How to discard fear (Cobie and Karma)

Cobalt sat in his office, brooding upon the door that hadn't been there before he'd started his construction efforts last week. He'd added to the hogwarts castle with an undetectable extension charm, so that his supply cuboard was now a slightly scaled down version of a prison he'd spent time in. A Cambodian prison.

It was scaled down from a full prison to just a single corridor with eight rooms. Six of these rooms were cells for prisoners, containing nothing but a toilet and a hard matress. It was an improvement over the original cambodian designs. The other two rooms were for more sinister purposes than merely containment. One was a standard Cambodian torture room, complete with everything from waterboarding equipment to an iron maiden, and everything in between. The last room, however, was the room he knew that Karma Black was going to hate, loath and despise above all else.

The last room was empty save for a table and two chair either end of it. Everything within the room was white. Pure, bright, white. The lights had been tricky. He didn't want her to get sick of the white, as he had, and break the lightbulb, as he had. So he'd made the padded white walls glow with bright white light.

Karma stood in front of Cobalt's door as she had been for the past ten minutes. Nightmarre was frantically pacing in front of the door,a low constant growl coming from deep in her throat. Karma was motionless, her eyes closed, taking deep breaths. If what Cobalt had said was true, then she may very well not come back the same person.

That being said, the only thing that really bothered her was the absense of Nightmare. She'd been with her her entire life, even when Nightmare was off someplace, Karma knew, come hell and high water, Nightmare would be there, most likely in Panther form, fighting right along side her.

Karma's eyes opened as she sighed. She dropped to her knees infront of her kitten and opened her arms. Nightmare took two leap sized steps and launched herself at Karma. Karma hugged the cat to her chest. "I'll miss you Nightmare. I've told the elves to feed you when you come to the kitchens, so get full meals, alright?" The cat raised her nose and touched it to Karma's. "Good girl." Karma cooed,petting Nightmare gently before setting her on the ground.

Karma stood, raising herself to her full height before knocking twice and entering Cobalt's office. Just as she closed the door behind her, Nightmare slipped in, so quick Karma didn't even notice. She slunk of and hid under Cobalt's desk quick as lightning.

"Hi." Karma said, meeting CobaltMs eyes squarely, slightly afraid but confident.

Cobalt had almost missed the streak of black that shot from the opening door to under his desk. But thankfully for him, he had an 'aide' who was helpful enough to point out the things that he'd missed. Most of the time anyway.

He met Karma's cool, yet determined expression with a blank one of his own. Having trained himself specifically to remove emotion from his body language, he was very good at making himself seem like a blank slate. He nodded,

"Welcome Karma." he reached down underneath his desk, as if looking for something, and patted Nightmare reassuringly on the head. He could stop the little shape-shifter from going with her but he wasn't about to do it. When he pulled his hand back out from under his desk he formed a ball on the palm of his hand. He placed the ball, a swirling mass of silver metal that seemed to be flowing but staying in the shape of a ball. Cobalt pointed to it, "He will be the bane of your existance for the rest of this training. Hope to it then buddy."

The metal ball rolled off the desk, shifting and growing even as it fell. By the time the ball would have touched the ground it wasn't a ball anymore, it was now a middle aged Cambodian colonel, chest puffed out proudly in his pristine military uniform. Although it had been decade since his stay in the Cambodian detention facility, Cobalt still visibly flinched when his partner assumed the shape of Colonel Jown. You don't forget the face that watches over you calmly when you are tortured. The Colonel adjusted the hat on his head,

"Miss Black." he greeted Karma in heavily accented English, his tone curt, professonal and completely uncaring. He seemed to focus for a few seconds longer and two small puddles of the silver liquid metal slid out of his shoes, slowly forming up into two Cambodian soldiers, both of them standing to attention behind the Colonel. Cobalt gestured to his desk,

"Give me your wand and all of your knives. I swear on my magic and soul that I will return them to you immediately after this training." he told her grimly, "I warn you know Karma, if you attempt to sneak in a weapon they will be harsher on you."

There was a pregnant silence after that which Cobalt broke with the final question,

"Are you ready?"

Karma watched with growing dread as the soliders and coronel formed. Her eyes measured them before she looked back at Cobalt. He was a blank slate. She stopped her lip from trembling and sighed, stepping up to the desk. Her wand she gave up willingly, her knives, less so.

She took the biggest out first, the one at the small of her back. She unhooked the sheilf from her bellybutton and placing it on Cobalt's desk. Next she reached for her boots, pulling them off and dumping the contents out, two daggers from each. She slipped them back on, shrugging off her robes and then her tshirt, leaving only a tank top. Over that tank top was a shelf with x shaped straps that crossed over both her back and her chest, containing four daggers both in the front and the back. She unhoooked the front and laid the entire thing on Cobalt's desk. Next, she pulled down her sweatpants, revealing leggins with four more daggers, two on each leg. Unhooking those, she placed them on the desk along with the ones on each wrist. The rest were easy, she pulled them from here and there and from her hair until twenty one daggers were piled onto Cobalt's desk.

Now feeling appropriately naked, Karma stood tall doing a mental head count. Twenty one. How many did she usually have it on her? Twenty two, but she was fairly certain shed left that one underneath her pillow back in the common room. With that thought, she sighed. She raised her eyes to the Soliders. "I'm ready, Cobalt." She said, her voice strong.

Cobalt watched her basically strip down in order to get all of her knives off of her with a small amount of pride. A girl with that many knives on her was a girl after his own heart. Not that most of them had been in practical places. He'd have to teach her undetectable extension charms for little pounces to hold her knives. He smiled sadly,

"No you're not." he told her sadly, "I wasn't back then and you aren't now. You can never be ready for this."

Without another word the two soldiers marched over to Karma and grabbed hold of her arms from behind her, frog marching her through the door into the cupboard-turned-prison before throwing her into one of the barren cells. Cobalt hung his head as the colonel stood in the doorway,

"She will be taught." he told her in his curt but heavily accented voice. Cobalt reached under the desk and lifted the small kitten that was nightmare up and placed the shapeshifting cat on his desk. He stared at the cat for a few seconds,

"Go to her nightmare." he told the shapeshifter quietly, "You will be able to be with her in her cell but the wards will stop you from being with her in the other two rooms."

Karma hit the ground rather hard, but rolled to ease some of the pain. She sat up with a frown as she rubbed the arm she'd landed on. Well, that wasn't a very good start, was it? She stood and walked toward the bars, eyeing her cell thoughtfully as she went, then turning her gaze to the soldiers. They weren't going to be easy enemies, that was for sure, but the head honcho, the coronel, he was going to have to be her main target. Hopefully the soliders would bend without his command, and if they didn't, well, after the coronel, what were two more soldiers?

Looking away to hide that thought, Karma looked around her cell. "Cosy." She muttered, even though it was anything but. She walked back to the far wall and put her back to it, sliding to the floor. She looked from one solider to the other before sighing and closing her eyes. It would be a long lesson.

A small meow made her eyes fly open. Nightmare sat in front of her, her head to one side. "Nightmare" Karma whispered happily, hugging the cat to her once more. "How did you get here! I thought Cobalt...." she fell silent as the cat nuzzled her with her nose. "Good girl..." she whispered.