Krystyna watched Jerome bounce around experimenting with his newfound power, happy as a little boy at christmas.
She’d been frustrated — was still frustrated, in fact — by his refusal to take responsibility and show basic adult social competencies.
Then again, that wasn’t uncommon these days. The bottom 90% of men and 50% of women, their jobs automated away and all their needs taken care of by Basic Income, were fed propaganda that would forever make them useless but (this part was important) happy to die alone in front of a tv screen.
The type of man she needed in this situation (and the kind of man she was attracted to in any situation) was a disruption to earth’s established order. A danger. So the World Government gave everyone free netflix and free soy milk until the problem went away.
It wasn’t all bad, of course. When Jerome found something enjoyable, like Recoil Burst, he was able to focus on it obsessively. The last two hours he’d gone around knocking down trees with the power, experimenting with different burst angles and trying new ways of applying it. If he could keep up this kind of intensity on the other things he needed to do for survivival then he might actually turn into a real man.
The enthusiasm was temporarily infectious. She had to stifle a laugh when he grabbed a smaller stick, held it balanced above his head on both palms, and yelled ‘Kamehameha’ as it shot into the forest canopy.
Recoil Burst was fun, she had to admit. Some of her spark of life had worn away from having to survive in these woods for months, alternately trying to make peace wth the various races and then fighting off hunting parties they invariably sent after her. Food wasn’t a problem, since humans didn’t seem to need to eat or drink here unless they wanted the beneficial status effects, but the stress of surviving had taken the playful joy out of her bread-and-butter move. She’d resigned herself to a life of avoidance and training, with merely a glimmer of hope for the distant future, when she was strong enough to really do something.
Discovering Jerome, however… that changed things.
His power meant that they could get supplies from town. They could get better, more up-to-date information. And, as a kicker, he could absorb and power-level almost any skill - including the supposedly unique power that each human was given.
With that power, a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work… they could do practically anything. They could take over the one human encampment and make it an actual city, not an overgrown criminal’s hideout. He could force one of the three major empires to listen to her entreaties for peace.
Thinking smaller, he could carve out a space for them in a village. Go in transformed as one of their species, make friends. Then, a week or a month later, he would reveal that he was actually a human, and then the villagers would all overcome their murderous racism enough to let the two of them live there.
Of course, given the limitations of his power, that plan would require kidnapping a member of the same species, keeping them tied up nearby, and having Jerome never go more than 24 hours without touching them.
So there might be problems with that approach. She couldn’t tell why, but it felt ickier than just straight-up killing someone. If she kidnapped someone for weeks… she wasn’t sure she would be able to live with herself after that.
She had one iron-clad rule: make choices she could live with, and then live with them.
That was what kept her from spiraling into insanity, helplessness, or evil.
She could easily blame others for the situation she was in, but that would do her no good. She knew the risks of going to that rally. She knew the risks of fighting the system. Hell, she knew the risks of staying out here in the wild instead of going to the outpost and living in comfort as one of Armando Muerte’s slave girls. They were her choices, they were the best she could have made at the time, and she was going to deal with the consequences.
None of this “but I was drunk” bullshit.
Eventually Jerome tired of smashing trees, both mentally and physically (SP close to zero), and he laid down on the ground to rest.
That portion of training was good enough for now. He’d leveled up his personal skill in Recoil Burst several times; she couldn’t be sure exactly how many, but now their average skill was two points higher.
That was the low-hanging fruit; each level required more experience, and the power-leveling effect from having half her skill level diminished the closer his skill level got to hers.
When his SP was full again she called for him to get up. “Time for strike and dodge practice.”
He groaned. “I just practiced. That was the hardest I’ve practiced anything in years.”
“Get used to it. You’re not on Basic Income anymore.”
“Isn’t it dangerous to exercise too much?”
“Maybe on earth if you go nuts for five hours, but here you can just look at your HP and SP. If they’re full then you’re good to go.”
She punched him, a quick jab.
“Ow! What was that for?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You have half my Dodge. Use it!”
She punched again and he leaped to the side, tumbling and sprawling out awkwardly. She winced, feeling embarrasment for the body that looked so much like hers. It seemed to take him a little bit to adjust to each new skill, something he would need to keep in mind when adopting new bodies.
