“Dan said who bought it?” LED asked much more seriously after seeing the letter was, for what I assumed, given the context, from his boss.

“Yeah, he said it was a fast boy.” Spyglass said, shrugging helplessly.

“Does the Dawnbreakers employ speedsters as mailmen?” I asked.

“Well, it would seem so.” LED sighed.

“Unless it’s a trap.” Spotlight added, “just saying.”

“How would it be a trap?” Payback frowned at him.

“I don’t know, but it could be.” Spotlight said, showing his palms.

“Just open it. I’m curious.” Spyglass said, swatting her hand in Spotlight’s direction.

LED opened the letter, taking out of it a folded paper and an envelope. He held the envelope as he unfolded the paper.

“Read it aloud.” Swordjuice urged.

“Sure, Let’s see; To the capybara team, leader LED.”

“Capybara?”

“Shh”

LED continued despite the interruption;

“Hello recruits, I ask that you join us for our next step in purging this country. If you have conviction in our goals, please come assist us in bringing Dawn again.“

“I hope to see you all there as soon as possible. And it’s signed by Spawner himself.”

“And who exactly is this Spawner?” I asked.

“He’s basically the leader of all the Dawnbreaker operations in the south, everyone that passes by him before rising higher than a recruit.” LED explained, his brows furrowed in thought.

“I see, so we would meet him sooner or later.”

“Crazy, but we’re going, right? How do we go? Is there a location?” Swordjuice asked, jumping in place.

“No, but there’s more,” he went to the last portion of the letter reading, “P.S. The envelope contains your ticket to our gathering location; it comes with instructions; do as they say.”

Led showed the envelope that he was holding. It was a bit stretched, showing that it contained something solid

“What could it be?”

“Let’s check it up on the cafeteria then we can glassmetal to see it too,” Led said, gesturing for us to move up.

“Don’t just we need to see it?” Spotlight asked, gesturing to us five that would go to the new base.

“No, whatever that is, I’m not going guys,” Spyglass said.

“What? I’m not going?” Swordjuice asked almost at the same time.

“Oh yeah, you wanted out.” Spotlight said, snapping his fingers.

Spyglass recoiled a little at the bluntness but still nodded, confirming her decision.

“That’s totally fine. It is your choice. The team thing is just a joke that he likes to play.” LED explained reassuring Spyglass, “The one who decides in the end is me, but I can’t force any of you to go as well.”

“That’s right, this is volunteer work.”

Swordjuice seemed hopeful at that, but LED cut her off.

“I know you got much stronger in the past months, but I don’t think you’re ready for something like this yet, not as your first mission. This is going to be big.”

It seemed like she wanted to argue, but didn’t let any words seeing how serious led really was, finally conceding with a nod.

“Then it’s decided. Let’s gather everyone up so we’re all on the same page. I have a feeling this might just teleport us out of here.”

We went up to the cafeteria and Swordjuice went to get Glassmetal. LED went to call Dan as well, but came back without him saying that Dan wanted nothing to do with whatever happened.

----------------------------------------

“Okay then, everyone’s here,” LED said, looking around the table.

“So the context for who wasn’t present, we received a letter from the south overseer, spawner, requesting that we come aid him in our organization’s next step.”

We all nodded and LED took the envelope out of his pocket, showing it to everyone.

“Well, let’s see what we got.” He said, opening up the paper packet. Out of it, he took another folded piece of paper and a tiny cardboard box, unadorned roughly the size of a matchbox.

“Oh, a little present,” Spotlight said, smirking to himself

“Hm, it seems so,” led said, nodding.

“What in the paper?” I rushed, curious myself.

He took it, opening it up, he quickly read some of it before raising his eyes to us.

“It’s a set of instructions.”

“Read it to us already, LED,” Swordjuice whined.

everyone around the table clearly matched her hurry.

“Okay, calm down,” led said sighing, raising the piece of paper to his eyes again and reading it aloud.

