Chapter 5:

Jessica was on the phone yelling at someone when Veronica walked in the house, worried about the too soon development. She had just begun to earn her principal’s trust and the enemy had already made contact. Whoever leaked Nathan’s status had much to answer for.

Giving her erstwhile roommate a flat stare, she knew where the finger needed to be pointed.

Agent Dubois, stood up and slammed her office door at seeing Veronica with an accusing stare. The discordant humming from behind the door indicated that the sound buffer was active. No eavesdropping was possible.

Not that she cared. Seeing the heated reaction, the Agency also knew of the first Recruiter to arrive in South Lawn. Definitely not the last, if the speed of this Irene’s visit was of any indication.

“Fuck, haven’t they learned anything by now? A Class III with a decent Powerset is enough for the other nations to act, Nate is a Class V unknown. Fuctards!...” Mumbling to herself and spouting a word that the intelligence officer hadn’t used since high school, she ascended the stairs to her own office.

Lieutenant Lake placed a call to her controller, only to get the corporal on duty. “I need you to send a text to Colonel Jackson. Nathan met his first recruiter. Agency leaked. End text. Corporal, call me back if he has any orders.”

She sat and began making a list on her computer.
What do I know of Nathan’s powers:

1. He can sense life energy levels, or Power levels of Supers and probably the energy signature of everything alive.

2. He can absorb life energy to heal himself. At the cost of the surrounding living bodies.

3. Mile sensory range at the minimum.

4. Strong Controllers work both ways. Fire Elementals can dampen fires, electrical Elementals can strengthen and reduce the electrical output of an energy source. Nathan should be able to enhance life ener...

Oh... . Why hasn’t anyone else figured out that, yet?... They have... . Then why is he left out in the open? I do not know... Why is there not a full squad supporting him and only me? I don’t know... . What is the Agency’s goal? I don’t know... What is the Army’s goal in not giving him their all? I don’t know...

Scrambling her notes, and overwriting them with a program designed specifically to erase any data entered on her computer, Lieutenant Veronica Lake sat back and collected her thoughts. Once she was sure of her plan of action, Ronnie holstered her weapon and locked up her gear. Packing a traveling bag, she walked downstairs past the still active buffer field of the Agency’s agent. Agent Dubois had locked herself in her office presumably arguing with her superiors. Veronica Lake walked across the lawn to Nate’s.
Nathan Steven’s house.

The home of a Class V Life Control Super.

Control works both ways...

Ronnie knocked on my door twenty minutes after dropping me off. I thought she said she would be busy for a while.

GUN! She wore a shoulder holster with a monster sized handgun, combat boots and the same jeans as earlier along with a different thick black short sleeved shirt carrying a tote and purse.

She did not look happy.

“Are you okay?” I asked letting Ronnie in.

“I need to run an errand; would you mind coming along? I would feel better. Please,” she added for the extra push.

“Okay. Are you worried about Irene?”

“Yes. Other people too.”

She was in a controlled excited state, but stable. “Let me put my shoes back on and lock up.” I had to turn off the computer too.

Having me stop before getting into the car, my friendly intelligence officer pulled out a dual looped gray wand and went over her jeep. Nothing beeped funny, only then did she let me get in the passenger side. Remaining mysteriously silent, Ronnie drove us to Route 14 and headed south.

“Where are we going?”

“Kent State Park.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“Thirty-five minutes south.”

In Oklahoma. I thought there was a decent sized forest there. I wanted to ask more but her attitude suggested that she didn’t want to talk.

Ronnie pulled up to the Ranger station and paid for a day pass.

Driving into the day park, she entered a ‘Ranger only area’ and drove along the trail for a few miles. I was getting worried. Turning off the car and flicking a red toggle under the steering wheel, stowing her weapon in a locked box bolted to the floor of the back seat, the unusually serious blonde who hadn’t smiled once since my meeting with Irene picked up her tan and green bag and ordered me to follow.

“Come on. It’s not far.”

I didn’t notice that the car trail had ended here, but once outside of her jeep, it was obvious. The ground was pretty sparse of plants, the huge tree canopy covered the area with plenty of shade. A few shrubs and flowers that I didn’t recognize grew in the area.

I followed Ronnie sensing nothing but wildlife and plants for miles.

Reminiscing, she murmured, “I haven’t been here in years.” A small dilapidated ranger shack with the roof mostly caved in stood alone in the underbrush.

She peeked inside and decided against it. Unzipping the tote, Ronnie pulled out a brightly colored beach blanket. She snapped it twice and laid it out over the dead leaf covered ground.

Ronnie then removed two bottles of water and two energy bars. Sitting on one side of the five-foot blanket, she pointed at the other end and told me to sit. Maybe now, she would tell me what this was about.

“There is a woman, average looking and angry. Rumor is that she is not the easiest person to deal with. Her name is Clara Brown. Ever hear of her?”

“No...” I was lost.

“She is, or up to a few weeks ago, was the strongest Super in America. Class IV bordering on V. She can control and generate fire with a range of over a thousand feet. She also has a third Power. She can fly very slowly, but only when she uses one of her other powers.”

“Okay?” ... Still lost.

“This spring, she helped in suppressing the California early fire season. Besides generating and enhancing fires, she can also reduce their strength and even snuff out smaller ones completely.

“There was a Class IV electricity Controller in Miami. He could take any electricity and strengthen its power. He could also dampen it or even block the flow of electricity completely. The perfect insulator, as long as it was in his range and concentrating on the source. He had a secondary Power of superhuman level reflexes, but couldn’t generate electricity without a source, even if it were just a plug in the wall. He needed something.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but it was slowly dawning on me that Ronnie might have figured out something.

