It was the type of news you heard through the grapevine at the Mansion, considering how often people came and went. As a member of the school for under a year, most of the names returning had little significance to Rebecca, but when she heard Ruby talking to Gina about the return of her sister, it was a sign of good news for the redhead.

Emerald did not announce that she was leaving, so at first, Rebecca just found it odd that she was not seeing Emerald around, and then troubling (if not common for Emerald,) that she could not reach her teacher. When she asked Ruby, she was finally informed that Emerald was taking a personal trip.

It was natural for Rebecca to worry, given Emerald's penchant for aimless wandering and finding violent situations, but Emerald could certainly take care of herself. She resigned herself to continuing her training to the best of her ability both under the guidance of the X-Men and on her own, reinforcing Emerald's lessons.

But there was something about having her first teacher back that felt comforting, especially after all the recent upheaval in her life. Rebecca contacted Emerald to welcome her back and a training and workout session was set for the next day.

Rebecca waited at the clearing in the woods near the Mansion Grounds, entirely unsurprised that Emerald chose the wooded, natural location. Like a good student, she arrived early in comfortable sneakers, sweatpants and a sports bra, and spent her waiting time stretching.

Emerald really should have known that the news of her return would travel fast in the mansion. Ruby was all excited about it and according to everyone she had a much higher pep in her step.

While the wolf woman felt bad that she had left her sister that depressed, she really needed some time on her own again. Sometimes her thoughts were best when she thought of them herself, rather than letting other people know how she was feeling. It didn't seem to make sense to most people but to her it was at times what she really needed.

Emerald had been out in the woods long before Rebecca had gotten there, training a little herself before she decided she would train her student. She wore tight work out pants to prevent possible grapples and a sports bra, which was strange for her.

Most of the time she wore a tanktop, but this time she felt as if it would slow her down. While it did reveal those handy dandy scars, Emerald really didn't notice or care, now wasn't the time for vanity.

Emerald emerged from the denser part of the mansion's forest, being virtually silent as she did so. She looked at her student for a moment and it didn't take much for her to notice something a little different about her. Emerald wouldn't ask though, whatever was wrong was Rebecca's business not her own.

"So are you ready to start?" Emerald asked, blue eyes evaluating her student. Clearly trying to see if she had still been working out over the small break she was given.

Rebecca was on the ground, legs split apart, stretching her hands from one foot to the other, when she heard Emerald's voice emerging from the denser area of trees. Her ears perked up, followed by her spirits as she popped back up to her feet.

Her first impulse was to dash over and give her teacher a hug since, well, she had been gone, and that was a sad thing. Rebecca gave the much taller woman a squeeze around the waist with both arms. "Hi Teacher. Great to have you back," she said warmly.

After the initial moment of the hug, Rebecca noticed a few things: for one, Emerald was only wearing a sports bra too, which was rare for her. Because of this, Rebecca noticed the texture of scars and marks on Emerald's back.

She pulled away slightly and noticed the third thing: an even greater collection of scars and burns covering the front of her teacher, highlighted by a tremendous scar running up the body that could only have been a gash at one point. There were some marks on Emerald that were visible normally and accepted by Rebecca as consequences of a daring life, but the gash was something worse. After the first night Rebecca found Agnes's scars, wounds like the one Emerald wore instantly had an effect on her.

Rebecca reached out for moment, but refrained from touching the scar, realizing it would probably be rude. Instead, she quietly said, "Sorry, Ah... Ah dorn't think Ah ever saw this one..." Who could have given someone as strong as Emerald such a wound?

One would think that Emerald should be used to these sort of hugs by now. However, by instinct the girl's muscles tightened at first before relaxing, silently reminding herself that she wasn't in some sort of battle. She knew she would stop tensing up immediately when people decided to hug her eventually, it just would take a while. She was happy to be home though.

"Glad to be back, hope I didn't miss too much," Emerald replied a certain warmth in her voice creeping in.

The werewolf hugged back a little, not wanting to give Rebecca a bear hug because she didn't want to crush poor Becca. When the other redhead pulled away Emerald noticed that look and it only took her but a moment to know what it was for.

While Emerald had been more open about her scars for some time now,people never seemed to take notice to them. Ethier that or they were too polite to do so. Now with some of her more, vibrant ones in view, it looked like more people she knew were taking notice.

The good thing about that was, it was easy to lie.

"Don't worry about it," Emerald began, "I thought you were here to train, not worry about a scar that looks like someone had trouble finding my appendix. What all did you want to practice today anyways?"

