Triple Point

Chapter 105: T-14

Camilla

01 OCT 34AE, 1445

14 days before Operation Cliffhanger

Early that morning, everyone—that is, everyone that had the approval of the Alliance—had gathered in the cafeteria for a major announcement from Senior and her advisors. They had finished putting together a rough plan to infiltrate Farallon, and everyone supposedly had an important role to play in it.

The infiltration of the meta prison-slash-lab was dubbed "Operation Cliffhanger," taken from the word "farallon," or "cliff." Camilla thought it was a ridiculous attempt by the Alliance higher-ups to boost morale amongst the troops, but even she had to admit it had a nice ring to it.

While Senior's strategists still had to finalize the details for Operation Cliffhanger, preparatory assignments were handed out to every member of the unorthodox partnership between the Alliance, Exodos, and "CAT" (which apparently was the "Camilla Acquisition Team," as Camilla was belatedly informed about). The metas on all sides were subjected to strict training regimes geared towards their abilities; non-metas practiced their hand-to-hand combat and took crash courses in basic weaponry.

There were even specialized assignments. Hitomi was asked to develop field gear for as many people as she could, and Minyoung and Jordan were requested to gather resources from their discreet and loyal contacts. Mack and Bev went for additional first aid training, and AJ was constantly at Ian's side in light of his improving condition. Nakia and Finn were tasked with befriending the younger members of both Exodos and the Alliance to build camaraderie. Even Elsie was assigned to help keep an eye on the latest news stories and social media for anything that could hinder their plans.

And then there was Camilla who was given only one job: make her abilities work again.

It was pathetic to receive such a trivial assignment, which made it worse when Camilla still ended up struggling to accomplish it. She had already spent hours on previous occasions trying everything she could think of to create even the simplest gust of air. Nothing ever happened, and today was no different.

Ever since the assignments had been doled out, Camilla had locked herself in one of the training rooms and adamantly refused to leave until she could make something happen. Part of her reasoning was to motivate herself by equating success with freedom. The other part was because she didn't want anyone else to stumble in on her embarrassing training methods.

At the Academy, one of the basic training exercises involved ice cubes. Students would hold ice cubes in their hands and practice using whatever abilities they had to keep their hands warm. For metas with cellular control, they would simply need to transfer all of their own body heat to their hands, but for those with matter control, it was a little different.

Solid manipulators would apply thermal energy to the solid ice to melt the water out of their hands. Liquid manipulators would be able to heat the water that melted, and gas manipulators would heat the air around their hands. Regardless of the type of the manipulation used, all of them required applying energy instead of absorbing it, since that was usually what students grew accustomed to first.

Except by the time Camilla managed to go through all the ice she had, all she succeeded in doing was turning her hands purple and creating a giant puddle of water in the middle of the floor. Not to mention, she was more frustrated than ever.

Camilla growled in irritation and held a hand out to the bucket that now held nothing but cold water. She fully intended on sending the bucket flying into the air, and it took her a few seconds to remember that she needed her abilities to do that and, news flash, her uncooperative abilities were the reason she was locked in that room in the first place. So instead, she sent the bucket flying with a firm kick. It was at least somewhat satisfying, until she realized she ended up making a bigger mess and still had no abilities to help her clean it up.