Part 781: Neon Genesis

January 29th, 2021. Aevum.

Two weeks passed inside Aevum, slightly less than an hour in the real world. In that time, Daisy trained relentlessly with Phoebe, the two of them rapidly growing more proficient at unleashing the potential within their enhanced minds.

Phoebe was, without a doubt, ten times stronger than Daisy. Her body was more durable. Her punches hit harder. Her throws went further. But Daisy had a huge advantage in her psionic powers that allowed her to level the playing field.

At the same time, Phoebe couldn’t help but notice that her new benefactor, Lord Elrin, had remained unusually quiet ever since Daisy’s awakening. Once in a while, he might say a few words to her, but despite her being his potential Inheritor, he didn’t seem interested in actually teaching her anything. Instead, he would drop vague hints, telling her that the powers of the Sphinx were far, far more profound than she could ever imagine. He kept encouraging her to read books when she wasn’t training and learn about the modern world.

He especially seemed interested in having her learn about biology and the different species on Earth. He never said why, leaving Phoebe perplexed, but she felt he was wiser than she could fathom, so she obeyed dutifully.

In order to beat Phoebe, Daisy had to constantly get creative. Her mother was a monster! Anytime Daisy used her psychic powers to suppress or trick Phoebe, the former Knight of Camelot found a new way to adapt. Her adaptability was inexplicable, as if she possessed a wellspring of knowledge she had to keep unearthing. And forcing Phoebe to her knees required a lot of planning on Daisy’s part too, as she had to be as creative as possible to best her mother.

But then, two weeks later, Jason announced it was finally time. He took Sasha and Helen into the infirmary, and everyone in Aevum held their breaths. Daisy’s soul-surgery had not resulted in any anomalies, besides a mild sensory overload at the start. It seemed the days of horrific side effects had finally come to an end, but everyone was worried all the same.

Nobody was more anxious than Harold.

"Boy, oh boy. I tell ya h’wat. That boy better not screw up my missus’ head. I’ll whoop him. I will!" Harold grumbled to himself, loudly enough for the others to hear. "She better come out the same dame as before, but smarter. If she starts actin’ all screwy, I’mma whip that boy’s ass til it blisters! He ain’t never gonna forget it, I tells ya that!"

Everyone was sitting out in the park across from the infirmary, waiting for the verdict. Daisy laughed nervously. She was a little intimidated by Harold, because she could feel his Heroic Aura was much stronger than hers. To the other teens, he was a funny old man who said funny things, but Daisy was always aware he was a battle-hardened warrior who had killed innumerable soldiers during the Second World War. He was not to be taken lightly.

Brian had a thoughtful look on his face. Marco seemed as down in the dumps as always. Daisy wasn’t sure why, but ever since coming to Aevum, he’d become even more reclusive than he already was. He joined in on social events, but he usually kept to himself and didn’t say much. His body language made it clear he was feeling a little despondent.

After chewing on her lip for a while, Daisy slid over to Marco.

"Hey, Marco." She said, not sure how to break the ice.

Marco was sitting on the grass, his knees pulled up with his chin resting on them, and his left arm wrapped around his legs. He was mindlessly picking at the grass with his right hand, either bored out of his mind, or living in his head entirely.

"…Huh?" Marco asked, blinking his eyes. He looked up to see Daisy was sitting next to him. He hadn’t even noticed her arrival.

"I said ‘hey’." Daisy repeated. "Are you doing okay?"

"Oh. Yeah. I’m… fine." Marco mumbled, looking back at the ground. He continued to pick at the grass.

"Are you worried about your future MindCore?" Daisy asked. "You’ve been awfully quiet lately. Quieter than usual."

"Worried?" Marco repeated. "No. Not really. It’s not like it will matter."

Daisy blinked. "What do you mean? You think the ability to predict stuff won’t be useful? My dad said he used something similar in the future to beat the demons’ butts!"

"Yeah. But your dad has strong magical powers. I can snap my fingers and make stuff disappear for a second or two." Marco said, his tone glum. "What good will a MindCore do for someone as useless as me?"

