Ava and Kallie clapped. “See?” Ava said to Oberi. “It’s better to utilize the bond. That way, we don’t alert our enemies.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “It’s much faster, too.”
Takahashi stepped forward. “This is excellent progress. However, Ava can’t be giving instructions when she’s distracted defending herself.”
“Oberi will have to be my main point of communication,” I decided.
“Mm…” Takahashi sounded thoughtful. “I wonder how you would fare in an offensive position. Perhaps we should try some target practice.”
I shrugged. “Sure. I’m up for anything.”
“Let me help,” Kallie offered. The air shifted in front of me. “Take a moment to get a feel for it first.”
I reached out, and my hand landed on some sort of large cube. It was pretty hard, but had a little give to it— almost like a punching bag. “What is it?”
“It’s an illusion I made solid,” Kallie said. “A target.”
I smirked. They were talkingliteraltarget practice. This was going to be easy. “I should be insulted. You underestimate me.”
“Why don’t you show us what you’ve got, then?” Marcus challenged.
My friends and I went to the other side of the room, then faced the target. Magic swirled in my hands, and I used my Air to feel where the target was. I blasted the magic outward in a stream, but instead of landing against the target, my magic slammed into something hard. Stone cracked, and I realized it’d been the wall.
I stood up straighter, trying to get a feel for my surroundings. I didn’t know how I could possibly miss that. My Air magic swirled around a large object nearby, but it was at least five feet to the right of where the target had been.
“That’s cheating!” I accused.
Kallie snickered. “Hey, no one said anything about stationary targets.”
“That moved way too fast,” I remarked. “You undid the illusion and reformed it over there.”
“Look, you’re going to have to deal with a lot worse in battle,” Kallie pointed out.
She wasn’t wrong. I had to learn how to react quickly to a fast-paced environment, because the battlefield wasn’t the place to take it slow.
I rolled my shoulders. “Let’s go again.”
I sensed the void in the room as Kallie’s illusion faded, then the shift in the air when it reappeared several feet to the left. I blasted my magic at it again.
Left, two feet!Oberi barked in my mind.
I shifted my stream of Air to Oberi’s commands, but Kallie’s target was gone before my magic made it there.
Right!Oberi instructed. Somehow, without a clear answer on howfarto the right, I just knew what he was referencing. I swung my hand out, and my magic shifted course, slamming straight into the target.
“Great job!” Ava cried.
“Again,” Takahashi pressed.
Left. Right. Higher. There’s two of them!Oberi continued giving instructions.
I threw my hands apart. Battle magic sizzled out of my palms, landing in the middle of both targets. The illusions shifted again, morphing into a single target. I threw another spell but missed it.
Closer. Farther. Lower, Oberi continued.
I missed more times than I hit, which was concerning, because if this was a person fighting back, I’d be dead already. It was a miracle I’d survived Forevermore at all.
Kallie’s illusions continued shifting. The more targets I hit, the harder the exercise became. Targets popped in and out of existence, and morphed together and broke apart like a kaleidoscope. I started throwing battle magic at random, trying my damndest to hitsomething.
