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Minamoto glanced up into his rear view mirror and at the three little girls who were chatting away about how their school day had gone as he drove them towards B.A.B.E.L. tower. He had the three of them all bunched up in the back since he won't let them sit in the passenger's seat, the law giving an age requirement, something the girls were always very annoyed at least, that is what he told them. In truth, it was more about stopping them from competing over who got to sit up front.
He had to hold back a smile, listening to them joking around about one of their friend's crushes and how a few of the girls in the class tried to confess love to Kaoru. Something that always came to the little red haired girl's annoyance, for though Kaoru had... oddly enough for her age, open lesbian fantasies, she only liked girls with large boobs, and elementary students lacking those particular assets. Personally, Minamoto blamed the girl's mother and older sister for that one.
There talk was so innocent, and so full of energy and cheer. The kind of things that ten year old girls should have, rather than their... usual personalities. It made him nervous about telling them anything that might ruin the moment.
But he just had to swallow it down and hope that the kids reacted well. "Hey you three, I need to talk to you about something." Minamoto said in a serious tone, trying to convey that the girls needed to listen. Unfortunately, that was their cue to tease him.
"Oh no! Don't tell us you're starting to date!" Aio said clapping her hands to her ears so that her glasses jumped on the tip of her nose.
"You never even asked us if we wanted a step mother." Shiho said, covering her eyes and making fake crying sounds.
"How could you, Otou-san." Kaoru finished.
"Knock it off!" Minamoto shouted, causing the three to break into giggles at the supervisors expanse. "Now, I want you to now that B.A.B.E.L. is getting two new recruits today, and I'm being assigned as their supervisor."
The three girls immediately soured. "Minamoto-san. You aren't thinking about leaving us are you?" Shiho said, and Minamoto got the strange suspicion she was about to start trying to read his mind.
"No, I will remain your supervisor, but they will be also under my care. Only as a temporary deal, until we can find someone who will be put in charge of them." Minamoto said, feeling that the girls still didn't like it, he added. "It was either me, or Ichirou-san."
The three stopped in whatever thoughts they had and shivered. Ichirou was one of the other supervisors they had on staff, and was a man who everyone seemed to agree was a complete monster disguised as a human being.
It wasn't that he was cruel or abusive. He was just... a dirty old man. He took his charge, Naomi, in at the age of twelve in order to try to raise her, which sounds admirable, until you find out that he was trying to raise her to one day become his ideal wife. Eventual the sexual harassment became to much for even Naomi's gentle heart to handle and she snapped, lashing out at him with her psychic powers every time he did anything towards her. Though the creeper seemed to like it.
"Alright, I'll accept that you didn't want to scare them off." Kaoru said, crossing her arms. "But this better only be a temporary thing." None of the girls wanted more competition for the supervisor's time. They were fine sharing him with each other, since they were closer than sisters, but outside of that was off limits.
"I'm just telling you know so this won't end up like that time I had to help train 'The Hound' and you all took things way too far." Minamoto said as they pulled into the parking lot of the Tower.
"Arguable. If we didn't take things so far, Hatsune would have tried to make you the father of her puppies." Aio said sternly. "So what are these two like anyways?"
"You're going to meet them right now, and you can see for yourselves." Minamoto said as they all got out of the car. "Tsubaki is around your age, though I'm pretty sure she is going to be placed on the support side of things at the Tower, where as the older brother, Toshiro, will be a field agent like yourselves and Naomi-san."
The girls looked between each other unsure before following Minamoto to the front door of the Tower. "So... you are going to have another little girl around? You really don't mind those rumors about you being a lolicon, do you?" Shiho said, teasing the grown man.
Minamoto's eyebrow twitched. "Would you stop it about that? You're the one who spread all those rumors in the first place. Pretending to read my mind and making up whatever you feel like will get the best reaction out of people."
"Really? You can't prove that I didn't really read those thoughts." Shiho said, teasing the man further as the elevator door opened and they all stepped in.
"So what are these newbies' powers anyways?" Aio asked as they started up the elevator.
"The little sister is a level six technopath, she can interact with and control any electronic device with her mind." Minamoto said before trying to think how to describe Toshiro's powers. "The brother has a wide range of mid level skills as well as some higher level ones... and he has level seven cryogenesis."
"What!?" The girls all shouted as the elevator came to as stop and the door opened. Minamoto stepped out before they could stop him. It was going to be another long day.
