began again. Both trailblazers were a flurry of arms
and occasional kicks, with Emily pressing Bo through her Yetu and him pressing
her through his consistent ‘semi-Yetu’ that his Sav gave him. Bo won out on
most of their head to heads, but Emily got him enough times to give him a
feeling of where he was weak, as well as giving him a wealth of practice just
moving that fast.
Everyone else was always slower than him and would
fatigue with time, mainly from them being punch drunk, but her ability to come
back at him and put him on the defensive also allowed her a moment to collect
herself, thus extending their sparring to the length that both of them gained
considerable experience from.
Sweat soaked to the point of dripping onto the mats
and making them slippery with tiny puddles, Emily finally raised a hand and
called it quits when Bo motioned for her to come at him again.
“Enough for today,” she said, standing up straight and
pulling her hair tie off. Several strands had escaped it and she put them back
into place, reforming her telltale short ponytail.
“Slacker,” Bo joked, but his arms were starting to get
a little sore anyway from all the blocking. “Where you headed?”
“Pool. My swimming scores are
pulling down my levels. Aquatics is my bane right
now.”
“I’m headed to the simulator for the next hour. Aerial
is pulling me down and I’m sitting on level 99 by a hair. I really want
padawan.”
“Same here, but I’m still at 98,” she said, referring
to the change they’d made in the Archon ranks. What had been mage was now
padawan, with it being required before any sharing of psionics would take
place…except for the trailblazers and some of the higher ranking second gens.
The idea was that when you hit padawan you’d be paired with a mage or higher,
which would be the next level up, but since there weren’t any ‘masters’ to
train the padawans they were making exceptions for
themselves.
Such was the roll of a trailblazer. You never had
anyone to learn from, you were always the ones doing the figuring out and
building…with those that came after you reaping the benefits. And in order to
make those advancements the trailblazers needed the sharing now, even with only
12 of them having earned the padawan rank and its dark brown armor, with the
dark blue being shifted up with the mage rank. That had been Greg’s little
wrinkle, which Paul heavily applauded due to it being the color of Jedi robes,
all of which had happened before they’d left and the eight of them had sealed
themselves away to focus on this exploratory training.
The up side was that they expected to catch up to the
existing padawans , and earning that title was the
first step towards doing so. Intense training trumped field work training any
day, which meant that Emily and Bo were going to be catching up to Paul and
Morgan eventually…or at least that was the hope. Right now they were just
getting started and still strikers, but the furious pace that they were
developing was going to start eating into their lead, and for Bo he was nearing
the transitional threshold already…with Aerial being his weakness and the
Archon levels being measured strictly by your weakest area, making them a gage
of multi-tasking ability rather than strengths.
Bo’s hand to hand scores were already padawan level
23, and some of the other trailblazers had even higher marks…such as Paul’s
naval scores. All the Archons wanted to advance their levels, which meant
training in all areas, but some of the second gens skewed their efforts towards
one area, creating a strength that was on par with some of the trailblazers
while neglecting others. Bo respected that approach, but wouldn’t emulate it,
for he hated weaknesses.
He also wanted the new armor, which while he wouldn’t
have much use for in training he knew he needed to get used to the telepathic
interface. The striker armor was remaining the same, save for a few tweaks,
while the
and occasional kicks, with Emily pressing Bo through her Yetu and him pressing
her through his consistent ‘semi-Yetu’ that his Sav gave him. Bo won out on
most of their head to heads, but Emily got him enough times to give him a
feeling of where he was weak, as well as giving him a wealth of practice just
moving that fast.
Everyone else was always slower than him and would
fatigue with time, mainly from them being punch drunk, but her ability to come
back at him and put him on the defensive also allowed her a moment to collect
herself, thus extending their sparring to the length that both of them gained
considerable experience from.
Sweat soaked to the point of dripping onto the mats
and making them slippery with tiny puddles, Emily finally raised a hand and
called it quits when Bo motioned for her to come at him again.
“Enough for today,” she said, standing up straight and
pulling her hair tie off. Several strands had escaped it and she put them back
into place, reforming her telltale short ponytail.
“Slacker,” Bo joked, but his arms were starting to get
a little sore anyway from all the blocking. “Where you headed?”
“Pool. My swimming scores are
pulling down my levels. Aquatics is my bane right
now.”
“I’m headed to the simulator for the next hour. Aerial
is pulling me down and I’m sitting on level 99 by a hair. I really want
padawan.”
“Same here, but I’m still at 98,” she said, referring
to the change they’d made in the Archon ranks. What had been mage was now
padawan, with it being required before any sharing of psionics would take
place…except for the trailblazers and some of the higher ranking second gens.
The idea was that when you hit padawan you’d be paired with a mage or higher,
which would be the next level up, but since there weren’t any ‘masters’ to
train the padawans they were making exceptions for
themselves.
Such was the roll of a trailblazer. You never had
anyone to learn from, you were always the ones doing the figuring out and
building…with those that came after you reaping the benefits. And in order to
make those advancements the trailblazers needed the sharing now, even with only
12 of them having earned the padawan rank and its dark brown armor, with the
dark blue being shifted up with the mage rank. That had been Greg’s little
wrinkle, which Paul heavily applauded due to it being the color of Jedi robes,
all of which had happened before they’d left and the eight of them had sealed
themselves away to focus on this exploratory training.
The up side was that they expected to catch up to the
existing padawans , and earning that title was the
first step towards doing so. Intense training trumped field work training any
day, which meant that Emily and Bo were going to be catching up to Paul and
Morgan eventually…or at least that was the hope. Right now they were just
getting started and still strikers, but the furious pace that they were
developing was going to start eating into their lead, and for Bo he was nearing
the transitional threshold already…with Aerial being his weakness and the
Archon levels being measured strictly by your weakest area, making them a gage
of multi-tasking ability rather than strengths.
Bo’s hand to hand scores were already padawan level
23, and some of the other trailblazers had even higher marks…such as Paul’s
naval scores. All the Archons wanted to advance their levels, which meant
training in all areas, but some of the second gens skewed their efforts towards
one area, creating a strength that was on par with some of the trailblazers
while neglecting others. Bo respected that approach, but wouldn’t emulate it,
for he hated weaknesses.
He also wanted the new armor, which while he wouldn’t
have much use for in training he knew he needed to get used to the telepathic
interface. The striker armor was remaining the same, save for a few tweaks,
while the
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