Prism Academy 5- Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24- Not a Coup

Bonded Exchange +2- this evolution may now affect all of your bonded at the same time. Rather than providing a direct exchange of evolutions, this upgrade allows it to provide an overall boost to all stats and bring all bond partners up to current on any changes within the bond. The current bonus is 60  percentage points of movement on all physical stats. Duration of the bonus varies based upon the amount of progenitor energy used in creating the bond, the depth of connection between the bonded, and the overall power level of all the participants.

Mental Design +1- the finesse and extent to which this evolution may affect a target is now greater. The targets must still willingly allow the user access.

Charismatic Mental Mastery +1- the power and reach of this evolution as well as the degree to which it can be used to influence a target has increased.

The notifications continued to roll in as I felt the link between my bonds become firmer. It was like all of them became one woman for a brief instant. They were all pushed forward, becoming more than they had been before. What was fascinating to me was that instead of simply exchanging abilities they all became stronger as a whole. Realistically, there would be very few, if any Refractors who were stronger than them, well now that Todd was gone. Supreme might be in the same league, but my bonds were beasts now.

It was actually pretty cool. This made it feel like we shared the burden of saving the world. It wasn’t all on me. My power still exceeded theirs and by a huge margin, but this boost still mattered. It closed the gap and made me feel better about everything.

I noticed that several of my bonds had gained abilities related to the bonding of bonds which happened after there. Mostly that was related to Twinkle and Wraith. Normally, updating the bond required renewed physical intimacy, but this connection we had created between us was even closer than raw sexuality could produce. The bond had always been strong, but now it was pushed to the next level.”

Demis broke me out of my thoughts. “I feel so fucking powerful. Thank you for whatever you did. I only wish it could last forever.”

Hmm… I looked and sure enough there was a countdown on this new version of bonded exchange.

ANOP said to all of us, “I am projecting that currently, this enhancement will last for another 69 hours unless Aden can find a way to extend it.”

Aqueous giggled, but it ended up turning into a snort. “Hah, 69.”

Precision rolled her eyes. “Grow up.”

I said, “No, don’t. I hope we can always laugh at things like this. We need to kick the shadow’s ass off of Earth and then live the rest of our lives in peace. Then I hope we can take the time to enjoy moments like this.”

In a rare moment of public passion, Inferna rose up onto her knees and leaned in to kiss the side of my face. She whispered in my ear and I shivered as I felt her warm breath against my neck. “If we didn’t have to go to Atlanta, I’d show you just how much we’re going to enjoy a life of peace.”

I coughed and then said, “Should we share what upgrades we got?”

ANOP said, “No need. At your new level of connection, you are all able to view each other’s stat sheets as well as access descriptions of everyone’s abilities.”

With that, there was a full two minutes of silence as we all viewed what the others could now do. Several of the abilities were powerful, but I noticed how many of them were focused on defending the mind, movement and escape, or more intangible attacks.

Some of the new evolutions I’d have to see in action.

Sybilla gasped. “I’m happy for you, Aden.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you look at your last notification?”

I shook my head. “Nope, got caught up in the excitement of all the changes for you.”

Demis smiled. “He’s just imagining how much harder he can fuck us now that we’re all more durable.”

“I was actually thinking about how nice it felt to not have to worry as much about you, but also I felt a huge sense of relief.”

“Relief?” Wraith asked.

It was Twinkle that answered him. “Aden’s too kind to say it, but he was worried that all the burden for saving the world rested on him. He would never want to make us feel like less than, but he felt alone at the top. The stronger we become the more we’re his equals.”

I sighed. It sounded bad, selfish in a way, when I heard it said out loud.

Sybilla said, “No, you don’t get to do that. You kept how alone you were feeling in this to yourself. It was deeply hidden. I know you counted on us for protection, but this extra power lets you relax a bit more. It makes you see us as equals.”

“That isn’t fair. I’ve always seen you as equals.”

“In value, in relationship, but not in power, and the gap had only been growing larger.”

I shrugged unable to deny it even if she couldn’t read my mind.

Inferna said, “She’s right. I can feel your sense of guilt over those thoughts. Stop it. You were carrying us. Oh, I know each of are stronger than any other Rays in history even before this boost. But the challenges are getting bigger too. I’m not saying this will allow us to fight Krig toe to toe, but we will be better able to help you. And any shadow monsters which confront us are going to be in for a rude awakening.”

I sighed and then took a deep breath. She was, no they were right. I needed to not feel bad about being happy they could carry more of the burden. That was what family was, lifting each other up. We were stronger together than apart.

