Four years, in Krav Maga. Sam’s opinion and most a highly efficient fighting style based on other styles all of which Sam was trained. The icemancer smirked, ”Four years and a black belt?” he said with a smirk, it was a problem he had with the system overall it was too easy and not enough time to get to the rank of black belt. She could have been doing it for two years somewhere else and gotten one. She was however far more advanced from that kick alone than the kid who said he was a black belt at eight. Kid couldn’t even make a decent fist.

”It probably would be silly to teach you that.” he said dodging right, then left and then leaned back when the hook came in. He noticed her breathing with every strike. Good, she understood the importance of breath along with her movement she already knew more than he expected for someone who trained for four years.

”You have two eyes, no reason to waste my time teaching you that now.” he said this time throwing a string of his own combination. His target was her legs and her stomach. Harder to dodge those than a head strike, his first movement was to step on her foot as a distraction followed by push it didn’t matter where he pushed her she could have blocked it but Sam had more weight and power to him. At least that what he figured. When she’d try to correct her balance Sam’s foot he stepped on her toe with was going to move further into her stance to throw he more off balance and even possibly fall.

Of course Sam was dodging everything Liz threw at him. If he’d been teaching self defense for the last ten or so years, it was only natural he’d far outstrip a young woman who’d pretty much just started, relatively speaking.

Although Liz could still do without that smirk that Sam kept wearing like a badge.

He thought it would be silly to teach her to fight without seeing? Well that sounds dumb. That sounded like a very useful thing. What if she had a hood tied over her head? That had happened. What if she was in a dark room? Or a van? Those had happened too. I’ll challenge that later, though, when this is over. Because she really couldn’t afford to spend too much time thinkin--

Liz pivoted to the side to evade attacks on her legs but then her foot was stepped on and he pushed her. “Umph!” Liz said as she fell back. She managed to twist herself like a cat and ended up falling forward, absorbing some of the impact as she hit the ground as if she were doing a pushup. She blindly kicked back in hopes of either connecting or at least getting him away.

Then the blonde pulled her legs back under her and pushed off to resume standing. And she was now regretting doing this after already completing a job. Liz’ mouth dropped open in a pant. Alright, talking was gonna stop.

When the woman fell and caught her self he laughed and stopped short when she fired out a kick. If she held it out he planned on grabbing it but it seemed this wasn’t the first time she sparred. Good. If you stayed down when you sparred with Sam you were staying down. He was more than capable of grappling and given her training she might have been pretty good at it.

”Almost got me.” he said waiting for her to get back up. She seemed tired, which was expected. He however was enjoying the warm up. Mockingly he checked his wrist for his pulse, ”Better than a run.” he lunged forward this time changing up how he was fighting this time going on the offensive.

Ice started to coat under his clothing as a protection, he wasn’t worried about Liz hurting him it was more just easier to see what she could do without breaking his ribs if she happened to be freakishly strong. It was the first time that happened at the mansion.

Sam still smirking all the while started with out a roundhouse kick to her thigh followed by an upper cut. The second had any power behind it seeing as he was controlling himself if she wanted to learn how to train the last thing she needed was the wind knocked out of her day one.

Liz glared at the mocking man, who seemed to be a regular vaudeville act. Even if Sam’s was probably ice cold, Liz’ pulse was starting to boil. She bared her teeth. It wasn’t a human’s smile, it was a chimpanzee’s threat.

She just managed to regain her fighting stance when the man blurred into action. The distance between them evaporated and his leg came racing at her. Liz barely managed to dance to the side and tried to trap the leg against her, but he was suddenly coming in for a punch. Liz took the reduced force of the kick to her thigh and abandoned her attempt to catch the leg in order to protect her face. She just got her hand up in time to catch the fist, but her hand was still shoved into her nose.

Liz hissed in surprise and her blood really began to boil. The boiling poured out of her and Zorro started growling. The last raven opened its wings and puffed up its feathers before unleashing a long “Kaaaaw!”

Liz twisted her hips and jabbed at Sam’s head with her other hand. No point holding back, right? Not with a master who had time for jokes. She struck for his chest, using the elbow on the arm that had blocked the uppercut. This time the exhalation sounded far more like a snarl.

The icemancer’s eyebrows raised when the dog and the bird reacted to the strike. He didn’t think much of it at first his dog didn’t like it when people attacked him. Bruno liked ninja’s even less. She at least blocked the strike, which was good even if it was soft it probably would have still hurt.

Once again while he wanted to grab on to her limb that reached out to contact him she managed to pull it back before he had a chance to do more than sidestep it. The elbow however was a great follow up as well it made it difficult for him to do much more than step into her and continue with the energy adding his own to it. Sam was close to her and grabbed her opposite shoulder of the strike and pivoted backwards spinning in a circle and letting go of her when she was off balance.

