Capítulo 8: Progress-1
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"Again." Scathach says, kicking me down on my back.
Frustration clear on my face, I kick flip up, and send a fast punch at her face. She blocks it casually with one hand, and holds my wrist. Using my wrist, Scathach picks me up to her level, and knees me in my guts, making me gasp, breathless.
As I drop down and hold my stomach, to catch my breath, Scathach circles around me, and lists all the faults she's found in me, saying, "You have barely enough strength to harm a monkey, your moves are all transparent, and your speed, is shite. Gaea really held back while training you, huh?"
I don't answer, on the account of still trying to gain my breathing back. She waits patiently, so once I'm able, I answer, "Mother was afraid of hurting me, I was afraid of hurting her. Overall, a bad combo for training."
My stomach still hurts though, but it's slowly healing. Scathach snorts, and slaps the back of my head. She says, "You? Hurt Gaea? Don't kid yourself, brat. You're a billion years too young for that. Heck,I'm a billion years too young for that. But, I understand. She's the only family you've known, and no matter how strong she is, you will always be afraid of hurting her."
I nod, a bit ashamed at that. Not that I'm too weak, as I am young still, but still. Scathach sees my self loathing and rolling her eyes, she says, "Oh, lose the self pity. You will get stronger with age. But we don't have that much time, so, the first part of our training begins now."
She takes out 4 bands from a pouch hanging on her side, made of a Golden metal, which I look at warily but don't touch yet. Rolling her eyes, Scathach explains, "Those are Magical weights. They will weigh exactly the amount needed to exert your body. For you, it'll be somewhere close to your own body weight. Once you get used to the weights, it'll automatically increase. If you actually want to fight seriously without the weights impeding you, there is a short easy spell, but I won't teach it to you yet."
Weights. Might Gai. YOUTH!
Immediately I pull one Golden band off her hands, and fix it on my left leg. Experimentally, I try and lift the leg, which comes up, but it took a lot more effort to do so. But.. it does not feel much. Sort of like moving through really rare water. Rare as in not dense.
I again receive a slap on my head, as Scathach sighs. Ignoring my yelp, she says, "First, don't be hasty with anything. They could have been cursed for all you know. Second,"
She just waves her hand and the remaining three bands fly into the air and fix themselves on my remaining three limbs.
This time, I look to Scathach for guidance, not wanting to offend her somehow. Nodding, Scathach says, "Good, you're learning to be patient at least. Now, go to the beach, and run around the island." Seeing my dreadful face, she adds, "Make it two rounds. If you take more than two hours, you'll do three rounds tomorrow."
Welp, no need to increase my training so fast so soon. Immediately, I run to go out of the training area, and towards the beach. Huh. The sand will make it even harder to run, and there's a few rocky areas I'll need to climb.
My teacher's a sadistic bitch!
"I heard that!" I hear from the distance, making me run even faster.
While most of the island is surrounded by a sandy beach, there was one patch on the northeast side, which was a rocky shore. And the rocks weren't even, even! So, while I spent 30 minutes running around the 23 something kilometres of the sandy beach, I spent the remaining 25 minutes on about 6 kilometres of the rocky shore, climbing the rocks, jumping down occasionally, and running around a few bigger rocks.
All in all, pretty good for a new runner. 45kmph is a decent speed for someone of my calibre. Sighing, I just start again on my second round around the island, after a 5 minutes break, this time, breathing hard.
Well.. this is my life now.
--- Twenty Years Later---
Well, it's been an eventful twenty years, and I have to say, I don't dread training with Scathach now. At least, not as much as I used to.
First, a good news! I finally had a growth spurt! I was kinda sorta 5'6 now. Not as tall as I'd hoped I would be at 90 something years, but still far better than being 4 feet tall.
Alas, I was still a head shorter than both Scathach and Mother.
In these last two decades, the only thing I did was train. From dawn, I began with my Physical training, increasing the number of laps I would have to run once every few weeks, followed by spars with Scathach, with her not hesitating even a bit while criticising me.
Slowly, but surely, the advantages of the running showed itself, when the time I took to do the laps decreased, even when the weights kept on increasing. After a month or two, my rock climbing became way faster, making me excitedly shout, "Parkour!" all the time.
And boy, did the weights increase. While in the beginning, they weighed only about 30kgs or something, in total, now they weighed something close to ten times that. Probably a bit more.
Two years after being played around by Scathach in our spars, she finally allowed me to fight without the weights, and taught me the spell to disable them.
Even still, without the weights impeding me, I still got my ass handed to me. By a woman who drinks expensive alcohol when fighting! You know how embarrassing it is?
But I did see visible benefits. My speed increased splendidly, and I was about as fast as a cheetah now, when the weights were disabled.
And so did my strength. With me carrying around 300kgs all day, I was bound to get stronger. By my estimate, I could lift somewhere close to 5 tons now, and throw it if I want. It was when I put some effort, though, and not easily.
It's a bit harder to estimate, as there's no weight system available for now and I have to do guess work by comparing my old knowledge. But, I did master the different forms, and locks, and moves within a few years. It took longer to successfully use them in fights with Scathach. She's good, okay?
Anyway, after my Physical training, and after an hour or so of rest, mother took over my Training. And she taught me Magic!
Honestly, even if Magic is not going to be my clique, I still love learning it. What's not to love? It's Magic!
