Verlassen's Emergence [Closed Training]

[Empty]

~ 1933: Verlassen's Emergence ~

~ Duelling Glove ~

Consumir and Learning: Manifestación de la Energía (Energy Manifestation)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

In irritation, Loki ripped off a hunk of the steaming flesh; their latest prey, a bull type hollow had been an easy meal indeed – at least until it had seen Loki's guard had fallen. At the last moment as Loki had moved in for the kill, six claws of violet energy had appeared at the creature's shoulder, gouging at Loki's face. It had been enough to catch Loki unawares and sharp enough to not just slice through the gel costume but even cut a small, shallow cut into the scales at Verlassen's neck; given that the creature was so much weaker than then it was an impressive feat indeed, one that had nearly cost Verlassen dearly.

As Loki continued the meal he considered the move the creature had used closely, as was usually the case when they ate, the sensations of the creature's past life and death came flowing into them. The creature had coated it's shoulder in a film of violet energy then shaped it into claw like protrusions as it moved. In many ways it reminded Loki of the Solid Sky technique that he knew, it involved the external manifestation and shaping of energy, something that Loki had never really delved into in any great depth in the past. Loki determined that their ignorance was not acceptable and when they had finished their meal he decided this technique would be a good way to address their shortcoming.

Concentrating on the palm of their Gorilla form's gel hand, Loki gathered their reiatsu, imagining a thin film forming on the exposed surface of the palm. For a few moments nothing happened and Loki stood there feeling foolish with their hand extended in the air. Finally however reddish brown light began to pool in the centre of their palm; the small gob of energy grew larger and larger as it sought to cover the entire hand, as it reached the edges of the hand it ran downwards like water to the floor of the Menos Forest, while still more trickled down the back of his hand and his wrist.

Tsking, Loki dismissed the energy abruptly before beginning again; this time he was more careful as the energy began to expand, instead of allowing it to pool of it's own volition, Loki instead made it thicker and 'stickier,' pushing it against the hand more tightly. Slowly, ever so slowly, Loki increased the size of the film until it covered his entire hand – yet as he tried to push beyond that, to cover the forearm, he could feel the strain mounting ever higher.

With their other hand, Loki experimentally prodded at the film; he could feel the substance resist the movement, yet it gave way sluggishly, like a layer of thick ooze. Frowning, Loki focused on the layer once more, willing it to harden in much the same way as he hardened Gel; as soon as he did so, Loki could feel the layer tightening around his hand. Once again he prodded the layer with his free hand and was impressed as the surface did not budge, reshaping his free hand into a claw he dragged the sharpened gel dagger like digits over the reiatsu film and a horrible grating sound like steel on steel reached his ears. The very tips of the claws began to chip slightly under the constant pressure, yet despite that, there was not a mark to be seen on the newly created film.

Allowing the film to disappear once more, this time Loki created the same layer around the other hand instead, forcing the reiatsu to cover the claw shaped appendage and smiling at the result. 'Yet the Bull was able to make such shapes without needing to reshape the flesh beneath.' Loki recalled with a thoughtful expression.

Allowing their fingers to return to the Gorilla like proportions that they had previously had, Loki felt the film change shape to match, reshaping itself to fit like a glove over the covered area. He smiled slightly at the sensation, that was at least one thing it appeared he would not have to worry about.

After considering the problem for a few moments, Loki imagined 'pinching' a place on the palm of his hand; focusing on the resiatsu he began to exert pressure, pulling at the surface even as he provided more reiatsu. A spike like shape grew longer and longer until it was nearly three feet in length, the end was quite blunt and far from intimidating, yet compared to before...

The process to shape it had been similar to that he had used with the Gel, however, there seemed little relationship between the hardness and flexibility, something that Loki had come to rely upon. For the half hour, Loki focused on reforming the glove and shaping the spike, gradually sharpening the point and edges until it resembled a blade of light reddish brown energy, the shape did not flicker or waver, instead it seemed almost solid – though he knew it was not.

Running his free hand over the blade he pushed downwards on the edge with the gel thumb, after a moment of pressure it began to slice into the flesh carving down to where the bone would have been – had the limb not merely been constructed of gel. From the Gel he could feel the acute sensation caused by the damage, it was not pain, but rather an awareness of the shape's flaw, of the imperfection caused in the limb. 'Pretty,' Samantha cooed happily, pleased with the results.

~ Big things come in small packages ~

Learning: Compresión (Compression)
Training: Reiatsu/Hollow Technique Proficiency

As Loki had been developing the blade he could not shake the feeling that he had done something similar with the energy many times. In the blade, to make the reiatsu harder, more resistant to pressure, Loki had increased the amount of reiatsu, pushing on it and shaping it to the desired form. Had he not done almost exactly the same when he had been learning Solid Sky? For that matter, the process was so very similar for a Cero. One gathered reiatsu into a shape, then continued to add more and more energy while holding the size the same. The result was that the energy within the shape got more and more dense, more compressed. That was the reason it could withstand more force; it was also the reason that the cero was able to generate so much destructive force.

Looking once more at the palm of their gel formed hand, Loki began to create the beginning of a film; yet as soon as he had created an area about the size of a penny, he stopped allowing it to expand, however he continued to direct more energy to the coin sized dollop of reiatsu. Loki continued to devote more and more energy within the small shape as he noticed something strange, the more energy he added, the more the edges seemed to be wavering, expanding then contracting rapidly and darker swirls could be seen swimming across the surface of the reddish brown coin.

Finally, within the concentrated coin, the energy had been compressed to a level that rivalled that of the cero itself, a solid reddish brown colour, Loki was more than pleased at the result. However, the effort of gathering the reiatsu and pushing it into the small shape had not been near as great as he had anticipated; instead Loki continued his efforts – continuing to built the energy levels higher.

Only a few moments had passed yet the shape quickly began to distort, even as Loki hurried to diffuse the energy, directing more to the force holding in the surface while sapping away the energy from within; it exploded in a elliptical blast of reddish brown energy, the force was enough to dissolve the gel all the way down to Verlassen's elbow as it threw them backwards four feet onto their rump.

Despite having been using less than a quarter of the energy contained in a cero, far less than should have been needed to cause them any real harm, yet while smaller, it had been just as concentrated as their most powerful attack and he had been holding the damn thing when it exploded - so of course he had been damaged far more than expected. Standing up slowly, Loki looked down at the ragged stump that was their right arm; it took perhaps half a second for Loki to create enough gel and shape it to replace what they had lost. What a disaster that would have been in battle.

Even though they had managed to create a more stable compressed energy that was comparable in density to the cero, that they had then continued to add energy to it had obviously made it unstable. The force that they had been exerting on the surface to keep the energy in place had simply been overwhelmed by the mounting pressures from within. Loki growled in irritation; merely forcing the energy into the shape seemed to help generate a larger explosion, yet it certainly made the shape far less stable – any disruption in the surface would be catastrophic. They needed to develop a way to compress the energy in a way that would not explode if broken, or better yet – would only explode when desired.

The problem was, however much they reinforced the external layer of reiatsu compressing the energy within, it would only serve to allow them to build up more and more force inside the shape – which would become even more explosive. Instead they needed a different type of approach, rather than forcing the energy into a smaller shape, they needed to find a way to hold it together so that the energy would hold onto the energy immediately surrounding it. Sort of like how burrs stuck to clothing; the small grass seeds were rounded covered by tiny little hooks and easily caught on clothes and hair. Loki – who could create almost any sort of plant through the use of his gel, had experimented with them on more than one occasion in an attempt to get Grass to grow in the deserts of Huecco Mundo, though he had had no success, for without the sun no plant would grow in the white sands below the perpetual night.

This time, Loki began creating an even smaller, less concentrated coin of reiatsu, barely the size of a grain of rice. As he focused the reiatsu into the area he began more slowly, shrinking the initial energy as much as possible yet allowing tiny tendrils to break free from his control, shaping themselves into tiny hooks and loops as they formed – each were far too small to be seen by the eye, even were Loki to direct reiatsu into his eyes so that he could enhance his vision.

As he continued to add more energy to the point, Loki created other small, 'hairy' particles, as they rubbed up against each-other the hooks of one would catch in the loops of the other – holding them together in a loose mesh. At first his efforts were painstakingly slow and tortuous, it seemed Loki would never be able to gather enough energy in this manner to allow any sizeable concentration of energy to be formed for a technique. However as he added more energy they seemed to adopt the hairy form more readily, almost flowing into the same shape as the 'bits' of energy already gathered. Even more promising however was that as more energy clustered around them, the hook and loop joints began to contract, pulling the linked pieces more tightly together naturally and squeezing out the space between them – all without Loki needing to direct them at all.

Encouraged, Loki began to slowly add a layer of reiatsu around his creation, pushing inwards, as he did so, the effect only increased as the hooks and loops caught more and more securely, as each hook and loop link tightened, the pressure on the surrounding layer decreased. By the time Loki had produced the same concentration of reiatsu as he had managed earlier, the shape was only slightly larger than before and showed no signs of volatility.

Allowing the energy to dissipate, Loki began the process again, this time, soon after creating the second 'burr' he added a surrounding film of reiatsu to push the energy together, at the same time he continued to add more and more energy within. Though the initial progress seemed slower than the brute force approach he had used earlier, what followed was much quicker so that the entire process occurred in much the same amount of time. What resulted however was a compressed ball of energy that showed almost total stability, there were no fluctuations or vibrations, no uncontrolled swirling of energy.

