Mist glanced away from Armsmaster and over at the collection of Wards that were assembled in the convention hall they had rented for the day. "Okay, I've got 10 power upgrades left today, my friend here can do additional upgrades as Clockblocker and Gallant already know."

Charles waggled his fingers at the group of Wards, rolling a cigar around in his mouth and grinning at them. "Hi."

Armsmaster stated, "We ran tests on Clockblocker and Gallant, everything has came up safe so far. Remember that acquiring new powers is completely voluntary. That said, the Protectorate is going to be pushing the Empire 88 rather hard over the next couple of weeks and you're bound to face the backlash from our attempts to clean up the city. Having more powers will hopefully help keep you safe." He'd went over the data with Dragon enough that he was fairly sure that they were on the level.

"There are six wards which means that everyone is going to get a power and Vista gets two because she's just that awesome." Mist smirked.

Charles chuckled at the comment about Vista, using psychokinesis to light his cigar. "She is the cutest one. Maybe we should kidnap her and give her to Sif."

Mist laughed, "Nah, we just need to tell her about the endless chocolate machine and she'll kidnap herself."

Vista decided not to protest as they hadn't called her a kid. She glanced at Armsmaster then back at the man that looked a bit like Loki without the goofy helmet. "Where do we start?"

Mist looked over at Charles, "We might as well start with what Thor can give you then take it from there."

Shadow Stalker stayed quiet as she watched the two strangers that were offering powers.

Charles grinned and clapped his hands together and rubbed them like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. "Excellent! Now to the laboratory!"

Kid Win asked nervously, "Laboratory?"

Mist shook his head, "I'm fairly sure he's joking."

Gallant snorted as he could sense the amusement rolling off the Thor look-alike, "He is or at least he's amused as all hell."

Charles grinned, "Did I take any of you others to a laboratory?"

Clockblocker shook his head, "Nope, thanks for the shape changing power by the way."

"Wonder if Assault and Battery have redefined doggystyle yet?" Charles mused thoughtfully.

Armsmaster kept himself from smirking by a small margin, "That would explain why he was calling her Puppy and she was hitting him today."

Charles grinned and waggled his fingers toward Vista. "Okay, lets start with the munchkin."

Vista blushed but decided not to state that she wasn't a kid as they were giving her powers and he was being nice. "I'll go first."

Charles reached out and tousled her hair channeling powers into her. "Okay, one puppy package… mental blockers… everyone likes to fly so telekinesis… hmmm… anything else you think?" he looked over at Loki curiously as he playfully worked his fingers in Vista's hair, just to see what she'd do.

Vista giggled slightly as her hair was tousled, sure he was treating her like a kid but it wasn't so bad as he hadn't told her she shouldn't be a hero.

Mist shuddered slightly as he thought about the young teenager out on patrol. "Adaptive regeneration?"

"What's that when it's at home? The puppy package already comes with regeneration…" Charles replied. "Hmmm; Panacea is overworked and underpaid so you can have healing too I think."

Vista grinned, "I'll take it."

"Good, because I can't remove it and I already gave it to you." Charles said as he used his electrokinesis to move her hair around as he pulled his fingers out, making it stand up and wave in the air.

Vista reached up and tried to push her hair back down much to Clockblocker's amusement.

Armsmaster said, "Having another healer on the team will be nice."

Mist said, "What about the nullification power? That's battlefield support but it goes with her role quite nicely."

'Which nullification power?' Charles sent via telepathy curiously.

"The one that stabilizes things. Warms things up if they're cold, cools things down if they're hot and a couple of other useful things."

"Oh, sure… she can have that too." Charles reached over and poked her forehead and channeled the power into her, the glow flowing from his hand down into her forehead.

Mist gestured at the marker near the whiteboard and started writing the powers from the puppy package on the board. "I suggest the teleportation power that lets her visualize the location and teleport herself or others there."

Vista grinned, "That would be awesome!"

Armsmaster's customary scowl fled his face as he thought about a whole team of super powered Wards.

