Lyun and Axln quickly found themselves pushed to absolute exhaustion under the strict pressure of Mheridz’s regime. Even within the first official moments of the evening according to the clock, the girls struggled to keep up the intensity of their training, to push forward despite the odds.

At least, to Lyun, that’s what it looked like Axln was doing. Sure, they were both mutually exhausted, but Axln had actually been doing surprisingly well. Training had included a lot of mobility exercises in the ashen waste, several sudden obstacle courses along with outright stamina laps. It was plenty of endurance work, but it was all stuff Axln could at least handling better than Lyun was. Sure, for much of such, she had simply started to blame her elven traits and the stamina that is lacking in the process, though she was starting to worry if some of the blame might have been that she had grown used to having more stamina instead. Maybe some of that was also Axln’s advantage, Conduits ran out of breath far easier than humans did too, this would be more than Kori could have achieved before lightheadedness would have taken over. From there, Mheridz exercised their ability to execute their gift too though, turning the whole thing into reflex training specific to their abilities, tossing a sequence of small spheres that would sparkle with a random color. Powder the red ones with dust and the green ones with frost. Very quickly the red ones were stopped in their passage with a pile of dust, some of them were also coated in frost. A bunch of the green ones didn’t get frosted over until much later in their passage. This was like something elves were supposed to be good at, an idea that frustrated her even more.

She had quickly learned though that Axln was also making use of that circlet she wore, the same one which gave her amazing vision. Cheater. However, even after stopping such and starting to make some mistakes of her own.. Axln was still doing better than Lyun. At a point, she could just feel the ideas in her head, red-red-green-red.. long before the orbs had lit up at all. Axln was pooling suggestions again, which only made Lyun feel even more uncomfortable. She didn’t want help like that, she wanted to be able to do things for herself. At the very least, it did hint that some of Axln’s advantage was that she was somehow deducing which colors the orbs would have before they lit up at all. Axln was a genius, and this just wasn’t fair. When would any of this be designed for her, stuff she could take advantage of. Cybernetics made things unfair too, all she had was her version of the same power gear and.. her legs. Wait, how exactly did Axln out endure her cybernetic running ability again? In this case, it wouldn’t be until much later before Lyun would figure out that Axln had simply been drifting along using some of the functions of the same mentioned power gear that Lyun still didn’t understand. Running was a lot easier when you’re mostly just sliding around.

Target practice would come next, their first opportunity to learn how to actually use an Arbalestae. This would at least be something Lyun was really good with, actually making use of proper instruments. Her choice was a very small and simple version that committed to the light elemental. Even better, being basically light emission, it was practically a beam weapon like the other world, just with a more continuous effect. She drew her weapon and took to a stable posture, taking aim with the best of her ability way faster than Axln. Taking the first moving target for herself, she lanced a beam through the air around her small moving target.. never hitting it once. By the fourth try, they found she had managed to barely graze the small moving target, a slight improvement at least. Axln then took her turn, drawing her much heftier weapon and bracing it to her cybernetic shoulder. Axln's would be a dark elemental which would then have a similar style of impact if not for its different style of projection. Taking aim, she unleashed a wave of shadow that surged forward, totally missed the target, and threw her in a spiral upon her back.

“Okay, not at all what I would have thought a dark weapon to feel like.” “Dark elements aren’t as immaterial as light, you need to account for the substance of shadow.” “Sometimes, all of this elemental stuff just makes no sense at all.” “Okay, look at it this way, the shadows contain substances that pull with unseen forces, which was giving you most of the kick there. You might find it easier to compensate when you consider that dark elements also account for a variety of physical forces, such as gravity.” “Gravity huh? That sounds pretty cool. Can I try that one more time?” Axln prepared her weapon again while Mheridz prepared another target. Taking aim once again, Axln took a deep breath as Mheridz let the target fly. Yet another shadow burst forwards from the shot.. a shot that detonated in mid air, rapidly pulling the target right through it. In the process, Axln still managed to spin to the ground again, but this time she wasn’t alone. Lyun had seen Axln pull this trick enough to know exactly what had occurred, Axln had revised the function of the instrument so that it would detonate with a gravity bomb, vacuuming everything near it in a substantial implosion. This.. this was not fair, not at all.

They had continued with a few extra shots, Axln’s implosions bursting even closer to the target each time while Lyun managed to eventually graze two more targets. Axln's accuracy was amazing.. and it seems she wasn’t even using her vision to compensate. The whole thing was almost just reflex alone, something she had grown used to with her naturally poor vision. Her weapon was visibly a lot more to handle than the one Lyun was using, but Axln was still far better at it. When accounting for her capacity for influencing the function of instruments too, she seemed outright a natural with any of this stuff. At a point, Mheridz started giving them multiple targets to deal with at once, a trial that had left Lyun lucky to nick one of them while Axln had taken out over half. She didn’t even do that with one shot, she had actually grown used to readjusting after the kick, swirling around in a mobile reload, and firing once again. She was an absolute demon with the thing.

