Tales of the First

"There's something else," Sienna said. "When I touch Ryan it blocks the telepathic noise he's been having issues with. I'm not sure what to make of that."

"And I can still hear people if I listen for them," Ryan said. "But we only hear each other if we try. It's almost like our mental abilities are mirror images." He rubbed his head. "And now she's not holding my hand the noise is back though it's not as bad here."

"More likely she's extending her own mental shield around you subconsciously," Martin said. "She must have put it up instinctively so doesn't know how to get past it. I bet you can teach each other. Shall we try?"

"First we need some ice for Sienna's shoulder," he father said. "And then I want to take a look at Ryan. At least I assume he's having neurological issues like the other targets seem to have been? I've got a couple of cases at the hospital - those people have avoided attacking there for now - and I've been looking in to how to help them."

"Have you found anything?" Martin asked.

"Well it was a fair bet that the mist was involved so I reached out to colleagues at hospitals near some of the other affected areas and found out they've had similar cases. They are nervous about talking about the poltergeist activity around said patients but they have found that adapting post-stroke rehabilitation therapy works to a degree."

"You researched this?" Martin looked alarmed. "They'll be able to track that."

Her father snorted. "I'm sure they know the men I'm treating are at the hospital and a neurologist looking for similar cases won't provoke comment."

"Are you sure that you're okay?" Wendy asked when Sienna led her father, Charlotte and Ryan into the den area.

"My shoulder is a bit sore," Sienna said as she pulled off her mask. "But we're fine." She looked over at Ryan who was still clinging to her hand. "Well maybe not exactly fine but we're alive."

"Let's have a look at your shoulder," Robert said.

Sienna gently extricated her hand from Ryan's and pulled off her top, wincing as the movement made her shoulder twinge. Her father frowned and gently probed the bruised skin making her hiss.

"Well nothing is broken," he said. "Is that where the bullet hit you?"

"Yeah," Sienna said. "It felt like being hit with a bat."

"Interesting," Robert said. "It seems that your invulnerability is about as good as a good quality bullet proof vest with rifle plates. These powers? I take it that it was the mist?"

"Yes," she said. "I appear to have developed psychokinetic and broadcasting telepathic powers." She looked over at Martin when she remembered what had happened when she had given Charlotte a boost. "Oh, the psycokinesis seems to be enhancing my strength as well."

"You can say that again," Charlotte said. "She all but threw me through the loft hatch."

"Hmm... so you can lift heavier weights when you touch them and deflect more powerful attacks closer to your skin? I wonder if it's two different but similar powers or if your psychokinesis declines with distance."

"Ah," Sienna said. "What should we do?"

"Have your dad bring you to the base for now," he said. "We'll figure out what to do from there."

"Okay," Sienna said. "Let me get my bearings." She looked out of the car window and tried to figure out where they were."

"Where are we going?" her father asked.

"It's an old abandoned factory near the railway tracks," Sienna said. "It's not too far from home."

"Hmm... There's a couple it could be. But I assume you'll know the way once we get nearby."

"Yeah," Sienna said. "I will. Can I take the mask off yet?"

"No!" Robert and Martin said simultaneously.

"Okay," Sienna said.

"Ring off now," Martin said. "We don't want to be traced. See you soon."

Sienna rang off and looked out of the car window. Someting had been bothering her since they had left James' carlot. "Dad, am I supposed to think it was a coincidence you happened to stop at a carlot where the owner is a Martial Arts trainer?"

Robert gave a chuckle. "It wasn't exactly a coincidence but it wasn't planned either. James is an aquaintance. I met him in Afganistan when I was there with Médecins Sans Frontières and he was in the Royal Marines. When your mother called me I realised I was near his place and thought he might help. I wasn't expecting him to offer to train you but it is a good idea if you're determined to do this."

"I see," Sienna said. "You're taking this well, dad."

"Somehow I have a superpowered daughter," he said clinically. "I think I'm in shock and as soon as the adrenalin wears off I'll pitch a fit."

"Huh." Sienna stared at the man. She should probably thank him but words wouldn't come out and she was pretty sure that she was bright red under the mask. "I... Thank you!" she managed finally.

"You can't tell anyone about this," Robert said as he pulled out his wallet.

"No need," the man said. "We'll just check it over and if it's okay, put the plates back on and put it back on sale."

