"Alright, what do you want to eat?" Elise asked me.
"Well, what do you have? What did you have for dinner?" I asked in response.
"We ate curry with rice. But, there's meat in there, so… we have rice and different kinds of vegetables."
"A vegetable stir fry over rice sounds good. Let's go with that."
"Sure, I'll grab everything together."
Elise then went and grabbed onions, carrots, peppers, mushrooms and broccoli from the fridge, placing them on the kitchen counter, and grabbing a bag of rice from a cupboard. While she was doing that, I spoke to her.
"I'll cut the vegetables. Can you do the rice in the meantime?"
"Uh, you want to do the cutting?"
"Sure, I don't mind. It's what I do as a part-time job, remember? I'll have it done in a jiffy. So, where's the knife and cutting board?"
"Well if you insist. They're in that drawer over there."
I nodded, and opened that drawer. There were some plastic cutting boards, but more importantly…
A set of three simple but beautiful white handled knives, a kitchen, paring and serrated one, lay there sheathed in ash wood. They were knives that I gave her as a birthday present some time ago. I took the kitchen knife with a smile on my face.
"I use them every day, you know!" Elise said brightly beside me.
"I'm happy they're well used. Well, I'm hungry, so I'll quickly start chopping them then. You start with washing the rice."
I grabbed a cutting board and began as I put the first vegetables on them. When Elise had turned on the faucet, I started thinking during my chopping.
'Finally, a weapon', I thought as I used the knife. From the moment I entered the house, I intended to arm myself with this knife as naturally and unassumingly as possible, lest the shadow grow suspicious.
The everpresent threat of the shadow. I always kept all my senses out searching for it. If I found it, or if it appeared and attacked, how would I deal with it?
Could it be dealt with? Could the supernatural be harmed? It was the first thing that needed to be answered.
Back at my house, when I first realised the shadow could still be there, I had also grabbed a knife to defend myself. But then, I hadn't thought about those questions yet.
If the shadow was invulnerable, or harming it didn't stop it, then no weapon would help me. Attacking it would be a lost cause that gets me killed. Instead, the correct response would be to run then.
The question if the shadow could be harmed or not was a matter regarding fight or flight, perhaps even life and death.
But luckily, when I thought about it, I could answer my question. I have assumed that the shadow can be harmed.
When it first appeared, I had attacked it. It had responded, disarming and countering me with great skill and efficiency.
To disarm me with such a complicated, and therefore risky, manoeuvre was behaviour that suggested that the knife could have harmed it. If it was invulnerable, it would have more likely countered me in a less complicated and risky way without bothering to disarm me, letting the knife bounce off itself or something.
It was an assumption, which is about all you can make when the supernatural is involved, but my instincts said to me that my assumption was correct.
If the shadow appeared, I would fight. It was the best option, because the shadow is my father. If the shadow is killed, my father might also be killed. That was what was suggested by the shadow avoiding any harm.
It was for now the only way I could think of dealing with my father.
But, if I'm going to fight the shadow, I'll have to be able to kill it. That was another matter entirely. Last time I attacked it, I stood no chance. Its response to my attack suggested it had extremely high levels of martial arts experience, like my father had.
When I grew up, I had to learn mixed martial arts too. My father was the junior world MMA champion in the past. Of course he would also send his children in those footsteps he left behind, since legacy was so important to him. Oh, and every opportunity to get us accustomed to disassociating yourself from harming people was of course also a win in his book.
I won't deny knowing martial arts is beneficial for you, but I hated doing it. I wanted nothing to do with hurting other people. But, the experience allowed me to realise how skilled the shadow is.
Extremely skilled, but not supernaturally skilled. Its skill level, my father's skill level, was still in the realms of humanity. As long as that was the case, I would always stand a chance.
Only…it had snapped my mother's neck with one hand? Was that realistic? She…she could have just been unconscious or paralysed? No, I shouldn't think about this. It didn't matter. The conclusion wouldn't change.
In a straight up fight, I would lose. So, the first step was acquiring a weapon, the great equalizer. This knife improved my odds immensely, but it was not enough. He could defend against a knife attack, He had already proven it.
My first instinct was to acquire an even better weapon, a gun. I've been trained to use them for… reasons that disgust me to my very core. But my father is worse than an animal. I will make an exception for him.
Sadly, the opportunity to acquire a gun hadn't presented itself for me yet.
I didn't have a gun at home. Elise and Ken didn't either. We had a friendly discussion once about the second amendment, and we discovered that all of us were not really big fans of firearms. So from that, I knew that they didn't have any guns at home either.
I couldn't buy one either at a gun store, even if I would have had the time, since I was underage.
So, no guns for me to use right now. I'd have to do the deed with a kitchen knife, even though a previous attempt using the same weapon had already proved insufficient.
I had big prey to kill, and lacked the necessary tools.
But, I could make do. In the past, humanity had managed to slay even bigger prey with even more primitive tools. They had managed through various ways and strategies, overcoming their disadvantages. I would take inspiration from that.
A trap and ambush. I would launch a surprise attack on the invisible, magically appearing, shadow.
I had already set the bait. For the exact details of the trap, I didn't have them yet, I still needed information that would come later. The shadow, my father, will die tonight. The spying fetish he has recently developed towards me will lead to his own downfall.
I was done cutting all the vegetables. It was quite a heap now, but I was also very hungry, so I only welcomed it. But, the faucet was also still on. Was Elise not done yet washing the rice? Was she that slow?
I looked to the side, and saw that Elise was looking at me with mesmerized eyes. She was still holding a big mesh with rice over the sink. But, it was still dry, she hadn't even started washing it yet.
"Wh…What's wrong?"
"Huh? No, nothing. I mean, you were so fast, I was staring for a moment. I guess you really are a great cook," she said, slightly embarrassed.
I looked back at my heaping pile of cut vegetables, then back to her, then back to the vegetables, and back to her again.
"Huh?" It was the only thing I could mutter. I didn't comprehend what she meant at all.
We both stared at each other. She was becoming confused now too. What was happening here?
"How fast was I?" I asked, beginning to find the answer.
"Uh, maybe about a minute? You were so fast I could barely follow your hands. It was kinda cool, to be honest..."
She said the last part a bit softly. I barely caught it, since my head was in a whole different place.
A minute?! Looking at the pile of vegetables, it should have at least taken me 5! My knife skills were good from my part-time job, but even the best chef in the world would maybe make it in 3-4 minutes. One minute is impossible.
If this was the old world, I realize. The white flash, supernatural powers. I have them too. I had just used them.
Superspeed. That was the first thing I thought of, but it seems too basic. Wouldn't I notice something if I'm using it? I thought I was cutting those vegetables at my regular speed.
Superspeed seems to me to be some sort of an effect, something that my power manifested upon use, without me being aware of it.
If I am not aware of it, had I then used my power more times without my knowledge?
In that case, to deduce what my power exactly is, I'll have to identify if I had unknowingly produced supernatural effects in the past too.
I started thinking about everything that happened since the white flash. And something immediately stuck out.
When I attacked the shadow, I was fast too.
I had rushed in when that thing took a step towards my mother, and was already within attacking distance after it had finished that step.
I then lunged, trying to put a knife in its chest. And yet, it countered me, despite all my momentum.
How was that? If I truly had superspeed, that shadow would have stood no chance.
Was it that the shadow was that fast too? No, I don't think so. If we were both moving that fast, I would have been dead right now.
The shadow had given me two wounds. He had stabbed a knife through my hand, and counter punched me in my diaphragm. The latter wound was the issue.
A higher speed means increased force. If I had lunged at it with the same supernatural momentum as I had approached it at, its counter punch, that had stopped me dead in my tracks, wouldn't have just left a bruise. My chest cavity would have been caved in completely.
For me to have gotten away with just receiving a bruise, that means that at that moment I had no supernatural momentum, but a mundane one.
I had lost my momentum when I attacked the shadow. It was also only at that moment that the shadow was able to react to me and counter me.
Why had I slowed down? At that moment, what was the difference between rushing towards it and attacking it?
The answer clicked in my head. It was intent.
When the shadow took a step towards my mother, I rushed to get close to attack it as quickly as possible. I had to get there in an instant to be able to save my mother. My power had fueled that intent.
But, when I attacked it. My intent to attack it had not been done at an increased speed. I took a moment to aim, then lunged. That had changed my intent from being fast to aiming.
