The mess hall of the Dawnbreakers turned out had a rotation on who made the food, I would also be put into the slots to cook one of the days, they also warned me that the quality of the food varied wildly.

“I'll sure contribute to that; my food is a stress experiment on itself.” I commented, Victor had shared his pack of beers with us, after the discussion with Spyglass everything stayed fairly quiet the rest of the dinner, with me telling Victor the experiments results and details about my powers, LED also had tucked in for the night, the rest opting to stay, weirdly in Swordjuices case, and Glassmetal staying although awkwardly.

With the beers Victor had pulled out I found that the eternal social lubricant worked for me and also for Glassmetal, the guy cheering up, appearing to forget his normal hesitancy.

Swordjuice didn’t get any, opting to stay anyway drinking her juice just to enjoy the atmosphere, and probably because the conversation mostly revolved around powers.

“I'll have to properly hit you with all the weapons” Victor laughed loudly, I can't wait, we can even do the explosions.”

“Please, let's take it slowly, what if it doesn’t react to unpowered things, like, mechanical.” I said, still not willing to just throw myself at guns

“True, true, and you did say that you can't pull any weigh at the gym” Spotlight jested

“That’s not what I said” I quipped back

“It’s an important thing to know though, I guess you’ve just been subjected to power damage, right?” Glassmetal said.

“Even me cutting you is from my powers.” Swordjuice noted, taking a sip of her cup of juice

“We’d only have to make some stress tests. I’m used to those.” I said brushing the concern for another time.

“Didn’t you fight with LED? The first day” Payback noted

“Oh true. Yeah, I don’t think he was enhanced either.” then that would me that it reacted to unpowered attacks I noted.

“The question now then is if it's all attacks or all types of damage.” Swordjuice said almost jumping in her seat.

“We can use some of my creations too, when we get to testing inanimate things. It’s a cool middle term.” Glassmetal offered

“That’s true.” I said but thinking it over I continued. “Glassmetal, I don’t think I was even introduced to your power.” I noted, gesturing in his direction

“Ah, its nothing major really. It’s a tinker ability, I just get porcelain, glass as well even though it isn't exactly one, but I align the crystals when I activate my power, it doesn’t really matter.” he answered, holding his beer like a social shield.

“Of course, it matters, man.” I reassured him. “That’s pretty interesting, I don’t think I ever saw a tinker with that angle.”

“Hah you wouldn't hear of them anyway the Stannuns tucked all of them away.” Spotlight jabbed in, always willing to stick one to the rich families.

“I don’t know about the rarity, but I can modify the internal structure of these materials, and I just get it man, it's hard to explain.” he said gesticulating like holding something invisible in his hands “I can put, huh, it would be akin to electric boards and program entire systems, its actually pretty fast but the stuff is complicated. So, it doesn’t appear much fast or impressive.”

“That sounds really amazing, you should have more trust in yourself” I said to him, trying to boost his lacking confidence a bit. He shook his hand in a no way gesture to me, but I could see a smile on his face.

“What he can't say is that he makes some MagiTech with porcelain. Turn glass into this robot machines or automatic guns.” Swordjuice summarized to everyone.

“Yeah, I guess.” Glassmetal said brushing off the attention.

“Ohh that’s very cool,” I said just now really getting what it was about. “And the energy?”

“It's self-made, part of my powers, the stuff I can make that work on normal energy is nothing really major, so to put an impact it has to be personal tech.”

“And the boy hates to fight” Swordjuice quipped at him. With a little smirk on her face.

“Shut up, as if you actually like it too” he shot angrily at her, the only person he really seemed able to get angry with. “What are you even doing here? go away, teenager.”

The bickering only makes you also look like a teenager Glassmetal, I thought to myself.

“You can see it in action tomorrow, Glassmetal has to fix the mess you made in the training room anyway.” Victor told me smiling at the couple of younger Dawnbreakers.

“Oh, you're the one who takes care of that?” I asked Glassmetal, remembering him saying something in passing about it.

“Yeah, it makes it easy to add something if we want, I can manipulate the material, it loses its functions though so kind of tricky with anything I make to actually fight.”

“Hmhum, I’ll tuck off then, a pain to have to get up early but it'll let us coordinate better.” Victor said getting up to leave.

