Well, what will be, will be.
"Hello, Philippa."
"What the ******** have you two done?! I'm going to ******** kill you! Making that much noise and why the ****** did you mess with the Life Foundation?! They've already put a bounty on your heads. Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull to keep other teams from being sent after your asses and to settle this matter peacefully, huh?! Do you?!"
"I'm sorry, I realize we went a little overboard yesterday and—"
"A LITTLE overboard?! You woke up half the city!!! What were you high on to pull a stunt like that?"
"Initially, or later on?"
"Oh, God." I could practically hear the sound of a facepalm.
"Philippa, calm down. I think I can compensate for your financial losses."
"Oh? And how? I'd like to see that."
"Drive over to the 'Two Pines' motel, and I'll show you what Remy and I managed to score yesterday."
"Is Remy with you?"
"No, he's hiding somewhere. But I'm sure he doesn't regret what he did at all." You shouldn't have hung up on me, you bastard.
"Fine, I'm on my way."
An hour later she arrived, and I showed her our loot. Seeing our riches and learning that Remy still had a map marked with weapon warehouses known only to the cartel boss, she warmed up. The look in her eyes stopped making me feel like I had murdered her family after violating both her parents. By rough calculations, after paying back what she gave to get the Life Foundation off our backs and covering the overhead for lost debts, she'd get 300,000, while Gambit and I would get 500,000 each.
After that, it took me another half hour to convince Gambit that it wasn't a trap, nobody was going to lynch him, and he could return. Once I reminded him for the fifth time how much we had made through righteous violence, he finally gave in and agreed to come back.
Once I finished dealing with all the problems created by my own stupidity, I decided to check my status.
Name: Rain Pierce
Level: 18
Experience: 6900/7000
Parameters:
Strength: 60
Agility: 58
Endurance: 75
Intelligence: 50
Intuition: 50
Free Points: 21
Traits: "Major," "Lab Rat," "Reincarnator."
Abilities/Skills: "Martial Arts lvl 27," "Marksmanship lvl 42," "Polyglot lvl 5," "Psychology lvl 14," "Strategist lvl 17," "Stealth lvl 20," "Gamer's Mind MAX," "Intimidation lvl 10," "Animal Style lvl 8," "Drug Resistance lvl 7."
Superpowers: "Time Acceleration," "Lycanthropy."
Wow! Just, wow! I don't even know what to say! I leveled up pretty well yesterday. Wait, which of my decisions leveled up Strategist so much? I leveled Stealth at the Life Foundation, hiding after that and the zoo. Intimidation? Well, that was just the vampire club and the cartel shootout. But what's this Animal Style? Where did it come from? I don't get it. Hey, and where did that one point of Intelligence go? Does that drink have side effects too?
Not knowing whether to be happy about yesterday or not, I headed to the base. Arclight said she had already contacted the right people and the sale would be handled soon, but due to all the noise we made, we'd have to lay low in another city. We headed to South Bend. It's not a particularly prosperous town, full of abandoned factories and places where few people would care about you. The economy there is pretty bad: many industrial companies left the city in the sixties, taking most of the jobs with them, so crime flourishes there.
Once we reached the city, my training with Arclight finally began. She showed me just how inadequate my combat skills were; while I could defeat ordinary people through speed and strength, against someone equal in power but with combat skills, I'd be flattened in a minute. Though, she flattened me in twenty seconds.
If I used acceleration, the fight lasted longer, but it didn't give me a massive advantage—it mostly just stretched out the time until my defeat. By the end of the first week of training, I could last 40 seconds without using acceleration. By mid-month, I was holding out for over two minutes. Philippa was amazed by the speed of my progress and said that with such talent, I'd surpass her in 3-4 months.
End of the thirty-day vacation
Today is our last sparring session, because tomorrow we set out on a new mission. We've been contracted to find/capture/eliminate a scientist named Fritz von Meyer. We were warned he's a Super, but no info on his abilities was given—only the address of his last residence where he appeared three days ago. The mission, as Philippa said, is certainly strange; if they know he's a Super, why not name the target's abilities? But they pay a lot even for simple info on his new location. For elimination, each of us gets 300,000. Clearly, this Fritz crossed someone badly. Though, it wasn't the money on my mind today.
Since morning, I'd had a sense of dread. I couldn't figure out what it was related to, and I was in turmoil for most of the day. When it came time for training and I took my full form, the feeling intensified manifold, practically pulling me somewhere. Philippa was surprised by the metamorphosis I'd undergone. In my full form, my eyes had changed color from bright yellow to blood red. She said I looked more menacing and likely just took it for the development of my mutation, but I knew it wasn't normal and something had triggered these changes. For the rest of the day, I felt absolutely terrible, and I only avoided falling into a depression under the weight of these sensations because of Gamer's Mind.
By nightfall, it got even worse, but I managed to fall asleep. Lying under the light of the full moon, I had a very strange dream. In it, scientists walked around me, writing things down. Then the scene shifted to an operating table, and I felt terror, hatred, and boundless rage toward a woman surrounded by doctors looming over me—which is strange, since I'd never seen her before. Then the image shifted again, and I saw a large white room with other people in it—wearing clothes like mine, with numbers on the right side. Then a door opened, and another person with the number 80 on his clothes was dragged in. He was in very bad shape and even vomited blood. Nobody paid much attention, and he was told to stand in line with the others. Five minutes later, a blonde woman who looked about 30 walked in. She was the one I saw performing that operation.
"Well, my dear children, almost all of you have managed to please me. Numbers 76 through 83 were able to demonstrate a full transformation, though they had a little problem with control and had to be eliminated. Но you, Number 80, are just a darling. Tell me, what exactly allowed you to come to your senses? Killing Number 78?"
"I... I... don't know, ma'am."
"Hmm... Fine. We'll deal with that later—right now I'm here to give you some regrettable news. The blood tests for Numbers 71, 73, 74, 75, 84, and 88 did not show the expected changes, and so, with all due regret, I'm informing you that we no longer need you." Her face took on a sad look, like a child who had broken a toy.
The faces of the named people turned pale. One of them, standing closest to the exit, bolted from his spot at maximum speed. Watching the fleeing figure, I noticed his body proportions change as he ran, his legs becoming partially twisted. He didn't make it to his goal—the collar around his neck glowed red, and he fell to the floor in convulsions. Immediately afterward, a guard stepped up and put a bullet in his head.
The test subjects' faces didn't change after seeing that, as if nothing out of the norm for their lives had happened.
After that, the woman walked up to me and started saying something, but my vision blurred, and I felt myself waking up.
Waking up in a cold sweat, I couldn't understand what had happened to me. That dream was so real! It was as if I'd lived through it all. Not knowing how to feel about it, I decided to set my theories aside for later, as we were heading out on a new mission today, and I was glad at least that the strange, oppressive feeling had vanished.