The idea of a means to more directly manage pain also struck her, though she left it for whenever she would next commune with the Primordial Self, therefore Zelsys decided it would be best to dedicate her time to polishing what she already had and trying to create a real version of Thunderclap Sting.

Perhaps if she extrapolated the twisting motion even further, if she involved her entire body somehow…

With each attempt, she grew to more and more understand the significance of even this incomplete understanding. It wasn’t just Engine Breathing where energy had been lost, but every single Fulgur-empowered movement.

No longer did her own Fulgurkinetic impulses hijack the natural impulses of her nervous system; the two were now one and the same, the interference of their clashing gone, and with it the occasional muscle spasms that she had gotten used to.

Every single muscle could be put to task and coordinated with minimal conscious effort - Zelsys no longer had to actively think through specific movements before putting them into action; thought could now equal action. The gap between something new and something etched deep into muscle memory grew narrower.

Another among the initial breakthroughs was when she realized she now had the fine control to intentionally stockpile Aether and Fulgur inside specific muscles a few seconds ahead of time.

With this in mind, Zel began iterating upon the forward punch she’d already come up with, incorporating some of the concepts she’d gotten out of reading “How to Hit and Get Hit”, chiefly using the rotation of the hips as a source of power.

This strike proved as effective as she’d hoped; after figuring out which muscles were mainly involved, saturating them with Aether, and performing the move with a burst of Fulgur both as command and spark for the burning of Aether, the punch came out at a velocity jarring to even her.

It struck harder and faster than any unprepared strike did, but she knew she could make it faster, the “charged” muscles closest to the surface of her skin flashing white and crackling with lightning as they contracted.

Seeking even further momentum, Zelsys sought to involve every single muscle that could conceivably be involved, eventually arriving at a strike combining hip rotation and the strength of the abdominal muscles.

A brief surge of pain shot up her arm from the impact, and her fist dented the striking block deeply enough that Zelsys had to force her hand free of the metal.

It worked well, but she felt that it couldn’t be extrapolated to the Lightning Butcher.

And so, back to the metaphorical drawing board it was.

At the end of the day, after having plundered “How to Hit and Get Hit” for what she could, after having spoken to Zef, Sig, Makhus, Ozmir, and even several of the obvious martial artists milling about outside the gates, Zelsys had settled on several different strikes.

All of them incorporated similar body mechanics in different ways, some relying mostly on hip rotation and core muscles whilst others threw the entire body into the punch.

As it turned out, both of the punches she’d arrived at independently - both her most recent and the one she’d considered naming after a spear - already existed in some form. The former being referred to as a Farmer’s Straight Punch for its historical use by farmers to defend against out-of-line soldiers, while the latter was called a Reverse Punch, supposedly because it used the “opposite” arm in whatever martial art its most famous form came from.

Two strikes stood out as candidates for building Thunderclap Sting upon: the so-called overhand and casting punches, the latter already quite closely mimicking the motion of a whip. The first was vertical and the latter horizontal, thus Zelsys decided to consider both as options, knowing that a practical technique couldn’t be so rigid as to rely upon a specific direction.

Despite all this progress, Zelsys was most excited by the seemingly limitless potential of the ability to actively “charge” specific muscles and precisely set the charge off for a fast-twitch contraction far stronger than anything she’d been able to achieve before.

In her eyes, it was a culmination of every means of self-empowerment she’d ever used with the greatest drawbacks either removed or vastly diminished.

Even though she could just do it at will, it demanded codification, if only as future proofing for when she inevitably came up with a more elaborate way of using it.

And so, grinning ear to ear, she grabbed her Tablet and casually hopped three meters vertically onto the imprint-covered target block. Responding to her will in moments, the Tablet lashed a probing Fog-tendril into her arm and compiled an entry for the technique, awaiting a name.

The name had to be something thematically related to Storm Engine, and it came to her mind when her gaze fell upon her motorbike, standing just inside the yard against a wall.

THUNDERCHARGER Type: Essentia Storage and Manipulation, Self-Empowerment Trigger: At-Will (Affects Metabolized Essentia (Aether and Fulgur)) Effects: Essentia Storage D+, Localized Physical Enhancement S Advancement: Unknown

Even lacking the need for a trigger phrase, considering that an appropriate incantation significantly reduced the mental focus demand of any technique, she just decided one an appropriately simple one.

“Load” for the charging part of the technique, and “Ignite” for the release, calling back to the engine naming scheme.

Many other ideas already roiled in her mind, many of them for defensive techniques; from some iteration on the pulp manual’s suggestion to go limp when hit, to the opposite of hardening her muscles and discharging Fulgur into the attacker, to even shivering at a rapid rate with the idea of dispersing an attack’s kinetic energy, but that wasn’t ideal.

Ideally, she needed to improve Graze Pulse and Siphoning Pulse, and there was no doubt in her mind they could be improved. Until such time however, Thundercharger was a perfect fit for the gap in Retributive Battery’s mode of operation.

That was not to mention the innumerable possibilities for kicks, elbows, knees, grapples, all the possible means of harnessing Fulgurkinesis…

Perhaps she could learn something from Jorfr and adapt it for use with Storm Engine.

Only time would tell.