Panting slightly, Iapetus bent slightly, resting her hands against her knees and she closed her eyes and focused on breathing. Only once it felt like her lungs weren’t struggling quite so much did she straighten up and move to examine her handiwork.

Which was just a bit of tree trunk that she’d managed to pulverize, but that wasn’t the point! The point was that she was learning how to best utilize her magic in a fight. Not that a bit of wood was something one could fight against. But still not the point! She was learning her limits and what she could do. And sure, practicing against inanimate objects wasn’t the easiest, but it gave her time to figure out how she worked. And that was the damn point!

Stretching out her arms carefully, Iapetus walked over to where she’d stashed some things and dug out a bottle of water. Cracking it open, she drained it in less than a minute and started to feel a little more human. She’d need a shower once she got home though or her hair would be a greased up nightmare come morning. And speaking of morning… She had an early one, so it was time to clean up her mess and go home.

“At least it’s just putting s**t back where I found it,” she muttered as she put the old construction site back to rights. It had been a lot of trouble to find a site that wasn’t under constant watch via cameras or guards, but she’d managed. She usually did. Only once things were reasonably tidy did she grab her things to sneak out. She could power down closer to home since she’d rarely heard of Negaverse folk lurking in suburbia. And the walk would give her ample time to think.

Her magic, she’d decided, was best used if she was fighting with someone. Sure, she could use it on herself, but she had the feeling that it was meant as more of a support. Which, okay. That was fine. But she wasn’t limited by only being able to boost others. So if she was stuck alone, she wasn’t helpless. And, she thought with grim amusement, once used, her magic wouldn’t allow her to even consider falling victim to helplessness. As she walked, she thought about how she’d felt for those few moments she’d been under her power’s influence. There had only been herself and her ‘opponent’. Nothing else had mattered beyond that. There had been no second thoughts, no sense of oh my god i must look crazy, nothing. Already, she could see where such a thing would be useful. People were a lot different from logs. She could actually feel guilty or horrified to hurt a person.

And, she suspected, she would. Eventually. Once her magic wore off and adrenaline had been flushed from her system. And that was okay. She’d take after battle nerves anyday over freezing up at the wrong time in the middle of a fight.

And maybe that was the point, after all.

Word Count = 512