The Supernus War

Immodicus Furor

Author’s Note:

Some will note that I do not give detailed descriptions of my characters- this is entirely on purpose. I want to leave some things entirely to the imagination of the reader- skin color, hair style, and general clothing style- anything I don’t specifically mention as a trait can be decided by you.

Chapter One

He crept up to the mansion slowly, staying hidden inside the forest for as long as possible. None of the guards had yet spotted him, and were still performing their normal routines. No one expected a single man to actually attempt to take on a main base of the Supernus, of course. The only kind of attack that could hope to breech the base would be an army of massive strength to punch through the defenses- or an attack that was never known.
He darted from the trees, leaping onto the fence leading to the mansion, and climbing over. He feared using any telekinetics to help him along, as they would immediately be sensed. The guards, however, weren't searching for Norms- they were sweeping for telepathic emissions of some sort. They didn't see him even as he raced across the grounds, right up to the front door.
The guard standing in front of the doors didn't have a chance. Paul leapt out from behind a nearby tree, already in mid-spin, his sword flashing out. The guard's head fell against the porch, the rest of the body soon following.

** Inside the mansion **

"So, what's going on with you, Joe?" Adam asked.

"Ah, nothing man." Joe responded.
"Come on. I know you better than that. We killed a good ten Norms yesterday. You’re normally excited after a good killin' spree."
"Man, it’s that Lauren chick." Joe answered. "I tried to ask her out yesterday, when I was taking my third kill. She refused me! You know, I'm starting to think she's an Imperium spy. She never kills any Norms, and she won't do anything with any of our guys. I mean, even Commander Tarlas asked her out, and he got rejected! He's the most powerful man in the whole damned squad."
"Please, Joe. You think every girl that won’t lay you is a damned spy." Adam rolled his eyes at his friend.
"Listen you damned son of a..." But Adam never found out what he was the damned son of, as the door chose that instant to explode inwards, hurling both of them backwards with more shrapnel in them than humanly possible to remove.
Paul walked in casually, his katana's handle spinning expertly between his fingers. "Yoo-hoo.... is anybody home?"
As he expected, several guards walked into the room, their leader's eyes going wide upon seeing him. He noted the reaction, and filed it away in his brain. Then he drew the grenade that he had been hiding, a wire trailing from it to his pocket.
"So, how's everybody doing today? Good? Good. Just so you know, this is not your average grenade." Paul practically radiated with confidence. "Do I have your attention? Well, if I don't then your evidently not getting the picture here. You see, this grenade is filled with Semtex, and the wire trailing from it goes to my trenchcoat, as you can see. Oh, did I mention that the coat was lined with five pounds of C4? So, let's do the math- five pounds of C4 and a grenade full of Semtex. Enough to put a hole in the world. So I suggest you all back off, or be blasted off."
The guards all looked to their leader, a rather attractive female. Surprisingly, he found a light touch from her mind snake out to him- not enough to be an attack; just a message. He cautiously lowered his defenses, letting her communicate with him.
My name is Lauren... I'm the local Imperium plant. I wasn't supposed to be here when you arrived, but I am constantly monitored, unfortunately. I need your help to get the hell away from these murderers.
Paul raised an eyebrow. Oh? And how do I know that you’re an Imperium spy, and not a Supernus Guardmember?
Lauren rolled her eyes. To be or not be is not the question. How to be is the question.
Recognizing the code phrase, Paul nodded. His katana flew from his hand, guided by telekinesis. It flew into one of the guard's throats before he could react, the other four around Lauren immediately throwing kinetic shields around their bodies.

