CHAPTER FIVE: VALKYRIES
I woke up a little earlier than Mia and took a long shower. A really long shower. And then I sat at my desk and scribbled down ideas. Ideas for what? I wasn’t entirely sure, but gaining superpowers was a life-changing event and I needed to make sure I improved my life with them instead of messing up.
So far I wasn’t ready to go out seeking trouble just yet, with only Mia, even though she was powerful. So that meant I was going to just use the points I had and optimize our team before fighting. So far I knew I had three choices.
I could increase 2-3 of Mia’s attributes. That was nebulous, since I didn’t know exactly how much a 1-level increase actually affected her. Probably a fair amount, because she was a damn quick and capable fighter with 13 Dexterity. If I had stats like hers, my Dexterity was probably below 10.
I could unlock the ‘power’ section of her character sheet. Even more nebulous. I didn’t know what that power would be, and if it was a waste I was throwing all my potential for early progress away. If it was really good, I could even risk her walking out because she wouldn’t need me. That was a no for now.
I could unlock another person. Having two mediocre people or having one slightly better person? In the end, it struck me that it was a better decision all around. In fact, if the only reason I was so nervous about sending Mia out fighting villain minions was that she was on her own, it was the obvious choice.
So I had settled on choosing another Human from the forge, then. As soon as I fully realized that was my next move, I had a whole other load of problems to sift through.
There was space in the farmhouse, but my aunt had her own life to live and I didn’t know how to explain all the new people showing up. She was being exceptionally kind letting me stay here for free in exchange for a couple of chores, and I didn’t want to throw it in her face in any way.
There was the old barn where she used to keep her cattle before she sold them. Three years ago she had talked about turning it into a big luxury guesthouse, but she hadn’t so much as set foot on that section of the land since her husband died. A thought occurred to me and I scribbled it down with a smile.
It was coming together.
Mia sat up and sighed, peeking behind the curtains from her place in my bed and wincing at the bright sunlight. “Jeez,” she mumbled. “I haven’t been able to sleep that long in … I don’t even know.”
I gestured at the mini spread I’d brought up for her. Bread, butter, jam, a fresh cut-up apple and some still steaming herbal tea my aunt had made from scratch. “Eat,” I said, and looked back at my notes. “And when you’ve eaten I want to talk to you.”
She paused with a hunk of bread halfway to her mouth. She hadn’t even bothered to spread anything over it; clearly starving. “Hmm?”
“I just wanted to know how you felt about adding people to the team so early on.”
She leaned back and chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed and batted a couple of crumbs off my bed. “Well, that is most of the point of your power, isn’t it? A Summoner is powerful because he builds an army. Not because he summons one girl and doesn’t fuck her. What’s your limitation, anyway?” She took another monster bite and I thought about how to answer her. I wasn’t sure.
“I’m limited by loyalty,” I admitted. “I don’t know anything about other Summoners, but I’m guessing they don’t have that limitation. I can’t power someone up at all if they aren’t loyal to me.”
Mia raised her eyebrows. “That’s really interesting,” she said with her mouth full, and then leaned forward. “Does it say I’m loyal?”
“It just says ‘8’,” I said. “I have no way of knowing right now if that’s high or low. It could be out of 10 or out of 100.” She shrugged, took a big gulp of tea and then looked confused at the cup. She shrugged again and then drank more. I continued. “So you definitely think I should? It would be someone to fight alongside you so I kind of want your input.”
“Well, I’m fast but I can’t fight well in armor and if I get one good hit I’m done for. I used to fight alongside big burly dudes who kind of took the heat off me while I lined up shots and dealt quick damage.”
So someone tanky. And her words also made me wonder how I might recruit a healer of some kind. Because yeah, Mia had no power and she was small and human. One good hit from a foe and she could realistically be out of the match, maybe even for good.
“We need to go find a new forge,” I said, suddenly missing how easy it had all been in the catacombs. I couldn’t immediately think of anywhere to do it. I thought of a tree or a hay bale but I didn’t want to carve a chunk out of anything useful, so I waited until Frankie’s car was gone and I guided Mia to the very edge of the property, near the old barn.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, back in her tank top and skirt and hugging herself to keep the chill off her body. It might be kind of me to summon her a sweater. And some underwear.
