Abigail started again, “I said, Crystal was wrong, and she was also right.”

“I heard what you said. What the fuck do you mean?” I almost growled. Yeah, I was well over her, sure, everybody breaks furniture when they are talking casually about their exes. A perfectly normal and sane response. I bet Kellar Academy had trauma counselors who would blow a nut to dig into my head.

“She was wrong, you were not always going to be a powerless freak who thinks he’s better than he is. You already proved that through rigorous and well-documented testing. I especially liked Glacier’s fight, since that was some awesome action. But she was right about the money.”

“What part of her short explanation about robbing me blind, destroying my future, breaking my heart, and then sneering at me was right?”

Abigail sighed, “Well, bear in mind, I am not a seer or anything, but based on your activity logs, you were going to destroy his company. You didn’t have the training, knowledge, or drive to keep it afloat.”

“If she hadn’t trapped your voting stock, the company would have sunk. At least it still exists, and both of your cousins and her sister still have their jobs. James was VERY much instrumental in stripping your voting rights and then leveraging your stock because he knew what would happen if he let you blow it.”

She smiled a little, hopefully. “Crystal was a cold-ass ruthless bitch, but she had very good reasons for doing what she did, even if it hurt you. According to her own telephone conversations, she even liked you, and felt a little guilty about what she did.”

I nodded slowly, “Still won’t forgive her, and if I ever get into a fight with her, I am going to kill her.”

Abigail shook her head, “You don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. You would beat her black and blue, but know what?”

“What?”

“I bet if you do that, she will feel vindicated, like you really deserved what she did, or maybe like she paid the price for her sins or something. You WILL be seeing her again, it’s a small world… but you’d probably get a lot better revenge by just looking at her like you can’t even remember her name. Or like, Crystal Who? Wait, I banged you, didn’t I? Oh right, you ripped me off. No big deal, I made more on my last bounty than the company is worth. Now shoo, I’m busy. If I want to see you again, I’ll check out your Onlysimps page.”

I laughed, “Ouch. You really think I can make that much on bounties?”

She shook her head, “No. Doyle Routing, as a company, is worth about two hundred million. Bounties cap out at a million. Secondary income can be a lot higher, but I think that if you tried, by next year you could successfully take over Doyle Routing even in a hostile acquisition. That is if you wanted to.”

I shook my head, “No, I don’t want to. And honestly, I don’t want to brutalize Crystal. She was right, I just wish I never had to look at her again.”

Abigail chuckled, “That’s what masks are for. A little armor, a voice changer, a holomask, and she will never even know she’s talking to you.”

I looked at her searchingly, “So you know my powers?”

She shrugged, “I know your research history, what’s been displayed while you were fighting, and what you have recorded. From that, I could draw some conclusions. I also had a few ideas, like the nanoweave, that you might not have considered.”

“So hit me,” I said, tilting the steel chair back and propping my feet up on the table. At this point, I wasn’t particularly worried about my secret identity, so I was wearing a nice pair of beige hiking boots with clean soles, Levis stonewashed, and a Gold’s Gym tank top that was a little too tight for me at Mindy’s insistence. She said that it would keep anyone who was too aggressive off-balance, but I was pretty sure an air shield would work better.

Abigail shrugged, “I get it, you want to know how much I know. I know that your microcontrol goes down a lot deeper than just the molecular level since you wouldn’t be able to adapt kinetic forces otherwise and that you seem to have control over… speed. And that unlike most of us, you can draw your energy from the atmosphere rather than just being restricted to whatever your max draw is.”

I raised an eyebrow, “You act like that’s a good thing.”

She smiled a little, “Isn’t it? You have already figured out how to increase your draw and based on what you have done in training, you also figured out how to expand your maximum. There are better methods, but I don’t think most of them would work for most alphas since our basic energy method is determined when we are awakened. We are restricted to our full energy pool each day… our energy pool slowly improves, but never by much.”

“You figured out how to double your pool in just a few weeks using basic instruction from amateurs. Guesswork. How high can it go? You already more than doubled your power strength too. What happens when you hit the next plateau? Does it double again? I’ve seen you simulate over a dozen different abilities, albeit with low power and carefully husbanding your energy. How about when you cross higher thresholds?”

She chuckled, “Someday you might be the first class nine to ever exist. So yes, that’s a good thing. Hell, right now you want to be the chair guy, but I bet you already have better defenses than most anchors.”

I thought about that. Technically, it was true in a vacuum, but there were other factors to consider. “Potentially I could have better defenses than some anchors, true. But think about it… if I could put up air shields, momentum transfer, or kinetic absorbers to protect myself, how much more effective would those be on someone else who could have more combat utility or already decent defenses?”

Her eyebrow went up and she glared at me with those vibrant eyes, “You used to play a cleric, didn’t you?”

