Advanced task completed. It was a few minutes past 2am and I felt tired so I turned off the lights and fell asleep. Moments later I was wide awake and in my living room and it was sunny outside - this obviously came across as a strange phenomenon because from my perspective, it felt like I had just fallen asleep only a few seconds ago. I was a bit confused so I walked around the room a little bit whilst fidgeting with something in my hands. As my thumb brushed my index finger, a bright crimson spark formed. I was speechless... (well.. I wasn't speaking in the first place). I concentrated and tried to reproduce that same effect again but to no avail. I clapped my hands together and a bright spark formed again. After a few minutes of trying and failed so I starting clenching my fists in frustration. Then I felt a searing pain between my fingers. I was suprised to see that my right palm was charred. I was suddenly hit by a thought - "Have I somehow learned how to generate fire at will? ... Nah don't be ridiculous, if I could then how come I can't do it now?" After a while I thought about the fire triangle (a model for understanding the basic ingredients of fire - which is fuel, heat and oxygen). I realised that everytime I generated a spark, it was caused by friction (the act of rubbing my fingers together) or when I absorb kinetic energy. After realising this, I snapped my fingers as well as I could and thought "IGNITE" at the same time and a huge pillar of flame erupted outwards, seemlingly from nowhere, and tore a gigantic whole through the walls of my living room. Normally, seeing my house reduced to this sort of state would cause me to go mental but for some reason I couldn't stop smiling. I felt pretty happy with myself. Now this part I found very peculiar because it felt as if I was in the dream for weeks on end when I woke up. Now back to the story: After what felt like weeks of "training," a notion just randomly popped into my head - By rubbing my fingers together, I was actually manipulating the concentration of oxygen in the air surrounding, raising its density to a level at which it becomes combustible and creating narrow pathways of oxygen through which I can direct the ensuing flame birthed by the spark. So I was in fact controlling both fire and air, as these elements are so intertwined. I can't really remember what happened after I had this idea in chronological order. For some reason I was at Mt. Rushmore (where the faces of several US Presidents are sculpted onto the cliff-face) at sunset out of the blues a ninja with glowing eyes started attacking me. He moved towards me in order to strike me with his sword. I barely managed to get out of the way. As I snapped my fingers he waved his sword briefly and stopped me from creating a fire. So all I could do was try to dodge his attacks. I felt the gust of wind caused by the insanely fast motion of the sword everytime it approached me. The quick slashing of his sword must be changing the air current, disrupting the ignition reaction. I felt scared... I couldn't manipulate the air's composition when its constantly in flux. Even if I managed to pull off a flame, it wouldn't have any accuracy. He moved in once again, this time for the killing blow. I crouched and placed my hands firmly on the ground beneath me and started melting it. Almost instantaneously, the ground ahead of me became a an unstable molten mass and he sank right into it. The next thing I knew, I was in my bed and it was morning.
Updated 07-01-2012 at 09:49 PM by 45106
Note: Something really strange happened, it seems there is a piece of Asuka's soul in someone else's body… uh… She said she did that when she wasn't sure if she might die from the illness Walms put in her. I was put off a bit by that since there has not been anything to date that we haven't been able to help her with, so that was her first resort? Regardless of my feelings about her doing it, the goal was to get that piece of her soul back and set the woman she had placed it in free. Nomad was also wanting to have some fun, so I was hoping to do something fun with him after we were done with that. I used my light / sound machine and slipped into a WILD… I am on the moon, in the biodome, near the koi pond. I look around to see if there is anyone else there, but I don't see anyone else right away. I walk around a bit, looking for someone, and I see a portal open. A man comes through the portal, he looks rather confused, then he asks me if he's on the moon. I tell him that yes, he is on the moon, and he seems to be very happy about that… so happy in fact, that he disappears into thin air… oops… he must have gotten too excited and woken himself up. I wait for a bit longer and find Nomad meditating just under the water level of the koi pond. That seems a bit odd, I have seen him meditate over the pond, but never under it… I go over to the edge of the pond and deliberately startle a fish into swimming right past him. The fish slaps Nomad in the face with its tail, snapping him out of his self induced trance. He surfaces and looks at the fish before looking over at me. Nomad says he had been meditating for a bit, I say I could see that, then I went over and