“In the box you’ll find a little glass star, hold it with care because it is your ticket to the new base, if by some reason you fail in using it correctly the next one will take up to one week to arrive where you currently are, please don’t inconvenience us.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“The way you should use the star is as follows; The five members being recalled to the base are to hold an arm of the star each.”

“When everyone is ready, break the arms off. The star is designed to facilitate that, so again, hold it with care! “

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t need that all the arms to break evenly and at the same time; it is important that no one let go of the star though.”

LED stopped reading, looking at us again.

“That’s it? Hold the star and break its arms.”

“Yes, it seems so. It even says here,” LED said, bringing the paper to his face again and reading aloud: “Yes, it is that simple, stop dilly dallying.”

“I see, so that’s it then. When do we go?”

“I don’t know. We were preparing for this mission; we don’t exactly have anything left to do.”

“That’s true,” I said, entering the conversation, “but I also wanted to leave them some serum stacked up.”

“We’ve been using it this whole time only for training. I’m sorry, Swordjuice, but the ones I leave here we’ll be for emergencies only.”

“That’s fine, Matrix. I’m already thrilled with how much stronger I got.”

“How long do they store, though?” Glassmetal asked.

“I have no idea, but Rebeca had a bunch of them in fridges, so I guess something similar to blood.”

“That’s only a little more than a month, then Spyglass said, but you could freeze them right, then it would stay effective for up to a year.”

“Do we have some liquid nitrogen, or do we just put it in the freezer?”

“Actually, we do,” Victor said. “We use it to store some of the more volatile fuel cells.”

“That’s great then. I’ll make as much as I can for the rest of today. Is that fine LED, or did you want to train more?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll be calling off the rest of today’s training. Cool down you all, tomorrow we’ll go.”

“After breakfast, right?”

LED sighed, “sure, but not after your breakfast Spotlight.”

“Yeah, you have breakfast at eleven dude, when you do at all.” Payback called him out.

Spotlight only shrugged, providing no defense.

“That’s it then.”

“I’ll miss you guys.” Swordjuice said, her voice almost cracking.

“I’ll miss you all too.” I told them.

“Put a good word for me, will you?” Victor said, patting LED on the back

“I’ll see to it, Victor, don’t worry.” LED answered a rare smile on his face, letting the tension dissipate, leaving the worries about the mission for tomorrow.

“Will you have finally have taken a nickname by then?” Spotlight said, nudging Victor.

“Ah, I thought of some I’ll choose when I’m part of a team, as it’s done.”

“Sure sure.” Spotlight agreed.

“Hey, why don’t we take advantage that we’re staying one more night and do a big dinner, huh? As a farewell.” Payback suggested.

“Yes, let’s do it!” Swordjuice exclaimed, slapping Payback’s shoulder.

“It’s a good idea,” I chimed in.

“Yeah, seems like fun,” Spotlight jumped on as well.

LED nodded, seeing everyone in agreement. “That’s fine. It doesn’t change our plans.”

“Good, it’s decided then,” Payback said, clapping.

People separated into groups to get the supplies and to prepare dinner, Spotlight went to get Dans car to buy some stuff to cook while Payback me and Spyglass handled cooking separating the ingredients that we could use already from the kitchen and deciding how much we would need of the rest, messaging Spotlight about it.

Swordjuice even tried to help, but she was a disaster in the kitchen, getting even more clumsy after having all that strength gain in less than a month.

Spotlight didn’t take that long and arrived with our supplies, and we finished cooking without having to stop in the middle. We made two lasagnas, big ones, so everyone could feast to their heart’s content.

It was very fun to eat with everyone, to enjoy one last time the company of this bunch of weirdos that I met by chance, getting closer in the last month and a bit, it was rewarding and I had grown a lot in that time, changed so much.

And I knew I was going to change even more to become stronger. I set my goal and I’ll go until the end. I will topple the government.

The Dawnbreakers are planning to do that for much longer and I’ll help them, rising in the ranks and becoming stronger, so we all see this regime brought to a definite end.

