Now that I’d seen what a Superverse event looked like up close, I could understand why the company was so determined to get Ashika on board. It wasn’t just the fact she was A-rank at such a young age, with a promise to rise higher. Her actual ability, in and of itself, was an awe-inspiring thing to watch in action. If they’d ever seen her at work like she was now, it was no surprise they were determined to get her, high ranking or not.

  There were countless facilities in Foresight dedicated to letting people run wild with their powers, providing private places for private training at the behest of USHA. It was almost universally agreed that letting people blow off steam with their supernatural abilities was best provided for in a controlled environment, rather than letting things get pent-up only to explode. They came in a wide variety, from places that were essentially just high-tech gyms, to buildings that specialised in being destroyed and rebuilt.

  The one we frequented was a bit of both. Though obviously I only really partook in the gym part of the place, Ashika got more use out of the special rooms that Unlimited Power took pride in calling the Omnichambers. They promised in their fliers and ads that you could do as much damage you liked, and the room would be spotless within an hour. To be fair to them, I’d never seen a speck out of dust upon our arrival in all the times I’d been here. And if other groups were doing as much damage as Ashika tended to, that was an impressive feat.

  Today, the girl in question was really putting one of the rooms in question through its paces. Her signal blared like continuous rolling thunder, and she was shooting around the room like a rocket-propelled pinball, bouncing off the walls and leaving a spider-web of cracks behind with every hit. We hadn’t bothered with any equipment; an empty room was more than fine for our purposes. At this point, practice with her power had perhaps fallen to the wayside a bit, not that it was the primary goal today. Judging by the hooting and hollering as she soared through the air, she was just having fun.

  I smiled. I couldn’t begrudge her that. If I could do what she could do, I’d be the same way. Maybe even worse, to be honest.

  And that was kind of the point of why we were here today. Ever since I’d started sensing signals, there was no signal I’d spent more time around than Ashika’s. If there was one signal I could call familiar, it was hers. The way it started small and built and built and built, never quite reaching its crescendo, always stringing the note out, had become almost soothing, in a way.

  Moreover, I already knew pretty much all there was to know about it. Which meant that I could compare my deductions based on sensing her signal with what I knew to be true, and gain some easy insight into how my own signal operated. A baseline to measure against.

  Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. At a facility specifically built to let people blow off steam with their powers, it went without saying that there were a lot of powers in use here. Not just in the Omnichambers adjacent to the one we’d booked out, but in the actual gym area, too. Undoubtedly, there was some guy down there using his power to bench press several tons, and his signal was roaring. There were dozens like that.

  But there was something to be said for the inherent strength of a signal, along with proximity. There couldn’t have been many A-ranks in this place, if there were any at all, and, most importantly, I’d be surprised if any of them were pushing themselves as hard as Ashika was right now, regardless of rank. If every signal in here was a twinkling star beaming its distant light directly into my eyes, Ashika’s signal was the sun, impossible to ignore.

  … And perhaps a little painful. But I could deal with that. It wasn’t as bad as actually staring into the sun, at least. Metaphors.

  Either way, I let my eyes droop closed, trying to shut out all my senses and focus on the signal. It wasn’t easy, when Ashika was screaming like a banshee and setting off thunderous booms every time she crashed into one of the walls and bounced away. The chamber was big enough to fit the length of a soccer pitch each way, and yet she crossed it in barely more than a second each time. Her signal was constantly shooting back and forth across my senses, once again adding difficulty to the already challenging task.

  But at this point it was so strong that barely even mattered.

  Ashika’s foundational revelation had been relatively complex, in the grand scheme of things: keep moving forward and get stronger. Considering how much (deserved) hype there was around her, it was actually kind of funny that she’d only levelled up twice since then, gaining only two more Aspects. I strongly suspected that bothered her, but doubted it was something she’d ever come to me about. Probably, she’d see it as an insult to be complaining about only being Level 3 when I’d yet to reach Level 1. No one seemed to care about that, anyway. Her Rank was more than impressive enough on its own.

  She had told me about those Aspects and the Revelations that had built them, though. At such a low Level, they weren’t as intensely personal as things could get later down the line, though she insisted she’d tell me even if they were.

  The first had been simple enough. Her physical prowess rose without any apparent limit as long as she kept moving even a bit, but her capabilities quickly overtook her ability to comprehend what she was even doing. Thus, another relatively complex revelation for the level it came at: “As I advance, I need to be sharper.”

