“You sure you’re only fifteen?” he asked in exasperation.
“Yes. I just go through life thinking fifteen to twenty times faster than a normal person. So, mentally I get like two years older every month. Oh, and I don’t sleep much, either.” He could find out about the multiple thoughtstreams if he read The Core Disciplines.
He slowly got back to his feet. “A mystical source of power sought after by generations of martial artists... is a jelly donut in my gut.” He shook his head, unseeing eyes turned down. “Stick is going to be so angry with me for not taking the long, hard way.”
“He sounds like an angry old fart.”
Murdock smirked. “He is!”
“Well, just tell him how much this godsdamned hurt, and maybe he’ll be happy.” I held up a finger again, this time sparking. He didn’t swallow, but he did grit his teeth. “The reason this will hurt is because you have to force the Core you already have, the one that is sustaining that radar sense of yours, out into a different channel, breaking it open and free of its confines so you can grow and use it. Incidentally, this will depower your radar sense until you gain enough power to keep both effects active at the same time, and it may depower your other enhanced senses. I suggest using your ki to restore some of their acuity via other methods.”
I put my finger on his chest, and he hissed at the spark of it, which pulsed through his meridians. I rapidly harmonized to his Kirlian Aura, moving my finger. “There. You see it?”
“I do...” He was astonished. It wasn’t in the same place as his Ki Pool, although naturally they were both inside him, but they existed at different levels. Naturally there was overlap between them, and connections, tenuous but there... and which could be built on.
“Not a large Core. Forty, maybe fifty?” I hazarded, letting the pulses go through him as he felt the ball of psionic energy, whose main meridians were full and strong as they arched up towards his head. “Monofocus helps, of course. Okay, what we are going to do is open up a new meridian here.” I touched a blocked channel, and moved my finger up along it, pulsing along it so he could see the entire thing as I went up to his shoulder and down his left arm, ending at the chakra point on his palm. “You need to force all the energy in your Core up that meridian and down into your left arm. It will feel like you are popping the world’s worst and deepest zit as you do, but if you don’t do it this time, it’ll be twice as hard if you ever go back to try it again.”
He took a deep breath as I traced the path backwards along the meridian, pulsing and showing the way. I ended up on the edge of his Core, waiting. “You ready?” I asked calmly, putting my other hand on his chest. “You won’t fall down, I have you.”
His muscles went all rigid, and then abruptly relaxed as he turned his head up, and something throbbed in his Ki Pool as he let all the tension drain out of him. “I’m ready,” he whispered.
I popped the edge of his Core, opening up the meridian, and watched as a flow of energy from his Ki Pool swirled up into it, gentle as water, and began to flow along it. His Core sparked and drained right after it, drawn in its wake like a localized flood down a drain.
His breath caught despite himself as his Core smashed into the walls of his meridians and enlarged them, reinforced them with its own power, but his ki flowed through and around any real obstructions, pushing them away so the psionic power didn’t have to eat at them or grind them down, and could just use them to reinforce the meridian walls directly.
“Very, very nice! Splendid instinctive technique, Mr. Murdock. Keep right at that.” His legs were already limp, I was holding him upright with my palm on his breastbone, but the Awakening proceeded smoothly and calmly, coming down into his palm and easing the Chakra point wide open for the flood of Core energy to surge forth and materialize in a squirt of white-hot pain.
He gasped as his hand clasped, and something silver hummed in his grasp.
He slowly lifted up his hand, turning his head to stare with blank eyes at what was gripped there. “I can see it,” he whispered, the three-foot-long silver bar humming in his fist. His other hand came up slowly to grasp the wrist holding him up as he found his feet, and he followed my arm back to my shoulder. “You’re right, all my expanded senses are down to human levels. I can barely smell you, and I can’t hear your heart...”
“Move your ki up along the meridians to your head your Core was using.” He frowned, and his Pool swirled and flowed through his body, back to his Core, and then up along the strong, rigid channels to his skull.
He gasped slightly as the foundational power settled in. “It... is not the same. It is not as strong, and it’s... different.” His fingers came over, settled on my face. “I can feel... vibrations? And picture them accurately. There’s a sense of electricity from your nervous system...” he looked up at the light bulb overhead, “and from the wiring, a whisper of air pressure and a sense of proximity...”
