“That was good, but you weren’t braced against the spin. Why? You can fly. You are ALWAYS BRACED if you want to be. You don’t need to push against anything like I do. I expect it is because I have your arms and it really hurts when I wrench them. So, the first thing you should do is release your arms. How do you do that in this situation?”

I expected Jessica to go shooting off in front of me, which would automatically straighten her arms and give her back her maneuverability. Instead, she rotated vertically centered on her head, and since I was straddling her back upside down, that naturally lifted me right off of her.

I let her do it, her legs catching me from behind and shifting me forward, coming down on my backside as hard as she could.

I turned sideways, letting her legs slam into the ceiling, letting go of her arms to spin across the ceiling in a show of sparks, until I was hanging by my feet about ten feet away as she spun around, getting her arms back and control of her flying.

“Good,” I nodded, crossing my arms. “Or rather, better. What’s the mantra?” I asked her.

“Abuse flying!” she repeated eagerly.

“And what does that require?” She hesitated. “Practicing, and knowing what works. Great precision in flying, and strength in flying! Flying doesn’t just get you from one place to another. Flying is an incredibly powerful weapon and tactic all in one. Flying makes your entire body one big fist if you want to hit people with it!”

I let go of the ceiling, inverted smoothly, and Repulsed the air enough to slow my fall and divert it into a whirling spiral that turned into a smooth coasting across the floor on sparking feet. Jessica swooped down next to me, her brown eyes dancing.

“That was so cool! I-I never imagined using flying like that!”

“Well, of course not. The only flyer in this group is a boy in power armor. He’s probably all into ramming stuff, with that helmet.” They all giggled as I rolled my eyes.

“A good training lesson, Dynamo,” Blue Shield nodded, having watched all of that. “But SHIELD would like to get her more trained on fundamentals before focusing on her flying.”

“Flying IS her fundamental, Captain. It is the power she has that can contribute the most to this whole team, which already has strength and agility in spades. A precision flyer leverages her strengths. Teaching her ground-based combat her team is going to be better at than she is just makes her feel like she can’t perform. I agree she needs it while flying solo, but in a group situation... nope, she needs to learn how to Abuse Flying.”

The kids all looked stunned that I had contradicted him.

He naturally recognized the challenge for what it was. “You seem pretty confident in your assessment, Dynamo.” He snapped his fingers, and my hand shot out, slapping onto Jewel’s chest before the Stillflight Field came up, and I slowly lowered her down to the ground.

“Jessica,” I said without looking over, “go up on your toes, ballerina pose.” Feeling something happening, she did so easily. “Now, begin to spin as fast as you can. Use flying, you won’t overbalance. Do not leave the ground.”

Blinking, she spread out her arms, and without using her legs, began to spin.

She picked up speed, not falling over, spinning perfectly in place.

I stepped away. “Low Kick!” Her foot lashed out, completing three circles before she drew it back. “Middle Kick! High Kick! Side Kick to the waist!”

Even when she leaned over and executed the kick, still spinning, she didn’t lose her balance.

Blue Shield’s eyes flickered thoughtfully.

“Invert. One finger hand stand. Keep spinning,” I instructed her, not looking at her.

Jessica spun to a stop, bent down, put down one finger, and to her amazement, lifted herself up into a straight line and began to spin, and even went through front and side splits with glee as she did so.

“A Stillflight Field has exactly no effect if you maintain contact with the ground while you are using flying effects. One-finger pushups, Jessica.”

She stopped spinning and zipped down parallel to the floor, not touching it with anything but her finger. Grinning wildly, she flagrantly pumped her arm up and down, clearly not balanced, and able to do it anyways.

The kids watching had to cover their smiles. This was indeed a big gaping hole in Jessica’s training regime.

“Hey, Jess, how fast do you think you can complete the track with the Stillflight Field up?” I asked, still not looking at her.

Everyone watched as, keeping one hand trailing on the ground, she promptly took off around the course, picking up speed rapidly as she did so, staying just inches above the floor.

“Sure, it has to be physical contact, and not with a tool or anything, but she’s a Perfect Flier, and thus can be Always Braced, and Always Balanced.” I waved dismissively at the spider-girls. “Those two are already incredibly fast and agile... but they can’t fly.

“Not letting her fly is letting those two walk all over her. Furthermore, not giving her a ranged attack just makes her look ineffectual and silly when she can’t use one of her own.” I turned to look over as Jessica rounded the last corner at speed, dragging her hand along the floor, a wide grin plastered on her face as she used her other hand to break the wind in her eyes.

She didn’t clamber back to her feet. She arched her back, got her feet under her, and just straightened up directly.

“Gymnast stand next time,” I told her out of the side of my mouth.

Her eyes widened thoughtfully. “I’ll have to practice that,” she whispered back eagerly, picturing herself doing an elegant reverse somersault that way.

