Chapter 270: Teacher becomes student
Just as Robin relaxed and Jack sensed relief flood through her, her grandmother said, "Oh, alright. I’m probably too old for him anyway. But if I were a few years younger... hmmm."
Before Robin could process what her grandmother had said, her grandfather added, "Good thing I’m packing serious heat myself or I never would have managed to nail her down."
"Ooh, yes. Nailed me good. Three times a day when we first met," added her grandmother.
Robin’s face turned beet red, and she bent over while covering her face with her hands.
"Damn, I think I’m developing a kink for blushing girls," said Jack.
"Oh?" said Sarah.
"Samantha, one of my other girlfriends, blushed even deeper when she learned her mother wanted to take me for a test drive. Super cute. I didn’t really understand the appeal of teasing girls until that moment."
"Enjoy it while you can," said Ron sagely.
"Why is everyone being mean to me?" complained Robin, but he could tell she was mostly just embarrassed.
Jack rubbed her back while saying, "I did warn you."
She huffed, but he could tell she was fine.
"While we wait for Robin’s brain to cool off, would you be interested in sparring with a training dummy?" Jack asked Ron, "It’s what I’ve been using to learn martial arts, and I’m curious to learn how it compares to Krav Maga."
Seeing Ron’s doubtful look, Jack added, "Think of the training dummy as a robot or combat savant." He went on to give a brief description of how the training dummy worked.
"Oh, well, that does sound interesting," said Ron.
"Great," said Jack as he summoned a new training dummy and modified the ground just outside the gazebo so it matched the floor in his training room.
Once the training dummy appeared, Jack said, "I’ll have it go through the whole sequence of techniques, then you can decide if you want to try sparring with it."
He gave the training dummy the command to go through the same demonstration that he had viewed when he first discovered the ability.
When it was complete, Ron said, "Interesting. It’s not any of the martial arts I’ve seen, and I think I’ve seen them all. Can you have it do the demonstration again, but faster?"
"Sure."
Jack had the training dummy go through the demonstration again at a higher speed. He increased the speed several times until Ron was satisfied.
"Let’s try it at that speed," said Ron. "Can you set it to defend only?"
"Yep. It’s set. You can go whenever you’re ready."
Ron launched himself at the training dummy and tried to tackle it to the ground. What followed happened to fast for Jack to properly follow, but the sense he got was that Ron was having trouble just getting his hands on the dummy.
After a few minutes, Ron stopped trying to attack the dummy. His breathing elevated but not labored.
"Fuck me! I’ve never seen anything like this! I can usually get my hands on just about anyone, black belts in every discipline. But this thing is slippery like an eel. And I can tell it’s not doing anything superhuman."
The whole time Ron was trying to attack the training dummy, Robin and Sarah were both watching in shock.
"Y-Y-You’ve been training with that!" asked Robin.
"Yes. But not at that speed. The thing would wipe the floor with me if I tried fighting it at that speed."
"You and me both," said Ron. "Can you switch it to sparring mode, but drop the difficulty to whatever you’ve been using?"
"Sure. It’s set. It will attack as soon as you approach, and will stop when you say ’yield’."
Ron approached the training dummy cautiously. When he got close, the training dummy attacked with a simple punch, which Ron deflected.
Then the training dummy twisted and tried to grab Ron’s arm in a joint lock. The training dummy was moving much slower than it had during the previous spar, yet he could tell that Ron was off balance.
After a few minutes, Ron seemed to find his balance, but only after taking a few solid hits, and eventually he said, "yield," as he stepped back.
Ron turned to look at Jack and said, "You spar with this thing at that speed?"
"Yes. As the difficulty increases, it will be less tolerant of mistakes and will hit harder."
Ron grinned. "I’ve never had much use for other martial arts, but this has potential. If we accept your soul bond, will we have access to these training dummies?"
"Yes, I see no problem with that. However, you will not be able to tell anyone where you learned this martial art. I mean, no matter how much you may want to, the soul bond will prevent you from saying anything about it."
Ron turned to look at his wife. She nodded.
He turned to look at Jack and asked, "If your soul bond offer is still on the table, then we want in."
"Let’s have a seat. I have a few more questions I need to ask before I can make that offer."
After they sat, Jack asked Ron and Sarah a bunch of questions to determine if they had ties to the underworld or if they were ideologically incompatible with him. He also asked questions to figure out what role, if any, they would play in his long-term plans.
He learned that they were not involved in the underworld, were ideologically compatible, and were well suited to assist with training all his security personnel.
He finished by describing what he had done for Heidy and Cindy and then Ethen and Mariel Sinclair.
On hearing about the mental link, Sarah said, "People already think we can read each other’s minds, so it would be nice to do it for real."
Ron nodded. "Yes. It would. Let’s do it."
Jack removed their obedience mods, then asked, "Do you still want to go through with this?"
They both nodded, so he sent them a joint soul bond request.
[Soul Bond Accepted: Ron Ashford and Sarah Ashford]
They both accepted after a short pause.
He repeated what he had done the past two times, so when he was finished, they could sense each other’s emotions and had a mental link with each other.
When he finished, they both turned and looked at each other for several moments, and were soon grinning like two mischievous children.