Bec woke up in a bad mood. This was just making it worse. It had been two more months since Bec had conquered the hallway training. She had moved on to a 4-way hallway to practice. Her attempts to pick up the flavor of the thread had yet to yield results. Often times she would be tracking a thread, hoping to find the cafeteria, only to have it lead to one of twelve bathrooms scattered around the complex. Other aspects of her training had paid dividends and she was actually beginning to enjoy the intrinsic value of the training, but this? This was not the kind of training she was looking forward to. Bec ‘looked’ at her Timelet and Al reported an unpleasant narrative for the upcoming week.

If Bec were being honest, she had no idea what she was looking at. Al was able to recount the events for her, but the sequence of events just upset her. It seems that this was the week that Ms. Scarlet decided to take Bec out on a mission to kill a Mr. Green, the person who planted the bombs all those months back. Normally, this would be a big boon with no downsides because if Bec died, she’d just get a do-over. This? Was not good. Over 20 attempts, all leading to deaths and something was horribly wrong. When Scarlet, Bec, and Mr. Purple approach the mission objective, the Timelet stopped getting updated. Every time, Bec couldn’t see how the mission failed.

“Al, why do you think it stopped? Do you think the Timelet got stolen? Wouldn’t it record that? I would have thought that, if it was going to be pickpocketed, I would have been wary enough to notice it when I knew it was coming.”

“I have no idea why. I have a feeling that it will only be clear when we get there.”

“That’s… really bad.” Bec felt like this incredibly powerful tool was constantly revealing more weaknesses than it has returned in benefits.

“Let’s not forget that it’s telling you that there is danger in your future. Please stay humble to the real upsides of the Timelet, Bec. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“5 days. I have 5 days to prepare for my death.” Bec heard a knock on the door, foretold by the Timelet. “Bec, we have something important to talk about.”

Ms. Scarlet recounted, urm, explained what they were doing. “We tracked Mr. Green to a warehouse on the outskirts of the Suburbs. We think there is a good chance that he’s working with some entity that wants to cut off our settlement plan before it’s even begun.

“We have lots of enemies hoping to leapfrog us on the FAB project so it could be anyone. Frankly, we are entering a den of lions.”

“Can’t we study the people that go in and out of the warehouse for a few days?” Bec asked a question she already knew the answer to. She had other questions but this one needed to be asked to soften the blow for the follow-up.

“We already have. No one has left the building since Mr. Green has entered. We can confirm that there are people inside using our thermographic camera. The space expanders have made it… difficult to pin down exact numbers, but we’re predicting 10-15 people.”

“What if we just blow the building up?”

“We could do that… but that’s hardly good practice for you.”

“I can wait for a better opportunity. I’d rather not die on a suicide mission.”

“You never struck me as a coward, Gray. I thought you wanted some action.”

“I did. I did. I just… I don’t know, I have a bad feeling about this.” Bec felt screwed. She really need to keep the Timelet secret, and, by revealing how she knew about the future, she was risking a timeline where she survives with her secret out. She felt guilty about not telling Scarlet after her emphasis on trust, but Bec felt that secret-keeping was something Scarlet would agree with.

“Blowing up the building would be a costly mistake. There will be valuable intelligence inside. Information about who flipped Mr. Green, technological resources, so on. If we neutralize the threats quickly and quietly, we will very much turn this costly breach of our security into an overall win!”

“Can we bring more people than the three?”

“You know that Mr. Purple will be joining us?”

“Erm, no. Sorry, I didn’t.” Bec kept a lazy demeanor to cover up the lie. “I just thought we’d have a small team. I think a bigger team would be advantageous when we will be dealing with a number of hostiles.”

“We intend to do this quietly. If everything goes to plan, it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

It won’t go to plan. I can guarantee it. Bec grimaced. She had been cultivating a bag of tricks for fights since the day she got her Word, but it took time and practice to apply them. These last three months, Bec’s confidence in her Word grew by leaps and bounds. She was able to influence sounds at a distance, she learned to absorb light, not just dim it (as it turned out dimming it was halfway to absorption anyways) and she could now hit sort of hard without breaking her hand. Ms. Scarlet attributed that last one to just how many times she broke her hand and mended it, strengthening the bone. “Can we spend the last three days before we head out sparring?”

“We can do 2 spars for the next 2 days. I can’t afford to hurt you so bad that you can’t come with us.” This was something that most of the other Becs chose to do. There were improvements although they tended to come in revelations and took a full day to realize. 2 days for sparring left her 2 days to prepare her new skills. She knew her acquisition skills were the limiting factor and she had to practice some of the new techniques she had discovered. This was the abbreviated list:

Bec 3’s Super Awesome Move Breakdown feat. Subsequent Becs:

Mute Step: Absorb the sound and impact of your feet to move perfectly silently.

