Sunday was a godsend for me. I'd needed a day of just being silly, and Mom hugs are just the best. I made omelets for everyone Monday morning, and with Mom giving hints, it went a lot better than base learning. So one more theory confirmed: Teachers are still a necessity, at least until I get to the point of being able to do it on my own.

I checked my boards online, and Darryl had been busy. All sorts of things I would 'need' according to him, which all pertained to what he'd read of superheroes in comics. I considered playing along, but y'know what? Let's see what I can really do. I texted him: "OPM. Park. 9am."

While I wanted to talk to Anna, the problem was I didn't really have proof of anything, and I would just be a scared kid making up stuff in his head if I tried to walk in there three days after eval with nothing definitive. So, let's get some definition. Mom picked up protein powder for me, it was easier than trying to eat whole chickens, and I waited for Darryl at the park, while Mom went to see the Canadian geese that were just starting their trip south for the winter. Darryl came up, tablet in-hand, and ready to work, "Darryl! Okay, today's plan: One Punch Man. We're gonna Saitama this shit."

100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10km run every day, it got dubbed the "One Punch Man Workout" after the anime, and clinically speaking, it... wasn't advisable to actually DO that, since it would put absurd strain on your body. From what I'd seen though, my body didn't work the same, and I needed to find the line, and the only way to find it was to cross it.

Darryl was only too eager to do this. I popped in my earbuds, did my opening warm-up stretches from karate class, then hit push-up position. I thought about doing regular push-ups, but in karate we did knuckle push-ups, which I was more used to by now. I got to thirty before I had to stop for a minute. I rotated my shoulders, stretched, hydrated, and popped a Larabar, blueberry muffin flavor. I went back to it, and got another thirty-five, stretch, five minute rest break, hydrate, and finished out the remainder. All during this, Darryl was recording on the tablet, which he had hooked to a solar charger, and took notes on his laptop. Then followed sit-ups and squats, and all during it, Darryl would also take pictures with my shirt off. He didn't go over what he was looking for, but I got the gist of it- It was a progress check. So, pics right before I start, and then on each break, and a final one after the exercise, alongside video of the workout itself.

This process repeated for sit-ups and squats. I was in decent enough shape, really, I just wasn't that physically ambitious before now. The 10k though... that I wasn't so sure about. I'd jogged and run before, certainly, but that's over six miles of running. Six and a quarter was confirmed by Darryl, which didn't help. He said to just do the same thing I'd done with the rest: Run 'til I felt like I needed to stop, take a 5-10 minute break, and do some more. For this challenge, Darryl had a Go Pro rig to monitor me, as well as one on my chest, and his dad's smartwatch was being used to monitor my heart rate.

Darryl himself was on his bike, cause we both knew he wasn't running six miles, plus it let him carry more with him, of which, the Gatorade would be essential for me. Portland not withstanding, it was still August, and it was warm out. Our biggest hurdle initially was that my running speed wasn't enough for Darryl's pedaling speed to keep the bike straight, so he was wobbling all over the place. I took my first break when my watch beeped the first km traveled. I looked to Darryl, "Ice Blue one."

An Ice blue Gatorade was tossed my way, and I took a moment to towel off before slamming the whole bottle. In the end, this part was the most grueling. I'd already pushed myself a lot, and six miles is six miles, it doesn't matter if you're steadily improving at it. I had to keep stopping, and while I did finish, my times weren't precisely marathon material. We were both exhausted at the end of it, with Darryl forcing himself to get his final pictures, "Okay man, that's enough of that shit. You got... faster... while you were running."

"Really? Neat."

Darryl sort of both nodded and shook his head at the same time "Yeah, we need to figure out another way for the run tomorrow. I can't keep doing this every day. I was barely in it by the end of it."

I just laid there for a bit, getting my breathing back into line, and closed my eyes for a moment, "We need to keep at it, though. You're right. I think the guys at the H.A.A. got my eval wrong. This whole thing feels broken, but I need more-"

"THAT'S IT!"

Darryl hopped up... or, tried to, got wobbly, and sat back down, "We need to go to the H.A.A.! They have a full gym up there, and their equipment is rated for superpowers. They showed it to us as part of the tour. You missed it cause you were all 'urr durr, I've got powers now'."

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I quirked an eyebrow at him at that last bit, but I chuckled. He wasn't wrong, the H.A.A. would have all the equipment we needed, and frankly, free access to the cafeteria for me was starting to be a necessity. I still didn't fully get the eating thing, but I'd eaten more since Friday that I'd ever eaten before, "That's for tomorrow. We're done on physical stuff today."

Darryl nodded empathically at that, "So what do we do now?"

