Greg Veder vs The World

Cutscene: Ssssssmokin'

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Monday

April 11, 2011

4:49

Greg focused on his breathing, going over the same mantra he used while meditating.

In and out. In and out.

The basement was as cold as it usually was, April weather not being the warmest in New England, even during Spring. Yet, even then, Greg barely felt it, his hands brimming with a deep warmth.

"Firebending comes from the breath," Greg muttered to himself, closing his eyes as he held his palms out in front of his bare chest focusing on the warmth that had he had been slowly and carefully nurturing in his palms for the last fifteen minutes. Meditation had been how he had broken through from Minor to Basic Aerokinesis. Since he'd obtained Pyrokinesis at the Basic level from the start, Greg could only assume that the principle that had let him make that breakthrough was the same no matter what element he manipulated.

In and out. In and out.

"It's not the fire I manipulate. It's the mana I put into the fire..." Greg breathed, focusing on the small flame burning brightly in front of him, held between his palms.

Eyes closed, he could still feel the presence of the air around him, and the fire before him. It was raw energy, power and life burning brightly. Even with his eyes closed, he could almost see it in his mind's eye. He could feel the Mana around him in the breeze, and the Mana that was in the flame in front of him. The fire flickered, so Greg stilled the breeze, feeding the fire with a constant trickle of aerokinesis.

In and out. In and out.

The fire flickered with his breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

It flickered with his life, growing ever so slightly with each moment.

For the first time, Greg flared his mana and the flame roared.

Greg opened his eyes, blinking as he saw the flame had risen in height, growing over a foot long and straight as an arrow, pointed out from his palms. The flames were only partially dispersed by the barrier of cool air Greg kept tight over his skin, convection wafting the heat back onto him while the barrier did its best to prevent his skin from burning.

Basic Pyrokinesis Level Up!

1→2

Given his mom was a trauma nurse, Greg was sure that she would be familiar with how it smelled. Granted, she was fast asleep but burnr human flesh had a certain smell to it, a smell that was quite distinctive. Hell, he was familiar with how it smelled and it took an entire bottle of air freshener to wipe out that distinctive scent from the house when he entered this morning.

Kinda like a mix of pork and beef but not quite, if Greg had to put a descriptor on the aroma. It was really kinda gross when he thought about it, even grosser when he found out that people basically tasted like pork. Uggh… never again. Never.

The blond let out another breath and frowned as he brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand, tilting his head as he looked at the flame in front of him. His tongue drifted from the confines of his mouth, moving to the side of his lips as he focused carefully on his next action. The lance of flames turned in on itself, the sharp point curving backwards until the entire thing condensed into a roiling ball of flames, just slightly smaller than a basketball.

Greg let out a slight groan of annoyance as he tried to focus, compressing the sphere even further to get it under control. The way the sphere seemed to fight his attempts to control it, tongues of flame spurting out every time his control slipped… it was a little scary.

Fire was very different from air when it came to this type of control, Greg had soon realized. Fire was… dangerous in a way that air just couldn’t match. Well, duh, Greg thought to himself with a roll of his eyes. That was kinda why it was fire. Yeesh, maybe I should change my cape name from Prodigy to Captain Obvious.

Still, incredibly obvious or not, it still rang true. Fire was scary and controlling it wasn’t quite as easy as Greg thought it would be. The flames fed on the air, growing despite his wishes unless he purposely restricted the blaze from expanding past it’s current limits. It was almost like holding a leash, really. A leash holding back an eager, dangerous dog.

His nostrils flared as Greg flexed his muscles, sweat beginning to pour down his bare chest as he focused on his next action. Letting out another breath, Greg slowly let his palms spread apart, moving further and further away until the straining ball of fire remained aloft in the air with nothing holding it back.

This was another strong distinction between fire and wind Greg had noticed. While it was far, far, easier to shape air, whatever form he gave the breeze quickly dispersed into nothing once it left him, even when he focused tightly on it. Fire, on the other hand, remained in the shape for far longer, even despite its innate attempts to grow past the limits Greg gave it.

Shifting his mana, Greg moved one hand up and splayed his fingers outward slowly.

At his subtle direction, the fire danced, spreading out from the ball into the shape of a woman's fan, elegantly on display. Then the flame twisted, coiling upon itself as it undulated with Greg’s own movement.

In and out. In and out.

The writhing flame spat sparks out, powerful and hungry as it threatened to lash out beyond Greg's control. Still, Greg held tight, a grin growing on his face as he continued to move his arms. After all, he had some experience moving the air to his whim, and the wind was a far more fickle force than any hungry flame.

