Training Yard

Valundar awoke restless after the night spent with Heres. While he was sure of his convictions, and he did desire the Wolf Queen, his mind raced. he was unsettled here as of yet, and while he originally chalked that up to nerves, he knew remaining idle here in Lux would not help the cause against Abdel, and his silent benefactor.

He found himself holding the locket he always wore, and wandered in the dark early morning halls of the castle to the training yards he had saw when he flew in overhead the previous day. He arranged several obstacles and targets in mere minutes, some straw dummies, sack clock and sand bags, and several wooden hurdles and obstacles of varying intricacies and designs. rope nets , ladders and other bits and pieces he had found and assembled. He only wore his slacks, sparing his undershirt, and shirt the sweat he had generated assembling the training yard as he desired.

Val then knelt down, and relaxed, entering a meditative state. A lot of what he learned of martial arts and combat in general was a mixture of different philosophies spanning the world. He drew upon his own Scardian heritage obviously, but he also drew upon what he had learned and was taught by his best friend Daichi, that of Beijio, and their combat philosophies. The arts of combat were as much about the mind, and the soul as they were of the body. After all, the body only acts upon what the mind and soul instruct it to do. To be the most effective with all three, one must be clear and focused to achieve that goal. After several minutes of deep breathing, and closed eye focus on clearing his mind, Val stood up, and began to train. Striking different targets as he went through the motions of a Kata. Gently at first, each punch and kick, each elbow and knee strike collided with a manequin, a target board, or a sandbag, the tape around his fists began to show wear and tear as each successive strike grew in strength.

The images of his sister Rose entered his mind again, spiking his anger alarmingly, his face took on a snarling look, and his skin paled. Ripples of excessive ki energy began to distort the air around him. Then a new thought entered his mind. His real enemy. Abdel, and the thought that if the black Emperor succeeded in his plans, many more innocent people were going to die, and be consumed by that evil dimension, and it's master. The thought of more innocent children dying due to the rampant greed and desire of a single man infuriated Val even more. WHne that happened, his skin paled further, his hair turned silver, and his one organic eye turned red. The energy he was emitting became visible, like purple wisps of flame licking his skin.

With a savage kick, he split three sandbags in half, spilling their content onto the packed soil of the training ground. Without missing a beat, he then punched a manequin, which exploded into straw splinters. But, as he powered through another punch, Val's control faultered, and for just a moment, his silver white hair flared , and his skin darkened, while his eyes both flashed crimson like the fires of destruction, and his punch sent a shockwave into a wooden wall he had set up as part of the obstacle course, blasting the structure to nothing but frayed timber chunks., and the tape around his hands and arms shredded off like confetti.

Val blinked as his physical features reverted back to normal., and he fell to his knees again, breathing hard. After a few moments of catching his breath, he punched the ground, kicking up some dust.

"Damn it... I need to learn to control it better... I need to... Or else I can't control the BGP... and he'll doom us all." Val said to himself, before he sat down again, and tried to meditate once more.

From a balcony overlooking the yard, Thompson, Valundar's loyal butler and confidant looked on from the guest room, stroking his moustache looking at his charge and thinking.