Daisy opened her mouth to reply, but her heart dropped when she heard Marco mutter a few extra words. "I’m useless. I shouldn’t even be here."

"Whoa, whoa." Daisy said quietly, trying not to draw attention to them from the others. "Marco, come on, now. My dad said that at the very least, your power will allow him to make huge advances in technology and rapidly advance Aevum. Don’t you think that’s kind of incredible?? Even if that’s the only thing your powers do, that’s still going to let you assist the entirety of humanity!"

"Great." Marco mumbled. "I get turned into a finger-snapping machine. Over and over, snapping my fingers to rapidly speed up your dad’s timeline. Really incredible stuff- why does he even need me for that anyway?"

Marco turned his head to look at Daisy with an accusatory glance. "No, like seriously. He’s already got that weird black hole time-freeze place anyway. I’m sure if he uses his powers he can replicate mine, no problem."

"Dad already told you it has a lot of side effects that your powers don’t." Daisy said, her voice soft. "Marco, maybe you don’t believe in your powers, but I do. I think they’re really unique, and if you experimented with them more-"

"I don’t want to experiment with them more." Marco hissed under his breath. "I don’t want to be a part of any of this. Killing demons. Killing humans. It’s all just… evil! I want to be a normal guy, go to college, meet a nice girl, live a decent life. Instead, I got stuck with some magical ability that could make me kill people if I ever absent-mindedly snap my fingers in tune to a song. Do you know how scary that thought is? I’ve got ADHD! I lose focus all the time! I’m a walking bomb, and a danger to everyone around me. And the best use we can come up with is using my ability to supercharge the fucking Human Weapons Program."

Daisy fell silent. She looked away.

At this point, she understood that Marco’s concerns went deeper than she expected. Marco thought his abilities were useless because Jason’s word magic could replicate them, but he also thought they were dangerous just because if he ever snapped his fingers without thinking, he might kill someone.

On top of that, he was not a fighter. He didn’t want to hurt or kill people. As such, he placed no value on learning combat training, and when Daisy thought of his sparring sessions with other people, calling Marco’s performance ‘half-hearted’ would be a serious understatement. He couldn’t spar against the girls because he had major hangups with hitting women, and he stood no chance against the other men. Even Brian would hand Marco his ass, and Brian wasn’t exactly a combat expert. It went without saying that Jason, Harold, and Jerome were unbeatable.

That made Daisy wonder… was Marco possibly feeling emasculated because he was surrounded by men who were all way stronger and more powerful than him?

She… didn’t know how to breach such a topic. If she spoke incorrectly, it might worsen his mood. She suspected it could be the truth, but short of reading his mind, she didn’t have an easy way to verify her conjecture.

Daisy and Marco had been friends for a long time. Were they best friends? No. But they talked. She knew he had been a quiet guy beforehand, but he didn’t seem actively miserable in the past, just a little shy and withdrawn. The fact his attitude had declined this far had started to seriously worry her.

Before Daisy could press him further on the subject, Brian’s voice rang out. "They’re done!"

Daisy and Marco looked up in unison. Across the street, four people left the infirmary. Jason looked exhausted. Nadia seemed the same as ever, and she was wearing her PepScan to keep an eye on the mental states of the two people who had just had their Mind Realms operated on.

Sasha and Helen had looks of awe on their face. As they stepped out into the daylight, they both winced, not from the brightness of the outside world, but from their MindCores feeding them all manner of crazy thoughts. Sasha stopped just outside the door and started touching the infirmary walls, muttering to herself about the ‘construction material imperfections’, while Helen took a few steps toward her overjoyed husband and frowned in disgust as she looked at his clothes.

"Goodness, Harold!" Helen cried. "I can’t believe I didn’t notice the state of your outfit! Wrinkles everywhere, a smudge of egg on the collar! You can’t leave the house looking like a slob!"

Harold was all smiles, happy to see his wife come out in one piece. But he did a double take when she started criticizing his outfit. He looked down and… he couldn’t even see the smudge she was talking about. As for the wrinkles in his clothes, why would he care about such a silly thing?

