Part 775: Awakened

January 29th, 2021. Aevum.

Daisy slept like a baby. As soon as her head hit the pillow, it was lights-out, her brain spinning and whirling around at a speed so slow it felt like months passed. Her dreams were vivid but bizarre.

She somehow lived short lives of countless animals, large and small. The world distorted around her as she imagined herself crawling on tree trunks, swinging through the branches, flying through the air, swimming beneath the oceans, tracking prey, hiding and fleeing from predators, and countless other scenarios.

Her sleep was peaceful. It was exciting. She experienced dreams unlike any she had before, ones which sometimes left her heart racing in exhilaration and other times made her curl into a ball of fear.

Eventually, the dreams came to a close. Daisy awoke feeling like she was sleeping in a tropical swamp. Her entire body felt hotter than usual, and when she started to lift her head off the pillow, she felt the fabric sticking to her face.

"Huhhh…?" Daisy slurred. "Drool? I… drooledinmysleep?"

She was disgusted and mortified. Her pillow was caked in slobber. If she had a roommate or a boyfriend, she’d probably want to crawl into a hole and die from shame right then and there. She moved her arm to peel the pillowcase off her face, but her arm felt wet and gross too.

She then realized that she’d perspired like an insane woman all night long. Her entire bed was drenched in sweat, as if she’d been sprayed with a fire-hose. As soon as she pulled the covers off, she felt a chill from the slight movement of the air in the room. Just what the hell had she been dreaming about to cause such a weird reaction in her body?!

As soon as she tried to recall them, the memories of her dreams faded away. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She felt more well-rested than at any other point in her life, yet she also still felt lethargic and ready to go right back to sleep. It was a sensation she wasn’t familiar with.

Daisy’s eyes drifted to the clock on her wall. It showed it was almost 2 PM. And she had gone to sleep at 6 PM… the day before!

"I slept… that long?" Daisy asked nobody in particular. "Geez…"

She dragged herself out of bed, peeled her water-logged clothes off, and stumbled into the shower. As soon as the hot water streaked down her skin, she started to wake up, like a cold-blooded reptile awoken by the warmth of the midday sun. Before long, she had become fully alert, and she started to whistle a random song in the shower. The odd part was, she kept making strange bird noises with zero effort. She even found it easy to chirp like a songbird or caw like a crow.

"Is this the effect of my MindCore?" Daisy eventually wondered. "But dad said it wasn’t turned on yet…"

Daisy brushed her teeth after showering. She quickly yanked all her bedding off and threw it in a special laundry machine her father had designed. It could wash a load in only five minutes, then dry it in five minutes as well. While she waited, Daisy started doing her morning stretches just to limber up for the day.

This, at the least, felt normal. She didn’t sense that her movements were all that different from the usual, except that maybe her sense of balance seemed slightly better than before… but that could have been a placebo.

She pulled her bedding from the dryer, made her bed, then put on a blue and yellow training outfit. She had a feeling this would be a busy day, once her father turned on the MindCore for real. Secretly, she wondered if he’d screwed up again and it was already active.

Daisy teleported out of her room, arriving inside the medical facility. Less than five seconds after she arrived, her father popped in.

"Hey, sweetie!" Jason said with a smile. "Did you sleep well? You were down for so long I started to get worried."

"Sorry, dad." Daisy said, blushing out of embarrassment. "I, um, I did sleep a lot. But everything seems to have gone fine. I think I had some weird dreams though."

"Weird dreams?" Jason asked, his voice rising an octave. The blood drained from his face as a look of barely concealed fear washed over him. "L-like what, exactly?!"

"No, no, dad. It’s not like, um, Nadia’s situation." Daisy quickly explained. "They were just a little strange, is all. I can’t even remember what they were."

"Oh… oh, okay. That’s good then." Jason said, nervously smiling again. "Well, let’s hurry up and get you checked out."

Ten minutes later, Nadia arrived, having been called over by Jason. When she entered, she and Jason started talking to Daisy about the surgery, and assessed her current condition as well.

"So, a copious amount of sweating while you were sleeping?" Nadia asked, her tone tinged with slight concern. "There shouldn’t have been any major effects like that…"

"It scared me a little when I woke up, and it was um… pretty embarrassing." Daisy admitted. "But I thought it might be important for you to know."

"At the very least, it doesn’t seem like you suffered any crazy mental or physical trauma." Nadia said with a nod, her expression becoming more relaxed. "We built you an entire Mind Realm from scratch. Even if we kept it turned off, I’m not surprised there were at least a few small side effects."

