King of Superheroes, page 18
We had a training day at the Academy tomorrow, where Somnia was apparently going to tell us something exciting-- or so the gossip grapevine claimed, according to Hannah-- and so the five of us cleared the kitchen of Danny’s incredible culinary creations and finally headed to bed when the fledgling common room had almost completely emptied, save for a few night owls.
Hannah made an immediate beeline for my bedroom door before I could even reach it myself, and she shot me a grin over her shoulder as she beckoned me across the threshold.
“You’re bunking up with me tonight then, are you?” I asked as I quietly closed the door behind us.
“If you’ll have me,” Hannah said with a glimmer in her eye.
“Gladly,” I said and pulled her close to me so I could finally push my lips up against hers and get lost within her kiss.
The next morning came far too quickly, and I let out a long groan as my cell phone’s alarm started to chirp on my bedside table. I had a mess of Hannah’s blonde hair strewn across my face, and I wanted nothing more than to push my face into it and fill my nose with the smell of her strawberry shampoo, but with another disgruntled huff I rolled over and slapped my hand against the bedside table in the hopes I’d find my cell phone.
I eventually did, and I pulled it over to me as I flopped back down onto the rumpled bed sheets and then finally silenced the device.
“No,” Hannah said firmly from somewhere beside my chest, and then her arm snaked across my torso. “Stay.”
“I wish,” I muttered and kissed the top of her head when I’d eventually freed myself from the tangle of her blonde hair.
“We don’t need to train today,” the Dreamer said sleepily, and she patted me on the chest. “You’re an Omega, you don’t need to train, you tell them.”
“I think that means I especially need to train, actually.” I chuckled.
“I suppose so,” Hannah said with a heavy huff, and she gave me one last squeeze before she reluctantly pulled herself away from the warmth of my embrace.
Then she propped herself up on one arm and smiled down at me for a moment.
“No rest for the wicked,” I said as I pushed a strand of her crazy blonde hair behind her ear, and she smiled as she leaned her cheek into my touch.
“Sounds about right,” she said and let out a long yawn as she stretched. “I hope there’s a coffee pot already going.”
“I’m sure Danny would’ve seen to it,” I said as we disentangled ourselves and reluctantly began to pull clothes on. “At least, I hope so.”
We finally made our way out into the fledgling common area, where the majority of the Academy’s trainees were already eating their breakfast, and as we made our way to our usual table beside the floor-to-ceiling windows that showed an incredible view of the bay, I saw Danny with a full French press grinning up at us.
“Our hero,” Hannah said with a grateful sigh, and she immediately poured herself a cup of coffee.
I followed suit, and eventually both Frank and then Rhiannon appeared at our table just as I was pouring a little creamer into my cup.
The brunette Tempest smiled shyly, and an immediate flush of pink stained her cheeks as I nodded to her and responded with my own grin. I couldn’t stop the slight chuckle that escaped my lips as Rhiannon took a seat opposite me and refused to make eye contact again.
It was a surprisingly gloomy day in Miami, and the morning had brought a thick blanket of pale gray clouds that were draped across the sky to completely hide the sun. The sea was equally pale and colorless, and the horizon disappeared as sea birds hopped over the white-capped waves. There were a couple particularly brave fishing boats already bobbing in the water, but other than that, the scenery was a white wash of nothingness.
“Maybe it’s a good thing we’re training today,” Hannah said as she wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and stared out of the windows.
“You read my mind,” I said and then realized what I’d said and stifled a laugh. “Maybe literally.”
“Not quite,” the blonde Dreamer said and crooked an eyebrow. “You still remain quite the enigma.”
“Figures,” Frank said with an overly dramatic roll of his eyes. “He is the wonder kid after all.”
“I’ll get in there eventually,” Hannah said and poked her finger into my forehead with a grin. “Just you wait.”
“I bet you will,” I said, and I grabbed her hand so that I could plant a kiss on her slender wrist. “We’ll just have to work at it together.”
