Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 10: Debut of Paradox

The first hint of High Tide was also the first recorded Trigger. One Edward Collins, July 15, 1969, in a sleepy Midwest town. The young man was playing chicken with some of the local color, and lost control of his car, tumbling down a ravine.

When the car was cut open, they were amazed to find young Mr. Collins unconscious, but without a scratch. When an I.V. was attempted, the needle failed to penetrate his skin. His x-rays were opaque.

It is possible that there were other people who Triggered before or around this time, but records are spotty, as two weeks later, just as the media and government were starting to show extreme interest in Mr. Collins’ case, the first High Tide came.

Sea level rose over a hundred feet overnight, drowning the most populous portions of the world, killing nearly a billion people from drowning and hypothermia. Over the next few months, many more starved as thousands of farms were permanently ruined by the salty ocean water smothering it.

These weren’t the only challenges facing humans back then. Once The Tide arrived in 1969, All living creatures showed a similar rate of Triggering when subjected to extreme stress, and during High tide, the rate skyrocketed from one in a million to one in a thousand. Anything from a common rat, to a mosquito, had a chance of Triggering.

Looking back, many scientists say that statistically, humans should not have survived the first High Tide, as a species, and that there may have been some kind of interference on our behalf. Perhaps it can be traced back to a few nameless supers who leveraged their powers to keep their people alive through those dark times.

The first High Tide was the longest recorded, and lasted for four months, the ocean rolling in over a hundred feet, then dropping precipitously over and over again over a twenty-four hour period, killing land and sea life alike with it’s extreme changes.

It wasn’t until twenty-five years later, during the fourth High Tide, that the first Prawn was reported.

By this point, humans had simply taken to living where High Tide couldn’t reach them, but when the prawns boiled out of the ocean in a feeding frenzy, it became apparent that High Tide could, and would, reach them.

***Perry***

Perry had seen them before in grainy historical photos from the early nineties, as the easily vanquished villains in cartoons and movies, rendered in beautiful (fake) 3-D, and in pictures from twelve years ago, with his mom standing next to a dead one, looking like a proud big-game hunter.

He’d never seen a Prawn in person.

The creature had a silvery smooth, segmented exterior, that looked both shiny and slightly pliable. Perry knew from his studies that it was both extremely hard and extremely pliable, two opposing traits that boasted a damage resistance that was beyond what conventional materials should be capable of.

The creature had a bulbous head, a bit like the extinct beluga, with little mandibles jutting out the front, and each body segment had two pairs of stubby legs.

Honestly, it was a little silly looking.

The problem was, a Prawn didn’t care if you thought it was silly looking. To the Prawn, you looked like food.

Karnos ripped a tube out from between the creature’s slack mandibles and jumped out of the truck, sprinting away at full speed.

The bruiser dropped Perry and did the smartest thing he could: He dove for the hose and tried to shove it back in the monster’s face. Unfortunately he was just a bit too slow.

The prawn reared back and head-butted the bruiser’s entire body, sending him tumbling backwards, blood spraying from his nose until he impacted the concrete wall.

“Titan!” the mechsuit shouted.

Perry rose to his feet, heart slamming in his ears, as loud as the panicked screams of the Razor gang wiggling in place, their arms and legs tied behind their backs: free food.

The noise and motion caught the enormous sea-creature’s attention, and it began climbing out of the destroyed truck, its segments expanding as it unpacked itself, approached the helpless criminals, mandibles quivering.

There was only one thing to do.

New Quest: Defeat the Prawn!

Reward: 1500 XP, Reputation up with Nexus

I really wish I hadn’t taken so many ethics courses, Perry thought with a scowl as he sprinted forward, directing his floating armaments forward, catching shirt collars and belt loops on the blunt side of the magical projections, then hauling the reprehensible individuals away from the creature, five at a time.

“Hey!” Perry shouted, waving his cardboard-covered arms in front of the creature. “Over here you abomination of the sea! I’ve seen bigger nuggets than you in my stool! You’re so weak my mom could kick your ass!”

Maybe the creature understood him, or maybe it just found him to be closer than any of the other squawking prey. Perry would never know. He did get its attention, though.

The prawn lashed out with deceptive speed, catching Perry’s entire body between its mandibles.

The creature’s head was about the size of a bus, so the ‘small’ mandibles were still big enough to cut someone in half. Tiny little bite-sized chunks, for the prawn.

Perry’s breath was driven out of his body as the jagged mandibles crushed the air out of his lungs.

