Prism Academy 5- Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Chapter 29- Next Steps

A lot more fun had ensued, but in the end, I was still able to appropriate Hua’s power. It seemed to be easier, either because my skills had continued to improve, or perhaps it was because the connection with Hua was more physical and less emotional. It was still obviously enough to complete the process. I scrolled through the updated information and skipped the details about resonance and whether I had wanted to accept the pseudo-bond.

The title little knot of emotion in my very crowded head told me that Hua and I had a connection even if it wasn’t a full bond. I knew I could trust her implicitly and would do anything I could to help her out in return.

I did take a look at the developments she got. I remember thinking about what Hua needed as well as what the team needed. Her style was odd. She was a mix of a frontline fighter and a ranged dps, if I was going to think in old gamer terms. She would rush in and count her shields to protect her, but it wasn’t always enough. I wanted to protect her and had figured a way.

Mental Design being at level 3 enabled me far more latitude to enhance her. So, I’d picked a very specific enhancement for her.

Evolution: Psychic Ghost- this evolution allows its wielder to phase her corporeal form just out of sync with the material realm. This will reduce the vast majority of ways in which she can be damaged. It also connects her partially with a plane of psychic energy. This will have two effects.

All psychic powers are enhanced by 50% with her primary ability (Telekinetic Constructs) improving by 100%. The improvement applies to range, damage, duration, reduction in capacity consumption, and speed of use.

Secondly, while in this state, the user will take 50% more damage from any psychic attack.

Hmm… it was the first evolution I’d seen, which came with such an obvious downside. She didn’t seem to mind. Psychics were hardly common and most of them were rather weak. Very few psychics had actual combat training or abilities which were easy to attack with.

Her second upgrade was simply directed to her main ability.

Telekinetic Constructs 4- at this level, the user’s constructs have Strength and Durability equal to high A rank. This may be temporarily boosted to S rank, but the capacity drain will increase significantly the higher it is pushed as will the strain on the user. Range has been increased, as has the number of constructs which can be maintained.

Suffice it to say that after reading about both of those abilities I was anxious to see how powerful she could be if she combined them. If she could throw around S rank attacks, then she might be able to hold Krig long enough for me to land solid blows. That could be a game changer. With that in mind, I also pushed her capacity as far as I could. There were still limits without a full bonding and sadly, it meant I had to leave her physical stats weaker than I would have preferred.

As for myself, I didn’t get any type of crazy upgrade like Technokinesis, but simply appropriated her core power. I also gained Telekinetic Constructs, but at level 3 and because of her psychic nature I was able to advance one of my most important skills.

Rewind 2: You may utilize this ability to push yourself back in time by 1 second for every 100-capacity spent. Only you will be aware of the changes in the time stream. The maximum rewind is 60 seconds. Be warned, it is impossible to extrapolate what impacts altering a timeline even in small ways may have. Cool-down for the ability: 18 hours. Cool-down doesn’t begin until all 60 seconds of the ability have been utilized.

The cost to use it dropped from 150 to only 100 capacity for second while the duration doubled up to 60 seconds. I could still use the 60 seconds in portions, but the cool-down began as soon as I used up the full allotment, but then that cool-down had been reduced by 6 hours. All in all those were good upgrades, but I needed to find a way to upgrade it further. I worried that when fighting Krig, I’d need everything I could get.

The oddest change was that I got a boost to a single stat. Charm was still the hardest for me to quantify. ANOP had tried to explain it before, but in the end we both came up with the concept that it made me more willing to listen to me even without the use of any psychic ability. It also seemed to have a different effect on the women around me, especially my bonds, but I was hardly going to complain if they found themselves more worked up. Maybe it would get old someday, but for now, it meant that no matter how hard we trained for a day; the night was always good.

Charm +78%

The glitch message I had gotten before was there with a tiny update.

Error… unquantified ability has been identified. Seeking to examine.

Analysis pending… 1% complete.

It was clearly going to take some time before ANOP was able to explain whatever change she was detecting within me.

Once I went through the notifications; I had to focus my mind on what came next. I began to disentangle myself from the numerous arms and legs which were draped over me but then realized, I could simply phase through them. Then I headed out to the kitchen.

Molly was already there with some pastries and coffee. Dang… once I bit into one of them, I was reminded of just how much I missed it every time I didn’t eat at Prism Academy. The personal chefs who were assigned to me and my bonds were the real superheroes as far as I was concerned. I’d have to find a way to thank them when this was all over.

