Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

I dropped the ball I had up in the air back down into the pile and waited for her to finish.

Five minutes and three swirling balls later, Ember gave up. “Whew! Three’s tough. Why did you stop?”

“I can’t go as fast as you. I couldn’t even get another ball up in the air.”

“So, you were sulking?”

“No. I wasn’t sulking. It’s just, I prefer playing to my strengths. You did that right off the bat. In five minutes were far better than me at telekinesis. Why train hard for two weeks to be the same level you’ve reached intuitively? You’ve clearly got a natural aptitude for it. In a few days you’ll be months ahead of me.”

“What a defeatist attitude, Shaun.”

“I disagree. And as long as I’ve got you to cover my telekinesis blind spot, I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll always have me, but that’s still a totally lame cop out.”

“Listen, my kickboxing coach once told me something when I was doing a few different sports and turning up to training lethargic and crap. He said, ‘Shaun, to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.’ Now, I don’t know if he’s used the quote right, or if I even understood it right, but he was pretty much telling me to concentrate on one sport at a time, play to my strengths if I wanted to a chance being successful somewhere. He had the right idea.”

“What’s your strength then?”

“I haven’t got a clue. Oh yeah, twenty-nine!” I laughed, and she laughed with me.

“I’ll let you cop out for now, but if I don’t see some serious OP skills showing up soon, I’m gonna make you train harder with telekinesis. I’m not getting killed because you’re a big sulky bitch when you can’t do something. Especially with ninety-nine percent Potential.”

“Can I just ask; did Ogun seem weird about that to you?”

“Not really. No. Saying that, he changed the subject pretty quickly.”

“He seemed, concerned.”

“You’ve a Wisdom score of two. I really wouldn’t worry about it. Now, come on. Let’s see if you can at least levitate like a man.”

“Okay,” I sighed, and we stood up together.

“Wait a sec,” Ember said, holding up a finger, then started quickly shooting the balls we had carried over onto the shelves. “Right,” she smirked, “let’s fly.”

We didn’t fly. I precariously hovered about six inches from the ground, while Ember managed a more confident couple of feet, but with no other movement.

“I can’t see how fighting like this would ever be better,” I grumbled.

“It’ll be the same with telekinesis. How on earth are we expected to fight in our interface rooms and normal state at the same time! We really need to talk to Ogun about this again.”

“What’s the point? He pretty much said, until we raise our Mental Clarity it’ll be like this.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I suppose all we can do is practice like crazy for now.”

I agreed with her and we just threw ourselves into training as hard as we could. By dinner time Ember could levitate above head height, moving forward and backwards tentatively. She had also managed to manipulate a metal ball, whilst in the air. She still couldn’t do any of it in smooth, natural movements but she was clearly improving. I spent a while trying a few things, but had I’d given up quickly without any sort of progression. Instead I grabbed the two axes from the armory and went to town on the practice dummies, flowing through a series of moves and attacking with gusto. When dinner came around, we were exhausted.

“Well, I could eat a horse,” Ember said, rubbing her belly.

“Wonder if the FSUs do horse jerky? I bet you’d love that,” I laughed.

She shook her head. “So weird. I never want to see jerky ever again. I don’t know why I liked it so much in the game. What are you gonna eat?”

“To be honest, I really need a shower. I haven’t had one since waking yesterday, and everyone here’s so clean.”

“Shit! I never showed you the shower,” she said, emphasizing the word shower for some reason. “There’s one over there. Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Uh. Towels? Privacy?” I said.

“Just watch, dickhead.”

She went between the screen and the wall, that I’d noticed had little nozzles all around it. She raised her hands above her head and was hit from all sides by what looked like white powder. She turned around, dropping her arms. The powder stopped being produced and she walked out smiling, sweat free and smelling slightly of soap. She walked up to a mirror, gave her hair a little comb through with her fingers and like that, she looked pristine.

I shrugged and went in, doing what she had done, raising my arms. The powder nozzles activated. Within seconds I was lying on the ground, retching, coughing, and heaving. Eyes, stinging like hell and streaming with tears.

“Shit. Sorry, Shaun. I should’ve said to close your eyes and hold your breath in the powder shower. I forgot you’re a complete and utter, fucking moron.”

I hadn’t yet recovered enough to retort. By the time I had, my anger had been partly replaced with embarrassment. It wasn’t a good look for me.

“Never mind, eh? At least you're clean. So, shall we go eat now?” she said, smiling sweetly.

“I don’t even know what to say to you, Ember, I said, while trying to get the taste, of whatever the fuck that powder was, out my mouth.

“I’m happy with you saying absolutely nothing. Come on. Let’s go eat,” she said, linking my arm. Despite our height differential making it a little awkward, and the intense stinging in my red streaming eyes, the gesture dissolved any remaining anger I still held toward her.

During dinner, Ogun’s second in command, Astrid came over to us.

“Hey Ember. How are you holding up?” she asked. I was struck with how soft her voice was. She was a powerful looking woman, around six-foot with a very athletic build. Her hair long, brown and tied back into a ponytail, revealed