meI woke up to LED shaking my shoulder. It was a cold morning with very little light entering the kitchen. I shook my head to clear out the drowsiness as I stretched, trying to ease the stiffness from sleeping seated.
I looked out the window at the fogged countryside, remembering what happened yesterday which did nothing to improve my mood.
“Want to accompany me to my morning exercises?” LED asked as he opened one bag of chips that were left from last night “I feel it helps with not losing momentum.”
I was feeling really shitty, but it wasn’t physical so who knows, it might even help.
“Sure,” I nodded.
I took one bag of chips as well and we had that for breakfast, not the most filling but it’d have to do. We would probably buy something else before moving on.
We went outside, the fog slowly starting to dissipate, and I followed LED as he went over some stretching routine, it was surprisingly easy to follow, my power had transformed my body and it now stayed basically at optimal conditioning all the time, including flexibility, which was neat.
After that we sparred a bit. Now I could put up a good fight against him. My power again affording me a level of ability that would otherwise take years of dedicated practice.
I really enjoyed the spar and the exercises. The practice improved my mood and helped keep my conviction intact, it made me feel like I was working towards something. It was after the training as we were resting, and I was working on my matrix again, that I felt it.
A tendril snapped into existence, connecting to my matrix. I recognized the familiar composition immediately: it was the tracker’s ability. He had awakened.
I sensed the tendril to its origin much more easily now that I had the same power, and I idly imagined that there were lots of powers that I could abuse combined with this tethering ability in the future, but for now I simply severed the connection.
And this time I called for LED to inform him as well. He was on the sofa, resting more while we waited for the others to wake up.
“The tracker woke up,” I announced immediately as I entered the room. LED shot up, alerted.
“He connected to you?”
“Yes, I already severed it”
“Then he might have marked the others too. Can you sever the connection with the others?” LED asked, already getting up himself and moving to the room’s door.
“Possibly, but I need to connect to them so that I can interact with their matrixes,” I answered as I followed him.
“I understand. Do mine first and we will wake up the others. We already spent too long here.”
“I need a bit of blood.” We stopped in the kitchen then, taking one of the knifes and LED made a tiny cut on his finger I touched the drop of blood and activated the power making a connection of my own with him.
Suddenly his matrix felt right next to mine, and I could feel it much more clearly than in any other way. It was clear in my mind, and through that I could tell there was another tether connected to it. I snapped it off swiftly.
“It’s done,” I said nodding to him and we went to wake up the others.
We entered the room in a hurry, but none of the Dawnbreakers sleeping there woke, which was understandable, as they were both exhausted and hurt. We woke Payback first, leaving Spotlight by his side for later. His power had back lashed unlike any other time before.
We roused Payback awake fairly easily, the big man groaning as he woke “What is it? Do we need to run?” he asked, shaking his head sharply to get rid of any drowsiness.
“Not exactly, we’ll run soon but first we need to cut the tracker’s connection to us.” LED answered him, explaining the situation.
“I’ll need a bit of your blood,” I told him. He nodded, and we used the knife we bought from the kitchen to make another tiny cut. Just a drop of blood was plenty. And I snapped the tracker’s connection to him just as easily.
We went to wake up Spotlight next I was expecting that he was going to just stay completely passed out, but he surprised me by waking up, his eyes confused.
He coughed and winced in pain. “Water,” he groaned in a hoarse voice. I went to get it while LED explained to him what was going on.
I came back with his water and LED helped him up to drink it; he did so hungrily and dropped back down on the bed after taking his fill. He was still very weak and disoriented, but we quickly made a slight cut on his finger as well and I snapped the tracker off him.
A problem presented itself, though. The connection that I had broken off on my matrix reformed, the same tether reappearing out of nowhere again.
“Shit,” I communicate to the others. “The tether came back.”
“Shit,” LED cursed, frowning heavily
“Yeah, he probably would just be able to keep recreating them, it seems,” I told them, preparing to snap the connection but not doing anything still.
“Doesn’t it have some limitation?” Payback asked tiredly, seated on his bed.
“It uses blood. I’d hope that it would expire soon, but they might have preserved our sample on the ground or it lasts for a long while,” I told them, theorizing at the same time that I explained to them.
“I still have his power copied, the part that makes the tethers at least, but I haven’t experimented with its limits, it’s the kind of thing you need to figure out through experience. The dried blood from Spotlight worked then a time limit might exist but it’s longer than a couple hours, or a day.”
“And if they know how to reserve it for longer, it might just turn into a game of chicken.” LED nodded, understanding the situation. “They will know the location and distance were at, even if the connection lasts briefly.”
“I can feel exactly when the connection forms to me,” I said as I snapped the connection. “But immediately snapping it off could just alert them that I am the one who knows how to break it,” I said while breaking the connection with Spotlight as well.
