Prism academy prophecy.., p.1
Prism Academy- Prophecy: A Litrpg Supers Adventure, page 1
Prism Academy- Prophecy
Copyright License Notes: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Prism Academy- Prophecy
Copyright © 2023
David Burke
Cover art copyright
David Burke
Table of Contents
Significant Terms
Cast
My take on Stats
The Story so Far
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Aid Incoming
Chapter 2 - CB
Chapter 3 - Tandem
Chapter 4 - Side Effects
Interlude 1 - The Competition
Chapter 5 - Clean Up
Chapter 6 - Publicity
Chapter 7 - Checking In
Chapter 8 - Drinks on Memory Lane
Chapter 9 - Humanity’s Darker Side
Chapter 10 - Women are from Venus
Chapter 11 - Dinner and Hard Talk
Interlude 2 - Strategic Thinking
Chapter 12 - Desert with Less Talk
Chapter 13 - A Crush
Chapter 14 - Adding On
Chapter 15 - Air Superiority
Chapter 16 - Two Ambushes
Chapter 17 – We’re Doing This
Chapter 18 – Hearts Racing
Chapter 19 – Early Bird gets the… Worm?
Chapter 20 - Enhancing
Chapter 21 - Android 1.2
Chapter 22 - Let There Be Life
Chapter 23 - Resonance
Chapter 24 - A New Beginning
Chapter 25 - Even Better Beginnings
Chapter 26 - Did It Work?
Chapter 27 - Stats 1
Interlude 3 - Cyber Dreams
Chapter 28 - Planning
Chapter 29 - Date Night Part Deux
Chapter 30 - Attack on the Clan
Chapter 31 - Joining the Fight
Chapter 32 - Long Live the Queen
Chapter 33 - A True Friend
Chapter 34 - Drum Roll… Please
Chapter 35 - At Long Last
Interlude 4 - Destiny
Chapter 36 - What Happens After Three
Chapter 37 - Powering Up
Chapter 38- Stats 2
Chapter 39 - Conductivity
Chapter 40 - Demonstrating Hope
Chapter 41 - Parade
Chapter 42 - The Other Shoe
Epilogue
Stats at the End of Book 4 -
Other Books by the Author:
Significant Terms
One of the issues which people have asked for is a reminder up front of who’s who. In the past I have put an index at the end of the book, but in some ways, it makes more sense to put that here, up front.
Board - the group which owns Prism Academy and controls it in broad terms. It is composed of representatives from the five major private shareholders, a representative for the remaining smaller private shareholders, and a government representative, usually from the military. In book 2, Aden gained a seat on the board and thus a vote in his future.
Bonding - the process of forming a connection between a Ray and Refractor. It is lifelong and causes the two to care deeply about one another. It enhances the Ray while opening the affinity of the Refractor. A Refractor can only bond with a Ray who has one of his affinities which he hasn’t already opened.
Four-X (4x) - the name is given to those rare Refractors who open four of six progenitor affinities.
NAAG - North American Alliance Government. This is the primary government which is over the 13 remaining cities/safe zones in North America. There are supposedly two other areas where humans remain alive but as far as the public knows there is limited contact with those other areas.
Prism - the superhero name of the founder of the academy, a Refractor who had all six progenitor affinities. Now, the name is given to a super with all six affinities.
Progenitor Energy - a mysterious energy which arrived on the Earth 178 years ago and created supers.
When a human becomes a super as a result of exposure to progenitor energy, they manifest one or more affinities which are categorized by colors. Rays can only have one affinity, while Refractors will have between two and six.
Red - Bright Energy
Orange - Movement
Yellow - Senses
Green - Morphic
Blue - Mind
Violet - Dark Energy
Ray - the term for a female super. They all have enhanced strength, speed, and durability as well as access to one of the six affinities.
Refractor - the term for a male super. They share the same physical enhancements as Rays but the greater the number of their affinities the greater their base physical stats. They also have access to between two and six of the affinities but can only access them by bonding with a Ray.
Shadow - a mysterious energy/substance which appears to be the opposite of progenitor energy. It is what corrupts animals into monsters and what possesses incompatible humans who are exposed to progenitor energy. There are hints that it may be more of a being, than an energy.
Tri-Star - the name is given to Refractors with three progenitor affinities. Once the most common of Refractors, now the few who reach this level are some of the greatest supers on Earth.
Cast
Aden’s Nanite Optimization Program (A.N.O.P. — aka ANOP) - a nanite based AI system placed into Aden as a child by his mother and other unknown parties.
Aden Samuels (aka Sol) - the first new prism in a hundred years, he is a super with all six affinities. As of the end of book 2 he has activated his affinities for bright energy, sensory, morph, and dark energy by bonding with matching Rays. He also bonded with a psychic Ray, but she was killed leaving that affinity opened but bondless.
