He watched her attempt and then corrected her. Henri sighed, a bit frustrated. Not so much with him, but with herself. Now standing once more, the girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I should be able to do this and I don’t want Mr. Stein to give up on me or think I’m weak. I better be able to do this. Releasing the air, her blue eye fluttered open. The brunette glanced at her teacher for a moment and then looked straight forward. “Here we go again.”

She wasn’t sure how she was just supposed to rest her arm on the ground if she was falling, but it was worth trying it again. Being able to fall correctly would be a big step for Henrietta. Sure, she was good at falling, but it wasn’t planned or graceful. Her falls were usually painful and clumsy. Twisting her body in the same general idea as before, the girl hit the mat and her arm didn’t do any loud slapping noises on the mat. A grin spread across her face and she jumped up. “That didn’t even hurt at all! Well, a little when you hit, but otherwise…Did I do it right?” Her expectant eyes brimmed with hope. I think I did it!

The youth seemed to be frozen in his guise. His mask. Hidden were emotions. Motions. Of the face. Of the heart. The mask of flesh was working well. Except that it moved as per her request. Into a stiff... nod. A cracking of the neck. Just once. Acknowledgement. There was a word for distance it seemed. A new word. And it was his name.

“That will be all for today then, Ms Braun. I am going to see you here tomorrow evening.”

In a way it was a dismissal. An invitation maybe. Too. For he remained. Standing on the square mats and looking into the distance. There might be a little time left after all for doing things that needed doing. Like training himself. But what might he do today? What was it that warranted attention? Without looking whether the girl had left the room already, it shifted again. She was gone from his thoughts for the moment. Just traveled somewhere else.

The lights were out. It was dark. How else could it be? He was hearing for the enemies. They were surely there. In the darkness. Waiting for him. Small things. Dangerous.

Henrietta beamed proudly until she realized the man’s face reminded her of stone. Her grin slipped off her face and she looked down at the floor. She was glad that he had nodded because it was a type of acknowledgement, but it still wasn’t quite what she had hoped for. Mr. Stein told her that he’d see her tomorrow night. She gave a small nod. “Thanks for all your help today. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

After waiting a moment to see what the man would do, she noticed that he was going to practice. Glancing at her teacher one last time, she jogged out of the training room quick. Once she was outside she let out a small sigh. “I don’t think he likes me much.”

((Do we want to do the next day off of here too, Martin?))

A couple of rather unpleasant experiences – for holograms – he left the Kabal headquarters, to become, for just 24 hours, or slightly less, again, what he was willing to be. A totally uneventfully dull gardener. No hearsh trainer. No bad guy. Just the gardener. Who heard and saw. And who was never seen anywhere incriminating.

But there was the next day. And with it came another session in the room. Martin being there already when the appointed time came. And the room in a slightly different setting from before. The mats were still there. But so were three other people. Staring at the wall with the unblinking stare of mechanic entities created by this room. The first dressed in the white of the Jodoka with a green belt around his hips. The next wearing an completely unfit outfit for this environment. His mostly-red attire had a somewhat dangerous look to it. Not the one that said „Im a convict.“ Only the one that made motehrs pull their children away in fear. The one that screamed unhealthy influence. And the big arms really did nothing to decrease that sensation. And then the third in line. Taller then the first two. Bigger even. And wearing a black mask. Still. Finally in the row came one that was alive, was standing right next to them, standing in line with them. Blue eyes waiting. Small frame relaxed. Blue eyes watching the door. Staring at the door. Unblinking. Like the others.

She had said she wanted to come back. And he would see whether she made good on that promise.

Henrietta had said she would come back and she had. She now stood outside the doors to the room where she would train again. The night before hadn’t been one of her best experiences, but it still contained the knowledge she was supposed to get down. The girl had debated her return to the room where she would most likely receive more injuries. Her back bruised some from hitting the wall the previous day, but a promise was a promise and she needed to learn how to take care of herself. Today she was dressed in black sweatpants, a pale blue t-shirt that made her eye color pop, and a pair of white tennis shoes.

