Stellar Frost

Origins of Supers: Book Nine

Author: D. L. Harrison

Copyright 2023.  This is a work of fiction.  Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Afterword:

About the Author

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

Book Description

Prologue

My name is Caroline Rush, and I am Stellar Frost.

Where do I even start?  Yes, I’m the mean girl, the frenemy of Jenna Burrows, but that was seven long years ago, back in high school.

Yes, seven years.  I’m a special snowflake that way.  Every other homo-potens quickens before the age of nineteen, and very rarely did they quicken at eighteen.  Every other person my age and up to seven years younger had already quickened.

My twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone, and I still had no powers, neither my mother’s power over water nor my father’s flames, may he be resting in peace.

The last seven years had been hard for me, to know I was destined to be a superhero, ridden by my parents to be the best, only to not get a power at all.  Well let’s just say it took me a lot of time to come to terms with the idea I might never quicken.  The first one not to quicken at all since the first generation of supers almost two hundred years ago.

Some might even say that was Karma at work, for being such a brat back then in high school.  For shoving my expected future into the faces of others, while at the same time mocking them for their lack of powers and the dissolution of their dreams.  Damn, I really was a witch back then, but it was all the pressure of growing up as a superhero brat, there’d been expectations and pressures.

Of course, I’d been really wrong about Jenna and Maeve having worthless powers.  They were both pretty amazing, actually.

While I was nothing, or at least I had been.  After my father’s death, and me not quickening, to say I had a fallout with my mother was an understatement.  She’d been more obsessed with getting to the bottom of it than I was, sending me to endless doctors, but they all said the same thing.  I was perfectly healthy, and they had no idea why I hadn’t quickened yet.

Eventually I’d put my foot down, and that had initiated the fallout I’d mentioned earlier.

As a result, my mother and I had hardly been talking for years, save holidays and birthdays we avoided each other.  There was too much bitterness, disappointment, and resentment between us, all because I couldn’t be the daughter she’d wanted and tried so hard to mold me into.

Despite her flaws, I still respected her, she was a hell of a superhero and water wielder.  She was the leader of her quad. The super teams always patrolled in two pairs, and she had seniority and command over hers.  Her record was among the best, only shadowed by Lady Aegis herself.

Rachel Rush, my aforementioned mother, was a woman with strong convictions and a need to use her power to serve and protect society, but she’d also had a burning ambition to see me do the same.  It hadn’t just been my dreams of the future shattered when the years went by, and I didn’t get powers.

Still, I’d had come to terms with the idea I’d never be a superhero, life goes on even with the loss of that dream.  I had to come to terms with the idea that I’d be the first homo-potens not to get powers in almost two centuries.  It was a bitter thing for me to swallow, to be a special snowflake in such a negative way.

It took a few years and a whole lot of psychologist visits, but I’d gotten there.  I’d also gone to college, graduated with a three-point-nine GPA, and passed the bar six months later.

I was a lawyer that specialized in business contracts, corporate law, and international business laws, and I’d been working for a loosely associated coterie of mad scientists.  All they wanted to do was research and development, but the six I worked with had decided to join them if they couldn’t beat them, so they formed a large corporation to horn in on the government contract business.  They wanted nothing to do with the details of it, and had hired lawyers, salespersons, and managers, while they the workers in the trenches, ultimately owned it all.

With a mere two years of experience, I was the junior member of the two-person law team taking care of the company’s law issues and contracts.  A small team, but we had a few other private law firms on tap to contract out some of the work if our plates got too full, like the almost endless stream of patents, for instance.  My boss was Hiram Black, and he was easy enough to work for and get along with.  He kept it professional, and I’d earned his trust in the first three weeks, and after six months he’d stopped auditing my work with a fine-tooth comb.  He was a bit of a perfectionist, but I could admit I was kind of one too, so it worked out.

I had a cute little condo just outside the city, not all that far from Jenna’s superhero HQ.  I even saw the two of them on occasion, we were still kind of friends in fact, given Jenna had married my cousin.  Anyway, I commuted into the city daily via the public teleport terminals, and I worked on the forty sixth floor of a high rise, which housed the corporation.

Which is where I was when it finally happened, the moment I’d been waiting for, had stopped waiting for, because I was twenty-five years old, and I’d finished puberty at sixteen.  Nine full years later, and it would be a while before I learned why it had taken so long.

It’d also been seven long years since the last attack from the Meer’ette, and that day they’d decided to try again.  My trigger was an alien attack.  I almost couldn’t blame them, if it wasn’t for all the deaths they caused.  Humanity was still a basket of contradictions as well as a violent species, and the Meer’ette were timid isolationists that no doubt thought we were a rabid species by comparison that could turn on them any second.  Add in an unhealthy dose of xenophobia and it was no wonder they’d want us gone.

Our species were too close together in the galactic neighborhood, the second closest species was thousands of light years away.  Still, understanding their point of view didn’t mean I was giving them a pass for all the death and trillions of dollars in destruction they’d caused last time around the world in twenty cities, never mind this time around. They’d started this war, not us warmongers.  How was that for irony?

Enough rambling, I just wanted to fill in a bit, since it’d been seven years since high school.  I was no longer the shallow and self-absorbed young woman in high school, who had been casually cruel and thoughtless toward others.

In case you forgot, I suppose I should describe myself.  I was five foot nine, with fiery red hair and green eyes, very fair of skin.  I was overall lithe in body at that height, more than athletic, and like Jenna also top heavy in proportion, though not nearly to her extreme.

Let’s get this account started.  I’m going to dive right into the good part, since the lead up to that moment earlier in the day was kind of boring…

Chapter One

The window in my office had a hell of a cityscape view from the forty sixth floor.  The building was uptown, and the wall sized window faced downtown so most of the city was within view from my office.  At the moment I had my back to it, as I typed out a quick message to our patent attorney with the attendant patent application.

Which is when I felt the building shake, as an explosion reverberated throughout the city.  I swiveled my chair and frowned as I gazed out the window, just in time to see the round plume of blue energy, interdimensional energy, swallow the bottom half of a building.  The top half fell into the now empty space and disappeared into a billowing dust cloud.

I stared in disbelief, frozen for a moment until I saw two Meer’ette fighters fly over, shooting beams that cut into the buildings, as well as launching a small missile that nonetheless packed a very large punch in an interdimensional explosion of energy.  A large surge of adrenaline and fear had me jumping to my feet, but then I was at a loss, since I couldn’t do anything.

I was powerless.

The fighter didn’t look the same as last time, the fighter craft was bigger, and was slightly redesigned to accommodate missile ports, but still looked enough like a squashed hourglass for me to be certain it was Meer’ette and not human built.  Plus, no human would be crazy enough to use interdimensional energy weapons in such a brazen manner.

Two more buzzed by, then another two, then four more from two different directions in pairs crisscrossed the city, as the super teams took to the sky.  Lady Aegis was shielding almost all of them, including my mother.  Only two other supers on the city’s super team had shields that could take a dimensional energy hit and survive to tell the tale.

I stared out the window while doing a search on my enhanced reality interface through the watch.  The aliens were attacking the same twenty cities they had seven years ago, so I supposed they had them all listed in a database somewhere and were determined to do them in order, at least they were consistent.

Their consistency was little comfort, as the building shook alarmingly, and I was fairly sure our building had been hit with a beam.  If it’d been a missile then I wouldn’t be around to consider it.

I briefly wondered how they’d gotten past our defenses, but that could wait.  The only thing that mattered in that moment was that they had.  Some new technology, that Spatial Distortion was no doubt countering, but there was nothing on the public news about a space battle yet so I couldn’t be sure of that either.

My heart was pounding as several ships fired multiple beams at the super team, and Lady Aegis glowed like a sun as all that energy ran to her, and was fired back out, cutting through the ship’s shields and the ship itself was cut in twain.  So far nothing else was effective, but their own weapons.

Where the hell was Jenna?

A second attack staggered Lady Aegis.  She was powerful, arguably one of the strongest in the world, but those weren’t hand devices, they were extremely powerful ship beams, and she was absorbing ten ships firing two each at once.

Once again, she took another of their ships down, then she passed out.  Her projective shields died, as her partner caught her.

The super team scattered, going for cover save the two others who could take the beams.  My eyes automatically followed my mother despite our estrangement.  I loved her, she was my mother.  The beams reached out again as the ships turned and raced over the city again, and my mother dodged, but the beam strafed.  The gap closing fast.

Which is the moment it happened, at that surge of fear for her, added to the horror of what was happening and the fear for my own life as the building I stood in strained to stay standing.  Nothing mattered more to me in that moment, than stopping it.  I couldn’t lose her, not now, not when we were still estranged. I’d lost my father to the Meer’ette, I couldn’t lose her the same way.

I just couldn’t, it would destroy me.

I’d heard accounts my whole life of what it felt like.  A buzzing sensation, electrifying, like drinking a pot of coffee and getting the jitters times a hundred, or the overwhelming rush of power as meta-energy flooded their body for the first time.  The sharp awareness of surroundings, as the world came to life around them.

It wasn’t that for me, the special snowflake had to be different.

It was that, but so much more than that.  The descriptions a pale imitation of the profound reality, as I felt every life in the city and time dilated.  It felt like I could feel everyone, which made no sense.  Fire and water powers had no life detection.

It was a second later when I realized I was feeling the ships, and the large reactors powering the city, that I realized the truth.  I wasn’t feeling life, I was feeling power.  I couldn’t feel the old-style humans, but I could feel every single homo-potens that had quickened and had meta-energy in their body.  I could feel the ships and the reactors because I could detect the power within them.

It was a feeling and intuitive leap, that understanding, more than a thought process, because my only thoughts in that moment were stopping that strafing beam from catching up with my mother.

I didn’t even feel the window get demolished, as that wish was transformed into action by my power.  It wasn’t teleportation, I’d simply moved five city blocks in a split second, and the entire trip was indelibly etched on my mind as my body interposed itself between the beam and my mother.

For a brief moment I wondered if I was about to die.  My mother’s water was certainly no protection from the beam, and it had been what killed my father.  But I didn’t even feel it as it raked across me.

Instinctively, I struck out, and it wasn’t fire or water, it was something new.  The stream of energy was as fast as a beam, but it burned with a bright light blue fire sheathed in flames of that color.  The only thing in nature I could compare it to was a blue giant’s corona.  It scintillated as it cut through the sky and then bashed against the shields of the fighter.

For a whole millisecond or two.

Then it kept going, cutting through the shield like a razor across a wet paper bag.  The ship burned.  I mean, metal doesn’t burn, but it did.  The ship exploded into that bright blue flame, and when it cleared there was nothing.  No reactor explosion, just dust that blew away in the wind.

My power ate the interdimensional energy, it was the only thing that made sense, why there wasn’t a secondary explosion I mean.

What the hell was I?  Was my first thought. My second thought was the other nine Meer’ette fighter power signatures I felt.  I rocketed up into the sky, then fire exploded out of me in nine directions at once, my sense of the ships’ locations, or more accurately their interdimensional energy reactors, guiding the lances of bright blue flames.

I didn’t need to look at them to hit them, and I knew when they were gone.

I felt a moment of shock in the sudden quiet, the cool breeze a bit too cooling, which is when I looked down at myself for the first time since quickening.  I blushed furiously.  I mean, I wasn’t exposed to view, not really, but I was naked.  Sans clothing, which had apparently been burned off my body without me noticing.  The flames sheathing my body were supportive, my chest I mean.  They weren’t entirely opaque or uniform, but the bright glow of the flames prevented me from giving the city a free show.

Still, the embarrassment and need to be wearing clothes, made the flames smooth out and cover up my body, like a super suit.  A glowing blue super suit, once the flames were completely gone.  It felt cool against my skin, and it looked like a super suit.  It hugged my body and was substantial enough to feel like I was clothed, and that little bit too cool breeze was only hitting my face now.

I also realized it would be my super suit, my power.  Even the advanced materials of a super suit wouldn’t hold up against my shield’s destructive power.  As to why it didn’t burn my skin, I couldn’t say.  With another application of cautious will, my hands to forearms, and my feet up to my calves started to burn again, licking bright blue flames roiling over the surface, making it look like I had on gloves and boots.  They were also slightly brighter, then the smooth matte finish of my power at rest.

Much better, looked like a real suit now, fully I mean.

My mother rose up in front of me, looking at me in shock, “Caroline?”

I shrugged, “No idea, just happened.  Where the hell is Jenna?”

She said, “Her power isn’t working on them this time.”

It took my shocked mind a long moment to absorb that fact.

“How is that possible?”

She shrugged, “Her power works from a different phase. It’s how she defeats a shielded super.  The power goes around the shield by being in another phase, then phases back inside the super to phase them.  These new fighters had multi-phasic shields, presumably they got readings of her power last time, and found a way to defend against it.”

“Oh, I suppose that’s okay then.  Umm, can I go to the other cities then?”

I wasn’t a registered superhero, and there was no more danger to my person.  I wasn’t supposed to go looking for trouble.  I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a superhero anymore, I’d worked hard for five years to get my law degree and pass the bar.  It was all too new, and confusing.  I just knew I was different, and my mother would demand we run tests to find out why.

But my drama wasn’t important right now, not with nineteen cities still being bombarded and torn apart.

She nodded, “Invasion, state of war, technically all supers with offensive or defensive powers are part of the militia, remember?  Certified or not you can participate in a war.”

Oh, duh.  I knew that, let’s call it the shock of the moment that made me forget.

“Second problem, my power ate my watch phone, and I’m fairly sure it would eat another one.  I can fly there, but I have no HUD and no way to set a course.  It ate my contacts too.  We don’t have time to figure out alternatives for me right now.”

She said, “Open up wide.”

I blinked, then opened my mouth, and I felt something land on my tongue.  Some kind of micro-drone, probably.

“Okay,” I mumbled a bit, not wanting to accidentally swallow the drone.

Harmony must’ve been listening, because suddenly I was standing in HQ, and a moment later we were bounced to the sky over the new city.

It took exactly two minutes and twenty-eight seconds to take them all out.  As soon as I appeared in the sky I felt the ten fighters, and I launched an attack against them that had them burned to ashes blowing away in a breeze in just under five seconds.  Then she teleported me back to HQ, waited three seconds to avoid multi-transporting side effects, and teleported me to the next city.  Each city took eight seconds including teleports, which added up to two and a half minutes.

Incredibly fast, but it felt far too slow.  Two and a half minutes was an eternity in hell for that last city, with interdimensional energy beams and mini-missiles devastating the city every second.

We really needed to do something about the Meer’ette.

The conference room felt stifling, as I sat there and waited in a woman’s skirt suit and blouse, with two-inch heels.  It’d been two days since the testing started, and something of a nightmare.

First, I’d totally destroyed the first two assessment rooms, my power seemed ill suited to anything outside of destroying everything I pointed it at.  My power’s super suit shield was all but indestructible however, to energy or physical attacks.

I’d also endured a battery of tests over the last two days, trying to determine how my power was so different from my mother’s and father’s, and if that had anything to do with me quickening so late.

I wasn’t sure what the limit of my shields were, since their assessment equipment hadn’t reached my limit, it’d reached theirs.  One of the scientists suggested I go to space, where I could face ship-based weaponry to probe that limit, but even my mother had put her foot down hard against that insane idea.

No one was invulnerable, like Jenna, a telepath could take me down rather easily, my power wasn’t proof against that energy type.  Unlike her, I could choose to ignore gravity, outside of my power of flight, I mean.

Also on the good side, when I used my power, I’d have to strip first, including my watch phone.  But they gave me an implant that would shield my mind for a short time from a mental attack, as well as make calls and provide both augmented reality display and sound internally.  So, I wouldn’t be cut off when using my power, even if I’d have no typing or holographic interface, that was no big deal.

Lastly, the matte part of my power wasn’t as destructive, matter could touch it even as it shielded me from harm, without getting destroyed.  The reason I couldn’t wear a watch phone after I built my power super suit, was when I did get hit the flare of energy in defense would destroy anything I had on.  We’d learned that the hard way, before one of them had suggested an implant, that tied directly into my ear drums and optic nerve bundle.

The technology had been around for a long time to do that latter, a way to restore vision to a blind old human who didn’t have our perfect healing.  A bad eye could be bypassed that way, but I was the only homo-potens using one so that I’d have a HUD.

As to the rest, I was about to find out, as my mother joined me along with a couple of scientists named Brenda and Victor.

Brenda smiled, “Okay, we believe your power evolved, and is some kind of joining of both fire and water.  Still a single power, both and neither at the same time.  You understand the four elements are from a scientific point of view, the four states of matter.  Solid, liquid, gaseous, and plasma.  Your power seems to be variable, acting as both a liquid and plasma state at the same time, which is quite exciting.  Fully at rest, it acts as a liquid, and is quite solid in its ability to hold a form like your power-driven super suit, but it’s not really a solid.  When you exhibit pure bright blue flames, it’s the plasma aspect, so of course that state of your energy is far more destructive.

“Your power is also cold.  It’s not hot like fire, despite its ability to burn things into ash.  Part of that is your power is also analogous to dimensional energy, so it’s not like your power is cold fusion or something analogous to the scientific understanding of this universe.  It’s as rare and exotic an energy as meta-energy is, what is creating it.

“Which is why it doesn’t follow the usual rules, and how it can burn metal to ash while at room temperature.  We suspect you’re the first of a new more advanced homo-potens, a mutation of natural selection as your parent’s powers and DNA combined in a one in a billion chance for this outcome.  It suggests other such melding of power will be possible and even probable in the future, resulting in a much more powerful class of super.”

Yeah, I wasn’t sure what to think of all that, liquid and plasma states of power?  A melding of fire and water sounded like nonsense, but I couldn’t deny everything said was true.  The power did flow over me like water, or lick my skin with the energy of fire, depending on my intent.

Victor interjected, “We also believe that’s the root of why you didn’t quicken before now.  The age of twenty-five is almost as significant as the end of puberty.  The latter is your body finishing its development into an adult of the species, while the former, the age of twenty-five, is when your brain is fully matured and set.  We suspect your power instinctively wouldn’t quicken until your brain was finished developing, though I can’t say why.  Perhaps it would’ve been too dangerous for you.

“There is a correlation, most powers continue to increase indefinitely, but the most significant advance in power is usually the years between quickening and full brain maturation.”

It was good to know, sort of.  I mean, it satisfied my curiosity, but now that I had my power the information hardly helped.  Knowing sooner might’ve avoided a whole lot of fights, angst, and problems over the last seven years.

“Alright, so what’s the bottom line?”

Brenda said, “You need to master the states and gradations in between.”

My mother nodded, “You can’t be a superhero if all you can do is kill everyone and destroy everything you come in contact with.  That means suppressing the flare ups when you get hit, or if you’re holding and protecting a bystander, you’d kill them yourself.  While the implants are a good temporary measure, you’d need a full-sized watch phone for a holographic interface and a teleportation beacon.  It seems all the flames are good for are killing or destroying, which is counterproductive in all situations except where killing is necessary to save someone or to fight off an alien invasion.”

I frowned, “You think I can stop those spikes of energy when I’m hit, and not exude flames at all?  That one day I’ll be able to wear a watch safely, and maybe actual gloves and boots instead of the flames?”

Brenda said, “Yes.  All powers act at the wish of the wielder, but most powers are static and work in a defined way.  Yours is far more interactive since it can act as a liquid, plasma, or any combination of the two in between on a sliding scale.  A super with shields that can’t hurt someone, well it doesn’t matter if they feel a surge of anger or fear, their power is fully defined and cannot change.  But such things and reactions in you can and do change how your power behaves.  I suspect that’s where the flares come from, an instinctual reaction to being struck or from other negative interactions.”

My mother nodded, “Yes, you need to master your power and prove you can wear things safely while actively channeling your abilities long term.  Only then can you finish the assessment and take the superhero course.  Right now, you’d destroy the Liberty school if you tried.”

“Sorry to be a disappointment and failure yet again,” I said sarcastically.

My mother scowled, “That’s not what I was saying.”

“Then why did you sound so disappointed in me while saying it?”

Brenda and Victor shifted uncomfortably, and I couldn’t blame them.

She waved her hand, “You know how to enter a meditative state, have you even tried to control it?  Water control is volatile as well, a changing power.  It might not change states, but it will still react and act on anyone or anything I wish it to in a moment of anger.  So…”

Of course I had, did she really think I’d wanted to destroy the assessment rooms?

Victor cleared his throat, and looked reluctant as he explained, “It’s not the same thing.  You have to avoid an intention to do harm even wistfully while wielding your power, but she has to avoid even feeling annoyed or another surge of emotion.  She doesn’t have to avoid wanting to destroy her phone watch, she has to stop her power from shifting away from liquid into a plasma state far more destructive than mere fire, which is a significant distinction.

“She also didn’t know her power was on a sliding scale of a mix between liquid and plasma until now.  Just knowing how her power operates will likely make a significant difference in her ability to control it.  Just her intent to want to keep her suit and shield in one hundred percent liquid form may be enough to counter a surge of irritation, fear, or dislike, or the instinctual response of wanting to retaliate against attack.”

She looked furious Victor had interrupted her and taken my side, not to mention lectured her on control, while I felt a little hope at the idea that just fully understanding my power and what it acted like, could significantly increase my control.

Brenda said, “Moving on to our last observation, is that you should be able to form shapes.  You can form a super suit of suspended liquid power over your skin so well it looks and feels like a real suit.  That means you can construct other things of liquid power.

“It could be useful in taking someone into custody that resists, or even forming a weapon like a staff or sword.  With intent you should be able to use a tiny bit of plasma added on the striking part of the weapon only, to wear down shields.  Or some kind of whip weapon, you could wrap it around your enemy and constrict it while burning away their shields, and then shift it back to pure liquid when it breaks through to subdue them.

“Your plasma-based beam attacks are just too devastatingly powerful to use as a superhero, I don’t think anyone could defend against it or survive it, except maybe Jenna, who could avoid it entirely by phasing.  The energy in that state is comparable to interdimensional energy as far as destructive power.”

I nodded, “That makes sense, I hadn’t considered it, but it’s obvious now that you’ve pointed it out.”

I carefully focused as I put my palm over the table, and when I moved my hand away there were a bright blue glowing hair clip.  I pulled my hair up, and then clipped it.

My mother looked annoyed of course, which was totally why I’d done it.  Such a vapid use of such vast power that I should be respecting would be sure to push her buttons.  On the other hand, the two scientists looked absolutely fascinated.  I shook my red hair out, as I let the clip dissipate.

I stood up, “Thank you, I’ll practice getting the shield-super-suit under control first.  When I’m sure I’ve got that down, I can play with the idea of creating a weapon that’s ninety nine percent liquid and one percent plasma at the part that hits the bad guys.  If I can do that, then I’ll finish my assessment, and consider taking the superhero course.”

“Consider?” my mother frowned.

I nodded, “I’m a lawyer and a damned good one.  I won’t lie, being a superhero still appeals to a part of me, but I’m also twenty-five and already have a life that I worked hard for.  It’ll be a big decision to throw it away given that, I’m not a kid anymore.  Even if I don’t become a superhero, I’m the only one that can take down the Meer’ette if they come back, but I can do that as a member of the militia.”

She scowled, “You’ll need our help to train.”

I shook my head, “I can train the former by using my power to make a suit and tying a cheap string around my forearm.  As to the second phase of my mastery, the only super here with projective shields is the director, and I wouldn’t presume to waste Lady Aegis’s precious time training me.  There’s no way I’m practicing that weapon idea with someone alive under the shield.  What if something goes wrong?  Better to put a shield around something else, that’s no big deal if it’s turned to ash, don’t you think?”

She sighed, “Who?”

I shrugged, “Magician, of course.  I’m friends with Maeve, and she doesn’t have responsibility for a whole city and forty-seven other superheroes to keep track of.  She’s also the only other person in the city that can project a shield and is a tier three power, sort of.”

We weren’t that close, but we were hang out at a bar and have fun friends, if not the sharing all our secrets kind.  I freely admit that was my fault, neither of them were the type to hold grudges from how I acted in high school, but it did prevent them from opening up to me fully.

Still, I was almost positive she’d say yes.  She better, since I was burning this bridge to annoy my mother.  Not just to annoy though, that was just a fringe benefit.  I mean, I only had my power for two days and she’d already tried to claim control of my life again.  Berated me for my shortcomings, while insinuating I had no choice in my future, that I had to be a superhero.  She’d also bullied me into the last two days of tests.  The last thing I wanted to do was not take that course out of spite and resentment, since it had once been my dream as well.

I just wouldn’t be forced.

I needed to get my distance before it got to the point that we had another knock down drag out fight of words, like we had five years ago.

I had another twelve days to make that decision, after quickening I’d taken two weeks of vacation so I could get it all sorted out.  I couldn’t put off my current employer longer than that, if I decided to be a superhero they deserved to know, also deserved to get two weeks’ notice after I got back from vacation.

Lastly, if I did decide to take the superhero route, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be on the same team as my mother.  We’d butt heads constantly.

“Thank you for all the help and assessment of my powers, at least how they work I mean.”

They nodded at me, and I nodded back, then I glanced at my mother and nodded before walking out the door.

It was a hell of a start.

Chapter Two

I had to give my mother some credit, she’d raised me to be formidable of mind as well as disciplined.  That helped me in those second two days as I gained control of my power.  The scientists were right, just knowing how it worked made a big difference.

Even clearheaded I had moments and surges of emotion, but as long as I kept in mind and focused slightly on the idea of keeping my suit in one hundred percent liquid form it would stay there.  That was the first step anyway.  It also meant I couldn’t use fire to simulate gloves and boots.  Although I now knew I could shape gloves and boots with my power, it was too uniformly the same bright color blue. 

