Chapter 17: Acclimation II
As foreshadowed, the rest of the night was hectic. While he ended up making all his deliveries, he only managed to do so after spending an hour of overtime to complete the last 8 orders in The Bowery. This one ended up being the delivery that ended up truly convincing him that Lorenzo really does make deliveries to anyone, no matter who and no questions asked.
Because the place Jack arrived at, he believed, was a neighborhood's corner infested with drug dealers of all kinds, weapons traffickers and people doing all kinds of counterfeit.
When he arrived at the delivery's site, music was blasting from party box speakers, creating mini-earthquakes and literally making the floor shake and rattle. A long line of cars were parked on either side of the street while some mean-looking, bandana-wearing motherfuckers were sitting on folding chairs around in a circle and blocking the path.
Inside the delivery apartment addresses, people were drinking, doing weed, or blowing lines of coke while being entertained by some scantily clad women – maybe either prostitutes or strippers – who were twerking; shaking asses even as people were pouring liquor on their bouncing bubble butts.
He had ended up being the center of attention once he showed up, but with a quick clarification – a call from Lorenzo vouching for him – the young rogue was allowed to pass and deliver his orders.
"Holllllllyyyy shittttttt, ayooo. Dude, cuh, come out cuh. Some kinda mean-looking, hard son of a bitch in a fallout shit waitin for you at the door, cuh!" The man who had answered the door shouted back over the loud music. Turning to him, the man gave Jack another once-over, his gaze lingering on the GPS mounted on your wrist before he squinted at him. "Don't tell me you're amnesiac, cuh. Or that my cous owes you some greens. Else shit 'bout to go down and I ain't want none part in it bro." He told him with a straight face.
"..." Honestly, Jack has maybe understood half of what he told him. However, he still got the gist of what he meant. "We're cool. I'm only here to deliver pizzas…" He trailed off, "bro…"
"You can get pizza delivered in The fucking Bowery?" The man exclaimed, sounding amazed. "Ain't no way, bro. How?"
He stared at him, wondering if the guy was retarded. As he didn't know what to answer, he simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Lorenzo. He's from Lorenzo's. I ordered some good ol 'pizzas from him. That's how." A black man in his thirties, shaved-head with a full beard, answered his question instead – a lopsided grin was on his lips as he clapped his cousin on his shoulder before stopping in front of Jack, eyeing him calculatingly, giving him an assessing glance before nodding in approval as if he passed some kind of test. "Seems like he got a good one this time. Probs gonna last longer."
They exchanged some small pleasantries. Before long, they proceeded to trade the pizzas for money, the man leaving Jack a generous tip of 20$ at the end of the exchange.
At the end of the night, Jack walked back home, with a full stomach and 246$ in cash. 150$ for the delivery commission fees and the other 96$ for tips.
Gangsters were excellent tippers and appreciated his service.
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The next day of work was as uneventful as the last one – outside of that small confrontation he had.
Jack showed up to Lorenzo's pizzeria, on time this time, and quickly got to work.
Early this day, he brought a pair of roller skates to help him move around and lighten his workload. It was a real lifesaver on the mobility side of things. He completed his deliveries with more ease and in less time too. And by the end of his shift, his legs no longer felt like they might crumble or shatter.
There were some downsides to traveling around in roller skates though. Two main ones to be specific.
The first one – he had to leave behind his armored boot pairs. Which left him feeling… exposed and inadequately dressed.
Secondly, he ended up getting stopped way more often while traveling on the ground by some random thugs or two-bits muggers – that even with the foresight of having a [chamber] open from time to time to try to avoid falling into an ambush. Though, this downside, admittedly while a slight waste of time, was manageable. If nothing else, words about him having a superpower or being some kind of wizard fucker had quickly spread around in the block. So much that Lorenzo had subtly inquired about it.
To which he had answered flippantly: "There's a reason why I was confident I could handle anything thrown my way. And it wasn't just my costume."
Lorenzo got the memo and hadn't inquired more on the subject since then. Though Jack could tell that the older man was burning to know more but respected the fact that he wasn't inclined to elaborate on the subject.
The day following this one was a Monday. Which was his day off, along with Tuesday.
Jack decided to spend that day training his power.
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Back in his homeworld, around one in 10,000 people ends up manifesting powers. Most people who 'awakened' to their powers, did it when they were around 11~16 years old. Jack awakened his when he was 13.
Of course, there were outliers. Early bloomers or late bloomers for example. The youngest recorded supe to ever get his power was 8 years old; while the oldest one ever recorded to awaken his, was 22 years and some 7 months old. Both cases were studied excessively.
Early on, it was quickly discovered that early bloomers tended to have a higher ceiling of growth as most power started fairly weak compared to their observed peak potential, and could grow with time and training. Late bloomers outright started with a more potent version of their power while having a faster growth rate. However, as if to compensate for it, their ceiling of growth was lower than average. They ended up peaking around their mid-twenties while most supes reached their peaks around their late twenties or early thirties.
Powers were like any type of muscle. Used enough, trained enough and exercised frequently, they could grow and become easier to use and to activate.
His own power [Chamber] was proof of this. It started fairly weak and useless. When he first got it, the only thing it could do was give him a vague awareness of what was in his surroundings, a meter around him but the 'awareness' was impeded by solid obstacles.
