The Apprentice's Apprentice

Part 21

"No, all the power pairings have nicknames. It's just something that some people use to identify themselves as instead of giving both their specialities all the time. It's shorter is all."

"So what's your type called then?"

Warren looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's not really important. Now, since we have your strengths identified-"

Cora wasn't about to let him escape that easy. "Nope. You know my type, you're telling me yours. It's only fair. Now tell me or I'm refusing to learn any more magic."

He tried to stare her down, but Cora had played this game with Zoe more times than she could count and held firm. Finally he let his eyes drop and sighed. "Fine, fine." He cleared his throat and quietly said, "I'm a Destroyer."

Her lips twitched for a second and then Cora was full on laughing. "A Destroyer," she gasped between laughs. "You're a Destroyer?"

Warren blushed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't make up the names. And this is exactly why I didn't want to tell you. Most of the titles are stupid, and it's really only the younger mages who use them."

"That's hilarious. Destroyer," she said, still chuckling. "Wait, what's Selena?"

"Blade. Most of the offensive ones aren't bad. Almost all of the spell breaking ones are frigging awful. Anyway, they're not really something you need to worry about so you can forget them. We need to focus on your speciality and how that's going to affect your spell casting."

Cora sobered herself up, though she knew once she got home and started thinking about it again she'd be laughing over Warren the Destroyer again. It was like the name of a terrible barbarian or something.

Only when he was sure that he had her attention did Warren continue. "As you can imagine with a nickname like Warrior, you're going to be best at fighting magically. As someone who can both attack and defend well, most mages won't want to get into a direct battle with you. You're also lucky since Master Van Der Walt's other speciality is offensive and she can teach you beyond the basics."

"That's good then," Cora replied, smiling. "I like her."

"You would," Warren muttered darkly before continuing in a more normal volume. "You're going to be best at containing and releasing your spells as well, which will be good for quick spell casting without the danger of it hitting unintended targets. But since you have a weakness for visualization, you'll probably be more prone to misspells and accidents than you'd be normally."

"So you're saying I'm going to be making a lot of mistakes but will be able to keep them from being really bad by containing them?"

"Basically, yeah. Thankfully most offensive spells don't need as much visualization as say, transference ones do. Actually, this should be interesting to watch since one of your strengths and your weakness are both Master Van Der Walt's specialities."

Cora shook her head at Warren's smile. He seemed to take far too much pleasure in anything that might mess up Selena, like he wanted her to fail or something. She wondered what his issue with his master was.

"Now, as long as you don't burn anything down during your training, you should be fine," Warren said, leaning back into the chair.

She frowned. "Is me setting stuff on fire a legit concern? Because I'd like not to have to worry about burning down my house when I'm sleeping and stuff."

"You'll be fine. It's only when you're awake you'll have to worry. Be glad we found you and started getting you trained, because if you'd been pushed, gotten too scared, angry, or upset, you could have set a lot of things on fire. You also could have trapped someone in a tiny space too. I'm not sure which would come more naturally to you. I think it'd depend on the situation, but some people have a stronger affinity for one of their specialities over the other one, if they have two. I'm actually surprised you're offensive and defensive. I always felt there was something of mind about you, but I was wrong."

Cora shivered slightly at the thought of setting someone on fire. If losing control could cause something like that, she was going to have to be vigilant about keeping herself as calm as possible. To keep her mind off it, she said, "Would it have been better if I was mind?"

Warren shrugged. "No magic's better or worse. Just like being good at math vs. languages isn't better or worse. Though I have to say, most people who have mind are manipulative, so I'm glad you're not. They're not always, but most of them are. Some are nice about how they manipulate people, but it's manipulation nonetheless."

"So when you said you thought I'd have a mind speciality you were basically calling me a manipulative bitch?" Cora asked, eyebrows up.

"You said it, not me."

She rolled her eyes. "If I didn't need this training..."

"You'd be a Line mage," Warren finished for her, grinning.