“It was Deen,” I told Myra as I put my phone back in my pocket. “No worries, she thinks I’m still at the mall.”

“What if she came to check on you there?”

“She’s at uni. It’s hard to understand what she was saying because the signal was choppy, but she should have a class right now, and another one after that.”

“If you say so,” said Myra. “Deen really hassled herself to go to school even if there’s the option to just attend classes online?”

“She just wants to hang out with our classmates and be normal.” I heaved a drawn-out sigh. “I understand her. Wanting to be normal…is normal.” Okay, I just couldn’t resist myself with that one. I might need to use Rule #9 and make a temporary Rule to stop myself making passive-aggressive comments. Myra opened her mouth but didn’t say anything, unsure of how to respond. I changed the topic before things got awkward again and said, “What will you teach me about fighting as an Adumbrae?” No more emotionally poking her, get it, Erind?

Now was the time to learn.

“Alright then,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Just throwing out a disclaimer before we begin…what I know is how to fight as someone with an artificial Core, but the same principles should apply to you. Super strength, super speed, a sturdy body, and fast regeneration—all those traits we share even if on varying levels. The three most important things you should learn are: pushing the limits of your strength, evading, and attacking from afar.”

“The limits of my strength?” I stared at my hands, clenching and unclenching them.

“We—I mean us with the artificial Core—don’t get any stronger than what we are now. Our powers gradually develop, but our bodies don’t. Not drastically anyway; we’re not going to become twice as strong even if we, I don’t know, bench six hundred pounds every day. It’s a different case with Adumbrae. You guys get physically stronger, in addition to your powers growing, as you…as the…um…”

“The infection develops,” I supplied.

“Erm, yeah,” she agreed, looking sideways. “It doesn’t happen with the Adumbrae of the 2Ms since they control the infection of their clients.”

“Customers who turn into monsters can’t pay,” I attempted to joke to make her more comfortable.

“You got that right,” she said, grinning. “And their infection is artificially induced in the first place, so it probably works differently for them. As for you, you’ll naturally become physically stronger over time. I don’t know how fast, but that’s not what I meant by pushing the limits of your strength. What you’ll push are your limits now.”

“Oh, I see…I think?” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Like working out to get stronger?

“But before that,” said Myra, “let’s talk a bit about evading and fighting from a distance. As much as possible, you should evade all attacks because you don’t know how strong your enemy is.”

“Um, why? I don’t understand.” Actually, I do. It was a precious lesson I learned when I fought Mr. Ogre in the underground arena of Eve. “I’m strong now too.”

“Okay, take Bob, for example. You remember him? He’s one of the Adumbrae who attacked your condo.”

“I do. The one who chased us while we were trying to video Stella?”

“Yep, that guy. He’s a large guy, yeah? Very. But there are many large dudes out there, especially the ones taking drugs or those who undergo surgeries to get bigger. If you saw me wearing my huge armor covered in spikes up against Bob, and you don’t know anything about the two of us, who would you bet on?”

“You probably? You’re bigger than him with your armor. Scarier looking too. I also don’t know his powers or—”

“That’s exactly the problem,” she said, snapping her fingers. “We can’t just trust what we see to be sufficient information to judge our opponent. When I first met Bob, I tried to evade his attacks as much as I could even if I was fully protected with spiked armor. And thank the Mother Core I did, because it turned out he was hella fucking strong and could rip my armor off with his bare hands like it was papier mâché. If it wasn’t for my armor, I’d be minced meat. He did catch my leg once, and he yanked off a large chunk of flesh from my bones.”

I winced because timid Erind should be disgusted by the thought. “Oh my god, are you okay now?”

“I was able to regenerate it.” Myra extended her left leg and pulled up her pants. “Just some scarring left, should completely disappear in a couple of days. So, yeah, I think you get my point. There’s no way of knowing how strong your opponent is, be it an Adumbrae or a human decked out with bioaugmentronics, just by looking at them. And that’s just physical strength. Powers or abilities is a whole ‘nother issue.”

“Evade all enemies. Got it.”

“That includes normal humans too,” she firmly added, pointing her finger at me for emphasis. “We don’t know if a random guy is hiding a secret weapon which could incapacitate or kill you. Or even if just normal guys with normal guns.”

“I can handle bullet wounds,” I said, playing the part of being inexperienced.

“You’ve been shot at before? When did this happen? At Eve?”

“Uh-huh. During the raid everyone was shooting at everyone else. I was trying to escape but still got hit. It was no big deal. I mean, it’s painful but I can handle it. The bullet wounds on my legs healed pretty quickly.”

“Erind,” said Myra, shaking her head in disapproval. “Because of our new bodies, we have this sense of invincibility. We get careless. Don’t belittle guns. It takes one unfortunate bullet going through the right spot in our brains to stop our powers...and that includes healing.”

