It was curious that Anaar not only knew who she was, but knew her real name, though more importantly, that it was her presenting as the grizzled recruiter. The more she learned, the murkier it became, which made her want him all the more. Her one and only goal in the moment was to find a way to secure Phavian which would by proxy secure Anaar.
“You know who this is? It isn’t a dude? Fucking Shapeshifters… He… She… Whatever, has been sketchy as fuck.”
Anaar’s casual shrug in response told Phavian he was missing something that should have been obvious. “That is her job. She is like, the best at what she does. Of course she is. The fact you recognized it only meant she wanted you to. I can’t help but think it is a bit of a stretch recruiting you, at least at this point. I’m pretty sure she is using you to get to me.”
“You think?! I don’t want to do anything that will put you in danger. What should I do?”
“It’s up to you. If you don’t mind offing people, like a lot, it will be an amazing opportunity. You’d be set for life, and you will get some amazing training, the likes of which you’d probably not get anywhere else. You’d have no privacy though, despite the mission of your department. Hell, they have already been watching us. I can practically feel them spying on me in the shower. I mean, if it were me, I’d probably do it.”
Though it was slight, almost non-existent, Luciana’s lip twitched. Of all the outcomes she had planned for, meeting Anaar Vorphal, being exposed by him, and then getting his recommendation was never one that was a possibility. Based on how things were proceeding before his arrival, Phavian was likely to turn her down outright, or at the very least request time to think it over. Now he appeared to be seriously contemplating it, even though he knew what their true aim was.
“What about you though?”
“What about me? I don’t work for them. I don’t plan on working for them. That’s a you thing. Just be ready to kill like, so many people. The good news is that they are mostly bad. Hopefully.”
In a few seconds, the joy Luciana had been feeling turned upside down. She felt she had all but secured the grand prize. She would be able to gloat about her victory for years to come. But now, despite his endorsement, and his words indicating he would have done it if he were in Phavian’s position, Anaar had made it perfectly clear he would never work for her. The shock of it all paralyzed her long enough that she regained her senses just in time to catch Anaar taking his leave.
“Good for you. We’ll celebrate tonight. I’ll get some recommendations from Ixnes. Make sure you get all your demands!”
Anaar disappeared through a portal, leaving a smiling Phavian behind. “Let’s talk pay! I really want to buy my parents their dream home!”
Luciana stood dumbfounded at the rapid sequence of events that had just occurred. With her dreams crushed, she wanted to call off everything, but she could not lose face with such a crushing defeat after she had made such big claims to the others before she had left. She smiled through gritted teeth, happy that she had another three years to work on possibly changing Anaar’s mind.
35
Anaar walked into his room to find Codi gorging on something, the glee she was exuding, enough be considered stifling. Phavian walked into the room holding a number of dishes, stopping what he was saying mid-sentence when he looked up to see Anaar. He smiled and placed the platters on the table, tipping over to give Anaar a sloppy kiss, knowing there would be trouble.
“Is that the food Harston made me as a thank you present?”
Phavian stroked Anaar’s back in a placating manner. “Now before you get mad, I was thinking, it would be a waste if this did not serve its purpose as being celebratory food!”
“Celebratory? What is there to celebrate? Better yet what is there to celebrate without the person whom the food was intended?”
“But you are here!”
“And you didn’t know that! I was supposed to be with Seles all day!”
Phavian looked anywhere but Anaar’s face, knowing he had been caught. His mouth had been watering since Harston had begun cooking early that morning. At last he had returned to work. Even though his daughter had long since made a miraculous full recovery, he had continued to catch up on all the time they had missed, and gotten her reestablished back home.
Though Anaar found there to be a void without Harston around, he offered to pay out the rest of his contract so that he could be with his daughter. Harston was incredibly moved, and took his time contemplating the offer, but he eventually found he too missed Anaar, and would rather return all the generosity that he was given. His first order of business was to create the feast that Phavian was now pilfering.
Phavian decided there was nothing he could do about the situation, and barreled onward as if nothing was wrong. “We are celebrating me having a career after I graduate!”
Codi jumped up from her chair, jamming her fists into the air in victory. “Fuck yeah! Which one did you end up going with?! What is it you are going to be doing?!”
“I’m going to be assassinating people!”
Anaar’s mouth dropped open as he looked at the cheerful Phavian. “Umm… You definitely were not supposed to tell anyone that.”
“But it’s Codi!”
“You really have a terrible understanding of the term ‘covert…’”
“I’m going to need selfies as proof!”
Phavian frowns in response. “I don’t think I’m supposed to even get that close. But if I do, you best believe!”
Anaar had completely forgotten what brought him back to his room in the first place. Groaning in disgust, he turns and walks back out the door. Phavian and Codi both look at the door, completely incapable of understanding his attitude. Anaar was worried about Phavian’s future with America’s true defender, Exigency.