Sienna blinked at that and looked over at the white car. It was indeed lacking number plates.

"That was Mr Hanson's idea," her father said. "When I pulled in and asked if I could borrow a car to go and help incognito he said yes and took the plates off. I hadn't even thought of that."

"Call me James, please," he said. "And I just didn't want the car traced back to me if possible."

"You could have said no," Robert said.

"No," he said. "I couldn't. Not when everyone else is doing everything they can."

"Thank you..." Sienna paused as heard her phone ringing from the bag Charlotte was holding. "I'd better get that." Charlotte tossed her the phone and she answered it. "Hello?"

"Sienna!" Martin said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine but I can't talk right now. Give me five minutes and I'll call you back." She rang off and looked back at James. "Please don't tell anyone we were here." She knew that she could order him not to, but she still wasn't sure how persistant her orders were, and anyway it would be wrong.

"Speaking of costumes I think you should consider some sort of temporary costume if you are going to do this," Martin said.

"This?" Sienna asked. "You mean helping Ryan?"

Martin shook his head. "No, at least not just him. I know you, Sienna. Now the idea has been put in your head you'll decide to go looking for others even if you haven't thought of it yet."

Sienna hadn't. She'd been too focused on how to help Ryan but the moment Martin said it she knew he was right. She would have thought of the idea soon enough.

"Oh," she said. "You're probably right, but why a temporary costume."

"Something you can use to quickly conceal your identity if you come up against those men in the course of your search."

Sienna shuddered at the thought of such an encounter but it was a fair point. She swallowed back her fear and went and looked though her drawers before pulling out a black polo neck jumper and a pair of legging. "I-I'll need some sort of mask and some gloves."

"I have some gloves," Charlotte said. "I'll lend them to you tomorrow. The mask might be a bit more challenging. I suppose you could wear a balaclava."

"I'm not trying to look like a thug or a terrorist," Sienna said dryly.

"What about a halloween mask," Wendy said. "Do you still have that ghostly white one you wore last year?"

"That... that would work. And I think I do." She opened the bottom drawer of her chest of drawers and pulled out the white mask. It was a full head latex type with long white hair. "Not ideal, but it will do the job. I'll stick it all in a bag I can carry around though changing quickly might be a task."

"Thank you," Charlotte flopped back on the bed. "I still can't get used to this. How can people do what Ryan and Sienna can?"

"I don't know," Martin said. "But I'm pretty sure it's not because they are aliens."

"Hmm?" Charlotte gave him a curious look.

"Those guys with guns apparently think people like us are alien invaders," Sienna said. "That's why they are on this rampage."

"Oh!" Charlotte chewed her lip. "That's... Ryan's not an alien. Mum was there when he was born."

"I didn't think he was," Martin said. "But they do."

"I know," Charlotte said. "I hope it's not too late." She sat in silence for a few moments before looking at Lucy. "Could I see the designs for Sienna's costume please?"

Lucy laughed and pulled her designs out. "Initially I was going to try something like this." She showed Charlotte the original sketch that she had done. "But I decided that wasn't really as good as looked in the drawing when I mocked up the pattern so I decided to go with something that at least nods to fictional superheroes without making her look like an acrobat." She passed Charlotte another, better done sketch of a tailored but not skintight jumpsuit in the same black and indogo of the original design. It also had a short cape attached at the shoulders. Sienna had worried when Lucy first showed her that but apparently the cape would be attached with snap fasteners so it would come off if pulled, and she had to admit it looked cool in the drawing.

"I like the second design better," Sienna agreed. "The first looked a bit like a Star Trek uniform."

Martin arrived within half-an-hour of Wendy calling him even though she'd been very cryptic over the phone. He sat on the corner of Sienna's bed and watched Charlotte's video a couple of times. Then he sat there and frowned, chewing his lip.

"You say he can hear everyone's thoughts all the time?" he said.

Charlotte nodded. "That's what he says anyway and he could certainly hear our thoughts. He reacted quite badly when Dad wondered if the voices he was hearing were real or schizophrenia. Can you help him?"

"Possibly," he said. "If I can remember what mum told me she used to do do stop herself feeling everyone in a room. I know she used to meditate but I think she did something else as well."

"I don't think he could meditate in his current state," Charlotte said. "He can barely focus and it's getting worse."

Martin flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "He needs to be somewhere with less people. He's an introvert from what I remember so if I had to guess this is overstimulating him."