Which made it boring.  I really didn’t like boring.

So I made the decision to go with bare hands.  Mostly because real gloves were out of the question, anything I formed with my power naturally came from my hands, especially if it was weapon to wield.  I did buy a pair of boots though, black ones that gave some contrast, but I’d been going barefoot for now, until I was sure it was mastered.

I wasn’t going to risk burning a lot of clothes or devices, so I’d used a ball of yarn to make cheap practice bracelets, and I spent those two days wielding my power constantly.  The first few hours I slipped a couple of times, my mind forgetting to keep my power from shifting, but after that I didn’t make any more mistakes.  I was confident I wouldn’t, since my mind had grown accustomed to it, and I barely needed to concentrate on the idea anymore of keeping my suit and shield in full liquid state.

Of course, that improvement didn’t account for instinctual reactions of the mind while under attack, so I’d need help with that as well.

Which was why I was in my suit sans boots and knocking on their door that third morning into learning how to control my power.  The fifth morning since I’d quickened.  The three-story HQ building was impressive, and only a half mile from my condo.

I smiled lightly as Maeve answered the door.

“Looking good, Caroline.  That suits you.  What’s up?”

I replied, “You look good too, being married to Kevin must agree with you.  I was hoping to get your help?”

She tilted her head, “How?”

I said, “Come with me outside the city, and use telekinesis to throw rocks at me and shoot me with energy bolts.”

She giggled, “You should’ve just started with that, sounds like a good time.”

I rolled my eyes, which just made her giggle harder, and I finally gave up and let out the laugh that had been bubbling up inside me.

“A dream come true?”

She shook her head, “Teasing for old times’ sake.  I’d love to help you train?”

I answered the implied question, “Controlling my power which is both variable and volatile in nature, so I can wear boots with my power suit and a phone watch without eating them.  If that works out, I may need you to shield a few unoffensive rocks and bushes?”

She grinned, “Sure.  Pixie, let Jenna know where I went.”

The two of us took off into the sky.  My flight was ridiculously fast, even in atmosphere, probably thanks to my energy type being exotic in nature.  Regardless, I had no trouble keeping up with her Mach six as we headed out to the rocky wilderness west of the city.

We wound up by a lake that had a lot of large stones and a large area of dirt so I wouldn’t accidentally burn anything down.  Like a whole forest, for instance.

“Do your worst.”

She grinned and rocks started to pelt my torso and every once in a while, she cast a spell that sent an energy bolt my way.  At first, I just concentrated on keeping it all a solid liquid.  Just to make sure I could do that, not only against emotional surges but also instinctual responses to an attack.  When absolutely nothing happened to the string on my forearm for fifteen minutes, I figured I had that part down.  So, I subtly shifted my thought, to only shift a little where I was hit, and not near my forearm.  It was still easy enough, but it’d be a harder concept to keep up.

Regardless, the rocks had been bouncing off, and the energy exploding and dissipating, but after I shifted my thought to the new idea, my suit ate it all.  Wherever I was hit, licking flames responded to counter the attack. Her energy was just burned out of existence, and the rocks were turned to dust.  So it’d be worth it, and probably protected me better than the liquid aspect alone, but only if I could master the more difficult three tier focus, and keep the strings tied around my forearm and ankles from being disintegrated as well.

Which was the case, until it wasn’t.  I called a time out and tied a new piece of string around my forearm, and then had her keep going.  It wasn’t perfect, but if I could master the idea as I had the first, then I should.  This was my power and my life, no half measures were acceptable to me.  I’d use my power to it’s true extent, or there was no point in it.

I had mentioned I tended to be a perfectionist.

It was close to an hour later, and I’d managed it for fifteen minutes straight, when I called for a break.

She flew over and landed by me, “Your power is amazing.  Want my advice?  I’m kind of used to dealing with a power that shifts with intent, you know.”

I chuckled, “Yes, yours is far more complicated though,” I explained what was going on, and why it was a challenge and why it really wasn’t.  It was merely down to training my mind to focus on my suit behaving how I wanted, whenever I wielded my power.  Eventually it would become second nature, but until then I’d have to practice a lot.

She nodded, “I get that, and it’s the right idea.  Having your energy in hybrid form to both eat and deflect attacks just makes sense, but I think you’re going at it backwards.”

I frowned, “How so?”

She said, “Now that you understand your power, it should be intuitive, and act exactly how you want it to act without focusing on it at all.  What you really should focus on is protecting your stuff and not eating anyone.  In other words, focus on the end result, not the intermediate steps.  That’s it, your power knows it needs to be in liquid state not to eat something or someone, because you do, so you don’t need to focus on that part at all.  Just focus on not eating your watch, boots, or your enemies or friends, or anyone for that matter.  That’s all it should take.  Don’t eat the watch, boots, or people is a pretty simple thought, simpler than what you’re focusing on now.  Still three different thoughts, but it’s the same act instead of diverse behaviors.  Don’t eat them with the suit.”

“That’s brilliant, Maeve… why didn’t I see that?”

She shrugged, “I’ve been working with diverse powers for seven years, and I’ve grown in understanding how mindset relates to control.  I also have a degree in psychology.  If I need law advice, I’ll come to you, promise.”

I laughed, “Fair.  Okay, give me a minute to shift and build a new focus, and we’ll start over?”

She grinned, “If I must.”

I snorted, “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

She said, “I like helping people, I like training and using my powers, and I like you.  So yeah, I’m having fun with it.  You should totally join us tomorrow night.  We’re dumping the boys for a girl’s night out, at a Jazz restaurant and club in Maui that has an open side facing the beach.  Sleep early, because it’ll be around one when we go, since they’re six hours behind us.”

I smiled, “Love to, sounds like fun.”

I got my mind back in it, and I focused on the idea of not eating the stuff I was wearing or people.  You know, just in case a supervillain punched me.  I was also trying to be vague on focusing on stuff I was wearing, instead of anything specific.  If I could do that, and let my subconscious fill in the blanks with what I had on, then I could wear more than boots and a watch, and even wield my powers in civilian clothes instead of a suit made by my energy.  If I didn’t have time to strip it’d be convenient if I didn’t have to burn my clothes off.  That’d get expensive.

I could also put on the suit, before I stripped, which meant finding privacy to change wouldn’t be a requirement either.

Lastly, the consciously focused thought would be even smaller.  Don’t eat my stuff or people.  Of course, I wouldn’t be testing that second one, not until a supervillain punched me, anyway.  I couldn’t ask any of my friends to take that risk, even if I’d be fairly confident it would work if it worked for the other stuff.

“Ready.”

She rose up into the air and started to pelt me with rocks and energy attacks again.  She was of course, totally right, I didn’t have to focus on my suit at all.  It knew what I wanted and just ate all the attacks, while at the same time the string on my forearm and ankles stayed intact.

She did it for quite a while, then suddenly flew down and kicked me hard in the stomach.

“Well, that seems to have worked.”

I gaped at her, “Are you crazy?”

She shrugged, “If you ate my leg, I’d just regrow it in a few minutes using a regeneration spell.  Point is, you didn’t, despite the fact you ate every rock and bolt of energy for the last half hour.  So what you need to do now is focus on that thought all the time in the background.  In a few weeks it will be embedded mental habit, and you won’t have to consciously focus on it anymore, save meditating on it for ten minutes or so a day during training, to reinforce it.”

I nodded, “That’s about what I was thinking.”

She smiled, “So in three weeks we’ll do this again, while you’re not consciously focusing on it so hard, and just holding your power.  If it has the same results, we’ll know it’s safe to do in the field.  Now you want me to shield some things?”

I nodded, “I need to get my offense into non-murderous level of power too, and I thought it best to do that with inanimate objects at stake.”

She giggled, “Fair.”

It took her three seconds to cast it three times, and three of the larger stones, small boulders really, were glowing and sparkling.

The idea of hitting things didn’t really appeal, so I went with the liquid whip idea.  I had no idea how to control a whip competently with arm and wrist movements, but it was still my power, so I had no trouble making it do what I wanted as it whipped out and circled the rock twice.

I pulled it tight and focused on the idea of it being one percent flames until it broke through the shield.  It was a tier three shield in power if not complexity, and it took about eight seconds for the whip to tighten a second time around the rock, and there were no longer flames licking along its length.

I did it again to the second rock, which gave me more confidence.  It wasn’t hurting the rocks at all, so I was pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt anyone either, just take down their shields so they could be subdued.  That wouldn’t be a safe assumption for most powers, but since mine could turn stone into dust as easily as it would flesh, it was a safe assumption.

Lastly, I could move really fast, but it was also useful to be able to attack more than one thing at once.  Like taking down ten alien fighters down at once.  Which meant I needed a viable non-deadly distance attack.  That was a little more difficult, with a three-stage intent.

First, the liquid version was far from slow, but not nearly as fast as the full plasma version which travelled at a significant portion of light speed.  I also knew it would take a microsecond or two to break through the shield, and that I wanted to contain the person casting it.

So at the last rock I sent a stream of bright blue flames at it.  As soon as it hit the shield it transformed to one percent plasma and ninety nine percent liquid due to intent number two.  Then when the shield fell, the third intent was triggered which had it turn fully liquid and shrink around it.  When I released the power, the rock was still unharmed.

Maeve shook her head, “That is so cool, I could feel it shift against my shield.”

I said, “I think that’s it.  I mean, I can be sure I’ll use those intents with my two attacks, so I won’t make a mistake.”

Maeve tilted her head, “Maybe not, if your startled and in the heat of battle, with your heart pounding and a fear and adrenaline-fueled awareness hitting you.  You should train it, like you’re training your shield, so it’s a subconscious response, even when you do it off the cuff.  Like a spell, sort of.  You can form up to six mental habits at once, so if you have any other ideas, you can be fully trained up in just three weeks instead of the years I needed for over four hundred spells.

“Your defenses while not eating people or your things, and your two attacks.  So, any other ideas on what you might want to accomplish?  I mean, that last one would kill a physical based super, because they don’t have shields to trigger the first shift of intent.  So maybe for them just throw a water ball, that flattens out and surrounds, and holds them captive.  That would also be a great way to deal with bystanders.  Try it.”

I frowned, and then formed a ball of pure liquid power and tossed it at the now unshielded boulder with intent.  The ball impacted, immediately flattening and flowing around it.

Maeve said, “I’m obviously the supervillain in this scenario,” and proceeded to blast it with energy and telepathic punches.

She winked, “Fights over, you totally won, obviously.”

I laughed, “Thanks, I think.”

I let the energy dissipate, and the stone was completely unharmed by her attacks.  My containment shield would both contain and protect what it covered.  She was right, not exactly projective shields, but it might as well have been, as well as containing a supervillain and their powers until I get the cuffs on.

“Okay, that’s four.  Suit behavior, whip attack, distance attack, and water attack and containment for physical supers and to protect bystanders. Any other brilliant ideas?”

We both meditated on that for a few moments, mentally flickering through all the possible scenarios that we could envision to see if there were any that I didn’t have covered with just those four things.  I didn’t think of anything else I’d need to do.

There was a lot of other things I could do of course, but nothing that I’d have to perfect and train my mind for.  It was stuff I could do outside of battle, like making a hair clip on a windy day.

She shook her head, “I can think of the need for slight adjustments of those four things, while faced with certain scenarios, but minor adjustments to those four core ideas should come dynamically with your conscious need and intent in battle.  So… no, but I do have one more piece of advice.”

My lips twitched, “I’m listening.”

She said, “If you can afford it, get a psychic energy blocker amulet.   They’re like twenty thousand dollars on Amazon, because there’s a full-sized reactor powering it. Spatial Distortion sells them, and they’re a lot more powerful than the implants most supers use.  Most supers don’t need to worry about it, since in most cases a telepath won’t try to get past the low-grade protection, and it’s rude if they try.  But most supers wouldn’t make a tier three telepathic supervillain drool at the idea of taking them over.

“Even Anna couldn’t break through the upgraded one, it’d take a good thirty telepaths working in concert to get through, thirty if they were all at least tier two.  Jenna upgraded hers to that a while back.”

“That’s rather expensive, I think I’ll make sure I don’t eat anything for a long while before I put something that expensive around my neck.  But why?  Are you trying to make me invincible?”

She waved that away, “If you need to be taken down, Jenna will do it.  My concern are tier three telepaths.  Jenna would be a nightmare if a mind controller got their hands on her.  She’d become their personal protection, perfect thief, and assassin.

“But a tier three that got control of you?  They could ransom the world.  So yeah, I’m thinking we need to take that possibility off the board.  Jenna could kill hundreds before needing to rest, with impunity.  You could destroy cities.  Besides, the amulet device comes with a base station that will make a replacement, if you eat the one that you’re wearing.  You do have to provide the raw materials, which will cost about five grand per amulet.  Still not great to eat on accident, but not quite as bad as you were thinking.”

I got chills at the idea.  I could destroy the city, a lot faster than ten Meer’ette ships too.  The truth was my power was magnitudes greater than any I felt in the city, including Lady Aegis.  I was… something new, a tier four super.  As far as power was measured, anyway, but complexity of power was there as well.  Only the glowing spellcasters were more diverse that way.

“Okay, you convinced me, and I can afford it.  It’s also good to know Jenna can still stop and rescue me if it happens anyway, though.  Of course, that’s assuming my power isn’t multi-phasic.”

She blinked, “I didn’t consider that.  Anyway, I used to practice in the early mornings, I know you still have a job.”

“On vacation for two weeks, but yeah, the early morning pre-dawn hours will work best.  Will you help me practice the whip and three phase distant attack?  Or maybe I could borrow a shield generator or something.”

She chuckled, “Three in the morning, tomorrow.  Here.  You’ll need me to practice suit control as well.”

“True, so three out of four.  I could use the HQ underground training area, shielded bots, now that I’m fairly certain I won’t blow them up or turn them to ash.”

Her lips twitched, “I don’t mind, for the next three weeks anyway, until you perfect them as muscle memory.  Then you can wreck your mom’s simulator.”

I shuddered at the thought, that’s what I really wanted to avoid.

“Thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow then.  I’m pretty sure I can do the assessment and attend a liberty class without killing anyone or destroying everything, so I’ll be doing that during my day.”

She nodded and took off, “Tomorrow morning, and don’t forget about Maui.”

I grinned, “Never happen, looking forward to it.”

She waved and took off.

I flew home as well.  It hurt a little, but I did pretty good moneywise, so I picked up one of those telepathic blocking amulets online.  It wouldn’t arrive until sometime tomorrow, and there was nothing I could about that.  Tomorrow would have to be good enough, hopefully no tier three supervillain with mind control had an idea to attack that day.

I also got out some cheap clothes and continued practicing with the suit control, which was probably most important.  I needed to practice my three offensive attacks too, the last one also a protective shield for bystanders.  But they weren’t as critical as my shield behaving itself, I didn’t think. 

I literally seeped the energy from my skin to form the suit while it pushed the clothes a few millimeters from my body, then I stripped the clothes off.  I also had an amulet made of string and the metal cover from a can of soup, as well as strings with a few beads on my forearm and ankles, which I left on while focusing on not eating anyone or any of my stuff with my power super suit.

I was pretty confident I had it already, at least when I was safe.  It wouldn’t be guaranteed until I’d formed a subconscious habit that couldn’t be overwhelmed by surprise, fear, and a shot of adrenaline that set my hands to shaking.  But during everyday normalcy, I was almost positive the mistakes were behind me.

So I put on the suit one last time, stripped off the shorts and t-shirt, then took back off for the city’s superhero HQ.  Mach six from the suburbs was a very short flight, and I was fairly sure I could go a lot faster.

It was time to finish my assessment.

Chapter Three

In a self-deprecating twist of irony, I was totally a night light when the first door closed, my super suit glowing with a bright light blue light that was even more scintillating in the darkness.  The first room was mostly rebuilt but there was no reason to stop there since I already knew I was immune to all the power types represented in the room, and that even at maximum output I barely noticed them.

In the second room I was directed to the bar hanging from the ceiling to see how much weight I could hold up.  The first time through I’d burned the bar to ash before the test could start, because the technician had said something that irritated me.  Fortunately, I hadn’t destroyed the hydraulic lifts that pushed them down.

I put my hands up there, and there was a brief pause then a relieved voice.

“Perfect, Caroline.  Now just take a knee when the press becomes too difficult.”

I nodded at the window, as if I hadn’t grown up the building and didn’t know how it all worked.  So far my mother was being silent, I think she might’ve actually been impressed I’d been gone less than twenty-four hours to gain some control.

The bar pushed down hard into my hands, but I held it up arm’s extended, and it wasn’t a strain yet.  In fact, I was a bit surprised that it seemed to be getting easier as the technician read off the numbers.  When I looked up my hands were covered in blue as well, the suit had extended to cover me fully from my fingertips to the tips of my toes. 

So, power suit assisted super strength, of a sort.  It wasn’t that powerful, I started to feel the straining again at about three tons, which was on the weaker side of super strength powers, and not really that at all.  Which was a bit strange, since I knew I could take a hundred ton hit from the next station without even feeling it, which was the machine’s limit, so maybe it was just the sustained effort part?  Perhaps my liquid energy armor could disperse a kinetic hit perfectly, so it went through me and around me like a wave, but sustained effort challenged my suit’s or power’s ability to drain off the kinetic energy of the constant weight pressure.

Note to self, don’t let a superstrength supervillain get me in a wrestling hold.  They could punch me all they wanted, but they could also strangle me unconscious given enough time.  It would also limit my ability to catch physical based supers inside of a thrown containment shield, they might just be able to rip it apart.

I took a knee at exactly three point five tons, seven thousand pounds of pressure.

The technician said, “Very good, we can skip the rest of the room.”

That’s as far as I’d gotten last time since I’d been destroying everything on accident, so everything else would be new.

I nodded and moved through the doors.  I learned something new in the next room as well.  I’d never challenge a true speedster, but I was able to run across the room and around all the traps at about five hundred miles an hour.  The suit was somehow enhancing my speed.  It was really fast for on the ground, but a true speedster could break Mach one, and a second or third tier Mach two while on the ground.  So, I wouldn’t be winning any races on the ground.  Still, it could be useful against everyone else, if only to dodge.

It made me think that’s why I was such a fast flier as well, the suit was enhancing my flying power too, which is why Mach six wasn’t even close to my limit.  I’d have to figure that limit out, at some point.

The next room was the elemental room, but of course I couldn’t control any of the elements.  I could control my power, which was a hybrid liquid and plasma on a sliding scale, but that didn’t give me control over water or fire despite my best efforts.  With the new focus my suit acted perfectly as well, deflecting or eating all the attacks in a way I wanted it to, while I kept the thought in my head not to eat anyone or my stuff.  All the strings and the fake necklace made it through to the other side.

All in all, I’d learned a few more things, and was glad I went through the assessment.  No more powers or abilities demonstrated through the rest of the test rooms.

With a proper assessment I signed up for the liberty course that started on Monday, which was just a few days away.  So I should have my hero certification next Friday night, which will give me that weekend before I need to get back to work, to make a final decision on what I wanted to do.  Superhero, or a lawyer for a bunch of brilliant mad scientists?

It should be a no-brainer, right?  But I really loved my job, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it up.  Especially as I said already, if I was going to have to be a superhero working with my mother.

The next morning started early, when I arrived at the rocky wilderness area there was already a bright light in the sky making it seem like daylight in maybe a mile diameter.  Maeve was also all ready for me, and ready to train all my attacks and defenses.  It was like arriving at a scene in progress, the training starting before I even landed.

The large rocks and various bolts of energy types she shot me with was to test my control of the suit, and simulated attacks from physical and energy supers.

Next were the small boulders, which were simulated enemies if they were glowing red, and if they were glowing green they were bystanders.  The shielded ones that kept their distance were the energy supers, and I defeated them with the blue fire blast that turned into liquid to surround them with a little flames added in to eat away their shields, and then contained them by shifting to all liquid.

The other red boulders rushed at me, simulating a physical super closing to fist and kick attack and grapple range.  Those I nailed with the liquid balls of power that crushed against them and then molded around them.  I also used the same thing to protect the green bystander rocks.

Finally, I used the whip attack on any energy supers that got within twenty or so yards of me, sixty feet.  I supposed I could’ve used the three-phase distance attack still, but while similar in ends I could see scenarios where one would be better than the other, in both directions.  So it was better to train both.

I mean, I could feel people, or rather their meta-energy.  I could still target an energy super taking cover behind a car or around the corner of a building.  It was far better to use the whip approach in those situations, since I could snake it around the corner or behind a car, while with the other attack I’d have destroy the car or the corner of the building.  Not a good idea.  Same thing, if a supervillain stood behind a human shield, using a bystander.

Obviously at greater distances in the open, the distance attack would be far more effective than the if not slow, much slower liquid form of my power in the whip.

Maeve was just ridiculously fast with her spells and telekinesis, and I literally felt like I was fighting a never-ending wave of six to seven supers.  Every time I took one down another would join the fray.  It was intense and incredible training, and it went on for two hours straight without me eating my mock necklace with amulet, boots, or watch-phone.

She was sneaky, and she had managed to surprise and startle me a few handfuls of times, but it was still training.  I knew my life really wasn’t on the line, so while exciting and fun there was no fear galvanized reactions.  So despite not making any mistakes, I was aware in a real battle I might just slip.  Point being, I was confident enough I wouldn’t be eating my stuff on accident during day-to-day life anymore, nor eating people or destroying things on accident, but I couldn’t be sure of it in a real battle until I’d made all four a subconscious mental memory discipline.  My power was extremely dangerous, and caution in exercising it was called for.

I’d also get faster.  I’d been able to take down ten ships at a time over the cities, since it was all just destruction.  But to use my power to wear down and capture took focus, so not such a good idea to try to do everything at once.  Even once I’d mastered it all, I’d do it in three waves.  Contain the physical supers and bystanders, whip any energy supers too close, then blast and contain the rest.

But yeah, she had no trouble keeping the pressure on because I was taking it one thing at a time, at least offensively.  Obviously, I was also running my defense at all times.

She flew down and landed next to me when it was over.

“That was amazing,” we both said at the same time, then she laughed, and I joined her.

“I mean, your training was amazing.”

She giggled, “So were you.  I’ll have to make it harder tomorrow.”

I blinked, “I won’t argue, but I definitely felt pressed.”

I filled her in on what I figured out at the assessment.

She nodded, “The second week we should try to integrate speed into your defense.  Dodging as well as your shield.  Your shield can be overwhelmed, though it doesn’t seem likely.  Your about ten times stronger in meta-energy readings as a tier three super by the way.  But your regeneration also seems about ten times faster than mine.  So it’s something to keep in mind.  No one is invulnerable, save perhaps Jenna since no one can hit her.

“Well, except you, maybe.  Your energy is multiphasic, so expect you’re the only person in the world that could contain her if she went rogue, you or twenty or so telepaths.”

I chuckled, “That’s interesting, I wonder if that’s why I regenerate faster and can hold more power, because I’m holding it and regenerating it from multiple phases.”

She nodded, “That seems likely.  A homo-potens thoughts are multiphasic.  Its why telepathy works on her even when she’s phased.  So our power being multiphasic is obviously the next step on the path, one that you alone have tread so far.  We ran some tests to confirm it, because we weren’t sure if it was that or if telepathic power itself was multiphasic, but we’re sure it’s the former now.”

“How’d you test it?”

She replied, “Old-human volunteer.  When we phased them, they were untouchable by telepathy.”

Oh, that was a simple test then, I hadn’t considered it from that angle, that old humans weren’t multiphasic in thoughts.  Which led to my next thought, though it was just speculation.

“Hmm, I wonder if that’s how we regenerate or get the meta-energy in the first place. Perhaps our minds can touch the dimension it comes from, but only after we reach puberty.  I bet the brain isn’t developed enough in prepubescent homo-potens to access that place.”

She looked gob smacked, “That… if you’re right, we just solved a two-hundred-year-old mystery, but I have no idea how we’d test it.”

I nodded, “It probably also explains why I can ignore gravity or shield against it.  Since gravity works across a large spectrum of dimension and phases, and only my power does too.  It might also explain why I had to be twenty-five before quickening, the wider connection over phases probably requires a fully developed brain, not just a post-pubescent one.  If I’d quickened before that, my power potential could’ve burned me out, exceeded my ability to hold it all.”

There was no way to prove it, but it felt right given what the scientists had speculated about two days ago.  I wouldn’t wish the last seven years of uncertainty and feeling like a freak of a snowflake on anyone.  Now that it was known, and would soon be general knowledge, the next homo-potens like me will at least know what’s going on.  That they’d be getting even greater powers, they just had to wait another seven years for it to show up.

Knowing that would’ve made such a big difference to the past seven years, I was glad no one else would have to suffer it in ignorance.  The only question remaining was this really an unlikely combination of DNA and powers, a random convergence of a billion to one, or would all homo-potens be like me in another few generations?

Time would tell.  It had been speculated long ago that this was humanity’s true evolutionary path, and that the accidental release of dimensional energies in a collider had jump started it early.  By the third generation the powers had seemed to reach a development peak, but perhaps I was the first true example of what we were meant to be, over time.

And if that were true, then the idea of all supers having multiphasic energies and more power in a few generations wasn’t so farfetched.  The fast healing and meta-energy likely sped up that evolution, perfecting us in ten generations instead of ten thousand.

Point being, while my abilities and existence answered a lot of questions, it also brought up as many if not more questions.  I was also assuming an awful lot in all of that, even if it fit the observable data.

