Dark brown eyes regarded me calculatingly and I knew that this was the furthest I could push the man without crossing the line of insubordination. Gripping my hands together behind my back, I waited for Mr. Tumamait to make his decision. His fingers holding my letter of recommendation tightened and crinkled the pristine paper and I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from saying anything else. 

As silence stretched between us I began to lose hope. After what seemed like an eternity Mr. Tumamait let out a deep sigh and leaned forward, placing my letter on top of his desk. 

“A child should focus on gaining knowledge and having fun. Why are you so intent on throwing yourself into danger?” 

I met Mr. Tumamait’s dark eyes with my own hazel ones and I gave him a sad smile. 

“Because I don’t want to lose someone else I care about when I have the ability to protect them,” I responded firmly as Aunty Gail’s cheerful face came to mind. 

I also need to figure out what story I’m in and find my best friend aka the hero/heroine, which I won’t be able to do if I can’t be around Enhanced more often, I thought to myself since that would sound crazy if I said it out loud. Opting instead for a slightly cheeky addition to my reasoning. 

“Plus I’m 13. So technically I’m a teenager, not a child.” 

Mr. Tumamait blinked and then let out an exuberant laugh. The grim mood dispelled with my little quip and he once again leaned back in his seat and gave a smile that made me feel like he found me rather endearing. 

“Fine fine. If you want this so bad then I’ll give my approval,” he relented while holding his hands up in the air.

A beaming grin burst across my face and I was about to cheer when Mr. Tumamait’s eyes gleamed wickedly and he pointed to his left. 

“But,” he added with a satisfied smirk, “you’ll have to get your guardians' permission.” 

The blood drained from my face as I glanced in the direction he was pointing, realizing he was gesturing toward the research lab and effectively my foster dad. Dr. Montressor had built quite a reputation and earned himself the nickname of “the stone wall” among both the researchers who were under him and the Enhanced training facility staff. He was known to be extremely set in his ways and if he didn’t see the value of a project then it came to a grinding halt until it met his approval. He was also, embarrassingly enough, known to be quite protective of his foster daughter. 

“If you put in this much effort to convince me then I’m sure you’ve got a plan for your old man, huh?” Mr. Tumamait stated with a teasing smirk. 

I cleared my throat nervously and forced myself to give a bright smile. 

“Aunty Gail offered to act as my guardian in the dungeon so I don’t think it’s necessary to…” 

“Oh no,” Mr. Tumamait interrupted me with a wide grin. “Whether you call Gail ‘aunty’ or not, your legal guardians are Dr. Montressor and his wife. You need their permission if you want to go into a gate. I’ll have my secretary write up a permission form and you can take it with you after your training session.”

I couldn’t hide my scowl this time and Mr. Tumamait let out another hearty laugh. He shooed me out of his office and I trudged towards my martial arts training class. Even though I did everything I could, there was still less than a 50% chance that the director would let me go into a dungeon. As such, I hadn’t come up with a way to convince my protective foster parents to let their underaged ward go through an interdimensional gate into a monster-infested dungeon. 

After my martial arts training, I came to a decision. I quickly changed out of my workout clothes and slipped my backpack on before leaving my small training room on the second floor and headed downstairs. 

It took me several attempts at poking my head into the large training rooms, made with special mana-enforced materials to lower the damage caused by Enhanced practicing their new powers, to find who I was searching for. I smiled triumphantly when I opened the door and saw several people squirming in the air and glaring daggers at a cackling woman who was quite literally bouncing off the walls. 

Leaning cautiously against the wall I watched Gail in her sparring match that looked to be 7 against 1. Unfortunately for the seven, Gail must have managed to touch each of them because they were trapped in what seemed like zero gravity and were having a heck of a time trying to keep up with her effortless movements. 

One of the Enhanced managed to let out a shard of ice that looked like it would collide with Gail, but she suddenly plummeted back to the ground, narrowly avoiding the icicle spear. She grinned widely up at the ice-enhanced and childishly placed a finger under her eye, pulling her lower lid down and sticking her tongue out tauntingly at her young opponent. 

In the past two years, many people expressed interest in becoming Enhanced. Since the only way people knew of was to be exposed to a large amount of mana, the US government created a program where interested parties could sign up for “dungeon excursions”. This was where experienced Enhanced would go into a dungeon and clear all of the monsters except for the boss so that it would remain open, then they would allow the non-enhanced to come through the gate with them and spend thirty minutes in the dungeon. 

Because even these dungeon excursions could be dangerous, a collaboration between several countries' researchers was working diligently to create a mana potential scanner. From what Margie told me, the scanner was nearing completion and that was what prompted the discussion of ranking Enhanced. Until the mana potential scanner was complete and distributed though, people would have to continue the dungeon excursions.