That was the difference. Damnit, if I had known, then…
No, there is no point in thinking about what ifs. The only thing that leads to is useless, hindering guilt. Instead, I have to think positively about what this realization means for my current circumstances.
Intended acceleration of actions, that's the power the world had granted to me.
Superspeed is an effect of its use. Obvious to say, a powerful thing to have. With that, the shadow really stands no chance against me in combat.
I had planned to kill it in a mundane way, but at superspeed my chances improve significantly.
My father's death really seems more and more like an inevitability.
Although, my father also knows I have superspeed. I had used it against him, after all, and he's constantly spying on me.
But, for the sort of trap I had planned on setting, that doesn't matter at all. He'll be dead without him being able to react at all. My superspeed makes that scenario all the more sure.
Besides, who says that superspeed is the only weapon I have at my disposal. It's only a single effect. When I deduced what my power is, I realized I had been using another effect of my power constantly since the white flash.
Something so natural, so obvious, that I hadn't even thought about it being unnatural. But, once pointed out, you'll notice the supernatural aspect of it instantly.
It's something that can be tested quite easily now. In fact, I want to test it out so badly. It doesn't matter if the shadow is watching and learns what this power is. If I'm right about me being able to use this ability, no one in the world can oppose me.
What can my father do against the greatest weapon of humanity? The greatest of greatest when boosted by my powers.
I'll test it out right now, my father watching or not be damned.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and opened a stopwatch app.
"Elise, quickly give me a difficult multiplication!"
"What? Uh… 2356 * 3654?" she said, flabbergasted.
I hit the button to start the clock the moment I started to calculate the answer.
"8,608,824," I answered, after having stopped the clock.
"Huh? Wait that can't..," she said bewildered, as she scrambled for her own phone to check it with a calculator.
I looked at my own phone in the meantime. One tenth of a second. I answered her almost instantaneously.
"You…you're right," Elise said while staring at me in awe and wonder.
The greatest weapon a human possesses is its intellect. It's my mind that has let me outmanoeuvre my father thus far. It's my mind that thought of the trap that will lead to my father's death soon. A trap I thought up when I hadn't even discovered my own powers. A trap that will lead to me killing the supernatural, even as a mundane human.
But intellect has a great limitation. Time.
In the spur of the moment, when a quick decision is necessary, can you with certainty find the optimal one when you have no time to use your mental faculties to investigate all possibilities?
Of course not. At that moment, you have no time to think. You can only rely on your gut instincts, which provide no guarantees whatsoever.
But even at those moments, I can think. I can find the best solution. Because, I have a seemingly limitless amount of thinking time.
With my intent, I could accelerate my own thoughts.
When I'm thinking, unbeknownst to me, time stops!
Since the white flash, I've been doing this all the time unconsciously when needed.
Quick deductions, quick considerations, quick scheming. I've always had enough time to do it all until I'm satisfied, whenever the moment called for it. Because it was my intent to think at that moment.
It's especially noticeable while I'm talking to other people, now that I think back on it.
All those long internal monologues before answering questions. I never noticed time had stopped, but can you imagine what it would look like if time had been moving regularly in those moments!?
Gods, I've been doing this with Elise this entire time! I can't imagine she'll look at me normally again if I spend minutes at a time staring into blank space, just thinking about what my powers are and such, instead of instantaneously. Somehow, I can't bear the thought that she starts to think of me being insane…
However…, I'm rattling. But who can blame me!? I've found incredible abilities within myself. I feel like I can take on the whole world!
Intended acceleration of physicality and thoughts. The possibilities seem endless.
But, I calmed myself down. It was embedded in me from an early age that there are no guarantees in life. The possibility is always there that a tougher, smarter, more cunning, more ruthless, more powerful opponent beyond my capacity will cross me.
Never underestimate your opponent. I'm not all powerful. I have my limitations.
No matter how fast, I can only move like a human. And if I'm caught off guard, I couldn't fuel my powers.
No matter how much time to think, if I'm not smart enough, or composed enough to think, I won't find the right answer.
In this world, perhaps there are people that were granted abilities so powerful that I can't devise a counterstrategy against them?
I'll always need to improve myself, mentally and physically, to be prepared for such scenarios.
