Issue 1 Downtime

Ryan was sitting under a tree in the grounds, his eyes closed, though he was far from off his guard. This was the first time he really tried to stretch out his power since he'd had Melissa probe his mind for the... thing, whatever it was. It was both exhilarating and disturbing as he started exploring. Currently he was focusing on a small dandilion in front of him, though that probably wasn't readily apparent to anyone looking at him.

"No no no! Not that way!" Kevin called out.

Mind. Body. Spirit. Paper airplane in the face.

Ryan scrunched his face up as the airplane hit it, making an annoyed face. "Hello, Kevin," he said without opening his eyes.

"Sorry!" he said as he finished jogging up.

"It... kinda got away from me. Because the wind hates me apparently."

Ryan smirked. "And you couldn't just slice it out of the air?"

Ye gods... so bright... is that what I'd look like to my own power?

"It was out of my range by then."

At that, Ryan did open his eyes. "You have a range?"

"For direct mental control yeah."

Ryan winced at... something in the back of his head. "Show me," he said, standing up.

"Show you... what exactly? You've seen me float stuff."

He closed his eyes again, and when they opened again, they were glowing from behind with a blue-white light. "Show me what you have." The whole discussion would be oddly serious, had Ryan not then smirked, shifting into a ready stance. "Come at me, bro."

"Oh it's on bro," Kevin grinned, creating two big glowing golden boxing gloves in the air. They moved as if worn by a rather large invisible boxer; a rather large invisible boxer taking a swing at Ryan.

Ryan batted the gloves aside, just like he would with an physical opponent. His movements, as usual, were astonishingly quick, and he surged forward to break through the attack, flying right at the source. "Fine, I'll come at you, then," he said with a fierce grin.

Kevin dismissed the gloves as he twirled out of Ryan's path... flourishing a golden cape.

"Co-o-on-qu-eh-est!" he sang.

Ryan blasted at Kevin as he dodged, his wings erupting into being around him. "More games. Show me what you can do! Or do I have to prove I'm serious first?"

Kevin used the cape to block the blast before dismissing it.

Ooookay?

"You do know I'm never serious right?" he asked, "Buuut... okay!"

Kevin began to glow.

"Kaaa! Mae! Haa-just kidding!"

A suit of golden armor materialized over Kevin, making him look rather like a robotic humanoid lion. A sword and shield materialized as well. Gotta play up the theme, right?

"No... wait..."

Kevin rose into the air as the suit grew into a 12 foot robot with Kevin floating inside.

"Oppa Gundam Style."

The light in Ryan's eyes seemed to intensify. "Yesssss..." He flew in at Kevin, trying to match Kevin's size with speed, not even sure how fast Kevin could be like this. He lunged, glowing wings driving in ahead of him like razor edges to cut into the giant light armor. "Did you know that I can see how much power you have? You aren't even tapping half of it. SHOW it to me!"

"Dude! I'm not going to try to hurt you!"

"Much!"

Kevin used the shield to attempt to bash Ryan aside.

Ryan laughed. "Now there's a high opinion. Hurt me, and maybe I'll think this is a fair fight. Maybe," he taunted Kevin. He rode the swat from the shield and seemed to skid back in the air, his wings closed tightly around him. He snapped them open, throwing a barrage of 'feathers' at him to rip through the mecha-suit.

Kevin spawned extra floating shields to absorb the projectiles before coming in with a quick sword slash... though it was now more of a rod attached to a hilt. His speed didn't seem to suffer very much, not from extra weight anyway.

That much speed with a sword that long made for a fast strike at the end, and Ryan caught it on the wings. He spun in the air, not wanting to give it a chance to burn through the protection that his wings afforded him, aiming to turn in under the longer arms of Kevin's armor, one fist glowing dangerously as he came in at Kevin's chest.

The blow staggered mecha-Kevin and left a hole in the construct that was frighteningly close to reaching Kevin himself.

"Dude! Are you actually trying to kill me or something?"

"Do you think I could?" Ryan asked, a manic gleam in his eyes. He pulled back for another blow, then blinked, staggering back (airborn status notwithstanding), the light in his eyes flickering.

What the hell is happening here? That look was awfully... murdery...

"Ryan?" he asked, worried.

"What the hell," Ryan muttered, rubbing his head. "That was... weird." He shook his head to clear it. "Give me a minute and we can keep going if you want."

"Not if your going to murderjones out again."

"Seriously, you ok?"

"Murd- oh come on, you really think I could've hurt you?" Ryan said giving Kevin a 'look'. "That was... Yeah I think I'm okay."

"If you're sure. You... had a really scary look in your eyes for a moment there."

"I... it felt like... the way to make you cut loose?" He frowned, thinking back on that. "It... seemed important. I can't..." He shook his head to clear it again. "I'm sorry. Head's a little fuzzy."

"I'm fine with stopping. This was your idea after all."

"Yeah. Yeah, stopping's good." He glided back down to the ground, still rubbing his head.

"You know that that's not really your limit, though, right?"

He dismissed the construct and landed gracefully.

"You can sense power levels? Is mine over nine thousand?"

"I can see yours. And if we're going to keep up with the Dragonball Z references, you just need some fat green guy to put his hand on your head. Yet still be the comic relief somehow."

"Eh, if this were Dragonball Z that fight would have been an entire episode or two. So much filler banter."

Ryan just nodded. He leaned against the tree, trying to sort through his thoughts. "To... my 'eyes'. Everyone here is like a candle. Well, just about. Then there's you, and you're like an inferno."

"Because of my lightforce powers, right?"

"Yeah, there's that, but there's... a lot there. I've been learning that about myself, too. It's... been kind of a roller coaster."

"Physically or emotionally?"

"And define 'a lot'."

"You didn't even tap into a quarter of it in that fight."

He raised a brow. "Seriously?