Paul, working in sync with Lauren through telepathy, ran at her as if to attack her, then leapt up, propelled by her and his kinetics, landing at over sixty miles an hour on top of two guards. They were dead before their bodies impacted the floor.
Lauren flew at the other two, her sword flashing from her back into the first guard's face. She then twisted her torso around, slashing across the other's chest before he had a chance to swing his own sword out. Paul and Lauren caught each other's eyes, and winked.
Paul sent a burst of telekinetic power from his body, flinging him up past a banister to the second floor. He quickly kicked in the door in front of him, two guards awaiting him, and Commander Tarlas standing behind them, a triumphant smirk on his face.
"Boys, take him." Tarlas commanded.
The two guards flew at Paul before he had a chance to raise his sword. He leapt upwards with his body while ducking his dead down at the same time, sword attacks from the two passing underneath and above him. He twisted hard, his brain slowing time down to a crawl for him, letting him see his targets plainly. His legs flew out, telekinetically aided, catching both guards in the small of their backs, and flinging them over the banister railing. They came down neatly upon Lauren's sword.
Tarlas whipped out his broadsword, and swung it towards Paul's face- but stopped as the grenade Paul held was moved to the path of the sword.
"So, you must be the commander of this base," Paul stated rather casually, "Good to meet you. As you can see, I do possess high explosives so powerful that no kinesis shield would be able to protect against your body splitting into no less than five hundred separate pieces. Henceforth, we both already realize how this is going to work. You'll drop your sword, and any other weapons you may be carrying, or your precious base is going bye-bye."
Lauren came up beside Paul, a submachine gun pointed towards Tarlas. "Hello, sir. How are things going?"
Lauren smirked, and fired a shot into Tarlas' foot before the man could raise a shield. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground, holding his foot as tears escaped his eyes.
"Pathetic," Paul grumbled. "You guys can dish out pain, but you can't take it."
Tarlas' grimace of pain changed to a look of fury in a heartbeat. He lashed out with his telekinetic powers, slamming them into Paul so hard that it flung him straight through the banister's railing to smash hard against the tile floor below. Unfortunately for the commander, he dropped his guard by a fraction too much during the attack- three shots from Lauren's submachine gun rang out, boring into his skull and implanting themselves deep into his brain.
She leapt down after Paul, landing a little hard beside him. He was already standing up, and with a quick crack of his back, he was fine. "Let’s say we get out of here... preferably before twenty Guardsmen come storming in. Oh, by the way- my name is Paul."
Lauren nodded, and they both took off running out the door, throwing themselves into the sky with all the force they could muster from their kinetics. They landed a kilometer away, deep into the forest surrounding the mansion.
"Okay, let’s camp out here." Paul suggested. "If we tried flying our way out of here, we’d be caught by a Guardsmen squad before we could move more than ten feet. We should be fine as long as we don’t use our powers- those guys are clueless without their abilities to guide their way."
"I agree fully... but where will we sleep? I don’t exactly see any cots lying around." Lauren pointed out.
Paul took off his heavy trenchcoat, throwing it to the ground, all five pounds of what looked like C4 clearly visible in its lining. He pressed his foot onto a little black pad in the middle of the "C4," and began pumping. The little balloons that appeared to be C4 expanded into an air mattress. "I come prepared."
Lauren raised an eyebrow, and asked him a question. "So I suppose the grenade wasn’t real either?"
"Oh, it was real." Paul responded. "A real plastic canteen." He took out the "grenade" and swallowed a mouthful of water.
"Want some?" he asked.
Lauren gratefully accepted, downing half the canteen in a few gulps.
"The water is terrible out here," she said. "Everybody is more concerned about security than running water- a lot of good it did them."
"Well, we better get some rest... you can have the trenchcoat mattress, I’ll sleep in a tree."
Lauren looked at him quizzically. "Are you crazy? We can both fit on this thing; besides, its yours, and you just got me out of a pretty tight situation. If anyone was going to sleep in a tree, it should be me."
"Fine, we’ll both sleep on the wannabe mattress." Paul said. He really didn’t like the idea; she had beautiful blue captivating eyes, a large bust that pushed out her Supernus uniform, and legs that looked as if they were sculpted out by God himself. He didn’t trust himself around a woman this beautiful.

His jaw dropped open slightly as she began removing her uniform.

"Um... why are you taking off your clothes?" he asked.

"Well," she responded, "I don’t exactly like the idea of wearing this damned Supernus uniform, and its uncomfortable. You don’t care do you?"

"Of... course not.”

When she removed her uniform, she had on only a black bra and black panties, both which did absolutely nothing to conceal any part of her. She laid down on the false mattress, and he slowly lowered himself down beside her.

At first, he figured they’d be fine, since there was a good foot of space within them. Then, with an innocent enough statement that she was cold, she wriggled up against him, her tight ass cheeks pressing against his rapidly hardening member.

So, he did the only thing he could think of. He wrapped his arms around her to warm her up, and pulled her tighter against him.

He laid their for a half an hour before his arousal got the better of his nervousness. Figuring she was sound asleep, his hands drifted. First they lightly roamed over her stomach, tracing a pattern upwards. He then lightly began rubbing against the cloth of her bra, gently cupping her tits. He was so surprised when he heard a moan of pleasure from her that he withdrew his hands immediately, chiding himself for acting like a typical male.

