Chapter 5: Progress: Part Two
After Emma had left, I’d found myself at a bit of a loose end. Athena’s presence now hung over me like a storm cloud, a shoe waiting to drop.
In the end, I’d decided that the best way to deal with the unwelcomed feeling of pressure was to get stronger. I had power now, if I wanted to be able to be more than just a victim then I had to get better with it. Sure, I didn’t expect to be able to stand up to a goddess any time soon, but, as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles always starts with a single step.
My sparring match with Joan had shown me that even though I’d managed to push through some sort of bottleneck during my fight with Etienne I was still had plenty of room to grow and better myself. That meant that there’d probably be more bottlenecks to get through, and I wouldn’t be able to break them by sitting on my ass.
Outside, at a nice clear spot in the white field, I tried to meditate, to feel the world around me. I could feel the earth, air, water, light, shadows and the myriad of other elements and forces that made it up. I knew I was stronger now, but I wasn’t sure how to push that strength, how to make it work. Against both Etienne and Joan, all I’d really done was use a larger and more forceful version of the stuff I was already doing. Hotter fire, more ice, bigger rocks, larger lightning bolts, it was a step in the right direction, I was sure, but it wasn’t . . . complete.
I needed to do something else, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t pin down the nebulous idea that was floating around in my head. Frustrated I called out my halo and used my magic to draw up a boulder from the soil, a big one, one that made me work to get it out. Since I wasn’t trying to throw it around or change its shape, I was able to go for maximum size, and the result was taller than me and almost as wide around.
For a moment I wondered where it had come from. Had it always been buried there, and my magic just pulled it up? Had it been from my magic, soil just being transmuted? The thoughts flitted through my head, but then I decided I just didn’t care. I could experiment later, but at that moment I had other things on my mind.
The first thing I’d done was to try to lift the boulder with telekinesis, just to see if I could. It was a good test, seeing how strong one of my go-to powers had grown. Before my fight with Etienne, my TK had been strong enough to lift a moderately sized tree trunk. It hadn’t been easy, but I could do it. I wasn’t sure how that compared to the boulder I was using, but I was sure it was much heavier.
I felt the pressure in my mind and in my body, the feeling of my power fighting against the weight of the rock. It wasn’t exactly like using my muscles, straining them against the pull of gravity, but there was some similarity.
I pressed harder, pushing more of my power into my effort. Slowly the boulder rose, centimetre by centimetre, inch by inch. I could feel a slight pain starting at the top of my head, along with an ache near to my heart where I knew my new core to be. Neither was too intense though, and I kept pushing, determined to see how far I could manage.
In the end, I didn’t get much further than a foot, then I had to let it go. The thump that ran through the earth as the boulder thudded back into place left no doubts as to its sheer weight. I had to guess it was several tonnes at the least.
Releasing it also made the pressure inside me to subside, but it left behind . . . something. Not quite a pain, but was a discomfort. It took me a moment to make the connection, but once it did I could only grin. After a good workout, muscles could feel sore, a sign they had been pushed and were growing stronger. What I felt inside me didn’t feel anything like that, but even so, there was also a similarity, something that instinctively told me that I’d pushed my inner magical systems and that they were growing from it.
The grin still plastered on my face I reached out with my hands and shoved against the boulder. It was just a whim, a way of confirming to myself that the stone was as heavy and solid as it should have been, that my magic really was that powerful.
I wasn’t expecting the multi-ton boulder to move.
Sure, it was just a tiny bit of give, but it left me staring at my hands, then the rock, in stunned awe. I hadn’t braced myself or anything, just shoved the stone without thinking. Even if I was strong enough to move it, I should have just been shoved back, my own weight insignificant against it, regardless of my strength.
But I’d done it, I had felt it shift!
Immediately my mind started running a mile a minute. Was I really that strong? Was this some unconscious application of my TK? Was the boulder lighter than I thought? My thoughts chased each other around my skull like bees trapped in a jam jar.