In and out. In and out.

A tongue of flame stretched out from the sphere, slowly coiling round and round in the air as Greg undulated his arms, performing a wave-like movement as he rolled his shoulders. A flare of flame burst from the long tendril sparking at the tip as the ball became a dancing eastern dragon, the now-stable flare it’s head as it flew in the air around him with it’s long snake-like body.

Basic Pyrokinesis Level Up!

2→3

In. Out. In. Out.

The dragon twisted and turned, ducking in and out, as Greg practiced his control and precision, twisting his body with the dragon's as it moved. While the heat from Greg's creation was relatively low, nothing compared to even the lightest of Lung's flames that he could recall. Despite all that, it was enough to warm his body, forcing sweat from his pores as he moved to a rhythm that he made in his head. Through all this, he construct flowed effortlessly as it followed his body, the colors of the flame flickering between yellow and orange.

Greg spun and the dragon followed, twirling over and over around his head as it's long body made a path around the basement, just barely touching the walls. It's tail flickered, sparks flying upon some magazines on a worktable near the stairs.

Shit!Shit!Shit! Greg blinked, eyes widening as the magazines suddenly burst into a blaze upon the wooden table and he tightened his hold on the fire construct once more, forcing it to curl back in on itself as he kept one eye on the slowly blackening magazines.

"Greg? Sweetie?" A slightly sleepy voice called for him and Greg's eyes widened further, instinctively loosening his grip on the semi-controlled sphere of flames. Without his grip on it, it rushed forward in a burst of flames.

Greg threw out his hands to recover his focus, pulling all the flame from the erupting sphere and the burning magazines into a single ball of fulminous energy that nearly roared under his control. The ball shrank as he drew it back into himself and held it between his hands before snuffing it out with a powerful clap.

Furiously cycling his hands, a horizontal tunnel of wind formed around the table's surface knocking loose papers to the ground and containing the smoke in a funnel. Breathing somewhat heavily as he continued his attempts to prevent the smell of smoke from leaving the basement, Greg gulped down a mouth full of nervous saliva as he called back upstairs, "Yes, Mom?"

"What are you doing in the basement?"

Greg blanched slightly but kept his hands moving. "Oh... uhh, I was feeling a little better so I decided to… uhhh," he glanced around the basement, his gaze landing on some exercise equipment, "get on the treadmill for a bit."

"The treadmill? That's... huh." Greg blinked at the odd tone in his mom's voice, wondering why she sounded a little off there, almost as if she was disappointed or something? "It's good that you're feeling better, at least."

"Yeah," Greg called back, "It's all thanks to the food you made me this morning. Really gave me my energy back."

"That's nice, sweetie. Oh, and speaking of food, did you order us anything to eat?" Her voice called out rather faintly. Greg blinked, letting out a slightly relieved sigh as he realized that she was still on the stairs, still a good distance away from the basement as he began to pull the still spinning wind funnel towards him, the smoke thick and gray inside the translucent construct.

Greg winced as he realized what she had asked, realizing his mother had asked him to order some food several hours ago. "No, Mom, I… uhhh… I couldn't find your card and… uhh," Greg wracked his brain for something to say, "I knew you were tired so I didn't want to wake you up!" he added loudly.

"Way better than saying I forgot," Greg muttered under his breath. His hands began to move slower now, cycling around each other much in a semi-circle as Greg copied the same technique he started with the fireball, compressing the wind into a dense sphere.

"Aww, that's so sweet, honey. Don't worry about it," his mom responded. "I'll take care of it. You want Chinese or pizza?"

"Chinese sounds great, mom!"

A relieved sigh left Greg's lips as he heard his mom's footsteps heading up the stairs. With an errant push, he sent the ball of slowly spinning air into a corner of the basement, the wind dissipating the smoke against the wall.

"Before learning firebending you must learn water and earth. Water is cool and soothing, earth is steady and stable, but fire... Fire is alive, it breathes, it grows," Greg muttered to himself as he began to walk upstairs, remembering another line from that same show.

He seemed to muddle over the words for few seconds, hand to his chin only to shake his head a moment later. The blond scoffed as he paused on the last few steps before the basement door, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He raised his other hand in front of him thoughtfully, bringing his thumb and middle finger together.

Light danced in his eyes, a grin growing slowly across his face as Greg snapped his fingers.

Once.

Twice.

On the third snap, a tongue of flame burst from the tip of his thumb and Greg's grin grew even further. "Pfftt… as if I'm ever gonna wait for that."

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Spoiler: STATUS