Compared to yesterday's disappointment, self defense classes promise to be amazing. There are no less than four capes in the building when you arrive. Also a whole bunch of unpowered skinheads, whatever. Most of them are paired up and sparring, though a few are doing other exercises.
Of the capes, three of them - Hookwolf, Cricket and Victor - are acting as instructors, while the last - Othala - sits off to the side.
Othala is clearly the best dressed of the lot: A traditional skintight body suit, deep red with a black symbol in a white circle on the chest. A rune of some sort? You're not norse-gay enough to identify it.
Victor is also dressed in black and red, but he is using your approach to a costume: Regular street clothes plus a cheap mask and a custom chest piece, in his case a domino and a breastplate. Hookwolf and Cricket even skip the custom chest piece, making do with just the masks. Custom-made metal ones, at least, that no doubt cost a pretty penny. Respectively depicting a wolf and a... hockey goalkeeper?
In Hookwolf's case he is literally skipping the chest piece: He is bare-chested. Many of his unpowered disciples are following his example. It's quite the feast for the eyes, if you're into big, sweaty, muscular men. Which you kind of are, but the amount of swastika tattoos on display is a bit of a turn-off.
To understand the way they are sparring, it is necessary to understand Othala: Othala is probably the most important person in the Empire. She can grant a variety of powers with a touch, but only one person and power at a time. Normally this would make her a versatile and decently powerful backline support type, but one of the powers she can grant is regeneration, which elevates her from 'support' to 'healer-with-benefits'.
Healers are incredibly rare, and the few teams lucky enough to have one enjoy enormous strategic advantages. The impact of having your members recover in minutes from injuries that would normally take weeks or months to heal - or even be permanently crippling - cannot be overstated.
Not to mention the various side benefits, like the unusually realistic sparring matches you are witnessing right now. Those skinheads are beating the shit out of each other, confident that any damage can be fixed right up.
---
At first you're assigned to Victor, who starts teaching you the fundamentals of martial arts. Apparently the fundamentals are 'how to fall over without breaking your own neck'.
Victor is an excellent teacher, which is unsurprising considering his power is being good at things. Or rather, becoming good at things. A subtle but important distinction. He literally sucks the skills right out of people's brains, like some sort of psychic vampire. This obviously means that he is not going to be using his power while teaching people, which leaves your sorcerer's sight with nothing to study.
You glance over at Hookwolf. He's not using his power either. Seeing as how his power makes him transform into a giant monster made of chainsaws, his doing so would be even more counterproductive than Victor's.
Cricket, now. Her power is more modest - enhanced dexterity and situational awareness - and not at all out of place in a sparring match. She is, in fact, using it constantly.
Which brings you back to Othala. She spends most of her time making cow eyes at Victor, but there is a steady enough stream of injured skinheads passing by that you could study her power as well. This leaves you with a choice: Which power do you go for first?
Othala's is undoubtedly more useful, and powerful. But it requires a team. A real team that you can trust with your true nature, not just one you're infiltrating for their powers. If you'd taken Lisa up on her unspoken invitation to join the Undersiders, contented yourself with only learning four other powers - really only two, since Lisa and Rachel gave you theirs regardless - and wasted your life on petty supercrime... Sure. Then you would have had a use for this power, that you wouldn't have learned in the first place.
No, it has to be Cricket. Her power, while modest, is excellent for 'not dying', an activity you plan to do a lot of in the future.
It's a good thing Victor is such a good teacher, because you are an awful student. He frequently has to repeat himself, as you are too immersed in plotting golden circuits in your soul to pay attention.
---
Victor eventually judges that you have the basics down - either that or he gives up in disgust, you can't really tell. At any rate he passes you off to Hookwolf, who starts you on the proper stances. When you don't pay attention, he breaks your arm.
Your scream of pain draws only brief attention from the rank and file.
"Go get that fixed," Hookwolf says. He gives you a shove in the direction of Othala. Unprepared, you trip over your own feet and and land on your broken arm. This time around no one even glances at you as you scream. Hookwolf's teaching methods are clearly well known and uncontroversial.
You manage to roll over on your back. There's a giant invisible wolf looming over you, looking at you with obvious concern.
"I'm fine," you whisper between sobbing breaths. "Everything's fine." You make vague shooing motions with your good arm. The last thing you need is for this to turn into a real cape fight.
"I don't have all day," Hookwolf growls. He pulls back a foot, threatening a kick to your broken arm.
Okay, okay. Fuck. Ow. You never appreciated how useful having two functional arms was until you tried to get to your feet with just the one. You try to wipe the tears out of your eyes, but your mask is in the way.
Othala already has a patient when you arrive, but the skinhead in question gives up his spot for you. Who says chivalry is dead?
"We all went thought this," Othala tells you as your arm mends. "Just pay more attention next time. He won't punish you as long as you try your best."
"'Harsh but fair', eh?"
