Synergism

Chapter 11

"This is ingenious," Kenneth marvelled, touching the plasma ball.  He alternated fingers and delighted at how the long line would brighten to meet his touch.  "I was wondering how you were going to practice."

"You couldn't expect Zhan to experiment on a person, right?" Yibo remarked.

Kenneth raised an eyebrow.

"Oh shit... forgot about that, sorry man," Yibo said with a small cough. Although it had only been a couple of years, it seemed like a lifetime ago when they used Kenneth as a test candidate to figure out what was going on with Zhan.

"So how does it work?" Kenneth asked, brushing off Yibo who was patting his shoulder in apology.

Zhan reached his hand forward. "I'm supposed to be able to control the amount of negative energy I absorb. If I can control it then when I actually touch someone, I'll be able to not absorb all of their negative energy. At some point, I should be able to control how much I heal and if I get really good at it, I'll be able to pinpoint what to heal."

Kenneth's face lit up in excitement at this new piece of information. "Pinpoint?"

"Yeah, so if someone gets into a car accident and they have some broken ribs and internal bleeding, I could focus on healing the internal bleeding to save their life and just leave the ribs," Zhan explained.

"Makes sense," Kenneth said. "It also keeps it from looking suspicious."

Zhan let out a heavy sigh. "So far I haven't had much success," he said.

"Give it some time, Zhan," Yibo encouraged. "It's only been a couple of days."

Zhan didn't look at him, he just stared at the orb sadly and Yibo knew Zhan wasn't just worrying about mastering his ability. He knew no matter how many times he told Zhan not to worry about it, he was still concerned about what would happen after they could control their abilities.  No amount of convincing was going to get Zhan to stop overthinking about what it would mean about their relationship if Zhan couldn't heal him? When Zhan asked what happened to the couples where the Healer couldn't heal their partner, Shantel had only replied that they should take it one step at a time. She then refused to dwell on the subject any longer.

"Okay what's with all the gloom and doom on your faces?" Kenneth asked, glancing from one of them to the other. "What are you not telling me?"

Zhan chewed on his bottom lip and shook his head.

"Yeebs?" Kenneth said turning to Yibo when he saw that Zhan didn't want to talk about it.

Yibo stuck his hands into the front pockets of his hoodie. "Shantel can heal Marissa," he said, shrugging it off like it wasn't a big deal.

There was a long moment of silence, while Kenneth processed what was just said. "Oh," was his response, "did you tell her?"

"Mmhmm," Yibo nodded moving over to Zhan as he sensed his distress. 

"And?"

He repeated what Marissa had told them.

"So it's possible?" Kenneth said with optimism.

Yibo nodded but Zhan pushed away from the table with a huff of frustration. "I can't even master the basics," he said, "and then if I do, what if I still can't heal Yibo?"

To Yibo's surprise, Kenneth started laughing. "Guys, c'mon... look how far you've come. Think about it, since we've found out about your ability, it's been nothing but guesswork and trial and error. The fact that we've managed to get through all this shit so far without either of you getting seriously hurt or dying has been miraculous really," he remarked. "Now we actually have some answers and guidance and all I can say is I'm feeling a whole shitload more optimistic about your situation than I was six months ago. So this is not a time to despair, because fuck... we have three great scientific minds here. We WILL figure this out."