Mentored Training 9

Along with everything else, Olivia has Paige gather up all the sand that we ordered for her training session. The terramancer dumps it all into a small pile in front of Mia. “Paige, raise up all the sand and have it hover in front of Mia.” Our teacher instructs. The goth girl nods and does so. “Good. Now Mia, use your air control to spread out the sand grains and blow them all that way.” Olivia says, indicating a direction far away from us.

Mia does so, and it creates a sandstorm like effect. The grains of sand rush through the air, distorting the world and whipping through the atmosphere. I can see how just a relatively small patch of sand can be used to great effect like this. Our teacher nods in approval. “In a sandy environment, the two of you can work together to make sandstorms such as this.”

Mia shares an excited look with Paige. “This is pretty effective on its own, however, consider: imagine if those grains of sand you just made into a sandstorm, were instead a chemical weapon, such as mustard gas, or a herbicide like agent orange.” Olivia says, and we fall into a grim silence.

The seriousness of that suggestion sets in. Using Mia’s powers to make chemical weapons more effective? It’s a brutal tactic, and as our teacher has already described it, inhumane. The idea makes me want to gag, it leaves an awful taste in my mouth, and I can feel Ivy’s mind running on exactly the same track.

After the talk on chemical weapons, Olivia has me store each of the compounds in my inventory, which I do so happily. I’m quite content to let the magical storage take the danger of storing those chemicals, rather than my home. My inventory is filling up a bit and I realise I should probably look into expanding it somehow. I file that away for later.

The next exercise that Olivia puts to Mia is meditation, similar to how she did for Paige. Olivia guides the aeromancer gently, helping her learn how to feel changes in the air current and atmosphere. Mia listens and learns, patient and doing her best to master this exercise. Our teacher once again makes us stand in different positions around our girlfriend, so she can sense us through the wind.

We repeat the exercise until Mia gets just as proficient as Paige is, being able to point to us and figure out which one of us is standing in a certain spot. We even test if she can sense us waving our hands, and we find that she can. Her effective range of sensitivity is only a few metres, but it’s still a really cool ability nonetheless.

After the meditation and sensory exercise, Olivia gives us a lecture on another property of magic: how it can affect people internally. “The most important thing to remember is everybody has a natural internal magic resistance. The more powerful you are, the stronger it is. This resistance means that it is extremely difficult to affect an abyssal internally with your magic.”

“However, another thing to remember is that the more powerful you are in relation to somebody else, the easier time you have overcoming the internal magic resistance of that person. An air mage such as yourself Mia, has a lot of options in the case that you can overcome somebody’s internal magic resistance. They are all quite gory and barbaric, and usually other options are better. But, they may be necessary.” Mia nods at her words.

“For example, imagine taking the forcefully out of somebody’s lungs.” Olivia suggests, and my mind automatically goes to my breathing. It would not be a pleasant experience to have that happen. “Or doing the opposite, forcefully shoving air into somebody until they **** or burst.” Our teacher continues, and Ivy shudders at the idea.

“Mia, your powers are very potent. We do not know the full extent of them, but you have the potential to be extremely destructive, on both a small and large scale. Surrounding somebody with a toxic gas cloud to subdue or kill them, or you could potentially create a tornado. Your fast windspeeds can already deal a lot of damage, and that is even without refining it.” Olivia says.

“It would take a massive difference in power to overcome the natural magic resistance of another person, and it is just as well it would. I would estimate at our power level that only a god would be able to do something like that, so it is not likely we will ever have to worry about it. However, if we get much stronger, that may be an option to us for the weakest members of the abyss.”

“Once more, in that situation, there would usually be better options that are less barbaric and torturous. However, knowing the full extent of your powers and their uses is quite important.” Our teacher lectures, and we all nod our heads. The idea of a water mage being able to rip out all the water in my body comes into my head, and I chase it away quickly. It’s not a pretty thought and I’m quite thankful for the internal magic resistance Olivia mentioned.

With that lecture done, Olivia sets Mia to testing what destruction she can create on a large scale. The wind whips and howls around us as Mia concentrates on using her powers to the fullest. Trees are ripped from the ground around the forest, sent flying and crashing into each other. “Holy shit! My dad never would’ve let me learn this!” Mia cackles, redoubling her efforts to destroy the environment.

I hear the skittering of the creatures living in the forest relocating away from the howling destruction, and I’m really hoping none of them get hurt. “Nobody’s gonna touch us now, YEAHHHH!” Mia yells happily. As the wind rushes around us, it becomes a little harder to breathe, just by virtue of how fast the air is going. I step back and my girlfriends follow me, outside Mia’s area of effect.

Olivia lets her continue for a few more seconds before she calls a halt to the generalised and indiscriminate razing of the forest. After some quick instructions from our teacher, Mia gets to work on trying to create a tornado. The principle is easy enough: spinning air that has a mixture of cold and warm currents.

In practice, it’s a little more difficult than that. Mia has to learn to manipulate the air in such a way that it becomes a self sustaining vortex. Spinning air around really quickly is easy enough for her, but unless she creates the right conditions, she has to keep putting energy into it for it to work. She has the potential to be able to make a self sustaining tornado, so Olivia says, but she’ll have to practice it.

With enough practice, she manages to make one that sustains itself for a few seconds before dissipating. We’re all keenly aware that this is quite a dangerous game to play, but we’re all confident that we’re sturdy enough to be okay if something happens. The principle of dissipating a tornado is also much simpler for Mia to handle: stop the airflow, and it’s gone. Worst case scenario, Mia can stop it easily.

Olivia finishes up Mia’s lessons for the time being. By now I know that we’ll have to practice a lot more, both individually and together. I’m not sure how much I’ll need to do, considering my spells are much more rigid than any of the others, and they don’t allow for too much flexibility or freeform control, not the same way Skylar, Mia or Paige have. But practice will be necessary nonetheless.

We’ve been outside practicing for hours by now, we’ve torn up the landscape and I’ve reset it more times than I can count. Our teacher calls a break for lunch by that point. This is tiring work and it can be boring, but Olivia stresses the need for each of us to know the others’ capabilities. We all need to be aware of what we can all do, so we can figure out how to work best as a team.

Mia and Ivy whip us up a quick, but delicious and healthy lunch. While we’re eating, we talk about different ideas amongst ourselves for combining our power. The idea of Mia using her wind to extend the range of my freezing spells comes up, and while I’m not sure how well it’ll work, it’s something we can definitely test at some point.

During lunch, Mia floats the idea of Elsa coming over tomorrow to study the barrier. We all agree that it’d be nice to have a bit of a break and hang out with the Fateweaver, so we agree. I find myself looking forward to seeing her again, and seeing what observations she can learn from our barrier. Mia nods, texting Elsa back to let her know that we’re all good with it.