Maksym Pachesiuk
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Moon Cultivation - Chapter 54: Lightning West
🕑 Added 2025-04-23 23:36:01 +0000 UTCUnder the giant transparent dome covering this part of the training complex, the air was warm with sunlight filtering through the protective atmospheric shield. The dome was so high it barely registered — it just felt like the sky had come a little closer, and the massive structural ribs holding it all together looked more like part of some alien design than something keeping me breathing without a mask.
All around us, cadets were practising their moves and techniques — on land, in water, across glass panels, on grass. But our platform was one of the simplest: sand and stone.
A forty-by-forty-metre space covered in dark, heavy sand, scattered with boulders. Some were the size of a ball; others stood as tall as a person — or even two. The terrain wasn’t ideal for quick footwork, but it was perfect for testing coordination and technique on unstable surfaces. Maybe that was exactly why Kate had chosen it.
She was standing by one of the larger stones, stretching the wrist of her good arm. Even from a distance, it was clear — she looked better than last time. The damaged half of her face — the one where the skin looked melted and stretched over bone — was much less red now, not as glossy. The eye was no longer bloodshot, and the tiny sprout of a hand had grown — from looking about two years old to maybe ten or eleven. The palm and fingers were still thinner and shorter than the ones on her healthy hand. Recovery clearly wasn’t complete.
When she noticed me, Kate waved — with the normal, living hand — and smiled like a cat spotting a mouse that had decided to crawl right into its claws.
“Well then,” she called. “Ready to prove mentors don’t have to be monsters?”
“I’m the one who has to prove that?” I replied, watching her step onto the sand, leaving shallow prints behind. “You’re always threatening to break something.”
She looked back over her shoulder, and her grin widened.
“Don’t worry. No joint dislocation today… probably.”
God, I hope she’s just trying to scare me.
“I have to say, up until this moment you’ve been a perfectly reasonable mentor. Not a great time to change your approach.”
I took a breath — warm dust and ozone in the air — and stepped onto the training ground.
“Well," she said, "I, on the other hand, should point out that you were perfectly reasonable for, what, a few days? And then you let that long tongue of yours run wild.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you let yours run wild too.”
“Sadly, I’m not quite as skilled with my tongue as I am with my fists!” Kate pointed a finger at me.
Z-Zap.
A violet bolt shot from her finger and zapped me right in the chest, clenching everything up with a sudden spasm.
“OW!” I jumped. “That wasn’t a fist!”
“It actually was.”
“Lightning Fist?” I asked, rubbing the spot where the bolt had hit me.
“Yep,” Kate confirmed. “Your task today is to dodge, duck, and entertain me.”
I stared at her, honestly, with pure indignation.
“You’re serious? This is your idea of training?” I should probably call Novak and let him know her PTSD is getting worse.
“Uh-huh,” she said casually, leaping up onto a nearby two-metre-tall boulder as gracefully as a cat. “Survival training. For you. And therapy — for me.”
Yup. Definitely PTSD. Let me cause pain to others because I can’t forget mine.
“And what exactly do I get from this, besides injuries?” I didn’t back down. If Kate had really lost it, I was out of here and reporting straight to Vaclav.
“Okay,” she said, turning serious. “Guess I’m a better actress than I thought. I’m not planning to cripple you. And it doesn’t even hurt that much…”
She shot me with another bolt.
I tried to dodge — didn’t make it.
“OW! Stop it!”
“Jake, the mistake most first-periods make is this: they pick a technique, learn it, perfect it by hitting targets… then go into duels and bash each other head-on. Most think the best defense is a strong offense. But no. Offense is offense. Defense is defense. A good hit is only half the fight. The other half is not getting your own teeth knocked out.”
She hopped to another boulder, four metres away.
“Dodging is the foundation. The baseline. If you can’t dodge, you can’t survive. And since I still can’t properly swing my fists, and you’re my ungrateful, sharp-tongued mentee — neither of us has a choice.” Her eyes gleamed. “Start moving.”
“I still think this is revenge for the sadist comment,” I muttered, glancing toward the edge of the arena. Truthfully, I wasn’t so sure about that anymore — and the PTSD idea was losing traction too. “Aren’t there actual techniques for dodging?”
“Tons!” Kate assured me. “But learning them takes time — and it’s not always worth it. So… don’t you dare step out of the arena,” she warned, and fired a bolt at the ground near my feet, kicking up a fountain of sand. “One step out, one extra charge.”
Z-zap!
I didn’t dodge in time. The bolt hit me in the thigh.
“Gha-aaah!” I jerked my leg up and nearly fell. “That hurts like hell!” I yelled. “I’m not at Foundation stage, in case you forgot!”
“Oh…”
“You’ve got to be bloody kidding me!” I snapped.
And she zapped me in the other leg.
“OW!”
Before I could curse her out, Kate asked—
“That one better?”
I wanted to snap back with something sharp, but that last hit hadn’t actually been that strong.
“Manageable,” I grumbled. I could kind of see what she was going for here, but understanding the logic didn’t make the whole thing feel any less like torture — and I wasn’t exactly thrilled to endure it till the bitter end.
