Saturday, October 18th. 4:45 PM.
The drive to the Williky residence was not too long. Before we knew it, we were there at the east edge of the city on 38th Chicken Great Lane parked in front of a large, normal-looking house. "Well, here we are," announced Dad. We all got out of the car.
"Are you ready, Sister Daina?"
"Yes, Brother Bill, I am. Let us go." The two of us held hands as we walked up to the front door. There was a buzzer button which I promptly pushed. A few seconds of increasing ruckus from inside passed and then the door flew open, scaring the daylights out of us. Doctor Williky stood at the entrance looking as if he had fallen over multiple times. Behind him, I could see with amazing clarity a lot of papers still fluttering about. My vision was currently enhanced again.
"You are finally here! And you must be Bill's father," greeted William. He held out a hand.
Dad shook his hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Dr. Williky. I hope you will take good care of my son and Miss Daina. It has been all I could do to keep a level head throughout everything so far."
William assumed a serious expression. "I have never raised a child, so I cannot imagine the stress you must have been under. I assure you that if things were just business as usual, Bill and Daina would not need to be taken away from their current duties. But, if things are left as they are they would only pose a danger to you and everyone they come into contact with. I give you my word that I will see to it they will complete their training as expediently as possible so that they can become as normal again as it applies."
Training? I thought.
Dad nodded with a slight chuckle. "Alright, I'll hold you to that." He looked at me and Daina. "Well, I guess all I can say is work hard, you two. Do your best."
"We will," answered Daina.
"Oh, Ameera must be worried sick about us. Be sure to tell her what's going on, and that we will see her soon," I said.
"Ah, right… She's probably home all alone right now. Okay, I'll tell her. I should really get going."
"You are welcome to check on us next Sunday," said William.
"Thank you. I'll take you up on that. Bye, everyone." Dad returned to the car.
"Bye, Dad!" I called after him before turning to William. I heard the car drive off.
"Come inside, we have much to do if we want to be done by Midterm's end." Daina and I went in, with him closing the door behind us. "Welcome to my humble abode."
"Wow. Nice place you have here," I complimented, looking around the hall we were in.
"Thank you. Are you hungry, by any chance?" Daina blushed as her stomach growled as if in answer. "I would expect hurling your contents would do that to you. Come with me to the kitchen. You'll need your strength before we get started." William took us to the left of the door, past a rather large dining table that could easily sit eight people.
In the kitchen, we met none other than Dr. Julie Williky. "Well, hello there, you two!" She greeted with a smile. "Here, eat up!" She quickly handed us each a plate of steaming curry rice, potatoes and chicken. Its tantalizing aroma instantly had my mouth watering. "I wish we could talk, but I really must prepare to head back to work. But we shall be sure to see more of each other as you stay here with us. Willie will show you your rooms once you are done with your very important first session. Bye-bye!" Julie talked quickly as she removed her "kiss the cook" apron.
"Thank you," I said as she left the kitchen. Then, without further ado Daina and I dug into our meals. My taste buds went to heaven; the food tasted better than it smelled!
When we were done, William led us to trapdoor and down a spiral of stairs. At the end of the stairs was a blast door. "Ah, here we are." He entered a code into a keypad, and the blast doors parted. "Welcome, you two, to the Williky Laboratory!"
Daina and I were rendered in shock. There were various equipments organized and labeled on the six lab tables which were arranged in three rows and two columns. To the left was a door to walled-off room. A label on the door read "Dojo."
"What is that room over there?" I asked, pointing at the curious door.
"The training room," William replied with a smile. He started walking and we followed him to a certain table in row two from the blast door. Everything on this table appeared to be chosen just for today. I cringed at two syringes in a tray. William went to metal box, which I only now noticed. "Let's get down to business. We probably have only a couple of minutes before you start exhibiting more symptoms of lack of control."
"Urk!"Daina suddenly turned before retching again. This time, the puddle of metal she barfed out was hot enough to burn the floor, bubbling ominously as it released steam. "AAAHH, HOOOT!"
