It hadn’t taken long before she was restless again, but she had found that its easiest antidote was training. And so she soon found her way to the training halls once more, her sense of direction was improving when to came to finding certain rooms at least she noted. Having come to the correct corridor she decided to go for something new and entered a yet to be explored training hall. It was in all aspects, however, very akin to the others, namely it provided space and then various pieces equipment lined the halls. Not that there was much else you expect from a training room. Once more the gloom was heavy in the room, and once more she ignored the light switch, she preferred it this way.

She stepped forward at stood in the middle of the room of a moment or so, her mind mulling over possible training ideas. She quickly sent her awareness out and felt the energy. There was little light, but there was plenty of heat, from all the electronics that were plaguing the labs, causing the walls to radiate the heat. She called, channelling into an orb suspended above her head, which followed her as she sent up her warm up. She carried a dummy over from a far corner and sent it up in the middle of the room, putting her coat, and Kris on a bench. She then walked over to face the dummy. And relinquished her control, allowing the light to sweep back to where it originated. So in the semi-darkness, she turned her back to the dummy and began.

One. Two Three. Counting each step in her mind as she walked. Four. Five. As soon as the ball of her foot made impact, she snapped. Twisting round, as first her right and then her left hand shot round, loosening a small throwing dagger from each side pouch, and then finishing the fluid arc of the arm as her wrists came up. Flicked, and let fly. The darkness always made things a bit more interesting since she forced herself to use only the light others would see be, in other words barely anything, she could only make out the dim outline of the dummy. She walked over to collect her blades, and to see her result by creating a weaker orb to allow her to assess her throw. One, the one from her right, was practically perfect – dead one the centre of the target on the neck, the other, from her weaker left side, was close to the other- a little over a cm away. Not bad.

She plucked out her blades, expelled the light, and repeated the procedure. One Two. Three. The soft rise and fall of her steps, accompanied by her breaths were the only sounds that invaded the silence. Four. Five. The aim was to increase the distance each time. Six. Seven. Turn, then release. Both were within the inner ring of the target, Alright. This time 9 steps before she turned, the right was once more within the inner ring, good, while the left was between the inner ring and the outer – not so good. She focused entirely on her movement, ensuring the well practised arc remained fluid , that the release was correct. One. Two. Three. Her mind accustomed it self to her the new rhythm, Four. Five. Six. And locked itself away from everything else. Seven. Eight. Nine. Turn. Release.

Kami had been directed to a training area. He always trained for several hours every day, and so was itching to keep training. Entering the room he saw a woman flinging knives at a practise dummy in the dark. He had walked in on someone else’s session.

“My apologies,” he said with a bow, “I was unaware that there were others training here. I did not mean to interrupt, I shall find somewhere else to train.” He understood the desire to practise on your own, after all he used to climb up high into the mountains to train so that his energy blasts would not harm anyone else.

Focus snapped at the sound of another entering. She let the knife fly, before she turned swiftly to meet the interruption. A man, in monks’ robes, bowed, and apologised. Her irritation at being interrupted quickly subsided as she quickly grasped that it was a pure accident, and the figure seemed to be like-minded when it came to training. A idea trickled within her mind, for training by yourself could only be so interesting, while with others there were many more possibilities, especially with mutants. “Would you be interested in training together? Its always more channelling I find.” She asked openly to the figure, who still lingered in the entrance, her fingers flexed, a fight was exactly what she was up to.

Kami could see a flicker of annoyance in the woman’s eyes, but as she offered to train together he gathered that she was not too upset by his intrusion. “I believe training together would be most beneficial,” he said going over to the wall and placing a hand on the light switch, “Though I would prefer to train in the light if you do not mind.”

He had of course trained to fight in total darkness, and was adept at it, but he found combat where you could use your eyes infinitely more preferable. This was largely due to the fact that while his hand to hand combat skills were formidable even in darkness, his aim with his energy blasts was poor, something he would work on when he found a spare week. For now he waited to see if he impromptu training partner would mind.

He accepted, excellent. His hand hovered over the light switch, she nodded, in a ‘its fine with me’ manner. And it was, though she preferred darkness when training by herself, with others fully being able to see your partner without putting more strain on yourself was an important. In addition, of course it meant a constant simply of energy was being fed into the room, a constant supply, which, along with the infrared, she could utilise at any moment. She made a quick mental note that if she didn’t get a chance to practise with her powers now, she would do it later, since her hunger for it was growing again, and she hadn’t used it on a large scale for a while now.

She waited, waiting to see what he suggested, since she would be content with any form of training. As she waited a thought caught in her mind grew: He was a monk….Monks are trained in unarmed combat….She had absolutely no skill in unarmed combat….yet. She decided she would broach the subject slightly later on, having gauged his general ability. So it was his decision, what would they do?

Kami flicked the light switch one and walked across to the woman. “Considering what you are already training how about a little contest,” he suggested, “You throw your daggers and I have to hit them where ever they hit. After ten we swap, so you have to hit where I hit.”

He had spent a full year perfecting his aim, and did so with little pause for anything save food and sleep, and often going for a week with neither. It was perfect, his energy blasts always hit where he aimed. He’d seemed to subconsciously develop the ability to guide his blasts slightly, alter their flight path fractionally to improve accuracy. Time to test it against an opponent.

The artificial glow chased away the darkness into the corners, fully illuminating the monk, whose robes though clear in style puzzled her slightly. She smiled, as her competitive nature was awakened and all puzzlement over his origin, and why he was here disappeared. It sounded fine by her, so she turned to the dummy again and sent a dagger flying towards it. With her right hand, and only six metres away she was confident, and with good reason, which is why the point embedded itself exactly between the dummies eyes.

She turned to watch his turn, interested to see how experienced the monk was. Without being arrogant she believed she the contest was hers; she had spent the twelve years of her life relying on her skill, and she was still here. Knives: not only where most of her combat skill lay within, but also something that she had come to extremely fond of. There was something in their gleam, smile like, as the gracefully cut through the air. Something in their pristine elegance as they spilled someone’s life before them. There was just something about them, almost intoxicating. And as much as she respected the monk, she doubted he had that, that fascination.

Kami watched the gleam in her eye that revealed she was interested in the contest, and so rather than answer she flung a knife at the target. Her aim was true and it hit the dummy right between the eyes, a fatal hit.

Kami nodded his respect as he rose his right had, a single finger extended towards the target. He was standing level with her, so both had the same distance between them and the target. Looking straight at where her knife had hit he focused and conjured a small ball of energy at the tip of his finger. As soon as it had formed he fired it, and the blast impacted on the hilt of her blade, driving it deeper into the target. He now waited for her next throw.

She had presumed he was going to hit her hilt with another point of blade, but as he raised a single finger she realised that something else was going on here. She was somewhat taken back when her blade was driven further into the target, she hadn’t been aware that he would use his powers, not that it mattered. The small globe of yellow light that had come from his finger and hit her hilt, intrigued her. What was it? Though it emitted light, it wasn’t from the electromagnetic spectrum, that she was sure of, but what on impact could move something else?

Not wanting to hold their training up due to her musing, she turned and sent a quick succession of three blades towards the target, her right, then left, and then her right again. The first embedded itself in the shoulder joint, the second in the other, neither would have been fatal, however, tied with the knee joint it was the most painful place to be hit in, due to the clustering of muscles and nerves. The third, and final one, hit at the base o the neck, between the end of the collar bones, it would have opened up the windpipe, and that was fatal. She waited to see how he would react, and tried to concentrate on the globes he was creating, trying to understand what they were.

Kami watched her three knives fly. The first two hit for maximum pain as opposed to damaged, but the third was a fatal attack. At this range his fingers could align to hit the targets she had placed perfectly, so he extended a singled hand, but this time pointing with three fingers.

Summoning a ball of energy to each finger tip he fired them simultaneously, all of them impacting on a hilt and driving the knife a little further in. The blasts he was using were quite weak, far from fatal even when striking the neck. They did however require little energy and were good for off balancing the opponent. If he sought to actually inflict damage he would have to gather more energy before firing. Currently he struggled to compress the energy, so a more powerful blasts was invariably bigger than a weaker one. However, he was succeeding in reducing the size while maintaining the power. Eventually he should be able to fire blasts the size of the ones he was currently using and have them rip a targets arms and head off.

He managed the following three targets in a similar fashion to the first, the only point of interest Nox picked up was that he could maintain several of these globes at once without apparently any difficulty. Having seen them once gain she still, however, had no idea what they were. I can see them but there not light. Yet their powerful enough to exert force. Her musing ended fruitlessly; she was no closer to understanding this monks power. She decided that she would simply ask him after they had finished their little game, since she didn’t believe in disrupting training with speech. And so contented herself with seeing if she could stretch his power

Reasoning that she might as well use her last six turns at once, since he obviously found a single globe no problem, in order to see if he could control six globes perfectly. And so in fast succession she let six blades fly, spreading them out over the target in the hope of making it slightly more challenging. Therefore, there was a blade in the centre of each of the targets’ palms, one in the left knee cap, another in the right ankle, one in the stomach, and finally one in the upper forehead. After her last throw she noted she was out, and would need to collect her blades before it was his turn, since she didn’t want to use any of her hidden blades. And so she waited, interested to see if he could simultaneously manage six perfectly or not.

Her spread this time was most difficult. She was almost daring him to try and hit all six at once. Kami smiled inwardly. This would be a challenge. The most difficult target would be the one on the fore head. Every other knife were close enough together that hitting them simultaneously would not be hard. After musing over the problem momentarily he formulated a solution.

Holding out both hands he conjured a ball on the tip of each finger and thumb on his right hand, but only a single ball on the left. Flicking both hands forward, left high and right low, he fired the energy blasts. The single ball from his left hand hit the knife in the target’s forehead easily. As he moved his right hand he twisted it, putting spin on the five blasts, so each curved into its target on the lower half of the target. All hit their targets. He now waited for the woman to retrieve her weapons.

He only needed to pause momentarily before he decided how to tackle the situation, then having held up both hands he conjured 6 small globes into existence. The single globe on his left hand flew higher towards the forehead, while the five flew towards the slightly lower targets, clearly it hadn’t been much of a challenge. Artfully, through a twist in his hand, the five globes curved inwardly as they closed in on their target. It was a nice touch she admitted, pointless but it showed his level of control- he was no stranger to fine tuning his power.

He stopped, allowing her to go and pull each blade out, which took more effort than usual since his globes had embedded them further into the dummy. Once completed, she walked back as she reinserted each blade into its fastenings – five on each side. She had thought about using her power to hit the marks, but had decided against it since it would have no effect on impact unless she added heat, and since she called the energy to one point there wasn’t really any aim involved, and therefore, it wouldn’t be fair. So she would continue with her blades, and so she waited, focused, ready for her first target to be presented.

Kami now readied himself to offer her targets to aim for. Holding his arms out, palms facing the target, he summoned an energy ball on the tip of each finger and thumb. This time without any movement of his arms he fired the blasts out at the targets.

Each one hit a pressure point, which the cumulative effect would have resulted in a temporarily crippled opponent. Due to the low strength of the blasts this was the most effective use of them. He now waited to see if Nox could hit each pressure point.

He created 10 globes and sent them towards the target, they hit each of the main pressure points – nice. It would have a devastating effect on any person to be hit in every main pressure point at once. So having been given her target, she tried to match his earlier display of accuracy. The blades flew, one after the other, as she worked down the target. Both hands were wiping past her hip, loosening a blade, and then releasing it in an instant, the well practised movement becoming nothing more than a fluid blur as the blades met their mark. The lowest one, was half a centimetre out but otherwise they all flew true – she never liked throwing low, its seemed unnecessarily hard since it didn’t do as much damage. As she moved to once again collect her blades, she asked a question; she was intrigued. “The globes you create, what are they?” Having pulled out each blade from its temporary home in the dummy, she turned to see if he what he would suggest next. This was turning out to be rather interesting.