Charles channeled the teleportation power into Vista as well, shrugging.

Mist asked, "Force fields?"

"She does have to learn how to work all this stuff and get used to being able to use it. Overwhelming her with everything I can give her all at once may not be a good idea." Charles replied. "Too many options can be just as bad as too few."

Mist sighed, "That's a good point, I guess we can test that power on someone else."

Vista said, "I'm pretty happy with what you've already given me."

Mist looked over at Shadow Stalker, "You, I need to fix."

Charles sat back on nothing, floating in midair and smoked his cigar nonchalantly while watching the Wards curiously and also wondering when Vista would realize that touching her hair to something metal would make it lay back down.

Shadow Stalker frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Your shard is fucked up and is causing you some mental issues." Mist stated firmly.

Armsmaster frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that her shard influences her behavior. I should be able to fix it with a bit of a tweak."

"It also caused a lot of damage and encouraged her to react very poorly to stimuli… Nothing unheard of for parahumans unfortunately. Triggering is traumatic and certain shards are worse than others about how much mental scarring they bring with them." Charles replied, puffing away and channeling the smoke into amusing shapes; starting with a full fledged naval battle between a pirate ship and a British ship.

Shadow Stalker frowned as she thought about the last couple of days and how much less rage she had at the world. She really didn't want to go back to that and she could already feel her new calm slipping away. "Fix it."

Mist reached out and pulled Shadow Stalker's power and shard out of her then destroyed the shard and tossed the power orb to Charles. "Here. That should let you copy her power."

Charles caught the orb and absorbed it, motioning Shadow Stalker over. "C'mere, I'll check and make sure the work I did the last time I saw you is still holding and the shard hasn't screwed you up again in the meantime."

Shadow Stalker blinked. "I don't think we've met before?" she asked as she walked over somewhat warily. Not having her powers made her feel naked and vulnerable.

"We haven't… but your mind was screaming in agony to those with the senses to notice so I did a patch job the last time we were in the same area. That part didn't require physical contact." Charles said as he reached over and gently touched her forehead, returning her old powers and giving her the puppy package and mental blockers as well as telekinesis. "For now, I've given you the puppy package, mental shields and telekinesis. When we've made sure everything is stable and there isn't going to be any more damage uncovered from your shard, we'll go from there."

Shadow Stalker nodded, "Thank you."

Armsmaster made a mental note to schedule Shadow Stalker for more therapy, maybe this time she'd actually take it seriously.

Mist asked, "Do we have more volunteers?"

Kid Win stepped forward, "I'll go."

Charles chuckled and touched his forehead, sending forth the puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and Squealer's specialization and improved tinkering abilities along with the force field ability. "Okay, you get to test out the force fields… and I improved your tinkering abilities and gave you the puppy package and telekinesis. Oh … I fixed that math thing too."

Kid Win's eyes lit up, "Thank you!"

Mist looked at Aegis, "You're up next."

Aegis said, "Yes sir."

Charles reached over and poked Aegis, giving him the puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and Panacea's healing ability. "There you go; one puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and another duplicate of Panacea's healing ability. You're tough as hell already so you'll probably still be standing if healing is necessary after a battle."

"Thank you and that should help keep my friends safe."

Mist grinned, "I guess my turn, I can give you most powers that you could come up with. Let's start with Vista first."

Vista asked, "How about the ability to survive in space? I mean it would be fun teleporting around the solar system."

Mist frowned as he considered the idea and how exactly he wanted to pull it off. "I should be able to do that. Do you want to be able to generate air filled force fields or do you just want to not need air?"

Vista glanced at the other wards, "Would the air filled force fields help against things like smoke or diving under water?"

"Don't see why not."

Clockblocker grinned, "That's awesome."

"In that case, I'll take that option." Vista replied.

"I guess you get force fields after all." Mist smiled as he generated an orb and tossed it to Vista. "Stay safe."

Vista smiled as a faint blue colored force field sprung up around her. "It works."

