"Wow, you really suck."

"Well, I'm not using my 'speed!' "

I'm not sure If I like using 'speed' as code for my perception, it sounds stupid and isn't going to make sense a lot of the time. I guess it does do a good job of throwing people off our conversation if they try to listen in, but still. I know it would be weird for us to just look at each other without saying anything out loud, but is this really that much better?

"Tell me, do you use your 'speed' for everything? Even throwing a punch?"

"Well, yeah."

"You rely on it way too much. Look at you, you can hardly throw a decent punch without it, like you have no idea where your own body is in space. Surprisingly your coordination with your legs isn't too bad, but I don't know if there is hope for the rest of you."

"Normally I would just watch it as it moved and correct it mid-swing."

"That's a ridiculous waste of time and attention."

"It was enough to hit you..."

"That's because I was caught off guard by your 'speed', that won't happen again. Maybe if you didn't rely on it so much you wouldn't have gotten knocked out... three times."

"You're a lot more talkative than I'd thought you'd be."

"You're a lot weaker than I thought you'd be."

Dick.

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Hand-eye coordination practice it is. I've marked a spot on my wall, the goal is to hit the spot with my eyes closed. That way I can't adjust mid-punch. I'm not too fond of this training, to be honest, but he made a good point when he said any improvements I make without my perception with be increased when I used my perception. So in theory it should have exponential growth when paired with my perception.

Am I really that bad though, I thought I was pretty good but Jason says without my ability I would easily be below average in just about everything. Of course, I'm still using my perception but just in a different way. When I close my eyes I slow downtime as I push and feel my way through the movement, I'm attempting to lock the movement in my muscle memory this way, and hopefully faster than normal.

I used to do this exact same thing when I learned a new trick. I would slow the movement down and work through each step of it to get it on lock, then all you had to worry about was chaining the movements you already knew together.

I need to find a way to get more free time, I have to do most of my training alone in my room. Then Jason just gives me pointers when I see him. What I really need to do is convince Veronica to give me some healing solutions, if I had those I could increase both my skill and body at the same time, but Jason is the problem. He didn't even like the fact that I brought it up so I doubt I can go through him to get it, but if I go behind his back he'll definitely stop helping me, so I guess it's just not meant to be.

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"Hmph, you seem to have actually improved, even if only a little."

"I'm a fast learner."

"I doubt that was true before your awakening."

"How did you know I wasn't born with it?"

"Most people aren't born with abilities but discover them later in life. The trigger's different for everyone but I'd say 95% of us discovered it."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Is there anyone here who was born with it?"

"One, that I know of. You know her as Carnie."

"How did you know, did you look through her memories or something?"

"I told you not to talk about my ability out loud! No, I can't look through someone's memories, only experience it if they are thinking about them."

"Sorry."

Something shoves me from behind and I get thrown into the punching bag I was using. Turning around I see Red walking past me and making her way over to her metal punching bag. I watch her as she walks away

"I would prefer if you didn't think about that while I'm in your head."

Oh shit, umm. Just forget about that, okay?

"You have dangerous tastes," Jason says as he returns to his lifting.

"Hey, we done already?"

"I am, but you're not."

Fine then, I continue to work away on my punching bag with the little time I have left. I'm practicing my punches and kicks while not looking directly at the punching bag. As I feel my energy start to wane a thought pops into my head.

"You ever had a match with her before?"

"One."

"Oh, how did it go?"

"Well."

"You actually beat her?"

Jason racks his weight and looks at me, "I said it went well, for me that means I wasn't critically injured. You've fought her before so you should know about her inhuman strength. When people look at her all they see is her strength, however, that isn't the real problem, it's her defense. Nothing I did could hurt her. She couldn't hit me and I couldn't hurt her. I ran from her the whole match."

"If that's the case then how did the match end? One of you had to win for it to end, right?"

"I won by disqualification. Red got mad that I wouldn't fight her, she went on a small rampage and got disqualified for throwing pieces of the platform into the stands."

"Damn, she really is a ball of rage."

"Are you any different?"

"I can at least control myself."

"You call paralyzing someone control?"

I whip my leg into the bag and look towards Jason, "He deserved worse."

"That's my point. If I were to compare you and Red I'd say you're worse. Despite her strength, Red has never seriously hurt anyone. That means she has more control, over more power, than you."

"I'm done for today."

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"So how's your training going with Jason? I'd go with you more but all that walking is hard with these braces. You going to eat that?"

"You can have it. It's going fine."

Wayne speaks with his mouth full of pudding, "So not that good?"

"I said it was fine."

"He didn't kick your ass again did he, or are you just upset that he won't let you have any of her spit?"

"Don't say it like that! No, we haven't fought since our match and I've actually been improving!"

"So what's Jason like? I've always been afraid to approach him."

"He's a lot more talkative than you might think."

"Really, I don't think I have ever seen him speak. He normally just sits with Veronica in silence."

"That's because he's using... no, nevermind."

I see a girl walking over to our table, "Wayne, who's that?"

"Why is she?"

A short girl is walking towards our table. She has hair that just reaches past her ears but her bangs are long enough to cover her eyes. Despite her being so short she makes up for it... in another area, quite a nice area.

Wayne seems speechless while looking at her in confusion. She walks over to Wayne and grabs the pudding out of his hand, then spits right into it.

I stand up grabbing her hand, "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

She looks at me as if in shock that I would even touch her, "So your the one who's been taking up Jason's time. Yes, I think his description of you fits well."

Wayne jumps up before I can respond to her, "Tom this is Veronica!" He grabs my hand, pulling it away from her's and faces her, "Thank you." He says as he takes the pudding.

Veronica looks at me smiling, "What could you have been thinking about me, I wonder" Her eyes move from me to my right.

Spinning around I see a fist heading straight for my face. I try to dodge but it's too late.