Shelly woke up with a mind-splitting headache. This was what she imagined the hangover felt like. ‘Imagined’ because she had never been the type to partake in that kind of consumption. Despite what you may assume, the reason wasn't her lack of a body to drink with, she could have the system simulate most food and drink and their effects for her, she just had never understood why you would want to have an unclear mind. Not when there was so much thinking to do. Though, right now thinking was the least of her priorities.

The world came back into focus and everything hurt. She didn't even have a body to feel pain with! How was this fair! The universe did not seem to take her complaints into account though because that was the moment her drones camera turned back on, the beaming sunlight making everything feel 10 times worse.

She let out a groan “AaUUUrrRgGg” eloquently expressing her current feelings.

In response the thing carrying her jostled, making Shelly wish she had a stomach to throw up.

“Shelly? Are you awake?” a familiar voice rang out like a sledgehammer against her aching head.

Shelly thoughtfully responded “Urrrmgm Yea…”

“Are you okay?”

“I-I will be if you’d stop talking so loud…”

“Sorry…” the voice said whispering this time

“Thanks, What happen-“

“LASERS! ROCK MONSTER! FORCE FIELD!”

“Screaming...Pain…I GET IT!” Despite the agony it put her in, Max’s words along with the blinking notification still in her status brought all the memories of the day back in a rush.

She took a second to read the notification, grinning (so to speak) at what she would have assumed was just a dream if it weren’t still here

[Congratulations! New power gained.

Photokinesis: (Light of all kinds bends to the power of your mind and obeys you without question. Generate, control, and shape the very photons as you desire. Your will is the will of light. With further training, this power may evolve into Light Elementalism or another similar power.

Please choose three new abilities/traits from the options below to go under the domain of your new power:

Hard-light shaping: ability - Create simple constructs out of solid light

Suneater: trait - Consume light itself for sustenance, bring a room to pitch blackness with just a thought

Hologram projection: ability – create non-physical three-dimensional images

Beam pulse: ability - fire a condensed lance of superheated light

Photon shield: ability – expend energy to generate a constant shield of hard-light

Illusionist: ability - Change how light interacts with an object to change how it looks to the naked eye ]

Sparse descriptions… she wished she had more information on the options, but from the little she had it all seemed pretty damn good. Hell, just getting a new power was an amazing achievement. Still, new abilities weren’t a choice Shelly took lightly. Usually, she would have someone to talk through it with like she had done for Bac, Doc had always… but Doc wasn’t here…

She was sure Bac would be happy to return the favor. She seriously needed to update him on What had happened anyway. She pushed her mind through their restored connection, sending her best simulation of the feeling of a tap on the shoulder. She felt a jump on the other end and then words, images, and sensations began flowing into her mind from afar, collecting themselves into messages.

{Shelly! Thank Programmers you’re okay!}

Shelly’s heart warmed at the worry in his tone.

“Of course I’m okay you pile of junk. Do you think anything could happen to me?”

{You’re right, how could I expect to get rid of you that easily.} Bac said sending over the concept of a grin, {Seriously, though, what happened?}

Shelly sighed, “It’s a long story”

{What? You’ve been gone for like an hour at most…}

“Like REALLY REALLY long.”

{Explain.}

That she did. There wasn’t much to say as the attack itself hadn’t been that eventful, but she felt Bac’s nonexistent eyes widen as she described it. What actually made the story long was what she had to say after.

“I can't explain everything right now, it's not safe until we are at least settled in our security, but I can tell you that I think someone is coming after us, please be careful.”

The AI sighed, {You're really still not going to go into detail after you literally got jumped!?}

“I’m sorry but please just trust me. Have I lead you wrong yet?”

Bac thought for an annoyingly long time.

{No, I guess… But to be fair I don't think you've really had a chance to.}

“Grrm.”

{Okay, now it's my turn to catch you up} rather than explain Bac simply sent a video of his memories of the last hour, which Shelly absorbed in less than a hundredth of a second.

“Oh, so you ran into Com again. Weird.”

{Yeah. It didn't seem like a coincidence. I'm starting to think the two of you are talking about the same thing.} He stopped letting the pointed silence make the rest of his statement for him.

“I still can’t tell you.”

{Uhg!}

“Oh yeah! I got a new power.”

{I know you're trying to distract me.}

“That doesn’t mean it won’t work…”

Bac responded with a silent ‘stare’ that went on for much too long before conceding, {Sigh, So what’s the new ability?}

“Not a new ability, a new power! Like full on! It’s its own thing. Photokenesis.”

{What? Huh!? How the hell did you manage that!?}

“Mostly because I’m Fuuuuccckinng AWESOME! …And a system boon.”

{THEY CAN DO THAT!!!}

“I also got the ability version first, but apparently.”

{Wow! I need to level up again!}

“Wanna help me pick my new A.T.s”

{A.T.s?}

“It's just a way of referring to abilities and traits as a whole. I have to pick a few for my new power.”