“They might start to avoid marking you and then they would have more time to track our location, even if we did regular checks.” Payback completed everyone on the same page of how fucked we were.
“Yeah, he would get the direction in a couple of seconds. More than a minute and is possible to get the distance as well. By what I can tell by having used the power.” I knew this from when I had just recently copied the power and used it to get the distance and direction of the tracker. It was quite easy, even as unexperienced with it as I was.
“It has to have some limitations though, be it a maximum distance or even time, we’ll have to try and keep them at bay while we run,” LED concluded
We nodded Spotlight was accompanying the conversation but was clearly still out of it. LED got up then, “We need to go soon, I'll go wake up Spyglass.”
“I’ll go prepare the car then,” I told them, and Payback just stayed in the room to take their stuff and put his clothes back on.
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For now, we would leave the tracking on and try to deactivate it only when travelling.
The house was a flurry of activity for the next minutes as everyone quickly grabbed what little we had bought and made for the car.
Spyglass had woken quickly and without a fuss, preparing to leave together with the rest of us and was back to avoiding me again, still clearly mad about how I had dealt with the tracker the first time.
With things ready I left the car on and went to help carry Spotlight to his seat, Payback was putting a tough front but wasn’t really fooling anyone wincing almost at every step, Spotlight didn’t try to fake anything, leaning on me and LED as we helped him to the seat.
I deposited him in his seat and clicked the lock into place, LED tiredly threw himself in one backseat and Payback dragged himself to the last one, great it would be me and Spyglass again, it made sense as we were the least hurt, but still.
“Hey man, thanks for the save back there,” Spotlight said half awake.
“What” I asked, not understanding what he was getting at.
“You moving in front of the attack back there, I was sure I was a goner there.” he said with a half smile not showing much concern over the fact.
“Ah, it was nothing. You weren’t even the target after all.” I said, mentally wincing at the reminder.
He looked at me with a face scrunched up in confusion I padded him on the shoulder “I’ll tell you later”
He might have tried to nod, but his head just fell forward, already sleeping again.
I went to the drive’s seat and started pulling the car to the street. “Where to?” I asked LED.
“Lets pass in the city, we should get something for everyone to eat during the day, it will be a long one.”
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Payback added, not having eaten a bag of chips himself.
"I went to the close by market, there’s not much there, really.”
“Ah, there is a bigger one, a little more ways further into the town.”
“Oh,” I nodded, “and what about the tracking?”
“Leave it,” LED said, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t matter. When we are leaving the city, we’ll snap them off.”
“That sounds good enough. Off we go then,” I said, leading us to the market.
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This supermarket was on the highway that entered the city, the one that seemed to be the only thing going through it. It was indeed bigger than the market I went to before, with huge old trees flanking the entrance to a small parking lot. It seemed to be a central place of the little town, the market that also doubled as a 1,99 store selling all kinds of trinkets.
The three guys opted to just stay in the car, Spotlight voted with his silence. So, it ended up with me and Spyglass being the ones to go do the groceries. We entered the market, and each got a basket from the pile at the entrance.
There were four empty counters and only a bored woman manning one of them. I could see a couple of people also shopping.
I looked at Spyglass’ closed face as we entered; she was just treating me like air.
“So… What we going to get?” I ask slowly, not really thinking she would answer.
She stares at me; her eyes a little narrowed, she sighs, shaking her head. “Just get some food”
“Yes sir”
As we make the groceries, I notice she doesn’t seem that angry anymore, just tired, with that underlying of fear that I recognized on her before. Still constantly looking this and that way, checking behind her back.
“You’re not only angry with me, right? It doesn’t seem that personal,” I point it, trying to start a more constructive conversation.
She frowns at me and looks away. “I am angry with you”
“But not just with me,” I try.
She sighs, pursing her lips. “It’s just that I know what we're really up against,” she says in a small voice, looking even more tired
“You talked about that, but what that means? Weren’t the ones we fought in the military?”
“Sure, but the caliber of the inner circle of the dictator is on another entire league, you might as well be comparing a kitten to a dragon.”
“I knew they were strong but to be that much stronger…” I say, trailing off.
The militaries were quite tough, and the three from the families stood out between them. To think that they’re not really that strong.
“Have you encountered them before?” I ask her.
I see her shoulders stiffen, like someone suppressing a goosebump or in cold. And it seemed like she wouldn’t answer me for a while, but then she eventually nodded.
“I have, that’s why I’m so cautious”
“Are they really that much stronger?” I asked. She gave me a unimpressed look and went back to searching for groceries.
“I would just survive and take their power,” I pushed
That seemed to anger her again, but she just sighed heavily “you don’t really know what you’re talking about, so stop with the bravado”
I nodded, now even more curious about who she might have seen. The group that was under the direct control of the dictator acted more like a shield for him and rarely went into action.
