I was against the blue haired girl with the hair sticking all over in spikes at her shoulder's length, she was fast approaching me leaving grooves on the ground wherever her sneakers clad feet touched.

Reaching me, she led with a jab, a put my arm in front of it, now was the time of truth, seeing if I could adapt on demand, as she was getting close to me, I felt my power awakening as usual, like with the fights before it seemed that me being aware of impeding attacks was enough to put it in an active state, I tried coaxing the same feeling of when I put a helmet over my head, that cable going taunt.

I felt something in that direction but it seemed clueless, uncertain. The reactive nature of the power didn’t really know what to do without a stablished template, my failure to activate any defense was punctuated by Swordjuice’s hand stabbing into my arm, I grunted at the pain, a look of queasiness surprise overtook the girl, her face going pale.

She jumped back raising her arms, her cheer gone “are you okay?” she asked immediately. It wasn’t really necessary, the stab wound had already closed, over it, a thick layer of solid and sleek looking skin, started growing, reminiscent of scales but more like the ones from pangolins.

“Yeah, no pain at all.” I said showing her the armored bit.

The interest overtook her queasiness as she jumped forward again to inspect the new thing on my arm. “Ooh, it's so quick, doesn’t it hurt to change?”

“No, whatever its process is, it negates the nerves during the transformation or just, you know, power it away.”

“That's all well and good but keep up the fight” LED reminded us; this was certainly the most non active spar I've had.

“Oh, right, sorry I never had really hit anyone before that.”

“It's okay I'd be more concerned if you had” she had told me she was seventeen, I was again curious to know how she ended up here, but considering the potential tragedy, not enough to ask. And we had a spar to get back to.

“It's okay, let's try it again.” I told her and assumed another defensive pose, my now armored bit of forearm facing her direction.

“Okay, here I go” she announced herself again and lunged at me, making a knife hand, with a lot of actual cutting power, I held still, not seeing much point in moving.

The slash got the scales, she probably aimed at it purposefully, but now I could feel the tugging again “Fight like you mean it” I told her, even if LED would probably do so seeing her half assed attacks.

She didn’t need to be told twice and used the momentum of her first attack to spin herself around, her arm passing by me like blades, two slashed appeared on me even before I could pull on the tugging.

And she didn’t relent this time, finishing her spin she lowered herself predicting the protection that now covered both my arms fully, she lowered herself and aimed a straight stab into my mid-section that was wide open.

I could feel the tugging, now having more experience with it, and calling it forward was way easier.

I pulled at it, and the scales covered my torso, rapidly spreading to cover my whole body, her arm slashing at my belly was sent sliding to the side, she almost lost her balance but just stumbled.

I stood now covered head to toes in a protective layer of slick earthy colored scales that would protect me and deflect slashes. I smiled stiffly, the scales limiting the movement somehow. Swordjuice smiled up at me anyway, seeming exited to see the powers in action.

“You look very cool” she said.

I laughed “This is the top end; some other transformations don’t turn up so well.”

Now that I was fully transformed, I was trying to keep it up, it was working for now, I didn’t think enough time had passed to know if it worked though, so I kept the talk going on. “Your power’s very versatile though, very great”

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“Thank you, hehe” she seemed giddy at getting her power complimented, it was a nice filling indeed, I could relate.

“You got something from it then?” LED asked.

“Ah!” I had completely forgot about that in the fighting and waiting to maintain the transformation, but no. “I got nothing.”

“What why??” she asked

“Maybe it needs to go inside him?” Spotlight asked.

“She literally stabbed him” Glassmetal pointed out.

“Hmm" I though it over, thinking of every time my ability had activated; with Spyglass she had used her powers on me, then with LED and the militaries as well, all were direct uses of their powers on me, it must be it.

“It probably has to be a direct interaction.” I shared my conclusion with them. Everyone nodded or agreed, seeing where I was coming from.

“Would it work if you drink it yourself then?” Swordjuice asked.

“Well, probably, give him the juice girl” Spotlight urged it on.

At this point enough time had passed that I could confidently say that I could hold on to my mutations, I could feel myself holding onto it, like keeping the cable from pulling away, it needed constant attention. I decided to just keep it on and see how long it stayed.

“Yeah, let's try it” I said. Swordjuice approached me taking her switchblade off again, making the energy manifest over the blade, she gestured to me raising it high and I got the idea, opening my mouth, she had to extend her arms fully, me being about a head taller than her, she aligned the blade pointy end with my mouth and the droplet fell directly into my tongue.

The moment it touched me I could feel the effect taking hold, showing it wasn’t a on consumption effect, not in the usual sense at least, at the same time I could feel my power activate, the feeling of the sharpness taking hold of my body made me lose my concentration and all the armor slipped away, making me change back way faster than I had in the fight with LED, where it slowly receded, holding it on made it change that, like holding on a stretched rubber band.

This time that I had held on it snapped back very fast, it made me wonder if it would give me a backlash if I kept it on too long, but the theory about direct contact was proved as in the fight my powers hadn't activated and now it was totally lit up.

That was okay though, I could probably train to better keep control of it, I was now occupied analyzing the feedback my powers gave me about the sharpness liquid. What could I learn from this?

My power spun and flowed reading the effects the ability had on me. after a while I got it, the pieces clicking into place, her power extracted an attribute of a weapon in a conceptual manner, the thing that defined weapons as weapons, their ability to do harm and more so the way they did it, in this case she took the property of sharpness, and could then imbue another object, and people as well, with the same property, effectively making them manifest the effects of being that way. because they turned to be, although temporarily.

From this my power couldn’t do much with though, I got the how of working with concepts and properties stuff a bit, how to enhance only a specific attribute maybe, but no inkling as to how extract the property of things, that part wasn’t the one used on me though. So, it made sense.

It wasn’t a total loss, it could probably help in acquiring new powers or making better adaptions, everything helped.

“Well, I didn’t get any fancy power from that "I said to Swordjuice’s disappointment.

“Aww why not”

“You technically only used the enhancement part of your powers, so I couldn’t learn how to extract stuff from things.”

“It makes sense and it confirms the theory about direct contact with the power, it limits the number of powers you can copy, and make it so you have to take some loops to earn more complex abilities.” Led gave his conclusions.

“Yeah, truth to all that.” I said feeling a bit dejected, but not for long, my powers still could do a lot of stuff, growth powers always had specific ways for them to grow.

“Well, who want to go next?” LED asked.

“I shouldn’t really help him” Payback said making me puzzled. “If he needs some emergency healing I couldn’t do it then, but it’s a complicated situation so I don’t really know.

“Why couldn't?” I asked, confused.

“My powers have a one-week cooldown.” he explained. “But as you’re here training and your powers involve healing, somewhat, maybe it's worth the opportunity.”

“It might be, but let someone else go first then, Spotlight?”

“Yeah, yea, it's my turn, Flesh abomination”

“That's a terrible name.”

“It's a great one!” he shouted in mock outrage before laughing. “I'll start now, let's see what happens.