August 5, 2152
Emory's alarm gonged in her head at 5:45am which woke her up rather suddenly. Since she woke up in the clothes she wore the day before, she quickly changed into a tracksuit. Instead of trying to tame her outrageous curls, she decided to wrap them up in a messy bun held together by a hair tie and two bobby pins. Then she snuck out of the room and headed towards the courtyard near the entrance. She didn't know what Innes had planned for them, but his training methods had been very effective so far. As she walked through the hall, she started to think about why she was training so hard. In truth, she was using it as a stress relief tool because of all the new information she had learned about her family and herself. "Once I'm strong, what will I do then?" she thought to herself. She arrived at the courtyard about the same time she had this thought and saw Innes stretching. "I'll figure it out when I get there I guess," she procrastinated.
"How long have you been here?" Emory called out to Innes, "I didn't think I was running late." She checked her phone just to be sure and saw she still had five minutes until she had agreed to meet him.
"I've only been here five or ten minutes. I wanted to stretch and be ready when you showed up," Innes said calmly.
"So, what's the plan for today?" Emory asked as she looked around, "I assumed it wasn't sparring since we didn't meet at the holodeck."
Innes walked closer and pulled out a map, "You're right again, no sparring today. We're going to train our endurance. It's just one lap, and I'm hoping it takes us less than six hours." Emory was confused when Innes said one lap and six hours in the same sentence, but when she looked at the map, she understood. He had planned for the two of them to run around the entire school complex, a "light" sixteen-mile lap. Emory looked at Innes, then back at the map, then back to Innes again. Although it was only a little over two and a half miles an hour, it was a lot of total miles. She huffed one last time before handing the map back to Innes then began to start stretching as well.
"There's something else to mention as well," Innes coyly commented, "We're going to run while covering as much of our body as we can in our magik."
"Then I imagine you have picked a few midway points to stop and regain our strength, right?" Emory complained.
Innes nodded, "We're almost at a corner here. When we get to the next fortress corner, we'll stop there for a few minutes." Emory continued to stretch while she thought about running away from this run. It was going to be far more intensive than she had originally planned. "Remember," Innes said as he stretched one final time to get the jitters out, "This is about endurance, not speed." Emory nodded, and they two took off on their run.
Emory took off a little faster than Innes who quickly closed the distance and ran beside her. She was happy that she remembered her headphones as she was able to buckle down and run without distractions. It only took thirty minutes to get to the first checkpoint, but the two were exhausted. Not from the running, they were exhausted from keeping their magik up for so long. Most combat or sparring was for a brief interval, five to ten minutes, so keeping the magik covering their bodies for thirty minutes felt like an eternity. The two sat in a green patch alongside the great wall and meditated but were ready to go again after fifteen minutes. When they stopped the second time, Emory felt a slight improvement as if her body was adapting to the situation. And when she stopped the third time, she felt almost as refreshed as if she hadn't run at all.
Innes wheezed as they stopped back at the courtyard where they had started. He gasped, "At just over three hours, that's my fastest time yet. And then I look over at you, just beginning to sweat. How?"
"Well honestly, I make my magik do the work," Emory explained, "Instead of using my strength to move my legs, I make my magik do it. Or I guess infuse my magik into my strength. It's hard to describe, but I just built on the principles you showed me."
"No. I mean how do you control your magik so well?" he redirected, having caught his breath.
"I have been practicing my basic magic since I was a little girl," Emory turned away, "When my parents left to work in the lab fulltime, it was the only thing I could think of doing alone." Her eyes welled up for a moment, and she took a deep breath.
Innes apologized, "I'm so sorry for bringing up that painful memory. I'm not so good with words. What I'm trying to say is will you teach me how to practice my magik like yours?" Emory turned back around with a smile on her face and nodded. Then an idea popped into her head.
"Say, Innes, do you want to use the holodeck for a little bit? I have an idea that will help illustrate how to better train your magik," Emory suggested. She didn't really wait for an answer and just started walking back into the complex. Innes instantly followed her without saying a word. When they arrived at the holodeck, Emory went to the console this time and input some basic commands. The machine whirled into action and displayed a lovely mountain pond. There was a small basket near the edge of the water, but the normal sounds of the forest were missing. Emory walked toward the basket with Innes close behind. The two sat down, though Innes's face looked quite puzzled.
