Chapter 5

                                The Learning Process

 

                Baby steps, from K to 12. All our lives as kids and teenagers, we went to school; gradually learning information, work ethic, and the such. And all this is so that one day we can be an “important contribution to society”. We don’t just learn in school, we learn from experience outside of school; that’s all it is: learn, learn, learn. Elementary school, middle school, high school; they never end.  The learning I must do, however, involves no baby steps. I’m forced to learn this crap on the go, Lynx wants me to go from 0 to 60 in practically no time at all. This was so much easier when I was in my mind.

                “Ow!”

                “Congrats Wes, you’ve fallen again.” Is the mocking remark I received from Lynx.

                “This was a lot easier when I was under hypnosis.”

                “Yeah, well there’s a difference between boarding in your mind and actually boarding. Your board barely even materializes well, or even for that long for that matter.”

                “Arc said that everything would come naturally to me.”

                “Arc says a lot of things. Arc also like to leave out the part that it only comes naturally to you when you’re under the hypnosis and makes everyone else explain this to every single new Diver that we get.”

                To sum this all up, after I woke up the day after Arc hypnotized me and Lynx told me that Hex wanted her to teach me how to actually use my abilities. Little did I know that when Arc said it came naturally to me, he meant in my mind and failed to mention the fact that if I tried to board while not in my mind my **** would get a giant beating from the ground after the continuous amount of times I would fall on it. Next time I see that old coot…

                “If you’re thinking about hitting Arc for this, don’t bother. He’ll beat the hell out of you.”

                “Oh fantastic.”

                “Call it a day for now, Wes. You should go around and ask for some tips from some of the other members.”

                So I walked around the base searching for someone who could give me some tips, no such luck. I decided to search for Arc to get a tip or two from him to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do to learn all of this. I looked practically everywhere for him, and found nothing, then it hit me. And the place he would be would be a the most symbolically suitable for my current situation, an area of learning and knowledge; the library. It took me for **** ever to find that god damned book, and when I finally found it I pulled it out to open the door to Arc’s study. Arc was walking around with a book in his hand and scratching his beard.

                “Got a minute?”

                “What is it, Wesley?”

                “I need some tips on how to use my board without constantly falling on my **** from dusk till dawn.”

                “Mhmm, training with Lynx I presume?”

                “Yep.”

                “Such a pity Hex handed you to her, she has a habit of rushing things. The flight ability, while the most common, is one of the most difficult to get the hang of, let alone master. Before one learns the most difficult, from the top of the mountain, one should learn from the base. All you need to do is simply  learn the skill that comes to you easiest, get a hang of it and feel your diver abilities flow through you. All our abilities come from an energy that flows through us as we use them; if we exert it too much, it will cause us to be unable use them and will also strain your body. The board is the materialization of that energy, so you must learn to harness the energy easily to not only create the board, but to control it and not, as you said, ‘fall on your ****’”

                “You two don’t have a great relationship do you?”

                “Excuse me?”

                “You and Lynx.”

                “Oh, quite. We have a tendency to be on opposing sides on several different matters. But that is not important. Now, the only other ability we know of that you are in possession of is dexterity. You most likely have the pulse ability, and hopefully shadow; if you do not have shadow, we have to send someone who is very adept at the ability to cloak you, and that can be a bit of a hassle.”

                “What’s the max amount of abilities?”

                “There is none, it all depends on the diver; there’s been cases of only one or two and cases of eight; only legends of all nine. Enough of that, we must focus on who to send you to. Let me see… dexterity is best used to master weapons and combat, so I suppose the most obvious choice would be… Crest.”

                “Crest?”

                “Yes, he is the most proficient with weapons and the art of combat. From him you will gain the most to learn from since you have a fairly high affinity for dexterity.”

                “Sounds… reasonable? Where can I find him?”

                “Ha ha, he spends time in the training area to give tips to anyone who needs help. Just ask around for where it is, you’ll find it.”

