Chapter 33:

Will and Cierra had picked up a generator, some fire extinguishers, and a few gas cans from the big box hardware store not far from where he lived. Then they had driven to their training spot after filling the gas cans.

"You know what? I'm going to run to the house and back real quick. You mind getting this set up?"

"I don't mind, but what do you need at the house?"

"I'm going to grab an old extension cord. I think with some basic modifications, we can use it to let us actually use the juice the generator puts out without standing right on top of this thing.

I know it wasn't the biggest portable generator there, but I still get nervous about frying something unintentionally."

"Fair enough, I have this under control. Get going."

Will decided to take advantage of the time and isolation to open himself up. Blasting his aetheric tap as wide as possible, he funneled all the energy he could into his muscles.

The feeling was hard to describe. Every movement felt like it held the potential for explosive force. His mind cleared, senses sharpened, and electricity randomly shot across his skin.

He didn't know how fast he was moving, but it felt like he was slicing through the air at a ludicrous rate. He had never been big on running before, but he realized now that he would have to practice using his abilities like this in more depth at some point.

Before he knew it, he was home. His roommates were probably getting ready for bed, or already trying to sleep, so he didn't bug them. Instead, he used the side door into the garage and immediately moved to the area that served as their graveyard for old cables.

Getting what he was looking for, he also grabbed some wire strippers and electrical tape. Deciding that was probably enough, he put the tool and tape in his back pockets, then left the garage holding the cable.

Once again, he decided to push his limits on the way back to Cierra, and started running at full speed. Then, he decided to test a couple of things.

Thinking about the energy in his body, he focused on increasing the concentration of energy in his legs and back. Instantly, he felt his speed increase as more ground was eaten with each stride.

Pushing this state as hard as he could, he suddenly felt the electricity diffused through his body jolting to his legs and back. He was not prepared for his next step to launch him at least five feet into the air. It might have been fine, except that jolt had also thrown him forward at a speed he was not at all ready for.

With his balance totally shot, Will had just enough time to curse, before touching down again. The shock of going airborne had caused him to cancel the electrical surge in his legs, but he was still left stumbling and trying to recover.

He thought he had it under control, when he stepped on a rock that unexpectedly rolled under his foot. That was when the second surge of lightning blasted through him, this time straight to his brain.

Immediately, it was as if time slowed down for him. He wasn't moving faster, but his perceptions and thoughts were dramatically sped up. Reacting purely on instinct, he threw his upper body forward with his next step.

The time he had to plan his movements and observe the world around him was surreal. If it weren't for the incoming collision with the ground, he could easily have seen himself getting totally distracted.

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His aim was on target as he used his arms to contact the ground and send him into a forward roll. He had way too much momentum for a single roll to absorb, but his instincts proved solid. Coming out of the roll, he once again pushed off the ground, sending him several feet into the air.

With his perceptions pushed to the brink, he was able to land with a stumbling stride this time. It wasn't even remotely graceful, but he was finally able to bleed off his momentum and slow himself. As soon as he had stopped, he felt the charge bleed out of his brain and his world returned to normal.

"Okay, I'm going to need to work on making sure that only happens when I want it to."

Noticing his breathing wasn't spiking from the unexpected excitement, he figured something about his abilities had kept his adrenaline response under control. Shrugging, he decided he needed to keep moving. This time he kept to the pace he had used when initially running home.

Arriving back at the little clearing, Will moved over to where the generator was waiting. Cierra was sitting on one of their boulders, and raised an eyebrow when she saw him.

"Did you stop to try and learn camouflage techniques on the way? I'm pretty sure you did it wrong."

"Ha ha. No. I decided to try pushing myself while running. I accidentally sent myself airborne when my electricity decided my legs weren't doing nearly as much as they could."

Chuckling briefly, Cierra said, "That makes sense. You'd be surprised how often that happens to new Operators, even without a dual affinity."

"I believe it. Even just flat out running is going to take practice, I think. Mostly, instinct was enough to make it work, but I'm betting I could get better results if I had been used to how much ground I was covering."

"Yeah. Balance, center of gravity, and the angle you push off the ground at can all make a big difference. Once you adapt to moving with your new strength, you'll be shocked at how fast you can move."

"You know, I was thinking about that just before I got back. Increased strength and speed really go hand in hand in a lot of ways. With enough speed, you can basically use momentum to imitate ridiculous strength. On the other side, when you're strong enough that your body weight is negligible, you can push every movement a lot faster."

"True. Although, you do need to take leverage into account with basically everything. All the strength or speed in the world is useless if you can't use it.

You haven't seen other Operators, other than myself, yet. Once you do, you'll see that all of us tend to have some variation in where our strengths measure up.

I've always been on the upper end of the speed spectrum, but my strength is about average among people at our level. You're kind of the opposite. Your strength is the highest I've felt, but your speed is pretty average."

"Interesting. It makes sense we would have some variation. I imagine that the compatibility stuff Sil told us about has some impact on it, too."

To that, Cierra just shrugged and said. "It wouldn't surprise me. Now, let's see about charging you up a bit, shall we?"

"Probably a good idea. I have a feeling my weird dual nature is going to be a trump card I have to pull at some point. The last thing I want to do is run out right when I need it."

Grabbing his cable, Will used the strippers to clip off the female connector, and pull back a few inches of outer insulation. He then stripped about a half inch from the ends of the newly exposed wires.

"Okay. So, in theory I can just plug the other end in, then step back and see how this goes. Any objections?"

"I object to you stalling. Does that count?"

Will just rolled his eyes, before deciding to cut away about a foot of the outer insulation from the old cable. With that, he held one lead in his left hand while plugging the cable into the generator, then stepped back to a comfortable distance.

Muttering a quick, "here goes nothing," under his breath, he grabbed the other lead with his right hand. He realized he’d messed up just in time to feel the skin on one hand singe a little.

Cursing, he would've let go and dropped the lead, but the jolt had locked his hands around the leads. Luckily, his system kicked into high gear before he hit medium-rare on the inside. Every hair on his body stood at attention, but his body and nanites were doing what he needed them to do.

He felt a surge of warmth travel through his entire body in a surprisingly pleasant wave. Closing his eyes, he decided to focus on what was going on in his body.

Energy had briefly surged through his system, but it seemed equalized. Now, he could feel it being funneled straight to his core. From there he could vaguely sense it disappearing through the connection in his chest.

He knew almost nothing about the Aether, but he knew that he was somehow anchored to a place that existed separate from his own physical reality. He found it fascinating, and made a mental note to try and learn more about it in the future.

Opening his eyes, he saw Cierra staring at him with a look on her face that told him she knew exactly what had happened.

"What?"

"You forgot to actually start channeling that before jolting yourself."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."