"I think hearing everyone at once would overstimulate an extravert as well," Sienna said dryly.

Martin nodded solemnly. "Yes, but likely not as badly." He watched the video again. "Poor kid. Maybe I should delay getting the dongles and have you bring him over tomorrow instead of waiting."

"I can get the dongles," Wendy said. "You try and help Ryan."

"Thanks, Wendy," he said, before squeezing Charlotte's hands. "I'm not going to swear everything will be okay when I don't know for sure but I do promise to try."

“Sienna!” Charlotte sounded somewhere between stress and panic. “You have to help me, please! I don't know who else to ask.”

“Breathe, Char,” Sienna said soothingly. “What's wrong.”

“It's Ryan… my cousin. He's like you. Well not exactly like you… Oh! I don't now how to explain this.”

“Char, you're not making much sense but this doesn't sound like something we should talk about on the phone,” Sienna said. “Can you come over to my place this evening or would you prefer to meet somewhere more neutral.”

“N-no, we shouldn't talk on the phone, should we?” Charlotte sounded like she had finally remembered to breathe but was still on the verge of tears. “Can I stay over? I'm too scared to be at home right now.”

Sienna stared at her phone. Obviously whatever was going on with Charlotte's cousin scared her more than Sienna did at the moment. “I'm sure mum and dad won't mind,” Sienna said. “Lu's already staying over. I'll call them to check and then call you back.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “I'll see you later.” She hung up.

“Charlotte wants to come over and visit you?” Wendy said. “That's quite the turn around. She was still terrified of you last time we spoke.”

“I think she still is,” Sienna said. “But it seems something else is scaring her more.” She told them what Charlotte had said before adding, “she sounded panicked.”

“Ryan? Is that the ginger one?” Lucy asked. Charlotte had a lot of cousins.

“I don't think so,” Sienna said. “I think Ryan has brown hair.”

“He does,” Wendy said. “He's the short, quiet one. I wonder what she meant by 'like you'? Do you suppose he has powers too?”

"Seems quite likely," Sienna said. "I guess we'll find out this evening."

"You did," Martin said. "So now let's see what the maximum you can lift and hold today is."

"Okay!" Sienna said.

Martin weighed another twenty-five grams of nuts and bolts and added them to the pile. "Try that."

Sienna concentrated for a moment and lifted them easily. They continued in the vein and she topped out at just over her two kilogram target. She grinned in delight when he announced that she has lifted two thousand and twenty-five grams.

"I told you I could do it today!" she said.

"You did," he agreed. "Do you think you could go higher?"

Sienna considered the question and checked her watch. "I think I could," she said. "But we're out of time. I need to get home. When shall we meet again?"

"I should be able to do your first fitting in a few days," Lucy said. "And it won't be long after that that I'll have the costume ready."

"I want to get at least two more training sessions in before then," Martin said. "I'd prefer to do them daily but I need to go into town tomorrow to buy dongles, so shall we say the day after and you promise to practice if you can do it safely." He looked over at Wendy. "And we need to do some suit checks before declaring it street ready. Shall we walk Sienna and Lucy home before coming back to do those."

"Of course I'll practice," Sienna said. "Shall we go?"

As they headed up the stairs towards daylight Sienna's phone started ringing. She looked at it and blinked in surprise. "Huh, it's Charlotte." She hesitated a moment before answering. "Hi, Char!"

"And you'd know that how?" Sienna asked mildly but she took the advice and tried to relax.

"Logic," Lucy said. "Tensing up rarely helps. When I was first learning to sew I would get all stressed and tense thinking I couldn't do it. Then the thread would get all tanlgled and everything would ruck up and I'd ruin what I was working on. Not good. Once I learned to relax and do everything smoothly it all worked.

"It does make sense," Martin said. "I can see your shoulders drawing in whenever you try this."

"I suppose it does." Sienna took few more cleansing breaths. "Okay, let's try this again." She lifted up the metal bits and began psychokinetically arranging them into a flower again. Except this time whenever she began to feel she was losing control she would stop and breathe until the stressed certainty she was about to drop them faded before continuing. It took longer but she was definitely getting further.

"Looking good," Martin said. "Halfway there."

Sienna paused and took another breath. "It's slow this way, but it is easier. Why is fine control harder?"  She went back to her task.

"I'm not sure," Martin said.

