March 17th

My clean bill of health had talked my parents into at least getting a hotel room for the night halfway through, instead of driving through the night, but they were still coming. It left me feeling apprehensive for when they showed up later today.

About as apprehensive as the cop sitting in my little dorm kitchen taking my witness statement again. "We've corroborated your earlier statement with other witnesses that came forward yesterday. I spent a some time looking up your attacker last night as well, and he was barely three days out from his first offense."

"Is the other guy going to be alright? Tony put that bar straight through him."

"I believe the other victim is in stable condition, but I can't talk about it. But I can promise you there are a multitude of charges being leveled at Mr. Tony Direz, starting with assault with a deadly weapon and I believe attempted manslaughter." The officer answered.

He hesitated before continuing on. "From your own testimony, you hit him with several hundred pounds of a weighted barbell, correct?"

"Wouldn't answering something like that be me attacking him? Am I getting charged for that?" My braid was in my hands again, giving my fingers something to play with.

"It's already in your testimony, so if there were going to be charges you've already given that information out."

"Oh."

He flipped the recorder on his vest off, the light dimming and vanishing. "It's more of a theoretical question I'd like answered anyways. Based on your statement and the literal finger gouges I saw in those weights; do you think a jail cell could hold you? Or Mr. Direz?"

"I've never been in a jail cell. I have no clue?"

"Understandable. Sounds crazy, but do you think you could go through a solid concrete wall? Bend steel bars?" The cop looked like he felt crazy just asking the questions. The bad thing was, I had to think for a moment. Could I?

Up to a point, I could ignore the weight of an object. We'd tested general strength, so we know what a max deadlift was. But we hadn't really tested anything else. But if nothing else, the attack proved I could survive hits that should kill someone else. Not ignore them, no. But fight through them yes.

"I've never tested it. But I don't think I'm strong enough to do it." I paused again, thinking of the breakthroughs. "Not yet, at least."

The officer grimaced. "Not yet, huh? Great, all we're going to need is a couple idiots with your power playing at jail break or rioting. Wonder if how many on the force we've got?" He seemed to be more talking to himself.

Could Tony? Probably not. Not and not get himself killed. I wouldn't have to worry about him, hopefully.

I answered him musings anyways. "Talk to Danny. I was able to teach a few people, but I don't want to just teach one or two at a time and I think he was going to set something up."

"You can teach this? How hard is it?" He shook his head. "Wait, I'm getting sidetracked. Just give me his contact for later, please. Back to my original question. You don't think you could break out of a jail cell? What do you mean by not yet?"

I looked about the kitchen for a moment, but didn't see anything useful for an example. "I could probably just about tie the woman's weightlifting record right now, but not beat it. Men's is even higher by several hundred pounds. But there are levels to this. Blocks that you breakthrough and you're then stronger. So no, not yet."

