[WP] One morning, you woke up with the ability to see true and false when written down. If it glows a golden color then it is true, but if it glows a dark color, then it is false. Out of curiosity, you go to the library and walk into the History section, and to your horror, all you see is darkness.
*****
[JERMAINE]
I slept off.
It had been a day of strenuous training. Maybe this was aggravated by the fact that I assumed Demeter's smile to me about four days ago meant that she would be a very nice person and we'd hit it off as friends instantly. That was a misconception on my part, and one I would regret.
She was a monster.
I spent the first six hours after I woke up - which was at 5 AM - getting chased, whipped and dragged by vines she was controlling, the only sounds I was hearing being the whizzing of her vines through the air and her melancholic cackling. At a point, Nemesis and Athena came out to watch the scene, and they laughed too.
I was the only one not laughing at the whole scene, but maybe it was because I was the butt of the joke.
In her words, Dememter was trying to turn my ability into something I could use for combat. As I have explained, the Olympia unit was primarily combative in nature, and seemed to be more interested in fsceoffs than anything else. Flames would have fit in here nicely if it was just that, but there was a hierarchy that was strictly adhered to, and Director Harmonia's orders were not to be flouted or circumvented in any way. Flames believed in a lot of individual effort, and was difficult to control.
Water and Oil.
I couldn't think about that honestly, and without any written text on a paper, all I could do was jump around like a kangaroo and hope I didn't get hit by one of those thin, painful vines.
I was dumb to think that would work.
While I did not have a laid down, coordinated plan or sequence of movements, Demeter did. With a lot of vibes at her control, and one moving target that could not predict where she would attack from next, she really went to town with this one.
After the six hours, I had an hour break to recuperate and bath and allow my bruises to cool ff before I was back out there again. There were no ifs or buts. I was not allowed to carry any paper to the practice area, which was at the back of the building, since Harmonia said it was not practical or plausible in a real battle setting.
If I didn't figure out what to do in this situation within that hour, Demeter would turn me into a zebra before dusk. And this would happen everyday.
Worse still, there was no escape. Harmonia had already sang to me that without express permission, I was forbidden from leaving the premises. And to cap it all off, in the very act of thinking, I'd slept.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," I heard a soft voice call out. As soft as it was, only one call, and without any tapping, was enough to wake me up from my slumber. It was not a deep sleep, sure, but her voice seemed to pierce through the fabric of my slumber and draw me out.
"Is it time yet?" I mumbled.
"Demeter's already going out there."
"Damn," I thought, going out and preparing for another six hours of hell. "I slept off and I haven't thought about any strategy. I'm f***ed."
Nemesis smiled. "You might be thinking hard enough, but not in the right direction. Everyone else in this building knows how you might be able to use your ability in this situation except you, and it's likely because you can't see farther than what you think is before you - the handicap of having not written anything down in a book or paper in your hands."
I frowned as I walked out. "Well I think that's kinda how may ability works, but if you guys say you've discovered a life hack then I'd be more than pleased to learn about it."
Nemesis laughed. "Most of our battles are like chess games - it's usually decided by who has the sharpest mind. If you can't reason this one out now, we can't trust you to come through in even tougher situations in the future. You've got to think this one out yourself."
We were outside, and Demeter was smiling again. "I really thought you were bright, so this is embarrassing. And fun. You thought about something yet, or you're not done getting dragged all over the place?"
Sadly, she could manhandle me as much as she wanted, since Asclepius was there to heal it instantly.
I sighed as we started moving again. Things hadn't changed, and I hadn't improved at all. I was being whipped, thrown, dragged, healed - rinse and repeat. After one particularly badbfall, I decided to try and use my ability. I couldn't write anywhere, so I thought hard about the words written on a wall in my head.
"Left, right, center, up, under dragged, whipped, thrown."
All directions, all patterns.
I envisioned it and detached myself from all that was happening around me.
And then, the words "Left" and "Under" glowed gold.
I wuuckky jumped to the right, narrowly avoiding that hit, and then I bet and swerved to the left to avoid two vibes that came for the right and center.
Demeter smiled. "Oh, he does think!"
*****
TO BE CONTINUED.
