She wants me to hunt down myself?!
I can only stare at Kara in dumbfounded confusion.
"What's with the face? I'm risking myself for you. Can't you do the same for me?" She asks.
"Well, Kara…"
"Well, what? I think it's only fair."
I can't deny that. But I'm unsure how I'm gonna help her find… well, me. Not that she knows that the Chameleon is me, but this surely complicates things. I feel myself swallowing the air, as if that will help me find the words I need to respond to this.
"C'mon, Parker. Yes or no." She demands.
After another minute of silence, I finally find the words to respond. "Yeah. I can help with that, but only after we handle the gang. No need to double the risk by having the Chameleon and the gang after our necks, right?" I say nervously.
"Fair enough." She sighs, now smiling. "Mind if I sleep in here?" She asks.
"Why? You have a room."
"Yeah, but it isn't every day I get to be in here."
"What's so special about Elaine's room?"
"Elaine being here is special."
"What are you on about?"
"I sleep on the couch, and you get the privilege of sleeping on the floor." Kara declares, as if it were already a foregone conclusion.
"Why should I get the floor?!" I argue
"Well… 'cause I don't wanna get the floor," she tells me.
I begrudgingly grab two spare blankets and two pillows from Elaine's closet and throw one set on the floor, and one set at Kara, "Fine, but if you sleep in here again, I get the couch next time."
"Maybe." She says, playfully sticking her tongue out at me.
I get under the covers of my blanket and turn away from Kara. I slowly feel myself drifting as my consciousness slips away from me. And as if there were a jump in time, I feel myself jolted awake by a stinging sensation on my side.
I take some time for my eyes to adjust and see Elaine at my side, and her right foot right by the side that stings. "Why is Kara still here?" She asks. Pointing at a sleeping Kara.
"She wanted to stay because you're here, I guess. So I let her take the couch." I tell her.
Elaine sighs and gently shakes Kara, "Hey, Kara. You're drooling on my damn couch."
Kara yawns and slowly gets up. "Mornin' Elaine"
"Get up," Elaine says flatly
"Alrighty," Kara says, standing up. She looks down at me and smiles a bit. "Mornin' Parker."
"Good morning, Kara."
She reaches her hand out, and I take it. She pulls me up, and she leaves the room, presumably going back to her own.
"So, are we going to go to breakfast?" Elaine asks.
"Can I shower first?" I ask.
"Should've woken up earlier. I guess you'll just need to start doing them at night." She says.
"But I always shower in the mornings! You can't just do that!" I protest.
Elaine doesn't even dignify me with a response. She just grabs my arm and drags me down to the cafeteria on floor twelve. The elevator ride is quite a painful one as she grips my arm even harder as we move. She silently drags me out of the elevator and then haphazardly throws my arm back, causing me to stumble.
"Get your food and sit where Bayani is sitting." She commands, pointing over to the rightmost corner of the cafeteria, where Bayani is sitting in a small booth that can just about fit four people.
I go over to the buffet area and grab myself a plate. I grab two pancakes, some scrambled eggs, and three pieces of bacon. I walk over to where Bayani is sitting and take my seat across from him.
"Good morning, Parker." He greets me.
"Good morning, Bayani," I reply, taking a bite of one piece of bacon.
Elaine takes her seat right next to me. "Kara is probably going to be late, so you two can fill her in on what I'm about to say." Elaine clears her throat, and her expression turns dark, "Sonar decided to involve himself in your guys' training. And sadly, Paragon allowed it. So now, instead of my methods. You three will be going through more specialized work."
"And that's bad… how?" I ask her.
"Because now I'm getting paid less." She grumbles.
"So what does this new training look like?" Bayani asks.
"No clue, it's out of my hands. Apparently, they'll be assigning me a new job on top of assisting Sonar with your training." She explains.
"So does that mean you're no longer in charge of the apprentices?" I blurt out, earning me a nasty look from Elaine.
"Don't sound so excited about that, you little bastard! No. I'm still in charge; I have other responsibilities aside from your training." She snaps.
After that, it's silence. Pure, deafening silence. This is the sort of tension that I could pierce open with one of my shadow tendrils.
After about five more minutes, Kara walks over and takes a seat next to Bayani with three plates of food. "Hiya, everyone!" She greets, already stuffing her face.
