"You want me to what?" Kim couldn't believe what Ron just asked, no, practically demanded she do to Bonnie.
"Just punch her in the face, don't use full strength or anything but make it a decent one."
Kim looked from Ron to Bonnie who was completely impassive about the current conversation they were engaging in that was going to decide the fate of her face within the next five minutes.
"Do you even like Bonnie? I thought you'd just say okay and get to it."
"I don't exactly dislike her but that's not the point here. You're asking me to punch your girlfriend in the face. Do you not understand how that sounds?"
Ron wasn't exactly computing what was wrong with his request so he turned to an outside source. "Hey Josh how does this sound to you? I don't think it's messed up."
"Meh. Seems fine." Josh was leaning on a tree waiting for this conversation to be over. He came here to train not to argue.
"Josh can barely even feel anything besides love for me! If I wanted to break someone's leg he'd probably shrug it off and say Whatever makes you happy Kim." Kim pointed at Josh cuing him to speak to prove her point.
"Her assessment isn't exactly incorrect, sorry dude."
"KP why don't we ask the person who will actually be getting hit in the face?"
They both turned to her and she maintained her level of calm. "If Ron says it's fine then It's fine Kim."
"Ron, you may have her as your slave, or submissive or whatever but I don't want any part of your bdsm whipping sex lives. That's between you and her." Kim said while taking a couple of steps back, close proximity to either of them was beginning to make her uncomfortable.
"Bonnie isn't a slave, if anything she's in charge."
"So the girl who obeys your every command to the point that she's going to let your friend punch her in the face isn't brainwashed?"
"That's actually a common misconception, it's all based on her comfort level. If she told me she wanted to stop right now there's nothing I could do about it. Serving me makes her happy so that's what we do."
Bonnie stepped up and rubbed his back with both hands and spoke with a cheshire grin. "I trust Ron. He would never hurt me or allow me to be hurt, if he does he has a good reason."
"Ron, Bonnie. While that is oddly sweet I don't quite feel comfortable doing...that."
"Fuck it."
Kim was too busy being weirded out to notice but Josh was next to Bonnie now. As soon as she turned his way he threw a punch at her cheek. It clearly wasn't his full strength or speed but it would still hurt Bonnie like hell when it connected. Except it didn't. She closed her eyes in a wince preparing for impact but her arms did their own thing entirely. She pushed his hand to the side with a parry and her other hand made a fist and connected with his sternum.
Josh smiled and rubbed his chest. "Nice shot. If I was normal I'd probably be on the ground right now." He didn't get to hear or see a response since Kim began slapping him on whatever part of his body she could reach.
"How could you try to hit a…." slap "civilian girl, what if she didn't block." Slap "Are you stupid?"
Before she could slap him again Ron grabbed her hand. "KP chill everything turned out fine."
"How could you possibly know things would turn out fine? When we tried training Bonnie two weeks ago she couldn't even block slow attacks from us."
"Because..." Ron turned to Bonnie and picked her up at her waist. The swift action causing her to giggle. "Bonnie has some of my powers now. She should have gained some instinctual martial arts reflexes. If she didn't I would have felt bad but it's better than finding out she can't block by her being knocked out by someone trying their hardest to hurt her."
"Told you he wouldn't let me get hurt." Bonnie said smugly, before she shoved her tongue down his throat.
"When you're done trying to spell your names in each other's mouths can you explain how that even happened? I thought Ron was the chosen one, and he destroyed the statues that could transfer the monkey powers to someone else. I haven't heard of monkey fist finding or building any new artifacts."
"Well uh…."Ron didn't know how to phrase it in a non crude way. Luckily Bonnie had him covered.
"Ron has magic cum, when he creamed in me on mini golf night I got some powers. Any power increase I get has to come from training, no more of that. It wont ever be as strong as his since he's the chosen one but I have some potential."
The hamster wheel in Kim's brain stopped. She couldn't think of a word to describe her feelings and the others couldn't describe her face. She began slowly walking into the house with her mixed emotions. She was feeling grossed out, happy on some level about their healthy sex life, disturbed that they felt comfortable sharing that much, and everything in between.
"Water...I need water."
Everyone knew it was a lame excuse but let her go. She clearly needed a minute to process that statement.
Josh gave Ron a high five when he thought Bonnie wouldn't notice followed by a whispered "nice." Bonnie raised her hand when she turned around and Josh flinched thinking he was going to receive another smack.
"Uh, hello?" She said while snapping her other hand once. He opened his eyes and realized she also wanted a high five.