"Of course it works." Mist replied then looked at Gallant, "You're next Gallant."

Gallant pulled out a list, "Maybe a Tinker ability?"

Mist asked, "Do you have any particular specialty in mind?"

"I can handle that; huh, maybe I should have asked you folks if you had any wants before I started giving out powers." Charles said thoughtfully. "Come on over here."

"Not really." Gallant replied as he walked over to Charles.

Charles reached over and poked him in the forehead, transferring the tinker abilities with a nice golden glow effect.

Mist glanced around the room, "That should be everyone. Have fun with Armsmaster's tests."

Charles looked over at Armsmaster, "Well, unless he volunteers."

Armsmaster considered his options then decided that he was already going to get screamed at by his bosses so he might as well make it worth it. "I'll volunteer."

"Okay then, what do you want? I can't quite recall your power set at the moment so I can't really tailor anything to cover weak points." Charles said, leaning back on the table and relaxing… "I don't really have a method of giving you a power that would say to your boss 'Go away and leave me alone, I'm working here and you bother me.' however."

Mist asked, "Maybe a stranger effect?"

Armsmaster smiled slightly, "That might be nice but I'd rather have something that would let me go without sleep or be tough enough to fight Behemoth."

Mist sighed, "That last one requires a lot of power, that first one is easy."

"The puppy package would give you a decent brute and speedster rating as well as shape changing but it's not on an Endbringer's level." Charles mused thoughtfully.

"Can I have both?"

"I'm fine with that. If you give him the package I'll add the no sleep bit on top." Mist figured that adding more regeneration and tweaking it would let Armsmaster go without sleep quite easily.

"I don't mind giving you the puppy package… I've given it to everyone else I think." Charles chuckled.

Armsmaster walked over and stood in front of Charles.

Charles reached over and touched his forehead and channeled the ability into him.

Mist conjured a power orb, adjusted it for regeneration so that Armsmaster wouldn't need sleep and tossed it at him. "There we go. That should be everyone."

Charles looked around, "We're all out of someone elses so it'd pretty much have to be everyone wouldn't it? Insofar as everyone here?" He grinned.

Clockblocker grinned, "Thanks again. Being able to control how long things are frozen for is great."

Mist looked at Charles, "Right... let's head back before Sif builds something she shouldn't."

"Sounds like the thing to do to me… Her building crazy stuff is sorta par for the course though. I still don't know why she wanted all those gerbils." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Armsmaster muttered under his breath, "Gerbils…" as he tried to figure out why someone would want them or what they could do with them.

"She was working on some type of cellphone with Deus Ex Machina on the side." Mist shook his head, "it's probably better not to ask." Charles reached over and grabbed his shoulder and teleported them out.

Clockblocker asked, "Does that disturb anyone else as much as it does me?"

Vista shook her head, "Nope, I've got new abilities I want to test out."

Armsmaster stated firmly, "In the lab."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Charles immediately plopped down on the couch and ordered deep dish supreme pizza and a 12 pack of Coke to be delivered to the hotel. "Okay, so … we did that… we need surveillance in Piggot's office. Watching her have an aneurism would be amusing."

"We could always give Lisa that ability, I'm sure she'd get a kick out of it. Either that or we give her the ability to place phase cloaked cameras in places and network with them like Skitter and her bugs. Do you think that would work? Maybe a power to create them and a power to control them?"

"It certainly sounds amusing… to the lab!" Charles chuckled. "You get to pick up the pizza in the lobby."

Mist muttered, "Tinkers."

Riley pouted, "Hey. We're not all that bad."

Mist looked over at the couch where Riley was playing a video game. "Selena likes making things that do bad things to physics in dark alleys, Charles makes power packages based on British television that's rated to be watchable by 7 year olds and you build things having to do with Chocolate that shouldn't exist… so yes, I stand by my statement on Tinkers." He smiled at her, "I've got a question."

"What's that?"

"How would you like the power to teleport an Endbringer to the moon?"