"Huh?" Harold grunted. "Helen, what in the dickens are you talkin’ about? You told me to wear this shirt…"

Sasha walked over to Helen. She looked even more appalled than Helen at his state. "Oh, you’re right, miss Helen! It’s dreadful! That color combination doesn’t go together at all! You should let me take a look at his wardrobe. I’ll help you coordinate several good outfits that go together."

"I can’t believe I let him go outside without at least ironing his shirts." Helen said, pressing a palm over her eyes in embarrassment. "To think I was so blind before!"

Jerome walked over to Harold’s side. He looked the old man up and down. "Why are you two actin’ like that? Ain’t nothing wrong with the old man’s clothes. He looks fine to me."

"Fine, you say?" Sasha asked. Her face turned a little green when she looked at Jerome’s outfit. "Let’s not… hear any opinions about fashion from you, okay, Jerome? A black T-shirt and sweatpants? You’re practically wearing pajamas! I’ll need to work on your wardrobe as well! I can’t believe you have the face to walk outside dressed like that!"

Question marks popped up over the heads of everyone present. Phoebe looked as if she was gazing at aliens for the first time. Daisy seemed as though she couldn’t recognize Sasha at all. Farrah looked as if she were going to leap to the defense of her boyfriend.

"Ooookay, guys. Let’s all calm down for a minute." Jason said, walking between the two groups with a tired expression covering his face. "Sasha, Helen, I warned you about this. You need to dial down the sensitivity of your MindCores a little more. There’s too much stimuli for you out here. You’re starting to sound like crazy people."

"Crazy? I’m not crazy." Helen said. "It’s just that there’s all these problems with the world and I can finally see them now! We have to do something to fix them. There’s bad design everywhere!"

"People have a bad sense of fashion and that should be a CRIME!" Sasha added. "In fact, it is a crime… against humanity!"

Jason wanted to facepalm. Now he understood what a lunatic he had sounded like when he first got his GenesisFrame. No wonder everyone had looked at him as if a leech had latched onto his brain.

After a few minutes, Jason helped the two women adjust their MindCore power levels. Over time, they would slowly dial them up as Jason had, using their full brains more and more. Daisy had hers on at 80% power all the time now, only dialing it up to 100% when it was time to fight. Nadia, from the start, had hers on at 100% and never turned it down, but she was a special case due to her cerebral power, and the fact she had 70+ virtual years of experience with it locked at 100%.

"Alright," Jason said, as the two newest MindCore users started getting used to their new mental abilities. "Sasha, I’ll be having you spend some time with Nadia to learn more about your MindCore. Helen, for the next few months, I’m going to have you read, read, read up on all sorts of books."

Helen nodded. She’d already been given a huge assortment of books from Jason, who had downloaded most of Earth’s knowledge into his head and made organized copies of the information in book form at for her. He’d created a library not dissimilar to Solomon’s future library in the Hall of Heroes, but admittedly the quality was much, much worse. Solomon had billions more years of memories and knowledge stored in his crown, so his books were a lot more thorough.

"You want me to aid the Daughter of Heaven, right?" Helen asked.

"That’s right." Jason said. "You need to become proficient in technology as quickly as possible. You’ll be able to pass your knowledge on to Heaven’s Daughter, accelerating her fighting capabilities. You have the same potential powers as her, but it’s up to you if you also want to become a fighter or not. Your MindCore isn’t geared toward combat, but you’re still way smarter than any average human. If you put your mind to it, you could become equally fearsome."

Helen didn’t look interested. "Heaven’s Daughter is a good friend, so I’m happy to help her. But me, fighting? I will pass. I’ve had more than enough fighting in my time, having waited on Harold to return during World War II."

Harold nodded. He lovingly wrapped an arm around Helen’s shoulders. "My dame ain’t the fightin’ type. But she’s sharp as a tack. You done made a good choice, juicin’ up her brain like that. I’m sure she’ll be a real asset moving forward."

Jason nodded. He looked at the others. "Now that Helen and Sasha have successfully had their MindCores installed, I plan to move onto the next candidates soon. Brian, you’re next. Then Farrah, and finally, Marco."

