章 2736: 2.1
I did it! It's official! I'm a hero!
Vim the ass kicker! Vim the hope of Brockton Bay! Vim the terror to all criminals of the world!
Honestly I was still giddy after Armsmaster had called me a hero. He didn't really say it to my face but he reported it over his radio. I should've brought along some sort of tape recorder just so I could hear it again and again!
With my Veil activated I passed through the neighbourhood receiving the tiny feeling of improvement as I went.
It was time to return home, to go from being Vim the hero and back to boring old Taylor. It was almost depressing the way I phrased that in my mind. Yet it was true, after the excitement of tonight I wasn't sure if I could go back to being bullied, to being unimportant.
I stopped Lung, I made my first arrest and I saved lives! I grimaced with that thought entering my head.
The Undersiders. Would I have done anything differently if I had known it was them? Probably not. They deserved to be arrested, not killed. At the time I was more afraid that they would attack me, after all they were the bad guys.
I was lucky that they had gotten the wrong idea about me, believing that I was a bad guy just like them. Fighting Lung in a straight fight would end with me as dead as Emma's moral code and against the Undersiders, a group of four Parahumans? I'd probably not do much better and that's if I was discounting the three dog monsters that Hellhound, no Bitch used.
In fact, now that I thought about it they were downright nice for villains. They even THANKED ME! Thanked me for delaying Lung like I had, for saving their lives even if it wasn't on purpose. The only reason why they left sooner was because Tattletale told them that Armsmaster was arriving soon.
They invited me to come with them, to hide out and lay low for a bit but I didn't exactly want to be associated with them fleeing the scene of a Cape fight.
Cape fight…. That was a generous way to put it.
While Lung and I had never really gone to blows I was a cape and I broke a ABB gang member's ribs so that technically counted as a 'Cape' (Singular) fight. That was another point I had to think on. I underestimated how much damage I could do with the bat and while the guy was probably going to be fine I couldn't afford any other mistakes. I was lucky tonight, I was a hero, not a thug.
THE BAT!
Only then did I realize that I left it behind. Where did I leave it? I don't think I was holding it when I was talking with Armsmaster, it was most likely dropped when I realized that Lung was after me.
I moaned into my hands. This was a disaster. I could go back to it and find it but Lung was back there. The biggest problem wasn't losing a weapon, with time I could craft my own or at worst just find a metal pipe as unheroic as that sounded.
The biggest issue was that the bat belonged to Dad. I don't know if he just had it for the sake of having it or if he played baseball at all (the dust on it when I found it says no) but I couldn't go around taking other people's property and losing it!
This would lead to uncomfortable questions, questions that could reveal what I had been doing tonight.
"Taylor, where's my super bat?" He'd ask me.
"Oh uhh, nothing happened!" I would reply.
"The news says that there's been an arrest, a gang member who had been hit by a blunt object, also there's a bat in the ABB territory." Then I would collapse at the unfairness of the world.
That was the dumbest scenario I could think of and yet even knowing that it was dumb didn't remove my fears. I had to get a replacement before he got suspicious. But where would I get a bat on such short notice in the middle of the night? Hopefully he'd think he'd lost it.
I lashed out in frustration flinging my fist against a thin tree.
As I was not a brute the only thing that accomplished was a few leaves becoming dislodged. I needed a way to make my punches stronger, I got the impression that if I used my fists I'd have better control over my own limbs, less likely to hurt anyone too seriously but enough to knock them out. Yet none of my basic 'skills' seemed to enhance it.
It was almost frustrating how arbitrary my powers were in how they affected me! Everything was so conditional! I had to be wearing something that seemed like armor to get a brute rating! I had to use an anvil to make stuff! I needed a weapon to hit harder! People had to stop looking at me for me to hide!
Phrased like that it made me sound like just a normal, non-Parahuman person! Was that my power? To be like a normal person but more so?
"Everyone, look at Vim! With all the powers of two normal people!"
Pfft.
