Relic-Verse: Champions of Hope

Chapter 5

Part 1 --

Faron stood facing Arica and Samuel, the two of them in their hero suits while yawning and stretching, small bags under their eyes.

"You two are not early birds huh?" Faron snickered as the duo glared at him.

"And you are?!" Sam crossed his arms, huffing and rocking back and forth on his feet.

"Nope, I just don't sleep!"

Arica rolled her eyes, "I hope your unhealthy work attitude doesn't rub off on us."

He grinned, "Well, we'll see about that!" With that the detective turned and gestured to the field behind him, "Today we are going to have a quick sparring session right here! And when we're done, we'll go gather some intel. Now I spent all night going through every single recorded battle with you two in it and have noticed some glaring flaws in your fighting. I don't expect you two to immediately change and improve upon these things, but they are worth pointing out so you can keep them in mind."

He turned back and faced Arica, "You're up first! Your ability to change how you view the world makes you immune to vision impairment without the need for special equipment, which gives you a massive edge over villains who frequently rely on those tactics. And your ability to sense weak points gives you decent insight on who you are fighting and how to take them down!"

She slightly blushed from the praise and looked away from the detective. "However!" Her attention was quickly brought back. "Your fighting style is very predictable, and you almost always follow a strict pattern. In every combat scenario I watched, after you spotted a weak point, you directed all your attention towards it, aiming every attack with the intent to exploit it. While in some cases this might work, and allow you to quickly take down a villain, if someone has prior knowledge of how you fight, which is common with heroes, or if someone is capable of dragging out the fight, your pattern of attack will quickly be noticed and countered with ease. I am sure you have already noticed how some of your classmates have already learned to counter your exploiting, such as Micheal, Avery, and Catherine, and it reflects in how well you perform against them in combat scenarios."

Faron cleared his throat and slightly smiled, "However all of this is fixable with some training! While noting your enemy's weak spot and utilizing it is very important, it should not be all you focus on. Otherwise, how would you take down villains with no noteworthy weaknesses? With your current style you would be incapable of properly challenging someone like Mister Grey or Koinet, and there are plenty of villains that can give both of them a run for their money. So you need to work on breaking your patterns and becoming unpredictable, that way even if someone knows how you tend to fight, you can still keep them guessing by attacking different parts of their body, which would give you an opening to finish them off."

Arica took in a deep breath, looking down at the ground and closing her eyes."Thank you, sir. I will keep all that in mind..."

He quickly reached over and gripped her shoulder, "No need to feel down, there is always room for improvement! And right now you could probably take down the vast majority of common crooks, I just know you can do so much better if you switch things up!"

She opened her eyes and looked back up at Faron, before forming a small smile and nodding. "I will do my best sir."

"Glad to hear it!" He moved away from her and faced Samuel. "Now you..."

Sam felt sweat run down his face, "Yes-?"

"Your style is good, but far from the best it could be. You rely a lot on your power, focus a lot of attention on people's faces, and like to keep yourself at a distance from villains. First thing's first, you can't always out-dodge or keep away from someone. Second, while you have put a lot of effort into honing your power, it isn't enough to take on stronger opponents, or ones who can counter your favorite way to attack: Vision impairment. What would you do if someone kept pressuring you? Or could counter your vision impairment, such as Arica here or Frost? You like to play keepaway, but with your acrobatics and flexibility, you have the potential to dance around your opponents, dodging their attacks while physically counter striking. And I am sure you could come up with more unique ways to utilize your ability if you just put your mind to it. You use your power to sweat ink like an offensive ability, but I feel as if without intense training you have pushed that aspect to its limit. So, coupled with your other talents, what if you used your ink to amplify your movements? Leaking it from your feet to skate around, or using the same propulsion system on your hands, but on your legs, to allow you to propel yourself off the ground like a jetpack. You have potential, kid, just need to unlock it!"