"I'll teach you a simple one first." Katrina's hand glowed, and a basketball-sized radiant sphere materialized above her palm. She tossed it at Mika, whose eyes widened.

"Wha-"

Katrina pulled back her extended arm. The orb swerved away from Mika and returned to Katrina's palm as threads of smoke.

"If you can control where your sphere goes, you can hit your target more easily. It also helps you avoid friendly fire."

Mika nodded, her face dull. A maneuverable explosive orb? Couldn't it be something cooler and stronger?

"Nobody learns something advanced without mastering the basics beforehand," Katrina reminded.

Mika gasped. Not even Brandon could read her that accurately!

"You have to know that I'm a mother to a nineteen-year-old boy. My son joined Kutaba Ryu Meditation Course, but he kept complaining about how dull it was to learn the basic breathing techniques."

"And then?"

"He wanted to quit, but I told him that it'd be his loss." Katrina shrugged. "Then I explained how the meditation could calm one's mind and help improve one's memory, which would be useful for a student like him. He eventually changed his mind."

Mika's jaw dropped. "Wow. If he has gotten a folk when the mist outbreak happened-" Seeing tears in Katrina's eyes cut her off.

"Then he'd have been here, practicing his powers and sparring with you." She wiped off the tears from her eyes. "Now, conjure a sphere."

Smiling a bit, Mika nodded. Katrina reminded her of Brandon whenever he decided to open up a bit about his relationship with her mother. He had always redirected Mika into something else before she could question him further.

"Focus!" Katrina scolded.

"Oops!" Mika reached out her hand and concentrated. A pulsating orb of light materialized above her palm, growing bigger with each passing second.

Once it reached the size of a basketball, Katrina told her, "Look at the sphere and form a connection with it."

Mika complied. Soon, it felt as though the sphere formed an invisible rope that bound itself with her brain. Her head throbbed and tears welled in her eyes, threatening to make her blink, but she pressed on. I'm not that weak.

"Feel something in your head?"

Mika nodded.

"Now, your sphere's direction depends on where you're looking at. You look up, it goes up. You look down, it goes down. Try moving it up and down slowly."

Mika nodded again and looked up. The sphere rocketed to the ceiling.

"I said slow-"

Boom!

Debris and droplets of water rained down into the shed, at which they jumped away. A gaping hole rested on the ceiling, its edge charred and smoking.

"Try again," Katrina spoke, stern as a math teacher. "Remember, slowly."

"Okay." After performing the sphere conjuring and bonding steps again, Mika slowly looked up and guided the sphere to the ceiling. Her eyes didn't hurt, but the excessive tears blurred her vision and began rolling down her cheeks.

She blinked.

The sphere plummeted. Mika scrutinized the orb, hoping to bond with it again, but it returned to her hand as wisps of smoke.

"Thank Orion for reabsorbing it before it could blast your feet."

Mika wiped the tears off her eyes and cheeks. "Mrs. Katrina, how can I stop my eyes from watering?"

"You're still a rookie, girl. If you keep trying, your eyes will get used to it."

"Um..." Mika turned away. Just as she thought of abandoning this new power, her mind went back to when she was still a skinny wimp. Pull-ups hurt her hand, and she had fallen off several times and even thought of giving up. However, Brandon - just like how Katrina convinced her son to continue the meditation course - urged her to keep going.

She looked at her remaining arm and smiled. Her biceps would never be as big as Brandon's, but it was enough to make some slum thugs reconsider picking on her.

"You're not giving up so soon, are you?" Katrina asked from behind her.

"I'm not." Mika reached out her hand and spawned a sphere. After staring at it and feeling the binding sensation in her head, she looked up very slowly. Tears welled in her eyes again, but not enough to even pose a threat. The orb drew closer and closer to the ceiling.

"Bring it down to eye level. Then turn to the shed's entrance and hit the sphere to throw it out."

"Hit it?"

