Chapter 5:

In the garage, the three friends stood, about to try and see exactly what they were dealing with. Will closed his eyes and looked for the connection in his chest.

That link was immediately visible to his mental senses, and seemed noticeably stronger than before. He was beginning to think his friends might be right about the mark darkening as a result of his connection to…. whatever this was, getting stronger.

Focusing, he once again pulled on that source and let the energy flood through him.

The rush that followed was not something he felt he could describe. He was suddenly more awake, energized, and aware than he could ever remember being in his life.

Before long, it felt like his body had reached some kind of limit to the amount of energy it could hold, but it was still flowing in. He tried to think of how to describe it.

It was like his body had two parts. The first was a capacitor that energy flowed into through his link, until it hit the maximum he was feeling now. Then, the excess flowed out of his system into the ground, similar to electricity.

The second part was almost like a primary output for that capacitor that was limited in how much it could take. Energy was flowing through it and somehow becoming an intrinsic part of the tissues, like it was being fully absorbed or combining permanently into his body.

Based on what he was seeing, he thought that might mean there were also two parts to what the energy did. It seemed like the capacitor could amp him up beyond whatever his base abilities could do, and the energized tissues enhanced the base levels of those abilities.

This was also when he noticed that the energy flowing into him had two distinct components. One was the warm feeling he remembered. The feel of the other part definitely made him think of electricity, though he had no idea how to actually describe that feeling.

He then realized he'd gotten totally distracted, so he opened his eyes. His friends were standing much closer than they had been before he closed his eyes. “Much closer and you guys are going to need to buy me dinner,” he said.

Slightly jumping, Paige looked at his face and said, “First, we both know you would settle for cold Ramen noodles. Second, look at the mark, dumbass.”

“So angry…” he started to reply, but got distracted as he looked at his chest, and finished with, “Holy shit. I’m a nightlight.”

Both Paige and Jake agreed, before Jake added, “Think there are any copyright laws about images being used in glowing tattoos?”

Paige scowled at both of the boys, until she couldn’t hold it anymore and chuckled. “Pretty sure copyright laws are the last thing he needs to worry about right now, but I’m sure it’s fine regardless,” she said. “It’s interesting that it's basically a Celtic Tree of Life. Though, I think the branches and roots have some vaguely lightning-like influence.”

“I noticed that, it seems pretty random…” he started, but was once again interrupted part of the way through his sentence. “Holy shit. I’m a… bug zapper? The fuck?” Just then, the glowing on his chest had slightly brightened and the color shifted clearly to a blue color, followed by electricity starting to arc across the skin of his arms at random.

Quickly, he throttled back on the connection he was pulling energy through, and the visible electricity vanished.

"It's strange, I can sense the electricity. It’s flowing in through the same source as the rest of the energy, but I can still sense it distinctly,” he said, and opened his eyes.

Then he noticed a slight glow the same blue as his chest mark coming from the electrical outlet on the wall next to them. He also thought the glow might be following the electrical lines in the walls for a short distance from the outlet.

“Whoa… I think I might be seeing electrical energy, somehow.”

Looking back to his friends, he saw they looked a bit lost for words and hadn’t quite caught up to what he had said. He couldn't blame them, and took a moment to think while he waited for them to come back to themselves.

He didn’t understand how this was possible. He wasn’t the type to speak in absolutes, so he never would have said something like this was impossible, but it was far beyond anything he would’ve ever believed would happen to him. With that in mind, the next step would need to be figuring out what the energy inside of him would actually do.

“The electricity from your skin is gone,” Jake blurted.

“I just throttled down the amount of energy flowing into me. What's your point?”

“Well, one, you did that pretty quickly, which makes me think controlling whatever is going on with you seems pretty intuitive. Intent might play a big role, which is a very good thing.

Two, did you try just changing what it was doing, instead of throttling back on the entire flow?”

“Huh. Yeah, I didn’t think about that, but the control did come really naturally. To the level I have it developed right now, at least.

Oh, and no, I didn’t try that. Give me a minute.”

Releasing the hold he was maintaining on the flow of energy into him, he felt it ramp up again. As electrical arcs began jumping across his skin at random, he focused and tried to will it to stay internal with the other energy in his limbs. Sure enough, it worked, and the visible energy dissipated. His muscles felt a little twitchy, but nothing dramatic.

“Well, it’s safe to say that worked. As far as the energy inside me, it seems to be combining with the individual tissues in my body.. It’s kind of like they’re acting like a sponge for the stuff coming into me through my chest.

If I’m interpreting what’s going on inside of me correctly, this energy is absorbing into my bones and blood. From there it’s going throughout my body and slowly… fortifying everything it comes into contact with. Bones, blood vessels, muscles, tendons, skin. It feels like everything is getting tighter and stronger, but that might just be my imagination based on what I’m somehow sensing.”

“If that energy is absorbing into your various tissues and systems, it stands to reason it is that energy is enhancing you as a whole. I can’t think of another reason for whatever is going on in there.

You mentioned the attempt to cut your arm before. I think our next step should be reproducing that, but with either Paige or myself being the ones trying to cut you. We can check for strength after, but we should use human baseline force as a starting point.”

“I… really wish that didn’t make sense. Why do I get the feeling you’re going to enjoy getting to stab me?”

“I promise, this is purely for SCIENCE.”

“And I might believe you if you hadn’t just shouted the last part of that.”

“It seemed better than telling you to stop being a pussy.”

At that, Paige suddenly interjected.

“That term makes no sense. With what a vagina can do, implying it’s weak has always confused the hell out of me.”

At that, both men looked at her, then each other, and both shrugged and said, “Fair enough.”

That gave them all a quick chuckle.

“Okay, don’t be a singular testicle?” said Jake.

“Why a singular one?” asked Paige.

“Because it only takes hitting one to make it a game of pocket pool, and if anyone thought about that idea visually, they realize a single nut tap is basically like hitting a reset button on a guy.”

Will just nodded, but Paige responded.

“I kind of wish I hadn’t asked. Now I can’t get the image out of my brain. Damnit.”

“Okay, enough about nuts and vaginas, let’s get this done.”

With that, Will handed over his knife. Jake and Paige looked at it, then walked over and picked up a few more things of a general ‘stabby’ nature, before returning to Will.

“Why?” asked Will, in a definite whine.

Paige just said they needed to be thorough, but Jake made sure to close the response out by shouting, “FOR SCIENCE!”

He then quickly slashed the knife across Will’s arm.

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Sil shared his opinion of the scene below them while he and Artie continued their observational activities.

“Well, that is one way to begin testing for physical enhancement.”

Artie’s reply was immediate.

“True, but perhaps it is time we intervened. We could save them quite a lot of time.”

“Oh, sure, but maybe we should observe their methods just a bit longer? We want to be certain of them, after all.”

“Are you stalling just to see them try and stab him?”

Artie’s tone had definitely been accusatory with that, and Sil fired back almost instantly.

“Of course not!” came the reply from Sil.

“Right…” said Artie with a very skeptical tone.

Sil focused on the people in the garage again, and just before Artie could follow up, Sil mentally shouted, “FOR SCIENCE!”

The laugh that followed was downright maniacal.

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