Connected | Leon x Jessie

Hidden Buttons

Jessie POV
After that, Alan had me display both of those powers we talked about. It took significantly longer for me to recreate the purple sphere, but when I did, it was even more powerful than the last, making all the trees bend far back and accidentally sending Bruce tumbling into the forest.

"Oops," I murmured as Bruce rolled away, making some screeching sounds for help.

"It's okay," Nita dismissed. "He'll find his way back. Bruce!"

She let out a high-pitched whistle, and soon enough Bruce was back by her side—noticeably staying away from me and cowering.

I would too, if I were him. These new powers were untested, extremely dangerous and really creepily strong.

Alan clapped as he told me, "I don't think I've ever seen anyone showcase such intense and strong power so effortlessly, Jessie. But then again, I haven't seen this power before, so..."

His voice trailed off as he got lost in thought, but he snapped back and said, "Ok, while your powers are truly amazing, I need to test some things and aspects of it to see its full limit, its full capacity. So bear with me if they sounds a little strange, okay?"

I nodded, along with Leon and Nita. Then Alan asked me to conjure the same blue lightning sphere again, but this time he told me, "Jessie, can you track me, without summoning those blue limbs to grab me? Just for me to see how much control you have over the power."

I nodded, thinking that would be easy. But as Alan headed into the forest, and the blue dots showed where he was hiding, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I pushed my brain, no matter how much I tried to hold back...

It didn't. The arms still snaked out and pulled Alan to us.

And again and again that happened, until Alan finally concluded, "Okay. While you are definitely in control of creating that blue sphere itself, you're not in control of the blue sphere. It has a mind of its own that decides to create those limbs and grab people. And if this power is ever used in battles or war, pulling people to you is not the best idea—whereas tracking them and spying silently will be more efficient. I believe this is a weakness for this power—we'll have to work on that."

Alan clapped his hands, and I thought he was about to teach me how to restrain against my own powers. But instead he said, "Now, can you show me the explosion power?"

I nodded and used my energy to create the same purple sphere as before. But before I flicked it, Alan stopped me and said, "This time, I want to see if you can flick the sphere, but stop it from exploding immediately. Like, just let it stay there without exploding, and maybe even only explode when triggered by a step or something."

It sounded like what he wanted me to try creating was a rig or mine of sorts. But still I followed the instructions.

And sure enough, no matter how hard I tried, the purple sphere exploded each time.

"This is the advantage of pushing the hidden buttons of our powers," Alan told the three of us. "With the hidden buttons, we discover not only our strengths and abilities, but also our weaknesses and our limits. And for now, we have some work to do."