I laughed, “Druid, actually, but a similar concept. Can you imagine how cool it would be if I had a pet?”

She nodded slowly, “Yes, I could. Since this isn’t a computer game, though, I think we need to find you a decent pet. Are you sure you aren’t interested in ahh… Chinook?”

I blushed a little at the topic of ‘pet’ when referring to a real living woman, but understood where she was coming from. “Why, do you have an alternative idea?”

***

We were eating lunch, this time with more people in the room, including both Chinook and Terracotta. Terracotta was a very reserved girl, and while we welcomed her to have pizza with us, I was basically convinced that she was going to refuse to join our team on more than a temporary basis, because she was here to get an education, and then intended to return to Kyoto after her schooling was finished.

“I'm confused. You’re second-year. The rest of this team is first-year, why are you interested in joining a freshman team?” Mindy asked her bluntly.

She sighed and put both of her elbows on the table and then rested her forehead in her hands for a moment. She was, of course, good-looking, with rich black hair down to her waist when it wasn’t caught behind her neck, golden eyes, dark skin visible behind her holomask, and a well-toned body. “A bunch of reasons. First off, Your team support has got their shit together when it comes to the team stuff, and you remember what Mister Dexter said… most of the good contracts demand at least decent teamwork grades, and mine sucks right now.”

“Secondly, I tried to go the loner route as a Freshman. I am a solid class four, but my position in the rankings is delicate.”

“Hold on,” I asked, “Why on Earth is ranking so important? I keep hearing like it’s super vital, but lots of people who have never even been to the academy land jobs in decent regionals or even solo defenders.”

She looked at me closely, “You might not understand because of your unique position, but there’s a reason most anchors and cannons go to the monster hunters. Because we are common. The two most common gifts are elemental production and physical enhancement. Elemental production, unlike elemental control, gives you far more potential damage for something like hunting kaiju, but it doesn’t give the versatility that control does.”

“What elemental production doesn’t give you is any extra durability. However, fortunately, for two gifts, physical enhancement is almost always the second gift. So basically, that’s what I am… two gifts, elemental production and physical enhancement. The most common combination on Earth. If I can’t get a good team or protector position, that just leaves the monster hunters.”

“So...what’s wrong with the monster hunters?”

She shrugged, “My two gifts are basic enhancement and air elemental production. My enhancement is decent, but not anything compared to most purely physical anchors. I am pretty good at duels because I have insane endurance, and air production lends itself to both flight and ringouts. But with the new Freshman class participating in ratings, I have no idea what’s liable to go down… I figure the only reason I even got rank twelve was because I was the lucky paper to this year’s rocks. I will probably be in the low twenties before I can blink.”

“What’s wrong with the monster hunters? I’d be a casualty in a week. Air doesn’t give the kind of attacks it takes to drop monsters quickly, and enhanced physicality without something like metal control, shapemod, armoring, or density increase to back it up means I would just make a slightly chewier toy. That means government service or black teams.”

She lifted her head a little, “On the other hand, the team competitions are technically even more important. There are twenty-six freshmen alphas this year, and from what I have seen, you guys will have a lock on the top ten for teams, group obstacle, and maybe even gearing and criminology, although gearing almost always goes to widgeteers.”

“I am already rated as second place for survival. I know it’s kind of a trope among those of us who choose to stick with the tribes, but we learn how to survive in the wilderness, dodge monsters, and fight practically before we learn to walk. And for the team stuff, we could hit rank one.”

I nodded, “I will get back to you.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I glanced at Terracotta, and then at Mindy, shrugging a little. She was technically supposed to be the leader of this team, but I seemed to be doing most of the talking. She smiled a little, shook her head, and then waved her fingers at me like ‘Go ahead’.

“Okay, Terracotta, same question.”

Terracotta nodded, “First I thank you very much for saving Kelly. I made a mistake. It was very bad. Secondly, I say that my English is good but slow so sometimes words take time or I might ask you to repeat words.”

I nodded, “That’s fine.”

“My reasons are much like Chinook. I am a single-power, but I am told my single-power is very good and very versatile. I saw how you healed Kelly. I saw how you moved. You are a fighter, even if you do not behave that way often. I wish to graduate and bring honor to my family. Of all the teams forming among the first and second years, this is the one that has the most potential, and I want to be part of that potential.”

“There is also a personal reason. I am slow, I know that, but our training should help. Most teams will see only that one part of my power is not quick, and is klutzy. I owe you for helping Kelly, and this team is my first choice… if you do not choose me, it is not likely any other team will accept me, and I will be with the put-together teams.”

“Not that those are bad!” she continued, holding up both of her hands. “Some pick-up teams are very good because the Academy staff is very good at balancing out known abilities, but it’s still leaving too much up to chance for me to trust their judgment.”