While it wasn't one of her better deflections it was a way for her to change the subject. Emerald had talked about it with others before and they had given her sympathy as well as hugs. Really and truly though, they really didn't understand and probably wouldn't. The Closest person that understood it was Agnes but from what Emerald heard, Agnes had gotten her scars removed recently.

Oh how things had changed.

It made plenty of sense for Emerald to turn her deathscar into a lighthearted joke, because the teacher was always guarded when it came to personal matters, and whatever happened to her was probably a very personal experience. Emerald was far too brooding and hardened to open up and share her feelings.

Honestly, it was kinda hot in a dark way.

Regardless, back to Emerald's sharing issues; Rebecca was able to piece together that Emerald's mini-journey came shortly after her breakup with Akshay. It was easy to assume that she opted to go into seclusion rather than talk about her feelings. And that was fine-- everyone had their methods of coping, and Rebecca had no footing to judge from.

Rebecca had not decided on a particular goal for the day's practice. Honestly, she wanted to get back into the swing of things with Emerald and expend some of the excess energy she could not get rid of with sex by exercising and hitting things.

She was a simple girl with simple leads. Stretching her arms, she replied, "Ah'll follow what you say, Teacher. Jist need tae let off some steam."

It looked like Rebecca didn't press the matter too much which made things easier. Not everyone liked to spill their guts out to someone so quickly and fluidly like some people did, so it was good to have someone respect someone elses' wishes. So with that taken care of, they could take care of more important things,like training.

Emerald had heard of the break up between Agnes and Rebeca from Ruby so she knew that must of been one of the reasons she was planning on blowing of steam. Not that Emerald could particularly blame her though. It was only natural to want to blow off steam after something like that. Hell she did it all the time.

The werewolf's squared her shoulders off, raising up her fists defensively. She knew exactly how to help Rebecca blow off some steam, it would probably help the both of them.

[green]"Come at me then,"[/green]Emerald ordered, her feet firmly rooted on the ground. [green]"If you need to blow some steam off, then attack me."[/green]

What better way to get some anger out than fighting your teacher?

There were plenty of things about Emerald to appreciate as a student and possibly a friend, and high on the list was her ability to leave touchy matters alone and get right down to the nitty gritty. There was no point in talking when they could just get down and dirty and beat each other up as two single girls with pent-up anger issues were wont to due.

There was no point in replying with anything more than a grin, so Rebecca quickly moved in on her teacher, positioned for a right cross, which would have admittedly been terribly predictable.

To keep from being predictable, Rebecca stepped on the shield on the ground Cafas forged for her. Lifting the shield with her powers, (which totally was not cheating,) she launched herself in the air, her body tucked in to front flip. Approaching Emerald, she added the force of her spinning body into a dropping axe kick aimed at Emerald's right shoulder.

Since when was flying not cheating? The werewolf growled under her breath a little at her flying student, eyes narrowing a little. Staying rooted to the ground, Emerald watched Rebecca's movements trying to get a quick lock on exactly what she was doing.

It looked like her student decided to add more flourish to her usual fighting style, which was fine of course. Emerald encouraged Rebecca to find ways to make it her own to make fighting easier. However, the problem with this sort of combat is that it made Rebecca an easier target to follow.

With a quick smirk Emerald sidestepped the kick, only to return with one of her own. She launched into a roundhouse kick aiming directly toward Rebecca's middle, intending on hitting just the right area to knock the wind out of Becca.

Emerald stepped away from the kick, which was not surprising given her physical abilities. It was never truly a fair fight going against a mutant with innate speed, strength and reflex advantages, but Emerald gave her a chance for the most part. Rebecca was without metal for the training session, so she was barely more than an average teenage girl putting her intense training and conditioning to the test.

Emerald's dodge quickly became an attack in its own right. Rebecca intercepted the kick with the back of her forearm and kicked away from Emerald the moment her foot made contact with the ground. Her backwards momentum softened the blow to her arm, but she was still knocked back several feet.

She launched back toward her teacher, first with a low kick near at about shin level transitioning into a spinning strike with the back of her fist aimed for the head. It was an offense-first sort of day.

It seemed that today was one of those, all out offensive sort of days which is something Emerald usually didn't mind. If it wasn't for the fact that her student was being a little sloppy. It wasn't a blatant sort of sloppiness but it was enough for Emerald to notice. A shin hit was child's play and was an easy move not to take notice of.

