Chapter 7:
“So, what do you think?”
“What do I think?” Katie asked, looking at her soda can as she gently sloshed it around. “I think I might need to see if Mom has a secret booze stash somewhere in the house.”
Ben let out a small laugh. “Yeah… It’s a lot to take in.”
“You’re sure it said SS-Rank?” Katie asked as she got up and started to pace. “Like, really sure?”
“Katie, I’m not an idiot,” Ben said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not gonna mistake a single S for two S’s.”
“Says the idiot who decided to go hunt monsters with a battle axe,” Katie said with a scoff before whirling back at him. “Which, for the record, was moronic. You could have at least asked me to back you up so if something went wrong then there’d be someone to help.”
Ben winced at that. “Yeah… Maybe. But come on, you’ve been working on energy generation and industrial applications of your tech. Wouldn’t you have just been in the same danger as me? You didn’t put any stat points in strength or vitality, did you? And you don’t have a Powersuit or anything, right?”
Katie opened her mouth to reply, finger raised and an annoyed look on her face. Then she stopped. Her finger retracted and her mouth closed slowly. Then she closed her eyes, let out a loud breath, and palmed her face. “Fuck.”
“What is it?” Ben asked, surprised at the sudden turn. That was her ‘I fucked up’ face. “What did you do?”
“Ugh… this is what I get for trying to be considerate,” Katie mumbled, rubbing her face. “Well, now that you're a Super, I was probably gonna tell you anyway. But the stuff I’ve told you about—like what I’ve been building—has just been the stuff I do at school. I’ve actually built plenty of stuff for leveling and Hero work at home.”
“What?” Ben asked incredulously. “What happened to, and I quote, ‘Why would I want to risk my life with Hero work when I can just make bank as a Tinker?’”
Katie sighed again. “I still don’t really intend to be a full-on Hero. But I also don’t plan on staying a B-Rank either. I didn’t tell you details about my work for the same reason you didn’t tell Connor and Anna the full story about the alien. It’s best to not tell too much sensitive info to your normal friends, just in case I make enemies. Anyway, this is still mainly on you. If you had told me about your idiotic plan, then I would have told you more. And don’t you dare try and tell me lying about my tinkering is the same. You were in way more danger than I’ve ever been, cause I actually can build stuff to defend myself. And not just go with teen boy strength and a battle axe.”
Ben frowned. She had a point… Well maybe. She might be bullshitting with how much danger she’s put herself in… Then again, even with this new revelation, Ben doubted Katie ever put herself in as much danger as him. She wasn’t a risk-taker.
“Alright, alright, what I did was dumb,” Ben said after a moment. Better to just admit fault and end this before Katie got worked up. “I should have told my friends. Like I said, I’ve already got the guilt trip from Anna. Can we focus on something more important?”
“Like what?” Katie asked, one hand on her hip.
“Like getting the cube,” Ben offered. “I want to try and locate it soon. Maybe even recover it if we’re lucky and it’s just in some alley somewhere. Being more cautious, I decided to come to you for help instead of just going at it alone.”
“Well at least you're learning,” Katie muttered before walking over and holding out a hand. “Anyway, I’m happy to help. In fact, just give me the tracker and I’ll track it down and get it myself. No need to worry your pretty little head.”
Ben just looked down at her hand for a long moment with a frown. It didn’t seem right to just leave it all to Katie. If it was just in some alley somewhere this might be faster. But what if it was already found by someone and they were dangerous?
“Come on,” Katie said, opening and closing her hand. “You want it found quickly, right? I’ll get geared up, track the thing down, and be back before dinner. Or midnight. Depending on how far away it is.”
“It doesn’t seem right to leave it to just you,” Ben said with a sigh. “What if you run into something dangerous?”
“And you think you’ll be a lot of help as a new E-Ranker?” Katie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not right this instant,” Ben admitted. “But I think with a little practice I might not slow you down. Like I have some inherited gems in my inventory that I can use and are pretty powerful. I might be able to hit above my rank a little and at least make things easier for you than if you went alone.”
“Really?” Katie asked, tilting her head. “Honestly, I think you're underestimating how long it might take you to get used to your powers… But screw it. I kinda want to see what you can do, anyway. Especially since you didn’t actually say what you picked for your Skills. Let’s go down to my testing chamber. And if you prove to at least not be a liability, we’ll go together.“
Ben perked up at her words, though he couldn't help but be confused about something. “Wait. Down, to your testing chambers? We’re in the basement already.”
