2.4 Invocation
The next day, I was walking to school on my own. Akane still needed to rest to heal her head wound, and Sue still needed some documentation to get enrolled in middle school. So now, for the first time since the locker I have to face my bullies on my own.
As I walked, I felt afflicted thinking about how I had lied to my dad, but I had to in order to excuse Akane's wounds. We had told him Akane had gone off on her own, and metaphorically bitten more than she could safely chew when she met Bakuda. He hadn't been pleased at how Akane had gotten herself hurt, and warned her to not go out fighting criminals until a doctor saw and discharged her.
I couldn't help but wonder about my dad's reaction to Sue Richter staying over. Sue had been mostly silent until dad asked about her. She never lied to him, explained that I had resurrected her dad, and that until he could set up a place of his own, she needed to stay with us. He just looked me over and after I nodded at him, he just seemed to take everything for granted, not bothering to question how we were going to feed her or anything. Since we didn't have a bed for her, dad ended up sleeping on the couch while I slept in his bed and Sue in mine.
Thinking of Sue, I didn't know how to feel about the girl. I felt like there was a puzzle I couldn't quite perceive. Like I had all the pieces in front of me, but couldn't quite tell where the corners were to start putting it all together. She was a cape, but she was some sort of clone. And she had tinkertech in her arm, which looked completely normal otherwise.
I stopped walking.
Wait a moment. Technology is just 'attached' to her arm? Andrew's speciality is in programming. But he's cloning daughters. He 'unchained' Dragon, all the way from my ratty old computer. What, did he have some cloning vats back at Newfoundland?
I massaged my temples. Richter hadn't exactly hidden what he was doing. Sue's some kind of robot, who presents herself as a parahuman. Hydraulic muscles could
easily translate into a low level brute, and her supposed striker power (which I didn't know exactly what it was about yet) could easily be faked with some tinkertech.
The question was, when did he have the time to do this? And it wasn't just Sue, there were also the two other dragon sisters, one that acted as a tinker and another that allegedly was created as an answer to Endbringers. Where did he have the time to do all this? Maybe he was already working on this before he died, and merely resumed his work when I brought him back.
I kicked a soda can and resumed walking.
Maybe he didn't have time. Maybe he had Dragon build Sue out of spare parts while Scatha and Rodan were just in the planning stages. Maybe he didn't have a clue how Rodan would be able to fight an Endbringer, but he wanted her to.
If Sue isn't a real person, and she's also a clone of sorts of Dragon, maybe Dragon herself isn't a real person either. Maybe she's just a computer program, one that faked human emotion better than your average word processor.
I shook my head. I was straining myself, or rather I was straining my connection to Akane. I could feel my ability to sense her weakening a bit as I kept overthinking. But when I calmed myself, the link regained its strength. Was I using Akane's brain to improve my own brain-power?
I tried thinking in Japanese, remembering the newspaper article Richter had shown us. In my mind's eye I could read it perfectly fine. I followed that, trying to think of some advanced martial art Akane hadn't shown or spoken about yet. Suddenly the instructions for a set of techniques that allowed for virtual invisibility revealed themselves to me.
I blinked. It really worked. I looked around, making sure no one was looking, and proceeded to take a weird stance that made me look almost like I was sleepwalking. I checked the instructions for the technique in Akane's mind and piggybacked on her 'ki' skills and depleted all of my emotions from my body.
Suddenly the whole world looked almost in grayscale, I could however barely see some shades of red and purple, which were a bit different from the rest. I took a tentative step forward and as I walked, I saw that no one seemed to notice me.
I stopped by a store and looked at my reflection. I wasn't invisible, but this technique, this 'Umi-Sen-Ken' made people just- just not take me into consideration. Almost as if I was part of the background.
I continued walking like this. I promised myself to try to do that trick with Andrew's brain. What would I get from him? Intuitive understanding of any computer code? Or maybe his tinker ability was beyond this? All of Akane's special abilities were learned, but Richter's were probably all part of his tinker powerset, before getting his powers he was probably your average nerd.