Payback also left not long after, telling Swordjuice to go as well, she did, saying it was because she was sleepy already.

We talked a bit more about our powers but I was mentally spent and the beer didn't help with the drowsiness. Glassmetal caved first and decided to go, just Spotlight and me were still here, I didn’t know if he had slept during the day but there wasn’t a hint of drowsiness in him.

“I'm glad you want to help the team, Joseph.” I looked up at him, he was speaking more normally and using my name as well, I didn’t hear it much since I joined them.

“You’ll see eventually that the regime can't be allowed to continue existing.” He continued, taking a last swing of his beer. I didn’t know he was bringing it up, I had told him already that I was going to help with the missions and stuff, didn’t I?

His normal smile returned “So, train a lot Man Absorbent.”

“That's terrible, man.” I told him holding my laugh.

“The flesh that adapts” he suggested raising an eyebrow.

“You read that kind of stuff?” I asked, thinking of the old piece of internet fiction

“Copybomination” he grandly stated as if it was a great idea.

“I might reconsider having you as a friend.” I shook my head in amusement.

He laughed patting my back “Welcome to the team, Joey.” and left.

I stayed a while still, to finish my beer and think about the state of the things, eventually I got up and went to bed as well, falling asleep instantly, it would be just next morning that I realized I had forgot the blanket again.

 

---

 

Once more I was awake by a knock on the door, this one was almost silent so it was good I was a light sleeper. I got up drowsily, thankfully I didn’t drink enough to have a hungover,

I opened the door, standing in front of it was Glassmetal, the awkward way he carried himself ever present.

“Hey, good morning Joey.” seeming like everyone was going to call me that, I don’t mind so it’s fine.

“Ah, is it about the training?” I asked remembering what we spoke about the night before.

“Yeah, sorry to wake you up.”

“Nah, its fine, I should put an alarm. What time is it?

“Still eight, I woke a bit later than normally actually, we’ll probably still have to go wake up Victor anyway though.”

“Sure" I nodded, yesterday Payback had come by at around seven, way earlier, I should put my alarm to around that time then.

“Mind if I take a bath? While you do that?” I asked him, thinking of maximizing the time.

“Oh, okay, sure man.” he nodded. “I'll go wake him up then, don’t even need to be quick about it.”

I laughed imagining it was because Victor really wasn’t a morning guy. “Okay, see you soon”

He nodded to me again and I closed the door, taking my stuff, spending a little while to organize everything from my backpack onto the bed stand, using the opportunity to also take out the so-called blankets, leaving them folded on the bed.

I followed the corridors to the bathroom, there wasn’t anyone else using it, and I proceeded to take a nice hot shower, as I liked to do in the morning to wake me up. Trying to finish it quickly, I got out and put on my clothes for the day, the same jeans and shoes as yesterday, and a different long-sleeved shirt as the climate was getting colder.

I went back to my room, dropping my things. When I was getting out, I saw Glassmetal approaching from the end of the corridor, dragging himself along with him was a zombie Victor, I approached them looking amused at Victor's state.

“Good morning, Victor.” I told him “You didn’t even take long to wake him after all.” I said to Glassmetal.

“I tempted him with explosions on a living target.” He gave me an amused but slightly apologetic smile.

“No promises.” I said, laughing.

“I need some coffee.” Victor said with a raspy voice, did he actually get any sleep?

“Let’s go have breakfast then.” I told them. And we moved together to the elevator, the route becoming familiar already.

 

---

 

After a nice breakfast and about two mugs of coffee, we were the three standing around the training room. Glassmetal was as he said manipulating the tiles back to their pristine shape.

The material becoming almost a fluid before flowing into shape and reacquiring the smoky gray, smooth surface.

“So, how are we going to do this? Theres still a while for Payback to be able to use his powers on you so we can't go too crazy.” Victor said

“Can't we abuse the mechanic? Glassmetal asked while he kept fixing the tiles.

“What do you mean? Victor asked but I had grasped it already.

“I get it, if I hurt myself, I can then enter a fight, that I would mutate and regenerate, effectively.”

“Oh, that’s an interesting loophole, is it really a loophole? maybe you would heal anyway?”

“Well, I don’t have any lasting injuries from all the battles I've been through.”

“Well, let's test it then.” he said with a huge expectant grin on his face.