Amos’ assessment had been nearly verbatim of her own thoughts. He had examined her with a wand he had rigged up to detect mana and found it circulating through her body almost in the same way her blood did. Sonya was not happy. She’d been in the shadows so long with her abilities, only using them to threaten and do the bare minimum so far. Otherwise she’d played the political game. But that’s not what she wanted, not in her heart. She wanted to be the one to slide a knife into Otis’ chest and see the light fade from his eyes.
This? This was worse than how powerless she’d felt when she’d been nothing more than a scout. She had the ability to fight a strong opponent, she just could barely use it.
“My guess,” he said with a sigh, “Is that you’ve merged a ton of uncommon, rare and epic tier abilities into yourself, maybe even more with that hard-light ability and turning them all on at once burns through your reserves like that-” He snapped his fingers. “I have a theory that our abilities use mana somehow, that’s probably the energy it’s talking about. Our bodies produce enough mana constantly to keep our abilities going as long as we need them, take Marta for example. We ran a few tests and I detected mana in her wounds.”
“But Sonya gave me that ability, I wasn’t awakened with it,” Marta pointed out. “I’ve been wounded tons of times and I never felt like Baldur’s Body was going to give out.”
“No, but you paid a price for it, didn’t you?” Amos countered, “Sonya copied hers and merged them in with only pain and a long nap. You basically went through another awakening, Marta.”
She looked down at her clenched fists, So I finally figured out the drawback of Broker. My balance is all out of whack, I figured I could just layer up a bunch of abilities and combine them and that would make me powerful right off the bat. I should have realized it wasn’t that simple. I needed to be more careful about it.
She cursed under her breath and rubbed her head, “Damn it, thirty seconds of operating time.”
“Unless you can run on external mana, yeah,” He said with a chuckle. He looked over at Marta uneasily. “You know, you really don’t have to be a fighter. You’ve recruited some strong people and-”
Sonya clenched her jaw, “No!” She shouted, pushing herself to her feet and trying to draw on Hands of the Healer again. Her fingers glowed green and the pain in her ribs finally faded. She stormed out of the room with a scowl.
Damn it! She snarled inwardly, Why didn’t I test this sooner? Am I really only good for showboating? She looked down at her hand and pulled up Might of Thor. Electricity crackled across her fingertips, My guess is that the warehouse abilities run off of Broker’s internal reserve, then. Broker is Mythic-tier which is why I didn’t feel anything when I killed Occus. Would it have been better to keep them all as warehouse abilities? No! I would have to switch constantly and that probably constitutes a drain in and of itself that I’m not aware of.
She stormed into her office and slammed her fists on her desk, glaring at her reflection in the metal surface. “Idiot!” She snarled and took a deep breath, “Calm down.”
She closed her eyes, “Think, Sonya, think,” She muttered.
You can’t just pull mana out of a monster core, not into your body anyway. There’s no point in trying to push Amos to create mana-based energy sources or storage early since I can’t just hook one up to my body either, that’s nonsense. External mana, internal energy, she narrowed her eyes, A power source. I need an ability to merge in that acts as a power source.
She sighed, That’s the only way to fix this monumental screw up. No more merging until then. Damn, and I was planning on trying to merge steelblood in. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her fingers were trembling. Her whole body shook. She was so angry. Everything had been going so well that she hadn’t even thought that she could trip and fall on her face like this. She closed her eyes and Chunhua’s lifeless face popped up unbidden.
She grit her teeth and slammed her fists on the desk again, nearly leaving a dent.
“Sonya?” Marta said softly as she came into the office behind her.
“It has to be me,” Sonya said shakily, “I have to be the one to do it…” I have to kill him, I have to kill Otis. I knew I wasn’t strong enough yet, but I didn’t realize how far behind I was still.
“I don’t understand,” Marta said, walking to her side and putting a hand on Sonya’s shoulder.
Sonya closed her eyes, “I’m sorry,” She breathed and concentrated, forcing the rage down as deep as it could go. “I just need a moment.”