"Please... don’t stop." she whispered.

Taking her cue with surprise, he reached back up, and with one swift move that drew a gasp from her, yanked her bra off her body with ease. His fingers lightly pinched her nipples, rolling them between his thumb and index finger. This elicited another gasp from her, but not of surprise- of pure pleasure.

Lauren turned around, slowly, sensuously, drawing Paul in and kissing him ferociously. She slammed him down onto the mattress, ripping his shirt off, and quickly undoing the button on his pants. She had his underwear off before he could even blink, and his cock in-between her sweet, lush lips.

It felt as if his body melted into a warm butter; the pleasure was indescribable. She slowly and softly worked her mouth up and down on his manhood, slowing each time she reached the head, her tongue forking out to the small hole in the center of it. It didn’t take a minute before he shot off deep into her throat. She didn’t even miss a movement as she swallowed the entirety of his ejaculation and removed her head from his still erected member.

She slowly stood up and pulled down her panties, tossing them to Paul with a smirk. He put them in the pocket of the trenchcoat mattress, and then playfully wrestled her to the ground.

That’s when he got his biggest shock of the entire event. She whispered into his ear, "Paul... you saved my life, and for that, I have determined that I will try and make you happy any way possible for the rest of your life. You should know... I have never done this with anyone before... please go slow... "

It only took him a second to get over his shock, and get back to the situation at hand. He lightly flicked his tongue over one of her nipples, and then slowly kissed his way down to her beautifully shaved mound. His tongue snaked out, working its way deep into her love tunnel, as his hands gently kneaded her breasts. Just as she was about to climax from the slow and agonizing pleasure that was sweeping over her, he moved up and kissed her intensely, slamming his organ deep into her.

Her cherry was broken before her brain had any time to register the pain, and he began slowly moving in and out of her. His pace began to quicken as she grabbed onto his back and forced him deeper into her, keeping as quite as possible though; they were still in Supernus territory.

Before long, Paul didn’t care about being quite nor gentle though. He began ramming himself deeper into her, his pace quickening as both of their pleasures began to rise together. They gripped each other tightly, her tits poking into his chest as he finally erupted deep inside of her, filling her with his seed.

She gasped, wiping sweat from her face. "That was absolutely ama-"

She was cut off as a shrill alarm cut through the air, and a blast of telekinetic power struck Paul so hard that he spun into the ground beside the mattress, unconscious.

Chapter Two

“Good Lord… what the hell happened?” Paul managed to mumble as he slowly sat up, seeing a small squadron of Imperium soldiers hovering around him.

“Sir, you’re going to be just fine. Please don’t move though; our medical officer is attempting to discover whether or not you’re seriously injured.”

The voice had emanated from a short male officer that was a foot feet behind a soldier with a medical pack. Paul squinted at them through the fog that still hovered around his senses.

“I remember getting blasted by someone…” Paul started.

“Erm,” the officer interrupted, looking slightly nervous, “I am afraid that blast came from me sir. My squad here was sent out to find you when you had not returned by the ETA. We were afraid you had failed your assassination mission, and that Tarlas was still alive. So, when we came upon what looked all the world to us like two naked Supernus officers finishing up an, err… act of love, we decided we would take them out and continue looking for you. Luckily, my blast only clipped you in the shoulder, but it was full power, so I imagine it did some damage. I then of course saw that it was you, so I called off the attack, and, well, that’s how we wound up in this situation.”

Remembering the state he was in when he got hit, Paul glanced down to see if he was dressed, and was gratified to discover that someone had supplied and dressed him in a new uniform before he had become conscious.

“Well,” Paul said as he stood up, “Tarlas is dead, so obviously, my mission was a success. I also managed to recover our undercover operative, as you may have noticed. Now can we get the hell out of here before the Supernus come and investigate an energy discharge they must have detected?”

The officer nodded, and they all took to the skies, as it was a little late for any attempt at a smooth exit. Before they had even risen twenty meters into the air, a Supernus squadron was upon them. There were fourteen enemy soldiers, the lead two packing four-shot rocket launchers on their shoulders. Performing a quick mental head count, Paul realized they were severely outgunned. They only had eight soldiers, with nothing more than their various mental powers to protect them.

Paul blasted the first two incoming missiles out of the air with a burst of telekinetic energy.

