Triple Point

Chapter 108: T-9

Camilla

06 OCT 34AE

9 days before Operation Cliffhanger

With the return of Camilla's abilities, there came both pros and cons. From the benefits, Camilla no longer felt like a burden, and the uncomfortable looks that people had given her over the past few months were replaced by the nervous glances she was more accustomed to. Plus, she had almost forgotten what it was like to act as her own temperature control, and it made the frigid nights in the hideout significantly more bearable.

Then there were the drawbacks, the most notable of which required her to refine the abilities she hadn't used in ages. All of the general combat training sessions took place between breakfast and lunch, and Camilla followed Nakia and Finn to the room reserved for the matter manipulation metas.

At first, Camilla was worried that she would end up embarrassing herself in front of the dozens of other metas that were curiously watching her every move. Fortunately, even though she was a little rusty, she quickly picked things up again and managed to breeze through the hours of sparring matches with hardly any trouble at all.

The only time she encountered resistance was during one of her later matches that paired her up against Quentin, and the kid seemed determined to beat her at any cost. As inexperienced as he was compared to her, there was a reason he had been picked to participate in the last Unity Games, and Camilla had more trouble in dealing with him than she liked to admit.

And if that wasn't bad enough, her afternoon schedule had her in additional training with a collection of other unappealing characters, both from the Alliance and Exodos.

Senior had referred to them as the Super Squad: the group of metas with irregular abilities. AJ told Camilla they were more like a band of misfits, and it didn't take Camilla long to figure out why.

First, there were the few she knew. AJ was the most normal out of the group, even with her short temper and questionable coping mechanisms. Ian was there as well, but AJ threatened to put him to sleep if he tried to use his abilities when he was still recovering, much to his disappointment.

Then, there was Miles Figueroa, the kid that went with them to San Francisco and could bend the light and sound in the air to create illusions. Out of the group members that Camilla wasn't familiar with, he was probably her favorite simply because he never said a word and kept to himself as much as possible.

But the others were... less normal. Aside from Miles, the Alliance's other "super meta" was a man who could replicate other metas' abilities as long as he maintained physical contact with them. According to AJ, he wasn't very good at controlling matter manipulation abilities, and Senior had wanted Camilla to help him practice. While that alone would have been tolerable, the "Copycat" also had the sense of humor of a kid thirty years younger with most of his comedic material revolving around toilet-related jokes.

On Exodos's side, there were four super metas, each with their own unique personalities. One, for instance, refused to tell anyone their name, as if the illusion of mystery would make them look cool. They could alter their appearance however they pleased, and they would do so about once every other hour, but tended to change more often if they knew it annoyed the people they were with. On top of that, they were more than a little pretentious, and they seemed to take pleasure in doing the exact opposite of what they were told, including focusing on their training.

Next was a young pair whom AJ dubbed the "Telepathy Twins." They actually were identical twins, and they could silently communicate to each other by generating something like radio waves at frequencies only they knew.