It was peaceful in the town of Twoson. Everyone was asleep as the moon glowed in the night sky. One window, however, was still glowing with light. It was a window from the Polestar Preschool...
On the next morning, Paula was still in her room. She didn't sleep much last night. She was worried sick and she was feeling so powerless. Poo had to return to his lands to resume his duties with a promise to return to his friends stronger than before and Jeff was working to find Ness' whereabouts. Paula, on the other hand, had no clue what to do. She tried to reach Ness with telepathy but to no avail. It was as if he wasn't on Earth anymore. No. She couldn't think stuff like that. She had to believe he was still around, that something or someone was simply blocking her telepathy. Still, here she was, in her room, with nothing concrete to do to help their cause.
She tried her best since the events of the Fire Springs. She had taken a quick interest at the hooded man's PSI technique. She had tried to study it in an attempt to make it hers to use. However, theory was hard to put into practice. Yesterday, she went into Peaceful Rest Valley to try practicing the electric manipulation she needed to replicate the PSI ability. From what she seen and experienced, the PSI Electro was definatly another league from PSI Thunder. PSI Thunder was only a release of electricity triggered from her own psychic powers. The electricity would then build up in the air and would discharge randomly around a zone that Paula directed the attack at. It was as close as she could do for ‘aiming’. PSI Electro, on the other hand, required not only to build up electricity but also to contain it and then release it toward a specific region. In theory, it didn't seemed that hard.
In practice, however, it was the hardest moments she lived. She had spent the day to attempt one successful attack. Most of them simply blew up on her hand, hurting her in the process. Others simply discharged in the air as she failed to contain the power. The rest of the tries simply didn't want to go straight at her target and would instead hit a random area which would sometime ends where her friends might have stood in a real battle situation.
She cursed her lack of skills for failing to control such power. She always considered herself gifted. She became aware of her psychic powers and learned most of them from intuition alone. She had learned how to generate flames in the palm of her hands by complete luck. Since then, she kept realizing techniques of all sort as her power grew. However, those abilities were raw. She didn't needed additionnal control on those techniques other than generating them and then releasing them. This time, she needed to obtain a power more refined, more complex. Sadly, it simply seemed like it was out of her reach. She had no idea what she was doing wrong. Everything looked fine but it was obviously not. 'How can I learn something on my own when I have no clue what I'm doing? It's not like I had a master like Poo to learn a technique like the Starstorm... There's no one to teach me. How am I ever gonna learn!?'
These thoughts was still haunting her today. She took a look at the time. She didn't felt like doing anything... She noticed her Transmitter Phone on the desk. She decided to pick it up and see how Jeff was doing. She listened to the tone as she awaited Jeff to answer. "Hey..." said a monotone voice on the other side of the phone. From the sound of it, Jeff didn't make a breakthrough yet. "Hey... it's me. Any luck yet?" asked the concerned girl. "...No. No luck at all. I just can't seem to track him down. As for my stuff, it looks like it might take some time to fix..." answered Jeff. So they were still sitting ducks in the whole matter. There was no way she could stay idle for so long... "Should I come to hel..." asked Paula before Jeff cut her off. "No, I'll be fine... I'll call you later." Paula took a few seconds before replying. "Okay then... later." She hung up, dissapointed at the outcome of the call. All it ended up doing was making Paula worry about Jeff more. He seemed so distant since the incident. She wished she had a chance to help him snap out of it.
She looked at the clock. It was almost noon. She let out a sigh before getting up and pick up some clothes to replace her pajama. It was pointless to stay in her room moping around. If she can't do anything for now, she could always help in the house until something happens.
Paula was in the main room, playing with the kids. She tried hard to hide her worries with an happy smile. Despite the situation, she tried hard to enjoy her time in order to not make the children worry about her. They really enjoyed spending time with her. They were around the table, a map of Eagleland spreaded on it. She was showing them various locations around the country that she had visited in her previous journey. "That place across the sea is called Scaraba. It's a vast place filled with sands. You can see animals you don't see here outside of the zoo. There's also the pyramids too! Oh, and did you ever heard about the Sphinx?"
The afternoon was almost over. Little by little, the kids were being picked up by their parents. One little girl tugged Paula's dress so she could have her attention before her parents would arrive. "You're really smart, Paula. You know a lot of stuff!" Paula smiled at the girl. However, she felt uneasy about that remark. "You think? I just learned this stuff because I saw them for real. When there's something I don't know, I normally ask someone about it to understand it." The girl looked at her curiously. "Really? How did 'Someone' learn this stuff?" Paula seemed to have difficulties answering it but couldn't help but smile on the someone comment. "Well, I'm not really sure. Really smart people can somehow learn on their own. I'm not sure how... Tell you what, some of my friends are really smart. If I see any of them, I'll ask them and tell you about it." The little girl smiled. "You promise!?"
