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Ava Montague paced back and forth in front of Roman, not yet sure how she should respond to her pupil’s latest action.
“Let me recap: you animated a sex doll, who is now at your home, re-arranging and cleaning the place. Is this what you’re telling me?”
“I figured I should just go ahead and come out with it,” said Roman. “ I mean, you would see the red bar on my power dial at some point, and I didn’t want it to conflict with whatever training you had in store.”
“And why didn’t you cancel your creation?”
“It just didn’t feel right. Sorry, I know that’s not a great answer. I thought she was...” Roman searched his brain for a word to describe Coma. “Interesting. I don’t know. I’m not a lonely guy or anything, not that it matters. I have friends, girlfriends, that sort of thing.”
He winced at what he’d just said—it really sounded stupid.
“I’m sure you do.” Ava raised an eyebrow at him. She looked as hot as the first time he’d met her, in tight exemplar clothing with her red hair pulled into a tight ponytail. “I just find it strange that your first inclination was to animate a sex doll.”
“She’s life-sized.”
Ava snorted. “Not the response I thought you’d give me. My point remains: she’s a doll.”
“Agreed, but she’s alive now, and I’d like to keep her that way.”
“I’ll definitely have to meet her at some point, because this is something I’d like to see for myself. And I don’t think it would be wise for you to pursue an actual relationship with her.”
“I don’t know if all her parts are, um, working or not, if you get my drift. I didn’t check.”
She squinted at him with one eye. “I suppose that’s another thing that would be interesting to know. As I have mentioned to you before, there aren’t many like you—exemplars who can animate inanimate objects. It’s too bad we don’t rate powers on their rarity, because if we did, this would definitely be up at the top. So part of me wants to see just what you are capable of—for science!—but I also want you to be extremely careful in what you animate.”
“Got it.”
“So with that said, and keeping an eye on your power dial, I want you to animate my clothing. I want you to make it come alive.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m dead serious, and I thought you’d like this task. Of course, there is something else that might make it more difficult.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to be attacking you in the process.” A thin smile cut across Ava’s face.
“Yesterday, you had me animating a rock, a piece of paper, and a pair of scissors. Today you want me to attack you? Seems like a bit of a jump, no?”
“That’s right. Seeing as how you are already becoming an expert, I figured we might as well step it up to the next level. And besides, do you just want to animate small inanimate objects, or do you want to see what you’re truly capable of?”
Roman cracked his knuckles. He’d been in a good many fights before, in the various fighting bars of Centralia. He’d even fought a super, but not one with elemental powers. He had no idea what he would do if she actually burnt him.
Of all people, Roman knew healers weren’t easy to come by.
“Well?” Ava dropped her hands to her side, flames boiling up her wrists and flickering off her forearms.
She looked sexy as hell in that moment, and even though he was seconds away from becoming Centralian barbecue, Roman figured he would give it his best shot.
A ring of fire appeared around him, and his skin instantly started to feel as if it were boiling.
The fire was far enough away that he wasn’t actually being burnt, but the proximity of the heat definitely had him sweating, and it would start to affect his skin if he didn’t do something soon.
“My clothes,” Ava called from outside the fire. “Animate them!” But Roman was no longer paying attention to her clothing. He needed to get this fire to stop, and for a second, he thought about trying to control the actual fire.
It is an inanimate object, isn’t it?
Figuring this idea was stupid, Roman animated the floor around him, lifting himself above the flames and forming a small plateau to stand on.
Sweating now, his heart slamming against the inside of his rib cage, Roman tried to get a grip on what was happening. Even as the flames spread higher, he steeled himself, glanced down at his power dial and seeing...
Shit.
The floor was clearly considered a mid-sized object, likely because he was only animating a portion of it.
Another thought came to him:
My power usage responds to my level of anxiety.
He responded by trying to take control of his breath, focusing on what he was creating yet protecting himself from the flames as they rose higher and higher. Ava, who stood a good thirty feet away, was staring at him intently, her brow furrowed and the control evident on her face as she made sure...
She’s not actually trying to hurt me.
This was good news for Roman, because he really did not want to be hospitalized with third-degree burns.
She could have already done it by now, he concluded, and rather than continue to fight off the flames, he figured he would take this little exercise to its very limit.
One more glance at his power dial and he saw that relieving his anxiety had helped. Fear really did play a larger part than he’d originally thought.
Roman didn’t have superhuman strength, but like most half-powereds, he did have enhanced strength, which was further enhanced through the time he’d put in at various gyms in his youth.
Focusing on the ceiling now, he forced bars to form out of the paneling.
Without looking at his power dial, Roman jumped into the air and latched on to one of the bars he’d created, glad to see that it held his weight. He swung to the next bar and then the next, his muscles pulsing as he held on for dear fucking life.
Roman mentally banished all the other structures he’d created and used the bar to lower himself to the ground. Ava was just about to create a new ring of fire around him when he pulled the floor from beneath her.
He used the floor to pin her arms and legs, and even though she sparked with flames, he kept doubling down on his structure until he could no longer breathe.
Roman fell to the side, striking his head on the floor of the gymnasium.
“Goddamn that hurt.”
He didn’t know how long he’d been out for. All Roman knew was that when he woke up, Ava was crouched before him, his head resting on her lap. He looked up at her flowing red hair, her black eyes, her incredible rack.
It wasn’t a bad place to be.
“It seems you have a bit to learn,” she said with a chuckle.
“I didn’t know my second lesson would be a full-on brawl.”
“You call that a brawl? I was going easy on you.”
It felt good to be in his teacher’s hands—he wasn’t going deny that—and rather than get up immediately, he feigned that he was still injured, which he technically was since his head was still spinning and he felt queasy.
Ava’s hands ran down either side of his head, her fingers massaging his temples.
“So you’re a healer as well?”
“No, nothing like that. You hit your head, but it didn’t seem like it was very hard, mostly because the floor rose up to meet you.”
“It did?”
“It sure did, which tells me that your power is truly stitched to your instincts. This isn’t always the case with non-exemplars who take on a power. Sometimes they have to always tell their power to activate, or think it awake. I don’t know how to describe it other than that, but you get what I’m saying, right?”
“I think I do.”
“So that’s the good news; and there isn’t really any bad news here, but you are going to have to be careful as you level up your ability. You overpowered yourself back there, and if you let that red bar get to the end of your dial, you’re as good as dead. Red is dead.”
Roman squinted up at her.
“Yes?”
“Are there actual healers here?”
“It’s a training facility, so yes, we do have someone available to us who has some healing ability, a Type IV Class H, to use your phrase. Although there is a small waiting period if you get hurt... So, don’t get hurt? Yeah, don’t get hurt.”
“Wait a minute, are you telling me that because I’m now an exemplar, I have access to healers?”
“You aren’t part of a combat unit, so no—that’s your short answer. But the long answer is you have better access than non-exemplars, meaning that you can and will be healed before they are. Also, you aren’t an exemplar. I thought we went over this.”
Roman gritted his teeth. “That’s so fucked up,” he said as he pushed away from her.
“Fucked up?” Ava looked at him curiously for a moment. “You do realize what you are now, right? And that your life is more valuable to our country than their lives, right?”
Roman stood, his fists at his side as he considered the way she’d phrased that last sentence.
“Relax, it’s simply a fact of the matter, nothing to get worked up about. Once we get you trained, your new ability will be useful to the Centralian government and its mission. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I can think just off the top of my head of a number of different tasks you could undertake.”
“What if I just disappeared?”
Ava laughed. “If you just disappear, we’ll find you. There are Type IVs for that, and you’d know this better than I.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning away from her, his fists still clenched at his sides.
