“Are you?  Joining?”

“Don’t know.  They’re willing, if I agree to some extra rules and stipulations.  They’d be putting me on probationary membership, like they did with Shadow Stalker.

Why? Because she’s been essentially a vigilante, due to the nature of New Wave?

I came by to get a sense of things, see if it’d be worth going through the hassle instead of going solo.  I thought maybe I was ok with doing it until I saw the portraits in the lobby.  Now I’m not so sure.”

…which portraits?

Clockblocker nodded.  She didn’t need to explain.  Where the Wards’ portraits hung in the lobby of the PRT offices, the portraits of Aegis and Gallant had been reprinted in black and white, surrounded with thick black frames.

Ahhh. Memorials for some, painful reminders for others.

They had been repositioned to be just above the front desk and below the PRT logo, with wreaths and flowers beneath, tokens from the PRT employees.  The building wasn’t open to the public, and was surrounded by PRT squads, but the public would get their chance to pay respects.

They sort of already do, what with the memorial on Captain’s Hill, though that’s more for everyone than for specifically the two Wards.

He hung up, paused to compose himself.

Not fair.

Not at all.

Stepping back inside the classroom, he returned to his seat, but didn’t sit down.  Instead, he stepped up a little further to where Glory Girl sat and touched her shoulder.  When she raised her head, he pointed to the door.  She nodded, stood.

Hm? What does he want to talk to Glory Girl about?

Loss of family members?

When they were both in the hallway, he spoke, “Sorry to pull you away from that.”

She shook her head, golden curls swinging, “Not missing anything.  I’ve already taken this class.”

Sooo, why are you here exactly? Just wanting to get away from some things, but still be around people?

“Oh.  Then why are you here?”

“New Wave may be disbanding.  My mom suggested that if I wanted to keep being a hero, I should consider joining the Wards.  So I’m here, checking things out.  Your leader and director okayed it.”

I see. They did lose a lot of manpower. Neither pun on that word intended, but both appreciated and endorsed.

I can’t blame them if some of the remaining members have decided to retire after the events of Extermination.

“So he’s going to die.”

“I’m sorry.”

This is probably really hard to face for everyone involved.

“A few hours?  Days?  A week?”

“The doctor says it’ll be the next few days.”

He clenched his fist, relaxed it.  Not fair.

As if Clockblocker didn’t have enough to worry about with the state of the city, it’s all on top of this? No wonder he’s not in the greatest of moods these days.

“Hey, mom?  Listen, I’ve got to run.”

“Come by, Dennis.  Before it’s too late.”

“I’ll try.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

*sigh*

I’m sorry, Clocky.

He stood, and Weld turned to give him a look.  He ignored the metal skinned boy, headed for the back door of the classroom, his keypad beeping as he dialed the number.

Least you could do is say you’ve got to go, but fair enough.

It was ringing as he closed the door behind him.

“Mom?”

“Dennis.”

Not a bad name.

“How bad is it?”

“As bad as last weekend.  Worse.”

He closed his eyes.  More statement than question, he said, “He’s not getting better.”

😦

“No.”

“Okay.  Do you need me there?  I can use my power, buy the doctors time to think or get prepared if there’s a crisis.”

Sounds like a good way to use the power.

Her voice was tight.  “No, Dennis.  It’s not that kind of situation.  They’ve got him on a respirator, and the doctors don’t have much hope he’s going to be able to breathe without it, again.  The antibiotics can’t fight the infection on their own.”

Hrm.

Crack theory: This isn’t an infection. Clockblocker’s dad ran into a trigger event and gained a power that is changing his biology over time.

I don’t think that’s the case, but it crossed my mind, so I’m putting it down here.

“There’s the viral theory, supposing some advanced virus, though it is flimsy at best in justifications, with no identified culprits, method of transmission or explanation as to how it provides the actual powers.

I suppose that covers the variant of the patient zero theory that I just talked about.

The genetics theory is popular, but has been thoroughly debunked.  We’re going to talk about how it was debunked…”

Hm, interesting.

There’s definitely something going on with regards to genetic relations, but apparently they’re sure that’s not the original cause, at least.

Clockblocker felt a vibration at his wrist.  He reached inside his glove to get his cell phone.  A text.

That’s a handy place to keep it.

Pun most certainly intended.

From: Mom

Dad’s not doing well.  You may want to come by the hospital.

Uh oh.

Should’ve known something was up when he considered spending time with his family on par with being out on patrol, among things he’d rather be doing.

Clockblocker glanced at Weld.  The boy was digging through his canvas backpack for something.  Was he one of them?