“Good! Just for motivation and to keep you sharp, I’ll be throwing in stronger bolts every now and then. The body needs to learn to dodge before the brain even realises you’re in danger.”
“You are a sadist!” I shouted, diving behind the nearest boulder I could actually hide behind.
“Slander! And you’re going to pay for it!” Kate shot back cheerfully.
So I ran.
Well — “ran” might be a bit generous. On sand, it was more like sliding, hopping, and desperately trying not to faceplant into a rock. I tried to circle around one of the bigger boulders — and right then, I heard a bolt whisper past my head. A speck of sand kicked up by its energy smacked me in the ear.
“Too slow, Jake!” Kate’s voice echoed across the training ground, bright and cocky. “I’m not even trying yet — not at a quarter of my strength!”
I was gasping for air within five minutes.
Kate wasn’t chasing me on the sand — she was leaping from boulder to boulder, raining violet bolts down on me from above. And even though the power behind them was minimal, the effects were very real: muscle tremors, loss of balance, rising anger — and panic.
I tried diving under a low rock shelf, pressed my back against it and held my breath. Maybe — just maybe — I’d be out of her line of sight for a few seconds.
“Hiding?” Her voice came from way too close. “Better. That’ll help you in the field.”
Z-Zap!
I shot up like I’d been stung. The bolt had landed squarely on my backside — through a crack in the rock I hadn’t noticed before.
“You demon!” I shouted, shooting out of the hiding spot like a cannonball.
“Oh yes! Feel my wrath!” she cackled. “But no — enough running. Come out here.”
“What?” I called back, diving behind another boulder and scrambling over to a new position, just in case she tried to track me by voice. “You think I’m falling for that?”
“That’s not what we need right now,” Kate replied. “Training your endurance and agility — good stuff, and fun as hell — but I meant to teach you how to dodge in actual duels. And in duels, people tend to face each other.”
Yeah. Sure.
I silently crawled behind another rock.
“Jake, come on. Fun’s over.”
Fun? I was not having fun. I had no intention of coming out. I might not be a dodge master, but I was doing pretty well at hide-and-seek. I’d just stop talking — let her hunt me.
That little rock over there looked promising.
I made for it—
Z-zap!
My thigh jolted again, hard enough to make me arch.
“Bitch!”
“I beg your pardon!” she shouted back, sounding offended. Something hit me sharply across the backside — no bolt this time, just pure blunt force. I went down into the sand. “That’s for being stubborn and mouthy!”
That was humiliating.
Before I could get up, Kate was already standing over me, one foot planted on my shoulder, one hand gripping my belt.
“You’re not escaping.”
“You’re insane,” I gasped, trying to wriggle free. For her size, Kate was ridiculously strong. The difference of more than one stage really did mean a lot.
“Look at it this way: now you definitely won’t forget that relaxing is a bad idea,” she said, finally letting me up. “And now — attention — the official part of the training.”
She took a few steps back and pointed toward a more or less open patch of ground.
“We stand facing each other. Ten metres apart. Your task: don’t get hit. I’ll only aim for your chest. And I’ll only fire once per round. You can move, twist, drop, jump behind rocks, fake me out — whatever you want.”
Cowboy duels. With upgrades.
“Can I hit back?” I asked, rotating my shoulder to loosen it.
“You can — if you can manage it. But fair warning: I don’t plan to just stand there like a coat rack.”
I took my position, knees slightly bent. My heart was pounding. Kate lifted her hand, finger extended — just fast enough to warn me it was an attack, just slow enough to give me a chance.
Z-zap!
The bolt shot from her finger and almost brushed my shoulder — I barely managed to shift left in time, not particularly gracefully.
“Good!” she called. “Again.”
This time her hand moved much faster, and the violet bolt hit me dead in the chest. Thankfully, she hadn’t amped it up — it was a light shot. Still, I made sure to pull a proper pain face. Just in case she got any ideas about increasing the power.
Next time, I expected speed from her — and dodged right, pulling off something between a fall and a roll. The sand scraped beneath my uniform, but I got out unscathed.
“Again?” I asked. Now that she was letting me win at least half the time, I was feeling a bit more motivated.
“Getting cocky already!” Kate warned — but on the next go, I dodged again. And the one after that.
Turns out a jump-into-roll was a pretty effective way to avoid her bolts.
New round. She jerked her arm up, finger raised — I automatically shifted to the side, bracing— but she didn’t fire. I dove anyway, rolled through the sand, and just as I stopped—
Z-zap!
A bolt smacked me in the shoulder while I was still lying there.
“Ow!” I barked — more out of irritation than pain.
Kate just smiled and shrugged.
“After a dodge, Jake, you need to be ready for a second. And a third. And a whole series. Not every opponent will fire and then politely wait for your response. Though, you’d be surprised — some do. Real combat is rhythm. A different one, every time.”
“I’m supposed to expect the hit, dodge it, and immediately be ready for the next one,” I summarised her wisdom.
“Exactly. And in between all of that — find a moment to hit back. So come on. Up you get. Next round!”
I groaned like an old man as I got to my feet.
“Could you smile a little less smugly?” I muttered.
“Does it annoy you?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Then no, I can’t!”
Comments
Jonathan Griffith
Tyftc!
