Point Zero: Tournament: 2

Point Zero: Tournament: 2

…

Commissioned by Ichypa

Wordcount: 2500

…

Mari looked at me, while lugging off some random junk into a box to be sorted later, and blinked multiple times.

“Wait, you just found out that you’re a sub? But you’ve been acting like a brat your entire life?” My class valedictorian skewered what little self-respect I had left in an instant. She raised an eyebrow while she did it too. “No wonder you had trouble with your love life. You were trying to be someone you weren’t the entire time by being what you wanted to be picked up by.”

“That’s… that might be true.” I conceded, rather than arguing, since I knew that I couldn’t try to debate with Mari. She’ll bring up facts, anecdotes, and evidence with her perfect memory without a hint of mercy. If I tried to argue with her, I’ll be beaten down by more than just facts and logic, there’ll probably be some empathic and psychological treatises included too! “But enough about me—

Much to my horror, in Woodstock’s dingy workshop, Mari entered one of her fugues with the subject on her mind being my love life.

“You’ve always dressed in a professional manner, acted as the suave lead, and endeavored to be the wallet of the pairing. Now, Gwendolyn Elliot is actually that, and you’re absolutely beside yourself.” Mari’s words battered at my psyche, while she cleaned up around Woodstock. She spotted a marker on the ground and without hesitation drew on her boss’s face. The engineer soon had a sunflower on his cheek. It was cute, but Mari’s mouth was still set on eviscerating me. “Perhaps, you should consider dressing up much like your former interests? You’d look quite good in a sundress and cardigan. Would you like for me to recommend a shop for you?”

Mental images of being cute and innocent around Gwen while she ordered me around made me swallow a sudden buildup in saliva in my mouth.

But, I knew I could entertain those thoughts on the job.

Gwen was too damn uptight about work regulations!

“Alright, I get it. You’re right. I’ll do that. Send me the address and spare me the details. I can’t act on them while at work, you know?”

“Ah, my apologies. I suppose that you’d be rather enthusiastic after experiencing what you’ve always desired after so long—

“Mari, please, Gwen literally won’t even tease me a little while we’re on the clock.”

“Sorry.”

I gave a sigh of relief and focused on helping my class valedictorian with the workshop. While most of it was a mess, it was easy to find out why Mari was boxing everything up and carefully putting them aside. Parts and pieces of weapon systems, vials and canisters containing fluids rigorously dated and marked as being compounds from passing starships, and even some things I outright didn’t know were everywhere.

All of it could’ve been parts and pieces for the ZPM, which this place produced, and was the key to humanity’s future in the stars.

Some would say that we should try and fix the Earth before we try to get out there, but those people were idiots.

The Intrepid were helping us because we had the guts to reach for the stars without anyone’s help after getting hit with ancient superweapons. Just clearing things out wasn’t enough. We had to show them that we were special, that we could do more than just survive, because just surviving wasn’t good enough.

We had to thrive and make our environment safe again at the same time.

Anything less would just disappoint them, and they’ll stop being our sponsor, and that’ll have the rest of the galaxy become our problem.

We couldn’t afford that.

“So, how’s development going on the FTL drive?”

“Very well. Only the power source is a problem. It requires far more energy than even the most outlandish estimates believed.” Mari answered without a hint of hesitation. The long-haired girl always loved talking about her work. “These ZPMs, when bundled up and provided with the module we’ve developed, could give us what we need.”

I nodded at her words and dissected it after a moment.

“Module? The fleet? Oh, you’re going with the plan to turn—

“Indeed, we already have several ships with heavy armor, excellent propulsion, and are vacuum-rated. The UN Fleet will be jury-rigged with the modules and utilized for the tests.” Mari nodded and gave me a smile in apology for interrupting me. I couldn’t blame her, though. It was an exciting topic to talk about and she knew that I could keep up. I wasn’t the valedictorian, but I was in the top twenty of our year. Our percentile differences were in the tenths of decimals. “The intention is to have a fleet made as quickly as possible. The advantage of having a fleet that can use FTL in space and go into the atmosphere with our current planetside situation is also obvious.”