"It could be because it's more mentally sapping," Wendy said. "And since this is a task you're already using your already using your brain for it makes it harder."

"Makes sense," Sienna said as she put the last few bolts in the petals down and then placed the rest in the middle to make the centre of the daisy. "I did it!"

"Okay." Sienna concentrate and imagined scooping them up and holding them at eye level. It was only a few second before the bits of metal lifted off the floor and hover in front of her.

"Good!" Martin said. "Now lets see how your fine control is coming on. Float them over to table and put them down one at a time in the shape of a flower."

Sienna chewed on he lip in concentration. This was the difficult bit. She moved them over to the table with no trouble but she had only shaped a couple of petals on her flower before the rest slipped from her grip and clattered to the table. She gave a heavy sigh. "I hate this game!" she muttered.

"Don't look so disheartened," Martin said.

"I am disheartened," she said. "I can't seem to do this."

"You're getting better," he said reassuringly. "When you first tried this you could barely get to half a petal before dropping the rest."

Which was true in so far as it went but it was still the hardest of the exercises Martin had come up with for her.

Lucy walked over and looked at the half-created flower. "Try again," she suggested. "Repition is the key to success."

"I know," Sienna said. "It's just hard." She gathered up the nuts and bolts and started dropping them into the flower pattern.

"Breathe," Lucy suggested. "You're holding your breathe and you are so tense. I bet this would work better when you are relaxed."

Sienna checked her watch as she considered the question.

"Let's leave it," she said. "We've really only got time to see how my general strength and range are coming along before I have to go home, and I really want to see if it's improved again."

"That's fair," Martin said. "Well it's fairly safe to say that your pull and push strength is okay. Since you were pulling and pushing the nerf gun against Wendy's resistance, but it's not quite as heavy as you were dragging yesterday so we'll do a measured run in a bit and start with lifting. Let me fetch the stuff." He an into the other room and returned with two large bags of nuts and bolts and a set of scales. "Remind me how much you lifted yesterday?"

Sienna rolled her eyes at that. Martin knew exactly how much she had lifted yesterday. He'd been keeping notes and graphing her improvement to encourage her. "It was just over a kilo and a half," she said.

"It was fifteen hundred and twenty-five grams exactly," he said. "So let's aim to get over sixteen hundred grams today."

"Is that all?" Sienna said. "I'd like to try and reach two kilos today."

"Ambition is good," he replied. "But be careful. We don't know your limits yet and we don't want to overstress you."

"I'll be careful," Sienna promised.

"Good." Martin opened one of the negs of nuts and bolts and poured them on to the scale until the dispay read sixteen hundred grams. He dumped them on the floor in front of her. "Try lifting them for a start."

“I know it will,” Martin said. “But I'm sure you will manage it. I have faith in you.”

“Wouldn't it be better for her to put the safety on rather than try and hold the trigger against someone trying to use it?” Lucy asked from where she was perched on the exercise bike.

“Possibly,” Martin said. “But all guns are different and she'd need to know where the safety was on the gun she was facing. I'm looking into it but teaching her that would be difficult.”

“Well the guys we're most worried about are carrying AK-47s,” Lucy said.

Martin stared at her. “Are you sure?”

Lucy just shrugged. “Pretty much. That's the consensus anyway. Don't you read Youtube comments?”

“Not if I can help it,” Martin said. “Youtube comments are a wretched hive of scum and villany.”

Lucy chuckled at that. “Yes, but sometimes you find a really good ship there, or at least pertinent information.”

“So you think the comments are correct?” Wendy asked.

“Wikipedia says it's the most popular assault rifle and it looks right.”

“You googled it?” Martin asked sharply.

“Chill, Martin,” Lucy said. “I reckon half the town probably did, so it won't have attracted attention. But no, I didn't. My mum did. She can be a bit morbid sometimes and said that she wanted to know what might kill us.”

Sienna shuddered slightly at that. “So if it is an AK-47 can you get the schematics?”

Once we're back online, yes,” Martin said. “Now do you want to attempt stopping Wendy from pulling the trigger? Or shall we leave that until tomorrow?”

"Cricket balls!" Lucy said suddenly.

"Hmm?" Martin looked over at her with a puzzled frown. “Cricket balls?”

"We should upgrade to using cricket balls, both for her normal shield and this new thing. They'll hit with more force but still won't do too much damage if the shield fails. If she can stop those we can move on to even more forceful attack in gradual increments."

