Boot Camp (Audra Training)

Focus your wills, what little you can muster. Hear the air about you, the shards of energy that flit about here and there. The reishi particles here are thick, but directionless. You will learn from me the means by which they may be given purpose. Our purpose. The Vanderreich's purpose. She lifted a finger and began exerting a mild gravity on the reishi around them. Thus attracted, they were pulled toward her, through the visible spectrum. She didn't do anything with it just yet, merely using it as a demonstration and example of her superiority. She set it about, orbiting the uplifted finger.

All things in the spiritual realms are composed of reishi. The most advanced human sciences seek to manipulate its counterpart, kishi. Consider that tweaking them even slightly, with enough precision, can create flame and death enough to obliterate a city. Now imagine what we can do, with control and power they can only dream of. Even your dim imaginations should have some glimmer of the scale. Here, reishi is the air we breath, the ground on which we walk.... Pulling in much more of the particles at once, Audra used Greased Lightning to convert her body into electrified reishi, crashing across the room with an enormous roar. The recruits stumbled at the sound, although she ended up further away from them than when she'd started this little speech.

The laws of nature themselves. Souls. EVERYTHING! To be a Quincy is to be a King below only his Majesty. You have the slimmest chance to join that lofty rank. And I will work every ounce of talent out of the lot of you to find a single one of you worthy of the Soldat. Those who don't have what it takes will either die without honor or be expelled with LESS than none! She raised an armored arm toward them. Pulling in reishi in deliberately slowed fashion, she constructed her signature spear, tellingly pointed at them as it was composed.

That's enough of the easy philosophy, although I'm sure your soft heads will debate the "easy" part. Now comes the practical stuff. The absolute fundamentals of Quincy combat revolves around creating a spiritual weapon. Bows are fairly common, but as you can see, not universal. She twirled her spear about rapidly, moving from side to side and even going so far as to spin it over her shoulder into her other hand before unleashing a heavy burst of reishi from the tip, aimed at the far end of the room. Even holding back somewhat, she'd still managed to damage the wall.

Now, let's begin.

Audra had to admit, she wasn't entirely certain which precise combination of fear and energy had begun to motivate the few potential successes in this group. As she'd predicted, most weren't up to snuff. Made sense, as they were chosen for training by bloodline and loyalty, not skill. That was reflective of the state of the world though; the powerful elite ruling over the common masses. Unlike most who would make such a statement, there was no bitterness in that thought with Audra. It was the proper way of things. Those who claimed otherwise were normally just jealous that they weren't one of the "few". Audra had no such issue; while she was still small fry as far as the Invisible Empire was concerned, she intended to rise rapidly. Her own nature would abide no less, and if it destroyed her, so be it.

Regardless, of the group, she estimated that about 15% were worth spending further time. Another instructor might raise that to 20% for a few edge cases, but Audra didn't believe in edge cases. They wanted to progress, they had to impress. If she had to think too hard about whether someone was ready for something better, the answer was clear. Still, she'd been surprised before, so to be safe, she'd keep the possibility in the back of her brain.

Not that it let the rest off the hook. Primarily as an example, secondarily as entertainment, and tertiary as a means of finding a diamond in the rough, Audra fully intended to grill every one of them. Her own superiors would see her standards at play, the quarter-way decent ones would be better tuned, and the chaff would be spared from dishonoring the Vanderreich in battle. Good times for everybody.

With seemingly boundless energy, the training session continued for a full two more hours without so much as a break. Call it endurance training. It was at the end of this period that something rather unexpected occurred.

What followed didn't go precisely as Audra had anticipated. Even holding back as she was with a blunt weapon, the first thing she'd anticipated was a few flourishes and strike to take down the charging four. As it turned out, the first one very nearly shrugged off the first hit, taking two more blows to the leg and chest before stopping. This obviously gave time for the others to close in. A spinning strike kept them at bay, which flowed into a heavy thrust toward the shoulder of Insignificant Wannabe #2. This worked well enough, as she heard the satisfying cracked on impact, but the other two had been waiting for the opening. She tried to land another spin on them, but her restricted fighting stance wasn't sufficient to deal with the sensible idea of them to both aim for a weak moment and fight two on one. Her armor took the first blow, the back of her right knee the second. Forced into a half-bow, she lashed out furiously as she regained her footing. All right, maybe there was some dim hope here. She actually felt herself reassuring her ego that she was, indeed, not fighting seriously. Four more blows to the side dropped the fourth member.

Of course, the ones who had been trying to breath earlier weren't about to stop. The next wave arrived, covering for the first. Team tactics. Audra didn't consider them much more than a crutch, but at least they were doing something that could be called coordinated. She dropped into a defensive stance and prepared for a counter. They had better have more than a single moment in them.