(Bec 6’s note to alternate Becs: This seems to help me run farther, too! Don’t sleep on Mute Step!)

Silent Impact: Absorb the sound of you kicking ass with your fists.

(Bec 15’s note: As much as I wish Mute Step and Silent Impact translated well to each other,

(Bec 3)’s training sessions indicates otherwise. Please don’t try to learn both in a day!)

Jump Enhancement: Jump extremely high at the cost of your ankles. No practice necessary. Just kick the ground, dummy! (Bec 7’s note: Didn’t think I’d have to say this, but I guess Bec 6 left this for me to say, DON’T USE THIS UNDER A CEILING.)

Flash Bomb: Banned in 27 cities back on Earth, turn your fists into Flash Bangs. You already learned how to Flash Fist but adding percussiveness to it makes it extra nasty ; - ).

(Bec 12’s note: I’ve not been able to add shockwave damage to my punches when doing this in the time allotted. I don’t think it’s impossible, but for the time being please assume that you’re sacrificing punch strength for disorientation power.)

(Bec 18’s note: Who gives a shit about stunning when Scarlet says I can blow people’s heads off if I go all out.)

(Bec 19’s note: Because we’re going on a raid where we need to kill people before they react. Blind people don’t fight great. No offense, alternate Becs.)

Active Camo: Lets you blend in (Bec 12’s note: Badly) against different materials.

(Bec 12’s note: Bec 11 is a piece of shit. Ms. Scarlet said she “might mistake me for a lump of concrete shaped like a person. She was being nice, I’m sure.)

(Bec 13’s note: I didn’t believe Bec 12. Believe Bec 12…)

Throw Voice: Project your voice across the room. (Bec 15’s note: Yes, Bec! Your gut reaction is right, you can make it deafening!)

Bec looked at the list. The first few Becs were innovators. The middle 7-10 seemed keen on using the ones that they had. Seems like around Bec 11 that I realized that having the original set wasn’t saving me and they started innovating again. Additionally, the last half tried to analyze the powers for utility. Bec 3 was the real hero coming up with the list, though. Bec decided that, if there was a situation like this again, she’d resolve to only practice one known technique each life and to try to invent a new one until she had a list of 10 to work with.

Bec decided that she was going to go with Mute Step and Throw Voice because it was an unchosen combination after consulting with Al. Bec hated to admit it, but it seemed that she gravitated towards Flash Bomb, because it had an awesome name and description. The other Becs phoned in the descriptions on their innovations and that resulted in an abnormally high selection rate for the badass sounding Flash Bomb. Bec’s face tightened with embarrassment. I even started fighting with myself on the merits of it like some damn chatroom.

Bec begged Ms. Scarlet to let her do alternating days of sparring and prep. This plan differed from the previous timelines in that Bec would have an opportunity to use one new technique in a combat scenario before the big day. Bec shuddered when Ms. Scarlet referred to the ‘big day’ as such. It felt ominous in a way Bec couldn’t quantify. She knew why it was foreboding, but it filled her with a dread that made it hard to focus. Getting her ass beat helped clear her mind, though. Al, you thought I was joking about the intrinsic value of training? Well, here you go! Bec honed her reflexes on the first day. Ms. Scarlet demanded that Bec turn towards her as fast as she could, every time she got substituted. Bec was getting good at a stance she was developing that allowed her to shift directions rapidly. She basically employed a form of hop split step, like in tennis. With stamina to spare these days, the technique involved Bec constantly bouncing on the balls of her feet, so she was already constantly pushing off the ground when the swap happened. When she needed to change directions, all she had to do was push off in the right direction. Bec added it to the list of techniques, although she came up with it in hopes of specifically synergizing with the Mute Step.

Learning Mute Step on day 2 was a lot of work. She had to pulse the absorption with the impact at just the right time and amount or else she’d stumble from the lack of feedback to the ground. Her failures frequently caused her to just tip over instead of continuing the run. Silencing the impact was a lot easier than reducing the impact because that form of energy absorption didn’t come easily to Bec. The idea of impact absorption was posited by Ms. Scarlet about a month back in training. She described the flow of kinetic energy through mediums as a form of wave that she could absorb as well as amplify. Bec found that it wasn’t that simple because punching hard and pushing energy into it was not the same as dampening the shock. Impact amplification had the benefit of being applied outside the body, while impact dampening required Bec to interact with the shock as it starts to travel inside her body, the intrabody ‘rule’ implied it was entirely possible, just not easy. Thus, why it took all day for her to get it down when she focused on it.

There are 4 stages of mastery in all facets of life. Bec made a list to remind herself.

Bec’s vaguely recalled Learning Theory tier list:

Unconscious Incompetence (UI): You don’t know what you don’t know.

Conscious Incompetence (CI): You know how much you don’t know.

Conscious Competence (CC): You think hard about what you know and how to apply it.

Unconscious Competence (UC): You don’t think about what you know, you just apply it.

Bec would rate her ‘vision’ as UC and improving every day, her ‘reading skills’ as CC, her ability to sense direction in the Fabric as UC (Sorta skipped over the CC there, hope that doesn’t bite me in the ass), her ability to sense the flavor of Threads as CI. She decided to add that her ability to violently blow shit up with her fists was definitely a UC. Yup, been blowing things up since the first week. I have that down pat.

“Yes, sometimes you even blow up your fist as an added bonus,” Al remarked.

Bec laughed. “Yeeaaah, maybe there are some elements that are UI and CC there. Work in progress!”

There was nothing profound about learning how to Project Voice other than she trained it by making a beeping Timelet sound like it came from both in front of her and behind her. Hearing the sound made it much easier to imitate and project. The unfortunate downside was that she wasn’t nearly skilled enough to mute a distant source. Things near her were hard but doable so it truly was Project Voice (and other self-made sounds) until Bec got good at a move she knew she had to call Silence.

The last day to spar was here and Bec wanted to make it good. They walked into the arena that must just light up under UV light. Bec’s blood may have been sprayed on every single meter of this room over the months.

“Scarlet. I want you to take this very seriously.”

“I will do my best to make you think I’m being serious, Gray.”

Bec hopped around focusing on absorbing the energy when she landed. Scarlet just walked in a circle around Bec. I’ve got to admit that Scarlet was a spectacular trash-talker. Bec was getting good at not letting the influence of Scarlet’s Word and words get to her. In fact, Bec was getting into trash-talking herself.

“You’ll have to do your best, regardless.”

Al snickered. He’d recently taken to laughing like a fly to honey and that was not a good thing in Bec’s opinion. “You totally got her, didn’t you?” Bec would have rolled her eyes if they weren’t trained on Ms. Scarlet… and non-functional. The sauntering woman didn’t break stride when Bec suddenly within her range. Bec pushed off the ground and whirled, throwing a swinging punch energized with light at Ms. Scarlet. The momentum conserving defense that Ms. Scarlet employed sought to ease Bec’s haymaker an inch short of her face. Bec knew this punch wouldn’t hit home but the flash would temporarily force Ms. Scarlet to blink. She could make Bec’s glowing not damage her eyes, as Bec figured out, by subduing the light. What she couldn’t do was react faster than light, and, while she was good at predicting when a flash was coming, there was nothing she could do when a swinging strike had nearly a half of a second of facetime with her. Bec stuttered the release of the flash reducing the overall strength of the flash but causing it to strobe. Either she subdued the light, blinding herself when it’s not lit, or she failed to subdue it and got blinded by the flashes. Bec went for the fastest follow-up she could muster, grappling Scarlet’s wrist and leaning in for a headbutt and screaming “SHOCKWAVE.”

Thankful that Robert was visiting a settlement for a few weeks, Bec could play this game for the moment without fear of discovery. Ms. Scarlet slipped Bec’s grip and shifted back a step before jabbing Bec’s nose, crushing it. Bec took the impact with a smile. Bec wasn’t charging up a presumably suicidal headbutt loaded with kinetic energy. She was projecting her voice. Ms. Scarlet noticed the room dim slightly. Looking around with reflexes and speed that Bec would have called superhuman, she couldn’t figure out what Bec had done to her… that was until the shards of glass rained down on her. A tube of glass crashed at Scarlet’s feet. A shattered bulb affixed to the ceiling was raining down on the red woman.

I missed. Shit. That’s alright, though. Next time, I won’t. Bec dashed around Scarlet. “HEY!” Bec projected her voice through gasps. Her throat was constantly filling with blood from her broken nose. Hoping to get Ms. Scarlet to lose track of her, the voice was aimed behind her when Bec had only sidestepped into a potential blind spot while flinging the flash portion of the Flash Fist at her. All you have to do is look away for one fucking second. Please! Bec could see Ms. Scarlet’s head tilt way from the blinding strikes she was throwing. NOW! Bec stopped throwing punches, and clapped, shattering every lightbulb in the room and casting the room into darkness. Bec figured out very early on in her Word use that she could see in the dark, now this was her chance to exploit it.

