Ravela worked through Saturday with the girls on their powers behind the security of the wall that surrounded most of the property now. The only stretch that yet remained to be completed was the gap along the entire forest line where the second gate would be.
Now it was Sunday, and Ravela brought them over once again.
Safora flew circles on the empty field just above the ground. Up and down the field while Ravela took her time. After a while, Ravela stopped her.
“You see, the faster you move, the bigger the effort of stopping will be,” Ravela said to the girl whose head had turned a dark shade of red when she had to stop her acceleration.
“The forces weighing on your body aren’t small. You’re holding up remarkably well, all things considered, but if you fly too fast and try to stop, you might just pass out from the forces your body has to endure.” Ravela pointed at Safora’s still-reddened head. “The heat you feel in your head is blood rushing about against the force of your flight and the turns you make. Fly too fast and turn a corner that is too tight, and you will become an uncontrolled deadly object flying at breakneck speed through a densely populated city,”
Safora answered, a bit winded. “And what can I do about that?”
Ravela looked into the sky, thinking. “Right now, you have to move with great care and know your limits well enough not to approach them.”
Safora pouted. “And later on?”
Ravela tilted her head. “Well, I’ve been thinking of making a suit that would mash well with your powers and support you when you use the full extent of your abilities.”
Laena, who had stood by just listening for a while, perked up at those words. “Like your armor?”
Ravela held her hands defensively. “No, no, no, no, nothing like my armor. Are you mad? I won’t arm two teenagers with something like that.” Not that she would be able to build anything like that, but Ravela decided to keep that to herself.
Laena chose to ignore the obvious refusal and jumped on the most important bit of that message. “Two teenagers? Are you planning a suit for me and my powers too?”
The girls got giddy, and Ravela found herself being bombarded by a million questions over the next hours.
Ravela stopped the training and used the extra manpower for the rest of the afternoon to get more things done in the house. Tearing down some walls and tearing out old floorboards.
Laena seemed especially happy that Ravela had planned a suit for her as well.
“So, have you thought about the colors for the suits yet?” Laena started another round of questions about their suits.
“I am currently thinking more about the technical features and what material I should use. I need those suits to not fall apart the moment they meet some adversity.” Ravela said. “Haven’t thought which one of you would get the horrible orange one yet.”
Safora’s head spun around so fast. “You’re joking, right?! You’re not making one of our suits orange, right? Ew. Who would wear that?”
Laena looked at her friend, “Well, certainly I won’t.”
Ravela shrugged. “I guess that settles that question.”
Safora’s mouth fell open. “NO! It doesn’t! I don’t want a stupid all-orange suit!”
Ravela shrugged. “Well, Laena called shotgun on the other color. I don’t see the problem with orange. It’s a good color.”
“Then why don’t you make your suit orange and let us choose our colors?” Safora huffed.
“Or I make all of them orange. We are a team, after all, right?” Ravela paused her work and looked up at the ceiling, putting one hand on her chin. “Yeah, that’s a great idea.”
Laena made a small disgusted noise and exchanged looks with Safora.
“So, Ramiel, how about we talk about the colors again once you have those suits ready and not before? I mean, that is still in the future, right?” Laena tried ending the topic.
Ravela shrugged, trying not to grin. “I suppose there is no need to rush the colors.”
Safora was quick to agree. “Yes, we can talk once we get to the coloring step. Let’s not rush things.”
Ravela was amused at the nervous glances the girls exchanged after that.
“Don’t worry so much about it, girls. I will make you something that will beat any alternative for years to come.” Ravela said after a while.
They all got back to work. Having some helping hands for the minor tasks was fun. She taught them some techniques for craftsmanship. Nothing big, of course, but little skills like this would come in handy for them sometime in life.
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Detective Gell sat at his desk. When he clocked out on Friday, he had the entire weekend off. Something that Detective Gell didn’t have in a long time. Now that he was fully recovered and the kids were back in school, he wanted to take his wife to a fancy restaurant.
The whole weekend had been planned out weeks in advance. He cursed, telling his boss which restaurant he planned to visit with his wife.
They were in the middle of the third course when the waiter called him aside in a hurry. He would not forgive his boss for calling him while he was in the restaurant with his wife, but when Inspector Gaan explained the situation, he thanked him for the call.
He paid for the meal, told his wife they had to go home, and rushed his wife to the safety of their suburban house before linking up with his fellow officers in the central precinct gearing up for what promised to be a catastrophic night.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Grim nods all around, as Detective Gell remembered.
He snapped back into the present, where he felt underpaid and overworked. They’ve been at this for far too long. He wanted to go home to his wife, who hadn’t seen him since Friday. Detective Gell had run out of steam somewhere before lunch on Sunday.
