combos and dinner date

It has almost been a week since the assembly and the students are focusing on getting ready to face the burned ones threat.

The only ones ready however are Garfield, Terra and Musa to some degree.

"You have the moves down, but Bloom you need to clear your head. You're not using your flames to the fullest extend and it's not because you are afraid this time." Garfield says, watching the girl and Sky fail in a combo they are training.

Meanwhile a couple meters away Dowling passes by Musa, doing her rounds and stops next to her.

"I have to admit I underestimated you. I was against letting you train as a fighter due to your natural mind element and talent but Garfield insisted I let you make your own choice. Looks like you made the right one." Dowling says, seeing the girl carve up a target with her purple wolf cloak, having learned how to lengthen her energy claws even.

"Thank you. I wasn't aware you two spoke though." Musa says surprised.

"It wasn't so much of a talk as it was an disobeyed order." Dowling tells her, looking at Garfield with Musa while the teen is instructing the wind fairy in their group who is paired with the pink haired specialist Trixie.

"Sounds like my Gar." Musa chuckles lightly.

"Yes, well. Good job so far." Dowling says and continues on her way.

"Sky, since you're struggling how about switching out with Musa? We'll have one member over either way." Garfield says, waving his girlfriend over to him and Bloom.

"What is it?" Musa asks cheerfully.

"You're gonna pair up with Bloom for a bit while I bend Sky into shape." Garfield says, patting the blonde's shoulder.

"Good luck, Sky's so stiff he's more likely to break." Bloom teases the blonde.

"Focus red. My girlfriend's life is dependent on your abilities now Bloom." Garfield says strictly.

"Alright. Now you two lovely ladies, beat the burned one." Garfield says tossing a burned one trainings crystal behind himself and steps behind them, putting one hand on Musa's shoulder, giving her some of his magic and strengthens the wolf cloak as the mind fairy calls it.

"You go low, I'll get high." Bloom says, gathering fire in her palms.

Musa wordlessly runs at the burned one and slashes it across its chest, before kicking out one of its knee with an audible crunch.

Feeling Bloom's magic behind her Musa does an aerial wheel to the side, dodging the stream of fire shooting towards the burned one, hitting it right in its chest. The burned one continues to head to the redhead, but Musa quickly sweeps away its legs from the side with Bloom continuing to use her fire on the downed, burned one's torso, beating it after about 3 to 4 more seconds.

"We did it!" Bloom says high fiving Musa who grins as well until her eyes land on Garfield looking disappointed.

"That bad?" Musa asks, feeling his worry and fear.

"Well you did it. Which is good, but your time... Terra will you demonstrate with me how to execute a burned one efficiently?" Garfield asks the earth fairy of his class.

"OK." She agrees, coming over to him with Trixie in tow.

"Let's get everyone. This could be a good learning experience." Sky says, partially to hide his disappointment in the crowd, partially to help his fellow students get ready to face their enemies.

"Good idea." Garfield agrees and gets ready with Terra, telling her the two moves he wants to demonstrate with her help and the girl agrees to follow his lead.

"Alright looks like this is everyone." Sky tells Garfield.

"Thanks Sky. OK students, teachers. Terra and I will demonstrate the level of teamwork and skill you will need to have to survive against burned ones." Garfield says, taking off his hoodie, leaving him in a skintight black wifebeater and black combat pants.

"This should do." Garfield mumbles, taking a sword from the stands and 3 crystals.

"Hold onto these please." Garfield says, handing two to Musa with a small smile, hidden from the other students who don't necessarily know about their relationship.

"You ready?" Garfield asks Terra, getting a nod in response.

"Alright, veins first." Garfield says, throwing a crystal about 20 meters away and heads towards the burned one.

Garfield raises his sword while walking towards the burned one dashing at him wildly. He dodges the burned ones wild swing with its clawed arm, knocking it back by hitting its forehead with the butt of hit sword, making it tumble a step. He then stabs his sword in the side of its chest and uses it as foothold to jump over the creature and fore it to its knees by kicking the back of its legs and Terra stabs the creature in its chest, digging into the burned skin and literally rips out the core from the chest, Garfield immediately slicing the core in half.

