June 13th

I assumed that since it took Ash two days to figure out how to pull fire from his own energy, it'd take me a couple of days as well to at least get a handle on it. With four more breakthroughs, I'd at least have a greater set of different comparisons to make with that refinement, if nothing else.

Four days later I was ready to start pulling my hair out if it weren't for the fact that I liked my hair. My damn energy didn't want to split apart into elements, refine itself into an element, or basically be anything but a flow of energy that I could now with a high degree of certainty point out which parts were refined in each breakthrough.

Even Will had come in and claimed a bounty late last night for showing Danny he could pull the tiniest bit of metal energy from his second breakthrough, although he didn't get even ten percent of what he was overflowing normally.

What was interesting about those refined bits of my own energy though was overflowing it into Feathersteps made it to where I could feasibly wallrun. Which had been a fun two hour diversion yesterday, but wasn't an element.

I bounced a little on my feet dragging my thoughts back to the present as I heard my name called.

Sergeant Collins was standing on the practice mat in front of the class. He'd apparently wasted little time getting up to his third breakthrough, but then again most of the rest of the class felt at the same level. "Alright Ms. Firen. As part of showing me why you need to learn to not hold back, I'd like the rest of the class to learn what the difference is when you're not holding back." He motioned me forwards.

I frowned but stepped up. "I thought you'd explicitly said you didn't want me to permanently injure someone?"

He nodded. "And I still don't. I want you to fully defend yourself to your absolute best ability but not strike back. You'll be defending against me."

"Yes sir." I sighed slightly to myself. I checked to make sure my hair was pinned correctly before taking a defensive stance as the rest of the class took several steps backwards themselves.

I wasn't sure if Sergeant Collins was trying to prove something to me or to the class, but he was already cycling heavily as he took his own stance.

The hardest thing I'd had to train, and something I was still actively trying to do so, was my reaction speed. Cycling energy through my body into basic overflow, I easily became stronger and faster than what the passive cycling gave me. The extra strength and speed didn't automatically mean I could react to someone else by the same magnitude I got stronger, however. Reflex testing showed I was scraping the fastest possible human reaction times, but I still could move faster than I could really adjust for, which led to what Collins had called me overcommitting.

Dedicating the first five breakthroughs worth of my energy to overflow left me with just under half my total flow free for Feathersteps but was still more than twice Sergeant Collins was able to bring fully to bear. I only wished I'd been able to figure out another technique as well.

Collins' eyes widened before he nodded, then moved forward. I watched as a kick lashed out from the side, aiming into my chest. Prior training stated I should only block if I had no other choice, otherwise dodge it. A guy that outweighed me in eighty pounds of muscle would easily knock me around otherwise. It would be easy to take two steps backwards and let the kick fly past.

I overflowed a bit of that refinement back into myself and Featherstepped backwards in a hop. Collins' leg passed through the spot I'd been standing, but at that point I was nearly six feet away, foot back to balance myself.

Collins brought his leg back down and looked at me for a short moment before rushing forward again, this time pushing forward with jabs and punches, nothing with long windup times. I blocked a punch that turned into an attempt to elbow me in the gut, which required a little bit of of extra movement again to dodge.

A grab and tug on my wrist to hyper-extend my arm was resisted with a similar tug back and Collins abandoned that attack to continue on. I dodged left to avoid a throat strike, a fist going over my shoulder by several inches.

I gave ground around the room, ensuring I defended myself from any actual hits for a few minutes before the sergeant stopped, but neither of us was breathing hard.

"Even though you're four breakthroughs above me, skill is still winning out against you, Ms. Firen. There were any number of points you could have countered me and did not take advantage of it."

"Counter attacks aren't a defense though and you said to not strike back?" I asked. "You're not going to complain if you end up hurt from me doing that, are you?"

"The difference between an I-0 and an I-3 is fairly large but is feasible to overcome through skill." He answered. "There's only one more than that different between us. You're welcome to use counters, I apologize for not defining that better."

"Alright. Again then please?" I asked.

I could have presented a wall. At this point I was fairly certain I could flat out no-sell the attacks without flinching, but that both felt wrong and I didn't want to block something and find out I wasn't completely right.

Instead, the first attack Collins threw I sidestepped and lashed out to grab his wrist. My overcommitting issue arose as I literally knocked his arm away before I could quite close my hand around him, but the blow to his wrist still pushed him into a spin.