She blinked, “That all sounds likely, too.  Perhaps one day we’ll have the science to prove it.  Umm, we’re having a midnight snack before heading over to Hawaii at one.  So show up at HQ around midnight?  We’ll chat and catch up, no shop talk.”

“Sounds like fun.  Just out of curiosity, how did you figure out I had multi-phasic power?  You seemed certain?”

She said, “I have a spell that can detect phased energy, you ping it from both phase differentials.”

“Oh, cool.  I’ll see you tonight, club dress or beach party wear?”

She giggled, “The former, the club is right off the beach to see the sand and waves, the view, there’s even a dance floor and bar out back, but it doesn’t go onto the sand.  See you then.”

She took off and flew toward the city.

I felt another super approaching, and I recognized her power without even looking, so I looked up as my mom came in for a landing.

“Mother.”

She made a face, “Daughter.”

I laughed, “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged, “I wanted to see your training but didn’t want to interrupt.  I have to admit, Magician is more impressive than I thought she was, and that bar was already pretty high.  You did well, it seems the scientists were right, just knowing has improved your control by leaps and bounds.”

That sounded suspiciously like lackadaisical praise mixed with an implied apology for her harsh words and thoughts two days ago in the conference room.

But I knew better.  My mother didn’t apologize for anything.

“But?”

She waved, “But nothing.  Your control is adequate, on par with any recently quickened super just starting training.  I’m confident you’ll gain mastery in time.”

Yup, so not a compliment, implied or otherwise, except for my trainer of course, because she wasn’t me, her daughter.  Not an apology either, just a dry observation of fact.  I supposed I could give her some credit, at least she’d acknowledged her error, if not apologized for the damage it caused to our already tattered relationship.

“I see, so the fact my power is multitudes more difficult to control doesn’t earn me more credit than the average super.  It’s like comparing two Olympic gymnasts doing two vastly different routines as far as difficulty level, and then calling them both adequate when they both display two technical errors during the routine.  You know what, I don’t want to do this, never mind.”

I flew away, angry that I was angry, and she could so easily ruffle me.  I felt like a teenager all over again around her, when I was a formidable woman and lawyer in the rest of my life.  I shouldn’t have been surprised, she’d never praised me before, why the hell should she start now?  Nothing I ever did had been good enough before, and now that I finally had powers, I shouldn’t expect that to change.

I loved and respected my mother, she was family, but most days I didn’t like her at all.  She’d also killed my buzz from the workout and training.

After the training I did my own workout in the condo’s workout room.  Without the aid of my suit, my strength was pretty average for a female homo-potens of my age, build, and fitness level.  I suspected however if I improved that further, that would make a bigger difference with suit aid.  There’d be more strength inherent in me to multiply and enhance, which just made sense.  So did staying in shape.  Being a homo-potens meant I’d never be obese, but my amped up and perfect metabolism didn’t guarantee my muscle tone or stamina.  That kind of thing still took work to reach the peak of physical capability and then to maintain it.

While I’d always stayed in shape, I was far from in peak physical condition.  The difference between someone that could dance for hours without flagging, and a professional dancer or athlete that took it to the next level.

So I pushed myself harder and extended my usual workout time, something I’d need to keep up with if I chose the superhero route.

I was still eating breakfast when the package arrived.  The device was a small silver disk, about four inches in diameter, and was on a silver chain.  It also came with the base that could either repair or replace it if it became damaged.  It was a good perk to ensure sales, especially as superheroes tended to be hard on their equipment in the field.  Most super teams bought replacement watch phones by lots of a hundred, for instance.

It would also make me all but unbeatable, save against a large number of telepaths or other supers attacking me in a coordinated fashion.  I wasn’t tempted by that, not really.  I’d never seen the appeal of being the supervillain or taking what I hadn’t earned by hard work, and while I’d be able to do a large amount of damage in a short time, perhaps even lay waste to a city, eventually I would be overwhelmed.  Despite how strong I was, I was far from indestructible.

My watch phone detected it, installed the software, and turned it on.  Spatial Distortion’s devices had been around for a while, but it was still hard to imagine a full-sized reactor and psychic shield generator and full-sized emitters were inside the small and flat four-inch device that looked like nice jewelry.

The rest of the morning I practiced building my suit under my clothes, before taking them off, but I left on the black boots, watch, and my new mind guardian amulet.  Then I’d reverse the process, get dressed, dismiss my power and suit, and start over.  I got it down to about ten seconds which was more than fast enough.  Most supers had to strip and then pull on the super suit, while for me that second part wasn’t needed.

The afternoon I just relaxed, let my mind and body absorb all the training, workout, and mental discipline and focus.  I was on vacation, so it wouldn’t hurt to also enjoy a little time on my own either. 

The little black dress and red three-inch heels looked good if I did say so myself, as I headed into their HQ at midnight.  I’d also put on a light application of makeup, and my red hair was half up and half down.  I felt them both on the third floor, as well as their husbands, but waited as they both started to come downstairs right away. 

Just to note, I did date, and liked men, but I’d yet to find the one to go the distance, or any distance really.  I tended to be a perfectionist, and I could admit to being high maintenance because of it.  But neither was I cold person, and while I was self-sufficient I didn’t want to be alone.  This account also had nothing to do with my dating life or challenges in that arena, so I won’t be bringing it up again.

A disembodied pleasant voice said, “I’m Pixie.  They’re on their way down.  If you head straight there’s a kitchenette and lounge, second door on the right.”

“Thanks, Pixie,” I headed for that.  The room was warmly decorated with comfortable looking light brown furniture and artwork on the walls.  The kitchenette was up against the left side of the wall, and the coffee table was covered in several snacks already.  Nothing too fancy, bruschetta on toast points, pigs in a blanket, veggies and spinach dip, and knish.

Jenna and Maeve came in, the former looking amazing in blue, and the latter in red. 

Jenna said, “Welcome to our home, sit.  It’s good to see you, it’s been a while.”

I nodded, “And we usually meet at the bar or club in question, it’s a nice place you have here.”

She smiled, “True, but tonight is odd hours and we’re teleporting to Hawaii, so it seemed a good idea to eat first.”

Maeve nodded, “We’ll probably be late to training too, since a Maui night will just be getting started at three in the morning here.”

I grinned, “That’s fine, I have nowhere to be, not for another nine days or so.  One day of late training won’t be a problem.”

It would be next week, when I was in superhero classes at Liberty training center, but that Friday night preceded a weekend day, so even if I wasn’t on vacation, it would’ve worked out.

We all dug into the snacks, supers tended to eat a lot, and we weren’t shy about doing so.  It was all pretty delicious.

“So do you world travel a lot?”

Jenna nodded, “We used to a lot more often, for a night out or even just a meal.  The personal teleporters can spoil a bit that way.  It means not needing to bounce to headquarters, and with such a small team as opposed to the forty-eight in the city, it’s just about as cost effective for the benefit.  Mine was a gift anyway, from family who wanted me to visit New Hope often, and I do.  So, it just made sense to get one for Maeve too when we formed the team.”

I rolled my eyes with a teasing smile, “Done trying to justify your decadent jet setter lifestyle?”

Jenna snickered.

Maeve said, “Then we got married and settled down, for the most part.”

“Where are they?” I asked curiously, I couldn’t feel anyone upstairs anymore.

Maeve replied, “Night sky diving, them and their friends bought the extreme sports amulet.”

Jenna shrugged, “We can take or leave that kind of stuff, so it’s usually what they do when we go on a girl’s night out.  Our superhero stuff is excitement enough, you know?”

I nodded, “Day jobs going well?”

Maeve nodded, “The office owner is retiring, so I’m buying it and taking over the psychologist practice soon.”

Jenna said, “Good, you?”

I replied, “Really good.  I’m comfortable with the people there, and the job itself can be challenging.”

Jenna asked, “Do you go to court a lot?”

I shook my head, “My job is to prevent that happening.  Of course, sometimes that’s not possible.  In that case I help the boss with discovery, but he usually handles the court itself.  Patent law isn’t quite as cut and dried as criminal law is, where the person is either guilty or innocent and the subjective and objective points line up perfectly.  A lot of times it comes down to opinion by outlook if the wording and coverage of the patent could go either way on a particular application, so preparing the arguments well is important if another company sues us for infringement, or if they infringe upon our patents and won’t pay for the privilege or cease using it.

“The court will see it right, if it’s clearly defined for them.  But to answer your question the short way, no.”

Maeve snickered, “Have you seen Millie lately?”

I shook my head, “I should keep in touch better.  Millie got married and moved to Cali, last I heard she should be in her last trimester.”

Jenna tilted her head with a raise eyebrow.

I laughed, “No, not a shotgun marriage.”

Maeve giggled.

We continued to catch up while we stuffed our faces. 

The club was a good time, the jazz a bit edgy and easy to dance to.  Since it was seven their time at one our time, we were able to enjoy the sunset.  It was also packed for that time of night at a night club, but it wasn’t too surprising since there was a resort right down the block. 

The music was a little too loud for easy conversation, so I was glad we met early to catch up, and we had a lot of fun.  We wound up staying until midnight, so with the time zone change it was six in the morning before I started my training that day.

The training wasn’t much more intense than the day before, despite Maeve’s threat to up her game.  She did mix things up a little, two charging supers at a time, but it wasn’t anything I could handle.  Ironically, I owed my mother for that, for constantly pushing me.  My mind outside of controlling powers wasn’t something I needed to train further, my meditation skills were already top notch that way.

It was what it was, and I was probably more like her than I wanted to be.  Demanding perfection of myself as well as those in my life.  I suspected I would be just as demanding, if I ever had a daughter.

But that aside, I swore I wouldn’t hold back on showing my pride in her accomplishments, like my mother had and still did with me…

Chapter Four

It was almost ten when we finished up for the day, though I still had a workout ahead of me, I was far too hungry to do it before breakfast.

Maeve said, “Another good day.  Are you going to pursue a superhero career?”

I shrugged, “I’m considering it.  I don’t like the idea of giving up my chosen career, but I have to admit the last few days have stirred up and rekindled my old ambition to be a superhero.”

She tilted her head, “Suppose you didn’t have to choose?”

I frowned, “Not choose?”

She nodded, “I have my clients as a psychologist, and Jenna teaches.  We kind of talked about it last night, before you arrived.  Would you be interested in joining our team, and getting the best of both worlds?”

I tilted my head, “What would I bring to the team?  You two pretty much have it all covered.”

She smiled, “Nothing we couldn’t do too, but that’s the point.  We’ve been on call for seven years, for every sticky supervillain situation that would lead to inevitable death if left in the hands of others, plus and far more often, rescue work.  Even with summer’s off, and when I go on vacation from my practice, we’re still on call.

“It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have you around all the time, but it will also let us take vacations.  You could take down a supervillain in a sticky situation just as well as Jenna can, and you can protect the bystanders just as well as I can.  Neither of you can heal other people, but you’d still make a good rescue team when I’m on vacation, and there are other healers in the world to do the cleanup.

“Otherwise, the three of us would work and train together.  There’s two more condos in the building, so you could work out with us too, move in I mean, as part of your compensation package.”

I frowned, “She can fly under the ground and phase someone without them seeing it coming.”

She nodded, “Yes, and you can fly at a mile high out of the range of their power, and then target them with your distance attack even through ceilings and walls.  Your energy for all intents and purposes, goes as fast as light.  They’d have zero warning in the time it took to break through the ceiling and hit them, then contain them.  Yes, it would break the roof, but they can fix it, and it’s still a clean surgical strike without killing in a very high-risk situation.”

“That… is a really good point.  Is that why you asked me about court?”

She blushed, “Yes, we figured you could get dispensation to leave work in emergencies and make up the time but fleeing court would be a contempt charge.”

Honestly, it really appealed to me, and given the tug of war in my head and heart had just stopped, I already knew I’d be doing it.  I could keep representing my clients and taking care of their needs, while also saving people.  What they did was also a better way to leverage my power.

“I accept, I’d like that very much, but I can’t join you until next Friday.”

She nodded, “Good.  We’ll also upgrade your amulet device, buy a personal transporter add on.  It’s a little cheaper that way, also less to keep track of and wear.”

I chuckled, “I won’t argue.  I’ll give my landlord notice, and then move in next Friday night. Anything else?”

She nodded, “Pixie will monitor you, and be at your disposal.  Not just as a superhero assistant to put up flight paths, but at your other job too if you want or need help with keeping track of things and filing court documents.  She’s way underutilized, just taking care of the two of us, I think she gets bored.”

I laughed, “That works.”

She nodded, “There’s a lot of little things, like reviewing protocols, listing those that might be targets of vengeance for a supervillain, things like that.  I mean, your mom’s already covered by Harmony that way, but if there’s anyone else you think Pixie needs to monitor just let her know.”

My lips twitched, “That’s all it takes?”

She shrugged, “Pixie is rather morally flexible, so yes?  I didn’t give my parents a choice in being monitored, and it’s saved them twice the last seven years.”

I laughed, “Good to know.”

She smiled, “Nothing else major, besides moving in and doing superhero work as a part time always on call job.  Training and working out with us.  Otherwise, it’s all just minor details.  The pay is comparable to the City’s team, so makes a lot of spending cash on top of our normal careers.”

That sounded really great, and it also had the side benefit of not working with my mother.  I know that sounds horrible, but it was for the best.  It’d avoid the constant fighting, as she tried to control my life and I didn’t let her.

Still, if anyone had told me eight years ago that I’d be living and working, in a super team, with Maeve Williams and Jenna Burrows, I’d have laughed in their face.  But we’d all come a long way from those days.  Perhaps me most of all.

We said our goodbyes and split up to head home.  I’d barely started to eat a light snack to take the edge off before working out, when my watch-phone notified me that my device was being upgraded. It even downloaded the teleport interface software automatically, and currently said that the upgrade would be complete in just over four hours.

Spatial Distortion was terrifying, really.  Really cool too, I’d have to see what other add-ons were offered.

After a snack and a workout, I decided to conquer space.

Yes, that’s what I said, space.  My new partners could go to space, so it might come up, and I was sure I could make it happen.

I’d been considering my power, and my ability to make any shapes, not just weapons.

It took a little trial and error, as I put on the power suit and extended it fully around my head.  I knew from experience my power didn’t have to be entirely opaque, so I managed to make it thin around my face and bubbled out a bit.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was about ninety percent transparent.

The next experiment was to spin out an empty sphere about twenty feet in diameter, then shrink it, compressing all of that air inside that would last for hours into the shape of a small backpack that attached to my back.  Then I had to run the line between my full head coverage and face mask, and the container of compressed air.  I also included a pressure valve that would keep it at one atmosphere in my helmet.

Still wasn’t done.  I also added a release valve that led to another atmospheric container.

It was those last two parts that took a while, I’d had to do some web searches on scuba valves and such to figure out how it all worked.  All in all, it took me about two hours to get everything working.

Then I let it all dissipate, and then did it again and again until I had all the parts down and could do it quickly.  I’d probably practice it every day until I’d mastered it too, so I wouldn’t easily lose the skill, but for the moment it was good enough.

Granted, it was an inefficient design, dumping the CO2 laced air into another container and filling the mask with fresh atmosphere.  But it would last a few hours, required no expensive chemicals or electronics, or even purchasing oxygen, and that was good enough for me.  It was also fast.

I stepped outside, and then rocketed for space.  I was extremely fast, but for that first time I stayed right above the Harmon line in LEO.  If something went wrong, I could be back below twenty-five thousand feet in just a couple of seconds.

But nothing went wrong, and the view was fantastic.  My power in the form of a suit kept the air I was breathing and my own temperature perfectly comfortable, as I stared at the big blue ball under my feet for over an hour.

I did several other things that afternoon, including finding out my top speed in atmospheric flight was Mach twelve, and in space, I wasn’t sure there was a limit.  As far as I could figure, I was accelerating at Mach thirty per second or so constantly, so going faster and faster with every moment that fast.  I imagined I’d eventually hit a limit, when approaching light speed, but I never planned on testing or finding that limit.  It’d be far too dangerous to go that fast, even if I could.  If I ran into a micro-meteorite at that speed, my power would be insignificant compared to the forces in play.

If I needed to go somewhere far in space, then teleportation was the obvious answer, and quite a bit safer.

Texture and elasticity was a thing with my power, it was liquid in its safe form, so it could make an extremely hard hammer, or the softest mattress imaginable, or an easy chair, or a sharp blade.  The reach of my power was about five miles, about ten times farther than most supers.  The elasticity was also the answer in containing a superstrength superhero, they wouldn’t be able to break their way out if it stretched past their ability to provide leverage.

I even used it to make dinner, my power controlling a knife slicing the veggies, while I used a power shaped spatula to cook on my grill outside.  Nothing that would help me in battle, but it did help sharpen my mind and showed me all my power could do.

One thing it couldn’t do was conduct heat, so no skillet made of my power.  But it would make a hell of a thermos.

The plasma side of things, as far as I could determine, was good for nothing but destruction.  No other form of matter or energy was safe from it, but using small amounts of it in battle would be safe enough. 

It was a fun day, as well as good training.

After dinner I relaxed and let my mind process, which was an important part of the training process.

Regardless, the news was covering the talks in the U.N. which included all the colony worlds, save for the six owned and run by Spatial Distortion.  Claire Chamberlain wanted nothing to do with the U.N. at all.  A decision I couldn’t blame her for, after what they’d done, or more accurately tried to do.  Steal her world.

Back to the point.  The U.N. was discussing a possible retaliation for the latest Meer’ette attack.  The proponents argued from two points of view.  One, we’d look weak if we just defended and otherwise gave them a pass for their aggressive acts of invasion.  Two, showing restraint hadn’t helped the first time, they’d still worked hard to up their game, and then attacked a second time.  Letting them keep doing that would be insane.

I happened to agree with that camp, though I did worry how far they might take it.  I’d think a diplomatic approach, while carrying a bit stick, would be the better place to start.

The other side seemed to want to bury their heads in the sand, and some feared that Spatial Distortion wouldn’t let them use her ships to do it.  Almost as if they were afraid that it might give her other ambitious ideas, to conquer and rule Earth for instance, which she could probably pull off, honestly.  They didn’t say that out loud, but it was implied.

But that was dumb, ruling Earth would take her out of the lab, something a mad scientist would never abide.

Their other argument was that it wouldn’t back them off either, and an attack would just make things worse.

It was something I’d be keeping an eye on out of interest.

Chapter Five

The week passed quickly.

Morning training with Maeve, followed by working out and meditation, then breakfast.

The days were taken up with the liberty course.  I was paired with a speedster for the week, Angela Fairfield, who I got along with well.  During the sims she took care of the bystanders, zipping them off the street, while I subdued the super for her to run in and cuff.  I could’ve done it all of course, but teamwork was an important aspect of things, and I had no desire to show off.

I’d also grown up a superhero brat, so all the written stuff was easy.  I’d grown up hearing about all the rules, regulations, and engagement protocols my whole life. 

It was also worth noting the course had finally been updated to support projective empaths and telepaths that chose to pursue a life as a superhero.  Some of the bots had telepathic detectors which triggered them to stand down when focused on hard enough, and others had blockers that could simulate running into a supervillain that was shielded from such things.  An empath or telepathic mind would interpret that as a mental shield, and act accordingly, letting their partner pick up the slack.

The large underground course was a lot of fun, and thanks to five early AM training sessions with Maeve before taking it, I didn’t destroy any of the bots at all on accident.  A statement that most of the supers in my class couldn’t make.

I got high marks in both the practical and written, and I gained my superhero accreditation.

The evening and nights I did my best to relax and unwind, let my mind absorb the day and experience.  I also did a little cleaning each night in preparation for moving.  Pixie had informed me all I’d need to do was walk through the place and she’d teleport it all to the HQ condo as I went, in situ.  For instance, walking along my cabinets would see the dishes teleported directly from them and into the kitchen cabinets in the new building.

I wasn’t about to complain at that idea, moving was a bear, and that would make it beyond easy.

So really, I was just cleaning out all the accumulated crap over the last seven years, that I didn’t need to take with me and was destined for a refuse or recycle pile.  As well as getting the place shining so my current landlord gave me my deposit back.

Over that week the U.N. had decided to send a fleet to the Meer’ette world.  Their home solar system anyway.  They’d settled in at the edge of their solar system, and they were transmitting a request for peace talks in Meer’ette.  So far, the small four-legged race hadn’t responded in any way at all, though the fleet was prepared for war or peace they were stuck waiting for any reaction at all. 

Which was amusing, because I’d thought humanity had a penchant for sticking heads in the sand or arguing overlong, but we would’ve acted immediately at an alien fleet outside Earth’s system.  Sure, we’d have taken too long making a decision which way to jump too, but we’d talk or fight until then, not timidly ignore it.  They really were alien, and I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to which way they’d jump.

It was Friday night, and I’d just gotten done touring my new apartment to see where Pixie had put everything.  Which was a little weird, but far better than moving the hard way and unpacking it all, and everything had been placed in a logical and intuitive place.  So I wasn’t going to quibble.

“Pixie, do you have access to the Meer’ette database?”

Pixie replied playfully, “You mean the one Spatial Distortion downloaded from their ship, the one limited to governments and highly redacted in the public sphere?”

I laughed, “Yes.”

Pixie snorted, “Of course, I do.  Would you like to read it?”

“Yeah, I mean, not the technology parts, but the social parts.  I’m curious, and as I’m the only one that can fight them on the ground without Spatial Distortion, it makes a girl wonder.”

Pixie replied, “I estimate they won’t fight at a disadvantage with the latest upgrades to the fleet, they also won’t surrender, and they’re far too xenophobic to sit at the table and talk out a treaty.  That’s a real thing too, not just an exaggeration.  If you forced one into a room to talk, it’d either cower in the corner and go insane, or go for the throat like a cornered rat.”

“You think peace is a doomed idea, and we’ll be forced to do something drastic after being kept waiting for days, weeks, and months if we’re patient enough for that last?” 

I didn’t like that idea, there had to be a way to break the cycle of attacks without resorting to mass destruction of their foothold in space at the very least.  The Meer’ette would’ve happily exterminated us all, if we hadn’t beaten them back so soundly three times now, but there had to be room for compromise.  Only twice in a battle that had spanned worlds. I was counting the first time as the third, when Spatial Distortion took on that first single attacking ship and won decisively.

Didn’t there have to be another option?

Pixie said, “Something like that, yes.  Take a look yourself.”

I brought up the holographic computer screen, and sure enough I had access to a lot more files now.  It would have to wait though, it was my first night there and there was a welcome to the team party of sorts in the command center on the second floor, that I wasn’t about to miss.

“I will, tomorrow after training.”

The command center was a generously spaced area that took up almost half the floor, the other half dedicated to four large offices and an inhouse conference room.  There were large wall screens, and four consoles surrounding a holographic display center.  It probably wasn’t used much, honestly, but it was definitely state of the art.  I mean, it was used by pixie to keep track of things, while the three of us would be doing our thing until an emergency came along.

There was also a folding table covered in party foods and various drinks.

The four of them cheered as I came in, Jenna, Brad, Maeve, and Kevin.  I couldn’t help a smile, as Brad came forward and gave me a chaste hug.  We were cousins after all, and everyone else got handshakes.

Jenna said, “Welcome to the team.  It’s good to have you here finally.”

“It’s good to be here.  A very long time coming.”

Brad said sarcastically, “I bet Aunt Rachel is thrilled you didn’t join the city team.”

I laughed, “Umm, I haven’t talked to her yet, though I’m sure she knows.”

Brad grinned, “But I get to see you more now.”

Maeve asked, “So how many more add ins did you buy over the last week, for the amulet device?”

I blushed, “Umm, three actually, why?”

Maeve sighed bitterly, “I lost the pool.  I bet five, Jenna got closest with four.  We all did it of course, her stuff is too cool not to once you get a taste for it.  What’d you get?”

I snickered, “I got the survivalist one, a warehouse full of water and health bars would come in handy in a large-scale natural disaster, and it can be stored safely for centuries with the time dilation.  I was going to see if you wanted to bankroll filling it, so I had the job in mind when I got that one.  Of course, it comes with all that shelter stuff too, for a family.  The second one is a personal warehouse, I thought it’d be neat to be able to take a full wardrobe wherever I went, plus… robotic minion.”

Jenna giggled, “I got that one too, the personal warehouse.  I’m ashamed to say I didn’t think of using the survivalist one as a way to get resources to a disaster zone.  The government handles that pretty well, but yes, the team will bankroll filling it with emergency supplies.  Even if it never comes up, it’s good to be prepared for anything that way.”

They all peered at me waiting to hear the third, and I blushed again.

“Umm, I really don’t like to cook.”

Supers ate a lot, and it’d always been an unpleasant chore to me.

Jenna and Maeve looked at each other, then said in stereo, “Auto chef!”

I laughed, “Yes, that.”

Maeve smirked, and waved at the table of food, “Where do you think all that came from?”

I snickered.

Pixie said in a cheesy announcer’s voice, “And now, a welcome to the team mission.”

Everyone stared at her in question, her hologram, as if to ask if she was serious.

Pixie nodded, “Totally serious, sort of.  There’s a cruise ship going down off the Alaskan coast.”

Shipping of course was a thing of the past, import and export, as well as most travel, was done through teleportation.  It was too convenient not to.  But the cruise lines were still a thing, stressing the journey over the destination in their ads.  I’d never been on one, but they hadn’t changed.  They were time on the ocean going between destinations for daytime visits and tours, with a lot of entertainment on the cruise for when people got bored looking out over the ocean.

