Chapter 1
All Part of The Show
Tension.
Indescribable sensations filtered in and around Arla’s mind. This was a con, which inherently meant there would be risks. Thus, all the needs for escape plans, and back up rally points and meeting locations.
Still, despite everything, this job seemed to be different. Perhaps it was knowing that this would be the last time the duo did a job together. There was also the fact that despite protestations to the contrary, the goal the two had always set out for themselves had fully vested and matured.
The goal was always to get enough money to pay admission to one of the galactic military institutes, where upon graduation regardless of genetic or familial limitations, the graduating candidate would be considered a full ranking citizen of the Federation.
This was the only recourse left to the two, for while Arla had passed the tests provided to become a Cerusian tribe member, she had ultimately been voted out. Meaning, that despite learning the old tongue, reading the sacred verses in all eight magical colorations, and knowing the different letters from the before, she was found unworthy of being accepted into the tribe.
The testers even went so far as to claim she cheated.
That was it, no trial, no further tests. Just the fact that an outsider could read, write, and depict the language of the people perfectly meant she was cheating.
After that, the testers all got up, to deliberate.
While they did, they scribbled a hastily written note that stated as much, and only delivered the message via interplanetary messaging relays as their vessel exited orbit.
Rather than being angry about it all, Marcon, her protector just looked at the note and read and then reread the note. Until finally he nodded to himself and came up with a way to do better.
“You know what we did wrong kid,” Marcon began, grabbing Arla by the shoulder and pulling her tight to his side. This was more for him, as he was always a touchy person, but Arla learned to accept these minor intrusions into her personal boundaries, particularly with how it seemed to relax Marcon afterwards.
Arla for her part just shook her head no.
“We did it too perfectly. You were too good to be true, which was why the act fell through.”
“Act?” Arla asked.
“Yeah, this was all one big dog and pony show from the start. All the pomp, testing and circumstances, everything. All a play, and we failed this time.”
“But I did as asked.”
“I know kid, trust me I know. You probably did so well that you made all those testers feel inferior to the fact that an outsider likely did better than they did, or even better than they could do now.” Marcon stated, a note of resolve filling his voice.
“Okay, what do we do now?” Arla asked.
Pausing for a moment Marcon just looked around. Then after pausing for a moment, as always he came up with a plan.
“We dummy it down.”
“What do we dummy down?” Arla asked confused.
“Everything. Everything from how you interact with the world, to how much you show working, to how much you do. We dummy everything down. Make it look like it wasn’t all you. Make it look like the answer came from a source that others could understand and quantify. We need to make you look like you are just an instrument that is part of the end product, and not just the end product itself.”
From that point on, Marcon taught Arla everything he learned about being a third-rate street magician. While he had never succeeded as a magician, not when real magic existed in the universe, he did learn about the art of misdirection.
It was that same logic that Marcon now implemented with these black-market awakenings.
During these, Marcon always took point. He was always the focal point for the operations, mainly due to the fact that he was always lying throughout the process that when he needed to react and change script it was harder for most lie detectors to notice the shift in tones. Whereas Arla was not flashy enough for the product that they were selling, at least not at the prices that were being noted.
1,120.
That was the number of ignitions that Arla had performed so far in her lifetime. How did she know this, did she remember each individual one? Well yes she did, but the real reason was that her tracker showed her the number of still active awakened she interacted with. How was this possible? Simple the system, the same program that her own tribe members found to be a clear death sentence to joining the Tribe was now alive and active within her body.
Better still, her primary power allowed her to record the number of times she used her power.
Soul Power [Permanent Support]: Ignite (S) Can ignite one true potential power, up to Ignite ranking, of anyone the user has formed a willingly symbiotic relationship with.
Number of Active Symbiotic Relationships Active: 893 / 1,120
.
While she had gotten the power after her own tribe members dismissed her, the power and process of obtaining it was a challenge.
“By going through with this, you will forever cut ties with the Tribe, meaning you will never be accepted even if we prove you didn’t cheat. Are you okay with this?” Arla remembered Marcon asking right before she entered the awakening trials.
“I’m sure,” Arla stated and meant it, as the Tribe had turned its back on her. With the Tribe out, the only way forward was to be accepted into the Federation, and the first part of that was having an awakened power.
The only problem was her power sucked.
“S-Ranked, of course you would get S-Ranked in a non-combat throw away power that could only be used once, and only in a beneficial manner.” Marcon stated, then with a pause, he looked at Arla and for a moment she saw his pain. She saw how this knowledge of a blessed bad offering tore at him. Finally, he spoke, “give me a second. Just stay here, I’ll be right back.”
With that Marcon, proceeded to walk forward, making sure to gently tap her shoulder as he left.
