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Chapter 15: Confidence, Patience, Agility.

Engraver watched Ghost walk away, then said, "You know, she never knows how to do things normally." Then he was hit by a stick in the back of his head. I heard a muffled laugh from Blast, and watched as Engraver walked towards me rubbing the back of his head. He spoke of how he was going to show me confidence, in its purest form. "Confidence isn't when you're high and mighty, with a smile and your chest puffed out. True confidence is when you see that person, and know you can beat him. He may look like his fist could break your jaw, but as soon as you fight back, that man's confidence will go out in less than a second." he stopped and looked at me. I was looking at him with my eyelids almost closed. He mumbled, then yelled, "Wake up!" my eyes shot up, and I said, "Right hook, jab, jab!" he was confused, and I was just as much as he was. He got up, then said, ''If you won't listen to me talk, then we'll fight." and walked over to where me and Ghost just fought. He pulled up his arms, and I walked over. He didn't waste a second, placing his fist against my face in a matter of seconds. I had no time to react, so I was forced back, hand on my jaw. "Don't just stand there, fight back!" He said, with a smile on his face. I got up, then proceeded to get punched in the chest, followed by a roundhouse on my side. "Well? What are you waiting for?" He was starting to get cocky, and attacked me every time I got close. Soon, I was going red again, and I felt stronger. I put a smile on my own face, then pushed my body off the ground. Nearby grains of sand spread away from where my hands were as they pushed me upright. And my grin told Engraver that I was finally confident. "Finally, you're awake!" He said, putting down his fists and watching me. I was angry, and he knew it. Though when I tried to hit him, all my attacks seemed to miss. There was an occasional contact, but it barely scuffed him when it happened. He was out maneuvering me, pushing me down, pulling my ears. He was toying with me, all the while, talking. I hadn't a clue what he was saying anymore, but when he finished talking, he started to attack me again. I was close to being out, when my red tint finally vanished. "So what did you learn?" He asked. "That you're fast, and that the only reason it took me so long to go red was because you were so confident." I stood straight up, then looked at my hands. What did I say? I asked myself. Engraver was laughing his way to the restroom, and said, "When you zone into things, part of your brain is able to pick up on outside information." He kept laughing, and as he walked away, it made me smile to think of what he said. "He's right, you know." Came a familiar voice. "Oh hey Ducky, how are you?" "I'm better, they finally took me off the big machine, so now I'm gonna be working with you." I was thinking of what he could teach me, when he went behind a wall and brought out two crudely built fishing polls. He threw one at me, then started walking towards the front of the house. "What are we doing?" I asked, confused on the fishing rod. "We're gonna go thwipping." I was confused. "Thwipping?" "Yeah, where you throw out the end of a thwipper," he gestured at the fishing rod. "And catch floppers." It took me a second to figure out what in the world he was talking about. When I finally figured out what he was talking about, we were beside a murky pond, with frogs bigger than a book. Ducky was sitting down, grabbing a tin from inside his pocket. He pulled out a worm the same size as your finger. "Ready?" He asked, ripping the worm in half. I put my 'Thwipper' by him, and let him put the worm on mine. "Hear ya go!" He said, passing the rod back to me. I took the rod from the air, then pulled it out behind me. He looked at me, then started walking over. "No, no, no... you put the thwipper over your head, not on your waist!" I heard him, and stopped. He helped adjust me into the correct position to throw, and then I did.

THWIP it went, flying out into the center of the pond. It splashed down, and the worm started to sink. Ducky threw his, and had his land off a bit to mine. We were fishing, and it felt nice. There was a peaceful type of quiet around us. And when I reeled in my line, ducky looked surprised. "Why'd you reel it in?" He asked, "because that's how you fish." I responded. He looked more confused, but told me to keep the line out as he shook his head.

