Breath 1.4
That first week was full of tests. Most relevant was the day in the med lab.
A nurse pulled a blood sample; or tried to. I knew I could have blocked the needle with my power instinctively, but I held it at bay.
The needle refused to pierce my skin without an undue amount of pressure. The nurse clicked her tongue.
"Looks like you need the full Brute test, sweetie."
I looked on with wide eyes as she pulled out a pair of odd-looking spring loaded devices about the size of her forearm.
"This is the Bruiser and this is the Cutter," she said as she held up each device. "We need to know precisely how much force it takes to hurt you if you are tougher than a normal human. It helps when we need to do field first air or designing body armor or medical tinker gadgets."
It made an odd kind of sense, so I tentatively nodded. She approached and put the first device against my arm.
"Is it-"
"Yes. If it doesn't hurt, then I crank it up notch by notch and try another spot until it does. Once we have a bruise, I write down the setting. Then we do the other one."
I was feeling less and less comfortable with the whole situation by the second but decided not to whine. With a thunking sound, the piston driven thing bopped me on the arm.
"Ow."
Higher on arm. Thunk.
"Ow."
Other arm. Thunk.
"Ow."
"There we are. Looks like you are at least Brute 2 by the Bruiser's reckoning. Now for the Cutter."
She iodine swabbed a clear spot on my arm, pressed the device up, and pressed the button. There was a puff of air from the back of the device, and I felt nothing. She removed it, checked.
"Nope."
Once more. Nothing.
The third time, blood welled up from the small wound.
"Definitely Brute 2 when this is added on top of your ability. Perhaps you'd rank as three, but we don't test breaking ones for obvious reasons."
I shuddered a bit and thanked her, then left.
***
A bit later was endurance testing. I passed well beyond what was expected of my age weight and apparent fitness. They stopped me before I worked up a sweat; I was to exhaust myself exercising later, but for now they had what they needed.
***
Next was hand to hand combat testing. Perhaps I had super strength. I punched a target sensor.
"You hit like a girl."
"Shut up."
Aegis, AKA Carlos, was present for this phase. Once I punched, kicked, and even headbutted the sensor (to good natured jeers and laughs each strike) a few times I was told it was time for practical testing.
"What?"
The lab tech looked at Carlos. Carlos smiled.
"You get to kick the shit out of me. If you can, that is."
I blinked.
"Like, a spar?"
He shook his head.
"Nope. you come at me with intent to knock me out or disable me. I would say intent to kill, but unless you can magically decapitate me that isn't happening. I'll be trying to avoid your attacks but I won't hit back. Go all-out; trust me, you can't actually hurt me," he said with what could best be described as a shit-eating grin. I was familiar with his power. He maintained more or less full use of his body no matter how injured he got. He was asking for it.
I took a few steps until I was by him.
"Are you really sure? I mean, I wouldn't actually-" Without missing a beat, I kicked him in the balls and he went down. I felt a slight flush of energy along with the humor. Huh.
A few minutes later, I was actually catching my breath. Carlos had cried uncle when it was more or less apparent that I had taken the advantage, and was cheerfully kicking him in 'sensitive' areas while he was down each chance I got, with the occasional punch thrown in for good measure. I wasn't playing fair or nice at all; I was keeping him as disabled as possible while laying it on.
He got to his feet slowly.
"Well, aside from a heaping helping of pain, I don't think you broke anything but a nose. You need more training, grasshopper."
I was too busy trying to reconcile his perfectly normal tone of voice with the bruised and bumpy visage facing me to respond.
"That said, you definitely have your mind in the right place for this kind of thing- at least for no holds barred. Glenn will probably need to talk to you about . . . oh dear god." His gaze was directed behind me.
I spun around. What used to be a large mirrored panel turned out to be one way glass; specifically one way glass that was now deactivated, with Clockblocker pointing his smartphone at us and waving. I gestured to Carlos and myself as if to ask did you just get all that on tape? He nodded and gave a thumbs up.
Oh dear.
