Two weeks off. That's what they said. "Time to recover." "Time to heal." But no one really explained how you heal from watching your city crumble around you. From hearing the screams of people buried in rubble. From seeing a Viltrumite tear through a skyline like it was paper.
Stephen didn't talk about it. He didn't cry. He didn't even blink when Nolan came home with the same calm expression he always wore. Debbie didn't say anything either. The house stayed quiet, like it always did after something they weren't allowed to mention.
Day one, Stephen didn't leave his room.
No sleep. No food. Just research.
The room looked like a conspiracy board. Diagrams, formulas, old articles, scientific papers on powered individuals. Notes scrawled in shorthand only he could read. His desk was buried under printouts, his walls lined with strings connecting theories. Two laptops ran nonstop, screens glowing softly in the dim light. A tablet flicked between footage and forum screenshots, while a phone buzzed endlessly from downloaded archives he barely skimmed.
It looked messy. But it wasn't. It was structured chaos.
He was after the truth.
Because during that last fight—when the Viltrumite's punch should've split him in half—he'd felt something shift. Not in his body, but in his understanding.
He should've died. Any other person would've. Hell, even Mark might've been out cold from that.
But he tanked it. Took the hit full force. No shield. No deflection. And he didn't just survive—he recovered mid-air and retaliated like it was instinct.
He always believed it was his bio-electric aura that did that. Everyone did. The academic journals said so. Teachers. "Experts." Even the powered community believed in the aura theory from his previous life. A field of energy that insulated the user, redistributed kinetic force, prevented structural damage from high-impact movement.
It made sense. It felt real.
But it was wrong.
He wasn't relying on an aura to survive hits like that. His body tanked it. His muscles. His bones. His alien physiology—the same thing that made sleep unnecessary and let him float in the upper atmosphere without oxygen. That was where the invulnerability came from. The aura just... helped.
It didn't protect him. It didn't save him.
It only assisted.
He remembered a theory from his past life, buried in a Reddit thread so obscure even he had to dig for it in his memories: tactile telekinesis. Not the kind where someone just waves a hand and something floats. This was deeper—internal. It was about touch. Contact. Will through proximity. The ability to manipulate the world through the sensation of feeling.
At first, he thought that was just a cool word from fiction. But when he looked at his own powers now—really looked—it clicked.
What if his aura wasn't bio-electric at all?
What if it was tactile?
Not energy—but intention. Not a bio field—but pressure.
He scribbled furiously onto a pad of paper.
"Aura ≠ shield. Aura = tactile field."
"Durability = physiology + tactile redirection?"
"Flight = gravity manipulation via tactile control?"
The last one sat with him the longest.
Because the way he flew—he wasn't pushing off the ground. He wasn't holding himself aloft with energy. He moved by will. Directionless. Effortless. Thought equalled motion. That wasn't propulsion. That wasn't lift.
It was gravity. His own gravitational field, bent and twisted to his needs. Controlled through some unconscious link.
And if that was true... that was tactile telekinesis in play without conscious thought. Meaning he'd already done it. Without knowing.
Day two started with a test.
He floated to the roof before dawn, letting the air brush across his skin. Shirtless. Barefoot. Present. He didn't try to "activate" anything. He just stood there and felt.
And slowly, the world began responding.
The air shifted around him in subtle ways. A breeze passed—but he didn't just feel it on his skin. He felt the shape of it. The density. The pressure. The difference in warmth. It was like his awareness extended past the surface of his body. Like his entire aura was a second set of skin—one that wrapped around him in all directions.
He picked up a coin and placed it in his palm.
He didn't lift it with his fingers. He didn't try to channel energy.
He just... asked.
Mentally, internally, he willed the coin to stay.
And it did. For half a second.
It shook. Trembled. Then floated just above his hand.
He lost control and it dropped with a faint ping.
He didn't celebrate. Not yet. It wasn't smooth. It wasn't repeatable.
But it meant one thing: he could manipulate anything his aura touched. He didn't have to forcefully make another field to push his aura to grab an object to move it.
It was tactile telekinesis. He was certain now.
Later that day, he made a list. Two columns.
Known:
Flight = instinctual gravity manipulation.
Durability = base physiology + tactile aura redirect.
Aura = not energy, but intent-based contact field.
Objects touched can be "locked" and moved.
Unknown:
Range of tactile aura?
Can it extend beyond immediate surface area?
Can it be used for fine control (multiple objects)?
Passive vs active state?
Day three, he pushed the limit.
He didn't go inside. Not even to eat.
The backyard became a lab. He placed objects all around—a steel bar, a rubber ball, a book, a bottle cap. He stood in the centre, eyes closed, letting the world speak to him through his aura.
He tried something new.
He imagined his aura as a sphere—ten meters in radius. A living field. Not something he "used" like a muscle. Something that simply was. A domain. A passive extension of his awareness.
Not pushing out energy.
But accepting feedback.
He didn't need to see. He didn't even need to focus. If this worked, the aura would give him enough data to act instinctively. Like second-nature. Like breathing.
The bottle cap shifted first. Just an inch. Enough to catch his attention.
Then the book flipped open.
He turned slightly, and the metal bar hovered for a second before dropping again.
