The next week was a mess.

It was only a mess for me. Ironically, for the other people involved, it was almost like a vacation. Now that I had a better grasp of how my absorption actually worked, Naomi had asked her father for a little help making sure I could be all I could be.

My schedule became waking up, working out, eating, and then several of Kjootoo’s professional henchmen would get to work on beating me up.

Their powers were...weird. Tino, of course, would get to work pasting me, and even Caelo would help, standing by with a blowtorch and an arc welder. Kjootoo’s boys and girls would try to catch me by surprise, and I learned the name of several of the cowls and a bit about their powers.

I had to shift rapidly from absorption to absorption, and then find better ways to use the energy I gathered. I would empty out mostly, and then someone new would paste me. Kjootoo himself didn’t participate, but I had to learn resistance to several new abilities.

The guy with the creepy eyes, Sandman, was able to shift parts or all of his body into a separate… zone? When he shifted, he tended to leave a thin cloud of himself behind, and anything he intercepted got dragged into the zone where his body should be. He would eject them instantly missing a whole bunch of little bits of their body that hadn’t transferred with them because those bits of his own body were still there. That was his nastiest attack, but he also liked to just disappear parts of his body, shove those parts into someone else, and a piece of their body would reappear nearby the same shape as his fist. Or whatever.

That power nearly forced me to ‘reset’ the first time he used it, but eventually, ‘displacement’ became one of my resistances. It was vicious, but we found out that he was stopped by my bones.

Zipper was possibly even worse. He could create shadows that would try to ‘eat’ people’s energy, soul, or whatever. Once they left his body, he seemed to lose control of them a bit, but the pain and horror they caused while I built up my resistance were...possibly one of the worst things I had ever felt. He dressed in a flamboyant blue costume with yellow flames all over it, because apparently, fooling people as to his actual abilities was an important part of his job.

The irony was, having me as a target dummy was actually helping Zipper increase his own control. His power was deadly, but it only worked against living creatures. Having a live target to work against that his shadows couldn’t feed on until it died was increasing his ability to restrain them… by the time the week was done, he had managed to figure out how to coax them into only eating a little, enough to damage me psychically without forcing a reset, and knock me unconscious.

I had been worried that Zipper’s powers would be my final downfall since they didn’t cause any physical damage other than desiccation, but apparently, my entropic control was just as willing to reset from getting my soul, mind, or energy chewed on as anything else. ‘psychic damage’ was the new resistance, and in my mind’s eye it was right next to ‘mentalism’ in resistance categories. One of those things that Proteus doesn’t like to admit existed.

On the last day of the week, things changed a little.

“We need to go to a negotiation,” Naomi said.

“We?” I asked, shoveling food into my mouth. We had slept together, or at least in the same bed, since the boating incident, but she had admitted that now that she had her powers under control we might need to reassess the original role a bit… She liked the idea of having me as a friend and a mook but didn’t feel the need to have protection from physical contact as a cowl. Sooner or later, we would probably end the relationship the same way I often ended relationships with cowls, for example, but it wasn’t too much of a worry.

I had actually been considering suggesting we move up the schedule on that a little bit. Dumping George publicly would be easy, but PowerDox and mook #1 were two totally different entities… it might be easier if I had my own cowl identity, and worked as her meta-henchman, while she tried to pick up some new mooks. I would be more than happy to advise her on her choices, but for the time being PowerDox would probably be more useful.

Naomi nodded at me, “We, meaning me and Tino, Kjootoo’s known associates. More than three people might be considered a sign of a lack of confidence or an attempt to start a war, and we have to have this meeting to lay down the law with the other Cartels about our territory.”

I nodded, “You want me to play surveillance games? I can do that.”

She shook her head, “No. The cartels will have their own metas doing that, and we have Maximum as our outside girl. She is… very good at it.”

I thought about it. “So you want me to just hang out here?” I asked.

She nodded, then again, I wasn’t feeling bad about it. Naomi was damned close to a class B on her own, and while Tino was only a class D, he was damned good at it. Kjootoo was technically only a class C, but his abilities were a lot like Zipper’s… except that his Loas could go anywhere he knew about, and had a lot of strange abilities.

If Power classifications were based on more than sheer property destruction, I was pretty sure he would be classified as a B or maybe even an A. The only problem was that they were strategic, rather than directly useful in combat. He could make a class B have a heart attack and die, or a safe could fall on the president, or the entire board of Blackened Wrecker could have misfortune and make the company fail and no one would know any better… but his effects tended to be subtle and take some time to accomplish.

If Caelo were right about Alchemyst giving everyone power, the idea of someone considerably less stable and subtle than Kjootoo having a power like his was terrifying.

“We aren’t taking anyone else with us, and the place will be empty.” she smirked a little, “Except for you, Caelo, and the crew, and maybe Ve… umm… a friend of hers will show up to spend time with her. She’s rather attached to Lauren’s little boy.”

“Oh really?” I countered brilliantly. I was at a bit of a loss.