Anaar knew everything about the struggles Phavian was facing as he was making his exit from the school, but he kept his own hidden as to not detract from Phavian. He had never known Sophangence without Phavian, and he would be suddenly forced to contend with the implications of his absence. He understood that unlike other people such as Pryshka, he would have it easy because he could theoretically see Phavian whenever he wanted. There was something strange however about him missing from the school dynamic.
In preparation for the hole he would leave, Anaar had begun placing his attentions elsewhere so it would already be routine by the time Phavian was gone. Miles and Fredderick had both been overjoyed to hear he would be increasing the time he spent with them. Maggie had shifted to leaning on Pryshka to increase her skills, which left Dan, ever grateful for the support.
In an effort to take Hobb’s advice seriously, he had also brought his interactions with Seles to a minimum. Though he would rather continue ignoring the truth, it was clear he was the blockade that kept Seles from properly adjusting to life with Ixnes. He tried to be present just enough to be a treat for her, rather than a necessity.
Thanks to recent events, there was no better time to increase the frequency of his visits. Seles had been doing well in her therapy to heal the trauma of losing her parents and being abandoned by her family. An unfortunate byproduct was a spike in accidents due to her emotional instability. Her lack of control was hindering her healing, so Anaar took immediate action.
Seles’ circumstances made it impossible to bring in someone to teach her how to control her powers. Even though there had been no connections made to her showing up in Ixnes’ home, it was best that only Anaar and Ixnes know the full story behind her inclusion into their family. It would be impossible to keep this completely under wraps if her powers became involved.
Even if there had been no dubious backstory, it would not have changed the much more difficult issue. Bearing a unique manifestation has never been easy for the wielder. Any training they undergo is self-taught, or theorycraft at best. The volatility of Seles’ ability made training by herself an impossibility.
When Anaar made his first attempts to help Seles wi
th her powers, he found there were far more variables than he could account for. He tried taking her into Simulacrum, but Hobb also had difficulties extrapolating the nature of her abilities, and her poor communication skills were a major hinderance. As she healed, her mind was able to expand from the more infantile state in which she had come into their lives.
Everything was in place for them to make real progress with her powers. Anaar could finally say he had come to fully understand his Assimilation ability, it being much more than a means by which to hoard powers. With better control of his own ability, he did not need to worry about accidently absorbing something permanently. His own abilities were volatile enough, so the thought of adding the ability to create antimatter to the mix was something he was not interested in exploring.
By combining his connection to Hobb, with Pryshka’s Centripetus, he was able to trivialize his mastery of Seles’s powers. It was only made easier because whatever he was learning was a hyperadvanced, mutated version whatever she was capable of using. Though he could not be certain, he was quite confident she could not convert earthen materials like he could.
Their sessions had been going well, which was why he took her out for the day when they had their trip. The most important objective was eliminating accidental activation. He knew from personal experience that should always be the starting point for those with volatile abilities. Once that was achieved, then they could move on to controlled activation. The meditation he learned from Master Shin was proving a valuable resource in teaching a young mind how to be introspective.
After weeks of training, and Anaar borrowing a variety of abilities, Anaar could happily say Seles would be safe against most stimuli except moderate to severe psychic attack. He even considered it might only be severe, if his own strength made something he thought was a light push into a vicious assault. They had moved on to controlled activation on a minute scale, only if she kept up with her studies into the nature of her powers.
He was unsure if it was his voracious appetite for knowledge, or that he now knew there was a scientific basis for all phenomena, even if they had not found it yet, but he wished he had someone to explain the intricacies of how his powers worked when he was younger. It was only through trial and error that he realized his explosions were actually powered by the creation of water, which meant he was exponentially weaker when in arid areas that lacked proper quantities of hydrogen or oxygen. He later realized he could just create the necessary components he needed, but it was invigorating to understand the mechanics by which his powers worked.
Seles did not share his enthusiasm, however he hoped it was a result of the material being rather dry for a preteen. Whenever she would complain, he made sure to remind her how much quicker her progress became when she learned more about the science behind her powers. He always finished it off with some display of his own abilities, and how she could be like him if she remained dedicated.
Anaar noticed his incentives had the desired effect on Seles. He had told her that if she could explain to him in detail why the reaction of matter and antimatter was deadly, he would let her move on to the next step of controlled activation. If she were able to make notable progress on the first day, he would take her shopping and to dinner anywhere in the world.
It was weird to see Seles growing up before his eyes. She was making friends at school, and one day she awoke and considered Stefani to be the goddess that leads all creation. She was relying on him less and less, but it made their time spent together more special, because she was beginning to view his attention as supplemental, rather than a necessity for life. She had recently hit puberty, and everything she cared about had been replaced. She had also begun to seek out more adult activities, often leading to mischief.
Back when he was first bombarded with the host of new abilities gained from absorbing Yefferson, he was annoyed and confused. He wished everything could return to the way they were, and that he had never learned he had a brother. In coming to terms with everything that had occurred, he realized how invaluable it was for training Seles, or anyone for that matter.
They had begun their development of her controlled activation utilizing a marble sized barrier, filled with only nitrogen. Based on his own experience, it was not necessary to specify to such a degree, but he wanted Seles to have something she could properly focus upon. He also had a feeling it would prove useful for when she moved on to working with complex mixtures.
Her goal was always the same. If she could successfully convert all the gases inside the sphere without triggering an explosion, she would win the game. He thought starting so small might be a gross underestimation of her abilities, but he found it was the perfect starting point. In an attempt to make her failures more impactful, he created the barrier to be just strong enough to hold the gases together, but to pop when met with force. Because it was initially contained, it still prevented any surrounding damage, but it sounded much like a gunshot, which was a great motivator.
By siphoning her powers, it was much easier to tell what she was doing wrong. Even though he could sense the antimatter, or lack thereof on his own, having her abilities let him know if she simply stopped too quickly, or if she was not focusing on getting everything in an instant. The most difficult concept for Seles to grasp about her powers was that it was all or nothing for her. If she wanted to prevent something terrible from happening, she had no choice but to convert every particle simultaneously.
Once she had been able to do this successfully on a small scale, he explained to her that what she was learning only applied to a controlled environment. In the real world, it was very likely she would not be able to get everything, and her sphere of influence was only so big. The moment it hit the edge, it would create a cataclysmic event. This information haunted Seles, but to Anaar, he felt it had made the impression he intended.
The volume of matter which Seles could convert instantly had been steadily increasing to the point it was no longer safe to use weak containers, meant to be destroyed. They had only reached the size of a softball, yet the destructive power an annihilation contained was enough to destroy an entire room in the house. To date, Seles had been growing comfortable with her baseball sized orb, hence Anaar’s challenge.
It would typically take Seles about a week of diligent practice to be successful, even if it was only once, and then consistent failures moving forward. Even though she had become very comfortable keeping her powers in check, part of that was knowing how to use them to her benefit as well, rather than simply keeping them locked away. Anaar had made the mistake of keeping his powers away and found they began to well up over time. With something as volatile as molecular annihilation at stake, it would be foolish to allow something so easily preventable to happen.
Anaar sat cross-legged on the floor, in what appeared to be deep meditation, but in truth he was simply completing his homework assignments. He had already fashioned thirty orbs for Seles to practice with, freeing him up to do other things. This was typical of his sessions. Rather than bombard her from the start, he let her make ample attempts on her own before working with her to correct her mistakes.
He sometimes wondered if her failures were simply a result of her hitting a power wall. She was only eleven, which meant she was far from her full potential. This was the biggest difficulty in teaching her. Even if he had a normal level of strength for someone of his age, he would still have a decade of experience and growth which accounted for a gap in what they could do. If he kept pushing her to do something that she lacked the capacity for, it would not only be borderline abusive, but also affect her esteem, making her feel inadequate.
By the time she had reached the twentieth globe, he had started paying attention to her process. Everything from her breathing, to the twitches in her muscles when she activated her powers was under scrutiny. He figured it was time to make a new set of tools to practice with, but on her last attempt, she succeeded. From the look on her face, she seemed far more surprised than he was.
“Did… I do it? That fast?!”
Anaar took the orb from her, bringing it to his face just to be certain. “Well, look at you. Congratulations. You must really want to go shopping.” His face twitches as he puts on a nervous smile. “What in the world is it you are expecting me to buy…?”
Seles stands pouting at a slack-jawed Anaar. “But you promised!”
“Nope.”
“You are just as bad as Ixnes!”
“Seles, when I said anything, I was under the impression you had a reasonable scope of interests. In no world am I buying an 11 year old a $42,000 handbag!”
“But you have the money! And it is a collector’s item! The hottest celebrities have one!”
“Yes Seles. I have the money, not you. It is very important you learn the importance and value of money, and being self-sufficient. I don’t care about these celebrities spending money frivolously, that’s their business. They can use their money in whatever fashion they choose that makes them happy. You don’t have any money. Therefore, you should not expect exorbitant things just because you know the people around you have the means. And here I was worried you would want a $1000 cell phone…”
The saleswoman looked at the two with varying expressions. When they first arrived, she knew from the start they would not buy anything, as they could not afford it. Though she did not like them wasting her time, she knew it would look bad if she turned them away. When the young girl requested one of the most expensive items in the store, she was intrigued but still unconvinced they could afford the purchase. Now that she had listened to their conversation, she was in disbelief that they could not only afford it, but it was denied simply on the basis of teaching values. Though she still ended up where she expected, it made her reconsider her hasty judgements in the future.
Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4) Page 63