Nodding his head again Sam smiled and offered his newest student even more encouragement with the occasional, ‘perfect’ and ‘keep it up’. She was truly a fast learner something Sam enjoyed seeing in his students it just meant that their workloads and difficulty settings could be increased. This also meant another useful learning experience in the teaching field, something that caused his teaching methods to adapt and change to better suit the student. ”Computer… cease programs.” the command was in immediate effect the hologram that was swinging on Serena stopped short and then vanished as the other projections vanished as well.

”Take a break for a few seconds Serena, you earned it.” Sam said allowed giving her more praise, ”However it seems your learning curve might be set a little higher than a few of my other students.” Sam said stretching one of his arms in front of him, ”I feel like I need to give you more of a challenge a certain unpredictability that projections can’t do unless I set them up to be just that.” Sam took a few steps towards her and stood where her projection stood seconds ago.

Lifting his hands up and bending his knees Sam got into a fighting stance and faced Serena allowing a loud exhale to be heard as he started controlling his breath, ”Five minutes are on the clock kid. You got till then to avoid or block anything I throw at you.” Sam said clearing his throat. ”Computer five minutes on the clock.” a large digital projection of a clock appeared and it read at five minutes. ”I normally don’t do this on the first day of classes but like I said, you seem to be a smart cookie.”

Sam gave her another few seconds before he yelled, ”Begin!” and started with a quick strike to the side of her head one that she could easily dodge or block if she tried. It wasn’t like Sam was going all out on Serena, that wasn’t until the ‘few month’ mark and Gawain was one of the few to survive one of those classes.

Serena took a few deep breaths. She certainly felt like she had earned a break, her arms were starting to feel tired, so were her legs, generally her whole body was.

She looked up at his comment. Really? She was such a good student? Even though she had never done any real fighting... It was such a weird notion. But it did make her giggle and put a smile on her face. "I'll take that as a compliment"

Serena's eyes widened as Sam spoke, she wasn't sure what to say to him, it was so... unexpected.

As his sentance finsihed and she regained the ability to respond... he began. She didn't want to fight him! He came at her and swung at her head.

Serena's eyes locked. She tensed her muscles and weaved out of the way of his blow. She blocked the second one. Then kept ducking and dodging, but her muscles were beginning to feel tired, she was also getting paler.

She was slowing, which was to be expected she had been practicing with him for a little over an hour and Sam’s lessons were known for draining the energy out of people the fact that she was keeping up now was another thing of note. ‘got that endurance’ thought Sam as his overly telegraphed swings were coming in from left and right. Every time Serena got out of the way Sam put more emphasis on power and speed, when she blocked Sam cut the power down so she could actually block it. He was teaching and the last thing he wanted to do was bring the girl to the infirmary on the first day.

”Almost done, you can be tired when your done!” Sam said noticing the girl slowing down with only two minutes left on the clock. The slower Serena got the slower Sam was throwing the punches as well as the intervals in between each punch, however while they got slower Sam deemed it time to add a little more power in between the punches. Her best bet was to start avoiding them all tighter otherwise they might knock her down or worse start to make actual contact.

”Come on, keep moving already halfway done!” Sam said throwing another hook at Serena’s head this time the side of his fist was aiming for her cheek, an easy enough strike to dodge, with a block it would be difficult to block fully.

Serena continued to dodge and weave out of the way, her muscles felt like they were beginning to burn though, she had never really done this sort of intensive exercise, and although Sam was clearly pulling his punches, there was still a sense of fear that she might be hit.

She was worried, she was wearing down and thus slowing down, would this disappoint him?

He kept swinging at the blonde haired teenager, she kept ducking out of the way just in time. Two minutes, she could do this.

Sam swung at her face. Her legs gave in. Can't dodge, I have to block it She put out her arm to block the attack, her arm stopped it for half a second, but she hadn't expected such a powerful blow, it pushed through her guard and made contact with her face.

She was pushed back a meter or so and hit the side of her head on the floor. She was bleeding.

Blood. This was very very bad.

