AN: This was originally much longer, but the last two thousand words got moved to the next chapter.
Chapter 16:
Training Montage
After my revelation about the price on my head, Pansy and Hermione had decided that the best way to insure that I wasn't killed was to make sure I wasn't alone, ever. In an effort to accomplish this Pansy had decided that until further notice she would be sleeping with us. So last night we, well she, pushed the beds together.
I went to sleep on the edge of the bed, I even put a small barrier of pillows between me and them to keep from ending up in the middle of the two of them. Of course I woke up smack dab in the middle and of course I had to use a switching spell to get out of Pansy's grip. I'm a lite sleeper, someone opens the door to my room I wake up, someone lightly brushes me I wake up, if there's the slightest change in air temperature I wake up. So how the hell do I keep getting moved to the middle of the bed without waking up?!
When I asked Pansy and Hermione how I got in the middle they both claimed ignorance. Liars, the both of them. I spent most of the day giving the two of them the evil eye. I would still be glowering at them but class had ended for the day and Hermione and I were waiting for Pansy call up a room for us to train in.
Pansy made a sound of satisfaction as the door appeared. "Why don't you go first?" She motioned us forward. Hermione and I traded uneasy looks before she started for the door. She opened the door slowly and took cautious look inside, before calmly closing the door a backing away.
I gave her a concerned look. "Hermione? What's wrong?" No response. I looked at Pansy, she just smiled and motioned me towards the door. I carefully opened the door and looked inside.
Inside was a cavernous open room, to the left there was a large white square, for dueling perhaps? On the far side of the square there was a dozen manikins, some had melee weapons, some had wands and others had staves. Obviously for fighting.
To the right was an obstacle course of some sort, there were sand traps, rope bridges, giant bladed spinning tops and scattered around the entire course were even more manikins. These manikins were colored red, white and blue. Fire, water and air? The entire course was suspended in the air, and under it in a huge clear glass enclosure was a monster sized leopard. As I watched it licked its lips and a nauseating green gas escaped its mouth.
I slammed the door closed and gave Pansy an incredulous look. "A Nundu?! Are you out of your mind?!" Hermione squeaked in agreement.
Pansy chuckled. "It's not a real one, I wouldn't risk a corporal one it's an illusion, and it's just there to encourage you not to fall." When my stare didn't abate she rolled her eyes and went inside.
"She's insane." I said and Hermione nodded in agreement. "And we're following her?" Nod. "So, are we crazier?" She shrugged and went inside. I sighed before heading inside. Pansy and Hermione standing next to a small podium by the fighting area.
"How did you think this up?" Hermione asked Pansy.
"It's supposed to be similar to the Warden's training facility at Edinburgh, but well, no one but the Wardens and the Senior Council have actually been inside. So I did my best to extrapolate from what's rumored to be there." Pansy waved her arm, indicating the room at large. "So, here it is. What do you think?"
I eyed the Nundu. "Are you sure it's fake?" It was staring at me like I was lunch.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure." The Nundu bared its teeth at me, fake sure, we'll go with that.
"So this is what the Wardens training room looks like?" Hermione asked, giving the room another look over.
"My best guess." Pansy replied. She indicated the manikins. "These are based on the ones my Father made for our dueling room, but the Wardens probably have something similar." She clapped her hands and smiled. "Alright who wants to go first?" Hermione took a quick step back.
I sighed again, and stepped inside the square. As soon as I entered something snapped up behind me. I looked back and saw an energy field of some sort.
"It's just to make sure nothing gets out of the arena." Pansy said as she fiddled with the podium. She finished and looked towards the other end of the arena where a single manikin had made its way inside, it was one of the ones with a wand. "I want you to beat the golem. It only has three spells, but it will keep using them until its 'dead,'" she actually used air quotes, "Or you give up."
I was still looking at Pansy, so when the golem launched a banishing curse at me, instead of dodging or blocking it, I was thrown into the arena shield. It wasn't as painful as I would have thought, there was a lot of give, so when I fell off it I was on my feet in short order.
As soon as I was on my feet I jumped to the side to avoid another blasting curse and sent a cutting curse at the golem. Before it could hit the golem raised a shield. The shield fell but successfully blocked the curse, I sent another cutter at it. This one connected, leaving a gash on its shoulder.
Sending two curses so soon after one another, and with as much power as I put in them, cutters weren't shield breakers, I was a little winded. So the next banishing curse clipped me as I jumped out of the way. I tried to go with it but still ended up on spiraled on the sand. The disarming curse hit me as I was standing up, yanking my wand from me.
