“Whoa!” Johnny exclaimed again, staring at himself, the way he looked like he was wearing a rather less massive skin of stone than Ben.

I kicked off and glided up to him. “Okay, Johnny. Full haymaker to the gut.” I pointed, tapping my belly. “Vent all that Earthpower at the same time. Make it a proper punch.”

He looked at me, nodded, and set his feet. It was a little awkward while holding onto Ben’s hand, but he used it as a pulling anchor point as he punched out with a classic middle punch into my sternum, venting all the Earthpower at once.

My Red Eyes flicked up and indicated there was some mild danger here.

Boom!

It was my turn to go flying for a flaming loop, trailing some sticky flames as I did. I probably could have withstood it, but I just went with the hit, and could distinctly see the gaping Johnny Storm gawking after me as he sent me off the roof of the Baxter Building in a bigger parabola than he’d just been sent on himself.

I let him see just how far he had hit me, then brought myself to a stop instantly in the air before flashing back in less than a second and returning to right in front of them in a trailing crackle and snap of electricity.

“Holy crap!” Johnny jumped after seeing my speed. “Where’d you learn to do that?!”

“Bigtime space adventure. Lots of practice moving REALLY fast,” I replied dismissively.

“Went to TWO other galaxies!” Ben smiled, holding up two big fingers as the pair let go of one another again.

“Ahhh! I miss all the good stuff!” Johnny protested, tossing up his flaming hands.

“Says the plasma fireball,” I noted, rolling my eyes, and his complaints ended. “Okay, neither of you are dumb. You are clearly capable of seeing and feeling the Elemental Bond between you, and as long as there’s resonance, you can play on that to buff one another up, or even shunt power through one another. Johnny, you can build up Ben like a powder keg, and Ben, you can give Johnny a really big opening punch.

“You’re going to have to find the limits of this on your own time. It looked like you were giving Johnny a much thicker hide, so he might have received some super-strength and tanking ability, too. Oh, right.” My Bite Bracer cycled up. “Five thousand degrees, Ben.” I took aim at him, lightning crackled, and a ray of burning plasma cut across his chest in a bright red beam.

He looked down at the glowing path it left across his stony hide... which rapidly drained into the burning flames underneath. “Huh. I could feel that, but it didn’t hurt... yet. Like it hadn’t reached a threshold yet.”

“So, enhancing your natural resistance, not an immunity. Fair enough, Johnny doesn’t get all your invulnerability, either.” I considered the two of them. “I imagine that you will get similar things from Reed and Sue, minor sharing of their abilities, potentially major if you’re in contact. Just need Valences in harmony.

“Also, if you’ve higher Tier Valences, the effects will likely be stronger.”

They looked at one another with expectant eyes. Johnny clenched his fist, remembering what it was like to punch somebody that hard.

“Definitely sumthin’ we ALL gotta work on,” Ben said with a slow nod. “So, how’s Reed and Suzie doin’, Dyna?”

“Quite well. I’m monitoring them through their Rings. They’ve both formed Matrices and are at Sorcerer/4. Reed is actually the one having more problems, as Sorcery is about willpower and affinity more than intellect, but given his ability to expand his mind, he is adapting. You may find him a bit different when he comes home.”

“The baby is fine?” Johnny pressed.

“Yes. With a Matrix up, Sue has largely stabilized. It won’t be perfect until you are all in resonance at Seven, but there’s no risk of discorporation or anything right now.”

Both of them breathed out sighs of relief.

“Okay, let’s see what the Avatar of Fire is bringing to you. Let’s see a normal flame, then see if you can mix in your Reserve, and then some of your magic and fire magic, so you know what is going on...”

----------------

It was a learning experience, and gave Johnny more things to work on, but his biggest thing was eating a few blueberry (ice, froze his whole face) and raspberry (set his head on fire) jelly doughnuts, tears of joy falling down his face as he devoured them.

Then he took a twenty-minute shower and went to sleep for twelve hours.

Ben tapped his forty-gallon drum of Earth Coffee, added in some ‘hazelnut’ creamer (it had more in common with milk of magnesia) and sipped it as he ate his own Earth Donuts (looked like chocolate-topped drizzled with metallic powdered nuts) in deep satisfaction.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but adding your Avatar Level to your Fire magic is pretty strong, right?” he asked me rhetorically.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of a stronger magic Buff. Even if it’s mono-school, that’s pretty disgusting,” I had to agree. “He can already generate flames far, far past his Level, and his Nova flame is basically equal to a mini-nuke. But, Fire IS the most energetic of the Elements. He just needs to control it, instead of letting it control him, in the end.”

“What’s that mean in Stat terms?” Ben went on, frowning.

“He’s got to up his Wisdom. His Avatar levels are boosting his speed, reaction time, and his Charisma. He doesn’t have to worry about getting strong enough in Sorcery, his Avatar nature basically makes it impossible not to.” I toyed around with my own coffee somberly.

“This a problem with me?” Ben asked.

“Yes.” Despite himself, he winced. “You’re the opposite. You need the Charisma to get the Earth into motion. You’re just as reserved as your Element, however, so you’ve not been pushing it the way you need to. It also restricts your top-end Sorcery. You do realize you need to get to a 30 Charisma to reach Twenty in Sorcerer, right?”

His jaw worked despite himself, chewing on a crushed sapphire ‘blueberry jelly’ donut.

“That’s a lot of Charisma,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, it is.”

