"Had enough admiring us?" Raven asked me with a cheeky smile tagging on her lips while eying me playfully causing me to subconsciously nod in approval. Eying the two beautiful women who were slowly stretching out while slowly approaching me, I could not help myself but compliment them, after all, I wasn't shy to voice my opinion.
"Aren't beautiful things meant to be appreciated?" I questioned back while raising an inquisitive eyebrow causing both of them to chuckle in amusement.
"You have nice taste kid but you're still too young." Emma joined in as she passed Raven and took a seat on the other side of my couch and seemingly sank into the fabric after experiencing how comfortable the sofa was. After spending my time making the neat material design of cotton molded after my once favorite comfortable living room couch aka my secondary bed, no wonder that was the case, or as I would previously say it is a freelancer and remote employee's best friend.
"So what exactly did you give us cause I don't think healing could explicitly make this many changes in my body?" Raven asked after a few minutes of silence where I had a real-time scan deployed recording her as she did a few light stretches and used her shape-shifting ability. It was fascinating to watch her skin seemingly ripple and transform before my eyes and I don't think I would get used to this spectacle anytime soon.
"Well, you caught on fast as I expected. It's a small enhancement serum on my part that generally enhanced your body putting you at the let say peak athletic of what a human can achieve but still distance away's from being called a supersoldier." Upon finishing my statement I saw Emma visibly perk up and look at me rather surprised.
"Wait a second you are saying all it took us to become peak athletes was taking a four-hour nap in your healing chambers and a punch of steroids?"
"Yeah pretty much, although that wasn't the entire case but those ‘steroids’ as you say rejuvenated your body to its youth while enhancing your physical condition and giving you a minor healing factor without causing any medical lasting side effects in the long run or leaving any residues in your systems. You can personally check out your own health records here." I replied to Emma with sarcasm dripping from my tone as I pushed the holographic projections of their health records, alongside the new changes to each one of them, and their currently real-time medical observations to their respective owners while going back to relaxing for a while and letting the two cook in their thoughts.
"Hey Raven, how did you figure the difference in such a short time though?" I asked after a short while of silence.
"Well, as a shapeshifter, I am pretty much familiar with every corner of my body so suddenly adding muscle mass is easily identifiable. If not, it would be a disappointment to my mastery."
"...Ok dumb question got it but now useless thoughts aside, time for the big question. How do you guys feel about the changes?" I asked the two who were animatedly curious at first handling holographic displays for a short while before finally scrolling through their respective information. Emma seemed the more excited of the two handling hologram tech, can't blame her I was the same for a few hours. We stayed in peaceful silence for a short while where I chose to finally put my studying books aside and waited patiently for a few minutes.
“Wait, wait wait a minute, so you want to say that from a simple 4-hour dip, you managed to fix years worth of muscle damage, my past scars, fix some of my genetic defects while giving me a physical boost, all for free?” Emma finally broke the silence after spending a few minutes checking herself out confirming all was in place before spearing me with a piercing stare which I didn’t flinch from.
“Yes, because we are going to be long-term allies and I don't joke with the health of my comrades and family,” I responded to her. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her skepticism after all I knew I would die for such a chance previously. After not seeing me budge for a few minutes, Raven finally intervened and decided to break our staring contest as I saw a smile slowly make its way across their faces.
“…Hey Irene, from my readings here it says that you also enhanced my mutation. Is that true?” She asked with some skepticism dripping from her tone that caused me to immediately open a copy of her records before me causing me to smile in successfully achieving one of my goals.
“Come on, I expected you to notice your shape-shifting speed has increased and you may also have more changes that you will slowly discover as you continue using your abilities.” I turned to her somewhat confused while answering her. After contemplating for a short time, I decided to test one of my theories.
“Ok, we are going to get you a quick abilities test for you two to help confirm one of my curiosities and let you get more in touch with your changes. Eve, I need some help setting up the training field for two.” I called out while simultaneously enveloping us three in a bubble and flew away towards the training facility.
“Wait why are you carrying me along and who’s Eve?”
“Would you like to use the hard light projections for training purposes Irene?”
“Something like that and one extra question, do we have records of the man hunters in the system?” I questioned back to Eve a little too caught up in my thoughts to notice I ignored Emma.
“Affirmative. There are also records of the green Martian individual known as J’onn J’onzz."
