WDoe: ## Since your internship is here in New Boston, you should bring some of them with you. I'll sign them, and if you want, you could come for a visit. ##

  After waking to the freedom of Saturday morning, the first thing I did was stare at the message on my phone screen. It was from early May, now a whole month old, but William still hadn't sent me his address.

  I could figure out where he lived if I wanted. It would be simple to trace John's path home from school. But it would also lend me a horrible impression, at best as an overly rabid fan who dug through the million homes in New Boston to find his apartment.

  We'd gone back and forth a good amount in the previous month, mostly about his writing, but I thought pestering him for an address would be too risky. When you were in a position to slice someone's arm off and have the courts in your favor, it was generally best to wait for their home invitation instead of inviting yourself.

  Still, I had been getting antsy. The general social environment at NXGen had been wearing me down, enough that a weekend spent passively stalking John through my binoculars sounded flat-out depressive. To avoid that, I'd made multiple tries through the week at a non-suspicious method for bumping into him, including one that had a real chance to work.

  The trick was joining a matchmaking app.

  Not for dating, of course, but to help people in the same city find training partners. When I first 'matched' with him, I hadn't even realized he was my golden ticket – Zirian Kaehler, level 3.7, ability Crescent Slash. He was a bit part character in the canon story, just like Meili, serving only as John's initial barrier to becoming King of New Bostin High. He was going to play a similarly small part in my performance today.

  I remembered him mostly for the stony calmness with which he smacked a young John down to earth, but Zirian was possibly feeling some pressure from his challenger. At least, going by his profile on the app: "I want to solidify my position as king of my high school. I'm looking for elite-tiers with slashing abilities, preferably long-range, to sharpen my fighting technique with."

  Still lying under my blankets, I checked our message history on my phone. It had been easy to get in contact.

  June 4

  Meili: ## Hi, I know we just matched, but do you want to meet this weekend? I've been getting rusty, but I'm new in the city and don't have anyone to train with. ##

  Zirian: ## Sure. I'm actually free Saturday morning and afternoon. ##

  Zirian: ## The video on your profile is kind of familiar, by the way. Were you on Sector TV? ##

  Meili: ## So you saw that! The clip has been doing embarrassingly well online. ##

  Meili: ## How about Citrona Combat Park, the one near the high school? ##

  Zirian: ## That sounds good - it's a pretty convenient location for me. ##

  I rolled out of bed, nodding to myself as I mentally rehearsed the plan I'd been drafting. During my visual eavesdropping a week ago, I had learned that John spent most of his spare time training in Citrona Combat Park near New Bostin High – even though his final exams must have been coming up. Chances were high that I could stage an encounter today.

  It was still early in the morning. I ambled to my bathroom, then my walk-in closet, where all my clothes lined the walls on hangers. Many of the items were only a few days old. That was the one good thing about my new clique at NxGen: thanks to all our overpriced shopping, I had no shortage of expensive makeup or clothes to look good fighting in.

  ***Beautiful***

  Of the nine times John had challenged Zirian to a fight, he had been close to victory in precisely none of them.

  He hated it, of course. He hated losing more than just about anything, and all his losses to Zirian were public rank matches. Nothing was more humiliating than waking up on the cold pavement, your strengthless limbs splayed outward like a starfish, as weaklings who usually couldn't look in your direction gawked down at you in a crowd.

  But at the very least, he could pacify himself with the knowledge that his longtime obstacle was strong. There wasn't much shame in losing to a 3.7 as a 3.0. Zirian was also two years older than him, more experienced, the king of his high school for good reason. The difficulty of beating someone truly powerful was what would make it all the more satisfying when he finally did.

  So what the hell is going on here?

  Two minutes ago, John had stumbled in on a random girl beating Zirian's ass in the park – with a hand literally tied behind her back. Now he was hiding behind a nearby tree as he watched, trying to make sense of it, feeling like the mountain he'd been climbing was just a tiny hill.

  "You can do better than that!" The redheaded girl shouted. She swung her right hand repeatedly, morphed into a curved crimson blade, and deflected Zirian's steel-splitting energy slashes without so much as a backstep. The slashes were a shimmering green and crescent-shaped. John knew from experience that they were dangerous – not only for their sharpness but the speed at which they snaked through the air.

  "Send more at the same time," she said, rapidly circling around her outmatched opponent. "Or I'm going to get in range of you."

  Zirian was panting, bleeding from thin cuts on his bruise-marked limbs. He nodded, planted his feet in concentration, and built up the aura to 'load' four crescent slashes on his forearms. Then he swung both arms in a criss-cross motion, sharp blades of force closing on the girl in a rapid burst. Her hand morphed into a long vertical line, the sharp point of it wedged into a tree branch, and she used its retraction to pull herself up and above the projectiles a moment before they reached her. John had to clamp a hand over his mouth to silence a noise of surprise.