"Hi Kara, training is gonna start being a little different. Mr. Eun-ji is gonna give us some specialized stuff." I tell her.
She gives some sort of response to the effect of: "Ok." But it is really hard to tell because she said it with a mouthful of eggs.
Despite sitting down last, Kara finishes her food first. She takes a piece of bacon off Bayani's plate. "Hey!" He protests, trying to snatch it before she eats it.
But to no avail, Kara stuffs it into her mouth, and Bayani lets out a defeated sigh, going back to eating his food. "Jerk." He mutters.
"Bacon tax." She tells him, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Knock it off, Kara," Elaine says, not even looking over at them, eyes fixed on her plate while she picks at her food.
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, I pull it out and see a text from Mr. Eun-ji: "Tell Elaine that everything is ready and I'm waiting."
I tap Elaine's shoulder, causing her to jolt and look over at me. I show her my phone, causing her to recoil further. "How are you not blinding yourself?" She asks.
"I can-" I begin before she cuts me off, "That was rhetorical." She grabs my phone and makes my screen dimmer, she then examines it for a little while before handing it back to me with a quiet groan. She then stands up and addresses Kara, Bayani, and me. "C'mon, you three, we need to go. Kara, you can have the rest of my food."
"Parker and I didn't finish our food either." Bayani protests.
"Ooh! I'll take it!" Kara says, quite excited, now grabbing the remaining plates.
"Go ahead," Bayani says with a sigh, starting to walk toward the elevator.
Kara then looks toward me for permission. "Let me finish my bacon; you can have the rest," I tell her. In response, she tosses me the two pieces of bacon I had left, and I find myself munching on them while we head up to floor twenty-five.
We exit the elevator, and Kara hands one of her plates to Elaine, then takes the remaining two plates to the bleachers to start eating. I spot Mr. Eun-ji standing in the center of the room. I run over to him, "Mr. Eun-jI!" I exclaim as I reach the spot in front of him.
Without a word, he grabs me, and everything goes dark. Not in the sleep kind of way, but it's as if something is forcing my eyes shut. I feel some sort of cloth around my head, which can only mean…
He blindfolded me?!
"You've gotten great at using your enhanced sight, Parker. But I think we've neglected your other enhanced senses for far too long. So, from now on, every day in training, you'll learn to use your ears." Mr. Eun-ji explains, his voice dripping with satisfaction. If I weren't blindfolded, I'd bet I'd see some sort of self-satisfied grin.
"So, you'll be sparring with me to get used to it." He says, his voice growing slightly more distant.
"Here, Elaine, here is a folder containing everything I want you to cover with Bayani." Mr. Eun-ji says, I hear a flipping sound, as I assume Elaine is now reading whatever Mr. Eun-ji gave her.
I hear footsteps going toward the opposite direction from earlier. The soft pitter-patter of feet echoes in my ears until it finally stops near the bleachers. "Kara. You thrive in hand-to-hand combat, even though you have some ranged options as well. So you'll be sparring with an opponent of my choice to figure out how to fight when you can't get in close." He says, as I hear another pair of footsteps going in the direction from which I heard Mr. Eun-ji's voice.
"Him?! Screw that!" Kara shouts, her voice dripping with a sense of disgust.
"Well, fuck you too, brat." The male voice says in a rather annoyed manner.
I can't help but feel some sort of familiarity in that voice. Even though I've never heard someone sound so dry and disinterested.
Wait…
I feel it emanating from my chest and spreading throughout my entire body, that feeling of dread as I pinpoint the identity of the person Mr. Eun-ji is having train with Kara.
Cain?!
My memories flash back to the day at the docks, where I almost got killed, as well as the day I first ran into him as "Bag Boy," where I saw him and his brother murder a random child. I'm sure Cain wouldn't be too happy if he knew who I am, seeing as I killed Klein.
My thoughts are interrupted by a tap on my shoulder, causing me to tense up and turn my body in the direction from which I felt the tap.
I hear a voice behind me: "Sorry, bud, you fell for it. Bet you would've heard me walk behind you after if you used your ears more," he says, chuckling to himself.
I whip around and am immediately met with a sharp sting on my jaw as the blow forces me to step back.
