Shelly had lived a pretty normal life until she had met Bac. At least, as normal as you could get when you were a brain in a jar, smarter than most Nobel Prize winners and hooked up to machinery in a facility controlled by an artificial intelligence who had functioned as your only real parental figure. It had been her normal at the very least. That form of normality had been thoroughly exterminated the day that she woke up from an unwanted cryo-sleep and met her new… sibling? uncle? Cousin? She wasn’t strictly sure how one would describe their relationship, but she thought sibling was the closest.

Shelly thought she had adjusted surprisingly well to the situation over the last few weeks, she was doing well at not letting her more negative feelings display outward or let things like loss or the grief of Doc’s… end affect her too much, not at least until she had everything fixed and stable in her new life. At least as much as she can manage at the moment. She didn’t like that Bac had the ability to read her mind. Not only was it the worst possible invasion of privacy in her opinion, but she also had knowledge she couldn’t let him know about yet. It was far from personal and she had come to trust the AI, but for his own good, there were things he shouldn’t be informed of. Things you didn't want to know when you had a perfect memory. Knowledge that had led Doc to her plan that had resulted in her kill- Uhg! There she went again! She had to keep this shit out of her surface thoughts or that idiot might read them. Keeping her mind fully shielded all the time just wasn't viable, it took way too much energy and focus. Thankfully, Bac wasn't around at the moment, since both of their focuses were on their drones, they were for all intents and purposes actually in the city, at least mentally. He probably wouldn't read her mind from the facility.

Bac and the goblin girl had left a little while ago, so her internal monolog was safe for now. Still, practice makes perfect. A philosophy that her artificial asshole of a companion apparently agreed with whole-heartedly, when she had asked him to make her portal leading as near as he could get to the library he had flatly told her no, under the reasoning that since she was still using telekinesis to control her drone, the more she flew the better results she would get. As much as she hated him for it, she had to admit Bac seemed to know what he was doing in this aspect. What has been a persistent and painful headache on the first day had devolved into I mild annoyance and then just an unpleasant buzz that she could easily ignore. Better, she actually was gaining a bit of STR overtime doing this. It was only one to four every few hours, but that was much better than zero, especially without having to do any fighting of any kind. If she took into account the 30 points she had already gained through this method and assumed she would only get one point from these bonuses from now on, Averaging the amount of time between bonuses to four hours And subtracting 8 hours from each day for sleep and two hours for times she probably wouldn't be using her drone And finally adding the fact that her last bonus had been pretty recent it would take her 173 days 17 hour 40 minutes and 23 seconds to reach D rank. Much faster than most metas who weren’t in combat often, it still sounded like a long time but without performing a miracle, like defeating an enemy a full rank or two higher than yourself It could take years for the average person to progress. So being pretty much guaranteed to rank up in a little over half of one was a benefit even comparable to a system granted boon. She still doubted that she could endure lifting something too much heavier than her drone for long but all and all her improvement had been staggering.

Bac had let Mary go with him as requested so shelly was on her own making her way to the library. She was following the map Bac had gotten from the city’s central intelligence. The library wasn’t too far, so she should be able to make the event with no issue if she rushed. Having been lost in thought she only noticed her drone was headed for something when she ran into it

“Ow!” she cried despite actually feeling no pain. Her own cry was accompanied by a more masculine “Ah!” from the person she had bumped into

After righting herself Shelly looked up at the barrier she had slammed into. She was presented with a tall slender man with pointed ears and a franticly apologetic face despite the accident clearly being her fault. He was sporting a new cast on his arm and the light of recognition flashed in Shelly’s nonexistent eyes.

“Max?”

The half-dwarf frowned before his face lightened “Bac, right”

“No, the other one. Shelly.” she corrected making note to add some distinctive qualities to her drone as soon as possible.

“Oh…sorry” max whimpered his ears starting to turn red

“It’s cool, dude. So Why are you out today” she could already guess but she wanted to start some conversation

“have you heard about the Overheal signing? Well, since I didn't have much to do while I was waiting for you guys, I decided to check it out. maybe see if he can fix up my arm”

“I was actually headed there too, I guess we could go together”

“Oh… uh, that’s fine” the man responded, like a conversational brick wall

Determined not to let the dialog sputter out like this Shelly turned to another topic

“So, tell me a bit about yourself”

“uh-wha…I-um… w-what do you want to know”

You would think she was holding a gun to his head.

