Part 2
You woke up a few hours later, and got surprised to notice that you weren't really tired in the way you would expect after staying up so late. You decided to think about that later.
Regardless, you had a few important things to do. Besides just doing your morning routine and preparing for school, you also took the chance to enter the chat room of the group and report that you had successfully managed to escape. You didn't bother talking about your meeting with Shadow Crusader, since there was very little to gain and much to lose by doing that (they might think she was trying to brag, or something like it).
It didn't take long for the others to appear as well, since you had planned to make that report together on the morning. It thankfully seemed that none of the other members had stumbled upon Shadow Crusader in their escapes.
Susan soon asked about the information you had found. The notebook was still inside your backpack, so you took it out and started taking pictures of the pages using your cellphone, which had a pretty good camera. You sent the pictures to Susan and asked what she thought of them.
The girl was very satisfied with what you had found, and said that she would send the information to the higher-ups in the gang. Susan also mentioned that they would have to go to another meeting with their superior during the night in order to receive further instructions.
It was clear that, despite your position of leader of the group, she was the most valued member, due to her connections. You would have to do something to get around that later on, but for now, you just didn't have enough knowledge and achievements to fight for control.
You went down to have breakfast.
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Surprisingly, your father was actually down there as well. That was a pretty rare occurrence. You greeted him while you were making your meal.
You two made light conversation while you were eating. You asked him if there were any problems at work, and he asked you the same about school. It was a pleasant way to start the day. However, eventually he said something that caused you to stumble slightly:
"You seem pretty happy. What happened?"
You looked at him in confusion for a second before your mind processed what he was saying. You opened your mouth to answer, quickly deciding to keep things close to the truth.
"I made a few friends." You said "I was talking with them via the computer earlier."
"Oh? That's nice." He said "Could you tell me more?"
You spoke, weaving a tale about how you ended up meeting and getting to know the three. Your father listened attentively.
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The school day was pretty normal. And there were no more noteworthy happenings for the rest of the day, so you simply did things as per routine until it finally came time for the planned meeting.
It felt pretty similar to the previous meeting. All four members of the group standing at attention while looking at the contact, every single person present wearing one of the masks of the Inscrutables. But a few things were different, mostly the fact that now you four knew each other, so there was less wariness in your glances.
"You have done well." The contact said, then she looked at you "Do you have the notebook with you?"
You answered yes and took it out of your backpack. You had sent photos of some of the pages, but not all of them, so having the original was still a good thing.
"Excellent." The woman said "You really have performed excellently on your first mission. I had mentioned the possibility that you might receive something special if you did well enough, but... I'm not the one who should talk about that."
Saying that, the woman turned to the side, causing you and the other three to do the same. In that direction was a door, and you immediately understood what was going on when that door started to open. It looked like you five weren't the only people in the house.
Still, you could not help but suck in a sharp breath when you actually saw who it was:
That person was unmistakable. She was a tall woman who wore a mask that was similar to the one you were wearing, except that it was much more high-tech, seeming to perfectly mold itself to her face and extending around her head like a protective helmet.
Her clothes looked somewhat normal at first glance, being military style overalls, boots and gloves, but as the woman got closer, you realized that the clothes were thicker and moved differently than you'd expect, as well as having strange small lines that gave an impression of solidity.
Inscrutable wasn't the type to fight in person, but it would be unwise to believe that she was unable to.
That woman had an intense amount of presence, and even just walking slowly in your direction, she gave you the feeling of needing to stand a little straighter.
Inscrutable stopped a few feet away from you, and she silently looked at each of the four members of the group in turn. Then she started to talk:
"We have spent a long time being suppressed by the disparate forces in this city, unable to achieve true greatness, to the point where even a lowly group such as the Red Claws has been able to challenge us." She spoke with a voice that was low but full of conviction "However, it is almost time for this situation to end. I have big plans to realize, but for them to work, competent soldiers like yourselves are needed."
She stopped speaking, and you understood what she expected.
"We are glad for the chance to help those plans come to fruition." You said with a bow. The other three followed your example.
"You have shown much potential, and that shall be rewarded." She swept her arm in the direction of the contact.
The woman came forward holding a basket, and inside the basket were... arm guards. Thick, black and big enough to wrap around your entire forearm.
The contact asked for you to hold out your arms and demonstrated how to put it on Susan. You, Roberta and Clara put them on as well.
"Those are shield bracelets." The contact said "Open and close your hands three times in quick succession to activate the shield, and do the same to deactivate it."
