Chapter 373: Super-Aikido Tested

Sunday, June 10, 2007 (Continued)

It'd be impolite for us to walk into our staff's home uninvited, so I knocked on the door and we waited. When one of the off-duty guards answered it, I explained, "I used to do a martial art called Aikido before I was killed and I spent a while last night trying to get Ron's body to move as well as I used to, but it's difficult without partners. I was hoping I could do some training in your dojo with whoever's around? The girls just want to watch."

After he'd done the mental gymnastics necessary to parse my weird phrases, he said, "That'll be fine. Give me a few seconds to make sure everyone's decent."

"Sure."

A minute later we were in their dojo, although they don't call it that. Their gym is about two-thirds exercise equipment and about one-third open mats. None of our guys are the stereotypical 'gorilla', as doing their job well requires being smart more than strong, but they're physical guys (and two gals), they workout regularly, and nearly all of them have martial arts training. In a few cases, a LOT of martial arts training, as I'd learned when I read their files before we employed them.

No one was using the training mat at the moment, but there were four guys on the exercise machines. (Depending on what seems better to me at the time, I'll write either "mat" or "mats". They are many individual mats placed beside each other, then with a very large canvas sheet laid over the top of all of them, turning them into a single surface.)

I explained what I was doing here again to the new audience, emphasizing that, "I haven't gotten this body under very good control yet, so I'd like to spend a few minutes alone working on my footwork, and then some sparring with some of you. I'm clumsy, so it'll have to be light sparring, otherwise I might hurt you too much."

I said the last sentence with a smile, and they thought it was quite funny too. Regardless of whether I was called Mark or Ron - that was their employers' decision - they didn't mind humoring me, so they chuckled their agreement and mostly returned to their exercises. With four good looking girls in the room, I suspect they put more effort into their exercises than normal because they didn't bother giving me much attention as I took off my shoes and moved onto the mat. The guy who'd let us into the building wandered back to the kitchen to continue making whatever meal he was working on, depending on which shift he was cooking for. Paul rotates his staff around so I don't bother keeping track of their individual assignments.

Back in the Adults' living room, I'd gotten my footwork up to about three times the speed I considered normal for me, which I estimated was something like one and a half times faster than anyone else could make the same movements. Because of the bugs, I hadn't done much about getting my straight-line speed above what was possible for other people, so that's what I started with now.

After a slightly slow start while I adjusted my feet-pushing vectors to allow for the mats having so little friction but being spongier with more depth, I got myself up to the speed I'd achieved in the living room, and then was able to work my speed up even higher. I was surprised that none of my audience were impressed by my 'zips' across the mat. I guessed it was because my zips didn't look at all superhuman. I was moving fast, but slower than a sprinter would, and my speed was deceptive because I was standing upright, relaxed, and there was no one else to compare me to.

I noticed that I didn't have all of Donna's attention; hers was frequently wandering to the guys working out. My three girls' eyes didn't stray that way though, other than as a quick response to an unexpected noise. Their loyalty was firmly established, especially now that they'd told me to grow my knob bigger.

For straight-line movements, it didn't take me more than a few back-and-forth trips before I had the ankle-pushing force increased substantially. The only very slightly tricky aspects were getting the upward angle of the accelerating push so that nearly all of the weight on the sliding leg was countered and it was lifted enough not to get held back by the depth of the mats, and making sure I countered my increased momentum when I stopped at the far end. Both aspects only had to be roughly correct, so I didn't have much trouble with them.

Straight-line movement turned out to have a considerably higher limit than I'd thought, as I got myself up to about six times faster than "normal" and thought I could go faster still. It'd be an exaggeration to say my legs were a blur, but they were getting that way, and the staff were starting to look impressed if not incredulous. I now thought that eight times my previous muscle-driven normal speed might be about the limit, but I decided not to try to go beyond my current speed. I wanted to stick to my goal that Super-Aikido had to look realistic, or at least, not look obviously superhuman.

I changed to doing the straight-line zips across the mat backward. I was coordinated enough, and the process was similar enough, that it only took me a few journeys to get that up to the same speed as forward. I didn't get as much attention doing that as you might think, as my moving quickly backward didn't look particularly weird. Sliding backward while standing upright is an easy movement, whereas going backward in a sprinting posture would have looked quite bizarre.

