Chương 18: Movement

The air felt electric from just looking at him. Still wearing his suit, still had his glasses on. He clearly just got down here right after me. Had to have known I was coming down somehow. There must be surveillance on their own end. Maybe he was getting lunch, but that wasn't something I could rely on as a hypothesis. What was more important was calling him out.

"You're a lying son of a bitch," I called out, to which Tancred replied with a shake of his head.

"Not even in the slightest. My mother was a lovely woman. I was in fact the son of a cur though, my dad was a real asshole. Taught me a lot of good lessons for how to put temperamental assholes like me in line." The auditor started loosening his tie, likely realizing I wasn't going to be talked down.

"You've been hiding your power from everyone. Why did you tell me? Was it just to make me paranoid? Do you even have a power?" A laugh erupted from him.

"Kid, if I didn't have powers I would still be with the company. The second I realized I could go toe to toe with clowns in capes, I walked right through the Super Commission's front door. But lemme guess, you think it's a bad thing I didn't blurt out my secrets to people who didn't ask. You know better than I do that you shouldn't talk about your powers." My legs took me further towards him.

"I could barely tolerate being led around by a leash and locked in a building, but I'm not taking this mind game shit. You're gonna explain your power to me and then I'm gonna drag you by that stupid mullet down to the common area so you can explain it to the others." Another laugh as he slipped his glasses off, tossing them onto the mat and, in the same motion, his tie. He then slipped his jacket off, throwing it to the others.

"Kid, you gotta understand that requires you kicking my ass. I'm not a lightweight, unlike everyone else you've been able to lord your strength over." Physically, he looked unimpressive. His body under that suit was that of a typical older man's.

"My power doesn't make me any stronger, but it does mean you have to go all out. That means you're gonna swing wide and too hard. You kill me, and you're public enemy number one for killing a government agent. Even if your teammates don't resist you, you're not gonna be able to handle any other Auditors in the Super Commission. And that's if they don't send one of the Patriot Project after you." Rolling my shoulders, I just put my fists up.

"I'm not gonna make that mistake. Not because of any good heart or anything. I just wanna hear you whimper out that you're sorry for pissing me off, and you can't do that if you're dead." That mustache of his curled up with his smile.

"Been needing the cardio, bud. I promise I won't cripple ya'." The electricity in the air solidified into a lightning bolt of violent intent, and I felt so damn light on my feet I practically floated towards him, thrusting a palm out. And he... slipped by it. I felt his mustache on my forearm. How the fuck did he dodge it? I don't have super speed, but I'm decently fast and at least a good twenty years younger than him.

By the time I finished asking myself that, I could see those calloused fingertips of his right near my eyes. I recoiled back before he could dig the digits in, but by the time my back foot placed down, he was out of my eyesight. Couldn't see him before I could feel his hands on my right leg. His fingers dug into the back of my right knee, and I just couldn't resist the pressure, my leg coming into a bend. From that, I was now looking up towards him.

His eyes, a brown so deep they were practically black, read me like an open book. I tried a similar move to him, swinging an arm towards his own knee, but he leaned towards my arm and practically tripped himself over it instead of letting the full force break his leg. During his fall, he swung his hand back up and I felt two fingers push into my nostrils. He tried to pull me down, but there was no pulling me. No one could pull me. And he left himself open.

I reached up to grab his wrist, getting ready to squeeze as I heard him speak.

"Gotcha, moron," he told me, as his other hand snapped towards my eyes again. Instinct won out and my lids shut themselves, but the jab never came. Instead I could feel his entire bodyweight on me, and his sleeve around my neck. And then he squeezed. I didn't know why, at that exact moment, but I couldn't stretch out and just snap him like a pretzel. I couldn't squeeze his wrist and make it pop like a grape. That's when it dawned on me when I opened my eyes. I was losing consciousness.

I could breathe, but everything was flickering. The hand in my nose was now just aiming off to the side, and I realized he didn't just have one long arm around my neck. On one side was the arm I was holding, and on the other it was his leg, both pressed on either side of my neck. His voice sounded like it came from inside a drumset.