“Alright,” he tiredly said to himself. “you need a proper bed, and you need to go home and try to see how your wife is doing.”
He got up, and as he walked to the office of his boss, the man got another call. Victor Gell watched as the Inspector rose from a desk, releasing a barrage of curses.
Victor closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Whatever sin I had committed in my life to stand where I stand right now, please, Lord, forgive me. I see now that I was wrong.’ He shot a quick prayer up and slowly turned on his heel, trying to get back to his desk to look busy.
He made it five steps before the door shot open, and his boss yelled into the room. “Murder in Gem Grinder’s, who’s free.” He could feel Inspector Gaan scanning the room. Victor saw heads duck away, people suddenly having hands full of paperwork or being on the phone.
Victor felt his boss’ gaze passing over him for a second before returning, honing in on him.
“Gell, you’re going city side right now. Get on it, and stop dilly-dallying while the city is on fire, man!”
Victor’s shoulders slumped, but in the moment of resignation, god decided to come to his rescue. As a voice from the office entrance declared.
“So, I miss work for four months, and you let the city burn down?”
Victor Gell and everybody's eyes locked onto the man in the door.
Inspector Gaan was the first to greet his returning colleague. “You talk some big game. Last I checked, you should be kissing my ass for still having this job, skipping out on your fellow officers because you got a bubu on duty. Victor, scratch that last order. Go home. You look like someone dragged you with a car. Thorn, Gem Grinder’s got hit just now. You go down there and become useful before I send you back to directing traffic!”
Victor blinked, disbelieving his luck. He nodded once at his returning colleague. “Good to have you back, Thorn. If you don’t mind, let’s catch up at another time. I am outta here before the Inspector gets the next call.”
He left his desk as it was and made straight for a door.
His colleague Detective Stouts called out to him. “Wait up!”
Victor stopped and turned around. It was not often that Detective Stouts spoke up since he was very fond of his nods.
“Catch,” Stouts said, and Detective Gell’s sleep-deprived mind reacted surprisingly in time to catch what his senior colleague had thrown his way.
Looking at his hand, he realized it was his car key and house keys he had almost left behind.
He gave his friend a grateful nod which Detective Stouts reciprocated.
The consequences of coming back in to get his keys he did not dare imagine. Victor glanced back to the Inspector, who was back on the phone, cursing again already.
Victor ran as fast as his feet could carry him back home back to his loving wife in his warm king-sized bed.
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Dropping off the girls in the late afternoon after a day of working on her home and training with their powers, Ravela relaxed for a moment in the car. From now on, they would train every Sunday unless it was agreed not to happen beforehand.
Safora would give up her reckless excursions and leave the task of fighting crime to someone better equipped to do so. Ravela would get them some experience once she could properly equip them and she was certain they would pose a danger to themself and civilian bystanders or, begrudgingly, even the criminals they sought to apprehend.
Ravela had been surprised to see Safora flying through the burning factory. In hindsight, she should have known that the girls might strike out on their own if she didn’t communicate her plans soon enough. Still, the recklessness had reignited her worries about the girls and Ravela had taken a lot of time to drive home the point that going out on their own or even together without her and proper gear was not to be done.
The fact that Safora was, for once, the first to agree to everything has shown that the seriousness of the situation had sunk in. Seeing the danger and harm up close was different, and seeing those dead workers and super-powered men fighting to kill each other must have left quite the impression.
Ravela, for the time being, would do reconnaissance on her own, and strictly without wearing Ramiel’s Ring. Michael Manus would see a lot more of Pliada City without the Swaddy’s attention. Above that, she feels she needs some extra preparation with the Bomber out there. She had not the slightest intention of letting anyone catch her by surprise again. This means carrying her revolver with her and shielding herself from now on before rushing into danger. Which meant she would need to charge herself up with the crystals once again. That carried its own danger, but going into a potential super-fight on half a charge wouldn’t do at all.
The axe she had taken from Morbolfr Krone was now stashed in her house. It had been able to cut the Bomber, so analyzing the axe for its properties became a priority. Not that she had any equipment to do that yet.
On her drive back to the motel, there was a bit of a lull. She thought about it a bit more. Why should she wait to recharge? There was, after all, no time like today, and she had her necklace specifically for it.
After entering her room, she closed all the blinds, kicked off her boots, and sat on the bed for meditation. Taking off Ramiel’s ring, she studied herself in the mirror. The amber glow of her pupils looked undiminished from her scrap in the factory. With this ability of hers to take in the crystal energy, she would experiment more in the near future. It felt like that was her true ability, and the telekinesis was just a minor expression of it. For some reason, the thought made her want to cry in jubilation.