The razor-sharp spikes crunched through his ostensibly bullet-proof armor in short order, piercing all the way down to the carboard battery filled with pressurized gas that formed the structural frame/power of the suit.

HISSSS!

The high-pressure gaseous battery acid shot out of Perry’s armor as the corrugation was pierced, shooting right into the creature’s eyes and mouth. Perry was only spared by the inner rubber lining of the suit.

The monster gave a shrill scream, thrashing around and taking Perry along for the ride, as the spikes on its mandibles were inward-facing, designed to hold onto its prey until the job was done.

Perry pulled the floating armaments back to himself and tried stabbing the creature in the eyes and face, to no avail. The rubbery-looking skin deformed a bit then sprang back.

He felt a heavy jostle and saw Heather’s power armor behind him, grasping the mandibles and pulling them apart, motors whining as they ran at maximum capacity.

Oh god, now I know how Heather felt when I threw her into the air.

It was a handful of dc motors and plastic gears against certain death, and Perry was anything but confident.

He braced the five blades against the creature’s jaws, braced his hands and pushed with everything he had. Kinda sorta wishing I had a giant sword right about now.

An instant later, he felt the pressure loosen, so he shoved himself forward, off the barbed pincers and towards the monster’s slobbering mouth-hole.

Perry turned his fan’s thrust up to max and managed to avoid burying himself in the creature’s mouth, bouncing off its forehead and winding up prone on its back.

Heather kicked off the creature’s mandibles and floated away, her thrusters whirring.

“How fast do think you can get a prawn gun!?” Perry asked, latching onto the edge of one of the creature’s armor plates and holding on for dear life.

“Not fast enough!” Heather shouted back.

Crud.

“Hardcase, boop the snoot!” the bloody-nosed bruiser – Titan – shouted as he ran back into the brawl. “Warcry, see if you can’t kill it! Jetset, get Manic safe!”

“O-okay!” Hardcase made a jet assisted jump high into the air of the warehouse and slammed down with all the force of his mechsuit’s weight, right onto the creature’s forehead, not ten feet away from where Perry was clinging on.

“Ack!” Hardcase deformed the creature’s skull, then bounced off like he’d landed on a trampoline, flew flailing into the distance, smashing through the warehouse’s wall.

A glittering purple plane of force appeared above Perry and nearly took his hand off as it slammed down into the creature’s armored head, scattering into so many glittering motes of light.

“It’s energy resistant!” Warcry shouted.

“Watch it!” Perry shouted down at her.

The spandex wearing girl stuck out her tongue, sporting a split lip where one of Perry’s blades had conked her in the face.

At least I used the blunt side, Perry thought with a scowl.

The Prawn seemed entranced by the shiny mech’s flailing path through the wall of the warehouse, and it gave chase, nearly dislodging Perry with it’s sheer speed.

A meaty thud resounded through the prawn’s body as Titan smashed into it’s side, sending it veering off course and finally tearing Perry from his perch on the creature’s back.

Perry tumbled to the ground in a pile of limbs, and climbed to his feet just in time to receive a tail-slap from the creature’s lobster-like hindquarters.

Perry flew through the air, spinning wildly until his arm caught on a solid steel beam, shearing off the armor instantly.

HP: 0

“Ow.” Perry groaned, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the night air on his right arm as his suit bemoaned its injuries into the tiny HUD in his lower field of vision.

Power 54%, right arm nonresponsive, spell-frame damaged. UR thruster nonresponsive,

Perry sat up as Heather flew over to him.

“You still with us?” she asked.

“Ugh.” Perry said as he rose to his feet. Through the hole in the wall, he could see the other supers giving the prawn hell.

“What do they have that we don’t?” Perry asked, panting and clutching a stitch in his side.

“Besides having real powers?” Heather asked. “They have a leader.”

“Dibs!” Heather and Perry said simultaneously as Perry broke into a loping stride, heading for the battle.

Perry jumped through the hole in the wall and steered clear of the monster’s thrashing tail, heading for the head, where all the fighting was going down.

The girl with the purple planes of energy was watching from nearby, deflecting and disintegrating falling debris from the nearby buildings and removing tripping hazards, while the flier was hovering above the fight, shouting something into his earpiece.

Most of the actual fighting was being done by the bruiser and the mechsuit, who were trading the creature’s attention back and forth, keeping it from doing irreversible damage to each other.

The speedster was nowhere to be seen, most likely still lights-out.

As he approached, the prawn got a good hold on the mechsuit, crunching down onto the armored chestplate.

The chest armor detached and the mechsuit fell back to the ground, revealing a bit of the operator’s arms inside the egg-shaped cockpit of steel and wiring.