  The girl let herself fall, green and white sundress fluttering in the wind, and deflected another slash on her way down. Zirian was backpedaling, trying to gain distance, but he looked too tired and slow.

  A long crimson scythe formed as the redhead swung her arm, cutting a deep gash into his lower stomach. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching his side. The girl capitalized but held back on her soccer punt, only kicking hard enough to send him ten feet away into a nearby boulder. Zirian landed relatively softly and slumped against it.

  She nodded, seeming satisfied, and let her left hand break the rope that had been tying it. She smiled as she arched her back into a relaxed stretch. The girl wore a tan sunhat on her head, which had miraculously stayed in place, and her expensive-looking dress didn't have a single tear.

  The awful memory of his last fight with Zirian flashed into John's mind. It had ended with him blacked out and bleeding on the pavement, leaving his friends Claire and Adrion to cart his unconscious body to treatment ten minutes after the fight. Nobody else had been willing to because the desire to stay on Zirian's good side was a dominating instinct.

  A 4.1 at least, he thought as the girl went to help Zirian up. Probably higher, but she doesn't look any older than me.

  He'd known in a purely conceptual sense that people like her existed. Kids who lived in New Boston's top districts, born to god-tier parents, who made high-tier by Senior year and embarrassed whole Turf Wars teams for fun. They got famous online and their best fights made it on TV. But having someone like that standing right before him, reminding him of his place, was different than simply knowing they were out there.

  He was one of them in his dreams.

  She tried to pull Zirian up, but he moved her hand away when she did, slowly rising on shaky feet. "You're still going easy on me, Meili," Zirian said. "Even with the handicap. I don't think this is going to work."

  The redheaded girl – Meili – frowned and turned to look at her bag, probably for more rope. "I guess you could tell. But I don't think I'll perform very well if I tie up both arms."

  Zirian shook his head. "You wouldn't even be practicing, then." John noted with jealousy that the cuts were already closing, that his legs were steadier than a few seconds ago. "It's my fault. I thought I could keep up."

  "Then do you want to stop here?" Meili asked. "This has already been good practice for me. You can recover and look for someone closer in level."

  Zirian rubbed the back of his head. "How old are you? Fifteen?" At Meili's confirmation, he said, "Then you're only going to widen the gap… I think that's what I'll do. And you could look for another partner, too."

  Zirian said goodbye and left while she stayed behind to clean up the clearing – there was rope all over the place now that he was looking closely. John had never seen the king of his high school so apologetic, almost to the point of subservience, but there wasn't anyone like Meili in their whole district.

  He turned and started walking away, ultimately deciding that their interaction wasn't any of his business. He was more than eager to get on with his own training.

  …Which consisted of watching other people in Citrona combat park and trying to copy their abilities, so he already had been, in a sense. He'd just been too absorbed in the fight to focus on the copying part. If I could mimic her without the handicap of a whole arm… The thought stopped him. Living in one of the lowest-level districts in the city didn't exactly leave him with many high-quality abilities to practice with.

  Before John could think anything through, he picked up a stray bunch of rope and walked straight over to the girl. "I have some here, too, if it's important." It felt like a lame, awkward approach, but it was the best he could do. He didn't want to let her leave.

  "Ah. It's just regular rope, but thanks." A bashful look flashed on her face as she took it. "I didn't want to make a mess out here, but I kept activating my ability on my left hand by reflex and slicing it off."

  "Well, the old lady who runs this place will kill you if you don't clean up." He hadn't expected someone of her level to care about littering. "So I think that's the right decision."

  Meili laughed, which gave him the confidence to reach for a handshake. She had a totally normal grip.

  Not as stuck up as I expected. "My name's John. I caught the end of your match – I've never seen anyone beat Zirian that easily. Which makes sense, I guess, because I don't think I've seen you around before. I'm guessing you're new?"

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "I am. But I'm staying here in the city for the summer, not transferring schools or anything," she said. "Why? Do you want to try taking Zirian's place?"

  "Oh. Uh, he's still a bit stronger than me for now, so I don't think I'd do any better." He waved his hands in front of his face, feeling unbalanced in a way he hadn't felt since he was a low-tier. He conveniently ignored that the gap between himself and Zirian was probably larger than what separated Zirian and Meili. "I just wanted to ask if you could - well, I guess it'll probably be easier if I just show you."

