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Chapter 16: My Current Power is Not Nearly Enough.
(One day later)
(Angel's P.O.V)
An abandoned railway station.
That's where Professor Ivo's lab was. I couldn't blame the guy either. Finding a good lair is hard. Especially when you're a mad scientist who happens to like creating machines to conquer the world.
My kind of guy.
The instant we exited through the shadow, a few robot monkeys flying on jetpacks, took immediate notice of us.
I felt Candi grab onto my leg, hiding behind me in fear of the black and green mechanical creatures.
The monkeys chatter spread out as they led our small group of two(Shade was in my shadow) deeper into the lair which was constructed below the rail tracks.
A light bloomed at the end of the small corridor we were in. And within seconds, we emptied out into a much larger space that looked like a robot's nightmare.
Half complete metal chasis, robotic limbs and other parts were being transported on conveyer belts.
There were also more of the robot monkeys everywhere.
Some were carrying large equipment and others were helping the good professor with his tinkering.
Speaking of, Ivo stopped what he was doing, placing the tools on the worktable before turning around to face us.
"Well well, master Savage! You've grown quite tall since the last time I saw you."
The diminutive man spoke, jumping off the small ladder he was on, only to glide to the ground with the assistance of two robot monkeys.
And he was right. I had grown tall, the two of us now standing at eye-level.
I felt a smile stretch across my lips.
"Morning professor, sorry for dropping in unannounced."
"Bah."
He waved me off.
"Your father was even worse. He used to come in whenever he pleased. At least you had the decency to arrive in the morning."
His eyes fell to the little girl latched onto my leg.
"My word, is that the young Scandal Savage I see?"
Ivo chuckled.
"The last time I saw you, you could barely lift a bottle top with your powers."
"I wonder how strong you are now."
He mused to himself, rubbing his chin.
"That's...why we're here today Professor."
I told him, patting Candie on the head as she hid behind me. She didn't do well with people she didn't know.
"A power test then?"
Ivo guessed.
"For her or for you?"
"For both of us."
At my statement, the Professor blinked before his expression turned ecstatic.
"Oh goodie! You came to the right place, young Savages!"
And from there the next two hours were spent going through a series of tests, 'designed to push us to the extreme,' quoting the professor of course, 'for an effective error free evaluation!'
The eccentric professor had led us to an almost empty storage facility, filled with scrap metal and rusted containers.
It didn't look like much, certainly not viable for power testing.
Up until Ivo got his Monkeys on the job. Or rather as he corrected me, Mobile Optimal Neural Quotient Infiltrators, MONQIs in short.
Within a few minutes the whole storage facility looked different.
There were sensor cables running from different machines, all feeding data to the massive computer, the small rocket packed MONQIs had carried in.
After some heavy lifting and a few diagnostic checks, Ivo clapped his hands, grabbing everyone's attention.
During the whole thing, I was on the ground on my 7th set of pushups, with Candi on my back controlling 10 marbles into a model of the solar system, as part of a few training methods the two of us devised.
"You ready?"
I asked and got confirmation from a marble whizzing past my face.
I jumped up, flipping onto my feet with a small heave.
Candi floated to the ground, holding onto her floating teddy bear, Teddy's hands.
I was hoping to get her telekinesis control to a point where she could fly by herself. She could already lift objects much heavier than her, so the current limitation was more mental than physical.
Or maybe we were missing something. She was Homo Magi like me. But magic was still a relatively new subject for us. And without a teacher, I needed more magic books, but those were short in supply.
Fortunately, I already had Shade scouring the globe for more, although it was slow going.
-0-
"First, the little lady."
Ivo spoke, wearing his googles whilst ushering Candi to stand before a few large metal beams stacked on top of one another.
"Now each beam is approximately 200 kilograms or 440 pounds if you prefer the Imperial system. I need you to lift each of these beams and create a square shape."
Ivo explained, showing a depiction of a crudely drawn square on a piece of paper.
Candi looked back at me. I gave her a thumbs up and she turned to face the front, a determined expression on her face.
She raised her hands and I could almost feel her extend her magical energy forward, covering the beams in a green aura.
Then slowly two of the beams smoothly rose, creating an L shape in the air.
Strain evident on her face, she shrouded the other two and shakily lifted them in the air as well.
"That's 1 tonne Young Master."
Shade said from my shadow, sounding impressed.
She managed to just line up the last two with the first two beams, creating the square shape in the air, before the strain became too much and she dropped them.
