The Winter Wraith

Chapter 22

"Why must the Captain insist on making training at the crack of dawn."

"Pietro, it's seven o'clock. Stop being dramatic," Wanda replied.

"Hey, you know this greatness doesn't come naturally," he said, gesturing to himself, "I need my beauty sleep."

"Alright team, enough chit chat. Finish your stretching and get started with an easy jog of five laps," Steve ordered.

The speedster sniggered at Wanda's grumbling complaints about running, but not quietly enough.

"Pietro, you run twenty-five laps."

The speedster groaned, but twenty-five laps was still nothing for him. The rest of the team dutifully ran their laps on the large indoor track.

"For the first half of this session, you all will be using your powers. If you don't have powers, then you will be assigned as a mentor. Sam, you'll take Vision. Natasha, you'll be with Adina and Wanda. Bucky and I'll be with Pietro. Get to work, everyone," Steve directed.

Everyone went to separate areas of the gym. Natasha led her group to the corner that had a pile of big foam blocks and a tall rock climbing wall.

"Wanda, I want you to practice your control by doing your usual routine with the blocks, while I test Adina on her powers," Natasha directed.

"Got it," Wanda replied and quickly started using her powers to lift and carefully arrange the blocks.

"So, Adina, what are all of your powers?" Natasha asked.

"Teleportation, force fields, and I was injected with a few questionable recreations of the super soldier serum."

"Did they train your powers at Hydra?"

"Not particularly. I only got them recently and with Bucky escaping and all, my training was sort of pushed to the side. Plus, they didn't really want to risk me escaping by just teleporting out of there, so I always had a power dampener on."

"Okay, well, we're going to see how much control over your powers you have. To start off, I want you to teleport a few feet away and then teleport back. Keep repeating this, but make the distance greater each time. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Go ahead. And drop the ma'am."

Adina did as she was told. Once she had increased her distance to forty yards away, Natasha called for her to stop.

"It looks like you've got your short distance teleportation done fairly well. We'll work on your long distance another day. Now, let's test the strength of your forcefields. Make one that protects your front side."

Adina held her hands out in front of her and focused. A few blue sparks started to appear in the air in front of her. A couple of seconds later the blue forcefield was fully formed, albeit small, with undercurrents of purple weaving in and out. It flickered in and out, clearly weak.

"Concentrate on making the forcefield stronger first, then try expanding it."

Listening to the advice, she tried focusing on the center of the shield. It stopped flickering, the fibers becoming stronger, but the forcefield also shrunk to the size of a plate. Once the center was completely enforced, she then tried expanding it. It took more of her energy, but Natasha's advice worked and the forcefield protected her whole body. That is, until it abruptly flickered out fifteen seconds later.

"That's alright," Natasha reassured her, "We'll work on holding the force field for longer at a later time. For now, I just want to establish a baseline for your powers."