Sidekick

by Carl Stubblefield

  Aurora wiped tears from her eyes and nodded, still staring at her hands. Just like her, they seemed dainty and ineffectual. She stayed in her room and cried herself to sleep.

  She opened her eyes, wiping the tears away. So much loss in the past. These people who had been her surrogate family, gone. It was much harder losing these people than when her mother and then Auntie were out of her life. She felt that these people understood her, and that they needed her. For some reason, that had a big impact on her own feelings of self-worth. She was important, not baggage that had to be managed. She had always felt like an imposition and a handicap to how others wanted to live their lives. Tolerated, but never cherished.

  To have them sacrifice themselves for her was difficult, as she still felt unworthy of how they valued her, with very little requirement on her part. She felt unproven, and always in their debt. That she had to somehow repay the interest that they had in her, and all the time they spent to mentor and train her.

  After the incident, she felt intense guilt at asking instructors for assistance. Her failure with her team made it difficult to approach others, many who were friends with them. She stopped being such a try-hard, and felt like she saw some disappointment in the eyes of the instructors. She felt unworthy of their help. While she buckled down, studied harder, and tried harder in all her drills, she built up inner walls that put distance between those who were willing to help her.

  After a while, others eventually accepted her new persona as growing confidence, and as she played the part of being self-assured and confident, she began to believe it herself. Rory had been right, though. Until Gus’ actions today had brought that guilt and fear to the fore again. She hated apologizing but it wasn’t like she had said anything untrue. Gus had a lot to learn if he wanted to survive in this world. She probably could have used more tact, however. I’ll deal with it in a bit after we’ve both had time to cool down.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Foolish Pride

  Gus awoke to a blue screen in front of him. He hadn’t even thought to check yesterday what he had Leeched and found he was in a better mood, and a little excited to see what this group had to offer.

  Congratulations! You have subdued 9 opponents trespassing on privately-owned territory.

  9,000 XP (1,000 x 9) awarded for non-lethal methods.

  4,500 FP (500 x 9) awarded.

  LEVEL UP! Congratulations, Level 18 reached!

  500 FP awarded.

  You have (5) additional stat points to assign.

  16,700 XP to level 19.

  New abilities assimilated!

  Telepathy (Level 21) [10 MP/minute]: Send and receive mental messages, images and information.

  Cleanse (Level 17) [50 MP]: Eliminate toxins of all types from self or others who possess Nth. At higher levels, can create remote effects on those who do not possess Nth.

  Gemini (Level 11) [40 MP/copy]: Create an illusory copy of self that acts independently based on mental commands. Shares no actual abilities and can cause no physical damage.

  Zeno Effect (Level 29) [30 MP]: Focusing on the quantum state of an object or target will freeze its passage through time, preventing physical movement or skill activation while observed.

  Smol (Level 13) [45MP/minute]: Controls quantum field fluctuations to reduce the space between fundamental particles, using modified quantum chromodynamics to stabilize quark/gluon interactions. TL;DR: Reduces size by a factor of up to 30 times.

  Shake (Level 21) [30 MP]: Creates an intense vibration that causes disorientation and dizziness.

  Shatter (Level 11) [20 MP/minute]: Vibrate at a frequency that will cause stress-hardening weakness in metals and polymers, inducing failure. Vibrations will cause glasses and ceramics to propagate any weakness and break.

  Chi Pulse (Level 29) [150 MP]: Drain internal stored energy to create an intense pulse, causing severe compression damage. Target will also be sapped of stamina regeneration after activation for 10 minutes.

  Cat-Like Reflexes (Level 34) [Passive]: More intuitive reactions and agility. Increases Agility by 1 point every two skill levels. (Current boost: +17)

  9 new abilities assimilated.

  9,000 XP awarded.

  4,500 FP awarded.

  7,700 XP to level 19.