They entered the observatory room that overlooked the training center.
The B.A.B.E.L. specialist's training center was a state of the art system that projected a virtual reality where the espers could test their powers against hard-light constructs.
Oboro and Kiritsubo were both standing there observing along with several other members of the B.A.B.E.L. safe.
"Naomi-chan!" Kaoru shouted excitedly as she spotted the high school girl in the room, though she was less excited to she that her supervisor was with her, though standing a few feet away.
Naomi turned to them and gave her usual gentle smile. "Ohayo everyone. It's good to see you." She said with a small bow. "Suppose you are here to see your new friends as well?"
"I suppose we are." Aio said walking up to the one way window that overlooked the training area. She could see a girl she didn't recognize out of the corner of her eye. One with light brown hair who was looking down at the field with a blank expression, though when her eyes finally saw what was going down in the area, the girl quickly feel out of her mind.
A boy with hair as starch white as Shiho's was performing the Children's usual training exercise. Several dozens of simulated soldiers attacking ambushing him from all sides in a jungle like environment. The weapons the dumbies used wouldn't cause any real damage, but they would stun you if you got hit. Though that didn't look like it was going to be a problem.
He was rapidly teleporting, never a long distance, but the the delay between each teleport meant that he could still cover a good deal of ground quickly. Each time he landed he would fight off a green blast from his finger, a concentrated shot of telekinetic energy, with each shot tearing through one of the simulated people's guns, leaving the people in tact.
"No bad. Lacks the raw power that Aio-chan and Kaoru-chan have, but he almost makes up for it in technique and accuracy." Shuuji said with a grin as the Hispanic, esper, doctor sat cross legged in front of the control panel. "Rapid teleportation makes it hard to keep track of distances and direction in the user's head, but he seems fine."
"That's because he isn't depending on a teleporter's natural instincts of direction. He's using clairvoyance to maintain his accuracy." Kiritsubo said as the director watched, analyzing the boy's moves. "He is constantly using three separate powers at once. Such a thing should be placing a large strain on his mind and body, especially when you consider the increased strain of the rapid teleportation and telekinetic beam techniques."
"But the kid hardly seems to be breaking a sweat. Maybe its because all three powers are relatively low level compared to his top tier powers, so they don't have as great of a burden." Shuuji suggested. "Ten minutes in and we still haven't managed to get him to show off his level seven skills. Maybe we should turn it up a little."
Light particles flouted around Toshiro, concentrating into large masses until they turned into tanks. Toshiro looked around at the tanks before suddenly vanishing before they could line up their sights on him. A half a second later, one of the tank's tops was separated from its bottom half before Toshiro reappeared on top of it, holding a long sword make of glittering ice.
The tanks tried to moved in such a way as to get the boy into their sights, but he kept moving about in such a way to stay out of their cross hairs, taking them out one by one.
"Huh, he's not bad. I guess." Kaoru said with a slight dismissal.
"What exactly are his powers?" Minamoto asked his old college buddy. Even after watching the video from the other day, it was surprising to see him move about the way he did. He wasn't supposed to be trained at all.
"Oh, Minamoto-kun." Shuuji said, finally noticing he was there. "We ran the tests this morning. He's got clairvoyance, teleportation, and technokinesis, all level three, then metamorphosis level four, telekinesis level five, invisibility level six and finally cryogenesis level seven."
"More isn't always better." Aio said stubbornly, trying not to sound too jealous.
"You're right about that one. Using more than one ability at a time puts a large strain on an esper's mind and body. Plus, he says he can't control his cryogenesis fully without help from a limiter. So his big gun has to be scaled down." Shuuji said, agreeing with the girl. "But even without that big gun, he still should make a good addition." Toshiro finished off the last tank with a blast of electricity. Showing yet another high rank technique that he could use.
"Was that electricity technique like Naomi's?" Shiho asked as the simulation ended.
"Not quite. It's the same at the basic level, but Naomi has a level six power behind hers, while his is only at a level five. So while she can shock multiple opponents, his is a one target skill." Shuuji said as he pressed several buttons and turned on a microphone. "The test is over. You can come back up now."
"Alright!" Toshiro said and his hair turned from white to black before he started walking towards the exit.
"Well, I guess it's time to say hello to your temporary teammate." Minamoto said smiling to the children.
"Yeah..." They said flatly.
Minamoto sighed. They really did need to learn how to get along with new people better.
