46% Of the Time

[Charity Croft]

Charity let out a slow breath as she looked down at the folder in her hands. It contained Jace Webster's info, his training before he'd settled with her, everything that should affect his powers, including that just awful number that kept staring back at her. He was just... well, Charity really liked Jace, found it hard not to like him. And she just wanted him to improve, saw his failures more as her failures, and who said that a power had to work every time to be accurate? Charity took another breath, squaring her shoulders.

Today should be pretty easy. Standard, like, psychic test. With cards and everything. And Charity knew how to tweak it to work better for Jace. She'd already gotten some of the cards picked out as being better, easier for him and, well, the only way to improve was with practice, right?

46% of the time. Wasn't that a failing grade? Was Charity failing this young man?

She brushed the thoughts aside, pasting a smile on her face as she pushed into the door, knowing that Jace would already be there. "Hey Jace!" she said as she stepped in. "How are you doing today?"

[Jace Webster]

Four years of training, a handful of trainers and Jace could only manage his ability at an average of 46% of the time. Okay, it wasn't necessarily true, he could communicate effectively without having to put in a lot of effort outside of his training sessions. He could talk better mentally than he could dream of talking in person. It was picking up tones, understanding other people's inflictions and recognizing the distinction between each person that Jace was having trouble with. Sometimes when he communicated, he ended up answering someone else's question in their head than the person he was actually trying to talk with. His mom was the only one that he could easily, without much effort, communicate with. She made up about 43% of the time. Harley was another 2% but that was a stretch since she was still learning how to form proper sentences and such. She was only four.

Jace had been sitting in the training room for about ten minutes. Early because he hadn't walked with his friends. And because he had needed the time to think. He wanted to know how to expand his range of hearing people's thoughts. Maybe if he figured it out on his own, Charity would be proud of him and he wouldn't have to work on anything new today. He hated disappointing her with his failed efforts. Of course she had to see the strain he put on himself, trying so hard to improve, but he just couldn't. It was one of the few things that he struggled so hard with. Like talking without a stutter.

His mind was tiring and he flopped back on the ground. This is useless he thought to himself.

He sat upright when he heard his trainer bounding in and tried to offer her a smile, though it was clearly forced. "Hey, M-Miss Legrange. I'm alright. S-started without you kinda," He shrugged sheepishly and stood up, brushing his pants off. "W-what are we working on t-today?" Or rather, what am I failing at today he thought a little too loudly, though he hadn't realized he was projecting.

[Charity Croft]

Charity could at least smile at the kid without having to put any effort into the expression. She nodded at his greeting, glad to see that he seemed to be in good spirits. "It's alright, you're supposed to be training anyway," Charity said with a slight shrug before walking a bit more into the room. "Just so long as you don't finish without me, I think we're okay."

She gathered up the cards again, moving to where a pair of chairs had been set on either side of a table. Charity paused there to look over at Jace, her ability already kicking in, forcing her eyes to sort of flick around his body for a bit. At least she'd already met him before now, so she didn't have the complete thrall that she would otherwise.

"I figure that today we'll do some more work with the cards," she said, gesturing. "I know they're a bit on the lame side and all, but this time I've worked them so that they're more oriented toward the type of thing that you'd want to communicate and work with. So I figure we'll do some work with your sending them to me and then picking it up or however you feel. First though," Charity smiled and pointed at him, "really, how have things been lately? Have you gotten any practice in or anything?" She was ready to hear about his mom too if it came to that. Sometimes getting him remembering his lovely family was enough to at least get Jace excited and ready to tackle this whole thing.

[Jace Webster]

Her answering smile thawed him out a bit and he relaxed into his easygoing grin. The stress was still hanging around him, but he figured it wouldn't do any good by displaying it to his trainer. The more stressed he was, the more unlikely he felt that he would progress. "N-no worries, I don't th-think that would h-happen," He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn't even gotten that far without her, let alone finish any kind of task.

When she held up the cards, it took all he had not to groan. It wasn't that they didn't help, but it was repetitive and boring. He wished he didn't have to do the same tedious routine of training just to get something out of it. He nodded and chewed on the inside of his cheek. Maybe one day she'd let his family come into one of the sessions so he could show her how well he could communicate with them. At least she'd see a more successful look into his ability that way. Instead of what he gave her at every session.