Taking a breath, Loki steeled himself before walking over to a nearby tree; with the the small 'coin' of compressed energy in his hand Loki struck the trunk with his palm as hard as he could. There was a large cracking sound from the tree as the force of Loki's physical blow tore of a chunk of stone, yet the force of the compressed energy had not been released to explode, reinforcing the attack – instead it had stayed exactly as it had been, unaffected by the attempted breaching of its surface.

However Loki was far from convinced; in a real battle, it was important that the technique not merely resist being breached, but if it WAS breached that it did not explode unless needed. In his spare hand, Loki quickly created a blade of light reddish brown energy and extended his arms as far as they would reach, so that should an explosion occur, Verlassen would be safe. As he forced the edge of the sword into the small coin there was an incredible amount of resistance and he was forced to apply more pressure still – directing more energy into the blade to make it sharper while at the same time directing more energy into the joints of the hands to act like a vice. A few moments later the blade cut through the coin, yet there was no accompanying explosion – instead the two halves of the coin merely lay on his palm (which has also been split by the blade).

With a laugh Loki contracted his limbs back to their normal length and allowed the blade to disappear before throwing the two pieces into the air and snatching them up again. 'A complete success,' Loki thought as he threw the broken coin across the clearing, a moment later he concentrated on the energy within the pieces, willing the hooks to dissolve – as soon as he did so the two haves exploded into twin balls of reddish brown energy which threw dancing shadows across Verlassen's mask.

~ Getting the Shakes ~

Learning: Vibración de la Energía (Energy Vibration)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

However, Loki's training in compressing his reiatsu had shown him that more than just forcing the energy into a smaller more dense shape was possible, he had also seen the energy swirling and even vibrating, they prickled at his curiosity and Loki could not help but try to see if the passing discoveries would lead to any new true insight. Indeed, Loki had experienced something similar to the vibration on a number of occasions before, once when training his cero he had found the energy had become increasingly hard to control and had released the energy as soon as he began to allow his control to slip, the resulting beam of energy had shaken badly and had been difficult to aim. Yet the most striking similarity he had experienced was in his fight against Gilgamesh and Enkidu the Bount and Doll, who had caused their own bodies to vibrate to such an extent that merely coming into contact with them had been painful. Though Loki did not know how he could accomplish such a thing for Verlassen's body, were he able to harness such a technique for their energies it could perhaps be a potent weapon.

Once more Loki began to compress energy, needing to fight the urge to use the more stable, burr styled approach; instead he relied on creating a single mass of energy, forcing the outer surface inwards as much as he could. Within he could feel the energy swirling and fluctuating, as it did so the orb vibrated harshly. Yet Loki's expression was not one of happiness. The effort had been minimal perhaps, yet relying on such a cumbersome means by which to generate the vibration meant that they would need to devote more time and energy to compressing energy than they should; after all they were not attempting to create a compressed ball of energy, just one that vibrated.

Allowing the energy to dissipate before it became more unstable, Loki reconsidered the problem critically. What they needed to do was not duplicate the conditions in which the vibrations were occurring when he condensed energy, but rather to cause those very same vibrations even were the conditions vastly different. Yet why did the energy vibrate so? Loki formed the compressed sphere of energy once more, being careful not to allow the pressure to build up too much. As they pushed inwards from the outside, Loki had felt the energy within being displaced by the force, pushed away from the outside towards the inside, as this occurred it bounced off the other side of the sphere. The process was repeating itself over and over; as it did so, the 'bits' of energy would collide and this distorted the outside of sphere slightly, even causing the entire shape to move fractionally – yet the speed with which it was doing so was so fast... How could he hope to consciously control such a thing? The truth was that he could not; instead he would need to find some way of making it occur even without his direction.

Just as before he had relied on a new approach to encouraging his reiatsu to compress without his own intervention, so too he looked for a means by which to trigger the vibration of the reiatsu.

At the start when Loki was looking to compress the energy there had been extremely little vibration, yet as the energy became more and more dense, the 'bits' of energy knocked into each-other more often and the vibrations became increasingly severe. It seemed as though the vibrations were directly linked to the number of 'bits' of energy; however how could Loki affect the same results without increasing the amount of energy?

It was so incredibly frustrating! Loki punched the nearest tree in vexation and was rewarded by a gentle shower of sand from the stone canopy far above. However the sand fell not just around him, but for nearly thirty feet in every direction as the tree's leave shifted in response to the slight swaying of the stone trunk. Loki grinned at that – relieved of a portion of his frustration, yet Gertrude chided him too quietly for the other souls of Verlassen to hear, 'Are you so easily frustrated that you would not see this for what it is?' she asked with a soft sigh.

'What do you mean,' Loki asked, trying his best to keep asperity from his tone as he addressed the oldest and one of the most well respected souls in Verlassen.

'You look for inspiration on how to shake our energy, yet you miss what happens when you strike the tree,' she said in disappointment, 'did you not see how it was not just the tree that shook, but all the tree's branches and all of the leaves upon the branches?' Loki's eyes opened wide at her thoughts, he had no need to shake each and every bit of energy himself – as he had linked the burrs with hooks and loops for compression, he could link the bits of energy like leaves on a tree for vibration.

With the new idea to work with, Loki began gathering his energy once again, this time he formed the energy into tiny particles much like he had for the 'burrs' yet this time instead of hooks and loops he instead formed tiny, slightly flexible pathways between them. As each new 'leaf' was added so too were dozens of tiny 'stems' linking the leaf to it's neighbors. Compared to the compressed burrs of energy, there were far fewer of the leaves and they were spread further apart, joined not by rightened hooks and loops but rather elastic like stems; with that the structure was completed.

Taking a deep breath, Loki 'nudged' one of the leaves, pushing it with his will. As he did so the leaf pushed away slightly from it's neighbors, tightening the stems before he released it, the result was that the leaf snapped back into place due to the tension of the connecting links, as it did so it knocked into the other leaves nearby, they too were displaced before snapping back into place. A chain reaction ensued and the small sphere began to vibrate rapidly in Loki's hands as he smiled in equal parts relief and pleasure. 'See? If you calm down it isn't so bad,' Gertude spoke softly, once again for Loki's thoughts only.

As Loki pushed it experimentally against the nearby tree he felt the orb resist, buckling too and fro as it repeatedly slapped against the stone surface; the contact was light yet incredibly rapid and a fine dust began to fall free from the trunk as tiny flakes of stone fell like saw dust. The vibrating surface of the sphere was dull, rather than cutting through the surface of the tree it was instead attempting to pound its way through – though only a fine dislodging of stone chips and a number of small hairline cracks in the trunk seemed to be the result. Loki allowed the sphere to dissolve and was just about to discard the entire concept as useless when he looked around him and looked around in astonishment; where before his punch had dislodged a few streams of sand here and there, all around him from the edges of the tree's canopy rained scores of sandy streams, far more than he had managed with a punch, despite having stopped the sphere nearly thirty seconds before.

Instead of a single destructive blow it had instead resulted in an ongoing tremor within the tree – the force was incomparable.

~ Rethink ~

Learning: Compresión (Compression)
Training: Reiatsu/Hollow Technique Proficiency

But even as Loki had finished his efforts with the Vibration, he blinked, why was the structure so different from that used by the compression – the major difference seemed to be the links that had been formed; for the compression the links contracted wherever possible and once they had done so they held fast, on the other hand, for the vibration, the links that had been formed were longer and more elastic, allowing the movement of the particles before snapping back.

Loki frowned in irritation, there should be no need for a separate structure for the two and it would only make concentration more difficult. Loki once more began to form the 'stem' connected leaves, yet this time he made the stems inflexible, contracting wherever they could even as he compressed the outside film of reiatsu. He smiled in satisfaction as they responded in much the same way and he could feel that the stems had grown smaller and smaller, squeezing the spaces between the individual bits of energy. Unlike the more flexible stems used in the vibration form, the short, contracting stems gave little movement – instead remaining fixed, so there was little outwards pressure pushing against the constricting film. Satisfied thus far, he once again split the sphere with a blade of manifested energy, careful to extend his limbs as he did so to avoid damaging their body. Yet there was no resulting explosion as the contracted 'stems' continued to hold onto the energy next to them. Loki sighed to release his own explosive tension – it had worked.

With that Loki was certain that he could change from the compressed to the vibrating reiatsu structure with little difficulties; there was no need to overcomplicate things by having more and more structures to remember, especially since he might have to change things in a hurry, were they in a battle situation.

~ Round the Mulberry Bush ~

Learning: Rotación de la Energía (Energy Rotation)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

Apart from the vibrations, their earlier efforts in compressing reiatsu through brute force had yielded one other effect; the swirling of energies within the reiatsu. Though Loki had at first doubted that such a thing could have any true effect in battle, as he had been training with the vibration effect, Loki had recalled the memories of a Quincy he had eaten as a lowly hollow, the man who had hunted the hollow called 'Hans' had been a Quincy full of pride at his reishi manipulation, the speed of his arrows and their power were something that he had always been confident in. The energy within the arrows themselves had spun at a ridiculous rate, capable of cutting flesh and bone alike with ease; the more Loki thought about it, the more he anticipated what might be, should he manage to harness such a skill.

Like with the vibration before it, Loki began once more by forcefully compressing a small sphere of reiatsu, examining the energy within for signs of movement. At first there was little that could be felt, yet as the energy continued to mount Loki could see and feel small flows of reiatsu, like waves in a pond rippling across the surface, first this way and then that as the energy within moved in currents beneath the surface.

