Chapter 14

The silence that engulfed the training room was absolute as Nova deftly landed onto the ground. 

In a daze he looked at his own hands in complete disbelief, almost as if he still wasn't certain that it had been his hands that the energy blast had come from.

Though his thoughts quickly turned from wonder at his new abilities and soon turned to concern for Aqualad who had been on the receiving end of the blast in question. 

Thankfully as the small puffs of smoke from the blast cleared, Aqualad was revealed to be crouched beneath a rippling dome of water that he had conjured just in time to protect himself from the blast in question. 

He had a contemplative look on his face as he stood to his feet and placed his water-bearers back into their holster. 

"Well that was definitely unexpected. Did you already know you could do something like that or…"

"It just came to me at the spur of the moment. I just had a feeling of being full and just needed to get rid of the feeling. It was mostly instinctive to be honest and I'm not even sure I could do it again if I tried right now." 

Nova shrugged his shoulders as he tried to recall the sensation of releasing all the pent up energy in his body. For a moment he thought that he felt something happening, but in the end he was disappointed when no energy beams were formed. 

Aqualad patted him on the shoulder to console him when he noticed Nova's failed attempts at firing off his energy beams again.

"Still I think that spar was…enlightening. Now that we know what you can do and what your powers are, it'll be a lot easier for you to truly begin training and improving from here on out."

Nova nodded his head at Aqualad's words, before smirking as he posed a question of his own.

"Regardless, I think this counts as my win right? You weren't supposed to use your water magic power afterall."

Aqualad curled an eyebrow at Nova, surprised that he seemed more focused on winning their spar than discussing his abilities, before shaking his head and chuckling softly.

"Alright, while unorthodox in nature, you did manage to force me to break my promise of not using my water abilities. I guess this counts as your own after all."

"Awesome!" 

Nova pumped his arms in celebration, though he didn't have a lot of time to celebrate as he and Aqualad were soon surrounded by the other guys who had been watching. 

"That was so cool! What was that last attack?!" asked Wally as he zipped over to Nova's side

"Is your energy absorption something passive, or do you have to consciously activate it?"

Pressed Robin as he pulled up a screen to record his observations.

"Can I have the next round with you? You should be able to handle my hits a lot better than the rest, so I won't have to go easy on you." 

Said Superboy with a smile and he flexed his arms threateningly.

Thankfully Aqualad put a stop to the interrogation before it could even begin, and ensured that he put a stop to Superboy's insistence on getting into a spar right this instant.

"While I'm sure you are all very excited about what Nova can do, I think it would be best to put a pin in things for now. We still don't know the full extent of Nova's abilities and I think it would be better for us to help him figure out his current limits."

Aqualad raised his hand and prevented Superboy from saying anything as he continued

"Preferably in a controlled setting and not by letting our emotions get the better of us. Remember that Nova is still adjusting to regular life and while it may not seem like it, I'm sure he's overwhelmed at the moment. Even if he himself hasn't yet noticed."

The others looked at Nova who had been flicking his hand outward the entire time, trying and failing to recreate the energy beams from before as discreetly as he could.

"What were you saying?" When he noticed that everyone was staring at him he quickly hid his hand behind his back, a look of embarrassment plastered on his face.

"Kal's right, we've had enough spars for one day. I'd much rather spend the rest of the day figuring out Nova's meta abilities. Is he limited to only absorbing kinetic energy? Does that mean he's impervious to bullets? How is he converting that kinetic energy into tangible energy blasts anyway? What's his upper limit of energy absorption? There's so much to uncover and so many questions that need answering!" 

Robin excitedly exclaimed as he began looking at Nova inquisitively. He had always been one that enjoyed digging out secrets, and the thoughts of understanding any and everything there was to know about Nova meta ability was quite tantalizing to him.

"I just want to see him blow some stuff up! He's the only one amongst the team that has energy beams afterall." Wally was quick to voice his agreement for ditching the spars and focusing on nova as well even if his reasons for doing so were all that altruistic.

The only one who still seemed to want to spar was Superboy, but he was more than willing to postpone to a later date if it meant that Nova would be able to act as an even better punching bag. Though it wasn't lost how nova hoe Superboy seemingly flinched at Wally's comment.

Of course since no one else seemed to have notice, and not wanting to be the odd one out, he said nothing.

"I don't know if energy blasts and lasers are all that amazing. I don't have any and I get by pretty well if I do say so myself." Grumbled Supoerboy as the rest of the group began walking to the console. 

"I mean… sure you don't need them, but I still think energy blasts are still an objectively cooler power. Everyone knows that." Wally said as he waved his hand dismissively. 

Robin nodded his head vigorously in agreement to Wally's statement while Aqualad tactfully avoided the discussion all together.

"I think your super strength is pretty cool, Superboy. At least you can control your powers, I can't even summon my energy blast at will." 

Nova patted Superboy on the shoulder encouragingly, who seemed quite pleased at the acknowledgement thrown his way.

"See, even Nova agrees. My super strength is cooler."

"Only because he hasn't seen much of anything else. I bet we could ask Superman or maybe one of the other leaguers to help him out with his training. Might be pretty helpful since we aren't exactly experts."

Superboy simply grunted in annoyance, but didn't say anything else. 

"I for one don't think we need any help from the league. If we're going to be a team then we should do it on our own. Show them we got things handled ourselves." added Wally 

"Besides, I don't think any of the league members are particularly happy with us at the moment." 

"They'll get over it like they always do. They can't keep us grounded forever." Quipped Robin.

