Part 766: A New Berthold

January 29th, 2021. Aevum, 6PM Earth-time.

The Sphinx spent some time enlightening Phoebe. Lord Elrin was ancient and wise, and Phoebe could tell at a glance that he was a shrewd individual with long term goals far beyond her point of view. When an entity had lived for 147 Eternities, even the length of a single future Eternity was less than 1% the duration of his entire existence!

As such, a mental map outlining Phoebe’s immediate future potential was extremely simple for him to create. After taking time to get to know each other better, the Sphinx smiled down at Phoebe.

[You have more potential than I expected. Your brain is like a sponge; you soak up anything I teach you. I will continue to modify your Mind Realm slowly over the next several years, as this is the most stable and painless method of improving a person’s mental capacities.]

Phoebe bowed her head respectfully. "Thank you, Lord Elrin. You’ve given me a future I can look forward to."

[We’ve only just begun.] Elrin said. [Someday soon, I will introduce you to the true power of my people. Our ability to bio-engineer life to surpass its limits is not something the other mortals you know would be able to easily comprehend.]

"Bio-engineer?" Phoebe asked.

[You are not yet ready for this information. You are already overwhelmed by all the knowledge of this ‘futuristic’ society you’ve landed in, primitive though it may appear to my ancient eyes. Too much information in too short a time will not serve you well, but will instead harm you. Better to try and take things a little more slowly so you are able to fully comprehend the Truths laid out before you.]

Elrin grandly waved his paw.

[You may go, now.]

Phoebe felt the darkness of her mind slowly start to fade away. A tiredness swept over her. She felt as if she had fallen asleep.

A moment later, she opened her eyes again. This time, she found herself back in the gymnasium where she had first started to follow Jason’s orders. Phoebe raised her head and looked around. The gymnasium was… emptier than before. Almost all the teenagers were gone. Only Nadia remained, but now, Daisy was beside her as well. That was unexpected.

Nadia was reading a book and laying in a bean-bag chair. She looked bored. Daisy was sitting on her knees in front of Phoebe, staring at her intently. She had a look of apprehension on her face.

Daisy jumped to her feet shakily when Phoebe lifted her head.

"D-dad! DAD! She’s awake!"

Phoebe flinched. She didn’t expect Daisy’s reaction to be so extreme. A moment later, Jason appeared beside Daisy and looked down at Phoebe. His expression didn’t carry so much ‘worry’ in the way Daisy’s did, but maybe a bit of apprehension.

"…Welcome back to the world of the living, Phoebe. Are you feeling… okay?"

Phoebe looked at Jason, then at Daisy, then back at Jason. Invisible question marks popped up over her head.

"Yes…? Is something wrong?"

"I don’t know." Jason said quietly. "I put you in a trance to access the Sphinx’s powers, but then you seemed to fall into a coma. I couldn’t wake you up. If your vitals weren’t stable and it didn’t seem as if you were otherwise okay, I might have started taking drastic measures to awaken you."

He paused.

"Phoebe, do you know how long you were ‘meditating’? It’s been more than ten hours."

"Ten hours?!" Phoebe gasped. She started to jump to her feet in shock, but when she leaped upward, she accidentally launched herself skyward, gasping involuntarily as she felt the ground vanish from underneath her feet.

The ceiling rushed toward Phoebe’s face. She opened her mouth to scream, but before a sound could escape her lips, she slammed against it like a bug against a windshield. Her body splatted as if she had fallen upward at terminal velocity, and then she immediately bounced off the ceiling and fell back toward the ground.

"Shit- Phoebe!" Jason cried out. "Gah!"

He didn’t even need to verbalize a specific word. Jason instantly cast a Word of Power with a single syllable, catching Phoebe before she could slam into the ground. His heart pounded like drums in a parade, apprehension and fear written all over his face. A split-second later, he cast another Word of Power to analyze Phoebe’s body and see if she was still alive, if she’d broken anything, and how badly she had hurt herself.

What he saw left him stunned.

"You’re… you’re okay?" Jason asked, his words coming out in a single breath.

