As Dorian run towards the garage, the most likely place he could find his friends — he contemplated how he should show them what he could do. What the core enabled him to do.
Dorian arranged all the recent happenings in his life in order and then sent an urgent text to meet at the garage. With that done, Dorian closed his eyes and inspected his core to see if it was still there.
He'd been doing that a lot.
The view of the black void spinning away always brought him relief. A thought surfaced out of nowhere that he should test out his abilities but with supreme effort, Dorian resisted the urge and ran on.
Dorian got to the garage and entered to find his friends pacing worriedly. Well, Jax and Dan were, Leo was sitting in his chair with his legs crossed and staring at nothing. The instant he entered all eyes turned to him and froze with mouths hanging open. Dorian wondered how they'd known when he suddenly remembered, his face was different. Very different.
It was a worried Jax that spoke first, “Uh, you good bro?”
Dan's reaction was loud, he bent over his knees and laughed boisterously. He looked up at Dorian's face, wiped a tear and just kept on laughing.
The jerk.
Leo looked up once nodded and went promptly back to staring at nothing. That was a whole conversation from the man.
Dorian sighed and was about to speak when a still chuckling Dan preempted him, “You know, I was wondering where the sudden influx of credits you sent me came from. Thought it was from your job but I guess I was wrong. You're a very pretty gigolo though.”
Dorian flipped him off which made Dan laugh even harder and gasp out between belly-aching laughter, “Even his nails are done.”
Dorian jolted in surprise and focused on his nails and true to Dan's words, they looked trimmed, clean and clear like he'd had a manicure.
'Well damn.' Dorian thought.
Jax who had had it with both of the men's antics cleared his throat and brought them back to order. “Seriously though Dorian, explain. Or is it what it looks like and if it is, more power to you.” That set off more laughing from Dan.
Dorian's carefully crafted speech flew out of his mind in the face of Dan's mocking laughter. He decided to just show them. Dorian pointed an open palm and focused on a still laughing Dan and with a thought, lessened the gravity on the man. It was much harder than he anticipated. He brought his full focus to bear and his core spun faster in response filling his pathways with more energy.
Dan's laughter abruptly cut off when he felt himself lifting off the ground and floating higher.
“What the hell…” the man panicked and Dorian dropped him on the seat of his pants.
Jerk deserved it.
Dorian suddenly bent over breathing hard, lifting Dan that few feet off the ground had nearly drained his core, he knew because the black intensity in his core had lessened.
He looked back up to find six sets of eyes regarding him with shock and the dropped jaws he was looking for. Dorian's laughter filled the garage.
Later the four men moved to the chairs arranged around the garage and Dorian explained what had happened to him with the essence stone and monster cores and the changes that followed.
As Dorian spoke, he watched as the looks on the other men's faces changed from disbelief, to surprise and then finally to hope. An agitated Dan stood up and walked around the garage running his hand through his buzz-cut hair, he suddenly spun and pointed at Dorian's midsection.
“So you're telling me you have a core in you right now that enabled you to lift me off the ground and also did all that.” Dan's last words were accompanied by his gesturing to Dorian's enhanced appearance.
“Unless some cosmic entity is screwing around with us or we're all crazy. That's what happened, ” Dorian replied.
Dan snarled and continued pacing whiles Jax seemed lost in deep thought. A voice Dorian had heard only a handful of times whispered,
“Can you do it again?“
Surprised at hearing Leo talk and trying not to show it, Dorian nodded and focused on Dan's vacated chair and lessened the gravity pulling it down. It floated a feet of the ground and Dorian kept it there with a thought. He hadn't even known he could do that.
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Neat.
It had been much easier to lift the chair and maintain it than it had been to lift Dan. And even though maintaining the chair in its gravity-defying state consumed energy, it wasn't at the level of what he'd lost when he'd tried to lift Dan higher. Dorian thought he could keep the chair floating there for hours.
He turned back to find Leo staring at the floating chair in awe and childlike wonder. He decided to keep the chair there.
Jax suddenly shook himself out of his deep thoughts and looked at the gravity-defying chair and then back at Dorian. He opened his mouth to speak, paused and finally said, “Can you do anything else with the ability and if it's the power to control gravity as it looks like it is? It should also allow you to increase gravity and attract and repel things to and from you.”
Dorian nodded at the increasing gravity part but scratched his head at the attracting part. Did gravity attract things? He'd have to find out. Dorian looked up at a still-pacing Dan and the man feeling eyes on him looked up and promptly jumped back.
“No way in hell am I gonna be your practice dummy. Once was enough,” he snarled.
