Rumors of War

by Cynus 

War on Earth
 

Chapter Eight

          “No, you’ve got to focus inwardly not outwardly. Telepathy begins with you as the focal point, and then extends outward to your targets.” Keith had been tutoring me for hours, and though I had grasped his first lesson quite easily, and could now block my thoughts, I couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of reading another person’s thoughts. I was mentally exhausted and wasn’t sure if I could focus at all, but I was determined to persevere.

          “I don’t understand why it’s so difficult! Earlier today it just happened naturally,” I replied with a great deal of frustration. I looked over at Marc who was sitting on the couch, engaged in his phone. He looked back at me with a helpless shrug and a smile. He had given me many of those over preceding hours. Marc was completely out of his element.

          “Wait, you were able to accomplish telepathy earlier and you’re only telling me this now?” Keith asked incredulously. The look faded to one of annoyance as he continued, “We would most likely already be done with this if you would have shared that little tidbit.”

          “I’m sorry, Marc called it something like an ‘emphatic link’, and I didn’t realize it was the same thing. I thought that emotions and thoughts were different. Why are you such a prick anyway?” I replied with as much annoyance as he had shown.

          The incredulity was back, though he was still clearly annoyed. “I act this way because you have wasted my time up until now, though that isn’t the only reason. If you ever prove yourself to me then I will perhaps feel like sharing why I already dislike you. All thoughts are rooted in emotion. An emphatic link is the basis upon which telepathy is built, but you have to understand how to connect to another individual before you can accomplish one. Of course, sometimes you learn these things instinctively, which makes teaching the proper method nearly impossible. So, tell me, what was it like and how did it happen.”

          “It was the most intense experience I have ever been through. I could feel Marc’s emotions as clearly as my own. I just looked into his eyes and it sort of happened,” I explained carefully, not wanting to go into all the details.

          Keith would have none of it though, and I soon found myself embarrassed as he told me that I would have to tell him everything if we were to find out how I did it. I sighed and then explained our brief love-making session, and tried to keep my blushing down, and my voice steady. The whole time that I related the story, Keith kept his annoyed face and every once in awhile he interrupted with a question, just to clarify exactly what had happened.  By the time I was done, I felt completely naked, and wanted nothing more than to hide. Now, instead of just being mentally exhausted, I was emotionally done as well. Marc noticed my discomfort and patted the couch next to him. I took his invitation and moved to where he sat, and he put his arms around me. I suddenly felt a lot stronger, just from his physical contact.

          It was almost a minute before Keith spoke again. “Well, that was a lot of stuff I didn’t really want to hear, but I do think I know how to fix you now. This is going to get very awkward, but I suppose we’ll have to do it in order to get the job done. I will have you know Marc that what we’re about to do cancels one of the favors that I owe you.”

          Marc shrugged and smiled at him, which Keith took as permission to continue. “Alright, we are going to have to duplicate the emphatic link. I need the two of you to get into whatever position you need in order to make that happen. I really don’t want to do this at all, but that means upstairs to Marc’s room.”

          “Wait, what?” I replied with surprise, and a little bit of outrage. “There is no way that I am going to let you watch Marc and me have sex!”

          “Who said I was going to watch?” He asked with obvious disgust, “That would cancel two favors that I owe Marc, if not all three that I still owe him. I have absolutely no interest in watching two males have sex in any way whatsoever. I find the idea revolting. That being said, unless you do want me to watch, you should probably stop blocking your thoughts so that I can monitor you from outside the room, and know when you have successfully established the link so that I can guide you from there.”

          “So you’re just going to listen in instead? I don’t think I could even get in the mood knowing that you were still in the neighborhood, much less next door. I’ve only done something like this once! Who do you think I am? A porn star?” I replied indignantly, only Marc’s arms holding on to me kept me from getting up and yelling in his face. Either way, I was looking directly in his eyes to make sure I was getting my point across.

          “Well, from a telepathic point of view, you kind of are. Considering how you were broadcasting your emotions for him to anyone that can listen. It’s a good thing that there weren’t any druids around that like gay bashing, or they would have come here to crush your pansy ass a few hours ago, and considering you can’t even move a Math book without passing out, I seriously doubt that you could hold off even the weakest of my brethren.” He replied with a bemused tone.

          “Maybe if you were a half decent teacher you could figure out how to do this without resorting to being a pervert. If you really find it that disgusting, why are you currently entertaining thoughts of watching us?”

          “And how exactly do you know what I am thinking sissy boy?” His tone matched his emotions perfectly. He was completely satisfied. I realized then that his last question hadn’t even been vocalized, but had instead been thought toward me. I was reading his thoughts as clearly as I was reading my own, but I could tell that they were definitely his. It was almost as if his condescending smile was inside my head rather than on his face. He was enjoying my turmoil. I thought back to the last couple exchanges and realized that I had read his thoughts multiple times. He had said one thing while thinking another, and I had received both. He really had been thinking about Marc and me in bed together.

          “Wait, did you just do that to get me angry? You really are a prick!” I said with my own disgust hanging heavily in my voice.

          “Start thinking to me and stop speaking. I swear that your boyfriend won’t mind,” Keith replied in my head.

          “So what now? You’ve got me in here, are you going to explain how I get here again? And please stop thinking about me and my boyfriend naked, it really is very uncomfortable.”

