Stronger Together chapter 86 (Patreon)

I felt almost drunk on adrenaline as I stumbled out of that crater,  cackling like a madman. I threw my hands in the air and whooped with  joy. Destroying stuff is fine, but there's something intoxicating about  bodily smashing into a solid object so hard it explodes and just walking  away from it. Hell even flying through the air was amazing, I totally  got the whole human cannonball thing now. Kara was grinning like a  lunatic too and even Harry was clearly in awe of the devastation. I  walked unsteadily over to them both and picked the small blonde up,  eliciting a shriek of joy from her as I spun her in a circle.

She  was laughing as I put her down. "Well I'm glad you had fun, sadly we  can't go again, Harry was right we can only hide so much damage and that  was way more destructive than expected. Seriously that's just insanely  powerful, we need to use that in a fight sometime." I considered if  wrapping myself in a lightning shield would work as well as the  stoneskin, but it would probably stunt the impact. I'd have to think  that over, I refused to give up on the idea of being a human wrecking  ball. Kara gave the crater a quick once over with a wide beam of heat  vision after dashing over to find a boulder the right size and bam a  meteor strike had occurred.

Harry  shook his head and headed back to his room, and I made my own way back  to clean up. Kara and I agreed to meet up in a few hours so she could  teach me those katas. I admit to being really excited. I was going to  learn alien martial arts. Martial arts fucking Superman knew. Kara had  only learned the first level but she said she was happy to teach me. The  art was called Klurkor, and it was a hard striking style Kara learned  as a girl when she was growing up. Though her family was science caste  every able bodied member of the House of El trained in some kind of  combat style for health and self defense purposes.

I  showered and changed (stoneskin made me harder than stone it didn't  make my clothes super durable) I had dirt in some fairly uncomfortable  places and I began to rethink me new career as a human wrecking ball.  Finally though I finished getting dressed and slipped down to the dining  room to grab some food from the continental breakfast that ran until  ten AM. I had a cheese red pepper and mushroom omelette with bacon and  toast and washed the whole thing down with fresh guava juice which I was  excited they had because it was a favorite of mine and then I headed  out to meet Kara. Originally I'd been planning to do this training later  tonight but I was free now so why the hell not.

I'd  made sure to wear loose fitting pants that were easy to move in along  with a tank top so my arms wouldn't be restrained and as I met Kara in  the fitness center I started getting warmed up. We weren't going to be  using any powers when we trained anyway so I wasn't worried about being  seen. Kara said the style was designed for kryptonians on Krypton and  didn't require super strength to work. Hell, Lois Lane was apparently a  master of it. I briefly considered asking how she managed to constantly  get kidnapped by Lex Luthor if she knew super alien martial arts but it  seemed impolite to bring it up so I left it alone.

I  got there a bit early but as I was warming up Kara slipped in. She had  her hair up in a ponytail and was wearing a tank top and incredibly tiny  shorts. I did my best not to stare are all the toned flesh on display  because honestly girls in work out clothes had always been a big turn on  for me, but luckily I had something way more interesting to focus on.  Klurkor while it might sound weird, was a genuine alien combat style.  I'd never dreamed I'd learn something like this and I was going to savor  every single lesson. I stood up straight with my arms relaxed and  waited for Kara to start.

Kara  bounced in place on here toes a bit to loosen up and grinned at me.  "Ok, you ready for this? It's been a long time since I had a lesson but I  practice every day myself so I remember all the forms. I'm not a master  or anything sadly but beginners begin at the beginning so if nothing  else these forms should help you a ton. Plus basics are key in any  fighting style, the first thing you learn in boxing is how to punch.  This won't be fancy but it should be helpful." She smiled brightly as  she continued with some light stretches, doing warm up similar to the  ones I'd just done and looking much better doing them.

I  cleared my throat and looked away trying not stare at her tight little  ass as she bent over. "Oh for sure, plus I'm sure the kryptonian martial  arts are as advanced as everything else you guys do. Probably some  super badass perfectly engineered war god style or something." I was  reminded of command sambo, a martial arts style from my earth that was  designed by doctors and scientists for the Russian military to be the  perfect fighting style. It hadn't been perfect obviously, but it was  damn effective and the majority of MMA fighters used at least some of  the style in their combat arsenal. If scientists from decades ago could  do that imagine what kryptonian level geniuses could do.

