Hey there everyone. This, as you may well know is a new chapter of 'Powers Within'. Let's call it 'Powers Within Two.' I hope that you like it. In this chapter we are starting to see the lay out of how this part of the 'PTB' series is going to go. We have an introduction of the main bad guy as well! (Exciting, I know.) And Justin gives everyone a surprise. Now, I hope that you like this chapter because it's going to be the last one for a while. Now, let's make this clear - I'm not stopping writing completely, but I'm going away for a month and I'm not going to have any access to a computer where I can write. It's unavoidable, sorry. But, I can still send and get my e-mail so make sure to write to me!
Now then, I've gotten a lot of e-mail from people over the last while, and I know that I haven't been able to respond to any of it, my e-mail server is completely messed up. They claimed that they were 'upgrading', but I don't think I've seen any sign of that, so I'm changing my e-mail address in the short term to shiningstar@hotpop.com. I'll still be checking the other one, but any replies that I send will be from that address, I don't think that I'll be able to reply to the mail that I've collected (about 50 messages over the last week) so sorry if you sent something to me, I've read it and I really love reading it. Don't let it stop you from writing to me please! Or, if you don't want to do that, then post a message in the guestbook on my website - http://stories.i8.com. At the moment I'm trying to update it before I go away, I hope to get that done before I leave.
Here I'm going to do some self-promotion - I recently started a new short story called 'TimeWeave'. I really think that it's a good, original story and I hope that you'll read it, it's available on the archives. I'm posting the next chapter to it tonight.
None of this is true. The celebrities mentioned are not aware that I'm doing this and I doubt that they'd be pleased to know that I was. Events in this story bear no co- relation to real events, and if you think that they do then please apply one piano to head, twice a day. I am not aware in anyway of the sexualities of the celebrities; all other characters belong to me, so they can do what they want. If you're too young, then don't tell me when you e-mail me.
"Where have you been?" I asked.
"Like Nick said, I was being a blade of grass."
"Why weren't you helping me?" Asked Nick.
"Sorry, I figured that there was nothing I could do against that lot." Joey gestured over at the other group, who looked as if they were getting ready to attack again.
"That's not the point! I could have done the same thing, but I stayed and fought because I thought that you'd need the help, and then when I realised that you'd hidden, it was too late to do the same thing myself!" Raged Nick.
"As interesting as this conversation is." I said sarcastically. "They look like they're going to attack in a second, and I don't want to just be standing around here listening to you two bitching when they do."
"He's right." Said Joey to Nick. "We really should stop arguing." He turned to me. "Got anything in mind?"
"What about a dampening spell? Just stop them from using their magic."
"You should know that you those things are non- directional. We'd lose our magic too." Said Nick.
"You two would, but I wouldn't, my magic isn't black or white, remember? It's both and either at the same time."
"Nah, I don't think that it would be very sporting of us. Let's just play it by ear, will we?" Asked Joey.
"Fair enough." I said.
"Will we attack, or will we let them?" Asked Nick.
"Let's do the attacking, shall we?" I said, getting a huge grin from Nick and a barely perceptible nod for Joey as a response.
We launched ourselves towards the other group, none of us flying but simply jumping the distance, power crackling and pooling in our hands, we lashed out at them, taking them by surprise.
They reacted with a quickly thrown up force field, but it was sloppy and didn't cover them all properly. I took advantage of the gap for the split second before JC realised their mistake and sealed it, pouring a stream of near boiling water in at them, hitting Justin full on in the chest. He yelped and retaliated with a thin stream of lava, which I barely managed to dodge. JC seemed to be preparing something particularly nasty while keeping his eyes fixed on Joey. A glance at Joey told me that he hadn't noticed, he was too busy exchanging spells with Lance while Justin and Nick were doing the same thing, with Tim throwing the odd fireball. And Chris was simply watching at the moment, which was one of the things that were worrying me the most. Chris isn't someone who stands on the outside of things; he must have been up to something. Looking closer at him, I saw a pearly sheen to his eyes and it looked like his pupils had disappeared. I telepathically sent a warning to Joey about JC and then devoted more attention to watching Chris. His lips were moving slightly and I could see that he was chanting the same four words over and over again, but I couldn't tell what he was saying.
Suddenly, the ground erupted beneath Justin, spewing out molten lava and the air above him was suddenly filled with lightning, repeatedly striking him. Glancing at Chris, I saw his eyes glowing brightly and cracks seemed to form in his skin, and wherever they appeared light poured out. A second later, both he and Justin had collapsed. No one else but Lance had noticed, he glanced at me, still standing there in shock, and went to Chris as I mentally shook myself and ran to Justin's side. I held a hand over him and instantly knew what was wrong with him, he had several fractures, two broken legs, internal bleeding, concussion, and on top of everything else, his heart had just stopped beating. I still wasn't unduly worried; it wasn't really that bad, I just had to act quickly. Everyone else had stopped fighting and they were milling around, knowing that they couldn't do anything and probably hating themselves for it.
