*Fump*

Robin slowly dropped to his knees, trying everything to keep his head up. For a few moments it seemed like he would be able to get up again, before he finally gave in and fell face forward into the dirt. His breath was ragged and he was gasping for air. His vision blurred and he shivered when he heard the footsteps of his torturer coming closer.

“N…no mo..more, please!” Robin stammered and closed his eyes. His body was a wreck, he couldn’t fight on any longer. His only hope was that this menace stopped beating him.

“Wuhuuu!” A cheerful voice interrupted his horror visions, “That was great, you lasted for almost 40 seconds! That's a new record for you.”

“You are making inappropriate compliments. Don’t make him believe he’s doing great. After all this time he should be able to stand for at least one minute. Look at him, does he look like a champ to you?” Patience growled irritated.

“Ah come on, Muscle-Girl, he is getting better at…his own pace? Slow and steady!” Happy suggested, still supportive of Robin, who was sprawled out on the rocky ground.

“Maybe he just likes it if someone beats him up.” Patience shrugged, “That would explain why he is blocking so many punches with his face instead of dodging them.”

“Bahaha, I like the way you think.” Niu laughed and threw a syringe toward Patience.

“Give him the stim already, he really looks like shit this time.”

“Ugh...are you aware that you are literally throwing money at him?” Patience complained but still rammed the needle in Robin's thigh.

“Awgggg….”

“Really? Stop whining and stand up already!” She nudged him with her foot and left for the picnic table.

When Robin slowly got up a minute later, he saw both women sitting on the blanket, eating fruit and laughing about some silly tale Niu just told. They both wore training suits and had their long blue and silver hair down, letting it flutter in the light wind.

‘They are so beautiful, like pretty flowers…how can they be such monsters on the inside?’ He wondered, not for the first time these weekends. They were quite the pair though, the tall, bulky Patience with well defined muscles from her training and then Niu beside her. A small fragile looking woman, who gave off a cheerful aura and always wore a smile on her face.

‘...like two sides of a coin.’

He stood up and walked over, still limping a bit. The Recovery Stims did a great job at patching him up after every beating, however even this medicine needed some time to fix everything back to normal. He had no idea how he should have been able to survive the training with Patience if Niu hadn’t sponsored those drugs.

“So?” Patience asked with a stern face when he came closer.

“I forgot my footwork halfway through. I messed up to keep a proper posture. That’s why I lost my balance after the last block.” He reflected on his short but intense fight with her.

“That’s right. You need to be more concentrated on your own body. The footing, the posture, the positioning of your arms and the bending of your upper body. The second step is the observation of your opponent: How is he going to attack? Does he fall into patterns? What are his weaknesses? Formulate a plan about avoiding getting hit and about how to get around his ability to block. Only then should you think about throwing out your own punches! You are too erratic, trying so hard to land a hit that you are making yourself even more vulnerable than you already are.” Patience explained in detail.

All nagging and complaining aside, she was doing a great job as a coach. Robin was getting better every day and he could feel how his fighting skills grew by leaps and bounds.

“Keep your head up, pal.” She said, “You are getting better. I have raised the difficulty by quite a margin compared to our first bouts.”

“Thanks. I don’t need to be able to fight off professional wrestlers. I just wanna avoid being completely helpless in every little confrontation.”

“And you are expecting more of those?” She pointedly asked, not for the first time since their training began two weeks ago.

“Ah, that is my cue!” Happy jumped to her feet and walked over to the Melody II.

“If you want to keep following whatever plan you have in your head and don’t wanna share with us, it all depends on your advancement to the final race, right? So, chop-chop, let’s go. I’ve already adjusted the track a bit.”

“Uhg… let me at least grab something to eat first.” Robin growled, together with his stomach. “Just some fruit to go, come on! We only have these three days a week and time is running out.”

“Fine, on my way.” he conceded and hurried over to the table to grab some fruit before climbing into the pilot seat of his ship.

‘They are monsters! No one would believe me if I told them, but they are pure evil that enjoy the suffering of others.’ He complained in his mind and adjusted the seat’s fixation.

The track they used for training was more like a simple rectangular course. 1-3 km straights for high speed between each turn. The idea was to go around and take each curve as fast as possible. Robin's job was the flying obviously and Niu commented and corrected at the end of each lap. She also did a great job as a trainer and Robin learned a lot about the correct positioning of the ship and adjustment of its speed with the right timing. Every now and then Happy would change the distances between the turns and also the angle of the corners. This was so Robin wouldn’t learn the track but had to calculate each maneuver again and again. While his starting point for flying was much better compared to his fighting skill, he still felt like a child that just learned how to walk when he was with Niu.

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The one thing that really stood out was his ability to resist massive g-forces much better than other people. Only after training with Happy did he realize that he was a bit of an outlier in this regard. He talked with Slice about that topic and the stitch assumed that it was part of the changes his brain went through. He was as affected by the forces as everyone else, but his brain could maintain its regular functions longer under such strained conditions, giving him a few extra seconds with a clear mind.

Two weeks had already passed like this. On the weekends Happy would come over to Seka and the three of them left the city together in their ships. They stayed in the wilds for two nights and trained from sunrise till sundown.

Patience began with warm-ups and some stamina training, after that he would fly his first laps. Once done Patience would start to beat him up and so on. At night they would sleep in small but comfy tents and the next day everything began anew.

He only had one weekend left before the next race began and Robin wanted to use this chance to learn as much as possible. He paid Patience for her coaching, while Niu didn’t need any credits and probably just came because it was a fun thing to do for her.

During the week, Robin took care of Melody and adjusted her systems and the control unit bit by bit, optimizing her behavior in flight further. Jim supported him here and also helped with the acquisition of the needed upgrades and addons.

One of those was in the small crate that arrived only a few days ago. Jim would help him install it next week to ensure everything works perfectly. It was Robin’s final piece in the puzzle he had to solve, in order to get out of the third race without anyone noticing something being off.

The only other topic he did spend some time on was his mutation. There was so much he had to sort out.

First, his ability had changed and he now could use it in a wider area. He was getting used to that already. Second was the changes of his brain. As Slice had described it, his brain was confronted with too much information at once which triggered some kind of reconfiguration of how to process different stimuli. This was what allowed Robin’s mind to visualize even the smallest amounts of energy - like when he saw the Cetro intruder or could take a peek into the shielded crate he transported for the stitch.

Both upgrades were awesome but also came with one big downside: The images he created in his mind or as an overlay to his actual vision became too complex. Today nearly everything was running on energy and the increased details he could detect made it hard to filter for specific parts. When he tried to scan Hopewing’s ship, there were so many details that he didn’t even know where to start searching. The big energy hotspots like thrusters or the engine made it even harder as they were so bright that they overshadowed everything around them.

This was why Robin began to train with his mutation over the last weeks. Originally he wanted to learn how to filter out specific elements and while he made some small progress in that regard, he stumbled over something else that really blew his mind.

He achieved only first timid results in his attempts to filter what his mutation sensed. However, the fact that he was able to achieve anything at all made him reevaluate what he knew about the changes his brain went through. Filtering the information coming from his mutation was not something normally possible and it wasn’t something that came from his G-Anomaly, too.

Robin realized that his brain didn’t just get reconfigured to process the information, it got reconfigured to be able to always adapt to new needs.

All in all this means, as long as Robin puts enough time and effort in, he should be able to train his brain to provide many more skills and variations to his mutation.

Robin shook his head, clearing it from all the distracting thoughts and focused on the track again. It wasn’t the time for thinking about that stuff right now.

He had to survive just a few more days of bullying from his two coaches. As he was tortured anyways now, it was better to learn as much as he could from them!

***

A bit over a week later, Robin woke up and saw the date he was waiting for on his clock: 05-05-3223. Today he would finally travel to Ruca II together with his ship and accompanied by Happy. Patience wouldn’t be able to come as she was invited to a training camp by her new studio. She really wanted to take part in it and while Robin was a bit sad, he knew it was better this way. If everything played out as he planned, then he would throw the final race and he really didn’t want to explain that to Patience…nope, definitely not!

It surprised him however that Jim signed in as a visitor for the final race. It was great though, they got along well.

After he arrived at the workshop, Jim was already working on the Melody.

“Good morning, Rob! The final touches are just done. I disconnected and powered down your special upgrade, you just have to couple these cables here again and it should be back up and running.” he explained and showed Robin some cables that stuck out of the cargo area.

“Hey mate, alright. Thanks again for your help. Are you sure they won’t be able to detect it? Apex will scan my ship for any illegal modifications.”

“This is an interesting little project you are working on, of course I won’t just sit on the sidelines. And no worries, I’ve traded your favor with Slice to get my hands on this thing. Even if they find it, they shouldn’t be able to identify what it really is with just some casual scans. Only make sure they don't start to invest time in a proper inspection...”

“Alright, that totally doesn’t sound like a red flag! But before anything else, I’ve to be ranked in the top ten in the upcoming race, so wish me luck.” Robin laughed and stored his belongings on the backseat. Right after he was done, Jim’s datapad beeped loudly.

“Ah, that should be your little girlfriend. You wanna introduce me?”

“Fuck off, she is a competitor and really just a friend. Nothing more. And no, I’ll not introduce you now. Maybe later, when we meet on Ruca II. I better leave now, thanks again Jim!”

“‘Tsk, just leave already.” Jim scoffed.

When Robin left the workshop in his ship, Niu was already waiting in the sky above with her Speedy. They opened a comm channel and requested a joint flight corridor from Flight Control.

“Hey Robin, how are you doing? Nervous?” Her good-humored voice came through the comms.

“Hey coach, thanks for picking me up.” He replied, “Yeah, to be honest I’m nervous as fuck.”

He heard her chuckling on the other side as they already reached Seka's outskirts.

“Keep your head calm, you’ve prepared well and will do great!”

“Huh? Oh yeah, the race… I hope so, too.” Robin said absentmindedly.

“You are a strange one! I always knew and I’m afraid to ask, but still: What are you nervous about, if not the race?”

Leaving the last greenhouses behind, they soon flew over Rucasur’s rocky plains again.

“What I’m nervous about? Well, don’t you see that thing in front of us?” Robin asked with awe in his voice when he could finally see the destination for their trip far in the distance.

“This will be my first time leaving this planet.” Robin mumbled under his breath, “My first time, but definitely not my last!”

Looking at the humongous ship that rested there on the plains, he once more knew what he was fighting for, why he was risking so much.

“An interplanetary carrier… that is freedom!”