My own thoughts on the matter matched Carlos' long groan, which seemed more appropriate considering his condition.
***
Shortly thereafter Carlos was taken aside and given a talking down. Apparently the 'hands on' testing wasn't part of normal procedures. I did not know quite how to feel about this- I'd punch him for the manipulation, but . . . yeah.
While I was waiting for the next round of tests in my new room, I notice the Bruiser's mark on my arm was all but gone. Huh. Regeneration? Not exactly fast enough to keep me from dying if the wound was serious enough, but I'd take what I could get.
When my terminal beeped again, I looked and my heart skipped a beat. Next on the schedule?
Weapons affinity testing.
***
Two hours later I was in a large warehouse, or at least a simulation of one, complete with a maze of crates. In my hands was a Tippmann 98 Custom paintball marker with a full load of CO2 and paintballs.For protection I had on a pair of goggles, as opposed to the standard full face mask and visor. The environment was a hardlight sim, but the marker, I was assured, was not. My opponents had had their CO2 pressure amped up much higher than normal to account for my extra toughness; if I got hit, it would sting.
None of this mattered to me at the moment, however, as I was hiding behind a tall stack of crates and waiting, completely silent. While going against the spirit of the test, I figured if I was going to hunt someone, I wasn't going to be an idiot about it.
The general idea was, paintballs hurt. So, fresh Wards (capable of feeling pain) would be much less inclined to allow themselves to get shot. I didn't know how much it was going to sting, and I had zero inclination to find out.
Thankfully for me, the 'arena' was littered with appropriate debris. I had snatched up a crowbar and kept it handy while I found my hiding spot. Back to the tower of crates, I waited for who knows how long until I heard footsteps. I had taken the time to get a read for the layout of the area around my spot, so I knew when the footfalls moved to my left it was time to act.
I popped around to my right and threw the crowbar backwards over my shoulder in a high arc, then jumped back to the left of the tower while spinning around. Sure enough, the crowbar crashing to the ground had my opponent spinning to face it, and completely unaware as I opened fire.
What I had failed to account for was the fact that while bullets were faster than sound, paintballs were not. Clockblocker, or Dennis as he had begun insisting, yelped like a girl and dashed the instant he heard the shot. My first projectile sailed harmlessly behind him as he fled, perpendicular to me.
Indignant that my perfect ambush was ruined, I almost started to follow, then stopped, pointed my gun at him, swung the barrel to lead my aim and walked four shots at about hip level. His reflexive dive to ground put his full body into the line of fire and he hit concrete more colorful for his trouble.
Smiling at my victory, I considered how best to gloat (because friendly ribbing was a big thing around here) but before I could come up with a snappy line Vista's voice boomed above me.
"Don't think you've won yet, Lightbulb!"
I turned to see her up on a catwalk, brandishing two comically oversized (for her frame) markers sideways in either hand at me.
"Eat sixty-four brilliant colors!" She opened fire, fully automatic.
I was behind a crate before she finished, but then I remembered her power. Sure enough, space above me bent and an entire spectrum of pain started to rain down around me. Before she could refine her shots I sprinted for another bit of cover, closer to the stairs.
Or at least that was the idea, until I heard
"HA!"
and saw her open fire with her second gun aimed at my destination, pulling the two lines of fire together, me trapped between.
As the sound of splattering paint closed in on me from both sides, my mind whited out for a second in anticipation of pain- then insanity overtook me and I dashed back towards the wall of crates behind me, right before I got pinched in.
Jumping, I ran up the crate wall, then at the peak of it vaulted back towards the direction Vista was in, above the incoming fire. Flipping in mid-air, I popped off another five shots and landed on one of the stacks I hid behind earlier. Ironically the bent space left that spot safe for the moment.
"Hey! Ow-ow-ow!"
I smiled on hearing her defeat, blew the vapor from the barrel of my gun with a flourish and taunted.
"XP was better anyway."