"So soon?" Brian asked. "Not that I am complaining, of course, but don’t you usually space these out over weeks?"

"We’re running out of time." Jason said. "It’s nightfall on Earth in about four Aevum-months. More specifically, it’s dusk. We don’t know if the demons will wait until full pitch-black nighttime arrives, or if they’ll attack when the sun dips below the horizon. If it’s the former, than we have four months. If it’s the latter, up to five months."

"Remember," Nadia interjected, "we don’t only need to install your MindCores, but train you in how to use them. If we wait too long between install sessions, it might give the newest users time to acclimate to their Cores and for us to make sure there are no aberrations, but it also means cutting your training time down."

There was a moment of silence. Jason chewed his lip.

"One other things. I’m… not going to be sending any of you out to fight the demons."

"What? You’re not??" Brian asked, bewildered. "Then why the rush?"

"Because the second War in Heaven is going to change everything." Jason explained. "I won’t have much free time once the demons finally attack. Even with the extreme time dilation here, I’m going to be moving like crazy to try and handle things on the battlefield. You might think I have all the time in the world, but a lot can happen in real-world seconds. Even if I have hundreds of extra seconds to react, a few minutes of complacency can get people killed."

Harold nodded and smiled. He appreciated that Jason was looking at the bigger picture to try and save lives. He also especially liked that Jason was being proactive and not procrastinating until deadlines were near. Better to give himself a lot of buffer time than run the risk of catastrophic screw-ups. Too many nimrods in the military had treated soldiers as expendable in Harold’s time. He wouldn’t work under fools like that ever again.

"In the meantime," Jason continued. "Harold is going to start training everyone with a MindCore. Much of the work will not be combat related, surprisingly. I need to rest for a few days, then I’ll move on to the rest of you."

Nadia turned to look at Jerome. "I’m sure you’re wondering why we haven’t talked about your MindCore yet."

Jerome blinked. "Yeah? Jason didn’t mention me at all."

"We could give you one." Nadia said. "But… I talked to Jason, and we have an idea we wanted to run past you."

Jerome was surprised. They weren’t going to give him a MindCore? Did that mean they thought it would be a waste? Was he too much of a meathead?

Jason seemed to read his mind. "It’s not what you think. I’ve just noticed that Phoebe already seems to have something on the level of a QuantumReflex MindCore in her head, and she’s really strong. It felt like if we gave you a QuantumReflex, you’d just be doing the same thing as Phoebe. Better or worse? Doesn’t really matter. We want to turn everyone here into a unique powerhouse with their own arsenal and bags of tricks."

"Tricks ain’t really my style." Jerome said, his tone bland. "I like punching shit. Beating the fuck out of motherfuckers."

"Come with us." Jason said.

Like this, Jason, Nadia, and Jerome vanished from the spot, leaving everyone behind. Even Daisy was caught offguard.

"The heck? Where are they going? What’s my dad planning?" Daisy asked.

Harold shrugged. "Kid didn’t tell me nothin’. Whatever, let’s git on home, Helen. Time to bury your nose in them books. Leave the plannin’ and stratemagizin’ to these young’uns."

He and Helen departed. The others were left to surround Sasha and excitedly start asking her all sorts of questions about her new mental abilities.

…

Jason and Nadia whisked Jerome off to a hidden underground area elsewhere on Aevum, far outside the city limits. They materialized inside a steel bunker with bright floodlights attached to the ceiling a hundred-feet above. When Jerome looked around, he was startled.

"Robots?" Jerome asked.

"Not just any robots. These are, to be frank, copies of various powerful demons." Jason said, gesturing to the silvery-metallic mannequins standing at attention in the center of the room. "They’re… not as strong as the real deal. But their strengths combined are pretty respectable. They’ll beat your ass if you’re not prepared."

"You want me to fight these things?" Jerome asked, bewildered.

"Yes. But not yet. That’s not the fun surprise." Jason said, smiling cheekily. "Turn around."

Jerome did just that. He turned around and gasped. There was a giant metal robot behind him, ten feet tall, but its chest was open. It was humanoid. It looked ‘clunky’. It looked like it was made of parts welded together sloppily. It looked rusty and old.