“As far as what I can bring to the team? I am more of a support myself, or I guess they call it battlefield control. I have very good earth control without an element specialization, so I can grab just about anything that comes under the heading of ‘ground’ as long as it’s not pure metal. Sand, rock, gravel, mud, dirt, asphalt, concrete, even glass.”

“Anything with a silicate structure?”

She nodded, “I think so, but there are many substances I haven’t experimented with. But I think… my elemental label is Earth, which means it has some limitations. For instance, I can manipulate coal easily, but not charcoal. Nothing really alive except that, you know, something like sod or dirt has living things in it.”

“I also have good control usually, I was just… not sure what to do during the exercise. I thought I would need defenses, and much of the Arena doesn’t qualify as solid ground. So I brought as much rock with me as I could, as armor.”

“Okay, umm… provisionally, I am cool with having Terracotta as part of the team, but obviously, it’s my sponsor’s decision.” I looked at Mindy, “You get to be the bad guy if the answer is no. Muahahaha.”

“The one thing I am going to insist on is a uniform look. Mostly because I’m going to be making the uniforms, and I am lazy.” I grinned at Mindy, “Would you please go to my room and grab the school bookstore bag sitting on my bed? I finished your outfit, and it’s sort of a prototype, but could you try it on and show us?”

Mindy hopped up amazingly quickly and dashed into my bedroom, hair flying behind her. As I said, the new look was probably not as protective as the best armors out there, but I was pleased to note that it was sturdy as hell and while it took me a lot of energy and almost a week to make, the expense was not crippling… and now that I had the whole damned thing blueprinted, I could make more of them.

She came back out wearing a dark gray baggy stretch suit and hood with a half-mask. For the most part, it looked more like a neoprene diving suit than a super suit, with varying thicknesses of material. Honestly, while it was a lot thinner than combat armor, the patches I’d put in for joint support, vitals protection, and the like were stolen ideas from the more popular types of BMX and combat armor.

Of course, since I was using stuff like carbon nanotubes, silicon nanowires, interlaced fibrous zircon and super synthetic reinforced spider silk for the suit’s outer layer, and crystalline-interleaved short-fiber nanotubes, layers of crystalline-woven tungsten-bronze interspersed with boron-bromine micro-pneumatic reactive cartilage for shock absorption, and I’d even installed a series of ridiculously thin silicon nanotube batteries that could be recharged easily through regular movements of the myo-cartilage.

This was just a needlessly technical way of saying that the armor was about as thick as a rubber suit, but it breathed a lot better, had slightly enhanced defensive strike areas for both combat and defense, extra joint protection to prevent hyper-extension or joint lock breaking, and even a normal human could easily survive a drop from a ten-story roof while wearing it and the ‘extra padded’ helmet. I know, because I threw myself off the roof twice while wearing it just to make sure.

“You forgot the helmet.”

Mindy looked at me in surprise, “There’s a helmet?”

I laughed, “Of course. I don’t have the stuff built in yet, but I have a basic computer built into the suit. My software skills are atrocious, but at least right now it can control the fit and the colors.”

After a few moments, she returned wearing a helmet. It looked a lot like the modular, slender ‘school uniform’ riot helmets because, to be fair, I butchered one to make it. Of course, it was a lot tougher now, and better padded, and I’d found a use for my nanocomputer… there were several of them installed into the suit and the helmet, but right now they were running on modified Game Boy Bios because I was shit at computers and only had two systems anyway.

“Okay, right now, this is the team costume. I should have more built soon, but to make them I need to get supplies that… I don’t want to get on campus.”

Abigail snorted a little, “Are we going to be dancing? Because that sort of looks like a boring version of ‘Can’t touch this’ only with Glacier Girl inside instead of Hammer.”

I chuckled, “No. Glacier Girl, do an ex-pose, please. Like you were getting ready to do jumping jacks.”

She nodded and stood straight with her arms out and partly open. “Now what?”

“Uhh… crap. I guess I have to do it.” I stood up and slipped over to stand next to her, and then reached inside of her helmet, pressing the chin button that activated the holo-mask I’d adapted into a third-rate heads-up display while the bulletproof face shield was down. “Can you see the display?”

She nodded, “Yeah, did you use a Virtual Boy for this? There's only three blink-links in here.”

I nodded, “That’s what I used for the bios, yes. The first blink-link is settings. Please don’t mess with those yet. The second one is fit, and the third one is download and file manipulation. Go ahead and hit the fit button.”

She nodded slightly, and then smiled, “It says automatic or manual.”

“Go ahead and blink automatic. Once it’s done, press the helmet button I hit again so it doesn’t accidentally change. Please remember that this is a prototype, especially the helmet.”