"This is what you should be able to do. No one will be expecting this." Garfield says and tosses another one of the crystals ahead of them, having rejoined Terra's side and puts one hand on her shoulder, before they meet their free hands in front of them by the ball of the hands and look at the approaching burned one.

"Four meters, in 3,2,1. Now!" Garfield tells Terra, their palms closing in on each other until they are flat against one another and the students watching shriek back when out of the earth a massive stone bear's maw shoots up, swallowing the burned one and dragging it under the earth, leaving nothing behind but a small dirt pile.

"You only have enough time to learn how to survive in most cases. Getting kills is not the priority here, just so everyone understands. The ones going for kills will be I myself and maybe one of the teachers." Garfield says, tossing the last crystal from Musa in front of him and transforms his right arm into a bear's, punching a hole right through the burned one, holding the core in his paw and crushes it.

"If you remember that and work together the chances you'll survive are definitely above average." Garfield tells them.

"Thank you Garfield. Great presentation and I want everyone to remember what he said. This is training to ensure your survival so give it your all." Dowling tells the students before ushering them away to get back to training.

"Wow. I didn't even know you two trained combos." Musa says impressed, once they are back in their small group of 7.

"Yeah what's that about?" Trixie asks expectantly.

"I asked Garfield to try the combination magic we did a few weeks ago and we came up with that move somehow." Terra says.

"Now back to training everyone, but you two switch partners." Garfield says, pointing at Musa and Sky.

"Garfield I can't switch partners." Sky protests.

"I'm training all of you as a favor, so either you do as I tell you or I will take your place and you can join Riven in the reject troupe." Garfield tells him sharply.

"I can't." Sky says.

"Fine then. Leave." Garfield says, nodding for Musa to train with Bloom while he joins Lola, the blonde wind fairy of the group.

"Back to training everyone." Garfield tells the other two groups, who quickly follow his instruction and start training again.

"Show me what you can do." Garfield says looking at the fairy, who blushes slightly.

"OK." She agrees and creates a wind wall, knocking over a target, levitates the downed target off the ground and sends a gust of wind against the target, knocking it away.

"The last move. It shows great promise, just lacks experience." Garfield tells her analytically.

"Here, take this." Garfield says, handing her a sword from the specialist armory.

"You want me to take the specialist role?" She asks saddened.

"No. Definitely not. I want you to try and gather a steady amount of energy on the blade of the sword and then slash and send the strike to the target." Garfield says and patiently watches while Lola tries to do as he instructed, failing to sustain the steady energy on the blade.

"Here." Garfield says after 2 or 3 minutes and switches the sword for a dagger with the blade being about a quarter of the sword's length.

"Try again." He says after putting away the sword.

"Alright." She says and tries to follow his instructions, this time succeeding in the first step, but fails to release the energy in a concentrated blast.

"You're doing great. I'll be back in a bit." Garfield says, patting her shoulder.

"Musa, come here for a moment." Garfield tells his girlfriend after she and Bloom went through a combo.

"What is it?" She asks coming over, her eyes glowing bright purple and she scowls slightly.

"I thought of a move you could try." He says, tossing her a bo staff, which she twirls around herself with the moves he and people from her village taught her.

"Nice form. Anyways, gather your mind energy at the tip of the staff and pushes it towards the enemy like you'd push a billiard ball." Garfield says, moving beside her, his breath caressing the side of her neck and he wraps his larger hands over hers and thrusts the staff with her.

"And what does that do?" Musa asks, watching the purple dot dissipate.

"We'll try out." Garfield says, moving in front of his girlfriend, who repeats the move, shooting a ball of energy at him. Garfield seizes up before recovering after a few seconds.

"What happened?" Garfield asks, the girl.

"You froze." Musa says.

"If that's what happens every time and it works against burned ones it's a powerful tool." Garfield compliments her.

"How'd you think of it?" Musa asks.

"Lola needed a tool to guide and direct her powers. I just thought about what the result would be if we did the same for you." Garfield says.

"Good thinking." She replies, the two standing extremely close to each other, their eye intensifying the moment between the two.

