May 21st​

Even four days later, I still felt an almost unreal level of energy bubbling in me, somewhere almost double what I'd had. Enough that even with the most minimal cycling I could feel the tiny amount energy travelling out of my dantian and into each breakthrough. Even that little bit strengthened me and as I felt it pass outside of me it felt like the overflow was hitting parched ground and being absorbed.

I let out a breath and opened my eyes, looking out over Rolla from the Seeker office roof with a smile on my lips. Cycling a decent chunk of power along with Feathersteps had turned a thirty minute drive into a thirty-five minute somewhat comfortable run between Leonard Wood and Rolla.

Three hours until class and testing at the Seeker office would give me plenty of time to wander around for a bit. Maybe get a late breakfast.

~~~

Standing in front of the diner, apparently proselytizing, was a fairly well-built guy with pulled back brown hair, dressed in street clothes. I had to laugh quietly as he waved papers around at the few people that were actually stopped to listen to him. I walked closer to bypass him for the diner.

"Join us in the fight for the Earth! Each one of us is necessary to add to the bulwark against the alien, to ease the pain the planet feels! And in return, the planet gives to us a tiny fraction of itself to strengthen ourselves and it!" He handed off one of his printed sheets to one of the people listening, who looked like he really didn't want to take it. I imagined the trash can inside the diner was pretty full. "Do not become a Seeker of the Alien, for the alien only brings ruin!"

Huh, he feels like two breakthroughs, but he's not cycling at all? But what's the whole Seeker of the Alien thing? I could hear the emphasis on the title.

As I got closer, he noticed me and his eyes went massively wide as he whitened.

"Are you trying to knock me out? Jesus." He stumbled back a bit, color coming into his face again as he took several deep breaths. The other people watching him looked between the two of us, as if I was going to attack him or something.

"Huh?" I, on the other hand, was just confused. "I'm not looking to knock you out or whatever. I was actually just going to get food."

"You're a Seeker and you're casually wasting more energy than I can hold total. I can literally feel it coming off of you." He looked me over once, eyes resting for a moment on my hair. "You're Nicole, aren't you? I was told not to bother you, so if you'll excuse me I'll let you get to your food."

Well, that's interesting. I thought to myself as he started edging backwards into the parking lot. I held up a hand, gesturing to him. "Actually, can we talk for a few minutes?"

"So you can beat me to prove the alien's ways are stronger than the Earth?" He asked, sounding like he was quoting someone else.

The other people around us started to back off, and I saw one guy get his phone out, pointing it towards us.

"Christ, you are with ELF, aren't you? No, I just said I'm not going to beat you up or anything." I rubbed my face. "I just want to ask you a few questions. You might have answers I'd like to get from one of your bosses, and then you can go back to this without any issue." I waved towards the gathered people and then his papers, still held up almost as a shield against me.

He took a deep breath. "I will not reveal any of our secrets to you, but if you wish to hear our message I would be…delighted… to convert you to our cause." He paused and gestured at me. "Could you, um, not do that though? Waste all that power? It's unnerving."

I looked down at myself, confused again, then looked to the others including the guy still recording. "Not sure what I'm doing that's wasting power? Any of you unnerved?"

I got headshakes and generally confused looks back even from the couple of them that I could tell had lit dantians. "Don't think I'm doing anything, what do you mean?" I directed back to the ELF guy.

"You are a massive hole in the fabric of the Earth." He shook his head. "Umm, let me start from the beginning. I am Zach, and originally a member of the Earth Liberation Front. However, a few weeks ago we were informed about the fight Mr. McDonald had with you. Due to the discussion that happened then, we have altered our methods to better fight the alien and the methods he has given you and your Seekers to kill the planet for him."

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. "I have gotten nothing from the alien that I wasn't able to discover on my own. I didn't get a 101 book on how to do any of this."

"And yet, you are heads and shoulders above anyone else I have seen or heard of." Zach noted. "But anyone who receives this power drains the planet of energy, uses it, and then emits a tainted energy back out. Much like a coal power plant eats fuel and then pollutes the world to generate power."

The crowd around us started to wander off, less interested in hearing an argument rather than watching.

I doublechecked the sense I was getting from him about his own energy. "Are you any better then? You've got what, two breakthroughs from what I can tell?"

"We are calling them layers, but yes. But while I do enjoy the passive benefits of it, you'll notice I'm not drawing on that power at all. We refuse to harm the planet unless there is a greater benefit to the planet in doing so. Mr. McDonald opposed you as a representative of the alien, so he drew on the planet to fight you."

I sighed. "Not that I agree with you, but if Barry had actually, you know, said anything like that, we could have started looking into it." I stopped for a moment, looking at him. "Do you, or Barry, or anyone in your group even realize I'm not drawing on any sort of external energy? Yes, a lot of the people in the Seekers do, but not everyone." I cycled faster, drawing energy up through myself. More than necessary to keep my current overflow running, before letting it settle again.

Zach staggered back for a moment, blinking rapidly at me. "Please don't do that. And that just proves even more that you're connected to the alien. Likely directly to whatever he uses for a power source. I can see that your power pollutes just as much as someone using the earth's does. More maybe, considering how much you can use."

I rolled my eyes. "So what's it going to take to make you believe I'm not in cahoots with the alien? Barry said killing Zhaohui, but I don't see that happening anytime soon." Zach made to speak before I continued on. "Because I don't think any of us are anywhere near his strength, not because I don't want him dead or gone."

"Beyond that? Proof that your actions help the planet rather than hurt it. But considering I can feel the power coming off you laying across the area around us like a filmy coating? When you have dozens of people in your Seeker building that make it feel like the worst of the polluting power plants I've ever seen? You have a long road ahead of you." Zach shrugged. "Will you still your stolen source of power? Only use it in defense of planet?"

"You can't advance your power without building it up." I answered him, trying to feel if my overflow was actually coating anything. I couldn't tell. "And why not work with us to figure out a way to mitigate what you see are issues? Not advancing is going to be a fast track to letting the alien have whatever way he wants with the Earth."

He tsk'd and shook his head. "The best way to mitigate nuclear waste is to not make a nuke. I added my second layer from the Earth's castoffs from the fight with the alien. So instead of escalating, we are maintaining with the planet. I can see we won't see eye to eye on any of this, so I don't think it's going to be worth my time to continue."

"Well, at least we didn't devolve into a fight." I picked at the one silver lining. "You're welcome to come by the Seeker building if you ever want to try to work with us to figure it out though."

"Past military security into a secured building that I've already described as a bad power plant? No thank you." Zach actually laughed at that, before offering me one of his sheets. "But you're welcome to come listen to me or anyone else of our group speak."

I looked down at the sheet. Were they really giving their address out as a known ecoterrorist group? No, just times and street locations for open air discussions. "Maybe."

He nodded. "I'll leave you to your breakfast then, and move on myself. Have a good day."

