Binding Oaths – Chapter 11 | Arc-1 Aeneas 1

Shane woke up at his usual 5:00 AM, the familiar tone of his phone’s alarm bringing him out of pleasant dreams about shadows.

Back when Supers had first been officially recognized by the government at large, many had theorized that Supers having dreams about their abilities was a side-affect from frequent power use. Further testing over the years had shown the source of the pattern to be more physiological in nature rather than anything directly related to their biology or powers.

As he looked around his room Shane briefly hesitated before going through his morning routine. A series of stretches to limber up for physical activity and two minutes to brush, rinse, and floss. After all of that he pulled on some work out clothes and exited his quarters towards where he remembered the regular work-out room to be. Where he was pleased and completely un-surprised to see that he wasn’t the only one to start the day off with a morning work out.

Jack and Rikki, along with all the other interns, were all just getting ready to start what looked like some low-intensity exercise. He decided to join his mentor doing jumping-jacks.

“So, power assessments right after breakfast?”, he asked easily, the light activity nowhere near enough to affect his breathing.

“Right you are.”, Jack responds just as easily, “You’re gonna want to stick with the light stuff today, we want to test you at your best.”

Shane nodded in understanding before transitioning to the next and least-favorite part of the routine: Squats.

Fifteen minutes and a quick shower later, everyone was sitting down for breakfast, the main meal being bowls of cereal and bananas.

“So, Shane, you will be the only one to actually go through power assessments today.”, Rikki said as Jack was occupied with stuffing his face. “You’ve probably already guessed this from how oddly specific Vanessa was about her power but for the sake of brevity; the HCP they went to offered unique and exact reports about the limits of their powers.”

“Yeah, they had a bunch of high-tech military armor, weapons, and vehicles for us to play around with.”, Greg pauses for a moment before speaking again, “While under careful supervision of course.”

Shane was surprised to hear Vanessa stifle a chuckle at that, while Amy simply nodded in agreement. “So, what exactly about my power needs testing? It’s pretty straight forward.”

A sly grin stretched across Rikki’s face, “You’ll be going through a durability assessment.”, she says simply before going back to her bowl of rather fruity looking cereal.

~~~

Amy looked on nonplussed as another one of Vanessa’s punches impacted harmlessly upon the shadow-blade Shane had made from the shadow of a Practice-Dummy. The now-material shadow didn’t budge or even show any signs of damage from the increasingly devastating impacts.

They’d all filed back into the training area for Shane’s assessment. After some experimentation with the denser weights they’d found that a shadow of average “strength” could lift 30 tons reliably, anything more and the shadows simply didn’t budge, no straining or tension to be seen, it’d just stop.

After Jack stepped up to test how his constructs handled energy she decided to bow out and spend her time at the track in the basement; she’d be able to read the report later. Amy had been intrigued by Shane’s power before; A controller that could shape, shift, and feel through a non-elemental material was plenty unique and versatile enough to get a Super to Hero status. But his display’s during the assessments had her down-right impressed. He’d obviously had extensive training prior to the HCP, which came as no surprise considering that he was the grandson of the first Hero.

The track was a circular room a little over half the size of a football field, a standard red and green track was painted onto the floor of the solid concrete room. She started off her circuit at a jog but eventually worked her way up to a full sprint, after making ten-full circuits at this pace she decided it was time to change. She shifted over the course of 10 steps and assumed her glowing mannequin-esque form and promptly ramped up her speed to inhuman levels.

Shane was plenty impressive, and he was probably really something else while in the HCP, but he hadn’t been out in the field yet. When they were putting their lives on the line to fight against criminals with god-like powers, she’d see what he was really made of.

She distantly felt herself break the sound-barrier as she thought about one of the direct descendants of the Hero, Captain Starlight.