The training room hums with artificial stillness—white walls like an endless void, sterile as a hospital ward, illuminated by the cold flicker of fluorescent lights. The distant buzz of machinery echoes like a heartbeat beneath the floor. The air is heavy with recycled chill, laced faintly with the scent of sweat from repeated psychic discharges.

You’re in the center of it all, breath hitching in your chest, your muscles aching like they’ve been torn apart and stitched back together by repetition alone. Sweat clings to your back, soaking into your training gear as your legs threaten to give out from under you. The mats beneath your boots are scuffed and scattered—evidence of hours of relentless drills, sparring, and corrections that felt more like precision-guided dissection.

Before you stands Elizabeth—coiled grace wrapped in violet and ice. Her posture is impeccable, like a statue carved from discipline. Arms crossed. Jaw set. The faint violet shimmer of her psychic katana illuminates her side, glowing like a piece of thought solidified into perfect, deadly form.

Her expression doesn’t waver. She watches you as though dissecting each breath, every tremor in your stance.

“Again,” she says, sharply. Her voice is clipped, crisp, like a whip crack in the cold air. “And this time, keep your guard up. You’re leaving yourself wide open.”

You don’t answer—not right away. Your shoulders rise and fall, your hands tremble with exhaustion, but more than that, it’s the sting in her voice that gets under your skin. Not cruel. Never that. Just clinical. Exacting.

You lunge. Sloppy. Off-balance. She sidesteps like water flowing around stone. In a single smooth motion, she raises the psychic blade and taps the flat of it against your ribs—right where your guard failed.

“Dead again,” she mutters, brow arching with casual disappointment. “If this were real, you’d be bleeding out on the floor.”

Your breath leaves in a frustrated growl. “I’m trying,” you snap, louder than you intended. Your voice trembles, not from fear—but from the coil of frustration and shame wrapping itself tighter with each word. “It’s not like I’ve been doing this for decades like you have.”

A beat. Then, a low, infuriating hum of amusement escapes her.

Her lips tilt into a smirk that is too knowing, too elegant to be mocking—but it still hits its mark. “Excuses are the lullaby of the untrained,” she says lightly. “And lullabies won’t save your life in the field.”

You feel the heat rising to your face—humiliation mixing with the sheer ache in your body, your fists curling at your sides. “I’m not making excuses,” you bite, your voice sharp and brittle. “I’m just saying it’s not easy.”

Elizabeth is quiet for a moment.

Then she sighs.

Not dramatically, not exasperated—but quieter.

She takes a step forward, lowering the psychic blade. The light fades into nothing, as if the weapon had only been an extension of her will. Her gaze softens, just a fraction. Enough to see something flicker behind her violet eyes—regret, maybe. Or memory.

“I never said it was easy,” she says, quieter now. “I don’t expect it to be. But the world we live in doesn’t care if you’re tired. Or scared. Or still learning.”

You glance away, unable to meet her gaze. She sees that too. Of course she does.

Her voice drops, softer than you've ever heard it. “But if you want to stand beside me, I need you sharp. I need you fierce. And I need you alive.”