She could fly! It wasn’t like she would fall down...

“Fine, let’s get the combat assessment out of the way,” Captain Walker said, doubtless already coming up with a training program for her.

“Jess, practice shifting position without moving your legs, just dragging your feet,” I told her, gesturing her off to the side. She nodded, and zipped sideways suddenly, skidding around the ground lightly. “Cindy, Gwen, go chase her!” Laughing, they leapt after her, and Jessica grinned as she dodged away, getting into a crouch as she did so, realizing that she didn’t have to keep her feet together.

She was a bit raw at first, wavering if she encountered any obstructions and having to keep a close eye and awareness of her surroundings. I stood there and watched as the two spider-girls raced and jumped around, trying to tag her. She scooted aside frantically from their reaching hands, completely free of things like balance as she zipped around, realizing that if her two pursuers leapt up they couldn’t come back down without using webs, and so paralleling the floor right under them and away was actually a really good move.

“I actually meant you,” Blue Shield said as he came up next to me, arms folded across his chest. “But, you’re right. She looks much more impressive this way.”

“She’s a good girl who’s had a very hard life. She needs someone to look up to. If you want her to work for you, it’s time to show her some attention and some love.”

“We don’t want to put lethal weapons into the hands of a teenager who is still recovering from emotional losses,” he admitted candidly, glancing at me.

“They can both make webs, but Silk doesn’t use the bracelets?” I asked calmly.

“Silk makes her webs on her own, and practices them a lot. The webshooters,” he hesitated, and then nodded at Spider-man, “apparently, he invented them and the formula for them himself. The Director actually secured the rights on his behalf. Says he’s got a helluva future as a biochemist.”

“An incredible non-lethal means of restraint and capture,” I acknowledged.

“We still need a combat assessment of you,” he said.

“Don’t do it yourself. You have no chance against me without your sidearm drawn, and it would not do to harm your image in the eyes of the others.”

He gave me another cool glance. “You seem pretty confident of yourself, Dynamo.”

“I am exceptionally clear on the capabilities of Shielders. You are not clear on my own capabilities. Your personality read on me clearly indicates that I am not one to play mind games with allies, and I speak my mind to the point.

“You don’t have the tools required to defeat me. Send them all out after me, one by one or as a group. If you want to spar afterwards in private, that’s fine.”

He considered that. “Red and I alternate duties down here. I made sure I was here today, because I wanted to test you.”

“What are your instincts telling you?” I asked neutrally.

His blue eyes flickered. “That you are much more dangerous than you look, and you are holding back considerably. Jewel couldn’t have touched you in that kicking display if you hadn’t allowed it.”

“That is correct. I was emulating a superior physical combatant, not myself.”

“A bout after this is over, then?” he asked, clear anticipation in his voice, and not a little pride.

“Certainly.”

--------

He did send them out against me one on one.

I disposed of them. It wasn’t humiliating, because it was so fast and clean that they obviously did not have a chance at all.

Just to set the tone, he started with Nova.

The cocky kid zipped around me at speed, clearly trying to confuse me, and I just waited there casually for him to mount an attack.

When he finally charged in to tackle me, I slid aside and around without changing my stance, bent backwards all the way parallel to the floor, and he tackled air as he went right over me.

The next moment, the palm I stuck in the middle of the three starbursts on his chest dragged his flight path into the ground and off-kilter.

Crashing at over a hundred mph at a bad angle is awkward, to say the least. He hit the ground, bounced, flailed, and an entertaining set of tumbles and rolls ended up with him crashing hard into the steel retaining walls that were still up.

There was a crunch exactly one second later as my feet landed on either side of his dazed head, and I pulled his helmet off him before he could stop me.

“Ungh...” he managed, staring at my feet as he sort of slid down the metal wall. I smiled and dropped his helmet to the floor.

---

Jessica just sort of stared at me as I stood there an inch off the ground, feet crackling, completely relaxed and smiling. “You were going easy on me, weren’t you?” she winced.

“I was pretending to be someone with the physical capabilities of an Olympic-level athlete and decent fighting reflexes,” I conceded. “I clearly am not that person. Come.”

She bit her lip, and spun forward into a spin kick that started for my thigh and abruptly rose to my shoulder.

I caught the foot in my hand, and my feet slapped down to the ground as I redirected the spin at an angle and down into the ground, spinning her half around. I wrapped her foot as she tried to lift off and couldn’t, my link to the ground much too solid as I hooked her foot, rolled right up her backside and forced her to the ground, my elbow driving into the top of her head as she was wrapped up in a pretzel.

“Ouch!” she shouted, slapping out quickly.

“Look up what heavyfoot is,” I told her as I let her go, feet anchored and going right back to standing without all the crouching and stuff.