Chapter 75: Fellow Humanisms
Jack set about showing the disguised, dubiously-humanish Neex around — he could not think of her as ‘Ira’ in private, disguise or no — starting with the immediate living room. She got to see some pictures of his family, as he’d dug out a few that were in frames to sit on the to...
2025-08-14 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 74: Stars of the Show
The supernovae floating before Jack’s perceptions contorted into discernible code, which Jack rapidly read with burning excitement.
Long Bomber
Interpret +1.0
Any use of Throw has greatly increased range, accuracy, and i...
2025-08-11 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 73: Decompressing
After the nurse took a moment to disconnect him from his IV, Jack was soon digging into piles of food, eating furiously from a metal tray suspended over the bed. The nurse was pretty much in and then out, sensing his hunger — perhaps slightly frightened of it — and letting him eat in re...
2025-08-07 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 72: The Lesser of Terrors
As Jack ‘stared’ as best he could through the peripheral vision of Shreddy’s dreamscape, he suddenly felt a certain trepidation or reluctance. It took him a moment to realize the feeling was a translation from Shreddy himself, and Jack puzzled out what it was.
He’s...
2025-08-04 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 71: Mere Shreds Within
As Jack began struggling to ‘will’ himself forward, he paused and marveled at what he saw ahead. Great activity.
The tendrils surrounding the ‘amoeba mind’ struck out, wrapping around black rot and ripping it out, all in one swift, coordinated movement at many angles. The...
2025-07-31 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 70: It Ain't Over till the Blob Sings
What a damn mess. I hate The Dreamer.
Harvesting various sources of metal around the apartment, Jack thoroughly restrained the compromised Agent Lopez over the course of a few seconds, binding his wrists, forcing them behind him, then fusing the bands toge...
2025-07-30 16:55:01 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 69: The Mettle of Training
The trio of agents Lopez, Sato, and Jack slunk up to the apartment door. It was in an annoying spot — right smack at the end of the middle of a ‘T’ hallway, which was strange architecture to Jack. But he supposed he wasn’t an architect. Fortunately, no one was visible down ...
2025-07-28 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 68: Men In Black
Being processed through Operations was indeed a rush, nearly a whirlwind, but he was led by the hand the whole way. The disguise-making was conducted in rows of chairs vaguely like in a salon, but the agents were in full body suits, goggles, and light breathing masks. He had to take off his ...
2025-07-24 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 67: Quirky Allies
As Jack stared, he heard murmurs and groans from around the room, but also laughter, which revealed that the majority of it was sarcastic — various utterances intended to take the piss out of friends. ‘Aw, shit, not him again!’ and so forth.
“B-but you were-, you had-...
2025-07-21 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 66: Task Force Homebody, Operation Kettle
InSite was one of the minority that didn’t clap. He glanced at Jack briefly, and then the ACKBOSS gestalt flared with the comment, <You’ll have to excuse me, Jack, but I’m a bit too jaded for that.>
Steel: <No worries. I’m just glad Light i...
2025-07-17 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 65: The Asset, Agent Steel
The chocolate cake, emblazoned with the text, ‘Congratulations, Jack, The Unstoppable Stallion of Eden and Slayer of Bratzilla!’, was a beautiful, beautiful thing sitting on the table of the meeting room Jack and Lindsay had arranged to partake of it in. Using his phone, Jack t...
2025-07-14 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 64: Execution
After his extensive R&R, Jack’s first order of business was Calibration. It was only slightly different in routine thanks to the Bondmaking Imbue increase… he was aware of outside connections seemingly from out of nowhere, branching into his greater Allotment construct, rearran...
2025-07-10 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 63: The Last Anchor
Memoria’s silence persisted as her eyes were cast off, a mild frown on her face.
Jack felt a pang of impatience. His heart was beating faster, in suspicion, in worry, his mind both reaching for the answer and pushing it away. “Are you going to tell me who?”
She met his e...
2025-07-07 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 62: Indulgences
Screamer was quiet and still for a while, keeping hold of Jack’s hand and content to enjoy the moment of peace.
Jack asked, “So, how do you feel?”
“Empty,” she replied. “The… calm before the storm. Calmer than ever. Too sweet.”
“The storm doesn’t have to ...
2025-07-03 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 61: A Rising Cry
Tendrils whipped and reached out, ensnaring his soul, and Jack was swallowed by the depths and the void.
I am the guide. I will see and I will face it, too. I should. An alloy of strength awaits.
Out of the void, light seemed to grow from inward and high...
2025-06-30 15:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 60: Redressing
Jumbled-up masses, the weights of dreams turned into nightmares; he resisted the terrible stresses of memories, which turned them into jagged fragments. He refused, he refused, he refused. The friction between two contrasting wills made his mind and body fevered.
Down the road...
2025-06-26 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 59: Choice of Three Mutations, Go!
He was within the starry void of space, that place of meditational Calibration conjured for him by Memoria. She was there before him, brighter than the stars and seemingly made of them, a loose outline of a giant angelic being with eyes like supernovae. That last was new. 2025-06-23 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 58: Don't Doze on Him
Jack tossed the flail forward hard in time with the whistle, slinging it through the air-
Wham. As soon as it left his fingers, he staggered as he felt a wall of grogginess hit him like a train, driving him senseless for a tiny, split moment. Alarm bells then went off and carrie...
2025-06-19 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 57: Don't Let it Go to Your Head
“The mind,” Jack repeated as he blinked a few times, trying to parse it. Right. The word ‘Phantasmal’ can’t be for nothing. He sat back down and took a deep breath. “Mmn. Like the terror effect that paralyzed me for a moment. It was unnatural enough that there w...
2025-06-16 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 56: Spooks and Lies
True to Lindsay’s claims, the day did not have any meetings or training with her. Instead, he had a training guide plan via Mini that he could follow, or alter if he desired, and was to utilize either her or Lifeguard while in Power Park for any simulation input, or whatever else he nee...
2025-06-12 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 55: Accelerated Substance
Shaper of Metal
Material Controller (Metal)Primary Mutation: Channel Memorite
2025-06-09 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Governing Attribute: Create
Magnitude (Pressure): 130 (100%); (Force): 104 (80%)
...
Chapter 54: Spicy
Jack’s classes proceeded steadily. He memorized laws and procedures and attempted to help Highfive do the same with after-class studies, bridging things between the dry deliveries of their professor and the necessary breakdown that Highfive more easily absorbed. He’d get it, just in his o...
2025-06-05 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 53: Leaps, Bounds, and Parrying Bullets
Jack trained like mad in the days that followed, honing his basic power operations and expanding his combat applications hour by hour and day by day, together with the grind of physical training and excessive bulking up with nutrition. The latter did finally t...
2025-06-04 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 52: Not Quite Drowning
Neex swam ahead of him to the little cave entrance in the mass of false coral, making a few clicking noises. Two clownfish could briefly be seen, but just as quickly, they darted away, likely from his approach.
He came up alongside Neex and peered inside the dark cave, seeing some shado...
2025-06-02 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostBeyond the noisy airlock was a shockingly spacious area much like the inside of a furnished house or large loft, made out of a combination of steel support structures and hardwood. There was an immediate living room area with comfy couches, a patterned rug, a TV, and a kitchen area visible on the ...
2025-05-31 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 50: A Satisfying Grind
No sooner than Jack saw black in front of his eyes from the rig than it was removed by a nurse. He sat up, feeling a ghost of real fatigue, though for the most part he hadn’t strained himself that much.
Your Level has improved to 1.6! Please enter the tr...
2025-05-29 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 49: Superpowers Dueling
Jack was fast to move the sphere — but Boiler went into a whole new gear, arcing just outside of its range at a ludicrous speed. His entire sphere whiffed it, and then she was in his space faster than he could’ve ever imagined.
He had just thought ...
2025-05-27 15:00:21 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 48: HRVR
As Jack got up to shower, he asked, “So, Mini, want to tell me what the interaction involving Hardiness is?”
“Because it is a raw physical expansion, the effectiveness of Hardiness is multiplicative to what Aquatic Adaptation allows for your endurance of specific haz...
2025-05-25 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 47: Market
The meetup was in the park, but in an area he’d usually avoided in his routes due to more traffic and less forest cover. But it did have way more drinkable water fountains, as the more ‘official’ running area. Their location was basically just ‘brain-marked’ like an X he marked on a map ...
2025-05-23 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 46: Laugh Maniacally With Me!
Jack settled right back into the grind of physical training and exercise over the next day and a half. He’d been quickly assessed as good to go for power training right after his lunch with Highfive, too, which was pretty awesome after also having just had the big due...
2025-05-21 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post