"Come on, let's try out our new powers! Race you there, Lana!" Theo exclaimed as he rushed towards an empty expanse of the already bustling beach. Eli glanced over to Roman who winced at how Theo lagged behind Lana who sprinted with all of her superhuman might.
"So... Lyra isn't coming?" Roman asked as he turned to look at him after Theo reached Lana in the water. A barrier popped out in front of him straight into the waves. Water kicked up in a spray that knocked him back.
"Later. She isn't talking to me or Lana. She avoids us at school and won't come home. My parents and Lyra's friend's parents are starting to fight about whether or not Lyra should stay with them. They're talking about taking Lana too." Eli shook his head while he used Photonic Generation to create a weak light above his left metal hand. If he pushed too hard it’d shatter, but if he tried sending a flow of light from his body into it then it’d flash before sputtering out. Frustrating. He hoped this wasn’t one of the issues with using a traded power and that it was something else.
"Do you think they should go stay with them?"
"I don't know. I really don't." Eli sighed while he unequipped Dynamic Vitality to try out Aerokinesis again. He tried to gather air together into a pressurized sphere, but it was hard. It constantly fought against him and even a hint of breeze was enough to collapse it into a puff of air. "I thought they were good parents before they both got new jobs and dedicated everything they had to them. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, but holy shit, man. Ever since the Initialization it's been a nightmare. It's only been a bit over a month and things have not gone well."
"That's a bit of an understatement," Roman said wryly. "Eight states declared under martial law, general discontent, and nowhere for refugees to really go? Little wars are starting to pop up everywhere now too."
"Yep." Eli nodded. He'd been trying to keep up with the news a bit more with the rest of his family. It was better to acknowledge everything instead of pretending everything was fine. But it did not help his general fear and paranoia. Dr. Simmons told him to try and be conscientious without obsessing about it. Whatever that meant.
"And did you hear the rumors that if you kill someone at the same evolutionary tier or higher you'll get their powers?" Roman whispered. With those words, Eli's worst fears had been confirmed. It was becoming public knowledge. "Bot accounts have been posting it everywhere on social media and other forum websites. The messages keep getting taken down but..."
"But nothing dies on the Internet."
Car breaks creaked as someone pulled into the parking lot near their cabins. Eli turned around and winced as Lyra got out of the car with her friend Ava. Lyra’s face was paler than usual and her eyes seemed somewhat dazed until Ava grabbed her hand. She seemed to brighten up a bit after that.
"Hi Lyra! And Ava, so nice to see you again!" Mom screeched as she rushed over to where Lyra, Ava, and Ava's mom were. Eli watched as Lyra awkwardly hugged Mom while Ava's mom watched them like a hawk. He created a miniature teleportation point high enough above them no one would notice the slight distortion in space while he listened in.
"No. We need to talk, Mrs. Newton."
"Mrs. Newton? Lisa, we've—"
"Come on. Go play, girls!" Lisa called out as she shooed them. Lyra and Ava started to walk ploddingly along towards Eli and Roman, but they seemed pretty deadset on going into the water rather than chatting.
"Happy birthday, Eli!" Lyra smiled as she walked up to hug him. Her eyes drifted to his metal arm again with a grimace. He supposed everyone else pretended it and the mall attack didn't happen. But not Lyra. Her face had grown slightly gaunt and wan.
"Thank you!" He said as she pulled away and refused to meet his eyes. All his motivation and drive to see what was going on and if she was okay dwindled. He couldn't. Not yet. She was hurting too much. Eli idly wondered if that was what everyone else thought and told themselves when he had been hurting after Tom started attacking him, Roman, and Scott.
"Come on, Ly, let's go swim!" Ava said as she grabbed Lyra's hand again and dragged her toward the water.
"Do you want to swim or...?" Roman asked awkwardly as he turned toward him.
"Eventually." Eli sighed as he sat down and created another light that flashed above his hands then dimmed to a stable glow. "I don't know, Roman, everything is real now. I'm eighteen today. I'm not trying to mope or anything, but this is not how I expected any of this to go at all."
"That's an understatement." Roman scoffed as he sat down and patted the sand in front of them. Eli rolled his eyes before he popped out the bubble full of Roman's toolboxes, general power armor gear, and even a few snacks. "You really need to let me try and make something that could hold your spatial powers."
"Maybe at some point. When I got my water power, I was offered Imbue—"
"Take it. If it comes up again, you have to take it." Roman turned to gape at Eli. "Enchanting with your own powers is so much easier and while you don't have a wonderful build at the moment, you do have diversity and some banger powers. Take it. Seriously."
"Okay, geez. I was planning on it." Eli glanced at Roman's intense stare out of the corner of his eyes and shrugged as he reached out with Hydrokinesis as far as it could go to the barest edge of the waves. He gathered water into a growing wave as he coiled it together and flooded it under the sand as he willed it to flow closer to him. Eli could feel Hydrokinesis growing stronger as he ran it through his paces. Unlike Light Generation which hadn't even leveled *once*.
Roman started tinkering. His hands flew over loose gears and parts as he used his body and powers to turn scrap into some kind of gauntlet. Then he created another. And another. Each one was churned out faster than the last. Eli had just lifted out his spout of water he'd pulled from the ocean and held it aloft when he'd gotten distracted by the one man factory sitting beside him.
Seven gloves.
Eli scrunched his brow as he shook his head and focused on the sphere of water that pulsated under his will. He bit his lip while he pushed at his senses with Hydrokinesis so he could sense the salty brine of the water. He felt each flake of sea salt, but when he tried to separate them from the water it felt like he was trying to file down a rock with his fingernails. Technically possible, but impractically difficult.
Should he cheat? Shove it into his Voidspace so he could purify the water that way?
"Come on. Let's pass these around." Roman said as he stood up with a stretch and pointed down at the tarp full of eighteen gauntlets. "We only need fourteen, but maybe someone else will want one. Is Kady coming?"
"What are they? And I don't know, she didn't say." Eli shoved the still salty seawater into a new bubble. He picked a gauntlet up and winced at the crawling vibrations that seemed to hook beneath his skin and pull at his powers like they were tangible.
"Power gauntlets." Roman said as he put on his own pair. Gears whirred as they reformed to fit his hands perfectly. "The power enchantments won't last for long, but allow anyone who wears one to shoot water like a water gun."
"But you don't have a water power? And I think my dad's the only one who can create water like that." He frowned again at the thought that they sold their powers. Eli appreciated the gesture, but it emphasized the whole point of the problem. They saw powers as separate from them unlike him where he saw them as an actual manifestation of who he was. The only reason he’d given up Spatial Control was because he didn’t want to keep hiding and running away.
"Don't need it with Oneiromantic Summon. Here. Try it and think about water." He said with a demonstration as he pointed his palm down at the ground to shoot out a bubbling stream of water.
Eli frowned as he thought about diving into chlorine water, the near-blind rush of sliding under the surface trailing bubbles, the burn in his muscles as he threw himself forward. Stroke after stroke. Push. Push. Until he reached the other end of the pool and pulled himself out of the pool with a spraying splash.
"Nice one!" Roman cheered as a geyser of sparkling water shot out of the gauntlet to arc through the air and puddle in the darkening sand. Eli took in a shaky breath that eased while he watched the water pool, his gaze lifted up to the ocean where Theo and Lana built a five tier sandcastle with copious use of Theo's new Barrier and Lana's Silverlight.
Lyra and Ava were splashing through the waves with an illusive painting of an aurora borealis above them. Ava shimmered and glowed various colors, whenever she swiped her glowing hand through the air trails of color remained. Prismatic violets that faded into a midnight blue sky, smoldering reds and lunar whites shone crisp and bright. Both of their powers together blended and melded to create a stunning display of splendor.
Eli turned around with a beaming smile... until he saw Lisa and his mom locked in a furious argument. Dad marched away from them with his phone held up to his ear, his expression grew darker with every step. Eli locked gazes with him and raised his eyebrow, but Dad shook his head.
"What do you think that's about?" Roman asked as they watched Dad start pacing.
"I have no idea, but it does not look good." Eli sighed, turning away. He had devoted enough of his time and energy to his family without being asked. "How about we test these gauntlets out?"
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"Sounds good."
"First to fall loses?" Eli asked, then smirked as Roman nodded. Eli tossed the rest of the gauntlets into the void before he squared off with his friend.
Roman stood with both of his gauntlet covered hands held up aimed straight at Eli's chest. Eli crouched a bit to lower his center of gravity, but otherwise stood flat-footed. Without Dynamic Vitality equipped, he'd be slower, but with Spatial Control and Hydrokinesis he'd win any water fight. Photonic Generation still felt clumsy, but he pushed and pulled it around his body as he shaped it around him like a suit of light... that trickled into Body of Light. It wasn't nearly powerful enough to sustain him more than the most basic of amounts, but it was something along with the sunlight that warmed his exposed skin.
"Ready?" Roman asked as something seemed to change about him. His muscles enlarged as if he had hit the gym every day, all day with exceptional form and discipline, until his form rippled with raw might. He even seemed taller. His movements sharpened until they seemed honed as if he were a trained athlete. Purple light overshone the brown of his irises.
"Set?" Eli ignited his body into radiance as voidspace shields snapped around his body. Photonic Generation's continuous light brightened as he forced his voidspace shields to reflect the combined radiance back into his body. Heat smoldered in his photonic bones. He flexed his fingers to check how the gauntlets held up to his reinforced Body of Light strength. Not to mention if and how the gauntlet tugged on his mechanical arm. Both hands moved with contemptuous ease.
"Go!" They both shouted. Eli expanded the space around them while snapping voidspace shields up at the perimeter so it'd be harder to see what they were doing from the outside. And so they wouldn't need to worry about anyone getting in the crossfire.
Roman dove forward, his arms extended back and down as twin jets of water shot out of his gloves to propel him closer. Eli bent his knees and launched himself up in the air where he teleported himself in place. At the same time, he pushed the thought of water along with both of his powers through his gloves. Photonic Generation and Body of Light seemed to buzz as they worked and fought together until pressure mounted.
With Hydrokinesis, he pushed his will straight into the gloves as he launched two blasts of water.
As the water traveled through his Voidspace, he narrowed and split the tunnels of his void to chain a teleport to create a cage of powerful streams of water. The water shone as he twisted it with Hydrokinesis as it speared into the sand around him just as he flipped midair to try and shoot his own water where Eli had been.
Water swelled as it closed around Roman like a bear trap.
Eli teleported back to the ground with a triumphant cheer as he held the now smoking gauntlets above his head in victory when something moved in the vortex of water. Water hissed as Roman crashed out of the water in a mechanized suit that had appeared around him. Segments of armored plates gleamed in the noonday sunlight. He held his hands spaced out as if he were holding a gun... then he was. A long barreled water cannon appeared in his hands.
Sparks of purple light fizzed across the burnished metal likes moths gorging on clothes stuffed in a closet. A low hiss that rose to a piercing whine built up as the tank of the water cannon emptied into the pressurized chamber. Roman's finger twitched towards the trigger.
Water boomed out of the cannon with a loud crack. Immediately, large swathes of Roman's armor and water cannon vanished in a plume of sparkling purple smoke.
Eli reached out with Hydrokinesis as he shoved his will against the frothing whiteout water. Pain built up in his head to a blinding spike of agony. He expanded space between him and the watery projectile as he forced Hydrokinesis to push back. Tension built and vibrated up and down his connection with the power until he felt it release and smooth over.
A wave of Hydrokinesis slammed into the globe of water with a spraying crash as if it had hit a wall. He yanked back on the spray, freezing each droplet, before he snapped them back at Roman in a cascade of ice pellets. Roman grunted as each frozen drop scratched or dented his summoned armor, each hit releasing a puff of purple smoke.
"I got you now," Eli smirked teasingly as he shot out a continuous spray of water from his gauntlets, but he held them back with Hydrokinesis as he thought about cool foggy days. The charged bank of water frothed as mist steamed off of it. He teleported the vast amounts of mist around Roman who was surrounded in a corona of purple light as he gathered up another water cannon shot.
"I don't think so!" Roman fired another blast of water at the same time his water cannon and armor shattered in motes of purple sparks. Eli started to teleport when Roman zipped forward at blinding speeds, he lifted his gauntlets and fired ten rays of water from each of his fingertips.
Ten streams of water thudded against Eli's voidspace armor. Every drop vanished into a spatial bubble that he surrounded his charged bak of water around. Roman's eyes widened as Eli exploded out a blast of mist that consumed him in a brilliant white cloud. His spatial bubble teleported right behind Roman's back where it exploded into a wave that dragged him across the sandy dunes.
"Ow, fuck!" Roman swore as he rose unsteadily to his feet. A film of sand coated his face and body as he gasped out panting breaths. "What the fuck man? What are you, a demon? I dreamed that I had combat training, a full set of power-armor, and a water cannon and it still wasn't enough?"
Eli shrugged, embarrassed but also proud. He swapped out the now maxed out Hydrokinesis for Rapid Recovery while he reached forward to put a gauntlet covered hand on Roman's shoulder. Roman relaxed as Rapid Recovery eased his aches, healed his wounds, and filled him with vitalizing awareness.
Oh. He had made a lot of progress.
Hydrokinesis Ev. 0 Voidspace Control Ev. 0 You may now select from one of the following options: Evolve Power Merge Power Obtain New Power N/A> Eli glanced curiously at what merging Voidspace Control and Hydrokinesis created and was... confused. Hydroplanar Control sounded very interesting, but also weird. It felt like he lost out on nearly all of his versatility for a hyper-specialization. He would be able to control water and space through water and be able to natively teleport anywhere there was water. But he'd lose out on the void, spatial bubbles, and the sheer amount of freedom he had now. He shook his head with a small smile as he thought about how he would have jumped at the chance for this power at the beginning of the Initialization, but he wasn't going to toss aside his greatest asset now. He declined the merge and accepted the evolution from Voidspace Control to Voidspace Mastery. He shivered as space seemed to crystallize around him. It felt like a part of him as he sensed the void everywhere like a lurking shadow hidden within every point of space. "Eli? You okay? I feel better now, really." Roman said as he shook Eli's shoulder. Eli nodded even as he felt all of the empty spaces inside of Roman. His trachea, ear and nose canals, chest cavity. Eli blinked as his perception of Voidspace sharpened further. Empty space was everywhere around him down to the atom. "Yeah, I'm fine." He unequipped Rapid Recovery and replaced it with Aerokinesis while he studied the new power and evolution menus for Hydrokinesis. A breeze kicked up around him as he cycled the air around him. Cyrokinesis Ev. 0 Force Construct Ev. 0 Geokinesis Ev. 0 Jolting Strike Ev. 0 Imbue Ev. 0 BACK> He scoffed at the list. These new power options were trash other than Imbue. He wanted to get Imbue regardless, but he had idea that he wanted to check out first. He’d read and seen on the different forum websites that creating powers from Perks allowed for a lot more customization and often better results. It might also help him with the trade penalty issues he was having. Photonic Generation, Aerokinesis, and Speed Shift were remarkably difficult to use. He brought up a separate status screen then focused on Aerokinesis, Photonic Generation, and Speed Shift and thought about dismantling them into perks. Airsense Air Control Air> Create Light Light> Slow-To-Fast Speed Fast-To-Slow> "Roman, what the fuck is the power dismantling messages? I knew I could only pick one from each, but there’s no backing out from it? "Yeah?" Roman said casually then his head whipped around in alarm. "You didn't try to dismantle all of your powers, did you?" "No, just the new ones my parents gave me. But I'll be able to combine these perks into a power, right?" "Yep. Two or more. What are your choices?" "Well, sensing air, air itself for some reason, controlling air for Aerokinesis. Creating light and just light for Photonic Generation, and the weirdest one is Speed Shift. Accelerating something slow, speed, and slowing something down." As Eli rattled each of them off seeds of ideas began to form. “Let’s see what this does…” Air Create Light Speed> Eli slotted Air into Hydrokinesis and shivered as he became far more aware of the traces of water vapor in the air all around him. Out of curiosity, he checked and smiled at how the evolution option changed to Advanced Aero-Hydrokinesis. Create Light turned Hydrokinesis's evolution into Brightwater while Speed and Hydrokinesis became Rapid Hydrokinesis. He considered between getting Imbue or evolving Hydrokinesis right away. Brightwater or Advanced Aero-Hydrokinesis sounded pretty incredible. Brightwater could go a long way to fixing his light creation abilities while letting him specialize more with water. It'd also synergize with his plans for the Mind stat if he found a way to merge it with his body powers. But if he did that would it be better to merge Dynamic Vitality and Hydrokinesis together at the first evolution or later? He decided to get Imbue now while he could. Then he checked what he could create with the perks with and without Create Light on Hydrokinesis. He smiled at the result. This would be better. If he could merge threeways like he could with perks… then he’d be able to create something truly incredible with this power, Hydrokinesis, and Dynamic Vitality later. Would you like to equip it? Y/N> "I figured it out." Eli said as he equipped the composite power and smiled as he created a strong gust of wind that shimmered with light. He watched as it shone and kicked up sand as it dispersed then dimmed. And he liked what he hoped he'd be able to do with it, Dynamic Vitality, Hydrokinesis, and Rapid Recovery someday. He held his still gauntleted hands so they almost touched as he pushed with Lumengust and watched as glowing air swirled together in a sphere that he barely controlled as it pushed and bucked against his gauntleted hands. The light brightened to a harsh glare even as tendrils of bright air whipped up sand around him. Eli drank in all of the light instantly and watched with interest as the gust died down to a breath instantly. Strength flooded his body as he smiled. "I like this power." He’d like it even more when it bonded with Dynamic Vitality, Hydrokinesis, and Rapid Recovery though. Since stat powers were both the original and the changed version of the stat it would boost his body, give him a synergized elemental power, and enhance his mind. It’d be perfect. [Stats: Body: Light (Photon Shot) Mind: None Will: None ] [Equipped Power List: Slot One -- Voidspace Mastery Ev. 1/Lv. 0 Slot Two -- Hydrokinesis Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed) Slot Three -- Lumengust Ev. 0/Lv. 0 ] [Unequipped Powers: Rapid Recovery Ev. 1/Lv. 7 Dynamic Vitality Ev. 0/Lv. 4 Imbue Ev. 0/Lv. 0 ]