Click click click.

The soft clicks of a digital keyboard emanated from Dave and Donna’s cell phones as they ran a quick search.

Perry slouched in his seat, glaring at Chemestro.

Chemestro ignored Perry’s death glare and went over to his seat to eat his custom order protein-plate.

Dave Smith raised the phone up, glancing between Perry and the screen, obviously comparing his face to a picture he’d scrounged up on the internet.

“Paradox?” Dave asked.

“That’s my legal name, but-“

“The super?”

“Well, I mean-“

Dave flipped the phone over to display a crisp photo some paparazzi had taken of him in his domino mask.

“That’s…”

“Dave, look at this,” Donna said, motioning to her screen.

Paradox Zauberer Declares War on Franklin city

Underneath the sensationalist tabloid headline was a picture of Perry’s speech at his debut ball.

They both glanced up at him.

Perry groaned and looked over at Chemestro. The sweeper was spreading out the guacamole, cutting his bunless burgers into bite-sized pieces and eating them one at a time like a freakin’ psycho.

Sin-Eater was hovering in front of the muscle-bound Catalyst protectively, snarling at Perry. Oh come on, He doesn’t need your protection.

“You’re Chemestro’s nemesis!” Dave said, eyes wide, pointing a finger rudely close to Perry’s face.

“For legal reasons, I cannot comment on that,” Perry muttered, leaning on his dad’s lessons in being deliberately obtuse.

“He’s that super in the cardboard helmet who came by our place that one time!” Dave continued, before turning his finger towards Nat. “You’re on his team! That means that redhead, Wraith, is…you’re dating…”

Dave stroked his chin for a moment before shrugging. “I always taught you to aim high Nat, but god-DAMN, Wraith is a babe.”

“Dad!” Natalie said, blushing.

“Dave! Are you supporting this?” Donna demanded.

Dave shrugged. “it’s her life.”

“It’s deviant, is what it is, not to mention he’s a cowl, and practically the head of a crime family, and-“ Donna choked on her words for a moment, glancing down at her phone, where Perry could barely make out his family’s estimated net worth.

There were a lot of zeroes. It was kind of a lowball though, because it didn’t account for The Mechanaut’s personal wealth, as well as Paradox’s businesses.

“And I mean…” Donna’s voice wavered. Perry could see the dollar signs at war with her determination to hate him for his birth parents.

“I mean…he…seems…pretty serious about her.” Donna said, her mind violently shifting priorities. If Perry could see what was happening in her head, he imagined it would be something like a car trying to turn so suddenly that it began tumbling down the road, leaving behind a flaming wreck.

Dave raised a brow, glanced between Perry and his wife as she struggled for words. Dave shrugged.

“So what’s Titan like in real life?” Dave asked eagerly.

“He’s a pretty chill guy.” Perry said, “Good leader, good with people and money.”

“That’s what Nat told me,” Dave said with a grin. “Are you actually a tinker? There’s a theory going around online that you’re actually a mage and someone is making your suits for you.” He glanced at Nat.

“For legal reasons, I can’t comment.” Perry.

“I see, operational security…I gotcha.” Dave said, tapping his nose.

Dave continued chatting with Perry and Nat while his wife rebooted. It seemed like every time she wanted to say something, she glanced back down at Perry’s grandmother’s net worth, and lost her words.

It was actually a fairly pleasant talk until Donna regained the ability to speak.

“So how long have you two been dating?” Donna asked with the same sickly-sweet tone one might use to address a favorite pet.

Perry mentally counted back to Movie Night, which was about two months ago, tacked on a couple weeks for propriety, and reported that.

“That’s wonderful, Nat’s never had a real boyfriend before. She was so shy and reserved in highschool. I’ve always been so worried about her, and I’m so glad she’s caught the interest of a nice young man who treats her like a princess.”

Perry frowned, glancing at Natalie.

Are you hearing this? The tonal shift rated nine point four on the Bullshit scale.

Natalie, for her part, was burying her face in her hands. Whether it was out of anger or embarrassment, Perry couldn’t quite determine. Both, maybe?

