Chapter 1.2.9 — Better Already

The surgery on Emmett’s arm took a little over half an hour.

Even though Dr. Venture hadn’t mentioned any risks to his prosthetic, Emmett was still anxious when the metal sheathing was reattached and the pain blocking diodes were removed. He wasn’t fully convinced until both he and Venture worked on making the adaptations to his mods.

The tools felt just as dexterous and familiar to Emmett as they had before. Compared to having his arm splayed open, it felt more like engineering.

When they finished, Venture set his tools down on the table and sighed. The hologram hovering above the table winked out. “Well, this is the moment of truth.”

Emmett picked up the impact shield and nodded.

Clara walked over watch, stretching and yawning. “It’s about time.”

Emmett popped open the compartment in his forearm and slid the rails together. It clicked into place, and Emmett felt the artificial nerves connect.

Excitedly, he stood and summoned the shield. Slivers of the shield extended like an accordian, forging the circular shield in a tenth of a second. Though Emmett hadn’t used the impact shield nearly as much as the whip, the process of summoning the mod felt as smooth as ever.

“Next!” Clara announced, reflecting his smile.

Disconnecting the mod proved trickier, but Emmett repeated the process several more times, then again with the other two mods. After a few minutes of practice, Emmett had the motion quick enough that he’d almost feel comfortable doing it in combat. Almost.

Clara crossed her arms. “You know what’s next, right?”

Emmett nodded, already moving to gather up the other mods. “Time to go to the Gray Room.”

She scoffed. “Hell no! It’s Friday night. Let’s go out on the town.”

“Clara’s right,” Venture said, catching them both off guard. “Go enjoy the evening. I insist.”

Emmett and Clara shared a glance before bidding Venture good night and walking out of the room.

When the door slid closed behind them, Emmett asked, “He’s talking about suiting up and going out right?”

Clara nodded. “Yeah… What else would he be talking about?”

Emmett quickly shook his head, hoping his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “Suiting up. Yeah. Sure.”

~

The pair went to section 004, the armory. The only place as strange as the Gray Room.

This time, the hubs and hallways mirrored through each section ended in a large open air room several hundred feet in all directions. The overall shape was spherical, but each of the walls were blocky, like the uneven steps of an ancient pyramid, though made of sleek metal alloy.

It almost turned his stomach to stare too long, like an abstract drawing that played tricks on the eye.

Instead, Emmett focused on Clara as they ran across the catwalk and she summoned her exosuit from storage. It floated over to the central platform without wires, propulsion, or power of any kind—Emmett still wasn’t sure how the armory worked and he doubted that he would get a straight answer anytime soon.

The exosuit itself was only a little less impressive. It was sleek and form fitting, with just enough rigidness to suggest that it was armor. The back opened up and Clara tossed her hoodie and beanie onto the catwalk, then slid in the back of the suit.

Emmett wiggled his metal fingers, suppressing his jealousy. Ever since he was a kid, Arsenal had been one of his favorite heroes. That was who Clara reminded him of now—

Which made sense because Clara and a few other heroes had taken the name Arsenal since the original retired.

A Fast-Response drone set down beside Emmett and split open like a giant closet. He set his duffle bag of mods in the lower corner of the drone, then hopped inside, feeling the mesh surround him as the doors closed. The cool, almost moist-feeling material encased his entire body, leaving only a small pocket of air around his mouth and nose.

Emmett tried to control his breathing. Even when he knew what to expect and knew it was for his own protection, he still felt claustrophobic. Still felt trapped.

A moment later, Emmett was surrounded by complete darkness and felt a small lurch as the Fast-Response Drone took off.

TINA’s voice came through a moment later to confirm: “Following exosuit.”

~

Emmett and Clara set down in the warehouse district, toward the outer limits of the Eastside. Most factories and warehouses out this far weren’t in operation; they were either boarded up or completely trashed from supers using the abandoned areas as training.