“Quick, I know you’re all Telekinetics, but are any of you Telepathics or some other type of Mentalist?” Paul asked this hurriedly, as another two missiles came streaking towards them.

Two of the six from the squadron mentally “pinged” him to indicate that they were Telepathics, as all of them opened fire with light bursts of telekinetic flak energy. The missiles were destroyed by the energy flak, and the fourteen Guardsmen swerved, loosing a little ground to avoid the incoming mental micro-projectiles.

One of the other members of the squadron flew up to Paul’s side, and notified Paul that he was a Teleformist; a Mentalist that could convert mental energy into matter.

“Can you form a barrier of one inch thick glass in front of the Guardsmen? They might think it’s just an illusion we’ve formed to slow them down. If we’re lucky, they’ll plow right into it.”

The Teleformist merely nodded, and formed the barrier. Unfortunately, this took so much of his energy that he began falling, so that Paul had to grab him to keep him aloft. But it worked. The four in the front of the formation of Guardsmen barreled straight into the barrier, and were cut to ribbons by the breaking glass. With only ten Guardsmen left, Paul figured the odds were a little bit more in their favor now.

“Okay, everyone!” Paul shouted. “Fire, full bursts!”

All at once, the eight of them came to a full halt, swiveling around and unleashing massive waves of mental energy. Paul targeted two at once, dividing his power in half. He made them precise enough that it didn’t matter though; the waves condensed themselves to the size of needle points and flew through his two targets’ carotid arteries. They both fell without any further struggle. Lauren managed to utterly vaporize her target, and the squadron took out four Guardsmen. The three that were left all formed one last attack together, then took off, covered by the flare of the blast as it struck the collective mental shield of the eight Imperium soldiers.

“Let’s get a move on already, before they send reinforcements.” Paul commanded.

All of them quickly flew off at maximum speed, the Teleformist able to fly on his own several minutes later.

** Imperium Headquarters, One Hour Later**

“So, Tarlas is dead, right Mr. Erickson?” General Thomas queried him.

“Yes, sir,” Paul responded wearily, “why was I sent to assassinate him anyway?”

“Well, because you were the best man for the job,” the General answered him, “and because you were the only one suicidal enough to attempt it.”

“That’s not what I meant. Why was he so special?”

“Oh.” The General thought for a second. “Well… I suppose you’re of high enough security clearance for upper-level intelligence data… what are your rankings?”

Paul cited off his various ranks robotically. “Captain, U.S. Mentalist forces, specifically, squadron zeta, currently on indefinite assignment to aid Imperium forces. Second Tier level officer, Imperium Special Operations Division. Fourth Tier level officer, Imperium Intelligence Division. Tactical advisor, First Tier, to General Brahms. General Imperium rank: Second Tier level officer.”

The General raised an eyebrow. “Quite a rank listing you have there, son. You probably have more authority than I do in certain divisions.”

“If you want in-depth detail of my career, general,” Paul responded, starting to get a little frustrated with the length of the debriefing, “it’s all in my dossier. Now, you were going to tell me why Tarlas was targeted for assassination?”

“Oh, yes,” the General answered, “that. As you already know, ten years ago Mentalists began emerging. It looked as if most of the new generation would be Mentalists, and indeed, that is somewhat the case. Over eight percent of the world’s adult population have become Mentalists over the last ten years. That’s quite a few of us. Suddenly, having a large population became the greatest advantage available. For eight years, war raged across the entirety of the Earth, employing Mentalists as the primary weapon. Finally, the Great Treaties of 2032 were signed, and the war ended. The world was left with only six countries, each ruling one of the primary continents. The United States ended up with North America, and Brazil took over South America, creating the Republic of South America, the R.S.A. as it is less formally known. Australia is still controlled by Australia, and the Communist League rules Asia, the two founding members of the league being China and Russia. Europe is of course controlled by the United Kingdom, and Africa by the Ethiopian Council. Everyone had high hopes that this would mean less tension in the world; now it seemed that the Earth was less divided than ever. Well, as we soon found out, that was not to be. The Communist League began genetic experimentation on Mentalists, trying to make them more powerful. Of course, the rest of the world quickly stepped in, and the Mentalist Geneva Convention soon concluded that genetic experimentation of any type to further Mentalist powers was to be banned. So, to most people’s surprise, the Communist League went along with this, and ceased their efforts. That is when the shit really hit the fan. The Supernus, a group of independent Mentalists numbering at about a hundred thousand, went off on their own, and formed their own country within the Communist League, in the Japan region. They quickly established about twenty different bases worldwide, so isolated and protected by Mentalist powers that very few countries even knew these bases were within their lands. Tarlas’ base is one of the very few we have found. Right after the founding of the Supernus, the five other countries of the world decided to create a small independent nation that would be based primarily in Europe, but would also have bases around the world, called the Imperium. The Imperium is a group much like the old United Nations- it is a peacekeeping group formed by many different races and peoples from many different places. What you may not know is the reason that the Supernus broke off from the Communist League.”

