“So how does
this work again?” asks Judy as she stands in the training room.
I have to
admit, Judy looks quite fetching in purple, form fitting cos-mat suit that she
is wearing as we test her powers.
“You try using
your powers,” I explain from the control room, “And then I use some of the
fancier equipment down here to record it. We’ll then use the data I get to
figure out your powers.”
“Okay,” says
Judy, “Umm, how many times have you done this before?”
“A few times
so don’t worry,” I reassure her.
“And the fact
I’m affecting time won’t mess anything up will it?” inquires Judy.
“We might have
to slow down or speed up the footage to view it, but I’ll record everything,” I
say, “Let’s start with the basics. I’ll toss out a couple of targets. Try and
slow them down.”
I press a
button and two ceramic discs are fired into the room, flying across the room at
a low speed. Judy raises an arm at them and they slow down to the point they’re
barely moving.
“That worked
well,” I say, “I’ll launch another pair and try and speed them up this time.”
Another couple
of discs are fired at a low speed before zooming across the room as Judy uses
her power on them. They slam in the wall on the far side of the training room,
but don’t break as clatter to the ground. Granddad made them out of a material
that is almost as strong as the ceramic the Sentinel armour uses, but cheaper
and easier to mass produce.
I test other
applications of Judy’s power using more of the training discs. It turns out that
she can slow down, speed up, reverse or freeze time using her power. She can
also apply it to herself which allowed her make herself much faster by speeding
herself up.
I also figure
that she can potentially use her power to help heal herself if she gets hurt,
but for reasons that should be obvious, I refused to test that.
Another thing
we figured out was that while Judy can use her powers without gestures, she has
to concentrate when she does that except for when she’s using on herself. All
in all, it’s easier for Judy to just use her hands to direct where she’s using
powers.
Hopefully that
is something that can be worked on with time. Both James and Sam had to use
their hands to direct their telekinesis at first, but now can use it with a
mere thought. James doesn’t even have to locate what he is moving anymore.
“Do you want
to take a break?” I ask Judy, “Or do you want to move onto the next phrase of
the testing?”
“What’s the
next phrase?” Judy asks back.
“I’m going to
send a training drone to fight you,” I tell her, “It won’t hope you, but you’ll
still have to fend it off and subdue it.”
Judy thinks
for a moment before reply.
“I’m ready,”
answers Judy, “Bring it on.”
“Okay,” I say,
“I’ll try to make things gentle.”
“Don’t go soft
on me just because I’m your girlfriend,” protests Judy with a of bit
indignation in her voice, “I’m more than capable of holding my own!”
“I’m not
holding back anything,” I insist as I drop a humanoid training drone into the
training room.
“Whoa,” says
Judy as she adopts a Judo stance.
The drone
swings at her, but Judy blocks by slowing its arm down with her power. She
attempts to get the drone in a lock, but fails as her power fails without her
directing it or concentrating on it.
The drone
quickly reacts to Judy and catches her off guard as it hits her in the stomach.
She huffs and is knocked to the ground.
I hesitate
between lessening the drone’s assault on Judy as she is my girlfriend or
letting it be as she requested. The decision ends up being out of my hands as
the fight continues and renders my choice moot.
Judy rolls out
of the way as the drone tries to strike her again. Not striking her too hard of
course. I made sure of that before the fight began.
My girlfriend
scrambles away from her attacker and attempts to get to her feet as it
continues to come after her. It occurs to me that the League’s combat training
drones would be pretty tough opponents for an inexperienced fighter, regardless
of their past training or if the drone has been set to easy.
“Want me to
turn down the difficulty?” I ask Judy as she finally mentions to get back on
her feet as she uses her power to speed herself up.
“No!” she
yells back, “I’m doing fine thank you very much!”
I shake my
head as Judy yelps and dodges out of the way as the drone lunges at her. If
Judy had to face more than one drone, she would so meteorically dead right now.
I have to admit,
I’m actually quite tempted to go down and help her. Janelle could take over the
controls and I wouldn’t even need the Sentinel armour or even a cos-mat suit to
do well.
Judy is
tripped up by the drone and falls flat on her bottom. The drone swings a fist
at her and Judy raises her arms in a meaningless attempt to protect herself.
I jump out of
seat as the blow connects.
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