Overload (part 4)

Posted on Fri Sep 26th, 2014 @ 11:54am by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Lieutenant Jensen Foster & Lieutenant JG Heather Quinn

1,003 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come
Location: Jensen Foster's Quarters

[CONTINUED]

[OLD]

Turning his gaze back to the two women in the room with him, he spoke, "My abilities have always been a major part of my life. My empathy is, as you both know, greater in power and scope than most other forms of empathy. I also have latent psychic abilities in the form of telepathy, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis - all the known psionic abilities in the universe. I didn't grow up knowing any of this. I only thought I was your typical, half-Betazoid with a greater than average empathic ability."

"When I was about seven-years-old, I empathically linked with another child on Betazed. My twin brother, James."

Jensen had to pause for a few seconds. Bringing up the subject of his early years and his twin brother, caused a dull pain in his chest, but he took a calming breath and found his center.

[NEW]


Continuing, he said, "Unlike me, James doesn't have any active psionic abilities. He takes after our human father, while I take after our Betazoid mother - only much greater in ability than our mother. His empathy is only active when I'm around and is constantly picking up on my emotions. When that happens, he acts as a grounding mechanism for myself - keeping me calm and in control - greater than anything I can do with simple meditation."

Realizing he was about to go off subject slightly, Jensen pulled himself together.

"I created the empathic-link while experiencing a rather unpleasant burst of emotions from some of our friends who were having a fight over who got to throw the ball next in our game of catch. As you can imagine, the emotional overload caused me to reach out psionically for any help. That turned out to be my brother. In that instant, I empathically activated his one and only latent ability - his empathy. In that instant, I tethered my brother to me in a way that cannot be undone. From that moment on we were irrevocably linked to one another."

"For me, that link helped me breathe and get under control. For James, it tore at his heart for he'd never experienced another's emotions before. I remember it distinctly, for he'd looked at me and told me that he understood now what it was like for me. Seven-years-old and he had the wisdom of someone far beyond his years. Our game of catch was post-poned and we went home to our parents. But when we got home the empathic link wavered and it sent all of my twin's internal emotions over my emotions back to me."

Closing his eyes, Jensen took a breath.

Opening his eyes once again, he said, "I blacked out. It was just too much for me to handle at such a young age. I awoke a few days later to find myself in a hospital room, hooked up to medical equipment, with my twin looking even worse than I did. I learned a few years later that what had happened when I blacked out was that the emotional overload caused all of my latent abilities to activate and wreck havoc on anything and anyone within a 30 foot radius. Unfortunately, James took the brunt of my telepathic ability for he was empathically linked to me. Our house, I was told, looked as if an earthquake had hit it, and there were plenty of neighbors who'd been affected by me both telepathically and empathically."

Jensen paused then, looking to the two women who were before him, and waited to see what their responses would be to this first memory his psionic abilities.

T'mpest took it all in. After what she'd learned about Rylie and her experience with the AIs from Abydos, she understood better than many. "What have you done since that time to control your abilities?"

"Well, after that episode, and once we were released from the hospital, My mother, James, and I worked together on our newly created empathic bond through a mixture of Vulcan meditating techniques and Betazoid psionic training. James took to it almost immediately and excelled."

Jensen breathed in a bit, remembering just how it'd been to him at that age. He continued a few seconds later.

"It some time for me to adapt to it all and get control over my abilities. Eventually it was discovered that my latent abilities were tied to my emotions and empathy. When I'm experiencing intense personal emotions, my empathy grows exponentially and soon after, being exposed to everyone else's emotions along with my own, my other abilities are triggered. Once that was determined, I under went more intense psionic training and learned stronger meditation techniques to learn how to control and repress my emotions."

"Once I caught on to the training and meditation, my emotional state became very similar to Vulcans. It still is in most instances. I do allow myself to feel emotion, but keep constant control over my emotions so that what happened when I was younger, and what happened tonight, does not happen. But there have been times where my control has slipped and I've wrecked destruction around myself and have affected others empathically."

He paused again, feeling sorrow well up inside of himself. He quickly calmed himself and reigned in his emotions.

"I did fairly well for the rest of my childhood, especially with James being my empathic center. The next time my psionic abilities went out of control like that was shortly after my meeting a young Starfleet cadet when I was seventeen."

Nothing had prepared him for it. The intense void that had taken the place of his heart when he'd learned of Illo's leaving. If he'd been able to say goodbye, maybe he'd be alright. But as it stood, without that goodbye, that chance to say they'd meet again, it was like a part of himself had been ripped away forever.

(To be continued...)

Lieutenant Jensen Foster
Chief Medical Officer

Commander T'mpest Michaels
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant JG Heather Quinn
Assistant Chief Medical Officer

 

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