Chapter 24 : New hobby and the attack

[Author note : New KoSP chapter. Damn ! It's too hot today ! I don't like summer when it's like this... Anyways, you're not interested in my rant. You're probably not even interested in this little paragraphs, even. I still want to update you to the fact that I have reached the 10+ chapters available on Patréon (counting the 2 stories). I need to edit the benefits and stuff but... Yeah. Unless I have a sudden series of flashes of inspiration, I won't be able to maintain this rate of writing and posting after next week.

If you're interested in my stories or want to encourage me, please check out my Patréon : https://www.patréon.com/user?u=66371596 (replace the é by a normal e) or look for Cathbel on their website

KoSP : 6 advanced chapters

The Squib who became Iron Lad... In DC : 8 advanced chapters

AoH : Prologue + 6 chapters (exclusive)

MoH : 8 chapters (Exclusive)

VOG : 6 chapters (exclusive)

Enjoy and please tell me what you think of it !]

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Simon finally found out something he liked to do. The thing was… what he liked might make him appear to others as a battle junkie. Even though fighting wasn't really the reason he was doing it. Simply put, he discovered that he liked to get better at using his powers.

That, and music… Listening to music was something he always loved. In fact, he was thinking of learning to play an instrument. He didn't what kind however… Playing guitar was cool, and you could also sing if you were confident enough in your voice. The same was true for the piano or some kind of keyboard. He was also interested by how vivacious violin was sometimes…

Simon could only idly thought of those things right now because he finally mastered flying unconsciously. Otherwise, he would have crashed by now… Currently, he and Crys were flying over the local forest near their base of operation. According to Crys who had several drones flying around the area, it was safe to do so. And more importantly, there wasn't anybody to be a busybody, filming or snapping pictures of them.

For a short moment, he thought of the woman from the bank… The one that tried so hard to kill him. Perhaps he should thank her ! Without her, he'd still be earthbound, unable to fly. It was her application of electromagnetism that put him in the right direction.

Granted, he could achieve similar, perhaps even better results by using other kinds of energies… But he still wasn't sure how to do that yet. Should he wait for her to come out of prison and thank her ?

« Yeah… Probably not. »

She didn't seem exactly right in the head. In fact, if some had a few screws loose, her whole head was screwed upside down. Maybe that's what made her a successful hit woman… Until she met him, that is.

Crys had searched informations about her on the local networks. She was wanted for at least a couple dozen hits, with suspicions on half a dozen more before the event of the bank. Simon thought that her potential was wasted but then he thought of fictional characters using the same powers. Magneto was a terrorist and a mass murderer… What if it was all the electromagnetism that fried his brains (and hers) ? Electro and Livewire were villains too… But then, there was Statik : he was a pretty cool hero. And so was Cole MacGrath from the Infamous games (when you didn't play him villain).

Simon stopped in the air, hovering a little unsteadily over a clearing. Flying forward was easy. Turning, a little harder but staying in place that was the hardest. The human body wasn't exactly designed to stand in the air without support. So he contracted his muscles to stay upright, but since he didn't know which sets of muscles to clench… This kind of made him look like a constipated idiot standing on air.

Lowering himself slowly, he sighed as his feet touched the ground.

« Still needs a little work before I can consider myself a master, huh ? »

* * * * *

A month later, as he was training as usual in the forest that served as one of his training ground, Simon was suddenly attacked. It came out of nowhere, without warning from Crys, noise to be heard or even the slightest hint that something was amiss.

He was experimenting once more with electromagnetism, trying to recreate the woman's technique to propel things at fast speed when… several gas grenade fell all around him. Following which, some kind of force field was erected around the area to keep the gas, and him within.

As he looked around, Simon wondered where the attack even came from. Obviously, the zone had been trapped prior to his session today, but that would mean that whoever was attacking him, had been observing him for a while. Though, probably not long enough… The Terran breathed in the sweet, tangy smell deeply, trying to find out what it was. Of course, that was not possible. It wasn't like Simon had access to a vast array of chemicals he could smell, taste or ingest to work on his chemical powers.

The visibility was rendered almost null by the yellow smoke, so he started to slowly walk around, sweeping the air around and in front of him with his arms, kind of like a blind man. One that hadn't been blind for long… When he reached his first tree, he used it to rest his back on it, thinking about his situation and the possibilities (or rather the ideas) it gave him.

First things first : he was pretty sure that, beside him and Crys who was usually patrolling the area or doing some other things, there was no one else in the vicinity. Meaning the trap was remotely activated. However, this also meant that the person or the group who did this had the means to know where he was and when to trigger the trap. So, he had been watched… When the smoke cleared, he'd have to find if there were cameras or sensors in the forest. Or, he'd just ask Crys as tech was more his thing.

« Wait a minute… » Simon muttered. If it was tech, Crys would have noticed. He had some kind of sense for technology. Not only could he manipulate it, he could sense it. And Simon was pretty this was like his sight : he couldn't turn it on and off. So, either Crys had detected it and hadn't reported it. Though there was really no reason for that… Or, there was no tech !

« A superpower, then ? » He tilted his head in thought. « Some kind of farsight or scrying magic, maybe ? »

The other thing on his mind was… Working on another aspect of his power. A lifetime ago, though in reality, it was only a few months, when he was reborn on this desert moon, he was forcefully made aware of how chemicals affected his body. The fact of the matter : chemical energy was the first his body stored and transformed for him to simply function on a world without water, oxygen, or food. Of course, he hadn't stayed long, but he realized how overpowered this aspect was… He could virtually survive and even live anywhere. Even in the void of space if he was energized enough.

And later, when the TUP had tried to separate Crys and him, he exuded poison, transforming the chemical energy a human body generated naturally to defend himself subconsciously.

This, along with his rather lengthy and somewhat unsuccessful experiment with electromagnetism and electricity, led him to a conclusion :

« I really need to study chemistry and physics… Damn, and I never liked pure science ! » He sighed. After a while, he looked up to the cloud, unseen sky and commented : « I still have to figure out what's happening here, first… »