Perry also noticed the ‘treats her like a princess’ phrase. Nowhere in their entire conversation had Perry’s actual treatment of Natalie been mentioned, so the only reason Donna would’ve said it was to try and weasel the idea of Nat and Perry getting married and making her a princess into Perry’s head.

Not to mention, Nat’s mom had completely glossed over the subject of Nat dating a girl AND a guy at the same time, in order to focus entirely on the relationship between Perry and Nat.

Perry leaned over and whispered in Nat’s ear. “Your mom’s kind of a manipulative bitch.”

“Ung,” Natalie groaned into her palms.

***One Awkward Parental Meeting Later***

Perry waved at Nat’s parents as they drove off, a big shit-eating grin on his face.

As soon as they were out of eyeshot, he rounded on Chemestro, who was watching with his arms crossed.

“What the hell, dude?” Perry demanded with a scowl.

“You killed my father,” Chemestro shrugged. “I’m allowed to be petty.”

“You can’t hold that against me forever! You hated him too! He was literally trying to kill both of us!” Perry cried.

“I’ve asked my psychiatrist, and apparently that is the sort of thing someone can hold onto forever, regardless of their disposition towards the deceased. It’s not supposed to be logical.”

“Bah,” Perry grunted, waving him off. “Freakin’ sociopath.”

“Coddled prince.” Chemestro said without missing a beat.

“Lab rat.” Perry shot back.

“Science Experiment.” Chemestro said.

“We get it, boys, you don’t like each other, can we move this along?” Sin-Eater said, making a circular motion with her finger. “Besides, Chemestro’s better,” she mumbled quietly, earning an affronted glare from Natalie.

Chemestro glanced over at the green-highlighted, raven-haired goth beauty, then back to Perry.

“So I hear you’re going on a field trip sometime this summer. Out to Chicago. I want in.”

“Sure, I need some red-shirts, but…how the hell did you hear about Chicago?”

“Your mom.” Chemestro said.

“OOOOOO!” Dazzle and Role hooted at Chemestro’s entirely unintentional burn.

“Via Solaris,” Chemestro continued.

“Ooo…Wait. His mom knows Solaris?” Dazzle asked, frowning.

“Solaris liked the idea of getting eyes on what the replicators are doing out west, and asked me to come along.”

“Just you?” Perry asked, scanning the rest of Chemestro’s team. Monolith shook his head, making a ‘pass’ motion.

“Of course. It would be wildly irresponsible to bring anyone below Sweeper level for an excursion like this.” Chemestro said.

“Screw that, if you’re going somewhere, I’m coming too!” Sin-Eater declared.

“As I’ve said before, you’re too physically weak, slow, and susceptible to surprise attacks and sudden killshots. You’re not going,” Chemestro said, his voice tired.

“Hardlight makes a really good defensive belt!” Natalie blurted. “Covers your whole body, and can let you fly.”

Perry frowned at her.

“Yeah! Yeah! I could just load up on some extra gear, then you have to bring me! Boom!” Sin-Eater said, pointing at Nat. Chemestro’s eye twitched.

Nat met Perry’s gaze and deflated. “I sympathize…a little bit.” she murmured under her breath.

We’re looking at a weird team here: Me, Chemestro, Plagius, Natalie, Wraith, Sin-Eater.

Perry wasn’t taking Breaker because of his inherent squishiness, just like he was taking Plagius because the kid was rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with. Especially if we can feed him some mutant monsters as a side-benefit.

Perry ran the party composition through his head, and found it to be an absolute powder keg. He and Chemestro would be at odds, and Sin-eater would always side with her crush. Plagius might too.

Plagius was even younger than Perry and always bemoaning how slow he was growing despite being practically a bruiser already. If he was blinded by hero worship and felt like it might offer a faster leg up in Franklin city, Plagius might feel like it was a good idea to turn on Perry to ingratiate himself with Chemestro.