She nodded, “Yep. My Dad figures you can protect her, and he won’t leave the boys here. He trusts you for some reason, but both Sandman and Zipper have… issues. He doesn’t want them around without someone with exotic attack powers just in case they get rowdy.” She wiggled her nose. “You and Caelo, here… alone…”.

I nodded, there were more than a few of those types running around and working for cowls, usually as enforcer minions. They were a bit of a double-edged sword. They were powerful, but having a known psychopath with explosion powers and impulse control problems who might decide she takes offense at all of your male mooks while you aren’t around to restrain her could have a poor impact on your career, permanently.

Yep, been there too. Chronic was dead, but her boyfriend, Lure, would probably be spending another decade in power max. It was better than Stronghold, but not by much, and Lure was not such a bad cowl… but he was saddled with Chronic’s crimes because he’d let her leash slip at the wrong time.

She giggled a little evilly, “Plus, I know enough sign now to know that she’s sorta fixated on you. I think she’s a mask junkie, she fixated on Louis the same way when he showed up.”

I shrugged, “She thinks I am a good man. I’m not, but she doesn’t seem to be getting the idea.” Plus I was getting a little fixated in return. This might be a good time to have another long talk with her. Break things off before I looked forward to burying another wife.

Naomi laughed! “And you wonder why my pop trusts you.”

Actually, I did.

“I have a confession to make.” Caelo signed to me. Her real name was Calixte Lovelie Dupree, which was almost as lovely a name as its shortened form, Caelo. No, dammit. Get it out of your head!

I was doing pushups, after having pushed my energy flex to its minimum possible level… right now, without filling up my resistance pools, my base strength was darned near enough to qualify as a Class D, just from residual energy, the energy I absorbed naturally from the environment, alone.

But, if I emptied out my core pool as much as possible to resist as many types of energy as possible, I could get just as good of a workout out of doing pushups, situps, or lifting weights as a normal guy my size.

“What would that be?” I asked, huffing a little as I watched the helicopter containing Kjootoo, Tino, and Naomi heading off toward Cuba. Sure, Cuba was off-limits, right up until you offered a little scratch.

“I have not been completely honest about how my power work.” she offered, wiggling around until she could sit, cross-legged, right in front of me so I could see her speaking. Her current outfit, a pair of long shorts, a tee shirt, and boat shoes, made her look about ten years old, especially with her hair done up in a pair of giant ponytail bobs on either side of her head. She definitely was not ten years old, though, since apparently, she decided with her pop gone it was a good time to avoid wearing a bra under the tee shirt.

Unlike Naomi, she didn’t bother to use any relaxer, preferring to either braid it or hold it in styles. Her hair was considerably softer than I had expected, due to her islander heritage, probably, but it still tended to puff up if she didn’t braid it down. I actually found it kind of adorable, and wanted to run my hands through it and grab the...nope, nope, nope. I started pushing up harder against the arm deck.

“Of course, you haven’t been,” I said, puffing harder. My endurance was pretty stupid right now, so I had to get in a good 300 pushups to feel any burn. “You don’t ever tell anyone everything you can do. For instance, I haven’t told anyone I can shoot beams of whatever energy I absorb through my eyes.”

“You can?” her eyes went wide.

I grinned, “Maybe, although I haven’t tried it yet.” I didn’t think I could. My energy seemed to all default to a set type, no matter what its source was. When I absorbed a shot of anything, it pooled inside of me, and when I filled a resistance, the same stuff just let me absorb more.

She snerked at me, and I grinned, “So what is it you were about to confess to me about how your powers work? If you are going to try and convince me that you can make a guy lust after you, I already figured that part out.” I stuck my tongue out at her as I went for another rep.

“No. but that scan you feel sometimes? That’s what I can do actively, it helps me figure out stuff about people, like if they are crazy or wanting revenge or something.” She smiled a little, “But I can pick up things off of people, kind of like a radiation of what they are feeling if it’s strong enough.”

Crap. I stopped halfway down. This was a trick many drill sergeants used, stopping with your forearms at a perfect 90-degree angle to your upper arms, because it was incredibly stressful, and quickly could make even the biggest guys start to tremble. I used it because the burn helped make the rest of my pushups much more effective.

“In that case, I guess I owe you an apology.”

“Why?” she signed.

“Because lots of times I look at you and have inappropriate uhh… urges. Then again, I am a healthy guy, and you are sexy as hell, so I try to keep it to myself.”

“That’s how I knew you and Naomi were having fun. She is used to locking her emotions tightly inside, where even I cannot feel them, but you… you just have them. You hide the signs perfectly, but you don’t lock them down. I cannot scan through your shields, but you just sorta throw it out where I can see it.”

I chuckled. “I used to lock it down, for a while but found out that eventually they bust loose anyway, and the results can be way worse than just hiding them. It’s better just to admit them to yourself, and work around them. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it can certainly close them and let them scar over.” I was starting to wobble a little, and started doing pushups again.

“Why are you afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of you.” I automatically replied.