‘Too much power’ thought Sam. It was difficult when just starting out teaching new students to build a sort of relationship where the students trusted the teacher and did what they were told. Especially in this field of study, hitting a new student in the face was kind of taking a few steps back from trust. Serena managed to block the punch but her block wasn’t enough. Sam lowered his guard and ran over to Serena where she landed already whipping up some ice to prevent where her block hit her and where her body hit the ground.

Sam whistled and lowered his level to where Serena was sprawled out on the floor. There was some blood, not a lot but enough to cause some concern. This was his fault and he accepted that it didn’t solve the problem but it made it easier to take blame. ”See what I mean by best block is not to be there?” Sam said offering the ice to Serena and smiling. She wasn’t going to be terribly injured, that much was clear a bump on the head and a headache was all that he figured happened. Too be sure though Sam was planning on taking her to see Doc to make sure nothing serious happened like a mild concussion.

”Serena, how many fingers am I holding up?” Sam asked holding up three.”

Serena knew that it was an accident, she didn't blame him in the slightest.

She smiled and nodded. That hurt. Why did she nod after taking a nasty blow to the head? I'm an idiot. "3 fingers. I don't think I hit it hard enough to give myself a concussion."

She noticed he was busy offering her ice... Where did the ice come from? She hadn't seen any containers and she didn't get knocked out, so he can't of had time to go and fetch some from somewhere. So where did it come from?

"Where'd that ice come from?..." Serena took the ice with her left hand and then used her right hand to check how bad the bleeding was." [/color] Her hand was covered in blood, it was getting worse, and for one second Serena panicked.

A blue glow surrounded her hand and then spread around to surround her body, like some sort of visible radiation. She recognized it instantly as the side effect of her power being activated.

Nodding his head Sam smiled, ”Three is right!” Sam said almost laughing when she asked where the ice came from, ”What you thought you were the only mutant in the mansion?” he let the question sit for a second before Serena started to glow blue. ”Errr….”

Sam stared at her for a second trying to remember the abilities she possessed. ”Lot of blood…” Sam said taking a step forward noticing that Serena looked worried. ”Take a deep breath Serena, relax.” Sam said aware that she seemed concerned her abilities were activating.

”A few deep breaths so you calm down and we can go see doc alright? He’ll have you patched up in seconds.” Sam said with a calm and gentle voice trying his best to soothe the worried girl.

"Deep breaths, okay, I can do that." she was taking in shaky breaths and the blood started to float, and shake as well, she wasn't really able to steady herself.

It began rapidly changing form and shape. And Serena was trying her hardest to control it, although it didn't help that she was clearly freaking out. She felt as if she was pushing her mind against something volatile and changing, as if it didn't want to be held.

The blood started to form into several different shapes, mostly pointed and it felt as if they were hardening. Serena tried to tie them together mentally, but it felt as if a pressure was building behind them.

The pressure was reaching it's zenith, like the carbonation behind a champagne bottle's cork. She felt as if they were going to fire off any second. "Get down!" She screamed.

It was odd seeing that expression coming from a mutant no matter how many times he saw it. It was one as a child he would have been familiar with but as he gotten better control over his mutation the look started to fade. It was a look of wonder and fear one where you couldn’t tell what was going to happen next it was the look of the scared and inexperienced. Blood continued to poor out of Serena’s cut forming a thick red blob. Sam stared at it and watched first hand what Serena’s mutation was capable of.

The thick red liquid started to alter and shapes started to form if it wasn’t for the petrified look on Serena’s face Sam would have been impressed with the display of power. However she looked terrified something that Sam did not like. ”Hey Serena, calm down it’s gonna be okay you-…” she screamed and instantly Sam did as he was told he jumped back and activated his mutation while calling out to the danger room, ”Danger Room initiate program protect Sam!”

Sam dived out of the way as several and shouted something as he did. One of the spikes was about to hit him no no no no can't let that happen, Serena quickly raised her hand and closed her hand. It stopped just in front of him.

At the same time a flash of light occurred, leaving behind a thick metal sheet between the spear and Sam. Serena took a sigh of relief, all of the other spears were caught in metal constructs. The instantly became small puddles of blood.