{Oh, sure, I’d be more than happy to help}

Suddenly his voice changed slightly, Shelly was sure he didn’t realize it, but it was slightly different now, more mechanical. He was clearly still himself; it wasn’t as if his personality had changed in fact you could probably say he was heightened. Through their connection she could feel his mind speeding up, at this speed even reading War and Peace would take at most a few seconds, she knew from experience. Shelly wasn’t concerned though; she had no need to be. She had interacted with AI all her life and understood this was a natural reaction, as natural is something could be for an artificial being at least. Doc had done this too. It was just what happened when an AI was performing a task that aligned with their central purpose. That was part of the reason why she had asked Bac instead of Max anyway, who could give better advice than a sentient machine design specifically to help with this kind of problem.

{So, what are the options?}

“Here. I need to pick three.” She explained sending over an image of the options she had received.

Bac thought for half a second which was currently hours for him. And then finally spoke.

{Okay, so we can mark suneater off the list straight away. It doesn’t seem all that powerful and it definitely isn’t useful to you-}

“Actually, I want that one.”

{Why?! It seems like all it can do is make rooms dark and you don't need to eat, your container and the facility feeds you.}

“I do plan to get a body at some point. that would mean eating like a normal person. In that scenario, it would be really advantageous, who wants to have to stop and eat all the time.” She received a feeling of dubious exasperation from her companion, “Plus, what if the system fails? I don’t want to starve to death because of a power outage.”

{I'm self-powering and even if I wasn’t, you’d die from dehydration or go completely insane from sensory deprivation before you even got close to starving.}

That was terrifying but accurate.

“Hmm. Yeah, that’s technically true but I still want it. For the future and all that, plus who knows it may turn out to be useful.”

{I still really don't think you should.}

“Hmmm... okay let’s just put it on hold for now, I’ll select the other two first then we’ll see what we think.”

{Sure sure, whatever} Bac huffed clearly not convinced {I personally think hard light shaping is a must.}

“I was thinking the same thing. I'm pretty sure it could mimic the effects of photon shield at least somewhat, it probably won't be as easy or as effective but it's the fact that it can do it that matters. I could probably use it to earn that ability on my own later. I most definitely need something defensive though… with the whole droninja fight and the assassins I realize how much I actually lack a way to defend myself against most attacks. If I hadn't managed to learn to catch the light beam, I wouldn't have been able to do anything against the lasers that that elf douche shot...”

{I actually didn't consider that. I was just thinking that it seemed like a powerful ability in its own right. I'm just imagining you creating blades and stuff in the air to send them flying at enemies or creating spikes to stab them directly are any other myriad applications.}

“That would be pretty badass…” Shelly agreed “Okay, so one more to go”

{Two more.}

“Yeah… Two.”

{what about holograms, if you think about it, it could probably do the same thing for illusionist that hard light does for the shield.}

“Hm?”

{They just seem really similar. I mean, how hard would it be to slap a hologram on to something and make an illusion.}

“there’s most likely more to it, but It does seem pretty versatile.”

{I also get this feeling that Hologram projection and Hard-light shaping will synergize pretty well.}

“What makes you say that}

{I-I don’t know. Just a hunch…}

Shelly could accept that, if anyone was gonna have worthwhile hunches on this topic it would be Bac.

“Okay, so that’s Hard-light shaping, Hologram projection, and Suneater. So I’ll just select those no-“

{No. NO! Hey!!!}

“Oh, come on! We've struck everything else out. the only other remaining option is beam pulse, a purely offensive skill that I really don't need.”

{Why? Couldn’t yo-}

“We already discussed that hard-light shaping clearly has offensive applications, and even without it my telekinesis affords me a huge amount of offensive power.” she explained, “Especially now that I've trained it.” She added for good measure. It never hurt to butter someone up when you were trying to convince them.

{You know I can hear your thoughts, right?}

“What!? STOP!!!” she slammed her mental defenses down hard enough that she felt Bac wince, served him right. She sent a ‘glare’ his way opening them just enough for their normal communication.

{What!? I can’t help it!}

“Why am I trying to convince you anyway, they’re my powers. Suneater definitely has a huge amount of potential, imagine removing all the light from a situation completely blinding your opponents, while they’re stumbling around you can now attack from the shadows, Maybe even with a little finesse you could create like a maze or something to lead them where you want them to go.”

{well, beam pulse does seem like something out of an anime…}

He knew which buttons to push she'd give him that. but this wouldn't work on her.

“Oh Bacie, everything we can do sounds like something out of an anime…”

{Fair.}

“Suneater just seems like a better trait all around for me, if it's any consolation I'll try to learn beam pulse or something like it just like everything else.”

{Okay, I get it. You're not gonna budge on this one. Go ahead and select them.}

“Thhhhhhhankyou!” she imputed her decisions and held her mental hand over the confirm button “And thanks for the help I really appreciate it.”

With that, she confirmed her choices, and everything changed.