Ancient Forces (2018 Reboot)

Chapter 25 - Thunder in the Snow

The day of the band show came, and it was full of chaos. The shows themselves were around five in the evening, and the snow had melted away enough that school was in session again. Zayne had awoken early to ensure he was ready for school, especially since he needed to replace his bandage. He usually replaced it every week, but he hadn't done it in quite a while since school was out. He'd simply worn his glove all over the place, which seemed to set Damien on edge the whole time. Ver had asked him only to wear it when Damien wasn't around, which he agreed to and put into practice. Whenever he wasn't wearing the glove his arm was exposed since he hadn't applied a wrapping, exposing the fragile, red skin below. At first, the skin looked normal, just highly reactive to acid. Over time, however, his skin had faded to a dark red, and his nerves were plainly visible across the arm. It was a grotesque sight for someone with a weak stomach.

Zayne had been in the restroom reapplying his wrap to the arm when he felt an extremely drastic drop in the temperature. His body immediately shivered, and his hairs stood on end and then some. In the middle of the process, Zayne stopped wrapping and peeked out the door. Damien turned the corner to go into the living room just as he looked out, and almost right after that, the temperature returned to normal. One thing Ver and Keith had been able to do with the snow in, with Zayne's help, of course, was to fix the bathroom he'd melted quite a while back. They'd put it off because of work or just lack of materials and willpower, but there were no excuses when they had nothing better to do except sit around and watch TV all day. Damien refused to help of course, in fact seeing Damien going to the living room this morning had been quite an interesting show. Damien hadn't left his room hardly at all recently.

At school, the situation was only getting worse. Kids were getting sick left and right, colds and flu were rampantly spreading everywhere, and it was going beyond the school too. Zayne was startled as he walked in that morning, quickly doing a headcount and comparing it to the previous ones he'd made. There was almost a thirty-three percent decrease in attendance in one day. That was worse than the attendance over the course of the entire year so far. Aries and Austin were two of those casualties of the weather, they'd been very straightforward with their texts to Zayne and Aleah. Aleah's nose was stuffy but other than that she was fine. Zayne was totally fine, but that was only because he'd discovered a new way of warmth. Rather than just raising his temperature personally, Zayne had discovered a better, faster way to heat up.

All Zayne had to do was cause a lot of friction between his hands. Apparently, the Dragon's Heart could do more than produce and transfer power. It could turn actual heat into energy that Zayne could then absorb and transfer himself. The process involved rubbing his hands together until they felt like they were on fire, the first few times he'd done this they actually did catch on fire. After that, he would place the hands on any surface or object, whether it be his own body or someone else. After that, the Dragon's Heart would absorb and send out the energy he'd just made from friction into the object. At the same time, the Dragon's Heart would spare a little of its own energy to ensure that the heat from the power wasn't instantly lost. The longest Zayne had been able to keep the same temperature was around ten minutes. The new strategy was really good in public areas, and it conserved energy.

The school day was pretty relaxing and slow, especially with as many people gone as there were. Most of the classes didn't start anything new in class since there were only two days left in the week and everyone else was gone. Instead, the day was devoted almost entirely to catching up on assignments, which Zayne took full advantage of. Within the first two hours of the day he was caught up, and with so much free time available he decided to do something to benefit himself and others. He would watch the weather.

With a few quick swipes of the keyboard on his computer, Zayne was on the local news checking in on the weather reports. Ver had given Zayne an update on the storm controllers that the government established. They'd nearly doubled their numbers and strength, and now the storms were weakened drastically. This showed obviously through the fact that all they were getting now were light snowfalls that barely reached an inch or two. The clouds were quite scattered as well, meaning that only small patches of land got the now rare snow. All in all the situation seemed to be getting better.