When he finished into his stance he made a wide circle with his hands and slowly brought them back in to a guard before waiting on Liz to get back into a stance or attack. ”You telegraph your attacks.” Sam said still smirking, ”Think you were being modest with your training.”

Elizabeth’s shoulder was seized and her world blurred as she was suddenly pulled around like a merry-go-round horse. The vice-like grip released her and Liz was flung away. There wasn’t time to process what Sam had done - the ground was getting too close for comfort. Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she made a snap decision.

She converted her stumble into an awkward roll, allowing her to gain a few more feet of distance, but she came up staggering. Her legs were still feeling the strain from her run and now there was going to be a nice bruise on one of them, she just knew it. And she used that pain as fuel. Rage and fury blasted from her like a psychic bombshell and she began lowering the levies that held the emotional seas at bay.

A sharp KRAAAW snagged her attention even as she regained her footing. A feral glance to the side showed Liz the last raven, the one she had possessed. The bird snapped at her and a predatory smile etched itself on Elizabeth’s face. “Here’s some telegraphing for you,” she said softly to the bird. “Zorro! Guard!” she shouted leven as she swamped the raven with calmness.

Her loyal dog suddenly sprang into action and ran to place himself between her and Sam, suddenly growling viciously and barking. And then Liz laid her hand on the suddenly confused and emotionally conflicted bird.

Elizaraven launched herself into the air even as her human shell collapsed to the ground behind her watchful and angry guard dog. Suddenly, the bird’s emotional crisis was over. It was just anger and aggression and as it let out a blood curdling screech, Elizaraven flew straight at Sam’s face, sharp talons clawing for his eyes.

The icemancer gave a small chuckle at her stumble turned roll, the more they sparred the more impressed Sam was becoming. Can’t win get distance and figure something else out. He had been there more times than he would ever admit. One of his biggest lessons he could ever teach was; ‘the best way to block an attack is to not be there’. Meaning if he couldn’t strike at her she wasn’t gonna have to worry about it.

>“Zorro! Guard!”

”Oh? What’s up?” he asked guard still up wondering why she was calling her dog o protect her. I mean it wasn’t something he was expecting but he didn’t really have an interest in sparring with the dog. He could wrestle with him sure but then Bruno would probably get worried. Where was that dog?

Ice started to run up the rest of his skin revealing what his clothes were hiding under them. Now protected he wasn’t too worried about the dog playing along or the raven that swooped down out of nowhere. ”Is this you?” he yelled to Liz bringing his arms up to cover his already protected face. The clawing was starting to get annoying.

”Is this part of the Krav?” Sam asked opening his eye under the protection of his ice. Sam looked and felt past the raven that was aggressively attacking him trying not to swat at the bird.

There was yelling, but it was meaningless. All that mattered was the fury of the raven, fed by the mind of the woman riding inside of its own.

The eye! The eye! Elizaraven screamed in their head, the words bouncing from the mutant to the corvid and back. Eyes were soft and squishy. Hands came up to block but Elizaraven fluttered around them and the head, searching for a new angle. But whenever there was a chance to rake its claws over soft, pink flesh, it tried to take it.

But the soft, tender flesh was vanishing beneath a shimmering layer of ice. ”Nooo!” she cawed out in a scratchy voice. The initial plan of attack was gone! Time to improvise! Doubling down on the aggression and feathery fury in the raven, she started calling up its recent memories of Sam and their current memories of his eye, spiking the anger with each memory. And then she no longer needed to force the raven to continue harrying the man and continually trying to scratch his eyes out.

With a psychic effort, Liz severed her connection to her new comrade in wings and was sucked back into her own body. A stabbing pain in her head made her gasp, but she forced herself through it. It’d go away very soon. “At ease,” Liz said quietly to her dog, causing the growling to begin to subside, before pushing herself up from the ground and charging toward the hopefully still-distracted man.

With the icy armor she could see covering him, not to mention his size and speed and obvious martial superiority, Liz figured her only chance to land a good solid hit would be while he had a raven in his face. She got within range and then suddenly pivoted, placing her back to him and glancing over her shoulder fast enough to get a target lock on his stomach. She dropped her head down and kicked straight back for Sam’s stomach as hard as she could.

Despite his irritation with the large bird with sharp claws Sam was still able to feel past the bird that Liz seemed to turn on him. All Sam wanted to do was admire it’s beauty, not be attack by it. Though this was the closest he has ever been to one. He wasn’t sure if he liked how she did this during a sparring session, he’d circle back to that. It seemed she was on the move.

Ice still covering his body he debated if he should just stand his grand and let Liz attack him or dodge it. She was going for a straight kick. She had the proper from for it as well. This was a teachable moment though right? Distractions like this normally do work on other people.