Then everything culminated in a mass training session. Spanning over a wide area, they would have to shoot multiple moving targets. However, mixed in the bunch were several non-targets, and they would have to isolate which is which before all of the targets hit the ground. Lyun dashed through the foray, combining desperate attempts to connect while trying to keep up a decent speed. When all of the targets reached the ground, she found she had hit three times. All three hits were on non-targets. Axln was up next, a gust of dust surging forth from her as she prepared her weapon. All of the targets flew, and she was off. A blast of sand erupted from the ground lifting all of the targets slightly up in the process as she started her twirl. On the first explosion, two targets faded, and several near it bounced upwards. A second shot, a second area. The targets stayed floating for half a moment before the last non-target hit the ground.

“Hey!! That’s cheating! You.. you made them float more.” “Mheridz wanted us to put all of those lessons into practice, including the one where we used our gift. Making a sandstorm that kept things going would then only work in my favour, right? I guess I might have been a bit slow, but I don’t think I missed any of them.” Lyun was even more miffed when she learned that Axln had actually achieved perfect accuracy with her spiral. Every last target was gone, every non-target was left untouched except for a coat of dust. Lyun had rightfully gotten a second chance to try her own hand at the same process, but all she achieved was making a few icy spikes around the ground while hitting absolutely nothing. Frustration setting in, Lyun caught Mheridz smiling at her growing despair. Oh, of course the woman just wanted her to give up, she would get the opposite of sympathy there. It would be easier to scoff such disrespect if it weren’t for the fact that Lyun truly believed she should have been capable of so much more. It wasn’t fair that Axln was so much better at all of this than Lyun, but it didn’t make sense to Lyun that she herself was this bad at everything either. Why in all the hells was she always this useless?

“So, random exercises are fine, but why are we not doing any mock battles?” “Easy, two good reasons. First off, it wouldn’t exactly be in my best interests if you two got better at attacking people, so let's not start encouraging that one. Secondly, if I actually did anything that might look potentially threatening, Luna would be all over me for it. I know very well how that thing responds to threats to her chosen recipients, I’m not supid.” “Wait, but didn’t you send a large force to attack the academy that one time, which got Luna angry.” “Actually no, that was all the rest of the foundry getting uptight about the academy. I was there trying to tell them that the whole idea was really, really stupid. None of them listened, of course, they couldn’t see any reason to fear things beneath the foundry. I was there waiting for them when you sent them packing back home, absolutely not surprised. Honestly, it’s almost a shame that moment wasn’t recorded in history, but the foundry was probably in a hurry to have it forgotten.” Axln nodded in reflection, seeing how that might have played out for Mheridz. However, at that time, Mheridz would have been the only one with such knowledge of what would happen if Luna was pushed into taking action. Of course, Mheridz would have felt desperate back then, with the book so close to being read, but no one would have understood such desperation. To them, there were direct solutions that would deal with such problems, solutions that would have prevented her from taking any sensible actions instead. She had still remained calm enough to not do anything stupid herself too, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to make a smart move either.

“Okay, so time to move on to our next exercise. Maybe we should practice dragging heavy cargo across the dunes.” “Clearly this is revenge for exposing your timely secrets.” “What? Are you complaining then or something? If you want to give up, just let me know, we can start going over the details of the citadel or something. Easy way out, right?” “Just shut up and show me what I’m going to be carrying.” Mheridz’s dreadful training continued in much of the same light straight into the shadows of night, Axln staying strong through the entire ordeal. Lyun however stayed quiet, her own thoughts experiencing much more conflict. Lyun would have been on the verge of just giving into Mheridz right then and there.. if not for Axln’s composure. If Axln was going to keep going, how could Lyun stop there? However, Axln could keep going because she really was this remarkable. In considering such, it dawned on Lyun that she simply could not compare her own lesser accomplishments to someone as skilled as Axln. At that discovery, she stopped paying attention to exactly how much Axln achieved, and simply focused on what she herself could do.

On a more challenging obstacle course, she managed to reach the end slightly faster than previously while also making two fewer mistakes in the process. In reflex training, she managed to get three fewer false targets and hit two additional targets almost a full uyn sooner than normal. In target practice, she managed to grace four extra targets, two of them being actually targets. All through, she found herself slightly less stressed out. Of course, much like anyone else, she knew her stress levels were a problem, she was always quick to panic when things were going especially bad. That always led to her making mistakes, and was itself probably her biggest problem through all this. Conflict though was all about stress, panicking would always be easy for her. This had haunted her for her whole life, was why she generally avoided people, and possibly was even her biggest hurdle in instrumentation.