Dorian smiled viciously and turned back to Jax, “I can increase gravity on myself and other things though I didn't try the other things you said.”
“Yeah no worries, I barely understand what gravity is myself. You'd need a physicist or detailed research with lots of experiments to figure out all you can do. But that is for later. The first order of business is to see whether what you did can be repeated or you're very special,” with that he pulled out his essence stone and the other two did the same.
Dorian sighed and said the words he'd been dreading, “To do that, we would need monster cores. Lots of them.”
Dan suddenly grunted and said, “I see why you were rabid for the depleted monster cores. To fill them up with free echo.”
Dorian nodded and Jax shot to his feet and began to pace, “We'll try to get monster cores of our own but that is looking nearly impossible. The GDF is buying cores at a premium probably to power their armoured freaks or release some new tech, and most hunters in answer have already sold the ones they'd been hoarding. Other hunters that entered the wildlands in hopes of landing an easy core haven't come back and most likely won't. So going out there is out of the question. This means you're our only reasonable means of getting monster cores. ”
Unsaid was the reason why the other three couldn't simply get jobs at the power plant themselves. They'd been in the ART program and were blacklisted almost everywhere. For doing horrible things at the urging of their fellow humans who had exploited their trust and mind.
“I know this is a lot to ask and Dan told me how you'd been obsessing over your work, I get it now. And to send you back to do that is greedy in its extreme and yet I still ask. Know that you're free to say no. We don't know if it'll even work with us.”
Dorian said nothing and approached Jax placing a hand on the man's shoulder, “You have all helped me out in so many ways. You with your endless wisdom that guided us through the hell that is our current life. Leo with his silent support and Dan doing his best as my chauffeur,” they all laughed at that and Dorian continued, “I will not back down when I'm called upon to help the people who've helped me so much. But I will need something from you though, how many depleted cores can you get for me? We're gonna need it. ”
The men brought their heads together and hashed out the bones of a plan to get monster cores or at the very least to get depleted ones that could then be filled by Dorian.
After their planning, Jax stood and stretched and then gestured for the chairs to be cleared out. He moved to the resulting space and beckoned Dorian over. “We don't know what your power can do in its totality so let's start with the basics, a hand-to-hand fight between us. Go wild. And please try not to kill me.”
Dorian nodded and moved to stand opposite Jax and wordlessly they got into combat stances. Dorian was still trying to figure out what he should start with when Jax surged forward and delivered a straight jab. Dorian fluidly side-stepped the punch and delivered a kick to Jax's midsection. The jab collapsed, it had been a feint and strong arms stopped and clamped down on Dorian's foot. With a mighty heave, Jax lifted and threw Dorian onto his back.
As Dorian fell, he braced himself for the impact and then nearly slapped himself when he remembered he had powers now. It would take a while to get used to his new reality.
Dorian reversed his personal gravity and instead shot for the ceiling, in essence falling upwards. Just before he hit the roof, he cut off the ability and righted himself in mid-air and as he fell he lessened gravity on himself and touched down gently.
A punch in his perfectly square jaw launched him backwards. Oh right, he was in a fight. As Dorian flew back he realized his decreased personal gravity had lessened the impact of the punch. It still hurt but not close to what a real punch from Jax could do. Dorian dug his feet and with his reduced gravity shot forward catching Jax by surprise.
He delivered a three-punch combo that came too fast for Jax to evade, forcing him to defend. Dorian transitioned to a vicious leg sweep that saw Jax leaping back in a backflip to create distance. And right where Dorian wanted him.
With a thought he decreased the man's gravity and watched him fall slowly, giving Dorian all the time to lessen his own even more and then blitzing forward to deliver a kick to end the fight.
Dorian's core suddenly cut out and he fell flat on his face when gravity asserted itself and the clatter of a failing chair and a grunt from a landing Jax made it obvious he'd run out of energy to sustain his abilities.
Dorian closed his eyes, breathing evenly and checked his core, the thing was empty and spinning slowly. He'd been heavily using the core since he discovered what he could do and so it made sense why he'd run out of energy. Boots entered his vision and Dorian looked up to find Jax holding a hand to help him up.
Clapping came from both Dan and Leo.
“Was a cool fight till you decided to kiss the ground,” Dan chuckled.
Dorian got a thumbs-up from a smiling Leo. He'd take it.
Jax pulled him to his feet and said, “Good fight, you had me at the end there. Well till you didn't.”
Dorian nodded and smiled, and then moved to a chair and sank into it—and simply existed, whiles his friends continued discussing the fight. He knew he had many things to do but for the first time in a long time, he simply sat among friends and felt content.