After taking a breath and letting it come out as a small sigh, she pushed the door open. Inside stood four people but only one was familiar to her. Henri had the sneaking feeling that only one of them was a real, breathing person as well. It was hard to tell if Mr. Stein was alive by the look on his face and his demeanor, but she was quite sure that he had to be. And even if he wasn’t a real person, it didn’t make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. He was supposed to teach her and he personally didn’t seem like he wanted to get to know Henrietta Braun, even if she did want to at least be kind of friends.

The tall, petite, brunette girl smiled nervously at her teacher. “I told you I’d be back, didn’t I?” She found herself hoping that maybe he would be more kind and open if she showed her seriousness and perseverance. Henrietta always hoped to make a good impression on people and to be respectful to everyone if possible. That reminded her. While I’m thinking of it… “I’d like to apologize again for my behavior yesterday. I really appreciate you taking your time to help me.” Not being sure what to do, she bowed slightly. It wasn’t one that made her look stupid, but a small one to show respect to her trainer.

There was a dead line. Silence. She spoke. Broke. The silence. Not the line. People standing, staring, watching. They still were. They were not people. None of them. Not one of them. Not in this moment. Not in this hour. They were not. They were a purpose. The three holograms at least. The man? He had been quite secure, quite sure, behind his masks, until she entered, spoke. He had been waiting, playing scenarios in his head, training scenarios, which he could do, she could do with him. And then she spoke. And the dead man broke. He had forgotten something again.... Humanity? Probably.

The faces changed not. His face changed. Masks breaking up. As always. Breaking the ice. It was important. A small smile. His small smiles were something easily forgotten. They were something that would not leave a trace, lines in his face. Reluctantly almost in forming, the emotion, the motion, they were one. They both had to learn, did they not? “I guess there will be honesty...” He muttered under his breath as he bowed down, two hands at his side. Three men were still standing straight. One was bowing. The back mechanically aligned. A gesture, formal in its ways that were none of theirs. And yet he showed something of the control that was always with him. There lay something of him in it. The gesture was something that he himself did not really know, Asian in origin as it was. Only knew it was appropriate, wasn't it? “I admit I was unsure whether you would return despite your promise. And that you have makes things much easier.” He stepped out of the row of illusions. Breathing. Living, finally. Only to kneel down on the ground, pulling up his legs under his behind and sitting down on his feet. Inviting her with one hand to sit down too. Face to face. His eyes lingering on hers. As always. Looking for reactions. One truth uncovered. His truth or hers?

“Know this then, student:” The word sounded strange from his mouth. The faint accent getting stronger, as always when he was stressed a lot. The faint accent of the far west. His home beyond the sea. “I never enjoyed formal training in these things,” His hand, the gloved hand, went around to wave at the makeup of the room. Dismissing people and objects alike. “so I will make things up as I go along and try not to break you.” Like I was.... For a moment his eyes trailed off into the distance, looking behind her, looking into shadows only he could see. Maybe. Memories. Faces. Radical honesty this was. There would be no lies here. Only truth in action, if she wanted to come back again. And again after that. “If I get too close, tell me. I might not notice....” Because I'm different from you, young one. I'm so different. And yet we look alike. And there words were done with. He stood up. “You will start today by practicing falling the way I showed you yesterday.” He motioned to the white clad hologram. “He will help you with the first part of that. Ill watch and correct your stances. And after that well go on into different areas.” more dangerous ones perhaps? His eyes still looked the same. A constant that knew only few expressions.

When Mr. Stein smiled slightly, Henrietta grinned. It seemed difficult for him to act in such a way, but a smile looked nice on him. He was very handsome and the smile only enhanced his appearance. She would never say that to a man or someone who was teaching her, but it wouldn’t stop her from thinking it. The fact that he appeared to be making an effort to be more kind was nice, and the girl felt a little less nervous than she had on their first encounter. He motioned for her to sit and so she did.