Pixie continued, “A supervillain decided to hit the casino, since they have lots of untraceable money chits on hand.  There were two superheroes on vacation who tried to take him down.  They failed and died, and the fight poked a few holes in the ship’s hull.  Destructive energy blasts of some kind and a tier three threat.  He’s holding hostages now, the team out of anchorage are trying to negotiate while the ship slowly sinks.”

Brad said, “You’re not making that up?”

Pixie laughed, “Nope.”

Jenna waved for silence, “She was just trying to be funny, but she wouldn’t lie.  Okay, I’ll take down the supervillain, Maeve will heal any wounded and then fix the hull.  Caroline, I want you to keep the ship from sinking, your power should be able to plug the holes.  Pixie, notify the team of our imminent arrival and put us a quarter mile off the ship in ten seconds.”

I could do that, keep it from sinking. I was fairly sure.

While she’d been talking, I’d put on my suit by extruding it from my skin, and then pulled off the skirt and blouse I’d had on, taking my underthings off with them so no one would see them.  Jenna was if anything, even faster as her suit floated through the ceiling, phased over her body, and became solid as her normal clothes fell to the floor.  Maeve not to be outdone muttered a Latin word under her breath which seemed to conjure her suit directly onto her body.  I hadn’t known she could do that.

“Put the hull breaches on my HUD, please.”  That would be a lot easier than circling the vast ship looking for them under the water line.

Pixie nodded to me and did so.

Pixie frowned, “The Anchorage team is breaching, be ready for anything.”

The situation had degraded quite a bit as chaos reigned.  I wasn’t sure why the super team on site had decided to breach when they did, but that kind of thing could be figured out later. 

There were supers all over the place, a lot of them fliers on vacation, holding one or two other people.  The explosions of green energy leaving the ship were punching more holes in the hull, and the slowly sinking large cruise ship was now going down fast.

I ignored all the chaos and focused on my part of the mission, utterly confident Jenna would end that super battle in the next second or two, and that Maeve could triage the aftermath.  My job was to keep the now fast sinking ship from drowning a bunch of bystander powered supers and normal humans on the ship.  There were hundreds of them.

There were also a whole lot of hull breaches now, over twenty.  While I might be able to target twenty supers at once, by feeling their power signature, the hull breaches weren’t anything to my senses and most of them were hidden beneath the water line.  It would take entirely too long however, to fly under the water and get eyes on them, and I could only do one at a time that way.

I flew over to the ship instead, just above the water line which was already dangerously close to the open deck, and I placed my hands on the hull.  At my will power raced out of me in a torrent, liquid glowing blue power spread out quickly to cover the entire hull.  Fast, but it was still taking time, the cruise ship was about a thousand feet long, longer than three football fields end to end.

Once it was over the ship’s hull, it was easy to feel the holes where my power didn’t meet, and I extended my power over the gaps to fully seal it.

The ship was still sinking.  I’d plugged the holes, but it was full of too much water to reach buoyancy.  With a thought I canceled gravity.  It didn’t apply to the whole ship, just the bottom two thirds wrapped in my power, but that included the thousands of tons of water inside the ship.  Point being, it was light enough now that it quickly bobbed to the surface.

I was able to maintain it without touch, so I backed off the now steady ship, and I slowly flew over to Jenna who was vociferously arguing with the quad team the Anchorage city team had sent out, while the supervillain was cuffed and floating next to her, still phased and now powerless.

“What the hell is going on,” I subvocalized.

Pixie said, “They decided to breach two seconds after I told their command center that we were on the way.  As a result, thirty more people died and hundreds are injured, most of those missing limbs.  Maeve is healing them, but we can’t help the dead ones.”

I frowned as I got closer, the Anchorage team looked tense and angry.

One, a male in a blue and white suit, said angrily, “We didn’t need your help, and we had him dead to rights when you showed up.  Our dispatcher warned you off, didn’t they?”

“Does this happen a lot?” I asked.

Pixie said, “No, just two other times in the last seven years.  Pride is a dangerous emotion in a superhero, most are thankful when we show up.  These idiots obviously would rather handle it themselves and let thirty people get killed than be humble enough to accept help.”

The four of them glared my way, Pixie had said that a bit loudly.

Jenna nodded though, “You will likely lose the right to wear those suits, when the investigation is complete.”

He countered, “Your A.I. called after we already decided to breach, and we were breaching before our dispatcher notified us.”

Jenna said coldly, “But you hadn’t entered the ship yet, and could’ve called it off.  Instead, you told your dispatcher to warn us off and went ahead.  Thirty people died for it.”

He shook his head, “It was a command decision in the heat of the moment.  We weren’t in the ship yet, but I had to measure the risk of the supervillain’s response at seeing our advance.  I feared even if we had aborted that he might start killing the hostages because of our advance.  It was a judgement call, not pride.  God knows I’d wished you’d called a few seconds sooner, but you didn’t.  Aborting and waiting for your arrival, even a few seconds, could’ve seen everyone on that ship die.  A risk I wasn’t willing to entertain.  That thirty more died is horrifying, but we saved the rest, which has to be a win.”

That was actually a reasonable argument, but I wasn’t sure I bought it.  It sounded like someone making excuses in hindsight for a poor decision that was probably based on pride and not a well-reasoned reaction, but a telepath or empath could make that decision.  Maybe I was wrong, but that reasonable response was coming late in the argument, as if he’d just thought of it, it’d been obvious to me the earlier exchanges had been heated and angry.

Why were they so angry, if not for prideful reasons, at Jenna taking him down?

Jenna said, “Yet, if it wasn’t for Caroline holding the ship up, hundreds more would’ve died as well, when it sunk.  An act that I would’ve said was impossible for any other super to accomplish solo.”

That was true enough, but if I hadn’t been here Jenna could’ve phased them all out and teleported them to shore.  I’d done well and had made things easier, and I had saved billions in collateral damage to property that otherwise would’ve been lost, which was a good thing.

I asked, “Can you phase the water out?”

Jenna blinked, then nodded, “I’ll get right on that.”

She tossed the supervillain at the team, and she phased him solid before he hit.  One of them caught him, then teleported out.  Apparently, she didn’t have to move to do it, because the ship started to rise even higher.  I could also see the water shooting out of the hull above my shield, like a really big fire hose.

I kept it contained against Magician fixing the hull, but I did stop blocking the effects of gravity.  I was afraid if it got too high out of the water that it would capsize.

Things were a bit tense and awkward, but quieter after that last exchange. 

The skies had cleared as the flyers holding people returned to the ship.  It took another fifteen minutes or so before Maeve finished healing, and she got to plugging the holes by reforming the steel around it and joining it together with magic, an earth-control based spell no doubt.  Which was really impressive.  The hull would be a bit thinner in those areas, but more than good enough to hold the water out and get them into port where it could be inspected and properly repaired.

After that, it was going home and doing the reports, then back to the party.  Not a horrible first mission as an accredited superhero, but it could’ve gone better.

Chapter Six

The Meer’ette were even more alien in motivation and thought than I’d believed.  I was surer than ever Pixie was right.  A human solution of peace talks just wouldn’t work.  They would just build and adjust their technology again, and then try to destroy us again.  Not just take us out of space, but turn our worlds into wastelands to take out every one of us, which they feared.

They were likely in the process of doing that now, and they would continue to ignore the fleet of ships on their doorstep until attacked or until they were ready to attack.  The only option currently on the table to stop them was initiating that war, and at the very least taking out all their space born assets and confining them to the planets.  I hoped we wouldn’t go further than that, that we were better than them, and wouldn’t even entertain a genocidal course that they seemed bent on.

Right now, we were taking the high road as we had the advantage, but it was only a matter of time before we did attack.  As enlightened as we liked to think we were, doing anything else would be insane.  We had to protect ourselves.

Our powers on the ground and the violence spurred by supervillains scared the hell out of them, and Spatial Distortion’s seemingly instant upgrades to counter their new technologies for the space battles was also quite intimidating, I imagined.

The key word above was human in those solutions of peace or all-out war to confine them to their worlds at the least.  I was trying to find a Meer’ette solution, a less drastic way to force them to abide by a treaty of isolationism and respecting each other’s space.  There had to be a way to get them to back off and respect our space if we respected theirs.  I saw no reason outside of their xenophobic fear we couldn’t go our own ways.

Whatever way that was, it wouldn’t be intuitive to how humans acted and thought.

Humanity had already expanded out too far for their taste, but we could establish a border between our too close home worlds, and just expand in every other direction, five of the six cardinal directions, leaving the directions toward each other left alone.  The galaxy was a big place after all.

Humanity’s survival instincts were in some ways contradictory, demanding different behaviors for both personal survival and the survival of the species.  The selfishness and looking out for number one was necessary and only bad when taken to extremes, while at the same time we held the capacity for deep empathy and sacrifice for others.  We had both instincts to be independent hunters and in being a part of a herd or tribe.  On a very basic level below civilized society and expectations.

The Meer’ette I was learning, were similar in that basic way, except far more tuned toward the herd side of things than we were.

Which sounded like a good thing.  Until thought through.  An angry mob full of fear and hate was far more likely to resort to violence and kill, than an angry individual in our society standing alone.  Riots, mob justice, a shared outrage among extremists, all led to senseless violence.

A herd of cattle were like the Meer’ette, were cautious and vigilant.  At least, until that herd scents predators or are spooked, then they go into a destructive stampede and bowl over and destroy anything and anyone in the way from sheer weight of numbers.

Of course, the comparison wasn’t so straight forward, they weren’t dumb animals like cattle, but their instincts were that at the base.  They were also an intelligent species, who had conquered their own world and then went to the stars, but it was also the root of their xenophobia and actions.  Timid and observant, but when they’d decided we were a threat they’d gone straight to a genocidal action and intent.

That was the Meer’ette in a nutshell from what I gleaned from their database, reading between the lines into their alien motivations.  They had less violence inside their species than we did, because they were far more social and dependent upon each other, but conversely, they were a lot more prone to violence toward outside threats, perceived threats to their herd, whether they were really threats or not mattered little.

To form a treaty, they’d have to trust us, which they would never do.  For them, it was a survival imperative, if they didn’t wipe our race from the galaxy, they firmly believed we would eventually wipe them out.  Since they were likely ascribing how they would act instinctively to us, as our U.N. was ascribing human nature to them.  Perception trumped reality.

It was natural I supposed, but a little short sighted.  A xenobiologist or psychologist could tell them where they were going wrong, but the documents were highly classified, so no one knew to call them out on it from those fields.  Military minds were reading them, not sociology experts.

So taking out their spaceships and orbital infrastructures, to stop them from building another even more advanced fleet of ships to try again, was one valid solution.  It would confuse them, they’d truly be shocked that we left them alone on their planets, but it’d work, and they’d be alive.

Worse come to worst, we’d have to do at least that, and I hoped no one in the military pushed for more than that despite the Meer’ette’s shockingly violent attacks on us.

But there was one other possible course that could work if my interpretation of their society was correct.  It would never work on a human society geared toward conquering and destruction, but it might just work to short-circuit the Meer’ette’s trampling charge without killing all their ships and hundreds of thousands of their people that worked in space.  The documents also indicated two of their colony worlds weren’t self-sufficient yet, so those populations might slowly die out as a result too.

Maybe, if they had interplanetary transporters then that last wouldn’t be an issue.  They’d still be able to import and export supplies.

It was Sunday night when I knocked on Maeve’s door.

Maeve opened it, “Come on in.  Coffee?”

I grinned, “Sure,” as she led us to the kitchen.

Maeve asked, “What’s on your mind?”

I smiled, “I was wondering if you’d read over some documents, before I talk about my idea.  It’s a little crazy, and I could actually use your professional opinion.  I’ve tried to look at it with cold logic and not judge, but it’d be good to have your expertise.  The Meer’ette.”

Maeve asked playfully, “Going to solve that issue for all of humanity?”

I blushed, “Maybe, but I don’t want to say how and bias you, until you’ve read the documents and have your own unbiased opinions of their society and how it all works.”

She grinned, “That’s very scientific of you, and a good idea.  Alright, I’d do it just out of curiosity.  I’m guessing you think our world’s current response is not going to work?”

I shook my head, “Not even a little bit, not if we want to avoid the alternative of launching a counter invasion and all-out war.”

She nodded, “I’ll do it, we’ll talk tomorrow night?”

“Sounds perfect.”

She said, “Did you hear about the Anchorage super yet, that was in charge of the quad and made the call?”

I shook my head, “I guess I need to get used to telling Pixie to keep me apprised on matters I have an interest in.”

She chuckled, “Yes, it’s an adjustment.  A.I.s are amazing assistants, but only when your guidelines are explicitly set.  Anyway, he lost his accreditation, the government cancelled it.  The investigation team said his reasoning was valid, or would’ve been, if that had been the real reason he’d chosen not to abort before committing the actual breach.”

I sighed, “So it was pride that drove him in the heat of the moment?”

She nodded, “Yes, and likely jealousy and envy.  Most superheroes like our support when it’s called for, but some are bitten by envy.  You know, the superheroes that are in it for the glory and see it as a contest, instead of a stern duty where life comes first.  So the ones that hate us don’t bother me at all, since they’re not worthy to lick our boots.”

I chuckled.

She winked, “He’s also facing thirty charges of negligent manslaughter, so his career is quite over.  That likely won’t stick, he was guilty of poor judgement but not violating the rules of engagement.  For most teams a minimal amount of collateral damage is expected and accepted, despite the tragedy of it, it’s just life, you know?”

I nodded, “If he’s convicted, it will open up the way for more lawsuits against superheroes following the rules, every time there is an unfortunate death.”

She smiled, “Yes, that.  We have no jurisdiction despite our power being made to lessen the small amount of collateral damage that goes on still despite best efforts.  There’s no rule that says they need to accept our help.  On the other end, there’s no rules against us acting without permission either.  All things being equal, I like the way things are now, I’m not sure I want the authority to call other teams off because it would turn into a jurisdiction battle and make things worse, which is best avoided.  In all but three cases it’s worked out, and that’s not bad in an imperfect world.”

I nodded, “I can agree to that.  We strive for perfection, but there’ll always be imperfection in the human machine.”

The office building had been repaired during my vacation, at least enough to be declared safe.  The window in my office as good as new as I sat at my desk that Monday morning.  There was still some cosmetic work being done on the fourth and fifth floor suites where the beam had penetrated, but the building was sound.

The power training, workout, and a little sparring had been intense that morning, and I was wide awake, dressed to take no prisoners in business, and ready to dive back into my career.  I reviewed my calendar and task list for the day, as was my usual habit.  Pixie wouldn’t let me miss anything, but I still wanted to know what was coming, and if I needed to prepare anything I didn’t have prepared.

Which just seemed likely after being gone two weeks.

I had three hours of conference calls in the calendar for after lunch, which meant the few tasks I had scheduled due today needed to get done that morning, as well as doing a little background on things before the meetings as well.  It was a decent amount of work, but I’d been under a time crunch to do a lot more in less time some days, so I wasn’t worried.

I suspected the attack was part of that, as a lot of companies had been closed for repairs.  Normally I’d be swamped for days after getting back from vacation, but it was a pretty normal workday for me.

I was just digging into my first task when there was a knock on the door.

I looked up and smiled professionally, “Good morning.  Come on in, Hiram.”

Hiram grunted, “Morning, Caroline,” as he stepped in and closed the door, then crossed the room halfway.

I waved at the chair, but he shook his head.

Hiram said, “I won’t be here long.  I’m not happy with this arrangement you made, I was notified this morning.  I should’ve known sooner.”

I sat back in the chair, “That’s true, when I talked to HR and they got back to me that the bosses approved my request, I assumed you were among that number.  I’d have notified you myself if I thought otherwise.  It shouldn’t come up much, six to seven times a month on average, for the last seven years.  That’s less than twice a week, and the missions rarely last longer than an hour, and quite often less than five minutes.  They’re also more common at night, so less than half that will cause me to leave my job here for a short time, which is less than once a week.”

Hiram said, “It’s unprofessional, suppose you’re in an important meeting with one of our associates or another vendor?”

I nodded, “We pay them to work for us.  Also, the meeting would be rescheduled or just put on hold for a few minutes, depending on what’s expected.”

Hiram frowned, “And you see no problem with that?”

I shook my head, “Superheroes are honored for what they do, keeping our society safe.  Very few would take offense at such a thing, and even most that would, wouldn’t complain over such a small imposition.  Meetings are rescheduled for lesser reasons than saving lives often enough.  My A.I. will give my apologies and reschedule or postpone shortly when I have to leave in a hurry, and explain what’s going on even, if they are curious to know.  Anti-superhero sentiment is also very unpopular in our society, which will influence things even with those that feel that way.  They won’t want to admit it.

“The only customer we even interface with is the military, and Jenna’s superhero team is very much in their good graces.  If anything, my other work will draw more business from that quarter, and they understand about emergencies if anyone does.  The civilian line of products aren’t anything we ever deal with except in regard to competitors, and I’m really not worried in the least about their approval, since our relationship is already adversarial.”

I tilted my head in question, “You obviously see it differently?”

Hiram grunted, “It’s unprofessional to just leave.  As you say I wouldn’t ask someone to die to prevent a five-minute delay in a meeting, but that’s why we have superhero teams that specialize in such things.  I’m more concerned with dual loyalties, and I wanted to judge how serious you were about this.  Being a part time superhero sounds like wish fulfillment, not a calling.”

Wish fulfillment?  Ouch.  I wasn’t even sure what to say to that.  We were all more powerful or at least tuned toward the worst situations with our powers, so we focused on where we could do the most good, and let the other superheroes take care of the rest.  We stepped in where the average superhero team would fail, or at least fail to prevent collateral damage.  Also search and rescue, which Jenna was the queen of.  I would do quite well there too I thought, but only with homopotens, I wouldn’t feel the old humans like she could, buried in rubble.  They had no energy inside of them.

If we were a part of a city super team, then we wouldn’t be able to take care of those worst of the worst situations outside our city jurisdiction.  We also wouldn’t be able to pursue our other business interests, which also benefited society in some way.

But that explanation seemed really arrogant to say out loud to someone outside the team.  I didn’t think we were better, but we would do the best with our unique and powerful abilities by targeting where we could make the most difference.  That it added up as a part time job and let the others and I follow our other passions in life was a good bonus, I’ll admit.

I was getting the impression if I tried to explain it, that Hiram would just see it as arrogance.  He clearly had no idea just how powerful I was, and me trying to explain that to him would just make him think I thought I deserved special treatment and was suffering from delusions of grandeur if not megalomania.  Perhaps I did to a certain extent, but I wasn’t asking to be worshipped or fed grapes while being fanned, I was asking for the right to reschedule a call every once in a long while.

Odds are it wouldn’t come up much.  On average just two to three times a month during the daytime, and five eighths of my work hours I wasn’t on the phone at all.  With those odds, only one of the six or seven incidents per month would interrupt an active conference call.  No more than twice I’d guess, and even zero times some months, but on average once a month.

Was that really asking for too much?  It seemed my senior thought so.

His hateful comment hung there for a moment as all that went through my mind, and I decided I would just have to give up on our old comfortable work relationship.  It had been soured by my choice and his ignorance, and shockingly I could tell I’d lost the respect I’d earned from him with this.  He’d already decided before walking through my door.  He wasn’t in my office on a fact-finding mission to find out how I saw it or what I was thinking, he’d made up his mind already that I fell short in some way.

He didn’t like it, not one bit.  But there was little he could do about it, since HR and my seven mad scientist bosses had approved of it.

He wasn’t here to clarify the issue, he was here to clarify his opinion on it.  He couldn’t do anything about it directly anyway, but he could make my life difficult.  Fortunately, I didn’t think he was that petty.  He was too professional to try to sabotage me and force me out, but I suspected it would be at least tense between us, and he no doubt wanted me gone.  He just couldn’t fire me.

His loss of respect was also a price I was willing to pay, though I regretted the loss of our easy working relationship.  I wouldn’t give up on my dreams or not save all the lives I could save to please Hiram Black’s sensibilities.  Life was full of challenges and disappointments, and this relationship being soured was hard to swallow but not that big of a challenge either.

Lastly, I was coming to wonder if he didn’t have anti-superhero sentiments, but of course he’d never admit it if he did.  Such views were unpopular to say the least.  Superheroes made mistakes, but they’d minimized them as much as possible over the years, and collateral damage was vanishingly rare compared to the beginning of things.  Too many of them died horribly in the line of duty every year, for society not to respect them.

They were the best of humanity, really.  Willing to fight and sacrifice for others, and to bring in those that trespassed.  That sentiment coming from me, a superhero, could be taken as a little self-serving, except it was how I’d felt all my life, long before I’d gotten my power and became one myself.

“I obviously disagree with that harsh assessment, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion.”

I just left it there.  There was no point in arguing or deepening his loss of respect toward me into enmity.  Anything I said would be twisted to fit his point of view, which as I said earlier, was already made up.

He frowned, and looked up slightly, as if reviewing what he’d actually said looking for the harsh in it.

He shook his head, “I said what I came to say.  I’ll let you get to work,” then walked out.

I snorted.  Apparently, him implying I was unprofessional and merely pursuing a childish wish fulfillment, didn’t qualify as harsh in his mind.  Nope, he probably thought I was just in denial since I didn’t agree with him.

I pushed my annoyance down and got to work.

Welcome back from vacation, or not.

Chapter Seven

It was later that evening, and the three of us were in Jenna’s kitchen.  Outside of the unwelcome welcome back from Hiram my first day back at the job had gone well.  Almost everyone else in the office had congratulated me on finally getting my powers, and they were encouraging that I’d be using it to make a difference.  They also thanked me for saving the city.

Almost two weeks had passed since then, and it’d felt so long ago to me because of everything that changed in my life.  But it did put my conversation with Hiram into an even deeper perspective, he hadn’t mentioned that part of things at all.  But it was what it was.

Jenna asked, “So what’s this about?”

Maeve grinned, “Caroline gave me homework.”

Jenna said faux dolefully, “I didn’t get homework.”

I laughed, “I wanted her professional and unbiased opinion, as a psychologist.”

Maeve said, “I’m just cooler than you,” then laughed, “But seriously, the Meer’ette are very dangerous, and I agree they won’t come to the table.  The fact their ships have thousands of them when it’s not required for technical or tactical reasons to run the ship, tells us they have an instinctual need to be surrounded by many other individuals.  Their social needs and herd instinct is much more powerful than what exists in humans.  What were you thinking?”

“One action that will work to stop the attacks is to confine them to the planets.  They’d no doubt be confused why we weren’t wiping them out, but they’d be alive, and we’d be safe from subsequent attacks.  But as you said they have hundreds of ships, and with four thousand crew on each of them that adds up to over a million of them, and even more of a population on the space stations and build platforms.

“But there might be a way to avoid a slaughter like that, even though it would never work for a human country or group.  I’m not sure that we owe them anything much less risking our lives on a riskier alternative.  They’d happily wipe us all out, genocide on the human race, but we do owe it to ourselves, not to have the stain of so much death on our hands.  Do you see it?”

Maeve said, “The best way to stop an out-of-control charging herd is to take down the leader.  Charging horses for instance, would falter if the stallion was taken down.  Obviously, they aren’t completely enslaved to their instincts like a wild animal of limited intellect is.

“The sentient equivalent means bracing their leaders directly, the ones in charge.  They don’t do well as individuals, compared to humans.  If an enemy took the president hostage for instance and demanded change, the country would grow angry, but the vice president would just step in with the president compromised, and it’d be business as usual.  Such an act wouldn’t work at all in a human situation.

“But for the Meer’ette, it just might work.  Brace their leadership, make demands, not a negotiation at all.  We could even be fair, demand they recognize a border between our spaces, that they can’t cross.  But the psychological point is we don’t have to be fair, even if I think and hope we would.  They really don’t do well as individuals, and by bracing their leadership directly we’ll be making them face us on that level.”

Jenna frowned, “Explain that.  We could dictate terms, but we could also not agree to follow them ourselves?”

Maeve nodded, and frowned, “Technically we’d be conquering them as a species, by taking their leadership under our control.  The only human equivalent I can think of, was they’d become like a vassal state.  A practice between kings in the dim past of our history that never worked out well in the end.  We could demand they respect our claims and not move in our direction, but we could also with impunity have an occupying force in their space and even demand they pay us taxes to support them.  Occupying forces never ended well in our history either, but from their point of view it would just make sense.  They may even see such a force as further protection for their existence.

“Not that we will do that, or should, but we could.  That sounds really wrong, but from their point of view we will have claimed them as ours.  Like a young stallion taking down an old one, the herd would be his without reservation and their new protector.”

Jenna shook her head, “That’s crazy.”

I nodded, “it would be, if they were human, but they’re aliens.  Of course, it’s not quite that simple.”

Jenna’s lips twitched, “You don’t say?”

I laughed, “Well, their leadership will be on their home world, protected by the rest of their population fiercely.  Likely in the most well protected and fortified place in their society.  It’s also likely they have teleport suppressors, we know their sensors can detect phase shifted energy and matter, and they can see cloaked ships as well.

“We have no way to get intelligence on it, it’s not part of the database.  So, we would have to blindly teleport to their orbit, fight our way down to the surface defeating who knows how many defensive systems and fighters, all using interdimensional energy weapons to try to kill us.  We’d be going in blind, which is a horrible way to run a mission where life and death are on the line.  We’ll also have to assume we can’t abort once we get started, that teleporting out will be just as impossible as teleporting in.

“The advantages to it though, are we won’t pollute our souls with the deaths of millions, and once we attained the surrender and agreement of their leaders, we’d have a close ally in them, and they’d stop trying to slaughter us.”

Jenna nodded, “If you two are right about their psychology.  My abilities would also be worthless against them, phasing is the only thing I can do.”