Emory pulled out some earmuffs and said, "These will block out all noise. Put them on last." Then she passed them to Innes.
"Wait, what's going on?" Innes interrupted.
"You can get the stuff out of the basket, I guess," Emory shrugged, "Let me just explain. You're going to put on a bunch of sensory deprivation gear and put your hands in the water. I'm going to throw three rocks, so you can feel what their ripples feel like. Then I'm going to cause ripples with my magik. Really focus on what they feel like. When you're ready for the next part, take off your earmuffs and give me a thumbs up."
Innes thought the instructions sounded simple enough and nodded. He took out a thick dark blindfold as well as a full-face shield that blocked all light and muffled his voice. Once he had put on all the gear, he put his hands in the water and waited. The first three plops felt like any other ripple he had felt in the water before. However, the magik bolt caused a much different ripple across the water but not in appearance. Innes, though, felt it immediately; the magic ripple felt alive when it brushed across his skin and moved through his hands instead of around them like water. He felt like he really understood it after Emory had cast five more bolts, so he took off his earmuffs and gave Emory a thumbs up. She shook her head because she knew he wasn't ready.
"If you really think you're ready," Emory cautioned, "Stand up and put out your hands like a palm strike." When he had done that, she continued, "I'm going to throw bolts at your hands. Before I do, I'm going to send a pulse from either my left or my right hand. The bolt will come out of the same hand and go towards the opposite hand for you. You need to charge up enough power in that hand to block my bolts." Innes gulped because if her bolts were anything like her strikes, he was in for a challenge.
Emory started out by making her pulse fairly strong, or so she thought. Innes just wasn't as prepared as he thought he was. Out of the first five bolts, Innes missed four. The skin on his hands was beginning to peel, but he just took a deep breath and focused. Even though this training was painful, he felt like he learned best through pain. Emory continued to hurl bolts at Innes, but something wonderful was happening. It took a total of thirty bolts before Innes began to regularly block the bolts and twenty more after that to really understand when the bolts were coming, yet his bloodied hands told a harsher story. He put his hands down for a moment before he was going to take off the training gear. Then he felt Emory take off his earmuffs.
"Just rest for a minute," Emory spoke softly, "I'll get this gear off and then patch you up. I may have gone a little too hard."
"No, it helped a ton! I know my hands look destroyed, but I can feel magik with them so much easier now," Innes confessed as Emory took off his mask.
"Still, you did pretty well," Emory confided, "My mother showed me this trick shortly before she left. Now that you have the sensation in your hands, you just need to practice it all over. Let's train your magik after our runs. It'll take some time to learn how to draw in magik from all over. However, there is one major warning I have."
Innes nodded as he looked over her hands, "As long as my whole body doesn't have to get blown up like this, I'm sure it's a small warning, but tell me."
"Only draw in magik slowly right now," Emory cautioned, "If you draw in too much, too quickly, you will need to expel it quickly until you find how much magik you can hold at one time. If you hold too much for too long, your body will pop. Just look at your hands already." They looked at Innes's hands that had swelled into little bloody sausages. Emory took them in her hands, and after a moment, a glow shone from between their hands. Innes had never seen this kind of magik before as it glowed pastel green and produced a mild hum.
"What kind of magik is this?" Innes asked, filled with curiosity.
Emory sighed, "I can't do healing magik, but I can patch you up for now. This is the fourth level general spell: Life Sow." Innes's eyes grew large as he watched little strands of magik sow his skin back together and even cover it up like gauze. As it did, a little hiss and puff of green haze escaped the wound. "Life Sow works differently than healing magik as well. Instead of restoring the condition back to what it was, it just layers over the wound like a covering," Emory explained as the hissing came to an end. With that done, Emory said they should be done for today, so Innes's hands could heal for tomorrow. The two decided to get breakfast since the cafeteria was open all the time on the weekends. To their surprise, the rest of the group was there as well and had been for some time due to their mostly empty plates.
"I figured you went out for your daily practice," Gatrie said cheekily, "But I never expected you to have a partner." Innes just glared and showed Gatrie his hands he had bandaged before they left the holodeck.
"I think the training might have been a little too intensive for you," Innes shot back.
Tethys grabbed his hands gingerly but swiftly, "What kind of training were you two doing?" The look on her face was horrified.
