After the disposal of the doll, the mood lightened significantly. The crew scavenged some parts but the transport was so old that very few were useful. Food stores on the ship had spoiled, which was the bulk of what was in storage.

Yuki, who happened to be the computer expert and owner of the elven voice had restored lighting and limited power to the ship, which made exploration quicker. The only other discovery was a nest of lizards living within the ducts of the ship. One area warmed up considerably near a crack in the ship from receiving sunlight for most of the day. A drone sent into an opening showed them to be the ones thrashing around randomly inside the ducts of the ship.

Gus made his way to the captains quarters, led by some morbid curiosity about who Methiochos was before he turned into a monster. The room finally opened to Yuki’s decryption and inside the spartan room looked mostly unaffected by the effects of water, the encroaching jungle and almost a half a century of time. Besides a bed, dresser, and desk, the only adornment was a portrait of an old man. The man’s features looked almost alien, emphasized even more by his silver jumpsuit and larger than normal eyes. His forehead was also more prominent through his grey hair, styled to make it appear like he had more body and fullness, but in reality only revealing his bare scalp amid the wispy hair.

As Gus stared at the picture, a blue glow pulsed from behind the picture. He rubbed his eyes but the glow persisted. Checking his logs, he saw that his passive True Sight had activated. Stepping on the bed he lifted the painting away, revealing an alcove with a crystal cube with each side about 4 inches long.

“Good luck with that,” Yuki scoffed.

“What is it?” Gus asked, turning the object around different directions, looking at the different facets under the surface, faintly glimpsing some writing as the tiny panels inside the cube flickered from one display to the next.

“It’s a Quorian cube. They’re basically unhackable journals. They generate a code based on the user’s DNA and require multiple manipulations of the surface to unlock and reveal the contents. I’ve never heard of one being opened by anyone but the user. It’s a pretty souvenir but don’t expect to get anything besides that,” Yuki shrugged.

“This room looks empty, and it’s the last on this floor. I’m about ready to head back. Let me know when you want to go.”

Gus stared at the cube as he followed her back to the central access port. He pressed on one of the surfaces and saw it light up with a pinkish-purple highlight on one side, and another formed a yellowish green halo around his finger as he placed touched the opposite side. He played around with the cube until they piled in the small transport and returned to the manor. He stowed the cube away, and focused on other things on his itinerary for the day. No rest for the weary. At least they’d be leaving soon, he was anxious to get underway.

Later that afternoon, Gus sat in the command chair of the manor, squirming a little bit as his father put his hand on his shoulder, directing him on possible defenses for the manor. His emotional hackles were raised, and a visceral part of him resisted the direction Tempest was trying to give. Sure, he had a ton of experience managing the Purple Faction’s affairs, but Gus was on edge, ready for Tempest to try and wrest the manor from him. So far, that hadn’t happened, but Gus was primed with what he would say and do when it did.

The odd thing was that mentally, he knew the situation had changed. But emotionally, he couldn’t control the strong feelings that boiled out, unbidden. He hoped it wasn’t apparent, but doubted he was able to mask everything. He thought he had forgiven his father, during his time in the bottomless pit trap, but it wasn’t as easy in practice.

“I think that takes care of things for now,” Tempest beamed. “You’ve really done something here Gus,” he squeezed Gus’ shoulder in encouragement, but inwardly Gus cringed a bit.

“Thanks,” he said flatly, “I’m heading to train for a bit, see if I can level up before we have to head out. See ya.” He slid out of the chair and escaped to the elevator.

“We could--” but the rest of the sentence was cut off as the elevator doors closed. Gus seeing his father’s hand outstretched and a hopeful look on his face. Oh no. I’m not making it that easy for you. All those things I went through and now we’re best buddies? Yeah, right.

Gus sighed and leaned against the back wall of the elevator rubbing his eyes, letting his head fall back against the wall. He had imagined that life would somehow be better if he only had powers, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach, an indescribable discomfort he always felt when he felt overwhelmed with worry resurfaced. He thought back to how the hybrid-Nth had shown him being a leader. He was so far away from that vision, and it even to press on him like a heavy weight. Would the hybrid-Nth reject him if he didn’t make progress towards that vision? His experience with the robot showed that Nth could be forcibly removed, but for some reason, they chose to stay with him. For now, at least. How much time would it take for them to realize he didn’t have what it took and abandon him?

Before he could mentally torture himself more, the elevator opened on the training arena. Some of the Crew were there. His father had brought a group of talented prodigies that were willing to follow him as he went to investigate Aurora’s distress signal, and they referred to themselves collectively as “the Crew”. In truth, the Purple Faction had apparently written off his mother some time ago and didn’t want to expend more resources for Tempest’s pet project. After his demotion, he decided it was time to go and find her under the guise of finding the distress signal’s source. The Crew had decided to accompany him, despite the fact that many of them outranked him now. They either respected him or his mother a lot to come along for an indeterminate time, with the understanding they could be called back at any time if a mission arose.