“Just personal stuff, what are your hobbies? interests? Read any good books lately? Do you like anime? Videogames?”

She watched as maxes eyes lit up at the last two questions and felt a swell of kinship in her nonexistent heart.

“I do like anime. have you watched zero-side?”

“No”

“Inkbled? season one of that is worth watching.”

“Max, I'm 50 years behind…”

“Lucky. You have so much good stuff to catch up on.”

Snort “And it only came at the cost of a loved one”

“Wha- GOD! S-sorry. That’s not what I meant…”

“No no it's not your fault… you didn't actually know…. it's just it's pretty recent for me.”

There she was thinking about it again. She decided to change the subject once more.

“So did valve ever make portal 3?”

“No actually it's still in development. But they might announce the release date soon.”

The two walked for a while talking about old (from max’s point of view) anime and video games,

Once you got him to open up Max was clearly intelligent, for someone without enhanced intellect at least, and had a pretty likable personality even if his social skills were a bit lacking. He got all her jokes and references and even made some of his own which were actually very funny. Eventually, they moved on to talking about powers, she made sure to record this conversation to send to Bac when he was less busy.

Max explained how much strain his powers put on his body, and how that affected his fine control. One of the biggest problems that he had was that the radius of control extended outward from his center. Meaning that no matter what he did to the gravity of the area, he would always be caught up in it. He just didn't have the body to be able to use his power properly. So Max often ended up breaking his own bones. He would have stopped using his powers altogether if he weren't his father's son.

“People expect me to be a hero one day… plus even if I try to stop sometimes they activated by themselves when I get over emotional…. So, there’s really no escape from it.”

Returning the favor Shelly went on to explain her powers and the weaknesses she suffered from. She also slipped in some advertisement about how Bac was helping her. Just being a good friend.

Their chat lasted for a bit longer until they found Crossing through an alleyway as a shortcut.

Without warning a Dome of light seemed to surround them and Shelly felt something in her snipped, She could no longer feel her connection with Bac and the system in the back of her mind, it felt as if her being was contained entirely within her drone, that could not be a good thing.

Max was now frantically glancing around them, his face was as pale as Shelly’s would have been, she was desperately trying to talk to Bac or access any part of the facility, but she just couldn't. She had nothing but her drone and no matter what she tried she couldn't pull herself out of it. She was an expert on many things, most things maybe, but she was no expert on whatever was happening to her right now Still she had the feeling that if the drone were destroyed at the moment it wouldn't be healthy.

A voice echoed out from the other end of the dark alley, “Sorry kids, it's nothing personal.”

It was followed by chuckles by two other voices. Appearing seemingly out of nowhere step three figures, two men and a woman. The woman had her arms outstretched and the light strain on her face made Shelly guess that she was most likely to the one keeping the forcefield up, and possibly the one binding her to her drone.

“We were offered good pay to take you out. “

One of the men grinned he had rocky skin and what seemed like dirt for hair, even his teeth looked to be quartz. The sound of him cracking his knuckles was like two boulders being rubbed up against each other. Even that small action caused the earth to shake beneath him.

The second man was tall with dark gray skin and white hair. His ears were distinctly pointed. He scowled, and his eyes went from the dark grey that they were to a glowing red, the light barely being contained by the orbs.

An earth elemental, a drow, and a human meta if she wasn't mistaking.

“Let’s get this over with.” the drow groaned

Without giving Shelly a chance to respond, he sent a beam of light from his eyes, forcing her to roll out of the way at the same time the elemental took a large stomping step causing the earth to ripple under max’s feet spikes of stone began barging from beneath the concrete forming a line from the earth elemental’s feet and moving towards the half-elf. He let out a yip and he and all the loose stone in a five-foot radius rose from the ground, falling upward to the ceiling of the dome about 15 feet above. He landed in a heap but quickly sprung back to his feet to avoid hurled rocks kicked up by their rocky friend. Shelly was busy dodging eye beams, her perception was sped up to near maximum and each shot took subjective hours but she couldn’t afford to take chances, she rolled her drone out of the lasers way at just the right moment letting her keep her maneuverability to the maximum, whenever she got the chance She would lift a rock with her telekinesis in try to send it flying at the woman generating the forcefield Who smoothly Dodged each and everyone, she also spared some attacks for her aggressor switching to the air bullets that she had used when fighting the dronsumo, focusing on each individual cluster of molecules and forcibly compressing them made her head throb but it was worth if for the effectiveness of near-invisible projectiles, or it would have been if the drow didn’t fire directly into the path of her attack every time, the intense heat causing the gasses to expand and disperse, She had forgotten to account for the enhanced eyesight that all drow shared. Even a small disturbance in the air was likely notable to him. What could she do then? What she needed was a mirror, a mirror strong enough to reflect the beams that were coming out of the guy's eyes. A memory came to her then seemingly random. what had Bac said her path to power was… She could use different types of mind powers as long as she trained her telekinesis And pushed the force of her thought upon the world. At least that's how she thought of it. well she had been training this was a good time to try something as any and if this worked she may still be able to make it to meet Overheal.