“Uh, you know how I have to pull you guys out from that place? Well, I need to replace the mass, so I have to make these forges out of solid matter. I didn’t want to destroy anything important so I’m just gonna try to use the ground here.” I pointed down at the grass just beside Frankie’s fence.
Mia was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and looking over her shoulder, so I sat back on my haunches and squinted up at her. “Something wrong?” I asked.
“I just … I don’t want anything messing up our dynamic before we even get started. This is a critical stage of our operation,” she said. She wasn’t wrong. “We need to get established from nothing, gain the trust of the mayor, get a headquarters, presumably. A payment structure. A hierarchy.” She shook her head. “I think you should prioritize loyalty over anything else, is all, Zander.”
I sucked in a breath and thought about it for a moment, realizing she wasn’t wrong. As tempting as it was to prioritize fighting synergy and strategy, at this stage it was probably more important to make sure people would go to the end of the Earth for this burgeoning group I was making here, rather than people who could specifically best complement Mia’s dexterity.
Still thinking through what she had said, I pressed my palm down onto the grass and opened up the forge in the ground. To my relief, it worked just as perfectly there as it had on the cavern walls.
I willed a table that just showed me loyalty in the human category and instantly I saw a pattern when I sorted from high to low.
Name
Loyalty
Rebecca
7
Amelie
6
Freida
5
Anka
5
Celia
5
Sam
4
Victoria
4
Yeah. Women. It looked like the high loyalty possibilities were all women, depending on the gender of Sam. I leaned back again to regard it. I guess, in my mind, I had initially imagined Mia fighting alongside a really burly dude. He could take all the hits while she concentrated on fast damage from relative safety. But loyalty was definitely the priority. Especially considering that I didn’t know how to increase it.
What would I do without Mia to bounce ideas off?
I clicked on Rebecca’s name, hoping to get the same table I had for Mia, and it popped up instantly.
Rebecca
“Diamond”
Attribute
Score
Cost
STR
12
30
DEX
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10
10
INT
6
10
WIS
6
10
CON
11
20
CHA
12
30
Loyalty
7 (+2 attributes)
Powers
None
100
That was … actually, not so good. She had an alright foundation but I wondered if her stats were really any better than an average human’s, and maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, since that’s probably what she was. I had really struck gold with Mia. Her stats and loyalty combined seemed rare in the universe I’d pulled her from. After all, she was ‘only’ a human.
I had 110 points, though. An extra 10 could go towards … what? Realistically, a weapon. A really small, crappy one, but otherwise she would still be little use to me without powers. A Strength of 12 was not that bad either, considering that Mia’s Dexterity was at a 13 and her Strength a 10, and she hit hard.
I rolled my shoulders and hummed to myself, but I had clearly already made my decision. With a flick of my wrist I summoned Rebecca.
Her rotating silhouette was tall, almost as tall as me, I’d guess, so probably over 5’10 while Mia probably barely scraped over five foot tall, but I wasn’t the greatest judge of height. She didn’t have as much of an hourglass figure as Mia either, instead looking slender and toned like she spent a lot of time working out.
Her hands were the first to come through, bursting through the earth and grabbing for purchase before the top of her head burst through too. Long hair the color of burnt caramel swung over her pink face and the rest of her body climbed above the surface shortly after. She bent over, breathing heavily, naked as anything, and I didn’t waste any time this time. I crouched down and pressed my palm into the dirt again, just a few feet away from the new Rebecca-sized gouge in the grass.
I took her in just for a short moment in my periphery. She was as tall and slender as she had looked in the system. Her long hair was poker straight and she had choppy bangs that fell in front of her light brown eyes. Her nose was long and sharp and she had lips on the thinner side and high cheekbones. Definitely not an unattractive girl, even if she did lack the instant cute charm Mia had.
But I was going to try to play this as well as I possibly could and make sure she maintained that loyalty of 7 -- logically, I could even get an increase if I treated them as well as I possibly could. I was going to dress Rebecca before she had the chance to feel vulnerable and scared like Mia had.