          Keith chuckled inwardly, and his awkward thoughts dissipated, “Believe me, just entertaining those thoughts for a second was quite enough for me. I wasn’t lying about it canceling out a favor. I really do find the idea of gay sex disgusting. Not because I have anything against gay people mind you, just that I am as straight as humanly possible. I had to have something that would piss you off on my surface thoughts though, or you might have never latched on to it. At the moment your telepathy is entirely rooted in emotional connection. You were pissed off, so I had to be pissed off. You were thinking about making passionate love to your boyfriend, so I was thinking about the two of you making passionate love. It was the same thing when you and Marc shared your link yesterday. You were both feeling the seriousness of how you felt about the other, and because it was mutual, your instinct took over and created the link for you. Emphatic links with a non-psychic are as close as someone can get to a telepathic link. Two way telepathy can only occur between two psychics, such as you and me. You will be able to read Marc’s thoughts someday soon, but he will never be able to read yours.”

          I had to digest the information before I could respond. It was strange to have another person in my head, especially since it was someone who I had been ready to fight only moments earlier, but I was actually beginning to find it comfortable. It was clear that Keith knew what he was doing, and I had to admit that his strategy had worked.

With much more reserved emotions I replied, “That’s unfortunate. I guess I’ll have to communicate how I feel in other ways.” I then filled my head with a plethora of images of Marc and me making love, and watched with satisfaction as Keith’s face contorted in revulsion. I suddenly knew that those thoughts were being blocked somehow, even though he maintained our link.

As soon as he had it under control, he laughed inwardly again, and responded with images of the female anatomy in an attempt to get me back. He raised an eyebrow when I laughed in return and then I explained, “I’m bisexual, not gay. Thanks for the material.”

“You’re alright kid, maybe I misjudged you,” he replied as he stopped his image flow, “I am actually impressed. I honestly didn’t think you would be this good so quickly. It’s true that telepathy is the easiest psychic art to master, or at least the one that takes the least energy, but it still normally takes awhile to get to where you are already. You seem quite comfortable with this. I’m going to give you a few more pointers that should make you capable of using this gift on your own, and then we should start speaking out loud again, both to give you a rest and to put Marc’s mind at ease that we aren’t sharing all of his secrets. Agreed?”

I nodded, though before the physical action was completed, he had read my emotional agreement from my mind and had already continued, “You are handicapped right now into needing a direct emotional connection in order to establish a link. Currently, In order for you to be able to establish a link with anyone, you either have to guess what emotion they are feeling or get lucky and happen to be feeling the same way when you try and make the link. If you continue in this manner, you might get very good at guessing, but it will be better for you if you can pull it off without having to guess. Think about how we started our link today. I got you as angry as I could, and then I made sure that I had a great deal of anger as well, and then we made eye contact so that I could give you a physical connection as well. I am sure that when you were actually touching Marc earlier it was even easier for you to enter the link with him. All of these factors help with telepathy, but none of them are necessary, and in some situations in which you would want to use your gifts, it would even be a hindrance if you had to rely on them. Imagine how tough it will be if you have to be touching an angel or looking into his eyes in order to read his thoughts while you are trying to sneak past him? It won’t do you much good.”

“Instead, we need to focus on what I was trying to tell you before I baited you into the link. Telepathy starts with you, and then it reaches out to your target. You need to maintain control of your own mind in order to become any good at it. Be consciously aware of what you want to send toward a target and then slowly let that thought move away from you toward them, almost like you are the epicenter of ripples in water, the stone that dropped into the still pond. When ripples in water collide with an object, there is a noticeable change in the ripple. The same is true when your thoughts ripple into your target, and it’s when those ripples hit your target that you establish the link. Let’s try it. I’m going to break the link now, and then you try to create the ripples, but this time using no eye contact, and not trying to seek an emotional connection. Use a thought that is important to you, but is not one that I would know yet. Okay, here goes.”

All of a sudden the link ended, and I felt the loss of it more profoundly than I had expected. I hadn’t realized how exhilarating it had actually been to experience that part of myself so fully. With a renewed determination, I set about to bring the feeling back. I drew into myself, trying to become the stone that Keith had mentioned, and brought to mind my feeling of my mother watching out for me from the afterlife. In the last day I hadn’t thought much about her, so I knew that it would be a new thought that I could use. Using the imagery of the ripples as an added focus, I sent the thought outward from me toward Keith. The thought collided with him and I could tell the difference as soon as it occurred.

 I reached into Keith’s mind then and tried to access his thoughts, and felt his satisfaction just as he responded vocally. “I’m sure your mother is watching you Damien, and I’m sure she’s very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

We shared a smile, the first time I had seen one that was not condescending, and I knew that Keith and I were finally going to get along, even if he did still have something against me that I couldn’t quite place. In my attempts to find out what it was from reading his thoughts, the only things that jumped out were two names, Merlin and Morgana. I of course knew the first name, and the second seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place who it was. I resigned myself that Keith would explain it to me later, especially since I had met his requirement. He had said that he was impressed with me after all.

Marc, his arms still around me but looking very confused, suddenly joined our conversation. “So does this mean we’re not having sex?”

I laughed as I turned around and kissed him passionately while Keith said loudly, “Ew! God dammit guys, take that upstairs, I don’t want to see that!”

“Well there’s more where that came from. If you don’t want to see more, perhaps you should go upstairs. You’ve stolen my boyfriend for three hours now, I think it’s about time I got a piece of him,” Marc said playfully and then reached for my belt buckle.

The last thing we heard as we started in on our second session that day was Keith asking Marc to text him when we were done. We were both too busy to take any notice of the door slamming shut, or the angry mutterings of the druid walking away.

*      *      *      *      *      *

        A big thanks goes to Paul for his wonderful and generous editing. I couldn’t have done this without him.

I am also grateful to Mike for letting us post here at AwesomeDude. Please show your appreciation for his time and effort spent on this site by clicking the donate button.

        And last but certainly not least, thanks to my readers who make writing more worthwhile. I do this almost as much for you as I do it for myself.