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"But your power comes from your hands," said Stuart

"No, it does not You have to think of a water tank and a hose" I poked ain "This is the water tank Your hands, or your breath" – I pointed at Chico – "can be the hose Whatever hose you want I even use y from the earth beneath hed – they didn’t want more skunk musk up their noses "The outlet and the water tank are two different things"

I saw a few of the recruits exchanging looks that said this made sense, that they couldn’t believe it was that obvious and yet they had never considered it

"Coriped David, like a kid looking to blae

"Don’t worry, you’ll still get your gold star sticker at the end of the session," I told hihed just as the others did

"What about people like me and David?" said Stuart "We don’t use outlets, we just will it to happen"

"And that’s exactly where your probleifts don’t work off will power You don’t wish it would happen and then it just does David, you concentrate hard with your eyes when you send out that blast, right?" David nodded "There’s your outlet you’ve been using without even realising it Stuart, didn’t it occur to you that when you shred into tiny littlereleased? That it bursts out of you?"

He tilted his head "Huh"

"Didn’t it occur to you that shredding could also serve as teleporting you around? That o from place to place as molecules?"

Stuart treble-blinked and then his head see away

"I suppose you didn’t" I turned back to Denny "Noant you to close your eyes" He did "Think about nothing but that water tank – all the water swilling around in there, wanting to get out so more can replace it All it needs is a hose Reift He has to feel the water bursting out of hi you and filling you, drowning you into nothing but -" And then he was like a puddle of mushy peas in the space of a second He even smelt a little like the for hi "Now, Denny, you need to think of the water filling you again, stretching you and stretching you until you ain But this time, you don’t burst You turn off that hose and leave the water in the tank" It was strange talking to a puddle, and even e to think that the puddle could fully understand ood ten seconds before speedily refor on the water/tank lared at ratitude and respect in his eyes "Ohto control it I could just kiss you right now" His face turned serious "I won’t"

All the others reacted in much the same hen I took them aside individually as I had done with Denny Chico learned that he could in fact use his pala better aim Butch was able to pop up his shield a couple of times, he just needed to learn how to forth of time that he wanted Stuart was now able to shred in the space of three seconds and reforoal was to learn how to do it within the space of a second in order to avoid any power directed his way He also wanted to master how toquite violent, decided that it would be much more fun and dramatic if his outlet for his psychic boom – that could knock you unconscious – could be his fist After Reuben weakened his gift so that the boom felt more like a slap, I let hi a lazy little sod Da trouble with trying to project his astral self any further than a few feet But after a while of getting psychic slaps from Salem, Damien – in utter desperation – was able to astral project away fro the hard as the only way to learn

David had decided that he wanted his outlet to be his pal excellently – Reuben had weakened his power in advance to ensure that David’s blast couldn’t do any ive his victim a minor shock, and he practiced mostly on Denny who said he would happily practice with his oers in his own time so he could help David today Denny looked out for David a lot, which was good as I came to realize that David was very nervous of his power and by virtue of his young age

It turned out that Reuben had a little trouble with controlling whether he strengthened soift or whether he weakened it, but by the end of the session he had a better hang of it He orking toward increasing the degree to which he could affect soift withonto theht seconds

Max and Harvey were hard work because both believed that they had nothing left to learn…So I paired theretted I first let Slap-head – he was back to that now that he was being a wanker – explore whether he could choose exactly what senses he wanted to affect (he didn’t believe this was possible until, one by one, I took each of his senses away and then left him to silently whine about it to the wall) It transpired that although cocky Harvey was able to send so aith his telekinesis, he couldn’tcome toward him, or rotate, or levitate so I allowed him to practice on a practically defenceless Slap-head Slap-head of course stole every one of Harvey’s senses once he recovered his own just as payback

Each tiive theain!’ And, to their credit, they did it over and over and over I was tempted to loudly express how pleased I ith their efforts but I couldn’t afford to show any signs of compassion or kindness with these blokes as they would only view this as a weakness and start taking the piss Coaches needed to have a tough exterior or they’d all end up being wankers again Besides, as Max had said, they were big boys