Today hadn't been the best of days by any stretch of the imagination. First, he woke up with a residual headache from the night before, only an hour before one of his finals. He was pretty sure he bombed that one, but his grade in the class was ridiculously high, so even tanking the final wouldn't be the end of everything. His saving grace was that it wasn't his Calculus final. That would have been terrible.
That said, moving from a particularly demoralizing test to the karate dojo only to find Harper scheming with Johnathan on ways to beat Felix was a second hit to the good old ego. It was only made worse when he began to spar against her.
She was far more careful now than previously, every move she made carefully measured. A tentative left leg forward, and then her right. It was a slow dance, but it left frustratingly few openings for Felix. Even if he rewound time, he wouldn't gain much of an advantage from it. As soon as he moved to capitalize on something, she'd just activate her power and become practically impervious.
So he tried something a little unorthodox. Felix went for a brazen attack, punching at Harper's solar plexus. She instantly moved to block, bringing her arms down from her guard position in an attempt to trap Felix's hand. Grinning, Felix popped back in time.
When Harper went to trap his hand, he withdrew it instantly, turning his punch into a feint and attempting to get some kind of hold on Harper like he did the last time. Unfortunately, tackling someone whose skin was as dense as steel was a terrible idea. It was like running into a wall.
Trying to get his arms in a position to put her in a chokehold, Felix felt pain shoot through his forearms. Harper was aware of his plan, and with a smile of her own, launched her own retaliatory strikes. Felix stumbled back, doing his best to block whatever blows came his way.
Even with Harper holding back so as not to injure him too badly, he was hopelessly outmatched in strength. That imbalance made it next to impossible to stumble anywhere but backwards. In a last ditch effort, Felix threw himself at Harper, trying to take her to the ground.
Like the last time, his momentum did nothing to shift Harper. Instead, he was dealt a quick chop to the top of his head. His rear end hit the floor, and he tapped the ground to signify his surrender.
Felix cursed. "Won't let me sneak up on you anymore, huh?" he asked, rubbing his head and hoping that it wouldn't hurt all day. He'd just gotten rid of the last headache…
"Nope! That's the only viable strategy that works against me, I think. As long as I prevent you from getting my neck, I'm pretty safe," Harper exclaimed, clearly happy with her victory. Felix smiled in response, accepting her helping hand up from the floor.
"Well done, both of you!" Johnathan clapped. The older man had been watching their battle with great interest, and now he approached them with a smile almost as wide as Harper's. "We've got that squared away now, Harper. Short of an actual cannonball being sent your way, you should be okay."
"Yeah. I should be safe going forwards. I already know that I can handle guns from Gino's," she said, activating and deactivating her powers as if to punctuate her words. "Sorry Felix, it was a bad matchup for you."
He nodded in response. "Not much I can do to a Lady of Steel," he quipped. Harper laughed, a melodious sound that soothed Felix's tattered ego. Lately, it felt that any matchup was a bad matchup. If he ever needed to fight a Super, he'd probably be at the losing end of that conflict. Rewinding time was a great support power, but with the limited ability he had to use it, it was poor for combat.
"I guess not. How long can you rewind time now, by the way? You've been using it more frequently, lately," Harper asked, her perception going to work for her again.
"Maybe forty seconds? It's an improvement, but it's still not nearly as long as I'd like it to be," Felix replied. It seemed like meditating and training his brain to simply get used to manipulating time was working as he'd intended it to, albeit slowly. "You?"
"Still at a minute. Not much has changed for me, honestly. Maybe my skin is a bit tougher? But that's a hard thing to measure… you think I should do some kind of Moh's Scale test on it? I wonder what would happen if I scraped talc against my skin…" Harper veered off into a tangent. She didn't do that often, but thinking about her powers were a frequent culprit for taking her on a mental joyride.
"Let's skip that for now, yeah?" Felix begged.
Harper pouted, her full lips and puppy-dog eyes a superpower of their own. Still, it was a superpower Felix was far more well-equipped to counter. He stared her down until she relented. "Fine…"
As soon as he got that concession, Harper's phone starting ringing – the ringtone was some song about an astronaut and an ocean. It drove Felix nuts, but Harper thoroughly enjoyed listening to that ringtone for reasons unknown.
She answered the phone. "Hey Jessica, what's up? I'm on my way to the bar now; I won't be long," she began.
"Wait, what?" Harper's voice wasn't happy or bubbly anymore, but the exact opposite. Worry laced her every word.
"I didn't do anything!" she exclaimed, tears threatening to burst from her eyes.
"Yes, it is suspicious, but I promise I didn't delete the footage from the security cameras. I'm sorry you got in trouble with the city, but I didn't have anything to do with that."
"You're still firing me?" her voice was absolutely incredulous.
"Fine. Good luck finding someone to fill my shift." She tapped her phone with such strength that Felix was worried she might have accidentally stabbed her finger through the thing. Luckily, it only sounded like that.
"That bad?"
"That bad."
"My place?"
"Your place."