“But trust me, you don’t want that same learning path I went on.”
⚠
None!
Just because all six people who held the totems weren’t interested in more dedicated training, didn’t mean those who were couldn’t work together. Which was the reason Sara found herself at the training grounds with Adam, the death totem back around her neck in addition to her sparring clothes. They were in an area of the grounds that was mostly just a field. Which meant plenty of earth for Adam to work with, and less of a chance of any of the equipment getting damaged by mistake. With her was also an array of training weapons, because she had no idea if Adam wanted to focus more on offense, or defence, or both. But she was prepared for either.
“How’s your control coming along?” She asked, examining her weapons to triple check they were all just for training, even though she was already sure they were. “Anything specific you would really like to work on?” Not that Sara thought she was an expert in her totem either, but when training with someone else she usually focused on them. Whatever they ended up doing, Sara would find a way to incorporate practicing with her own totem to a certain degree. She still wasn’t about to unleash the spirits of the dead thing on anyone. None of her training partners deserved that shit in their lives.
"It's coming along," Adam answered, though he didn't sound completely convinced of himself. It was a rare occurrence that Adam, who was determined to succeed at anything he put his mind to, was uncertain. The totem itself wasn't the problem. Adam could spend his days with it tucked in his pocket or sitting on the nightstand beside the bed, but it was haunting him in strange ways. Like it wanted him to do something with it, another pulse of power that he was drawn to.
Cabeswater, on the other hand, seemed to be skeptical of another magical object that was tied to the earth. And given that Adam was bonded to the forest too, it was like trying to mediate between two siblings. His priority was the sentient forest, but if the totem could help him protect more than one person or thing, shouldn't he be able to combine them? Use them both to his advantage?
"I've practiced with Toph," Adam said, cracking his knuckles and shaking out his hands. "Not a lot though. That's my fault not hers. I've never been—" Adam took a deep breath and looked at Sara. She was a person who was absolutely cut out of this sort of thing. Next to Adam, he felt a little inadequate. "Offense, fighting, it's never been my thing. I didn't know where to start or where to put my energy." There was a beat, before he added, "What would you do?"
Every time Sara trained someone, it was alway their physical skills. Fighting, weapons. Never magic. Though maybe she just needed to look at the totems like a weapon as well. They were one, just not one was used to wielding. What she would do was rooted back into her training as an assassin, though she was nowhere near as extreme as she once was.
“I guess that depends. Are you comfortable using it defensively?” A person could only go on the defensive for so long if they were in a fight. You wanted to be the one on the offence, or at least not constantly trying to defend yourself only. If was comfortable with defense, then he already had some level of control over the totem. It would be more about shifting his mindset than learning about the totem's power. That was easier. If he wasn’t comfortable with that, then it was a focus on basics. She knew of Toph, and that when it came to the Earth Totems power, she would be good to learn from. It just depended on how much Adam had learned already. “If you have control over its power, fighting offensively will be more about your own mindset. If you’re not used to the concept, it’s not always easy to move past.”
Are you comfortable using it defensively? What a question. Adam spent so much of his life trying to find strategic ways to be on the defense, to avoid confrontation. When pushed into a corner, his fight or flight mode kicked in and it was often fight, and that was where he made mistakes. He couldn't make a mistake when he was hurling slabs of earth at attackers and combining powers with the other totem users.
"The control is not a problem," Adam said quietly, holding out his hand over the smooth plot of dirt beside him. Control was easy, control was something he was used to when it came to Cabeswater. The totem had been an extension of that control, intertwined with the very living earth beneath them.
A vine sprouted up, then another, weaving together into a rope, pulling up ground with it. Adam watched for a second, then looked back to Sara. For approval, for critique, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that he was holding back, Adam was always holding himself back. "I can make walls, objects, push people off their feet—" The dirt rolled cautiously underneath them. "But that's just in practice, I can't say what my mindset would be at the moment. If I will only be on the defense or..."
He paused, then reconsidered his question. "Did you move past it or were you always in the right mindset?"
Sara wasn’t in a place to critique or approve the use of many of the totems. It looked impressive, but she had only seen the Earth Totem used briefly in her own world. She wasn’t really aware of how powerful it could be, or what it could pull off. But based on the rumbling under their feet, Adam had a pretty solid idea of what he was doing with that power.
