The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

“Busy night?” Mr. Hill asked me, sitting in the garage watching the TV as I wandered in.

“Startlingly. Met the Daredevil of Hell’s Kitchen, the Fantastic Four, probably pissed off Wilson Fisk without him realizing it, and met the local Director of SHIELD for New York.” I puffed myself up, hands on my hips. “Dynamo is on the board!”

He digested all that without batting an eye. “What’d you do to piss off Fisk?” he asked directly.

“Stole from him all the samples of, and destroyed all the notes about, a fear-inducing hallucinogen that has amplified effects on Powered individuals. Oh, and I might have burned down one of his drug labs.”

“Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “But ya didn’t kill whoever made it,” he pointed out, brushing away the other stuff.

“No.”

“Then it’s just a matter of time before it spreads.”

“Brought it to the FF for their Schmot Guy to make an antidote for. I imagine that he’ll have one in a couple days, given his brainpower.”

“Oh, that means you met Grimm, their Rock guy. He an Avatar like me?” Mr. Hill asked, curious now.

“Yes. Made him a Slurry to drink, and muffins. They tasted a bit different to him, but he loved them. Totally willing to pay for the recipes.”

“I made a few phone calls. There’s a punk named Flint Marko running around, can turn himself into sand. Think he’s an Avatar?”

“It all depends if it’s permanent or not. If he can return to flesh, no, it’s just a form of morphing. If he’s sand all the time, yeah.”

He scratched his chin. “Maybe I should sit down with him, give him some pointers. He’s been doing stupid stuff like robbing banks and stuff, getting into trouble.”

“Like you don’t get into trouble.” I rolled my eyes, and he just grinned contentedly.

“Gotta make a rep one way or anuther,” he remarked. “Got an offer in from Fisk. He wants me to teach that crew of kids SHIELD is looking after a lesson.”

Which included Peter. “They hitting his operations, are they?” I asked knowingly.

“They aren’t the cops, and trying to bribe SHIELD is a bad idea. Fisk is just small fish to them, however much he wishes otherwise. What do you think?”

“Can you combine it with something else that’ll actually make you money? None of them are at your power level. I imagine that if you play it right you can make them do half the job for you. A good thrashing isn’t bad for super-powered kids who think fighting is just a game, a little failure improves their moral fiber... and it’ll get your name out there.”

If they couldn't take losing to another Powered, they shouldn't be in the leotards. I'd rather see them lose against the Mountain and quit rather than lose against someone serious and potentially die.

“You gonna get involved?” he asked pointedly, smiling at my remark. He’d fought lots of heroes who thought they could pick on him because the Champions beat him up. He was good at delivering object lessons, too.

“Maybe on the other side, and then only if they partner someone with you. I can’t take you out without magic.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” He scratched his chin again. “Let me make some more calls, see if there’s some interest somewhere fer sumthin’.”

------

I went up on the roof to greet the sun, letting Renewal wash past me.

Secret identity would end up being not so secret, but I couldn’t do much until I had an identity here. SHIELD could arrange one quick, and so could illegal means... or having a really good lawyer.

Getting involved with the SHIELD squad of superkids would be interesting, but the key thing would be aggregating them with Xavier’s recruits.

Setting up some alchemical crossover with Parker’s chemistry talent should be nice. I’d also have to find some way for the other kids to contribute. I definitely had to set up some revenue streams to start buying platinum and upgrading my gear.

That would take care of my mornings and early afternoon, without a doubt.

Working as The Dealer would take care of occasional evenings, and the rest of the time I could do stuff as Dynamo as I wished.

Bursting onto the scene with all my powers at once... no, that was a really dumb play in superhero world. Play the mask game with masks, subdivide the power set into completely different things, and prosper.

I still had something else I could do, too. Nothing said I couldn’t have a third identity with a skill set that had nothing to do with the other two, for another look at fun in superhero world.

And it was all about the fun and doing crazy stuff, wasn’t it?

But that was going to require more information and networking in weird directions to set up. Well, wouldn’t hurt to see about setting up at least part of it.

The best thing a Spider should be skilled at was theft, after all...

===============

Time passes...

"Um, you aren't going to jump or anything, are you?"