Aqueous (aka Molly Rogers) - a super with a morph affinity that allows her to take various fluid or gaseous forms and, after bonding with Aden, a battle form. She is unreserved in her support of Aden and more than a little handsy. Her world view is pretty simple: whatever is good for her and her team is good—and anything else is bad.
Bravo - a powerful super and chief instructor for the new supers. His affinities are morph and movement. He is bonded with Switch and Flurry.
Catherine Misago - a super with a psychic affinity. She is the right hand of the regent and a prominent scientist within Prism Academy. She has an unknown history with Aden’s parents. Evidence has been mounting to indicate that she is behind a number of bad things, including human experiments and potential deals made with the Shadow.
Demis (aka Jill Perkins) - a super with a dark energy affinity. She is the most recent of Aden’s bonds. She’s had a troubled background with abuse and neglect but instead of allowing it to make her a victim, she has sought—imperfectly—to live life in her own way. She was highly protective of Aden even before bonding with him at the end of book two. It stands to reason she will be even more so, now.
Feinston - the regent of Prism Academy, he is responsible for overall recruitment of new supers, and is head of the Chicago branch. His affinities are psychic and movement.
Flurry - one of Bravo’s bonded Rays. She has a movement affinity.
Inertia - a super and former teammate with Precision and Aqueous. They had all agreed never to bond unless they all bonded the same Refractor. She has a dark energy affinity. She attacked Aden in book 1, attempting to force a bond with him, and since then has joined forces with poachers—and worse—in book 2.
Inferna (aka Jen, or Jennifer Soros) - heir to the Soros Clan and a new super with a bright energy affinity. She is Aden’s first bond and the one he goes to for advice in dealing with political machinations.
Krig- the original war god from the series: War God for Hire. He was stranded on Earth following events in book one of that series and essentially left for dead in the low mana environment. The events of that book began just a couple of years prior to Earthfall. His body was turned over to the shadow by their mysterious partner and is now being experimented upon by Catherine Misago.
LM (aka Lean Man, or Daniel Brown) - a super who acts as Aden’s Mentor. His two affinities are morphic and sensory.
Precision (aka Willow Thompson) - a super with a sensory affinity. She is Aden’s yellow bond and the tactical leader of their team. As of the end of the second book, Aden has had the tech team work on developing drones and some high-tech armor to allow her to see the entire battlefield and better direct their team. She came from a well-to-do family, but nothing like the Soros Clan. Her commitment to Aden is unwavering, but she worries about being able to protect him.
Queenie - a renegade super who Aden bonded in book two. The bond drove her to sacrifice herself in an unnecessary attempt to save Aden, because she was unwilling to lose the love she felt through the bond—something which she had never truly experienced before in her life.
Supreme - one of the three strongest supers in the world—until Aden appears. He has affinities for movement, positive energy, and senso
Switch - one of Bravo’s bonded Rays. She has a morphic affinity.
Sybilla (aka Sybil Mizrahi) - a super with a psychic affinity. She is the one who discovered Aden, even before he became a super. She is known as the Seer and her secondary psychic ability gives her limited visions of the future. She claims that there is a karmic thread connecting her and Aden, but has never really explained what that means. She had been Aden’s choice for his psychic bond, until she withdrew herself and suggested he should attempt to bond Queenie. She did this, believing it was what was best for Aden—even if it wasn’t what he wanted and even though it broke her heart to do so. This obviously ruptured the trust between Aden and her.
Titana - a green or morphic affinity super on Aden’s security team. While she can’t bond with Aden after Aqueous opened his morphic affinity, she believes in his mission and is attracted to him.
Twinkle (aka Kenna Malone) - a super who works for the Soros Clan. She has a movement affinity with the ability to teleport. She has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, growing up in a poor family which is barely part of the clan. She and Aden connect over their common experiences of growing up without much. She is seeking to become Aden’s orange bond.
Valkyrie (aka Petra Mitchell) - a military pilot and movement affinity Ray with the ability to duplicate various aspects of vehicles. She is the military’s top pick for his orange bond and connects with Aden over their mutual interest in working with their hands to repair things.
Wraith (aka Priska Madur) - one of the newly created supers. She has a movement affinity which includes the ability to phase through objects and as she discovered in book two, between dimensions. At the beginning of book three she is stuck between dimensions in a place or horrors. She and Aden had started to form a friendship in book one but haven’t had much contact since then.
My take on Stats
The next issue before a brief recap is the set-up of this book. This is LitRPG. To me that means it has stats in it and that those stats are expressly stated.
During regular chapters I will discuss the upgrades they get, including gear and the above-mentioned aspects. I will talk about the choices they have between skills. I may occasionally provide a reminder about what a skill or power does, although I try to avoid too much of that. It can be a difficult balance to strike between how much of a reminder the reader/listener needs and what is just going to be annoying. If you are like me, you have many series that you are reading, and sometimes little reminders help.
