The next morning – dawn of Day Three, part of me thought, if only we knew how many hours remained – we compared notes about our ability choices.
Nicole was too excited to talk about hers, so we let her go first. “Mine's called Rideable Assistant! I can't wait to see what it looks like, but Percy said I shouldn't summon it in here in case it's super big.”
Chloe shook her head. “I haven't picked yet.”
Todd, too. “Me neither. I want to take another Augment, but I don't know what it's going to do to me and it doesn't feel safe doing it while we're pinned down like this.”
“You're not taking Shapeshift?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I thought about it. I really did. It was tempting. But no. Looking more human is... kind of a luxury, compared to what it sounds like some of the other Augments can do. Like, do I want to put my gun away for a while and then have to figure how long it takes to shape it back? Or do I want to have Super Strength? It feels like kind of a no-brainer once you think of it that way, but it still leaves me thinking about which one, and what I'm willing to put up with to get it.”
Neither Renee nor I had any useful advice to offer him; it's not like we were any less new at this for having spent half a day longer killing random monsters.
After giving Todd a pat on the shoulder to reassure him, Renee went next. Her pick, “Cure Disease,” surprised nobody. She seemed to be going for a dedicated healer build. Considering she got full credit and both of her abilities hit 200%, it seemed like the System itself liked her thinking, too.
Finally, it was my turn.
Emma DeVries
Novelty: 35
Abilities:
Missile (250%)
Force Shield (250%)
Telekinesis (300%)
Points: 450
Money: 37
“Telekinesis,” I said, “I'm going for a Jean Grey kind of build, and the System says I still don't have enough support for Flight, so, this is another step towards that. It didn't give me perfect synergy, but it did get perfect synergy, so, good enough for now. Two at 250% and Telekinesis at 300%.”
Then I turned to Chloe, “If you need help picking, you know we're here for you. You can talk to any of us and we'll help.”
She nodded. “I know, I'm just really torn.”
While we talked, Todd started passing around the rest of the cereal from last night, and soon we were crunching our way through another unsatisfying breakfast too.
“Between what?” I asked.
“Well... I want to take either Mental Speech or Analyze, so I can help other people fight together better. But... I don't wanna be useless, y'know? I feel like I should take a fighting power.”
I patted her shoulder, trying not to think about Renee having just done the same thing. I am not learning this from her...
“If you want a not-fighting power, you should take that. Your sister is becoming an army of her own at this rate, and Renee and I, at least, have no problem protecting you. I don't think Todd does, either.”
Mouth full of cereal, he shook his head emphatically.
“See? Nobody minds helping you keep safe. And, think about this: what's gonna make you happy?”
She tilted her head like a curious puppy, and Renee stepped in to back me up.
“She's right, you know. You should pick your powers based on what it's gonna make you happy to be able to do. I know we've talked about what you want to be when you grow up, and you said you wanted to be a Senator. It's like that. You wouldn't give up on becoming a Senator just because somebody else wanted you to become something else, right? Because it wouldn't be what you want out of life.”
Chloe looked back and forth between us, then nodded. “Yeah, I get it! Okay... so... which one?”
It was my turn for a shrug, though I tried to help. “Most of everybody you'd want to talk to is either in this room or really far away, right? If Mental Speech has any range limit at all it's probably not as useful right now as Analyze. You can always take it next, once we're back at A to Z and farming safely.”
“That makes sense. I'll do it!” She got that far-away look I was coming to associate with somebody focusing on their System interface, and while she worked Renee nudged me for an aside chat.
Once we were ensconced in a corner away from the others, she said, “We have a problem.”
“Go on.”
“Remember when we were farming last night? Not just how many there were, but how many there always were?”
It took a moment for it to dawn on me, but I nodded. “They respawn fast.”
“What did Percy say? Twenty minutes, tops?”
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“Yeah. So from the minute we open the door, we have... call it fifteen minutes... to be totally gone from here... before we end up fighting the same leaf-hounds all over again.”
She sighed, but nodded. “That's the problem I'm seeing.”
“We could've encouraged Chloe to take a more hard-hitting power,” I said, “Or encourage Todd to pick now and damn the consequences?”
“No,” she said, “We were right to tell them what we did. It's their lives, it should be their choice.”
“Assuming we all live long enough for them to enjoy it.”
“Don't be negative. Between you, Todd, and Nicole's Seekers, we can do it. Surely some of them have left since last night...”
“And you, Nicole, and I have three-powers strength, if that's a real thing.”
“We broke a door open with our shoulders last night. That's already action-movie-hero strength. I'm betting you could drop-kick a leaf-hound like a soccer ball if you had to now.”
I paused. “You're gonna have to talk to Nicole about your theory, you know. Warn her, before she has to interact with kids who only have one power. If power-strength is a real thing, she could hurt somebody without meaning to. I mean, we all could, but she hasn't figured it out on her own yet, so, maybe give her a heads-up?”
She nodded again. “One thing at a time, though. Let's get back to A to Z first, and then have that conversation once we're safe.”
We turned back to the others just as Chloe was picking her head up from the table. “I took Analyze!” she said, “I wanna go Analyze a leaf-hound.”
“I'll back you up,” I said, pulling a lag-bolt out of my belt can.
We went to the door and tugged it open the couple of inches it could be opened with the hauler in the way, and Chloe squished up close to the opening, squinting one eye shut so she could focus through the gap.