The potential area to improve was then how willing was he to use it against someone. “I’m a cops daughter,” she explained, “Dad had us learning to defend ourselves when we were teenagers.” so it hadn’t been a while since she’d hesitate to strike if she had to. Though she wasn’t always as capable as she was now. “But I definitely had to learn to move past more extreme forces. I didn’t have much of a choice though.” She had to learn to get past that, or she got herself killed. She chose her own life.
“But trust me, you don’t want that same learning path I went on.” If that was even something he wanted to learn at all. Sara wasn’t sure where to suggest starting. This wasn’t, as far as she knew, ‘turn me into a fighter’ training. “Do you want to start by attacking me, then?” she didn’t want to push him where he wouldn’t want to do anything. “Get used to the feeling of it against someone who can defend themselves?”
Adam nodded in acknowledgment. There had been times in his life that extreme force was necessary. It didn't mean he liked it, and the churning in his gut always made him a little sick after. It was a delicate balance of maintaining his even-keeled demeanor and giving into the feral side of him that lashed out. Adam knew he had it in himself to do it, to attack when the situation called for it, but he pushed it down.
"My father was the kind the cops like your father came for," Adam said. "I never wanted to be like him. And I think that's always held me back. It's like I can't separate them. If I fight then I'm just—" Giving in to that side. But it wasn't true, Adam knew (and Ronan told him often) he was nothing like his father. Adam saw fighting too black and white, and he was learning it wasn't so strict.
He nodded again, coming to a decision. "I want to have a choice, decide on my own terms." He needed it. Adjusting his footing, Adam held up his hands. "I know basic first aid, in case I overdo it." That was his only warning to Sara, not that she needed it.
The ground started to move, rising up in a wall of dirt and leaves and dead branches, a slight of hand that he learned from Toph. And as quickly as it grew to be taller than the both of them, and wider than Adam's arm span, he pushed air, sending the slab of earth toward Sara.
She knew there were cops out there that were the kind of people you never wanted to be like. For a while, she knew her dad had made bad decisions, let personal bias cloud his judgement, and more. But he’d turned that around, he did better. Not every cop was like that. There was no point in saying that to Adam though. She knew not everyone was as lucky as she was to have a dad like hers turned out to be.
But she did grin when Adam mentioned hee knew basic first aid. Well, at least it sounded like he was going to go for it. If he couldn’t do a decent job of keeping herself relatively unharmed during training, she was getting lax. Sara shifted her weight into a defense stance, her weapons still in her belt and death totem ready to go to be able to call on some of its power.
Which, she was going to need to do right away unless she wanted to dodge dirt instead. Sara tapped the totem around her throat to activate it, and used its telekinetic power to slam against the approach wall, stopping it from slamming into her while sidestepping and rolling out of the way, back to her feet.
Pulling one half of her bow staff out of her belt, Sara spun the metal in her hand and started at a run toward Adam, with a goal of reaching him before he could stop her.
Adam hadn't seen the death totem in action before. It was easy to imagine what the other elemental ones did—fire controlled fire, water controlled water, and so on—but death? His mind had problems filling in the logical gaps. But when Sara's telekinetic force stopped the dirt wall and she dove out of the way, Adam paused. In awe, in surprise. A desperate need to pull it apart and just watch her use the totem tugged at him.
That wasn't the point of today's training.
He had felt himself drop out of his offensive stance the moment Sara dodged his attack, but no person actually attacking would stop after one almost hit. They would keep coming, and Sara was rushing him now. Cabeswater nudged at his psychic sense, and Adam had to force the forest back down. Sara wasn't an actual threat, and Adam needed to use the totem, not the bond he had.
Adam took a step back, then another as Sara closed the distance. He needed time, just an extra second to gain ground. While he retreated, Adam scooped his arms under and then pressed down, causing the ground to undulate erratically. Sara couldn't keep running at him if he somehow managed to throw her off her feet.
Shaky ground, no running. That was a smart move on Adam’s part. Sara was used to running on uneven terrain, but moving terrain was a different issue. Her sprint toward Adam came to a stop as she had to shift her concentration to trying to stay standing on the ground that was moving.
The ground had other plans, and it didn’t take long for Sara to misstep and fall backward. With the ground moving, break falls and getting back to her feet was next to impossible. With nothing to jump or climb onto, she had to tap back into the power of the totem.
