Jester’s Paradise - Chapter 6 Meta Abilities
Moving through the city, Cas can see sights like restaurants, hotels, armories, and even public training centers that seem to spawn holographic enemies. Looking at the varying sights around, Cas and the group make their way to a building seen from all sides of the city, with the large, glaring letters ‘HQ’ reflecting light from above. Although the City was littered with tall buildings, they all only got taller the further into the city you go, but it didn’t break down any liveliness.
“Voil” stated Lia. Spinning around with a foot on the ground and the other in the air, she does a 180. “This is Headquarters, where you’ll be assigned a location for Team Hunting, and given a small insight on Meta Abilities.”
Cas, feeling confused at her statement of ‘Meta Abilities’ started thinking back, and realized he’d heard it a time or two, but never caught notice of it because of the varying ways people refer to their ‘Meta Abilities’. Superpowers, Esper Abilities, Abilities, Powers, anything really. ‘huh’ was the only thing that came to mind when Cas thought of an official term.
Lia, looking at us with a smirk as if she’d just dropped a life shattering bomb continues, “Meta Ability is the correct term, though no one knows why they’d choose that over the others. And by They I mean our Ancestors, the first of the first with Meta Abilities.”
Stopping at the doors of the towering building, she lowers her head in contemplation as to how to break down her next statement. Looking up, she sees that she’s got our interest peaked. “Our Ancestors weren’t Modern People. In fact, during the Era of Meta Abilities stemming up within every human, a lot thought they were the first.. until deeper delving into their history by fanatic historians brought a truth they didn’t quite like. Egyptians, blessed by a few rogue deities were given power as a… test run of sorts. Though, it quickly ended a few hundred years later due to the abuse of their abilities and addiction to Slavery.”
“Any questions?”
Cas, Brick, and Alexis were stumped. Alexis, moving her body a little bit as if to raise her hand just decides to speak up.
“Then why’d they give us powers again?”
Lia, twisting her head a little bit letting her green hair fall over her face a little oddly, just took a step back and fidgeted for a moment.
“No one’s actually ever asked questions after that. I don’t really know..”
Turning around, she opens a set of Double Doors to Headquarters, letting a blast of cold air come our way, which clearly signals they have great Air Conditioning.
Moving inside, we don’t feel any distortion regarding the space around us, yet again giving off a more authentic feeling when looking around the building. Seemingly made with Dark Steel, the walls have something plastered onto them to stop excessive reflections inside of the building, letting it be more comfortable on the eyes.
Taking steps forward, we’re presented with a Carpet in the middle of the room, dark red and leading up to one desk. Behind it, Cas is presented with a middle aged woman who glowed with motherly beauty, giving off a friendly smile to those who requested her help, and didn’t look out of place at all. Wearing khaki colored fitting Jeans and a thin T-Shirt that covered all essentials, clearly not trying to sexualize herself for attention.
Waiting around 10 minutes behind a fast moving line, they finally get to the front.
Lia, stepping forward talks to the woman and receives a laminated card and a few words of instruction, leading them to a elevator that takes them up about 20 floors, not to a hallway; but a large, luxury room that had an open circular area in the middle surrounded by expensive furniture.
Inside of the little circular open area, a man in Arctic Camouflage with a military cut and sleepy eyes sat on a Bar stool. Lia, seeing him smiles a little bit before opening her mouth from a small distance and shouting “I’ll leave them to you, Bud!”. Doing a nice pivot, she turns right around and walks out of the room leaving them with the man who was started awake.
Turning to look at the man she called ‘Bud’, which didn’t appear to be a nickname, the first to step forward was Brick.
“And you would be..?”
Letting his deep voice reverberate throughout the room, the man finally glanced at Brick, seemingly doing nothing. Brick stood there, looking normal except for his mouth freezing in position and pupils constricted, which made for a strange sight due to the silver. Once the man glanced away, both Cas and Alexis could visibly see the relief sweep over Brick’s body as the gaze averted him, letting out a deep breath.
‘Seems like he’s strong.. what would his Meta Ability be?’
Standing, the man decided to stop his ‘teasing’, seen from the Smug look on his face.
“My name’s Bud, and I’ll be the one to instruct you and bring you to your outpost, which your Team will hunt during any expedition. I’m the 12th of the 200 Punishers running Devil’s Frontier. We’re a group who doesn’t really care about reputation, but Merit.”
