Jun caught himself raising his hand to direct the targeting of his ability. He sighed inwardly, knowing that doing so was a trait he wouldn't be able to suppress for now.
A metal pipe, thrust itself with violent speed, embedding two thirds of its length into the concrete wall.
Jun took a moment to catch his breath. He was in an abandoned factory long since looted of anything valuable. He was able to pull out various metal pipes from the walls and floors as well as had access to large machine parts too heavy for looters to carry.
Behind him was an out of place piece of an engine block he had been able to fully lift and swing around. When he managed to check its scratched identifications and confirm its weight, he was impressed to discover he was able to comfortably lift and swing upwards of 600kg. That was about three to four full grown adult men.
He had started practice with carrying weight, now he was working on his swing and thrust ability.
He pulled several metal pipes that he had strewn about, arranging them mid-air in a circular, then square pattern. He found himself able to pick up four objects now. Once he pushed for more than four objects, his hold on other items would weaken.
Using both hands, unleashing maximum thrust, Jun sent all four pipes into the wall, stabbing and sinking over half of their length in the concrete walls.
Alright! What's next? … hmmm … myself?
The more he considered it, the more it made sense, the more he wanted it to make sense; Jun wondered if he could fly.
He wasn't sure where to start so he tried from the legs. He enveloped his feet up to his knees and made them rise. As soon as he started, he saw the problem; Jun was already falling backwards the way he fell when he tried to catch Xia. It was as if his feet were being pulled out from under him; he would immediately lose balance and fall.
Okay, not that. Hmmmm. Instead, what about my hands.
"No…" he muttered. He massaged his shoulders, feeling some phantom pain just from the thought.
"Oh!" an idea hit him. Jun enveloped his entire body. He started from his feet and slowly maintained a field around him, pulling it over every inch of his skin. Once he got to his head though, he found he had cut off his air flow. Jun panicked, instead of immediately deactivating his ability, he tried to force a hole over his nose.
Jun began to asphyxiate. In his panic, he began to tear at his own face, trying to create an opening for air. He became flustered, digging harder and harder at his own invisible field. As he experienced this heightened state of panic, he suddenly had a thought.
Hardened.
It was the actual opposite of what he wanted. He needed a softer, open space for air flow. Instead, he became dazed as he noted a soft flash of light briefly light up over his skin. Then, he could see it.
For the first time, instead of always feeling his ability as it went, Jun could see it. Over his body, like a translucent second skin, his ability shone as a soft, faint, purple discoloration.
His left hand knocked on his right, there was no sound, yet it was a feeling like he was striking something unbreakable.
"Okay." He muttered and relaxed. The haze faded away and Jun took a deep breath. Once he felt better, Jun tried again.
This time, he shaped his field into a disc. He thought back to what he used to trigger it, then.
Harden.
With a soft flash, a purple discolored platform manifested before him at knee level. Jun put a foot on it and when it supported his weight, he stood upon it.
"I can feel my own weight." He mumbled with a grin. "Wow."
He tried to move it about, unfortunately, once the field hardened, it refused to move about at all.
Jun pulled a metal pipe to him and got off the platform before he began to smash the platform with all his might. After the fourth strike, it cracked and shattered on the fifth strike it dissipated into motes of light, then disappearing with no apparent residue.
It doesn't move about. But, I moved just now, right?
He tried again, forging a field around his left hand.
Harden. Then a weak flash. He tried to flex his fingers.
"Uh oh." The hardened field remained fixed in space, preventing him from moving his hand entirely. If anything he had to slide his hand out of the now fixed gauntlet.
"Okay, let's try this again. I know I could move around when the shield fully enveloped me." Jun dissipated the gauntlet. It still took him a few moments to completely envelop his body with his field, so before it fully encompassed him, he drew in a deep breath.
Once he was enveloped, as expected, he couldn't breathe.
Harden. The flash was brighter this time. Jun tried; he could move about. He punched out a few times, threw a kick and did a jumping punch.
Oh, it drains my constellation quite rapidly just having it out and about.
He rushed to the nearest wall and struck it. The wall shook, causing dust to fall from the ceiling, yet Jun gasped involuntarily as he felt his constellation completely go out in a sudden burst. The shield winked out of existence. In that moment Jun momentarily blacked out, slumping to the side. He snapped awake almost immediately, catching himself before he fell to the ground.
His head began to throb.
The constellation began to slowly brighten up, but a sense of fatigue had crept in. Jun moved weakly to a small bag he had brought with him. He pulled out and munched on a piece of roasted rat. A smile crept over his face as he savored this sweet and peppery delicacy.
