Upgraded Energizer Bunny

The next day Dawn and Wanda left the facility and drove into the city to Stephan's lab complex. After parking near Stephan's car, they headed up to his office. Once reaching the office, Dawn introduced Wanda and they followed Jessica as she lead them into the conference room.

When they closed the door to the room Jessica asked, "So what type of testing are we going to be doing this time around?"

Dawn explained, "Well, I believe I had told you about the other night when I went flying home with my talent and, being preoccupied with thinking about Stephan's talent, I accidentally got shocked by the electric fence while I was flying over it. After I fell and broke a couple of bones, I had overestimated my healing speed and almost immediately tried to stand up to go inside. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that I don't heal instantly because, when I tried to stand on a foot and leg that was still broken, the unexpected sharp and sudden pain caused me to pass out and fall with my back resting against the fence."

Jessica exclaimed then Wanda continued, "Yeah. When I arrived about two or three minutes later she had been getting hit with the fence's current so much that the breaker for that section had tripped. I quickly moved her off of the fence and had a security guard to carry her to the nurse's station where I found out that the bones that she had broken healed back perfectly without being realigned. And, when I tried to give her an x-ray and MRI to make sure she had healed completely, I found out that the interference I had attributed to a piece of wire that had turned magnetic was surprisingly being caused by Dawn having absorbed so much of that electricity that she herself was magnetic and so full of energy that she could have turned into a glow worm if I had put a flashlight in her hand."

"So what type of ability are we going to be testing that your accident revealed? We gonna try and start glowing or something?" Jessica wondered.

Wanda smiled then replied, "As desperate as I am for some living Christmas ornaments, I'm gonna have to let you down and tell you that, after seeing how much straight energy Dawn was able to absorb, we were wanting to see if it was an ability we have just discovered or if it was just a one time deal."

Jessica gave a sad, disappointed look when Wanda provided the Christmas ornament imagery and then asked, "So are we sticking our fingers in the power outlet to test it? Or are we going big time and gonna walk around grabbing the security fences they got on some of these businesses in town?"

Wanda chuckled and responded, "Well Dawn was thinking of starting with regular batteries and working our way up. But if you want to jump in big time I'll be glad to see how my stun gun works on you."

Jessica then quickly stammered, "Oh! No! No! No! No need. We – we can -can -can start with batteries!"

Laughing at Jessica's nervous reaction, Dawn pulled a flashlight from her pocket and, after checking to make sure the battery had a charge by turning the light on, she removed it and handed the battery to Jessica. She then told her, "Try and drain the power from the battery now. You might have to try holding it on both ends or just on one end. We don't know yet so try different methods and see if you find what works for you."

Jessica tried holding the ends then tried holding one point at a time. Finally, after trying several different mental methods with each different hold, she grew frustrated. While holding it flatly in her palm, instead of trying to visualize drawing the energy out like a wire hooked up to it, she tried draining it like the energy was water pouring out of the battery and into her hand. Feeling a slight pulse , Jessica tried the same method with the other battery and then handed them back to Dawn for testing.

Dawn then placed them back in the flashlight and it did not light up. So, to be sure, Dawn pulled out a fresh pair and had Jessica try the same method and received the same result. Then, while holding the batteries, she thought about both sets being uncharged and visualized using her own energy to fill them back up. Feeling the energy exchange, out of curiosity Dawn tried both sets of batteries in the flashlight again and they worked like new. Excited, Jessica then proposed trying a stronger power source and Dawn agreed.

After some discussion of the risk to their safety, Jessica found an old electrical chord. They then practiced the methods on the chord and found that they were able to access the energy even by just touching the insulated wires and did not need to touch the bare wires to access the energy.

Then, after wondering about the period of increased abilities she had experienced after her encounter with the electric fence, Dawn absorbed a steady amount for a few minutes and then jumped to her room at home. She eagerly jumped next to the hall outside the kitchen area and darted in to grab a drink and jumped back to the conference room while still holding the drink. She then tried to see if she could jump across the hall to Stephan's office but felt weary and did not have enough energy left to make the jump. She then informed a startled Wanda and Jessica of how the absorbed energy temporarily increased her abilities and the places she had been able to jump to by using the extra energy.

Eager to try it herself, Jessica tried to absorb as much as she could and sent the room into darkness by causing an electric breaker to trip. Surprised, she then guiltily walked down the hall to turn the breaker back on and was glad to return without having to explain herself to Stephan and the others. After her return to the room, she then made sure to absorb the energy in a steady flow while asking a recently returned Dawn what her weakest talent was in the testing she had done before.

"The seer and feeler abilities were weak. But most interesting was that your mover ability was weak but you demonstrated better control of it than the other abilities. So the best test for you would be your mover ability." Dawn replied in a contemplative manner.

Jessica nodded and tried to lift the table with her ability. Unexpectedly the table and all of the chairs lifted at the same time. Surprised, She then tried to hold them aloft as long as she could with the available energy. But as she got more weary the chairs started to individually fall back to the floor until only Jessica and the table were still held aloft. Then, suddenly, Jessica slumped over. When she did her and the table crashed back to the floor.

As Wanda then checked on her to make sure of what had caused the collapse, Rachel rushed in and asked, "What's wrong?! We felt her happiness and now she's shut off like she died!"

Dawn explained, "She was using one of her abilities and overexerted herself until she passed out."

Wanda added, "She's physically OK with just a couple bruises but she's either done put herself to sleep or knocked herself unconscious"

"So she's like Steph and pushes herself until she falls asleep." Rachel surmised.

"I don't know this Steph person you're referring to so I don't know" Wanda responded.

Dawn chuckled and explained, "You met Stephan when we got here today. Steph is the nickname that they have given him."

Wanda nodded and said to Rachel, "With him being her brother it might be an underlying genetic condition. But, given how stubborn Jessica has shown herself to be in the few days I have known her, it could also be a family trait of just sheer stubbornness"

Rachel grinned and added, "I'd say the stubbornness definitely runs strong in Steph. But as far as the genetic stuff you'd have to ask my mom because she loves talking about genetic stuff and medical stuff in general. I prefer just straight science and engineering stuff though."

Curious, Wanda asked, "So is your mom a doctor? Did she ever work for our company?"

Grinning at the irony, Rachel gruffly answered, "She's not a doctor. She never made it into nursing school so the best she ever got was being a paramedic for most of her career. And I don't know if she ever tried to get a job at your dad's place or not, but her only interaction with your company I know of was when she had to pick up some lady from your fortress and take her to the hospital. And mom said that when she picked the lady up she was unconscious, then had to shock her heart back to beating on the way, and the lady died after getting shocked again at the hospital. So she decided that if working for the place could do that to somebody she didn't want to work there."