"Any particular reason you want them on the moon?" Riley asked curiously.

"Well, technically I only want Leviathan on the moon as he makes water but it could be interesting to see what happened if we tossed Behemoth there as well."

"Makes water… oh." She giggled, "That could be a fun experiment."

"See, Tinkers." Mist chuckled.

Riley looked at Mist and pouted, "That's not fair, that was your idea!"

"So, are you in?"

"Hell yeah."

Mist grinned as he conjured a power orb and tossed it at Riley and another two to further upgrade her teleportation power. "That should do it, just don't teleport the base to the moon. I'd rather not have to check how well a resurrection power works."

Riley blinked, "Wait, is that possible?"

Mist sighed, "Crap, that's going to cause all sorts of issues isn't it?"

"Riley! You aren't allowed to teleport anything to the moon without asking ME first! You are not allowed to listen to Selena or Mist without double checking!" Charles called from his lab. "Oh, we should go into the communications business; we pay Riley a decent sum to teleport satellites into position instead of using rockets… huh… maybe spaceflight too…" Mist and Riley could hear the squeak of whiteboards and markers pick up the pace from the open door of the lab.

Riley asked, "How much do you think I'd make?"

"At least double your current allowance."

Riley grinned, "Cool. So can I get the ability to bring people back from the dead?"

Charles thumped his head against the wall in the other room, repeatedly from the sounds of things and sent telepathically back to Mist, 'I thought we were going to wait a while before we let her have Bonesaw's powers back?'

'I was thinking more like D&D style reincarnate complete with the ability to pick species and sex. That's less like her old powers and more like a druid or something. Skitter's mom, some of the old heroes. I mean if we did it right then we could bring them back as dragons or something fun. On, second thought, Riley might not be the best person for that power. She might bring them back as My Little Pony knockoffs.'

'I didn't give her that infection and may have given her a predilection to detest talking cartoon horses that are only up to people's knees and colored psychedelically.' Charles replied.

Mist shrugged, "I'll talk to Charles about it after I grab the pizza." He sent a thought back to Charles, 'We could still pull off Drow or dragons, right? Or even elves would work.' He headed up the stairs to wait for the pizzas and do a bit of people watching.

'I'd go with elves before dragons; dragons require lots of food and Earth-Bet doesn't have the benefits of worldwide shipping anymore thanks to Leviathan and the other Endbringers.' Charles replied.

'Silver dragons seem to function just fine on human levels of food with the occasional bender but I guess elves works better. It should work as long as I build in a requirement that they be willing.'

'If you can sure… but what are we supposed to do with Bonesaw's powers afterwards? Well, then again; her resurrection abilities only seem to work on fresh corpses.' Charles shrugged.

'Exactly, this would be something else and nothing says we have to give it to her.'

'Playing god isn't any worse than the other stuff we're doing… then again we're playing giant alien not god. Since the giant alien can already give resurrection.' Charles sent another mental shrug.

'It seems a shame not to tweak things while we're here. Honestly, I can't see us staying that long. Make a bomb, teleport it into Scion's pocket space then laugh, beyond that and playing with terraforming we could probably just jump ship to some other world if we wanted.'

'Eh, I suppose… but there could be COOL alien life out there and now I have ideas to build spaceships.' Charles replied.

'Maybe I need to look at building a Wraith ship. I mean I could make it really cool.'

'Why would we want to make a space vampire ship?'

'A telepathic ship sounds sort of fun then again I'm not really sure where I'd start without a sample.'

Charles sent a mental shrug. 'Perhaps it's for the best.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm not really comfortable with me being Professor X, why would I want an alien ship that can do that type of thing?'

'Nah, much more limited than that, making something that can rewrite brains sounds like a horrible fucking idea. That reminds me, we might want to look into making a better version of Victor's power to give out, one that merely copies abilities.' Mist grinned as he pictured being able to pick up wholes languages and skill sets with only a couple of hours of work.