So, worst case scenario, it would be Perry, Hardcase and Wraith, against Chemestro, Sin-Eater, and Plagius.

Perry could remove Plagius as a factor by leaving him behind, but that would just be even more ammunition for the kid to complain about. Couldn’t risk Plagius pulling a Darth Vader and screwing everything up because he felt like he deserved better.

No…maybe what I need is a trump card.

Mass-Driver came to mind. Despite not liking Perry, the mercenary had enough discipline not to kill Perry and leave his corpse for the mega-fauna…at least, if he were paid specifically for Perry and company to return alive.

The jerk didn’t do anything more at my ball than eat a plate of hors d’oeuevres and watch me get my ass kicked by Andre Demetre….but at least he showed up.

Hmmm…what about my cousins? No, they’d love to kill me on the trip.

Titan?

Too busy for a potentially weekend excursion.

Blink and Sancho? Busy and technically my enemy.

…why is everyone that I know some kind of enemy of mine? I need more friends.

Paladin and Glamour Girl?

Ew, no.

Gramma?

Hmmm. She was likely too self-important to go, and besides, Perry didn’t like the idea of leaning on his family’s assistance too hard.

So Mass Driver was still the only person he could think of who could reasonably be expected to give Chemestro pause, and mercenary enough to go with them.

Honestly taking either Mass-Driver or Chemestro out in the middle of nowhere where nobody could ever find my body seems like a really, really bad idea.

…I remember when the plan was just me taking a three hour trip to Chicago and back. Now it’s the goddamn Oregon Trail up in here. I’ll be lucky if I die of dysentery on the way.

…I kinda want to invite my cousins, too.

Sure they might try to kill him if they had time to plan and knew what he was capable of, but if Perry withheld the invite until the last minute, they would come along only to scout him out. Paradox Zauberer was a mystery the Frepon family was desperate to unravel, and Perry should capitalize on it.

How can they be in awe of their next king if they never see him in action? It was a good opportunity to make an impression.

Besides, Chemestro wouldn’t know that his cousins probably wanted him dead, and behave himself around them, and Visa versa.

New possible team: Me, Chemestro, Sin-eater, Hardcase, Wraith, Plagius, Mass-Driver, Ellenore Frepon, George Frepon. (AKA Moonlight Flash and Sundermage)

That does give us a more well-rounded party, With three distinct factions, plus Mass Driver.

Perry tapped his fingers together evilly. This could be the best road trip in the history of mankind. Or the worst.

“What are you plotting?” Sin-eater demanded, looking Perry up and down.

“He’s just like that,” Chemestro said, motioning for Sin-Eater to follow. “Come on, we’ve gotta go work off the soda, fries and hamburger bun. That’s five hundred calories. At least.”

“Aw, maaan…” Sin-Eater wilted like a neglected flower, her boots scraping the pavement as she followed behind Chemestro.

“Two months!” Perry shouted out to Chemestro.

His nemesis nodded before their super team sailed into the air, tugged along by Chemestro’s pseudo telekinesis.

Man, now that I have an actual deadline, the heat is on.

Perry turned to Natalie.

“Two months okay?”

“As long as I can use your lair to work on my suit,” she said.

“You already were,” Perry said, offering her his hand. “But it’s a deal.”

The two shook on it.

“When are you planning on introducing Heather to your family?” Perry asked out of the blue.

“I’m not. Well, maybe my dad. If mom was there, it’d be a bloodbath.” Natalie said.

“Yeah, I could see that.” Nat’s mom didn’t take well to the whole ‘dating a girl’ thing, and Heather often reacted more…physically than Perry did. Bloodbath might be accurate.

“Let’s get to work then.”

Together, they headed back to the lair and got to work.

Side-Quest Complete!

Increase the resilience of basic infrastructure throughout Franklin City!

Reward: 1000XP, increased influence with Nexus, general reputation up

It took most of the first month before John White was able to get Perry the permits to begin replacing roads, pipes and electrical with infrastructure of his own personal design.

A few weeks after Perry had automated the process, he got the sweet, sweet, XP for it.

