Prism Academy 5- Chapter 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20- Mental Design

As much as I wanted to go to sleep, I couldn’t. That had been fun…lots of fun, but fun wasn’t the point. The point was to appropriate her power, or rather, for us to become intimate enough for me to appropriate her power. Before with Gabi, I’d had to use Molly, my blue Ray, as a focus to appropriate her, now though my skill had grown. Or more to the point my power had evolved from Mental Enhancement to Mental Design.

Both ANOP and I were confident that Mental Design would enable me to make this work without needing one of my bonds. We had discussed the difference between the two abilities. In the end, ANOP didn’t create my abilities, but simply tried to quantify them. With Mental Enhancement, I was able to augment one of my bonds, and even myself in some odd ways.

Potentially, I would have been able to enhance other supers later. Enhancing was about making them more of what they were. With Jen, that had meant strengthening her fire abilities, but it also had given her a new form. At the time, it had felt odd, like I was tapping into something more than what was in either of us. I now believed that Essence had played a part in it. I was coming to understand that small amounts of Essence were everywhere around me now, but it seemed diluted to the point that I really had to look hard to see it.

In the case of Willow and Molly, I had enhanced them both at the same time and their abilities had been partially merged and each of them was enhanced not only in their own powers but by blending their potential. Still, I had only been able to work with what was present.

It was my theory that with Mental Design, I could largely rewrite a supers evolutions and abilities, although since the skill was only at level 1, I likely wouldn’t push it too far. There was also the fact that the target had to be willing. Maybe that wouldn’t always be the case, but I had no plans to explore that. Rewriting people sounded scary and like a power that no one should have.

“If not the Prism, then who? The greater good requires sacrifice.”

I shuddered as I heard that voice. It wasn’t possible she was dead. “ANOP did you hear that?”

“Hear what, Master Aden?”

“Uh… never mind.”

I could tell the AI to forget about it, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind so quickly. I recognized that voice. Queenie was dead, except was she completely gone? Our souls, or whatever you want to call it had been bound together when we were bonded. Maybe a residual of her psyche was locked away inside of me. What did that say about me, though?

I listened for the voice, but I didn’t hear anything more. I had to grit my teeth and push past whatever hidden fear that was. I set my hand on Petra’s leg. “Ready to try this?”

“What again? I thought even you had limits.”

I grinned. “No, not that, I need to try to appropriate your power. If I do this correctly though, I think I can enhance your powers at the same time.”

She instantly sat up, all signs of exhaustion gone. I had to do a double take from the whiplash of watching her breasts bounce as she sit up caused, but I managed to focus on her face. “Enhance me how?”

“You have to have heard some about Molly, Willow, Sybilla, and Jen. I’ve enhanced each of them. Well, I also enhanced Kenna and Priska, but that was part of the bonding process, so they may not even realize it.”

“You mean the thing where you can improve our powers? Did Gabi get that too?”

“She did. She became stronger and more durable, but she also ended up with some of her evolutions improving. Then I was able to appropriate her power and enhance myself. Are you okay with this? I feel like we were already friends, but now we’re more.”

She grabbed my hand and held it to her heart. For the moment, I wasn’t even distracted by her gorgeous breasts. “That’s my heart, and it beats for you and this team. I’ve fallen for you, Aden. I know I can’t be your bond, but I believe in you and what you want to do. Even if you said you were going to take over the NAAG, I’d support you.”

“That means a lot to me, but let’s hope that it doesn’t reach that point. So my power has evolved a bit and I’m hopeful that I can shape your power more than I was able to before. It would require that you trust me…”

“Done.”

“Okay, but I also need to know what you want. I could guess, and I might even be accurate, but how would you like to see your powers enhanced?”

She thought about it for a moment, but I was in no rush. The world might be breaking apart at the seams around us, but I was going to take the time to do this right. “I love my powers. I love flying jets. I love the way I seem to be able to understand what’s wrong with a machine before I even open it up. But at the end of the day, my abilities feel weak and redundant. I can fly is I take on the ability of a jet, but even then there are supers who are far faster than me. I can adapt the power of a tank but only an energy based one because I don’t have shells in my body. Even then, I cany only get off a few shots before I’m too drained. I just wish there was a way for me to be both in touch with my vehicles, but not so helpless on my own.”

