The Original Beefcake

Grace rushed around the corner, her enemies in close pursuit. Instinct, more than anything else, made her duck under the black blade that had come out of nowhere. Her sword pierced upwards and destroyed the head of the blade wielding horror, but the short delay caused her to be surrounded by several ghastly creatures, armed with instruments of death and carnage. The roaring of Janette's heavy MG brought a moment of respite as a hail of bullets tore through the phantoms but left Grace unharmed. Barely a breath later several dark warriors started to form around Grace, and she pushed herself up, accelerating towards her true enemy.

Janette watched how Grace broke free and rushed towards the dark, obscene tower that acted as command stand of the enemy leader. Janette aimed her weapon at the golden Cerberus emblem, but in the same moment she could feel the cold stare of the Queen of Hearts. A massive thing, with far too many legs and eyes, crawled up Janette's high ground position. Sharp, jagged legs reached out to embrace Janette and she had to abandon her sniping position. With a large jump and some athletic moves she switched position, but the monster was never far away from her. As she moved, her weapon discarded several small horrors on the path of Grace and the Paladin closed in on the enemy. But with every step she moved closer, the resistance of the phantoms increased.

Two gigantic axe-wielding horrors emerged from thin air, phantasmal chains hanging from their arms. Grace cut one, then the other, in twine with her glowing blade and pushed on further. An ethereal hand grabbed her ankle and a giant with no lower body dragged her to the ground, in spite of its damaged form. Black, hooked chains moved on their own and started to wrap around the Paladin only to be burned away a second later. Grace had switched to the aura version of Channel Light and the horrors around her were slowly consumed by holy fire. Too slowly. More and more horrors piled up around her and held her down. Any relief from Janette was hindered by her own struggle, as now two monstrous spider phantoms tried to pin her down.

Achara made her move. In the moment of the greatest chaos she jumped, her blade aimed at the chest of the sole enemy. She was invisible and her target was only a few meters away from the point of her sword. Thin, black filaments touched her body mid jump and broke her invisibility. Before she could reach the Queen, more than a dozen sharp and strong strands of phantasmal wire caught her in the middle of the air. The tower itself moved, it was alive. The strands tensed up and slowly dragged Achara upwards under the cold gaze of the ultimate enemy. The Queen of Hearts stepped aside and a black creature appeared beneath her, carrying her away in mindless servitude. The top of the tower-monster split open and revealed a ghastly maw covered by thousands of black teeth.

Achara was dragged towards her doom, Grace was buried under an endless tide of mindless horrors and Janette was captured and retained by one of the monstrous spiders. Marcus watched all of this from the sideline as the attackers once again lost without so much as laying a hand on Cherry. A part of him wanted to join in on the action and see how far he could go against the overwhelming Phantasmal Mage, but there was something more important right now. The memory of the smiling and hard working Fin came to his mind and he felt another push to move. With a smile and a wave to Cherry he turned around and left the women to train, while he walked into the woodlands behind the estate.

He walked for some time, until he could no longer hear much more than the echoes of Janette's heavy weapon. The training he had in mind for himself, he wanted to do in solitude. This was maybe one of the quirks he had picked up from his long time stranded on an alien planet.

Do you want me to leave too?

Of course not. Who, if not you, will criticize me, when I make mistakes?

Ah, human humor. Deflecting from your own insecurities.

See, you are already putting in the work.

Marcus arrived at a clearing that looked large enough for his intentions. He couldn't help and feel excited. The many experiences and thoughts that had amassed over the last months had brought him here today. He finally felt like he had started to understand what Shen told him, and after his revelations on the snow field of their last raid, he felt like he knew a way to move forward. His fourth ability wasn't a weapon, he had finally gotten this into his head. Sure, empowered Impulse Hammer was great, but it had limited use. Mobility, support, battlefield control, these were the things he had to look out for. More than that, he had an actual goal in mind. Marcus wanted to unlock one of the most powerful skills in all of gaming history, the 'Double Jump'.

Greater range, and if he can master it, even limited air mobility was the price he was hoping to earn today. With what he knew Marcus was certain he would be able to pull it off. A full strength Burst could lift him over twenty meters up by now. But a second Burst in mid air had been more than disappointing until now. A second blast couldn't deliver the same amount of force he needed and at best gave him another one or two meters. Using an empowered Burst had also not been a viable option, because of the difficulty to hit a small orb beneath his feet in mid jump. But now…

Looking up, he imagined a large red box above him and tried to put only a small amount of endurance into it. He needed to be careful with this to not drain himself too fast and also not to damage his legs. If his legs got disabled he was more or less useless in any realistic combat situation. Marcus used Burst and shot up into the air, a second later he used another Burst… and failed to hit the large red box. He fell down and tried again, and again. Imagining the box, and hitting the timing for the second burst mid jump was a lot harder than it looked.

