Part 2

-Get to Work-

Chapter 19:

Will deflected the fist flying at him, so that it flew just in front of his face, and took a quick step forward with his right leg to get it partially behind Cierra’s legs. As soon as he had his balance he shoved forward with his right arm and shoulder, hoping to dump her on her back.

Her reflexes were too quick for him, and she was able to take advantage of the difference in their height by ducking under his arm and throwing herself into a forward somersault, rolling past him and back to her feet.

Will’s newfound strength allowed him to plant his weight on his leading leg and arrest his lunge, quickly spinning to reorient on her new position. He was just in time to brace his left leg to take the impact from the kick she sent his way.

The kick had been more to hurt his balance than do real damage, which became clear when he reached down with one arm, attempting to get a grip on her ankle.

Yanking the leg back before he could get a grip, she reversed into another kick to try and sweep his legs.

This time Will jumped straight backwards suddenly, avoiding the leg sweep, and immediately flung himself forward in a massively powerful jump that let him skim over the ground straight for her.

Seeing the charge, Cierra feinted a dodge low and to the side again. This time, she instead rotated to throw a massive amount of force behind a punch to his ribs as his stupid jump carried him past her.

The impact was massive, and Will would’ve been wondering if he’d heard a rib snap if he wasn’t too busy thinking, “Fucking OW!” It didn’t help that it felt like his diaphragm might have locked up, and he was having trouble breathing.

He had barely gotten his feet back on solid ground when his senses flared, and he knew she was rushing to capitalize. He moved as quickly as he could while struggling to get some precious oxygen into his lungs.

Far too dazed to consciously pick a target, he barely managed to rotate his body to intercept her charge. Leading with his right elbow at the height of her center of mass, he followed through with his left hand up to meet any unexpected hits.

Cierra had expected him to be stunned and senseless from her blow to his ribs, so hadn’t expected the elbow flying at her side, and she was too committed to her rush to dodge. The impact smashed into her side with shocking force, followed by his other arm sending her reeling away.

For the first time, Will had managed to land a shot hard enough to leave her stunned and struggling for breath.

Will might’ve celebrated the solid hit, but he had hit her with the same side of his body she had so recently introduced to a sledgehammer fist. The force of his own hit left his breathing every bit as strenuous as what Cierra was experiencing.

Wincing, he held up one hand hoping for a break, and Cierra agreed with a bare nod. They both wanted to get their lungs back in order before continuing.

They had agreed early on in their sessions that they could take thirty second pauses from time to time, but had to maintain their positions. The point of this was to learn after all, and sometimes that meant pacing themselves.

Cierra was faster than Will, but his elbow had had an insane amount of power behind it, and feeling was still coming back into the arm.

Will’s right side felt like someone had blasted him with a big ass hammer, and he felt positive he had at least two broken ribs.

Thirty seconds was up.

Moving forward, Will realized he was still a lot foggier than he had realized when he utterly failed to react to the kick she sent into his ankle.

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She was briefly happy to have managed to take the leg out from under him, but realized her error quickly. She had misjudged his momentum, and Will was now on course to land partially on top of her.

Reacting as quickly as possible, Cierra tried to get one of his arms in a lock. She had hoped to secure a hold with her thighs around his neck, like she had in their first fight. Unfortunately, she didn’t have full use of one arm back yet, and she could feel her body moving sluggishly from her injured side.

Will yanked his arm away before she could get any kind of useful grip, and managed to push himself to his knees. Awkwardly lunging forward, he was able to plant a fist into her injured side, leaving her briefly stunned for the second time in all of their matches.

With that, he was able to spin her around by a shoulder and take her back, to try and get a lock around her neck.

Cierra’s senses flared, picking up on what Will was attempting, and snapped her focus back in place. Reacting purely on instinct, she threw her head back to smash into Will’s nose. She felt the crunch of cartilage and sudden blood on the back of her neck.

Will’s spiking adrenaline and general mental state dulled the pain of his nose breaking, and he was able to keep one arm mostly around her neck.

Knowing she needed to get free, Cierra blasted a reverse elbow of her own into the previously undamaged side of his ribcage, but he absorbed the impact with a grunt, capturing the arm.

Abandoning the attempted lock, Will used the captured arm that had definitely fucked up another rib or two, to push her away again. He was basically running on adrenaline and the instinctual responses he had learned in their matches, which told him to always keep pushing forward.

Cierra was able to reorient and get back to her feet as Will staggered toward her with surprising speed, and managed to swing a punch into the side of his head as he lunged into her chest with his shoulder.

At that point, Will’s legs collapsed under him like a puppet with its strings cut, as his vision went dark.

Unfortunately for Cierra, physics was still a bitch, and her ribs once again screamed in protest as her chest seized up from the shoulder planted into it.

“Owww…” escaped her lips as she decided movement was a bad idea, and opted to wait for her healing abilities to start their work.

As he recovered, Will regained consciousness in stages, and his mind drifted back to the month that had passed since he’d met the girl on the ground a few feet away from him.

Unsurprisingly, after his conversation with Sil, they had become fast friends. She had continued to spar with him. Mostly they would meet up at the spot in the desert where they had first met, but he had introduced her to his roommates.

She had been surprised when he told her they knew pretty much everything he did about the wider world they lived in. Not that he had told them, she had Kara after all, but because of how casually they were taking it all.

They had tried to explain, saying they were turbo nerds, so this was actually exciting to them, but she didn’t think that was the extent of it. She even confessed to her own normal friend having basically the same reaction.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it, though. It seemed, to her, that Paige, Jake, and Kara were all a lot more mentally adaptable than she had been taught to expect of normal people.

Will had continued to infuse his body as much as he could, and both Artie and Cierra had commented on how quickly his body was absorbing the power. Artie wasn’t surprised by this, of course, but he could tell Cierra strongly suspected there was something different about him.

As he’d gotten more powerful, his and Cierra’s fights were lasting longer, as well as being more painful. Will had asked if they’d be going through an actual martial art, and Cierra surprised him by saying no.

She had explained that she had learned from her family, but didn’t have a grounding in an established fighting style, so she wasn’t equipped to teach him that.

“Though,” she had admitted, “learning some techniques from something like Krav Maga would be pretty damn cool. I just don’t know how to pull it off, yet.”

She followed that up by reminding him that he was just too far beyond human to be able to effectively learn from a normal person.

What she could do for him right now, was to help him learn how to use his body's new abilities as effectively as possible. Also, he needed to learn his limits, but that was trickier because of how rapidly he was growing.

He was, secretly, very pleased with himself when she had told him that training with him had ramped up the rate of her own growth. Then she informed him his smug grin might be misplaced, when it was kicking the shit out of him that was making her stronger. Apparently, he hadn’t done a great job of concealing that pride, after all.

Beyond getting stronger, and his beautiful new friend, his life in general had vastly improved. He had given a week's notice at his job, and predictably been escorted out immediately. This left him officially on the payroll of Sil and Artie, and they were generous bosses.

So now, he was making more money for doing something he actually enjoyed. It was practically a foreign concept to him, but he was really happy. He was even looking forward to officially beginning his investigation into the leadership of the Reno branch of The Activated.

Which brought him to the reason for his visiting Cierra’s family compound for the first time.

He had to tell Cierra about his electrical talent.

He had to go with her to register as an Operator for the Reno branch.

He had to get to work.