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Oh. My. Gods. - Weebly

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can do. But—and this is a big but—just because we have the poten-<br />

tial to do something doesn’t mean we have the ability.”<br />

“I’m working on no sleep,” I plead. “Can you please elaborate?”<br />

“Our powers don’t come easy,” Nicole explains. “When we’re born<br />

we can’t really tap into them. They’re there, but it takes years—a lifetime,<br />

really—of training to learn how to use them.”<br />

“There are exceptions, of course.” Troy sets down his fork to<br />

chug a pint of milk. “The closer you are to the god on your family<br />

tree, the stronger your powers are from the start. Most of us are<br />

pretty far down the branch.”<br />

“How do you train?” I ask. It’s not like I’ve seen classes out in the<br />

courtyard working on moving things with their minds.<br />

“That’s complicated.” Nicole pushes her untouched meat loaf to<br />

the side. “Part of it is learning how to focus your energies—how to<br />

channel the powers into what you are trying to do. But a big part of<br />

it has to do with self-knowledge. You have to know yourself, understand<br />

yourself so you can sense the extent of your powers. The<br />

better you know yourself the more focused your powers get.”<br />

“Wow,” I say. “That sounds so . . .”<br />

“Vague?” Nicole suggests. “It is.”<br />

“I was going to say dangerous. What if someone suddenly reaches<br />

a new level of self-knowledge and, like, accidentally blows someone<br />

to pieces.”<br />

“<strong>Oh</strong>, don’t worry,” Troy says cheerfully, “there are controls.”<br />

“Controls?”<br />

“Yeah,” Nicole adds. “Since we’re not fully gods, the Mt. Olympus<br />

twelve placed a protective order over our powers.”<br />

“What does that mean?”<br />

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