"Wait a sec, how did we even get that, you know what never mind just fashion out the construct based on Martian biology," I replied excitedly to Eve wondering what more useful records I had on hand that I didn't know of.
“...So, who's Eve?" Emma questioned once more with a slightly exasperated tone at getting ignored causing me to look at her and subconsciously start slightly fidgeting in nervousness.
"Oh, sorry about that a bad habit of mine. I got a bit overexcited for a second there so let me introduce you guys. Emma and Raven meet Eve, she's my partner who helped me in making all of this possible and made sure all of you successfully made it through the procedure. Eve, you can say hello you know.” I spoke out loud while presenting my ring while awkwardly scratching my head.
“Hello Ms Darkhölme and Ms Frost, it's nice to finally meet you." Her voice sounded out from my ring this time instead of the room's sound system like before causing the two to raise an eyebrow in intrigue.
“...Hello Eve, I'm Emma. So, are you the ring?"
"Positive and negative, I am an advanced fully sentient Artificial Intelligence named Eve and the ring is part of my current physical manifestation." Now this answer got me quite stunned for a second but it easily made sense considering that the lantern ring is indeed a physical manifestation of Eve more so her primary form. Considering her soul is bound to mine there is a high chance I am yet to fully grasp her true functions considering so far my ring is different from the original DC lanterns because first of all, the original lantern ring AI's were highly limited and secondly, her parent explicitly wrote to me she's a separate entity although a very young one in fact but something tells me I'll just have to figure that out as I go.
Before long we arrived at the training room where Emma and I had to finally cut short our conversation as it was turning out to be more interesting. Who knew addressing the topic of Artificial Intelligence would in our conversation would spiral out leading to us discussing more on technology more so electronics and mechanics. Yap, we got sidetracked for a bit.
Anyways, I landed on the training field in front of a bunch of currently idle remote-controlled training drones and a green naked androgynous humanoid being with a diamond-shaped head and red eyes that seemed to eerily stare into one's soul.
“I fashioned out the hard light construct after green Martian biology as they are more adept at more humanoid transformations compared to their warring white counterparts. Also, I linked the controls to you so all you need to do is will it and I will assist with the rest.”
“Thanks, Eve you’re the best. So, guys, this is a green Martian one of the most adaptable and possibly strongest races in the universe given enough mastery of their abilities.”
“Wait so aliens exist?” Raven’s questioned more surprised than skeptical due to having proof before her.
“Yes, surprising I know right? First time I’m seeing one of their representations so close up though.” I replied only for a question from Emma to follow up.
“So you want to tell me all those superstitious stories of unidentified flying objects seen in the sky might be true?”
I looked back at her for a solid few seconds before finally replying after digesting what her words possibly meant to my plans, “… It's highly possible they are advanced alien spacecraft, someone has awakened a flight ability somewhere in the world or possibly someone, an organization or a hidden civilization has that level of advanced tech currently on earth. I would like to say it’s the latter considering the quinjet we traveled in but there is a high probability of that not being the case if these rumors and possibly superstitions have been going forth for many years now. Either way, it's a bit too early for my own taste to confirm or deny the possibility so I would just leave that topic for another time if you don't want to end up with existential crisis."
I chuckled derisively at how much trouble this universe thinks of throwing my way only to feel something buzzing at the edge of my mind seemingly knocking asking for permission to enter. This caused me to momentarily stop and look at Emma and gave her a slight smile.
"You know, the fact that you managed to bypass my initial psychic barriers although weak, and knocked on my second mental barrier is impressive. You know that curiosity can get you in dangerous circumstances or possibly killed. Although, as much as I am tempted to let you in, I would like to hold off on any telepathic activities for now cause I'm still not comfortable with someone possibly tampering with my brain. Had a traumatic experience before and I'm kind of trying to get over the relapse of those memories first. I'll need your help later though."
To my statement, she gave me an understanding nod causing me to turn back to our test.
"Okay so Raven, here is what we're gonna be doing. Try following and imitating the changes that the construct is performing okay and Eve would be constantly monitoring how you are and providing intricate structures of some creatures just in case."
I alerted Raven for her to give me a thumbs up and commenced while a drone hovered a few feet away from her. This test was going to prove to be interesting.
Patreon
Chapter needs formatting.
Thanks for the chaps!