by David Burke
“This is killer. I have to fight something with this,” Jessie said.
Jay ignored her though as Mia swooned and then passed out. Without even thinking about it, he sent his Life Sense flowing into her in a channeled beam and was able to sense that her PSI core was drained. Then as he ran the beam down her body, he could tell that her normal bodily functions were operating as they should be but she was very tired from the strain.
While they were waiting for Mia to recover, Jay got a ping on his Life Sense. The boss was on the move. That meant that their groups must have been able to kill off everything on the first floor within a little more than two hours. It felt impressive how far they had come in barely two weeks.
Mia regained consciousness and slowly sat up. Jay smiled at her and said, “As soon as you feel up to it we need to go and take out the boss of this level. Don’t wanna let the other teams get a leg up on you right?”
She groggily replied, “Boss?”
Kenzie said, “Don’t worry it is just another of those game terms for the final and most powerful monster in here.”
Mia replied, “I’m already feeling better. That was the weirdest feeling being connected to all of you.”
“I wish you could do it all the time. I’d be invincible with all that Durability and Stamina to power my skills,” Jessie said. Her enthusiasm was clear. Jay worried about her impetuous nature but it also drew him to her. He liked that she was confident and unafraid of asking for what she wanted. It also didn’t hurt that if she joined the team, she could be a backup tank of sorts to help protect the rest.
Jay stood up. “Okay, we need to get moving. I will find the closest group of the others so we can join up. We need to run though and it will help build your stamina, anyway.” Kenzie groaned, but she did a good job of keeping up which was no small thing. Mia had much longer legs and Jessie’s abilities just made it easier for her.
The first group they ran into had Daphne, Emma, and Ava in it. Other than the buxom redhead, Jay didn’t know much about the other two’s abilities. He really needed a cheat sheet of some kind. The simple fact that he couldn’t see the team member who was supposed to be chaperoning them was enough to tell him who the leader was.
A second later the tingling of his Precognition confirmed how it was. He immediately maximized the skill as well as his Kinetic Dampening in a sphere around himself. He pumped Stamina into Enhanced Speed and so he was able to move quickly as he perceived Amelia’s exact trajectory to him.
Or at least he thought he had. He saw a ripple in the air in front of him and knew she was coming from that direction but his senses were screaming for him to defend his back. In that moment he decided to trust his precognitive abilities and spun quickly. He raised his arm just in time to catch a punch from Amelia.
Once he made contact with her the shroud around her which kept her invisible shattered and he pulled her in. Her reflexes tried to compensate but the field slowed her while his speed was already pumped up, so she might as well have been swimming in molasses. He grinned and pulled her into him.
His arms encircled her and he picked her up off the ground. His new height made that easier than stooping and he was overwhelmed by the urge to plant a kiss upon those luscious, full lips of hers. She couldn’t really resist as even his passive strength was several times greater than hers, but as soon as their lips made contact she gave up all pretense.
He felt her mouth envelop his tongue eagerly and her passion only served to ignite his. There was something about this game of theirs where she tried to sneak up on him that lit him up just as much as the aphrodisiac. Before he knew it her legs were hooked over his hips and her oh so perfect breasts were pressed tight against him. Even through their armor he could feel them well enough to trigger his memory of their splendor.
When she moved to start undoing her armor he realized that things were getting out of hand. “Whoa, I just wanted to kiss you. You know, to the victor go the spoils and I caught you again.”
“And I’m offering you the spoils right here, right now.”
“Um we have an audience.”
“So, maybe they will learn a thing or two. Either way they will all be even more jealous of me.” Her smirk told him that he might have won their game of hide and seek but he wasn’t going to win this game of chicken. Amelia was bold enough to let him take her right there on the jungle floor. As tempting as that might be he had a mission to finish here.
“Not now, but I will be sure to claim the prize later. We have to finish off the boss now. I worry that someone might get hurt if we don’t handle this properly.”
“See that you do, but I suppose you are right,” Amelia said as she slid down off of him. “You have to remember that you can’t always be there to save everyone. Oh and I am gonna get you at some point so don’t get too full of yourself.”
“You get me in here and in here every day,” Jay said as he tapped his temple and then his chest above his heart. “Maybe not every time but today I can make sure we stay safe.”
Jessie chimed in and said, “We have to take our own risks if we want to grow strong enough to be worthy of walking beside you.”
Both Jay and Amelia looked over at the infectious smile plastered on her face. “I like her,” Amelia said.
Jay then looked around at the rest of the girls. He saw wistful looks on more than one face and realized that his flirt with Amelia might not have been appropriate in front of a bunch of girls who were pumped full of whatever alien chemicals they all ingested. The best plan was to get everyone focused on the task at hand so they wouldn’t get carried away and try to swarm him.