Thinking back upon that idea though, she had suddenly accomplished so much with instrumentation of late, things absolutely remarkable for most people. However, much of it she couldn’t take credit for, Axln had always been there to help. Axln though.. didn’t actually make anything. Her’s was the plan that Lyun simply followed, the problem solving process addressed for her so that she could simply work far more relaxed. Axln's greatest ability was her potential to simply solve problems, a task which ritualistically broke Lyun. Axln was the great thinker, Lyun was far more skilled with the doing instead. That however didn’t help her here, she was here to learn, to face stress directly. This was simply more than she could handle, which was why she was performing so poorly. She simply had no potential in combat as a result of this flaw, that was all there was to it. This was why everyone had always needed to come to her aid when she was in trouble, it was simply inevitable.

At this point, she lost complete interest in the capacity of her own performance. Technically, this was all a waste of time for her, she was only here to support Axln’s training. Only faintly paying attention to her own actions, she turned her thoughts towards what she would need to do come dawn. She would just get in the way if she took to the field for that venture, so maybe her time would be better spent in the outpost? Luna was still a very important asset in combat and defense, but completely not viable for the front lines. Maybe she should direct her attention at that point to working directly with Luna, the two of them could work things out. That did put her into the planning table instead of the action, but there wasn’t any help for that. Certainly, this would at least put her in a position to work directly with some of the major weapons in the upcoming battle. She could then make sure everything was working properly so that Axln could get everything done in the field. Maybe.. that would be the best use of her potential after all.

“Okay, I admit that even I’m getting tired out here, and I’ve hardly done much more than setup and instruction. You two should have a basic idea on where you stand with your current abilities, enough to at least have a slight advantage come dawn. Feel free to practice on your own though before dawn, especially if you decide to stay up all night. Try to be early at least, I don’t know the exact time our enemy is going to decide to show up, I just know this fight goes down in history as being the first encounter of something greater. The wardens will also be there, under my command, as we put this whole thing behind us. While fighting, please keep in mind that this is still only the beginning, this will constantly get worse until we’re overwhelmed. I’ll be available to take your surrenders after we deal with this next threat.” Mheridz unexpectedly brought their training to a close, even though it really was getting quite late. With exception to a couple of very short breaks, they had been doing training for a complete one hundred moment block. Axln and Lyun were pretty wiped out, so they took their relief getting a moment to just sit around. Mheridz didn’t feel the need to stick around, she had other things to deal with in preparation for dawn, so Mheridz promptly returned to look into how the wardens were doing.

On her way back, Mheridz took account of the performance of her two students. Axln, of course, had been a quick study, having done remarkably well after some initial hiccups. Lyun however was a completely different case. The girl had started off a complete disaster, without much signs of improvement either. At a point though, the girl seemed to relax slightly, doing a bit better. However, there came a point when it honestly seemed as if Lyun had completely stopped paying attention. Her obstacle course runs had suffered slowdowns as a result.. but were as flawless as a spectacular dance. Four times during reflex training, she had tried testing Axln with options that didn’t even light up colors, just to see if Axln could tell what color they were going to be if they did light up. Axln had gotten those mostly right, but at one point Mheridz had used the same settings with Lyun.. who had also gotten it absolutely right, just a lot slower. During target practice, Lyun had frozen the targets so completely that Mheridz had wondered if Axln had been suspending time. Sure, hitting targets had still taken a while, but she managed to get every single target before disinterest had her frost completely crush every last remaining non-target. It was obvious that disinterest had suddenly impaired much of her accomplishments, just as it was obvious that letting herself go had yielded quite the demonstration of potential. Mheridz always knew that Lyun was absolutely horrible with stress, but not just because of the mistakes she made while stressed, there was also just how much Lyun could accomplish while unfettered by stress.

After a long break, Axln was still compelled to do a bit of private practice, even though Lyun just opted to watch. Watch, not even paying attention, Lyun was more accurately staring in Axln’s generic direction while paying attention to nothing at all. Maybe she could help by doing some fine touches to their weapons overnight, she was much better with such instrumentation work. If she had enough time, maybe Axln would be fine with swapping over and letting her make some adjustments to their weapons there too. Well, mostly Axln’s weapons, those were a bit more important than her own. Axln’s choices had some of the worst kick back ever, making them pretty hard to handle. They were also really slow, even if powerful. Thinking about such problems though, she wasn’t certain about the most functional ways to adjust such things. Axln had quite seriously appeared very used to being thrown back during every shot, and was making the most of it in the process. The thing was slow, but fixing that would cost it some of the power that Axln was making such great use from. Lyun’s choices weren’t anything the same, being considerably stable and very fast. Her problem in turn was how absolutely horrible her accuracy was. However, if she wasn’t about to participate on the front lines, that wasn’t a concern either. Overall, it simply left Lyun uncertain how she would be capable of being much help at all.

