Of Stretches and Lost Sleep

John blinked the spots from his eyes as he followed Ela outside into the sun. In the span of probably less than five minutes, he’d gone from asleep on his bed to out the door. Silently, he thanked his ability to simply equip his clothes as he ran downstairs, instead of having to get dressed, for saving him some time. At least, the sudden shock of his mother waking him up had done a decent job of clearing the morning haze from his mind.

Unfortunately, that had done nothing to alleviate the stiffness of his muscles.

He flexed his limbs gently as he trailed behind the blonde knight. Nothing was particularly painful, but everything seemed slow and hard to move, like his muscles were bread dough that had been kneaded for too long.

’Shouldn’t [Gamer’s Body] have handled any lingering wounds?’ he wondered internally, holding his shoulder and rotating one of his arms. ’I don’t think I hurt anything late last night? Maybe that last fall was worse than I thought?’

Or maybe nothing’s wrong.

The Gamer paused his stretching, turning his focus inward at the voice in his head. ’Oh, hey. Good morning.’

He didn’t hear anything back, at first.

There was a pause in his mind - a deafening silence for the briefest of moments.

Then, a slightly different voice spoke. It was still a woman’s voice, and it still echoed with the same depth and power as he was used to, but it was distinctly different. He recognized it as the softer, more protective voice he’d heard back when he’d woken up in the Order hospital.

...You may be the first person to ever say those words to me.

’I’m.. sorry?’ John thought, noting an odd sense of familiarity in the strange new voice, though he couldn’t quite place it.

It is fine. I enjoy the unique flavours of mortal pleasantries.

’I… OK. Sure.’ The Gamer shook his head. ’Do you… sound different, all of a sudden? Is someone else in there?’

The original voice replied.

Kinda, but not really. We’re all me. Divinity is complicated. Don’t worry about it.

’That’s… probably a clearer answer than I expected.’ John sighed, deciding that there wasn’t much point in pestering for details. Filing away that tidbit of information, he redirected his energy back towards his original query. ’So, what did you mean before? About how I feel, I mean. Like, am I supposed to be stiff and weird for some reason?’

You were weird long before I entered the picture.

’Not the point.’

“John..?”

The Gamer looked up and stumbled backwards as he nearly barreled right into Ela at the foot of his driveway. He'd gone on autopilot again, forgetting the world around him as he had a conversation in his mind.

“Sorry. I, uh, I was talking to the guest in my head real quick.”

“A quick conversation with the Lady Gaia to start the morning. Of course.” The blonde held back an exasperated smile, shaking her head. “Is everything alright?”

Those words made John pause for a second. He hadn't fully considered the ramifications of his ability on someone like Ela. What would her faith think of him and his connection to its almighty goddess - what did his very existence mean for them? Maybe he should have taken that elective course on philosophy this year.

’That's definitely not a conversation I'm ready to have right now. I don't even know what it means for me, yet,’ he thought, thinking over how Moira and her father had acted the previous day. “Yeah, I think I’m fine. I’m just kinda stiff this morning. Maybe it’s just leftover stuff from all my injuries yesterday, but I figured that [Gamer’s Body] should have taken care of that. Um, The Lady doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong though.”

The Bookworm Knight furrowed her brow, looking over her friend for a moment. “I do not see anything outwardly wrong. I could…” She blinked rapidly, her eyes darting back and forth before locking on his right arm. “Did something happen to you last night? You look… much bulkier than before.

“Oh! Yeah,” John answered, suddenly excited to show off his new musculature to the blonde. He brought his arm up in front of him, rolling his sleeve up slightly. “I hit level ten yesterday, and I got a bonus reward. It’s a menu that lets me do a little light character customization, mostly for the stats I’ve gained since I got my powers, though there were a few options for stuff like hair, too.”

The momentary surge of energy began to pass, and he flushed, moving his arm back to scratch his neck nervously. “I, um, messed around with the slider on my strength-related stuff a bit… thought I looked a little better like this.”