~~~

After handing off Zach's flyer to one of the military guys, I'd spent a couple of hours prepping myself and the Seeker meditation area for the larger group that was coming in.

"Good afternoon everyone." I smiled at the group, happy to be back in our own building again. The group was an eclectic mix of Seekers, locals, and military from the base all at their third breakthrough, Melissa among them. "Today, we're going to be working on pushing forward for your fourth breakthrough."

Everyone nodded or murmured agreement, seeing as how this was explicitly set up for this.

"You might notice that we have nearly as many volunteer staff as there is testers today, and that is for one major reason. There are going to be multiple paths you can take doing this, and what works for one person may not work for you. So our volunteer staff are here to monitor you to ensure that you don't hurt yourself."

I tapped the screen beside me and a projected model of a body came up, my own breakthroughs mapped onto the model. The first three were lit. "A few of you are using internal energy, the majority of you are using external energy. When I went past my third breakthrough, I ended up triggering both at once." I tapped the projection on the neck, and the lit energy line split and evenly went through both shoulders.

"I know of at least one case where a breakthrough from three only went to one shoulder instead of both, so it is viable that you could do either shoulder or both. When you're pushing for this, I want you to all pay extremely close attention to your energies. Any discomfort at all, and you stop pushing it. Pinches, pressure, anything except an even flow towards a breakthrough and you stop."

I tapped the screen again and the projected model disappeared. The video I'd recorded of myself came up. "I recently managed to push past fifth and technically into seventh. I want you to watch for what happened when I tried each individual breakthrough to understand what I consider the minimum risk you could be taking. I don't know what would have happened if I'd ignored what was happening to me."

They all watched my tremors, what one of the military docs who'd already seen this referred to as almost a seizure. "If your energy starts to rebel at all, you're doing something massively wrong. You shouldn't fight yourself, instead figure out what works best for you. Our volunteers are here to help and stop you if something starts going wrong."

There were several serious looks at the video and one person looked honestly queasy. "Can I withdraw now?"

"Sure, this is all voluntary. If you don't want to do this, I cannot and will not push you for it."

One guy got up and left, looking a little sheepish as he did so. I mentally wished him the best. As the rest of the students and volunteers got started, I settled in to focus more on the energies that were flowing in the room.

My fourth and fifth breakthroughs might have been quick, but the ones after that were hours long. I didn't know how quickly or not these might take today, or if it would happen at all.

I also wanted to try to watch for any sort of issues with the energy in the air as they all cycled so much, see if I could notice anything that might hint at the problem Zach had with us. Either to disprove him, or to understand the problem.