Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2) (15 page)

Were they under attack? Were there going to be more
explosions to follow? What could he—

“Is that emptying your mind?” Ares interrupted
gravely.

“How would you know?” Chase bristled defensively.
“Do you read minds?”

“I can read on your face, what you’re thinking.”

Chase grimaced but tried to get back into emptying
his mind. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, but it didn’t seem to help
that much. Annoyed, he opened his eyes and threw up his hands in frustration.
Ares seemed equally put out.

“Look, Chase, try and focus on a place or memory
that brings you joy. Once you’re there, block out everything else, stay
anchored in that moment. Stay there long enough without thinking of anything
else and you should be able to lose yourself in that place; then you should
start to feel differently.”

Chase summoned the morning when he woke up next to
Sarah the first time they’d spent the night together. He remembered caressing
her shoulder for a few minutes before she woke up. That moment was a powerful
memory, one he wanted to last forever, so it wasn’t difficult to bring it back.
His eyes closed without him realizing, and soon he was back there on the bed,
smelling the intoxicating perfume of Sarah’s hair and naked skin. Before he
knew it, a deep sensation of calm enveloped him like a warm blanket. It felt
like present, past, and future were only foggy concepts, slowly fading into the
void with every passing moment.

“Good,” Ares said with a soothing voice. “Now try to
feel the current of energy flowing in your body.”

His voice was like an echo in a dream, and Chase
obeyed without questioning, not even realizing he was probably in some sort of
a trance. He focused on his inner self and could indeed feel something running
inside him. A stream, a river, he didn’t know, but something was there.

“Alright, that energy you feel is your inner power.
It’s a strong force that you can summon at will once you master this fully. Up
until now, you have only been able to call it when the situation was dire,
usually with your thoughts in turmoil. In doing so, you made that pool of
energy very agitated, like a storm, and you could only summon a very small part
of it, like the splashing water when a wave hits a cliff... If you manage to go
to the source, you can use the entire ocean and bid it to do your will.”

The echoed words made sense to Chase even though he
still didn’t know how to use this power. For now, he was just content to
observe the inner flux, something he never even thought was there.

“Alright,” continued Ares’ calming voice, ever so
soothing and more and more ethereal in nature, “the easiest way for you to grab
hold of that power is to create a mental image of it. Try to visualize it as an
aura of a specific color. Any color will do.”

Chase chose a radiant blue, like the fireballs he
managed to create before. He liked that color very much.

“Good... Now focus on that bright light within
yourself. Make it grow; try to double it in size.”

Chase doubled his aura in his mind. It was a great
deal harder than he would have originally thought. Sometimes it grew, but
sometimes it shrank as well. After what felt like a very long time, he had
reached a volume of energy about double what he had started with.

“Good. I’m actually impressed. Now, double it once
more.”

Chase took much less time doubling the energy this
time. He started to feel a very warm and powerful sensation within his body. Like
it was vibrating in a whole new way altogether.

“Nice,” Ares congratulated. “Now for the next few
minutes, you will double it again and again, without waiting for further
instructions. Don’t worry how big it grows in your mental image; whether you
feel like it’s as big as a planet or beyond, keep doubling it until I tell you
differently.”

Chase did as instructed. After a while, doubling the
energy was just a slight mental push. Then it became like a game to him and he
did it effortlessly, feeling that warmth burn deeper within every fiber of his
being. The size of the aura grew as big as a small moon, and kept going; as big
as Earth, and going. He now radiated an aura the size of the entire solar
system.

“Now, while staying in the exact frame of mind, slowly
open your eyes.”

When Chase opened his eyes, the first thing he saw
was blue.

It radiated from within his body, flowing in and out
like solar flares of pure, blue light. It felt alive, and for the first time
ever Chase felt like his mind could affect it. He kept looking at his arms and
hands, the aura pulsating and vibrating in and out of himself. The sensation
was intoxicating: both mindboggling and soothing at the same time.

“Very good, Chase. Now, you see that mountain behind
me?”

Chase looked behind Ares, and, sure enough, a huge
mountain stood there.

“I see it,” said Chase with a calm he barely
recognized.

“Focus your energy in your right arm, then in your
right hand. Let all the energy flow there naturally. Close your eyes if you
need to do so to project your mental image. Once you’re ready, once you feel
enough energy has been focused there, throw the resulting fireball at the
mountain.”

It took a few seconds for Chase to manage to focus
almost all the energy in his fist, but when he did, the resulting fireball was
nothing short of extraordinary. It wasn’t much bigger than the ones he had
managed to create before, but the energy contained in it felt so immensely
superior that it felt more akin to holding a small sun within his palm.

He looked at the mountain with purpose, and, in a
fluid motion, he threw the fireball at it.

It reached the mountain at a speed that dazzled
Chase’s eyes and the result was just as blinding. The mountain literally
exploded in ten million pieces, each of them burning out of existence as if
they were never there. A few seconds later, a strong wind almost knocked him
off of his feet.
The shockwave of the impact,
he thought in surprise.

Ares tilted his head in approval. “So how did that
feel?”

Chase couldn’t help but smile. “It felt… very, very…
insanely good.”

Ares chuckled. “
Insane
being the operative
word here. I want you to remember that.”

“Why is that?” Chase asked with a frown.

