29 The Swan

"So, which one do you wanna start with?"

Yuna gestures towards all the assortment of equipment lying in front of me while I only stare in a daze at everything.

"It's so cool..." I say to no one in particular.

Yuna pauses for a bit before letting out a hearty laugh.

"I guess by now I'm desensitized to it but I get why you'd think that."

I let my hand run through my hair as I inspect my my surroundings. Each aspect of enlighteneds' work seems equally interesting but for now, it's better to not get ahead of myself and start with the basics.

"What would you suggest to start off?"

"If that's what you wanna do first then we don't even need any equipment for now. All we need to do is be in a good open space to familiarize ourselves with our abilities. Basically activating them and controlling their movement throughout your body. You'd be surprised at how much you can learn from doing it, regardless of how far along you are. Once you get better at it, you'll be able to do it subconsciously too which makes your ability activated at all times. In other words, you reap the benefits of having your ability activated without needing to actually do any extra steps to turn your ability on."

I stare at Yuna, a bit blank in the face. That explanation was nothing but a jumble of words to me that went in one ear and went out the other. Yuna seems to pick up on my confusion as she quickly adds on.

"You'll get the hang of it eventually once you try. It didn't make much sense to me either when I started out."

Yuna plasters an awkward smile to her face, leading me to a corner of the gym in which the corners were all padded and blast-proof. I brush my fingers across the wall, only to feel a slight stinging sensation.

"Why do the walls sting me?"

"It's neutralizing the sensed abilities on you. I advise you don't hump the wall or something."

I let out a small chuckle which I can tell makes Yuna satisfied with her joke-making skills.

"Alright, stand here at the marked area." Yuna points towards the taped position on the ground and I follow suit after her command. "I assume you've already tried to activate your ability before, right?"

I slowly nod, bobbing my head up and down.

"Perfect. We're already one step closer. Now, all you have to do is recreate that feeling from that experience, but let it course throughout you, rather than keeping it in one spot."

I relax my shoulders and let my arms lie limp against my body, allowing the fluid sensation to build up on my hands. The tingling feeling creeps onto my arms, building up inside them. I almost break the flow once I realize that actual tangible drops of water starts dripping from my fingertips. Yuna examines me closely, not breaking her fixed stare.

"Easy there... you don't wanna release the power from your body just yet. Let it course through you..."

I'm too focused that I barely pick up on what Yuna says. I know everything around me hasn't changed at all but why do I feel like I'm underwater?

Wait, something's not right. My eyes violently fly open as I feel a wave of water in my throat. I start hacking away at the unexpected visit of liquid down my esophagus, half expecting to pass out from the leftover sensation racing in me. I stumble over to my feet and cough out a good amount of the remaining water in my throat before looking back up at Yuna.

"Better than I expected. You're doing well."

I gape at Yuna with my jaw slightly dropped from resting position.

"You call that doing well?"

"Better than what I did for my first time. I fainted from choking on water so they had to perform CPR on me since I almost drowned..." A sour expression makes its way to Yuna's face. "by my own hands."

"Is this normal or?..."

"For enlighteneds of Aquinnium, it's pretty normal so don't sweat it. Other clans have their own risks when it comes to learning their abilities. Without proper supervision, you have a slight chance of dying from learning."

"Well that's the first negative I've heard from learning new things."

"Trust me, there could have been plenty more." Yuna shoots me a smile before continuing. "You ready to move on or are you still buffering from your first time?"

"I think I'm good now. What's next?"

"Target practice is the next step in learning. Then again, most beginners can't really hit the targets so it's more like flinging your abilities at random."

Yuna leads me to the other side of the gym where the targets are located. There were multiple targets lying around in a walled area: some on the ceiling, on the walls, and moving around. Yuna fiddles with the control panel on the outskirts of the walled area before turning to me.

"This structure is basically programmed with three stages in it with stage one being the easiest and stage three being the hardest. If you're not able to hit a target within the specified time on it, the stage immediately shuts off, giving you a big fat beep. Do you want a demonstration?"

Now that I think about it, I don't even know how proficient Yuna is when it comes to her ability. And in all honesty, it's a curious matter.

"Sure, why not?"

Yuna grins a little too widely, trying not to show her obvious satisfaction.

"Be warned, I like showing off." She teases.

