Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (23 page)

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As
Naero expected, Hashiko remained relentless as usual, showing her absolutely no mercy.

Especially after the incidents two days before.

Being only slightly faster and stronger than her normal self still did not give Naero any kind of an edge whatsoever.

So she tried using some of her returning psyonic abilities to change things up. Pyro and cryokinesis, spot-transporting.

When Hashiko attempted to use her vocal sonic attack, Naero partially countered with a mindforce blast that Master Vane had used on her a couple of times, to great effect.

Naero even tried to sluna, but it only worked for a few seconds.

Blurring her image did not keep it from getting nailed. By someone so fast.

All of this despite Hashiko
’s best efforts to repress and tamp down Naero’s re-emerging abilities.

Perfect.

Even now that she had healed her damaged brain and mind, Hashiko and Master Vane redoubled there efforts to suppress her re-emerging abilities–especially now that they were active once more.

They seemed threatened by her and more afraid of her than ever.

The question remained.

After everything that had happened–d
id they have good reason to be?

Master Vane
’s star pupil was also a master herself of psyonic suspension and repression fields.

Like him, Hashiko
could shut down or negate another’s psyonic abilities just by focusing on them.

That made it very tough to use or practice with them
around her.

Naero eventually had to resort to going off among the Tua or on her own to practice her
psyonic and Cosmic abilities.

Hashiko did her best to shut her down during their running sparring matches and beat down sessions.

But it slowly became clear that Naero was taxing even her opponent’s intense abilities more and more. That meant she was growing both in power and ability, if it cost Hashiko more and more to restrain her.

The stalemate forced Naero to grow in discipline and technique by default. It was funny really.

All of Hashiko’s harshest attempts to hold her back, only served to drive her forward, and make her stronger.

But
Naero’s efforts also forced Hashiko to re-think their training regimen and adjust the sparring rules somewhat.

“
Physical sparring will remain just that. Only physical.”

That way Hashiko c
an still beat on you.

Yeah, I get that, Om.

“Psyonic and Cosmic attacks and abilities will be reserved for direct training with them, until you can control and use them more effectively in combat,” Hashi added.

All of this despite the fact that Hashiko herself used her abilities at will, whenever she wished.
She made rules to hamper Naero that she did not keep herself.

Yet
as long as Hashiko was the Primary Adept, she still made the rules.

Naero couldn
’t foresee it any time soon yet, but she also could not wait for the day when that would change.

And some day, it would.

Surprisingly, one morning a few weeks later, Hashiko took them several miles away to a rocky flood plain downstream in one of the nearby canyons.

The ruined area was
choked with broken trees, dunes of silt, and large rocks.

Naero was about to raise one hand and ask why they were there.

Hashiko explained flatly.

“Y
our attempts to use your abilities remain feeble at best because you have not developed your ability to focus and control Chaos energy. Until you do that, you’re going to continue to struggle with everything you do. This is something every adept must work out for themselves. I’ll show you what works for me, and then–as usual–you are pretty much on your own. Don’t get all misty. I’m required to show you this as part of your training.”

Hashiko took out a small, ornate black-l
acquered wooden stand and placed it in front of her. She sat very still, steadied her breathing, and focused her abilities, as if in deep meditation.

Naero sat down and did her best to observe and note everything.

Chaos energy seemed to whorl all around Hashiko.

Then it coalesced, into a glowing length of something sitting directly on the small ornate wooden stand and trailing over several feet in the sand. Hashiko opened her eyes, grasped the handle
.

She turned, snapped the long object back and the
n swung it forward at the rocks, flicking the end.

Thunder cracked. The rocks shattered into pieces.

Hashiko had fashioned a long whip, out of pure Chaos energy. Giving it the precise shape and tensile properties to do her will.

She lashed out again and cut a huge dead tree in half. Splinters exploding in all directions.

She turned back toward Naero smiling, coiling the bright scarlet whip in her hands. Then the whip merely faded and vanished.

“O
nce you master the Chaos force, it opens so many other doors. You won’t even need the focus after a while. You can call upon Chaos energy at any time. Shape it into anything you need at will. And understanding it will make your use of Cosmic energy a thousand fold stronger.”

Hashiko folded her arms in front of her. Assumed a neutral stance, and motioned with her head.
She curled one lip up and dared her.

“H
url some of those rocks at me, Maeris. I know you want to. Go ahead. As many as you like.”

Naero did not need any further invitation.

She smiled like a maniac and scooped up several that were just the right size and weight.

Circling.

As rapid as she could, Naero leaped around Hashiko, hurling many heavy stones and rocks right at her, rapid fire. From several directions.

Hashiko
held her ground. She flung her hands forward in denial. Several feet in front of her, glowing red panes of Chaos energy flashed up out of nowhere, stopping and deflecting the missiles, despite some of the defenses shattering and vanishing like bursting panes of glass.