  Gus dropped five points into Constitution and relaxed back in bed, the post-level euphoria feeling like it lingered longer than normal. 980 HP! Just one more point to make it an even thousand and then everything into Intelligence. Today was going to be a lot better than yesterday.

  Even if he still wasn’t looking forward to seeing Aurora again.

  Aurora awoke and took a long shower. She still felt wrung-out emotionally, and wasn’t prepared to eat crow and talk to Gus. She procrastinated the interaction by heading up to the control center.

  Gus must have unlocked a lot of new abilities, because there was a much larger batch of FP to play around with. Aurora figured they would have a couple days to train before the next wave of attacks. There hadn’t been too many augments attacking yet and she set up more defenses to restrict their access to the manor from afar. She really didn’t like augments, realizing from her raw memory of when her teammates died.

  She made an upgrade to lab processing which would allow the cafeteria to have access to more reagents and components to create more gels with different effects, both buffs and debuffs. She added more variety to attack drones, guesstimating what powers could be neutralized by their differing effects. She got lost in the planning and development of different drones based on the available components.

  A minor upgrade to the Foundry allowed her to queue items remotely and then have the finished products ready to launch in bays she could access from her display. She began hearing an odd beeping that she couldn’t understand where it was coming from, since it was so intermittent. When she finally stopped and investigated, she found an old console in the corner with a pending message. When she returned, the proximity alarm signaled another attack was imminent.

  Aurora was nowhere to be found, and while Gus’ anger had eased a bit, his pride kept him from initiating any reconciliation. He went to the arena and started another session of Adaptive Training.

  The three pillowbots met him and Gus did a few minor stretches. He looked forward to punching something. The bots began their attacks and Gus held off using any abilities for a while. He began cycling through his katas to warm up, taking advantage of the practiced motions to slip and dodge away from the robots’ attacks. When he felt his opening, he moved, spinning and landing two powerful blows to the core of one of the bots and following up with an uppercut that knocked it onto its back.

  A swing from the side was blocked by Gus’ forearm, and he retaliated savagely. He locked the arm and performed a submission technique that he had learned from Aurora and actually bent the metal arm backward, hyperextending it past normal ranges of motion, hearing an unpleasant grinding. The noise was reminiscent of when he was trying to learn how to drive a stick shift with Grandpa. He probably wrecked that transmission with his poor timing.

  TimeSight flared and Gus was back in the battle, intuitively kicking a pillowbot back and rolling out of the way. He charged this last bot, swinging wildly. He received a swat on the ear which set it ringing, but Gus kept going. The pain fueled his anger and aggression and he managed to push the bot out of the ring with his constant barrage of punches and hits.

  The robots reset twice more, with Gus using only his fists and feet. It was oddly satisfying to punish these poor robots as if he were dispensing justice to all those who had wronged him in his life. A victimless crime. The pillowbots were increasing their fighting skills each round, and were even replaced with stronger models. Two had pressed him between them, holding his arms still while the third jabbed in and out with well-timed punches.

  Struggling to get free, Gus found that he could not move despite his angry wriggling and twisting. He activated Smol and felt himself shrinking. It felt like he was condensi
ng, and he felt a constant compression against his skin in his smaller form. His now one-foot frame slipped out of their grasp and he fell to the floor. Gus pushed against the leg of one of the pillowbots and found that even though he was smaller, he had the same strength. Leverage was working against him, but he still managed to trip one of the pillowbots, pushing the leg out from under it. Gus sprang back to normal size once the effect wore off and dropped an atomic elbow on the pillowbot’s head. He’d always wanted to do that at least once in his life.

  The two remaining bots worked in tandem to keep Gus from grappling with one, so he readied Gemini and waited for his moment.

  Gemini: Create an illusory copy of self that acts independently based on mental commands. Shares no actual abilities and can cause no physical damage.