Arla watched as Marcon, the only person she truly trusted completely in the whole universe left her side and went off into an open field. This was as far as he would ever leave Arla, and Arla knew that this was his way of saying he needed space. That he was not to be judged by what was said or stated after this, but she could ask questions.
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As soon as Marcon got to the open field, he let out a bone curdling, “FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKKKKKK!!!”
After he proceeded to drop to his knees and pound the ground in frustration, slamming his fists down violently.
“Why, her! Punish me you cheap bastards! Why punish her for my mistakes!”
It went on like this for almost a full minute.
Then finally, Marcon seemed to come to a realization. Almost like a switch had been flipped in his mind, he got up, and with a look of pure determination and rage, he rose to his feet and looked more determined than ever.
As he left, he muttered silently, but loud enough for Arla to hear.
“Fine then, as you have abandoned us, we too will abandon you. Gods, damn you all!” Marcon hissed, and with that Marcon came back, a completely different man than the one that left her side a moment ago. This man stood slightly taller, walked with an air of defiance, and most importantly he had a look that seemed to stare through any obstacles in his path to show the correct method to take.
As he approached, Marcon took a breath and then realized, “you have questions?”
Arla nodded, and then went into her trying to understand Marcon’s rage.
“It is a good power though right?” Arla asked, suddenly wondering if she chose incorrectly at the trials. “You said to grab the highest ranked power, and that’s what I did.”
At that Marcon looked like he had been punched in the face, but quickly shook his head to focus one more.
“Your power is great. Beyond great. Too great even. Had we been nobles and had contacts, you could have been a queen of a star system somewhere. Unfortunately, we aren’t even accepted into the Federation yet, meaning that if we show off your powers, the best we can hope for is for us to be arrested on trumped up charges where you are held in captivity as a slave to provide power upgrades to the rich. At worse we get taken in by local crime lords and they drug you up and then have you provide benefits to those they deem worthy.” Marcon stated.
“What are we going to do?” Alra asked.
Marcon just paused for a second, “first you are going to show me what this power of yours can really do. I will be your first subject.”
“Then what?”
“Then we will get you a second power as well, register that as your primary power and then begin getting you enrolled in a military institution where you can hide this power under everyone’s noses.” Marcon stated.
And that was how the idea behind Ignition Brokers began, it was also the first time she became aware of the odd distortions in time. Not that they were anything great or grand, but that she now felt a deeper connection to this moment, and moments like these in a way she had never felt before.
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Arla was in the laboratory room.
There were a bunch of monitors, cameras, and machines that beeped. Yes, machines whose sole purpose was to turn on, show cascading light patterns and beep occasionally.
“Isn’t that a kid’s toy?” Arla found herself asking.
“It is, but see we take off the bright yellow casing, place it in this new frame, hook it up to other beeping devices and boom, instant scientific machine that no one wants to know about, but will see and expect in such a room.”
“Misdirection?” Arla asked.
At that Marcon just nodded, “misdirection. Remember, it is 90% pageantry and 10% work, the key to success in life.”
Arla began turning on all the other equipment as well, she turned on a monitor. Wheeled in the movable metal gurney with restraints. That was Marcon’s job, he was to apply and remove the restraints, all while Arla was in the panic room.
Once everything was set up, Arla already in the panic room pinged Marcon that she was ready.
From the panic room, Arla’s secondary job was to monitor that no one else was coming. As a two-person team, they all had to pull multiple roles. Right now, Arla was doing the job of what Marcon called security details.
Seeing that no one was around, Arla clicked the automatic locking systems, paused to make sure they were set, and even waited for the camera flashes to let her know that the locks had been set and that everything was good to go.
Pausing the ten count and assuring that all feeds were in fact live, Arla left the panic room and made her way out, once she confirmed the patient was in and strapped down.
“Now this is a consensual procedure. Any time up to now, you can choose to get out and walk away, no harm no fowl.” Marcon said, offering the words needed for Arla to fully establish a sympathetic bond with the patient.
“No, I really need this,” the male patient began. “You said it can open up a new power, even if the first one was only D-Rank?”
At that Marcon just smiled his charming smile, the one that seemed to put everyone at ease, but Arla knew this smile meant he was lying. Of course, in this role he was always lying so that didn’t change anything.
During this time Arla came out and began positioning the light cylinder right over top of the patient. This was little more than heat conducting tube and an extra bright enchanted light and heat source at the top. These were the same kinds of heat stones one would find at a survivalist shop when they wanted to camp planet side or wanted to cook light foods on a smaller ship without creating carbon monoxide, or burning down the entire vessel.
All pageantry, but oddly effective given the success rate of such operations.
“Correct, which is why we had you down for the upgrade and new package. The Upgrade will hopefully change the rate of your primary ability ranking, while also awakening a secondary ability that can go up to the new rating for your primary ability,” Marcon stated.
