Instead of immediately moving towards the direction of Hallowsville the second the referee said “Go”, I had another plan in mind. There was no way I was gonna leave Barclays Center without picking out every piece of marijuana that was in there. Rosalina had unknowingly given me a gift to give to my daughter, and I planned on cherishing it till that disease was gone for good. Obviously, that meant we were behind in the race, but who said we needed to run the whole thing? Cars existed for a reason, and my daughter along with Jesus agreed that carrying two big bags of weed on foot sounded like a shitty idea.

Unfortunately, there was one problem about owning a car in a post-apocalyptic world. You needed gasoline to keep it running, and we didn't have any of that. So until Jesus could come back with some gas, we had no choice but to use this first day as a rest day. We could’ve used this time to gather food, strategize, maybe even have a proper conversation about what happened this month. However, Sunshine had a better idea. An idea that was definitely a good use of our time.

“Alright Jerome, you ready?” asked Sunshine, practicing hits with her baseball bat on a large rock.

“I guess… But I don't really feel right about fighting my daughter,” I said, tying my vine hair into a bun.

Unlike my last transformation back in the Underground, this plant one lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. My last transformation disappeared after two battles, and yet this one was still here for the whole day. Jesus had used Energy Sense on my body and noticed that there were three distinct forms of aura inside me. According to him, anyone with powers like ours had one and they were permanent. I presumed that two of those auras belonged to Rosalina and I. The third must’ve been that Type Two I absorbed during my fight with Dante. And if that was the case, then these forms should work like transformations. But how would I access the third one?

“We're not really fighting… It’s more like training,” she noted, taking her backpack off. “Training for you, obviously.”

“Oh, I see. You're gonna train your old man, eh?” I readied a battle stance, mimicking an old boxer I saw online once. “What's my little girl gonna teach me?’

Sunshine pulled out a water bottle from her bag and chugged half of it. “You lost that fight with Jason. Why do you think you did?”

“Because his Radius ability is way too unfair to fight against. I mean, you know how it works, right?”

“Yeah, it's a strong power. But every power has some kind of weakness,” she said, placing the bottle back in her bag. “You can't absorb energy unless your body’s touching it, and I can't use my Mind Trick unless my fingers are pointed at something visible. As for Jason's weakness…” She spun her metal bat in her hand and, with a powerful swing, struck the weathered rock, shattering it to small pieces. Then, she picked up one of the rocks and asked, “You see this rock, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered, confused by where she was going with this. “It was pretty jarring to see my nine year old perform such a crazy feat. What kind of training was Jesus giving her!?

Suddenly, the rock was mere inches away from my face, but I was able to grab it and crush it into dust before it could hit me. “What did you do that for!?”

My daughter chuckled, swinging the bat on her finger like a basketball. “You were able to touch that rock, right? And you were able to crush it?”

“Yeah… where are you going with this?” I asked, wiping the dust on my grass pants.

She held out her hand to me. “Do you see a rock here?”

“No… I feel like you're messing with me somehow.”

She whipped her arm towards me, seemingly pretending to throw a rock at me. “Did you feel the rock hit you? Did you hear it hit you?”

“Didn't feel a thing. What does this have to do with Ja… Oh, I see what you're trying to say. This has something to do with senses, doesn't it?”

She smiled. “I knew you'd get it eventually. Yeah, the best way to counter Jason’s power is to prevent an interaction with three of his senses. He needs to see, smell, and hear you to activate his ability. Escape his line of sight, and you’re good. Even if he does see you, as long as you don’t say a word or some outside source is muffling your personal sounds, his ability won’t have any effect.”

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Wow! Who knew such an overpowered ability would have a weakness that could be easily exploited. If I remember correctly, I could sense that he attempted to use his ability on Rosalina’s wood dragon when he first dropped in. Something about AIDs I think? I didn’t see any visible changes from the dragon nor did it look like it was affected by the phrase. Our beam clash must’ve drowned out the roars flying out of the beast’s mouth so Jason had to resort to a dropkick.

Then, he attempted to use it again, though I grabbed his face before he could say it. Although, I was pretty sure my hand couldn’t stop him from finishing the phrase, so the only thing that could’ve prevented the activation of his ability was my hand luckily covering his eyes. Now that I think about it, that was like the second time that freak was trying to give me AIDs… Is AIDs really that powerful!?

“I’m confused about one thing though… I’m pretty sure Jason was able to see, hear, and smell you when you two were fighting, so how come his ability didn’t work then?”

Sunshine grabbed a green marble from her pocket. It was the mini forcefield Dante used. “The whole three senses thing applies both ways. I couldn’t hear him thanks to these earplugs, so I didn’t die in a bloody explosion. Pretty cool, right?”

I clapped aggressively, in awe of how cool my daughter was now. “How’d I get so lucky with a daughter like you?”

