Jennifer stood still for a brief moment, feeling and soaking in the strength she could feel coursing through her. And the warmth, the almost tangible energy thrumming through her, was impossible to ignore. It sent waves of comfort and bliss through her being.
"Is this what it's supposed to feel like?"
The sensation was like a drug, addicting; it almost left her wanting to stand still and bask in the sun's light.
Not only that, she could feel her strength increasing little by little with each and every passing moment. It's still going, she noted, clenching and unclenching her fists.
She didn't know how to feel about her ever-increasing strength, but the strength, the feeling of power, the feeling that her body could be pushed to do things she had never considered possible, made her feel excitement she wasn't aware she could feel.
The silhouettes of ants moved across the forest floor. Birds chirped in the distance. A mouse scurried beneath the earth, its tiny claws scratching through the soil.
The rich, earthy scent of damp leaves and bark filled the air. She could see it all. Hear it all. Smell it all.
"Too much," she thought—and then realized it wasn't.
It should have been overwhelming, so many details pressing against her senses at once, yet somehow it wasn't. Nothing blurred together. Nothing screamed for attention.
Everything existed in perfect clarity, sharp but not chaotic. Intense, but not unbearable.
She couldn't explain it. If she tried to put it into words, the only one that came to mind was strange—and even that felt inadequate.
"How do you feel?" Victor's voice snapped Jennifer out of her thoughts, her dilated pupils regaining their sharpness as she looked toward him.
"I feel… amazing," she said, her expression bright with excitement. The itch to punch something was starting to take root. The power coursing through her body made her feel invincible.
Victor quickly noticed this too; the look in her eyes said it all. The excitement, the way her body seemed to tremble as if she were high.
He recognized it immediately. He had a similar problem when he first got his biokinesis. The feeling that he was unstoppable and invincible.
But his knowledge of the future made it easy to curb. His aunt, on the other hand, not so much; she was unaware of the looming dangers and potential threats.
He'd like to keep it that way; she didn't need to be bothered by the fact that beings capable of blinking and erasing the universe existed, somewhere out there in the cosmos.
He exhaled as he observed her, then shook his head; that sense of invincibility was something he had to do something about.
"Is this how you feel all the time?" Jennifer asked, turning to Victor with curiosity. She had just begun to notice how jittery she was becoming, how the power was starting to creep into her head. She wondered if this was how those rogue metahumans felt.
She gazed at Victor with something close to pride. If he could grant her this incredible power with barely any effort, how much more powerful was he?
Victor nodded slightly. "Sometimes, I guess," he said.
"How do you not let it get to your head?" she asked, curious. With how intoxicating the strength coursing through her veins felt, she couldn't help but wonder how he managed to keep it in check.
"It's actually not that big of a problem. Power only makes you more of who you are; it allows you to let go of the restraints you once had," Victor said.
Of course, it was more complex than that. Although power did amplify what someone already was, circumstances could still shape the direction a person took. Life, after all, was rarely simple.
Power does not arrive with morality attached. It was an accelerant. In the hands of someone patient and compassionate, it could turn restraint into protection, courage into leadership.
In someone already burdened with insecurity or resentment, it could just as easily magnify those fractures until they became defining traits. Environment mattered as much as the heart.
Two people could receive the same gift and walk entirely different paths. One might see strength as a shield. Another might see it as proof they were finally above consequence.
And then there was temptation, the quiet, creeping shift that happened not in grand, dramatic moments, but in small allowances.
The first time someone used their ability because they could, not because they should. The first time they justified bending a line instead of holding it. Power rarely corrupted in a single instant. It slowly eroded, until they fell too deep to recover.
"So you don't get tempted once in a while?" she asked.
"I usually don't act on it," Victor responded.
Jennifer studied him for a moment, as if trying to decide whether that answer satisfied her.
"Usually?" she pressed, a faint smirk tugging at her lips.
Victor released a tired breath. "Can we drop it?" he muttered, the strain in his voice doing more talking than he did.
Jennifer didn't press any further. Her curiosity was about to bubble over. She really wanted to punch something.
Victor, noticing her wandering gaze, immediately understood what she wanted. "You can try that tree over there."
She walked over, and for a second she questioned whether she could do anything to the tree.
The tightening of her fists made her reconsider again. She felt like she could punch through a mountain without any problem.
She pushed past the subconscious restraints, bent down to one knee, and cocked back her fist, exhaling deeply. Her hand trembled, muscles tightening beneath her skin.