“Maybe it’s your mental block.” Rhiannon’s voice was quiet but eager, and she flushed again when we all turned to her. “I just mean… When Mark came with us to Kin’s construction place, I tried to… I helped, I think maybe, I don’t know, but you seem to have a particularly strong mental block on mental powers, so maybe that’s why Hannah struggles to read your mind.”
“That’s a fair theory,” I said to Rhiannon and took a long sip of my coffee but didn’t break eye contact with the brunette Tempest. “But you’re right, Frank mentioned something a little while ago about me shielding, so maybe that’s exactly it. But you did help, quite a lot, actually. I was going to ask if you wanted to maybe give me some more Tempest lessons today.”
“You want to train together?” Rhiannon asked, and her flush deepened so that the pink washed almost all the way down her slender neck.
“If you don’t mind me gatecrashing.” I shrugged and grinned across the breakfast table at the Tempest.
“I’d love that!” Rhiannon blurted out before she quickly clamped her lips closed.
It looked as though she were sorting through the words in her head, and I noticed how much Hannah smiled into her coffee as Rhiannon eventually began to speak again.
“I mean… It’d be my pleasure. To train with you. If that’s what you wanted to do.” The green-eyed Tempest fledgling didn’t bring her gaze back up to me and instead stared at her hands in her lap.
“Sounds good to me,” I said cheerfully. “So, Rhiannon and I will train together.”
“And on that note, I’ll train with Benji.” Hannah decided and snickered when she saw my face. “He’s another Dreamer, and his power is exactly what we think yours is. He can block his mind off. I wanna try and crack him, or at least work out how to.”
“So you can take a crack at me later?” I teased.
“Precisely,” Hannah said and then giggled when Rhiannon shot her a small smile.
“I’ll train with Frank and the other Conduits, then,” Danny said, and he nudged the red-haired Italian in the side with a knowing smirk. “Lord knows, they’ll probably need the healing.”
“You won’t have a dull moment, let’s put it that way.” Frank laughed loudly and slapped our Corps friend on the shoulder. “Pleasure to have you, Daniel.”
After we’d grabbed a bite to eat from the ever extensive breakfast spread and chugged one last cup of coffee, the five of us as well as the rest of the superhero fledglings at the Academy all changed into our new superhero suits and headed for the huge training facility on the eleventh floor.
The five of us divided into our respective groups, and Rhiannon and I headed toward the rest of the Tempest fledglings who were talking to their trainer, Pete. He was a ridiculously thin, ridiculously tall guy with mousy-brown hair and a crooked nose that looked as though it’d been broken too many times for it to ever have hope of being straight again.
“Morning, fledglings!” Pete announced as we filtered around him, and he spread his arms wide and then spotted me on the outskirts of the group. “Mark, good to see you here with us again.”
“Pleasure’s mine.” I turned to give Rhiannon a half-grin, and she just stifled a giggle behind her hand.
“You lookin’ to practice your telekinesis?” Pete asked as he fixed me with an eager stare and put his hands on his hips.
“If possible, yeah.” I nodded. “The Tempest pillar is the one that’s eluded me the most so far, so… Here I am.”
“Okay, well, let’s see what we can do.” Pete clapped his hands together and grinned down at us. “Let’s do some warm-ups, shall we?”
Pete paired the fledglings up into twos, though he didn’t question me immediately sticking with Rhiannon. I figured the scrawny trainer would’ve known we were on the same super team, and considering I was the obvious wild card of the group, it made sense for me to stay with the one person that brought me the most comfort within the Tempest pillar.
“So…” Rhiannon cleared her throat and fixed me with a big green-eyed stare. “What do you think would help you practice your ability?”
“Focus,” I said immediately, and I pressed my fingers into my temples. “It’s like I can’t focus enough. I know I can do it, but I don’t know exactly how, and because I don’t know exactly how, I can’t work out what to focus on… And so it goes around in the same, super frustrating circle.”
