Marvel Watch - Chapter 7

The next morning, I woke up early. The first thing I did was lock my door. Then, standing in the middle of the room, I Resonated with Genji and began a kata. Just a basic one. I went through it slowly, prioritizing accuracy and smooth movements over speed. As I did the exercise, I did rounds of qi circulation. For five minutes, until my uptime ran out, I went from one kata to the next trying to feel like the skill and body were mine.

When the Resonance faded away, I immediately went into Resonance with Soldier: 76. Again, I went into the kata of the martial arts that he knew, and tried to apply my “Strike Commander Jack Morrison” brain to the Battle of New York for tactics and strategies. Unfortunately, there was precious little footage from Avengers, and the battle was supposed to take a couple of hours.

When Jack’s Resonance ran out of time, I Resonated with Hanzo, and repeated the process. Then with Tracer, blinking around the room and manipulating my time. By the end of Tracer’s uptime, Genji was off cooldown, and the process repeated itself.

This was the course of action that came to me after reviewing the particulars of my power last night. If the movements, skills, and knowledge the heroes held was unfamiliar to me, I just had to practice, and make it familiar. Run exercises as long as I had uptime and opportunity and work until Resonance evolved.

The name of the power was key to my thinking. As I saw it, resonance was things building on themselves due to similarity and repetition. So, it stood to reason that familiarity with the heroes and being them was the key to my power. If there was going to be any changes in my uptime and other capabilities, there was no way through but hard work. If that wasn’t how it was then I didn’t know what to do.

I kept up my exercise for an hour. Then I took a break for breakfast. Then I went at it again for two more hours. Then I did some exercise without any Resonance at all. The fact that I couldn’t change directly between heroes meant that I would still have to spend vulnerable time as just myself. I had to be strong for those times.

With a quick lunch and a goodbye to my mom, I went off to the Songs’ home. It was time to get some personal experience.

I knocked on the door and waited. After a few moments, Rachel came to answer. Immediately, I snapped to attention, and punched my fist into my flat palm in front of my ċhėst, just like I had seen in movies.

“Teach me kung fu! Please!”

“What?” Rachel looked… confused. I guess she had never considered the possibility that I would ever ask for such a thing. In her defense, I tended towards more academic and mental pursuits in the past. Suddenly asking to learn kung fu was just a little out of character. What I get for being on the nerdy side.

Either that, or she actually knew her stuff, and was wondering what the heck I was doing. Figured fifty-fifty odds on that.

“Yesterday, you said I wouldn’t have had my accident if I had learned kung fu to be more coordinated. I thought you were offering to teach me,” I said with a smile on my face.

“I… um…” Rachel seemed to be giving it some thought. Of course, I knew that when she had said that yesterday, she was only meaning to make fun of me. But, hey, I wasn’t going to not take advantage of what could be taken as an offer to train me. I had to get stronger. Eventually, Rachel came to some sort of conclusion and her face brightened.

“Let me ask my dad. Family ancient Chinese secrets and all that.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I said. I’d never heard about where her dad had learned martial arts, but I guess it made sense it was something passed down in the family. After all, even Jackie and Lee, her five-year-old younger brothers, knew kung fu. I sighed as this thought crossed my mind while I followed Rachel inside. I probably wasn’t on even footing with a pair of five-year-olds.

She went to the phone to call her dad who was at work, while I played with said five-year-olds. I didn’t catch much of the conversation as I basically repeated myself to the boys. They seemed rather excited about it. They started demonstrating their skill and throwing punches at me. I tried to dodge, knowing it was all in good fun, and even “died” to them once. They giggled at that. Meanwhile, Rachel’s conversation had switched to Chinese, and completely left me. Maybe I should use Mei to learn Chinese….

It seemed like it took quite a while for her to finish up and get back to us. Then again, I was getting punched and kicked at by some little kids, so that probably made it seem like it took a long time. Standing above me (I was “dead” on the floor at the mercy of her brothers), she nodded her head, and I got up.

“Dad said that I could teach you some basics. However…” Suddenly Rachel thrust her fist directly for my face. She stopped it a centimeter away from my face. I still tried to dodge, only to realize she had already stopped moving.

“I don’t think you can expect to get much out of it,” she finished. “You aren’t really suited for martial arts, best you stick to your video games.”

“You’re just jealous you never beat me in them and lose even to your little brothers,” I muttered.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Where do we start?”

“Hmm…” She looked a little suspicious of me. “We’ll start with the horse stance. You may not get far, but let’s see how long you can stick with this,” she said with a wicked grin. How was a ten-year old girl master of such an expression?

“Yes!”