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"You said you'd give me an hour," he complains.

"And I am, but you aren't following my advice on doing short hops."

"Because that's stupid. No one really does it that way."

"I do, Amethyst does."

"Oh yeah, prove it."

Amber shrugs and considers how best to act. Deciding on a much more practical example to show the merit in that kind of motion she stands up. "Okay, deep breath now," she cautions him. He gives her an odd look but gestures taking a deep breath. The moment he's fully inhaled she grabs him with her other ability and teleports them into the sky enough to look around. Not seeing what she's looking for she makes another hop further towards downtown and where there are far more likely to be crowds. She sees them after the second hop and then sets them down just to the side. Chris gasps a few times, not used to that kind of motion.

"I suppose that probably wouldn't be that much in regards to proof for you. There's a reason I use the air. Nothing to run into. But here's the real test. I'm going to use my ability and we're going to pass through the entire crowd all the way down to the end of the street, all without me using my third eye once and without running into any one person. Ready?"

She waits for him to nod and then steps out into the crowd to get a feel for how people are positioned. She could probably even do this with cars but that'd be far more likely to cause an accident and a lot of problems if they weren't told beforehand that that is what she's going to do. She takes a deep breath and then scans the area of the street, trying to find places that not only would they be able to squeeze into without bumping into anyone but not cause a panic doing so. She's also looking even further down to try and find gaps in the people. She takes a hop and as she did before she takes a moment to get a feel for the next jump before moving onward. This time, however since she has a lot more criteria for her jump there are a few times where she'll hop and then just begin walking with the crowd for a few seconds before finding a gap. She goes by this way down the entire street. Her speed, though definitely not impressive by any standards of anyone with abilities covering that distance through an empty road. But still far faster than anyone else probably could navigate going through the entire crowd. And her objective reached she pops them back up into the sky and back to her home by the alley. Chris takes a moment to catch his breath considering how difficult it must be to have to deal with that for the first time.

"There, see? Practical demonstration of what I was talking about. There's too many things that can happen that it's almost impossible to try and navigate too far ahead of what you know you can react to. I'm sure with enough muscle memory you may be able to navigate this alleyway in one go but is that really what's going to help you in the long run? Far better to move in smaller chunks when possible and then just train yourself to do that in tight situations and then improve your reaction speed to find the next spot quicker. And if you do find yourself in a nice, open field then feel free to go full tilt."

Chris still seems somewhat conflicted about obeying her original instructions but she opens her third eye for him again. He stares and she can see he's definitely thinking of it in that she can see flickers of him getting down the end, even if not that often.

"Baby steps. If you want to be able to do much better navigation exercises you have to first be able to navigate this course as it is. You do that well enough and I'll have you do something much more complicated and have you work on that. Who knows, if you get good enough I might have you try and navigate a crowd like that and see how well you can manage to get through them."

He grumbles at me a bit and then decides to prove how pointless such an activity is by following it in a very slow and annoyed manner. But he does do it in small little steps. All in all probably little faster from one end to the other than a normal person running that distance could handle that without any obstacles.

"Happy now?"

"It's a start," Amber says, popping over to him and then jumping back to the beginning. "Your next stage of the alleyway training will begin when you can get down there in under five seconds without touching any of the boxes."

Chris gives Amber a look for a moment or two but grumbles and complies. He is going more than slightly faster than before but he's not particularly motivated at the moment. Must not have any real good incentive to want to make it to the end and is only obeying her to get her to teach him something more pertinent. But for now it's none of her business.

"I promised you an hour. I'm not counting the detour where I showed you how it works. But once that hour's up that's it for all the training I'll be giving off today. And I won't be making it any more complicated than it is until after you can cross the entire distance in less than five seconds."

He takes things a little bit more seriously, but it's still clear he isn't really putting his heart into this kind of training. Was probably not the best of choice for basic training without anything to really incentivize them to actually trying to improve, despite them asking her to help.

"So did you have to do this kind of training?" He asks after a few more circuits.

"Like this, no. Amethyst might have, but not me. The only thing they ever really trained me on was in how to aim my abilities and how far away someone can be before the Third Eye stops working. The Core never really spent that much time trying to help me get better at using my abilities but instead just kept training me on how to help my abilities improve the performance of the entire team. This kind of training I had to do myself."

Chris stops and leans against the wall. "I'm sure I probably still have a bit of time left but I think I'm going to go ahead and stop here. Can't really hold that against you anyway as I never actually picked anything up. But I will still take you up on that offer for dinner if you're still willing to pay."

"Sure, we can do that. You probably know this area a lot better than I do. Not going to go all out on you but anywhere you would recommend that's good but not too expensive?"

"Well there's this Italian joint I've always wanted to try. Not fast food if that's what you were hoping I'd pick. But not nearly fancy enough to require dressing up or needing a reservation. I've always wanted to try it, it's just money is never always available for me and it's just way too awkward trying to go into a restaurant to eat by yourself. That's how I've felt at any rate. Should typically be around thirty a meal."