“Yes, you are. You look at Naomi and feel fond, and protective, and a little lusty, but you look at me and get all super emotional and then think about something else.”

I rested on the deck for a moment, my tee-shirted chest pressed against the warm metal underneath me, and thought about it for a moment before I shifted to one hand and started on sideways pushups with my left arm.

“Do I really have to explain it? Look, first off, if I got carried away, and we wound up doing something we shouldn’t, it could screw up what was going on with Naomi. Some crewman catches me making out with you and suddenly she looks like she’s getting cucked.”

I switched hands and started doing them with my right arm instead. I had gotten some rest on that side, so I had to push a bit faster. “Secondly, I think your dad tolerated me messing around with your sister because she had no other options. She was getting to a breaking point and might have killed herself or someone else. Most humans are not meant to never touch anyone else, ever, and she’s been there since her powers first manifested. I think he might have been desperate and afraid to lose her.”

She looked me in the eye and then signed, “And Me?”

I sighed and curled around to sit cross-legged across from her. “And you, you aren’t Naomi. You are completely my type.”

She chuckled a little, “Being into black girls must have been tough in the ’30s.”

I shook my head, “Not like that. I mean, physical types, sure, but I like women of most shapes and sizes. Skin colors too. Your mind though, you have that… uhh… well, there are lots of different types of girls, and I have a certain type of personality I am attracted to way too much, and you have it.”

“Submissive?” she signed, wiggling her eyebrows. “Someone you could dominate?”

“No, not that. I mean, you have that a little bit, but more like… you are not closed off. If you need someone, you need them, and won’t go all self-reliant in rebellion. You are self-reliant enough, more than enough, but don’t need to use that as a shield to protect yourself from anyone that cares about you.”

“How do you know so much about my personality? Now I wonder if you really can use a power you have absorbed.”

I shook my head, “Nope. I just have been married to two people that were the same way. Smart, strong, but fragile in exactly the way that I like. I tried something different, once, but it did not work.”

I chuckled, “So the answer to you is simple. You are my type, or close enough, but I have been through the pain of losing what I care about like that twice. I don’t want to do it again.”

“They were killed?”

I nodded, “One by cancer, the other one by old age.”

“So you are worried about getting attached to me, and then losing me because I get old and you don’t?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I admitted, cautiously, as I stretched my arms out. When you did a lot of exercises, you had to make sure that you limbered both before and after your workout… it tended to cost a little visible muscle mass, but not much density, and keep your flexibility up. I thought my muscles looked alright, and I wasn’t willing to lose the ability to clasp my hands behind my back just for a few inches more in my chest and arms.

Caelo was chewing on her thumbnail before she finally replied. “How long do you think you will live?”

“Hopefully not forever,” I replied. “I am not planning on committing suicide, although I have tried before after my first wife died. It just doesn’t work. I doubt very much I could survive a nuke, though.”

“How long do you think I will live?” she asked.

I shrugged, “You are in amazing shape, and healthy, and metahuman. I know that I have lived since 18-something, and some metas age slowly… but you don’t have physical powers. Most of the non-physical metas age slowly, but a lot faster than the bricks and mostly die trying to resist something they cannot handle. If you don’t get into the villain or hero game and don’t have any accidents, I am figuring you probably have at least 70 years.”

She shook her head, “Wrong. Guess again, try for higher.”

“Okay, a hundred years?”

She smiled broadly, showing off beautifully white teeth.“Try again. Bear in mind, Louis knows my life expectancy from his bio scans. I have something called micro-energy manipulation, which is a healing subtype.”

I was thoughtful. Healer types did tend to stay young longer. “I don’t know… Metahumans have only been around a little over a century. I know Corona was a healer, and she looked like she was only twenty for almost thirty years, but she aged a little bit before she caught a bullet.”

I threw a punch in the dark and started to stretch out my leg muscles. “Okay, two hundred years?”

She shook her head again and signed. “I don’t know. Neither does Louis, and he has scanned people with a life expectancy into the 300s. As far as we know, your lifespan as a metahuman is based on your potential category.”

“My potential category is S. After category B, you don’t really seem to have a lifespan anymore. You live until something kills you. Obviously, I might not live as long as you, since anyone can catch a stray bullet, but you wouldn’t have to worry about me dying of old age or cancer.”

She twisted a little, “I make up my mind about people quickly, I already know he’s stuck on Lauren… she tried to sell him into slavery, and they made up. I was disappointed, But I love Lauren and I am glad she’s found someone. But I already know that you are mine, like it or not. You might as well just give in to the inevitable.”

I shook my head. “You are that sure of it, just like that?”

She nodded, “Absolutely. I even asked Windfall, and she said there was close to a 96% chance that we would have two children before it was too far out to predict. She also said that there was a better than 80% chance that.”

She stopped a second. And then signed, “That we’d be making happy noises together before this weekend is out if I told you about it.”

I got to my feet. Dammit. I needed time to think. “I need to run around the deck. See you at breakfast?” I asked.

“Count on it,” she replied.