“You looked fine before,” Ela sang, reassuringly, “but you do seem a little healthier. That may be your answer though.”

John’s blush refused to subside, owing to the knight’s comments. “I- what do you mean?”

“Muscles naturally grow after working out by tearing and then healing,” she said, her voice settling into a very smooth, even tone. “You become sore and stiff as your body inflames and recovers. Perhaps, though your innate ability may have repaired the damage, you are still feeling some of the after effects of those changes?”

“I suppose that might be the case. I don’t exactly know how [Gamer’s Body] is supposed to keep me together, I just kinda know it does.” He shrugged, looking down at his hands and clenching them lightly.

“That is one downside of having your own unique innate ability,” Ela said. “You will need to figure out many small details on your own.”

John raised an eyebrow at that. “Not something you had to deal with, I take it?”

“No,” she replied, trailing off slightly. “Both my mother and sister had the same ability as I do, though… my sister’s was far stronger. I was fortunate that they had done the hard work before my eyes found their power.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” The Gamer muttered. ’I guess it’s kinda like I’m the first person playing my class. Maybe the only person.’

He shrugged, looking back over at his companion and finally noticing what she was wearing. She had a fairly nondescript, comfortable-looking jacket as her top, which was normal enough, but her bottom half caught his eye, and not just because of her thighs. From as close as he was standing now, he could just barely make out the fibers of her combat suit.“By the way, uh, I didn’t notice at first. Is that your armor? Is everything alright?”

Ela smiled at the concern in his voice. “Yes. Unfortunately, you were not the only one who woke up sore this morning. I do not have your excellent healing factor, so I am wearing my suit to make sure that I do not accidentally hurt myself on our run.”

“That makes sense.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I continue to find new and interesting ways to stall for time. We probably should start soon.”

“We have all morning,” Ela said, putting her hands on her sides. “You ought to stretch anyway. There is no sense in risking making you feel any worse.”

“Right. Um…” After a pause that he felt was painfully awkward, John tried to copy some of the stretching he thought he remembered from movies, bending over himself to reach down to his toes. Now that he’d started thinking about it, he was acutely aware of the differences in his physicality and how they were affecting his movements.

The Gamer wasn’t really sure if what he was doing was helpful at all, but it seemed like his shins were tensing as he gripped his own toes. That was stretching, right?

A wonderfully breezy giggle floated down to him, answering that question. “Have you ever stretched before a workout before?”

“Ela, I’m going to be honest with you,” John said, chuckling lightly and standing back up straight to look her in the eye. “I’ve done like twenty times more exercise this week than I have in the last, like, ten years of my life. Until this all happened, I was more or less living in front of my computer.”

“OK. OK!” She smiled. “Here, try and copy me.”

Ela extended her right leg out, planting it as far away as she could and turning her other leg away. Then, she rested one hand on her close knee for support and bent that leg, stretching out the other as far as she could. The knight moved up and down slightly, tensing and relaxing her body as she stretched out.

John, for his part, was completely stunlocked, on account of the wonderful tightness with which her bodysuit was stretching over her muscular thigh. The jacket she’d put on over it had begun to ride up as she widened her stance, now without even the plates of bone to cover it. Her smooth muscles pulled the fibers of the suit taut, inadvertently teasing him, causing his baggy pants to begin to tighten.

He swallowed, shaking his head, and **** himself to snap out of his staring before the blonde noticed.

Quickly mirroring her stance as best he could, he slowly lowered himself to stretch out. Almost immediately, The Gamer could feel his legs tensing, the muscles stretched far beyond what he’d been doing with his own attempt before.

“Do be careful,” Ela said, looking up. “You do not want to make things worse. I would try to do half of what I am doing, to see how it feels, first.”

Nodding, John eased himself back up slightly, then back down more gently. The tightness in his muscles slowly began to give way to normal motion as he repeated that a few more times. After he’d gotten used to that, Ela showed him how to smoothly switch which leg he was stretching out, and how to move back and forth between reps. He did his best to keep his eyes from wandering, though it was hard to deny himself the occasional glance over at his companion.

