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Hound55
Shienvien
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A Man Out of Time #5: Back Against the Proverbial Wall #2
Location: Pacific Point, California
The bullets pounded the psionic barrier like torrential rain from all directions and in The Wanderer’s mind, he could feel each bullet hitting at their respective points in his head. He didn’t dare think about how strong the barrier was as he faced near-mental exhaustion. Every time he felt like the barrier was going to fail from the exhaustion, he shrunk the barrier smaller until it barely encompassed him in a human-sized cocoon. If the barrier faltered for even one second, it would be game over and history would repeat itself over again. Then how would he live with himself in his last dying thoughts that billions of people would die from the nuclear holocaust that would result?
While the thoughts were racing through his mind, the Hounds continued their relentless barrage, tactically timing their reloads as to not give him an opening. While the barrier is small, it was stronger than it had been when he first put it out. The mutant always looked around to see what his options were for an escape or a counter-attack, but most things came up with nothing. It was only when his options seemed to have run out that a voice came to him in his head. ”Do you think that is the limits of your own abilities in the aether?” It was then he thought back to the person who spoke those words.
Time: What is supposed to be Midday, 195 years in the future
Location: Near what’s supposed to be Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Location: Near what’s supposed to be Pine Bluff, Arkansas
The wasteland had been as The Wanderer remembered; desolate and void of almost all life. He remembered this memory to be 10 years after he had been put into then exile for his transformation from human into a mutant. And it was 9 years since he met him. A flash of purple shone through the barren landscape, bringing him closer to the source. As he drew closer, he saw dead vegetation near the source and decided to hide in them to see what was going on. As he pushed through the dead bushes that stood in his way to get a better view, he got a glimpse of what was going on: one of the many sparring sessions he had with the person who trained him in a lot of the psionics that he knew now. He remembered that moment in his memory that he had just gotten the hang of his beam and combat-enhancement abilities and was practising them with everything he had back then. He watched as his younger self despite the abilities he had back then get swatted aside by a mutant he called The Scholar.
“You’ve got to stop wasting your abilities so needlessly.”
He could remember the frustrations he felt that day when he got back up to try and strike the elderly mutant at least once in the sparring session, the objective of this particular session. He watched as his younger self reactivated his combat-enhancing aura and launched himself again. Now looking back in hindsight, The Wanderer thought about how foolish he was not using the advice he received to help himself back then. He knew that he had been exiled a year ago at this point, but it was no excuse for the rage-fueled assault. He could only watch as the attempted attack was simply dodged and swatted him aside, causing the younger man to crash onto the floor. The frustrations reached a boiling point at that point, ”Why can’t I hit you?!”
“You are focusing on the direct and being blind to everything that is around you.” By then, the young Wanderer sat up and looked at his teacher. “Psionics isn’t just about seeing what is in front of you and trying to find the shortest means possible to get to that point. Do you think that is the limits of your abilities in the aether? The psionic energy is all around us, no matter how strong or weak you are and you can use that to your advantage. Consider this a quick lesson: stand up and pull up your barrier just facing towards me, using everything you have.” The young man stood up and complied, pulling up a strong, directional barrier between The Wanderer and The Scholar. “All you are concentrating on is trying to breach what is in front of you, like so.” The elder mutant raised his hand and started a barrage of psionic balls against the barrier, which crashed on the surface harmlessly. “What you need to realize is that there are many paths you can take to reach the same destination. What do you see from your barrier?”
The young man looked puzzled at first, but as he let the question sink in, he noticed that the barrier had been protecting him from the direct attack and there is a lot of things that the barrier doesn’t cover. ”There’s only one direction the barrier is protecting me.”
“Correct. If you concentrate on just using psionic abilities directly, sometimes something can be overwhelming that you won’t be able to achieve it is that you want to do. If you cannot overcome what is in front of you, you always find a way around it and exploit the weakness that is front of you.” As he finished, he launched another small psionic ball that seemed to be directed at the barrier again. However, instead of it hitting the barrier, it stopped short and shot to the left of the barrier, going around it like it was nothing. The barrier disappeared to encompass him as the ball surged towards him. A moment passed as the impact of both the lessons and the attack sank in. “I’ll conclude this session early while you think about what was mentioned just now. We’ll carry in with this at the next daybreak.”
