Chapter 10: Training time (2)

"Hey, you alright? You haven't said anything since you got here." Superboy's gruff voice caused Nova to look over at him as he sat off to the side of the room, as Aqualad and Robin exchanged blows in the ring.

"I was just watching I guess. Didn't want to disturb you all while you were focused on training." Nova said, still watching the spar between Aqualad and Robin from the corner of his eye.

"Okay then..." Superboy shook his head, sure that he would regret his decision but went ahead with it anyway.

"Do you want to get out there and try your hand at it?"

Nova turned fully to face Superboy with confusion plastered across his face. 

"What… do you mean 'try my hand at it'?"

Superboy fought back the urge to roll his eyes and patiently explained to the clueless Nova.

"What I mean is whether you want a turn having a spar with the others or not. Watching from the sidelines is one thing, but its completely different from being in the heat of the moment. Besides if you want to become closer to everyone, sparring is a good way to do it. Besides. I doubt that Robin brought you here with the intention of simply letting you watch everything without getting a chance to get in on the action anyway."

Nova didn't answer right away and instead though about what Superboy had said. Did he actually want to spar? He wasn't sure since he'd never sparred before. Though from what he had seen so far, it was true that the others seemed closer after having a good spar. Besides it didn't look that difficult form what he'd seen, so why not?

"Sure I guess I want to try sparring. Are you going to be my opponent?"

"No, no, no." Superboy quickly shook his head and held up his hands. "Trust me when I say that you're better off starting with one of the others as a sparring partner first." 

Right at that moment, Aqualad managed to throw Robin over his shoulder and unto the floor. The ring flashed red as Robin tried to climb to his feet and the sound of the buzzer let everyone know that the match was over. 

"Perfect timing, lets see if Aqualad is up for another round." Superboy stood up, and with Nova trialing behind him made his way to Aqualad and Robin who were reviewing the fight with earnest.

"Sorry to interrupt you guys, but Nova here wanted to have a go as well. Feeling a little left out since no one offered to spar with him."

Both Aqualad and Robin both turned to turned to Nova in surprise, who was a bit confused as his mind wondered when he had said that he was feeling left out.

"Are you sure you want to get in the ring with us? Even if we go easy on you, we aren't going to pull our punches too much." Robin asked while twirling his batons around. 

"Robin is right Nova, it might not yet be time for you to partake in training of this level just yet. It might be better for you to start with something a little tamer." Aqualad added as he wiped his face with a towel.

"Oh come on guys, how's he ever going to learn if you keep babying him? The guy wants to spar, I say let him spar! Its not like you guys have to worry about anything anyway." Waly zipped over from where he was seated and swung his hand over Nova's shoulder. 

Of course since Nova was much taller than him it was a bit of a stretch, but he had already committed to the action and didn't wish to embarrass himself further. Which still happened when Nova bent his knees slightly to accommodate Wally. 

Amidst the snickers from Robin and the skeptical looks of Superboy,, Waly simply coughed away the awkwardness as best he could.

"Besides Aqualad, you said that spar are supposed to help us get used to unconventional situations right? What's more unconventional that sparing with someone who we've never faced before?" 

"You say that but given the fact that he's meta-human, there is a risk that his powers could manifest and possibly cause some serious damage. Given how we found him I wouldn't surprised if he had some ridiculous abilities hidden away." Robin whipped the tears from his eyes before seriously considering Superboy's suggestion of letting Nova spar.

"That's even more of a reason to let him spar then!" Superboy suddenly became intrigued at the idea of Nova's powers being drawn out and pushed even harder for the spar to go down.

"This could be a great simulation of coming across someone with unidentified powers. A perfect training exercise if you ask me."

"Well I guess it wouldn't hurt for him to try at the very least…" Aqualad seemed thoughtful for a moment before he turned to the console and pushed a few buttons. This time the sparring ring enlarged to double its previous size before flashing to show that it was ready.

"I made the ring bigger so that we had some more room to play with, plus depending on if you power manifest or not I might need the extra space." Aqualad entered the sparing ring and stood to one side before extending his hand out to Nova and gestures for him to join him.

"Robin, you get us started once everyone's ready alright?"

Robin who was already standing behind the holographic console simply raised his thumb as he kept tapping on the console. 

While Aqualad and Nova got into position for their spar, Wally and Superboy crowded around Robin who was still typing way at the console.

"Dude, what are you even doing?" Wally was the first to ask once he saw a few different screens appeared on the holographic screen showing images of Nova and Aqualad from different angles.

"I'm recording this sparing match obviously. There's no telling what could happen and if Nova does end up using his powers, this could help us figure out the trigger for it. Also I have a feeling that Nova is going to surprise us with his performance" Robin didn't look up form his work, pulling up several more screens showing even more different angles just for good measure.

"You really think this Nova is going to be able to take down Aqualad?" Superboy's skepticism was on full display, but Robin wasn't deterred in the slightest.

"You guys might not have noticed since you haven't undergone any dedicated martial training, something that I think you could both benefit from by the way, but Nova doesn't walk like a normal person. His pace is consistent and he moves with a certain level of efficiency that I only ever really see in trained fighters."

Robin glanced up at Superboy and Robin, a grin plastered across his face and a glimmer of mischief hidden in the depths of his eyes.

"I've been watching him these last couple of days, and while his memory is still shot, there are somethings that a person doesn't forget so matter how poorly their memory may have been screwed over. His mind may have forgotten, but his body and muscles haven't. He's been trained and hopefully Kal will be able to draw it out of him again."

"Dude that is such a stretch, even for you. You can tell because of the way he walks? What are you a Kungfu master?" Wally scoffed at Robin's conjectures, convinced that his friend had been watching way to many movies as of late.

"You can doubt it all you want, I'll have the last laugh when I'm proven right anyway." Unconcerned Robin brushed aside Wally's dismissal, more focused on pulling up more screens to record form.

"Is that really the only reason why you brought him here? To see if your theories have any weight to them?" Superboy frowned as he looked down at Robin, unsure as to whether he should be worried that Robin hadn't told anyone about his 'discovery' or the fact that he was basically leading Nova by the nose and subjecting him to experiments like this.

"Not really? I did bring him here to 'make friends' with everyone if that's what your worried about, I just also thought that it would be pretty easy to test and see if sparring would help jog his memory in terms of his combat potential." Robin shrugged as he turned back to the console preparing to start the spar given that both Aqualad and Nova where in position. 

Wally simply stood to the side and watched on, not sure about Robin's thoughts, but still interested in seeing if Nova could surprise them a bit. Superboy on the other hand was back to scowling and frowning with his hands crossed over his chest. 

He had been the one to suggest for and encouraged Nova into sparring, and while he had had no idea about Robin's ulterior motives at the time, he still felt slightly disgusted about manipulating Nova like this. Though he didn't voice any of his misgivings aloud and simply allowed things to play out naturally.

The three boys were now all focused on the sparring ring where Aqualad had been giving a few pointers to Nova.

"I won't be using any of my abilities, or at least I won't use them at the start. We'll start out with a simple hand to combat competition to see what your capable of. We'll move on to more complex combat depending on how you perform okay?" Aqualad asked Nova who was already in a defensive stance, similar to the one that Robin had been using against Wally.

"Yeah, no problem. I'm ready when ever you are." Nova nodded to Aqualad a feeling of anticipation bubbling up form the pit of his stomach. 

Neither of the two, Aqualad nor Nova, said anything else and simply waited for the single to begin the spar. They didn't have to wait long though as the Ring soon flashed green, signaling the start of the battle.