I sat up, propping myself up on my elbows, "I'm thinking lunch, then I'm gonna start learning coding."

"I'm all for it, man, but why coding?"

"I'm starting to think about it, and honestly, these powers are like cheat codes. If I want to be the greatest athlete that ever lived, I just am, and no one can keep up without insane superpowers. Like, what would my career look like as a pro-bowler?" It was one of the things that was occurring to me more and more as I had this ability for incremental improvement, "And even that thought, looking further down the road, it's part of it. I'm not just getting better at the physical stuff, I'm getting calmer about the powers, I'm starting to think about the long-run of this and other stuff. The only places that aren't effected by my powers are things where creativity and artistry are at the heart of it, rather than a specific technical skill. So I figure, I start coding, use Minecraft as a basis, and maybe we learn to make a video game of our own, something that can be mine, not my powers."

Darryl got up again, more slowly this time, and I hopped to my feet, as he looked at me for a moment, "I'm sorry, man. I didn't... I didn't really realize how much this changes things for you."

I shook my head, "It's fine, dude. It's not really yours to think about it, and I get it, you wanted powers, to see a superhero in action, but it just comes with weight attached."

We walked across the park to catch up with Mom, and I saw something I'd taken for granted for a while now: A small group of shoddy tents in an unused corner of the park. There were little tent groups like that strewn around the city, and while I'd more or less learned to ignore and avoid them, it caught my eye now. I opened my Miro board, and looked at it, at all the projects that were about me, about my powers, my costume, my career, my superhero name... me, me, me...

I grabbed the backpack from Darryl, and stalked over to the tents, who initially trailed after me, but stopped as he saw where I was heading. He tried to say something, but I just ignored it. An older man was there, with a dog laying next to him, wagging its tail furiously as it saw me coming, and barked happily, "Hi. I'm sorry, but this is all I have."

I handed over a handful of Larabars, a couple of Gatorades, and threw the dog some string cheese. The man thanked me, and by the time I turned, I was shaking and crying. I was getting angry, and as I thought about it, really looking around, I could feel myself getting angrier, like there was too much rage to hold in my own body. I texted Mom, telling her I needed alone time, that I was okay, but Darryl would need a ride home. I hugged Darryl, and told him I'd talk to him later, and jogged off on my own.

It started off as a jog, but I found myself picking up speed, trying to put the anger I felt into something that wasn't another person, or breaking things. Eight hundred thousand 'heroes' in the world, and we still had camps of homeless people. People that could run food around the entire globe in moments, but that old guy was rail thin, powers that could trivialize construction times, and still, people slept in the streets, in bus shelters, in parks, under bridges. Even Anna, a full psychic therapist, and we were letting people wallow in their own misery.

I stopped running, not so much because I was out of anger, but more... out of land. I wasn't precisely sure how long I'd been running, but I'd run all the way from southeast Portland to the Columbia River. Okay, the anger wasn't really helping things. Come on, Sensei Bill went over this, find your center. I stood on a small beach along the Columbia, and forced myself to breathe, closing my eyes, using a slow hand motion with both hands to focus it all down. There was a way, I just needed to learn, I need to get better, I need... money. However much I might like the idea that I could just get people to do the right thing, the reality of it was most of the city lived three seconds to fucked-o'clock at any given point. They might love to help, but they couldn't spare the time from trying to survive, couldn't turn their food and rent money into a solution for others.

But how do I make money? I mean, allowance isn't enough by any stretch. Okay, work? I'm fourteen, I'm not really hirable, and even if I was, I had almost no time for a job around school, karate, Scouts, and training. So how do I make money? Gig work? Again, fourteen, there's limits, and I'll get steeply underpaid at that. Come on there's gotta be something... I looked at my phone... Twitch.

It wasn't actually that hard, come to think of it. The H.A.A. kept the identities of heroes a secret, for obvious retaliatory reasons, but there was no particular reason I couldn't reveal things about me, no reason I couldn't use it. An open super was not a thing, the various Hero orgs had seen to that, but then, who would intentionally expose themselves like that? Sure, I couldn't really fight crime by the rules and regs, but this wasn't crimefighting, this wasn't strictly illegal.

I called Darryl, "Change of plans. I need you to break up and edit all the video we've got of my training. Post it to YouTube, Insta, Snap, TikTok, just... anywhere where we might be able to start monetizing. Let me know when it's ready to go. I've already got a Twitch channel, I'll send you the link when I post a TikTok."

I got myself set up, holding up the phone before me. This was my last chance to back out, but screw it. Screw the rules, screw the regs, screw everyone who's gonna try to stop me. The recording started, "I'm Aegis, and I am the world's first F-Tier superhero."