"What were you thinking?!" Miss Claire shouts before Jane chimes in, "Now, now, Claire. Just calm down. He doesn't even have to go through with it."
"Oh, I'm gonna," I interject. After I say that, both of them glare at me. Jane whispers to me, "Seriously, Ray? I was trying to help you."
"Ray, are you serious about this?" Miss Claire says. Her voice is more contained, but I can most certainly tell she is trying her best not to flip out.
"Claire, he's probably kiddi-" Jane starts before I interrupt: "Dead serious."
Miss Claire sighs, clearly contemplating. After two excruciating minutes of pure silence, she finally opens her mouth and says, "One month, right?"
I nod in response, and she walks forward, now looming over me. "Then, in that month, I will train you harder than you've ever been trained. It will be excruciating." She then takes my mask off and looks me dead in the eyes, trying to find any hesitation in them.
Finding none, she drops my mask next to me and sighs in resignation. She is probably trying to plan in her head this training regimen she was talking about.
Jane, trying to change the subject, asks me, "So, kid. Aside from the first encounter with Ironhide, I never asked you, how was fighting Paleoumbral? Claire told me about it, but I wanted to hear it from the source. You killed him after all."
"I didn't do it. Chameleon did." I state matter-of-factly.
"Oh, Chameleon did, huh?" Jane says teasingly as she ruffles my hair with her free hand that isn't healing me.
"Same shit, kiddo." Miss Claire chimes in.
I feel my internal clock ticking as Jane continues to work on me. Hours pass. And Jane completes her healing of me.
"Ray, wait right outside the doors. Jane and I need to talk." Miss Claire says while pointing at the big moss-covered doors.
I do as she says and exit the room. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I activate Mr. Eun-ji's power to eavesdrop.
"Did you not hear him?! Chameleon did it?!" Miss Claire shouts.
"Look, Claire, he is a child! Did you assume that killing people would be easy for him?! He isn't you!" Jane shouts back.
"You were supportive when I took him in! What happened now?" Miss Claire asks her.
"I was supportive of you saving him from his situation. I wasn't assuming that you'd do this!" Jane says before following up with: "I mean, seriously, Claire, the moment you discovered his talent, you immediately assume he's like you and put him to training."
"He agreed to it!" Miss Claire retorts.
"He was a six-year-old boy who was excited to be helpful to the one he looked up to! Look, it's too late to turn back now, but you can't be angry with him because this was the obvious result!" Jane shouts back.
I hear a thud as if Miss Claire slumped back against a wall. "Ugh. Obviously, I know that. I just don't want that for him. I suppose involving him in the first place was thoughtless, I mean, he has unlimited potential, and his anger towards the hero society, I thought it'd be a good fit. But in the end, he's a child who had no place in my affairs." Miss Claire says solemnly.
I hear footsteps approaching the direction of Miss Claire's voice, presumably Jane. "Claire, you have good intentions, I'm not saying you don't. I just don't want this to be the reason he gets a lot of mental damage, well, more than he already has. You're right, what he's doing isn't healthy. But we can't do anything about it right now. Address it with him after this whole Ironhide mess is over. Okay?"
I don't hear a response from Miss Claire, but I do hear her footsteps approaching the door. I deactivated Mr. Eun-ji's power and jumped forward as she opened the door and stepped out.
"Alright, let's go home." Miss Claire says as she opens up a portal, taking us back directly to her lair.
After we exit the portal, she turns around and places a hand on my shoulder. "Listen, kiddo. From this very moment onward, you are to have Eun-ji's power activated at all times, train yourself to do it even while you sleep." She demands.
"And may I ask what purpose this serves?" I inquire, activating Mr. Eun-ji's power as I speak.
"Eun-ji's power will be the base of all of your future combat strategies. And it'll help with training. I have always wanted to teach you this eventually. After this month passes, I promise you that you'll effectively be able to use multiple powers at once. Well, realistically, only two at once, but still." She explains, ruffling my hair. She's smiling down at me, but I see the corners of her lips straining, as if it were a struggle to give me her typical smile right now. Her eyes were subtly trembling as if it was hard for her to look at me.
No idea why she's looking at me like that. It isn't like I killed anyone. I don't understand the argument between her and Jane.
Whatever. It isn't like it matters, I just need to focus on training. I have thirty days until my showdown with Ironhide. I'll win. I need to win.
Day 1/30, 29 Days Until The Rematch:
First thing in the morning, I get out of bed and run over to the training room. On the door, I see a note, probably written by Miss Claire, that says: "Every three days, double your warm-ups."
I walk into the room and do the typical warm-ups: running on the treadmill at maximum speed for half an hour. I can tell Miss Claire modified the equipment. I'm running at speeds that even an Olympic Sprinter couldn't manage. But I've seen faster, so I suppose she'll modify the speed to increase even further as the days go by. Afterwards, I move onto the agility ladder in-out drill one hundred times. Afterwards, I move onto the plank for ten minutes. After I finish that, I pick myself back up and walk over to the weight rack. I see a one-hundred-pound bar weight sitting on the rack. The exact same note from yesterday is there. So I do the exact same exercise from yesterday, twenty reps of deadlifting this weight.
After finishing and re-racking the weight, I sit up and see Miss Claire walk into the room with a plate of food—a sunny-side up egg and three pieces of bacon. "Eat up, kiddo. I'm about to work you to the bone, so we need to keep you hydrated and fed." She says as she hands me the plate and a bottle of water.
I take the bottle of water and the plate. Scarfing down the food and chugging the water to waste as little time as possible. I toss them to the side when I'm done and stand up. "C'mon, let's get started," I tell her.
Sensing my enthusiasm, at a speed where it's very hard to perceive her, she appears right in front of me. "This is about the speed that Ironhide was going, right?" She says. I nod and she replies, "Good, every day we're going to spar with me fighting at this level, and when you're comfortable with it, I'll up the tempo."
Without giving me a warning, she kicks me, sending me flying and crashing against the left wall of the training room. That knocks the wind out of me. She continues her assault, and the rest of the day is spent with us sparring; it was a one-sided beatdown.
Day 7/30, 23 Days Until The Rematch:
A week has passed, and my warmups have been doubled twice. I can see a stark difference between my physical capabilities from a week ago. It's amazing how I was able to grow so quickly. I'm not close to the level that Miss Claire has been fighting at, though; she hasn't had to up the tempo once. But I am keeping up better. Hopefully, I can get to the point where she has to exert herself more. I have a feeling that Ironhide was still holding back in our earlier fight.
After I do my warm-ups, Miss Claire walks in and gives me my breakfast as normal. It has been the same thing every day. I scarf it down as normal. And Miss Claire immediately swung at me. I narrowly avoided it, ducking under it and stepping to the side, delivering a punch to her right ribcage. She grabs my arm and tries to slam me to the ground, but I quickly switch to her power and make a portal under me, making the other side of the portal on the wall, using the momentum from her attempted slam to propel myself toward her.
Switching quickly back to Mr. Eun-ji's power. I attempt to see if I can perceive her next move since I don't have a handle on the precognition yet. I see that she's about to throw a punch with her right fist. I attempted to dodge it by using her head as a stepping stone to dodge the punch, but I was one beat too slow. Her punch connects and sends me flying back.
Dammit! I can see her moves, and I can visualize ways to get around it, but I don't have the physical capacity to realize my visualizations!
As my back connects to the wall, I cough up blood. Thus ending the spar.
I knew this would happen. She's still too strong for me to handle at this rate. I had no chance to ever dodge that attack. I'm still too weak.
Interrupting my thoughts, I hear Miss Claire's voice right in front of me, "You could have avoided it, but you clammed up. Already giving up on it. You still have a mental barrier. When you get cornered, you stop thinking of viable solutions and just accept defeat or go too defensive, accepting that you can't win. If you ever want to go farther, you need to let that go."