'Victor? Not sure who you're talking about. Is he the guy with the skill stealing thing?'

'Yeah, that one.' Mist paid the delivery boy when he showed up then headed back down with the food and soda.

Riley grinned as she saw Mist walk back in, "Food!"

Mist chuckled as he set the pizza on the table and opened it. "Yep. Let's see, would you like a superpower that makes school ridiculously easy?"

Riley snorted, "It's already crazy easy but sure."

Mist conjured an upgrade orb and charged it with a similar power to Olivers which should let Riley master any skill she was working on insanely easy then he mixed it with another power that should let her copy skills from other people without harming the other person's skills unlike Victor who was the inspiration for the power. He tossed her the large glowing orb. "Here you go."

Charles wandered into the room and tossed Mist a compact black disc. "One camera; wasn't hard… The Gecko Tape was a little harder, but doable. I have the camera set up so it can link into a network and record surveillance."

"Gecko Tape?"

Grinning Charles reached into a pocket and pulled out a roll of black tape. "Single sided Gecko tape - it'll hold 800 pounds per 1"x1" square. Double sided is actually the best for hooking two items together, but … *shrug* I figure it'll do. It was too much hassle to make a double sided roll before the pizza got here."

"Ah, I see, Tinker hax."

"The camera already has double sided on it, just peel the tab and stick it anywhere. The camera is light so technically someone could weigh a lot and just hang onto it but that's not my problem."

Mist looked at Riley, "Do you want to learn how to phase into other dimensions?"

Riley asked, "Is that a trick question?"

"Nope."

"In that case, yes!"

"No sneaking into boys locker rooms with this." Mist conjured an upgrade orb and hit Riley with it. "There. You should phase out just a little then place the camera and we'll see if it works."

Riley looked at Mist and held out her hand. "Okay."

Mist handed her the black disc. "Have fun."

"We made a better Imp…" Charles grinned. "Speaking of, we should really check on Skitter and see what they are up to and then see what's going on with Grue's family."

"Yeah, I want to make sure that both of those trouble makers are staying out of trouble. Imp loves trouble and Skitter has a knack for finding it." Mist blinked as he realized what he'd just done, "Did I just give a teenage girl the ability to sneak out of the house and past most any security system in the world?"

"Yup." Charles drawled, deliberately popping the P.

"Shit…" Mist rubbed his face.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist frowned as he considered a resurrection power as they walked to Taylor's house, "Okay, so I've got five orbs left and I was giving some more thoughts to the resurrection power. That's probably going to require a couple of upgrade orbs if we want to have different options. Is it worth creating the power and who do we give it to?"

Charles raised an eyebrow dubiously. "Well, it could be worth creating; it definitely wouldn't hurt… But the consequences could be severe. We are talking about a power that works longer than just a few days like Bonesaw right?"

"Yeah, reincarnate. You could bring people back as elves or dragons, I'm not sure how many upgrade orbs that would take though. Still, the power to bring people back would be nice."

Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose firmly. "Yeah, but what are the criteria for who to use it on?"

"Whoever you want. Skitter's mom, heroes that are actually heroes, people that deserve a second chance. That's up to whoever I give the power to I guess. On the other side, I can see people wanting various figures in history brought back to life..." Mist shook his head and focused on his power and tried to come up with something. "Nothing seems to be working, maybe there isn't an afterlife here. Okay, fine… I can pull a Star Trek version of reincarnate."

"Which would be?"

"Basically making a power that makes a copy of them from the past or something that pulls memories from the past and recreates a person's mind in a crystal. That way I could make them a body and then have you download their minds. It's more complicated but it might be our only option when there isn't an afterlife to steal souls out of."

"It could work, or you could try tapping into the universal gestalt to find their minds and such and then go with the recreated body…" Charles replied thoughtfully.