“In Mexico City there was a Super who was a crime lord for two years. One of the first generation ones. He was all Physical similar to American Man.”

I nodded, that one I heard about.

“He was betrayed by his second and killed by an overdose of twenty kilos of powdered uncut heroin. Did you know he had three Powers? Unfortunately for him, none of them were regen or poison resistance.”

“And this has something to do with me?” I asked with a sinking feeling.

“Nathan, Control goes both ways.” She pulled out the utility knife that she always kept sheathed at her side and STABBED HER LEG! Through her jeans!

I screamed. Cough. A little. Maybe. It definitely was not high pitched.

Blood gushed everywhere when she pulled the five inch blade out of her thigh.

With clenched teeth and a pale face, she breathed harshly and panted in rhythm. Watching me with those pretty blue eyes of hers.

“God damnit.” I sucked the life out of the tree behind her, overdoing in my haste, killing it, and Healed Ronnie’s leg. PISSED.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?!” She’s crazy.

Still panting in rhythm, Ronnie poured water over the wound, before chugging the rest of the bottle.

“Damn that hurts,” she noted, as if speaking of someone else.

“Veronica, what the hell were you thinking?” I was scared and upset at her stupidity. What the Fuck!

“Will you get the Advil out of the first aid kit in the back? It’s unlocked.”

“Not until you tell me what you are thinking stabbing yourself like that.”

“Nathan, it really hurts, please?”

“Fine. But I want an answer.” Crazy, they are all crazy.

I threw the bottle at her and remained standing at the edge of the blanket. Who knew what other crazy things she would do?

“All powerful Controllers can work both ends of their abilities. Not so for the physical ones. They are limited, stronger overall but not always.”

“You’re speaking nonsense.”

Rising to her knees, she unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down, inspecting the almost completely healed wound after she poured the remaining water over her bloody thigh.

“Just a scar and it’s fading ... Life and death. You manipulate both spectrums. You can heal, not just yourself, but others. I bet you can do a lot more too. You shouldn’t have told me that ‘Irene’ was a Class IV, that gave you away.”

“Fuck!”

“Your language has gotten worse today.”

“That’s cuz a crazy woman stabbed herself!” I exclaimed loudly.

“Help me take off my boots, My leg hurts.”

“Of course, it hurts, you stabbed yourself.” Duh...

“Nathan. Please.”

“Fine. But no more stabbing.”

I untied her boots and helped her take them off. Sitting on her ass, she lifted her legs and asked me to pull her jeans off. I did, leaving her in a small pair of black panties; A thong, I noticed earlier that there were no panty lines.

“Gimme.”

I tossed her boots at her which she caught easily. Still in shock and pissed at her self-destructive act.

Stretching out her injured right leg, she crossed the left under the knee to prop it up. Then she meticulously began to cut the jeans just below the crotch with her amazingly sharp knife, removing both pant legs.

Instant shorts.

“Did you know this was how the first jean shorts were made. Not that Levi Strauss didn’t jump on the bandwagon. Don’t you get it Nate?”

“Get what?” I replied petulantly.

“If I could figure it out, then the people whose jobs are to discern every aspect of each and every Super out there already know you can Heal too.”

“Great. You could have chosen a better way of telling me that,” I complained. Again. She was still crazy.

“Would you admit to it if I asked?”

She took my silence as confirmation.

“I needed to shock you into acting.”

“I still think you are crazy.”

“It worked.”

“And you have a scar.”

“You can heal the scar, can’t you.”

I grimaced at her correct guess. Even now, I was still healing the rest of her wound unconsciously. I didn’t want that perfect body, nor my friend, damaged, if I was being honest.

“My head hurts, but the pain in my leg is mostly gone. Is that your doing, too?”

“Everything is getting Healed. Flesh, bones, the artery you decimated, muscles and nerves.”

“You are really amazing.”

And you’re a wackjob...

“What else can you do?”

“I see life energy levels. Every living thing has them.”

“So, you can tell how Powerful everyone is. You can tell if they use their Powers too, right?”

“Maybe.” Sigh. Fuck...

Rolling the pant legs up in a tight roll, she set both to the left, the newly made shorts were folded and placed on the right. After cleaning and holstering her knife, she took off her tight black shirt in a swift move.

“Have you ever given a massage before?”

“No...” When would have I done that?

Placing the shirt, after neatly folding it, on the remodeled shorts, “I want you to give me one.” She continued while reaching behind her and removing her black, thick sports bra, placing it with the rest, after folding it in half. I followed her hand trying not to fixate on those pale breasts capped with a two inch darker circle and a thick pair of pinky sized nubs pointing at me.

While my brain short circuited, she rolled over, placing a roll of pant leg under her hips and another under her shoulders. Settling in with her legs a few inches apart, a bare back with wide shoulders narrowing waist and strong round ass that was lifted and seemed to be aimed at me. The tiny black half inch strap of her thong widened to cover her mound which was hidden.

NAKED. GIRL...

“Nate ... Nate ... Nate...”

“Yeah?” She’s insane. And naked.

“Sit on my butt and place your hands on my shoulders,” she enticed me.

“...”

“I won’t bite. Just do it please.”

Shifting myself to a less painful position, I knelt on the sides of her flanks and sat down. Gently. On her ass. Her NAKED Ass.

“Place your hands on my shoulders, thumbs against the sides of my spine. Never press on the spine itself ... higher. Better. Now press lightly and feel with your powers. Can you do that?”