Lance's legs burned as he landed on the frost-covered grass, his breath forming clouds in the crisp morning air. A weak winter sun hung low in the pale sky, doing little to warm the empty park.

  "Enough," Diego wheezed from his wheelchair. "We've been at this for hours, man."

  Lance ignored him, focusing on the residual energy thrumming through his muscles. He bent his knees, preparing for another jump.

  "Seriously, Lan. I'm about to keel over just watching you."

  "One more," Lance grunted—

  He exploded upward, soaring over the nearby playground equipment. For a moment, he hung suspended, reveling in the rush of wind against his sweat-slicked skin.

  Lance couldn't stop checking his Saltatorial mode readout. At first, jumping around like a caffeinated kangaroo had paid off—the numbers shot from 24% to 29% in minutes, yet four hours into this frosty morning he remained stuck at 33% despite cycling arma through his quads until they turned into wet socks so he should probably head home where normal people spent their December mornings but—

  Gravity reclaimed him, and he plummeted back to earth.

  Crack.

  The impact jolted through his body. His right leg buckled—not from pain, but from the mechanical failure his nerves would normally warn him about.

  "Shit," Diego hissed. "You okay?"

  Lance limped over to his friend, collapsing onto the grass beside the wheelchair. "Fine. Just pushed it too far."

  "No kidding. You're gonna end up in traction if you keep this up."

  "Says the guy whose legs went full titan during our fight."

  Diego's face darkened. "That wasn't your fault, man. Rick had you—"

  "I know," Lance cut him off. "But I need to understand how you did it. That kind of power would be a game-changer."

  "It's not that simple. I can't simply flip a switch and go full Beast Mode." Diego chuckled on a delay.

  Lance propped himself up on his elbows, fixing Diego with an intense stare. "Then explain it to me. Walk me through what happened."

  Diego tipped his wheelchair onto its back wheels, holding the balance with a casual tilt. "It was instinct, mostly. When you came at me, all jacked up on Rick's mind-fuckery, I knew I had to go big or go home."

  "But how?" He pressed. "Could I do that too? The muscle mass increase, the explosive strength—even with just a fraction of your ability?"

  "You think I understand the science behind this shit?" Diego laughed. "All I know is I focused everything I had into my one working leg. It was like... like trying to force a river through a garden hose."

  Lance frowned, mulling over the analogy. "So you condensed the power, concentrated it in a smaller area?"

  "Something like that. But it hurt like hell, man. Felt like my bones were gonna shatter."

  "Similar to that nerve pain you had before you started PT?" Lance asked.

  "Nah, different beast. The exercises that Ananya sent me keep that old shit in check."

  "So your arma flows better now,"

  "I guess..." Diego dropped his wheelchair back to all fours with a sharp ‘clack.’

  “I have a feeling borrowed power isn’t the same as natural ability." Lance brought a hand to his chin. "What do you think makes it different?"

  "Hell if I know. Just saying, maybe don't push it too hard—that pain is unbearable."

  Pain he understood. It was the basis behind his hypothesis of breaking mental control after all. Neural signals, electrical impulses, biochemical reactions… His nullification worked because pain wasn't real, it served as information your brain processed to protect you. Useful, until it wasn't.

  [Pain Nullification: On]

  Pain Nullification was permanent now. No going back, not in this world of mind control and neural purges. Every second faster at shutting down an attack improved his chances. But Diego's pinched nerve got him thinking—maybe that resistance, that blockage, had forced Diego's ability to evolve. Lance needed to find a way to dam up his arma, push it through his legs as Diego had described that river. The cycling helped push it down, but it kept flowing back up, stubborn as a tide.

  "Interesting," Lance murmured. He closed his eyes and an unwanted recollection of the priest’s death clawed its way to the surface before he forced his thoughts back on track.

  If cycling wasn't enough, maybe he needed a valve—a way to trap the arma in his legs. He could wind the black mass through his thighs like a tourniquet, use Solidify to create a one-way seal. Diego's herniated disc had forced adaptation; maybe artificial pressure would do the same.

  He reached inward to the well of energy that fueled his own Saltatorial ability.

  "Oh no," Diego groaned. "I know that look. Whatever you're thinking—"

  Lance surged to his feet, ignoring the protest of his aching muscles. He took a deep breath, visualizing the power flowing into his lower body. Not just enhancing them, but reshaping them.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Concentrate, he thought. Force it through.

  His legs began to swell, muscle fibers tearing and reforming at an accelerated rate. Lance felt each fiber stretching, each tendon straining as his lower body transformed. Without pain signals, the sensations were alien—like his calves were clay being reshaped by unseen hands. Based on how his muscles were shredding and rebuilding themselves, this should have been excruciating. But thanks to his “energy mastery,” all he felt was the bizarre sensation of his body restructuring itself.

  "Holy shit," Diego breathed.

  Essence Power

  └─[Adaptive Limbs: Saltatorial (50%)]

  └──Advanced jumping capability unlocked

  Lance opened his eyes, looking down at his transformed limbs. His thighs had nearly doubled in size, quivering with barely contained power.

  Grinning, he crouched down, ready to test his newfound strength. The system messages flashed across his vision, but he barely registered them. Too excited. Too eager to see what his body could do.

  "Lance, wait—"

  Too late.

  He launched himself skyward, rocketing past the treetops in a blur of motion. The world fell away beneath him as he soared higher and higher, wind howling in his ears.