Mist frowned slightly as he looked for ways to make the reincarnate power work. "Okay, let's see… the ability to pull a mind from the universal gestalt… not sure how I'd make that work." He tried a couple of various ideas then created an orb. "Got something that works. It collects their consciousness at or near the time of death through time and traps it into a crystal. From there we can build them bodies. It's not as easy as waving your fingers and having them just appear in a new body but it should work." He tossed the orb to Charles, "Have fun playing a god."

Charles shuddered and gave a dark look Mist's way. "Okay, so I have two methods of bringing the dead back to life. Joy."

Mist shrugged as they walked up the steps to Taylor's house. "It's probably better that you have the ability than some religious nutcase that would use it to prove that he's a prophet or something."

"Point." Charles agreed.

"We could always give you the ability to turn water into wine." Mist smirked as he knocked on the Hebert's door.

Taylor opened the door with a smile, "Hey guys. Come in."

Mist stepped into the Hebert house. "Are you enjoying your new powers?"

Taylor grinned, "Flying is a lot fun. Not having to worry if I fall is even better. Dad's already cleaned up a decent amount of the boat graveyard. How have you been?"

Charles headed inside as well, tousling Taylor's hair as he wandered in and making it stand straight up from her skull and closing the door behind them.

Mist shrugged, "Can't complain. I've already upgraded most of the heroes in town and we've got some solid theories on how we're going to deal with the Endbringers; so I call that a win."

Taylor raised an eyebrow, "You have a way to deal with the Endbringers?"

Mist shrugged, "I'm fairly sure that we can deal with Leviathan and Behemoth by teleporting them into space. I'm not sure if Simurgh can fly through deep space or not but I'm betting that she can which makes her a bit more of a problem."

Taylor asked curiously, "So… you weren't involved with the defeat of the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

"That reminds me; Piggot still owes us money." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Mist shrugged, "It's only been a day, we'll give her a couple more days to get everything sorted then we'll complain."

Taylor shook her head, "So what brings you by?"

Mist shrugged, "I've got 4 more upgrade orbs today and I was thinking that you could use some more powers."

Taylor grinned, "I wouldn't complain."

"What were you thinking?"

"Riley would love it if I gave Taylor the Maddy package." Charles replied.

"Maddy package?" Taylor asked curiously.

"You can shape change into a puppy or dog and you get a brute rating, regeneration and speed boosts out of it not to mention heightened senses." Mist replied.

"That sounds useful."

Charles grinned and poked her between the eyes then channeled the puppy package into her, the now standard defensive mental stuff, the ability to use hard light holograms, the ability to line of sight teleport and a tinker ability with every specialization he'd encountered thus far except Bonesaw's. "There you go… lots of new abilities."

Taylor blinked, "I know how to build a giant spider mech now… okay that's nearly useless unless I was going to be a villain. Thankfully there are plenty of other ideas as well."

Mist laughed, "Anything else that you can think of?"

"More Tinker abilities?"

Mist frowned slightly, "Leet is running around with every possible Tinker specialization, he's just got a shard that hates him and sabotages things… We can probably get him to swap from a villain to a hero if we fix his shard."

"Some of his videos are amusing." Taylor replied.

"It gets him off the street and it gives Charles a full tech tree to play around with."

Taylor asked, "How can I help?"

Charles chuckled and grinned at her. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to know where the two of those guys are."

"If you want to come with us, you can narrow down the area we've got to search."

"I actually already know where they are. I noticed them at a warehouse this morning when I was going jogging. Either that or someone else is playing with a giant robot.."

Mist considered his options, "Directions?"

"I'll show you."

Mist looked over at Charles, "Costumes?"

"Taylor can do costumes…" Charles grinned.

"Wait, I can do costumes? What all did you give me?" Taylor looked at Charles curiously.

"Every tinker package I have; including Panacea's… The puppy package… which gave you brute and speedster ratings of around 5 plus regeneration and the ability to transform into a wolf or werewolf… Hard light holograms… Standard mental defenses and the ability to line of sight teleport." Charles said thoughtfully.

Taylor grinned, "In other words, with my bugs…"

"You can teleport around half the city with a decent level of precision." Mist was fairly sure that various villains in alternate realities would cry themselves to sleep if their Skitter had the same powers.

