“How long has this been happening?”
“This is the first time it was this bad. I burned my underwear up first. See.”
Leo began fumbling with the sweatpants he was wearing prompting Anaar to quickly put up a hand. “I… believe you. So it has happened before, but this is the first time it has burned through something?”
“No. It has burned through stuff, but only a small hole or two. I barely noticed it. I’m not used to half the material being gone. I don’t have the money to keep buying clothes…”
“Don’t worry, I think we can fix your problem pretty easily. What exactly have the techs at Exploration been telling you?”
“They say I’m really talented because my output is really strong, even without trying.”
Anaar sighs and he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Anything else?”
“Nope. They said other than that, I was pretty normal for an Artillerite.”
Anaar looks at Leo with disgust and horror apparent on his face. “Are you serious?! What is the point of Exploration if they aren’t doing anything?!”
“I thought they were pretty good. Did they do more to help you?”
“I was exempt, but that is a story for another time. So they didn’t work with you to increase your understanding of the unique way your body supplies its energy?”
“No.”
“Then did they at least explain why you have an inherently higher potency than others?”
“Oh yeah, they said it was because my echelon was higher.”
“That’s not it at all!” Anaar throws up his hands, visibly disturbed by the news he was receiving. “The reason you are so potent is because your energy is constantly under pressure!”
Leo looks at Anaar with a blank expression, indicative Anaar’s words meant nothing to him. “Okay.”
“I get the feeling you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Not really, but it sounds cool.”
“To keep it simple, most other Artillerites have this sort of storage container where their generated energy is generated and held. In this container it is basically at rest. To utilize it, it must be released to the appropriate place. This is why people can vary greatly in what they are capable of, even if they have the exact same echelon.”
“Because some people can’t get it out as fast?”
Anaar smiles with glee. “Exactly! You on the other hand are very unique since your entire body more or less serves as your container. Your body has changed somewhat, but not enough to be at ease with all that just hanging out. Therefore, it wants to get it out, but there is an opposing mechanism trying to keep it in, so you are not in a constant state of blasting everything. This is what is causing your powers to be under pressure. Combined with you not really needing to move energy about since it is already there, you can instantly produce effects that would require others to charge.”
“Cool. That makes sense, and was easy to understand. So why exactly do I burn through my clothes?”
“Yes, we have finally gotten to the issue at hand. The internal storage device has a sort of off switch when it fills up to the person’s maximum capacity. Think how a toilet stops running once the tank reaches a certain level.”
“Why do I have to be a toilet?”
“Totally not the point. As I was saying, your body doesn’t have an off switch since you have no proper storage device. As such, when you start hitting critical mass, your body can’t keep it all in, which causes you to constantly emit a weak energy field. Remember this pressurizes your energy, so the greater the pressure, the more that escapes at a time. It would seem your generation rate is increasing. The easiest way of remedying this is to make sure you use your powers at least once a day. Nothing too crazy, just let out a huge beam somewhere it won’t hurt anything. This should prevent you from cooking stuff around you.”
“Wow. I know you are smart, and Pete always brags about you, but this is more than I have learned in ten months. Why aren’t the people in Exploration as good as you?”
“No idea, but trust I intend to investigate. For the meantime, when you plan on going to Exploration, let me know, and I will oversee your training personally.”
“You can do that? You are just a student though.”
“True, but I also work there and am Dr. Darst’s apprentice, which apparently makes me like second in command somehow.”
“Don’t you have to be like, trained and stuff? Meet certain qualifications?”
Anaar rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I did discover a unique manifestation and have since been officially credited with such. Even without a degree, if you go through all the proper channels, it grants you the status of a professor of Attunement Theory.”
“Huh. Now I can see why Pete has it bad for you. Thanks for the info.”
Anaar was rendered speechless as the boy broke away and headed for the elevator. He would need to have a conversation with Peter soon. Making his way up the stairs, he entered his room to an overly worked up Phavian.
“Where have you been?! I have been waiting forever! How is it you can be late when you can teleport?! Make it make sense!”
Anaar sets his bag on the floor, making no attempts to hasten his actions, nor pay Phavian any attention. “Remind me again why you are so zealous?”
“Because you said you’d take me to get some more grease for Haymana! The old girl has been in the shittiest of states since you froze her to death! Not only that, apparently you changed the chemical composition of what I had left, because now it is unusable!”
“You have had a whole week. Why didn’t you just order it?”
Phavian rushes over to Anaar, poking him slightly while pouting. “Because even with expedited shipping it is like two months out!”
“Fine… What’s the address?”
Phavian does a fist pump into the air and plants a kiss on Anaar’s lips. Sending the link to his Vizer, Phavian waits with thinly veiled impatience as Anaar reviews it. After a gasp and a sour look, Anaar smacks Phavian over the head.
“Why is this place in China?!”
