Chapter 33: Danger Warning
"Danger?" Bradley found that a little strange. "Really?"
"Yes," Stanley thought. The more he thought, the more it made sense to him. Every instance he had felt the feeling was followed by something that was dangerous for him.
It wasn't just a danger to him physically but to his existence.
"Was it a warning?" Stanley asked slowly. Were the feelings he got warning him about the dangers that followed?
"Warning for danger," Bradley repeated. "That makes sense. The two times you got hit today, you felt the feeling, didn't you? That must be it then. I think we figured it out."
"Maybe," Stanley said. "But we can't simply trust a conclusion we came to just moments ago without evidence that we're clearly biased about, right?"
"True," Bradley said. "Which is why we will have to gather more evidence."
"Do you mean…" Stanley looked at his brother and the wooden sword in his hand. "Are you really going to hit me again?"
"I have to, don't I?" Bradley asked. "I can stop if it hurts, but I thought you could stand it."
"I think I can stand it, but it's the feeling that I can't stand," Stanley said.
"The more you get used to it, the more you will be able to stand it," Bradley said. "Now, turn around and let me know if the feeling comes again. We will have to figure out if it is a warning or not."
Stanley sighed and turned around. It was time to get beat up and suffer his trauma many times if their conclusion turned out to be true.
Still, he was curious if they were correct, so he somewhat looked forward to what happened. He closed his eyes and waited for his brother to hit him.
He heard a swiss sound from behind him but nothing hit him.
"Anything?" Bradley asked. He had stopped moments before his swing hit his brother.
"No," Stanley said.
"Alright, let me try again," Bradley said and continued. He attacked once again, this time not stopping at all. However, before his brother was hit, he became intangible thanks to his powers.
The sword went right past Stanley and he waited for his brother to react. "Still nothing?" he asked.
Stanley shook his head. "Did you attack?" he asked.
"Hmm…" Bradley thought. 'So it's not reacting to my power at all. And it did not come when the hit was obviously not going to be a danger to him. Was he correct then?'
Bradley hit his brother with a hard swing that cracked the wooden sword on impact. "Oh shit! I struck too hard. Are you alri—"
Before he could ask, he saw Stanley stumble to the ground, taking deep breaths to control himself.
"Did… did it happen?" Bradley asked.
Stanley nodded wordlessly. He couldn't find it in himself to speak at the moment as he was controlling his fear. It wasn't as bad since it had already happened multiple times this morning, and it even felt like he had gotten used to it somewhat.
"It worked," he spoke after a few seconds. "I think we got it right."
"Wow," Bradley thought. "Wait, I need to test a few more things. Turn around and don't look back."
Stanley gave his brother a weird look. What else was there to test? Still, he trusted him and turned around.
He wondered what was happened when suddenly he felt something fly past his ear, as a rush of wind alerted him.
He saw a small stone the size of an egg land a bit further away from him in the grass. "What are you doing?" he asked while quickly turning around, only to see his brother standing about 15 meters away from him with his left arm tucking about a dozen or so similar stones in his arm.
The wet stones he had pulled from the stream still dripped with water. Bradley gave a confused look. "What are you doing? Turn around."
"No, what are you doing?" Stanley asked. "Isn't this the same as hitting me with a sword?"
"No, this is different, trust me," Bradley said. Stanley trusted his brother again and turned around.
Bradley took one rock at a time and threw it at his brother. He threw it all with the intention of hitting him on the head, but he didn't have the best aim at such a far distance and ended up missing a lot.
After 5 misses, Bradley threw another stone on the 6th throw that went straight for Stanley's head. However, before it could hit Stanley, Stanley suddenly ducked and the rock flew past him.
Bradley stood there for a few seconds wondering what had just happened before he put the pieces together.
"You… you did it!" he shouted. He dropped all the stones and ran next to his brother who looked back at him with a pale face. It was clear that he had trouble paying attention and was still feeling fear.
"How did you dodge?" Bradley asked.
"I… I waited for… for the feeling," Stanley said while taking short breaths in between. "I was ready to duck the moment I felt it."
"You waited for the warning," Bradley said and started laughing out loud. "Haha, see? It is that."
"I… I thought we learned that already. Why did you have to use the stones again?" Stanley asked.
"To see if it mattered whether I intended to hit you or not," Bradley said. "The first 5 times I tried to hit you, I didn't miss on purpose. Those didn't arouse the feeling, did they?"
Stanley shook his head.
"And yet the 6th one did, which means regardless of whether someone intends or not, you will be warned of any danger that will affect you," Bradley said. "I believe we did it. We fully understand now what those feelings are."
"Not really," Stanley said. "We still don't know if they are my powers or not."
"That…" Bradley didn't know what to say. So he sighed. "This is definitely related to your powers. We will just have to hope that it's in the process of awakening and your activation ritual will come after you have fully awakened."
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