"In that case, let's test my hard light abilities out." She concentrated and everyone's skin and even clothing grew black chitinous armor plating that was both horrifying and quite effective for hiding what the group looked like. "That should do it."

Mist shuddered as he looked at the creepy looking costumes, "Yeah… there is something not right in your head Skitter."

Skitter pouted behind her illusion, "What, I thought we were shooting for scary."

Charles looked himself over. "Okay, I'm scary as hell… A six foot mountain of muscle in thick chitin armor… Now I know what my Skyrim character looked like in person."

"Exactly." Mist grinned, "You might as well teleport us into his lab."

Taylor looked at Charles, "Ready?"

"Sure."

Taylor reached out with her new power and teleported the group into Leet and Uber's base.

Mist grinned as he lifted Leet and Uber up with psychokinesis, "Part 1 complete." He reached out and pulled Leet's power out of his body and let the shard flee. He tossed the Tinker power to Charles, "There, that should be nearly everything the entities knew about Tinkertech."

Leet shouted, "Who the hell are you?"

Taylor used her bugs to talk, "We are legion!"

Uber sighed, "I knew I shouldn't have eaten that ham sandwich... "

Leet begged, "Please tell me that this is a nightmare."

Mist snorted, "I'm afraid not. We've borrowed your ability, if you want it back we're going to require that you stop being a villain."

Leet scowled, "Tinkering takes money, our shows take money."

"Get sponsoring and do things that don't require you to break the laws."

"I can only make something once before it starts failing."

Mist shrugged, "Yeah, that was because your shard hated you. We already fixed that."

Leet blinked a couple of times, "What the fuck? Really?"

"We are legion." Mist used his psychokinesis to make a thunderclap sound in the distance.

Charles reached over and swatted Mist on the back of his helmeted head. "Once was enough."

Uber looked at Charles, "I know right... " He trailed off when Leet glared at him causing Charles to snicker.

Uber glanced at his feet that were several feet off the ground and asked, "Are you the guys that hit Hookwolf?"

"Maaaybe." Charles drawled.

"Please don't kill us…"

Mist snorted, "We haven't killed anyone… unless you include the Slaughterhouse 9 but they were really bad people."

"Oh god they're going to kill us." Leet whined.

"If you want to be a hero, we'll give you some Tinker abilities and you're free to go. If you don't want to be a hero then we're going to toss you to the PRT without powers."

Uber gulped, "Shit… he's not lying."

Leet asked, "What type of Tinker abilities and hero or just villain? I mean we could always come to some type of deal right?"

Mist raised an eyebrow behind Taylor's illusion, "What type of deal are you thinking about?"

"Television…"

Charles chuckled and looked between Taylor and Mist. "What do you think? Uber and Leet doing TV wouldn't be too bad and Earth Bet doesn't have a hell of a lot of entertainment options."

Taylor said, "It would be better than daytime soaps."

"Not much but some." Mist replied with a smirk.

Leet winced, "That's just cold."

"It works, go ahead and give him Squealer's ability and Kid Win's Tinker collection. It's more stable than the Tinker abilities he had and he should be able to use them to create plenty of entertainment. You might as well give Uber the same abilities so that he can help. Actually, I've got a better idea." Mist reached out and stole Uber's power and sent the shard on its way. He tossed the shard to Charles. "Give them both Uber's power and the Tinker ability. That way they can both have any game skills they need."

Charles shrugged and floated up into the air and reached over and poked them both in the forehead and gave them the requested abilities.

Mist shrugged, "Just remember that we're watching you. We if we have to come back, I'm going to be unhappy. Let's head back."

Taylor reached out with her powers and teleported Charles, Mist and herself back to her house. "That was fun."

Mist laughed as Taylor dropped the hard light illusion, "It also gave us a very nice Tinker power that should be fantastic without his shard trying to sabotage us." He looked at Charles, "I don't suppose you can give me that ability, can you?"

