..[ MATIVO ]..

After several iterations of the status function, I had decided to completely do away with it. It really didn’t serve any purpose at all for me. Other than informing me the amount of stored energy I had, the others where things that weren’t really necessary unless I was fully analyzing my overall body efficiency. And that wasn’t something I was going to be doing in the middle of a fight.

After removing the status function, I had the team add a new feature whereby the current energy in my body was display to the right of my vision when I thought of energy. It had taken a few lots of tries to get the thought right.

The energy display was divided into two figures; the body energy and the extra energy. Body energy was simply the total amount of energy normally stored in the body; in the blood, liver, muscles, and the others. Extra energy on the other hand, was energy stored in an artificial organ that had been added to my body. In the time of need, the organ steadily released that energy into the superior vena cava, from there it was pumped to the rest of the body.

When I consumed too much food, or had extra energy injected into my blood stream, if I wasn’t using the energy, the chip instructed the body to direct all that energy into the organ.

We hadn’t come up with a name for it yet, but it was all Jacy. I worked with her on it, but she was the main driver of the research. My dedication had been due to the fact that I absolutely didn’t like the external source. And Jacy’s advancements in the field of bioaugmentics had made it all the more easier to build that organ. But unlike Jacy’s bioaugments, the organ was fully biological. A biological marvel.

I sometimes wondered where I would be if I had never met her. It seemed like she made everything I wanted into reality. Doing things I couldn’t see anyone else doing.

I was currently in my personal lab getting ready to start a round of exercises. There wasn’t much improvements that we had been able to come up with. The energy organ had increased the amount of energy I had available more than tenfold. The current versions of nanobots had made the expressions of my intents near instantaneous. It had taken a while getting used to that. I still slipped up sometimes and had the intents expressed before I could direct them. Hence the lab work.

My faithful loyal personal scientists were back in the observation room waiting for me to start up. I calmed my wary nerves, even after years of lab trials, I still got nervous before I started using the Energy. We still hadn’t figured out what it was, or how it actually worked, and I didn’t like that one bit. At first it had been fun, but the fun had worn off now. I really wanted to understand what it was that I was working with. I think my scientists thought I knew and I just didn’t tell them.

“Beginning trial.”

I took in a few breaths, slowly letting out the air.

“Start simulation.”

The simulation had already been preselected before I entered the trial room. And yes, I had turned my lab trial room into full blown simulator room.

The simulator employed trillions of trillions of microbots to create real world feel simulations. It meant that the objects created in the simulation took the vague form of the things they were supposed to represent. And they could absolutely knock the teeth out of your mouth if you weren’t careful. I had been knocked out cold on more than one occasion.

My first opponent was a vague male form, taller than me by a considerable margin. We started by circling each other for a few seconds before he moved in for an attack. Going for a straight up punch to my nose. I easily evaded that giving a left hook of my own to his face. It connected, but it didn’t have much force behind it to do any damage.

He took a step back getting out of reach of my follow up punch. We circled each for a half turn before turning again. He moved in again immediately as I was turning, going for a low kick. It didn’t appear to be strong enough so I let it land while I closed the distance to land two punches to his torso before he could bring his arms close.

He pushed out with his hands forcing me to stumble back, taking that time to deliver a round kick. I got out of the as fast as I could, but it still glazed my cheek. He pushed the offense with a series of punches and kicks, keeping me on the defense.

Knowing I couldn’t rely on him getting tired, I allowed a few punches to land getting me close enough for him to be within reach of my punches. The arm length advantage he had was proving too much of a hurdle. I went on the offense fast, but his defense was top notch. My punches only meeting blocks and air. The kicks never getting anywhere near my targets.

I switched tactics and fainted slow right hook while lowering my guard on the left. He took the opening with a right punch of his own. Though faster than my hook. I quickly grabbed the hand with my left hand, turning my right hook to grab his upper arm and turned over, bringing him up and over my body. The microbots had really packed the weight right.

As he landed, I quickly straddled him and delivered successive punches to his face and torso. Punching him was harder than punching human flesh. My knuckles hurt from each punch. He soon managed to twist and get me off of him. I quickly got to my feet and delivered a resounding kick to his head as he tried to get to his feet. He didn’t seem to be out yet, but the simulation paused as I went to finish him.

“What are you doing?” Jacy asked over the speaker.

“Huh?”

“We are here to test your progress on using the Energy. Not your fighting skills.”

I smiled shyly at the observation window. I had gotten so engrossed in the fight that I forgot what the test was all about.

“I’m good now. Let’s go again.” I moved back to the center of the room where the simulations always started. “Though, he was kind of tough.”

“Of course he was. You were supposed to be using the Energy.”

The simulation resumed, and my opponent moved to the center of room too. He appeared to be having issues keeping one of his arms up.

“You didn’t refresh the injuries?”

“Just finish him up so we can get to the next simulation.”

He appeared cautious now, as if knowing that things had changed considerably. I tested him with a simple punch, throwing a ball of fire at his face. Which he nimbly dodged. He might be hurt, but he was still in fighting condition.

I moved in with a series of fire punches, trying to get close but he swiftly avoided them. Always stepping back and around. He was keeping enough distance between us to allow him to be able to dodge my projectiles. I switched to air, using one arm to aggressive throw punches at him without any intent behind them while the other actually delivered the air punches. It allowed me to land a few hits, making him stumble as he stepped back. He switched and tried to get close enough to land a punch, but it also brought him within my water range. It was my heaviest element, but it also had the shortest reach. A water upper cut literally lifted him up from the floor, and the follow up punch send him flying across the room. He was out long before the punch ever landed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I took a two-minute break before the next simulation began. Three opponents; one tall and two of average height. But that meant they were still slightly taller than me. They quickly began circling me. I responded by releasing two semicircle air burst in opposite directions. It didn’t create a true all direction attack, but it covered up enough area to force all three to stumble.

I quickly closed in on the big one, throwing a fire punch to the side to keep one of the others at bay. I gave him a low air sweep followed by successive air punches straight to the torso to keep him on the back foot. I was forced to jump back to avoid a kick from one of the others, responding with a kick of my own sending him down to the ground. I threw a fire punch to the other, which missed, but the follow up water punch didn’t. One down, two to go.

I was suddenly tackled to the ground by the big guy. He had recovered faster than I had thought he would. But he had made the wrong move. The amount of fire I funneled on him was enough to lift him straight up, and the icicle behind it punched him straight through. Getting up close with me was never a good idea.

Before I could get straight up, I was already being pummeled left and right. Still recovering from the heat of my own fire, I could barely form a coherent thought. I just bodily moved into the attack, tackling him and carrying him for a few steps before a sharp hit to my spine caused me to nearly buckle. I angrily funneled heat to my hands causing him to jerk so hard he separated us. That was enough for me, sending a blade of air that clean cut his head off his body. I didn’t know if any microbots had been damaged by that, but they were self-repairing, in a day they would be as good as new.

I slumped down for by the nearest wall as I felt the adrenaline wash over me. That had taken more out of me. But I still had not accessed the extra energy.

“Five-minute break?” Jacy asked over the speaker.

“Yeah.” I stood up and moved to the wall-shelf near the observation window. Inside was a bottle of water and an energy drink. It had been an addition to the lab room after I started using the diamonds. To allow them to get me refreshments without having to enter the room.

“Start on the Energy users,” I said as the five minutes came to a close.

“Are you sure?” Jacy asked. She sounded eager, too eager.

“Yeah. I feel ready.”

When the simulation started, I was faced with three individuals. All looked the same, neither male nor female. Same height and body build. And the same powerful aura to them.

“Hey! I thought we were just starting!”

“We are. With them.”

Before I could complain further, they moved. I was on defense from the get go; dodging a fireball here, a water slash there, and an air blade that got a little too close. The chip helped me see the incoming blade, otherwise, yeah.

I quickly tagged them A, B and C. And chip was good enough to apply those tags for me visibly. I quickly threw fire punches at A and superficial ones to my sides to keep B and C at bay. I tried to avoid their attacks in a way that put them in front of the others, but they nimbly avoided those as they did my own.

I nimbly avoided B’s high kick, at least I thought I did, until I found myself in the way of C’s fire punch. That sadly left me wide open for A to deliver a sounding water punch to my gut. I went careening off half way across the room.

They didn’t even bother to follow. The bastards. Waiting for me to get up and deliver myself to them. I found them slowly pacing the room, as if asking what the holdup was. What difficulty level had Jacy set exactly? And for that matter, what level of jerkiness was this? I could definitely see her smug look behind that observation window. Fine, they wanted to play like that, I would oblige them then.

I allowed chip access to the extra energy as I slowly moved close to them. I felt the tiredness slowly ebb out of my muscles, leaving me as fresh as when I had started the whole trial business. As I closed the distance, I sprinted for A, still situated between the other two.

