Chapter 15: A little training
Tim was working away etching script into Dal-Tim, though the name for the structure was pending. It was essentially buckypaper neatly laced into a tetrahedral shape. The end result was a cloudy crystal like pyramid that was pretty tough. He was using a variant of blue diamond to do the etching, being that the etching needed conductive properties. He set the finished pyramid off to the side, it was both functional and ascetically pleasing, he nodded in satisfaction. He was very pleased that he could do all this without Dalvins help, it was all thanks to the augmentation that he and the others received a few days ago. Dalvin and Alise Had planned to give each one of them specific augmentations, his was a mental augmentation and a small increase in stamina. The augmentation as far as he could tell only effected his memory, he had a perfect photographic memory now. Which was amazing on so many levels, now Dalvin could show him something one time, and he was good. The things the source could do had very few limitations, and now his biggest hurdle between him and those limits had been removed. The augmentation processes themselves were fascinating, it was basically like rewriting D.N.A., and held so many possibilities. It was more than just making super humans, with it the medical applications were vast, autism, dementia, and all manner of defects now had cures. Tim pushed all these thoughts to the side and grabbed another pyramid, he had to focus. His main goal right now was 'Project Utopia', Alise had come up with the name. Well more specifically he was building the atmospheric generator for the project. Once completed all the pyramids would be inserted into the main unit, all together they would form what Tim had named the 'Halo'. It still amazed him that in a few months he went from amature robotics, to creating a device that could generate an atmosphere around a planet. That's just how much of a game changer the source was, as a source of power or its functionality it just had no equal. Tim was ecstatic to be the first earthling leading the charge into this new field. In the few hours of free time he had each day he was drawing up blueprints and models for future projects. Some of them were source based remakes of current technology and some of them were science fiction brought to life by source technology. There were two such projects that made him particularly excited. One was his 'Tesla' project that he named after the famous inventor. With the source wireless electricity was well within his grasp. The other one was his 'Avatar' project, which would allow someone to transfer their mind to an artificial construct. This project still had a long way to go. The biggest obstacle was the emergency recall function, so that whoever was using the avatar wouldn't die if it was destroyed. However, there was hope on this front, Dalvin had said such a function already exists within human D.N.A., they just had to find and understand all its components. The only thing Tim wished he had now was more time each day to work on all these beautiful machines.
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John looked at the glass visor in front of his eyes, there were several gauges displaying different information, suddenly two red dots appeared on the far right of his visor. His hands moved instinctively, manipulating the joysticks in either hand. His source armor spun ninety degrees, and he saw two missile shaped objects coming at him fast, he touched the stone that activated visual targeting, and pulled the trigger on the joystick. Two lasers shot out from the shoulders of his armor slicing the projectiles neatly in half. More dots appeared, lots of them. John zigzagged around the new training area built for his training, lasers were flying everywhere, but he never missed. That was all thanks to what Dalvin had done. They had used the source on him and made changes to his body. Tim had told him they raised his cognitive speed, his eyes ability to track motion, reflexive responses, and widened his eyes focus range. He wasn't sure what all that had meant, so Tim had told him that he basically could detect any motion in his range of sight no matter what he was focused on, and had a reaction time of roughly 0.04 seconds. He understood the last bit, it meant he would be a god if he played a online shooter. Finally, the barrage of fake missiles stopped and Dalvin came out from his control bunker. He was motioning for John to come over to him. He moved his armor over to where Dalvin was, inside the eighteen-foot frame he towered over him. John knelt the armor down and touched the stone that lifted the armored glass over the cockpit. " How was I?", Dalvin looked up at him,"Perfect score, its clear that you are finally adjusted to the controls. So now we are going to move to phase two. Tim has assured me that the next device uses a weapon like those of a 'gun' I believe he called it. So we would like to get data on the secondary mode." John acknowledged,"Yes sir!", alright they were going to let him use the fun stuff. It was overkill for something as slow as a missile, it would be interesting to see how it worked against bullets. John closed the hatch to his source armor and returned to the center of the arena. He reached up and slid the second visor on his helmet down, then touched the source stone on the side of his helmet, precognition mode was active. He could only use it for about an hour, but during that time the system would project lines for predicted trajectories based on the speed and angle of objects. The doors on the far wall of the cave opened and a half dozen drones game flying in. On the bottom of each one he could see two turrets, the drones fanned out around him. Red lines sprung to life all across his vision and the chaos began. He slid to the right but immediately had to use his source engine to stop the movement as bullets hit where he was and where he was going simultaneously. He smiled, so the have the precognition system too, looks like its man vs machine. As he burst around the arena constantly making abrupt changes in movement as a hail of bullets seemed to hit everything but him. John had one problem, it took every thing he had to doge the attacks, he had no time to counter attack. He also couldn't get in a better position because the drones had the same engines as him but were smaller and more mobile. They always managed to keep that same perfect circle around him. Wait that was it, he could use that. He burst forward, the drones behind followed and the drones in front retreated. He fired his lasers at the height the drones were hovering and spun clockwise to immediately reverse the movement back the other way. Two of the drones were caught in the sweeping attack. He laughed,"Oh yea, lets go baby!". Now that he had breathing room he launched into a series of attacks and finished off the other drones. As the last drone crashed to the ground John let out a deep sigh, man he was exhausted. He knelt his armor down and opened the hatch, removing his helmet he climbed out, Dalvin was making his way towards him. He shouted across the arena,"So how was that, get the data you were looking for!" Dalvin raised a clenched fist in the air,"Excellent, you exceeded expectation!" Dalvin came over to him and patted him on the back,"I will have to inform Tim that he will be repairing his drones not your armor. I'm sure he will be surprised, he told me they were built specifically to beat you." He laughed,"Well you tell him to bring his best. Speaking of which, when will the model I'm supposed to pick Alise up in be ready." Dalvin waved him away,"So impatient, I'm working on it. I want it to be perfect, don't worry i won't disappoint you."John sat on the ground, he really was worn out,"Yea I know, so anyway did you happen to bring lunch?"