Kara  giggled "I don't know if I'd go that far. Klurkor is fairly old, but  it's been refined a bit for sure. Like i said I'm only a beginner.  Though I did memorize the higher forms, I've just never practiced them.  One of the perks of being from a nerd family I suppose, they always  prioritize knowledge. Now since this was designed on Krypton it's  obviously land based, which is good since you can't fly. Klurkor is a  striking style, and deals a lot with solid footing and channeling force  from the ground. Low stances and strong attacks with real weight behind  them." She took a stance, bending her knees to lower her center of  gravity.

I  mimicked the stance as best I could, I knew that me when I first got  here would have been screwed, this wasn't exactly a horse stance but it  used the same muscles and I'd always sucked at that. With the workouts  and fighting I'd done though I managed to hold it without too much  effort. Kara set her shoulders and positioned her arms in a solid way,  angling her body so he strike if she made one would make a line along  her form from the ground. Someone charging her would slam into her hand  like a steel beam and the force would all transfer into the ground even  if her hand hadn't actually been about as hard as a steel beam.

The  next hour was the most excruciating pain I'd ever been through. I  worked every muscle in my body and some I didn't even knew I had. When  Kara said she was a beginner I assumed she meant shitty white belt  martial arts but this was some foundation building crucible level shit.  No wonder she was in such good shape. The forms used your own muscles  for resistance too so they could even be used as I got stronger. Even my  mildly soulfire forged body was being shredded doing this but it felt  amazing. I could see how each pose would apply in battle too. This was  the building blocks of an entire system of combat.

Kara  flowed through stances slowly and methodically, stopping to correct me  and picking it back up without any problem. I could almost feel my body  refining and hardening as I worked, and I had the ridiculous thought  that this total body breakdown was going to make the process of  purifying me with soulfire faster. It wasn't just strengthening me  either. I assumed since it was a low slow stance with power behind it I  wouldn't be building flexibility but somehow the forms slowly teased my  muscles into greater and greater elasticity. Like Yoga but a million  times more effective and less painful and so much more powerful. Whoever  designed this style was a fucking genius.

Finally  we finished and I collapsed on the ground, drenched in sweat and  gasping for breath. "Jesus Kara, you could have warned me. What the  hell? I got less hurt fighting literal hellspawn. My hair hurts. You do  this every day? I get how you could pull it off now but how the hell  were you able to do this daily when you were back home and normal?" My  healing was supplemented by my Aura passively even if Aura didn't  instantly heal damage from working out. Or it was a soulfire thing I  honestly couldn't tell at this point. Regardless while I would probably  be able to do this again tomorrow albeit with great difficulty, I didn't  see how a normal person would manage.

She  plopped down next to me, relaxed and glistening. Her sun bronzed skin  was barely shining like she'd had a relaxing jog. She noticed me eying  her and smirked back, winking before she responded. "We had healing  technology. I should actually look into making a rudimentary version, I  know some of the nutrient fluids that enable it are feasible with the  elements available on earth and we could really use some regeneration  tanks. Would make physical training faster for you guys even if you Aura  regen wouldn't be affected." She grinned at her idea and my own  eyebrows went up into my hairline.

I  sputtered a bit "Wait...regeneration tanks? You can make fucking DBZ  style healing pods and you never mentioned this before now? That's  amazing. Can you do any other crazy stuff you forgot about? Can you make  us a gravity chamber? Time dilation chamber? Could we train like the  fucking Z fighters? Imagine going into a hyperbolic time chamber and  coming out as full blown angels!" I was geeking out hard here and I  could tell she was enjoying it by the grin as she watched me spiral. I'd  made it clear from my tone I didn't hold it against her for forgetting,  god knows I forgot some important shit. Hell I forgot about Aura for  like a week after we got here.

Kara's  laugh cut me off as she threw up her hands to ward off and more ideas  "Whoa there. Most kryptonian tech requires a pretty high level of base  technology. Regeneration tanks were a milestone so they went over the  mechanics thoroughly, but even those would be low tech garbage versions  from the early days. You'd need like eight hours in one before you'd be  healed up. As for the other stuff, time dilation was cutting edge stuff  even when the planet blew so i couldn't begin to tell you how it worked,  and it was just a few seconds in prototype testing from what I heard. A  gravity chamber...maybe? That's fundamental science so I might be able  to rig something up."

I  was staring at her in awe. "Why the hell do you let use treat you like  the muscle all the time? You have to remind us of that giant nerd brain  more often, I bet even without parts you could make a ton of stuff to  help us out." She giggled again and shoved me over, prying a tortured  moan from the body i just now remembered was in agonizing pain. "Anyway  if you could try to find the stuff for that nutrient fluid and at least  make us some baths to soak in to help the healing that would be amazing.  I'm going to do this again tomorrow but even with my enhanced baseline  healing I don't know if I'll be able to manage day three.