"That's a good idea," Martin said. "But we'll still need to be careful and avoid lethal force because if it turns out the shield gives all at once rather than stopping most of the force of an attack that could be fatal."

"The principal is good though," Wendy said. "We'll get some cricket balls before the next session." She hefted the Nerf gun. "For now lets move on with the next part of this session."

Trying to stop Wendy firing the Nerf gun at her was more fun than Sienna had anticipated, and by the time Wendy ran out of ammunition she had managed to knock the gun muzzle away from her on most occasions and even pull the gun from Wendy's hands a couple of times before the ammunition ran out.

"That went well," she said before realising that Martin was shaking his head. "What?"

"You need to actually stop her firing," he said. "If you knock a gun aside or grab it there's too much chance of it going off and hitting someone else. The whole idea is to stop the bullets flying around. You need to try and hold the trigger against her so she can't fire."

"I see." Sienna tutted at the ceiling. "That will be harder, but I'll try."

"You want me to hit you?" Martin tilted his head at her. "I do Mixed Martial Arts you know. Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Sienna said. "It's the only way I can think of to test it. Just be careful with the force. I'd rather neither of us be hurt."

"I will be." He punched her arm. Sienna wasn't much of a judge but it certainly didn't look like a strong punch, more like a friendly punch someone might aim at a friend's shoulder. However hard it was she felt nothing.

"Ow!" Martin rubbed at his hand. "That was like hitting a rock. I'm glad I didn't hit you any harder." He eyed her speculatively. "I think this is a manifestation of your psychokinesis as well. It's some sort of a shield that is right next to your skin."

"Can I turn it off?" Sienna asked. "This could be really awkward when I need a hair cut or if I ever have to have surgery."

"We'll look into that." Martin looked down at his hand. "But carefully."

"Why didn't the balls bounce." Lucy asked. "I mean they just stopped dead."

"It made my entire arm vibrate when I punched her," Martin said. "I think this shield is somehow reflecting the kinetic energy of whatever hits it back into the object. That's why the balls were damaged."

"I'm glad you didn't hit me harder then." Sienna frowned at the bruise starting to appear on his knuckles. "It could have broken your hand."

"Or worse," he agreed. "We'll figure it out. I just wish we could figure out a way to test the upper ranges of it safely."

Another ten minutes of more controlled tennis ball throwing and they were certain that it wasn't just a fluke. Each ball they tossed at her stopped less than a millimetre from her skin before dropping to the ground. Martin picked up one of the balls. This one was only dented rather then destroyed.

“Interesting,” he said. “It looks like the damage is proportional to the force the object is thrown.”  He frowned for a moment. “But you can still touch things.” He laid the ball on the table top. “Hit it.”

Sienna looked at him for a moment then slammed her hand down on the ball hard.  “Ow!” She rubbed her hand. “What did that prove?”

“That your conscious shield only works against things moving towards you not if you are the one moving.”

“So she can't be stabbed but she can be impaled?” Lucy asked.

“Let's not test that,” Sienna said.

“No, that wouldn't be safe but there are few things I'd like to check before we carry on.” Martin flicked some water at her. It hit her skin with a splat.

“Hey!”

“Well it doesn't appear to stop liquids,” Martin said. “And since you can still hear and breathe it probably doesn't stop gases either. Pardon me.” He reached out and touched Sienna's arm briefly. “It doesn't seem to interfere with touch. This is very curious.”

“Try and hit me,” Sienna said. “Not too hard obviously but a little punch so we can see if it stops that.”

Much to Sienna's delight she managed to stop all the tennis balls before they hit her. It was only the second time that she had managed that. Once Martin called a halt she gathered up the balls with her psychokinesis and floated them to the table next to Wendy before turning back to Martin who was grinning. “That went well--” She broke off as she felt a gentle breeze ruffle her hair when there was no wind in here. A split second later there was a dull thwap as something dropped to the floor.  Sienna turned and looked down to see the deformed remains of a tennis ball lying there. It looked like it had been squashed until it gave. She looked up at Wendy who was staring at it open mouthed. “What just happened?”

“I don't know,” Wendy said. “I wanted to see if I could sneak at least one past you but… well… did it even hit you?”

