I'm sure I could have picked Christopher's brain for hours. His knowledge on how to influence skill creation alone was practically invaluable, especially since I still had to handle my stats and Ability Augmentation for Level 24. By the time we had talked through a few more topics, including spending more than just a little bit of time on Hydramental, we were well into the spawn of the next round of tokens.

Christopher didn't have a good answer about what I should do about him… He had made a lot of enemies in his time as The First and had to make the very same decision I was facing "more times than he cared to count." From the way he explained it, I could tell it wasn't something he took lightly and it at least made me feel slightly better about being stuck on the dilemma. Though… even he said when it came down to it, the needs of the people caught up in this mess had to come first. Because as much as the rest of us didn't ask to be Augmented, none of them had asked to be caught up in the middle of all of this.

Even though he had just told me about the dangers of finding the Administration Key… I couldn't help but ask if I could use that to take care of Hydramental. I mean, if the key could add me, couldn't it fix whatever was going on with him, or even somehow remove him? Hell, I would even take just being able to patch his Acceptance Matrix in a way that it would help his mental health issues. All of those questions had just led to one other big question I needed to know. Why had he taken himself out of the game instead of Firefist when he added me in? Unfortunately, besides the fact that I'd be giving Axio access to the very thing Christopher had warned me not to, he had discovered that another limitation of the Key was that he had to have a hand on me to access my Personal Array and it seemed to be the same with Firefist.

It would have certainly been the preferable choice, but with me on the verge of dying from… well I didn't want him to go into it, but I was on the verge of dying and he didn't have time to try and chase the Miscreant down just to make the preferable choice.

The moment I got back to the apartment, other than the small but very important bit of information that I couldn't quite share yet, I filled Jon in on everything that Christopher had shared with me, surprisingly with very little interruption. But once I had fully trailed off, he finally took the opportunity to probe.

"Okay… so first thing's first…. Are you okay?"

"What? I mean… yeah it was a bit of a shock to have it confirmed that The First actually got rid of his super powers just to keep me from dying… And like, as much as I'm really happy to not be dead… I can't help but wonder if it was the right choice or not…"

"Nate… that's not what I'm talking about and you know it," Jon said, his arms crossed as he stared at me from a chair in our small apartment's dining room. His frantic theorizing about BrainCraft was still scattered over it and I couldn't help but look over it as I avoided his gaze. He was right of course, and part of me might have hated him for it.

"You know… I kinda hoped you would have latched on to the whole, "we all have latent superpowers that are just waiting to be unlocked" thing and we could have just buried that other stuff for now…"

"Oh don't you worry about that bud, we will one hundred percent be coming back to that. But you and I both know that's not a healthy way to approach this and you forget, I know you," he said, staring right through me. We had known each other for far, far too long, and he knew exactly who I was. "How deep into blaming yourself are you?"

My shoulders slumped as I leaned back and into the chair. While I did go ahead and ask just a handful of questions Jon had wanted me to ask about the general operations of the game, it didn't actually reveal all that much. Like in most cases, there were some truths to the conspiracies that surrounded the company's early days. Axio wasn't something they developed but instead found that had then merged with Christopher's original code and plans for the game and the government did get involved… sort of.

It really came as no surprise to me that TechWarden was actually someone who worked with the government, specifically trying to find a way to weaponize the Augmentation process for his own benefit. It came as even less of a surprise that it wasn't just to try and give the US an edge in weapon warfare but as his own personal political springboard. Greedy people were always going to want more, even when literal superpowers were dropped into their lap.

After listening to some of the history Christopher had been able to share with me, I was relatively sure that none of this was how video game design actually worked. But given Axio showed up out of nowhere and started giving people superpowers wrapped in a video game skin based on some random guy's notes about said superpowers, I really didn't think it mattered all that much. With all that he had been able to share with me, something he had actually made clear I'd need to come back to talk with him again if I wanted to know more, I thought I had had enough for us to sort of skip past the revelation about how I had been added to the game, but clearly Jon had seen through that… the asshole.

"My power might have broken a system that had been working relatively fine for the last decade. How is this not my fault even if just by association?"