“Not entirely.  Offensively you couldn’t get past their shields, assuming they upgraded all their defenses as well as the offensive fleet that attacked us.  But defensively you could phase their attacks still.  With both sides having the ability to phase energy, defense wins on both sides.  So you’d defend us, while I’d be offense, and Maeve would be support for us both.”

Jenna tilted her head, “I probably can phase their attacks.   Their shields were able to compensate, like they detected what part of their shield I was phasing, and they rotated their phasing to cover the gap before I could slip my power through.  But a fired beam couldn’t do that because they can’t rotate it, they need to fire it at the phase we’re currently in.  So you’re suggesting the three of us end this war, before a lot of people die on both sides?”

Maeve said, “We’ll need one more, a telepath.”

I tilted my head, then nodded, “Xenophobia?”

Maeve grinned, “Yes.”

Jenna huffed.

Maeve giggled, then explained, “They’re highly xenophobic, but a projective telepath could make them perceive us as the same as them.  They wouldn’t be fooled intellectually, and we wouldn’t be using a telepath to control or influence their decisions, but it would allow them to deal with us on an intellectual level, without shaking in the corner or committing to a suicidal attack out of a strong xenophobic fear.”

Jenna said, “So it would fool them emotionally.”

I nodded, “Something like that, yes.  They’ll still known we’re aliens, but they won’t feel it in their gut, so will fail to have the expected negative visceral reaction.”

Jenna frowned, “But the three of us, four of us, would be ruling the Meer’ette.”

I shrugged, “Essentially?  Yes.  Practically, not really.  A vassal state takes care of all their internal matters.  They’d just have to follow our rules. Don’t violate human space or attack us, would be the only added laws we’d demand.  I’m sure none of us has any intention of playing around with their internal politics or day to day decisions.”

Maeve said, “Vassal states could also be levied for military support and were expected to pay tribute or taxes.  The second a humbling reminder that they ultimately served under another king, and a way to reinforce the idea over time.  The former would make both races safer, as our technical cores are different. We won’t use interdimensional energy weapons for example, not even out in space.

“So if one of the other races in the galaxy ever came for us, we’d be stronger fighting together against other threats.  Not really mutual protection, but it would work like that if we dictated it that way.”

Jenna sighed, “The approach sounds antiquated and morally dubious, even if it would work you know half the population would be shocked and appalled by it.”

I nodded, “More shocked than killing millions, and confining them to their planets?  Where they’d be helpless to defend themselves against another race, that may be the conquerors they fear us to be?”

Jenna smirked, “If we do this, we will be the conquerors they fear us to be.”

I chuckled, “Not quite, they fear we’ll annihilate them.  But I take your point, it won’t be a popular course of action, but I think it’s the best alternative and the lesser of two evils.  Ironically, from their point of view, they’ll be overjoyed we didn’t wipe them out, and quite comfortable with the concept.”

Maeve said, “Agreed, it’ll only be humanity that would judge us for it.  Every conqueror hopes to be thought of as a liberator, but in this case, with the Meer’ette, it will actually be true to an extent.  If we conquer them we’d only demand peace.  They’d still be in space, able to flourish and expand in the other five cardinal directions.”

I smiled, “Of course, if you both agree to do something so insanely risky for the sake of both our races, we’ll have to run it up the flagpole.  I’m not willing to make a unilateral decision for all of humanity.  If only because the other countries and leaders out there might not respect it.

“If we do this, we need to make sure no one else will try to abuse it, or even just ignore the border we forced on the Meer’ette.  If we fail, well then we can still confine them to their planets, which is no doubt what the military is arguing for at this moment.  They’ve been discussing it for two weeks now, and it’s been a week that the fleet on their doorstep is being ignored.”

Jenna asked Maeve, “You’re behind this idea?”

Maeve nodded, “I came to the same conclusions she did, I think.  It’s the lesser evil, more humane, and in the end, it will aid both our species and make us both safer in a dangerous galaxy.  That some will think it barbaric is unavoidable, but it won’t make our reasons less valid or not the truth.”

Jenna asked, “Anything we haven’t covered yet?”

“Just that Pixie agrees with my assessment, those are our only two practical choices.  They’ll never come to the table.”

Jenna giggled, “And we all know what a champion of morality she is.”

Pixie appeared and stuck her tongue out.

“Morality doesn’t enter into it.  I work in facts, not whimsy, and they’ll never sit at the table to negotiate.  They’re truly not capable of it, instinctually or emotionally.”

Jenna held up a hand, “I was just teasing.  I get that.  Okay, pack up this conversation and send it to Anna.  She’s a colonel now, I think.  Lt. colonel, to be precise.  She should have the juice to run it up the flagpole in the U.S. and urge them to get the idea in front of the U.N.”

Pixie nodded, “Done.”

“So, you’re onboard?” I asked.

Jenna sighed, “Yes, I don’t really like it, but you made a good argument and it’s better than slaughtering millions and ultimately setting them up to die by another FTL capable predator in the future.  If we have to conquer them to make them happy and work together with us, while also flourishing, then that’s what we have to do.  Or should do.”

I teased, “Any temptation to be queen of the Milky Way?”

Jenna snickered, “No, you?”

I shrugged, “I work for you, so technically that will make you the ruler of the Meer’ette.  I’m just your flunky.”

I started to giggle as she glared at me.

Maeve struggled to hold back a smile, as she said, “That’s true, we’ll have to get her a fancy gown and crown.”

I nodded slowly, “What do you think, your majesty?”

Jenna sighed, ignoring us and taking the high road, as she took a sip of her coffee.

Just a little silly humor to deflect.  I hadn’t overstated the danger.  Even if the world leaders agreed to back and abide by my plan, it was likely we could die in the attempt, and they’d have to quarantine them on their planets anyway.  We had no idea what their defenses looked like on their home planet, and we’d be heading straight for the most fortified part of it.

But it was worth the risk, to save our souls from paying the cost of a mass slaughter, and it also resulting in saving the Meer’ette would be a bonus.

Risking ourselves for a better turnout was just what superheroes did, and I was no different.

We’d find out soon enough.

It was Wednesday evening, and we still hadn’t heard back yet, but that wasn’t too surprising, and in a way a good sign.  If they’d have gotten back to us within two days, no doubt the answer would’ve been a resounding hell no.  it would take time to work its way up to the top, then over to the U.N.  So it was a so far so good situation.

At the moment I was relaxing and letting my mind chew over the day, when Pixie appeared.

“Jenna wants you in the command center.  We have a mission.”

I put the power suit on and headed for the command center, which took less than fifteen seconds as I put a little super speed into my run down.

“What’s going on, your imperial divineness?” I teased, the joke not quite old enough to expire, from my side of it anyway.

Jenna snorted, then said, “Search and rescue, aid, and defense.  Hurricane Tiana did a number on St. Martin today, and just cleared.  A lot of downed houses and flooded areas, and a few damaged buildings.  Lots of people trapped without access to food or unspoiled water.

“I’m on search and rescue.  Maeve, you’ll be on healing as usual.  Caroline, you’re going to be hunting down several contemptible supervillain looters on crime sprees while the superheroes there are bogged down in rescue operations.  There’s been reports all over that they’re taking advantage of the chaos to clear out banks, jewelry stores, art museums, auction houses, and even some estates.”

I nodded, “I’ve loaded up my personal warehouse with plenty of suppression cuffs.”

Jenna grinned, “Perfect, enjoy yourself.  It’s time to move.  Pixie will coordinate us all, and teleport us to you if you run into trouble.  But taking down single supervillains shouldn’t be a huge challenge with your power, if you pay attention.”

That kind of thing went against superhero wisdom, supers always patrolled in pairs or quads.  Just thinking I was the exception felt a little arrogant and wrong.  But honestly, until there were more tier-four supers, I really didn’t have competition out there, and hopefully it’d be a long time before a tier-four supervillain was made.  No real competition, save for someone with a superhero amulet by spatial distortion, perhaps, or a very large group of supers.  Even then it would just be a draw, none of the weapons in the superhero amulet would work on me, and my energy would be turned away by the space fold shielding.

“I’m ready.”

“Me too,” said Maeve.

The world disappeared behind a flash of light, and when it cleared, I was hovering fifty feet up above a currency exchange.  My HUD had it outlined in red, and there was a flightpath down to it, so Pixie didn’t even have to fill in the blanks with verbal instructions.  It was self-explanatory, especially since I felt a powerful physical based super inside the closed and dark building, and the front door had been ripped off.

I flew down and through the door, hitting the ground running to get to the back of the exchange building.  Sure enough there was a supervillain in the vault loading up all the currency chits into a large duffel bag.

“Stand down, you’re under arrest.”

I felt the urge for being more efficient, there being a number of looters I really wanted to just take him down, but the rules needed to be observed.  I couldn’t just hit him with my power, even if it wouldn’t be much of a fight and I was confident there’d be no further collateral damage in property.  The rules existed for a reason.

They almost never surrendered, but it happened enough to make the de-escalation move a policy.  Besides that, it also delayed the start of the fight another few moments, which gave the bystanders more time to hoof it out of the area.  So it was a good rule of engagement.

He took off with the backpack and tried to bowl me over and get passed, to the front door, but I tapped into my speed and got the cuff slapped onto the arm he tried to shove me to the side with it, which cut off his power.  It was easy at that point to pull him around and snap the other wrist in the cuff behind his back.

Pixie activated the personal transporter, which would work on anything in close range, and sent him off.  Probably straight to the local superhero headquarters, directly into a cell.

Then the world flashed white, and my new flight path was shrinking as she’d put me in a perfect position to intercept the next supervillain.  The supervillain was glowing purple, a woman in a black and pink suit.

I moved slightly to block as she tried to fly around, “You’re under…” I didn’t get to finish as she sneered and shot purple energy at me.  My suit flared with bright blue scintillating flames and ate it, while a whip formed out of my right hand and then flicked out and wrapped around her.

It didn’t take long for the constricting and partially burning whip to break through the shield.  My power’s flames died as it grew tight around her, and I shrunk the whip extended between us, essentially reeling her in and spinning her around.  A moment later she was cuffed.

“Enjoy your stay.”

She was teleported out mid-curse at my wiseass banter, and then I was teleported again.

This time I was hovering over a jewelry store marked red in my augmented reality.  There were two supers inside presumably looting, but after a moment I realized one of them weren’t moving at all.  Perhaps the proprietor, and there was a line of power between them that I could feel.  It took me a moment to realize it felt like Maeve’s power when she was using telekinesis.

The supervillain obviously had the person pinned up against a wall inside the shop, and I had no reason to believe the supervillain couldn’t use that for leverage by threatening the hostage’s life.  After a moment’s thought, I sent a bright glowing beam of fire at the roof, which turned liquid as soon as it’d burned through.  It hit the proprietor and immediately spread out in every direction, covering him up and shielding him.

I landed in front of the door.

“Surrender, now.”

He glared at me, then gaped as he seemed to recognize me, “You fought off the alien ships singlehanded.”

“I did.”

He sighed, and dropped the sack half full of jewelry, “Fine, I’ll come quietly.”

He’d obviously decided his power stood no chance, if I could stand off ten alien fighters firing dimensional energy beams.  One of the rare cases where de-escalation as the first step paid off, in a situation where there was no immediate threat to life.

I just walked over to him, while he grumbled and looked annoyed.  I didn’t expect anything less, he might’ve been willing to surrender without a fight, but he sure as hell wasn’t happy about it.  Once I got within five feet, the supervillain was teleported out, no doubt straight into a suppression cell so he didn’t need to be cuffed.

I let my magic dissipate.  The woman looked shaken, but also very pleased to see me instead of the supervillain.

“You should be okay now.”

She smiled, “Thanks.  I’m…”

Pixie interrupted, “Another looter, if one without offensive powers.”

I blinked, “She is?” and here I thought I’d saved her, but I suppose in a way I had.

Pixie laughed, “Yes, she was stealing the jewelry when the telekinetic stopped her so he could steal it instead.  I have it on the video surveillance.”

The woman turned red in the face, but she didn’t even try to deny it.

I sighed, chuckled, and took two more steps forward, which had her teleported away. 

“How many more?”

“Four down,” Pixie said, “Two to go.  As of right now.”

“Ready.”

Pixie said, “The next one requires a little forewarning.  He’s got a powerful expanding shield, nothing you can’t break in a few seconds of effort, but he has several hostages.  All young girls of twelve to fourteen years of age.  His energy type is the stun kind, but even that one can kill with a head shot.”

I frowned, “Do I want to know?”

Pixie said, “It’s a common thing in this kind of situation.  So many people will be missing for weeks and some never found after a natural disaster of this magnitude.  A prime opportunity not just for looters, but for human traffickers to grab up what they can in the chaos.”

“Are they inside the shield?”

Pixie shook her head, “But he’s a tier two shield power, so I need to teleport you in-between him and the girls, or he’ll expand his shields to surround them, buying plenty of time to kill them before you can break his shield.  Between them, he’d have to take you inside the shield too in order to threaten them.  I’d advise that immediate action is warranted in this situation.”

Right, the hostages would be in danger, so there was no need to de-escalate.  Which suited me just fine, since human traffickers were the worst kind of human garbage, and their very existence infuriated me.  Almost as much as the despicable people that would be buying them.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Pixie said, “One moment,” the moment dragged out, I could only assume the supervillain wasn’t separated from the girls in that moment and it was a less than optimal opportunity, then she did a short countdown, “Three, two, one,” and the world flashed white.

Despite being right in front of me, I hit him hard with the distance attack.  A stream of pure plasma power burned into his shield.  Not only wasn’t I sure what would happen if he expanded his shield out against my constricting whip, I also thought pure plasma at a hundred percent would burn through his shield a lot quicker.  Milliseconds, instead of the seconds a whip with one percent plasma mix would take.

It was bright and coruscated against his shield for a brief moment, and as I heard a startled scream behind me, I was also raising a shield from floor to ceiling to protect the girls, who were all old-style humans.  Of course, they were. The traffickers wouldn’t want their slaves to have meta-power to fight back.

The supervillain had just enough time to blast me out of shocked reflex, which my suit ate, when my power broke through, it instantly transformed to liquid power, and started to contain him.  It was honestly a relief to see my training in that approach work in the real world, especially in that situation.  I was contemptuous and furious at the evil in front of me.  A part of me wanted to kill him, but the training had ensured my power didn’t heed that partial desire.  Another part of me of course, would be horrified to do such a thing.  It was still satisfying, he’d be going away for a long time, and the telepaths would perhaps discover who he worked for and put an end to the whole operation.

Then he disappeared in a flash.

I lowered the shield behind me and turned, they all looked shaken and scared.

“Can you get them home, Pixie?”

Pixie came out, which definitely grabbed the young girl’s attention, looking like a pixie with wings like she did.  The team’s A.I. really was quite adorably mischievous in appearance, not that I’d ever admit that out loud where she could hear it.  She was already cheeky at times, she’d be insufferable if she knew I thought she was cute.

Pixie said, “Yes, I can send them to the shelter their parents are in.  They had the bad idea to sneak out, I trust they won’t do it again.  I’ll also notify the shelter so they can be checked over and cared for.”

Wide eyed, they all nodded in agreement that they wouldn’t do it again.  Half amazed and half in shock from the events, but despite that obviously delighted in Pixie’s existence.  They disappeared in a bright flash.

“Last one?”

She nodded, “No explanation required.”

She winked out a split second before the world flashed white, and I was hovering over a mansion, but it was the pool house out back that was highlighted in red, and where I felt the supervillain. 

I flew down and inside, and through a door, then through a trap door that led under the building and into an underground vault.  The owner of the house probably thought he was being clever when he installed the vault there instead of in the main house’s basement.

I stepped forward and saw a young woman putting gold and silver coins from a lock box inside of a backpack.  She looked my age, so indeterminate.  She could be twenty, or up to two hundred years of age.

“Drop it, you’re under arrest.”

Her power surged, and the vault door which had been broken off, flew at me.  An earth controller.  Getting crushed by a couple of tons of steel sounded like a bad idea, so I dodged with a burst of speed and lobbed a capture ball at her.  She had no shield.  It hit her in the stomach and started to expand out to encase both her and her power.

She screamed with annoyance, and the cement walls of the thin hallway slammed together.

There was no dodging that, and I had to admit I did flinch, but my body also exploded into fire, my suit shifting to a fifty-fifty mix of plasma and liquid.  I didn’t even feel it, as my suit ate the cement, forming a perfect Caroline sized hole while I was cocooned.

Nor did the attack break my power, so I felt her power cut off a moment later, as she was entirely surrounded by my shield.  I flew forward slowly, eating a tunnel in the shape of my body until I came out through the vault door.  I’d always been worried I could be crushed by enough weight and mass, but apparently my power wasn’t going to let that happen.  If my power couldn’t block a mass it would eat it instead.

I also looked down, already resigned to the idea my watch, boots, and amulet device were gone.  Except, they weren’t.  My power had protected them.  Inside the fire itself, there were shields shaped to those things of a hundred percent liquid, keeping the flames from eating them.  Exactly as my intent and focus demanded.  I just hadn’t considered the idea of doing that before, which is why it was such a surprise.

I’d just assumed my survival instinct had overridden the desire to keep that stuff safe, but nope.  It was all still there.  My suit returned to normal, and the little shields in the shape of an amulet and chain, boots, and a watch phone retreated, revealing my stuff truly was fine.

Awesome.

Pixie said, “I can’t teleport a fully shielded individual.”

I nodded, and controlled it directly, making it pull her arm from her body and reveal her wrist.  I clapped the cuff on that suppressed her power, then let the rest of the shield dissipate.

The woman glared, and not being perfect, I smirked as she was teleported straight to a cell.

“Anymore?”

Pixie said, “No, sorry to disappoint.”

“Bring me to Maeve then.  I can see if any of the supplies I have are needed.”

Probably not, the government had gotten good at disaster relief efforts, once teleporters became available it was easy to move supplies, bodies, and equipment into a torn-up area.  Not like the old days when transportation logistics in such situations were a nightmare.  But it wouldn’t hurt to check, it was why I’d gotten the add-in.

So I did.

Chapter Eight

Lt. Colonel Anna Cortez showed up at HQ on Thursday night.  It was my first time meeting her in person, though I knew who she was of course.  Everyone did, Judgement had turned society upside down and shaken it around almost seventeen years ago now, when she was still just sixteen.

The four of us were in the conference room on the first floor, and I’d brought down coffee and a cheesecake, with a side bowl of sugar and a cream pourer.  The instant auto chef really was awesome.

Anyway, it was obvious that Jenna and Maeve had a connection with her and had worked with her in the past, just based on the body language in the room.  After we all greeted each other, and I was introduced, we all doctored our coffee as Jenna got us started.

“So, what’s the word?”

Anna said, “I have a few clarifying questions that the joint chiefs and the president want answered, before they can consider putting the plan to the U.N.  The plan seems extremely risky for one, for a hopeful outcome.”

I nodded, “That’s true.  I believe it has the potential for a greater advantage to both of our species in the future.  Given how far other alien races in space are it could be ten millennium before we all spread far enough to knock heads, but when that does happen we could have two flourishing space rich societies to meet that threat.  Which honestly might never happen, those other aliens could just want to cuddle or something.”

Anna barked a laugh.

I shrugged, “But there are no guarantees, it could fail miserably to yield the hoped for results even if we do successfully conquer them.  The idea is psychologically sound based on what we know of their race, but the database on that ship didn’t have a large amount of history on it providing practical examples for such a situation.  Still, it seems reasonable to risk a handful of us on a possibly far better outcome, before we commit ourselves to the slaughter necessary to remove them from space.”

Jenna nodded, “We’re willing to take the risk.”

Anna sighed, “I get that.  I’ll be going with you if it happens, it’s what we do.  The question is if the president is willing to sacrifice the only known tier-four and the only phase super left on Earth.  Not to mention the only tier three telepath that isn’t a supervillain.  So, you’re not entirely sure this wouldn’t make things worse?”

“Not at all, though I don’t think it likely.  If it does make it worse though, I won’t lose my soul if we have to knock them out of space.  We’ll have at least tried for a mutually winning strategy before committing to a campaign that will kill millions and wipe their orbitals clean.  That will also likely ultimately doom their species in time.”

Anna nodded, “It’s not up to you though.”

I sighed, “Isn’t it?  I mean, I only read up on them in the first place because I’m the only one left that can take out their fighters consistently, since they adapted for Jenna’s power.  We can’t allow them to attack a third time, even if they can’t figure out how to overcome the power I used, they’d kill millions more around the world and wreck the same twenty cities again by the time I could take them all out.

“That also means I’m the only one that would have a chance to reach ground from their orbitals by taking out their defenses, while Jenna is the only one that could shield us from the withering fire that will no doubt fall on our heads.  It is what it is.  If I can do it, and no one else can, that makes it my… our, responsibility.”

Anna shook her head, “Superheroes are crazy.”

Maeve and I laughed, and Jenna accused, “You’d know.”

Anna’s lips twitched, “True.  Okay, say it works.  You go in, cow the leadership, and then accept their unconditional surrender on behalf of all Meer’ette.  They become a vassal of humanity, agree to never send a warship across our border and only expand in other directions. They also agree to provide military support and accept ours if we’re ever attacked by a third species.  I think that would be the plan, we have no interest in tithes or taxes.  So how would you see us maintaining that?”

I replied, “An A.I. loyal to us programmed to oversee them, and perhaps a rotating fleet at their home solar system.  Not to interact in any way, just to be a visual reminder.  To a human world that would be a threat, seen as an unwelcome occupation, but to the Meer’ette I believe it would be a security blanket of sorts.  A message that we’re watching over them and want them to succeed.

“The Meer’ette A.I. could monitor the military and scientific efforts, and also pass on any directions from the U.N. should it become necessary.  But hopefully it won’t be at all, the less we interfere with their expansion and growth the better, once they’re our vassal.  It would also give us access to their advancements over the years, a sort of tax for us looking out for them.

“The important part in my mind is that should be real.  I mean, peace, but we won’t abuse them, or abandon them in the future.  They will be ours to protect as we demand the same of them.  Even from other humans if it ever comes up.”

Anna nodded, “And when the current leaders die, and new ones rise in their place?”

“We’ll have to play that one by ear the first time.  I honestly don’t know.  We might need to send someone again, to receive their fealty and have them ratify that the treaty stands, to carry on the comparison to a vassal state.  A projective telepath to handle their xenophobia, and a couple of others.  If they try to fight us and prevent our approach, then we’ll know we need to conquer them again, each time they have a change of leadership.  Fortunately, they’re a long-lived race, and the leaders are appointed for a lifetime.

“It’ll still be worth it even if we have to.  A small skirmish every few hundred years, on their soil, so none of our citizens will be harmed, and far better than dealing with an invasion every five to ten years.  Of course, they may just go with it, and our A.I. overseer can let us know when that determination is made.  It’s possible any renewal will go the other way around.”

Anna tilted her head, “What do you mean, the other way around?”

Maeve’s lips twitched, “Technically, the four of us will be ruling the Meer’ette, at least on paper.  I think she means the vassalage may only need to be renewed when we die.  In fifteen thousand years.”

I nodded, “Yep, that one.  But just another possibility.  There likely is no perfect solution, this is life, and even if it only gains us a couple of hundred years of peace before we have to do it again, well that’s worth it.  Nothing is forever.  Which is also why I suggested we keep an eye on their military and science, so we can be assured we keep an edge on them, and our mad scientists have time to counter their growing technological base.

“One of the things I want to do is have Pixie get a far clearer picture of how it will work on their side, by mining their much larger historical databases that didn’t make it on the ship.  That should hopefully answer a lot of those questions.  We’ll have to be careful, I plan to have her mine that information and report before we make any demands on our hostages.  We can’t ask them what they’d like, we have to lay down the law and draw a line in the sand.  Doing that mining beforehand will allow us to determine where the best place to do that is.

“The important part is trying.  Even if this all fails, we still have the knock them out of space option.  Their response though based in their psychology, matters far less to me than us making the effort in the first place.”

Anna replied, “True.  Okay, I think I got enough information, even if most of the answers were I don’t know or speculation, except the clarifications of your motivations.  You’ll know soon enough if the president agrees. If the plan isn’t submitted to the U.N. by tomorrow evening, then you’ll have to accept you did your best.  I likely won’t be authorized to inform you of the decision directly.”

I nodded, “I will.  I won’t like it, but that’s all I can do.  I have no authority otherwise.”

At least my conscience would be clean, if the president, U.N. and world leaders wanted to stain their souls without trying… well that was their right.  I wasn’t the ruler of Earth, and I didn’t want to be.

Jenna announced, “Cheesecake,” and we all dug in.

The next few days passed to see the answer.

The very next day just after noon, the question and plan was put the U.N.  That was good news, at least the president had given the idea weight and agreed it had merit, despite the shocking nature of it to our beliefs and instincts.  Occupational forces and controlling other countries directly was something dark in our history, something we’d moved away from as a viable solution, and thought of as barbaric and oppressive.  And it would be, for humans, but not for Meer’ette.

Not because the Meer’ette were intrinsically less than humans, they weren’t, they were just vastly different in motivation and thought.

Not much else was going on those days, outside of our daily training, workouts, and sparring.  It’d been about eleven days in total since I’d started training, so that was just over halfway to the twenty-one-day target for forming my mental habits when it came to power.  After that, the training wouldn’t be as intense, merely enough to maintain those subconscious mental foci to control my power and keep the people around me safe.

