The Empath Metahuman

008. LEGENDS OF TODAY

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IT'S IRONIC HOW IT TOOK A GIANT TELEPATHIC GORILLA TO GET BELLA BACK INTO A SOCIAL LIFE. Ever since the team was able to stop Grodd and send him to Earth-Two where they all hoped he wouldn't cause any major damage, Bella pushed herself to get out of the S.T.A.R Labs life. She went back to performing at her restaurant, now having a schedule of performing a minimum of three days a week. There were even days when Bella was invited to go out with Carlos and his friends to games, a movie, or some group thing. She found herself enjoying the group more and more, getting along with them and feeling like a teenager. Of course, there was always that one day of the week Bella kept for herself and only herself.

Today, Bella started her morning by working on some new moves she wanted to try out for some time. She was tired, her muscles were sore, and her body was covered in sweat. A feeling she had gotten used to and learned to love. Looking around the training room, her chest rising and falling to catch her breath, Bella felt a small ball of pride form in her chest. The dummies that Cisco had made for her were made out of metal and wires, with programming that would read her moves, store them, and use them in fighting techniques. Bella was hesitant when she first tried them out. She had gotten so used to working with dummies that didn't move she flinched when they would respond to her hits.

The blocks were solid, and their hits stronger. It was like she had stepped up her level and realized she wasn't as skilled in combat as she thought she was. That only made her hits much stronger. It took her a couple of weeks to keep herself from falling onto the mats, and an extra month to start landing hits of her own. Now, now she was back to being confident in her fighting skills.

Her brown and green eyes looked the three dummies around her. The two to her left were blue and covered in scratches, small dents from when she hit too hard, some pieces were replaced from when she broke them off. Something that Cisco hadn't liked when he came to fix them. Now, they were both on the floor with one missing its head and the other missing an arm. The one on her right was in an even worse state. That's because she took a liking to that one.

The third one to her right had smoother hits, faster reactions, and long arms which made it more difficult to fight at short range. The head was red instead of blue, its left arm a completely different contrast that Cisco had to improvise, and an extra on coming out from the back for fighting. Something that Cisco added to make the dummies last longer. Poor guy didn't last an extra week than the others. Now, he was cut in half and the wires were sparking where they were cut off.

"I think I might've overdone it a bit," Bella mumbled to herself, bringing the two halves of her staff together and twisting them in opposite directions to secure them together.

"You think?"

Bella jumped at the voice and she twisted around in her place, aiming the end of her staff to hit the person with the voice. Instead of going for the upper body, Bella aimed lower and hit the person on the legs, sending them down to the ground. Out of instinct, Bella stood up and step forward, pressing her foot on the person's chest and the end of her staff to their neck. It wasn't until she was looking down at the person did she realize who it was and her whole face flushed red with embarrassment, "Carlos!"

"Hi," Carlos shyly waved at her from the floor, his eyes going from the end of her staff to her eyes, "Not that I'm complaining at seeing you again, even if it is from the position, but is this a bad time or . . . ?"

"No," Bella quickly shook her head, glancing down at her staff and her foot in her chest. She made a quick more to take her foot off of him and pressing the button on her staff that made it retract to its shorter version, "Sorry, I didn't-"