I picked out a loose orange blouse and had them tucked into some dark brown flared pants. It looked like the stuff I saw women wearing around here, and seemed weather appropriate. This time I found the underwear section and was relieved it was just sorted by color and style, and I didn’t have to guess her sizes or anything. I went for a comfy-looking white matching set. Anything sexier and I’d have felt like a creep when she found out I was the one who’d dressed her up.
Just while I was here, I navigated to a table to show me all the 10 point weapons I could get, and the selection was huge. I sifted through things like baseball bats, hammers, wrenches, raising my eyebrows at all the options. The Inferno was filled with useful items. As long as I had someone in my roster to equip it to, I could pull so many different things from that universe -- it was crazy.
I paused on brass knuckles, and went back and forth between that and the baseball bat. I decided on the knuckles because I felt like it would be easier to use, to conceal, and harder to defend against.
But it put me back to 0 points.
I unfroze the world around me again as soon as I looked away from the forge, simultaneously deleting it and leaving a fine graze over the grass where I had pulled up clothing and brass.
Rebecca patted herself down, shook her hair from her eyes, and got to her feet, staring for a while at the backs of her hands. At her knuckles. Maybe I should have waited before I equipped her with weaponry; maybe until I’d explained some stuff to her.
“Welcome,” Mia said, stepping up and sticking out her hand with her best smile. “My name is Mia, and you have just been saved from a lifetime of torture in the Inferno by this man.” She gestured at me and I gave a small half-wave. Rebecca turned to me and blinked, astonished, before looking back at Mia. “Zander is a Summoner and we are his Summonees.”
“He summons humans?” she asked in a croak, and then cleared her throat a few times, pressing her fingers on her throat and wincing.
“From the Inferno, yeah.” Mia laced her fingers together behind her back and maintained her eye contact. I vaguely remembered, then, that her Charisma was not too low, and I was even more grateful for her at that moment. I could have explained it alright, but I was sure it sounded better coming from someone else who was in the same situation.
“I’m out for good?” Rebecca looked at me again, her brown eyes narrowed, before turning back to Mia, who nodded rapidly. “What does he want in return,” she said flatly, and then looked back down at the brass knuckles for several seconds.
Mia also glanced at me with a sweet smile. “Nothing,” she said, and allowed it to sink in. “If you want to, you can leave. So can I. But if you want to stay, he’ll give us whatever we need. Food, lodging. He can even upgrade us, like any Summoner can. In return, if you stay, you and I -- we need to form a group.” She tilted her head as she said the next part, as if it was the most amusing thing she could think of. “Of heroes. Isn’t that right? To make money?” She addressed the last bit at me, and I gave a nod.
It was probably time for me to chime in.
“I don’t know about heroes yet. We aren’t going to work out of the goodness of our hearts a hundred percent of the time, but no, we won’t be villains. We will work for pay, good pay, or to make a better name for ourselves. I’ll need to make money to take care of you all, as Mia said. To feed you and clothe you.” Although clothing was free. “And I have an idea on lodging that I’ll expand on later.”
“Wait,” Rebecca interrupted, clearly becoming more comfortable. “You don’t have lodging for us already?”
“We can stay with him in his bed,” Mia chirped and I shot her a look.
“It’s not going to be like that, Rebecca,” I said. “This is professional. There’s no obligation to work for me, but you won’t find a better job offer out there. How long have you been missing from Earth?” I just made a guess, but it seemed to pay off from the look on her face.
“Some years, I think,” she said quietly. “Time … it’s so different there. It’s impossible to tell. Sometimes a minute drags on for months. Sometimes you blink and it feels like it takes all day. It’s … it’s--”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Mia cut over her. “I think what Zander is lightly getting at is that if you’ve been gone for a long time you’re not going to be that hirable. If you are anything like me you would have run straight away to someone calling for henchmen -- for bodies -- well, that’s not so far from what it’ll be like here. But…” Mia stared again at me. “...he can upgrade us. Make us stronger.”
“I can,” I agreed. “I can strengthen most things about you, equip you with anything.” I pointed to the brass knuckles. “Those will be upgraded later on to anything you want.” I figured it was better to imply for now that I was able to do anything without restriction, rather than tell her -- or them -- that it was a points based system and I was broke.
“Interesting.”
