Chương 26: R&R Ch. 26 — Analysis and Training

Nicholas and Jasmine went through their cases of the day. After the combustion super they had fought two other supers along with doing a chase against the enemy. There were several thoughts each of them had about all of them.

"Okay, I think that covers combustion," Nicholas said, pushing his notes on that fight away and pulling the fight for the next one. He had a lot of thoughts about that one because he had royally screwed up.

"About puppeteer," Nicholas began, glancing to see if Jasmine wanted to go first. Jasmine waved to him so that he could continue.

"I royally screwed up," Nicholas said with a sigh.

"There were tons of things that I could have done that would have made the situation better." Jasmine nodded, unable to disagree.

"I should have just gone for a simple takedown instead of trying to practice with the playroom more, even if it was theoretically a good solution. I don't have the skill for that to be best." Nicholas said finally.

"It was cool to watch?" Jasmine said jokingly.

"No, you should have just brought them up into the sky or one of your other takedown options. There was a lot of property damage because of the brawl of minions."

"I'm pretty sure I could have severed her connection with a quick combination of Hesitate into Up. Or just have used Down and called it done with," Nicholas said, going through the options he had thought of.

"I'm not sure, I think you should have just gone with Impact and taken her down instantly not a chance to fail that way, she's like us only minorly enhanced physically being only tier two so it would have been easy to just take her down once." Jasmine disagreed.

"Aren't you the one that said that my close combat skills should be a last resort because I'm horrendous?" Nicholas asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, against anyone who knows what they're doing, but against her it would have been good practice," Jasmine said. Nicholas mulled that over, thinking. There was potentially some truth to that; he finally decided. He had to practice somehow, that much was true, and there was a chance that she would have been a good target.

"If I had still continued to use Playroom, what I should have done was first isolate us with walls of stone and focus on trapping her minions and attacking her, instead of overwhelming them all." Jasmine nodded.

"That sounds about right to me. Anything else you want to go over, or just that? I think you're good, honestly?"

"There is more, but it'll have to wait till I can have video of what happened because that's going to be the part I want to look over. How I moved, how I timed things, those are all stuff I want to do."

"Guess it's my turn now," Jasmine said, wilting as she mentally prepared for it. Just like how Nicholas had screwed up with his fight with Puppeteer, she had screwed up as well in a fight with a strongman. She had won, but it had been a close thing.

"First thing I messed up was putting the swords away because I wanted an easier time to fix them," Jasmine decided. In the middle of his fight with Puppeteer, she had changed her mind on risking her strongest setup and had switched to the lone stranger gear. With the offensive potential mostly revolving around the Beyonder soul bullets, she was certain it was going to be fine. They were overcharged something fierce anyway, so it was going to work perfectly fine, and she didn't need to worry about it at all.

It was a step up from her force armor. But more of a half-step instead of a full step. With her ability and stronger will reinforcing it all, she had overcharged it even more, but that still hadn't made it properly rank peak F-rank equipment.

"Could you control the offensive flying swords without the robes?" Nicholas asked as he considered her own critique.

"I can do the flying swords we use to move, but those are specifically made to be piloted." Jasmine admitted.

"So if I was going to change horses I should have kept the robe on underneath the jacket, but I hadn't wanted to."

"Spiritually heavy?"

"Yeah." It was something Jasmine hadn't realized was a possibility. It wasn't like her grandma Darlene struggled with that issue. She summoned her valkyries without end, so the fact that Jasmine was struggling to equip every item in her arsenal had been a shock. Between the defensive earrings, the communicator, it was usually pretty comfortable to then put on the armor and matching weapon. They were supposed to be a set. For every load-out except for her gunslinger.

The cowboy boots, the jacket, the hat, the gun, the bullets. They were all fully separate items. She could probably handle an eighth one, but the full weight of another load-out? Not a chance. Though she would work on it.

"Are you thinking the gunslinger gear has to go on ice till you can solve that problem or something else?" Nicholas asked curiously.

"I am going to be spending the next several hours upgrading everything. They could slowly raise naturally, but we don't have the time," Jasmine decided. It was going to suck and she would need to do maintenance on herself afterwards, but what else could she do? Let people be defended by the weakest version of herself? She would be the hero she wanted to be, and that meant doing everything for them. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I'll have hot chocolate and snacks ready for when you're done," Nicholas said, nodding.

"Back to my other fuck-ups, I should have aimed better. I was just aiming for his center of mass, but the bullets seek their enemy. I could have used that to hit harder spots. Even strongmen have places they're weaker." Jasmine grumbled, tapping the desk.

"I don't blame you on that one; it includes letting your will touch the bullets. And yeah," Nicholas said, suppressing a shudder.

"Well, I blame me, so there."

"Then we will practice it at some point in the next few days." Nicholas agreed. Once the nitpicking was done, the two finally went back to their changing rooms to be in regular clothes once again. The recap and analysis of the fight was just as much part of being a hero as everything else, and they would treat that part with the respect it deserved. It was also finally hitting them just how exhausted the two of them were. Six hours on patrol. Another hour and a half spent processing the criminals they had captured.

And two hours spent analyzing what they could have done better. The only break they had taken was the quick lunch they had in costume, which had been an experience neither of them had actually considered a break. The processing of super-criminals had been more relaxing.

"Dinner, then back to training?" Nicholas asked as he trudged into the kitchen. His voice wasn't raw yet, but that was going to change. Part of preparing for E-Ranks fortifications was prepping your body. Which meant he was going to be channeling a lot of power.

"I don't want to," Jasmine complained, getting out the ingredients anyway.

"Yeah," Nicholas agreed, cooking and mentally mulling over his training plan for the day. A good chunk of cardio had been done throughout the day so he was going to go light on that before fully focusing on his ability.

"Where do you think Rend is?" Jasmine asked, moving to the bar stools to watch Nicholas cook. She had tried helping a few times. None had gone well.

"No clue, but with you saying his name, I figure he would appear soon enough," Nicholas shrugged. Now that they knew his costume and his moniker, hopefully they'd finally be able to figure out who their mentor was. Their only other hint was an offhand comment that he couldn't help them with their respective paths, just show them a different road. Jasmine and Nicholas waited, but Rend didn't show up by the time food was served. It was a simple affair of just spaghetti, but to them it was delicious.

Jasmine did the dishes while Nicholas took the moment to rest, as he considered if it was time to expand his super vocabulary or just to focus on what he had. Much to his surprise, Jasmine followed him to the gym.

"I thought you were going to upgrade everything?" Nicholas asked, not complaining that his friend was joining him, just surprised.

"First, I need to warm up physically and mentally, so I thought I would join you for that part," Jasmine admitted.

"Happy to have you." The two worked out silently together, Jasmine listening to a podcast as she tried to get her mind spinning once again in preparation for what was coming. Nicholas was listening to music as he wondered how he wanted to improve. One day he could be the generalist and do everything, but that wasn't the road he walked yet. To go deeper into his support load-out or branch out now was a good question. ***" Close" Nicholas threw the stone across the room while hiding behind the see through barrier.

The stone tumbled across the ground, glowing with a silvery light before exploding in a very satisfying manner. Superhero or not, he still had simple pleasures, and blowing things up gave him a ton of joy. But it confirmed his theory. He didn't need to listen to what the word meant at all. Close worked easily as an explosion because he instinctively thought of close as close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And Nicholas had no desire to use the word close to make horseshoes.

Turning the objects into explosives, however? That was a ton of fun. He wasn't sure how to use it yet, since they fought in a city for most hero work, and he didn't want to explode buildings or people, but it was fun. And eventually they were going to fight a Beyonder wave, and that would be outside the defensive formations of the city. And when that happened, he could explode things at his leisure. It did make him wonder if there were any other phrases or sayings he wanted to coin for his ability.

Lyrics for songs could work too. An idea hit him, and he threw his head back laughing. It was funny, so funny he might actually have to do it. Jasmine would certainly get a kick out of it. And from a marketing standpoint, it would probably help his image with the kids. Who wouldn't be a fan of the superhero who could "kiss" injuries away. Though that brought up the question: was he going to use the word kiss or would the sound you make when blowing a kiss count?

Nicholas tried for ten minutes to ignore the idea bunny and just focus on practicing his already decided words, but it wasn't helping. He had to know, and there would not be a chance he could focus on anything else until it happened. He would need injuries to really test it, but there was the first step he could do. In the blast chamber to test attacks, Nicholas sat down, leaning his back against the barrier as he delved into his visualization.

It was the same as always: countless cards floating in the air, the ones closest to him, the ones that are most defined from usage, meditation, and whatever the hell had happened to the ascension card. And before him was his game board. It was already looking well loved if he had to admit. It was still breathtaking, but it was clear someone was using it and taking care of it instead of the perfect gameboard that it had once been. Nicholas wouldn't have it any other way. He delved into the indistinct cards.

As it turned out, he had a full section for onomatopoeias. So he actually would have to decide between kiss, or mwah.

This was the healthiest her soul had been since getting her powers, Jasmine had realized as she brought out her soul-carving knife. Ranking up was wonderful for the body and soul, and all she had done so far was purposefully rank up their defensive items. And then finish her flying sword set. Well, not all the swords it was supposed to have, like a hundred swords. But she had finished most of it. But now she was going to cut up her soul and finish ranking up everything else.

She could rank up one or two things easily right now. The same way she had the rings and earrings. Use the outer wispy parts of her jade soul to fill them with power. But that was the slow method. She didn't want to, couldn't wait for that they needed the power now or she was condemning the people she wanted to protect. So she was going to carve pieces off to make up for what the outer edge couldn't. Hopefully, it wouldn't take too much.

He knife flashed, and she held a piece of her soul, a piece of herself, even if she knew it would heal and come back it was like ripping out a part of her existence. She shoved it into Beeg Hammar, her most trustworthy weapon and the one she always imagined coming to her hand. Jasmine let out another silent sob as she cut off another portion of her existence to fill the armor. With her new senses, she was certain both were ranking up properly and would be done soon. Just five more times now.