Half-Bloods R • 2 : Growing Shadows

C • 11 : Divinity of Storms, Purity of Frost

"Now Anna!" Vaelan's command echoed throughout the training facility.

Anna, crouched on the floor, scraped her hand along the floor and summoned a pale sheet of glittering ice that ran parallel to the ground. She then scraped her hand to the side, expanding the sheet of ice to the far wall. She looked at Vaelan, hoping and partly expecting to see some sort of expression that displayed pride or praise, but he remained almost as blank-faced as Villin.

The two had been training for about two hours at this point, Christopher would be joining them soon, but Vaelan first had to train Anna as much as he could.

"Good, now trap the ground!" He ordered.

She placed her hand flat against the ground and created thousands of tiny but sturdy ice spikes that rose up from the floor, then let out a puff of steam as her body began to chill.

She shouted back to Vaelan, "Reaching my limit!"

He stepped onto the ice and took up a battle stance, each heavy boot step breaking the ice spikes. Vaelan was dressed in his rebellion uniform, a thin grey camo jacket over a black shirt, black pants covered in pockets just like the jacket, and black boots.

"Good, now break it," he growled, his aura completely overtaking the training grounds and quickly making her nauseous.

Anna stood up and focused, all morning Vaelan had been having her use spells that would drain her quickly. With her magic now limited, she balled her metal hands. She stepped onto the ice as Christopher quietly walked in.

Good, now he'll see just how strong I've gotten!

She dashed forward and jumped up, thick ice forming skates on her feet. She landed and pushed forward with great speed before circling thrice around Vaelan. She studied his stance, then, when she found an unguarded spot she kicked at him only to have her attack blocked with a single hand. She growled and sped away, then twisted around and scraped her hand along the ice, using as little mana as she could for the spell. Vaelan ducked under two large ice spikes that shot at his chest, he then grabbed the spikes and smashed them into pieces.

Anna pushed forward and threw a barrage of punches at Vaelan's gut, the first two landed, but every punch after was blocked. She growled in frustration as she covered her arm in ice and threw a punch deliberately at his hand. He caught her hand, smugly smirking for a moment, before then attempting to tear away as her ice spread upward and captured his arm.

He reached with his other arm to tear away the ice, but she simply grabbed and trapped that arm too. She then began to strike him with her knee, until he summoned a second pair of arms and began blocking those attacks as well. She broke the ice off and skated away before falling as Vaelan cracked the ice field with a single stomp.

She growled again, her angel mark spreading up to her face and festering across the lower right quarter.

Vaelan held out a hand, signaling her to stop, "Slow down, kid. You're doing good, but don't lose yourself to emotions, okay?"

Anna took a deep breath and nodded. She patted her face, Deep breaths, deep breaths.

He walked up to her, knelt down, and placed his hands on her shoulders, "I know it's a lot. Training, the celestial, getting Christopher to stop worrying, and thinking about Jake, but trust me when I say that you can do this. Just take a deep breath and focus," he ruffled her hair, "Now go take a break while I work with Christopher, you've earned it."

She walked over to the benches where Christopher stood, he had a big smile on his face that Anna almost felt disgusted at.

"You did great out there," he said gently as his smile shrank just a little, and for the first time in a long while, Anna didn't get annoyed with the praise he gave.