I broke the constant feed of information from Akane's mind that allowed me to perform this 'Umi-sen-ken', and suddenly the color returned to the world. I also noted that Akane had some limited knowledge to a sister school of martial arts, the ultra violent 'Yama-sen-ken'; she knew of all of its techniques but unlike the Umi-sen-ken, she didn't know exactly how they were all performed, but with her knowledge we could probably come up with our own version of it. We'd have to test it later.
I frowned, noticing that my bus was about to leave. I started running, there was no way I could get to it in time.
Suddenly, I felt some sort of aura of power surround my legs. I accelerated and ran side-by-side the bus. I hit its side a couple of times with my open hand, and the bus driver seemed to notice me.
When the door opened, I leapt forward and smiled.
I opened and closed my fist, willing 'Ki' to go to it. I felt an increase of power, not quite Akane's level, but well beyond what I could do. Magic is real, and Ki totally rocks.
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While on the bus, I focused on Akane's senses, testing if she had been hurt in any way, shape, or form from me using her knowledge like that. She felt pretty much the same as when I had left, tired but still able to go around the house unattended.
She was drinking some tea I left for her, no way I was going to let her make her own breakfast again. I could honestly swear she has some kind of tinker rating for poisonous food.
"So, you're some kind of super ninja, right?" Sue asked Akane, in a playful tone.
Akane growled under her breath, but decided to not respond. She merely drank her tea in silence.
Sue rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, don't be like that!"
"What do you want?" Akane asked, rather brusquely.
"Well, dad left me with you guys in case yo need some help." She said, winking at the older girl.
Akane breathed in and out. "What makes you think we need you? I can take anyone that tries anything with me, and I can protect Taylor just fine."
"Huh. I guess you can." Sue tilted her head to the side. "Armsmaster said the PRT has you as a Brute 4, Blaster 2, Striker 2. Meeting you, the brute rating is obvious, but what about the other two?"
"I hate that word." Akane mumbled.
"What, brute?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm kind of a brute as well, you know." Sue said, smiling. Of course she was 'kind of a brute', her being a robot-girl or whatever the term is.
Akane didn't look like she believed Sue, she just nodded slowly.
Sue's smile turned into a wide grin. "So, Blaster 2, Striker 2?"
"I don't know what those mean. Blaster is throwing stuff around, right?"
"Pretty close, yes."
"They probably rated me that because I can apply pressure with a sword at long distance. If I have something sharp, I can cut you from the other side of the room." The last part sounded almost like a warning
"Long distance? What, like two blocks?"
Akane frowned. "I don't know? I don't think I ever tested it like that."
Sue nodded. "We'll have to make sure. Your cutting power probably has a range, and gets weaker the longer the distance."
"Somehow, you don't sound like your average 7th grader."
"You noticed? I'm flattered!" Sue said, jumping a bit on her seat. "Ok, that explains the blaster rating, which depending on your range, could be a bit higher. Now, about the striker?"
"I still don't know what's up with that. What's striker? That I hit stuff? Isn't that the same as brute?"
"Well, it's how your power affects stuff on touch."
Akane seemed to think. "Not sure, I can use my Ki to empower strikes, but that's more of a 'brute' kind of power, isn't it?"
Sue frowned. "Ok… let me check…" She said, and closed her eyes. Half a minute later she re-opened and smiled. "Ok, checked the PRT servers, they rated you a striker because of your ability to put people to sleep with a touch."
"What? But that's not a 'power', I just know the chakra that puts people to sleep."
Sue seemed to make a mental note of that. "What, then, you can like- like teach that?"
"Sure, Chakra is one of the most simple things to teach, but it's probably one of the areas I know the least of." Akane made a face. "The old goblins would know more about that."
"Old goblins?"
"A couple of ancient masters that pestered Ranma and me, they were like… 300 or 3000 years old. I forget."
Sue seemed amused by that fact, but didn't question Akane about it.