Naero increased her efforts. She hurled a sporadic combination
of small and larger stones.

The
missiles pelted and bombed the area all around Hashiko.

Hashi
laughed.

“A
nd you can do much more than merely defend and shield yourself. You can use it for offense as well.”

Blasts and beams of Chaos energy shot from Hashiko
’s open hands and from her tensed fingers.

She shot
Naero’s rocks out of the air.

Hashiko
even shot one right out of Naero’s raised hand, leaving the fingers aching and numb from the stone bursting.

Naero barely ducked under a large pane of Chaos energy sweeping over her that would have k
nocked her straight back.

Next she dodged
sprays of Chaos energy cubes, spinning and tumbling toward her at high velocity. Enough to do heavy damage if they hit.

Naero sprang behind a pile of dead trees and rocks for cover.

That was a very good thing. They got pulverized instead of her.

Then Hashiko flung writhing lengths of red Chaos energy in Naero
’s direction. They seemed to come alive like snakes and seek her out, ensnaring and trapping her as they coiled and constricted around her.

Hashiko released her before she blacked out.

She dumped Naero in the sand.

“T
hat’s just a taste of what I can do. And that’s only using Chaos energy. Master Vane and I spar like this all the time on the Cosmic energy levels, and even in the Astral plane. Now, I understand Master Vane has started working with you like this. Show me your progress. Show me your focus.”

Naero sat down, and steadied herself.

It took nearly twenty minutes. But at last her tiny, glowing red rod fizzled up in mid-air before them, lasted several seconds. And then winked out.

Hashiko
stayed silent and impassive for a long moment.

Then s
he fell to one side, laughing hysterically.

Kinda
scary.

“That
’s it? You’ve been working all this time and that’s all that you can do?”

Hashiko s
taggered to her feet, holding her sides, and walked away, still laughing and tittering. Then she transported and vanished.

Naero sat still and clenched her fists.

Humiliated. Again.

She tried focusing on shaping
and maintaining Chaos energy. But her anger clouded her attempts, and they kept popping and exploding as soon as they formed.

Naero spotted the wooden stand Hashiko left behind.

She remained there all the rest of that day and into the night.

It didn
’t have to be a whip, she told herself.

It didn
’t have to be anything.

Focus her
will the way Khai told her to.

Control her breathing and her flows. Stay relaxed and in tune, the way her parents always taught her.

Just give the Chaos energy a basic…balanced…stable form.

By midnight
Naero fashioned it into a short rod, barely one millimeter in diameter, and about two thirds of a meter long.

Solid-looking. Stable.

She reached out, and plucked it up in her hands.

At first her skin hissed and burned slightly, before she figured out how to shield herself from the energy
directly.

After that, she could pick it up
without harm.

With its properties, she could bore holes in the dead trees and rocks. Smash and cut them in two. She went about, stabbing and poking things with her new toy.

But when she tried to disperse it, it would not obey her mental commands. At first.

She
found that she had to place it back on the stand and actually reverse the process, in order to disperse it. Undoing the permanency she had built into its stable structure.

Then it faded and went out almost immediately.

Naero sagged, exhausted. Hungry and thirsty.

But happy with her
hard won, steady progress.

Back in her cave
that night, she couldn’t wait to tell Khai.

But her friend didn
’t answer.

Not that night. Nor the next.

Where was he? What had he done?

For the next several weeks and then months
. Khai did not respond, although Naero tried repeatedly to reach him each night. In vain.

She
worried and fretted immensely, but she couldn’t say anything either to Vane of Hashiko.

What had happened to her friend? She
feared the worst.

Losing
her contact and comradery with him was almost as bad as losing Gallan–or Jan.

But until she learned what had happened, she would
n’t allow herself to assume that her friend was dead.

She
felt thankful for the time they’d had, the friendship and insights they shared. How much they had helped and counseled each other.

Once
Naero had been alone on Janosha. But fellowship with both Khai and the Tua had helped her cope, when she had really been down and lost.

She strove to recall and commit to memory everything
Khai told her about Mystic training, and especially Chaos training.

Naero
continued to make steady progress as the long days passed. And each night she continued to wonder and worry about the fate of her lost friend. Wishing she could tell him about her day.

Yet
no response came from that point on.

As her training grew more complex,
Master Vane and Hashiko found new and creative ways to make her suffer. New ways to insult her and make her life and her practice sessions with them a living hell.

Yet Naero
took hope and remained steadfast. She endured.

O
ne by one, she out-ran and out-raced the fastest of the Tua. Until only Iika and Bahan could still beat her.

She
continued to progress through Khai’s seemingly endless piles of stones. Slowly graduating to larger and larger varieties. Hurling them back and forth across the river each day that she was able.

One by one, the long hard days of sweat, and toil, and intense training passed.
And Naero grew faster, stronger, and hopefully wiser.