Early Saturday, the sounds of sex woke Mike. He left the comfort of his bed to grab a bowl of cereal on the kitchen side of the house, furthest from where Varanelli entertained her guest. When Marius emerged, he made a show of checking the fridge. "No beer?"

"No, sir. I'm dry for the next month."

"I hope so." Marius gestured towards the bare fridge. "You need fruits and vegetables in here."

"I'll clean up my diet this month for another thousand dollars. Paleo, keto, vegan, you name it and I'll do it."

Marius laughed. "Let's see if you are worth the investment before I become your solstice fairy."

"What's a solstice fairy?"

"Brings gifts to children at the summer solstice."

"Ah, an Angmari Santa Claus."

Marius folded his arms. "You will need to stay out of the apartment today."

"I'm off to the gym as soon as I finish eating," Mike said.

As he passed Mike, Marius patted his shoulder, passing a charge to him. "You might as well get some talent training in, too."

Mike quickly packed his gym bag and left the apartment in his car. As he entered the gym, the owner Fred fixed him with a Clint Eastwood squinted glare without ever stopping the private training session he was running with one of the overweight white collar patrons. He found Jimmy stretching out on the mats and joined him.

Jimmy nodded in greeting. "Can we agree not to talk about Erica here?"

"Let's not talk about Spencer ever."

"Sounds great to me," Jimmy said. "Work some MMA rounds?"

"Sure thing. I'm kicked out of the house all day while Marius trains Varanelli."

"What is the private lesson like?"

Mike shrugged. "You get endless baby charges that die out after a few seconds. After a while, you start feeling the precursor out there. Then you have to stop yourself from attuning prematurely."

"Like Greg did."

"Yeah, like Smith."

"You know you're out of the Army, right? I know because I was at the happy hour. That means you can use people's first names."

"You mean their familiar names."

Jimmy frowned at him. "What?"

"I'm just clarifying because the Angmari do it backwards. Their familiar name is last."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Sometimes I wonder if Greg is better off being a disappointment to Marius," Jimmy said.

Mike snorted. "Better off would be having three times as many superpowers as he got."

"At the moment, we don't know what Marius plans for us. Getting out with one talent might be the better option."

"You saw how useless animas and gravitas are without mind-vasting."

"If you have to pick just one, you pick nous. Obviously."

"What?"

"Think about it. I'm almost guaranteed to win every fight I take. No opponent could out-think me. Wouldn't hurt at the day job either."

Mike finished wrapping his hands. "What is your day job again?"

"Finance."

"That's so weird."

"And why is it weird that I do finance?"

"Because finance is lame."

"Lots of big time CEO's come from finance," Jimmy said.

"You going to go do the CEO thing after you get bored of MMA?"

Jimmy smiled. "Sky's the limit for a genius."

"Depends if the Chekowan are as horrible as Marius says. You might be lucky to have any job if they bomb us back to the stone age."

Jimmy pounded his gloves together. "In that case, I'd rather be alive at all than a dead resistance fighter. Let's get some work in."

For the next several hours, they mixed in live rounds with drilling. When they quit for lunch, Mike showered and then burned through some of the funds Marius had provided him to enjoy an immense gyro. He took a few hours to stroll around town before pausing in front of a bar he frequented on occasion. The moment stretched longer than he liked, so Mike took himself back to the gym and punished himself with a grueling cardio workout performed in his already sweat-drenched gym clothes.

After that, he headed home. Marius told him to stay out of the common area to avoid interrupting the lesson, so he showered again and retired to his room.

Varanelli knocked on his door when Marius was gone. Mike chowed down peanut butter toast while he hard boiled a dozen eggs. Then he peeled and devoured two of the eggs with some salt before putting the rest of them in the fridge for future consumption. Varanelli, returned to the apartment with a sandwich from Subway, stared at him in horror.

"I swear you don't possess taste buds, Ski."

"Did you have any close calls with attuning?"

Varanelli nodded. "Tons of those. Did you punch Jimmy?"

"We both punched each other. And kicked and strangled and joint locked. The usual."

"Did you punch Jimmy for the Spencer thing?"

"That's not a problem anymore."

"Did they break up?"

"No idea. We're just never going to talk about it again."

"I think you should have punched him extra hard."

"Sheesh, Varanelli, who gives a crap what they do. At least this way she's not trying to get attention from me."

"Good then. We don't have to worry about her."

Mike ate another egg in front of her to distract from the focus on Spencer. That topic could go South real fast. And he didn't like the fact that Varanelli kept bringing her up.

Their meeting place that night was outside the Pittsburgh Zoo. When they had all gathered, Marius walked them out of sight of any vehicular traffic, provided a charge, and had everyone fly after him towards Highland Park. When they touched down in a secluded section, Marius gestured everyone closer. "Tonight's trial is to take a bullet. Expose your abdomens, harden your skin and as much of the tissue beneath as you can, and stand in front of me in a line."

"Of course you're going to shoot us," Varanelli muttered.

After a few seconds, they formed a rough line and lifted their shirts. Marius pulled a hefty revolver from his pocket, cocked the hammer, and brought out his most dazzling smile. "You like being first, don't you, Mike?"

Hardening his skin as much as he could, Mike tensed his muscles and nodded. "Do it."

The sensation felt a lot like being hit with a paintball. He had to touch himself to verify the absense of blood. Before he could make a comment, the gun fired again. Then again. And again. Then one last time. Marius put away the gun and directed them once more into the sky. They landed a short while later near the river.

"You know," Mike said, "I think I'm bruised from that."

"Newbies never harden their blood vessels enough," Marius said. "It's a good lesson to learn. And so is repairing internal damage. Let's sit down. This is going to take a while."