As night took its claim over the world, the two of them decided that it might at least be better to practice in a place where people would be capable of sleeping. Foremost though, they would themselves call it a night first on the other side, both of them extraordinarily tired. Rosa had grown used to the patterns of suspended slumber, so she was well prepared to be the first one awake once again. This time though, they were practically camping outdoors, giving her plenty of space to wander around while the rest of the world was left frozen. Wandering out into the snowy fields, around the same location they had been training, Rosa took into consideration all of the stuff they had done. She could still imagine the obstacle course, how it was all laid out, visually picturing every last detail. She took up some of the course for herself, gauging the difference in how it felt to run the same gauntlet as a human. Of course, even a short excursion was far less exhausting for her as Rosa than as Lyun, one of the things that had main training all the more complicated. Every quarter day almost, they were switching between worlds, which thus left her switching between two bodies, each being slightly different. Grasping her limits was then even harder, because of that shift in perspective.

She ran her glove through the suspended snow waiting to fall, realizing that even this was a difference. Lyun had a great affinity for the cold, but Rosa had no way to actually manipulate the frost. Even if she exchanged the world’s laws, Rosa did not have the same gifted blood either, leaving her still with different circumstances. As Lyun, though, she had never put much value into her gift, instrumentation had always been superior. That was however never more true than in this world, a world without the gift at all, where technology was everything. Adjusting to this world thus only made impressions of the gift feel even more distant, there really wasn’t any comparison. Stuff like this made everything so much harder, adjusting to dramatic facets of herself in two parallels. Such thoughts were her considerations as she waited there, playing with the suspended snow that still waited to fall.

Eventually though, after enough waiting, Rosa discovered the snow had resumed its natural falling rate. After pooling the idea that she would be heading right back, she returned to where Kori was waiting. The plan however quickly became some more considerations for training, just this time on this side. Kori quickly however discovered the complications Rosa had just gone over. Running a course as a conduit wasn’t the same as doing it as a human, let alone doing it without the power gear they had. Reflex training wasn’t the same when you weren’t exactly using the gift and when the sort of information to be reflexive about was not only different, but the ways it was recognized was also different. Target practice didn’t exactly work the same way either, not just because of their subtle abuse of the gift, but also because their weapons were dramatically different.

Even so, Rosa watched Kori set up a rudimentary course and try to run it anyway. Kori did considerably worse in the process, not only having a fairly poor course but also by being much slower to run around and running out of breath much faster. Reflex training wasn’t even possible. Target practice involved her stumbling with her plasma rifle a few times, the spherical projectile not even doing a fragment of what her dark wave graviton arbalestae had done, in fact her handling had gotten even worse again. Rosa made a try for herself at least, feeling guilty watching Kori make a fool of herself. She projected the entire course as halos as she ran, while otherwise projecting herself along her own course with other halos.. actually fairly easily. In consideration of that, she managed to work with Holi to get some reflex training actually in order, using holo projections of her own to stop the targets she selected. She was really fast in doing so, but not completely accurate in the process. Target practice though, that she found to still be reasonably difficult with a rapid fire ionic weapon, as her accuracy was still garbage. Her weapon handling though was considerably better than what Kori was capable of.

Night time training proved far less fruitful as a result of such discoveries to Rosa. Rosa even lost interest fairly quickly, not feeling the whole process as an accurate simulation of what they would be facing come dawn. Kori however did not give up, taking upon the change of circumstances as an extended challenge with which to test her skills upon. Trying to find ways to reduce the waste of unnecessary movement was easier when movement itself was more taxing. Trying to replicate Rosa’s reflex training process also gave her some practice at staying focused, as holos had no tell-tale sign on what sort of real identity they might have. She even took account of how her change of weapon really impacted how firing worked, the spherical blast on contact being quite different from the wave burst.. but giving her ideas on gravitation effects and letting her practice with such explosive force. The limitations made things harder, but they would also teach her more. However, as Rosa watched, Kori really didn’t seem to be making much of a difference, leaving her fairly worried about the coming dawn.

Within a matter of hours, it was finally time again for them to return to the battlefield. Knowing their training time had run out, the two of them returned to the other world for a suspended time of sleep.