trans_9 | In Which Alex Wa s Foolish [Closed, bendytimed before Marriage Planet like whoa.]

Alex peeked into the sensoriums once before walking in fully. He looked around at the area, noting the low level monsters on the field. "S-so... This training s-stuff work and s-stuff...?"

Training in general was just something that Alex never really got used to. He hadn't had the chance to do much training before, and most of that was learning to eat a tiered shadow on his own.

He'd thought about this long and hard, and ultimately come to one important conclusion: he needed more information.

"Okay. Give me the full rundown of everything you can do right now. No holding back," he added, giving Alex a meaningful look.

"Uh... w-well, there's this th-thing with m-my fists, that let's me h-hit a bit harder... An' I c-can let others s-see shadows, and I have th-this tiny-ish shield, that's sorta handy, and an a-all over shield that's really strong... Of c-course there's those t-tendril thingies..." He kept thinking a bit more, trying to remember if he ever used anything beside those.

"Okay. Let's start with the attack powers." They are, after all, more the Overlord's style after all.

"HEY! YOU!" he bellowed over into the crowd. As one, the group of Prinnies turned -- then most of them immediately took a step back, leaving one horrified penguin in the middle of the circle. Reluctantly the Prinny stepped forward.

Zetta settled back into his minion's arms. "Okay, go for it."

Alex gave Zetta a nervous glance before walking forward, drawing on his discomfort with hitting something that appeared to be living to surround his fists. He took a deep breath and threw the hardest punch he could at it.

Which was really not that hard at all, though it felt like his fist was made of stone, or something just as hard, rather than flesh and bone.

The Prinny, being only a Prinny, bowled backwards onto its butt. "Whoa, dood!"

The Overlord watched this impassively, then smirked. "Okay, so strengthening your punches is one. What else you got?"

Alex straightened and looked at Zetta, "E-errr... D-defensive things..."

Unfortunately he didn't realize he could cover his feet with the same material, but even then that wasn't much help.

"All right, let's give that a try. ZETTA BEAM!"

Surprise, Alex! But the Overlord aimed high and to the right, so his shots wouldn't strike Alex no matter how he dodged. He counted on Alex failing to notice that, panicking, and reacting defensively to block it.

Alex shouted in surprise and cowered, throwing up his tier two shield, drawing it from his surprise itself.

It only surrounded him in a loose forcefield, but it was large enough that it stopped a corner of the ZETTA BEAM in it's tracks. He grabbed at his chest, feeling a panic attack coming on from the stress. He tried to subvert it by breathing deeply, but he shouted at Zetta, "Why didn't you warn me!"

"Because I wanted to see what you could do without warning," Zetta said complacently. "It's not like anyone after you for real is going to say, 'Hey Alex, look out for what I'm gonna do to you!' Still, that was a pretty good shield."

Alex took another deep breath and sighed, "Y-yeah, M-Mikel and I w-were trying ta s-see how much d-damage it c-could take."

"Okay, so punching and shields," Zetta said, recapping. "Can you do both at once? Can you use the shield offensively? Does the punching thing actually make your hand any stronger?"

Alex shook his head, "I c-can, but it g-gets progressively harder ta h-handle them. The sh-shield also b-breaks if s-someone inside a-attacks through it, m-making the smaller one th-the only one useful f-for a-actually fighting, wh-while the s-stronger one is g-good for t-total defence."

"Hmm. Sounds like good training to me. Work on extending how long you can do both of them at once..." The book kept thinking, which Zetta could occasionally do competently when it came to ass-kicking. "Can you mess with the strong one's shape?"

Pressing his lips together, Alex thought-which was a lot harder when it had to do with fighting. "A l-little... It's n-not very elastic, b-but I c-can make it f-fit more c-closely..." He didn't like the idea of trying to see how long he could keep the two up, but if it made him stronger then he would try.

"Okay. So the two major areas you need are power control and physical training," Zetta said. "The physical training is easy. That's exercise and practice and all that crap. The power control is where it gets tricky."

Physical training he was supposed to achieve with the help of Zuko, but he wouldn't deny Zetta's help either.

"W-well, the t-tendrils are th-the things that h-have more f-flexibility. I d-don't see why I'd n-need ta re-shape the sh-shield though...

"If you can't attack through it, why not open a hole in it, attack, the close the hole immediately?" Or so went Zetta's line of reasoning. "Besides, you would probably want to do things like shape it to cover a fallen ally or something."

"Well," Alex sighed, "F-from my practice with M-Mikel, o-once I've m-made a hole, it sh-shatters, a-and I c-can't make it outside m-myself. A-and when it b-breaks, I c-can't make it a-again r-right away." They still hadn't figured out exactly how long it was between the times that he could create the shield again, since the number kept changing.

"I-it a-automatically g-goes around a p-person if I w-want it t-to, b-but I d-don't have much c-control on how much s-space it g-gives them."

"Hmm. You're farther through this stuff than I thought," Zetta said approvingly. "So, how about this for a use of your shield you like. Get the automatic cover thing going, then work on expanding the shield to give someone with, I don't know, healing powers or some crap room to work on them."

Alex bit his lip and nodded, forcing the shield to be visible as he forms it around himself and attempts to extend it. It surrounds him like a tinted glass around him. It seemed to bulge and bubble as he pushed it outwards, but just as it seemed to almost have enough room for a second person it shattered and evaporated.

Letting out a long sigh, Alex put his hands on his knees, shaking his head. "I c-can't get it t-ta expand f-for another person unless there's s-someone there..."

"Ordinarily I'd complain about a mental weakness in your technique, but considering it's all based on emotions I guess it kind of comes with the territory." Zetta didn't seem too irritated, anyway. "Let's get you a victim them."

Another of his minions crashed down abruptly behind the already-pummeled Prinny. Before the penguin could even 'dood!' in protest, that minion brought a comically-oversized hammer down on the Prinny's head, then kicked the KOed Prinny over to just in front of Alex.

"There," Zetta said, grinning. "One victim. Now let's see you do it."

Alex shouted, "Hey," before realizing that the Prinny was just a construct. Alex restarted the process, and the shield easily spread around the Prinny. Alex knelt next to it, but it kept it's ridged form. He gently poked the Prinny to see if it would wake up.

"W-well, that's one p-person, b-but it's the third that's r-really hard."

Unbeknownst to him the Prinny's HP meter would be slowly but steadily raising.

"...Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Zetta said.

The Prinny, on the other hand, blinked open its eyes and looked up at Alex curiously.

Alex jumped a bit, having not expected it to get up. "H-huh? I j-just poked it, that's all." He gently pet the creature's head, closing his eyes, trying to manage his anxiety so that it remained at a tier two, but didn't grow past his control. His hands shook a bit as he scratched the Prinny's head gently, but aside from that he seemed in decent control.

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