Although the big shot was coming, it wouldn’t be immediately. Spyglass’s powers could focus on very distant things, and she was capable of searching for specific people or objects. So, she could track from a long distance, hence the name.

Araphel though, that one wasn’t as obvious was that his name, or codename? I should probably ask.

“Is Araphel his actual name?” I asked everyone on the table, people having just resumed the talking and eating after the common commotion of the news.

“No, it’s a codename as well.” Payback told me. “He’s from the earlier generation, where powers were more novelty and people put names of mythological things on themselves.

“Today it would really sound self-centered if anyone did it, not that the bourgeois care.” Swordjuice said.

“True, always found it weird though.” I said “They are military but still use Hero like codenames.”

“They’re trying to emulate the foreign guilds, trying to keep the image of good guys, everyone knows the shit the governments involved in though.” LED shook his head, shaking the familiar rage from the situation of the country off.

“True, not that we would know much, I haven't heard of the outside world since I was a teen.” Payback commented shaking his head.

“I really wanted to travel, there must be so many kinds of cool powers out there” Swordjuice wistfully said.

“That’s why we do what we do though, we’ll get there one day” LED asserted.

Everyone nodded, some more meaningfully than others, I wanted to do it, as I assured myself with the talk I had with Spyglass, but I wasn’t as passionate, it was a shame that the name convention Araphel chose didn’t let me glimpse anything about what his powers might be, not linking the name to any mythos I knew.

I finished my lunch without any more news or revelations, telling Swordjuice about my plans of going to the lab, she happily told me that she would be going as well, as she often went to help them during the afternoon.

Taking our plates away to the counter I went with Swordjuice to the elevator, she talking animatedly about how Victor was going to show her the newest prototype.

“So, what do you exactly help with in the lab?” I asked her

“Well, I create the magical juice for them mostly.” she wiggled her hands together in a manner reminiscent of how she extracted the liquid from her switchblade. “But I also sometimes try and see the limits of my power or figure out its weirdness.”

“Found anything yet?”

“It has some weird and cool interactions with things that shoot.” She made some pistol guns with her hands.

“Oh, so it does work with those, what happens?” I asked interested, after all, the property was... hardness? Tension? Hmm...

“I'll show you in the lab later, it's easier.” She giggled at my enthusiasm. “Besides, were already here”

The elevator makes its distinctive ‘ding’ sound, announcing its’s arrival, and the door opened automatically, we went out getting to the big metal door at the of the corridor, she unlocked it for us and we entered the second area, it opened not much later and we entered the lab proper, already here were Glassmetal and Victor.

Glassmetal was tinkering with some pieces of ceramic three of his computer screens floating around him that he checked from time to time.

Victor meanwhile was fiddling with a normal looking gun, but who knows if it didn’t anything else with where we're at.

He smiled as we entered saying “Swordy! Just who I needed”

“You finished the prototype?” She ran to him animatedly before looking at my direction. “He’s making that one gun with my powers.” She explained pointing to the gun in Victor’s hand. “Trying to blend them into a good weapon, but I've never been able to enchant anything with more than one property.

“Hmm, that does limit the applications, but there’s still lots of open ones.” I noted, nodding along.

“Which is what I do here” Victor laughed swinging the gun around, this guy behaved very unsafely for someone unpowered I thought to myself baffled.

I approached the table he was working on giving a small wave to Glassmetal who just gave one back and went back to his work, seeming concentrated. It must be something intense, it just didn’t appear to have anything going on besides the shifting lines of light on the blocks he was working on.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Did it work out?” Swordjuice asked Victor.

“No, I assembled it but there was no improvement upon the last one” he said shaking his head “Just like the one before it doesn’t use the enchantments when assembled.”

“What is it you were doing?” I asked, trying to get the context.

“Trying to combine all the weapon properties into only one, more in making stronger bullets but the enchantments just don’t stick, they seem to want the gun to be only one thing.”

“It makes sense though.” Swordjuice noted gesturing the gun “I can just milk full guns; they even have to be loaded for it to work”

Milk, I thought amused, but it did make sense remembering the way her powers activated, I shook my head paying more attention to the conversation.

“But then I would need to change everything...” Victor aid going into some silent contemplation, and I butted in with a question I had for a while.

“So, Swordjuice. How do you actually enchant the objects, and why exactly do you call them enchantments?”

“It just makes sense, like, I put this glowing drop on them and they get special effects, right.” she explained, shrugging.

“Uh, yeah, if you think of it this way.”

“About the way it just like with doing it on people, the catch is that not everything takes to it, like, some materials don’t really like it, cloth and food for example.” she continued.

