fandomhigh | Fighting With Powers [Monday, Fourth Period]

The Danger Shop was set up to look and feel like a warm spring day in a nice open grassy field. Max could have picked just about anything with space to move in, but it amused him to go for something incongruous with the actual weather.

Again his voice was loud, but at least they were outside so the effect wasn't quite as bad as it had been last week. "Welcome back to Fighting With Powers. Last week we talked a bit about what each of us is capable of. This week we're going to take that and put it into practice."

Max took nearly an entire minute to study each of his students in turn. Eventually he nodded, more to himself than to them. "Since I want as much time as possible to evaluate each of you, there's no lecture or anything today. We're going straight to today's exercise."

"The activity comes in two parts. First, each of you will spar with me for a couple of minutes. This will allow me to really gauge what you already know and what you can do while allowing your fellow students to get a feel for the same thing. Then you'll break into pairs and practice with one another. Try to pick a partner who can teach you something, or at least challenge you with a power or technique you haven't dealt with before."

Any questions? No, of course not. Good.

"That's it. Let's get started."

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"That's completely fine," Max smiled. "Why don't you see how well that works?" He already knew he could at least generally follow someone under a sight shield by tracking their emotions.

And with that he started stalking toward her, hand extended to grab her shoulder.

Cassidy nodded and pulled up a sight shield. Once she had it up, she tried to slip to the right.

Max turned to face her, moving slowly forward. Mostly because he wasn't entirely sure where she was beyond a general direction.

Puzzled that he had went in the same direction as she had, Cassidy stopped, moved back and then went to the left of him.

Again he turned toward her, smiling enigmatically. Having someone counter your abilities was so much worse when you didn't know how they were doing it.

Cassidy shook her head and dropped the sight shield. "Kind of useless to waste power using something to hide you if someone can still tell you're there," she said with a grin as she backed up again.

"How much power does it take you to do that?" Max asked, still moving forward.

Cassidy was watching him so she stepped sideways, not wanting to get trapped against a wall.

"It doesn't take a lot of power, depend what level I'm using. However, if I was trying to hold that up and my protective shield and protect myself, it would probably start eating away at my power."

Max nodded.

"First lesson, then. Don't assume that something doesn't work just because it doesn't work the way you expect it to. When you're using a sight shield I only know where you are in a general sense. I don't know what you're holding, or how you're standing. Those are advantages that you shouldn't underestimate."

Cassidy flushed with embarrassment and then nodded. "I didn't even consider that. I just assumed that you knew. I'll have to work on that then."

"I wanted you to assume. It can be a useful thing in a fight."

He smiled slightly. "Now, back to it."

Cassidy nodded and watched to see what he would do next.

This was a lot different than facing off with her brother.

Max paused, standing there for a second to let her relax a bit. Then he rushed forward, reaching out to grab her arm.

Cassidy had been surprised, so she didn't dodge out of the way fast enough.

"Well, damn."

"That's how you'll respond to someone grabbing you?" Max asked. "Standing there and swearing?" He didn't sound impressed.

She shook her head. "But you're my teacher," she tried to explain. "It goes against Protocol for me to attack my teacher."

Oh Cassidy.

"You're going to have to learn to do it in this class," Max warned her. "Otherwise you won't learn anything."

Her reluctance to strike out at her teacher was probably all over her face.

Then she raised her free hand and fired a blast of power at his arm that was connected to the hand he had grabbed her with. At the same time she tried to jerk her arm free.

She didn't use her strongest blast, just the amount that she would use on her brother if he was trying to tackle her.

Max just narrowed his eyes. Really?

Frowning, Cassidy fired another, slightly stronger blast at his hand while trying to kick him in the leg.

"Better," Max told her, knee bending slightly and forcing him to step back.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Cassidy fired a blast of power at the leg she had kicked and again tried to jerk her arm free.

Max let go of her arm as his knee twisted and he went down.

"Much better."

The Queen in her wanted to help and make sure he was okay, and that she hadn't hurt him.

The student in her was glad that she had been able to do what he had wanted her to do.

Compromising with the two, she stayed standing back and bit her lip. "Did I hurt you?"