Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage - Chapter 119

For the next few days, while the city recovered from another megalomaniac villain being captured, I spent most of my time working at the compound. The city had officially been scoured of all major criminal enterprises, and was under the watchful protection of the Guardians, as well as New Wave. I had more or less completed my first objective of saving the city, and now it was time to really start working past that. 

Oh, don't get me wrong, it was far from a utopia. But the cops could handle some unorganized crime, while the PRT ENE focused on cracking down on threats around the city, not just the city itself.

My first task, making good on my promise to enhance New Wave, was easy once I was done modifying the ritual and Geomantic process. This was the same combination of ritual and geomantic design that I had used to give myself and Taylor our increased attributes, now set to change whole groups at once. It took a few hours to work in the modifications, but luckily, my points in magical mass production were more than happy to help me figure the process out. When it was done, the whole team climbed onto the ritual platform, standing in a central ring of circles, just big enough for each of them. 

Unfortunately, I did need to charge the ritual more for each person being enhanced, but it was only five minutes per person, so it only added up to thirty-five minutes in total. It would likely be one of my most significant slowdowns if my army was given the green light, but it was absolutely necessary for organic soldiers. The expanded geomantic ritual was perhaps the largest edge I could provide, taking a standard human and giving them a simple, clean brute rating of around five, a mover rating of two or three, plus a bonus resistance to electricity and fire.

While it didn't quite sound groundbreaking, the fact that the enhancement was clean, meaning it wasn't the result of something like stone skin or a force field, meant that it lacked rules, variables, and weaknesses, significantly increasing its value. On top of that, the fact that this was just the foundation on which all of the other gear I was making was built only increased its value further. 

With the hero family finally brought up to spec, and then some, I could finally focus on finishing my proof of concept designs. It took two more days to complete, and when it was finally done, it consisted of six items in total. The boots, cuffs, a jacket, a non-focus wand, a belt, and goggles. This was, of course, not the final total I would have for the final product, but rather the proof of concept to show off to Director Piggot and whoever she could direct me towards next. 

The load-out would also likely change significantly, since I would soon have a total of seven charges to spend. That represented a wealth of knowledge to work with, which should hopefully result in better, more powerful gear.

I would have more charges, nine in total, but I had already spent the three I earned from capturing Coil. They slid perfectly into a new subject, two levels of annihilation magic. I wasn't ecstatic about how little I got from it, as not only was the subject incredibly dense, but I was forced to purchase "annihilation magic" rather than rituals or enchantment, as the subject was too encapsulated to break down, as far as I could tell. Annihilation magic was high-level stuff, and while I did know how to work the effects into an item, the results of the low level were… far from what I wanted. 

The proof-of-concept wand, which was the absolute best I could create at the moment, created an annihilation field the size of a quarter, a purple, roiling field of magic about a half-inch from its wooden tip. This effect was horrifyingly destructive, doing exactly what it said on the tin to just about any material I could offer it. It was rebuffed by shields, both magical and those summoned by Lady Photon, but it did constant damage to it in the process, breaking the shields much faster than a direct physical attack normally would. 

When I tested it on my numbed arm, it was not rebuffed by my enhanced durability, not even for a second. The wound healed easily with magic, but the way it carved through me like butter suddenly had me second-guessing the entire idea. 

This weapon, both this version and the version I was hoping to make once I got my new charges, was something that could absolutely kill me and a significant number of people and capes. This was not the kind of weapon that would hurt a couple of people before whoever was using it was stopped. This was a weapon that could take down buildings and kill hundreds of people in a very short amount of time. Combined with all of the powers I was planning on handing to these soldiers… 

I was creating a potent killing machine, and, up until that point, was just going to judge their character and bank on me being able to pull apart their magical items with my mind before they could do any serious damage.

That just wasn't going to work, not after watching the annihilation magic pass through my own flesh and bone without even slowing down.

I needed some sort of powerful protection, something that would keep me and everyone else safe from a weapon I was about to hand out potentially thousands of. 

At first, I considered trying to come up with some sort of anti-annihilation effect, but that didn't seem to be possible beyond just more powerful shields.

So, if I couldn't stop the effect, I'd stop the weapon and the user. The first thing I did was remove the possibility of theft. I developed a connecting crystal that linked to the wand, rendering it useless outside of its range, which was only a few feet. I then replicated that on an even bigger scale, tying the effect to a chunk of granite. The range for this connection was a few miles, and during the fight, I would carry it with me in a satchel. It was a bit unwieldy, but it would allow me to instantly shut down specific wands or wide groups of them, instantly.

The final layer was an enchantment, a combination of what I learned from the single level I invested, and an anti-theft enchantment meant to keep people from stealing produce from a garden or farm. It was designed to be put into stones, which could then be placed under or around the garden. I took it, basically cut it into pieces, and used its parts. The first was a human sensor. If someone tried to use the wand on a person, and the wand turned off. The second piece came from the owner's ability to grant people permission to harvest the produce. If the army was ever used to take down an S-class threat that wasn't the Endbringers, like Nilbong or the Slaughterhouse 9, I could remove the restriction, allowing them to attack humans.

Having to work backwards from the protection enchantment was a slow process and took the longest to figure out from all of the gear. Because of all the steps and added complexity, making the wands would be one of, if not the most, time-consuming part of crafting the gear as well. Well worth the time spent, as I was hoping it was the key to actually fighting the Endbringers, but still time-consuming. Hopefully, as I increased their power, making them wouldn't get too much more difficult. 

With everything complete, including the temporarily finished version of the wand, I set out for the PRT. I had a meeting with Director Piggot, and I didn't want to be late.