“Do you do the same for your fire ability?” Rhiannon asked and cocked her head to the side. “Or your super strength?”
“No,” I admitted sheepishly as I took a seat with her on the squishy gymnastics floor of the training compound.
The rest of the fledglings were practicing physically, but I mostly took the day as an opportunity to talk through my abilities with Rhiannon.
She had a very linear way of thinking, and it helped me to understand things that I had no way of processing in my mind before now. She’d been the only one who’d helped me focus my telekinesis so far, on that first day at Kin’s construction site with the bucket of hard hats. Even if I included the actual Academy’s trainers, Rhiannon was the only one who’d helped me with my Tempest power, so I was eager to concentrate on it with her and see if she could help me even more.
Plus, it didn’t hurt to spend a little one-on-one time with the heart-wrenchingly adorable brunette with the big green eyes.
“So, you don’t need to focus on your physical abilities.” Rhiannon reasoned as she crossed her legs and then continued to play with her hands in her lap, which I’d noticed she did every time she started to monologue.
Once I’d got her talking, it was like opening the floodgates. She went a mile a minute, but I found it so endearing.
“No, I don’t need to focus on my physical abilities,” I said with a smile. “I just… Know that they’re there. I know they’re a part of me.”
“So, the mind reading and the telekinesis…” Rhiannon said as she traced her fingers over the shimmering black of her skintight superhero suit. “Why don’t you feel like they’re a part of you?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe that’s the mental roadblock I need to get rid of.”
“It sounds like it,” the brunette said with a nod. “Though I wonder how.”
“You helped me focus before,” I said to her. “With the hard hats.”
“Oh.” Rhiannon blushed again, and I could see a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I did?”
“Yes,” I said. “Though I’m not sure how.”
“Well, me, either,” Rhiannon admitted with a slight chuckle. “I’m not sure what I did to help but, maybe we can try it again.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “What shall I do?”
“You want me to tell you?” She couldn’t stop the smile this time.
“Sure,” I said with a shrug as I climbed to my feet. “I like you telling me what to do.”
“Oh.” Rhiannon looked down again, and I could see the deep pink flush start to creep up her neck.
I held out my arm so I could help her to her feet, and she slowly took my hand and eventually looked up at me with her green eyes huge and round with nerves. She blinked, and as I slowly released her hand from mine, she let out a breath that I hadn’t even really realized she’d held as I’d helped her to stand.
“So,” I said brightly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Uhm…” She seemed flustered and shook her head as she gathered her thoughts, and all the while I just stood there watching her with a half-smile on my face as she talked to her hands once more. “Well, if it’s easier when it’s physical, then let’s use something… Physical.”
“Such as?” I prompted.
“Me,” she said suddenly and then finally looked up to meet my eyes. “Use me.”
“I don’t need telling twice.” I couldn’t help the flirtation in my voice, and it gave me great satisfaction to see her flush return.
Rhiannon cleared her throat again and refused to look at me fully, but she took a reluctant couple of paces away from me. She spread her arms before immediately letting them fall back down to her sides and shrugged one shoulder listlessly.
“Use me,” she said again. “Pull me toward you.”
“How am I gonna do that?” I asked with a laugh.
“Use your telekinesis,” she insisted. “I know you can do it.”
“I appreciate the faith you have in me, but…” I cleared my throat and focused my gaze on the beautiful brunette Tempest in front of me. “Okay, yeah, sure, I can do that…”
I fixed her with a long, steady stare and tried to clear my mind of any distractions. Which was no easy feat, considering the general chaos that surrounded us.
The Conduit fledglings were being their usual loud, brash selves, and several bangs and controlled explosions came from their corner of the training facility. I knew Danny was over there, studiously healing whatever ailments they brought upon themselves, and I hoped Frank was making headway with his fire control thanks to his new suit.
