Chapter 103: A Small Favor

***Chemestro***

“You wanted to see me?” Chemestro asked.

“Take a seat,” Solaris said, motioning to the seat across from his desk. Chemestro gave an inward shrug and sat across from the ruler of Franklin City.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time to do this. Every six or eight years, after High tide, I like to do some…clean up. Cut out certain cancerous growths that might’ve destabilized the city if excised during High Tide.”

Chemestro’s heart shot into his throat. He could only assume Solaris was talking about him. He was too close to the super to dodge or deflect. Solaris could literally move at the speed of light.

Is he gonna kill me?

“Kid, you’ve got what it takes to be an Anchor.”

Chemestro’s brows climbed.

“You see, I’ve seen a lot of supers go mad and lose touch with reality, seems to come with the territory. My greatest fear is that one day the same thing will happen to me, and I’ll wipe Franklin city out like a child’s sandcastle.

“To prevent that, I like to keep a handful of supers on hand who have a shot at killing me.”

Solaris’s gaze bored into Chemestro’s eyes.

“You might be one of them.”

“I thought the Anchors were supposed to replace you if you died.”

“Well, yeah, but an Anchor is pretty much the only way I could die,” Solaris shrugged. “I haven’t aged in sixty years. I’m a hundred and six years old. I’ve been torn in half, decapitated, eaten, banished to hell – not the Christian hell, but close – adventured across magical lands, cursed, flung into space…you name it.”

Solaris’s gaze lost focus as he seemingly got lost in his memories. A moment later the super shook it off.

“I got off topic, this is about Post-Tide cleanup. You’re gunning for Anchor, and you’re so very close to achieving it, but there’s one little problem.”

“Tell me what it is, and I’ll deal with it,” Chemestro said. He was getting one step closer to achieving Father’s primary mission.

“As long as Neuron is alive, I can’t give you that kind of political power.” Solaris said, leaning back in his chair.

“Excuse me?” Chemestro asked.

“You heard me. Neuron has a stable of young, powerful supers, about your age, that he has groomed from birth to obey him without question, making him one of the more influential Thinkers in the city…”

“But those young, powerful supers don’t actively contribute anything to the defense of the city, simply remaining in cloistered training, desperately competing with each other in order to win favor with Father.”

Chemestro’s eye twitched.

“I think to myself, yes, Neuron has his fingers in a lot of pies, but his businesses are mostly corrupt drains on the city designed to line his pockets.”

“If the brain were to kick the bucket, there would be a flood of new blood on the streets, along with a substantial correction in corruption-based loss of wealth.”

“Now it might take a couple years to sort out the good ones from the bad ones, but I’m confident we could handle Neuron’s children and stabilize the city before the next High Tide.”

“Long story short: It wasn’t previously the case, but your value in my eyes has surpassed that of your father. If you wish to be in line to run this city, Neuron must be gone and his children allied behind you as a powerful political force.”

“Are you asking me to kill my Father?” Chemestro said, a strange emotion welling up inside him. He clamped down on it. He could talk to Lu’ann about it later.

“You don’t have to kill him, no.” Solaris said before pausing. “But you do have my permission.”

***Paradox***

“The favor is, and I quote: You must invite a woman of red hair and one of black to a grand ball you will host for the local manitians of note, for which occasion you will have studied the history and etiquette so as not to embarrass me, lest I consider the favor unfulfilled.”

“All one sentence?” Natalie asked.

“One sentence, one favor, I think was the idea.” Perry said with a shrug. “So, umm…you guys wanna go to a magical royal ball with a bunch of fantasy creatures?”

Nat’s eyes sparkled, her expression lighting up.

“Of c-“

“Hold on,” Heather said, slapping a hand over Nat’s mouth. “This nerd’s required to bring a redhead and a black-haired girl. If he doesn’t, he’s technically failed, and his gramma gets another favor. We have leverage.”

“Not that much leverage,” Perry said. “There are other girls with the right hair color.”

“Oh yeah, ones you wanna take to a ball?” Heather asked.

Perry rolled his eyes.

“What are your demands?”

“I want a Mox-feather dress.” Heather said immediately. “Obviously I can’t wear a t-shirt and leggings.”

