I don't own Loonatics Unleashed

Enjoy!


Training had been, as Zadavia had said, very intense during the last couple of weeks. During those weeks, both Ace and Lexi were glad that they didn't have any missions so they dedicated a couple of hours to training Miranda. The first day when she started training with Ace, he had started out with the basics of keeping the proper posture, the balance, the focus, and being always alert. Once Ace felt that she had mastered that, he had moved on to the fighting techniques.

"Try this now," he said as he clapped two punching pads together and held them in front of her. "Like we've practiced."

Miranda took a deep breath as she gave him a nod of her head. Through all this training, she didn't know where she stood with the team. Ace hadn't said anything that was considered a praise and that made her feel that she needed to work harder. On this day, she was willing to give it her all. Clenching her hands into fists, she concentrated on the pads and began to strike at them as hard as she could.

Ace tried to deflect her punches and he could see that she was keeping up with his motions. He was surprised to see the amount of strength that she had gained through the past couple of weeks. "Keep going, keep going!" Ace encouraged her as he made the process a bit faster for her.

Miranda wasn't going to let herself tire out so easily. She kept up with his speed, changing from punching with her fists, to striking with her feet as she tried to corner Ace against the wall.

One of things that Ace had taught her was to think ahead on what the opponent was going to do next. Miranda had the advantage on that since she could get into the opponent's mind but Ace wasn't going to be so easy with her. He didn't let a single thought slip into his mind and before Miranda knew it, Ace bought the pads under her feet and threw her into the air.

Miranda felt herself propelling into the air and executed it with a backflip and landed on her feet.

Ace straightened himself and gave her a nod of his head. "Good but just work a little more on the balance. You were quite wobbly there."

Miranda facepalmed. "I've been dancing for years and have balanced just fine. Why can't I do it with this?" she asked him.

"This type of 'dance' is different," Ace said to her air quoting the word 'dance.' "But don't worry. It's been gettin' better. Seems that Lexi has been doing a good job with your training."

"Yeah," Miranda breathed out and nodded her head to him. "I have to meet with her after you."

"Then you're free to go," Ace told her.

Taking a swing of her water, Miranda leaned against the wall and gathered some of her energy. With Lexi's training, it had been a focus on her flexibility and using her superpower abilities. Miranda wasn't as flexible as Lexi was but she had gained some of it through her dancing. Once that was through, then came the focus on how to control her abilities, which turned out to be quite the challenge for her. She pulled away from the wall and met up with Lexi in the training room. The female rabbit had set out two cushions in front of one another and Miranda was glad that they were going to use this time to hopefully madidate.

Lexi sat cross-legged on the cushion and smiled when Miranda joined her. She motioned to the empty cushion with her head as the female duck sat down and crossed her legs. This part of the training had to do with her focus on using her abilities to her advantage. The past couple of times, Miranda had failed. She had gotten into Lexi's mind and had heard everything that Lexi thought and it had caused her to get distracted.

"You don't really want to hear everything all the time, do you?" Lexi suddenly asked her when Miranda lost her concentration once more.

"I know," Miranda said to her. "It's just a little hard. I don't mean to get into anyone's mind but I just can't help it."

Lexi was no stranger to that. Just like her super hearing, she had to keep it under control otherwise she was going to hear everything that happened out in Acmetropolis and she had her share of headaches from that. Mediating had been the only solution that had helped keep her mind in focus and pick up on what was important. Maybe the same would work for Miranda. During that time, Lexi had learned some of the meditating techniques from Tech. He had been the one who was more proficient at it and she practiced it with Ace later. It wasn't an easy technique for her to learn, but she saw how helpful it was for her. "So, you'll be hearing all of their dirty little secrets," Lexi chuckled.

"Oh, I've heard some here and there," Miranda said, "and Duck didn't appreciate it at all."

Lexi wasn't surprised to have heard that. If she was in his shoes, she wouldn't have wanted that either. Some things were just meant to be kept private. Gotta be careful around this one she thought.

"Yeah," Miranda agreed with her, "I'm afraid so."

Lexi let out another chuckle. "Okay, we should try to not hear what I'm thinking about. Keep your focusing onto your own self, no onto me. The only time you want to get into another person's mind is your opponent's."

"Ugh," Miranda groaned, knowing that she had done it again. "Why is it so hard? You helped me with keeping my focus with the telekinesis put not the telepathy." Keeping her focus on the objects that she was levitating in the air did take some practice but it wasn't as intense as this one.

