The trailblazers stayed on his knees as he looked at his arms. They were almost throbbing, but not with blood flow. His Saiyan 2 state was still active, but not overtaxed. The surge was…something else.
It took him a moment to realize it was his Essence. It was pushing, but not moving. It wasn’t an Essence Rush, otherwise he would have been literally glowing in his enhanced vision. He checked, not seeing anything, but he could feel it. All over his body, as if he was inflating too far. It wasn’t something he had experienced before, but he knew it for what it was.
This was a plateau break, of some form, the question was what did he need to do?
Jason thought about it, but his instincts told him to feel, not think, and Qui-qon’s similar advice to Anakin surfaced from memory.
He closed his eyes and tried to smooth out his body, feel the pressure where it was and wasn’t, and move with the same grace internally as he had been physically. Jason became as still as a statue for more than a minute, then he finally found it. The relief valve wasn’t a spot in his body or mind, but rather a state he had to get his whole self into simultaneously. As if he was various shades of blue and purple, but he needed all of him to turn orange.
That was a bad example, but all his mind could manage at the moment. He didn’t know how he was adjusting his ‘color,’ but when he did his Essence drained from him…except that it didn’t. No Essence Rush occurred, but he felt the pressure lessen…and for a moment he thought he was breaking through into a Siphon, because he felt more Essence entering him from somewhere, but rather than a volcano shooting it out it felt more like a calm river cycling through him…and yet there was still no Essence Rush.
Jason belatedly realized that was because it was natural rather than forced. Essence Rushes must be when you made your Essence go where it wasn’t supposed to. This felt like his Essence needed to move, but the Neofan had mentioned nothing of anything like this.
After going through so many unknown psionic triggers, Jason had plenty of experience with situations like this, so he wasn’t afraid or panicked. He let the pressure bleed out and put as much effort into it as was required, and as he did so the internal ‘glow’ he had felt before, that ‘liquid gold’ sensation, mushroomed into something else entirely and consumed his entire body in a wave of coolness that quickly enveloped him and his consciousness.
Jason tilted over, hitting the floor unconscious as he spontaneously blacked out, with Wilson being alerted as medtechs were dispatched to his location on the course.
Vitor-003 had just started his run on the obstacle course. The cleaning machines were already clearing the path ahead of him rather than waiting for one person to finish the entire course. That would have been a waste of time, so once the ‘washers’ had enough of a head start the next person was sent off on their run, with multiple trailblazers typically being on the course at the same time, though they never saw each other.
Vitor was staying ahead of the auto-targeting turrets easily enough, and had gone a few minutes into his run when he got a telepathic warning from Wilson, saying that Jason had gone down near to his position.
The trailblazer didn’t hesitate to leap into the air, violating course rules, and flew to where he was sensing Jason was. His mind was easy enough to find, for it was buzzing with static, and several medtechs were nearing him but not there yet.
Vitor got there first, landing next to Jason and immediately realizing he was unconscious. He put a hand on his arm and used his Haemra to sneak a peek at what was going on inside, for Jason’s mind was blocking his telepathy.
He hacked in using his healing psionic while also using his Ikrid to try and get at his mind…but that’s not what happened. Whatever was happening to Jason leeched into Vitor, and he pulled back immediately, letting go of his friend and jumping back half a meter.
But the Malzahar-like plague stuck with him, expanding within his body and making his Essence move somehow. It didn’t feel damaging, but Vitor immediately tried to stop it, surging his Essence to push it out of his body and succeeding…but as soon as he stopped a piece of whatever it was within him surged forth again, spreading faster this time and making him feel like he needed to let it happen. Some pressure inside him was being relieved, and his instincts told him to both fight it and let it proceed.
Vitor tried twice more to stop it, then gave in and let it go as his attempts seemed futile and he began to crave it even more. He had no idea what it was, but as his vision started to get blurry he saw the medtechs arrive around Jason just as he collapsed to a knee.
“Don’t…touch,” Vitor said, just before blacking out a meter away from Jason’s feet as Oni-081 dropped down from the sky beside them.
“What’s happening?” she demanded as the medtechs held back, pulling out secondary equipment rather than the regenerators at Vitor’s warning so they could scan from a short distance away.
“Vitor said not to touch them, then he collapsed as well,” a Calavari medtech said, holding three different instruments in his hands while rubbing his forehead with the other in confusion. “Mental activity is high, but their bodies are reading as normal. Can you telepathically scan them?”
“Can’t get through. They’re sealed up tight. I’d have to touch them,” she said, kneeling