Paul finally perked up, having begun to doze off during the long-winded lecture of the type that General Thomas had been known to give; he was fond of teaching history.

“Yes, go on,” Paul encouraged him.

“The leaders of the Supernus were the first subjects of the genetic experimentation. Powerful Mentalists. The purpose of the Supernus was to further genetic research into the advancement of the Mentalists. Very few people know this, because it’s scary business. The reason it is so scary is because it has been successful. Tarlas, who is now thankfully dead, was their lead researcher into new Mentalist power types. He had developed a new type of Mentalist power, other than the five known powers: telepathic abilities, telekinesis, teleformism, transmittable regenerative abilities, and the so dubbed ‘Combat Kinesis’, the rarest of the five. I believe you are a Combat Kinetic, correct?” The General had finally taken a break in what was otherwise becoming another long winded speech.

“Yeah,” Paul answered, “One of about fifty in the Imperium, I do believe. It isn’t as helpful as most people seem to think it should be, but I do admit it has saved me a few times.”

“How does it work?”

“Well,” he said, talking a little faster so they could get back to Tarlas, “basically, some of my mental energy goes to increasing the durability of my body, as well as my reflexes and reaction times, and my strength. Without that extra durability, I probably would not have survived the blast I took from Tarlas last night. Damn, for someone who I was told was a normal ‘kinetic, he is powerful. I was blasted clear through steel railing to hit straight on with a rather hard floor after an accelerated drop from ten feet.”

“Hmm,” the General said thoughtfully, “I wish I was a Combat Kinetic. Probably would have saved me a few scars. Anyway, back to the experimentation. Well, they created a sixth type of Mentalist, something we never expected. Sure, they had increased people’s power before, but granted new ones? We didn’t think it was possible. But, unfortunately, it’s true. We have some footage of their first test of this new type of Mentalist from a spy in Japan. Take a look.”

General Thomas pressed play on a Crystallized Disc Format (CDF) player, the screen built into the wall of the briefing room snapping to life with rather horrifying images. A six foot tall Mentalist was burning down a house, laughing the entire time. Screams could be heard from inside the still-occupied house. Flames leapt from the Mentalist to the home, not from a flamethrower, but from the Mentalist’s hand.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Paul said, staring wide-eyed at the video footage. “Pyrokinesis? Damn, I’ve only seen that in movies before. This makes our jobs a whole hell of a lot harder.”

“Indeed,” stated the General somberly.

Chapter Three

Paul was still staring at the video screen when Lauren walked into the room.

“I see you’re getting the same briefing as me,” Lauren said shortly, looking at the still playing video.

“Yeah,” Paul responded, a flick of his mental energy shutting the video off, “the General here was just a tad bit slow to get to the point. No offense, General. So, why are you briefing us two on it, and not just briefing us with the rest of the soldiers?”

“Well,” General Thomas began nervously, “I’m afraid there won’t be any general briefings for the soldiers. We don’t want the news of these powers leaking out; not only would it scare the public, but it might entice some of our soldiers to join the Supernus just for the benefits it would offer. So, we decided we’d use an assassination team to remove the last evidence of Tarlas’ little invention before it became public knowledge. We needed a team that was so powerful that they would not easily be tempted by the power of the Supernus, and that had proven their loyalty many times in the past. The closest thing we could find was you two.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Paul responded dryly. “But exactly how are we supposed to kill that Pyrokinetic guy if he’s locked up inside of a Supernus base somewhere? We’re damned lucky we got out of Tarlas’ base alive.”

“Luckily the Pyrokinetic, whose name we don’t know I am afraid, has solved that bit of a problem for us.” General Thomas was looking happy that he could finally give some good news. “He escaped from Supernus country, and has… let’s say… established his independence. From the satellite photos we received, it doesn’t look like the Supernus base he burned down is anything more than cinders anymore. It took ninety-two firefighters, fourteen fire engines, and four helicopters to put the damned blaze out. This guy is incredibly powerful, so watch it. He is making it easy for us to track him though.”