"I am??" Phoebe repeated, as Jason lowered her to the ground. She touched her face and arms, trying to check for any pain, but she didn’t feel as if anything was injured.

A long moment of silence followed. Nadia had already stood up and run over by this point. She looked Phoebe up and down.

"Wow. That Sphinx power-up is something else." Nadia said after a moment.

Phoebe and the others seemed to realize something. Jason examined Phoebe again with fresh eyes. "How… how did this happen? Your entire body, your skeleton, your muscle structure, everything has a higher baseline value than it did before. It’s like you’ve become five- no, ten times stronger just by meditating."

"I… don’t know." Phoebe said. "I, um, I closed my eyes, everything was black… and then I opened them, and this happened. I’m as clueless as you."

Phoebe carefully repeated the lie the Sphinx had told her to say. Since the Sphinx had empowered her, it wouldn’t be right for her to betray his trust and reveal his presence.

Jason questioned her a little more, but he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

"Bahamut wasn’t a particularly strong woman…" Jason eventually said, as he turned away and started stroking his chin, analyzing Phoebe’s situation thoughtfully. "She was merely an ordinary Egyptian slave girl during her lifetime. The powerup she got from the Sphinx wasn’t too extreme as a result. But Phoebe, you were a Knight of the Round. It seems you had a lot more potential for the Sphinx’s power to pull from."

Unspoken, in Jason’s mind, he also thought about Blinker and Kar.

Kar was a crocodile, powerful in body, so when he became the Sphinx, he became as strong as a Demon Emperor. Blinker was already at that level, so it seems her strength couldn’t go much higher. The Sphinx must have raised Phoebe’s strength up tremendously, definitely more than it did for Bahamut. It seems she’s become a powerhouse, as I hypothesized would happen.

While Jason was debating the current circumstances, Daisy was just relieved her mother hadn’t instantly broken all the bones in her body and died. What a tragic end that would have been!

The father and daughter were relieved, and they easily explained the situation away to themselves thanks to their future knowledge.

Nadia, however, was different. She looked at Phoebe with an outsider’s perspective while also possessing Jason’s knowledge of the future. Whenever Phoebe explained that ‘all she saw was blackness’, Nadia subtly shook her head.

She knew. She could tell Phoebe was lying. But she didn’t say anything. She decided not to tell Jason.

"Mo- I mean, Phoebe, let’s do a little sparring!" Daisy said excitedly, nearly blurting out Phoebe’s ‘title’ of ‘mom’. Luckily, she caught herself in time. "I’ll go easy on you. Let’s see if we can acclimate yourself to your new strength."

Phoebe was in a bit of a daze, seeing that Daisy’s expression had changed so dramatically from the anger she showed earlier. She nodded along to Daisy’s request. "Okay…"

Jason grabbed a pair of wooden swords. They were Wordsmithed so that they could not cause any damage to anything at all. Even if Daisy swung them with all her strength at a bug stuck to the side of a pillar, the swords would stop on impact, causing the bug no harm. As such, Daisy and Phoebe could use their full strength without worrying about hurting each other.

Hearing that Phoebe had awakened, the other teenagers returned. Some of them were a little bleary-eyed. Clearly, they had fallen asleep and were forced to wake up so they wouldn’t miss the eye-opening spar that was about to take place.

Jerome stretched his back as he walked in. "Heard the new lady got stronger. Maybe me and her can do a little fighting, eh?"

"You’re such a meathead." Brian Bozzard teased. "All you think about is fighting."

"Cuz it’s what I’m good at." Jerome sneered. "Can’t a brother have a hobby?"

"I just hope nobody gets hurt." Farrah said quietly, as she hugged Jerome’s side.

"It’ll be fine." Marco said. "Those Noodle-Swords are crazy. You can’t feel a thing when someone hits you with one."

As the teenagers chatted, Phoebe and Daisy squared up in the arena. Daisy’s heart was fluttering. She couldn’t believe she was really looking her mother in the eyes.

