Training Montage/Meditations

“I freakin’ love this place,” Orphan thought to himself.

Orphan had gotten up pretty early, as was typical for him. Due to the rigorous physical and mental conditioning he’d done during his year with his Legacy tutor, Typhoon, he seemed to get by okay on a little less sleep than most people, plus his meditation rituals helped him sleep more soundly, and wake up feeling more refreshed, than had been the case before his Awakening. But on this day, he’d set his watch alarm to wake him up early for a reason.

He was looking forward to getting in some serious exercise and training time.

Orphan had spent the last year on the road, and he hadn’t always had much opportunity to do more than the bare minimum of practice necessary to keep his skills sharp. Sword katas in a cramped motel room, stopping a couple hours in a forest to do pull-ups on tree branches and some tai chi in a clearing, occasionally getting in some sparring time with an Arrow he’d met along the way… all that stuff prevented atrophy of skills and strength, and occasionally he’d learned some new trick along the way, but he felt like he’d learned a lot less during his pilgrimage of the past year than Typhoon would have expected. Mostly he’d learned that it pretty much sucked to be on the road all the time.

For now, at least, he was going to stay put. From what he could tell so far, there was more than enough going on in Sacramento for him to justify a pause in his travels. The one condition he’d been instructed to place before the pilgrimage was that he remain true to his duty as an Adamantine Arrow, and it seemed Sacramento could use a few more Arrows around, at least for the moment.

And that was just fine with Orphan. A break from shitty motels, greasy diner food and sleeping in his car was a great thing, and to have that break be here, at the Circle of Creation, which served as a sanctum for the Arrows and Guardians of Sacramento… well, that seemed pretty much like heaven to him. Or nirvana. Orphan still had a lot of questions about all the spiritual stuff – he wasn’t sure gods even existed, or whether if they did, they weren’t just puffed-up spirits, not much different from any nature or vice spirit except in power level – but when he gave thought to such matters, he found himself leaning toward more or less a Buddhist view of things.

This place, though… hell, it had everything! Great indoor and outdoor training facilities – a track, weight and gymnastics equipment, heavy and light bags, kicking posts, mats, a good array of actual and sparring weapons, even an indoor pistol range – plus a Hallow, and the place was practically a castle! What wasn’t there to love about this?

It sure beat that old barn the local Arrows trained in outside Omaha, the one next door to a commercial hog confinement.

The first thing Orphan did was spend an hour doing oblation. He’d forgotten to ask West if he had permission to draw upon the Hallow’s Mana for oblation, but that was fine. One advantage provided by his Legacy was that he could perform an oblation to regain Mana without needing a hollow. The quasi-bushido Legacy he followed had taught him to perform a wide range of oblations and – as with most things Arrow – not focus too much on any one of them. Sometimes he simply meditated, sometimes he spent the time maintaining his daisho even more thoroughly than usual, sometimes he even spent an hour studying art in a museum or doing some drawing (something he’d recently taken up again, after giving up on art somewhere around the 6th grade). Today, though, since he had a real place to train and more than ample room, he was doing his favorite: sword katas.

Orphan was dressed simply, in gray sweat pants, a black Hard Rock Café t-shirt and a bandana around his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes. He sometimes wore gloves and boots while training – he’d learned long ago that knowing how to kick barefoot didn’t do one a lot of good if one didn’t walk around barefoot all the time – but today he wore nothing on his hands or feet.

Orphan used the wooden training swords when sparring, but otherwise he always used his own daisho, the one previously owned by his father, also an Arrow, also a Brother of the Demon Wind. He wasn’t even sure if he could receive the benefits of oblation without the real weapons in hand, because the wooden ones just didn’t resonate with his soul the way these ones did. Occasionally he’d practice with the swords still sheathed – a useful skill for when he wanted to subdue someone without killing them – but it just didn’t feel right unless they were in his hands.

As daisho go, Orphan’s was pretty plain. The katana and wakazashi were of identical, simple design – circular guards carved with Atlantean runes for “strength”, “service” and “honor”, the grips wrapped in gold and black cord in the traditional diamond pattern, the sheaths plan, polished ebony with a rounded steel tip – but they were masterworks, crafted in Japan by a true master swordsmith. Even without the assistance of magic, they were capable of cutting through cinderblocks and still maintaining an edge, and were both flexible and strong enough to block much heavier weapons without being damaged in the slightest. The katana had been further strengthened by a Moros he’d worked with in Miami about six months back. Other than that the blades weren’t magical, but you wouldn’t know that by the way light rippled and flashed off them.

