We’d moved into the training room to try this experiment. At my insistence, based on the last time it had happened, we were both down to minimal clothing. Minimal meaning, in my case, fighting shorts and sandals, and in hers, a pair of yoga pants and an old tee shirt. I tried very hard not to notice that she wasn’t wearing a bra, but it wasn’t easy. She was a gorgeous little bundle, and I actually had to admit something.

“You know the real reason I knew that you were the most likely plant?”

“Hmm? She said, sitting down cross-legged in front of me. “Why is that?”

I grinned, “Because you were too perfect.”

“What do you mean?”

“The moment I saw you, you pushed every button I had, including the ones I didn’t know I had. Sexy librarian, short, outspoken, and submissive at the same time… I thought I was a redhead fanatic, but the moment I met you I realized that I liked light brown hair just as much. The perfect amount of freckles… after the life I led, there was no way you could be anything other than the most perfectly baited trap.”

She sighed, “Oh. That’s Matchmaker’s fault.”

“How so?”

“Matchmaker has a very strange gift. She’s halfway between an oracle and a medium, but not like Cassandra or anything. She just has to look at someone to know who their perfect match is. Not like soulmates or anything, from what I understand the whole soulmate myth is based on Norse elf mythology and a whole lot of romantic bard nonsense, but just… perfect, able to lead a happy life, or at least a fulfilled one together. She has been wrong before, but that’s usually because someone has been seriously emotionally damaged.”

She continued, “I thought she was wrong about you, because of the whole Crystal thing and the fact that you were a LOT younger than me, but umm… the jury is still out on that.”

I laughed, “The Jury, huh?”

She nodded, smiling. I liked her teeth too, she had a tiny hint of an overbite, and her front two teeth were the tiniest bit of a buck, just enough to make it look like when she smiled, her teeth smiled too. It was an incredibly cute effect.

Yeah, physically, she was pretty much perfect even before I understood what perfect meant to me. Mentally? Even her occasional overreach into my thoughts didn’t really bother me. “Hey, before we start, want to see what I am thinking of you right now?”

She nodded, and suddenly blushed brightly, “No, they don’t look like that. Are you really trying to turn this into sex?”

I shook my head. “Not right now. I NEED to see if I can control it with laws that are not the same as mine. If clearing your aura absolutely demands sex, that means we will need to find another way, because I’m not having sex with every single alpha I meet, and I am not going to play harem games.”

She nodded, and I asked, “Are you ready for this? Last time it wasn’t pleasant, at first.”

She nodded, “Yes. That’s what I was sent here for, that’s what I agreed to, and unlike phoenix, my powers don’t turn me into a human torch.”

I smiled and held out my hands, and she put hers into mine shyly, almost delicately, curling her fingers around my palms. In a moment, I started gently pushing my energy into her,”

“That’s...warm. That feels kind of nice like you are healing me without the whole bruises thing.”

The energy flowing from me into her was far more gentle than before, but it was ironic that her own body seemed to be greedily gobbling it up. She clearly didn’t use the same type of energy as mine, but it seemed to be very similar, and I could see her core as it started to slowly seep the multicolored energy that was trying to fill her before.

She had a fairly large energy pool. Not quite as big as mine was, but very close, and I was a little surprised to see mine spilling into her pool, slowly displacing the gas in the bottom of the pool as her own energy started to become denser.

“Can you feel that?” I asked quietly. It felt quite good, but not overwhelming. The reality, though, was that my energy was much denser than hers, so even the tiny seepage that was feeding into her was displacing far more of her energy.

“Oh god yes, I can feel it.” she gasped. I didn’t dare open my eyes, but something was telling me that she seemed to be getting a lot more out of this than I was, especially the way her palms were trembling and sweating against my hands.

“It’s… filling me… oh… I think I am going to… It’s too much!” I could see the rainbow-hued chaos essence, oddly beautiful despite its danger, overflowing her lake.

“Okay, information manipulator! Use your mind… see the pool inside of you. It looks like a deep, rich lake, half filled with my energy, can you see it?”

A weak voice answered me, “Yes… I think so. With a glowing center?”

“Great! Great! Now, start breathing with me. Listen to my breaths. Breathe in the good, hold it for a moment, and then breathe out the bad.”

“Yes, yes.” she started timing her breaths with mine, and I could see the wisps of chaotic essence flowing out with each breath. I wasn’t sure about her channels, but Kali might know a lot more about that than me.

“Great, great. Now… I need you to look at that lake, and really feel its power. Can you feel it?”

“Oh, God yes… I am feeling it everywhere!”