"Don't give up," Lexi said to her, "maybe I should bring in Tech to help us out. He's a master at mediating more than I am."

Miranda had been a bit reluctant around the coyote, but when he had turned out to be kind in the end, she had grown comfortable around him. "Maybe next week," Miranda suggested to her, "we still have some of that flexibility that we need to work on."

"We'll do that tomorrow," Lexi said with a smile upon her lips, "you look tired. What did Ace do with you?" she asked him.

"It was those punching pads again," Miranda said to her. "He was going very fast and I had to keep up with his speed."

"Just be lucky it wasn't Rev," Lexi said with a laugh as she got up from the cushion and held her hand out towards Miranda. When Miranda grabbed it, Lexi pulled her up to her feet and the two teammates headed out of the training room. "We'll pick it up tomorrow," Lexi called over her shoulder as she retired to her room. She was sure that she had a couple of missed phone calls that she had to get to before the end of the day.

As Miranda was about to retire to her own room, she almost jumped out of her feathers when Duck teleported in front of her. "Duck!" she yelled and placed a hand onto her chest, "you scared me!"

After all the times that she had scared him, payback was sweet. "How did your training go?" he asked her.

"With Ace it was fine," Miranda said to him, "could have gone better with Lexi but I'm still trying to control it."

He could see that she looked tired from all that training. Every day when he had tried to get her to do some training with him, she had refused and he didn't know when and if he was ever going to get his chance. "Come with me," he said to her and took a hold of her arm.

Miranda was caught off guard by his gesture as she followed back into the training room. "What are you doing, Duck?" she asked him and moved her arm away from his grip.

"How long has it been? Almost three weeks that you've been doing the same thing. Whatever they're training you, it's not going to help you when you're against the bad guys," Duck said to her. "What are they teaching you anyway?"

Why did he sound so authoritative with her suddenly? "Just on my strength and balance. I think that since I'm new to this, maybe they want to start me off slowly."

"We don't have that time," Duck said to her. "With this pace, you might as well stay in here and not go out there."

Miranda's beak dropped when he said that. "That's not fair! I was bought here for a reason."

"Then prove it," Duck said and folded his arms across his chest, "show me what you've been taught."

That was a response that she didn't expect. She stood there looking at Duck, wondering what she should do. Should she run up to him and attempt to attack him or jump in the air and send him a kick his way?

What are you waiting for? she heard his thoughts.

Come on Miranda, focus! Don't let his thoughts get into your mind she thought. She took a couple of steps back and jumped in the air, performing a backflip, and shooting her foot towards Duck.

Duck looked up at her and then teleported out of her way, causing Miranda's foot to make contact with the ground. He appeared a couple of feet away from her. "What was that for?" she yelled at him and turned her head to look at where he appeared.

"That's nothing," Duck said to her. "What if you have an opponent that can teleport like I can?" he asked her. "You're just gonna keep attacking him like that until you get tired?"

Miranda stood on her feet and approached Duck. "What's your problem?" she asked him, "I'm just exhausted."

"And you think your opponent is going to care about that?" Duck asked her. "Show me what else you can do."

His demanding voice easily drove her up the wall. She knew that he wasn't going to stop insisting if she heeded his wishes. Was it because that since he had powers and was able to manipulate them better than she could, he had the authority to treat her this way? She somersaulted towards him, using as much of her flexibility as she could, and jumped towards Duck.

Duck held out his hands and threw two power orbs towards her, hitting her directly in the face. He watched as Miranda plummeted to the ground and tried to wipe the texture off her face. Duck didn't wish to be so hard with her, but the way that those two rabbits were teaching her, he felt it was not at all effective.

"You're really pushing it, Duck," Miranda said as she sent him a glare after wiping away the last bit from the power orb.

"And you're not doing a good job," Duck said as he approached her. "Why didn't you use your telekinesis to stop those orbs from coming your way? You can combine both of your powers, you know?"

If only she had known that it would have been effective. She had tried not to get into Duck's mind as they were training, but she had been distracted into attacking Duck that she hadn't focused on the two power orbs coming her way. "I'm—"

"You're still new at this, we know, but they don't and won't care about it," Duck said to her, as if he had been the one to read her thoughts. He turned his back on her and walked away, thinking what he should try next with her.

Miranda was still on the ground as she looked at Duck's pensive posture. She narrowed her eyes and felt herself getting inside his head.