I knew Hannah was somewhere to my left, probably acting like a walking mood ring thanks to her shiny new mind reading suit, and I still had the other Tempest fledglings in my peripheral vision hovering or blinking or disappearing and reappearing around me at will.
“Focus,” Rhiannon said again in her typically soft voice. “Just focus on me.”
It wasn’t hard to do.
I fixed my eyes on Rhiannon and found myself zoning in on every little detail of the gorgeous, green-eyed flier, and once I’d counted the freckles on her face and watched her chest move in the smallest of ways as she breathed in and out, and once I’d studied exactly how her chocolate-colored hair glowed like spun gold when it caught the light at just the right angle, I managed to almost completely filter out the chaos of the training compound around us.
Rhiannon kept her eyes locked with mine, and I stared right into them. Her eyes really were beautiful, like chips of deep green emerald that glittered as much as any gemstone would, and they were framed with a fan of thick brown lashes that brushed against her cheekbones whenever she blinked.
Her freckles were a light tan color and were scattered across the bridge of her nose like a light dusting of sand. She had one side of her hair tucked behind her ear, as usual, and her full lips were half-open as she stared at me with equal concentration.
She nodded just slightly, enough for a strand of hair to fall across her face, and I took a long breath.
I could feel a sense of her, as though her very presence was interrupting the flow of the air in front of me. It was like I could feel her aura, or I could feel how her presence manipulated the space in which she stood, and I found that disturbance the easiest to concentrate on.
So, instead of concentrating on specifically her, I could concentrate on the space she was standing in. Then all I had to do was transfer her from one space to another.
I blinked, and with a jolt Rhiannon suddenly moved. She’d been standing four or five paces ahead of me, and then suddenly she was almost nose to nose with me. I let out a breathless laugh as I quickly dropped the concentration and took an instinctive step back, though I extended a hand to make sure she didn’t topple over.
“I’m sorry,” I chuckled. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said in a breathy voice, and her wide eyes gaped up at me. “You moved me!”
“I guess I did.” I grinned down at the Tempest fledgling. “You’re really very good at helping me concentrate.”
“Good,” she said happily. “The more we practice, the easier it’ll be to control.”
“Okay, let’s do it again.” I was eager to see if I’d even halfway cracked the code on how to access my telekinesis, and Rhiannon was just as eager to practice with me.
We did the same process again and again, over and over, until eventually I could even change the speed in which I moved her. There was a time it was almost instantaneous, and another where I dragged her slowly across the floor by the soles of her feet as though she were standing on a treadmill, which caused her to fall into a fit of giggles.
“I have an idea,” Rhiannon suddenly said, and it was the most animated I’d heard her voice in a while. “I’m going to fly. You have to try and pull me back down.”
“Your power is stronger than mine.” I frowned. “This seems like a David and Goliath type match.”
“You’ll be great,” Rhiannon assured me with another giggle. “C’mon, let’s try it.”
“Well, you’re the boss.” I chuckled and then stretched my neck from side to side as I took a step away from her and prepared my mind. “Okay, fly. Let’s do this.”
Rhiannon nodded at me, took a dainty step back on the balls of her feet, and then suddenly rose up into the air. Everyone around us momentarily stopped as she hovered above all the fledglings in the training compound.
“Go, Rhiannon!” I suddenly heard Hannah’s voice whoop from the other side of the training floor.
“Miami’s own Supergirl!” Danny called from the Conduit corner.
“So freakin’ cool…” I heard Frank say to Danny, and the two of them laughed as they watched our Tempest float above everyone’s heads.
Eventually, the other fledglings lost interest and continued with their own practices, and Rhiannon dipped and twirled in midair as she waved down at me.
“Okay!” she called out. “Try it!”
I had to work to filter out the sounds of the other fledglings, but I’d managed to get that part mostly down. It’d been a hell of a lot easier when Rhiannon had been static and just in one place, but now she was floating above me, it was harder to pinpoint the disturbance she created in the air when she kept moving.
