The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

It turned out I was stronger than Nova was, too. Peter was still stronger than I was, and Luke Cage considerably so, but the fact was I was doing body-building at unenhanced strength levels. I was also stronger than Cindy and Jessica, but not Gwen.

I was closing in on being able to bench six tons. That wasn’t too bad, all things considered, and the nature of the Spider Totem meant that was still mostly tone. If I added actual muscle mass, there was a good chance I could close in on ten tons or more, if I wanted to look like a bodybuilder...

Meh.

There was a ten-minute break, and the girls promptly corralled me, glaring off the guys, who held up their hands and backed away, even Peter.

“Hair!” declared the blonde Spider-girl in the black, white, and pink outfit.

“Hair?” I repeated, touching my bangs as I looked up. Did they want my shampoo?

“Why is your hair so perfect after running so fast!?” Silk in her also white and black outfit demanded to know.

“Oh.” I brushed it back absently. “One, there wasn’t much air resistance as I was moving, kinda like a breeze. Two, electrostatic attraction pattern set between the strands of hair. Sticks to itself in a pre-set pattern I lock in after it looks nice.” I bowed my head over, mussed up my hair in a blur of hands in motion, and they watched as all the strands slid back into perfect place.

They all let out groans in unison. “Are you sure it’s not your conditioner?” Spider-girl asked plaintively.

“Nah. The alchemical stuff to do the same thing would be like two hundred bucks a bottle, or something.” I tilted my head as they all stared at me in envy. “So, what do I call you all?” I asked calmly. “Codenames or names, either works, I’m not prying.”

They all looked at one another, and then they sighed.

Hands came up and pulled off the masks. The boys watching nearby started to say something, and then stopped as they were ignored completely.

“Gwen,” the blonde said, extending a hand. I shook it firmly. “Or Spider-girl.”

“Cindy,” the Oriental girl did the same. “Codename Silk!”

“Jessica,” the rather soft-spoken brunette was last, her white and pink outfit like an evolution of the other two. “I went with Jewel. I, uh, couldn’t really think of anything appropriate.”

“Dyna or Dynamo, take your pick,” I said shortly once more. “What’s next on the testing? Dodging? Throwing? Shooting?”

“Probably hand-to-hand combat,” sighed Gwen, rolling her eyes. “So boring. They just go on and on about techniques and footwork and strike zones and forms and katas...”

“And you don’t think any of that is relevant?” My incredulity lifted my eyebrows.

“Noooo...” she immediately denied, and then huffed. “It’s just so technical and boring,” she reiterated, as if that was the cardinal sin. “Every move with a countermove, everything has a name. Like, hitting someone with a pinkie seems to have a name?”

I glanced away, and back at her. “You know someone who can hit someone with a pinkie?” I asked calmly. “Damn. That’s really impressive. Five Extremes Little Finger means you are freaking deadly!”

Her mouth opened and closed. “You’re just like them!” she whispered in horror.

I reached up to tap my temple. “Schmot Gurl,” I told her, and her eyes widened. “Yeah, that kind of smart. Of course I know my martial art moves! Five Extremes Wind Finger is a kill move. Someone hits you with that, it’ll drill right through your skull!”

Her mouth opened, closed, not saying anything. The other two looked impressed that I even had a counter to her complaints.

“Where’d you learn that?” Cindy asked me, leaning in.

“Eh. In the Tribal lands, you can look up all sorts of crazy shit. See videos of them, too.” I held up a pinkie. “You watch someone use their pinkie to drill a two-inch hole through both sides of a coconut and send all that milk spraying, you don’t forget it!”

“What about your bracelets? And gloves, they look pretty cool,” Jessica spoke up, staring at my hands and the fingerless gloves I was wearing.

“These? Ranged options,” I told them, holding one up to flex. “Two different things, bracelets and gloves, right? They aren’t anywhere as bulky as they could be, because I’m the dynamo, I’m the power supply, right?” They all nodded, and jumped as I generated a healthy arc of bioelectricity between my hands. “So, I can generate a lot of juice, see, but I’m not like, oh, E-lek-tro. I can’t manipulate it. I can sort of send it off in that direction and pray it hits what I’m aiming at.” I pointed out into nowhere and the electricity crackled and snapped out, zigging through the air and not really following a straight path before it petered out.

“But if I put it into an electro-plasmic phased array emitter...” I aimed down the field at the wall, and a bright snap of energized plasma crackled out in a very straight line, hitting the steel wall down there and grounding out.

“Niiiice,” they all said together, a tad enviously. “What about the gloves?” Cindy pressed eagerly.

“You familiar with the Crux at all?” I asked them, and they all nodded quickly.

“White supremist assholes,” Gwen sniffed first. “Cloaking themselves up in white purity and Christianity and stuff. Everybody knows they are just Nazis in disguise.” The other two nodded agreement.

“They have a thing called the Hand of God. Looks like a big metal gauntlet,” I motioned up and down my arm, “and the thing hits like a freaking semi-truck ramming into you. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen something really, really strong hit something, but that’s what it does. Doesn’t have too many charges, but if you punched a normal human with it, they’d literally blow apart into bloodspray. It might not kill one of you, but you’d literally go flying hardhardhard.”

