Part 777: Predator and Prey

January 29th, 2021. Aevum.

As soon as Jason chopped his hand down, Daisy attacked.

She didn’t tap into her powers at all. She had already done so the first time she sparred with her mother, and the two of them had engaged in a few minor practice sessions over the last few weeks, but Phoebe spent most of her time catching up on the trends of the modern world, being taught by Nadia and Jason about how modern society functioned. She didn’t have time to train with the teenagers; that would come later.

Thus, this first round was merely Daisy wanting to determine the full extent of her MindCore’s effects on her physical body. She didn’t use her powers, only her animalistic instincts and sharpened senses. She wanted to figure out what her new baseline was, and if she used her powers out the gate, it would undermine that information.

Like this, Daisy lunged at Phoebe!

She jumped forward and sent a quick wrist-sweep of her sword toward Phoebe’s chest.

Phoebe unhurriedly stepped back, allowing the blade to miss her leather shirt by an inch or so, as she’d done in all their previous spars.

Daisy followed up with a sidestep, a thrust, a sweep, and another thrust, quickly moving to close the distance. Her MindCore rapidly started showing her all the possible movements Phoebe could make, so she instinctively knew she would be able to close off her mother’s evasive movements so long as she-

"You’re overthinking it." Phoebe said, as she started speeding up, moving her body faster to match Daisy’s brisk pace. She sidestepped the first stab, used her sword to knock the sweep slightly off-course, and turned her body ninety degrees to avoid the second stab.

Phoebe made no moves to attack. She simply dodged and deflected Daisy’s attacks with the greatest of ease.

"Shit." Daisy cursed, gritting her teeth.

She attacked again, and again, and again. Phoebe, ever the noble knight, opted not to fight back, only to defend her position. She spotted dozens of openings she could easily strike at to shut down Daisy’s offense, but this spar was not about Phoebe’s prestige. It was about teaching Daisy to utilize her MindCore more effectively.

The more Daisy moved, the more she began to intuit all the wonderful new changes her MindCore had given her. What was interesting was that it seemed to bestow upon her a form of combat comprehension similar to what Nadia possessed. Daisy was able to observe her mother’s movements and mimic them much more easily, her brain absorbing its moment-to-moment losses and recontextualizing them to teach Daisy lessons about the art of combat.

A minute ticked by. Sweat started to accumulate on Daisy’s forehead, while Phoebe appeared as unruffled as ever.

"You’re way too aggressive." Phoebe remarked casually, sidestepping another thrust. "You fight as if the goal is for you to die of exhaustion before I ever counter-attack. This is not an effective combat style, let alone when engaging someone stronger than you."

Daisy grunted. Her mother’s words felt slightly mocking, but they were steeped in a wisdom that could clearly only be gained by someone trained by King Arthur himself! Clearly her mother had gone through all sorts of crazy battles against the demons to become so wise. Daisy had no idea that Phoebe was only an above-average swordswoman before Bahamut took her. Capable of besting a young and inexperienced Jason in the future, but far from the increasingly lofty heights her daughter was now imagining her to be standing atop.

Jason had no idea his daughter’s view of her mother had become so distorted. It didn’t even occur to him that his daughter only recalled childish memories of her mother from when she was six years old, having zero concept of Phoebe’s actual future combat competence.

The one time Daisy had been involved in a battle, she hadn’t been on the battlefield along with her mother, and had only fought to protect her comatose body after Phoebe had totally exhausted herself on the front-lines.

Daisy paused her frenetic movements. She swallowed a few heavy breaths, feeling her lungs start to burn.

A minute of fighting might not seem like much, but the truth was, clashing blows with another person was exhausting, even more so when every attack ended up cutting the empty air. It meant all the force she’d put into every attack was wasted, burned up for zero gain. Most humans could only sustain a minute or two of frantic fighting before they were totally exhausted. Daisy was way above the curve, she probably had several more minutes of gas left in her tank before she ended up a sputtering mess on the floor, but her baseline physical body was nothing extraordinary.