Yeah, unless Wildbow is deliberately misleading us.

I figure the only reason we don’t know of an Upsilon tattoo is that his skin is too metallic to put ink in.

“Weeks five and six, assuming we’re on schedule, we’ll pull all earlier material together and discuss the beginnings of the parahuman phenomenon.  Not for the individual, as with trigger events, but as a whole.  Where do capes come from?  There is the patient zero theory, typically working under the assumption that Scion is the source of these abilities.  

But under that theory, where did his power come from? Is he an alien or something? He does have a highly alien vibe to him.

This, however, raises questions about where Scion came from.

Sometimes I should read one more sentence. 😛

The theory is corroborated by the case of Andrew Hawke, who came into contact with Scion on the very first sighting of the hero, only to manifest powers of his own…

Oh yeah, that’s that guy who got killed and showed the world that parahumans were flawed, wasn’t it?

*rereads a bit from Interlude 1*

Yep, Andrew Hawke, a.k.a. Vikare, clubbed down at a basketball riot in 1989. Also the last person on the boat to make physical contact with Scion during his debut in 1982.

but there are others who manifested powers without ever coming into contact with Scion or entering a location where Scion had visited.”

Yeah, that’s kind of an issue with this theory. You could still make a case for it spreading further from other parahumans, I suppose. Hell, Taylor’s trigger event was directly caused by, among others, a fellow parahuman.

I don’t think I’m going to subscribe to this theory myself, but there are ways to make it work.

“Scion.” A student on the TV spoke.  The camera shifted to him late, and by the time he’d responded, the professor was pointing to another.

Ah yeah, I guess he deviates from the norm pretty damn heavily.

“Endbringers.”

“Nilbog.”

“I wouldn’t suggest Nilbog, but we can debate the point later,” the professor spoke,

Hm, interesting. Nilbog was (were?) introduced in the same chapter as the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine, though Nilbog was more in line with the latter, among the really dangerous fuckers. Apparently they are debatably out of the ordinary somehow?

“Perhaps a subject for a course paper.

Very debatably, apparently.

Scion, yes.  Endbringers?  Yes.  We have no reason or evidence to suspect they gained powers by normal means.  Another group you may or may not be familiar with are what the PRT terms Case Fifty-Threes.  Often the ‘monstrous’ parahumans, we’ll get into more depth on the subject.”

Upsilon.

Oh yeah, wasn’t Weld described as a case 53 in Interlude 7, before we knew what that meant and that he had a background fitting the usual narrative of Upsilon’s victims?

“Could someone nearby have gotten their powers, without you knowing?  Way things played out?  Did any capes show up around the same time as you?”

Considering the whole secrecy thing, this is definitely possible.

Flechette frowned, “Yeah.  A rather persistent villain.”

“Worth thinking about.”

Neat.

Weld turned around, “Critical thinking and applying this stuff is good, but let’s not forget the lecture.  Or the other people in the classroom.”

He has a point.

Is he trying to get people to dislike him?  Clockblocker wondered.

But yeah, he could’ve put that a bit more nicely.

I stand by my understanding of Weld as a well-meaning kid who struggles with understanding other people’s emotions and social cues. Possibly autistic or something similar.

The professor on the screen was answering a student’s question, “…I think Eidolon expresses a single power.  But thank you.  Good question, and good lead-in to the next section of the course we’ll be discussing.

I like whoever asked that. Thank you.

I still wonder what sort of trigger event causes someone to develop such a fluid power.

After we wrap up on trigger events, we’re going to be moving on to what we call ‘outliers’.  Parahumans or parahuman-related elements that deviate from the norm.  Any guesses?”

Endbringers, except it seems like people didn’t know that they fell under “parahuman-related elements” rather than “parahumans” when this video was recorded.

Evidently, though, there must be more phenomena along these lines for the category to be a thing.

“Hey, Flechette,” Kid Win called across the room, “You’ve got a bunch of powers, right?”

She turned in her seat, “Sure.”

…that’s not really the impression I got last chapter, but I guess each of the ways she can make things defy physics might count separately?

“Anyone else get powers at the same time you did?”

“Not that I know of.”

Oh, okay, it seems I misunderstood.

So if several people get their powers together, each of them will likely have more powers. Which means that Endbringer attack is likely to create especially powerful parahumans.

Also, it’s not like that hypothetical organization trying to trigger more parahumans needed any more incentive to target lots of people at a time.

(Incidentally, while looking for that post, I also came across Tattle telling us about third-world countries having more parahumans, so I guess that’s not news.)