“Hey there, Richie. Have a seat.” I shook his hand and waved him to a chair.

“Uh, so, you’re doing assessments of us?” he asked, clearly a bit nervous as he sat down.

“I’ve always been assessing you, it’s what people in our profession do. What I’m doing now is telling you what I’ve seen about you, and very specifically, what you need to improve on.”

“Oh.” He kind of blinked at the difference, but it dispelled his nervousness. “Well, let’s get on with it, then?”

I nodded. “Step one, put your helmet back on.” It was currently in cloth form, hanging on his belt.

“Uh, sure?” He put on the bucket with the red star that concealed most of his face.

“Repeat after me. ”

It took him a few times to get it right, going slow and pausing while he did so.

When he jerked in shock, eyes going wide inside the bucket, I ignored it politely.

“Kindly ask Mentor to enable radio communication with ally codenamed Dynamo, myself. I have radio communication capabilities.”

“Uh, Mentor, could you enable communication with my friend, uh, ally Dynamo here?” he asked nobody.

“Communication initiated with Dynamo. Good afternoon, Dynamo.” By a trick of the tech, the communication seemed to be coming from his star, instead of my commlink.

“Good afternoon, Mentor. My apologies for the delay in establishing a proper rapport with you. I just learned Xandaran this morning.

“Corpsman Richard Ryder there is a little bit behind in understanding the legacy and history of the Nova Corps whose uniform he wears. Do you have dreamtraining capabilities?” I asked calmly.

“I do,” Mentor responded. “Would you like me to schedule a session, Corpsman Ryder?” the suit asked calmly.

“I, uh, yes, I would!” he responded in amazement.

“Scheduling legacy training hypnosleep session for tonight. Remember to wear your helmet to bed, Corpsman Ryder.”

He nodded quickly. “I will, I will!” His eyes turned to me. “Holy shit, Dynamo, what’s going on?”

“Richard, I’m sure that your suit’s artificial intelligence has an extraordinarily advanced training program built right into it and perfected over dozens, if not hundreds of generations of Xandarans joining the corps. Your helm has probably been worn by hundreds of Xandarans.”

“423, to be precise!” Mentor chimed in. Ryder swallowed.

“The helm is the core of your suit. It spins the uniform to match the recipient. Mentor is the name of the artificial intelligence who runs the suits of the Nova Corps, their coordinator, trainer, and information resource. Each helm is independent, but part of a greater whole. Please take your helm off and put it on the table.”

He did so promptly, if nervously, letting me once again see his face and eyes directly.

“Assessment time! You, Richard Ryder, are basically completely average in almost all respects.”

He blinked at me. “What?” he had to ask.

“You aren’t an exceptional athlete, as I’m sure you know. Without the buff from your Nova suit, would you say you are one of the better athletes in your school?”

He winced as he flexed his arms, looking at them. “No, I can’t say that I am,” he admitted, “even though I’m in really good shape now.”

“Likewise, your grades are completely average in all subjects. You test out right in the middle of the pack; not dumb, not smart, completely average.”

He winced despite himself. “So, what are you trying to say? That I don’t deserve to wear the suit?” Definitely a bit defensive. But, shooting that down...

“On the contrary, it’s why you were picked to wear it. Confirmed, Mentor?”

“Confirmed, Dynamo.”

He blinked at me and the helm. “Uh, why?” he had to ask, completely confused.

“I believe that will be answered by the history you learn tonight. Is the selection of average citizens a hallmark and standard operating procedure of the Nova Corps, Mentor?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“A standard of ninety percent of the Nova Corpsman must, by Corps directive, be of average baseline for the species,” the helm informed us. “They form the solid foundation of the Corps. The remaining ten percent may be of above average mental and physical capability, but must be proven to have unflinching morals before being bestowed a helm.”

Ryder blinked at the helm and me. “So... my superpower is because I’m just... average?” He couldn’t really believe it.

I pointed at his uniform. “The Nova Corps grants you the power. Mentor grants you the intelligence support. I’m assuming that the Corps wants members who understand what average people want. Not strong people, who want to dominate. Not the weak, who live in fear or anger. Not the smart, who think themselves above all others, or the dumb, who can’t think beyond themselves.

“It wants people who truly represent who the Corps protects. Without knowing their history, I can only assume that there were people who totally abused the power that the Nova Corps bestowed on them, and the Corps traced it back to them being, well, high-performers and exceptional people, who thought themselves only more exceptional once they had real power, and thought they should be in charge.”

“Basically correct,” Mentor confirmed from the table.

“Uh, wow,” Richie said, staring at the helm. “So... what do I do now?”