Henrietta didn’t fidget at all as the man looked directly into her eyes. She could tell that he wasn’t trying to be creepy. It seemed like he was searching for something in her eyes. The brunette continued to look into her teacher’s eyes and observed they were about the same color as her own. Mr. Stein didn’t look very old, but he seemed very wise and not easily affected by things. She wondered why that was. Maybe it has to do with his mutation. I’m not sure what it is, but it must be something impressive. She glanced at his gloved hands as he gestured around the room. I wonder if the gloves are there for his mutation.

The way Mr. Stein had said “try not to break you” was a bit scary. Henri figured he meant it in a positive way and that it was supposed to comfort her, but the phrasing could’ve been better. At least she thought it could’ve been, but what did she know?

The girl listened as he explained what they’d be doing. She heard his accent and it made her smile. It was very German and she found it interesting to listen to. It made a few of his words sound odd here and there, but Henri was part German and her grandfather could speak some German. He used to teach her words when she was little. Getting off track for a minute, the teen tilted her head slightly. “I’m just curious, were you born in Germany?” She had heard the rest of what he said and caught that she’d be falling again and then maybe going on to some more dangerous things. She wasn’t surprised, it was to be expected.

His eyes tried drilling into her skull to reveal the intention of her question. Drilled, bored, until one could have thought she had said something bad. Really bad. Only to result in a single word for an answer. “Yes.” Born there... made there. Given gifts there. Nearly died there. All things he was not so much into. Birth and death. Gifts and loss. Dieing.... His tongue showed between his teeth a little bit. A thin line of color. His head showed only one movement. A nor to the white clad thing, which started to advance on her. Even though its eyes had been locked on some distant point of the wall.

It bowed curtly before Henrietta. And then it waited. Things were slow this time. Very slow.

Mr. Stein stared at Henrietta and though it was a bit intimidating, she held the eye contact. He replied with a small, simple answer. Yes. Yes he was from Germany. Henrietta smiled slightly in an attempt to seem friendly even though he seemed a bit suspicious of her question. She wondered what had happened to him to make him so paranoid, especially of a teenage girl. The brunette assumed that whatever it was, it must’ve been bad.

When her teacher nodded at the man wearing white, he stepped towards her. He gave a bow and then stood there, looking at her. Henri approached it and took a very shallow breath. Okay, so I just have to fall some more, right? She glanced at Mr. Stein and then turned her attention back to the man who would throw her, or whatever. The images of yesterday’s training flashed in her mind and she felt her stomach sink a little. Negative thoughts flowed into her mind until she remembered the last time she had done it. It had been correct. She could do it again then, right? Right, of course she could.

His bad mood was quite visible. If one had eyes that looked beyond the first mask. His eyes still sparkled coldly. Two pieces of ice that had fallen from a frozen sky somewhere. Meteors hardened in fire. So cold. His stance was relaxed on the other hand, clothes only lazily moving here and there when he corrected his stance in a semi conscious effort. If one stood too still it became unsettling for most people. It became attractive. A thing Martin avoided like it was an infectious disease. He was outwardly relaxed. Except maybe for the fact that he had touched his hands on each other, the gloved ones and rubbed over the one where the leather, rubber below were hiding an old scar. Fire had emerged back then. A great fire.

White fire was it that the hologram, the one destined for training, for repetition was that approached Henri and almost gently laid its hands on her. Gently considering what the big thing had done the last time. It was an almost delicate touch. Maybe a little gift from Martin to her. Maybe just a show of his ineptitude at judging the strength of hers. But something he had not misjudged. The movement that was needed to get her off the ground.

In an almost embrace she was lifted off the ground and at the highest point of the throw the warm hand of the hologram left her to leave her to her own. To let her do her own. Show her own skill. One throw. All the while the blue was there. At the corner standing almost delicately. At the borderlines there is the show of interest. Just different. Worlds diverging.

Mr. Stein had a very cold look on his face. She felt a shudder move down her back. His body language didn’t let her know this, but something about his eyes. Something about his eyes made her feel nervous and sad. As she looked at him, she felt her own face soften with sympathy. Why was he so upset? Henrietta couldn’t help but notice that he was handsome, but she knew he’d be even more handsome if he didn’t look so angry and depressed. He was a good deal older than her so she wouldn’t ever go out with him, but she figured some woman out there would be thrilled to have such a strong, handsome, young man on their arm.

The hologram in white approached Henrietta and tossed her into the air. As she flew up, she felt a scream creep up her throat. She held it in, afraid of looking stupid, and began to roll over in mid-air. The girl landed with her arm and the rest of her body in the right position. She was glad that she danced and ran. It kept her in shape and made the awkward maneuvering a bit easier than it would’ve been if she had let herself go. After a moment of laying there, Henri sat up and looked at the man who was training her. She didn’t want him to get frustrated with her again.

“How was that? Am I doing it right?” The brunette stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to say anything. Waiting for him to give her the next order and secretly waiting for him to praise her. She was waiting to see if he’d smile at her and accept her. Henrietta wasn’t sure why, but she wanted him to be proud of her and maybe even talk to her a little.

Now it is time, while Ms. Braun is dangling somewhere in the grip of a Hologram, just between being thrown and finally landing on the floor, that we need to intercede our story to explain a very insignificant event that is taking place not far from where our protagonists are fighting their training battles. As the narrator, I beg your forgiveness for taking the time to introduce the genus martes, specifically the species martes americana, the American Marten. And more specifically again one very fine specimen – in fact he had mated last year with some success and fathered three martinis, though he naturally did not know of that – who has taken up residence in a very warm and cozy spot on the Mondragon Medical campus. A big metal container that houses a multitude of wires and copper cables, where an electrical hum fills the air and unseen currents make every shiny hair stand on edge. But as it is a warm and cozy place, our little marten is still living there. And not only that, but he has also found himself some very interesting things to chew upon when the hunger is little and the teeth need some forming hand. A very chewy substance it is, which is lying around in a multitude of possible hiding-places and stacks. So Mr. Marten is chewing. A very insignificant event indeed. But he is chewing on the wrong cable. Specifically the wrong insulated cable.

And I fear here ends our excursion in the life of the American Marten, for as the martens teeth grind the insulating plastic material, they suddenly find the hard and quite coppery prize underneath. And, as you, dear reader, might have guessed, his residence of choice is a transformer station, there is a big sizzle. And the flash of blue-white plasma forming.

And the hum is stilled. And Mondragon Medical plunges into darkness as we come back to our protagonists in their holographic environment.

Martins eyes followed Henrietta's moves around the fall, and he gave her a curt nod, just before, without a prior warning, not only the white clad hologram and his brethren disappeared, but also every single light proceeded to excuse itself from the room they were in. Pitch black darkness encompassed the odd pair in the training room, as electricity failed for some unknown reason and cut short their training with the rude falling of umbra, so in an effort at normality, Martin exchanged his curt nod for the correct fall with a verbatim comment on her procedure. “An acceptable modus, Ms Braun, but as you cannot see, we will have to reschedule our training.” He even managed to encompass an apologetic undertone with his words, while even he with his rather acute sense could not perceive anything with his eyes at all. Only sounds and smells, touch and taste were left. Both of them had been deprived of a sense. In their big concrete tomb.

Mr. Stein nodded and Henrietta grinned. She was excited. it felt like she finally did something right, and that was a very pleasant feeling. The girl was about to stand when the lights went off. Henri glanced around, wondering if she had lost her eye sight or if the power was just out. Either thing seemed a bit scary, but she'd definitely prefer the power outage than the loss of vision. Of course, a moment of panicking was in order. Okay, deep breaths. I bet it's just a storm and it hit the power lines and the lights will come back on in a minute. Sure, let's go with that.

