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
