Desolate Experiments

That was an eye opening to say the least. I cannot say that I wasn't bummed that I could never go that fast if I wanted to stay alive. But now I knew that there was a distinction between my lightning and actual lightning. That put a lot of things into perspective. And even Dragoon liked the way I was using my abilities and the only issue he had with me, my lack of information, would also go with time.

"Lets get into what you can do with your powers now, first you need to control the electricity you shoot out. You said that it spreads?"

I nodded.

"So just control the spreading or at least aim to reduce the overall spreading."

He flew out as he said this leaving me behind.

He left me.

But he just left me?

The mood was all he cared about?

Forcing myself to think about the topic at hand I walked back outside to find a tree freshly plucked and placed in front of me. Dragoon pointed at the tree, "Shoot."

And shoot I did. Lightning arced down through my arms and out through my palms, blasting outward toward the tree and a second later it split into a multitude of branches spreading outward and hitting the tree and charring almost all of it. The tree caught fire, which instanly died down as if it was smothered by something.

"More shotgun like, lets see how you can improve from here.."

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Maurice was back and he came with news. Apparently all The Kings were going to meet soon and some of them wanted to meet the new human Dragoon had got into a deal with.

I couldn't say that I wasn't nervous, my first contact with Dragoon hadn't been the most... normal. But brushing past that it seemed fine I guess. Dragoon hadn't talked about them at all and opted to remain silent when I did ask about them. 

"One or two of them might kill you. But what is life without a little risk." He said. 

How should I feel about that I wonder?

Another thing I had come to realize was that I was a little bit better. Not in the ability training sense but I did get better at that too. I.... I felt happier. Talking to both Maurice and Dragoon felt nice.

But I had the nagging feeling in the back of my mind asking me... asking me if I deserved this moment of happiness.

Honestly, I don't think I do. I can't be here having fun when the reason for the death of my family were still living happily.

As I delved deeper into my thoughts, I realized Maurice was like me. Dragoon had said that Maurice was the only one of his kind. A sole creature of his species. Thought he hadn't experienced the pain of losing family, he was still like me, an orphan. But he did have a home.

I did warm up to place initially but once I heard the voice in my head yelling for revenge, I gave up on it. This was a temporary abode and thats all it would be until I made my way outside.

What pissed me off however, was the fact that I still hadn't gotten to physical training yet. Dragoon just didn't bother. It had been two weeks. Yes, my ability itself and its usage improved but I wanted to put my body to use.

"Oi Dragoon."

His head raised lazily, "Hmmm."

"When am I going to be doing some heavy training?"

"Aren't you doing heavy training? You want to be more drained than you already are?"

"No.. I didn't mean it like that." He did make sense though. I was pretty physically drained after every training session. Would that be considered physical training?

"I... wanted to do some physical training."

"Huh."

"That's it? 'Huh'."

Dragoon rolled over as he stretched his body, wiggling as he said, "I'm not really the best at human body and stuff, so yeah. If you do want to do some physical training then wait till The Call. There is one fellow who might take you in."

"The Call?"

"Yeah, its what we call the meeting of The Kings."

"And would The King you mentioned be willing to teach me?"

"She is among the ones who might kill you but otherwise its fine. As long as you can get her to accept you its fine." He slithered toward me, crossing one of his claws toward the side of his face and whispered, "She does like a good sob story, so you probably have a good chance."

I didn't know how to feel when he called my life a sob story.

I walked back out of the cave while munching on one of the fruits Maurice brought. And fell back into my thoughts, this time about The Waking. Every Waking had a cost for its use. Dragoon had taken a very long time to explain this, Wakings weren't infinite, they needed fuel. Like Jaguar, he needed those pills, for pure calcium I guess, his powers only worked when he could replenish them and he could use his abilities without it but it would probably be life threatening. Most Waking, including Dragoon had stamina as their cost. At first we both believed that my abilities relied on stamina but we were wrong, I did get tired using my abilities but it didn't really correlate to the output of my lightning, even if I was tired I could still maintain the same power at which I started.

We spent a few days on this and ended up finding that.... well we didn't really find anything. One day, I could figure that out. Eventually.