I felt the impacts before I registered the sound, as two paintballs nailed me almost on the middle of my spine and one struck right on the back on my head. I spun as a fell, seeing Miss Militia on the opposite catwalk as Vista, slowly shaking her head, expression unreadable behind her scarf. A marker like mine was in her hand, and her signature phantom weapon was currently in combat knife form on her belt.
"Flashy, but too cocky. Still, that was an impressive move at the end. You ever pull anything off like that before?"
I blinked, then crawled over to the edge of the crate I was on and look down.
Whoa.
I looked back up and shook my head weakly, holding in vertigo. My glow was illuminating the whole 'room,' the spherical sunset light aura interacting in weird ways with the hardlight projection below me when viewed from certain angles.
"Mover 1 then, at least. Congratulations, you're on your way to being the most diverse Ward yet."
I laughed weakly, then looked over to Vista, who was groaning as she got back up.
"Ah, a little help getting down?"
***
A little later, after changing out of the painted shirt, I was a few feet across from Miss Militia in the same warehouse projection. Instead of paintball guns, we each had blunted stun knives. She explained in a curt tone.
"I swung by just in time to catch you about to do weapons affinity testing, so I figured I'd pop in. If you can jump like that, I want to see how you move in close combat-"
She slid a quick glance to Aegis (who was now up on the catwalk with the rest of the peanut gallery),
"-when you actually have some incentive to move!" she said as she dashed forward, stun knife going for my throat."
Before I could protest at the sudden start, I had already noted her telegraphed strike and waved my blade in a lazy arc to bump hers up as I crouched and matched her rush forward. I rolled to my left, flinging out my blade to hit her ankle, only for that ankle and the foot it was attached to to rise up and stomp down on my wrist.
Hissing in pain, I swung my legs forward and kicked up at the descending blade, clapping it between the sides of my feet and twisting it out of her hands. It flipped into the air, and she lunged for it, her full weight coming down on my pinned wrist for a second.
Then she was off and I was somersaulting back to my feet, only semi aware of the building light. I scooped up my knife with my un-stomped hand, and charged her. She spun to face me, and a rather conventional series of feints and lunges happened at ludicrous speed, as I'd comment later while watching the video.
Miss Militia suddenly grabbed my bad hand, yanked me off balance, and her hand shot forward to give me a textbook gut shot- then there was a flash of orange light.
For about a second, intercepting the blow, my glow reached a peak and the 'energy shield' manifested once again.
Much to everyone's surprise, however, it wasn't a localized point defense as we had assumed from earlier (later, the freeze frames of this spar's footage displayed within my eponymous lightshow a literal cape of red light, sweeping back from my shoulders and curling up to fend off the blow. It was the color of the dying sun, the perfect stylistic capstone to my already admittedly over the top personal color scheme).
Needless to say in the end I lost the spar, as Miss Militia was unfazed by my display and just slid her blade up to my neck instead, while I froze like an idiot at the newly updated entry to my mental list of unconventional parahuman gimmicks.
I hoped that after some actual training I'd put on a better show, as opposed to all this dangerously-close-to-hazing 'testing.' That said, I don't think my showing exactly counted against me. Far from it if the form Miss Militia filled out after the spar was anything to go by.
I found myself signing a consent form for specialized hand to hand, firearms, and melee weapons training. I was, as Miss Militia explained, on that very fine line of capes that lacked overriding super-strength, but I had enough supernatural dexterity and reflex to decisively magnify the advantage of any weapons I wielded.
As the vast majority of cape on villain combat was traditionally nonlethal, this put me squarely in the zone of heroes that could go absolutely all out while equipped with stunning and disabling weaponry, to maximum effect. Tinkers tended to not be as effective at fighting themselves, and more conventional Brutes and Blasters tended to have a very poor showing of nonlethal offensive ability that actually harnesses their full potential.
I hit the sack that night with my head spinning- my final act before sleeping was to check my mail, where I was informed that I was to have my costume made after an initial 'interview' tomorrow with someone named Glenn.
As a footnote at the bottom, it was said I'd be deployed in the field as soon as my costume was prepared. It's a wonder that I was able to sleep at all for the excitement, after that.
.