Each attempt gave more data. Each success felt more natural.
He was getting used to it. His mind adapting. Every movement in the field gave him sensory feedback. Not visual—but tactile. He could feel where things were. He knew how far, how heavy, how fast. Even when he wasn't looking.
By sunset, he wasn't just reacting anymore.
He was orchestrating.
Clumsily, yes—but deliberately.
He jotted down one final note on a fresh page of Doom bringer Steve, and ripped it and pinned it to the wall in his bedroom:
"Domain: 10 meters. Total tactile feedback. Range-based control. Perpetual field. It's possible."
He underlined it twice.
The last entry that night, scrawled in the corner:
"10%. That's how far I am. But it's real now. I know what I'm building."
_ _ ♛ _ _
By day four, the backyard had become more packed and dense, with many materials,
It was a workshop. A war room. A shrine to progress.
Rocks and objects were scattered deliberately around the space—not randomly, but in clusters, weight classes, distances. Stephen stood barefoot in the grass at the centre of it all, eyes closed, letting the world speak to him.
He didn't flinch when the wind changed. He didn't open his eyes when a bird landed on the fence. He could feel it.
Not the sound. Not the presence.
The pressure. The contact.
His tactile field had grown denser. Clearer. What once felt like fog now felt like mist. Still fuzzy at the edges, but closer. More defined. Objects entering the field no longer caught him off guard—they appeared in his mind like ripples across a still surface.
He began running controlled drills.
One: Lift all five coins on the ground, simultaneously.
Two: Move them to form a straight line midair, equidistant.
Three: Rotate them clockwise at the same speed, different heights.
He failed the first time. The second. The fifth. But by the sixth, it started to come together. His mind hurt—his brain flickering with the effort of multitasking beyond its normal scope—but he didn't stop.
He could handle it. His mind was built for it now.
By day five, he added more objects—ten, fifteen, even twenty scattered items.
Each one added a new layer of complexity: different weights, shapes, materials. He forced himself to track them all at once, manipulate each one individually while keeping the others stable.
At first it felt like juggling blindfolded. Then it felt like writing with both hands at once.
Then… it felt like nothing.
Just breath. Just motion.
He began to understand: the goal wasn't to hold each object with total conscious control.
It was to let the field—his domain—carry the load. He directed, but the field executed. He gave it a rule—"Move anything that enters this space"—and it obeyed.
The real progress came on the sixth day.
He placed a tennis ball behind him—completely out of view.
Then, eyes closed, he raised it into the air, rotated it once, then flung it across the yard.
No hesitation.
No visual.
Just feel.
He laughed, half in disbelief. His journal entry that night was just one line:
"I don't need to see it. I don't need even a second to think. I just need to will it."
On day seven, the domain became passive.
He wasn't forcing it anymore. It just existed around him—ten meters in every direction, humming like a silent radar. Anything that crossed the threshold pinged in his mind instantly. He could move it, stop it, hurl it, or just let it pass. And he didn't have to focus.
He trained himself to hold conversations while controlling the field. He watched old broadcasts while manipulating objects around the house. He floated books into his backpack while brushing his teeth. Every test was a success.
It wasn't about power now. It was about comfort. The tactile field felt like a second skin—one that never came off.
He'd built it by mistake years ago. He just hadn't realized it. Now, it was real. Controlled. Consistent. Passive. Automatic.
He could move everything inside it.
Books. Bottles. Bricks.
Even air.
Even people—if he wanted.
He wrote one final entry that night in bold:
"Stephen's Tactile Domain – V1: 100% Achieved.
Passive. Ten-meter radius. Complete spatial feedback.
Instant manipulation. Sight not required. Multitarget control.
Aura = Tactile Aura = Domain.
No longer a theory.
It's real now."
He taped it to the wall beside the first one from day three—the one that said "10%."
They sat side by side.
And Stephen sat beneath them, legs crossed, trying to calm his excitement. pride. Just… be steady, but he failed.
He knew the domain was only the beginning!
Because he wasn't done!
This was step one!
Now he needed to figure out what came next, face beaming with absolute joy, but from an outside perspective, it would be a boy with a crazed expression as if the child had taken ecstasy.
"HAHAHA I am becoming a monster!" Stephen couldn't help but laugh out loud to himself, everyone else in the family just think to themselves that Stephen has finally lost it after hearing his laughter.
End of Chapter 37
(A/N: I am feeling the urge to write more with assistance from ai, like I would write it, it would feel more human and more soulful, but there will be a lot of mistakes, and some plot holes that i would then have to search for and fix, imagine doing that for 2k+ words every chapter, it would take me months to finish just 10 chapters, so using ai to edit and enhance my language is what I do, but then it just comes off as ai and it pisses me off that my work is being twisted so, that's why I started a new thing, where some part will be written after edit and also me editing what the ai edited, this way it is somewhat better.)
(A/N: Anyways please support this fanfiction so it can grow, and if you guys have any critiques or find any plot holes please let me know, I am really pushing forward with development right now, I remember my vampire in dc, people complained about how the mc gained power control without it being explained, I hope this chapter explains why his progress were so slow and pitiful previously, also this is a unique power to this mc, and it is due to his special heritage and imagination.)