Gus’ jaw tightened as his eyes flicked to the others in the room, but he could still train. With upgrades to the arena, the back wall had lifted and revealed 5 additional battle areas, arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Gus scanned himself and wordlessly got into position. He had been training and sparring with the other supers and had already learned a lot. But right now he needed to be alone, or at least away from other people and their demands. Their mere presence felt like they were violating his territory, his private space. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to let everything go when he breathed out. He needed to bleed off some of the pressure inside and training was one of the few ways that seemed to release his tension.

“Nick, how am I doing? Any problems from the sleep deprivation?”

“Nth are maintaining neurotransmitters and balancing anything out of homeostasis,”

Gus nodded and readied himself as the program began. He had locked himself from absorbing any of the abilities he had taken from the Mandrite core, knowing that implementation of that many abilities simultaneously would be too much for him. All that power right there and none of it available. It was maddening. With the multitude of abilities he had stolen from other supers though, he really couldn’t complain.

Gus blocked a swing from a pillowbot and grappled the arm, taking the robot down. He sprung away as another attacked and only succeeded in hitting its partner. By the time the hit connected he was already across the arena, in a ready pose.

Truly, the manor had made improvements in leaps and bounds in the week since his father had come, and yet, he felt unsettled. This did not feel like the Tempest he had come to know. His exuberant acceptance was something Gus had always craved. But to him, it felt like a large part of that acceptance was of his powers, not of Gus himself. Plus Gus doubted if he was being genuine. All of it kind of pissed him off. He was mad at himself too, for biting his tongue and allowing Tempest to help to take the lead.

He landed an anger-fuelled punch at one pillowbot before dancing away. It was idiotic but it was how he felt. He had dreamed of what he would say when the ‘confrontation’ with his father inevitably occurred but he had been so caught off guard that Tempest just went along with everything.

He recognized that the manor had to be secure to leave, but he longed for them to finally be ready to go. Some days were better than others. Since the incident, he hadn’t been able to allow himself to sleep. So he had to do other things to occupy his time. His Energy Absorption ability allowed him to never feel physical exhaustion, but he had times when his brain started to just get a little foggy.

He had noticed himself react with a little more edginess and have a bit more of a temper than he was used to, but it was hard to distinguish what was due to sleep deprivation and what was due to having his father back in his life.

Gus’ mind fell into a rhythm while he attacked and defended, his body going on autopilot. He thought about the Quorion and what it contained.

They scavenged some supplies, and Gus managed to secure some of Methiochos’ personal logs. He wasn’t sure why he decided to download and keep them, but after they were checked to be virus-free, he had them transferred to a small datapad. Overall the training went well, and Gus felt like he wouldn’t be too much of a bumbler when the mission actually started, but the real test was when they got into an actual battle.

Gus continued fighting, dodging an attack and retaliating. If he didn’t run an Adaptive Training program, he could let himself go on autopilot. It was rare that he would be caught off guard, and his responses were becoming honed. Often he didn’t get any XP, but it kept him from boiling over. He had actually broken a tooth the third day after Tempest arrived, clenching his jaw so hard. The Nth had to make a hard shell over his tooth while they repaired the enamel underneath. He had to be on a soup and smoothie diet because it kept him from chewing. Just another irritation to sour his mood.

“Nick, do you think I am being too hard on my father?” Gus inquired as he kicked and pushed backward doing a flip, instantly regretting asking the question.

“One must honor their parents,” Nick curtly responded with disdain.

“Honor should be earned,” Gus grunted after an especially hard block.

“So only those who serve you deserve any honor?”

“No, that’s not--” The distraction gave a pillowbot the time it needed to give Gus a good slap across the face. Gus clenched his fists at the shot. He spun and landed a roundhouse kick on the robot’s torso. “Everyone deserves a certain level of respect. But those who abuse that trust have to prove they have changed.”

“For how long? When will you finally allow yourself to forgive the offender?”

“I’m sorry I brought it up, I thought you were on my side,” Gus growled.

“I am on your side. These emotions and habits of blame are a weakness. You need to rid yourself of these.” Gus’ eyebrows furrowed so much that he could see them as he tried to contain himself.

“I’m done with this conversation,”

“You can run, but wherever you go, there you are,” Nick said with infuriating calm. He had become so used to asking the previous iterations of Nick questions that it was a hard habit to break. This new one made him wonder if mainland supers had it right to suppress their Nth personalities.