Perry still had the supplies, and it was a good request. Gramma’s expectation to ‘not embarrass her’ basically translated to ‘blow everyone else out of the water.’

“That’s a good idea, actually” Perry said, already mentally drawing up plans. “Text me a pic of the dress you’d like, and I’ll make it.” Perry glanced over at Natalie. “You too, Nat.”

“R-really?” She asked.

“Do you have a dress?” Perry asked.

Nat opened her mouth and closed it.

“No…”

“Alright, Nat, what are your demands?” Perry said, glancing at Natalie.

“Hey, why does she get a dress and a demand!?” Heather asked.

“Because you wasted yours on something you were probably gonna get anyway,” Perry said, leaning down as Nat motioned him closer.

“I’d um, I’d like a spirit smithing forge.” She whispered into his ear, her breath tickling his hair.

Perry’s eyebrows rose. If he retained all the skills and memories Gerome had implanted in him, it stood to reason that Nat did too. The only problem was that spirit smithing forges were more than a little difficult to source, hence why Nat hadn’t done any since then.

She pulled back, tapping her fingers together nervously. “Is that okay?”

“Sure, I can make that happen.” Perry said.

“Make what happen?” Heather asked.

Perry grinned and gave her a wink. “It’s a secret.”

“Oh, you suck,” Heather said, barely keeping the smile from blooming on her face. “I’m taking Nat shopping for dresses. You’ve both got terrible fashion sense.”

“Guilty as charged,” Perry said, raising his hands.

Perry had been thinking about wearing one of those T-shirts with a tuxedo pattern printed on the front.

Obviously he shouldn’t do that, but man…it was tempting.

Maybe a T-shirt that says ‘Big Balls’ with the AC~DC logo on the back?

…Nah.

Nat and Heather wandered off to the nearby sofa and began scrolling through their phones, showing each other dresses.

Perry glanced down at his hand.

He couldn’t resist.

Light.

3/5

Above his hand, a pale orb of pure light manifested.

In Perry’s soul, he’d implanted two filters abutting Abun’Zaul. Each filter only allowed pure Essence to flow through it.

Each filter had each been impregnated with a starter essence: Moonlight and Lunar Lotus.

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Abun’Zaul, by its very nature, sought to spread into every nook and cranny it could, pushing against the filter and mimicking the essence it found there. Eventually, raw essence of the flavor Perry needed began slowly seeping through the filters, pushed through by Abun’zaul’s insistent pressure.

Abun’zaul would push the starter essence through the filter, then the essence it had created to copy the starter essence would lose connection because of the narrow filter cutting any kind of control.

Abun’zaul would come into contact with this essence it had lost contact with, recognize it as ‘foreign’, then try to mimic it and push through the filter. Ad nauseum.

It was a bit like priming a well, except whatever you primed the well with would be what came out.

Connecting the two filters together was the infrastructure to combine the two essences and control them at will. Perry could modulate the brightness and control where the light went, but couldn’t change the color.

With the way his spell system was currently designed, Perry would have to undergo a surgery for every new spell he wanted to acquire, and the spells did not share slots.

There was no such thing as universal essence, so every individual kind of essence he wanted to use would require both a filter inserted in his soul, and an example of the essence to prompt Abun’zaul’s spirit to begin copying it.

It was possible that he could make an extra-large filter connected to a storage tank that would go to many different spells. Vivant Root was a very common ingredient that would benefit from centralization.

But that was a problem for the future.

Perry was chomping at the bit to get his next spell installed, but he’d already decided during a moment of rationality that he would wait at least a month before doing any further soul surgery.

He needed to know:

1: Can Abun’Zaul corrode/wear away the Spell Frame in his soul? Ditto for The System. If so, it was back to the drawing board.

2: Will the soul surgery have any lasting effects? If so, what kind?

3: How much recovery time is needed between surgeries?

Perry already felt a lot better than he did the night before, but his Stability urged him to take it slow and steady.

Stability was rarely wrong.

Ding!

Ding!

A text from Heather followed shortly by one from Nat caught his attention.

He opened up the texts and studied the dresses. Natalie’s was a bit more attention-grabbing than he’d have given her credit for, but that was probably Heather’s influence.

