Super Special Training (Asher)

Of course Elliot picked up the phone! Elliot is a responsible and dedicated citizen, and not a sleepy layabout like Asher. He turned on the phone, listening to what Asher had to say. Oh, he was outside already? That was fast! "Yay, you made it!" he chirped. "Although you could've just rang the doorbell, you know. Ah, what the heck, I'll grab it real quick. Coming~!" With that Elliot hung up the phone, grabbing his walking stick and easing himself off of the couch. Sometimes he got a little ahead of himself and ended up slipping a bit, needing to brace himself with his good leg while quickly trying to get his walking stick. Thankfully, today he managed to get it in the right order. After all, he was excited, but not that excited!

He opened the door, smiling wide. "Come on in! I got snacks," he said, ushering Asher in. Sure enough, there were a few little bowls on the table, including some chocolatey cookies, pocky sticks, and chex mix. "I know, not the best spread, but we haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping in a few days. Sorry!" Still, hopefully it was good enough for Asher's tastes.

"Alright, it'd be rude of me to just launch into training. So why don't you tell me how your day's been going?" Elliot asked, also sliding Asher the TV remote. Man, training with Elliot really didn't seem like training so far! But would it be that easy the whole time? "We can get started after a bit of chatting and snacking time, after all." Apparently not!

Elliot really didn't care about what was on the TV right now. Coming back from commercial break was some sort of drama, which Elliot didn't seem to glance at as he flitted about the house. After all, he had to bring Asher a few bottles of water! "Trust me, you'll need these," he said as he dropped the bottles off. " 'Cause we're gonna be working our butts off today!" He was pretty adept at navigating the house now, even with his walking stick. He didn't even make much noise from clattering into things, barring the occasional tap-tap-tap of his stick guiding him along the floor. Once he had finished adjusting the windows to provide the nicest amounts of lighting and making sure the heater was at a sufficiently toasty temperature, he flopped down on the couch next to Asher.

"That's great!" he said as Asher cheerfully talked about his day. Or, rather, mildly stated his day. "Mine's been okay. Really boring without everyone else here, though. I've been doing some writing, but I think by this point you're sick of hearing about all of that. Thought about going out to study, but with exams being so close I think I'm just going to take it easy for a bit." Studying, especially going out to do so, meant Piper. Crunch time meant Piper got really scary. Elliot was amazed he made it out of their last study session alive! "Turns out taking it easy can get kind of tiring. Especially when I've already beat all the games I bought for the year. You been up to anything fun?"

Of course, he couldn't delay the inevitable forever. The longer he dilly-dallied, the more likely someone got home. And they would probably have a lot of questions about their youngest household member spending time with an 18 year old TV celebrity. Or a mostly-naked barbarian woman. No matter what, it'd be awkward! "Alright, I'm ready when you are. Now, I know this is gonna be a typical first suggestion, but for today's first test . . ."

He fished out his Digivice from his pocket and put up his fists. It looked adorable. "Fight me!"

Elliot blushed a little in frustration, puffing out his cheeks slightly. "I'm serious! I'm strong!" he protested. Between the adorably offended tone in his voice and his huffing reaction to Asher's laughter, he certainly wasn't helping his case any. That said, Asher had a reasonable excuse. Their fighting probably would bring the house down, wouldn't it? Sure, they could always go to the park, but that would probably raise way too many questions with the neighbors. Considering what Asher had to say, he sighed and relented. "Besides, you're probably tired of all this fighting and danger anyway, aren't you? So I guess I could give you a break there," he decided. That seemed to be his attempt at saving face. It was questionable if it worked or not.

Thankfully, the boy seemed to perk up a bit after. "Thankfully, that's why I came up with a few new tests for you! I mean, I figured you wouldn't really want to do much fighting. So I decided to focus on stuff you do like. Like sleeping," he said. Wait, what? How was that training in any way, shape, or form? "I mean, I'm still gonna need you to transform. After all, you're going to have to adapt to your new form one way or another. But hopefully, it's gonna be way less tiring than the training you had to do before." Elliot didn't want to stress Asher out here! He would've felt really bad if he did so. He started walking away, calling to Asher over his shoulder. "Anyway, that's your first challenge! Just lie down and go to sleep. See if you can keep concentrated on it even when you're drifting off to dream land."

With that last request, Elliot was gone, not even waiting to see if Asher would have gone for the transformation. Hopefully Asher would just listen to his instructions, Digivolve, and sleep. It would make things so much easier for everyone that way. Then he wouldn't have to see Elliot rooting through his house's kitchen, grabbing the two largest pots and pans he had in his house and tucking them under his arms. Asher wouldn't have to hear Elliot creeping his way back behind him, the occasional tap-tap-tap of his walking stick being disturbed by the shaking of these cast-iron goods.