I was even more confused, what was she feeling that I wasn’t? Was it a girl thing?

“Okay, start to imagine that pool as more of a whirlpool. Your lake has pebbles, and the water in it is getting cleaned. Keep breathing with me.”

I gave the pool just a delicate nudge to start it moving, gently twirling it like a sink, spreading my own technique across the energy that half-filled it, and then moving it slowly. At first, she gasped, almost in pain, and I realized… oh. Right, and started shifting in the opposite direction, yin and yang. Now it made sense, her pool spun in the opposite direction as mine.

Once I got it started, her own efforts clearly started to tell as well. The mist, including new trails of mist from each breath, swirled around her pool and started to slowly drop into it as the essence started to change. After several minutes, the light pressure of energy I had been feeding into her started to speed up, like the whirlpool that was sucking up and cleaning her energy was sucking mine as well.

“Okay, Abigail! You need to stop that for now… I need you to return some energy to me. Can you do that? Feel the pool near yours, the globe of water… you need to extend your energy out from it and start giving it back to me.”

Almost tentatively, a small tendril of energy reached out towards my pool, and then fell short, returning to hers. “I can feel it, but… I can’t reach it! It’s too far away!”

I wondered if she was rapidly condensing her energy, using mine as the fuel, was she just not strong enough? Or was I doing something wrong?

Wait, too far… maybe she was too far physically away! I mean, it was our internal energy, maybe… I quickly kneeled, keeping a close eye on the energy slowly draining from my pool, and then sort of wrapped my arms around her, bearing her backward until she was on her side and we were pressed closely together.

With a happy cry, her tendril reached out and managed to meet my pool, and in moments, I could feel her energy feeding delicately back into my own. Oh crap. I suddenly understood exactly why she was breathless and almost moaning.

***

I was kissing Abbey. Man, she was a really good kisser, just the right amount of teasing and inviting tongue, very welcoming… both our pools felt completely full, as we swirled our energies, like a figure eight or Mobius strip that seemed to return more energy each time we passed it back and forth. Unlike last time, there were not any cracks in our soul spaces, no scarring, just a gentle stretching that expanded both of our spaces even more than before as the last of the rainbow mist disappeared with her deep breaths against my mouth. Heh. We were breathing the same air.

I finally broke my kiss with her, and realizing where my hand was resting, totally by accident, I slowly slid it out of her shirt. As I sort half half-rolled away from her, I opened my eyes as our energy pools separated.

She was lying on her back, breathing deeply, her eyes closed, and she was smiling, really broadly, like a loon. After a moment, her eyes opened and she pouted for a moment, “You stopped. You didn’t have to stop.”

I looked at her, and then wiggled my offending hand, “Sorry, I got a little carried away.”

She shook her head, beaming, “That’s why I said you didn’t have to stop.”

I chuckled, “If we had kept going, you would not be a good little catholic girl anymore.”

She shrugged, and started to sit up, “I am not Catholic. That’s just what I tell people. Our parents were Episcopalians, but we… don’t go to that church anymore. I won’t set foot in it. By the way, was that what sex feels like?”

I shook my head, “No, sex is a lot more immediate. It feels really good too, and I can sort of understand why Dual cultivation is considered sexual. Imagine both things, at the same time, only both spiritual and physical. I could see it being addictive. But I thought you just said you weren’t catholic. Not a good little catholic girl?”

She laughed and scooted over to wrap her arm around me. After a moment I returned the embrace and realized it just felt good to hold her. I guess she was a cuddler. Christine was definitely NOT a cuddler, and when she was done with sex she was DONE. She always wanted to talk, not cuddle, and I preferred to quietly bask in the company afterward, although it never lasted. Usually, sex was what happened a few minutes before an argument started about whatever it was she wanted, like she’d just paid for it and now it was time to collect, even if that collection was just to yell at me for a while as I pretended to ignore her.

Transactional. That’s what it felt like. I ruthlessly forced the thoughts down, I was NOT going to compare Abbey to Christine, especially since I was pretty sure Abbey was better in every way. I even admitted that despite her shorter height, her breasts were quite a bit more firm a handful, something I had just discovered recently. Nope, not going to compare, especially since we hadn’t actually had sex.

Her hair was even softer and less stringy, more… nope. Stop it.

She started talking quietly, which I appreciated. It was fun just to sit and hold her, but a little talking wasn’t bad. “Do you know anything about twins?”

I nodded, “I know how they are made. You know, when a couple loves each other very much…”

She giggled, “No, I meant how they interact.” God, just the fact that she seemed HAPPY right now was addictive, I sniffed her hair and it smelled amazing, like rain and lilacs, or something. Maybe that’s what her shampoo was called, lilacs in the rain or something.