Titana and Valkyrie came over to our little circle. I noticed Eve followed but a few feet behind them. Titana said, “Hey, us, pseudo-bonds are feeling a bit left out. We may not be the heavy hitters that some of you are, but I’d like to think that we can carry our own weight.

I smiled up at her. “Always.”

Aqueous said, “Team Aden.”

The others echoed it and I added my own voice in. “Team Aden, forever.”

Then I looked at the final notification, curious about what had impressed Sybilla so much.

You have achieved final optimization with ANOP: level 40. The AI had reached full intended capacity. A final message from your mother is now available.

Do you wish to view the video?

I clicked ‘no.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see the video. I very much did. But there was too much on my plate now and I couldn’t afford the emotional distraction. I stood up and then helped my bonds up, not that any of them needed it, but they all seemed more than willing to wait their turn for my hand to pull them up.

“We have a mission to go on now. But I do have one more question. ANOP, why did they generalize power scores only go up such a small amount? They have to all be A ranked in terms of power.”

“I am only duplicating the system used by Prism Academy, Master Aden. It is imperfect and only calculates its results based upon stats. Further, greater weight is placed upon lower stats, so having even one lower stat will lower the overall average. It is very similar to an ancient system of book reviews in which only a rating greater than 4.3 was considered good by the company which created the ranking. Thus, a single rating of 1 would have a much greater impact on the overall rating as compared to a single rating of 5.”

What she said made sense. “Perhaps we should come up with our own rating system.”

ANOP replied, “I can do that for you, Master Aden, but then your rating system will no longer be compatible for comparisons to others within the Prism Academy system.”

I nodded. “Got it. We’re stuck using their broken system.”

There was a bit more discussion and a few of them did share about their new abilities but in the end this didn’t change our plan. It hopefully made things easier, but didn’t change it. So once everything had been said, we teleported till we were miles about three miles up and twenty-five miles from Atlanta.

The entire combat portion of the team was here, including CB, all my bonded, whether that be true bonds, pseudo bonds, or cyber-bonds. I quickly took stock of the situation, looking for a place where the backup team could be deposited, but I left it to Precision supported by Sybilla. Her Omni-Sense ability simply made her better equipped to find a close place.

The majority of the city defenses seemed to be focused on an area only ten miles around the city. Crossing that distance was incredibly easy for most supers and so we set up a little further outside at around fifteen miles. There, we left the rest of them while Inferna, Aqueous, Demis, and I headed straight into the city.

We made no effort to hide ourselves, but streaked straight toward the city. Along the way, I felt the minds of thousands of soldiers, but couldn’t sense any shadow energy. There were also a number of supers in military uniforms who moved to intercept us, but I simply teleported our group till we were right outside the city.

Alarms went off like they were being attacked by a monster horde, but I just stood there calmly waiting for the excitement to pass. Our minds were all linked, and so Demis and I jointly shared in setting up a barrier around us. We combined her Entropic Shield with my Cascading Frequency Shield. That should protect us from any surprise attacks.

Finally, a super dressed in a military uniform came out. ANOP identified him as Concrete. It was a lame name for a super, but then who was I to talk, Son of Light? What had I been thinking?”

“Atlanta is currently on lock down. Please state your names and reason for being here.”

I laughed. “Cut the bull-shit. You know exactly who I am and thus who is with me. I am only here to accept the President-General’s invitation to sit down and discuss the state of the world.”

“You mean the order to have you arrested?”

I couldn’t help but smirk at him. “I thought you didn’t know why I was here. Well, as much as I’d like to oblige a lawful order, the state of the world comes first and I have to verify who is actually giving the orders.”

The man laughed then. “You may be the prism, but there are half a million soldiers and more than three hundred supers in this city. If you thought you could come here and just demand terms, then you were sorely mistaken.”

I hated this. The man probably saw me as some sort of criminal. If he believed the lies about me being responsible for the destruction in Mexico City, then he saw me as a mass murderer. I tried to remember that and not let it get to me. The thing was that we had bigger problems. I needed to finish my upgrades and then hunt down Krig before he did that to another city. The entire thing with NAAG was a massive waste of time. Heck, compared to the threat of Krig, even the shadow was secondary.

“Look, we’ll wait here for the fifteen minutes. Before that time, you need to escort us to see the President-General.”

“Or what?’ He demanded.

“I didn’t say ‘or’, I just told you what needs to happen. It would be better for all of us if we didn’t explore other options.”