Toon was concentrated on something. He had wrapped himself tightly around Xavier's memory of the ball of light, and refused to respond. Any attempt to draw him out only resulted in rejection. Not even Hashim could get him out, or force him to hear his thoughts.
This was good. He needed this time, after all.
It was a very interesting phenomenon. Xavier had compressed something that wasn't physical. Not air, not metal, not rock, not a solid material at all. It wasn't even just power.
Xavier had compressed the professor's ability. And they had it, in their pocket. He hasn't even known that was possible. But if it was, then that opened up a lot of possibilities.
For instance, what if he compressed a feeling? Emotion? Sensation? Concept? Hope? Fear?
There were no limits. What if he compressed some other force? Gravity? Heat? Cold?
The list of experiments he could conduct with it was practically endless.
But the first thing to do about it would be to discover what they could do with it. After all, while being able to compress power was an incredible advantage, having to let Xavier out to do it was a prominent downside, and they didn't know just how useful it was unless they knew how the balls could be used to their advantage.
As it was, it was an incredible power, but it could only be used as a trump card against other ability users if they didn't have a use for the orbs themselves. It was obvious that there was power there, but if they couldn't release it, then that power was irelevant.
Toon reached for the front of the brain, and it didn't take long before Hashim's mind caved to his pressure, allowing him to gain control. Toon was powerful because of his concentration, and Hashim was weak because of something else.
He was sitting on a cushion, and there were other people around him. But Toon didn't care. He reached into his pocket and touched the orb.
It was difficult for most people to concentrate their power in any place that wasn't a direct result of them utilizing their ability. Some could do it, and they were the primary recruits of technological research facilities. The very fact that it was so rare to be able to do it meant they got good pay, whether or not they had a lot of energy to transfer. Except for the few places that had people with strong energy generation who could do it all, every lab or power facility had the policy, "Every little bit helps" in regards to this.
Toon had never had a problem with it. If the ability was a simple organ like anything else in the body, why wouldn't he be able to control it?
It didn't make sense to him. Sure, you didn't tell your blood where to flow. But wasn't actively using your ability telling it where to go anyway? Maybe it was just him, but to control the flow was to control the flow.
He had considered the possibility that using one's ability was an instinctual response more than a conscious one. That could very well be true. After all, just because someone had the power didn't mean that they knew how to use it. It was like a child learning to speak, who never decided to go past a few key phrases. They would go the rest of their life without knowing how to speak properly, until they discovered that it was needed. And by the time they did, it would be too late.
Toon frowned.
It was a good analogy, but there was one problem. You could easily function without an ability, but it was much harder without speech or communication.
Circumstances would likely force you to develop it more. Then again, in stressful conditions, though it didn't happen often, abilities were known to sometimes increase their power output per unit of time.
The increases were often small compared to the ability itself, but definitely noticeable.
So Toon would set up a series of experiments. As long as they ran them under his control, he would be able to analyze and discover the exact uses of the orbs, and thereby find out whether it was worth it to get more or not, even if they risked revealing it.
As a trump card, it was better hidden. But if it could be construed as a secret weapon, then they could share it with their followers.
That was another thing. They didn't know if they had any followers yet.
According to Jake and Xavier, they would see what happened when it came time for their first field session.
Toon squeezed the ball, and pushed a slight amount of power into it. Immediately, it sent a shock up his arm.
The ability itself was activated when given power.
Hashim's mind surged instantly, leaving Toon to fade to the back, running possibilities over in his mind.
Hashim barely stopped himself from smirking by clenching his jaw tightly.
Oh. Oh, yes.
This was going to be fun.
He tensed his shoulder muscles, forcing a bit of power into it, and another shock ran up his arm, sending a shudder through his entire body.
If only it wasn't Xavier who had this ability.
Anyone else would have done so well. It was such a perfect alibi. He could use whatever ability he wanted, and just say he had gotten it from someone else.
Once again, they had gotten a massive boost to their potential power.
Perhaps it was time to fight after all.
Hashim looked up. Miss Rose was up at the front of the room with a snake-like plant that grew up and wound itself around her upper body, giving a boring lecture where she repeated the same thing over and over and continuously asked them to look at specific parts of the plant.
Although, to be fair to her, every class got a lot more boring once Toon had come out.
Hashim watched her closely for a moment more, then he closed his eyes and looked inward.
How to do it? He needed to somehow make an image. How did he build that up?
Hashim thought back to his art.
The first thing he had to do was make a canvas. He could add in the rest later.
Hashim spread out white over their thoughts, but all the other colors bled through, the thoughts and incoherent sobbing from the Deep Consciousness staining the white.
No, that wasn't going to work.
He tried black instead. Slowly, he lowered himself into a deep state, silencing the thoughts around him. Then there was black.
Hashim pressed into the blackness, and found himself kneeling on a surface within it.
Around him was an empty void. When he reached down, he found that there was no floor. His hand passed right through the "ground" where his legs were resting.
Interesting.
With a push, Hashim smoothed out the area around him and lightened it slightly to a deep gray. It hardened to a substance like rock, but when he tugged on his hand it melted, allowing him to pull it out without any resistance.
Could he build anything he wanted here?
Hashim dipped his hand into the ground, then pulled it out, cupped. Some of the liquid dropped out around his hand, but instead of falling, it remained attached to the rest of it at his command.
He pressed his other hand on top of it, then closed his eyes.
What was it he was missing?
Hashim breathed out between his palms, then he rolled them together while his eyes were tightly closed.
Here goes.
Hashim yanked his hands apart, then reached forward.
Immediately, he grabbed something. The reaction was as instinctual as breathing.
What was this sensation? His right are felt longer than his left, and stronger. In his hand was something made of leather, smooth and rough at the same time. There were multiple metal spikes that went completely through the leather, likely holding it to whatever was beneath it.
He couldn't remember ever feeling anything like this.
He opened his eyes.
Beautiful.
In his hand was a symphony. A wonderful song of deadly intent and precise, murderous destruction. There was a long pole of metal that extended past the top of the leather portion, separated from the top part by a metal disk. The pole was less like an actual pole and more like a sheet, though thicker and much, much longer. As her turned it over, admiring the way it gleamed, he saw that one edge of it was sharp, extending to a point at the top.
A sword. Hashim felt his body thrumming with rightness, for the first time in a long, long time.
How long has it been since he had held something like this? Far, far too long. He didn't remember. It was before the dark times.
This was not just a sword. It wasn't even just a power, a weapon that would carry out his will.
It was transcendence.