Sidekick Carl Stubblefield (beginner reading books for adults TXT) 📖

landed on her side and clasped her arms together, pulling the pillowbot’s arm in close over her shoulder, pinning it. She held on like a hungry tick and kept exerting pressure until there was a loud click.

Did she just break that machine with an arm lock? After the noise, the pillowbot stopped moving and Aurora got to her feet. She allowed the pillowbots to reset and the last attacker, or more accurately, the last victim, disappeared into the wall as panels opened and another took its place. Once again, she walked to the edge of the arena, folding her arms, her smile a bit more smug this time.

Gus bounced into the arena, shaking his shoulders back and forth, trying to loosen up. When he was ready, he dashed toward the first attacker, just as Aurora had. In a similar fashion, he found that he intuitively moved much like she had done and could reproduce her fighting technique. Until he got to the part with the splits, that was.

His version of it was more like bracing himself and kicking the knee of the pillowbot. It had the same effect and saved his boys from some trauma. Gus stomped the downed robot and approached the third. Having a larger reach, Gus was able to grab the last pillowbot before it had a chance to flee. He began to swing it around, moving it in an arc until it collided with a downed pillowbot. He rushed in for the pin when the bot was taken to the ground. Gus heard a chime while he was subduing the last pillowbot, and then the battle was finished.

“No way. No way! That has to be an ability you haven’t told me about. I had to train forever to get that good. Did you do martial arts growing up?”

Gus raised his arms to placate her. “Hold on, I did hear a couple chimes so let me check my logs.”

You have leveled up the skill: Master of Tasks to Level 3!

600 XP awarded.

600 FP awarded.

You have leveled up the skill: Master of Tasks to Level 4!

800 XP awarded.

800 FP awarded.

11,200 XP to level 16.

“I guess you were right. My skill Master of Tasks just leveled twice to level 4.”

“What does that ability do?”

“Description says ‘Enhanced ability to mimic and adopt physical skills by observation.’”

“Balls! You realize you are one lucky S.O.B., right?”

Gus smiled, pleased to see both her competitive side as well as a less formal, composed Aurora. She seemed more real.

“It kind of goes both ways, lately. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have—”

“I don’t know why I’m getting upset. Jealous, I guess,” Aurora butted in, lost in thought. “This will actually save us a bunch of time. Gus, I’m just going to show you all the submission techniques I know, so we can practice them, got it?”

Aurora began going through the fighting styles that she had learned during her time at the academy and beyond. Gus absorbed everything like a sponge and leveled up Master of Tasks two more times. When she felt like she had gone over everything she could remember, they shifted to sparring.

This was a lot harder for Gus because he could copy her attacks much more easily than he could compile them into a directed, intentional defense or attack. Gus escaped some holds and pins merely by luck and a desperate application of one technique or another. Despite her smaller size, she could hit like a truck and when she bore down, Gus could feel her using more than just her body weight to press the attack.

At last, she had pinned Gus to the mat, straddling him. She leaned in, her forearm pushing just hard enough on his neck to cut off the blood flow without collapsing his windpipe or causing any real damage.

He began to fight more savagely as the sides of his vision started to dim. The position she had him twisted into, along with the vice-like pressure she exerted, prevented him from squirming out of the hold and he was losing the battle. Gus looked into her eyes as things started to wink into blackness, and saw her pupils suddenly expand and then the pressure was gone.

Choking and rubbing his neck, he sat up and saw that Jet had slid under her outstretched arms and forcefully pulled her backward and away from Gus. She landed unceremoniously on her butt a few feet away.

Jet, under its own power, floated in the air and interposed itself between her and Gus, blade twitching menacingly as the two sat there dumbfounded. Gus shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and they both stared at the scene. Gus reached out and grabbed Jet out of the air and it relaxed into his hand and resumed its normal weight as it stopped maintaining itself aloft.

“What just happened?” Aurora asked, nonplussed.

“I have no idea, that wasn’t me. Niiiiiick?”

“My guess is that Jet’s Kroutonium must have leveled along with you as you defeated Methiochos, becoming more self-aware than an average weapon. I didn’t know that it could manipulate ether and move on its own power—that is new. Obviously, it was trying to protect you.”

“You have a sentient weapon? I didn’t think they really existed,” Aurora said as she walked around the polearm with new appreciation.

Gus and Aurora looked at each other and smiled. Gus stood Jet upright and thought of what he wanted it to do. Sensing his intention, the naginata retained its position upright as he let go, hovering in the air in the exact position. “I had no idea that was even possible!” Gus said with excitement.

“Me either,” Aurora added, watching in wonder. “Still, that one doesn’t count. I had you beat that round. You’ve got to really start training as much as possible. If you can’t beat a single super like me then you’re going to get creamed when fighting a whole group.”

Gus frowned a bit but nodded his head in agreement. They continued to