In his weakened state, he noticed minute traces of energy being absorbed from the meat he ate into his body.
As he munched, Jun admitted to himself that there were too many mysteries surrounding the new era. He had seen the direction humanity was heading towards and fear gripped his heart.
Would humanity wipe itself out when one uber powered idiot decides to blow up the world because he feels super lonely?
Jun sighed. He finished his treat, putting the rest away and felt much better.
"Okay, let me recap. I can use harden, which makes a shield. Aaaaand, nothing else."
Huh. Jun felt a question come over him that he had been ignoring since he discovered his ability.
"So, obviously my ability is telekinesis." He pulled a few items to and away from himself, as if demonstrating his ability. This was his way of thinking broadly. After working in an office environment so long, he was used to making impromptu presentations to himself as a way to air out any thoughts he had and to see if they made some sense.
"If it's telekinesis, how am I able to create a shield then?"
He rotated his hand, creating a circular shaped field, before hardening it into its visible state; the shield.
Jun observed this manifestation, walking around it as he thought.
Aside from the faint purple discoloration, most of the shield was purely transparent. In fact were it not for the purple shimmer, it would be completely invisible.
Meaning. I did something to the air itself? I turned the air into the shield, or am I creating the shield. No. I shape the field. I create a space I have control over… Control…. Control.
He paced as he let his mind wander. He muttered, "Control."
Jun released a new field. He let it envelop several items and as it did, he got a general idea of what it touched. He felt the hardness of metal, the softness of plastic.
"What am I controlling?" he asked himself.
He had no answer. Jun was no scientist. He wasn't more insightful that any other corporate drone.
"I need information then. I have been able to improve my ability… somewhat… Maybe if I can understand it better, I could be able to get stronger."
Internet!
He pulled out Shu'er's phone and searched Telekinesis.
Jun read for over forty minutes, avoiding many rabbit holes of conjecture, conspiracy theorists and true-believers who claimed for a fee you too could start a journey to unlock your inner power.
"Nothing. Gah!" he grunted and threw the phone up as high as he could.
"Gasp"
Jun heard someone gasp suddenly. His eyes snapped around the location in many directions. He spotted an area where dust was shifting and in an instant he pushed his ability to its new maximum range of 7 meters. He felt two human forms crouched behind some metal sheets. One of them, the smaller one was knocking the head of the larger one. He retracted his field, extending it again to catch the phone in mid-air.
He wasn't sure he could catch it without looking, but now he wanted to mess with the two of them. The gasp when the phone stopped in mid-air was more joyful this time.
"Come out." Said Jun.
After a few moments of hushed arguments, Mei Mei and Shu'er emerged.
"Why are you spying on me?" he demanded immediately.
"As if," said Shu'er with a humph.
"We wanted to find you." Mei Mei quickly said. No matter what, this was still a super being. There was no need to antagonize him unnecessarily; a fact of which she had warned her sister about prior.
Jun motioned to the floating phone, which then started to float towards him. The girls had their eyes glued to it.
"You could have texted or called." Jun said.
"I ran out of minutes. I couldn't call. So I used..." Mei Mei began saying, but hesitated.
"You used the find my phone app!" Jun blurted out, realizing that's how they tracked him down. He chuckled once to himself then continued, "Okay, you found me. What do you want? Or do you like staring at people through holes in walls" Jun joked, pulling the phone to himself before grabbing it out of the air.
"Ehn - what!? As if!" declared an enraged Shu'er, "If we hadn't found Xia, we wouldn't have bothered – Hmph!"
"You found her. Already?" he was actually shocked and accidentally muttered the next part, "I just assumed I was never gonna see you guys again."
"Hey look here," this time it was Mei Mei who was upset. They had drifted closer to Jun, while watching the floating phone, so they had been close enough to hear his muttering. Mei Mei marched up to Jun, wagging a finger in his face, despite the height difference.
"I gave you my word we will help you out and that is exactly what we have been doing! Don't you go looking down on us!"
Jun raised his hand. "I'm sorry."
This seemed to take the fight out of Mei Mei, who hadn't expected someone with so much power to ever apologize to someone without power.
"How about we talk properly." Jun said as he moved the last of his roasted meat over to them, unwrapping it as he did. The girls eyed the meat and Shu'er began to salivate. Jun then pulled three random items to them, each large enough to be a make shift chair.
Mei Mei suddenly looked to him and said. "Do you always talk to yourself…" she added softly looking around, "or is there someone there… answering?"