Private Training

Whight arrived a little early to set the stage for his new apprentice. After getting permission from Demetri, Whight was granted private access into the arena. This of course came with a price. Whight knew this was all going to be well worth any price he had to pay. He knew defensive training and advanced offensive training would both be necessary in his line of work.

After Whight finished casting a few spells about the place, he looked to his watch. Alice, or Sophia as he was to call her, should arrive at any minute. He was ready to conduct more tests to see if she could meet his standards.

With each step she took, Alice repeated a different defensive spell softly to herself, trying to remember them all. She took her homework assignment rather seriously and spend numerous hours in the library researching and reading everything she could. Those books she got from Whight proved to be a wonderful source of information. It only made her realize how little she knew right now and how unprepared this made most of the students at Hogwarts. They were barely learning the basics even. But now that she had a chance, she promised herself that she would try her best to learn and improve as much as possible. That was the goal after all.

She followed his directions carefully as before and found herself in a strange dueling area. She gulped as she stepped towards the center of the room. This meant that she was only in the beginning of proving herself to her new tutor. "Good day Mr. Whight" she said with a soft smile and a nod of her head. "I wasn't sure if I was supposed to keep these or not. But they were great help" said Alice showing him the books he lend her the last time they met.

She was right on time. Whight wiped his hands and made his way closer to the girl. "Good day to you too," he said. "Unless you have the books memorized I would suggest you keep them. I want you to be able to answer any and all questions I may ask you regarding anything in the books." Whight turned and took a few steps away from his apprentice.

It hadn't taken him long to set the stage. He didn't want to make things too difficult for Alice, he was still unsure of her full potential. At the moment the room consisted of large trees, boulders, a small pond and four large scarecrows. With a bit of logical thought the task would be simple.

"In a moment you will need to defend yourself. If your wand isn't out and ready having said that, you are wrong." Whight paused to let he ready herself. "There are four scarecrows as you can see. I have given them life and they only wait on my command before attacking anything around me. I want nothing left of them and I expect nothing more than a scratch on you. These scarecrows are fast and smart, they no longer lack a brain. They will kill you if you do not stop them."

Whight turned to Alice. "Use logic and your knowledge of magic to save yourself." Whight stepped away leaving the impression that she was now on her own. He wanted to see how well she could handle herself. The scarecrows had the ability to kill her, but Whight would step in before he allowed that to happen. It was still important for Alice to think she was completely fighting alone.

"Begin," he said with the wave of his wand. The scarecrows shuttered and came to life. One quickly vanished from site while the other three made their way through the trees toward Alice.

(Sorry huge post!)

Alice listened carefully to her instructions. She was expecting some kind of duel perhaps, a way to prove her newly learned and practice skills of defensive magic. With a creative imagination such as hers, she thought of dementors, boggarts even. But scarecrows where definitely not on her list of possibilities. Well, after defeating Andrei in their dueling practice, she should have a good chance of getting herself alive from this. Although something told her it would be much more demanding than facing a 6th year Slytherin.

“Right” she said nodding her head. She wasn’t quite sure yet what kind of logic she could use in fighting scarecrows, but hopefully that will come when she’s on her feet. As Whight stepped away, a slight panicky expression appeared on Alice’s face. She quickly whipped it away from her face with a deep breath, hoping he didn’t notice. So she was left all alone now with no help whatsoever. Perhaps it was supposed to mimic real life situations, where in fact she would be dependent mostly on herself. So in that view, Alice was glad she could practice this before actually going out in the field. Although practice or not, it still scared her senselessly.

The moment he said 'being' two of the scarecrows came rushing directly at her. Alice already had her wand out and shouted "Expelliarmus!". But her spell missed and only wounded the arms a bit. She could tell they were pretty strong and it was going to take a lot more to take them down. Hiding behind a large boulder, she couldn't even take a minute of breath as another scarecrow came from her behind. "Immobulus!" she said pointing her wand quickly at the flying scarecrow at her and it fell down on the ground paralyzed. With a few simple confringo spells the remains blew up in flames. One down, three more to go.

Her little victory only angered the others even more as all three came attacking her at the same time. She defended herself but still earned a few large scratches on the way. Finally getting an idea, she stood in front of the largest boulder she could find and called the their's attention. Two of them came rushing towards her and Alice waited for the last moment to use Conjunctivitis on them to damage their eye sight permanently. The two scarecrows were caught of guard and as Alice moved away, they crashed into the rock breaking their legs. She then used Expelliarmus to finish them off quickly and much more easier than they couldn't move. Still one to go.

The last one was really causing her problems. She couldn't see it and it would attack hidden behind the trees at the worst moment. It obviously had a much better strategy than Alice. In the last moment, she remembered to use Reducio to shrink the threes so there was no where else to hide. Now it was a much easier target than before. "Incarcerous" she said as her spell made the it get tied up by ropes and fall down to the ground. It was still moving and tried to untie the ropes. She levitated the scarecrow to the pound and let it quickly sink deeper into the water, as it was the quickest way she could think of to get rid of it without risking breaking the ropes with her own spell.

Finally she was done. And she was more than exhausted, as it took a bit longer than she expected. But at least she had handled it well in her own mind.

Whight had hope for the girl in the beginning after she has set the first scarecrow in flames. This was the kind of thinking he wanted done. A child could defeat a hay filled scarecrow with just a match. As the fight drew on Whight grew less and less pleased. Yes, her next opponents had fallen, but that did not mean they wouldn't get back up.

As Alice stood with a touch of pride on he face the two scarecrows beneath her began to climb the rock on which she stood. One was missing an arm and the other was missing half of its potato sack face. One was quick enough to grab her Alice's ankle, Whight watched mutely waiting to see how she would react.

Though the remains of the burning scarecrow remained on the ground, the water trimmered and the third scarecrow trudged out of the water with ropes in hand. As Alice worked to fight of the scarecrows at her feet, the wet scarecrow came in closer to rope Alice just as she had done him.

Whight could tell the girl was tiring and he was ready to step in if he needed to; but that would only be done if Alice's life was in serious danger. He wondered how well she would handle her next opponent. He smiled to himself and continued watching the show,

Alice unintentionally let a loud swear out of her lips. How could it be possible that they are still alive? She had just finished them seconds ago! "Expulso!" she said in a rush to create some distance between her and the scarecrows. This sent them flying back but had done nothing to their lifelike ability of movement. They were still as much of a threat as a second ago, all three of them. Counting them quickly in her head, she realized that one was missing. Turning her head frantically, she already imagined the fourth scarecrow coming at her from behind. However, as much as she could check, it was no where to be found.

"Expelliarmus!" Alice said holding her wand tightly. Her spells only worked temporarily, knocking the scarecrows down for a few seconds afterwards which they would get back up again. She was slowly starting to get desperate as she was running out of options. She tried charms, water, rocks everything! Nothing seemed to work. Yet for some reason the forth one was dead. Then it finally hit her, fire! She felt ridiculous for not figuring it out sooner.

"Incendio!" she shouted a few times, pointing her want at all three opponents. They were soon consumed by the fire and burned down into ashes. Finally she thought. Be a deep breath she felt the relief spreading through her body. She was done and exhausted.

Regretting her silly decision of overlooking the impacts of fire, she glanced at her mentor and waited for her assessment. She definitely could have done it much better and more efficiently in her mind. But she had defeated all of them nonetheless. Alice could only hope that would be enough for Whight.

Once Alice had understood why Whight had told her to use logic, she performed well. The girl had handled herself almost as well as he had hoped, but there was still work to be done. Whight was pleased with her accomplishment but he made no attempt to show his thoughts. Instead, he stared back to Alice as she looked to him for his judgments and comments. None came.

At first he stared at her as if she hadn't finished killing the scarecrows. When confusion spread throughout Alice's face, Whight pointed toward the pond with his wand. The water pulsed and soon began to splash. Moments later the wind picked up and the center of the pond began to funnel higher and higher. Whight watched the new beast come to life and paid no attention to the potential fear and confusion Alice may have been going through.

The more time elapsed, the larger the creature grew. Finally the watery beast had reached its full height which made the tallest of trees seem small. The monster spat into the air and it began to rain. Whight popped-up and umbrella as if it were just another rainy day in England. With ease the nearly transparent beast plucked a tree from the ground and threw to toward Alice. Whihgt knew the girl was tired, but battle rarely gave opportunity for rest. In any case, Whight was ready to help the girl if she could not fend for herself, but he did not show it.

With proper logic the beast could be defeat easily. Whight knew an advanced spell or two may be needed, but there were also a number of simple spells that could completely the task as well.

Whight watch the tree fly toward his apprentice.

Alice was waiting for an assessment from his mentor but he didn't say a word. This confused her even as she knew it meant that she wasn't done. Turning her head at the direction Whight's wand was pointing at, she noticed the water of the pond shake a bit. Before she knew it a giant monster emerged from it taking all the water with him. Raindrops started falling down her face, but Alice was too concentrated starting at the monster in shock even to notice. How couldn't she, he was ten times her size.

Running to the side as fast as she could, Alice barely managed to duck the tree that was thrown at her direction. Her frightened gaze went to Whight but he seemed as calm as ever. She had no idea how to handle this, not even how to start. "Expulso!" said Alice as a trial but she soon learned it didn't do much to the water monster.

Running behind a rock, she hid from the monster to get some time to think. Just as Whight said, this shouldn't me as hard if she only used her logic. But the monster was made of water, she could do nothing to him! She barely even had a second of time to rest when the monster attacked her from above. She screamed and rushed away, but the monster had caught her leg which now had a sharp scratch all the way down and blood was coming out of it.

It was always in the worst situations that Alice finally figures things out. She threw an atmospheric charm around the monster and soon a cold wind started to blow in the room and snow was falling as well. The temperature was quickly decreasing and even though Alice was freezing herself, she hoped it would be worth it. The monster soon turned to ice as the freezing wind didn't let him move anymore. With a few Expulso spells, she managed to break him into little pieces that fell on the ground. She sighed, truly hoping she was actually done this time.