by Wyatt Kane
There were gales of laughter all around. Ty knew that Tempest was a lot stronger than he and that she wasn’t using all of her strength. Yet she still caught him a blow on the side of the head that was solid enough to knock him sideways. Then she was on top of him again, grabbing hold of his hands to keep them in place. Instead of pressing her advantage, she leaned forward to kiss him, pressing her breasts against his chest as she did.
It was a wonderful feeling, and Ty forgot all about his pillow. Somehow, his hands were free again, and he put them to good use. Things were getting very interesting indeed when they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
Ty looked up in surprise, but Tempest’s expression suggested she was expecting it.
The door wasn’t closed. Dinah was there, standing just inside the room, wearing only her device and a smile.
She was just as spectacular as Ty had imagined.
“You said I could join in any time,” the deerkin said, her voice calm and full of warmth. Anyone else would have been hesitant, but not her. Dinah was completely at ease despite her nakedness. “And it sounded like you two were having fun. I couldn’t stay away.”
“Ha!” Tempest said. “I knew it!” She threw a random pillow at Dinah and the deerkin dodged with fluid grace. It seemed at first that Tempest might chase her away, but then she relented. “Come on then. If Ty doesn’t mind?”
Ty wondered if he had somehow found a magic lantern and conjured a genie. Had he been granted his most precious wish and somehow forgotten about it? He didn’t know what to say. So at first, he simply stared, taking in Dinah’s perfection.
She was exquisitely feminine, and Ty saw that her modifications were extensive. Her skin was mottled like that of a deer, and the lower halves of her legs above her hooves were covered in a delicate layer of fur. To him, she was just as perfect as Tempest, but in her own way.
It seemed that his lack of immediate answer unsettled the deerkin. “Of course, if you would rather I didn’t, that’s okay as well,” she said, sounding disappointed.
“No,” Ty blurted. “Please, join in. I can’t imagine anything more wonderful.”
That was all the encouragement Dinah required. Her smile returned with a vengeance and she approached them at a run. At the last moment, she launched herself through the air to land amongst them. Then there were hands and breasts and hooves in all directions, and the peals of laughter continued.
Ty discovered that Dinah’s modifications also included a cute little tail that she could wiggle. It was amazing. She was amazing. Both of them were amazing. Ty felt like he’d found all seven dragon balls, like he was the King of the world. Dreams he’d never known he had were coming true, and he embraced it with heart-pounding enthusiasm.
As did both Tempest and Dinah. It became quickly apparent that they knew each other well, but they were also focused on him. And over the next couple of hours, Dinah proved herself to be lithe and supple, the perfect complement to Tempest’s softness and strength.
Between the three of them, they embraced positions of passion that Ty had never even contemplated before.
It was the most amazing night of his life. He thought at one point that Brad had been right in his blunt assessment. If he, Ty, had turned this down, then he was truly insane. Even if Bane caught him and killed him tomorrow, then it would all be worth it just for this.
Yet winding up dead wasn’t an outcome Ty favored. As the three of them lay together in exhausted contentment and bliss, Ty made himself a promise. He would do everything in his power to ensure that Bane didn’t succeed in his quest.
He, Ty, would be keeping his device. He would also do whatever he could to help Tempest and Dinah defeat the monstrous villain.
But that was for tomorrow. Just at that moment, still entangled with Dinah and Tempest to the point where it was hard to tell whose limbs belonged to whom, all Ty wanted was sleep.
25: Power
Ty dreamed he was flying. Not being carried by Tempest, and not on a plane, but really flying.
In his dream, he had was wearing a jetpack of his own designed that gave him loft and thrust, and he was winging his way through the air as free as bird and in total control.
He felt powerful. An energy field surrounded him from head to toe, and he knew that it would be strong enough to protect him from anything that could come his way. He still wore the device around his wrist, but he also wore metal sleeves that went up to his elbows. Those metal sleeves contained numerous gadgets, including the ability to shoot bolts of energy at an enemy at need.
He was a true hero in full control of his powers and able to make a real difference in the world. Not just as a sidekick to Tempest, but in his own right.
Nor was that the limit of his dream. Tempest was there as well, flying alongside him, keeping pace with ease and smiling broadly. Dinah was there as well, also flying as she laughed into the wind.
But they weren’t the only ones. As Ty turned his head in his dream, he could see others keeping pace with them. Who they were, Ty didn’t know. But somehow he understood that they were with him, members of the one superhero team that could reach out over the world to solve any problem.
It was a dream like none other Ty had ever experienced. Even as he slept, he felt a profound sense of joy and satisfaction, and of a deep longing to bring this possible future about.
In real life, Ty had only just begun to grow into his power. Where it might lead, even he didn’t know. But the dream showed him possibilities he’d barely considered.
When he woke in the morning, he found himself smiling. It might have been due to the lingering joy of the dream. It might also have been that he was still nestled between two fabulous women, both of whom were as naked as he was beneath the sheets.