Paul watched as the screen came to life once again, showing a path of sixteen red dots on a satellite photo. He immediately understood.

“He’s leaving a trail of blazes behind him, that we can follow. He wants a confrontation.”

General Thomas nodded. “Exactly what our intelligence guys have concluded. He’s currently somewhere in Nevada, according to this trail.”

Paul’s eyes suddenly flashed in alarm. “WHAT? There was a Supernus base in the United States? This guy is in the fucking United States? Oh hell no! We need to go right now; no firebug dick is going to go burning down my country!”

*** Three Hours Later ***

Paul groaned as he looked towards the ground from about a mile above it.

“How the hell are we going to get down near him without getting caught by a blast of fire?”

Both Paul and Lauren had agreed that they would have to drop nearly directly onto the Pyrokinetic; he was in the suburbs of Las Vegas, and rapidly approaching the city itself. If he got much further, he could end up burning down the entire strip, along with tens of thousands of people.

“Hope like hell that our kinetic shielding will hold?” Lauren said in an unconvinced tone.

Paul nodded grimly, and leapt from the plane. Both of them knew that to minimize the risk of being picked off in the air, they had to stay in the air the least amount of time possible. It was Lauren who had come up with the idea of actually using their kinetics to accelerate them downwards, forming a ball of energy around them as they neared the ground. Hopefully it would allow them to roll to a stop without as much as a bruise.

It didn’t work quite as planned. Paul slammed into the ground first, followed by Lauren. They were both flat on their backs, the wind knocked out of them. Evidently, kinetic shields were not up to impacting the ground at MACH 2. Paul was the first to get up, glaring daggers at Lauren.

“Oh no… we won’t feel anything… not a damned thing…”

Lauren got up slowly, moving stiffly. “Sorry… I thought it would work.”

Paul suddenly ran forward, grabbing Lauren, and flinging them both to the ground ten meters away… just as a gout of flame as wide as a city bus encompassed the area they had been just moments before. He could feel the searing heat of the flames wash over him, causing him to immediately break out in a sweat.

Paul looked down the street, towards the Pyrokinetic that was walking towards them. He gathered up the biggest blast of telekinetic energy he could muster, throwing it towards the Pyrokinetic with amazing speed. Unfortunately, Paul’s attack was waived aside as easily as if it had been made of nothing but wind. The Pyrokinetic gave him absolutely no time to think of a stronger response. It was all he could do to erect a telekinetic shield strong enough to deflect the flames that were launched towards him and Lauren. It held, but only barely.

Lauren launched herself into the air, Paul following closely behind.

“Maybe he’ll have a harder time hitting us up here,” Lauren said hopefully, “where his flames will have to contend a little more with gravity.”

Paul looked doubtful, and with good reason. Within ten seconds of them taking off, a massive wall of flame passed over them, nearly taking them both out, even through their kinetic shields. Lauren actually had to put out a small flame on the sleeve of the black uniform she wore.

“Okay, let’s hit him at the same time,” Paul suggested, “full telekinetics!”

Lauren nodded, and they both began charging up. They were most of the way through gathering an incredible amount of energy near them when another wall of flame approached them.

“OK, release!” Paul ordered.

They both unleashed a tidal wave of telekinetic energy towards the Pyrokinetic. It crashed straight through the wall of flame, dissipating it as it flew towards the flame’s master. This time, it was at least powerful enough to throw the overgrown lighter onto his ass. Paul took his opportunity as the flames around the rogue Mentalist died out, rocketing forward while pulling his sword from the sheath on his back.

Paul’s sword lanced out at the man’s neck, but never connected; the Pyrokinetic had just stood up, and for some reason the sword could not move towards him. Paul knew that no telekinetics were pushing on it, he could sense that much. When the sword blade began glowing red, and the hilt grew hot, he understood. The Pyrokinetic was generating enough heat in the air around him to form a sort of shield. So Paul just pushed harder, slowly getting the blade to pass through the heat shield towards the unmoving Pyrokinetic’s neck. The leather grip on the sword grew so hot that the leather actually began melting, fusing to Paul’s hands. He could feel the waves of pain passing through his hands as they themselves entered the heat shield. They instantly broke out in a mass of blisters, his skin blackening to a charred state.

