trans_9 | Training, in various ways...

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Training, in various ways...

After a few days -- weeks -- however long he'd been here, Morgan had finally settled into what he considered to be an adequate training regimen, for those times when he wasn't needed in Medical.

As a general rule, he began his day in the Sensorium, shaping it in the image of the mountaintop dojo he favored. One lone building atop a peak in the midst of a mountain range, lacking walls so the cool, thin air could drift through as he ran through forms and katas. A path wound its way around the peaks, and the frigid springs that formed small lakes and streams that poured off the edges in grand waterfalls. Next to this path ran a series of poles on which he ran, or jumped, when his regimen called for that sort of exercise.

Training in a simulated environment like this was old hat.

After he finished there, it was off to the river, where he (with some effort) persuaded his plantsuit to retract till it resembled closer to a bathing suit than anything. For what felt, at least, like an hour or two, the Akashic stood motionless in the river, submerged up to his neck. Legs spread, arms out, and hair streaming behind him in the current, he meditated. Harmony and moving in tune with the universe were key to his philosophy, after all. The currents, the flow of water around his fingers and limbs, and the silence were magnificent for that sort of understanding.

Then, off to the W.I.T.C.H. bus! Since Kaya had so kindly allowed him use of its training facilities, he made good use of that offer. This section of his training he devoted to melee weapons -- primarily his sword, of course, but he allotted time for other swords, staffs, daggers and knives, and tonfa as well.

And last, perhaps the oddest of all training exercises if one didn't know that to the mind of an Akashic, all things are martial arts: Morgan returned to the sensorium, not to fight or exercise or run, but to play. Electric guitar in hand, voice lifted in defiance of his one-held belief that he simply sounded terrible, and whatever backing was necessary conjured by environment, he rocked out, mixing up from simple guitar covers to lead guitar and vocals in full songs.

That lasted until he was exhausted, satisfied, or -- admittedly -- hit hard enough by nostalgia that continuing became prohibitive. Then it was time to clean up, relax, and see what else he had to do.

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"Ah, shut up," she muttered again, closing her eyes. It was hard for her, to have someone ELSE know who she was, what she looked like under the mask. It wasn't like everyone else who wore a mask: they could demean her, take what she knew and understood the last few years and take that away, make her a child.

She took a long breath, and let her mind be quiet a moment. It was like a Samurai Jack moment for her: there was nothing but stillness, there was nothing but the running water, and there was nothing she could do but relax her body, no insults or back talk.

Without engaging in more mental probing than was entirely proper, he couldn't tell how she was really doing. Instead he watched her body and her motions. If she succeeded -- which wasn't impossible, or even grossly improbable -- then the moment when she stopped being separate from the water and started moving with it would be the clue.

At first, it was hard: in fact, it was one of the hardest things for Hit girl to do, to simply sit and be alone with her mind. There were enough glimpses to scare most psychiatrists: flying bodies, limbs, blood, her father going up in flames. They were things Hit Girl knew instinctively not to dwell on, to keep herself moving. But here, with nothing but her own thoughts, those images came and went, disrupting her concentration. To stare at her, the girl looked, even with her eyes closed, to be at war: she grimaced, flinched, took sharp intakes of breath.

And then she concentrated, long and hard, on what she needed: silence. The water washing over her, the flow of energy undisrupted, she felt a calm starting to envelop her, to ease her tension, and the war within was quieted. Her hands, first over head, then in her lap, now rested comfortable at her knee caps, her palms up. The rush of water falling, falling, seemed to be enough to stabilize her now, and she took a deep breath and then exhaled.

Well, that seems to be going well.

Morgan stood back up, crossing his arms patiently. Impressive that she didn't seem to have much problem focusing... maybe the distraction of the water helped more than it hurt. That could happen sometimes, especially when a mind was so full it needed something mindless to focus on before it could empty.

It was, more so than Mindy would have cared to admit. She would usually have never done something like this, thinking it would be a waste of time and hardly helpful for her. But there was something about the water, abut staying under here, visualizing how people before her kept themselves grounded this way. Without really thinking about it she found herself trancing out, her body dictated only by the inhales and exhales of her breath.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be doing, what was happening, but she was starting to feel in control, focused.

He intuited more than perceived when she began to cross the line into a proper meditative state. He watched for a moment more, then nodded to himself in satisfaction.

