My mom is awesome. So, Dad was proud as hell of me, "my son the superhero" and all that, but Mom could tell I wasn't feeling great. So, she excused me from going to church with the family, and hey, a full box of doughnuts from Donut World and some Yerba Mates to drink! She got it, I needed time, and despite some grousing from Mackenzie and Merida (There was a definite theme to our parents naming us), I got the house to myself for a few hours, which I promptly decided to use the best possible use of my time: playing Minecraft. Outside of the Speedrunning/Manhunt community, you can't really get better at playing Minecraft past a certain point, and that was a point I'd long since passed. The normalcy of it was amazing, and I made a mental note to look into other stuff that wasn't really a "get better" activity.

I think people deeply underestimate the importance of Doing Nothing. It's all well and good to have ambitions and stuff, but honestly, sometimes it's just nice to have nothing going on. After Minecraft, I decided to watch some wrestling and anime. It was as I was binging Food Wars, eating some instant ramen, a thought popped into my head- I could learn to make better ramen. For those who make ramen in Japan, it was a years-long study to make solid, proper ramen in the traditional sense, but with my abilities, couldn't I learn to make it a bit faster?

The house phone rang and checking the number, it was Mom. I picked up, "Hey ma."

"How are you doing, sweetie?" The slight concern was easy to hear. Wait- social cues are a thing, do I get better at social cues?

"I'm feeling better. Sorry I haven't talked much, I just needed a minute."

She paused a moment, "I know, and I wanna talk to you about that face to face, but Merida managed to guilt your dad into going to Dave & Buster's. Are you up for it, or do you want to sit this out? I just want what's best for you."

With some time to just relax, I was feeling better, and not gonna lie, it's one of my favorite places to... I had a laugh, "Yeah, I wanna go."

Mom came and got me, the rest going ahead, and we hit up Fred Meyer's so I could replace my outfit. This would end up freeing me up from doing the trip with my sisters, so hey, big upswing. Now armed with a new wardrobe, we went to D&B, where everyone else had ordered. I pretty much got the same thing every time, so Dad had just ordered my regular stuff, which was coming out as I sat down. I wolfed down the whole plate, and power card in hand, went into the game room, barely talking to anyone. The little Wheedler knew something was up, and followed along with me.

Okay, so 1%... following the previous example of bowling, there was a way to break this place open like a piggy bank. Before anything, though, I went around the game room, doing some math. It seems silly, but going after the games with the largest jackpot payout isn't necessarily your best bet in this situation. A high payout game might be mostly about luck, RNG, and that won't let me exploit my ability. Claw machines? Nah, there, I'm at the mercy of the claw itself, and however often they've done maintenance on it, so that doesn't work. Deal or No Deal? Eh, some deductive reasoning, but mostly at the mercy of luck still... SKEEBALL.

It's almost pure skill, and it uses the same essential muscle groups as bowling. All the balls weigh exactly the same. I'd already been decent at it, so why not? Merida knew I was up to something, so she was definitely not going away any time soon, so fine, let's enlist her in it, "Okay Bit, you know I got powers, right?"

She nodded, and I saw a slight glint in her eyes, "Uh huh."

"Okay, so I need you to keep quiet about what I'm doing, and if I need to, I might need your card. If this works like I think it will, I'll get you something nice at the prize store. Deal?"

We shook on it, and I got started. I'd definitely improved, and the skill sets did dovetail nicely. I needed a score of 550 to jackpot out. I got 340 my first game, then 450 on the second, and on the 5th game, I hit it. 1,000 tickets... okay, let's go again. Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot. Each time, the score needed for jackpot raised, until finally, I would need a perfect score every time to hit it. Merida's jaw was on the floor, "Okay Bit, we're gonna shoot hoops now, okay?"

She nodded frantically, and off we went to shoot hoops. This I didn't do as well at... initially. Sure, it's a ball going in a direction, but it's a different game, using throwing instead of rolling. Long term, though, it just didn't matter. Within a few rounds, I was hitting jackpot again, and kept it going until I hit the same point. I kept moving between games, dumping out of them as I approached maximum scores. Sure, people were gonna hate me for the rest of the day, since the scores needed for jackpot generally increased every time someone hit it, but hey, no complaints from my end, and besides which, it would reset tomorrow anyway.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I still couldn't win any of the real big-ticket items, but damn had I raked it in. It was nuts! I got Merida her agreed-upon item, and she left with her stuffed unicorn the size of me, and we got back to the table as dessert arrived. Merida was super proud, "Look what Mark won me!"

She's the only one who gets away with calling me Mark. I sat and had some ice cream and a root beer float, with Mackenzie giving me a look, "Geez, it's not like the food's gonna run away."

