Optimized army

Jamal considered the boy before he took a step forward toward him, "wait, you mean... you saw something?"

"Yesterday. I had a long sleep" Matteo simply said.

Jamal understood and empressed himself to make some space on the sofa and he invited him to have a seat so he can be comfortable while telling them what he knew. Matteo nodded and went to sit and instinctively everyone surrounded him.

They waited for a moment, their eyes on Matteo as he was still silent but soon enough it became insupportable for Lina and she exploded, "now it's enough with the dramatic suspense. Talk!"

"I think I figured out how to use my power or at least I got a hint. While I was asleep, this weird thing happened to me",  he paused to point to his head, "I... my mind traveled to the other side of the city and there I saw them, the undead being fabricated".

There was a collective gasp and even Carla had a small step, naturally uncomfortable at the mention of those fearful beings. "The last time we fought them they were in a huge number, so there were still some of them remaining after all".

"As I thought" Jamal commented on Carla's point.

Volga shrugged and with a relaxed expression she said, "but that shouldn't be a big deal. From what I saw the last time, they are not much of some formidable fighters", she paused and pointed to Natasha and Carla as she added, "we just need to play it smart and these two super girls can take them out".

But at his face, Jamal was not so optimistic and Matteo's reaction just came to confirm his suspicions, as soon as Volga said that, the young boy shook his head while joining his hands, catching everyone's attention. "This time it's different, I mean the process", seeing how they looked confused, Matteo just decided to tell the entirety of what happened and what he saw in his dream.

He began to say that at first when he went to bed after Jamal told him to go have some sleep, he was still reluctant to do so, he acknowledged that there was some fear of what would if he did, he eventually did give in and he went to lay down but he said that he closed his eyes, even before he could realize it, he fell asleep.

He didn't know exactly how much time he spent being unconscious, he just deduced from how long that dream felt.

Matteo told the people around him that he initially was about to have a dreamless sleep as he couldn't see anything but the darkness around him, which made him feel uncomfortable as it reminded him of the dark dimension his last enemy had trapped, he said that suddenly got the rush to change scenery, he needed to imagine a specific place to go and that was where he got the idea to try and reconnect with that dark smoke-like energy it had come out from the body of one of the undead that first time he had made an official use of his special ability.

He focused on trying to remember that feeling he had grasped that first time, he knew it had left a sort of digital print in his mind and he just had to find it. He felt that it took him quite a while to find it and a little more to exploit it and, in the end, almost the same thing happened and he woke up on the other side of the Stainfall city.

On contrary to the last time where he appeared in an open space in the city, he now found himself laying on a bed inside a small room he didn't recognize, Matteo stood up and walked towards the unique window of the room, he peeped into the outside as he intended to have at an idea of the situation there before going out. As he could have expected, he couldn't see any signs of life in there, the streets were deserted and some pieces of trash flying or pushed by the wind here and there, there was absolutely no movement.

Matteo then decided to go outside so he could a proper look by himself, he turned around and was about to walk to the door and leave but he suddenly remembered that he had unlocked a new capacity, he could move himself around in his dimension as he pleased. He wasn't sure if it would work though since it was obviously not his own dimension but what he was sure of was that he would never know until he tried so he decided to give it a shot.

He went back to the window and landed his eyes on the closest building on the right side, he remembered that in his fight against the still unknown hooded woman he sometimes had to completely change the scenery around him, but this time it was different, now he just needed to change the position of where he was standing.

So he stared at the roof of the building while reimagining how he did during his fight, he focused on trying to visualize himself standing on that roof, and in a blink of an eye, he was there. He was a bit surprised but also proud he was convinced that he was making progress. He made one turn around him to scan the surroundings and the resemblance was too great, as he was curious about whether it was the same or just the fruit of his imagination he decided to go visit.

So he started teleporting himself from one building to another in the right direction and wherever he would appear he would not see any sign of life until he arrived at what he estimated to be the border of the city. When he struggled a little bit to keep his balance after he appeared on the roof of a random house he realized that he was pretty tired, though he just checked only one side of the city.

Hearing that Jamal immediately frowned and it seemed that only Matteo and Lina noticed. The boy could understand how he felt, by sleeping, Matteo was supposed to get some rest, but instead, he was there in his dream tiring himself again. [Obviously, he is worried] Matteo thought, however, he also noticed that the man didn't raise any complaints nor did he make a scene to scold him, he just put his worries aside and just waited for Matteo to finish his story.

Matteo took a glance on the side at Lina who nodded at him and thus the boy resumed.

He said that though he felt tired at that moment he just didn't want to give up on his inspection, that was when that he remembered that in his last fight against the hooded woman she could use a certain technique to detect where he was hiding, he thought that if he could do the same then maybe he would be able to verify whether there were still people living in that city.

First, he teleported himself down on the street and after he squatted down, he put his palms on the ground, closed his eyes, and focused. The first two minutes nothing happened but then he started to feel something like his senses were expanding around him in a sort of radar at a high speed where at each minute the radius was becoming longer. He didn't know exactly how many minutes he spent in that state, he just knew that after a long moment of research, where he almost gave up, he finally detected something, like a glimpse of light but he was just too far to clearly identify what was it.

He opened his eyes and stood up as he decided to get closer, so he started to teleport himself in the direction of where he sensed that light. After some meters he couldn't remember the exact direction so he went down to try again his trick, he noticed that this time the light was brighter as it was not only one but many of them.

He moved further until he didn't need to use his power anymore to sense the possible presence of people, at some point he thought he shouldn't act recklessly but he should instead play it smart. He decided that from then, he should move in a way that he would not be detected by any wandering sight.

He teleported himself inside a building on left side and once there he immediately put his palm on the floor to verify that he was alone in the whole building and only when it was done that he walked to take a look at the window.

Though he didn't clearly see someone, he however sensed some movements a bit further ahead so he teleported himself into the next building ahead to get closer. He checked that there was no one besides him in there and he went to the window, repeating the process but this time he did see something.

Down there, in a big open space surrounded by five buildings in a sort of imperfect square shape, a huge number of people standing perfectly arranged in sort of rows and columns and were facing a building on Matteo's right side and he thought that if those people were obeying someone that someone might surely be in that building. Thus, he teleported into the building just behind the crowd and after taking a closer look he noticed that they were not people but undead.

Matteo wanted to check the reaction of the people in the living room but he just felt that it would be adding unnecessary suspense, moreover, he didn't want Lina to scold him.

So he just carried on and told them what exactly was the source of his worries, he revealed to them after several minutes of observing them there were no reactions but, then instead, he started to see something moving in the building in front of the army of undead. He admitted that he was too far to clearly distinguish what was that so he thought that he needed to use his power but he kinda felt reluctant to do so, he had the suspicion that he could be detected.

"That mysterious person you fought in your dream?" Natasha guessed, and the boy nodded.

"So how did you do?" Carla couldn't help but ask.

Matteo made two 'L' with the thumb and the index of each of his two hands and placed them one on top of another to form a sort of rectangle, his closed left eye and placed the rectangle in front of his right eye. He didn't need to explain more as everyone there seemed to have understood already that he used his power to make a zooming lens of his fingers so he could observe who was in that building.

There, he admitted that he saw two people or at least two shapes, one person who was sitting in a side too deep where the few lights entering in the room couldn't reach and thus half of the body of that person was hidden in darkness, and the other person was standing right in the balcony from where the small light was coming in the room.

"That person was a woman wearing a hood covering half of her face," Matteo said as a description of the second person.

"Is she the same person who has fought you in your dream?" Jamal said out loud the question everyone wanted to ask.

When Matteo shook his head as to say no Volga had a confused look as she wandered how would he know since, from what she remembered, there was no specific feature pointed out to make a clear distinction, so she didn't miss to ask him how could he be so sure it was not her, but it seemed that Matteo was a bit reluctant to answer as if it was embarrassing for him.

He tried to pass the question and quickly switch to another subject, so he just shrugged and muttered that he just got a feeling that they were not the same person.

For a moment, everyone was satisfied with that answer and were ready to talk about something else but the one Matteo was particularly wary of was Lina as he knew that she was not just the kind to think like everyone else and so he was just crossing his fingers, hoping that she would just ignore that. However Lina's intuition was just too sharp, she heard his answer but wasn't buying it at all, she could smell something fishy behind his excuse and thus she kept insisting on it until he finally gave in and confessed.

He bowed his head and lowered his voice as he admitted that the woman he fought in his dream had a smaller size of breasts than the one he was actually talking about.

Lina immediately burst out laughing so much that she started holding her belly, Jamal had to even stand up and go hold her to calm her a bit. "The size of her breasts" she repeated while trying to catch her breath before she laughed again, "so that is what was keeping your attention during such a crucial battle. While we were here worrying about you, you were analyzing the breasts size of the woman who wanted to kill you?" She put her hands on her chest pretending to cover her boobs as she added, "We gotta stay careful around you from now on, I've never thought you were looking at us this way. Your lecherous eyes-"

Jamal put one hand on her mouth to stop her from embarrassing Matteo more than she already did. The poor boy had his head facing the floor with his two hands holding it and he didn't seem to want to raise it ever again.

Natasha went to check on him, she delicately put a hand on his back and asked him if anything was fine, "you know that you don't have to take her seriously. She's just teasing you, letting her words getting through you, is just playing her game. So cheer up".

"Yeah, she's right. Just tell us what happened next with that woman, that seems very important" Carla added to help her friend to change the subject.

But that was without counting Lina's intervention as she came back with another pinching comment, with her two hands she took off Jamal's hand from her mouth and between two chuckles she said, "yes tell us more her boobs, like compared to ours-"

Jamal quickly blocked her mouth again but he then pulled her away on the side of the room, at about one meter from the small group. "Please, continue" he nicely asked Matteo.

The latter slowly raised his head to look at him, he then took a glance at Lina, and only after he shook her a little bit to show him that he was holding her tightly and thus she would not tease anymore for the time being, that he decided to finish his story.

He revealed to them that after a moment of observing them where he thought that nothing was happening, he started to notice that something was off. He had moved his hands lower to the level of the feet of the woman on the balcony and saw dark thread-like smoke flowing out from her feet, going down the balcony to the foot of the building and dividing to reach each of the undead. Matteo said the threads of smoke would run up their bodies and flow inside through their mouths, noses, and even eyes.

"But what was the meaning of that process since you said that they were already transformed into undead?" Carla couldn't help but wonder.

Lina patted Jamal's hand to ask him permission to talk and after checking on her eyes to make sure she was not about to screw around before he pulled off his hand.

"The reason why a process would still run even after the expected product has already been obtained would be because that product needs to be optimized," Lina said, purposely being vague so they could deduce the correct answer by themselves.

"Optimization, huh?" Volga wondered, "but what kind of better version of those undead does the enemy expect to get?"

Immediately after she raised that inquiry, Matteo and Natasha had like an illumination. "The smart undead" they both uttered after they glanced at each other.

Noticing Volga's confused expression, Jamal started to explain to her what that version of the undead was about.

"Indeed they sound quite fearful, that promise to be more problematic than expected".

"Do you still wanna come? You can still change your mind, you know?" Jamal saw a chance and took his shot. But Volga quickly turned him down.

"Don't try to find excuses. I decided to come along and I won't change my mind".

Lina seemed lost, she turned around toward Jamal who was still holding her, "did I miss something?"

The man looked like he was trying to find the right words to explain the situation, "hum... yeah. Long story short-"

"Long story short", Volga interrupted him so she could tell what happened herself, "we made a bet in a fight to finally settle whether I would join the team or not. I beat his ass, and here we are".

"Impossible", Lina simply said with a straight face, not believing one second that Volga could win a fight against Jamal.

She looked again at her lover, looking for some clarification and the latter said, "she basically cheated. She used sedative gas to drug me".

"Oh", Lina shrugged, "then, that's comprehensible and more logical, you tend to lower your guard around people you're close with".

Volga wanted to complain about how much Lina was underestimating her but she just couldn't find the right words, so she swallowed her pride and stayed quiet.

Lina stared at Jamal in the eye and questioned him and if he was okay with that decision, the latter responded that at that stage it was already too late and he had to keep his word and respect the terms of the deal. She then turned toward Volga to ask her if she was sure of her decision and if Donald was agreeing with her decision, the latter woman repeated to Lina the same words he had told Jamal earlier. Lina closed her eyes, took a deep breath before she sighed, and revealed to Volga that she would respect her decision and let her do as she pleased.

As that said, everyone's attention reverted back to Matteo and Jamal asked him if there was anything else he wanted to point out.

"Did you notice anything else? How did you determine how long they would take to come?" Jamal questioned him, out of curiosity but also to switch the subject and go back to something more important.

"Using my power, I scanned through their bodies and I could visualize a level of loading", he responded, "and referring to the speed at which 'that' hooded woman was pouring her dark matter inside, I managed to make a rough estimation of the time it would take them to complete the process, but..."

"But what?"

Matteo paused, took his time to make himself remained calm as he confessed, "but when I redirected my attention to the woman transforming them, she was no more alone, the other hooded woman I recognized having fought in my dream was standing on the balcony with her and they started to point in my direction, the building I was hiding in. I panicked and I immediately started to teleport myself far away from there while trying my hardest to wake up. Eventually, after many attempts, I finally managed to wake up".

"Do you think they recognized you?"

The boy shrugged while responding to Jamal's question, "I don't think so because I esteemed having reacted quickly enough but there was no doubts they have their suspicions".

Jamal nodded silently before he went one congratulating Matteo for his work. "Now, we need to do our part to prepare ourselves well for what is coming".