Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

*November 6, 2019*

As Ernest wanders through the halls of the Big Team Base, he hears a muffled song coming from behind the doors to the gym. He doesn’t recognize the tune, but it’s upbeat and full of pulsing purple triangles. Overlaid on the backdrop of the song are bright yellow bursts as something is hit nearly in time with the beat.

He opens the door, the colors of the noises instantly becoming more vibrant, and finds Melody pummeling the speed bag with practiced efficiency. He waits until the song ends and Melody pauses for a moment to approach her.

“Hey, Melody! Do you think you could you show me how to do that?” he asks, pointing at the speed bag. “Last time I tried, I just ended up bruising my knuckles, but you look like you actually know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks dude! I put like, a lot of effort into looking like I know what I’m doing”. Melody grins at Ernest before she towels off the beads of sweat gathered on her forehead. “But yeah, I’ll totally give you some tips if you want”. She smiles at him. “You’d actually be really good on speed bag, Ernest.”

Melody carefully studies Ernest before motioning him towards the bag. “And if you’re bruising your knuckles on speed bag, that means you’re hitting it too hard. Heavy bag is where you go to find fun ways to hurt your hands”. She jerks her head at a row of thick canvas bags nearby. “Actually, like… you shouldn’t be using your knuckles at all for now.” Melody taps the bottom of her fist. “Use this part.”

“Too hard? Isn’t the point of practicing hitting things to be able to hit them harder?” he asks as he steps in front of the speed bag. “Although, I guess the name ‘speed bag’ implies you can also hit them faster.”

The next song starts up, this one with a slightly slower beat. The pattern of flashing mint spirals over a wavy tangerine grid is vaguely familiar, although Ernest can’t quite place where he’s heard it before. He lifts his hands and turns to Melody expectantly. “Okay, so what first?”

“Well, you got Rule One already” she smiles as she raises her fists into a guard. “Hands up, all the time forever. Next, uh… stance”. Melody turns over a lengthier explanation in her head before placing her hands on Ernest’s hips and guiding him a few inches away from the bag. She then slides her foot against the inside of Ernest’s heel to widen his stance.

Melody takes a few steps away and swings her fist through the air in a repetitive circular motion. “Now just punch the bag. But not super hard. Think of like… knocking on a door or something.”

Ernest bounces on the balls of his feet a few times, testing out the new stance. He mimics the motion that Melody demonstrated, and taps the bag with the side of his fist. The sound of the hit is an unsatisfying beige blob, and the bag barely moves an inch.

He puts more force behind the next swing, resulting in a pleasant golden glow, but the bag rebounds directly towards his head. He barely manages to duck out of the way in time, his surprise manifesting as a turbulent gust of air rushing across the gym.

“Not super hard. Right,” he says, grinning sheepishly at Melody.

Melody’s expression goes blank as her ponytail flutters from the blast of wind, but she quickly breaks into a giggle. “My bad dude! Right, right, longer arms than me.” She guides Ernest back a few more inches from the bag. “That second punch was the right amount of power. And, uh… you were asking about practicing to hit stuff harder or faster?”. Melody furrows her brow at the bag.

“This one isn’t really for that. Speed bag is kind of a crappy name for it,” Melody concludes, scratching the back of her head. “It’s more like… rhythm bag?”. She grins at Ernest. “That’s why I said you’d be really good at this. ‘Cause like… you handled that kid at DDR, so I know you’re good at rhythm stuff already. And this is just like, a rhythm game,” her eyes flash as she stares at the bag. “With punching!”

Melody takes a few steps forward and lightly taps the bag with her fist. There’s a dull thump thump thump thump as the bag turns on its swivel and bounces off the wooden platform supporting it. “So basically,” she calls out over her shoulder while repetitively striking the bag in a similar beat to the bright pop song blasting from a nearby speaker, “you’re just gonna hit it and wait for three bounces. Or, beats? Then hit it on the way down from the third bounce. Or on the half beat…?” Melody gives an apologetic shrug to Ernest. “You’re a smart dude, you’ll figure it out. Just keep that rhythm and you’re good.”

“Like a rhythm game, huh? Alright.” He isn’t quite sure how to parse Melody’s description of the particular number of beats, but he can remember the sequence of canary yellow circles popping up along the grid from the song as she hit the bag. If he manages to replicate that, he should be doing it right.

Ernest waits for the song to reach the same part of the chorus as when Melody had demonstrated, then starts swinging. His first round of hits are a bit slow, the circles appearing offset from the rippling grid. He adjusts his speed and they shift closer to the mark. With the bag bouncing in time with the music, it does remind him of playing DDR. If his hits were being scored, they’d probably be classified as Good, but he thinks he can do better. He closes his eyes to focus on the subtle pulses that each note sends through the grid. His hands anticipate the beat and contact the bag precisely in time with the song, the yellow circles snapping into place against the grid.

As the song ends, he opens his eyes and steps back. “How was that?”

“Did… did you just close your eyes for that? Again?!” Melody shakes her head as an incredulous smile spreads across her face.  “Yeah, that was, like… pretty much perfect.”

“Memorize how your body felt when you were doing that. Power and speed are important, but everyone and every fight have their own rhythm too.” The words flow unhindered out of Melody’s mouth, the lessons beat into her body through years of arduous training with The Jackal. “If you keep practicing, you’ll learn to recognize those rhythms too. And once you feel that rhythm…” She punches the bag, a heavy thumpthumpthumpthumpthump ringing out as it swivels haphazardly. “...your body will know when to strike.”