It was a weird feeling. She had never even tried to meditate before, at least not in the way most people would talk abut meditation. In actuality, she had been in grounded states for awhile: it was necessary whenever you entered a fight that your head be in the game, that you apply purpose, and right now she was realizing that could happen without the need of a fight. She could just be still, and she would feel the strength and calm she needed coming over her anyway.

She didn't know how much time passed: minutes, seconds? Only that she was transfixed in this state, and felt a kind of strength coming over her.

Curious, Morgan stepped off the bottom and swam around some distance. If he were the one meditating, he would have sensed such a motion from another person, even without using any particular manipulations of his own life force.

"Now you take the time out for a swim." She said this in a teasing voice, as if she had expected Morgan to see if all of her concentration would be lost. This was not the case: Mindy never believed in making herself completely vulnerable. Despite being completely concentrated, she could still FEEL around her, and the vibration in the water changed.

"Well, you sure took to this well," he said, amused. "Guess water does more help than harm for you."

Drenched, cold and focused, Mindy smiled. "I'm not someone that gives up on something just because it seems strange to me. There is a lot of strange shit on this ship: I'm just adjusting."

She got up slowly, looking at her teacher. "How long did it take you to learn what makes you you anyway?"

"Every day of my life, of course. I'm not sure you were asking what you intended to ask," he said, grinning. "If you mean, how long did I take to master what I do, the answer is that I'm so far from mastering it I may never manage. It may be impossible. It's just a matter of distance, more than anything."

"Good answer," Mindy said, shaking her head. She got out of the water, albeit slowly, shaking the water out of her hair. "I was actually hoping you would say something like that. I figure anything worth knowing you can never really say you're finished learning, right? What do you mean by a matter of distance though?"

"It's a journey. I've seen someone far ahead of me -- the greatest martial artist in the world --" Morgan may be exaggerating here, but if he was, it was not by too much -- "and even she can't see the end of the road. But it's easy to see she's far ahead of me!"

"So I guess its going to be a journey for me too huh?" She had guessed that already though: everything she ever did wound up being a journey for her anyway.

"Of course. It's just learning to live life a particular way, after all, and what else is life?"

Wasn't that the grand reason why everything is a journey?

"Beats me." She would be that honest. What did she know about life, the way things flowed into themselves, all of that Eastern influency stuff?

"It's up to your pupil to find the answer anyway, right?'

"Oh yeah, everyone has their own road to walk, etc. etc." He waved a hand dismissively, water flicking around in all directions as he did so. "It's true enough that it's pointless. You start by walking a well-trodden path and learning it, and when you're ready to find your own way you will."

At least he knew that saying something like that would sound trite and totally overdone. "I have a tendency to walk my own path once I know the way into it. So what brings you out here anyway? I figure you'd be someplace else, like the Jedi temple or the statuary something."

"I have no interest whatsoever in that damn temple," he said, half-turning away before his glare ended up focused at her. Touchy, much? He forced out a breath and made himself relax. "I like meditating in the water. Like I said, it's more of a challenge for me."

That damn temple? That was new: in fact, Mindy had doubted there was really anything that could unnerve Morgan unless it was, like, some crazy killing spree murderer or something. The glare definitely through her off.

"What, did you have a bad experience with a Jedi or something?" Yes, Mindy might as well believe they exist on the ship too, which was really kind of cool. She was wondering what made meditating in the water so challenging, but that question could wait for this one.

"With a surprising number of them, if you must know," he said quietly. Whether they existed on the ship or not, he didn't know and didn't care to find out.

Mindy actually looked confused. "But aren't they supposed to be all about balance and the force and all of that stuff? I mean, you seem to be all about the kind of thing they'd be about. I don't mean to bring up bad shit or anything, but what would create bad blood?"

He stood silent in the water for a moment, current pulling his hair out in a long stream as he thought.

"Let me ask you something. Do you believe someone should be punished for what they did in a past life?"

That took her a few minutes to think of herself. One minute they were talking about Jedi's, the next they were talking about past lives. It was a heavy question too, now that she thought about it. But it was also an honest one.

"That depends, I guess. Considering what you've been talking to me about, I might say its bad to hold grudges. Then again, considering what I was up to when I was on Earth, I figure there are some things that have to be answered for, especially if that person hasn't changed."

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