Chapter 21: Learning the Hard Way

Jack had expected the training to be tough. What she was experiencing, right now, was tantamount to impossible.

She was on her hands and knees, panting. She and Fynn had been sparring for almost an hour straight. His stipulation was she would get to have a full eight hours of rest if she could land a punch on him. A solid, unblocked punch or kick to his torso or head. Otherwise, she'd be only getting four tonight.

And she tried. Damn, she had tried. Over and over and over again.

And yet, as sweat poured from her face, and she gasped to catch her breath, she watched as Fynn circled like a shark, waiting for her to try again. She got to one knee, looking at the droplets of sweat that were on the training room floor, then back at the commodore.

His demeanor hadn't changed. He was calm, composed, completely unphased by this. He didn't even look like he was sweating.

Of course, he wasn't. She was the one doing all the work. He was just dodging and blocking.

"Come now, Miss Ivory, is that all you've got?" he asked goadingly.

She gritted her teeth. These Atlesians were all so arrogant...

She stood up fully and balled her hands into fists. She raised them up to her face and lowered her head behind them, locking eyes with Fynn.

He smiled. "Good. You have half as much spunk as my cadets. I admire that."

In the end, after two and a half hours of sparring, during which Fynn did not throw a single punch, she collapsed in failure. Practically sobbing, her muscles aching, she pounded the ground in frustration with her fist, before crumpling into a heap on the ground.

"I must admit," Fynn said as he walked over to her, "you lasted twice as long as I expected."

She looked up at him from the ground, her forehead pressed against the tiles of the cold floor. And she nodded. "Thank you for the compliment," she said. He walked over to her and knelt down, offering her a hand up.

And she kicked him right in the ass. Literally.

Fynn lurched onto his hands, surprised a bit. He honestly thought she was spent. Indeed, she hadn't had the energy to hit him very hard, but the force alone had pushed him forward, and she clearly had used up the last of what she had to do it. He blinked, before looking at her.

She merely rolled onto her back, spread eagle on the ground, and said "You finally dropped your guard."

Fynn stood up, and she expected him to be upset. Instead, however, he was smiling. His smile seemed warm, and familiar.

It reminded her of her father.

"Congratulations, Jack," he said pleasantly before sitting down on the ground. "You have officially surpassed every student I've ever trained. And I've trained many. You passed."

She chuckled wearily. He smiled. In truth, he was happy she had. She proved to him that he was right about her. She had a keen mind. Something he would be training along with her body.

"Hey," she said, her voice heavy with fatigue. "You were dodging so easily... what style were you using?"

He smirked. "Something all Atlassian soldiers and Specialists are trained in. I just added my own moves to it. I'll be teaching you the basics tomorrow. Today, I just wanted to see what you could do."

She gratefully nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"The style is tough, but considering you have some martial arts training already, I wouldn't be surprised to see you mix it up a bit and become rather formidable.

"I would like to have you stick around for longer than the couple of months you have, to fully get the grasp of it, but in time, you'll make it your own."

She nodded again, taking a deep breath in before slowly exhaling. She felt her heart in her chest; never before had she pushed herself like this. Not for this long, with this much activity.

"So, tell me a bit about your Semblance, Jack." The question changed the tone of the entire conversation. Jack struggled onto her elbows, looking at Fynn, who still sat next to her. "I watched the security camera footage, and I think I have a good grasp of what it does. But I want to be sure I'm right."

"Well," she began. "It's complicated."

She explained the entire thing, in great detail. Fynn sat and listened, something Jack had noticed he did remarkably well. He was an incredibly patient man, and she was happy he had let her finish before asking questions.

"So, the longer you keep the field active, the stronger you'll get," he said, lamenting on the information. "Same goes for if something moves in your field. You absorb their movement, their kinetic energy, and it freezes them."

"Yes, sir," she confirmed. She was sitting upright now, arms wrapped around her knees in front of her. "Though, I noticed Kobamaru did not seem terribly phased by it. Most things start icing up instantly, but his was delayed."

"Yes, I saw that too, for the brief instant he was in your field," Fynn confirmed. "I have a strong feeling it's because of the energy he stored. You likely affected that first, giving him the precious seconds he needed to formulate how to break free. If he didn't have his Semblance, I'm sure you would have been able to take him out. Unfortunately, I can't be sure."

