Erick felt the real world vanish as if soone had flipped a switch. The cold floor of Ravonna's training room, the low hum of the plasma generators, Baymax's watchful gaze in the corner—everything dissolved in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, he was no longer standing. He was floating. An absolute void enveloped him, black as the space between the stars, with no up or down, no sound, no gravity. Beside him, floating with the sa lightness, was gan. Her large green eyes shone softly in the darkness, her red hair floating as if subrged in invisible water. She smiled with that Martian calm that always made him feel that, even amidst the chaos, there was a way.
He turned his face to her, his mind still trying to process the strangeness of it all. His body—or the projection of it—seed solid, yet ethereal at the sa ti. Erick took a deep breath, even though there was no real air there.
"I didn't expect it to be so empty here. Consider one, I think I'm a very intelligent person."
gan stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand, her shoulders trembling slightly. The sound echoed softly in the void, like a distant bell.
"No, you silly thing. This is basically the front line before you access your consciousness. Right now, I'm not taking you there. I want you to find your own way."
Erick raised an eyebrow, the gesture familiar even in that shapeless place. He understood. It wasn't a guided tour. It was a test. It was the first real step toward mastering sothing that wasn't his by birth, but that now ran through his veins like second blood. I'm no longer just the boy who reincarnated in Gotham. I'm no longer just the inventor of the basent. I am sothing new. And this new sothing needs to learn to walk on its own ntal legs.
"How would I basically do that?" he asked, his voice low and focused.
gan rested her hand on her chin, floating a little closer. Her green fingers touched the air as if testing the texture of nothingness.
"Everyone has their own way of finding their way. Maybe you should find yours."
Erick stared into the dark, black void, completely devoid of any reference point. It was like being inside an endless abyss. He raised one hand, pointing to the nonexistent horizon, trying to force his perception. He spent so ti with his hand on the eye of the provision—or what he imagined to be the center of his forehead—frowning. Nothing. Only the cold, silent emptiness.
"I don't feel anything."
gan floated beside him, patient, her voice as soft as a Martian breeze.
"Try. Try harder."
Erick closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again, staring blankly into nothingness. More forcefully, right? So here goes. He didn't force it. He didn't squeeze. Instead, he let it flow. He let it go. As if he weren't trying to hold on, but calling out. An active surrender. A silent summons from the depths of the soul he had rebuilt so many tis.
And then it ca.
It was sothing incredible. A small warmth, a tiny spark that began to grow in his chest, right behind his sternum, where the flaming elental still slept. But it wasn't fire. It wasn't the searing heat he had known since he was five years old, when the elental spirit had anchored itself in his body. It was different. More subtle. Deeper. An invisible energy that seed to pass through a thin mbrane, as if traversing a viscous, hot liquid, spreading to every corner of his mind. It ward without burning. It pulsed without exploding. It was as if the Martian blood had awakened a second current, one that didn't belong to fire, but to the pure mind.
gan, standing beside him, felt it too. Her eyes widened slightly, the telepathic connection allowing her to pick up the echo of that new energy.
In front of them, as if answering the call, the void contracted. A door materialized out of nowhere—old wood, a rusty iron doorknob, the sa pattern he'd known since childhood. Erick raised an eyebrow, turning to gan for confirmation.
"The mind sotis creates chanisms that we are unaware of," she replied, with an encouraging smile.
Erick nodded to her. There was no ti to hesitate. He reached out, grasped the cold doorknob, and turned it. The door opened with a familiar creak, the sound echoing like a vivid mory. On the other side, a staircase. The staircase. The one he had descended thousands of tis in his past life—and in this one. Wooden steps creaking under weight, a handrail worn from use, the sa one that led to the basent of the old house on Crest Hill.
He didn't ask for permission. He didn't need it. He went down first, gan right behind him, floating smoothly. Each step brought a wave of nostalgia that tightened in his chest like an invisible hand. When they reached the bottom, the basent opened before them exactly as he rembered it.
It was the sa. The sa sacred place where it had all begun. In the left corner, the makeshift training area: rusty dumbbells piled up, a punching bag hanging from the low ceiling, the old tatami mat where he had trained alone, night after night, breaking imaginary bones of villains who would one day be real. No detailed description was needed—he saw everything clearly. In the right corner, the ssy workbench, full of cold solder joints, abandoned circuits, prototypes of gadgets he had built with his own hands when money was still tight. And in the back, the primitive HQ: the old computer, its flickering CRT screen, where he had coded the first versions of his AIs, where Project Mantle had taken shape on paper and in code.