“Hmm. Is it biological? Probably not because we used it.”

“People could be exceptions.” Victor said coming back to the conversation.

“We also think it might be that it only works on weapons, or maybe that the object could be used as a weapon?”

“What you think as a weapon? Or something else?” I asked, thinking if it was related to her perception, it was a murky territory as lots of powers could be related to that if you thought that way, like mine reacting to danger, or fights.

“It might be that” she said nodding tilting her head at the end; “Or it just has this limited pool of stuff it works off?”

"Any way, what I was doing is test this little one right here” Victor cut in the theoretical discussion, showing the gun in his hand. “We took the pieces and enchanted them separately, but when put together it doesn’t really take effect from any of the enchantments.”

“Hmm, I'm curious to know what are the types of enchantments.” I said looking between them. “Swordjuice also said she would show me what happened with ranged weapons.”

“Oh yeah, can I?” she said gesturing to the weapon, Victor shrugged giving it to her.

“So, when the weapon has some mechanism to shoot something, if it is charged, I can take it's, like, potential. She said using her powers on the gun, a droplet forming on the bullets hole and dripping like the gun was a salivating animal.

The drop formed a ball of liquid on her hand, like dew on a leaf, slowly sloshing on her cupped palm.

“If I put this on something, it would fly with the extra strength of the ranged weapon behind it, if I put it on me, it would do the same, not that I would go flying like that, but the first thing I threw would.”

“That's pretty crazy, you could do some real damage with it, why do you focus more on blades?

“Ah, for combat I always bring some drops of everything, but I find blades more reliable. The shot only works once and then I'm out and have to drink another one.”

“Hmm.” I said pensive. “I see, but you could end a fight in one attack a lot of the time, or you could prepare the second drop to quickly take it.”

“But blades are way cooler!” she exclaimed smiling brilliantly at me. “Besides, I'm still a novice at this whole combat thing, I'm sure I'll find more ways to fight as I go along.”

“Yeah, sensible enough.” I conceded the point.

She took the drop and put it inside one of the several glass vials, there were multiple others besides it already with a similar drop of liquid sitting at the bottom.

“On the gun we put sharpness in the bullet. And then the firing power on the firing mechanism, as redundant as it sounds.” Victor explained along. “We already expected it to not work out as we already tried lots of combinations. Always good to test anyway.”

“The bullets are very good though” Swordjuice defended herself. “The sharpness as always is the best one, a bullet that sharp just go through most things.”

“What are the properties you can extract anyway? if you don’t mind me asking.” I was wondering about the whole range of possibilities for a while.

“Ah, I don’t mind. I can take from blunt weapons hardness, or is it heaviness. It's the whump, from ranged you saw, the firing power, and then sharpness from bladed or pointy weapons.” she said raising a finger with each type, finishing with three up.

“We still have to test chemical and other unusual types of weapons” Victor said with a dangerous smile.

“Yeah, I could do explosives as well, it takes the...” She paused a smile taking her face. “Boom” she finished raising a fourth finger.

I frowned, thinking. my assessment before of taking the property of weapons was right but it is heavily tied to the concept of weapon, taking not only physical characteristics, “It is tied to the way the weapon does the harm, that’s the best way to put it I think.”

“Who need fancy names” Swordjuice frowned. “From now on, I'll be calling them Boom, Bang, Wham and Slash!” Swordjuice said laughing.

“Great idea, Swordy.” Victor encouraged, laughing as well.

“What is all the fun about? Asked Glassmetal coming along. “Probably Swordjuice making another inane joke.”

“It’s a great idea, it simplifies things.” She defended herself

“Because you need them simplifies to understand I get it” He nodded with a fake understanding face.

“I'll slash you in two!” Swordjuice said making a knife hand in his direction.

Victor laughed again at the situation. “Come on you two, it’s cute and all but we’re working here.”

He easily put a hand on each of their heads, reminding me of how tall the guy actually was.

“So, what'd you come along as well Joe?” He asked me after the other two quieted down.

“I was curious about what you all did here, and I also wanted to test more forms of Swordjuice’s power and, well, I didn’t really have anything else to do.”

“I get that it can be boring around here sometimes, lets fix you with some underaged girl’s liquids”

“Serious man?” I asked my face almost in pain from that one, he guffawed again. Victor sure got into a good mood when dealing with dangerous things. Be it crude jokes or weapons.

“The vials have them already, you can just take some, Swordjuice said to me, pointing to the vials. The liquid inside the vials all had the same appearance, but thankfully the vials were labelled.