In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.

The next day we got ready to test my energy cover and I wasn't really excited about this plan. The plan that had been hatched was to set up a chamber and radiate it and let me stay in there for as long as I could hold it. The only part of this that I liked was that we had to go all the way to France since the facility that had this set up was there.

Once we got the discussion on the plan done we all went to the roof and got on the jet. I took the scenic route and we still arrived there in under 3 hours. Everyone was really impressed with the flying and enjoyed the flight there. After arriving at the facility, the lead researcher there was also excited to see Jimmy and gave us a tour of the facility and then left us to use the lab. It was on the lowest floor of the facility as it was used for heavy duty testing of suits to protect against radiation exposure.

To start off I put on the pants of the suit and the helmet that they were testing and activated my energy cover and entered the containment room. Initially, the room only had residual radiation from all the earlier experiments. I was also hooked up to a few machines to track my vitals. Then they slowly started increasing the radiation levels in the room and it seemed fine. When the levels reached a certain amount I could start feeling a little bit of drain on my energy cover. The radiation was causing a little bit of deterioration for the energy and I had to start pushing more out slowly to compensate for the loss of the energy in the cover on my skin. It was slowly becoming difficult to keep adding more to keep up the energy for the shield. Then suddenly I started feeling the heat, it was getting really hot, hot enough that if the shield wasn't there I would get 2nd-degree burns. So I shouted out and let them know that there was an issue but only a few seconds later the radiation reached levels beyond what I could cope with and the shield collapsed and then I felt the full brunt of the heat on my skin and blacked out from the pain.

I woke up the next day with my entire torso and arms wrapped up in bandages. When I got up I looked around to figure out where I was and the only thing I could tell was that I was in some medical room like the ones in the Academy. After a few minutes, a doctor came in with Jimmy and both of them looked scared and worried.

The doctor checked me over and said: '"How are you feeling?"

"I am alright, it does hurt a lot from the burns, but I'll be healed up in a day or 2. Why do you look worried?"

Jimmy responded: "We thought you would be angry about the experiment getting you injured. We weren't being careful and went a little overboard on the radiation exposure and it caused the air itself to start burning."

"It's OK, you got complacent and you feel sorry and I will heal up quickly. The only thing I want to know is what were the results?"

"The results were far better than expected. Actually, your energy cover was on your entire body including your legs and head that's why when the helmet and suit's pants started getting damaged you were still able to hold on for some time and only your fully exposed torso got hurt. Anyone else wouldn't have survived if they only had the suit. It did help the scientists here get a safety margin on what maximums their suit can be hit with without damaging the wearer's body." Said Jimmy.

I replied: "Well that's just a bonus. I also figured out that I need to improve my speed of getting the energy onto my skin since you must have already noticed that the energy stayed within my body uniformly so I don't have any radiation damage."

"Yes, we were concerned about that and wanted to know what happened there. You should practice that it may come in handy. We will let you rest and come back later." replied Jimmy.

I interrupted him and said: "Actually we have to leave by tomorrow morning. The girls are joining the Academy so I will be flying them back to the US with me when I go back to the New York base on Monday. Let them know that and ill fly us back tomorrow morning unless someone needs something else."

"That's fine, I will let them know, rest now," said Jimmy and then he left with the doctor.

I decided to go back to sleep so I can be ready for tomorrow's flight.

The next morning I got up, changed back into my clothes and packed up everything and went up to the Jet and charged up the battery to full charge while I waited for everyone else to come aboard the jet. They all arrived a few minutes after 9 and I had the jet ready for the flight by then. This time we took a quick flight and arrived in only an hour. After we landed I let everyone know that I will be leaving with Nikki and Nebula on Monday for the Academy and could take anyone else who was supposed to go or to take any equipment or stuff they wanted to be sent.

My plan was to finish the reports for my tests and finish reading up the latest incident reports that Agent Coulson had sent to me since now I could access them outside of a secure center since I was now at level 5. I spent the rest of the week with that and talked to Jimmy a few times about Nikki's device and it's applications and I gave him the approval to use my assigned research budget's leftover amount for it. He also told me he and Nikki had gotten some help from Nebula that allowed them to make a lot of progress on the miniaturization front and would have a new prototype for me by the time we left.

Then came the Monday morning of our departure.