Episode: 7.14

--- Ozzy ---

By the time he’d managed to calm down from that bit of cosmic unfairness and get it to the point where had some idea of just what he was doing with his powers to make himself intangible, his stomach was rumbling once more.

It took about half a dozen sandwiches and a family size bag of chips to get it to calm down this time.

He guessed realizing how much he’d been cutting back on the food had somehow sent his appetite into overdrive. (Meaning I really am going to have to talk to Trish about how much I’m eating…)

But that was for later, for now (back to power testing.)

Over the course of (however long) he spent figuring out how to clearly turn his bones intangible, he’d learned the basic feel of what he was assuming was active ectoplasm. A cold sort of tingling that spread wherever he willed it, leaving everything in a state of cool numbness that was somehow soothing in that way a cool rag was to a fevered forehead.

Now he decided it was best to try gathering as much of that power as he could into one place.

Raising one hand he began to call the cooling chill back to the surface, before having it creep along his flesh and settle into the palm of his hand where a faint green glow was slowly becoming visible.

“And I took my power in my hand.” He quoted, trying to remember where exactly he’d heard said quote in the first place.

“Doesn’t matter.” He eventually decided, shaking the question away. “Just got to figure out what to do with it.”

(First test is to obviously thwack something with it.) Unfortunately, that meant finding something he didn’t mind breaking if things went sideways. And given how it wasn’t his house he was staying in, that condition didn’t leave him with very many options.

Glancing around the room he eventually found one of the notebooks he and Trish had used during their card game. (Eh, that’ll do.)

As he attempted to remove a page from the notebook, he found an odd sort of difficulty in multitasking between his two hands. Whenever he tried to use his free hand, the one he’d been gathering ectoplasm in would almost immediately cut its power line.

(Maybe it’s just a focus thing, I mean this is essentially a new muscle.)

He shook his head again.

“Something I can work on later.”

With that settled, he fully tore a page from the notebook before holding it next to what remained of the gathered ectoplasm in his hand. (At least it takes a minute to fade.)

For testing purposes that was useful, from the various self-defense lessons his mom put him through it was mildly worrisome, since he knew ectoplasm was tracible by Sanctuary.

Deciding that was a problem for future Ozzy, he pressed the edge of the paper against the palm of his hand, hoping for some kind of reaction.

After a moment without any change he began to growl. “Grr, maybe it needs a stronger charge?”

He pushed against the creeping chill, driving it to gather even faster, and the light in his hand to steadily grow brighter. Eventually he began to notice the green glow slowly crawling its way up the paper, not in any great progress but a few centimeters at the very least.

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(Alright, now just got to figure out what exactly is happening here…)

Based on what he was seeing, the glow wasn’t really damaging the paper all that much, if at all. He twisted the paper a bit trying to get it to move around some, before noticing something strange about the way the paper was holding itself.

“Huh.”

Releasing the paper from his free hand, he watched as one side sort of drooped to the ground, while the part covered in his ectoplasmic glow seemed to be almost locked in place.

“Interesting…” He moved his hand around and while the majority of the paper dragged through the air, the affected by his power was in fact locked to a position relative to his hand. Or rather the center of his hand as a few flexes and twirls of his wrist revealed.

Pulling his ectoplasm back into his palm released whatever hold he had on the paper, causing it to sway through the air and hit the ground like any other discarded piece.

“Okay… let’s try something bigger.” He told himself, as he turned back to the couch.

Just like his first test he attempted to grabbed onto the edge of the couch and tried to lift it, only this time he also tried pushing his ectoplasm into the piece of furniture as he did so. The results were… largely the same as his first attempt.

He frowned before staring at his hands.

One looked the same as ever.

The other had a faint green glow that had spread out a few meters beyond where he was touching the couch.

Pulling his non-glowing hand off of the couch, he once more tried lifting said couch. And while his leverage was definitely better than what it should’ve been with one hand, the couch still seemed to weigh the same, if not more due to all of the weight being put on one arm.

“Okay… so not quite super-strength, but more of a… touch based psychokinesis?”

With another sigh, he lowered the couch to the ground before dusting his hands off.

It wasn’t what he was hoping for, but it was definitely interesting in its own way. (I just got to figure out how to stretch the stuff out a bit more.)

He ran a hand down his face before stretching his arms above his head.

(I’ve been at it for a while, maybe I should take a break…)

Shaking his hands out he went ahead and cut the feed to his powers, before watching as the ectoplasm in his hand dissipated into a faint mist of cool air that slowly descended towards the ground.

“Huh, that’s kind of cool…” He chuckled at his little joke, before noticing something else kind of cool and grinning.

Inhaling a deep breath he held it for a moment before slowly exhaling it out and watching as his breath turned into a small cloud of mist that swirled through the air before dissipating into nothingness.

(Guess that explains the whole ghosts and cold spots thing…)

He already knew his body ran at a lower temperature, but he hadn’t considered the fact it could be that much lower when using his powers.

(Kind of makes me wonder what exactly ectoplasm is doing.) He knew it was keeping his biology active and that it messed with physics, but beyond that he wasn’t sure just what ectoplasm was capable of.

He was sure there’d been studies about it, but he was just as sure that Sanctuary had kept those studies largely to themselves.

(Better to keep the Deadmen from learning any new tricks…)

It wasn’t something he necessarily liked, but given how he’d grown up in the Deadman capital of America… (I get it at least…)

He sighed before turning his attention back to his hands.

(Now then what nex-) “Grah!”

A stabbing pain ripped through his core, forcing him to hunch over as the world around him seemed to blur at the edges.

“Ff-Fuck!”

He stumbled towards the kitchen, something in the back of his head drawing him toward the faint smell of copper and (meat).

As soon as his feet hit the kitchen tile, his eyes locked onto the fridge. Never wavering even as he half-stumbled, half-ran towards the cooling container.

He threw the door open and dropped to his knees as the (delicious) scent hit him in the face. Practically ripping one of the fridge drawers off of its tract he pulled out a package of hamburger meat before tearing the package open and stuffing it into his mouth.

(Tastes wrong…)

But that didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter that it tasted wrong.

It didn’t matter that it was cold.

It didn’t even matter that it wasn’t (squirming in my teeth.)

All that mattered was that he was so (fucking hUnGrY!)

As soon as the first container was empty, his hands shot out and grabbed a second before ripping it open diving in face first as he bit into the raw (meat).

It wasn’t until he was licking the last few (un-filling) drops of (myoglobin) from a third package that his sense began to return to him. Leaving him a blinking and dazed mess on the floor.

(What… what just happened?)