“When identical twins grow up together, usually one is more… I don’t want to say pushy, but one of them tends to be the one that urges the things that they do together. One of them tends to take the lead, get noticed more, and also start more trouble. That was Ariel. When we finally got old enough to start noticing boys, she was the one that was always in the lead, the one that got noticed first.”

“That’s odd because the two of you really don’t look much alike, aside from your height.”

She shook her head, “I am surprised. You have holographic identity modification in your own suit, and you can’t recognize hers? Then again, she IS a cyberkinetic, her holograms are as close to flawless as it’s possible to get.”

I chuckled, “Okay, well, even an amazing class six threat level alpha can be fooled. She was cute, but that was a very good hologram. Skin tone, nose, cheekbones, jawline, subtle differences, but they combined to make her look very different. More French, less Irish.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

She shrugged, which did amazing things to the parts of her that were pressing against the side of my chest. Nope, stop thinking or this girl would be under me in a heartbeat. “She decided to try to look like her own person when we were late teenagers. Our family was very devout. But uhh… the Pastor, a woman, was very friendly. Very friendly. More friendly than a pastor should be. I tended to get stuck with the bad stuff when something happened because I didn’t avoid it as much as she did.”

“The pastor wound up getting way, way too friendly, way too often. Not all awakenings are super violent. I just started getting images of what she had done to other little girls, and when she cornered Ariel too, she found out that she could find pictures of what the Pastor had done, her and other girls, on the Pastor’s personal assistant's computer. We finally realized what was happening, we were only eleven, and those pictures wound up where they would do the most good, a police website. Our family stopped going to that church.”

“Do you really want to talk about this now? Was she prosecuted?”

Abbey shook her head, “Yes, I trust you, and no, not then. The pictures were pretty rough, but she was able to explain them away as innocent things like she was helping one girl get ready for baptism, and the other one change for Girl Scouts. If it had been a male priest, with little boys OR little girls, they would have thrown the book at him but a female pastor? It was just girls being girls.”

She huddled a little closer wrapped both of her arms around my lower chest and leaned her face against my bare pectoral. I was still enjoying the contact, but the subject had definitely changed and I was getting better control of myself. “It wasn’t until three years later that I learned how to transfer images. By then, she had moved to old Brooklyn, but when I figured it out, I made sure that all sorts of pictures of what she remembered doing to little girls and forcing them to do to her, got leaked out. Not even the police could ignore that, female pastor or not.”

“That’s rough,” I said sympathetically, starting to rub her back through the tee shirt.

She nodded against the skin of my chest, “Yeah, but umm… when we met a boy, it was always Ariel that took things farther. I tended to back off, but every once in a while she would have me fill in on a date for her. It turns out, she was being very active with a boy when we were about your age and didn’t want to back out on a date, even though she had something more important to be doing. I found out WHY she backed out on the date, because he was… aggressive, and expected me to put out the way she had before, but I barely knew the guy. We both decided to become our own people for a while, and she dyed her hair pink and got piercings, and I grew my hair long, started wearing glasses, and went away to get a job in Moxland, a cover career for selling information to the police.”

She shrugged again, “So basically when I had time for a social life, it was her life, and when I was finally on my own, I never had time anymore. Plus I am shy, even though I can act like Ariel occasionally. I preferred to just sit in my hole and make money because when you can look at what bad things are in someone’s head that they remember seeing, it usually kills any interest in finding out any more about them.”

I snorted, “The telepath’s dilemma.”

“Yes, it really was, even if I am not technically a telepath. You have bad things too, but mostly they were things you had to deal with, not things you did. The only really bad things you did were to that boy in the tenth grade… after you broke his nose, you should have stopped hitting him.”

I growled a little, which oddly made her seem to cuddle closer. “That BOY was Billy. He tormented and bullied me for half my life. In the third grade, he doused me with gasoline and threw lit matches at me, and in the seventh grade he tried to rape me!”

“Yeah, he was a violent jerk, and he was in love with you and didn’t know how to deal with it. His family was horrible, you know that. His uncle raped him for half his life.”

I sighed deeply. “Yeah, but I was messed up. It was either that or kill him. He was the whole reason I got into martial arts, to protect myself, and then started lifting, to get so big and scary that no one would mess with me anymore. I kinda wish I was scrawny when I met Christine, she would have ignored me instead of jumping me in the back of her dad’s truck. That would have saved so much stupidity.”

She nodded, “Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have met you, and you wouldn’t be who you are today, and despite how much you try and punish yourself, you know you aren’t a bad guy, and except for a few edges you need to file off, I very much like who you are now.”

