After giving it some time for the police to move on and not to draw attention I left the café and made my way back to the apartment. I used the main streets this time as I didn’t want to draw any attention, getting the odd look that I was used to due to being outside at this time of night I made it home with no issues.

Entering the apartment and making some food I called Cinder out and we had some dinner before hitting the sack. It was late morning when I woke up and I saw Cinder still fast asleep on his heat pad, quietly exiting the room I made some breakfast and sat down switching the TV on.

“Sarah it was just after midnight when the police attempted to arrest the gang that had been responsible for a string of robberies and assaults in the lower Manhattan area. Upon discovering their base of operations they entered into a car chase moving east towards the river and crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, they raced along the waterside trading gun fire between the vehicles. It was only when they had travelled around 200 yards that the chase came to a close. Witnesses say an unknown man stepped out and releasing some form of fire lizard which released scorching flames on the road, melting the asphalt and putting the escape of the gang’s van to a halt, but the story doesn’t end there, eye witnesses then say it unleashed some form of sound wave towards the vehicle incapacitating the occupants.When the police moved to speak to the person responsible a chase ensured after he called the lizard back with some sort of red beam, we are led to believe that the police then lost the individual a block or two south of the location……”

Staring at the TV I was shocked that it was already making the news, I mean yeah probably the first time anyone had seen something like Cinder. I suppose we are lucky that no one got a great look at him before or any kind of picture, but it was really just a matter of time.

Turning the TV off I went back to the kitchen and started washing up and I prepared some food for Cinder when he woke up. Thinking about last night, we were very lucky, firstly managing to stop that vehicle and incapacitating the criminals, then not getting shot as they had been very liberal with their gun fire earlier. Managing to stay away from the cops was a blessing as I wasn’t ready to expose myself too much at this stage.I’m going to need to start some form of martial arts training if I’m getting involved even more in the encounters, last night showed that doing so netted me more exp so that’s going to be a sure thing. Pulling up some online tutorials I browsed the various martial arts and thinking about what I did know, probably something on the lines of MMA would be best, mixing various disciplines into one form would be best as the versatility would cover many different situations.

Jotting down some introductory movements and workouts I browsed the ones available to create a routine to start instituting into my daily schedule. Hearing a noise from the bedroom I saw Cinder shuffle out rubbing his eyes looking around for me, spotting me in the gym he ran over and jumped up and down excited, “Char char Charmander char Charmander.”“Woah woah, calm down buddy, what’s up? You happy about last night?”“Char” Nodding up and down.“Yeah me to buddy, was really good to get some good done, and it helped us with the exp as well, you levelled up and I gained a good chunk of exp compared to normal. How are you feeling.”Looking down as his hands he checked over himself, not noticing much else I chuckled, “there wont be any massive differences, but we should probably check out and see what else may have changed with your moves. Though first go have some food, I’ve prepared something in the kitchen for you, then meet me back here.”

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Getting a nod in response and seeing him walk away, I started my workout and completed about 3 sets before Cinder came back to join me. Getting up I led him over to the testing area,“Ok so lets go over the moves so far, so ‘growl’ and ‘scratch’ are sitting at intermediate and ‘ember’ is at beginner, lets have a think, if we want to progress the moves what could be the next steps.I think that ‘ember’ is really going to come down to temperature control, not just up but also making it cooler, we don’t always need things melted, and I know it can get far hotter than you are making it so lets work on that.

‘Growl’ has a lot of use for us at the moment, it really helps disorient people but I’m thinking that maybe playing with the vibrational aspect of the sound could help us progress to advanced. The growl move itself is suppose to lower the attack of the opponent, but we are only seeing the people being incapacitated which I suppose in a way reduced their attack hahaha, maybe using the vibrations to affect the body could reduce the threat without knocking people out.

‘Scratch’ on the other hand I’m not too sure about, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, I’ll come back to it later, I get the feeling its about the manipulation of the normal energy to advance the move but I’m pulling a blank here.Lets start on some work with your ember and see if there is any change with the level increase.”Pulling out our regular dummy for the ember testing, I’ve ended up getting a few different ones as Cinder was going through them pretty quick.

“Cinder, ‘ember’, try to reduce the temperature as much as you can.”Seeing him accumulate the flames in his mouth, I could see the orange of his normal flame gradually shift to a darker colour starting to get to a shade of red, feeling excited by the development it made me think. It could be that there isn’t so much a quantitative change with the increase of levels and it really a qualitative change. Being a higher level means he is able to use the fire energy more efficiently compared to before, so the control of it increases.

Feeling that we are on the right track I watch as he unleashed the fire unto the dummy and see it catch alight and not burn through as quick as it was before. I put the fire out and I turned to Cinder, seeing him look up at me expectantly I just smile, “Good work Cinder, there’s some real change in the temperature there, with some more practice we’ll be able to see some good improvement.”