The kid was promising, she shifted and twisted her hips when she had no experience. I weaved between the other teens that were in the dojo going through the motion and approached her. When she glanced at me from where she was punching the heavy bag I asked, “Why are you here?”
She gave me a glance and stopped punching the heavy bag, “My parents said I needed some form of physical activity over the summer so I picked this.”
I felt a flush of disappointment that she wasn't here to defend herself from bullies at school or something like that. I shook my head and dropped down onto my knees, using the mat as a cushion, “Well learning a fighting style will for sure help with that.”
She nodded and gave the bag a glance before looking back at me, “How long have you been doing martial arts?”
I scanned her up and down, “How old are you? Thirteen, fourteen?”
“I’m sixteen, Mom says I am short for my age.” She replied with crossed arms.
Suneya Tetsuko was my main for over twenty years. I picked up the monk class on my fifth try and fell in love with it. I nodded at the girl, “I have been doing martial arts longer than you have been alive.” I raised my arm and flexed it, “It will make you pretty strong.”
She gave me a doubtful look then turned back to punching the bag, “I will prolly do this until i move out of my parents house. I want to be an influencer.”
I didn't know what an influencer was on this world but I knew how to take something and run with it, “Become a martial arts influencer then. You are already here, just stick with it and go.”
“This is hard though. I don't like physical activity.”
I shook my head, “How long are you going to be doing this?”
She sat down across from me on the mat, “Just the next few months if I have to.”
I crossed my legs and rested my elbows on my knees and leaned forward, “In three months this won't even feel hard. Your body will grow to like the activity.”
She shifted a bit and chewed on her lip. When she didn't look like she was going to continue I held out my hand and let a little bit of chi float off my hand. Her head snapped towards it and her eyes got big, “This is chi. It slows down aging. You'll be in your forties and look like you're thirty.”
I could tell I instantly had her. She would be coming to this dojo for the rest of her life.I stood up and mushed her hair before stepping past her to another person. I wasn't the only one running around trying to encourage these teens to stick with it. Jacob and Anthony were helping people and Victor was sitting on the side, too tired to do anything but watch. The next person I started helping was a younger boy. He was putting in quite the effort but his form was abysmal. He was focused on the bag in front of him throwing out punches so I walked over and started poking his feet into position, “Power comes from your base. Set your feet like this.”
He flushed and shifted his feet. When he looked like he was going to throw another punch I held up my hand, “Slow down.”
I set my feet like his and mimed throwing a punch while twisting my hips, “twisting your hips transfers the power from your base to your punch. Do it smoothly and,” I lashed out and hit the bag with a normal punch. The heavy bag swung out and came back where I stopped it, “the power comes with it.”
He lifted his arms and glared at the heavy bag before slowly punching out. I nodded at the motion, “Just like that.”
He kept repeating the motion slowly going faster. When he shifted wrong I waved at him to slow down. When he got ten in a row I asked, “Why are you trying to learn this?”
She shook his head, “I have a little sister I am going to have to protect when she gets older.”
I let out a small chuckle, “Is she rambunctious?”
He gave me a questioning look. When I explained what the word meant he shook his head, “Kind of. She's a trouble maker and tends to drag me into the trouble she creates.”
“That’s as good a reason as any.” I nodded.
I moved on and helped teach others for a while. Eventually lunch came and I went outside to take a seat on the sidewalk in front of the dojo. My beans and rice still tasted good. I had enough money to go get something better but I chose not to. I needed to save for a home or an apartment. Victor told me I was being paid pretty well for what I did. I glanced at the mountain in the distance, I had appeared there and still didn't know the mountain's name. Learning the written language was going well, I had started being able to pick the squiggles apart and could tell the letters of the things. I was eating the rest of my rice when Jacob stepped out of the dojo, “got some mail for you?”
I reached out and took the envelope from him. I tore it open before he could duck back inside and waved it at him. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the letter and started reading. His eyebrows climbed up and he asked, “How many vampires did you say you ran into the other day?”
“Two, but Owl came and got me the other night. I put a whole group of them down helping her.”
He nodded and held the letter out to me, “Take this to the bank. Owl filled out the forms for you and you got a bounty from them.”