  Exhilaration.

  Then terror as he realized just how high he'd gone. One story up, and still rising.

  His stomach felt weightless. Lance flailed, trying to stabilize himself as he began to fall. The ground rushed up to meet him, growing larger with terrifying speed.

  Essence Power: [Adaptive Limbs (Alpha I)]

  └─[Mode: Saltatorial]

  └──New submode unlocked: [Aerial Mastery]

  └───Aerial Mastery: Enhances mid-air stabilization and landing optimization

  Think, he commanded himself. You've got the strength. Use it.

  The wind tore at his clothes, his heart hammering against his ribs.

  [Submode: Aerial Mastery] activated

  Something clicked in his mind—no, in his muscles. In his legs. The new mode. Aerial Control. His body responded instantly, adjusting to the air currents with inhuman precision.

  Twisting in mid-air, Lance managed to orient himself feet-first. He bent his knees, bracing for impact.

  The earth shook as he landed, leaving a small crater in the grass. His knees held. Nothing cracked—at least nothing he could hear. He rolled forward with the momentum, hoarfrost-speckled grass crunching beneath him.

  [Body Energy Integration: Stage 2]

  └─Neural-muscular synchronization achieved

  └──Evolution threshold approaching...

  Stage 2 integration. Something was building, changing. His body hummed with a familiar tension—like that surge of energy when he'd appropriated... Emotional Impact. He couldn't bring himself to think of it as Rick's power, not anymore. That moment had pushed him from Stage 1, and now his cells buzzed with that same anticipation. He wondered if this had anything to do with the "(1st Evolution)" designation he kept seeing next to energy types, if his body was preparing for another transformation.

  "?Pero que cabron!" Diego shouted, wheeling towards him. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

  Lance stumbled out of the impact zone, his legs already beginning to shrink back to their normal size. "That was... intense."

  "No shit! You're lucky you didn't snap your spine, you idiot."

  Lance went quiet for a moment.

  “I could probably reinforce my spine with Morphoplasm. Good idea, Diego.”

  "That's not what I— Jesus Christ, you're actually serious."

  "But it worked," Lance insisted, a manic grin spreading across his face. "Did you see how high I went? With practice, I can—"

  "With practice, you will definitely splatter yourself across the pavement," Diego interrupted. "This isn't a game, Lan. You can't just keep pushing until something breaks. Look at me—been stuck in this chair twice already"

  "You seen the news lately? Every week there's some new incident with powers. World's not slowing down for us to catch up."

  "I get it, man. Then we take it slow and steady—the world doesn't need two heroes in wheelchairs."

  "I know," Lance sighed. He looked up at the sky, tracing the arc of his impossible leap. "It's just... for a moment up there, I felt free. Like nothing could touch me."

  "Yeah, well, reality has a way of bringing you back down to earth. Sometimes literally."

  Lance chuckled, his muscles clicking as he shifted his weight. "Point taken. I think I'm done for today."

  But he wasn't. Training was the only thing keeping the nightmares at bay.

  "Hallelujah," Diego exclaimed, raising his hands to the heavens. "Now can we please go get some food? I'm starving."

  "Sure," Lance agreed. He started to walk, then stumbled as his legs nearly gave out. "Uh, you might need to give me a ride, though."

  Diego's laughter boomed across the park as Lance gingerly lowered himself onto his friend's lap. As they set off in search of sustenance, the momentary distraction of training began to fade.

  He'd only scratched the surface of what Saltatorial might do. With time and training, who knew what heights he would reach?

  But for how long? a small voice whispered in the back of his mind.

  Lance pushed the thought aside. He'd keep training, keep pushing, keep moving. It was all he could do.

  But even as they rolled toward the promise of food and rest, he knew the truth:

  Physical pain was easy to control. But emotional pain played by different rules. No matter how much he tried, he failed to block the guilt of hurting Diego, the horror of watching Owen split the priest in half, or the sickening satisfaction he felt crushing Rick's skull. His power had given him the ability to shut off physical pain, and now Neural Dominion let him manipulate emotional states, but neither helped with his own demons. Those weren't just signals he was able to ignore—they were becoming part of who he was.

  Why did I do it? he wondered.

  He still had no answer for why he'd absorbed Rick's arma ability at the end. Maybe because it felt right in that moment of rage, or maybe because some twisted part of him wanted to understand how someone would violate minds so casually. The ability sat in his system like a tumor he couldn't remove, whispering possibilities he didn't want to consider. Neural Dominion. Even the name felt wrong, a constant reminder that he'd killed a man and stolen the very thing that made him a monster.

  Lance looked at his hands. Two lives ended by these hands. Both times in self-defense, both times necessary—at least that's what he kept telling himself.

  He focused on the training, on the mechanics and measurements. Power output and energy flow gave his mind somewhere to go besides the memory of crushing Rick's face into pulp, or the sound of the chopstick punching through the assassin's eye. Quick deaths, they'd said. Small comfort.

  "You could at least trim the edges," Diego said. "Looking like a straight-up vagrant."

  Lance pushed himself up from his lap. "I can walk now."

  "Yeah? Good. Doesn't mean you have to look like a homeless philosophy professor."

  Lance scratched at his unkempt beard. "I'm cultivating an aesthetic."

  "You're cultivating mold, pendejo. There's depression beards, and then there's whatever biological hazard you've got going on."