“I…I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. Of course, I already knew this. It did take one bullet each to kill Vanessa and Dominic. But with that, Myra would feel happy she was able to correct me. I don’t know why, but correcting someone felt more fulfilling than just plain old teaching.

“You were lucky you were able to escape during the raid. Did you transform into Red Ho—Blanchette? Johann mentioned there were statements from witnesses who saw you there as Blanchette.”

“Oh, I think it’s because I was injured by an explosion. No, not the one that left a crater where Eve once was. Just that someone probably threw a grenade in my direction. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but when I’m severely injured, I transform into Blanchette as a defense mechanism.” I wanted to add 'just like that time you attacked me', but I stopped myself because I’m a big girl who’s above pettiness. I could tell from Myra’s expression she was expecting me to say it too. Instead, I said, “And if I get severely injured as Blanchette, I transform into the wolf monster you saw at the docks.”

“Injury is the trigger for your power?” Myra said.

“I…I think so? I'm guessing it is.” I gave her partially wrong information on how my powers worked. Half-truths were always better than outright lies. “But, like I said, I can’t control myself as Blanchette…even less as the giant wolf. A total blackout.”

“You don’t remember how you escaped from Eve?”

I shook my head. “Not one bit.”

“It worked out well in the end that you transformed. Your Blanchette form was able to escape.”

“I-I do-don’t want to transform,” I said, shuddering. “It feels like the Adumbrae is taking over—”

Stolen story; please report.

“Oh! I didn’t mean it that way, my bad,” Myra hurriedly said. She put her hand on my shoulder. Wow, she was feeling close to me now? “I may not know how you feel, but Kelsey shared with me her experiences, so I think I can say I can understand what you’re going through even if just a bit. Anyway, isn’t this another reason why you should try to evade all kinds of attacks?”

“Yeah…I guess you’re right.”

“And since you’re going to keep your distance from your enemies, you should also learn to attack from afar. They say a baseball pitcher can kill a person with a good fastball—by ‘they’, I mean Reo. He told me someone died in a World Series game from getting hit with a baseball ball; not sure if that idiot was just pulling my leg. Even if his story isn’t true, there’s no question someone using super strength to throw a rock can kill people…assuming you have good aim.”

“Right.” I nodded, remembering when I hurled an axe at Mr. Ogre.

“A rock, pots, soda cans from a vending machine, anything you can throw.”

“I did that when we fought Bob. I threw a fire extinguisher at him, and a table, and some other things too.”

“Good work on that one,” Myra said. She looked at the floor while shifting her feet. “I don’t think I thanked you for your help that time.”

“You did.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I remember you thanked me,” I lied with a smile. Maybe she did, but I didn’t care enough to store it in my memory. “Are we going to practice evading and throwing stuff? Like I’ll try to evade your attacks?”

“We’re going to do that later. Let’s circle back first to the other important thing you should learn. Pushing the limits of your strength. Are you ready? You might…you’ll be injured and—”

“I can handle it.” I wore a determined expression. “I’m not afraid of getting hurt, I’ll be able to heal it anyway.”

Myra walked over to the part of the floor I punched earlier to show her I was no longer human. She knelt beside the crack and felt the depression.

“I can punch harder than that.”

“Better if you try one of the pillars,” she said. “It’s awkward to bend down and keep punching the floor. You’re not strong enough to make this building collapse, are you?”

“Oh, no, no. I’m just the, you know, just kind of normal super strength. I don’t know how to describe—I can’t bend a heavy-duty bike lock, if that helps.”

“We should be safe then.” Myra patted the surface the column she chose. “Punching…I know I said to keep your distance from your enemy, but I think this is the best way to understand the concept. Once you know how to go past your limits, you can use that in throwing things too. And there are going to be times you just can’t avoid fighting in close combat, so it’s good to learn how to punch. Go ahead and hit this as hard as you can.”

“Uhm, here goes…” I balled my right hand into a tight fist, feeling the crystals on my palm grate against each other. I imitated a boxer’s stance I'd seen on TV as best as I could, not sure if this helps, then swung my fist forward with all my might, twisting my body along with it.

The surface of the pillar cracked. Small pieces of the layer of cement finish fell off along with a puff dust.

“Aw!” I said, cradling my elbow. “I think it bent the wrong way…urgh…”

“I told you, you might get hurt,” Myra said. “But I didn’t think you’ll hurt yourself this way. Are your fingers and knuckles fine?”

“My fingers are fine, it’s just my elbow,” I said through clenched teeth. I was just overreacting for theatrics’ sake. This pain was nothing; I had suffered through much, much worse.

“I’ll teach you how to punch properly.” She explained to me the importance of punching straight to avoid injuries and also to add power and speed to my punch. Then she gave me tips how to improve my form.

“Don’t flare out my elbow,” I said. “Got it.”