Before her legs could give out, I was there, holding her shoulder.
"Proud of you Scandal."
She smiled up at me.
"Nicely done young lady. Here, a sweet for your hardwork."
The professor complimented while clapping.
One of the MONQIs on Ivo's shoulder extended its tail forward with a lollipop held in its grip.
She hesitated, first looking at me for permission. I nodded.
"Thanks."
Candi received it.
"Now it's my turn."
I moved past her, addressing Ivo.
The jacket I was wearing was swallowed by my shadow, leaving me in a black vest, that left my hands uncovered.
It was a bitch and a half to replace clothes after burning or freezing the sleeves, so my usual outfit was a jacket or a coat over a vest and shorts.
On my feet were leather boots with retractable studs for gripping my ice when skating, and stabilizing my balance due to my high maneuverability focused combat style.
The first test was Speed.
This was measured on a treadmill that Ivo claimed could reach supersonic speed, by utilizing antigrav technology and highly durable metal alloy.
There were cables hooked to it, feeding the results to the console in the middle of the room.
I hopped on it and started running.
The results were just as expected. I could reach 25 miles per hour without my powers.
But my speed shot up to 90 miles per hour with a pyrokinesis thrust pushing me forward. though it was a bit awkward as the force propelling me was more focused on my right side than my entire back.
The highlight was when I tapped into the speed force.
My speed became 768 miles per hour. Or Mach 1. A bit disappointing to be honest.
The Flash could probably reach several 100 times faster than that.
I was going to need to take some time off to increase my speed. Half of the League were undoubtedly faster than me. Besides, there were some other Speed Force abilities that could be useful if mastered.
It was all about control. Power without control is useless.
The next speed adjacent test was my reaction speed.
The way we tested it was...strange and dangerous for anyone without my advantages.
Ivo had a group of his MONQIs form a circle around me, with Uzi's in their hands and immediately started spraying my way.
As a result, we found out I could dodge bullets out of the air, reacting in milliseconds(1/1000 of a second) to a gun shooting at close range with a muzzle velocity of over 1000 feet per second.
Bullets fired from an Uzi travel at speeds ranging from around 1,200 feet per second (fps) to 1,400 fps.
Which means, to me they were moving in slow motion. Even before becoming a speed force conduit, I had trained my reflexes and perception to superhuman levels.
But while that was impressive, people like the Flash could react in 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a second. Or Picoseconds.
After that, we moved onto the next category.
Strength.
Now while my speed was bonkers and insane, my strength was...less than impressive.
Lifting strength capped at just above 100 kilograms or 220 pounds. Pretty astonishing for a 10 year old but nothing to write home about.
What stood out was my striking power. While the Speed force had no direct enhancement on my physical strength, we found I could punch really hard when I popped the head of a MONQI by mistake.
It had been holding a sheet of metal for me to strike but my fist went through the metal and smashed its head to the wall. Ivo was not happy with that.
Final strength evaluation was 220 pounds deadlift and over 10,000 pounds of striking force or 44,482 newtons.
Next was an evaluation of my Stamina and durability. But ever since I became a pseudo speedster, it felt like I had inexhaustible Stamina.
And testing how long I could keep my abilities activated was an exercise in futility. I used to train in a volcano for hours with only Cryokinesis active.
For durability, I was pelted with increasingly faster rubber bullets up until they were so fast they made the air smell of burning rubber.
At the end of the barrage I only had a few welts across my body. And despite not having Father's regeneration abilities, I still healed faster than average.
In a few minutes, the welts were already disappearing.
Last came the combat evaluation. Now, I was curious how the good professor was going to test this.
"I have just the thing."
He said when I asked him the same.
With a few whistles and directions, he instructed a few MONQIs that had just arrived carrying a container, on where to set it down.
"Stay here with Shade."
I told Candi, having a feeling that whatever surprise the professor had planned was nothing small.
Candi stepped back, and so did everyone else including Ivo and his MONQIs, leaving me standing alone before the container.
"Okay young Savage!"
Ivo called out from his position, cackling like a madman while holding up a chunky remote control.
"Say stop and I'll press this button. No need to die in a simple power evaluation!"
Die?
That's a bit extreme isn't it?
Before I could ask what he meant by that, he pressed a large button on the remote and the door to the container was blown open.
The metal door flew and landed on the wall behind me, missing me by just an inch.
Red eyes lit up within the now open container, and when the occupant stepped out, I realized what Ivo meant by not dying.
For my combat evaluation, he was pitting me up against Amazo.