One of the biggest changes was I could move my arm thorugh pure bio-electric control, so if I was ever paralyzed, I could always just move my body thorugh my mind. I still needed to practice spreading the control throughout my body. And then, hehehe, I could control other creatures as well.

Now I had gotten a lot better at using my abilities and Dragoon had pushed me to use The Null as well. Since Null was conductive and didn't really melt, it was the perfect weapon for me and it changing shape and density as I used it was just the icing on the cake. And indirectly it was the solution to most of my problems.

I could shoot lightning in a straight bolt where I aimed the Null at, which I usually kept in the form of a pole, similar to how I had found it the first time. I could hollow it out and shoot a nail through it.

Now, Dragoon was a little peculiar, he insisted on naming my various abilities and attacks but what was killing me was the fact that he still hadn't revealed the names he had given the abilities.

I willed my bracelet to turn into a staff and twirled it around. Changing its shape each twirl, going from staff to various types of polearms, spears, tridents, halbeards. I liked the longer weapons, simple and effective, I could keep my enemies at a distance and shock them. That didn't mean I couldn't do well in a close combat scenario, I could transform Null to cover my entire body like a protective suit and despite it being stretched thin it was still strong. I found that out when Dragoon swiped his claws at me to 'test durability'. He really just viewed me as a test subject sometimes. But it was not without its benefits. I had developed a few new techniques to both absolutely destory my enemies as well as to escape any situation I deemed dangerous enough.

A big revelation was when Dragoon revealed to me what his Waking actually was. It wasn't telekinesis, it was power over wind. This led me to elevate his danger level. His body was extremely tough, he could just shrug off a lot of my attacks without worry. His claws cut through most things as well. His flight was also not a part of his Waking. 

"How do you fly without wings?"

"I don't fly."

"So, your Waking?"

"I swim."

The conversation left more questions than answers but he swam through the air. I thought about how wierd that was and then I accepted it pretty easily, I was playing with a metal that could change shape and density afterall.

And his actual Waking he used in different ways. He used it to cut things at a distance. Increase the speed at which he moved, and he was pretty fast without the boost. And as demonstrated by putting out the fire earlier, he could just remove the air in a location careting a vaccuum. 

Yeah. I didn't know if I could ever win against him.

HIs eyes were also permanently glowing.

"Do your eyes glow more when you use your Waking?"

"No."

"So how do I know if you are using your Waking."

"I'm always using it."

Well that made sense. 

Wait.

"Always? Don't you get tired?"

"I used to, my cost being stamina." He then shrugged. "I just stopped being tired after a while. Pretty much all of us can do it."

Nice, The Kings can all permanently have their abilities active. I didn't know if I could ever win against them either.

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After a week the day had finally arrived. I was going to meet the rest of the Kings.

My bad dreams had reduced in frequency over the days I spent here, the silver linings just kept popping up.

Packing up my bag with basic necessities, I got ready for this big meet up. 'The Call' Dragoon had called it. Why that name and at whose call I didn't know. Dragoon didn't explain the reasoning behind that and just outright ignored me when I had asked him about it. I felt a little betrayed at that but soon came to accept that he probably wasn't willing to talk about it.

Maurice had already left the night before, so it was just the both of us and Dragoon was going to carry me all the way there. Apparently Maurice hated flying so he just walked the distance despite Dragoon being able to cross the distance in an hour.

"A little more than an hour."

"Why?"

"I want to show you something."

Well, a little more than an hour.

Fully ready, I got onto Dragoon and we took to the skies. He had insisted I hop onto of him instead of just carrying me alongside.

"Stryke go half lightning."

I did as he said, I could transform parts of my body after close to a month of training. And he flew up high.

"Well is the pressure change affecting you?" He asked as we kept climbing higher.

"No. That's why you asked me to go half lightning." I said.

He flew until we could see the entirety of the Desolate Lands.

"Now, Stryke what do you see when you see the Desolate Lands." He said as he hovered at the height.

I peered over his body. I started shaking. An expression of horroe creeping onto my face. That couldn't be possible. No. How?

"No way. NO FUCKING WAY!"