Yet as Loki allowed the energy to dissipate, he realised that just like the vibration – what he needed was not to be able to produce concentrated balls of reiatsu that could rotate but rather to be able to cause rotation in any of his reiatsu constructs. Therefore he needed to be able to achieve similar results with much lower energy concentrations.

As the vibration before it, the rotation seemed largely the result of movement of many bits of energy, rather than the movements of small individual pieces. Though it might be possible to generate the rotation in other ways, what they hoped was to use a similar construction as they had used for vibration (and also compression). If that was so then they could manage to switch or even combine different elements of the three without ill effect, it would also mean less strain in concentrating on the formation of the technique.

Concentrating carefully, Loki began to gather the small beads of reiatsu, connecting each to its neighbours through 'stems'; as for the vibration before it, Loki was hoping to develop the rotations in the reiatsu without needing more and more energy, so he made the links longer – just as he had for vibration. With a slow release of breath, Loki 'grasped' at one section of the matrix, pushing at several hundred of the particles; it was a slow, even push – yet the result was anything but gentle – instead of a uniform flow of movement, the structure instead dissolved into chaotic vibrations as the particles snapped back to their original position due to their flexible stems, as this happened they bumped into other stationary particles and the effects multiplied.

Stilling the vibrations with some effort, Loki examined the matrix once more as he considered the problem – unlike in vibration it was not the movement of single particles of energy so much as the movement of many different particles in the same direction at the same time. The flows should revolve around the shape at speed, spinning along a set orbit. In fact, it was like the spinning was of chains, which ran around the outside of the sphere, thousands of individual chains of energy all rotating in the same direction.

As he thought this he frowned at the construction of energy in his palm, slowly he identified a row of beads, each was linked to the next in the chain, along with others particles at each point; yet the links along that chain he made less flexible, long yet fixed not elastic. Again he repeated the steps and again, hundreds of times over; it was a time consuming process and nearly twenty minutes had passed before he was finished.

Again and again he repeated the process, while the first time he had worked on As Loki raised his free hand to rub at his mask he considered the matrix before him then once again attempted to grasp the surface of the sphere and push it gently to begin the rotation. For a moment all seemed to be going well, yet as the speed began to increase, the slight differences between the speed in one chain versus another became a much larger problem and the flexible links that bound one chain to another flexed and pulled the chains. As it did so the precise speeds of each individual chain differed from the one next to it and their orientation oscillated slightly upwards and downwards as they rotated around the circumference of the sphere.

Loki was disgusted by his efforts until Gertrude once more pointed out, 'If they all rotating in exactly the same direction and at the same speed, would it not be easier for an opponent to compensate for that?' Loki's eyes opened wide, though he had only thought about the elegance of the technique, the ever practical Gertrude had managed to realise what he himself had not.

'Yes you are right,' Loki admitted quietly, 'in fact, it may be a good idea to work on making them spin in entirely different directions.' In such a case compensating for the spin would be even more difficult Loki reasoned as he set his new goal. Yet how would he manage such a thing?

As it was the flexible links would pull the chains back into place and set the oscillations going once more, yet where he to make fixed connections between the chains then they would all resolve at the same speed and in the same direction; indeed it seemed that having any sort of lnk between the chains would only serve to make the rotation less random – maybe he should just remove the links between the chains entirely. Loki sighed, if he removed the links between the chains altogether then switching to compression or to vibration would be more time consuming and require more concentration.

It seemed a lose-lose situation; yet with the compression technique he had used a slightly different method originally, instead of using the contracting links he had instead used a hook and loop connection style. Perhaps instead of removing them altogether he could make the connections snap apart when the chains moved away from one another and together again when the chains came close.

So thinking Loki considered the flexible links between the chains, slowly he snapped them apart, affixing them once more with a 'glob of energy attached to each of the severed ends. As Loki grasped the side of the sphere this time he have it a push, watching as the chains all began spinning in the same direction. Yet as they spun he pushed at the sphere again, this time knocking some of the chains upwards, again he pushed at the sphere, knocking some of those to face in the direction opposite they had once spun, once more he knocked the sphere causing some of those to rotate downwards. Regardless of which way they had been knocked to face the chains continued to spin, rotating around the sphere and slipping upwards and downwards, their angles constantly changing. Loki let loose a gleeful shout.

~ Break Stuff ~

Training: Cero Proficiency

After their practice in controlling their reiatsu, Loki decided it might be time to resharpen the most powerful weapon in their possession. Their Cero was the most potent energy weapon they had been able to develop thus far and they had grown greatly since they had first learned the technique, though it was still very far from perfect. Indeed as always, the most pressing difficulty was the speed with which it could be formed, the time required to be gather and compress the necessary energy was far too long to be effective in most situations, instead it was a dangerous and potentially deadly delay.

However his earlier efforts with energy compression had encouraged him, perhaps it would be possible to apply the lessons he had learned in compressing the energy for his cero. When previously training his cero, Loki had focused on increasing the speed of gathering the needed energy, however were he also able to then speed up the compression process he might be able to further reduce the charging time; with that the most pivotal failure of the technique may well be overcome.

Gathering the reiatsu that was spilling from Verlassen's body, Loki also began changing their reiryoku to produce yet more energy as he collected the force needed for the blast. This time, he had no intention of overcharging the energy as he had before – within the Menos Forest, using such a powerful attack would merely end up with being covered in sand after all. Finally the energy required for the attack was produced and Loki began to concentrate on compressing it. The small particles of energy were abundant and they readily began to take on the required form, small balls with dozens and dozens of small interconnecting stems. As more energy was added to the initial point the new additions seemed to more readily adopt the same form, as if influenced by the presence of the interconnecting stems. As it grew larger, Loki began forming a sheet of energy around the small ball of energy, pushing inwards; in response the energy condensed as the small stems contracted, again he added more small balls of energy with their small connections like tiny strands of hair – all too tiny for the eye to see. Every time he compressed the wrap, the ball shrunk, yet with each successive shrinking the difference was less. Finally Loki had reached the level of energy that he was comfortable with using within the Menos forest, with the Cero completed Loki unleashed the blast, watching as the light reddish brown beam shot between two trees and grazed along the ground before it exploded against a small crevice in relatively large rock some thirty feet away, just where Loki had aimed it.

The rock cracked along the fault line under the force of Loki's attack, though it was markedly less powerful than he could have made it. He blinked in surprise, what was so unusual was not so much the speed – for though the compression had been quite a bit faster than normal – the entire process was of a similar length; no, what was most surprising was the ease with which Loki had found keeping the beam in the intended direction. Usually when releasing a Cero it wobbled as the force fluctuated and shook, yet Loki had found it easier to manipulate the structure of the cero as it flew, applying the lessons he had learned in the earlier vibration and rotation exercises without even realising it. The result had been a cero where the path had been less chaotic and therefore more easily aimed.

However, the major benefit Loki sought was an increase in speed and the results had been only slightly in their favour. Loki was far from impressed; he had hoped for something more spectacular, an even faster process – yet it seemed that despite the increase in speed in both gathering and then compressing the energy, the two processes were still a long and tortuous affair. 'Perhaps, concentrating merely on making either of the two more efficient is one of the reasons why the total process is so ineffective.' Loki mused. He had been trying so desperately to gather the energy as quickly as he could that he had not been able to do anything else, the same was true for when they had been compressing the energy – it had taken up so much of their concentration. Yet the truth was that towards the end of the reiatsu gathering and near the start of the compression period, both processes slowed down considerably. Since neither were taking up all of his concentration at that time, surely it should be possible to have the two processes overlap. In fact, since the compression took so long to get going, it would be best to begin it as soon as possible.

Concentrating carefully, Loki began to gather the reiatsu he was emitting while at the same time converting reiryoku into new reiatsu right at the tip of his left gel index finger the energy quickly began to gather at the site, yet Loki was more concerned now with the next phase. Loki had begun shaping the tiny particles, linking them with contracting stems and surrounding the mass with a thin sheet of reiatsu that pushed inwards, forcing the beads together and allowing the stems to contract further, squeezing the space out of between them. As this was occurring, the energy for the cero continued to be added just within the confines of the reiatsu sheet, new particles and the connecting stems being formed more quickly as the energy continued to gather. Every time the surrounding layer of energy contracted, the energy already there contracted more than before, so the energy that had been added first was the most densely condensed of all.

The most startling aspect however, was that the entire process took only slightly longer than the compression itself; by performing both at once, the delay had been significantly reduced! Firing the new blast of energy off just as he had for the previous, Loki guided the beam into the broken rock face again. This time however, Loki attempted to prevent the cero from exploding at all by focusing on the small contracted stems of energy, willing them to remain contracted despite the impact across the surface. Instead of exploding, the beam slammed into the side of the rock into the already exposed fissure, there was a loud cracking sound and after a moment the remaining rock gave way and the beam of reddish brown light broke through, pushing aside the remaining debris.

Elated, Loki moved to make the guts pose, clenching his fist to his side; as he did so his hand moved and the beam strayed upwards slightly, attempting to eat a hole through rock it had already pierced through. It was only a moment later when the gathered energy expired and the cero disappeared, yet Loki's celebration had already been aborted. 'What the hell was that.'

By straining themselves slightly, Loki had been able to increase the duration of their non volatile cero for long enough to break through the rock; yet what was more important than that had been the slight movement of the beam just at the end. Half slithering, Loki made his way over to the rock, examining the hole that had been punched through the relatively soft sandstone. The initial hole had been circular and Loki could easily understand how it had occurred, the force of the blast had been enough to compromise the flimsy rock after only a slight delay – indeed had it been a harder rock the damage it would have incurred would probably have been greater as more force was needed to be sent through to crush resistance. No what fascinated Loki was the slight elongation in the hole, as he had moved his hand upwards, the beam had followed, shouldering aside the flimsy rock as it did so; that had never occurred before.

