Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 45

Growing Pains and Endorphins

(Misha Tulley)

Misha felt alive after her most recent reaping. The power gained from resetting a Tier II to nothing was euphoric to say the least. Endorphins and enzymes never meant to exist in the circulatory system were activated and released at once.

Ultimately, Misha knew that this was a mark of her organo-tech, a component meant to induce future compliance. It was a marker and she hated every aspect of it.

Tremble.

Her body pulsed with pleasures and sensations that made her feel how drugs might feel, if drugs were tailor made for her individual body. She both hated and found that to her shame she also loved every moment of it. Worse, she couldn’t stop future attacks, and that is what she was now thinking of this system, an attack. It forced compliance and made it so rewards and likely punishments would be rendered automatically.

Worse, the coding for the rewards and likely punishments were hardcoded into the baseline of the organo-tech itself, and additionally, it seemed that humanity had been specifically engineered to be fully compatible with the organo-tech, meaning what?

Well for starters, it meant that Misha had to suffer through this, which she did. Even momentarily giving up on driving a wedge between Rodger and Alishia in order to get out of school and get to the safety of her vehicle.

The world went by in a blur, as she tried to make her way out of the school unnoticed.

As she approached the exit, the guards on staff all stopped to look at her. Thinking quickly, Misha grunted in pain. She could either do one of two things try to stay, or leave for the day?

She wanted to leave, though today was the first day back at practice. Seeing as basketball was one of the few things she actually liked doing, a team task that had nothing to do with Psychers or Bakshee, she found that really enjoyed it for the distraction that it was.

“I forgot my book in my car.” Misha said, pointing to her car and trying to let Ms. Holly, the security guard on duty see that she was going right there. Ms. Holly was one of the guards who would often see the different team members leaving school for the day, as such she instantly recognized Misha. Not that it was hard to miss a tall amazonian red head that was over six foot tall.

“You okay, you don’t look that good?” Ms. Holly asked, taking one look at Misha and realizing that something was not right.

“I’m fine, I just need a moment.” Misha said.

“Yeah, do you need to go to the nurse?”

With that Misha just shook her head, “no, I don’t want to miss practice.”

Ms. Holly just nodded in understanding. “Well come right back, class is about to start.”

Misha just nodded, still battling the effects of the sensations within her body. Mentally, Misha knew that the reason why this was going so poorly for her was due to the fact that she was trying to resist the effects of the chemicals being released into her body.

By now Misha could feel a slight little hole that separated her main consciousness from the part of her mind that interacted with her body.

Mentally, she went through the process of how the drug worked, it was created in different parts of the body, the adrenaline gland was the biggest contributor to the cocktail, but there were other sources that contributed minor portions as well that ultimately got fed through her bloodstream to her pancreas which rather than breaking down the chemicals created an amplifying effect based on their own enzymes that were released after processing a particular set of enzymes from the brain.

In her mind, that was the issue, the initial catalyst for why everything was so off.

Getting into her vehicle, she noticed that the seat was just too close, that her legs banged against the steering wheel at this angle. Not really thinking much of it, Misha moved her seat back as she all but collapsed onto the steering wheel and tried to fight through the drug induced haze to be able to function properly any time soon.

As she fought through the impulses that were being forced upon her Misha let out an all too familiar curse against the Bakshee. “Hedonists.”

Then pausing, Misha realized that this contempt was now pointless. Her side had lost.

Worst of all, she only now realized that the Psychers would have likely been far happier to be able to exist without her assistance at all. With the Bakshee, there was a system where everyone could succeed, so long as certain goals and milestones were met. Then you were to be rewarded with forced evolutions and forced emotional states.

While the Psychers assumed that advancement would be done at a personal level while maintaining the integrity of the fleet.

Seemingly minor differences, but one clearly won a war of attrition due to their ability to churn out newer and more advanced bodies, while the other went for consistently proven incremental increases. Of the two, Misha was still at a loss for which one was better.

Though right now, with the world spinning wildly about her, Misha realized that she absolutely hated this feeling of not being in control over her own body. Which was why she went about forcing her body to be altered slightly.

Part of the early Psycher training is the ability to first ignore bodily impulses, like the need for sleep, the pangs of hunger and thirst. A Psycher must first learn to recognize where those parts of the body are that generate such heavy responses, and then remove them completely. Only then is a Psycher allowed access to the meal halls, only then is a Psycher allowed to go to the water fountains whenever they wish, once they realize the difference between needing to go and merely wanting to go due to base instincts.

Yeah, looking back the practice was rather vulgar, she could see that now. But that training did provide one important piece of training that Misha was now aware of, and that she was currently going to use was her ability to find key components of different organs that released enzymes or processed enzymes and disable them.

In this particular case the enzymes that her body produced were set at a standard rate, while the receptors in her pancreas that had the euphoric reaction to the stimuli were designed to slowly degrade over time, causing less and less of a reaction, while ultimately forcing Misha to work two and three times as hard to get to this initial state. Which would of course degrade the receptor even faster, making it so Misha would constantly be chasing that next high. It would be an ingenious plan to force compliance, had Misha not utterly hated the idea of not being in control over her own body and impulses.

That was why, Misha found that the easiest way to deal with this whole situation and to keep it from happening again, was to completely burn out the receptor portion of her pancreas. Without this component, no matter how much of these euphoric toxins Misha had released, her body would not react.

The only problem was, that Misha at first was at a loss on how to get rid of the component, before realizing the answer to her Bakshee problem was of course to use her now Innate Psycher capabilities.

Zzap.

Focusing internally, Misha created an intense but miniscule burst of electricity that specifically targeted the receptor node and then released.

Gah.

Despite being fully aware of what was going to happen, Misha still felt her body double over in pain, as she found herself jerking forward, until her head rested firmly against the steering wheel.

HONK!

Startled by the sound, Misha quickly bent back. Then wanting to make sure she got the receptor the first time, she charged up, focused and released a second controlled burst of electrical energy directly into her own body.

ZZZZAP!

This time it was a lot more, as she didn’t want to have to resort to this form of self-torture again.

Gasp.

Finally, after a long minute of pain, Misha felt the strain on her body ease up, as she began to be able to breathe slowly at first. Then finally she felt the pain and the disorientation due to her forced high fade away at roughly the same time.

Clarity.

Finally, the fog that had covered Misha’s mind began to dissipate slowly. It wasn’t enough, but it was just enough that she could look at what she gained from her recent harvesting of Alishia.

Alternate-1 Reaper System Activated.

Conditions met, reset Tier 2 Warrior Alishia Stone to Tier 0. All Warrior Attributes were condensed to their base level to ensure optimal growth pattern initiated.

Harvested Ability: Danger Sense (3)

Remaining energy absorbed by Alternate-1 Reaper System.

Points remaining: 0.8.

With Misha’s double growth and speed rating the effects of her harvesting were nearly a full point for resetting Alishia back to Tier 0. Logically, this meant that even more increases could be expected if she continued to advance upwards as a reaper.

Misha also managed to steal Alishia’s Danger Sense, the reason for this was that she wanted Alishia to drop her guard some, which would make eliminating her that much easier. Interestingly enough, Misha found that she could exchange Danger Sense, for 1.5 points needed for any other Ability that she wished to purchase. Of course that new Ability would have to go in her Harvested Slot if it was not a true Reaper ability, but something to consider for the future.

Tier -II

Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.

Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.

Improved Harvesting (2)

Harvested Slot: Danger Sense (3)

Upgrade Points remaining: 0.8.

Physical Characteristics:

Strength: 14.9 / 16.9

Dexterity: 20 / 25

Agility: 20 / 25

Stamina: 14.9 / 16.9

Pausing for a moment, Misha realized that with this accelerated growth rate, she could now cross the fifteen point threshold for both Strength and Stamina, while also making sure that her two primary Attributes of Dexterity and Agility still received the majority of her increases.

Pausing for a moment, she resolved to do just that. One tenth of a point into Strength and Stamina, with three tenths of a point going to Dexterity and Agility.

The effects were felt instantaneously.

As pain coursed through Misha’s body, forcing her body to move and stretch in ways she never thought possible.

Physical Characteristics:

Strength: 15.0 / 16.9

Dexterity: 20.3 / 25

Agility: 20.3 / 25

Stamina: 15.0 / 16.9

This time, she felt her body grow and stretch. Her pants that had been down to the tops of her shoes, now showed an inch of her ankles. Her shirt that had been comfortably able to cover her torso now showed the slightest traces of her stomach. Worse, everything seemed to be just that much tighter.

Once again, Misha found that her legs were pressed tightly against the steering wheel. This time she lowered her seat as low as it would go, only to find that there was nowhere left for her to go and she still felt tight against the wheel.

Her body was growing and adapting.

While the changes she now felt were not the same as when she crossed the fifteen-point threshold for Dexterity and Agility, there was no new modifier indicated for her build, she was still a Speed and Accuracy build, she felt that this description no longer suited her. At least not as well as it used to.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Misha was able to calm her mind enough to realize that the worst was over. The pains she felt from not being in control and forcing her mind to fight through the fog of hedonistic ecstasy was finally erased. Her situation was helped out greatly by both her immediate pains from providing self directed electrocution and her growth pains associated with hitting an evolutionary barrier, perhaps multiple as the twenty-point threshold was also a barrier of some kind, but the effects of crossing that barrier were not readily apparent, save for a few tingling sensations in her hands that now that she looked also seemed to have grown slightly from the changes.

Still she felt she had spent enough time in her car. Getting up, she grabbed a book she had actually forgotten to bring in with her, and decided to leave and exit her vehicle. A task that was now just that much harder to accomplish given her size and shape.

As she walked back, Misha saw Ms. Holly there with a note of concern on her face.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now.” Misha replied.

“Okay, I’ll write you a pass for class since you are already late, but don’t let this become a habit.” Ms. Holly said, quickly filling out the eForm that could be transferred to any teacher.

“I won’t.” Misha said, glad that she didn’t have to forge one on her own.

Then with that Misha left, missing the look of respect that Ms. Holly was giving her as she left the office.

“What was that?” Ms. Baker asked.

“That was a girl who is going through a very bad period and will still go through the day to make it through practice.” Ms. Holly said, then making a mental note, she made sure to tell Coach Green about this incident as well. Just to make sure she went a little easier on the girl.

“Oh yeah, the new girl. I heard she made the team. Is she any good?”

“From what I hear yeah, but we will find out this weekend.”

“Our first game?”

“I know, while we were down for two weeks, the season remained the same.”

“Well, that’s good, otherwise they might have had to cut into the holiday season.”

“Yeah I think that’s why all the coaches decided to keep the schedule the same.”