“They are the only place that makes it. Nothing but the best for my sweetie.”
“Do you even speak Chinese?! Wait, don’t answer that. I know you don’t!” Anaar glares at Phavian as he is opening his mouth to speak. “No, watching martial arts films with subtitles does not count!”
“I can just show them the invoice!”
“How? On the extremely high-tech device on your wrist? You do know our Vizers are like alien technology in the real world, right? What if they have some kiosk or window that you can’t step around to show them properly? How exactly are you going to explain you are there, from thousands of miles away, to pick up an order that might not even be ready?”
“Stop poking holes in everything!”
Anaar growls in frustration. “I’ll be back.”
Phavian looks on in confusion and annoyance as a portal opens, Anaar steps through it, and it promptly disappears. After about ten minutes of pacing, Anaar returns with a package in his hands. Shoving it toward Phavian, he moves to sit down at his computer.
“I only did that because it is completely my fault Haymana is messed up.”
“How did you even manage this?”
When he is met with nothing but an icy glare, Phavian takes his win, grabbing Haymana and exiting the room. In just under and hour Anaar had finished all his assignments and given Stefani his honest opinion regarding her latest idea for the band. Phavian bounds into the room soon after, swinging Haymana around happily.
“She’s better than ever! Her chains glide like silk now! Time for a little practice! Let’s go!”
When Anaar fails to move from his position laid across the bed, Phavian runs over, bounding onto the bed straddling him. Anaar squirms beneath him, finally coming to a stop after a moment.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you need the practice. I told you that I was going to work really hard at
being as accepting and supportive as possible. There is no one else who would be capable of helping you get a grip on your newly enhanced physical abilities. I’m pretty sure they would not be okay with you rupturing their spleen or something. At least with me, you can just heal me up, and I won’t take it personally. I hope.”
“Maggie could serve the same purpose.”
“Really? The girl who runs from proper martial arts training like the plague? How do you plan on pushing yourself against her? Plus she is like a buck twenty. You’d send her flying with the breeze from your swing.”
“You do know at this point, the difference in your weights is completely irrelevant to me now, right?”
“Whatever. Come on, when have you even been known to be lazy?!”
Anaar grumbles as he pushes Phavian off him and moves to his closet. He reemerges with his hookswords strapped to his back, an expectant look coming from Phavian. “What?”
“You aren’t going to bring the arsenal?”
“No this is enough for now.”
“Okay, well you are the ride so…”
Anaar opens a portal to the Combat Complex South, arriving at the staging area since there was no class that day. Phavian nods in approval at the choice of venue. Phavian swings Haymana around a few times, falling in an opening stance.
“You ready?”
Anaar draws his swords, motioning to Phavian that he was ready at any time. Phavian carefully approached Anaar, slightly circling him and gauging his distance. The moment he felt he had found the perfect position, he moved in to strike. With a flurry of swings, flowing through high, medium, and low strikes, he placed overwhelming pressure upon Anaar, or so he would have thought.
With every strike that should have landed with perfect precision, compounded by the force behind Haymana that Phavian was able to bring to bear, it was dodged with only the slimmest of margins. Phavian knew that it would be unlikely he caused any damage to Anaar due to his new all-encompassing defense, but he was certain he should at least be capable of landing blows. When he had finally tired himself out, he lurched over panting furiously.
“What the actual fuck?! Why can’t I hit you?!”
Shrugging, “Because I can see through all of your moves?”
“Since when did that happen?!”
“Since to me it looks like you are moving in slow motion?”
“How is that even possible?! You got stupid strong and stupid tough. Like unbreakable tough. In what world is it fair that you got a speed boost too?!”
“Just because I got new abilities, doesn’t mean my old ones went away. Quite the contrary, they all became exponentially enhanced if not evolved altogether. Not to mention being a True Quintessence in everything makes my potential combinations endless.”
“How fast are we talking here? You clearly are fast enough to dodge everything I throw at you, but to be honest it felt familiar.” Phavian snaps his fingers and points. “Master Shin. It felt like I was fighting against Master Shin.”
“Where do you think I learned it from? Conceptually I knew how to do what he does, but I lacked to faculties to perform it on someone of his level. He was never faster than me, but his Foresight does a lot to close the gap. Honestly, I have to do everything in my power to not absorb that. One dose was enough for me. Now I know why it is so rare. At least so rarely seen. Master Shin wasn’t kidding about it driving most people to madness.”
“Meaning now you can beat him?”
“Yes. Now I can move so fast he can’t keep up with all the possible outcomes. Even if he could, he still cannot move fast enough to evade it. He is not too happy about that. He keeps mentioning what it would be like if he was thirty years younger.”
“No shit. Could you imagine someone with Master Shin’s skill, but our age? Well, I guess that would just be you.”
Anaar shakes his head hastily. “Not in a million years. Master Shin still has me beat by leagues in terms of actual technique. There just simply becomes a point where even skill can’t compare with raw power.”
“Dang… So you still haven’t shown me what you can do.”
“Don’t blink.”
“Eh?”
Phavian stood confused as he tried to understand Anaar’s meaning. He was waiting for something to happen when he felt searing pain erupt from all over his body. He looked down at himself to find his clothes were all but ribbons, and his body was covered in what appeared to be hundreds of tiny cuts. When he looked back to Anaar, he was trying to figure out when he had actually moved since he looked to be in the same position.
“What the fuck?! Could you not have at least-” Before he could finish his sentence, the wounds on his body disappeared. “-healed me.”
He realizes the pain is gone and looks again to see no evidence of any damage to his body, only the tatters that were his clothes evidence of what happened. Giving himself another once over, he finds there really was nothing to be found.
“Why didn’t you heal me just as fast? And what the fuck man?! These were good clothes! Fix them!”
Anaar raises an eyebrow as he looks Phavian up and down. “What am I now, a seamstress? Also, just because I can move that fast, doesn’t mean everything else does. Even though I healed you immediately, it takes your body a moment to catch up.”
Phavian was too preoccupied with his ruined clothing to pay attention to Anaar’s explanation. With his focus on his clothes, he cared nothing about the dynamics of how everything worked.
“Don’t you have a power that like, heals stuff or something?”
“I’m not your fairy godmother. Even if I did, I wouldn’t use it. If I remember correctly you asked for this training session, and you asked me to show you what I could do.”
“Man…” The events were finally beginning to register in his mind which led to new questions. “Why did you have to cut me all up anyway?! And I literally could not see you move. Shouldn’t there have been a sonic boom? There is no way you didn’t break the sound barrier.”
Phavian’s face immediately turned sour as he watched Anaar’s brighten. He knew the all too familiar expression of when Anaar had been waiting for someone to ask a question so he could dive into an explanation at length. Beginning to regret everything after the point he finished repairing Haymana, he took a seat on the ground, crossing his legs as he lazily looked up at Anaar. The gesture was not lost upon Anaar, however he launched into his explanation anyway.
“To be honest, cutting you was a complete accident. I was only supposed to cut your clothes. Television really does no justice to the difficulty of operating at those speeds. I’ll never look at a superhero movie the same. Even my brain has a difficult time keeping up at that rate. It is so easy to misjudge since nothing is how you normally expect it. Since you are in a perpetual state of motion, trying to account for the energy already at play is tough. You were more a test dummy to help me improve.”
Phavian found himself infinitely more interested in what Anaar was explaining than he usually was. It was perhaps due to him explaining things related to the physics of what happened, rather than something related to attunement theory. While attunement theory always put him to sleep and was often over his head, he had an undying love for Physics.
“You still haven’t explained the lack of feedback. Even if you moved substantially faster than it could follow, eventually the wake would catch up.”
“Exactly correct. In normal circumstances that does happen. What I have found is that once that barrier is broken, as long as I don’t decelerate below it, there is not another boom. In this case however, I utilized my Slip Stream, something I am just now exploring more now that I know it was something I inherited. For reasons I can’t yet explain, so please don’t ask, Slip Stream defies physics. It is almost like they don’t exist, but if I am being honest, it would be more accurate to say it creates some sort of aerodynamic vacuum. Like I said, that is me grasping at straws. I’m sure I’ll figure it out at some point.”
“D
amn. Does that ability also prevent the strain on your body from moving that fast?”
“Good question. Actually, yes it does. What I have realized now though is it doesn’t matter. Since I have Yefferson’s physical constitution now, I could withstand some unfathomable amount of g force.”
Phavian sighs, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you? You know you spend the entirety of your damn life absolutely shitting on everyone else?” Phavian sees Anaar beginning to protest, but continues before he can get any words out. “Even if you don’t intend to, and in fact, work your hardest to not do it. At this point it truly isn’t your fault, you just can’t help it. I see that now.”
Anaar is rendered speechless for a moment, but soon finds his voice, the look in his eyes one of pure dejection. “I really have been working hard at toning things back down, but there is so much even I have yet to recognize and furthermore understand. People felt that way about me when I had a good grip on keeping things under wraps. Now I’m just going to be walking around with a banner over my head that says ‘asshole.’”
Phavian laughs at the large man’s struggles, watching him carefully examine the midnight black blades in his hand. This springs another question to mind that he had been asking for some time, but never received a response.
“Have you finally given those things a name?”
Anaar nods, remaining silent for a moment. “Pandemonium and Harmony. I came up with it few days after I got back, but of course, as you are well aware, everything has been going to shit lately.”
“That they have… Which one is which?”
“What do you mean?”
“Which one is Harmony, and which one is Pandemonium?”
“They both are. They are a set.”
Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4) Page 15