Sabir leaned against the icy wall of the back of the cell. He sat watching Zabo in front of him, as he laid on the floor completely pinned to the ground under the weight of heavy chains tied to multiple enormous balls the size of cannons. They seemed to be an amalgamation of multiple different metals, forming a heavy clump that left Zabo wincing at the constant pressure.

Zabo’s hair clung to his forehead from the sticky apple juice that Sabir had poured on him, causing his thick dreads to appear more matte and messy. Sabir couldn’t help but feel a tinge of pity, watching the young man lay there helplessly under an insane amount of weight. But then again, he had been asking for it, acting all delirious and blaming Sabir for everything.

Sabir got up and moved closer to Zabo squatting beside him. “Hey, be careful, will you? You’re gonna step on my hair,” Zabo groaned. Sabir smirked, glancing at the frizzy mess that was Zabo’s hair.

“Can you really call that hair anymore?”

Zabo’s eyes strained to the side so he could peer at Sabir to show his annoyance. Sabir couldn’t help but chuckle. “You know I can see your face, the perk of not being pinned to the floor.”

“But I can’t see you,” Zabo grunted, the slight rattling of chains resonating through the cell.

“Should’ve thought about that before you tried to escape. Are you an idiot? Escaping through the front door is the dumbest thing you can do.” Sabir needed to admonish this kid’s clear lack of critical thinking. With Zabo becoming his partner, he needed to make sure he didn’t become a liability. Especially if he was a dumbass. Which, based on their very small sample of interactions, he was.

Zabo wanted to retort that he originally wasn’t trying to escape, but only tried to get away from Sabir. He bit his tongue, knowing saying anything could mean he was at Sabir’s mercy, being completely incapacitated by those damn chains.

“Anyway,” Sabir refocusing the conversation. “You were about to tell me something was wrong with my body.”

Zabo sighed as he looked back at the ceiling, a sight he had become used to. He sighed before he spoke. “I’m surprised you haven’t realized what you’ve been doing.”

“Doing what?” Sabir frowned.

Zabo gritted his teeth before shifting his head slightly to the side, looking up at Sabir from the corner of his eye. “Tell me, Sabir… who taught you how to aura?”

Sabir blinked, his mind racing. Aura? He had heard about different applications to Esper powers, but nothing came to him when he heard the word. He could only assume it was some application of being an Esper. “No,” he admitted slowly. “I haven’t been taught about anything like an aura. I’m a dud, you see. I’ve got no powers.” Sabir braced himself for the eventual mocking that would entail from his admittance to being a dud. It was an eventuality. Knowing that Zabo was a trainee hunter, he expected as much.

To his surprise, Zabo laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “I’m a dud too, Sabir.”

Sabir’s eyes widened in shock. “There’s no way. Warren and Elektra both said you had super strength. How else did you break through those bars?”

“In a way, I do. But it’s not because of Esper powers. It’s because of aura.”

“Aura…” Sabir muttered, rolling the word around in his mouth like it was foreign. “So what’s this magical power you call aura, then?” He couldn’t buy this. The idea of using something to replicate the power of an Esper seemed almost comical. “So you say you’re a dud right and you can use this ability, this aura, and become as powerful as an Esper? Not just any Esper, but a hunter?”

Zabo nodded, as much as he could manage while bound to the ground. “Yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

Sabir smiled, not believing a word he was saying. “You can’t expect me to believe this, can you? If you want to mock me, just do it.”

Zabo sucked his teeth in annoyance. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“How do I know you’re not making this up?” Sabir asked, his skepticism creeping back in.

Zabo thought for a second, pondering how he could prove he was telling the truth. “You remember when weakling Warren was trying to drag me back into the cell after I broke out? He was able to hold me back, right? Neither of us budged.”

Sabir remembered the scuffle, Warren grew frustrated at trying to drag Zabo back inside. Zabo should have been strong enough to overpower Warren, yet they remained at a standstill. Zabo had broken through the handcuffs and cell bars earlier, displaying strength that a dud could only dream of. But he didn’t use it during that scuffle with Warren. Why?

Zabo seemed to read his mind. “If I had super strength like they said, shouldn’t I have been able to out-muscle Warren easily? I could’ve escaped, no problem.”

Sabir nodded slowly. The logic was sound. If Zabo had true super strength, overpowering someone like Warren should’ve been simple. But then Sabir thought of something else. “You used your powers to escape the handcuffs and break the bars,” he analyzed. “Maybe you just got tired after that. Like Cassius, when we were trying to get away. He said he’d ran out of energy, that he needed time to recover.”

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Zabo shook his head. “I don’t know who Cassius is, but you’re wrong. If my power was pure super strength, it wouldn’t stop working like that. Enhancement abilities, like super strength, don’t just run out of juice, they backfire on your body if you overuse them. But they don’t just turn off.”

“How do I know that’s even true? You could be making this all up.”

Zabo was beginning to lose patience. “Are you dumb, or have you just never been to an academy before?”

“I went to a Beacon school.”

Zabo couldn’t help but leak out a laugh at the words’ beacon school. “A Beacon school? Aren’t those just for duds and weaklings? What can they teach you there? Boring stuff like math? Hahaha” The chains rustled in unison with his laughter, which only made Sabir feel more annoyed.

“You said you’re a dud too.” Sabir cocked an eyebrow, knowing he caught a contradiction.