I’d poked at the boulder, squatted down to see where it had thumped back into the ground, and tried to pry out stones from underneath it. It all proved that the rock was still as heavy as I thought it should be, a massive weight that would normally have taken heavy machinery to move.
But I had moved it, I was completely sure!
That led me to try to recreate what had happened. Shoving against the boulder in an attempt to shift it again. The only problem was that it wasn’t cooperating. Even though I strained against it, shoved it as hard as I could, and heaved against it with my whole body, I couldn’t get it to rock back that tiny bit like I had before.
As I tried, I felt a pressure building up in me, but not one that had anything to do with my earlier magical efforts. Instead, it was born of frustration, an anger that I couldn’t figure out just what I was capable of. I should have known, should have been able to understand everything I could do just like the other demigods. Instead, I was flawed, fumbling in the dark as I tried to make sense of each aspect of my divine blood as it emerged.
I was frustrated, angry, and feeling increasingly overwhelmed as my situation got more and more complicated. This latest complication with my powers wasn’t the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was enough to make it strain. I needed some way to vent, to release that pent-up frustration, so I went with what probably wasn’t my best idea.
I punched the boulder as hard as I could.
The instant my knuckles connected with the stone I knew that I was screwing up. Skin and bones versus who knew how many tonnes of stone, you didn’t need to be a genius to predict the outcome. I’d thrown the punch due to a cocktail of frustration that needed venting, a leftover rush from my earlier success with TK, and a mad hope that something would happen. Rational judgment hadn’t really entered the picture.
I was already wincing as I felt the impact, anticipating the pain I was sure was coming when I felt . . . nothing?
Then I felt something, but it wasn’t what I expected. Rather than feeling pain shoot up my arm I felt something give against my skin. To my stunned shock, I saw the boulder where I’d hit break and crumble. Sure, it wasn’t a big or deep crater, barely more than a shallow indentation really, but it had really happened.
It took me a few seconds to wrap my head around what I was seeing. Yes, I’d known I had power, I knew I could take a hit, but it had always seemed as though my speciality seemed to lie in magic for distance attacks, battlefield manipulation, that sort of thing. I’d been hoping for a boost to my physical stuff, strength, speed, agility and the like, but with my wings and my flight, it had become less important.
In that moment though . . . it suddenly seemed a lot more important. I swung at the stone again, this time with my left fist. My knuckles hit home, and I felt the impact, but once more there was no pain, and once more it was the rock that broke, rather than my flesh and bones. Again and again, I swung, taking childish pleasure in how each of my blows left noticeable marks and cracks in the rock that looked like the work of a sledgehammer.
I wasn’t too sure how long I just kept pounding away at it, using solid stone as a punching bag, but I was brought out of my adrenaline-fuelled elation by a familiar burning in my arms and shoulders. I took a step back, staring at the dented and defaced surface of the boulder before me and letting my halo shift out of existence once more.
“So, was it everything you thought it would be?”
The unexpected question made me start, though I managed to keep a surprised yelp from escaping my throat. I spun in place, and even though there was resistance from my wings I was able to instinctively compensate. To my surprise I saw Kali coming up behind me, her walk more of a saunter as she drew nearer.
She wore mostly the same stuff as earlier in the day but had swapped her tank top for a t-shirt, one just as tight as her earlier top. Across it was written the slogan: ‘You’re reading these words, but you’re thinking about what’s behind them’, followed by a devil smiley face that was winking out at me.
And, just as those damned words suggested, as soon as I read them, I couldn’t help but notice that the goddess had not bothered to wear anything under the t-shirt. Its tightness was making that perfectly clear. My calm wasn’t helped by the fact that Kali moved in a way that would have made a model on a catwalk green with envy. Casual and confident, and hot, hot, hot!
Damn it, the thought ran through my head as I did my best not to stare like an idiot, it had really been too long since I had any sort of romance.
I think it was the odd normality of the thought that I’d gone too long without romance, that managed to ground me. Taking a deep breath, both to centre myself and because I needed it after going crazy on the boulder, I offered my best smile.
“Good afternoon. What do you mean?”