“That’ll be one hell of a game-changer, if they can make it happen.” The UN had a few nation-state enemies. The Intrepid encouraged rivalry, so they shared some of their tech with those guys to keep them alive. Everyone was technically competing for the right to rule over Point Zero. That was what the whole tournament was about. Anyway, the UN’s fleet was usually held at bay by lots of guns. Guns that couldn’t be moved much, but made up for it by having lots of them exist, since their materials were easily fabricated. Their firing lines could be circumvented if the fleet could just appear wherever it wanted in orbit and descend. “Oh, and if it’s modular—

“Yes, it could be more easily weaponized.” Maki beamed at me and I scratched my cheek. I got the same feeling of excitement that she did. It was probably rare for both of us to talk to someone on the same educational level as either of us, let alone about the subjects that we pursued. Both of us had ridiculously high security clearances. “They are considering creating a massive torpedo out of the module as their first anti-capital ship weapon. Its design is so excellent that the Intrepid have reinforced our facility’s electronic security measures to their own!”

“Nice.” I nodded appreciably at the fantastic news. The Intrepid sticking their nose into your scientific advancements and making sure it was protected from the outside was a fantastic sign. It may as well be a Nobel Peace Prize written by people who were already at the end of the tech tree. We were really onto something… as long as we could mass produce the ZPMs. “Well, everything looks pretty spick and span. Let’s get a look at the instructors to make the darn thing.”

I was ready to start working when Mari suddenly spoke.

“Oh, I misplaced my communicator while cleaning up.”

My hand met my face in an instant.

“It still happens!?”

Mari blushed at my words.

“W-well, I sometimes my thoughts are just too busy, and I just do things without thinking!”

For someone so smart, she really had a problem keeping herself together.

Wait, she’s going to be working with Woodstock!?

Fantastic, they’re going to work together to make the neatest mess ever!

…

“Why are you going into the tournament hosted by the Intrepid armed with an ancient weapon?”

“It’s heavily refined and upgraded. It will suffice.”

I eyed the weapon my wonderful girlfriend was heading into battle with. Its shape and model were distinct. Created from reverse-engineered parts from all the apocalypses that fell to Earth, it was a robust weapon built with desperation in mind.

The Plasma Emitter was powered by cells derived from the biological batteries and fuels used by Bioweapons, while its emitter was courtesy of the rogue terraforming weapon that also attacked the planet. Armed with the simple, but powerful weapon, the frontline charged the enemy and cut through what small arms of that age couldn’t. Through bravery and courage, it allowed the beleaguered forces of humanity to stabilize the front, finally get its bearings with its industry, and get the war machine going.

It was a legendary weapon from a bygone age, so I didn’t want my girlfriend using it in a fight where every nation on the planet was going to send everything short of the trump cards.

“You know, I want to believe you, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. You have a lot of money, so let’s get a sonic blade or a monomolecular knife as a backup.”

“Unnecessary, I can sharpen my bones to a monomolecular age as easily as I can clench my fist.” My suggestion was shot down, but Gwen looked up at me with a small smile. “I appreciate you worrying about me, but you needn’t be too concerned.”

“You saying that makes me very concerned.” I glared at her equipment, until Gwen nodded and handed it off to me. I eyed it up and took in its modification. I noticed after a moment that there were emitters all over the armored handguard. It was less a plasma longsword and more like a greatsword. That mollified me. A little. “Okay, so it’s bigger, but that’s not everything. I don’t want you dying on me, Gwen!”

“My main issue in battle is my inability to cauterize wounds and prevent regeneration. At least, without throwing the Inhibitors I’ve created at my opponent, which will make life difficult.” Gwen reached for her weapon and I gave it back. We continued to walk through the mostly abandoned area. Woodstock hadn’t been joking. He really bought most of the neighborhood. “So, I asked for this weapon with that in mind. It is a means for me to secure the damage I’ve done against my foe. Beyond that, I’ll be fighting with the intention of increasing my Corruption significantly, by at least 20%.”

