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Sand sat cross-legged in a quiet corner of the Beacon gardens, eyes closed and back held straight in a meditative posture. Her hands rested together on her lap, palms facing upwards, and over which a single silver coin sat.

Her team’s mission concluded, she had barely taken the night of to sleep the exhaustion away before throwing herself back into her training.

Taking steady breaths, Sand sharpened her focus. Tiny white particles danced around the coin as she used her Semblance to slowly raise the small object in the air. Gently, steadily, so as to not send the lightweight disc flying, she pushed it upwards, until it had risen just over a feet above her hands. There, the coin ceased its steady ascent, trembling in the air. A crease formed on Sand’s brow, betraying her efforts, and she opened her eyes, glaring at the obstinate coin that refused to rise any further. 

Finally, the small lights vanished, and the coin fell back onto her hands. Sand sighed, shuffling in place in an attempt to loosen her suddenly taut muscles.

A Semblance was a Huntsman most unique tool. Once discovered, they were expected to set apart some time to properly understand this power and to nurture its potential. Perhaps in this account it could be likened more to a singular muscle to train rather than a tool, but given the differences in the particulars for each individual, whatever was involved in this training could differ substantially per person. The help that could be rendered by friends and instructors was limited for those reasons.

Thus the evaluation of one’s progress and potential was largely left to the individual in question, and in that regard, Sand felt as though she had made little progress in some time. Much like the rising coin, her abilities seemed to have hit a ceiling of sorts. It was frustrating because she also believed there was more to be found, and yet her own efforts did little to support that belief.

Sand shook her head, blonde hair swishing to and fro, and she closed her eyes again. She focused again on the coin, feeling a tingling, electrical sensation spreading over her palm, and she knew without looking that the little motes of light that accompanied her power were dancing over it.

She could push and pull on things without touching them, as long as she was close enough. That was the extent of her ability, but it was a functional description based on experience, lacking explanation for the underlying principles. She was deeply aware of how limiting such an understanding of her semblance could be. After all, when it had first manifested, she had only known to pull things closer. Perhaps the fact of the matter was that she had gone as far as she could given her current understanding. 

If she knew how her ability truly manifested, things would be different. There were some semblances that were tied very strictly to a specific phenomena, some which could result in abilities very similar to her own. If she came to understand the underlying principle, she could have a clearer picture of the possibilities. It was something she had thought on before, with some help of her instructors, and she remembered specific examples that had been brought to her attention. 

The power to control magnetic fields could allow one to exert a force on objects without touching them, like she could, but then only if the objects in question were made of metal. The coin she held in her hand satisfied the criteria, but she had in several occasions used her ability without such limitations.

Gravitational fields could serve a similar, more general purpose. Perhaps too general, in fact, for she had seen students with powers that acted on such phenomena, and generating attractive or repulsive forces could be but the most basic of applications. None of them had been burdened with as limited a range as hers, however, nor had their powers affected them directly with each application, beyond perhaps feeling drained of energy. Sand’s power could not reach far as it stood, and every force she manipulated would always act on herself in an opposite way as whatever she sought to affect. In this manner, for example, she could use her power to jump higher than others, not by rendering herself weightless, but by pushing down on the earth with her power in concert with her physical legs.

Someone had once suggested to her that her semblance worked with similar principles as the ‘Casimir Effect’, but what she had been able to dig up on the subject did not convince her that her Semblance worked according to such a concept. After all, her ability was not limited to attractive forces, and its influence clearly extended beyond microscopic distances.

Sand sometimes wondered if people whose Semblance related to phenomena like those could ‘feel’ what they were manipulating. If a person could touch and describe the sensation of a magnetic or gravitational field in their grasp. When Sand used her Semblance, she felt pinpricks over her skin, but if she ignored the opposing pressure of the force she created, the feeling was more akin to her hand falling asleep than of grasping something outside herself. 

“That would be a nice thought” she muttered, eyes still closed, “if I already had all I needed to solve this issue. If I could just take a deeper look inside...” A thought occurred to her as she trailed off, and her brow furrowed. 

Sand’s slowed her breathing, attempting to regain the focus of her meditation. The sensation of pinpricks over her palms was still there, and Sand centered her attention on the sensation. In concert with with a long, deep breath, Sand willed the power back, as though to pull it deeper into herself. The electric feeling began to spread through her hands, steadily climbing up her arms. The sensation felt disconcertingly like all the blood in her arms was draining back to her heart, and the tightness in her chest from her held breath only enhanced the illusion. 

Paradoxically, despite the feeling of numbness spreading through her hands, she could acutely feel the mounting pressure of the coin pressing against her open palm. Almost as if she was caressing it with her fingers, she could feel every ridge and groove over its surface. For a moment, she could almost picture the alien object pressing and slipping into the old scar it rested over, but she quickly dispelled the distracting image from her mind. It had been a long time since that accident, and her control over her semblance and aura had improved significantly.

The electric sensation spread until it reached her core, and there she held it like a bated breath, eager to be released. Her lungs echoed the sentiment, making her temples throb as they demanded fresh air. Sand opened her eyes, glaring at the coin pressing against her skin and slowly, steadily, agonizingly, Sand released the captive breath along with the power she held in check. 

In a flutter of white motes, the coin began to rise, quickly hovering past the height it had reached before. One feet, two feet, three feet. Sand continued her slow exhalation despite her vision beginning to swim. Four feet, five. She had almost reached six when she her lungs emptied. The coin ceased its accent, trembling in the air as it had before. Finally, Sand was forced to take a breath, and the coin fell back down to her waiting hand. 

She took a gulp of fresh air at that, leaning back out of her crosslegged pose to a more relaxed posture. She brought a hand to her forehead and only then realized that beads of sweat had begun to form over it.

Still, for all her ragged breathing, a satisfied smile formed on her lips. It had been some time since she had felt like she had made a breakthrough in her training. [i]In fact,[/i] she thought as she resumed her previous posture, [i]I should keep practicing before I forget this feeling.[/i]

No sooner had she closed her eyes, however, that her Scroll rang out.

Sand grumbled under her breath, producing the annoying thing from her pocket and silencing the timer announcing it was quarter to noon. For a moment she held it, quietly wondering whether it would be good for her to change her plans for the day to keep practicing, but quickly decided against it. There was something she had resolved to try that day, and she couldn’t keep postponing it forever.

[hr]

The trip to their destination was a short one, and soon enough Stand stood before the door to team JBLS’s room. All she needed to do now was knock and see whether there was anybody home. 

It was the simplest thing in the world. Nothing odd about it either. Not only were the room’s occupants her classmates in many of her courses, they were practically neighbors to her. There was nothing odd about her trying to get in touch with them. 

[i]Though I’m only truly interested in meeting Jericho. And I’m expected to write up surveillance reports about him.[/i] The fact that she had spent some her free time the previous week pinning down his schedule and learning about his teammates from what she could find in social media and the school directory did not make it easier to talk herself into it.

In fact, a mounting feeling of dread and exhaustion reared at the back of her mind, pleading her to go back to her practice, or to take a drive outside the school, or go read one of the books she had brought over from Atlas, or essentially [i]do anything other than this.[/i] For a moment she even fancied that she would go back to the CCT tower, set up a meeting with the Professor, and burn that bridge for good. She might well had done it had she thought she was harming someone by keeping tabs on Jericho like this, or that someone else wouldn’t simply be sent in her place if she declined. That said, she had received documents that near enough proved the former wasn’t the case, and she was too pessimistic not to expect the latter.

The truth of the matter was that, ethical concerns aside, she was mostly afraid of going out of her way to interact with others. It was not a feeling she thought she would ever be completely rid of, but she had long been determined to try. Even if this occasion was particularly awkward. 

[i]Enough of that. Just need to stick to two principles. Try to act like a normal human being, and try not to make it obvious that you e-stalked half of them.[/i] She had practice with the first, at least.

After one last moment’s hesitation and ignoring the tightness in her chest, she rapped her knuckles against the door.

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