Josh slowly gave her a high five before she answered the question clearly on his mind. "It was my idea, and I loved it."
Ron performed an awkward smile before hugging Bonnie tightly to his chest. Seemed like she was in a bit too talkative of a mood today but this was a surefire way to distract her. She began humming in contentment as she was held in his embrace rocking back and forth. Josh went back to his shady spot on the tree waiting for training to actually begin. After a few minutes Kim came back.
"Finally! Can we start training now?"
"As long as they don't talk about that stuff then yes. I'll process the ridiculousness later."
Bonnie scoffed. "I'm sure when you and Josh take your little weekend trips or go up to the point in his car you just cuddle and look at the stars while talking about each other's hopes and dreams. Cut the BS little miss innocent."
Kim neither confirmed nor denied Bonnie's claim and began asking Ron about their training regiment. Although her burning red face paired with Josh's chuckle answered the question well enough on its own. Ron let her skid past it to save her from embarrassment.
"Well, first I wanted to ask Josh some questions."
"What questions could you possibly want to ask the guy who you dwarf in strength about training?" Josh said.
"Well, I wanted to ask how exactly you and Kim's upgrades worked and what your upper limit was. Can't push you to the max if I don't know what it is."
Kim seemed to focus up as soon as he said he would explain. Things had been strained in the possible household for the past week and she hadn't really asked any more questions about her abilities. It would be interesting to finally know more about how she worked.
"Alright so while your power is based on magic with no reasonable scientific explanation our powers are pretty basic. The WEE inserted experimental nanites to try to target specific parts of us they wanted to improve. I would assume Kim's parents did the same with some better tested and safer alternatives."
"Different parts? Why? Seems like a waste, why not just upgrade everyone in every part of their body?" Bonnie said.
"Thus the experimental part. They tried that the first few times but the test subjects kept dying. Only two of us made it out of that pool, out of two dozen kids."
The yard became silent again. Ron was angry while Kim was on the verge of tears. Josh tried his version of encouragement. "An emotional response is not useful and will not change the past. All that matters is what we do now."
"He always knows just what to say." Bonnie joked.
"Moving on," He said while grabbing Kim's hand. "Kim and I are basically olympic level athletes or slightly above that in a more compact form. Our healing is also faster than that of a normal person. Her intelligence is genetic, which explains why her brothers are super geniuses since her parents focused on their minds instead of body like they did with her. She will probably be a little faster and more flexible due to her more slender form and just being a woman but I would be a little bit stronger."
Ron thought for a second until he could find an apt comparison."Oh, you're comic book peak humans except you have a logical backstory."
Josh took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "If you want to simplify it to that level and make it sound that lame then yes."
Ron was a bit irritated that Josh called comics lame but controlled himself. His tail still seemed to have a mind of its own and smacked him across the face.
"Dude when are you going to get control of that thing!?" Josh said while rubbing his cheek. He wished he had a tail when he heard Bonnie snickering in the background.
"I don't know. I kind of just think stuff or feel things then the tail does it. It's like how if you have an itch you don't think about where it is your hand just goes into a scratching position and does it."
"Well until you get control I'm standing at least six feet away. That's the second time it happened. Last time I didn't deserve it either."
"When Bonnie asks how she looks the answer is always beautiful or perfect, not ok. She slaps me otherwise."
"That does not apply to another man. Especially one that already has a super beautiful girlfriend." Kim smiled for a second before laughing. Ron was perfectly calm but his tail got into a menacing slapping position just waiting to enter Josh's range.
"I might have some weights from a few months ago that would be perfect for you guys. Bonnie couldn't use them and they did nothing for me anymore so I stored them away. For right now I just want to see some sparring between you and Josh at your best."
Proving they were a great match Josh and Kim both lit up like christmas trees as soon as the word sparring crossed his lips. "Yet Kim finds our relationship weird. Riiiiiiight."
When they were in position he made it clear they weren't trying to hurt each other really, just test limits. He placed a hand on Kim's shoulder and whispered some words of encouragement into her ear.
"Kim now that you know you're not a normal human don't let your mind limit you like one." He stood back and felt a little bad that he couldn't say more when he saw the confusion written on her face. She would have to decipher the meaning on her own.
"Go."
Once they started Bonnie was almost glad Kim hadn't agreed to punch her in the face. Despite what she was deeming her monkey sense she didn't think she had the reflexes to block a shot from her. Josh was also a complete monster. One of those kicks or elbows seemed like it would knock a person out cold and he was just throwing them casually.
