“What is it that you are referring to?”
I barely touched it. How did it break?!
“You have been growing stronger at an alarming rate. It is only sensible for you to have a mishap.”
When is it going to end?! How am I supposed to recalibrate myself if it is in a constant state of flux?! How is it I am gradually going through this? Wouldn’t it make more sense to all happen at once?
“There is no true precedent for what you are experiencing, therefore I must apologize for my lack of assistance.”
I know it is not your fault, I am just finding it hard to be so uncomfortable in my own skin. I am positive I have never been this disoriented.
“Perhaps your plans to exercise will be the perfect medicine. Nothing could be a better balm than something that makes you extremely happy and is part of your normal routine.”
I could not agree more. I am so ready to work up a sweat I can barely contain myself.
Awkwardly leaving the handle near where it had broken, Anaar finished getting ready for his workout. He understood that his push for normalcy was much more a desperate attempt to push his gnawing feelings about Yefferson to the corners of his mind, but nothing he was doing was providing him much relief. As he exited his room, he paused at the door, making sure to take special care opening it, and also allowing it to close on its own.
Outside, he took a deep breath of the morning air, finding it refreshing, yet also a barrage of scents he could recognize immediately, and a comparable amount that left him flabbergasted. Though he had never been very fond of running, he thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to get in a heavy cardio session before he started weight training.
He could have easily portaled there, but it provided him with no physical exertion, and what faculty it did tax, he had noticed changes since his ordeal. Normally for him, opening a portal was never taxing. Even opening many in succession caused him practically no discomfort. He recognized it as something that should present difficulties, but he was in a condition that would not cause him any trouble. As it stood now, opening portals was no different for him than breathing. Where it had once been an easily manageable exertion, he now could not feel anything when he was doing it.
Starting with some light stretching, he made a plan to start at a sprint to get his heart rate up, and once he began to feel the strain, he would lower his speed to a jog. As he took off, he felt something buckle below him, and his body shot off like a rocket. He was positive he was not using what Yatik had termed Slip Stream, but the rate of acceleration was easily comparable.
Though he was initially concerned with the level of speed in which he was moving, his focus had shifted to the state of his breathing and his body. He had expected to be tired, his muscles burning with lactic acid and his breathing belabored. Instead, his heart rate had seemingly not increased much, and looking at his overlay, he had been sprinting at top speed for two minutes without even the thought of becoming winded.
He was so consumed with what his body was doing, he failed to realize he had reached the Gymnasium, meaning he had crossed almost four miles on foot in barely two minutes. Taking a moment to evaluate what had just occurred, he could confirm again he had not actively used anything relating to his abilities. Confused, he continued to ponder as he entered the building in a daze.
In the weight room he continued to have his mind boggled as he knew he had grown physically stronger, but having a clear test of just how much left him speechless. He picked up the heaviest plates that were available, but in expecting to heave as he lifted them, instead he almost threw one into the ceiling it felt so light. He loaded the bar with as many plates as it could handle before reaching its limit and then laid back on the bench ready to press.
He was sure the amount of weight on the bar would give even Phavian some trouble without his Adrenal Trance, yet for him, he may as well have been picking up a balloon. Becoming increasingly more fascinated yet also disturbed, he tried something jokingly, but was surprised at the result. He stood up and attempted to lift the bar with just the tip of his pinky, much to his surprise it still felt no heavier.
As he collapsed onto the floor, the gravity of what he was experiencing sinking in, his mind was racing in an attempt so discover a way to salvage his workout. Pryshka had the most exciting and creative routines he had ever encountered. Though they had come together to work out when their schedules happened to align, he had never set up a session. Not sure if he would get a response, he sent a message before he stood back up to rack the numerous weights he had used.
Finding himself pacing around, more sensations threatening to overwhelm him, he felt a particularly familiar presence and made his way towards it to meet them. His Affinity Detection had also seen an astronomical spike in potency, the distance in which he passively felt others being great enough to easily cover the entire area of the Infernal Twins. To his surprise, even though it was an exponential increase, he inherently did a good job of tuning it out unless something that was familiar caught his attention.
Walking around the corner, he found Pryshka walking out of the locker room. She jumped back slightly as the large man to her eyes seemingly appeared out of thin air.
“Oh hey! I was just about to send you a message to find out where you were. Seems there is no need now.” She suddenly gets a suspicious look as she scans him. “How exactly did you know I was here and exactly where to find me?”
Anaar’s eyes go wide as he scratches his cheek and gives an awkward laugh. “Intuition I guess?”
It was clear Pryshka would have believed the moon was crashing into the planet before she believed Anaar’s excuse. Cutting through the uncomfortable silence, Pryshka reminds Anaar of their purpose.
“I am quite shocked, but happy you called. It was as if you could hear me going through another futile attempt at getting Codi to come to the gym with me. I try to tell her she will benefit from good conditioning, but she is staunchly opposed. Nice to know there is someone willing to take me up on my offer.”