"Oh, darn!" William quickly opened the box and took out a pair of strange looking bracelets.
"Sister, are you okay!?" I asked in alarm and concern. I observed as her burned mouth healed so quickly I could literally see the ugly discolorations slowly disappearing. "Whoa."
"Here, please place these on." We turned to William and were handed the bracelets. "These are called Plasma Bands, and were developed by my brother-in-law to help bolster one's control over their energy. This will help stop the worst of things for you. The rest will be up to your hard work and perseverance."
I studied the so-called Plasma Band for a moment. The black band was made of metal, and there was a circular bulge with an orange gem set in its center. "Well, let's give this a try." I clipped the band onto my right wrist, and felt an immediate effect as the orange gem glowed briefly. "Whoa!" I felt a surge of power throughout my entire body, and a heat built up. My arms and legs vibrated like a speaker. My senses grew sharper, especially hearing and sight. Then, everything settled. That annoying buzzing in my ears stopped and the heat vanished as if having been quenched. "Wow… I feel amazing! Daina, how about you?"
"The ringing in my ears stopped, and so has my annoying but mild stomach ache," Daina replied. "You're right, this is amazing."
We returned our attention to William. "Wow, you two are unheard of compared to my brother-in-law. I'm glad you are doing okay."
"You keep saying your "brother-in-law," I commented. "Who is he?"
William did that knowing smile of his. "Sorry, but that is a surprise. You will meet him soon enough, though. He is out of state right now but he will be here by next week to help out with your training."
"Okay… So, what do we do now…?" Daina suddenly yawned. "Uh… Why do I feel so sleepy all of a sudden?"
"When you placed on the bands, you felt the surge of Plasma Energy, right? That was your energy being regulated by your band and straightening itself out. The orange gem is not Pyrium. It is another strange element, not of our world. It was discovered in a crater in the Boiling Swamp. It produces both positive and negative P.E., so it is a great balancing agent. We call it Plasmarium, because it can reach the plasma state of matter at the relatively low temperature of 270 degrees Celsius."
"Cool…" I trailed off as it was my turn to yawn.
"Let's head back upstairs so I can show you your rooms… But first, I need to take a sample of your blood. There is some useful information that can be gathered by running a particular test on it." I grimaced exceedingly, not being a fan of needles. There were two syringes and two Petri dishes on the lab table that I eyed with visible distress. "Wow, Bill… You don't have to be afraid. I promise it won't hurt too much."
"William, you can take mine first," volunteered Daina with a chuckle. "I would really like to go to bed right now."
William nodded and washed his hands over the table's built-in sink. He picked up one of the syringes and Daina held out her right arm. "Please excuse me." She made a small wince as William extracted a few milliliters of blood. He placed it down on the table and picked up the other. "Bill, be brave."
"Fine, let's get it over with." I held out my left arm, which was usually less sensitive than my right arm for some reason. I tried not to wince as William did the deed. The little prick was healed by the time I registered that he had taken the syringe away. "Okay, I guess that wasn't so bad."
"Thank you for your co-operation. Let's go."
Daina and I followed him. On the way, I asked, "what test are you going to run on our blood samples?"
"I should tell you that this house used to belong to Julie's brother. He did experiments on himself, and he invented a few devices to help out his research, the Plasma Band being one of them. His most important invention though is a device that can determine the specific elements that are "configured" to each individual wielder of Plasma Energy. I'm going to determine your elements. It will take a while."
"Whoa! So… Bill and I will have different elements and different powers from each other?" asked Daina, sounding just as amazed as I felt.
"Correct. There are some basic abilities that you both will share, but your individual powers will revolve around a trend we like to call your "Power Specialty." You two should prepare yourselves for a bit of a lecture tomorrow." William chuckled.
"Well, this is important and I'm eager to learn everything I can," I said.
"As am I," added Daina.
"That's wonderful. I'm sure you two will achieve great results." After we came back to the hall on the ground floor, William led us upstairs. There were two guestrooms, and we were each given one. "I know it seems rather early, but please have a good rest. Meet me in the hall at 6:30 AM tomorrow. You should wake up tomorrow feeling like five year olds on a sugar rush."