I smiled and leaned over to nibble at her hair. “Okay, well, so are you going to continue acting like a good catholic girl?”

“Yep.”

I was almost regretting asking now, “Why?”

She giggled again, “Because it keeps you interested. And if you are going to be doing this with other girls, I am going to NEED to keep you interested. Besides, I still consider myself a good girl and a Christian, even if I never want to come within fifty feet of an Episcopalian again. Maybe I should encourage you to put a ring on it. Around my finger, or maybe my neck.”

I was instantly VERY aware of her proximity, and my body was letting me know it was time to leave or go farther. Dammit. She clearly noticed the sudden pressure, giggled, and rolled away from me, “I KNEW IT!”

I grumbled and curled up a little. “Knew what?”

“That’s what it is! That’s what you are interested in. That’s fine, I am too, but I bet that’s why Matchmaker stuck us together. You like the idea of a girl wriggling around helplessly, maybe even bound up or something. I think that sounds like fun too, eventually… that’s her trick! It makes more sense now.”

I growled again, her words weren’t helping things. “Fine. Do you want to take it up a notch? You got me. Now I am asking.”

“Asking what? To sleep with me?”

I shook my head, “No. You said all I had to do was ask. Although if you are really that subby maybe I should just order you instead.”

She beamed as she realized what I was asking, and after a moment, I got a good eyeful. Yep. Perfect. It's easy to criticize imperfections when you are seeing them in two dimensions, but the real thing is almost always perfect. But the moment was way too short as she dashed to the door. “I need to go byeee!”

It took me a few minutes before I was ready to leave. Damned tease.

***

“Whew, did someone break rule one?” Candace asked, she seemed to be making a sandwich at the kitchenette when I stalked from the training room towards my room to get cleaned up and dressed.

“No,” I growled at her.

Candace laughed, “Oh my. Does it hurt, big boy? You know I would be more than happy to nurse you back to health. Want a sandwich?”

I nodded and decided to flop on the couch for a few minutes first. I wasn’t particularly stinky, and I was a little underdressed, but this was my home right now, and if you can’t walk around your own home shirtless then is it a home? “Yes, please. I am a little hungry. I didn’t break rule one, but that minx damned sure bent the hell out of it. I think I need to come up with a new set of rules, though. Why aren’t you jealous? I thought you had a crush on me.”

Candace laughed again, “Oh, I do, but I crush on a lot of guys. Usually, a round or two in the sack clears that right up… it’s hard to maintain a fascination with your mental image of someone after he’s drooled on your chest or snorted like a pig while he comes. Not that I don’t enjoy it, but I have always been less about mister right and more about mister right now.”

“Did you enjoy Titan, or Trojan, or whatever his name was?”

She snorted, “Magnum? He was fun, for a short time. Proportional, if you know what I mean.”

I groaned, “I didn’t need to know that.”

She chuckled and started cutting the sandwiches in half. “Oh, you probably don’t have anything to worry about. You are proportional too, although I haven’t seen it at full mast yet. But you wanna know a secret?”

“What’s that? And is it really a secret?”

She stepped over and put a nice big sandwich, packed with corned beef, chicken, Bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, and someone must have clued her into my secret vice, horseradish, all wrapped in a big rye ciabatta roll on a paper towel on my knee. “Not really.”

“While size does matter, a little, everything else tends to matter a lot more. A guy that you are attracted to, who spends a few hours making you feel good, is a thousand times better than one who can use his junk as a stepladder but is done and gone before you get close. Remember this tip, grasshopper, and you will make a woman very happy someday.”

I snorted, “So he was wham bam thank you, ma’am?”

She shook her head, “No, I went off like a fire hydrant, but I am easy and it's been a long time. It was fast, but muscles, a good chin, and a monster sausage would set me off even in an elevator quickie, which it was. Then again, he’s got the whole team Flare to bat for, so you can’t really blame him for running out of time. I think he was also a little intimidated and wanted to get away from the wall ASAP.”

“Wait, you jumped him at the wall? I mean, literally, while we were in the middle of a fight for our lives?”

She shook her head, “No, afterward, in the back of a police APC. Where there’s a will there’s a way, honey. But like I said, I think he was intimidated after you and Kali Vivisected Orcules in seconds. He took one look at me, realized I was on your team and was more than happy to piss on your fire hydrant. All things considered, the whole fight got me going, so I was happy to let him assert his dominance for… twelve minutes.”

She laughed at my expression, “Now I'm starting to think YOU are jealous! And right after Not-banging little Abbey’s brains out.”

