Chapter 12:

“I didn’t actually know,” Katie said with a smug smile as she sat up straight. “But I’d hope that it might happen. Honestly didn’t think it would be so soon, but I thought it was possible.”

“What? Why?” Ben asked.

“It’s your Accelerated Leveling. Think about it. People have to kill monsters to level up, right? But have you read those studies where they’ve tried leveling without using their powers and instead normal weapons? Or just relying on one skill too much? It's only been done for Low Ranks, but it should apply to everyone.”

“Kinda?” Ben hedged, trying to think back to his research. He’d mainly been focusing on training the last half a year, but before that, he loved researching these things. Then again, maybe because he looked into so many things, it was hard to remember it all. “I don’t remember reading any studies, but the consensus online is that you should be using your Skills as much as possible when fighting monsters to level up faster. I didn’t really look into the why.”

“Well to put it simply,” Katie said, putting her phone down and raising a finger in her lecturing pose. “From what people have gathered, and comments archived from various alien visitors, leveling involves two things. Energy and Integration. The energy comes from the monsters for some reason. Though I suppose it’s good that normal people don’t give off that energy when killed or we’d have a lot of murderous Supervillains out there.”

Ben shivered at the thought. That would be very messed up.

“As for integration, it’s all about getting the Super adapted to their powers and the energies. The main way to do this is just to use your Skills. The best way, though, is to use your Skills in stressful situations. Integration happens a lot faster that way. It’s why Tinkers level a bit slower than most other Classes and also why Tinkers usually gain their levels in the lab but still have to fight monsters.”

Ben rubbed his chin in thought. He’d heard about the Tinker’s leveling slower thing. He hadn’t realized they actually could level up in the lab. If they could do that then… Ben’s eyes widen.

“So they get the energies from killing monsters,” Ben said, nodding to himself. “And then afterward, while they're building and creating and using their Skills, that’s when the excess energy gets integrated. I hadn’t actually heard that about Tinkers… And you think that’s what the leveling boost does, don’t you? You think it provides the energy and I just need to integrate it. So just training with my Skills will let me level but stressful uses of my Skills will level me up faster.”

“Yes, exactly,” Katie said with a grin, snapping her fingers.

“Huh,” Ben said, scratching his cheek. “But even then, isn’t this a bit ridiculous? Isn’t the average leveling speed for peak E-Rank from level 1 like six months?”

“It is,” Katie said with a shrug. “But don’t forget, that average takes into account everyone. Even people who don’t take specialized leveling courses and just go join the sponsored leveling events when they have time. Combined with the fact that many people aren’t comfortable with throwing themselves into danger all the time, and the energy part is probably a real bottleneck for most. So it seems when you don’t have to worry about that and just work on integration, it gets a whole lot easier.”

“Maybe,” Ben said looking down. He felt a bit conflicted about this. On the one hand, this was really good for him. It meant he could level up fast and even if he never actually fought monsters he could still level. But on the other hand… It didn’t seem fair. And he didn’t feel like he de—

A pillow hit Ben in the face.

“Hey,” Ben said, catching the pillow as it dropped and narrowing his eyes at his assailant. “Why?”

“You were thinking something dumb,” Katie said, holding out her hands palm up in a ‘what can you do pose’. “Only way I could stop it. There’s no point dwelling on how lucky you are. You can’t change it. So just accept it and take this opportunity to be the big damn Hero I know you’ve always wanted to be.”

Ben’s annoyance disappeared at her words and he let out a sigh. She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t change the fact that he had this now. He couldn’t even give it away if he wanted to—at least not from what he’d seen. There was nothing online about power inheritance and he didn’t see it in any of his system options. So since that was the case, he might as well make the best of it and take advantage of what he’d been given.

At the very least, this made it so that the two weeks he had to train were even more valuable now. Not having to worry about rushing after the cube, he could hopefully gain a few levels and gain a lot more practice with his powers. That way, if he could pass Resolve’s test, then he’d be able to do more than sit back and watch when the time came to get the cube.

Of course, that would be later. Despite his desire to start training with his powers, he was genuinely tired from everything that had happened. Tomorrow he would train, to both be a Hero and just to be able to stand next to Katie and Resolve the next time they went after that gang.

Until then though…

Ben looked back at Katie who had started to look back over to her phone.

He would probably pay for this… But she started it.

Carefully, he hefted the pillow and grinned.

Then he threw it.

After that, it would be another half-hour until they ordered food and got to eat.

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

“Morning, Ms. Shield.”

“Morning Ben! I haven’t seen you in ages. Come over here so I can get a look at you.”

After their rather drawn-out pillow fight the night before, and then after eating dinner, both Ben and Katie had decided to end the night early. All the excitement of using his powers, flying for the first time—even if they hadn’t gone that high—his very brief super fight, and then dealing with the arguing duo really had taken a lot out of him. And of course, Katie had actually been in the middle of the fight so she was tired as well.