“Can you feel this?” I asked calmly, ignoring his hand on my face, and I lifted my foot and put it down again.
His head turned sharply. “Do that again.”
I obligingly took a step sideways, then back, carrying him with me as his bare feet traced the ground.
“Yes...” he said after a moment. “I can feel where your feet are against the ground, the vibration of your blood and muscles on the cement.”
“Can you see this?” I flicked up a card and tossed it into the air. His head turned, and he made sort of a grab at its general area, but it fell to the ground without being touched. I let him go, and he slowly bent down to pick it up accurately.
He stared at it blankly, running his hands over it. “I can’t tell what it is,” he admitted after a moment.
“A three of diamonds,” I informed him calmly. “Your ki is not as strong as your Core, but it’s operating along more traditional avenues.
“This ability,” I stepped away and around him, and he turned to face me, pointing at my feet accurately as he did so, “is called tremblesense. It allows you to feel the vibrations and their flow within solid objects close by. Finely-tuned, you can see the insides of objects as easily as their outsides. Among other things, it makes you a natural medic and lockpicker.”
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Despite himself, he smiled slightly. “It doesn’t seem to have much range,” he murmured, and I obligingly stepped back in a zigzag pattern until he couldn’t point at my feet.
“Looks like about ten feet,” I told him. “You can easily get it up to thirty or more with practice.” I brought up some crackling arcs on my fingers, and his head came around. He pointed unerringly at them. “Electrosense, also called lateral line sensing. Most frequently used by electric eels and sharks, the former to navigate in the swampy waters of the Amazon, the latter to find food where there is no light. The range on this will be highly variable, but you’re going to want to be able to sense human Kirlian Auras within weapon range, if nothing else. You’ll also be able to trace any electrical flows not perfectly insulated, which should prove useful in numerous ways.”
“Lose some senses, gain some others,” he murmured. “And this... sense of proximity?” he asked. “I can sort of feel you close by, but it’s not very accurate.”
“Blindsense. It’s mainly used for navigation and sensing where things are, if not defining their shapes. It can be both extended in range and finely-tuned into blindsight, which is basically what your radar-sense was, but passive as opposed to active.
“Blindsense and blindsight are the skills most blind-fighters develop to get around.”
He nodded slowly, then looked at the silver stick in his hand. He snap-hurled it away, and it bounced off the wall to the side, hit the floor, and spun right back to his hand, where he caught it unerringly. “Seems a bit showy,” he murmured, but could not resist a smile.
“With some concentration and practice, you can tamp down the hum and make it more metallic, less glowy. There are a lot of things you can add to a mindblade, or mindbar as this case may be, but that’s a longer discussion.”
“And to really develop all this, I should go to the Tribes...”
“They’re the masters of mind blades and open hand. Specifically, you should try to get an audience with Master Logan at the Academy of the Braves. He’s one of the finest open-hand combatants in the world, and has natural senses which rival your own. I imagine he’ll take a shine to you, if you show him respect.”
“THE Master Logan?” he gasped despite himself. “Do you know how much blood is on his hands?” he protested.
“I know he’s been the headmaster of the Academy of the Braves for the whole of the twentieth century, he’s revered in the Tribes as a great master and teacher and a hero to all of the Tribes... and they aren’t the kind of people who appoint butchers, murderers, and red-handed savages to important positions, whereas Murica is very, very happy to lambast slime on people and restate history to suit its purposes.”
He fell silent, considering that, and looking at the mindbar in his hand, much more dangerous than any simple length of steel... and he could see it clearly. “So, you are saying I should meet him and judge him for myself.”
“I think that you are a much better judge of character than Murican media is.” I gestured at him, and Prestidigitated away his sweat again.
“That... is probably true,” he sighed despite himself. “And I should do this as soon as possible?”
“You need to start the Virtuous Cycle as soon as possible. You’re part way into it, but the time you spend training will come back to you many times over,” I assured him.
“The Virtuous Cycle?” he asked, tilting his head, and moving back towards his suit. He let his mindbar go, brought it back out, and repeated the process a couple more times before keeping it gone.
“This is a realm of magic and power, Mr. Murdock. Your own radar sense is enough to tell you that strange and wonderful things are possible here. One of those things is how being heroic... or villainous, if you prefer, feeds into the cycle of life.