But it also looked really badass. It reminded him of old sci-fi stories of automatons from outer space.

"This is what we’ve been working on." Jason said. "More specifically, Nadia crafted the schematics. It’s a special type of Power Armor made just for you. I call it H-Boy v1. Hop inside and you’ll see."

Jerome nodded. He walked over to the H-Boy and looked it up and down. It was a lot bigger than him, and it looked like it weighed several tons. It had spiked fists, giant fingers, huge and wide feet to provide stability, and a circular ‘orb’ head with hundreds of tiny pinprick-sized holes, likely to provide vision to its operator.

Jerome hefted himself up toward its open chest cavity. He clumsily turned around to get in backward, but he banged the back of his head on a sharp piece of metal and cried out in pain. The impact even drew blood.

Jason healed Jerome. It wasn’t much of an injury, so it was trivial for him.

It took Jerome a few minutes to stuff his legs down into the H-Boy’s legs. He felt a little disoriented, like he was standing two feet taller than before, and the ground looked wrong. He wasn’t used to being this ‘tall’.

"Alright." Jason said. "The H-Boy is… special. It doesn’t have a power source. It only moves under your strength. You have to move it yourself."

"Huh?" Jerome asked, bewildered. "You couldn’t like, add a fancy computer system or whatever? Does it shoot like missiles and lasers and shit?"

"Nope. Nothing like that." Jason said. "Let’s start with the basics. Try to get it moving."

Jason didn’t explain what he meant. He gave Jerome no instructions, so Jerome had to put his arms inside the robot’s arms and pull the cockpit shut, drenching himself in darkness. The interior was uncomfortably warm, and Jerome already started to sweat from the slow heat buildup his body was producing in such a closed space.

"Make it move…" Jerome muttered to himself. "The fuck does he mean? What, like I gotta move this rusty piece of shit myself? Um… I guess I just lift my leg then?"

Jerome did that. He hooked his foot into the ‘shoe’ of the power armor. Then he tried lifting.

"Huuuk! Come on! Move, move, you piece of garbage! Grrrgh! Jesus fucking Christ, there’s no way this fucking thing only weighs a few tons!"

Jerome strained and strained. He felt the power armor shift slightly, but the movement was so small it couldn’t really be counted as ‘moving’ it except in the most literal sense.

"God damn, motherfucker." Jerome cursed. "Move, you cocksucker! How fucking heavy is this tin can?! Am I supposed to use it to fight demons?! Maybe if I try moving the arms…"

Jerome wiggled his right hand around inside the power armor, fumbling to try and find controls. He eventually felt some sort of grabbable ‘bar’, and he wrapped his fingers around it.

"Son of a BITCH, what the fucking fuck am I supposed to do?!" Jerome roared. "Fucking lift, or turn, or even twitch a finger! Do SOMETHING!!"

Outside the power armor, Nadia’s expression was blank. "Should we… tell him?"

"No, no. It’s funnier this way." Jason said. "Besides, if he gives up right away, he won’t have the mindset to handle adversity. Let him cuss a bunch. It’s good for the soul to get the anger out anyway."

A slight smile twitched at the edge of Nadia’s lips. "You’re such an asshole sometimes."

Jerome struggled, roared with rage, and struggled some more. Every so often, the power armor would slightly twitch, but never did it manage to make any substantial movements.

Thirty minutes passed. Jason scratched his head. "You’re… sure you set it to the lowest resistance to start, right?"

"Pretty sure." Nadia said. "Don’t worry. He’ll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, can we get some lunch? I’m hungry."

"Me too. That surgery was exhausting." Jason said with a chuckle.

He whisked Nadia away, leaving Jerome behind.

All the while, Jerome kept cursing, cursing, and cursing some more.

"Fuck you, Jason! You piece of shit! This is a trick! This shit don’t work! Lift your finger, motherfucker! Lift it! LIFT! Hrrgh, HRRRRGH!! God DAMN why don’t this bucket of bolts MOVE?!"

"JASOOOON!!"