Jason used his Wordsmithing to look at Daisy’s MindCore from the outside. By this point, her spirituality had been solidified to the point now that even with his Wordsmithing he could no longer forcibly intrude into the deepest recesses of her mind. He could only observe it from the outside.

"Uh oh." Jason said, causing Daisy to jump in alarm.

"Uh oh?!" Daisy repeated, looking at her father in alarm.

"I, ah, sorry. It’s just… well, it seems a tiny part of your MindCore either wasn’t deactivated like I expected, or it got turned on somehow. Either way… that explains the animal noises. Looks like maybe 0.01% of the MindCore was active last night. Goodness…"

Jason looked at Nadia. She nodded at him. That seemed to confirm something, so he returned his gaze to Daisy.

"Alright. I think it’s time we turned this thing on. Not all at once, just a little bit at a time. Let’s start by turning on your entire MindCore, but only at 1% power."

Daisy nodded. She had butterflies in her stomach due to anticipation and anxiety, but she wasn’t a quitter, and she wouldn’t back down once she made a decision.

She closed her eyes and waited as her father guided her through the process of turning on her MindCore. Daisy had no idea how to interact with it at first, but under his expert guidance, he was able to enter her MindCore along with a soul avatar of herself. They arrived outside the confines of a massive planet ten times the size of Earth. The two of them levitated in space, looking down on the super-massive world which should have bone-crushing gravity compared to Earth, but inside Daisy’s Mind Realm, felt completely comfortable for her to drop down on and walk around.

The world was covered in diverse biomes. Oceans deeper than the ones on Earth, forests with trees the size of Earth’s mountains, countless alien bugs and animals skittering and racing across the surface. Under Daisy’s direction, the power of her ‘planet’ became active, and the life on it grew noticeably more energetic. Even viewed from outer space, she ‘felt’ the world come to life, and it sparked feelings of awe in her heart.

The two of them descended. They arrived on an alien world as different from Earth as Aevum was, with all its strange wildlife and other such things.

"There are many creatures on this world taken directly from Earth, but I didn’t limit my horizons only to Earth." Jason explained to his daughter. "There are countless monster species referenced, as well as animals from Tarus II and other worlds I’ve visited. What makes the QuantumReflex special is that you will develop a powerful affinity to all forms of life, sentient and non-sentient alike. By observing them, you’ll be able to learn how they live and adapt whatever you like about them into yourself."

"Are you saying I can transform into animals now?" Daisy asked.

"No, not at all." Jason said. "But animal instincts and knowledge and abilities, especially mental aspects, will become yours to control. Even I don’t know how far that will take you."

He paused.

"Though now that you mention it, this MindCore would be great for Belial. Shame she’s our enemy right now…"

"Aunt Samantha." Daisy muttered.

She could barely remember her aunt. It had been so many years, she only remembered Samantha’s smile, and the way she could change faces to cheer Daisy up when she was crying. The rest of Daisy’s memories were a blur at best.

"Anyway, let’s focus on your MindCore." Jason said, breaking the spell. "Tell me about what you’re feeling. Are you overwhelmed?"

"No… I feel… fine." Daisy said hesitantly. She looked down at her hands and arms, and they did feel slightly tingly, but that feeling faded after a while. "Let’s activate the MindCore more fully."

"Okay. Let’s increase it from 1% power to 5%." Jason suggested.

Like this, Jason slowly dialed up the power of Daisy’s MindCore, bit by bit. Once they reached 20%, Daisy started to feel strange, very strange indeed.

"It’s not bad…" Daisy said, "but I think I’m… I don’t know. Let’s return to the real world."

At her request, they did. When they opened their eyes back in the surgical ward, Nadia noticed immediately.

"My PepScan is picking up elevated brain energy levels." She said, holding up a small scanning device in her hand. She moved it toward the side of Daisy’s head. "Looks like you turned on the MindCore with no adverse-"

Suddenly, Daisy’s eyes snapped toward the beeping scanner in Nadia’s hand.

DANGER!

Her instincts screamed a warning at her. Daisy quickly turned her body and recoiled from Nadia’s hand. Before anyone could react, she launched a backhanded slap upward and sent the scanning tool flying out of Nadia’s grasp, battering her entire arm out of the way and causing her to awkwardly tumble to the ground.

"Daisy! Nadia!" Jason exclaimed, the unexpected attack from his daughter startling him. He took a step toward Daisy, and her pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

DANGER!

She immediately sensed a threat coming from her father. Without conscious thought, Daisy quickly sprung out of the chair with catlike agility, swept her leg at Jason’s feet to knock him off-balance, then thrust a palm at his chest. She struck her dad in the sternum and sent him fumbling backward, where he fell on his ass!