They tried throwing attacks at me but I was already moving too fast. Their attacks only hitting where I had been. A tried their best to slow me down but I was determined, evading left, right and low before reaching them. I caught A by the hands and threw them towards B. Adding a water punch to make sure they moved a tad faster. After all, it wasn’t a good idea to stay close enough for long.

I didn’t wait to see whether they collided as I turned to C. A fireball passed centimeters from my head. I honestly wasn’t sure whether I had avoided it or that C had just missed. Either way, I was glad for it. I closed in fast, with fire punches and air blades. Quickly maneuvering C to make sure all three opponents were directly in front of me. From the look of things, A and B hadn’t collided, but they had been distracted long enough.

C was nimble, evading everything I threw left and right. It was liking wrestling with the wind, you caught it only for it to sleep through the fingers. The others quickly joined C, slowing my advance before bringing it to a dead stop. They tried fanning out again, but I made sure to keep those ideas from coming to fruition. We were, in a way, deadlocked.

I threw a huge flame directly at them, more as a distraction than an attack as I prepped the diamond shot. It took barely less than a second to propel it in their direction, not my fastest shot but still fast enough. C and A managed to evade it, but B wasn’t as lucky. I was barely lucky myself as an air blade from A glazed my left arm. How they were able to throw such precise deadly attacks even with them confined to a near straight line was beyond me.

Before they could fully recover, I threw a water punch at C. Not enough to cause much damage, but it did keep C disorientated enough for me to get closer for a more lethal punch. C went flying towards A who was forced to evade. But I was there to deliver an air blade that cut A’s body in half. I never let C get back up.

…

I spent a whole Hour in the simulation room before I ran out of energy; a clear advantage of the energy organ. Jacy had a go at it after I was done. She had been slowly advancing on the Energy users simulations. Though the air blade was always deactivated during her simulations. Without chip to help, even I would have a hard time defending against it.

I was loitering on Deck 3, informally known as the Hybrids Deck. It had everything hybrid related. From the incubation room, nursery rooms, to the research centers that helped fine tune the hybridization process. Truth be told, most of the research was done back on Ũsumbĩ.

The kids were one Year-old. Approximately. They were running all over the place making unintelligent noises, and crying and laughing. It was a cacophony of sounds. And I hated it. But I also wanted to see them. The first hybrids had been nothing more than embryos when we left Earth, and many more had been created since the establishment of the Ũsumbĩ System.

But I hadn’t seen any of them. These where the first ones on the ship, and I was a curious fellow. I found myself a secluded place to watch them in the play area without being sighted by them. As much as I hated kids, the feeling wasn’t mutual. But a few interactions with me always set their feelings right. They said it was best to mold iron when it was red hot.

A tag at one of my fingers brought my attention close and down to where I was. Apparently, I hadn’t found a secluded enough spot to watch the kids.

Oh dear. I always had a soft spot for kittens and the kid holding my finger was the absolute personification of cuteness.

The kid had a cat base species. And based on the black streaks surrounding the kid’s light brown eyes, running along the nose and down to the corners of her mouth, it could only be a cheetah. At least that is what I thought. I didn’t really know that much about cats, except that the cheetah had those streaks for something to do with sunlight. They started again at the top of the eyes, running along the forehead, slowly diverging before joining the hair in the form of streaks of black hair in the messy dirty blonde fuzz the kid had for hair. The ears were slightly larger than normal with that same blonde fuzz covering them. Shorter and sparser than the one covering the head though.

It was just begging me to run a hand along that fuzz, scratching merrily. But just like any cat, I felt that if I tried that without the kid’s permission, blood would be spilled. Before I could gather up the nerve to ask for permission, a short stout woman came to a stop in front of me. Catching her breath in quick sharp breathes. Must be the kid’s caretaker, I thought.

“Sorry she bothered you, sir.” A deep breath. “I was reeling in her siblings, and when I turned back, she was gone.”

“It’s nothing.”

“She doesn’t normally interact with other people, especially not strangers,” the woman said, finally seeming to have recovered from her frantic searching, and running.

“I’m not exactly a stranger.”

“I didn’t mean like that. To her. She hadn’t met you before.” The woman was quick to defend. “Come along now, there is a lot we need to do.” She beckoned the kid, apparently a girl, who had yet to let go of my finger. She reluctantly let go and moved to her caretaker.

“Sorry again,” the woman said as she herded the girl away. The girl glazed back at me before disappearing into the sea of other kids and caretakers.