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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 6
Axle's Apartment, [30th October, 2006]
–Axle Riddle–
He never really got people's obsession with Halloween, he thought to himself as he looked out his apartment window and saw the numerous people already on their way somewhere in their costumes. The whole tradition was nice and all but the way it was commercialised and then slutified by the young generation was not something he was happy about. Of course, that might also be because he himself never really got the chance to indulge in the "slutty" part of the Halloween that college students celebrated. He may still be a little bit salty about him being a nerd in his college days. In his defense though, being a nerd is what got him the job with the highest offer, well, save for Stacy but her dad owned the firm so that did not count in his mind. Look at him now. He was now over 6ft of chiseled muscle and he didn't even workout all that much. Now, his main focus was on his mind and the prowess he could squeeze out of his telekinetic powers. That didn't mean that he neglected his body though. Though vastly diminished, he had realised that there was some effect on his body when he continued to eat vast amounts of fast food but it was so negligible that he could have continued that lifestyle, provided he also ate food that had actual nutrients in them and exercised. His focus was on his mind so he just cooked at home with all the nutrition he could possibly need just like he used to do before he was brought here.
Speaking of his mind, he had made astounding progress in the past couple of weeks with complete focus on his telekinesis. So far, his spatial awareness had expanded to roughly 1 mile in every direction so that was a big jump. He had also gotten a sense that his lifting capacity had grown stronger but he didn't know by how much. He had not checked his previous limit so he didn't have a frame of reference but just as an experiment, he tried to lift something really heavy right at the edge of his awareness range and found himself struggling to lift a small sedan that was parked on the side of the road. He did it at night so nobody would realise anything but even after struggling with all his might, he was barely able to lift the rear of the car, which was not much since most of the weight of the car was in the front. He was not disappointed though. It just meant that he would have to be creative when exercising his powers at the end of his awareness range.
In his direct visual line, he could probably lift cranes with ease because stopping lifting multiple cars and then bringing them back down while also destroying the car's internals was like child's play for him. He had figured that out when last week, he had been drinking coffee in the morning while sitting by his window when a car chase was happening right on his street which was odd since, usually, the traffic took care of such car chases in their infancy. He had then just looked at the car and nearly spilled his coffee when he realised the amount of money they had looted was kept in the trunk and in the bags they kept with themselves. Those guys probably had looted a bank so like a good citizen, he just lifted the car with his mind and then, after scrambling the transmission and removing two of the four tires, he safely deposited the robbers to the police who were gawking at the flying car. Of course, he also completely crushed their guns before doing so. He did not want a shootout to happen because the police felt threatened.
That was the beginning of his public debut, as he liked to call it that way. After that, he made sure to make overt rescues wherein people would recognise that something was happening and the world at large would recognise him. He had already gotten himself a job and it was awesome. Apparently, this cute couple a couple blocks down had a bakery that served the best croissant in this neighbourhood and were looking to hire someone who spoke English well because both of them were retired immigrants who spoke broken English and were well aware of the discrimination. So, he had just waltzed into their bakery and after a very short interview, he was hired. He was paid more than minimum wage, which was all he needed to hear before he signed up for it.
It had been over a week since he joined Mrs.Sanchez in her bakery at 5 in the morning to help in the kitchen. She was a little old Spanish lady who loved to feed him with so much food that if it were not for his constitution, he probably would have turned into an obese person in a couple of months.
His daily routine was so sorted now. He woke up early in the morning, at 4 AM, and then went for a short job, while practicing his powers at the same time. He had a bout of inspiration one day and decided to exert some pressure on himself while running so he could finish his workout faster. The first attempt, well, let's just say that one should not be exerting that much pressure anywhere near their spine and he found out about it the hard way. Thankfully, as soon as he felt pain, his focus wavered and his powers deactivated, otherwise he probably would have been crippled by his own actions.
How embarrassing would that have been?
He then decided to mimic some weights that he had seen people put on their bodies while running. So far, he could do 2 miles while putting all that weight on his ankles and chest. It was a pretty good workout because he was done in 20 minutes and he was also able to get a deeper scan of the area under his spatial awareness.
