SSV3 Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Stella carried me off for our patrol route. Amelia had Ivanna in her arms again, and Mona was carrying Emma. As we flew, I needed to figure out our first target.

Pings on my tablet showed numerous monster attacks, all the same direction where the military was training women outside the city.

“Girls, I think we have a monster problem. The military’s activities outside the city seem to be disturbing the wilds.” I checked to find which of the blips on the map seemed the most urgent.

“Take a left, Stella. Angle toward that sandstone tower.” I tried to give her more concrete directions.

“Can do.” She pressed me into her chest, and I settled in as our group flew over the city. We’d get to the east edge of the city and fly along to the north.

It seemed to be a hot spot for the monster attacks at the moment.

“Monsters!” Amelia shouted into her comms. “We don’t have to hold back like yesterday.”

“You weren’t holding back.” Ivanna whispered.

“Yeah, I was. The stupid 2D girl wouldn’t have gotten away if I hadn’t held back. But now these monsters are going to see me shine!”

I wasn’t sure about the need to get validation, but I was glad she was excited.

“Same goes for you Ivanna. No holding back today. They are monsters.” Emma reminded the shier of the two girls, the one that had actually been holding back yesterday.

Emma and I had seen Ivanna hesitate several times.

Today, the thing she would need to work on was acting swiftly. Though that was something that would come with time.

She had the power, everything else would come with training. It was similar to what Kim had said about Melody.

The monsters seemed like a great way to help her learn to use her power better. The fact that she was attacking humans might have tripped her up or made her more anxious. I hoped the monsters would let her get better practice.

As we reached the outer edge of the city, there was already a situation in progress.

The edge of the city was marked with a low one-story wall. It didn’t keep out anything large, but it at least deterred the smaller things.

There was a pack of mutated wolves about the size of minivans pacing back and forth outside the wall.

Thankfully, no one had been hurt, but they posed a risk to that area of the city if they got inside. This was a great low stakes fight for the trainees to cut their teeth on.

“Amelia, Ivanna, this looks like a job for the two of you. Amelia, keep the two of you in the air. Ivanna, you need to kill the wolves at a distance.” It was a simple task. With their ability to fly and shoot dangerous blasts, they should be able to take on the wolves with little risk to themselves.

“Yeah, we can do that.” Amelia seemed less than excited at the prospect of just being the one to fly Ivanna around.

But she did her job and flew low with the white and blue-haired super in her arms.

Stella held me tightly. “You aren’t going to give them more specific orders?”

“No, this is a great chance for them to learn.” I replied, even as Mona and Emma dropped onto a roof just inside the city. There wasn’t any immediate danger to the citizens, so they could make a few valuable mistakes.

Seeing them on the roof, Stella flew the two of us down to join our two companions.

“Emma, as their manager, they need to get used to coaching and instructions coming from me in the heat of battle. But if you’d like to take over coaching after the issue is settled, that would be helpful.” I glanced over at the green suited super.

After what Mona said and my own observations yesterday, I wanted Emma to get to follow her passion of training the two trainees.

The emerald dressed super came over and leaned on my shoulder. “If you insist.” She nuzzled into my neck, settling into her comfortable pose to watch the two trainees.

That was about as close to a thank you as I was going to get from the cat girl.

Emma liked to lounge, and I still wasn’t letting her travel around on the giant piece of amethyst. Given it was stolen, it wasn’t the best look.

Which reminded me of what I’d promised to help her do.

“We should work on some of your projects soon.” I told her.

Her eyes sparkled. “Going to make me a throne?”

I scoffed. “No, we’ll practice with making some gems from the liquid Angelia made first. If I can’t at least do that, I don’t want to play with that giant hunk of amethyst.”

She pouted. “But I can’t take it out of the house if you don’t reshape it. Someone will recognize it.”

“Now whose fault is that?” I looked away from her and focused back on the two trainees as they passed over the wolves.

Amelia held tightly to Ivanna’s waist, while Ivanna created a large icicle.

Good plan, it would be a hell of a weapon if dropped from that height.

Then Amelia dipped low, diving into the excitement. Ivanna struggled to hold the ice and dropped the sizeable chunk of ice without enough momentum behind it.

“Coordinate, you two. You needed to drop that from higher up in the air.”