But that was for the future. Now I would put my full attention on this next mission, letting no one die because of slacking off.

Payback made some drinks for everyone that were fantastic, which led to a lot of shenanigans but, everyone was feeling lethargic with how much they had eaten and one by one, we all went up to sleep.

I still made the serums, spending all my energy on creating the liquid using it in place of my normal transformation matrix I could make about a liter of the material, ending up with it in various 200ml flasks, separated like that because about 200ml would deal with most injuries.

I woke up at two hours intervals to make more, ending up with 25 flasks by 8 am, feeling whole completely spent by the lack of sleep I took another nap until 9 am, betting that the mission wouldn’t start right away when we got to the other base.

My alarm went out again, and I went down to the cafeteria to have breakfast. Everyone but Spotlight and LED were here already.

I greeted them and sat down to have breakfast as well.

LED came down before I even finished eating, a yawning Spotlight following behind him.

“Everyone’s here then. I’ll just eat as well and then we can go.” LED said.

“No hurry, man.” Payback told him.

After everyone had finished eating, LED took out the little box that had stayed with him, putting it on the table in the middle of us all. Glassmetal, Victor, and Swordjuice were here together to see us off.

LED nudged the box lid off. Inside, nestled in a foam cushion the same shape as it, was a star made of blue glass, slightly transparent.

It had a circular center like a ring, five arms extending from this central part, connected by a much thinner portion where they touched the ring. The design was easily recognizable to be made to break at the partitions.

Looking at it felt like looking at a reflection and I wondered where this weird feeling came from, focusing on the star I noticed why it was giving me such a weird but distinct feeling, it wasn‘t something I was noticing with my normal senses but something I was picking up with my matrix.

I concentrated fully on the sensation, focusing on feeling the area in front of me only with my matrix, and sure enough I could tell that the little glass piece had a matrix of its own, I closed my eyes immersing myself into my power and extending ‘limbs’ to touch all around the little glass piece’s matrix, being careful to not disrupt it.

It gave the feeling of looking into a mirror because it was a reflection, a reflection so perfect that it existed in reality, a reflection made by someone’s power. It’s matrix just depicted how every inch, every atom of the object should be, everything from the material to its physical properties weight and the way it reflected light, it was like a piece of nothing had the power to be a little glass star, or something like that.

It was weird; the power didn’t exactly do anything, just told it how to exist. It took to a new level how every matrix had in its descriptions how it interacted with reality, the complex system by which the powers came to be.

It was very interesting, but there wasn’t anything for me to copy that I could benefit from, and I was curious about how it actually worked in the end. Was it maybe quantum entangled with the piece it was copied from? A copy so real that reality just treated them both as the same thing.

“So each take a point.” LED told us, holding the star up from one of its arms.

We circled the piece of glassware, the four that were going, me, led, Spotlight and Payback holding one of the little arms, the ones further out having to extend themselves to touch the star without putting pressure into the junctions.

“That’s it then. Whatever happens should teleport us to the new location.”

“Bye-bye, you all,” Payback said.

“I hope to see you all soon, or you can meet me there when you turn into an official, Swordjuice.”

“I’ll do it Matrix. Just you wait, and take care, all of you.”

“We will, not that matrix needs it.” Payback said, smiling.

“Stay safe guys, sorry again for not going,” Spyglass said, cradling her arms.

“it really is okay,” LED told her, “you take care as well. I’ll talk with Spawner about putting you into intelligence gathering, something calmer.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Hey, if you all going to teleport, shouldn’t you all be in a better position?” Glassmetal asked.

“He might have a point,” Victor said, looking over at all of us clustered around the little star in the middle of the table.

Yea- LED started to say just as we all agreed that maybe Glassmetal had a point, but it was just then that Payback, being the farthest out and leaning precariously over the table, stumbled just a bit, catching himself immediately with his other hand coming down on the table to steady him.

But that little jostling was enough for the little star to ever so delicately break apart and with it, reality followed.