High-speed sideways slides were next, which also didn't need much practice.

Then I mixed it up by crossing the length of the mat in a straight line while changing the direction my body faced during the journey. Sliding feet is SO much easier than stepping because it's almost purely one dimensional. I could push my feet in any direction, so the only tricky parts of turning around while zipping across the mat was to avoid pushing one foot into the other, and to twist my feet slightly during the move so the upper-half of my body could turn to match. This took considerably longer to get right, but mainly because the previous tasks had taken so little time. After a few minutes, I was able to zip across the mat while my body turned to face whichever directions I wanted.

All the straight-line possibilities having been taken care of, the next task was high-speed zigzagging. The only tricky parts of that were making sure my new direction didn't tangle my feet and to use NP to negate the upper-body inertia when I changed direction, both of which I already knew how to do. I was soon zipping all over the mat, including changing my facings mid-zip. Darting in and out to attack someone is just an extreme form of zigzag, so that got included in my current practice too.

Despite my slow restarts for each new type of movement, I was getting quite a lot of attention from our staff. Sliding straight across the mat hadn't looked like much even when done very quickly, but zigzagging was a different matter. To go fast in one direction, then immediately fast in an entirely different direction, looked impressive. But even though I was actually going slightly faster than a sprinter could run, it didn't look superhumanly impressive. I was standing upright, looking relaxed (because I literally was), always had my balance, wasn't sweating or showing any form of exertion, etc., so there were no cues that something extreme was happening. I just seemed to have superbly fast footwork. The watching guards were impressed but no more than that. It would take having someone else on the mat to compare me to before the differences in our speeds was glaring.

I spent several minutes behaving like a crazy pinball seemingly bouncing all over the place. In a fight, the last thing you want to be worried about is your footwork, so I wanted to have that so well worked out that I could rely on it moving and facing me however I wanted, without it requiring more than a very low level of conscious thought.

When I was satisfied, I cruised to a stop on the edge of the mat near the exercise machines and asked the watching guards, "I want to keep practicing my footwork. Would one of you please play tag with me on the mat?"

By now they were very curious about my speed, so they all agreed. The closest guy got to the mat first though, so he became my partner for this.

I held my hands behind my back, reversed a few yards, and said, "You're it."

He started slowly, but quickly discovered that he had to go much faster than that to get anywhere near me. In less than a minute he was charging around after me as fast as he could move. With my proximity sense and being able to move about twice as fast as he could run at me, I avoided him nearly all the time, but he did occasionally manage to tag me as the mat was too small for me to avoid him all the time. He only managed it by moving in ways that'd be very foolish in any sort of combat situation, so I was happy.

After he tagged me, I'd let him back off, I'd say "Ready?", he'd nod, and then I'd zip up to him and tag him. My 24-foot proximity sense meant there was no possibility of his dodging successfully no matter what he tried, as I knew where he intended to go. I could simply run twice as fast as he could directly toward wherever he was go to. How incredibly easy he was to tag amused everyone, especially his workmates. If he'd been one of the jocks at school, he would've lost his temper at me, but he didn't have a weak ego and he wasn't going to let a game of tag make him angry. He tried as hard as he could, but he had to admit defeat.

Another of the off-duty guards jumped forward to replace him, sure he could do better. It turned out that he couldn't.

The third guy tried with no great expectation of success, and he achieved what he expected.

I was VERY pleased. I was moving very quickly and I was doing so smoothly. I'd not stumbled even once. I hadn't expected to, not with thirty two minds to pay attention to what I was doing, but it was still very gratifying. My cheerleaders agreed, clapping and yahooing from the sidelines.

After the third guy gave up, I said, "I think I've got my feet working pretty well. Now I'd like to do some sparring please."

They were visibly reluctant, and no one volunteered.

I asked, "I know you guys practice fighting with each other... ?"

"That's part of our training. You're our client."

