After catching a few hours of sleep, Mike began his Thursday with lunch at a local pizza place. He put back several slices before heading to the grocery store. Muttering "healthy options" to himself on repeat, Mike began to navigate a cart through the tile-floored labyrinth. Fruits and vegetables were conveniently right by the entrance, so he started by grabbing bags of apples and oranges. Strawberries. Bananas. A head of cabbage. Asparagus. Potatoes. Premixed salad. That seemed like a lot to him, possibly more than he would use before it went bad.

Next section of interest: meat. Steak, pork chops, and chicken planks all went into the cart. He picked up a ham before realizing he would have to cook everything he bought. Three meat products would be plenty kitchen work for him, so he returned the ham and moved on. Cereal. Healthy options . . . no marshmallows . . . no frosting . . . ugh, no fun. Bland bran flakes went into the cart. Moving on, Mike loaded up the cart with whole grain pasta noodles, lentils, quinoa, and rice. He found the frozen aisle next. Numerous bags of microwavable mixed vegetables joined the haphazard pile of food he had collected thus far. As did a box of ice cream sandwiches. He returned that last one to the freezer case, muttering "healthy options", then pushed his cart halfway down the aisle before jogging back to retrieve it.

Mike returned home feeling quite proud of his foray into healthy living. After unpacking the bags to load his fridge and pantry, he sat down on the couch to work on his teleotic talent. Body hardening had been fun, but one of the sticky notes Marius left him had mentioned "body sculpting", which sounded to him like a shortcut to getting back in shape. While he had no problem putting in the hard work necessary, he also knew that he couldn't exercise his way out of a bad diet. His strength and cardiovascular endurance had stuck with him even as the fat accumulated. Unhealthy food and boozing were out of the picture now, so the ripped physique should eventually follow on its own. Or . . . he could teleotic the hell out of the problem and get where he wanted to be much faster.

The rubbery texture of the fat cells made them stand out to his senses. Mike tentatively experimented with them on a small scale. Rupturing the cell so that it died and got flushed away proved simple. It also made him begin to feel sick after a few minutes, so he took fat cell murder spree off the menu of options. Unless he could get their contents to drain somewhere other than into his blood. Mike took a deep breath, then leveraged gravitas to create a break in his skin all the way down to the subcutaneous layer. He killed the cells, then used his corona to drain the liquified contents out of his body. That didn't make him sick, and he managed to get his skin to knit back up without any trace of a scar. Though he did have weird blubber juice all over his clothes and the couch. Not cool.

After cleaning up his mess, Mike stripped down and hopped in the bath tub to continue his fat loss cheat. Opening little pockets all around his midsection, Mike drained the yellowy liquid until he was bored of the operation. Then he continued with the exercise as he had made his gut noticeably lopsided by concentrating on only his left side to start. When he had evened out the effect, Mike turned on the shower and cleaned himself up. He emerged to admire himself in the mirror, but found that he couldn't tell much of a difference. For all the juice that had trickled free of him, he would expect to be almost shredded by now. Well, at least there were no scars or stretch marks left over from the adventure.

As dinner time neared, Mike went to the kitchen to make himself a healthy meal. The steak went onto a pan, a large potato when into the microwave, and a large portion of salad went into a bowl. While the steak and potato cooked, he searched for salad dressing, but no such thing existed in the apartment. He dutifully munched on the vegetables lacking any delicious adjunct to make them palatable. The bottom of the bowl proved a welcome sight. Just in time for him to devour the steak and baked potato, both drenched in season salt.

Varanelli arrived as he was putting away the dishes to stare at him, takeout bag forgotten in her hand. "Did you cook?"

"Yes, I cooked. The microwave has a potato button, so that turned out all right. The steak managed to be burnt on the outside and bloody on the inside, which didn't bother me because I was so desperate to get the salad taste out of my mouth."

"Salad? I am beyond impressed."

"I know he might be a psycho, but Marius has done me good."

Varanelli's mouth quirked. "Let's see how long this lasts before we give anyone credit. Two days ago you drank five beers before driving to a training session that your student refused because you were too drunk."

"Not saying this like it's a good thing, but it takes way more than that to get me drunk. Five wheat beers is barely even at the start of tipsy."

"Definitely not a good thing."

"So do you want to join my health thing? It's going to be salads and fruits and vegetables and all those weird health foods. It will be way healthier than takeout every night."

"First, stop saying the word health. Second, don't comment on my shape."

Mike rolled his eyes. "I don't give a crap about your shape, Varanelli. I'm talking about your . . . that word you won't let me say anymore."

"No thanks. You have fun with your salads. I've got Thai food."

He finished cleaning up the kitchen, grabbed an apple, and sent a text to Spencer instructing her to meet at the same place as before. Almost instantly a response came, asking if he would be sober. Rather than argue the point, he gave a simple 'yes' reply.