The machine fell backwards towards safety, when it’s auto-stabilizers kicked on again, trying to right it’s balance, heedless of the situation.

Perry saw Hardcase’s arms moving frantically across the controls as the jets forced him back towards the steel-crushing mandibles of the monster.

Perry leapt forward, activating his two lower fans for an assisted jump, slamming his shoulder into Hardcase and pushing with all three remaining fans and five blades, wrenching the immense inertia of Hardcase’s armor out of the way of the prawn’s next attack.

A blunt pressure struck across Perry’s chest as they tumbled out of the way, his armor caught by the very tip of the creature’s grasping mandible.

Perry hit the ground and barely managed to scramble out of the way as Hardcase slid across the ground, sending up sparks as his cockpit’s structural cage contended with asphalt.

“Are you okay?” Perry panted as he stood up, his chest piece leaking gas into the air, a huge wedge of his armor and clothes simply torn away, all the way from his right shoulder past the navel, he could feel the cold of the night air flooding in, his mother’s amulet rattling against his chest.

“Yeah,” Hardcase said, pushing himself up, helmet doing a double take at Perry. “It’s good that – you’re fine too.”

“Good,” Perry said, staring up at where Titan was riding the thing’s head, where Perry had been earlier, beating on its squishy armor to little effect as it tried to dislodge him.

“Can you throw me up there?” Perry asked. “My flight is borked.”

“S-sure, dude.”

Perry put a foot into the mechsuit’s oversized palm, waved to get Heather’s attention, then he was flying through the air.

Perry landed right beside Titan, stopping his forward momentum with the floating armaments. He reached down and grabbed one of the sectioned ridges on the monster’s armor and began prying with everything he had, wedging his five blades under the ridge and attempting to lever the armor plate up with those as well.

No matter how hard Perry pried, he couldn’t get the monster’s armor to lift. His suit was no longer aiding his strength, and each of his individual blades only had about the same strength as a man.

This thing was much tougher.

Titan was on the ball, grabbing the armor plate and lifting with a scream of effort, the veins in his neck standing out.

Perry felt the pressure on the knives shift a little, and he was able to get his fingers under the plates, just a little.

God I hope I don’t lose the tips of my fingers, Perry thought, as he strained to pry up the creature’s armor.

Heather landed on his other side, her fingers sliding under the plate and prying it up as well.

Between the three of them, they managed to lift the creature’s armor by about an inch.

Perry slipped the magical blades under the armor plate, point-first, and started them burrowing into the prawn’s flesh.

Experiencing true pain for the first time, the monster began thrashing much more violently, flinging the three of them away as it began writhing in place, curling itself into knots as it tried to eject the blades making a mess of it’s central nervous system.

Perry slid to a halt on his back, his armor preventing road rash as he stopped.

A giant tail whipped above his head and crushed a concrete wall above Perry’s head, sending huge slabs of heavy infrastructure raining down on him.

Perry’s life flashed in front of his eyes for a brief moment before a plane of neon purple force deflected the rubble.

“Thanks,” Perry said, hopping to his feet and getting behind something heavy.

Warcry rolled her eyes and moved on, zapping tumbling concrete and steel like she was playing fruit ninja at the arcade.

Perry turned his attention back to the five blades inside the prawn and began working them like a blender.

The creature’s thrashing redoubled for a moment, causing devastating damage to the nearby buildings before it finally lay still.

Quest Complete!

Defeat the Prawn!

Contribution: 54%

Reward: 810 XP, Reputation up with Nexus

Congratulations! You have –

The System’s words were drowned out by the pillar of light that blasted down from the sky, forcing the assembled supers to shield their eyes.

When Perry blinked the spots out of his eyes, he was shellshocked.

That’s Solaris!

The #1 super in Franklin city stood in the middle of the spot the prawn’s head used to be, glancing around the scene of chaos with mild amusement. The flesh of the prawn had been cauterized in a smooth cut where the beam of light had simply vaporized the monster, Perry’s blades, and a couple inches of the asphalt.

“I received an S.O.S, but it looks like you guys had it under control.” Solaris’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Anybody care to explain how a prawn got inside city limits?”

Perry’s heart stopped and skin went cold at the prospect of being on the god-like super’s shit-list.

Titan stepped forward. “We were attempting a bust on an arms shipment,” The rather large bruiser said. “My team was getting the situation under control when Karnos unleashed the monster to cover his escape. My team is Titan, Jetset, Warcry, Hardcase, and Manic, who is resting right now.”

