We Are

When I woke up, I heard voices; and looked to see that Khin, Isana, Shoma, Aleeza, and Arelis were all sitting at a table near me and talking to each other.

Well… At least they seemed to be ok. I remembered the evil feeling that had come over me while I’d been trying to heal Khin, and shuddered. It had been nothing like anything that I’d ever experienced before, and I hoped to God that I’d never experience it again.

I walked over the the table, and sat down on a chair, and they explained to me that Khin had accidentally transported because she’d been so excited that training was going well that she’d gotten powerfully fixated on defeating the two who’d tried to take our power from us.

They had no explanation for why I’d had the evil sensations while I’d been healing her; and Aleeza, Shoma, and Isana all said that they’d felt it too.

They speculated that it could have had to do with whatever had been done to Khin (which had presumably been our foes causing her to become unconscious and then trying to steal her power from her), but also said that maybe it had to do with whatever unknown power holder(s) they might be in cahoots with.

I suddenly realized that I didn’t even know the two of them’s names yet, and asked what they were; to which Aleeza responded, “Manisha and Pallas. This whole thing seems further than I’d have dreamed that they’d have gone this fast though. They must be in with someone really bad, I think.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Shoma agreed, “Which brings me to my next point. We all need to room together. The five of us, anyway. The power holders. Arelis doesn’t need to. We have to be able to respond quickly if anything else <?y happens.”

“Yes,” Isana agreed, “this sort of madness is exactly why we go on missions and have a base and whatnot. We have to stop Pallas, Manisha, etc., and (since the others are all on their own missions right now) it’s up to us 5 to waste no time in getting into mission mode.”

“Naturally, the primary mission of power holders is to stop other power holders, lol.” I joked, to which Aleeza responded, “Yes… I think that if Amira had realized how many power holders would go down hurtful paths, she probably wouldn’t have even passed her power on in the first place.”

“Well,” Khin said, with conviction, “regardless of how some power holders turn out, at least you’ve got two more who’ll keep their heads straight in Diago and I!”

I nodded along with Khin’s words; but, as memories of how I’d so quickly and unflinchingly tortured and almost killed Manisha and Pallas a short while ago appeared at the front of my mind, I wondered exactly how immune to going bad I actually was…

My disconcerting train of thought was interrupted by me realizing that we (except for Arelis, of course) were all off to the room that we’d all be sharing.

Once we got there, I saw that it was very big, and heard Isana explaining that, “This switch being on will mean that if anyone leaves this room in any way besides a door, then an alarm with go off. That way, if we have an accidental transportation by someone, we’ll know about it immediately. It’ll also go off if someone enters the room, but only people who know where were are should be a capable of doing that.”

“Hmmm… I guess that that actually does make me feel safer.” I conceded, feeling like if I wasn’t in a room like this I would be constantly paranoid about something bad happening and unable to sleep well. But then I added, “What’s our plan for bringing down the bad guys? Khin’s the only one who’s ever been able to transport to their protected location, right?”

“As far as we know, yes.” Aleeza agreed, and added, “She did transport there with you, though, which means that she wouldn’t have to go alone if we go that route.”

“Plus,” Shoma added, “I was able to transport there once you two were already there, which means that the road to all of us getting there seems clear. The question is when we should do it and how exactly we can prepare ourselves for a confrontation with them to go well.”

“They surely know now that I’m a key to us all transporting there, and’ll probably try to make it into some sort of trap if they can.” Khin noted, to which we all nodded and went silent for a little while as we tried to think of what master plan could ensure that we’d emerge victorious from our next confrontation with them.

“Can we wait until some of the other power holders complete their missions, and have them come along too?” I suggested, and was told that that was a possibility but that it could be up to years before any other power holders would finish their missions.

“Oh…” I said, gloomily, “I guess heroes are hard to come by… Well, either that or there’s lots for them to do.”

“It’s a mixture of both.” Shoma admitted, “Plus, there are other power holders who’re trying to do good but don’t work with us.”

“Ya think that now might be a desperate enough situation that we should try roping a few of them in?” I asked, hopefully, to which Isana responded, “That may be the case. After all, we don’t know exactly how dangerous whoever Manisha and Pallas might be working with may be.”

Aleeza groaned, and conceded, “Damn… Yeah, we may be in over our heads on this one. There are reasons why we don’t regularly team up with other groups, though; and you and Khin might be about to discover what some of those reasons are.”

“IF!” Isana caveated, “we can even secure any new recruits for our mission. I’ll head off now to try to convince some power holders from other groups to join us. We should always keep at least 4 power holders here, and so we should only go recruiting one at a time.”

And, with that, Isana was gone, and Shoma was saying, “Since Arelis is getting some sleep right now, Aleeza and I will try to teach you some power usage stuff. Protection seems like a good place to start.”

“Yeah,” Aleeza agreed, “and we’re going to go a different route with this than you might expect. See, it’s actually a lot easier to learn how to impact whatever’s threatening you than it is to make your body invulnerable.

