20 The Calm Before the Storm

"I have to tell the others that you woke up" I was about to leave, but she took my hand and stopped me.

"No, I want to stay like this a little more" she was looking straight at me with her eyes sparkling, using her hand, she put my hand on the top of her head again. There was no harm in doing it.

"Ok, but just a little, we have to go see the others and tell them you are alright".

"Thanks". I was caressing her hair again. She had a slight blush on her face and her eyes were closed enjoying the caress.

"How much did you see before you fainted?".

From what Hayley said before she saw Hope's body falling, so I wanted to know if she saw something else but was unable to tell Hayley.

"Till Hope and the other guy fell, I know she is ok, my conscience came back yesterday, but I couldn't wake up till I heard your voice today, I was using my power to look at you and saw that you were all fine… thanks for the necklace by the way".

"I'm glad you like it we found it in one of the houses with Hope and I thought it suited you". Someone may think that because of her name she would be sick of receiving thing with roses on it, but it was quite the contrary, she loved those things and roses were by far her favorite.

At that moment a knock sounded on the door and it was opened.

"Hey bro how is…."

Hope was on the door frame looking at us puzzled for a second she looked at Rose and then back to me. She smirked and said.

"Oh!! Sorry for interrupting, I'll give you a couple of minutes more". She left us dumbfounded, but it was when I remember that I was caressing Rose's hair while on the bed, I quickly followed Hope.

"Wait, it's not what it looks like!!" Rose was following me, she seemed a little hurt for what I said.

Hope stopped and was giggling while looking at us, after she saw Rose's reaction she already knew that her friend was alright.

"I'm so happy you are ok". She gave Rose a tight hug said, and then she added in a whisper. "And that other things are working out for you". Rose as usual blushed.

I decided to ignore Hope and went to the backyard to say about Rose to G

He was quick to join us and was about to hug Rose when she decided to instead of hugging him a punch on his shoulder was better… it did 0 damage but it was a critical mental hit.

"Why did you hit him so hard you left bruises on him".

"When you spar seriously, it's normal to get a little hurt, wait how do you know about the bruises? Spence! You sell me away?

"She probably saw it"… I figured out how bad it sounded when I finished saying it.

Hope decided it was a nice timing to make things worse

"OMG!!! Rose you have to tell me everything!!!".

"What do you mean she saw it?". Before G gets to do anything, Rose talked.

"It wasn't like that… unfortunately. I just saw you sparring… I was conscious, but I couldn't wake up so I used my power to see you".

G thought for a few seconds and then looked at me waiting for an explanation.

"Why you look at me?"

"You always know or figure out this kind of stuff"

"For now, I know the same as you"

"Well, it doesn't matter for now, come give your brother a hug!". He went to hug Rose, but she ran and hid behind me.

"You stink"

"I'm sure you gave Spencer a hug and he has been working out too!!".

"I wish I had hugged him… he just patted me for a while but Hope interrupted us! … Also, he is using deodorant, and smells good anyway". She blushed when finished talking, and G was frozen on the spot. Hope interrupted at that moment.

"Are you hungry?".

"A lot". Rose answered gratefully with the escape route that Hope gave her.

"Come here eat something, we can make tea now".

Both girls left, and I wasn't sure what to do with G so I was about to escape.

"Hey Spence, what did she mean that you were patting her?

"She asked me to caress her hair when she woke up…"

He pondered about something for a while. Since it was awkward for both of us talk about that we changed the subject.

"Do I smell that bad?"… Incredibly that was less awkward.

"I'm not going to smell you… Come to eat something, I'll lend you a deodorant, who knows maybe you will get a hug that way".

I followed the girls inside and G came a second later.

When we finished eating I asked Dante to scout around during the day to see if he was able to find the guys who attacked me and Hope the other day.

I took food and went to see Hayley and told her that Rose was awake, she was relieved obviously I knew that she was happy to have someone else to talk beside me and the cat.

"With all that happened, I forgot to give you this"

I gave her the hairpin, she took it in her hand and started inspecting it

"Where did you get this?? Is beautiful"

"When I was out with Hope, she looked the jewelry in one of the houses, and I took a couple of gifts for you and Rose."

"That was nice of you, thanks"

We talked a little more after that, then we tried one of the ideas I had earlier and were able to reduce the cold aura a little, later I was planning to try it with Hope to see if the intimidation was independent of the coldness or was part of the same ability.

If this worked it could be great for Hayley, but to get there was going to take time. After some time of practice, we were trying decreasing the output just a little bit and as long as possible without her feeling discomfort, and when she got tired we took a break.

I went to the backyard where G was working in the bathroom, so I went to help him.

It was getting late, so I went out and helped G with the septic tank, since I was a little smaller than him, he made me go down to cave more and pass him the soil, we also reinforced the walls to be sure it doesn't collapse.

When I finished digging and the septic tank was ready, he thought it was fun to leave me there.

I wasn't going to scream for help or beg I knew this was a revenge because of what Rose said earlier.

I started to ponder about Rose.

'System can an ability evolve?'

[It depends on the ability and the person's potential, but it's possible]

'Did Rose's ability evolve?"

[It's possible, but the user doesn't have enough information to say for sure].

I haven't seen her use her ability for a couple of days, so it's impossible to be sure if there was any change.

Since her ability evolved I had to assume that everyone's abilities can.

'System can my abilities evolve too?'

[The user passive abilities don't need training so there is no learning curve involved in this case, since the user can't make these abilities better, this means that the only way for the user to evolve these abilities is through the system, in the case of active abilities, the user can become better using them, and training them eventually will hit a bottleneck, if the user is able to pass this bottleneck the ability may evolve in some way]

My enhanced senses are impossible to evolve or rank up unless I do it through the system. This is good for now, since I don't need to train it, I can assume that the system gave me this ability at 100% of its potential.

After some time in the tank, Dante came back so I was able to talk to him.

He has some information about the guys that attacked us, but it was getting late, so I asked him to tell Hope and Rose that I was trapped in the tank

Sometime later G came and took me out while his sister scolded him.

To be honest, this kind of situations made all of us relax and seeing angry Rose yelling at G was way too funny, since she was barely able to reach his shoulders.

In the night G was already sleeping. I decided that the best was to talk with Dante about how it went his scouting.