How Not to Get in Glide's Way

It's easy, you just need vast, inexplicable stores of energy. This is completely the writing of my friend.

An hour after sunrise, Glide led Ryder a ways away from the campsite. With the others looking on, the older Varixian drew his blade. "Let's make sure you're not gonna get in our way." He smirked. "Do you have a weapon?"

Ryder nodded, showing Glide a pair of fingerless gloves, each sporting two long, talon-like blades.

"Good." Glide said, waiting as his young protégé slipped the gloves on. "I trust you know how to use them."

"Yes, Nar'zun." Ryder replied, scraping the blades together.

Glide held his sword ready, starting to circle the smaller Varixian. "Feel free to make the first move."

Ryder did just that, moving so fast even Glide had trouble keeping up with him. In a fraction of a second, Glide's sword was trapped between four talon blades.

"That's pretty impressive, kid." Glide grinned, the chain along his right forearm unraveling. "Tell me, though. How do you plan to deal with... this?" He flicked the chain across Ryder's cheek, causing him to flinch back. "Come on, I know speed's not the only thing you have going for you."

Ryder wiped the blood from his cheek, backing off. He stared at Glide, emerald eyes unblinking, peeking into Glide's mind and trying to pick up his next move.

Stay out of here, kid. Glide thought, his chain cutting into Ryder's other cheek. I don't want you to rely on your telepathy in a fight.

"Sorry, Nar'zun." Ryder murmured. "Force of habit."

Glide shook his head. "Don't worry about it, it's fine. Just try to keep from using it in a fight unless you absolutely have to. Don't get lazy and just pick your enemy's brain for his next move."

"If you insist, Nar'zun..." Ryder said.

Glide sheathed his blade for a moment, winding his chain up again. "It's for the best. You learn all kinds of s**t if you just watch your enemies instead of leeching their minds."

"... I... don't understand, Nar'zun." Ryder admitted. "What can I learn from simply watching that I can't learn with telepathy?"

"You can learn how to predict your enemy's movements." Glide replied, his paw barely moving toward his blade's hilt. "We'll start with something easy. Look at me, what am I gonna do now?"

"You're going to draw your sword." Ryder stated.

Glide nodded, drawing Magus. "Just the subtle little movements can give away someone's intentions." He said. "That'll come in handy in more fights than your telepathy will."

Ryder sighed, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Nar'zun. I still don't understand why you feel it's better to not use my power. I could've found out that you were going to draw if I'd used it."

"It's about being able to rely solely on your enemy's movements, and not fancy powers." Glide muttered, rolling his eye. "Because there are bound to be people that can keep you out of their heads. What are you gonna do if you square off against one of them without knowing how to predict their movements without telepathy?"

"Oh, I get it." Ryder murmured.

"Good boy." Glide smiled. "Before you go jumping into any fights, I want you to practice reading the others' movements, see if you can predict what they're going to do before they do it."

Ryder nodded, beaming. "Yes, Nar'zun."

"Is telepathy all you have?" Glide asked, sheathing his blade.

Ryder nodded again.

"That's weird..." Glide muttered, looking the younger Varixian up and down. "I can sense a lot of energy in you, kid. It's strange that telepathy's all it's going toward." He suddenly grinned, an idea forming. "Let's see if we can bring that energy out, shall we?"

Ryder stared at him, puzzled.

"Bear with me." Glide said, approaching the smaller male. "I want you to envision... fire, deep in your heart."

Ryder closed his eyes, envisioning a roaring forest fire burning in his heart. Before he knew it, the fire was flowing through his veins, warming his entire body. "What's going on...?"

"Concentrate!" Glide snapped. "It's time to change that fire's form. Turn it into glowing blue thread."

Ryder felt the cold beginning to bite him again as he quelled the fire, replacing it with a brightly glowing blue thread.

"Now comes the hard part." Glide said. "Stretch that thread thin, let it pass through you, and fuse it with your skin."

Ryder did as he was told, shuddering as the glowing thread passed through him and wrapped itself over every inch of his body. Soon, he began to glow faintly. "This is unreal..."

Glide smirked. "Put the glow out, kid. Pull it all back in. Leave just one bit on each of your fingertips."

Ryder stopped glowing after a moment, wobbling slightly, feeling light-headed.

"That'll pass." Glide said. "Envision more of that thread spilling from those points on your fingertips. Don't toss too much of it, just enough to be seen. And feel free to let that part glow."

Ryder opened his eyes, glowing blue thread falling from his fingertips.

"Keep it attached." Glide told him. "It's not gonna be any use to you if you just cut it away."

Ryder nodded, the thread staying attached to his fingertips. "It's... it's like spider silk... What power have you given me, Nar'zun?"

"It wasn't me." Glide responded. "It's all you, I just opened your eyes to a small fraction of your true power. Your energy can take any form you choose. Practice enough and it won't take any concentration at all to shift its form. There's one thing you have to remember, though. You have to keep those points on your fingertips as they are, for now. They'll be coming in handy a lot."

"How, Nar'zun?" Ryder asked. "How can I keep them in one form and change the rest into something else?"

"It'll take a while." Glide said. "Until you're ready, you'll need to pool a little bit of energy with one form and cut it off from the rest of your energy; create a sort of barrier between the energy you're using and the pool that you're not. That'll keep you from accidentally changing something that you're using into something useless, and make sure you don't overpower anything. You don't wanna go for 'strand of spider silk' and end up with 'coat everything within six miles in sticky webbing', do you?"

"That seems pretty complicated, Nar'zun..." Ryder murmured.

Glide nodded. "It kinda is, but if you keep all your energy in one huge pool and need to use more than one form at the same time, you run the very real risk of f*****g up the forms and getting killed, or overpowering them and killing yourself and everyone in the vicinity. Listen, all that energy is glowing in there. I want you to envision a small amount of it traveling into your paws. Then let the rest fall back into place, and cut the energy in your paws off from the rest at your wrist. To keep it simple for when you need it, envision a little red wall of energy across your wrists. That should do the job. When the time comes, we can just turn the red walls blue, and let them join the rest of your energy again."

Ryder blinked a few times, shaking his head. "With all due respect, Nar'zun, you're making my head hurt."

"You'll get used to it." Glide laughed, patting the younger male on the head. "We'll be working a lot with that energy. I'm sure Shetani will want to get her paws on you sometime, too. She'll be able to teach you to do s**t with that massive wellspring of energy that I probably never even considered."

Reviews

[KEi]

AAA!
Ryder's supercool.
Who knew?


Bless his li'l cotton socks.
^^