She wasn’t looking completely convinced, so I hesitated and then decided to go for the trump card I had hidden in my back pocket. I looked at Rebecca, and at Mia, and shoved my hands deep in my pockets and smiled.
“I also have the ability to unlock your superpowers.”
They looked at each other, and then at me, eyes wide and searching mine for a trace of deceit. I hoped they would find nothing, because as far as I knew, it was completely true.
“There’s a slot on your sheets, that I can see and upgrade, that says ‘powers’. I have to warn you girls that I’ve never attempted this before, so I don’t have any idea what will happen. As far as I know, everyone has this slot if they don’t already have powers.” At least, everyone I’d glanced at had it.
Mia’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Everyone?”
I backtracked. “I don’t know, that’s a huge assumption on my part. You two definitely have that slot, though. I just can’t see what I’d unlock.”
Rebecca folded her arms. “I’m twenty-six and most people get their powers at thirteen or thereabouts, and you’re telling me I have one, it’s just…” She squinted over at Mia who shrugged.
“Sleeping?” she finished for the new girl. “Zander, you didn’t tell me this.”
I thought to what Elle had said. Either my power came about on that day exactly, or the probability of it coming out at all dropped almost to zero.
“I think this whole power thing is just more complicated than we all know,” I told them. “I really only know the limited information on my sheets. If I unlock your power, there’s no telling if it’ll be useful or not. I have no idea what it is.”
“Prove it,” Rebecca said, frowning. “I’m not saying I want to leave, exactly, but if you were to give me a superpower right here, right now, I’d believe you completely. I’d want to be on your side without question. Hell, there are people out there who’d probably worship you as a god.”
Shit, she was smirking, but was she even wrong? Gifting people superpowers was insane, the more I thought about it. People would kick down my damn door if they found out.
As well as figuring out a failsafe to strip them of their upgrades, I needed to figure out how to ensure these recruits wouldn’t talk if they left. Not a word.
Now I was really starting to understand why supervillains had a ‘work here or die’ clause implied in every henchman contract. But I wasn’t a supervillain. I didn’t think I wanted to be a villain. I’d be pretty strictly work for hire -- because I needed to keep my girls loyal and happy -- but I’d rather work for good than evil. So how was I going to figure out this one huge problem without, you know, murder?
Right now wasn’t really the time to think about that. I needed to secure our new teammate.
“Rebecca, I can’t until I trust you completely. It drains me of finite resources as a Summoner and if you’re going to potentially leave me, I can’t risk it. If you prove your loyalty to me, then yeah. Of course I’ll do everything I can to make you the most powerful you can possibly be.” I wet my lips, getting into the speech. “Which looks to be really powerful.” Both girls looked hungry at the thought.
I took a breath and went for it.
“Listen. In this city, there is always something that needs to be done -- a fight that needs to be fought, crime to take down, a villain to hunt and stop. Power is currency and the stronger you are, the more you just get handed to you in a world of supers.
“You are both tough, sure, but you’ve never been supers. I can give you that. I can give you lodgings, direction, and weaponry from thin air. I can give you what everyone really wants, no matter what they say. No matter what I said before I had it.
“I can give you power.”
Rebecca slowly raised her hand, brass knuckles and all, and extended it out to me. I shook it, my insides burning with excitement.
“What are we called?” she asked.
I looked at Mia, she said nothing, so I looked back at Rebecca and tried to think on my feet. “We need to be something intimidating. Something feminine, since everyone on the outside will believe it’s a team run by you two. What about the Amazons?”
“That’s obvious,” Mia said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “I’ve seen several groups of girls who call themselves the Amazons or the Amazonians.”
“Seconded,” Rebecca said.
“What about the … Harpies?”
“Too negative. Hate it,” Mia said simply, and then smiled when I looked over at her. I was running out of female warrior-based words already.
“... Valkyries?”
They both paused, looked at each other, then back to me, and Mia smiled and Rebecca shrugged.
“Fine,” I said. “Valkyries it is. For now, anyway. We have a lot more to talk about, don’t we?” I grinned, excitement coursing through me -- nothing had deviated too far from the plan yet and I was optimistic. “Let’s find somewhere comfortable to sit.”