“She didn’t tell me.” Amelia cried out.

Ignoring the excuse, I waited for their next move.

Ivanna had power to spare, and as the ice chunk reached the wolves, she exploded it into shards of ice that hit the wolves.

“See, it still worked.” Amelia argued.

“Communicate.” I growled into the comms.

“Heading higher into the sky. Let's do it again!” Amelia shouted and flew straight up.

Ivanna was making another large block of ice, planning the same tactic.

They were considering monsters dumber than they truly were. They had excelled at learning to adapt and stay alive.

“Are you going to tell them?” Stella asked, joining Emma and claiming my other shoulder.

“No. Let them experience it once for themselves.” I replied as the wolves were getting up from the shards of ice. The wolves looked like a mess, but most of the damage was superficial.

“Mona, if you’re feeling left out you can come join. He’s actually quite comfy.” Stella looked over her shoulder.

“No, I’m good.” I’m as close as anyone can get.

I felt her mentally wrap herself around me, and I squeezed her back.

If something goes terribly wrong, I’m ready to help, unlike those two. She quipped back mentally, while she made a small ball of light in her hand.

As all four of us predicted, the new block of ice flew down from the sky. This time with the height, it picked up more speed. But the element of surprise was gone.

The wolves scattered, and the falling ice only caught one in its impact. It also put a lot of ice up against the outer wall.

Emma clicked her tongue. “They are going to try to scale the wall.”

True to her guess, the wolves that survived the blast saw the opportunity. Two jumped on the ice and then bounded over the wall.

“Do I stop them?” Mona asked as people screamed. She already knew the answer, but she said it aloud for Stella and Emma’s benefit.

Rather than answer her, I focused on the two that needed their directions. She could pluck my thoughts from my mind.

“Amelia, Ivanna, the situation is escalating, and it sounds like there are people nearby. People who had faith that you could take care of this without endangering their lives.” I pushed them with the threat of real danger.

A teenager had been outside, and the wolves were currently charging him as he stood like a deer in the headlights.

“Throw me.” Ivanna came over the comms. “There.”

Even from where we were standing, I could see the determination in the shy super’s face. Both of them had a determination now that someone was in danger.

Amelia spun and tossed her partner. “I’ll stop them from coming over.” She dove for the wall where the wolves were using the ice to enter the city.

Ivanna flew in a free fall for a moment before she got her legs under her, and a sheet of ice stretched out in front of her like a water park slide.

She shot down it, sliding on her feet, heading directly for the two wolves.

“Ivanna, there’s a civilian that the wolves have spotted. Use everything you have now or they’ll die.” I piled the pressure onto her, hoping I was making the right call.

Ivanna slid off her icy ramp and went straight down to cut the wolves off. She slammed into the ground, dropping to her knees and her fists pounded on the ground.

As she touched the ground, frost shot ahead of her hands, turning into icy death cones that spiked up all around her.

The sudden chill in the air caused fog to appear, but a moment later, it was gone as the scene played before us all.

The two wolves were skewered through several times over, and behind her the teenage boy had fallen on his ass, shaking.

“Are you alright?” Ivanna asked the teenager, standing up with a wince and rubbing her knuckles. The kid barely nodded, eyes wide at the scene in front of them.

“Ivanna, report. Are you okay? I know you are tough, but that was a hard fall.” I spoke into our comms.

She forced herself back to a wobbly stand and stuck a thumbs up in the air. “I’m a hero. The hero's landing is just the start. If I give up at that point, what good am I?”

Emma chuckled in my ear, avoiding our comms. “She’s got a little spunk if you push her.”

Ivanna dismissed the spikes of ice and started out at a run on the street coated in ice, and she kept her momentum into a slide.

I looked over to check on our other recruit.

Amelia had positioned herself above the wall and started spraying her fog down over the area where the wolves could clear the wall. “Ivanna, can you add some wall here so they can’t get over?”

“I can do better.” The ice super got there and slapped her hands to the wall as it grew another five feet, with ice spikes along it. “Pick me up and we can finish this.”

Stella covered her comms. “They might just do this on their own.”

“Took them too long.” Mona mimicked her with her hand on her comms. “I could have killed them all in moments.”

“Well, we can’t all be quite so super.” Emma rolled her eyes. “Let them finish this one. You can show us all up at the next monsters.”