She employed Mute Step and bolted in the opposite direction of the last trajectory Ms. Scarlet saw. Circling in, Bec held her breath lest she out herself by adrenaline-fuel heavy breathing. Bec watched Ms. Scarlet standing there. Not moving. Definitely still her and not a dummy based on the heat she’s putting out. The glass from all of the shattered bulbs met the ground with a cacophony of noise that Bec dived through, fist rocketing forward. She slammed everything she had into this strike… yet it hit nothing. Bec stumbled, cut to shit from the raining glass.

I… missed? Bec skidded over the floor, trying desperately to keep the sounds of her shoes meeting glass silent, failing as some of the glass careened out of her range. Bec ‘saw’ Ms. Scarlet land silently behind her. Another added bonus, I see things behind me, too!

“You missed.” Ms. Scarlet said, breaking the silence.

“I won’t next time.” Bec made her voice echo from several directions at once. Bec grabbed a glass tube that had stayed relatively intact, preparing to use it as a desperate, improvised, stabby device.

“Mmm. I think you will…” Ms. Scarlet disappeared. Bec turning fast to see her in the corner of the room. “You know, I really like uniform debris.”

Bec started sprinting at her with no effort to dampen the crunching glass and Scarlet waved her hand. Could she see me? Bec realized something was wrong when her foot hit solid concrete… twice. Bec realized, in an instant, that the glass was gone. All of it. Where did it go? Bec’s question was answered by an insane racket and a stabbing pain in her back. Bec tried to throw a punch to create a safe area but it didn’t work. It all began to rain down again… and again, and again.

“I give, I GIVE!” Bec waved her glowing hand. Tiny glass shards were embedded in exposed flesh. Her scalp was bleeding, soaking her sandy blonde hair brown and mottled.

“Wow Bec, that was truly a heart-pounding fight. I almost started rooting for you after you shattered all the bulbs.” Ms. Scarlet strode lightly over to the door to the training room, never having lost her place in the darkness. She flicked a switch and the lights turned on. Bec stood there, confused.

“Wha—”

“It’s a reverter. Weren’t you even slightly concerned about the dummy you blew up during our first spar? The reverter has a saved scan of this room and, with a flick of the switch, it’s all back where we left it. No good training room is without one!”

The floor was clean… except for the blood dripping from Bec’s… everything. The wounds bleeding even worse now that there apparently weren’t any shards of glass in them. Bec fell onto her butt. “Oh, I don’t have to clean up. I’m so happy.” Bec really was. She was certain that destroying all the bulbs in the room was going to lead to consequences. Turns out the only real lasting consequences was that she’d been lacerated to all hell. She looked like she’d gone through a paper shredder.

“Bec, you are a mess! That was a fantastic play that you engineered there. It… brings a tear to my eye. Bec,” Ms. Scarlet skipped over and sat down next to the pile of shredded Bec, and now that she was close, Bec could ‘see’ the glint in her actual, for real, teary eyes, “I think you’re really ready.”

“Hooray,” Bec said with a gurgle as blood from her broken nose bubbled in her throat. No other Bec got that response from Ms. Scarlet, so that was a win.

“I can fix all the cuts in about 30 minutes. The broken nose will take about 3 hours.” Al informed Bec. Another win, she was speeding up her recovery rate.

Echoing the thoughts in Bec’s mind, Ms. Scarlet remarked, “Your healing is improving at a fantastic rate. You’ll be where I was when I was 10 in a matter of months!” Bec was drowning in her own blood and wins! She spat blood on the floor and smiled a red grin.

Bec laid there in a silent heap as Ms. Scarlet explained how much fun that fight was. Through the process, Bec realized that she’d played her hand wrong. Ms. Scarlet dodged the glass falling by teleporting above it all. She explained that she’d only been able to time the teleport properly because Bec did it once before, helping Scarlet get a feel for the impact timing. Shit. Fuck. Motherfucker piss shit ass. Bec continued to smile but she was bloody wrecked internally… and wrecked bloody externally. They both sat there and relaxed as Bec recuperated. Minutes passed and the bleeding slowed.

“Wanna get a bite to eat?” Ms. Scarlet asked.

Bec vomited blackened blood. “Just give me a minute.” Bec coughed, heaved, and retched until she’d gotten all the swallowed blood out of her lungs and stomach.

“Yeah, let’s go. I’m starving.” It was a nice treat to have Ms. Scarlet lead her to the cafeteria. Ms. Scarlet had a tuna salad sandwich on caraway rye that slowly gained the remaining ingredients of a niçoise salad. Bec could smell this, not see it, unfortunately. That damn fine detail… Bec ate some chicken noodle soup.