Haven't Even Started Yet

Nolan stood at the edge of the long stretch of grass behind his mansion with his wand in his left hand. The field was about two times the size of a football field, not that it would stay that size for the whole session. He very well could have done this the Bubble downstairs, but that wouldn't have covered enough of the physical components.

He had, of course, expected Karma to be late, and waited for her with the utmost patience. She would need every second of rest she could get once this started. He smirked. The poor girl was in for quite a treat.

Karma rubbed her eyes as she pushed through the doors that led into the back of the mansion. As always, she'd woken up at the time Nolan had wanted her there, breezed through her shower and getting ready, and had made her way through the now-familiar manor, weaving through the maze of hallways as easily as if she'd lived there all her life. The first thing she'd done is explore, in any case.

She stopped beside her 'father', looking over the field in which she would undoubtedly be training once more. Her body still ached from the times before, but she wouldn't let it show on her face. She took a swig from the bottle of 'water' she was ordered to drink from as she trained. She'd already drank two other bottles, as was her instructions. She could already feel the heavier set of her bones, the inhuman grace that left her. She was just a girl to train here, and it made her all the better.

"I'm ready." She said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. The sun glared down on her, and for the first time in a long time she felt sweat start to form on her brow.

Time to train.

"Good," Nolan said, not bothering to turn his head as she entered, "We'll start with a warm-up." He held up his wand and gave it a relaxed wave, muttering a few incantations as he did so. A large number of fully-grown whomping willows sprung up from the ground.

"There's only one spot on the field where you're not in reach of one of those, and I'll be there waiting for you." He walked several paces away from her, putting his wand back in his pocket, "And don't worry, you can only get hit once. Their branches are portkeys, so you'll be transported back here if you get hit."

He smiled and apparated to a random clearing in the middle of the field.

Karma nodded, watching the trees move with growing apprehension. She'd been known to be dodging the Whomping Willow before, but without Vampire speed, it was probably impossible.

But she'd have to try.

With a sigh, she made her way down the hill, glancing from one Tree to the other. She needed a strategy....

With a deep breath, she started, jogging toward the whomping willows and doing a combination of cartwheels, barrel rolls, and assorted other things to dodge the branches, but each time she did something, another appeared, and more than once they almost trapped her. She just had to keep moving....

Without realizing it, she found herself in the middle of two attacking branches, one on each side, and had to hit the ground to avoid them. This, in fact, was a terrible idea, since regaining her footing was no easy feat. She rolled and scampered along on the ground, trying to get her feet underneath her, and had to push herself up onto her hands to avoid a smashing branch.

Karma glanced up in time to avoid a branch aiming for her stomach, going into a forward roll to avoid it. Popping back up to her feet only to have to bend backwards to dodge another branch and having to jump to avoid on going for her legs. She could see the clearing with Nolan in it now, and in front of him, three whomping willows in a row, not to mention the two behind her.

She kept moving, not sparing a thought to the trees themselves, only focusing on her target. It was much easier this way.

She sidestepped one branch and spun out of the way of another, bobbing, weaving, jumping, rolling, and doing whatever she had to to get over there. She dove into a slide on her knees and bent all the way back to avoid the three branches all trying to decapitate her, skidding to a stop at Nolan's feet.

She was breathing deeply, trying to keep the oxygen flowing to her lungs as she rose to her feet again, grinning. She took the water bottle from the ground and drained it, loving the feeling of the liquid soothing her parched throat.

"What's next?"

Nolan stood watching Karma with his hands in the pockets of his suit. Her abilities were impressive, but unsatisfactory. Still, most half-breeds in her situation would take much longer to adjust to the lack of powers.

He waved his wand again, and the trees shrunk and shifted until they were a massive mat of kelp lining the top of the field. It was the type of plant that could grow to the top of a lake, and could be up to a foot thick. Perfect for concealing creatures of all sorts.

A flick of his wand, and a spear appeared in his hand. He tossed it to Karma with a smirk, "Go catch me some fish." He apparated back to the edge again, and cast a spell that made the air simulate water, while still being breathable.

The kelp rose until it was at least a dozen feet in height, and it bended and swayed with the current. Every once and awhile he caught a shimmer of silvery skin within it, but it was hardly visible unless one looked closely. Let's see how she handles the serpents...