An idea hit me, but it was pretty radical. “What if you could be enhanced with cybernetic implants so that you’d still be you, but your body would be able to better express the abilities of those machines?”

“You mean like turn me into a robot girl like Eve?” She looked a bit nervous with her question.

“Not exactly, although I suppose there is some of that. To be honest, I’m not even sure how much of this I can do, but Eve is an AI brain in a machine body which has evolved to become partially organic. She still runs on electrical power from a zero point generator inside of her, formed by part of her nanite body. What I’m proposing is a human brain and a super body which is evolved to become partially technological but still runs on progenitor energy.”

She stared into my eyes like she was trying to read the future in them before she said, “What the hell, I trust you, Aden. Just don’t turn me into the Terminator or something.”

“You know that movie?”

In response, she did her best deep voiced impersonation of a long dead actor, “I’ll be back.”

“Wow, you just became ten times cooler in my mind.”

She shrugged. “You love those old movies, so I’ve taken the little bit of free time. I have to learn a little bit about them.”

I leaned in and kissed her. It lingered on for a bit till she finally pulled back. “What was that for?”

“For getting me. You just made me feel completely seen and understood. You are the coolest girlfriend ever.”

She giggled. “Just don’t tell the others or they’ll think I’m trying to get a leg up on them.”

“Not now, we have too much stuff to do now, but I’m totally gonna rub that in their faces. Now, though, are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

I didn’t hesitate then, but instead channeled my power into her.

Mental Design

Tendrils of progenitor energy flowed from me into her. The power began to well up within her. After a short time, a notification popped up.

New Resonance Detected. The bond between you and Molly has created a pseudo bond between you and Petra Mitchell. You must accept this to activate. Accept now?

Enhancement for Petra Mitchell is now available. Progress: 0% Begin enhancement?

New evolution available for appropriation. Begin appropriation?

I immediately accepted the resonance and began enhancing Petra, while pushing off the appropriation for later. At the same time, I called out to Eve over the cyber-bond. “I need you in my room now and bring as many nanites as you can.”

The power continued to swell within her, till it was suffusing every pour in her body. My capacity was so much greater than it had been before and while I wasn’t at full, I was still stronger than ever before. I also wasn’t about to hesitate. I knew this was only the first step. If things went as I planned within the next couple of days, I’d have appropriated Hua, Sophia, and I was holding out a hope that I could shape things to appropriate Tess. That would leave only one slot open and I’d be reaching my maximum power.

I kept pushing with her, and soon Eve was in the room. She didn’t say a single word, which was refreshing, but had carried in two crates of nanites. “Convert them to biotech and then start feeding them into Petra.”

Eve didn’t nod or give any other outward sign that she’d heard me, but our bond told me she did and she was on the task right away. As for me, I kept focusing on Petra. “ANOP, form a stat sheet for her so I can see what I’m working with, please.”

Petra Mitchell

Age: 27

Height: 5’8”

Weight: 139 lbs.

Generalized Power Ranking: D

Stats*:

Strength - D

Lifting - D

Force Application - D

Speed - C

Movement Rate - D

Reaction Rate - A

Agility - C

Dexterity - C

Durability - D

General Damage Resistance - D

Stamina - C

Mental Acuity - D

Will - D

Ingenuity - C

Processing - D

Charm - D

Capacity: 97/97

Refraction – N/A

Orange - 72% affinity

Evolution: Mechanical Mind

Evolution: Vehicular Imitation

I felt immediately bad for Petra. Her stats were so much worse than any of my other bonds. Sure she was a super compared to normals, but she must have always felt weak, yet she was bold and dynamic. She’d chose a life of service and fighting the enemy. She deserved to be made into more.

I saw the aspects of her mind laid out before me. Better than ever before, I understood how her powers were hard-wired into her. I also saw something I’d never considered before. By using my own capacity, I could reshape a variety of aspects about here. The first thing that needed to change was her affinity. It was the lowest I’d ever seen and probably only barely high enough for her to have passed the exam.