The next day, Ben woke up rather early, and after not seeing either Katie or her mom, decided to go down into Katie’s training room for some more practice. Besides flying and some minor roof hopping, he hadn’t really gotten to make too much use out of the other aspects of his powers yesterday. He’d also leveled up and now his Power Strength stat was about thirty percent stronger.

So to make up for all that, he spent most of the morning running around the training room, putting his new movement speed to the test. The first thing he tried was just applying his new maximum acceleration to his whole body upwards. That allowed him to jump even higher and farther and made running easier as well.

Then he started experimenting with accelerating at other angles to improve his running, his dodging, and his running jumps. He stumbled quite a bit at the beginning, but near the end was starting to really get the hang of it. Still not as awesome as flying but it was still pretty awesome.

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It was about then that Katie came down, her hair still disheveled from sleep. She pointed out some training protocols for him to try out before going to get ready herself.

Trying out what she showed him, he was able to get a couple of training dummies to appear so he could practice using his Apply Skill offensively. Both just speeding himself up to hit hard, as well as sending the dummies flying by accelerating them away from him.

After another thirty minutes of this, Katie had come down to tell him to get showered, changed, and have something to eat. Katie’s mom had made breakfast and it was almost nine in the morning. If they wanted to do everything they had planned, then they would need to head out soon.

So Ben ended his training there. He had more things he still wanted to try out, but one of the things they had planned today was some shopping. Shopping that would hopefully get him the things he needed to really make the best use of his powers. Once he got that equipment, he’d be able to really train his powers and figure out the best way to use them.

It was only after his shower did he remember he didn’t have a change of clean clothes. He was considering whether he should wear some dirty clothes or see if Katie somehow had some clothes that would fit him when he came out of the bathroom, only to have the issue already solved for him. His supersuit and his formerly dirty clothes had been left out on the guest bed he’d been using. After taking a tentative sniff of it, he realized it was clean. He then realized that when Katie had told him to just dump his suit into the hamper in his room and it would take care of itself she really meant it.

He’d have to ask her about that later and how that worked. Ben doubted she was volunteering to do his laundry, so it was probably her Bugbots. But then how had they cleaned his clothes so fast? Did she have a super clothes washer? And could he get one too?

Getting changed back into his normal clothes, Ben made his way back downstairs and to the kitchen where he greeted Katie’s mom.

“You’ve certainly grown since I’ve last seen you,” Ms. Shield said, patting Ben on his shoulders as she looked him up and down. Unlike Katie, her mom was a bit shorter and only reached Ben’s chin. “Not just height but look at these muscles. You’ve been training a lot, I see.”

“Yep,” Ben said, just a little embarrassed at the attention. “I try to keep in shape.”

“A bit more than that,” Ms. Shield said, taking a step back and putting both her hands on her hips. “So, have you and Katie started dating? Or have you earned your access? Or perhaps late blooming?”

Ben froze for a second and Katie started choking on her toast.

“Ugh… what?” Ben finally said after he recovered.

“Well,” Katie’s mom said as she went to pat her daughter on the back. Said daughter, after she recovered, glared at her mom who only smiled back at her innocently. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Ben, since I hear you, Katie, and your other friends mainly hang out at the big arcade when you come to Haven. So since you're here visiting Katie at home, I can only assume you’ve either started dating or you’ve finally become a Super. Now, enough of just standing there. You’re still a growing boy. Come eat. I’ve made a lot of food.”

“Ugh…” Ben said dumbly as he sat down at the table where a full plate had already been set for him. He looked to Katie for help but she was just palming her face. Ben then turned back to her mom, who just looked at him with a smile that wouldn’t melt butter. “Um…”

“Then again, I feel like Katie would be far more embarrassed if I guessed right about you two dating…” Katie’s mom said resting her cheek on her hand. “So I’m guessing you’ve become a Super.”

Ben’s mouth continued to gape for a second before he sighed. It wasn’t like him becoming a Super was going to be a secret anyway. He was just delaying registering until the thing with the cube was done. Also, she may know he’s a Super now, but at least she doesn’t know what they did yesterday. So no point in denying his new status now… And if he did deny it, she might keep bringing up that other thing and Katie might kill him. “Yeah… I’m a Super now. Just an E-Rank though.”

“Congratulations Ben,” Ms. Shield said, her smile bright and genuine. “I know you’ve been wanting this for a while now. I hope you and Katie will team up in the future when you go out so you’ll both have someone you can trust watching your backs.”

Ben smiled back. “Thanks. I’ll have to level up quite a bit first before I can really watch Katie’s back though.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure out something,” Ms. Shield said as she picked up her fork to eat. “You’ve always been quite the driven boy. I’ll be expecting great things from you.”