A twinking charm and a message came over the manor intercom.

“Gus, please meet your party in the control room,” the message repeating just like in an airport. Finally! He hoped it was time to go. Nothing good ever seemed to come from overthinking things.

The control room was full of the entire crew, Tempest, and Aurora, who all turned to look at Gus, the last to arrive.

“Excellent, we are all here!” Tempest said, clasping his hands. We are off to find my wife, The Alchemist. She has been gone for over a decade and though I have kept close tabs on her, recently, my surveillance feeds went dark. We are heading now to her last known location. As Gus has fully recovered, her bargain is complete and should be allowed to come home. I have reservations that her generous host will comply so easily, however, so we may have some work to do. Any questions?”

There was slight murmuring but no one asked anything.

“Ok, let’s get going. We’ll be using our transport for this mission, as the pilots are familiar with them, but we have retrieved the Manticorps vessel from a neighboring island. As we have been unable to unlock the hanger atop the manor, we have been able to use it as a landing area. It’s possible that there are ships within the hangar, but for now, we’ll make do with what we have.

Everything should be ready with our transport, and Crew members have checked it out. It is ready to go, let us head there now,” Tempest motioned towards the elevator and everyone piled in. Someone hit a strange symbol at the bottom of the series of buttons and the car slid upwards. Gus had thought he knew most of the manor’s layout. There always seemed to be something new, it made him proud in a weird way.

The car opened and everyone spilled out. They were on the roof of the manor, and there was a large octagonal landing pad. At this height, the wind whipped by constantly. Gus slowly spun and took in the whole of the island. Walking to a guardrail he looked out at the lush jungle, beaches, and the smoldering volcano. He couldn’t have asked for a better place to be. Well, at least now that there weren’t any more zombies or supers attacking, that is.

Gus turned and most of the others had already headed up the open gangplank and entered the transport. He followed them in and they seated themselves in the main cabin. Two plush chairs on each side of the wide aisle were filling as everyone stowed their gear in the hold, while some secured items in storage above the seats. Aurora had saved him a seat.

“How are you holding up? You’ve seemed wrung out lately.”

“Physically I feel fine, but mentally I’m fried. Plus with my father here, it feels like things are slipping out of my control.”

“Well, I think you’re doing great, given the circumstances,” She looked up with concern. Gus’ anger at Aurora had evaporated in the conflict with Manticorps and finding out she was still alive. Still, things had changed a bit. Neither had apologized, but they tacitly moved ahead. Hanging out or training a bit but they hadn’t talked as much. She had effortlessly slipped back into the other’s company and Gus felt like an outsider, as they kept mostly to themselves.

“I didn’t plan on all this responsibility. And at the same time, I get furious at the thought of someone taking it away from me, like I can’t handle it. I’ve always hated being volunteered for something, especially if I had other plans. Sometimes this feels like that, and even with all this power people are still ordering me around.”

“You’ve made it clear how you want things organized, even I was surprised at how you hold yourself and laid things out. It wasn’t your typical Gus.”

Gus recalled how most of that came from Nick’s recommendations, but she didn’t need to know that. Gus felt he had a tenuous leadership established as it was.

Tempest made his way back from the pilot chairs and addressed the group.

“Ok, we’ll be in the air in just a bit. We’re going to visit the base where The Alchemist was last held. Something has definitely happened there recently, so be prepared for a fight…”

“Is it weird he is calling her ‘The Alchemist’ and not ‘Gwen’, or ‘my wife’?” Gus leaned over and whispered to Aurora.

“That’s how people addressed her in the Faction, so maybe he’s trying to keep it professional? Or how faction members knew her?” she replied, keeping her eyes ahead.

“It throws me off,” Gus said, folding his arms as Tempest continued.

“...will go in first to assess the situation. They will relay that to me and then we will progress in teams. Gus, you’ll be with me, Yuki and Aurora. Team 2 will be led by Anastasia and Team 3 by Grimdark. Everyone accept party invites and check your comms. We should be there in about 2 hours, any questions?”

No one responded, so Tempest made his way back to the forward cabin. Gus tried to peek up to see if his father was helping fly the ship or just observing the pilots. Is he a pilot, too? Gus had to admit he didn’t know. How well do I know my own father? He conceded had been self-absorbed for a while with his own life now that he was out of the house.

Gus leaned forward and rubbed his face with both hands. He usually liked to sleep on planes or transports, but there wasn’t anything to do. He could use a handheld game system, or communicator to distract himself. Without the constant chaos taking most of his mental RAM, he hadn’t the time to be bored. He needed something to do or level, or he felt like he was wasting time.

With a resonating hum that made his back itch until it cycled to a higher frequency, the transport lifted off and turned in the air. They were finally off.