I watched as she focused on her new ability. Her eyes were normally a shade of amber brown that was closer to red, but when she used Analyze they washed over with green tracery, almost like a circuit pattern in EL wire. It was pretty cool-looking, if a little too obvious that something was going on for an information power. The tracery was still there when she leaned back from the door and blinked to re-focus her vision.
She made a gagging noise and didn't look at me until her eyes were back to normal.
“What happened?”
“It showed me how the leaf-hounds work, and how to kill them, like, where they're weak,” she said, “But it was still running when I looked at you...”
“And it told you that stuff about me?” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“Eeeeew,” I said, drawing it out for comic emphasis.
“Eeeeew,” Nicole echoed.
Chloe looked back and forth between us, then all three of us went “Eeeeew!” and the twins broke down giggling. I was just glad she could laugh it off so readily, and grinned along with them.
“So you were saying, leaf-hounds?” Todd asked.
“They really are part animal, part plant, and part bug,” she answered, “Their eyes are like fly eyes, that's why they make such good ambushers and why it's so hard to sneak up on them. There's practically nowhere they can't see. They're super sensitive to poisons and bright lights, and the spot right above their snout is kinda... soft. That's probably why Sir Emma has such an easy time killing them, since, y'know, headshots.”
“Gamer reflex,” I shrugged, “Just lucky it actually worked that way. Then again, shooting most things in the head is probably a good idea.”
Nicole weighed in, “We don't have any poison or bright lights, though, so we're... gonna have to fight them kinda-fair?”
Todd scratched at his scruff that wasn't quite a beard, “Maybe. Chloe, when you were downstairs did they have any cleaning stuff?”
“Yeah, some. Why?”
“Cuz Mom always made a big point about how mixing cleaning stuff is stupid dangerous. Because it's all poison...”
She perked up. “Come on, I'll show you.” With Percy around her shoulders, she scampered ahead to the basement door and he got up to follow, leaving me, Nicole, and Renee at the table. Nicole kicked her feet as they dangled from her chair.
I turned to her. “You're probably gonna be starting us off, when it's time to go,” I said.
“Me?”
“Yep. You're gonna have your whole army out, if you can. Ridley pulling the hauler, your new friend carrying you, and we're gonna want you to send out a couple of Seekers before we go out ourselves, just to draw the leaf-hounds away. Just keep track of how you're feeling and stop before you even start feeling sleepy. If we lose Ridley and the cart we're super boned, so, you gotta be careful.”
She still looked a little spooked.
“It's just to open the door and get us outside. Once we have room to move around, I'll be backing you up, Renee will be right there to heal people, Todd still has his gun-arm, and Chloe is gonna be keeping an eye out for all of us, so, we're all gonna do our best to make sure nothing happens.”
Finally, she nodded, looking a little more resolved.
A few minutes later, Chloe and Todd returned from the basement.
Renee sat up straighter, but it looked like they didn't need help with anything so she didn't stand up. “What'd you find?” she asked.
“Not a lot, but what we found was gold,” he said. And with a bit of a flourish, he plunked down on the table a mostly-full gallon jug of bleach, and a similarly-full jug of white vinegar.
“Don't you need ammonia?” I asked, “I always heard it was those two that were dangerous.”
“I mean, they are,” he said, “But this is pretty nasty stuff, too. And... Chloe, show 'em what you found.”
She came around from behind him and added to the table a cardboard box full of glass jars. “It looks like these were for some kinda crafty thing?” she said, “But they never got used since they're all still in the box.”
“Using them as chemical Molotovs was her idea,” Todd said, patting Chloe's head.
“Yeah but you're the one who knew which cleaning stuff to put in 'em,” she said, batting at his hand and reaching way up to return the headpat, which he dutifully accepted, even if he had to bend down a little bit to let her.
“Before we commit to heading out,” I said, “Let's give Nicole plenty of room and have her call out her whole menagerie. We need to know if she can handle it, and what else her Rideable comes with.”
Nobody objected, so we all moved to the far end of the room, leaving Nicole and the hauler by the door.
She summoned Ridley first, and had him take a knee in front of the hauler so he didn't take up as much space. Then, the moment of truth: she swished her hands up, fingers down like a puppeteer, and called out her Rideable Assistant.
An enormous swirl of blue smoke gathered in the middle of the room, gathering and gathering and compressing until it took on a shape, and that shape took on color, and that colorful shape... threw its head back and howled.
It only sort of looked like a wolf, though. If anything it looked like a bigger, beefier version of her Seekers. Where they were like tiger-striped puppies, this thing was the whole-ass tiger... except it was still a dog. A riding dog. The size of a warhorse. Complete with a Nicole-sized saddle on its back. It took up a lot of room, but looked like it would still be able to get through the door if it belly-crawled a little.
“Can you dismiss it and call it again outside?” I suggested.
She thought about it, then swished her hands up again. And... a second time. Swish? She shook her head.
Percy cleared his throat. “If I may...” he said, “Perhaps this is the difference between those abilities entitled Summon and those called Assistant? That is to say, I think Assistants, such as myself, are rather more... persistent?”
“Do you come back if you get eaten by leaf-hounds?” I said.
“So long as Chloe is alive and nothing prevents her from using the ability that is me, I believe I would. The larger question is whether or not I retain my memories from one such manifestation to another. So far, I have no evidence either way, so I will refrain from speculating.”
Chloe looked at her sister. “What silly name is this one gonna have?”
“Archie!”
“You can't call... that... Archie,” Chloe protested, “That is the silliest name ever!”
“I can too! He's my Assistant.”
The two of them wandered off into squabbling again, while the rest of us started lining up mason jars.