I tried convincing them, but they weren't going for it. They quite happily inflict pain on each other as part of their training, but beating up their client wasn't right, and it could get them in trouble with Paul and the people who wrote their paychecks. I didn't waste much time arguing because proximity showed me they were too reluctant to be convinced otherwise, so I used the room's intercom to call "Dad?"

When Dad answered from wherever he was, I said, "I'm in the staff gym like I said at breakfast. They're reluctant to spar with me because they fear they'd get in trouble for it. Can you tell them it's all right please?"

If I'd been in Dad's shoes, I would've said something like, "Not only is it all right, I WANT you to spar with Mark. He needs training partners to get better..." Dad had a different answer though. After a moment's thought, he said, "Anyone that can draw Mark's blood gets a week's paid vacation in LA and I'll cover all your costs, including booze and hookers." In a different tone, Dad added, "Is that what you wanted, Mark?"

"They certainly look more enthusiastic now. I'm tempted to punch myself in the nose before they get a chance to."

"Haha. If Fely found out I bought hookers for you, I'd be the one bleeding. Prof and I might come down to watch. All right?"

"Sure. You'll be impressed. I'll make sure I leave some of them standing for when you get here. Would you also call Paul please, and let him know it's okay for his staff to let me beat them up. They need to get his permission too."

"Sure. It'd be a good idea for Paul to watch too, wouldn't it?"

"The more the merrier."

Paul's voice joined in, "I'm in the Security Center. I'll be there in a couple of minutes. Don't start without me please."

Dad added, "Prof and I will come down too. Don't worry about waiting for us, just don't get through everybody before we arrive."

"Okay, I'll go easy on them."

One of the guards asked, "Vanessa and Felicity wouldn't mind?"

I pressed the intercom button again, "Mom? Vanessa?"

Mom answered, "We're in the Office. We're too busy catching up on MAF work to come to watch."

"I didn't think you'd want to anyway. I'm calling because even after getting Dad's and Prof's okay, the guys are worried about getting in trouble with the mothers. They must think that mothers outrank fathers."

"Smart of them. Tell them it's fine with Vanessa and me. Please don't hurt them too much."

"I won't, Mom. Bye."

There was a bit of joking conversation between the guards, my girls and I while we waited, one comment from a guard being, "Everyone's got a very high opinion of your prowess, Ron." The guards had called me "Ron" several times already this session. I'd not bothered correcting them on it yet; that'd come later. Their choice of name was understandable as it'd only been nine days since my resurrection, none of these guys had ever met me as Mark, and they'd spent six months knowing me as Ron. Paul manages to call me "Mark", but only because he deals with the parents regularly and was diplomatic and astute enough to call me whatever his bosses wanted me called.

I answered the comment with, "They've got some idea of how good I am, yes. They underestimate it though. I've been working on some new ideas recently which they don't know anything about, like how fast my footwork is."

"That's VERY impressive. How'd you get so fast?"

"Natural aptitude and training. Mostly the natural aptitude. You know me as Ron, but now I'm really Mark under Ron's skin. I used to be superbly physically coordinated and I'm getting that back. Plus I'm the only boy in a family of four girls and four parents, so I HAVE TO BE very fast on my feet, haha."

The girls raspberried me, with Julia joking about how easy I was to catch.

Nothing else of consequence was said - if anything had been - until Dad, Prof and Paul arrived together, Dad and Prof having picked up Paul in the electric scooter they'd used.

Paul asked, "Mark, can you explain what's going on please?"

"Sure. There are several things I'm trying to achieve. First, it's only nine days since I was resurrected. None of you knew me as Mark but you knew Ron for six months, who - for an amazing reason - I obviously still look exactly like, although my natural hair is just starting to show. Most of you naturally think of me as Ron. Even you, Paul. You call me "Mark" but you treat me the same way you treated Ron. You wouldn't believe how different Ron and Mark are... ,"

#23: <Haha. Good one.>

" ... but by the time I leave here, you'll have had your eyes opened.