He got up quickly enough. At least he seemed motivated to not be embarrased in front of her. She could use that.
She punched again and he sidestepped handily.
“Good. Now do it again. Stay on your guard.”
She threw a punch, which he dodged, then followed it up quickly with a light kick that caught him in the stomach.
“Not fair!” Did his voice always have that whine in it, or just when he was made to work?
“No one fights fair,” she said with forced patience. “You’re lucky I didn’t kick harder, then follow it up with a Recoil Burst or a grappling takedown.”
He set his face into a hurt expression, seemingly expecting sympathy. Instead, she threw another punch, a jab, followed up by a cross (rear hand) punch. Good, he dodged both.
The next thirty minutes was her throwing punches that were almost too fast for him to dodge, but not quite. A couple still hit, but overall he trained up his Dodge skill quickly without losing too much health.
She was an excellent trainer, if she did say so herself.
An unexpected benefit of the training was that it distracted him from staring at her chest. While the amount of power he could eventually control was attractive, the staring was weird, he acted like a child, and his stick-thin true body wasn’t really her type.
Then again, if he wore her skin while… her imagination tumbled into a tantalizing possibility until she realized that no, his childishness and utter lack of gravity would ooze through the disguise, turning her as dry as a desert. He’d have to grow a bit before she could consummate that particular fantasy. Even with those luscious hills on his…
She forced herself back to the task at hand. No use ruminating on the subject. There would always be horny entitled men, just like there would always be governments with their tax collectors, and they would both keep on trying to grab things that belonged to her.
Distracted, and perhaps subconsciously letting out her frustrations, she threw a flurry of punches and kicks against which Jerome had no chance. He ended up on the ground holding his stomach and face and once again nursing a look of grievance.
Too much soy.
“I guess we’re done here,” she said dismissively. “Go punch the air to level up your unarmed strike skill.”
He did so half-heartedly. He clearly wanted to rest.
Once he was properly engaged in self-improvement she took a look at his stats.
Name: Krystyna Kowalska
Race: Human
Level 4
135/135 HP
100/100 MP
135/135 SP
Statuses: None
Strength: 19
Endurance: 14
Agility: 26
Focus: 10
Dexterity: 14
Connection: 13
Skills
Special Abilities
Recoil Burst Level 9 (unique)
Burst
Dodge Level 6
Herbalism Level 6
Identify Herb, Make Potion (see recipes)
Grappling Level 4
Mobility Awareness
Light Armor Level 3
Unarmed Strikes Level 3
Swords Level 1
It was hard to get a good idea of what was going on. Presumably his version of this had more information — she couldn’t even see the Transformed status effect!
However, she could extrapolate a couple things. His Recoil Burst, Dodge, and Herbalism were all higher than half of her skill level, which meant that he had earned some skill levels of his own — at least one in Dodge and Herbalism and at least three in Recoil Burst.
His skills were doing well; they weren’t astounding, but he was more prepared for battle than just a couple hours ago. It was the best she could do for him right now (no way she was going to help him train his grappling).
One issue was his stats. They were still exactly halfway between her stats and the starter stats. Hadn’t he leveled up? Didn’t he get stat bonuses for trying new things and completing extraordinary feats? Maybe it had to do with the Transform ability; she’d have to talk to him about that after he was done practicing Unarmed Strikes.
Hopefully it had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t turned back into his true form since the battle. If it was some permanent defect that came with the Transform ability he would be permanently underpowered, handicapped and good for little else but doing runs into town for supplies.
There was a boom, and she looked over to see that he had felled yet another tree with Recoil Burst.
“What are you doing?” she yelled.
“I got bored! Why would I punch something when I have Recoil Burst?”
She had a good reason but she didn’t get to share it, because that’s when she heard a scratchy yelling from a mere fifty feet away.
“There they are!”
Somehow they had attracted the attention of a pack of gnolls. Seven of them.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Jerome had exploded trees for half the day, making loads of noise and creating a huge swath of destruction. Or maybe it had something to do with the two gnolls that she had, in her great benevolence, let live.
Whatever it was, this was the result. Seven gnolls with spears and clubs and claws.
She could take four average gnolls on her own, maybe five if she was lucky.
Time to see if Jerome’s training worked.