Nova told her to prepare herself. Jia positioned her arms in front of her face as defense and closed her eyes. Then, the man pointed a finger at the little girl and a small lightning flashed before their eyes and aimed at Jia. It didn’t even touch her. Those same blue flames emerged from the ground and surrounded her, like a defensive barrier. Jia opened her eyes and saw the dome of blue fire slowly vanishing. She seemed absolutely shocked. She looked around her, to figure out if somebody else had helped her, but everyone was busy training their own powers and they were all farther away.

Nova himself was left speechless. Those flames acted like an instant defense and that was incredibly hard to control. He was wondering how did Jia, as little as she was, able to use an instant defensive ability.

He walked towards her slowly. He saw how shocked she was.

“Jia… How is that possible?” he asked.

Jia glared at him. “I am as confused as you are… I don’t even know what happened…” she responded.

“You awakened your power, that’s what happened. But how are you able to control it so well?”

“I didn’t do anything… It had to be someone else… I have no idea…” she muttered.

Nova looked concerned. He had many students before these five and many of them had been blue flame users. Yet none of them had been able to control that power well enough when it awakened. In that case, Jia was special. Very special.

Nova put a hand on her shoulder. “Jia, listen. This is not something that naturally occurs among the people with neon energy. In this case, I have to help you control it and master it.” He looked very serious about it. He knew that if she managed to control it well enough, she would become stronger than an average neon with flame powers.

Jia nodded as a response. She couldn’t say anything anymore. She had no memory of when it first manifested anyway and it came as a shock to her. She was staring blankly thinking just how much neon energy she had that it triggered that power… And just how it acted like self defense without her being aware of it…

She stopped overthinking when she saw Nova picking a small knife from his pocket.

“Jia, I will need you to focus very well. I will throw this at you and I need you to use your power to burn it. I don’t know how, but I need to see if you have control of your neon energy.”

Jia nodded again to let him know that she understood, but she had no idea how to use her power. She couldn’t control her energy…

That was quite hard for a child to do. Especially with the Darkness and Neon. That implied a massive amount of energy to be gathered into a certain spot; the one it would use to attack or simply release the power from. That would send an impulse to the spot that would feel like a small pinch. And in order to achieve that, the specific person needed to be aware of it and capable of controlling the neon energy in its body. That involved a strong mentality too. The person’s mind had to be very calm because that process was very fast. In fact, unpredictably fast.

Nova threw the knife at her and closed his eyes. He was a bit scared, he didn’t know if Jia would react in time or if those flames would pop out again. As a matter of fact, the instant defense was activating only when the attack launched was a manifestation of the neon energy. About the knife, Jia had to be capable of stopping it herself.

She was scared and she wanted to dodge it, but she had to focus on using the blue flames. Still, she didn’t know what to do in order to activate the power, so she just dodged it quickly before getting sniped.

Nova sighed. “This will take me a while… And I’m wondering. Why did Neo Vantablack himself bring her here? That guy… He is a goddamned terrorist.” he thought. That thought came to him again… He refused to believe that the guy they were talking about was actually Neo Vantablack himself. He found it hard to believe he was even someone with the name of Vantablack. And Jia…? He just couldn’t understand how she ended up among those people and why did they make her believe them… He shook his head slowly and he walked towards Jia and patted her back. “That was a first attempt. But considering that you already had this power awakened, I will have to do something more to help you master it.”

He walked back to his spot and told Jia to look in his eyes. She noticed that they began to turn from blue to golden. Then, she began to feel very strange. Her head hurt. She closed her eyes, but horrifying images began to swirl in her head. The destroyed city, the black fire… That strange person she saw the first time she went to Skynet… But the most horrifying part was when the silhouette started moving towards her, ready to attack. It was slowly transforming into a familiar figure: Xena. Jia screamed and ran forward. She held her hand out and suddenly, a powerful explosion occurred. She didn’t see it in her mind as a gigantic neon explosion but only as a tiny spark of flame. The blast was so powerful that it pushed her back. She rolled over onto the ground and because of the shock she opened her eyes partly and saw only smoke above her head. She was horrified at the thought and looked around everywhere trying to catch a glimpse of her; mostly of her dead body… She was shaking…

“Did I kill her…?” she muttered.

Nova was absolutely shocked. He sensed the impulse coming from Jia’s body and had to react quickly and dodge before he could be blasted away. As the smoke began to clear around him, he ran towards her and lifted her up. Jia flashed a smile. She distinguished his face above hers.

“Did I kill her…?” she mumbled again.

“Kill who?” he asked, slightly confused.

“That woman… I had her in my mind, but all of a sudden, she became very real and tried to kill me… She transformed and… I don’t understand…” she responded.

Nova giggled. He pet her head. “Well, that realistic version of her you saw was an illusion I created when I entered your mind. I used my Hypnosis on you because I wanted to trigger your fighting skills. And it worked…” His voice was a bit shaky. It was not because something bad happened to Jia after he used that power on her. It was because of the explosion.

That hadn’t been any explosion, nor it had been linked to her blue flame power. That was a Neon explosion. That was Neon power nature, the hardest one to manage at young ages.

That power was triggered by rage. As a matter of fact, strong emotions were influencing the neon energy, empowering or weakening it. Rage was the main factor that was empowering the neon energy and boosting the power level in the person’s body. That was because rage was driving the person’s desire of revenge and making it more aware of the powers it had. As for fear, that was the weakening factor. The more fear the person was experiencing, the weaker it would be. Fear was limiting the power level because it made the person lose control of the neon energy. In Jia’s case, she was driven mad and she felt a strong emotion of hate towards Xena; she felt like avenging her defeat and that helped her awaken a new power and use it. And she was finally aware of it.

A few moments later, as everyone gathered around Jia, amazed, Nova escorted her and the rest of his students back to their classroom. He didn’t want to give explanations to anyone yet and he also knew that Jia was really uncomfortable there, in the center of attention. Zack was going to question him anyway. He was somehow jealous of Jia for having such a strong power. He didn’t say anything rude to her about it, but she could clearly see that spark of jealousy in his eyes. And he was blushing again…

The two girls were quiet. They were looking at Jia, who was now sitting on Nova’s lap, with her head leaned on his shoulder. Well, Komori was jealous, because in her eyes, Nova was the strongest man and the most handsome, she wanted to be treated like that as well. (She was just a child, she had her silly fantasies.)

The man was watching all of his students carefully. There was one last thing he wanted to say to them, since their schedule was supposed to be over by now and he knew their parents might be waiting outside for them…