Eighteen hours later, as dusk encroaches, I’m no longer just three times faster than a normal human, but five. I’m over eight thousand BPM on my three handed drum speed test, and both my footwork and stickwork are moving at speeds to match my capability. I think I could probably beat any old earth martial artist at this point, simply because they couldn’t even see my swings.

My double-wall audio-mancy is solid, and only takes ten seconds. I can saserface something with five seconds prep, and can even turn with it at normal but not fast speeds. I’ve started working on audiomancy sound modification. I can bounce or block with my sound walls. And as I get ready to take my final exam, I manage to get a two percent increase from my reflecting wall. Not only am I getting the sound I had, but I’m upping it by a bit. On a decibel scale, it’s hard to tell, but if you’re measuring pascals per square meter like Alec, you can detect it. Eventually, this’ll work as amps. I just need a band.

Even my echolocation is improved. I’m picking up details that I didn’t before. I can sear the individual blades of grass moving in the wind, fifteen yards away. I can find bugs in the forest. Inside about 15 yards, nothing escapes my notice.

I have my supply of baseballs, and I pick up a few more bats. All my drums are in my pocket; I don’t want the monkeys to destroy them.

I clear the stuff out of my hut. It's empty except for Alec and the bed.

“Okay little buddy,” I call out to Alec. “Let’s do this thing.”

Familiar monkey noises fill the air and it sounds like a whole herd is headed my way. Six little monkeys bound into the clearing, and rush me. The problem is that they’re moving ten or twelve miles an hour, and I’m able to sprint at seventy. If I didn’t see one, I might be in some danger. As it is? I see everything, and the monkeys are moving five times slower than I am.

The first wave of six gets to me one and two at a time, and I hit each one on an ear, crushing its head. Escrima practice helped, and the monkeys are slow like molasses. The next wave is a dozen mini-monkeys. Twelve up, twelve down. They move so slow, it’s almost just like hitting the stick dummy, but squishier. Not like they can dodge, or even see it coming. Hell, the ends of my sticks are probably moving two hundred miles per hour. Even without the force that would mean on earth, who can dodge even a very small Ferarri at full speed? The only difficulty here is the pile of headless monkeys.

Wave three is two of the big ones. Since they enter on opposite sides of the clearing, I race to the close one, and go toe to toe. Other big can't cross the clearing in under five seconds. This one isn’t a lot more fair than the little monkeys. It’s a lot harder to hurt this one, but I’m still about three times as fast as he is. Break hand, then arm, then knee, then other foot, other hand, other arm. Two seconds elapsed. The next two seconds are spent dancing around the monkey faster than it can turn, raining blows on its head. A thrust to the eye pops it, and twelve strikes to the ear cracks something. A third of a second (very long) windup, and what cracked on the side of the head shatters to my full force tail spin.

Turning around, I dance roughly the same way with Big Bozo number two. This time I'm more efficient. Break the elbows first, then start in on the head. Second big monkey falls dead in two point eight seconds from when he arrived.

I happily use the twelve and a half seconds before wave four arrives to rest, but wave four brings four of the big assholes. Not only are there four of them, but they’re in pairs, so I can’t just fight one at a time.

Looks like a chance to use my soundwall strategy. I set up a soundwall in record time, 2.8 seconds, and start filling the air with as much volume as I can, amplified by my two percent. I sprint towards the pair on the right and get to the soundwall just before they do. As they come through, they’re both dazed by the surprise wall of sound for half a second. Escrima practice, three hands, and five-times-speed can do a lot in half a second. Fifteen strikes worth of a lot. The big lunk to the right has his right knee joint shattered and his right eye pulverized before I’m scrambling out of the way, pursued by one big, angry healthy monkey. I make sure I’m scrambling backwards, perform my patented fake trip, and watch the monkey liftoff. The first time I did this, it took a baseball bat. This time, I get a dozen strikes worth of breaking the monkey’s hand and elbow before I have to dodge and smack the tail 4 times as it tries to grab me.

The monkey with a broken arm doesn’t land well, and I use the time to sprint back to the one with a busted eye and leg. Mr. Bowie’s knife from my pocket switches place with one of my batons, and before gimpy knows what hit him, the knife is six inches deep in his eye and brain. Unfortunately it gets stuck and I don’t have time to wrestle it out as the two healthy monsters are barreling towards me. Exiting stage left, I make it to the other side of the clearing in two seconds, while the monkeys are three seconds behind me. That gives me enough time for another sound wall, and to get out a baseball bat. This time, I only get about a third of a second of stunned time as they are assaulted by the sheet of noise.

A normal baseball swing takes between a fifth and a sixth of a second. I’m moving five times as fast. From start to stop, Frodo times my swing at 41 milliseconds. By memory, and I have a good memory for timing, that’s about one cinema frame. Poor monkey has no chance at all. It takes a full force baseball bat to the nose, then skull, then brain. If it weren’t trying to eat me, I’d have felt sorry for it. My baseball swing recovery is slow, so I drop the baseball bat, rather than trying to put it back in my pocket. As I backpedal, I grab my sticks back out of my pocket.

One healthy monkey, and a one-armed bandit are left. Since the slot machine isn’t chasing me, I hop 3 steps back, and get ready for one-on-one against the healthy one. He’s tougher than the others. He manages to twist and turn and catch like fifty strikes in a row on muscles rather than bones. My break comes when he catches one of my sticks, and I let it go to grab another from my pocket. With one of his limbs holding a stick, and unsure of what to do with it, I smash him in the nose, and get a quarter second to wail on him. His elbow breaks on the 4th hit, and it’s all cleanup after that. Ten seconds later, there’s no monkeys left alive on my lawn.

Finally, these fucking trials are ov...

ROAAARRRR!