They were both sound asleep. Ty considered nudging them awake and continuing with the previous night’s entertainment. Instead, with quiet regret, he untangled himself and carefully climbed over Tempest and out of the bed.
The amazing blonde shifted in her sleep and Ty worried that he’d woken her. But her breathing soon returned to a calm, regular rhythm.
He noticed then that Gremlin had joined them sometime during the night. The cat was nestled at the foot of the bed but wasn’t asleep. She watched him with luminous yellow eyes, stood, stretched, kneaded the bed covers, then settled herself back down. Ty reached out and scratched her head for a moment.
“Are you enjoying your new home?” he asked her.
Then he caught himself. This wasn’t Gremlin’s new home. Or his own for that matter. To assume that staying the night implied any sort of permanence at all was just wrong. And he still had his own apartment to consider.
Of course, the idea of permanence was very appealing. Ty looked at the two sleeping women and couldn’t imagine wanting to return to a life without them. But it was far too early to even begin to guess at what might happen.
He thought about climbing back under the covers again for no other reason than that Tempest and Dinah were there. Instead, he grabbed his clothes from where they had landed on the floor and padded off to the bathroom. A quick shower later, and he headed back down to the Architect’s workshop, taking his backpack with him.
There was a lot to do and not much time in which to do it. His shift at the Concubine Club was scheduled to start in the late afternoon and continue until midnight. Likely, Angie would expect him to stay longer, just to punish him for calling in sick yesterday.
If so, Ty suspected she would be disappointed. Should their plan work, Bane would appear at some stage and cut his workday short. Ty didn’t yet know how that would turn out, but he was determined to ensure that he was as prepared as possible.
The workshop was just as neat and orderly as it is it had been the day before. To Ty’s surprise, Gremlin had followed him down. The cat leaped up onto the workbench and started grooming herself.
Ty absently patted her on the head. “Decided to keep me company, have you?” he asked. The cat stopped her gro
oming to stare at him for a moment, then continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Good girl. Well, Furball, as long as you’re here, you can help me out. What shall I do first?”
The thought of facing Bane one-on-one scared him. Sure, Tempest would be there, but what if something happened to her? Ty wouldn’t last more than a heartbeat against such a monster. His durability wasn’t up to it and nor was his strength. The stats displayed by the device didn’t include hit points, but he was pretty sure Bane could one-shot him into oblivion, whereas he, Ty, wouldn’t be able to inflict any real damage no matter how hard he tried.
So he needed to either modify his stats or make them redundant. He needed to come up with some form of defense and an option to attack that didn’t rely on his strength.
And he needed a way to power whatever he came up with.
“You’re right,” he said to Gremlin as if she had made a suggestion. “Power supply first. Without power, nothing else really matters.”
With that, he dug around in the Architect’s filing system and pulled out the folder he was looking for. A battery design like none other. Ty laid it out on the workbench and looked through it.
Right away, he could see that it was in conceptual phase only. But the potential was enormous. If he was reading it correctly, and he was sure that he was, it wasn’t a battery so much as a method for converting ambient energy into usable power. With a device like that, he could power pretty much anything, forever.
All he needed to do was turn it from an idea into reality.
He glanced at Gremlin again. “No time like the present, is there Furball?” he said. “Best get on with it.”
The holographic imager was a godsend. With it, Ty was quickly able to construct and model his energy converter. In less time than he would have believed possible, the holographic imager’s power schematics display showed him that his design would work in principle. Yet its energy output was minimal. Still, Ty was happy enough at the start.
Gremlin had stopped grooming and decided that the holographic images were there for her entertainment. She wiggled and pounced repeatedly as Ty moved the images about, completely unconcerned by her inability to catch any of them.
Yet her interest quickly faded. As Ty was contemplating his efforts, she curled into a loudly-purring ball in the exact center of his design.
“Not bad for a first go, is it?” Ty said. “Now, let’s see what I can do about boosting that output.”
With that thought in mind, Ty went through every single part of the design, looking for opportunities to improve the performance. Within twenty minutes, he had improved the output by over a hundred percent.
“That’s more like it. Now, can I make it even better?”
That’s when he hit a bit of a wall. He could easily boost the output even more, but he needed to consider portability. An energy converter the size of a fridge would be difficult for him to carry.
So he tried everything he could think of to make it smaller without losing power, but it still wasn’t good enough.
Ty pondered. Gremlin stood up and yawned hugely, then stretched.
“You have a suggestion?” Ty asked. But the cat just looked at him sideways.
He wondered if he could somehow make use of the energy converter’s power without actually being in contact with it. As soon as he thought of this, a number of ideas sprang to mind as to how he might get it done. But none of them were simple enough to do in a morning, and that was the time limit he was working with.
“Perhaps another day,” he murmured, disappointed.
He stood back for a moment to analyze the power schematics and noticed that power output was not proportional to size. Two converters the size of his palm would produce considerably more power than one twice the size.
That was all Ty needed to turn his disappointment into eager anticipation. He grinned broadly. Instead of trying to do it all at once with one gadget, he would simply replicate the converter and bundle them up.