I almost fell flat on my face at that.

51% was the limit for corruption, before you turned into a terrifying monster without any humanity. There were a few people out there who could go past that, mostly because they had characteristics from an animal that was intelligent and patient, but they had more than a few loose screws in their head. Anyway, what I got from the conversation was that Gwen had that much room to grow stronger, and that I’ve seen her fight and dominate with far less than the norm for soldiers.

Usually, people who used their Bioweapon-granted powers kept themselves in the thirties and left active service once they reached 45%, so they can be used as reserves if needed.

I knew that was going to change with Gwen having developed a means to reduce that amount.

However, I’d always assumed she’d made use of twenty-to-thirty average blood corruption.

“H-how toxic is your blood, again? I can’t seem to remember.”

For some reason, I felt like I asked this question before, but didn’t know the answer because I repressed it—

“I am at 1% currently.” 1 Percent. The answer almost made me fall flat onto the floor. All the utter bullshit, crazy power, and abilities that she had… was at 1% power. Power increased exponentially with every percentage point. With 49 bouts of exponential growth to go, Gwen had more than enough power to take the world and break it over her knee, while not even risking her ability to stay human. I wasn’t very fond of how attracted I was to the idea. Not at all. “I will increase my threshold by five percent and heavily invest in increasing my durability before the battle, too. Barring a weapon-strike that the Intrepid will swat down, I will be able to ramp up and have no issues with the coming battle.”

On one hand, everyone and everything that wanted a chance at ruling the most strategically viable location on the planet was going to be there.

On the other hand, I’ve seen how strong Gwen was firsthand, and she was telling me that she wasn’t even close to the average person’s strength when they devoted some time to learning how to use their Bioweapon traits.

Yep, I knew why I repressed this information.

It was hard to just consider.

So, I stopped thinking about it.

“Alright, I’m thinking about having some curry tonight. Does Indian sound good to you? I’m feeling pretty famished for some posh cuisine!”

Gwen, thankfully, took the hint and nodded.

“I will set up a reservation. Do you prefer southern or northern Indian cuisine?”

“No idea, I’m absolutely uncultured!”

“We’ll try southern tonight, then.”

With that said, I erased my concerns from my mind and just walked with my girlfriend off to dinner.

Dammit.

Thinking about being the damsel in distress for a knight in shining armor that’s invincible is making me too damn excited!

…

The days passed pretty quickly, and before I knew it, the tournament arrived.

Most of Point Zero was in high spirits.

I was glaring at anyone in a good mood.

“Damn hooligans. Couldn’t get a wink of sleep last night!”

“That’s more due to your insatiable—

“Shush! I could’ve gotten an hour or two after you went at me, these idiots ruined it!” I clung to Gwen’s arm, while she gave a sigh and shook her head. Yes, surrender to me being cute instead of arguing back! Tell me I’m pretty! “You deserved a good night’s rest, too!”

“I require only an hour of sleep a night, but I am better rested with more.” Gwen moved along. We drew some stares. I was getting a lot of looks, since Gwen was quite a bit shorter than me. A few raised eyebrows, but more than a few guys gave Gwen nods of manly approval, which she returned. That’s right, I’m a catch. “I’ve secured a seat for you.”

“Thank you, darling!” I did my best to purr, which caught some poor, passing sod offguard. My attacked, however, simply bounced off of Gwen. “I appreciate the seat to—woaah!?”

She said seat.

But I was looking at a private box seat with amenities provided.

Naturally, I was surprised enough to scream and lose the ability to speak.

That’s when Gwen decided to counterattack with a flirt of her own, after parrying mine with the power of money.

“I want you to watch me win as comfortably as possible.”

The absolute confidence swept me off my feet in an instant and I felt lightheaded instantly.

She… she literally made me swoon!?

Just how badly was I into Gwen!?

We’ve barely been dating for a month!