Sometimes Orphan focused on katas utilizing only the katana, but today he was using both blades. He’d been focusing more and more lately on two-blade technique, and while he wasn’t really skilled enough yet fighting with both blades for that to be a good idea in life-or-death combat, he knew that mastering that technique was a necessary part of his growth as a warrior and as a Waveman. The form he’d selected today was a demanding one, alternating figure-8 slashes and forward thrusts with both weapons, arms-spread techniques symbolizing strikes and blocks against different opponents, and – best of all, in Orphan’s mind – some of the same jumping moves that had caused that Moros companion-of-the-moment to jokingly refer to him as “Young Jedi”. Orphan rarely felt better than he did while feeling the blades slicing through the air as he spun and thrust; the last time he’d gotten laid - about two months ago, in Phoenix, with that freaky Thyrsus chick that growled when she came - might have been better, but he wasn’t 100% sure on that, even. As he continued, he felt a sense of peace come upon him, even as he felt power building. He could feel his soul connecting to the Supernal, and the Mana flowing into him. This was, in Orphan’s frame of reference, a pure, unmistakably spiritual experience. He wasn’t sure about many things when it came to spirituality, but he was sure of that.

Spoiler:

Orphan felt like he could continue this dance forever, but he made himself stop after an hour. His training had instilled in him a complete, nearly unthinking acceptance of the Arrow adage “Adaptability Is Strength.” He knew too much reliance on any one thing – one weapon, one fighting style, one technique, one strategy, one Arcanum, even one ally – was a path to disaster. He was also quite aware that, sadly, it just wasn’t as easy for one to walk among sleepers wearing a daisho as it was to carry a knife or a pistol under one’s jacket. Thus, after cooling down for a moment and doing a quick, preliminary cleaning, he sheathed his blades and hung them over his shoulder, then continued working on other things.

Orphan alternated between weapons practice and pure physical exercise. He was familiar with a wide range of weapons and armed and unarmed fighting techniques – jujutsu, Okinawan karate, muay Thai, kali, eagle claw kung fu, Navajo wrestling techniques, European fencing, knife throwing, archery, sword-and-shield fighting – and while he wasn’t close to mastering any of them, he could draw upon all of them with a fair degree of skill, and was at least minimally proficient with more types of weapons than he’d even known existed before he started training with Master Typhoon. Everything from a simple boot knife to wind-and-fire wheels, war fans and the bizarre, heavy and downright deadly nine dragons trident, he could fight with it if that’s what he had to work with. He didn’t have all of those available at the moment – almost nobody, Orphan included, had wind-and-fire wheels or a nine dragons trident - but he spent at least a few minutes with every type of melee or thrown weapon in the training arsenal.

During breaks in his practice, Orphan thought about the importance of getting better with improvised weapons, such that he could pick up virtually anything in his environment and fight with it, thus never being without a weapon at hand. He hadn’t really worked on that much, but he’d thought about it a lot, first after seeing that bokor in Miami who fought with a chainsaw – easily the scariest thing he’d ever seen, save only Typhoon at his fighting best – and then again after seeing that Sentinel in Cheyenne who had, on a dare, started a fight in a redneck bar and, using no magic and armed with nothing but a beer pitcher and a broken pool cue, taken out eleven men on his own. That one Ladder guy had called the Sentinel a showboater and an asshole, and while both were somewhat true, watching him had felt to Orphan like watching a master artist at work.

Orphan’s exercise routine was just as wide-ranging as his fighting practice: light and heavy weight lifting, sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, rings, parallel bars and gymnastic floor exercises. He hoped to get in some swimming and some running later. He focused a bit more on the gymnastics than on the rest this morming - he was working on developing an extremely mobile and acrobatic fighting style, the better with which to catch opponents off guard and utilize the environment in a fight – but along with the flips and tumbling, he spent a lot of time just plain working up a sweat. He even spent some time on breath control and on holding his breath, both while running in place and at rest.