I had to work on a better solution for eating. Hm... Larabars could work. They tasted good enough, and they were quick calories. The issue was I'd need a metric ton of them to keep from inhaling a small banquet every time I stopped to eat. I should probably talk to Anna about that.

I took my phone off of Do Not Disturb, and it exploded with notifications, mostly messages from Darryl. Those I just dismissed, but apparently, I had some stuff from the H.A.A.. Reading it, they'd gone over my bloodwork and didn't have an issue, and apparently, they did provide help for "unique challenges" associated with my new powers. The specific example they listed was that speedsters tended to burn up tons of calories, and programs were offered to help with the caloric impact.

After we finished up and got home, I sat down and set up a board on Jira and Miro. These were apps that game and software developers used to arrange projects, Jira for setting goals and making backlogs, with Miro for a sort of digital whiteboard thing. I sent links to Darryl, cause I couldn't have him constantly texting me all day, and then got startled when Mom knocked on my door, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, ma"

She came in, and closed the door softly behind her, taking a seat on my bed, while I was sitting in my computer chair, "How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

I took a steadying breath, "It's... it's a lot, not gonna lie."

She didn't make any particular move, just laying her hands in her lap, "Do you want to talk about it?"

I looked at my hands. What would they look like in a year? A strange thought, but I was already changing, "Want to? No, but I need to. It's so weird. Like, it's gonna sound stupid, but this power... it's so scuffed."

Mom cocked her head, "Scuffed?"

"Sorry, um, OP, overpowered. Like, there are wildly better powers out there, but like... wait, I can show you."

I grabbed a deck of my Magic Cards, put my hat upside down on the computer desk, and rolled my chair across the room. I started idly tossing cards, trying to get them into the hat, and at first, I was missing, sometimes by a wide margin, but steadily, card after card sailed into the hat until every single card started going in, "See? I've never tried that before in my life, I just saw it on that movie with Bill Murray you groan about when Dad watches. I went bowling with Darryl yesterday, and by the time we finished, I could hit a perfect score on both hands. I got perfect scores on Skeeball, and pretty much every game I played today at Dave & Buster's. And this is all just since Friday. And look at my shoulder!"

I popped out of my shirt really quick, and showed Mom my shoulders and arms, "See? I didn't have muscle like this Friday. This is just from bowling Saturday. I even had to switch hands to even out, cause I got stronger so fast. Everything I keep doing, I get better, and I get better insanely quickly. It's like I'm on some sort of cheat code in a game."

Mom looked me over, concern in her eyes, "Are you in any pain?"

I shook my head, and then thought about it, "No, I feel great, but I should be, shouldn't I? I mean, my shoulders should at least ache, like when I started with karate, but no, I'm fine. I mean, I'm hungry, but that seems to just be a new feature of this thing. Darryl says it's because of how rapidly my body is changing, so I guess that might ease off eventually. I need to talk to Anna, she's the psychic lady that they gave me to talk to about stuff. It's just... I'm scared. I mean, where does this stop? Does it stop? All the superpowers I've ever heard of are pretty much set, or it's like magic, where you need years of study and experience to get better at it. I'm not even trying that hard."

Mom crossed and hugged me, "I know, it's scary, and it's okay to feel all sorts of things about this. It's a huge change, and it's normal to feel conflicted about things."

I hate crying. Showing vulnerability at school was a good way to lose your lunch money. Yeah, I took karate, but class isn't a real fight, where I might hurt someone. I never wanted to hurt anyone, and that always left me on the losing side, cause I never even wanted to hurt the bullies. Here and now, though, I was in my mom's arms, and I let it all go.

I slept that night, and when I woke, it was early. No one else was up yet, so I went downstairs, and made myself breakfast. Food was going to be incredibly important to me now, and I made a point to grab my mom's old copy of The Joy of Cooking, and found an omelet recipe. We bought a lot of eggs in our house, so reading along, I started the work. According to the book, the key to a proper omelet was to cook the egg on low heat and to not disturb it much. Then, there was the seasoning, and whatever oddments I would use. Here, I wanted to recreate a spinach & mushroom omelet. I could almost start to track as the improvement hit, I was starting to pay attention for it. Between reading, and taking time with each stage, I could start to feel the hint of it.

Feeling a bit on the cocky side, I decided to make some hollandaise sauce, like at IHOP. The first couple of tries, it separated, but steadily, I got it. It wasn't the best, and the whole thing looked slapped together, but it was an essential proof of concept. I was advancing at absolutely anything I decided to do. The world was now a skill issue, and I could learn any skill I wanted.

I was finishing up, and starting to clean up my mess when Mom came in, probably to get started on breakfast, "Hey ma, sorry about the mess. I'm cleaning it up."

She seemed like she wanted to say something, but instead, she took a seat, smiling, "Very well, then. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like some breakfast please."

I nodded, "Alright then, let's make some omelets."