Nodding his head, “Well I am happy to oblige. I was looking for a challenge, and that seems to be your specialty.”
“Let’s get to it then!”
Together they moved to the top floor where Pryshka informed him that she wanted to work on her movement skills, starting with long jumps, as she found traversing the City zone via rooftop was much more efficient and led to less ambushes. Though Anaar did not have his portals during his last Melee, he was quite certain he could not relate to her fervor, but he did recognize the sound logic in it. Watching as she performed several jumps in sequence, gradually increasing her form by increments, she finally stopped with a huff and moved to ask his opinion on how she did.
“Do you think that will be enough to clear most of the closer buildings? Going up and down frequently is so tedious.”
Not sure what to say since he was still trying to find the value in it, he simply gave her a weak thumbs up in response. Unexpectedly she found this to be enough affirmation and smiled at her victory. Leaning down to him, she jabbed her finger toward his face.
“Your turn!”
Anaar had something else much different in mind when he had called Pryshka, but they had only just begun, which prompted him to comply in hopes she brought out something much more difficult later. Standing from the floor, he moved to emulate her course. He broke into a quick sprint, his legs tensing to leap. What happened next took everyone on the floor by surprise.
The was an audible cracking noise that rippled from beneath his feet just before he went airborne. Instead of the five or so meters Pryshka had been consistently clearing, he went soaring at a blinding speed toward the ceiling. If not for how incredibly high the top floor’s ceiling was, he might not have been able to react in time. It became extremely obvious if allowed to continue, he would barrel through the ceiling and likely continue far into the distance outside. He pushed back on himself with a mighty gust of concentrated wind which was barely
enough to prevent him from ejecting himself from the building.
As he hung from the rafter, he contemplated dropping from where he was, but with the spectacle he had caused, there would undesirable questions as to how he managed to fall from such a height unscathed. Working his way along the rafters to the wall, he was able to slide down without it appearing too questionable. Pryshka had been following him as he shimmied his way down, and met him with understandable confusion once he was firmly on the ground.
“Want to explain what that was?”
Anaar sighs heavily as he averts his gaze from hers. “I’m broken.”
Somehow even more surprised than she already was, Pryshka slightly recoils as she gasps sharply. “Broken?! What do you mean broken?! You don’t get to break! It is not what you do!”
“Yeah well this is the new me.”
“Let’s say I believe this farce. How exactly are you broken?”
“The short story is my powers have advanced suddenly and I don’t know how to control them.”
“So you become more powerful and transform into a human rocket?! How was something like that even possible?! It looked like you were going to shoot clean through the roof!”
Anaar drops his head dejectedly as he is reminded of the incident. “That is because I almost did. Luckily, I was able to take countermeasures.”
Pryshka could not believe what she was witnessing. She knew that Anaar was human like the rest of them, but never had she encountered anything close to failure from him. When she thought about it more deeply, she realized that it was perhaps not a failure at all considering he grossly exceeded any expectations. Forcing herself to shelve the issue for now, she worked to come up with activities that would not endanger Anaar and the campus.
Once Pryshka realized no matter what they did, Anaar barely participated due to his fear of causing yet another scene, she decided she would end their session and finish up some cardio on her own. Anaar recognized the girl’s clearly disturbed departure, but he could not come up with a solution for it at the current time, so he left it alone. With his attempt at something routine ending abysmally, he decided to go the opposite direction with his efforts. He headed to Demolitionist’s Destination. It was time for him to explore.
Being capable of bypassing the clerk at the front desk by portaling directly into the heart of the facility proved to be much more beneficial in this particular instance. When there was no one utilizing the space, they never checked the cameras. As such, Anaar would not need to worry about being exposed in any way.
The first thing he wanted to test was his newfound strength. It never occurred to him just how completely something so simple could change one’s life. He knew all too well how taxing it was to keep oneself in control, but he never had to incorporate that into everyday tasks necessary for life. In contrast, he was finding it much easier to not cause nuclear fallout as opposed to not breaking everything he touched.
He searched until he confirmed he had found the largest rock formation available. The scope of monolithic piece of earth easily dwarfed numerous three-story houses clustered together. Anaar found himself wondering who thought it was necessary for such a large structure to be artificially placed, but as he considered it was perfect for his experiment, he thought it best not to complain.
Peering at the rock, he was trying to figure out what was the best method to approach attempting to lift it. Because it was clearly much larger than he, there was the logistical problem of obtaining a proper grip. After coming to no clear resolution, he squatted and did his best to lift a small area for leverage. To his surprise it, was much simpler than he expected. With his hands now underneath the rock, he pushed off with his legs and stood easily and smoothly. As he rose, he shifted so he was underneath the rock.
Huh, that was easy. It is way off balance but that is to be expected. I don’t feel any resistance at all. Perhaps it is just a model which is why it is so light.