"I taught him, just as I learned," Emory scoffed, "It was training to better feel the flow of magik in the environment."
"Do you feel like it helped, Innes? After all, if it helped and he agreed to it, I don't see the problem," Tana replied as she stabbed a waffle. Unsurprisingly, she was the only one originally at the table still having food.
Innes nodded, "I didn't feel an effect all over, but I do feel a difference in my hands. It's like my hands are in water, but there's no water around." Except for Emory, the others didn't really understand, but, since Innes seemed to be okay with it, they shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
"What else did you two do then?" Gatrie questioned, "I can't imagine that training took over four hours."
"We made a lap around the campus. I think Innes said it was a personal best for him," Emory bragged. She didn't like what Gatrie was insinuating.
"She's right," Innes beamed, "Three hours and twelve minutes. I broke my old record by fifteen minutes." The group apart from Emory and Innes paused for a minute to figure out their speed before Sam gasped.
Sam exclaimed, "You ran sixteen miles in three hours!? That's so fast!" Emory smiled and high-fived Innes for their accomplishment. The group finished eating and decided to part ways. Emory wanted to go take a shower and relax before she started reading the spellbook her parents left her. She had meant to before the others conned her into looking at the Hexbloods book first. Though there was much more information for her to read, she resolved to get better at her sphere first. "The past is the past," she reminded herself.
Of course, Sam was close behind. When Emory noticed that Sam was following her, she stopped and waited for her to catch up. Emory said bluntly, "If you wanted to come with me, you could have just asked." Sam sped up to meet Emory. "If you went to school with the others, why do you usually follow me instead of them?" Emory asked rather coldly.
"To be honest, I'm not sure," Sam paused, "You are just more interesting, I guess. Also, even though we came from the same school and habitat unit, you have to remember that I'm a Council kid. I didn't meet them until secondary school."
Emory stopped and realized how mean she had been. "I'm sorry," Emory apologized, "I forgot that your isolation from other people wasn't too much different than mine."
"What are you going to do? When you get back and finish clean up, I mean." Sam asked, hoping that Emory was going to read the Hexbloods book again.
Emory replied, "I'm going to study my sphere a little bit. I know you're interested in the other book, and I am too. But I need to keep moving forward."
"Moving forward? What's the rush?" Sam questioned, "You're one of the most powerful students in the school. Why are you pushing yourself so hard?" By this time, they had made it back to the dorm. Emory tried to ignore the question, yet it kept nagging at her inside.
"I'll tell you when I come out of the shower," Emory fibbed. She was just hoping to get some peace in the shower, so she could think about the reason why.
~~~
Boyle was in her apartment with her partner and two cats. Despite being paid for by the school, it was rather homey. She was sitting on her couch reviewing footage from the week since her class was filled with cameras like most of the school. In particular she had been reviewing the camera reel of the sparring match between Emory Reiss and Gwen Snow.
"Are you still watching the same clip?" Boyle's husband asked as he came into the living area and found Boyle on the couch watching the tv.
"I am," she replied, annoyed, "I just don't get it. How did two students become so strong at such a young age?"
The husband huffed, "They're talented, no matter how many times you watch the match. Why are you still watching it?"
"It's their powers. I know I haven't seen her sphere before," she pointed to a still of Gwen, "And the last person I saw with the ginger's sphere was on a battlefield, led by Cassandra Black."
He sighed, "So they're powerful and rare. What's the big deal?"
"What if they were sent in by the Council to do something?" Boyle wittily returned, "You're telling me that you don't care how two top level magik users got into my class?"
"All I'm saying is it could be coincidence. The next generation is going to be stronger than ours was, and there's nothing we can do to stop it," he forcefully responded to her. Boyle sighed and agreed, even if there's was something off about these two girls. Then her phone rang, and her face went white when she saw the name on the caller id.
"Serah Boyle speaking," she answered. She paused for some time, but her husband could hear chatter coming from the phone while his wife's face became paler. "Thank you for the report," she shakenly said as she ended the call.
Her husband immediately asked, "What's wrong, Liza?"
"That was a call from Central Command," she froze, "The base at Proxima Centauri B has gone dark. No distress call, nothing. They're forming a search party to go see what happened and I've been named as an alternate."