Walking around his Bar stool, he taps his finger on the leather as if formatting his sentences in his head on the spot. “But although we don’t care for your reputation, we do care for the groups. If you are to tarnish DF’s [A/N: Devil’s Frontier, duh] reputation, the punisher who you are assigned to will taking into consideration your intentions and then dish out a nice punishment.”
Pausing while continuing to pace, Bud flashes a sadistic smile, disappearing only just after Cas and them were able to notice, leaving a shiver as if someone scraped their fingernails on the chalkboard down their spine.
‘So, he’d be the one to give us punishments? What would they be?’ Cas though, letting his mind wander a little bit out of genuine curiosity.
“To become a Punisher, you need to have a certain level of Merit, one that can’t be described by numbers, and ofcourse be powerful enough.”
Stopping his pacing, he sits back down and looks at the three of them individually. Alexis, with her slim/fit body and black clothing. Cas, with his long yet straight hair tied into a ponytail looking a little more formal then normal, black clothing and tattoo sticking out of his sleeve. Brick, with his tight-fitting clothes, silver eyes and bulky figure. As if trying to see their deepest secrets, he stares intent on finding out for a solid half a minute.
Stopping, he pulls out 3 crystal clear balls, weighing them in his hand and moving them around each other like a magician. “These are sensory crystals. They can only be used by someone with a Meta Ability that has a neutral affinity; something unrelated to the elements or appears natural. They’re found hundreds of miles below the Earth and created when Rock and some mysterious energy in the atmosphere are compressed at such a high density, they fuse.”
Stopping this spinning, he gave them each a stern look. “We’ll be using these to find out what your abilities really are. Of course, you get the general idea of your Power, but do you know what it’ll evolve into? Do you know how you want to strengthen it to do certain tasks? What would be the smartest way to develop your strengths? This can answer that, but only on a very vivid level.”
Pointing towards Brick, he simple said “You, put your hand on the Crystal. I’ll do the rest.”
Walking forward, Brick mumbled something like “Let’s hope for something good.” while receiving nods of luck from both Cas and Alexis. Putting his hand on top of the palm sized Crystal Ball, Brick receives a shock he only felt through his fingers, before a visualization of his Meta Ability appeared within the Crystal Ball. Seeing it from all directions, Bud, Cas, and Alexis could all see what appeared, defying normal logic.
‘What the hell is that?’ thought Cas, being a little bit startled by the ancientness represented in the projection
Floating above them, a large serpent with scales seemingly made of carbon-fiber painted white slithered curled itself around a mountain, defying what would appear to be a normal sized, bad-ass snake, into a god-like beast. Hissing, it released two horns out of its skull, and in the middle a white flame lit, turning the mountain and the surroundings into white/grey crystal. Perfectly copying the texture of the previous thing in it’s place, time seemingly stopped around the mountain, showing that every was petrified in place. Even gusts of wind stuck in place. Fading out of vision, the vivid image comes to a stop.
Bud, taking a small breath as if impressed, evaluated what he’d seen. “While that image was taking place, the Crystal Ball had a few reactions. You have a horrible affinity with beasts other than Snakes, and Snakes stronger than you will try to assert their dominance. Your power seems to be capable of evolving, but as of present it will only progress into a half-transformation. I’m assuming that was a Basilisk, so we’ll call it Basilisk Demonification similar to before. You’ve already taken up a nickname as Brick, but I suggest you choose a Title that represents your Meta Ability.” Pausing, as if not sure how to word it, he continues bluntly. “Your Meta Ability seems to be a variant of other Basilisk Based abilities, and instead of normal Petrification that turns things into rock or metal, yours is Crystallization. A very uncommon trait.”
Moving on, not wanting to stick to one subject or not having enough time, Bud points to Alexis. “You step forward next, as I’ve already got a general idea of what your Meta Ability is. This will help, but it’ll be easier to decipher than Mr. Mystery over there, with his half-assed start.”
Pointing towards Cas while making that comment, he couldn’t help but be a little insulted. ‘How are they not Half-assed too? I mean, Alexis can roller-skate without any help, but still..’. Shaking off the insult, Cas pays extra attention to Alexis’s little test, hoping to get some insight on her power.
“Get started”, Bud signaled.
