Side-Story: Camp 2

Side-Story: Camp 2

The Dojo only had a few people in it today, with the classes becoming more and more varied, aspirants were starting to prioritize different classes. Alex himself had gone to the rescue field just the previous day. It was harrowing but rewarding in its own way. It was too bad they couldn’t have live subjects to rescue but he understood the logic. Those creepy forge-tech dummy mannequin-things still gave a good response based on the situation. He’d done alright, not great, but it was a good enough score that he didn’t get chewed out like a few who had managed to break one of them during their return trip through the ‘disaster zone’.

Fine motor control was his weakness and he was very much aware of it. His body was ridiculously flexible and strong, but that came with its own problems. Precision was hard and that was why he was here. With Miss Chernovna gone for the week, Black Lotus had shifted from conditioning drills to hand-to-hand combat while the guy from Forge, Axel, handled the drills in her place.

Alex sat on the ground and looked up at the pair that was currently dueling in the center of the room, John had never missed a hand-to-hand lesson. He was obsessed with getting ‘as good or better’ than Miss Chernovna when it came to knife fighting. Alex had never seen the guy that motivated in all the years he’d known him. He didn’t notice himself zone out a little as he thought back about his grim-faced friend going through the motions every day but an elbow to the side brought him back.

He glanced to the right and Lillian raised her eyebrows at him, “You good?” She asked.

“Me? Yeah, why?” He asked only for her to give an urgent glance towards the center of the room.

He slowly turned his head and saw Black Lotus staring right at him. “Are you going to join me, Mister Ellis?”

Ah crap, zoned out, he reached up and scratched his head, hopping to his feet and brushing himself off before walking past a returning John, “Good work out there.”

“Not enough,” John muttered but nodded gratefully anyway.

“Crazy guy,” Alex chuckled and came to a stop in front of Black Lotus who stared at him hard.

“I understand you want to work on fine motor control with your ability active,” She asked, brandishing her training weapon to her side as if ready to deliver a killing blow. “I’ll give you a moment to prepare.”

“You’re improving,” She said.

He grinned, “I’m just getting started!” He barked and dove in, fists up. He whipped out a kick and it extended towards her. She brought her weapon up to deflect the kick only for his leg to start to bend the wrong way around her torso. She raised an eyebrow and dropped low, sliding out of his attempt to coil her. He clicked his tongue and pulled his leg back, he wasn’t going to waste energy letting the attack finish if it wasn’t going to succeed. He brought it back up and raised his knee, standing on one foot and watched her as she shifted to the right.

“Patient, like a serpent,” Black Lotus commented.

“Miss Chernovna says to embrace what your power means, vibe with it, if I’m gonna be a snake, might as well act like one while I’m fighting,” He said with a grin.

Black Lotus’ eyebrows rose as her lip twitched, “She’s working on that with you already,” She said thoughtfully, “Only a month in. I suppose I should take this more seriously, then.” And drew her weapon up to the side of her head, her eyes fixed on him. “Don’t blink, aspirant.”

She moved so freaking fast, he barely managed to get out of the way when she was suddenly behind him. He turned and raised his arms again, blocking a far more forceful blow that fortunately didn’t get through his scales. He dropped low and swept his leg out, stretching it to deal with her footing. She just hopped over it and snapped out a kick towards his head. He growled and threw his head forward, scales up, and took the kick. He reached up and tried to grab at her ankle only for her to spin and launch off of him like a springboard.

She landed and darted forward again, her attacks coming in faster, blow after blow rained down on him as he pivoted and blocked as fast as he could. In the end, though, he found himself on his ass with the point of a sword at his nose.

“Excellent start, Mister Ellis,” She said and reached out to help him up. He grabbed her hand and she tugged him up without any effort.

Shit she’s strong. I weigh almost five hundred pounds like this. He thought, dazed, and let out a breath as he settled on his feet. The scales began to retract and the muscle on his arms shrank. He exhaled completely and the hunger that he’d barely noticed during the fight grumbled at him. He was going to eat his weight in grub when he got back to the common area. He looked up at her and grinned, “So what’s next?”

She nodded at him and smiled, “Let’s talk.”