So she did, and Sara left the ground entirely, using the same telekinetic power she used to stop the wall of earth to lift herself clear off the ground and into the air, straightening herself out. “Nice.” she said to Adam with a smile, before she vanished entirely from the spot she was levitating in the air.
Sara reappeared again a few feet behind Adam. “Hey.” she said clearly, giving him a warning that she was there.
Adam was embarrassed to admit he was pleased by the praise from Sara. As she hovered above him smiling, Adam smiled back with a thanks before she disappeared. His expression quickly vanished, and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew Sara wouldn't actively hurt him, but that old panic mixed with Adam's deaf side always put him on alert.
Even with Sara's warning, Adam was still startled and stumbled back and away from her when she reappeared. "Shit!" He knew instinctively he was supposed to attack her back, but part of him struggled—that mental hurdle large and looming in his mind.
He grabbed for the energy in the earth totem, and caused a sea of vines to sprout from the ground beneath her. There was no finesse to it, just a burst of overgrowth. Some tried to latch itself to Sara's legs and feet, to keep her in place, but ultimately it was Adam's psyche trying to compensate for the surprise.
"That's not—I'm trying to—" Adam said, trying to explain what he was doing. He tried to stop it but it was spreading past Sara, around the area. The whole ground was green, greener by the second. His options were to keep it going in his retaliatory attack to Sara or stop. Adam chose the latter, and as quickly as the ground sprouted, all of it shrank back into the dirt.
The idea was to throw him off, though she hadn’t meant to scare the crap out of him that much. It would happen, but Sara didn’t react. She didn’t apologize, but she also didn’t smile or laugh. It wasn’t funny, it was a reaction to training, and clearly Adam wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. That was fine, most people probably weren’t used to that. She didn’t expect them to notice the same things.
She also hadn’t expected the onslaught of wives, grass and growth that rapidly wrapped around her legs, making it impossible to even levitate (she did try). Her knife was in her hands in an instant, because her second reaction was going to be to try and cut herself free, but Adam’s own reaction to his totems magic had her paused.
Sara’s knife was still ready, but her attention was split between the greenery, and Adam. Before it got too high and Sara needed to start hacking, the plants were retreating just as fast as they came on.
“You were trying to what? Trap me? Because that was a pretty good way to do it.” Maybe she could have used telekinesis to fight back, she wasn’t sure she had that much precise control over it though. “Why did you stop?”
"Yes, no, I don't know," Adam said in a rush. He had been trying to trap Sara, to keep her from disappearing or running at him or whatever else the death totem would give her the power to do. But it was Adam who essentially chickened out. And as much as he trained himself to not let his emotions control him, that wasn't the case with the earth totem. It clung to everything he did, even when he was surprised for just a moment.
"I didn't think I could control it," Adam admitted. Despite his earlier display, where he confirmed he knew what he was doing, it was obvious now it wasn't going to be as simple as the give-and-take he had with Cabeswater. The sentient forest listened to him, knew his intentions. Adam hadn't been so accustomed to this new piece of magic that found its way to him yet.
"I think if I kept going..." Adam rubbed at his brow, trying to find the right way to explain, "It would have done more damage to you than intended. I felt overwhelmed, I don't know how to—attacking you with it was not what I expected." He took a deep breath, shook out his hands. Adam wasn't going to give up. He was stubborn.
This was all about getting over that mindset, and he owed it to Sara to try. "Let's go again."
Sara wanted to say that she wouldn’t be any kind of reformed assassin, or superhero, if she couldn’t deal with the vines. She did classify as an escape artist. But telling him that probably wouldn’t get them very far. There was a difference between being told something, and realizing it through experience.
Knowing what it was like to feel out of control overwhelmed, Sara couldn’t fault him for hesitating, stopping, or pulling back. It wasn’t a fun place to be in, but at least he didn’t want to quit. That was already a big step.
“Okay, again. But trust me to be able to protect myself?” She had years of training, she’d faced down gods and survived, plus she had her own totem to counter. “If it becomes too much I’ll teleport myself out.” She’d focus on keeping herself safe, but Adam needed to focus on getting comfortable with how he was using his powers. “You’re only going to learn to control it when you learn what it can really do.” If you didn’t have a full understanding, did you have full control?
Sara waited to make sure Adam was ready, then reset the drill, again moving toward Adam as her target.