gave him a big hug, thinking he would need it due to some difficulties he has been having in his waking life that I won't go into here since it's rather personal. Now that I have found Nomad, we can go to MoSh's inner world where Asuka and the other woman will be waiting. I open the portal and we both go through it. Nomad and I are in the yard in front of MoSh's house, and we go over to it. MoSh meets us there, he says he hadn't realized Nomad would be there, but that's good, just in case something got out of hand. I ask MoSh what he things might get out of hand, there doesn't seem to be an enemy involved here, just an old woman with a piece of Asuka's soul, and that old woman should be glad to be free of it rather than try to resist having it taken out. MoSh says that he just wants to make sure everything is taken care of in case something goes wrong. I decide that arguing about that would be extremely pointless, so I follow MoSh into the living room where Asuka is sitting on the couch and there is an older woman sitting beside her. The older woman has a sweet grandmotherly look to her, like the kind of grandmother that would be constantly spoiling the grandkids… She smiles, and that makes her look even more grandmotherly. I go over to the two of them, and both of them greet me at the exact same time. It is like a couple of twins in perfect sync, it seems a bit odd, really… I tell the two Asukas that we are here to make sure her soul is made whole again, and that all of it is returned to her own body. She says she knows and is ready, or rather both of them say that at the same time… It is a really weird effect… So the process goes very simply, and there are no interferences or little things going wrong… for once something is going as planned. I use the song Come Out and Play by the Offspring to separate the part of Asuka's soul from the other woman's soul, and as I am doing that, Nomad seems to actually reach into the older woman's heart and he pulls out a tiny glowing speck of light. It is like he is somehow holding a tiny miniature star in his hands, the light the star is putting off is beautiful. Nomad is handling it as if it is made of glass and it might break if it is handled too harshly, he carefully moves with it over to Asuka and holds it out towards her. The spark floats right out of Nomad's hand, seemingly of its own accord, and over to Asuka. It hovers in front of her briefly before merging into Asuka's chest. Asuka's entire body briefly glows and then the light is gone, contained within Asuka again. I can't help but be a little sorry to see the light go, but then I notice that if I look into Asuka's eyes, I can still see the spark, it is still in there. The older woman is looking very confused right now, she is looking around the room and asking where she is, she doesn't seem to have any memory of the time she was merged with a piece of Asuka's spark. She says she is lost, she doesn't know how she has gotten here, but could we possibly direct her back to her home? I ask where her home is, she says her home is in the old folks' home down on Timberline Drive. She says she should get back there soon, then she scoffs a bit and says it's not like anyone there has probably even noticed that she is gone. She says it's not like she gets any visitors in that dump, she continues muttering about her kids ignoring her and her grandkids not even knowing she's alive, and then she suddenly stops that and looks around at all of us. She apologizes for running on about her problems, when she is sure we will be wanting to get her out of our way as soon as possible. I tell her that's not true, I haven't even been around her long enough to be thinking such rude things, she says I should be glad. She says she might as well go home… her home is at the old folks' home down on Timberline Drive. She resumes muttering about not having any visitors and other stuff… the way she is muttering it she sounds rather funny, but then a single tear is rolling down her face, this apparently is affecting her more than she might admit. I am not sure if the woman's state of mind has anything to do with this, but Q appears and tells the old woman she will have to be checked out to make sure there were no ill effects from being merged with another person. He says there may be other things that can be done to help her, as well. She says she doesn't want any needle baring doctors, she gets enough shots at the home… which is where she lives, the home for old folks down on Timberline Drive. I notice that is the third time she has repeated the part about her home on Timberline Drive, and I wonder if she remembers saying it before. Q disappears with the old woman, then he reappears alone just a second later. He tells me that the old woman is in the moon tower with the docs, Janet, Maura, and Washu, she needs some help. He says her kids and grandkids were all killed in a fire a couple years back, and she was not willing to accept that, so she had built this fantasy that they had abandoned her in the home, which was somehow more comforting than the thought they are dead. He said she just seems to be a lonely old woman, but she will be cared for. I am listening to Q when I wake up.