As for full stat sheets, those will occur in their own chapters—and generally only as often as there have been significant changes. That means it could be one to three times per book. I love LitRPG and I love stats, but I know that everyone has different levels of preference for crunch.
By making them their own chapters, I am attempting to meet everyone’s needs. If you like stats like me, then you can read or listen to them. If you don’t like them, then you can skip those chapters. That will make it easier for you. Despite the occasional review which suggests this—there is no attempt to pad the word count of a story by doing this. If all LitRPG was written solely for me, there would be more stats, not less!
But I am doing it this way to try to meet everyone’s needs. There will also be a summary at the end, after the index. You don’t have to refer to that… or you can cheat and look forward to see the progress that has been made in this book. Okay, with that business out of the way, I’m going to recap the story up to this point and then let you dive right in.
The Story so Far
Book 1: We met Aden in the slums. After being saved by Supreme, who he impressed by standing up to a gang, he gains the opportunity to attend the next test for supers and the testing fee is waived for him. Only when he is exposed to progenitor energy and ANOP activates, does he learn that his mother injected a nanite based AI into him as a child.
This leads to a number of problems, including the realization that many of his memories have been altered or suppressed. How he perceives and reacts to negative things has been affected. During the testing, he learns that he is the first Prism in more than one hundred years, although exactly what role his mother’s actions played in that are still being revealed.
His primary struggle is to assert control over his own destiny, all while wading through the quagmire or politics at the academy, even as he seeks to learn to control his abilities, form a team, and have his first confrontations with the shadow.
Book 2: The stakes increase when he calls the board out and gains a measure of independence by voiding the contract he signed before taking the exam. He also finds himself forced to bond with a renegade Ray who is guilty of numerous crimes. Aden’s struggles in this book have some of the same elements, but he starts going on more missions outside of the academy—including trying to rescue his ex-girlfriend, who was abducted from the apartment he shared with her in the slums.
His relationships with his bonds grow stronger, but he is also being pushed to form bonds for his remaining three affinities: Violet (Dark Energy), Blue (Mind), and Orange (Movement). New Rays catch his interest, including Tess, a scientist; Valkyrie, a military officer; and Twinkle, their teleporter. In the end, he bonds Demis as his dark energy bond and reaches a deal with the military and Soros Clan which effectively holds the rest of Prism Academy’s Board at bay.
He is rocked by the death of his new psychic bond. She may have been wicked, but the bond still created an incredibly strong emotional connection between them, and he is nearly crippled by losing her. Now, Aden resolves to move forward—determining who can be trusted and who is using him—as more secrets are revealed.
Book 3: This time around there were a few issues that Aden had to work through involving trust. He and Sybilla had a connection back from the very first book, but the way she willingly removed herself from the competition to be his Blue (Mind) bond felt like he was pushed into a corner. It had almost felt like she was not giving him any choice other than to bond with Queenie in book two.
It’s understandable that Queenie’s powers were impressive and open up plenty of options for Aden, but she was also a sociopath. The theme of people (or AIs) doing things for or to Aden—with the belief that they were working towards Aden’s best interests—rankled the new Prism. This caused Aden to question if he could trust Sybilla, ANOP, and his parents for the actions they took in the past. It was awkward at times, but Aden worked through those issues with Sybilla well enough that he felt he could bond with her.
Her addition to Team Aden was a big boost in power for all of the girls—and for Aden. It gave him a greater ability to help his bonds shape how their powers developed. One of his new powers allows him to push his bonds—and perhaps other Rays—to new levels of power. This will be necessary as otherwise his team will continue to fall too far behind him.
Working out trust issues with ANOP was a bit more challenging, while at the same time having less emotion attached to it. She’s inside his head and can literally affect his body’s reactions to stimuli, so her trying to influence him makes Aden question even his own reactions. He can’t be sure how much influence she has over him.
As for his trust in what his parents did to him, the video from his father helps him to keep it all in perspective. This gives him some of the relevant history and context for their decisions that he lacked, and while he understands that he might not agree with what his mother did, she was at least trying to protect her son in the way that she thought was best.
The issue of trust surfaced again with Inertia. Her mind was warped by this point, and she attacked Aden—first when he tried to take his bonds out for a night on the town, and then later on, back at the academy. She was ultimately killed, but her outrage at what she perceived as Precision’s and Aqueous’ betrayal of their pact is a reminder that everyone is the hero of their own story.
The same could be said in many ways for Catherine Misago, who we discover made a deal with the shadow because she believed it was the only way to save humanity. How dark must her soul have become to have done the vile things she had to, just to get to that point? She was put down by Aden, but during the fight with Cara she disappears.