I slowly turned my head to the rather skinny guy in very tight-fitting blue and red spandex with the web patterns who had somehow miraculously appeared on the edge of the rooftop next to me.

"No. Are you? Wait, stupid question, of course you are." I shook my head, tugging on my vest and t-shirt. I didn’t have my Mask up, so he just thought I was a girl sitting on the edge of the roof, two hundred feet above the ground.

"Well, it is just a widdle bit dangerous for a normal person to be, you know, sitting atop a twenty-story building like this." He looked at my droll expression. "Not that I can't totally empathize. The view is much better up here, you know? You get to see all the police cars go flying by with their lights flashing so much better."

I sighed. Yeah, he was just like the comics. "If you put your head down on the cement, you'll actually see I'm sitting about an inch above the edge."

I saw him blink inside his mask. He sort of shifted most of his body backwards while he bent down, holding tight to the stone with his feet and bending with a flexibility most men didn't have. "Oh. Well, that's a big relief off my back, and saves me some webbing. You can fly?"

"No. It's a Repulse-field, radiating from my skin. Just keeps my ass from sitting on bird poop." He half-jumped when my Mask crackled and materialized over my face.

"Repulse field? Electromagnetism? On cement?" He hopped up next to me again, crouching with the ease of someone with a high strength-to-weight ratio and perfect balance.

"Quasimagnetism. When I learn the particle or wave effect it is based on, I’ll name it after me."

“Is that like, that lightfoot I hear about from out west?” he had to ask, looking down again, to where popping sparks seemed to be holding me up. Definitely not looking at my butt, nopers.

“No, those are ki or chi techniques, running off spiritual energy. This is more like a weird branch of science.”

He coughed extravagantly. “Ki and Chi?” he asked. “That’s not an accent?”

I glanced at him. “No. Ki is a basic energy, pure life force. All that live have ki. Chi, now, that’s like anti-grav, something you have to put energy into to have. Punks learning karate and breaking boards are trying to focus ki. Guys doing flying twenty-meter spin kicks through brick walls and running up the side of buildings are using chi.”

"I did not know that, but now I am enlightened. Ki with the sharp k and chi with the cough are different things. Got it! Now I won’t be embarrassed talking to all the martial artists!”

"Who said martial arts were hard?" I riposted easily.

"Every single martial artist I know. They're all like 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' and stuff!" he complained.

"Ah, so I've made you a dangerous thing. Well, look out, world!"

He stood up, struck a pose akimbo. "Hoo-ha! I've been recognized! Spider-man, Dangerous Thing!" He air-framed it. "Trademark pending!"

"20% of royalties, my cut," I claimed evenly.

"30!" he retorted.

"15!"

"35!

"12.5!"

"40% and that's my final offer!"

I grumbled aloud. "Fine, have it your way, you big meanie."

"Spider-man is also a master negotiator!" he declared to the world, cheering himself with both arms.

"Your fluid grasp of contractual language has defeated me, I acknowledge it," I sighed heavily. "But I bet you don't have a… pen in that suit to seal the deal, do you?"

He patted himself down quickly. "Curses! Must have left it in the silkscreened outfit!"

"A reasonable mistake. Pens, silk, they just go together naturally. You can draw targets on yourself with them, and everything!"

"I use them to touch up the webbing lines," he whispered sotto voce. "They get scuffed a lot when fighting."

"Gotta look good for the cameras," I nodded back sagely. "Broken lines are the worst. Makes it look like you let something get away."

He shot me another glance. "Flirting! Are we flirting? I don't think jumpers are allowed to flirt!"

"Given how much you bounce around, then, you must have no sex life whatsoever," I deadpanned back.

"I'm Spider-man. I don't jump, I spring!" He did a little ballerina hop in the air, even spun around once, landing right en pointe.

"Pretty sure springing is a small, non-crucial part of jumping. And a fouetté jete is a leap, not a spring."

"That was not! No tutu!"

"Tights," I pointed out on him. "Insult ye not Baryshnikov." He was still a famous dancer here.

"Please! At least Travolta!" he whined. Who also existed here.

I gave him a strange look. "You're a little young for disco or greasing… and your life is stranger than fiction, not pulp." Not that he’d get the latter... but Saturday Night Fever was still in theaters.

