Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-four

Tense silence coated the streets of New Faram in its somber grit.

Eli stood with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie while he studied the bright windows that surrounded the dark hotel rooms. Multilayered distortions shrouded the hotel and even a few of its rooms. A parking garage connected to the hotel with a skywalk. Somewhere in there was Dave's body. He felt his anchor tug on him like a weight on a string.

He wanted to search through the parking garage. Find the car he suspected Dave's body was stashed in. See if he could find a lead to where Sandra actually was instead of blindly trusting what Daniels said. But he could feel the domains linking the garage to the hotel like a heavy gauze curtain. If he stepped inside, he'd be spotted.

Eli winced as his arm regrowth reached his elbow with a flush of heat as the socket formed.

Shockwaves boomed as someone flew by in a blur. A wave of force pressed against Eli, almost making him take a step back. Sirens blared as police cars raced below, following the figure that swooped through the air. Eli watched with a frown.

He glanced over the street with fresh eyes.

Trash littered the street. Bags and crumpled boxes trailed with every passing breeze. Graffiti scrawled across walls. Shadows lurked and loitered in alleyways. Police cars patrolled up and down streets three times while he watched and waited. Eli had only been in New Faram for about forty-five minutes while he tried to decide what to do.

He hadn't noticed in Farbrook, but there was an edge to the city now. New Faram felt like it strained under the pressure and it was only moments away from bursting.

Fear struck a chord in him as he thought about all that had happened in one night. He had killed four people now, and he'd kill one more before the night finished. All he had to do was figure out where Sandra was.

Eli studied the hotel again as he gnawed on his lip. A teleport seemed less than likely. He'd have to burrow through the domain, but the instant he stepped foot inside, he'd be restricted like everyone else. If these domains were powerful enough to suppress powers, anyway. He had no actual way of knowing. Should he leave an anchor here and head back to the beach?

Then he could leave an anchor with his family and return to them if needed.

He glanced the hotel up and down again with a sigh before he reached out to the spatial anchor he left on the gravel road. A spatial bubble flashed out of his hands that he hid behind the lip of the roof. Eli yanked on the anchor he left behind on the road. Darkness consumed him as he catapulted through space.

While he blurred forward, he outfitted himself in a fresh suit of voidspace armor cushioned by gelled lumencloud padding. He adjusted the voidspace and lumencloud combination of his prosthetic arm as his arm regenerated bit by bit.

Eli took a step onto a gravel road with half melted patches before he took another into the dark sky above. Teleports blasted him across the sky, boosted by a constant jetting updraft from his lumencloud aura. While he flew in stuttering skips toward the beach, he checked his status. He had no idea whether or not he wanted to take Daniels's power yet.

No. Eli closed it as the deep violet of his voidspace surrounded him again. He had time. Sandra's death would give him new options he could choose from. AEA purified and perfected his internal storm of Lumencloud Invigoration constantly. His body grew stronger with every breath as he drew closer to the beach.

Three notifications popped in front of his vision.

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Lumencloud Invigoration Ev. 0/Lv. 3 -> Lumencloud Invigoration Ev. 0/Lv. 4>

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Lumencloud Invigoration Ev. 0/Lv. 4-> Lumencloud Invigoration Ev. 0/Lv. 5>

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Augumentative Elemental Absorption Ev. 0/Lv. 4 -> Augumentative Elemental Absorption Ev. 0/Lv. 5>

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have maxed out the following power:

Lumencloud Invigoration

You may now select from one of the following options:

Evolve Power

Merge Power

Obtain New Power

N/A>

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have maxed out the following power:

Augumentative Elemental Absorption

You may now select from one of the following options:

Evolve Power

Merge Power

Obtain New Power

N/A>

<You may now select from one of the following options:

Ice Control Ev. 0

Force Construct Ev. 0

Space Dominion Ev. 0

Lightning Strike Ev. 0

Selective Amplification Ev. 0

BACK>

Glittering purple clouds trailed around him as he halted and read through his power options again. Nearly all these choices were far better than they had been before, except for Force Construct. He had wanted to merge Lumencloud Invigoration with Augumentative Elemental Absorption right away, but Space Dominion was far, far too good to pass up. Especially if he could eventually merge it with Voidspace Mastery. Hopefully, it would turn into a Domain power.

Not to mention there were quite a few other contenders.

Lightning Strike would give him more light and if he added it to Lumencloud it'd add far more versatility and power to it. Ice Control could be nice, but it wouldn't be huge for his build. Selective Amplification on the other hand... It gave him the impression that it would let him boost almost whatever he wanted.

That could be huge.

Or he could merge Lumencloud Invigoration and Augumentative Elemental Absorption right now and wait for Imbue to come off of cooldown for him to get Space Dominion, max that out and then get Selective Amplification... but no, wait. He would have to wait three months then.

Voidspace Mastery would hopefully be ready to evolve much sooner than that. Three months should be plenty of time to get an evo-0 power maxed out to evolve and then level up again. Or he could even dismantle it into a perk for whatever made it like a Domain.

Besides, with Voidspace Mastery comprising both void and space, he hoped he'd be able to powerlevel it quickly. He could always wait to get Selective Amplification after that then.

Eli used Augumentative Elemental Absorption to obtain it,t so Lumencloud Invigoration would still be maxed out and swappable at-will.

<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have selected Spatial Dominion Ev. 0/Lv. 0

Would you like to equip it? Y/N>

He switched it out with Augumentative Elemental Absorption then yelped as his lumencloud aura that surrounded and held him gradually dimmed and thinned as the radiant cloud turned brittle. Strength flowed out of him straight into the cloud until it turned solid enough to embrace him again.

Eli tried to use Spatial Dominion, but it didn't give any feedback as he pushed and pulled on the sensation of it in his mind. It felt more like a doubling down of his spatial field. He kept it equipped for now. Hopefully, it'd level passively. He could always switch it out with Restoration if he needed it. Its cooldown had already ended while he had studied the hotel in New Faram.

Wind howled as he flew forward again.

A lone bonfire glowed in the night outside their pair of cabins, secluded by the shore. They had a nice view of the water. He dimmed the light from Lumencloud's Invigoration before teleporting down to the beach. Sand stirred around him as he took a step forward before teleporting next to the bonfire where his parents and Roman waited.

"Hey," Eli called out while he made sure to teleport all the dirt and bloodstains off his skin and his third change of clothes.

"Eli!" His parents shouted as they sprang to their feet and rushed over to embrace him. Thank God for Restoration or he'd have been a walking horror show that they would've just had to hospitalize him for more blunt trauma. Even with his Body of Light and Lumencloud Invigoration strengthening him. "Oh my God, are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Eli chuckled nervously as their arms squeezed tighter in their forced group hug.

"Your neighbors called, man." Roman raised his eyebrow as he stood up and walked over to them. His gaze trailed on the false metallic shimmer of Eli's voidspace prosthetic that he shifted light through to look like steel.

"Were you there? Elias?" Mom asked as she pulled back to hold him by his arms. "Did... did you fight that gang or the glowing purple person?"

"Yeah... it was really scary." He lied easily as he glanced from the terrified horror on his mom's face, to Roman's suspicion, to his dad's sheer concern.

"I bet it was! Our house blew up. Was it... was it the people from the mall?" Mom asked carefully. Eli hesitated, then nodded. Both she and dad shared a look. "Did you see Dave again or a short woman with medium length hair? Likes to wear business suits?"

Eli almost chuckled. He had done more than see them, but if they didn't know he was involved, why would he correct them? They already worried about him far too much as it was. He studied both of them as the realization struck him with how strained their relationship really was. He knew they cared about him, but was that really enough?

They didn't care about who he actually was or anything more concrete about himself. Only that he was 'safe' and wasn't a disappointment. He almost frowned. Or was that just what he thought? He didn’t know.

"It sounds like Eli's been through a lot, love." Dad pulled Mom into a hug of their own. "Let's just be glad that he seems to be okay."

"Of course, I'm sorry, Eli. I was so scared when Gail called and said our house had gotten destroyed by all the fighting." She took a deep breath before she smiled at him. "But I should've known you'd be okay. You can take care of yourself."

"Should we go tell everyone that he's okay?" Dad asked, to which Mom nodded before she hugged Eli again. He gave Eli a lingering look with a raised eyebrow that promised a later conversation while they went back to their cabin.

Roman stood beside him with his arms crossed over a sweater to ward off the chill from the breeze. Neither of them said anything until his parents stepped inside the cabin.

"So. You lost your new arm?"

"Yeah." Eli winced with a sigh. He lifted his left arm up to show where his skin met the darkened violet tinged gray voidspace of his constructed arm. "Rapid Recovery evolved into Restoration. I wanted to save it but..."

"But you fought them because you're actually the purple guy?"

Eli nodded.

"And you're lying to your parents about it because... why?" Roman asked, then shook his head. "You need to stop pushing people away because of your fear."

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"I... I guess you're right." Eli swept his hand through his hair with a sigh. "It's just... I killed them. I killed all of them, Rome. Every single one except for that bitch, Sandra."

"I'm sorry, man. Are you o—"

"And they weren't even the first!" Eli blurted out as wind gusted around him. "I... I didn't say, but right after the System... people came and broke into our home. They had apparently been on a spree, breaking into other people's homes and stealing shit. Dad woke us all up with his technological power, that he gave up for me, and then one of them came upstairs and went into Lana's room. She started screaming. I-I teleported in and broke a lamp over the guy's head. He blasted me back and sealed me out of her room."

Red light twisted across the shifting streams of sand. A harsh glare shone from each of Eli's fingers, twisted like claws, where it blazed on the fingers of his voidspace hand it glowed a bloodied magenta.

"The other one started coming upstairs. He fired these laser beams. Nearly got me, so I hid. All of that happened in about a minute? Maybe? Dad came out and the laser guy was coming up the stairs. I... I didn't know what to do! I teleported down into the basement, got all the weights I could, teleported back upstairs and sent them straight into him. He died. It was gruesome. But this was different. That was all heat of the moment and while tonight was too, it was different."

Crimson mist seeped from Eli's skin. Shadows writhed as breezes rippled through the cooling fog.

"I was ready. I didn't fuck around, but I went for the kill. Again and again. I gave it nearly everything I had." He peered straight into Roman's wide eyes. "Hell, I stabbed Dave in the back. His blood sizzled as he fell and charred his way down my radiant arm. Teleported one of the others underground, so he collided with it. Each grain of dirt and root of grass displaced another part of him. Another was too strong, so I tricked and teleported her into space, like outer space, and the last one?"

Red fog burned orange around them.

"I nearly died, well, at nearly every point, but especially when I fought the last one. He had me at his mercy and tortured me. So I cut off his feet and teleported them into his kneecaps. It didn't kill him. I could've gone into a blind rage and stomped on him, gloated, or even healed him so I could hurt him again. But I didn't. I buried him underground like I did with that other guy."

Roman opened his mouth, then closed it again. He said nothing.

Eli smiled at him sadly. "I realized that I'm not afraid of dying, Roman. I didn't think about my family being in danger or anything else. Only the fighting existed. I enjoyed it. A thrill that sang through my veins as I pushed myself and my powers to their limit. These people were criminals who escaped prison with most of their powers at evo-3. But I won."

"I... I don't, I don’t really know anything about any of that." Roman fidgeted as he rubbed his wrists together. "I'm glad you're alive though and that you're okay. But..."

"But what?" Eli crossed his arms as he took control of the glowing cloud around him and dispersed it.

"Why didn't you say anything? Eli... I had no idea people broke into your fucking home or everything else that happened. You've been flighty about the details of how you lost your arm in the first place other than you were at the mall in New Faram when the attack happened. But it turns out you killed the same people responsible?"

"I didn't want to worry you." Eli smiled, then flinched at the sheer vitriol in Roman's glare.

"Are you fucking kidding me? 'Didn't want to worry me,' are you serious? What else are friends for? Dumbass." Roman shook his head vehemently before he took a deep breath and sighed. "Whatever. I'm glad you told me and that you're okay, but holy shit, man. Stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. It's okay to trust other people."

Space shuddered behind him.

Eli staggered as a tremendous weight cleaved into his spatial field. Fractals cracked in starbursts up and down his voidspace prosthetic. He fell to his knees. His spatial field shrunk to the small radius of his new Spatial Dominion, any farther, and it fractured with a spike of pain through his skull.

Armor appeared around Roman too late before a gunshot fired. Roman stumbled back as blood dripped out of the crumpled bullet hole in the shoulder of his summoned power armor. Distortions unraveled the air in front of Roman as a gun of his own formed.

"Stand down, both of you, or I'll shoot again," Sandra said as she strode forward with a pistol held in both her hands aimed straight for Roman's head. Eli almost stood up, but he stopped when he saw Roman's barely summoned gun vanish. "Good."

Pressure bore down on them that reminded Eli of when he was in the hospital and his powers were suppressed or whenever he was in Dr. Simmons' office. Sandra had a Domain power that seemed to work the second they complied.

Roman's armor disappeared completely alongside whatever strength he had. He fell in a heap as he panted in short, ragged breaths. His hand held right over his bleeding shoulder. Eli winced as Lumencloud Invigoration and Spatial Dominion were suppressed entirely. Voidspace Mastery felt distant, but still reachable. Body of Light however, was untouched.

Sandra turned toward Eli with her gun held loosely at her side. Old tears smudged her mascara along with their tracks down the cracked foundation on her face. Rusty brown stains coated the once white of her blouse, but the worst of it was on the flaking residue of blood that covered her hands like gloves. "Scream for your parents?"

