Welcome to Gaia! ::

Quickly Tori put her phone into her pocket as she then made a grab for her coat and put it on. She was excited to do some training with Reine and she did have to wonder what training course would be good, she had done the Life one and found that one interesting but she wanted to try something new. Also Aklin was excited too, he was getting board of all Tori's reading and was wanting fight something or something that didn't include books. He was also a little miffed at the name she had used for twitter as it wasn't funny in his book. He had come up with so many good name for his little filly to use and he just couldn't figure why that one. Maybe there might be a way to change it later on and he was going to try later on but first there was training to do first.

Once she had made it to the indoor training fields where she was going to meet Reine and politely waited for her friend to arrive. While on the way here she did decided that she wanted to try the Sun's Training course the Shadow Run and Aklin agree with her too and glad she didn't bring a book to read while they waited. But first she was going to see what course Reine wanted to do as she didn't really care if they didn't run that one, eventually she would if that wasn't what her friend wanted to do.

Tori really hadn’t been waiting all that long when she spotted Reine running to where she was standing. “Hi,” she answered. Smiling as she returned the quick hug that her friend had given her. “Nope I didn’t wait all that long,” she replied as Aklin was telling her what he wanted to do and she reassured him that if they didn’t do the one he wanted that they would do it later on.

“Well I had been thinking that the Shadow Run could be a good one but then I got to thinking that the Deathsweeper would be fun too,” Tori answered not really sure of which one she wanted to do first since eventually she wanted to do them all. “Why don’t you choose since I can’t make up my mind, the only one that I have done is Battle Arena and I have yet to pass that one,”

"Already on it," Reine grinned, running ahead of Tori towards the Shadow Run arena.

It seemed, however, that she had forgotten what happened the last time she simply charged in, chasing after Justin. The reminder came in the form of hundreds of shadowlings swarming her, and Reine, painfully aware of the failure, could barely manage to fend them off, gasping for breath as she backed away. Seriously, how many tries did it take to get this right?!

You're useless without me, Alynthe shrugged. Of late the swordbreaker had been quieter- not a peaceful sort of silence, but more of a one-sided cold war, and even though Reine knew why, or at least could guess at the reason, Alynthe's attitude and passive-aggressiveness annoyed her to the point of not wanting to care anymore. Whether she liked it or not they were bonded to each other, and if the weapon insisted on being difficult, the trainee would just learn to deal with it.

Gritting her teeth, Reine summoned her weapon- the swordbreaker had a point she couldn't argue, even if it wasn't something she wanted to hear. Time for a second try..

"Righttt there with you!" Tori was doing pretty well fending off the shadowlings, and that gave Reine a little bit more courage. Yes, this time, for sure---

But the same thing happened again- practically all the shadowlings swarmed towards the life trainee, overwhelming her, and even though she managed to hit maybe one or two, there were far too many of them around.

She couldn't tell by this point if they had something against her, or maybe they just really really liked her.

Deep breath, deeeep breath. Part of her was almost terrified to go in there again, but for better or worse that was a relatively small part- Reine was already running back into the arena, and this time she was prepared, fending the shadowlings off before they had a chance to attack her.

So this was what success felt like. Grinning, Reine looked over at Tori, who had been doing better than her since the start.. well. No time like the present to try to catch up.

"Good luck to you, too," she called back, still running forwards. It seemed the longer you dawdled, the more shadowlings you'd get swarming around you... and Reine didn't think she could afford to have that happen again.

So much for the questionably good start... the moment she looked towards Tori, Reine had gotten distracted, and being distracted meant... Shadowlings.

She barely managed to fend them off, trying her best to move towards Tori as they both backed off towards the entrance. Maybe if they kept close they'd both do better at this- but then again, what if she was alone during a mission, with no backup.. and found herself stuck in a situation like this?

Gritting her teeth, Reine stepped back to where they were safe, and tried to assess the situation. Clearly some kind of strategy was required, though what that was, she hadn't a single clue. You'd think beating them off was enough..

"I'm going in again," she said firmly. "You okay?"

"Let's go!" It was almost amazing how Reine managed to keep her enthusiasm, or maybe she just really really wanted to finally beat a training course. Barely half a step behind Tori, she slashed viciously at any shadowlings she encountered- but the tiredness was starting to get to her, and only sheer strength of will kept her moving forwards.

Just as she was getting the hang of it, Reine saw Tori ahead of her trip and fall. A few shadowlings blocked her path, but she made quick work of them, lunging forwards to grab her friend and pull the girl up.

"Tori! Be careful!"

"That's the spirit!" Reine made sure Tori was well enough to keep going, before dashing ahead. They could do this, it wasn't impossible, if other trainees could, there was no way they couldn't. At least on this attempt, Reine was managing to kill more shadowlings than get hurt by them. Which was a welcome improvement.