There was a crackle, and a rather sinister white light came up over my gloves and the bands on them.

“That looks really dangerous,” Jessica murmured, as both Gwen and Cindy instinctively backed up a step.

“You see this light on something, you don’t get hit by it, you got me?” I held it out to them, and they stared at it, impressing it into their minds. “Feel that hum? Hear that sound? Yeah, you memorize that. Do not get hit by something with it going on.”

“Shiiiiiiiiiit,” Cindy murmured, eyebrow twitching as she bent carefully towards it, staring. “The vibes I am getting off this are not fun.”

“Same,” Gwen agreed, also leaning in gingerly.

“But you know, if you have to fight something way tougher and stronger than you...” I trailed off and shrugged, letting the charge lapse, and the two both visibly relaxed.

“Kinda like Danny, I mean, Iron Fist’s punch, right?” Cindy asked me.

“I dunno. I’ve never seen his punch,” I shrugged.

“He can knock Luke halfway across the room with it!” Gwen exclaimed cheerfully. “It’s really cool when it goes off!”

“Does he use his little finger?” I asked her, and she blinked at me.

“Uh, no? He uses his whole fist...”

“Oh.” I arched an eyebrow. “Well, if all his attacks are that strong, yeah, still pretty dangerous to anyone...”

The three looked a little awkward. “Uh, he can only get one off at a time,” Jessica spoke up. “He really has to rest before doing another one.”

I looked back and forth between them. “Oooo-kay. A baby chi-user.” I rubbed my temples as they burst out laughing.

“Baby chi-user?” Cindy repeated, giggling. “He’s, like, the best fighter among us here!”

“Really? Best fighter, or he knows how to fight? Those are two very different things, you know.”

“Uh...” They all looked at one another, and we all turned to look at him. He noticed, and promptly jumped in surprise at being stared at.

“I don’t see any weapons in them tights,” I whispered to them. “Exactly how did he catch up to you and beat you?”

“Uh, it’s when we are sparring,” Jessica whispered back.

“So, when you follow his rules of engagement, he beats you?” I asked, looking back at them.

“Well, it’s true he doesn’t deal with webs very well,” Gwen mused. “He’s gotta bring up his fist to tear through them.” Cindy nodded.

“So, you two have webs. What about you, Jess? Um, flying, if I recall?”

She was gratified I recognized her. “Yes! But I, uh, still have to get close to fight...”

I eyed her oddly. “You’re super-strong, I could tell by your handshakes, all of you. You can totally carry around stuff to attack from a distance. Why aren’t you?” I pointed at Gwen’s bracelets. “Your webs?” I asked. She nodded once. “So, could Jewel wear a pair of those?”

They all looked scandalized. “No! I mean, yes, but...”

“But?” I blinked. “Do you realize how effective someone who can fly around and coat a fight in nets and stuff could be?”

“Uh, they aren’t that simple to use?” Gwen offered lamely.

“So, she’d either learn to use them, or wear a pair that’s easier to use?” I prodded her.

Gwen winced despite herself. “Well, I don’t know how to make a pair. They’re Peter’s invention... uh, I mean, Spider-man’s!” she covered herself badly.

“You’re really bad at the secret identity thing,” I told her with a smirk.

“Well, you’re here, and you’re a Powered, and you don’t have a mask on...” she defended herself with a puffed-up face, and wilted under my smile. “Okay, okay, I goofed!...”

“So, if the newspapers are right, you two and Spidey over there are basically triplets... super-strong, bouncy-bouncy agile, toss webs, make bad guys look ridiculous, dodge everything?” I asked, pointing at Cindy and Gwen. “And you are superstrong and can fly? Bulletproof?” I asked archly of Jessica.

“No!” she said quickly. “SHIELD uniform! But I can fly and I’m pretty strong...”

“Okay, I’m stronger than you are, I’m probably faster than you are, and I have ranged attacks, because Schmot Gurl not dumb.” I thorked my temple. “We have got to get you some kind of ranged attack, Jessica. Lemme tell you why, and I want you to think about this.

“If you don’t have any ranged attacks, that means you have to get close to someone. That means they can attack you on the approach, they can attack you if you don’t approach, and THEN they can attack you in hand-to-hand, right?” She considered that and nodded.

“But, if you have a ranged attack, you can just sit back and trade with them, right? If they want to stop you, they either have to shoot back, or close in on you.” I leaned in to her, and she did the same. “Baby, you can FLY. The only time they gonna get close to you is if you want them to, or they can FLY.” I tilted my head. “Or maybe you run out of ammo. Whatever! YOU dictate when and if you come to punches! If you got webs, then web the suckers up good! Set them up for your friends! Clog all their guns! Net them up and haul them into the sky!” I spread my hands. “Flying itself is, like, the BEST superpower if you use it right! Why do you think people want to shut it down so much?”

“Well,” she said in the face of my enthusiasm, “it’s because it can get shut down that they want me to learn how to fight hand-to-hand...”

“And in the meantime, they aren’t teaching you how to exploit flying?” I was incredulous. “Oh, that is so totally bogus!” I rolled up my eyes and threw up my hands in complete overdrama. “What are they trying to do, make you fail? Totally envious of you, I bet!”