Magnus Chane and the Conquest Protocol

After breakfast, the morning unfolded surprisingly normal. In fact, it was more normal than last Monday, if Magnus was being honest.

At the end of last term, when they were choosing courses for this one, Magnus and Alex had decided to take one class together on Monday morning, to continue their tradition of walking to class together after breakfast at the start of the week. They also decided to just take an easy-credit course, so they could spend the class ogling at each other while pretending this wasn’t the reason they’d chosen this course at all.

Introduction to Film Studies was that course.

This was technically the second meeting of the class, but the first the couple actually attended, since they’d skipped last week on account of Magnus getting hit with Professor Marquez as his target and Alex deciding an emergency meeting to save his life was more important than attending a syllabus week’s meeting of a course they didn’t even care that much about.

They got to the class and sat in the back. The professor introduced himself again to those who weren’t there last week, then everyone did a half-hearted introduction of themselves before the lecture began. They paid attention just enough to keep up, occasionally whispering to each other and making comments about whatever movie the professor was using as an example. Neither of them needed to work particularly hard to get good grades, which made it easy to justify not working particularly hard at all. By the end of the class, Magnus had taken approximately half a page of notes. Alex had taken even less.

“You know,” Magnus said as they left the classroom, “we should probably pay more attention in class even if we don’t care about films.”

“I care about film.”

He looked at her. “You watched the entire lecture while playing with my hand.”

She smiled innocently. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t listening.”

“You asked me what movie we were talking about.”

“I was testing you.”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “You’re getting cheeky lately.”

He shook his head, but was smiling despite himself. And for a few minutes, they were just another couple walking across campus after class.

It was nice. And normal. Suspiciously so.

They spent some time in Magnus’s room after that, mostly brainstorming over what they should say and do the next time they met Emily and Dash, which Alex was already texting them about. Well, that, and Magnus’s existential crisis.

“I mean,” he began, “you I get. Them wanting you in the Student Council, that makes sense. Them wanting you to run for President, that makes sense, too. But…” He paused, gesturing at himself. “…Why do they want to recruit me as well? Just as your plus one? That doesn’t seem like something they’d do.”

“You said she’s been watching you?”

“Probably. Maybe?” He gestured in the general direction of his window. “Tony said so. But I don’t know how much we could trust a raccoon’s words on matters of this importance.”

Alex shrugged. “I mean, I’d trust it. And if it’s the truth, then it makes perfect sense why they’d want to recruit you.”

He stared at her.

“Trust me, she probably just saw what I—and Naomi, too—see in you.”

“Which is?”

She refused to elaborate.

“Well, considering you’re my girlfriend, and Naomi idolizes me for reasons I still don’t understand, I don’t think either of your judgments on this is reliable. You’re both biased on this matter.”

A response from Emily cut off their bickering and confirmed a meeting the next day. And the couple was heading to lunch after that since Magnus had another class in the afternoon while Alex would be preparing for her meeting with Jordan.

***

By the time Magnus finished his afternoon class, an upper-level course titled Media Ethics and Law, Alex was already on her way to meet Jordan.

He walked back to his dorm while someone — or multiple someones — was blowing up his phone. After Spring Break, the biggest change in Magnus’s life had been the fact that he’d gone from only getting contacted by his mom and Alex to being in five different group chats:

The Beach House Survivors was the first one and the only one he knowingly and willingly joined.

The Council of Secrets consisted of all eighteen members of the Beach House Survivors group plus Harper and Naomi, and was started last week after the emergency meeting Alex declared, started and named by Maya, with Sofia’s help in adding everyone.

The Boyfriends Squad was an Ethan creation almost right after the Beach House Survivors group was created. It was a place where Aaron and Ethan somehow had endless arguments despite not even being in the same room together anymore, while Miguel threatened to leave the group if they didn’t stop blowing up his phone. For inexplicable reasons, neither Magnus nor Miguel had actually left that group yet.

