After the fight with Thunder, I had developed a capacity to enhance my body with electricity, or the specific electricity that Thunder could generate.

It didn’t really come up after that though, but fighting with Araphel I could draw a lot of similarities even though the shadow component of his power changed things quite a bit.

Araphel’s electricity also didn’t grant himself a general power up of his physical capabilities that then overflowed as energy.

Araphel's power was separated mostly into two distinct parts. He could generate his specific shadow of electricity and his body could absorb it. When it reached a threshold, he could switch to his shadow electricity form.

Connected with his matrix and with the level I was at now, it was an easy process to map out and integrate what I needed from his matrix into my own.

Interestingly enough, part of his power was a mutation, one that made his body capable of absorbing energy, specifically the one that he generated, but that could be changed.

Combining it with Thunder’s power, I could now enhance myself with Araphel’s electricity, a great defensive and offensive move into one.

I couldn’t implement the part that generated the energy as that was the part keyed to his specific core, but I could make use of the makeup of the energy, adding it as a material that my body could use.

Those two things were connected, as being a material that my body could use entailed both it being able to absorb it through Thunder’s power and just as well transforming myself into shadow electricity if necessary.

Araphel prepared to move again, turning into the arcing shadow of electricity, melting with the shadows on the ground as he flew in my direction.

It was way easier to keep track of him now.

I sensed something interesting then. It was like my powers waiting for an input. I frowned as it distracted me and took a hit for a hit.

I tried to find the reason as I got up again, and it was quite simple. Now I had options.

My powers seemed to be able to respond to my inputs as long as it had what to do, if I could transform into a form I had used before or if it had initiated a transformation during a fight, I could urge my power into covering my whole form much more easily.

Now, after implementing Araphel’s power into my matrix, I had two options; enhancing my body as I kept absorbing his electricity, or turning into the material itself, which would render me immune to its effects.

It’s one more thing to learn to control, but not an overly complex one.

Now, enough of being a punching back. This time when his fist approached, I noticed how it reformed from the shadows before hitting, and before it could actually impact me, I transformed where it would pass into energized shadows as well.

His fist sailed through my body harmlessly, even pulling some more energy into me as it went, and Araphel stumbled, surprised.

“Now we’re talking Matrix.”

The blackness came in an overpowering surge as lightning arced all around Araphel in quantity on a whole, another level than before.

Before, he was only cracking the marble with his attacks, but now the floor had no chance, exploding from where he simply disappeared.

I only felt myself being hit again and again as I focused on absorbing as much energy as I could feel myself swell in power.

I started transforming into shadows more and more easily, using it to make jumps to new locations, trying to disentangle myself from Araphel. He was still much faster than me, though.

It soon devolved into just an incredibly fast-paced fight where we traded blows with mind-boggling amounts of energy into them, just laughing at each other as the attacks didn’t hurt either of us.

I never could actually match his speed. For as much electricity that I absorbed, he seemed to only pour more and more. The place became completely destroyed, but that’s normal around here.

Araphel reformed from an arc of electricity in the middle of the room. I followed suit, grounding myself by his side.

“I have to tell you Matrix, your power is really something, can’t wait to see how you’ll do in this mission.”

I chuckled, “it does feel great to be this strong. You going then?”

He nodded, “it’s pastime. Now charge me up again” he extended his hand to me as if to shake my hand.

I inclined my head, wondering what he was getting at, but then it clicked and I clasped hands with him, discharging the shadow-electricity onto him again.

It made sense that he could last that long if he could reabsorb the power he generated. In a minute or two, he had gotten back all the energy I had left.

“Oh, it’s less than I expected.”

“I think my body uses it to heal myself, when it needs.”

“Hmm, I see, good for you then,” he said, shrugging it off.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Let’s go get lunch then?”

“Sure”

We took the elevator together and while we rode it up; I explained how I had copied his powers and how I had planned to increase my powers in the same line with any examples I could get; he thought it was a great idea to focus on the central thing my power seemed to want to do; we go to lunch together as Araphel gave his goodbyes to everyone.

“You gonna have to fix the marble room again, Glassmetal.” I told him and he slumped.

“Stop complaining, it’s not even that hard.” Victor told the depressed looking young man

“it’s just boring,” he grumbled

“Let’s go there after lunch, then. I want to keep using the room,” I told him

“Aren’t you tired?” Glassmetal asked me, bewildered

“Not at all, I just got re-energized,” I said happily.

We were in the marble room as it fixed itself, well as Glassmetal fixed it, I was making a tether to him after getting his permission to look over his powers, the last time we couldn’t even interact so I curious to know how it actually worked.

“So, how does this tether thing actually work?” Glassmetal asked me.

“Oh, it’s like, hmm” how could I explain this in the best way, considering he doesn’t really feel the matrices.

“First though, how your powers appear to you? How do you feel them?”

“What do you mean, like it is to everyone else, I think? It’s like, it’s just part of me, you know. Once it appeared, it felt like my mind expanded, you know. And after that, after having it for a while, it’s just there, part of you.”

“Hmm I see, to me it1s different, I have inside of me this core, a ball of energy, it’s what I call the matrix right.”

