Training Part Deux

Larissa walked out into the middle of the field, looking at the grass that was finally beginning to come back after a hard winter. The snow was finally gone and the temperatures began to rise as spring filled the air. It was a beautiful Saturday to come out and just enjoy the sun, but Larissa knew that she had to practice. She had walked out here with Danny which was calming, but she dreaded trying to practice with so many people on campus. The past couple of times they tried to do this, they always got interrupted by others, some of whom tried to start a fight and some others who succeeded in starting one. Was everyone on campus always that violent?

Still wrapped up in a light coat, she turned around to see if Daniel was following. There was no way she was coming out here by herself, and he had agreed to come out here to train a bit. She needed to learn how to control her power, anyway, and he knew how to do that. "How do we want to start?" she asked, wondering how to start practicing.

Danny followed his sister out to the field. Hopefully people wouldn't come out here in interrupt them. He would rather not deter someone from fighting. Well now that the twins were together, it would be hard to easily defeat them. He could easily use his gift to his will, but he lacked the power.. Where as Rissa had the power but lacked the ability to control her gift all that well.

When they reached the field, he paused a decent distance away from his sister. "Well, I'm not really sure.." He wasn't exactly sure how he was able to control his gift so well.. Was it because he was pretty much calm most of the time? Or well.. his mind was mostly clear? "I guess you need to start with keeping your mind clear?" He shrugged. He wasn't completely sure on it.

"Not sure?" she repeated with a small giggle. "Come on, Danny! You know how it works better than I do..." she whined, her shoulders slumping before she crossed her arms in front of her chest as she listened to him continue. "Keep my mind clear? Okay." The girl took a deep breath as she swung her arms around a minute, trying to loosen up her body. She held out her hand and tried to clear her mind, but it ended up being more difficult than she was expecting. Closing her eyes, she focused hard. At first, she thought that she felt something, but as soon as she opened her eyes again, she realized that nothing happened. The only thing happening was her hand was getting warm from being in the sun. Immediately, she dropped her hand and groaned, looking back at Daniel. "Did I do something wrong? It's not working..."

Danny shuffled in his spot for a moment. He really didn't know how to explain it. It was just so easy for him to summon his energy to his hand. "Well... Keeping you're mind clear of things is important..." He said. He took a moment decided to try it himself to see how he did it. He let out a deep breath, and just focused on his gift. Soon enough his hand was glowing with the soft blue energy that he and his sister had. He let the energy disappear as soon as it appeared. "Well keep your mind clear.. Don't let anything catch your attention, and focus the energy in your hand." Maybe it would work better this time?

He made it look so easy. Larissa was certainly jealous, but she used it as motivation. She wanted to catch up to his level and all of the work she had been doing had pretty much failed. Taking a deep breath to calm herself and relax, she turned back to the open field in front of her and tried once more. Lifting her hand up, she closed her eyes and tried to focus. At first, it seemed fairly easy, but the longer she stood there, the harder it was to concentrate, especially when she didn't exactly know what to concentrate on. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she tried blocking all of the thoughts out of her head. She needed to focus on getting the energy into her hand. That was it. It shouldn't be this difficult...

It seemed to take forever. The longer she stood there, the harder it was becoming to concentrate, but after quite a while of standing there, she could finally feel the intensity of the energy coming together in her hand. She concentrated harder and harder until suddenly, a bright, blinding beam flashed out of her hand and shot across the sky, its power blowing the summer back off her feet and slamming onto her butt. The beam only lasted an instant and was gone as soon as it appeared, but it had left its mark. The tops of the trees not too far off were seared off, leaving a large hole in the cluster of branches that was at least three feet in diameter while the whole place smelled of charred wood. "Ow..." Larissa groaned as she stood up from the impact and rubbed her tail bone with a sigh of defeat. "Well, I killed some trees..."

Danny couldn't help but smile slightly at his sister falling back from too much power in her gift. He soon forced the smile away as she stood up once again. "Well first of all are you alright?" He asked stepping closer to his twin. "Also that was a good start, but it just takes practice. You will get it soon enough." He looked over to the trees, observing the seared marks in them, and the power that effected them. There was one thing he didn't have that she did. She had all the power. "And another thing, I couldn't do that even if I tried." He had a hand gesturing to the damaged trees.

He looked at her for one more moment trying to figure out more advice for his sibling. "Alright, let's try it again, same thing, but let me put it like this. When you put the energy in your hand think about it like your heartbeat and blood flow. It's a steady flow, and there is always a certain amount there. Don't overflow because falling on your butt might happen again.

After a moment, Larissa turned her head around to try to look at her backside. She didn't know what she was expecting to find, but she knew for sure it was going to be a little bruised. Thankfully, though, it wasn't going to be nearly as bad as the bruise on her stomach used to be. Looking back up and Daniel, she nodded with a small smile until he turned to look at her handiwork. Her gaze followed his, studying the treeline that was now cut in half from her power. She listened to him say something about practicing to get it down and then something about him not being able to do what she did and Larissa just laughed. "If you practice, you could!" she teased before he continued to speak.

"Hearbeat and blood flow? Okay, if you say so..." She muttered, holding her hand out once more, trying to concentrate on the heartbeat thing. It sounded silly, but she was willing to give it a shot. Closing her eyes, she focused hard, trying to imagine the extension of her heartbeat going out of her hand. She ended up focusing so hard, she could actually feel her heartbeat in the palm of her hand, the light thumping slightly throwing her off as she tried to ignore it. After a few moments, her hand slowly began to glow. She could feel it. The longer she sat there, though, the more energy went into it at a rapid pace. Knowing that the same thing was about to happen, she pulled her hand back, all of the energy dispersing as she opened her eyes. "That seemed to help some," she said. "But I was about to fly back on my butt again."