I shook my head, “Not jealous. I want you to be happy in whatever way you need, but I think I do fault your taste a little. That seems so… petty.” I took a big bite of the sandwich. “Oh God. Maybe I can’t fault your taste. This is amazing.”

She smiled, “Mama always told me that the way to a man’s heart was a bit lower than his stomach, but a full stomach certainly helps clear the way. That doesn't mean you get to tell me to go make you a sandwich, though, or I'll kick your ass. And yeah, it was a little petty, but I was feeling a little petty too. I kind of thought I had a lock on the tall, dark, and gorgeous thing, but… Kali sewed it up. Did you see that underboob?”

I nodded, taking another bite and chewing before answering, “Not much else I could see when she's that big. It was like a full moonrise, you just can’t tear your eyes away when it fills the entire sky. At least, when I wasn't digging my way through a mountain of bad meat.”

She nodded slowly, “I am not usually into the girl-girl thing, but damned if I didn’t want to pretend I was a baby for a minute. She’s gorgeous. Are you thinking about hitting it?”

I shook my head, “No. Not even remotely. I mean, sure, I fantasize about abusing a nice pair like any other guy, but if I do throw away rule one, it will be for Abbey, and let’s be honest, aside from the sheer climbing Mount Kali aspect, Abigail actually has her beat.”

Candace nodded and then smiled. “Seriously, though. Your choice isn’t wrong. Abbey’s probably the best of us. Even little Jade Beauty Akyo looks at you more like a prize to be won than a future. Don’t get me wrong, if you picked her, she’d do what it took to be worthy, but that’s how she looks at it… being worthy. It’s kind of a weird attitude.”

I smiled a little, “You’re next.”

She looked so shocked that she almost lost her sandwich, “What?”

I smiled evilly, “You are next. I could totally see myself falling for Abbey, but what we did wasn’t sex. It was a very… intimate power-strengthening exercise, sort of like what happened with Frost Phoenix, but with less burning and blood and pain. She helped me figure out a lot about how to do it consistently.”

“So what is it?”

“Akyo called it a variation of Dual Cultivation. It’s considerably weaker than, you know, building up your power by banging, which is actually a thing, and it limits your power pool, but it also strengthens it at the same time and allows a higher throughput. It also unlocks considerably higher potential power levels, like using a diesel power washer with a tank instead of a garden hose. From what I understand, it also has a lot of other potentially valuable side effects, like increasing your potential physical abilities, but it does take a bit of a toll at first.”

She took a big bite of her sandwich and thought about it for a second, chewing, before swallowing. “If banging built up your power, I’d be a tier eight by now. Not that I have had that much variety, Magnum was a special case because he was my first alpha. Usually, I find a boyfriend and stick with him until he gets tired of me and ditches me for someone a little less demanding and less able to tie him into a pretzel if he gets too rough, but Magnum didn't increase my power.”

“But yeah, I have sort of hit a plateau. Obviously, physical alphas slowly get tougher as they survive aging, and I can still come up with a few new air tricks, but they are just tricks and gimmicks. My ability to control air or even increase my flight speed hasn’t improved one bit for the last two years. If dueling with you can help me break that limit, I am all for it. How intimate are we talking?”

I sighed, “Very intimate. It didn’t work with Abbey OR Frost Phoenix until we were practically wrapped around each other. I can see why it’s usually associated with sex since that would make it a lot easier, but I am not going to go there.”

She smiled evilly, “Okay, so a makeout session that doesn’t end in intercourse but can include almost anything else, and it will increase my superpowers. You know I am so totally there. Now? Or would you rather check out the durability of my dorsal plates first?”

I shook my head and polished off my sandwich. “Not right this minute, I am sort of tapped, but soon. I want my team to survive no matter what, and this should help. If it makes you feel any better, I do NOT remember what your dorsal plates felt like.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I started thinking about that. I was in a fugue, but I had nearly perfect recall… Rewind was not easy, but it shouldn’t be any harder than blueprinting. Dammit! I’d been played! “You guys. Seriously? You decided to fuck with me when you thought I wouldn’t remember? I honestly believed I made a pass at Subvector. However, I am sorry about the dorsal plates thing. And yes, you have very nice breasts.”

Akyo chose that minute to walk through the door and into the sitting room, dropping her Hello Kitty book bag by the door. She glanced at the two of us for a moment, and then asked, “Did it work? Are you going to start a sect?” obviously having heard the tail end of the conversation.

I groaned and facepalmed, “Why does it always have to come down to sects?” Unfortunately, I don’t think either of them caught the pun.