"Well for one, you didn't know you had that power and two, you aren't the one who did it. Hell, I don't know if you can even blame The First for this either since he didn't have time to find out how it would affect him. He probably just assumed it would work as intended like most of his powers… god knowing that that was his Hidden Power though… it explains so many of his fights," Jon said, shaking his head out of the accidental reverence he had fallen into before he refocused. "Did he tell you how he added you in specifically?"

"That's… uh… we're going to need to circle back to that," I said cautiously, reaching up and into a small pocket on the inside of my jacket. I found the plans that Christopher had handed off to me, which weren't game generated, pulled them out, and tossed them out onto the table. "We've got to figure out what we want to do about these."

"Wait… he did send them the plans he had drawn up for the Dead Zone device?" Jon said, his eyes widening as he reached for the plans. "That's… huh…"

"Yeah, that was my reaction to it too… I mean… a lot of this is still suspicious, I think we'd be stupid to say it's not… but if Brain was working for TechWarden… what would be the point in giving The First something he didn't already have, especially when it was the model for a device that could disable powers?" I said, feeling my brow furrow as I looked across what now looked almost like a crazed conspiracy board. "There's not even an argument to say that TechWarden is trying to team up with him by offering him the device as some sort of trade… Unless he's some world class level actor, I could feel the underlying hatred when The First brought him up…"

"I've certainly read enough comics and books with super secret long term betrayals and stuff, but even I think that level of conspiracy is a bit… well insane here…" Jon said, scanning over the blueprints. "The First would have to have been pretending to be the greatest hero in the world while, what, secretly experimenting on other Augments? Maybe I'm deep in the fanboy hole but… I don't know… it doesn't pass the smell test, y'know?"

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"Agreed…" I said with a nod., briefly looking over toward the door to Jon's Command Room. "How, uh… how is everyone doing? I kinda took the meeting as an opportunity to bail on that whole spiral…"

"Freak grabbed the 2PM token about 20 minutes ago, Swan is watching him from above but it's been quiet. Pinky and Duskbreaker were heading for the one out in Cali when it got picked up by someone named, I swear I'm not making this up… Fiddle Me This…"

"Fiddle Me… This? That's… that's so dumb."

"Careful Poophole," Angie chimed in and I let out a sigh, choosing to ignore her and push forward.

"Are they a Guardian or Miscreant?"

"They were getting up close to him when you got back, Pinky told me she'd "handle it" if they were a Miscreant or try to make a friend if they were a Guardian."

"Ah… well she is good at making friends," I said with a nod. "What about Brain?"

"He's uh… he's been in the Mechanic's Den ever since you guys all split in opposite directions. Didn't even really seem remotely upset about being under suspicion… What uh… what are we going to do about that? We kinda need him to build this thing," he said, waving the blueprints. "I'm assuming needing one of these is the reason we need to circle back to the how on your addition to the system and as good as I am with tech, this is way outside my capabilities."

"Yeah… and giving him the completed plans is dangerous if he isn't on our side… so we have to decide if we trust him or not," I said, reaching down and tapping Jon's web on the table. "You're the one who pointed this out and I trust your decision…"

His face briefly scrunched as he looked from the table to the blueprints in his hands again.

"How important do you think it is for me to know how you were put into the game?" he asked, meeting my eyes.

"Kinda important… at least, The First made it seem that way."

"Then I don't think we have much of a choice… it's not like we have another tech genius we can go to. There's always the option of waiting until the "new day" so that you can rewind things if he suddenly goes all evil genius when he sees the plans, but if he was hiding that card in his pocket he'd at least be smart enough to wait until he had the device in hand… although he's also aware you were able to use your powers in a Dead Zone once… Sheesh… I think I prefer reading about these complicated conspiracies rather than living them…"

"Preaching to the choir bud…Let's just… I don't know, let's take the chance… I think I got swept up in… well all this…" I said waving at the table. "We can keep our guard up… like you said, I can use my powers in a Dead Zone, so it's not like it's a great trump card against me and showing him this sign of trust, especially if he never had been working against us might be enough to repair some of the damage."

"Guess it sounds like a plan then… you want to go talk to him now so he can get started?" Jon asked but I shook my head.