"It won't blast you. You're connected to it."

Mika looked down. Once the orb hovered before her tear-filled eyes, she swatted it away. It slammed into the wall beside the doorframe and exploded. Luckily, no water droplets poured in via the new hole thanks to the calming rain.

"Your aim needs more work," Katrina commented. "Keep in mind that hitting the sphere hard will speed it up, strengthen its impact, and increase its travel distance, but you may lose your connection to it. If you aren't so sure about your aim, you can just hit your sphere lightly to retain your control."

Mika turned to Katrina. "Can I recall the sphere if I launch it too far?"

Katrina nodded. "Simply pull back your hand."

"I see." Mika stroked her chin. "Oh, I get it. If I want to move it left, right, up, or down, I'll have to use my eyes. If I want to launch or recall it, I'll have to use my hand."

"You're sharp. Well, I have a challenge." Katrina walked towards the entrance of the shed and stood still. "Try directing a sphere out of this shed without hitting me." She pointed at the opening on the ceiling and the wall. "No cheating with those holes."

"I'm ready." Mika conjured a luminescent orb and stared at it. Once the sphere had cast an invisible rope to bind itself with her brain, she looked up slowly. Then she hit it like a volleyball player performing a serve.

When the sphere drew closer to Katrina's face, Mika looked up again. The sphere went up while moving ahead, grazing Katrina's long ears before exiting the shed and disappearing in the dying drizzle. The binding rope released Mika's brain.

Looking at the patch of singed fur and burned flesh at the tip of Katrina's ears, Mika frowned. "I failed the challenge."

"Your problem was in the timing." New flesh and fur grew to cover Katrina's wounds. "You should've looked up sooner."

"Um, if you don't mind, can I try again?"

"Sure."

Just as Mika reached out her hand, Katrina whirled. Since the rabbit woman blocked the view from the shed's doorless entrance, Mika shifted her gaze to the big hole beside the doorframe. A man in red hovered towards the shed, his blond lightning-shaped pompadour standing firm despite the night breeze. He had a teal electric guitar in his hands.

"Billy!" Smiling broadly, she rushed towards the cavity. "You're okay!"

"I knew those explosions would lead us to you." Billy twirled his guitar in the air as he approached Mika. "By the way, my guitar is now back in shape." After scanning Mika from head to toe, he gasped. "Your left arm! It's missing!"

Mika's smile remained, although it wasn't that broad anymore. "Mrs. Katrina told me that it can grow back someday if I keep training hard." She conjured a radiant orb and held it in front of Billy's shocked face. "I've learned to use Orion's power with my other arm, too." Then the sphere retreated into her palm as threads of smoke.

"Billy..." Katrina spoke from behind Mika. "Jyuji mentioned your name earlier."

Billy grinned. "Yeah. I bet my buddy must've told you the good things about me."

"Never!"

Behind Billy, Jyuji walked towards them with a bulky plastic bag in each of his hands. Mika grinned at the sight; it reminded her of her mother when she had just done shopping although Jyuji was a humanoid dragon.

Katrina stroked her chin. "Hmm, I wonder how a dragon can shop so much, especially in an elite region such as Metaslica."

Jyuji glowered at Billy. "This specter boy pulled a prank in a bakery. He poked his head out of the floor and scared all the workers there. Then he made a promise to not bother them again in exchange for some offerings."

Billy snickered. "Well, you wanted to get some food for your friends without drawing unwanted attention, so I just did what I could to help you."

"The hell? I want all the bread for myself!"

Mika chuckled. "But Mr. Jyuji, you're an undead like Brandon. Undead can't eat."

Jyuji flung the bags, which went through Billy's body and landed before Mika's feet. "Enjoy your dinner, missy. Next time, you gotta gather food by yourself."

"Funny how undead creatures are a trend in the state, yet many citizens are afraid of ghosts." Billy put his guitar down and glided through the wall. "I guess this is the reason why. You can whack, shoot, or burn an undead man to death, but none of those methods works against a ghost."