Once again Loki charged and fired a cero, straining slightly to sustain the beam for a few moments more. As he did so he shifted his hand to the side and the beam wavered unstably in response before flickering and disappearing; yet while the observable results had been less than impressive Loki was greatly encouraged. As it had wavered, Loki had felt the energy within the Cero attempting to change it's direction to match the path he had desired, however it had also been attempting to progress in the original direction – as a result of the two, the beam had shaken backwards and forth, becoming unstable and breaking down.

This time as Loki charged and fired the cero, he focused on the sensation of the movement of the particles of energy, not just the beam itself. Even as he directed the beam with his finger, he guided the movement of the particles, softening the collisions between the particles and shifting them from the old path to the new path. Only a few moments had passed, yet Loki had been able to change the path of the Cero by nearly twenty degrees, using his hand and mind to turn the beam like a torch.

Several hours progressed as Loki continued to attempt to alter the direction of the blasts and the trees and rocky ground around him bore witness to the severity of his training. In the end however, the most effective tool he found to helping him change the path of the beam was to overcharge the cero then release a portion of the beam at a time, easing out the compressed energy at a controlled rate. Even as he did so he continued to collect the reiatsu which oozed from his body and converted his reiryoku into reiatsu near his gel hand, pooling them into the continually compressing film of energy even as it was formed into tiny particles, each with dozens of tiny contracting stems attached.

At first maintaining the beam for half a second proved a challenge, yet as he managed to control the output, Loki found it easier and easier to drag out the process. By the end he had managed to control the beam for up to thirty seconds, yet the longer he did so the more energy he needed to maintain it, so he found himself reducing the power of the sustained cero unless needed.

It was at this time that taking a break for a while seemed a good idea, Loki had been training quite extensively – even though he had been suppressing his power level the near continuous use of compressed energies was unsurprisingly taking it's toll, he decided a quick nap was in order. Feeling refreshed, Loki stood up and stretched before inspiration from the nap itself hit him. If a break was useful in training, perhaps the same could be said for the cero itself.

Again Loki charged a cero, releasing the force circumspectly, a portion at a time as he did to maintain a sustained beam. Yet even as he did so he abruptly stopped the flow of energy, cutting the stems that bound the compressed energy that had just left the cero sphere from the energy that remained. As this happened the initial trail of energy from the cero soared through the air, yet Loki was already pointing the finger directly to his right. At right angles to the original blast he unleashed another short blast of cero concentrated energy, sweeping it to the left, back across it's original path and to the other side.

Loki grinned as the last of the energy dissipated, 'Oh, now this could be useful,' even as he thought that Loki was charging up his energy yet again, forming a cero at the tip of his tail as he lifted it up and arched it over his shoulder. Unleashing one short blast of concentrated reddish brown energy as Loki pointed the tail at one of the nearby trees, he watched as the blast tore a torso sized chunk out of the stony pulp, he unleashed another blast at the tree next to it and a matching scar appeared on the second trunk; again and again Loki unleashed the short, sharp bolts of energy as he smiled grimly behind their ivory mask.

Loki now had yet another tool with which he could defend the Verlassen.

[Empty]

~ I was here! ~

Learning: Pinta (Marking)
Training: Hollow Technique Proficiency

It was as Loki was resting that he felt a slight disquiet that he could not quite place; pushing himself up, Loki scanned his surroundings for sign of danger. For only the briefest of moments, Loki noticed a small, weak hollow, a tiny squirrel that had so well hidden it's energy that Loki had almost completely missed it. Even as he looked at the squirrel it seemed extremely difficult to sense, Loki was impressed – compared to his own skill at forcing his reiatsu to appear less powerful, this creature had managed to not so much lower it's energy as it was reducing the impact that it's energy had on the world around it, changing how easily it could be sensed.

With a start, the squirrel realised it had been seen and darted away, it had held no animosity towards Loki or even hunger since it had just eaten, instead it had merely been curious about the strange figure coiled into a ball. Now however it was concerned that it might become Loki's meal and it's curiosity changed to fear. Scampering away, the creature managed to gain a few yards before burrowing straight down into the ground away from Loki's curious eyes.

As soon as his line of sight was broken, Loki frowned in concentration attempting to keep track of the small hollow with his reiatsu. It was as challenging as he had thought, the well hidden energy of the squirrel proved extremely difficult to find, yet he managed after a few moments; however with every passing second the sensation was becoming more and more faint.

Allowing the creature to leave unmolested, Loki considered the amazing skill it had displayed; while duplicating such a feat would be extraordinary, a more pressing concern was far more central in Loki's thoughts. 'Had the creature instead been a powerful enemy, how could I possibly have kept track of it?'

When their foe was beneath the ground, Loki's enhanced senses which he had used to track down a weasel that had been able to hide it's reiatsu; would be next to useless were the opponent skilful enough. No... they needed some other means by which to track down a foe once identified. Floating up through the memories of those Verlassen had consumed in the past was a vague concept, a remembered idea of a technique that Jun the shinto priest had heard of.

By imbuing the opponent with a tiny portion of their own reiatsu, it was possible to more easily track the energy due to their intimate relationship. It seemed that the technique required that the one performing it to come into contact with the target being marked and divert a flow of energy into the surface.

It would be a useful approach Loki conceded, yet how would they train it when they had no partner? Using one of the Gel seeds would not work, for they were already created with Verlassen's energy; as he considered the dilemma seriously for a moment, Loki scanned their surroundings before their eyes alighted on a rock. 'Jun, would the technique work on something other than a soul? Like a rock?' He queried with a small smile.

'In truth I am not sure.' Had Jun shoulders, the middle aged man would have shrugged apologetically, 'If I could remember more I would tell you, but unfortunately when we became a Gillian... many of my memories of how to use energy were stripped from me.' That was true for most of the souls within Verlassen whether Named or Nameles.

Picking up the rock calmly, Loki turned it over in their hands, it was an unremarkable rock even as he used their Revealing Gaze to examine it. To use too much energy would likely only damage the rock, so Loki slowly concentrated on the surface of the rock just where they were touching it; gathering their reiatsu as it seeped from their body, Loki directed a small flow of energy towards the stone.

The energy beaded for a moment on the non-porous surface before grudgingly seeping within in response to Loki's forceful urging; as they examined the rock with their reiatsu Loki could feel the small flow of energy billowing out like a cloud within the shape. As he concentrated on the sensation, Loki could not help but notice that the feeling was so indistinct and difficult to focus on, that it would be unlikely that they could track it over any distance. Pulling back their arm, Loki threw the rock into the forest, amid the trees; as it got further and further away Loki continued to attempt to concentrate on the sensation, yet the effort of imagining the cloudy mass of energy proved far too difficult and even before the clunking sound of the small rock colliding with a tree in the distance was heard, he had lost track of the missile with his energy senses. Again and again he repeated the process with varying amounts of energy yet each time was a dismal failure.

Loki sighed, perhaps were the reiatsu more crisply defined, it could be more easily concentrated upon and the technique would be more effective. 'A Triangle!' Jun cried suddenly, Loki cast his thoughts towards the former priest, much like he would turn his eyes towards someone who had suddenly spoken. 'I just remembered something about a triangle appearing on the skin.' Jun finished with chagrin, such information would likely have made their efforts much easier.

This time, as Loki attempted to direct a flow of reiatsu towards the rock he did not attempt to force the immediate absorption of the energy; instead pooling more and more energy on the surface, shaping it in a small reddish brown triangle, with the shape beginning to take, Loki grinned – the sensation revealed by their Revealing Gaze and reiatsu senses was completely unlike the previous, fluid like cloud of energy, instead it was a constant and well defined shape, a triangle.

Pulling back their arm, once again Loki sent a rock flying between the trees, as he concentrated on the sensation Loki was able to feel the presence of the rock, and even had he been blind he would have been able to point towards the missile as it collided with a tree, glancing off the stone trunk and bouncing across the ground before it rolled and was still.

It was when the rock collided with the tree however that the sensation had become much more difficult to follow, for a moment Loki had been picturing the triangle and had felt the energy disrupted. It seemed that the collision with the tree had scratched part of the small parcel of energy, this had made tracking it more difficult.

Loki picked up another rock and looked at it critically, unfortunately no matter how much energy he added or how concentrated he made it – by having the energy pooled on the surface it would always be subject to damage by those who did not want to be tracked. If only it were more difficult to damage... The earlier rocks had not had such difficulty, in part perhaps because it had been more difficult to concentrate on them, however Loki was just as inclined to believe that the benefit they had lay elsewhere – in the fact that the energy had been taken within the rocks, not just laid on the surface.

Directing a flow of energy towards the rock, Loki allowed the energy to pool on the surface shaping it into an equilateral triangle before focusing on the energy again. This time he forced much of the energy to seep down through the non-porous surface, the reddish brown triangle lightened slightly as the energy seeped within and Loki grinned. Loki cast the rock forcefully, directly into the nearest tree – as the small missile collided with the tree there was a loud clacking sound and the rock bounced off. Loki moved over to inspect his handiwork and was pleased to see that despite the force of the throw being enough to run a faint crack over the rock's surface, the triangle had remained.

