The city of Brookhaven unfolded outside the car window, a picture of quiet normalcy. Neat houses with wide lawns, a small, bustling downtown, trees whose leaves were just beginning to blush with the colors of autumn. To his mother, it was a sanctuary. To Mani, it was a proving ground.
He enrolled in Brookhaven Middle School, a modern building that smelled of new carpet and disinfectant. He was a ghost again, but by choice this time. He kept his head down, his mental walls fortified, letting the sea of adolescent thoughts wash around him without engaging. He was polite, did his work, and answered when spoken to, but offered nothing more. He was an observer, studying the species from a safe distance.
His real education began after school, in the vast, silent expanse of the state forest that bordered their new neighborhood. While his mother thought he was exploring or reading in the woods, he was training.
He started with the strength. He found a secluded clearing, shielded by dense pines, and began to test his limits. He lifted rocks, starting with ones his own size and progressing to boulders that would have required heavy machinery for a normal man to move. He learned to channel the power, to let it flow through his muscles in a controlled surge rather than a violent explosion. He focused on precision, using a single finger to carve lines in stone, learning to apply immense force to a tiny, specific point.
The mind-control was harder, more dangerous. He practiced on animals. He would sit for hours, perfectly still, and reach out to a squirrel. He wouldn't force it; he would suggest. A nudge to look left. A whisper of curiosity about a particular nut. A gentle impulse to climb a different branch. It was painstaking work, requiring immense focus and a gentle touch. The first time he successfully redirected a blue jay in mid-flight, he felt a clean thrill of accomplishment, untainted by the violation he'd felt with the bullies. This was a partnership, not a theft.
He was building his dam, learning to open the floodgates just a crack, directing the river's power where he wanted it to go.
Weeks turned into a month. The crisp autumn air sharpened his focus. He felt himself changing, hardening, the raw power slowly being tempered into a tool. But he knew it wasn't enough. Controlling animals and moving rocks in the woods was one thing. The real test would be in the world, with people.
It found him on a Saturday trip into the city's small downtown with his mother. She needed to run errands, and he, feeling cooped up, asked to wait outside the bank while she went in. He sat on a concrete planter, watching people come and go, practicing the delicate art of listening to the surface thoughts of a crowd without being pulled under.
That's when he saw the man.
He was loitering near the bank's ATM, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders tense. He wasn't dressed for the chill, wearing only a thin hoodie. But it wasn't his clothes that caught Mani's attention; it was the frantic, jagged rhythm of his thoughts.
'...gotta be quick, just need the cash, just need it...'
'...no one gets hurt, just don't anyone be a hero...'
'...can't go back to jail, can't, can't...'
Mani's senses snapped to alert. The dragon in his chest, usually a sleeping presence during these outings, lifted its head. He watched as the man's hand slipped into his pocket, and Mani saw the unmistakable shape of a small, black pistol.
The man was going to rob the ATM user.
Time seemed to slow. Mani saw his mother inside the bank, chatting with a teller, completely unaware. He saw an elderly man shuffling toward the ATM, his thoughts a gentle hum about buying his wife flowers.
This was it. Not a fire, where the enemy was a mindless force of nature. This was a person. A desperate, dangerous person with a gun. This was the exact scenario Bali had warned him about. A gray area. A test of his principles.
He could stop it. He knew he could. He could reach into the man's mind and freeze him in place, or fill him with such overwhelming fear that he'd run away. But that was a violation. That was control.
The elderly man was inserting his card. The robber started forward, his hand tightening on the gun in his pocket.
There was no more time.
Mani acted. But he didn't reach for control. He reached for understanding.
He lowered his walls and let the man's thoughts flood in, not to command, but to comprehend. He was bombarded with a wave of sheer, desperate panic. Images flashed: eviction notice, a sick child, a mountain of debt, the crushing certainty that there was no other way out. This wasn't a hardened criminal; this was a desperate father at the end of his rope.
And in that understanding, Mani found a different path. Not control, but influence. Not a command, but a suggestion.
He didn't send fear. He sent a memory.
He focused all his will, weaving together the fragmented, happy memories he found buried deep in the man's mind—the smell of his baby daughter's hair, the sound of her laugh, the feeling of holding her for the first time. He amplified them, made them vivid and real, drowning out the panic for a single, crucial second.
He paired it with a single, clear thought, implanted not like an order, but like the man's own sudden realization: 'She can't visit her daddy in jail. There has to be another way.'
The robber stopped dead in his tracks, just feet from the elderly man. His hand went limp in his pocket. The frantic, violent thoughts vanished, replaced by a wave of gut-wrenching sorrow and shame. A tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek. He looked down at his own hands as if seeing them for the first time.
He turned and walked away, quickly, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs, disappearing around a corner.
The elderly man, oblivious, collected his cash and shuffled off, a bouquet of yellow flowers on his mind.
Mani sat back on the planter, his own breath coming in shaky gasps. He was drenched in a cold sweat. The effort had been immense, far greater than pushing away a bully or guiding a squirrel. He hadn't just moved a mind; he had healed it, if only for a moment. He had reached into a place of darkness and reminded it of the light.
His mother came out of the bank, smiling. "All set, honey. Ready to go?"
Mani nodded, standing on legs that felt like jelly. As they walked to the car, he looked down the empty street where the man had vanished. He had stopped a crime. No one knew. No one would ever know.
But he knew.
He had used the power, not as a weapon, and not just as a shield. He had used it as a key, to unlock the goodness that was already there, buried under desperation. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
And in that quiet victory, surrounded by the normal Saturday bustle of a town that had no idea what he was, Mani felt the last vestiges of his childhood fall away. He was a guardian. This was his mission. And he was just getting started.