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I shifted my focus back to the bus and wondered how that worked. If on Akane's world 300 year old people existed, that meant they had parahumans for a lot longer than us. But she still had memories that were pretty similar to Earth Bet.
I shook my head when the Bus got to my stop. I resumed walking to school, still thinking about my summons.
First, I had Akane, who apparently knew super martial arts that she could teach to regular people, and thanks to my mental link to her, I could temporarily access her knowledge and boost my own skills. I could also use this link to train to permanently learn martial arts.
Second, I had Andrew Richter, who is up to something. He claims to be the most powerful tinker in the world, and apparently is dragon's creator -who according to my deductions, is actually some kind of robot- and is now creating more cape-level robots, one of which he left with us.
I focused on his senses. He was typing something in his computer, but my understanding of computer programing wasn't good enough to know what it was about. I focused on his understanding, and suddenly felt a brain freeze, almost as if I had eaten a bunch of ice cream in one big gulp. Did he do it? Or it was something else? His skills were all part of his parahuman power, unlike Akane, who had a parahuman power to train to parahuman levels, but all of her skills were learned.
I would have to test it later. Maybe Richter had just tinkered some kind of way to block me.
I stared at the computer screen in front of him, further attempts to understand it left me drawing a blank. I could see a couple of variables and how he was calling some methods to… I don't know.
I kept staring at what he was doing, expecting him to speak with Dragon or one of his other 'daughters'. He remained silent. Typing like there was no tomorrow.
I 'closed' the connection, focusing back to myself. I stared at the school and drew a heavy sigh.
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The morning had been awfully quiet. Earlier I had seen Emma and Madison whispering about something. Emma looked a bit agitated, and glared at me when I walked past them, but instead of making a crude comment, she just went back to angrily whispering at Madison.
Sophia was nowhere to be found.
I hadn't seen the most violent of my three bullies all day. Not even during the one subject we had together. I wondered if the whispering had anything to do with that.
By the time lunch came about, I tapped into Akane's skills to sense any possible incoming danger. There was nothing.
Everything was way too quiet. They were up to something, I just knew it. So I decided that it wasn't worth it to go to the cafeteria, and instead simply headed to the bathroom.
I had my lunch in silence, completely unmolested. I pushed the danger sense to get the feel if something was about to happen to me, but nothing came up.
I stood up, grabbed my backpack and the rest of my stuff, looked at myself at the mirror, and started heading for the door. I heard some hysterical laughter on the other side. I hurried to grab the dorknob and got nothing. It was closed.
I started knocking at the door. "Hey! What the hell! I'm here!"
"Hey Madison, can you hear anything?" I heard Emma ask, pretending she couldn't hear me banging at the door.
"Nope! Completely silent!"
I hit the door one more time and glared. "You morons, what do you think is going to happen when someone notices I'm here and they get me out?"
"Huh, I think I heard something!" Emma happily said.
"Must be the wind!" Madison replied, with a tone of voice that made it obvious she had tried to practice her lines but couldn't quite hit the right notes.
They left me locked in the bathroom. I wondered how they expected to get away from this one, and then it hit me, I hadn't even seen them locking me inside. I had no 'proof'.
I glared at the door, and felt anger consume me for a split of a second.
I wanted to use Akane's ki abilities to wreck the door. Maybe even tap into her knowledge of the Shi Shi Hoko Dan and attempt to use anger to fuel it. If what Akane told me about it was right, it would not just break the door, it would destroy everything in its path.
I cupped my hands together and wished for the anger-powered ki to form there, but… I didn't have quite the right control. When I extended my hands, a small puny sphere of red light popped, and did nothing else.
I sighed, and instead focused on my power. I needed some way to open the door. Someone who could help me open the door, but not break it. Shi Shi Hoko Dan had been a pretty dumb idea, I didn't want the school principal to claim I was a violent maniac or something.
Light appeared in a nearby stall. I turned and looked it over.
"Boys aren't supposed to be at the girl's bathroom!" Someone moaned at me. Now I felt annoyed. I didn't look that much like a boy, now, did I?
