Empath Reborn

by J. A. Culican

  Today, though, I'm not going to let him draw me into a hasty attack that gets me "killed." It's one-on-one in the ring, unlike in real fights. It means I can afford to outlast his patience, making him come to me, and that will put him squarely in my kill zone, rather than me entering his. Of course, the downside to my strategy today is that he’s attacking when he comes in, so I have to parry or dodge before countering him unless I want us both to die. Which I do not.

  As we circle, Glenn and I probe the other with ineffectual attacks, looking for any opening. With him, what looks like an opening could just as easily be a lure to draw his opponent into his kill zone. Playing it safe, I let a couple uncertain openings pass by without committing to a real attack.

  "You're slow this morning," I say, taunting him. "Too many bagels?"

  "Shut up," he replies with a half-grin. "I know your tricks."

  "Just the ones I've killed you with." I love the good-natured banter in the ring. There's nothing good-natured about a real fight.

  There's sudden movement in the corner of my eye, and I flick my glance over. Talon has jumped into the ring and is striding toward us, shouting something, but I'm so focused on the fight and my own body position that I can’t make sense of what he’s saying.

  I realize my mistake too late. When my eyes flick back to Glenn a mere half-second later, he's not circling anymore. He’s charging, coming at me with his half-sword thrusting downward toward my collar, a kill shot if it hits. With my left knife, I deflect his attack, and with my right, I'm already looking for Glenn's small knife.

  I find it as my chest pad lights up.

  Talon shouts at us, and now that I'm "dead," no longer intensely focused on my opponent and my own body positioning, I understand him clearly.

  "What the shafal were you two thinking? This is a fight, not a ballet. The boredom was more lethal than either of you two." He's addressing both of us, but his eyes are only on me.

  I clench my jaw to keep from snapping back.

  Glenn says, "Dude, I got a kill. What are you complaining about?"

  I'm mad at Talon, but I snarl and half shout at Glenn, "You only got the kill because Talon distracted me."

  Glenn starts to say something, but Talon is quick to reply, saying, "No, dammit, he only got the kill because you lost your focus. Do you think a real fight is always one-on-one? You think there are no distractions in battle? I don’t know what the matter with you is, but it seems like you have a death wish.”

  “I do not,” I reply icily, and envision him in the ring with me.

  “If you want to live, then pay attention. If you don’t, then get out of my gym.”

  “I... what?” I stammer back, stunned.

  “Quit wasting everyone’s time, Ela. We’re here for you to train so you’ll survive in real battle with more than just luck, but if that’s asking too much of our little princess, then go away. Go find something you do care about, or get yourself killed in a fight, or whatever it is you’d rather be focused on. I hope that’s clear. So, you tell me. What’s it going to be?"

  What. The. Hell. He never talks to me like this. Is he just trying to distance himself from me, or is he trying to get me to hate him? It's working, whatever his motive. I didn’t think I could get any angier at him, but I was wrong.

  I’m stunned, and before I can think of a good reply, he spins on his heels and stomps back toward the corner where he always seems to perch when he wants to watch us sparring. Without looking back, he shouts, "I can't watch this kindergarten bullcrap. Put the toys away, kids, it's time for grownup training.”

  Glernn cocks his head, but the only hint of his reaction is his red-flushed cheeks. He asks, “What grownup stuff did you mean, Talon?”

  “Ela, get going on absorption training and stop embarrassing yourself," Talon says, ignoring Glenn while answering his question.

  I look at Glenn just as I realize my mouth is hanging open in surprise, but so is his. We snap our mouths closed at the same time, and I see his cheeks are getting redder. I don't think I've ever seen him show anything stronger than mild irritation, before.

  Well, Glenn isn’t not the only irritated one here. My Luka is dead, and when I finally tried to move on from that loss, with him, Talon played me for a fool. And now he’s treating me like an idiot.

  “Go to hell, Talon,” I mutter. I may be relieved to discover his true opinion of me, but he's in for a surprise. I'll show him what I can do. I can’t wait to see his face when I siphon energy from both Glenn and Ida at the same time. He’s never said it can be done, but I can do it to one person if I focus hard enough. So, there’s nothing I know of that could stop me from doing it to two—nothing but my own insecurities. Today, though, I’m not thinking about my self-doubt. I’m only determined to show Talon what an idiot he is for rejecting me last night and doubting me today. When I figure out how to do it, I hope seeing me shatter his wildest expectations makes him feel just as stupid as he made me feel now.

  If I’m honest, I want him to feel the way I did last night—stupid and ugly and confused about why he isn’t good enough for me. I want him to eat crow so I can ask him how it tastes, and I hope he hates it. He thinks he can kiss me, touch me, make my heart sing, and then yank the rug out from me. He thinks he can treat me like he did just now, too.

  Well, the Ela he first met in the Shades’ park might have put up with that, but that girl is gone.

  I square my shoulders and look at Glenn and Ida, who stare at me, looking uncertain. Normally, I have to resist the urge to giggle when facing them down, but that's not going to be a problem today. I stand in the ring, focusing on them and willing myself to see-feel their auras, the energy field that comes from all living things. It's not the same energy that powers our magic, but it’s the path to get to it.

  Nothing.

  I shift my feet, lean forward a bit, and narrow my eyes as I focus even harder. I put two fingers on each temple, over my ears, because Jerkface said that's what Luna did. When I succeeded before in draining energy from my sparring partners, I didn't need to do that, but it can't hurt.

  Nothing. Focus, dammit...

  I feel a tingle in the back of my mind, the very beginnings of sensing their energy, but it quickly slips away. I shake my head and my hands, take a deep breath, and try again. This time, I focus on Glenn only, hoping desperately that it will help. Maybe if I try to—

  The tingle comes again, buzzing in my mind. Suddenly, I can almost see the energy radiating from him. I feel it radiating from him like the ripples of a stone thrown in water, and my eyes go wide in surprise

  Behind me, Talon says loudly, "Hoo boy, I was wrong. This is just more kindergarten B-S. Too slow, Ela. You're dead, already. Get your head in the game, or you'll damn well lose it in a real fight."

  I'm sick of him focusing on me, singling me out. Sick of the stupid games he plays. I'm not a child. He can't talk to me like that. The frustration and anger I have felt since the instant my eyes opened this morning flare into a supernova.

  He wants me to focus? Fine.

  “Watch this,” I say as my lip crawls back. I glare at Glenn and Ida. I will see their energy aura, and when I do, I swear I’ll take it away from them. I'll show Talon, and then he will shut the hell up. My rage is a tidal wave of energy. I visualize it washing over my two practice partners, my victims. I imagine it smashing down their puny walls, flooding them, washing them away…

  Abruptly, I see-feel the energy in them. As if the tidal wave is receding, drawing the washed-out city out to sea with it, their energy floods into me. I feel the gray, the life force, but with it comes a kaleidoscope of colors I can almost see; it’s not their energy, but their magic. I'll take a bit of that, too, just to show Talon. He said it would only be temporary, but the truth is, I'm not even really thinking about that. I’m lost within the kaleidoscope.

  As their energy pulses into me, I feel like I used to when Mom rubbed ointment on my sunburn, only the sunburn is my rage and the ointment is
their magic and energy. My angry, red energy, full of vibrations, smooths itself out like a quiet pond and the color shifts in my mind, moving from red to green, and on into a beautiful cerulean blue I welcome into me.

  And it keeps coming. And coming. Something changes about the energies coming into me; the colors becoming less intense, the hues less vibrant. Oh no... The realization that this is Glenn and Ida’s energy I’m taking smashes through the color-rapture, replacing it with a growing unease. I stop trying so hard, not wanting to take all of it from them. Where before I had to pull on their energy in a tug-of-war between our subconscious minds, now it comes easily. I barely have to try, and I can feel it flooding into me.

  That'll show Talon I can do it, and if he thinks I'm going to let him play games with me or talk down to me again, he has another thing coming.

