A Force Unleashed [Training]

Cold. Not the cold caused by the white flakes that fell from the sky… what were they called again? Snow. The cold was similar, though. Wet, borne on wind, blowing spray into any open windows that could be found. Even though these apertures were closed, Kyrie could still feel the chill on her skin, though the room was slowly getting warmer. She lay on a bed, her eyes staring at the ceiling, her mind on the contents of the room: a table, a cupboard, some other unnecessary items, and of course, the bed. She had tried before, and she had seen that it was quite possible for her to lift these things with her mind, though at the present time, she could only lift a maximum of three objects. She closed her eyes…

… and the bed was slowly lifted up from the floor. She was still lying on it, though she somewhat didn’t feel her weight on it. That being the case, she was certain it was possible for her to levitate herself, as well as whatever other objects she could lift with her mind… even if she was the fourth object. ”Weightless…” she muttered softly, as the table slowly rose to join the bed in mid air. She sat up and watched the table, making it float around her bed with her powers. It was the cupboard that would pose a little problem, being the third item and perhaps one of the heaviest. Sometimes, she found her psychic grip on the third object slipping, though she was mastering the act quickly. Slowly, she crossed her legs beneath her, glanced once at the cupboard, and willed it to rise, as her gaze drifted back to the window. It rose, alright, with a lot less difficulty than she had anticipated. For a few minutes, she moved the floating objects back and forth, feeling pleased that she had finally gotten the hang of this. But now, the hard part of the training would begin.

First, she would try her luck on something little. She looked around. There was a cup on a shelf at the far end of the room. She reached out to it, and instantly felt the cupboard slip from her grasp. With haste, she caught it, letting go of the cup, which discouragingly made hardly an attempt to move. When she was certain that the cupboard was stable, she decided to focus on herself instead. Slowly, she attempted to lift herself off the bed. It was very shaky at first, with every floating object wobbling dangerously, but somehow, she managed to get off the bed. She noticed that her eyes were actually shut, and so she opened them to take note of her progress. She was actually closer to the ceiling than she had expected. Looking down, she could see the other floating objects beneath her. With a smile, she dropped each of the items carefully, then floated to the table and set herself on it.

Moving her body around seemed quite an easy thing to do, but it was wise to test the limits of this newfound ability. She thought for a moment, then walked to the window and looked outside. The wind was still strong, but the rain had all but subsided. She quickly changed into her battle suit, wearing a jacket as the only extra protection she would need. Kyrie wasn’t afraid of the cold; she had fared against worse in Fortuna. Opening the window with her mind, she squeezed through it and jumped off the windowsill, into the rain and night air. She closed the window and propelled herself upward as fast as she could manage. Flying upwards at such a speed was exhilarating. Perhaps she now understood why most characters who had the ability to fly did so often. On and on she went, until she broke through the dark clouds that brooded over the earth, into a dark blue sky spotted with stars and a spectral crescent moon. She hugged her shoulders; it was really cold here and the air was quite thin. Perhaps she would fly this high once again, when the sun was up. Then, it would be easier to bear. Kyrie let go of herself and plummeted back through the clouds. Spreading out her hands, a rare grin on her face, she allowed herself a whoop as her powers kicked in again, her fall evening out into horizontal flight. She eventually drew to a stop and looked around. The city seemed much different from this point of view. She couldn’t find her house from here. Well, in time, she would get to know this place from this perspective. Flying much slower this time, she descended into the city, just to have a look around, before she would go home.
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Training Flight
[800]

Sometimes, as was the case today, Kyrie liked to take strolls in the dark of the city. Doing that was certainly dangerous, but if she remembered correctly, there was a human proverb that said something like, “no risk, no reward”. The reward was making the city a safer place to live in. She knew the implications of the task she was undertaking, and she was willing to bear them. Many would look at this as some warped sense of justice; after all, it wasn’t her business what happened to other people in the city, was it? However, she always remembered a proverb of her people that warned that if overlooked, a neighbor’s problem could very well become one’s own, if left unattended due to apathy.

At this time of the night, in some hidden areas of the city, crime was bound to take place. Such a place was a good place to start her clean up. Maybe in time, she would eventually find a group of like minded people, or she would ‘sanitize’ the place singlehandedly. Of course, joining a group was easier, since division of labor always had its advantages… Kyrie suddenly paused, a noise drawing her thoughts back to the present. She looked around and discovered that the sound came from a point out of eyesight. That would mean it was not far. Kyrie shut her eyes and activated her Extrasensory Perception. As her awareness of the surrounding expanded, she discovered a gang of about four men cornering another man. From the looks of it, this was a robbery in progress. This was a good place to start. Kyrie used her perception to look around the area for useful objects that would aid her in the battle to come. Even though she had powers, jumping into a fight without a plan was very unwise.

She found two very important things: a large brick, and an overhead light bulb. Humans were not known for an affinity to see in the dark, and the light bulb was the only source of illumination in the area. She opened her eyes and switched off her ESP. Quietly, she made her way to the closest point to the scene of the crime, where she could still avoid being detected, before activating her ESP once more. She had to be careful how she used this power, else she might find herself at the mercy of the criminals. With any luck, she would make this quick: striking hard and fast. She reached out with her mind, and the large brick rose quickly off the ground, then smacked into the light bulb, just as one of the muggers had grabbed their victim’s overcoat. With a harsh, splintering sound that reverberated through the alley, the whole scene was plunged into darkness. It was expected for everyone to panic, which they did, and then she acted.

An unseen force grabbed the first mugger and hurled him into the second. The force was strong enough to send them flying down the alley, putting them out of commission for the meantime. Someone drew a gun. She turned towards him and stretched out a hand, as he aimed in the dark. Her primary weapon, the brick, sailed into his wrist, knocking the gun out of his hand. Before she could take him out, the last mugger picked another brick and threw it with uncanny precision at her head. That took her by surprise. There was no way he could see in the dark… unless he was one of those… what did the humans call them again? Mutants. She reacted instinctively, releasing a psychokinetic force that pushed out from all points of her body, at a rather short frequency. She didn’t expect it to work, but it did. The brick seemed to hit her, but in truth, it barely touched her body and dropped to the ground, though it hurt a little. From what anyone could see, she was impervious to such an attack. The night vision mutant drew a large knife and lurched at her. Not sure that her makeshift defense could protect against a knife, she backed away. He moved in closer, focused intently on her. And that was why he didn’t see another brick sail in, until it was almost too late. He raised his hands to defend himself, succeeded in protecting his head, but was disarmed. As Kyrie used her Psi-kappa powers to slide the knife beyond his reach, she sensed him already in mid air, aiming a spinning kick at her face. This time, she switched on the defensive psychokinetic force with more focus, adapting it to form a force field around her body. The kick landed alright, but it only connected with the field and proved useless. Swiftly, she grabbed him with her psychokinesis, whirled him through the air, and smacked him into the mugger that had previously pulled a gun. Both went down and out. Kyrie heaped them one on another, then found a dilapidated light pole and used her psychokinetic powers to bend it around them, effectively forming a harness. She didn’t have to turn to look at the victim; her ESP showed her that he cowered in a corner, trying to figure out what was going on. She said, ”Run for the lights and don’t look back.” He obeyed.

That being accomplished, Kyrie left the muggers there and went her way. If they were smart, they might not keep up the life of crime. If they did, she might bump into them again, and a similar event might occur. People needed to learn the lesson that crime never paid.
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Training Invulnerability
[936]

It was one thing to lift an object and smack it into a wall, and it was another thing to exert a localized force that could pass off as a telekinetic punch. The telekinetic punch was also way harder than it looked. Kyrie gave the glass bottle which sat quietly on a bench a dissatisfied look. On the other side of the bench, 'corpses' of bottles littered the ground. She focused on the green bottle and pointed at it. It shuddered for a moment, then flew into the air, away from her position, shattering as it did so. Well, at least the ground didn't do the breaking this time. That was a start.

Precision was the key, she told herself. The ability to punch a little hole through the bottle had some connection with trying to pick up a very tiny object, like say, a strand of hair. And by picking it up, she didn't mean just blowing it aside with psychokinesis; it had to be a meticulous process, just like using one's hands to pick the strand. Well, another bottle had bitten the dust. Fortunately, there were so many old and discarded bottles in this place that Kyrie felt that she would have mastered this ability long before she ran out of bottles.

"Again!" she said aloud to herself, as she levitated another bottle onto the bench. Having an idea, she pointed at the bottle with her index finger and squinted. Then she focused her powers from her finger towards the bottle. With the characteristic glass breaking sound, the bottle exploded, leaving its base on the bench. Kyrie smiled slightly. It had had the desired effect: like shooting the bottle with a bullet. Well, if she could focus her powers through a finger, perhaps she could focus also through the pupils of her eyes? Following the same concept, it ought to work.

The next bottle was lifted and placed on the bench. With a passive curiosity, she noticed that all the bottles were green. Was there a human poem that said something about ten green bottles, standing on a wall? Or was it nine? With a slight shrug, she looked intensely on the bottle and focused, willing it to break. It obeyed. It looked like she had finally mastered the concept.

Kyrie lifted herself into the air, until she was a good distance from the bottles. One of the things she had learned while serving with the battle maiden fledglings of Fortuna was that creating variants of a technique, or a fighting style, could be quite advantageous, because it did give the user a few more options. So, she would like to create a modification of this one. If she released the frequency of her psionic power in an omnidirectional pattern, perhaps it could form a defensive field of sorts. Or perhaps a force field that had the power to repel objects with force. This would prove to be a little more complex, because unlike the previous time she focused with her finger or eyes, this time, there would be almost no focusing. Just the destructive frequency...

The bottles only rattled in reply. Obviously, the range of an omnidirectional technique would have to sacrifice strength for range, or vice versa. If she wanted the technique to have an acceptable effect, that meant she would have to cut down on the range of the psionic frequency. She returned to the ground and arranged as many bottles as she could find around herself in a circular pattern. She would take note of the distance to which her powers could go, by the number of bottles that would break.

"Okay... one, two, three... here goes!" Bottles ruptured around her in all directions. It was quite a spectacular sight to see, though Kyrie noticed that the range of the shock wave was only about half the range of the unidirectional attack. And she had made quite a mess. Even though this place resembled a dump site of sorts, Kyrie felt obliged to leave the place just as she had found it. A few notes and many cleanings later, she felt she had done a satisfactory job. Packing up many shards actually proved troublesome, since each shard was an individual piece, and each piece had a level of concentration required to carry it.

With time, she would be able to lift many pieces without a sweat, as well as make more powerful shock waves that traveled longer distances. With time.

[746] - Burst