Jason and Nadia, both completely caught off-guard, fell to the ground and looked up at her in shock! Daisy’s eyes reverted to normal, and her perceptions suddenly caught up to that instant in time.

"Ah-ahh!" Daisy cried. "D-dad, Nadia! I, I didn’t mean to, oh my god! Are you both okay?!"

Nadia stood up and took a few steps back from Daisy. "I’m fine. Good… reflexes."

Jason coughed. Daisy’s palm-strike hadn’t carried any lethal force, it was a purely defensive move. Even so, he needed a Word of Power to soothe the mild pain he was feeling and restore the wind she’d driven from his chest.

"Well… that was a little… unexpected." Jason coughed.

He also stood back up. An odd atmosphere fell upon the room as he and Nadia observed Daisy once more, but this time from a safe distance.

"I don’t know what happened." Daisy said, feeling a cold chill wash over her skin. "I just… felt like my life was in danger, and I reacted."

"That’s obviously your MindCore showing its value." Jason said, massaging his chest. "Don’t worry about it, honey. I’m resilient, and you didn’t hurt Nadia. We expected something like this might happen. Dial your MindCore back down, and let’s go to the training area to adjust you to your new normal slowly, rather than spiking your cortisol levels all at once."

"That’s a good idea." Daisy said, smiling.

She felt a bit of guilt at attacking her father and Nadia like that, but she also knew it wasn’t her fault. No real harm was done.

The trio departed, teleporting into the gymnasium where the other teenagers were currently training. As always, Jerome was pumping weights like crazy, using specialized equipment Jason had built that could exert multiple tons of weight onto specific muscles in Jerome’s body to give him a full-body workout. Phoebe was there, too. She was running through an obstacle course, jumping over barriers, sliding between gaps in walls, climbing slopes, and doing other such things to hone her agility.

Sasha was also there, but she was mainly using her powers to make clothes atop a table that Marco and Brian were also sitting at. She really liked spending most of her time working on fashion. Jason thought it was a bit of a problem, but until she had a MindCore, he wasn’t going to push her too hard.

Marco was… not doing much of anything. He and Brian were sitting together, playing cards off in the corner. Neither of them were particularly diligent about training their abilities. They yapped with Sasha while she tailored, and it was clear at a glance the trio were the laziest members of the youths Jason had brought. There was no urgency in their movements.

Jason didn’t see Farrah at all, but he knew she was training her newfound shapeshifting abilities harder than before. She simply got embarrassed easily, and thus she didn’t like to body-shift in front of other people.

"Jerome!" Jason said as they arrived. "Daisy just got her new MindCore. Would you mind sparring with her for a bit? Just light sparring. Nothing crazy."

Jerome grunted loudly as he benched five and a half tons of Wordsmithium-based dumbbells. He hoisted the heavy metal up and set it back on the bars.

"Sounds good, boss." Jerome said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Just gimme a minute to clean up. I’m sweating like a motherfucker here."

Usually, Farrah would be hanging out with Jerome while he bench-pressed, giving him water and wiping off his sweat for him. She was a very supportive girlfriend in that regard, but ever since Jason talked to her, she’d been spending more time by herself.

Thus, Jerome had to take a few minutes to steady his breathing and cool the fire in his lungs. He grabbed a towel and mopped his face and neck before grabbing a sports drink and chugging half a liter of it in seconds.

Once he had recovered, Jerome hopped onto the sparring stage. A fight between him and Daisy was always the highlight of any day, so everyone dropped what they were doing and ran over to sit beside the stage. It wasn’t a secret Daisy’s MindCore was supposed to be installed the day before, so it seemed likely the surgery must have been a success. With only Jason, Nadia, and the Daughter of Heaven as examples, people still weren’t entirely sure just how formidable MindCores were.

Catherine hadn’t trained much with the humans. Jason was always busy with his Trueborn stuff, and Nadia wasn’t a fighter. Thus, the effects of a MindCore on someone’s combat capabilities were essentially unknown.

"Do you think Daisy is going to win?" Brian asked Marco as they walked over.

"Well, she already beat Jerome pretty handily before." Marco replied. "Jerome’s been training a lot though, and he’s way stronger than in the past. I guess it depends on if the brain-juicer makes her a better fighter…?"

"Seems her win is a foregone conclusion." Brian mused. "Let’s just watch and see what happens."

The two of them sat down with the rest. Daisy hopped in the sparring ring and started bouncing lightly on her toes, a noticeable spring now in her step. Daisy had always been more agile than she was physically imposing, but now she seemed even lighter on her feet than before.

Jerome, meanwhile, simply assumed a forward-facing horse-stance with both fists raised. His expression was solemn. He’d already gotten his ass kicked several times by Daisy, and he’d never won a proper fight once she had gone all-out.