"Nope, you said I couldn't give you abilities earlier remember?"

"I said I can't give myself abilities… either way, we should probably check that for sure."

Charles chuckled and waggled his eyebrows at Taylor. "Think I should?"

Taylor laughed, "I don't know, he's sort of overpowered already but you might as well try."

Playing up his thinking posture he sat in the air in the classic Thinker position and started moving his hands as if weighing something.

"Oh, come on I gave you the ability to reincarnate people and this is what I get?"

Taylor blinked in surprise, "Wait! What?!"

"Oh, right… that was supposed to be a surprise."

"It's a damn surprise alright, how does this work?" Taylor asked urgently.

Mist said, "Basically he pulls a person's consciousness through time from when they died or shortly before that and places it in crystal so that we can create a body for them and bring them back."

Taylor blinked owlishly and then sat down in thin air, her rump nearly caroming off the dinner table before Charles caught her with telekinesis. "Yes; I'm willing to bring your mom back Taylor."

Involuntarily Taylor started sniffling as tears trickled down her face and dove toward him.

Charles caught her with a small oof and pulled her into his lap to cuddle. "Okay, I take it that's a yes?"

She managed to choke out, "Yes."

Mist looked at Charles, "We should probably ask Danny about this…"

"It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission." Charles shrugged and reached for Taylor's mom's consciousness against the flow of time.

Mist asked, "I guess I can alter in the genetics later. Do you have a picture I can look at?"

Taylor pointed to a picture of her mom on the desk. "There."

Charles chuckled. "We have two choices; we can dig up her body but there's no guarantee there would still be intact cells to make into a body for her… Or I can give her my shapeshifting ability I've been working on; it's supposed to match Mystique's but I dunno if it will or not."

Mist said, "It's fine, I can get close by using Taylor's blood… I think."

"Wait… we're over thinking this. Huh… wait a damn minute…" Charles sniffed around and then shifted into wolf form in which Taylor found herself mounted on his back instead of in his lap and he headed through the house sniffing around.

Taylor held on tight as the huge wolf ran around her house sniffing at things then up the stairs to her father's closet where he nosed around a box with some of her mother's old things in it including a hairbrush.

Charles shifted back to human form and picked it up, standing with Taylor in piggyback. "I guess all that's left is to check these for a follicle. Without one it can't be done; with one we've got the DNA sample we need and I can make her a body using Leet's tinker stuff easily enough."

Taylor crossed her fingers as she waited nervously as Charles searched through the hairs. After thirty seconds of carefully searching Charles found a follicle on one of the long strands of her mother's hair.

"Okay… Found one…" Charles turned to Taylor and grinned. "Okay short stack, is there anything you want changed before you have two parents you have to argue with about body modifications? Height, breasts, butt, hair color maybe?" He asked to lighten the distinctly heavy mood in the room.

"My hair is fine. I don't mind being tall… my breasts… they could be bigger."

Charles chuckled. "Of course they could, but how big do you want them to finish out?"

"C? If I end up close to six feet tall then that should look okay, right?"

"Sure; a medium to largish C would look good on a woman that tall… Want your rump to match?" Charles asked as he wandered downstairs with the hair triumphantly.

Taylor shook her head, "It's fine… I'll grow into that. Mom did."

"Okay then." Charles channeled his powers into her tweaking her genetics so her breasts would grow enough to end as a proportionate C to match her frame. "There; now you'll never have to worry about being harassed for being tiny up top."

"Good." Taylor said as they went downstairs.

Charles came into the kitchen where Mist was waiting on them. "Well, I have one Taylor and one hair… to the lab?"

"I can just use my Shaper power to create the body here unless we want to visit the lab."

"Then Taylor had probably better find her mom some clothes… Unless she wants to hang out with Riley and Selena… They might object to us bringing people back to life and them not even being there." Charles replied.

"Oh… yeah that would be a bad idea."

Charles grabbed Mist and teleported the three of them into their first lair.