“We can put off the investigation tomorrow…” Marta offered.
She shook her head, “No, we’ll go as planned.”
We don’t have enough time to wait.
–
The office building that had been remodeled into the headquarters of the ASTA sponsored Hero Guild had once belonged to an insurance company, according to Sonya. Firestorm still felt the faint hint of unpleasantness in the air that he associated with places like this. He’d never liked insurance companies, not after his father’s health had begun to deteriorate. If it hadn’t been for Sonya’s miraculous abilities, his father would have died a tired and sick man. Now? Now he was living his best life in ways that Firestorm could only imagine now.
He wondered why Sonya had never gone public about her ability to heal people like that. Maybe it was because she was selective about it, she seemed like a very profit driven person. She wanted to maximize the results of her time and never once called herself a saint or a deeply good person. That only made him respect her more, though, if he had to be honest with himself. His father respected her and that had been good enough for him, but he’d seen what she’d accomplished with that little bit of money that his father had thrown at her and grown it into something amazing.
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She’d created heroes, basically.
He looked at himself in the mirror and gave his reflection with a winning smile. His hero outfit making him feel more confident than ever. The door to the locker room opened and Bandit poked his head in, “Hey, she’s here. Guildmaster is calling.”
He brightened, turning on his heel and hurrying to catch up with his comrade. He hadn’t exactly been surprised when Bluestar had been named the guildmaster. In fact, he’d been overjoyed. With all the attention he’d been getting as a hero, he’d been afraid that he’d be put in a position of authority that he really didn’t want. Frankly the idea of playing administrator made his skin itch, he’d rather be on the front lines all the time and not worrying about budgets and legal bullshit. He wasn’t a smart guy, and he was okay with that. All that mattered was helping people.
The paycheck didn’t hurt either.
He made his way through the halls, most of the place had been repainted and reworked thoroughly in the stark-white ASTA style that Sonya liked so much. He walked past a television screen that was playing a recruitment video on repeat for the next hero licensing. He cringed a little bit at his own performance, his big goofy smile and over dramatic thumbs up was a bit dated if he had to admit, but he was proud of the fact that it would help even one person decide to take up the mantle.
The commercial ended and a woman’s voice followed it, “Brought to you by ASTA…” The logo of the company appeared, “We are…” the words ‘we are’ appeared and then several more words appeared and disappeared at the end of the phrase. It was quick but he caught a few; ‘Munitions’ ‘Hero Gear’ ‘Support’ ‘Research’ ‘Advanced Technology’ ‘Consumer Goods’ and finally, “Your Solution.”
“How does she have the time to have a commercial made too?” Bandit asked with a laugh.
“She’s got people for that, I’m not surprised,” Firestorm said with a shrug, walking down the hall with his friend and going down the stairs to the fifth floor. There were nine floors in total and the middlemost floor had been converted into a supersized briefing and meeting space. It was large enough to fit over a hundred heroes in chairs in the even that the guild got that big someday. There had already been tons of applicants to the guild, to the point that Bluestar had been forced to come up with a whole new kind of job, a hero talent scout to investigate each application for her. There were already two of them now, Sam and Lindy.
When they got to the fifth floor, Lifesaver was already there in his costume, leaning back in a chair and relaxing near the rear of the open meeting space with a book in his hand. Sonya was in the center of the room standing with Bluestar and they were talking merrily. Despite her relaxed posture, something about Sonya seemed a little off even at first glance. Maybe it was just him, but it seemed like her smile wasn’t meeting her eyes as much as it usually did. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to Lifesaver, “What are they talking about?”
“Sonya’s interested in the applicants and is asking about some of their powers, they’re also talking about things that Bluestar has been working on. Apparently she wants to find a fifth member for our core group in case she’s stuck in the office, so she’s hoping to get some funding to scout a Heroic-tier like us,” Lifesaver said absently, flipping a page in the book.