Laying her hand down, Alexis had a different visual come out than Brick. Instead of an animal materializing, a man holding two swords slanted downwards as if held lightly appeared within a snowy area, with obscured features except for bright, pulsing blue eyes under a rogue hood. Sprinting forward, he leaves colored afterimages while sliding, floating, and even moving himself in the air fighting a giant beast. On the other end was a massive Mammoth, with what can only be described as sharp ass tusks, flailing them around as it bucked to shake the ground and attempt to hit the man. Cut after cut, the man whittles down the beast before sliding up one of the tusks that attempted to hit him, avoiding the trunk he jumped and pierced the beast’s head, clearly not physically hitting the brain, yet the beast slumped dead.
“Huh” grunted Bud. “You appear to have a high affinity with an ability we called ‘Afterimage’, for obvious reasons. That was the last man who had it, nicknamed Ekko. He always wore his hood, and when people started noticing there was no one who could catch him to force him to take it off. That was around 300 years ago though, so he may be dead, we don’t really know.” Frowning a little bit at the thought, he continued. “You may be his descendant, or more likely a descendant of someone who willingly inherited his power before they developed their own, leaving you with something similar to his.”
Looking up towards Alexis who appeared a little mesmerized by what he’d said, he continued on a positive note. “There are hundreds of methods to allow your Meta Ability to deviate off the path he’d gone on, as your ability that you call Frictionless, could possible develop into real friction manipulation in the future, or a type of flight. Hell, you could even change the basis of your power after much effort, achieving the same thing with different means putting you on a totally different path to power.”
“You have a few interesting Affinities. One is a Spectral Affinity, which doesn’t really mean Ghosts. A lot of people with this learn better in the dark, and can normally gain a sort of Sixth Sense easier. Another is Wind. Though I didn’t get a good read on it, you’ll probably know in the future. And the last ‘unique’ one would be Vibration. Not really an Affinity, more like a perk to your power.”
Mumbling under his breath “Sortof like mine,” he finally turns to Cas.
‘My turn.. let’s hope mine is as impressive.’
Pointing towards Cas who was moving back and forth on his feet nervously, he didn’t take easy pickings and make fun of him. “You’re last, let’s hope it’s impressive.”
‘Don’t Jinx it, damnit.’
“Step up”
Walking forward, Cas puts his hand ontop of the last crystal ball still in Bud’s hand, as the other two have turned into some sort of power during their projections. “Ready?” He asks, looking up.
Cas nods, closing his eyes waiting for something to happen. Feeling a slight prick and shock flow through his fingers, he opens his eyes to see what appears.
Light particles flowing out of the ball come out represented as a myriad of different Green colors, a dark Grey, and a small patch of Rainbow.
Mumbling under his breath, Bud frowns a little bit before spitting out his statement. “Appears to be pretty decent, although we’ll have to see what shows.”
Letting the light form, another vivid image comes into place.
First, a small sapling in the middle of the forest appears, giving off a dim glow of vitality. Drawing everything in with that sacred image it gave off, the calming atmosphere it projected caused animals in the community to protect it and its purity; they would rather die then let it be eaten by another animal. Changing images, it went from a sapling to a rather large tree, roots showing from the ground and branches, leaves, and vines showing everywhere around it enshrouding it in a pure image of natural health. Afterwards, the Tree continued growing. Taking the nutrients from the Earth, it cleared a small area where other smaller trees used to be, taking their root of growth, but not going too for so as to unconsciously preserve the other plants and animals. A true selfless nature. And then it grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Big enough that it almost couldn’t fit onto the planet anymore. Roots entwining the Green and Blue planet, it had animals coveting spots upon its branches and protected the natural order; but not mercifully. Letting nature take its course, it decided to stop absorption. No longer growing, the Tree developed its own Gravitation Field without disturbing the planets trajectory, taking in resources from the outside, and instead of growing, it increased in density. On the highest branches, Tigers with furs colored Gold and Black roared shaking the air, Birds of Prey plucking their feathers under the shade of it’s leaves, and Apes made of stone eating fruits under claimed Territory.
Under the tree, a mere spec to the roots, a man sat carving a piece of wood covered in primitive looking letters, yet strangely understandable. Using a rock to puncture it, he blew on it to clear up the words that were written, making the vivid image clearly more accurate.
‘Atlas’
“What a fucking Riddle” mumbled Bud..