He put out his hand, stopped. "Okay, I was going to say that he was at least a New Yorker, but he's from Jersey. You got a name, not-a-jumper?"

"Dynamo!" I replied firmly, and he twitched as electricity popped excitedly under me.

"You are?"

"I am!"

He looked around me suspiciously. "No eggs. No ham."

"Bleu Cheese. Pickles." I pulled out the fresh containers of both from my Vest via Prestidigitation and popped them open. "Would you like them here, or there?"

"I do not want them here, I do not want them there. I do not want them anywhere. I do not like bleu cheese and pickles, I do not like them, Dynam you am!" I had to wince theatrically.

A minute later, our respective geekdom was established with boats, goats, rain, trains, boxes, and foxes, he pulled up the lower half of his mask and took a bite of one. "Hey, good pickles, Dynam-she-am!" He sounded surprised. "Um, I like bleu cheese and pickles! I do! I like them, Dynaaaam!" he drolled.

"Dynamo be a… sous chef," I leaned over and whispered to him. He groaned aloud as I pun-ished him back.

"That… was just wrong!" He laughed despite himself. "Seriously, these are really good!"

"Yeah, I can't eat most gagfood, so I have to make my own." Crunch, crunch, crunch. "Seriously, why the full-face mask? You could get your fill on bugs, just swinging around. Never go hungry."

"Oh, that's just cruel." I grinned despite myself. "Now, I'm no martial artist, but I know Weird Science is some pretty buff stuff. What's a mad scientist like you doing in a place like this?" He leaned back. "And, you know, carrying a concealed weapon of super-science in plain sight!" He looked behind and above my ass pointedly.

"Oh, that's right, carry the weapon UNDER the shirt." I facepalmed. "Sorry, keep forgetting the definition of proper concealment."

He laughed despite himself, grabbing another pickle. "It's subtle, I know."

"Well, it is, because that's a maaaagical toy, not a dread implement of super-scientific doooom," I drawled.

He paused, again leaned impossibly far back for someone that couldn't stick to walls. "Seriously?" he asked, munching away.

"Seriously. Magical expandable staff-spear that can shift to multiple weapons. Colloquially called a Function Rod."

"Wow. Can I get one of those? For, uh, hanging my clothes? I could trade you a cartridge of web fluid for it, or something."

"Eh. You're just trying to stick it to me now, aren't you?"

He shot me another grin. "I take it back. That's a seriously well-concealed weapon." I bowed in place. "And why are you running around with a Function Rod? I mean, um," he kind of trailed off awkwardly, and I had to smile at where his thoughts were taking him.

"Yeah, it's a fancy metal implement designed for the sole purpose of administering harm to lightly armored sapient bipedal opponents." His smile kind of faded at that. "Happily, there's something called the Merciful enchantment that changes lethal damage to merely subdual, which is really convenient if you don't want to really kill people."

He looked abruptly relieved again, pulling the lean back trick one more time. "It fits into a normal sheath?"

"Yessss? Perhaps it’s just supposed to hang there by itself?” Which it totally could, of course.

"I thought all martial artists had to use scimitars or katanas or big long staffs or something. Or those flexy Chinese light swords."

"Meh. Broaden your view of what a martial artist is, little grasshopper… eating spider," I amended. He winced again.

"Weird Science and quasi-magnetism and a magic Rod. Do you have anything like the Iron Fist?" He made a showy roundhouse punch motion.

I lifted an eyebrow. How did he know about that? "No. I’m an Alchemist by trade, and we tilt toward the magical side of things, not the high-end spiritual, where chi comes in."

He hauled back and gave me a look. "An alchemist? Okay, I admit you don't sound profound enough to be a martial arts master. You don't look old enough, either."

"You don't look old enough to be a Spider-MAN, either. Do I need to report you for underage webslinging?" I shot right back.

"That is SO unfair. I'll be able to drink, like, soon!"

"Drinking and webslinging has been deemed hazardous by the Surgeon General and should be avoided at all times." I held up my hands, made pew- pew sounds. "See? No webslinging, I can drink all I like."

"So unfair!" he repeated, and snatched away one more pickle by just tapping it with a finger before I could draw it away as he hopped to his feet. "Ha ha! Bleu cheese and pickles, Dynam-she-am!"