"I've been sitting on this level up for a while now, let me take care of the stats and Ability Augmentation. I think I'm gonna drop points into Intelligence so that I can use my Game Theory book, then with one more day in the Study Hall I should be able to access the Mass-Volume knowledge too. I got some really good tips on ability creation, plus I should really upgrade my Stamina Management with the Tome of Everything," I said, standing up and out of the chair, stretching as I let the Level Up window finally open. "Knowing me, if I go and talk to BrainCraft I'm gonna end up getting sidetracked for the rest of the day…"

"Yeah true enough. Plus, when the group gets back maybe you can finally use that Luck Bomb of yours so you guys can open those Loot Boxes you've been sitting on," Jon said, his mood shifting in an instant as he got up, snatching his soda and bag of chips up as he is turned toward the Command Room. "Be in your ear in a minute."

He disappeared through the doorway and the notification that he had reentered the room appeared and disappeared from my field of view. I followed through with dropping two points into each my Luck and Intelligence before the Ability Augmentation window opened and I realized that I hadn't really taken the time in all of this to consider what ability I would be looking to change. Most of what felt like my "go to" abilities were locked from Augmentation still, though Sting Like a Bee had just unlocked.

It would be the first ability I had fully Augmented, though I wasn't really sure if that would actually account for anything. Instead of trying to guess and hope I was right, I decided to actually be smart about it for once and just asked the question.

"Hey, is there any boon or benefit from having an ability fully Augmented?"

"Generally speaking yes! The final augmentation options presented for an ability will typically be the strongest possible modifiers you will be offered, especially since, unless the ability evolves and you move the Augmentations off of it, it would be the final time you'd be able to Augment it," Angie said, happily rattling off the answer before Jon could even think to say something.

"Hmm, okay thank you Angie," I said, walking over toward the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water.

"I'm guessing you're leaning toward Sting Like a Bee then?"

"Yeah, though I don't really have a good reason for it… I'm not exactly hurting for damage right now. It's really my Stamina that's still a problem," I said, taking a long drink of the water as I talked in our internal chat. "I suppose I could Augment Combat Cadence now that I think about it… If it ends up evolving off of the knowledge level increasing, I could move the Augmentation over if it's a good one."

"That's… huh yeah that's actually really good logic," Jon said approvingly. "I told yah I could teach you how to pay video games if you tried hard enough."

"To be fair, when you told me that it was just because you wanted more of a challenge in Augment Fighter 4…"

"Eyes on the prize Loophole, just pick Combat Cadence already, you clearly are going to end up doing that anyway."

I would have argued with him, maybe even brought Sting Like a Bee up as an option, but once again... he was right. The moment the idea popped into my head it was hard to ignore and I quickly navigated to the Passive Ability.

"Combat Cadence. Level 1 Passive Ability. While in combat or within a defined enemy stronghold (such as constructed bases, safe houses, or phased territorial spaces), your base Stamina Regeneration is increased from 100 to 200% of your total Strength stat per second. Out of combat, your base Stamina regeneration is reduced to 50% of your total Strength stat per second. Additionally, Channeled and Movement Abilities no longer pause Stamina Regeneration while they are in use."

"First Modification Option! Counterbeat! Talk about moving to the rhythm! With just a bit more of a sway to those hips of yours, you can really learn how to turn fighting into a dance. Whenever you dodge an attack, instantly regain 5% of your total Stamina and your Stamina Regeneration increases by an additional 50% for 5 seconds, during which time this cannot be procced again."

"Second Modification Option! Overdrive Rhythm! When your Stamina drops below 25% for the first time during an encounter, your Stamina regeneration doubles to 400% of your total Strength stat per second for 15 seconds before you regain an additional 25% of your Stamina. Your Stamina Regeneration is then halted completely for 10 seconds."

"Third Modification Option! Pulse Flow! Starting when you have landed three consecutive strikes in a row, increase your Stamina Regeneration for an additional 50% of your Strength stat for each strike, up to a maximum of 1000%. This increase resets if you go without landing a hit for more than 3 seconds."

"Damn, those are all pretty good choices," Jon said, clearly pleased. "Which one do you think you're gonna choose?"

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