Rebirth

Left, Right Alex dodged Kyle’s attacks. Sara had been right, Zanier did mean for him to be in top form. He hardly let Alex rest constantly training him in more ways than just magic. It had been a week sense he had discovered his powers and had hardly rested sense; Zanier would send for him at the crack of dawn and make him run four laps around the boat. After that he would eat a short breakfast and be sent off with Charles were he’d practice “Control” were Charles would have him send a pulse of power towards him as he stood protected in one of his shields. Throughout the weak his attacks had slowly grown more powerful, as with Alex’s confidence. Next Charles would spend an hour before lunch explaining how to use his powers to protect himself. After lunch came the most challenging part, his lessons with Kyle, which took place in the big dome room. Kyle would set up an obstacle course in which Alex would have to get through and touch Kyle, but while this was going on Kyle was lobbing weak attacks at Alex called stun blasts, They started taking their toll after you were hit by at least three to four and after six or seven you can hardly get over the four foot high wooden thing at the end. This is where Alex was now. He was about half way through and had yet to be hit. In front of him he had to walk across a three inch wide beam about fifteen feet long and he had no cover, Kyle, taking advantage of this was sending attacks at Alex one after another. Alex quickly deflected one when he realized he wasn’t going to dodge it. When it dissipated off his shield harmlessly he made his move he had yet to do this before so Kyle wasn’t expecting it. He sent two quick bursts of shadow energy towards Kyle who surprised deflected one but hadn’t seen the second and it struck him full in the chest stunning him for the split second, that was all Alex needed he quickly darted across the beam then dove through the tire by the time he was through the tire Kyle had recovered. And had sent a slightly more power full stun blast at Alex, realizing this he raised his shield as it struck, Alex could feel the more powerful blast draining him slightly. Quickly he dove behind a wooden wall. With his back to the wooden wall he looked to his right at the next obstacle. About ten feet away was another wooden wall and after that a ninety degree right turn to the next obstacle seven wooden poles about two feet high and six inches in diameter stood out of the ground about two and a half feet away from each other. He peeped out the side of his wooden wall two see what was after that but all he could see was the traditional wooden bearer at the end that he had to get over. Relieved that this was it Alex took a deep breath he still needed to get to the end. The private lessons with Zanier came back to him they took place for and hour after dinner were Zanier would try and get Alex find new uses for his powers. So far they had, had little to no success except for the first two nights which Alex blamed for being overly exhausted. He had figured out how sense other people like a radar, he could send out pulses of energy that would pick up on living creatures, more so on those that could use magic, in however big an area Alex wished to extend out and sense, obviously it would take more energy to sense the bigger area. It also aloud him to sense surface emotions but nothing else. That and perfecting his “Stealth mode” had been all he had done being able to turn totally invisible in the dark and also being immune to all sorts of motion and sound detecting devices. This room was far to bright to turn invisible he had tried to darken the light but it was protected by barriers he couldn’t get through, he had a feeling Zanier was behind that. Alex reached out trying to sense what Kyle was feeling and got nothing but irritation. Quickly he ran to the next wall and felt a miss aimed stun bolt go flying over, missing do to Kyle’s distracted state. Next he had the pools. There was one other trick Alex had learned but this again like his Stealth mode he had discovered all on his own. He could replace the exhaustion of his own physical energy with his shadow energy and could even increase his physical performance by the strength and amount of shadow energy he used. Quickly Alex burst out behind of the wooden wall infusing his legs with energy he quickly flew across the first three, but Kyle had bided his time and a particularly powerful and well aimed stun bolt headed straight at him. Unable to maneuver on the wooden poles he had to raise a shield. Blast struck and again Alex could feel the slight drain of his powers. It annoyed him how shielding him self seemed to take more out him than any other mage’s he knew. Even Kyle who was known to be particularly bad at shielding him self seemed to hardly flinch when he shielded him self against Alex’s blasts. Alex jumped to the fourth one glad he hadn’t dropped his shield as a quick blast from Kyle struck his shield. Quickly Alex jumped to the fifth and sixth and was about to jump on the seventh when Kyle sent a low aimed blast at the pole it’s self. Unable to fix his trajectory he stumbled and fell forward flat on his face biting his lip. Alex tried to stand as he tasted blood and became quite aware of the growing warmth on his forehead. Alex felt a burst of pain on his right side as he was lifted of the ground and thrown about five feet. By this point Alex had no sense of direction and the throbbing pain in his fore head as well as the steady flow of blood he could hardly see or focus on anything. Trying hard to focus he knew he needed to stop Kyle for half a second or this was going to get worse, Focusing his energy, he released it in a giant dome shaped blast that radiated from his body. Quickly realizing exactly how powerful the blast had been he treid to find his final obstacle which he realized had been grotesquely warped. “Alex! What was that!?” Kyle sounded furious. “Are you trying kill us!” “I…” Alex gave up trying to stand up and just fell back. “I couldn’t see,” “So you release your power in a huge dome.” “Uh…” “I Thought Charles was teaching you how to control your blasts?” Kyle was obviously quite distraught by the sound of his voice and the sound of him pacing. “I told Zanier that leaving offensive magic training to a Guardian was a bad idea,” “What did I do?” Alex was quite curious at the damage he had done. “Can’t you see, look around,” Though Alex couldn’t see Kyle’s face he assumed that he must have been looking at him like he was some kind of idiot. “I told you I can’t see,” Kyle must have noticed the mess that was Alex’s fore head. “Uh, wow I guess I need to get you to the healers,” “That would be nice” Alex tried to smile but just managed to spit out some blood, Alex was feeling light headed and hardly noticed as Kyle picked him up.