“C’mon,” She grinned, waving at the boulder as she got nearer. “I could hear you waling on that hunk of rock from the farm. No one goes crazy on something like that unless they’ve got a lot to vent. So . . . did it work for you?”
The way she was right on point was just a bit . . . disturbing. Was I that easy to read? So I just nodded dumbly.
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“Yeah, thought so,” Kali commented, walking by me to poke at the boulder where two of my impacts overlapped. “Looks like you’ve got some strength going for you. That’s cool, I thought you were more of a sorcerer type though. You know, throwing fireballs and lightning at your enemies.”
“Yeah, me too,” I admitted. “I know I’m tougher. If I wasn’t then Etienne would have smashed me. But there hasn’t been any real sign of me being stronger. This kinda caught me by surprise.”
The goddess grinned at me again, with that slightly predatory smile I’d noticed earlier.
“Maybe, but aren’t you glad? Having magic is great, I’ve got some of my own, but sometimes it's way better just to be able to hit something with your bare hands and feel it break under them.”
To emphasize her words her flattened left hand slapped down on the stone beside her . . . and I couldn’t help but wince as the rock caved in under her flesh, leaving a clear hand-shaped crater in the side of the boulder. I’d been repeatedly smashing that thing as hard as I could, and the best I’d managed was some dents. Kali had done more than double that with a single slap, and it was obvious she hadn’t been putting much effort into it.
“Y-yeah, sure,” I did my best to keep my words even but stumbled slightly, my eyes still kept being drawn back to the handprint in the stone. “Guess it makes for a good option to have.”
I paused for a moment, then looked down at my hands.
“I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to control though,” I admitted. “I’ve got enough trouble with my new wings, how am I meant to handle getting this strong? I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t broken anything by accident yet is that I haven’t had too much chance to handle anything, not with all that’s been going on.”
I wasn’t planning to be throwing punches all over the place, but if that was how strong they were, then what about other things, like my grip or kicks? I could see myself going for a handshake and crushing someone’s fingers. Or breaking someone’s leg by colliding with them in the wrong way.
“Well, I can help you with that, at least some.”
I looked up at the Hindu goddess, who just added a conspiratorial wink to that smile of hers.
“Come on, I want you to hit this guy again,” Her knuckle tapped on the boulder. “But this time no holding back, got me? I wanna see all that you’ve got, understand?”
For a moment I considered asking more questions but then shrugged. Kali was a goddess, and I knew that in terms of power, she probably outclassed me the way a shark did a trout.
The punch I drove into the boulder packed all the force I could manage. I put everything I could into it, my weight, my strength, my speed, all of it using what little I knew of how to brawl. Stone caved in under my fist, not as much as Kali’s palm print, but more than my earlier attempts. This time I felt the impact run up from my knuckles to my shoulder. It didn’t quite hurt, but I could tell it wasn’t something I could handle doing too many times.
“Not bad, to start with.”
As she inspected the latest dent in the rock and made her comment, I could see her face growing thoughtful. Her fingers ran over the edges of the impact, then she turned to look at me.
“Come here, let's get a look at your hand.”
Before I knew it, she’d stepped up next to me, seized my wrist and brought it up so close to her face that she could probably see my fingerprints without issue. Kali’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at my hand as though it had somehow offended her. To my surprise, she drew it closer to her and . . . sniffed it.
I was so shocked that I took a step back, or at least tried to. Her grip on my wrist might as well have been a steel manacle, and she could have been a beached battleship for all the impact my attempt had on her. However, when her tongue flicked out and licked along the edge of my palm, I wasn’t going to stay quiet any longer.
“Hey! HEY! What’re you doing?!”
She looked up at me, blinking as though she’d just woken up.
“Oh? Oh, sorry,” She shook her head as though to get rid of cobwebs. “I . . . I got a bit too into that, trying to work out your strength.”
She let go of my wrist and stepped back.