During the breathing exercises, Orphan thought about that stuff he’d seen first in New York and then again in Miami: Parkour. Running up walls, jumping from rooftop to rooftop – it looked like something from an action movie, but it was real, and it looked like a lot of fun, not to mention useful and cool as hell. He wondered if he could find someone around here that knew that, and with whom he might train.

Last, Orphan spent some time in the shooting range. He knew that with the exception of some atypical weapons – whips, chains and the like – he was weakest with long-range combat. Though familiar and minimally competent with pistols, rifles, shotguns and even crossbows, he wasn’t really skilled with any of them. He knew that, and he’d also told West that, and pledged to work on it. And so he did.

Orphan spent an hour at the pistol range, using his own favored gun, a H&K Mk 23, and three other pistols he found in the arsenal. He practiced with and without the laser sight, and he spent 10 minutes firing from unusual and less-than-ideal angles and positions, including front- and back-prone and even firing behind his back and over his shoulder. The enhanced awareness granted by his Legacy attainment allowed him to effectively see in every direction at once, so he wasn’t fighting blind even when facing forward while firing over his shoulder, but that didn’t mean his accuracy was very good when shooting like that. That was something he intended to change, and while he didn’t fool himself into thinking an hour on the range was going to make him a master marksman, he did know that every bit helped.

While cooling down, taking a quick shower and having a light breakfast, Orphan thought about the crucial part of his training he’d not focused on at all so far today: magic. He was aware that despite his acceptance of Arrow dogma, he relied too much on Fate to get by, and while that hadn’t let him down yet, he knew that fate was fickle. He was also pretty skilled with Time, even though he didn’t generally use it as much in combat, but he knew it was time for that to change. If nothing else, knowing what had happened to Val and her companions at Granite Park told him there might be call for Shifting Sands. Though vulgar, that spell could literally mean the difference between life and death. That’s why he’d picked up a sturdy watch last night. He was about to prepare it as an Arcanum tool. While his katana was his Path tool, he knew he couldn’t depend on it being with him when he needed to utilize a tool to reduce Paradox, any more than he could depend on having it available as a weapon. The watch would be readily available, just like the pendant he wore, carved with kanji for “luck”, that served as his Fate tool.

Aside from Time and Fate, Orphan knew there were other Arcana in which he needed to train. Advancing to Disciple of Life offered some truly awesome personal-enhancement options, and he just could not accept being able to magically heal himself but unable to do the same for others. And then there was his meager Initiate ability with Space. He wanted to build up some real ability with that one, both because it was an essential component to his Legacy and simply for reasons of functionality and diversity of options. Not only did Space offer incredible options in terms of reconnaissance, mobility and information gathering, it also unlocked the power of sympathetic magic while also providing some of the best defenses against sympathetic magic.

And then there was Mind.

Orphan had been giving a lot of thought lately as to which of the Arcana he would start to develop next. He’d narrowed it between Prime and Mind. Prime offered some truly incredible counterspell and magical defense options, plus the incredibly useful Supernal Vision, plus tass- and Mana-manipulation abilities and even the ability to imbue weapons and other items with magic. However, it sounded like Falx was an Obrimos. Tug was a Thyrsus, Val was a Moros and Teegan… well, actually, it occurred to Orphan that he didn’t have any idea whatsoever what path Teegan followed. He’d have to ask her about that. In any case, Prime would fall into Falx’s area of expertise. Even if Teegan was Magistos – and he doubted that, she just didn’t give off that vibe in the slightest – Mind was too powerful and useful to be left to one person in a group. As far as he knew, though, none of his current companions had any ability at all with Mind, and neither did he, which meant that they were defenseless against it, and being part of a Legacy dominated by Magistos – including, again, his own tutor, Typhoon – Orphan knew that being defenseless against Mind spelled “disaster in the making.”

So, Mind it was. Orphan knew that learning Mind to a degree that would be truly useful would mean neglecting further progress in his other Arcana, but he was okay with that. He was a team player now, and Service Is Mastery was another Arrow principle he believed in fully, and if that meant he had to slow his own development in other areas in order to cover a strategic weakness and provide needed defenses to companions, well, then, he could live with that.