All execpt the one Serena had a mental grip on. That one still clearly had a large amount of momentum behind it and she wasn't 100% sure that the "Danger room" had made a metal sheet thick enough, maybe because it stopped, it didn't think it was dangerous enough to produce more cover.

"Sam! Move so I can release this please!" beads of sweat were rolling down Serena's forehead.

Spears of blood formed and were aiming straight for him Sam breathed once as the ice in front of him started to thicken and adjust accordingly to make sure he was going to be safe. This was all before the danger room interfered of course. ”Thank you Danger Room!” Sam said as everything was almost stopped in its tracks metal slabs popped out of the ground and were impaled by the spears of blood. Sam smirked and took a step the metal slabs falling to the ground once the spears of blood had been stopped. ”Serena! Control it!” Sam yelled sounding more like a command.

He really didn’t like yelling at his students but when they were out of control like this not able to get a grip on their mutation a very extension of themselves sometimes a command or a stern word got them to at least snap them out of the shock. Sam shifted his attention to one of the larger slabs of metal that was being forced back towards him. Sam took another few steps back as the blood started to pierce it sliding through it slowly as if the metal was turning into warm butter.

Sam knew the danger room had this but Serena didn’t seem to think so. She yelled for him to move but he reached out with his mind instead. Blood was mostly water anyways, maybe some iron and other metals but mostly water so it should freeze right? Sam raised his hand up and reached out to the blood trying to solidify it and shift it to ice. Nothing happened. ”That’s different.” Sam said taking a few steps back and moving out of the way. ”Let it go Serena!” Sam said the danger room allowing Sam to move freely while it was still attempting to slow one of the blood spears.

Beads of sweat continued to roll down Serena's face. This was bloody difficult, and the yelling was NOT helping. She imagined a ship trying to move away, and she was the mental anchor stopping it from moving. God this was like tug of war on steroids.

She was starting to lose it when she heard Sams voice from another direction yell to let it go. Serena obliged, releasing her mental grip on the weapon of blood. It flew forwards at high speed, cutting through the air and impaling itself in the far wall, the spear left a deep gash, but didn't really do any serious damage.

Serena fell to her knees panting, she was covered in sweat. "You see... Why... I... Needed another... Way of fighting." Serena just about managed between breaths.

She then feel face first towards the floor, she had never lost control that badly, or had to fight back so hard. This is exactly what she didn't want to happen.

From the second Serena fell to her knees Sam started moving towards her no longer deeming it necessary to watch her show of power. Even if there was an encore performance it was going to have to wait. The danger room could and would protect him it was part of the scenario and it hasn’t let him down yet so without much concern for himself Sam caught the teen before she face planted causing more bruising or blood.

It made sense to Sam now why she wanted to learn another way to fight her mutation was dangerous, fast and far too uncontrollable. In many ways it reminded him of Kate’s mutation and by extension his when he was younger. ”You need control first before you try and learn how to fight.” Sam said to himself more than Serena seeing as she seemed to be on the verge of passing out.

Slowly Sam turned Serena on her back and let her down gently before he looked up to the danger room console, ”Computer, end program protect Sam.” the danger room was silent but he knew the scenario ended.

Serena felt something gentle, Wait... the floor shouldn't be gentle, oh Sam had caught her. Now it made sense. It wasn't the floor, it was her teacher, who she had nearly just impaled...

Man she hated her power. Typical. Serena had taken this lesson because she needed an alternative to nearly killing people with her mutation, and she had then nearly killed her new teacher with her mutation.

Serena looked up weakly "So... I guess my first lesson was a bit of a-" everything went black.

Shaking his head Sam added, ”No you did just find for your first lesson, found out what you are capable of.” it fell on deaf ears though because Serena was passed out at this point. Sam stood up and looked up to the danger room god room then looked back down to Serena.

Shaking his head again Sam bent over and let out a small grunt as he scooped up Serena in his arms and headed to the Infirmary where he’d no doubt meet a very upset Doc.