Jay was confident he could escape them. The problem was, would he want to?
“We need to move to the next group. I will be in front and Amelia in back. There shouldn’t be any danger here but we need to move quickly. It looks like one of the groups is already closing with the boss and the final group is moving towards it now,” Jay said.
The command in his voice must have worked as everyone started running along behind him. He kept cutting the path in front of them to make it easier for the girls by sending lawnmower-like spinning blades to clear a three-foot-wide swath of undergrowth. In nothing flat they had caught up to Meikiyo’s group.
The slender Japanese beauty was wielding a sword of pure fire and cutting her own path through the vegetation. He admired how great her control had become. He supposed she could have blasted a path clear but this surgical finesse took a higher level of concentration even if it required less raw power. The extra touch was the way she seemed to effortlessly extinguish every flame that her blade left behind so no forest fire was created.
He sent a telepathic message ahead to her and she stopped. The girls behind her stopped with her. Jay took a second but didn’t know any of them too well. Two were newcomers, Madison and Olivia. One of them did something with mass and the other had electrical powers of some kind but he couldn’t remember which was which.
The third girl with her was a beautiful brunette with smoky eyes named Samantha. He had to remind himself that he should be used to looking at gorgeous women by now, but somehow it never got old. Each one had their own beauty that made them unique in and of themselves. It brought a smile to his face and Meikiyo frowned when she saw the direction he was looking and the look on his face.
He sent a quick mental message to her, “Don’t worry she doesn’t have anything on you.”
It was a bit shocking to him even though he knew she had the ability, when he heard Meikiyo’s voice in his head say, “I know that, but just make sure you do too. Sharing may be inevitable here but I want to see you looking at me like that too.”
With that he favored her with a full-on stare and instead of getting his head bit off for gawking at a girl he saw a smile of approval on her face. Women were so strange and he was likely never going to understand them.
All of the playfulness ended though when Jessie yelled out, “I just heard someone screaming in pain
up ahead.”
Jay was all business in an instant. “Bring the rest of them and stay together,” was all he said before taking off at full speed. It took him less than a minute to burst through the vegetation into the clearing where Huong’s team was fighting the boss. The scene only took a second more to evaluate.
Vines as thick as a firehose were ripping up from the ground and entangling the giant, three-legged ape’s arms, legs, and neck as fast as the petite Vietnamese beauty could manage. Jay was again struck by the development in one of his team. She never could have managed anything like this a week ago but now she was holding her own.
Unfortunately, the beast was ripping the vines apart just as quickly as she was creating them. Jasmine was on the ground with a clearly mangled arm and a broken spear at her feet. To one side, Charlotte was firing a bow as fast as she could string the arrows. Jay didn’t know exactly what her power was but he knew she had some kind of accuracy.
There was also an ominous purple and black energy that surrounded each arrowhead as she launched the shaft. They caused explosive impacts that destroyed the arrows and ripped open parts of the beast’s skin but hadn’t brought it down yet.
On the other side was another girl, but she was lying unmoving and Jay’s Life Sense told him the sad story there. He tried to remember what he could about her but all that came to mind was that her name was Emily and she liked puppies. Such a pathetic way to die and an even more pathetic epithet.
Then it hit him. Waves of desperation rolled off of Jasmine. The emotion washed over him before he could raise his Iron Will and was no doubt fueled by her fear.
Jay surged forward before he could even think, his body moving in reaction to the need to protect Jasmine. Oh his psychology professor might have called that toxic masculinity but at some level it was hardwired into him and her Empathetic Persuasion brought it out.
All his training paid off as without even thinking about it, Jay maximized his strength, speed, and hardened body all while forming a psionically constructed sword in his waiting hands. The blade was ready by the time his leap reached its apex and he slashed down with it as he descended upon the beast.
The first time he fought this creature he was level eight. Now at sixteen it was trivial and as it had been distracted, its skull was split from the top to the bottom of its jaw before there was a chance for the monster to react. Jay rode its body to the ground as it fell. Then he bounced off of it to run and check on Jasmine.
With the imminent threat gone, her emotions died down and by the time he reached her Jay had enough presence of mind to activate his Iron Will. He struggled between a lingering concern for her and anger at how she had manipulated him. Though he wasn’t sure if he was angrier at himself for allowing it to happen or with her for the way that she did it.
The rest of the group was now caught up. Dumbfounded looks on many of the girls’ faces told the realization that they had come to know just how much stronger than them Jay was. Daphne, Huong, and Kenzie were all around Jasmine talking about the best way to heal her arm.
“Step back,” Jay ordered.
He kneeled next to her. “Don’t ever do that to me again or our friendly relationship will become very hostile.” He whispered the words into her ears but saw Jessie’s eyes get wide as her keen hearing must have picked it up.
