Grind Part 4

Despite our moniker as the worst of the worst, each of us has our strengths outside of our powers. Strengths that we've honed to perfection over a lifetime of hardship. Eternus had his fists, Gum her silver tongue, Fury her many masks, Port had her intellect, and I had my eyes. And despite such strengths being the reason we stay alive, it also means that trying to move outside of strengths can be… arduous.

More often than not, I've agreed with the popular vote that Ricochet didn't live up to his potential. However, I didn't know how true that statement was until I saw the burly man behind. Despite the ripping autumn air and being "out of practice" by his admission, even my eyes wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Like a panther on the prowl, the burly man tore across the rooftops of the nearby lower levels like the entire city was his domain. It didn't matter how big the gap was or how many barriers there were, nor how high they were; the man always seemingly found a way to blitz past them all without a moment's hesitation. Never even getting close to losing speed or balance along the way.

Ricochet's physicality was always a cut above all of us, but it wasn't just that. His dynamic visual acuity, his reflexes, coordination, and sense of equilibrium were something to behold. I saw each of these aspects in full view with these eyes of mine, appreciating every careful position and twitch of the muscle more so than any other person probably ever will.

However, that same observation made my pitiful performance all the louder. For the past three nights, I had joined Ricochet's rampant regiment across the lower levels, adamant about improving my weaknesses one by one.

Through these weeks of observation and experimentation, I recorded all the times my powers acted differently from the norm: my torture at the hands of Pete's Power Palace's, my near-death at Scarlett, and my interrogation in the base of the Monarchy of Misanthropes. While all said incidents were incredibly different, one through-line came through: stress.

Whether physical or mental, it seems that the correlation was always the same; the concussive energy in my body always seems to respond to stress. It's the same principle behind why I "explode" normally, so if I just add to my normal pressure then maybe, I can have some breakthrough.

Though right now, the only thing that seems to be breaking down were my muscles, along with the freighting build-up of my fatigue toxins. As I stated before, my physicality was less than desirable, with Ricochet's masterful performance showing that the gap was even more comprehensive than I expected.

Yet even with my creaking bones, my huffing breaths, and aching muscles, I kept going, trying but failing to hone my mind to a razor edge at my blurring surroundings. But even still, my mind could only persist so much in the midst of what truly mattered. So by the time Ricochet was halfway on another one of his effortless leaps between the large space between rooftops. Unfortunately, my foot accidentally tripped while going far too fast to stop now.

All at once, my formerly heavy eyes jump-started like a rebooted computer, realizing far too late that I was about to make a violent fall from 20 ft up! Adrenaline and endorphins circled through my body like a race track forcing my surroundings to slow down to an unbearable crawl. Through this heightened awareness, I saw more than one breakthrough that day.

Faster and more focused than I ever felt before, my signature concussive force swirled across my body like a muzzle flash. However, unlike before, my body wasn't a dam; instead acting instead like the barrel of a gun as I could feel the energy more precisely than it's ever been. For the first time in forever, I felt the fringes of the feeling that I was missing all this time: achievement.

However, before that emotion could envelop me completely, I remembered the depths of Ricochet's physicality. In the short span of my jump in my balls, the man pulled a feat that would make an Olympic athlete jealous. Instead of letting the momentum of his prior jump carry him, he started to guide it, instead tucking his body into stalling and condensing it.

Like a coiled-up spring, Ricochet managed to somersault off the edge of the approaching building, bouncing off it at almost uncharacteristic speed! With that, he tried reaching out to my outstretched hand, but my instinctively surging powers didn't account for his presence. Thus what happened next was far more painful than my current exasperated body.

So automatically, it could only really get described as the world's most painful form of pain ball; Ricochet's rubber body collided with my consecutive concussive blasts. Upon that first collision, we then had more than enough momentum to suspend our freefall in the form of a dreadful bounce.

With each bounce across the two walls, we picked up even more speed to the point where we blurred, hitting the ground below with a thunderous thud that shook the concrete below. For what felt like hours, we laid there, drifting between conscious and unconscious worlds. And I was about to join the former, completely enveloped in the peace of silence. As usual, though, Ricochet managed to charm himself, and I awake with one principle question.

"What the fuck was that?" he said in a low effort but still pained tone.

Of course, I couldn't precisely "answer" my phone got broken, and I couldn't exactly use my hands. However, that didn't change the truth that, indeed, a breakthrough had gotten made. Though that didn't change the fact that it seems another intriguing discovery had made itself very apparent.