July 25, 2032 - 2pm

  “Viper!” Tigress yelled as she waved at Monkey and Viper sparring.

  Monkey stopped his spear mid-swing as Viper strode towards her. She tilted her head, “What is it?”

  “I finally finished your whipsword and made some improvements. It’s the reason why I took a while.” Tigress raised a dark-green whipsword towards her.

  Viper was baffled, “But last time, you were able to create it within a day?”

  “That’s only because Dr 5 is a genius and designed it. I merely helped produce it since he was frail.” Tigress shrugged, “This one, I made some adjustments and since I wasn’t used to doing something like this, it took awhile.”

  Viper gripped the leather handle as her lips curved up, appreciating the effort she put, “Thank you.”

  “No problem. This is something only I can do to help you.” Tigress chuckled, “Go on, try it.”

  Monkey glanced at the weapon and asked, “What’s different about this one to the old one? It looks the same to me?”

  Viper got a feel for its weight. She noticed it was much shorter and lighter compared to the old one. When she looked closely at the handle, there were three buttons rather than two unlike the original design, “There’s three buttons on this one.”

  “Yep! Try it out!” Tigress gestured to the scarecrow dummy.

  When Viper pressed the middle button, the blade extended to a whip, when she pressed the bottom button, it retracted. Same functions as the old one. When she pressed the top button, the blade split apart and the blade pieces fell to the ground.

  ???

  “Umm, is that supposed to do that?” Monkey scratched his head, wondering if he was the only one imagining something else was supposed to happen.

  Viper pondered for a bit before her eyes widened in realisation. She glanced towards Tigress, baffled, as Tigress laughed quietly, “You get it, right?”

  Monkey looked at the two of them and sulked, “Please fill me in.”

  Viper explained, “Simply enough, it’s to help control my rage.”

  “How?” Monkey crossed his arms.

  Tigress added, “I thought it would be better giving her a current leash to help her while also drastically increasing her range. If she does it well, she can control these 21 blade pieces with her wind either as a longer whip or…”

  “Or as an extended attacking option. It’s similar to Crane’s ice spikes.” Viper continued, “This will help me focus drastically. Thank you, Tigress.”

  “I still don’t get it.” Monkey sighed as he picked up his spear, “So spar with me and help me understand, ok?”

  The both of them giggled as Viper raised her brows, “You just want to spar.”

  “Obviously, my control isn’t there yet.” Monkey huffed.

  Tigress stood on the side to watch since she wanted to see how the whipsword 2.0 worked in action.

  Viper and Monkey went on a battle stance as they activated their Hidden Stage. As usual, the fake whispers Junkie made with his illusion ability continued their onslaught of mental attacks on Viper.

  Viper used her wind to lift up the blade pieces. Sweat dripped from her forehead as she took a deep breath.

  Monkey charged forward as Viper focused on the 21 blade pieces to attack Monkey.

  Monkey flinched as he stabbed the ground in front of him to push him back, barely dodging the various blade pieces.

  Monkey spun his spear deflecting each of the 21 pieces.

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  Damn… these pieces are annoying.

  I would usually be close to Viper by now.

  Viper focused intently as her eyes remained green and when she saw Monkey was struggling, her right eye turned yellow as large earth hands trapped him.

  Monkey was suffocated inside as he discharged lightning all around him, making a large dust debris.

  Viper couldn’t see him amidst the dust but she used her wind to detect him.

  She felt Monkey was on the right as she retracted the blade pieces back into a whipsword and struck the blade towards his figure. All that she hit was air.

  “I’m over here.” Monkey swung the back of his spear to Viper’s back as he came from the other side.

  He’s gotten faster!

  Monkey zapped around, creating 10 clones.

  At first, it was easy knowing which one since some of them were fake, but now, each one is a real threat.

  “Can’t you go easy on me? I’m still getting used to my new weapon.” Viper smirked as she got her whipsword and swung it around her. A large whip extended towards them but Monkey easily diffused it. His clones charged at her before their spears pointed at her.

  “I lost.” Viper raised her hands up.

  Monkey tee-heed, “This makes 210 spars, 100 wins and 110 losses to me!”

  “You’re keeping track?” Viper wiped the sweat off her brows as she stumbled forward, knees trembling, “Woah!”

  Monkey held her shoulders before she fell, “You good?”

  “Yeah, just using the whipsword 2.0 has a lot more mental strain than I thought. But…” Viper glanced up at Tigress with a grateful smile, “... I only focused on the blade pieces rather than the whispers.”

