Over the next few weeks, Keela learned to read, learned to spar, learned to run efficiently, escape efficiently and how to fight with a dagger. Grueling training resulted in more than a few wounds that were healed promptly. Bertaut was kind but also a strict teacher. His face almost never changed, always stoically observing. After a bit of strength training, which had Keela doing sit ups upside down, Bertaut motioned her to get down.

“Sit down, I have to tell you something important”, he said, sitting on the usual stool.

Keela sat, curious but wary.

“I have more than one affinity, which is rare but not unheard of. When I said you fit my criteria I didn’t tell the whole truth. I didn’t lie… but I omitted that I had the same affinity as you do. It was important because I had to teach you things about it because it is quite uncommon”, he said, snapping his fingers, making lightning course along them.

“I’m not too surprised, I had a feeling I didn’t get the whole truth but I wasn’t going to push for it; I was grateful enough”, she replied, pulling a knee up to rest her cheek on.

“Right. So let me teach you how to control it. How does the lightning feel to you?”

“Like energy accumulating at the tip of my fingers.”

“Focus on the energy part. You want to visualize that current going through your nerves and bunching up at the edges. You want to focus on that current so you can control the amount. It all stems from your heart.”

Keela frowned and focused, searching her body for this so-called core. As she tried mimicking the usual feeling she got when she snapped, she focused on the process, finding the thread of current going to her index. She followed it up, not losing the feeling and found a mass of energy in the middle of her chest. Focusing once more, she drew from it, pushing the energy to all of her fingers, making a web of lightning between her extended fingers.

“Like this?” she asked, waving her hand about.

“Yes”, replied Bertaut, frowning; one of his rare expressions.

“Something wrong?”

“You caught on unusually fast.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

Over the next few hours, Keela worked on her control over her own energy, managing to output enough to deliver a sizable shock when in contact with the surface at the end of training. The two of them bid each other goodbye and Keela headed home. On her way home, a few blocks away from the house, she overheard a group of men talking rather rowdily and a woman complaining in return. Furrowing her brow, she turned the corner to the alleyway the noise came from. She thought she recognized the female voice and hoped she was wrong. Alas, she saw Velka being accosted by four men of sizable build. Strutting up to the conflict, she raised her voice as she was within earshot.

“Is there something wrong here?” she asked, waltzing up with her hands in her pockets.

“Get lost”, replied one of the men, not averting his gaze from the bunny eared girl.

“I believe you didn’t hear me. I asked if something was wrong.”

“And I told you to get lost lady, piss off if you don’t want trouble.”

Velka looked at Keela with a look that told her to run and let her take the beating. But Keela wanted to test her new abilities and didn’t want her to be hurt. So she stepped up to one of the men, who quickly turned around and tried to punch her to the head. Keela saw the hit coming; this man was a lot slower and way more predictable than Bertaut. She parried the hit, deflecting it to the side of her head, punching the man in the gut and delivering a shock at full force, making a resounding thunderclap echo in the alleyway. The man screamed in pain and suddenly fell unconscious, rousing suspicion from the other three along with surprise from Velka.

“I don’t think y’all heard me so let me ask again. Are we going to have a problem here?” she asked, shrugging.

The rest became a touch blurry. Two of the men came at her, swinging wide while the other attempted a tackle; which encountered half success as Keela elbowed him to the back of the head. While she was distracted however, one of the other men hit her on the side of the head, making her dazed. When she came back to her senses, she barely deflected the dagger coming at her gut, getting a slight cut on her flank. Following the deflect, she kicked the man to the side of the back of the knees, making him trip. She followed up with a quick axe kick, her heel making contact with the back of his head, knocking him out proper. The last one charged at her so she stepped out of the way, tripping him and grabbing his head, delivering a swift shock to make him fall unconscious.

As the battle finished, Velka jumped at Keela, hugging her tightly. Although a tad uncomfortable, Keela returned the hug shyly, patting her on the back.

“Thank you so much…” said Velka, crying onto Keela’s shoulder.

“Don’t mention it. Now that this is done let’s go home and forget about it, yeah?” replied Keela, pulling away from the hug.

“Yeah…”

The two of them headed home, leaving behind four men with damaged egos.