"Good evening, William," said Daina, before yawning. She closed the door to her room.
William turned to me. "Dr. William…"
"You can just call me William," he said with a mirthful smile.
"Okay, okay. It's just that you have my utmost respect." William nodded at that. "Tell me something. Are the three of us the only ones like this? I mean, SP Plasma Corp sells Pyrium to the entire world. So are there more like us out there?"
William gave me a sad look. "Well, there are two others… That we know of, at least. There is a former staff from the company, and the person who first taught my brother-in-law about Plasma Energy." I gasped. "Now, Plasma Energy is actually very dangerous. Not just anyone can handle it. That's why SP Plasma Corp drains all SRT and LRT of its Plasma Energy for the generation of power in our country before selling them out to the world. This eliminates the minute chance of Plasma Energy affecting more people and probably causing wide-spread death."
My eyes widened. "So… Daina and I are extremely lucky, then? One or both of us could have still died had we drawn the proverbial short straws of fate." William chuckled slightly, and then nodded. "Thanks for telling me. I promise not to waste this chance that fate has granted us."
"That's a good attitude to have. No sense in pondering what might have been. Just focus on moving forward."
"Okay. Good evening, William."
Sunday, October 19th. 6:00 AM.
William was right. I really did wake up feeling really energized, like a little kid that ate too much candy. I felt even more amazing than yesterday. I took a moment to look around and my eye landed on a drawer with a note on it. "These are your uniforms. They're a little drab, I'm sorry to say," I read. Curious, I went to the drawer and opened a shelf. Inside were grey long sleeve shirts. "Drab indeed…" I said as I took one out.
Half an hour saw me in the hall dressed in the shirt, grey pants, black gloves and boots. Even my beautiful surrogate sister looked incredibly drab in the outfit; a feat I did not believe was possible. I was originally of the opinion that she could look good in anything; that was grayed out and quashed now. "Good morning, you two. You're looking well," greeted William as he approached us with steaming mugs.
"Good morning, William," I replied as I received a mug, finding it to be hot chocolate. "This is our breakfast?"
"Trust me, you'll want to start light for your mornings. You'll be tired by lunchtime, so you can expect a real meal then."
"If you say so," said Daina before taking a drink. I shrugged before getting into mine. It was delicious.
Before long, William, Daina and I were down in the lab. William had our test results on manila charts, along with hypotheses about our possible Power Specialties. My unique elements were: hydrogen, iron, copper, cobalt, chromium, tungsten, and surprisingly enough Plasmarium as well. William postulated that I was either a Magnetism Type, or an Electricity Manipulator.
Daina, however, was a special case. "Daina, you have at your disposal every metal in the periodic table except those in the Actinium and Lanthanum groups. You probably have a wide range of abilities, but I think we can summarize your Power Specialty as "Control of Metals." It remains to be seen what you will be able to actually do." William looked rather perplexed. "Okay, please bear with me for a bit. Are you ready for the lecture?"
"You bet!" I replied.
"Fire away," added Daina.
William nodded and cleared his throat. "Plasma Energy is a mysterious energy with the ability and potency to both create and destroy elements and molecules. Thus, it can be said that the powers granted are based on the control of elements. But that's not all. Plasma Energy allows one to manipulate and or convert into five other forms of energy. These are Kinetic, Potential, Chemical, Thermal, and Electrical. How these forms of energy are used is based on your available elements, and this is what your Power Specialty really is. But the basic abilities you share are: advanced healing, sensory amplification, and a sort of "catch-all" term called Force-Manipulation. The manipulation of elements and energy is carried out by, as cliché as it sounds, a combination of your imagination and your willpower."
"Imagination?" repeated Daina.
"Willpower?" I repeated.
"The Researcher and I are scientists. We don't believe in ghosts or paranormal activity. However, we have come to the rather irksome preliminary conclusion that Plasma Energy is of a supernatural order, maybe just beyond the scope of reasonable human logic. There is yet still more to be understood."