Capítulo 176: Chapter 41: A New Development
No.....no way...this won't work...
Turning over his bed again, Hong Fu realized that regardless of all that has happened over the past few days, he isn't exactly getting closer to his goal. Gripping onto his fur with frustration, he turned away from Vindy who is laying still next to him. She didn't go back to her room as promised, but he doesn't exactly mind. His mission is bound to be a lonely one, and he is grateful enough that Vindy is willing to come with him to Geb 4.
His mission, initially, was to monitor Brakagi's actions and prevent anything like what happened on Olympus Prime from happening again. However, there is always a deep seeded doubt in Hong Fu's heart about whether this objective alone is enough. Brakagi has showed already that he is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his grand vision for the galaxy, and it is true that the few that died on Olympus 1 and Olympus 2 are nothing more than a drop in the ocean water that is the total population in the galaxy, but still.....if he is willing to go to that length to send such a message and get what he wanted, what's to prevent him from doing the same thing again later down the line?
Who is to say that Brakagi wouldn't do something similar in the future should the opportunity present itself?
Hong Fu is not just here to prevent any escalation, he is also here to be a possible counter to his actions. If he has a leverage against Brakagi, then he could at the very least make him rethink his decisions if what happened in the Olympus system is going to repeat itself.
Currently, everything is fine and dandy on Geb 4, as Miss D has also promised to chill out for a few days with most of the police department on her tail for what she has done at the Western Park.
But all of this is nothing more than a throne built on top of a lie and a promise. The promise is no way near an empty promise, but that doesn't mean it isn't shaky either. Brakagi promised to do better than the galactic government with all of his new policies and trade deals, but will the galaxy really bend to his will after that?
Will his radical reforms truly change the status quo, particularly when the disaster that pushed him to the forefront of the public is one of his own making? These are all questions that Brakagi and Jozzor wrestles with day in and day out, and it is also something that Hong Fu thinks about.
Hong Fu's personal interface sensed that he is awake, and a tiny icon popped up as a message from Miss D comes. Hong Fu's eyes widened and he flicked his wrist to turn on the screens. Vindy rustled next to him, as she rolled towards him and wrapped her arms around his body as he rushed to shut off his personal interface.
He wondered what the message was about, but it doesn't look like he can find out anytime soon.
'Fufufufu....' Vindy chuckled in her sleep as she scratches the stomach of Hong Fu.
His mind raced, and he anxiously waited until the morning as the tiredness from his work and physical training swallowed him up yet again. He will have to revise his plan in the morning after realizing what Miss D is planning next.
The artificial sunlight woke up the citizens of Geb 4, as a new day began. Vindy had to wake up early for her work in the academic city today, and Hong Fu was left to his own devices in the morning. He asked for another morning of investigation away from the department, and sat down at the living room of his apartment with Vindy's selected playlists playing in the background.
There are indeed an information archive which police officers should be able to access, but new comers like him likely needed to go through sets of security clearances before he can remotely get close to it. Also, the archive is likely to only have records starting from the earliest establishment of Geb 4, which occurs way later in the timeline when it comes to Brakagi's ascension.
In order to truly gain the leverage he will need against Brakagi, Hong Fu needed to put the Rocky president in a situation in which he would have to reveal what he is capable of, perhaps as a show of power and threat to force cooperation, he would have to obtain the evidence of his confession as well. This would have been the only evidence that he can garner so far, apart from possibly recording Brakagi using his artifact in combat and showing it's destructive nature.
The message from Miss D was opened and left on read, as she asked for a meeting with Hong Fu in a position of her choice, which will be revealed after Hong Fu get to the now reopened Western Park later in the morning. If Miss D is to monitor his actions from anywhere with a line of sight, Hong Fu should also be able to back track her location with the power of Probable with little difficulty.
'The governing region will be entering strict lock down starting today, and only those that are verified are allowed entry into the district.' A city wide security update was released across all of the holograms, and the occasional security droid whooshes in bikes overhead with the tower being the center of their surveillance. This decision came only a day after the attack on the Western Park and immediately after the initial investigations by the police department. Hong Fu had filed in the report of his fruitless endeavor the day before, and it is likely that something similar will have to be done for today.
The Western Park is open, albeit completely abandoned as the memories of yesterday's attack still remained in the memories of the most of the city's citizens. All of the destruction and the rubble have been cleared away, and what was once the 'monument square' is now turned into an empty square with the monument removed and everything cleaned up away as if nothing has happened. The only thing that remained in the area is the eerie atmosphere.