"No powers, no magic." Daisy said, her eye slightly twitching. "Let’s do Sport Jujitsu rules."

"Jujitsu?" Jerome repeated, slightly bewildered.

This was a special type of sparring that was done more for sport and for reflex or body training than for maximizing damage. It involved light contact, no strikes to the face, no knockout punches, but take-downs were allowed with the goal of pinning the opponent to the mat or locking their movements with grapples. It was also the type of sparring he completely dominated her in. His strength was way higher than hers, especially after his recent training sessions. His body was tougher too, and he could take more abuse than before without even breaking his skin. He was damn-near bulletproof, at least to small-arms fire.

"You sure?" Jerome asked carefully.

"I want to know what I’m capable of." Daisy said, her tone fearless.

"Suit yourself." Jerome concluded.

Without any smack-talk, the two launched at each other. Jerome grabbed at Daisy, but her movements were noticeably snappier and more responsive than before. His giant hand grabbed at her throat, but she side-stepped, allowing his thumb to barely brush her neck as she darted around him and grabbed for his waist.

Jerome turned. He sent a palm strike at Daisy’s shoulder to try and knock her off her feet, but she twisted her body at a weird angle. His palm once again missed the mark. She was forced to take a few quick steps backward as Jerome made three more attempts to pin her down and stop her from zipping to his sides.

Jerome seemed slow and clumsy compared to Daisy. Indeed, this was his biggest weakness in a battle among superior mortals. Against an ordinary human, even a professional MMA fighter, his movements would be extremely fast and fearsome. It was just that to Daisy, her newly enhanced brain processed information at an accelerated rate. She was easily able to outpace Jerome.

However, that was the extent of it. Daisy avoided getting grabbed, but she couldn’t get close enough to Jerome to tackle him to the floor either. Eventually, she slipped up. Jerome’s superior endurance made him outlast her by a substantial margin. Just when she was starting to get winded from going full-force with him for three minutes straight, Jerome finally pounced, grabbed both her shoulders, and threw her to the mat. It wasn’t the most elegant win, but a point was a point.

Once Jerome grabbed Daisy, that was basically the end. Relying purely on her physical body, she was no match for him. It was like watching a heavyweight champion ‘wrestle’ a toddler. Daisy had only beaten him handily in the past by relying on her metaphysical powers. If she deliberately didn’t use them, she lasted only a little longer than an ordinary human would against Jerome.

"Haha! Not bad!" Jerome said, standing up. "You’re faster than before, and you react quicker, too!"

Jerome felt pretty good. He knew he couldn’t ‘really’ beat Daisy, but at least if she didn’t use her powers, he could eke out a win. The same wasn’t true of her old man. Jason still handed Jerome his ass when they physically sparred, assuming Jason was allowed to wield a bo staff.

"Oh, Jerome!" Jason called out from the side of the arena. "The session’s not done."

"Really?" Jerome asked. "What, we’re doing multiple points this time?"

"No, well, I mean, yes." Jason answered confusingly. "It’s just, Daisy’s operation is complete and she has her new MindCore… but we currently only have it set to five percent power. Now I’ll dial it up, and you’ll try again."

Jerome blinked. "What? Five percent? She’s this much faster, and that’s only with her new brain-thingy at five percent??"

Daisy hopped to her feet and dusted off her shoulders. "Yup."

Jerome scrunched up his face. He looked Daisy up and down again. She’d certainly started moving a lot faster, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Even if she became even faster than now, he’d still have the overwhelming advantage. Did the Archseer really think her MindCore would let her beat someone as strong as Jerome?

"Aight, let’s catch our breath and go again in ten minutes." Jerome said, walking over to grab his sports drink. He started chugging it again, then sat down and relaxed, letting his heart rate drop back to normal.

Daisy mimicked him and took some time to relax her muscles. She did as her father asked and raised the QuantumReflex’s power level from 5% to 10%. She looked out the window and sniffed the air. It seemed she’d caught the scent of cookies from off in the distance.

Jerome cracked his neck. The minutes passed by quickly, and eventually the two of them hopped back in the arena.

"My MindCore power level has doubled since we last sparred." Daisy warned Jerome.

"Twice the brains, still gonna lose." Jerome quipped.

He was a little nervous, mainly because he didn’t want to underestimate her, but at the same time, Jerome was confident in his own abilities.

If Daisy didn’t use her powers, Jerome was certain he was the top dog among Aevum’s Heroes.

Could her MindCore really bridge the gap?

Jason made a chopping motion with the side of his hand.

"Round two, start!"