"Focus, Srinivas," Mike said. "You can talk about girls later."

"Yes, yes," the Indian man grumbled. They sat on a park bench close to Mike's apartment, taking turns hardening their flesh and receiving hearty slaps from each other. Srinivas wound up his arm, which gave Mike about a second to guess where the slap would land and harden the flesh of his right cheek. Not quite enough time, as the stinging sensation made abundantly clear. Mike returned the favor, telegraphing his target as much as possible before whacking the forearm of Srinivas.

His friend cradled the area. "Ouch. You are cheating with nous. Otherwise you would show signs of pain as well."

"Or maybe my military background and training combat sports for over a decade made me tougher than you."

"No, I am sure of your cheating. I was thinking of going to Le Mont for tonight."

"I thought I told you no girl talk. But no, pick a cheaper restaurant."

"Cheaper?"

"If you try to buy a girl's affection on the first date, that sets the wrong tone for the relationship. You don't want her to see you as a sucker she can string along for a fancy dinner."

"Kendra is not material minded like that."

Mike rolled his eyes. "So you're an expert on Varanelli now?"

"I know her first name at least."

"When it comes to dates, fun is better than fancy. Now back to training."

Mike didn't anticipate the next slap and sat in stoic silence as the back of his hand stung.

"Mike? I have confession to make to you. I have been using nous for vasting my mind."

"You're only cheating yourself, Srinivas. The reason we are supposed to not use mindvasting is so we can train with a handicap. It's a hack to improve skills rapidly."

They continued the slap contest for a while before taking a walk to memorize every license plate number on the block. At twenty-two plates, Mike found his mindvasting no longer capable of storing new numbers. Srinivas made it to twenty-eight before he reached his limit. Their lesson ended soon after and Mike took advantage of the break to head to the gym, where he discovered classes for the day had been canceled due to Jimmy's fight that evening. Having a key to the place, Mike let himself in and did a functional strength workout with heavy weights on deadlifts, squats, pullups, and overhead presses.

On his way home, Mike went through a KFC drive-thru to purchase a bucket of fried chicken. He drove the rest of the way home eating the drumsticks and throwing the finished bones back in the bucket, sucking his fingers clean to minimize how much grease got onto the steering wheel. He finished the bucket while watching cartoons on television, then texted Spencer to figure out their training for that night.

'Where we meeting tonight?'

Her response came a few minutes later. 'Not by the incline.'

'Scared?'

'Don't want to get arrested....'

'Superpowers in prison doesn't sound terrible.'

'Not an experience I want to have. Where should we meet? You are teacher, not me.'

Mike's fingers tapped out his answer. 'Casino.'

'Fine. What time?'

'6.'

'See you then.'

Mike nodded to himself. Jimmy would be fighting at the casino some time after seven. If he could either finish the lesson unusually fast or convince Spencer to join him, then he might be able to see his friend's biggest fight yet . . . and the first MMA fight on Earth to use the talents. If the event was sold out, he would watch from the roof of the casino. Which meant he needed to buy some binoculars. Two sets, so he wouldn't have to share with Spencer in the scenario where they decided to go and had to claim unusually high seats.

For a few hours, he lifted items around his apartment with his corona. Halfway through the session, he felt a resistance build within him to the flow of animas and instinctively pushed the obstruction aside to a corner of his mind using a combination of all three precursors. Immediately, animas filled him at a more rapid pace. Mike tentatively stretched out his corona and, with a monumental effort, lifted his own body into the air to levitate six inches above the floor. He maintained the effort for a little over a minute before dropping back down and wiping sweat from his forehead. After that, Mike alternated between resting and flying around the room.

He barely had time to stop at Wal-Mart for binoculars before driving to the casino. Mike met Spencer out front. "Hey."

"Please tell me our lesson is at a casino so we can use our coronas to get rich with superpowered cheating."

Mike blinked. "Why didn't I think about that?"

"I don't know. Maybe you aren't as smart as me? But now I'm wondering why you even picked the casino. This place is crowded as hell."

"Well . . . I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but Jimmy is fighting tonight. Here."

"Jimmy is fighting in there?"

"Outside, actually. How is it you don't know about this?"

Spencer shrugged. "After Jimmy attuned noetic, things turned weird. I don't think he wants to be with a woman who has more talents than him."

"Oh. So does that mean you don't want to see him fight?"

"Well, I've never seen an MMA match. It might be fun. Especially if I know one of the fighters."

Mike pumped his fist in the air. "You're alright, Spencer. So my idea for both training and event seating involves us getting on top of the casino."

"No."

"No? I have two sets of binoculars."

"If I'm doing this, I'm getting a good seat." Spencer gestured around them. "Figure out a way for us to use our talents to get past security."

"Buying tickets is usually a good way to go about that," he said.

"You can do better than that, Ski."

"The area will be lit up, so flying past their barriers is out of the question. I might be able to do an undifferentiated meme-cast to daze the guards while we slip past them, but that doesn't get us actual seats. If we sit in the wrong area, someone will kick us out or report us to security." Mike began wandering in the direction of the small amphitheater as he continued to talk through the problem. "I could daze the ticket checkers with an undifferentiated meme-cast -- oh, I am going to start calling that a 'brain blast' -- and use kinesis to get us the wrist bands for readmittance. Then we just act like we are coming back from the bathrooms. Does that work for you?"

"In this plan, what am I doing for my training?"

Mike rolled his eyes. "I will distract the guards, you grab the wrist bands."

"What about seats?"

"One thing at a time, Spencer. Worst case scenario, we jiggle someone's guts until they get sick and rush out of here."

