Chapter 43: 4-11 Ripples

Ripples 4.11

2000, August 29: Washington, DC, USA

I kicked up towards my imagined opponent's throat, really closer to their solar plexus considering my height, and spun with my own momentum, jumping into a flying knee towards what would be the small of his chin. Landing in a soundless crouch, I turned the downward momentum into a leg sweep before tucking my feet under me and rising with a cleaving elbow towards the kidney.

All four strikes took less than three seconds. Fast for a normal person, barely adequate for an acolyte of the Shojin Monastery, a disciple of Wuju, or a student of Souma's. Panting, I allowed my breath to calm and the mana flowing within my veins to still. The Ice relaxed me, washing my frustrations away as my mind was covered in new snow.

No, I couldn't allow myself to get frustrated. Progress would come with time. I was already excellent for a child. I knew for a fact that the masters I tried so hard to emulate spent decades honing their crafts.

It was still cold comfort.

I looked at the clock without turning my head. Six-thirty in the morning. Mom would wake up soon. On cue, I heard her alarm begin to chime as I settled in to meditate facing the sun. There was no specific reason for it. I couldn't' even see the sun from the living room, nor would it have mattered given my Oracle's. In the end, I was a creature of habit and Master Yi had Wukong meditate this way.

"Greet the dawn with a clear mind. Let your meditation harden your resolve for the trials of the day," he'd said.

If it was good enough for the Monkey King, it was good enough for me.

The living room was and odd mix of modern sensibilities and my own workout needs. We didn't have a coffee table, but we did have a sofa and TV so mom could watch her Korean dramas and relax after work. Instead of the coffee table, we had a large, roll-up mat that I would roll out each morning to practice on. We did have very good blackout curtains though, wouldn't want any nosy neighbors peering in on my sessions.

I breathed in and felt mom begin to putter about in the kitchen. This was my solution for mom insisting on checking in on me during the night. I woke up earlier so I could greet her instead.

"Good morning, mom," I said, legs crossed and eyes still closed.

"Good morning, son. Did you have a nice workout?"

"I did. It's refreshing."

"That's good. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Grilled mackerel?"

I could feel her smile. "Are you afraid I'd say you're not your father's son? Namjoon loved mackerel too."

"Fish is good for me."

She chuckled lightly and returned to washing the rice, allowing me to delve deeper within.

My mana had changed somewhat, and not just in the way it leapt to my metaphorical hands like an eager puppy. There was a coldness there that was absent before I'd merged with the Keystone. If I had to describe it, it wasn't quite like ice manipulation so commonly found among anime and superhero comics. It was more like the Elven Rings of Power in Lord of the Rings, a metaphysical type of chill that gave me clarity, focus, and purpose.

The glacier did not stop for anything. Neither would I.

The actual ice manipulation was there, but most closely associated with invention. Runes of ice, methods to shape True Ice itself, and the science of endothermic reactions swirled in my brain as I allowed the World Rune to envelop me.

'Worldstone first. Explore all the other cool shit after you make sure Hero's entrails aren't spaghetti.'

After breakfast came homeschool.

I headed to the lab immediately after testing out of high school calculus. Tomorrow, I'd crash through advanced placement tests for physics, biology, and chemistry.

In the end, Ms. Kosker had no choice but to agree to a greatly reduced homeschool schedule of three hours per weekday: one for world and national history, or "world issues" as Taylor knew it, the second alternatively for Korean language or music, and the third for my own personal reading, an elective period she insisted on to give me some breathing room from tinkering. This allowed me to end my compulsory education at noon, much like the Wards' student-learning programs.

When I got to my lab, I received the email form Metalmaru that the large fabricator at the center station could now handle Neo-Petricite. Good to know, but my focus remained on the Worldstone.

I finished converting Water of Life and Petricite into fifty pounds of relic stone after that ridiculous patrol yesterday. The encounter with Stage Crew did show me one thing: Compared to the Wards, I was hilariously over-prepared and over-equipped. That made me feel a little better about putting my own costume on the backburner.

Right now, I was knelt atop the relic stone, a large tablet of pristine, milky-white, marble-like stone. Despite the similar appearance to Petricite, it had wildly different properties. It was attuned to life and light magic specifically and lacked the mana-absorbent property unique to the Demacian wood. That was important: I could cut it with the plasma cutter function of my multi-tool.

One of the details I'd overlooked was that a plasma-cutter fueled by mana would have trouble cutting Petricite for obvious reasons. It wasn't some impossible hurdle; there were plenty of other ways to cut it without relying on the high-temperature exacto-knife, for example by waiting to transmute fossilized wood into Petricite until after I'd cut it into shape, but I was once again reminded of my own absent-mindedness.