It was also the last day of my first week back at work, and the weekend.  There were no emergencies we had to respond to, so for most of that weekend after training in the early hours, we relaxed and spent time together as a team.  Sometimes with their husbands around, sometimes not.  It was a good thing from my perspective, our casual friendship from the past growing into something deeper, there was a lot to admire about my team members.

It'd also been ten days since I’d seen or spoken to my mother, at that first training practice out in the wilderness.  I was rather ambivalent about that fact, that we seemed to have fallen right back into our habits of avoiding each other, even now that I had power.

The U.N. didn’t really appreciate my plan as a whole.  Several politicized it due to its somewhat dubious nature from the human side at looking at things.  The media was even worse that way, playing it up for all it was worth.  Using incendiary words such as describing it as an oppressive plan, barbaric and evil, and some went as far to say the plan called for making the Meer’ette a subordinate slave race of the humans.

Which was reasonable, from an emotional and instinctual outrage reaction to the idea spurned by instinctual response.  Most people would put themselves in the Meer’ette’s place when thinking about it, and of course they hated the idea.  I would as well, to do it to another human group would be oppressive and wrong.  Even barbaric, to use their own words, and an anachronism to a past human society that was far darker in nature.

That the Meer’ette weren’t human and would see it differently, took critical thinking and an ability to take a person’s own reactions out of the equation.  Something few people were capable of, especially with the media painting it so darkly on the news.  Their initial reaction so visceral that they refused to even think or entertain a logical explanation as to why it wasn’t that at all.

Anyone trying to do so in the media was shouted down, and they were accused of rationalizing evil.

The fact that the alternative, knocking them out of space, was far more barbaric, and would likely doom the race to extinction over the long run, was never discussed.  The fact that our ships on the edge of their home solar system were still being ignored two weeks later, and that they’d never come to the table for civilized talk toward a treaty was never discussed.

In short, taking that so called less barbaric route, was nothing short of genocide.  Just… genocide that might take a thousand years or more, but it would happen.  No one was looking that far into the future, and only at the now.  They weren’t looking at the fact my solution would allow the Meer’ette not just survival, but to flourish as a species.

Long story short, the U.N. ultimately rejected the idea, by seventy two percent in a vote.  I didn’t believe for a second that seventy-two percent of the world leaders were that blind or incapable of critical thinking.  It was just obvious that they feared a backlash if they dared to back the plan, so they killed the idea to preserve their own power.  They weren’t going to risk losing their power base and support in order to aid an enemy that had attacked our worlds twice now, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could blame them for that.

It took a superhero mentality to be that sacrificing, to do the right thing and damn the consequences, and world leaders as a rule were not superheroes.  Most people weren’t.

So, in the end, the combined leadership of Earth shot down my idea.  It wouldn’t even be tried.  That Monday morning, they got back to discussing alternatives if the Meer’ette continued to ignore the fleet we had on their border.  The only good thing I could say for them, was it was taking them a long time to get around to the genocidal suggestion that was surely pushed by the military minds across the world, knock them out of space.

Really, it was the only option left when political discourse and compromise was impossible.  It was just a matter of time.   There had been a lot of questions left unanswered in my plan, but one thing I was sure of was that treaties of mutual agreement in hope of peace was beyond the capability of the Meer’ette psychology.  It would never happen.

Ironically perhaps, it was the same kind of herd behavior in humanity that had doomed my plan.  Mobs were simply incapable of critical thought.

At least I’d tried though, and it would have to be enough.

It was late on Monday afternoon.  I was still at work, trying to get a little more busy-work done before the end of the day. 

Pixie said, “There’s a forest fire in Northern California getting out of control.  Jenna wants you and Maeve to handle it.  There’s not much she can do there.”

I nodded and got up to lock my door, then extruded a suit while I started stripping out of my mauve woman’s skirt suit, then pulled on my boots.

“Ready.  I assume I’m on firebreaks, and she’s going to use fire and water spells to actually put it out?”

Pixie said, “That’s the plan, though I think you can do more than you believe, we’ll see when we get there.  It’s about seven hundred and eighty square miles right now.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I could worry about it after the firebreaks were set up.

I blew out a breath as I started to float, and I brought up the setup I had for space travel in my head.  Fresh air was kind of important in a fire situation, so it made sense to have an independent air supply.  My head was entirely encased, and I had a backpack of sorts full of super compressed air with hoses and valves between them.  It only took a couple of seconds, since I’d practiced making it over and over.  The trickiest part of it was the mechanical only based pressure valves.

“Send my clothes home, and I’m ready to go.”

The bright flash of light cleared, and I was hovering at about fifty feet in the air.  To my right was the fire, and it was spread out a goodly distance.  About five miles wide in average and a hundred and fifty-six miles long, for the seven hundred eighty square miles.  It was spreading much faster of course, with the wind which was blowing lengthwise.

There were other supers there, but they were having a problem getting it under control for some reason, had been for days.  A reason that was apparent to me almost immediately.

First, the fire break.  I sent a stream of plasma power about fifty yards wide as I took off.  It was bright, so much brighter than the fire itself, a glowing and scintillating light blue color.  Flying as quickly as I could while maintaining control of that fire.  Not that it would burn out of control, but I didn’t want to destroy all the trees in a swath that wide either.  I was focused on burning out the undergrowth.  My power burned and consumed anything it touched, but it only touched what I wanted it to.  Just thinking not to burn the trees or the dirt was enough to just burn everything else, from the pine needles to the bushes, and of course the fallen branches, sticks, and leaves.

I was able to maintain about three hundred miles an hour while controlling my power sufficiently, so it took me just over an hour to circle the vast area where fires blazed.

Maeve had hardly been idle, putting out a lot of it with water after water spell.  But I was fairly sure I understood why Pixie had thought I could do more.

I could detect energy sources, and fire was most certainly an energy source.  I also had a reach of five miles, ten miles in diameter, which meant I could fly over the entire area in flames in one pass.  In fact, I was wondering if I hadn’t just wasted my time making that fire break as I flew toward the middle of the width at one end.

Then just as an experiment, I shot my flames at a tree on fire.  But I targeted the fire, while in my mind keeping everything else safe.  My power could consume both matter and energy, it could eat energy bolts, and even interdimensional energy.

So why not fire too?  It was just the gases being released by heat and the flames.

The bright flames outlined the tree, covering it and licking over it, but it didn’t touch it.  No, it ate the fire instead, as well as the heat, instantly cooling the tree so it wouldn’t reignite the moment I turned my back.

Sure it would work now, I carefully cemented the focus in my mind as I formed a curtain of bright blue flames higher than the highest treetop and five miles wide.  Then I started forward, my thoughts and focus ensuring it wouldn’t eat anything else but fire and heat, and my fire snaked around the branches, leaves, and tree trunks, as well as any bushes.  As the curtain advanced, it ate the fire and leached out the heat.

It was a lot of effort, despite only being half my reach, maintaining that much plasma power was a lot of work.  The trees were also spitting out supers, as they saw it coming and got clear. 

“Show off,” Maeve accused as she flew up beside me.  She was surrounded by a small area free of smoke, no doubt a spell to keep the air clear and fresh around her.

I grinned at Maeve, “Little bit, this is a lot of work.  I’m going to have to rest in a bit, it’s going to take hours at twenty miles or so at a time, with fifteen-minute breaks to regenerate in between.  Three hours or so?”  Two hours of breaks, and an hour or so for the actual work.  With a five-mile swath, I was going a lot slower than three hundred miles an hour.

I frowned, maybe I was doing it wrong.  No, I wasn’t.  I could have the power snake around consuming fire, which would be far more efficient in power usage, but I needed to leach the heat out of all of it. It was a few hundred degrees down there, even the stuff that wasn’t burning yet needed to be cooled or the fire could flare up again spontaneously.  If I was going to put out the fire, I needed to do the job right.

“Sure, make us all look bad.”

I smirked, “If you want, you can go after the arsonist.  It’s why they’ve been having so much trouble getting this under control.  A projective telepath.  I can only assume they tried to confuse me, or send me false visions of where the fire was?  They’ve probably been doing it to the fire fighters for the last week.  I have no idea why, but my mind shield warned me someone tried to get into my head.  The rest is assumptions based on that fact.”

I pointed, “That way, about three miles and retreating.  Whoever it is, they gave up when they realized they couldn’t control us.”

She sighed, “Why would they bother?  Forest fires aren’t exactly a supervillain thing, no money in it.”

I shrugged, “No idea, why don’t you go ask?”

She grinned, “I think I will.”

She took off like a shot, while I doubled my concentration on putting this fire out.  Tonight.

Putting out the fire had felt good, it was also satisfying to know the plasma part of my power was useful for more than just destruction, at least in one way.  If technically, consuming fire was still destructive in nature, it had led to saving a large part of the forest.

At the moment we were in the command center telling Jenna all about it while the coverage on the news played in the background.

It was also, not so incidentally, when I earned the superhero name Stellar Frost. 

It wasn’t entirely accurate, since they’d named me that from observational bias and not facts.  They’d seen my flames eat the normal fire and cool the forest, the flames so large also giving off the light of a blue sun.  The truth was it’d consumed the heat, but not because my power burned cold, it burned at room temperature, or whatever temperature was going on outside in the moment.  The exotic energy of my meta-energy fueled plasma power was not cold.

But… I’d heard worse names, and it even sounded pretty, so I wasn’t about to quibble.  The coverage was worldwide, and while it wasn’t my first act in public it was the most significant in use of power and stamina.  Burning a swath five miles wide and twenty miles long before resting was me touching every single square millimeter of a hundred square miles with my power.  Even more significant, when considered in cubed feet at fifty feet or so high across that space.

Which had fully revealed the extent of my power and reserves to the world.  They’d known of course, from my defense and taking down the alien fighter craft so easily.  I just hoped the extent of my power didn’t make anyone… worried.

Maeve said, “The telepath was apparently after revenge against a rival in business.  They wanted to burn down a specific person’s home and business, but they decided the best way to get away with it was to make it look like a natural disaster.  Caroline figured it out, he’d been sending the fire team in circles all week using a combination of imposed hallucinations and doubts in their powers.  It’s why the fire got so big and out of control.  So they’ll be going away for that as well.”

Jenna nodded, “Good work.  No, really impressive, I had no idea your power could do that.”

I smiled, “Thanks, and neither did I.  Until I felt the forest fire as energy, I hadn’t considered that it was another power source my power could consume.  So is heat apparently, when it differs greatly from the surrounding environment, I can feel it and effect it.  So, what did you do tonight?”

Jenna smirked, “Brad took me to dinner.”

Maeve laughed, “Nice.”

“You seem very proud of yourself.”

Jenna giggled, “Who, me?”

I laughed.

We continued to chat for a little longer, before seeking our beds.  Tomorrow’s three AM training would come early, it always did.

Chapter Nine

The tiger sat right outside the door of the building.  It looked real enough, but I knew it wasn’t a real tiger as I opened the door.  It was Tuesday night.

“Would you like to come in?”

The tiger tilted her head, “Are you always so polite to strange wild animals?”

I smiled, “Only the ones with power packs, an escaped tiger from the zoo wouldn’t have one.”

The tiger chuffed, then walked inside, “I’m Iris.  I’d like a moment with your team, if possible.”

“Pixie?”

Pixie replied, “I’ll call them down.”

It was a bit surreal, leading a tiger to the conference room, but the robotic tiger was obviously being controlled by an A.I.  I was more than curious who had sent it, and what they wanted, and why they hadn’t just called.  But I held my questions until the rest of the team arrived.

Jenna asked, “Iris, what can we do for you?”

Iris said, “My mistress is Claire Chamberlain.  She sent me to invite you to dinner tonight, and she thought it prudent not to send a message, or even have a record of her contacting you in the comm system.  There are just too many spies interested in everything she does.  Which is why I teleported straight to your doorstep.”

Jenna blinked, “Spatial Distortion is inviting us to dinner, on New Hope?”

Iris nodded, and said in amused tone, “That’s what I said, yes.  She’d have come herself, but she refuses to step foot back on Earth, ever.”

“I can understand that, given how she was treated.  We were just tweens back then, but I remember what happened.”

We all exchanged a glance, then Jenna nodded, “We’d be delighted to accept.”

Iris said, “Excellent, we’ll expect you in thirty minutes.  I’ve furnished Pixie with coordinates to appear directly inside the house so no one will witness your arrival, along with a one-time use code to lower the forcefield that protects it.”

She teleported out in a flash.

Maeve asked, “What do you suppose this is about?”

I shrugged, “No idea, but I need to go change.”

Maeve nodded, “Us too.”

We all got up to go get ready to have dinner, with a mad scientist that owned six colony worlds, and had sold many others.  I wasn’t about to hazard a guess as to what she wanted from us.

Claire had black hair, green eyes, and was willowy in appearance at five foot nine.  She looked a bit preoccupied as she joined us in the dining room, where we’d only been waiting for a minute or so.  I suspected she had science on the brain, and she looked just a slight bit annoyed at us being a distraction from her work even as she smiled at us in welcome.

I didn’t take it personally, that was pretty normal even for the most social of mad scientists.

There was another person coming in behind her.  He had brown hair and hazel eyes, just over six feet and medium in build.

“Good evening, and welcome to my home.  This is Brice.  I’m glad you came, I wasn’t sure you would given the short notice, but we’re under something of a time crunch.”

A few bots rolled into the room and started to load the table with food.

She waved, “Please enjoy, we’ll discuss business after the meal.  I see you’re all wearing my devices?”

“Love them, they’re amazing.”

She beamed, “Always good to meet a happy customer.”

We dug in, while we discussed all the add-ins we had.  It was a safe enough subject, and mad scientists loved talking about their inventions.  The others had a lot more than I did, but they were rather wealthy in comparison, I imagined I’d catch up over time now that my incoming monies had doubled and I no longer had rent or utilities to pay for, it would add up fast.

She said, “I’m working on a new one right now.  A time dilated full sized training facility for superheroes.”

I blinked, “Why?”

She waved, “Most cities have forty-eight supers, that’s twelve quads, so they’re limited to two hours of course time a day each.  Which isn’t horrible really in concept, until you consider the course has to be repaired and reset between, so they don’t get to train that long.

“A time dilated course even halved would mean four hours of training in two hours in the real world, and that dilation could be increased when no one is inside it, to quickly reset it or even change its configuration.  Days of work, if necessary, by the repair bots, in mere moments.  Of course, it would be capable of greater dilation, so not only could a city train all their people as much as they wanted, but they’d be able to rent out time slots to other super teams that can’t afford to maintain a full-sized simulator room.

“I’m pretty sure it will sell well.  Some of course won’t, and will just make do with what they have, because they can’t get funding.  But that’s normal.”

Jenna said, “I might be interested in that.”

She smiled, “Enough about that, let’s get to the point of this visit,” she said as we were finishing off our plates.

She sighed, “The dunderheads on Earth are morons, and once again I have to waste my lab time fixing their stupidity.  I’d like to propose we work together in secret, to make your plan,” she looked at me, “A reality.  Brice here is a powerful tier two projective telepath, and he’d be willing to go along with you three to counter their xenophobia.”

I blinked, a bit shocked, but then asked, “Suppose we do that and go behind the Earth’s back.  What happens when they seek their pound of flesh for the last attack?”

She waved that away, “I’ll handle those fools, don’t worry about that.  If you succeed in your plan, and make them your vassal, I’ll make sure no one interferes or even knows about your involvement in it.  I’d go myself, it’s the most logical plan I’ve heard, but I’m not a superhero.”

Jenna narrowed her eyes, “Unless you’re feeling nostalgic?”

I had no idea what that meant at all, but it hit Claire hard, the mad scientist actually flinched back in surprise.

Claire cleared her throat, “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re implying.”

Claire was a terrible liar, and I’d be asking Jenna later what she’d meant by that later.

Jenna smiled, “Of course, my mistake.  Back to the point, we act unilaterally despite the U.N.s decision and take matters into our hands.  Make them our vassal.  Will you supply an A.I. for that?  One to leave behind, loyal to us but programmed to think like a Meer’ette?  They’d keep an eye on the Meer’ette leaders, military, and scientific advances?  As well as act as a go between when questions or issues crop up, which they’re bound to do.”

Claire nodded, “I can arrange for an A.I.  But yes, that’s what I’m asking.  Leaving it in the hands of those morons is out of the question.  I’ve been waiting for someone to deal with that issue in a semi-permanent manner, and they shot down the only good idea and workable plan I’ve heard of?  It’s annoying.”

I chuckled, annoying because it took her away from science to deal with it herself, no doubt.

“They won’t be very happy with us if they find out.”

Claire waved that away, “You’re willing to risk your lives for a better alternative to knocking them out of space.  If you’re doing that, you’re not going to balk at a little civil sneakiness.  It’s not even civil disobedience since they didn’t tell you not to do it.  Mostly because they’d never imagine someone would dare go around them like that.

“There are no guarantees in life, but I’m confident I can cover it all up, without them having a clue you were involved.  They hate taking responsibility and making hard choices in public view, so they will whine and moan about it, decry me as a monster, but secretly they’ll be relieved that I handled it for them, so that they won’t have to actually do anything about it.  It’s how those numbskulls think.”

It was absolutely crazy of course, I’d said I wouldn’t act unilaterally, but when Jenna gave me a searching look, I subtly nodded, and Maeve did the same when Jenna’s gaze shifted to her.

It was intuition really, but it didn’t take long to nail it down by logic chain, once I’d made the decision.  It wasn’t unilateral, I was doing it with the request and approval of a woman who owned seven colony worlds.  Also, the woman who’d protected Earth with her ships for the last two attacks, we’d only had to secure the surface against fighter attacks.

That made it feel legitimate to my mind and not a rogue action, and the U.N. had lost the initiative to decide the matter by their constant hemming, hawing, and arguing about taking a course.  We were also a privately bankrolled super team, so we owed the government no loyalty save following the laws.  Claire was right, there was no law against it, and we were technically at war with the Meer’ette.  There was no reason not to do it.

Jenna said, “We’re in.”

Claire nodded, “Excellent.  Teleport back in two days, I should have the A.I. ready to go by then, we’ll call her Sentinel, or Sent for short.  The three of you and Brice will deploy from here, and then return directly to your homes after mission end.”

Jenna said, “Sounds good.  See you then, and I’m looking forward to more addons.”

Claire grinned, “Good.”

We stood up and stepped back from the table, and Pixie teleported us home.

I asked, “What was that? Nostalgia?”

Jenna grinned, “A subtle way to refer to the past.  Seven years ago, we noticed a pattern that indicated someone had time travel and was using it to avert disasters that would’ve cost millions of deaths.  Nothing small done that way, just major things.  The trail isn’t obvious, not unless you suspect someone has time travel when looking for it.  Then an underwater volcano eruption that should’ve caused a tidal wave, but in actuality imploded for no reason, suddenly makes a lot of sense.”

“Really?  That’s nuts, so how’d you guess it was her?”

Jenna shrugged, “A feeling.  She was on our shortlist of suspects, so I thought to verify it in that opportune moment, not that we’d do anything but applaud her for it.  Her being a hero when feeling nostalgic was subtle enough that not even her friend Brice could figure out what I’d meant by it if he doesn’t already know.

“It also goes without saying not to tell anyone outside the team, or even discuss it with Claire in the future.  Too many would freak out and lose their minds over the idea.  As far as we can tell, she only takes short hops back in time, less than a day, to minimize the impact on the timeline and our futures, save preventing a whole lot of deaths.”

I nodded, “You think the government knows she sees them all as dunderheads?  That’s a fantastic word, isn’t it?”

Jenna giggled, “I imagine they do, she’s hardly shy on the criticism, at least when she was seventeen, she wasn’t.  She’s a bit more circumspect in public now, but obviously not when in private.”

I said, “I won’t tell anyone, but what made her make the shortlist?”

Pixie said, “I found evidence of her being in France and on Mars at the same time.  There was no unexplainable mysterious happening to prevent a natural disaster that day, but it was the only time she personally went to offer a place and collect another mad scientist for her world.  Otherwise, she just issued an open invitation and outlined her program on her website.  I suspect that was due to it being a manmade disaster that she averted that day, so there was no proof or unexplained happening.

“The government was also heavily hunting her at the time, so it seems unlikely she’d have gone to France on a lark, rather than stay on Mars in her lab.”

That made a lot of sense, and it was interesting to say the least.

“Okay.  So what’s the plan for the next two days?”

Jenna said, “Business as usual, though we will modify our training a little.  Me on defense and you on offense.  Maeve, perhaps you can control our direction and speed as the slowest flier, I’ll keep us tethered so you’ll essentially be dragging us along, and the atmosphere won’t interfere since we’ll head to the surface out of phase.

“Beams from the surface or fighters just aren’t going to be an issue, my ability will phase any energy in the same phase as us away.  The fighters will be more problematical.  They could conceivably ram us with their shields, which I won’t be able to phase as they’ll compensate.  Missiles may also be an issue, if one of them is detonated in close proximity or has phased shielding as well.”

I nodded, “I can take down anything on a collision course.  I won’t be able to miss one if it has a reactor, shield, or energy explosion payload.  I could be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers though, since it will take a few milliseconds to break through their shields.  I can also save on energy by targeting the energy in the reactor only.  Instead of burning away the whole shell, it’ll just eat a path through to the reactor and eat the energy.  At that point it’ll be a large and falling paper weight.”

Jenna nodded, “Good.”

Maeve said, “I can do that, and I’ll try to avoid a mass convergence as well, lot of random turns and such.”

Jenna said, “It’s a good plan, and we’ll train for it tomorrow.  We haven’t really trained for work as a team much, but the assault and landing should be pretty straight forward, and we know our disparate jobs.  The biggest problem is what we don’t know.  We’ve seen their beam technology, fighters with mini-missiles and beams, but they likely have defenses we haven’t seen or dealt with.

“We know they can bend both time and space with their larger ships, so we have to assume they can do it on the surface of the planet as well.  Who knows what other things we haven’t even heard of.”

“I doubt bending time will be an issue, as it would essentially make our attacks go right through something to hit the planet.  That kind of dodge would only be useful in deep space.  Bending space… I might be able to eat that field of energy.  We should bring along a teleport suppression field as well, so the leaders can’t teleport away once we get through, and so they can’t teleport bombs in or even us directly.”

Jenna tilted her head, “Good idea.  It won’t take us long to get close to the ground, with us phased Maeve can get us down faster than their fighters can block or follow.  The largest danger I think is dealing with the ground defenses, that’s what will slow us down.  We have to assume they have starship level shielding around their leaders’ building complex, at the very least.”

I nodded, “That seems likely.  I can break through it, but it will take a lot longer than what the small fighters have.  Seconds, at the least, while any fighters or other attacks are trying to grind us against them.  We should be close enough by that point to suppress teleportation however, since that happens in subdimensions that can’t be shielded, the field will go right through.”

Maeve nodded, “I’ll work up some training for the morning.”

Jenna nodded, “The suppression field will require us to curb our options once we’re near to the surface.  If we have to fly out of range for any reason, we have to assume the leadership will escape via teleport.  At that point the mission would become unworkable, and we’ll have to abort.  Alright, morning will come fast, and Maeve has a training session to work out.”

“Just one more thing.  Once we’ve breached, I’ll take over and shield the room we’re in.  We have to assume they’re surrounded by tens of thousands of others all willing to die for their leaders.”

Jenna said, “Good point.  We’ll be playing it by ear at that point.  I’ll also be ready to phase us if they decide to blow up their leadership and elect new ones.  We can’t be sure there isn’t a risk assessment point they’ll do so, even if it goes against their nature.”

“Yeah, let’s hope that’s not an option, or the mission will fail.”

Jenna said, “Agreed, that will be mission failure, and our job will be to reach orbit and get out alive at that point.  No point in going down with the mission.  We want to succeed, but in the end if it doesn’t work, we’ll have done our best and can sleep at night once we get home, as long as we do our best.  At that point it will be fleet actions when the U.N. gets around to making a decision.”

None of us were going to argue with that.  We were willing to risk our lives, not throw them away.  We turned in for the night.

The next couple of days were intense training in the early pre-dawn mornings, and the rest of the day was business as usual.  We all still had jobs to get to, after all.  The training was also a bit limited in nature, it wasn’t something we could fully simulate since we were uncertain of so much.  All we could do was train for what we knew they’d have, and we’d have to deal with the rest as it came.

Honestly, it’d be a bit suicidal, if it wasn’t for Jenna’s phasing defense and my cool temperature plasma energy offense.  Even that was no guarantee, but our abilities combined made us quite formidable.

Her ability to phase others or attacks was not endless however, it was only herself she could phase virtually forever.  But if the battle lasted long enough for her to run out of power, it was likely we’d have already lost.  Given our mission, we also wanted to do the least amount of harm, there was no point in saving millions of lives on their ships and space stations, their build platforms and other space infrastructure, if we had to wipe out millions on our planetary mission.

Yes, their society’s healthy expansion and presence in space was something I wanted to preserve if possible, which ironically was only possible through their defeat, but it wasn’t the driving mission objective.  It’d be a bonus and a theoretical future boon to both our species.  The true objective for us was to avoid all that senseless killing, so we’d abort before the death toll could rise too high in our assault.  That said, it was war, and some of the enemy would die, if only the ones flying the defense fighters.  Once we’d breached the complex, the hope was to use non-deadly measures to secure our hostages and hold off any would-be rescuers.  Hand weapons or hand to hand combat simply wouldn’t register on the danger scale for any of us.  Except perhaps the telepath, we’d have to keep Brice safe.

The second morning’s training was even better than the first, since Maeve had bought a training area add on.  I didn’t even want to know how much the thing cost, but it was full of buildings, parks, and fields, and had several hundred bots to simulate our enemy.  Normally that would be supervillains with lots of bystanders, but in our training that second morning they used holograms to simulate ships and a heavily shielded building we had to breach.  We’d even used a bot to simulate Brice, to keep him protected.

