by Sean Oswald
“I don’t have all the answers, my fire goddess. But the primary point of all this training is to be able to rescue Higen. I know that the only place we know that might have information is this other leviathan. Beyond that we don’t know where the A’snkarnt home world is or anything like that,” Jay answered.
She paused and looked away. Jay could tell that she knew he was right but that didn’t make it any easier for her. “You remember what I told you right?”
She had told him many things, but Jay knew what she meant this time. “Yes, that family was everything to you. That now that you lost all your family on Earth, you only had me and Higen.”
“Yes, but how can we be a family if we can’t keep our child safe?”
Jay took her in his arms. “Have I let you down yet?”
“Never. I do trust you. I’m simply scared, lover,” she said.
“So am I, but we stand a better chance together.” He didn’t say anything further as he held her. Sometimes there really wasn’t anything to say, but he hoped his presence was a comfort to her. Once she finally seemed to calm down, he headed off to finish up the rest of his day.
The refining went very well. By this point everyone knew what to expect and he was able to keep making further upgrades to virtually everyone. The only person that he didn’t seem to be able to upgrade any further was himself. Of course, he was far more advanced than they were so maybe that made sense.
He did change things up today though. He didn’t agree to any recreational activities during their refining. Each time he simply told the girls that training time was gonna be for training. He still needed to readjust himself or he would be creating a bunch of babies.
Just thinking of that he could feel how Mia had been humming to herself all morning. She was thrilled to become a mother. Even with their accelerated growth and shortened gestation periods, she wouldn’t be showing anything from last night’s encounters. That didn’t mean that she didn’t know.
Part of being an evolved human with this level of refinement was how much more in tune with their bodies they all were. Jay felt through the fusion the way that she could feel the changes happening in her body and the eggs that were already fertilized. She just couldn’t tell if it was two or three yet. Either way it was much faster than peeing on a stick.
At first, the hostile reactions from many of the girls about being denied today seemed likely to be his most unpopular decision of the day. Being in demand was great but he really did want to focus on training today. And it wasn’t like any of them would suffer from lack of sex now. The thing was that he soon learned he was wrong; he had even more unpopular decisions to make today.
During the first training session, he pointed out that getting stronger bodies didn’t do anything for them unless they learned to use them. Only about sixty of the girls were willing to do combat training. Another eleven were willing to train for crowd control or tactical support roles. That left thirty-eight that wanted to be solely dedicated to the science team and two that wanted to be on permanent nursery duty.
Today he opted to do a mass training session with all of the combat teams. He first set up invisible PSI construct walls. Then he made the girls run sprints. Saying the constructs were entirely invisible would be inaccurate but you couldn’t see them until the last possible second. This was because he had infused them with the veil power he had gotten from Daphne so that a person’s eyes tended to slide off the wall unless you knew it was there.
Within minutes several of the girls had broken bones, concussions, or were plain unconscious. The healers and their natural regeneration took care of it but when Jay insisted that they get right back to running the sprints after being healed some of them tried to refuse. It didn’t help that he kept moving the walls around.
“You think your enemy is going to care that you are a sorority girl and not a trained warrior. You think the Forlorn or A’snkarnt care?” he asked.
No one answered but many eyes were now focused on the ground. Jay continued, “You have to increase your situational awareness. There is nothing about this power that makes it impossible for you to detect the walls with your normal vision, you just have to focus.”
One of the newcomers cried out, “That is sorta hard when you are making us run as fast as we can.”
“Of course it is, um… Sherlyn, right?”
The girl nodded that he had correctly pronounced her name. So, he continued, “The enemy isn’t going to let you run at half speed or wait to attack. For some of you awareness and evasion may be the difference between life and death.”
Another girl who had some kind of body hardening said, “It isn’t exactly a picnic even when your skin is as hard as stone.”
“I know but that is also part of the exercise. I create more give in the constructs for those who are less durable,” Jay said with a chuckle. He had found that after passing the ninth threshold that it seemed to be easier to focus on multiple tasks or targets at the same time. Actually, the change was rather astounding. The ability he had gained was called Multi-Mental Focus and it definitely lived up to its name. He was thrilled to be able to handle a much more complex battlefield.
In fact, that was part of why he had chosen to assimilate Mia’s Tactical Probability skill. It was working wonders or nightmares depending on if you looked at it from Jay’s point of view or that of the girls he was training.
“I know this is hard, but we need to get back to it. None of you will suffer any lasting injury and I am not asking anything of you that I won’t do myself. In fact, after this you are going to get a chance to vent some of your frustration on me. But for now, I expect all of you to get back out there and start running the sprints.”