"Well it seems we both have something to work on then. But at the moment I more so concerned about helping you get this under control." The brother shifted in his spot, bring his own hand up. He wanted to try it just once. He let the energy flow to his hand, a familiar soft blue glow engulfing it. He drew back his hand, and let the beam fly. It started strong, but it only reached half the distance of his sister's before it fizzaled out. He frowned at the sight, but didn't let it bother him. He would get better eventually. He turned back to his sister. "Why don't you try again Rissa? Practice makes perfect after all." He said with a shrug.

She nodded at him with a small smile on her face as she watched him attempt to use his power. His control over it was astounding, but as she watched it fly, she stifled a giggle. "Looks like we both have something to work on!" she said to him before he mentioned something about trying again. With a sigh and a playful eye roll, she agreed. She raised her hand and concentrated hard. For whatever reason, she felt that this took way too much energy to try to force out, even as she tried to focus on doing what he said. Eyes squeezed shut, she could feel the energy building up in the palm of her hand, heat and light radiating from it as the power grew until, just as the others, the power increased exponentially and shot out of her hand into the sky above them. Thankfully, though, it didn't hit any trees this time. Instead, it shot straight up into the air, looking more like a lightning strike than her using her ability. The sheer power from the beam caused her to stumble again, but she was more prepared this time and stayed on her feet.

When the beam disappeared again, Larissa simply stared at the sky where her beam shot as her breathing became more rugged and heavy. Trying to do this was taking a lot out of her. "On the plus side, I didn't hit trees. I feel like it's getting easier, but it's still really hard..." she muttered. "Why don't you try while I catch my breath?"

Danny's amber eyes were trained on his sister as she started her next attempt. He didn't expect her to get this right away, just like he hoped she didn't expect him to get powerful within this time either. He wasn't really out here for him at the moment. He saw the energy beginning to collect in her hand as she tried to keep a control of it, but he saw the spike in power, and then it shot up into the sky. His eyes had followed the beam, and so had his head. He stared at the spot for a moment before looking down at his sister once again.

"Well at least I know I can count on you to badly hurt something for me should the need ever arise." He said. He blinked as his sister told him he should try some more. He thought they were out here for her, but he supposed he could give it a shot.. heh.. "Alright.. Alright I will give it a try. Just because you asked." He said with a small smile before lifting his hands again. He looked down at the both of them letting the energy build up in both of his hands, giving them both that soft blue glow, before it faded. He looked up at where he was aiming before, and drew his hand back once again. He let the energy, build and build trying to see if more energy meant further distance or more power. He released it, and it didn't travel much further than the last one. Well he was clearly doing something wrong, was it not in the amount of energy? Or was it because something in him was preventing to strong build up of energy?

Still hunched over with her hands on her knees, Larissa watched as Daniel tried again. She suddenly felt exhausted but there was good reason for it. She hadn't practiced like this with her power in a long time. There really wasn't ever a need to do so. She didn't like her power, but it was something that she had to live with and now that they were at this school, she had to learn to control it. She was glad that Daniel was willing to help, but she didn't like that he still seemed to be doing just fine while she was huffing and puffing after only a few tries.

Larissa didn't focus on that for long, though. She watched intently as Danny's blast soared through the air for a short time and vanished. It was amazing to watch how controlled it was and how easy he made it look, yet he still appeared disappointed when it was all said and done. "I'm jealous..." she muttered in between breaths. "You make it look so easy and here I am blasting trees and destroying things." With one final deep breath, she stood up again with a determined look on her face. "I'll get it one day, though!"

Danny didn't really care to much about his control. Yeah he prevented a fight with it, but if they actually stepped through they would have discovered that it didn't hurt that much, and they could have easily kicked the twin's butt. "You shouldn't be too jealous, can't really do much in a fight like your can." He turned to look at his sister. "I can barely damage a single thing, it's not really useful for defending myself." He crossed his arms. "And I have been at this practicing thing for a good while, but I haven't made any progress, like you have in these few seconds." He knew he would get there, but he hoping for more progress than he made.

Larissa pursed her lips at her brother's attitude and rolled her eyes as he rambled. "But without control, my power isn't much help either..." she muttered. "I can't control it so I can't use it in a fight even if I wanted to, and the only reason I've been able to do what I've done so far today is because of you." She didn't want him to think he couldn't do anything. It was because of him she could do all of this in the first place. Glancing up at Daniel, she gave him a smile. "Don't give up, okay?"

He wasn't giving up anytime soon. He just didn't really feel like dealing with this right now. And besides if it came down to a fight, her gift would probably end up acting because of her desperation or something. If he got into a fight, still wouldn't be able to do much because his gift never had a powerful moment. He just decided to simply dismiss what she was saying for the moment. He just responded with a simple, "Yeah." He kept his eyes on something else for the moment, and then spoke up again. "Do you think you can keep going with training for now or do we need to call it quits for the day?" He asked his twin.

Larissa shrugged. She had already done quite a bit in just the short amount of time that they had been out here, but she didn't really want to give up either. The problem was that she was worn out and didn't think that she could keep going like this. "I don't know..." she muttered. "I think I'm done for now. Doing all of that took a lot out of me." She tried to finish her sentence without a yawn but was unsuccessful. Stretching her arms up above her head, she let out her yawn an slumped back down. A nap sounded really good right about now. "Do you want to keep going? I can watch for a little bit. I'll rest up and try again if you want me to."