The Power Research Group was another creation of Ethan’s. It was created after last week’s emergency meeting and consisted of Aaron, Ethan, and Jade as the self-appointed Council of Scientists, while Magnus was their unwilling superpowered guinea pig. Magnus had insisted on multiple occasions he didn’t agree to any of this. But apparently, that had been irrelevant information to the Council.

But the weirdest one was the last one, Blood Oath, which only consisted of Maya, Sofia, and himself. He had assumed it had something to do with their pact on the day they went into town together. But the chat had been entirely memes and gifs between Sofia and Maya. Magnus had once asked what the point of the group was. Maya had sent him a gif. Sofia had sent him another one. He still didn’t know what either of them meant. He’d tried to leave. Multiple times. They kept adding him back in. Eventually, he’d learned to stop trying or asking, and just accepted it as part of his life now.

Magnus pulled out his phone to check. There were multiple new memes and gifs in Blood Oath, a notification that Alex had added Jordan to both the Beach House Survivors and the Council of Secrets group chats, and multiple new messages in The Power Research Group.

He checked the big groups first. Alex had apparently sent a SpongeBob committing sudoku gif after adding Jordan, while Jordan texted back a single glaring emoji. He wasn’t sure what that was about, but he had a feeling it was going to physically hurt a lot for the two women involved.

He then backed out and clicked on The Power Research Group chat to find…

TonyStark_In_Training: NEW POWER TODAY!!!

TonyStark_In_Training: COME ON, BRO! WHAT IS IT?

TonyStark_In_Training:@Magnus_Chane3114

Aaron.C_Nurse_In_Training: Shut up, Ethan! And when are you going to change that ridiculous nickname?

TonyStark_In_Training: Never! It’s a great name.

Aaron.C_Nurse_In_Training: Oh, please. We both know you only changed to it after seeing my online handle.

TonyStark_In_Training: Did not!

Aaron.C_Nurse_In_Training: We all know you did!

Jay_Green: Could you two do this somewhere else? You two are clogging the chat.

Then three dots appeared, with the indication that everyone was typing something.

Magnus rubbed a hand down his face, then typed in:

Magnus_Chane3114: Do we really need to do this every week from now on?

The three dots disappeared, then reappeared again, before:

TonyStark_In_Training: YES!

Aaron.C_Nurse_In_Training: It’s better if you understand your new powers. So yes.

Jay_Green: I could use the entertainment, so yes.

Magnus_Chane3114: Fine.

Magnus_Chane3114: Let me get back to my room first.

TonyStark_In_Training: Video call in 15 minutes?

Aaron.C_Nurse_In_Training: Okay.

Jade simply sent a Like emoji.

***

Fifteen minutes later, Magnus was sitting in front of his laptop, on a call with Jade, Ethan, and Aaron.

“Okay, bro,” Ethan said immediately as everyone was connected. “What’s the power this time?”

“Hang on,” Magnus replied. “Let me bring it up first.”

He read it out loud for all three of them.

“Poison immunity?” Ethan offered.

Aaron shook his head. “No, not quite.”

“More like, toxin endurance maybe?” Jade asked.

“Sounds more like it.” Aaron nodded. “But what about the part where his body assimilates and processes the supposed hazardous toxins?”

Ethan snapped his fingers. “Substances Absorption!”

“He absorbs harmful substances into his body. And converts them into something else,” he continued after a moment while typing something into his laptop. “Yeah, the superpower wiki entry for Substances Absorption describes the power similarly enough to the phenomenon we’re talking about here.” He paused for three awkward seconds before adding: “Though, admittedly, I don’t think superheroes have to suffer through it. Would be a pretty stupid power if they felt like dying when absorbing poison every time.”

“Thanks, Ethan,” Magnus deadpanned.

“You’re welcome.”

“So,” Jade said slowly, “how do we test it?”

“Start with something small and relatively harmless, then only increase the danger level if he shows no sign of actually being harmed in any way?” Ethan offered.

Aaron nodded. “We probably shouldn’t test with any actual poison yet. If the power doesn’t work the way it’s described, you could be putting yourself in serious danger without help readily available.”

“Okay, so the question is what exactly are we using first?” Jade tapped her finger on her desk.

After a short brainstorming session, they somehow ended up with capsaicin and an enema. Magnus stared at the screen with the expression of a man resigned to his fate yet still very much hating what he had to do next.

“Just to be clear,” Aaron said, “we’re not testing how much you can tolerate. We’re testing whether the power prevents the substance from causing dangerous systemic effects while allowing the normal sensory response.”

“Right.”

“And we’re starting with an amount that’s deliberately low.”

“Right.”

“What are we actually looking for?” Jade asked.

Aaron leaned closer to his camera. “For the first test, mostly the obvious things. Burning sensation, sweating, increased heart rate, anything else that indicates his nervous system is responding normally. The description specifically says the nervous system remains receptive to the physiological effects, so if he feels absolutely nothing, that’s actually useful information too.”

“Wouldn’t that mean the power is better than we thought?” Ethan asked.

“Maybe. Or it could mean the power isn’t doing what the description says.”

Ethan considered that for a moment before nodding. “Fair. Though the previous ones had consistently done what their descriptions said.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean they all will, though.”

“Again, fair. But still—”

“Could we focus on the actual testing?” Jade cut in.

“Right,” Aaron agreed. “Over to you, Magnus.”

Magnus had already prepared what they needed. He took the capsaicin carefully, under Aaron’s instructions, and waited.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Magnus’s face tightened.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

Ethan looked up from his notes. “Effects?”

“Yeah.”

Aaron immediately started paying closer attention. “Describe them.”

“It burns.”

“That is, technically, the expected response.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“No, I mean specifically. Is it just the burning?”

Magnus swallowed and waited another few seconds. The sensation was unpleasant enough that his eyes watered, but there was nothing else immediately alarming. His breathing remained steady, and his heart rate felt elevated without becoming erratic.

“Burning. Eyes watering a little. My mouth feels like I made a terrible decision.”

“That last one isn’t important,” Ethan said.

“It is to me.”

Jade watched Magnus for another few seconds. “Anything else?”

“No. I don’t feel sick or dizzy.”

Aaron nodded. “Good. Give it some time.”

They waited. The burning remained. It did not disappear immediately, nor did it suddenly intensify into something unbearable. Magnus shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable, while Ethan continued typing observations and Aaron kept asking occasional questions.

After several more minutes, the effects began to settle. The burning sensation remained noticeable, but Magnus otherwise felt normal.

“So,” Ethan said, “your body definitely didn’t just ignore it.”

“Nope, felt like shit.”

“But nothing dangerous happened.”

“Apparently.”

“And you’re saying you can still feel the substance doing what it normally does?”

“Yep.”

Aaron thought about that. “Then the important part is what happens to the substance itself. The description doesn’t just say that your body can survive toxins. It says it can assimilate and biochemically process them.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the power might be doing something more interesting than simply protecting your organs from damage.”

Ethan immediately picked up the thread. “Yeah. If it were just protection, we’d expect the capsaicin to remain in your system while some kind of separate mechanism prevented injury. But if it’s actually being processed, then there should eventually be some point where the substance is no longer there in its original form.”

Magnus looked down at himself. “How exactly are we supposed to check that?”

“We aren’t,” Aaron said. “Not remotely. And not today. We’d need actual laboratory equipment and samples to establish what your body is doing chemically. If you and Alex could find time to go to my university, though…”

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

They tested with the enema after that, just to be sure. Magnus spent the next twenty minutes feeling like he had to go while not actually excreting anything.

By the end of it, he was glaring at them. “Did we really have to do that?”

“It was for a good cause.” Jade hid a smile.

“Yeah, Science!” Ethan cheered.

Aaron was the only one who looked sorry for him, but he also nodded. “Data is data.”

The two tests suggested the same thing, though. Biochemical Integration Adaptation apparently allowed Magnus to ignore the very worst of the effects, the part where his body actually violently rejected a substance, but he got to endure the pain and suffering of integration.

It was, as Ethan said at the beginning and in Magnus’s professional opinion, a very stupid power.

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