The thick, dark cloud cover during the day was enough to have Rhysi out and about the city parks in anticipation of that first, intense storm. During the dreary daylight hours, she was walking around as a human in one of the raincoats she’d crafted the year of her arrival here. That year the city’s strange summer storms had her anticipating energy phenomena that had proven limited, and mostly useful for enjoying the rather…unique, experience of being struck by lightning. Still, it had given way to storm observation becoming more of a hobby than the active branch research she had anticipated.

It was, she would never actually admit to herself, a bit of indulgence. To sit back and watch energy in such a raw, barely contained form. To later sum it up in orderly numbers and calculations was even better. Her small closet of raincoats had gradually filled with DIY weather instruments of human invention, created and soon discarded as her own models replaced them. Those Rhysi carried with her, doing her best to look Very Human while doing Human Science during the day.

When night had fallen and the storm still had yet to break, she felt comfortable being distinctly Not Human, with a Not Human Scanner at hand and taking more thorough and relevant measurements. And then the sky shifted, from dull promise to electric vibrance. For several precious, wasted minutes, Rhysi just stared at the sky, full of elation and a growing sense of vindication.

This storm was different, not just by visuals alone, but it could be felt in the air, more even than that lightning-struck afternoon two years ago. When she came back to herself, eyes bright and mouth silently smirking in the equivalent of a human’s maniacal cackle, Rhysi was rapidly bringing up her scanner and several interfaces, fingers gracefully flying with excited purpose. The results of the moment were everything she could have hoped for. Energy was surging at a massive level she’d yet to see since her arrival.

Even better, the few minutes she’d taken to briefly gather energy had been far more efficient than ever before. Quickly, she tried to roughly quantify the difference, torn between gathering again for further information, observing the lightning and other sky phenomena, or searching out anything else that had changed with the advent of the storm.

And then, to her despair, it was suddenly and all too quickly over.

Again, she stared, motionless for a long minute. With a huge sigh, Rhysi threw herself onto the ground. Another sigh and then she abruptly began kicking and punching at the ground in an extremely quiet, ridiculously violent tantrum. She’d seen human children do this in shops at times, and could now admit, they had a point. Eventually she stilled. Later she sighed again before heaving herself up off the ground to continue gathering readings.

If it happened once, it could happen again. Such was her understanding of the universe and thus the foundation of her research goals: nothing was so unique as to only occur once. With time, ingenuity, and the necessary resources, anything could be replicated.

When she got back to base, full of new considerations and determination to bring her erstwhile hobby back into the forefront of her energy research, Lyndin’s message was waiting.