This is where Miss D wanted Hong Fu to go, and the choice of location is admittedly rather specific. As he stood where the monument once was and has his fingers along the Probable, his personal interface flashed once, and the next set of instructions came. Along the eastern ends of the park, there are a green corridor of sorts, where the trees are arranged to lean over the road in a crisscrossing fashion where it felt like a sort of a parade of plans for anyone walking under it. Beyond that point are sets of open seats and tables for picnic and meeting purposes in a mini-garden. Miss D would be waiting there.
It is quite a walk from the main paths of the park towards the almost hidden garden, and it is unlikely that anyone but Miss D will be there in the morning at this time. Hong Fu hurried over, occasionally verifying his fate and ensuring that this meeting is exactly as it seems. The short run also serves as part of his daily training regime, and as he exited through the areas and arrived at the garden, Miss D is sitting in the inner most table wearing her dark cloak as expected.
She had her eyes locked on Hong Fu since the moment he appeared, and he joined her at the table.
'I am here.' Hong Fu declared somewhat redundantly before taking a seat, 'what's the matter?'
'Our deal.' Miss D said, tapping her finger on the table, 'where is my intelligence?'
'I am working on it.' Hong Fu admitted, 'it's only literally been a few days.'
'Too bad. Intelligence useless anyway.' Miss D said with a casual shrug.
'Lock Down?'
'I will commence another attack soon,' Miss D said, abruptly changing the topic before changing right back, 'I want tower access.'
'Slow down.' Hong Fu leaned forward and got closer to Miss D, 'is that a condition?'
'Get me access, or city burns.' Miss D said, placing a bubble gum on the table. Then, the bubble gum began to expand and an explosion went off right in front of Hong Fu's face. However, warned by Probable, Hong Fu jumped way out to the side before landing in a roll and avoiding any damage to his body. He turned around to see the table split in half in smoke and Miss D nowhere to be found.
'Shit. Am I dealing with ninjas?' Hong Fu wondered. Access into the tower would be extremely difficult.....in fact, it would be borderline impossible with how careful Jozzor and Brakagi is with everything. Perhaps if there is an occasion where external people must get into the area...Wait...isn't Brakagi negotiating new deals with the Big Ten?
Perhaps there is a way in after all. Hong Fu thought, as he walked back slowly, checking on his personal interface for the official schedules. Something this important would be published for much more than organizational purposes. Active engagement in trade deals and special polices will show public Brakagi's determination in not only doing good for the people in times of need and disaster, but also through strong economy and trading power with the other systems in the galaxy.
Politics isn't all about speeches and debates after all.
The next meeting is going to be in a week's time in the main tower, however, if Miss D does pull of the second attack, there is no saying what the official response would be. It all could have been extremely counter-productive for what Hong Fu is trying to do, but he doubt Miss D cares about his scenario.
He needed to convince Miss D of her plans, rather than the other way around. It doesn't seem like she is taking the fact that she is facing a few other artifact users seriously. In order for Hong Fu's plan to work, he needed to change her mind. Unfortunately, his artifact's power won't do the trick. However, anybody else but him should be a strong enough deterrent.
His personal interface buzzed again, and it's a message from Jozzor.
Hong Fu looked at that name for a long while before opening the message, and the next steps of his plan became clear.
A few more days went by, and Hong Fu settles into the routine within the police department with his half days in the morning working directly under the tutelage of the police chief and training with Jozzor and Vindy at the Brakagi's provide training compound in the afternoon.
The works to be done in the police department are generally intuitive enough, and most of Brakagi's prior general training and the Absolute Academy translates extremely well to matters that he is dealing on a day to day basis. The group are still sieving through the seas of information and tracking down each of the suspects individually and reporting back, however, the strangeness of bubble gum bombs meant most of the prior procedures will need to be adapted. Thankfully, knowing this from both Jozzor and Brakagi, the police chief offered quite a lot of freedom to each of the officers, even Hong Fu himself too.
Jozzor's afternoon training, on the other hand, is the most intense bit in the day. Brakagi's private compound are designed to be located far out of the city where few people would know about it's existence, and it involves full physical training facilities, running track, gravity-varying environments, swimming pool, vast openings for artifact training and more. The aim is to allow the artifact users under him to train to their heart's content, and that's what Jozzor has been doing prior to Hong Fu and Vindy's arrival.