  John activated his ability. It was a vague, faint sensation like always, but he could feel himself using his recent memory of Zirian's Crescent Slash to trigger a pattern of aura through his body. He concentrated, stiffened his muscles, and 'locked in' the pattern. Wisps of amber aura materialized into a crescent of black energy on his forearm.

  He grimaced, recognizing the copy was just as imperfect as usual. He deactivated it.

  "It's called Aura Manipulation. I use it to copy abilities. Your ability seems really strong, and I don't know if I'll ever meet anyone with a similar one, so it would be cool if you could help me copy it. I just need to see it a few times to get familiar."

  Meili was silent, staring at the place on his forearm where he'd formed the energy crescent. Then she was suddenly right next to him, within a hand's width, and John clenched his jaw in reflex…

  But she didn't slice his stomach open for the audacity. She was only shaking his shoulders.

  "Aura Manipulation!" She smiled, red hair swaying in the wind as she stared brilliantly at him. "This must be my lucky day - I've been searching for so long - you have no idea how fantastic this is! Aura Manipulation!"

  For some unknown reason, she pronounced the name like it had some kind of top-secret, sacred meaning. She let go of his shoulders to cup his chin, almost like a doctor checking him for swells in his neck. "Wait just a second. Let me make sure you're saying what I'm thinking. You do the thing where you change the aura distribution patterns in your channels to copy other people's patterns - the same patterns that everyone else spends their whole life trying and failing to adjust a single millimeter?"

  He hesitated for a second but nodded. Meili pumped a fist and separated from him, probably realizing he couldn't talk with hands on his face.

  "I don't really control it like that," he said, confused. "It's more of an instinctual thing. A lot of the time, my version is worse than the original, and most of my training is getting better at making perfect copies. But other than that… I think so?"

  He couldn't tell if she'd heard him. She was tapping rapidly on the phone she must have pulled from somewhere in her dress.

  "This is amazing. I spent so much time searching online, getting nothing but rumors and dead ends, and then I run into you. A one-in-a-billion chance, lucked into just like that." She looked at him again, blinking. "Sorry, I bet this is pretty confusing, right? I should give you some context."

  John couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone so happy. "Please."

  "I guess I should start with the fact that I'm interning at this company called NxGen. That's why I'm here for the summer. It's a really big biotech company, but my program is specifically about studying aura in the human body. Aurology."

  She used her phone to show him a picture of her employee card, with a displayed level of 4.2.

  "A lot of research in the field has been stuck for about a decade, so I've been thinking that the key is studying Aura Manipulation. In the same way Earth Manipulation revolutionized older architecture. Then I get told that the ability might as well be a myth, and I start thinking of giving up - but here you are!"

  He was nodding along, though it was enough information that he wasn't sure he got all of it. At the very least, he understood this was a chance to learn about his ability; he'd never found any information on it no matter where he searched. What it meant to have his ability 'studied' was unclear, but having something Meili wanted was probably good news.

  "So you think I can help you with some kind of research?" he asked.

  "I know you can," Meili replied. "You said you're weaker than Zirian right now… But your ability is fundamentally so much stronger! Correct me if I'm wrong, but does that mean you got it recently? I mean, are you a late bloomer?"

  If the business card had read 2.2 instead of 4.2, he might have gotten angry at her for using the term. Instead, he said, "I am."

  She seemed just as happy, maybe happier than before. John felt confused again. "Is it good or bad that I am?"

  "It means we can help each other out," she said confidently. "You can help me with my research, and I'll gladly help you grow your ability. You can copy mine as much as you want. With a late bloomer's growth rate - and if I'm right about the way your ability works - I bet I could get you to high-tier by the end of the summer."

  Meili smiled, staring at him with a shine in her violet eyes. The unbelievable claim she was making, along with the honest intensity of her stare, gave him a strange rush.

  "Are you serious?" he said. "That kind of growth is… First of all, what do you mean by 'the way my ability works?'"

  Whatever she meant, it didn't seem like she was lying. She grasped his hand.

  "Do you have time?" Meili asked. "I can explain everything over lunch."

  .

  .

  .

  Let me tell you how it works for everyone else.

  Every ability is the result of the pattern of aura distribution through your body. You're born with your pattern, and whenever you grow, you're really learning to work with that pattern more effectively.

  Even for god-tiers?

  How much aura you have is also a factor, but yes.

  Charlaine Phi's Sunray Beam is an 8.2. All the research says her distribution patterns are close to a 2.8 Laserblast. I met a god-tier girl with Time Manipulation once, and I'm sure even she has fixed aura patterns. Just really, really complicated ones.

  But you think I'm different, somehow.

  I do. Maybe your distribution pattern is so complex that it lets you simulate others, but I don't think that's it.