"Regardless, I still think it's a good idea to get more comfortable with Nova and his abilities. Who knows what else he can do. It'll be up to us to help him find out. Plus, this will be a great chance for everyone to show off their powers in earnest."

All of the boys nodded their heads in understanding and Aqualad was relieved to have avoided further nitpicking for the moment. 

With a plan in mind, Aqualad quickly stepped behind the main console in the room and the sparring field was quickly cleared away and a passageway opened in one of the walls. 

The sudden breeze that carried the salty tinge of the ocean let them know that it led to one of the many exits scattered around Mount Justice., particularly one near to the beach.

"While we could practice inside, I think it would be better for everyone if we took this outside for a bit."

No one objected and soon the group had found themselves a rather nice spot on the beach that they could use as a training ground of sorts without much worry. 

Of course they only had to rely on super boy's talents for destruction to demolish a few of the outcropping of rock that were sprinkled around the new training field, but soon they had relatively flat areas to let loose on. 

"Alright, so we're mainly going to be testing Nova's meta limit. We need to figure out how much of a beating he can take and how to help him control his energy blasts. We also need to figure out if there is anything else that he's hiding under the hood. So who wants to go first?" asked Aqualad as he eyed the other members of the team.

"Before that, we need to charge him up first before we do anything, don't you think?" Asked Robin as he stood to the side with scanner in hand.

"Oh that's easy enough, leave that to me." Wally said as he smiled.

With a flicker he had disappeared from where he had been standing and had appeared in front of the surprised Nova. Faster than anyone could see, he punched Nova a few dozen times in the chest and stomach before pausing to see what happened.

Surprisingly, Nova collapsed to the ground with a grunt of pain, which confused everyone and Wally was the most surprised of all.

"What did you do?!" Shouted Superboy as he rushed in to help Nova who was curled up on the ground.

"I didn't do anything! I just thought that since he needed to absorb energy it just made sense to punch him a lot! I didn't even hit him that hard." Shouted a frantic Wally.

"Maybe It would have been wise to let Nova know that before you started wailing on him like that." Said Aqualad as he joined Superboy in helping up Nova. 

"Are you okay?" Superboy asked Nova as he stood back to his feet. 

"Yeah I think so? I don't know what happened." coughed out Nova as he rubbed his aching stomach. 

"That hurt a lot more than any of the hits Aqualad hit me with. Why couldn't I absorb Wally's hits like I did to Aqualad's?" he asked, though more so to himself than anyone else.

"I may have an answer to that, though I'd like to run a few more tests to verify my assumptions." 

Everyone looked over to Robin who hadn't moved away from the scanner that he'd brought with him. 

"What are you thinking Robin?" Inquired Aqualad as he looked between him and Wally who was keeping his distance from Nova and a disgruntled Superboy.

"Well, for lack of a better word I think he might just have a simple cool down time."

"A cool down time? What's that supposed to mean?" asked Superboy.

"While he and Aqualad were sparring, Nova did absorb and mostly nullified your punches and kicks, but he didn't absorb them all." 

Another projection appeared in front of Robin showing several times where Nova was pushed back and winced in pain from a few of Aqualad's hits during their spar. 

"See, some of these hits definitely hurt and there were a few that, had he nullified them , could have allowed him to take advantage of the situation, but he didn't. If you measure the amount of time between each hit that he did absorb though, you realize that it's pretty consistent. I think that he just needs time to process the energy that he absorbs so that he can store it and prepare himself to absorb more."

"That's why Wally took him out. The first Punch was nullified and absorbed, but he didn't have enough time to absorb the others. hence why he ended up on the floor." Robin said as he lowered the holographic projection. 

"Okay that makes sense I guess, but what about near the end of the fight? He was tanking practically all of Aqualad's hits without a moment of hesitation. He didn't seem to need time to absorb the energy then." Wally pointed out, earning a nod of approval from Robin.

"You're not wrong, but remember, as time went on his physical abilities increased as well. He absorbs a portion of the energy to enhance his physical power which also enhances his ability to absorb more energy efficiently. He takes a while to build up energy but once he starts, it snowballs into an advantageous situation. The more he's absorbed the stronger his body becomes and the more he can absorb. It's a positively trending cycle where he eventually hits a ceiling where he can't absorb anymore energy and instead can then project the stored energy as energy blast."

"That's a pretty big disadvantage though, that means that if he gets overwhelmed with too many hits before he ramps up his power level he'll be out of the fight completely." Said Aqualad as he contemplated Robin's words. 

"Not only that, but I'm pretty sure there is a limit to the amount he can absorb at any one point in time. Sure he could absorb Aqualad's hits, but what about A serious punch from Superboy? Would he be able to absorb it, or would he only be able to absorb a portion of it and be forced to block the rest of the punch. Would he need more time to absorb Superboy's stronger hit or would it be about the same amount of time that he needed for Aqualad?"

"There really is only one way to find out, and that means that Nova's going to need to endure a lot of punches." Robin said with glee.

Nova, who had been silently watching everything unfolding before him, felt a cold shiver run down his spine when Robin, Wally and even Aqualad looked his way. He felt like a lab rat under their piercing gazes and while he had no problems with testing his limits, he definitely didn't want to become a punching bag. 

He looked to Superboy, the one person that he felt he was closest to thanks to Megan constantly forcing the two of them to spend time together only to see Superboy cracking his knuckles with a sly grin of his own. 

"Well I think we should see if he can withstand my hits first." 

As soon as he heard Superboy he gave up hope of being able to run away.