Paul probed out with his telekinetics, hoping to discover a weak point in the shield. There! He sensed a slight gap in the field directly over the man’s chest. With a powerful wrench, Paul’s sword was removed from the area of the Pyrokinetic’s neck, and it went sailing across his chest. The blade was vaporized as the man concentrated absolutely all of his energy onto it, but not before a deep slash had been implanted upon his chest. This did not make the Pyrokinetic happy. With a massive emission of energy, Paul was flung backwards ten meters, to slam into a parked car.

The Pyrokinetic was about to finish Paul off with one last blazing attack, when Lauren assaulted him from behind, her foot slamming into the man’s back. He stumbled forward only a few footsteps, quickly righting himself and turning around to face the girl. He grabbed her in a telekinetic hand much stronger than she could break out of, and flung her all the way down the street to crash through the window of a house.

Paul propelled himself along at extreme speed, his telekinetic energy giving him one final boost as he launched into a flying kick that connected solidly with the Pyrokinetic’s head. The man went flying backwards, rolling like a drunken gymnast.

He didn’t stay down for long. When he rose, he glared at Paul with hatred beyond anything Paul had witnessed before. The hatred manifested itself in a spray of blue flames that jetted at him, blowing him to the ground with flames covering his entire uniform. Paul quickly rolled, extinguishing the flames, but not before over thirty percent of his body had been covered with burns.

Paul scraped for the power within him, drawing forth every last trace of energy from his mind. He focused it all into forming a blade of mental energy, something that the front line soldiers had dubbed a “psi-blade.” The Pyrokinetic did not believe that Paul had enough energy left for an attack, so he wasn’t expecting it when the blade passed through his heart, ripping it to shreds. But he wasn’t about to let his enemy live when he knew he was going to die.

The Pyrokinetic’s life departed in a most spectacular way; his power surged forth, creating a massive explosion of black flame that engulfed everything within a hundred meters.

This unfortunately included Paul. He could feel his body being turned into a blackened corpse, his mind painfully aware of everything that was happening to him. His skin was literally melting off his body, his muscle being disintegrated. It took a painfully long time before his brain finally let go of his body. Mercifully, he lost consciousness as a blinding white light consumed him.

Chapter Four

It was lost. It was scared. It was detached from itself.

It could feel the energy around it. Several container-things. They held energy and being. Its thoughts were very basic. Find an empty container-thing. None around the current place were empty. It needed to move.

It rose up, above the sphere that held billions of container-things. Almost all of them were full of being, or being and energy. None of them were empty. No. There was one. It could feel it. Empty, barren, isolated. Perfection. Full of energy, plentiful with energy… but no being. It could take the energy. Use the container. So it did. It swept down, filling the container-thing with its own being. It was whole.

*********

Paul awoke with a start. That had been one hell of a dream. Pyrokinetics… floating above the Earth… he really needed to schedule an appointment with the base psychologist.

But there was time to worry about that kind of thing later. He tried to sit up and check the time, but was shocked to find metal restraints pressing against his wrists and his feet, as well as a leather strap cinched around his neck. He couldn’t even look around to get his bearings. All he could see were the bright lights of a high ceiling.

Now that he was becoming a little more aware, he could make out the voices around him.

“How is the experiment becoming conscious? It is not possible! He is supposed to be a blank template!”

“If you failed in your creation, doctor, the High Guardsman will be most displeased. His own consciousness was supposed to be transferred into this template… this supposedly perfect creation.”

“I know I removed all ability for it to have its own will! Maybe it’s just a normal biological response… he might not actually be awake.”

What were these people talking about? One of them spoke with a thick Japanese accent, and the other with a British accent. They were speaking of perfect creations and the High Guardsman, so they had to be Supernus researchers. But what would he be doing in the same room with Supernus researchers?

It hit Paul like a blow to the gut. The battle with Pyrokinetic had not been a dream… nor had his vision of floating over the world been one. He had actually somehow managed to fling his essence halfway around the world into a different body as he died. He would have been astounded, had not his soldier’s instincts been kicking in. The fact that he had accomplished an impossible feat did not matter. He was restrained, surrounded by the enemy. This was an unacceptable situation by any standard. He had used up too much time thinking already. Now it was time to get to his job.

With the most mere flick of a tendril of his thoughts, Paul shattered the steel bolts that kept his hand restrained to the lab table he was laying on. The leather strap unwound itself from around him smoothly, at his slightest suggestion. It was as if his telekinetic abilities were on hyperactive mode. He felt more powerful then he ever had before.