Sam shifted on his weight and started to pivot behind the kick. Her shoe made contact with his turning stomach and he lowered his guard from the bird and scooped her attacking leg lifting it up higher and holding it while his other hand placed it self firmly on her knee notifying her the about the strike that could have been

”I think that’s enough for now.” the icemancer smirked under his ice despite the bird still attacking him. ”Mind calling off your attack bird?” Prefer not to hurt ‘em. Sam asked curiously still holding on to Liz.

He caught her.

Elizabeth’s foot was pulled up and a hand on her knee, forcing her to throw her hands out in front of her for balance as the catch nearly made her fall. This is it, she thought. This is when Sam really starts fighting. She fully expected to be flipped or thrown or something, as a good finisher. As it was, she’d already thrown out her best stuff and had been soundly neutralized on each and every attempt.

But he seemed to be done with the fight. “Fine,” she said, a faint note of resignation in her voice. She knew she was probably going to be outclassed, academically at least, but to have it physically proven to her in a way to show the extreme gap in ability was really...irritating. And informative.

Liz leaned into Sam’s grasp enough to twist herself and her foot around so it now looked like he’d cupped her axe kick instead. She wiggled her foot to extract it from his grasp and once she had both feet on the ground, she stopped her violent outpouring and a calming wave washed out of her and over everything around her. Zorro completely subsided and then raven, suddenly bereft of its fury, immediately started fluttering away to a nice patch of ground away from the ice man and the empath.

“Uh, you might want to keep an eye out for that raven in the future,” she said apologetically. “He might be a little….vindictive towards you. My apologies.” She wasn’t going to apologize for using the bird in the first place, though. She would’ve done it under real circumstances.

Liz took a deep breath and as she let it all out, started to slump. She was really feeling the exertion. A nice long nap would probably be great after all of this. And a hot shower. She absently felt her hair. Yep. There was some grass in it. And she was drenched in sweat, she had a headache from the ranged exorcism, her thigh hurt from the kick, and her body was just starting to feel all the ways it could be used that it had forgotten in the last month or so since moving to the mansion.

She squared her shoulders and locked eyes with Sam. “So how did I do?” she asked, waiting for the litany of errors.

When she calmed down and struggled to get her leg free Sam removed his hand on her knee and then lowered his arm holding her leg skyward. ”Oh, great. Only got the one to spare” he said with an eye roll. The ice covering his body stayed for a moment till he was sure the raven wasn’t going to do another pass.

”Animal control?” he asked curiously, ”Maybe you can smooth things over for me later with ‘em.” Sam asked somewhat hopeful. He didn’t need more things to attack him. Some would call Sam paranoid as is.

Once he was sure the bird was gone he lowered his ice and it crept back down to under his clothes. The icemancer shrugged, ”Like I said when we were sparring. Not bad.” there wasn’t much more information he wanted to give yet. Sam didn’t know if it was because of her powers or her already doing something before the spar but it was too soon to tell her probably anything close to what she wanted to hear.

”Better than some,” he scratched the back of his head with a smirk. ”Future info though, don’t bring you’re powers into training unless I say it’s alright. I’d feel bad if I had to fight something other than a human.” he let that information sit and then he added, ”You telegraph a bit. Maybe I can get you at your best when you aren’t tired. It might be different.” he said with another shrug.

”Was this everything that you were expecting?” he asked curiously not sure what else she wanted. She was still a new student so he wanted to make sure she felt she was getting something out of it. It was easier with kids because you could praise them and they’d be on cloud nine. Adults were a bit different though. Ego’s got involved.

Liz bit her lip and considered her options. She aimed a lance of friendliness toward the raven, mixed with a good dose of fun and curiosity. The raven continued to glare at Sam, as if it was already imagining what the ice mutant’s carcass would taste like. Probably like cold cuts. The smirk only briefly flicked across her face. The fury and rage were still in the raven. She couldn’t take away emotions, only try to wash them out with others.

And ravens were more emotionally intelligent and complex than many other animals. It remembered the rage and probably wasn't going to forget it anytime soon. The curiosity and friendliness was just warping into...was that...sadism?! “Um….I’ll see what I can do,” Liz finally said. This...was gonna be a project, for sure.

Liz kept an eye on the bird and even as she started restoring her mental barriers, she put extra focus in the bird’s direction, ready to blast it with apathy or something if it tried to attack again. The rest of her attention went to Sam’s brief analysis.

Even though she expected it, it still hurt. She took a deep breath (not just because she was still regaining her full breath from all the exertion) and tried to center herself. She hiked her barriers up further - no chance of siphoning calmness or anything from around her- the emotion ocean was too turbulent from her feeling bombs.