Despite their recent clash with Porcelain and the unknown super in this same district, it was still the best area in the city to test powers. This was especially true for Class 1 and Class 2 supers who wouldn’t be wrecking entire buildings with their fights.  Clara had even told him how it wasn’t unheard to have friendly brawls with other low-level supers.

Emmett grabbed his bag of mods and hopped out of the drone. Then he followed Clara into the middle floor of the warehouse, stepping over the trash and broken glass littering the floor.

Despite the bulk of Clara’s exosuit, she moved in near-complete silence. Emmett did his best to follow her lead.

As they went in, he was thankful for his low-light vision. Despite the trickles of light through boarded up windows, he could see every piece of glass and even read writing on the crumpled up newspaper. The only thing that was really affected was his ability to see color—in low-light the world appeared in shades of gray.

Finally, Clara stopped at a suitable room. From the looks of the broken furniture piled in the corners, it was another office room.

“This place is as good as any,” Clara said through her mic. “Let’s try out your impact shield.”

“You just want to shoot at me.”

She grinned. “Maybe.”

Before they left, Emmett had defaulted to the whip, so he pulled the new mod out of the duffle bag and changed it out. The impact shield into place with a click.

“That is so much easier than before,” Emmett exclaimed.

“You should be proud of it. It was a good design.” The earnesty in Clara’s voice caught Emmett off guard, but before he could reply, she added, “Think fast.”

Clara raised her hand and air shimmered around the palm of her exosuit.

Instinctively, Emmett raised his arm and called the impact shield. It snapped into existence just as Clara fired a kinetic blast at him.

A surge of heat and power slammed into the shield with a hollow clang, the force making Emmett skid backward across the floor.

Emmett peered over the top of the shield, cautiously.

Clara stared at him, face unreadable behind her dark helmet. “Not bad… Again!”

~

They went back and forth in the warehouse, testing the impact shield and the new quick connect system.

The impact shield held up much better than Emmett expected, feeling like an extension of his metal arm. It was even faster to deploy than his whip was, and weathered Clara’s kinetic blasts without problem. His metal arm held up fantastically as well. Emmett was afraid to ask just how much power Clara was putting behind each shot, but he was confident that the shield and his arm could hold up against any Class One threats and most Class Two.

The rest of his body was a different story. After a half an hour or so of constant shots from Clara’s kinetic blasts, his chest felt sore from where the metal connected to flesh and bone, and the rest of his muscles were tired from bracing against the impacts.

By the time Emmett called for a break, he had a newfound appreciation for the limiters that Dr. Venture built into his arm.

“That’s all you got?” Clara asked, with only a hint of a smile in her voice.

Emmett smirked and leaned against one of the decrepit walls of the warehouse. “Some of us don’t have an exosuit doing the work for us.”

Clara scoffed. “...It’s not easy. It takes skill and concentration.” It wasn’t hard to tell that she was offended.

Emmett winced. “It was a bad joke. Sorry.”

Clara nodded, the gesture barely noticeable, and continued looking out through a sliver of the papered over window.

Emmett swapped out the impact shield for the concealable pistol and tried to change the subject. “So if we were just going to practice, why not stay in the Gray Room?”

“You mean you’d rather be in the Gray Room than out here in the ritzy part of Belport?” Humor bled back into her voice and Clara continued, “It feels like hiding, but even being out here in the warehouse district is better than being cooped up in the Gray Room.”

Emmett nearly winced again. He’d never really pried about Clara’s personal life, and she’d never really hinted about having one. Of course she wouldn’t want to be cooped up underground all day.

The lab was awesome to someone that visited, but if their positions were reversed, Emmett would probably take every chance he could get to get some fresh air too.

Clara added, “It feels like hiding.”

“The Gray Room?”

She nodded. “Dad told me once that it could do full color, but he—”

Venture’s voice came through the comm link. “Supers inbound.”

Clara stepped back and raised her arms, targeting something on the other side of the window. Through the papered-over glass, Emmett could just make out the silhouette of someone hovering in mid-air.

In a commanding voice, the woman outside said, “This is the Summit of Heroes. Stand down and prepare for questioning.”

~ ~ ~