“Thanks,” Ben said with a smile before he began eating as well.

Katie meanwhile glared at her mom one more time before huffing. Then gestured at the wall next to the kitchen table… Which apparently had a holographic TV built into it. Ben wasn’t sure if that was a Haven Island thing or a Tinker house thing. Either way, it was pretty cool.

“And in other news, notorious S-Rank villain Dr. Ruin made another attack on the Haven’s Workshop last evening. Official statement from the workshop and the Cascade League was that he was repelled without any casualties thanks to the amazing defenses designed in the Workshop, along with Vortex’s timely arrival. Dr. Ruin was also repelled without achieving whatever nefarious goal he had.”

Ben frowned at the TV as it showed footage of a large red-cloaked figure floating above the iconic Tetrahedron-shaped building that was Haven’s Workshop. The Workshop was protected by a dome of energy, and from inside turrets were deployed and fired devastating-looking bolts of energy at the flying figure, Dr Ruin. They were in one of their car-sized mech suits and around them were floating humanoid bots that blasted away down at the barrier. Occasionally, their shields would be overwhelmed, and they’d be knocked from the air, but there were a lot of them.

The screen then adjusted as a large bright light exploded forth from Dr. Ruin and then the footage cut. It was followed by more footage. There was some damage on the side of the Workshop now, and many turrets were destroyed. But Dr. Ruin’s suit was far worse, having lost half its body, and all the bots he’d brought were gone too. He flew away at blistering speed before disappearing from sight as Vortex stood on one of her portals just a second too slow to catch the other S-Rank.

“Something the matter, Ben,” Ms. Shield asked, drawing his attention away from the TV.

“It’s nothing,” Ben said with a shake of his head. “It's just… I mean Villains are bad enough. But S-Rank Villains are just… Such a waste of potential. And a Tinker at that.”

Katie’s mom nodded solemnly at that. “It truly is a travesty. All that power, and a Tinker as well. He could be working with the Workshop, but instead, he just attacks it and tries to steal our inventions and secrets. It’s one of the few downsides of working there. Even though I’ve been working at the Workshop for quite some time now, I still get nervous when attacks like yesterday’s happen.”

Off to the side, Katie, who’d been eating her food slowly, choked on her food.

“Be careful dear,” Ms. Shield said. “Remember to chew your food. I know you're a growing girl too, but you can’t forget your manners.”

Katie cleared her throat, took a sip of water, and gave her mom a very strained-looking smile. “Yeah, thanks, mom. I’ll remember that. Just couldn’t help myself with your delicious cooking.”

“Aw, thank you, dear. I’m glad you think so,” Ms. Shield said before turning back to Ben. “Now back to the topic of that horrible Dr. Ruin. I know you're a Super now, Ben, but make sure you don’t ever try and get involved with Dr. Ruin or any S-Rank villain. Normally they don’t go overboard with newbies, but you can never be sure. You wouldn’t believe some of the horror stories I’ve heard from Quantum Circuit.”

Ben, who had been nodding along, perked up at that part. He’d never heard about this before. “You’ve worked with Quantum Circuit in the Workshop? How long has that been going on?”

“Oh yes. In the last two years or so I’ve joined her team. Keep that a secret though,” Katie’s mom said, holding a finger to her smiling lips. “To the rest of the world, I’m just another scientist working alongside the Tinkers of the workshop. Not too special.”

Ben nodded at that. “Of course. I won’t tell anyone. But that’s so cool. What’s it like working with her? She’s like one of the best Tinkers ever, right? Even though she’s only an A-Rank. And she was one of the main designers of the Shelter Reinforcement System and all the damage mitigation and incursion handling tech. It must be amazing.”

“It really is. She is an amazing woman,” Ms. Shield said with a big smile on her face. “And an amazing Tinker. Both down to Earth but also brilliant. Honestly, she’s my favorite Hero in the city.”

Thud.

Ben was torn from his excitement by the sound of something hitting the table. He looked over to see Katie with her face pressed against the table.

“Oh no, sweetie,” Katie’s mom said, her voice full of concern. “What’s wrong?”

Katie's whole body tensed before she seemed to calm and she looked back up with a perfectly normal look on her face. If one ignored the red on her forehead, that was. “It’s nothing. Just remember something dumb from yesterday. Anyway.” Katie turned to Ben with her ‘don’t you dare ask expression’ on her face. “Ben hurry up and finish and we’ll head out. There is a lot I have planned for today.”

Ben chose the better part of valor and decided to nod at that and go back to eating. Whatever was going on with Katie, he decided to figure out another time. It couldn’t be that time of—nope. He shouldn’t think like that. If Anna found out that was his goto thought he’d never hear the end of it.