I took the letter and looked down at it. Jacob waved at me, “do it now while they are open. Anthony and I have the dojo.”
“How much is it?”
He shrugged, “You could probably buy a car with it. Not a brand new one but enough.”
So enough to rent an apartment for a while. I nodded at him and headed to the bank. I needed to learn to read before I could rent an apartment, another reason to study harder.
It was later in the night, I was sitting on top of the dojo chewing on my kiseru. It was quite late, the sun had set hours ago. I dropped my eyes from the sky to the city and shut with. With a burst of chi I focused my hearing and started searching. I heard a few cats fighting, a couple talking. Someone humming in the shower, the squeaky brakes of a car. A heater turning on and someone shutting off a stove. I flipped through the sounds until I heard the sound of a cape flapping in the wind. I opened my eyes and focused on that sound. It was on one of the sides of the city, I rolled to my feet and started roof jumping in that direction.
I didn't go in a straight line, the building jumped in height at certain distances from the center of the city so I circled around. I found Owl crouched down on the edge of a building looking out at something. She shifted when I landed on the building so she knew I was here. When I approached she waved at me to crouch. Soon I was on my knee next to her overlooking the city, “what are you doing?”
Her head didn’t turn and I tried to follow where she was looking as she answered, “That warlock from the other night was part of a cult. I am looking for evidence of the cult.”
“I got a check in the mail from all those undead I put down. Why did you do that?”
“You did the work. It was easy to send in the video with your address.”
I glanced down at the building we were on then scooted a little ways away from the edge, “You're kneeling on bird poop.”
“Polymer layer with a non stick outer coating, “She replied while shaking her head.
I followed her line of sight but we were so high up she could have been looking at anything, “does that helmet have magnification in the eyes?”
“That and a whole lot more.” She replied while standing.
Owl took a step off the roof and dropped. I watched her cape fold out and expand turning into a glider. I could see the street lights through the normally really dark cape as she pulled away. I chewed on the mouthpiece of my kiseru before leaping off after her. My character didn't really follow the idea of stealth well. If i really started putting out DPS i would start glowing and markings would appear across my body, cant be stealth of your glowing like a flashlight. The sound of wind rolling over cloth let me follow her from behind. I stayed farther back, not wanting to ruin her stealth. She glided low then pulled up and tucked herself in to land on what looked like an office building.
I landed on the top of a building a few blocks away and watched her roll to her feet and head to an access door. She fiddled with it before entering the building. I was leaning against the giant AC enjoying the smoke from my kiseru when she showed up again. She had somehow slipped out of the building and I hadn't noticed. I heard a stone shift behind me and when I turned she was already halfway across the roof to me. I looked back at the office building then back at her, “How did you get out?”
She shook her head, “The front door. Getting out is always easier than getting in. That warlock worked at that office building.”
She held out her forearm and the little screen on it flipped on. It was flickering through what looked like files, “Did you download everything from that place?”
“Just the pertinent things.” She dug around under her cape and pulled out what looked like a square stone missing a chunk. It looked like sandstone, “He had this in his desk.”
I looked at it and shrugged. She knelt down and rapped it across the rocks on the roof. It made a high pitch ting of metal on stone. I held out my hand and she passed it over. It felt like sandstone that didn't want to crumble under force. I rolled it around in my hand before offering it back, “What is it?”
“Old. At least a few thousand years old.” She took it back and pulled it under her cape, “What are you doing out here following me around?”
I leaned back against the AC and used my thumb to put out my pipe. Standing this close to her without anything happening made me realize how tall she was. She had at least a foot of height on me at least. I looked down and chewed on the mouthpiece of my pipe before shrugging, “That check in the mail was weird. I don't understand why you did that.”
Owl shook her head, “The letter that check came with had a whole lot of information on it. You need to learn to read as soon as possible. That letter would have answered all your questions, you didn't need to find me.”
I met the eyes of her helmet, “I also don't have many friends.”
She went quiet for a few seconds before shifting around and pulling out a black square about the thickness of cardboard, “This is a communications device. You can take care of yourself, that’s the only reason I am giving it to you.”
It was cold and surprisingly heavy, “how does it work?”
“Just text. It will chirp when it has a message. It should be able to reach you anywhere on the planet.”