After leaving the dungeon the potential Enhanced would attempt to release the mana they’d absorbed in a controlled setting. Most people seemed to instinctively know how to utilize their mana, but there were cases where their powers wouldn’t manifest until they were under duress. Which is where Gail came in.

As one of the original enhanced, she worked closely with the government and often volunteered to “nudge” newly mana-exposed people to unlock their special ability. While I watched Gail tease and prod the poor people who were desperately trying to either get down from their floating prison or attack Gail to get her to shut up, I couldn’t help but think she was acting like a bully. 

However, as much fun as she was obviously having at these poor people’s expense, as soon as someone unlocked their ability she lowered them to the ground and sent them off to have their ability registered and examined by a researcher. I waited patiently until only two people were left trapped in their zero-gravity state.

Even after Gail sent the poor guys up and down and all across the room in what looked like the jerkiest invisible rollercoaster ever, the only thing that came out of them was some foul-smelling vomit. I wrinkled my nose at the smell but felt quite bad for the guys who apparently hadn’t been able to manifest an ability. 

Gail deposited the two groaning men who looked to be in their twenties on the ground and gave them both a smack on their backs, causing one of the guys to hurl again. 

“There you go, let it all out,” Gail encouraged with a wicked chuckle. “Looks like you boys don’t get anything flashy as your powers, but come back in a week to get a follow-up check. Sometimes mana can cause physical enhancements that make you gain muscle like a bodybuilder or increase your speed, so there’s still hope for you yet.” 

The young men looked up at her with a mixture of hate and gratitude on their faces. Gail cackled, obviously not caring if she made enemies out of the new Enhanced, and turned away to let them recover from the queasiness she had caused. Her eyes almost instantly met mine and her teasing smirk instantly transformed into a wide grin. 

“Hey there, kiddo! What are you doing here?” Gail asked as she bounded over to me, obviously lightening the gravitational pull on herself so she could reach me quicker. She planted her hands roughly on my shoulders and I returned her wide smile. 

“Hi, Aunty Gail. I was hoping you could help me with something,” I admitted sheepishly as she pulled me into a rough hug.

“I keep tellin’ ya that the best waves are in the early mornings, kiddo. Even if we go now I can’t help you ride waves that aren’t there,” Gail said with a teasing gleam in her eyes and I shook my head with a chuckle. 

Last year, Gail upgraded me from a bodyboard to a surfboard. Embarrassingly I struggled pretty badly with surfing. In my frustration, I eventually ditched the surfboard and used my mana to create my own version. My mana board looked exactly like a surfboard but the top layer was soft and spongy and wrapped around my feet, making it much easier to balance and control the surfboard. Was it cheating? Probably. But I didn’t plan to go professional or anything so I didn’t really care. 

“It’s not surfing-related,” I retorted with a chuckle before my lips tugged down into a frown. “Actually, I went to ask Mr. Tumamait to allow me in a dungeon.” 

“Oh, yah? And what did Mr. High Cheekbones have to say?” Gail asked with an excited twinkle in her eyes. 

I shook my head at Gail’s nickname but gave her a hesitant smile. “Well… he said that he would allow it…” 

“I’m guessing there’s a ‘but’ to this decision,” Gail prompted as I tapered off. I let out a sigh and nodded. 

“He said that I have to get permission from Dr. Montressor and Yesenia. His secretary is going to print out a permission form and everything to make it official,” I explained with a grimace. 

Gail grinned and nodded her head while resting her chin in the dip between her thumb and pointer finger. 

“I gotcha. And you need ol’ Gail to forge their signature,” she guessed, giving a shockingly excited smile. “I haven’t forged anything since my senior year in high school, but I can give it a shot.” 

“Wait, what? No!” I quickly rejected her idea, not 100% sure if she was joking or not. “If we did that Dr. Montressor wouldn’t let me go surfing with you anymore!” 

Gail’s eyes widened at that and then let out a huff. “That man is way too uptight. Alright, if we’re not taking the easy way out, then what do you need my help for?” 

“Ummm,” I started hesitantly, wondering if Gail was actually the best choice for this. “I was hoping you could come with me to try and convince them?” 

Gail blinked her eyes, momentarily frozen, but then she smiled widely at me and looped her arms around my shoulders. I’d gone through a growth spurt about 6 months after living with the Montressors and I was now slightly above average at 5’2” which meant that my shoulders were at the perfect height for Gail to rest on who was 5’5”.  

 “Oh sure, the traditional way,” Gail chuckled. “If we’re going to do this you know the strategy, right?” 

I looked up at her and gave a tired smile. “Convince Yesenia first and then gang up on Dr. Montressor?” I asked while feeling slightly guilty.

“You betcha,” Gail replied with a wicked gleam in her eyes. 

This was exactly the strategy we had employed when Gail wanted to make me her regular travel buddy to the beach. There was only one person in the world who could blow past Dr. Montressor’s stone wall, and that was his spunky Latina wife.