I pushed with my progenitor energy and saw the channels in her brain. I mapped out how they could be improved upon so that she would be able to draw upon more of her power. Then I pushed that pattern into reality.

Petra Mitchell’s Affinity has reached 100%

Good, but that was just the start. Then I reached into her stats. A part of me saw how the nanites were reinforcing her body like Eve had enhanced me. Eve could only push the nanites into her and was unable to enhance her. Fortunately, at the moment, as our connection was so close, Petra was like clay in my hands. I used the nanites to reshape her body.

Her form would remain the same, but her construction was going to evolve.

After what felt like hours, another notification popped up.

Petra Mitchell’s physical form has been rebuilt into a bio-tech form. Her physical stats have been increased significantly.

Strength - B

Lifting - B

Force Application - B

Speed - A

Movement Rate - B

Reaction Rate - S

Agility - A

Dexterity - A

Durability - B

General Damage Resistance - A

Stamina - C

I grinned. Those were huge upgrades. A morbid part of me wondered if it had cost her a part of her humanity, but I refused to see it that way. Supers were as far removed from human as possible, yet it was the inner person, that intangible quality which made humanity what it was, both for good and for ill.

My mind flickered over her mental stats. The longer I worked on her the more I felt like I could read the designs that made her who she was. It was almost like I was seeing computer code and then I saw the ways I could alter that code. I could rewrite her personality if I wanted to. I could have turned her into a battle junkie who would throw herself into every fight or into a sex kitten who would crave spending her days on her knees.

I recoiled from those realizations. It was too much power. I would never, could never betray her trust like that. It would be the ultimate repudiation of what I wanted to be. Freedom of choice was more important that life and death, at least as far as I was concerned. That same choice which had been taken from me would not be taken from her.

My hand trembled a bit, and I didn’t trust myself to tamper with her mental stats, so I shifted to her evolutions. Raising their levels would be easy enough, if only I pushed more progenitor energy into them. I wanted to do more than that.

I kept in my mind the words she had said, the intentions she had expressed. Then I pushed with all my power. Everything snapped into place and I smiled.

Petra Mitchell’s Mechanical Mind evolution has increased to level four.

Mechanical Mind: At level four, this evolution will enable the user to control machines at a range of up to a quarter mile. She will be able to override even most manual controls. Interface and information gathering will be possible at a range of up to 20 miles. Further the user will have an intuitive understanding of how all machines fix and the ability to upgrade almost any mechanical system which she has not previously worked upon.

That was big but nothing compared to the next two notification.

Petra Mitchell’s Vehicular Imitation has split and evolved into two new evolutions.

Organic Metal- through a fusion of nanites, human flesh, and progenitor energy, this evolution has turned the body of the user into organic metal. It can maintain the feel of human flesh and maintain all biological functions including but not limited to a digestive tract, the need for oxygen, and reproductive systems. Minor modifications to the body’s shape may be made by an act of will. Further leveling of this ability will increase this aspect.

Mecha Mode- by converting progenitor or other power the user’s body may reshape to take on the form of a mech. At the current level, this mech will be a maximum of fifteen feet tall and five tons in weight. The additional mass will be converted from available energy and metals. This evolution will allow the user to interface with mechanical or weapons components and adapt them to optimal designs while controlling the end result as easily as her own body. External power sources or a capacity of greater than 200 are recommended for non-energy weapon systems. A capacity of greater than 1000 is recommended before using energy based weapons.

Petra was almost in a comatose state as all the changes were being made. It reminded me that she truly was putty in my hands and I could shape her however I wanted. I looked at her capacity then. The anemic sub 100 score had gone up to 164 from the changes, but that wasn’t even enough to use non-energy weapons safely, at least not without an external power source.

I was getting tired, but I pushed myself to keep going. I poured more progenitor energy into her capacity. I dreamed of raising it into the thousands but kept hitting walls. The first time happened when I pushed her past 200 capacity. Then again, when I hit 500 capacity. It hit again at 750, and I didn’t seem to be able to budge any further. Inside of me, I knew I lacked the skill to do this without permanently injuring her, so I let it stop there.

She collapsed back onto the bed unconscious, but I wasn’t done yet. I still needed to appropriate her power into myself.