“Well? Come on y’all, don’t just stand there.” Emery said, trying to nudge her kids into action. Apparently saying ‘attack me’ wasn’t enough to get everyone to do so. That was a little touching, she supposed, but she wasn’t convinced something like love was why they didn’t immediately attack her. She was pretty sure they were mildly afraid.
As she watched everyone slowly inch their way around the room to surround her, she kept the smile in place. “Okay, that’s a good start. I hope you don’t think you’re being sneaky about surrounding me?”
Fia laughed. “No, we’re very clearly making a circle around you.” She said flatly.
“Don’t tell me,” Karn said, “surrounding an enemy like this is a bad idea?” He said, the sarcasm dripping from his tone.
Emery chuckled as she began to move her Qi through her meridians to prepare for the fight. She made no attempt to hide that she was starting up, and several of the teens followed suit. “Surrounding a single enemy is never a bad idea. Just know that you’re never going to surprise someone like this, or manage to do so stealthily. It’s always obvious. And expected.”
“That makes sense.” Kord said. “It’s hard to surprise someone with such a common, expected strategy.”
“Anyone worth their salt will be expecting a large group to surround them.” Emery confirmed again. “They also probably wouldn’t wait for the group to make the first move like I am.” She said, trying to sound impatient.
Her kids didn’t take the bait, and continued to prepare themselves, even once most of them were in position.
“You didn’t rise to the bait, that’s smart. Don’t let your enemy dictate the rhythm of the battle if you don’t have to.”
“We know that, Mom.” Briar said, as they gathered their Qi. “Just because you’re teaching us how to fight new opponents doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly forgotten everything else you taught us.”
Emery chuckled at that. “Fair enough.” She said, and looked around the completed circle of seven teenagers around her. “So. Whenever you’re ready?”
There was a short pause of silence before everyone exploded into action. Emery immediately released her Domain, and created concentrated blades of air at forehead height directly in front of each of her kids. She used her control over sharpness to make them about as dull as she could. It was basically the equivalent of placing a metal pipe directly in front of each child.
The fight lasted all of half a second. There was a chorus of dull thuds as, without fail, every single one of her kids ran full force into the ‘blade’ in front of them. They were all on their butts, holding their heads and confused.
It took a moment before Emery heard the “What?” come from Elise.
“What happened?” Fia said, looking around for whatever had hit her, to no avail.
“I made a point.” Emery said. “If I had wanted, you would all be dead instead of nursing a headache.”
It seemed that something was finally dawning on a few of the faces around the room. It wasn’t everyone, but Kord, Fia, Elise, and Enrik all went pale and introspective. Briar and Karn looked more annoyed than anything else.
Stena just nodded. “That’s about what I expected.” She said, and everyone turned to her. She looked around the room, almost confused. “You can’t all tell me you actually thought we had a chance?”
Elise was the first to chime in. “Well, no, of course not.” She said petulantly. “I didn’t expect us to be dismantled so fast though. That was pathetic, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. It was.” Karn said, crossing their arms.
Emery folded her arms in the middle of the room as she looked around at her kids. “It wasn’t pathetic, or embarrassing, or anything of the sort.” She said, truthfully. “That is just the difference between Realms.” She stressed, really trying to drive that point home. “I need you all to understand that. The gap between the Earth and Sky Realms is not something you can overcome with willpower, stubbornness, or anything of the sort. There is a massive chasm between them.”
There was another silence as the difference in strength really sunk in.
Emery chuckled. “If Momri was the one teaching you this lesson, you would’ve all been frozen solid before you took that first step. Just so you’re aware.”
Karn eventually was the first one to meet Emery’s eyes. “So? What did you do?”
“I made blades of air in front of each of you. They were just so dull that they were practically clubs made of air.” Emery explained.
The silence in the room continued for a while as everyone tried to process everything. Emery waited patiently; she remembered when Vale had shown her the difference in power scales the same way over twenty years ago. She sat down in a meditative pose to relax for a bit while everyone was quiet.
The silence didn’t last for too long, but it ended with the kids muttering to themselves or conferring with one another. It took several more minutes before Stena stepped up as a sort of elected leader for the group.
“Alright Mom. I think you’ve made your point clear. But what now?” She asked.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Emery opened her eyes and got to her feet. “Now we have a sparring match where I don’t choose to just end things immediately.” She said brightly. “Like I said earlier; it’s unlikely a Sky Realm Cultivator would go for the kill like that against children without cause. So don’t piss them off.”
Awkward chuckling moved through the group. “This time the goal is for you all to work on your coordination to delay me while escaping. I’ll fight the way I would expect a random Sky Realm intruder to, while you all try to leave the room unharmed. Or at least in one piece.”
As she added the last bit, she called up a blade in one hand. It wasn’t quite a full length sword, but was still dangerous enough to make her point. Then she actively dulled the edge.
The kids still had her roughly surrounded, and a few of them were between her and the door. This was about as optimal for them as they would get.
When Emery began to cycle her Qi, her kids immediately jumped into action. They all were ready for a fight by the time Emery lazily made her first move.
She randomly chose a direction and stepped in front of Karn. It brought her further away from the door that was their supposed goal, but that was fine. She wasn’t really trying to stop them from ‘escaping’.