"No." Eli snorted as he tugged on the full to bursting reservoirs full of light inside of him. Lumencloud Invigoration might be cut off from him, but he still had all the light it'd given him stored.

"Call for them." Sandra pointed the gun to the side while Roman's body contorted as he levitated and swung through the air until he floated with his head held right up to her head. Eli frowned. If she could do that with her Domain power or whatever else she had, why didn't she do the same to him? Why'd she even ask them to stand do—

She poked the gun against his other shoulder.

Bang!

"Fuck!" Roman screamed. Blood sprayed down his chest as the bullet streaked into the night. He fell limp into the restraints of Sandra's power that distorted as it ground in space around her, Roman, and Eli. It didn't connect through the space in-between, but it shrouded around each of them.

A cabin door opened as cloud banks streamed from the ground in a pallor. Dad strode out confidently in the rumbling clouds. Mom and Theo held Lana back while they watched from the door.

"Stop right there, Rick!" Sandra called as the auric bands of force holding him up swatted him to the side. Her power squeezed around Eli as it feebly dragged him over to her. When he resisted, it grew taut as it weakened, but if he acceded, then it grew stronger. Cold metal nuzzled against the side of Eli's head.

Dad stopped as his clouds swirled ominously around him. Hairline strands of electricity jolted in arcs through the clouds with him at the center. Distortions fuzzed around him once he stopped moving. Her power seemed to work when they obeyed her commands. Some kind of obedience-based domain power?

"Don't move or attack, if you do I'll shoot him! Your son is just as devious and disgusting as you and Addy, Rick. He killed Dave. Stabbed him right in the back. Funny isn't it? After you both betrayed us after we gave you both money for your business. Looks like backstabbing runs in the family.

Eli's eyes widened as he glanced over at the prone, bloody form of Roman who had been struck helpless the instant he listened to her after being shot. Dad's clouds were already fizzling out at the edges, but her suppression didn't seem to reach as deep. Maybe because of Storm Cloud's level?

If that was the case then Spatial Dominion and Lumencloud Invigoration were almost entirely useless at evo-0. Spatial Dominion disappeared from his equipped list as he replaced it with Restoration. He'd need to rely almost entirely on Body of Light and Restoration.

Light ignited inside of his body as Eli marshaled his resolve and transformed into radiance. His body as malleable as soft light, he reoriented himself before he solidified so his radiant arm-blade hand slashed through the barrel of the gun straight through her hand. White-hot pieces of metal fell alongside two burning fingers.

Sandra shrieked as she stumbled back.

Eli's radiance softened as he dove toward Roman in a blast of light. He reformed with Roman cradled against him as he shoved a pulse of Restoration into him. A deformed lump of metal dribbled out of the first bullet hole as it sealed shut around it a moment after the other one already closed.

Slivers of Sandra's domain condensed around him even as it broke from his resistance. Movement stirred the coarse sand behind him.

Lightning flashed from Dad's thundercloud with a deafening crack. Eli found himself sprawled out atop Roman as Restoration healed both of their eardrums. He turned to ogle at Sandra's rising form. Jagged burns blackened their way across the charred front of her chest where the lightning bolt had struck. Scorched flesh crackled as it sloughed away in strips to reveal healing pink skin. She kicked the broken remains of her gun forward with her foot.

Space shifted in front of Sandra's hands and at her feet, where the gun scrap disappeared. A new gun fell into her now healed hand as she aimed the gun at Dad and squeezed the trigger.

Light popped from Eli's feet as he jumped to intercept, but he was too slow. A gunshot cracked. Then another.

Clouds swirled with a howl as Dad held his hand out in front of him like a miniature tornado that glittered as hail froze and shattered from the rolling thunder of rapid gunshots. Liquids sloshed out with a splash from the twisting clouds. Another cloud whirled around Dad's offhand.

Space rippled like a mirage as Sandra sidestepped through the haze. Instead of business clothes and an empty handgun, she stood in full modern combat gear with a vest over her chest and a rifle in her hands pointed right at him.

Voidspace shimmered around him as he prepared to break her weak hold and teleport.

"Attack me!" Sandra grinned as his momentum and powers sputtered as he swung his radiant arm-blades toward her.

She pulled the trigger.

He reoriented himself just in time to take the brunt of the gunshot to his soft, light chest. The bullet phased through him as he slashed out at her. Force crashed into him as her domain dispersed.

Thunder cracked as a seething dark cloud shot into her from the side. It broke in a cascade of water that knocked her over just as lightning cracked into her again. She tumbled in a roll as she fell through a ripple in space again to come up fresh with her rifle aimed at Dad.