“Yes, keep your elbows close. Don’t punch like you’re bench pressing.” She moved my body to the correct stance. “Punch with your whole body, exerting force on the ground with your legs, and then rotating your body as you punch.”

I giggled while holding the punching pose. “You sound like a sensei.”

She shrugged. “I’m just repeating what Dario taught me.” I noticed she had a slightly contemptuous tone when she said that. She gestured at the column. “Go ahead and try again.”

Bam!

Fuck yeah! More cracks appeared—very satisfying. A slab of concrete finished peeled off and broke into even more pieces as it hit the floor.

“Wow,” I said, genuinely happy with how it turned out. I covered my nose and mouth from the dust, and also to hide a huge grin on my face. Imagine if that was a person’s head? I’m going to watch and copy martial arts videos tonight. “How’s that? It’s a really huge difference punching correctly. Is that what you meant by pushing the limits? Because I had bad form earlier, I injured my elbow and wasted a lot of my strength.”

Myra examined the part of the column I punched, then she checked my fingers and knuckles. “No, you haven’t gone past your limit yet.”

“But I thought…okay, I’ll try again.”

Bam!!

Not the punch Myra was looking for.

Bam!!!

Still not it.

“What do I do?” I said, watching her feel my fingers again. The skin on my knuckles were bruised, but the wounds were healing. Streaks of my blood were on the column. “I can feel each punch get stronger so I guess I wasn’t pushing myself before that. But can you just tell me—” I stared at my fingers, then remembered my injured elbow. “You’re checking if I punched hard enough to break my own fingers?”

“Yep,” she said. “I was waiting for you to break them, then I’ll urge you to push more.”

“I see…you weren’t joking when you said I’ll be injured. Let me try again.” I finally understood what she meant by pushing the limits of my strength. As weird as it sounded given the cracked concrete column, I was still holding back—and I simply wasn’t aware of it. Obviously, I didn’t want to break my fingers so I was unconsciously not giving it my all, but I had the strength to punch hard enough to do it. I took a deep breath. I’m going to heal afterwards, I reminded myself. Fuck this concrete column! “HAAA!” I yelled as I punched.

BAM!!!

“Ouch!” I exclaimed. “That really hurts! Oh my god!” Again, just an overreacting for Myra’s benefit, but my fingers were really fucking busted. My hand trembled. Some of my fingers were crooked. I grimaced and just gently cradled my hand. “I-I…um, a bo-bone…a bone is about to go through my finger. I can feel it.”

“Let’s rest first and wait for it to heal, then we continue. You're nearly there. Look at this.”

“A mini-crater,” I said. “Wow…and owww.” It was so beautiful. A small, but very noticeable cavity on the concrete column, radiating lots of cracks like the rays of the sun. It was hard to explain it, but I was weirdly proud of it. This seems like a fun thing to do.

“Hysterical strength,” Myra said. “There are lots of stories about feats of superhuman strength from normal people in emergency situations. A mother carrying several children as she escapes their burning house. A man lifting a car up to free someone underneath. An old lady fighting off a bear. Some of them are fake, but there are those that are true—the one about the old lady is probably a hoax. But last year, a guy was on the news for ripping off a car door to save his wife from their burning car.”

“Ah, I recall that one. A lot of people were accusing him of being an Adumbrae.”

“He was hospitalized for torn muscles and broken bones because of what he did…so not an Adumbrae. But for several seconds, he seemed to have superhuman strength. The term for that is ‘hysterical strength'. The common belief is the adrenaline rush in fight-or-flight situations boosts the body’s performance, but there’s no firm evidence supporting it. Adrenaline does help, but not to the level of hysterical strength. If it was that simple, it should happen more often.”

“So, how do I tap this hysterical strength? Does it have something to do with punching so hard that I break my fingers?”

“Sort of,” Myra replied. “Dario said that the BID had research on this since they are making super-soldiers. It is supposedly more of a psychological barrier keeping us from fully tapping our strength. It’s our body's way of making sure we don’t injure ourselves. Take that guy who ripped off a car door, he did have that strength all along, but if he performed at that level all the time, his body would be destroyed. However, it’s not the same with us.”

“We can heal ourselves,” I said. “And very quickly too.” I held up my injured hand and shook it. “A couple more minutes and I think I’m good to go again.”

“It’s really a combination of good form when fighting so we won’t unnecessarily injure ourselves, like what happened to your elbow, and getting past the psychological barrier of holding back our strength. The reason there isn’t much research on this is because…uh, how the hell do you even test this? We don’t have any medicine that can heal people this fast. But the BID did test this—”

“Because they have people with artificial Cores.”

“Yep. And Dario taught me that. And now I’m teaching it to you. This is just the start. There will be more injuries and pain to come; you’ll probably have torn muscles when pushing the limits of your throwing power. Just tell me when you’re ready and we’ll continue with punching. I can tell you haven’t even reached your limit yet.”

“I’m good to go.”

Cue in training montage music from the 80s.