  "Ela! Stop!" Talon’s voice reaches me faintly, reverberating like someone calling from deep within a cave. It snaps me out of my inner monologue, and I notice Glenn and Ida for the first time since I latched onto them. They’re on their hands and knees. Ida is vomiting as she falls over onto her side. Glenn crawls toward her but collapses. He reaches out with one arm, shaking, and grabs her hand, but that is all he can do before he loses all strength and his head hits the canvas floor.

  No. What am I doing? Stop! I tell myself to stop. I order myself to stop. But their energy keeps flowing into me, along with their magic. "I can't cut it—it won't stop," I cry.

  That's when a freight train hits me, or it feels like one has, as Talon tackles me and we both go flying. My connection to Glenn and Ida is instantly severed, thank goodness, but when Talon and I land in a heap together, he lands on top and knocks the wind out of me.

  Selfishly, perhaps, my first thought is that he’s lying on top of me in a rather intimate position. I can’t think of anything to say or do, so I stare at him, frozen in place. My second thought is for Ida and Glenn, but I can’t see them behind my attacker.

  Talon gets up in a blink and scrambles for Glenn and Ida, leaving my field of view. I try to get up, but my body won't respond. I’ve just been body slammed, and it will be a moment before I can do anything but stare vapidly at the ceiling and gasp for air.

  Oh, no. What have I done? I struggle and, groaning from the superhuman effort it seems to take, I manage to roll over onto my side enough to see Glenn and Ida. Her eyes are open again, but neither of them is moving.

  Talon shouts at Glenn, "Come on, get up. You have to fight it. Your energy, take it back. Do something. Get up!"

  Glenn groans, tries, but he can only lift his head a bit. A moment later, he collapses back to the mat. His voice shaking, he says, "I'm okay. She's not draining us anymore. We'll be fine, just give me... a minute. I need to... catch my breath..."

  Without moving Ida says, "Oh, wow. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Medic! Socialized medicine!"

  Relief floods into me as I realize through my fog that I haven’t killed them. I think it was closer than they’re letting on, though.

  Glenn and Talon both chuckle. Glenn’s voice is feeble, though the relief in Talon's is clear, matching mine at seeing them both alive and getting no worse. I can't believe I did that. I couldn’t even stop. The poisonous thought creeps into my mind that, perhaps, I didn’t really try that hard to stop.

  As I catch my breath, I still feel amazing. I'm like a battery fresh off the charger. I'm like a two-year-old hopped up on sugar. I've literally never felt better in my life, and now that I can breathe again, I practically bounce to my feet.

  I would feel perfect if I wasn’t so shocked and ashamed about what I did to my friends. And for what? To impress Talon? The guilt ruins my high, and now I feel energized and miserable. It’s even worse than the time I drank more than I had any right to, and then killed off two pots of coffee trying to sober up before realizing it just made me a jittery drunk.

  I curse Talon in my head. This isn’t my fault. It never would have happened if he hadn't toyed with my emotions and messed with my head. But even I realize how lame that is. I did this, and by rights, none of them should ever forgive me.

  Talon, on the other hand, is grinning ear to ear, apparently happy that I almost murdered his friends. The expression on his face doesn't match the gravity of the situation. What the heck is he so happy about? This is all his fault. Glenn and Ida are hurt, and he's gloating? Not okay.

  Crouched beside Ida now, he pats her back, making sure they’re both okay by asking medical-sounding questions.

  Glenn replies, "Yeah, I'm going to be feeling this one for a couple of days, but we’re okay. Or, we will be soon. I can't believe she did it, can you? What was different about today?” He glances over at me, looking wiped out but smiling broadly in a photo-negative of my own mood. “You aced the exam, Ela.”

  I'm not smiling back. They almost died, and they’re making me feel better? I may never smile again at this rate.

  Talon helps Glenn and Ida get up off the mat and onto chairs. Then, turning to me and beaming a smile, he says, "This is amazing. I knew you could do it. You just needed a little encouragement. The other way wasn't working, being all nice and trying to coach you, but then I realized you just aren't wired that way. You've always responded best to a challenge under pressure, so I gave you that pressure. And look at what happened."