When she heard Phoebe had fallen into a coma, she had rushed over without thinking. She was panicked and afraid, thinking she might lose Phoebe again. But now that Phoebe was up and moving about, totally fine, Daisy was at a bit of a loss. She had trouble adjusting to the fact that her ‘mother’ didn’t know who she was, had no attraction to her father, and was basically a stranger. Daisy wanted to hug her, and cry on her shoulder, and tell her about everything she’d missed… but this women wasn’t Phoebe Hiro.

She was Phoebe Berthold. A completely different person.

Daisy lifted her sword. Even if mom doesn’t know who I am, I’ll make her remember me. Dad’s definitely going to think of a way to bring her future memories back. He doesn’t have the willpower to hold off forever, especially when he realizes we can still be a family again!

Since that’s the case, I’ll have to leave a good impression on Mom. When she does regain her memories, she’ll be so proud of me… she’ll burst into tears! It’ll all be worth it then.

Of course, Daisy knew that not having her mother and father for 12 years was not something that could easily be resolved, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. One month ago, she had no hope of ever seeing her parents again. How could she dwell on the past when a bright future was waiting right in front of her?!

"Hello again, Daisy." Phoebe said. She pivoted her blade upward so the wooden sword was positioned right between her eyes. "I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I didn’t mean to make you cry."

"There’s no need for apologies." Daisy said firmly. "I was taken off-guard, but I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m a woman now. A strong woman! I’ll make you see that for yourself."

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. The girl was talking so familiarly about Phoebe… just how much did Phoebe resemble her mother?

The poor thing. Phoebe was despondent, imagining the anguish and pain of separation Daisy must have felt. For a moment, she wished she really were Daisy’s mother, if only so she could comfort her properly… but of course, a sweet lie was still a lie, and Phoebe would never allow herself to deceive someone.

Well, she did suppose a little deceit was okay sometimes, such as hiding Elrin’s existence. But… that was different. She just couldn’t elucidate why.

After a moment of silence, Daisy suddenly lunged forward. Her movements were swift and practiced. She was not a sword-user, generally, but she had been mentored by many professional trainers of several different fighting disciplines, thanks to her Uncle Vasily, who always gave his adopted daughter whatever she asked for, and whatever she needed.

Daisy slashed at Phoebe, and Phoebe seemed to be standing still, her body unmoving from disbelief.

The instant before Daisy’s sword would have sliced against Phoebe’s stomach, Phoebe rotated her body and stepped to the side. Daisy’s slash missed by a millimeter, and she almost lost her balance as her target dodged at the very last second.

"Huh?" Daisy grunted, looking at her mom in shock.

She recovered and leaped at Phoebe again, using her telekinesis to enhance her movements. She was fierce and swift, and did not dare to take Phoebe lightly. If she ended up beating Phoebe too easily, she would simply apologize later.

At least, that was her rationale. It was what she expected to happen.

Once again, Daisy cut toward her mother’s backside with an impossibly fast slash, but Phoebe side-stepped the attack with a sort of ease that could usually only come from a battlefield veteran. She didn’t look at Daisy with any sort of smugness or condescension, she simply moved with such fluidity that it was as if she were toying with a toddler.

Daisy followed up with three quick slashes, but Phoebe casually ducked, dodged, and side-stepped the attacks, each time causing Daisy to miss her body with such a small margin of error that Daisy often swore she’d touched Phoebe’s clothes.

But she hadn’t! Jason and the others watched the fight, with many of the teenagers feeling confused.

"What the heck? Didn’t Daisy whoop Jerome’s ass?" Marco asked, ignoring the glare that came at him from his side. "Is Phoebe actually a really good fighter?"

"I wouldn’t have believed this was possible if I didn’t see it myself." Brian said with a frown. "I thought Daisy was unbeatable, but the new lady is really, really talented. She makes it look easy, but even Muhammad Ali wouldn’t cut it so close. It’s like she’s deliberately using as little energy as possible to evade every attack to conserve her stamina while wasting Daisy’s in much greater measure."

As surprised as the teenagers were, and Daisy, too, nobody was more blindsided and shellshocked than Jason. His eyes went wide. He had known the Phoebe of the future, and while she definitely kicked his ass when they were younger, Jason was 100% certain she had never been this monstrous at any point, even six years later, right before she died, when she was at her ‘peak’ as far as he knew.