Loki may not have noticed it, had he not spied the creature from the corner of his eye - his new 'friend' had returned. The small brown squirrel watched Loki from a distance, seemingly intrigued at the strange actions of the even stranger hollow. Loki was grateful to the small, weak hollow for the insight it had leant him, so even if it had been powerful enough to warrant a meal, he would likely have left it be; yet Gertrude had a suggestion for him. 'Perhaps it would be a good idea to -test- this new skill of ours?' She asked, her meaning obvious; the squirrel's reiatsu was extremely difficult to concentrate on, so using their reaitsu senses to detect the creature would be difficult, if on the other hand they were to mark the creature with their own reiatsu and concentrate on that energy instead, it should prove a much easier task than it had earlier.

However, the small animal had proved flighty and Loki doubted it would understand his intention, so the only options available to him were crude – to rely on the overwhelming difference in their physical and spiritual capabilities.

With his mind made up, Loki slightly eased his positioning, allowing himself a better posture with which to begin, even that slight movement seemed too much for the squirrel, who, sensing danger immediately began moving, jumping up in the air in preparation to burrow down into the ground again. Yet compared to Loki's Sonido de Reverberación, it was as if the swift movement of the squirrel was child's play, he was almost instantly above the small mammalian hollow, his hand wreathed in energy as he infused the tiny squirrel with his reaistu. As the tiny amount of energy sunk into the soft flesh beneath, it darkened into a small reddish brown triangle, no larger than an inch.

Even as the squirrel touched the ground the deed was done, the triangular mark visible only for a moment as the creature sped downwards into the relative safety of the hard packed ground beneath the Menos Forest. Though gone from sight, the small hollow had not escaped Loki's grasp just yet; sending out his reiatsu senses, Loki carefully scanned the area for sign of his own reiatsu.

Nearly ten meters below the ground he found it, a small triangular formation of what was distinctly Verlassen's own energy; and, as he focused intently on the area immediately surrounding that sensation, Loki could feel the nearly transparent reiatsu of the squirrel, even as the signal continued to move underground. Eventually it neared one of the great stone trees and Loki could feel the sensation of both the squirrel and his own reiatsu running up the inside of the trunk. Looking upwards, Loki noticed a well camouflaged opening in the stony bark and briefly saw a small brown head peek out before disappearing within.

Grinning happily, Loki allowed the triangular infusion of energy to fade; though he was sorry for startling the poor thing, the Squirrel had helped him yet again.

~ Hiding in plain sight ~

Learning: Oscurecer (Obscure); increased 'transparency' of energy
Learning: Subterfugio (Subterfuge)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

Such a technique might prove to be a great boon to Loki in tracing their foes, to ensure that they were not caught unawares – yet the squirrel itself had shown a far more interesting capability. Despite looking directly at it, Loki had needed to struggle to notice the considerably weaker being, it's energy had seemed unusually vacant, passive... It had seemed like nothing was there. Loki himself had learned how to conceal their energies in an attempt to hide them from powerful predators, however the technique that the squirrel had shown seemed more advanced still. For a moment Loki was a little disappointed he had not eaten the soul before he caught himself; they ate enemies – they did not hunt others for their powers!

All of his previous attempts at concealing their reiatsu stemmed from the deployment of a sort of cover made of reiatsu around the entire body, all over the inside surface were innumerable tiny indentations and attached to each of these were streams of reiatsu which fed back into the skin. By doing this he was able to collect the reiatsu they was releasing and use the funnel like indents to relieve the pressure caused by attempting to hold back the pressure; the gathered energy was then reabsorbed to prevent it's loss.

As Loki adopted that very same method he looked at his arm critically, it was far from the effect he had seen the squirrel manage to achieve. The energy continued to vibrate as it left the body and was gathered by the funnels, as Loki concentrated on suppressing his power he attempted to soften the collisions within the reiatsu as it was gathered, the vibrations became gentler and gentler, yet they occurred just as frequently and the reiatsu continued to fluctuate at the exact same rate. Unlike the squirrel, Loki had been able to reduce the size of the vibrations to a much greater extent and as a result his power seemed even more suppressed, yet despite that there was not the same feeling of 'transparency,' his power might seem greatly diminished – to the point that he seemed even weaker than the squirrel had – yet that very same amount of energy was so much more easily noticeable.

In the reishi rich Huecco Mundo, the dull throbbing of energy was a constantly changing tapestry of sensations. As a result those who inhabited the realm had long developed the ability to sense reiatsu; yet despite that, any of those capable of sensing reiatsu would have been able to more easily sense Loki than the squirrel, despite Loki's suppressed power being lower than the rodent's.

What he had felt from the squirrel however had been variable, the severity and frequency of the fluctuations had changed constantly – so one would think that it would be easier to detect... However in the squirrel's case the fluctuations had seemed more fitting, the reiatsu had been so natural that it was beneath noticing. Loki's eyes narrowed as he considered that line of thought, 'Perhaps it is precisely because my energy fluctuates so evenly that it can be sensed more easily.'

Encouraged, Loki began to experiment with that idea; as he suppressed their power, instead of merely attempting to soften the vibrations, Loki would also cause them every so often. Usually the result was less than helpful – the triggered vibrations even more discordant than before, however on occasion as he fiddled with different methods, he noticed that on occasion the changing frequency of the vibrations would actually make his energy more difficult to sense for a moment. Despite that it was very difficult to identify which of the methods were being successful, for a method would make the reiatsu less notable on one occasion then later make the energy even more noticeable than before.

Hours passed by slowly and Loki grew increasingly frustrated as he tried dozens and dozens of ways to change how the energy felt. It was only when he finally noticed that the deciding factor in the successful and unsuccessful attempts to make their reiatsu less obvious had been when rather than how the attempts were made. Carefully, Loki began to get the timing down and for several seconds at a time he could duplicate the squirrel's natural seeming energy.

However performing the fine changes himself proved extremely difficult to manage for any extended period, instead Loki sought a way to make the changes himself, slowly mental exhaustion began to pile up and the field around him began to distort slightly, altering the spacing and size of the funnels. As it did so Loki found that the energy fluctuations were more responsive, as the indentations were slightly interfering with their neighbours, distorting how they vibrated. As this happened the vibrations were cascading, each seeming to be affected more easily by the energy outside of the field so that the reiatsu vibrations seemed in tune with the surroundings. As the ripples of fluctuations in their surroundings washed over them like water in a pond, the surrounding field stilled the original vibration as it washed over them, rippling the surface of Loki's reiatsu to reproduce the ripple as it emerged at the other side, in time with the rest of the wave.

The effect was only temporary, for the moment Loki attempted to focus on it the technique snapped back to the way it 'should' have been, yet Loki now had the inspiration he needed and as a result the mental fatigue was swept away. After only three attempts he managed to duplicate the feat as he clustered the indentations more closely together, all but touching each-other, as he did so he also decreased their size and depth.

The resulting release of energy seemed far less noticeable even to Loki himself, it was almost exactly the same sensation as he had experienced when looking at the squirrel – all he had needed to do was to was to change the number, size and depth of the funnels; rather than needing to worry about causing vibrations, he could let the funnels themselves regulate that. 'And the very same method allowed the sound to became more discordant,' Loki thought eagerly, 'That means I could use this technique to emulate a wide range of energy signatures.'

~ Use the Force ~

Learning: Infusión (Infusion)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

As Loki recapped their previous lesson he was attempting to use Subterfuge to duplicate the transparency of the squirrel's reiatsu, as he did so his energy became less and less noticeable. With that task achieved Loki began to use their Marking ability to brand a rock, yet as he did so he noticed that the reiatsu that he injected into the rock was difficult to notice; it wasn't that the energy was not there, or even that it was hard to concentrate upon – rather it felt transparent, for some reason the reiatsu used within Marking had become affected by the nature of the reiatsu used within Subterfuge.

Intrigued, Loki allowed the Marking on the rock to fade and instead began manifesting energy, shaping the reiatsu into a blade. This too seemed more difficult to sense than usual, nearly 'transparent' in how it appeared to Loki's reiatsu senses. It was as Loki was reshaping the blade, pushing it back into the glove shaped covering over his hand that he noticed the strange fluctuations of the energy, beating in time to the energy in their surroundings. The result was that the energy of the blade itself was likewise taking on the Subterfuge technique's strangely reactive concealment, as the pulsating energy was leaving Loki it was being taken into the blade while still retaining it's earlier effects.

Though at first the concept puzzled him he quickly began to understand, had he not been able to provide his cero with compressed energy, increased it's volatility and even rotated it? Was he not able to infuse to the Espiga technique to create spikes even within the Gel he created? No the only real question was why had he felt it so unusual for one technique to be able to flow into another.

Slowly Loki began to play with the idea, concentrating on creating a condensed mass of rotating energy on their palm, Loki slowly began to shape it, using it as the energy required to manifest a blade of energy. As he pinched and pulled it into shape Loki could feel the energy rapidly rotating along the length of the edge, in comparison the flats of the blade were far less rapidly moving – almost sluggish. Loki grinned as he imagined the effect of the blade – such a thing would cut even more effectively than before as the blade rotated like the teeth on a chainsaw.

As Loki considered the torpid flats of the blade he was less than impressed; while rotating the sides would not serve to increase the ease with which the blade rotated, it seemed as though the sides of the blade contributed naught to their efforts. He reasoned that the blade would be even more efficient without providing the surplus energy to the sides, so Loki began to attempt to alter the shape again, to push the energy from the sides of the blade more towards the edges. However as he did so, the energy proved difficult to control and instead of achieving the desired outcome, the energy slipped from Loki's strict control, oscillating slightly as it snapped back into place. The moment the first vibration started, Loki's eyes opened wide and by the time the movement had stopped he was still staring at the flat of the blade, lost in thought. This time Loki began to prod the side of the blade more violently, as he did so he set off a chain reaction, causing the sides of the blade to vibrate angrily in response.