Katie just grinned at him
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“Wow,” Ben said, looking around the even larger room that was apparently under Katie’s lab. The ceiling was two, maybe even three stories high, and it was three times the size of the lab above. That extra door he’d noticed earlier had led to a spiral staircase, which then led to this room. “It’s like half a gymnasium in here. How the hell did you do this?”
“Tinker bullshit,” Katie said with a wave of her hand. Then she gestured at the wide open space before them. “Don’t worry about it. Instead, focus on impressing me. If you just flail around like a newbie then we're better off with me going alone.”
Ben frowned but nodded. By not letting Katie go alone, he could be risking losing the chance of getting the cube before someone else found it. But he’d already taken that risk yesterday by taking the time to decompress and letting her go alone just didn’t sit right with him. Even if she was apparently doing a lot more with her powers than she’d let on. So best not to waste time.
Ben walked to the center of the room and pulled out the quartz crystal he’d taken out earlier from his pocket. Compared to the inherited quartz in his inventory or one of his new quartz that he’d been testing energy transfer with, this one felt empty. He hadn’t tried storing any kinetic energy into it yet.
It was time to change that by trying out one of his other new Skills.
Gem Energy Storage Kinetic (Clear Quartz)
Skill Rank: E (Note: This is an inherited skill. Increase in development speed)
Description: Stores Kinetic Energy into a clear quartz gem. Storage rate determined by Power stat.
Associated skills: Gem Energy Application Kinetic, Gem Energy Release and Transfer Kinetic
Following the same advice he’d gotten online that let him use his inventory Skill, he focused on the idea of his Skill and activated it. An instant later, something seemed to flick on inside of him and the gem lit to a sixth sense. It was definitely empty to his new sense, and he could also interact with it. Store things in it.
He just needed a target and… it had to be close enough to the quartz he was trying to use. The range for targeting… wasn’t all that large. Only about five to six inches from the crystal. Thankfully it seemed that as long as a part of something was within range of the crystal, he could target it.
Which meant he could target himself. Perfect.
Ben took a deep breath to calm down and then targeted himself. When he didn’t feel any signs of danger and there were no warnings from the system, he began actively storing kinetic energy from his body. Which was currently generating none. Kinda expected. Also, he wasn’t getting colder, so it wasn’t taking any heat from his body which technically was kinetic energy too.
That went along with his expectations. Powers could be oddly specific. And since there had been skills for storing and using thermal energy, clearly the system or his power considered them different.
Next, it was time to test just how much energy he could take.
Ben started to try and move his body around and immediately was met with a lot of resistance. It was like he was moving through molasses. Every movement seemed like it took several times more effort. If he were to do this to someone else, it might be a decent way to hinder them. Though he’d have to keep them in range of the crystal which wasn’t easy. Also, Enhancers would be a lot harder to contain.
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Ben continued to try and move around for a moment, keeping track of just how much energy was being stored. He couldn’t quite get enough of a feel of it to break it down into units, but after a minute walking around in circles and waving his arms around slowly, there was barely any energy in the crystal.
“I’m not all that impressed right now,” Katie called from the side.
Ben stopped storing his own kinetic energy and sighed. “Working on it. I was absorbing my own kinetic energy, and it made it feel like I was moving through water. Or molasses. Might be a good way to slow people down.”
“And what’s the range?” Katie asked, immediately guessing what made this a lot less useful for the moment.
“...About a couple of inches away from the gem. Maybe four or five?”
“So pretty shit. What else do you have?”
“One sec. I’m just working out how I’ll be generating kinetic energy for myself,” Ben said before he jumped into the air as high as he could and started storing as soon as he started to fall.
His falling speed slowed considerably and the amount of energy being stored was a lot more than him trying to move around while constrained. The second his feet touched the ground, he stopped storing and jumped again before storing again. After another repeat and getting a feel for how much energy he was getting from that, he tried one more idea.
He jumped again, but this time started storing his kinetic energy the moment his feet left the ground. His jump was shortened considerably but it felt like he still ended up generating more energy that way. Good to know and just one more thing to take into account. There probably was some kind of physics formula he could use to try and figure out the optimal way to do that…
But that would be for another day. Also hopefully Katie would be up for helping with that.