"Give up?" Pansy asked, hand poised over the podium.
"No." I said glaring at the golem and jumped out of the way of a banishing curse. As I landed I sent a knife at its head, it would have connected if the golem hadn't shielded itself. I started running at the golem, throwing the other two knives as I ran, both were blocked.
I dodged another curse, disarming I think, grabbed one of the fallen knives and threw it at the golem to distract it long enough for me to get behind it and get my wand. As soon as I had my wand banished the golem, sending it flying towards the other end of the arena. While it was still in the air I threw a reducto at it, reducing the golem's lower body to shards.
The arena shield dropped and I fell to the ground gasping for breath. The running and the magic had drained me.
"You ok?" Pansy asked as she handed me a glass of water. I took a long drink before responding.
"Yeah, just winded."
"That was amazing Alex." Hermione said. I smirked but shook my head.
"Not really, the golem only used three spells and it never moved and it was pretty slow with its casting." Pansy was nodding to my points, Hermione just frowned. "And I used a cutting curse when I should have used a reducto to drop its shield."
"That was level one of the golem's three settings. On level one it only uses three spells, they only put a bit of power into the spells, and it won't move from its starting position as well as taking its sweet time when casting spells." Pansy explained. "Level two it starts moving and casting as fast as it can, with about double the potency and at level three it will start using multiple spells with the potency is almost equal to a recent Hogwarts graduate and it will move very fast."
She paused for a beat to let that sink in before she continued. "By the end of the school year I expect you to be able to at least keep up with a level three golem."
"Are you sure we can? I mean I barely beat this one." I asked, Hermione nodded in agreement.
Pansy nodded. "Alex, you froze that troll while it was submerged in water. Water drains magic! Do you know how much power that takes?"
"A lot I guess?" I knew it was power intensive, but it wasn't that impressive, was it?
"Alex doing what you did would have killed Hermione, it probably would have killed me or at least it would have knocked me out for a week or more. You recovered in a night." Oh, well then. I guess I'm awesome. "But all that power is worthless if you don't know how to use it, and you don't. Not really." Oi, that's the sound of an ego deflating.
Pansy's gaze turned to Hermione. "You managed to duel Draco to a standstill and he won first place two years running in the Young Duelists Championship. You can both be good fighters, you just need more practice." Pansy nodded. "Beating a level three golem is not out of the question, not with how I'll be training you." A shiver went down my spine. "I know you can both do that."
I found myself straightening at that, her confidence was infectious.
"Ok, so what's the plan?" Hermione asked.
Pansy's smile was positively demonic. "Practice, lots and lots of practice."
888
The following month was hell, there's simply no other way to describe it. Pansy woke us before the sun rose and we spent an hour or so meditating, to work on our mindscapes defenses. Our mindscapes starting shape was simply a base from which we built our defenses, which often left us with headaches. Well Hermione and I got headaches, Pansy was always fresh as a daisy.
After that we started running, apparently there was a mile long track on the other side of the obstacle course. After the first week Pansy had the golems start chasing us. ("They won't hurt you if you run faster!") And then there was fighting practice, not dueling, never dueling, dueling had rules.
Most times we fought a wanded golem, by the second week Hermione and I could consistently, if not easily, beat one set at level one. It was difficult, I was drained after and would drop to the ground gasping for breath but I could do it. I usually won by dropping its shield and then either hitting it with a reducto or one of my knives it before it could get its shield up again. Hermione was gifted in transfiguration so she turned the environment to her favor, nothing complex but once her matches were finished the arena usually had a dozen crude walls and the golem was encased in the arena floor.
Once practice was done, we quickly refreshed ourselves in a bathroom the Room provided. More than once Pansy had to wake us up, as we fell asleep while under the water. Then we made our way to breakfast where coffee, disguised in our mugs as juice, became a necessity. Morning classes followed and then lunch after which Pansy would sometimes slip us Pepper Up potions. Think coffee on steroids and you have a good idea what they do. I don't know where she got them but they were the only thing that got us threw afternoon classes. At least at first by the end of the month we our bodies started adjusting to our schedule. Once afternoon classes finished it was back to the Room for more fighting practice and another shower. Then it was dinner and, finally bed. (God I love bed.)
Saturdays were our one free days, Hermione and I insisted we needed them to keep up with our class work and to make sure no one thought we had decided to cut ourselves off from the student body. It was study day for Ravenclaws after all.
On Sunday we got to sleep late, to get our strength back Pansy would say. It was a trap, because on Sundays she would have the Room summon interesting opponents. Leading to such gems as…
"Scorpions do not grow that big!" I jumped to the side. "They don't hunt in packs either!"