“If you want to keep that uniform, you have to be worthy of it,” I told him. “There’s going to be a code of conduct, rules, and so forth, but that’s for Mentor to teach you at night, and for you to pick up then. During the day, you’ll start doing the training the suit devises for you, and we’ll talk to SHIELD about what they can do to help you. If not, you might have to improvise, but considering you’re sitting here on a backwater world like Earth, that’s hardly unexpected.”

“It is not,” Mentor spoke up. “Allowances are being devised.”

“Excellent. More to the point, I have a direct question for Mentor: Can the fusion generator in the Baxter Building be modified to help increase Corpsman Ryders Nova Core, or do we need something more?”

“A fusion generator of that size can have its power output reconfigured to raise a Corpsman’s Nova Core two grades,” the helmet confirmed promptly.

“Uh... what does that mean?” Richie asked, once again bewildered.

I sat back calmly. “The Nova Corps is a law enforcement and peacekeeping unit for the Xandaran people, who are aliens to us, living in a different quadrant of the galaxy. You’ll learn more about them on your own.

“Aliens, however, means super-science. You are currently wearing the single most advanced suit of power armor on the planet.”

He blinked at me. “F-for real?” he stuttered in amazement, looking at his blue and gold outfit. “But, but it’s nowhere near powerful enough!” he blurted out, and then looked at his helm as if he’d said something wrong.

“Not true. It’s totally powerful enough. Its power supply, however, is not.”

I stared at him. He wasn’t that dumb, and got what I was saying, as he slowly pointed at himself. “Me?” he asked in disbelief.

“You. That energy bolt that knocked you unconscious opened up a Nova Core in you, and dispensed the starting Corpsman energy basis of the Nova Corps to you. You are the power source for your suit, and you determine how powerful it is!”

“Uh, wow...” He fell back into his seat, overwhelmed. “So, what does that mean for me?”

“Well, have you ever looked out across Hudson Bay?” I asked him.

“Sure!” he nodded. “I see it all the time!”

“Great! Let’s say the Core inside you is Hudson Bay.” My cheerful smile slipped. “The power that you have now is someone dumping a gallon of water into the empty Bay.”

His face froze. “Uh, what?” he asked.

“Did I stutter?” I replied, arching an eyebrow.

“N-no,” he stammered again, once again feeling overwhelmed. “So... I could be a LOT more powerful?” he asked hesitantly.

I nodded.

“Uh, just how much more powerful?”

“I believe the Centurions Supreme of the Nova Corps top out just under where Primus is at,” I replied casually.

His eyes almost bulged out, he was staring so hard. “No way...” he whispered.

“Way. You have the potential to be by far the most powerful member of this team, and sit right up there at the High Guard’s table if you were.”

“I don’t... what’s it take to get there?” he had to ask, overwhelmed by the implications.

“My guess is, barring a trip to Xandar where they might strip you of your suit, a whole lot of pain,” I replied agreeably.

He blinked again, considered both outcomes, and muttered appropriately, “Oh, crap...”

I nodded agreement with that. “Your suit is going to take care of one side of your training. With its help, you’ll have a lot more built-in support and advice. You, unfortunately, have to take care of the other.”

“Which is?” he asked in a dreading tone of voice.

“Energy absorption. A LOT of energy absorption.”

He was silent for a moment, thinking about that. “You want to... pour more water into me?” he finally asked.

“Yep.”

“And the question you asked... it was about how much energy I could take in?” he went on.

“No, it was about the quality level, more than anything. If it was just quantity, we could just hook you up to the New York power grid and call it a day. Fusion reactors spit out all kinds of strange energies as atoms get pushed together. Bigger ones produce more and different ones. Dr. Richards’ produces enough to get you two ranks up in power, eventually.”

“Eventually,” he echoed. “So, I have to, like, get hooked up into a machine, and get force-fed radioactive and worse energies?”

“Mentor has already indicated it knows the adaptive tech to use, so there is no danger to you from doing so, except it’s probably going to hurt a whole damn lot.”

“That is confirmed. Without the proper equipment available back on Xandar, energy absorption to catalyze harmonic resonance with the Nova Force is quite traumatic,” the helm piped up helpfully.

Ryder stared at it, while I just inclined my head. “That, of course, is your path.”

“My path?” he asked neutrally.

“You’re not going to genius things out. You’re not going to flex things out. You’re not going to trick things out, dodge them, or puzzle them out.

“You’re going to endure them and overcome. That’s what average people do. They endure, they work, they overcome, by one means or another. If it takes time, so be it. If it hurts, so be it. They plug away, they take their knocks, they keep coming.

“That is your path, and, I imagine, the path of every Corpsman. What can you endure as you attempt to get stronger? That’s it, no more and no less, your willpower and determination the true measure of how far you can go.

“If you want the power, you pay the price for it, and by the gods, you know you earned it!”

I tapped the table and sat back, still looking at him. “So, interested in swinging by the Baxter Building tomorrow and helping set up the conversion equipment?”