Chapter 758 - Pancakes

As per the last messages I sent to Earth, I learn my mom is currently on a nice tropical island that I reach by ramping up the use of kinetic energy. During my flight, I notice fighter jets in the distance, but they disappear quickly before I can fly toward them and check them out up close.

But the closer I am to my destination, the more I notice myself slowing down. When I see the island in my view, my speed is barely faster than a car and slow down even further.

My destination isn't a small private island or something similar. Instead, it is the kind of bigger island that has a smaller city and two villages, I can see. It has a beautiful beach of white sand and nice mountains.

I take the phone out of my pocket to check the direction again and fly a roundabout way over the sea to the far side of the island. It isn't that far away from the city, and it is connected to it by a road following the shape of the beach. On that part of it are more grand buildings with huge estates.

The place I head to stretches from a smaller hill and then takes up a big part of a private beach, as well as a sort of cliff nearby. In the bay, I see a small yacht and a few smaller vessels. There is some construction going on, and floating there in the air, I observe it, realizing they are working on a bunker a bit further away from the main house.

I’m sure by now Channeler has given the people here a call, and my mother should know already, yet I hesitate. I just float there, feeling more nervous than before some of my life-or-death battles.

As amused as I am annoyed by myself, I take out the phone again and, turning on the front camera, I check my face, fix my hair as much as I can, and touch up my clothes as well. There is nothing I can do about my eyes, with my trait now permanently activated.

Where before my Mana Wavelength Iris showed only when I activated it by creating a golden circle around my pupils, now it is a bit different. That circle is slightly less noticeable and more uneven, and feels like a golden light trying to peek from behind the edges of my black pupil. It shifts, its glow pulses from brighter to lighter, and it unpredictably circles my pupil. Just like an eclipse would.

The phone then rings once, showing a censored number. Out of curiosity, I pick up, “Hello?”

“Good afternoon,” the voice replies, measured and respectful. “Vice President Vernon Oakley speaking. I hope I am reaching you at a suitable moment. I wanted to establish contact and express that we are prepared to meet once yo-”

I don’t even listen and leave the phone in the air, locked there by my kinetic absorption.

Then my senses expand across a mile wide area. Every human, every machine, every car, insect, animal, and anything else in motion freezes and halts, all held in place by my will. I allow just enough function to keep everyone safe, so people can breathe, and machines do not explode or break.

All of it is done by a small part of my mind that takes care of all the calculations, perceives, categorizes, and then handles the absorbed kinetic energy, as well as halting other people, animals, or machines as they enter the area.

Boosting myself, I find the helipad where I land and once again fix my clothes and hair.

I pass by a security guard in a suit, frozen mid-step and a gardener with a hose that was watering the plants nearby. Both of them follow me with only their eyes moving, and water from the hose is also frozen mid-air.

Just one person moves freely, and I slowly head toward her.

She must have heard my steps, as when I enter the terrace, she stands there already looking in my direction, a hand over her chest. Her heart is beating like crazy, and I entirely block these senses of mine. I don’t observe her movements, twitches, muscles, temperature, or movement of her blood. Instead, I look at my mom with only the senses I would use before the tutorial. And all words, all plans I had of how this meeting would go are gone, my mind flushed clean.

She is better than me in this way. Before I can even think of what to do, she is in front of me and crashes against my body and pulls me into a hug.

“Oh my god, Nathaniel. Natty...” she continues to whisper my name, and I feel her tears on my chest as I put my arms around her. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to hold something so carefully in my life.

She looks up at my face, grabbing my cheeks in her hands. “Your eyes, your pretty eyes, what happened to them? And this scar? Just what…” Her hands touch the scar going from the bottom of my left cheek and down through my neck. “Did it hurt?”

Her fingers trace the line of the scar. I feel the warmth of her palms, the tremble behind her touch. She keeps looking at my face with worry that tries to read every inch of it.

I answer in a voice quieter than I’m used to. “A little. But it’s alright now.” These words come out slow and careful.

She cups my jaw again. Her thumbs sweep across my cheekbones. She studies the shifting rings of light around my pupils. They pulse with an uneven rhythm that reflects across her gentle eyes.

“You lived,” she repeats. Her shoulders shake once, and she leans in, forehead touching my chest. “I thought I would never see you again. I thought I lost you... and Victoria... is she...?”

"She’s okay. You know her."

I hold her steady, supporting her weight with an ease that feels almost weightless.

She smiles, small and trembling. “You came back different, but you still talk like my Natty. That part has not changed. About what happened before, about the things I said and did...”

A soft laugh slips out of me. “It doesn’t matter, so why would we make this awkward? I’m happy to see you, you’re happy to see me. Will you be happy to see Vic, too?” I ask, knowing how much more difficult that question can be for her to answer than it sounds. In a way, it is a bit cruel from my side, but I think it needs to be asked.