Ben crouched down and jumped again, storing again just when his feet left the ground. He continued doing this for a whole minute, getting about 40 jumps in before his legs started to feel the burn and he stopped.
“Okay, so that kinda works,” Ben said, turning to Katie who was still watching and looking rather unimpressed. ”I can slow my fall, and a minute of jumping around can fill up this gem to about a tenth full. Maybe a fifteenth… Or… Maybe a twentieth… Which… isn’t terrible? I can just fill up a bunch one day and have a bunch of full gems for use.”
“So twenty minutes of exercise to fill up one of those gems. Though it seems your storing is only really good for charging your gems right now cause it didn’t slow you down more than maybe a third of your normal drop speed. Maybe a little more. Still not great… Though I suppose since there’s not really a cost to it, it’s not terrible either…” Katie said before she trailed off. Then she reached into her lab coat and put on a pair of sleek looking glasses. “Well keep working on it. I’m just gonna bring down some equipment to get some readings.”
“Alright,” Ben said. “But for the record, of course nothing I’m doing is gonna be that impressive right now. I’m just working on storing energy into my gem.”
“Well, you could always just hold your gem up to an electric motor and take the energy from that instead of jumping around like a little kid needing to go potty,” Katie said, sounding distracted as she was looking off into space with her eyes moving around quickly. He’d almost believe she was barely paying attention if she didn’t have such a smug look on her face.
Ben sighed at that. That was a good idea but it was never good to admit that when Katie was smirking so much. He was about to retort to that when the door to the lab opened up. Then Ben froze as he saw the small form skitter into the room.
It stopped a couple of meters from Ben, its beady black little eyes staring at him.
“Ugh, what’s that?” Ben asked, eyeing the thing skeptically.
Apparently, this thing was what those little robot legs up in the lab had been for. And probably more like it. It was about the size of a small dog and was made of metal. It was a dull gray color and kind of looked like a robotic beetle with six legs and many hard edges. There were lines of blue light running along the sides of it, as well as coming from its underside.
“Just a drone,” Katie said as she walked up beside the thing. “It’s got some advanced sensors that I can use to get more precise measurements with what you're doing. Don’t worry about it for now. Just tell me what you're doing as you try it and I’ll compile the data later.”
“Alright,” Ben said, still eyeing the thing. “It’s kinda creepy looking.”
Katie scoffed at that. “Don’t be a baby. It’s just a relatively large robotic drone. Nothing to worry about. It’s mandibles definitely can’t tear through steel or anything.”
Ben stopped looking at the Bugbot and instead looked at Katie. She just gave him an innocent smile. Despite how pretty that was, Ben knew for certain there was evil in there. If not from experience then because of the steel-eating Bugbot she made.
“I’m just gonna get back to working on this,” Ben said, deciding that ignoring Katie and her creepy Bugbot was the only logical solution. “I’m gonna work on my second Skill now. The one that lets me apply kinetic energy to things. Gonna see how it might help my jump first.”
Still holding the crystal, Ben focused on his second Skill.
Gem Energy Application Kinetic (Clear Quartz)
Skill Rank: E (Note: This is an inherited skill. Increase in development speed)
Description: Applies kinetic energy stored in clear quartz crystals onto objects within range. A vector must be designated if the object is static. Application rate determined by Power stat. At E rank can exceed the maximum application rate by doubling the amount applied.
Associated skills: Gem Energy Storage Kinetic, Gem Energy Release and Transfer Kinetic
Once again the crystal lit up in his senses and Ben was able to target something. The range of this one seemed the same as for storing. Made sense and made things easier to remember. Though he wouldn’t have complained if the range had been increased instead.
Ready to activate it, Ben, still targeting himself, jumped and then quickly applied the energy to his whole body when he was at his apex, focusing on sending himself up.
Unlike what he expected, he didn’t double jump in the air. Instead, he just fell back to the ground, slowed like when he'd been storing. That was very disappointing. Why hadn’t that worked?
Frowning, Ben tried again, only to get the same result.
“Was that supposed to do something?” Katie asked. “I think that was about the same as when you were storing your kinetic energy. It just slowed your fall.”