I flipped it around then gave her a nod, “Well, call me if you need help.”
She turned away and headed for the edge of the roof. She was almost there when something shot up through my mind, “Hey Owl! Your fighting style is weird, where did you learn it?”
“I did. It's made for fighting in this suit.” She answered then stepped off the roof.
I sparked my kiseru with a brush of chi and chocolate flowed into my mouth as I took a pull. The gamer part of me rolled that answer over then threw it at the Suneya part of me. Suneya decided that was pretty impressive. I turned and stepped off the roof in the direction of the dojo. It was about a four story fall to the ground before I landed on the balls of my feet. The alley was dark and when I stepped out of it the nightlife had changed.
The number of people out had dropped this late at night. There were still some going from bar to bar but that number was a whole lot lower than it was on the weekend. The number of lights on the streets from open buildings so the city came off as darker. I was about a mile from the dojo and walking past what looked like an apartment building with someone sitting outside. She was leaning forward with a small animal between her hands, playing with it. As I got closer her ear flicked and she turned to look at me. The light reflected off her eyes as she turned then she gave me a subdued smile showing extended canines. When I got closer I could see what she was playing with, “Is that a raccoon?”
She looked down at it and her smile changed to a real one. It was a small one and she was rolling it back and forth in her hands across the ground in between her legs, “A baby one, yea. Mom got hit by a car so I am taking care of it.”
I crouched down and watched her play with it, “My name is Suneya.”
“Amanda.” she answered while picking up the baby raccoon and setting it into her lap.
The little raccoon chittered at her and she started petting it, “How smart are they?”
“They are more resourceful than intelligent. They are probably going to be the next species we domesticate honestly.”
The baby raccoon started to calm down as she rubbed its belly, “Can you understand them?”
She gave me a side eye, “What makes you think I can?”
I looked at her bushy tail and the ears on top of her head before meeting her eyes and shrugging, “No reason.”
She snorted and looked back at the baby raccoon, “Yea I can. This one just asks for food and play, very rarely does it ask for help.”
“Why does that matter?”
“The first thing a dog does is ask for help, cats take a little bit more before they ask for help. These ones try to figure out their own problems themselves.”
“Oh, that probably helps taking care of them then.”
She nodded, “Kind of. It also helps that I'm awake when they are.”
I looked at the building that we were in front of, “Is that a nice place to live?”
“Looking for a place?” When I nodded she continued, “It's decent. Do you have a job?”
I pointed in the direction of the dojo, “I work at the dojo in that direction.”
She nodded, “the office opens in the morning. What are you doing out this late at night?”
I shrugged, “Sleep isn't something I need. I can do it but I don't need it.”
She leaned back and looked at me with jealousy. The baby raccoon in her lap had passed out but she kept petting it, “What I wouldn't do for something like that. I could get so much more work done.”
I rested my elbows on my knees and propped my head up, “is watching animals like that really that hard?”
She shook her head, “I am a freelance programmer, the fact I'm a night owl doesn't matter that much. I could just get a whole lot more work done if I didn't need to sleep.”
“Were you able to speak to animals your whole life?”
She shook her head, “No. I went to bed one night when I was fourteen and woke up like this. I didn't notice anything different until my childhood dog told me he was happy I was more dog like and easier to understand.”
I chuckled at that before asking, “How come you don't train pets? You could probably make a whole lot more than programming.”
She shook her head, “I did a little in high school. It was fun but it also taught me that some people shouldn't own pets.”
I chewed on the mouthpiece of my kiseru and asked, “What other animals have you talked to?”
“Lots. Cows are just dogs that weigh a ton. Sheep and goats though, I can't say this enough. They are really dumb.”
“What do they understand?”
“The cows understand that we eat them and to them its a part of their world. We keep them safe from predators and help raise their young. Goats and sheep are to stupid to see that though. It's kind of why I don't eat meat from processing centers. The animals know its coming and all that shit terrifies them in their last moments.”
That was an interesting way of looking at things. Fresh meat was rare in my home world so I was still surprised when I saw it in stores when I walked through swivel city. We talked for a while more before she had to head back inside. I finished my walk to the dojo and just hung out outside of it. From the roof I could watch the sun climb over the horizon and I came to enjoy the view.