Rotating, he dropped low barely avoiding the attack and in one fluid motion went for her legs. Just as he was about to connect with her left thigh, she backflipped and midair summoned the rest of the beast. By the time she landed on her feet a 10-foot tall saber-toothed tiger appeared. Like a loyal companion, it stood by her side guarding her, waiting, ready to engage the instructor. Constructed out of pure genetic energy it had a mirage-like quality to it, only adding to its dangerous aura.
Without notice Amarah and her beast attacked, both creating two silver colored blurs Raphael wasn't able to follow. Moving too fast for his eyes to track he'd no idea how the instructor evaded her frontal assault, except that he did since the fight continued.
Without notice Raphael was suddenly blasted backward by a powerful gust of wind, almost falling on his ass. Thankfully he didn't, but in the center, Amarah and her saber-toothed beast had separated from the instructor. None of them looked worse for wear from when they started, except a bit out of breath.
Somehow deciding without speaking both of them sheathed their tactical short swords. As Amarah dissolved her energy constructed beast into nothing the director started clapping.
"Excellent spar! I see you've gotten a better hang of it Amarah," the director said.
"Yes, it has gotten easier to keep the rhythm of the arcane blueprint going even while fighting, though I still can't keep it going for long," she exhaled.
"No matter. It's good to see you improve. Even though we did spend a fortune finding an arcane blueprint designed for your specific bloodline ability," he commented loud enough for everybody to hear.
"Yeah, but I still have a long way to go!" Amarah said with a smile as she went towards the door leading out.
"Well, considering our future plans for you it's definitely worth it," he hollered at her.
Not even bothering to answer, she just left.
The balls on that girl, shit! Raphael would never have dared to do that, not yet at least. He'd seen other kids from his group get their asses whooped for much less, and she was doing it to the facility director no less. But he guessed she'd already proven her worth several times over leaving her much more leeway compared to any of them. They were still very much untested, and their teachers had yet to teach how to do what Amarah did.
"Okay then, let's move on to the last part," he tried to speak, but two boys engaging in a heated debate interrupted him.
Stolen story; please report.
"Oi, listen up you two! I'm not going to repeat myself," annoyance evident in expression.
The troublemakers found that the leniency given to Amarah didn't extend to them and they immediately became quiet. With silence reestablished, he once again tried to explain the last part.
"Each of you will now be given an instructor who will teach you the fundamentals of what it means to be sentinels! Though supported by other staff members, this person will be in full charge of coordinating your entire education and training. Structuring your schedules to maximise time spent, as our time is short and we have much to teach," the facility director explained.
"Besides this we'll also be making entire new groups, each of them consisting of only 10 trainees, instead of the previous 20. To move on you would either need to pass a certain test at age 10 or a certain criterion for potential like Amarah did," he told them.
With that said, the instructors went on a naming spree, calling the names of each child supposed to be on their team. Chaotic as it was with all instructors doing it simultaneously, everybody was still able to hear when they got called upon.
As they went by alphabet, it took a while until anyone called Raphael's name. Enough time him to get a little irritable. He wasn't much for waiting around doing, well nothing.
"Raphael!" A female voice called out just as he was beginning to zone out.
"Here," he responded and strolled towards the woman.
"Okay, now that we're all together, please follow me..." She said, not even introducing herself.
Following her, she led them to a classroom with seats for 10 people and free space to the right allowing the possibility of live demonstrations, should it be needed during lectures.
Raphael chose one of the back seats, his preferred spot during lectures such as these since they started receiving them at age 3. From his position, he had an almost complete view of the new group he'd been put in, including their instructor standing at the very front.
Looking around, he noticed that not one of them appeared with the same physical traits as him. Not that he expected them to. During a previous lecture on demographics and racial classification, he'd found that none of the available documents for him to read about the current empires and kingdoms described them having physical traits like his. It didn't matter too much, but if possible he would still like to know.
"Now that you've all found a seat, I'll do a brief self-introduction and afterward give you an overview of your coming years," their instructor begun.
Raphael's tail flicked in annoyance, understanding he'd have to go through yet another speech.
"Am I bothering you, hmm... Raphael?" She asked while looking at the tablet she'd been holding.
"Sorry, won't happen again," he murmured with his ears lowered.
"It better not, but by reading up on your file I'm guessing that it will. Control your tail, or you will get in trouble with me, young man!" She said.
Angry with his own tail for betraying him in such a way revealing confidential information to her, the 'enemy', without his damn approval and getting him in trouble. He wanted to strangle it! Not that it would remedy his current bad standing with their instructor, but it would make him feel better. He did decide against it, however, as it would make him look crazy and stand out even more than usual. Instead, he chose to just stay attentive and keep his tail low, thus making it less likely for him to mess up any further.