A girl around my age comes out from a hall, dressed in dark blue pants and a grey polo, her dirty blond hair in a ponytail. Her brown eyes are warm and friendly, and she approaches me without hesitation upon entering the lobby.

"Kieran, right?" She asks.

"Sophie?" I ask.

"Yep!" She responds with a smile. "Lucas said you were wondering some alternative training things you could do, and mentioned you were doing agility training in one of the blocks rooms because of the way your power works."

"Yeah," I stand.

"Come on," she beckons for me to follow, leading me down a hall in the direction of the blocks room. "Real quick, Kieran, do you have an issue using your ability around me? Lucas mentioned you've only just begun training it, so you aren't able to bring your clothes with you yet. Being able to see you using the ability can help me out a little, though I can work with not having seen it if you'd rather not get naked around me. And on a related note, I won't be offended – I'd be uncomfortable getting naked in front of a guy I just met. Or a girl I just met, for that matter."

Is that a subtle probe into why I was doing it with Lucas on the first day? Since his power is similar to mine, he didn't need to see it, he could just work with what I told him. I'll do what needs done for the best training program, and if that means getting naked around a guy who's apparently attracted to me, then so be it.

"With Lucas," I say. "I felt it's better to just do it because having him actively training me rather than giving me advice based on what I say would be better overall. As long as it's for the training and I feel like the person can be trusted, I don't have an issue with it. This is especially true here, since Lucas said you guys sometimes deal with people whose powers are like mine – ones which make it impossible to stay clothed. He even said there's one person who can't even train up to being able to wear clothes during it."

"Yeah, I know her," she nods. "Thomas is the one who helps her train. So you are you saying you'd be fine showing me your power?"

"Yeah," I answer. "It's mostly just me standing still, though. My skill training is the one that has me using the agility training."

"How does the skill training work?" She asks. "He didn't mention what you do for that, just that you do agility training in there. Since the agility training is always the same in that room, it was easy to figure out."

"He light-ports a tennis ball somewhere," I tell her. "And I have to try to catch it. At least, that's what he did on Saturday, the only skill training day so far. It's a mix of navigating the blocks and shadow-walking. I, uh, crash and trip a lot."

"Mind getting ready while I grab some balls?" She asks. "I can't light-port them, but I can definitely throw them. It should help me see what kind of movements you're actually doing."

"Sure," I say.

We reach the training room, and I enter while she walks off. While I wait for her, I change into a pair of shorts, then begin stretching for a warmup. Sophie returns with a box of balls a few minutes later, then I step up to the barrier and pull off my shorts, setting them on the barrier before traveling a little bit into the training field.

"Ready?" Sophie calls out, holding up a bright yellow tennis ball.

"Ready!" I call back.

She tosses the ball, and I take off. Around the blocks too high, over the ones that aren't. As soon as I'm within range, I stop in a shadow and shadow-walk to one close to the ball, then go for it. Just as with on Saturday, I miss, and I even crash into a nearby block, tripping over it.

"Nice fall!" She laughs. "So you have to stop when you shadow-walk right now?"

"It's easier," I pick up the ball and toss it back to her. My throw is bad, though, and it only makes it halfway before slamming into a block. We'll retrieve it later. "I've only done one shadow-step while moving so far. It costs a little bit more magic – probably because I'm not still – and I continued through the movement I'm in, but there was a bit of disorientation, probably because of the moment while I'm in the shadows."

"Okay," she readies another ball. "Show it to me!"

Sophie tosses the ball and I go for it, this time shadow-walking without stopping before doing so. As soon as I come out, my movement continues but I feel the disorientation again and stumble, this time tripping over the smaller block I popped out next to.

"Alright!" She calls out, and I can tell she's trying not to laugh this time by the way her voice shakes. "That's good enough for me, Kieran! Grab the balls and return."

I do, dropping the balls in the box before grabbing my shorts. That was a surprisingly short assessment, but I guess that's all she really needed to see for this.

"So what now?" I ask.

"Now," she says. "I take you to one of the trampoline rooms."

"Trampoline rooms?" I ask.

"Yep," she answers. "I'll work with you on a few things in there that will help you. It's focused at improving your jumps, as you seem hesitant with those and are doing them rather poorly, probably because you're new to it. Lucas probably intended on introducing you to the rooms later on in your training. You should put underwear on, too. Unlike in here, other people might be using it."

"Alright," I climb over the barrier, then get dressed and grab my bag. "So the trampoline rooms?"

"This way."

Sophie leads me into the section of the center requiring a gold membership, up to the third floor. Or second, I guess, depending on what's beneath here. She shows me several rooms that take up two floors, with square trampolines cover a huge portion of the floor, the ceiling high so that people don't accidentally slam into them.

Some of the rooms, there are short barriers between some of the connected trampolines, between two and five feet high.

