I motioned to rise out of my seat to go back inside The Shops pub, only to find Xandra standing at the doorway.

"Hey," said Clang, gruffly.

"Hey," said Miss Toontastic back.

She stepped aside for him to enter the pub. And just like that Miss Toontastic and I were alone again.

"Good sleep?" I asked.

"Great," she said with a smile, "Did I just hear you boys talking about training?"

"I don't know," I said, "Were you eavesdropping on our conversation?"

Miss Toontastic winked an eye shut at the accusation.

She stepped out onto the decking, her prom-like dress gleaming gold from the dawn sunlight peeking through the trees at the end of the garden.

"How about me and you do a little training?" she said, putting a hand to her hip.

This took me by surprise.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah?" said Miss Toontastic, "Or do you only like training with Clang?"

"No," I said, "I'm ready to train if you are. Just didn't think you'd be into it."

"Why?" said Miss Toontastic, "Because I'm a girl?"

"I mean…" I said, reaching to the back of my head and scratching an itch there, "...I guess?"

"Well you guessed wrong," said Miss Toontastic, "C'mon. Up."

She wagged her hand as if to summon me out of my seat.

I remained where I was.

"What're you doing?" I said.

Miss Toontastic changed from wagging her hand to offering for me to take hers.

"C'mon," she said, curtly.

Seeing this wasn't working either, Miss Toontastic huffed in frustration, crossed her arms, and started to pout.

I just looked at her with a vaguely amused expression, one hand rested against a closed fist.

It was a little awkward.

"What're you doing?" she said, after a drawn out silence broken only by the soft breeze rattling the trees and the morning song of birds.

I continued to give Miss Toontastic an unimpressed look.

"Pighead," she said, and she then jumped off the decking with superhuman grace and landed on the stretch of ankle-high garden grass beyond.

I sat still for a little while longer, then, in my own good time, I rose out of my seat. I walked slowly to the end of the decking, putting my hands atop the wooden banister.

Miss Toontastic was busy stretching to warm up below.

"What kind of training do you want to do?" I said.

"We're going to fight," she said.

"You sure?" I said.

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She snapped upright.

"Why?" she said, "Afraid you'll get hurt?"

I stifled a laugh, "Nah," I said.

I stretched too, raising my bigger, tougher arms that had started to feel a normal size to me – but of course I was much taller than my original height of five foot seven. I was about six foot tall, nothing gargantuane, but big enough it had taken some getting used to. That, and the additional muscle and fitness ingrained into my Slip-body.

The last thing to do was to remove my 'face'. I reached to the back of my head and dug my fingers into the skin, creating a seam where there hadn't been one before. The Handsome Mask peeled off, and just like that I was fully Slip in appearance again. I set the Handsome Mask on the table, and then jumped over the banister to the garden below.

"So what-" I began to say.

I was cut off because Miss Toontastic went onto the attack right away. The power kicked in immediately, slowing down my perception of time.

It took way too long for my left eye to train on Miss Toontastic's clawed hand roaming in on my face. Her claws looked longer, and caught the morning light like lengths of curved steel. And if I didn't move fast, I was sure to know what it felt like to have them sunk into my face.

I dove my head out of the way and felt the wooden banister behind me crack from the force of my head slamming into one of the beams.

"Ra-h!" Miss Toontastic cried as she lunged at me again.

Each swipe had lethal intent behind it. And I dodged the second, and third, and yet more which followed in rapid succession.

Miss Toontastic's eyes, before white with large egg-sized pupils and irises, had turned all black like 8-balls again, as if she had switched over to a mode which only knew lethal killing intent.

I had darted away from the wooden decking towards the right-side of the large back-garden space. Miss Toontastic chased after me, swiping furiously at me.

Slowing my perception of time to stay one step ahead of Miss Toontastic was working just fine.

The problem however was I knew I couldn't keep it up indefinitely. It was like burning nitro fuel, greatly depleting my willpower reserves.

Fighting when powered wasn't just about beating your opponent through attack. It was also about having enough gas left in the tank to stay in the fight the longest.

Which meant slowing my time perception was a massive crutch which needed to be avoided as much as possible.

Though extremely dangerous, I decided to opt out of the power slowing my time perception and instead attempted to handle Miss Toontastic's attacks at a regular speed.

This, really, was a very dumb decision.

Because without slowing down time Miss Toontastic was seriously fast with her swipes. I had thrown up an arm to block one of her swiping attacks, only to find myself far too slow to react to the next.

SLASH.

Her claws cut across the sinew and tendons of my chest, going deep enough to draw blood. In my desperation I willed the power into my legs and jumped backwards with as much strength as I could muster to get away.

I shot up into the air but Miss Toontastic wasn't going to let me get away so easily. She jumped a beat after me, and together we soared upwards as if synchronised.

And it was then she did something I hadn't expected at all.

In mid-air, she spun herself around and then kicked down on my stomach hard.

The impact was so great it forced the air out of my lungs and I soared downwards, hitting the ground with my back.

The triple shock of the long slashes across my chest, the blow to the stomach, and the force of the ground hammering against my upper back, threatened to render me completely paralyzed and defenceless.

With what little wits I had left to handle the situation, I dove to the left, narrowly avoiding Miss Toontastic's clawed feet from finding my head.

The world spun around me – green, and egg-yolk coloured, until I forced the power to give me back the air in my lungs. Another cheat, another nitro-burn of the power. All too soon the mental tug of weariness made itself known inside my head.

I continued to spin and used my returned strength and ability to breathe again to rise up onto my feet.

Miss Toontastic had stopped her attack and instead was perched with the tops of her clawed feet into the grass. With feline-finesse Miss Toontastic eased her feet out of the grass and stood normally.

She's stopped attacking, I thought.

And she was smirking.

"You okay?" she said.

"Why did you stop attacking?" I resonated.

"You're bleeding," she said.

"I didn't say to stop," I resonated.

"Oh?" she said, "Is that how you want to do this? Because I was holding back."

I laughed. Not mockingly, but instead genuinely amazed.

The pain in my chest was raw and distracting. I needed to heal it to stop the bleeding, but my thoughts were on power preservation. It would be worth the pain and the beating from Miss Toontastic to learn better control of my power. It would mean taking risks, trying new things, which in turn would open me up to the risk of serious injury – which, really, was just what I needed to get better.

"Round one to moi?" said Miss Toontastic.

She put a clawed finger to her lower lip like some kind of video game villain animation. She had a certain glint in her eye that told me she was having the time of her life doing this.

"Yep," I resonated, shakily.

Slip? I thought, You there?

I'm here, Slip resonated back inside my head.

I'm going to need your help, I thought.

Then you have it, Slip resonated back.

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