  With all 'Manipulation' abilities, like Earth Manipulation, what they have in common is flexibility. I think you don't have a pattern at all. Maybe your pattern is whatever you want.

  But I need recent memories of the ability to copy it.

  You've only had your ability for a year. I'm sure it's easier to use that way.

  Still. At the end of the day, how do you really know what you 'need?'

  ...............

  I guess that makes sense. You research Aura.

  But I don't see how this helps me get better at copying.

  Maybe it won't. But I don't think your copying has to get any better.

  I know people with similar abilities who are way apart in strength. In the same way, when you copy Zirian, your version is worse. Probably because your pattern is different. If you can be different in a worse way, why not in a better way?

  Would that be any easier than copying someone?

  I don't know. It could be that focusing on being exactly the same is blocking other options from you - it's just one idea of what someone with 'Aura Manipulation' should be able to do. There's a chance I'm wrong.

  You have other ideas.

  I do. Some abilities focus most of their effect on a part of your body. Kicking abilities, for example. Have you ever wondered if you could use two abilities simultaneously if they target different body parts?

  Strong Kick and Stone Fist are good examples. The two distribution patterns wouldn't get in each other's way much. I think you could do it as long as you have enough aura.

  That makes it sound so simple. I have to concentrate just to feel my aura.

  Most people can't feel it at all. Their aura isn't dense enough anywhere in their body. Even I can only feel it in my hands.

  But you can feel it through your whole body, can't you?

  ..............

  What do you need my help with?

  .

  .

  .

  Needless to say, John saw Meili's ability and got to mimic it. He got a lot more than just that.

  Her phone number. An apartment address in the highest-tier part of the city to visit 'whenever he wanted.' An offer to meet up again on Sunday. A convincing theory for how his ability worked.

  After she left the little diner he'd taken her to, late in the afternoon, he walked back home on a pair of weak, lifeless legs. His father was out of town again, so he spent the rest of the day lying on his bedroom floor and just thinking. His phone rang with a few calls, probably Claire or Adrion, but he ignored them. They weren't important now.

  It was his first time in forever not training on a Saturday, but he didn't even care. Just like he didn't care about 'perfectly copying' Zirian's Crescent slash anymore. Perfect copies would be nothing but party tricks if he could use multiple abilities at once, or enhance one beyond the original, like he was beginning to suspect he could.

  Meili's ideas felt more and more right the longer he sat with them.

  He started regretting spending so much of the past year on combat analysis and not enough on aura theory. It was a minor thing compared to the excitement he felt. His previous goal had been to fill a cup perfectly, but there was a good chance he'd been trying to fill it with water meant to fill a swimming pool.

  When John woke up the following morning, he looked out his window toward the summer sky. He smiled at it. For once in his life, he had the feeling that he'd lucked into something he didn't deserve.

  ***Beautiful***

  "John?" She knocked on his door a few times. "Hello? Are you home?"

  Nothing. Claire Campbell groaned into her phone. She rang the doorbell again, attempting her second call in a three-minute span, but she was angrily certain that neither would be successful. John wasn't answering.

  When someone who could see the future called you ten times in two days, it was probably a good idea to pick up the phone. The lack of response was infuriating. She understood better than anyone that her Clairvoyance was inconsistent, but that didn't mean it was useless. Some of her visions were pointless, and most were only marginally helpful – but Claire got a glimpse of something important every few months. In those rare moments, at least, she expected to be listened to. If not because he wanted advice for avoiding the terrible fate in his future, then because she was his friend and she was obviously worried about him.

  John hadn't been doing much listening lately. This wasn't an isolated incident, more like another point along a trend she didn't like.

  The source of her stress was a vision, like usual. Yesterday afternoon, it had forced itself onto her mind in the middle of her Finals' studying – Claire had failed to control the ability activation and got sucked into the scene.

  It was of a slightly older-looking John strapped into a chair, with wires and intimidating technology fastened to every limb. He'd been asleep in the vision, neck bent as he rested his cheek on his shoulder, while a pretty girl with red hair and violet eyes stood at his side. She was drawing his blood into a large syringe. A middle-aged man with blue, messy hair and dark eye bags sat farther away, tapping rapidly at a computer.

  The vision had been in a dim, windowless room that looked like some kind of lab, one Claire was sure she'd never seen before. She could hardly guess what John could be there for, or if he was there of his own free will. It had looked a lot more shady than an official checkup.

  And the red-haired girl had smiled a little too giddily once the syringe was full. "Finally," she'd said, and high-fived the man as the vision faded from Claire's mind.

  Back in reality, the call went to voicemail. Nobody answered the door. Claire let out a sigh and gave up, committing herself to having a long, serious talk with him at school come Monday.