“Thank you for the notes,” Liz said levelly. Constructive criticism was good, she reminded herself. “I should’ve asked about powers before doing anything.” She had never used them in fighting at her previous studio, but then, none of them had been mutants. But she still should’ve thought of it.

Liz nodded curtly, and then nodded again much slower and more thoughtfully. “Yes...this….is pretty much what I expected. Clearly, there are still a number of gaps in my training and a lot for me to learn,” she said, warring between crushed pride, satisfaction at a correct self-diagnosis, and the resignation that she was vastly outclassed. “If I convince the raven and his pals to be friendly to you, or some other compensation, will you take me on as a student?”

Liz put it all out there. She was drenched in sweat, hurting, and very tired. Not to mention the headache and just being emotionally drained. This was Liz vulnerable. And she did not enjoy it.

When she said thanks the icemancer just smiled and gave her a thumbs up. ”All good Liz, normally when I spar I encourage anything you can throw at me. Makes it more difficult but, like I said, not really a fan of hurting things that haven’t done me wrong. Ya know?” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

”I’ll try to plan something for you though, in the future. Not a bad habit to have. Makes it easier to find a little back up and back up does come in handy.” he said speaking from experience. Usually they drag him out of trouble and throw him into a mirror till they get home.

”Been doing this for more than twenty five years and I also still have a lot to learn, I wouldn’t be much of a teacher if the gap between us was closer.” he said with a laugh, ”You could give a few of my students a run for their money though. So either you had a great teacher or you were just a great student.”

Sam waited a second focusing his good eye on Liz, he scanned down from her feet up to her face noting the posture and expression on her face before laughing. ”Uhhh… maybe a coffee or something?” he said still smirking. ”Black, hold the spit.” he said with a chuckle.

”No, you don’t actually have to pay me. The mansion already does it.” he said his chuckle turning into a hearty laugh, ”But seriously if you could smooth things over with the ravens I’d appreciate it. I don’t need anything else attacking me on the grounds.”

Liz briefly glanced over at the murderous raven before refocusing on Sam. She nodded. “I figured that was the case. I was hoping to stall you long enough to get a good kick in.” And now that she said the words aloud, she realized the futility of her attempts to blind the guy who had already been fighting her effectively blinded already. Well, a bird could be swatted away relatively harmlessly, but at least she hadn’t sicced her dog on him.

Sam didn’t seem actually upset at her use of powers (moreso pointing out the breach in protocol in using a fragile creature in a sparring match, it seemed). “That’s part of why I have a dog, actually,” she said, walking back to Zorro and giving him some scritches between the ears. His tail began wagging and he turned to give her a better angle. “I’ve got someone at my back and a getaway plan if needed.” Or to guard her prone form if she had to possess something.

She didn’t react to his estimation of her skill level in comparison to his students. She just stored that away and let her self esteem latch onto it. So what if she was probably being compared to young teenagers? It still felt good. “Thank you,” she said again. “It was more that I was a very determined student, though.”

Liz smiled wryly as Sam laughed and just kept laughing. “I’m more a tea kind of gal myself,” she said neutrally. “But I’m thinking at this point I need to just grab a shower.” She’d already been outside for a while and had done way more activity than she had planned. “I’ll take a rain check on the coffee.”

It was nice that she wouldn’t need to pay him, although Liz definitely did agree that she should fix the potential murder that wa slurking in the raven’s heart. Oh boy, that was going to take several sessions.

She started trickling apathy and security towards the bird, in the hopes of undermining its intentions, whatever they were. Brute force solutions weren’t going to cut it. “Yeah, I’ll get on that,” she said to the much larger person (who didn’t even appear to be sweating or out of breath). “In the meantime, we can connect again to set up a training program, okay? I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

”Well you’re a teacher here now, so you got the rest off the staff myself included as back up now. Might give Zorro some time off.” Sam said smirking to the dog, the icemancer doubted he’d take it dogs very rarely asked for time off. Speaking of which… Sam pushed his cold outward a little more. No Bruno. He’d have to track him down if they were going to run.

The icemancer nodded his head when she thanked him, he felt weird being thanked sometimes especially when all he did was point out something. Tea didn’t have enough caffeine for Sam but he understood everyone had their own preferences so he didn’t explain why coffee was better.

”Tuesday morning, don’t come winded. I want you at your best.” he said as he pulled an arm to the side and pulled it tight stretching it out. ”Hopefully it won’t be an issue. I’ll be in the danger room regardless.” he never gave her a time. Mainly because he’d be there early, Sam was an early riser after all.

”Don’t stretch before hand either.” Sam said as he waved, ”Later Zorro.” before turning and running full tilt towards the woods last place he saw his dog.