^-- "Second, and related to the first, from what I can tell Ron didn't have any authority on this property, other than directing the gardeners on behalf of the families. Ron was bottom of the status ladder. I'm pretty sure he was perfectly okay with that, but I'm not. When I asked for some of your guys to drive me to the hospital last night, you wouldn't agree until Dad okayed it. When I asked these guys to spar with me, they wouldn't agree until all four parents okayed it. That has to change. My requests or orders have to be acted on..."

Prof interrupted, "I'll put it stronger than that, Paul. Mark outranks EVERYBODY else when it comes to security, and he's to be obeyed instantly. If Steven and Mark are giving you contradictory orders, you do what Mark says. Don't waste time checking with Steven, just do what Mark says. Clear?"

Paul looked at Dad, who confirmed it, "What Prof said, only stronger. I know diddly-squat about security and I'd never dream of contradicting Mark on a security matter."

Prof added, "Don't be fooled by Mark's age, which is even younger than he looks now. He's far smarter, more knowledgeable and capable than you can imagine."

I came back in, "I think that established my second objective well enough. My third objective for being here is to help me get used to Ron's body. I'm not as coordinated as I used to be because everything is the wrong size. It's taking time for me to get used to that, and martial arts training is an excellent way of making me aware of the areas I'm making misjudgments in.

^-- "Fourth, I'm exceptionally good at Aikido. I couldn't train for a month when the DHS and CIA had me in their clutches, plus it's been over a week since I was resurrected, and in that time I've thought of several enhancements that I want to practice and refine. Some of them are easy and hardly need any practice at all, some are middling difficult, and one of them is going to be a bitch. It might take me months or years to get it right, or I might never be able to. To test out the ideas I've had, I need training partners. We've got two dozen security guys, most of whom have martial arts training, so that works out perfectly for me. It's going to be pretty hard on them, but they know that a little pain never hurt anyone, and they'll find the experience amazing.

^-- "That's what's 'going on', Paul."

"You don't talk like Ron, that's for sure. As you seem to be the boss now, what do you want to do?"

"I need to start slowly because I'm clumsier and I'm trying some new techniques, so I want to start with just one of your guys attacking me. When I'm comfortable with that, I'll add more attackers."

"Some of my guys are very capable - we shorten Daniel's name to Dan for several good reasons." I'd read Dan's file with interest back when we'd employed these guys. He was high-dan rated in three martial arts, all of the "Beat Your Opponent To A Pulp" variety. He wasn't in the room now, which I was glad of because I wasn't confident enough to take him on yet.

"I'll play safe by starting with someone else, until I feel comfortable, but if it goes the way I expect then Dan won't give me any trouble."

To his guys, Paul said, "Who wants to go first?"

One of them asked Dad, "A week in LA, right?"

"Yep. Give it your best shot, Jorge."

I added, "As part of helping you realize that I'm Mark rather than Ron, remember I said that I was 'exceptionally good at Aikido'? I've had twenty eight lessons, including one that I just watched because my arm was in a cast. Half of them were three-hour long, one-on-one sessions with my Sensei, but less than sixty hours of training in total. Ron was an exceptionally nice guy, especially to Carol, but he had no particular skills. I, on the other hand, am exceptionally good at acquiring new skills. What you're about to see is how much I can learn from less than sixty hours of Aikido training."

Jorge advanced onto the mat, asking, "What rules?"

"I imagine you'll be trying to draw my blood, and I'll be trying to stop you without hurting you too badly. It's a training session of course, so either of us can call it off any time we want."

Paul suddenly interrupted, "What about the Guardian Angel! That might defend you and it was DEADLY!"

Jorge took a couple of rapid steps back. Everyone suddenly looked decidedly uncomfortable, glancing worriedly around the room.

I'd been hoping they'd forget about that until we'd already been fighting for a while, but no such luck. I said, "It won't do anything, for a whole bunch of reasons. Remember Archangel Michael said Guardian Angels are highly intelligent? It's heard what we've been saying and it knows that the purpose of this fight is to train me to be better able to protect myself in the future. Second, I doubt very much that I'll need any protection from any of you. Third, I asked for this to happen. In fact, I insisted on it..."

I could sense that I wasn't having any effect. I guess the Guardian Angel's propensity for decapitating people was a bit too much of a worry for them. I tried a different tack, calling to the room, "Guardian Angel, will you appear please?"