He recovered and continued the spin under his own control, angling low to step underneath my arm likely to grab me from behind, then dive forward to pin me.

I instead Featherstepped forward two steps leaving him hugging air as I turned around, my hair apparently now unpinned as it snapped in the air from my movement with the sergeant holding my hair tie and nothing else. "I can't learn any skills if I can literally walk away from you by not holding back. But I need skill for in case I run into more people that are around my level."

I looked around the open gym, seeing the additional mats piled up against a wall. I then stepped back at Collins, getting into his face. He started reacting but I'd already been moving, balling my hand up in his shirt before spinning and throwing him at the mats while letting my energy flow off of me. The energy seemed to almost streamline the motion of flinging the sergeant.

Collins flew thirty or so feet without arcing, smashing into the mats and rolling off, then he staggered up to his feet.

"That was a fairly good toss on my part, but I definitely didn't whip you around and throw you with everything I could." I paused, assessing the energy I'd used. It'd almost resonated with the act of throwing Collins. Weird, need to remember that.

He shook his head before focusing on me. "You're still tied to physics, so if someone threw you the same would happen. But getting hold of you would definitely be the problem if you're not holding back. I begin to see the problem."

He turned to the class. "So today's lesson is the difficulty in overcoming a major difference in power between breakthroughs. I had thought to make the point that it's still possible but the opposite point appears to have been made for me."

"If you had a technique or something, you likely could have done better." I disagreed. "Both times I moved the hell away from you, I used Feathersteps to reduce my weight and move faster, which I know has been offered to anyone who wants to learn. You could have similarly followed me with the technique. Or if you used something more offensive it might be enough to overcome the general defense I was using."

"Point taken." Collins answered me back with a sigh, but I was watching the class to see if anyone might offer up knowing a technique of their own. There were some interesting looks on faces, but no one explicitly spoke up and I sighed myself.

"Alright, we'll move onto the next part of today's lesson, I'd like to have a few volunteers to pressure Ms. Firen while she is defending."

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"This is going to turn into how many five year olds can you take in a fight." I complained. "How is this supposed to be helping me understand what not holding back is like?"

"I'd assumed if you can be pressured enough you can at least learn to fully utilize your defense. Then you can work yourself up to offense while I try to find someone at least at I-5, but that's proving quite difficult."

I grumbled to myself, looking around before spotting the training dummies. "Sure, whatever. One test first though please." I went over and grabbed two of the human weight and sized dummies, carrying them back over. "Someone I-3, please go ahead and throw this at a wall as hard as you can."

Collins gave me a look, but motioned to one of the guys. He easily picked the dummy up, hefting it and throwing it while cycling. It hit against the nearby wall and fairly well broke apart, the seams on it bursting and sand splattering.

There were some assessing looks at the dummy. "I'm fairly certain those are generally tougher than someone who hasn't even lit their dantian yet, or maybe an I-0." I spoke up.

"Now here's my throw." I cycled deeper than I had when I threw Sergeant Collins, digging at least as deep as when I threw Barry. Holding onto the dummy by the waist so I wouldn't rip off an arm, I spun in a circle once to wind up a bit before letting go. Again, the motion of doing so seemed to echo with my energy.

The dummy rocketed through the air, crashing into the mats I'd previously thrown Collins into. The impact blasted away several of the mats and the dummy pinned one of the mats to the wall before the dummy exploded into a sand cloud and pieces of leather. After a moment the sand cloud fell and the mat was obviously torn through.

Now I was getting the assessing looks and a little fear. I sighed at the fear. "And that's my throw. Now, granted. You're all stronger and tougher than the dummy is, but I also can put more power behind my throw than what I did with Sergeant Collins. So, if I managed to snag one of you and throw you as hard as I could, you'd probably break the wall. Hopefully without breaking yourself, but I don't know that. I threw a guy at I-5 with a defensive technique into a huge tree and cratered the tree, but he more or less shrugged it off."

Collins made a face, looking at the exploded dummy. "Point made."

"My point, actually, is each breakthrough is giving more energy than the last. You have several more times the energy than an I-1. I have several times your energy, but that's more like thirty times an I-1. You're all within a breakthrough of each other, so you guys don't see the strength you're throwing around when compared to people lower than you. I doubt I'm actually thirty times stronger than someone just getting started, but..."

