Oliver Lux, Ability Report. Testing done by Lux family at facility #001

  Ability Possessed: Telekinesis variant.

  Ability Estimation Breakdown:

  Self-Agility: -1

  Self-Strength (Tactile Telekinesis): 0

  Self-Durability Enhancement: 0

  Defensive Telekinetic Field (Projectile Defense): -1

  Inertia Increase (Shielding techniques): 0

  Inertia Decrease (Heavy Object Lifting): 4

  Note: Volumetric scaling and cost. Probably gravity field alteration.

  Precision Manipulation: 3

  Telekinetic Strength: 1

  Single Object Launch (“Sniper”): 9.8

  Multiple Object Sequential Launch: (“Machine Gun”): 2

  Perception: 0

  Controlled Object Adjustment Sensitivity: 3

  Autonomous Telekinesis: 2

  ---

  “How the fuck did you get a negative one on your projectile defense?” My sister asked, incredulous.

  “It seems that my telekinesis variant creates a field which always increases the velocity and force of projectiles passing through it, even if I attempt to slow projectiles down.”

  “And agility?”

  “It seems that when lifting objects, I decrease gravity on them, in exchange for some of that gravity increasing on me, making it slightly harder to move.”

  “But otherwise, you can’t buff yourself at all?”

  “It seems so.”

  “Lotta ‘it seems’ out of you.”

  I was exhausted. Immediately after I recovered I was asked to do intensive testing to see the limits of my abilities. And now, my sister wanted to spar.

  “Spar with me!” she begged.

  “No. I’m beat.”

  “Pweeeeeeeze” Myra pulled on my sleeve. Her pupils changed to black, grew a massive amount, and her eyes bulged in her face, until she looked more like an anime character than a real human.

  “You even manage to do that glimmer in their eyes. But otherwise, it’s not really that cute.”

  “Aww…” her pupils shrank back down and lost the shine, although they kept the black coloration. Her hair flickered between a ghostly blue and white.

  “But yeah. I guess I’ll spar with you.”

  ----

  We stood in an unadorned metallic room. Harsh bright lights scoured my tired eyes. A steel door, another vault door stood behind me again. My sister stood in front of me, relaxed.

  Laid around the floor near me, were an assortment of various objects. Blades, marbles, iron rods. I floated a few marbles and a rod into the air.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  My sister flexed, and it was like here skin went from stretchy to stout. Rippling waves flowed across her face. Her arms morphed into a chitinous, armored structure, like that of a praying mantis. Blades flowed out of various spots of her body. She grinned, an arrogant taunt towards her younger brother.

  “Take your time… I’ll wait”

  Mentally, it was like pulling back on a bow, or perhaps a slingshot. The marble vibrated, shaking like an invisible arm was struggling to hold the bowstring taut. I fired.

  A soft wump sounded, and then a thunk as it bounced off her chest.

  “Is that the best you got?” she jeered. Her face flickered into a caricature of mine, looking back at me. Dark hair, brown eyes with circles below them, twisted into almost cartoonish proportions looked back at me. But I was too tired to be angry.

  I put energy into the blade instead. But she started slowly walking towards me, and I had to back away, causing my focus to slip and slowing the charging process. As I backed into the vault wall behind me, I finally got a chance to release.

  She raised an arm to block, somehow sensing that I would fire off at that moment, and then a louder wump sounded, and the knife flew from by my side, to embedded in her arm. Despite resting halfway in, no blood flowed, was spilled, and her only response was a soft grunt.

  She reached over and pulled out the knife, before her arm stretched into a pole like structure, and her hand formed into a slot which held the handle end of the knife. A lever, from which she could exert more force and launch it at me.

  I would have dodged if I wasn’t so fucking tired. But instead, I ended up needing severe medical attention twice in a short period of time.

  “Olly!” Oliver woke up to his mother’s voice calling him downstairs. Groggy, he looked around. His room was much simpler than it once was. His toys, clothes, and decorations had been mostly packed up, and loaded into boxes. On his wall were posters of his parents, floating and looking over a city.

  He got up hurriedly pulled his clothes on. Downstairs, he could smell breakfast, eggs, waffles, and more. He rushed into the hallway, and as he was moving down the stairs, he tripped, and fell. He would have fallen face first onto the bottom of the stairs, if not for a thin layer of skin appearing under him, like a net catching him. His mother’s flesh undulated and morphed, as it put him onto his feet and then ruffled his hair. He followed the connection back to her, and saw his parents cooking in the kitchen. His father was humming a tune, as various cooking accessories and dishes floated around him. A floating pan jerked, and the pancake in it flipped into the air before landing back in his pan.

