Summoning Training 1: Old School vs. New School!

Lex glanced back at both Minerva and Liacaru, noticing them in the middle of a conversation before the man started making his way deeper into the mystical forest, his eyes trailing to the small vixen now walking beside him. 'Listen Nina, as long as we're here, even with Liacaru just now transforming, something tells me that your species still have things under wraps. I'm going to need them to do me a huge favor if they can.' he began, his voice echoing in Nina's mind while still making his way past a few trees before eventually stopping. He didn't want to go too far off after all without confirmation that Nina's kindred could perform the task. The female fox was more surprised that he had decided to stop talking out loud, which meant that whatever he was even thinking about could only involve secrecy and the ignorance of the other two party members. She gave a sigh before giving him an irritated glance, feeling like Lex was already pushing it himself. 'You do realize that the other summons only want to listen to shinobi, right? That, is something you are not, even if you are a remnant, or variant or whatever it was of the actual Lex that was a shinobi.' she replied to him, a serious look on her face as she conveyed her thoughts into his mind.

Lex gave a serious look of his own, but Nina wasn't budging, that serious look of hers not flinching at all as she gave him the same serious stare. She meant what she said, the other foxes were not prone to just listening to Lex simply just cause. But, they did listen to her, being one of the top ranking of their kind that had survived the shinobi era and had more experience than a lot of them combined, including being the personal summon of the shinobi Lex. With that in mind, she finally gave a defeated sigh after about half a minute of the two staring at each other in dead silence before a softer expression came over her face. 'Ok ok, fiiiiine. I'll go have a talk with them about... what was it you even needed them for?' she retorted with a quizzical look. Had it been the Lex she knew of, she would have been a bit worried; his brash and straightforward nature tended to cause problems for Hoshigakure, so for a very brief moment, she felt that very same anxiety rise in her chest. But then she remembered that this wasn't that same Lex, he was more stoic, more calm, more calculative without the extreme paranoia of losing his friends and loved ones all the time.

'I need you to make sure that they just watch Minerva and Liacaru while we talk. That's pretty much it.' he answered. Her expression became even more puzzled. What? A talk? And about what? Lex didn't talk, he just did and that thought made that anxious feeling slowly rise again as she thought about why he even wanted to talk to her; perhaps her old master's paranoia that she had tried so hard to get rid of had bled into her over the centuries. 'Uuuh... a talk? Well, I'm sure they'll keep an eye on them. I'm assuming you're only mentioning this because you want them on a higher alert than they already have been when watching them? And you act like we won't be right there, just what are we talking about?' she questioned, shifting her eyes towards one of the foxes who had been skulking around, carefully listening in on the conversation in their minds from the start.

It seemed that the Prower Sync didn't just work for one, but all of their kind, something that Lex had taken into account since he could sense the presence of the close-by fox. What Nina was worried about, Lex could literally feel, the rising tension of the foxes at his mere presence in their forest and that he had brought complete strangers. Who was to say where the actual huskies were, but they were in here somewhere and probably felt the same exact way. 'We'll be talking about everything.' he answered in a serious tone, causing the vixen to silently nod before trodding off towards the nearby fox. If what she was thinking was true, this was going to be one intense talk.

Nina had successfully told the other foxes to be on a higher alert for both Minerva's and Liacaru's actions and that if either of them tried to do anything to the forest, the foxes, or even themselves, react accordingly by neutralizing them. With that settled, it wasn't long before the vixen was making her way back to the waiting man's side, trailing beside him as he began to walk further into the forest the moment that she got close. 'Good, now with that taken care of, let's get a little farther in the forest first; it's going to take us a while before we reach a safe distance from the others, so let's start talking.' Lex's voice rang out in her mind. Nina didn't seem surprised in the slightest now, still walking beside him as she periodically shifted her gaze from in front of her to the man on her right side. 'Alright, proceed.' she answered cooly, just waiting for what he had to say since he had gotten her quite curious at this point. 'The Lex from your time, or rather, the one you're familiar with, he was a very brash and vicious kinda guy, right? He's the one I've had the least amount of visions of throughout my lifetime, but it seemed he was quite an ambitious fellow that caused a lot of trouble for people. Tell me all you can about him from your perspective.[/i]' he inquired.

