Cark came with us back up to the surface. I'd agreed to bring him in on this, and I fully intended to keep my word. So I invited him back to our place so we could talk away from prying ears. Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to share more once Shadowthorn was gone, he would be in the house with Zeke, who could hopefully tell if he was shady and if not would at the very least be a strong deterrent. He couldn't do anything to the guy unless he was directly attacked, but Cark didn't need to know that.

Once we were back up topside and had said our goodbyes we took our own ride back the house. Jessie of course, broke the silence from her spot behind the wheel. "So, do you have something we can call you? Because Cark is kind of weird. How did you settle on that anyway? Does it come from something specific?" I'd actually been wondering that myself, but I would have seemed rude for asking. Jessie got away with much more than the rest of us because of her bubbly nature, something I was almost positive wasn't an accident.

The confusion on his face was a surprise to me as he raised his eyebrow. "Settle on it? It's my name. I didn't settle on anything. I'm not a cape, I'm a bounty hunter, I've never needed a code name or anything." He sounded genuinely confused, and I supposed that made sense but...

"Your parent named you Cark?" Jessie's open bewilderment pretty much summed up my own feeling perfectly. I'd thought it was some sort of edgy hero name, but what kind of person in their right mind calls their child Cark. It sounded like the noise a seal would make when choking.

The confusion was mutual. "What? No, my parents named me Tony. Cark is my last name. You guys spend way too much time around capes. Not everyone is a weirdo with a crazy name or an absurd hair color." He sounded kind of offended by having to explain it, and I felt a little bad.

Jessie didn't share my chagrin though, and burst into giggles. We looked at her in confusion. "Your name is Tony Cark? That's so weird." When she said it like that I kind of got it, but I resisted the urge to chuckle because it seemed rude.

Cark, or Tony I suppose, glared at her. "I don't want to hear that from a girl who calls herself Agria and runs around in a green leotard. It's not like I got to pick my last name or anything." He sounded defensive, and I got the feeling this wasn't the first time he'd had this conversation.

There was a sigh from the back seat. "Can we please not do this. Agria didn't mean anything by it Mr. Cark, she just has no filter." Callie sounded slightly bored, but still sincere. As the leader I think she considered it her job to play peacemaker among the group, and admittedly picking a fight with a fire throwing bounty hunter in a car several miles above the ground seemed like a recipe for disaster.

I however, wasn't sure she was right anyway. Jessie did sometimes lack a filter, but the longer I knew her the more I realized nothing she did was an accident. For instance, Cark seemed much less genuinely tense about the Heartrippers now that he was annoyed at our green clad teammate. Jessie was just the kind of person to pick a fight over something stupid to diffuse someone's bad mood.

Regardless I decided not to undo her hard work and poke at the Heartripper issue before we got home, so I chose to change the subject. "So what made you decide to go freelance instead of joining the Unity. Someone with your power would have been welcome and I bet you could have ranked up much quicker with all those extra resources. Not to pry, it just seems like an odd choice. Must be a pretty interesting story" I was curious about how the bounty hunting worked too, and hoped he would elaborate on both.

He just shrugged. "I grew up with this kid named Steven Wexler, nasty piece of work. He was pretty upper class, and just generally treated everyone else like garbage. We got our abilities around the same time. I got fire powers and Wexler got telekinesis. Granted at that point we were just stupid kids and at I rank our powers were pretty much trash, but Wexler's daddy had an in with the local recruitment office."

He looked annoyed at the memory. "When I went to do my intake the guy running the interview did everything he could to undermine me. Asked me questions that made me come across shady, poked at my temper, brought up my family's financial situation, all the usual stuff. He'd been coached clearly, and after maybe twenty minutes of that shit I'd had enough. I demanded he mark my intake as complete and stormed out. I decided being in the Unity wasn't worth putting up with that shit."

An outraged noise from the back alerted me to Callie's obvious anger. "That's awful! Back home they only give the intake position to senior guild members who are trusted to run things properly." I looked in the mirror and saw her flinch a bit, clearly remembering Stricture, who had run Jessie's and my intake. The Velan branch was far from perfect, and I know she regretted bringing it up.

Luckily Cark didn't seem to notice or if he did he didn't seem to care. He shrugged again. "I did alright for myself. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with Wexler more anyway. I like my life and how it turned out." He smiled nostalgically. "I've had some good times as a bounty hunter, and made a name for myself kicking the shit out of half assed Ascendants like Wexler ever since. The pay isn't too bad, but there's no better job for catharsis."