His voice trailed off as they approached the short line of people waiting to exchange their tickets for a wrist band and a stub. Mike performed a brain blast, which rendered everyone within ten feet of him catatonic. Unfortunately, that included Spencer. Mike took two wrist bands from the table and backed away, pulling a barely conscious Spencer with him. He eased his mental attack and the people around them collectively blinked back into complete awareness, picking up their previous activities with only a slight air of confusion over the missing time.

"Wasn't I supposed to get those?"

"You weren't exactly immune to a brain blast."

"Oh. So that's why I was out of it for a second back there."

Mike walked towards another entrance to the amphitheater while both of them put on their wrist bands. They waved their wrists as they walked past a bored member of the event security. They slowed their pace as they looked about for open places to sit. The amphitheater seats were specified locations on concrete half-rings descending towards the stage area below, where a cage had been set up. Not a lot of open spaces made themselves immediately apparent. As they meandered down the steps closer to the cage, Mike caught sight of a familiar group of people.

"Hey, we've got seats," he said. Spencer followed without comment as he joined the crew from his gym. "Yo, guys, mind if we squeeze in here with you? Our seats are in nosebleed territory."

A chorus of "Mike!" met his question, and space was made for them.

"Who is the lady?"

"This is Spencer. Uh, I mean Erica Spencer. Erica, this is Cop Cody. Not to be confused with Crazy Cody, who is sitting all the way on the other end of our group. Strangely enough, Copy Cody has never arrested Crazy Cody."

Cop Cody offered his hand to Spencer. "Nice to meet you, Erica. Please just call me Cody. As far as the cop thing goes, I'm off duty and out of my jurisdiction, so don't start acting weird. Are you a friend of Mike?"

"Uh, just a normal friend. Also just a friend of Jimmy. I thought it might be fun to see one of these fights."

"So you've never trained?"

"No," Erica said.

Cop Cody put on a winning smile. "You ought to stop into the gym some time and give it a try."

"Oh, I prefer to watch violence from a safe distance."

"Fair enough," Cop Cody laughed.

Mike stopped listening to the ongoing conversation as a match began. He leaned forward intently to observe every motion of the two women fighting, silently mouthing instructions as if he were cornering both of them from afar. At the end of the match, he startled at the touch of a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see a radiantly smiling Jimmy. "You made it, Mike!"

"Well, I never missed one of your fights yet. How could I start now of all times?"

Jimmy winked at him. "I'm dedicating this victory to you, buddy. When I give the thumbs up after my win, that's me thanking you for inviting me out to your happy hour when you retired from the National Guard." Jimmy's eyes darted over to Spencer. "Hey, Erica, great to see you."

"Hey, Jimmy. Good luck out there."

"Thanks, thanks . . . . So how have you been?"

"Good. You?"

"Good." Jimmy looked like he was about to say more, but then he moved on down the line to greet the rest of the people from the gym who had come out to support him.

Erica nudged him in the ribs with an elbow hard enough to make him grunt. "You didn't tell me he would be walking around the stands interacting with us."

"Well, this isn't exactly a UFC event. It isn't even Bellator. Jimmy's fight might be under pro rules, but this is still just a regional promotion. The fighters are all cooped up together in a crappy conference room somewhere stressing each other out. When they need to chill for a bit, they wander around to talk with friends."

Cop Cody caught Mike's attention, then pointed at Spencer and Jimmy and raised his eyebrows inquisitively. Mike responded with a wobbly hand, trying to visually represent 'maybe, but who the hell knows'. Apparently, the message made it across, because Cop Cody nodded and dropped the issue.

Several more fights happened before Jimmy's began. Mike stood with the rest of his people to cheer for their comrade as he made his entrance. Then he sat, legs bouncing, to await the start.

Cop Cody provided some commentary for Spencer. "Jimmy has a three and one pro records. That means three wins and one loss. His opponent is three and oh -- never lost at pro and never even had to come out for a second round, it was all first round stoppages. Jimmy has been on fire lately, but this is the toughest match of his career. If he wins, this could be his ticket to getting noticed by bigger productions. Otherwise . . . it might be time for him to step back from competing to do more instructing and coaching. You can't do this kind of thing forever."

Mike tuned out all the sound as Jimmy faced off across his opponent. He watched the mimed communication between the fighters as they agreed from across the cage to touch fists before commencing their fight, remembering when he had done the same at one point. Then the ref threw his hand down. A quick touch of gloves. They squared off. Jimmy's opponent came in hot, a drop in level to fake a takedown attempt followed by a wild looping haymaker that soared with uncommon precision right towards Jimmy's chin. But Jimmy was gone a split second before the strike would have landed, bobbing and weaving beneath the arm to return a crisp hook, sending his opponent wobbling on his feet. A front kick to the gut followed. Then a solid jab. Then a hard kick to the calf. Each strike from Jimmy landed true.

A few more punches followed as Jimmy effortlessly picked apart his opponent. Around him, Jimmy's friends roared their approval. In the cage, Jimmy seized an arm in a Russian tie, then jumped into a flying armbar. As the weight of his body pulled his opponent to the ground, Mike's vasted mind was able to see as if in slow motion how Jimmy cranked with his calf on the back of the man's head and bridged his hips while hugging the wrist tight to his chest. Before their bodies even touched the tarp-covered plywood floor of the cage, the man was tapping.

The ref pulled Jimmy off. The entire crowd roared in approval of the violence they had witnessed. And Jimmy stood tall, strutting about the cage and flashing his thumbs up.

"I need a drink," Mike muttered. "I really, really need a drink."

Beside him, Spencer slammed her elbow back into his ribs. "No drinking, Ski."