"Jokes on you, I look really good in a maid outfit!"
Calyx expected Tharon's chosen punishment to be something more long and boring because he thought Tharon was too mad at him to be joking around.
"It certainly fits your character." Lania smiled as she came up from behind, tauntingly adjusting the headdress that came with the cruel and unusual punishment.
Calyx had been in embarrassing outfits before, but only in private and as a joke. He was willing to give up his pride to be funny, but this felt excessive, even for him. Even so, he was being let off pretty easily, with only this and some extra chores for his punishment.
He had thought Ana would dismiss the idea as being too immature or not being a fitting punishment, but she just smiled when Tharon proposed it.
"I'll be the one laughing when I beat you in training wearing this." Calyx said, pointing a finger at Tharon.
"We'll see about that." His brother responded.
Despite the unusual attire he was forced to wear, Calyx was still excited for training today. Magic was cool no matter how you put it, and that hadn't changed no matter how much of it he saw.
"Alright, settle down." Lania motioned for Calyx and Tharon to sit down on two barrels.
The training courtyard at the fortress was much larger than the one at Profectus' headquarters. Dozens, if not hundreds of soldiers were practicing their fighting skills, and they were going to be joining them.
Several looked his way, and Calyx tried to ignore them.
Lania and Ana were there to instruct them, since Lania's actual role here seemed vague with no clear duties besides 'Hiva said she should be here.' Without a clear directive, she ended up managing them while continuing her own training. In fact, Ana seemed to want to dump most of the training onto her.
"Lania is probably a better teacher than I am, so I'll leave the bulk of this lesson to her." Ana said, and judging by Lania's reaction she wasn't informed of this prior.
"Um…" Lania rubbed her eyes, clearly not wanting to take part in it more than she had to. "Oh, alright."
Lania pulled a familiar object out of her pocket, causing Calyx to gasp in recognition.
"Woah!" He gasped with an exaggerated voice. "The reason you defended the anorexic daggers back at the blacksmith is because you use one?"
Indeed, the implement in Lania's hand was one of the small, dinky "spirit thorns". Calyx wondered how the economy must look if that thing was considered a weapon. It was sad.
"I can assure you, that I'm a far better fighter with this than you'll ever be." Lania said in a sickly sweet tone. "What would a maid know about weaponry, anyway?"
"That's an icepick." Calyx stated bluntly. "And not even a good one."
Lania huffed and looked away, ignoring his remarks.
"To those of you who can pay attention," She pointed the combat sliver at a dummy in the distance, "This is what Ardai can look like when used properly."
A stream of light shot out of the tip, cutting across the sky towards the dummy. Despite being obviously bright, it didn't hurt to look directly at.
As it hit the dummy, it shredded through its core and sent a cloud of smoke around it, leaving a fist-sized hole of ash and flames behind in the straw stuffing.
It was almost enough to make Calyx consider respecting the "weapon". Almost.
Tharon whistled as he looked at the damage.
"I didn't think it would be that powerful." He admitted, trying to hide the fact that he obviously thought it was cool.
Lania gave Calyx a smug look, as if shooting a deadly laser proved anything about her dorky choice of weapon.
"Ardai is light energy, or positive energy." Lania said. "Every other real energy stems from it. In essence, it's the purest form of magic."
She then looked back at another practice dummy, this one a bit closer.
She pointed her weapon at it and this time shot an orb. It was black, and seemed to absorb the light around it like a black hole.
It travelled through the air much slower than the Ardai, and once it touched the dummy it didn't make a flash or cause any direct damage. It instead went through it before fading out, and left a spot of black where it touched.
"Somae is much subtler, as it is negative energy." Lania went over to the dummy she attacked. "While it doesn't carry energy like Ardai or Vitei do, it takes energy from what it touches."
The part of the straw dummy that was hit was shriveled, as if it was dried up. She punched it and it shattered like glass.
"If it's anti-energy, then why can you keep it in your body with the other energies?" Tharon asked as they looked down at the broken shards.
"The body keeps energies separate."
Tharon looked dissatisfied with the answer, but went along regardless.
"Last night you two were given both energies." Ana chimed in softly, reminding Calyx she was still there.
"How did you do that?" Calyx asked.
"We had our lesser spirits give it to you while you slept." Ana didn't seem to see a problem with this.
"You went into our room while we were asleep?" Tharon looked as concerned as Calyx was.
"Naturally." Ana said.
Calyx didn't know how to respond to that. So he didn't.
"Anyway," Lania took control of the conversation again. "You two need to train hard to figure this out, since you seem determined to get yourselves killed quickly."
"Where do we start?" Tharon asked, already tired before they began.
"Take a deep breath." Lania ordered. "You need to begin reaching inward."
~=~=~=~=~=~
Calyx grunted as he struck a dummy with his cleaver, a flash of light burning into its thick dummy skin. A large cut opened and caught fire as he hopped back to assess the damage.
The light magic effectively made each of his strikes carry much more firepower, causing heavy damage to his fiber foe. Not long after the blow landed the fire on the dummy went out, and it began self-repairing.