“She looks upset,” Firestorm said.
“Who? Bluestar?” Lifesaver asked as Bandit sat next to him and squinted at the pair.
“No, Sonya,” Firestorm clarified, rubbing his neck, “Her smile seems off.”
His two friends looked at one another and then looked at him, Bandit was the first to speak, “Buddy, if you have a crush you are barking up the wrong tree. Blue’s more her type.”
Firestorm felt heat race to his cheeks and he whirled, “I don’t have a crush!”
“Uhuh, ‘her smile seems off’...” Lifesaver teased him. “Sure.”
Bandit burst into laughter and Firestorm covered his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He glanced back at the walking goddess who had saved his father, turned his life around, created a new era, and gave him the job of his dreams. He sighed, what wasn’t to like? That said, she was absolutely, completely, and totally out of reach. He rubbed his neck and leaned against the wall again. Who am I kidding?
The two looked at one another, bandit blinked then looked up at him again, “Woah, woah, buddy we were joking. You serious? Dude. Sonya Chernovna man. Sonya Chernovna. Shoot for the moon not, y’know, Jupiter or some shit.”
He groaned, “Shut up.”
Despite his growing annoyance, he did notice that Sonya’s expression seemed to grow a bit better from afar. She couldn’t hear them, could she? No way.
–
Men.
Sonya had to do her best to keep her expression controlled. It was cute, at least, and it definitely served to bandage her wounded ego after learning how badly she’d messed up cultivating her abilities. She had to remind herself that she was already searching for a solution. She had Amos searching the records for anyone with a high level magic-based ability that could be simple enough to merge into Cyber-Punk. If it was too complicated or specific then it would have a possibility of being rejected, like The Astral Eye.
“Overall I think that the current list of potentials will really pan out,” Bluestar said with an eager smile, gesturing to the tablet in Sonya’s hands.
Sonya looked down at it again, she wasn’t wrong, there were plenty of solid recruits there though unfortunately none that looked like they would be a good match. Not even Bluestar had turned out to be a good option. Her Azure Magician ability was strong, but it was also too complicated according to her Merger ability. It was close, though. Merger wanted an ability that was almost pure mana though before she could start integrating magical powers, it seemed.
“I’m pleased with your progress, Bluestar, you’ve done well since I put you in charge. The idea to create a scout position was inspired,” Sonya said, handing the tablet back.
The woman beamed, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Sonya, please,” Sonya corrected her, “I’ll get some contracts written up ahead of time based on their tier so we can make the process a little easier. I just got a rather talented lawyer on retainer, actually,” She cleared her throat and turned to the others, “Anyway, boys! Join us? We’re going to start the briefing.”
The three men walked over, talking quietly amongst themselves. Firestorm looked incredibly awkward, Poor boy, Bandit was right though. She smiled at him and pat his arm before stepping over to a small podium that was set up at the head of the room. A screen behind her came to life and an image of the flow of mana around New York appeared.
“Alright,” She let out a breath, “This information is proprietary until we’ve confirmed it and figured out how to properly use it, after that, we’ll be releasing it to the Pandora Committee. I ask that you all keep this to yourselves…”
It was less than an hour later that they were in a small caravan of cars heading towards Times Square. Sonya had chosen not to brief the chairman just yet since she wanted to control the information about dungeons as much as she could at first, getting it to precisely who she needed to. She had a ‘club’ to dote on after all, and their continued loyalty was important. Spreading out the controlling interest over dungeons was also crucial. She wouldn’t let the Committee go down the monopolizing route it had gone down last time.
They arrived at Times square not long after that, thanks to her friendship with the commissioner they were able to get the area cleared for a little while. From there they found themselves at the foot of the Jumbotron and One Times Square. She looked up at the building, swallowing hard. Marta was a step behind her and Amos was checking his instruments a few meters away. Firestorms team had squared up and were looking up at the imposing structure as well.
This is it. It’s time to go save eight million people.