The young man bowed and simply walked in the direction to where Settlement 149 was. A few moments later, The Scholar turned to the lone bush that was nearby. “You remembering the memory of this session?”
Taken by surprise by the eyes of the elder Mutant looking at him, The Wanderer emerged from the bush and approached closer. ”You know that I’m here?”
“I know that you are not here physically as this is only just your memory, but there are a lot of things in the realms of psionics that you still need to learn.” The Scholar sat down on the barren ground as the time-traveller did. “This had been an important memory for you as you took the words to heart and improved dramatically. You know there is much you need to learn still.” He paused for a moment. “I see you are on the defensive against these… Hounds… and are stuck on trying to find a way out. Seems it to be fitting that you thought back to this lesson.”
”I’ve done everything I can to think of a way out, but I can’t seem to think of a way out. Not while I have my barrier up to protect me.”
“I see… I would say that this lesson I taught you before you got to where you are now still applies. However…” The Wanderer looked at The Scholar as the elder mutant looked into his eyes. “I can tell you something that you’ll need to learn as well, though this is more of an observation from the hours of teachings; You are a person of absolutes. You have a tendency of either throwing an absolute defence or creating an onslaught of immense attacks. Both of those are impressive to watch, even by my standards. But, you seemingly don’t transition between the two without pausing to think about what to do next. You have a lot of things you can do with psionics, you can transition from attack to defence with them and vice versa. I won’t decide what you are to do in your situation, but I can see one way of doing it that you should be more than capable of doing. Now is the time to learn about transitioning from one state to another and develop it to your already impressive abilities.”
Location: Pacific Point, California
Time: Present day
Time: Present day
The Wanderer snapped back to his reality. The bullets are still pounding on the small barrier. He looked around again, focusing with his psionic eye. The psionic lines were still flowing, more than they had done in the future. However, it then he noticed that the Hounds were completely surrounding him. However, this observation wasn’t new to him. It was what he could do in that situation that he now observed. None of them were moving from their spots at all. So, that’s what you could see eh, old man? he thought to himself. He chuckled as he began to focus once more. His body began to sprout the purple flames of the psionics that emanated from his ever-present aura. This aura engulfed the barrier in its fierce flames. He drew upon every ounce of his psionic aura left in his body. When he was ready, he said one thing that all of the armoured men could hear.
”My turn…”
For the Hounds that surrounded him, time went slowly as they witnessed what happened after those words. The Wanderer simply lashed out, roaring in anger as the built-up energy was unleashed. The barrier simply shattered as he began his assault. In its place, a wave of energy was unleashed similar to the wave that the world felt on that day. However, as it manifested on the planet, the energy had matter to push through. The pushed air sent a shockwave that stopped the bullets dead in their trajectories. The psionic energy itself manifested in the air molecules itself as heat is produced. All the common components of a high explosive detonation. The energy that produced the explosion ripped through the Hound lines as if they were nothing. Everyone in the immediate area was killed by the shockwave outright. The following explosion itself sent bodies and broken parts from the vehicles apart. The shockwaves even smashed out the windows in the area and caused distant cars to blare out their alarms. The buildings in the immediate area were damaged by the explosion to the point where they were structurally unsafe. Apart from the impact crater that the explosion formed, the rest of the road seemed to be untouched.
In the aftermath of the explosion, The Wanderer collapsed, his energy almost spent completely in the psionic explosion of his barrier. His breath was ragged and hard, sweat poured from his brow. After a few moments, sirens heard in the distance, the mutant got up from the center of the crater and staggered away, leaving little of him behind as he weaved past body parts and debris. As soon as he was clear and away from everything, he walked into an alleyway and collapsed once more behind a dumpster. It was only then that everything went black.
