Training days in the sim room was always a fun time. At least, Inha always thought so. Swanning about the halls of the her former haunt of Crystal Star Academy, the hopeful and excited faces of students rushing to catch a glimpse of the upcoming training session was something she missed just a little. No one gave her a second glance as they rushed past her: Inha had chosen to don her former uniform. It felt like a lifetime since she'd last worn it and she was pleased it still fit despite her recent six month binge of fast food and energy drinks. A few students even greeted her as an upperclassman since her uniform still had her former patches and awards on it's lapel.

Was this really a good use of her time? Probably not. But Inha just enjoyed these kinds days. The days where she didn't need to be in a meeting with their "handlers" to discuss the impending Alterverse invasion, or meeting with Dr. Kan to learn more about his latest findings, or even just being out on patrol through the city and countryside. Those days were the worst honestly. Not because Inha didn't like a good fight: Inha could handle a fight. But those were the days you had to be in your Crystalline garb, and stayed out of sight.

Dr. Kan called it a threat radius. Sometimes the mere presense of one of the ladies in their full garb was enough to deter the movement of lesser alterverse monsters. In the words of Eungyoung: it basically makes the baddies piss themselves. Lesser monsters basically were scared and went back to their dimension. Two teams ago, the patrols became a regular occurence and the random attack incidents reduced immensely.

In other words, Inha knew why they were important.

But they were lonely.

"Did you see Peridot!? She's so cool!"

"She's hot!"

"That's all you think about!" A male and female student pushed past Inha, eagerly charging towards the training arena. Inha giggled, knowing full well Seungha would not appreciate that assessment from her male admirer. She doubled her pace, and soon arrived at the entrance of the training arena. Elbowing her way pst some of the students, Inha managed to catch the tail end of the current match up.

The training arena was set up to create conditions and to artificially amplify a fighter's ability as if they were a member of Crystalline and they had their own crystal. In the actual Arena, a place Eungyoung often frequented as a competetor, the general populace had tournaments and matches to see who the best Arena fighter would be. Inha liked to think of it like a scarier version of pokemon, but with people. The training arena in the academy had the same concept but was for, well for training. Currently the scenery of the training arena was set up as a cityscape. Seungah loved a good city fight.

Two students lay on the ground, training weapons tossed aside as they rubbed their chests. A third girl was currently in the midst of trying to force their supposed advantage on Peridot. Clad in her Periot garb, Seungha had a training staff out and was currently blocking an attack from the student's training sword. Inha could see the student getting just a little cocky as she pressed more, and then Seungha smirked a little.

And then Seungha/Peridot forced the sword upwards with her staff, and the poor kid received a bash to the nose. She screamed, crying out in pain, and stagged back. Inha hissed at the sight of blood coming from her nose. The overseer called match over, and paramedics rushed out to check on the fallen students. Those students not involved let our cheers and woops at the outcome. Shaking her head with a laugh, Inha made her way to the back entrace for the arena reserved for Crystalline members.

Once there, she waiting in the back room for Seungah to emerge. Soon enough, the older member of Crystalline, her current appearance not doing anything to mask her appearance from her fellow Crystalline member, emerged, looking as if she barely een broke a sweat from her fighting. She noticed Inha and smiled.

"Hey! What brings you here today? I thought you were off?"

"Nothing really," Inha shrugged, "Just a little bored. Got a training round planned with the hopefuls?"

"Yeah," Seungha groaned, "and let me tell you. At this rate, we're going to be five members for a long time after Ahri retires. These kids can't even take a simple hit before falling to the ground and crying. These are supposed to be some of the top contenders. A knock on the chest in training is nothing."

"You did give that one a bloody nose."

"She practiclly threw herself into the stick. I've nearly had my arm ripped off three times and only cried about it once. A bloody nose is nothing-" Seungha stopped herself, shaking her head, "how did bodily mutilation become the norm in my life?" She slumped down into a couch with a dramatic groan.

"Need a break?"

"Please."

Inha tapped the gold and citrine ring on her finger, and the world darkened as spark of light shot out from her ring. Then another, and another. "Crystalline Citrine – awake!" The ring then bathed her in a shroud of sparkling light, the particles flaring her clothing into a shroud of light. The light swirled and flashed, leaving her in her Citrine dress: a yellow dress that came down to just above her knees, sleeveless and trimmed in accents of black and gold. Her golden chest plate with one shoulder decked in citrine gems, a string of citrine gems trailing across her forehead, black knee high boots with martching accent to her dress appearing next. While her hair was dyed blonde currently, the light engulfed her hair and flashed, lengthening to a longer more brillinat shade of golden locks. Before her the sword made of light appeared, and Inha took the weapon in the final step that made her tranformation complete.

"Now, you know no weapons in here right? Too much chance of hurting the newbies."

"I know, I know. I had a match with Ahri once here before, remember?" Inha, with a little sadness, made the sword vanish. She took one of the practice swords instead, "Wish me luck!"

"Ha. You won't need it!"

Inha laughed as well, blowing a kiss to Seungha before entering the arena next. The overseer exclaimed in surprise, rushing over to greet her. Inha listened idly to him as he asked her various questions, one being where did Peridot go and how much of a surprise it wa to see Citrine here, yada yada yada. Instead, she focused on the now four girls waiting in the arena. One stood aside, not really engaging the others, looking bored as can be. Reminded her a little of Guiling honestly. Another, this one with some semblance of pinkish hair was trying to rally the other girls around her to focus. She resembled an exceptionally frazzled Ahri, or even Jinhee at times. The girl closest to her was making big, animated movements, causing the ink haired one to shake her head and try to explain once again. A blonde girl was there also, trying to get the others to realize that 'ohmygoscitrinelookatherbootsohmygawd!'. As she drew closer she could make out their conversation.