You tested it, and found that the bracelets were capable of materializing an "energy shield", which was tall and broad like a tower shield.
"Those shields can handle gunfire to a certain extent, but they can be overloaded if they're hit by more than a dozen bullets in quick succession, and they can't stand-up to anti-materiel fire. Still, they are powerful tools, so use them wisely." The woman said.
"You will be able to receive much more in time, as long as you continue to excel." Inscrutable said, before leaving through the same door she came in.
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The rest of the meeting was much less interesting. The contact said that the group would be called after a week to receive their next mission.
You put the bracelet inside your backpack and went back home. It was difficult to control yourself but it was already late, so you rejected the idea of checking out your new toy before going to sleep.
In the following day, you did some preliminary examining of the bracelet, trying to figure out how exactly the activation worked, and you soon realized that having the thing in your arm but not completely closed prevented you from activating the shield.
That meant that either the activation was based on recognizing your muscle movements, or there was a system that prevented activation unless the bracelet was closed.
After coming back from the school, you did a simple experiment (closing the bracelet around a stick and doing the movements with your hand slightly above it), and the shield activated, showing that it was the second case.
That was only the beginning. You spent the rest of the weekend playing around with the shield generator, first trying to figure out its other limits (it would not activate inside an object, for example), and then slowly and carefully taking it apart, doing your best to avoid breaking it.
You ended up needing to buy a few specialized tools, but you had enough spare money for it.
It was a delicate operation, but little by little you started finding the connection points, and finally managed to open up the bracelet.
Inside it was a whole new world for you to explore. You looked around and messed with things until you found the mechanism that checked whether the bracelet was closed (it was very near the border).
Messing around with it while watching the rest of the interior, you eventually figured out the control mechanism: It was composed of four small cameras that watched the space where your hand would be, and they probably had some sort of software that analyzed those images and looked for certain patterns.
Finally, after all that was done, you started on the real hard part: Trying to figure out how the thing actually worked, and what each part actually did. Looking at the connections and the bigger pieces, you came to the conclusion that the mechanisms were split into three major parts.
You turned the bracelet on and hit the shield several times with a hammer, and then noticed that one of those parts had become a lot hotter. There were a few possible explanations for it, but you deduced that it had to be the power source.
After that things became even more complicated. Try as you might, you weren't quite able to make sense of what the other parts did. So you changed your point of view, and tried to reverse engineer the thing.
How would a shield generator work? It needed a way to "set the target", delineating where the shield would be created, whether that shield be some sort of coherent energy focus or something that altered the particles in the air. Otherwise the energy would scatter.
You touched the shield with your hands, feeling that it was smooth, you hit the shield and observed how it rippled from the impact. You started thinking about how the air normally let everything pass easily because it moved out of the way. You theorized that one of the parts should be manipulating the air to change its properties. You thought that one of the two unknown parts had a few tubes, which made you connect it mentally with air, meaning the other part would be the "targetter".
It was a pile of suppositions, and you still did not have any solid idea of how it worked. But suddenly...
Exotic Technology Level 1
- The skill to understand and reproduce technology beyond your knowledge. At this level, you can understand basic information about how something works if you have time to do tests.
Looking at your new skill, a broad smile took over your face. Your ability had not let you down.
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You now had an entire free week. You were still doing your school stuff, but aside from that, what would you do? (Choose two)
[] Try to improve you team dynamics by going on team building exercises.
-[] Write-in the exercises and how to convince the others to go along with them.
[] Focus on raising the level of multiple skills you already developed.
-[] Write-in which skills (more skills means your efforts will be split more)
--[] Write-in any special methods for training the skills (Optional)
[] Focus on raising the level of a specific skill (Write-in)
-[] Write-in any special methods for training the skill (Optional)
[] Learn another martial art.
-[] Aikido
-[] Jeet Kune Do
-[] Karate
-[] Write-in
--[] Write-in any special methods for training the skill (Optional)
[] Now that you have weapons, it would be good to gain skill with them.
-[] Learn baton combat
--[] Write-in any special methods for training the skill (Optional)
[] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[] Sleight of hand
-[] Urban tracking
-[] Write-in
--[] Write-in any special methods for training the skill (Optional)
[] Investigate why you didn't feel tired in the morning.
[] Write-in.
Extra: Choose if you want to use your learning hypnosis trigger, and to which training you should apply it:
[] Write-in.
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A.N: Now we're talking. Things are going to get insane from here on out.