The thought of what he could do shot pain into her arm subconsciously, and she haphazardly rubbed where he had begun to kill nerves. There was no permanent damage, but the pain alone had been enough to tell her he could have done far worse.

"But, don't worry about that right now," Fynn said, noticing her arm rub. "I have something else in mind to better control your Semblance."

He stood up, and walked in front of her. "How far can you comfortably tighten your field before it becomes too difficult to manage?"

She stared at him, not sure why he wanted to know that. "About four meters. I can narrow it to three, right now, but I can't maintain it comfortably."

"Then, one thing I want you to do, when you are ready, is to stand up and charge yourself up. I want you to focus on maintaining a three-meter radius around you. And just for insurance..."

He walked to exactly three and a half meters from her. "I'll be within the four-meter mark. If your field fluctuates and I feel it, I'll order you to stop charging and hit me. I won't dodge this time."

She blinked. "But...Commodore...I could kill you if I'm not careful."

Fynn raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

"It's not just my strength that gets amplified," Jack responded, "it's my speed, too. You won't have time to move."

"I think you'll find your current state far worse than you are expecting it to be," Fynn replied. "Stand up."

She attempted to do just that, but found her muscles groaning in protest. She fell back down, moaning from how sore her whole body was.

"Get up, Miss Ivory," Fynn said. His tone was far more demanding. Gone was the fatherly figure she was getting used to, and back was the Atlesian officer. She tried again, this time making it to her feet after quite a bit of effort."

"Your body is protesting," Fynn explained. "Even if you have enhanced speed, you won't be able to move like you normally do."

"Shit..." Jack cursed, standing upright. Every move felt like things were going to break. "This...how are you able to do this, still? You're not human!"

Again, Fynn raised an eyebrow. "Didn't Ozpin tell you that Atlassian Specialist training pushes you past insanity? You told me he explained it exactly like that-did you think he was lying?"

"I didn't know what to think, honestly," Jack replied. "I thought it was a metaphor."

"I assure you. It's not. Now, charge. Continue charging for three minutes or until I tell you to stop."

Jack gritted her teeth and opened the field. She felt everything around her, all the kinetic energy, and began drawing it into herself like a black hole. Fynn felt how the temperature dropped, and watched. He could see the air around her; it appeared completely different from the rest of the air. Too still, almost like a picture.

And then he felt it. Instant cold. "Stop."

It had only been fifteen seconds, and the field had fluctuated and touched him. In the two seconds it had, his pant legs had frozen up, though not by much due to him not moving.

He took a stance, legs spread and body dipping a little low. "Now, hit me. All that force in one blow."

"But I-"

"Do it!"

Jack growled under her breath and launched at Fynn. She found the extra movement energy helpful, but her muscles still screamed.

Her fist landed straight on Fynn's face, and he skidded backwards an inch. Despite this, she noticed that he didn't appear harmed. In fact, he was completely immobile. His Aura had formed a special barrier around his body. It was hard, and he looked encased in diamonds.

The Aura softened and began disappearing after a moment. Jack couldn't believe her eyes. "How?"

"My Semblance, I call Aura Lock," Fynn explained. "I can harden my Aura to the point where it's nearly unbreakable. But in doing so, I cannot move on my own free will. I've been training it every day for the last twenty-five years, since I found it. These days, I often have about fifteen of my men fire at me every morning for around five minutes straight. If I feel up for a quicker, tougher session, one of the gunships and its missiles suffices for a solid minute.

"The point is, the more you train your Semblance, the better you'll get with it. Atlas trains its Specialists to be the best by forcing us to do things even normal Huntsmen may not try. It becomes normal for us."

Jack was blown away by his training, and his description of it. It all made sense, why he was so confident she couldn't hurt him. She looked away, though, disheartened.

"I don't want to rely on my Semblance, though," she said. "In the last month, I've had to use it more than I ever have had to. Granted, usually it's in conjunction with Hath's Semblance or, more often than not, his railgun, but if I'm on my own, I need to be able to take out a foe without relying on it."

Fynn smiled. "Indeed. But ignoring it means when you do need it-and you will, eventually-you won't be ready for it. You have the right idea, but you should focus right now on just improving overall. We will keep doing these kinds of training drills until your body is used to it.

"Now, get back into position, and pop open your field again. We are going to keep going for an hour."

She groaned slightly, but he was right. This WOULD make her better. She just had to keep going.