Maybe he wouldn't notice Elliot lying in wait for Asher to drift off, one pan in each hand as he waited for the most opportune moment to kick up a fuss.

"I-I didn't mean it like that!" Elliot protested from the kitchen as Asher commented on his request. It would've been the same plan if he turned into a giant dog, or a screaming void made of eyeballs. Of all the forms Asher could take, why did this one have to be so hot? Nevertheless, he'd just have to deal with it and move on. Asher's training depended on it.

He lied in wait as Asher "slept", trying his hardest not to look like he was just creeping on a sleeping oni girl. For this reason, the fact that Asher wasn't actually sleeping completely sailed over his head. He was far too busy completely averting his gaze, occasionally casting a glance to confirm if Asher was still "asleep" or not but otherwise keeping focused on the TV, or his frying pan, or the snack bowl. It may have been a little hypocritical, considering this training was all about focus, but Elliot didn't want Asher to think less of him for his training plans.

Eventually, he figured Asher was close enough to being asleep. That was when he rose to his full height, setting the walking stick aside and shakily balancing as he unfurled both pans from his arms. He gave them each a gentle bounce, as if testing their heft, before leaning back and crashing them both together. The clang echoed through the house, Elliot immediately regretting this move and looking around to see if the neighbors were disturbed. Thankfully they weren't, but for a second Elliot was terrified!

He looked down at Asher to try and see his reaction. Hopefully, said reaction wouldn't include sending Elliot flying across the room!

Elliot was pulled into a hug quite unexpectedly. Honestly, he had thought he was going to get punched halfway across the room! Maybe it was a good thing that Asher had pledged to not fight Elliot after all, because judging by the rough initial grip on his shoulders Asher would not have hesitated to destroy anyone else into that position. The hug itself was quite warm and welcome, even if it made Elliot blush brightly as he realized he was just pulled onto Asher's lap. Once again, good thing nobody else was home today, or that would've looked really, really wrong!

Elliot tried his hardest to look disappointed in Asher instead of relieved. It wasn't easy, especially because it was really hard to stay mad at Asher for long. "I know. It was supposed to be scary. That's why it was training!" Elliot said. "Y'see, that one was for your focus. I wanted to see if you'd be able to hold onto your Digivolution even after something very jarring happened. I figured I'd start with sleep because you really like sleep, and its also something really easy to interrupt. But it could've been anything, really. Like meditating. Or video games. Hell, even a training battle. Because it'd really suck if you dropped form after a big, scary attack, and then got hurt bad."

Did I mention this whole ramble was being delivered while blushing and stammering? Poor Elliot was not in a very good position to explain things right now!

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, trying to wiggle off of Asher's lap because it was starting to become way too embarrassing for him to handle. Hopefully his grip wasn't too strong, or Elliot would instead just be flailing like a fish in a trap. "I'm really sorry if that one was too much for you." Oh, if only Elliot knew why it was too much. Someone more attentive, like Isaac, might have noticed that Asher actually held form before dropping it, but to Elliot's eyes he had just jarred Asher out of a Digivolution with just one distraction.

Elliot frowned a little at Asher's assurance. "I know," he said again. "The Digital World really isn't usual, though. So its pretty important that we try and test your limits, just in case." Not worrying and Elliot weren't words that easily went together. Especially when the object of worry was someone quite important to Isaac, and the cause of worry was a parallel dimension where nothing really made sense whatsoever. "I trust you, though. So maybe we should put this one on the shelf for a bit and try something different," Elliot decided. He gave Asher a warm pat off of the shoulder, then took advantage of his loosened grip to slide off of his lap. Now there was a relief!

Still, considering his whole goal here was to make training that was a bit less terrifying than Karin's, there was a pretty guilty look on his face. He didn't think Asher would've taken this one so badly! He figured one Asher got used to it, it could've been a lot of fun. Asher could've drifted off to sleep and rested easy, even if it was a bit challenging. Elliot could've had a great time parading around and smashing pans together like it was New Years. Then after an hour or something they could all have a good laugh about it. Instead, he gave poor Asher a bad shock. "I'll just have to try harder next time . . ." he mumbled to himself as he started flipping through his book of ideas.

Oh! There was one! "How about a scary movie?" Elliot suggested. "That way its something startling still, but also a lot more fun than my idea. I know, it sounds kind of silly. Just watching movies and all that. But it might be able to help, right? I promise, I won't sneak up behind you and go 'Boo!' or anything like that."

He aimlessly flicked through the horror movies on various On-Demand channels as he made his suggestion. Pet Sematary. The Ring. Friday the 13th. Why did so many of these have to involve dead kids? Especially at a time like this?