Amazingly enough, it did, well away from any of the staff. Before they could get even more nervous, I quickly asked it, "You know this is a training session, right?"

It bobbed up and down a few times.

"You know it's good for me to train to protect myself better?"

It bobbed rapidly up and down nearly a dozen times, clearly thinking that was a wonderful idea.

"You're not going to hurt anyone are you?"

It shook its head - or its ball, I guess.

"Not even if someone is good enough to make me bleed?"

More ball shaking.

"No interference at all from you, unless I ask for it, okay?"

It nodded again.

I'd run out of good questions, but a much better idea had occurred to one of my other minds during my Q&B (Question and Bobbing) session. Paul's cellphone floated off his belt toward the Guardian Angel. The phone paused in midair while quite a few keys got pressed, then it floated back to Paul, the Guardian Angel disappearing when Paul caught his phone.

Paul read it out, "It says: 'If too many of them make you bleed that your father can't afford so many hookers, I'll strip more stupid people naked and steal their money again to pay for the prize weeks. I understand what you are doing and I approve. I hope someone beats you because you will learn more that way. Have a good fight.'

^-- Paul concluded, "I'll call that a green light."

Dad and Prof were amused, and the guards were very reassured. There were even some jokes about how funny it was that an angel would steal money to pay for hookers.

I added, "I think it said that mostly to prove that it understood, but I agree it's funny. Jorge, are you ready to try?"

Jorge was slow to get aggressive, but he got the idea after I'd dumped him on his ass a couple of times by darting forward, standing on his toes, and pushing him backward. It was an embarrassing way for him to go down, so he gave himself an attitude adjustment. He bent into an aggressive stance, put his hands up properly, and started advancing on me. I responded by putting my hands behind my back as I had during the tag game, and I backpedaled out of his range.

He advanced, and I slid around him. He tried to get close again, and I moved away too fast for him again.

While we kept playing that game, I explained to Dad and Prof, "One of the new techniques I thought of is a way of making my footwork faster. We tested it by..."

Jorge took a sudden lunge at me. He thought it was "sudden", but I'd proximity sensed him planning it out for the last few seconds. He lunged forward.

I darted extremely quickly to the side as he lunged past me. Without any pause or change of tone, I continued, " ... playing a game of tag. I'm hard to tag, aren't I, Jorge?"

"You're quick; I'll give you that. But can you fight?"

"I'll give you a few more tries first while I test my maneuverability in a combat situation, then I'll show you. You should try harder because I imagine there are some very beautiful hookers in LA, it being a city of failed starlets and all that."

He tried maneuvering me into a corner, but I easily slipped out to the side. When we'd played tag earlier, the guys had tagged me sometimes, but they'd had to RUN and lunge to achieve it. In any sort of combat stance, Jorge had no chance of moving fast enough to tag me, let alone to draw blood. He knew that, but he was taking his time. I wasn't putting him under any pressure, so it made sense for him to take it slowly.

When he'd failed to get near me on half a dozen attempts, he tried a feint - he lunged at me and then immediately dived to his right, figuring he had a 50% chance of diving in the same direction I went. Except I hadn't moved. The first time I'd not moved was the first time he'd feinted, something that Jorge and all the spectators understood.

I asked him, "Did you see a hooker over there?" An inoffensive, little wind-up; just as a fun way of pretending that I really was winding him up.

"Lucky guess."

"Lucky guess, my ass!" yelled Ava from the cheap seats.

Jorge was in no hurry, so we played faint-and-dodge again. Several times, with me always getting it right. His feints got cleverer, in that he'd lunge forward prepared to dive to the side, but would keep proceeding straight ahead if I didn't move - so I feinted to the side he was thinking about the most, sending him leaping that way while I pulled back from my feint. Other times he wasn't feinting, but was making direct lunges at me, but those were easy to dodge. The other options, where he did two or more jiggles, were pointless because I was long gone by the time he'd finished them.