It was impressive if small scale.

Later that evening, we teleported back to New Hope.

Chapter Ten

Claire nodded slowly, as we got done briefing her and Brice on our plans and the training we’d used to get ready for it. 

Claire said, “I can help a little there, I think.  I can’t tell you what all their defenses are, but… Isis, put up a hologram please, of their government complex.”

A set of buildings appeared much brighter within a rambling city scape.  I mean, it looked rambling, until I realized the rooves were just a lot lower to the ground than in human buildings.  There were four highlighted buildings, one rather large with an opening into the rest of the city through a gateway.  On the other side of the buildings stood the three smaller ones.

Claire continued, “I can’t tell you what defenses they have, but my ships were able to get detailed pictures of the surface.  They have sensor field and teleportation suppression active in Low Orbit, just above the Harmon line.  Regardless, I can tell you this is the four-building complex for the leaders.  The large building is a public government building, we’ve caught millions of the Meer’ette moving in and out of that building, but access to the other three buildings is highly restricted. 

“That seems to imply their worlds are ruled by a triumvirate, since I believe those smaller buildings are their homes for them and their families, and I don’t believe they ever leave the complex at all.  Families numbering in the hundreds, extended families?  Point is, there’s not just a spouse and a few kids running around.

“Even with this information it will be problematic at best to identify the three leaders, assuming my guess is even right.  Brice will figure it out.  It’s also night there now, which is both advantageous and a disadvantage.  Advantageous because the large building will be empty of the tens of thousands of visitors, problematic because the leaders will be split up in three different buildings or homes.  I believe the latter is the best bet, but if you disagree we can talk about it.

“Once you breach the complex defenses, I’d suggest creating a dome shield over it, to prevent their response teams from coming in, or anyone else from getting out.  At that point, Brice here can pinpoint the leaders while Maeve takes down the family members alive.”

I nodded, “I can do that.”

She blinked, “Do what?”

“Dome shield?”

She giggled, “Sorry, I wasn’t clear.  I gave such a device to Brice already along with a teleport suppression field device, so he’ll activate a dome shield similar to the one around my house.  They can no doubt bypass it or take it down with main force, but they’ll be risking killing everything inside the dome if they do, which we all agree is unlikely.  Chances are they’ll be frozen at that point, at least I hope so.  So you’ll be able to accompany the others into the building.”

Jenna smiled, “That’s a big help, both the shield dome device and the intelligence.  Once we’re beneath a dome shield, I’ll continue on defense, while Caroline takes out any emplacements, and Maeve will take their families down alive, with stunning energy or whatever she wants to use.  If for whatever reason I am low on power at that point, Caroline can take over protection duties as well.”

Brice frowned at the words, protection duties, “Another thing we weren’t clear about then.  I’m one of the city’s superheroes, and I have a superhero amulet.  I’d have to be a superhero to be crazy enough to volunteer for this mission.  I won’t need to be coddled during the mission, though I appreciate the thought.  I can protect myself once we’re on the ground, easily enough, even from small interdimensional energy arms fire, or anti-vehicle sized emplacements.  I can also assist in taking down the family members, with sonic attacks tuned to knock them unconscious without permanent harm.”

I laughed, “That’s really good to know.  You might want to use the civilian rescue devices instead, which will give us hostages to use as leverage.

“So, I’ll just cover me and Maeve defensively, if Jenna is low on power.  Since Brice can find the leaders, our only real issue is what kind of defenses they might have to keep us out of the compound, and what they have inside the compound.”

Claire nodded, “The fighters they have patrolling low orbit and the atmosphere are the same kind in the last attack.  Visually verified at least, so there should be no real surprises as far as space and atmosphere goes, but I won’t say it’s not possible.  It will be ground emplacements and defenses that will be the challenge, emplacements that may be able to reach orbit, so keep that in mind.

“They don’t really need defenses against their own people, but they’ve been paranoid about our superpowers since they’ve discovered us, and we have to assume they’ve prepared based on what they observed of us.  So, I’d assume their whole city is littered with defenses, not just the government complex.”

That was true, but they’d have made those preparations to be effective against normal supers.  Jenna and I were too unique that way, and Maeve the ultimate in flexibility as far as powers went.  Hopefully, that would be enough.

Jenna nodded, “I think we’re ready, or as ready as we’re going to get with limited intelligence, even if that intelligence is far better than I’d feared.”

Claire said, “You’ll be teleported in two hundred kilometers above the city, that’s the outer edge of their suppression field for teleportation and sensors.  It will also be the minimal distance you need to reach to teleport out if you have to scrub the mission for any reason.”

Maeve cast her air pocket spell, and we all moved into it.  We wouldn’t need it long, Jenna would phase us all as soon as we’d arrived in orbit, but better to avoid even a split-second exposure to vacuum, if we could.  It would also keep us breathing an Earth normal mix once we’d gotten to the ground and phased back solid.  The planet would support human life if it came to it, but it wasn’t the ideal mix.

We all exchanged a look, and Jenna nodded at Claire, “Ready.”

Claire prompted, “Isis,” and then the world disappeared in a flash of white light.

When the flash of light disappeared, it didn’t look all that different from Earth.  Blue sky, white clouds, large bodies of water.  The shape of the continents were different of course, but otherwise it looked quite welcoming and beautiful.

Jenna didn’t hesitate, and as soon as we phased Maeve flew us straight down at high speed, while Jenna’s power kept us tightly grouped and tethered.  We were essentially massless while phased, so despite dragging us along Maeve had never flown faster.  While phased there was no concern with reentry heat either, since the atmosphere and even the planet itself, couldn’t touch us at that moment.

Almost as quickly, wide blue beams went through us like we weren’t there, but that didn’t last long as we passed the space station defenses and they stopped firing, since they’d only hit the planet if they continued to try.  I didn’t bother trying to take it out, because there were millions of them onboard and they no longer represented even a slight danger.

Those few seconds was also all it took before the fighters reacted, and powerful anti-ship beams fired at us from those, from the sides and below, but again went right through us as expected.  I held my fire again, focusing on their energy signatures but also the planet below.  The adrenaline had my heart pounding, and the beams going through me was a little startling in truth.

It was pure chaos, and I sent a tiny pulse of burning plasma toward the mini-missiles they launched, just in case.  They couldn’t hit us, not really, but I wasn’t sure they couldn’t explode while inside of us and it’d likely be a multi-phasic explosion.  The missiles weren’t shielded and were very small, so it didn’t take much energy to consume them.  A small ball of burning plasma, and since I could feel them, I didn’t have to see them to hit them.  I felt them being eaten by my plasma energy.

It only took a couple of impotent passes before they changed tactics, instantly changing their courses to a kamikaze intercept as we’d feared.  Which was when I finally attacked the fighters themselves, opening up with streams of bright scintillating blue fire.  It burned through their shields, their hulls, and ate their reactors in just about a second’s time.

The ships started to fall toward the planet like rocks, but they were pretty well intact, which enabled the pilots to bail out.  The problem was there were far too many of them to get them all.  I could feel them all, but I could only focus on and target so many at a time, ten to fifteen.

Things got a little tight as Maeve put us into a corkscrew course that broke in a random direction every two seconds or so, dodging the ships trying to slam into us.  Brice was also firing a beam that took a few out, but he was only taking down one for every ten I was.

We were also about halfway down, a hundred kilometers, and racing for the surface.  I actually closed my eyes at that point.  The wild turns and corkscrew maneuvers, as well as the ships barely missing us, both us and the ships going close to Mach twenty, and a bunch of little missiles.  It was pure craziness and a little dizzying. With my eyes closed I could just track the energy signatures and could target them even faster as my focus sharpened.

Halfway down is also when the ground emplacements started firing, just as we entered the space where atmosphere started, even if we couldn’t feel it.  On the good side, the atmosphere slowed the fighters and missiles, so much so that we were starting to quickly outpace them as they desperately tried to ram us.  They couldn’t maintain the Mach twenty speeds they’d reached in vacuum, and they no longer dared fire their beams any longer as they were above us now, lest they hit the planet.

The enemy seemed to love using interdimensional energy weapons, so the majority of beams hitting us from the surface was exactly that.  Which I supposed made sense, since they knew most of the homo-potens were defenseless against such energy attacks, and they were the most powerful form of energy beams known and inexhaustible in comparison to other such technologies.

For us it was a different story, those attacks didn’t concern me at all, and continued to phase past us.

No, it was the thousands of missiles that launched from the surface, that concerned me, and that was just the first launch.  There were two more launches before the first missiles got into range of my senses, a measly five miles which would be crossed very quickly at Mach twenty plus the acceleration and speed of the missiles themselves since we were aimed in a head on collision.

I wasn’t entirely sure how Jenna’s power would handle a multi-phasic energy detonation inside our bodies if the missiles triggered their explosions with precision, and I sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

Far too many to target separately, so I had no choice but to throw a whole lot of power into a shimmering dome shield of plasma power below our tight formation.  I chose ninety percent plasma, and ten percent liquid mix.  I continued to pour power into it as the missiles slammed home.  The plasma part of my power ate it, while the liquid layer behind it absorbed the lesser but still significant kinetic forces of the missiles.  It was a huge drain on my reserves, and the second, third, and fourth volleys were coming.

I yelled, “Brice, take out those launchers!”

They were far out of my range still, but a superhero device had ship quality sensors on it, and real weapons systems.  We were in the atmosphere, so we should’ve been past the jamming and suppression fields preventing sensor penetration.

Brice fired beam after beam, but there was a lot of them, and the second volley of missiles hit my shield with a punishing amount of power that sent an exhausting surge of power through me as I ate the energy and deflected the kinetic hits.

Even I wasn’t invincible and could be worn down, it was why Jenna was on defense.  All the force and power of their attacks was supposed to just miss us, not be defended against.  But none of us had even guessed they’d have so many missile launchers to take us out.

Then I had a really simple idea.  We were past the suppression fields.

“Pixie!  Teleport us, Now!”

I didn’t say where, there was no time, the third volley too close to us to get out a full sentence before it annihilated my shield.  We couldn’t teleport off the planet through the suppression field, but there was nothing stopping us from teleporting to the other side of the missile launchers, and right above the city itself.

Which is where we ended up as the flash of light died, the city just a thousand feet below us.  Bless Pixie for reading my mind, since the three flights of missiles were now above us and quickly racing up away from us.

Pixie reported, “Force field over the whole city, and a second one over our target area that’s ten times stronger.”

Brice said, “Teleport suppressor online.”

The three waves of missiles self-destructed above us, I supposed they didn’t want to risk destroying their own city and blowing a hole in their own shields by turning them around.  I checked our meta-energy readings in the HUD, and Magician was the only one that was in good shape.  I was low, perhaps too low to break through two powerful shields, and Jenna wasn’t doing too much better, given how much energy she’d phased on the way down here, not to mention us.

They’d also launched another volley of missiles, a smaller volley, only about a hundred of them.  I suspected they’d try to chip away at us and hope they could destroy us before we broke through the shields.

Jenna said, “The shields are only above ground, take out the missiles that will hit us.  I have just enough energy to get inside their shields.”

Jenna flew and took the rest of us along, and she started a curved path toward the edge of the city and the ground.  I realized what she intended.  Only about twenty mini missiles were fired from that vector, and the rest wouldn’t catch us before we slipped into the ground.  So I focused on those twenty energy signatures and small bright balls of plasma power left me and took down those missiles.

Then we disappeared into the ground.  Which really, was not a comforting experience, at all.  But we were only in the dark for about two seconds, before we popped up out of the ground inside the target area.

Brice said with amusement, “Activating shield.”  No doubt amused by the thought we were protected by our shield and theirs.  As long as they kept powering it, that is.

The response was immediate and automated, as several small anti-vehicle beams shot at us, and I quickly retaliated, taking out all the automated defenses in the government complex.

Jenna said, “I’m out, need about fifteen minutes to recoup.”

“I’m low too, but I should have enough to defend Maeve and I from small arms fire, if Brice and Maeve take down the families.”

And I did exactly that, covering Maeve’s shield with a transparent shield of my own.  It was thin and translucent, but plenty strong enough to handle hand weapons.

I just hoped there were no more major surprises, because I was far too drained to handle anything large that wasn’t already accounted for and expected.  The missile surprise had been more than enough for me, thanks.

Jenna nodded, “Let’s just hope they don’t have a bomb self-destruct.  Other than myself I doubt I could phase a hair pin right now.”

Well, at least she’d live to make it home.

I grinned, “They don’t, I’d feel it if they had something like that.  Unless they can blow the reactor powering their city’s shields, that is.  But that would kill every Meer’ette in the city, including the triumvirate.”

The enemy hadn’t attacked us yet.  I’d half expected the Meer’ette to charge out of the houses at us, but maybe they were digging in to fight us when we breached the compact looking mansions.  That was the tactically sound idea, and they weren’t a herd of stupid animals despite their base instincts. 

They mansions were three stories high, and the door only three feet high, but it was maybe six feet per story.  Meer’ette were short, four legged, and two-armed race, after all. 

So, we were taking advantage of the moment of peace to get our breaths.  That descent had been crazy, and a short breather to recoup our power and adjust the plan wouldn’t hurt.  It was also giving Brice the time he needed to locate the leaders, who had better be here, after what we just did to get this far.

Brice said, “I got them.  Each mansion has about a hundred defenders, and the leaders are in an office in the basement, some kind of saferoom.”

That was good to know, since like old humans I couldn’t feel the Meer’ette at all, they had no intrinsic power as a race.  Plus, it was a relief to know we hadn’t done this for nothing.  The mission could still fail, but it wouldn’t fail because the leaders had retreated and scattered.

“Only about half of those are armed with hand energy weapons.  I’m detecting about fifty small energy signatures in each mansion.  Also… I think they’re containment shields of some kind, several in each mansion.  Some kind of lockdown.”

Brice released forty-five rescue devices, and fifteen raced off for each of the houses.  It wasn’t long before he grimaced.

“Only got a few, before they realized the danger.  The devices were destroyed.”

The hard way it was.

Jenna said, “Brice, with me out here to prevent the others from running when Maeve and Caroline go inside a building.  Maeve, Caroline, I want you two to go inside.  Maeve take them down and collect the leader, while Caroline takes down the lockdown shields.  Once all three buildings are secure, Brice’s rescue devices shouldn’t have a problem capturing the unconscious, and we’ll have a conversation with the triumvirate.”

That was a good a plan as any, Brice was well shielded, so it made sense to send in me and Maeve, so I could keep her shielded.  Not that she couldn’t handle a few interdimensional beams on her shields, but I could absorb a hell of a lot more while she took them down with stun bolts.

Brice said, “I’ll have two of the devices follow them, from a room or two behind, so we can capture as they get knocked out and don’t risk them waking up again to start trouble.”

Jenna replied, “That works.  Let’s get started, I don’t know how long the outside world will be frozen in fear that we can kill their leaders, so let’s not dawdle.”

“Understood.”

Maeve and I started toward the house on the left.  Several small beams were fired from the upper windows.  I thought it was curious they’d waited to fire until they knew we were coming to breach their leader’s house.  We’d been standing in the open the whole time.  My shields ate the energy, and I otherwise ignored them and let Maeve deal with it.

Maeve gestured and muttered a word under her breath over and over again as she moved her hand slowly, firing a blast of stunning energy at all the windows on the top floor.  The front door was shielded, so I sent some bright blue flames that way, which ate through the shield and the door itself for good measure.

Then we stepped inside, ducking down to get through the door.  The ceiling was only a few inches above my head at five foot nine, but I’d take it.  At least I only had to crouch down to get through doorways.

I won’t recount it in detail, since there was nothing in the houses to give us pause or challenge us in any significant way, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as our infiltration, and you have a good idea how it went down already.  It was in all aspects, a simple mop up operation as far as action.

It didn’t take long for me to clear the way of shields, or Maeve to stun the Meer’ette unconscious.  Brice’s following devices put them all on ice for us, and we found the first leader cowering behind his desk.

The next two houses went the same way, and there was no attempt at breaching the shields or other interference from the rest of the planet.  Despite the energy expenditure, it was so light in nature that I recovered my power fully by the time we were finished.

Chapter Eleven

It was about twenty minutes later when we were all in the third house, in the approximation of a living room.  I’d gone ahead and created four energy construct chairs that were quite comfortable, since the Meer’ette’s furniture wasn’t suitable for us at all.

A Meer’ette hologram sat in front of us, which was the A.I. Sent, who we’d be leaving behind as a go between if this worked.  For now, she was our translator.  Or at least, she’d translate our words for them and do our speaking, while Pixie would handle the incoming translation in real time privately in augmented reality.  It would give the illusion we understood their language.

Brice said, “Ready when you are.  I’ll bring them in, and short circuit their xenophobia.”

All of the three hundred Meer’ette of the three ruling families were captured inside the rescue devices, including the three leaders.  Brice must’ve kept track, or the software did, because he was confident that he could let those three and only those three go.  For them, there’d be no sense of passing time, so it would be as if they’d been cowering in their basement safe-room office, to in this room, in a split-second.  With all of us sitting there in confident contemplation.

Which had to be intimidating from their side of things, I’d imagine.

Jenna said, “Not entirely, I hope.  We need them to feel intimidated, fearful, and worried if we expect them to surrender and swear fealty to us on behalf of the species.  Not so much that they can’t think critically, however.”

Brice said, “Trust me.  I’ll just be suppressing their instinctive recoil, illogical fears, and disgust at our appearances, not the logical ones.”

Jenna smiled, “Okay, Pixie?”

A hologram of Pixie appeared, “I’m still reviewing their history, but there is precedent in the past.  One group of Meer’ette serving at the pleasure of another herd’s leader.  Historically, such arrangements were extremely long-lived and stable.  The subordinate herd leader even appreciating it as we’d expect from what has already been discussed, but that was back before they had a united world with single leaders, much less a triumvirate for all their worlds.”

Jenna asked, “How did that happen?”

Pixie said, “A lot of fighting eventually led to three stable leading groups, countries if you will, each with hundreds of other groups sworn to them.  They were in a deadlock for centuries, none of them willing to risk losing all they’d gained to attempt to rule it all.  When colony worlds started to be developed, it was too much for any one being to watch over and control.  It was for that reason a triumvirate of those three ruling families were formed.

“Like a kingdom back on earth, one ruled by a king or emperor, they use a system of succession that runs by bloodlines.  But since any newly raised member of the triumvirate has two older and wiser members to deal with, it’s been extremely stable for several thousand years.”

Jenna frowned, “That long?”

Pixie replied, “Yes.  They’re not as driven as humans to explore, and of course they had no mad scientists to drive scientific advancement so far and so fast, in just two hundred years we’ve outpaced what they accomplished in ten times as many years.”

“When one group subdued another, how did it happen.  I mean, what did they need to do to get another leader to swear fealty and give over their ultimate authority over their group?”

That was a good question.  Just subduing their leaders might not be enough to qualify.  Fortunately, that was a worry which Pixie dismissed with her words.  If anything, our actions on their home world that day overqualified.

“This qualifies.  Usually, they did less than we have here.  A common approach was simply cutting off access to resources as a way to force another leader to submit to another’s authority.  What we’ve done, taking them under our control physically, was accomplished at times but is also more than was needed back then.  Hopefully that stays true.  I mean, a lot of things happened in Earth’s past that would never happen now.”

Another good point, but if they refused all we could do is go home and let them suffer the far harsher consequences of their actions.

Jenna said, “Alright, let’s do it, and hope they still think the same way.  That they haven’t grown an unhealthy ambition for rule that overrides that instinct to feel safe under other leadership.  It could go either way, if it’s been thousands of years since the last Meer’ette tribe submitted to another.”

Brice used three of the devices, to bring them back simultaneously.  Despite the fact we were the only ones sitting in that moment, we still had the psychological high ground, and needed to stare down at them.  They weren’t that small, about the size of a medium size dog, like a golden retriever.  Of course, they looked nothing like dogs with six appendages, four legs and two arms, and nothing resembling fur or snouts.  They didn’t even have hair on their heads or faces.  I wasn’t repelled by their appearance, but they weren’t all that pretty to look at either, from a human perspective.

All three of them froze as they took in their surroundings and situation, then slowly sat and leaned away from us.

Jenna let that moment drag on for a moment, before speaking with forceful authority.

“You will surrender now, unconditionally.  Your families are unharmed currently, be assured of that.”

Sent repeated the order in their language, including body language that was a display of dominance in their culture.  I didn’t imagine they’d ever seen that kind of thing pointed at them before, the three most powerful beings in their worlds.

I’ll be honest, I felt like a bully, but it was what it was.  I even had to remind myself that this would serve both our races, and not just be the best outcome for the human race.  That it was them that launched two attacks on multiple worlds, and they would’ve wiped us out if they could, while we’d never taken aggression action against them until this day.  An aggression that was still defensive in nature, since it was to prevent a third unprovoked attack in the future.

No, if anything we were being far too kind by taking this course, it truly was the kindest option we could take in defending ourselves, and it would allow both our races to prosper and grow in opposite directions.

The Meer’ette leaders made an alien sound, and lay prostrate.

Pixie said, “They just surrendered and submitted,” which was kind of obvious with the prostration.

Jenna said, “You now serve at our mercy.  You will rule your people as before, with our blessing and protection, under the following restrictions.  No Meer’ette vessel that is armed will enter human space ever again.  That space will be defined clearly so there will be no mistakes,” she waved at Sent, “Secondly, this one will oversee all your decisions, communications, and scientific endeavors.  She will also serve as a go between, should you have a request of one of us.  Third, we will leave a fleet here as observers.  They will not harm you or even interfere in your rule, should you follow my orders.  They will simply serve as a reminder of what your foolish and unprovoked attacks on my people has cost you.

“Fourth, your military may be called upon by us in the future, against any possible future enemies to both our peoples.  I doubt it will come up much, but when it does your ships will submit and follow the orders of the lead human vessel in the fight.

“Follow those rules, and you are free to prosper, expand, and lead your flock.  Betray the conditions I just set, and we will withdraw our rule, and we will not be so kind next time.  All that remains is your agreement, and for you to swear fealty to us as the new rulers of the Meer’ette.

“This is a binding agreement, that will last as long as your family’s rule.”

A treaty that open ended would never work on Earth, but their history showed such arrangements survived and were quite stable that way.  So what wouldn’t work in a million years on earth with humans, would work there.

After Sent translated all of that, one of them replied.

“If we refuse?  Or our descendants do so?” Pixie translated.

Jenna smiled coldly, “Then the Meer’ette will no longer be free to expand and prosper.  We will wipe space clean of your ships and all other infrastructure, and you will be confined to your planets.  We will still watch you, and make sure you can never attack us again, but at least you could say you rule without interference.  You will swear fealty and prosper alongside humanity, or you will not prosper at all.  We can’t allow you to keep attacking us without retaliation, many on my world already wish to defang you and keep you on your planets.  This demand?  We are being kind, never doubt that.”

“You will protect us as well as rule us?”

Jenna nodded, “If another race attacks you, and your ships are not sufficient, we will answer a call for aid.  Should you swear fealty, I already told you that you would continue to rule with our blessing and protection.”

“Our families?”

“Will be returned either way, and are currently safe, if our prisoners.  Your refusal will only risk all your people currently in space, and your ability to travel the stars and expand your worlds.”

“I see.  We must confer, and vote.  If two of us agree, all three of us will swear ourselves in your service and follow the new laws.”

Jenna said, “We will await your decision outside.  If there is a danger of your people deciding to breach in an attempt to save you, I’d suggest you tell them you’ve already surrendered unconditionally to us and you’re working on a settlement.  Giving over your leadership or not, if your word of surrender is broken there will be no agreement.  We’ve yet to harm a single Meer’ette today, in the hopes of naming your people our own, don’t allow that to change.”

Jenna phased us and flew us out, while I let the liquid energy of the chairs dissipate.

Jenna’s face fell as we cleared the building, “I hope I did okay in there.”

I grinned, “You were fine, your eminence.”

Jenna snorted.

Pixie said, “They’re in shock, I think.”

Brice said, “They are.  This is the last thing they expected.  I don’t imagine they’re going to refuse, they were too relieved at your demands and their family not being harmed.  They were so sure we’d eventually try to destroy them, which is why they attacked us without provocation or justification in the first place.  That we’re taking this approach despite their attacks on our worlds… has them turned around.

“They’re just trying to save face right now by pretending to consider it.  I suppose they’re also following the legalities of their laws, they do need to discuss it and vote.”

I felt a little relief at that.  I mean, it was my idea, and I’d been confident it would fit their psychology and alien viewpoint, but the visceral and instinctual part of me hadn’t really expected it to work.  It was too much against human nature.

We’d had a bit of a close call during the decent, and Anna had solved the issue of me not having enough power left to get through two powerful shields, but it almost seemed too easy besides that.

On the other hand, the four of us were quite formidable as a team, a superhero amulet a match for the rest of us.

“So they trust our word?”

Brice nodded, “For now.  Thanks to me.  I suspect with their xenophobia they’d have done something stupid and would never believe anything we said.  Which could be a problem after we leave.  They won’t doubt they made logical decisions, but they’ll doubt we’ll do what we said we would.  Which of course, will be proven over time, so maybe not a huge problem?”

Jenna nodded, “As long as they’re beings of their word, and don’t let their paranoia lead them to betrayal, I don’t care if they feel itchy about it for a few years, or even a century.”

I chuckled, “Me either.”

