1.13 Breakout Part 2

“So how does this work again?” asks Judy as she stands in the training room.

I have to admit, Judy looks quite fetching in purple, form fitting cos-mat suit that she is wearing as we test her powers.

“You try using your powers,” I explain from the control room, “And then I use some of the fancier equipment down here to record it. We’ll then use the data I get to figure out your powers.”

“Okay,” says Judy, “Umm, how many times have you done this before?”

“A few times so don’t worry,” I reassure her.

“And the fact I’m affecting time won’t mess anything up will it?” inquires Judy.

“We might have to slow down or speed up the footage to view it, but I’ll record everything,” I say, “Let’s start with the basics. I’ll toss out a couple of targets. Try and slow them down.”

I press a button and two ceramic discs are fired into the room, flying across the room at a low speed. Judy raises an arm at them and they slow down to the point they’re barely moving.

“That worked well,” I say, “I’ll launch another pair and try and speed them up this time.”

Another couple of discs are fired at a low speed before zooming across the room as Judy uses her power on them. They slam in the wall on the far side of the training room, but don’t break as clatter to the ground. Granddad made them out of a material that is almost as strong as the ceramic the Sentinel armour uses, but cheaper and easier to mass produce.

I test other applications of Judy’s power using more of the training discs. It turns out that she can slow down, speed up, reverse or freeze time using her power. She can also apply it to herself which allowed her make herself much faster by speeding herself up.

I also figure that she can potentially use her power to help heal herself if she gets hurt, but for reasons that should be obvious, I refused to test that.

Another thing we figured out was that while Judy can use her powers without gestures, she has to concentrate when she does that except for when she’s using on herself. All in all, it’s easier for Judy to just use her hands to direct where she’s using powers.

Hopefully that is something that can be worked on with time. Both James and Sam had to use their hands to direct their telekinesis at first, but now can use it with a mere thought. James doesn’t even have to locate what he is moving anymore.

“Do you want to take a break?” I ask Judy, “Or do you want to move onto the next phrase of the testing?”

“What’s the next phrase?” Judy asks back.

“I’m going to send a training drone to fight you,” I tell her, “It won’t hope you, but you’ll still have to fend it off and subdue it.”

Judy thinks for a moment before reply.

“I’m ready,” answers Judy, “Bring it on.”

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll try to make things gentle.”

“Don’t go soft on me just because I’m your girlfriend,” protests Judy with a of bit indignation in her voice, “I’m more than capable of holding my own!”

“I’m not holding back anything,” I insist as I drop a humanoid training drone into the training room.

“Whoa,” says Judy as she adopts a Judo stance.

The drone swings at her, but Judy blocks by slowing its arm down with her power. She attempts to get the drone in a lock, but fails as her power fails without her directing it or concentrating on it.

The drone quickly reacts to Judy and catches her off guard as it hits her in the stomach. She huffs and is knocked to the ground.

I hesitate between lessening the drone’s assault on Judy as she is my girlfriend or letting it be as she requested. The decision ends up being out of my hands as the fight continues and renders my choice moot.

Judy rolls out of the way as the drone tries to strike her again. Not striking her too hard of course. I made sure of that before the fight began.

My girlfriend scrambles away from her attacker and attempts to get to her feet as it continues to come after her. It occurs to me that the League’s combat training drones would be pretty tough opponents for an inexperienced fighter, regardless of their past training or if the drone has been set to easy.

“Want me to turn down the difficulty?” I ask Judy as she finally mentions to get back on her feet as she uses her power to speed herself up.

“No!” she yells back, “I’m doing fine thank you very much!”

I shake my head as Judy yelps and dodges out of the way as the drone lunges at her. If Judy had to face more than one drone, she would so meteorically dead right now.

I have to admit, I’m actually quite tempted to go down and help her. Janelle could take over the controls and I wouldn’t even need the Sentinel armour or even a cos-mat suit to do well.

Judy is tripped up by the drone and falls flat on her bottom. The drone swings a fist at her and Judy raises her arms in a meaningless attempt to protect herself.

I jump out of seat as the blow connects.