"Yes..." she whispers. "I would be happy to see Victoria as well."

"Good, then that’s it. There is no need to mention useless things anymore. Have they been treating you nicely?"

She touches the skin under my eye. “They have been almost too nice, to the point it’s annoying at times. Does it hurt when your eyes shift like that?”

“No. It’s a trait thing. It looks strange, but it feels natural.”

“I will get used to it.” She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand, though the tears keep coming. “You look like someone who survived a war.”

"War," I laugh shortly. "Weird. It is fun there most of the time, but fucked up at times and..."

"No cursing."

"I'm an adult man. I have to tell you I'm also renting out a property and have sold another one."

That small woman in front of me, who is still early into her forties, looks at me just for a few long seconds before I look away with a sigh.

I give a slow nod. “It is what it is there.”

She holds my hands in hers. Her grip tightens as she asks an unexpected question. “Are you hungry?”

"Do you even still cook, or do you have personal chefs now?" I ask teasingly.

It causes her to smile as she lets go of my hand, and I’m sure she noticed some other scars, but doesn’t ask about them.

It all still feels a bit awkward, but I follow her as she gestures.

“They keep forcing all these things on me. I’m okay with this place, you know, I always loved this kind of weather and always dreamed of seeing the sea and walking along the shore. Now I can wake up every morning, hear the sea in my bedroom. I wake up, walk out on the sand, and drink a coffee while watching the waves. It’s nice.”

"It does sound nice," I nod.

“But I haven’t used any money. I was able to get ten million dollars out of Colonel Kane, and for some reason, then they sent a hundred more. Can you even imagine all that money? They would sit in the account, but then that handsome young man called Rafael came, saying he was your friend. He even showed me some photos of you and him. He helped me invest some of the money. Properties, some companies that he says will surely do well after the tutorial. Everything was put in your and Victoria’s name, even though he tried to persuade me to take some myself.”

"That is stupid. I told them to tell you to spend it all."

"I don’t want it."

"Don’t be stubborn, Mom."

For a moment, she turns around and smiles. It is a beautiful smile that makes her face even prettier. Almost without realizing it and without a good reason, I smile back at her.

"No," she says simply with that smile.

With a sigh, I follow, "Whatever."

She laughs again, “But don’t worry, while you apparently suffer somewhere in the tutorial, I’m enjoying all the luxuries we used to dream of. Do you remember those nights when we sat on the couch and watched all these holiday resorts on the TV and were thinking what we would do there?”

The same as her, I decide to ignore the remaining awkwardness of it all and all the past and things we probably should talk about. It is easy to do because right now every bit of it feels so inconsequential.

I glance in the direction of the sea as a helicopter enters the blocked-out zone near the mountain and freezes mid-air together with its passengers. Then I look around the kitchen and slide onto the high seat near the kitchen island in the middle. It is a really pretty kitchen, with big windows, nice furniture, and all these fancy appliances.

Thalia Gwyn, my mother, moves around swiftly, which tells me it is quite likely she cooks most of the food for herself, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she even cooks for the other people here.

"Do you really like it here?" I ask seriously.

She doesn't stop, but a smile appears on her face, and I can see from the side. “It is hard to enjoy it without knowing what is happening to the two of you. But your friend visits me once every few weeks and sometimes tells me stories from the tutorial. He also helps me to train my skills and says some of the training methods are from you. Did they make a scholar of you, Natty?”

I snort, "As if. But Mom, if you have a feeling he is trying to pick you up, just tell me, I will beat his ass."

As she closes the fridge, she laughs shortly and turns on the heat under the pan. “Who would want an old, sad lady like me?”

"Bullshit. You are the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen."

"Language."

"Bullshit. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

She throws a few chocolate chips at me, but they freeze in the air just before reaching me, and smiling victoriously, I eat them from the air.

“When we are done with pancakes, you will have to show me how you do that. By the way, can you even eat them? I mean, does it do anything for you? Rafael said he can stay without food for a few days easily, but when he eats, he needs to eat a lot of calories or meat of awakened animals or monsters.”

"I can eat it, but other than the taste, it doesn’t do much for me. Honestly, I bet I could eat piles of them and not get fat at all."

"I’m envious." She returns to the pan and throws the chocolate chips onto the pancakes before flipping them around.

As she cooks, I sit quietly and watch her the entire time through my human eyes, memorizing every movement, every smile, and the way her black hair shifts as she moves.

When she is done, she nicely puts the pancakes onto the plates and pours a bit of maple syrup over them before adding some grated apple she mixes with a bit of sugar and cinnamon.

We carry these plates outside and walk by the frozen people she looks at with wide eyes, but still leads me to the beach. There, under a small patch of trees, is a nice spot where we sit down as we start eating the pancakes with the sound of the splashing sea in the background.