Neon yellow triangles shimmer in and out of view with each punch, creating a geodesic dome around the two of them. Melody’s voice adds a ribbon of cyan blue weaving through the shapes and tying the whole ensemble together. Ernest can only shake his head in amazement at the effortless grace of her motions.

“Well, it’s like, more complicated than that,” Melody beams as she reaches into a nearby plastic tub. “But that’s a good start. Anyway, awesome job, dude.” She produces a thick red towel emblazoned with a large B, then gives it a swift underhanded toss towards Ernest.

He catches the towel out of the air and starts wiping the sweat from his face. “Thanks for showing me the ropes. If I knew working out could be this much fun, I would have started a long time ago,” he says with a grin.

Ernest walks over to one of the benches and sits to catch his breath. His expression becomes more serious before he speaks again. “So, about the whole closing my eyes thing. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I... see things, like shapes and colors, whenever I hear noises,” he explains, waving a hand vaguely in front him. “I know, it sounds kind of crazy, but I promise I’m not just making it up. That’s why I wear headphones all the time, it can be pretty distracting otherwise. But it does come in handy for finding the rhythm of a song, which is why I close my eyes to focus on it sometimes.”

“Oh.” The grin affixed to Melody’s face falls away as Ernest speaks. She tentatively makes her way to the same bench and sits a few feet away from him. “I thought you were just, like… showing off or something.” She sighs. “Sorry, dude.”

Melody gives an unfocused glance around the gym and fidgets with her hair. “That doesn’t sound crazy, though. That’s actually, like, really cool.” She gives Ernest an awkward half-smile. “Well, not cool for you, I guess. Probably really annoying for you, sometimes. But… you get to experience the world in a special way, right? I think that’s rad.”

A small smile returns to Ernest’s face, and his posture relaxes slightly. “Thanks for being chill about it. Not everyone reacts well to finding out I see things that aren’t really there, so I don’t usually mention it. But I do enjoy it when it isn’t being a nuisance.” He leans back and starts swinging his legs underneath him. “It actually took me a while to figure out that I was seeing the world differently than everyone else. Most people don’t pay that much attention when little kids talk about stuff that isn’t there, imaginary friends and all that. It wasn’t until I got a bit older that people started to question why I kept describing things they couldn’t see.”

“So…” Melody’s head tilts from side to side as she ponders. Her curious eyes settle on Ernest. “Does it happen with every sound? Like, what does your voice... look like? What does mine look like?”

“Pretty much every sound,” Ernest nods. “Constant noises like the AC or whatever start to fade into the background after a while. People’s voices usually have a narrow range of colors to them. Mine is usually somewhere around the purple-maroon-brown region. Yours tends to be like, cotton candy blue to cyan. The shapes that show up depend on how someone’s talking, though. Yours was doing this cool ribbon thing earlier, when you were explaining about fighting with rhythm.” He traces a few loops in the air with the tip of his finger.

Melody tracks the finger. She imagines a ribbon of cyan light following in its wake, a tiny shimmering aurora being guided by Ernest’s fingertip. Her eyes close as she thinks of the cadence and rhythm of Ernest’s voice. Small, gently rolling waves shifting between purple and maroon swim through the air.

“Whoops.” Melody finally notices the quiet in the gym. She opens her eyes and smiles sheepishly at Ernest. “Tried to picture the colors and shapes and stuff. Probably didn’t get it right, but… seems like it could be really beautiful...”

Her mouth hangs open after the last syllable. Melody pauses before letting out a quiet sigh. “Thanks for, like... telling me about all that, Ernest. Especially if some people give you crap for it. That’s really messed up.” She waits, her voice unsure. “I’m… kinda awful at opening up to people myself. Like, I think I’d rather fight a supervillain than tell someone I made a mistake, or wasn’t good enough, or disappointed them or whatever. Or have them judge me, I guess.”

“Look at that, now I’ve got you closing your eyes too. At this rate, I’m going to start an epidemic,” he jokes, nudging Melody lightly with his elbow. Then he sighs as well, letting his gaze drift to the far wall of the gym. “I imagine someday, maybe I’ll be confident enough to tell everyone about it and not care what they think. But for now I’ll settle for telling the people who matter, and hoping they’ll understand.”

“Making mistakes is… well, I can definitely get wrapped up in my own head about them sometimes,” Ernest admits. “But I try to remember that at the end of the day, most people are just doing the best they can. I shouldn’t expect too much more than that from myself.” He glances back over at Melody. “From what I’ve seen on missions, at least, I think your best must be pretty damn good.”

“Pfffff.” She playfully bumps her shoulder against Ernest’s arm. “Back at ya, dude.”

Melody stands up and stretches her arms over her head, then rolls her neck. “You’re probably right about all that other stuff too. I’ll try to keep that in mind and get better about it.” She turns back with a broad smile. “...thanks, Ernest.”

The tune of a rapid, upbeat pop song begins filling the gym as the speakers blare to life once more. Melody looks towards the well-loved weights, exercise machines, and bags suspended around the gym, before meeting Ernest’s eyes with a grin.

“Round Two?”

Ernest looks up at Melody, surrounded by dancing blue hexagons and streaks of silver light, and nods.