  Now! He sent his double after the other bot. With this distraction, Gus was able to close and subdue the other pillowbot easily. He turned back and saw the pillowbot swinging through the ghostly image of himself, but continuing to fight with it, despite not encountering anything physical. This allowed Gus to sneak around and grab the bot in a headlock, and soon it was down.

  The next round started and the pillowbots engaged now that numbers were in their advantage. Once they found the duplicate was insubstantial, they ignored it completely, turning their attention to Gus. Gus suffered dual hits as one pillowbot kicked him and another followed up as he was thrown to the side from the kick, punching him right in the nose.

  The fury that had fueled his previous attacks was waning, and Gus tried activating Smol again. He shrunk in size, but the bots backed away and sunk lower, lowering their centers of gravity. They maintained a consistent distance, corralling him until he regained normal size.

  As expected, Telepathy did nothing, and the robots had retained their resistance to Electronic Mind. “You damn Borg, stop modulating your frequency,” Gus challenged as he looked for something new to try.

  Zeno Effect: Focusing on the quantum state of an object or target will freeze its passage through time, preventing physical movement or skill activation while observed.

  Gus had no idea what these abilities were even supposed to do as he activated Zeno Effect on one robot. To his amazement it stopped in mid-air! He rotated around the robot, and it hung there, the effect feeling very Matrix-esque. A rabbit punch from behind caused Gus to blink and the frozen robot completed its jump with no loss of momentum, though it had been hanging stock-still. Gus tried Zeno Effect again, this time on all three pillowbots but found that it only affected the two who hadn’t initially been frozen. Gus tackled the previously frozen bot, finding it more difficult than he imagined to keep an eye on the other bots while he fought the third at the same time.

  “What kind of weeping angel BS is this?” Gus tried to alternate blinking only one eye and fight at the same time.

  The effect didn’t seem to have a time limit. He turned his attention to the others and the airborne pillowbot crashed to the mat. He was free to take down the other frozen bots. Smacking his forehead, he pushed them both out of the ring, winning the match easily.

  He had just started another round when Aurora’s comm clicked on. Finally she’s ready to apologize. Took her long enough.

  “Meet me outside,” Aurora yelled, her voice breaking Gus’ concentration. He ended the simulation, cutting the training session short. “…they’re already back,” she finished grimly.

  Gus stepped out of the ring and toweled the sweat off. He still hadn’t showered today.

  You have completed (5) waves of Adaptive Training. Final difficulty rank: A.

  25,000 XP awarded.

  LEVEL UP! Congratulations, Level 19 reached!

  500 FP awarded.

  You have (5) additional stat points to assign.

  7,700 XP to level 20.

  One point to Constitution and the other four to Intelligence. Boom! Done. Gus smiled as the elevator doors closed.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Carried Away

  Gus jogged out the manor entrance to see Aurora on the courtyard lawn, pointing seaward.

  “More of them are approaching!” Aurora shouted, even more angry than the day before. “We haven’t even recovered yet!”

  “What makes you think these guys fight fair?”

  “Oh, they’re going to see how dirty I can fight.”

  As the supers came closer, Gus recognized Slipstream and Mercurio among this batch of opponents, the ones who had subdued Aurora on the station. A quick look confirmed she saw them at the same time.

  “Don’t you even dare, Gus. Those two are mine! I have a score to settle. And payback is going to be a bitch.” She took off, and Gus could swear that she was flying faster and with more control than she had in the past.

  He wondered if she had leveled or evolved her flight skills or was just so pissed that she was hyper-charging the ability subconsciously.

  “Go ahead, knock yourself out,” Gus said, a little irritated, but part of him cheering on her revenge.

  Gus targeted some of the other supers, intent on keeping them busy so that Aurora could fight with better odds. All of the supers in this wave of attackers appeared to be able to fly, but they landed and formed a semi-circle in front of him instead of engaging in the air. Eight opponents against him alone. Gus wondered what to expect when multiple attacks came at once. A woman reached out her hand, gaudy exaggerated fingernails pointed at Gus, and beams shot out of the tips.