Daisy did not possess superhuman strength or durability, not innately. However, her telekinesis was capable of uplifting her physical parameters drastically. By ‘coating’ herself in telekinetic energy, she could greatly enhance the power of her attacks, enhance her defenses to the point she could even shrug off bullets, and amplify her speed by manipulating her body with her mind.

Thus, after a moment of deliberation, Daisy nodded.

"Alright, Miss Berthold. I’m… I’m going to use my full power now."

"Please do." Phoebe said, as she now assumed a much more dominating posture, both hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword. She stood facing Daisy, her legs slightly apart, firmly planted on the ground.

Daisy regulated her breathing. She sent her telekinesis inside her body, sweeping away her exhaustion and forcibly extracting the built-up C02 in her lungs. The burning sensation faded after a few moments.

Daisy had no way of knowing this, but if a Psion were to see her, they would immediately define her actions as those of a Body Enhancer Psion. Daisy’s methods were crude, unrefined, and the product of an amateur with no formal instruction. Compared to the raw power even lowly 3rd and 4th Level Psions wielded, her body enhancing wasn’t much to speak of. But even so, the fact a mere mud-dwelling species could be capable of mimicking a fraction of the Psion’s capabilities would certainly alarm the Founders.

The young woman might not be aware of these things, but her father certainly was. While Nadia used her PepScan to observe the changes in Daisy’s body, Jason did the same with a quiet bit of Wordsmithing. He had observed Daisy many times, so he was not surprised by her primitive form of Body Enhancing. Rather, he was surprised by how much more smoothly she completed the process. It was as if she had instinctively mastered some elements of her power without even thinking about them.

So that’s how it is. Jason pondered. The MindCore isn’t just giving her ‘animal’ instincts, it’s also helping her assemble the knowledge she already has into better-organized information that she can call upon instinctively. She already has lots of practice with her abilities, but the flow of her psionic energy is something like 40% smoother than it was before the surgery. I didn’t know the QuantumReflex had such a property, but this IS why we do field tests; to gather hard data.

The muscles inside Daisy’s body tightened and grew denser, far beyond what their mundane physical limits should allow. If a young woman aged eighteen could bench-press several hundred pounds after a year or two of training, Daisy was easily five to ten times beyond that level. She was reaching a level beyond even professional bodybuilders and MMA fighters.

At the same time, Daisy’s telekinesis coated her skin, forming something like an invisible dermal armor. This was actually not part of Body Enhancing, but instead a different Psionic discipline known as Primal Psionics. By expanding their available psionic energy pool as much as possible, Primal Psions would gain the power to use huge ‘blobs’ of it for all sorts of vicious and blunt purposes.

However, if Daisy were to instead use small, surgical amounts of psionic energy to deflect bullets at lightning fast speeds, preventing those bullets from ever getting within a few feet of her body, this would instead be an application of Precision Psionics.

Daisy was capable of such a feat… albeit to a limited degree. She simply found it wasn’t reliable enough to be used in a real world situation. In order to become a master of Precision Psionics, one would absolutely need to become a Brain Enhancer Psion first, and those were few and far between.

After a short few moments, Daisy completely restored her body to its peak physical condition, and elevated herself even beyond that. She momentarily frowned, looking down at her abdomen with a confused expression.

"Is something wrong?" Phoebe asked, now looking at the girl before her with a higher degree of wariness than before.

"No. Not wrong. Just… different." Daisy said, before pausing to add, "I feel like I can ‘sense’ more than I did before. My body seems stronger than the last time I ‘boosted’ myself. Maybe it’s because of my MindCore."

"It almost certainly is." Phoebe said with a nod. "Come. Let’s fight a bit more seriously this time."

With that, their second round began. Daisy lunged again, her movements astoundingly faster than before.

Phoebe’s pupils shrunk. She darted backward, her body weaving left and right as Daisy sent out fast, yet measured slashes toward her. Vertical and horizontal cuts sliced the air, still missing Phoebe, but with a much smaller margin of error than before.

Their melee sped up even beyond that. Phoebe started rapidly battering her sword against Daisy’s. The spectators gasped. This was way different compared to the first time Daisy had fought Phoebe a few weeks earlier. Phoebe was moving fast, anticipating Daisy’s strikes, but Daisy was anticipating her dodges and performing quick feints to throw her off. At the same time, Phoebe recognized the feints and threw in counter-feints.

Daisy and Phoebe’s swords started colliding, banging against each other like the sound of trees being slammed against the ground. Vibrations rang in the air, causing the onlookers to grit their teeth. The interesting thing about Jason’s Noodle Swords was that they caused no damage when striking a person’s body, and couldn’t even be used to poke out an eye. But against physical objects, they struck with the same force as real wooden swords would, albeit indestructible ones.

Thump, thump, crack! Slam!

Phoebe batted Daisy’s sword downward and it hit the floor hard enough to make the ground vibrate. The spectators felt that vibration rumble through their butts, given they were sitting on the floor a ways outside the arena.

"God damn. How hard are they hitting?!" Marco gasped.

"Hard enough that if they were to slap you, you’d probably have your head go flying." Brian replied.

"Unbelievable." Sasha said. "Daisy couldn’t last more than a few minutes against Phoebe just a few weeks ago, but thanks to her MindCore, she’s finally on par with Phoebe! I can’t wait to get one of my own!"

Unfortunately, Farrah wasn’t present to witness the incredible fight, and Jerome had stormed out. The remaining three could only chat among themselves.

Nadia, meanwhile, was much more aware of the truth of the fight.

"Daisy’s still losing, and it’s not close." Nadia remarked to Jason with a low mutter. "Phoebe’s merely feeling her out."

Jason nodded. "Phoebe sure became incredible after obtaining the Sphinx. I never saw this level of power coming."

His attention was firmly focused on the fight. He didn’t even notice when Nadia gave him a strange look out of the corner of her eye. Nadia returned her gaze to the arena and sighed. She had already deduced there was something going on with Phoebe beyond what she had told Jason. Phoebe wasn’t telling him the full truth of what had happened, and that worried Nadia.

Nadia wouldn’t let the man she loved be taken by surprise. Even if Jason wasn’t her Jason, she still had to watch out for his blind spots. Phoebe and Daisy were by far his biggest weaknesses.

…

Two minutes passed. For once, Phoebe was starting to sweat a little, but Daisy was definitely looking worse for wear. She had eased up a little and not fought as aggressively, but it turned out that even her empowered body, definitely stronger than pre-MindCore, was still below Phoebe’s physical form.

Daisy’s arms were starting to hurt. Each time her sword collided with Phoebe’s, it was like it had crashed against an anvil. Sometimes Daisy’s sword even felt like it was about to get wrenched from her grasp, so she had to grip it even more tightly.

The young woman’s fingers silently begged her for mercy. They were starting to weaken from all the impacts.

"You’re still holding back." Phoebe said, dodging three more slashes while parrying a fourth. "Unleash all your telekinesis. It’s the only way you can win!"

Daisy wanted to nod, but she simply didn’t have a spare second to do so. She kept maintaining her furious assault while tapping into her telekinesis again.

At once, Phoebe’s movements began to noticeably slow. Daisy started pressing down on her mother with a wall of telekinetic powers, increasing the gravity around her by a factor of ten. Phoebe’s body, 140 pounds, suddenly felt like 1400 pounds, nearly 2/3rds of a metric ton.

Phoebe was still strong enough to resist the force, but now when she took a step, her feet struck the ground as if she were an even fatter Bael, causing footprints to indent into the floor.

With this added layer of obstruction, Phoebe and Daisy’s combat capabilities abruptly equalized. Daisy’s attacks finally started connecting. She landed her first glancing slice on Phoebe’s right shoulder. Phoebe, not one to be one-upped by a teenager, immediately struck toward Daisy and landed a light cut on her collarbone.

Daisy knocked Phoebe’s sword aside. The increased gravity made Phoebe’s reaction time to pick the sword back up just a smidge too slow, so Daisy managed to land a horizontal chop on Phoebe’s neck, earning her first full point. Her sword struck flesh, causing no injuries, but it made Phoebe wince.

"Alright. I guess I have to stop playing around." Phoebe muttered.

Phoebe’s eyes metaphorically flashed. Her speed increased as she finally went all-out, rushing at Daisy to attack with all her strength. She chopped downward while Daisy swept her sword upward to deflect the attack, but too late, she realized she’d made a huge mistake. Phoebe’s entire body was being dragged down by Daisy’s gravitic pressure, and that made her sword ten times heavier, bolstered even more by Phoebe’s tremendous strength.

CLAAAANG!

Phoebe battered Daisy’s sword out of her hands, and Phoebe’s sword crashed against Daisy’s chest, stopping when it struck flesh.

"Guh!" Daisy coughed. Even though the sword hadn’t hurt her, having her own sword torn out of her hands had finally sucked all the strength from her fingers. Daisy fell to her hands and knees, coughing wildly. Her telekinesis quickly faded due to exhaustion, and the room went quiet.

"Uhh.. uhh…" Daisy wheezed, not able to catch her breath. She found herself hyperventilating from exhaustion, while Phoebe was only a bit less tired. Even Phoebe was exhausted from the frantic assault.

Jason quickly came over and healed both women, relieving Daisy of her crippling chest pain. She swallowed several breaths, then plunked down on her butt with her head hung forward. She closed her eyes, feeling the wave of exhaustion somewhat cleared by her father’s magic, yet still present in her brain itself. Phoebe’s final attack hadn’t only mangled the nerves in Daisy’s hands, it had also overwhelmed her psionic energy reserves.

Daisy felt woozy. She hadn’t fought a battle this intense… ever! Not even a single time. At her uncle’s request, she’d been dealing with ordinary humans in the same way a soldier might shoot an ant with a bazooka. It was extreme overkill.

But now? Sparring with her mother on equal grounds? Daisy was completely wiped out.

She had to sit for a while before she could even refocus her hazy senses, lift up her head, and look at her mother seated across from her. Phoebe seemed like she still had some fight left in her, but she was pretty tired too.

"If you’d gone all out like that from the start, I might have lost without a chance of victory." Phoebe said, wiping her sweaty neck with a towel.

Daisy closed her eyes. "There’s no need to be nice. You were going easy on me the whole time."

"Not at the end, I wasn’t." Phoebe said quietly.

Daisy was too tired to argue, so she let the matter drop. Phoebe looked at the young woman with a complicated gaze. She closed her eyes, allowing her psyche to dip into her nascent Mind Realm, still slowly forming, but far from complete.

There, she saw Lord Elrin, the Sphinx, sitting by a pool, one of his front paws hanging into the water, the other resting on the pool’s edge. Elrin was a bipedal creature, but he laid on his stomach like a cat would, lazily tracing his paw in a circle inside the pool’s water.

[Not a bad fight. You’re starting to attain a novice mastery of my simplified Sphinx combat styles.] Elrin said nonchalantly. [Inheritor, you have found a worthy training partner. It is vital that you spar with someone of roughly equal skill level, such as Daisy. Mentor that young woman well, and together, the two of you shall grow unstoppable together.]

"She’s way stronger than me." Phoebe said, feeling slightly discouraged. She sat down cross-legged next to Elrin and hung her head, her arms flopping in her lap. "This body you’ve granted me is quite strong, but I fear it is not worth speaking of compared to those of the Demon Dukes and Emperors. Aside from my physical strength, I have little to draw upon."

[Hahaha. How little you know.] Elrin mused. [At my peak, I could annihilate planets with a wave of my paw. I wouldn’t, of course, due to Akasha’s laws, but it was within the realm of possibility if I ever felt suicidal enough. That little fight with the child earlier was like a play put on by toddlers, in my eyes. If you truly think you’ve reached the peak of the mountain, then I’ll have to dump water on your head now.]

Elrin shook his head and smiled, causing his majestic mane to rustle gently. [If one must ascend a million steps to reach the peak of power, then you have barely climbed the first two, perhaps three. You’re a little stronger than most mortals. They might worship you as a god, but your control of the Sphinx’s lineage is a pitiful embarrassment.]

