Chapter 28: Chapter Twnety Eight

I snuck out the back window again in my costume to meet up with Cap. I made a note to be careful about using cape names when in costume. Even though Cap was outed, I very much wasn't, and most of my team wasn't either so it seemed like a good habit to get into. When my mentor finally showed up thankfully, it was in a car and not on a two wheeled death machine. He grinned as he saw me, gesturing me to get in before we pulled out of the alley and headed into town.

He took in my appearance with amusement. "I still can't believe you want to go out after spending three straight days doing nonstop crafting jobs? Don't you sleep? Still, I won't pretend I'm not relieved to get away. Shadowthorn has been on the warpath since Callie pulled her stunt at the fight club. She's furious, but knows she can't actually discipline her without the guild masters say so, and mom slapped Callie with that desk duty too quick for her to run a complaint up the chain. They never did get along."

I raised an eyebrow. "Isn't Shadowthorn high up in the guild? You would think with the capital guild master on speed dial she could do whatever she wants." I'd heard nothing but shitty things about Callie's dad, and I could absolutely see him interfering in a branch matter directly if he felt like it. He was obviously someone with a lot of rep. Actually, if he'd been around for that long I might have heard of him. I'd never bothered to ask about him before. "Who actually is Callie's dad?"

He looked at me in surprise. "You didn't know? Her dad is Midknight. As for his position..." He waggled a hand indecisively. "He's pretty high up, but there are other factors. The smaller cities' guild masters reign by virtue of absolute power, but the capital has the strongest Ascendants on the planet. The executives at the capital branch are all E rankers and they mostly have connections higher up in the Unity. Midknight has to watch his step or they can force him out. Based on what I've heard of him he hates it, but he has to play ball anyway."

That was interesting to hear, but it paled in comparison to who her dad was. Midknight was...a big deal. He was one of the most prolific and powerful Ascendants to have ever lived in Valen. The inner workings of the Unity had never been clear to mortals so I hadn't know he was the guild master, but I KNEW who Midknight was. Everyone did. Which I supposed was to be expected from someone who managed to hit E rank in Valen, but still, it was a pretty intense thing to hear. I'd had several data packets focused on him in my education downloads, the guy was a legend.

Though thinking about it his power did bear some similarities to Nightstrike's shadow ability. The thing she did with her hair and clothes was incredibly reminiscent of the living black knight armor that Midknight paired with his control over shadows to devastating effect. His main method of attack was to send a legion of shadow armors against his foes, and knowing how Callie's powers worked I could recognize a very high level of her shadow conjuration mixed with her stealth skills. It was easy to see where she learned to use her powers.

While inherited powers like mine seemed to be rare enough that I hadn't even heard of them, it wasn't uncommon for people to sometimes get abilities slightly reminiscent of their parent when they Ascended. It wasn't a hard and fast rule but it happened. In those cases parents would often pass down the combinations of skills synergized with their ability if they had any, creating legacy powers that allowed some capes to mimic what their parents could do. The benefits there that it made training exponentially easier, but it also somewhat limited creativity.

It didn't shock me that Callie had a legacy ability. I knew Cap's power was based on his mother's too, both of them using star based abilities. If someone like Stella was able to pass down a legacy, a monster like Midknight definitely had enough experience. Of course sometimes people did what I did and never synergized their skills, but often descendants would go out of their way to create a duplicate power of a famous relative to siphon off some of the renown of their more powerful ancestor.

Cap seemed to have been lost in thought right along with me, but he shook it off, clearing his throat to refocus. "Anyway, so yeah. Shadowthorn has to play by the rules, which means local guild master has priority over punishing wayward subordinates. The main branch frowns on micromanaging. They do their best to keep the cities isolated from the mid tier branches because it lets them farm more renown from small towns like ours without having it siphoned off by some capital big shot."

That I knew about. The factions all seeded every planet they could terraform with as many colonists as possible. The more people the more renown there was. Because of this the higher ups in the various factions tended to keep the heirarchy strictly isolated at each step up the ladder. It was the same reason cities tended to be split up into tiers of three or four ranks. By keeping things contained and sectioned off they left enough renown for local Ascendants to get stronger but funneled the rest of it directly to the big shots, bypassing all the mid level capes who might distract the populace.