There must be some sort of connection between his powers growing and his body growing stronger because, at the beginning, he could barely do a mile before his body gave out but now he could do 2 miles with relative ease. He resolved to check that out sometime later on.
So far, even while working, he had stopped 2 murders, and 5 muggings while closing the bakery, and broken up a fight between 5 people by just separating them and keeping them suspended in thin air. He knew that it was risky for him to do something like this, in public, because there was a chance that he could be tracked down, especially by the likes of SHIELD or by someone who was sufficiently advanced but also curious, like Tony Stark but he had been assured by the ROB that he would not be emitting psionic energy like most telekinetics and thus would appear as a normal human with an enhanced body to all of their scanners, shielding him from someone who might want to track him.
He was getting traction, as far as he could see, because the photo of the cars being lifted and the 5 people being suspended in thin air had gone viral, prompting some of the locals to think about some sort of supernatural entity that resided in Manhattan.
Of course, with the good, came the bad. There were outcries and exorcism regimes being done right around the block to exorcise the bad spirit that lingered on in the mortal world.
He scoffed at them and then went back to work. He was the single employee at the front and that was fine because he was more than capable of multitasking and handling anybody, on top of being confident because of his powers. Most of the time, Mrs.Sanchez's goods were purchased by the nearby hotels instead of regular customers so for the afternoon at least, the bakery was pretty much empty. There was some rush in the evening but the bakery was pretty chill for most of the day and he liked that very much. It was calming even though his mind could sense every bit of the mayhem that was happening outside.
"Here's your paycheck, sweetie. There are sweets in the fridge already packed for you, don't forget those. Good night Axle," Mrs.Sanchez, as usual a whirlwind, handed him his paycheck, patted him on the cheek, reminded him about his daily dose of goodies, and left the store through the back. Yeah, the retired couple didn't stay up until 7 so they pretty much left the bakery at 3 in the afternoon. He also closes up shop pretty early, around 7 so that was fine for him. After that, he goes home and cooks a nice slow dinner for himself and after eating that, he just drifts off to sleep.
Apparently, he did not have the problem that he expected to have. He did not have any trouble in just switching off his powers, somehow. He had thought that he would be plagued by the feedback of sensing everything that would happen in his awareness range but apparently, the same fog that limited his range was also very helpful in that regard. Before sleeping, he just pulled the fog closer to him, for lack of a better term. He pulled it so close that his powers were limited to just his bedroom. He was paranoid about it at first but now, he was fine with it, after not sensing anything abnormal happening for the first two weeks.
Tomorrow was Halloween and he knew that there was some truth to the walls between the dimensions weakening on this day and spirits and demons coming to Earth so he was pretty psyched to see if his powers worked on them as well. He was also looking to see if he could find some way to gain the portal ability of those Sorcerers. If he could just get that, he could open a portal to some location and then expand his spatial awareness through that portal. He probably could have knocked on the New York Sanctum but his last experience with the Vishanti had left him pretty scarred, mentally.
He did not want to feel that powerless ever again. So, he practiced his powers almost every waking hour and he could feel the tangible difference. If he could go on at the same pace, he would have enough spatial awareness range to cover the entire island of Manhattan in a year. That was pretty exciting because Manhattan is very huge and being able to exert his influence on an area that huge was already making him have a power complex of some sort. Then, he remembered the true movers and shakers of the universe, and then his ego was promptly shattered into pieces.
"Alright, time to lock up," He blinked as his phone alarm rang at 6:45 PM. Apparently, there was not a single customer all evening and since he was pretty much lost in thought and in his powers, he didn't even feel the passage of time. So, he locked up the store which was very easy since he made generous use of his powers in that regard, after confirming the lack of cameras, of course, and then went on his way home.
He had done the grocery haul for the week and couldn't wait for the clock to strike midnight. He was going to go on a spirit hunt tonight.
Let's just hope that the demons give him some trouble, at least.
You can read upto 5 extra chapters on my P*treon. It is the same name as my username,