He shuffled around a bit, finding he was able to move with no problem. It was when he was about to try tossing it into the air that a thought occurred to him.
Hobb, I have an odd request. Well, it is more a question first, with the possibility of becoming a request.
“How can I be of assistance?”
Well, this huge boulder is practically weightless to me, so I was wondering if using my body as a conduit, you could turn me into a human scale to check how much it weighs so I can get a rough idea of what I’m working with.
Hobb appears in his vision with a lab coat on that was strikingly similar to the ones in Miles’ lab.
“Your query is very interesting and quite unexpected. While I cannot give promises, I do believe it is within my capabilities to give you a measurement.”
Excited by the response Anaar finds himself nodding happily to no one.
Awesome! Go for it.
“My calculations place this mass to be 294.77 metric tons.”
Anaar’s eyes bulged as he found himself exclaiming aloud. “That is over 640,000 pounds!! Are you sure? There can be no way! I’m not really a scale.”
“You are correct. I apologize for misleading you. The accuracy of this information is quite poor.”
Ah, that makes more sense. I know my powers have magnified greatly, but even I have a hard time believing I can lift something over my head like this with no effort with it being that heavy. What is the accuracy of your calculation?
Looking at him with shame whilst sighing dejectedly, “A paltry 98.83%. It is hardly trustworthy.”
Hobb! That is almost 100% accurate! Are you serious? This is clearly nowhere near my upper limit! No wonder I had no challenge in the gym! How am I supposed to keep myself in check if I don’t even know what I am truly capable of?!
“Do you truly know what the limit of any of your abilities are?”
Well I sure as hell don’t know now!
“Even before this new development, could you truly say you have ever properly pushed yourself to the absolute extreme?”
There isn’t really a way to do that.
“I fail to understand the complications.”
Well for obvious reasons I cannot and should not go around testing the upper limit of my Demolitionist abilities. Nothing good can come of that.
“You wield a host of abilities. Can you not give any measure of the others?”
Hmmm… I think I technically found my limit for healing the last time Phavian almost died. Wait, why am I so comfortable saying that as if it is acceptable for it to be normalized. I need to work on that… Either way, that is all out the window now, especially since I have an entirely new healing ability that is attuned to an element that I know nothing about and should definitely be a myth. Even my portaling I was not sure about since I could go anywhere on the planet without issue. Not sure I’m up for testing out interplanetary travel.
“In this case my argument remains. You have never truly known what you were capable of. Even without this information you operated with no difficulty. It is illogical for you to change your expectations.”
While that may work for most things, I can’t just go around destroying everything I touch. Look at my sink this morning, or the fact I almost hit the stratosphere in the gym today.
“I am happy to inform you the sink has already been repaired. As to your concern, though it is valid, it is also unfounded. Despite your damage to the floor, you have damaged nothing else. It will only be a matter of time before you understand the use of your body again.”
Did you have to remind me I broke the floor just by jumping?! Who knew some superhero films actually got it right…
Anaar continued pondering how he was going to resolve his issues when he suddenly had an idea how he could put his abilities into perspective. There were many people he knew of that were powerful in their own right and could hopefully give him some insight as they had the same or similar abilities. The first person he thought of was Phavian, and how he could immediately give him more data regarding his m
ost pressing issue. Calling him immediately, he is met with Phavian’s surprised voice which sounded as if he was in a hurry.
“Hey, what’s up? This is completely random. I feel like you never call me. Wait, what have you done?!”
“I really need people to stop assuming I am breaking something.”
“But you have been.”
No one asked you!
“Still weird. I don’t have long to talk, I have to make it to Codi in ten minutes and I am of course late.”
“I think I can help with that.”
Phavian’s voice immediately lights up with glee. “I totally forgot! This is amazing!” There is a pause and then the exuberance suddenly vanishes and is replaced with suspicion. “Hold the fuck up. What is this going to cost me?”
“You know me too well. Just a little of your time, which will be easily made up by instantaneous travel, no?”
“I guess, but it has to be quick or-”
Anaar had already pinged Phavian’s Vizer and opened a portal next to him. Phavian peers through the window for a moment before he is pulled in by Anaar. Standing next to the massive rock, Anaar closes the portal and points to Phavian’s task.
“Pick that up.”
Phavian looks around, not completely sure if he understood the request. After scratching his head for a moment, he finally speaks up. “What exactly am I picking up? Is it invisible? Is this a test? Do you have yet another new power?!”
“No!! Actually, that might not be true, but I promise I’m not lying on purpose! I want you to pick up this rock.”
Phavian realizes what they are standing next to is not a building, but is instead a towering rock. “You mean this thing that looks like a mountain had a baby?!”
“That literally made no sense, but yes, I am talking about that.”
“Is this a joke?”
“Why would I bring you all the way here for a joke?”
“Well it wasn’t really hard for you…”
“Just pick up the damn rock!”
“I can’t pick up this thing! What would make you even assume I can?!”
Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4) Page 6