Miyagi Riko sat wearing fuzzy yellow pajamas with legs at her side on the tatami mats of her dorm floor. Needle and thread in hand, she sewed the shoulder seam of a yellow bunny costume atop the room's center chabudai table. Sato Hanna sat in a chair at the side of the room, brushing her hair in front of a well lit vanity mirror.

"Hanna, have you decided who you want on your team this year?" Miyagi asked with sleepy eyes locked on her stitches.

"I.. hadn't thought of it yet." Hanna replied. Her hand paused for a moment as she looked to her side.

"Really? Every other year you've been dying to get a team together for St. Ezreal's Esperly Order competition." Riko looked up from her craft at Hanna. "Don't tell me you aren't planning on competing this time. You haven't given up, have you?"

"It's not like that. There's just nobody befitting my team." Hanna closed her eyes tightly and continued to brush her hair.

"Oh?" Riko looked on curiously. "It's not good to exclude yourself. You may develop a complex!" She lowered her costume to the table, still holding it.

"Well there is one person, but I don't think he'd join." Hanna spoke in a sad tone, her brush pausing again.

"You don't mean, it's a boy you like?" Riko asked, seeing right through Hanna's secret.

"As-if!" Hanna scoffed, shaking her head. "I've got no time for boys!"

"Your secret's safe with mee!" Riko smiled from ear to ear, picking up her costume and continuing to sew.

Hanna kept her face turned towards the mirror, slowing her brushing.

"I mean, if I did like someone, he'd probably be tall and handsome, and completely inelligibile for the competition as he'd already be in the Esperly Order. The only boys available are good for nothing perverts!" Hanna slipped out the words, red in her wincing face.

Marth arrived back at the door of his room. As he opened the door to his private supply closet, he let out a sneeze.

"Tchoo!" Marth wiped his nose with his hankerchief. "Summer cold?" He wondered.

Marth's day began at 4:30AM. The sun had yet to rise on the elegant campus, as dew drops formed on the unlit blades of grass. Marth was in blissful dream land, fast asleep on his back, with mouth wide open and a bubble of spit on his lips.

Tsubasa-sensei kicked in the door.

"On your feet, minion!" The sound of Tsubasa's voice violently rousing Marth from his slumber.

"Ah, I surrender! Take my money and belongings but please leave my Hatsune Miku collection alone!" His spit bubble burst as Marth sat up in bed and raised his hands in the air.

"You collect Hatsune Miku dolls?" Tsubasa asked, pausing her hostile takeover for a moment.

"They're figures, not dolls!" Marth rubbed the sleep from his eyes, realizing it was just Tsubasa.

"How cute. My niece collects dolls too!" Tsubasa hunched over laughing, revealing a large pack on her back.

Marth threw off his blanket, standing up in t-shirt and shorts.

"Fig-ure-s!" Marth defended his hobby. "What's with the backpack? It looks like you're armed for bear today."

Tsubasa stood up, composing herself and resuming her drill seargent voice. "You've got thirty seconds to get dressed and rendezvous in the hallway, peon. I'm about to whip you into shape!"

Marth followed Tsubasa from the dormitory to the administration building. It was still dark out and Tsubasa's pace was quick.

The administration building was darker than ever, with not a shred of light shining in from the vented ceiling.

"Watch your step." Tsubasa warned as the two climbed the short stairset to the stage.

As soon as Marth's trailing foot touched down on the stage's surface, the dark surroundings shifted to a bright green sky.

"The mine!" Marth recognized the surrounding quarry on the planet with two suns. Marth walked to a pickaxe leaning against a boulder and picked it up. "I didn't think this is what you had in mind when you said you were going to get me fit for combat."

"No Marth, put down the pickaxe." Tsubasa said, turning her head to look at Marth. "This planet is useful for more than mining." Tsubasa faced forward and began walking.

Marth tossed the pickaxe to the ground which landed in crushed rock with a thud. It's wooden handle bounced with a knock. Marth jumped into a jog to catch up with Tsubasa.

Tsubasa walked quickly until she reached a wall of the circular quarry. With no need for large dump trucks or excavators to come and go, the quarry had been burrowed straight down, without ramps or elevators descending from the surface.

Tsubasa turned, facing Marth with the steep wall behind her.

"You're trapped in a pit with no ladders or methods of climbing out. What do you do?" Tsubasa crossed her arms, testing Marth.

Marth looked up at the wall beneath the perfectly clear green sky.

"I'd use Atomic Relegation to redistribute the wall's surface into something that resembles a staircase." Marth eagerly responsed, having done similar in his youth to make ladders to tree houses.

"Wrong." Tsubasa shook her head.

"What do you mean, wrong? It would work wouldn't it?"

"You're in a battle. A pit was projected below you, and you fell to it's bottom. How would you get out?"

"Atomic Relegation!" Marth persisted.

"Wrong!"

"Wrong?"

"In a war between another Esper, two thing determine whether you live or die." Tsubasa blinked. "Imagination, and stamina."

"I can imagine a stairway just fine!", Marth rebutted.

"And how many stairways can you make before you need a nap or a snack?" Tsubasa went on. "And how many HYPER-DRAGON-EYES or Projection Breakers would you have left?"

The concept hit Marth like a bolt of lightning. Tsubasa was right. Running around, projecting, dodging, absorbing and countering projections would take a serious toll on an Esper's energy. Every projection would be as ammo in a rifle with a small magazine; every shot counts.

"Tsubasa, what should I do?" The humbled student asked the guru.

Tsubasa smiled and uncrossed her arms, placing her hands on the hip belt of her large pack.

"I'm glad you asked!" she prounounced.

Tsubasa kept her left hand on her belt, flicking her thumb upwards to pop open a clasped pouch. Her right hand moved to the same position as she slightly crouched her legs to hold a position that resembled a samurai about to draw their sword.

Exposed by the open clasp were stacks of partitioned place cards laid out like tiered credit cards in a wallet. Without needing to look, her right hand felt the separated stacks, drawing a card from the top of the fifth stack.

Tsubasa threw the card out in front of her towards Marth with her right hand, as her left stayed holding the card pouch.

"Whoah!" Marth cried out, startled at the card as he dove to the ground to avoid whatever projection it contained.

The card flew edge first out in front of Tsubasa, before it suddenly stopped in place, mid-flight. Hovering in space, the card quickly rotated before coming to a stop with it's face oriented in the original direction of flight.

The graphic on the face of the card showed what looked like a soap bubble, spherical and transparent. The floating card began to vibrate rapidly.

"Get close, Marth!" Tsubasa ordered. "Also, I recommend standing up."

Marth rose, using one of his knees as support. Two meters above the vibrating place card, a translucent arch formed, continuing to constitute downards in three dimentions as it's shape became a large hollow sphere.

"What the hell is a bubble shield going to do for us?" Marth questioned as the sphere's construction continued downwards past their waists.

"Don't let the bottom cut off your legs.", Tsubasa said calmly.

"What!?" Marth quickly shuffled over to Tsubasa, avoiding the vibrating card on the way.

"Jump!" Tsubasa barked, drawing a card from the third pocket in her card pouch.

The card was thrown downward at the contracting opening of the bubble shield as Tsubasa and Marth jumped to avoid the terminus. A half meter off the ground, Marth and Tsubasa's feet came to a rest on the sloped inward curve of the sphere.

Marth struggled to balance on the slope, naturally sliding toward's it's lowest point, pressed up against Tsubasa. Marth tried not to grab anything as his arms hovered on either side of her.

"Sorry!"

"Stay away from me." Tsubasa's large hands palmed Marth's face, pushing his head away from him.

"Mph, Tshubasha, hwhat waf dhat cward yhew fthrew ohn thh ghround?"

"Fire." Tsubasa calmly articulated.

A burst of hot flames eruped from the card below the bubble shield, sending the bubble flying straight upwards along the quarry wall.

Marth lost his footing again and again, rolling back and forth in the bubble's interior as Tsubasa calmly stood upwards. The ball continued to ascend, rapidly pushed upwards by the firey hot air bred from the flames.

"Tsubasaaaa, I'm too young to dieee!" Marth gripped Tsubasa's legs.

The flames below died out, no longer propelling the bubble shield as it slowed down. As the bubbleshield's vertical speed decreased, the shield began to open up from the top, in similar fashion as it's creation.

"Tsubassa, the shield is breaking down!" Marth screamed in terror. "We're going to fall to our deaths!"

Tsubasa held her calm look as the bubble's exterior slid away, becoming nothing but a dish.

"Get ready to jump!" Tsubasa commanded Marth once more. The dish became a plate at it's apogee, reaching the perfect height to be level with the planet's surface above the quarry.

Tsubasa hopped forward, grabbing Marth by the back of his shirt.