Feeling the arcs of lightning shift through her cells, pulsing with the same beat as her own heart, Nikola felt the limits of her power getting ever closer. The abilities granted to her by pure chance but still had some points she never seemed able to improve on, longevity being one of the worst ones. Feeling in her arms, the passive static inside them wasn’t anything she wished to even think about. Her skin fizzled slightly when she clapped her hands and a few strands of her hair floated in the air. It would settle down soon; the small pause was truly needed before she could continue.

Looking at the time, Nikola still had another thirty minutes before she had to leave the training room. The administrators normally liked her to leave five minutes early due to the ‘technical difficulties’ her power brought along sometimes. It wasn’t her fault that the equipment couldn’t handle a bit of manipulation in the local electromagnetic fields. Even the best insulators had limits.

Going down to sit on her knees, Nikola took deep breaths as she fixed the block on her power once more. Passively holding the power back wasn’t something she liked to do due to the mental effort. It tired her too quickly. The more semi-permanent mental blocks were much better in that regard. They took considerable energy to put on and remove but they allowed much more versatility in the time in-between.

Waiting a few more moments, the Hero rose once more to continue. Tesla hadn’t gotten close to breaking the previous time record, stress likely piling up on what her resistance usually was, but a few more attempts would make it possible to go beyond her normal limits. Nikola was sure of it. Moving the block around, the woman was almost ready to try again when a small light on the side panel came on.

Somebody was at the door wanting to come in. It wasn’t a mere attempt to observe her troubles since that could be done without any requests with the help of the observatory above the training facilities. Somebody was trying to get into the quite dangerous position of being close to a Hero trying to max out their lightning output. Nikola wasn’t sure whether to call said person stupid or extremely powerful, not even knowing their name. Pressing the button to let them inside, the door opened up to reveal quite the mask.

It was a Hero that Nikola had very much seen before but couldn’t remember the name of. The golden attire would have left anybody remembering them well, the blonde hair that sat on top helping as well. They were most definitely a Branded Hero, though not one of the ones that had the public’s attention at the moment.

“Hello!” the golden man said with a small wave. “Sorry to intrude on your training.”

“It’s fine,” Nikola assured the Branded Hero, trying her hardest to remember his name. It wasn't working. “I’m Tesla. Your name is…”

“Oh, of course. It’s Arc,” the man responded. Neither tried to shake the other’s hands, though Nikola gained some appreciation at the name. She could finally put power to the face.

“You’re the leading Hero with Elemental Manipulation,” Nikola said with a slight bit of awe in her voice. She was standing in front of the most powerful Lightning-Based Hero in the world. That was not the afternoon plan she had in mind.

“I wouldn’t say that. Volt in Sector 25 has been showing a bit more promise lately,” Arc corrected with a smile. The man had some expectations from the entrance. “But… seeing that display of yours I think there might be some promise here as well.”

“You think so?” Nikola asked, immediately wanting to downplay what she had done but forcing herself to remain calm. She was in the presence of a golden opportunity. She was not going to mess it up. “I am still learning how to do this right.”

Looking at the time, Tesla had another twenty minutes to work with before they would kick her out. She did have plenty of time if she needed to break her record but the conversation was turning out to be longer than she wanted it to be.

“Potential doesn’t care about what you can currently do but instead what you can achieve in the future,” Arc retorted in a grandiose manner only the Branded Heroes could do. Years on the front stage made anybody able to conjure up that energy. Nikola wondered if she could do it as well if she was given some time to prepare. “Yes, you don’t have what it currently takes to stand on equal footing with some of the strongest but that doesn’t mean that you will be doomed to the same fate in three months. I have been looking at your training from up there for a while and I need to say this with a full heart. If you learn to control that temper, you might be able to overshadow whatever I have achieved.”

The finger was still pointed towards the observatory in the corner. Nikola gave it a glance on instinct, noting the still empty chairs behind the fortified glass. Nobody came to watch her most days. Harold did it during the times they’d worked together but that old man was probably still out in his Sector trying to get some of those flesh beasts off his lawn.

“That is a pretty big ‘if,’” Nikola fired back with a modest tone. She had been working on that ‘if’ for over a year now.

“But not too big if you know how to work with it right,” Arc continued for her. “You have quite a few moments in your training where it shows how much you can truly put out yet you always stomp down in those times. Tell me this; when you go through channelling this energy, what do you feel?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

What a weird line of questioning. The off-duty Hero nearly said that out loud yet held her tongue. Nikola was in front of the expert on the subject. Trying to at least gain some kind of wisdom was the smartest thing to do.

“I try to be focused?” Nikola answered timidly, Arc motioning for her to continue her words. “There’s a lot of noise from the lightning and a lot of light so I usually try to ignore it and just make sure I can force out as much as possible. I have to be calm if I want to do that part right and-”

“Pause it right there,” Arc said with that pointy finger pointing right at her. “Why do you need to be calm?”

“What?”

“The emotion that you’re feeling while practising and channelling your energies,” Arc explained as he deepened his question. “You said that you try to keep yourself calm through the entire experience. Might I ask why?”

“Because that’s how you’re meant to do it?” Tesla guessed, once more being motioned to explain herself. “When I was being taught the different ways I could use my power, Lux always taught me how to stay calm when in a fight. It was the ideal mindset with all the adrenaline flowing through during those times.”