"Why are we blind folded?"
And my personal favorite
"Cows don't scream like that!"
Pansy if you ever read this, that month was the worst time of my life. Yes, I'm even including everything that happened in fifth year, you have no idea how many times I wanted smothering you as you slept.
The only reason I didn't, you know aside from her being my friend, was well I didn't think I was physically able to.
One day, about three weeks in to our training from hell, we were almost ready to throw in the towel and questioning her training Pansy decided to show us exactly why she knew what she was talking about.
888
Hermione and I were about ready to drop, it had been a long day of training, classes, training, assignments, trying to stay awake in class and training. So we were beat, I mean legs shaking, arms limp and spirit exhausted and Pansy wanted us to do one more match.
"Hell no." I said, with eyes closed just trying to breathe.
"Language," Hermione gasped from the floor. "But seconded."
Pansy, who despite all the training looked as if she had just taken a walk in the park, frowned at us. "Just one more match, and then you can shower. I promise."
"I can't move." Hermione said, still on the ground.
"Seconded." I said.
"If you don't both get in that arena I will personally drag the both of you in myself." It was no idle threat, she had done it before and the golems would happily banish us into the walls until we started fighting back. It didn't actually feel that bad if the arena's cushioning charms were set to their highest level.
"Look I know your tiered but you need to work on your response times and it will help with your magic, it's a mussel the more you use it the stronger it gets." Which was true, although it was more accurate to say that the more you used it the better you got at channeling it. The more you could channel the 'stronger' your magic got. The actual amount of magic only slightly increased by exercising it, so slightly in fact that it was nearly impossible to tell, but there was a definite difference if you compared someone who only rarely used their magic and someone who actively trained it. "And the two of you need to work on your battle reflexes. Neither of you are fast, or mean, enough."
"Why don't you do it then if it's so important!?" Hermione asked heatedly. Training had been difficult for Hermione, it had been hard for the both of us but Hermione was really not liking it. I had used my new life to stay in shape, not Olympics level or anything but in shape. Hermione while not out of shape was not exactly in shape either.
"Because I can already beat the two of you while blind folded? Because I'm not the one who still drops every day after training? Because I said so!" Pansy responded just as heatedly. She was fairly easygoing most of the time but she hated it when her training was questioned. I got it, I really did. She put a lot of effort into helping us, and I had to say she was doing a good job. I could already tell the difference when I fought. So when Hermione and I questioned her training regime she got…testy.
I, however, was in no mood to care. "You know this whole time we've never seen you fight the golems. You've just been having us fight them. If it's so important that we fight them why don't you show us how it's done?" Hermione voiced her agreement.
Pansy arched her brow. "You want to see me beat a golem? Fine." She walked into the arena. "But after you better get inside."
I nodded and went over to the podium. It was fairly simple three buttons for the three types of golems and a diel to decide their levels. I pressed the sword button twice and the wand button once and set them all to level two. It should be enough to beat Pansy, or at least keep her busy long enough so Hermione and I could sneak away.
"Ready? GO!" I pressed the green starting button and started backing away.
"Stay!" Pansy growled. I froze.
As soon as the match had started the sword golems had made their way across the arena, moving at speeds often found on all star track teams. The first one reached her and swung at her. Pansy ducked under the swing and came back up in a smooth move that ended with her wand at the base of the golem's throat. With a whispered incantation the golem's head fell from its shoulders.
The headless golem started falling but before it could she shoved it at the other sword golem that was lunging at her.
She jumped sideways to avoid the disarming curse the wanded golem sent at her, grabbing the fallen sword before she went. The last sword golem had just shoved the headless one off it when Pansy lunged at it and trust her stolen sword into its chest.
Before it could fall she turned it to block the incoming curse, ducking as she did so. When the spell hit the golem went flying. She was on her feet instantly her hand gripping the flying golem's fallen sword which she threw at the wanded golem, who shielded itself. The sword pierced the translucent shield but missed the golem. The golem raised its wand for another spell only to explode when the reducto Pansy had sent at it after throwing the sword hit.
The entire fight couldn't have taken more than thirty seconds.
Hermione and I stood speechless as Pansy marched over to us.
"Now, you can fight me or you can get in there and tag team a golem." She said. "You choose."
We chose the golem.
….
AN: For anyone who thinks Pansy beat the golems to easily just remember that she has been training to fight her Mother for a long time. Training with those golems in fact. Also if she were to fight her Mother right now she would lose, and she would lose badly.