I spent the entire day swapping out between carving runes onto the Worldstone, making pills for my teammates, and meditating to regain my center and charge the Tear.

By the end of it, I had sets of health pills, pills for iron, and even two Control Wards ready for each of the Wards. The next time we faced Stage Crew, they wouldn't be reliant on my Oracle's to see through Showbiz's invisibility cloak.

X

I returned to my meditations right after dinner. This time, the focus wasn't on training my body or infusing the Tear. Instead, I uncorked a bottle of crimson as red as blood.

It tasted like blood. The coppery tang filled my tongue. It even had a citrusy-sour aftertaste going down. I wished I could devote some time to make this thing taste better, but there were better things to focus on.

Then my metaphorical vision turned red as the Elixir of Wrath took hold. And with it came the benefits of Time Warp Tonic. My strength was increased half again. My body accelerated as my personal time ceased to flow in harmony with the world. There was so much energy flowing through me that I felt like I could headbutt a car and come out on top.

I did my best to expend my energy in the basement, doing pushups that shoved my body six feet into the air. When that wasn't enough, I pulled a Might Guy and started doing handstand pushups while balancing on my thumbs. This switched to seeing how fast I could punch the air. No, I wasn't setting the air on fire with friction alone, but the whistling sound my fists made as they cleaved the air brought a smile to my lips.

'I wonder what would happen if I punched concrete?' I thought.

Then, before I could think things through, I wound back my right arm and struck down, stone cratering before my fist. I felt my knuckles pop and break, shooting lances of agony through my arm.

"Fuck!"

'Reduced restraint, idiot,' I chided myself as I reached for a health potion.

The pain made me angry. My own lack of restraint made me angry. Then I got angry because that too was a sign of my loosening discipline. I-

A blue glow suffused me as my Ymelo activated. Memories and emotions flooded me, reestablishing my identity. This wasn't like me.

And just like that, I had control again. The Elixir of Wrath induced a version of hysterical strength. Sure, there was magic involved, but that was the closest approximation. With the Ymelo, I could have its strength without sacrificing my inhibitions.

I grinned widely. Yes, this would do nicely.

X

2000, August 30: Washington, DC, USA

As promised, 1:00 PM found me in the Wards' training ground. As expected, Whiteout was absent.

"So, how does this work?" I asked. I'd chosen to appear in full regalia. The Blitzshield was strapped to my left forearm and Sobriety, my Petricite dagger, was sheathed at my left hip like a shortsword. The relic pistol was holstered on the opposite side and my Ymelo was shining merrily behind me, bathing me in a blue halo. A pouch on my belt contained pills of every potion I'd ever made.

The training studio was in the basement of the building reserved for Wards and Protectorate members. It was honestly very similar to the one I saw in Phoenix, if a little more advanced. There was a large sparring area with a myriad of sensors aimed that way. There were gym equipment and even some that were obviously tinkertech and designed for esoteric powers.

Brickhouse grinned. "Glad you're excited. Let's start with the basics. You know what we can do, but we don't know a whole lot about you. Want to enlighten us?"

I nodded. "Make sense. I'm a tinker. I make things."

"Wow, so specific. I feel enlightened," Gold Rush snarked.

"That's about as specific as I can get, actually. Look, the easiest way would be to give you a rundown of everything I'm packing, alright?" Seeing their nods, I continued by whipping my pistol out. "This is my relic pistol. It has no name yet. It can shoot lasers with enough force to punch through reinforced steel or only leave a bit of browning."

"Another deception from your debut," Verdeer noted distastefully. "You seem to have a lot of secrets."

"I do. Most of them, I'll share with you. There are somethings that only Brickhouse gets to know about and a few more that only Hero and Metalmaru know."

"It's fine," Brickhouse reassured me. "Whiteout's got a ton of stuff he doesn't tell us either. This is DC. We're used to it."

"Good. Anyway, this is the Blitzshield. It can shock people, launch EMP blasts in a cone, and is also very, very durable."

"So if you participated on Monday…"

"I could have disabled everything Showbiz had and left them twitching wrecks on the ground. I did not because I was ordered not to."

"Damn. Okay, and… what's with the knife?" Gold Rush pointed. "Are Wards allowed those?"

"Only if you make it yourself and it's verifiably tinkertech. Don't worry about it. Safe to say, if I have any other option, I'm not using my emergency weapons."

"Weapons? Plural?"

"Ah… Forget I said that?"

"Nope. You have to tell us now."

"Nope. Deal with it. If you ever see me draw my dagger, things will have truly gone to shit."

"Ugh, you're as bad as Whiteout."

"Now, now," Verdeer said placatingly. "He can have his secrets. But remember, Hyunmu, we won't always tell you everything either."

I nodded. "That's fine. I wouldn't expect you to be open with me when I can't with you. And mark my words. Can not. Not would not."

"Fine, anything else?"

I tapped the pouch on my belt. "This contains a set of pills that can do a few things, including grant me the pericognition that lets me see through invisibility, make me stronger, more durable, et cetera."

"Huh, I see what you mean about not being able to describe your own specialization. You seem to have a bit of everything."

"Yeah… So, that's all the stuff I'm willing to use in a normal patrol."

"Do you actually know how to use your weapons?" Brickhouse questioned me. It was fair. I was rather heavily armed for a child.

"Yup. I practice martial arts regularly and am confident that I could at least not embarrass myself with a gun."

"Alright, how about a spar?"

"Ooh! Me!" Gold Rush said, excitable as ever.

"One on one against Gold Rush sound good to you, Hyunmu?"

I nodded. "Sure, if she fights like how she punched Showbiz, this will be quick."

"Ooh, you're on, brat," she growled playfully. "I'll have you know I box."

"That's not as intimidating as you think it is."

"Gold Rush is a brute-two," Verdeer cautioned. "Her body is denser with stronger muscles, bones, and tendons than she appears at first glance to accommodate her running."

I decided to tease her a little. "So you're heavier? Rough."

The room became silent and a chill went down my spine. "Don't you know better than to comment on a lady's weight?" she hissed.

I did the only thing an eight year old would do. I doubled down with a shit-eating grin. "Lady? Where?"

"Pint-sized brat."

"Hero fangirl."

"So what? You wish you could be as cool."

"No, didn't you hear me? I'm going to kill a god. I'll be cooler."

"You're so weird."

"And you're heavy."

"… Get on the mat."

"Should we stop this, leader?" our cervid friend asked worriedly.

"Ehh, either this will teach Gold to stop underestimating capes based on their age or this will teach Hyunmu a lesson in humility. We'll just make sure no one dies."

X

Gold Rush and I stared each other down from almost a hundred feet away. She twirled a handcuff on a finger and smirked at me. "We spar until one of us taps out or until someone can't move anymore. Getting cuffed counts as a loss."

"That's fine."

"Good. Brickhouse, call it?"

"Sure. Three. Two. One!"

She dashed towards me, leaving a trail of golden light with every footstep. If I had to guess, she had to be moving somewhere in the ballpark of eighty miles per hour. It was a bit slower than she'd shown the other day. Her speed still let her cross the hundred feet between us in under a second.

I could see the triumphant grin on her face as she reached out towards me, cuff in hand.

Unfortunately for her, a hundred feet wasn't far enough away to be outside Oracle's range. While I'd forgotten or overlooked some details before, here, she was the only possible target of my attention. I saw her coming the moment she started to move and my training kicked in.

Most humans had an average reaction time to visual stimulus of approximately 0.2 seconds. Professional athletes had something closer to 0.15 seconds. I wasn't quite an Olympian, but I wasn't a normal person either.

I stepped towards her and allowed my body to go through motions practiced tirelessly for months. I grabbed her outstretched wrist with my left hand even as I twisted and hip-checked her. My right elbow struck her kidney as she passed. Verdeer wasn't lying; she was heavier than a girl her size should be, probably a good three times my weight. That didn't matter. I didn't need to send her flying like Team Rocket. I just needed to destabilize her center of balance. Her own speed took care of the rest.

Her smug smirk turned into a look of shock and pain. She had time to squawk once before she tripped and started rolling ass over tea kettle. I noticed with some amusement that her golden trail broke apart the moment she lost control of her own movement.

"That's one point to me," I drawled. "Round two?"

"Oww, did you have to hit me so hard?"

"You're a brute. And you were the one doing the moving. I just nudged you in the right direction."

Brickhouse let out a low whistle. "Okay, so Hyunmu wasn't kidding about the martial arts. That was really smooth."

"Thank you," I said, giving him a smug bow with a flourish. When I rose again, a crimson pill was in m hand. I swallowed it with a cheeky grin. "You good?"

"Yeah, I won't be going easy on you anymore!" she shouted.

At our leader's call, Gold Rush charged me again. This time, she came at me a little slower, more mindful of her footwork. She tried to weave, almost like she was trying to avoid my counterattack.