Sunshine tried to cover her rosy cheeks. “Oh, I’m not that great… But you can keep praising me I guess.”

“There’s no way I’m gonna lose to that guy now–not after that new info!” I said with high confidence. “Plus, I should be able to use more of these plant moves now that we’re out in the fields. Jason hasn’t seen any of that.”

“Actually, there is another reason you lost.”

“Is it the plant thing? I already-”

Before I could finish my sentence, Sunshine zoomed through the air and appeared before me, a fiery emerald energy surrounding her baseball bat as she prepared to strike. She swung her bat and, thinking quickly, I grasped it firmly, holding her up in the air.

“You're gonna attack me instead of telling me the other reason? You've gotten bolder.”

“I learned it from you,” she replied. I noticed that her body was enshrouded with a bright aura. It was as though I was a piece of the sun was right in front of me.

“How about I learn what the other reason was?”

“Well, the reason’s simple. You’re slow.” Her aura surged as she flashed out of my sight, leaving her baseball bat in my grip. Dust erupted with each step she took, swirling upwards like miniature storms. She circled around me, a trail of green marking her rotation. My daughter didn’t make a sound, so I had to rely on my vision to catch her lack-

A punch from a small fist caught me off-guard, slamming into the side of my chin. I looked to my right, my body firm and still, and noticed Sunshine had actually landed a hit on me. It looked like I was in store for another attack as she raised another fist. However, she didn’t throw a punch yet. The nuclear energy from the sky quickly gathered around her fist, like it was a black hole swallowing the essences of the universe. But her hand wasn’t absorbing it. The energy was latching onto her skin, coating it like armor.

She attempted to land another punch, and I caught her fist before it did. “The energy in the air… You’re using it to power up your body, right?” I asked.

“Exactly!”, she exclaimed, jumping off of me. “Apparently, most of the Underground Radius members and the Radius users we haven’t seen yet can power up using the energy in the air. Including Jason. I’d say he’s one of the better users of the technique.”

“Well, that’s not good,” I muttered, tossing her bat back to her. “Not only is his ability dangerous, but he can use that technique well too. Although, I’m pretty sure whenever I absorb energy from things, I’m practically doing the same thing, right?”

“Eh, not really,” she denied, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think the energy absorption is like… increasing your strength and speed. The main thing about it is that it lets you release it in different ways. I think it only makes you feel stronger, but you’re just using strength you hadn’t tapped into yet. I read about it in one of the books you got me. I think it’s called ‘hysterical strength’.”

“Oh, I know that thing. It’s like when a mom is trying to lift a car off her child in order to save her. Like an extra boost of adrenaline.”

“Yep. What makes what I do different is that I’m using an outside source to strengthen my body, not an inner source. You just need to learn how to do that and you’ll probably be good.”

I don’t like the sound of that “probably”…

“Ok then… How do I do it?” I asked, slamming my fists against each other.

“Oh, that’s the problem! You can’t,” she said, holding back her laughter.

“What!? Then what was the point of giving me that whole explanation? And why can’t I do it?”

“Jesus said it’s ’cause you’re a zombie,” she answered, composing herself. “But don’t worry! I think there’s a workaround you can try. The whole aura strengthening thing is getting the energy on your skin and making it stick. Maybe if you absorb it but stop right before it goes inside of you, it’ll be the same thing. But you have to keep using the absorption. Like a constant state of it.”

That… could work. It was a risky move though considering I could screw up Sunflower’s healing process within me if I absorbed any outside energy. Damn! I should’ve asked that fat wood dragon if he knew how long this would take… Well, there’s no use in complaining now. I’ll just have to risk it!

I raised my hands to the sky, and I began to bring in the surrounding nuclear energy to my hands. I had no idea how to absorb using the rest of my body, aside from my mouth, so strengthened hands would have to do for now. Once I felt the energy grace my fingers, I tried wrapping it around my hands. It wasn’t easy. Usually, I’d already have it inside of me, though now I had to keep my ability in a constant state of activation. I felt like a bodybuilder having to keep 300 pounds in the air for twenty seconds or more without completing the set. This was… Shit!

To my dismay, a massive burst of energy washed over my glowing body and drowned me in its overwhelming intensity, entering through every hole it could find and invading my body. This was too damn much! Where the hell did all this come from!? Even though I had no lungs, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my neck, hoping whatever was attempting to destroy me would come out.

“Jerome Hunter… I think I’ve had enough of your body. This state of absorption… is not for me.”

That feminine voice… It sounded so familiar, and yet I know I’ve never heard it before. She almost sounded like an older version of Rosalina’s daughter.

I wanted to speak. Unfortunately, the energy was stuffing my mouth so much that I couldn’t even scream out for my daughter.

“Jerome, why did you kill… my mother…?