"This is mostly," she tells me as she rummages in something behind the desk of one of the rooms. "For athletics and exercise."

"I figured," I say. "It's in the gold membership area."

"Yeah," she holds up a pair of socks. "Here you go. These have grippy things on the bottom, you need them for the trampolines. You can keep them, they come with the membership."

"Thanks," I say, then realize something that Lucas told me. Several things. "I need to ask about that."

"Ask what?" She asks.

"Nothing," I say. "Something to ask Lucas when I go in for martial arts later."

"Ah," she says. "Okay. You can put your bag in one of the cubbies. Also, there are no shoes allowed on the trampolines."

"Okay," I take a seat on a bench and swap my shoes and socks for the grippy socks, then stick those, my bag, and my hoodie into a cubby.

Sophie joins me, having swapped her shoes for grippy socks as well. Mine are bright green while hers are dark grey. Client socks versus staff socks?

"Come on," she leads me into one of the sets of trampolines.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

There are a few other people here, including a staff member watching things, a man in his thirties, and a girl around ten or eleven. I'm going to assume the girl is the man's daughter and wasn't just left here by her parents.

Sophie begins by teaching me the basics of jumping on the trampolines, how to slow my bounces and use my momentum to aid in movements rather than letting it carry me, how to land from certain bounces, and a few other tips and tricks. Most of this involves moving across trampolines in a line and bouncing off the ones angled up toward the walls.

"Some of these skills," she tells me. "Will translate into the parkour you're doing with the agility and skill training. You don't need to do this – many people practice with stable footing, not bouncy footing – but it can help. The trampolines also help with training flips and jumps, and that's part of why we have barriers like this one."

She indicates a barrier that's randomly between two trampolines, with at least one more past the landing one to either side of it.

"To help people train jumping over things?" I ask.

"And flipping," she nods. "Though most people do it just because they can and not to help them with an ability."

"Ah."

Sophie has me work on my bounces and movement a bit more, helping me focus on springing myself rather than simply jumping, giving me extra height. Once I'm comfortable with this, she teaches me how to do a flip on the same trampoline and has me do higher jumps between two and over a shorter barrier.

"Don't," she tells me after a bit. "Try to do flips over the barriers until you've got a bit more practice in. It takes more than a couple of sessions for most people to do so safely."

"Got it," I say. "Thanks for the help, Sophie."

"No problem," she says. "How often you do this is up to you, by the way. This is mostly just to practice jumps, and once you're able to do them smoother without the bounces, you're pretty much good on this."

Her lack of mention on how long that will take could mean anywhere from it won't take too long to it might take a few months. I think I'll only do this once a week for now, though. My legs are really feeling it, and I'm willing to bet that it'll be worse on Saturday. I've definitely worked out a few muscles here I haven't been during the rest of my training.

"Okay," I say. "Thanks again. I think I'm going to let my legs rest a bit."

"No problem," she says. "See you 'round."

Sophie leaves, and I rest for a moment before leaving, too. I pull off the grippy socks and stick them in my bag, then pull the rest of my stuff back on, grab the bag, and start wandering around the facility to see some of the other facilities it has. Lucas gave me a tour, but it wasn't much of one.

Speaking of Lucas, I find him coaching a boy who looks maybe ten years old. The room they're in is around a hundred and fifty feet long and across, though only one floor in height. It seems to be mostly an obstacle course made up of connected wooden rods.

The rods form squares one foot on each side, and the path through is formed by sections where one or more rods are missing. Some of them are vertical gaps, others are horizontal. Some are only a foot wide or high, while others are fine for someone to walk through.

However, it's not all done by walking on the floor. The course stretches from floor to ceiling, with five feet of space between the walls and the course itself. It involves crawling, climbing, and walking at various levels of height.

This is in the section of the center meant for training abilities, but I can't see how this is used for that. It just seems like some sort of physical training course.

Then again, that was my first impression of the blocks room, too. Just an area to play some sort of game in, not train the ability to teleport by shifting through the shadows cast by the blocks.

Deciding to see what's going on, I watch them for a few minutes, hoping it's not rude to. The door wasn't locked, after all, and his dad is in here, too, so it wasn't for a safety thing. The man isn't wearing a uniform, anyway, so I'm assuming that's his dad.

"Good job," Lucas calls out once the kid finds himself crawling along a path at the very top of the course. "Now remember to breathe deeply, Jake. You can do it this time."

"I'm scared," Jake tells Lucas, his voice trembling, an expression of worry on his face as he looks at the trainer.

"I know you are," Lucas tells him. "Believe in yourself, Jake. If you get stuck, I can get you out, remember? Just like last time, remember? Take a couple of deep breaths, Jake. In, then out. Okay?"

Jake nods, then takes a minute to calm himself down a little. As he does that, I take a few moments to admire Lucas's calm, patient, and helpful tone.