Ron was actually impressed. Obviously Kim's style leaned more towards incapacitation while Josh's leaned towards trying his best to injure his enemy in any way possible. Although Ron noticed something off in Josh's movements.
"Stop."
They both looked at him with rage filled eyes.
"What are you doing Josh?" Ron said
"What do you mean what am I doing? I came here to spar and I'm sparring."
Ron got in his face. "Take. Her. Down."
"I'm trying my..."
"Don't feed me that. You know exactly what you can do, Kim doesn't. Do you think the other Evil Empire agents are going to hold her hand? No. She's fighting for your life so she needs to know what she's up against so she can prepare for it." Ron placed a firm hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye "If you don't I'm just going to assume you don't care about her. My brick wall is going to have a Josh shaped hole in it if that's the case."
"Understood." Josh said with a slight nod.
Josh sighed and got back into position. Kim was usually happy whenever she was sparring but his entire vibe was different. "How much better could he really be though?"
"Again."
And with that they were off, it was definitely different. His punches and kicks were stronger and she could barely block them. It felt as if he was actually trying his best to harm her. She noticed a bit too late that she wasn't guarding her midsection and got a sharp punch to the stomach. She tried holding her stomach from the pain but was swept off her feet until she hit the ground with a thud.
"Twenty seconds. Nice." Ron said.
Bonnie actually went to make sure Kim was ok since she hadn't seen someone hit nearly that hard in a while. It almost looked like something Ron would have done months ago.
"Kim are you good?"
Kim did her best to form a thumbs up, she didn't think anything was broken besides her pride. After about a minute Ron helped her up. "How did you know he was holding back?"
"He had two opportunities to take you down but he avoided doing so." Ron said
Kim was simultaneously happy and disappointed when she looked at Josh. "While it's sweet that you really don't want to hurt me I'm going to need you to come at me for real from now on Josh. What if the other guy who survived your experiment came at me?"
Josh flinched slightly. "I'll be there. He won't be able to take both of us."
"And if you're not?" Kim cocked her head and smirked, he was a little slow when making emotional connections in his head but she couldn't blame him.
Josh's hand shook involuntarily for reasons he could not understand and he clenched it into a fist. "I said I'd be there. I don't care what or who I'm up against, I will annihilate them to keep you safe."
Kim took his hand within both of hers. "Josh, do you know why you're shaking right now?"
"Maybe I'm cold or sick or something." He said while not meeting her eyes.
Bonnie and Ron laughed to the side. Josh was comedic gold just by being himself.
"You're scared."
Josh snatched his hand away. "Agent Alpha does not feel fear!"
"You're not Agent Alpha now though. You're no longer just a tool, you're a person. A person that only loves one thing on this earth. You're afraid something will happen to me. That's what you're feeling. I know it probably sucks to feel that for the first time. It's easier when you don't have to care about anything."
Josh remained silent while Kim enveloped him into a hug. "You care about me though. Joshie the best way you can protect me right now is to help me train so you can feel more secure when I'm not around. Do you understand?" She smiled and took it as affirmation when he kissed her on top of her head.
They stood for a few minutes holding each other with their eyes closed. They did not notice Ron actually left and came back until he dropped something on the ground that made a giant thud.
Kim's eyes widened. "Ron what the….how did you even lift that?"
"Are those your weights." Josh said
To answer Kim's question he lifted up a two hundred pound weight with one hand like it was a feather. She was still adjusting to the fact that he was superhuman. He answered Josh directly.
"No, these are weights for you two. Josh, I want you to be able to bench press eight hundred pounds with ease." (Author's note: 100 pounds = 45.3 kg)
"Are you high?"
"High on alert to protect those I care about? Yea. Kim," He smiled at the fear in her eyes. She looked like he was about to kill her."I just want you to put on this weighted vest then go through your cheer practice routine, Bonnie can help you with it if it needs two people.
Kim was happy he gave her something easy and reasonable to do until she grabbed the vest from him. She almost dropped it since the weight surprised her. It had to at least be over one hundred pounds. How was she supposed to cheer with double her current weight?
"Are you joking?"
Bonnie shook her head feeling sorry for them. "He's serious. He puts himself through worse so don't take it personally."
Kim and Josh both hoped this training made them mission ready. Or killed them quickly. Whichever came first.
I originally had two parts planned for this chapter but thought it would end up far too long, I'm also not sure how you all feel about longer chapters. Feel free to let me know in PMs or your reviews. On the bright side I have a lot of material in my head to work with for chapter 16 so it should come out quickly.
As always, wouldn't hate it if you followed me on facebook at crowjoneswriting