Chapter 123 | Rebranding the Anomaly

I looked at Sloane standing there by the window, wrapped in nothing but a towel and the weight of everything I’d just dropped on her. The afternoon light caught the water droplets still clinging to her pink hair, making them sparkle like tiny crystals. Her blue eyes were locked on mine with that particular intensity she got when she was processing something that might require her to explode things.

The System was probably having a field day with this conversation. Three objectives completed, household stability achieved, and now I was voluntarily explaining powers I didn’t actually have to cover for the ones I couldn’t explain.

Brilliant strategy, Belmont. Really thinking three moves ahead here.

"Yeah," I said, meeting her stare. "There’s more."

Diane shifted beside me on the bed, her attention sharpening. The CEO mode was kicking in, I could see it in the way her posture straightened and her eyes focused. She was already running calculations, probably figuring out how to manage whatever I was about to reveal.

"My manifestation wasn’t as simple as Force Manipulation," I continued, weaving truth and bullshit together with the skill of someone who’d been doing it for two months. "Late bloomers sometimes get complex expressions. Multiple functions that activate under different conditions."

Sloane’s grip on her towel tightened. "What kind of functions?"

"Enhancement is one. There’s also something like tactical precognition. Split-second glimpses of what’s about to happen in combat situations." I gestured vaguely at my head. "It’s why I did so well during the practical exam. I could see robot movements a few seconds before they happened."

Not technically a lie. The Oracle Feed did exactly that, it just wasn’t an Aspect.

"That’s three functions," Diane said quietly. "Force Manipulation, Enhancement, and Precognition. That’s not a complex manifestation, Lukas. That’s a compound Aspect."

Shit. I’d walked right into that one.

Compound Aspects were the stuff of legend. Heroes with multiple distinct powers that somehow worked together. They were rarer than winning the lottery while getting struck by lightning, and they always ended up either ruling the world or dead in a ditch because everyone wanted to control them.

"Maybe," I said, trying to sound casual about it. "The diagnostics were pretty confused. Charles couldn’t figure out why my Core readings were so diffuse."

"Because you don’t have a single Core," Diane breathed. "You have multiple expressions drawing from different sources."

The way she was looking at me now made my skin crawl. It was the same look she got when she spotted a Hero with serious potential and started calculating how to lock them down to an exclusive agency contract.

"This changes everything," she continued, standing up and starting to pace again. "We can’t just hide an enhancement effect. A compound Aspect with three distinct functions? That’s front-page news material."

Sloane finally spoke up from her spot by the window. "So what do we do?"

"We don’t do anything," I said firmly. "I register exactly what I registered. Force Manipulation with potential secondary developments. We don’t mention the enhancement or the precognition to anyone."

"Lukas," Diane’s voice carried that particular tone she used when she thought someone was being an idiot. "You can’t hide compound expressions forever. The power scaling alone will give you away. If you keep getting stronger at the rate you have been, people will notice."

"Then I don’t get stronger."

Both women stared at me like I’d suggested setting myself on fire for fun.

"You want to deliberately limit your own development?" Sloane’s voice was flat with disbelief. "That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say."

"It’s not stupid, it’s strategic." I stood up and grabbed my boxers from the floor. "Look, I’ve got enough power to maybe make it through the first year without embarrassing myself. Anything beyond that can wait until I’ve got proper agency backing and legal protection."

"And in the meantime?" Diane crossed her arms. "What happens when some A-rank villain decides you look like easy prey and you’re holding back seventy percent of your actual capability?"

The System chimed softly in the back of my mind, probably laughing at the entire conversation. I had Lightning Cloak, Blitz, Spectral Reach, and enough stat points to bench press a small car, but I was sitting here pretending to be worried about limiting my development.

"I’ll figure it out," I said. "I always do."

Sloane made a disgusted sound. "That’s not a plan, that’s wishful thinking."

"You have a better idea?"

"Yeah. Get stronger. Use whatever powers you have, get as powerful as possible as fast as possible, and dare anyone to try taking it away from you." She stepped closer, dropping her voice to that particular register she used when she was about to make a point with her fists. "Hiding makes you look weak. Looking weak makes you a target."

The girl had a point. A violent, explosive point, but still a point.

"Sloane’s right," Diane said reluctantly. "Restraint is smart up to a point, but if you’re genuinely sitting on compound Aspect potential, suppressing it could be more dangerous than revealing it."

I ran both hands through my hair, buying time to think. The real problem wasn’t hiding my current abilities. The real problem was that I was going to keep getting more abilities whether I wanted them or not, and I needed a framework to explain why the quiet Unmarked kid suddenly had enough powers to stock a small Hero agency.

"Alright," I said finally. "What if my manifestation is still developing?"

Both women looked at me.

"Late bloomers sometimes get extended manifestation periods," I continued, the lie building itself as I talked. "What if instead of hiding what I can do, we frame it as ongoing development? My Aspect is still figuring out what it wants to be."

Diane’s eyes lit up. "Progressive manifestation syndrome. It’s documented but extremely rare. The Aspect continues evolving for months or even years after initial activation."

"Exactly. So when new functions appear, it’s not me hiding abilities. It’s my power continuing to develop in real time."