When she released the punch, the air itself seemed to warp beneath the force. Her fist shot forward faster than any ordinary eye could track, crossing the distance in an instant before slamming into the tree.
On contact, the tree snapped and exploded, shattering like a twig despite standing several meters tall. She felt no resistance at all—it was like punching through butter. The bark disintegrated instantly, and the trunk split apart, splintering cleanly into two.
Jennifer stood frozen as the tree crashed to the ground. The impact echoed through the clearing, but she barely heard it. Her gaze drifted to her fists, fingers trembling slightly, awe and disbelief warring in her eyes. She couldn't reconcile how that kind of power had come from her.
---
The time spent training was chaotic. It was mostly just about Jennifer flexing her newfound strength, that way she could acclimate and adjust. For one to truly control something, they first had to have an idea of how much they could unleash at their maximum.
The tests were haphazard but effective. Her figuring out her strength mostly involved throwing boulders weighing several tons around, and when that wasn't enough, Victor became her target dummy.
When she finally understood the limits of her ability, their focus shifted to control. Controlling her monstrous strength was necessary.
Victor really underestimated how hard it would be for Jennifer to gain proper control of her strength. Several hours later, the entire forest was in ruin.
Broken trees littered the forest floor haphazardly, a result of Jennifer trying but failing to punch a tree without it snapping in two. It was harder than he'd originally thought. Unlike him, she didn't have biokinesis that granted deep and fundamental understanding of the body.
Making progress would be slow; he'd already come to that conclusion early on. To be able to fully control such level of strength would take skill, discipline, and unfortunately, time.
He really didn't want to place mental limiters on her to limit the strength she could express, but it was becoming unavoidable. It was clear she wouldn't be able to control her strength anytime soon.
Obviously, she still had a life to live: work, the twins, and day-to-day activities.
At ten percent, Jennifer was beyond the superhuman baseline, already surpassing tens and approaching hundreds of tons. With that level of strength, the world might as well be made of cardboard.
After serious contemplation, the idea was not completely shelved; he would handle it from another angle.
Since he didn't want to input an internal limiter, he would just make an external one. He raised his palms, his gaze losing its focus. What he was about to do required absolute focus.
A small green glow bloomed from the center of his palm. From the light, a crystal began to form. It sparkled green, slowly taking the shape of a ring. Several seconds later, the glow vanished, and in its place a ring made of green crystal rested.
Victor smiled, relishing in his achievement. He'd successfully made what he envisioned, an object capable of inducing a limit on her physical strength, basically a form of kryptonite for her.
Over in the distance, Jennifer punched at a tree, her muscles straining as she tried her best to control her strength. Unfortunately, the outcome remained the same. Although she did not snap the tree in half this time, a large hole the size of a fist still remained.
This was the best result she'd managed all day, and even that felt painfully small compared to what she'd hoped for. She hadn't expected control to be this difficult.
It was like trying to press a finger into wet cement without leaving a mark. The strength was always there, waiting beneath her skin. The moment she reached for anything, even gently, it answered with too much.
"How do you do it?" Jennifer asked, her senses easily picking up on Victor's approach.
She turned to him, arms crossing over her chest. She studied Victor, her expression a mix of curiosity and frustration. Victor definitely had more strength than her, but she'd never seen him lose control or let it slip.
"My powers allow me to control every part of my body...."
It was just as expected; there wouldn't be any shortcut for her. The twins were her most immediate concern. With her brute strength lacking control, making contact with her twins was a frightening idea. If she could shatter wood with barely any effort, she could only imagine what would happen if that much force were applied to something more fragile.
She turned to Victor, her excited expression long gone, now filled with resignation and quiet acceptance.
"Victor, can you please take away these powers?" she asked in resignation, seeing no other way out. It was clear she wouldn't be controlling her strength anytime soon, so if he could give them, then he could definitely take them back.
And as much as the overwhelming strength flowing through her left her feeling invincible and on top of the world, not being able to touch her own kids was not worth the exchange.
Victor watched her solemn expression and couldn't help but smile internally, amused and proud at the same time. Willing to sacrifice power for family.
"Can you do it?" Jennifer inquired again, growing impatient from Victor's lack of response.
"Ah, ahm," he cleared his throat. "I can take back the powers," he said, much to Jennifer's relief.
"But there won't be a need for that," he said, revealing the object in his palm.