scared of Powered.”

“Can’t imagine it myself. Low originality index. So how long does this -HEEEE YOOOWWWW WHOOOOO HAAAAAAH!”

Good thing I wasn’t Wreckered, or that would have been a mashed Core Maker. Woooo!

I blinked as something big and empty grew inside nothingness around my gut. It was focused right on that Mutant Core, and promptly ate it, distributing the energy inside it all through the membrane of the new Nova Core.

In response, there was a clenching sensation, and suddenly those vague whimpers and screams behind the Binding barrier kind of went away. I peeled back the barrier to look, and a couple Red Eyes looked back at me and vanished quietly.

“I think the Beaubiers just made someone’s lunch menu,” I muttered, feeling my gut. “Wow, that was, like, really weird!”

“Yes, it was.” Sama looked at her readings, and shook her head. “Your Core looks nothing like Jewel’s, and hers swallowed her Core, too.”

“Different types, energies, strengths?” I hazarded.

“Sure.”

“Definitely non-standard, then!” I smiled craftily.

Briggs had made up a harness that had to weigh half a ton, which he’d just assembled out of nowhere, and obviously didn’t care that it looked like I’d be wearing a tank.

Also, it was being carried around by a gorgeous and curvaceous woman the size of She-Hulk, with almost metallic golden skin, and definitely metallic golden hair and eyes, dressed up in a red Tribal sparring uniform that looked VERY good on her.

She smiled at me and held the harness out as if it weighed nothing. “We are going to charge you up!” she announced brightly.

I glanced at it, forgave Briggs his lack of fashion sense for M’Kraan power converters, and sighed, stepping out of the Core Maker and putting up my arms.

Goldie put the harness right down on top of me while Sama shut down the Nova Core Maker. “Dynamo, meet Kismet Rantha, my youngest adopted daughter.”

“HURRRRRRR!” I blurted out as the Great Bear threw a switch, and suddenly a metric fuckton of partially-crimson and a whole lot of other energies blasted into my chest, went into the Nova Core, and the vast majority kept right on going into my Underweb link, following the established energy dump path of my Pact and Reserve energies automatically. I grabbed onto Kismet’s arm with one hand and stuck my fingers there to keep my balance as the internal vibrations and jangling of my Kirlian field started treating my nervous system like a jackhammer.

“Pleeeeeasedddd t’ meeeeeeetcha, Kiiiiiismet-t-t. Yourrrrrr relat-t-t-t-tives arrrrrrrrre saaaaadissssss-tic.”

A little wide-eyed, she looked back and forth between the two rulers of Terra. “Humor!” Sama said without looking over.

“Oh! Yes, they are, very strange at times, I have been told.” Her arm didn’t move as my feet jiggled all around. “That looks... very uncomfortable?” she observed carefully.

“Iiiiii-t feeeeeeeeeelllllls smaaaaaaashiiiiiing wonnnnnnderrrrrrrrful.”

“She’s taking in enough energy to light up Manhattan Island for a week every second, and all she’s got is jittery legs?” Sama sniffed.

“Uuuuuuppp yourrrrrrrrs, Haaaaag!” I whined as Briggs turned a dial, whistling at nothing, and I Attracted my teeth to one another to prevent them from clattering madly.