As I arrived at the PRT, I was escorted inside. Rather than heading to her office, I was led to a conference room, which I had asked for. As I stepped inside the simple office room, duffel bag in tow, I spotted Armsmaster and Miss Militia sitting on either side of the director. All three of them were clearly curious to find out what all this was about, though to varying degrees of animation.

"Director Piggot, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, good to see you again," I said with a nod, placing the duffel bag on one of the chairs. "Thank you for making time to see me. I understand you must be busy after the fiasco with Coil." 

"You could say that," the director said sardonically, her face set in stone. "And we are bound by policy to at least listen to all proposed Anti-Endbringer ideas from legitimate sources."

"Not that we wouldn't take you seriously," Miss Militia pointed out. "What you've done to help this city is nothing short of astounding."

Director Piggot gave the star-spangled heroine a look, before turning back to focus on me.

"What do you have for us, Arcanum?" She asked, gesturing to the bag I placed on the chair. "I'm going to assume by the fact that you were allowed through security that what you have is not an active threat to this facility?" 

"No, without someone wearing them, they are just bits of clothing," I assured her, before opening the duffel bag and placing its contents on the table, one by one.

I caught all three of them following my movements closely, Armsmaster in particular watching me like a hawk. When I was done, I took my seat, pausing for a moment before beginning to explain myself.

"As you may remember, I did not participate directly in the Canberra Endbringer fight," I started. "Up until then, I had focused most of my work on cleaning up Brockton Bay, so when it was time to fight, I did not have the… equipment to meaningfully contribute. I did not like that, so I quickly shifted my focus and have been working on something ever since. These items represent a proof of concept for the fruits of that focus."

"I assume these items function in the same way the creations you made for New Wave do?" Armsmaster asked, leaning forward and studying the wand. 

"They are similar, yes," I agreed with a nod, pausing for a moment before continuing. "While trying to puzzle through what I should focus on, I decided that, rather than create one or two uber powerful weapons, that creating dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of smaller, still powerful but much more spread out weapons would work much better."

I gestured to the array of items, trying to tone down my urge to ham up my introduction. 

"My idea, in collaboration with the PRT, is to recruit, train, and arm an army of Anti-Endbringer soldiers. They would exist to destroy the Endbringers and select few other S-Class threats." 

"And how exactly could you arm that many people?" Director Piggot asked with a frown. "It took you nearly a week to arm New Wave, and you only gave them one item each."

"I recently made several breakthroughs in mass production," I explained with a smile, before pointing towards the boots. "I can make these in batches of sixty, the cuffs in batches of forty-five, the goggles in batches of forty, so on and so forth. The wand is the most difficult because it is the most complicated item here, but I can still make twenty-five in three hours." 

"What does the wand do?" Armsmaster asked, beating Piggot out for her question by a split second.  

I smirked, reached back inside the duffel bag, pulling out a chunk of metal and placing it on the table gently. 

"I did a good amount of research before starting all this, and the online resources were quite clear that annihilation-style attacks were the most effective method of damaging an Endbringer, as they at least partially negate their increasingly dense layers," I said as I reached out and picked up the wand, then gesturing to the chunk of metal. "This is tungsten."

I activated the wand, which hummed loudly, the disk of purple energy catching Piggott off guard as it appeared suddenly. I could see her fighting an instinct to reach for a sidearm, despite my meticulous efforts to not aim the wand at anyone. Despite the fact that it wasn't a projectile weapon. 

I gently swiped the annihilation disk through the tungsten, carving a deep furrow through the metal with barely any resistance. I demonstrated this a few times before deactivating the wand and placing it on the table with a smirk.  

"That is essentially a prototype, the first stage of what I'm hoping to eventually arm this Anti-Endbringer army with. Out of all the things I have here, the wand is the least like what I'm hoping the final end product will be."

The room was quiet for some time, as all three people on the other side of the table took in what I had shown and said. Armsmaster looked like he was close to leaping over the table to examine the wand, while Piggot and Miss Militia looked like a mix of shocked and horrified. Eventually, Piggot coughed, seeming to at least partially come back to herself. 

"That is… You really don't know how to do things small scale, do you, Arcanum?" She asked rhetorically, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes for a moment before focusing on me again. "What about upkeep and repairs?" 

"My creations do not require maintenance behind fixing natural wear and tear, and unless the damage is catastrophic, that can be done by anyone who could repair the object normally," I explained.  "Beyond that, I would just replace the item." 

Again, the room was silent, but this time it was different. Piggot was watching me closely, her mind clearly running behind her eyes. 

"This is perhaps one of the most… fantastical ideas I have ever heard," She admitted. "And if it was coming from someone else, I would have dismissed them out of hand. But we already have proof you can mass-produce things from the luck bracelets, and those show no signs of breaking down, from what I understand. Tell me, Arcanum. What would you do if I said no?"

"I would gather my things, leave, and teleport to another PRT headquarters to plead my case there," I responded with a shrug. "I'd try that a few more times before giving up and doing it myself." 

"And by yourself, you mean…?"

"Most likely a golem army of some kind." 

"Why would you not go directly with that?" Piggot asked, watching me carefully. "Surely it would be less complicated?"

"Director, I am well aware of the… extreme nature of what I am describing," I admitted, meeting and holding her look. "An entire army, armed with advanced tinker tech, each with a rating of four or five in five categories and close to seven in one. I'm attempting to offset the extreme nature by giving you and your organization some skin in the game. By using PRT officers, it stops being my army and starts being our army."

"... I see. Well, as I'm sure you probably anticipated, this is so far above my pay grade that I'm not sure who I should pass you on to," Piggot admitted, letting go of a long, deep breath. "But, since you're here, why don't you go over what each of these items can do?" 

"Sure. Let's start with the boots…"