Either she had been holding back in the future era, which made no sense, or her abilities had skyrocketed. The most obvious explanation was the Sphinx, again!

Daisy started to perspire. She attacked Phoebe over and over, swinging wildly, trying to feint and trick her mother, and she even started playing dirty, using her telekinesis to root Phoebe in place.

But nothing worked! Even when Daisy raised the gravity around her mother tenfold to try and press her feet into the ground, Phoebe’s movements only slowed down a little, but she continued to effortlessly dodge her daughter’s attacks with great ease. Her strength was great enough that the increased gravity didn’t really affect her much, and only forced her to compensate. Daisy spent more energy focusing her telekinesis than Phoebe did overcoming it.

Daisy’s sweating turned into heavy breathing. Pretty soon, she started gasping for air. She couldn’t believe what was happening! Her mother was the one making her look like a fool! Daisy couldn’t land a single hit!

"D-do you only know how to dodge?!" Daisy finally shrieked, pausing for a moment to cough. Her chest heaved up and down, and the back of her throat was fiery-hot. She wanted to chug a gallon of water just to cool off. She had never, not once in her entire life, been brought to such a state by merely attacking the empty air!

"Sorry…" Phoebe said slowly. "I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m not even trying to dodge you. I just keep getting these ‘feelings’ and they make me react before I know what’s happening. I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to figure them out that I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll try to fight you properly now."

Daisy’s face fell. "You mean to tell me you weren’t even paying attention to our fight?!"

"I, um… not really…" Phoebe said, feeling embarrassed. "I’m sorry. I’m not trying to humiliate you, sweetheart. I just… I don’t know what’s going on with me."

Daisy glanced over at the other teenagers. Everyone was looking at her with eyes full of pity, a fact that made her want to crawl in a hole and die.

It was only now that she understood why her dad must have fallen in love with Mom. Phoebe was insanely strong. Daisy had a long way to go before she could match up to her parents!

I was too childish, thinking I could easily best one of King Arthur’s strongest warriors. Daisy thought somberly. My mom is totally kick-ass! I’m gonna try and learn as much as I can from her!

Daisy had no idea of the truth. She just assumed this was her mother’s normal combat power, perhaps amplified by her new bodily strength.

But Jason knew that what was happening to Phoebe was a huge alteration from the future Phoebe he loved. This younger Phoebe had turned into a god of combat after a brief meditation period, making Jason ponder on what the hell the Sphinx’s power was really all about. Jason didn’t know Bahamut well, and Kar was a bit of a lunkhead, but Blinker was highly intelligent, and she’d never told him about something like this happening to her.

Then again, Blinker hadn’t been the Sphinx for long before she lost the power to Zamiel, who then fell to Mephisto’s machinations. Perhaps she never got to truly investigate what it was capable of?

While Jason pondered, Phoebe went on the attack! She rushed forward and hefted her sword, slashing horizontally toward Daisy’s waist. Daisy grinned, then bent her body, using telekinesis to augment her movements. She was able to perform a low-back-bending dodge that caused Phoebe’s sword to slice across the empty air where her chest had been only a moment before.

Daisy spun like a fairy on her toes, zipped to the side and turned to face her mother. Before she could complete a revolution, she felt a light impact on her back.

Daisy’s eyes widened. She realized that somehow, Phoebe’s sword had struck her back! It didn’t hurt at all, and Daisy barely even felt it, but she was perfectly familiar with the sensations of the ‘noodle swords’ striking flesh. Jason had demonstrated what the swords felt like for all the teens so they knew they were in no danger when training with them.

Daisy looked at her mother in disbelief. "You hit me?"

"I-I’m sorry!" Phoebe exclaimed, pulling away with a look of worry on her face. "Did I injure you, Daisy? I thought Jason said these swords couldn’t hurt a fly!"

Daisy looked at the sword in her mother’s hands. Her expression was a mixture of shock and awe, as well as disbelief. "No, you- you didn’t hurt me, but… I couldn’t even see…"

Daisy failed to get the words out. Her mother was a goddamned monster! With her instructions, Daisy was sure to raise her combat capabilities threefold at the minimum! She wasn’t even mad or embarrassed anymore, because one simply couldn’t feel embarrassment when outclassed by such an expert. A loss was simply inevitable!