'With the edges rotating to increase the ease with which it cuts and the sides vibrating to force aside the flesh...' The effect had been far more impressive than he had dreamed. As the energy used in the blade took on the effects of the Subterfuge technique it had become difficult to notice, yet when the rotation and vibration had been used that rapidly ceased to be the case as the infused properties of the two new techniques clashed with that of subterfuge. Still, he had managed to strengthen the blade itself and provide new functionalities to the technique – such an approach should be possible with a wealth of other skills.

It was then that a voice spoke within Verlassen, 'Could you not use that very same idea to vibrate your own body?' Gilgamesh the soul of the consumed Bount asked; now that Loki recalled it, he could remember Gilgamesh and Enkidu using a similar skill, it had caused Loki no little damage to simply come in contact with their opponent – a fact the pair had attempted to use to their advantage.

Yet to use the newly conceived idea on their own body seemed dangerous, so instead Loki bit the tip of his tongue and allowed the blood to drip from the corner of his mouth, mixing with a small amount of Gel as it rapidly crystallised into a small reddish brown seed. Loki began producing more and more gel before he calmly shaped it into a four armed humanoid form; picking up the seed he pushed it against the gel shape's chest, an instant later the seed pushed it's way into the gel shape, sprouting into hundreds of tiny roots. Loki then concentrated his thoughts briefly and pushed the souls of Gilgamesh and his partner Enkidu into the vessel.

”What the hell?” Enkidu said in astonishment as the two souls suddenly found themselves in control of a single form once again.

”I take it this is a temporary arrangement?” Gilgamesh stated wryly before shrugging, ”Still, perhaps you are not quite the root of all evil as I once thought.” The Bount conceded with a nod of their head.

”Will you help us?” Loki asked simply; of all the souls in Verlassen's body – the two souls now inhabiting the Gel shape before them were the most qualified for the task, even though they were technically not part of the one hundred and eight Verlassen souls themselves.

In response Gilgamesh simply narrowed his eyes and turned their form to the side, concentrating on the task at hand. Feeling Gilgamesh's intention, Loki smiled slightly behind their mask and used his Revealing Gaze to examine he Gel Seed controlled shape closely, though it was his own gel – the technique would allow Loki to more easily detect any changes.

Gilgamesh quickly duplicated Loki's energy manifestation technique, the Bount focused on increasing the vibration of the energy. Rather than then pulling on the outside of the energy and shaping it into a blade, the Bount began to force the energy within their hand soaking in the reiatsu into their gel hand. For a moment their arm began to spasm wildly before Gilgamesh regained control of the fine reiatsu pathways in the flesh, insulating the control over the psuedo 'nerves' from the reiatsu within the surrounding gel. ”Any problems?” Loki asked, concerned.

As soon as that was done Gilgamesh held up his hand and showed it to Loki, the limb was shaking to and fro, only a few millimetres yet the speed with which it did so was incredible. Loki and Gilgamesh locked eyes and for a moment each shared a smile before the Bount coughed slightly – despite not having lungs in the first place. The Gel shape turned their back once more and continued, rather than focusing the energy in just that limb, Gilgamesh continued to distribute the energy throughout their shape, spreading it throughout their entire body. As he did so the shaking slowed down little by little and the Bount was forced to increase the amount of energy they were using. Yet by the time Gilgamesh had finished and turned towards Loki once more the shape was violently vibrating – yet the Bount showed no sign of discomfort.

”It is done,” Gilgamesh declared quietly, ”although, you might experience a slight discomfort.” the Bount allowed.

Enkidu on the other hand merely stuck up one thumb, ”Been a long time since I've felt this good,” Enkidu said using the same mouth that Gilgamesh had just finished speaking with – despite that, the voices were completely different as were the expressions, Gilgamesh's studious evaluating look was replaced with Enkidu's easy grin.

~ A Disturbance in the Force ~

Learning: Difusión (Diffusion)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

Being able to infuse things with energy did bring about a rather troubling issue however; since Loki was able to do so, it was quite conceivable that opponents might likewise be able to infuse additional energy and properties into their techniques – disadvantaging Loki and putting Verlassen's survival at risk. That was a situation that simply could not be tolerated and it was up to Loki to ensure that they were able to develop some sort of effective countermeasure should any opponent attempt such a feat.

The question was how could they best achieve such a feat? So long as an opponent was able to effectively control their reiatsu they would be able to use their energy to reinforce other techniques, providing additional strength and properties that could sway the outcome of battle in their favour. 'So long as they can control their reiatsu?' the farm wife Getrude asked pointedly, 'What would happen if they could not?'

Were they able to disrupt an opponent's control over their energy it would be incredibly more difficult for them to efficiently or effectively use such an infusion based technique. Yet interrupting their opponent's energy would likely be no easy feat; Loki himself had struggled hard to arrive to the point where they were at currently with their ability to effectively control their energy and he knew that interfering with such control would not be easy. 'Still,' Jun the Shinto Priest maintained, 'the same things that interfere with Our reiatsu control should also be a difficulty for others.' The shinto priest had little influence amongst the souls in Verlassen, yet that did not mean he could not be right upon occasion – surely this was one such time.

Loki himself had experienced great difficulties earlier in their attempts at controlling their energy due to the energy 'misbehaving,' refusing to compress to the extent he wished or stay compressed once he had managed it; moving when it wasn't supposed to, not moving when it was; there had been a myriad of different ways that their reiatsu had been difficult to control and amongst them perhaps the one that had caused him greatest grief had been the vibration and fluctuation of reiatsu for it made gathering the energy as well as shaping it far less easy, the resulting attempts were sloppy and delicate reiatsu constructs were impossible under such circumstances.

Yet how would they be able to make their opponents suffer from such a calamity? The answer was surprisingly simple – it was in fact something that they had already developed, though they had never considered using it in that manner. By infusing an opponent with a small amount of fiercely oscillating energy they should be able to induce the same volatility in their opponent's reiatsu; or so Loki hoped.

Once again Loki formed a human shaped construct made of gel and implanted within it a seed containing the conciousness of Jun; the Shinto Priest readily agreeing to help Loki test out the idea, that sent ripples of surprise amongst the Named and Nameless, Jun was a soul that abhorred battle – most felt that meant him a coward yet instead it was merely a fact that the priest wished to do no harm; that didn't mean he wasn't willing to put himself in harm's way for the sake of Verlassen.

As Jun prepared himself for the trial, Loki began forming a glove of reiatsu around his left human like hand; manifesting the energy quickly Loki began to pluck the reiatsu at different points on the surface, rapidly pulling at the energy and then letting go – the result was a rapidly shaking mass of energy around Loki's hand. Placing his palm just above Jun's chest, Loki directed the energy to flow across the distance, seeping into the Gel construct. Unlike Gilgamesh's earlier attempts at taking in the energy, Loki hoped that since the energy came from another source it would make the target's reiatsu more difficult to control.

Yet after a moment Jun concentrated and formed a small coin shaped disk of compressed reiatsu then began shaping it into a bird, a sparrow it seemed. The shape was delicate and yet still made of rapidly rotating compressed reiatsu, Jun shook his head. 'There was a little discomfort at the start, but it was quite easy to forestall.' The priest replied – he had been controlling a portion of Loki's own energy since the time the gel seed had been created and using that small portion had been able to quickly dampen the vibrations, allowing him to use his energy without interference.

Loki was crestfallen until Jun continued, 'However I am not sure if it would have been as easy for me to have prevented the effect should you target energy I have already manifested,' the priest said, indicating the sparrow with an inclination of the head.

Despondent at the failure to effect energy within their opponent, Loki was determined to salvage something from their efforts and attempted to duplicate the feat, this time on the sparrow that Jun had created from his compressed rotating reiatsu. Forming the vibrating energy glove on his hand once more Loki placed his palm several inches away from the bird, directing the flow of oscillating energy into the sparrow below. Almost instantly the energy within began distorting and Jun grimaced, obviously exerting influence in an attempt to maintain his control. Yet the rotation had already halted completely and the sparrow had began to increase in size as the compression began to unravel. A few moments later though, Jun was able to regain some measure of control, though the bird was still noticeably larger than before and the energy was moving more slowly, sluggishly than before. 'Well?' Loki asked quickly, 'How is it?'

Jun however was still attempting to regain control and quickly had it back to it's former dimensions and speed. He sighed softly as he managed to exert his influence once more, ”At first it was much more difficult,” the priest conceded, inclining his head, ”But after a few seconds the vibrations and rotations of the energy grew less volatile and I was able to wrest back control.”

”No good then.” Loki said it slightly bitterly,he had wasted the Verlassen's time, while he could have been working on some way to better support them, he had instead squandered an opportunity.

”Oh I wouldn't say that,” Jun hastened to say, ”Why if you worked on prolonging those vibrations I am sure the interference would continue!”

Slightly encouraged by the Priest, Loki stretched his shoulders slightly from where they had begun to slump. How could they best achieve such a feat though, they would need to affect their energy from far away – why the closest sort of technique that they had attempted was Marking, where they had concentrated on detecting their energy in another location; perhaps affecting their energy elsewhere could operate on a similar principle.

Again and again Loki and Jun duplicated their efforts, Jun shaping fanciful shaped out of their reiatsu and attempting to hold them steady while Loki attempted to add interrupt Jun's efforts by infusing the priest's creations with oscillating energy, frequent and intermittent vibrations as well as swirling undercurrents of rotating force.

