Jayden's choice was made in the same instant his feet dig into the snow. He lowered his center of gravity immediately, bending his knees, pushing his hips back, and spreading his toes so the soles bite into the crusted snow.
He let out a single, slow breath, and lets his shoulders drop so his arms aren't braced rigidly… a flexed, coiled posture that will convert linear shock into structural tension through his spine.
His hands moved without fanfare. The telekinetic thread unfurls inside his head like a line of fine steel. He reaches out with it… not to grab the ball as a whole, but to hook the filaments along its outer skin: those feathery, electric strands that stitch the sphere together.
The line winds, a hundred microscopic fingers, and he pulls in tiny, synchronous tugs to slow the outer layer's rotation.