"Oh?" Smoke gushing out of his nostrils, Jyuji pointed at Billy's guitar. "Can I try burning this? I heard it's very effective against you, specter boy."

"You won't dare, buddy."

Mika laughed softly at the two. She wouldn't want to imagine what would become of Billy if she had insisted on slaying the dragon... Well, could she defeat Jyuji anyway? She couldn't even beat David, who seemed to be much weaker than Jyuji.

"Go have your dinner." Katrina placed a furry hand on Mika's shoulder, prompting her to turn. "It'll replenish your blood supply."

"Then we'll continue training?"

Katrina nodded. "Go now."

Mika grabbed the bags and retreated to the corner, feeling a little heavier on one side. Sitting down, she opened the heavier bag and looked into the contents. A pistol with a red cross on its barrel rested atop a few big bottles of water.

Her Puppy Fang had returned. Picking it up and glancing over her shoulder, she shouted, "Thanks for getting my gun back, Mr. Jyuji!"

Jyuji snorted. "I get it! Now, eat!"

Mika chuckled. After putting down her pistol beside her, she reached out for the other bag and looked into it. The sausage buns, garlic toasts, cheese croissants, and ham sandwiches within pushed saliva out of her mouth.

What the hell? Even though she hadn't eaten anything for twelve hours, she'd never be this sloppy.

Orion, you're messing around with my salivary glands, aren't you?

Orion didn't answer, but Mika would take it as a "yes," especially when her hand moved by itself to snatch a sausage bun. One bite tore off half of the bread, and she had only chewed it for a second or two when Orion made her swallow the food. For some reason, the crude mass went down her throat without a fuss.

It took only a few minutes to empty the bags and the bottles of water. A typical human would feel stuffed after devouring so many buns in a short time, but Mika felt energy surging across her body instead. She hopped to her feet and dashed towards Katrina, eager to resume her training. The rabbit woman was speaking to Jyuji, but she quickly turned when Mika drew closer to her.

"You look brighter after eating," Katrina commented, "but we'll delay the training. Jyuji has a plan."

Mika blinked. "Plan?"

"The mist incident began three months ago. I doubt David injected himself with a folk as soon as the outbreak happened, because it usually takes at least a month to domesticate an aggressive folk. That leaves David with at most two months to practice his folk's power," Katrina explained. "David didn't have a head start like me, but he could wield his powers masterfully like the elites in the mist alliance. On top of that, I've never heard about David's presence in the misty region."

"You mean, it's like he has trained for more than two months?"

"Yeah, he gotta have some kind of training chamber that goes outside the natural flow of time," Jyuji replied. "We need to make him talk."

"Is it actually possible to have such a thing?" Mika asked.

"What's impossible when there are Methuselah folks involved?"

"That being said, it wouldn't hurt to travel to the east to seek assistance from Gatou Gang," Katrina added. "Aside from it being the biggest mafia organization in the state right now, their leader is on good terms with David."

Mika's expression darkened. Last year, they had visited the organization. Their leader, Richard Wong, had agreed to help them in their journey, but only because they shared the same goal: stopping the Methuselah's invasion. Wong's motive of fighting the aliens was none other than saving his drug empire.

After a few seconds of silence, she murmured, "You think they'll help us?"

"You think the mist is good for Mr. Wong's drug business? Fewer humans, fewer clients, ain't it?" Jyuji replied. "Also, we stopped the Methuselah invasion for them and left a good impression. If the university really hides something as grand as a time-bending stuff, Mr. Wong will definitely persuade David into granting us access to it. It's the key to make us grow stronger and stop the mist."

Mika frowned. "But what about Brandon? We can't just leave him alone."

"When he learns what David has done to you, he'll go nuts and break free from David's grasp with ease. After that, this specter boy will lead him to us."