"Meet me at 7 in the tower." Garfield tells her quietly, Musa eagerly nodding her head before he joins Lola again for training.

|7pm that evening|

"Gar? Are you in there?" Musa asks, knocking on the closed door to the tower's room. She's wearing light blue jeans shorts over some black stockings, white sneakers, and a grey wool pullover while she has her hair down.

"Coming." Her boyfriend's voice is heard through the door and he opens the door to their training spot.

"Come on in." He says with a smile.

"Wow, what's all this? A dinner date?" Musa asks, seeing a couple candles lit around the room and some food prepared on a picknick blanket on the floor in between the yoga mats they often train their mind magic on.

"You look nice. Did you expect something like this?" Garfield asks.

"Maybe." She smirks, her eyes lighting up purple, feeling his love and desire for her.

"Anyways, let's eat." Garfield says, leading the girl to the prepared food and sits down across from her on the other yoga mat once Musa is sitting.

"It's not much sorry, but we're kind of on lockdown due to the burned one crisis at the moment." Garfield apologizes embarrassed, having only been able to get them some food from the cafeteria.

"It's fine. I appreciate the thought at the very least." Musa says, putting one hand on his knee as he's sitting cross legged on the mat.

"So, what brought on the need for this late-night meeting? It's not like we wouldn't have seen each other in an hour." Musa asks.

"I know it'll sound stupid, but we were standing so close during training, but since only your housemates really know about us I couldn't hug you, kiss you or anything." He says sheepishly.

"Sorry. You're only keeping our relationship secret because I can't control my abilities yet." Musa apologizes feeling guilty.

"Maybe, but I'm not usually bothered by it. I don't know why today was different." Garfield says.

"Maybe it was because of me." Musa says timidly.

"What do you mean?" Garfield asks.

"Well when you were being so dominant earlier, with Sky the teachers, anyone really I found that really stimulating." Musa tells him, blushing and only daring to glance at him.

"How would that have affected me? Other than boosting my ego now." He asks clueless what she's getting at.

"Maybe you smelled my pheromones. You have been pretty on edge after Beatrix." Musa says, sliding one hand into his, taking a bite from her food with the other hand.

"Pheromones huh? Heck maybe that's true. Anyways let's just enjoy our dinner for now." He says squeezing her hand thankfully before digging in himself.

After the two finished their meal, chatting and joking around they relocate to the tower's window, opening it and sitting down on the window ledge, Garfield sitting normally on it while Musa is sitting sideways in the large window, her back leaning against his right arm.

"It's really peaceful. You wouldn't expect for burned ones to show themselves soon." Musa remarks.

"Don't worry about them. You've become plenty strong and I won't let anything happen to you anyways." Garfield promises, wrapping his arm around the girl's waist and enters the room again, sitting her down on the inside of the window before locking the door to the tower room and stepping back over to Musa.

He places both hands on either side of her and kisses her, before closing the window and offering his hand to the girl.

"What are you doing Gar?" Musa asks nervously when he motions for her to sit on her mat while he's going around blowing out the candles.

"Just relax. I would never hurt you." He says calmingly, blowing out the last candle, leaving the only light in the room a slight shimmer of the moon trough one window.

Musa sees his body join her on the mat and his hand grabs hers gently, kissing the back of it before he lies down on the mat and pulls her with him.

"Gar, I don't think I'm ready for..." she says, bit Garfield interrupts her, placing a finger on her lips.

"I won't. Let's just sleep." He tells her, brushing through her hair with his other hand while removing the index from her mouth.

"O-OK." She says nervously and tries to lie down next to him comfortably, not succeeding however.

"Here. Sorry." He says, sounding a bit disappointed and moves over to the other mat about 2 meters away.

"How about this?" Musa asks soon after, lying down her mat directly next to his and lies down on it, looking at him in the dark, seeing a pair of green eyes light up.

"I love you." He says timidly, reaching for her hand.

"I love you too." Musa replies, their fingers wrapping around each other's.

"Are you really not going to try to make a move?" Musa asks surprised, having felt his desire for her being very strong.

"I promise." Garfield chuckles, kissing her cheek.

"OK." Musa replies smiling contently and pulls on his arm, pulling him against his back so he's spooning her.

"This feels right." She says, kissing his hand when she feels his surprised gaze from behind her.

"It does." He agrees, holding her close before both slowly drift off to sleep.