The Institute of Courage

Courage chuckled... but his attention instantly shifted as a dark cloud rolled in. Lightning could be seen in the distance that presented itself as if another force was on its way. Courage nodded "I suppose its time for us to go..." He opened a portal to another area a place of safety. "I will teach you how to use your gifts to the best of your ability... and in exchange you are going to do great things for all living things" The portal had revealed in it a swamp land with large large mushrooms that grew on even larger trees. Vines hung from the trees and fish ate and lived in the roots of said trees. He took a step through the portal and held out his hand for Misaki to take it. "This is where I have taken all of my Champions... this being one of three very well placed islands... that are difficult for people to get too so outside of the wild life you will be generally safe here"

The fish jumped from the water to greet Misaki each one being semi-intelligent. They could not speak but when they jumped from the water an obvious fin could be seen waving while the other was not. They would dive back into the water only to jump out once more and wave again. Hell apes could be seen swinging from vine to vine, but they were of a far more nice variety not vicious but more so kind and gentle. This was what some reffered to as the good side of the marsh lands. As all the animals lived in harmony... or so it seemed.

Misaki looked through the portal at the swamp land and let out a somewhat disapproving sigh. It was an incredible sight, even she could not argue against that. However...it was still in fact...a swamp. "Ew." She gasped and immediately wanted to apologize for her rudeness. She did however wave back to the cute little fish. She looked at Courage and then took a step through the portal to the marshland. After all that she had been through she did just finally want to feel safe again. She trusted Courage enough to believe that this place would indeed be safe for her.

Misaki took in a deep breath and let it out as she looked around the land and marveled at all of the wild life she encountered. The air had a thicker and moist texture to it. It wasn't something she was too used to and it was slightly uncomfortable to breath in at first, but she got used to it. Courage entered the portal behind her and then the portal completely disappeared. "How do we start my training...I can't just go around lighting everything I touch on fire." Misaki had a flashback of someone telling her the story of King Midas and how everything he touched turned to gold. She kind of thought he had it better than her since he at least didn't incinerate anything.

Courage looked around for a moment and then reached his hand into the water to pull up a bunch of underwater weeds. He grabbed a single leaf and held it in his hand shaking the water off of it. "Actually you can..." Due to the odd nature of Eden in most cases if a natural disaster was sensed to be on its way the plant life in Eden would use its given ability from the tree to survive the damage dealt to it. Courage wanted to test this possibility with Misaki's ability to generate fire.

He took the leaf he grabbed its roots still intact and held it at eye level with her, "Lets see if you can burn this without burning me" He halfheartedly joked at the thought of her burning him or maybe the plant life next to him. "This time though... do it without physical contact... use your imagination and make it your reality" The weed had danced in a gust of wind appearing as if it was trying to escape from being target practice, it would eventually fall limp when the gust had passed, but courage had twisted it in his finger to make it stand up tall again.

Misaki looked at the leaf Courage had grabbed. She didn't really believe that she could ignite it with just her mind. Even if she could then she most likely couldn't do it without burning Courage as well. "I am not sure about this." Misaki grabbed a piece of her hair and started to twirl it around her finger in a nervous way. She was scared.

Misaki closed her eyes and visualized what her surroundings were. In her mind she saw everything that she could see when her eyes were open. She looked at the leaf that Courage was holding and focused on it. She eliminated everything else around it including Courage so that the leaf was the only thing she could imagine. Then she pictured it igniting. She watched the little spark of flame slowly surrounded the entire leaf until it was all in flames. Misa thought on this very hard for a few moments and then slowly opened her eyes.

The leaf was indeed on fire. Courage was not being burned and the flame was a small but decent size and very steady. She was in control. Seeing this made Misaki so excited. "YES!!! I did it!" She started jumping around happily and her focus was gone. The fire on the leaf started to get bigger and spread and spark were flying off of it. "Crap! Sorry!" She quickly regained her focus so things wouldn't get any worse. Clearly she had more training to get done. She went over to Courage and put the rest of the flames out and apologized once more.

Courage could be heard chuckling to himself at the aspect of her burning him, as she put the fire out he had come across a interesting idea. Grabbing another leaf he thought to himself, "Attempt to set the air around this leaf on fire, but do not burn the leaf" It was a more complex task, but Misaki could have potentially naturally in more control of her abilities then Courage had earlier led her to think. A buzzing sound began to ring as a single insect landed on the leaf and began to eat away at it. It had been feeling a bit courageous and so it was attempting to be an extra test for Misaki as no matter how much Courage tried to get the insect to go away, it stayed on the leaf.

Misaki looked at Courage in a quizzical way. "How am I supposed to set something on fire that I can't even see or really feel. It's just air right? So what exactly is being ignited?" Misaki let out a disgruntled sigh and turned her back on him. She mumbled to herself, "Even if I could do it, how would I control the flame from setting all of the air around everywhere on fire...this is dumb..." She turned back to Courage and the leaf. She rolled her eyes and then closed them. She envisioned her surroundings like she did the last time. At first Misaki tried to subtract everything around the leaf like she previously had done. Then she took the leaf out as well. Her mind was blank. She wasn't sure how this was going to play out but she had to at least try. She held up her hands in order to mentally block the flames from the leaf and then concentrated on igniting the air around it. All she did was imagine flames circling around the leaf but not touching anything. When she opened her eyes it seemed to be working. The flames were extremely close to the leaf and to Courage but nothing other than the air was on fire. Misaki was pleased with herself but she couldn't keep this up for long. This particular exercise was more mentally tiring than the last. She imagined the flames growing smaller and smaller until they were no more. When all was done she felt extremely light headed and almost blacked out. Misaki stumbled a bit but caught herself before falling.