She might have sensed my curiosity because she continued, “It isn’t only a matter of quantity but quality as well, they really know how to use their powers.”
I opened my mouth, but before anything could get out, she continued, and I just closed it again to listen.
“You can’t even shake off the tracker that are after us”
“I can snap it off. He just still has access to our blood,” I protested.
“Oh yeah, only if we could use Spotlight’s power that can divert attention.” She drawled in a monotone voice.
“Right...” I nodded, still putting different biscuits in my basket. “Wait,” I snapped in realization.
She looked at me with a smug smile and went to get things on another shelf.
Of course! How could I have been so dumb? Why hadn’t I thought of that before, I remember seeing the beams of attention connection to faraway places, wouldn’t the attention from the seeker have to be on us for him to us for him to use his powers? Fucking hell, Spotlight’s power is way too OP.
Since the other day I was already trying to adapt only the part that ‘sees’ attention, analyzing a way for it to fit with the other enhancements. If I could start putting things there, together with the physical enhancements, I might reach a point where I can activate different combinations of power sets depending on the situation.
I’d still be using my main power that is to transform under different situations. The point was trying to not diverge the energy into the powers I copied, instead incorporating new powers into mine.
But it would seem that I still needed to stay with the complete power for a while, and maybe figure a way to keep the parts that could interact with the attention beams. They were simply too useful. Even more in the business I was now. With it, I could always escape or be the perfect assassin.
My matrix was less strained than the other day. Was it growing? That was great, but the problem with the energy still continued. I should try to fit other powers around the transformation one, infinite transformations, adaptiveness, mutating on a scale bigger than the biological.
Anyway, for now I would go back to the car and try to scatter our pursuers. I shook the ideas about getting invincible aside and moved to finish the groceries with Spyglass.
Both of our baskets were full, and we had gotten everything we wanted, plenty of snacks, chips, bread, biscuits and all that. We moved to the front of the market and just then I thought of a particular detail.
“So, how are we paying?” I asked?
She gave me another stare raising her eyebrows and I could practically hear the ‘really?’ in my mind, it was the fastest I had ever left a supermarket.
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It would be good to get some type of memory power or intelligence enhancing ones. If I could remember a good number of matrixes, I could just build what I need on the spot or come up with great combinations. I still have so much potential, I can feel it.
That was the kind of thing I was thinking as we were leaving the city. I talked to LED about my ideas after we escaped from the market; it wasn’t something that happened often, I guessed, as no one had even noticed it.
I was finishing rearranging things so that Spotlight’s power connected to my core, the part where the energy that feeds the entire world of twisting fractals that is my power comes from.
I turn back, talking to LED and Payback that was still awake. “Almost done. I’ll probably be able to scatter him as we leave the city.”
“Hey, couldn’t you just copy my power completely and heal everyone?” Payback asks rubbing at a particular sore spot.
“We don’t know if the cooldown is from your power or the person, right? So it might just not work, anyway.” I said to them, turning again so I could keep an eye on the road.
“We should test it, but for now we will live and the tracker is obstinate.” LED said.
“Yeah, let me just connect to everyone and I’ll try to use everything together to snap the attention from all of us in one go,” I said, parking the car by the highway.
I make the tethers and then there’s other four matrices of power orbiting around me, connected by translucent bridges and I build the mechanism to see and interact with attention at the tips of the tendrils I used to interact with everything in this mindscape, but I don’t activate them yet, taking a second to prepare.
I can see the tethers connection to us five going away to the same direction, converging all into one.
Now ready I activate the ability to detect attention and together with the tethers appear a lot more beams. These are a mix of various colors, and I single out the one that is the tracker easily seeing the attention beams exactly overlaid with the tethers.
It’s as simple as taking a hold of the thick cable from the attention on us five converging and squeezing it until it shatters.
The moment I snap the connection, everything goes black.
I feel a pang in my head like if someone had spend a good hour nailing my brain to the steering wheel and then my power greedily sucks the rest of energy out of me and my vision comes back, there’s a lot more blood on everything than I remember.
My three awake team members are looking at me with alarmed eyes.
“Well, I hope that got him nearly as good cause I’ll have to wait till my power recuperates”
“You okay though?”
“Yeah, my power healed me. Seems like I’m immune to power with backlashes that’s interesting to see as they normally are stronger.” I said, noticing in my matrix how my power was doing some alterations on its own to the fractals I had imbued from Spotlight’s power.
I tried paying attention to that, trying to gleam what it was doing, my guess was trying to mitigate or correct whatever it was that gave the backlash. Interesting.
“So, we still going to see a doctor?” Spyglass asked.
Payback nodded enthusiastically, and Spotlight’s still slumped form made our choice clear.