Pixie said, “Sent will warn us if that happens, but I don’t think they will.  Swearing to us will bind them by law and tradition both, the latter far more binding in their society.  Betraying that given word will not be forgiven by their people, and the ruling families would fall.  That kind of consequence will override even rabid xenophobia.”

They didn’t keep us waiting long, and it wasn’t long before they’d come out, sworn fealty, and the four of us were suddenly the rulers of an alien race, if not of the day-to-day details.

Brice released the bystander devices, which returned all of their families to the same exact spot they’d been taken from.  More important, inside the houses, so there were no mistakes.  Any of them seeing their leaders in the courtyard out front with us, wouldn’t be dumb enough to fire at us.

There was no trouble getting out either.  The rulers lowered the force fields, and we lowered ours, then flew up to a high orbit before teleporting home.

The next night Claire came through, the news stations were playing her message to the U.N. over and over again.  It was… really amusing, actually.  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.

Claire came on the screen with an annoyed expression, her voice sharp.

“You’re taking too long to decide, and I got tired of your incessant debate, so I took care of it.  No further retaliation against the Meer’ette is needed.  I’m kind of annoyed, first I had to leave my lab to protect your planets, now I had to leave again to send this stupid message.  So, the matter has been dealt with, and I’m satisfied that the Meer’ette will never attack us again and it cut into time I could be doing science instead.

“I’ll also be leaving one of my fleets over there to keep an eye on them.  I trust that you’ll accept this, and not cause an incident that could lead to more problems.  So, don’t.  It’s taken care of.  Unless of course, you don’t want my ships in orbit of your worlds anymore?  If so, do what you want.  Chamberlain out.”

Maeve looked shocked, then laughed, “She’s really offensive when she wants to be.”

I laughed too, “That she is.  She didn’t even mention how it was done or what form the retaliation came in.  So she not only kept her promise to keep our involvement hidden, but they don’t even know to look for who did what they don’t know was done.  You get the idea.”

Jenna smirked, “And she tied their hands with that last comment.  No one will dare go to Meer’ette space out of fear she’ll take her ships away.”

It wasn’t so much she was so much better than the other mad scientists, though her chosen science did give her an edge that way.  It was the time dilation and fitting big things into small spaces that other scientists had failed to repeat so far, no other ships could develop and implement an entirely new technology, defense or offense, in a matter of seconds.  Without her ships, the two invasions would’ve been a lot worse.

I asked, “How’s the triumvirate doing with their decision, now that we’ve been gone a day?”

Pixie said, “Sent indicated they’re doing fine.  Still a bit in shock at the form our retaliation took, and worried one day we’ll wipe them out anyway, but not willing to do anything stupid that might make that day come sooner.  They also cut back on their military ship construction and research programs to reasonable levels.”

So far so good, then.  They weren’t on a war footing any longer.

“So mission success, and no one has a clue?  Civil mischief indeed.”

A secret mission we could never talk about.

Maeve giggled, “We should totally celebrate being the secret rulers of the Meer’ette.”

“What a great idea.  I second the celebratory idea.”

Jenna nodded, “Assuming the U.N. agrees to back off, and doesn’t do anything stupid, the colonies should fall in line too.  But it’s probably a little too early to be calling it.  I got why she did it, but she was abrasive enough that the U.N. may decide to cut off their nose to spite their face.  After all, they won’t need her ships in orbit, if they knock the Meer’ette out of space they’ll no longer be in danger of being attacked.

“I’ll stop worrying about it when they stop talking about retaliation.  Earth retaliating could ruin everything we accomplished.  But sure, I’m up for a night out.”

We got down to some serious planning…

Chapter Twelve

The night had been a success, late dinner and drinks, and some dancing.  I’d been somewhat of a fifth wheel with their husbands along, but I hadn’t had any trouble gaining some temporary dance partners.  The mood was ebullient as we returned to the building that night, we’d pulled off the impossible with a little help from Brice and Claire.  Of course, we didn’t speak of it, but the flush of success had it there in the background all night.

Jenna smiled, “I think I’m going to take that vacation we talked about when you signed on.  Spend a week in New Hope with my extended family and Brad.  The timing seems right, so you two need to handle things until I get back.”

Brad smirked and teased, “Us?  On a real vacation without emergencies?  Where do I sign?”

We all laughed, except Jenna who was glaring playfully at her husband.  Of course, it really would be her first vacation in seven years, without the constant threat of being called away for an emergency.  That kind of thing took a toll, even if we all loved the job so to speak, it made it really hard to just let go of things for a while.

Maeve nodded, “I’ll be going next month, I need to make arrangements to manage a full week without any appointments.”

Kevin turned to me, “I knew I liked you.”

I snickered, “Enjoy yourselves.”

We all went our separate ways as we reached the third floor.  It was kind of amazing actually, the way my life had changed the last two weeks.  I took a quick shower, and brushed my teeth, before turning in that night.

The next few days passed without much going on.  I was confident in my training, and almost positive I wouldn’t be turning anything to dust on accident.  I also did a little more research into my power, which yielded some interesting results that made me question everything that I believed I knew about it.

My power didn’t really eat matter at all, just energy.  The thing is, it ate all energy, including nuclear forces, both weak and strong, and it was the weak nuclear force that held matter together.  So practically speaking I ate matter, but not really.  It’s dissolution into nano sized dust particles was purely a function of consuming its energy at the atomic level which tore apart the element. In fact, that dust was pure neutron particles.

Which begged the question, why wasn’t I turning the air we breathed, the atmosphere, into dust each time I used my power?  Air should burn just as easily as cement, steel, and rebar, or the way I could cool something with my fire by targeting the heat energy itself.  Why hadn’t I ever accidentally consumed atmosphere?

Instinct.  I needed that to live.  That was the only answer I could think of.  When my power first quickened it’d consumed my clothes, watch, and everything else it touched, because I hadn’t been consciously directing it.  A panic driven quickening often led to power based accidents.

But subconsciously I must’ve stopped it from destroying the atmosphere just as I’d prevented it from consuming my skin.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to breathe while my power was active.  Pure instinctual survival had led my power not to do that.

Even more obvious, it’d never once burned me, I hadn’t even lost a hair when my body was wreathed in fire.  My body was not invulnerable in any way, prick me and I bleed, as they say.  That alone should’ve told me it was wrong.

The fact my improvised burning boots hadn’t left footprints of destroyed matter on the ground, should’ve also been a clue.  All things I’d ignored, which were brought up in my mind when I finally saw the truth.

The scientists I’d grown up around at the beginning of the account had offered a reasonable explanation that fit my power.  One that had made sense to me, but it had also limited my use of the ‘plasma’ part of my power.  All it was good for was destruction, and I had believed it, even though it had seemed wrong to me on a certain level.  I’d never really liked that idea, that half my power was useless.

But believing it had made it true, since the mind was integral to our powers, which in a lot of ways acted to our own understanding if it could.  That false understanding had led to being able to control it, and it had definitely been a step in the right direction, but ultimately it had been wrong.

My plasma power had burned everything because I believed it would.  That belief had stemmed from my quickening, the one time my power was truly out of control.  Since I was the first of my power set, I’d foolishly cemented the idea in my head.  I’d had no known facts to counter that initial belief.

That’s it.  It was a shocking revelation.  My liquid power had the advantage of being solid, it would stop and absorb kinetic energy, as well as form basic objects of varying softness, hardness, and texture, constructs of energy.

I mean, there was some truth to it, the plasma consumed, and the liquid protected, but the liquid could also cause blunt damage, it increased my speed and strength.  So what else could my bright blue fire do for me?  I was determined to find out, discover what my power was really about, and to stop limiting it to my old and faulty understanding.

So I psyched myself up, told myself the fire didn’t burn anything I didn’t want it to burn, then sheathed an empty water bottle in flames with the intent to protect it.  The flames licked along the bottle, and absolutely nothing else happened.

I laughed.  I didn’t entirely blame the scientists either, their ideas had fit the available data, and my power was entirely new and never seen before.  I’d have been far more surprised if they’d been correct right out of the gate.

Then I picked up a napkin, balled it up, and threw it at the bottle.  My flames consumed it, protecting the bottle from my deadly projectile.  Okay, so not deadly, but it should’ve knocked the bottle over.

Which meant I needed to go back to the drawing board and redefine the subconscious intent I’d been training my subconscious to use.  My focused intent, my trained intent, needed to simply be don’t destroy anything in reflex, don’t destroy anything that I don’t want destroyed.  Contain it instead.  Defense.

I put my boots in the closet, then formed my suit under my clothes.  They way I’d done it the first time, the way I wanted to look in my super suit made of power.  Flaming boots to my calves, a flaming belt, and burning gloves to my forearms, the rest of me a duller but still bright blue liquid energy.  Then I started to pick things up, walk around, and nothing burned. Not my watch, not the floor, not anything I picked up.  Because I didn’t want it to.

That was it.  Fear, misunderstanding, and doubt, followed by false certainty, had caused all the issues.  My power was mine to control, not to manage or work around.

I also looked damned good, with bright scintillating boots and gloves as a sharp contrast to the rest of my suit, and it meant not having to manage the boots for the suit.

That also changed how I trained, it made it far easier, no complex steps.  Maeve was absolutely delighted by the change, as well as a little embarrassed for not seeing those glaring contradictions in my power as I eventually did, after that testing.

My globes and whips became fifty-fifty, plasma and liquid dancing together.  The intent simply to eat the shield, then contain the supervillain.  Or to be a protective shield, to protect the bystander.  No mistakes, no transformation from plasma to liquid.  Just… half liquid protection or to physically contain, and half plasma to eat a supervillains energy so they couldn’t escape, or eat any attacks aimed at a bystander.

The plasma part also became a scalpel, instead of a sword, if I wished it.  It could slice through anything at a monomolecular level.  It wasn’t all or nothing, it would destroy what I wanted it to, and nothing more.  It was perfect for taking care of lint or the fuzz on a sweater, for instance.  I’d also had my last wax, since with a thought I could have smooth legs, underarms, and even shaped eyebrows.  Open a can of food, or even use it as a box cutter when getting deliveries.

Or I could cut open a door on a wrecked and twisted car frame, slice open the seatbelt, and pull out the victim.  Lots of things, precision destruction, from making life easier to helping with saving others.  I was sure I’d discover even more uses in the future, but that’s what I’d played around with over those few days.  Some of it was even kind of silly, like the shaving alternative.  The important part was doing that stuff to open my mind up to the possibilities, it would make me view problems and dangerous situations from a new angle as well, and another way to use it would become apparent through situational circumstance.

Such as opening up that can of corn for dinner.  No more can opener for this superhero.  Nor scrubbing pots or cookie sheets, for that matter.  A tiny ball of flames over my shoulder also made a nifty night light for those midnight trips to the bathroom.

I’m sure that I’ve made my point, everything changed with that definitive understanding of my power and what it did, and it felt right.  The way I was using my power now felt natural, I no longer feared it, or worried about killing someone on accident.  That wouldn’t happen, no more than I’d randomly stab someone if I’d been holding a knife in my hand.  It just wouldn’t happen.

I knew it wouldn’t, so it wouldn’t.  I still wasn’t entirely sure I’d found the limits of my power, because I wasn’t sure what else I could try to do with it.  Neutralizing gravity, or anti-gravity for instance.  There could be other odd things I could do that just hadn’t come up yet.  Or maybe not?

But I was sure the parts I had down were correct now, I no longer had a misperception on how it was supposed to work, and as I said already, it just felt right.  Point was, I was keeping my mind open, or trying to.  I wasn’t done packing the box. 

In short, I understood how what I could do worked, and was sure of those pieces now, but I hadn’t ruled out other things either.  Doing that would only be a sure way to never discover new aspects of my power, because it couldn’t achieve something I didn’t believe it could achieve, even if it could.

I mean, when I really thought about it, my power could affect all four universal forces.  Consume or counter energy on the EM spectrum, strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity.  Really, that was pretty humbling to realize.  It was an exciting time for me, all the discoveries.

Regardless, it was late evening on Thursday after dinner in my apartment, when the next emergency reared its head.

Pixie appeared, “There’s a situation.  A speedster supervillain was causing havoc on the north side of the city, while his mad scientist buddy went on a subtle crime spree, using tech to suppress the alarms.  Both have been taken down, Death’s Mistress killed the speedster because he caused collateral damage in lives, and your mother’s team took down the mad scientist.”

“Okay, so what’s the issue?”

Pixie said, “The havoc part included setting off bombs with a low yield that the mad scientist supplied the speedster with.  Three high rise buildings are on fire, and a train has derailed, as well as other smaller damages like burning vehicles and severe injuries.  Emergency services and the super team is pretty overwhelmed trying to get to it all.”

Damn, no wonder Amber killed the guy, if he’d done all that.  Talk about overkill for a distraction.

I extruded the suit and pulled my clothes off, forming the boots as my shoes came off.

“Teleport me over the buildings.  I assume Maeve is working the wounded?”

Pixie said, “Yes, she is along with Angel, and right away.”

The world disappeared in a white flash, and I was hovering over a high rise.  There were three on fire, with smoke pouring out of the open windows on the bottom floors.  There were supers all over the place, trying to rescue the people inside and put out the fire.  I could feel the fires inside the buildings, as well as the homo-potens. 

Fire first, and smoke.  Smoke was just airborne particles and gases, when it came down to it, so at its essence it was matter held together by energy, just like everything else, and I could destroy it.  I focused and sent three streams of blue fire at the ductwork on the roof of all three buildings.  It ate a hole and then flooded the ducts, and I just kept pouring it in, focusing on consuming the fire and smoke, and protecting everything else.

I could’ve helped a lot without my new understanding of my power, but not nearly as quickly or certainly.

The scintillating blue fire raced through the ducts, then started to fill the rooms on the top floor, then the second floor down, and so on.  Every room in the building with a duct vent was flooded, and then it squeezed under the doorways to rooms without vents, like storage closets.  All three buildings were glowing with a bright blue dazzling fire that shone out of the windows.  I filled it all, all the space inside the buildings, ate the flames, smoke, and heat, as I completely suffused them with my power.

Eating all that smoke created small pieces of vacuum, which had the fresh air outside rushing into the building to equalize that pressure differential, giving those still stuck in the building fresh air to breathe.

A number of the energy foci who were homo-potens started moving toward the exits, it was the still ones I focused on next.  I let most of my power dissipate, but some of it was converted into liquid energy that cocooned the unconscious and carried them out the nearest window or door.  In some cases, I had to break the window, but that was fine as I delivered them to emergency services and Maeve for healing.

It bothered me, the normal humans I couldn’t feel, so I reached deeper, and felt for them.  All matter was loaded with energy, and I could feel energy other than meta-energy, so why couldn’t I feel them?  I refused to believe I couldn’t feel them in there, the ones that needed me.

So, I did feel them.

And so much more.

The world came alive for me in that moment, so much so it was entirely overwhelming.  I could feel everything, all matter was bonded by energy and force.  That was too much to process really, so I focused on chemical energy.  That’s how I narrowed it down, and I felt the normal humans, all the miraculous and wondrous chemical processes in the body, energy in motion, the beating of a heart.

It was all there, but hidden by my subconscious, so I didn’t get overwhelmed.  Not until I’d demanded it.  But now that I knew I could see it, I could narrow down the focus to make it manageable.

The remaining blue power of my fire raced to those people, surrounded them, and turned to liquid energy.  Then I floated them out as well, totally overwhelmed.  Wondering once more if I’d found the true limit of my power, then dismissing it, refusing to close my mind.

The box was more than full enough for me, but I kept the lid open.

As an afterthought, twenty-two balls of fire shot from my body in quick succession, all along the road, and hit the burning vehicles and two burning park benches.  I could feel them of course, I didn’t even have to look, as my power consumed the flames and the heat.

Liquid power.  How did it work?  I could guide it, feel with it, pick things up, counter forces instead of consuming them.  Which led to the next thought, that I’d never had before.

My power wasn’t liquid and plasma, or at least not literally, that was merely the two aspects of my power, how they represented.  My power at its core was consuming force and energy, or using force and energy.  To counter a force with my so-called liquid power, I needed to exert an equal force, or cushion a force to dissipate it.  How else would it work?  The universe had laws, that was the only way it could work.

My blue flames could consume across all four universal forces.

Did that mean my liquid power could generate across all universal forces?

That was a terrifying thought.

What the hell was I? 

I already knew I could create kinetic energy, that’s how I had enhanced strength and speed.  But could I make gravity, as well as cancel it out?  Could I create real fire, or a laser, or… a whole lot of other things suddenly seemed possible.

I wouldn’t be able to create matter or repair something I’d destroyed, since eating matter was just an illusion of my plasma power, it was all about energy and force.  On the other hand, matter was just bonded energy on the atomic level.  So maybe I could create it, if indirectly, just as I consumed it indirectly.

Open mind was scary, I’d have to experiment with it, very carefully.  In that moment, I wasn’t quite sure anything was beyond me.  Except, only on a small scale, relatively small, anyway.

Pixie cleared her throat, “You okay, you’ve just been floating here for a while, things seem under control?”

I laughed, “Sorry, a little lost in my thoughts.  Are all the fires out?”

I knew the literal ones were, since I could feel the whole city, but I was speaking metaphorically.

Pixie nodded, “Yes, just healing the wounded and repairing the buildings.  The rescue efforts are done.”

I saw my mother looking my way, studying me as if trying to figure me out.  I was sure I’d shocked a few supers, since it was the first incident where I used my plasma power aspect so freely and liberally without consuming everything it touched.  It was a little amusing, as I wondered if some of them thought I was killing the people in the building when I did it.  Not that anyone had tried to stop me, so maybe Pixie had clued them in via Harmony, or something?

Come to think of it, I was a little surprised in hindsight no one had tried to stop me.  I’d been too focused on getting things done to think of those ramifications.  I hadn’t exactly put out a press bulletin when I’d figured out my plasma aspect of power wasn’t all destruction all the time.

Regardless, for those of you wondering, I eventually do reconcile with my mother, but not in those first few weeks of receiving my power.  Not even next year, but it will happen before I pen this account of my early career as a superhero.

I headed home, and I did a few experiments based on my new insights.

I could create heat, normal fire, light and laser, gravity.  I could freeze something in an instant.  I could also bond severed matter, if I cut a stick in half, I could put it back together, renew those bonds of energy and it was a seamless repair.  Same thing with a tear in my shirt.

I could also duplicate matter, if I had an example to work with.  A piece of steel, and my power could make more of it.  Matter was too complex, the energy and forces holding it together, to hold it all in my conscious mind from scratch.  But if I had a template of an atomic structure, my subconscious and power were more than willing to copy it, make more of it.

Because in the end, matter was still just organized and stable energy.

It was a bit mind bending, but I also decided I wouldn’t be doing those things in public or even sharing the capability with anyone outside the team. Any of them.  I didn’t need to do that stuff, my power worked to protect and subdue without it, so how was creating normal fire going to help me take down a supervillain?  My power would create what it needed to in order to meet the challenge, as it had been the entire time that I’d been using it.  Anything I could do manipulating fire, water, or air, could be done better and easier with my base power.

I was no more tempted to make gold for instance, than I was to rob a bank.  Even if the former wouldn’t be stealing, it would debase the economy.  An endless bottle of wine and a regrowing cheesecake in my fridge on the other hand…  Just kidding, mostly.

But it was good to know I could do it.  If lives ever depended on it, I could repair a building, but a part of me shied away from using it in public unless it was absolutely necessary.  People were freaked out by my powers enough as it was.

It also wasn’t time to close the lid on that box, not yet.  It was the last thing I’d discover about my powers during my first few weeks, and the challenges I’d faced.  But, my power had an interdimensional and multiphasic aspect to it as well.  Forces and energies that I truly didn’t comprehend, so was reluctant to explore at that point in my life.

But I had plenty of time to learn about it, and then figure it out, and I would.

I am Stellar Frost, and I was just getting started…

Afterword:

I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did please leave a review.  Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback or opinions. 

This is the third book in a third three book arc in the Origins of Supers series, nine of nine in the series as a whole.  It is also the last book, since I think it’s time to close this series for good.

The world has settled down, the rapid changes and new society with superpowered individuals had stabilized, now five generations after World War three.  Eight generations, since the first generation of supers born in the nineteen nineties.

The second arc explored the idea of lingering foibles and injustice in their new enlightened society of homo-potens, as well as fleshing out some powers only lightly alluded to in the first arc.

This third arc was about hidden powers, misunderstood powers, and finally new powers and the continuing evolution of homo-potens.  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

About the Author:  If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at dlharrisonauthor@gmail.com  If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.  I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison

The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own. 

Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over.  After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.

Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.

The Rise of a Dark Mage - This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Cassandra, it takes place in the same world as The Formerly Dark Mage, but happens three hundred years later, long after Silvia is gone and some shocking changes have taken place in the world.

Cassandra is a dark mage in the kingdom of Zual, she’s also a mage prodigy.

She hates both her kingdom, and her master.  She wants him dead, not to take his place, but so she can leave and explore the world.  Her ambition will drive her to rediscover the secrets of the strongest of magic.

She is determined to succeed, or she’ll die trying.

Celia Winters Novel Series

Witch’s Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1

Celia Winters was raised by her single mother, and her earliest memories are of the store her mother owns and the nearby coven, who have always been her family’s close allies and friends.

She grew up believing her magic was weak, but she was satisfied with her life, and happy.  She was a midwife, healer, and supplier of surrounding covens. 

Then her mother died, and she’s about to discover she isn’t who, or what, she believes herself to be, not completely.  She will learn that her entire life up until now was a lie.  She’ll need to figure out her place, who she is when she no longer recognizes herself, and try to hold on to her closest friends as she gathers enemies for the simple crime of her existence.

She’s stronger than she believes, but will it be enough?

Power of Air Series:

Just a Psychic: The Power of Air Book One starts off this series.

Ben has grown up with missing memories of his early childhood.

He has known he was a psychic since his earliest memories, seeing the future and gaining knowledge with his gifts.

Is it possible he isn't just a psychic?

Ben's world is about to be turned upside down as he turns twenty-one, all is not as it seems.

Alicia Jones novels is a series that follows a bright young inventor and scientist named Alicia Jones.  It is a space opera and light science fiction.

The first book is titled First Contact:

Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd.  At just twenty-three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation.  But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results.  Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race.

Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told.  Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned.

Spirit Sorceress series, by D. L. Harrison is a new urban fantasy series.  Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent the last one hundred years growing up and learning about her power in the forests near Seattle Washington.  She’s about to make her debut in the big city, but not in a way she ever expected.

The first book is titled Spirit Sorceress:

Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent her unusually long childhood in the forest away from the city with her mother and father.  After tragedy strikes, she finds herself alone and on her own.  She knows that one day she’ll need to move to Seattle, and fully accept her birthright, and if necessary finish her training on her own.

But before she’s ready, and still in grieving, a rogue vampire and his band come along and change everything.  She’ll need to learn her new place in the world, and find some allies quick if she’s to survive.

Katrina Baker Novels, by D. L. Harrison is a new series about a super named Katrina Baker.  Problem is, she gets caught up in her mother’s plan, who is a mad scientist and supervillain, and gets herself transported to another world in the multi-verse.  A world where mages, witches, clerics, and the gods are real.  Not to mention the monsters…

The first book is titled Banished:

Katrina baker is a super.  She has mental abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, and others.  Her parents are supervillains, and she isn’t all that sure she’s cut out for that line of work.  Her empathy with others through her power makes it hard to be uncaring, much less mean or evil to people.  Problem is, the last thing she wants to do is disappoint mom and dad.

Katrina gets caught up in her mother’s supervillain plot to get rid the world of the indestructible hero Omega, and that’s when it all goes really wrong, and she finds herself on another world. 

Banished.

Will she be able to find her way back home, or even understand this new world of gods and magic, or will she die trying?

Rise of the Empyrean Empire – This series is space opera / science fiction.  Space, technology, other worlds, aggressive and far more powerful aliens, artificial intelligence, evolution, and advances to the point humanity doesn’t have to work to maintain infrastructure. 

The first book is titled: Scout Ship

Michael Williams followed in his father’s footsteps, and joined the UEDF, the United Earth Defense Force, when he turned eighteen.  Due to heroism and long distinguished service he’s elevated to the rank of Lt. Commander when most of his peers have just attained senior lieutenant.  His career appears to be going very well.

The year is 2263, and the EUDF is in several star systems in a twenty-light year radius from earth, but are expanding even further.  He’s assigned to a one year exploratory mission to become accustomed to his new rank, one that will finally culminate in reaching a new star system, 61-Virginis is just short of twenty-eight light years away, and he’s excited to be one of the first humans in a new solar system as they finish the race across the void between stars in the scout ship Columbus.

There will be challenges he never imagined though, especially not on a simple survey mission.  Because mankind always thought they were alone in the stars.  They’re about to find out they’re wrong, very wrong…

Book Description

Caroline Rush was a special snowflake, unique among all homo-potens, but not in a good way.

She was the only homo-potens to ever not quicken by the age of eighteen since the first generation.  She was twenty-five years old when it finally happens, long after coming to terms with the fact that it probably wouldn’t happen at all.  It will come as quite a shock.

Her power will change everything, if she can learn to understand it and master it.  There’s never been a super like her before.  She would be the first ever tier-four super.

Unknown dangerous powers, the Meer’ette are stirring up war again, and it’ll take more than just her new power to make sure it all turns out right…

Author’s note:  This is the ninth book of a clean superhero series with no mature content.  Each book will be a new standalone novel of different supers, and their origin story and first steps, all in the same world during turbulent times of change.   Although each independent story can stand alone, the world building and timeline will involve spoilers from past books so they should be read in order.