“Alright, I can copy these. So I take it you both are going, then?”

“Yes, it sounds amazing!” Nat said.

“Sure.” Heather said.

“Good!” Perry reached under one of his workbenches and retrieved the abridged book of manitian royal etiquette. It weighed about twenty pounds.

The tome hit the surface of the table with a satisfying thud, and Perry placed his fingertips on top of the leather cover.

“This is the abridged book of manitian royal etiquette. Since you are representing me, you’ll be joining me in studying it…exhaustively.”

Heather turned and ran for the exit, but she was too slow.

“LCC Lockdown.”

The doors of Perry’s lair shut in front of her, causing Heather to come to a screeching halt before she pancaked on the heavy doors.

“Damn,” Heather muttered, slinking back towards them.

“I thought you were a straight-A student.” Perry said innocently.

“Doesn’t mean I like boring shit,” Heather muttered.

“It sounds really interesting to me!” Natalie said “It’s like a puzzle, every rule lets you guess about some facet of the history of another planet! How is that not cool?” She said, struggling to lift the book and open it up.

“Like this!” she pointed to a random line in the book. “You shalt not take Bregthor beast to a formal dinner.”

“One went mad when it saw a familiar person with an unfamiliar hairstyle and tried to tear off their face. Needless to say they were no longer allowed in the queen’s presence.” Perry said.

“That’s pretty metal.” Heather said, nodding. “Why’s it in English?”

“It’s not, it’s just enchanted so anyone can read it.” Perry reached up to the back of the cover and slightly drew out one of the enchanted pins in the spine.

“Whoah,” Natalie breathed as the text squiggled like it was alive before reforming in Manitian. Perry pushed the pin back in and it was English again.

“It’s also worth more than my lair, so don’t set your drink on it.”

“Come on, I’ll sit on your lap and read it to you,” Nat said, dragging a reluctant Heather back to the couch.

Perry half-listened while Nat read the preamble and began listing things not to do, the majority of which were intended for non-human company such as how to wear your gills.

Perry felt like it was safe to half-listen until the actual chapter on royal conduct.

In the meantime…Perry flipped up his phone and snagged the two pictures off his text messages and put them on his computer.

He looked up the style of dresses and a pattern for how to sew them.

Looks pretty easy.

Making fancy dresses wasn’t rocket science, and Perry already had that down.

Just making a beautiful dress seemed…a little lackluster. Below the level of Paradox. Below grandma’s level, for that matter.

Not to mention, there was definitely going to be some kind of battle at the ball.

That was just how life worked in Franklin City.

“Can I add sleeves to Natalie’s dress?” Perry asked.

“Sure, I guess.” Nat said, glancing up from her reading.

Alright, so I want to include Paradox’s Fabulous Earth Armor, obviously, but I’d like to go above and beyond on the material of the dress itself, and if I add sleeves to Natalie’s dress, I can add contracting fibers to add a couple hundred pounds to her upper body strength.

…except it wouldn’t affect her grip strength or lower body strength. Obviously I can’t make it a full suit, either. Damn.

Perry glanced over at the tank where he grew the matte-black carbon nanofibers that formed the bulk of his Mk. 4’s armor.

He glanced over at where he grew Heather’s hyperweave.

Yeah…that could work. Maybe I can make it a full suit. Just a little tweak and he could make the hyperweave transparent.

‘Nylon’ gloves and stockings attached to the dress could make the whole thing an actual suit. A super suit.

Muahahaha!

Plus Nat was very small so this prototype wouldn’t cost him that much.

Oh, I forgot, one more thing!

***Sophie***

Sophie was minding her own business, bent over the counter, leaning on her elbow and doing data entries for the motel when she sensed someone approaching behind her.

She shifted her stance in a way that she knew would make her vacuum-sealed butt look good, and added a little wiggle for good mea-

“OW!” Sophie yelped as a sharp pain bloomed on her scalp.

“Thanks for the hair, Sophie! This is for work!” Paradox said, waving three of her long blond hairs back at her as he left, not paying her a second glance.

Sophie huffed and fixed her hair back in a bun, pouting at the retreating Tinker.

I know my goal is to get the three of them together, but being completely ignored like this is damaging my confidence.

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