“I was hoping for a double jump,” Ben said, frowning. “I applied the energy onto myself while imagining the direction I wanted it to be to be straight up.”
“Hmm… Oh, I know what’s happening,” Katie said, snapping her fingers. “I think the amount of energy you can store and apply are the same. Since those jumps looked the same as your first few. And since storing your kinetic energy only slows down your falling by a set amount—sensors say roughly 3.5m/s—that means you can probably only accelerate yourself at that amount too. And that’s not enough to fight gravity so you just end up slowing down your fall.”
Ben nodded as he took that all in. It took him a second, and he had to bring up some stuff he’d most forgotten from high school physics, but he got it in the end. Which meant that his idea was a bust. But if his power could accelerate him upwards at a set amount per second, even if it was less than gravity’s 9.81 meters per second per second… Then doesn’t that mean he can jump as if gravity had been reduced by a little more than a third? And then there was the other part of his Skill.
Eager to test his idea, and get rid of the disappointment of lacking a double jump, Ben applied the kinetic energy to himself again, aiming to send himself upwards. Then he leaned down and leaped into the air, this time going much higher than he’d been able to jump so far.
“Not bad,” Katie called out. “About 30 inches. Not bad for a normal person but… From what I can find online, that’s well below the world record or even what pro basketball players can do.”
“Alright,” Ben said, getting ready to jump again.
This time though, instead of applying the same amount of kinetic energy, he focused on doing double that. Something that only his apply skill could do while his storage skill couldn’t. Then he jumped again.
“Woah,” Ben said, his arms flailing a bit as he jumped much higher than before. It still wasn’t as high as he’d like but it was at least if not more than double his normal jump height.
Still, he couldn’t help but see if he could do better. He jumped again, really trying to put everything he had into the jump. Then he did it again and again, seeming to get just a bit higher each time. It also wasn’t overly taxing on his legs, which was an added benefit.
“Okay, that’s pretty good,” Katie said as she watched him bounce around. “Highest one was 46 inches. That matches the world record for a standing start vertical jump. What did you do?”
After landing, Ben turned to her with a grin. “Doubled how much force I applied. There is a normal maximum for my Apply skill where I can control the amount of energy more precisely. But if I force it, I can double that maximum amount.”
“Hmm…” Katie hummed tapping her cheek. “Not bad. So you're kinda able to counteract the force of gravity by 4.98m/s then. That will allow you to run and jump a lot easier and farther cause you're essentially at less than 0.49gs. You could also probably make yourself run quite fast by accelerating forward instead of up. If you can apply that to someone while holding the crystal near them instead of punching them, you could also send them flying at a decent pace too.”
“Right,” Ben said, smiling as he nodded along. “So yeah. Not bad for a new E-Ranker, right? I’m not sure how long a gem will last me, but it should be a decent amount, and I’ve already tried transferring energy from one of my inherited quartz and it was really fast. So I can charge up all six of the gems I bought quickly before we leave and that should last me any fight. For travel, I can just recharge with my big gems if it’s an issue. It’s not amazing, but if we encounter anything that might need more than a Tinker and a peak human to handle, then maybe we just hold off and let me get a bit stronger first. Zelter said eight months, right?”
Katie scoffed. “You’re not bad for an E-Ranker. Might even be close to being a starting D-Rank strength Enhancer not using Skills, and you can probably maintain that level for a decent amount of time with your inherited gems. But you are seriously underestimating me, Ben. I can be a whole lot more than a peak human. You remember I’m a B, don’t you?”
Ben winced. “Yeah… Alright, that's fair. Though you still haven’t really shown me what you’ve made besides the creepy Bugbot. And I still feel like I should come, just in case. Even for a B-Rank, a little backup couldn't hurt, right?“
Katie sighed but nodded. “Fine. In fact, now that I’ve seen what your power does, I thought of an idea of how to let you keep up better without me having to make anything new. And since I am your friend, and very much do care about your feelings of worry about me, you can come with me as backup. Just let me take the lead, cause you’re not bulletproof.”
Ben decided to ignore the jab and focus on the last part of her sentence. “And you are now? Did you build a suit?”
Katie grinned at that. “Something like that. You just keep messing with your powers for a bit and I’ll gather my gear. Should take me twenty minutes. If things work out the way I think, then we’ll head out within the hour.”