"Good, good," Lucas tells him. "Now focus, and remember to hold the spell until you're through. The worst that happens is you get stuck and need me to rescue you, but you need to do this to be able to get better at it, remember?"

Jake nods and takes a couple of more breaths, then stares forward, at the one-foot-by-one-foot gap before him. A few moments pass, then space warps, the rods forming that gap seeming to stretch out wide enough for him to crawl through. Space returns to normal once he's almost all the way through, the rods snapping back into place, slamming his ankles together and causing the boy to yelp.

So this is one use for these with power-training. The boy seems to be able to warp space, but it's not a complete warping, since he was able to pass through normally without warping himself.

"It's okay!" Lucas calls to him immediately after the yelp. "You almost made it all the way, Jake! That's good! Do you want to stop and let your ankles rest? You can move them, right?"

Jake wiggles his ankles a little.

"Yeah."

"Okay," Lucas says. "You did good, making it almost all the way. That's better than before! Want me to retrieve you?"

"N-no," Jake responds. "Let me try again! I wanna go all the way!"

Judging by the look on Lucas's face, he had planned on that. Would Jake have refused to continue if Lucas hadn't said that?

Jake tries twice more, getting stuck on his third attempt at warping space. Lucas immediately retrieves him, the boy appearing in Lucas's arms. The trainer then sets the boy down and ruffles his hair.

"Good job," Lucas says. "You made it all the way through the second time."

"But I got stuck the third," Jake sulks.

"You ran out of magic, didn't you?" Lucas asks.

"Yeah," the boy pouts.

"It's okay," Lucas tells him. "You've never warped like that before. Until now, you've only ever warped a space big enough to toss a ball through other than that attempt at doing this a few months ago. A smaller space, for less time. You did really good today, Jake. Do you want me to wait here while you recover your magic so you can try again?"

"No," Jake sulks. "I'm going to train normally again once I do."

"Okay," Lucas says. "Just let someone know to contact me if you want to again before four, I've got a class to teach then."

"Yeah," Jake says as he walks over to the man. "I might do that. I got stuck again, Dad."

"Maybe," his dad says. "But you heard Mr. Lucas, you did good, Jake. I was twelve the first time I could pass through those gaps with a warp without getting stuck."

"Really?" Jake looks at his dad with his eyes wide in surprise.

"Yep," his dad says. "I'll buy you ice cream for that, Jake."

"Awesome!" Jake's mood turned right around with that, and it makes me smile a little.

"Thank Mr. Lucas for his help," his dad tells him. "Then we'll head back to the other room and do your normal stuff."

"Thank you, Mr. Lucas," Jake tells Lucas, then leaves with his dad.

Seeing Lucas help others only makes him more appealing to me. Definitely improves his likability a lot. The way he was patient with the kid, encouraged him, and complimented his success all show some of his real personality.

"It wasn't rude for me to watch, was it?" I ask him.

"Nah," Lucas tells me. "Jake tends to put more effort in if someone is watching because he really hates failure and gets embarrassed over it more when someone else sees it. You being here is probably the reason he managed to succeed."

"Ah," I say. "I had a question for you. I was going to ask later, but was touring the place and found you here. Was going to stay only a few minutes, but it seemed that was just a quick thing?"

"Yeah," he says. "It's not an actual training session, just me being around in case of a problem. A few of us get called to help like that pretty often."

"Ah," I say. "So, uh, my question. You told me that the martial arts lessons cost extra on top of the membership, but the uniform came with the membership? I know you said personal lessons were included, but I feel like that might not included a full routine like ours…"

"I might have lied a little?" He shifts slightly, a little uncomfortable. Embarrassed over having to admit that he's giving me something free? "The uniform comes free with the course sign-up, but the course isn't free, you only get a half-hour lesson a week with the gold membership…"

Did he offer it to me right away because of a crush? His interest didn't develop over the last week, but was actually there from the start?

"So I'm getting a service free?"

"Yeaaaaaaaah," he says. "Grandpa decided to look at it as a potential investment in that if you get the job, you might be more inclined to continue here if we're providing everything for you, though we'd have to charge you after the first month…"

I take that to mean his grandpa wasn't happy with the service being given for free. That's understandable, though. Money tends to be tight everywhere, and this place cannot be cheap to run. Seeing a one-month investment for someone they think is guaranteed to get a job, though, would make sense.

How hard did Lucas have to argue for that?

"How much does it normally cost?" I ask.

"An extra hundred," he tells me. "And it's separate from the memberships, though it does still require you to have at least a gold one."

I'm not going to ask what the memberships above gold include. Gold seems to work out for me right now.

"Okay," I tell him. "Well, this last week has shown me the place is decent, so unless something shows me otherwise before then, then if I get the job, I'll continue training here unless I can't."

"Cool," he says. "Well, unless you need advice or help with something training at the moment, I should probably get back to work."

"Alright," I say. "See you in a few hours."

"See you."