The wolf woman allowed the shin hit, not even making any motion that it hurt at all. No flinching, no nothing, just a werewolf ready for the next move. That spinning blow left her student wide open and with an quick sidestep, Emerald's fist struck out at the young girl in a right hook to the back.

The blow was going to be a lot harder than what Emerald normally hit Rebecca with, but she was sure the other girl could handle it. After all, this blow was meant to be not just a disabling blow but a reprimanding one. Showing that spinning or doing anything like that wasn't a substitute for real blows and left you out in the open.

Emerald took the hit to the shin, which was actually inconvenient. The move relied on Emerald taking the step back to give Rebecca time to make the next successful move. Instead, the hit was absorbed, and there was a counter-strike at her back.

It hurt. Clearly the lesson was "do not spin," and it was a good lesson. Rebecca was all over the place mentally and physically, and acting flashy was not going to fix that.

Rebecca pushed off Emerald's shoulder with an open palm and jumped away from her teacher. Doing her best to control her breathing, Rebecca switched into a defensive position in hopes that she would find more success with a more familiar style.

That hit of hers connected and Emerald had a hard time fighting back a pleased smirk. Lesson achieved, she didn't have to use books or anything all she had to do was punch someone really hard. Hell if this was what normal teaching was like she wouldn't mind becoming a teacher.

With a small growl, Emerald dashed forward, her lips curled back in a pleased grin. This right here was her bread and butter, something she could do all day if she wanted to. She had already eaten before this so she had more than enough energy to burn by doing this.

Rebecca was getting back to the basics and so was she, Emerald's offensive prowess and physical endurance was what made her a great fighter. So once Becca went on defense, Emerald decided to have some fun. The werewolf had charged straight toward Rebecca before veering off to the side attempting to ram into her side with her shoulder. It was more aggressive than what Emerald usually did with her student, but she figured after what she had heard, Becca needed to hit something, it might as well have been her teacher.

Emerald went on the offensive in a big way. It was rather uncharacteristic of their sparring matches, but maybe Emerald also needed to unwind. Rebecca could only hope her teacher would not start going a bit too feral; she was already sloppy, so the advanced course would end poorly.

She was ready to block her teacher's assault when the point of attack took an abrupt change. Before she knew it, her teacher was leveling a shoulder at her side.

Rebecca followed her instincts and let herself fall backward. The shoulder came into contact with her palm, which just barely put itself between Emerald and Rebecca's waist. As Rebecca allowed the teacher's momentum to hasten her fall, she landed on her bottom with a thud, (which hurt.)

While Emerald was still over her and moving with her own momentum, Rebecca kicked her feet up, aiming at Emerald's stomach in an attempt to kick her away to a safe distance. (Heck, she was on the ground, so she had to do something!)

Something didn't seem right. Wether it was in the way that Rebecca was moving or the fact that she wasn't doing the normal things she used to do during training something didn't seem right. Unless Emerald was just an awful teacher which she pretty sure she wasn't, Rebecca was just acting off.

The werewolf allowed the blows to land, allowing herself to be kicked away to a short distance. Instead of charging head on to her opponent, Emerald stopped and rooted herself firmly to the ground. She might as well do that, just in case if Rebecca tried to come at her for this next bit.

"Alright, are you thinking about Agnes? Because I have never seen you this distracted before and before you ask, Ruby told me, she heard you guys." The werewolf stated bluntly, her arms crossed over her chest.

While Emerald knew this wasn't the best way to bring it up, quite frankly she didn't really care. If Rebecca wanted to moon about her girlfriend, the battlefield wasn't the place to do it. She was going to get herself killed if she kept doing that. It wasn't like Emerald was trying to be mean, she just didn't want her student to have her head in the clouds when it mattered the most.

((OOC:Hope this was okay but I figured that Em would notice the sloppier behavior of her student.))

Rebecca kicked Emerald away far too easily, which was evident when the teacher landed promptly to her feet. Rebecca was not really expecting much else, but it would have been a nice addition to her confidence if Emerald at least wobbled or bumped into a tree or something.

Rebecca popped back to her feet, ready to move back into her fighting stance when Emerald interrupted the fight by calling the student out on her emotional state. It would seem she was so off, even her subpar fighting gave away what was still on her mind.

The accusation was right, but Rebecca still reacted defensively. "Ah... it's naething. It's jist..." Still on her mind? Gnawing at the back of her mind? Possibly changing who she was? "Ah'm dealing with it."

Rebecca was not a fan of the conversation focusing on her, so she entered blurt mode. "Ah guess it's jist slowing me down more than the whole Akshay thing for you." Smooth.