“So that’s the reason you say you want popularity?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just so you can apologize?”

  “Yes.

  “And you couldn’t just tell her how you feel about this yourself?”

  “No.”

  “So now you want to make an impression in front of the whole school.

  “Basically.”

  After the scene Hao had made in leaving their dorm, Nial hadn’t expected him to digest all this information so easily. Then again though, if he knew one thing it was that Hao was easily one of the smartest people he knew. Maybe the anger he had shown during his initial exit was just another tactic in baiting his reasons out of him.

  “We still won’t be doing any more training together.”

  “What, why not? What else do you want from me? Just tell me I’ll do it!”

  Nial was kind of embarrassed to admit it, but Hao was probably the only cadet in the academy he was close enough with to ask to train together. It wasn’t as though Nial was an unsociable guy, but he wasn’t the type of guy to hang around in a large friend group.

  “Hah, look you can tell, I can tell, hell the whole damn academy can probably tell at this point, there’s just no way any amount of training would let you last more than twelve seconds in the ring with Kit. It’s not just a matter of strength it’s a matter of compatibility. You’re a theta class traverser and she’s a Zeta class manipulator. Your main combat strategy is to take her by surprise, meanwhile her ability is to control time’s effect on her. Meaning she can’t be surprised. I mean if Kit is this jilted friend trying to make up like you said she was…”

  “I never said she was.”

  “Oh, from what I heard you definitely said she was. Anyways, why would she challenge you to this fight in the first place?" By my predictions the beatdown your about to get is going to do far worse than a little teasing to your relationship.”

  “I mean I kinda just assumed she wanted to beat me up and that was it.”

  “You know what Nial? Having known you since Summer at this point, I can say with confidence, that if I had Kit’s level of power, I’d want to beat you up too. But not because I don’t like you, because you’re an idiot.”

  “No need to sugar coat it.”

  “I didn’t. Anyways if you’re serious about what you say the way I see it you only have one option.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You need a new combat strategy.”

  “No way, envisioning was the combat strategy my brother taught me and if you think you can come up with a better one…”

  “Enough! Look we don’t need to get rid of envisioning as you just need to find a way to work around it in order to counter Kit’s ability. Otherwise, you better find a way to ascend by the end of the night if you want a chance a beating her.”

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  “But I mean it’s like you said yourself Kit’s ability essentially allows herself from two different points in time to exist during the same period. It’s like if she had a shadow clone, and I can’t traverse to two places at once so even if I take one off guard the other one can just counter.”

  “Which is why you don’t use your traversing to directly attack her.”

  “What but I can only use my traversing on myself, I need to envision myself at my destination in order to even use it so how could I use so how could I use it not to attack her? My only other option would be to run away.”

  “Nial, listen, what field do majority of non-combatant traversers seek work in?”

  “Transport.”

  “And why is that.”

  “Because they’re the fastest means available so they’re easy hires”

  “No, how exactly are they able to act as transport.”

  “By bringing people and things from place to place through physical contact. Wait you aren’t suggesting…”

  “That you use your ability to traverse with Kit? I am.”

  “Look do you really think I wouldn’t have thought of that before?”

  “No, you definitely would have just not the implications that using it on Kit would have.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it what did they explain to us about Kit’s ability in lecture?

  “She has the ability to transport herself from five seconds in the past to five seconds in the future.”

  “Correct but what they also said was that what she was doing was in practice becoming a temporary fourth dimensional object. Moving herself, her true self to an area where time and space flow differently.”

  “And that would mean?”

  “That in practice she isn’t summoning a version of herself form a previous point in time, but that we’re observing her existing in a different time flow entirely. So, in practice there’s still just one version of her. Meaning that if you ventured with her into the 4th dimension…”

  “We would go back to existing in the same timeline.”

  “One in which she no longer has the ability to clone herself.”

  “But the problem is that it would only be for a few seconds at best I can’t stay in the 4th dimension for that long. It’s like I’m underwater or in space out there if I stay for too long in between traversals I’ll just end up defeating myself, after all Kit’s powers allow her to exist in the 4th dimension, mine just let’s me travel through it.”

  “Hmm, the two of you trained before didn’t you is there anything there you can use? Maybe a way to tire her out before you traverse with her.”

  “I don’t think so, and even if there was, like you said the chances are low that I even last twelve seconds in a straight up fight with her.”

  “What about that strategy you said you’re brother passed along to her, what was the problem he even needed to fix?”

  “Kit always used to talk about how she needed to split her focus in order to properly split herself through time. She said she gained completely new memories of the past while perceiving the present at the same time. Sort of like if you had to fight someone in real time while also having to focus on a tv broadcast of a completely different fight occurring in the back of your head.”

  “And what was your brother’s solution?”

  “Dance Dance Revolution.”

  “Dude.”

  “I’m being serious here! He told me to tell her that if she couldn’t split her focus to managing to versions of herself then she should essentially have the two versions of herself act like one being, by having them focus on completing the same action, like the arrows in Dance Dance Revolution.”

  “I see, but if that were the case she’d be beyond predictable though. There’s no way she would be the number one combatant.”

  “He said the same thing, which is why he said as she get’s more proficient she can focus on working in different moves or omitting ones entirely. Like a two player DDR screen.”

  Hao’s forehead creased into a deep frown. It was as though he had been given a completely new type of math problem and was told to solve it without a calculator.

  “That would mean then, that the Kit from the present would have to be the one directing the fight. If we could just figure out some way to disrupt her focus then tiring her out wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Yea but Kit brings herself from five seconds in the past not five days in the past. How the hell am I supposed to tell which one is which.”

  “That’s just something you’ll have to figure out on the field won’t you?”

  “Hey…”

  “Look bro, in case you can’t tell I still haven’t fully forgiven you for not just telling me why you were so pressed on this fight from the beginning, so consider this little loose end as punishment. I suggest you go rest up; you have a big day tomorrow.”

  Hao shamelessly began walking through the dormitory hallway while smugly waving his hand in the air toward a fuming Nial. Nial was left where he stood, internally reigniting a multigenerational war within himself.