Chapter 42.1

 Two weeks passed in what was mostly relative peacefulness for Jason. He had spent most of his time being near Alice and Alina, secretly protecting them even during the day while searching for and anticipating Katelyn's arrival during the night. However, there was no sign of her or the organization that was behind her and, finally, Jason let his guard down. He began suspecting that perhaps they changed their plans to confront him after learning he was a Practitioner.

Currently, it was a Saturday morning and the cool fall air was grazing his half-naked body from the open windows. Sweat dripped down from his eight pack abs down to his bronze chiseled chest and then his face as he pushed his body up with one hand while hanging upside down. The mansion he furnished for Alice also had a fitness room, one that he used every morning to train his body.

"Morning," Alina yawned as she entered the fitness room. Her eyes lingered on Jason while he performed his handstand push-ups and she sighed with regret; she was lamenting on her inability to perform as many push-ups as him.

Then again, I'd have ended up being a mass of muscles if I did, Alina thought.

Jason flipped and landed on his feet before turning and smiling at her, his perfect white teeth shining through his naturally pink, full lips that she envied so much.

"Morning," he said, his voice still husky from not speaking for some time. He gestured at the nearby equipment before continuing. "Do a thirty minute warm-up while I meditate and then we'll spar."

Alina nodded, understanding that he was meditating to try and limit his Practitioner strength. If he were to release his strength during the spar, then she'd to the same and the mansion would be destroyed.

Alina moved to the mat to warm herself up while Jason sat down and crossed his legs.

"Speaking of which," Alina said as she stretched. "When did you start using your Practitioner abilities?"

"Had an accident a while back," Jason said evasively before falling quiet again.

He used his Esper ability to create more Anti-Qi and began dispersing it throughout his body. Before, when he first encountered Practitioners, Jason discovered the unique energy signature of Qi and wanted to find ways to combat it with his Esper powers. Under the belief that there was a negative form of energy that reacted in the opposite way as Qi, Jason used his Energy Manipulation ability to create what he dubbed "Anti-Qi", a form of energy that would effectively cancel Qi. By flooding his body with Anti-Qi, he was able to suppress his Practitioner's powers and bring his strength back to peak-human level; even to the trained eye, he would appear ordinary, mortal. Of course, if he was under duress then he would immediately remove the Anti-Qi restraints and go back to being a superpowered Practitioner.

Standing up and clenching his fist he nodded with satisfaction before turning to Alina who was using the leg press machine to increase her leg strength.

"Ready, little rabbit?" Jason asked teasingly and Alina stood up and rolled her eyes.

"Can you stop calling me that? Which part of me looks like a rabbit?" Alina asked with puffed cheeks.

"Aw, but you're so tiny and fast, like a rabbit!" Jason said before grabbing Alina's cheeks and squishing them between his hands. "Who's the cute lil' bown wabbit?"

"Ger off!" Alina grumbled while trying to escape from his hands.

Jason finally acquiesced and he let Alina go once he was satisfied with her chubby cheeks. She pulled away quickly and made some distance between them before rubbing her cheeks while Jason sighed.

"They're getting thinner," he said with remorse, his hands still making the gesture of squishing her cheeks. "Maybe I should be feeding you more?"

"I'm growing up - that's why! - thank you very much!" Alina shouted and Jason laughed.

"True," Jason looked at Alina with a smile. "You're finally losing your baby fat. You're finally growing up."

Alina grunted but said nothing else. She was glad that Jason finally noticed that she was no longer a child. Maybe that meant he'd be open to her finally dating boys?

Yeah, I wouldn't count on it, Alina voiced inside her head. I wasn't able to go out with Ken earlier, I need a plan to distract him.

The thought of Ken made Alina gloomy, however, and she pouted slightly.

Speaking of Ken, he hasn't been around for a while has he? Alina thought.

She had noticed that he was becoming more distant since the trip to the hospital a while back. In fact, he had missed a few classes as well.

