“Possible, but unlikely given the circumstances,” Sabrina said, ever the calm professor of apocalyptic metaphysics. “Your energy control is far superior, and your cultivation method is much more robust than her instinctual siphoning. It is a structured chaos versus a pure, undirected one. So, you have two choices.”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to hate both of them,” I muttered, starting to pull on my newly rebuilt armor. At least the recycling process was efficient. It was the one thing in my life that didn’t leave a permanent mess. Just a pile of trauma to sort through later.

  She nodded. “One involves keeping her close and managing this connection. The other involves pushing her away, severing the nascent bond before it deepens. To be frank, I have little reason to be on your active team roster. I care nothing for these academy rankings. My progression is alchemical, not combative. I am useless until we acquire the proper materials. I would suggest you petition to have her placed on your active team in my stead.”

  “I don’t even know if we still have a team after that spectacle,” I said, the armor seals hissing as they closed. It felt good. Solid. Like a shell I could hide in. “And I’m pretty sure she’s not going to abandon Phoenix Team to join the Island of Misfit Toys. That’s a lateral move at best, and a career-ending one at worst.”

  Sabrina offered a small, knowing smile. “I cannot speak for the female experience, but having a near-perfectly Dao-aligned essence infused directly into your dantian is… transcendent. While rejection is possible, it seems highly improbable. The draw will be powerful. It is a connection deeper than mere social climbing.”

  “So this… non-evil dual cultivation only works if you have closely aligned Daos?” I asked, hoping for a loophole, a way to shut this down without having to see her again and be reminded of my public nudity.

  “The non-invasive, mutually beneficial kind, yes,” she clarified. “The invasive kind, where one uses the other as a cultivation vessel, can forcefully alter a victim’s Dao and spiritual roots before stealing everything they are. It can, in theory, be used to repair a broken base, but I have never seen it used for anything but theft and murder. It is a tool of demons and despots.”

  I let out a long, weary sigh. It was the sigh of a man who just found a new problem he didn’t need. “Great. So now I’m technically an accidental energy rapist, too. Just what my resume needed. ‘Blueprint: Rent-a-Villain, Emergency Medic, Accidental Spiritual Violator.’ They’re going to love that at the annual BSA mixer. I can see the nametags now.”

  She shook her head, a flicker of frustration in her eyes. “Not any more than someone who uses mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is a kisser of corpses. You are doing it again.”

  “Doing what again?” I asked, checking the fit of my gauntlets. The myocytes hummed, ready to resist.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Taking responsibility for a catastrophe you did not cause. She had almost no control over her power, using it in one of the most brutishly simplistic ways I have ever witnessed. Kinetic alteration? You use it with a thousand subtle applications. What did she use it for? To run fast by stealing the energy from her surroundings. The moment the energy source was blocked, what would you have done?”

  I didn’t have to think. It was my Dao. “Re-absorbed it. Redirected the load. Dumped it into the ground. Something that didn’t involve becoming a walking bomb. Momentum has to go somewhere; it’s not just about stopping, it’s about redirecting the flow.”

  She nodded sharply. “Exactly. She just… burned. Over a hundred Alphas die from power-induced stupidity every year. Your only sin was interrupting her destined appointment with Darwin. You said it yourself when you freed me from that van: it is not your responsibility to take the blame for the mistakes of others.”

  She had me there. I’d been pretty eloquent in that van, right before I ripped the tracking devices and suicide implants out and sent us on a magic carpet ride. It was easy to give that advice; following it myself was the real challenge. “Responsibility or not, she’s still going on the list. The problem list.”

  Sabrina actually laughed, a light, musical sound that was utterly out of place in my grim reality. “You are one of the few men I have met who would refer to being pursued by attractive, powerful women as a ‘problems list.’ On my world, such a thing would be considered a strategic asset or a sign of great favor from the heavens.”

  “Yeah, well, on this world, it’s a liability and a one-way ticket to getting your heart used as a punching bag,” I grumbled, finishing my suit checks. “But at least I’ve diagnosed the core illness. I have a pathological aversion to women who are more powerful than I am. It’s a primal, Neanderthal, chest-beating thing. I’m supposed to be the provider, the protector, the big gorilla. Do I find someone like Candace attractive? Absolutely. She’s a warrior goddess with a mouth like a sailor and the protective instincts of a mother bear. But that’s also trouble I can’t afford. It shuts off my brain, my ego, and the last vestiges of my common sense. It’s how you end up signing over your company to your girlfriend and your cousin while they promise you it’s for the best.”

  She finished adjusting her own, far more elegant costume—a simple affair she’d designed that prioritized freedom of movement for her alchemical gestures over protection. She looked good in it. We made quite the pair heading to Kaiju Tactics: the hulking, cynical tin can and the delicate, otherworldly alchemist. The walking personification of brute force and subtle science, a duo destined for disaster or, at the very least, a very confusing yearbook photo.

  She raised an eyebrow. “And what is the prescribed treatment for this diagnosis?”

  “Avoidance therapy,” I said flatly. “And industrial-strength cynicism. Also, maybe building a bigger suit of armor. You can’t have emotional problems if you’re encased in a quarter-ton of composite plating. It’s the emotional equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling ‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY AWESOME ARMOR.’”

  She’d mentioned some fascinating ideas earlier about alchemical enhancements using local flora. The whole ‘better living through chemistry’ angle was a turn-off for a purist like me who preferred to punch reality until it gave me what I wanted, but I couldn’t deny the potential.

  It meant field trips. It meant getting her out of the city and into a high-essence zone teeming with the most hideous and horrible monsters this dying world could offer, a place where the very air was thick with potential and peril.

  We were going to have to go to the Jersey Shore. God help us all.