Lucina closed her eyes, gripping the hilt of her blade tight. She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. In a flash, she slashed the dummy with as much speed and strength as she could muster. Lucina opened her eyes when she heard the satisfying sound of a wooden carcass falling to the ground. The training dummy was cut clean through in half, like the work of a master samurai.
"Incredible..!" Lucina gasped, bewildered by how her performance with the sword improved at her new, smaller height. She recalled, of course, that her new stature was meant to make things more difficult for her. So while her short work of the dummy was impressive given her half-size state, it was not exactly what Lucina wanted.
Okay... Let's try this again... Lucina thought to herself as she moved back into fighting position against the dummy. Even though it was ran through by her Parallel Falchion, Lucina being only just under three feet tall left ample room on the caricature for her to get to work on.
And work on, she did. Lucina settled back into her usual barrage of quick, but focused, strikes that she'd normally use in a battle. This regular type of attack was not as strong as her previous move, but much to her enjoyment, Lucina found the dummy was actually able to withstand her attacks now.
Robin, meanwhile, had been watching from the sidelines. He was glad to see that Lucina seemed to be enjoying herself. It was almost unbearably amusing to watch the pint-sized princess cut and cut and cut like there was no tomorrow. He'd seen Lucina and Chrom train together before and recognized some of her moves, but with her being downsized like she currently was, he couldn't help but think of how cute she looked doing this otherwise normal activity.
Suddenly, there was a loud snap out of the wooden figure as it cracked against the Parallel Falchion. Robin and Lucina noticed it, with Robin worrying that Lucina's strength and size might be returning unexpectedly, while Lucina ignored it and continued right on making more and more cracks. In the next instant, the pressure got to be too much for poor puppet, and it shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Lucina..?" Robin called out to the blue-haired girl, thinking something was going wrong with his spell. He knew well that the point of this unique training was to weaken Lucina so she could get a better work-out on her own. If she was still able to destroy these things so easily, that might be a failure of his magic or a testament to how strong Lucina really is.
"Did you see that!?" Lucina asked, turning to face Robin. Much to the white-haired tactician's surprise, she was smiling. And when she spoke, she sounded all giddy like a young girl.
"I-I did..! Wow." Robin replied, trying to gauge how excited he should sound in turn. He had to ask, "So you like it, then?"
"Yes. This truly was another brilliant plan by you, Robin." Lucina nodded up at the young man, sounding more serious.
"I'm happy for you, Lucina." Robin told her, relieved that she had not disappointed herself with her own strength. It really was something special to see that Lucina, even when shrunken, still retained a great deal of power.
Satisfied, Lucina moved on to her next target. Performing just as well against this fake "foe" as the other one, although this new one had the advantage of being intact at the start of her training with it. Working herself into a good sweat, Lucina pounded her blade again and again, trying out each of her various moves with what she found to be a respectable degree of success.
Lucina's new size did not hold her back too much. Sure, she was weaker and therefore was not smashing through training dummies as if they were made of glass. However, she quickly realized that she still too strong, almost. Her "opponents" could withstand her for longer, but when she really put on the pressure they crumbled almost as easily as before. Lucina gulped as proceeded to smash in yet another dummy.
"Huh..." Lucina sighed. She began to wonder whether or not this training was really intense enough for her. Perhaps she should ask Robin if it were possible for her to be made even smaller?
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