"Again!" Daisy shouted.

Like this, the two women started exchanging a torrent of blows. Daisy yelped again and again as Phoebe’s sword lightly struck her rump, her chest, her shoulders, her back, even her throat and face!

Once Phoebe realized her sword couldn’t cause Daisy any harm, she took the fight a lot more seriously. Her speed increased, and her movements rapidly became more refined. If Daisy was taking a blow every few seconds before, she began taking a blow every second afterward, and then two blows a second.

Eventually, Daisy dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. She was soaked with sweat from physical exertion, but her eyes were shining with brilliance.

"I- I submit!" Daisy said, raising a palm. "You’re incredible, mo- I mean, miss Berthold. I don’t stand a chance!"

Phoebe stood stably on the stage, and unlike Daisy, she wasn’t breathing heavily at all. She looked like she’d gone for a light jog, at most. Jason and the others noticed this difference, with the teenagers crowing in excitement.

"We’ve gotta fight now!" Jerome shouted. "Hey lady- I mean, Phoebe! Spar with me! I wanna test my strength against you, right here and now!"

Phoebe hesitated. The young man was quite tall, and his body was physically imposing, but Phoebe wasn’t sure which of the two of them was stronger.

"Well, alright…" Phoebe said hesitantly. "I guess that’s okay."

"GREAT!" Jerome crowed. "And let’s ditch the swords. I know you’re strong! Let’s match strength!"

"Hold on a second." Jason said, frowning. "The swords are best used for situations like these. Phoebe is still adjusting to her new strength."

"Heh, don’t worry, Trueborn. I’ll go easy on her." Jerome said, giving Jason a thumbs-up, along with a wink.

"I… that isn’t exactly what I meant." Jason grumbled.

"It’s fine. I’ll fight him." Phoebe said, tossing her sword aside. "Let’s try grappling. It’s a good match of direct strength."

"Sure, but we’ll arm-wrestle first just to compare strength directly." Jerome said.

This was agreeable to both of them. Jason set up a stone table with cushions for both their elbows, and like this, Jerome and Phoebe placed their palms in each other’s grasp and looked their opponent in the eye.

Phoebe was smaller than Jerome, and her hand was much tinier than his. Keeping to his word, Jerome didn’t go overboard. He took the match seriously, but didn’t treat it as a life and death battle.

"Hrrrgh!" Jerome groaned, as the arm-wrestling began.

"Grrrr!" Phoebe growled back.

She tried, she really did. But as the seconds ticked by, Jerome started pulling Phoebe’s hand backward, then he eventually pressed the back of her hand flat against the table.

The match was over in only twenty-four seconds. Jerome won handily, and it seemed he still had strength in reserve. From this, Jason and the others could tell Phoebe was not his match physically. It seemed the Sphinx power-up hadn’t skyrocketed her strength to the point she was more muscular than Jerome.

"Alright!" Jerome said. "Now… are you still okay with doing some wrestling?"

Phoebe nodded. "If I lose, then I lose. It’s fine either way."

"That’s a good attitude!" Jerome praised. "It don’t matter if you win or lose, just that you always learn from your defeats!"

The two of them stood up and squared off in the arena. Jerome grabbed Phoebe’s hands and tried to throw her to the mat, but she pulled backward instead and threw him off-balance. Jerome grunted as he stumbled slightly, then Phoebe swept his legs and sent him to the mat. She tried to get on top of him to pin him down, but Jerome was a full foot taller than her. He rolled and tossed Phoebe aside, laying her out on the ground, then he tried to pin her as well.

However, Phoebe was slippery like a snake. She wormed her way out of his grasp and rolled underneath his huge body, then grabbed his leg and pulled it away, making him land face-down on the mat. Phoebe managed to jump on Jerome’s back and wrap an arm around his throat, so he threw himself in reverse and slammed onto his back, pounding Phoebe against her back as well!