Wonder what he's up to. Maybe I should ask Nikki?

"You ready, kid?" Jason asked, unaware of what Alina was thinking of.

"Hmm? Yep, ready," Alina roused herself from her thoughts and readied herself opposite of Jason.

Her fists were held up in a boxing stance while Jason, opposite of her, was standing cockily without raising his hands. While he looked relaxed, Alina could tell that he was ready as well. In a split-second, Alina dashed towards Jason with such intense speed that it would impress even the best of Olympic runners.

Despite pulling back an arm, Alina launched a kick at Jason while he moved his upper body backward and dodged her attack by millimetres, his feet still firmly planted in the ground and his lazy stance unbroken. Alina pushed forwards, punching and kicking so fast, her arms and legs were a blur and Jason was forced to block attacks that he couldn't dodge. Jason nodded with admiration when he noticed how she was using her speed to her advantage. Unlike Jason, who fought with ferocity and barbarism, Alina focused on speed, attacking with less strength in each pack of punches and kicks, but with a speed that allowed her to gain multiple hits in a second. In gaming terms, Alina was the scout or assassin, while Jason was a DPS/tanker.

When Alina noticed that her attacks weren't having any effect, she pulled back and began circling him at her full speed and even Jason wasn't able to keep up with her. As soon as she found an opening to his back, Alina leapt forward and aimed to kick his back from his blindspot but Jason spun around and grabbed her leg.

"Nuh-ah," he said with a grin. "Don't attack when an enemy is showing you his back."

He tossed Alina over his shoulder and onto the ground.

"Chances are … they're intentionally baiting you into attacking," Jason finished with a grin and Alina smiled back.

"Right back at ya," she said before wrapping her legs around Jason's head and throwing him over as she somersaulted and balanced herself with her arms.

"Well, lookie here," Jason said with a teasing smile while he landed on his feet after rolling to mitigate the fall. "Someone's picking up on my skills."

"Your skills? Naw," Alina replied smugly. "It's something I picked up from Kat. It's too acrobatic to be your skill."

"Ungh-mgh," Jason grunted and murmured darkly with unhappiness at the mention of Katherine.

These days, she and Alina would hang out and it was getting on his nerves since he couldn't get a read on her. Not to mention, his charms were ineffective against her. The worst part was how familiar she was with Jason, and if he didn't know better he'd have assumed she was a stalker: how else was she to know that his favourite were a triple cheese pound burger and caramel sundae?

At the mention of Katherine, Jason decided to strike back and he pushed Alina back as she dodged his aimed punches. Each punch caused the pressurized air around his fists to hit Alina, the wind blowing her hair away and making her more alert. While he wouldn't harm her seriously, she was still apprehensive about his strikes because they would hurt her like hell.

Realizing that she was losing ground, Alina spun around and grabbed two wooden tonfas from the wall and turned to Jason. She slashed one tonfa at him while jabbing the other at the side of his ribs but, like a slippery eel, Jason ducked and redirected the second tonfa's aim with a well placed palm strike.

"Not bad," Jason said as he pulled back and Alina went into a stance, holding one tonfa aggressively while the other was placed defensively in front of her. "Using your surroundings to your advantage, well done."

Even as Jason spoke, he pulled back and reached for a rack, pulling two eskrima sticks before lunging at her. In seconds, Alina fell into a disadvantage as Jason had a longer reach with his sticks and Alina had to use the tonfas braced to her forearms to block his strikes passively.

"Ah!" Alina cried out as she spun around when one of Jason's strikes slipped past her guard and struck her face.

The blow sent her reeling backwards and Jason turned around and took a few steps away from Alina while twirling his eskrima stick around his hand. By the time he turned around and focused on her, Alina had stood back up and was ready for round two, ignoring the red swell on her cheek. With an approving nod and a ferocious smile, Jason lunged at her again.