I'd stumbled onto this bit of trivia when asking around at the guild at why the hell I didn't know that the capital had a hundred billion people in it. It wasn't something people talked about much but it was a known fact even among lower level Ascendants. It was crazy to me to see how compartmentalized the various powers kept information with seemingly no effort. The mortals knew exactly enough to be of benefit but not enough to know how anything worked. It was a staggering degree of information control.

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When we arrived downtown we were in a totally different area of the city than last time. Cap turned to me with a grin. "Since our last patrol was such a bad experience I thought I'd bring you somewhere a bit more...fun. I relieved a friend of mine for the day so we could play around in a more direct part of the city. This, specifically, is where the Jack-tastic Jerks run the show. I thought you might enjoy the chance to blow off some steam, and this is the place we're most likely to find random street crime."

We climbed out of the car, ready to head out, and took a walk down what seemed to me like a random street, though most likely Cap had a reason for picking it. I had to admit, past experiences aside I was genuinely excited to be back out on the street again, if only for the chance to test my new abilities. My stats had all risen, so even my basic DS Gymnastics combo would be way stronger and able to handle more input, and I couldn't wait to test it out in combat.

Luckily it didn't take us long to find a crime. Cap hadn't been kidding, things in this part of town were wilder by far. In fact, things were weird enough that I had to stop and blink a bit as we stumbled on the first set of Jerks perpetrating a theft. I turned to Cap. "So, is this actually happening? Or did I just snap and now I'm hallucinating the most ridiculous thing I can think up?"

In front of us two huge Jerks were climbing through a broken window...out of an artisanal meat shop. They were covered in sausages, most worn around their necks in link form, some shoved in pockets or held in their mouths and hands, and when they saw us, they both froze. Cap reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "No. This is happening. Stuff like this happens all the time over here. I suspect it's why the friend whose area this usually is is so weird most of the time." He glared drolly at the two Jerks. "Do we need to tell you to give up and put down the..." He looked pained. "Meat?"

The smaller of the two jerks, who was still about as tall as I was at six three and much more heavily muscled, sneered at him. "You think we're scared of you Captain Pol-asshole?" He snickered at his own really bad joke. "We know what you can do, and we ain't afraid a' nobody. This is the crime of the century, we're gonna be legends! Everyone is gonna know the name Punchin' Carl!" He pulled himself up to his full height when he said that last part, as if he'd just made a powerful declaration.

I had to force myself not to face palm, or would it be mask palm? Whatever the case it was difficult not to just outright show how stupid I thought he was. His buddy chimed in, bigger and somehow giving the impression of being even dumber. "Yeah, and he ain't alone neither. You wanna pick a fight with Carl you gotta go through me, Stephen the Shoe!" I looked down. Stephen was, in fact, not wearing any shoes. Because of course he wasn't. I was beginning to understand that comment earlier about Cap's friend being weird. If I had to deal with this nonsense on the regular I'd be weird too.

I activated my overlay, because there was no way people this stupid wouldn't try some kind of surpris-. Yup. As soon as it came up I saw the arrow for an attack arc over from the two of them. I reacted before Stephen even finished attacking and my foot arced up to intercept...a sausage. They had thrown a sausage at us. The lone piece of meat went flying off back into the broken window behind them and the two of them just stared at us, beginning to grow slightly uneasy. We all kind of just stood there for a minute before Carl yelled. "Run for it!"

The two of them then proceeded to turn and sprint in the other direction. Stephen, having two points of Impact as far as I could tell was unharmed as he ran through the glass, and they made decent time, but didn't get far before they ran into Cap. Who could fly. The two of them glanced at him, then back at me. Punchin' Carl sneered at us. "You might think you beat us, but we almost got away! People will be tellin' stories about this heist for years! How even Captain Polaris needed backup to take us down."

As he spoke he started taking the sausage from around his neck and from his pockets and laying them on the ground. I winced, because I was pretty sure those weren't really ok to eat anymore, but we let them...disarm, so we could detain them. Once we had them swept up and restrained we called the local security bureau to come and haul them away. The Unity had close ties with the Conglomerate government so we dealt with Ascendant crime but they were the ones who picked up minor offenders.

After they left I turned to Cap. "So...what are the chances that's going to be the weirdest thing to happen to us today?" He gave me a sheepish look and I closed my eyes and sighed. Now I understood why his friend was so willing to pass of this beat to us for the day. I had the very unpleasant suspicion that this day was going to be much longer than I had expected it to be. But hey, maybe I would get some decent points out of it?

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