Chapter 154: Come on Riker
"You want to train with me?" she asked, as if wanting to clear the confusion. He nodded in return, wasting no time.
"Why?"
She asked the question with a straight face, and he had not expected that.
"Well, to get stronger," he replied.
"No, that’s not a good enough reason. Master Ren explained once. Your desire for strength has to have a reason.
Wanting to be strong is a good reason, but it’s not for you, Riker. You are a laid-back, talented monster. You do not strive for strength because it comes to you naturally. But now you want to go even further and get even stronger, so I need to know your reason."
Riker heard that. He clenched his fist. "Tch, did you and Silas have a talk before speaking to me? You both are sounding very similar at this point."
"I did not, but if Silas said something like that, then it is true. Let me guess then, you do not feel enough. Silas getting captured weighed heavy on your mind, and now you simply want to get strong to avoid it.
You want to get strong so you do not have to feel useless anymore." She laid it out there.
"WOW, I have heard that quite a bit today," he replied with a self-deprecating laugh.
"Well, unlike Silas, I’ll not tell you that you are actually good enough or wanted. You are of equal age as me, named by the master himself and of equal, if not greater, talent than me, yet you are weaker than me.
So here is my personal verdict: you are weak, Riker, and unfit for the name that you have been given. You disgrace the talent that you carry, and you lack the strength to back any resolve.
If you had been strong enough, you would have been able to aid Silas and ensure that he was not captured, which would not have resulted in Master Ren getting captured," she said it all with a straight face and full intent. She did not stutter behind any words and ensured that everyone she spoke landed with full clarity. She looked him right in the eye as she did.
Riker’s breathing had changed.
It was heavier now, coming in through his teeth, his chest rising and falling with the particular rhythm of someone fighting to keep something contained that was no longer interested in being contained. His hands were shaking slightly. Not from exhaustion.
From rage.
"That’s enough," he said.
She looked at him.
"Not even close," she replied, her face carrying the same straight expression it had held since the beginning of this. "I could keep going for days."
Something snapped.
He armed his gauntlets, the metal locking into place around his fists with a sound that echoed across the training ground, and he looked at her with eyes that had stopped calculating anything.
"I’ll show you," he said. "I’ll show you that I can rival you. That I am no weakling."
She looked at the gauntlets. Looked at his face.
Then she smiled. Small and brief and entirely serious underneath it. She reached for her spear, spun it once in her hand, and drove the blade into the ground at her feet.
"Then come at me," she said.
He blasted forward.
His wings fired behind him, propelling him across the distance faster than his legs alone would have managed, the gauntlets already swinging as he closed in, the attack carrying everything his anger had to put behind it.
She watched him come.
At the last moment, she stepped sideways, letting his swing pass in front of her, and reached out to catch his extended arm, using his own momentum to redirect him. She revolved around him with the spear still planted in the ground as her pivot point, her leg coming around and connecting with his side in a clean sweeping kick that sent him skidding across the earth.
He hit the ground, rolled, came up.
He slashed forward immediately, flame claw attacks firing in quick succession, each one aimed at forcing her to move, to react, to stop standing there like the fight was happening somewhere slightly below her attention level.
She dodged each one.
Not dramatically. Not with any particular urgency. She simply was not where each attack was by the time it arrived, her body moving in small, efficient adjustments that made him feel like he was fighting the space around her rather than her specifically.
She had not pulled the spear from the ground yet.
"Is this seriously what you have to show?" she said, watching another flame claw miss her. "This is how you plan to defeat me?"
He roared and lunged straight at her throat, no technique, no setup, just the rawest thing he had, going directly for what he wanted to reach.
She leaned back.
His hands passed over her by inches, and as she came back upright, she pulled the spear from the ground in the same motion, spun it, and drove the shaft into his back as he went past her.
He staggered.
"You move on instinct," she said, planting the spear again. "It is good. It kept you alive up to now. But instinct without calculation is useless against someone who can read where your instinct is taking you before you get there."
He turned and threw more fire at her, a wide, sweeping arc this time to cut off her movement options.
She spun the spear and slashed through it, clearing the flames, and in the same motion freed her right hand and compressed a ball of metal between her fingers, sharpened it in an instant, and fired it directly at him.
He crossed his arms and took it, the impact throwing sparks, and when his arms dropped, she was gone.
He felt her presence to his left.
Too late.
The spear came around in a horizontal swing, and he got his hand up to block it. The impact drove him off his feet, sending him three meters sideways before he managed to find the ground and land on both feet, his arm already protesting the contact.
He stood there breathing hard, teeth clenched, looking at her across the space between them.
She stood with the spear loose in her hand, the smallest smile on her face.
"Come on, Riker," she said. "Is this really all you can give?"