“Sorry about that,” She looked a little embarrassed as she leaned against the boulder. “I’m not big on the whole ‘sensing the unseen’ thing when it comes to magic. Blood and destruction, that’s where I shine, but I can get something, the problem is I get it all as mostly taste and smell, y’know?”
Ohhhhkay. I’ll admit that that threw me for a bit of a loop. To me, magic was something that I could sense so easily it was practically its own sense. I could reach out with my power and sense its strength, its vitality, its colour. Sure, I was still learning what meant what, or how some powers interacted with each other, but that was coming fast. The idea of it being interpreted in other ways hadn’t really occurred to me, but now it seemed so obvious.
“What’s going on with you . . . it’s something new to me. I mean, I can tell what’s happening, sorta, but I’ve never actually seen it happen before.”
“What do you mean?”
I asked it with burning curiosity, and maybe some hope. If she could work out anything about how I was . . . wrong, then maybe I could work on fixing it.
“Okay, it’s like this,” Kali began, gesturing to my arm. “There’s lots of ways for someone to get greater strength. Sometimes it’s getting denser muscle mass, sometimes the quality of your body is improved, most often it's something like magic or divine power reinforcing everything to make you stronger. With the strongest it’s combos working together, that’s how you get guys like Rama or Heracles, demigods that manage to match or even beat gods.
“You . . . it's weird. I can’t be sure, not unless you let me taste some of your blood, but I think I’ve got it. You’re not . . . finished, y’know? I can tell you’ve got channels in you, tiny ones that go to your muscles, bones and tendons. They aren’t part of your regular mana system, they’re meant to channel power to permanently reinforce and strengthen you. You’ve also got . . . gaps in your flesh. Not physical gaps, but like space in your lifeforce, your existence.”
She grimaced a bit, one hand coming to wave at the air about her.
“Sorry, I’m not really explaining this well. Look, it’s like this, you’re all primed for a bunch of stuff, and I mean lots. It’s like you’ve hit the freakin’ jackpot with divine powers, understand? I don’t just mean magic, you’re also primed for all kinds of physical gifts, intuitive skills, transformations, the works. The problem is that it’s all . . . stalled partway. You’ve got all the hardware there, the structures and pathways are all there, in your body, in your magic, all the way down to your soul. The thing is that none of it has run to its final conclusion, y’know?
“What you’ve done with sparking your magic is a major step forward. It’s got things going and power is now trickling into the channels that were made for it. Physical changes are getting the kickstart they need to finish what was started.”
“So, I just have to wait? Is it all going to get fixed on its own?”
That sounded almost too good to be true, so I knew there had to be another shoe to drop.
“Well, yeah. The problem is that you’re looking at something like years before it's all done on its own.” Kali explained. “If you just leave it all passive, just trickling in as it goes, it’ll be ages before you’re at what you could be. Don’t worry though, I know how to help you speed that up.”
“How?” The one word was the whole of my question, nothing more was needed.
“You can’t just let your power sit there and wait, just dripping to where it should be. You’ve got to make it move, get it flowing, get it under pressure, get it roiling through you until it's forced to seep into the gaps waiting for it. more than that though, you’ve got to direct it once you’ve got it moving, that’s the best way to get the most out of it. if you do it right, well, I’m guessing you’ll get some results pretty soon.”
That . . . that made sense! My thoughts were racing along as I tried to understand what she’d said, but it all made so much sense. Both times that I’d made breakthroughs with my power had been during high-stakes situations. That parasite, Etienne, both times I’d been frantically pulling at my power, trying to drag out every bit of force and control I could muster, and both times I’d managed to . . . level up? It was a weird way to think of it, but it was oddly appropriate.
“Okay,” I nodded to her. “So, where do we go from here?”
“We’re going to have to do some serious sparring,” She explained. “And I’m not talking about that friendly stuff you’ve been doing with god-girl and the angel. I mean the heavy-duty type where you’ll be walking away with broken bones almost every day!”
There was something distinctly predatory tinge to her smile now, a tiny hint of the bloodlust that I’d seen earlier in her.
