Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 22:55:43 -0500 From: Dash Jarrod Subject: Force of One 7 Disclaimer: This story is totally fictional. If any of the characters resemble anyone from your life, that is just coincidence. Any celebrity involved in this story may or may not be homosexual. If you are under 18 please don't read. Thanks to anyone that has responded to me about my story. I have been enjoying writing it; I just hope that you enjoy reading it as much. Thanks to Alex and Dustin for letting me make them into characters. Character list so far: Matthew-Powers: telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, control over magnetism, control over the weather, and a healing factor Age: 19 Body type: semi-muscular yet skinny Features: 6'1", blonde hair, blue eyes, and 140# Andrew-Power: telepathy Age: 18 Body type: muscular but skinny Features: greenish eyes, black hair, 5'11", and 140# Bobby-Power: ability to produce ice Age: 19 Body type: muscular Features: 5'10", 140#, blonde hair, and blue eyes Aaron-Power: unlimited teleportational range, absorption and redirection of energy, some telepathy (mind-speak and reading minds) Age: 17 Body type: slim but muscular Features: light brown hair, green eyes, 5'11", and 135# Jake-Power: limited acceleration of mental and physical processes, increased agility, speed, and strength Age: 18 Body type: slim but muscular Features: dirty blonde hair, dark blue eyes, 6', and 140# After class was over, we had a little bit of time before dinner. It was then that the section leaders from both the percussion and trumpet section came up to me and started talking with me. This was awfully nice of them because they don't know me at all really. Let me describe them, Jake is about my height and weight. He has dirty blonde hair and dark blue eyes. He is kind of skinny but I can tell he has some muscle to him. Aaron is about an inch shorter than Jake and weighs a little bit less as well. He is also kind of skinny but has some muscle to him. He on the other hand, has light brown hair with green eyes. We stood outside of the classroom talking until dinner. We discussed our lives. We each shared our powers. Aaron's powers are unlimited teleportational range, absorption and redirection of energy, some telepathy (mind-speak and reading minds). It turns out that he can't really control the absorption of energy part of his power, when someone attacks him with something, he usually ends up absorbing it and then he is able to shoot the energy out of his hands. Sounds like it is very unpredictable to me, although, I would like to see him absorb and redirect some energy. On the other hand, Jake's powers are limited acceleration of mental and physical processes, increased agility, speed, and strength. I for one would not want to fight with him because it sounds like he should be unbeatable. If he is beaten, it probably won't be in a hand-to-hand combat situation. When I told them about my powers, they both gasped. I was sort of expecting this because everyone gasps at my power list. I also told them that the only things I can do right now involve my telekinesis and my telepathy, although, I can only do certain things with my telepathy. It was then that I received a message from Aaron. He said, "It's always nice to meet another telepathic person. Even though we are both only slightly telepathic, we can still do enough to be able to help out a little bit." I replied with, "I don't think it matters what your power is, I think it is always nice to just meet new people and possibly make new friends. I, myself, am just learning about my telepathic abilities so I don't know what range they may take. But right now, my range is no larger than yours. This is not necessarily a bad thing either because I can do this or read minds as well as protect mine from being read. I am hoping that my telepathic range extends beyond those few things because I want to be able to do things in battle with my telepathy. I mean, I want to be able to knock someone out or make them do what I want them to or something like that. I want my telepathy to be practical in battle. I don't want to rely on just my other abilities. Do you know what I mean?" He replied with, "I do know what you mean. I sometimes wish my telepathy was more powerful, but unfortunately for me it doesn't extend further than what I told you I could do. I know what you mean by wanting your telepathy to be practical in battle. I have to rely totally on my teleportation and energy absorption and redirection to survive in battle. Unlike you, I can be hurt during the battles and won't be able to heal until my body has time for it to heal itself. Having a healing factor must be nice." I then stated, "I honestly don't know anything about my healing factor. Its just there, if it helps me then it does but if it doesn't then I will be fine without it. My healing factor is something I will never be able to control. I just hope that my healing factor is as strong as Wolverine's. If it is that strong, then I don't know if it will be easy for someone to hurt me, although, honestly, I don't want to test it out either. I would rather just let it happen, if it is good enough to help me than I am all for letting it happen, I just don't want that many injuries to happen that I have to test how strong my healing factor is." It was then that I looked over at Jake. He seemed totally lost as to what was going on. I believe he knew what we were doing, but he had no way of knowing what we were talking about. I then gave him a quick overview of what we what we were just discussing. When I got done filling him in, he thanked me for finally explaining what was going on. He was sort of feeling left out. This was quite understandable but once you start speaking in the mind, you tend not to notice what is going on around you. You tend to concentrate on what you are doing, at least I do. I haven't gotten good enough with my power for me to be conscious of what is going on around me while I am mind-speaking. Hopefully, one day, I will be good enough with my telepathy to notice what is going on in my surroundings and still be actively mind-speaking. I have a feeling that to get that good with my telepathy takes a long time and lots of practice. Even though I am a quick study, it doesn't mean that I am good at using my powers. I am not nearly strong enough with anything to be really useful. I then asked them, "How long did it take you guys to get good at using your powers?" Jake replied, "I am still mastering my powers. I have been working out so that my increased strength, speed, and agility are at their highest but I don't think I will ever master my other power." Aaron stated, "It took me a little while to master my telepathy. Jean helped me in that area as well. The professor helped me with my teleportation. Even with his help, I still am just barely scratching the surface of my potential there. I know that I can teleport anywhere on the planet but I just