June 22nd

"Hey Nicole, you've got mail."

I looked up from the computer and saw Ash standing there. He wasn't working out yet, but was already able to fully put his own weight on his leg, no crutches needed. He held up an envelope and tossed it at me.

I caught the mail and closed down the report I was reading, giving the envelope a puzzled look. "I think this is the first time I've gotten mail here addressed to me specifically. Normally people just email me."

"Secret admirer?" Ash laughed as he sat down in a chair.

I rolled my eyes. "Right." The envelope contained a single piece of folded paper and as I unfolded it, I noticed it was handwritten.

Nicole,

On your website you have a bounty put up for any and all techniques or abilities. While I assume you're probably keeping the dangerous stuff for yourself, I do have something I can share that seems to be pretty basic but isn't listed on your site. Maybe it's something you thought obvious?

As for the bounty, I'd like to trade it for assistance for my brother who is up in your area. The last couple of times I talked to him, he looked like shit and I suspect it's something energy related, considering he got called up by that idiotic group he's a member of. I'll include his mobile number, but I'm going to have to trust how honest you've been on the forums and your website that you'll help and not just take this stuff and run with it.

The technique is an extension of overflow cycling. I think it's doable with any level of breakthroughs, but it's probably not useful at first because it needs a decent flow of energy.

Overflow cycling makes you stronger. But you can push that overflow off of yourself and into clothes or something you're holding. It makes those things stronger and tougher, just like the overflow makes you stronger. Clothes and things can't hold nearly the overflow though, so it's not like you can use a cardboard tube as a sword and expect it to hold up. But I was able to use it on a branch to pin the head of a python capable of eating people. Explicitly a branch from the tree the snake had just knocked over, so yeah.

The overflowed strength is hard to get to leave your body at first, because the energy will just overflow off without taking the strength too if you're not really focused on it. Once you get the hang of it though, it's not hard to reproduce.

My brother can use the technique as well, if that helps to get you to help him. His name is Zach Ivers, here's his number.

Thank you ahead of time.

Arthur Ivers

-Guild of Extraordinary Floridamen

I chuckled at the tagline, but there was a lot to unpack in the letter.

"Everything good?" Ash asked.

"Danny's bounty working, but I'm more worried about the rest of the stuff in here." I offered it to Ash who took it and read for a moment.

Ash frowned. "Energy related and an idiotic group here? Sounds like ELF. But didn't Barry and Joe come from California?"

"Doesn't mean they didn't get others in from elsewhere." I looked at the envelope again, postmarked the fourteenth and from Tampa. "A week old, but still a few days after Danny posted that bounty up." I tapped the desk for a moment, thinking. "About a month ago, I had a run-in with a street preacher type dude named Zach that said he was from ELF. He seemed fine then."

"Going to call? I mean, worst case scenario is this technique is crap and it's just someone wanting to scream at you." Ash looked at the letter again. "Though man eating snakes in Florida sounds like there's a hidden forest in the Everglades."

"Or a hidden swamp." I smiled a bit. "Can't hurt, especially if we call first before even attempting the technique. If it's ELF and they're trying to make me hurt myself, I'd rather call and find that out."

"Huh, didn't think of that." Ash frowned at the letter. "Good point."

I punched in the number and called, leaving it on speaker.

After a couple of rings, the other end picked up. "Hello?" a confused voice asked. The connected screen didn't pop up with video, so it might have actually been a real cell phone instead of a tablet or other camera call. Or a headset.

"Zach Ivers? Your brother Arthur gave me this number."

"Why?" The voice was suddenly much less confused and more suspicious.

I took a breath. "Because he thinks you're having energy related issues and he wanted to sell me on trying to help you. You're ELF, aren't you? This is Nicole Firen."

There was a nearly sobbing cackle that came over the phone. "So he got someone that's directly opposed to us to call me? He wants me to accept alien energy just to do better? I'm not doing that bad, am I?"

"No clue." I sighed. "Your brother gave me a directions on overflowing into clothes and such as basically a bribe to try to help you."

There was a long pause on the other side of the call. "Arthur thinks so, apparently. I'm not going to come to your building, but for my brother's sake I'll meet you somewhere public."

