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.
008 TO FAIL OR NOT TO FAIL
"Although I'm not much of a fighter, I've read several books on Kung Fu. Never had a chance to try it until now", Damen replied explaining about his techniques.
"Kung Fu?....What the hell is that?" Stephan asked in shock.
Damen advanced slowly and the gang leader sank to his knees. Fear replaced fury in Stephan's eyes.
"No…."
Damen was exhilarated. After taking on beatings after beatings all throughout his life from Ralph and all those who bullied him, this was payback time.
"You're lucky I'm out of coins," Damen said, his voice low. "Otherwise, you'd all be in the hospital for weeks."
"Please, spare me," Stephan begged.
"Spare you? That's easy. The air you breath belongs to me… I need compensation… Now Pay up."
Stephan fumbled out his wallet.
Inside were several jade-like Aur cards—the currency of the world. Before he could offer the cheapest one as compensation, Damen snatched the whole wallet and pulled the cards free.
"No…don't take all my money!" Stephan cried.
"You should be thankful you still have knees," Damen replied, turning away.
As he walked toward school, he examined the jade cards gleaming in his hand. The deeper the green, the greater the value…and they were at least a hundred Aur each, maybe more.
"I'm rich," Damen whispered, grinning, as Stephan wailed in the dirt behind him.
----
Damen couldn't stop himself from grinning, even chuckling under his breath.
The whole class glanced at him like he'd lost his mind. Beneath the desk, his fingers brushed against the cool jade of his newly looted Aur cards.
"Money's so easy to make," he murmured, too quietly for anyone to catch.
"What's with the trash? Did he finally go insane?" someone snickered from the back.
Damen ignored them.
Mikey slid into the seat beside him, eyeing him curiously. "What's wrong with you? You look… off."
Damen looked up, still smiling. "No. I'm fine. Better than ever."
Mikey snapped his fingers. "I get it. Thames and Onda are both sick, right? No one's around to hassle you until finals. Of course you're happy."
"Yeah… about them," Damen said, feigning ignorance. "What happened to them, do you know?"
"The doctors said they had heart attacks."
"Heart attacks? At their age?" Damen asked, widening his eyes in practiced disbelief.
Mikey leaned closer, lowering his voice. "There are rumors. Some say they were using banned substance boosters to jack up their aptitude scores… the heart attack is side effect… Now they're paying the price."
"Really?... Bloody Hell they were using," Damen asked, keeping his tone light.
Inside, relief washed over him.
For a moment Damen worried about the shocks he dealt Thames and Onda had drawn suspicion. If people found out about his app they might hold him accountable and worse… take away his mining app.
But if people thought it was drugs…then his secret was safe.
Damen nearly fell off his chair when Mikey leaned over and asked, "How's your aptitude? There's gonna be a mock test later today."
"What? A mock test?" Damen blurted.
Mikey shrugged. "Relax. Even if you bomb it, you've still got a month before the finals." With that, he strolled back to his seat, not bothering to wait for Damen's reply.
"Damn it," Damen muttered under his breath.
It wasn't the test itself that worried him.
He wasn't afraid of failing….in fact, he was certain he could outscore almost everyone now. His Strength alone should eclipse Thames by now, and his Meta… he doubted anyone in class could match it.
That was the problem. His scores would be too good.
Too Suspiciously good.
What if they think I'm juicing up with banned substance? What if they start digging? Damen clenched his fists. If the school discovered the mining app…
The bell rang, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Miss Poney entered, called attendance, and then addressed the class.
"There will be a mock test today. The results should reflect closely to your performance in the finals."
Groans filled the room.
Damen felt cold sweat prickle his back.
Miss Poney was probably right—no one could improve their aptitude by much in a single month. For everyone else, today's test would be a fair prediction for their finals result.
For Damen though, it was a reveal that he couldn't afford. He couldn't have others know how much he had improved lately because there was no justification for it.
"I need to find a way out of this, give me at least another month of training… that sounds more reasonable," he thought desperately.
But then Miss Poney's sharp eyes locked on him. "Damen Dark. If you underperform the Mock test this time, I'll have the school consider expelling you. Don't drag down the class average."
"Yes, ma'am," Damen answered quickly, lowering his head.
His stomach twisted.
If he took the test honestly, his sudden leap in power would raise eyebrows. If he tanked it, Miss Poney might really kick him out.
Either way, disaster loomed.
To fail, or not to fail. That's the question.
-----
The class assembled in the testing hall, where sleek machines lined the back wall, waiting to measure each student in turn. These state-of-the-art devices were built to assess a candidate's true potential, analyzing not only raw physical ability but also the elusive force of Meta energy.
In this era, the world had no greater priority than cultivating powerful Meta humans.
Their existence had become essential ever since the first spatial rifts tore open reality. From within those rifts came horrors unlike anything humanity had faced—dangers that no weapon, no matter how advanced, could overcome.
It was not science or firepower that saved the world, but the emergence of Meta humans. Their powers alone could suppress and tame the rifts.
In response, the education system itself has been reshaped. Its ultimate purpose was no longer to prepare students for ordinary careers, but to discover, refine, and unleash the next generation of Meta humans.
"Mikey Rolands," Miss Poney called, her voice echoing across the testing hall.
Mikey stepped forward, his nerves masked by a confident stride walking into a large semi opened booth. The machines hummed to life, beams of light sweeping across his body, scanning, measuring.
Within seconds, the results were processed.
"Strength 4.8. Meta 0.23," Miss Poney announced.
Mikey's lips curved into a small smile.
Few people scored highly in Meta during Middle High, so the low Meta score didn't matter too much. A Strength score above 4.0 was usually safe too.
If his Theory exam results held up not too badly, this would be enough to secure admission into High School.
One by one, the other students were assessed. The hall buzzed with whispers, the low hum of machines punctuating each new result.
Finally, it was Damen's turn.
"Damen Dark, come up here," Miss Poney barked, her tone sharp and impatient.