  With that, her reflexes improved at the same rate as her physical strength, speed, and durability, allowing her to reach even greater heights. It essentially placed her in the upper percentiles of most powerful abilities at just fifteen years old, though she was “only” a B-rank at the time.

  Next came one that had taken me off guard, approaching her power from an angle I hadn’t considered at the time. An angle I wouldn’t have expected her to consider.

  “Sometimes, I need to slow down.”

  It essentially did the same thing as the previous revelation, except from a different angle. It reminded me of Vixen’s mind and matter Aspects, in a way, or maybe they’d reminded me of Ashika.

  Rather than granting her body faster reaction times to match her increasing strength and speed, it let her actually think faster to match. It had come after a training incident where she’d been able to dodge a projectile, only for it to smash into someone else behind her. The injury had been instantly dealt with, of course, but she’d realised the downside of relying on quick reflexes.

  I just hadn’t expected her to see things that way, really. Maybe it was unfair. She wasn’t an inconsiderate person by any means, but her foundational revelation spoke to her personality pretty well, I thought. She was someone who wanted to plow ahead at full speed, always accelerating.

  After that, she’d stalled out, at least in her own estimation. She’d struggled to see where to go from there, how to improve on the potent ability she’d already constructed. There was no doubt among researchers that she had a ton of untapped potential ready to be formed into a new Aspect, but she didn’t know what that should be, and thus far hadn’t liked any of the things people had suggested to her—it probably didn’t help that many of the suggestions came from researchers who worked for an entertainment company.

  I had my own ideas, but mostly kept them to myself. Most literature suggested that one’s power was a personal thing, and thus I concluded it was better to let Ashika come to the answer on her own. Even if it was frustrating her, it would be better in the long run. For the most part, she seemed to agree.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  But, again, I was sure it frustrated her. She just didn’t talk to me about it much, out of what I suspected was her own idea of tact.

  My world narrowed until it was just me and her signal. It took some effort to achieve, and it wasn’t as if I was really shutting things out—it would be a long time before I achieved that kind of nirvanic meditative state, if I ever managed it at all. It helped that her signal was getting stronger and stronger as she ramped up, and I tried not to get distracted thinking about the implications of that, like the possibility her signal might measure at S-rank if she kept moving for long enough.

  I shook my head, dislodging the thought, narrowing my focus even further until anything extraneous was shut out.

  There was a depth to Ashika’s signal that hadn’t been present in Vixen’s. Whether that was the difference in rank between them or more related to the effort they were putting into their power, I didn’t know. Either way, it felt like Ashika’s was denser. There was more substance to it, more weight. And it was only getting heavier.

  With that strength, it was harder to pick out her foundation and aspects. I might not have managed it if I didn’t already know exactly what I was looking for. There was more weight in Ashika’s foundation than there had been in the entirety of Vixen’s signal, even with seven Aspects.

  I didn’t devote much attention to the foundation’s ability, since I already knew that: advancement. Instead, I focused on the actual substance of it. The foundation itself.

  If I was to translate it to sound, which I’d got in the habit of doing and was resigned to at this point, I’d liken it to a deep baseline that got faster and faster as Ashika moved, and the Aspects were both slightly higher pitch base notes, almost indistinguishable from it.

  It didn’t help that she had so much untapped potential, acting as white noise. There was almost as much noise as signal, when I tried to focus on it. But focus on it I did, and eventually I felt I had a pretty solid grasp of the feel of her signal, which hopefully meant my own signal was resonating strongly.

  With that in mind, I tried to turn my attention to my own signal. I already knew this part was going to be an exercise in frustration, so it didn’t surprise me at all when I couldn’t feel a thing no matter how I tried. It was about as easy as seeing my own sight or hearing my own hearing.

  Three days since I’d felt my own signal mimicking Vixen’s, and I hadn’t managed to catch even the slightest hint of my signal sense. And I’d been trying at basically every waking moment. I’d been starting to wonder if it required total exhaustion on my part, and I should’ve actually been trying to feel Ashika’s signal while surrounded by others. This place, sadly, wasn’t conducive to that. There were plenty of other signals around, but not enough, and those that were around weren’t active enough to tire me out like the chaos at the Coliseum had.

  I hummed to myself, opening my eyes, watching Ashika as she hurtled back and forth in a greyish blur. Her whoop of joy panned back and forth across the room. At least she was having fun. I couldn’t help but smile at that. Envy didn’t even come into it, at this point.