The sun was setting as Paula watched the little girl leaving with her parents. She waved goodbye to her and as she was getting out of sight, she turned back to go back inside. However, she didn't had the time to react before she ran into someone and tripped down as papers flied around. "Oh no, my blueprints!" Paula looked at the person as she recognized the voice. "Apple Kid! It's been so long. How you been?" Apple Kid turned to the girl who called her by his name. "Paula! What a surprise! What are you doing here!?" "I live here, silly" answered an amused Paula. "Oh, that's right. Sorry. It's been a little while. I spent the last month in Saturn Valley for some research" answered the inventor. 'Research...' The word seemed to resonate into Paula's mind for an instant. "OH! Actually, it's a pretty good timing! There's something I need to ask you!"
The two were discussing at Apple Kid's house while the inventor started sorting the mess he left behind when he left Twoson. "I see... so you're trying to master a new psychic power but got some difficulties with it." Paula nodded as an answer. "I really can't seem to get it right. I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I thought I could get someone to help." Apple Kid seemed a little perplexed. "I understand the problem here but what can I do about it?" he asked. "Well, you're a smart person. I thought maybe you could study it and understand how it works so I could base myself on that" answered Paula. "I tried myself... but... well... seems like I'm not smart enough to figure on my own and it needs to be done the sooner possible." Apple Kid seemed a little uneasy about the whole thing. "I'm afraid that this is beyond me. I haven't really figured out how those powers work in the first place. Trying to understand how this one in particular ticks would take me way more time..." Paula's dissapointment could be seen on her face. "So I guess there's no way to learn it huh..." said a depressed Paula. "I wouldn't give up just yet, replied the young inventor. You seem to misunderstand something about the basics of learning. What's learning to you anyway?"
Paula seemed a little surprised about the question. Actually, she never really thought about it before. "I... I guess it's obtaining knowledge from books, laws and all that stuff that teachers show you at school and from experience..." Apple Kid looked around for a chair so he could sit down. "I guess these days, people make an idea like that one. They think everything can be learned in school. What people fail to realize is that before someone can teach it in school, they have to discover that knowledge first..." "But... those people are geniuses. How can I hope to discover the unknown like them?" asked Paula in a distressed tone. Apple Kid smiled at the question. "Let me tell you something. Learning has nothing to do with someone's intelligence." Paula was surprised at Apple Kid's last remark. As he made sure he had her attention, he continued. "You don't need brains to understand something. You need eyes and ears." Paula seemed a little confused. "I'm not sure I'm following..." she said. "When it comes to sciences, the only way someone can progress is through research and experiments. He doesn't learn new things yet undiscovered just because he's smart enough to realize it. He learns because of a series of trials and errors he had done through the path of knowledge he undertook." A spark seemed to have went through Paula's eyes. "Trials... and errors?" Apple Kid nodded before continuing. "You first make a guess... If I do it this way. Will it work? Will it do something different? Then, you try it for yourself. It might not work like you planned. You ask yourself more questions. Was there a mistake? Was I just wrong? What should I change? Maybe it actually worked. Still, you have to ask yourself more questions. It worked, but was it because of what I thought? What if I change something unrelated to my hypothesis. Will it still work?" Paula seemed to assimilate Apple Kid's words as they reached her ears. "In the end, said the inventor, you note your guesses, your actions and the results you got. From what you got, you rinse and repeat. You continue until you cover sufficient cases to truly affirm how it works. Maybe all you found is that it cannot be done that way and something is still missing. It's still progress because next time you'll try with something else. You'll have learned that the truth you seek is elsewhere. If you do actually find what you tried to prove, you'll have learned what you seeked all along. It's a win or win situation."
Paula listened to every word. Everything seemed to make so much sense. Was it how Jeff and Apple Kid became so knowledgeable? Was it through trials and errors? She never really seen Jeff do mistakes much but she did seemed to remember that one time within Dungeon Man. Jeff almost took the submarine apart to find out the defect that prevented the machine to run. He tried nearly every pieces until he found the one that was faulty. Failing is learning about what is not true. Succeeding is learning about what seems to work. Each time one of the two is reached, a canvas is slowly being drawn until the truth it represents shines forth. To her, it seemed like a revelation. "I think I understand..." Her power was a gift. However, she never really thought about experimenting about it. Maybe it was why she didn't figured out that new ability yet. She simply had to catch up the learning she ignored for so long. "I think I'm gonna give it a try... Thank you so much, Apple Kid. I think this was some very useful information. I'll tell you how things went." As she bowed in gratitude, she turned toward the door. "One more thing..." said Apple Kid. Paula turned to him, wondering what else he had to say. "Something the matter?" she asked. "Like I said, I still do not understand how your powers work. What I do know, however, is that you never had problem learning those in the past." Paula nodded. "It seemed so simple back then. Compared to this, it pretty much was first grade material." The Apple Kid nodded at what he expected her to say. "I believe that what you're trying to learn is a complex ability. What you learned so far was simple abilities. A complex ability would be a set of simple abilities combined together to form it. Let me give you this one tip: don't bite more that you can chew. Analyze what you're trying to learn. Try to break it down and work on each part on its own. It should give results faster." Paula smiled at Apple Kid's suggestion. "Thanks, I'll try as you say."
Dusk was slowing setting in. The Peaceful Rest Valley remained as serene as ever with only the flow of the rivers' water filling up the air. Things changed though as lightnings seemed to fly from all directions atop one hill of the valley. Paula was there, slowly dusting herself off. She chose this spot to practice so no one would get hurt in the crossfire. She was determined to figure out the puzzle more than ever. First, she did as Apple Kid said. She closed her eyes and replayed in her mind the very moment where the mysterious man had used the attack on Ness. In her mind, time seemed to have slowed down a thousand times as this event replayed. She could see it. The shape of his hand, his stance, the energy flowing through his fingers. She took notes. She tried to list every single steps the man went through. That's when she realized she could split those steps into smaller groups. Three to be exact. She concluded that it was pointless to get the last two done if she couldn't get the first one right. She knew what she had to do... Time to get to work.
She took her stance in the middle of the hill and started to focus. She held her hand in front of her, palm facing the sky. Little by little, small currents started flowing through her fingers. As the seconds passed, pure energy was building up in her palm. Nevertheless, she kept trying to generate more electricity. The energy kept growing onto her hand. Suddenly, the entire thing went flying as the lightning dispersed all around her. Luckily for her, the small part that recoiled on her was nearly negated by her Star Pendant. It started well but as the charge kept going up, her hold wasn't enough. She had to readjust and retry. She tried again. This time, it went off way earlier. Something she changed in her approach made it worse. She had to revert and try again. On her third try, she managed to hold an orb of electricity has big as a basketball before she lost grip of it. She progressed. She could see it. She kept trying over and over. After half an hour of perpetual experimenting, Paula let out a smile as she stared at the orb of electricty she was holding above her head. The orb was the size of the Sky Runner itself! After dissipating the energy from her hand before any mortal damage could be inflicted on her or any living being of the valley, she reformed a orb of the size of the baseball she initially tried for. She couldn't believe how easy it felt to pull it off now. Her guess was right after all. If she managed to contain 100 times more electricity that she actually needed, containing the amount necessary afterward would be less difficult thanks to the experience she obtained with the "heavy weight". She mastered how to contain a concentrated amount of electricity into the palm of her hand. She could move on to the next phase: discharging.
She didn't bothered choosing a target. A target was pointless at this current moment. All she wanted was one thing: one straight line of electric beam. So far, all she could do is disperse the energy all around her without any control on where the electricity would go. She had to now figure how she could release that power in one specific direction. It was hard. She had to release the energy through one side while keeping a hold of it in any other sides. She, however, wasn't ready to give up just yet. She noted suppositions about how she could proceed. She tested them one by one. She noted the results. She tried simply lowering the hold she had on one side. It still wasn't focused enough. She tried to forcefully expel the electricity through a single direction. She realized that the amount of focus she had to use was too much for her to pull it off. She retried using one hand for holding, another for expelling. It seemed effective but still wasn't what she was looking for. She examined the results. She decided to try with a different approach. She changed the way she was standing, the way she held to the energy, the position of her arm and hand, adjusting anything that seemed to her like having a certain effect to her control over the energy. It took her an hour to not only find a position she could perform it with most ease but also find a form to control the electricity flow through her hand. She could see a tiny thunderstorm swirling within her palm. As she felt her hold was stable enough, she focused on her hand and used her psychic powers to pulse the energy forward, in one devastating discharge. It took a lot of tries but she finally realized the man didn't simply released the energy back then. He had to do it indirectly using a telekinetic pulse to shoot the energy in one direction. It was after that realization she finally managed to get an effective shot. All she had to do now was the last step: aiming. She had to take what she learned so far and perfect it so she could use it in actual battles with the accuracy needed to make it useful.
As time flew by, twilight slowly gave in to the moon and the stars. Through the night, a thunder could be heard as a beam of energy pierced through the sky. Paula realized the power of PSI Electro alpha.
The sun was high in Twoson's sky. After successfully accomplishing the difficult task at hand the previous night, she decided to come give her thanks to Apple Kid. For that reason, she came to his house for a visit. "I can't possibly describe how much gratitude I have, Apple Kid. Wouldn't it be of you, I would still have been stuck where I was." Apple Kid, on the other hand, didn't seem to agree. "All I did was giving you a small push toward the good direction. You did all the work. You should be proud of yourself." Paula couldn't really argue on this point. "Still, that push was still very helpful." Apple Kid laughed at the last comment. "Very well then, you're welcome. Let me know anytime when you need another one." The two laughed for a few seconds. It was then Apple Kid who brought the subject into the discussion. "I couldn't help but think... you've been practicing your abilities. As far as I know, you haven't done that at all before... Is... something coming?" Paula, at the question, couldn't help but feel uneasy. Her eyes moved downward, looking at the floor on her left. "I don't really know what it is... but something is about to happen, said the girl. I'm sure the others are doing their best to be ready for it. That's why I was so desperated to do so as well. For a while, I was wondering what could I do to help my friends. I started to feel like a burden to them. They were all so fantastic and always had something only they could accomplish. I... I didn't knew what I could offer more than those powers of mine and my support. When it wasn't enough anymore, I started to question myself..." Her gaze finally went back up, this time meeting Apple Kid's face once more. "I'm still not sure of the thing only I can offer. However, I know that I still have potential within me. As long as I keep doing my best and keep trying, I will find it one day. That's why I'm gonna be on my friends' side when the time comes." Apple Kid seemed content with the answer Paula gave him. "There's something I want to show you."
He opened a case on his desk and retrieve some kind of weird item made of crystal in the shape of an oval. "Is that... a frying pan?" asked Paula. "Not really. If you try to fry anything with this, you probably gonna lose your patience with it, answered the inventor. It is, however, a pan. Back then, I noticed you used frying pans in combat. You ain't really the fighter type though and those ain't really much made for combat at all. I couldn't help but notice though the last models you had on the time of the final battle had unique features that seemed to channel your own psychic powers." He paused for a moment as he rotated the pan made of clear crystal. "I figured that you didn't really needed a frying pan to fight. Any kind of club would have done the job. That's why I designed this one. Although it has a odd shape, it's still a pan by description. Plus, the material used to make it works like a giant prism. The Mr. Saturn actually came up with this. They figured your powers could be amplified by the prismatic material they refined themselves. It seemed pretty useless with all the battles over... but it looks like it might come in handy after all..."
Paula was walking home as she recalled the discussion she had with Apple Kid. After she thanked him for the Prism Pan, she took her leave hoping he would take care of himself. Apple Kid reassured her that he'll try to not cause any trouble in Twoson while she's gone. He'll be too busy on his drawing board because it seemed his friends would once again need a new batch of inventions beyond the common imagination. He promised to give news if he found anything the four could use in their upcoming journey. Paula smiled as she kept walking. Despite how much they grew up, it seemed like the gang never really changed at all.
"Hey, Paula!" The voice pulled Paula out of her thoughts as she looked up toward her house. Standing by the entrance was a young man dressed in the eastern clothings. "Poo!" exclaimed Paula at the sight of her friend. As she joined up to him, she couldn't help but to feel surprised to see him. "I thought you were still bound to Dalaam due to your duties... Did Jeff found anything!?" Poo simply made a no. "No word from him, answered the prince. However, I cannot stay idle any longer. Dalaam will be fine during my absence. I trust the people of the palace to take care of things for me. Beside, if anything comes up, they can contact me anytime and I'll be one teleport away." He clenched his fist as he looked at Paula. "I spent the last few days training... my resolve is renewed and I'm ready for the upcoming trials. I think it's time to go assist Jeff on the search. We have a friend to find." Paula smiled and nodded. "Yes... I believe it's time to get going. I'll get my stuff ready." As she walked toward her front door, she seemed to have remembered something. "Oh, can you wait a little longer? I owe someone an answer before leaving."
Searing flames, bitter cold, destructive bolts.
Powers my hands can mold to fight, to protect.
My feelings, my frienship, my love.
Can you feel it? The bonds we all share.
We're allies, we're friends, we're family.
I'll use those bonds to mold our future.
To be continued...