"Rrrrgh, shit!" Jerome cursed, as Phoebe stubbornly kept an arm wrapped around his throat. He tried to pry her off, but he couldn’t get the leverage he needed. Phoebe wrapped her legs around his waist, then spun him to the side, once again pinning him to the floor.

Ten seconds later, it was over. Phoebe won, but this time she genuinely looked tired. It seemed she was barely able to beat Jerome’s raw strength with technique, but if it had been a true life and death battle, it was anyone’s guess who would have won.

"Man, shit. Shit." Jerome cursed after the battle was over. He rubbed his jaw soothingly, looking Phoebe up and down. "You’re strong as hell, girl. I really thought I had a chance at the start."

"You were too brutish." Phoebe said, surprising even herself as she analyzed the battle in her head. "You rely on your superior strength too much. Your technique is poorly developed, and your agility is insufficient. I was able to surpass you by pushing my body to its limits."

She paused before adding, "Still, I could tell you were trying not to hurt me, because if you were, I’d probably have lost. One solid punch and I’d be knocked out cold."

"Punching’s against the rules when you grapple someone." Jerome pointed out.

"Yes, but in a theoretical life and death battle, rules don’t truly apply." Phoebe said.

"You ain’t wrong." Jerome agreed thoughtfully.

After a bit more back and forth, Jason finally intervened.

"Everyone, it’s been a long day. I think we should all give Phoebe some space and let her adapt to her improved body." Jason said. "Daisy, why don’t you help me take Miss Berthold home?"

Daisy nodded obediently. "Alright, dad."

With this, Jason dismissed everyone but his daughter and Phoebe. They all left, including Nadia, and just like that, the three of them were alone again.

"Well, Phoebe, if I said I was impressed by your strength, I’d be underselling it." Jason said with a smile. "Truly overwhelming. I was right to give you the Sphinx’s power. I’ll be relying on you in the future, if that’s okay with you."

Phoebe nodded solemnly. "I will not let you down. Now that I have this power, I intend to use it responsibly."

"That’s good, but first, I’d like to take you in for a medical examination." Jason said. "For your body to grow this strong, this quickly, I want to make sure there aren’t any side effects. Are you okay with that?" Jason asked. "We’ll also get an accurate measurement of your strength, test your reflexes, and other such things."

Daisy nodded along to her father’s words, clearly excited by the thought of simply spending time with both her parents. As for Phoebe, she hesitated…

To Phoebe, she was playing a dangerous game. She didn’t want to alert the Wordsmith to the Sphinx’s true existence, but she didn’t want to lie to him either. And she wouldn’t have met the Sphinx if it wasn’t for Jason anyway, so she felt she owed him enough to at least do as he asked.

Of course, if Jason asked her to start butchering innocents, Phoebe would immediately turn against him. She really hoped he wasn’t hiding an evil side of himself from her. He probably wasn’t, but one could never be too certain when it came to the thoughts and desires of others.

"Well, alright." Phoebe eventually said. "But maybe tomorrow? I’m pretty tired after all this exercise."

"Oh, sure!" Jason said. "I thought you still had a lot of energy left. But by all means, sleep for a whole day or two if you want. We’ve got lots of time here."

Jason started to lead his daughter and Phoebe out of the gymnasium. As they departed, Phoebe looked up at the pitch-black sky with its false sun orbiting the tiny planet.

"That’s true. We do have lots of time, due to the temporal dilation. You said it was 365 to 1, yes? So one day on Earth is a year here?"

Jason blinked. He looked at Phoebe with a strange gaze. "Yeah. I’m… surprised you understand it now. You seemed pretty baffled before."

"Well, that was then, and this is now." Phoebe said with a shrug of her shoulders. "It’s merely a little temporal dilation. Heaven has it, and so do lots of other places. It’s nothing too special, in the grand scheme of the universe."

"Ah… I suppose that is true." Jason mumbled.

Jason continued to walk with Phoebe and Daisy. Daisy started chatting her mother up, subtly trying to learn more about her past in the way an ordinary teenager would, all while reveling in the act of speaking to her mother for real!

But Jason didn’t say much. Phoebe’s abrupt enlightenment had spooked him.

Was there more going on with her than what he saw on the surface?