                “Alright, thanks Arc.”

                “Any time Wesley, any time” and so I began my search for Crest by asking around for directions to the training area. I was directed to a long hallway that connects to everything in the base, they said to keep going until I see a door with a large symbol, the same one I saw on Arc’s and Hex’s desks, and the word training carved into the wood door. I put my hand on the handle of the door and grasped it tightly to turn it, the door slowly creaked open as I stepped inside the room. It was a large room with several doors, some weapon racks, and just one sole person in the room. The man was slightly muscular with a small scar just above his eyebrow and around maybe 5’ 10” or 5’ 11”, he looked to be around his early to late thirties.

                “Hey, where can I find Crest?”

                “Right here, what do you need?”

                “Arc told me to come here to learn to use dexterity.”

                “Old bastard likes to cram them on me all the time, oh well I suppose it’s what I’m here for. Dexterity huh? My specialty. Alright put ‘em up”

                “What?” Crest got into a ready stance and hurled a swift fist at me, hitting me square in the nose.

                 “Come on! You’ll die way too easily if you just stand there.” I regained my composure quickly enough to jump to the side when his leg flew up for a high kick, nearly smashing my jaw. I tried to punch him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him, then smashing his fist into my gut. I fell to the ground gripping my stomach.

                “You’re slow, but you at least dodged the kick. You know how to hone your energy kid?”

                “No, that’s what I’m here for, Arc said I should get used to using dexterity first.”

                “Ha ha, got it. Well it takes some time but you get the hang of fighting like this, the important thing is to not try and force the energy out, just  let it flow through you like water and you’ll do just fine. Take a breather, I’ll fix your nose and you can rest for fifteen minutes or a half hour.” With that, Crest put his hands on my nose and snapped it back into place. The blows he landed on me throbbed for the long fifteen minutes of rest, and Crest went into one of the various doors around the room for awhile. He finally came out and leisurely walked over to me.

                “Alright kid, I’ll take it easy on you this time. Come at me.” I charged at Crest and threw my fist as hard as I could, and Crest easily grabbed my arm and pulled me while he stepped to the side and put his foot out, when I lost my balance from contact with his foot he flipped me as I flew a few feet behind him. “Don’t charge at me mindlessly, especially using so much force. Force can be used against you way too easily, just nice quick hits; beating on the same spots will break through eventually, so trying to end it with one or two punches is unnecessary if you can avoid being demolished by your enemy’s counter.” We kept going, and I got slammed down into the floor repeatedly; it was hard for me to limit the power behind my punches at first, and slowly but surely, I gradually learned to keep the power behind my punches down and as I did the falls I took from Crest got lighter and lighter since he had less force to be used against me. I only landed one or two punches on him and when I finally got the hang of it I received a nice congratulatory kick to the head which knocked me down to the floor.

                “Need to stay alert or you’ll get your face smashed in.” He walked towards me as I got up, when I was finally on my feet I saw his fist fly down at me, and I got out of the way as fast as I could, Crest came at me, his blows were so light that I could tell he was playing with me. He repeatedly hit me and I barely dodged a punch; this guy’s too fast. As his fists repeatedly flew at me he gave me yet another lecture “You’re too tense, kid. Loosen up, relax your body. It moves faster that way. When you know you’re going to get hit, let your body go with the force of the punch to lessen the blow.”

                Once again, I repeatedly got beat. I tried to relax my body and lessen the force of his kicks and punches, but I only succeeded in an extremely minor sense. What was worse was that he stopped  pulling punches and actually put force behind them. My body took a beating and after an hour of sparring with Crest like this, I fell on the floor and couldn’t move.

                “Not bad for your first time, kid. Go and rest up for awhile and meet me here tomorrow. It takes time to learn all this, I’m surprised you learned to lighten your shots as much as you did, all you need is to get used to it before you can put force behind them.”

                “Thanks, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

                “No problem. Take it easy, kid, I don’t want my new ragdoll to be too worn out tomorrow.”

