Dove and Dart (Under Extreme Editing)

James and Josh

James:

 "Hello James. My name is Ben and I am going to be your personal trainer." He offered me a friendly handshake, which I gladly accepted with a smile.

"Nice to meet you sir."

He gave me a nod and led us over to the sparring mat. "We are just going to test you out in a few areas and see what you are capable of and then go from there."

I nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

We started of with him holding padded targets on his hands and having me kick and punch them as hard and fast as I could, and then he started showing me different combonations of moves to do.

"You are a very quick learner my friend." He shook his hand out when I landed a very solid kick on it.

I had never been very prone to violence, and honestly some of the moves I was performing were a little surprising. It wasn't that I didn't know I was strong, but that I was impressed with how well I was actually doing so I pushed myself harder to see how much I could learn.

I ended off with a combination of several quick jabs before throwing in a roundhouse kick out of nowhere that Ben had to rush to block.

"Sorry man." I was breathing kind of heavily, but I definitley wasn't as tired as I should have been after all of that moving around.

"No it's fine, what exactly are all your powers? Your file just said time travel and that you were a technopath."

I nodded, wiping some sweat off my forehead before it got in my eyes. It was really hot in there, and I had sweated almost through the white shirt that Fury had given me, but a few female agents were in there, and I really wasn't comfortable taking my shirt off.

"Yeah, that is it." 

I followed him over to the punching bag near the wall. Dart was nearby, sparring with one agent and totally kicking his butt. In all honesty she looked really bored.

"Do you think maybe you have any other powers? Because you learned those moves faster than most people would."

I shrugged and took a sip of the water bottle I had with me before I wrapped my hands like Ben was showing me. "I only know of those two, but it's possible. My past is kind of a blank slate in my mind."

Ben nodded and instructed me to start wailing on the bag using combinations. "Keep your hands up by your face to protect it, but keep them low enough so as not to block your vision. Try and keep your feet spread slightly so that you are stable, but not to far apart or your movement would be limited.

I copied the stance he showed me and began to use different combinations of hits and kicks on the bag, making it swing a lot on the chain.

Ben moved over to hold it so I could practice without the thing swinging back on me.

"Seriously man," Ben grunted when one of my kicks made the bag swing into him, "I think you are like Task Master. You know, where you learn people's fighting styles by watching them?"

"I don't think so." I punched the bag some more. "I think I would know that by now."

"Well there is really only one way to find out."

Next thing I know, he has me in a boxing ring facing off with our friend, Bunny Crusher.

I was in my corner, trying to think of a way to avoid going to an early grave when Ben walked over.

"James, you need to take your shirt off."

"What? Why?"

"Otherwise he could grab you by the shirt and swing you around or slam you down, the shirt is a weakness."