Anime Rival Quest (Very Meta)

Taka said:

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Hm. A lot more serious than I characterized her, and a lot more connected. I think I can work with parts of this though, so I guess your reward is that your Mentor now has access to an information network and backup that she would not have necessarily had before.


"It's like this every time though! Half the idiots out there are doing only a quarter of what they could be! I'm sick of watching so many prospects wasting their potential like I almost wasted mine!"

You feel your chest hurt for a moment as memories rise up, the memories that you try to keep quiet. Of running, of fighting in desperation, the gates so close, and yet so far away as the shadows close in, and then like a bolt of lightning...

Then your stomach hurts as your mentor pokes you again, prompting you to wriggle back away from her fingers. "Ah! That really hurts Astrid! Cut it out!"

"You were thinking about the past again, and that makes you mopey. You cut it out."

You glare again, then flinch at yet another poke. "Aahaow! I'm not healed damnit! Stop that!"

"You say that like I'm not the one that healed you, you're fine, a few pokes to the stomach aren't going to kill you."

"You say that like you couldn't kill me by poking me in the stomach..."

"Well not if you were defending yourself I couldn't, I taught you better than that." Her smile returns, and you shiver. "And speaking of teaching... We haven't had a proper dance in a while. We should spar this afternoon~"

You swallow, and nod. "R-right..."

--------

She's honest about waiting until the afternoon at least, and you're thankful for that. As much as she had healed beforehand, your injury wasn't exactly light, and you were still in pain until around lunch time. Eating was particularly torturous. On one hand, your stomach was still tender, but on the other, the food was one source of much needed energy with which you could replenish your mana, accelerating the already bolstered natural regeneration and leaving you with a strange sensation like pins and needles in your digestive tract.

As you walk outside into the midafternoon sunlight, you begin to reconsider if you might be being watched. Training can only do so much when it isn't seen by the audience after all so having some attention on your for this could be useful later on.

You think you can hear some music in the background, so that's a good sign at least.

Across the field from you, Astrid gives a wave and you respond with a gimlet stare. She hasn't even drawn her sword yet, partially because she knows that she can draw it faster than you can do anything anyways, and partially because she knows it will annoy you. She knows how to take a fight seriously, but when it comes to you, she never seems to do so, always teasing, tricking, and doing everything she can to make it look like she's not even trying.

She says it's something about learning to control your temper, but while you admit to having had some... Outbursts before... At this point you're pretty sure she just does it for the fun of it. You've never seen her toy with a Shadow like she does with you after all...

You quickdraw your blaster, weapon snapping up, bucking in your hand as you whisper the incantation for a runic shot under your breath, and she reacts with precision, the sword snapping out of its sheath so fast as to be a silver blur. Even composed almost purely of magic by the time it reaches her an instant later, she cuts the magic itself in two, the deadly bundle of energy shearing into component mana strands that pass harmlessly to either side of her.

Then she crouches slightly, and that's all the warning you get before she vanishes from sight, her speed carrying her too fast for you to follow the motion as she swings behind you, right to where the trap you cast with your other hand as you fired has been waiting.

It's a familiar dance, these opening moves. The goal is for you to hold her off as long as you can, and you do so with everything in your arsenal. You know what she can do, and how she can react, but you also know that she keeps herself consistent, paces herself just slightly to keep her from overwhelming you. The goal is not to push you to the limits of your abilities. The goal is to push you to discover new things, to try different strategies, and different powers on her.

For all the years you've been under her care, you've never quite managed to pull out anything she wasn't ready for, but you suppose that when you can one day pull that off you'll have surpassed her anyways.

But you're not surpassing her today, even if you do have a few new ideas you've been working on since this morning...

Choose One New Ability and Two Upgrades

[] [Ability] Explosive Trap (Specialist)
[] [Ability] Counterspell (Analytical)
[] [Ability] Sherlock Scan(Opportunist)
[] [Ability] Destined (Determinator)

[] [Upgrade] Recoil Impulse+ (Replaces Recoil Impulse)
[] [Upgrade] Sealing Circle (Replaces Paralysis Trap)
[] [Upgrade] Piercing Rune (Add-on to 'Runic shot')
[] [Upgrade] Runic Aegis (Replaces Runic Shield)
[] [Upgrade] Battle Continuation+ (Replaces Battle Continuation)
[] [Upgrade] Create Opening (Add-on to 'Find Opening')