Jozzor has been testing the limits of Vindy's abilities before Hong Fu joined, and that's mostly due to the vastly different nature of their artifacts. Vindy's artifact is heavily power output oriented and physical based, and even some of her more technical skills like generation of stationery waves and testing of natural frequencies are mostly done based on practice. In the meanwhile, Hong Fu's artifact is more mental, and physical training will only serve be complimentary in terms of artifact usage.
However, in terms of actual combat, vigorous physical training is what will increase Hong Fu's chance of survival, seeing how his artifact isn't as combat oriented as Vindy's is. Jozzor is taking care of that on that front with his extensive combat training, and through experiencing how Rockies fight and combining with his knowledge of how humans fight, Hong Fu naturally obtained a higher level of understanding when it comes to combat.
Now he wonders what would have happened if he transferred into an Aquarian body and also learnt their martial arts. Perhaps some crazy martial artist have already done the three procedures somewhere in the galaxy.
In terms of what he can directly improve with his artifact usage, he has unlocked the ability to briefly 'look' into Probable during combat without physically diverting his attention into looking at the marble. With simple taps of his finger against the artifact, he will obtain flashes of visions which showed the paths of probabilities of what will happen to the item of interest, and in this case the default is set to be himself. So in seeing the trajectories of the attacks that will land on him, Hong Fu can make rapid judgement and predictions similarly to what Elmyra can do, though he can see multiple different paths and possibilities and choose the best course of action out of each and everyone of them.
Knowing the activation criteria of Probable, Jozzor immediately pointed out the key issue of that in combat.
'It's good that you don't need to look away in combat, but you also don't want to give up your hand just so you can tap on the artifact.' Jozzor commented, and Hong Fu really couldn't disagree, 'Make an accessory device so you can free up your hands.'
When the artifact comes into contact with Hong Fu's body, it activates automatically, but Hong Fu wondered if that's always the case, or is it a matter of his mind always commanding the artifact that way? Can he turn it on and off with his mind while the artifact is held against his body?
His artifact is externally carried, like how Lady Lily's Pen of Rearrangement is, but most other artifact users have the artifact attached in parts of the body. That means they do need to turn on and off their artifacts with their minds, just so they won't be constantly struggling against the inner power. If they can do it, there is no reason why Hong Fu couldn't.
Taking deep breaths in and out as he sat on the five meter high platform overlooking the running fields and obstacle courses, Hong Fu placed the Probable against his forearm and felt those flashing images. The artifact is turned on immediately upon skin contact, and Hong Fu is trying to counteract that to the best of his ability. This is no easy task, as he is attempting to rewrite years of training and usage at this point....but...
But he is in a new body now. Supposedly, his mind and body should be more plastic and trainable. No excuses, just go harder than last time.
Slowing down his racing minds and the images of possibilities that came in and out of his conscious mind, Hong Fu actively tried to relax his body and mind as if he is entering into a trance of meditation. The idea of working hard to relax seemed rather counter-intuitive to most beings in the galaxy, and Hong Fu isn't the exception either. And yet, there is no other way. Starting with slowing down the flashing images and keeping them still, then Hong Fu slowly worked to reduce the amount of excitation going through his entire neural network.
He is the one controlling Probable, and the reason it activates upon skin contact is because the pathway for the artifact in his mind is always on. He never have to mentally turn it off as all he had to do is to remove any contacts. Now, he is working to revert that bad habit and replacing it with something else.
The paths of probabilities went dim one by one, as all that remained is an image of him sitting still for the foreseeable future.
With more concentration and relaxation, that very last image also went off. His arms are tingling, and his ears are ringing as his mind and body is learning to adapt to this new mental-physical state. He stilled himself on the ground, and slowly moves Probable away, placing it beside him.
Everything is so quiet, and so calm. Hong Fu haven't felt this peace in such a long time, and he felt as if he can stay in this position forever...so this is what it feels like to finally turn things off once in a while.
An explosion went off in the distance as Vindy dismantles an obstacle course with her natural frequency sensing ability, and everything switched right back to high alert.
Now that the issue of activation criteria is sorted out for Hong Fu, another major point of improvements would be that of the scope of his activation, namely in how many of those paths of probabilities that he is able to see at the same time. This should improve with practice, but it also compels Hong Fu to really...ask bigger questions.
With bigger questions comes far more complicated solutions, and Hong Fu have been drowned in the seas of possibilities before. Remembering the mental strains of being surrounded and pulverized by all of the strands of possibilities and flashes of potential realities and future at the same time, Hong Fu once again approached the future with caution. Expanding his thoughts outwards, he activated the artifact and looked into the future of the three of them in the room.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder