StV: A Friendly Sparring Session, part three

Jade caught Nightfall's blade on her shield and stepped in past it, pulling her blow at the last minute. "Hold," she said, and then stepped back, thinking hard. "Can you create more than one item at a time?"

"Like a shield?" asked Nightfall. She frowned slightly, and more darkness spilled out of her, forming an oval buckler across the back of her left arm. It held for maybe two heartbeats before the sword suddenly wavered and vanished. "Maybe, with a lot more practice." 

Jade was still thinking. Are you really supposed to be coaching the competition? asked a traitorous voice in the back of her mind, but she ignored it. Same school, same team, She reminded herself. Competition was one thing, but when it really came down to it they were all on the same side. "Okay, so that blurring effect of yours really does make it hard to keep track of your movements and your exact position. Problem is, against an experienced fighter it's only so much help. The moment I make contact with your blade I have a pretty good idea of where you are."

"Oh," said Nightfall, looking momentarily frustrated. 

Jade continued: "That'll change as you get better with a blade, but right now I'd feel better if you had some defense. If you let go of the blurring, can you form a weapon and a shield?"

"Worth a try," said Nightfall, and let the blurring, smoky darkness around her fade away. She was still holding the general aura of darkness that kept the room dim so she could use these other abilities, though; Jade was thoroughly impressed. This time she manage to hold a sword and shield, each dull black, for a full three breaths before the shield shimmered and became a second sword. "Damn it," she said, looking over at Jade. "All right, a lot more practice."

Jade shook her head. "Don't sell yourself short. This is amazing growth. I had no idea you could do any of this."

"Neither did I," admitted Nightfall, then abruptly closed her mouth. 

"Okay," said Jade slowly, "so what led to the breakthrough?"

"Promise you won't be angry?"

"I can't promise that until I know what happened," Jade pointed out. "I promise I'll try to be reasonable about it, though."

"Yeah. Okay. Um... I asked Lyceus to help me. The faculty has been treating my ability like it's an area effect, so that's what I've been using it for. I told Lyceus about something I'd done with it a long time ago, and he said maybe it was more like sorcery, and had me try some things."

That son of a-- Jade sighed to herself. Lyceus hadn't been doing anything that she wasn't doing right now, and Jade had always had a low tolerance for hypocrisy, especially her own. No, she'd need to talk to Lyceus -- Harbinger -- but mostly to tell him it was all right to help out fellow students on other teams. She shook aside the momentary distraction. "Okay. For the moment, you can't hold a sword in one hand and a shield in the other." She paused, realizing that both swords were still in evidence. "...But you can apparently hold two identical swords. Huh. Okay, I'm going to share a suggestion that Mr. Hendrickson shared with me when I was still trying to figure out how best to use my power." She looked up at the control room. "Ms. Brigham? Can you pull up an image of a gauntlet sword, and project it on the wall down here?"