Chapter 204: 205 | The Vicious Empathy Solution
"No. But I know what it feels like to have power you didn’t ask for forced into your body without your consent. I know what it’s like to wake up one day and realize everything about your existence has been rewritten by someone else’s choices." I touched her face. Her cheek was warm against my palm. "And I know that if our positions were reversed, you’d do the exact same thing."
Mera’s jaw tightened. Her tail lashed once. Twice.
"I hate you."
"I know."
"If you die I’m going to drag your corpse through a portal and drop it in the ocean."
"Romantic."
"And then I’m going to find your father and do the same thing to him while he’s still alive."
"Now you’re speaking my language."
She kissed me. Hard and desperate and tasting like fear. When she pulled back her eyes were still wet but her voice was steady.
"Thirty seconds. You have thirty seconds to do whatever stupid heroic thing you’re planning. And then I’m pulling you out whether you’re finished or not."
"Thirty-seven."
"Thirty."
"Thirty-five."
"THIRTY."
I turned back to the entity. Liam. A kid trapped in a nightmare of stolen abilities and programmed hunger.
"Hey. Liam."
what.
"I’m going to try something. It might hurt. It’ll definitely feel weird. But if it works, you’re going to have control of all those abilities fighting inside you. Real control. Not the fake kind they programmed into you."
and if it doesn’t work?
"Then we both explode and take out a quarter mile of campus with us."
The blank face tilted again. Considering.
that’s not very reassuring.
"Yeah well. Reassurance isn’t really my specialty."
I stepped forward until we were close enough to touch. The hum vibrated through my teeth. The competing Essentia signatures swirled around me like heat shimmer off summer asphalt.
what IS your specialty?
"Pissing off everyone who tries to tell me what I can’t do."
I grabbed the entity’s arm.
The connection slammed open like a door kicked off its hinges.
This time I didn’t just receive. I pushed.
Everything I’d absorbed over the past weeks. Every copied ability. Every stolen signature. Every ounce of Essentia I’d drained from Mera and Cheon and Noel and Laurana. I shoved it through the link into Liam’s fractured core.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
The thirteen signatures screamed.
Not metaphorically. Actually screamed. The sound tore through the plaza, shattering windows on the athletic complex and driving every nearby student to their knees. I felt thermal generation spike and then collapse as the drain I was boosting reached out and finally, FINALLY managed to grab it properly. Integration instead of competition. Absorption instead of endless fighting.
One down. Twelve to go.
Gravity manipulation went next. Then kinetic absorption. Then something I couldn’t identify that felt like static electricity and tasted like copper.
The entity’s body convulsed. The translucent skin rippled and shifted. The Essentia channels underneath began reorganizing themselves, straightening into patterns that actually made sense instead of the chaotic mess Cheon had mapped.
"Rome." Cheon’s voice was distant. Muffled. Like hearing someone shout through water. "Your reserves. You’re at forty percent. Thirty-five. Thirty."
Couldn’t stop. Not yet. The drain at Liam’s core was hungry but it was also finally WINNING. Each absorbed signature made the next absorption easier. A cascade effect building toward critical mass.
"Twenty percent. Rome you have to—"
"Not yet."
"Fifteen. Ten."
The last signature fell.
For a single perfect moment I felt Liam’s consciousness clearly. Not fragmented. Not scattered across thirteen competing voices. Just... him. A seventeen-year-old kid from San Diego who’d manifested a drain-type ability late and gotten snatched by Angelo Corp recruiters before he could register with the NEA. A kid who’d spent fourteen months being tested and studied and eventually disassembled into the building blocks of a weapon.
A kid who was finally, for the first time since they strapped him to that table, free.
thank you.
The voice wasn’t in my head anymore. It came from the entity’s mouth. From Liam’s mouth. Rough and unused but undeniably human.
"Don’t mention it." My vision was going dark around the edges. "Literally. Don’t mention it to anyone. If word gets out that I can do this my father will—"
"ROME!"
Something amber and warm wrapped around my waist and yanked.
I went through a portal sideways.
Emerged on the courtyard grass fifty feet from where I’d been standing.
Mera was already on top of me before I finished landing. Her hands on my chest. Her weight pinning me down. Her face close enough that I could see individual tears tracking down her red cheeks.
"Thirty-four seconds you absolute piece of—"
"Thirty-four’s basically thirty."
"NOTHING is basically thirty when you’re watching the man you—" She stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "When you’re watching Rome D’Angelo drain himself to five percent reserves to save a kid he’s never met."
"Five percent’s not that bad."
"Five percent is ’Rome passes out for twelve hours and can’t use any abilities for a week’ bad."
"Worth it."
She hit my chest. Not hard enough to hurt. Just hard enough to make the point.
"I hate you."
"You said that already."
"I’m going to keep saying it until you stop doing things that make me want to say it."
I reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. Her skin was warm. Always warm. A Root-Type modification she couldn’t turn off and I couldn’t get enough of.
"Hey Mera?"
"What."
"Thanks for pulling me out."
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she dropped her head to my chest and made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"You’re welcome. You stupid. Reckless. Impossible."
"Handsome?"
"Don’t push it."
Footsteps approached. Cheon’s voice came from somewhere above us.
"The entity. Liam. He’s stable. All thirteen signatures have integrated successfully. He’s currently sitting on the plaza with his head in his hands crying but his Essentia readings are within normal parameters for a multi-ability user."
"Great. Good. Excellent."
"Campus security is forty seconds out. NEA emergency response is being mobilized. We have approximately three minutes before this area becomes impossible to control."
"Also great."
"Rome." Cheon’s tone shifted. Softer. "What you just did. That shouldn’t have been possible."
"Lot of things I do shouldn’t be possible."