Yuna walks up to the control panel and chooses stage three after pressing around with some buttons. She pats down her clothes while walking up to the walled area's entrance.

"Stage three. 60 seconds. Timer: 2 seconds. Speed: 40kmph. Set explosives, element of opposition, gas."

My head perks up at the sound of the automated voice. I quickly turn to Yuna, who was already standing in the arena while waving at me cheerfully. 'Get ready' she mouths to me, still giddily grinning.

"Three."

Upon the automated voice's bellowing command, Yuna's expression turns serious as she unleashes orbs of water around her with just a flick of her arm.

"Two."

The orbs fly around Yuna in a circle formation, slowly picking up the pace until the individual orbs can't be made out.

"One."

My eyes follow in fascination as the before orbs of water shape into long dart-like cylinders. Yuna lifts an arm up, raising a dart with it right by her face.

"The timer has begun."

Yuna doesn't even let the automated voice finish its sentence before she dashes off to her first target. The target flies across the wall in random motions at such a fast pace, making my eyes lose track of where it is. Yuna somehow manages to predict its placement and pulls back her arm, readying a dart as if she wielded a bow and arrow. The anticipation in me builds up as she releases the dart, sending it flying perfectly on the bullseye of the target.

I let a hand cover my mouth in amazement. Watching Yuna in motion is really something else. With the targets soaring around her, she doesn't even flinch or panic from the time limit and takes them down with ease.

"15 second mark. Detonating explosives."

Trap doors within the ceiling fly open, firing bombs down at Yuna. A low grunt escaped Yuna's mouth as a bomb falls close by to her. She jumps away in time, keeping low to the ground to ready herself for more bombs. While it didn't look like a walk in the park anymore for Yuna, she made it look so easy. Yuna effortlessly hopped about, dodging explosives here and there, still managing to get every single target while summoning more darts at the same time.

"30 second mark. Element of opposition."

While the bombs don't seem to go away, they do lessen in number. In the meantime, plants spawn out of nowhere, grabbing onto Yuna's water darts around her and eating them. Is this what the machine means by element of opposition? Water is weak against plants.

Yuna only curses under her breath, raising her arm and summoning a blade of water. She picks it up and whams it onto the floor, turning it into ice. I try not to but a small gasp escapes me. Yuna uses the blade to behead the carnivorous plants then melting it back into water to make more darts.

"45 second mark. Poisoning gas. Last stretch."

The bombs frequency lowers a bit more while smaller plants are summoned into the arena. For the final stretch, Large tubes emerge from the sides of the arena, releasing greenish-gas into the space where Yuna was standing.

The gas fogs up my vision of Yuna, making me step closer till my head is inches away from the looking glass. I spot Yuna coughing violently as her legs stumble around a bit. I can't even imagine how hard that has got to be. Not only is it weakening her immensely, but she can barely even see now.

Yuna regains her step and fires the last of her darts at the targets. I can barely make out Yuna fighting a plant for a dart, large boils covering her skin. A bomb heads for her direction, making Yuna scoff and lose a dart. She summons even more darts in the target's downtime, taking even longer because of her weakened state.

Yuna readies up for the last target, making it within the time limit. As soon as she does, the gas all gets sucked in from ventilation of the arena while the plants are disarmed. The trap doors on the ceiling all close.

After the gas all clears up, I finally get a good look at Yuna. She had deep cuts, bruises, and scraped skin all over her body. The boils all turned to huge bleeding heat scars covered in debris from the explosions of the bombs. Yet somehow, Yuna manages to step outside of the arena with a big smile on her face.

"How'd I do?"

"I think the real questioning I should be asking you is 'How are you doing?' because..."

I gesture to her wounds, only making her laugh.

"It's fine, we can hit up brewery after to heal myself. It's not that bad. Besides, as an enlightened, things don't hurt nearly as much as you're used to in the land of regulars. We also have faster regeneration. If I had to pick something it feels similar to, it'd be a fall on cement. I can definitely feel pain but it's tolerable and perfectly fine."

I shudder a bit just by looking at Yuna's wounds. They don't even seem to bother her as she stands up to readjust the settings to the arena.

Yuna's straight dyed platinum blonde hair fell past her shoulders in tangles and knots from her experience earlier in the arena. Her hair bounced with every small movement of her head in an oddly satisfying way. My train of thought gets interrupted as Yuna looks back towards me.

"You ready to get in?"