007 BECOMING META
Hours slipped by unnoticed until the muffled roar of doors opening broke his calm. The night session was ending. Damen could hear footsteps and chatter spilling out of the Training Center.
His link to Professor Gawdry was fading fast.
"Damn it… if only he'd stay inside longer," Damen muttered, glaring at the dwindling yield on his phone.
Then, an idea sparked.
A bold, dangerous one, one that goes against all ethics that he's learned. But for someone like Damen whose been on the receiving end of injustice, ethics has no meaning to him.
And as the idea took shape, Damen's frown twisted slowly into a wicked smile.
He tapped Acquire.
"Damn… even Meta scores can be stolen, I'll ace the finals exam if I can steal more of it," Damen muttered, his pulse quickening.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Gawdry heading for the exit. Panic and greed collided in his chest. If Gawdry left, the chance would vanish.
Before he could second-guess himself, Damen pressed Meta. At this moment he didn't care if Professor Gawdry would suffer a heart attack or other harm, he only knew this was what he wanted.
The effect was instant.
Gawdry staggered, then collapsed onto the pavement. His assistants rushed to his side, panicked voices rising in the night air.
But unlike Thames or Onda, Gawdry didn't seize or convulse. He steadied himself, drew a sharp breath, and slowly pushed back to his feet.
"He didn't fall", Damen murmured surprised.
Damen's blood ran cold. He ducked deeper into the shadows, holding his breath while he watched. "The effects of Acquire on stronger people were much less," Damen thought.
Then Damen began to worry.
"What if he knows? What if he can trace it back to me? If he realizes I'm the one stealing… will he arrest me?"
But Gawdry didn't look around. Instead, he strode quickly to his car with a pale face and drove off without a word.
"Why leave so suddenly?" Damen whispered, confused, watching the taillights vanish into the dark but also relieved. "I'll wait till things calm before I sneak out", Damen added.
Only when the street quieted did he slip away, avoiding the main gate. He knew better than to risk being seen by the guard or the camera.
Instead, he crawled through one of the gaps in the school's perimeter fencing…his usual route whenever he was late and had to sneak into school.
Tonight, it was his escape.
-----
After leaving the school grounds, Damen didn't head home right away. The horizon was already paling with dawn, and all he needed was a place to wait out the night.
He thought about renting a motel room, just a few hours of rest….but his pockets were empty.
"I'm broke," Damen muttered bitterly as he drifted through the quiet streets. "What the hell do I do now?"
He slumped onto the bench at a bus stand, the city still asleep around him, and pulled up his mining app.
"Dammit… it used up all my coins?" His voice cracked with disbelief.
He hadn't even checked his harvest after mining Professor Gawdry, as he was too caught up in the rush to acquire his Meta powers and under the fear of being caught.
Now the screen showed only a handful of coins left. The acquisition of Gawdry's Meta had bled him dry…eighty DemCoins gone in a single strike.
"This better be worth it," he growled, snapping the phone shut.
Exhaustion finally won out.
Damen leaned back against the cold steel of the bench, closed his eyes, and let the city swallow him into uneasy sleep.
----
Damen woke with a strange heaviness in his body.
The steel bench beneath him creaked as he pushed himself upright. Every muscle felt taut, dense, as if coiled with new power. He flexed his arms, rolled his shoulders, and froze in surprise.
His entire frame had stiffened and hardened.
"Did I… grow stronger overnight?" he whispered.
The answer came as he stretched, feeling the Strength, he had stolen from Thames, Onda, and Ralph finally settled into place. It hadn't happened instantly, but after a night's rest the power had filtered cleanly into his body.
"So that's it," Damen muttered. "Acquiring only takes full effect after I sleep."
He reached for his glasses out of habit, slid them off… and blinked. The world stayed sharp. Crisp edges and Distant details were clearly distinguished.
For the first time in years, his vision was perfect. "What caused his short sightedness to go away?"
"Strength healed my short-sight?" he wondered aloud, then hesitated. "Or… was it the Meta attribute?"
The thought sent a chill through him.
The Meta boost made more sense.
Enhanced vision, sharper hearing—those were natural gifts of true meta-humans. And now, as the faint morning sounds sharpened in his ears—the clatter of a cart, the hiss of wind through wires.
Damen realized he was no longer just himself.
He was becoming something more…. Because of his DemCoin mining app.
-----
Its time for school again.
Damen slipped into a narrow back alley, taking a shortcut toward school. He'd never used this route before. Everyone knew the route was unsafe.
But today, he felt different. He wasn't afraid anymore. He felt invincible.
"Hey, you! Stop right there!" a voice barked out suddenly.
Damen turned to find a group of hooligans blocking the way, sticks and baseball bats in hand, swinging them like they owned the street.
"Who the hell are you? I'm just heading to school, I don't want trouble," Damen said flatly.
"I'm Stephan. This road belongs to us," the leader sneered. "Passing through my territory requires a contribution."
"I don't have money."
"Then you leave a limb," Stephan snapped, signaling one of his boys forward.
The thug swaggered closer, brandishing his stick.
Damen only smiled.
"Too slow," he murmured.
The gangster charged, but Damen sidestepped effortlessly and kicked his knee out from under him. The crack was loud. The man collapsed, screaming in pain.
His knee was gone.
Since absorbing Strength and Meta, Damen wasn't the same anymore.
He could feel his opponent's intent before they moved, react faster than they thought possible. His body hit harder, sharper, and he was unyielding.
One kick was enough to shatter bone.
All he lacked was techniques.
"Looks like your boy just lost his leg," Damen said coldly.
Stephan's face twisted with rage. "All of you! Get him! Break him apart!"
They rushed in, but Damen was quicker. He slipped between their clumsy swings, striking with precision aiming for their knees, joints, pressure points.
One by one they crumpled, howling, clutching their ruined legs.
"How…how did you do that to us?" Stephan stammered, his bravado cracking.