Chapter 24

I head for the changing rooms and swap over quickly-I of course have a few spares here, just in case. You can never be too prepared, right? Dressed up in a white gi with my green belt, I join Sensei in the Dojo's meditation room only a few minutes after his invitation.

Our Dojo has a super weirdly well outfitted meditation room. Like, ridiculously so. We have a 12 foot constantly stoked bed of coals for walking across, beds of nails, a nearly infinite seeming stack of boards and clay tiles for breaking, and a blackout room full of candles and mats to meditate on. I have absolutely no idea how Sensei managed to even fit all this inside a standard Mall Karate Dojo, much less how he's affording keeping it stocked.

For today, we apparently need the blackout room, so I follow Sensei when he beckons me to follow him inside. I move to my standard matt in one of the corners of the room out of habit, kneel down, then brace myself. As Sensei closes the door, an almost physical darkness presses in on me. I know from experience that I wouldn't even be able to see my hand in front of my face, no matter how much I strain my eyes, though for today I don't bother trying-just maintain my kneeling position and posture.

The room also cuts out sound remarkably well, and after a few moments of silence I can hear my own heartbeat almost as well as Sensei's whisper quiet bare-footed footsteps. Even those footsteps go quiet once he is standing in front of me. A sound like ripping through a thousand pieces of paper at once resounds through the room, but I see that it is simply a match having been lit, the sound exaggerated by the silence.

Sensei uses it to light a candle set in an ornamental holder in front of my meditation mat, then walks behind me. He begins leading me through a set of frustratingly normal exercises. I thought he was going to help me, not just run me through the usual meditation? We do this every week!

I struggle to center myself past the turmoil in my mind. Sensei's voice subtly fades from my awareness as I stare into the flame and begin to examine my emotions. Fear, of course, because something strange is happening to me that I don't understand. Anger, at Sensei for hiding this from me when he clearly understands what's going on. Excitement, because whatever's happening to me is almost certainly something special-something amazing and unique, which I just have never been. Envy, because I see Star standing in a world of adventure and danger that I've always wanted for myself. I would do -anything- to join her there.

As I catalogue and understand all of the things I've only barely touched on in the past few days, the feelings themselves suddenly become less pressing. Separate from my sense of self, while still being a part of me. And eventually, only one things remains to be examined in my mind-the burning heat of the 'Spirit of Mall Karate' that caused this visit in the first place. Being that I'm not an Idiot like sensei, I elect to immediately rename it to something cooler. How about… the 'Heart of Mars'? Yeah, that sounds cool as hell.

Apparently even my inner self, divested of most of my emotions is a complete dweeb. What a surprise. Trying to bring myself back on track, I examine my newly named Heart for what it is, and what I find is both surprising and not. I'd already realized that it seemed to activate in times of danger, fighting, and exhilaration, but what I had not thought too much about was that this feeling was -familiar-.

A crystallization of my love for danger, my withered soul of an adrenaline junky stuck in a place as boring as Echo Creek, and the hot fire of Rage-an emotion I don't remember feeling much at all (with the notable exception of Jeremy). Much as I'd like to claim this is a recent thing, or as a result of learning martial arts with Sensei, this Heart has been a part of me since I was born.

With that understanding, I accept it completely and totally. Why would I ever deny a part of myself, no matter how strange? Perhaps this is what I've been missing in all my past meditation sessions, a fear of the Heart being something alien to me unconsciously preventing me from accepting it. Fire blooms in my chest and ignites my veins, and my eyes fly open with both my heart and Heart beating in tandem, pumping me full of the power I'd previously thought only adrenaline could unlock.

The previously dim room shines almost like it was daylight, lit only by the single candle in front of me. My newly hairless skin can feel every individual thread of my Gi, and I can smell the day old sweat of Sensei standing behind me as if I was snorting his armpit directly. Not the most pleasant of experiences, admittedly. As for my ears, I feel like I can hear everyth-

"MARCO!" An earsplitting, high pitched voice drives itself directly into my brain like an icepick as the door to the blackout room is kicked open. A blonde bundle of chaos dashes into the room, too many colors and sounds and smells for my hypersensitive brain to put into a coherent whole for a moment. In the face of the overwhelming nature of Star Butterfly, my Heart cools down to save me grief if nothing else. I still feel the quiet pulse of warmth in my chest, however-power there when I need it, reliable and accessible.

Mundane senses or not I'm still a bit dazed when Star pulls me to my feet and begins dragging me off, a shifty look on her face. "We gotta go. Fast. No, uh, particular reason, just hurry hurry!"

When I look back at Sensei we both share a confused look for a moment, before he just shrugs and gives me a proud smile and a thumbs up. Seems he realized I had a breakthrough. I wonder how much of my success was my own work, and how much was his instructions, blindly followed without me even thinking about it in my meditation? Maybe I'll ask him about it later.

No time for it at the moment, though, as Star has completely removed me from the Dojo by the time I realize. "Wait! Star, what about my clothes? Shoes?" I look down at my bare feet on the floor of the mall, horrified at the germs no doubt killing me as we speak.

"No time!" She declares, and I squint suspiciously at her. The acrid smell of smoke suddenly reaches me, and I hear a dozen fire alarms go off at once all around the mall. Really, Star? I leave you alone for MAYBE half an hour and set the mall on fire? She'd better hope that the Dojo is fine.

"We're gonna be talking about this later." I tell her, my tone unamused. I finally free myself from her grip, but in exchange start running alongside her freely, taking a touch of power from my Heart to keep up as she puts on speed.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just come on!" She insists urgently, nearly smashing right through the automatic mall doors before she realizes they're opening anyway. The troublemaker throws a worried glance back the way we came, and I have to wonder if fire is the only thing she's left behind in this mall. I've yet to actually see any people around, which is suspicious…

Still, we make it out to my bike and are riding away before any more trouble hits. The crazy princess lets out a sigh of pure relief and leans against my back once we've put a few miles between us and the mall. The pedals of my baby are a bit painful on my bare feet, but that only makes me realize that I can barely feel my other injuries at all-maybe my Heart is helping with those? One can only hope…

"So. Gonna tell me what exactly happened back there?" I say conversationally, tone deceptively mild.