She felt excited as the energy flooded her body. The energy felt invigorating, and it influenced her mood and state of mind. Ravela found herself ever wider awake the more energy she absorbed. Her eyes were now glowing in pure golden light. It wasn’t harsh like the metal but warm. Instead, the mirror made it appear warm and comforting just like the crystals.
Ravela kept absorbing more while she looked for any changes. The next stage of deviation came slowly as lines appeared under her skin like a web. She stopped taking in energy the moment she noticed, got up from the bed, and took off her shirt.
Studying the lines under her skin spreading all over her body. Some thicker, some thinner, all coalescing in a place in her chest. Pulsating. The light went in slow waves out from that place. Her heart, Ravela surmised. The energy was now running through her blood.
Ravela let Ramiel’s ring fly into her hand. She put it on and studied her transformed body. Ramiel’s skin looked perfectly normal. Ravela let out a relieved sigh. She didn’t want to go out early in the evening to use energy until Ramiel didn’t look like a firefly anymore.
A frown appeared on her face. She did some light exercises in front of the mirror. Looking for any signs of glowing. Of course, the exercises in a motel room didn’t count for physical exercise in her book, but just in case a heightened heart rate had an influence, Ravela made sure she wouldn’t glow as she did without Ramiel’s ring on her finger come Thursday. It would be really hard to explain it if she started glowing during the tests.
After a hundred push-ups and squats, there was no breakthrough of the golden shimmering. Ravela thought back to the morning she caught Safora and Markus conspiring with Laena and going through her things. The emotional state she had worked herself into had directly led to her outburst that had turned her eyes into flashlights for a second.
Her state of mind had to be stable at all times. Any temper flares could somehow break through the transformation the rings provided for her. She telekinetically opened the tap of the bathtub and put in the plug while she took off the rest of her clothes.
Stretching for a bit, Ravela decided to go to bed early was a good choice for the rapidly approaching Monday. The bath was not optional, however.
Ravela began floating a bunch of sponges she had bought, dipping them into the water, and spreading body wash on them with her many invisible hands. It felt like stretching after walking around with a hand tied behind your back all week. The small things made life worth living. Inside her bathroom and in the house, she could be herself regarding her powers. Soon enough, she would have a spot where she could take her ring off without feeling the sting of paranoia creeping and crawling into her thoughts. She took off Ramiel’s ring once again, letting it float to its spot on the table in the bedroom.
As Ravela sat down in the hot water, she felt the weights peel off her shoulders.
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Laena watched from her inverted headstand Safora floating through the room, a pencil pinched with her lip under her nose. The closed curtains on their windows and locked door afforded Safora some floating time.
“So, on the second problem, I got, um, hm…,” Safora began rolling mid-air, “Mhh… 43/15 = w…There is no answer matching that. Uh…”
Laena snorted. Safora had been going about the solution the wrong way again. “Maybe if you did it as we practiced in the first one instead of throwing the variable to the other side first, thereby completely messing up the order in which you’re supposed to calculate, just maybe you’d find the right solution.”
Safora stopped mid-float, humming and hawing, scribbling furiously on the note block she held, “If I do it like….so….oh! Oh! It’s the answer d! It’s five!” Safora declared jubilantly.
“Yes, you got it right, finally,” Laena said, crossing her legs still in a handstand. Safora remained completely oblivious to her being done with the math homework already. She had not yet noticed that her friend was practicing weird balance acts while she was pondering their math homework.
“So problem three….hm…let’s see… What problem are you solving right now?” Safora asked, not looking away from her notes for one second. Laena admired the determination to solve these problems herself. Other girls would long since begged her to spare them the rest of their weekend and just tell them the answer, but not Safora. No, Safora had been at these two problems for a full hour, with the stubbornness of a mountain goat climbing a mountainside that no human would ever attempt. Laena found the comparison fitting, though Safora only had the goat's stubbornness and was diligently climbing the mountainside anyways.
“I’m on uh…problem seven,” Laena said, wondering when Safora would notice that she had been done ten minutes into her troubles. She pushed herself onto one arm, carefully steadying her body. Picking up her notes, she flicked to an empty page and began writing her history homework. Neglecting their homework while they went to Ramiel’s property had been unwise. Next time, she would insist they do homework while Ramiel worked on his house during the training breaks.
Laena looked back up when a shadow fell over her paper and found herself face to face with Safora pencil under her nose.
“Whatcha doing there, hm? Doesn’t look like math problems.” Safora said, her arms crossed. They both had their head upside down, which made it a weirdly normal point of view for Laena, who now struggled to keep her balance.
“Uh!” Her heart beat faster, and the world slowed down. To Safora, it would be moments but Laena would struggle to remain in her one-handed headstand for nearly a minute, at least in her mind.