Chapter 7: Target Practice

"So? What did she say?" Akhos asked popping his head into the room.

"She told me it was okay.", Natalya said.

"Then why do you look so forlorn?"

Natalya stared at the floor. "I don't know how to – I mean, I wasn't – I'm not used to this way of fighting. I don't think I can do it.", she admitted.

"You'll get used to it. We all had to figure out the ropes at the start, none of us were used to fighting on our own, you'll be fine."

"How do I even summon my weapon?"

Akhos sauntered closer. "Well, it might be different for you, but I usually just think and –"

He stretched out a leather clad hand and a shining gold and white bow appeared in his grasp.

"Like this."

"But I don't even know what it looks like." Natalya protested, but she closed her eyes anyway and tried to think of the cold and ice, and the mountain range she had seen earlier. It wasn't really that difficult to imagine since her body was already feeling said cold quite strongly. Something heavy started weighing on her right arm, and Akhos breathed: "Nice."

Natalya opened her eyes and looked down at a round shield that seemed to be made from pure ice. It was the same ice blue colour as her core crystal and had a very pretty snowflake design on it. Morena's shield. Her weapon. Natalya's face lit up at the sight of it.

"It worked!"

Akhos straightened his glasses and smiled mischievously.

"Want to test it out? Don't worry, I'll go easy on you."

"Wait, what?"

"You wanted to learn how to use your powers, right? Well, there's no better way to learn that by doing. It's not like you can just read a book on these sorts of things. Trust me, I'd know."

"But I can't fight you! What if I hurt you?"

"I am honestly so offended you said that right now."

"I, uh, well, I don't know how to control any of these things yet, if I lose control, who knows what'll happen."

"You really think you could hurt me?" Akhos teased. "Then prove it!"

And with that, he back-flipped away from her before firing a bolt of lightning at her from mid-air. Natalya barely managed to block it in time with her shield.

"Hey!"

Akhos landed gracefully. "Still worried about my safety?", he smirked.

Natalya was pretty sure she did not want to answer that, or even think about the question for too long. Not that he gave her much time to think about it anyway, as his next arrow was already zapping towards her. She ducked that one too, but the third one almost hit its mark.

"Are you trying to kill me?"

Akhos laughed. "Trust me, if I were actually trying to kill you, you would already be dead."

He smirked and fired again. Natalya ducked.

"Your reflexes are quite good, but your attacks definitely need some work."

Natalya considered snapping at him that her attacks would be just fine, if she didn't need the shield to block him, but was prevented from thinking up a clever retort by another arrow zapping towards her. So she just growled, grit her teeth, and rolled out of the way.

Natalya had no idea how long he continued to rain arrows down on her, but it must have been hours. She kept blocking and dodging, but even with years of training and running behind her, it was beginning to wear her down. Usually, that was her strategy, she had quickly learned that with her stature, it was best to evade an opponent until they were exhausted enough to strike, she never thought she'd be the one to reach their limit first. Sooner or later he was going to hit her. Even her shield wouldn't help her if she got too slow to use it.

"You know, you could at least try to hit me with something. I'm sure you've got an art tucked away somewhere."

She would hit him with something if she had anything she could hit him with. Wait. Natalya had a terrible idea. Terrible, because it was utterly stupid, but at this rate, Akhos wasn't going to stop shooting at her and she needed a break. Now. Natalya threw her shield at him. It was an irrational choice, as it left her wide open to the arrow zooming straight at her, but she did actually manage to knock Akhos' bow out of his hands before hitting him straight in the face with enough force to knock him over, so there was that, at least. Obviously not having seen that move coming, he went down with a "Hmpf". Natalya stopped and laughed, which was a mistake, as it turned out, because Akhos' arrow hit her right in her lower abdomen.

"Argh.", she coughed and slumped over.

"Nat!", Akhos was back on his feet and by her side almost instantly. "Why the hell did you do that? I mean, good thought, but good grief that was stupid!"

"You told me to attack!"

"And you thought that just leaving yourself completely open during said attack was a smart move?"

"I didn't. I know it was stupid, but I was just done dodging all the time!"

Akhos knelt down next to her and pulled out his arrow. "Since you are part Blade, you should heal faster than you used to, but you still shouldn't overdo it. Don't take risks like that, you're not indestructible."

"Says the person who's been using me for target practice for the past couple hours."

His hand hovered over her wound sending golden sparks into her body, fixing the damage immediately.

"You know, Akhos, when they say, 'break in the new teammate', they don't actually mean you should break the new teammate." Mikhail was leaning against the doorway, looking amused. Akhos moved away from Natalya with a speed that qualified as unnatural even amongst Blades. Mikhail, pretended to ignore it, though he was grinning from ear to ear when he continued: "Nice footwork, by the way, Nat, and with a little practice, I'm sure that shield throw could become quite deadly."

"If 'practice' is more of this,", Natalya pointed at Akhos, doing her best to make fake an affronted expression, "then no thanks." She got up, slowly, testing her healed muscles. Good as new. Perfect. She stormed out of the room, before either Mikhail or Akhos could decide she was fine enough for another round. At least the exercise seemed to have driven the chill away a little again. Or at least her freshly healed muscles radiated some comforting heat, everything else in her body just seemed mostly sore. Still, this was quite peculiar, exercise usually did not do a thing to warm her up.

She found Patroka in their shared room.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Your brother and about three hours of me being target practice. I'd say I look great considering, but now I just want a bath. Any chance you could show me where I can take one?"

"Fine, come with me, I was headed that direction anyway."

A few minutes later, Natalya found herself in a tub of near boiling water, which for some reason still wasn't warm enough to drive out the cold that had started to creep in again. Natalya sighed and dunked her head under.