I needed money now to buy a new bat and I needed money for the anvil. I was a teenager, I shouldn't be worrying about money yet!
I couldn't resort to stealing of course and looking under the couch for spare change could only get me so far. I pulled out Armsmaster's card again and considered it. I had doubts selling to the PRT originally, worried that they'd strong arm me into joining them but tonight had cleared away those doubts to a small degree at least..
He asked me to join the Wards but didn't really push it when I declined and he did tell me that I could call him if I had any questions. Maybe I could sell him some of my potions?
I'd have to brew some new stuff up, I was under the impression that a lot of my stuff wouldn't effect him.
I'd need to make things that could enhance his two handed strikes, maybe the smithing potions could make him a better Tinker, the armor stuff would probably work as well. Did power armor count as light or heavy armor? I figure it would be heavy but you could never be sure with Tinker Tech.
Maybe something for healing, Panacea was in high demand so my own healing potions would probably do really well.
I'd need crab shells and charred rat skin for my cure disease potions. Well, alleged cure disease at least, it's not like I had any test subjects for that.
My normal, run of the mill healing potions on the other hand I could in full confidence say worked. In addition there were so many different combinations for the recipe that it wouldn't take long to make several new batches anyways. In fact I already had over a dozen bottles of the stuff. The only downside to all the potions I wanted to make was the fact that it took time to find the ingredients. It's not like the flowers I found behind the house could regrow over night and the stuff at the supermarket were pretty expensive.
I'd make some stamina potions. Like coffee but hundreds of times better. If Armsmaster didn't want it then I could probably sell them to some of the PRT office workers, Tinker Tech coffee! No wait… Tinker Tech Vim and Vigour! T.T.V.V! Not even a day being a hero and already I was already thinking about branding. I grinned at that.
Something flickered on the edge of my consciousness.
At first I thought it was danger, that someone was trying to rob me but then I realized it was me becoming stronger or more specifically me already becoming stronger. The Elation! It must've triggered when I was using my skills against Lung and his gang! I probably missed it due to my focus on trying not to die. Life or death scenarios were distracting.
But here it was, the urge to look up. Stars filled my vision once more and my vision dimmed as knowledge of what could be flooded my mind. I could do so much, I could be so powerful, I was limited by what I could do now but in time I would be so much more. I couldn't quite grasp the capabilities that I would have but I had ideas, things I might be able to do.
I could slow down time, I could make my worn armor weightless, I could paralyze with a single strike, I could… I could, everything was so far out of reach. I was grasping for straws, I had to grab what I could, there was so much power, so many stars, so many shards of light.
I wanted to make my potions even more effective to impress Armsmaster, to make my healing more notable. Soon I felt myself become tougher again as the feeling of Elation coursed through me grabbing hold of that shard of power. I got the feeling that only my stamina and healing potions were affected but that would be enough.
Shards of power.
That was an apt way of putting it. My Elation didn't quite give me full sets of powers, it simply gave me bits and pieces, shards. I nodded at that and made my way home.
Before I knew it I was outside my house. Creeping in was no effort due to my Veil but it was a nerve wracking experience regardless. What would happen if Dad got up for a midnight snack? What if he found my bed empty? What if he called the police to tell them I was missing?
As I reached my bed I had to tell myself that he hadn't any clue. That he was sound asleep and safe in his bed. That there was no evidence to the contrary. Breathing a sigh of relief I began to undress, replacing my costume for the innocent pyjamas I would sleep in.
Sleep.
That was another aspect to my power that made things more convenient. I could choose how long I slept for and it never really seemed to impact how well rested I was no matter how long or short I was in bed for. I could take a one hour power nap or a full day coma and still come out ready to go! The arbitrary limitation was that I could only choose the duration of my sleep in one hour blocks.
Checking the clock I made sure I'd be awake at around seven, early enough to make some breakfast for dad and I. A normal time for boring old Taylor. My potion selling could wait for now.
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As is RPG tradition it took this long for Taylor to choose a name.
ALL HAIL VIM!
Edit: A few words
週次パワーステータス
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