  He means it in a good way. When I look at what happened, though, I see things much differently. I don't even try to stop myself from shouting, "You think this is a good thing? No, dammit. You think you can control everyone around you, and that makes you a great leader, but you're no leader. You’re a jerk.”

  His grin turns upside down, which seems to energize me again. I should stop talking, but instead, I keep shouting at him. “You're just a spoiled prince, and you never learned it's not okay to toy with people. You can’t just go around risking other people's lives to amuse yourself.”

  “I... What?”

  “Don’t you get it? I could have killed them, and you stand there gloating. What is wrong with you, you narcissistic psychopath?" I know I’m unloading my guilt onto him, but knowing it doesn’t help me to stop doing it.

  Glenn says, "No, I'm okay," just as Talon says, "It's not like that. Don't you see what this means? You—"

  I've had enough. No more damn excuses. Maybe it’s the energy in me crying for release, but an idea pops into my head and I can’t resist acting on it, almost as though on instinct. I scream as I leap at him, drawing two of my knives from their sheaths. I'm going to give him something to make him think twice about this day. No, something to remember me by, because after this, I. Am. Out.

  My boosted energy is still coursing through me, and I don't stop to think that it's not possible to jump into an attack from ten feet away. I should land only a few feet away from where I’m standing and then have to charge at him to close the distance, but instead, I land only two feet from him, thrusting a knife at his arm.

  He barely has time to knock my knife arm aside, just enough that my thrust misses him. He staggers backward, almost falling, but he keeps his feet and draws his only weapon, a backup knife. "Ela, what are you doing?" he cries out, eyes wide with... fear? He fears me?

  That only enrages me more. He’s afraid of me? He’s the one who manipulated us all. He’s the reason I almost drained people dry. I ignore his cry and slash across with my offhand knife, intent on giving him a scar across his chest.

  He arches his body away from me to avoid the slice, but the movement brings his face closer to me. I come across with my first knife, aiming at his face with a bladed jackrabbit punch.

  He blocks that one, too, this time diverting my knife with his own. And yet, he’s as feeble as a baby. I'm mighty. I'm powerful. My knife and his collide. There’s an ear-piercing ring, and his knife snaps in half. The blade flies halfway across the gym. With my newfound strength, the blows force half-spins him and it puts him off balance.

  Glenn cries out, as does Ida.

  I ignore the fear in their voice
s and spin, crouching as I thrust my leg out. It catches him behind his knee and, already unbalanced, he staggers to one side before toppling over.

  I move so fast. I reach him before he lands on his back, straddling him just like I did in the car on the night he rejected me, but this time, I'm not begging. I'm taking. My right knife is on his throat, my left held tip-first toward his face. I put some pressure on the knife at his neck, and a trickle of blood dribbles down his neck.

  "Ela, please," he says, eyes still wide with surprise. And now, a hint of fear. Oh, does that feel good.

  He's already learned something, today, and my little cut on his neck will remind him of it every day. I want to gloat.

  But I can’t, because my stolen energy is fading fast as the battle-joy is replaced by… I don't know the emotion. It isn’t pleasant, though.

  What have I done? I climb off Talon and leave him on the mat as I stomp away to pick up a clean workout towel, which I throw it at him. My waning strength is still plenty to nail him in the face with the wadded towel as he sits up.

  My mouth is so dry. Dryer than I think it has ever felt, even right after my very first battle, and yet, when I take a drink from my water bottle and put my knives away, it's only to give me time to think. I hardly notice the desert in my mouth.

  Seriously, what have I done? I was willing to hurt him. Even more, I tried to hurt him. Sure, he deserved it, but he has also taken care of me, saved my life, put me up in a nice hotel, and helped me every step of the way. I’m no longer so sure he deserved what I just did. Did I just let his rejection in the car push me over the edge?

  I already know the answer to that question. And with the rage gone completely, I'm horrified at myself for cutting him. I could have really hurt him. Thankfully, I didn't, but that was due to luck as much as anything.