"Blood choke, bud. Your arteries ain't as strong as you! Good night!" It was all black after that. I wasn't sure how long I was out, but I was slumped against the wall, and Tancred was fixing his jacket back on, everything else already donned on him. His right arm was dangling limply. When he saw my open eyes, he spoke.

"You know, I should be mad enough to put a hole in your concrete head, but you got me good. I had to give up my wrist for that. You've got better instincts than I would've had at your age, and they're definitely on par with Christian's. Might be better." Every word sounded like a mallet on my skull.

"But you clearly haven't handled anyone who could actually rodeo with a superhuman. If I were a villain who didn't care about the stupid little cat and mouse game, you'd be dead." He approached me, putting his left hand on my shirt collar and yanking.

"C'mon, get up. I'm winded from moving your heavy ass here. Dunno where all that weight is in you, though." I slid up against the wall, the ground barely supporting me as I got to my feet. The question burned too hot to leave it in my throat.

"What the Hell do you do?" Tancred laughed.

"You're too damn stuck on that. You really want the real answer? Because this is as close as it gets: If I tell you, the power doesn't work. It functions at its best when I'm the only guy who understands it. All you need to know is I take a real measured look at every decision I make." That wasn't a very satisfactory answer.

"You can't just leave it at that, how were you moving like that?" He scoffed. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Leo, that's not a superpower. I was a spook before you got your short-hairs. I hit a three digit body count before I joined the commission. The Israelis and Russians came up with fundamentals for guys like me who didn't wanna spend all day hitting bags. Any human being could do that, I just do it better than them." There was an awkward silence as he brought his limp arm up, cradling his wrist in his hand.

"If you bothered learning how to actually fight, you'd probably understand that. Like I said, you have the instincts. Broke my goddamn wrist. I'm just lucky all the nerve damage I've developed in this arm means I barely feel it. Just smarts." He bumped an elbow against me.

"I'm gonna go get this treated by the doc. I'll tell her I just fell down the stairs. They find out we scrapped after all that action yesterday and it'll get too awkward for you. Trust me. I'll pretend this didn't happen, you do the same as a favor to yourself and we're square." With that, he turned and strolled out of the gym. Fatigue and humiliation tangoed in me.

Every moment of my life, I was around people who felt like they were made of eggshells around me, and in two days since I got here I've been brutalized or bested three times. This was over. This wasn't happening again. I was going to keep it in my mind that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, I'm kicking Tancred's ass. And I'm throwing Christian's name on the list for that throw. Speaking of Christian, he commented on my stance when I fought. I went into the stance I used on Sandy, on Tancred.

Just how my body naturally let it sit. Pondering on his words, he mentioned a couple things. Apparently my hands were too low. They were around my chest. I brought them further up, closer to where my chin is, since he mentioned that too. Not sure how keeping it this high up would've let me hit Tancred. Maybe that's not what mattered for him. The chin thing he said was something like it being too high up. I brought it further into my neck. With my hands up, I could barely see.

What's the use of a stance where my forehead was in the way- My forehead was in the way. Tancred would've had a harder time going for my eyes. Tucking my chin stayed on the list. Hands I'd figure out later. Chris also told me my feet are too close together. Had to try to keep my profile narrow and make myself a smaller target. How could I keep my stance wide but my profile narrow? Bringing my legs about as far apart as my shoulders definitely felt a lot sturdier, even by my standards. But it was wide.

I tried turning my body forward, bringing my right shoulder ahead of me. Huh. Made sense that it brought down one of my arms a bit and cleared my vision. That's how the hands stay in play. And my profile could be more narrow. There might be a formula here. But then the issue was how to deal with Tancred grabbing my leg like that. With my legs narrow before, I was off the ground for too long, it felt like. I tried backing up the same distance with this wider stance.