I took a deep breath and then decided what to do first. I couldn't deal with the stopped heart until I'd gotten the rest of the damage cleared up, because his body wouldn't be able to cope with a direct bolt of energy yet. I took another breath and started knitting back together the broken and fractured bones, as I got into it the process sped up and I worked methodically, shoving my emotions to one side. Within thirty seconds all the damage was healed and I quickly moved to the bleeding, forcing the blood back to where it belonged and quickly sealing the ruptures that it had spewed from. Next I dealt with the concussion. When all that was done, and it had taken less then a minute, I started to get him ready for a direct shock to his heart. I needed to get him out of contact with anything else so I used my power to shred the clothes from him.
JC came up to me. "Let me help." He said.
I nodded briskly. "Bring him up to waist height, will you?" Justin hovered up and I put my hands on his chest. A surge of power raced through me and converted to electricity when it reached my hands, coursing through him, but it wasn't enough to restart his heart. I did it twice more before his heart started and he drew a sharp breath. He opened his eyes and looked at me weakly. I stared at him in relief and drew him into a tight hug. "That's the second time Justin, you're making a habit of dying on me."
"Ha ha." He said dryly. "Man, I'm so drained." He commented.
"Take all you need." I offered.
He pulled back from me, holding me at arm's length while JC dropped Justin to his feet. "Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't." I said. There was a tingling sensation and I felt and saw Justin pulling my power into himself. After a couple of seconds he stopped and grinned, black sparks flowing along his teeth.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"I feel incredible!" He exclaimed. "Man, this power of yours is something else." He laughed excitedly and created a black fireball in his hand. He let it fade away. He looked down at his naked self, laughed again, and created clothes on himself.
"Is this normal?" I asked JC.
"I've no idea." He said. "It's not a normal ability, remember? I can only guess that because your power is so potent it has more of an effect, looks like he's got the same level of power as you, only he's not used to it."
"He sounds drunk." I said flatly.
"He's probably intoxicated by it." Said JC.
"Great, just what we need, a Justin who has no control over a vast amount of power!" Said Lance sarcastically.
"Hey! I've got control!" Said Justin. Everyone ignored him.
"Where's Chris?" I asked, looking around for him.
"I don't know." Said JC. "Now that I think about it, I haven't seen him since he did whatever he did to Justin."
"Hmmm." Said Lance. "Come on, let's go. Maybe he'll be at your house Tom."
"It's my house too!" Shouted Justin happily. Again, everyone ignored him.
"Let's go." I said. Everyone grabbed someone else's hand and once we were in a circle I said the spell that would bring us back to my house, where Chris wasn't.
"I'll ring him." I said, dialling Chris's cell number. It rang a couple of times and then he answered it.
"Hello."
"Chris, where are you?" I asked.
"At home, where else would I be?" Asked Chris.
"Why?"
"Well, after Justin rang me this morning and said that the plans had been cancelled I sort of didn't have anything else to do." Said Chris sarcastically.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Justin rang this morning and said that you'd cancelled the plans to meet up." Explained Chris for the second time.
"No he didn't, and anyway, you were there with us." I said.
"What?"
"Justin didn't ring you this morning, and you turned up and we went out to Arizona to fight." I said.
"Is this some kind of a joke?" Asked Chris.
"Get over here Chris." I said, hanging up on him abruptly, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"Well?" Asked JC, who had just come into the room. I told him about the odd conversation that I'd just had with Chris and I could see that he was worried about it too. Just then the object of our conversation teleported into the room and it was established that it wasn't Chris who'd been with us in the desert and that it wasn't Justin who rang him that morning.
"So what could it be then?" I asked.
"I can only think of two possibilities right now." Said JC. "A shapeshifter who can imitate our magic and fool us into thinking that they're the real thing, or someone who's so good at illusion that they managed to create something that could look, feel and act like Chris, even mimicking him power. Either way, it's going to be someone powerful."
"You don't know of anyone like that, do you JC?"
"Not off the top of my head, but I'll check later." He replied. "What are we going to do about someone imitating us?"
"I don't know. How do we know that someone in here isn't the imitator." Asked Chris.
"Well, the person was imitating you, and the rest of us have been together since this morning, so I don't think that it could be any of us." I said. "But in the future we can't be sure. We're going to have to use a password or something."
"Are you sure that it wasn't just someone playing a joke?" Asked Chris.
"I don't think that anyone that powerful is going to 'play a joke', and besides, he almost killed Justin!" Said Lance.
