The counter rang to his competitions favor. Ignoring it best he could however his attacks were steadily getting more and more aggressive. After dropping another person Sam dodged an attack dropped to the ground and swept the legs as hard as he could a loud thud could be heard from the fall and he grinned to himself as he stood blanketing the felled target with ice. There were two encased in ice now and the next one was already wrapped up in a blood choke. He had done it a million times so there was no way he’d kill someone from this.

After he finished choking the person out he turned him to a baseball bat that was meant for Sam. The limp body took the hit and collapsed with a thud after hearing a bone in the ribs crack. Technically he didn’t break the person so it shouldn’t matter right?

The icemancer ice his hands up and caught the bat as it started to be pulled back for another assault on the young icemancer. Using his free hand he punched the guy right in the nose as hard as he could without realizing he was feeling nothing but rage and adrenaline.

Serena was doing her best to not pay attention to Sam, but she could practically feel the rage and adrenaline radiating off of him. She was certainly expending less energy than he was doing this too, her movements were all calculated and controlled. Serena valued control, especially in combat.

She moved past another few people and floored them in a swift, practiced motion. Some of them she downed with her bare hands, using holds and trips and their own momentum against them, and the more passive ones she tripped up with blood whips and projectiles to the knees, mixed with physical blows.

Everything was keenly measured and controlled or balanced to not to too much damage, but get the job done. In fairness, Serena had designed this program, and she practiced with it regularly, but still she felt like her fighting style worked well for this sort of thing. The younger Sam was so much more.. aggressive.

He seemed to want to prove he was the best, when he clearly wasn't. And was losing his head over the situation. He was seemingly keeping good pace with her, but for every time he went overboard with the violence an error sound played and he was docked a point. She'd heard at least 2, he must have broken the second man's jaw or something.

The icemancer didn’t know what was more upsetting the fact that he was actively trying to break the holograms now causing the infuriating tones of his score going down or the fact that Serena probably loved it. The air got colder around them in response to his anger. Sam was a trained assassin he should have no problem handling this simulation. Why was he acting like this. Maybe it was his ego taking control of the situation after Serena got in his head. **** that. He was Sam ****ing Johnson he didn’t lose.

His powers kept activated as he started to slow down. He had to change his strategy if he was going to win. After kicking away an new comer in the thigh causing them to stumble before regaining their focus Sam took the opportunity to slow down first his breath then his body. The air continued to get colder around them. Serena would no doubt feel it too but he focused the brunt of the cold directly around himself and the newcomer.

The new comer wasn’t bothered by the cold. None of the holograms apparently were. Did she plan this knowing she’d be training with him or was it a session they had done before. Either way his anger started to surface again as he grabbed the newcomer and launched him into another bat wielding goon this time sending a beam of cold at them hoping to freeze them together.

It was pretty obvious to Serena that Sam was getting mad. Not only was he still going hard on the holograms, and earning less points than her, but the room was gradually getting colder to her. She suspected this younger version wasn't as used to considering the impact he had on teammates. Luckily for her, moving around was helping. And it wasn't like she'd not trained with him before.

She kept manipulating the blood, like a long flexible whip. It was part physical effort, part mental dexterity using it to disarm and re position people. She was wracking up points left right and centre.

She mixed using her mutation and her body fluidly, more than she could have the last time she trained with Sam, that was for sure. Catching people off guard, tripping them and getting them in holds, whilst simultaneously dragging people's legs and weapons from them using her supply of blood.

A couple of minutes later the buzzer rang and the room froze, she took several slow breaths and calmed herself down before glancing at the scoreboard. She'd held the lead pretty solidly the whole way through. She could tell that he recovered a lot from his early string of lost points, but he still seemed to be channeling some anger there.

Serena on the other hand, never lost composure during training. She was doing this practically every day, and was getting good at it. She glanced over to Sam, assessing him.

”Bull***” Sam finally said as the session finished. He looked up to the score and shook his head. This couldn’t happen, how did he lose? Clearly it was set up against him. Sam frowned and looked to the blood bender.

”I don’t lose.” he finally said allowed. He looked over to Serena and raised an eyebrow. ”Clearly I’m a great teacher.” he nodded his head figuring that was the only way she could have beaten him. He was a trained mercenary, there was no way she could have beaten him otherwise.

”You fight well.” he nodded his head summing up her performance. ”I don’t think this session is meant for someone like me though. I don’t do light touches.” he summed up still upset he lost and his ego still trying to process everything.

The curse word had been pretty much exactly what Serena had expected after seeing the result. Sam was very very immature in this state. She suspected it came from his shaky background mixed with his ego. All that anger and frustration, no wonder adult Sam had ended up with so many issues. Thinking on it, she was sort of impressed he held together as well as he did, sometimes.

Simply raising an eyebrow, Serena waited for Sam to talk himself out and calm down a little. It took a surprisingly brief period of time. “I’m sure you don’t lose often.” She conceded. Even in his less experienced state, he was still basically a ninja.

“You can do it though.” She noted, she’d seen adult Sam do it, and he was just as capable of self control. “The thing is, and the reason I do this… Anybody can strike with force, almost any mutant can inflict real damage quickly, some can even do it with the precision me and you can. But if some of us didn’t hold back, we’d end up just leaving bodies. And nobody wants that.” Well, some people did but they were generally psychopaths.

“And yes, you did train me to fight. But the self control is all me. Discipline isn’t a skill, it’s not a natural talent, it’s willpower and patience. I’m not trying to lecture you, just explaining why I perform well here.” A little ego bruising was good for him. “That being said, clearly all of your skills weren’t picked up in your 20’s, you still performed better than almost anyone else in the school would have.” She suspected Becca or Mirror would give her a decent run for her money, or just outright win.

When she said he could do it Sam had the feeling she was going to tell him he could do anything he could set his mind too. While he could because he was Sam, the words didn’t comfort him the way she thought. He took it as a ‘you need to try harder’ a series of words Sam hated hearing all his training in T.A.T. whenever you heard those words you knew some pain was coming.

Sam could raid a village controlled by a mutant dictator leave a trail of unconscious bodies and extract the would be dictator before anyone came to however this stupid session he couldn’t even beat a woman who had years of less training than him. His nostrils flared and he took a breath ignoring his ego that was demanding another round with the woman. He must be tired, that’s why he lost not because she was better.

”Bodies bad.” Sam agreed. While he was okay leaving bodies if he needed to he had to remind himself that was why he left T.A.T. why he spent a couple years on the run, in hiding constantly moving. He didn’t want to be the guy that left bodies he wanted to be the one to save people, make up for years of bad things he thought he was right at the time.

”Not good enough.” Sam said curtly before grabbing his arm and pulling it into a stretch. That was all she had to say because with Sam being Sam that was all he heard. Light touches. He’d have to practice that more and of course never admit Serena had changed his training regiment.

”Beautiful and smart.” Sam said finally hoping to irritate the woman more than anything. ”I guess, I’ve hogged the room enough for one day. Clearly I’m slipping.” not because he was inexperienced, nope ego didn’t allow that thought. ”I’ll let you get back to it.” he said as he started to walk for the door keeping his posture proud and not showing that he was upset about the situation more than he had earlier.