It took him only a few more minutes, and then he was done.
“Fabricate,” Ty said, then watched in fascination as his design came to life.
It was done pretty quickly. Ty picked up the result. Circular and surprisingly heavy, it looked like a squashed donut made of metal and copper coils. It wasn’t pretty. The design was robust and Ty hadn’t bothered with an elegant cover. But it would work.
Ty quickly fabricated half a dozen more, then paused to admire his work. He was extremely happy with what he’d accomplished. He had been at it for no more than a couple of hours, and he was already making good progress. If he kept going like this, he would be ready for anything Bane could throw at him.
And not only that. Because of this one success, everything was now possible. Even the dream he’d had where he was flying.
“Right,” Ty said to Gremlin. “What’s next?”
Gremlin chose to start purring instead of answering directly, but Ty took it as approval. “Defense it is, then,” he said.
Once again, Ty thought of the dream he’d had. The glowing blue nimbus that surrounded him as he flew. He knew it was a shield of some sort, but his dreaming brain hadn’t been kind enough to show him how it worked.
Was it an energy field, impervious to everything? If so, then how would he be able to breathe?
And what about the preservation of momentum? Sure, he could create a field strong enough to stand up to a blow from Bane, but he would still be his weak, ordinary self within that field.
It would be like shaking an egg inside a tin can. You might never touch the egg directly, but it would still end up scrambled just the same.
“What you think, Furball? How do I do this? Where do I start?”
But Gremlin had grown bored with what Ty was doing. She was still curled in a ball but was no longer looking in his direction at all.
“Some assistant you are,” he said
With no better ideas, he went to the Architect’s filing system and started looking through the files in the hope something would grab his attention.
26: Possibilities
Nothing did. He was still going through them when Tempest appeared at the stairs.
“Morning,” she said as she came over to him. “We missed you when we woke up. Dinah was feeling frisky, and you were nowhere to be seen.” The stunning blonde woman gave him a playful grin. “We had to take care of it ourselves,” she said.
All thoughts went out of Ty’s brain. He stood and gaped at Tempest, immediately aroused and also profoundly disappointed that he had missed out on the fun. Strangely, he didn’t feel jealous at all. But he couldn’t help but wonder what Tempest might think if it had been him and Dinah without her instead.
Tempest laughed at his expression.
“Look at you. So forlorn and heartbroken. Don’t worry. I’m sure there will be other opportunities.” She leaned in and gave him kiss good morning, then changed topic entirely. “What are you up to?”
It took Ty a few seconds to remember what he was doing. “I’ve created a power supply,” he said. “Now I’m trying to figure out the best way to make a shield. So you don’t have to worry about me in a fight.”
Tempest understood. “Something strong enough to withstand anything Bane can throw at you.”
“Yes. It can’t be metal, because that would just be too heavy and cumbersome, and it wouldn’t solve the problem anyway. I’m thinking some sort of energy field, but I’m just not sure….” He trailed off.
“You need to find some way to disperse the energy,” Tempest said.
“Exactly.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? That’s what my power enables me to do. Why don’t you just replicate that?”
Ty looked at her, astonished. “Yes, that would work.” Then he frowned in puzzlement. “But how?”
“Look,” she said. With that, she called up her profile and made to touch her Unique Skill. Her finger went through the hologram, but it sensed what she was doing anyway and disp
layed a much more detailed screen that reminded Ty of the schematics display that the imager offered.
It showed all the technical detail about how Tempest’s power actually worked that Ty could ask for.
He stared in astonishment. It was exactly what he needed. “That’s amazing.”
As he spoke, he realized what it meant. It meant he, Ty, could probably replicate any skill that existed with technology, as long as he could access this information. All at once, his little enhancement skill no longer seemed so little any more.
It was a potential game changer. He literally had the power of a god at his fingertips. All he needed was time and he could do anything.
He stood there, his heart pounding as if he was being chased by Bane.
“Ty?” said Tempest. “Are you okay?”
Ty did what he could to rein his imagination in. It was early days yet, and just because something was theoretically possible didn’t mean it would be easy.
“Yes. Sorry, I was just thinking about something,” he managed.
“Something pretty amazing, by the look of it?”
“Yeah. My skill – there’s a lot I could do with it.”
Tempest grinned very broadly. “I understand. I was like that with mine as well. So was Zach, and Dinah. And many of the others as well. It takes time to really understand it sometimes.”
Ty took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah.” Then he grinned. “But just thinking about it isn’t enough. I’ve got to do actually do something as well.”
“Really? Who would have thought?” Tempest said, teasing him.
Ty let out a laugh. Then he turned his attention to figuring out how to translate the information Tempest’s device displayed into something he could use.
It wasn’t easy. In the end, he came up with a kind of mesh suit with hundreds of tiny field projectors all over it. He designed it with a hood that he could flip over his head and long sleeves with thumb holes to ensure that when the field was active, it would cover him entirely. And an opening or two to enable necessary functions.
When it was done, he again commanded the fabricator to do its thing.