"You're right. I think that we should ask Baram about this, and since I want to go to the council library anyway, I'll talk to her about it." Said JC.
"It's any excuse to get to the library, isn't it?" Said Nick dryly. "I swear, you'd live there if you thought that the librarian wouldn't light a fire under your butt."
"The librarian would know better then to light a fire in a library, unlike you." Retorted JC.
"I'm sure she'd make an exception, just for you." Laughed Nick.
"How did you know it's a she?" Asked JC. "You've been in there, haven't you?"
"Of course I've been in there. " Said Nick. "Just because I'm not in love with the place doesn't mean that I'm not going to get books out, y'know spells, they're things that I'm guessing that we're supposed to know?" He said sarcastically.
"Not that I'm one to intrude." I said. "But don't' we have something slightly more important to talk about like... oh I don't know... the person who's trying to kill us."
"You're right." Said JC. "By the way, when you have time could you teach me how to do that new trick of yours?" He asked.
"Sure." I said. "I show it to you later." I had been planning to torment him about him for it, but with this new bad guy, we needed everything that we had, and I wasn't going to hold anything back.
"Teach me too!" Said Justin, still on a high from my power.
"Not now Justin." I said. "You're just going to have to sit in the corner for the night and stay quiet, and I don't want any magic from you either!" I ordered. "You're going to have to wait until you're back to your own power."
"You're going to be waiting for a long time for that." He laughed.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I'm not going to lose this power!" He laughed again.
"What?" I exclaimed.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"No! Just tell me what you're talking about." I said.
"Well, you know the way that if you're sleeping with someone more powerful then you or if they've got different abilities to you, you can pick up on their power? Lance and Joey told you about it,"
"Sure, so you're getting more powerful, what's your point?"
"Well, when you gave me some of your power today, in the desert, that sealed it. I'm going to keep this power, and I love it!"
"Are you sure?" Asked JC excitedly.
"No! But we'll see, won't we?" Laughed Justin.
"Great, I'm going to have a drunk boyfriend forever." I said.
"Don't worry Tommy, I'll get used to it in a while." He said, slapping me on the back and giving me a sloppy kiss.
"You two are together?" Asked Tim, his voice dripping with disgust.
"Yeah, didn't you know?" I said.
"Fuck no, if I'd known that I'd never have come here. I don't believe it." He got up and stormed off in the direction of his room.
We all stared after him in shock.
"I'm sorry that he thinks that way Tom." Said JC, breaking the silence.
"It's not your fault." I said. "I'm just surprised that he didn't know it before, and even if he didn't, I would have thought that he should have guessed it. He's been with us all day."
"He seemed ok, up until now." Said Nick.
"He'll get over it." Said JC.
"How can you be sure?" I asked.
"I am a telepath, and I reckon that he'll get over it, as for being sure - I can't be." He replied. "But there's always hope."
"Yeah, there is that." I said, and then I brightened up. "Come on, I'm tired and I want to go to bed. If you want to stay here, you know where your rooms are and if not - you can go now!" I said.
"I'm staying!" Said Justin.
"Yes, I know Justin." I said.
"Are you sure you can handle him?" Asked JC.
"I've dealt with drunk Justin before." I said.
"But he's got all that power at the moment... and if he thinks that he's got it for good." Said JC, his eyes dancing excitedly.
"I'm not going to have sex with you JC." I said, a big grin on my face.
He blushed deeply and started stammering. "I wasn't... I didn't... that wasn't." He gave up and stared helplessly at me while the others in the room burst out laughing.
"I know you didn't mean that JC. Listen, if you're so worried about his, then stay here tonight."
"I will."
"I will too." Said Nick.
"Well, Joey and I are going home." Said Lance, giving a meaningful look at Joey.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" I said. "We had your bedroom soundproofed, after the last time."
It was Joey and Lance's turn to blush. "I still think that we'll go home, thanks all the same."
"Yeah, I think I'll go home too." Said Chris.
We all said our goodbyes and the three who were leaving teleported out of the house.
"Do you mind if I use your library?" Asked JC. "I want to see if I can find any mention of the latest bad guy."
"You don't have to ask every time, you know. But it's not really that extensive yet."
"It's better then nothing, and I really want to get started."
"Go ahead then." I said. JC went out the door into the hall, and then uttered the spell that would open the library doors.
"What are you going to do Nick?" I asked.
"I want to see this film." He said, not taking his eyes off the TV screen.
"Fine." I sighed. "Come on Justin, we're going to bed." Justin obediently got up off the floor and followed me out the door to our bedroom.
Well, that's it for chapter two. Make sure and e-mail me at my new address - shiningstar@hotpop.com. I don't know how long I'll have that address for though. See you in a month!
Make sure and read 'TimeWeave'!
Tim.