“I don't think so. It might have touched my hair.” Sienna picked up the remains of the ball and examined them. “Well this is new. It got closer than the ones I stop consciously but I've never stopped one unconsciously before and stopping them doesn't destroy them.”

“I'd guess pelting you with tennis balls every day has extended your ability.” Martin said. “Do you mind if we throw a couple more and you not try to stop them so we can test this?”

“I think we'd better. I want to know what's going on,” Sienna said.

“Hah! Yes!” Wendy sounded entirely too enthusiastic about that idea in Sienna's opinion. “Let's do this!”

“We should start with a warm up with the tennis balls first,” Sienna said.

“You just want to show off for Lucy,” Martin said. “But it's not a bad idea to check you've got that fully bedded in before moving on.” He ran back into the other room and returned with two new tubes of tennis balls which he opened before tossing a couple of balls to Wendy and Lucy.

“What do we do with these?” Lucy asked.

“Throw them at Sienna as hard as you can, of course.” Wendy said. “If it hits her we get a point if she stops it she does.” She threw one of her balls hard without warning obviously trying to catch Sienna off guard.”

“Nice try!” Sienna stopped the ball about half an inch from her nose. She pushed it back to Wendy with a thought. “You might have managed to surprise me if you hadn't thrown it at me when I was looking at you.”

Lucy gave a low whistle. “That's pretty impressive!” She threw one of her tennis balls and grinned as Sienna stopped that as well and sent it back to orbit Lucy's head like a miniature moon until the other girl grabbed it out of the air. “Cool!”

“Your control is improving,” Martin said. “Five minutes of this, I think. Then we can move on.” He set the stopwatch on his phone. “I'll keep score.”

“Yes, I'm thinking about a solution for that issue as well,” Martin said. “But for now this is what we've got. Shall we adjourn to the gym and try it.”

“You have a gym down here as well?”  Lucy asked incredulously.

“We have a third room with some weights and an exercise bike we've scavenged and fixed so we didn't have to buy it,” Wendy said. “But it's hyperbole to call it a gym.”

Lucy's eyes lit up. “I want to see. Improving a gym set up is something else I can help with.”

“Okay, it's not like we can buy more equipment,” Wendy said. “We don't want to do anything that might look like we're training in case it attracts attention.”

“Aren't you forgetting something?” Lucy's lips twitched. When Wendy just looked at her blankly she actually chuckled. “Athlete training for the national trials remember – once my lungs get better anyway. No one will bat an eyelid if I buy fitness stuff. Heck I have some old stuff in the attic that I can probably give you if you need it. You may not need as much as you think.”

“Oh!” Wendy said. “I never thought of that. Come on then.” She headed back to the second room and pulled aside another wall hanging to reveal a third room.

Lucy paused in the doorway checking the wall and the doorframe. “Okay, this looks sturdy. You could easily put a pull-up bar here. That would be a good start.” She surveyed the room. “Okay so you have an exercise bike and some free weights. This is pretty good. I'll bring you books on bodyweight exercise and suggested  plans over next time. For now shouldn't you be trying to shoot Sienna?”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Wendy said. “But it doesn't work much like a real gun either.”

“Yes, I'm working on that bit,” he said. “But the main idea with this is to stop Sienna freezing if someone points a gun at her. She needs to react faster than they can pull the trigger because I really doubt she's faster than a bullet unless she can wangle superspeed out of her psychokinesis somehow but she can probably be faster than a finger.” He paused thoughtfully. “Actually some sort of psychokinetic superspeed might be possible, let me think about it.”

“Let me get a handle on the powers I already have before trying to add more, Martin,” Sienna said dryly.  “And that thing is bright orange. I'm not going to freeze having a toy gun that shoots foam bullets pointed at me.”

“Fair comment, that's why once you've got the hang of it we'll paint it black to look more like a real gun.”

“Yes, but I'll still know it's a toy.”

“You will,” he agreed. “But the idea is to train your responses to kick in even if your brain freezes. It's more about not thinking about it being real, acting in that moment before you realise and freeze.”

“I see,” Sienna said dubiously. “I see where you are coming from but I don't think it will work.”

“It does sound a bit wacky,” Lucy said.

“I suppose it does,” Martin said. “But it can't do any harm can it?”

Sienna considered the question for a moment then shook her head. “No, the worst it will do is be a fun way to refine my powers. But we'll need something else as well – these aren't as heavy as real guns are they?”