Tales of the First – Training Session Part Four
August 30th, 2019 | Published in Tales of the First | 1 Comment
Much to Sienna’s delight she managed to stop all the tennis balls before they hit her. It was only the second time that she had managed that. Once Martin called a halt she gathered up the balls with her psychokinesis and floated them to the table next to Wendy before turning back to Martin who was grinning. “That went well–” She broke off as she felt a gentle breeze ruffle her hair when there was no wind in here. A split second later there was a dull thwap as something dropped to the floor. Sienna turned and looked down to see the deformed remains of a tennis ball lying there. It looked like it had been squashed until it gave. She looked up at Wendy who was staring at it open mouthed. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” Wendy said. “I wanted to see if I could sneak at least one past you but… well… did it even hit you?”
“I don’t think so. It might have touched my hair.” Sienna picked up the remains of the ball and examined them. “Well this is new. It got closer than the ones I stop consciously but I’ve never stopped one unconsciously before and stopping them doesn’t destroy them.”
“I’d guess pelting you with tennis balls every day has extended your ability.” Martin said. “Do you mind if we throw a couple more and you not try to stop them so we can test this?”
“I think we’d better. I want to know what’s going on,” Sienna said.
Another ten minutes of more controlled tennis ball throwing and they were certain that it wasn’t just a fluke. Each ball they tossed at her stopped less than a millimetre from her skin before dropping to the ground. Martin picked up one of the balls. This one was only dented rather then destroyed.
“Interesting,” he said. “It looks like the damage is proportional to the force the object is thrown.” He frowned for a moment. “But you can still touch things.” He laid the ball on the table top. “Hit it.”
Sienna looked at him for a moment then slammed her hand down on the ball hard. “Ow!” She rubbed her hand. “What did that prove?”
“That your conscious shield only works against things moving towards you not if you are the one moving.”
“So she can’t be stabbed but she can be impaled?” Lucy asked.
“Let’s not test that,” Sienna said.
“No, that wouldn’t be safe but there are few things I’d like to check before we carry on.” Martin flicked some water at her. It hit her skin with a splat.
“Hey!”
“Well it doesn’t appear to stop liquids,” Martin said. “And since you can still hear and breathe it probably doesn’t stop gases either. Pardon me.” He reached out and touched Sienna’s arm briefly. “It doesn’t seem to interfere with a touch. This is very curious.”
“Try and hit me,” Sienna said. “Not too hard obviously but a little punch so we can see if it stops that.”
“You want me to hit you?” Martin tilted his head at her. “I do Mixed Martial Arts you know. Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Sienna said. “It’s the only way I can think of to test it. Just be careful with the force. I’d rather neither of us be hurt.”
“I will be.” He punched her arm. Sienna wasn’t much of a judge but it certainly didn’t look like a strong punch, more like a friendly punch someone might aim at a friend’s shoulder. However hard it was she felt nothing.
“Ow!” Martin rubbed at his hand. “That was like hitting a rock. I’m glad I didn’t hit you any harder.” He eyed her speculatively. “I think this is a manifestation of your psychokinesis as well. It’s some sort of a shield that is right next to your skin.”
“Can I turn it off?” Sienna asked. “This could be really awkward when I need a hair cut or if I ever have to have surgery.”
“We’ll look into that.” Martin looked down at his hand. “But carefully.”
“Why didn’t the balls bounce.” Lucy asked. “I mean they just stopped dead.”
“It made my entire arm vibrate when I punched her,” Martin said. “I think this shield is somehow reflecting the kinetic energy of whatever hits it back into the object. That’s why the balls were damaged.”
“I’m glad you didn’t hit me harder then.” Sienna frowned at the bruise starting to appear on his knuckles. “It could have broken your hand.”
“Or worse,” he agreed. “We’ll figure it out. I just wish we could figure out a way to test the upper ranges of it safely.”
“Cricket balls!” Lucy said suddenly.
“Hmm?” Martin looked over at her with a puzzled frown. “Cricket balls?”
“We should upgrade to using cricket balls, both for her normal shield and this new thing. They’ll hit with more force but still won’t do too much damage if the shield fails. If she can stop those we can move on to even more forceful attack in gradual increments.”
“That’s a good idea,” Martin said. “But we’ll still need to be careful and avoid lethal force because if it turns out the shield gives all at once rather than stopping most of the force of an attack that could be fatal.”
“The principal is good though,” Wendy said. “We’ll get some cricket balls before the next session.” She hefted the Nerf gun. “For now lets move on with the next part of this session.”
Trying to stop Wendy firing the Nerf gun at her was more fun than Sienna had anticipated, and by the time Wendy ran out of ammunition she had managed to knock the gun muzzle away from her on most occasions and even pull the gun from Wendy’s hands a couple of times before the ammunition ran out.
“That went well,” she said before realising that Martin was shaking his head. “What?”
“You need to actually stop her firing,” he said. “If you knock a gun aside or grab it there’s too much chance of it going off and hitting someone else. The whole idea is to stop the bullets flying around. You need to try and hold the trigger against her so she can’t fire.”
“I see.” Sienna tutted at the ceiling. “That will be harder, but I’ll try.”
Awesome!! I love seeing her develop her powers 😁