“It’s loose! It’s loose!” He heard somebody scream.

That person was to be his first target as he sat up. He hurtled a powerful wave of kinetics at him, smashing his chest so badly that his sternum was sticking perpendicular from his back. Four guards charged him, and were all hurtled backwards with a massive burst of power.

Paul automatically formed a shield around his body as seven different attacks from various Mentalists throughout the room converged on him. The impinging of the telekinetic powers against his protective bubble really accomplished nothing, but it did serve to make him want to end this quickly before he discovered the limits to his newly increased abilities.

He searched his brain, attempting to find out rapidly what was in his arsenal. The same abilities he had before were there: telepathic, telekinetic, and combat kinetic abilities. But there was also the healing ability (transmissible regenerative powers), teleformism, pyrokinesis, as well as a few others that he had no clue how to identify. Since he had seen the power of a pyrokinetic explosion first hand, he decided he would call on that ability first.

Droplets of sweat formed all over his face as the ambient temperature began to rise quickly in the room. Heat waves began to form, turning every surface into a wavering hallucination. Reaching out with his telepathy, Paul judged the approximate size of the base he was within, calculating his burst of power to match what he thought would be necessary to completely vaporize it. He completed miscalculated. He didn’t need a fourth the power he used.

In the form of a massive wave of unstoppable blue flames, his newfound power tore out from his body. Hundreds of people were swept away in a single blast, the crater that the Supernus base was within looking as if it had just turned into a volcanic eruption.

*************

“Prepare to launch a full bombardment!” Lauren ordered over the cacophonous sound of more than a hundred Mentalists trying to communicate both verbally and telepathically. It was giving her a serious headache. The fact that it looked as if they were about to die did not help any.

“I’ll give the orders here, thanks.” General Thomas was practically snarling at Lauren. She had been usurping his authority since the warning had come. Evidently, she didn’t think he was very competent. That he had never even seen battle before was not an excuse in his mind; he was still the officer in charge.

“General, I’d like you to explain something to me. Exactly how do Supernus bases keep getting destroyed by rogue genetic experiments? This is getting a little out of hand. Paul was one loss too many. If this new one is anywhere near the strength of that Pyrokinetic, we’re going to loose even more good men today.”

“I don’t know,” General Thomas sighed, “But hopefully it won’t happen again. With how many people we have here, we should be able to take down this guy pretty fast. It still frightens me that he was somehow able to pass the four outer automated defense lines without a blast being fired. He must have fouled up the electronics or something.”

“It doesn’t matter now. Here he comes!”

Lauren began rapidly charging a concentrated ball of telekinetic energy. Most of the other Mentalist soldiers were doing the same. However this rogue had managed to get past all of the defenses of the Imperium, he had done it without exerting himself. He had to be powerful.

“Fire!” General Thomas ordered. Much too early in Lauren’s opinion. Now their opponent would have the knowledge of exactly where they were holed up, their numbers, and their combined firepower, as well as being able to easily dodge from this range.

But she fired anyway. Orders were orders.

A cascade of rippling energy made its way towards the horizon, uniting where their assailant had been just a moment ago. The moment that he had seen the energy, however, he had dived low, and was now approaching them at high speed from barely a foot off the ground.

He returned fire. Or, at least, it felt like it. All of them fell to the ground, grasping their heads. A loud voice boomed through their minds, as earsplitting as if a bass drum was being beaten next to their heads.

“DO NOT FIRE. I AM A MEMBER OF THE IMPERIUM. I REPEAT: DO NOT FIRE!”

At that point, none of them could have fired if they wanted to. The voice was so painful that no one could concentrate well enough to get off a blast. The assumed enemy landed in the center of the large group of Imperium soldiers, less than a meter from Lauren and General Thomas.

“Second Tier level officer Paul Hunt reporting for duty, sir! Sorry for the extended leave, but I had trouble finding myself.”

Lauren’s rage swelled towards this blatant impostor. This God of a man was most definitely not Paul! His finely sculpted muscles, his strong chin, his light blue eyes and jet black hair… there was no way this man was anything similar to Paul.

Lauren charged a ball of energy within her hand, preparing to unleash it.

“Tell us who you really are!” She demanded.

“What, no welcome home?” Paul smiled as he asked this. “By the way, we need to talk a little bit about that night when we fled from the Supernus. I can sense the child within you. I wish you would have told me; I would have kept you from going into combat.”

He had to hurry forward to catch her as she slumped into unconsciousness.