Nina hadn't expected this at all, thinking that she would most likely be questioned about what techniques that she knew of that could help him of his journey, or perhaps where the two stood as far as a partnership, but to hear the man ask about, well, himself, it was not something she was expecting to answer so suddenly. 'Let's get somewhere that has a place to sit, this might take a while.' she instructed, trodding a bit faster against the forest floor to find a place for them to take a seat. Finding a tree stump, she glanced up at Lex and nodded her head towards the stump, making the man nod in return as he made his way towards it and sat down on it. Nina was right behind him, hopping onto the trunk of the tree before she gave a long sigh, letting all of those repressed memories flood back into her mind. "The Lex I knew was a difficult person. You may not get this from your visions, so a little backstory might do you some good on why you may see him act the way he does. The Prailius clan had practically been wiped out due to the dividing between the clan. With their ancestors prohibiting any future Prailius members from obtaining any political power and that they were meant to protect any head figures with their lives, centuries of this honor soon turned into hatred of the self-bounded law and clansmen across the entire shinobi world began to think it was time for them to rule within the respective villages that they had been put into. Needless to say, one half of the clan thought this was a horrible idea, where the other half thought it was only natural progression to get rid of old laws, even if they were made by their own clansmen. Thus, the Pryce clan was created, one that decided to follow the true merits of the Prailius clan and vowed to destroy those that had defected into the new way of thinking. The result was the new Prailius clan practically being wiped out, save for a few scattered members here and there throughout the shinobi world. The home village of the Praiius, Nadira Village, had been wiped clean out, leaving no survivors save for Lex and Vira. They were only children at the time so they were pretty much as good as dead anyway." she explained aloud, her gaze following nothing in particular as she seemed to have images of her own slowly slide through her mind's eye about the story she had been told since she was old enough to understand words.

The man beside her could only hum, several questions running through his mind about just how cliched his life must have been to be one of the lucky ones to survive an attack when he was simply a child. Still, he said nothing about it and encouraged her to continue. "Lex and the other kid survivor, Vira were both rescued by a traveling Jonin who went by Saya Roxette. She didn't really know much about the Prailius clan, but the one thing she knew for certain was their intense devotion towards peace and justice for others. With that in mind, she decided to save the two children and take them to the neighboring hidden village of the Stars, Hoshigakure, or Star Village. The two were made unaware of the Pryce clan wiping out Nadira and was led to believe that an entire wave of bandits managed to take them down from past grudges. It was safe to say that Lex easily saw through that after a few years, his ambitious but mostly intense nature stemming from the thirst for political power to change the world which managed to help him obtain sensitive information about Nadiragakure." she continued, taking a moment to pause so such information could sink in.

Lex used the pause to reflect on the bits and pieces that seemed to stick out, like the splitting of the clan and Lex moving into Hoshigakure. From what it sounded like, he had an idea on where her story might be headed, or at least, what this other Lex variant was striving for. "Lex spent most of his early life just taking mission after mission that the village had to offer, for the most part to show his worth to his fellow villagers, but also because he was seeking higher rank. Ironically, Lex's behavior of climbing as fast as he did got him right on the verge of finding out about the Pryce clan and what they had done, but during a real random bandit attack on Hoshigakure that ended up killing several villagers, including Vira, Lex's entire focus shifted and he went for the unthinkable; he went straight to aspiring for Hoshikage. Everyone was trying to stop him, especially his own clansmen. As soon as word spread, the royal branch from the Hidden Mist sent a delegate to tell Lex to stand down on his ambition for power in that village, but Lex wasn't having it. Despite the two having known each other for quite some time at this point, the delegate known as Qaito and Lex had a vicious battle, but neither of them could kill the other, so Lex convinced Qaito that he would not be like other Prailius members of the past and be corrupted by such power. Some shinobi revel the Kage title, others think of it as a joke. But Lex... Lex took that name to another level. He built entire cities in months, wiped out nations if they didn't agree with his version of peace and even fought other Prailius members that decided to go against his rule. Needless to say, there were many key components that led to his downfall, one of them being Saya and I; Lex needed to die for the sake of the world." she finished, a hardened look coming over the vixen as she seemed to remember the moment that Lex took his last breath in front of her. "I thought as much. Nina-" he began, making the vixen's ear twitch and snap her head towards him, a bewildered look on her face from the fresh and painful memories now running fresh through her mind. "You don't have to tell me anymore, I will ask for more details at a later time. What you've told me will be enough on what I needed to know about him and it helps me lead into the point on why I even brought this all up. When I asked you before to be my conscious, I didn't just mean that if I were to get out of line to scold me, I meant that if I ended up becoming too far gone, I needed you to kill me." he said, a serious look on his face as he further explained himself. The vixen's expression began to settle more and more into a harder gaze on the man beside her as her body began to tense, slowly beginning to stand up on all fours from her haunched position and started facing towards the man in a defensive position. Lex began to chuckle as he calmly lifted himself up from the tree trunk. "Heh, very perceptive Nina. I guess it doesn't need explaining but just to clarify. I'm going to fight you here and now to see if you even have the capability of killing the current me. Don't hold back Nina, because you know quite well that I don't." he began, a sinister glare staring right down at her as visible wind began to rush around his body in a sort of sphere, making his clothes flutter violently while he pulled his pistol out and lifted it right towards Nina.

Lex's Current Equipment

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Lex's Magic Used

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Nina gritted her teeth as she pushed herself back as hard as she could, hearing a loud bang firing from the firearm in Lex's hand at the spot she was standing at a moment ago. The vixen continuously hopped and erratically ran around to evade the bullets from his magnum pistol, hearing the loud gunshots ring out around them before she heard the resonating click of him pulling the trigger to an empty clip. Lex quickly holstered his pistol as the small animal turned her head for a swift moment towards the left side of her belly, a small puff of smoke expanding out from that very spot as she had a kunai clenched in her teeth. She dashed swiftly towards the dark-skinned male, slashing at his right ankle with the deadly blade before twirling around and hopping up to slice at his right arm.

Lex had expected Nina to be fast, but not this fast, his eyes barely tracing the vixen as she seemed to zip from her starting point and towards his ankle. He had managed to yank his foot up to barely evade the cut there, but he wasn't able to dodge the strike to his arm. He had expected this however, which was why the wind spell that he used earlier that covered his body was able to keep him protected, completely deflecting the blade from cutting his arm as Nina landed right in front him on his right side. 'Damnit, it's exactly like that wind jutsu! Even if this is a new Lex, his tactics so far seem to be the same as the Lex I knew. He goes for defense first over everything else, then he'll choose between trying to be flashy or setting up moves that will be extremely difficult to avoid later.' she assessed, running at full speed towards the depths of the forest to gain some distance from him.

'Nina should have known that kunai wasn't going to work, she's probably sizing me up, trying to see what I'll even do. I can't let her take a breather, not even for a second.' he thought, quickly running after her as he took out his magnum pistol again and reloaded it with another clip, training it right for the scurrying fox before firing it multiple times at her. The vixen was constantly hopping from her linear path forward and keeping herself from being struck by one of the large caliber bullets by mere inches. She was just too fast and Lex didn't want to waste too much ammunition if he could help it, making him quickly holster his weapon before he saw the vixen quickly shift around and lunge straight for his neck. This was not normal speed though, the man swearing he could hear a gust of wind behind her that seemed to propel her even faster towards the tall man. Lex's eyes widened in surprise and fear as he rose his gray leather gloved hand up as fast as he could while jumping back, getting ready to teleport something into his hand to defend himself from her attack. But she was faster than he could raise his hand, managing to make contact and bite him ferociously on his forearm. Lex shouted loudly in pain before he pulled out his magnum again, training right for the center of the vixen's forehead with a furious look on his face.

Nina didn't waver, at least at first, immediately tugging at the man's arm to get him to miss his oncoming shot and hit himself instead, but he never fired, keeping his aim true for the center of her forehead with gritted teeth before she realized that he wasn't going to fire haphazardly, a horrified expression coming over her and unhinging her death grip on his arm. The shot rang out just as she fell from his position, the bullet whizzing through the short mane that she had but not hitting her literally by a hair, or several. Nina didn't wait to try and cast her next jutsu, but what she saw made her pause as she hopped back by reflex. Lex was doing hand signs, ones that she recognized quite well as a fire style move, more specifically, Fireball Jutsu. 'How in the hell can he do that?! He shouldn't have any chakra since he's not a shinobi!' she thought, a chill rising in her body as she saw the red flames accumulate into a sphere in front of the man once he curled his fingers to create a small hole near his mouth and blew through it.

The vixen was already hopping back constantly, trying to avoid the fireball before she realized something; there was no heat coming off of that fireball, none at all. Just as she came to this realization and was about to do something about it, she felt a kick to her small frame that caught a good portion of her ribs and her side, making her fling through the air and slam quite roughly into a nearby tree. She screamed out in excruciating pain, trembling as she finally hit the ground with a thud. She watched as something that seemed mostly invisible with a blurred outline began to suddenly fade into existence, slowly walking over towards her. It was Lex, his hand grasping roughly at the wound on his arm where Nina had bit him. It seemed that she had done far more than that, several dark blue lines running through the inside of his arm and towards his chest. He was heavily breathing at this point, far more so than he originally should have been which only told her that she at least got the poison into him, but she was in no condition to follow up, the vixen still stunned as she kept trembling on the forest floor beneath her as she tried her best to recover. 'Get up! GET UP!' she screamed at herself, seething ferociously as she tried to regain the strength in her legs to pick herself up from the ground. There were so many questions running through her mind as she saw Lex still continue approaching her; wondering how she couldn't sense him, when he managed to camoflauge himself and what was it that she had seen where Lex could perform or even fake a fireball jutsu. Something told her that if she didn't pick herself up from the ground in the next second, she was never going to find out.

Lex's Current Equipment

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Lex's Current Abilities

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Lex's Hologram Programs

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Nina's Current Abilities

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Nina's Poison Used

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