Straight after infusing the reiatsu, Loki concentrated on the energy he had infused, it was just as difficult a prospect as he had found using the Marking technique. However in his efforts he did not need to accurately pin point the location so much as having a general idea of where it was; after all Loki's goal was not one of precision this time but rather the very opposite. As he managed to locate the energy he continued to 'pluck' at it – continuing the violent oscillations within the various shapes that Jun had created.

Their efforts were growing increasingly effective and in time Loki and Jun began to separate, increasing the distance between them and even moving around rapidly, attempting to gauge just how effective such attempts would be in interfering with the opponent's energies. Nearly eight hours passed as the pair ran around, meeting up every few minutes to restart the vibrations, since it seemed that this was as long as Loki could manage to maintain the interference to any great degree.

[Empty]

~ The Clothes Make the Man ~

Practical Use: Subterfugio (Subterfuge), Difusión (Diffusion) and Infusión (Infusion)

Osaka:
Loki had decided to take a break in his rather hectic training schedule; it seemed as of late his repertoire of techniques and abilities were being developed at an almost dizzying extent, yet by comparison, his growth in reiatsu had been quite muted; it was a thought that Loki did not like to consider, but as an Adjuchas he may well have reached the full extent of the power that they were capable of.

As was his normal practice in the Human Realm, Loki had travelled to a library in order to continue his studies of human medicine, it was a subject he found keenly interesting, modern man had progressed so very far from where they had been when Loki had walked the earth as the man known as Hans. For Loki, the efforts and progress of the Humans who had managed to achieve so much without any energies to speak of were greatly encouraging, it gave him hope that they might continue to get stronger.

Travelling amongst human civilisation was not without its dangers however, Shinigami and their ilk were a constant threat, bounts and quincies too were troublesome, as was the potential of running across one of those rare humans who exhibited unusual powers. All in all it made hunting for food in the human realm a dangerous prospect, one Loki had no desire – or need – to pursue; yet his thirst for knowledge was something that was unquenchable and he found himself drawn to the human realm time and again. As a result he was almost constantly using his Obscurer ability to make themselves less noticeable to any who had the talent to cause them difficulties. His recent development of a more transparent form of the technique made him even less noticeable, something he was keen to exploit to allow him longer trips to the human realm.

Yet as the humanoid form of Loki moved towards one of the libraries in central Osaka he could feel a distinct pulse of energy from somewhere not so far in the east, it was the tell-tale sensation of a gateway being opened between soul society and the human realm, and soon Loki could feel the emergence of new sensation, compared to the sensation of a Hollow, Shinigami gave a deeper, duller sound, it was like comparing the sound of gently tapping a glass full of water to one that was only half full, the sound of the Shinigami reiatsu was easier on the ears, less grating a deep, gentle chime compared to a hollows strident ringing.

Recalling his efforts in mimicking the squirrel's energy, Loki decided he would attempt to push the technique further. Already in a humanoid form, Loki increased the similarity by retracting their tail until it was smoothed to a nub at their hood. The gel form they wore became more and more opaque, developing a pale skin tone as a bushel of black 'hair' like strands of thinned and flexible gel broke through the scalp, gel covering the mask and adopting a rather wan complexion, wide skin pores and flushed cheeks as eyelashes attached themselves to fake eyelids, a mono-brow sprouting above as a set of slightly yellow teeth protruded just over the lower lip. Carefully producing a small amount of gel, Loki was careful not to disturb his Obscurer field, as he fashioned the black shihakusho around their frame, it fit him rather snugly, yet one sleeve's hem was slightly long, a little grubby, as if the Shingami was less than careful with his appearance, some leather sandals finished off the ruse.

Looking in the window of a car, Loki admired his handiwork then, sure that he had taken care of everything, he jumped upwards, kicking off a shop awning to the roof above as he landed he saw that the roof was nearly fourty feet wide and in one corner was a small chicken coop. Carefully, Loki adjusted the Obsurer field around him, increasing the number and size of the indentations in the membrane as he released a small portion of his reiatsu, attempting to duplicate the sensation he could feel from the shinigami, just quite a bit less than the man himself was exuding. In the distance the Shinigami began moving towards them, it seemed that the 'God of Death' had noted their presence and was on their way towards Loki's position. The lips of the false shinigami pulled upwards in a toothy smile, not the most appealing look on the face they had chosen to assume.

It was only several seconds later that the true shinigami blurred into view, the man appearing with a wooshing sound, like a sudden gust of wind. The tall, thin man had tightly curled ringlets of white hair and a matching handle bar moustache , his clothes were immaculate and he looked down at Loki with something approaching disgust as his eyes took in their ragged appearance. “What is your Name, Seat, Division and Mission churl?” the man said arrogantly, “the first division will not overlook someone who would bring the Gotei Thirteen into disrepute,” he pointedly sniffed as he looked once again at Loki's attire and face, “which you seem to do by your very existence.”

Bridling slightly at the insult, Loki did his best to act in an apologetic, almost fawning manner as he bowed his head, rubbing his hands against one another as if to wipe away sweat. “Most sorry, I haven't had the opportunity to freshen up just recently,” Loki said, his voice heavy with the suggestion of a pathetic excuse.

“Bah!” The man said in disgust, “It takes no effort to take care of one'suniform. Were the Captain Commander to hear of this you would never be stationed in the Human Realm again!” The pig headed man's moustache practically bristled at the prospect. “Now. Name, Seat, Division and Mission. Churl.” Each word was stated slowly, precisely, as if talking to an incompetent.

Loki thought quickly, he knew quite a bit about the Gotei Thirteen from his meals, yet there was still muhc he did not know, perhaps he had chosen poorly in his attempt to fool the man, yet at the same time he had the feeling the white headed Shinigami was a very shallow man, often fooled by appearances, perhaps Loki could pull it off. “Ren Sanji, I am an unseated officer of the Fourth Division, I was sent here to heal the wounds of another Shinigami on a secret mission and am on my way back.” It sounded plausible enough to Loki, the Fourth Division were the medical division of Soul Society.

Yet the man's eyes narrowed quickly and within an instant the man had drawn the zanpakutou by his side, even as his hand moved towards the hilt he was chanting. “Bakudō Number One, Sai!” Loki had not been expecting the sudden use of a kidou and for a moment it took him aback as his hands swept backwards around his back, the forearm of one against the forearm of the other as they held fast against the back. Satisfied that Loki was restrained for a time the man unsheathed his blade pressing it against Loki's shoulder. “I will not tolerate any lies.” The man said sternly, “you know as well as I do that the Fourth Division are not sent to the Human Realm.” Behind their gel facade Loki grimaced, not everything went to plan it seemed; it went to reason that even if they perfectly duplicated appearance and even energy, if they did not know what the person they were attempting to pretend to be, should know, they would soon be discovered.

The binding around them was relatively weak and they could broken out of it with their raw strength alone, yet Loki had no intention of allowing the chance pass them by. 'Well now, we seldom get an opportunity like this.' His earlier efforts in attempting to disrupt energy had been very helpful and the effect had been marked, yet the simple fact of it was that there had been little chance to apply many of their lessons against an opponent, even an opponent who was so much weaker than them, like the self important fart before them.

Loki slowly began to infuse an infinitesimal amount of reiatsu into the bonds that held his arms, careful to keep the energy flow tiny and steady, so as not to attract attention. As the energy increased within the bonds, Loki began to pluck at the reiatsu, setting off small vibrations within. Yet the power of the oscillations were less than Loki had anticipated and the shinigami managed to withstand the fluctuations without even being consciously aware of it.“Speak up now churl.”Their delay was proving annoying for their 'captor' however, who slowly increased the pressure of his blade against loki's gel shoulder. Yet instead of piercing the flesh as the man had expected, the blade instead refused to budge, barely able to scratch the surface of the gel. “What on earth?”

Loki once more began to prod the energy he had infused into the bonds, this time the movement was more marked, the oscillations more powerful and the energy began to churn as slight rotations began to hold sway. Now the Shinigami's forehead frowned in concentration as he examined his technique not quite understanding what was occurring to the kidou he was using to bind the 'shinigami' before him. Not more than a moment had passed before the reiatsu vibrations began to increase in power, the undercurrents of energy rapidly growing more forceful as the fragile restrains shattered.

Their arms fell down limply to their sides, as the white haired shinigami cursed at them and attempted to skewer Loki's thrpat, yet they swayed to the side with ease, flicking out a foot to catch the mind behind the knees and knocking his legs out from underneath him.

As the Shinigami hastened to his feet, Loki was casting his eyes about, rapidly locating a small rectangular block of wood, perhaps one inch square and nearly two feet wide, it had been lying casually against the chicken coop in the corner of the roof. Dodging a small ball of what appeared to be wrapped up barbed wire, Loki hastened to the corner, not attempting to increase his speed beyond what one might expect from his level of power. Behind him, the barbed wire exploded into almost living vines of steel which streaked in every direction, one of the streaks managed to clutch at Verlassen's gel ankle yet he pulled it free with ease, the resulting scratch much like what one might expect from a small cat, such was the difference between Loki and his opponent.

As Loki grasped the stick he turned towards his opponent who was even now dashing towards them, previously they had used diffusion to disturb the man's bakudou, yet this time Loki intended to try one of their other tricks he had trained. As the White haired shinigami slashed at their chest, Loki raised the stick, infusing it with energy as he sought to recall the sensation that energy manifesation gave, the feeling of permanent and substance, an undeniable solidness.