All that was left was getting permission from Nexus to improve the wall…except that was even harder than improving basic infrastructure. There were already plenty of Tinkers whose entire job was to think of ways to improve the wall, and a few of them were Industrial Tinkers, who could work together to produce some truly sturdy stuff.

Since Perry was not an industrial Tinker, he was in direct competition with all the non Industrial Tinkers.

Perry’s advantage was that other Tinkers specialized in things like AI, Laser guns, Shrink rays, Etc. All things that had a tendency to go haywire. Whereas Perry could produce simple concrete that could stand up to prawns, no problem.

After some haggling with Nexus, and a ton of logistics, Perry submitted his Concrete Flux blueprint to The Wall’s Industrial Tinker, who took over production and recycling of concrete on a city-wide scale, with the intention of applying the resultant super-concrete to the wall, one patch at a time.

This cut into Perry’s profits, but it got the ball rolling on getting the XP he needed.

XP > Money

Replacing segments of The Wall was an interesting process. Since Nexus absolutely could not allow an open section of The Wall to stay open for any length of time, the local supers would make a new segment in a separate location, then cut the old piece out and swap the new one in within a couple hours.

It was quite a sight watching a fifteen story chunk of concrete floating through the air above the city, under Tinker-made maglevs.

Perry even spotted Warcry cutting out the old section of wall with her brilliant purple planes of energy, probably pissed to be working construction after all that effort to secure her ‘cushy’ gig in Nexus.

Side-Quest Complete!

Reinforce The Wall!

Reward: 1000XP, increased influence with Nexus, general reputation up.

A few days later, Perry broke through to level nine in the middle of his workout.

Quest Complete

Finish an extra set!

Reward 4XP

Congratulations! You are now a level 9 Garage Tinker!

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 9

HP: 10

Body: 9

Stability: 28

Nerve: 14

Attunement: 44

Free Points: 16

XP to next level: 7450

Spells: Light (5/5), Dragor’s Kinesis (3/3), Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation (1/1)

The bar got just a little bit lighter, allowing Perry to hang it up without crushing himself. Panting, Perry wiped the sweat off his forehead while he considered what to do with his stats.

Next level is another shot at a Perk. If I assign seven points to Attunement and nine to Stability, that gives me twenty-five points to spend at level ten, and closes the gap between Attunement and Stability by one.

Assign seven to Attunement and nine to Stability, Perry thought, reviewing his new stats.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 9

HP: 10

Body: 9

Stability: 37

Nerve: 14

Attunement: 51

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 7450

Spells: Light (5/5), Dragor’s Kinesis (3/3), Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation (1/1)

After level ten, I’m going to need to make a concerted effort to boost Stability above Attunement, both because the difference between a single stat point grows with their total, and because Solaris will kill me if I don’t.

How many points will I have at level eleven?

Perry was planning on taking a Tinker Specialization in exchange for twenty points and five Attunement, meaning he would be at…

48 Attunement going into level 11, giving him 21 points to spend.

The level itself would raise Attunement to 50, and Stability would be 39.

Pop sixteen points into Stability, five into Attunement, and they’re even…do I even want them to be even?

Might be a good idea to boost it even higher, to account for mental attacks and overflow.

Might be about time to start leveling other things to keep myself balanced after that. Perry was already under Solaris’s microscope so a sprint to godhood was kind of out of the question at this point.

But Perry was eventually going to pop off whether he wanted to or not.

Wait a moment. if I got to the point where I could take two tinker specializations every five levels, I could tread water with my Attunement, funneling that out-of-control growth into expanding utility, long enough for leveling to slow down to a crawl.

Right around Attunement of 62, which was rapidly approaching.

Well, that’s cool! A way to prevent living forever and/or breaking reality without becoming a hermit and quitting the superhero gig.

Quality of life achieved.

Now that Perry had a more first-hand experience with what Attunement actually was…he was a little less eager to pump it to astronomical levels, even with the Stability to back it up.

Now all we gotta do is get ready for the trip to Chicago.