It was quite a while, and as I watched the sun fall on the horizon once again, a tug on my line made me wake up again.Ducky had the rod before me, but passed it over as quick as I woke up. "Quick, while it's on it!" He yelled. I snapped the rod from his hands and reeled it in as fast as I could. The line was tough, and whatever was snatched on it really didn't want to let go. The more I pulled back and reeled, the harder it pulled away, all the way until it started splashing and showed its green-scaled tail. There was a second where I couldn't see it, then it flew up into the sky, showing me its shining scales, with its long sword-like face, and the red underbelly with a fade into green on its back. "Quick! That's a piker!" Yelled Ducky. I snapped out of my amazement, and reeled as fast as I could. The fish was truly a swordfish, but that still didn't stop me from reeling in the ocean dweller. It was strong, pulling against me hard, and as I was about to give up, the creature flew out of the water, flopping down on the ground beside me. I was watching to bounce when Ducky ran over and grabbed it. He took the string from its mouth, then threw the fish back into the pond. "Alright! Nice job catching that Piker!" I was baffled at his throw, though thought nothing of it later that day. We continued to do long paced things, including more fishing, some babysitting, for some odd reason, and cattle work for the second branch. "Well, that's all I can help you with. Hope my daughter isn't too hard!" I was just locking the gate when he said that, then he vanished. I looked around, then got off the farm of whoever it was I was helping.

It took me ten seconds before I figured out what I was supposed to learn with Jawbreaker. Surprisingly, it was five seconds after I got hit in the jaw. "Ow, what was that for?!" I yelled. There was nobody in front of me, but instead there was a baseball laying on the ground. In the same time that it took for me to be hit, a crackle went off far in the distance. "You are being attacked by me, Jawbreaker! Now move around and try not to get hit!" She yelled. There was a thump in the distance, then I saw a large ball being hurtled through the sky towards me. I ran to my left, and found another ball bouncing towards me once again. There were five balls, all different sizes, flying down, ricocheting off each other and coming towards me. I had to think fast, and found myself running forwards. The balls were bouncing all around me, some were headed straight towards me, but one was bouncing off the walls, barely headed forward. I ran towards it, and held it in my hands. There was another ball falling from the sky towards me, so I used the ball in my hands and threw it at that ball. I didn't know what was going through my head at that time, but I didn't want it to be the ball above me.

As the balls made contact with one another, they ricocheted and barely bounced right in front, and right behind me. If i hadn't thrown the ball, i would've been squished down to the height of ducky. I was put in shock, paralyzed all around until I heard her kick another ball. I pulled my head down, then felt as it went back up, and down again. Jawbreaker saw I was shocked, and took it as a chance to fire right at me again. Now my face is red and stings, I'm on the ground, and there's a red ball to my right, rolling away. Earlier, she caught my attention, getting adrenaline to run through fear, but now my hair's rising. I looked at her through a clear coat, but as I stood up, it turned to a deep red once again. I grabbed the ball as I stood, and now took a step forward. She had now kicked four more towards me, all of them headed straight after me, but I was fast. The anger that I had helped me keep calm as I moved, taking smooth steps to the left and right of the oncoming balls. She had pulled out slightly bigger balls, and now was heaving them quicker than before. I could tell she was getting tired though, so I used that to my advantage, running in her direction, fighting everything that came near me. There was a red basketball to my right, laying on the ground. I grabbed it, then flung it with my right arm, straight towards the ball she was about to kick. Before she could stop it, the ball had made a collision with the one in front of her, and now hers was colliding with herself. She fell to the ground, and didn't move for a good minute. My vision returned to normal, and I looked in awe of what I had done. I started to run over to her, but by the time that I had made it over to her, she was standing up and laughing. "You... you got one hell of an arm there!" she said, hunched over, still laughing. "Here's something I'm gonna share with you... My name is JawBreaker because of two things... one being my strong kicks that break their jaw, and the other being because of my unbreakable skin." I looked back at her as she raised her head, revealing a bloody nose, "You just made my nose bleed!" she yelled with a smile. I thought that was the end of my training for today, then Blast showed up.