Roman rose in a crouch while he summoned a full suit of power armor linked up to a futuristic-looking rifle. The whole ensemble looked like the finished product of all of his prototypes he tinkered with whenever he had a chance. Lines of power glowed in a grid as the rifle charged.

Her gunshot cracked while Roman's roared.

Sandra's shot linked into Dad's miniaturized tornado while Roman's blast rammed into and through her with a bright flash. Gunpowder and ozone mingled with the coppery tang of blood in the air. Sandra collapsed to one knee. The entire left side of her body was a charred, oozing mess of sizzling buckshot centered on the trench carved all the way through.

Space rippled around her as she sank through the haze to go wherever she normally went. She was leaving. After she attacked them at the mall, set an ambush at their home, sent Daniels after him, and then attacked them at the beach. On his birthday!

Eli didn't think.

Light seared through his veins as he jetted over to her at the same time Roman flew forward with twin jets propelling him on his rapidly vanishing suit of armor. A bayonet gleamed at the tip of his rifle. Eli and Roman crashed into her at the same time as his bayonet speared through the pulped wound on her side while he slashed across her spine.

While his radiant arm-blade burned through her, he saw a different horizon through the spatial smog. A gray expanse shrouded in white mist.

"Elias!" Mom and Dad shouted at the same time Theo yelled for Roman. Sound faded to a crackling static as they fell through to the gray expanse. Eli's eyes widened, then squeezed shut as they rammed into the unyielding ground with a rolling bounce.

He glanced up to meet Roman's horrified stare as movement flashed on either side of their peripheral vision. To their left on the horizon was a honeycombed view of a thousand different sights. Cities with shining lights and skyscrapers, medieval castles and thriving forests, desolated modern cities in apocalyptic ruins.

Off to the right, behind Sandra's slowly rising, healing form, was the beach where his family and Theo desperately dug at the place they'd disappeared. Dad's sweater and swim trunks were drenched in blood from the smattering of bullet holes torn into him. Mom screamed herself hoarse in a silent wail as clawed at the sand.

"Well, okay," cracked Sandra's hoarse voice as she stood up as the horizon to the left streamed toward her like an elastic river. Once it withdrew back its hexagon view of a cityscape that looked like it came straight from a sci-fi movie. Now she stood restored with a new set of black armor and a massive modular rifle in her hands. "That hurt."

She lifted her gun and fired. The recoil and flash threw Eli into the air as he felt a torrent of kinetic force tear the ground into shrapnel that streaked toward him. The gray world flashed white as the mist cleared in a ring all around them. She cocked it back again with a clank as a cylinder ejected with a thud.

Restoration and Body of Light sealed the gashes, bruised muscles and flesh, and cracked bones as he stood up shakily. He narrowed his eyes as voidspace flowed violet around him in new armor as he tried — and failed — to use Lumencloud Invigoration.

Roman stood with the same rifle and suit of armor as before. Something changed as his summoned equipment felt more real. More solid. His footstep thudded into the ground with a crack before he fired his gun.

Golden-white light flashed with rolling, chaotic thunder as the javelin speared toward her. The ground rumbled as a wall rose in front of her, then shattered as the javelin exploded through it. She returned fire.

An artillery of rapid-fire gunshots shredded his constantly restoring eardrums apart as Eli teleported above her before he popped his car out of its spatial bubble to slam into her. It crumpled flat as the windows shattered and his tires went flying through the air.

Space rippled from the honeycombed horizon again. But he couldn't feel it. Only the surrounding space in the gray, misty expanse existed to him.

Sandra tore through the roof of his car in a shower of molten scrap as she fired her gun at him. Agony gutted through his body as the bullets tore through his body. He landed in a limp tangle of limbs as his wounds tried to heal.

Stone exploded in a crumbling spray of sand as Roman's power armor expanded into a titan of mechanized metal with eight limbs taloned with crescent moon blades. Each of the eight limbs hosted mounted turrets that glowed red before firing a salvo of missiles.

Clouds of dust and sand plumed as the earth shattered. Shockwaves blasted out, flipping Eli through the air until he landed with a wrenching crack as his shins splintered from the impact.

Space wafted from the honeycombed horizon, slower this time. Still, Sandra rose with new weapons. Roman closed in with a flurry of eight howling blades. Restoration snapped through Eli's body as he pushed himself up with both of his flesh and blood arms. Voidspace blades appeared at the end of his hands before space shattered around the tip and edges, forming rifts that sucked the air into the void before spewing it back out.

He teleported.

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