Out loud he said, “I want to try something first before we heal her.”
“You aren’t a healer and she is in obvious pain,” Huong replied.
“Yes, but I think my Life Sense can be used to determine the best way to go about healing her.”
“I can help with the pain,” said a new voice and everyone turned to look at Emma.
Jay was too busy right now to do more than notice her striking green eyes so he simply said, “Do what you can.” Then he started trying to focus his Life Sense down into her arm.
At level four he was able to almost make out the way the bone was mangled. It was broken in three places and was cutting into some blood vessels. His skill was not quite like an X-ray in that he couldn’t see it that clearly. Yet he had a clear sense of what needed to be done.
He explained what he was seeing to the healers and then asked Huong, “So what I am thinking is that Kenzie can take down the swelling. Then I can manipulate the bone fragments back into place, trying not to nick anything. After that it should be simple enough for you to heal the wound by regenerating her cells. Daphne can amplify your power. Does that sound like it would work?”
As he spoke Emma laid her hands on Jasmine’s head. A moment later all signs of pain disappeared. Jay’s questioning look prompted her to answer, “I can deaden pain.”
“Oh cool. So will that work?”
Huong answered, “That makes sense. Probably better that we get the bone back into basic shape before I regenerate her too much.”
“Yeah and honestly, it already looks like her cells are trying to regenerate but the damage is too great. I didn’t expect to be able to notice regular human regeneration though.”
Before Huong could say anything, Jasmine told Jay, “I’ll explain later in private.”
Jay chose to let it go without a challenge. “Okay, Emma, this may hurt her so please try to keep the pain deadened. I don’t want her to jerk while I am trying to move the bone.”
Everyone did their part and while a couple of grimaces crossed her face, Jasmine was eventually able to move her arm. Jay did notice though that Daphne had placed her hands on both Huong and Jasmine during the healing process like she was magnifying something in both of them. Again though he decided to let it be for now.
“Okay, everyone. The first floor is cleared. Let’s exit the dungeon with the team you came in with then maybe debrief about what happened. After that, I will need to meet with Team Jay and see what the consensus is. Please believe me that we will consider everyone equally and it will be your actions and how well you fit with the team that will make up our minds.”
With that he gathered up Jessie, Kenzie, and Mia before heading out. He pushed them to run as fast as they could going back and this time Mia was able to maintain a link with Jay and each of the other girls kept practicing while still moving.
Once outside the dungeon he moved a good bit away from the ziggurat and asked them all to sit down with him while they ate lunch. While they were all sitting and had mouths full of food Jay said, “So, I don’t know how the decision is going to go. I want you all to understand that even though they call it Team Jay, I am only one part of it.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe that for one second,” Kenzie said. “I saw what you did to that huge monster. You took it down faster than I could even think of something to do.”
“I’m gonna have to agree with Kenzie here. I had been feeling pretty good about myself until I saw that,” Jessie said.
“All of you outclass me,” Mia said glumly.
“I don’t want to hear that. Your abilities are more support type, but I think they have amazing potential. No matter what the team decides, I will work with you to help figure them out,” Jay said.
“Oh great, so she is on the team already then,” Kenzie complained.
“I didn’t say that and I just told you that I am only one vote.”
“Whatever,” Kenzie said as she shook her head.
Jessie was quiet but staring intently at Jay. It was almost like she was trying to sniff the air.
“Look if you are ever going to make it onto the team then you need to understand it is a team. I will do my best for every human being that got sucked into this crazy experiment, but there are priorities. My first allegiance is to my team members, then this cluster and then all the others who may be out there,” Jay said as he waved his hand as though to signify somewhere off in the distance.
“And what other perks do your team members get?” Kenzie asked.
“Duh,” Jessie said and then laughed.
“I think we’ve all heard what the benefits are,” Mia said.
It was ab
out then that Jay realized they had been sitting down just eating and talking for too long. The aphrodisiac seemed easier for him to handle but it was clearly having an effect on them. All three of the girls had slowly but steadily inched closer to him.
He stood up. “Well I need to go and meet with the team. We will let you know our decision within the next hour.” Jay simply turned and walked away before he got dragged into more questions or something else.
Chapter 14- Adding to the Team
On his way to the top of the ziggurat, Jay saw Miguel and Tyler speaking with some of the girls from their group. He assumed they were getting lectured for running out on them. Jay grinned, happy to see them catching some wrath, especially since he had got his own dose of it.
He ended up being the first to reach the top and was able to sit and wait for the others. It was oddly refreshing to have some personal time. Back home, he spent too many nights playing video games alone. Now he had barely had a moment to himself for more than two weeks.