"Uh, th-they're okay. I p-practiced with one of th-the guys on the team. H-he s-said he could actually understand w-what I was t-t-trying to say. B-better than w-when I t-talk," Jace's nose scrunched. When he finally got the hang of this dang ability, he felt like he'd be able to really talk to people. Like a normal kid. The frustration he felt when he spoke otherwise was getting to be too much. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't always speak without his stutter. Fifteen years old, nearly thirteen years of speaking and he still talked with a heavy stutter. It was no wonder girls weren't interested in him like the rest of his friends. Who wanted a mush mouth? He was no smooth talker.

[Charity Croft]

Charity just smiled as Jace laughed and took her little joking comment in stride. She managed to keep the smile as he started groaning, even if she did have to cringe slightly. "Yeah, I know, boring," she said, rolling her eyes, "but some of this training stuff can be a bit dull and all. It's all about working muscles," and practice, practice, practice, but Charity didn't quite want to go that cliche just yet. Plus, Jace kept going, having more to say and Charity definitely wanted to pay attention and listen, particularly to the bits that came as a response to her questions.

Charity rolled her eyes at the comment of understanding better than when he talked. "I understand you just fine," she pointed out. "Plus, isn't everyone texting these days? Just stick with that," Charity nodded and then started shuffling the cards together, moving over to the table. "At least you're practicing and getting better at this. These things come with time. It took me ages to get my power down right," and technically Charity still had days where her power got the better of her. She definitely didn't want to let that slip to Jace though.

Instead Charity got the cards organized before nodding toward the boy. "Right, you ready for some boring practice? I swear these cards are a lot more interesting," she held them out for the young man to take, smiling encouragingly.

[Jace Webster]

Muscles, Jace could relate to working muscles because of sports and his constant need to stay in shape. Always conditioning for the next season or the next round of sports. Although he understood where she was coming from, Jace found it difficult to work his brain muscle any other way than through school. And even in school he barely found any way to focus. There were always errant thoughts running through his mind, his own and those around him on occasion. A rare occasion. He ran his hand through his hair again and nodded, "I j-just struggle with the f-focusing part. I-it's like my brain d-doesn't want t-to work with m-me." Which only seemed enhanced when he found himself stuttering. His speech therapist was working with him day in and day out, but had barely made a dent in his stuttering problem.

"I guess, b-but I c-can't t-t-text teachers in c-class. A-and p-people prefer t-talking most of the time. I-in person," Which was something he even preferred, except instead of talking he liked trying to project. And sometimes it worked to his advantage. If he could just project his thoughts the way he tried to and it worked every single time, he'd be fine. He'd be content with his ability and he wouldn't want to uncover anything else. He just wished he had the ability to talk like everyone else without feeling embarrassed because it didn't come out as smoothly. "I-I've got my m-mom's impatience," He laughed and scrunched his nose up. Not the best quality to get from her for this kind of ability. Then again, he remembered her telling him all about the struggles she'd faced with her own and her own impatience.

Jace huffed and shrugged his shoulders, "It's w-what we're here f-for. W-why not?" He waggled his fingers above each card. Wishing he could see right through them to pick the easiest one. He needed some kind of confidence boost when he started because he was lacking sorely. Finally his hand landed on one and he plucked it from her fingers. As he looked at it, he frowned and held up the card to Charity. "We'll see h-how interesting th-this goes."

[Charity Croft]

Charity nodded, though she kept her attention on Jace all the while, letting her ability start drawing connections. "It's sometimes tough to focus these mental abilities, because you spent your whole life using your brain, but not in this way. It's not like, say, super strength or speed or something, where you just got better at something that you're already doing. This is totally new, and you've got to train your brain to do its own thing," Charity knew this was partially from what amounted to the script on this sort of thing, talk about how mental abilities worked and relating it to physical abilities and all. But physical abilities were always easier to understand, particularly with someone like Jace, who happened to be an athlete on top of being quite physical and all.

The next bit had Charity frowning. "Well, you should be able to use the phone or whatever if you need to. I can set up a plan with your teachers if you want..." Charity trailed off. She did understand though: it was a lot better to just talk and handle things that way. But, well, Charity wasn't certain that Jace's problems weren't compounded by his ability or something like that.

At any rate, she could definitely help with the training part of things. She watched him pull out a card, hoping that he could manage it. "Right, so you'll see, like, an image or a phrase on the card," usually something that directly related to either the school or Jace's life, or even Charity's name in at least one. She couldn't see the card, which was the point of course. "So you just need to focus on sending me whatever you see there," she gestured at it. "And remember, eye contact sometimes really helps with this sort of thing." Charity was already trying to make her eyes fairly easy to look at, which, admittedly, most people said was true. Having big blue eyes had to be helpful with something.