For example, when Amira didn’t get hurt by the bullet back during the Civil War, it’s far more likely that her power caused the bullet to fall to the ground than that she changed her actual body.

Same with you and that dude with the knife, Diago. More likely that you used your power to stop and break the knife than that your skin became resilient enough that it stopped the knife and caused it to break.”

“But, then why did my shirt tear?” I asked, to which Shoma responded, “The power must’ve literally kicked in at the last microsecond. It does that sometimes.”

“Anyhoo,” Aleeza said, “we’re going to throw pillows at you two and see if you can stop them, which is a pretty safe way for y’all to practice trying to stop an attack.

“A PILLOW FIGHT?” Khin said, as she began to devolve into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Once she’d managed to gain some control over herself, she explained, “I’d just thought that my pillow fighting days were behind me, and the idea of me having a pillow fight in order to prepare for perhaps the most important thing that I’ll ever have to do was really funny to me. Don’t judge!, y’all.”

“We understand.” Aleeza chuckled, “You never know for sure how you might react to something.”

“Okay, so,” Shoma began, “if you imagine a titanium wall (or something really strong like that) appearing around whatever’s coming at you, then it can stop an item dead in its tracks. Imagine that wall being snapped in two, and you can get the breaking effect that Diago did to the knife, whereas Amira had basically probably just trapped-and-stopped the bullet and then let it fall to the ground.”

“Probably best to try to just stop-and-not-break the pillows.” Aleeza advised, “We’ll try the snapping part with other weapons.” and, with that!, Aleeza and Shoma began picking up pillows and throwing them straight towards Khin and I!

I quickly imagined trees being around where the flying pillows were, and was doing a good job at stopping them.

I figured that something like titanium might be needed for bullets, but that trees would suffice for pillows; and I had figured correctly.

The onslaught of flying pillows continued for a while, and I had managed to stop all but two of them, which I thought was pretty good.

Once Aleeza and Shoma announced that the pillows would stop being hurled, I discovered that Khin had stopped all but one of them, which meant that both of us had managed to do pretty well, all things considered.

“Good job.” Shoma praised, “But, just realize that if those had been weapons then you both would be either injured or dead right now.”

“Question!” I asked, “Wouldn’t power holders just use their power to kill us instead of using physical weapons?”

“Good question.” Aleeza responded, “As you know from experience, the power can be used to inflict pain. BUT, as far as we know, you can’t actually inflict physical injuries or death merely by using the power. Now, you can use the power to move weapons towards people and injure/kill them that way, but we don’t know of anyone managing to use the power alone to physically injure of kill someone.”

“Then wtf happened to Khin before we’d transported to her? Is it normal to feel all of those evil sensations when healing someone from a physical-weapon-inflicted wound?”

“Before we answer that,” Shoma responded, “what do you remember from after you transported, Khin?”

“No big story there.” Khin answered, “I was in a room that was unfamiliar to me, and I was about to look around and check out where I was when I suddenly lost consciousness. I’m not sure exactly how I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw Diago concentrating with his hand on my arm, and I saw you, Isana, and Aleeza on the ground. Then, of course, Diago fell to the ground too, and it was just Arelis and I who were conscious until y’all started waking up.”

“Sounds to me like someone used their power to knock her out!” I noted, and quickly added, “And weren’t Manisha and Pallas in the process of trying to take her power before I began inflicting pain on them and then you came and transported us away?”

“I don’t know exactly what they’d been trying to do, and don’t know how Khin became unconscious.” Shoma admitted, “BUT, though we might decide that certain explanations are likely, we just don’t have enough information to know those things conclusively yet.”

“Let’s talk about how you began inflicting pain on Pallas and Manisha, though, for a minute.” Aleeza said, looking at me expectantly.

I considered lying, but decided that it’d be better to just describe what’d happened accurately, and said, “So, I tried transporting to where Khin was when she disappeared during flying training, but it wasn’t working. Then I got really angry about everything, and tried again, and this time it worked. I saw those two <?bags standing over her, and imagined them being as hot as my temper was. I may as well also admit that (because I’d figured that they’d be able to work past the pain that I was causing them to be experiencing) I’d also been about to try to use the power to kill them when Shoma arrived and transported Khin and I away. Sounds like my killing attempt wouldn’t have done anything, though, since y’all say that the power probably can’t be used to physically injure or kill anyone.”

“What happened there is understandable,” Shoma assured me, “but using anger to wield the power can influence us to get to a place where we’re regularly using the power in unethical ways.”

“It does sound like things might’ve gone worse for Khin if Diago hadn’t managed to transport by getting angry, though.” Aleeza noted, to which Shoma responded, “Of course. Everything worked out fine, and we’re glad that everyone’s ok. A warning about where using anger to wield the power can lead to was merited though.”

“Of course, of course.” Aleeza agreed, but Khin looked more conflicted, and said, “Did you actually want to kill them, Diago? Why didn’t you try to knock them out?”

“It was in the heat of the moment;” I told her, but then admitted, “but, I didn’t want them to be a threat to you. Not then, not now, and not ever…”