am not that sure of my power. Everyone else says that I can do it hands down, but I have doubts. Why were you wondering about when we mastered our abilities?" I then answered, "I was wondering because of what happened earlier. We were mind-speaking and we totally left Jake out of our conversation. I then thought that it will take me a long time and lots of practice to get good enough with my telepathy so that I can mind-speak and still be aware of my surroundings. Then I got to thinking that it will take me at least a year to get anywhere as good at my other abilities as I am at mind-speaking and telekinesis. That's why I asked how long it took you guys to master your abilities." Once we reached the dining hall, we went our separate ways. I was pretty quiet during the meal and went directly to my room afterwards. I was thinking way too much about the time and practice it will take me to master my abilities. I was still thinking about that when I fell asleep that night. I once again had a dream that night. This dream involved me being old and still trying to master my powers. I seemed to only know very little about my powers even though I seem to be as old as the professor. When I woke up in the morning, that dream came back to haunt me and I was in a bad mood for most of the morning. Although, the fact that Andrew didn't like me like I like him didn't help my mood any. It sort of darkened my mood a little bit more than it would have been already. Just because I know that Andrew doesn't like me like that doesn't mean that I won't talk to him or be friendly towards him. He is a great friend and I don't want to lose that. I didn't start to cheer up until my lesson with Jean. I told her about my dream and she said, "You were probably just way too worked up over the amount of time and practice it will take to master your abilities. Just think of it this way, your abilities are just like anything else you have to master. Each time you use them in either practice or real life situations then you get better at them. After a while of getting better, your powers become second nature and you have officially mastered them. I have a feeling that you won't have as long of a wait as you think before you master your powers." I was floored by her comments. They made so much sense and were so practical. I thanked her for her last statement and then we got started working on the next portion of my training. Today she was going to teach me how to read the mind of someone who has a barrier up. This was probably going to be the toughest thing I have learned so far. I had a feeling that I would have to use a bit of my telepathic energy to break through the barriers. After she composed herself, she started to tell me how to effectively read someone's mind with a barrier in place. She said, "To do this, you have to basically attack the barrier with a little bit of telepathic energy. You have to punch a hole through big enough so you can access the area of their mind that you need to. You just have to beware a psychic barrier will replenish itself if the person who put it in place is good enough. I just mentioned that because you don't want to get stuck inside a mind when the barrier closes. You might have to re-punch a hole in it to escape and end the connection." I then asked, "So, if the barrier closes itself behind me, I can't just close the connection?" She replied with, "No, you can't just close the connection. That's what a barrier is for, to prevent a connection from being formed." I then asked, "But if the barrier closes when I have established a connection, won't it cut the connection I have made?" She then replied, "No, once you have a connection made, you can do anything you want to in there but you won't be able to close it. Do you want to try to read my mind again with my barriers up or do you need more of an explanation of how to do it?" I then replied with, "I think I have an idea, so I want to try it out." I then started to stare at her again, like I did two days ago. This time it was a lot harder to read her mind because I had to break through her barriers. I have a feeling that she is one of those people who is good enough to have their barriers rebuild after they are punched through. When I started to break through the barrier, I didn't know how much energy to use to get through, so I had to retry a couple of times before I got it right. Once I had the hole in the barrier, I pushed through with my power and established my connection. I then searched for one thing only because this was just to see if I could do this. I searched for how old she was and then tried to back out, but couldn't. As I figured, she was one of those people who can regenerate their barriers. So when I went to close the connection, I had to re-punch a hole through her barrier. Luckily for me, I remembered how much energy to put behind my attack. When I got done with my search and successfully closed the connection, I told her what I searched for and what the answer to that was. She said that I had gotten the correct information, but not to actually tell anybody because she doesn't want her age spread around the school. After we got done with the planned lesson, she let me go. I got done early because I am a quick study. I went outside because I still had ample time before band was to begin. I sat down and just started to sort of meditate. When I sat down, I started to focus on my mind. I then started to focus on my powers. I hope this helps me develop them because it relaxes me and then I can use my power more fully. Today I decided to focus on the powers I haven't been taught how to use. I started to focus on my pyrokinetic abilities. When I was meditating, I stumbled upon something. It seems that my pyrokinetic powers are sort of handled the same way as my telepathic and telekinetic powers. I had to focus some energy on what I wanted to charge. I then decided to take my "Trojan Card" out of my wallet and charge it. My "Trojan Card" is a discount card that worked for certain restaurants back home. When I focused on the card, it all of a sudden became sort of orangish. It was then that I got this horrible feeling that if I didn't let go of the card that I was going to get hurt, so I threw the card into the air and it sort exploded. The explosion wasn't big enough for anybody to really notice or for anybody to get hurt by. When I got up I was smiling to myself because I learned that I could use one of my untaught powers. Although, I was also wondering if I could uncharged something if I didn't want it to explode. I guess I will just have to figure that out later. Well, that's it for another chapter. Considering I haven't received much feedback about this story, I am letting the fate of it in your hands. If I don't get much feedback, the next chapter will be the last. If you want it to continue, then you are going to have to do something to keep it going. You can contact me at djminf@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading.