Anniabal didn’t know how much time had passed. At the moment she wasn’t really sure of anything. She was a mind, just a mind with no sensory input. Her existence didn’t feel quite real and she had no idea if the memories of a place called reality were just her imagination or not. It was cold wherever she was, even without a sense of touch she could tell that. And she somehow got the idea she was falling but she couldn’t tell how she knew. She was scared, terrified. this was not how she was supposed to be, being like this hurt. It hurt more than the blow she vaguely recalled spattering her across an abandoned store, more than the scalding touch of a flame wreathed hand, more than every injury she had ever had combined, it hurt more than when she had reached out to hold her lover’s hand only to receive a cry of pain in return, it hurt worse than seeing the burn her touch had left on Clair’s skin. Being like this hurt, not physically, but because she could feel the lack of… anything trying to rip away her sanity, trying to eat away chunks of who and what she was. She wanted to scream. To cry out. To beg. She wanted to dig her nails into the surface tension of her skin to feel anything, even just pain. But she had no form. No mouth. No nails. No skin. She couldn’t stand it. She wanted to get out. She needed to get out. She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to get out! She needed to ge-

Anniabal sat up with a gasp. She immediately wanted to scream before coming to the realization she could. She could breathe, she could see, she could feel. She looked around. Noting that she was in the bathroom next to her bedchamber.

The core! She had almost forgotten she had selected the trait. It had brought her back from death.

She shuddered at the memory of what she had just experienced. was that death? If she didn’t have the elemental core would she have been stuck in that conscious oblivion forever? Most likely not, but she didn’t want to take that chance. No, she never wanted to experience that again let alone permanently. She stifled a scream of recalled horror with the thought of the cause of her temporary stint with dying, all the memories were clear, nothing was blunted or hazy as it had been in her previous state of being. Everything was crisp like the edge of the page that leaves a papercut across your hand. The building, the enemies. The fight, she had thought she had been winning until the end, the helplessness as the gigantic man stepped out of her strongest attack. The agony, the mind-boggling pain that can only be experienced at the end.

Anniabal never wanted to die again, but she also found herself not wanting to quit being a hero…. She was distracted from her train of thought by a few notifications in her mind’s eye. She opened the new prompt and read over the information

[Congratulations! Through continuous use of your powers in a form outside of your current abilities or traits, you have adapted a new ability.

Torrential rush: ability (allow your body to lose shape becoming a formless mass of water as you dash. Increasing speed, and your ability to avoid attacks. Current limit of dash one yard (this ability is under the domain of your Elemental form power)]

[Congratulations! Through continuous use of your powers in a form outside of your current abilities or traits, you have adapted a new trait.

Reformation: trait (survive all blunt force attacks. (crushing, smashing, fall damage, etc.) by your body dispersing upon taking a hit. You will stay alive and aware and may reform your body at will, this may take from 10-300 seconds depending on the amount of damage taken. Reformation time will shorten as this ability increases in strength. (this ability is under the domain of your Elemental form power)]

[5 non-metabeing enemies defeated:

(+10 STR each)

6 non-metabeing enemies defeated:

(+10 STR each) 3 for team effort

2 noncombatant metabeings defeated:

(Rank E10

+120 STR

Rank F7

+50 STR) 3 for team effort

Minor combatant defeated

(Rank C3

+ 200 STR)

Heavy combatant injured

(Rank B4

+130 STR for wounding a metabeing a full rank higher than yourself)

Total STRENGTH earned: 456]

[Defeated by heavy combatant

(Rank B4

-140 STR)]

Those upgrades would have been helpful a minute ago…

The last defeated seemed to glare at her from the page. She almost wished it was a person, so she could wring its neck and kick it in the balls a couple times. STRENGTH was just as easy to lose as it was to gain. It was strange as it seemed to be semi-finite when compared to the number of metabeings that existed. It wasn’t like the ‘EXP’ from the video games she watched Clair play, where they gave it out willy-nilly for every attack you landed or enemy defeated, and you just endlessly collected the stuff, the STR gained from a fight had to come from somewhere, and that was the defeated foe. She had heard stories of A-rank metas being brought down to C after an F ranked enemy found their weakness, while the weakling ranked up to C from the massive boost. You could gain STR on your own, yes. It didn’t require fighting or taking from others, but it was much slower usually, and had the tendency to be more difficult. For some it was as simple as training, for some it was exercise or meditation, some needed things like magical weapons, or massive amounts of electricity or even to drink blood. No matter what it was, usually just fighting was faster and easier but any boost would help.

For Anniabal that boost would come in the form of getting a much larger body of water for her source domain, she still wasn’t willing to do something like break into a lake park and claim it as her own, but who knows, she certainly had a personal meeting with the branch head in her future, rules be damned.

Anniabal didn’t want to quit being a hero. She didn’t want to give up. She didn’t want to hide. She didn’t want to cower. Anniabal didn’t want to quit, she wanted to get stronger.