I traded looks with Ash. "How about the diner on 8th ?"

~~~

The still feeling of someone not actually cycling their energy in the slightest was what led me right to the guy when I stepped into the diner. I didn't look around, but did notice Ash and Karen having a late breakfast a bit away, having gotten here earlier.

There were several other people with dantians and even a breakthrough here and there as well, but only one that wasn't cycling.

Zach looked severely strained as I walked up to the table, his eyes snapping to me. "Why do so few others recognize what all your energy is doing?" He muttered to himself.

Up close, his own energy felt even more awkward than just not cycling, like something was off balance in it. He was dressed comfortably enough, though his hair seemed a lot more unkempt than I vaguely recalled it being last time I'd seen him.

"What's up?" I asked, taking the chair on the opposite side of the table.

Zach was quiet and I ordered water while waiting for him to speak up. After a few minutes of him being quiet, he finally started. "Mr. McDonald got into a fight a couple of weeks ago and Joe died. He said he had to fight his way out of dozens of powerful spiders and ended up stopping you from polluting an untouched part of the Earth." He paused.

"Not the way I recall that fight going but I ended up leaving that hidden forest, so sure, whatever." I confirmed.

"Well, he tapped us out of sources refilling himself. Every broken soul we still had left, the handful of plants we'd been trying to grow to get natural energy. Consumed it all. It didn't fill him up, but he left after that saying he'd be back with replacements." Zach looked down again as the water showed up.

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"And?" I prompted.

Zach gave out a pained half sob. "He came back with a massive spider several days later, all the legs cut off. Just it's body was bigger than a basketball and had all sorts of wood energy. He wanted to use it's spawn as a source of energy. It ended up dead later that night, but he'd spent a lot of his energy getting it and we didn't have anything else."

Zach gave me a look that actually sent a thrill of fear down my spine. "Did you know people can be used as a source of energy? He knew how to tap half a dozen of us and ripped the earth energy out of us. Treated our energy just like another broken soul."

I had to quickly swallow bile back at the thought of that. I looked Zach over but from what I could see, I didn't see how someone would just eat his energy like one of the geodes. Knowing that though, I could faintly tell the energy he had was definitely missing earth.

"Oh my god. What the hell?" I whispered.

"So now you know, yes, I have problems. Congratulations, you're going to win the fight against ELF because Mr. McDonald has apparently gone off the deep end trying to find something wherever that untouched earth is at."

I would have thought the military was still guarding that spot in the forest, but that was something else. "Leave ELF." I offered Zach as a stupid easy answer. "Hell, cycle energy to replace what got yanked from you."

"Cycling energy is not the answer, it's only when you stop cycling do you see and feel the energy of the alien trying to choke the planet." Zach answered back with heat, getting us a few looks from the others in the diner. "And ELF has a purpose, even if it doesn't seem like it."

I sighed. "I don't want the alien taking whatever Heaven ends up being either. Look, tell you what. I'll pay for lunch and then we have plenty of geodes since the military is basically trying to collect them in bulk. I'll give you enough geodes to fix whatever energy issue you have right now so you can show me the technique your brother wrote about, and I'll give you some more as your bounty. That's the only thing I'm going to be able to do for you, if you're going to stick around that dangerous idiot."

Zach looked fairly hopeful at that offer. "I can do that. But not at your building." He looked around. "You know, without Joe, Mr. McDonald is the only one really violently against you. The rest of us know you're wrong but violence isn't going to be the answer."

I raised an eyebrow. "Good to know, but I'm not going to go look for him either. I'll suggest again you all just leave ELF. Or at least his version of ELF."

~~~

After lunch, I collected a few dozen geodes from storage and shoved them into a duffel, heading back out with Ash and Karen actually with me this time.

Zach was waiting for us in Buehler Park and gave the three of us a wary look.

"I want a couple of other people to watch the technique too. It's going to be easier to learn and teach if multiple of us have seen it." I answered his unasked question. "Now, I'm thinking you're still about second breakthrough, so getting you back up should be no more than four or five to start with?" I dug into the bag and came out with several of the smaller geodes and offered them over.

"I've never had to fix whatever this is before, so I won't even guess." Zach replied taking them. Zach then took the first geode and in a manner almost exactly like Brent had showed us, cracked it while his energy moved for the first time I'd seen. When he breathed the energy in however, he lost almost nothing as the energy flowed then stilled in him.

"You know, random question." Karen spoke up. "Why water, wood, fire, earth, and metal in those things? If they formed during the first breakthrough, shouldn't they be only fire and earth? Or if they were changing based on breakthroughs, why not be fire, earth, air, water, and wood?"

Zach paused before breaking the second one. "I don't know. I just know I'm taking in the planet's energy to store it. Cycling it destroys parts of the power as the alien's energy messes with it. It's one of the major reasons we don't cycle unless we're using an ability."

"I'm learning more about you all today than I have since Barry showed up." I mentioned offhand as Zach went through a second then a third geode. "Does that mean the balance of energies you're holding is the same five in the geode?"

Ash and Karen stared at him and he shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, it is."

"Huh." I replied.

Zach pulled in the energy off a fourth geode and he finally no longer felt like something was missing from him, at least.

Ash leaned over and whispered something to Karen, but I wasn't close enough to catch what he said.

"One more to top off, then I'll show you the technique." Zach waved to a few tree branches he'd stacked up nearby.

I shrugged and handed over another geode. Zach started pulling in the energy in that one as well, before he suddenly froze up and I felt his energy actually spasm and nearly tear as Zach tried to scream but couldn't force the air out his lungs.

"Shit, he's having a seizure!" Ash jumped forward, grabbing the other man and holding tightly as he shook in place.

Suddenly it felt as if something pierced through him, the energy already in his body crashing through the new tear and flushing completely out of his body. Zach went limp. "Ah. Ahm. I'm okay." He finally got out.

"You just had a seizure or something, maybe an aneurism." Ash disagreed.

Zach took a shuddering breath and shook Ash back. He then looked at me. "You of everyone here should recognize it. I'd finally gotten enough energy to open myself deeper to the Earth's energy."

"Dude, if that's what you call a breakthrough, they're not supposed to be anything like that. Hell, you're empty again." Karen just stared at him.

"Oh that's right." Zach looked over to Karen. "When I went through my first breakthrough before ELF figured out what was going on, the alien's energy did buoy me through that and tainted me even further."

"Brent didn't have a clean breakthrough before with these." I looked at the duffel of geodes and then back to Zach. "But it wasn't anything like that. Are you sure you're OK?"

"Yeah." Zach stood back up. "But it used up all the energy to breakthrough. I hate to ask, but I'm going to need more before I can show you the technique."

I tossed him the duffel. "Just don't do that again."

The technique ended up being exactly as described, fairly useful looking, and we sent Zach off with the rest of the geodes. None of us really wanted to deal with them for the moment.

A few minutes after Zach left, Ash looked at me. "He feels exactly like one of those geodes. Like if I could figure out how to crack him, I could just pull that energy in."

I was quiet, because I could feel how to crack his dantian. Enough pressure from my own energy against his non-cycling energy and it would be almost too easy.