As the two foot long wooden stick and the three foot long katana styled zanpakutou crossed there was a brief glint of reddish brown light, the zanpakutou cutting down and through the stick as it gave ground grudgingly, noticeably slowing the blade before half a foot of its length was severed by the unreleased sword, leaving Loki with barely enough time to dodge.

The Shinigami smiled slightly and tried again, yet the grimacing Loki too was not ready to give up just yet; intent on fixing the problem with their technique, Loki tried once again, this time as he infused the energy within the shorter stick of wood he used his revealing gaze too, to examine the results. Even as the stick and blade crossed once more, severing another two inches of wood, Loki was carefully looking at the infusion of energy, noting as he did so how the grain of the wood was distorting it slightly, resulting in an uneven distribution of energy. A third time they cross weapons, yet this time Loki focused his efforts on spreading the infusion of energy more evenly, rather than having more congregate in the gaps of the grain.

This time the wood held fast and the white haired shinigami's eyes opened in disbelief; adjusting his stance, Loki went on the offensive, forcing the real shinigami on the back foot under his rapid blows. ”Ba- Bakudō Number Thirty Nine, Enkosen!” The shinigami shouted in desperation, compressing his reiatsu before him as he focused it into a round shield to block Loki's attack.

Loki growled in irritation at the man's ongoing struggles before he realised that he should instead be grateful that the man was pulling out all stops. This time, instead of striking with the significantly shortened stick of wood, Loki struck forwards with his left palm, striking the shield open handed incredibly quickly, yet with far less force than the Shinigami had expected.

Instead, Loki once more began to infuse the shield with more energy, rapidly oscillating the reiatsu, causign the energy within to tremble and distort as the shield buckled then burst, the old man looked on uncomprehendingly as Loki struck his gullet with the wooden stake, the end of which had been hacked off to a rough point by the man's own efforts. The length of wood pierced through the man's torso, unleashing a deluge of blood as the man clutched feebly at the sleeve of Loki's shihakusho.

“Why?” The white haired shinigami questioned in a frail voice, still not understanding the depth of his folly. Loki allowed the Gel around him to dissolve, as he extended his tail; the Shinigami's eyes opened wide in horror, yet no words passed his blood filled mouth, he shuddered briefly and was gone.

~ License to Practice? ~

Consumir and Learning: Shinigami Healing Process

As Loki consumed the Shinigami he could feel the man's knowledge seep into him, of little power, the man had at least been very experienced; recalling the encounter Loki remembered the lessons he had learned; not only about attempting to impersonate someone without knowing all the facts, but also about how to go about energy as well as about it's infusion.

It was as he considered the implications of infusing energy that the elderly shinigami's experiences with a similar technique began to bubble up in Loki's memories; like many shinigami, the man had taken a course at the Shinigami academy where they had been taught how to heal others. They had began by infusing a target with their energy and then using that energy and the target's own to heal wounds. Fortunately for most Shinigami who never trained in the area extensively, the technique required very little in terms of medical knowledge, though it was incomparably better in the hands of those with some degree of expertise in that field. Instead, it was a technique that relied on the body's own healing abilities to guide the process, instead relying on the user and target's energies to enable rapid growth and repair of cells.

In that way, it was perhaps less like Loki's own gel flesh repair than he had understood; when attempting to use his gel to hasten his recovery from wounds, Loki would create pseudo flesh to replace the original, which would then be replaced in turn by the body's own healing processes. In the Shinigami technique the focus was slightly different, instead of using the energy to create a false flesh which was then replaced by new cells, the Shinigami version instead created the new cells from scratch, by allowing the target to absorb the reiatsu into their body and converting it into a myriad of different things, the various building blocks of cells which the body would need to replace what was damaged or destroyed. It was for that reason that Loki was confident he could learn the technique however, since he was able to construct a flesh substitute from scratch it should surely be easier to use the Shinigami healing technique which relied upon the body to heal the wound.

Excited at the prospect of having acquired a new way of healing wounds, Loki cast his thoughts about furiously for some way to test out their new understanding. In their own realm there was no one that Loki would attempt to heal, nor could he test such a technique on himself for it involved sending his reiatsu into another entity; for the same reason the gel seeds would be useless. Frustrated at the dilemma, Loki remained there on the rooftop for several minutes brooding over the matter. As he considered the problem he was faced with, he heard a loud screeching sound then a crash; looking over the edge of the roof to the streets below, Loki saw the reason for the sound. A car had somehow missed the turn, ploughing into a large pole by the side of the road. Instantly Loki realised that he could use the technique on a human to test it out and eagerly popped down to street level, looking to see if anyone was hurt. When the driver emerged from the vehicle unharmed and no passengers could be seen, Loki was slightly disappointed before he caught himself, what a horrible thing to hope for! Yet at least the prospect had given Loki the idea of how he could progress, humans often injured themselves and despite their advances there were many times when modern medicine could not assist in time.

The thought had him sprinting to the hospital in western Osaka, his remarkable sonido closing the distance incredibly rapidly. As Loki arrived he turned to the emergency department, for it was there that most injuries waited for treatment, patients waited in pain for doctors to be free to look at them. As he looked at the arrivals he noticed one young lady, no older then fifteen who had a long cut down the side of her leg, as he looked at her with his Revealing Gaze he could see that the wound was neither very deep or wide, just rather messy since it had hit a blood vessel; she was the perfect candidate upon which to test his new ability.

Carefully Loki began to steep the limb with his reiatsu, it was more difficult than he had imagined to simply allow the energy to soak into the flesh as it wanted, rather than injecting it forcefully into the flesh as he would usually do. Not only was the effort more protracted, it required considerable will power to avoid attempting to infuse the flesh with any properties, such as attempting to repair the wound through the mechanism he used to reattach gel; it had been abundantly clear to Loki through the memories of the Shinigami that the process was one that must be allowed to happen, not caused to happen.

As a green flow of energy flowed from Loki's palm, it slowly permeated her leg; Loki could feel through his Revealing Gaze, his own reiatsu mixing with the minute amount of energy that the human had. As it did so, he had to steel himself not to fight for control as he could feel the energy slowly being removed from his control, bit by bit he could feel it breaking down into smaller and smaller parts, changing in ways he could not quite understand from reiatsu into the body's own physical energy, the enriched blood carried throughout her leg as it slowly begun its work. Though Loki paid it no heed, the girl began to scratch lightly at her leg, staying well clear from the cut itself yet frowning in irritation. Slowly the sides of the cut began to form tiny fleshy bridges from one side to another, red, inflamed flesh began to appear in the gap, slowly paling as other flesh began to appear around it, repairing the broken blood vessels, rejoining the sides of the fissure. As the wound began to heal up the itching got worse, the girl have a slight whimper, instantly Loki stopped the flow of energy and the healing process stopped, causing the overwhelming itchiness to subside. As the girl whimpered piteously, a nurse hurried over and Loki took his distance.

His efforts had taught him much, yet he could not overlook the effects on the girl; though the wound had almost completely closed, the itchiness that she had experienced was nothing like what Loki could recall from the old shinigami's memories. In those recollections, the pain and discomfort of the patient had been minimal, the healing serving to dampen those sensations even as it repaired the damage. As soon as Loki considered that aspect, he could recall the technique he himself had developed long ago; to enhance his senses he had used reiatsu, yet those very enhanced senses had caused him great discomfort when confronted by a wily enemy. In response he had managed a buffer by which to enhance his senses while protecting him from over stimulation; could not such an approach be used now?

As Loki considered the prospect, the girl was led away in a 'wheelchair,' a cleverly designed contraption in which a seat rested on wheels rather than legs, allowing it to be rolled from one location to another. It seemed Loki would need another patient. Loki looked around for a while until he spotted a likely mark; a young boy nursed his dramatically swelled thumb, as Loki used his revealing gaze, the small fracture in the bone was unmissable.

Striding over to the boy quickly, Loki considered how best to approach the task, the energy used to heal was one he should not attempt to influence, for it was that which would carry out the healing; instead he felt the best way to approach the task was in two stages, the first would be to dampen the boy's sensation around the thumb, reducing any sensation of itchiness, discomfort or pain. To achieve this, Loki first sought to infuse the digit with his energy, instead of allowing it to do as it wished, Loki instead directed it to form a sort of buffer around the very base of the thumb, like a thick curtain of energy that passed directly through the bone and nerves within.

The boy looked downwards at his thumb, before commenting to an older woman, whom Loki assumed was the boy's grandmother that at least the pain had subsided, yet the old woman was less than reassured and instead stood up, pacing over to the counter to complain that the doctors were taking to long and now the boy's thumb had turned numb.

Loki however took it as an encouraging sign and began seeping yet more energy into the thumb, this time it took considerably more concentration than before, not only was he attempting to allow their energy to do as it wished, completely unfettered by Loki's own control, as it was mixing with the boy's small amount of energy, being removed from Loki's grasp, he was at the same time forced to keep hold of the curtain of energy at the base of the thumb. It was a delicate balance, attempting to marry the control needed to dampen the senses and the flexibility needed to heal the wound.

It took many tries to get right, Loki was constantly forced to rebuild the curtain and the boy's pain would momentarily return as he gripped at his pants with his free hand, attempting to bear the sensation. Yet in time the healing process continued apace, the boy's broken thumb setting as new tissue formed between the damaged sections. By the time the boy was called by the nurses, the swelling had almost disappeared, though the bruising was still apparent.

Several hours passed by as Loki worked unseen in the emergency waiting room, healing the wounded while polishing his skills.