“Gus!” a voice called.
It felt so far away. It sounded insistent but it could have been his imagination.
“Gus!”
The voice was screaming now, but Gus found it difficult to focus through the grogginess. He felt cold. Or did he? Why am I shaking so much? He took a deep breath in and subconsciously activated his Energy Absorption skill.
The temperature of the room dropped ten degrees as the ambient heat was converted into something Gus could use. With the infusion of energy, Gus rose out of the fog briefly, enough to realize what had happened and he pulled more at the energy.
Aurora stepped back as a rime of frost formed in a widening circle around Gus’ body.
“You must use Energy Absorption at full blast to maintain yourself while you hold those powers. It will take an enormous amount of energy to make the changes your sudden increase in stats is trying to implement on your body. It will take some time for your body and Nth to catch up,” Nick urged.
Finding the ability in his display, he opened the tab and maxed out the ability, pushing the slider to the far end. His fatigue dropped to a manageable level, but he still felt worn out. He ached everywhere. Even the back of his hand hurt. He began noticing pain from overexertion from the most unlikely of places. His eyelids ached each time he blinked. How do eyelids get sore?
Oddly, Gus welcomed the pain. It drove away the desire to sleep. He knew that if he allowed himself to doze off, he would not survive the process as his body and Nth tried to assimilate thousands of abilities simultaneously.
Even with that being done, the shaking he had been experiencing began to intensify. His ears began to ring as the vibration increased.
“This is going to be bad,” he said as he could feel the resonating become more and more pronounced. His teeth began to hurt as it hit a certain pitch. He checked his logs to see if he was taking damage; he felt like he would literally vibrate himself to shreds.
In desperation, he opened his stat and ability tabs to see if anything could help him.
Aurora looked on from far across the room, flustered that she could do nothing to help.
Gus clicked on his logs and message after message streamed by, listing the abilities he had acquired. Somewhere along the stream of messages he hit level twenty. The messages continued to stream by as nothing happened. At last the euphoria hit, but still the resonance ramped up.
Gus’ watch spun to life again, emitting a beam out to the side and then reflecting back, enveloping him.
Requirements met…
Dimensional unfolding progressing…
Fractal unfolding level two…
There was an odd quiet as the pitch from the resonance was absent. He felt compression, and this time it embraced him and he felt no pain. He knew what to expect and flung his arms out to the side as he was lifted into the air. He felt the tightening of his clothes as he was stretched, feeling pain, but the severity was blunted.
It felt like the comfortable ache after a good workout, a reward for a job well done instead of a punishment. Gus breathed deeply, looking at his body. Green disks encircled his torso and arms and legs within the beam from the watch. Orange and red beams played across his body as he watched himself become visibly more muscular and larger. There was a brief spike of pain as the ring played across his head then it was gone as the process finished and time reverted again and Gus dropped to the floor, falling to his hands and knees with the abrupt end of the effect.
The whine of the resonance was jarring as time returned to normal, but it quickly diminished, like the power to a siren had been cut and it settled to a stop.
At long last, it was over. Gus looked to the side and noticed his obviously beefier shoulders and down at his torso. Were those abs? He had always been trim, but more of a runner’s build than a weightlifter. Dang, they look like Poppin’ Fresh Muffins!
“Do you need some alone time?” Aurora asked as she saw him gawking at his own body.
He looked up and saw her sardonic expression as she leaned against a large icicle.
“Ain’t no shame in it,” he said. “I thought we had a no-judgment zone thing going here!” The deeper tone of his voice sounded alien to his own ears.
“Okay, but there’s a little shame in it,” she teased. Holding her fingers an inch apart.
“Yeah, but it’s very little,” he bragged.
“That’s what she said,” she countered, folding her arms and cocking her head.
“I give up. I bow to your superior verbal sparring skills,” Gus said, dropping to one knee and waving his arms in obeisance.
“You seem better. I take it that, whatever ‘that’ was, took care of your overload problem?” she said, waving at his watch.
“I think so. I still have no idea what it’s all about. Nick doesn’t even know why it happens.”
“Well, I’m glad it does,” she said and punched him in the arm. “You scared the hell out of me!”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t. But I need you to get off this island, so I have to put up with you.”
Things seemed to be back to normal with Aurora, but the flame didn’t ignite for him again. She felt more like a bratty sister than a potential girlfriend. Probably for the best.
“While I think I’m stable for now, I don’t think I can ever go to sleep and allow these powers to attempt to assimilate all at once. What am I going to do from here? It’s going to be a weird life from here on out. Correction, weirder.”
Gus tasted pear, not like the actual fruit, but more like the juicy pear flavor of Jelly Belly jelly beans. Along with the sensation he also felt a nuance of the meaning,