“Because now I have helped you unlock the path to
your inner power. It will take a bit more practice, but soon you will be able
to summon this power at will.” Ares’ face grew serious. “But there is a warning
attached. As I told you, before you were only using a fraction of that power,
but now you have access to all or, at the very least, most of it. So when you
threw that pathetic first attack towards me, you actually wouldn’t have done
much damage.”

“There’s a door in a building I was in that would
disagree with that statement,” Chase said with a smirk.

“Doors don’t fight back. To even wound someone as
powerful as your twin brother, you will need to focus that energy and use it
well. But be careful how much you use.”

“What do you mean
how much
? Shouldn’t I use
all that I can muster every single time?”

“If you do that, you’ll be a dead man faster than
you can say
oops
.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Right now, you managed to drain a lot of energy
from your inner pool, but that pool depletes—it’s not infinite. You need rest,
sustenance, and other things I won’t bore you with to replenish that energy
every time you use it. Think of it as a battery, if that helps. Once it’s dead,
it’s dead. Once it’s fully depleted, you will die.”

Chase paled. “So the more I use my power, the
quicker I will die?”

“Not exactly. Since it can replenish to its full
potential with a few hours of rest, your chances of dying of use are very slim.
That is—unless you really use absolutely all of it down to the last atom.”

“And chances of that happening?”

“Not great, depending on how you manage your energy.
Argos is very well aware of that and he knows just how much to use to defeat
his enemies. Never drawing more than he needs.”

“Yet I beat him.”

Ares let out a sigh of frustration. “Are you so
arrogant as to think you really beat your brother last time the two of you
fought?”

Chase looked down. “No… I agree, it felt too easy. I
guess I managed to outsmart him and was just lucky.”

“I’m more inclined to think he let you think you
won.” Ares frowned. “For what purpose, I don’t know, but he must have had one
hell of a reason.”

“That was a pretty strong explosive that detonated
on his back.”

“And I’m telling you that for someone of Argos’
power, it was little less than a mosquito bite.”

“You’re not serious?” Chase asked, trying to
reconcile the two images in his mind.

“I am, Chase. I don’t know why he did it, but don’t
ever think you managed to beat him then, and do not think you are ready now. I
have given you the basics to gain access to your potential. Argos has a similar
potential, except he knows it well, and has used it for so long he doesn’t even
have to think about it. Right now, he is the most dangerous being in the entire
universe. Please make no mistake about that.”

“More dangerous than you?”

Ares smirked automatically, before his face grew
serious. “We Olympians have a few tricks up our sleeves. We don’t really age
which allows us to live for eons, but we can be killed. And if there is someone
who can do it, it’s certainly Argos. Perhaps it’s his end game.”

Chase didn’t understand. “Why would he want to kill
the Olympians?”

“Well, we helped defeat your people a long time ago,
so off the top of my head, I’d say revenge looks like a potential reason.”

“My people?” said Chase with a puzzled look.

“Furies...”

Of course—he kept having to remember that. “I’m only
part Fury.”

“Perhaps...”

“What the hell do you mean
perhaps
? This is
the second time you’ve alluded to the fact that I could be a pure Fury.” Chase
raised an interrogating eyebrow.

Ares shrugged thoughtfully. “The amount of power you
were able to conjure is staggering. That’s why you must be very careful; you
could destroy entire solar systems if you don’t master it. And somehow I doubt
a diluted Fury gene would be able to manage that.”

Chase’s heart froze in his chest. “Like in my
vision.”

“Yes. Look, I’ve fought the Furies before. I even
defeated a few in single combat, and they were pure born. But they held a
fraction of your potential and that scares me.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better? That
you’re scared of me? What can you tell me that doesn’t involve
Armageddon-scale, cataclysmic repercussions?” Chase exclaimed.

“Actually I’m not done warning you. We got
sidetracked.”

Chase rubbed his eyes wearily. “Oh great.”

“Now your power is incredibly strong, but it has its
limits.”

“Yeah, yeah, the battery thing.”

“Yes, Chase”—Ares was clearly a little annoyed—“the
battery thing. Like a battery, you must be aware at every moment how much of it
you have left, how much you drain it, and never ever go under ten percent.”

“Why ten percent?”

“Because under this threshold, you risk two things.
One, depending on the damage you take at or under this level you can actually
lose consciousness.”

“And the second?”

“If that happened while you were using your energy,
you could drain the rest of it without realizing... and...”

“Yeah, I get the picture.” Chase’s voice was
clipped. “I’d die.”

“Exactly.”

Chase absorbed this while Ares waited patiently for
the questions sure to come.

“What about blocking attacks or even healing?”

Ares nodded. “All activity that forces you to drain
your energy is part of the same pool, whether you do it instinctively or not.”

“What are my levels now? And how do I know how to
recognize them?”

“Close your eyes and look at your aura from before.
Now tell me, at which percentage do you think it is compared to when you opened
your eyes prior to vaporizing that mountain?”

Chase closed his eyes and tried to evaluate. He
opened them again and looked puzzled.

“So?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe it’s a
little over half?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sensing. About sixty percent;
the rest got depleted in one attack.”

“But how can I sustain a fight if I lose forty
percent with one blow?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you this
entire time, Chase. That blow was
way too powerful
. You could have
seriously damaged Earth if you had sent it towards the ground at a
ninety-degree angle."

“I doubt I will ever be in that position during a
fight.”