She, in turn, recounted her considerably shorter tale of how the supers on the ship ganged up on her, and Mercurio wrapped her up while Slipstream jabbed a needle in her neck and she passed out. When she awoke, she was chained to the wall. They interrogated her and tortured her, then left her alone. Once a day someone would come in and feed her some flavorless gelatin-like material and leave. She recounted how she finally heard her Nth and escaped, and eventually made it to the island.
“So you’ve never even known you had Nth the whole time you had powers? That kind of blows my mind. How did you get them in the first place?”
“My Nth recently showed me a memory I had avoided when my mother died. I think I inherited hers.”
“Yikes, that’s heavy. I’m sorry your mom passed,” Gus said, feeling awkward for bringing up the obviously touchy subject.
“Don’t be. I’ve gotten over it; she was never really there for me. I guess she taught me to survive, if indirectly. Altogether it was a pretty difficult time though, so yeah. I’ve avoided thinking about it for so long it almost seems like it happened to a different person. Walled it off so it couldn’t hurt me anymore. My life totally sucked until I entered the academy. Then things changed for me; it was like a dream come true.”
“So how does the academy work? Do they pick a skill and you level it, or what? I’m kind of home-schooled, so I don’t know how most supers use their powers.”
“What do you mean ‘level’? We do drills, spar, and try to improve skills, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, right now I’m level fifteen. My skill levels are all over the place, but most are in the first-to-fourth level range. I have been on such a time-crunch in the last weeks that I haven’t really followed a plan to improve my abilities.”
Aurora sat there blinking, her expression clearly confused, but she didn’t say anything, so Gus continued.
“Well, if you don’t know your level, how much HP do you have? I have to check my logs for a level to register and for me to get points to increase stats though, just so it doesn’t distract me while in a fight.”
“HP? I don’t know exactly, I can’t really see my own, just others when I spar or fight with them.”
“You can’t see your own? My display has all sorts of bars, tabs, and filters. I know my MP, HP, Stamina, which is super helpful during battles. I can see my opponent’s stats too but I haven’t leveled up my Wreckognize skill that much. Are you telling me you don’t even have a display?”
“That is partially my fault, dear,” the voice in Aurora’s head said hesitantly. “It took me quite a while to recalibrate after your mother, and I didn’t interface with you as is typical with most Nth. There were a lot of things that got missed. All the Nth have an innate sensing ability that allows their host to scan and evaluate how healthy an opponent is, but I’m afraid that I have let you down in other ways. By the time I was back to myself, you had already entered the academy and I never had a chance to share that.”
“That was two years after!” Aurora said indignantly.
Gus jumped at the outburst until he realized that he wasn’t the object of her anger. He relaxed, contemplating how he appeared when having an in-depth conversation with Nick.
“We had to make a lot of changes and wipes to avoid transferring any of your mother’s behaviors to you. Even your powers are different than hers. She was a Psi-bender, did you know that?”
“No… I feel like I barely knew her,” she whispered, almost in a daze.
“Are you okay?” Gus asked, obviously concerned.
Aurora nodded, still thinking about the past and missed opportunities. Surprised that a tear had fallen on her cheek unbidden. “Well, what can be done now?” she asked aloud.
Gus started to answer, thinking she was talking to him when her pupils dilated extremely wide, and Aurora saw. Gus stopped mid-word as he noticed her reaction. “What are you seeing?”
“Around the periphery of my vision there are intricate, curved designs. Tracing filled with delicate lace-like decorations. I don’t know why, but I understand what they mean, like I’ve always known.”
“That’s different from what mine looks like. What else do you see?” Gus asked.
“There’s a French-curve swirl with compartments on the bottom right corner which symbolizes my total health. Each compartment is filled and there’s a fraction… eight-twenty-four over eight-twenty-four… nestled in a hollow rose-shape attached to the pattern.”
“Really.”
“I see MP represented by an orchid with multiple blooms alternating left and right along a large stalk on the right. There’s a similar hollow bloom with the value one-thousand-fifty-six in the topmost flower.”
“What’s the matter?” Gus asked when she paused for a minute in silence.
“It’s just so beautiful…” she said absently as she took a moment to just admire the different colored tabs and menus.
“Sounds like I got the no frills display, Nick,” Gus said.
“Oh, you want flowers? I can do flowers…” Nick snarked back.
Gus saw Aurora’s eyes flit around; presumably she was searching tabs, seeing her stats for the first time.
“Ah, here it is, I’m level fifty-four.” A huge grin spread across her face.
“Now what?” Gus asked as Aurora’s smile turned into a gasp.
“Tell me about stat points…”
“You get them every level to raise your six basic stats: Strength, Perception, Intelligence, Agility, Constitution, and Luck.” Gus stopped as if slapped. “Have you not allocated any stat points?” Aurora shook her head. “How many are we talking about?”
“Two-seventy.”
Gus and Nick simultaneously whistled in appreciation.
“I never was one