"We're getting started now. Try to use sound to predict me and dodge!" Mr. Eun-ji exclaims. I try to sidestep away from the direction that I heard his voice, but I sidestep right into a blow to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
I cough a bit, feeling as though my lungs could come flying out of my mouth.
"Don't follow my voice! Try to pinpoint other sounds!" He shouts.
"Well, how is that fair?! You can't expect me to hear you when you're shouting like that!" I retort, before promptly receiving another painful blow to the chest.
Love Mr. Eun-ji's power and all, but the amped pain from it is getting less and less fun, even though it wasn't in the first place.
"In a real fight," He starts as I receive a kick to my left leg, knocking me off balance, "You'll have to differentiate far more sounds than just a voice and a single person's movements!" He says as I receive a punch to the head from the opposite side, rendering me prone on the ground.
I feel a hand grab mine as I'm helped back up onto my feet. "Now let's try again." He says, I hear a swooshing noise in the air around me. I assume it's an attempted hit, so I try to step back, only to be hit in the side before I can dodge.
"You heard it too late. C'mon, keep trying."
The next two hours are filled with the same repetitive process. This is not so much training time as it is "have your mentor beat the brakes off you" time. This next time that I'm knocked prone, left coughing on the floor, I hear footsteps behind me.
"I think everyone is ready to stop, Sonar." Says a voice that I pinpoint as Elaine's. Who I feel promptly pick me up and drop me back on my feet. I feel her hands on my head as she removes my blindfold.
Welcome back, eyesight. I really, really missed you.
"Alright. That can be it for today. You can take back over." Mr. Eun-ji shrugs.
"So we're doing this again tomorrow?" I ask him.
"Until you master this, yeah." He replies plainly.
I let out a defeated groan, and Mr. Eun-ji pats my head placatingly: "You'll be fine, bud. You're a tough kid."
I watch as Mr. Eun-ji walks over to where Kara and Cain are. Cain looks slightly cut up, while Kara looks much worse for wear. Cain looks like he wants to lunge at Kara. "Let's go, Cain. Or do you want to keep getting cut up by a kid?"
"I don't wanna hear it from you, of all people. Ex-Villain hypocrite." Cain snaps. Following Mr. Eun-ji out of the room anyway.
Kara's jaw drops at that statement. She looks over at me, like she wants to ask a million questions. I hold my hand up, my own way of saying "Maybe later."
I turn over to Bayani. He looks a little bruised, and he's panting and a little bent over with his hands on his knees.
Elaine motions for all of us to gather around her. I arrive first, as I'm closest. Kara arrives next, as she's equally far away as Bayani is, but she seems to be in better shape. Bayani is last, taking his time to get over so he can catch his breath a bit.
"So, how was it?" Elaine asks. When we all look at her in confusion, she further clarifies, "The training."
"I want a different trainer," Kara states flatly.
I can only let out a tired groan.
"I actually quite enjoyed it," Bayani says, despite his current state; he looks pretty chipper.
"Well, I'm glad you had fun," Kara grumbles.
"Cain cannot be that bad," Bayani responds.
"Cain is to me what Mr. Perfect is to Parker. I hate him." Kara replies.
Elaine places a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I think Cain is a dick, too. But sadly, he's useful to you. Get what you can out of him." Elaine tells her.
"I guess," Kara grumbles, looking down.
"Now you three take a break. Get some lunch in an hour or so." Elaine says, now walking away and exiting the room.
Bayani is about to follow her lead, but Kara turns him around.
"Nope. Time for the real training." Kara commands.
"What?" Bayani says, utterly bewildered.
"Parker and I talked about it last night. We do a little round robin sparring. We all spar with each other on top of our normal training." Kara explains.
Ugh. I already forgot about that. I really want to say no, given how tired I am. But I don't want to go back on my word.
With that, Elaine runs back in with a panic, "Glad you're still here, Parker, I almost forgot that I need to stick with you!" She says, rushing to my side.
"We're doing some extra sparring between ourselves," I tell her. And she nods in response, now heading for the bleachers to watch.
Bayani looks over at me and mouths, "Now I feel obligated to do this," with quite an annoyed look on his face. He sighs and looks back at Kara.
"If you really want me to, Kara. But let me rest first." Bayani says, already beelining for the bleachers.
Kara turns back to me with a smile, already bounding with energy again. She readies herself in a fighting stance.
"Alright, Parker. Looks like it's us first."