’Come on, John - self-control.’ He still spared one more look at her toned thighs before shaking his head and focusing.

John groaned, reaching for the sky as he returned to his full height, their warm up complete.

For a couple minutes, the blonde had led The Gamer through a set of basic stretches, helping him iron out the strangeness he’d woken up with that morning. Cautiously, he tensed, his whole body shuddering. He exhaled, and let himself rest. His muscles had finally relaxed. Just across from him, Ela stood with her arms crossed, watching as he settled back down. Her cheeks shone with the faintest of rosy reds, pleasantly contrasting her pristinely pale skin.

“Thanks for the help,” he said with a smile. “I feel much better now. Are you ready to go for real?”

“Of course,” she sang back cheerily. “We can start by running down towards the bridge that crosses into the city. If you are feeling up to it, we can keep going further from there.”

John nodded. “Sounds good.”

Ela rolled her head around one more time, gesturing for him to follow, then turned and set off at a light jog. Taking a deep breath to ready himself, The Gamer set off after his friend, dialing up his effort to match her speed. For the first block or so, he was worried that he was going to burn out quickly, as he’d done so many years in a row during physical evaluations in gym at school, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was able to keep up.

None of the normal aches or cramps he expected so much made a hint of appearing. Though it was clearly still taking him more effort to maintain this pace than Ela, he was again overjoyed at the results of his stat development. Once he’d finally started to internalize just how much more fit he was now than he’d been just a few days ago, John was finally able to relax.

He inhaled deeply, letting the crisp coolness of the morning into his soul. ’I’ve got a good feeling about today.’

“I meant to ask,” Ela said, calling back over her shoulder towards him. “Did you really stay up late last night or were you having trouble sleeping?”

John turned to her, his eyes immediately trying to wander downward to where her skintight suit stretched over her butt. He blushed again, glad that the knight had turned back to looking straight ahead.

“Bit of both, really. I… can’t get everything from yesterday out of my head. Still, I managed to get to sleep, eventually.” He sighed. “I did stay up messing with my powers for a bit, though. So it WAS partially my fault.”

The Bookworm Knight slowly came to a stop, pausing to turn and address John directly. “It is not always easy to live with the things the Abyss asks us to do. Just make sure you are taking care of yourself, OK?”

“Yeah…” John paused next to the blonde, chewing his lip for a moment in thought. “The strangest feeling is that I don’t regret any of what I did. I just kinda feel numb to a lot of it. I didn’t have a choice… right?”

“No, you did not,” she replied, somberly smiling. “The only choice was between our lives and theirs.”

A moment of silence passed before she continued. “Now, what were you messing around with that kept you up? Did you discover anything interesting with your powers?”

The Gamer perked up at that, eager to talk about his experimentation. “I was trying to work out how to fly.”

“To fly?” Ela replied, her eyes widening.

“Yeah! It, uh, kinda started because I was watching Iron Man with my mom last night. I thought I could try to copy him using my air manipulation.” He chuckled lightly, scratching the back of his neck, the melancholy of the previous discussion long gone. “That plan didn’t get off the ground though.”

The blonde grinned, raising an eyebrow.

John blinked rapidly, realizing what he’d said. “Uh, no pun intended. I did figure out something that kinda works, though.”

Ela giggled. “Come on, you can tell me all about it while we finish our run.”

Again, the pair set off, John animatedly describing the previous night’s escapades to his friend, doing his best not to embellish the details too much. Ela’s giggled floated through the morning air as he admitted how he’d faceplanted by launching himself without a plan to land the first time. She did applaud his ingenuity for trying to catapult himself with a wingsuit, at least once he’d confirmed that he’d gotten it to work.

The time and the miles seemed to melt away behind them as they ran off into the morning.

’Yeah… it’s gonna be a good day.’