The next time he did a fast lunge for me, arms spread out to both sides to catch me, I ducked forward under his left arm, using my left arm to lift his higher while I gave him a light rabbit punch in the side, just hard enough for him to feel it. He braked to a halt and I grabbed his left upper-arm and pushed it high around the back of his head as I walked around behind him with it. That corkscrewed him off balance backward and kept his right arm on the other side of his body from me while I kept walking around behind him. The trick to this technique is to make sure the guy is leaning over backward enough to be off balance, and then to rotate his body at the same speed as the corkscrew effect is happening. He goes backward in a tight circle and is amusingly incapable of getting out of it or attacking me because I stay positioned about a foot to the left of his left shoulder, which is too far away for his right hand to reach me. I quickly spun him all the way around a couple of times then dumped his ass on the floor. He'd tried to get his feet under control during the spinning, but my EKP had made that even more impossible for him.

After he got back up, I said, "I suggest you don't take the hookers dancing."

"Right now I'm more worried about how I'm going to catch you."

"Why don't you stand still and I'll come to you?"

He thought that sounded much easier than what he'd been failing to do, so he stood still. I approached slowly from directly in front of him. I slowly and non-threateningly lifting my right hand, holding it open with its palm facing him. I stopped with my hand about six inches in front of his upper-chest. My arm was straight, which meant it couldn't do much to him, and my body was out of his reach. I suddenly moved forward at top speed, my palm contacting his upper-chest. I let my elbow bend slightly, and then I pushed HARD, aided with about three hundred pounds of NP force on the back of my hand. Because I'd pushed upward a little, he lifted off the mat and went flying backward. Several feet back, he fell on his ass again.

He got up, saying, "I won't make that mistake again."

"Let's find a new way to put you on your ass then."

Donna giggled.

I moved toward him again, this time raising my left hand as I had my right last time.

When my hand came within range, Jorge swatted at it, but I moved it just enough for his swat to miss while I continued to move closer to him. His other hand swatted, again just missing. Then he launched a rapid kick at my belly from my open left side. He'd had that planned even before his first swat; he'd just been waiting for me to get closer and hopefully be distracted by his swatting attempts. I did look distracted too because I was looking at his hands. Proximity told me all I needed to know, so when he kicked I zipped backward, caught his leg with my right hand with a considerable amount of NP force behind my hand to kill all his momentum and force, then I heaved his leg upward to put him on his ass again.

I asked, "I hope your ass isn't getting too bruised?"

Donna giggled.

I turned my back to walk away from Jorge, causing him to leap quickly to his feet and after me, hoping to catch me unawares. With my 24-foot proximity sense, that wasn't going to happen. He tried punching me in my back with his right hand, and it was easy for me to zip to the right and use EKP to reinforce his punch forward, causing him to extend it farther than he should've, unbalancing him forward. It was simple Aikido technique to grab his wrist and twist. It forced his right shoulder down to relieve the pain. I kept twisting as I pulled him forward more, and he lost balance and sat on his ass again. It was more of a rolling-down than a hard fall onto his ass, but it was still on target enough for Donna to giggle.

I let go and slid back, letting Jorge get up. I stood still while he advanced on me, letting him get within attack range. He started attacking with punches, jabs, chops, kicks.

I ducked, deflected, dodged, blocked and whatever else that seemed to work. I wasn't sure I could handle a flurry of attacks, and I was prepared to zip backward as soon as I felt I was getting overwhelmed, but I found I could keep up. For about twenty individual attacks, I stayed inside Jorge's attack range and nothing got through to me. My proximity sense was essential for my surviving the flurry, although that alone wouldn't have been enough because he was firing away very rapidly and out of reflex most of the time. NP was also essential. By holding my arms mostly relaxed I was able to use large amounts of NP force to move them into blocking or deflecting positions very quickly. Most importantly, large NP forces stopped all his attacks dead, even when they should've powered through my blocks. For example, he could launch a roundhouse kick at me, with a huge amount of force behind it, and I could casually catch it in one hand and not have my hand pushed back even an inch. I could also move my body sideways very quickly to get out of the way, which was especially necessary when he kicked and my hands were busy dealing with his punches. EKP also helped by making some of his attacks go wider than he intended, or cause him to take longer to recover from a movement, to give me a little extra time.