  He dodged and flew upwards and cracked his head against some kind of invisible barrier there, falling to the ground, a little dizzy and landing right on his tailbone. He rolled over in unexpected agony as two supers looked at each other knowingly. “So predictable.”

  The semicircle closed as Gus rolled onto his side. Did I damage my spine? Pain shot down both of his legs and he couldn’t get comfortable as lances of pain shot into his hamstrings and he did not trust his legs to support him. Weakly he thought, Jet, help me out here. Gus heard a loud scream and twisted his neck to see that Jet’s blade had sunk deep into the shoulder muscle of one of the supers with its jagged side before dragging backwards and disappearing from Gus’ view.

  Blood shot out and splashed a merc to the side, distracting them from their attack. He could hear cracks as the butt of his weapon hit either armor or bone, and Gus was forgotten as the mercs dealt with the new threat. Sliding his hand down to his side, Gus snuck his hand in the slit there and drew out two gels, both pink. He bit into both, chewing as the sounds of battle moved away from him. Mmm, watermelon. He could get used to these gels.

  While the gels didn’t give him the immediate boost like the red, he felt that the pain was fading and the disorientation from running into the barrier cleared. He rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself to his knees. Pain faded to pins and needles of numbness, which also began to fade and Gus stood again.

  Would it kill these supers to have a passive rapid regeneration ability that I could snatch? Gus got to his feet and shuffled towards the sounds of where Jet continued to scuffle, his legs still stiff and less responsive than normal.

  Crashing through some large leafy ferns, Gus saw one super trying to hold onto the end of Jet as he was flipped back and forth, reminding Gus of someone riding a mechanical bull, hanging on only by his hands. He must have had an iron grip because Jet was merciless in lifting and slamming the poor guy up and down. Still, he hung on like a pit bull determined not to be shaken loose of a chew toy.

  Jet flung the poor super into his mates, and they ducked and dodged, unable or unwilling to grab the erratically-moving blade. While their backs were turned, Gus fired Warp on the legs of one of the more agile supers, and heard a crunch as the bones were crushed in the altered space.

  Attention was split and three supers rushed to meet Gus. Blood dribbled down the chest of one man from where Jet had cut deep into his trapezius. He rushed to grapple with Gus as the other two prepared some energy attacks, raising their hands menacingly.

  Gus ducked hi
s head and activated Bound, hoping that the barrier was still in place. It was! As Gus leaped, he carried the other super with him, the strength of the leap slamming them into the barrier and the already-weakened super hit and the barrier fizzled and faded away as he went limp.

  That was lucky! So you were responsible for this little gem of an ability.

  Gus landed and placed his hand on the super’s chest and tried to activate Leech but nothing happened. The enemy’s suit covered his entire body except for a cutout for his face. Leech requires skin-to-skin contact, good to know. Checking his own fingertips, he saw the hybrid-Nth had pulled away from the pads, exposing his bare skin. It quickly resealed, returning to its gunmetal texture. He quickly touched the super’s face and grabbed all the abilities, more to guarantee the stun than for the abilities at this point.

  The other two supers made it to where he had landed and attacked.

  Almost ready to dash to the left, TimeSight warned him to hold back and frost erupted on the trunk of a tree where he would have been. Meter-long daggers of ice formed like stalagmites on the tree as the humid tropical air crystalized. He was not lucky enough to dodge the other attack, which exploded over him in a tar-like mess. The amber-colored material held his extremities and severely slowed him down as he tugged against the material. He pulled, and the material appeared to get stronger the more force was applied to it, but it did thin and finally snapped.

  Getting one arm free, Gus saw a broad smile spread across the face of the Ice Queen. In a panic, Gus activated Xyzzy and moved an outline of his figure as he surveyed the scene in front of him. Finding where he wanted to place it, Gus completed activating it and was out of the sap-like goop.