                I walked out of there, my body still bearing the pain from the beating, normally I wouldn’t show up tomorrow due to the fear of adding yet more pain, but I had a feeling that I’ll have to get used to this sort of thing. I walked down the hallway and looked for a door that said ‘West Wing Quarters’, which I knew led to the area where my room is. As I did I passed by a door that said ‘Infirmary’ and had a medical sign etched into it. Well considering I was covered in bruises and a cut or two, sounds like a place that I needed to be. I opened the door and walked in, a bunch of beds with curtains and an old guy smoking a pipe. Quite honestly he reminded me of Colonel Sanders, but without the suit.

                “What do you need, son?”

                “Just to check if you could help with the damage Crest did to me training.”

                “Ha ha, Crest can be a bit rough. You’re obviously new, your name?”

                “Wesley.”

                “Ah, I’m Doc. I’ve heard about you from Arc.”

                “And what did he say?”

                “That you have some very odd clown issues. Anyway Wesley, there is little reason for me to do anything to your wounds. I only take care of those with a wound that involves blood gushing out from it. You know the sort, bullet wounds, knife wounds and the like; oh and broken bones, those can be nasty unattended to.”

                “If this keeps up I might just come in here with a broken bone, I’m supposed to train with Crest tomorrow with all the damage he’s already done to me.”

                “Tell me Wesley, how do those wounds feel now?”

                “Huh?”

                “The pain, dear boy.”

                “Pain?” when I thought about it the pain had dulled from what the aching sores that ruptured my body before. “Well, it hurts less from before.”

                “Normally one would assume it was endorphins that helped dull the pain, but I know what divers are capable of, and I also know that you’re a diver. You may have not been informed of this already, but our energy has the ability to heal our bodies at a fast pace; what would be life threatening and take weeks to heal takes days for us. Mind you, we can still die from these wounds if they’re left unattended to. When you wake up in the morning, the bruises will be no more, we heal much faster in our sleep.”

                “Really? Then why didn’t anyone tell me about this before?”

                “Arc likes to let divers learn some things on their own, at the very least from someone else. He doesn’t want to be the only reliable source of information since he won’t always be around.”

                “I see, well thanks Doc, I’ll see you around.”

                “And good day to you Wesley.”

                He and Arc are way too similar, must be good friends. I walked down the hall and finally found the door with West Wing Quarters etched into it. I walked around the quarters and met some of the members and passed the time by wandering the base. When I got tired I found my room and crashed on my bed. When I woke the next day I got ready, and like Doc said, no bruises and no pain. I could get used to this little perk. I walked straight to the training room to find Crest, who came behind just as I went through the door and scared the hell out of me.

                “Little jumpy, are we? You ready to continue where we left off?”

                “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

                Crest led me to a room with a bunch of training equipment, one of these was a punching bag which Crest led me to.

                “Alright kid, you need to learn to feel the energy flow through you. Just relax your body and feel the energy flow through you, take a deep breath and punch the bag a few times, then rinse and repeat.” I did as Crest told me to, got ready, took a deep breath, and shot my fists at the bag a few times. “Don’t just use your fists! Let it come to you, let your body move you not the other way around!” I took a deep breath and attacked the bag again, trying to feel what my body wanted to do.  I punched twice and my leg flew up to roundhouse kick; never done that before. “Better, now just keep going.” The cycle repeated as I took a deep breath and let my body move me, it started to feel like what happened in the hypnosis, my body got lighter and my attacks got faster bit by bit. We practiced for hours until I had the hang of it and moved on to dodging blows. Crest wanted me to let my body just move me when I was dodging his punches; but I still took a beating. It took forever to dodge a few in a row and by the time I got that far, we were both tired. Well I was nearly dead, he was just slightly huffing.

                “Get some rest, we’ve been at it all day. Come back same time tomorrow.”

                “Alright, thanks Crest.”

                “Oh, yeah I forgot. What’s your name, kid?”

                “Wesley.”