Zabo’s laughter faltered, and he looked at Sabir awkwardly. “Right… yeah, my bad. When you have to act like one of those elite brats for as long as I have, you kinda forget it’s all an act.”

Sabir was about to press him on that point. What the hell does he mean, acting like the elites? Zabo sensed the direction of Sabir’s thoughts and quickly got back on track. “Look, let me make this simple for you. I’m a dud, yes. But I have abilities that allow me to go toe-to-toe with many hunters. And you, Sabir, are also capable of using those abilities.”

Sabir crossed his arms, still skeptical. “I’m capable of using them? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding. You can use aura, just like I can. In fact, I’m gonna say this as gently as I can.” He paused, locking eyes with Sabir. “It’s killing you.”

Sabir’s breath hitched in his throat. “What? What are you talking about? C’mon, this jokes gone on too long now.”

Zabo’s face became serious, his voice shaky as he spoke. “That’s why I’m so freaked out about being so close to you. Somehow, you’re leaking out an aura like a dam with a giant hole. With your body releasing that amount, your limbs might shoot off. Or even worse, you’re going to explode to kingdom come.”

The cell fell silent, except for the faint clink of chains as Zabo shifted. Sabir’s golden eyes darkened, processing the gravity of these revelations. He has to be making this all up, he has to be. Maybe Elektra put him up to this.

Zabo, sensing his hesitation, smirked. “You don’t believe me, do you? Think back, Sabir. Has there been any time where you’ve felt a strange calmness or sudden strength… or even a moment you sensed danger before it even happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sabir tried to disregard what he was saying, but memories began resurfacing that felt eerily similar to what he had described.

“It’s been happening to you for a while now. You’ve been using it without realizing. Think. Anytime you’ve been in crazy danger, where your life was on the line,” Zabo pushed for an answer.

Sabir’s eyes narrowed as his mind pulled him back to the past. The day his life turned upside down. The Wyrmraiders had surrounded him, holding him in place through telekinesis, sneering down at him. But he’d gotten free, something inside of him snapping as he’d shattered their mental hold. He chalked it up to adrenaline, maybe willpower. But now.

Sabir shook his head against it, but other memories began surfacing, unbidden.

The time he, Max and Samantha got caught in the crossfire between the two hunter guilds, they had been hiding, trying to avoid the chaos, when an energy blast deflected their way. Sabir had sensed it before it was closed in on them. He pushed his friends out of the way, thinking it was just down to quick reactions. Or was it?

That other time. With the Vinefiends. Maize Gaian had unleashed those terrifying monsters on him, their claws wrapping around him, suffocating, squeezing the life out of him. But something inside him had exploded, a raw, instinctual power that let him tear through one of them, far beyond what his normal strength should allow.

Then there was Elektra. Sabir shuddered; his head whisked back to their brutal fight at The Commons. Elektra was merciless; she teased him, routed him with no effort. He felt the defeat happening in real time: his body accepting the contact, his strength seeping out from his skin. And then something supernatural happened. His eyes fogged up. His world went dark as his consciousness completely slipped. And in those moments, something else took over. The rest of the fight was a blur afterward, flashes of movement, the shocked look on Elektra’s face, of his body acting on its own, as if controlled by a force well beyond his level.

He’d fought her like a man possessed, like some sort of mindless zombie, and when he’d come to, the look on Elektra’s face hadn’t been one of victory.

It had been fear.

Realization dawned on him. This entire time, it hadn’t been luck or chance that had saved him. No. He had ignored it, focusing on what he thought mattered more. It had been this… aura that saved him countless times. He had been unconsciously using it, tapping into it in moments of extreme danger, when his life was on the line.

Zabo’s voice broke through his spiraling thoughts. “You’ve been using it unconsciously. That’s why you didn’t notice. But it’s been there, Sabir. All along.”

Sabir’s emotions swirled. Surprise, excitement, and pure disbelief. That he had been tapping into some power source that could allow him to stand on equal footing with a hunter, the prospect of being something more than a weak, powerless kid from The Limbo. If he could learn to tap into this power, his revenge could truly become a reality. But then, just as quickly, he cooled his excitement. He had remembered the reason Zabo brought this all up.

He looked at Zabo, his face expecting answers. “But… why is it killing me? If I’ve been using it, why is it supposedly tearing me apart?”

Zabo sighed. Finally, they had come to the crux of the issue. “Because you don’t know how to control it. Aura isn’t something you just tap into randomly and expect it to work without consequences. It’s like a muscle. If you don’t know how to train it properly, it’ll break you.”

Flashes crossed his mind of those instances where he had felt the surge of that strange energy course through him, the Wyrmraiders, the energy blast, or the Vinefiends, each time it felt different like a different type of strain pushed against his body, a strain his body wasn’t fit to handle.

“And right now,” Zabo added, his voice low, “it’s already breaking you down from the inside. I’d give it a week or two at most and you’re gonna be a corpse.”

Sabir swallowed, his throat dry. He had unknowingly been wielding a power that could kill him. He had been so focused on surviving each day, fighting his way through every obstacle, that he never even questioned how he had survived impossible odds. Now he faced the terrifying truth. “So-so what do I do?” Sabir muttered.

Zabo, still pinned by the chains and iron balls, looked at Sabir with a mix of pity and understanding. “You need to learn how to control it, Sabir. Before it’s too late.”