I knew he was behind me - I heard each individual thundering footstep as I ran, though seemingly to no avail. Each of his steps must have been at least two of mine. I risked a glance over my shoulder and felt fear surge through my body. A titan of a man, engulfed in fire chasing after me - getting closer with each passing breath.

I turned to run again, but was halted by a hand grasping my shoulder - the sensation was like that of fire itself grasping me. With a swing of his hand he tossed me to the ground and I found myself paralyzed with fear. He prepared to strike with the charred morning star in his hand - and when the weapon collided with me I could do nothing but scream in agony.

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I woke up with a scream and attempted to get away from him as fast as I could - only to find no danger in front of me. Instead, Rybrus was there, holding my shoulder and watching me. "Hey- Hey hey! You good?"

"Water" I croaked, my throat sore much like my body. A moment later I had a cup in my fingers and shakily sipped from it. "What happened?" The question was genuine, but I was already searching through my memories for a clue what went oh so wrong.

"As far as I can tell, at least one of the bandits had a powder charge. When the fire got to them, it exploded and took out the wall he was standing next to." I didn't have the slightest idea about what a powder charge was, but I didn't care at the moment. The memory of the burning man haunted me still. And despite checking up on the well being of my limbs, and making sure that they were fine, I still felt as if my right leg was hurt due to the morning star dropping on top of it.

"Overall the operation was a staggering success, considering the martial advantage the enemy had." Rybrus shrugged as if that was that. I wasn't feeling strong enough to argue with him about the 'details' like my own injuries, so instead I turned my attention inwards. The statue room was there as expected, but something was different about it. First, Mom's statue was severely damaged - chunks were missing from its arms and its right leg had... holes... in it... as if smashed with a morning star.

My mind came to a halt as I considered the implications. Did this mean that my power wasn't necessarily a transformation? I wasn't using her power myself, rather, my body was swapped with the shadow form when it was active? Then why was I feeling the pain anyway? Does my very soul get hurt if I fail to avoid damage whilst transformed?

The questions kept coming, but I did not have any answers. Unlike Mom's statue, the statues of Stein, David and Thomas were in their usual pristine condition. However, there was something else that has changed. Before the circular room merely had those four statues in it and that was it, this time however - there was a door. I cautiously peeked through it and - well.

The depiction of the burning hellscape I've managed to create in the town the night prior is certainly not what I was expecting. And at the center of it all, a new statue. A giant of a man standing defiant against the destruction surrounding him. The mercenary leader from earlier. I considered closing the doors and never thinking about what's beyond it again, but... this was my power, wasn't it? Surely it wouldn't hurt me, as long as I obey it's rules, right?

So I took a cautious step towards it. Nothing happened, it was a statue after all, though I did feel like I was watched. And not by the kind eyes of those who love me, but by a predator. I steeled my resolve and approached, stepping around the flames that seemed to sporadically burst from the ground near the statue itself. A moment later, I came close enough to touch the statue, and yet nothing happened.

I couldn't understand why it was here, or what it meant for my power, but I knew that there was only one way to figure out how it will help me.

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'Show me how you can help me.' The whisper inside my mind caused the statue to focus upon me, it's movement accompanied by the grinding of stone. A moment later, I was shunted out of my mindspace and back into reality.

My body felt different, though a brief inspection revealed no obvious changes. I stood up, and bounced up and down on my legs before nodding. 'Yeah, that felt right.'

The stray thought made me pause and analyze where it came from though I failed to discover anything outside of it's foreign feeling. Surely the power must be doing something, so I carefully went over every sensation I had when waking up from the nightmare. The pain... the pain is gone.

My fingers closed into a fist and I felt my entire arm tense up. I felt... stronger. And something else - the urge to.. fight?

"Hey Rybrus." I called out to my companion who was observing me with an eyebrow curiously raised. "Spar me."

"I mean... okay? You sure about that? You seemed to not be doing so hot a moment ago." He asked and motioned to the sleeping bag on top of which I woke up.

"Yeah, come on already, I need to test something." I urged him on as I went over to the wagon and recovered my training weapons. They felt so light in my fingers.

"All right, it's your loss." He shrugged and moved to edge of the campfire before taking up his martial pose. One hand close to his chin, protecting his face, the other ready to lash out. Legs spread wide to keep balance. I matched his stance with my own and a breath later our contest began.

Unlike our usual where I played to the strength of my weapons against his unarmed style, my instincts guided me to do something else entirely. And seeing how I had no true idea what this power I was borrowing did, I listened and obeyed.

Half a second later, I dashed at him aggressively with a horizontal swipe of the sword. The unexpected action and ferocity caught Rybrus off guard and he only barely managed to dodge, though I had already aimed the wooden dagger where I expected him to be.

With a graceful move of his hand, he deflected the strike and issued a counter punch against my stomach. From the speed of his fist I knew this will hurt - and yet it was naught more than a small bruise to me. I did not even pause as I used the momentum of his push against my dagger wielding arm to deliver a kick to his side - which to my utter shock toppled the man who until today defeated me during every spar and send him wheezing to the ground.

"HALT!" He immediately called for a pause and inspected the side of his body, poking at the quickly bruising flesh with his finger, before accusatorily pointing at me and hissing "Explain."

"Explain what?" I played innocent, though I couldn't manage to keep my pride and the cocky sub tone it brought with it out of my voice.

"Explain why does it feel like I'm fighting a goliath, not Malinka." Vitriol snuck up into his voice - he was clearly completely off balance from the swift defeat. Though the words he spoke caught my interest.

"Sure, but you explain what's a goliath first."

"Fine. Friggin' uneducated edgeworlders..." He let out some stress with a few complaints about my lack of knowledge, but like usual he soon gave me the knowledge I seeked. "Goliath is a rare power. It's more of a passive thing similar to a deadeye. To put it as simply as possible, Goliath's physical body does not correspond with their actual strength. The current academic consensus on them is that their bodies perform as if they were at their theoretical absolute maximum at all times. Your turn."

Goliath? I suppose it was a good enough fit for what the power did. And the effect he described seemed to add up to what I was experiencing. "Memory's Hierarch-" the sudden echoing as my own voice was joined by a choir of whispers disturbed me, but I tried to not pay too much attention to it. "-lets me remember the powers of certain people. I have absolutely no idea what the condition for that is, but this power came from the leader of the bandit group we took out yesterday. For whatever reason, he was eligible for it. Huge guy, survived the powder charge as you called it. I didn't know what it did, so I opted to activate it to find out, and the power's instincts really likes to fight."

Rybrus stared at me like I just shattered his world view. "It lets you do... what? Store powers and save them for later? That's preposterous! Ridiculous!" He rapidly devolved into ranting about the unfairness of my power, and for once, I felt pride for who I was.

Or maybe that's just the power speaking and I'll be back to my usual nervous wreck when it fades. Eh, who knows.