It felt more natural to just slide my leg back, meaning I could keep it braced and in the air. The lead leg was behind me now. My arm moved with it just naturally due to keeping my profile narrow. That made something click. I slid the leg forward and threw a punch out. Not full force, just testing the motion. It felt so much smoother to do it that way. Throw it from my legs instead of my shoulders. I could hit a lot harder that way.

Also meant I could coordinate striking with my legs when people tried to deal with my arms. Bet that would work with pushing just as well with punching. I didn't even realize my vision was blurred as a voice broke my train of thought and turned my eyes back on.

"Did you start learning how to box?" Jairo. Voice and appearance were impossible to mix up with anyone else's. Shaking my head, I lowered my stance.

"No, I just was thinking about how I punched." He nodded as he approached me.

"I see. I could show you, if you want!" Wasn't very keen on that.

"I've been boxing since I was a little kid, my mom taught me. I could tell your stance was definitely really amateurish, but you looked pretty comfortable in it." What a nice backhanded compliment.

"Your cross looked good, but you looked like you haven't really done them before." My head tilted again because it refused to let me use my words alone to express confusion.

"Cross?" Jairo nodded, before hopping into his own stance. Literally hopping, he had a few seconds of air time before he landed in his stance. His legs were a bit closer than mine, and his legs were bent. Similarly to me, however, he had one shoulder back and one forward, though his left shoulder was the leading one. He then started throwing punches with his right arm, almost mechanically. His legs bent with each punch.

"Cross. It's a straight punch that goes a cross your center-line. One of the six punches in boxing." There were multiple? But that wasn't my first question. The first was-"Aren't your legs not supposed be close together? Chris mentioned that." Jairo nodded.

"So that's true in most martial arts because a lot of them do expect you to hit the legs or make people fall over and stuff. Boxing stances still brace for stability, but since the focus is on the mid and upper body while the lower body focuses on moving, you want your legs in a more consistently narrow spot for quick positioning and better rotation in a standing position." That didn't feel convincing to me.

"But I felt like I could move better when my stance was wider." Jairo waggled a finger at me.

"Different kind of positioning, I mean. I gotta be able to dodge while in one spot." He swung himself down and back up, before ducking and leaning around.

"I'm basically a big nail in the ground. I shouldn't be moving." The mutant then left his stance, standing normally.

"It's kind of funny, I'm the fast one but my style is the one that works best when I sit still. I've been working on improvising that." Crossing my arms, I just nodded.

"I guess that makes sense. Does the stance I was doing work for a cross?" The response was opened with a nod.

"It's mostly preference for how you move. So long as you can keep yourself stable, pick the one that's more comfortable for how you want to throw down. If you want to move away, a wide stance helps. If you wanna plant yourself down, take a boxing stance." This was starting to piece together, if only a little. He kept going.

"A punch is mostly pushing off the ground and using the weight of that movement to hit someone." I could grasp that part. But that brought up the other question.

"So how's there six types of punches?" The man's mohawk waggled about as he chuckled.

"Yeah I guess it makes it all sound same-y, but it's all based on which arm you use, how much force you're putting in. A cross is the most 'punch' sort of punch since it uses all the motions. It's the number two punch." Tilted head, again. My archnemesis.

"What's number one?" Hopping back into his stance, he just flicked his left arm out, at far higher speeds than the cross.

"The jab. This is the one that opens people up. There's not as much force compared to the cross but it still doesn't feel good. Forces them to try and keep blocking the jab, which is when their guard opens somewhere else up, and you hit them with the cross or one of the other types." Okay, that was something worth piecing together.

"And the others?" Jairo threw two more punches, which seemed more like just turning then throwing them out.

"Lead and rear hooks, because they hook around." He then swung his arms up.

"Lead and rear uppercut." He then left his stance, resting his hands on his hips.

"Those are all for getting around or punishing open guards, and uppercuts specifically you get to put a lot more of your weight into. It's the popular choice for a knock-out blow. You should give those all a shot." Definitely was going to do that.

"Thanks. I'll work out something from there." And with that, I left the gym, knowing I just got quite a few tools in my kit. As I stepped out, I heard a yell:"Who broke my heavy bag!?"