I’m the dragon warrior

I took a deep breath as I looked at my opponent. I could feel the cold floor beneath me, the sweat on my face and hair, the heat of my body radiating through my training suit. I took another breath, steadying myself. 

I could see her clearly—her stance ready, eyes focused, fists poised almost parallel to her body. Her weight was supported firmly by the balls and heels of her feet, her left foot forward with weight on the heel, her right foot back and balanced on the ball. She shifted subtly between the two, trying to confuse me, but such tricks had stopped working on me a while ago. 

A slight upturn of her lips was the signal to start. We both rushed toward each other. A subtle twist of her pelvis was my cue to step back, avoiding the low sweeping kick she aimed at my legs. I countered with a left jab to her ribs, but she sidestepped to the left and bent backward, narrowly avoiding the strike. Her evasion left her vulnerable, and I seized the opportunity with a right kick aimed at the back of her left knee. 

She tensed her leg, holding her stance, and stepped back, watching me with a proud smile. I didn't let her have the space. I rushed her with a series of fist and elbow strikes aimed at her vulnerable spots—her ribs, her shoulders, her sides. She blocked and dodged them, of course. Speed wasn't something she lacked. 

She retaliated with an open palm strike aimed at my throat. I twisted out of the way, grabbing her right arm and locking it into a shoulder hold, trying to bend it the wrong way. She attempted to drop her weight to break free, but I adjusted my grip, keeping her locked in place. We stayed like that for a few seconds, locked in a battle of strength and strategy, before she finally tapped out, conceding the round. 

Everything was clear now. After all the meditation, training, and introspection I'd gone through, I had finally found inner peace a while ago. I could see—no, I could *perceive*. I could already see, but now I could truly *see*. I could process, analyze, take in the necessary stimuli, and discard the rest. I could predict my opponent's moves before they even considered them, based on the subtlest cues—eye movement, shifting body weight, the furrow of a brow, the twitch of lips, the depth of breath. They were all variables in an equation, and I was great at math. 

Turns out, my instincts are to analyze. I don't know what it says about me that, at my most basic, I'm more like a computer than a person. 

We were currently taking a break from the intense spar—which I dominated, by the way. My opponent, Aunt Astra, wiped the sweat from her brow and looked at me with a mix of pride and amusement. 

"You are a scary child, Kara," she said, taking a drink from her water bottle. "I do not envy anyone who would have you as an enemy." 

"C'mon, Auntie," I replied, grinning. "You know I'm a pacifist. I'd just invite them for a nice meal and a talk." 

"Oh, that's worse," she said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know where you got the idea to cross-breed and grow food that tastes like fire, but pity the fool who would eat your cooking." 

"You'd think Krypton's military general would be able to handle a little spicy food," I teased. "But no… I'm called a demon." 

"No one called you a demon," she said, rolling her eyes. 

"But you all thought it," I shot back with a smirk. 

My aunt chose to ignore that last comment, taking another sip of her water and shaking her head. She then got back to the original point. 

"I was trying to compliment you on how your Torquasm Rao is coming along nicely," she said. "Of course, we don't have psychics running around to test your mental defenses, and no, we won't go ask the prisoners in the Phantom Zone nicely." 

"I wasn't going to suggest that," I grumbled. 

"You weren't?" my aunt asked, surprised. 

"Come on, Aunt Astra, I'm not that naive, and I don't joke about the Phantom Zone. I actually made a device to mimic the abilities of a psychic. I've been training with it, but I've just started." 

My aunt looked at me, shocked. "You made a device with psychic abilities? Are you mad? Do you know what that could mean?" 

"I know," I said, my tone serious. "And I'm only using it for myself. I'll destroy it as soon as I'm done with it. I had no other way to train, so I built a way." 

"You are a scary, scary child," she muttered, shaking her head. 

I just ignored the last part and asked, "So, how goes Operation: Save Krypton?" Even though I already knew things were going well—thanks to my spying—I wanted to hear it from her. 

My aunt sighed. "Everything is going according to plan. The Council doesn't suspect that the additions and maintenance to the deep underground stations are meant to stabilize the core. The hidden factories have more than half the ships we'll need to evacuate. It would be a lot more, but we're working with a limited budget and tiptoeing around the Council." She said that last part with a hint of frustration. 

"In summary," she continued, "things are looking good for the survival of our species. Jor-El and Lara have even found promising planets to colonize. I think we'll make it. What about your solution? Is it going to work?" 

"It's going to work," I said confidently. "I just need the resources, but I've already told Uncle Jor-El about it." 

"Look at you," Aunt Astra said with a dramatic wipe of her tears. "Saving the world at the tender age of ten. Oh, how fast they grow." 

Yes, I was definitely rubbing off on my family.