To start with, for now I can already think about if there's even more to my superpowers that I haven't considered yet.
If I can accelerate things, can I decelerate them too? I had slowed down my momentum when attacking the shadow, but is slowing down limited to just motion?
Was it a normal amount of blood that I had lost when that knife went through my hand?
Also, if I had all that thinking time, how has my emotional regulation been since everything happened? When I let myself break down to get the vase with my mother's ashes, had it been normal to get so emotional so quickly?
And what if I've been doing something else unconsciously since the white flash, something I'm not even aware of despite thinking about it all this time?
I have no definitive answer for these questions, only vague feelings and intuitions.
It's a start. I'm satisfied. Thinking time is over. It will soon be time to kill my father.
To start with, I should actually start cooking my meal. I was already hungry, and all this thinking doesn't help either. I don't really want to hunt on an empty stomach.
Elise was still staring at me with wide eyes, holding the still unwashed rice dangling above the sink. It was kinda cute to be honest. Well, I always found her cute…
Perhaps I could get something even cuter out of her? My smile turned a bit mischievous.
"I… I think I figured out what superpowers I have."
"Oh…Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, I'm great at cutting vegetables."
The mesh with rice fell into the sink. Her expression was priceless.
***
AUTHOR NOTE: Dear reader. I'll give here an explanation about Jack's power, and how I'll write him using it (words in bold). What is stated here will be some rules and examples for extra clarity on how his power functions.
The same rules will also be interpretable by just reading the story, and also get expanded upon. This explanation is just a baseline and can be skipped if you would rather figure out everything on your own.
All of Jack's intendedactions are automatically accelerated to maximum effectiveness for the intended outcome, with corresponding force, unless stated otherwise.
He also experiences time regularly even when accelerated. Like yourself getting so absorbed into doing something that you are not aware anymore of the time and world around you. Think of it like hyperfocus on a task you choose to do.
Jack has to actively choose to use his power, which manifests as an intent. His power is not reactive.
If he sees a punch coming, he can choose to dodge it. If a punch comes out of nowhere and he flinches, he can move out of the way, resembling a dodge, but it will be at mundane speed.
Jack can also choose how much force (and acceleration) an action has. To give an example about corresponding force, if he jumps in open air to reach the greatest height possible, it will be at his full capability and fastest speed.
An intended action can thus also be limited in acceleration to adapt to the environment. If Jack jumps indoors, the movement is still fast, but scaled to reach the intended height at the fastest possible speed without excess force. You can imagine this as Jack using less muscle power, like squatting less before a jump, or more slowly rising from a deep squat. Whichever is quicker.
Jack can intuitively adapt his intent to the environment, like you can choose to jump lower than your maximum, as long as he is aware of it and his own capabilities. If he jumps while not being aware that there is a ceiling above him, or suddenly forgets that you can jump lower than your maximum, things might get a bit messy.
Also, when Jack stops doing anything and chooses to only think, time stops until he finishes his thought. He himself doesn't notice time stopping when in this state.
Perhaps the best explanation regarding this is to imagine that Jack gets lost so deep in thought that he stops moving, becomes unaware of time passing and unaware of the world around him.
This means that he cannot stop time and think while being busy with an activity. To stop time, he must quit doing anything. You yourself can also not suddenly deeply contemplate animal welfare while you're running away from a lion or another predator.
Regarding multitasking with multiple intents. Jack can only manifest one intent at a time. Because an intent is a choice, and you can only make one choice at a time.
This means that Jack can't think two thoughts at the same time. You yourself can also not immerse yourself in reading and at the same time consider if you should become a vegetarian or not. You can only do the latter if you stop reading and think about it.
However, while doing something, Jack can still think, although at regular speed. You can also think about what you want to eat for dinner while petting your dog or other animal companion.
Lastly, for complex physical actions, Jack can accelerate multiple steps and effectively multitask by either switching intents in rapid sequence or collapsing them into a single intent.
For example, grabbing and then throwing an object are two intents executed in sequence, resulting in one accelerated throw. Similarly, moving while grabbing something collapses into one intended accelerated movement.
The logic of Jack's power is simple yet complex. As more examples and limitations appear throughout the story, its rules should become even clearer and more intuitive, revealing how deep the ability truly goes.