I come to my senses and realize I’m not in my bed. This is the mat, and I was knocked out.
By a skinny nun.
I lie there long enough that if this were a boxing match, the referee would’ve easily counted to ten.
Did Nero lie about this woman’s lack of powers?
How could someone with so little muscle tissue knock me out so easily—especially with padded gloves? What’s even more mysterious is that I don’t feel like anything in my face is broken.
It doesn’t even hurt anymore—well, except for the deep wound to my pride.
I struggle to my feet.
She pantomimes a blocking movement.
“Neither Nero nor Bentley taught me how to block,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and shows me how to block in slow motion.
I mimic her, and she executes her strike again—much slower and with less impact this time.
“Taking the punch on the block is a lot more pleasant than on my face.” I smile at her.
She winks, then strikes again.
I try to block, but her hand smashes into my forehead anyway.
I plop onto the mat again, the white blotches dancing the same jig in front of my eyes, but I don’t pass out.
Knees shaky, I struggle to my feet.
She shows me the block again, but then hits me before I can even hope to block her.
I get up. Again, surprisingly, my face doesn’t seem damaged, but I’m starting to get a headache.
I wipe my nose and narrow my eyes at the nun.
If I had an AI speaker nearby, I’d request the “Eye of the Tiger” song, because I feel as though I’ve fallen into a Rocky movie—except with martial arts invented by nuns.
Thalia proves my point by repeating the whole ordeal of knocking me down at least ten more times. Each hit is slightly different from the other—so even when I manage to put my hands in a way that would’ve blocked the previous punch, it doesn’t work.
Throughout all this, Thalia ignores my non-Rocky-like complaints about my growing headache.
On the twentieth fall, through the haze of what is now a migraine, I recall my powers and the Focusall coursing through my system.
I stand up and face her.
As she starts to wink, I attempt to go into Headspace.
Nope.
I hit the mat again and lie there for a second.
This really blows.
Even Rocky didn’t get knocked down this often.
When I get up and try reaching Headspace again, I get punched in the face one more time.
Maybe I need to even out my breathing preemptively?
Though it’s hard to do after so many hits, I slow my breathing and stand up again, facing the dreadful nun.
She starts to wink.
I reach Headspace mid-wink and just float there, enjoying the lack of headache that is a pleasant side effect of not having a head in this place.
Now that I’m here, how do I initiate a vision that will help me win this fight?
Do I think of the exercise room or my lithe torturer?
How did Nero even convince some nun from the mountains on another world to come train me? With their vows of silence and fasting, these nuns do not strike me as material girls. If not money, how did he entice her?
A set of shapes shows up, interrupting my musings.
These shapes look and smell different from the ones I used to deal with Nero, yet close enough to be their distant cousins.
When I touch the one closest to me with my ethereal wisp, I get exactly what I hoped for.
Tilting her body thirty degrees, the nun strikes me, and I start to fall.
I snap out before my back hits the mat in the vision.
My hands instinctively block the hit I just witnessed.
Her punch lands on my gloves, and she looks at me approvingly.
She pantomimes for me to hit her.
Given what she’s been doing to me, I now really want to land a punch, no matter how fragile she seems.
Correction, I hope it hurts when I hit her.
The problem is that when I try to hit her, she doesn’t even block it. She just dodges as fast as Nero did.
Well, I just have to use the same solution.
I start to hit her again and try to reach Headspace.
Sadly, Headspace eludes me, so my fist whooshes completely off the mark.
She sticks out her tongue at me, like a five-year-old.
If someone had told me I’d so desperately want to hit a nun in her stupid face, I wouldn’t have believed them.
I attempt to reach Headspace yet again as I throw another punch.
Again, nada.
I take in a deep breath. Being pissed-off isn’t very Headspace conducive.
Exhaling the breath, I focus with all my might… and end up in Headspace once more.
Repeating all my thoughts from the last time I was here, I summon nearly identical shapes without much effort.
The closest one does the trick. I see where the nun will be when I try to punch her.
As soon as the vision ends, I do to the nun what I earlier did to Nero—except my glove smacks her square in her until-that-moment-smug face.
She looks stunned.
Crap.
Did I overdo it?
I hope she doesn’t need 911, and if she does, I hope—
She grins at me.
If my punch hurt her in any way, she doesn’t show it.
Are the other nuns in her order this freaking tough?
She pantomimes for me to defend myself.
I do, and get smacked like before, over and over, until I finally manage to use my powers to block her.
She then makes me hit her, which follows the same script.
This loop of blocks and hits continues for what seems like twenty of the worst hours of my life.
She ignores it when I complain about thirst, and she scoffs when I gripe about hunger.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I lie after I block her punch one more time.
She pantomimes getting hit in the face five times.
“If I hit you five times, you’ll let me pee?” I ask, not hiding my annoyance.
She shakes her head and points at the door.
“If I hit you five times, you’ll let me leave for the day?” I say with a lot more hope in my voice.
She nods.
“Okay.” I steady my breathing and reach Headspace—which lets me score my first hit.
The next three hits follow the same basic formula, but something goes awry on the fifth.
I’m unable to reach Headspace no matter how hard I try.
Oh no.
Did I use up my power already?
I do my best to hit her without using my powers.
After a hundred failures, all I accomplish is that I’m barely standing on my feet from exhaustion.
My muscles are frozen lead bricks, and the air around us seems to have turned into molasses.
Is this the hunger and thirst playing tricks, or did swinging my arms get me this tired?
Worst of all, though I lied about needing the bathroom before, my bladder feels like it might explode any second now.
My agony must show on my face because the sensei rolls her eyes and lifts her gloves tauntingly.
If she could speak, I bet she’d say, “You’re worthless. Fine. Hit me and leave.”
I tap her gently this time.
She rolls her eyes and walks off the mat. Taking off her gloves, she picks up her phone.
Her thin fingers dance as though she’s about to text someone as she walks over to me.
Smirking, she shows me the screen.
You’ll have to do better on Monday.
“I’ll do my best,” I say. Under my breath, I mutter, “I’ll also make sure to eat an extra big breakfast, drink like a camel, and probably wear adult diapers as well.”
“That’s the spirit,” she writes, her expression unchanged. “I’ll see you next week.”
I beeline for the bathroom with the gym gloves still on and learn how hard it is to take off one’s pants with such a handicap. Cursing, I pull them off, do my business, and then attack the water cooler, nearly choking on the blessedly cool liquid.
When I come back to leave the gloves, Thalia is no longer at the gym.
Not willing to test my luck, I rush to the limo.
“Hi, Kevin,” I say to my apparently capable-of-speech driver when he opens the door. “You know, it wouldn’t be very professional of you not to say hi back to me.”
“Hi, ma’am,” he deadpans, his expression as blank as a moment ago.
I don’t believe making a client feel old is professional either, but I decide we can argue that point when I’m less starved.
Leaping inside, I attack the food bar with one hand as I hold a paper towel filled with ice to my face with the other.
By the time I stumble into my apartment, the Bluefin tuna sushi I gobbled in the car reaches my belly, making me want to crawl into bed and pass out.
I check on Fluffster and the cat, then say hello to Felix using my last ounces of energy.
“Do you want Golem to carry you?” Felix offers when he sees my sorry state.
The half-finished robot in his room now resembles an old-model Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Metal carapace covers its torso, arms, and legs, but it has no head yet—which is among the many reasons I refuse Felix’s generous offer and get into bed of my own accord.
At least something good comes out of all this brutal exercise.
My sleep is blissfully dreamless—and thus Nero-free.