Briefing room 3, Circle headquarters, Central City, Earth
Sunday, October 16th, 0109 PA, 1400(CST)
Vector and Justice sat silently in the briefing room along with Supreme. The Aztec Confederacy had been amassing troops near the border a week ago. It had become obvious to everyone what was about to happen.
They had just finished being debriefed for a mission to stop the Aztec Confederacy from invading the US.
The rest of the Circle was currently in Europe helping fight off the forces that the Block Alliance and the Middle Eastern Alliance had sent against the European Union.
Supreme had been training the boys non-stop since the Gulf tragedy's memorial service. This had been their first mission.
Supreme commanded the forces while Justice and Vector protected the troops.
Everything had gone smoothly. The main forces didn't engage each other. Three of the AC's S+ ranks showed up but only Supreme and a man with black long hair and golden eyes wearing a gold outfit named el Sol fought each other.
The other two and the boy's protected the troops on both sides from the devastation caused by el Sol and Supreme's fight by forming energy shields over the troops.
After about 3 hours el Sol was launched over the horizon as a blast of flames and lightning ignited over the battlefield.
The AC's forces withdrew while the remaining S+ ranks agreed to a truce on behalf of the confederacy, at least until after the upcoming invasion.
Justice looked over across the table.
"At this point I'm seriously jealous. How the hell did you finish 2 weeks of homework in under 6 hours?"
Vector looked up from his holo-device.
"I increased my device's processing speed. Remember? Wanna use mine to finish your homework?"
Supreme just glanced at both boys then went back to reading the forms that showed the finalized version of the treaty.
Justice looked at his device on the table then up at Kai.
"That would be great. The one the school gave me is nice but it'll be another 3 days for me to finish all of the make-up work at this rate. Think you could upgrade mine?"
Kai took off his device and slid it over to John with a grin on his face.
"After you transfer that paper over, back everything up on the server. Then just give me yours. I'll upgrade it in case we get pulled from classes again."
Justice transferred his files to the Circle's main server before passing his device to Kai.
"Wait… Why didn't you offer to do this, like last year?"
Kai looked at him with a deadpan expression on his face.
"You never asked…"
Then Kai disappeared from the briefing room without giving John time to reply. Supreme laughed as John facepalmed.
"Grandpa, it's not that funny…" Then John started working on the paper he had transferred on to Kai's device.
Supreme stopped laughing and looked at his grandson grinning.
"I'm just surprised you didn't ask before." He then went back to finish reading through the 300 pages of the treaty.
"..."
—---------------------------
Matt's dorm room, Circle Academy, Central City, Earth
Monday, October 17th, 0109 PA, 1700(CST)
Matt, Vector and Justice sat on the floor next to Matt's bed. Matt set a gray crystal the size of a baseball on the ground between them.
"Now we're sure we won't explode when we try to absorb these things right?"
Vector looked at Matt and Justice.
"As long as we do it like we initially planned we'll be fine. Justice will heal us, you'll maintain our density, and I'll hold our atoms together. It'll sting a bit but that's it."
Matt's face went pale.
"The last time you said it was going to sting was the bath bombs!"
Justice's face went stiff as he looked towards the golden crystal in his hand and then at Vector.
"Wait are you saying it's going to be like the bath bombs?!"
Vector shook his head.
"No. No. It'll be the complete opposite…"
'We'll get destroyed from the inside this time so it's definitely not the same.'
Matt frowned.
"You're sure it's not like the bath bombs?"
Justice and Matt looked skeptically at Vector. Vector smiled with a look of confidence plastered on his face.
"I can definitely promise it won't feel the same as the bath bombs. Also if my theory is right we'll be way stronger once it's over. Like Matt will be at least an S rank stronger..."
'It will also be more intense and will feel like it lasts longer. I mean one's forming a power core and the other is solidifying his soul. If I could do it at 6 and 8 they'll be fine. They just need more energy.'
'So do I though. I have to remake my body with cosmic energy. The novels never described it very well but, I'm pretty sure I figured out the process. They've been generally right so far. I just wish I could find a temporal one of these.'
Vector took 3 crystals out of his backpack. One was silver, another a pale sky blue, and the last a deep indigo.
Matt stared at the indigo crystal with confusion written across his expression.
"And that's it? No experiment this time, right?"
Vector looked Matt in the eyes.
"I told you before the only part that isn't an established methodology is where I speed up your perception. That's why we'll have Justice healing us just in case."
Matt squinted as Justice started to nod his head. Then he stopped mid-nod and squinted his eyes as well. They both spoke at the same time.
"In case what?"
"In case what?"
Vector put the silver and blue crystals on his lap. He then held up the indigo one in both hands.
"In case you start to have an aneurysm or a stroke of course."
The indigo crystal began to glow as white and silver arcs of electricity started emanating off of Vector. As he sat there smiling he closed his eyes.
"Oh you better start now, otherwise this is gonna hurt a lot more."
Justice and Matt immediately held their crystals in both hands and closed their eyes. Gold and gray light soon showed from both boys and the crystals in their hands. The light never left the encircling lightning.
All the other crystals began to glow. Vector's eyes went wide in panic.
'Oh s**t!!! Why would someone put condensed energy structures inside of… That dragon is a d**k…'
('Ok, I got good news and bad news.')
Both boys didn't even open their eyes and tried to maintain what they were doing. They both replied in sync.
('Bad news!')
('Bad news!')
Vector looked at both boys for a moment. ('First, don't let go of those crystals no matter what I say after this point. If you do we will definitely die…')
Both boys gulped as they tightened their grips.
('The divine spiritual energy sources in your hands are about to explode and we're gonna be teleported somewhere outside the solar system, possibly the galaxy, maybe the other side of the universe with no way to stop it.')
Justices' brows scrunched.
('Wait good news!')
Matt's eyebrows rose in panic.
('We're so gonna die!!!')
('The good news is if we just do as we already planned we'll probably live. Though we still will definitely not be on Earth. So just keep on keeping on I guess.')
A tear floated off of Matt's cheek and evaporated.
('It is like the bath bombs…')
Had Justice and Matt not been distracted they would have noticed that all of the energy except the lightning emitted from Vector had seemingly slowed to a crawl.
In truth it became similar to the bath bombs only worse.
Vector had pulled them all into what was essentially a time bubble. Everything except themselves was moving at a snail's pace. This allowed for the abilities and perception of Matt and Justice to function at around a million times the norm. For Vector however he was functioning a thousand times faster than the others.
As Matt reinforced their bodies while Justice regenerated them, their forms were slowly being disintegrated and while being reformed at the same time tempering their bodies repeatedly. As this was going on Vector concentrated on slowing down the teleportation process and keeping their perception going as fast as safely possible.
'Ok… I… I was wrong. THIS IS WAY WORSE THAN THE BATH BOMBS! Stupid f**king dragon!!!'