Amber considers that value in her head, "Should be fine, lead the way." She falls in step behind him trying her best to ignore the glances she gets not only from Chris but random passer byes as well. It's one of the biggest regrets to not being allowed access to her ring anymore. It's so much easier just acting casual amongst people if you look like them. There's also the fact that she realizes that she probably wouldn't be able to really dress up for a restaurant even if she wanted to. She has a decent enough set of clothing, all of which had to abide by the color scheme they gave her, but none of it was all that formal. She's never owned a dress or anything. The closest they got at the Core was a dress uniform, one that's designed to look more appealing at state affairs and publicity events, but is still nothing more than a simple uniform that she'd have to wear. She makes a note of having to go and see about clothes shopping sometime soon and pick up some clothing that isn't just a uniform. Assuming, of course, that she can find anything that would fit her particular anatomy. The food was decent enough. She's had better but then again she could afford to have had more specialized chefs making some signature dishes. She had noticed quite a few people watching her, and there was nothing that she could really do about it. Once the food was done and they had paid and left she waved Christopher a goodbye and then went back to her new home.

Amber then spends the next half hour just walking through the house once more trying to figure out what would be the highest priorities on the place and which either would need a specialist to come and do the repairs or is low enough of a priority that she can put it off for later. The first priorities would be to get a new bed for herself as well as a really heavy-duty water purifier. The water does still work though she wouldn't trust that water to be even worth washing the floors with at the moment, let alone trying to drink. Then it'll be a matter of removing the rotten wood and start the arduous task of repairing the walls. Then once she gets the place into a somewhat serviceable state it'll be time to start trying to think about how she can make a living. Her savings will last her a decent amount of time but it won't last forever. And the rent to this place certainly won't be cheap. She'll just have to figure out how to make a living.

Her second night away from home isn't nearly as good as her first with good reason. Primarily that she didn't have a bed. And though her fur does keep her warmer than say a human, her clothes had been usually set to be light enough that she was as comfortable in her clothes as a human would be in theirs. As such the giant hole in the wall left her feeling a bit cold. Thankfully she had left during the summer when even then it wouldn't get too cold. But she gets up and stretches and ponders what to do for breakfast. She decides that she might as well just go to a bakery and get some doughnuts. They aren't exactly her favorite, but without being sure the power works that's about all she can expect. As she walks back to her place, a doughnut held in her mouth she sees that not only has Christopher returned but he's brought a new person. This new one is definitely a rather large individual, though they seem to be rather self-conscious.

"Oh god, you're multiplying," Amber half-jokes as she closes the distance. The new person doesn't seem hostile. If anything using her ability they seem very shy of her rather than anything.

"I'd like to apologize to you for my behavior regarding your training. I was hoping you would have had some flashy way for me to improve and have it perfected right away, as if I was just not doing something I was supposed to be doing. But when I thought back on it later you were trying to help me. And I could tell a slight improvement in getting around when I followed your advice," Christopher says.

"And him?"

"I don't want to break things anymore!" the new person exclaims.

"This is Mark. And I was telling him about how you were helping me cope with my ability in exchange for helping you with your new house and he begged me bring him to at least plead his case."

"I don't want to break things anymore," he reiterates.

"So you've said."

"All my life I've been unable to control my strength. I break everything I try to touch. No one will hire me. The only people that'll keep me around are gangs that use me as muscle for intimidation. I can't even eat food normally. I want to be able to live a normal life. I want to have a life that isn't just only going into crime."

She opens her third eye on him fully, seeing just how bad his situation is as her head tilts slightly to the side in response. It seems no matter what she tries to do if she were to try and shake his hand he would crush it in an instant. In fact he clearly wasn't even exaggerating in that he'd break just about anything she could ask him to hold. It's like Jet's full strength, but on all the time rather than only on command. Her mind begins racing with all the possibilities that may be happening with his power from all the powered individuals she's dealt with up to this point.

"Okay, yeah. That definitely will need quite a bit of help. I will admit that I have no idea how to help you directly. I think I might have an idea that may help, though. Can I listen to your arm as you crush like a can or something?"

"If you think it'll help, I'll do anything," he says in response.

She nods and then sets the rest of her pastries in a location that won't get easily ruined and walks over to the dumpster and looks in, finding what looks to be a used soup can. She walks over and holds it over one of his hands. She then leans in and presses her ears right on his arm, causing it to twitch in response.

"Okay, now, nice and easy. Don't need full strength, just nice and slow as you can."

Amber listens as best as she can to the muscles in his arm as he tries to delicately grab the soup can. But the arm barely seems to move and yet the can squishes very quickly even still. She stands up and frowns, one hand moving up to play with the whiskers on one side of her face.