There were at least three major flaws to slowing my perception of time.

The first was that it drained my mental capacity and overall willpower to a much greater degree than physical exertion.

If running tirelessly through the night was like having a candle which would never burn itself out, then using slowed time perception was like taking a blowtorch to that same candle.

Using slowed time perception helped me block the dozen candy-cane strikes and several perfectly timed kicks from Sweet-Face, but doing so was coming at the huge cost of shortening my willpower.

The second major flaw was that I couldn't safely use another mental-orientated aspect of the power on top of using slowed time perception without adding to the already substantial mental burn. This meant I couldn't afford to use my Intuition to read Sweet-Face's body movements and fighting techniques during the slowed time perception without a huge mental burn as a result.

The third major flaw was pain.

After the initial ten seconds of real time blocking and trying unsuccessfully to land counter-blow punches against Sweet-Face, I took the risk of letting my time perception snap back to normal.

Sweet-Face's attacks became a stupefying flurry, and right away he landed a successful candy-cane strike to my head.

Until this impact I hadn't felt genuine fear during the fight.

The pain climbed in my left ear, left temple, and neck.

Time slowed again, but I hadn't willed it to do so.

It was Slip's influence.

With time slowed to the point everything in the world seemed to be moving at a glacial speed, the pain which had started was being stretched and magnified as a result.

I can't keep this up, I thought, pleadingly.

We need to think of a plan, Slip resonated inside my head.

Bits of broken resin-visor and pieces of amber-hued candy-cane were floating across my field of vision like meteorites. It took what felt like a few seconds for my eyes to focus on Snap and Marbelle who were looking back at me from the playground sidelines.

Their faces were slowly gearing up to be fixed with worried gasps.

And again the dreadful, stretched out pain was climbing like the world's worst migraine.

Let's work together again, Slip resonated inside my head.

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I didn't put up any resistance, and all at once Slip's influence blended seamlessly with my own.

Time snapped back to normal again, and Sweet-Face's attacks kept coming, but we were better prepared to react reflexively to each attempted strike.

We no longer hesitated or second guessed ourselves because we were in the flow-state, and had created resin-batons of our own to fight and defend against Sweet-Face's candy-cane strikes.

We attacked with kicks and punches, but Sweet-Face knew how to masterfully dodge and counter-attack at the same time.

THWOCK!

We rasped in pain as a candy-cane strike landed against our left torso.

THWOCK!

And then a blow from Sweet-Face's candy-cane landed so hard everything for me blacked out. When we became aware of our surroundings again there was a nasty pain in our jaw and the iron taste of blood in our mouth.

Because we had no idea if it had been a single instant or five minutes of being blacked out, we desperately slowed our time perception to a crawl again.

Our eyes smarted, and we realised all we could see was amber candy-cane which we could feel slowly pressing into the resin-visor, which looked to our addled mind like watching a sunrise from beneath breaking ice.

We were on our back.

Worse, the pain from all the injuries was close to unbearable, as if hot rods were set in my neck that punished me for even the slightest movement.

And the next blow from Sweet-Face was too close to dodge.

We were going to have to take the hit, and if we didn't stop slowing our perception of time we would feel not just the already immense pain, but the new wound being inflicted to the front of our face across stretched out micro moments.

It occurred to us then that there was a genuine chance that we were about to die.

The pain from the latest candy-cane strike to the visor didn't come however.

The visor had been broken in turn revealing my eyes to the overcast daylight.

The gravelly crunch of Sweet-Face's sugar-soles scraping against the playground concrete met my ears.

A large chunk of Sweet-Face's amber-hued sugar-layer had been blasted away, revealing brown African skin that was both burnt, torn, and bloody.

Sweet-Face was staring at the figure standing over me.

It was Clang, breathing heavily, with a great rush of steam billowing from his back like a cape being dragged up into the heavens.

His gold-and-silver-masked face was mired in burnt marshmallow patches, but it was clear to see he had managed to either burn or tear the worst of the marshmallow away.

His right fist was covered in bloody amber sugar-specks from where he had just punched Sweet-Face full-force.

"I'd offer you a hand," Clang's voice rang, "But I don't want to burn it off."

I felt Slip's influence pull back from my own.

"All good," I resonated, finding my second wind and climbing slowly to my feet.

Sweet-Face let out what sounded like a war cry. As he did, the deep chunk of missing flesh at his left shoulder started to stitch back together.

I didn't want to waste this opportunity to heal either, and started to use the power to heal the more significant aches and pains which gripped my body, particularly in my neck, jaw, and left temple.

I had thought I had gotten used to pain, but stitching all of the present injuries so they at least wouldn't hinder my movement made me feel as if I was already near my limit for what I could bear.

The pain crescendoed and finally died away to a dull throb and in its place was an acute mental tiredness.

Sweet-Face's shoulder was fully healed, the brown skin then becoming newly encrusted with amber-hued pseudo-sugar. Right after a fresh layer of plump white marshmallow covered Sweet-Face entirely again.

Clang released a large breath of steam, and widened his crouched stance.

"Do you think you can trap him?" Clang's voice rang.

I shot Clang with a questioning look. He grinned.

"My next attack's going to take a lot out of me," Clang's voice rang, "I don't want to miss."

I nodded slowly, spat a wad of blood from my mouth, and fixed my attention towards Sweet-Face.

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