“Yeah, you talked about it before. It’s how your power interprets itself? Other powers as well.”

“Exactly. But interpret, you meaning that it isn’t like the actual truth, it’s more a perspective.”

“How could I know? But it is different for everyone, right? Or do other powers that deal with powers see these matrices as well? Would they see something analogous or something completely different?” Glassmetal asked. He was surprisingly engaged in these topics.

“That’s some interesting questions I wondered about the same ting myself, and well, I’ll tell you when I find out. I intend to explore these abilities thoroughly after the regime is dealt with.”

“Sure. I’ll wait on you for that,” Glassmetal said, accepting easily.

The tether finished forming and Glassmetal matrix appeared before me; it was quite contained if I could say that. It didn’t really have much that interacted with the outside world. Glassmetal could manipulate ceramic but only material that he was touching, and the rest was of his powers all functioned internally.

i immersed myself into the matrix, it expanded from around my analogue to vison. it was a mixture of zooming in and moving closer at the same time.

This place could be a mindscape created as my own way of interpreting powers, but it feels more distinct than that to me. I always think of it as a metaphysical dimension.

Looking this closely, I could see that Glassmetal’s powers where heavily focused in enhancing his understanding and cognitive ability. it was completely focused on understating the material he could interact with; I couldn’t even discern all of it but it surely went even deeper than an atomic level.

Weird, but I don’t think I could really use it, I zoomed out a bit, looking over the parts that enhanced his cognitive ability trying to see if I could disentangle it from its particular subject, but it didn’t seem to have a distinct part of more knowledge and other of ceramic stuff. It was just both.

I zoomed out again, seeing a bit of promise on the processing velocity of thought when it occurred to me. This was like David’s power, it was connected to the user’s mind. I found the central connection part in a burst of movement, leaving the other line of thought behind.

David’s power formed a packet of information using the connection everyone has from their minds with their powers as a base to enter people’s minds. Here in Glassmetal power, there was only a channel entering his mind, not exiting.

And the channel itself was different. What that channel was is a mystery as well because if there is a bridge connecting the mind to this place, then isn’t that proof that this is not, in fact, the mind.

this is another distinct metaphysical place but the two of them must coexist closely and I could see further proof of it in this connection, like a portal to Glassmetal’s mind, he energy of his core flowed through his power and directly into the other side of his mind.

What an interesting type of connection! I tried replicating it, my power flowed almost the in complete opposite direction, where I, as it seemed to me, entered this place from my mindscape and could navigate here through the powers.

And now what I was trying to do was not take that off because I couldn’t even know what would happen if I did but, expand it, making a two-way connection.

I was settling the last detail in place when suddenly I was lurched from the mindscape, opening my eyes in the real world.

The room was mostly fixed and Glassmetal looked confusedly at the startled look on my face.

“Everything okay? You didn’t mess up my powers, did you?”

“No, I can’t really interact with other people’s matrices in that way yet, only copy them.”

“Yet?”

“Well, there must be people who can. If they can, I’ll be able to do so too, eventually.”

“You seem much more okay with the heights your powers will go to now.”

“It seemed too unrealistic before, made me feel like what I was living couldn’t be real, you know. But now, I’ll just use it to the maximum and try to stay a moral being meanwhile.”

“That would be appreciated, by the whole human race.” Glassmetal said, nodding like a sage and cracking me a smile, “but what happened? With the matrix.”

“I was implementing how your powers interacted with your mind in my own powers. When I finished, I was taken out, some kind of restart maybe, I’ll go see.”

I closed my eyes and tried to feel for my matrix. It was so different. Before, it felt like I was controlling something, like playing a video game where I controlled a floating mind’s eye and a giant blob of reality bending software.

But now, now I was the giant blob of reality bending software! Weird analogy, but I think it was a common thing, I saw it in fiction all the time, when the powers became part of the person, or when new members were just as easy to move as your own arms, it wasn’t something I needed to guide anymore; it was me and I was it.

I could feel the power entering my actual mind as well, and all the tidbits I added without even realizing of powers that enhance cognitive functions, it all came alive.

I could feel my mind was sharper, faster. LED’s power had a function like that and I copied the buff. It seemed to get its full potential unleashed just now.

It felt much closer to me now, that metaphysical reality where the powers stayed. I could more easily interact with it even now with my eyes open, I didn’t need to concentrate in controlling everything minutely as before because now it was doubly as natural, I still felt Glassmetal’s matrix close and I searched again for the part about enhancing processing speed on the mind. And copied it just like that.

Now if I felt my mind was sharper before it didn’t compare to now, was this what Glassmetal felt like when working with ceramic, I think he did mention that he made an infinitude of changes from the atomic level to create things in a reasonable amount of time.

Now at least I could be sure that my thoughts wandering all over the place during fights and conversations wouldn’t matter anymore.

“So, did everything work out?” Glassmetal asked me. The room was fixed again, not that I held hopes for it staying like this much longer.

I smiled at Glassmetal. “Yeah, thank you for the help, Glassmetal. Your power is really incredible.”