  Still, I levered myself to my feet, and Ashika immediately noticed, coming to a stop on a dime. Her signal simply vanished. It restarted again as she casually jogged over to me. There was nothing about her demeanour to suggest that she’d just been throwing herself across a giant room at neck-breaking speeds. No sweat, no heavy breathing. So unfair.

  “No luck?” she said, peering into my eyes as if searching for any sign I’d overdone things again.

  “Not really,” I said with a shrug. “I figured out your foundation though!”

  Ashika snorted. “You’ve known that for years.”

  “I also realised you’ve got a lot of untapped potential in there, ready to go into a new Aspect.”

  “Yeah, the eggheads have been telling me that for a while, too.” Ashika sighed as she lowered herself to the ground to start on some stretches. She shrugged the upper half of her customary tracksuit off, leaving her in the baggy white shirt she’d been wearing beneath. “I’ll do something with that when I come up with something good, yeah?”

  I followed Ashika down, doing some stretches of my own. I hadn’t done anything strenuous at all, but stretching always seemed to calm my mind. An artifact of yoga classes, perhaps.

  “What’s with that face?” Ashika asked.

  I blinked. I hadn’t realised I’d been making one. “What do you mean?”

  “You look all pinched. Are you disappointed you didn’t get anything out of today?”

  “I got to see a pretty fun show,” I objected. I genuinely wasn't disappointed. Today was just the beginning. Step one. There were some conditions I needed to clear before I could really put the idea that had formed in my head into full action.

  “Don’t try to deflect, loser. And don’t go putting such ridiculous expectations on yourself. You aren’t gonna instantly wrap your head around a skill you didn’t know was there until a few days ago, are ya? It’s not like you’re on a time limit.”

  “I kind of am,” I said, smiling wryly. “Not long til term starts.”

  “Three weeks is ages.”

  “It really isn’t though?”

  It was a little strange to speak as if it was already a foregone conclusion that I’d been accepted to AA, when the official results hadn’t even been released yet. Not even the most promising candidates would receive their acceptance until next week, while the staff would deliberate over who they’d invite to fill the rest of the slots—they didn’t like to have classes of powerhouses and geniuses. Only those who’d been sponsored would know of their fate, right now.

  And yet, if the vice-principal of the damn place told me I was going to be accepted, it was hard to feel too pessimistic about my chances, whatever I thought of the woman herself. It did, admittedly, make the whole thing feel a bit tainted. And I’d probably resent her forever for that. More than I already did.

  At the same time, the giddiness that rose in me at the mere thought of attending Aegis Academy could overcome anything. There was no quelling my excitement.

  Even my lack of power was just a mild stumbling block I needed to hop over. I would figure out what I could do with this, whether it be copying powers, or moulding my own, or even just using it as a tool to analyse other people’s. I didn’t care. The path forward was dark and nebulous, but I was going to keep moving forward, inch by inch, until I’d mapped it out down to the inch.

  After a while, Ashika went back to hurtling around the room with aplomb, giving me another go at trying to pin down anything I could get out of my own signal. It didn’t yield any results on that end, but I did get some interesting insight into her power, which was almost as good. Ashika didn’t seem particularly interested in how her foundation resonated differently based on whether she was using her reflexes or thoughts, but it was fascinating to me.

  We didn’t leave the destruction room until the very second our time was up, and instead of heading home, decided to go down to the gym instead. Ashika felt the workout hadn’t quite been enough, and I was always happy for more exercise. It was meant to be my rest day in terms of weights, though, so I moved over to the cardio zone while Ashika slipped off to find herself a PT to spot her for leg day.

  The gym area of Unlimited Power was huge, big enough to fit at least a few football pitches inside. It was divided into sections based on physical capability. I made a beeline for the cardio area dedicated to baseline humans and, after a moment of searching, found myself a treadmill. I figured a good run would clear my head. Maybe a 5K. Didn’t want to overdo it.

  I’d barely taken a step on the treadmill when I voice to my right almost gave me a heart-attack.

  “Emmett? Emmett Shaw?”

  My gaze snapped to my right, and it took me a moment to recognise the person looking back at me. Her hazel eyes weren’t particularly distinct, and her pale face wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Her navy blue leggings and top were standard issue, Ultimate Power brand stuff, purchasable from the shop next to the reception desk.

  It was the shoulder-length blue hair that did it. Last time I’d seen it, it had been tinged purple by the pool of blood she was lying in. Her own blood, with a mad supervillain looming over her, malice in his eyes. Slash.

  This was the girl he’d attacked.

  Tempest’s daughter.

  “Alanna,” I spoke the name aloud as I remembered it.

  Discord :)