  “That means we can do missions now right?” Monkey’s lips trembled, trying to hide his proud smile. He knew more than anyone, her struggle of keeping calm and trying not to rampage the past week or so.

  “Of course not.” Junkie yawned as he saw they had ended sparring and trudged towards them. He just finished talking to Crane who showed him her progress with the ice golems so he was feeling mentally and physically drained from her enthusiastic chatter.

  Junkie came out to see how the Viper was doing and saw the new weapon Tigress made, “Ya still need to learn how to apply it. With this added function, ya could do many things with it, if yar mind is flexible.”

  “Yes Junkie.” Viper smiled.

  He smiled back as he pointed to the backyard, “Good. Now while ya’re heading back, call Bear in. We’re eating lunch. Ya kids are still growing so it’s no good if ya don’t eat three meals a day. We almost skipped it with how busy we all been lately.”

  “We will, Junkie.”

  ***

  Backyard.

  Bear panted heavily as he did his 238th gravity crush on the metallic pile.

  What did Junkie even keep these for?

  Why are there so many of them still?

  His patience was running out as he grumbled curses under his breath. He wiped his sweat as he stood up.

  “Hyung! It’s time for lunch!” Monkey yelled as he kept supporting Viper.

  Bear turned to face them as groaned, “About time.”

  Viper noticed something off about him as Bear asked for water. Monkey went inside to get water as Viper asked him, “Are you ok?”

  “Me?” He turned towards her with baggy eyes, “Yeah I’m fine. Why?”

  “Just, you haven’t been eating your munchies as of late.”

  Bear froze as he looked down, listless, “Junkie… forbade me from snacks for the time being. Says I need to focus on mastering Gravity Crush. He said if I hated him enough to crush him, that’s usually the best way to visualise Gravity Crush.”

  “Ah…” Viper didn’t know what to say to comfort him as she patted his trembling shoulders, “You have my condolences.”

  Bear bit his lips, “But even so, if I don’t do it soon, I may never be able to eat munchies ever again.”

  “...” Viper’s mouth turned to a thin line. She knows this is serious for him, but…

  It’s just snacks, right?

  Bear sighed, “I just don’t get it. I can’t visualise crushing someone using gravity.”

  Viper wanted to help him out as she pondered before asking, “How do you usually visualise Gravity Zero?”

  “Simple, just lift off like how an air balloon just goes up when the tethers are taken off.”

  “That’s it!” Viper exclaimed.

  Bear raised her brows at her, “What’s ‘it’?”

  “You pull it down. Imagine you’re pulling down the object.”

  !!!

  “Pull…” Bear’s eyes widened, “It’s PULL! It was never about crushing!”

  “No wonder you were having a hard time! The concept was wrong to begin with!” Viper held her hands on her hips triumphantly.

  Bear licked his lips as he faced the mountain of metallic trash. All this time, he was Gravity Crushing a small amount at a time. But, with this new revelation, he raised his hands as he closed his eyes and imagined the gravity pulling closer to the earth.

  Clang. Clink. Creak.

  Before Viper’s eyes, the large metallic mountain turned small and flat into the ground.

  Bear looked up and smiled brightly before giving her a thumbs up, “Thanks, Viper!”

  Viper sighed, “You just want the snacks, oppa.”

  “True.” Bear chuckled, “Since you helped me, I’ll take you to the dining room.”

  Viper was lifted off the ground using his gravity as they went inside. Monkey who went inside to get water finally came back belatedly. He noticed the brightened mood of Bear as he asked innocently, “What did I miss?”

  Viper filled him in as Monkey faced Bear, “Congrats hyung!”

  “It was thanks to Viper I got it. Now I can have snacks again.” Bear hummed as he gently placed Viper on the chair.

  ***

  After lunch, Junkie gasped at how thoroughly Bear flattened the mountain of metal, “Y-ya did this?”

  “Yep. Though it isn't a Gravity Crush, it’s a Gravity Max. Gravity was always about pulling. I pulled the trash down to the earth.” Bear explained, “It was thanks to Viper, I got it.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Junkie scoffed, impressed at his growth.

  Bear then asked with puppy-like eyes, “So I can eat snacks again, right? Right?”

  Junkie’s mouth turned to a thin line.

  This brat pulled something this amazing off for snacks?

  “Of course ya can.” Junkie nodded, already drained from everyone else as he decided to play along.

  Boy, these kids tire me out.

  I thought Viper was bad but everyone else was just as worse.

  Then again, they’re all pretty determined.

  Junkie rubbed his neck as he glanced at the training hall where Crane and currently Mantis were training.

  Though why do I feel uneasy about those two right now?