“What’re my Stats now?” He could Assay himself, the basic spell was a Cantrip, so he was basically giving me permission to take a look at him.

============

Benjamin Grimm, The Rock of the Fantastic Four

Powered Male Human/3, Avatar of Earth/13*

Scout/6; Melee/8 (IUS), Soul Warrior/4; Sorcerer/7 (Earth)

Strength: 17-> 21 [46 (/67+)*]

Dexterity: 10->18 (/31)*

Constitution: 18-> 26 [56*]

Intelligence: 13->17

Wisdom: 13->19

Charisma: 9->19

Notable Talents/Traits: Natural Pilot; Tolerant, Rough; Rune-carved Hide; Slayer: Constructs (robots), Vampires, Werewolves

*The Rock Template Characteristics: Alternate Elemental Form; Strength of Stone; Stone-Fisted; Toughness of Stone; Hide of Stone; Bones of a Mountain; Endure Like Stone; Veins in the Stone; Attuned to Earth Magic

=============

He looked a bit proud of himself for having a Stat outlay like that.

“You’re good through Sorcerer/10. I can probably extend that to 15...” I frowned, wrestling with the facts.

“You look like you gotta make an uncomfortable decision about something,” Ben murmured, watching me.

“Yes. There is a way to give just about anyone a +4 bonus to a Stat of their choice.”

His bushy brows lifted. “That’s pretty impressive,” he commented carefully. “Something magical? A price to it?” he asked.

“Well, you have to fill it with Karma and stuff, just like gaining Levels, for it to have the full effect. The crux is that it also comes with a telepathic communication channel to the anchor Mark, which would be me. Pretty powerful, too. Although there’s ways to disrupt it, and it won’t work across temporal stretches, it has no physical range, and it’ll ignore direct dimensional boundaries, too.”

He thought about that before replying, regarding me. “So, you could talk to someone in another galaxy casually... or in Hell?” he hazarded.

“Correct.”

“Downside?”

“Makes you extremely vulnerable to enchantment/charm effects from the Mark Grantor, i.e., me.”

Again, he took his time responding. “So, it’s a trust issue on our part.”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not why you’re reluctant to even bring it up.”

“No.”

“What’s the reason?”

“There’s a reason I don’t like sharing my mental Stats, Ben,” I finally sighed. “I am... very impressive mentally. It is incredibly intimidating to most people.”

“So, like Stretch? We all know yer smart, Dyna.”

“Reed sits on a base 36 Intellect, Ben.”

“Whoa. That’s...”

“Running six thoughtstreams at double speed, basically.”

Ben sipped and chewed thoughtfully. “I may not be reading that right, but you don’t seem particularly impressed by that, Dyna.”

“Reed’s biggest talent is that he can grow his brain in new directions. In other words, he can expand how he thinks and take his thoughts in new directions.” I sipped my own cup. “I’m not sure of the exact mechanics of it, and how it’s related to his being the Water guy of your Four-Element Circle. Regardless, he can suddenly get very, very good at something he wants to be good at. Just how much better is probably a function of his Level, but my guess is +1 per two Levels max. Every +1 is equal to another two points of a Stat affecting that Skill... with the odd addition that because of his body being as flexible as his mind, it applies to physical skills, too.”

“That’s Core Discipline talk, translating real stuff into a number. What’s it really mean?” he asked directly.

“Even if you were smarter than him, he can still be better than you at a skill you both share because he’s made himself a ‘natural’ at the skill.

“Mostly it means he understands stuff he’s interested in very easily, and very quickly. I’m also not certain about it, but he can also short-term focus on a skill, instead of making it permanent. So, if he suddenly got into detective novels, he could temporarily make himself Sherlock Holmes and start solving things based off the most trivial clues and hints.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Stretch. He gets innerested in anything, he’s basically an authority on it in a day or two, a week tops.”

“Yes, and that’s another facet of his power. He’s an almost unlimited knowledge sink, as long as he spends Karma. The rest of us really have caps on what skills we keep and others we let fade over time. Reed isn’t so limited. He can drop his investigations in stratic rock layering archeological records, and then pull the stuff right up out of nowhere, even if it’s been ten years since he last investigated the matter. Touch it up with any modern new data, and he’s off and running.”

“Yeah, that really sounds like Stretch. Going through all those journals and reading about stuff nobody would ever use and remember, and just taking it all in to pull out when he needs it,” Ben agreed.

=============

Author's note: From a mechanical standpoint, I’m thinking that what Mr. Fantastic has, among other things, is the ability to reallocate his total skill point array among any Skills he has taken at least 1 point in permanently. So, if he has 300 total skill points, and 50 ‘permanent points’ in different Skills, he can totally mix and match his Skill Points to anything convenient after his morning Renewal. So, if he suddenly needs to know about migration patterns of the European Cave Swift, he drops ten points into Birdwatching, which he has one point in, and suddenly he remembers reading an article by the French Audobon Society, and lo, he knows what he needs with a minimum +23 check, take 10 for 33.

He probably has the Bardic Lore ability for +1/2 his highest level to Knowledge Checks, too.

His ability to gain bonuses in Skills is something he would buy with Karma, slowing down his Leveling even as his scientific competency increases, meaning his side Classes are likely lower than his Primary, which is the Class governing his Intellect bonuses to Skill Points gained!...

Ben is much smarter and more insightful than most give him credit for (he lives with Reed Richards fer Chrissakes), but the skills he has would largely be much more practical, as well, so he wouldn’t come across as a white-collar ‘genius’.