  To the left, his mother was involved in a similar affair, but without the telekinesis. Her body had a assortment of arms and hands coming out of her, which were manipulating the future buffet. Eyes appeared and disappeared along her form, some of them popping out on stems. One of her arms unzipped, teeth opening to reveal a tongue that eagerly lapped up some gravy. She hummed to herself, satisfied with the taste, as the arm re zipped itself up.

  Beyond the physicality, what awed Oliver was his newly awakened spiritual sense. Viewing his parents through a literal set of new eyes, they felt massive. Like a slumbering beast that had somehow managed to stuff themselves into a smaller form. Oliver’s dad turned towards him as the various floating objects stopped moving. With his hands, he held out a hand of orange juice, which Oliver’s mom poured. Walking up, he handed Oliver the hand.

  “I’m so proud of your, son.” It felt like a god’s attention was on Oliver. It would have been terrifying, if not for how comforting it was. Rather than feeling suffocated, it felt like his dad was giving Oliver a hug, and then reaching in and giving him a kiss on the forehead.

  Reaching out with his spiritual sense, Oliver attempted to return the gesture.

  “Oooh don’t tease him so much.” one of his mother’s hands took away the orange juice and then reached over to place it on the table, before she pulled him in for a hug — with only two arms. She had set all the stuff she was working on onto the dining room table, and had returned to a full human form.

  “Group hug!” she stretched out more hands, and then pulled his father, and his sister into the hug.

  “We are so, so, so proud of you.” she paused, “Now let’s eat!” They all sat down at the dining table, and where a buffet was laid out. Multiple types of omelets, waffles, pancakes, bacon, gravy, and more.

  A wonderful last supper — well, it was more like a last brunch.

  “Why don’t you tell us how it went?” Oliver’s dad asked. Oliver began speaking. The rest of the family dug in.

  —

  The doorbell rang.

  “That must be her! I’ll go get the door!” His mom, in her excitement, moved like a blur, to the door. Oliver sipped some water. His sister and father went silent, as the mood became somber. Equally spaced out clicks of shoes on tiled floor foreshadowed a business interaction.

  His mother came around the corner, leading another woman. A black woman, adorned in a black in gold business suit came around the corner. She had long braids, going down to her waist. Gold bangles decorated the braids. Around her wrists were gold bracelets, held parallel to each other by a series of chains. Sparks of electricity quietly jumped between the various gold accessories on her body. She carried a briefcase in her left hand.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” My father telekinetically dragged one of the chairs out on the table, while also putting the food away on the counter.

  She sat down, and set the briefcase down, opening it on the dining room table.

  “My name is Naomi Exshresa, and I lead the Lollipop mercenary corp,” she said with a straight face.

  “We have recently accepted a job, that we believe you may be interested in.” She pulled a paper out of the briefcase, with some text and an image of a white, unassuming man. Like a volcano erupting, my world went white with rage. I can’t breathe.

  An ocean surrounded me, and I was drowning. Sinking deeper and deeper as conscious thought escaped me.

  Then, I felt my father reach into my mind. It split open before him, before he cradled me in his tendrils, and pulled me back into the real world.

  “You’re gonna either have to get that under control, or negotiate with her.”

  “Yeah… I’ll see what I can do.” I looked at the image again, and she was still mad, but calm enough to not take my agency away.

  I skimmed the text. He was marked as a moderately dangerous warlock, wanted primarily for the murder I knew him for, and for collaboration with demons. His last known location was in North America.

  “We will be heading to America to capture him, and collect the bounty. We thought it appropriate to have a more long ranged operative for this job.” Possibly true, but there was only one reason that it would be me they came to first.

  I looked at his face again. Dirty blonde, brown eyes were burned into my mind.

  “I’m in.”

  3 days later

  I was packed up, and ready to go. Two suitcases, and a backpack would be following me around for… I don’t know how long.

  Naomi opened, with a few others behind her, and I stepped out of my house into the cold metal hallways of Lux facility 0.

  “I’m Naomi Exshresa, as you know, but you should meet the rest of the team, and become familiar with our abilities.” She was walking quite quickly, and I hurried to keep up. “I am an electricity cultivator from the southern half of the Split-States. I have reached the LEVEL. I specialize in melee combat, but I can do midrange if need be. She jingled the bracelets on her wrist.”

  Next, the monk spoke up. Clothed in light brown, loose, flowing robes, he was bald with blue eyes.

  “Hello,” He bowed his head a little, “I am Sigmund and I seek to be able to ignore that which causes me suffering.” So, one of the tank monks.

  Finally, the little girl eyed me warily. She couldn’t have been older than 12, and I paused, waiting for her to answer the implied question. She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth for a brief moment.

  “Names Cindy. Healer.” She reinserted the lollipop.

  “My name is Oliver Lux. I am a sniper,” I announced. “So, how long have you all been together?”