In these 20 years, she's taught me all the spells she herself devised, along with a few that her sister Oshtur, or her nephew Agamotto taught her.
Obviously, being Gods ourselves, we would never borrow Energy from other beings, so Mother mostly taught me how to use the Universal Energies around us, and the Personal Energies within us.
And boy, are there spells for a lot of things. There's the basic stuff like telepathy, Telekinesis, or Astral Projection, which while difficult, are pretty commonly in use. Other than that though, are the more complex stuff, like tearing the earth apart, controlling the flow of any water source, and using different flames fuelled by our emotions.
Then there's binding spells depending on the creature you want to bind, light spells for different types of darkness, as well as concealment charms for different purposes, ranging from hiding from animals, to hiding from Gods and higher beings.
My favourite, though, has to be teleportation. While the Portals are cool, no doubt about that, I like Mother's own brand of Teleportation more. It's sort of like Hiraishin, and a bit like Apparation.
You disappear from one place, and reappear at another location instantly. But, this will only work on this planet, for now. Mother, and I, use our connection to the Earth to sense different locations, and then use our Teleportation spell to go there.
There's no uncomfortable feeling while traveling, as it happens instantly. Plus, there is no way to block us, as you can't hide on Earth, from the Earth.
Along with that, was my usual Training for manipulating the Weather, and the Elements within. It took 12 years for me to completely master the individual elements of Wind, water and Lightning, and another 5 years to combine them so I can control the weather completely.
Mother did tell me that there was a shortcut, using either a Divine Weapon, like Mjolnir of Thor, or Vajra of Indra, or the Lightning bolt of Zeus, or even using your own emotions to power it. But.. there's no control behind it.
The weapons forcefully use your Energy to fulfill their purpose, while emotions need to be kept in check, so you don't fry someone with Lightning by mistake. I do like Mother's method more.
But, try as I might, I still couldn't gain access to the Cosmic Energy of the Celestials within me. Mother knows something about it though, and just told me to wait until the Physical training was over with.
Anyway, 20 years it's been since Scathach started training me, and now, finally, I was going to start with Weapons.
"You look excited." Mother amusedly notices.
Shaking my head, I bring myself back, and say, "Well, of course. I'm going to learn how to wield Weapons! While hand to hand fighting is good, I want a nice sweet Weapon of my own!"
I feel a hand coming, and duck down, dodging the swat made by Scathach. She sits down on the chair beside me, and says, "Good, you dodged. Have you even decided which weapon you want to learn first? Or are you just colouring your dreams?"
Thinking on it for barely a moment, I answer, "I think I'll keep that to your discretion, Scathach. You know what weapon will suit me well, better than I do."
"Damn right, I do. And Good answer, brat." Scathach says, rubbing my head with affection.
We've gotten a lot closer in these decades, making her my sort of crazy aunt. Only, I think my aunt has a small crush on my Mother, who is also her own great grandmother or something. I have no idea how they're actually related.
But, meh. They're Gods. Incest is the least of their worries.
After observing my arms for a while, Scathach nods, and says, "Swords. We'll start with swords, so you get the muscle memory sorted. We'll try different swords to see which suits you best, and then move on to the next, once you've mastered one."
I nod, accepting her decision, as Mother says, "Great. Now let's eat. We have a big day ahead of us."
"Huh? What's so special about today? You guys have anything planned?" I ask, looking confused at Mother, who just looks amused at me.
Scathach snorts, which annoys me even more, and says, "You don't know? Gaea what kind of brat you've given birth to that he doesn't even know what today is?"
Mother shakes her head in despair, and says, "We never celebrated any of his other days, so obviously, he forgot how old he is. I should have realised when he said he's somewhere close to 80 when you first met."
"Okay, explanation, now? What is today?" I ask, annoyed at the two women in front of me.
Scathach just chuckles, leading to her laughing loudly, while mother sighs. Looking me in the eyes, she says, "Theos. You're turning 100 years old today. This is the end of your first century, and so, we are going to celebrate."
"100? Century?" I mumble, honestly shocked. I had seriously forgotten my age, never even bothering to count the years. But, has it actually been 100 years since I was born? While I do remember almost everything from the day that I died, and was born, I did not bother ever counting out the years.
Well, could be. Mother has no reason to lie to me, does she.
Smiling wide, I say, "It has been a hundred years, hasn't it? Huh. Never even noticed how time flies by when you're fighting with a beautiful woman."
Scathach snorts, and says, "Fighting? More like getting your ass beaten by one."
"Eh.. same thing. But, someday, I will defeat you, Scathach. I promise you that!" I say, sparks in my eyes at the dream of defeating her.
"Dream on, brat. Like a brat who gets shit from monkeys can defeat me, a Goddess of War." Scathach says, smirking at me.
Gaea just sighs, and pinches her nose at our quarrelling. She says, "Children, you're both pretty. Now eat."
Something in her voice scares us both, and we quietly eat the food in front of us, making Mother smirk.
Well, kenjutsu, here I come.
~~~
A/N: The Training Arc gets finished completely within 10 chapters, don't fret.
I was losing my battle against Depression, and began writing a summary if what I'd wanted to happen in the story in the future, so that I could drop it and post the summary for your closure.
Funnily enough, that summary chapter brought me back into writing mood and now I'm strictly following that Summary Chapter. So, yay me for not dropping!
Tata!
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