"No, no, and no! Listen to me!"

"There's four of us! Imagine what spectacle we could make! Three would be better for formations, odd numbers do that, but we can make the best sight of symmetry that will have these other lame-os cheering and screaming!"

"Reni, just listen to me-"

"GUYS! She's coming over here!"

"No but hear me out! It will be fantastic! We'll get Jaein to charge her first-"

"Nope," the mostly disinterested girl responded, though she was looking far more lively as Inha drew closer.

"-we'll get YOU to charge them first," the girl she now knew as Reni pointed at the pink haired girl, "then Hani will use her gun to shoot at her, then we'll have Jaein flank her using backflips and dazzling displays, and THEN I will leap over her and land the finishing, flourishing move!" Reni exclaimed, throwing her arms up, "doesn't that sound fantastic?!"

"No!"

"Yunyi, you have no imagination!"

"GUYS!" The blonde girl, she assumed was Hani based on process of elimination, exclaimed once again. Inha had made to just five feet from them, waiting patiently for their talk to be done. All four girls were in the steel colored training armor, all holding swords. Hani was bouncing on her heels while Jaein was now at attention, finially looking a little excited. Meanwhile, Reni and Yunyi were still debating 'tactics'. Inha laughed a little watching them.

"We don't even have a gun Reni! Listen, we just have to do this carefully and properly. It's training but it doesn't mean we can't, you know, be tactical-"

"But that's BORING. Let's give them a show! How are we ever going to amount ot anything being BORING Yunyi! Think about it!"

"Ahem," Jaein cleared and elbowed Reni hard, earing her a loud 'why would you DO THAT?!' from the other girl. Finally, all eyes were on Inha, and Inha could fall over laughing with how round their eyes became.

"Okay ladies. Shall we?"

To say the fight went anything like now this Reni wanted or how even Yunyi wanted would be a horrendous lie. Inha leared very quikcly this was the first time these four had fought together in the arena. While all of them were eager to fight, there was no coordination. And while the idea of sheer numbers was probably giving them some false sense of security, it was their sheer lack of coordination that had Inha laughing internally.

First: Reni tripped, causing Jaein who actually looked ready for a fight to fall next, and then Hani followed, but in an effort to save herself she grabbed Yunyi and down they all went into a trainee dog pile.

Second: Okay, a little more organized, but then Hani shouted something like "LUV LUV BEAM!" and hurled her sword at Inha with terrible aim. This instead hit Yunyi in the back, and the pink haired girl went falling forward onto her face.

Third: Alright. Here they go! Inha readied herself. First, a good run and jump attack from Jaein, that Inha parried, and then, wow, okay, a good follow up from Yunyi. Excellent! This was looking good! Parried, and pushed her back, good. Now here comes Jaein for a flank, trying to use Inha's distraction with Yunyi to-oh, nope. Reni did a rather impressive set of flips towards Inha, distracting Jaein who ended up having her arm smacked hard by Inha's sword, and then Inha turned to block the blow landed by Reni. Oooh, that actually had some strength behind it. And then here comes Hani with a well intentioned charge and Inha just shoved Reni back into Hani, knocking them both down.

To her surprise though, Yunyi came up rather quickly behind her. Had Inha not spun, she would have made contact. Her sword shook violently in her hand as Yunyi impressively landed a double strike of sorts. Then came Jaein, who actually managed to get a in on Inha. Inha took that sword with her non-parrying hand, and swung it out of Jaein's hand. Somewhere in the background she swore she heard Reni scream "NOT FAIR!" when Inha struck Jaein with the handle side of the sword, knocking her back on her behind. Feeling a little showy, Inha then turned and rushed Yunyi, grabbing the girl by her arm, and flipping her over her shoulder, sending her flying across and right into Reni and Hani. Ah yes, another trainee doggy pile.

"Owwww! Sorry! Are you guys okay?"

"Get off me you-! Ooh, Yunyi, your eyes are super pretty up close! Have you had surgery?"

"UGH!" Yunyi shoved herself off and grumbled a little, trying to stand and look dignified.

"But yeah! Like she said!" Hani pointed at Reni who was also getting up, "not fair! You can't just grab the blade of the sword and hit someone! That would hurt in real life!"

"Yeah!" Reni quickly added, trying to stand tall, "what the heck?!"

"If I was a monster from the Alterverse, I wouldn't care-" Inha began to explain but Jaein quickly chimed in.

"They regerate injuries so a sword cut would be nothing to it!"

"Uh, right," Inha nodded, noting thep leased smile on Jaein's face.

"Regardless, training is over. Your asses got owned by Citrine," Seungah was approaching them, "get better!"

To Inha's amazement, Reni and Hani turned to Seungah and actually began to argue back at her. Quoting training rules, how this wasn't real so they're allowed to complain, and on and on to the point that Seungah began to argue back. Inha stoof between Yunyi and Jaein. Jaein listening intently, Yunyi shaking her head in what Inha assumed was embarassment.

Well, today had been fun afterall!