Karma nodded, draining the second bottle of liquid and catching the spear. She was no longer paying attention to him as he popped away, only slightly floating upward as the water rose above her head. She tredded water for a bit, waiting until the water was at its high point before swimming into the kelp, trying her best to see.

Soon, she lost track of which way was the way she'd come, and the kelp seemed to go on in every direction forever. She just kept swimming, hoping to catch sight of something... anything...

The glint of scales caught her attention in the corner of her eye, and she spun, trying to keep it in sight. She swam toward it quickly, trying to keep it in sight, but it was gone. She paused again, treading water and hoping to catch a glimpse of something... anything...

A blur of bubbles flew from her mouth as something wrapped around her ankle, and she kicked at it, glancing down to find...

Kelp.

Mad at herself for getting off track, she shifted the spear to her other hand and swam a bit deeper into the kelp, moving upward in an attempt to use the sunlight. However, it was shaded and distorted, and helped her absolutely none. All traces of any scales were gone.

She felt something on her ankle again and kicked, expecting it to be kelp.

Suddenly, she was yanked downward, nothing but a trail of bubbles showing that she'd been there at all.

Karma's eyes widened and she stabbed her spear down toward her ankle, hitting the scales of something that let go instantly. She stared around, disoriented to find herself level with the grass, the bare minimum of illumination around her. she could barely see past the spear, and it was disorienting. However, she kept herself spinning slowly, trying to see in every direction.

Something... somethings moved in the shadows, and she caught another glimpse of scales, an eye, some fangs....

Then they were coming for her.

~Twenty Minutes Later~

Karma emerged from the side of the water closest to Nolan, three medium sized sea serpents hanging over her shoulders. She dropped their bodies on the ground at his feet, taking the head of the spear - the only thing left of the weapon - and cutting open one of the bellies. Half digested fish spewed forward, along with a chunk of the wooden spear.

"Fish." She stated evenly, shaking the water from her hair and draining another two bottles of the substance.

She could feel the startings of getting tired, but worked through it. They'd only done one excersize, and she knew Nolan had a full day planned.

Nolan let the kelp fall and dissolve into the ground the instant Karma stepped through the barrier, and the air returned to a normal consistency. His eyes slid over to the serpents as their insides spilled out and melted away.

He watched her chug the water without a hint of sympathy. "Tired?" He inquired dryly, looking her over and noticing the slight change in her posture that signified fatigue, "Don't worry, you get a break for now while we wait. Your next challenge is one I can't materialize."

"You're already getting stronger. By the end of the week, you'll be half as good as me," He said it with his usual lofty smirk, but one could just make out a bit of admiration in his voice.

Karma shrugged a shoulder, popping open another bottle of the potion. "I'm not that tired. I'm starting to get hungry." She said, wrinkling her nose. She hadn't fed in a while, and it was starting to rub off on her training. She just figured it would be better that way; if she could fight well hungry, she'd be amazing well fed, and with all her powers...

"I live to please." She murmured around the bottle, glowing at the tiny bit of affection he showed. Nolan never did show much of it, but when he did it made her feel... all glowy inside.

Not that she'd let him know that.

"Half? Already?" She grinned. "I'll be better than you soon enough, then, old man."

The hair on the back of Nolan's neck stood up as he felt a presence enter the area. "All great warriors have a certain hunger in them. My advice is to use it to your advantage."

He smirked, "We'll see about that." He turned his head as a tall, muscular man tapped him on the shoulder, "Yes, Geoffrey?"

"The mail is here, sir," He said with a thick Spanish accent. Geoffrey was one of the Carde residence's three staff, and, along with his coworkers, satisfactory enough for Nolan's requirements.

"Wonderful, thank you," he turned to Karma, "I've changed my mind. We'll do one last exercise while Geoffrey sets that up." He nodded to the servant, who nodded in return and walked back towards the house.

Nolan paced a little, mentally constructing the next challenge. He snapped his fingers, "Got it," and waved his wand one more time. Out of the ground shot a massive swarm of birds that looked similar to falcons. They swarmed above the field, clearly ignoring the two people on the outskirts. That would change once one of them stepped inside, "All you need to do is run to the center of the field and back." It was minimal, he'd admit, but challenging nonetheless.

Karma had to hold in a snort. A running excercise? Really?

With a nod at Nolan and a final squirt of 'water' in her mouth, she was gone, sprinting toward the middle of the feild. She easily juked and rolled out of the way of the birds, dodging and cartwheeling away from their attacks. It was more difficult than she'd thought it would be at first glance, but dodging things was a skill she had honed a long time ago.

The problem was, however, getting back to Nolan. The birds were set on attacking her, and large swarms of them could be seen contemplating her downfall, even as the ones closest to her now continued their assult.

Karma took a deep breath, and ran.

Ten minutes later, she was back in front of Nolan, a scar on her cheek and her left arm, but nowhere else. She blinked up at the man, a small smile threatening to pull on her lips.

Nolan was watching Karma attentively, when Geoffrey appeared again at the door and nodded once Nolan noticed him. He noticed that the corner of his servant's mouth dipped just a fraction, and was just a little disappointed in his butler. The man always had a soft spot for doing things honorably, but at least that meant he was loyal.

He returned his attention to the exercise, but by the time he did so, the girl had already finished. "You seem to have a good handle on the physical aspect of your training, but I expected as much from someone as experienced as you," he smiled warmly, "Now comes the hard part. Feel free to yell at me afterwards."

The sound of a single cough drew his attention to a man standing at the center of the field. Nolan gave a faint smile as he looked at Cobalt, "Life is empty. When we take it we are taking nothing of worth. You know what to do."

Karma had almost started to grin when her attention was pulled to Geoffrey. The butler was a kind man - with or without Nolan - and had never shown her the disrespect she was used to from authority figures. She had spent a bit of time with the man, when studying or researching in Nolan's library, so she could tell that whatever happened next... well... He didn't approve of.

It only made her more determined. The man was one of the only people to ever tell her that he was proud of her, the only one to say that she would become something. Everyone else usually just assumed...

Her attention went to Nolan at the cough, before she followed his gaze to the center of the field. Her eyes stared incomprehensibly at the man standing there, her entire body tensing. What- How did- Things weren't connecting in her mind. The part of her, faded and shrunken over time, that had held onto the belief that he was still alive wasn't acting as such. Pain slammed into her, waves and waves of it, the sorrow she hadn't let herself feel when Arsen had told her he'd killed him, the anger at the boy she was now head over heels in love with... it all came flooding back into her, crashing into her usually strong walls of emotional control and ripping through them like they were tissue paper.

She stood there for an immeasurable amount of time, just staring at the middle of the field, her system slowly shutting down and rebooting itself, trying to find a way to cope with all the emotions blindsiding her. Her jaw clenched and unclenched, and she had absolutely no idea what to do with herself. She wanted- she wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around him and never let go. This man had been the only father figure she'd ever had, and Arsen had taken him from her. The rampant betrayal she'd never felt before, not awake at least, took dominance over all the other emotions present, swirling around her darkly. Animalistic hatred for the boy came next, too strong to be controlled by any emotion as feeble as love. Cobalt had nearly trained the love out of her, told her that if she had ever started to feel something that might be love, he would have to kill her if she held it in. Love was a weakness in an Assassin, let alone a Wetboy.

"That's good, he was useless anyway, I could protect you better than he could and I'm less than half his age." He smiled. "I know exactly where he is cause he's where I left him last... as a pile of ash." Arsen's laughter echoed in her head, and a curtain of red covered her vision, hatred and anger so strong she had to fight the urge to turn and hunt down the boy himself. She was in love with him! The boy who'd killed her only father! What was wrong with her?!

Slowly, painfully, she forced herself to think of something else. Arsen. She didn't hate him. She couldn't. Not after all they'd been through.

A full range of memories flew through her next. Just Arsen. The crimson color of his eyes, the way he adjusted his body heat to make her more comfortable when she was scared, how safe she felt whenever his arms were wrapped around him. The way his eyes lit up the smallest bit whenever he set something on fire, the way he laughed whenever she made a joke, the protective growl that rumbled up from his chest whenever she showed the slightest interest in any boy - or any boy showed an interest in her. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath through her nose, Karma calmed herself down almost easily.

When she opened her eyes again, looking up at Cobalt, then Nolan, she felt nothing but slight disdain, and maybe a bit of sadness.

"Life is empty." She repeated softly, hearing the echo of her younger self repeating it with her. How she missed the sweet, lonely little girl she used to be. "When we take it, we take nothing of value." This was her creed. It had been once, and perhaps it would be again.

She made no move to go toward the man in the center of the clearing, instead looking up at Nolan, waiting for a direct order, her own creed spinning in her head.

All men must serve. All men must die.

Nolan sighed wearily. Watching the girl stand there and barely hold together her emotions, he was reminded of himself when he was younger. Not that his circumstances were in any way similar to hers, but he had emotions once, which had been destroyed long, long ago.

Now, though, the man felt, for the first time in a decade, a shred of sympathy for the girl. A very small part of him wanted to tell her that it was okay. That she didn't have to drink that infernal potion, or kill the replica of her figurative father, or kill anyone ever again, for that matter.

Within that one sigh, something within him came to life and was swiftly killed again. He didn't want emotion and couldn't afford it. That was the way it would always be. This could not, and would not, happen again.

Nolan raised an eyebrow in his usual cold manner, "Kill him."

Karma took a deep breath through her nose and took a step forward, then another, then more. Her walk was slow and steady, the walk of one to their execution. She stopped before the man, looking up into his familiar grey eyes.

"Karma-"

"You deserve to look upon your killer." She said briefly. She stared him down, her hand going behind her back to grasp the dagger hidden there. A flick of her wrist had the jagged blade drawn, its onyx blade glinted in the light. The voice of the man before her echoed back through her memory, taking prominence over the man in front of her.

"One day you'll be able to look back and be able to afford the luxury of regret, Karma."

It was a simple enough collection of movements; she'd done it tons of times before. A hand on his shoulder for leverage herself as she swung around to his back, wrapping her legs around his waist for balance. One hand burying into his hair and yanking backward to expose his throat to the blade already moving through the air. The cut was clean and painless, Cobalt would have been proud.

"But today is not that day."

She caught herself as the body sagged forward, the blood spreading throughout the grass. Without a word, Karma drew her wand. She aimed it at the man's already-cooling corpse, her voice cool and emotionless. "Accipe, quod tuum est." The ground sunk in slightly, and then the earth itself swallowed the body and blood. "At least one of you gets a burial." She said softly.

Turning, she made her way back to Nolan, numbness sweeping through her like a saving grace. Her dagger and wand hung limply from each hand, but as she came to a stop before Nolan both slipped from her numb fingers. Then she was in motion, throwing herself forward and wrapping her arms around the man. Her hold on him tightened as she buried her face in his chest, trembling slightly. Cobalt's words echoed through her mind.

"You can't afford to dwell on the past anymore."

Nolan's face remained blank, but his arms held the quivering girl, "He was wrong, you know." He said as she buried her face into his chest, "Yes, maybe life is empty when we are alone, but no one is truly alone. And when a life is taken, you could be destroying or saving the lives of hundreds."

He stepped back from her, his eyes, for once, containing something other than calculated emotion, "Contrary to Cobalt's beliefs, life is rarer and more valuable than any of us can imagine. Especially yours. You are Karma Black, and you are the only person worthy of being my daughter, biological or not."

Nolan took out his wand and waved it one final time, the large training field returning to its normal size, with its flawlessly trimmed shrubs, small yet mesmerizing fountains, and abundance of ornate fruit trees. He looked back at the girl, giving her a large smile that was the best way he could convey his pride in her, "Well, I'm starving. How do you feel about an early lunch?"

Karma had to resist the urge to step with the man as he moved away from her, keeping herself still as she met his eyes. Hers were the emotionless opposite of his, tears coming but not falling. Her mind stowed his words away to process later, but a watery smile graced her lips as he said that. The only one worthy. No one else had ever-

She nodded, not trusting her voice, and made to follow him into the mansion, smiling softly at Geoffrey's approving nod. Even if she wished she hadn't had to... well.

What didn't kill you made you stronger.