Erick stopped in the center of the basent, looking at everything with a painful nostalgia. His parents had been forced to sell the house because of the consequences of the night patrols, of the enemies he had attracted too early. Hargrove Manor was safe, luxurious, but it wasn't this one . It wasn't the place where a ten-year-old boy had sworn never to be a victim again. The sll of hot tal, oil, and old sweat still lingered in the air, even if it was just a construct of his mind.
gan floated beside him, worried.
"Everything alright, Erick?"
He gave a small but genuine smile, his eyes shining with restrained emotion.
"All."
He turned to her, his voice firm despite the tightness in his chest.
"So, what should we be looking for?"
gan smiled softly, her green eyes gleaming with ancient wisdom.
"We've already found it."
Erick blinked, trying to understand. Confusion crossed his face for a second.
gan explained, her voice calm and precise, choosing each word carefully so that he, a human who had never been born with this, could absorb it.
"Psychic power is nothing more than an energy that our mind can generate and control. The explanation is very complex, especially because it's difficult to explain to soone who isn't a natural. But basically, what's around us now is where your mories are. I'm not going to interfere. I'm not going to try to force anything. But basically, everything in this room, every object, every mory is stored, trapped in these walls, trapped even in that computer, in these objects around you. The mind produces information differently. You've seen how yours was; it has this particularity."
Erick absorbed each word, feeling their weight.
"How would I use this power?"
gan gave an encouraging smile.
"You will use your mories as a catalyst, as a force."
"Like fuel?" he asked, testing it.
"No, like a catalyst. Anger and rage can generate more powerful psychic abilities, like reading minds more sharply, more aggressively. Or telekinesis, controlling heavier objects, but with less precision. And happy mories work in the opposite way. The mind is a box of surprises."
Erick processed it, his chest rising and falling with breath that wasn't real, but felt as if it were.
"So I would have to use a mory like that as if it were a tool, as if I were using it as a ans for energy to flow."
"Sothing like that. It's complex and difficult to understand in so aspects."
"How should I practice first?"
gan pointed to the space around her.
"Try to banish from your mind first. Use a mory of your anger and try to expel . I will not try to resist your command."
Erick looked up, accepting the challenge. He went to the workbench where he made his inventions and touched it. The instant his ntal fingers touched the old wood, an avalanche of emotions washed over him. Pure happiness when the first high-density battery worked. The frustration of hitting a dead end on a project. The deep anger of seeing projects completely ruined by a silly mistake. He channeled it all. He let the energy he now felt—that which had no form, no feeling, but was pure and raw—flow through the anger like a pathway. The energy took shape. He turned to gan, throwing her with his mind.
A thin, almost invisible ray shot from the middle of her forehead and struck gan. She took only one step back, smiling calmly.
"It wasn't a very strong feeling. Try another one."
Erick put his hand to his chin, thinking. Does he have this much anger? Let's see if this anger is enough. He went to the old computer. He touched the screen. It glowed. mories poured out: childhood before reincarnation, the new life in Gotham, achievents, family, Artemis, but also pain. Frustration. And then, like a punch to the gut, the mory he needed: the confrontation with Lobo. The powerlessness. The broken body, pierced organs, destroyed Titan armor. The anger of having been humiliated, of almost dying while his family waited at ho. That anger he had rarely felt in this life—the anger of soone who swore never to be a victim again.
He used it as a catalyst. The energy returned, but now voluminous, volatile, gigantic. When it touched the mory, it exploded in pure fury. Erick couldn't fully control it. Once again, the lightning bolt shot from his forehead, striking gan squarely. She was thrown backward, hit the wall of the ntal basent, and vanished in a blink.
Erick looked at his own hands, his chest heaving. The energy still buzzed inside him, wild, alive. He felt the power for the first ti not as sothing borrowed, but as sothing that was his own . The new species the Doctor had ntioned. The next step in Project Cloak.
He lost control of his own consciousness.
The real world returned. Ravonna's training room, the sll of ozone, the hum of the equipnt. gan opened her eyes slowly, still floating in front of him. She smiled, genuinely, proudly.
"You did it. You took the first step."
Erick returned the smile, cold, calculating, but laden with a deep emotion he rarely let show. The elental fire in his chest pulsed in sync with that new green energy. Lobo was still out there. The League, the threats, everything. But now, within his own mind, he had struck the first blow.
And that was just the beginning.
The basent of his mory still echoed within him, alive, ready to be used as a weapon. And Erick Smith, the man who had reincarnated never to be a victim again, knew that the absolute power he had sworn to conquer was finally beginning to truly awaken.
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