At least all of my bonds were back from Atlanta. Thinking of Atlanta hit me, but I realized that I could still be okay with this. I had done what had to be done even if the collateral damage had been bad; it wasn’t like I could have let that shadow creature fully manifest. It would have cost far more lives.

Petra and Jen were talking with Sybil. It was clear they were worried about me, but I still walked over to them after giving Molly a kiss and taking a cup of coffee from her. “How about giving me a status report, that is after, I get a kiss?”

Petra stepped back. I assume she thought I was focused on Jen. And I did pull her in and kiss her. “Thank you for handling that for me. I needed to be able to lean on you.”

“That’s why you selected me. But don’t worry, Soros Clan is gonna expect a favor from you in return. I can’t neglect my people.”

I chuckled. “Wouldn’t want it any other way. Did you have something specific in mind?”

She nodded. “We’ll discuss that later, though.”

Then I pulled Sybil in and we shared a kiss. She was grinning. “Didn’t get enough last night?”

“I better not have. I have a feeling my bonds would hang me if I ever tried to say I’ve had enough.”

She nodded. “And I’d lead the charge.”

I pinched her ass. “All joking aside, thanks for what you did, last night and not just the obvious part. It was very welcome. I appreciate you and Hua taking some of the psychic strain that I was under after the battle.”

“Not to sound like a broken record, but that’s what bonds are for. The way this works means that you are strongest when you are surrounded by your bonds. You always say we’re a team. You just need to focus on delegating more. Let us do what we’re good at.”

I didn’t say anything because it was obvious she was right, but hopefully my facial expression was obvious. Then I stepped over to Petra. “Where do you think you’re going? I asked for a kiss and then you stepped back.”

Her face got red. “Uh, I just thought you meant…”

She never got to finish her words because my tongue was in her mouth. She didn’t seem to mind as the kiss lasted for a full minute. When I pulled back, she was a bit breathless, even though she was easily capable of far more exertion.

She looked around like she was dizzy or confused before saying, “Uh, okay, status report.”

That was the cue for everyone to sit down. Jen was the first to speak. “I’ll get my part out of the way because it isn’t as big as what Petra has to report on. Soros Clan is mobilizing all of our private forces so that we can move once you give the word. We can’t trust in the government even if I think things are better. I just wanna make sure we have our own people around us. I think you need to do the same with Amazo, and I took the liberty of making some suggestions, but didn’t presume to give your people any orders.”

I shook my head. “What’s mine is yours. I’ll make sure that the executives and security force people know they should treat your orders like they’re mine.”

Jen smiled. “I’d hoped you’d say that, but I didn’t want to assume. I already told the clan council that you’re my husband and so to them you’re Aden Soros, even if your name hasn’t been legally changed.”

I grinned. “I’m old-fashioned, but I get your clan name means something to you.”

She detailed for us a bit about what assets Soros Clan was putting into play and we talked about what Amazo Corps could produce. I was mostly interested continuing the ramp up of nanite production. I had a lot of ideas about what we’d be able to do with them in the future. Those ideas went far beyond armor and android bodies and into rebuilding the infrastructure.

“If we play this right, then Soros and Amazo will be positioned to own much of the world once the threat is gone,” Jen said.

I raised an eyebrow, but she simply shrugged. “What? I wanna help people too, but if we’re saving the world and then rebuilding it afterward, there’s no reason we can’t get something out of it too.”

I didn’t argue with her, so Sybil started speaking. “Feinston has set up a press conference for later today. You spoke to the outlets in Atlanta, but they want more information. They need more home.”

I nodded, but Petra said, “You should see if that can be delayed till at least tomorrow.”

“Oh, why?” Sybil asked.

“Simple, General West wants Aden’s blessing but he would like to push the general election back for three months. The bureaucrats can run the day-to-day operations. We don’t have a functioning administrative or executive branches of government, so department heads will make decisions.

“He wants to declare martial law, but wants to have a boon to offer the people first. With three months, and no government oversight he believes the military can push the shadow far enough out that all thirte… err… twelve cities can be connected, maybe more. That will allow for a free exchange of information and supplies and for expansion. The populations are too large for the cities as they exist now, so we need that.”

I looked down at my pastry. Was I willing to take responsibility for the people without a government?

“We’re with you, whatever you decide, Aden,” Molly said.

I felt determined then. I needed to stop second guessing. There was going to be a price to pay, but we needed to do this. “Okay, Sybil, have Feinston push the interviews back till tomorrow. Petra, tell General West, that we’ll be ready for a push, by 4 pm. Molly, get everyone else up. I have an idea for some training we need to do.”