“Don’t worry too much,” She said, seeing my reaction. “Joan has some pretty potent healing, so she’ll be able to get you up and running again, especially once we’ve boosted up your vitality to help her. It’s gonna be tough, but it’ll also be fun.”
I was absolutely sure that the one that would be having the majority of that fun wasn’t going to be me. Still, it wasn’t as though I could turn her down. Any chance to get my power back to where it should be was something to be grabbed with both hands. Something of my firming resolution must have shown on my face because Kali’s grin shifted again.
“Hey, wanna see how hard you can hit me?”
The goddess leaned back against the boulder, her figure relaxed as she looked at me. Well, maybe relaxed wasn’t the right way to describe her. Her posture reminded me of a cat that had just stumbled across a nice big ball of yarn.
“What?”
The question seemed to come out of nowhere and left me more than a bit confused.
“Yeah, hit me as hard as you can. I want to see what you can do when you’re not swinging at a lump of rock. Come on, gimme your best.”
Kali had pushed off the boulder now and was drawing closer. Her movements were every bit as effortlessly graceful and sensual as before, but now there was a definite undercurrent to them, one that spoke of blood and violence.
“Come on, don’t you wanna see just what you can do? What you’re really capable of?”
I was all too aware that this was a goddess I was dealing with. She leaned in, getting into my personal space in an invasive movement. I could practically feel her body heat, her closeness, her presence, it was all but intoxicating.
The last time I’d felt anything like this was when my last girlfriend and had been at a nightclub, the air hot, the music blaring, red lights lighting up the room and both of us hopped up on adrenalin, hormones and several shots. We’d danced together, practically grinding our bodies against each other as lust and excitement intoxicated us as much as alcohol. The rest of the night had been . . . fun to say the least, but that moment in the club had been the hottest and most sexual time I’d ever had out of my bed.
Yet just by getting close Kali was coming dangerously close to matching it simply through sheer presence.
Yeah, I was scared.
I was also surprisingly turned on!
I just knew that if this kept up, I was going to need therapy in the coming years.
Taking a step back I broke the closeness between us. Yes, that meant I was the one who blinked first, but I liked to think I was smarter than to play chicken with a deity. I might get stronger in the future, but right now it was me against a twelve-wheeled cargo truck while I was riding a tricycle, and I was smart enough to know my odds and not let pride get in the driver’s seat.
“You’re sure I won’t hurt you?”
I didn’t really mean it, I said it more as a way to make a bit more space between us. Kali seemed to see that, but she leaned back slightly rather than trying to get in close again, seemingly content with her small victory.
“Kid, you could drop a nuke on me, and it’d just give me a sunburn. You’re going to be powerful one day, but right now there’s literally nothing you can do that’ll hurt me.”
“Hey, I’m twenty-one, not a kid.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to snatch them back, it had sounded so childish and petulant. Damn it, I was all over the place, I needed to get a better grip on.
“Adam, I’m more than five thousand years old. To me, everyone born after Christ got nailed to his cross is a kid.”
She said it, and just for a single split second I could feel all the weight of her time radiating from her. Years, centuries, millennia, they all rested on her like snow on a mountain, yet they also stood behind her like soldiers behind their commander. They weighed her down, but they also served her, they didn’t make her bow.
Then the instant was over, and the goddess was back to seeming only a handful of years older than me. Still, I knew what I’d seen.
“Anyway, let’s give it a go. It’ll let me get a good idea of where we’re starting from.” Kali stepped further back and spread her arms, as though she were inviting me in for a hug. “Gimme the best you’ve got, don’t go holding back on me!”
Her grin was a mixture of eagerness and hunger, with a tinge of craziness mixed in on the side. She wanted this; it was written so clearly that a blind man could have seen it. A fight, a challenge, just simple conflict, it didn’t matter. This was what she revelled in. This was where she lived!
And I wasn’t dumb enough to disagree with her, not when she was this clearly into it.
Clenching my right fist, I did my best to centre myself again, tried to feel the power inside me, tried to add it to my muscles, my bones, my fist. Then . . . I swung for just below her ribcage as hard as I could.