“I think that went well.”

“That man tried to kill you.”

Carmine shrugged his shoulders.

“Eh, if somebody isn’t angry, you aren't doing it right.”

The two of them walked out of the fairgrounds and headed towards the outer walls. The birdhouse was a hollowed out skyscraper sized piece of wood, placed just outside the electric fence that kept out most of the smaller soulbeasts. Flyers constantly flew in and out, keeping the city connected to the rest of the world.

Six carefully stepped across the loose stoney ground, trying not to dull the sharp points of its talons.

“Was there a point to your actions?” It questioned its trainer.

“Probably not.” Carmine admitted. “I was going to pick her up as a sideproject if she attacked me or something, but she couldn’t even speak.” Beating people with a Magikoi would have been fun, and the ultimate display of his abilities, but he knew that it was impossible to do with a normal one. Subservience and docility had been bred into the species, and no matter how strong he made them, any normal Magikoi would collapse at the first sign of conflict. Carmine thought that the Magikoi he met at the show would have been different, but her lack of action had been disappointing. “I might check up on her again later, but I’m not expecting much.”

Six glared at him, narrowing its eyes.

“I will not have my resources diverted to a Magikoi of all things.”

“Don’t worry, I know my priorities. She’ll be a hobby at most.”

The two of them passed the wooden gate of the birdhouse, letting the chaotic canopy wash over them. Unlike human space, where people tried to keep silent out of politeness, the birdhouse was a sea of noise, both physical and psychic. Soulbeasts blared their thoughts and emotions out into the world, unwilling or unable to restrain themselves. A few humans stood around, cleaning, bringing food, and providing thoughts to those that need it.

Celine’s room was on the 4th floor. After receiving permission to enter, Carmine found her bent over and preening her feathers, her golden wings shining under the light of sunset.

“Did you tear your cushion again?” He asked, seeing all the cotton spilled over the ground.

The Pharrow waved her wings, brushing the cotton out of her room with a rush of wind.

“Bah! Your new human fabrics are no good! They used to use beast hide back in my day!”

Carmine sent her a questioning glare.

“I remember you saying that you liked those ‘new human fabrics’. Something about them being smoother and softer?” He still remembered the days when the textile factory had first opened, and all the new clothes that everyone had bought.

“Well, yes, but that was before I realized that they tore at the slightest touch. Anyways, is that your starter I see there?”

Carmine stepped to the side letting his new Zan step into the room.

“Celine, this is Six. This year’s top graduate from the Pinnacle Institute.”

Six bowed its head in greeting, a surprisingly natural motion for its inhuman frame.

“We were wondering if you’d let us practice on you for a bit.”

Celine rose up to her full height, eyes narrowed.

“Oh? Trying to fight an old thing like me? How rude.”

“I’d hardly call you old. Your wings are still as sharp as ever.”

It took a few more complements to get her to agree to a spar. Compliments he gave easily, seeing as she practically raised him.

Carmine and Six arrived at the agreed upon battleground first. It was a rocky meadow with a few trees, just outside of what would be considered wildlands.

He had been out farther than this before, during training and exercises, but never alone. Freedom of travel was one of the reasons he decided to use his talents to become a trainer, instead of a safer profession like politician or lawyer.

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“Let's do some warmups.” He told Six. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” Six replied.

Having received confirmation, Carmine sent his mind out and pushed it into Six’s. There was no resistance as he descended, going past the outer layer of emotions and thoughts into the realm of physical sensations. A stream of information entered his mind, and for a second, Carmine felt as if he had been split in two.

Shoving the new sensations into the back of his mind, Carmine focused on his own body, closing his eyes until he was no longer swaying on his feet. Once he was confident that he wasn’t just going to kneel over, Carmine opened his eyes and sent a signal to the Zan.

“I’m not too familiar with you yet, so start slowly. Go.”

The soulbeast moved, and he felt the energy pulse through its body. With his human eyes, Carmine had difficulty keeping track of the Zan as it blurred across the field. He could feel that Six wasn’t particularly stronger than any of the other soulbeasts he’d trained with, but it controlled its energy with mechanical efficiency. Where other soulbeasts would simply flood their body with energy and let instincts take care of the rest, Six manually focused its energy into different limbs as it moved.

Of course, Carmine knew that there were plenty of disadvantages to such a technique. Aside from the control necessary to maintain it, he could feel a small, burning pain spread throughout its body. Without sufficient energy to reinforce it, every step and acceleration would pile on stress and damage. Carmine expected that without a carapace to hold everything together and a relatively light body, such a technique would be suicidal.

The two of them ran through the basics over the next few minutes. Elemental conversions, standard movesets, full range of motion. Carmine saw a few areas where he could have helped out, such as making the illusionary decoys seem more real, but nothing they could go over in a short amount of time. One fairly unique thing was the Zan’s boomerang technique. Carmine had seen plenty of shaped force constructs that would catch the air in order to spin around, but Six actually double layered boomerangs. A weaker outer layer that let attacks fly straight, soon breaking away to reveal a shaped inner layer that would redirect it. Carmine didn’t know if Six came up with the idea itself, or if someone from the institute did, but either way, it was an impressive technique.

Celine’s arrival was heralded by the stirring wind. The Pharrow kicked up dust with each beat of her wings, hovering above the ground. “You kids ready?”

Six and Carmine both looked up at her, waiting for her to land.

She didn’t.

“You’re seriously going to start in the air?” Carmine asked.

“I’m a senior. If I’m going to fight, I’ll take every advantage I can. Besides, it's not like this is something you two geniuses can’t handle.”

Fair enough. It would make things harder, but that's the entire reason he was doing this.

“Flash.” He commanded. “Run under her and charge a Sword Beam.” A bright beam of light hit Celine in the eyes, blinding her. She instinctively rose into the air, trying to gain distance.

Fighting against a flyer was hard at the best of times. Six had some aerial maneuverability with its elemental manipulation, but nothing that could compete with an actual flyer.

“Jump up and release towards her wings.” Unfortunately, she had gained too much distance, even with a jump. Sensing the attack, the Pharrow managed to tilt away, losing a few feathers instead of an entire wing.

Sharp winds blew behind her as she flew, pushing Six back to the ground as she kept a safe distance.

This was why flyers were so hard to fight on open ground. Without walls or a roof to limit their movements, they simply had too much mobility for ground based soulbeasts to fight. This was usually made up for by the fact that ground based soulbeasts were generally larger and more powerful, but in this case, both of those factors favored the flyer.

Carmine was able to read her thoughts and predict her actions, but that only helped with avoiding attacks, not landing them.

“Back to the ground. Kick up some dust and spread some imageless decoys.”

Six tore into the ground with its talons as it landed, spinning around to kick up a cloud of dust. It was fairly thin, but enough to obscure the view as night descended. Without having to worry about generating light illusions, Six managed to create 8 energy constructs in a second, sending them on random paths of motion to cover his movements.

Carmine reached out, forming mental decoys to overlap the energy ones. Celine wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but another trainer would, and that's what they were practicing for.

“Move around in the cloud and launch smaller attacks. Kick up clouds and generate decoys as necessary.”

Celine flew around, trying to dodge the attacks and dispel the cloud while maintaining a safe distance. Six did its job, crushing the stone beneath its feet with a blanket of force constructs, creating dust faster than she could blow it away.

Carmine knew that Six didn’t have the energy to sustain this strategy for long. Ideally, Six would land a crippling blow and bring Celine to the ground, but even with him feeding the Zan targeting information, such a thing was unlikely. But the Pharrow certainly didn’t know that, and without a trainer to protect her from influence, Carmine was free to inflame her feelings of aggression and impatience.

It wasn’t anything large or overt, but the nudge was enough to make her descend, air condensing beneath her wings to blow apart the dust.

“Last chance.” He told Six. “Send the dust and some decoys at her when she gets close.”

Celine descended with the force of a hurricane, perfectly displaying why humans didn’t try and fight soul beasts.

The gathered air was thrown down like a bomb. Enchanted with metal energy, expanding winds cut into the ground, leaving deep groves as it passed. Carmine close his eyes and turned away from the impact, but he could feel Six get caught in the outer periphery of the blast, winds cutting through its carapace to draw golden blood.

Another disadvantage of its movement technique. He would have to fix that later.

Six didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Unable to recover after such a massive attack, Celine wasn’t quite able to dodge the counter that came afterward. Even with metal energy reinforcing its wings, the Pharrow wasn’t able to keep the Sword Beams from destabilizing her flight.

Six pulled her downwards with a Vortex Palm grabbing onto her wings and tackling her into the ground.

She could have kept fighting, using her superior size and energy to try and shake Six off. But it was only a training spar, with no real stakes to speak of.

“Alright, alright, you win! Get off me!”

Victory, meaningless though it may be. Still, it was only a sign of greater things to come. They would have countless more, as time went by.