"Well, that's something at least." The cop nodded once more. "Thank you for your information, and if you'll give me this Danny's number, I'll get out of your hair."

~~~

Elizabeth Firen was a fairly short woman but still taller than her daughter by an inch. She had strawberry blond hair that was shoulder length and cut to swish when she turned her head too fast. She'd grin and tell you she ruled her household with an iron fist, but really it was more of a need for her family to not make her sad.

She was also, to Nicole's despair, checking over her daughter almost frantically.

"Mom, Mom. I'm not hurt. They didn't even keep me overnight in the ER. I told you that." I scowled at dad. "And when neither of you believed me, it took three other people agreeing to get you guys to at least stop to sleep last night."

Frank Firen looked at both women, took into consideration her statement of not being hurt, then crushed his daughter in a hug. He didn't touch six feet tall, but still lifted her off her feet for a moment.

"Gak!" I hadn't had a bearhug in years, and almost panicked again. "Dad, lemme go!" I could feel the squeeze, but it just didn't feel like he was actually squeezing me too hard. I could push and get loose, but would that hurt Dad?

Honestly, it was only the feeling of how easy the hug would have been to break that kept me from imagining it was something else wrapped around me.

I was dropped back to my feet with Dad none the wiser, except as I took a deep breath he looked at me closely. "Sorry."

"Let's not stand in your hallway, let us in." Mom chided me like she hadn't been the one to nearly yank me out to check on me.

With how many people had been in my dorm in the past month and change, I was considering getting a couch instead of the three mismatched chairs that currently sat in the living room. But it was enough for us at the moment.

"How, exactly, is it that you're not hurt?" Dad asked immediately after we all got sat down. "Don't get me wrong honey, I'm hilariously grateful you're not, but I did the math. Forty-five pounds of steel barbell swung at speeds high enough to send you flying even a few feet is enough to break bones."

I looked down at the carpet. Huh, still a bit of black there. I thought I got it all.

"Sweetie?" Mom asked, worry in her voice.

My head came up and I looked at both of them, before smiling. "My dantian. I'd make it through two breakthroughs, and it hurt but I didn't break anything. Um, it was also more like twenty or thirty feet I was sent flying?"

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I shouldn't have said that. Mom gasped and jumped out of her chair, immediately hugging me. I hugged her back but I could almost see the numbers changing in Dad's head, the engineer redoing the math with new data.

His eyes narrowed. "Mystic bullshit. I wasn't surprised when you said you were throwing benches. I'm ok with it saving you, really. But those forces? You should have been nearly folded in two. Give me one good reason you should stay here where you've been attacked twice over this shit and you're literally relying on the unreliable to survive things that should flat out kill you."

"I've got a job here, I'm being paid to study it!" I panicked, eyes wide as I stared at Dad from Mom's tightening embrace. "And the way I'm doing it? The right way? It's always working. It's not like the guy from your shop where it cuts out. I know my limits and if I don't push past them, I don't run out of energy."

Dad crossed his arms. "That's an excuse to stay here and keep studying it. FSU has a good weather program you could transfer into. What stops you from leaving here and going there instead? Where you're not involved in apparently homicidal manchildren wanting to kill you for being part of this Seeker group." His fingers drummed on his arms, waiting.

I paused and thought for a moment, but really. There was only one answer to that. "Because it's not going to make a difference. When this first happened, we both agreed it was mystic bullshit because you couldn't control it, measure it. I can now. I've got logs and tests and notes and everything that I can use to show you it's not just bullshit, it's viable. But the reason it's not going to make a difference? It is teachable."

I looked from Dad to Mom still holding onto me and gently pulled myself away, standing up. "Anyone can learn this. The very, very basics probably within a few days at worst if they try. I'm at like three stages above that basic part, but I don't know where it tops out, other than using the alien as a high end model." I tugged my braid around again, the nervous habit coming back in full force with a yank that helped me to focus.

Dad had a look of suspicion. "A few days for anyone? I did some research on my own when this happened back in February. People got this bullshit at about one in every ten thousand people."

I shook my head. "That thing a week ago, it changed everything. I taught Karen how to use it, basically with really good guesses!" I had to get it through to him. "What happens if I stop? Obviously, someone else will make it to the alien's Heavenly Realm. But all those other people that try to get there? How many more idiots like Tony are going to be able to take what they want?"

"Teach us then." Mom spoke up from where she was sitting, and both Dad and I gave her a look. "If even the basics are teachable in days, teach us. That will prove it to your father that it's not a niche thing. Even if that niche thing pretty much killed the feds."

I swallowed and Dad noticed. "Don't want to prove it's not teachable? That it actually is mystic bullshit."

"No, that's not it. I don't know about Mom, but you'd probably not learn just because you're you." I smiled wanly. "Pull your chair over to Mom's. I'm only going to do this once."

Dad gave me an odd look but shrugged and did so.

Fuck you. I thought loudly at that presence that I hadn't even asked about the world's soul in a week. I then looked at my parents. I focused on everything I'd understood from the horror of the 10th . Of everything I'd gone over with Melissa, with Ash, with Karen. Everything Ash and Karen had described for me in painstaking detail when they lit their own dantian. How it'd felt, how the power in the air acted. The interplay of that power exchange and how it worked in their own dantian. Even the cycling I did in my own dantian, things I had figured out over the past month and a half.

I took one of their hands in one of my own. I cycled everything I had in me currently, focusing on tilting that flow into my second breakthrough. Something clicked, like any number of words finally making a sentence.

"[Breathe]"

I jumped when Mom literally screamed in my face and they both pulled their hands back like they were burned.

A full [Art of Awakening], at the [Initiate's Realm]? Truly youngling, you walk the razor's edge. The alien's presence again focused on me with interest and a feeling of almost pride washing through it. The words echoed and scraped against me once more as I ran myself dry but I ignored both the feeling and the alien.

Both of my parents were staring at me as I staggered on my feet. "Sorry." I weakly smiled. "Pushed past a limit, I'm kinda hurting now. But did you understand?"

"I understand you scared the absolute hell out of me, Nicole!" Mom's voice was about three octaves higher than normal.

Dad got up, stabilizing me in another bearhug against him. Remotely, I noticed that drained like this the squeeze wasn't breakable. "Honey, what was that?"

"I'm not going to spend days fighting you over how to do this. Not when I could do that, even if it hurts and scares me." Dad hugs were pretty awesome, just letting him hold me up while I tried to cycle any little bit of strength back into myself.

I jerked in Dad's arms, unable to turn around as I still felt something literally pull itself together behind me in the vicinity of Mom. Folded into itself, looped through itself. It felt the opposite of what Tony had done to himself at the end of that fight. And then it tucked itself away like Karen, Ash, or Danny's power.

"Frank, just do it. Nicole's not wrong." Mom said.

Still held in the hug, I literally could feel it in him. We'd spent a week breathing this air with power in it. Fragments of power building in the body, but oh so slow. What Dad did, what I'd told him, showed him, was to take those fragments and build something whole out of it. Pieces and parts collided in him, somehow becoming bigger and yet not changing total size until I could feel the cool energy fold itself up completely and ignite.

"Teachable." I said quietly as Dad let me go, and I slumped over to the empty chair.