“Being a hero earns you Karma, the goodwill of the universe. You can use that Karma to enhance your ability to be a hero, which helps you earn more Karma faster, which you can use ad infinitum.
“But, you can also use that Karma for other things... like, say, becoming a better lawyer, and more adept politician.
“If you want an example, Reed Richard’s heroics as a member of the Fantastic Four are the biggest drive raising his scientific ability. He’s a natural genius, but his growth and ability in science are, amusingly enough, powered by his heroic deeds.
“You probably don’t realize it, but your own legal skills have increased markedly since you began your career, and not just because of your ability to read your courtroom foes.
“Become one of the most skilled heroes in the city or country, and you can also become one of the most terrifying legal or political opponents.
“If you want another example, Wilson Fisk’s brutal rise to the top of the criminal world in this city was built on his personal combat prowess, and he used it to expand his managerial skills and political connections thereby.
“Be a mighty hero, be a devastating lawyer. And once you have that ability... Mr. Murdock, that’s the long-term goal. Change the city, change the country. Slugging muggers in alleys and crazy people in colorful longjohns won’t do the job. You want to make this city a beacon of prosperity, a safer place, you need money, contacts, connections, drive, and influence, and you need to know the system, break it where it needs to be broken, and build it back up.
“You need to beat Fisk and the Maggia and the other players at their own games, and you’re not going to be able to do that from a practical standpoint without first having almost mythical skills at influencing people, and secondly being able to survive the crap they throw at you.”
He stood there, considering that, considering me. “A mythically skilled lawyer?” he had to say.
“Lawyers are politicians who wield the rules. Think about how many countless politicians there have been through the ages... and yet, how the names of so few of them truly survive, and most of those... were warrior-kings.” Despite himself, he blinked at nothing in shock. “Be a king, and make New York City your kingdom, Mr. Murdock. Daredevil will raise you up, but he can’t sit on the seat and make real change.
“Wilson Fisk calls himself a Kingpin, but his throne is built on lies, dirty money, and corruption. He’s nothing. Take command of this city, clean it up from within, and grind him and the others like him down.
“Complete the Virtuous Cycle, and let your kingship drive your heroism!”
He stared at me with unseeing eyes, and I stared back.
“Oh, and don’t put on your shoes yet.” His expression changed once again, and he was about to ask why. “I’m not going to be Opening your Soul Chakra points on your hands and feet through them...”
--------
“Miss Page, Mr. Nelson,” I said, sitting down across from the two of them, who were a bit confused. Happily, a spot of voltage between the eyes tamped down any sense of superiority from them.
“Mr. Murdock has a Core, small but real.” I waited as they stared at me blankly. “It means he has the potential to be a Psion, and potentially regain his sight, in one form or another.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” exclaimed Karen Page, putting her hands together, and Foggy looked both amazed and delighted for his friend.
I nodded at them. “He’s going to be taking a sabbatical to the Tribal lands to learn how to tap his Core. It will probably take six months or so, and he will come back a different person.”
“Six months!” Foggy blurted out at my words, glancing around. “I-I’m not sure I can keep the firm afloat for six months by myself!” he admitted.
I pulled out an envelope. “I have a solution to that, Mr. Nelson. It turns out that Reed Richards has been looking for a new legal firm. He understands that it might take some time to fully tool yourself up to be ready for proper service for his needs... and those who might follow him. He is willing to make an investment in your firm for that to happen, contingent on my helping with your new hires.”
“Our... new hires?” Foggy asked, reaching out and taking the envelope I handed to him. He opened it up slowly, and took out the check within.
He stared at the number, blinked a couple times, and then stared at it again.
“Your beginning monthly retainer fee. It will naturally go up as your office expands.”
Foggy Nelson swallowed as he stared at the middle six digits. Then he looked at the paper I set down before him.
The contract already had Matt’s signature on it, and Dr. Richard’s.
Slowly, a big wide smile started to crawl across his face, and his hand started shaking in excitement. He turned to look at Karen, who saw the numbers on the check, and was stopping herself from jumping out of her chair in excitement.
The two of them looked back, and I was already gone. Their surprise was complete, but it only lasted a moment or two before the whoops of joy rose behind me.