"So how much are you holding back when you spar?" Someone in the class asked, and I looked at Sergeant Collins in question.

He nodded to me.

I sighed again, feeling a little discouraged. "Alright, whatever. Show and tell time. Come up here please, since I'm apparently not going to get to any good training myself today."

"I have a staff trainer for you afterwards." Collins said and I perked up. "I can at least get that much right."

I grinned as the other guy came up and nodded to him. "Three, right?"

"Yes ma'am." He nodded as well.

I put my hands up as if I were holding target bags, overflowing my energy through my body and specifically to them. "Work your way up, but hit my hands with everything you want."

I took a moment for him to take me seriously and zero in on striking my palms, but each time he hit I felt a little bit of pushback at my energy as I negated the additional pressure he was striking with and then added a little more to hold myself steady. It slowly went up as I stood there basically ignoring his punches, not even having to adjust my arms. Finally, he threw a hilariously telegraphed haymaker, trying to step through my arm to at least make me move. I concentrated specifically for that one.

"Fuck, fuck." He fell back holding his shoulder after failing to move my arm again. "About dislocated my shoulder on the sudden stop. Holy hell."

"I did at least brace better for that one." I offered him and then looked to the class and Collins. Wasn't sure if I needed to, but he did give me plenty of time to do so.

~~~

I was honestly pleased with the nearly six foot length of tungsten carbide I'd been given for a bo staff, the extra piece of it showing I could grip the thing well enough to hold without worrying I'd put grip marks into it. The lesson was interesting as well, even if I'd just started with stances and not whacking myself.

But now I was back at the house thinking on my energy. Specifically overflowing the refined parts had made Feathersteps easier to use and even opened the technique up a little. I'd have to check with Melissa or Ash to see if they could see a difference as well.

But the energy seemed to also instinctively help in throwing Collins and then the dummy. And something had 'thrown' the car in the fight with Barry. I muddled through my thoughts, trying to chase down something with it.

"Why are you always staring off into nothing on a roof, somewhere?" Melissa's voice asked from behind me and I turned to see her standing there, back from her own Combatives class. The daggers Ash had made were in sheathes on her sides, apparently selected as her weapon of choice. I'd stick with something with a little more range myself.

"Because it's usually peaceful up here." I poked back at her, before patting the shingles. "Grab a seat though, how goes it?"

"Fairly well. Sergeant Collins had me put wax on the edges of the daggers before he'd start teaching me to use them. He looked a little beat up, you help with that?" She looked at the length of metal across my lap.

"Yeah, but not with this." I relayed the earlier lesson and Melissa winced.

"I was going to volunteer if you needed someone to spar with, but even at my level it probably wouldn't be enough, would it?"

"You'd be better than others right now, but yeah." I said slowly. "Hey, did you figure out anything better with your energy? I wanted to run something by you."

"It's more a refined electricity for me, not just a refinement in general." Melissa shook her head. "I get what feels like a stronger current, or maybe a higher difference in voltage. It does help on the daggers, it channels well through them. Not sure what it'd do to someone." She paused. "Doing it too long makes my energy in general feel a little weaker though, until I cycle enough to bring it back up."

"Try it with Feathersteps. I don't want to bias you, but I was able to do something a little more with my energy that way."

As Melissa started to play with that, I considered. Melissa's refinement was more electrical. But Will was able to get metal, and I knew he wasn't metal energy like Melissa or Danny were specific elements. But since I wasn't getting metal or anything, did I have a specific energy as well? Something to do with throwing?

"Nothing different that I can tell?" Melissa called and I looked at her, standing on the gutter as she walked back and forth.

"Try running up and down the wall." I replied, offering what I'd discovered.

As Melissa fell on her face trying to attach to the wall, I narrowed my eyes. It'd been almost obvious to me when I used the energy to try moving up the wall. Did it mean something different for me?

Overflowing the energy I jogged down the wall of the house in a few steps, hair falling downwards. I hopped off the wall and aligned myself back to the ground. "No?"

"Not in the least." Melissa griped. "That looks like fun too."

Movement or motion as my energy type then? I jogged back up the wall and stopped halfway, only for my feet to immediately slip as the vertical wall quit being a viable surface and I fell off, barely catching myself in time to not eat a face full of dirt.

"Huh."