Despite the risk, she felt giddy with excitement and the opportunity for discovery. First, she allowed her mind to speed up further taking the movement of the lasers from a crawl to near stillness. She tried pushing on them That did nothing as she found that she couldn't grasp the beams themselves. She took some time to think about what she knew about light and that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum Better pushing on the light she tried creating waves that it could follow The feeling was incredibly strange because it suddenly wasn't telekinesis anymore It was like she was using an entirely different part of her brain foreign but Still definitely a part of her Forced to consider the concept of having an aneurysm. because our head hurt so bad. It was worse than anything she had ever experienced like the universe was on fire. She was actually forced to return to normal time as to not prolong her suffering. Still, even through the haze of agony, she could see that it worked. One of the lasers was now completely under her control. The drow paused shock written plain across his face. Shelly took the opportunity for what it was and sent the beam of light hurtling back at him, the beam went straight through his leg severing it at the knee (she didn’t want to kill him) and he collapse to the ground not even bothering to scream before falling unconscious The fight was very much now in their favor is what Shelly would think if she was an idiot the force field was obviously light based in based on the expression of anger on the woman's face she knew that they could probably escape Shelly wouldn't let that stop her

“MAX! Get down here please!”

The half-dwarf dropped down to the floor, this time managing to land on his hands and feet.

“I need you to increase the gravity as much as you can In as big of an area as you can”

“But I can't-“

“just do it!” Shelly shouted landing her drone and hoping it could withstand the pressure while she was trapped inside.

Then she set herself to a task

The leader of the mercenaries grimaced and shouted at the earth elemental “she’s trying to break the field. Get them!”

The stone behemoth ran at them his steps not even slowing as he reached max’s slightly increased gravity what they grunt of effort from Max the gravity increased further, slowing the elemental to a snail's pace, each step Taking as much effort as lifting a 500-pound weight. edit Max crumpled under the strain of his own power. While Shelly was more focused on fighting against the powers of the other woman. their minds struggled in a battle of wills. The mercenary doing everything she could to keep Shelly from freeing max and herself She pushed and the woman's face turned pained But another moment the woman pushed back and the pain that Shelly was experiencing doubled They went back and forth for what felt like hours but was probably only seconds Until with one final push and all her mind She finally pierced through the bitch’s guard burying her thoughts like a nail into the barrier. just like that the barrier keeping them inside shattered and the woman collapsed.

Shelley's mind was fuzzy her thoughts seem to be fading in and out like some sort of broken…She couldn't think of a good analogy at the moment…everything felt off…But he still had the wherewithal to go through the notification that she had received in her mind's eye

The first was the notification of STR gained She didn't go over it in detail, but she had gained a total of 125 STRENGTH from this battle

the second was more interesting.

[Congratulations! Through continuous use of your powers in a form outside of your current abilities or traits, you have adapted a new ability.

photokinesis: ability (Control light with your very will, With this ability, you can shape reform and solidifying light)]

The third one was even more interesting

[You have leveled up! Your rank is now E-3.

Due to leveling up and taking a step on your path to power at the same time you have been granted a major system boon

System boon: the newest ability you have gained [photokinesis] will be transferred from your abilities list to be registered power of its own]

[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 from the options below to go under the domain of your new power-]

She didn't get the chance to read the last part as even her mental vision seemed to flicker.

She looked around surveying what she could. The earth elemental had collapsed under its own weight thanks to Max.she was pretty sure it was unconscious too though she had no idea how that had happened.

“Max…” she slurred

“Yes. Are you okay!?”

“I…think so…listen, I’m gonna need you to carry my drone.”

“what? Why?”

“Because honestly, I think I'm about to pass ou-“

And just like that, the world went black.