What? I mean, I suppose she isn't wrong. I conceded the game to Ironhide when Miss Claire probably could've handled him if I had waited. If I didn't clam up due to fear in my fight with Cain and Klein, I wouldn't have won, but I would have sustained way fewer injuries before Mr. Eun-ji came in to help.
But how can I get over it? Is it even possible? I don't even understand why I have it in the first place.
Miss Claire sits beside me. "Eun-ji told me something that he told you, and I agree with it. When cornered in a life-or-death situation, you reinvent yourself or die." She tells me. I remember those words. It's what Mr. Eun-ji told me right after my fight in the alleyway with Cain and Klein. Not too sure how it's applicable, though. I mean, in all of these life-or-death situations, I've had people like Miss Claire or Mr. Eun-ji right nearby to bail me out. Maybe I've subconsciously been using them as a crutch.
Is it even possible for me to reinvent myself?
Day 15/30, The Halfway Point:
It's the afternoon. Miss Claire has shortened our training and given me free time for the rest of the day. I need some fresh air. I've been working really hard these past two weeks.
"I'm gonna go take a walk, Miss Claire!" I shout, walking towards the elevator.
"Okay! But remember, when you're outside, not as Chameleon, you're Parker!" She shouts back, peeking out of her room door with a needle and thread in her hand.
I give her a thumbs up and enter the elevator. Instead of the generic radio music, I now hear some power metal music playing. It sounds like something straight out of Miss Claire's playlist. I suppose she updated the elevator.
When the elevator doors exit, I leave the warehouse. Walking out further and leaving the abandoned area it sits in, I enter the city.
I haven't been out here much in the city I live in: Parlay. The vibrant colors lighting up the night sky, the glowing electric signs of various restaurants and stores acting as my guiding light as I walk the streets. Staring at the different signs, I'm half paying attention to what's in front of me.
There's an odd absence of people. You'd expect a place like this to at least have some people shopping and walking about. Even the stores are empty, with no one running them. Before I can think about any reasons for the absence, I bump into something and fall backwards, and fall to the ground. Sitting up, I look directly in front of me and see a boy around my age, however he is shorter than I am.
He is wearing an unzipped brown jacket with a grey shirt under it, as well as black sweatpants. He's wearing some white tennis shoes that are lightly scuffed. He stands up and rubs his head. Afterward, he reaches his hand out to help me up.
I take his hand and he helps me out. He has a light accent as he speaks, "Hey, what are you doing out here? Most people are hiding inside because a bunch of heroes have made camp in the docks on the north side of Parlay."
Well, that's good info to know. "I could ask you the same question, dude," I reply.
"I'm supposed to be out here. I'm an apprentice of a ranker, you know. He had me scout out here to make sure all civilians are inside before whatever the heroes camping out start doing their thing." He explains.
"He?" I inquire.
"Ironhide. My sister and I are his apprentices." He says with a clear sense of pride.
"Ah, interesting. What heroes are in the dock? Just curious." I ask.
"Oh, just the top two B rank heroes and three other C ranks." He replies.
"Wow, five heroes camping out? Must be a serious occasion. I should probably head back home. For safety," I tell him as I start walking back in the direction of the warehouse.
"Sounds good, stay safe!" He shouts.
That put me in a rather good mood. Cain and Klein are there, alongside some other miscellaneous heroes. Reinvent myself or die, huh? I should pay them a visit as Chameleon. But if I wanna put the philosophy into practice, I can't tell anyone.
I return to the lair and knock on the door to Miss Claire's room. She opens the door. I see a needle and thread on her desk alongside something else. Can't tell what it is. Is she knitting or something? Huh, didn't know she did that.
"Hey, kiddo. How was your walk?" She asks.
"It was good, I had a question. Could I get another free evening tomorrow?" I ask her.
"Sure, why not. You deserve it." She says with a smile, ruffling my hair.
"Now get some sleep. Okay?" She asks me.
"Yup, I got it," I reply, already walking to my room.
Walking into my room, I lie in my bed. Alright, so tomorrow, I strike.
Time to reinvent.