At first, he was bummed to have such an useless power. But after a visit to a private power specialist and some tests later, it was recommended for him to use and train his power as much and frequently as possible, in order to help cultivate it so that maybe one day, he could improve and discover new ways of using them.
Which an acne-riddled and ambitious younger him did, with thought of developing a lame power into a cool one using training and ingenuity like Luffy or his favorite villain at the time, Donquixote Doflamingo.
The results have spoken for themselves.
After four months or so, he increased his range, became able to now 'see' things even behind obstacles and unlocked another aspect of his power he wasn't aware of but was clearly intended to be used in this way.
He had called it {switch}.
It took three years for Jack to consider his power to be 'useful' enough that he'd feel comfortable going out and taking his shot at being a supe.
Three years of mundane exercises like levitating things, going from light objects to heavier ones; then upping the number of objects he kept afloat at the same time. Trying to maintain a [chamber] continuously open for long stretches of time. Trying to use as frequently as possible [chambers] to build endurance. Training his reaction's time, refining his power's minute control, coming up with new ways of using his telekinesis or the more exotic parts of his abilities, etc…
So training and frequent usage of one's power was extremely important to keep one's abilities sharp and improve them. Doing neither of them would see a supe regressed in terms of power's proficiency and potency. Just like any professional athlete who didn't train as regularly as expected would see a drop in performance.
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Week 1: Monday.
"Ninety-threee… ninety-fouur, ninety-fiiiive…!" Jack grunted, sweat beading down his brows as he struggled to keep afloat the broken wooden filing cabinets. Further pushing his mind to its limit, he focused on lowering back the cabinet, along with every other lighter broken office supply currently floating around him.
"Ninety-siiixx… ni-ninety seveeenn, ninety-eiiiightt…!" He puffed, straining his nerves and gritting his teeth as he pushed through extortion to complete his set of one-hundred push-up levitation. At this point, his t-shirt was absolutely drenched with sweat while his eyes were tingling, sweat having gotten into them.
"Ninety-niiiinnne…" He breathed out heavily. The home furniture was visibly wobbling from side to side, threatening to drop to the ground. But Jack endured, and with a last roar, pushed through exhaustion and lifted the furniture 2 meters in the air for one last time. "One huuundrrrred!"
With a loud clattering noise, all the furniture suddenly fell off from the air, some shattering into multiple small pieces upon impacting the ground, while others broke down into two or three big chunks.
Immediately after releasing his hold over the furniture, Jack bent down on his knees, finally closing his [chamber] as he felt the beginning of a mean headache pounding against his ear drum.
He was completely spent, having spent every ounce of energy in his body.
Since the last stand, Jack has used his power extensively over the last 3 months. As a consequence, his finesse and technique became better, his stamina improved, his reaction time soared and his range even increased after having stagnated from the last 6 months before.
However, he hadn't had the time to really focus on improving his power, even though he ended up developing his {Telekinesis force field} technique during that period. A recent addition to his arsenal of abilities which has already proven itself useful. Before, his biggest and most glaring weakness was his lack of defensive ability. His power as of now, was great for recon, crowd control and stealth attacks when he had the element of surprise. Direct confrontations, especially against someone with augmented physical abilities, weren't fights he was confident in picking up and winning.
Fighting normal people, armed or otherwise though? That was another story. As long as they were in his range, they stood no chance against him.
Now that he got a whole two days off when he could really take the time to train and brainstorm new ways to use his power, refine his control, or even just improve upon what he already had – Jack would take advantage of it to its fullest.
Which he decided to do today. He decided to train his 'Power' output. The sheer amount of juice he could squeeze off. Consequently, this kind of training has the effect of improving his stamina too. That was another bonus.
'That should do it for today. Doing more, and I run the risk of just collapsing here. Still need some juice to make it back home safe.' He thought between labor breaths.
Peering from the opened warehouse's window, he could already see the sky taking on an orange hue as outside, the sun was already beginning to set.
The place he was currently at was isolated, filled with abandoned warehouses, around which he could find car wrecks, broken furniture, debris, old and used machinery and equipment loitering on the streets.
In some of these abandoned warehouses, some homeless people have made it their residences. While exploring the surroundings of Cape Carmine to find a properly remote site, Jack found a kind of thriving homeless community, making shelters out of the numerous abandoned warehouses and empty storage buildings around.
There should be at least thousands of them, squatting and hunkering around the place. With kids among the numbers too.
It was probably where he would have chosen to temporarily stay in the event he didn't stumble upon his abandoned but well-furnished, underground hideout.
'For the second biggest city of America in this timeline, Gotham City is such a depressing city… such a mess.' He sighed.
Without realizing it, he had spent an entire afternoon training in this quaint, abandoned warehouse, lifting heavy debris and juggling between executing multiple tasks at once to train and refine his multitasking ability.
But now, it was time to return home and make dinner. Besides, if he didn't want to get stranded here and make his way back exclusively on foot, he needed to go, and now. Lest he missed the bus home. It took him an entire hour of walking to reach this place from the nearest bus stop.
Jack didn't want to make the entire way back on foot.
No way.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone