Four days later...
Alex's eyes gleamed silver now, brighter than before. The weight of his presence pressed against the clearing like a storm front. Reality bent subtly, tree branches sagged in strange directions, rocks hovered faintly off the ground. He took a slow breath.
"Again?" he asked, fists loose at his sides.
Bob nodded. His posture hadn't changed, relaxed, centered. Unpowered.
Alex moved.
This time faster.
He didn't blink to teleport, instead, the space between him and Bob collapsed, folding like a mirror crumpling inward. In a heartbeat, he was in front of Bob, throwing a punch wrapped in shimmer.
Bob blocked it with his forearm, but the air behind him ruptured with a secondary burst. A feint. A trap. The shockwave blasted him off his feet, and he rolled across the grass, landing on one knee.
Alex's face lit up, almost surprised at himself.
Bob smirked. "There we go."
Alex didn't wait. He raised a hand, and the environment shifted again. The tree line moved, repositioning, forming a maze of roots and branches behind Bob, then closing in.
Bob ducked low, weaving through, using his smaller frame and speed to slip through the false maze. He burst out of the branches just in time to meet Alex's boot—
—which Bob caught, spinning Alex around and sending him crashing to the ground.
Alex hit hard, but this time, didn't stay down. He reversed the gravity on himself for a second, flipping into the air, then slammed a reality-warped fist down.
Bob dodged, barely, the shockwave leveling the grass for ten feet around them.
Alex landed, panting. "Still not using your power?"
"No."
Alex narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"Because you need to learn control. And I need to remember what it's like to bleed."
Alex hesitated, then, tore the ground from beneath Bob. A ripple, like a breaking mirror, fractured the earth, sending Bob into a weightless drop—
—but Bob had already moved, vaulting upward and catching Alex mid-air with a clean elbow to the shoulder.
They both hit the ground.
Alex groaned. "God… okay. Ow."
Bob stood over him, wiping blood from his lip. "You're improving way too fast."
"I feel like I just fought a blender," Alex muttered, staring up at the sky.
"You warped space in six different ways, summoned a gravity pocket, displaced matter, and still can't land a clean hit," Bob said, amused.
Alex blinked. "…That was kind of a clean hit."
Bob extended a hand again. "Get up, kid."
Alex took it. "Next round, I'm breaking the laws of physics."
Bob snorted. "Good. I like the sound of that."
Alex gave a crooked grin, catching his breath. "Is this what you meant by 'training'?"
"No," Bob said, glancing toward the trees. "This was the warm-up."
….
The sun had dropped low behind the trees, casting long amber shadows across the clearing. The grass still bore scars from the battle, ripped earth, scorched edges where reality had briefly lost definition. Birds had long since stopped singing.
Bob stood in silence, arms crossed, his expression unreadable as Alex sprawled in the grass nearby, staring up at the clouds and catching his breath.
He watched the boy's chest rise and fall, watched the flicker of unstable power still humming beneath his skin, reality occasionally shimmering where Alex's hand brushed the earth.
He's just a kid.
But Bob knew that was no longer true. Not after what he'd seen.
He remembered his own training, fists bloodied against titanium walls, neural shocks punishing every mistake, machines calculating every weakness. He remembered standing in rooms too cold to breathe, breaking his own bones just to unlock more strength, learning to control shadows with discipline carved into his skin.
Hope's training had been different, strategic, structured. The man had been a tactician, a symbol. He'd moved like a storm, precise and overwhelming.
But Alex?
Alex rewrote the rules.
He didn't just move fast, he folded space. He didn't just strike hard, he bent causality. The power in him didn't obey physics, or reason, or balance. It responded to emotion, imagination, will. Raw potential.
And yet, he was learning control.
That's what scared Bob most.
He wasn't just strong.
He was getting smart about it.
"He's already ahead of where I was at his age."
Bob exhaled slowly, staring at the distant tree line. There was a faint sting in his shoulder where Alex had landed a warped punch. It was already bruising. That… didn't happen often.
"Hope was the best. But even he would've been shocked by this kid. What the hell are you becoming, Alex?" Bob thought to himself."
A soft grunt from the ground drew his attention.
Alex sat up, running a hand through his hair. "You're staring at me like I grew a second head."
"You might as well have," Bob muttered.
Alex grinned, oblivious. "You think I could take you next time?"
Bob didn't answer at first. Then, with a faint smirk, he said, "If you ever learn not to talk during a fight… maybe."
Alex laughed and flopped back into the grass. "You're not bad for an old man."
Bob turned away so Alex wouldn't see the flicker of concern on his face.
Bob glanced at the cabin, remote, safe for now.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned back toward the cabin. "Come on. Beans for dinner."
Alex groaned loudly. "Ugh, again?"
Bob grinned. "You want to be strong, you eat what you're given."
"Can't I warp reality into a cheeseburger?"
"Try that, and I'll make you eat it raw."
They both laughed, but under it, Bob's thoughts churned.
"Stronger than me. Greater than Hope. "