After lunch, Lana followed Kattie and Almin to Beast Weapons club. Her friends went in and she stood outside the door just doing breathing exercises so her heart wouldn't jump out of her chest. About 20 minutes went by before she opened the door just a small bit and slid inside the door. She kept her back against the wall and her eyes darted around the room. She saw Kattie and Almin sparring with others, practicing those same kicks. She saw Quinn with the new kid, Fex. She thought their fight was interesting so she inched her way along the wall so she could get closer to them and observe. She watched Quinn's footwork. Fex looked interesting as well but he looked bored so she decided to ignore the kid who put in little effort. She watched Quinn do this thing where he was one place then suddenly, he was in another. She caught how he did it and started to imitate it. Leo saw the whole thing and smiled softly. He wanted to go talk to her but he could see how scared she was. Leaving her to do as she liked would be the best decision there. By the time class ended, she thought she got it.
"Quinn!" she called out.
He looked up at his name being called and she waved him over.
"I know you're busy, but I saw you just now and I wanted to see if I am copying your move correctly?" she then performed the Flash-step.
Quinn grinned, "yes, exactly like that. You're a fast learner."
She blushed a little, "on some things. I can do the crescent and ax kicks but I have yet to connect with anyone while sparring. I still suck."
"You are in my homeroom class, right?" Fex asked.
She nodded, "normally I attend Agricultural Club."
Fex looked shocked, "Why are you here?"
"Leo wants to do an assessment on my fighting ability. I'm still scared but I need to give it a try."
Quinn stood straighter, "I will stay and watch if you want."
Lana smiled, "that will make me feel safer, thank you!"
She looked at Leo, "Do you want this assessment to be without abilities? Kattie said you have a no ability rule when doing spars."
Saying the name, she and Almin appeared by her side.
"We'll stay and watch as well," Almin said.
"We know more than anyone how awesome you are!" said Kattie.
Lana looked confused. "Awesome?'
"Didn't you know 4 members of our class died to those fire snakes?"
Lana looked shocked. "Did they find a nest like we did?"
Leo having heard, "You found a fire snake nest?"
The three all nodded. "It almost killed us," chimed in Almin.
Lana chuckled, "Now you're going to get him all hyped up. We did as well as we did because our abilities were properly aligned to take them out. Had we gone against the winged lizards we would not have done so well."
Leo smiled, "Who's decision was it to go for the snakes?"
They both pointed to Lana. "She's been our leader since we got here, honestly. She got us the crystals to buy our new armor, our weapons and has even used her stall in the market and the crystals from Caladi to buy ability books for us. She's growing all of us."
Her face was bright red now and she was clearly uncomfortable with all the praise. "So, abilities or no?"
"Yes. For this, you may use your abilities." Leo answered.
"Okay, just understand one of my favorites I cannot use in here unless I want to destroy the floor." She then covered herself in stage-1 armor then stage-2.
Leo's smile got bigger. "This is why you don't need beast gear. You are full of surprises."
"Are you looking for me to fight you and potentially hurt you or do you simply want me to show you what I can do?"
"Well, I need to see what you can do, no I won't report it to the school. But to also see how I can help you get stronger."
She nodded, "Okay, to show you," she created her vine whip and her climbing rose whip. "These are my two whips. I will not use the thorny one for this but you can see it will hurt more, I'm sure?"
Leo nodded. He could see the differences in the whips quite clearly because she used her white energy that he called Qi in the creation of the vines. The vines were not made of Qi but are fully infused in it. Therefore, he could see every detail as he could see Qi quite clearly.
She withered the climbing rose and moved to the center of the room. Her friends gave her a thumbs up as her heart once again wanted to jump out of her chest. Leo moved opposite her and took his stance with his hands out in front of him knees shoulder width and slightly bent. Lana started by trying to circle to the left but of course Leo moved as well. She was trying to gauge what kind of fighter he was, but she didn't have the kind of experience she would have needed to assess such a thing. In short, she was stalling. It was true Leo could see Qi but it was more than that. Leo could see it so well he was able to predict what his opponent was getting ready to do while Lana had not learned how to predict the movements of her opponent yet. She always relied on her superior reflexes.
She swung her whip toward Leo and he swung his sword toward it. While it normally would have made a slicing noise, the amount of Qi in both their weapons made more of a boom sound. She wasn't expecting that but she never fought anyone who used the white energy before. She was used to her whip being invincible. She decided to wither her whip and use hand to hand because she really didn't want to pull out any more of her cards. She flash-stepped to get behind Leo then flipped up then forward for more momentum to try the axe kick on him. She got airborne but Leo knocked her aside with his hands and sent a kick her direction. She was able to twist with her level of flexibility and put her hands out as his foot came up for the kick and push off his foot sending her into the air. She then needed to think fast. She got herself out of the hit but how was she going to counter attack? She flipped herself down behind him and tried to sweep him, the move she had just recently learned. It didn't work. He jumped to the side. They went on like this for ten minutes with her dodging most of his attacks and him dodging all of hers. She was sweaty like never before. Never had she gone toe-to-toe with such a fighter. She did demonstrate all the martial arts skills he taught in class while he saw moves he had never seen before as they were adapted from her self-taught gymnastics and acrobatics. Leo was laughing and having a good time. It reminded him of fighting Quinn.
At the end of 10 minutes, Leo stepped back. "Okay, I agree with you. You do not need combat class as long as you continue to learn from your friends."
Lana smiled and bowed, "I have never had a spar so challenging. I may need to increase my sparring pool."
Her friends were beaming as was Quinn. Fex had no idea why they even stayed for this but whatever. However, she would make a good puppet. Maybe he should follow her and ask? Quinn noticed the look on his face. "Don't even think about it," so low that only Fex could hear it.