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Sarah focused and the slim blade of a katana formed in her hand. She gave it a few practice swings, it felt good. Her control over metal was improving, she could easily change the form of her weapon at will, well most of the time. She didn't have the ability to do the same with armor yet, but she was working on it. Her first goal was to obtain the abilities of her favorite character Ezra. Of course, she would develop her own unique abilities as well, she wouldn't want to be known as a plagiarist." Are you ready?", Matty who was standing across from her nodded and touched her staff, the ground near Sarah swirled and a small stone golem rose up out of it. The golem was cat shaped with a lightning bolt shaped tale. They all used things they were familiar with, it made using the source easier. Sarah didn't let the cuteness of the golem distract her, she knew Matty was clever and this pika-golem would use abilities outside of its real life counterpart. Matty pointed a finger at her,"Go!", the golem leapt into the air and spun slamming its tail down at her, she swung her sword up and deflected the attack then twisting her blade immediately counter attacked. The blade struck and slammed the golem to the ground. As soon as it landed though stone vines shot out of its back. Sarah summoned a second sword and began deflecting the vines with a flurry of blows. The golem opened its mouth and sprayed a shower of stones like a shotgun blast. There was no way she could dodge, now was the time to use it. She activated the stone and for a split second the world slid past her. She smiled, instant transmission. She brought her twin blades down on the golem as the ground where she once was got pelted by a spray of stone. Her swords cleaved through the golem but the separated body rolled away from her and reformed. Matty yelled at her,"Hey teleporting is kinda cheating!" Sarah looked at her,"You were trying to kill me, I think its plenty fair." Matty rolled her eyes,"Your body is all sourced up now you would have been fine. Besides, if I hurt you I could heal you up no problem." Sarah gave her a vexed look,"First off I'm only faster and more agile, not invincible. Second if you damage my head, even if you healed it instantly I could still lose my memories." Matty lowered her head, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment,"Sorry Sarah, I guess I got carried away. You move so fast I got too desperate to hit you." She walked over and embraced Matty in a hug,"It's ok, just try to be more careful, all this is just practice." A voice rang out from behind her,"Can I spar with you, blunt weapons only no headshots." Sarah turned around, it was Eric. He must have heard them talking, not that it was surprising. His enhancements included sight and hearing. Sarah understood why they chose those things, but it also gave him the perfect tools to be a peeping tom, and that bothered her a little bit. Needless to say she was extra careful when taking a bath. He walked over all smiles,"So what do you say?" He had definitely lost his shyness since his enhancement,"Sure why not. Matty you give the signal for us to start." They backed away from each other standing on opposite sides of the training area. She had to be careful, Eric had many different stones on him that gave him various abilities. Her sword shifted and turned into a slim metal rod, she nodded at Matty to let her know she was ready, and Eric did the same. Matty clapped her hands together,"Go!". Eric immediately slammed his fist into the ground and a section of earth rolled at her like a wave, she leapt into the air to dodge it. At that moment his legs became a blur as he closed the distance grabbing her leg while she was still airborne. He was going to slam her, before he could finish the movement the end of her rod stretched and shot out towards his chest, he let go and leapt back. She wasn't going to let him escape. She split the end of her rod into three and continued stretching them to pursue him. Continuing to jump backwards away from her he laughed,"Wow that's pretty cool", Then he vanished. She began looking for the tell-tale hole he would need to see, but she couldn't find it. Was he not looking at her, a flanking maneuver then. She was really going to have to learn that trick of feeling your surroundings with the source that Alise could do. Not sure what to do she lashed wildly with her metal whips to her sides and behind her, then she was struck head on from the front. The blow knocked her to the ground, as soon as she hit she rolled and was back on her feet weapon at the ready. Eric was several feet away uncloaked and smiling,"How did you do that Eric?" He tapped his ear,"I was completely cloaked I was just listening, then you started making all that noise and painted a beautiful picture of where you were." So that was it, very clever,"Well it won't happen again, lets continue." He just smiled and pointed down at the ground. She looked down, her feet were just outside the rings carved into the stone to designate training areas." Your out of bounds, I win." Sarah took an exaggerated step forward,"Ding, ding, round two."
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Dalvin was finally done helping the others and could get started on his personal responsibilities. He wasn't entirely sure he liked the overall plan, but Alise had made a good point, this planet would be a good testing ground to see if they could live on peaceful terms with another world. Plus if things went wrong they could run from earth much easier than a world that had source stones. It was mostly the time frame that bothered him. Was he too cautious because he lived too long, or were they too impatient because they hadn't lived long enough. Perhaps time would tell. He sat down at his desk and pulled out his research papers and began examining their content. Over the past week he had gone to a few of the nearby planets and recorded data on them. He separated one of the papers from the rest. This one had the best conditions for project 'Utopia'. He would have to go back to this planet and do some more thorough research to determine exactly what they would need to do. His eyes drifted to the top of the page, Venus, well at least it had a nice name.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
stone