It didn't work because I had no fancy tricks in mind. I held my hands out and braced myself. Power flooded me from the Elixir of Wrath a moment before two hundred ten pounds of teenage girl crashed into me. Her palms found my shoulders and she tried to cuff me without hurting me.

"Wha-Hey!" I picked her up like a sack of potatoes and tossed her across the mat.

"That's two for me," I said, not a little smugly.

"What the hell was that?"

"Power pill. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but," I patted my waist. "The pills I carry can have different effects. So, round three?"

"Any chance we can get some of that?" Brickhouse looked very interested.

"No, they loosen inhibitions and can drive you into a berserk rage. The side effects aren't a problem for me because of my Ymelo, the anti-master thing. I'm basically self-mastering myself to not self-master myself."

"Damn."

"I do have something else, though you'll have to practice using it. I'll talk to Hero and make something… after I beat Gold Rush like a drum a few more times."

"You're so not cute," she moaned.

I pulled my shield from my back. "Round three? I still want to use this in a spar at least once."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to try," Verdeer said. "I want to know how strong you are like this."

"Alright, but let me grow a few inches first," I said, popping a gray, metallic pill in my mouth. Mixing potions wasn't usually a good idea, but I made sure to make sure mine were compatible with each other. All my potions needed to work together with my Oracle's after all. Poisoning myself to death because I forgot I needed a potion to see sounded like a hilariously pathetic way to die.

The green cervid and I squared off. Even with the extra height from the Elixir of Iron, Verdeer stood almost twice as tall as I did. That didn't stop me though; I dashed forward and aimed a shallow jab to test him.

He was… not particularly trained. I reminded myself that Wards weren't required to pick up a martial art beyond basic self-defense classes and that for all his intimidation factor, my antlered friend didn't have any powers that made him a better combatant. His altered biology made him great at charging, he even had the skull padding commonly found among bighorn sheep, but his brute rating wasn't otherwise anything impressive.

I guided a sloppy punch away from me and kicked out his left leg, bringing him to one knee. I stepped on his knee and used an antler to pull myself up at the same time to knee him in the face.

"Gah!"

His hands came up automatically to protect his face, but my new shield, more manageable now that I had my elixirs active, spread his arms apart, letting me land another jab to his lower jaw. A final kick to his chest staggered him while launching me in a backflip that put twelve feet of distance between us.

"You good or should we stop?"

A wordless grunt followed as Verdeer lowered his head and charged. He tried to sweep me with his antlers and I blocked it with the Blitzshield. He was strong, but I could rip a small tree from the ground. His horns, as far as anyone could tell, were nearly indestructible, but that didn't mean they were sharpened into monomolecular edges or anything. In fact, their durability made sharpening them virtually impossible.

I skidded back a foot but otherwise remained still. Flipping my relic pistol into my hand, I loosed three shots directly to the top of his skull. He took those like a champ, the glowing bullets doing nothing to his thick skull.

"Huh, so I can turn up the settings a bit then," I mumbled.

He stood and shook his head. "Nah, we're good. You're a lot more than just mind games and secrets."

"Thanks, you hit pretty hard too."

"Pretty hard he says. What's that shield made of?"

"Neo-Petricite. Metalmaru and I made it in collaboration. It's unique to me for now though I'm hoping I can get some of the tinkers outfitted."

"Any chance we can get some of that?"

"Maybe?" I tossed him the shield. "Catch."

He hefted the cobalt-gray shield and examined the black turtle shell insignia. "Light."

"Very. But yeah, I'd be open to making you something. Later. I don't even have my own armor yet."

"Fair enough."

"Let me see," Gold Rush said. She dashed up and touched it. A moment later, her trails broke apart. "Woah, what?"

"That's what really makes Petricite alloys special," I explained. "Petricite has the power to cancel out powers. Not all of them, but most emissions. It's why I'm never making one for Brickhouse. You wouldn't be able to use it without shutting off your own power."

"Damn. You're immune to powers too?"

"No. Some of them. Kind of?"

"Tinkers are bullshit," he grumbled goodnaturedly.

Gold Rush tried to run but found that she was limited to a normal speed while holding my shield. "Aww… I wanted a fancy shield too."

"Tough. A shield isn't worth your powers."

"I know…"

We didn't spar for the entire training session. After they got a good look at what I could do, we also discussed potential maneuvers and what we should do if faced with specific types of opponents. We then broke off to work on our own thing, with Gold Rush and Verdeer going off to do some balance training while Brickhouse tried to block every single bolt I fired his way. It wasn't the best way I could spend my time, but I couldn't deny that there was a relaxing quality to it.