That got a laugh as we touched down on the house, and we all piled out of the car. Since this was our car and we didn't have to return it Jessie parked on the rooftop parking space and we used the upper floor entrance to get in, heading down to the kitchen to get something to eat. We hadn't stopped for sausages because of all the craziness so I decided to make us something, and Zeke would probably be down in the living room watching the scan box so we would have his presence on hand if we needed it since the rooms were right next to each other.

As we walked through the place, Cark looked around in confusion. "I...uh, like your house. It's...unique." He sounded so quietly horrified by the color palette that it took everything in me not to burst out laughing. Despite being able to suppress that I still decided to mess with him.

I turned to face him with an earnest expression. "I know! Isn't it great? Orange is like...the only color I like. The decorator wasn't sure about it but I knew it would turn out great." His quietly disturbed expression deepened as I expressed my happiness with the most horrible decorating choices I'd ever even heard of, and I could almost hear him rethinking his decision to work with us.

My earnest expression held for about thirty seconds before I dissolved into laughter. "Oh gods, I'm sorry but your face!" He glared at me and I laughed even harder. "Calm down, I was messing with you. No reason to question my judgement. We got this place at a steal because it was so cheap. It apparently belonged to some local F ranker who somehow thought this was a good look. Not sure which one, though I'm told it would be obvious from the decor if I knew the local scene. I guess they loved orange a lot."

The expression of annoyance morphed to glee. "Wait, this is fucking PUMPKIN LORD'S house? That's AMAZING! I love that guy! He's hilarious. I thought he had a butterscotch swimming pool in here somewhere though? The contractor who built it plastered it all over the internet and everyone was talking about it because it was such a weird thing to add to a living space."

A butterscotch swimming pool? I paused. I...hadn't seen one. But we didn't check every inch of the place. The tour had been more broad strokes than individual point by point list checking. I...kind of hoped we had one of those. I'd always loved butterscotch, and swimming in it sounded weird but kind of fun. With advanced Vitality I doubted it would be an issue for my skin or anything so it was just a fun thing to try and maybe a gimmick to show visitors if we had any. I wondered if having a reputation for having a butterscotch pool would help our cultivation.

When we reached the kitchen I got to work fixing a snack for everyone. BLT's because they were quick and easy to make, and the smell of bacon brought Zeke in to pick at the stuff. When he came in, I introduced him to Cark. "Tony, this is Zeke. He's our...insurance. He's pretty strong." I still had my mask on so I avoided the word Uncle, though once Zeke scared him shitless I figured it would be fine to share. Assuming he could tell already that Cark wasn't a sleeper. I looked over to my Uncle uncertainly. "No need to be so buttoned up Zeke, we're at home, you can just be yourself."

Whatever the geas was, I was betting it wouldn't be specific enough to prevent him from letting his abilities show when he was in his own home. Cark might just happen to be here, but this was Zeke's place, and letting loose wasn't interfering in my business. It was hardly his fault if the man read threats in completely innocent actions. Zeke, for his part, gave me an amused smirk, but decided to go along with it.

So he stopped holding back, and every person in the house was driven to their knees. Impact. Pure, raw, conceptual weight crashed down on our heads, driving the breath from our bodies. I stared up at my Uncle and felt...small. He seemed so much more real than anyone else I'd seen, so much more solid, but even that wasn't all of it. Like even this weighty version of him was a reflection of something MUCH bigger. Nearly three hundred points of Impact slamming down on us unfiltered.

And then suddenly it was gone, and we were all shaking on the floor, covered in sweat and staring at my Uncle in terror. He just gave me a casual smile. "I think I'll keep it reigned in thanks. I think you kids aren't quite ready for me to 'be myself'" His tone was wry, but slightly chiding. A message then. He didn't mind me using him as a threat if I could figure out a workaround, but I'd better be ready for the consequences. I shuddered at the memory of the crushing weight driving me into the floor. I didn't think I wanted to do that again soon.

I helped the others to their feet and went back to making the BLT's. I had to toss the bacon currently in the pan because it had burned while I was doing my best landed fish impression, but I threw on some more and turned to Cark. Unintended consequences aside, my little performance had worked, the guy's eyes were glued to Zeke, clearly terrified of my Uncle, a sentiment that I kind of understood now. As I worked on the food I raised my voice to get his attention. "So Tony, let me tell you all about the people who took your sister, and you can decide how much you want to help."