It was one of the quirks this training ground had. Aside from the targets on the walls that would move around for accuracy practice and the dummies that could throw things to dodge, nearly everything in the courtyard that could be broken was self-repairing, including the barrels.
Calyx tried to fill the cleaver in his hand with Ardai as he looked at another dummy in the distance. Once he stored an absurd amount in it, he threw the cleaver at the dummy, in hopes of it blowing the dummy up.
It flew through the air clumsily and struck the dummy hilt-first, falling onto the ground where it burst with energy that left a mark on the floor.
Even the floor self-repaired as he retrieved his weapon, hoping nobody saw the blunder.
"Pathetic!" Lania shouted out from across the training grounds, paying more attention than he thought she was.
Drat.
Calyx tried to fill his weapon with Somae this time, bashing the dummy in the head with it. Somae wasn't nearly as interesting as Ardai, since it just drained stuff instead of exploding.
The dummy's head turned black and got cold, and he bashed it again to break it.
He didn't have much of either energy inside of him, especially compared to Vitei. If he wanted to use it effectively, he had to build it up for a few seconds. It took a bit to get used to, but he could handle it.
His actual fighting skills still needed improvement. He was pretty natural with the magic in this world, but his combat reflexes weren't coming to him as easily as he'd hoped. He had only barely gotten used to using a dagger before he switched to his cleaver, and now he was back to square one.
Tharon didn't seem to have that problem. He was already swinging his sword around like a pro, cutting the dummies in half and stuff.
Lania was watching the two (mostly Tharon, since she seemed intent on avoiding Calyx) and she was taking notes on a clipboard, as if she was studying them. He assumed it was probably something Hiva set her up to do, since that was the kind of odd behavior that Hiva seemed connected to.
Ana had more pressing matters to attend to and left towards the start of the training.
Other training soldiers were giving Calyx looks, likely for the maid dress he was in, but he filtered them out. Time flies when you're killing things with magic.
"The sun's going down." Lania shouted, gesturing for Calyx to come over towards her and Tharon.
Calyx was sweaty, no thanks to the outfit. He had been running around all day, and it felt like everything inside of him burned. Once he began walking towards the group, he felt like every part of his body was glued to his clothes.
"You both did pretty well for your first time." Lania said begrudgingly. "But don't let it go to your heads. Especially you."
"Y'know, they say when a girl is mean to a boy that means she likes him." Calyx smirked. "Do you have anything to admit?"
"That's stupid reasoning." Lania seemed unaffected by his attempt to agitate her.
"Yeah," Tharon chimed in. "There's no way anyone could like Calyx."
Calyx felt a bit of relief as Tharon teased him. He and his brother rarely fought, but ever since coming to this world, things had been shaky between them. It was nice to see him being playful every once in a while.
"Anyway, you two need to get to bed." Lania said. "If you're up late getting yourselves killed again, it'll impact my career."
"I'll tie him up if he tries anything." Tharon assured her. "I'm skilled at Calyx wrangling."
~=~=~=~=~=~
"Why do they even have traditional French maid dresses anyway?" Calyx said as he folded up the outfit he was forced to wear throughout the day. "The staff I've seen cleaning around here all have worn regular work clothing."
"Maybe they anticipated your arrival." Tharon had already gotten changed and was sitting on top of the bunkbed, holding something.
"What that?" Calyx sputtered without bothering to correct his grammar when he saw the long letter in Tharon's hand, with text on the back too tiny for him to read from below.
"A letter I found on my bed, addressed to me." Tharon said unhelpfully.
"Yeah, I have eyes." Calyx rolled his eyes. "Who's it from? What's it about?"
"The General wants to meet with me." Tharon said. "She wants me to tell her more about our world and such."
"Where and when?" Calyx asked expectantly.
"In the garden, tomorrow afternoon."
Calyx's eyes lit up to let Tharon know he messed up.
"So it's a date." Calyx smirked, trying to get a reaction.
"It isn't." Tharon said defensively.
Throughout the brothers' entire lives, neither of them had so much as gone on a date. Both of them hadn't really had a very large social circle outside of each other in the first place, so they formed a very 'brothers before others' mentality when it came to girls.
"C'mon." Calyx smugly elbowed his brother. "A girl asking you to meet her in a garden at the sunset?"
"It's just a meeting, and you know that full well." Tharon closed his eyes and rubbed them in a tired manner. "This kind of teasing is childish."
"Says the one who made me wear a maid outfit."
"That was a punishment. It's different."
"Well, I expect a full rundown of everything you two talk about tomorrow." Calyx sighed, not pressing Tharon further on his hypocrisy.
"Yeah, whatever."
Calyx went over to the wall of the bedroom and flicked a switch, turning off the magical light in the room.
As he tried to fall asleep, he felt the flow of the new energies throughout his body. It became overwhelming if he focused on it too much, so he decided not to.
He hoped he would learn more magic and applications for it soon, since he knew he would be getting himself into something big. All he could do now is prepare.