Taylor looked warily at the car battery-sized mass of crystal clear quartz sitting on a table in the Wards common room, her hands poised over the terminals. Dennis and Vista stood expectantly next to her.
Armsmaster had surprised the Wards with two of these new 'thaumaturgic energy' batteries/energy collectors (Taylor isn't a fan of the term, but she couldn't come up with a better name.) for their own use in the Wards workshop in the PRT HQ building. Apparently, it was a surplus from a production run of batteries that Armsmaster and Dragon (and PRT R&D) were making to externally power the 'Anti-Shatterbird' fields around the Rig (Taylor was delivering her latest notes on a 'anti-hydrokinesis' variant of the said power to Armsmaster's primary workshop on the Rig, and was surprised to find that the field she had put up there a few days ago had significantly degraded and weakened, especially when compared to the one that's still intact over PRT HQ. Best guess they could come up with was that the Rig's forcefield was similar enough in energy signatures that it was interfering with the new field's 'virtual' thaumaturgic matrix. The Rig's forcefield had not been affected because it was externally powered from another source.) and the PRT HQ. They haven't gotten to the stage of making their own matrices yet, but Armsmaster and Dragon managed to make an array of batteries with a switching recharge/discharge cycle that could constantly power the thaumaturgic fields.
A few more batteries were made as demonstration aids for their conference in Boston that's due in a few days, of which Dragon and Armsmaster would be the mainly presenting the new tech (Taylor declined the offer to attend, not wanting to be stuck all day with the hassle. She really don't want to be mired with inter-branch politics...) to the other PRT Branches. The Rig and PRT were also busy with preparations to re-distribute their manpower, as all the Protectorate Members in Brockton Bay (other than Armsmaster) had to attend a one-day mandatory conference out of town in a few days as well (Director Piggot and Brockton Bay Protectorate members had protested, to no avail.). On the same day as the Boston meetup. The timing of this two conference has everyone on the edge, as the PRT still have Crusader, StormTiger and Cricket in their cells awaiting transport to a high security prison and rumours were flying about Lung reappearing with a new female cape in a gasmask at his side. At least Dragon had finished making enough prototypes of the sleep gun to equip about two squads of PRT Troopers (Even before training had ended, they're already calling it the 'Nighty-Night' pistol.).
The terse atmosphere bled to the Wards, making all them a bit restless despite themselves. Conservation had turned from schoolwork to hobbies, then to power synergy discussions. Then Dennis had a brainstorm.
Which led to their current situation.
Taylor took a deep breath to steel herself. The small sparks coming out the terminals and the built in energy gauge showing full charge isn't helping with her nerves in going ahead on this idea.
Taylor had revealed to the others about her extra ability to bequeath her powers to others, as well as the major downside of the effort doing so would exhaust her. Then Dennis came up with the idea of supplementing the power needed with the thaumaturgic battery, since both her and the battery used the same energy for the powers.
The problem is, the only way they could think of get the energy out from the battery and into her for her to power the 'gifting' aspect would be for her to grab the battery terminals with her bare hands. Missy had volunteered herself to get the 'Flight' power (to test if Taylor could in fact do it without knocking herself out in exhaustion.) and Dennis asked for the 'Phantom Limbs' power ('Science means repeatability!' he claimed.).
Taylor tried to keep her apprehension down. A part of her mused that it could work. A different part thought the results would be awesome and was goading her into doing it. Another part that had seen too many movies kept imagining herself being electrocuted. 'Maybe we could postpone this or something?' she thought. 'Get Armsmaster or Dragon to help supervise maybe?'
A klaxon suddenly rang in the common room, startling the three Wards out of the moment. They looked at each other while the 'incoming visitors' alarm was still sounding before scrambling for the emergency domino face masks.
The last masks was barely on before the main door opened, admitting Miss Militia and a boy.
Taylor had to blink at the sight of the boy, not quite believing her eyes. The teen (?) was wearing a dark bodysuit, has tanned skin and black hair. He also has a large musculature that resembled a caricature of a champion bodybuilder. Not enough to be grotesque, but it gave off an odd, over-the-top, somewhat unnatural look. 'Is that a monobrow?' she randomly thought as she looked over the boy.
Miss Militia smiled and gestured the boy forward. "Wards", she started. "We have a new Ward sign up today. This is Browbeat."
The boy gave an oddly mechanical wave, like he wasn't used to his body's movements. "Hi" he greeted. "I'm Browbeat. I can rearrange my muscle mass and be really strong and lift stuff."
As Missy and Dennis went ahead and introduce themselves, Taylor idly noted Carlos and Chris joining them from the hallway leading from the Wards individual quarters and Workshop.
'Oh well!' Taylor thought to herself, with a slight bit of relief. 'Maybe we'll do the battery test some other day.'