Amelia stopped her fog work and snagged Ivanna off the ground, wheeling around in the air, rising higher as the ice controlling super formed a long lance of ice.

“We aren’t dropping it on them. We are going to run them through.” Ivanna declared, an unfamiliar edge of violence in her tone.

“Hell yeah!” Amelia flew lower, holding onto Ivanna as she angled the ice lance down to the wolves.

The first pass, the wolves didn’t know what hit them. Ivanna got the largest one square in the side before the lance broke, and she reformed it as Amelia came back around.

The wolves knew they couldn’t fight against the aerial attack.

Another made for the wall, trying to jump it amid the fog, but it ran face first into the spikes.

The duo came back around and skewered another. The wolves broke and turned to run.

“Now you can finish them, but be discreet.” I told Mona.

She still wanted to exercise her enhanced power.

The crazy woman expanded her light sail and shot off around the two trainees to go finish the wolves.

“We did it!” Amelia cheered. “We are the champions!”

“Not without more than a few problems.” Emma’s tone was kind, like she was pulling them into an embrace while she said it. “Come back, let’s talk powers.”

The duo came down, Amelia depositing Ivanna before landing herself.

I had told Emma that I’d stay quiet, so I just listened as she peeled herself off of me and Stella entrenched herself further, pushing my arm into her chest.

“Now kittens, what did you do wrong?” Emma sat down on the roof with the two trainees.

“We didn’t communicate.” Amelia hung her head. “But we got better at that.”

“You both improved vastly during this exercise. Amelia, you supported Ivanna wholly there at the end. Ivanna, you really came out of your shell to save that teen.”

The shy super’s face went bright red, looking funny against her white and blue hair. “I stopped thinking and just did it.”

Emma nodded, her cat ears bobbing. “Exactly kittens. I think you stopped thinking and just worked together there at the end. Ivanna, what’s the range of your ability?”

Ivanna held her hand out, and a rod of ice formed out from her hand. “What I’m touching or my ice is touching.” The rod started branching.

“What about steam? How far can you make it appear from your body? How much can you pressurize it?” Emma pushed her to use her power differently.

And I saw where she was going.

Ivanna made a puff of steam less than a foot from her hand and frowned as she tried to condense it.

When she hit her limit, it popped, blowing a cloud of steam over us all. Luckily it wasn’t hot enough to harm anyone.

“Now, what if you made a spike of ice and put it in a shell with steam building up inside the shell?” Emma added the next step.

Ivanna’s eyebrows rose, but she tried to do as Emma suggested. The first time failed spectacularly.

Emma turned to Amelia. “Your fog is a wonderful asset, however you always spray it in a wide area. That will often make it harder for other supers to work around you. They won’t be able to see either.”

“Oh.” Amelia looked crestfallen. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Try to make some fog and just cover someone’s face, maybe make it cling to their face to blind them and only them.” Emma suggested.

The rest of us had used our abilities more. These girls were just experimenting with them in combat.

In the same way that the average person isn’t even exercising, they hadn’t been practicing their abilities either.

Amelia and Ivanna had a lot to learn about their own powers.

Wolves are taken care of, and I had a year as a hero before I started working with you, my fated.

She was right. Emma had spent years honing my own ability, not to mention her own varied power.

Stella… well she was a goof, but super strength was a lot simpler than controlling water or blowing fog.

Ivanna managed to get a working steam propelled ice bullet just as Mona rejoined us. The ice bullet would give her some wonderful range as she could use her power based on her existing ice or water, meaning she just needed to get a pellet of her ice somewhere else to give her range.

“Let’s keep moving. There are more monsters to take care of.” Mona grabbed Emma and lifted them both into the sky.

“Show them how it’s done.” Stella cheered as I found myself flying suddenly in her arms again.

As we flew, Mona made several balls of light that hovered over her shoulders.

“Ten o’clock. We have three monsters.” I reported.

“Watch.” Mona leveled out and three lances of light. They burned through the air as they fired into the three large lizard-like creatures.

All three of the monsters fell over with holes burnt into their heads.

“That’s just not fair.” Amelia complained. “I want big laser powers. If I had big laser powers, I’d be number one.”

Mona turned, throwing Amelia a wink before prepping a few more light lances.