This was the thing, Arla could awaken a secondary ability within people, but she found that the cap of the second ability was always the rating of either her own Ignition rating, or that of the individual’s primary rating.
There was some leeway to this, ones that were found through trial and error, but the easiest way to do a second high level awakening was always to strengthen the primary power rating first, and then awaken the secondary power rating, which almost always matched the power rating of the primary power.
“Okay,” the patient said.
The entire time the patient never even noticed the lab assistant who was running around, turning on certain lights that blinded the patient. Activating the heat rocks, giving random utensils to Marcon who then proceeded to wave them around like magic sticks to a kid waiting to see magic for the first time. Almost like Marcon was a famed snake charmer dancing with his flute from side to side to distract the coiling snake ready to strike at anything that stood still for too long.
Then once the heat source was activated, Arla also turned on a Cerusian light source, which illuminated the glass tubing, adding a visual effect to the fiery beam of heat that traveled down the tube and aimed at the person’s stomach.
Once the beam came on, that was Arla’s cue to act.
“Ahh! It burns.” The scrawny male patient cried out, as he began tugging at the restraints.
“It’s okay, what did you expect to happen, you still want this right?” Marcon asked.
This was his last chance to pull back.
The man paused for a second, before nodding. “Yes, I want it. I need it.”
“Well okay then, just lay back, and let me take care of everything.” Marcon stated.
As he did this, Arla gently placed her fingers on the patient’s head and lowered his head to the table.
This was meant to be a calming gesture, but in reality, it created a permanent form of contact between the two that allowed the symbiotic nature of her power to take hold within the target’s mind.
Ignite (S) power activated.
Now it was all up to the patient to choose what happened next. The process was simple, you had an initial primary power that directly corresponded to one of the elements or higher powers.
In Arla’s case, her primary affinity was Spirit. Spirit was what let her interact with the very essence of others and help them awaken a portion of their true potential. Then from there they would choose a secondary ability that would be rated exactly as highly as the primary if they chose to go with a power of the same element. Or it would deviate by a ranking each field away from the primary element that they chose.
It was a wheel.
With the higher powers wedged between the lower elements. In Arla’s case it was Spirit which was next to Air and Water. Who in turn were next to Light and darkness respectively. Then came Fire next to light, and earth next to darkness, with the circle ending with Corruption otherwise referred to as Death energy.
By the virtue of being on a wheel, it meant that the most one primary power could be away from a secondary power was four rankings.
Which meant that if Arla had Chosen to go with Death as the affinity for her secondary awakened power, her ranking for that secondary power would have been a D-Ranking, the ranking that this individual’s primary power originally topped out at.
Fortunately for Arla, she chose to stick with Spirit as her primary, and while she didn’t get any healing related powers, which generally fall within the Water or Spirit realms, she did get something that Marcon helped her to realize would make her invaluable to the Federation, without having to reveal her primary power.
Then glancing at her basic sheet and powers, she saw what she had been hoping for.
Name: Arla Proma Role: Support Class
Primary Power
Soul Power [Permanent Support]: Ignite (S) Can ignite one true potential power, up to Ignite ranking, of anyone.
Number of Active Symbiotic Relationships Active:
894 / 1,121
Secondary Power (Officially Recognized Power) Soul Power [Support Temporary/Crafting Permanent]: Spirit Infusion (S): Infuse the power of spirit energy into items. [Support- Temporary] Spirit Infusion: Can weaponize spirit energy infusing one unit of spirit power into a projectile or kinetic weapon dealing (N* X 10 damage) where (N= caster’s Intelligence). [Crafting- Permanent] Spirit Infusion: Can imbue items with neutral spirit energy. Can be used to power or recharge any elementally charged items. Charging at (N* units of energy) where (N= caster’s Willpower).
Upon seeing the slight uptick in sympathetic bonds, going from 893 active to 894, and the overall number going up to 1,121 showed that the procedure had been successful.
Once the completion was confirmed, Arla turned made eye contact with Marcon and nodded. Marcon having waited for this moment, again began working his magic, while Arla went back to the panic room. Arla didn’t even pause to look and see the rune or its coloring that appeared on the individual before her, instead she got out of sight as quickly as possible.
“Now, you should start feeling the burning sensation outside your body beginning to take root within your core. Let me know what you see…” Marcon continued the act.
Click.
At that moment, the metal doors to the panic room closed. Leaving Marcon and the freshly awakened patient in front of him.
Unfortunately, Arla arrived just in time to see trouble.
There on the monitors were multiple squads of SWAT and other tactical enforcers at the doors using battering rams and other devices to try to breach the perimeter.
Seeing the invasion force, Arla’s mind went through the quick mental checklist, turning on the emergency red light that told Marcon about the invasion, she paused just long enough for Marcon to pause his speech and begin moving out.
With Marcon taken care of, Arla began her own escape practices.