He pointed to himself and the other supers one by one as he named them.

“These two jumped in to help once the prawn was loose.” Titan said, motioning to Perry’s ragged form, and Heather who landed beside him, conveniently glossing over the start of the conflict.

I think I actually like this guy, Perry thought.

“Well, you look a little worse for wear, kid,” Solaris said, approaching Perry, causing his heart to leap into his throat and palms to become instantly sweaty.

“Who made your armor?” Solaris asked, musing at a piece of cardboard fraying off of Perry’s chest, his whole body radiating energy that Perry could feel, almost pushing him back.

“I did, sir.” Perry gulped, barely able to speak.

Hardcase’s helmet cocked to the side a bit.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Paradox, sir.” Perry tried to avoid his voice breaking.

“I suppose because your armor shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s a good super name.”

Perry’s skin went ice cold.

“Yes. Yes it is. My super name. Because that’s what you asked for.”

“And you?” Solaris asked, glancing over at Heather.

“Don’t have one yet, sir.” She said, her back straight.

“Well, keep at it, young lady.”

Solaris stepped back and scanned the surroundings, along with all the ziptied gangsters, trying to worm their way away.

“I’ll log the Infrastructure damage as Karnos’s liability. You kids did good keeping bystanders safe and dealing with the unexpected, but I expect you’ll do a bit more recon next time?”

“Yessir,” Titan said, nodding furiously, along with Perry, everyone else, and some of the tied-up gangsters.

“Good,” Solaris turned into a being of pure light and launched himself into the air, disappearing into the night sky.

Oh, thank god. Perry thought, his entire body going wobbly as the adrenaline was flushed out of his system.

“Good job, Paradox,” Heather said, slapping him on the back. “Think we should get out of here now, Paradox?”

“I know, I know,” Perry said, removing heather’s hand.

“Hold on,” Titan said, walking over to the two of them, wadding up some toilet paper and shoving it up his bloody nose.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot. I don’t think we would’ve beat that think without your help. Kept it busy until Solaris showed up, maybe but beat it? I don’t think so. There’s still a truckload of money in there. How would you two like a share?”

“What!?” Warcry demanded. “You can’t just give away shares to these guys, we don’t even know if they were part of Karnos’s crew or not. them helping us doesn’t equate absence of guilt.”

Very true.

“Paradox did hit me pretty hard,”Jetset said, rubbing his chest and wincing.

“I think it would be alright,” Hardcase said, his metal fingers tapping together nervously.

“I hear you guys.” Titan said, glancing back at them before regarding Perry and Heather. “You can have my share.”

“But-“

“It’s my share and I can do what I want with it.” Titan interrupted Warcry. “Besides, what would I buy, bigger muscles?”

Titan offered Perry his hand.

Oh, this guy’s suspiciously smart. He was handling his team while also buying goodwill from Perry very smoothly.

He knew he was being handled…but Perry wasn’t going to turn down 10%.

Perry shook the guy’s hand.

“Now all we gotta do is wait for the Nexus beancounters,” Titan said, “Warcry, would you mind driving Manic to the hospital?”

“Alright,” Warcry said, heading out into the dark of night. In the distance, Perry heard the sound of a car engine starting up, and in the distance, sirens.

“Soo…Your armor’s really cool,” Hardcase said, “How’d you make the power source work like that?”

Perry sat down next to the giant Mech and described, at length, how he’d created a non-centralized power source by using pressurized air, highly diluted battery acid, and cardboard lined with rubber.

Hardcase seemed especially fascinated with the idea of incorporating structural batteries into his own mechsuit, and gave him his number so he could pick his brain at a later date, maybe even buy some of his cardboard batteries off of him.

Could be a great source of income, selling inexpensive material improved with my ability to other Tinkers for a huge premium, Perry thought, slipping the scrap of paper in the dangling breast pocket of his shredded fancy date-clothes.

“Watcha doin?” Heather asked, sitting down beside Perry as Hardcase was called over by the Nexus workers to sign the paperwork indicating her participation.

“Networking. I think I might be able to make a decent side-hustle supplying Tinkers with specialty parts. I got Hardcase’s number.”

“That was weird,” Jetset said from where he was holding an icepack to the back of his head. “I’ve never seen Hardcase give anyone her number before.”

“…her?” Perry asked, brow raised.

He glanced down at mom’s love charm hanging from his neck. “Huh.”

“I think you’ve been wearing that long enough,” Heather said, yanking the long chain over his helmet and pocketing the amulet. “It’s making you delirious.”