Even the healers weren’t exempted so sixty sets of eyes looked back at him with anything other than joy but most of them got back to the start line. Only half a dozen looked at each other and then at him but didn’t budge towards the line. Jay stared at them and the aura from his crown was enough to make two more of them go and join the majority at the start line.
That left four though who were staring at him. Three were newcomers but one was Ryleigh, a girl who had been with the team since the third floor. Jay did feel a bit sorry for her. One of her powers was Enhanced Speed. She didn’t however have any special sensory skills to make it easier for her to react to the walls. He had made sure to make her walls more pliable, but she had already suffered multiple broken bones.
Sherlyn, Callie, and Greta were all standing next to Ryleigh and none of them budged toward the starting line. Jay looked at them. There was a part of him that just about booted them from the team then and there. He knew that during combat there would be no room for people who didn’t obey orders.
The thing was by letting them join Team Jay they had made a commitment to him, but he had also made a commitment to them. He needed to try to push through their resistance and get them back into the team exercise. Normally he wouldn’t do what he was contemplating but a statement needed to be made.
Jay activated Evolved Imposing Will as he spoke to them. The PSI surged from him and flooded into them. Each of them gasped and dropped to their knees. “You will get back up and join the rest of the team.”
He felt his will crush against theirs and they were unable to resist, but he didn’t want to just force them to do things. That would make him no better than Jasmine. Hopefully now he had their attention.
“Think about what you are doing. I am serious about this. We can’t have division in our team, and we have to have a chain of command. I want all of you here but if you want to leave Team Jay that is your choice. It is however a choice you only get to make once. If you ever refuse to obey my order or one of the pod leaders’ orders during combat or training, then you are done.”
Jay stopped speaking and turned his attention to the girls who had gone to the line as instructed. His will crashed over them like a wave and in an instant they all staggered under it. His fuses seemed to have no problem with i
t. They took it in stride, but the others all dropped to a knee.
“Do you understand that this is a fight for our lives. All of us have to be on the same page. I will not allow the weed of dissent to spring up now and threaten my wives, my children, or any of you. I will fight to protect you all, but that comes with a price. During peacetime we will have new elections and you can choose new leaders. But for now, I am the leader, and you will obey.
“If it helps to think of it like this, you are all in the army. I will however give you one chance to think about if you want to be here. If you aren’t willing to fight, then you need to tell me how else you will contribute. What position do you want?”
Sherlyn said, “Is that supposed to be some kind of innuendo?”
Jay shook his head. Once upon a time the very suggestion that he was demanding sex in return for protection would have sent him into fits of apology. But he knew himself better now. And just as importantly the women in his life knew him. He wasn’t going to let some newcomer call all of that into question.
“Never once has such a thing been suggested. Truth be told I get more sex than I could ever want. So, no that isn’t something you can offer. Right now, if you can’t contribute as a fighter and you don’t have the scientific know-how to contribute in the lab then your only other option is to work in the nursery. The equipment on the ship cooks, cleans, and prepares clothing for us. Someday we will once again have a need for artists and other things like that, but now all we need are practical options,” Jay replied.
“Okay, so I can risk my life running into invisible walls which is going to somehow train me to fight cyborg death machines, I can be a nerd, or I can take care of other people’s brats. Let me tell you Team Jay isn’t exactly teeming with job opportunities,” Sherlyn snapped back.
Both Trina and Amelia moved towards them, but Jay snapped his head at them and waved them off. He sent out a telepathic message to all his fuses, that were within this Tempus Fugit field. “Quick vote, yes or no only. No time for discussion. Do you grant me the authority to expel Sherlyn or the others from Team Jay if they refuse to comply?”
Ten of his fuses were present and fairly quickly they all answered in the affirmative. He really hadn’t expected anything less. It was part of being of one mind. He figured this was a majority so even the other nine that weren’t here couldn’t or wouldn’t complain.
Jay turned towards the four girls. “So now is the time to decide. If you want to be part of Team Jay, you have to contribute. What’s it gonna be?”
Ryleigh dashed quickly, as was her ability, to the starting line. She simply said, “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. The walls just hurt when I run into them.”
Callie and Greta both made their way to the line moving more slowly but once again they both apologized. That left only Sherlyn standing there. She stomped her foot and shrieked in exasperation. “Are you all blind? Do you want to be slaves to the patriarchy forever?”
Jay almost laughed at that point. If this hadn’t been so critical for morale he probably would have. Anyone who knew Amelia and Trina but thought they could be slaves to anything was a fool. “So, I take it that you have made your decision?”
“I’m not gonna be part of this,” she snapped back.