The internal struggle may have continued if her teacher hadn't said something. He mentioned not being able to see anything either. She released a fair amount of air that she had been holding inside her. His sight's gone too? That's a little more comforting. I'm sure we couldn't lose our sight at the exact same time. That'd be odd. He complimented her fall, to an extent. Another grin spread out over her face. "Thank you very much. I practice after we got done here the other night." He then said they'd continue practice a different day. "Yeah, I can understand that. This is a bit of a problem." Shakily, the girl rose from the ground and stuck her arms out. Uh, now what?

((Sorry for my delay, Martin. ))

The umbra around them had almost physical substance. Nothing menacing, but in the training hall they were in, now nearly devoid of life, sounds made strange echoes and the smell was rather sweaty. With a tinge of steel and burnt plastic. Just small details of the grand picture you only dare to notice when you can't see and are therefore forced to concentrate quite strongly on the other things. There was no light. Only Darkness. So there had to be sensual effort to compensate for the lack of visual input. Ineptitude here was not excusable. Especially for Martin. On the other hand, he was in a room that was designed to shift its appearance in some ways and the real form was something which eluded Martins memories. Its real form. So as his student released a big part of her breath and her very well thought out and thought over statement (pending ironic approval from him, this was something one might have called a coping mechanism), the German was quite convinced of the direction the door was in.

He therefore proceeded, mostly unhindered by the complete absence of the so usual photons of the free world, to clear, or rather guess, his path through the shadows to the farther side of the wall, where he had located the door in his memories. Feeling around in the darkness was, in itself, a quite undignified action, though the fact that he would not be seen by anyone... mitigated the slight bit of discomfort at his employment of hands and feet to the end of finding the possible exit from their rather unfortunate corundum. They were useful tools. And they could be dangerous. Nobody knew that better than him. Tools were always dangerous.

After a long pause of scuffling in silence, he finally announced his sentence to Henrietta. “I think I have found the exit, Miss Braun. Please follow my voice here.” But not too closely, if you please... My hands have seen more blood then grease. So he was standing now before what was, as far as he could tell, the gateway into this room. The only gateway, mind you. The electronically controlled gateway. Which... was a problem, if the electricity had been shut down.

Some big problem. “It is alright Miss Baun, just follow my voice.” He repeated loudly, and his voice echoed strangely through the room. The closed room. Their tomb room... not really. Surely people would turn the electricity back on quite rapidly. His hand still wandered over the metal surface, trying to find their way into some sort of opening which could be used as leverage against the rather nonconstructive state of the doors enslosement. And found none. Somehow he was... unsettled?

Henrietta still felt like panicking. She wasn’t a big fan of the dark, not to mention that everything in the room had seemed to need electricity. This meant that even if she could stumble blindly to the door, it wouldn’t necessarily open. She felt a shiver run down her spine and she waited for her eyes to make some sort of adjustment to the lighting. Not much adjusting happened, seeing as there was no trace of light at all. There was nothing to really adjust to, but the girl could make out faint things that appeared to be darker than the rest of the room. The brunette didn’t dwell on what they may be.

Before another round of panic was able to set in, Mr. Stein informed Henri that he had found the door. He told her to follow his voice. That seemed a bit easier said than done, but the girl made no complaints. “Um, okay. I’ll give it a try.” Her teacher repeated what he had said again, in order for Henrietta to track where his voice was originating from. It helped that he said it again, but it was still difficult.

With her arms awkwardly out straight in front of her, Henri began to make her way towards her teacher. It reminds me of Marco Polo, only there’s no light at all. Even with my eyes open. This is so weird. After sweeping her arms side to side as she walked, the girl hit something. “Ugh. Well, I found a wall. I’m not sure if this is one you’re close to, but maybe I can follow the edge of it to you?” It was meant to be a statement, but it had sounded more like a question than anything, even to herself. Her voice had echoed strangely off the wall and the girl shuddered.

“Mr. Stein?” Henri’s voice cracked slightly at the end. “Is the only way out if the power comes back on?” So far the man had done a decent job of sounding calm, but he always sounded that way. He also talked to Henri with more sensitivity, which put the brunette more at ease. Calming the girl could only help at this point, considering she had almost had a freak out when the power had initially went out.