The suit… deflated. That was the best way of describing it as it automatically scanned and adjusted itself for the best fit. The fibers were easily able to retract and expand and were highly elastic, and the myofibers were able to make sure that each of the more solid sub-plates was aligned correctly on her body… moments later, it looked like she was wearing skin-tight gray tech ninja armor, which was sort of the effect I was hoping for. It was thick enough not to show too much but still showed off her extremely nice body with plenty of support.

“Oh god, Blueprint. I mean, the armor is still an ugly color, but I want one if only for that auto-fitting alone. It’s like… super-sexy without having big ‘shoot me’ skin holes cut into it.” Abbey remarked.

I grinned at Abbey, “a little hint. Color is nothing more than light reflections. See that USB port in the helmet? That’s not for charging, that’s for downloading pattern designs. On my computer, I have a dozen patterns I made in Art Shop, and I put in a simple 3d art model for making costume designs based on an old video game custom avatar creator.”

“Unreal Quakebaker?” she laughed, “I used to play with that when I was a little kid.”

I nodded, “Well, that’s the program, and it has a bunch of files I experimented with. Glacier, would you be so kind as to reactivate your interface, and hit the file button? You should see a series of costumes. Pick the one you want, and then hit ‘apply’.”

After a moment, Mindy’s outfit changed to look like a black unitard with a decent set of three heavy asymmetric blue lines from her left shoulder to her right hip, while her helmet turned black and grew a blue stripe.

Mindy stuck out her tongue at me, “These designs are terrible.”

I nodded, “I made all six of those patterns in less than ten minutes. Do better or ask someone to do better. Catalog?” I looked at Abbey, using her superhero name since she was technically in a mask.

She smiled, “I want one.”

I nodded, and glanced at Chinook, “Once we settle on a design, I want us to look similar. I am still working on better junk for the armor, but it’s durable as hell, and it’s not widgeteer crap. I also started experimenting with boron nitride nanotubes, and they are like twice as durable as carbon nanotubes. I figure a few more advances, and I might be able to create even tougher stuff than Atlas threading, and Atlas armor has stupidly steep prerequisites.”

“Prerequisites? Above and beyond the tens of millions?”

I nodded, “Yes, a normal person couldn’t even move in it. It’s durable, but it was not only incredibly heavy but just moving in it normally required at least a class 3 enhanced physique because of its resistance. That’s another reason Geofiber got so popular. Less protective, but you could also wear hard armor over it and still be able to move.”

“The thicker plates.” I said, starting to point out certain areas on Mindy’s armor, “Are laminated buckypaper zircon and tungsten-hyper bronze. They should keep your knees from getting busted if you are crazy enough…” I looked at Chinook, “To make a superhero landing.”

She laughed, “I hadn’t actually thought of that, but it sure looks cool when it works. How long would it take us to get armor?”

“Give me a second,” I said. I had been thinking about it. I didn’t have anywhere close to the energy to convert that much mass, not even a tenth of what I’d need, but if could get access to a lot of materials…

“That depends. Just to make it without any materials would take me ten days per suit.”

Chinook sighed. “Is that because of your energy problems?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but if I could get someplace with a lot of the raw materials already available, like a dump, or a materials lab, and someone that can help me gather what I would need, it could be a lot faster.”

“How much faster?”

I shrugged, “If I had some stuff pre-assembled, and all the materials, It would cost me about four hundred energy. Umm… eighty percent of my maximum. I recover between three and seven percent of my maximum every hour, depending on if I can practice and meditate, get enough food, and am in a place that’s good for my energy, it might even be faster if I can get someplace really good, but places like that are impossible to get to.”

“Like what kind of places?”

I chuckled, “I'm not sure if you can handle the truth…”

Abbey smiled, “Just tell us. Maybe we can get there.”

I shrugged, “Any place with high ambient radiation, extreme temperature gradients, or even radioactive materials. Outer space, a dumping place for a reactor, or even a recently-cleared Kaiju nest.”

Abbey looked thoughtful, “If you thought that would freak us out, you are very wrong. A lot of Alphas have… unusual dietary additives.”

I knew that, but… “Like what?”

“I am on record for certain rare earths. They help reinforce my structures,” Terracotta, who had been fairly quiet until now, offered. “And a set of armor would let me run lighter when I have to play anchor. Right now, when I armor up, to get class three defense I am very slow.”

“So what kind of radioactive do you need?” Mindy asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t have to eat them… I mean, Uranium, even if I depleted it, would be poisonous. Something that sends out high-energy protons and neutrons would be best?”

Abbey smiled a little, “So you can deplete radioactive materials?”

I nodded, “I believe so, in small amounts.” I looked at my hand. “About nine inches. That doesn’t make me immune to radioactivity, so I’d have to purify myself afterward unless I want stuff falling off.”

Chinook snerked, “God forbid. I can think of a couple of options, but I am starting to realize that you are a complicated fellow, Blueprint.”