Marcus adjusted his visualization. He increased the size of the box even more and increased the height too. He prepared himself for the next Burst and tried to imagine the chain of events in his head. Burst! Marcus was forced upwards and at the climax of his movement he used Burst again. This time his feet were still inside his imaginary red box and Burst was supercharged. His first success gave him additional ten meters and a total loss of control. He flew to the side and crashed into a large tree. The way down was hardly enjoyable. Marcus groaned as he got back up on his feet.

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Is this the moment when I should praise you?

Oh, shut up. At least it worked!

Excited by his 'success' Marcus repeated the test many times over. He only stopped to let his endurance regenerate. Two blasts and the red box ate about 5% of his endurance pool right now. After a break he started again and with better timing and control Marcus managed to reach over thirty meter jump height. Landing on his feet he shouted, "Hell yeah!"

He had no real air control right now, but the Double Jump itself already worked. With this and his growing vitality amount, who knew how far he could jump eventually? Marcus repeated his tests and was confident enough to keep his eyes on his own feet while he jumped. He could clearly see how the force blast was spread out over the whole red box area. This allowed him to gain a large amount of force to move higher compared to the more concentrated versions he used with his arms.

Marcus was extremely delighted by the progress he was making. By midday he could reach 35 meters height with high certainty. As he cooled down and gathered more endurance Marcus thought about the height and potential improvements. Do you think I should try for a Triple Jump?

Why not? If you have the endurance and enough control over the skill, where is the harm?

A bit suspicious of the outright positive attitude from Xeen, Marcus tried to work with two red boxes. Getting the height right was a pain in the ass. He managed to do it one time out of ten and then fell from nearly fifty meters to the ground. With over 90 effective vitality (praise the belt!) the impact was barely an inconvenience to Marcus. He stayed on the ground and looked at the blue sky and the large white clouds.

It was working, kinda. For some time Marcus tried to find a way to make it more reliable. As he contemplated this problem he also thought about the ultimate form of this skill. Four jumps? Five jumps? Could he chain more and more red boxes and Bursts over and over again? Where was the limit? Endurance? Control? How close could he put the boxes and how quickly could he use Burst anyway. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and continued to think. Mathematically speaking, some form of infinitely small Bursts and small boxes chained together would be most effective. Basically he would have to stretch out his power not only over space but over time… click.

Marcus stopped breathing and his mouth stood open. No. That was impossible. There was no way he could do that! But... he had never tried it, because… because… explosive power was all he ever wanted! Shen's words came back to him and now they sounded so different to Marcus. He quickly looked around and found a small stone not far away. That would do. He formed a small red box around the stone… no. How did he want to imagine this? Not a static box, not an instantaneous explosion of force, but continuously flowing force! Like a river. Marcus made a new box, but this time he imagined the red energy inside to flow upwards, constantly. The stone shook and oh so slowly lifted up from the ground until it moved out of the box and fell down again.

Seeing this, Marcus started to laugh until tears came out of his eyes. "I am such a moron!" He screamed through the forest. It was so simple, so obvious and yet, he hadn't seen it at all. He was able to stretch his power not only in space but also IN TIME! Marcus laughed and realized how blind he had been. Xeen, you have tried to tell me, haven't you!

I told you you would find your answers in time.

You are a bloody bastard, you know that?! Thank you!

Until now Marcus had basically compressed the power of his new ability into a singular moment. Nothing could move or flow and it took something else to trigger that power. Because he had been so focused on getting a new weapon, he had unlocked a specific variant of his ability before he had understood the general use case! That was like learning Burst before understanding Impulse Hammer! The basic form of the fourth ability was simple and yet flexible, as it should be for a 'simple' class like the Titan. There was no need for complex calculations, which demanded intelligence crests!

Marcus got back on his feet and looked around for something else to test his ideas on. Several tree branches on the ground became his second target. Marcus formed a 2x2x2 m box around them, with the power flowing upwards like last time. The effect was immediate and shocking. The branches, leaves, dirt, the air, everything inside the box quickly accelerated upwards and flew high into the air, only to drop down a few seconds later. The moment the material fell into the imaginary box again it was forced upwards once more. Marcus watched the spectacle for several loops. As the box did its work, he could feel his endurance draining and eventually he erased the box from his mind.

With his eyes closed, Marcus exhaled deeply. He felt a big weight falling off his shoulders. This was it, he knew. There was still much to do and to figure out, like regulating the strength of the field, endurance consumption, max strength and so on. But for now, Marcus was completely satisfied. He opened his eyes and his gaze wandered up to the blue sky. He smiled.

-----

Cherry carried a bottle of water to her wife. Janette was standing in the middle of the training field doing apparently nothing. The last round had been a bit rough, and it looked like the little demon was sulking. Cherry moved next to Janette and offered her the water, but Janette's peerless eyes were focused on something high up in the sky. Cherry followed Janette's gaze and said, "Seems like Marcus is done training, the constant explosions have stopped."

Tall, white cloud towers drifted gently through the afternoon sky. A smile grew on Janette's face and she whispered, "Marcus can fly."