"Yes. As difficult as that might be to believe right now."
You keep making small talk on autopilot, your attention still focused on Cricket. After a few minutes she tells you that your arm should be fine. Some careful stretches and flexes confirms this, and you return to your lesson with Hookwolf.
You still don't pay attention. Hookwolf breaks your other arm.
---
You leave Hookwolf's dojo (note to self: never call it that to his face) with three soul prices, roughly one tenth of a new power, and a newfound appreciation for how convenient intact limbs are. If you thought getting to your feet with a broken arm was difficult, try crawling across a room with two broken legs (Hookwolf explicitly forbade anyone from helping you).
The soul prices are unlikely to be useful, unfortunately.
Hookwolf wants to find and kill the cunt who has been attacking his fighting pits.
You are not cool with murder, so that's a no-go.
Othala wants Victor to love her as much as she loves him.
Victor wants to love Othala as much as she loves him.
Christ, these crazy nazis are practically giving you diabetes here. Forget fixing Panacea, this is how you ethically use romantic mind-rape powers. Unfortunately no one in Brockton Bay has any such power for you to borrow, so those two lovebirds will have to manage on their own for the foreseeable future.
All in all, well... You learned a lot, almost everyone was nice to you, and you were only ever hurt as punishment for things that were unquestionably your own fault. It was a lot better than high school, is what you're trying to say.
Spoiler: Hookwolf-o-vision
---
Just like cleaning up after Rachel's dogs, tending the forge is the kind of mindless repetitive work that would be a perfect backdrop for power study. It's too bad you can't just kidnap Cricket and keep her tied up in the corner.
When you accidentally knock over a mirror and break it, you're almost grateful for having something to do again. Almost. If your dad could hear the language you use as you hot-glue hundreds of mirror fragments back together, he would personally punch in the face every dock worker who ever talked to his little girl.
At least it will be over soon. You got a letter informing you that your transfer was approved and that you would be starting at Arcadia on Monday. No more sunlight hours for metallurgy then, instead a brand new school. With no bullies, and lots of delicious capes.
In the evening you learn first aid. Or you would, except Cricket is also taking the class. And she uses her sensory power - a form of echolocation, you figured out - even in a quiet classroom full of her allies. You silently give thanks for her paranoia as you completely ignore everything Alex is trying to teach you about saving lives.
Yes, your old buddy Alex is teaching the class. Turns out that he's not just a jack-booted thug, he also has a day job as a nurse. Take that, gender stereotypes?
---
You're going to need more binoculars, you conclude the next morning. Your shitty plastic optics have been going ever so slightly melty in the heat of the furnace, and have finally deformed into uselessness. Oh well, you needed to go buy more propane anyway.
---
When you arrive at the dojo (don't call it that to his face), Hookwolf drags you off to a side room. For the first time since you met him, he seems less than perfectly sure of himself.
"Do you know how they do it in the military?" he asks softly.
"...you want me to salute?" You have no idea what he's talking about, so you take a wild guess.
"No. I mean, about homos."
What? Is he- But he's- what?
"Homos aren't allowed in the military," he continues when you don't respond. "But as long as they pretend to be straight, everyone plays along. That's official policy."
You don't- Ohhhh. He saw the way you kept looking at Cricket, and drew conclusions. And now he's trying to be sensitive about it. This is giving you an all new appreciation for the fact that your dad never tried to give you The Talk.
"I'm not gay," you say firmly. Hookwolf immediately relaxes when he sees that he's made himself understood.
"Then fucking pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you." Yep, he's back to normal alright.
You return to the main floor and start sparring. Glance, glance, go your eyes. Power, power, goes your brain. Snap, snap, go your bones.
Once again, the experience is extremely educational. For example, you just learned that (for injuries that are not themselves mechanically disabling) the anticipation of pain is more debilitating than pain itself, performance-wise. Which is not to say that not anticipating pain is the answer - you almost fell over the first time you tried putting your weight on that foot. But once you bite down and just accept that every step is going to hurt like a motherfucker and there's nothing you can do about that, your Othala-bound hobble speeds up considerably.
"The hell you're not gay," Hookwolf says at the end of the session. "Maybe if you could keep your eyes off your dream girlfriend for five fucking minutes I would believe you."
"You don't understand," you protest. "I want to be like her, not with her." It's the truth! Why can't he be more like your dad, who never tries to talk to you about sex and always believes you when you say things that are technically true?
"Hmph. Fine. Next week you'll be sparring with her directly, then. Leave your costume at home, wear something you don't mind getting ruined."
Oh. Great. Cricket teaches armed combat. And thanks to your - how to put it? - your power-related learning disabilities, you still have only the barest inkling of how to handle yourself even in unarmed combat. Out of the frying pan...
Well, no, you don't actually know which is the frying pan and which is the fire here. Maybe being stabbed hurts less than having your bones broken? You have no idea.
But you'll find out on Tuesday.
===