That was all Jay needed to hear. He time skipped to her and was upon her in an instant. As soon as he touched her, they teleported to another part of the ship where some of the other clusters were locked in their own time dilation fields. Before Sherlyn had even gotten a chance to ask him what he was doing, Jay erected a Tempus Fugit field around her.
He poured his PSI into it and worked to maximize it. He figured he could break it later as necessary but for now it would feel like only thirty seconds had passed for her but in the outside world a full year would go by. As he teleported back to the others, he did allow himself a brief chuckle. This was truly putting his enemies on ice. He wished he had possessed an ability like this early on.
Once he was back to the rest of the group he said, “Okay, if there are any questions, you can ask your pod leader after I fill them all in. I will tell you this much. Sherlyn is perfectly unharmed, and I simply put her in a time out, quite literally.
“Now it is time to move on to a new exercise. You are going to break up into teams and attack me. We have healers on hand, so you don’t have to worry about holding back. Each team will be six people and we are going to do this every other day. The only requirements are that no team can have more than one fused on it and you need to try to work with people you don’t know so you can learn how to combine your powers.
“If any of your teams actually manages to knock me out or otherwise incapacitate me then there will be a special reward for the team. I will continue the matches with you until you either surrender or are unable to continue fighting. Oh, and divide yourselves up into six person teams.
Many of the girls looked at him as though they were wondering if he was serious. One of them, Alia, he believed, a pyrokinetic said, “You can’t be serious. I could burn you beyond the point of healing.”
“Thank you for pointing that out, and I want you to know that I will be holding back, so none of you will be permanently hurt, but you shouldn’t hold back. It is especially important that you trust me and part of that is going to be seeing just what I’m capable of,” Jay replied.
Chapter 13- Three of a Kind
From there he gave them two hours to team up and build strategies. This was supposed to be his personal refining time, but he decided that there was a better use for it. Because he hadn’t engaged in any extra-curricular activities during the time he spent refining all the girls today, he hadn’t gotten the chance to fuse with the new girl for the day.
“Oh, one other thing. Scarlett, if you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you,” Jay said.
She looked up at him and then walked over. He would have to say that she was about 6’4” although who knew how tall she was before she started evolving. Despite her name there was nothing red about her hair, but it was long and a dirty blond color. Her figure was to die for, but then again so were all the other girls here. As he looked at her Jay realized that what he probably liked the most about her was the way her cheeks popped dimples when she grinned at him.
“Sure thing, something wrong?” she asked when she reached him.
“Not at all, but I believe you spoke to my wife Ava?” Jay said but his inflection rose to turn it into a question.
“Oh, yeah, I was wondering if you forgot about it or what. I didn’t want to impose,” she replied.
“Does that mean you aren’t excited about it?” Jay asked. This was one of his biggest concerns about letting his fuses pick the next girls to be fused. He still wanted to make sure that these girls were content with him for the rest of their lives.
She looked at him for a second and Jay saw indecision cross her face. Then she said, “I don’t know exactly how to answer that. So, if I ramble just tell me to shut up. First off, there are like only a handful of guys in existence and half of them might well be douchebags.
“Sure, I could wait for some baby to grow up, but first off, they would never have my experience coming from Earth, so it would always seem weird. Second, from what I have seen the percent of babies coming out as boys isn’t exactly exceedingly high either.
“Then there is the fact that you are hot as fuck and I’ve talked to a bunch of people and they all swear you are like the hot guy version of Mother Teresa or something but still good in bed. And maybe this disqualifies me with you, but from what I have been told if I fuse with you, I’m gonna get a helluva lot stronger and that seems cool.”
Jay listened to her and other than being a bit put off by her Bostonian accent he still didn’t know where she stood. “You understand this is a permanent decision. Not because divorce is impossible but because we will become one being at least in part.”
“That was explained to me,” she answered.
“I’m sure it was but no on
e can fully explain it to you. It is just something you have to experience for yourself.”
“This is the end of the world, or maybe if we win it isn’t. I’m prepared to join up and I want to be part of the team that saves the world,” Scarlett said.
“And you understand about the exclusivity provision?”
“Yeah and again, not a ton of choices, so count me in. I am willing to make the oath. They told me that might be required,” she said.
Maybe it was because of the little mini rebellion minutes ago or maybe it was just because she offered but Jay reached out and utilized the judgment power which had merged into Evolved Imposing Will. “Do you swear that if allowed to join our fusion that you will always be faithful to those you are fused with upon pain of death?”
“Wow, that got serious fast. But, yes, I do,” Scarlett replied.
Jay felt the power settle onto her. He wasn’t sure if it would actually kill her but given that she had to accept it the judgment could likely bypass any defenses she might have.