She has some good speed but she doesn't have that technique yet. How is she going to make it out there? Yeah, we'll be there but what if the villain is able to find the weakest link? And…wait, wait, wait, don't think about that now! She'll be okay, but she needs to keep her head in the game.

She didn't think of herself to be the weakest link, she was still trying her best and she had improved during the last couple of days. She walked up to Duck and wrapped her arms around him from behind. "I think you need to stop worrying about me."

Duck blinked and whipped around. "I told you to stop reading my mind," he said to her.

Miranda gave him a shrug of her shoulder. "Can't help it. Still trying to manage it."

Duck let out a sigh and shook his head. "Now you know why I want to train you and not those two."

He was being awfully rude to his teammates. She was sure that both Ace and Lexi had their reasons for taking the time in training her. It was better to start with the basics and then move onto something more challenging. Without that, there would be no starting point and how was she going to improve without knowing any of that?

"You think something might happen to me again, right?" Miranda asked him.

That was an understatement. After that whole meteor situation and the fact that she had finally gotten out of that coma, he wanted to protect her. He was glad that she was part of the team but that didn't guarantee that he would be always there with her. "I know that you'll be fine, Miranda," he said to her, "it's just the thought of it."

She walked up to him and threw her arms around his neck. "Then you just need to stop thinking like that. We don't know what the future holds out there for us. We just need to make the most of it."

Why did that sound ominous yet upsetting? No! He had been in that situation and he never wanted to be in it ever again. He couldn't believe that she was thinking in such a way. She had to fight for it just like he had been fighting for her well-being when she was in that coma. "Think fast," he said to her as he teleported out of her hug.

Miranda looked at the empty space that stood in front her. However, he was just too fast for her. Before she knew it, Duck had one arm wrapped around her waist and the other one around her neck. "Hey!" she yelled as she felt her feet being lifted from the ground. "Duck, are you crazy or something? Let me go!" she demanded and tried to squirm out of his grip.

"Try your best to get out of it," Duck said to her.

She tried to muster as much strength as she could to release herself from him. He had more strength than she did. She twisted from one direction to the next until she felt her feet plant to the ground. Miranda knelt on her knee and tried to pull his arms away from her but to no avail. She felt her eyes beginning to burn and the moment that she opened them, she looked out in front of her and levitated two dummies in the air and directed them towards Duck.

Duck looked up when he saw the two dummies flying in their direction. "Yipes!" he yelled and teleported out of the way. He teleported to the other side of the training room and then spotted the two dummies hovering right in front of Miranda. Good he breathed out as he looked at the scene in front of him, she's slowly starting to get it. Without saying anything, he sent two more power orbs towards her.

Miranda turned her head towards the direction of the power orbs and they were obliterated by the two dummies. The dummies were tarred and they fell on the floor with a thump in front of Duck's feet.

"That was a bit better," Duck said to her with a nod of his head, "that's what you should be training on. Not sitting down on a cushion and meditating."

Miranda rose an eyebrow at him. "Were you spying on me?" she asked him.

"No," Duck said to her, "I don't need to spy because that's what they do! You can keep your focus the same way even when you fight. No villain is going to stop attacking you while you take your time meditating."

How many times was he going to say that? He didn't know it but it was very demoralizing how he was acting towards her. She understood that he cared for her wellbeing but acting this way was just not right. She walked up to him, holding her arm out, and cornering him against the wall. "Now you listen here, Danger Duck," she emphasized his name, which to him felt like she was being sarcastic. "I'll have you know that I have been to hell and back and it has taken me weeks to get better. Now that I'm finally there, I need to take my time to get to the same level as the rest of you. Both Ace and Lexi have a reason why they're doing this with me. So, you need to stop pushing me over my limit on what I can and can't do."

Duck took a deep and unsteady breath seeing that the amount of closure that they shared with each other at this moment was very intense. She had set her boundary and put her foot down with him when he was only trying to help her out.

When he didn't have a response for her, she slowly lowered her hand from the wall and didn't move herself away from him. She felt terrible for having yelled at Duck like that, but he was getting very exasperating. "Thanks for your training," she said to him, "but I think I'm better with Ace and Lexi teaching me."

With those words, he watched as she spun of her heel and walked away from him. Had he been too harsh with her? Absolutely not. She needed to face the reality of what was out there and he believed that he had and would do all that he could to make sure that he had the proper training. He didn't care what Ace or Lexi thought of him for stepping over the line. They weren't the ones that cared for her.