Karn, for their part, lashed out wildly with their fists. Emery easily moved around the strikes, and smacked Karn on their flank with her dull sword. The blow was enough to nearly topple Karn, but they recovered admirably instead using the force from the hit to turn and make a dash away from Emery.
As she turned to give chase, Emery found Kord and Stena in her face instead. Kord’s body was already covered in the slight metallic sheen of his defensive technique, and his hands were covered in large gauntlets that looked designed for bludgeoning. The gauntlets were also made of metal Qi, using a similar technique to Emery’s summoned weapons.
Stena was holding a bo staff similarly crafted of Qi, though made of wood Qi. Both ends of the staff were adorned with beautifully colorful flowers, though Emery knew better than to get near them needlessly. Stena’s eyes had a slightly pinkish glow to them as well, which meant she was channeling her own defensive technique as well.
That was good. They were prioritizing survival rather than offense, as Emery needed them to.
Kord swung one of his hands at Emery’s face forcing her to lean back a bit. The bludgeon passed within millimeters of her nose. However, she needed to avoid that strike so she could use her weapon to block Stena’s follow-up, which traveled right behind it. The staff’s end was stopped almost half a meter away from Emery; she didn’t want to chance whatever effect the flowers may have.
Stena let out a muttered curse as she moved to swing the other end of the staff toward her mother. Kord dipped out of the way to allow the staff to come up and around unimpeded.
Feeling a little bit vindictive, Emery slipped her foot around Kord’s ankle and pulled to trip him up. He stumbled on his escape, but still managed to get away as Stena’s staff covered his retreat. Emery brought up her sword to block again, still angling to keep the flowers at a distance.
Then Stena flexed her Qi, calling up a mass of flowers from the wooden floor of the training room. As she spun to make her dash toward the door, she swept her foot through the flowers, kicking up a spray of pollen or spores. Emery wasn’t sure what it was, but immediately closed her eyes and mouth just to be safe. She backed up a step and slipped around the patch of flowers and growing cloud of pollen, using her speed to approach Stena’s back.
As she stepped within striking distance, Emery swung her blade up toward Stena’s unprotected back. There was a solid thud as the blade crashed into a hastily created stone shield that Enrik had created. It wasn’t solid enough to stop the blow from following through though.
Emery’s follow through on the swing forced the stone shield to crash against Stena’s back, sending the girl sprawling forward. Emery moved to take a step forward, but wasn’t moving at speed. There was enough time in between for Enrik to call up a large stone from the ground to allow Stena to create some distance. In fact, the stone was big enough and wide enough to solidly block Emery’s vision long enough for the teens to all make their escape from the room; Emery could feel them leave through her Domain.
But that wasn’t what took her attention. As the stone wall sprouted from the ground - as anyone would expect it to - it had cracked through the training room’s floor rather spectacularly. The loud splintering of wood completely drowned out everything else for a moment, and had been what ultimately stopped Emery from pursuing her kids.
She lifted a hand to her forehead to rub the spot between her eyebrows. “Oh, Enrik…”
“What was that?” Avuri shouted from somewhere else in the house above the first floor. “Is everyone okay?” She called again when there was no immediate response, sounding worried.
“We’re fine!” Emery called back, as she peered around the stone partition at Enrik, pinning him with her stare. “Our son just summoned some stone through the floor.”
“How bad?” Avuri called back. There was a moment as Emery looked around the edges of the stone slab and did quick measurements in her head.
“Bad. Most of the flooring will need to be replaced.” She finally responded. Enrik had managed to destroy almost the middle of the room, which ruined most of the larger planks of flooring. A lot of it would need to be replaced.
“Enrik?” Emery said, keeping her voice even, “would you like to at least come here and put the stone back?”
The boy slunk back into the room cautiously, looking cowed. “Sorry, Mom…” he intoned. The other kids were all huddled around the door, failing spectacularly at hiding.
“So, why did you call the stone from the ground like that and destroy the floor?” Emery asked, already suspecting the answer.
“Because I panicked, and moving stone from the ground in a large chunk like that is faster than creating it from Qi…” He said sheepishly, as he cycled his Qi and pushed the stone back into the earth.
Emery stepped up to Enrik and raised a hand. He flinched when she placed it on his head gently. “You did well.” She said, finally. “I’m not happy that we’ll have to replace the floor, mind you.” She said, thoroughly messing up his hair. “But you did what was the right call. The fractions of a second that you could save by skipping the time it takes to coalesce Qi like that could easily be the difference in life or death in a real fight.”
“R-right…” He said tentatively, still expecting some kind of punishment for breaking the floor. Probably no treats or city visits for a few weeks.
Instead, Emery turned toward the door where everyone else was hiding. “You can all come out now.” She said with a bit of laughter in her voice. “You’re not in trouble.”
As they all filtered into the room slowly, Emery smiled. “Altogether, you managed to escape. That was well done. However…” She looked at Enrik, then Stena. “You two can clean up the floor and repair it when you have time over the next few days.”
When they both slumped in defeat, she chuckled. “Hey, at least you both practice with wood and earth Qi. Could be worse!” She teased, then made her way toward the group and the door.
“Oh! And don’t forget to watch for splinters. Nasty stuff.”