                “Ha ha, heard about you from Hex. He was right when he said you showed promise, the guy really has an eye for divers.”

                “Still getting my **** kicked by you though.”

                “Ha ha ha, the tables may turn some time soon if you keep this up. Now get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”

                I did as told and went to my room to sleep, there was no sunlight, no clocks, nothing to go by, but I could feel that it was late at night and we were at it all day. The next day we repeated our process of me beating up an inanimate object and him beating an animate, namely me, until I was just about inanimate. Well as they say: same ****, different day.

                Literally, we kept this process up for weeks; I beat up a punching bag and he makes me his. It took a long time but I finally got used to it all. After three weeks it became so easy for me to tap into the energy, it was even easier then breathing. Crest and I trained just about all day, when I finished with training I walked around and met various different members and finally learned how to navigate the base with no problem; the base was my new home. After I finally had the art of hand-to-hand down, Crest put me through weapons training; he taught me different ways to use a knife, he told me to let my body move itself rather than the lag time it takes to think about it. He taught me how to use guns and different techniques for assassinations that I would need to know, my training with Crest lasted a few months, and when I finally finished he sent me to Lynx to try my hand at using the board again.

                “Took you long enough to get to this point again.” Lynx jested at me.

                “You knew I needed to go through all of that to get here, didn’t you?”

                “Yeah, I did. It’s pretty common knowledge that you need to practice with the ability you’re best at before you can use the board properly.”

                “So then why did you try to teach me before?”

                “I like to watch you squirm.”

                “ A sadist, well isn’t that just fantastic. Alright lets get this over with.”

                “Ok Wes, you know what you have to do. Let the energy flow through you, direct a large amount towards your feet and shape it into your board.” I started the process in my body that was now so familiar to me. The cool sensation of the energy flowed throughout my body, my nerves tingled ever so slightly and my body became light as air; I focused and concentrated the energy toward my feet, I began to levitate into the air and looked down as a faint blue light started appearing beneath my feet.  The light began to fade and gravity took its toll as the process of levitation ended and I fell on my ****. I got up and tried again, each time the light grew stronger and stronger until I finally had that board, the same board that my eyes had beheld before during the hypnosis, with its rippling texture and deep blue hue. At first, I was a little wobbly on the board, but quickly regained my balance and controlled it.

                “Great job, Wes. That was actually faster than most people, I’m surprised. Just like learning to utilize the flow of the energy, you need to keep doing this over and over again until it becomes as easy as breathing, or blinking an eye.” And that’s exactly what I did for the next week, all day everyday; I have no clue what was driving me to learn all these things to the extent that it would become my entire life. I asked Arc about this, he said it was “simply the instincts of the diver striving to come out” and that it was “rather common for divers to initially obsess over mastering their powers”. All I knew was that I was never so committed to learning something, and it took a long time to learn everything I was supposed to.

                Over the months it was discovered I possessed the powers of shadow and pulse, so Arc taught me both of these; and like the others he insisted I keep repeating the process over and over and over. He told me to clear my mind to use the both pulse and shadow, and had me identify where other divers were in the base, and had me hide myself somewhere in the base with shadow while he would use pulse to find me. These activities lasted for days on end and by myself I tried to figure out what other powers I had. I tried strength, didn’t have it. I tried to see if I had barrier, and no dice. Wave, if only. Sprint however, it turned out I did have the ability to use. I wasn’t as proficient as to be able to seem like I was teleporting like Arc told me the masters could do, but with help from Crest I could move fast enough for my image to blur. During the entire time I was learning these, I also had to practice flying maneuvers with Lynx, and more assassination techniques from Crest.

                It took a damned long time to learn all of this, nine months after I first disappeared from everyday life and was cast into the world of divers, and one hell of a lot of repetition of the abilities to make them come naturally to me, but I managed. It didn’t matter how hard I had to work and how long I took, it was simply one thing, summed up into two words; the learning process.

                …I miss text books.