The small bits of facial expressions that could be seen through the man’s mask made it clear that wasn’t entirely right to think.

“Ah! You’re one of Lux’s old apprentices. I was wondering why your name sounded so familiar,” Ark said as he sighed for a moment. “But… I think your former mentor might have wronged you during his teaching. His power and your own are fundamentally different. Having a calm mind is good in any situation, yes, but the mindset that allows the optimal flow of power is always different for different people. For people that construct physical objects from their minds, they need to always be focused, calm, and able to see the entire field of the battle.”

Seeing that it was going to be a long explanation, Nikola just stood and nodded along, feeling twenty once again.

“But we, the ones who deal with a more rudimentary chunk of the word, deal with another outlook on our powers,” Arc continued. “We are more emotional. The state of our being changes how our power works because it is much more deeply attached to our emotions. I don’t think I need to spell this out more for you. Trying to keep your emotions away in the heat of battle might be a good strategy but it weakens the output of your powers. It’s why you might have experienced more output in times when you were angry or sad or maybe even happy. I made the air buzz with power back when my wife proposed to me. It’s just a natural part of our lives.”

His words made sense to the woman. Nikola could see it all making a lot of sense. Her ability to shield her mind from external forces, sounds, and emotions had increased about as much as her power had decreased in recent months. Seeing it all put forth in such a way, the woman couldn’t help but worry that she had been getting tunnel vision for so long. Had the truth been so simple all along?

“Is it all emotion or just one that works best?” Nikola asked the Branded Hero, ignoring the smile she was getting in response.

“I think of happy moments throughout my life,” Arc replied. “But, again, it works best to think of it on an individual basis. What emotion can you keep channelling to the extreme for hours in a row?”

Was that even a question? Arc left the room once more, leaving Nikola to begin the powering up of her powers once more. Yet… she didn’t do it like she normally did. That state of mind she had honed, in which she focused on nothing but her thoughts, was thrown away into the mental equivalent of the garbage can. Instead, a new form of channelling had to be made.

And as the floodgates opened up, Nikola deepened herself into the mind palace of her memories. She went back to the sight of Umbra leaving, his mad muttering about civilian trash. She thought back to the moments of shouting between her former co-workers, back to the moments where things out of her hand forced their consequences upon her. Nikola kept it all at the forefront of her mind and made sure that she didn’t forget it for a single instant. Nothing was kept away, nothing was allowed to sit still. Everything was made in its full glory.

That was about the moment that Nikola’s suit caught fire. Truth be told, it took a few seconds to notice the heat. When she finally did, extinguishing was surprisingly hard. Trying to do as much when channelling the tools of gods made it even worse, the woman instinctually redirecting the lightning to the burning part of the suit. That only caused sparks to appear for a few moments until she finally had everything under control, the fire hit a few times with the suit until it finally went out.

“Congratulations, Tesla,” Arc’s voice said through the intercom. “I believe you have just broken… everything.”

Deciding to look around, Nikola was met with a blaze of fire and destruction. The coils meant to absorb every piece of lightning sent outwards were either actively melting, had already melted, or were currently on fire while melting. It was exhilarating. The woman felt alive, felt the energy rushing through her muscles. It didn’t hurt like it usually did, it didn't make her nerves feel all jittery. It just pulsed with her heart in a way it had never done for so many years. Old age wasn’t the thing that had held her back. It was her old mind.

A few of the systems were luckily still working as a gas came to flood a few parts of the room, cooling down the coils while removing the fires. Even when the intercom came in again to make her leave the room, Nikola couldn’t say she felt anything but happy. There were some worries about having accidentally destroyed a part of her workplace but those ideas were overshadowed by the fact she had destroyed a part of her workplace accidentally. That wasn’t something regular Heroes did. That was something the stupidly powerful Heroes did!

Nikola was stupidly powerful!

“I must say,” Arc said as he came down to the entrance once more. “That is a display worthy of acknowledgement.”

“I set my suit on fire,” Tesla pointed out, raising her left arm. A few parts of the suit still had a slight smoking feature to it. Damn, was she happy that they were so well made? She could hardly notice the heat. “I don’t think that’s something to be proud of.”

“Tesla,” Arc said, swiping away such modesty. “You just had an output that rivalled mine ten years into training. When I say you have the potential to beat me with the proper time, I am not lying.”

“That’s… I don’t know what to say,” Nikola said, embarrassment not covering her current emotions. God, she felt like a child being praised again.

“Maybe just put out a general thanks,” Arc suggested, Nikola quick to follow the suggestion and shoot the Branded Hero a nod of thanks. “You already know the basics you can work from but, if you ever need something more, I’m sure I could set up some joint work in Sector 25.”

“That would be lovely,” Nikola said, feeling all the pieces come together. The chance to work in that Sector was something else entirely.

“Good to hear,” Arc said. With a final hand shake, the two parted. “I’d say you should swing by your old mentor and tell him about this. Knowing Lux, I’m sure he’d be happy to hear the news.”

Nikola watched the Branded Hero leave, likely on to finish the business he was meant to get done in the city. The idea of leaving didn't sound too bad, yet… the woman had another goal in mind. Taking the elevator and getting out of the burned suit, Tesla had other plans. She had the power and too long a time had passed.

It was time to get back to the farm that had left her so many issues.