The Sphinx tapped his chin with his dry paw. [Hmm. You still haven’t merged with the Sphinx long enough. I think I’ll leave you as you are now. Inheritor, if you wish to become stronger, instead of coming here to beg me for greater strength, try learning to use the strength I’ve already given you to its highest potential. So far, you’ve been tapping into the Sphinx’s Instincts mindlessly, allowing those instincts to control your body in the same way as that child is allowing her primitive little MindCore to control her.]

He continued. [It is like watching two power-armored soldiers using their suit’s internal AI’s to fight one another. A novice allows their base instincts to control them. A true master learns the lessons those instincts are trying to teach and adopts them into their internal world models. Once you accomplish such a feat, you will be ready for my next blessing.]

Phoebe nodded slowly. The talk of AI didn’t mean anything to her, but she could generally glean what Lord Elrin was saying based on contextual clues. She’d been doing that a lot lately.

"I wasn’t trying to beg you for more power." Phoebe grumbled.

[No, no, you weren’t.] Elrin acknowledged. [But I can sense in your soul that you are feeling resentful about your momentary loss against the girl. This is good! One should never be content with their current level of power. That always causes a slow slide into sloth and decay. Every loss should be a brutal reminder; a wake-up call that you are not invincible and there is always a sky above the sky. Take today’s battle, replay it in your mind, and learn as many lessons as possible. Crush the girl the next time you fight, then mentor her until she defeats you. Repeat over and over, and before long you will be ready for my next gift.]

Phoebe exhaled, feeling the tension leave her body.

"Yes, Lord Elrin."

[Begone, then.] Elrin said, casually waving his paw in a ‘get out’ gesture. [Until next time.]

Phoebe’s vision dimmed., She returned to the world of the living and made a grand display of yawning to hide the fact she’d been comatose again. Luckily, this time she’d only ‘dozed off’ for a few minutes, so nobody was any the wiser.

Jason chatted with Phoebe for a while. He asked Phoebe how she felt Daisy was progressing, and, spurred on by Elrin’s words, Phoebe chose to praise Daisy’s growth while acknowledging her own faults.

Phoebe enjoyed speaking honestly. She hated telling lies, and even just hiding Elrin’s existence made her deeply uncomfortable. What she did not know was that Nadia was always keeping an eye on her from a distance. She had already started to notice certain patterns and was carefully fitting pieces of a puzzle together.

Still, Nadia said nothing. She didn’t rat Phoebe out, nor did she confront her. Phoebe was oblivious to Nadia’s quiet machinations.

Eventually, Phoebe and the others headed out. Daisy was left alone with her father and Nadia.

"How are you feeling?" Jason asked.

"Physically? Fine." Daisy said. "But psychologically…"

"You did a great job." Jason said, going to great lengths to praise his little girl. "This MindCore will be a game changer for you. Nadia and I will see if we can get a new training regimen set up for you as soon as possible. We’ll make sure to challenge you so you can grow stronger as quickly as possible."

Daisy smiled at her father, but then her joy faded. She looked at the ground guiltily.

"Dad… what about Jerome? He was so mad earlier, I feel kinda bad."

"Don’t you worry about Jerome." Jason said, making an ‘x’ shape with his palms. "Your old man’s got it under control. I’m going to have a talk with him."

"Jason, before you go," Nadia said, "I just wanted to point out that Jerome’s acting a little different from usual. He’s typically quite respectable when he fights, and he always appreciates a good challenge. The way he blew up at Daisy isn’t how he usually would act."

"I noticed that too." Jason acknowledged. "He acts like a rough street urchin badass, but he’s always so gentle with Farrah. He has a soft side, but he puts up an emotional wall and doesn’t let others in."

"Except Farrah." Daisy pointed out.

"Yeah. He tells her everything." Jason said, his voice trailing off as if he’d realized something.

The Wordsmith fell into deep thought. He stroked his chin and muttered something the other two couldn’t quite catch.

"Yeah. I’ll go find and talk to him now." Jason said. "Daisy, you should go get some sleep. My Wordsmithing heals the body, but it’s not too useful when it comes to your mind."

"Okay, dad." Daisy said, smiling and nodding obediently. "Hope things go well with Jerome…"

"So do I." Jason said.

He uttered a Word of Power, then vanished from the spot.